#cut out the ooey gooey shit man

[mummonia]

do you guys ever think that you're so loving online because you don't feel like you can be loving in real life or do you guys really just have that much emotion in you

[katasstrophy]

cw. use of pet names. cursing + suggestive themes under the cut. use of y/n once. implied bonten timeline. he’s a sicko but also a mushy boyfie sue me.

-> sanzu’s mouth churns honey when he addresses you (and you sometimes like to tease him for it) <3

sanzu who calls you bug in a velvet, yielding drawl like he’s endowing you with a great, ancient secret he unearthed just for you by digging to the very core of the universe with his bare, callused palms. the sweet pet name – he makes it sweet, the air tasting like honeycomb if you were to teasingly lick at the space he fills the little word into – it’s not whispered under his breath, he’s not one to cower like that, but it’s low enough that your ears alone are the only ones meant to pick up the rich gravel of his voice. you’ve come to know him, your haru, who calls you petal, even, as he dips to nose at your hairline and smoothes his hand to follow the curve of your hipbone. you catch him double-checking his surroundings like a hawk circling the blinding sun to make sure none of his ‘pesky, meddlesome colleagues’ – his description, not yours – would be in damning earshot of witnessing him being an ooey gooey man for you. he’s not exactly subtle about it, his hunger for reputation and territoriality instinctively driving his actions. sanzu’s far from a perfect man, but perhaps he’s even further from stone-hearted.

you’re not new to the way his scarred mouth softens occasionally to wrap you in confectionery confessions – his rosy lashes, looping like an arsenal of sickles – doing little to hide the lovesick puddle of his eyes that lap up the upward tug of your lips like he’s offered nectar from a goddess and he hasn’t had a drop to drink since birth. you dare suspect that’s the only reason he’s compelled to do it – call you bug and petal and whatever saccharin name his clever tongue comes up with at the moment – because it makes you smile like a magpie’s brightest, most envied treasure.

and your smile? it’s the thing he’s most addicted to.

(sometimes, when you’re feeling brave, you tease sanzu, mercilessly. he’s not the only one who can be a little shit.

“hey, bug.”

“hey, loser.”

he scoffs and pushes you away immediately, the moment snuffed out like candlelight, his usual concrete-set features overtaking his face – but you think the mood’s still salvageable, if you play your cards right.

“you don’t deserve a single thing i give you, woman.”

“such a little baby, haru. you want me to call you sweet names too?”

the ugly scowl on his lips somehow deepens even further than a grave.

“fuck right off to hell, y/n.”

you snort out a giggle of sorts, and he almost breaks at the sound like the weak fool he is for you, because your smile and laugh in one is really just an unfair advantage the world has given him to lose against.

“okay, baby, but when you eventually come join me, i’ll greet you with open arms and say ‘hello, lover. hello, my fallen angel, my deepest desire, oh how i’ve missed you.’ and then we’ll have the filthiest, raunchiest sex right there on the floor in front of the devil’s throne. how about it?”

he’s grinning now. of course he is. he’s still such a man, even if he’s bone-marrow-deep wicked.

“sounds like a plan, petal. let’s have a taster of that future right now, shall we?”

and then he’s claiming your mouth like a hellfire, hot and damning as you moan into his bruising kiss, and you do exactly as you suggested till dawn comes knocking.)

[pinknatural]

ruby wakes up for the second time when everybody else wakes up, when the nephil wakes them all up with a burst. the shadow doesn’t come to put her back asleep, though. ruby wonders why, and she wanders through the inky black nothing, scuttling around among other demons, the light of passing angels floating overhead, until she comes to a crowd of demons and angels, all surrounding one thing. ruby elbows her way to the front of the circle and peers at the creature curled in the center. it’s shaped like a man and colored like an angel, eyes and wings and hands all coming out of it, bright with grace, but the other angels are unfathomably large orbs of celestial terror while this one is barely bigger than ruby’s own twisted shape. the creature curls up, as if in pain, and wails. the shadow surges around it. SLEEP, it hisses, and ruby looks at the weird creature again. 

“what is that?” she asks. she doesn’t expect anyone to answer. 

“you don’t recognize him?” the demon beside her asks. “what other angel has fallen so far? what other angel is so human?”

she blinks. “i don’t know,” she says. she doesn’t know anything about angels. 

“it’s castiel,” the other demon spits. “and i say he deserves that pain. he smited me himself.” the demon spits and withdraws. ruby turns back to the creature--to castiel. he sobs into the inky blackness of the empty. he does not go back to sleep.

“what’s the matter with him?” ruby asks. he’d promised he was going to get her out. fantastic job he’s doing so far, crying on the floor and clearly dead. 

“why don’t we find out?” the demon on ruby’s other side says. this demon, ruby recognizes. he breaks the circle and crosses to the center, curls beside castiel’s head. “oh, feathers,” crowley sighs. “what’ve you got to now?”

ruby remembers crowley as king of the crossroads, a slimy businessman. she doesn’t know why he would break out of the circle, why he would curl up beside a wailing angel. how long has it been, since she died?

“i can feel it,” castiel sobs. “i can feel him.”

“‘course you can, darling, but must you cry about it?” crowley asks. 

“his longing,” castiel says. “i didn’t know...” 

“i heard,” a demon beside ruby says, “that he’s been in and out of here before.”

“i heard,” says a different demon, “that he cut a deal.”

“i heard,” says yet another demon. “that clarence finally said bye-bye to his own pet humans by confessing ooey-gooey-disgusting love for one of them.”

what? 

“hey, i thought that castiel was their pet, not the other way around,” another demon says, and then ruby tunes them out. crowley has gotten to his feet. 

“he’s not a ZOO EXHIBIT!” he yells. “get outta here!”

OH CROWLEY, the empty purrs. YOU DO CARE.

miracle of miracles, crowley doesn’t deny it, and the crowd disperses. ruby isn’t sure what to do, so she turns and leaves. she walks aimlessly for a while, then she bumps into something that looks almost like a demon, made of black smoke with twisted horns and long claws, but mostly like a human--tall, strong, feet instead of hooves. ruby recognizes this one. she watches as he approaches various demons, who are spiteful little shits who give him nothing. she sighs. 

“hey, dean,” she calls. he turns. she doesn’t think he recognizes her. “he’s that way.”

dean barely spares her a nod before running in her pointed direction. ruby remembers castiel’s promise, and she follows behind him.

[jungshookz]

in an alternative universe roomie!yn wouldve been with jungkook .. which is quite a thought huh! i wonder how taehyung wouldve handled that

many thoughts are being THUNK 

let’s find out >:-) 

➺ genre; teeny tidbit!! an alternate roommate!taehyungiverse where y/n ends up with fratboy!jungkook and taehyung HATES it :-) jungkook and taehyung want to murder each other and obviously y/n is oblivious to that fact because she’s y/n so what else is new 

➺ wordcount; 932

                                       »»————-　♥　————-««

“coming, coming-!” taehyung’s shoulders drop in disappointment as soon as he opens the door and he resists the urge to roll his eyes as he reluctantly steps aside to let jungkook in, “oh. hey, man.”

“’sup.” jungkook clears his throat quietly as he steps in and makes his way to the living room, “is, uh, is y/n ready?”

“is y/n ready?” taehyung mouths mockingly, making a face to himself as he shuts the door

god, he despises jungkook

he really doesn’t understand what you see in him 

sure, he’s attractive or whatever which he’s sure was one of the factors that led to why you’re so heart-eyes over him, but taehyung’s seen him in his sleaziest moments and has tried to convince you time and time again that you can take the boy out of the frat but you can’t take the frat out of the boy and still, jungkook’s managed to weasel his way into your life and make you all weak in the knees and ooey-gooey on the inside

…maybe he’s holding you hostage or something because that would make more sense than you and jungkook genuinely being romantically attracted to each other

he should tell you to blink twice if you’re in danger 

“well, we were in the middle of breakfast-” taehyung points out, holding up the glossy apple in his hand before nodding towards the kitchen, “so, no. y/n isn’t ready. and i thought you were picking her up, like, this afternoon-”

“yeah, i was supposed to, but i thought it’d be nice to spend a little more time together!” jungkook spins around on his heels with a stiff smile before shoving his hands into his pockets, “she is my girlfriend, after all.”

“yeah… you know, you seem to like reminding me of that fact every time you come over…” taehyung purses his lips in thought as he leans against the wall, bringing his apple up to his mouth before pausing for a second, “it’s almost like you’re a little… i don’t know, threatened by me? could that be it?”

he smirks to himself when jungkook pokes his tongue against the inside of his cheek and remains silent as he crosses his arms and takes a seat on the arm of the couch

taehyung crunches down on his apple with an obnoxiously big bite, keeping his gaze glued on jungkook while thinking about how else he can rile the guy up

he doesn’t usually like to say he hates people because hate is such a strong word but he can honestly say he hates jungkook

he has absolutely no redeeming qualities 

all he does is sit there and look pretty and everyone just immediately falls in love with him 

“jungkook!” 

taehyung presses his lips together to contain a shit-eating grin the moment you step out of the kitchen because of the fact that you’re wearing an oversized shirt and no shorts (sure, it’s jungkook’s shirt that you’re wearing, but it’s probably taking everything within jungkook not to go crazy thinking about how you wander around the apartment wearing no shorts)

“i didn’t know you were coming so early-” you frown, “why didn’t you text me?”

“hey, there you are!” jungkook pushes himself off the arm of the couch with a grin, “what, i can’t surprise you?”

“well, i like surprises, but it’s just that i might take a while to get ready and i don’t want you to get bored while waiting for me...” you point out, letting jungkook pull you towards him as you come closer, “i was planning on taking a shower and stuff and that alone is going to take me a good half an hour, so-”

“mm, i like the sound of a shower-” jungkook teases, the corner of his mouth raising in a smirk as he loops an arm around your waist to pull you in, your body curving nicely against him, “mind if i join you, baby?”

“oh, god…” you giggle shyly, your voice lowering to a whisper because you’re still very aware that taehyung is right behind you and you always feel a little weird flirting with your boyfriend whenever your roommate is within listening proximity, “maybe…”

“oh, give me a break-” taehyung scoffs quietly at the classic frat-boy ‘oh, you’re taking a shower… without me? ;)’ move that you just shamelessly fell for and he immediately turns his head to look down the hallway instead when he sees jungkook going in for a kiss

gross 

he waits for a couple of seconds before turning back, slightly alarmed to see jungkook staring directly at him while his tongue is probably fully in your mouth right now

well, there goes his appetite 

taehyung clenches his jaw when jungkook’s hand slips down from the small of your back so he can grab a fistful of your bum right in front of him, as if silently telling him that yeah, you wanna be me right now, don’t you?

and yes, taehyung would very much like to be in jungkook’s position, but sometimes life doesn’t work out the way you want it and the roommate you’re crushing on ends up getting together with your mortal enemy... which is a secret taehyung will definitely be taking to the grave with him 

“hey-!” a gasp of surprise escapes you when jungkook gives your bum a gentle swat before you’re giggling again, “cut it out, kook-”

“for god’s sake,” taehyung grumbles, pushing himself up off the wall, “get a fucking room-”

“oh, we will!” jungkook interrupts, tilting his head before offering taehyung an infuriatingly sweet smile, “we will.”

🎙️help me help you make your wishes come true (send me a request!)

✨why don’t you explore the rest of the library while you’re here? (full fics!)

💫or perhaps you want something shorter to read? (drabbles!)

🌟or something even shorter? (teeny tidbits like this one!)

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Taking Your Lumps

My friend gave me this idea and now my dumb shit eating grin lovin’ self is really out here pulling a last minute Ace imagine to celebrate...

Imagine this...

The Heartslabyul Rose Garden hosted many an Unbirthday party--but today, it boasted a party of one: one Ace Trappola, to be exact, digging into a pristine piece of ooey gooey cherry pie. He was about three bites in when a familiar face emerged from the Rose Maze.

“Ah--there you are! I’ve been looking all over for you.” Deuce offered a smile as he strolled up to his friend.

“Mm? You need me for somethin’?” Ace asked, glancing up from his dessert. “I thought you guys wanted me away while you got the birthday bash venue all set up.”

“Well, we do--but I wanted to say happy birthday to you a bit earlier than the others!” Deuce announced cheerily--while cracking his knuckles, Ace noted. “Are you ready for your birthday punches?!”

“My...my WHAT now?!” Ace sputtered, nearly choking on his slice of pie.

Flaky pastry and sweet cherries lodged in the wrong pipe, and he flew into a coughing fit while slamming a fist against his chest to help it go down. A sickly and stinging sweetness overtook his throat--yet Ace still managed to muster a glare at his friend.

“Your birthday punches!”  Deuce repeated, taking another step closer. His smile widened as he brought a balled up hand into his palm. “Equal to how old you are, plus one for good luck!!”

“Oi, is your delinquent switch flipped on or somethin’?” Ace jabbed his fork--still coated with cherry filling, at Deuce’s face. “I didn’t ask to get punched, you idiot!”

“This is a common custom! Be a man and take it!”

“Haaah? Those’re bold words coming from someone that can’t even count properly! I bet you lose count or screw up on purpose in the middle of it to get the extra punches in!”

“Of course I can count! I’ll have you know that I’ve been studying really hard lately!”

“Yeah? You wanna bet?!”

“You’re on...!!” Deuce clenched a hand into a fist and brought it back. “Now hold still...!!”

“Like I’m gonna hold still just cuz you said so!” Ace threw his fork and platter of unfinished pie down and bolted out of his seat.

Deuce swung a second too late, just narrowly grazing his friend’s arm. He had strength, but Ace had speed. Deuce gritted his teeth in mild frustration.

“Stop being a big baby, Ace! Birthday punches don’t even hurt like regular punches!!”

“No, they’ll hurt MORE!” he retorted. “You are not going to break my face today, Deuce--not without a fight.”

“Oh, so it’s a fight you want, huh?! Bring it on...!! I’ll hold you down to get those birthday punches in if I have to!”

“You’re really hellbent on this, huh...”

There was a flicker of motion in Ace’s field of vision--and his eyes immediately cut to it. He breathed a massive sigh of relief.

“Oiii, Floyd-senpai!” Ace shouted, beckoning him over.

“Aaaahn? It’s Kani-chan and Saba-chan! You guys’re no Kingyo-chan, but you two’ll do for now~” Floyd perked up at the mention of his name and bounded over. “Ehehehe. Whatcha up to? Playin’ something fun?”

“Thank the Great Seven you’re here. Listen, this idiot here,” Ace thrust a thumb in Deuce’s direction, “is trying to give me birthday punches--”

“Eeeeeh? I’ve never heard of birthday punches,” Floyd interrupted with a sheepish grin. “Is that some kinda weird land tradition?”

“Well, yeah--but that’s not the point here! The point is, I need ya to protect me from him...!!”

“No chickening out!!” Deuce declared, cracking the knuckles on his other hand. “Ace...!! Suck it up and take it like you’re supposed to!!”

“Like hell I will!!” Ace expertly ducked behind Floyd. “You really gotta help m--”

He stopped dead in his tracks when Floyds hands clamped down on his shoulders. Squeezing hard.

The eel towered, casting a long, sinister shadow over Ace. His smile was just as dark, lined with malice and ill intent. Even the stark white of his razor-sharp teeth seemed somehow impure.

“Ehehehe. I wanna give ya birthday punches too~” Floyd giggled, then called out to Deuce. “Ne, ne, Saba-chaaaan, can I join in?”

“Leech-senpai...!! Of course you can!!” Deuce’s smile turned into a smirk. “Grab Ace and hold him still for me, will you?! Then I’ll do the same and you can have your turn!”

“Roger~”

Ace paled.

“YOU TRAITORS!! BOTH OF YOU GUYS SUCK!!”

[trillian-anders]

true love

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

warnings: fluff && smut, bucky being a cheeky little shit and soft boy

word count: 2.7k

description: stripper au; bucky is a tease and honestly just such a gooey romantic. just a little snapshot. 

A strip club before hours. Inside you’d find the dancers stretching, practicing new routines and a loop of the same song over and over again until they were satisfied or being forced to move onto something else. The servers are wiping down tables, setting up for bachelorette parties and straightening the chairs around the main stage. The host was cleaning the mirrors and the front door with Windex, knowing that they would just be covered with prints from hands and fingers an hour into the night.

The bar was being stocked, backup bottles. Fruit was being cut and sangria being prepped. Gallons of it. The clientele loved sangria. The cocktail of the night, special for the bride to be prepped for the bachelorette party, paid for in advance by the bottle. A sugar bomb of midori sour and vodka, cherries and club soda. Neon green and toxic, it made you gag just mixing it together.

It was the same thing every night. Another bachelorette party, another batch mixed drink, another stack of ones ready to be switched out for bigger bills the clients needed to break in order to stuff those dollar bills in the g-string of one of the many handsome performers that would take the stage tonight.

A destination strip club under the same corporation that owned Magic Mike, just on the east coast. It would be busy. But you and the other three bartenders were ready, the money was good here. Too good for you to ever consider leaving. And since the clientele was made in its entirety women and gay men, you felt safe working there. No sleazy guy on his sixth bud lite wanting to grab your ass as you cleaned up after his spilled beer. Granted some of the clients were still hellish, but you’d take not getting groped over being sexually harassed by bar patrons any day.

The lights would drop low soon, music pumping through the speakers as the DJ finishes setting up his booth. The endless grind from 8pm to 3am that would leave you ready for some diner food and bed.

“Boys!” You call, “What do you want?” Allowed a start of work drink, you called to the men standing on the stage.

“Anything you wanna give me sugar.” You glare at the first man to respond, his cheeky grin knowing how much you hated it when he called you sugar, how patronizing.

“Okay, everyone but Bucky,” You laugh, “What do you want?” The man in question slipping off the stage to walk over and help distribute shots.

“Why are you always so mean to me?” Pouting and arms crossed on the bar. You roll your eyes pouring the requests of green tea shots across the board. And an extra-large one for you and your favorite performer.

“Why are you always so annoying?” A rebuttal. But he loved it. He always does. Your shot glass clinking against his, tapping on the bar top and shot back in two.

“I love you.” He hums, stealing a kiss. The tip of his tongue brushing your bottom lip softly before pulling away and setting his shot glass in yours.

“I love you too.” A shared grin. “Have fun tonight.”

“Oh I will.” He’s cheeky, but it’s a part of him that you found so endearing.

A story you’re sure you’d tell the grandkids, how you met him in the first place. Back when you first started working here. He’d already been performing for a while. Back when you were waiting tables and having to deal with the sloppy drunk clients without a buffer of service bar in between.

Truly romantic how he’d been grinding himself against a woman in a bridal sash and giving you the same cheeky grin that he gives you now. You watched him grip himself through the silk thong and tripped and spilled your tray over a table and all the clients sitting there. An order to go get some air and you cried in the alley behind the building thinking that you were going to get fired and when his set was finished he came looking for you.

“They’re not going to fire you,” He soothed, pulling you into his arms, “You’re gonna be just fine.” You choked out nasty sobs into his chest, the thin zip hoodie he was wearing doing nothing to disguise the firm bare flesh underneath, you maybe pretended to have the need to be held a little longer than you actually did.

That incident was something he carefully held over your head to this day, a funny jab, especially after a night of seeing stars and loud moans. The paint chipped and wall worn where the headboard slammed into it. He wouldn’t paint over it as a matter of pride. A story of his sexual prowess and ability to bend you in half and make you cum so hard that you blackout or cry split on his dick.

He’d convinced you to go back into the club after you calmed down, he bought you a drink after the shift had ended, and then ate you out on his couch after you’d had pancakes at the diner below his apartment. And you’d been in love ever since.

That sick, ooey-gooey, no you hang up kind of love.

“You guys are so gross.” Nat bumped her hip against yours, grabbing the remaining shot glasses and sitting them in the dishwasher. You laugh.

The night began with body paint and blacklights. A steady pump of bass as each performer took the stage, they made their rounds around the room. Back curtains closing for private dances. The bar was full and service bar was popping, the tickets endless. The tip jar stuffed full. A good night. As bachelorette parties often were. They would take up a nice little section, the rest of the walk-ins and birthday parties, etc. taking up the rest of the space.

You could feel his eyes on you, the little games he liked to play at work. He knew you would look at him. The way he danced on stage, sinking down to let someone stick a dollar on his hip. The way he grabbed himself to the squeals of women.

The fucking tease, tugging his lip and meeting your eye. A playful smirk. Watching you shake a drink.

The first time he played this game was the day after he made you cum on his tongue, then his fingers, then his cock. Twice. As you wait tables, he would give you that little smirk, the grind of his hips, a brush against you as you walked around him with your tray. A playful tug on your skirt.

It would end with his back on the wood floor of his apartment, hands gripping your hips hard enough to bruise while you rode yourself to orgasm. Knees red and sore. And continue after eating a snack on his kitchen floor, your back now on the linoleum and your knees pressed to your chest while you dug your fingernails into his biceps and down his back. Something hastily fixed with concealer for his next performance.

Your friends outside of work didn’t quite understand how you could deal. “How could you be okay with him grinding himself over other people all night?” But you knew one thing more than anything else,

Bucky Barnes was such a simp.

He fucking loved you. And you knew it. He would never let you forget it. Bucky Barnes was the most affectionate, needy, clingy, I would die for you and all you have to do is ask kind of guy. He was the kind of guy to tell you that he missed you when you just went to the store. The kind of guy that would hop in the shower with you just because he wanted to wash your hair.

“I’m not worried.” You would laugh, “Not in the slightest.” And you knew you didn’t have to be. If the way he would hop up on your bar and tug on your hair mid dance was anything to say, him stuffing bills into your bra while you let a girl do a body shot out of his belly button. You didn’t care as much as those dollars and groping hands on his thick thighs you loved to ride would be paying your rent later.

These clients may be groping him now, but later on it’s your thighs that his head will be between.

It’s their money that will be sitting on your living room floor while both of you unwrinkled the freshly washed money. Their money you would use to buy groceries and pay for your portion of the family vacation you were going on in a few months with the Barnes clan.

The shift ends and you’re left cleaning up. With three other pairs of hands it’s quick work, but burning the ice takes a minute, long enough for Bucky to already be sitting down in front of the bar and sorting your tips out for you, sipping on an after shift drink the two of you were sharing.

“We going to Norma’s?” As the other men sunk down behind the bar, a few waving their goodbyes on their way out the door.

“Sam.” Bucky looked at his friend, “We go to Norma’s every night and every night you ask if we are going.”

“It’s because he likes that waitress.” Nat grinned, flipping the dishwasher on to run the bar mats. A glare from Sam,

“I love that waitress.” The bumbling idiot fawned over her and always tipped her $50 on his $8 patty melt. A shared laugh,

“You’ve asked her out, how many times now?” Steve, thankful for the leftover sangria in front of him, took a sip.

“Just like four, five maybe.” Bucky lifted the pint glass, salt lining the rim and a few granules left on his bottom lip. “This margarita is good sweetheart.” A recipe you found online, something new you’d wanted to try. You hum, taking a sip and nodding. “She doesn’t like you.” Directed at Sam. “You need to stop making her job so difficult, you’re a creep.”

“Am I a creep?” Sam looks between you and Nat. The two of you sharing a look and nodding.

“No one wants to get hit on while they’re working.” You laugh, “That’s all.” He huffs, leaning against the back of the bar stool.

“You guys got any of that neon shit left?” The last little bit of the bachelorette slosh at the bottom of the Cambro. Poured in a glass for him with an apologetic smile.

“I already burned the ice.” He muscled it down.

Bucky’s hand in your back pocket with you tucked into his side you entered the familiar diner and slipped into your usual booth, a playful squeeze to your ass before you sunk down next to each other. Sam, Nat, and Steve across.

His hand settles on your thigh as the waitress Sam was in love with brought over two pitchers of water and glasses, more to make her job easier because these boys were thirsty at the end of the night after performing for hours on end.

A minute later she’d return with a couple sodas and take the order. Sam looking dutifully down at his phone and trying to avoid her eyes.

“You can act like a normal person.” You laugh, our leg going across Bucky’s thigh. “You’re acting like even more of a weirdo.”

“Just relax.” Nat’s hand smoothed over Sam’s arm and he lets out a deep breath. “Don’t be weird.” Easier said than done, he took the fact that you told him not to flirt with her as erasing his whole personality.

“You’ve ruined him.” Steve sipped his water, “The both of you.” A pout to stern Dad-Steve, and he rolled his eyes with a smirk, leaning against the booth and throwing an arm over the back. “He’ll never be able to perform again.”

“Fuck all of you.” Sam glared as peals of laughter broke out at the table. A shift as you felt Bucky’s fingers play with the hem of your shorts. Dipping under a little bit. Your hand slips down and grabs his, pulling his hand away with a playful glare.

“Stop.” Whispered between you as Sam pretended to cry and Nat seemed about done with it.

“I wanna play.” A kiss on your lips. You shake your head and roll your eyes, directing your attention back to your friends.

“Later.”

Later would find him on his back lips red bitten and swollen from kissing as you yank his jeans down his legs, leaving him in just his briefs, the hard outline of his cock pressing against them. Your shorts and panties tugged down your legs, crawling over him to hover over his face. His arms wrapping around your thighs and bringing you down to his mouth.

The grind of your hips on his tongue and the rough stubble burning your thighs. Those moans vibrating against your clit, panting moans coming from your mouth as you grip the headboard and find the friction your need to cum. Working out your aftershocks on his tongue.

A shift of position would find your back against the mattress, your legs over his arms and hooked into his elbows, the blunt head of his cock circling your entrance with the teasing roll of his hips. His mouth against yours, sucking on your tongue and tugging your bottom lip between his teeth.

He starts off slow. A gasp into his mouth as he bottoms out, the tip of him brushing your cervix before he pulls almost all the way out, playing with short and fast thrusts against your g-spot. This was his major source of pride, having you drooling and stupid with lust under him, eyes rolling and nails digging into his back, clawing at his biceps, twisted in the sheets by your head while he rolls one of your nipples on his tongue.

The headboard slamming as you gush around his cock, the signal he needs to start thrusting in deeper to chase his own pleasure. Leaning back onto his heels and pressing your legs together, wrapping his arm around them and laying a kiss to your ankle. His red mouth panting as his hips slapped against yours. Your fingers dipping between your bodies to slap against your clit a couple times, the pleasure being too much. He pushes your hand out of the way, hand laying over your mons and thumb pressing against your clit, moving in tight circles.

“So fucking good for me baby.” A pant against your calf. “One more.” A groan, “Just one more.” You sob from the over-sensitivity as he brought you to one more orgasm, the towel laid out on the bed being put to good use as you squirt on his cock. His hips not relenting until you feel him cum, your legs shaking on his shoulders.

A kiss to your ankles. His hands massaging your legs as you come down. He lays himself on top of you, shifting your legs to wrap around his waist as he meets your lips once, twice, soft, “I love you.” And then with his head on your chest. You reason in that moment, and in every moment, that he was the best thing that ever happened to you.

Finding the club was the best thing that ever happened to you.

“You’re just so handsome.” Your hand on your fist, resting your elbow on the table, looking at him in admiration.

He grins around the lip of his coffee cup and softly massages your foot that was in his lap. The morning found you in the same diner as the night previous, enjoying what would be lunch for other people, but breakfast for the two of you.

“You’re just so beautiful.” His hand meeting yours on the table, a soft squeeze. “I love you.” Bringing his hand to your lips,

“I love you too.”

[mere-mortifer]

Valentine’s Day Exchange  🎈 Masterlist

Thank you to everyone who took part in the exchange! Some works are still being updated, and others will be posted in the next few days, but I didn’t want to post this too long after Valentine’s day itself. 

❧  Ships: 

Richie Tozier/Eddie Kaspbrak

Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris

Richie Tozier/Mike Hanlon

Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris

Stanely Uris/Bill Denbrough

Bill Denbrough/Ben Hanscom

Beverly Marsh/Stanley Uris/Richie Tozier 

🎈 Ao3 collection 🎈 | Links and summaries after the cut! 

Richie Tozier/Eddie Kaspbrak

❧  by @illwriteyouatragedy

1. cherry cordial | E | 1/1 He’s staring down hard at his phone, scrolling aimlessly through Facebook without reading anything, when someone bumps into him. Whoever it is grabs the pole, their hands brushing against each other’s. Right in his ear, the guy says, “Fucking shit, you’re hot.” Eddie’s head jerks up, startled, and he meets the bright blue eyes of a man at least eight inches taller than him. The guy’s got a pink knit cap tugged down over his head and a spill of curls falling down from it, his glasses fogging up in the warmth of the train car. “What?” Eddie demands.

2. dark chocolate strawberries | T | 1/1 The way Eddie's looking at Stan— Richie’s been on the receiving end of enough of Eddie’s playfully-mad looks to know this isn’t one of them. His heart starts pounding again. He has to be overthinking things. There’s no fucking way he’s not. After all this time, how could he not be, since— Well. Then again, what the fuck does he have to lose? Maybe it’s the boxed wine talking, or the fact that his ability to keep in his own secret is hanging on by a fucking thread, or the way Eddie truly seems pissed that other people are kissing Richie like this, but— Regardless. Regardless, Richie wants to keep testing this theory.

❧ We reconnected by @kaspbrak-tozier-reddie | T | 1/1 Eddie had unexpectedly arranged a date for valentine's day with a guy who he had met online just to get over his nemesis, Richie. Richie owns a tattoo parlour right by Eddie's innocent flower shop but with Richie's loud music, Eddie is at a constant battle to keep his customers in the shop rather them leaving.

No matter how obnoxious and frustrating Richie is, Eddie can't help but wonder if the boy he knew before high school is still in there. Especially when he loses a fight with his store gate and Richie patches him up. If only Eddie could love his online friend as much as he loves Richie.

❧ You Don’t Even Like Boys by @tinyangryeddie | E | 1/1 The sign for the event looks significantly different than the invitation. “A Valentine’s dance?” Eddie squeaks at him, grinding his rolly suitcase to a halt. Sure enough, a loopy red cursive “after-auction Valentine’s Day dance” accompanies the ridiculous imagery. Richie wants to laugh - or maybe cry - it’s hard to tell the difference with Eddie staring at him like he personally assigned the theme and bought the tacky heart-shaped balloons to pile into the lobby. “I didn’t… know,” is all Richie can come up with.

❧ One for the money, two for the show by @mere-mortifer-writing | E | 1/3 Richie's not sure if he's about to get punched or something more pleasant, and as he's placing a bet with himself on which option is more likely, the stranger surges up to close the distance between them, and suddenly they're kissing. Or: Richie is a famous actor, and Eddie a college student who has never hear of him before. When they get papped arguing in public about a bad parking job, the media spins to story to make Richie seem like an homophobic asshole-nevermind that Eddie and him were already making out minutes after the photos were taken. There's one obvious way to clear Richie's name: pretend that Eddie and him had been dating all along.

❧ Sweet Like Sugar Venom by @sippingonsouthernrains | M | 1/1 Being Eddie’s sugar baby was nice. Being Richie’s was fun. Being both? Fucking exhausting. Or, the thrilling tale of one Stanley Uris acting as the human-embodiment of an eye roll as Richie and Eddie claim to compete for his affections. Of course, Stan recognizes that they’re only competing for each other’s affections, and it takes about two minutes for him to get completely tired of being in the middle of it.

❧ It’s not gay if you’re practicing to kiss girls! by @space-is-out-there | G | 1/1 Richie gets the losers invited to one of the biggest parties of the year! They’re prepared for booze, music, and lots of spin the bottle. The only issue? Eddie and Richie have never kissed anyone before and wouldn’t know where to start! Haha... unless 😳

❧ little pieces of nothing that fall by @spunknbite | E | 1/1 Eddie shook his head, lips quirking upwards in a confused half-smile that Richie was immediately drawn to. “You seem stupid familiar,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t think we know each other,” Richie replied, then added, like the moron he was, “I’d remember you.” This guy wasn’t the sort you forgot. Or, the one where it's 1998 and Richie sits down at the bar next to an asshole with a Palm Pilot.

❧ He loves me, he loves me not by Sirius_1910 | T | 1/1 With Valentine's Day coming and the Losers getting together to celebrate at the clubhouse, two boys try speaking feelings, but forget how messy they are on a daily basis. 

❧ Red washcloths and Bloody knuckles. by @toziersspaghettihead | T | 3/3 This shit should’ve been easy, y’know? You pretend to date your best friend so everyone else thinks you have found your soulmate. Richie had been praying for years that he would find the person made specifically for him. However at seventeen and he had yet to have his soulmark- It was concerning, He was starting to think that.. Maybe, Well maybe he was just one of the unlucky few that never found their other half. So the plan came along easily, One day- He was sprawled out on his bed, His best friend. It was late August and he was fucking melting in the heat, Eddie had his legs on top of Richie’s just laid out trying to cool off, With a Comic held above his face. Richie wasn’t as easily distracted that day, He was lost in thought, His music blaring- He prefered loud obnoxious songs any day compared to silence. Yet, His thoughts were running rampant. “Eds, Do you think I’ll ever find my soulmate?” The question had Eddie seizing. “Yeah, Obviously..Everyone has them.” He dropped his comic down onto the bed and sat himself up.

❧ simple words by @birightsrichie | T | 1/1 Eddie had spent his entire life dreading meeting his soulmate. Mainly because the first thing said soulmate was going to say to him was, "Do you come here often?" and Eddie did not want to spend his life with the type of person that would say something like that. He figured they would be extremely annoying and cheesy and probably a bit of an asshole, too. 

❧ Bolt by Satanders | T | 1/1 It's their first Valentine's day together and Eddie wants to surprise Richie, but Richie is not easily romanceable... 

❧ Fake It ‘Till You Make It by Jojosugay | G | 1/1 Richie takes Eddie to his managers valentine's day party pretending to be married.

❧  Welcome to the losers club by jack05writes | T | 1/1  Since bill had quit as the bassist of the losers club, he desperately needed replacing... Enter eddie kaspbrak.

❧  the townhouse by uhohcanteen | E | 1/1 richie snaps out of it faster than pennywise had anticipated. now, as richie rolls them both out of the way and start running away, they have got a lot ahead of them, including a night to remember. 

❧  Just Another Coffee Shop AU by @stardust-writer | T | 1/1 “You’re just jealous,” his friend Beverly would say. “You wish your lonely ass had someone to make out with today, but you’re stuck with me, a strictly platonic best friend.” “Correction, I was stuck with you,” Eddie says, holding up a finger. “Now that you’re dating Ben, I am, as you put it, a lonely ass.” Beverly laughs and then pulls him along, trying to appease her friend. And it’s not like she was wrong, Eddie just didn’t like to admit she was right. Because she tended to get smug when she was right and that was almost all the time. He already had to put up with it on a daily basis, he would rather it didn’t double on this godforsaken holiday. Or: It's Valentine's Day and Eddie is single.

❧  Illegal Moves by @northwindscookie | T | 1/1 Pizza plus beer plus our two favorite gay dumbasses equals a recipe for a Reddie's Valentine's Day. 

Bill Denbrough/Ben Hanscom

❧  butterflies and storms and ooey-gooey feelings by @lo-v-ers | T | 1/1 Ben Hanscom is the human definition of sunshine weaved into a warm heart and a generous soul and everything good that a person could possibly be. They met in their English 101 class freshman year, and they just clicked, and Bill has never felt as understood as he did when Ben looked him in the eyes and smiled and nodded and spoke with wisdom that an eighteen year old shouldn’t have. (Ben looks at Bill and sees the stars, glimmering and beautiful and breathtaking. He looks when Bill isn’t looking and he smiles and feels his heart flutter with joy and something else, but Bill doesn’t know that.) (At least, he doesn’t know it yet.)

Mike Hanlon/Richie Tozier

❧  head in the clouds but my gravity's centered by @queermccoy | G | 1/1 “There’s a situation,” he tells Eddie, who is sitting at his desk surrounded by textbooks and yellow legal pads filled with drawings of complex chemical and Matchbox 20 lyrics. “What is it?” Eddie asks, dropping his pen and turning in his rickety chair. There’s an edge of panic in his tone, like he isn’t there yet but could be in no time at all. “Mike Hanlon asked me to go see a movie!” Richie practically yells, hands in the air. He’s still huffing and puffing from running through campus and up the stairs. “So?” Eddie blinks, “We see movies with Mikey all the time. How is that a situation?” “Because he asked me to go out on Valentine’s Day!” Richie says and falls on his bed dramatically.

Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris

❧ making out is hard to do by winkyjinki | T | 1/1 With Valentine's Day coming up, Stanley Uris faces his biggest challenge since defeating an evil clown: getting his first kiss. 

❧ The Truth Is That I Think I've Had Enough by @reddie4thesinbin | E | 1/1 For the first time since Stan developed feelings for his best friend, Richie was finally single on Valentine’s Day, and Stan was fully planning on taking advantage of it. He invited Richie on a camping trip, just wanting one night where he could pretend, but Richie had different plans. 

❧  Moon Secrets by @the-ben-handsome | T | 1/1 When it gets to be a certain hour of the night is when everything gets all weird; truth or dare reveals secrets shared under the moonlight. 

Bill Denbrough/Stanley Uris 

❧  The Bluejay In The Corner by  @adore-affection | T | 1/? He couldn’t keep it in any longer, but he couldn’t just tell someone, it was too dangerous. When he got up to his room he pulled out a thick page of blue stationery and began to write. 

❧ Reasons Why I Want To Fuck My Student's Brother by @aleckisverygay​ | Not rated  | 4/4 When Richie and Stanley find themselves hard-pressed for money, they decide to go job hunting in order to afford their bills and keep from being thrown onto the street in the middle of January. Little does Stanley know, a tutoring job quickly turns to something more when he meets Bill Denbrough, his student’s charming brother. Shenanigans ensue, Stanley has a sexual awakening and Georgie is hell-bent on hooking his brother up with the cute tutor.

Who knew a story about rampant libidos could be so emotionally fulfilling and have, like, meaning?

Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris

❧  Happiness and Love Revolve Around You by CoolestLemon | M | 1/1 A cute little peek into Mike and Stan's relationship, especially as they try to buy their dream home. 

Beverly Marsh/Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris

❧  Our Man-At-Arms by SevlinRipley | T | 1/1 Beverly is often the one to pull the trigger. 

[draconicmaw]

Write What You Know, They Say...

I don’t mean to get really heavy on main or whatnot, but since this blog is primarily dedicated to my writing, I figured this would be a good platform to talk about this issue. You see, I have a struggle that I consistently face when I am writing: depicting parent-child relations. This might get long, and maybe a little personal on my part, so I am going to make it so you don’t have to scroll past this whole thing if you don’t want to.

So, if you’re a writer (and maybe even if you’re not), you’ve probably heard the old adage “write what you know.” Well, that would mean that anytime I wrote parent-child relations, they would be toxic as fuck. (Not because I am a toxic parent, because I am not a parent at all.) I am basically estranged from my mother to escape her bullshit, and my father is only in my life when it’s convenient for him. I know this is still better than many people’s experiences with their own parents. 

What I mean to say is, and the point of this whole post, I am very good at writing toxic parents. I can write toxic parents with my eyes closed, because I have been dealing with toxic parents for a very, very long time. It’s easy to come up with bullshit for toxic parents to pull because I am basically a psychic when it comes to predicting my mother’s behavior. (Seriously, I can practically script any conversation I plan on having with her and know how it will turn out before I even begin it.) (Also, if I wrote a story where the dynamic between the parent and child were the same as that between my mother and me, I would probably get accused of making it too chocked full of bullshit to be realistic LMAO)

My struggle comes about when I want to write realistic healthy parent-child relations. How do I write it without it seeming all ooey-gooey, mushy-mushy unrealistic gobbledygook? Is it even ooey-gooey, mushy-mushy, unrealistic gobbledygook? I don’t know. I really, really don’t. I can only write the two extremes and I don’t know how to find the middle ground. Because no parent is perfect. Some parents just so happen to be... much less perfect than others. 

Another thing I want to mention is that, from a purely objective standpoint, I find my struggle to be so fascinating. Like, wow, an author’s way of depicting humans interacting (or their skill with depicting them interacting in a certain way) is so profoundly shaped by their own perceptions and experiences with relationships (or what they think they desire in relationships). Like, how can I naturally, fluently write a relationship dynamic that I never really got to digest with my own eyes and ears...? I don’t know. 

This isn’t to say that I can’t write these relationship dynamics -- I can, but it is just so fucking difficult to the point of almost being painful because I sit there wracking my brain about what character A says to their child, character B, or how they interact in non-verbal ways, or how they involve each other in their lives. It just doesn’t come naturally to me. 

It’s like writing that historical AU that you never did any research for lol. Like, shit man, I don’t know what they wore or how they talked at this time or the general culture. I feel so underprepared for it. 

For those of you who regularly follow my fanfiction, you might have noticed this trend. I mean, the fandoms I generally write for aren’t already very detailed about character’s parents, but... shit, I almost always exclude parents in my AUs, or, if I include them, it’s because they are assholes and their being assholes is a major plotpoint (*cough cough* No Man Is an Island). It also makes it really hard for me to write the main characters as parents. I just cut it off at that point, for the most part. Me: shit dawg, they became parents. The end. I tried writing a single parent AU for a pairing and... woo, I put that away real quick because hot damn. That was tough. So, so tough. I mean, I love a challenge, and I definitely want to write characters as parents eventually because, you know, most people, statistically, become parents, but it will have to wait until a day when I can devote the time and energy to it. 

Maybe if or when I eventually become a parent, writing being a parent will be easier, but still, I struggle with writing either a character being a parent or being the child of a parent (and, yes, everyone is the child of a parent, but you know what I mean. I struggle when that becomes the topic of focus).

Also, I know this seems like a lot to air out to a bunch of strangers online. I just want to be clear that my intention isn’t to focus on my parents (again, shitty parents are everywhere and I am by no means special for having shitty parents), or even my experience with my parents. My intention is to focus on how this affects my writing... if that makes any sense...

ANYWAYS, I wanted to bring this up for discussion because I wanted to know if anyone else has a problem like this/similar to this. Is there something that you struggle to write because you haven’t really experienced it personally? Or am I just overthinking everything (which is pretty likely)?

(Also, if you read through this whole incoherent mess, thank you for coming to my TEDTalk!)

[cilliankelly]

text 📱 cillian & jude.

Discord thread featuring: cillian & @judetaylorhq

When: november 22 (from 1:25am onward)

Mentions: @robinscnfm

Description: cillian texts jude to thank him for bringing over pizza and beer and the rest is just a rollercoaster of confessions, feelings, fighting, and flirting. these two idiots right here, i tell yah. 

Trigger Warnings: brief discussion about family drama, some nsfw stuff, and some good old fashioned angst.

Cillian

thanks for bringing the pizza and beer, man

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

Sure man. You good?

Cillian

what, cause of the black eye? or cause i’m sleeping on ellie’s couch? i’m alright, man, hanging in there.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

I meant more the..barely talking since we swapped spit part

Cillian

ooooooooooh that.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

Yuh

Cillian

i’m sorry it was weird. i don’t like being all awkward around you, you’re my best friend, yknow? not to get all mushy and shit. but yeah.

i guess i miss you and stuff.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

So you were just drunk?

Cillian

i didn’t say that

is that what you think?

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

I just assumed. You went to Ellie's place and not mine. She's not even your best friend

Cillian

i guess things were still kind of weird between us and i was worried. maybe that was dumb but i wasn’t really thinking straight either.

lot happened. all very fast.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

It's whatever bro.

Cillian

it’s not though, is it?

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

It is what it is

Cillian

what is it? do you know? because i don’t.

look i’m like, the king of shrugging shit off and ignoring it but that’s not working and i miss my best friend

you didn’t ask me about my eye. or about why i’m staying at ellie’s.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

You didn't tell me. I figured it was part of the not talking..

I miss you too or whatever

Cillian

i don’t really know how to say this bc i’m really not good at this but here goes: i didn’t hate sucking face with you. like at all. not even a little bit.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

yeah no shit dude.

Cillian

okay well that was news to me okay? i didn’t know what to do with that info, it’s all confusing and kind of scary and i needed a minute

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

I guess...I just don't like being the guy you experiment on and never call again.

that felt like shit, bro. yu could have just told me you were like...questioning or something.

Cillian

trust me you are not that guy. i didn’t mean to make you feel like that i’m just really shit at this. i wasn’t trying to use you or anything.

i didn’t mean to ghost you or anything. i just wanted to figure out how i really felt.

shit, why’s this feelings shit so hard.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

Well, did you figure it out? Or are you still into chicks?

Cillian

sooooooo this is the part where the black eye comes in

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

Someone hit you?

Cillian

i wanted to be sure i was feeling what i was feeling so i’ve been trying out some different stuff. like a lot of different stuff. and my dad decided to make a surprise reappearance and walked in on me with another dude and things got kind of ugly.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

you fucked other guys?

Cillian

yeah. i did.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

sucks about your dad.

Cillian

he’s an asshole. wasn’t surprised.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

still..

So you went to ellie's...

Cillian

yeah. i can’t go back there. home i mean.

i haven’t really told her why. just that i got into it with my dad.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

Well...i mean i'd offer the spare room here. But clearly that wasn't an option to you, so.

best of luck or whatever

Cillian

jude

are you mad at me?

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

I'm fine dude. I'm just busy trying to fuck your new roommate.

Cillian

right

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

don't tell me you fucked her too?

Cillian

ellie?

not recently. why does it matter, dude?

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

Are you ever not gonna fuck girls that I'm into?

fuck, i can't have anything.

Cillian

i didn’t know you were seriously into her? she doesn’t like me anyways, man

it’s just sex anyways

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

whatever i'm not into her anymore.

Cillian

why? cause she’s slept with me?

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

Yeah dude.

Cillian

and what? don’t want my seconds?

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

Yeah, exactly.

I want like, one fucking person to be into me and not want to fuck you. Because you're a jackass.

Cillian

jeez, sorry everyone you ever liked has such bad taste.

want me to make you a list so that it doesn’t happen again?

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

Yeah.

You fucked another dude.

Cillian

yeah and what about it, jude? you have something to say?

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

Yeah I do.

But I'm not gonna, because clearly I'm just some drunk hook up.

Cillian

you’re wrong, but whatever.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

It's not whatever.

You made me feel like shit. And then you go out and fuck anyone that breathes. Besides me, apparently.

Cillian

what?

do you want me to fuck you?

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

In your dreams.

You could never handle me.

Cillian

THEN WHY?! i don’t understand you dude. if you don’t want that then why do you care that i’m fucking other dudes.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

I care, but there's no point in like telling you about feelings and shit when you don't care.

YOu didnt even come to me.

You went to Ellie's. Fuck that, bro.

Cillian

i do care though! i care a lot.

i dunno how to prove that to you. i’m sorry i didn’t come to you first but i was worried. and i guess i was right to be based on your response.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

You really confused me with that kiss. And then you just like...cut me out.

Cillian

you don’t think i was confused too? i didn’t know how to be around you. or anyone really. i was scared you hated me, man. it sounds stupid but i thought i fucked everything up

and then you texted me the next day like it didn’t even happen

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

it's like whatever. i've just had a crush on you for like...ever.

Cillian

no you haven’t.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

okay fine.

i guess i just offer my ass to every guy i meet or whatever.

Cillian

jude. seriously.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

Why would i make this shit up? you think I want to like you? you're an asshole!

Cillian

yeah, exactly, which is why it doesn’t make sense.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

are we done here then? cuz you're obviously not gonna listen to me.

Cillian

no, fuck, sorry. i just don’t get it. why me?

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

fuck if i know dude.

Cillian

so you like me... but you don’t want me?

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

i didn't say that.

you don't want me

Cillian

i didn’t say that either.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

you didn't say anything

Cillian

i didn’t know what i wanted. but i think i figured it out.

this is gonna sound gross as shit but i don’t think there’s been a day since that i haven’t thought about the kiss.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

that sounds so gross. you totally wanted to suck my dick.

Cillian

you wishhhhhhh.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

come on, man. i'm adorable.

Cillian

i guess you’re pretty okay

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

i woulda done it.

Cillian

what?

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

sucked you off

Cillian

yeah?

would you still?

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

yuh

no homo though.

..unless.

Cillian

oh my god. next time i see you i’m gonna tackle your ass.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

my ass?

Cillian

yup.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

hot.

Cillian

shut up

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

kinky

Cillian

so. how long have you had this big ooey gooey crush on me then?

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

ooh...and there it goes, big shot

Cillian

fuck. just when i was letting it go to my head.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

don't worry i'll always be sure to kick your ass

Cillian

i’d like to see you try

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

maybe i will

Cillian

do it. i dare you.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

bet.

Cillian

hey jude

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

what dude?

Cillian

all those times i said i wasn’t an ass man? lies, all of it.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

DUDE.

i got a great ass fr.

Cillian

i’ve definitely checked it out more than once

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

nice. i knew it.

i checked you out too bro

Cillian

aaaaand? thoughts?

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

i don't know. i'd have to see it without all the layers to decide

see how fuking smooth i am?

Cillian

sooooooo smooth, hot damn.

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

i know right?

Cillian

here i thought i was the suave one this whole time

𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫.

i got game, bro.

[meganshinsou-tm]

Sugarcoated. (m)

↳ chapter four: candy apples

❧ genre: pro-hero hitoshi, adoptive siblings, happy ending

❧ chapter warnings:

[multi-chap masterlist] [previous chapter - next chapter]

"Hey, stop dipping off for free samples! Didn't you have enough pancakes!"

You turned your head with wide eyes as you were caught, a cookie pressed to your lips before you hurried and shoved it in your mouth as Hitoshi stormed towards you. You waved at the employee attending the cart and went to run in the opposite direction until a strong hand clutched the back of your sweater pulling you backwards as an inhuman noise escaped your mouth.

"You're the fucking hobbit here, you know that? Give me your hand, no more until what –" the hero looked at his watch to see it was only almost noon, according to Hobbit meal times the next meal was lunch, "Until three!"

Your hand was eagerly taken into his as he turned you around, making you smile and interlock your fingers with his. He looked down at your hands laced together so intimately and smirked.

"And you said I'm a nerd? How do you know Hobbit meal times Toshi," you replied, mouth still full of ooey gooey cookie goodness.

"Shut up and let's go you halfling!"

With a smile you did as told and continued around the market with the purple haired hero, searching and finding all the items you needed to make a special treat for Eri. Even after leaving the market, Hitoshi still never released your hand from his but you didn't complain. It was nice and comforting. Together you boarded a train once again then headed back to your place. Once in your apartment, Hitoshi helped to unpack the groceries and you sat all your ingredients up nice and neatly on the kitchen counter. You looked over it all, pointing and counting to make sure everything was there. 

"Corn syrup, sugar, food coloring, water and apples!"

Hitoshi was standing next to you, watching as you meticulously measured everything. It was cute to him how precise you were, making sure the sugar was even in the measuring cup and sizing up all the apples side by side only choosing ones that matched. Your eyes then looked at him and you smirked.

"Make yourself useful hero and wash these for me!"

"Yes ma'am," he smiled and grabbed the apples you motioned to.

You went to a cabinet and bent over, searching for a pan. Hitoshi couldn't help but look and stare with a devious grin. It was taking everything in him to not reach over and just smack your behind for the fun of it. After he finished washing the apples, you told him to dry them and to line the cookie sheet you took out with some wax paper, followed by impaling the apples with the sticks you purchased.

"Once I get this to a good boiling point, we'll have to work fast before the temperature drops."

"What happens if it drops?"

"Then the coating on the apples won't be clean and pretty."

"You're a bit of a perfectionist huh?" Shinsou asked with one of those attractive half grins.

You smiled and shrugged your shoulders, pouring the syrup, sugar and water into a saucepan while stirring it. "I like to produce quality shit, sue me. When I have my own bakery, I refuse to put out less than perfect products."

"That admirable. I'm sure when that happens, you'll be the one everyone comes to. And I'll become one of your regulars, all over again."

"Thanks for the warning," you snickered and stuck your tongue out at Hitoshi.

Only a few short minutes went by, Shinsou was leaning on the counter scrolling through his phone. He'd steal looks at you every now and then. You were so cute to him, especially in this moment all focused on your task. Your hair in a clip and the tip of your tongue between your teeth. Smirking, the lavenderette opened the camera on his phone and snapped a candid picture. You looked over at the sound of the shutter and growled.

"You're lucky I have to constantly stir this, or else!"

Hitoshi chuckled and stood straight, leaning in closer to you, his fingers brushed back a few flyaway strands of your hair. The two of you had grown quickly comfortable with being in close quarters of each other since that morning.

"Or else what sweetness, you gonna scratch me with those cute little claws?"

"You'd enjoy that too much Toshi! Now shut up and hand me the food coloring," you replied bumping your hip into him and removing the saucepan from the burner.

The man did as instructed. You took the small bottle from him and undid the cap, squeezing a decent amount of the dye into the clear and boiling mixture. Stirring in the color, the substance turned a glossy ruby red. Hitoshi got closer, genuinely curious now as he looked more at your handy work. The sweet and sugary scent filled his nostrils making him hum and sigh. It smelt like you actually and it made him salivate.

"Okay you hand me the apples, I'll dip them then hand them back and you place them on the wax paper. Easy enough for you?"

"Psh, I got this woman!"

You smiled and opened up your palm to him, looking at the mixture you stirred. Hitoshi handed you an apple and you took it, tilted the saucepan on its side and dipped the fruit into the pool of thick boiling candy. After completely coating the apple, you removed it and let it hang for a bit as the excess liquid roll off and handed it to the hero. Together you repeated the process until all six apples were done. Shinsou looked at the finished products and awed at them. The apples shined and gleamed. You went about cleaning up the dishes, adding the now sticky covered saucepan to a pool of hot water to let it soak.

"She's going to love these (Y/N), you're extremely kind for doing this."

"It's something I enjoy doing, if she likes me then I'll just have more reasons to bake and practice my skills. Halloween is coming up, and I love making treats for that holiday!"

Hitoshi took a picture of the apples and put the device back in his pocket. He looked at you leaning against the sink and fidgeting with your nails, not exactly paying attention to him. As he went to look away he noticed your sleeves were rolled up and saw bruises around both your wrists. 

Quickly he was planted in front of you, taking your right forearm in his grasp and inspecting your tarnished skin. A curse slipped from your lips as you tried to pull your limb free but he only moved his grip to your elbow as his free hand took hold of your palm so he had more control. The marks looked as if they were fading, alarming him that you had them for a few days now. His mind flashed back to how on edge you looked when your boss Mr. Lee was around then he remembered you saying the man could get handsy. The blood in Hitoshi's body started to boil and his grit his teeth.

"Did that piece of shit do this?"

"It doesn't matter. I'm fine Toshi, I can handle –"

"You're not going back there," Hitoshi's sharp and low voice cut you off.

His eyes looked into yours, the purple hues burning with fire. Your brows furrowed and you clicked your tongue, narrowing your own eyes at him.

"You're not my fucking father or something, plus if tonight goes well then I won't have to deal with him for much longer."

"No, I'm not your father, but I am your friend and I care for you and for your safety, a lot actually. If he has the balls to do this, what's to stop him from going further next time (Y/N)? He obviously has no morals or sense of boundaries, your news of quitting would probably set him off. I'm not letting you return to a place like that, not if it means putting you in danger."

You looked away with a sigh. It wasn't like you wanted to go back, that asshole who was your boss was the reason you hadn't even left your apartment all weekend. Of course if you didn't need the money, you would've never went back the first time the man ever said something inappropriate to you, but that was just how life was for you. You suffered and fought through all the bullshit, whatever it takes to get to your end goal, your dream. 

Your (e/c) hues looked back to Hitoshi, his grip on you loosened. Your free hand rubbed the back of your neck and you shrugged.

"I really appreciate your concern Hitoshi, I get that it's your job to care about other's safety, but I can't just not return. I still need to get at least that last paycheck and it's not professional, like it won't look good on future resumes and applications to just up and leave my place of work without notice, no matter the reason."

"Then give me your schedule and I'll accompany you to and from, and wait on you. I have a lot of vacation days saved up, I can afford to at least do that for a few days until you quit and come to work as Eri's babysitter."

"That's a little overboard Toshi, I'm not the only citizen that needs protection you know?"

The purple haired hero smirked finally releasing your elbow but still holding your hand. He looked at the bruise on your skin and shook his head, then softly kissed it. You felt your heart beat fast and flutter, as your cheeks heated up.

"True, but you're the only citizen I care about protecting at the moment. I'm not going to let the person I like and have feelings for get hurt more than she already has, not if I can help it."

You grunted and tried to reply but weren't really sure what to say. It was news to you that the hero actually had legit feelings for you besides friendly teasing and flirting, if anything you figured the two of you would just be a small fling but the way his tone was when he confessed and the look in his violet hues said different. It was sweet actually and made butterflies dance around in your stomach. You liked the hero as well but never put any more effort into the thought of an actual relationship blossoming between the two of you. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad though, he drove you nuts but always ended up flattering you, you enjoyed the time with him and he did make you feel safe and warm.

Hitoshi then released your hand and stepped closer, making your breathing hitch in your throat as his face leaned in. You screwed your eyes shut for some reason, unaware of what his next move was. It had been since before you started college that you dated or had a relationship. Getting your degree and pursuing your dreams came first and you had no time for boys so this was like learning to walk all over again. A deep chuckle made your eyes open and you felt warm lips on your forehead, instantly making your body relax.

"I'm sorry if that was a little too forward but I couldn't resist and you didn't exactly stop me. If I ever make you feel uncomfortable though (Y/N), I want you to let me know okay?"

You smirked and nodded. Unlike how your boss made you feel, when Hitoshi made such advances they didn't fill you with fear. Being around the hero was just the opposite, nothing he ever did made you feel uncomfortable and you wanted to make him aware of it. Standing on the tips of your toes you placed a soft peck to Hitoshi's cheek and cupped it with your hand, brushing your thumb over the spot. The man beamed at you and melted into your touch like some kind of kitten, his hand reaching up to rest over yours. It was the cutest he's ever looked and you screamed internally.

"How about we finish up here little halfling, then head out. Shouta's place is a good ways away and if I'm late then I won't hear the end of it from that little brat."

You nodded and smiled, retracting your hand and the hero ruffled your hair.

 Hitoshi watched as you went about plating the candy apples on a fancy platter and quirked a brow at how much effort you into just presentation, he really did admire the heart you put into your baking. All day long he found more and more things he started to adore about you. To him this was much better than having to see you unhappy in a silly, yet still cute outfit, at a place you loathed. He could get used to seeing a genuine smile from you and he was more than excited to show you off to the only other girl that mattered in his life. As he continued watching, you turned around with a smile.

"Alright Toshi, let's go see Eri!"

[zarfm]

» • * — ( benjamin wadsworth , cis male , he/him ) . i think i hear underdog by kasabian coming from apartment 2104. doesn’t balthazar ros live there ?? i heard they are a twenty-two year old chef from chicago , but they’ve been living in the apartments for two years . they come across a bit - wrathful and - rude , but they also seem like they could be + compassionate and + hardworking . whenever i see them , i think of denim jackets, guilty cigarettes, searching for a hug in a fist fight. oh , and don’t forget to follow them on instagram at tsar.zar ! ooc . ally, 22, she/her, est

hello y’all!!! i’ve been eying this rp for so long but have been. waiting until my mental state was Ready Enough to do it justice ! anyways, hello, my name is ally, i live in canada, i just got a job at walmart and i just learned how to french braid. those are my two biggest achievements during quarantine. anyways, this here is zar, he’s an emotional mess, please enjoy. there’s a quick novel-length introduction under the cut, but for more details, please click the following links. like for me to beg you for plots on discord !!!

full statistics. full biography. pinterest. wanted connections.

tw scars, emotional neglect, child abuse, physical abuse, 

statistics. 

full name. balthazar eduardo ros. nickname(s). zar. occupation. chef. age. twenty-two. date of birth. november 8th, 1997. nationality. american. ethnicity. mexican, iranian, english, ukrainian. orientation. bisexual/queer. gender & pronouns. cis male; he/him/his. religion. atheist.

height. 5’7”. weight. 145 lbs. eye color. brown. hair color + style. dark brown, curly, either styled haphazardly or pushed over his forehead. dominant hand. right-handed. distinguishing features. the scars on his face, that smirk, pretty boy eyes, and his plethora of tattoos.

biography. 

had a... pretty shitty childhood honestly. sure, both of his parents were wealthy, but his mother, who he lived with at first in los angeles, was not only constantly busy but also emotionally neglectful. when his nanny from basically birth to age three was fired without any notice to him, for example, he cried for days. and his mother’s solution was to only keep the same nanny for a month so zar wouldn’t get attached. 

he started to act out in school, because he, y’know, wasn’t getting any affection? and when therapy proved to be futile (meaning none of the therapists gave his mom the answer she wanted), she did the logical thing: blackmail your son’s father to taking him in or else she’d tell the whole world about their affair, and then put your six year old son on a plane to his father’s place alone without warning him or even telling him that he was going to live with his father. 

he still has nightmares about the flight attendant pulling him onto the plane while his mom walked away, impassive. no biggie. 

TO MAKE THINGS EVEN BETTER he was thrown straight into the lion’s den, living with his wealthy father and his picture-perfect family with five sons in chicago. of course, zar didn’t know that this man was his father until he was thirteen years old, but his stepmother figured it out almost immediately. and his brothers were all... spoiled brats, so she basically let them do whatever they wanted with him. i won’t get into specifics but imagine if you lived with five of your school bullies. 

it’s also around them he finally looked his mother up on facebook only to find that she was now married and pregnant with another kid. he’d been replaced. this is high-quality parenting 101, folks. 

food became... something of an important escape, for zar. he stopped eating with his family when he was about eight (it was basically a game of see how much we can abuse zar while the parents pretend he doesn’t exist), and started making his own little dinners. he associated dinners with the family meals he always saw on tv, portraying something he so yearned for; love, and family. to zar, cooking himself dinner each night became a way of practicing self-love. 

he also developed a habit of picking up strays; he fed one stray dog, she curled up in his lap and slept, and he was hooked forever. it was the most affection he’d ever received. no matter how long it took, be it hours or months, no matter how angry or antisocial the stray seemed, he’d do anything he could to win their trust. (in fact, he kind of liked the angry ones; they always turned out to be the sweetest.) 

he still acted out at school, had been diagnosed with conduct disorder and then oppositional defiant disorder. maybe he bit a psychiatrist or two who knows. and when he discovered who his father was and that everyone had been lying to him forever, well, he saw no need to hold back, now. he fought back. 

he became a bona fide Bad Boy, passed from boarding school to boarding school, expelled for a laundry list of reasons. public drunkenness, assault, sucking the housemaster’s son’s dick in the showers. his parents tried military school; he spat in his drill sergeant’s eye. 

finally, for his junior year, he was just put into public school in chicago. there, he was lucky enough to stumble upon the hospitality program, there, and fell back in love with cooking. this was the first thing in a long time he realized he could really do. sure, in an attempt to avoid his brothers he was now living in the attic, but still. life was looking up. 

with a shining letter of recommendation from his instructor and a killer portfolio, zar was able to get into the culinary institute of new york. it was during his senior year that he moved into ten 23, and he decided to stay for a while. this apartment is probably the first place he thinks of as a home. 

tl;dr abused son becomes a bad boy, learns to love via food and animals, moves to new york for school and career, 

personality. 

burnt marshmallow: smoky and crispy on the outside, ooey gooey on the inside. 

but theres a lot of smoky/crispy; he can be very rude and blunt, and he still has a hair-trigger temper. he’s working on it, though. 

honestly, he fits right in as a chef. even at the four star restaurant he works at, gideon’s, the entire cooking staff still swear like sailors. 

to keep his temper intact, he smokes (he hasn’t even tried to quit) and he also does amateur mma in his free time. 

sarcastic af. please someone tell him to shut the fuck up. 

still will stop everything if he sees a stray. the only thing that will maybe dissuade him is work, and even then he’ll show up a little late after he makes sure the dog has water. keeps cheap doggie bowls, a water bottle, and little ziplocs full of kibble on his person at all times. 

volunteers at the animal haven weekly. he still loves all the animals there. 

he also has four dogs and one cat that thinks she’s a dog. does ten 23 not allow pets? doesn’t matter. he still has illegal pets. rip his roommates. 

if he wants to make you feel better, he will cook for you. if he thinks you’re eating like shit, he will cook for you. if you’re hungry, he will cook for you. again, food is his way of showing love, and underneath it all he is a very loving person. 

vegan, but. has to handle non-vegan things as part of his job. but still a big vegan. 

horny 24/7. bi but only tops in emergencies. again, rip his roommates. 

never really had a real relationship because he. gets jealous enough as it is. is constantly paranoid that people will leave him. 

mom friend underneath it all. but like... an angry mom friend??? like he’ll nag you and tell you you shouldn’t have hooked up with your ex you basically asked for this but he’s doing this while making you cookies and peanut butter hot chocolate. 

lowkey highkey hates himself and although he pretends otherwise he has the self esteem of a thirteen year old at their first high school dance. 

[seventeen-scenarios-blog]

[SURPRISE] A Double Scoop

DEDICATED TO MY WIFEY ADMIN SCOOPED. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I really hope you enjoy this even though it was a little rushed and completely unbeta-ed :(

wooed<3

You are so tired.

Being an intern for a broadcasting company means little to no time for leisure or rest. It is a time for you to put all that you’ve learnt from Communication Studies to the test. Though you’ve learnt and benefitted a lot from the experience, it doesn’t stop the heaviness of your eyelids as you trudge your way to work every morning.

You feel your arms nearly give way as you push the glass door open, sighing in relief when the cool air-conditioning rushes out to greet you. Though the bright, cheery colours of the ice-cream shop are at odds with your currently exhausted state, you have to admit, a cup of ice-cream doesn’t sound bad at all.

You sigh at the long queue ahead of you and did a double check for the time on your phone. You have to be back in the office in half-an-hour because of your incompetent asshole of a colleague, who went missing-in-action and left behind a pile of uncompleted work for you to toil over.

You’ve probably murdered him a hundred times over in your head in every way imaginable, but here in real life, what can you do?

Fortunately, the queue moves and there’s only two other people in front of you. Two tall, really tall males. Peering over their shoulders (on tiptoes), you glance longingly at the tub of coconut ice cream at the far end of the freezer. There isn’t much left, just enough for roughly two scoops.

Thank goodness, you think, almost able to taste the tantalizingly sweet dessert from here.

Then the earth promptly shatters around you.

“A double scoop of coconut, please.”

That single sentence had been uttered by none other than the customer preceeding you. The employee acknowledges his order by punching some buttons on the register, then extending out her hand to receive the payment. The man before you happily holds out his debit card, totally oblivious to the mental breakdown you are currently experiencing.

Nope, you’re not going to just sit back and allow this. There’s no way in hell you’re letting your already crappy day take a turn for the worse.

Stiffening your spine, you reach out and tap the man on the shoulder.

He flinches a little, and turns around to meet your eyes, well, after bending his head downwards by a notch, that is.

“Can… I help you?” he asks, one hand lifting up to scratch at his black hair. You blink, suddenly lost in the man’s stunning onyx orbs framed by deep double eyelids and long lashes.

Goddamn, he’s cute.

And suddenly you’re tempted to give your share of ice-cream up.

But as the female employee shakes the water off the scooper and approaches the coconut ice-cream pint, you find your resolve -- and voice -- again.

“Look, sir. I’ve been having a really really shitty day and all I want to do is eat a nice cup of coconut ice-cream but you’re about to take my share so can I respectfully ask you to let me have the last scoop of that ice-cream for the sake of my sanity?” you gush out in one breath, and you quickly straighten yourself, stunned by your outburst.

The man and his taller companion stare back at you blankly, the latter comically wide-eyed with his wooden spoon hanging out from between his lips.

Then he snaps out of it with a quick nod of his head. “Um, yeah, sure… No problem.” And to your immense gratitude, the man calls off his order right before the employee could make the second scoop.

“Please separate the servings into two single scoops instead. One for me and one for the lady behind me, I’m sorry about that.”

“But Coups-hyung, you’re supposed to share that double scoop with Jeonghan-hyung,” the freakishly tall being standing next to the man whispers as the employee corrects the order, but the black-haired male waves his companion off nonchalantly.

“Jeonghan can have the ice-cream for himself. I can always steal some coffee from Jihoon later. After all, I’m the only one that can get away with that unscathed.”

You wince, feeling a little guilty now. What if he was having just as crappy a day as you are, and you ruined it even further by denying him of his treat?

The employee calls for your attention, and she holds out the cup of your favourite treat at your direction, indicating for you to make payment.

“No need,” the man interjects, holding out his hand before you can even unclasp the buttons on your wallet, much to your surprise. “It’s on me.”

“Oh, no,” you immediately assert, flustered as he tucks the receipt back into his pockets. “I asked too much of you already.”

But the breath drives out of your lungs as the man turns towards you once again, his handsome features beaming merrily at you. “It’s okay. If there’s anything I can do to make your crappy day better, I’d be happy to do it.”

Your mouth agape, utterly bewildered by his generosity, you can only watch him turn around and pat the other taller male on the shoulder. “C’mon, Mingyu, they’ll be expecting us to be back soon.” The tree of a man named Mingyu breaks out into a whine that slowly grows out of earshot as they walk further away from you.

“But hyung, I want to get sprinkles and chocolate syrup on my cone first. Give me a minute or two.”

Your eyes trail after them, almost disregarding the queue that still stretches out behind you. The person behind you gives you a disgruntled nudge to snap you out of your stupefaction, and you stumble out of the way to let her place her order.

You can’t believe that there are people out there who are gracious enough to extend these small acts of kindness to strangers, and the ends of your lips stretched out into a wide, almost-silly smile. Holding the precious cup of ooey gooey goodness securely in your hand, you leave the kind Samaritan (and his giant of a friend) behind and exit the shop.

It is a shame that you have to part with the air-conditioned haven so soon, and once again you are grounded back into reality. Yet with a bite of your favourite ice-cream, your horrid day is just able to take a turn for the better.

However, the universe just loves to prove you wrong.

You thought it had been your friend and colleague Jamie calling your name from behind, but when you realise that the voice is too deep and ringing with a degree of shrill irritation, you feel bile rise up your throat.

“There you are, I’ve been looking all over for you!” Bijoon wheezes as his heavy footsteps stutter to a stop in front of you, and you instinctively take a wary step back.

“Well, you found me, so what do you want?”

Your words come out a little more hostility than you intended, but you can’t give two shits anymore. There’s one reason, and one reason only, why Bijoon would look for you at this time of the day.

“Listen,” he grunts out, one hand reaching out to wipe some perspiration off his forehead. “I kinda have to run off. Someone is finally willing to buy my old gaming console off my hands and he is only willing to meet me in person today. I’m sorry but I have to ask you to cover for me this afternoon. There’s a trailer that the boss told me to edit--”

“Are you kidding me?!” you exclaim, your grip on your ice-cream nearly loosening in utter disbelief. “That’s what you told me last week! I had to rush through your work through the night! And I’ve been consistently working overtime for the past week and now you’re asking this of me again?!”

“It wasn’t my fault, he rescheduled!” Bijoon protests. “C’mon, please? Don’t be difficult and help a friend out. I promise it would be the last time. The trailer is due tomorrow morning and you’ll have to include the scene where--”

“Bijoon, no!” you snap, cutting him off for the second time. That gall of his! You hate how he is talking to you as if you’ve already agreed to help him. “We agreed that the last week would be the last time I help you. It’s not fair that I do all the work and you get all the credit. I even kept your promise to stay quiet in front of our superiors to save your skin!”

“I know what I said!” is his response before rolling his eyes, checking his phone for the time. “Ugh, I honestly don’t have time for this. I’m counting on you, okay? I’ll treat you some ice-cream when I come back next week.”

As though that seems to settle it, he turns to stalk off towards the direction of the bus station. You are at your wits end, your blood boiling and reaching a fever pitch, every cell screaming at you to stop him and give him a piece of your mind. Only someone beats you to it.

“Hey.” Bijoon’s footsteps skid to an abrupt halt and his body jerks backwards as a hand reaches out to seize him by the arm.

Your eyes blow wide as you whip your head around, coming face to face with none other than the same man from the ice-cream shop. His right hand is outstretched and has a firm grip around the other male, his once gentle eyes now playful but disapproving. “You’re a tad too late, my friend. I already bought her one.”

“What do you want?” Bijoon demands, snatching his arm back to his side. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Seungchul,” the man reveals his name for the first time. “And you’re Bijoon, I assume?”

Bijoon backs away from the taller man, his eyes narrowed to slits. “Were you eavesdropping on other people’s business?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Seungchul smirks, “But I can’t help but feel the need to stand up for someone that’s clearly getting bullied in her workplace. Right, Mingyu?”

He nods towards the skyscraper next to him, who looks up cluelessly from his cone of chocolate chip, a smidge of white and two rainbow sprinkles adorning the corner of his lips. “Huh? Oh, yes right, hyung, whatever you say.”

It is pretty obvious that the Lankness Monster isn’t listening to the exchange, much too engrossed with his dessert with sprinkles but Seungchul is satisfied anyway. He turns to you, flashing you an assuring smile that makes your body melt like the ice-cream in your hand.

Bijoon scoffs, but it is easy to pick up the uneasiness in his voice. “I wasn’t bullying her. We just have to finish our work by tomorrow.”

“Your work,” Seungchul corrects. “You were getting her to do your work. If that’s not bullying, what is?”

His opponent opens his mouth to defend himself, but no words come out. At his flustered reaction, Seungchul hardens his gaze. “If you’re unable to finish your work on time, it’s your responsibility to tell your supervisor. You have absolutely no right to throw them onto her shoulders. You will leave her alone, now.”

Bijoon visibly swallows, looking as though he wants to fight back. But when faced with two twin towers looking down at him, he backs off. Casting back a last glower, he runs towards the bus station and disappears amongst the crowd.

Your throat has dried up at the point and you can’t find the words to speak until Seungchul taps you on your back. “Your ice-cream is about to melt, you know.”

You quickly lift the cup and take an embarrassed mouthful. At that, the man chuckles. “Well, we best be going.”

He turns to leave, and you panic. “Wait! T-Thanks, for all of that. It really meant a lot to me.”

At that, Seungchul flashes you a warm, but sad smile. “How long has this been going on for?”

You then drop your gaze, knowing exactly what he’s referring to. “A few months,” you answer with chagrin.

He nods, acknowledging your words solemnly. Then a comforting hand is placed on your shoulders. “Don’t let him do that do you ever again, okay? It’s not fair for you to keep helping him all the time. You have the right to tell the higher-ups about his incompetency.”

“I wish it were that easy,” you inform him sadly. “Our supervisors are much too busy to account for Bijoon’s absence, and we have looming, urgent deadlines because there are fixed timeslots for our videos to air on TV.”

Seungchul hums thoughtfully, his reddish lips pursed. Then his eyes dart down to your neck where your staff pass is hung from.  “Well, I guess the next time this happens, come look for me okay? I’ll deal with Bijoon for you.”

That only manages to get a very confused “huh?” from you.

Seungchul laughs, flashing you a wink (and you feel your inner school-girl swooning, because damn did I mention how good-looking he is?). Mingyu, who’s run off to throw his ice-cream cone wrapper, jogs back to the both of you with his phone in his hand. “Hyung, we’ve really got to go. The recruitment office is going to call us any minute and Jeonghan still hasn’t got his ice-cream yet.”

“Alright, alright,” the former acknowledges, and swivels his head at your direction again. “I’ll see you around in work, kid.” He reaches out to give you a friendly pat on your head before leaving with the walking beanstalk.

You are left reeling in an odd mixture of confusion and giddiness, but the vibration of your phone snaps you out of your trance. You pull your phone out of your back pocket and open up your text from your supervisor.

[1:34PM] Can you come over to the recruitment office in 10 minutes? We have some new staff and it would be great if you can show them around the office.

Wait, what?

Before you know it, you’re smiling from ear to ear, looking up just in time to see Seungchul and Mingyu vanishing behind the translucent automatic door of your office building. With eager fingers, you swiftly type out your reply

[1:35PM] Sure, I will be there!

Thank goodness you decided to get ice-cream today.

[anxietycalling]

... is this thing on?

HA. After like two months of trying to break into my own goddamn tumblr account, I finally figured out what password I used. So hi. Hello. Welcome back to the internet, self.

I mostly wanted to log in to give some updates about my life and start, you know, documenting it as there is some monumental stuff in the works for me this year. I’ll put the rest of it under a cut because I’m not a barbarian.

So one of the biggest changes for me since the last time I blogged reliably is that I got diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. That was, uh, two years ago? Somewhere in that general timeframe. It’s not really that surprising, given my mother’s extreme fastidiousness that she later admitted to me is untreated OCD. I’m the only person I know who can walk soundlessly in pitch dark and make entire meals without touching food with my hands because of that. But anyways, I guess the reason it didn’t get diagnosed sooner is because, as my wonderful psychologist puts it, “You’re too smart to fall for obvious compulsions because you’re aware of how they affect your public perception, so you get trapped in the ones that are more realistic.” In other words, I intellectualize my OCD too much.  That’s not to say it doesn’t affect my life though! For... probably about a year, maybe more, I had a crippling fear of handling or preparing food for others because I had a persistent obsession that I would accidentally poison someone. At its worst it got so bad that I couldn’t touch plastic wrap or open packaging, either. Through cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and exposure response prevention (ERP), my symptoms have decreased to the point where I’m able to cook for myself and others again. I still seek reassurance more than I should - which is another symptom of OCD - but I’m working on it. Baby steps!  Most of my symptoms are manageable now, but I do still get ‘stuck’ sometimes. Like I said, I have a wonderful psychologist. She makes me do things I don’t want to do. She’s nice about it, but she’s a bit of a stickler for progress. Which is good! She’s very practical in a way that previous therapists of mine haven’t been. I don’t like the ooey-gooey “How does that make you feeeeeel? How does it relate to your tortured chiiiiildhood?” nonsense, so I’m glad we can skip that. For years I thought I was just bad at therapy, so I didn’t pursue it. Turns out that the right person with the right counselling philosophy can be a great asset in managing mental illness. Which leads me to the reason I sought out a therapist to begin with...

When I moved to Ottawa, I got a regular endocrinologist for the first time in my life. She’s wonderful and willing to work with her patients at their own level. My husband goes to the same endo (but more on him in a second...) and seeing the differences in the way she interacts with each of us is awesome. She takes time to answer my many questions and often has great practical advice about managing hormone replacement therapy. My testosterone levels have been stable for... three years now? Maybe a little more? Aside from one set of bloodwork where my hemoglobin was high, there haven’t been any major hiccups. And my endo said that it wasn’t necessarily concerning, just a precaution because we don’t know what the effects of heightened hemoglobin levels in transgender men are yet. Another thing my endocrinologist does is refer her patients to other relevant services. After my second or third appointment with her, she wrote my letter of recommendation to the government so I could change my gender designation on my birth certificate. She also did the paperwork for OHIP to cover my top surgery. I got the letter from the Ministry of Health a couple of weeks later, and started down the path to actually, you know, getting surgery. It’s more complicated than you think! She recommended me to the Montreal GRS clinic (Drs. Brassard, Belanger and Bensimon). There is a fair amount of paperwork that they request before your file even gets passed to the surgery team. One of those things was a letter of recommendation from a health professional that meets the WPATH standards of care. That’s when my endo recommended my therapist to me. The WPATH standards of care require at least 6 months of follow-up from the practitioner, so I sat down in that office once a month until I got my dang letter. And what a letter it was! Cori, my therapist, basically wrote a strongly worded letter that implies her disapproval over needing a letter at all. Why, you may ask? Because I already had years of documentation detailing my gender dysphoria and persistent desire for surgery. Literal years of it, dating back to... 2007 or so. But she wrote the letter, we continued on, and my brain is much healthier than it’s been for years. 

Getting my IDs changed was a lot more work than I expected. Like, I knew that it would take a fair amount of paperwork, and I was prepared for that. I did my gender marker change first, which involved first getting the letter of recommendation notarized and sending it off to the government to get a shiny new birth certificate with an ‘M’ on it. It took about 4 months to get my first birth certificate. After that, back to city hall I went to change the gender on my driver’s license and health card. Getting the gender marker changed was inexpensive - I paid $35 for the new birth certificate plus postage. Ottawa city hall has services that will commission (notarize) your documents for free, so I didn’t pay for that, but normally in our city it costs between $15-20.  Next I did my name change. The form itself is about 30 pages or so, and most of it is just checking boxes like “Hey, I’m not a criminal, I’m not hiding from any debts,” and then getting it notarized and mailing it off. The name change took the longest - I waited about 6 months for my new birth certificate. Changing the name on my IDs was easy. All I had to do was go back to city hall (again) and wait in line (again) and update my drivers’ license, health card and social insurance file.  For about the first month after my name change, I had a folder I carried everywhere with me. You never really realize how many places you give your name to until you have to change it. The gym, doctor’s offices - despite having socialized healthcare and a (mostly) computerized system, you have to remember to change your name at every doctor’s office you visit separately. Now I have my updated IDs, so I can just show my driver’s license. 

Now I’m going to talk about the path to getting a surgery date at GRS Montreal. Yes, I got the letter for my OHIP funding relatively quickly, but actually getting my file to the surgical team was a logistical disaster. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, by the way - I’m glad that they’re doing their due diligence and making sure everything is well documented. It’s just kind of hard when you’ve already waited for so long to stay patient.  So, yes, I got my letter from Cori after 6 months. The reason I’m so irritated about it to this day is that a couple of months after they insisted they needed this letter, I got another email from the clinic saying they didn’t need it. And then they went back and forth on it another couple of times, so Cori and I just said fuck it and did it anyways, because I do not have the patience for that kind of back-and-forth. During the interim while I was getting regularly therapized, I also did all of the medical components they required. It was basically just a visit with my family doctor so he could sign a form and say “Hey, this guy is healthy enough for surgery and I am competent to handle any complications.”  I know that doesn’t sound like a lot, but having to fill out a million checkboxes and saying ‘No’ to a million health conditions I don’t have, multiple times, gets a bit tedious after a while. So I did all of that, and then I sat on my hands and waited. And waited. And waited some more. I prodded them occasionally via email, because I’m impatient at the best of times and am often bossy and direct with health professionals. Finally, after another 6 months, they passed my file on to the surgical team, who actually called me on the phone promptly to tell me the next steps. The surgical nurse literally emailed me an info packet on Jackson-Pratt drains while on the phone with me.  They gave me my surgery date in September. And now we wait again. I’m leaving for Montreal on February 25th. At this point I’m just impatient and trying to keep busy. 51 more days. The closer it gets, the more time stands still. 

My bio-dad died in... 2017? Something like that. I know, it sounds awful that I don’t remember when he died but also, he was just a shit person. He abused me, he let his girlfriend abuse me, and he continued being a terrible person even in death. There was money for me in some account he had (and had forgotten), apparently, and I spent almost a year trying to figure out how to get it with no luck. Seriously. Even my mom, who had long since divorced my bio-dad and remarried, tried - because the account manager said she had to be the one that accessed the account, even though it was in my name and I’m an adult... and my mother’s lawyer looked at the whole thing, figured out that it was super illegal, and the investment firm stopped returning my calls. What a fucking scam. And yes, I could pursue it legally if I wanted to, but I really don’t want to. I don’t have the patience or the money for lawyers.  Everyone in my family is unequivocally mad at me for not going to the funeral. I mean, why would I? Why would I go to the funeral of a man who sexually abused me and chose alcohol over both of his kids? But my family tends to be very “But faaaaaaamily!”, therefore, most of them have stopped speaking to me.  I’m not really upset by his dying, by the way. I kind of made peace with it in like 2013 or so the first time my mother called me sobbing to tell me he was on his deathbed. I wasn’t surprised then, either, that he had congestive heart failure due to alcoholism. He was so jaundiced the last time I saw him in person that he looked like a Simpsons character. He didn’t recognize me, either. My brother had to tell him that I was his own child. So that pretty much killed any kind of forgiveness I could have had for the man. To his credit, he maybe kind-of tried. If trying is calling me, on purpose, on my birthday every year to tell me what a woman I am and am becoming. Ugh. Gross. Grossgrossgross.  Also, and this is a big Also, I could not have stomached that funeral when everyone was acting like his death was so Tragic and Could Not Have Been Foreseen. Like! I remember from childhood that that man could put away a 24-pack of beer in a day. One of my fondest childhood memories of him - if you can call them that - is bottle return day, where we would wait for my mom to leave for work and then sneak his empties out of the house to return for the deposit, which he would then use to buy more beer and buy KFC for lunch. And this is a secret that we kept from my mother for, like, years. I don’t think she really ever knew the extent of his drinking. Or mine, when I was still drinking.  I wasn’t ever really bothered by his death. I had a breakdown about it, sure, but it was more about the finality of his having died without standing up for myself or demanding an explanation/apology for his behavior towards us, or for raping my brother’s girlfriend, or... anything.

I had a job with great pay, and I fucking quit it.  No, seriously. I was making $18 an hour and I walked away from it because it was driving me to a nervous breakdown. I wasn’t sleeping, I was barely eating, and I couldn’t have a day off without obsessively thinking about work. I got promoted way too quickly and sort of lied-to way too often about how things would change, they never did, and finally in October I couldn’t handle it anymore. I saw Cori and she basically told me that I needed to quit or she’d make me. And I still feel kind of bad about that, because Ash and I fought about that for months beforehand. Literal months. It’s the only thing we’ve ever fought about. But I sat in that office in tears about the thought of ever going back to McDonald’s, and it was the right choice.  The first month was really hard. Not financially - I had decent enough savings to float us for a couple months. But emotionally, I was devastated. I’ve always kind of vacillated my self-worth between pushing myself way too hard to try and force everyone to like me and crumbling under the pressure from that and turning inwards. I had no idea what to do with myself. I was sleeping at weird hours or not sleeping at all. The cats were glad I was home, and so was Ash, but I felt really sick not doing anything - or at least as much. Even with school, I felt kind of aimless. Online classes don’t really demand specific time frames. Yeah, there are due dates, but aside from that you’re really on your own.  Now I’m glad that I quit when I did. From what my friends who still work there tell me, things have only gone downhill. It’s not surprising. They take anyone who’s halfway competent and seduce them with promises they have no intention of keeping to accept promotions and then never follow through. They push people way too hard and they’re not growing and changing with the economy and the demographic of people they’re able to hire for minimum wage. Like, I’m sorry, but once I’ve recovered from surgery there are way better jobs I can get that will keep my brain way healthier. 

The husband. Well, to-be. We’re going to do it on paper at Halloween. Nothing flashy, just going to city hall and signing some papers and then it’s done. I’m not sure exactly where to start on this one because most of it happened so fast. I kind of dicked around with online dating for a bit and nothing really came of it; I had lost expectations around the time he messaged me. There was nothing that immediately said “Hey, you’re going to fall in love with this person!” but I took the leap anyways. I was having a hard time coming to terms with being gay and trans, so a low-stakes thing with less expectation seemed nice to me. ... And then we talked, and we both fell hard. I moved to Ottawa 2 months later, after a fairly tumultuous time going back and forth on the train pretty much every 4 or 5 days. I spent most of my money on traveling those months. It was extremely worth it.  I knew I was in it for the long-haul when he called me while I was on the train home one day. I’d just left, much against my better judgment, and he had a doctor’s appointment that I’d wanted to go to. Ash is not great at asserting himself with doctors. Like I said, I’m bossy and controlling, so this one would’ve been good for me to be at. He called me basically in tears. Something was weird with his bloodwork, and not only could he not start testosterone as originally planned, but his doctors thought he had leukemia.  In typical me fashion, I basically got home, worked a day or two and immediately turned around and came back. There were tests. There was bloodwork. Much of it is a blur, but the thrilling conclusion is that doctors often don’t know how to interpret Ash’s blood results because he doesn’t have a spleen, so his blood is shaped wrong. No cancer! Just weird blood and a crappy immune system. But that crystallized it for me. We moved into a friend’s place for a couple of months, and then, when we could, moved into our current apartment. And for a couple of months it was nice! Great, even! But our roommate’s girlfriend, who also lived with us, had a poorly managed personality disorder and was emotionally and sexually abusive to our wonderful roommate. It took months, but eventually we evicted her after having secret meetings away from the house to come up with a battle plan. In the end, she had to be removed by police and her parents had to come get her things. It’s something I hope I never have to do again, because it felt awful and the girl’s poor parents were clearly devastated.  We parted ways with the roommate in June. Amicably, but a bit sad. Part of it was that we had outgrown having roommates, and part of it is that our roommate, while a wonderful person, has a serious hoarding disorder related to anxiety that clashed awfully with my OCD symptoms. They’re in a house with some wonderful people now, so hopefully it’s better with people who are able to be supportive in a more helpful way.  All of this to say that I have a wonderful husband, who I love very much. 

Which brings me to my next point. Jeez, this is turning into a novel. I’m so sorry. But anyways, I started university in September! It’s been tough what with the work stuff, but I’m doing pretty well. I’m majoring in psychology and desperately white-knuckling my way through introductory biology so I can take cognitive neuropsychology classes next year. Eventually I’d like to become a clinician, but I’m pretty sure I need to go to graduate school for that. I’m taking less classes than I’d like because of surgery, but I’m going to take summer classes to make up for it. 

Also because Ash had to have emergency surgery before Christmas! We’d known something was wrong with his elbow for a while - it was an injury that he’d had since before we met. But over the course of 3 years, an injured elbow turned to a lump, and that lump lead to a loss of mobility. His family doctor didn’t seem overly concerned about it, and didn’t run the proper tests until this year. Thanks to a concerned sports medicine doctor who was way out of his depth, more tests were run. There’s nothing quite like the concerned, hushed tone of a doctor to strike fear into one’s heart. The diagnostic imaging showed a tumor had grown in Ash’s elbow. I named him Leopold.  A non-cancerous, aggressive giant cell tumor. In his elbow. Literally eating away at the bone. Likely had been for a while. They called us on a Wednesday. Ash went to meet the surgeon on Thursday. The hospital called the same day to book him for surgery. Monday he went to meet with the anaesthesiologist. Tuesday we went to the hospital and they removed Leopold. And let me tell you, it was an absolute shit show.  First of all, they expect a man who’s still drugged up from the anaesthesia to be able to decide if he can go home that night or not. They wouldn’t even let him call me before making him decide. Listen, this man is not great at taking decisive action in the best of circumstances sometimes. I actually ended up going home to feed the cats and going back before anyone even told me whether he was coming home or not! Then the post-operative nurses didn’t give clear directions on the aftercare, so I ended up calling the hospital multiple days in a row to figure out what was going on. They didn’t even tell me what type of stitches he had. I think the worst part was that the doctors didn’t actually check with us what kind of painkillers would be most appropriate. They just sent us home with a list, half of which wasn’t covered by insurance, and we had to white-knuckle it the first night with basically good intentions and fancy Tylenol before we could borrow the money for the rest of his painkillers the next morning. I honestly wasn’t sure we would survive that first night. Because the damage to the elbow was so severe, they put a nerve block into the arm that slowly started wearing off through the night. I never want to see anyone in that much pain. It was the kind of pain where you’re not even human anymore; you’re reduced down to an animal who’s scared and in pain, and all you want is for it to stop. I know it was necessary, what they did, to preserve motor function in the arm, but fuck, it was awful. I’m doing a bad job of explaining the technical side of this. It was an elbow resection with tumor removal and a bone graft.  The bone graft actually might be the worst part. Because the tumor ate so much of the bone, we had to do the surgery pretty much immediately because any kind of impact could have shattered Ash’s remaining bone permanently. And they had to be so, so careful during the procedure because the tumor was resting on a nerve. To the surgeons’ credit, they did not sever the nerve. It’s less irritated now, and the arm actually looks quite good, but I wish they’d given us more information ahead of time. I was woefully unprepared for how much work I would be doing. You never realize how much work your hands do until they’re taken away from you. Also, something else people never talk about with surgery is how much painkillers mess with your mood. Opioids are by nature depressants, but all the textbooks downplay exactly how severe the mood symptoms can be. Of course being bedridden plays into it as well, but painkillers severely inhibit cognitive function. That first week or so was awful. There were so many goddamn medications and most of them were useless. We were like robots, with the fucking medication dispensing. I had alarms set every 4 hours so the pain couldn’t come back. We tried. We tried so fucking hard, only to get to the follow-up appointment and have a very nice medical student give us the good stuff: Tylenol # 3 and morphine. Did I mention she was a very nice med student? 

So yes, that’s basically the state of my life at the moment. I haven’t really written anything since I left California, but I’m going to try this year to actually finish something. I’m going to post regularly, both because I kind of missed this place and because it’s nice to see concrete progress. Also, when I was looking for pictures of surgery results there wasn’t a lot to be found, so I’m trying to save someone else the same trouble.

Anyone who actually read to the end of this, you’re great and I’m very sorry I basically wrote a novel about my life. I know my descriptions are lacking in some places, so feel free to... ask follow-up questions, I guess? I dunno. It’s nice to be back. 

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Happy birthday Epel!!

I’ve been experimenting with different apples desserts and well tada!! I made you apple crisp

Btw, you can speak normally to me, uh what I mean is that you talk to me in your country accent

Epel eagerly scooped a large spoonful of the dessert into his mouth. A medley of apples laced with cinnamon exploded across his tongue. Toasted oats tossed in sugar yielded into ooey, gooey, caramelized goodness.

“Mmm! This stuff’s tasty!” he mumbled through a big bite of apple crisp. Epel paused briefly to swallow, then regarded you with a grin. “You’ve really outdone yourself with the recipe.”

“... Eh?” His eyes widened. “‘It’s okay to speak normally’?”

A vaguely troubled look crept over his doll-like features. “Ah, that is... difficult.”

“It slips out sometimes when I’m angry, annoyed, or excited...” Epel tapped a spoon against his chin thoughtfully. “... but I get scolded, because it isn’t fitting for a student of Pomefiore to ‘speak crassly’.”

Epel heaved a deep sigh. “... Loada bull is what that is, I tell ya.”

“What was that, young man?” an irritated voice demanded, easily cutting through the murmur of guests.

“N-Nothing, Vil-senpai!!” Epel called back nervously.

“That’s what I thought.”

The first year sighed again before turning back to you. “... Maybe some other time, when we’re out of earshot,” he suggested. “That way, we’ll be free to shoot the shit all we wa—”

“Language...!!”

“S-Sorry, Vil-senpai!!”