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written-in-flowers · 1 month ago

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Let's Misbehave: Hyunjin x Male!Reader

Pairing: Hwang Hyunjin x Male!Reader

Genre: Smut, Fluff | AU: idol!verse, ninth member!au

Word Count: 7k

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!!

Summary: You and Hyunjin get a bit too handsy after champagne during fashion week. Insatiable lust leads to more than either of you expected for the night.

Disclaimer: These works are completely fictitious and for entertainment purposes only. They are not meant to reflect or label the members of Stray Kids in any way. The events within never took place. Thank you.

Tags: polyamory, idol!reader, tipsy sex (kind of), drinking, mentions of social anxiety (vaguely), bath sex, car stuff, mirror sex, cum eating, anal licking/rimming, blowjobs, anal sex, anal fingering, multiple creampies, multiple orgasms, multiple positions/places, hyunjin being a playful tease, bottom!hyunjin, top!reader, exhibitionism (they film some of it), stray kids once again being a bunch of sluts (haha),

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taglist: @belladonna-6-6-6 @james-is-here @onementally-unstabel-kid @omg-lexiloveyou @drinkingrumandcocacola @himiko-shoji @ang3lzfelixx (let me know in the comments/replies if you want to be tagged for the next one!)

****

“Are you guys, you know, dating?”

You heard the question more than you’d anticipated throughout the night. You and Hyunjin showed up to Milan fashion week together since you both represented different clothing lines. It was heavily mentioned that you came from the same Kpop group, and were good friends. However, strangers who’d met you thought you might be more than that. One celebrity claimed she’d keep it between you two if you were, since she said loads of people were “in the closet”. But, you assured her that you and Hyunjin had nothing going on.

Hyunjin did not help in making it believable.

“Come on, this isn’t like home,” he said to you as you took seats beside the catwalk. “We can be a bit more touchy than normal.” His fingers walked up your thigh, and he grinned, “Unless you don’t like it?”

“You know I don’t mind it, but Hyunjin,” you glanced around at the dozens of cameras and paparazzi snapping photos, “We’re being watched by a lot of people. They might see something and get the wrong idea, then we’d get in trouble with management.”

“Is it wrong to say I don’t care?” he said, linking his arm around yours like friends might do. “I like being close to you, hyung. It makes me feel safe. We’re around so many new people, and it’s kind of…”

The flirtation melted away as he stared at the crowds and cameras with you. “Scary?” you suggested, knowing exactly how he felt.

“Yeah. Without the other members around, it’s weird,” he explained. “Channie-hyung and Felix always did the interviews and the talking because they’re fluent in English. I know some but, like, my brain freezes for a second trying to find the right words to make the sentence. I’m so used to having the other guys right there…I’m glad it’s you that came,” he rested his chin on your shoulder, “You’re better at it than me.”

“Am not. One of us has to talk,” you said in a soft laugh, nerves bubbling up inside you as the show began.

“People really like you,” he said close to your ear. No sultry tone or flirtatious eyes, but genuine admiration. “You have that certain something that draws them to you. People have been talking to you since we got here. Freaking Anne Hathaway told you that you looked gorgeous!”

“She said you looked good too.”

“She said it to you first. You need to start realizing how impactful you are, hyung.”

“Impactful?” you laughed at the thought. “Hardly.”

“You make people feel a particular way, and they like it.” His fingers walked up your knee, and your entire body burned. You stared around nervously, “I can show you how you impact me later, if you want, after the party. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since comeback night. It felt so good-”

“-The show’s starting,” you interrupted him, earning a laugh instead of a scoff.

It’d been like something out of a dream when the fashion director of Dior contacted you a few weeks ago. Francine, the lead designer, said you’d make the perfect model for their new menswear concept. Your fans went wild over the photos you took for the company, wearing everything from casual wear to fancy suits and jewelry. A few promotional videos later, they sent you an invitation to participate in Milan’s fashion week. You never expected yourself to be decked out in official fashion designer clothes, walking down red carpets and meeting famous celebrities. The glitz and glamor of the elite made your eyes sparkle, and you became nearly blind to everything at first. It was made better when Hyunjin said he’d be going to represent Versace.

‘We can be each other’s dates!’ he’d beamed, happy to know he wasn’t going alone.

As expected, Hyunjin looked breathtaking at each event. His long black hair gelled back from his face, the black outfit Donatella Versace put him in made him stand out in a crowd of supermodels. You couldn’t get over his flawless appearance, and how the outfit framed his body. How could you focus on anyone else when the most gorgeous person in the room is right beside you?

The outfits going past you kept you entranced the whole night. You couldn’t help seeing yourself on the catwalk, showing off Dior’s newest outfits and having the entire room’s attention. The idea scared and intrigued you. You had no idea what Hyunjin meant by you being ‘impactful’. You were a kid from Busan who wanted to sing and dance. You never expected to debut, and definitely never expected to be sitting in Milan beside one of the most beautiful people you know. Realizing how many celebrities recognized you, and how many more wanted to know you, amazed you. You were sitting beside Anne Hathaway, star of one of your favorite movie franchises: The Princess Diaries. You talked to A$AP Rocky, a rapper you’d admired for a while, and you met the incomparable Donatella Versace.

She’d told you if she could have two ambassadors, she would!

The show ended in tremendous applause, and you and Hyunjin walked back outside to the cameras and reporters. The two of you followed the crowds into another room where they served drinks, food and played music.

“I’ve never been good at parties,” you admitted to Hyunjin as he handed you a glass of champagne. “I didn’t go to many of them as a kid.”

“Well, that’s what this is for,” he said, clinking his glass with yours, “Liquid fun. It’s been helping introverts at parties since the beginning of time.”

Taking sips of the expensive champagne, the two of you were taken around the room by your separate escorts. You met more famous people, took photos with them and talked. This could not really be happening. You’d bumped into a famous artist whose paintings Hyunjin introduced you to recently, and another actress whose works you’d followed for years. They all appeared down to earth like you, but the fact that you even talked to them made you giddy. The champagne left you feel loose and light, though not sloppy or slurred. You knew your limits.

“Dance with me,” Hyunjin said, smiling lopsidedly and pulling you to the dance floor.

“I…I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Jinnie,” you answered, heat rising in your cheeks. Too many people. Too many eyes. Even with the alcohol in your system, you knew better.

“Come on,” he pleaded, taking you closer to the dance floor, “Let’s be naughty for a bit.” He winked, and you thought you might die.

“Your definition of ‘naughty’ is way different than mine.”

“I know,” he giggled, finally getting to the crowded dance floor.

You shouldn’t, but you blame the alcohol and Hyunjin’s beautiful face for making you move with him. You yearned for his touch, his closeness. Brief flashes of skin whenever Hyunjin moved tempted you. Seeing his plump lips, glossy and champagne-flavored looked so inviting and kissable. Why and how did he have this effect on you?

“You can be closer,” he said, getting within inches of you. “If anyone says anything, we’ll say the floor was crowded and we couldn’t help it.” He put his hand on your chest, sliding it to your belt, “That I couldn’t help it.”

“If you don’t stop right now,” you warned, though your laugh made it less serious.

“What? You’ll spank me?” he challenged with a smirk. “I like being spanked.”

In the dimness of the room, surrounded by other couples and dancers, you brought him close by the waist.

“You want to be naughty? Then let’s be naughty,” you said, moving to the music with him.

“I like tipsy YN,” he said, moving his hips with yours. “He’s hot.”

“How can I keep my hands to myself when you’re being such a tease?”

He leaned inches into you, “Don’t keep them to yourself, then. Touch me,” he whispered, lips on your ear as your bodies swayed to the music, “I love having your hands on me. You know exactly where to touch to get me worked up.”

Yes, you did. You’d seen him and Changbin together enough to know by now. They enjoyed sending pictures and videos to the group chat occasionally. The two of you danced together; not too close, but enough that your hands didn't leave his torso for too long. You let your hands glide up and down Hyunjin’s sides, feeling down to his tiny waist. The longer you touched him, the more heated the both of you became. The champagne hit you when you took up a second glass. Hyunjin laughed at you being a lightweight, but you almost told him it wasn’t the drinks making you so bubbly. Everything inside you screamed to take him to a dark corner, yet you stayed on the dance floor.

“Hyung,” he breathed in your ear after a few songs, “Take me back to the hotel. The tub in my room is made for fucking.”

You groaned, the music drowning it out so nobody else heard you. You took his hand and led him through the room. Finding your manager by the door, you told him you and Hyunjin wanted to go. Clearly, he didn’t see you two on the dance floor, since you received no scolding or knowing looks. You said your goodbyes, then made your way into the car.

“Come here, pretty.”

The partition between you and the driver up, you didn’t hesitate to kiss Hyunjin. His lips felt as soft as they always did. You cupped his cheek, feeling the warmth on your palm, as you deepened your kiss. His hand sliding across your lap, he lightly grazed your crotch and gave it a gentle squeeze. Your body never yearned for touch so badly before. You needed him against you, touching and kissing you. All the clothes separating you needed to come off, so you could take in every inch of Hwang Hyunjin.

“Hyung,” he laughed as you kissed down his neck, “I love it when you’re needy.”

You planted kisses wherever his jacket allowed, giving soft sucks and bites to the tender parts. His hand stayed on your groin, but he mostly let you take the lead. The intoxicating champagne and Hyunjin’s warmth made you feel dizzy and light headed. All you could focus on was his slim body underneath your hands, the muscles tensing at your touch. He carefully rubbed the outline of your dick pressing to your pants lightly, casually going over the round tip before going back down. Taking advantage of the long drive, you pushed him into a corner of the car and started kissing down his body. The phantom feeling of his hand on your cock stayed with you, as if he was somehow still doing it. Kissing him deeply, you started groping the bulge forming in his tight pants. When the car stopped, Hyunjin grinned as he pulled away from you.

“Your room or mine?”

“Yours. I want to see this tub you mentioned.”

Climbing out of the car, you walked through the lobby together. With only your managers following you, neither of you felt shy enough to keep away from one another. You each put your arm around each other’s waist and walked to the elevator. The staff let you both go up alone, which you never felt more excited about. Instantly, your lips found him again. Pressing him to the wall, you knew you didn’t have much time. Normally, you and the members kept the touching to a minimum in public. Simple back hugs, close proximity and fake flirting were as close to physical affection as you could take it. Some fans still made their interpretations, going far enough to ship you all together, but nothing concrete. Yet right now, in this steel box, you’d risk it all if it meant getting to kiss Hyunjin. Hands going up underneath his jacket, you felt the lace and satin shirt he wore. Another irritating barrier. Hyunjin moaned against your lips, pushing up against you while he did the same. The satin floral shirt you wore became an annoying obstacle you both had to overcome. Eventually, the elevator reached your floor, and Hyunjin led you down the hall. Removing his jacket, he teasingly threw it at you as he untucked the shirt. It looked good on him. Your eyes locked on how the fabric looked against his skin and shaped out his silhouette.

God, he was beautiful.

You reached his door, and you watched him fumble for his room key. Once you stepped inside, you brought him back into your arms. Clumsily kicking off your shoes, you each took turns removing pieces of one another’s outfits. Every removal stoked your eagerness for him. The moment you stood naked in his room, you observed the lines and muscles of his body. You followed them down to his cock hanging between his thighs. Barely hard, you still enjoyed the sight of it. You gently took it in your hand for several long strokes that made him whimper in your ear.

“It's so nice,” you said to him, looking downwards. “I could play with this for hours.”

“Yours is nicer,” he replied, grabbing your dick next. You groaned at the sudden contact of his cold fingers against your hot skin. “It's so big. I thought it might rip me open when you first put it in me.”

“It’s not that big,” you laughed, “Why does everyone say that?”

“Because it is,” he said in a low voice, giving it a soft squeeze, “You're almost as big as Chan…” he gave you a lingering kiss, “Getting fucked by both of you would be heaven. I don't think my ass would ever be the same.”

Your cheeks actually burned. Hyunjin kissed down your neck, giving your collarbone a soft peck before going further down. “I love having more than one,” he said, kneeling in front of you and gently rubbing your length. “Don’t you?”

“I do,” you said.

“Pervert,” he smirked, kissing the tip. “You never say ‘no’. I love it.”

“I literally can’t say no,” you laughed softly, your brain focused on his hand rather than the words. “You all make me so fucking weak, it’s pathetic.”

“You make us pretty weak too,” he said, pressing his lips to the underside of the head. “It’s not because you’re new either. We can tell you’re like us.” You shivered when he licked the wrinkles to the thick vein slowly pumping blood into your cock. “We knew it when we started catching you doing all the pervy stuff you were doing around us. It’s nice being around someone who understands you, and enjoys the same things as you.” He gave your shaft a soft squeeze, “You also just fit with us so well. It’s like once we met, we knew we’d found our ninth member. You’re the breath of fresh air, to be honest.”

“It is good being able to be open about who I am for once,” you said, softly gripping his hair, “Even if it’s behind closed doors. I always worried someone might find out for real, and I’d never debut.”

“Chan would’ve made sure that never happened,” he said, stroking you as you got harder. “He likes you a lot. I think he might like you more than the rest of us,” he giggled.

“I doubt that's true.”

“Then, he’s the horniest for you for sure. I don’t blame him though. I thirst after you pretty hard sometimes. There’s a reason I always end up at the gym at the same time as you.” His mouth fell open and he placed the tip on his tongue. Giving it a few taps, he then said, “Will you fuck me there one day? I’d go to the gym more often if I knew I’d get a few inches of your dick each time.”

“God yes,” you sighed, watching his hand slide up and down your hardon. “That’d be so fucking hot.”

You stared down, hands resting behind your back as Hyunjin took over. Toes curling into the carpet, every little lick and kiss sent more sparks of pleasure to your groin. You didn’t know how much longer you’d last once he fully stuck you in his mouth. You couldn’t look away from the plump lips tightly sucking you from top to bottom or the dark eyes staring up at you needily. His own dick stuck up to his stomach, and you groaned when you caught him stroking himself in time with you. He didn’t protest when you slid your hand into his hair to force him further down your cock. The back of his throat hugged your tip, fluttering around as it tried swallowing the bits of precum falling through but gagging instead. Hyunjin’s soft moans turned into low vibrations that had you bucking your hips forward.

“Fuck me,” he coughed, spitting thick globs of precum and spit onto your cock before spreading it over. “Please, hyung. I can’t wait anymore.”

Never one to waste time, you lifted him from the floor onto the bed nearby. Hyunjin giggled when you nearly tossed him and then crawled over him. Your lips met his again as you laid on top of him, grinding your wet cock against his ass when you lifted his legs up. Everything in you broke loose, so where you’d normally drag things out, you pushed the first inch inside him. Hyunjin’s grip on his knees tightened, arms going around them to keep them to his stomach as you went further. The walls of his throat were nothing compared to his ass. Your eyes rolled back in each push, your body shaking when you finally plunged all the way in. Propped up on your fists, you didn’t hold back this time. You gave this beautiful, tempting siren exactly what he wanted: to be fucked by you.

All the teasing in the car and the blowjob brought out the feral, primal need for release. You rocked your hips into Hyunjin, his ass rippling every time your balls smacked into the bottom curves, and didn’t stop. Not even when your arms started quaking from holding you up or when your thighs and hips burned. Hyunjin’s desperate whines and whimpers turned into loud moans the closer he came to his orgasm. You felt him almost purposefully clenching around you, drawing you to the brink of pleasure.

“Cum inside me,” he pleaded, opening his legs so you saw the dick leaking all over his stomach. “I love it when you do it.”

“Oh yeah?” you grabbed his thighs, holding them up to your waist as you changed your angle. “You love having cum in your ass?”

“I do, I do, I do,” he cried, starting to touch himself in front of you. The slick, wet noises of his strokes joined the ones further down. “It feels so good. I cum every time anyone does it. Please, hyung, please-yes, yes, like that!”

You couldn’t stop yourself this time. Your body turned rigid, shivering and shuddering as you released inside Hyunjin’s bottom. You looked down to see your cum, thick and white, gradually leaking out in every thrust. The tight hole worked out each drop right as Hyunjin’s own climax came. Spurting everywhere, you couldn’t look away. His body constricted in every long moan, and his hand erratically pumped until he finished.

When it finally ended, you stayed buried in him as you both shared deep, long kisses. Hyunjin locked himself around you, and you slid your arms under his shoulders to keep him close. Out of habit, you made a thrust or two that earned you a soft moan. For several minutes, you enjoyed being close to him. You took in the scent of his faint cologne, and the shampoo and hair products lingering in his black hair. Your hands went down his body, giving his hips a squeeze.

“Can we keep going?” he asked after a while, eyes closed as you kissed his cheek. “I need more.”

“Let’s get you cleaned up first, yeah?” you suggested, kissing from his neck to his collarbone. “I still want to see his tub of yours.

The suggestion of more made Hyunjin smirk, “It really is nice.”

“Mine was too,” you said, carefully withdrawing. Thin streams of white dripped out of him once you did, and you held him open to watch it for a second. He twitched when you swiped your thumb over it, spreading the substance around.

“Am I going to get a second load, hyung?” he asked, pushing down to your hand.

“Of course,” you said. “Hyung will give you as much as he can.”

The bathroom really was nice. Clearly, whoever designed it had horny newlywed couples in mind: the shower easily fit two or three people and was made entirely of glass. A wide mirror sat atop a marble sink counter, and more of them surrounded the corner tub. Hyunjin prepared for this moment. You spotted the lavender bubble bath sitting at the edge of the tub, which was already full of water and soap bubbles. Purple flower petals floated on the water amongst the rich lather, and someone placed fake candles in the corners. What caught your eye was the ice bucket on the floor: a bottle of wine with two glasses sat chilled inside unopened.

“You planned this,” you said from behind him, wrapping your arms around him. “Naughty boy.”

“I couldn’t resist,” he said, turning around to touch your chest. “I saw this bathtub and knew I had to be fucked in it by the hottest guy I know.”

“But, Changbin’s not here?” You joked.

“One of the hottest guys I know, then,” he said, laughing as he brought you to the tub. “Little did I know you’d fuck me beforehand.”

“You sucked my dick,” you reasoned, “And told me to fuck you. How could I say ‘no’?”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

Fitting both of you comfortably, he stepped in first to rest against the rounded corner. You followed, surprised by the warmth.

“Who did this?” you asked, sliding into the space next to him.

“One of the staff,” he reached down for the wine, and twisted it open. “She went out and got the stuff, and set it up on our way here.”

If you’re thankful for anything, it’s the Stray Kids’ staff members. Hyunjin poured both of you wine, and the mixture of the soothing bath, a post-orgasm glow, and Hyunjin’s naked body became a deadly combination. Taking sips, you relaxed in the water to unwind from the nerve wracking day. You found it hard to not touch him. Even if he said he enjoyed it, you still cleaned up Hyunjin the best you could. The delicate touches soothed your younger member, who curled up close to you as you cleaned his lower half first.

“I’m glad it’s me and you here,” he said softly, kissing you.

“Because you get to have me to yourself?” you teased, pulling him across your lap.

His arm around your neck, the other laid on your chest as he spoke. “Not only that,” he grinned, “But because you make me feel good. I feel okay with you. I don’t feel that way with that many people.”

“Really? You always seem so at ease with people.”

“I sort of have to force myself to be,” he admitted, “Otherwise people might think I’m being rude or not interested in what’s going on.” He leaned his head on your shoulder, tracing patterns between your pecs. “When I first got the invite, I was like ‘oh no, I’m going alone and it’ll be so awkward’, but then you said you got one too and I was so relieved. A holiday alone with you at a big fancy fashion show? It made me feel good about it. You’re better with people.”

“Am not,” you repeated. “I have to force it too. I’ve never been extroverted before I started training in Kpop groups. I knew if I wanted it to work, I needed to actually talk to my members. But…” your insides squirmed, “I also was scared they’d find out about me if I talked too much. I was always afraid of getting too comfortable and revealing it.” The memory of Beomgyu’s fists slamming hard into your face made you shudder, “So, after a while, I stopped getting close.”

“You feel okay with us though,” Hyunjin asked, “Right?”

“I do. I’ve never felt more at ease in a group before now.”

“Channie-hyung was like that too when we first put the group together,” he said, sipping from his wine glass. “He’d been let down a lot, and didn’t want to get too close to us until the show.” He paused, “You guys have a lot in common. Not just interest wise, but the way you are.”

“No we’re not.”

“You are,” he insisted. “Chan is this big protective leader and you’re the same way. You both are incredibly kind and passionate. You engage with Stays the same way, talk to the members the same way…It’s like you’re both the same person sometimes.”

This astute comparison to Chan knotted your stomach. You've thought about him a lot lately. More than usual since arriving in Milan. Like Hyunjin with you, Chan made you feel safe. You didn’t worry so much with him around, because you knew he’d have your back and watch out for you. Not many people have done that since you came to Seoul.

“He really likes you,” Hyunjin said, breaking through your thoughts. “Chan, I mean. He likes you a lot.”

“Yeah, because we’re group members and he’s our le-”

“-Shut up, you know that’s not what I meant,” Hyunjin said, lightly splashing your chest. “He looks out for all of us, and always tries his best to care for us, but I notice he does it for you the most. I swear, if you say it’s because you’re new, I’m getting out of this tub and you can sort your dick out yourself,” he laughed before you could disagree. “It’s not because you’re new. It’s because you two have a connection, and he knows it. He wishes you knew it too.”

“How do you know? Has he…Has he said that?”

“In a way,” he shrugged. “We were in bed together not that long ago and I asked him. Not in a jealous way, but I was curious about it. He said you were somebody special to him, and you made him nervous sometimes. He doesn’t really have to say it, though. He always gets all shy and blushes when any of us tease him for having a crush on you.”

Hearing this brought heat to your cheeks. You drank from your wine glass to cool it down, but it hardly worked. “Really?”

“You two are so cute,” he cooed, pinching your cheek. His eyes went from sweet to alluring as he said, “And hot.”

“Jinnie…”

“What? It’s true,” he said, fingers trailing down your left to one nipple. “You make me horny so easily,” he grazed his fingertips over the hardening peak, knowing what it did to you. “All you have to do is touch me sometimes and I want to pounce on you,” the both of you laughed, kissing softly. “I’d originally wanted to fuck in here at first, but when you took out that big dick of yours-”

“-It’s above average at best-”

“-I had to have it right then.”

You slid your hand over his lap, going back to touching his soft dick. “Is that so?”

“Yes,” he nodded, wriggling when you touched him. He continued pinching your nipple as he whispered, “I haven’t stopped thinking about it since comeback night when you rearranged my guts. You fucked me so good,” he pecked your lips, “And so deep. I didn’t want to stop.”

“Neither did I.”

“Then don’t this time.”

Hyunjin did not need to be told to straddle your lap. The water only coming up close to his midsection, your soapy hands had access to the top half. Kissing up his sternum, your hands slid over the curves and slopes of his body. He shifted around when you reached his lips, fingers crossing over his nipples every so often. You spent time studying his body; taking in the shape of him. His cock pressed right against yours in his seat, and he began returning the favor by rubbing your chest, shoulders and arms. You felt his desire growing between his thighs, only encouraging your own each time he grinded into you. Soon, you began feeling further down his body, kneading your fingers into the softer parts. Your cock pressed to Hyunjin’s, the pressure traveled from balls to head every time he moved around. You could feel exactly where his tip brushed against yours, and his balls just sliding right onto the base of your dick.

“How’s that?” Hyunjin asked, continuing to grind on you with one arm around your neck.

“So good,” you groaned, tweaking one nipple softly. “So, so good.”

Hyunjin brought you in for a deep kiss as he held both your dicks in one hand. He moved suds from between you for you to see it clearly. You loved how his dick looked like squeezed in his hand with yours. Not as big, it still made you drool. Each stroke sent waves of pleasure through your body, tightening in your groin and slowly taking over. You watched him work both of you together, groaning as he tapped his tip against yours to pinch the sensitive nerves there. His nipples so close to your mouth, you reached down to lick one of them which made the pretty boy moan your name. He moved his hand faster when you reached around to grope his ass. The supple mounds filled your hands, and molded to your tender squeezes. Hyunjin lifted your head by the chin to make you look at him.

“Finger me,” he panted, kissing your lips. “Finger me while you suck my dick, please. I want your pretty lips around me, Hyung.”

“Sit up here for me then,” you told him, patting the small corner where he could sit, “Hyung will take good care of you tonight.”

You both maneuvered around until he sat in front of you. Feet propped up on either side, Hyunjin became completely exposed and vulnerable to you. The picture of him spread out, breathless and aching made you harder, and you desperately wanted to pound him into the mirror behind him. The lingering droplets of water streamed down his length, sliding onto his balls. You started from bottom to top, keeping it light and playful with teasing flicks and quick kisses. You’d add your palm strokes into the mix, seeing the black-haired beauty squirm each time your hand passed over the most sensitive part. You coated your fingers in your spit and started rolling them around his entrance below. Having him resting in your mouth sparked a new arousal you couldn’t control. The heaviness on your tongue, the smooth skin sliding over it made your dick throb in the water. The hole below clenched and unclenched at your fingers, almost like inviting you to sink them

His cock throbbed in your hand, feeling heavier and thicker as you worked him. You knew it’d be a while before he came again, considering his previous orgasm, but you didn’t mind. You could go all night, if he wished. Hyunjin’s mouth hung open in low moans; he gripped the corners of the tub, hands even sliding on the mirrors for something to grab onto. You looked up to see his head fall back as you stuck one finger halfway inside him. The image of his hole stretching to your movements was a drool worthy sight. His walls squeezed tight around the digit, fluttering and pulling it further each time you withdrew and pushed back in. Once it was to the last knuckle, you kept it there for several seconds as you sucked his hard tip.

“YN,” he whined, “Put another finger…Please? Please, finger me harder…faster…please. Please. I can take it, I swear.”

“I know you can,” you smirked up at him, “But I like teasing pretty boys like you. You always look so cute when you squirm around,” you flick your tongue over the twitching muscle in front of you, “And get harder and harder for me.”

“Hyung,” he cried out, moving his hips around but getting nowhere. “Please. I promise I’ll be a good boy. I’ll be your….your good boy….”

“Good to know,” you said, sucking on the head as you pumped your fingers through his hole. “Because only good boys get to cum with me. You be patient and enjoy my fingers, baby, and you’ll get fucked soon, okay?”

“O-Okay.”

He cried out and gripped your hair when you slipped the tip in your mouth. One arm around your thigh for support, you spat on your fingers again and shoved a second finger. This made Hyunjin more desperate, but he stayed put as you’d ordered. You took in another inch every other stroke, causing the raven-haired beauty to moan out your name in between curses. The sensitivity kicked in once he reached your throat. The thickness of him blocked your airway, penetrating as deep as you could take it while still humming, and you loved it. His legs twitched when you finally fingered him faster. Not fast enough to satisfy him, but enough to make him moan louder.

“Such a good boy,” you groaned against his dick, not taking it out completely. “That’s it. Stay right there. Don’t move.”

You took him to the base and fingered him how he’d wanted for a few seconds. The choking caused drool to drip from the hilt, which you slurped up obscenely. He gave a frustrated cry when you stopped suddenly, bucking his hips around. By the time you pulled off him, your throat burned and your jaw ached, but you still kissed and licked up his dripping cock. You simply couldn’t get enough of it. You realized how tender your cock was when you pressed him against the mirrored wall and put his legs and arms around you. You were thankful for all those weight training sessions with Changbin.

As he’d requested, you did not take it easy on him. Keeping him pinned to the wall, you did your best to bottom up into him. Your balls smacking the lower curves of his ass, hips slapping the backs of his thighs, you pounded him. Your cock throbbed against the hole pulling you; the faint tickle of your balls hitting him added to the pleasure.

“Fuck, you’re so hot, hyung,” he breathed, head turned to the mirror at the edge of the tub. “You’re fucking me so well and so deep. I can see your dick going in and out. It’s so fucking hot.”

You grabbed his chin and forced him to watch you fuck him instead. The both of you stayed in that position, taking in the sight of your bodies pressed together. “You like watching yourself get fucked, huh?” you teased, leaning back to grab his leaking cock. “Do you?”

“Yes, yes,” he whined through his teeth, unable to move into you in his folded position. “I love wat-wa-watching you fu-u-fuck me.”

He cried when you pulled out, but you didn’t stay out for long. You helped him turn around, arching his back before shoving your dick back inside. Grabbing his hair, you kept it in the same direction as you continued the same pace.

“Stroke yourself,” you grunted, smacking his ass with your free hand, “Make the picture prettier by touching yourself for me.”

He didn’t hesitate. Hyunjin rapidly jerked his dick in time with your thrusts. You nearly came from seeing the vision in the mirror. Your dick really did stretch Hyunjin out, and the both of you couldn’t get enough of it. Things stayed this way until your lover and you exited the tub for the floor. His phone nearby on the counter, Hyunjin turned on his camera and handed it to you. You did not need to be told what to do. Pressing the record button, Hyunjin started riding you facing forward so the camera had a perfect view of him. You both knew how much the members would enjoy it.

“That’s it, just like that,” you groaned, grabbing and pinching his nipple. “Just like that, good boy.”

“Hyung, hyung, hyung,” he whined on every bounce. “Hyung, your dick feels fucking amazing. I can-can’t ge-get enough of it! Don’t stop fucking me! Even when we cum, please, don’t stop.”

“Trust me, I’m not going to. You’ve been after my dick all night, and you're getting every inch.”

The words quickened Hyunjin’s pace. Face flushed, lips swollen and open, and his erection flopping with him might’ve sent you over the edge. He lost all control when you started pushing your hips to meet him, hard and fast as he’d wanted. Soon, he was quivering and shaking in place, drool falling from his lips as his eyes rolled back and closed. You knew you were hitting the right spot; you could feel it every time you hit a different angle. Hyunjin did not stop as he started cumming. His cum sprayed everywhere in his ride, falling on you and him in thick streams. You managed to withhold your own orgasm despite his tightening body. You propped the phone against the bottom of the tub, and carefully rolled him onto his stomach. Hyunjin knew what position you wanted, and immediately lifted his ass into the air. Hands curling into the fluffy bath rug under him, he stayed firmly in place as you pushed back into him.

You made sure the camera caught a good angle of your dick filling his ass in every thrust. You didn’t slow down or soften on him. The feeling of him taking you so well became addicting. You loved watching your dick ruin everyone else for him. Soon, you were shaking and gripping his hips hard. Hyunjin, jerking himself off, whimpered as you came inside him again. Your dick twitching and pulsating had him moaning with you, even if he wasn’t climaxing. You made sure to push your cum back in as deep as possible, wanting to coat his walls with your seed.

Hyunjin laughed breathily when you didn’t stop. Withdrawing, you started lapping up the cum dripping from him. He wriggled around when your tongue snaked through and started probing his tight hole. The bumpy walls hugged the muscle like they’d done to your cock, not wanting it to exit but somehow go further. Your face buried in his ass, your arms locked around his thighs, Hyunjin could do nothing but writhe around on the floor and grasp at the rug and tiled floors. His pathetic whimpering aroused you once again, and you couldn’t explain how. Knowing the camera still filmed you encouraged you to do more.

“Use my hole, YN. Use my hole to cum again.”

Four orgasms. You have no idea how either of you managed four, but you did. Having left the bathroom, you both ended up back on the bed with Hyunjin holding the phone as he filmed you in the closet mirror. Straddling one of his thighs, you laid him on his back with one lifted so you could enter him. Exhaustion began weighing you down, but the need for one more had you going. You laid on top of him in a similar position, kissing the nape of his neck and shoulders as you humped him. The sensitivity made you quiver each time, and it wasn’t soon after that the two of you came together.

“That was…so good,” Hyunjin said, taking deep breaths and burying his face into the pillow for a moment. “Amazing.”

“Exactly how you wanted?” you asked, melting on top of him as you finally gave into your tiredness.

“Yes,” he laughed weakly, unable to move from how worn out he felt.

He turned off the video, and you watched him send it through hazy eyes. “You all really like sending nudes, huh?” you joked, kissing his shoulder.

“It’s only fair to-to share good experiences,” he giggled, putting his phone aside.

You pulled from him, twitching at the last slide against your sensitive cock. Laying on your back, every thought of tomorrow remained in the back of your mind. You knew in a few hours a manager would knock on the door and find you both in your marked-up, worn out, naked state. Usually, you’d have some kind of shame when you were found by one of them, but right then you couldn’t care less. The two of you made vain attempts to clean yourself up with wet wipes Hyunjin kept nearby, then rolled under the covers together.

Like last time, the members were shocked and aroused by the video. They marveled at your endurance and stamina; Changbin claimed credit for getting you into working out, which greatly helps. You didn’t know how to explain what happened, but only that Hyunjin worked you up too much to not go a few more times.

“We should go on vacations together more often,” Hyunjin said the next morning as you both carefully dressed yourselves. Last night’s vigorous romp left your muscles sore and stiff. “If that’s the kind of fucking you do away from home,” he sneered.

“I don’t know what came over me,” you laughed as he walked into your arms. You kissed him gently, nuzzling his nose, “I’d blame the champagne and wine, but that wouldn’t make sense.”

“Just say it’s because we’re both super horny sluts and forget about it,” he said, kissing you one more time before pulling away. Zipping up the suitcase on the bed, he took your hand and pecked your lips again, “Let’s get going. We’ll miss our flight.”

“Right. Yeah, of course.”

In the van, you checked your phone for messages and saw a message from Felix. Your body flushed with heat when you saw it was a photo of him wearing nothing but boxers and an anal plug in his ass.

“Please fuck me like that when we hang out again. I've never gone that long before.”

As you expected, Han also messaged you. In his, he sat on a dildo which he rode in a loop.

“See? I can fuck like that too. Can I be next?? I promise I'll be good 🥺”

You had no idea who you wanted next.

****

A/N: These boys are totally horny for this boy, haha. Another totally self-indulgent newbie fic. lmao I hope you guys enjoyed this one too! remember to reblog/like too <3

#stray kids #stray kids fanfiction #stray kids fanfic #hwang hyunjin #hyunjin stray kids #hyunjin skz #skz fanfic #hyunjin x male reader #skz smut #stray kids smut #male reader x hyunjin #stray kids x male reader

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elliesbelle · 11 months ago

Text

nobody compares to you

chapter 13

pairing: ellie x reader

synopsis: you're in your junior year of college and at a party, you run into the girl who broke your heart: ellie williams. despite the time it took to reset your life, will you risk a broken heart again for her?

content warnings: modern college au, cursing, angst, dealer!ellie, mentions of marijuana and descriptions of its usage, descriptions of anaphylactic shock, brief mention of needles, descriptions of anxiety, mentions of death, descriptions of jealousy, mentions of breakups, several flashback scenes, mentions of LSD and its usage, descriptions of acid tripping, ellie's POV, minors do not interact

word count: 9k

chapters: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen

series masterlist

my masterlist

i have a ko-if if you like my work so much that you feel compelled to tip me ♡︎

the "nobody compares to you" spotify playlist

songs featured in this chapter (including a surprise audio AND drawing commission in the middle of the fic):

the aaron taylor song “i think i love you again”

the carpenters song “merry christmas darling”

palestine will be free

“Where the fuck even are you?”

“Not home.”

“Well, no shit. I’m literally sitting on your living room couch, dumbass.”

“Get out of my apartment, weirdo.”

“Stop procrastinating, asshole.”

Ellie rolls her eyes as a couple of bright yellow leaves slowly dance down on the pavement from the nearby trees on her path home. One hand holds her phone up in front of her with Dina’s face front and center on the screen through FaceTime.

Having just dropped off a rather large order to a couple of stoner sophomores living on campus, Ellie’d decided to take the longer, more scenic route home instead of the usual way she’d go every day. She had a “date” lined up with Daniela in about an hour or so, a meeting she wasn’t particularly looking forward to being present for. Having no real enthusiasm to actually be on time to meet up with her, Ellie was purposely and leisurely delaying her return home to get ready.

Dina, busy lounging on the couch in Jesse and Ellie’s living room, busies herself by finishing a bland, microwaveable box of mac and cheese she’d found shoved in the back of the duo’s full freezer. She was casually killing time talking to Ellie through video chat while she waited for Jesse to finish getting ready for their movie date night.

Jesse enjoyed dragging Dina along to a movie theater in the neighbouring downtown area that showed old and foreign films. Back home in Jackson throughout their childhood, he and Ellie would make Dina sit through old sci-fi pictures, cult horror films, martial arts movies in a completely different language and with no subtitles. Dina would sit in the middle of the two in complete boredom as she listened to them psychoanalyzing background characters who had two lines and spending hours explaining their personal interpretations of a single camera angle in some inconsequential scene.

When they all began attending university, Jesse was over the moon upon discovering the nearby theater and the kind of films they would show. Dina complained every single time, but she secretly enjoyed these date nights regardless, always arguing with Jesse on the way home with her own analyses of the movie they’d just seen. She was a little less enthusiastic this time, however, upon hearing that the film they were about to go see was an early 2000s Bollywood movie that had a running time of nearly four hours.

Jesse had just gotten home from working out at the gym and was busy showering, and Dina decided to preoccupy herself in the meantime by thoroughly berating Ellie for her disinterest and voluntary tardiness for her “date” later that evening.

“El, I really don’t understand why you’re even bothering with her,” Dina says after a huge, wet slurp of her mac and cheese. “Leave that poor freshman girl alone. You really don’t even seem to like her that much.”

“She’s still got Joel’s jacket and I want it back.” Ellie shrugs nonchalantly.

“Maybe if you didn’t pass that shabby old thing around to every new girl you see for a month…” Dina replies, not bothering to mutter under her breath.

“Oh, leave me the fuck alone, Woodward,” Ellie says, chuckling. “Slutshamer.”

Jesse jaunts into the living room, jet black hair damp from the shower and fully dressed, and spots Ellie’s face on Dina’s tiny screen. He waltzes towards the couch and, without any warning, stealthily snatches Dina’s phone right out of her hand.

“Hey!” Dina protests indignantly, trying to reach for it back.

Jesse ignores her as Ellie laughs.

“Yo, what the fuck, Williams.” Jesse scolds the auburn-haired girl.

“Wassup, Chang.”

“What the hell did you ditch me and the gym for earlier? Today’s our cardio day.”

“Had a huge delivery I needed to make,” Ellie shrugs. “Wanted two 40 bags on top of a few lavender pre-rolls. And they lived on the opposite side of campus.”

“A likely excuse,” Jesse scoffs. “I think you’ve been harbouring a secret, years-long grudge against me and actually hate me for some reason.”

“Oh, it’s not a secret. I do hate you.”

“Dickhead.” Jesse chuckles as Dina heartily laughs behind him with a mouthful of mac and cheese.

Before Jesse can continue to berate his best friend, his own phone rings noisily from the inside of one of his jeans pockets.

“Oh, look. Someone who actually loves and appreciates me.” He says indignantly, handing small-scale Ellie back to Dina.

Ellie playfully rolls her eyes, trying to ignore the fact that Jesse’s phone is currently buzzing and blaring with the personalized ringtone he’d set for your contact years ago shortly after you’d all met for the first time.

Dina, recognizing the familiar sound as well and noticing Ellie’s tight lips and rigid expression, quickly attempts to change the subject.

“So where exactly are you gonna be meeting up with the Daniela girl?” Dina quickly asks Ellie at the same time that Jesse booms, “Good evening once again to my absolute favourite person in the whole world!”

Ellie hesitantly begins to reply to Dina but cuts off almost immediately when she hears Jesse’s tone turn serious and mutter a name she’d come to despise.

“Oh. Hey, Anderson. What’s up?” Jesse says blankly. “Where’s—”

“Oh, shit.” Dina inadvertently murmurs as Ellie’s face immediately goes red with fury.

“Why the fuck is Anderson calling Jesse on her phone?” Ellie demands quietly of Dina.

“I mean… she is on a date with her tonight…” Dina reluctantly admits, knowing that lying to Ellie about your current whereabouts is pointless after figuring Jesse would eventually blab it to her anyway.

“Are you fucking serious?” Ellie seethes.

“I don’t really know why she’d be calling Jesse, though. That doesn’t make any sense...” Dina says, setting down her fork and turning her head back towards her boyfriend as Ellie watches intently him from the corner of Dina’s phone screen.

Both girls stare Jesse down as he intently listens to the other end of the line, the two getting more and more nervous as his face gets stonier as each second passes. When he finally speaks, his voice is grave and urgent.

“Is she breathing?”

“What?” Both Dina and Ellie simultaneously say in distress, which Jesse ignores.

“What did she eat?” He asks Abby.

“What’s going on?” Dina implores of him fearfully, sitting up straighter in her seat and completely abandoning her partially eaten mac and cheese on the coffee table.

Jesse holds up a pointer finger as an indication that he needs to keep listening as Ellie hushes her sternly, fiercely trying to eavesdrop on Jesse’s conversation.

“Okay. What did you eat?” Jesse questions.

The way Jesse’s face falls elicits a sharply drawn breath from Dina and drains all the colour from Ellie’s face.

“Did she have any?” He asks.

While Jesse listens for Abby’s lengthy response, Ellie quickly averts her eyes back to Dina.

“Dina.” She says hastily. “Where did Anderson take her tonight?”

“Orchards. It’s that fancy restaurant that’s like, right by here.”

“I know. They serve a lot of seafood there, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think Anderson ordered any?”

“El, how am I supposed to know that?”

“Well, does Anderson know that she’s deadly fucking allergic to shellfish? That she can’t even fucking touch that shit?”

Dina’s terrified face suddenly goes completely pale before she responds.

“I-I don’t know...”

“Does she have any pockets or some kind of bag with her?” They hear Jesse say. “See if she has her EpiPen in there.”

“E-El… I don’t think she does.” Dina stammers.” I helped her get dressed tonight and I saw her before she left, and I-I don’t think—”

Ellie nearly drops her phone on the pavement from how clammy her hands have become from complete fear. When she hears Jesse fiercely mutter a furious “fuck,” she immediately breaks into a sprint.

“Dina!” Ellie demands. “Give me back to Jesse! Now!” Dina hastily hands her phone to her petrified boyfriend without question as he quickly asks Abby to stay calm and give him a quick second.

“Jess!” Ellie breathlessly yells, not bothering to keep her voice down and without any concern for the fellow students she was alarming as she ran by. “Go to my room right now and search in the bottom drawer of my desk!!!”

Promptly and silently, Jesse darts in the direction of Ellie’s bedroom with Dina following closely behind him.

“There’s an old EpiPen of hers somewhere in there! I think it’s probably a couple of months expired now, but grab it anyway!”

Jesse and Dina unceremoniously bust into Ellie’s bedroom and follow her instructions precisely. After forcibly yanking open the bottom-most drawer of her computer desk, they begin to desperately rifle through it. After a few seconds of frantic ransacking through its miscellaneous contents, Jesse pulls out a thick, plastic cylindrical object with tiny lettering embellished all over the translucent plastic.

“Look for the little slot on the side of it that shows you some liquid-y shit inside!” Ellie presses him. “Is it still completely clear and clean, or is it all brown and murky?”

“It’s clear.” Jesse replies after quickly inspecting the EpiPen.

“Okay, go!” Ellie orders. “Dina’s gonna call 911 right now! Orchards is right around the corner from our place, so run! Inject the needle on the outside of her thigh! And check her pulse and see if she’s breathing, ‘cause you’ll need to do CPR if she isn’t! Paramedics probably won’t get there for another five minutes or so, so you just gotta keep doing chest compressions until they can get there!”

Jesse nods and immediately sprints out of the room after handing Dina her phone, placing his own back to his ear and quickly informing Abby that he’d be there shortly, firmly asking her to check your pulse.

Dina sets her eyes on Ellie, pure terror engraved on her face.

“Ellie, s-shouldn’t we grab the EpiPen she has now in her apartment? I think I know where it is, probably. Isn’t that safer than—”

“Her apartment is fifteen minutes away from that restaurant and Jesse can get there in two! We can’t waste any more time!” Ellie clarifies quickly. “Now, I need you to hang up right away and call 911 and explain everything that’s just happened! Go!”

Ellie doesn’t bother waiting for Dina to end the call and roughly taps on the red button herself.

She shoves her phone into the pocket of her hoodie and quickens her pace.

Her lungs winded and her heart threatening to beat out of her chest, she couldn't seem to care any less about her own breathing at that very moment. She trusts nothing else but her own feet to get her exactly where she desperately needs to be. She sees nothing and no one else but the pavement directly in front of her, cutting across the university’s campus through the fastest route she can think of in the moment.

Despite never having been a religious person in any way, Ellie begins to plead a desperate prayer in her mind to whatever god or deity that could possibly exist that you were still breathing somehow and that Jesse had found you and gotten there in time.

She takes a moment to pull her phone out and check how long it’s been since she ended the FaceTime call with Dina, seeing that a little less than five minutes had just passed. She considers calling her once more for any updates; but not wanting to risk being a possible distraction in case Dina is needed in the moment, she ultimately decides against doing so and instead wills her feet to move faster.

Unwelcome thoughts begin to involuntarily flood Ellie’s mind as she sprints.

She thinks of the last time you’d seen each other: that night of your heart-to-heart dinner with Jesse at Sterling’s. It felt almost fated for her and Dina to walk into the same restaurant at the same time that the two of you had been meeting. Ellie recalls the identical look of dismay on both of your faces, equally overwhelmed at the sight of one another. She can still feel the angry yet doleful tears that fell down her red cheeks as she stormed away from the diner, threatening to expose endless repressed feelings of remorse and heartache.

She remembers the day she saw your sudden reunion with Abby Anderson, you dressed in that beautiful floral sundress and very obviously flirting with the tall, muscular blonde. Her nails were so angrily digging into her palms at the sight of you two that she can still feel the phantom marks that had nearly drawn blood. She’d nearly frightened Dina, who was lounging on the living room couch with a joint in hand, when she busted into her and Jesse’s apartment with immediate choice words that were aroused by her unbridled anger.

She recalls the last time you’d actually spoken to one other directly after that miserable, unfortunate night of the Sigma Eta party, how taken aback she was at how you were still so undeniably beautiful underneath the pale moonlight. Having been sitting on the hood of her Jeep while she watched in amusement at your futile attempts to keep yourself warm, she thinks of the way your eyes were furiously and desperately trying to avoid her piercing ocean green gaze. The memory of the angry, fleeting look you’d given Daniela when you’d obviously noticed Joel’s old motorcycle jacket resting on her shoulders is one she can never forget; nor could she the air of raw, bitter indignation that radiated off you at the sight of one of your signature lavender joints nestled in between Daniela’s lips.

She can still feel the visceral rage that sparked inside her from Frat Guy Adam’s casual cruelty towards you, followed by feelings of heartbreak at watching the way your face had fallen at his words. The sheer remorse from pathetically having done nothing right when it happened still weighs on her. Ellie can never forget the simultaneous feelings of shame and comfort she’d felt after your heated encounter with her in the bathroom of Sterling’s: shame from being forcibly confronted with a reminder of the deepest regret of her whole life; and comfort at finally being able to see with her own ocean green eyes, after so long, the face of a person she once adored more than she did anyone else in the world.

Maybe even still.

Ellie eventually finds herself at the intersection right where her shared apartment with Jesse is located. Her hasty pursuit is frustratingly impeded when she’s stopped by the angry, glowing red hand at the crosswalk she needs to get past to reach Orchards, cars endlessly coming one after the other. For a few moments, she’s at least able to catch a much-needed, painful breath.

While she bounces up and down on her feet in impatience, very seriously contemplating running across anyway and risking being hit by a speeding car, Ellie thinks of one thing and one thing only: the first moment her eyes met yours all those years ago. The moment when she knew, deep down and instinctively, that everything had changed.

She’s brutally broken out of her brief reverie by the blaring of sirens booming from around the corner. Her head immediately shoots towards the sound and she watches as two ambulances with flashing red and white lights speed down the road and towards what she believes is the direction of the nearest emergency room.

Ellie wastes no time bolting down the crosswalk the millisecond that the orange pedestrian signal finally blinks to white, sprinting down the street of Orchards. She’s somehow able to spot Dina’s figure in the middle of a small crowd of people gathered next to the restaurant and immediately sprints towards her. By the time Ellie is able to reach her, most of the unfamiliar bystanders have dispersed with whispers. Her heart races as she sees Dina’s cheeks wet and dripping endlessly with tears.

“Dina!” Ellie huffs, using the last of her breath and energy to dash to her side.

“Ellie!” Dina sighs in relief upon spotting her friend.

They envelop each other in a tight embrace, Dina hiccuping slightly into Ellie’s shoulder.

“What happened? Did you guys make it in time? Is she okay? Where is she? Where’s Jesse?” Ellie rambles.

“Sh-she’s okay, I think,” Dina stammers. “She was breathing when Jesse got here, but her pulse was really slow. The paramedics got here a few minutes after Jesse did.”

She sloppily wipes her eyes with the back of her hands before continuing.

“They said that the EpiPen probably saved her life, said that she would have had a lot less of a chance if we had just waited for them to arrive. Expired EpiPen was apparently better than nothing, as long as it wasn’t too far off from when it did expire.”

Ellie takes a relieved breath in at hearing this.

“Thank god. Thank fucking god. That’s what I thought, but I-I honestly wasn’t sure. I couldn’t remember clearly in the moment.”

“How did you even know that?” Dina asks her in genuine curiosity.

“I-I… wh-when we were, you know, t-together…” Ellie mutters awkwardly. “I made sure to know, j-just in case.”

“Oh, Ellie…”

Ellie wrings her hands together and clears her throat in embarrassment.

“So where’s Jess? Where’s Anderson?” She asks, changing the subject and voice dripping in disdain at the last word.

“Jesse rode in the ambulance with her and the paramedics, and Abby said that she’d follow behind in her car,” Dina replies. “I stayed behind ‘cause I figured you were on your way and I wanted to be able to tell you what happened in person.”

“Thank you, D, seriously.”

Dina stares at Ellie earnestly for a moment.

“You really do still love her.” Dina says, not as a question but as a statement.

Ellie doesn’t respond to this remark, her lips tight and her ocean green eyes unreadable.

“Come on. Let’s go see her.”

You had been brought to St. Peter’s Hospital, the closest one located to your university. When Ellie and Dina had gotten there, they found Jesse sitting alone in the mostly empty waiting room. He was staring up at the dreary off-white ceiling, his left leg nervously bouncing up and down as one of his hands gripped his right knee. When he spots the two girls enter the room, he immediately jumps out of his seat to meet them. He pulls his girlfriend into a tight embrace and gives her a tender kiss on the forehead, and then he places a firm and reassuring hand on his best friend’s shoulder.

“How is she?” Ellie asks nervously.

“Unconcious still, but she’s alive,” Jesse replies somberly. “The paramedics in the ambulance told me that they were pumping her full of adrenaline; and so now, they’re either still doing that or they’re just trying to get her heart rate back to normal. Apparently, her tongue was so swollen and her throat closed up completely, so they’ve got to reopen her airways ‘cause she’s having a hard time breathing.”

“Oh, god…” Dina chokes out.

“Don’t worry, D.” Jesse consoles. “She’s gonna be fine. She’s strong, and we know that. They’re taking care of her, and she’ll hopefully be awake soon.”

“I know, I know…” Dina sniffles. “It’s really not like me to fall apart like this. But she’s like a sister to me, you know. I mean, she basically is.”

“Me too, babe. Don’t worry. We all love her too. No need to explain.” Jesse says.

Dina gives him a soft smile as he gives her another tender forehead kiss. Watching such a small but affectionate scene between the two makes Ellie feel as if she’s intruding on a private moment she shouldn’t be witnessing. Jealousy in the form of a knife in the stomach twists inside her while her heart aches to feel that kind of intimacy.

“Oh, shit, I should call her uncle,” Dina suddenly realizes, pulling away from Jesse slightly. “I think I still have his number from freshman year. He should know what’s going on.”

“Good idea.” Jesse agrees. “He’s one of her emergency contacts, but I’m not sure if he knows just yet.”

“I’ll call the girls too,” She continues, referring to the other girls who lived in the Wilson Valley building with you and Dina during your freshman year. “I know that they’ll also want to know.”

She pulls her phone out of her pocket before muttering a quick “be right back” and exiting the waiting room.

Jesse and Ellie watch her walk out silently. After a moment or two, Jesse speaks up.

“Are you okay, El?”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, man. Don’t do that. You know what I mean.”

“I’m fine, Jess.”

“Dude.”

“What?”

Jesse turns his whole body to face Ellie straight on, crossing his arms against his chest and frowning.

“You’re completely red in the face, you look the most stressed out than I’ve ever seen you, and you’re here.”

“So?” Ellie replies stubbornly.

“Williams.” Jesse stresses sternly. “You know Dina and I saw everything you had in that desk drawer.”

Ellie says nothing in reply and Jesse continues.

“You literally still had her old EpiPen from like, two years ago. That entire drawer was full of her shit.”

Ellie clenches her jaw and balls up her fists.

“You still have all those old letters she used to write you all the time, all these mementos and knickknacks from when you two were together. You even have Barbie Bear.” Jesse points out. “Do you know that she’s been chewing Dina out nonstop about her for years because she thinks Dina stole her?”

“Look, she and I just stopped talking to each other all of a sudden before sophomore year. I never had an actual chance to give her all of her shit back—”

“You literally could have given them to me or Dina or even any of the Wilson girls so we could return them.”

“Look—”

“And what about the rest of it? Shit that you didn’t have to actually give back to her? It’s been years. You could have easily thrown it all out.”

“You don’t understa—”

“You didn’t even bother leaving all that shit back home in Jackson. You brought it all here with you to keep in our apartment.”

“I… I—”

“She could have fucking died tonight, El. And you’re still bullshitting me.”

“Jesse.” Ellie croaks out through quivering lips and watery eyes.

“You saved her life. She could have very well been in a worse state right now if it weren’t for you. You told me and Dina what to do. Nobody told you to do any of that. And by the sorry state of you, it looks like you just ran three marathons in a row just to get here and make sure she was okay in person.”

Tears threaten to flow down from Ellie’s ocean green eyes, and it takes every ounce of strength that she has left in her to will them not to fall.

“She means so, so much to me and Dina. And to a whole bunch of other people too. When she gets hurt, we feel that shit too.” Jesse says. “I need you to get your motherfucking shit together, Williams. Now.”

Before Ellie can even form some kind of thought in response to his declaration, Dina suddenly reenters the waiting room.

“Called her uncle and told him everything I know. He’s currently looking up the first flight out and he’ll hopefully be here sometime tomorrow.” Dina informs the pair as she walks over. “Just got off the phone with Astrid too. Most of the girls are either busy or asleep by now, but she said she’ll let them know too as soon as possible. If she’s awake tomorrow, they’ll try to come by to pay her a visit.”

“Okay, good.” Jesse nods in response. “Thanks for doing that, D. I was so focused on what’s been going on, and none of that even crossed my mind.”

“They deserved to know.” Dina smiles sadly before suddenly frowning. “But why did she even go into anaphylactic shock in the first place? They both asked me, but I realized that you never actually told either of us and I didn’t really know what to tell them.”

“She and Anderson were making out, and Anderson had eaten some seafood bouillabaisse for dinner. Apparently, it had a bunch of chopped-up shrimp in it that she couldn’t see.” Jesse says plainly.

Dina inadvertently glances at Ellie in slight sympathy, but Jesse looks at her with zero remorse on his face.

“She didn’t tell Abby that she was really allergic?” Dina asks.

“Anderson apparently had no idea, said that she wouldn’t have ordered it if she knew in the first place.” Jesse clarified.

“Anderson should have fucking double-checked re-fucking-gardless.” Ellie angrily interjects.

“It’s not Abby’s fault, Ellie. There’s no way she could have just known instinctively.” Dina reasons.

“Doesn’t matter. Isn’t she studying to be a fucking doctor? Isn’t that some basic shit that they teach at med school or whatever? She should have known better.” Ellie seethes. “Where the fuck is she, anyway? I thought she came along.”

“She went down to the food court for a breather.” Jesse says.

“Oh, she needs a breather?” Ellie sneers. “Yeah, go ahead and catch your breath when the person you almost killed tonight can’t even fucking breathe—”

“Ellie!” Dina scolds.

“Whatever.” Ellie scoffs.

“El,” Dina suddenly brings up. “Have you talked to Daniela yet?”

“What about her?” Ellie asks.

“Weren’t you supposed to meet up with her…” Dina checks the time on her phone. “... almost an hour ago?”

“So?”

“Ellie.”

Ellie clicks her tongue.

“Fine, let me text her right now that I won’t make it—” She begins to say begrudgingly, but she cuts herself off as someone else enters the waiting room.

Abby Anderson quietly walks through the door, sipping a plain black coffee from a styrofoam cup. She looks up from her drink and gives Jesse an awkward but polite smile which he respectfully returns along with a nod.

Ellie’s entire body goes cold with frigid, icy hatred, exacerbated when her furious ocean green eyes suddenly meet with Abby Anderson’s tired sky blue ones.

“Actually,” Ellie suddenly says. “I’m gonna give her a call and see if she’s still free to meet up tonight. I still want my jacket back.”

Both Dina and Jesse look as if they’re each about to interject with a response, but Ellie is too quick for either of them to say a word.

Ellie storms out of the waiting room, not giving a second look at Abby Anderson.

Ellie throws Joel’s old leather jacket onto her bed, sighing softly. She sheds her sweaty grey hoodie and throws it down next to the jacket before pulling her phone out. She proceeds to call Jesse, but she’s greeted with ten, empty-sounding buzzes before being redirected to his voicemail. She then attempts to call Dina but is greeted with an immediate automated message stating that the call could not be completed.

Groaning in exasperation, Ellie collapses into her desk chair and roughly kicks off her Converse. After a moment or two, she notices the bottom-most drawer of her desk and the way it’s hanging off the frame precariously. Sighing, she crouches down on the floor and begins to rearrange its previous contents.

At first, she shoves items back into the drawer at random, but she immediately pauses once her hand grazes across the fur of a pink stuffed animal.

Barbie Bear.

She picks up the stuffed animal and stares sadly into its plastic eyes. Noticing that the light pink ribbon around its neck has gotten loose, Ellie delicately attempts to retie it back into a bow. After a couple of lopsided tries, she’s eventually satisfied once she’s able to center the ribbon correctly. She carefully places Barbie Bear back into the drawer before returning to restore its contents with more consideration.

After replacing a few pairs of old earrings of yours into a small box, she picks up a stack of old letters that she’d tied together with a piece of brown twine. Ellie resists the urge to go through each of them, but when she notices that one had fallen out of the stack and is now lying on the floor, her willpower dwindles almost instantly.

Ellie picks up the envelope gingerly, almost as if she’s afraid that her touch will cause it to burst into flames. She reads her name on the front written with green ink and flips it over to where the flap of the envelope is torn open. She runs her fingers over the wax seal that had secured the letter inside: the design of Saturn amongst several stars. Nervously, she slips the card out from inside and unfolds it to reveal your handwriting.

Dear Ellie,

It is currently 4:27 A.M. and I can’t sleep, and for some reason, I can’t stop watching that story you posted on Instagram earlier over and over. The one of you singing and playing your electric guitar to that Aaron Taylor song. Not to be gay as fuck, but it is so easy to get lost in the sound of your voice. Also, I really like your lips. And your hands.

I know I said this yesterday already, but you’ve been overworking yourself way too much lately. I’m glad that you’ve been putting a lot of effort into your schoolwork, but have you eaten? When was the last time you had a full meal (microwaveable ramen does not count)? Have you been taking any time for yourself? It’s really sweet that you still make time to come hang out with me most days, but you need some you time too, you know.

Not that I don’t love seeing your goofy face all the time. I don’t know, I think me writing all that out is me casually acknowledging that I have attachment issues and attempting to work on it. Oh, well. I’m pretty attached to you, fucking dork.

Okay, heading to bed now. Hopefully, I’ll actually be able to fall asleep this time. But hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow (I know I just said that you need to take more time for yourself, but shut up). You’re always the best part of my day.

Ellie can’t seem to let herself read the final piece of the letter, the part where you’d signed your name.

She delicately folds the card once more and places it back into its envelope. Turning it over in her hand and tenderly running her fingers over where you’d addressed her name, she wonders if your handwriting is still the same as it was all those years ago.

Reluctantly, Ellie tucks the letter back into the stack before tying them all securely together once more.

Earlier That Evening

Ellie was fifty-two minutes late to her supposed “date” with Daniela. This was Ellie’s third failed attempt at reacquiring Joel’s old motorcycle jacket, and they had previously decided to meet up outside the coffee shop on campus where Daniela recently started working after the end of her shift.

But after Ellie’s unexplained absence from their meeting, Daniela bitterly stormed back home to her dorm. She had half a mind to say no when Ellie called her with a half-assed explanation and asked if she could come over to retrieve her jacket. But after giving in, Ellie arrived at her dorm room within half an hour.

It wasn’t a total shock to Ellie when she was greeted with a look of annoyance when Daniela opened the door for her. Ellie attempted to feign a guilty expression, but all that she could muster was an indifferent grimace. Daniela said nothing as she silently beckoned Ellie to follow her and come in, an AirPod playing music loudly in one ear.

Ellie took a quick glance around the place, never having actually been inside Daniela’s room before. The twin-size beds, old wooden dressers, and scuffed-up desks were an all-too-familiar sight for Ellie, having gone through the same torturous experience herself only a couple of years back in her freshman year. But a few things were different as Daniela and her roommate had attempted to really personalize their living area. Ellie tried not to make a face of repulsion when spotting a few Taylor Swift concert posters above one of the desks.

Daniela plopped onto, what Ellie had assumed was, her bed but made no gesture that welcomed Ellie to do the same. She merely stared at her passively as Ellie tried to avoid looking her directly in the eye.

“You’re an hour late.” Daniela pointed out.

“Only fifty-two minutes late.” Ellie attempted to joke.

Daniela only hummed in response, unsmiling. She picked up a faded brown jacket that was sitting on top of her pillow by the collar and handed it over to Ellie.

“Thanks,” Ellie muttered, tucking the jacket under her arm. “Uh, thanks a lot for looking after it. Needed it back ‘cause it’s really my dad’s old jacket.”

“Oh, sorry. I would have given it back sooner if I knew that.” Daniela replied, not sounding the least bit sorry.

“It’s okay.” Ellie mumbled awkwardly.

There was an uncomfortable moment or two of complete silence where Daniela continued to merely gaze at Ellie, unwavering and unapologetic, while Ellie focused her eyes on her Converse as she wrung her hands together.

“Hey, look…” Ellie eventually spoke up. “I really am sorry about being late. I just had a really important emergency that I had to deal with.”

“It’s fine,” Daniela replied remorselessly. “Tara told me that you suddenly had to deal with some shit.”

“Wait, what?”

“Tara. Tara Maclay. She works with me at Ruston.”

“Oh, right.”

Another awkward moment of silence.

“Your ex-girlfriend, right?” Daniela asks unexpectedly.

“What?”

“Your ex-girlfriend. The shit you had to deal with tonight.”

“Oh, uh…”

“No point in lying, Ellie.” Daniela shrugged. “Tara already told me the gist.”

“Oh. What did she say exactly?”

“Not much. Said that you needed to help deal with something for someone you both know. She didn’t tell me exactly that it was your ex-girlfriend, but it was pretty obvious. I read between the lines.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“She really shouldn’t have told you all that.”

“She was ranting to another co-worker and I overheard your name and I was curious.” Daniela shrugged again, unabashed.

Another awkward moment of silence.

“So you still into your ex or something, Ellie?” Daniela spoke up again.

“She’s not really my ex-girlfriend.”

“Whatever.”

Another awkward moment of silence.

“Well?” Daniela asked.

“It’s kind of complicated.”

“That’s just the bullshit way of saying yes,” Daniela rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t matter if she’s your ‘ex’ or whatever.”

“Look, Daniela—”

“I know we aren’t serious or whatever, but I don’t really feel like dealing with someone else’s ex drama.”

“There’s no drama. I don’t even speak to her anymore.”

“And yet you ditched me to go and help her out with something earlier.”

“It’s not like that. And it was also an emergency.”

“So you said.”

Ellie wasn’t sure why she felt the need to explain herself to a girl she barely knew. Part of her felt compelled to do so as if she could continue to actively ignore her feelings by saying these things out loud.

Another awkward moment of silence.

“God, you’re such an asshole fuckboy, Ellie.”

“Hey, what the fuck—”

“You know that you can get girls and do, but you just like to fuck around with them and play with their feelings.”

“Alright, first of all, you said yourself that we’re nothing serious. We’ve barely even done anything.” Ellie said defensively. “Second, I literally just said that I don’t even talk to her anymore! Not even tonight!”

Ellie scoffed as Daniela rolled her eyes once more.

“Look,” Ellie continued through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry that I was late tonight. And I get it if your feelings are hurt. But nothing’s happening between me and my ex.”

“You just said that she wasn’t your ex.”

“Sh-she’s— she’s not, she’s—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Daniela muttered as stood up from her bed. “At this point, I’m over it, and I really don’t give a fuck anymore. You’re hot and all, Ellie. But this is not worth it.”

She popped an AirPod in her ear once more and sauntered over to the door.

“Word of advice. Figure out your feelings for this ‘ex’ of yours and decide if you actually wanna be with her or not before getting involved with anyone else. Nobody deserves that hanging over their head, especially when you’re so clearly still in love with her.”

And with that, Daniela opened the door and peered at her expectantly. Ellie took the hint and walked towards her direction and through the doorway. Before Ellie could fully turn around and give any parting words, Daniela shut the door in her face.

Present

Ellie collapses onto her bed next to Joel’s old motorcycle jacket. She pulls her phone out again, contemplating calling Jesse and Dina once more. But realizing they’ll probably call her if they have anything important that they feel she needs to know, she drops the phone down to her side in defeat.

She continues to lay in her bed for a while, stewing in her unresolved feelings with nobody to confide in. Closing her eyes, her mind begins to race against her will with reminders of the path life led her down after you.

First was Marisol. Less than two months into sophomore year of college, Jesse and Dina were completely aghast to see Ellie walking around campus with a girl they’d never seen her with before. She was in Ellie’s Aerospace Engineering class, and Ellie had claimed to have had an eye on her since last year. Jesse and Dina watched helplessly as their friend flaunted her new girlfriend around everywhere for the next couple of months.

Ellie wasn’t initially sure what it was that attracted her to Marisol in the first place. She was naturally beautiful with her long, black hair and slender figure, and she was the textbook definition of a perfect girlfriend. It took two and a half months of overly extravagant dates and bouquets of Marisol’s favourite flowers and late nights spent at her dorm room for Ellie to understand what it was about Marisol that she was drawn to: it was her eyes. Down to the specks in her irises and how her eyelids curved, Marisol’s eyes resembled yours far too well. After coming to this harrowing realization, Ellie quickly broke things off with her tactlessly and with a half-assed, mostly untrue justification.

The next was Luz who she had met during her near-daily workouts at the gym with Jesse. Ellie spent several autumn weeks with them, allowing Luz to whisk her about to different parties with different groups of friends every weekend. But one fateful night when they had dragged Ellie to a party at the same Sigma Eta frat house where you’d both first met, a bad acid trip cemented the end of her time with Luz.

As Ellie’s dilated pupils focused intensely on Luz’s black boots, a pair very similar to your favourites, she felt a sensation begin to roughly tug at something inside her. From her spot on the living room couch, her eyes darted up to a spot by the wall where a small group of partygoers were congregating. She zeroed in on a random girl she’d never seen before whose multi-coloured features, as a result of LSD brain fog, began to morph into those of someone she was desperately trying to forget.

Once the last parts of the stranger’s face had fully formed to impersonate yours, she abruptly stood up from her slouched position on the couch, muttered an excuse to Luz about using the bathroom, and desperately begged Jesse to come pick her up immediately. After Jesse helped her click on her seatbelt in the passenger seat with a tight-lipped expression where he fought the urge to remind her of the significance of this house, Ellie never looked back and swore never to trip on acid again, subsequently ghosting Luz after that night.

A couple of weeks before winter break, she met a sweet and quiet girl named Simi. They met through a dating app during one of Ellie’s crossfaded swiping sprees at 2 in the morning. Ellie’s affair with her was extremely short-lived, ending things with her a day before everyone left campus to head home for the holidays. While spending the day hanging out at Simi’s dorm room as her new girlfriend packed for her trip home, Ellie suddenly and unfairly started a fight with her after Simi had begun to mindlessly sing the song “Merry Christmas Darling” under her breath.

Ellie had unkindly demanded for her to “shut up” immediately, understandably hurting Simi’s feelings. The fight was short and confusing, as Ellie had refused to elaborate on her sudden explosion. As she unceremoniously marched out of the dorm room, Ellie aggressively tried to suppress memories of you singing that same Carpenters song on a loop all of December of the previous year. You’d claimed you couldn’t get it out of your head and needed to sing it out loud at least fifty times a day so you could stop thinking about it. Though Ellie had playfully cussed you out and thrown several pillows at you on multiple occasions, that song now belonged to you forever and nobody else.

After Simi were strings of countless others, some who had used Ellie as their brief college lesbian experience and many whose names Ellie would never be able to recall. She never hooked up with the same person more than twice, never actually took another one out for an actual date until Daniela.

Ellie had found Daniela incredibly pretty when she’d first laid eyes on her on a warm September afternoon earlier in the year. She was lounging on the quad as Dina did her homework and Jesse lazily strummed his guitar when a group of freshmen walked by. Ellie hadn’t spared them a glance until one of the girls approached her, all shy and giggly, and said that one of her friends found Ellie very cute. After pointing Daniela out and asking for her number, Ellie shrugged and relented. She ignored Dina and Jesse’s identical judgmental looks and eye-rolls in her peripheral vision.

Ellie enjoyed the undivided attention of someone completely enamoured by her. Daniela was constantly responsive, did whatever Ellie wanted to do, and was always so eager to please her. Ellie’d bring her to the movies, go on long drives with her in her Jeep, take her to whatever restaurants she’d want to eat at.

To anyone who keenly observed when they were together, it was quite obvious who was far more invested between the two. Despite spending an ample amount of time with her in the past month or so, Ellie continued to keep Daniela at arm’s length. On multiple occasions when Ellie’d convinced Jesse and Dina to allow Daniela to accompany them, the long-time couple would watch how disconnected their friend was from this new girl she’d been seeing.

Dina would constantly give Jesse a raised eyebrow look that silently would ask, “Is she really serious?” to which Jesse would give her a tight-lipped, wordless grimace that replied with “We both know she’s a fucking dumbass.” They both placed bets on when exactly Ellie would eventually ditch this new girlfriend.

Unbeknownst to them, it’s Ellie who was so easily discarded this time around. Feeling so unmoved and unaffected about the split with Daniela, Ellie tries to feel some kind of guilt over her lack of reciprocation. It’s her own actions, after all, that landed her dumped in the first place. She’s never fully seen Daniela as an actual girlfriend, and she knows full well that she shouldn’t have strung her along.

But as she continues to lay in her bed, ocean green eyes shut and a hand woven through her auburn locks, she thinks of only you.

Ellie can’t remember a single moment in her life when she’s felt more in need of another person’s company than she does at this very moment. Unable to trouble Dina to be her listening ear as she always is or bother Jesse to bluntly set her straight as usual, she feels the loneliness of the gloomy, dark room creep into her guilty conscience.

Her fingers begin to mindlessly search her bedsheets as she continues to stare at her decrepit bedroom ceiling, seeking for her silver joint box that had fallen out of her pocket when she’d collapsed on her bed. Instead of the feel of cold metal, her hand comes across something smooth and warm. Pulling the brown leather jacket up to her face, Ellie’s mind murmurs a single word.

Joel.

She pulls her phone out to search for her father’s face within her favourite contacts. She hesitates for a moment but pushes herself to call.

Joel picks up after only two rings.

“Ellie? Jesus, kiddo, what the hell time is it?”

“Hello to you too, old man.” Ellie chuckles.

“Everythin’ alright?” Joel’s voice asks, tired but urgent.

“Y-yeah. Yeah, I guess.”

Ellie can almost hear her father sitting up straight in bed.

“What’s wrong, Ellie?”

“I-I…” She stutters. “Joel…”

With a whimpering tone, she suddenly recounts the night’s events in complete detail. Joel listens attentively, only ever interrupting with sharp intakes of breath and hushed, imperceptible asides. After listening to his daughter’s sorrowful spiel, he finally speaks.

“Oh, baby girl…” Joel utters. “I truly am sorry. It’s been a real rough night for all of y’all.”

“Yeah…”

“That poor kid… I’m glad she had you three lookin’ out for her tonight.”

Ellie says nothing to this, pursing her lips.

“How about you, Ellie?” Joel continues. “How are you feelin’ after everythin’ that’s happened?”

“I-I’m not really sure. I’m not sure I know how to feel.”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to just yet. It just happened and all.”

“All I feel is so much fucking guilt, Joel. It feels like my mind is empty but overflowing all at the same time. I feel so motherfucking powerless and I don’t know what to do.”

There’s a moment of silence before her father speaks again.

“You given any thought to the conversation we had before you left for school, kiddo?”

Last August: Jackson

Ellie’s bedroom was full of boxes and bags packed with everything she planned to bring to college for her junior year. The space was slightly more barren, closet mostly empty and trinkets missing from her shelves. It was only a couple more days before she, Dina, and Jesse would be making their journey back to their university, and she was uncharacteristically ahead of schedule.

Leaning against her desk with a box full of comic books on the floor next to her, she was casually perusing an old graphic novel when Joel appeared in her open doorway.

“Knock, knock.”

“The door’s open, old man. Also, you can literally just walk in, you know.”

“Who raised you to have so much cheek against your elders, kid?”

“You, dude.”

The pair smirked at each other’s smart-mouthed retorts.

“Need any help packin’ up?”

“Nah. It’s pretty much done except for a handful of essentials.”

“Including that book you’re holdin’ right now?”

“Like I said: essentials.”

Joel chuckled.

“Well, the Changs sent over some dinner for us, if you want some. Wisa made K-kaw… Khao Tom Pa… no, Plah…” Joel stuttered, making an effort to pronounce the Thai dish correctly. “Khao Tom Plah, that’s it. She brought some over earlier, thought we might want some. She even made it without the prawns, just the way you like it.”

“Sick. She’s the best. I’ll text Jesse later to thank her.”

“Good.”

Joel lingered as Ellie went back to reading her comic, wistfully looking around his daughter’s nearly vacated bedroom. His eyes fell on a small box sitting at the foot of Ellie’s bed. It was an ordinary, cardboard box just as the others were, except it was heavily sealed with multiple layers of silver duct tape. He frowned.

“Still plannin’ on bringin’ that box?”

“What do you mean?” Ellie asked, knowing exactly what her father was referring to without looking up.

“You know you can just leave it here at home, right? It ain’t like I go through your doohickeys when you ain’t here.”

“So you do go through my shit when I am here?”

“Ellie.”

“What?”

“Why the hell are you doing this to yourself, kid?”

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

“We’ve been having this same conversation for the past year now.”

Ellie finally peeled her eyes away from her graphic novel, tossing it on the desk behind her and crossing her arms.

“You’re the one who keeps bringing it up, Joel.”

“I bring it up because I know that you ain’t been talkin’ about these feelings with anyone. Not me or Jesse or Dina. It’s been a year since you ditched that poor girl, and you’re still sulkin’ over it.”

“She ditched me.”

“Hold your horses; we both know that ain’t true.”

“What do you want from me, old man?”

“I want you to be happy, kiddo.”

“What makes you think I’m not happy?”

“Now, don’t try to bullshit me. You can grumble and deny it ‘til the cows come home, but even after all this time, all you ever do is brood and pine after that girl. Plain as day to anyone. You ain’t been the same since y’all broke up.”

“We weren’t together.”

“Yes, you were.”

Joel ignored his daughter’s subsequent eye-roll before continuing.

“You still have the box, Ellie.”

“I just forgot I even had it.”

“And yet, you’re bringin’ it to school with you, just like you did last year. Why?”

“It was just in my closet stuffed in with all this other shit I don’t touch. Had to take it out while I was packing.”

“That ain’t amount to a hill o’ beans. And you still ain’t answer my question.”

“Sorry, dude.”

“Ellie. You and I would down to Beacon Run all the damn time back when you were growin’ up. You used to beg me to go for dinner whenever you had a hankerin’ to order that cheesy crab dip with all those chips and jalapeños and such.”

Ellie raised her eyebrow, unsure where her father was going with this.

“Then all of a sudden, a few years ago, you seemed to hate the place. You’ll maybe get a plate of fries and nothin’ else. Matter of fact, I can’t, for the life of me, recall the last time I’ve seen you eat a plate of seafood with any kind of shellfish in it.”

Joel’s greying eyes pierced Ellie’s ocean green.

“Two years.” He continued. “It’s been two years. You almost never eat any kind of seafood no more, and even the Changs never cook us anythin’ that has shrimps or scallops or anythin’ of the like.”

Joel watched as his daughter stubbornly struggled to justify herself. He sighed sadly.

“I wish you’d let yourself be happy, Ellie. You could be.”

“That so? How do you figure that?”

“First step is admitting exactly what is clear as day to everyone around you.”

“Oh, yeah? And what is that?”

Present Day

“J-Joel… I-I…” Ellie sobs. “I love her.”

“I know, baby girl.”

Joel helplessly listens to his daughter’s desperate weeping from the other end of the line.

“So,” He eventually asks in between her snivels. “What now?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She sniffs.

“Kiddo, why do you think your feelings don’t matter?”

“Because relationships do not work for me. Love doesn’t work for me.”

“Your relationship with her didn’t work. Past tense. It’s been years. It was a tough situation. You’re a different person now.” Joel clarifies. “And there’s plenty love ‘round you, kiddo. You got a lotta love in your life. I need you t’realize that.”

“Except I-I’m not a different person, Joel. I-I am just an older, slightly more experienced version of myself. I-I…” Ellie stutters. “I’m afraid.”

“Of course you are, kid. It’s only natural.” Joel replies. “But you can’t live your whole life closed off from the rest of the world. You need and deserve love, Ellie.”

“Except I don’t, Joel! I fucking don’t!” She cries. “God, y-you just, you just don’t understand!”

“What don’t I understand?”

“She almost fucking died!” Ellie nearly screams.

A silence falls between the two, only broken by Ellie’s hot and angry tears noisily dropping onto the old leather jacket. She grips it tightly in one hand before continuing.

“I-if… if none of it happened… if I d-didn’t do all that to h-her all those years ago…” She stutters between shaky lips. “M-maybe she wouldn’t be where she is now. She wouldn’t have gone on a date w-with someone who didn’t know about…”

Ellie chokes back a sob.

“I-I… I would have known. I would have t-taken care of her. I would never have—”

“Ellie.”

“She needed me, and I… I let her down. Not just tonight. All those years ago. I couldn’t be what she needed. I fucking failed her.”

“It’s not that simple, kid.”

“Yes, it is! Her cousin fucking died! He was her whole fucking world, and she loved him more than anything, and he fucking died and I… I ran. I abandoned her.”

The blurry memory of your sleeping figure in the passenger seat of Ellie’s Jeep appears in front of her, wrapped up cozily in her flannel as she drives you home from Jackson and naive to what lies ahead.

“I know… I know what I’m capable of, Joel. I loved her so much all those years ago and… I still hurt her. I hurt her so fucking badly.”

Your image transforms to one of you awake and livid, Ellie’s flannel torn off and tears streaming down your face. Anger and betrayal are etched all over your face, just like they were all those years ago. The shame she’d felt back then is incomparable to what she feels now.

“I don’t ever want to do that to her again, ever. I just can’t. I won’t.”

Joel sighs deeply before finally speaking.

“Ellie. That fear is always gonna be there. But you’re young, and we make plenty of mistakes in our youth. God knows how much of my past I used to regret.”

Ellie takes deep breaths as her father continues to speak.

“Everythin’ that happened tonight? None of it was your fault. In fact, I reckon you’re the reason she’s still livin’ and breathin’ right now. I’m proud of you for that.”

“All I did was—”

“All you did was save her life.”

Ellie sniffles but doesn’t respond.

“Look, kiddo,” Joel continues. “As someone who has known you for a very long time, I know how much of a good heart you got. You’re a lovin’ person who deserves love. I wish you could believe that.”

The sound of people entering through the front door echoes all around the empty apartment, but Ellie hears nothing else but the sound of her own agonized sobs.

author’s notes:

belle posting TWO chapters of ncty within less than two weeks of each other??? what is this, may 2023???

saury for not posting this right away like promised yesterday, like i said, going thru some shit rn! but i hope y'all enjoyed regardless ♥︎

i'll give you a kiss on the mouth if you guess the bollywood movie i vaguely reference at the beginning of the chapter :)

the idea of reader being allergic to shellfish and going into anaphylactic shock came to me one day a while back when i was eating something with shrimp and randomly remembered that i am very allergic to shellfish and instead of being like, "i should go take some medicine immediately", i thought, "hmm this would be a wild plot point for ncty" LMFAOOOO

anyway, this is your reminder that if you have an epipen, don't be stupid, bring that shit with you wherever you go sldkfjsdl

the more of jesse that i include in this series, the more i enjoy writing him. he's such a fun character to write hehe

i thought having abby sipping on some hot, black coffee when ellie fucking canonically hates coffee was so hilarious, i pat myself on the fucking back for that one

yes i also pat myself on the back for the line regarding ellie's ocean green eyes and abby's sky blue ones. i fucking love parallels and symbolism. i'm a whore for them, in fact.

btw dina doesn't respond to ellie's phone call bc her phone died (prob from facetiming ellie for that long earlier in the night) and idk, jesse's either not paying attention or being petty LMFAO

the reappearance of barbie bearrrrr, my babyyyy. idk if y'all remember, but yes, barbie bear is a reference to the actual stuffed pink bear i sleep with every night named barbie. i had planned since chapter 4 (which is the chapter barbie bear is first mentioned) for ellie to have had her this whole time because i'm a fucking lunatic LOL

i mentioned in the author's notes section of the last chapter how reader's letterwriting hobby is inspired by me irl cause i do that all the time for friends, but reader's letter in this chapter is actually loosely based on a letter that soulmate ex wrote me, it's not word for word exactly, i altered it a bit to fit the story better, but it's very close because i'm INSANE, anyway

yes "i think i love you again" is on my playlist about my ex-girlfriend and "merry christmas darling" is on his playlist for me, go away

ellie's clear aversion to taylor swift is both a reference to a previous chapter where jesse subtly mentions her dislike for her and also to my personal belief that ellie really would not like her as a person or an artist at all irl lmfao

the names of all of ellie's ex gfs or whatever are inspired by something very specific but that's another heehee secret trivia that nobody else but me will ever know about (let's be real, i'll prob tell star later LOL)

i named jesse's mom after one of my fave co-workers hehe (and the dish she makes for them is thai bc my co-worker is from thailand)

ellie's declaration of love about reader that she makes to joel has also been a long time planned now, idk why i knew it was gonna be chapter 13 when i did it, but i just knew it was. it was always the plan for her to confess it out loud to joel first, above anyone else

the final conversation between ellie and joel is heavily inspired by a scene from one of my fave tv shows, crazy ex-girlfriend. the scene makes me bawl every time i watch it. please watch crazy ex-girlfriend. so good.

we really are thirteen chapters into this series, huh? crazy. anyway, love y'all. <3

taglist: @lonelyfooryouonly, @elliesinterlude, @sawaagyapong, @peppesgirl, @iconsoft, @maybeidohaveadhd, @ellieswifee, valiantllamapersonpony-blog, @nil-eena, @echostinn, @uraesthete

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#nobody compares to you series #ellie williams #dealer!ellie #ellie x reader #ellie x you #ellie x y/n #the last of us #tlou #the last of us part 2 #tlou2 #ellie fanfiction #belle speaks #v #belle writes #Spotify

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vikingknight90 · 1 year ago

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Those who forgot about the teaser trailer, I beg you to look at it again and then compare it to the finished movie version, the changes are hilarious like

In the teaser trailer, Miles is... SO awkward, he hides about a dozen more things (including underwear agdhsg) trips over himself and when Gwen looks at his sketchbook (she even only looks at one drawing versus several in the movie) he slumps over like he's dead that she just saw one of his drawings, meanwhile Gwen is just chill through the whole thing, acting like seeing Miles again is just a casual tuesday night, no hug, no remarking his "growth spurt", she's just like "hey nice to see you, anyway let's get out of here"? (I'm also pretty sure Miles is a slightly younger model here, it looks like a segway model between his ITSV and ATSV self, which is a curious detail. it might also be the model they used in the Spider Within short?)

then there's the final film version and they really said "you know what, let's make Miles less awkward and Gwen twice as awkward)

Miles hides maybe two or three things and briefly does the fake-deep voice thing but Gwen? instantly leaps for a hug, punches his arm, cringes at herself for nearly giving away that oh no he's hot is her first thought (like the "growth spurt" comment wasn't a product of that lmao), fangirls over his things and opens his collectible like that's apparently a normal thing to do in her universe (??) so it must be totally cool here too! she gains some leverage back when seeing his drawings and Miles is still embarrassed but at least remains standing behind her awaiting her judgement instead of nearly falling over, like it's hilarious how they decided that Gwen needs to be a more realistic awkward teenager seeing her crush again after a long while and sure Miles is awkward too but he still has some control of himself and has far more rizz than before (is that what the slang is nowadays?) and you gotta love the creators for that, the teaser scene in general made it seem like Miles' crush really was one-sided and he's still his awkward ITSV self who glued his hand to Gwen's hair, both their characters and relationship have evolved and speaks so much more in the final product and idk how to end this rant but just wanted to highlight it for those who forgot about the teaser trailer. (also for someone who wasn't that into gwiles in the first movie and the teaser did nothing to make me more interested it's equally funny to see how adorable and filled with chemistry I find their interactions now, all the credit to the atsv writers)

#atsv #across the spiderverse #gwiles #ghostflower #miles x gwen #miles morales #gwen stacy #spider-gwen #sony

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strniohoeee · 1 year ago

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Rouge

Pairing: Chris Sturniolo X Female Reader

Synopsis: Chris wants his makeup done for fun by Y/N. However things don’t go to plan, and some events take place….💜 requested by @mammon-lovesjade1

Warnings⚠️: This is smut…just two best friends fucking….you know the norm😁

Song for the imagine: Coming Down-The Weeknd

⚠️This is an 18+ imagine so minors do not interact, or do??⚠️

The party’s finished and I want you to know

(I’m all alone)

I’m feelin everything before I got up

I always want you when I’m

(Coming down)

The one thing I loved the most more than filming content or hanging with my friends was doing my makeup. It was so relaxing, and made me feel so pretty. My whole channel and TikTok was based on get ready with me’s and makeup tutorials

I had just finished filming TikTok’s with some new makeup I got when I saw Chris commented on one of my videos. “Ouuu me next please” it read. I replied back to him to tell him I was down.

Chris came over fully ready to get glammed up, and I found it adorable. He was really my best friend. He let me try new hair products on him, new nail products, skin care products. I mean just about anything, so him wanting his makeup done made me excited.

I think he truly enjoyed physical touch as a form of an affirmation of one’s love for him, but he’d never admit that. He was sitting on my vanity chair as I was hunched over trying to do his makeup

“Ouch you keep poking me in the eye with that damn thing” he said flinching

“I’m sorry, I’m hunched over” I said laughing and covering my mouth

“Want me to stand up?” He asked me

“No because then you’ll be too tall” I said back

“Oh so then sit on my lap” he said nonchalantly

This made my throat run dry. I mean I wasn’t sure that I had a crush on Chris, but I found him super attractive. We were only friends so this request seemed a bit too intimate for my liking.

“No it’s fine” I said looking for a makeup brush

“I don’t want your back hurting or to keep getting poked in the eye so sit” he said looking at me

“Alright whatever” I said and sat on his lap

Chris didn’t touch me, or make me feel uncomfortable. However my thoughts were running wild. Our groin areas are so close to one another. Had I slid up more my pussy would be directly over his dick, and this sent a shiver up my spine.

Chris and I continued to talk and laugh as I did his makeup. Subconsciously I kept scooting up on his lap not even realizing what I was doing. I went to draw on his lip with a lip liner when he jumped causing me to jump as well and land on his dick again

“Fuck” he said bringing his finger to his lip

“I’m sorry, what did I do?” I said giggling

“That pencil gave me a splinter or some shit, ow” he said laughing

I looked down at the pencil and saw it needed to be sharpened

“Oh my god I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize it needed to be sharpened” I said laughing again

“That shit scratched the fuck out of me” he said touching his lip again

“Let me see it” I said

He moved his hand away and I leaned in closer to see his lip. There was the tiniest little scratch but nothing to draw blood

“It’s nothing you’re okay just a scratch” I said rubbing his top lip with my thumb, not realizing how seductive this move was

“How about gloss instead?” He said laughing

“Ouu okay” I said leaning over to grab a gloss, and it was only then did I feel a sudden hard bulge on my inner left thigh.

I swallowed thickly as I froze. My eyes went wide. Does he really have a boner? Or am I going crazy, I thought to myself. Do I address it or not?? I decided to ignore it grabbing the lip gloss and turning to him

Chris’ eyes looked different almost like his pupils were dilated and they had a glossy cast over them. Y/N get it together please!

I applied the clear gloss to his lips

“Okay perfect your lips look great” I said closing the bottle and putting it back

“Do they?” He asked me in a gruff tone

“They do” I said looking down at his lips

“Just kiss me then you’re begging for it” he said jokingly

“Chris you literally have a hard on right now shut up” I said rolling my eyes

His eyes went wide and his cheeks flushed red

“Shut up I thought you didn’t notice” he said looking away and laughing

“Mmm it’s pretty hard not to notice it, I’m sitting right on it” I said looking down

“I’m sorry, just the moving around and the touching it got me going” he said

“It’s okay….maybe I like it” I said licking my lips

“Oh?” He questions cocking his head to the side

I looked him up and down before crashing our lips together. Chris immediately kissing back as his right hand came up to cheek pulling me in closer.

I subconsciously started to grind down on him as his lips moved from my mouth to my neck leaving wet open mouthed kisses. Chris slid his hands up my shirt wrapping his hands around my torso and pulling me down to grind harder

“Shit Chris” I moaned out at the friction

“Can’t you see what you do to me” he said against my skin as his eyes traveled up to look at me

“I didn’t know I had a such an affect on you” I said biting my lip as he left kisses on my collarbones

“Big time baby, big time” he said running his hands down to my ass and squeezing

Chris pulled away, and I immediately pulled my shirt off and my bra. His eyes darted down to my breast as he cupped them in his hands, kneading and toying with them.

“Fuck” I moaned out licking my now dry lips

Chris brought his mouth to the valley of my breast kissing and licking before taking my right nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue, and moaning against me. I could feel how wet I had become from this action alone causing me to grind down onto Chris harder

“Take your shirt off” I said in a hushed tone

Chris pulled away and removed his shirt, I immediately leaned forward and left wet opened mouth kisses along his neck and upper chest. His head leaned back as his grip on my ass strengthened

“Mama I need more” Chris croaked out, this immediately making my heart pound and my pupils dilate. “Mama”?? Fuck this was so hot

I slid off of Chris and slipped my pants off leaving myself in my underwear as I got back on his lap. Pushing my very wet cunt against his dick

“So wet for me” he moaned out looking into my eyes

“Always baby” I said grinding down on him

Feeling his dick so vividly through his thin sweatpants and thin boxers. My underwear were soaked, and I’m sure it left a mark….

Chris attached his mouth to my left nipple as I slowly grinded against him. I swear I was about to cum from this alone.

“I’m going to cum from this alone” I panted out

He released me with a smile spread across his face.

“Get up” he said tapping my thigh

I lifted off of Chris and he slid his pants down along with his underwear. His dick springing up, and my jaw dropping. Fuck he was hung….ive been missing out on this??

He started to stroke his dick while looking at me

“I’m ready when you are” he said

Part of me couldn’t take him serious because he had makeup on and was about to fuck me, but the other part couldn’t take my eyes off his dick, and how badly I needed it

I slid my panties off and walked back over to him, lining myself up with his dick, and slowly sinking down. I had never rode a guy sitting in a chair, but this new feeling felt amazing

His dick curved perfectly enough to push against my g spot, and my clit was hitting his pubic bone perfectly….god this needs to be a position I constantly do

Chris helped me bounce up and down on his dick as we both let out shaky moans. Why am I fucking my bestfriend, and how did this happen so fast, and why don’t I want it to end???

“Fuck Chris just like that” I moaned against his lips

He was gripping my hips and grinding me against him, his dick hitting all the right places.

“Come on mama” he cooed in a raspy voice

My stomach tightened at the pet name again. My mouth falling slack as my brows furrowed

All thought could be heard was our breathing, our skin smacking and the chair scratching against the floor slightly

I began to bounce on Chris dick as he massaged my breast. My body shuddered as I continued to ride him

“Oh fuckkk” I whined out gripping onto his shoulders harder

“You got this, come on” he said biting his lip

I started to get close to my orgasm, so I began to grind against him. My clit hitting his pubic bone in all the right places. His dick kissing my G spot and I swore I was seeing stars.

“I’m going to cum” I moaned out my breathing becoming heavier

“Okay baby, come on” he said looking at my face up and down, taking his bottom lip into his teeth and helping me grind down harder

My upper body shuddered as I clenched around him. Falling into his chest as I came all over his dick. His name spilling from my lips like a chorus as I ran my fingers into his hair pulling at the roots. My thighs and legs shaking as my vision went blank and my hearing went dull. This was the best orgasm I’ve ever had, and it was on Chris’ dick…

Taking shaky breaths as I came down from my high I leaned back looking at Chris with fucked out eyes. I slowly slid off of him and got down on my knees

“What are you doing baby?” He asked

“I want you to cum for me” I said looking up at him

Chris eyebrows raised and he swallowed thickly.

“Okay…yeah” he said biting his lip

He began to stroke his dick and moaning out my name as his jaw fell slack. His lower abdomen began to contract and his thighs got a bit shaky

He stroked harder, and soon his brows furrowed and he looked me in my eyes.

“I’m gonna cum” he said

I opened my mouth and stuck my tongue out, Chris’ eyes lighting up.

Suddenly he came, painting my tongue with his seed as my name fell from his mouth like a mantra.

I swallowed as he leaned back, his breathing becoming shallow as he tried to catch his breath.

“I can’t believe I fucked my best friend” I said getting up and walking over to him running my hands through his hair

“I can’t believe you fucked me while I had makeup on” he said laughing

“I mean hey it didn’t even smudge, look at that my waterproof makeup routine is now sex proof” I said laughing

“Glad we tested it out” he said winning at me

I rolled my eyes as a blush crept up on my neck. I pulled Chris up by his hand

“Let’s shower” I said

He wrapped his hands around my waist as we walked to the bathroom, kissing me on my neck as we waddled

I think I liked this. Fucking my best friend, not dating but also knowing we wouldn’t fuck anyone else. It felt right to me….Chris was going to be the death of me…

The End

ALRIGHTTTT I hope you enjoyed this one🤭. I love yall sooo much, and I’m less than 50 people away from 1,000 followers. When I tell you this is fucking insane. I’m so grateful for all of yall. Love yall dearly🤭🖤🖤

-J💅🏽

#sturniolo triplet smut #sturniolo smut #smut #chris sturniolo smut #Christopher sturniolo smut #Chris sturniolo x reader smut #Spotify

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mirgompillow · 10 months ago

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hi! you mentioned that your celestials' aren't fond of each other, the relationship is in-game like. Can we see more entounters of them maybe? 👀

I LOVE your art, your babies are so crunchy i just wanna squeeze and smooch em!

OHAYOOO! Of course!! :DD

I was actually planning to make doodles instead of these two but oh well huhu! Thank youu soOoo much and I love your work as well!! ❤️

ABOUT SUN AND MOON. Welllllllllllll, just imagine them in a kid-friendly film, Sun the sassy yet caring attendant who happens to have a "little" bit of mischief whenever lights are off! Moon on the other hand is an absolute control freak xD though! He's not all that bad, he does have strict rules like sun does but man, don't let him steal your cheese 😭 (also he's devious, don't let him take your glamrock freddy too)

I can't really draw them interacting with each other since they are the same person, but this is the best thing I can do! (Jk I can do better I swear 😭)

But if they were different people, it would be funny to watch them take the last slice of pizza, kicking each other with awfully hilarious faces xD

#moondrop #fnaf sb moon #daycare attendant #fnaf security breach #fnafsb #fnaf #security breach moon #fnaf daycare attendant #sketches #fnaf dca #sundrop #security breach sun #fnaf sb sun #qna #I CANT ENGLISH

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legendary-lunatic · 10 days ago

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Okay, So I just finished binge watching all four Despicable Mes in one day, and I gotta say that I did not care for the fourth movie.

It was disappointing… which is a shame, because Maxime Le Mal is awesome.

The concept of a cockroach villain, is epic. He had a great character design, a fun personality, and he had past conflict with Gru.

The problem with the fourth movie is that it is not plot driven enough and instead keeps splicing screen time for family fluff moments and side characters like Poppy.

Poppy, as much as I thought she was a fun presence, was NOT needed in the movie, and neither was all of that Safe House Country Club shit. Why would they go out of their way to say ‘Hey Gru? Let’s stop acting like the grumpy protagonist we love and instead behave completely out of character so you can pretend you like playing tennis.’ It was unnecessary and not what we needed from a character we have grown to find charming because of the way he can be both kind and a grumpy asshole. (Like Shrek.) Shrek does not belong at a country club, and neither does Gru.

We introduce a villain school that Gru went to only to not only completely avoid talking about him or the school in that context, but bring it up again solely for an irrelevant character who overall contributes nothing the the story at hand.

All of the other films in some way had a proactivity to them that kept the main antagonist in mind, and this film does not work because they keep shoving Maxime to the side. They should have completely scrapped all the minion fantastic four hero parody crap and stayed focused on the overall narrative and developing the new central antagonist.

It would have been fantastic if we had gotten more background on the conflict between Gru and Maxime. Apparently they had a little rivalry or just generally were jerks to each other in school as we find out that not only did Gru steal his song, Maxime pantsd him in front of the school, not to mention how they interacted in the beginning of the film, so clearly there is bad blood. This is the first villain that had conflict with Gru specifically, and it would have been an excellent central plot point to focus on his early life, or a great way to develop a villain that’s built out of personal grudge rather than inherently destructive ambition like the others.

And instead that was SQUANDERED by this absolutely directionless travesty. Maxime’s girlfriend, first of all, was useless and distracting. All the little cutaway moments and side stories were unnecessary, and overall it was incredibly disappointing to have a guy that can CONTROL COCKROACHES do absolutely nothing with them. He could be strong and invulnerable, He could have been mutating more people, controlling swarms, he could have been going after Gru more intensely and talking about how they bullied each other and that could have been very interesting.

But no. This is the only film in which the main antagonist takes such a back seat that he can effectively be cut from the film and it would hardly impact a thing. Maxime had potential and stage presence, and they did nothing with it in favor of fluff.

And Listen, LISTEN, fluff isn’t bad, I love their family- but it should not comprise 98% of the film!!! It should be wedged into little moments between plot points. Even Despicable Me 3, which had a bizarre out of left field twin plot, handled their villain with more respect and managed to tie in the two narratives in a way that culminated in a final act that was satisfying to all the characters.

Brat had charisma and was a genuine threat and was present enough in the story that he was still necessary to the story overall because he and his diamond were the reason Gru lost his job and he and his brother did the heist to retrieve it. By the end of the first half of the film we knew that Brat was a washed up star that peaked in his childhood and was trapped in his nostalgia, and he had a fully fleshed out motivation and draw to him despite being rather simple that allowed us to indulge in his quirks. His pathetic nostalgic personality CARRIES that film because it’s funny and endearing and believable because we’ve all met someone like that.

But Maxime is not such a simple character by design because his motivations are relationship focused- and in this film they spend most of the time running away from Maxime, which is counter intuitive and lets us understand absolutely nothing about the guy. Because they didn’t delve deeper, Le Mal’s motivations were weak, and thus the overall STORY was weak. We don’t even know why he has such an intense hyper fixation on cockroaches that he would literally roachify himself and make that his central theme!!!

Why didn’t Lucy and the kids go to the safe house and Gru could stay to deal with his rival? It doesn’t make sense!!! And the AVL was doing nothing about the threat at all and instead was being ridiculous by giving the minions super powers? Ineptitude to the point of absurdity. What is the point of going to a safe house if they aren’t trying to resolve the issue and then Gru does it anyway?!!!!

Brain dead. Disappointing. On every level.

They didn’t even resolve the personal conflicts the girls were having, what with Margo having trouble at school and Agnes not liking telling lies! What was the point?!

The animation may have been pretty, but the plot was weak. The character motivations were weak because they didn’t expand on them. There were thousands of directions they could have gone with this film and they chose to go NOWHERE.

The best part of the film is the end, and only because we got to see Maxime be relevant for three minutes and it implies that they’ve managed to wrap up their implied but borderline nonexistent rivalry. And we got two seconds of Brat dancing way too over sensually to ‘Rule the World’ because it’s an 80s song (the power of character consistency)

I don’t like hearing ‘ItS JuSt a KiDs FiLm’- NO. Pandering to children is not an excuse for bad writing in family media, and this franchise has been out long enough that it has an audience larger than just kids. Kids media and family media deserve better and should still have good narrative standards. Do not insult our intelligence by giving us content without purpose. It costs millions of dollars and months upon years to make a film nowadays, there is no excuse for not sitting down and coming up with a decent story direction and cohesive plan. A family film can be enjoyable for little ones and still have depth to it-

Family movies have been getting insanely messy lately with their story content because they think seeing characters we like regurgitated at us with good animation is enough to keep the company afloat and appease everyone, and it’s irritating. Dig deeper, have some respect for your craft. Keep our expectations high to keep us coming back!

I love the Despicable Me world and characters, but honestly this was such a disjointed film that it was almost hard to enjoy because I just kept waiting for something, anything to happen, and was utterly let down.

Maxime Le Mal deserved better as a villain, and this film deserved better. This franchise deserved better. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

#despicable me #despicable me 4 #maxime le mal #movie critique #movie review #felonious gru #movie analysis #rant post #dm4 #despicable me 3 #balthazar bratt

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hopeful-engineer · 1 year ago

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🌞 Self-care vs. self-indulgence vs. avoidance

Sometimes it may be a hard to swallow pill, but there's a difference between self-care and self-indulgence:

🍭 self-indulgence: spending too much money on stuff you want, but don't really need, like clothes you'll wear twice and then leave in your closet, where all they do is take up space, books you'll never read, subscriptions you'll forget about

✨ self-care: saving money; planning your budget; buying less, but better quality; thinking twice, before buying something you want, but don't need: "Will I really use it? Do I have enough money to buy it, without worrying, that I won't have enough to buy something more important? I want it now, but will I still want it tomorrow?" (note: I didn't write "don't buy anything except necessities" anywhere. Buy the stuff you want, but do it consciously, plan it and think before buying.)

🍭 self-indulgence: eating fast food and unhealthy snacks; drinking soda pop, energy drinks, tea with a lot of sugar, or too much coffee; adding sugar to everything; drinking too much alcohol

✨ self-care: eating as healthy as possible; learning to cook; avoiding fast food, sweets, potato chips and other unhealthy snacks; reducing your sugar intake; drinking water, fruit juices, tea without added sugar; planning your meals; buying natural food (note: It doesn't mean "never eat anything unhealthy again, never add sugar to anything, never drink alcohol". You can treat yourself with some pizza, or sweets, or beer sometimes, but it should be a treat, not part of your everyday meals.)

🍭 self-indulgence: staying up until 3 AM to watch films/series, play computer games, browse social media, chat with someone, or even to do something, that doesn't involve technology, for example draw or read books; sleeping until 11 AM, because you went to bed too late; sleeping 12 hours at the weekend, because you slept 4 hours a day during the week; hitting the snooze button; laying in the bed for too long after waking up

✨ self-care: fixing your sleep schedule; waking up earlier; going to bed earlier; sleeping 7 to 9 hours every day; avoiding all-nighters; having a fixed wake up time and a fixed bedtime, the same every day, including weekends; getting out of bed immediately when your alarm clock rings (note: I know there are circumstances, that can mąkę having a fixed sleep schedule is impossible, or next to impossible, I also know in some situations it's totally normal to stay up late, like you don't have to leave a party at 9 PM just because you want to stick to your sleep schedule, that would be unreasonable. Do it the best you can under your current life circumstances, and remember, this is about everyday life, not some rare exceptions.)

There's also a difference between self-care and avoidance:

😨 avoidance: staying home all the time; not going to any events, because meeting new people is stressful; always declinig your friends' invitations

✨ self-care: not going to that big, loud party, because it's too overwhelming, but going to a pub with a few friends instead; inviting your friends to your home, when going out feels too stressful; declinig some invitations, when you don't have time and/or energy, but accepting others, when you feel better and have more time; gradually increasing the number of social interactions you have, to be able to meet new people with less stress

😨 avoidance: having no plans for the future; thinking, that there's no point in having any goals in life; telling yourself, that ambitions are generally pointless and hence you don't have to do anything and be good at anything

✨ self-care: having specific, short-term goals and an overall vision od your long-term future; knowing, what you really want to do and what you're good at, and sticking to these things; consciously choosing, what to learn and what to give up on, based on if it's important to you, not to other people; not distracting yourself with too many side plans, when you have one main goal; knowing, what is your passion and what is your ambition; knowing, that you are ambitious mainly for yourself, and only secondly for the society; believing, that you are capable of achieving your goals

😨 avoidance: not studying at all, because it takes time and energy; procrastinating until the last moment before the exam/test/project deadline; always talking the easiest way possible with no ambition beyond barely passing the exam/test; having no plan, no study schedule; never asking for help, even if you're failing, because you think asking for help is a shame, or you're simply too shy; dropping out of school/college because it's stressful

✨ self-care: knowing that you're studying for yourself, your grades don't define you and that real knowledge and skills are more important, than grades; focusing on these topics, that are important to you for your future studies/career, and being the best you can in these areas; being good enough to pass at everything, that isn't important for your future plans; planning your studying and starting early; taking regular breaks to avoid burnout; asking for help if necessary, but trying to do as much as possible and reasonable on your own; acknowledging that, despite the education system being flawed in so many ways, it also gives you many opportunities;

Of course, self-care includes bubble baths, eating cake, listening to your favourite music and slowly drinking tea, while watching the rain outside through the window and letting your thoughts wander, but these aren't only forms od self-care and definetely not the most important ones. Of course, sometimes it includes staying home with your cat instead of going to the party, sleeping in, instead of studying for an exam, because you're exhausted, or giving up on something, instead of trying again and again, but this should happen in some, specific situations, not be your default response. Real self-care should focus on improving your life, not escaping it or avoiding it.

This post doesn't mean, I'm perfect at all of these things. Actually I struggle a lot with many of them. This is a piece of advice for me, too.

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roo-bastmoon · 1 year ago

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Fanservice Couple Sucks at Fanservicing

Hmmm.

Jimin's Album: Here's a super secret hidden song "for the fans" with lyrics that mimic things Jimin said before specifically about Jungkook, with Jungkook providing background vocals that were never discussed when marketing the album, and listeners have to wait through dead air to get to hear the song and shine a light on the invisible lyrics engraved in the album and it's not uploaded onto Spotify or for digital sale because.... fanservice.

Jimin's Documentary: Here's less than two minutes of footage of Jungkook singing Letter; the film cuts away from Jikook's hug and doesn't interview Jungkook about it at all, and practically his entire face is covered when he's singing it; also, the paper he's holding is shaking like a leaf, unlike earlier in the day when he was recording for the World Cup, which was the biggest solo performance of his career at that time, because.... fanservice.

Jimin's Live Reaction: Here's Jimin lighting up like a Christmas tree when Jungkook quietly sneaks in the room to watch his live recording before going home; now watch as they awkwardly interact for two minutes--including a tiddy grab and butt smacking, on top of "I love you" and "have fun with ARMY!" but notice Jimin sends Jungkook away, instead of letting him mic up and sit on the chair and react with him, because... fanservice.

Jimin's Commentary: Here's Team Jimin reacting to every remote detail of the making of the documentary, except when it comes to Letter, in which case no one breathes the name Jungkook and he is never heard nor appears on screen, because... fanservice. gosh that sure is odd.

The fanservice isn't fanservicing.

It's almost how like, in their real lives when they aren't working, Jungkook watched all of Jimin's content, or Jungkook mumbled about how Jimin moved his lamp or mentioned Jimin kept coming up to him to say "periri," or how Jimin traveled to NYC and CT for Jungkook's debut and they filmed something but all Jungkook would say about it is "Yeah, he's in.... New York," and then Jimin posted a shirtless picture on Jungkook's birthday but never spoke on it, or how both Jimin and Jungkook just happened to find time to watch the same random anime, or how they went to Jeju together but we wouldn't have known if Tae hadn't posted photos, or how it is heavily implied that they spent Chuseok together based on the whale drawing that Jimin posted and the way Jungkook was quick to tell us that Jimin drew half of it.

Golly gosh, for a Fanservice Couple, it's almost like a bunch of stuff isn't being shared with us on purpose. But why?

Doxxed info? Tampered mail? Death threats? Press scandals? Global debut? Conservative homophobia? Military service?

Who knows, but "lack of genuine closeness" doesn't seem to be the driving reason.

I'm not gonna sit here and scream conspiracy theories about a "private couple." Jimin lives like a hermit much of the time and Jungkook is running around with his same-age friends quite a bit these days.

So as I always say--I cannot tell you that Jikook are dating. I can only tell you we have solid evidence of unique, charged chemistry between them--and tons of hints that they spend more time together than they let us in on. That's it. If there's more, we aren't getting to see it.

And I don't blame anyone who takes the stance "I'll believe it when I see it." I think a fair amount of skepticism and a dedication to the just the facts is a healthy mindset.

But it really makes my teeth itch when Jikook are accused of doing fanservice for the cameras, cause...

Where the hell is all my fanservice?? *grabby hands* WHERE?

Why is it that even TWO SECONDS of them interacting is so charged and fraught that it gets the entire fandom frothing at the mouth?

Jikook DO spend time together but they aren't running onto WeVerse to share it with us all the time, ya know? It leeks out little by little. And that makes it even MORE suspicious than just two bros hanging out in broville doing bro things.

In summary: This Fanservice Couple *sucks* at fanservice in solo era for sure.

#jikook #do you like my newspaper headline?#the jikookery these days is so sus #frustrated roo is frustrated #even non-ARMY find their interactions sus as fuck #don't be suspicious #DON'T BE SUSPICIOUS

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milliesfishes · 3 months ago

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⋆౨ৎ˚⟡Star Girl (Part Two)⋆౨ৎ˚⟡

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖masterlist⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ [fem reader] contains: kidnapping, blood, angst pairing: billy the kid x fem reader summary: billy finds you again author’s note: tagging @phantomamor because <3 Pinterest Board Spotify Playlist

Does a sun know how bright it shines?

Your glow, your radiant light, was the only thing behind Billy's eyes when he went to sleep. Though two weeks had passed since the interaction he'd had with you, his mind had found something new to orbit around. A few minutes talking, and you were the center of his universe.

At first he'd thought it was mere interest in your species, your heavenly power drawing him in like a man to riches. He'd never truly met a star person before, not properly, and he assumed his fascination with you stemmed from your celestial origins.

But as the thought stewed with him over a few days, he realized that wasn't it at all. Born from the stars or not, you had a unique, enchanting fascination with the world around you. Billy recalled how you'd looked at the city with bright and wondrous eyes, how for a moment he'd wondered if you and him were seeing the same things. No, you seemed to love it all as well as the world should be loved.

Billy purposefully picked up a few jobs that would lead him back to the planet he'd met you on, taking his time in the market in the hopes that he'd come across you again. It was a fruitless effort, because nowhere in the bounds of the city did he spot your distinctive glow. Perhaps you’d vacated this planet, danced away to some other place that didn’t know how lucky it was. Billy would let each of his teeth rot and disintegrate into dust if it meant he could indulge in your sweetness over and over and over.

Here, lying on his back and staring at the murky grey of the ceiling above his bed, his fingers thrummed a sad rhythm on his chest. The imprint in his heart was suspiciously shaped like you, and he wondered how long it would take for it to fill in. Or if it would at all. Soon he would just be another time-worn bounty hunter, money poured into rounds of drinks, flying to every long-forgotten corner of the galaxy searching for the daughter of the stars whom he was unworthy of anyways.

Billy turned over onto his side, cheek smushed into his pillow, eyes determinedly shut as if that could stop him from seeing you. It was a hopeless thing he was caught in- wanting desperately to even be near you and finding nothing but empty air before him. It was times like these when he wished he still lived aboard the crowded Seven Rivers ship, where the noise and comradery offered a distraction from his thoughts. Being out by himself was fine until he had recollections he couldn’t control.

Before, they had painted pictures of his parents and brother, their untimely deaths and the sorrow that followed. But now they held you. Just another thing he couldn’t have.

Billy pulled the covers up over himself, lightly scratching his stomach. Having his own ship meant there were finer comforts, a bigger sleeping space being one. He could feel your shadow next to him, resting soundly and beckoning him closer. It was cruel the way his mind tortured him.

Reaching behind him, Billy grasped in darkness for the other pillow, dragging it over to crush in his arms. Burying his face in the top of it, he shut his eyes once again, imagining he was holding you instead. You’d be just as soft, he thought.

Under his eyelids he began to see the details of you like a torturous film reel, just as he did nearly every night. The flecks of gold smattered across your skin, the shining strands interwoven into your hair. He swore he could hear your laugh echoing through the halls of the ship like the melody of a music box.

Billy gave up on trying to siphon you out of his head, squeezing the pillow tighter to him. At least when he saw you in his dreams, the illusion would make him happy for a little while.

It was a painfully long night.

He found himself wandering over to the gang's ship, tantalizingly landed in the same city he'd met you in, the next evening. His detour was partially to bring over the week's sum, partially as a diversion. As expected, the atmosphere was boiling, thick with the scent of the best drink money could buy, ground littered precariously with broken glass. Billy nursed a drink, hand around the firm neck of it. He didn't know how much time had surpassed since he'd sat down.

It was late. Too late to be on a ship in the back slums of some criminally infested planet, too late to be entertaining the notion of one more drink just so he could get through the rest of this. He hadn't been able to ignore his higher-up's invitation, having cashed in his final check of excuses at the last party. A man could only have so many broken elbows.

Looking around at the sloppily drunk members of the crew surrounding him, Billy huffed, lifting his bottle for a final swig of the dredges swamping the bottom. He set it down, not bothering to say goodbye to anybody around. It wasn't like they'd remember in the morning amid cloudy hangovers.

He excused himself into the quiet hallways of the ship, basking in the quiet muffling the sounds of the raucous celebration. For what, he wasn't even sure. Billy had been to an endless amount of these gatherings, but tonight everyone seemed particularly fired up. Maybe he could have asked, but he doubted anybody was sober enough to remember.

The hefty clomp of his boots echoed down the hallway void of any others, and he enjoyed the peace. He'd drunk very little tonight, feeling above such affairs. None of it was important anymore, these activities he maybe would have indulged in as wildly as his companions when he hardly knew of the world.

Now he'd seen the best life had to offer- a girl literally born from the stars. Other pleasures were far less in comparison.

Wandering, meandering, in the direction of the exit, Billy paused when he heard a strange noise around the corner, the faintest thing, like a whistle. Bracing a hand on the wall, his brow creased, and he tilted an ear in the direction of the sound.

At first he thought it was nothing, a creak in the ship perhaps. But then it happened again. Then again.

Billy moved forward, following the direction of the clamor. Had an animal wandered mistakenly into the corridors? It certainly wouldn't be the first time. The whimpering noise became more pronounced the closer he got to the crudely dubbed "bounty room", where the crew were known to keep their finds. The Seven Rivers Gang had a habit of waiting to pool their findings so the resulting paycheck would be considerably larger.

He ducked into the area, searching for the poor creature, ready to guide it back outside. The room was nearly overflowing with finds of every variety, from jewels to weapons. Billy couldn't recall a time he'd ever seen it this full, and he figured this might be why they were celebrating. A surplus of fortune was certainly an excuse for the men to drink all night.

Skirting the sharp edge of a sword with a ruby hilt, he found himself glad he didn't live on this ship anymore. The work of lugging all of this off the ship would hardly be worth the financial reward.

The whimpering noise was becoming louder, and Billy found his interest piqued. It was sounding less like an animal by the minute, and a mounting sense of dread was instilling in him like a rock dug firmly into earth. He'd long suspected the gang was bringing in bounties less morally sound without his intervention, but this would be the first he'd ever seen it for himself. With a clenched jaw, Billy pushed aside a faded blue curtain, hoping his thoughts were incorrect.

The sight before him sent a shock to his very core, like a meteorite had struck and shelled a crater into his chest. A dam broke inside his heart, struck by a bolt of lightning. Shock pooled in his lungs, crawling up his chest and wrapping around his throat, choking him of air.

Tied, bound and gagged, shoved in the corner like a dusty relic of time, was you.

You were light in his arms. Too light. Gold stained the front of your dress from a gash in your arm, all dried. He'd whipped the bandana from around his neck and tied it to the spot in a hasty attempt to staunch the wound.

He was grateful for automatic doors in that moment, for it meant he didn't have to put you down. Since leaving the Seven Rivers' ship, you'd been weakly pawing at him, mumbling things he couldn't discern from one another. All he could do was murmur, "'s okay. I've gotcha."

It hadn't been easy to convince Jesse to let him take you. But through a slew of cool assurances and promises falling from his tongue like silk, he had managed.

It would be more work for the crew if they had to take care of you, and if they did it poorly, the quality of your blood would diminish. No, Billy would handle the sales, the maintenance, the dirty work. And he would bring the earnings back to the gang just as he'd done with other bounties.

At least, that was what he told Jesse.

Hurriedly, Billy rushed down the halls of his ship, bootsteps echoing as he found the way to his bed, the only one onboard. For all his newer luxury, he'd never had the need for another. Very carefully, as if he were holding something that would melt under his touch, he set you down, positioning your head on one of the pillows.

You whimpered pitifully, reaching out for him, and he slid one of his hands into your grasp, unable to resist. "Shh, 's okay. I'm gonna help you. You're gonna be okay." With the state you were in, he wasn't sure if he was telling the truth about the last part.

It was clear the gang had been draining blood, the golden evidence staining your clothes. Besides that, there were scratches marring your soft skin. Billy was enraged by the sight, the gall of the men he'd toiled alongside for countless hours unbelievable. He could imagine them seeing you all bright and sweet in the marketplace, luring you away like the other man had when he'd first found you. Worth a fortune or not, you were a living creature, a precious one. Whoever had it in them so hurt you surely had a heart black and hard as coal.

When he tried to stand up and fetch supplies necessary for your healing, you shook your head, holding firm to his hand, a little cry wrenching from your throat. "Please...don't go..." The sound of your pleading instilled an ache that settled deep into his bones, rendering him helpless to anything but your wishes.

Billy passed his thumb over your knuckles, watching as tears with a golden sheen slipped from your eyes and trailed rivers down your cheeks. Reaching his other hand out, he brushed the crystally pearls away, swearing they left bright spots on his skin. "'m not goin' anywhere," he promised, holding your gaze. "You're safe here."

The look in your eyes was hazy, and he realized you'd lost more blood than he'd thought. Smoothing a hand over your head, Billy exhaled once, pursing his lips. "'S okay...'s okay. Give me a minute, I'm just gonna grab a few things."

"Don't go, Billy," you begged, weakly squeezing his hand. Oh, his heart ached at the sight, the tone in your voice. He stood before the sound of his name on your lips could disarm him again, logic overpowering anything else. If he ever wanted to hear it again, he needed to act fast.

Getting to his feet, he rushed into the next room, grasping whatever he could get his hands on. Bandages, water, medical tape...he gathered it all up and brought it back to your side, where you had begun to cry again.

Billy ignored the pang in his chest, sliding an arm under your body as he sat down and pulling you to sit up against his chest. When you winced, he rubbed your arm, clumsily trying to unwind the gauze. "I know...I know, sweet girl. It's gonna feel better soon, just let me..." he trailed off, finally peeling an acceptable length off and using his teeth to tear it, holding you steady with one arm against his chest.

Pulling the bandana from your arm, he managed to hold one end of the gauze and begin to wrap it around the wound, trying not to let his mind go at the sight of your blood. He'd have to find you something else to wear since your dress was ruined, maybe track down where your other possessions had ended up.

Seeing you in pain, so weakened like this was like leaking poison into his veins. He'd wanted so desperately to see you again...but not like this. No, not this feeble, despondent version of you, with teary eyes and a dimming glow. He wanted you happy, the brightest thing in the universe again.

You sniffled, resting your head on his shoulder and breathing softly. He was glad at least that you weren't hyperventilating. Billy lifted a hand, stroking your hair before he could stop himself. He reprimanded himself inside as he felt how smooth your hair was, the gold in it sifting between his fingers. She isn't your girl. She's hurting right now.

Sitting up a little straighter, Billy used his arm around your shoulders to tuck a strand behind your ear. "I'm gonna get you somethin' else to wear, okay?"

Taking in a shaky breath, you looked up at him with doe eyes, the irises of them glowing in a somber way. Billy searched the plains of them, seeing a thousand unspoken words staring back at him. Your grip on his arm tightened, and he bit the side of his cheek.

Bobbing his chin just once, he reached a hand up to the buttons of his shirt, tugging at each one and unwinding the suspenders from his shoulders, only briefly letting go of you to slide his arm from the left sleeve of his shirt. The second he had it off, you were latched to his side again, cheek pressed to his pec. You were warm, nearly feverish, and he risked another caress to your side.

Billy took in a breath, fingering the edge of your dress. It was pretty still, even covered in your blood. He murmured, "Can I take this off?"

A little nod from you had him pulling the straps gently down your shoulders, averting his eyes when your torso was exposed. He felt a tug on his arm, and then he looked back at you, catching a glimpse of the delicate flower-embroidered garment covering your chest. Though you were not human, your features seemed to be exactly the same.

You searched his eyes, seeming crestfallen. "Am I...bad to look at?"

Billy's heart ached, and he realized what you were referring to. "No...no, not at all. Just want you to have privacy if you want it."

"Oh." You straightened a little at that, shimmying the skirt of your dress down your legs. Billy bunched it up, tossing it to the chair by his bed. He was relieved to see there wasn't too much blood on your skin. Freckles decorated your torso in interesting patterns, but he didn't examine them closer. Instead, he draped his shirt over your shoulders, helping you work your arms through the sleeves.

Even now, beaten down and bloody, you were a sight for the sorest of eyes. He'd truly never seen anything more beautiful than that of you in his shirt, in his bed, braids in your hair coming unraveled and intermingling with the other strands. Before his thoughts went any further, he silenced them. You'd just been through the unimaginable and here he was, no better than any other man.

Billy moved to stand up, but your eyes widened, hand twining around his wrist. "Where are you going?"

"I'll sleep somewhere else tonight," he said, reaching for your hand to remove it. "Give you your space-"

"No!" you blurted out, shrinking back afterward as if surprised by it. "I'm sorry. I just...can't you stay with me? Please?"

He wanted to protest, to say you'd been through too much and him being around wouldn't help. But your eyes were pleading, and he remembered that you hadn't let go of him for more than a few minutes since he'd retrieved you from the bounty room.

"You're sure?" he checked, searching your eyes that still seemed to glow. "I don't wanna overstep."

"Please stay," you repeated, clinging to his arm. "Please."

Billy gave in at that. Who was he to deny the most magnetic woman in all of time and space? He shifted in, comfortably settling next to you and lifting his arm so you could lean on his chest. It all felt ridiculously domestic, despite the circumstances. But you needed comfort. He knew that by the way you clung to him, the way you nuzzled against his chest. Billy's heart fluttered, and he tried to stifle it by lying down, bringing you with him.

Breathing soft and steady, you murmured, "You saved me."

He stayed quiet. The way you'd uttered those three words implied that he was a hero, when it was his own gang who'd taken you. He wasn't a rescuer, a storybook idol. Billy was merely a lone soul in the midst of men, trying to atone for what they had done to the daughter of the heavens.

Your hand found his heart, and you pressed it there, seeming fascinated by the steady beat of it against his chest. Every word you spoke was hazy, and he worried you were exerting yourself too much. "You did save me. You're different from the others..." you trailed off into silence, and he felt your body slump against him.

His chin lowered instantly, making sure you were breathing. Billy wasn't sure he'd be able to sleep a wink, not when you were this weak, when you'd lost so much of your golden life force.

Or maybe it was because the girl he'd dreamt of for weeks was now pressed right against his chest, holding on tight to him like he was the only thing worth having.

Billy was bleeding. He'd hastily wrapped the wound at his side, a lousy job, but it would do the trick for now. The swarm of winged creatures that had attacked him were hot on his heels now, and he needed to get out of here.

He smashed the button that shut the door to the ship, tossing his hat to the side and setting the saddlebag containing his prize to the side as gently as he could. The diamond inside had been a risky take, worse in danger than anything else he'd retrieved before. But the price was high, and it would keep him from having to go on treacherous hunting sprees for at least another month.

This had been the nature of most of the bounties he collected in the past few weeks- high-risk but benevolent in reward. In order to pay the Seven Rivers every week, he wasn't about to actually take your blood. No, they didn't need to know where the money came from, only that it was enough.

You were still frail from the sum of the blood they had taken from you, body recovering slowly, regenerating whatever you had lost. He was steadily nursing you back to health, but it was a long process. Star people didn't heal as quickly as humans did, he'd discovered.

The distinctive glow he'd known of you before was steadily coming back. When he woke up every day, he noticed it burning brighter than the night before, and it was a small relief amidst his worry for you. Still, you insisted he sleep beside you every night, partially for your comfort and partially because you didn't want to inconvenience him. "I feel bad enough that you have to take care of me," you'd said, guiltily playing with the buttons of the shirt of his you wore. He swapped it out every day with a fresh one, wishing all the while he could get his hands on the clothes you usually wore.

Billy had shaken his head at your ashamed expression, reaching for your hand and squeezing it. "Don't say that. 'S no big deal."

"I was dying, Billy," you insisted, looking up earnestly into his eyes. "You didn't have to take me from them. But you did."

"I couldn't let them do anything more to you," he'd whispered, looking away. "It ain't right. 'Specially not...not to you."

That made you fall silent, and you just watched him for a minute. He basked in the warmth of your gaze, still avoiding your eyes. It didn't feel right for him to be the object of any admiration.

You were out of the woods, feet planted firmly in the land of the living. Now he only had to keep you there.

In between jobs, he tended to you, kept you fed, made sure you were comfortable. You'd tried to help around, clean a little while he was out, but he discouraged it. He didn't need you exhausting yourself when you were still getting better.

The loss of blood left you with terrible symptoms; fevers that woke you in the night and had you clinging to his arm, bouts of weakness that sent him deeper into an ocean of worry. He pressed cool cloths to your forehead and ushered you back to bed, every time hoping that the next time this happened it wouldn't be as bad.

Despite every onslaught of pain, every fever, you remained light, the wonders of living still cupped in your hands for you to indulge in. You smiled at him so sweetly it spun his head, held tight to his body every night. It made him feel as though he was in a dream. You in all your divinity, despite the horrible things that had happened, were glowing from the inside out and tracing the small beauties of the universe, never finding fault with any of it.

He found himself enamored with you for it. Your celestial essence manifested in the way you carried yourself, in every small love you found. Billy would try and bring back pretty things for you every time he left, reveling in your delight. You didn't leave the ship often, purely for your safety. He was worried another of Seven Rivers would see you, notice that he wasn't doing what he'd said he would.

Instead, he brought the world to you, through little flowers picked from the crooks between pavement, shiny stones glistening from the water of the river. And you loved each one, thanking him profusely and throwing your arms around his neck.

Sometimes, he would fly past certain spots in the galaxy just so you could see something beautiful. It wasn't an unusual sight for you to be positioned by the enormous window near the cockpit, bundled in his oversized shirt, hair tied up, staring through the pane of glass with pure joy lighting your face. He showed you supernovas, colors that created an aurora of beauty. Seeing the stars, he supposed he was showing you your family.

Sometimes he'd put the ship in autopilot and just wander over to your side, kneel beside you and let you point out whatever you saw to him. You knew the name of every star, every phenomenon. Sometimes the way you spoke went over his head, but he reveled in it anyways. The sound of your voice was music, and he'd hear it play forever and ever.

One night as he was flying, trying to get to the latest buyer's destination in good time, you'd wandered up to him, rubbing your eyes blearily. "Are you coming to bed?"

He'd half smiled, giving you a fond look. "I'll be along soon."

You nodded, biting your cheek and taking a step back. "How soon?"

Billy looked up at you, abandoning the ship's path. "You okay, sweet?" The pet name was slipping out more and more these days.

"I...I can't sleep without you," you mumbled, looking away and rocking back once on your heels. The hem of his shirt hit your mid thighs, and he couldn't help but find you so wonderfully adorable in that moment. Barefoot and wanting him to soothe you to sleep.

A smile twitched at the corners of his lips, and he held out a hand, beckoning as an idea lightened his mind. "Do you want to come here?"

"Where?" You stepped forward hesitantly.

He patted his thighs. "Here. If you want to. If not, I can land somewhere close 'n we can get to bed."

You seemed to consider for a moment, playing with your fingers, the sleeves of the shirt swallowing them. "I don't want to ruin your plan." Your hands dropped to your sides, and you moved to him, legs across his. Automatically, your head found a place on his shoulder, and he secured an arm around you, rubbing your arm.

Truthfully, Billy would have done the other thing in a heartbeat. You slept against him every night, but he would never dare to presume you'd be okay doing what you were doing. But he was glad. More than anything he was glad.

It was getting harder to ignore the feelings that pulled at his heart, that took his hand and put it into yours, begged him to tell you he felt something more. Billy couldn't bring himself to, not when you weren't at your best. The rush he felt whenever you touched him would have to wait, maybe forever. If you healed and went on your way to never see him again, he wouldn't hold you back. His debt to you would be paid in some, and he'd thank the higher powers that he got to know you. More than that, he'd consider his wishes from before to see you again granted.

To care for you and at least show you he cared was enough. At least you knew that.

Now as he was desperately pressing buttons, lifting the ship into orbit and trying to ignore the stabbing pain in his side, he tried to distract himself with the memory. He had wondered why the cave containing the diamond was such feared territory until he'd picked up the massive gem and a terrifying mass of creatures came flying at him, claws focusing in on his right ribcage.

Billy made it out of the atmosphere, the star dotted sky greeting the nose of the ship. In a frenzy, he punched in the coordinates of a further away planet, hoping he'd had enough of a head start. The creatures were unidentified, and so he wasn't sure if they would be able to follow him. It was better to be safe than sorry and pick a destination as far as possible.

When the ship engaged in hyperdrive, shooting to a boundary far from the clutches of diamond-guarding animals, only then did Billy sigh in relief. He put the ship on autopilot, trusting the machine to get him to the location in good time.

Billy stood, wincing at the sharp stab in his ribs. When he looked down, there was blood soaking through the fabric of the shirt. Not a good sign. He exhaled, trying to breath the pain away.

Soft footsteps pattered down the hallway, and then you appeared, eyes blown wide as moons as they took in his injured appearance. "Billy?"

He managed a half-smile. "I'm okay, sweet. Go back to bed-"

"What happened?" you gasped, rushing to him, hands finding his arms. You guided him to sit at the window seat he so often accompanied you by, fingers lightly probing at the gash.

Grunting lightly, he batted your hand away. "Just somethin' unexpected. 'S okay, I'm-"

"Stay here." You ignored his protests, standing and going to the drawers across the hallway. He shut his eyes to try and ease the sting under his hand, listening to you rifle around and pull things out.

He only opened his eyes once you were beside him again, soft fingers undoing the buttons of his shirt. Looking down, he saw that your nails had regained their golden luster, nearly the same as they had been the night he'd first met you.

You peeled the shirt from his body, unwrapping his makeshift bandage, and he nearly went blank at the feeling of your fingers on his skin. Every night he felt this sensation, and yet here it was different. Your touch was so gentle when he was hurt, delicately tracing the area around his laceration.

Taking a cloth, you began to mop at the area, wincing when he did. "I'm sorry."

"'s okay," he managed, gritting his teeth. "I can take care 'f this. You can go back to bed."

"Let me," you said quietly, looking up at him with an expression of care he wasn't sure he'd had directed at him before. Not in a long while. Resuming your cleaning of his wound, you murmured, "You've taken care of me for so long. Let me help you."

Billy couldn't find the words to respond then, something in him blooming like a secret garden once thought dead. Somehow, he'd stumbled upon it again, breaking down the walls and stepping through the opening. There was no denying it anymore.

"You should have just taken some of my blood," you said softly, dabbing salve around the afflicted area. "You shouldn't have to do such dangerous things just to keep me safe."

"I'm not doin' that," he got out, inhaling sharply as the medicine stung at his raw skin. "That ain't right. 's not... 's not worth it."

"But you're getting hurt." You put down the salve and capped it, picking up a long, skinny bandage. "I didn't realize...I didn't know the things you were finding were this risky."

"That's how I wanted it," Billy countered, and your lips parted just slightly. He half-smiled. "You're worth the trouble, sweet. Every bit of it."

Your eyes were soft as you wound the bandage around his torso, touch gentle when you leaned into him to reach around his back and bring the end of it back to his side. Every brush of your fingers lit his skin on fire, every moment you were in his presence was anointing. Intimacy was a luxury, one he hadn't been able to afford in recent years. And yet here he was finding it with you.

Billy could count every shiny freckle scattered across your cheeks like sun's breath. He could smell your hair, a drug he'd never sober from. You finished your work, rubbing your hands over his chest. "There. All better."

His lips were so close to yours, within reach. Billy could feel what had been written in the margins become a part of his story suddenly, a new edition he couldn't wait to thumb through. The way you looked at him, a roseate fire stealing into your eyes, he was almost sure you felt it too.

Bending his neck, he pressed his lips to yours, nose smushing your cheek. You were perfectly still, frozen, almost, and he pulled himself away, terrified he'd just ruined it. He shouldn't have assumed, should have asked before he did anything.

But you were smiling slightly, a pretty curiosity woven with pleasure. The gold flecks in your eyes seemed to sparkle as you whispered, "What was that?"

Oh, he was enchanted. A smile lifted his lips, and he found his hand clasping with yours, unsure when it had moved there. "A kiss."

"Kiss." You tried it out like he tried out a new gun. As you said it, your smile appeared again like dawn after dark. "Why does anyone kiss?"

"To show someone," he began, searching your eyes, hung on nervousness. "That you like 'em. In a special way."

"Love?" You were tilting your head, fingers winding around his like ivy.

Billy's heart nearly stopped. He nodded once. "Love."

He expected you to turn away. That he would hear your footsteps pad back to the bedroom, and the both of you would forget that anything ever happened. You would heal and bloom again like the flower you were, and he would carry your memory as an eternal flame, knowing he once kissed a star girl.

You lifted your chin, eyes framed by your lashes. "Will you show me how?"

It was mythical, the things he was feeling. Nobody could have prophesied what was happening now. It was rolling waves swirling over the sandy grains of the shore. It was lush forests coming to life after a drought, livened by water from the sky. It was him bringing a hand to your cheek, guiding your lips back to his and really kissing you now.

At first you were careful, letting his mouth move against yours. But then you reciprocated, sliding your arms around his neck and leaning into him, mindful of his wound between your bodies. Even then, you fit against him like a missing piece, a molded portion of himself that he hadn't known to miss until now. What had been sparking in the kindling of his heart was now a wildfire, and he let it burn hot and bright as he kissed you.

Everything good and precious and treasured about the universe was here between his arms, encapsulated in the body of a woman who glimmered in a way only her origins could explain. Billy parted for air, cracking open his lids just a sliver, to see how you reacted.

You were looking right back at him, glowing. There was your light again, that beautiful sheen that informed him of your joy. Ever so softly, you asked, "Does that mean you love me?"

Billy let his lips fall against your forehead, then the tip of your perfect nose. "I love you," he confirmed, meaning it with every fiber of his being.

At that, you melted into him, avoiding his bandaged side. His soul came alight, its anthem singing your name in a glorious harmony stitched into his essence. He couldn't help but press another kiss to your gold streaked hair as you murmured again.

"I love you."

The planet was achingly beautiful, littered with wildflowers of all colors and shapes, greener than a summer's day. Billy was leaning against a tree, legs spread with you between them. The shirt of his that you were wearing was unbuttoned, exposing your pretty undergarments, the two suns in the azure sky gracing your golden-glowing skin.

He was rubbing his fingers up and down your side as you twirled the stem of a flower, peace enveloping the two of you in its warm embrace. You would turn every now and then to press a kiss to his chest, making him smile each time. Ever since he'd taught you kisses, it seemed that was all you wanted to do. And he didn't mind it one bit.

"You're an angel," he whispered, thumb rubbing over your tummy.

"What's that?" you asked absentmindedly, turning to look at him.

Billy kissed your head. "It's...somethin' too good for anyone. You're an angel. My angel."

You smiled to yourself, turning back around and looking up at the sky, where the stars were beginning to appear as the suns set. Billy drew a heart on your side with the pad of his finger, a question springing into his head. "Do you know which stars you came from?"

"Mhm!" You were excited by the question, turning in his arms and moving back just a little, pulling aside the left fold of the shirt. There, over your ribs, was a little collection of gold freckles. Touching the spot, you said, "This constellation. It's my family. My most direct family, anyways."

Billy moved forward, and you watched him lean on his elbows, so his eyes were level with your stomach. Reaching out a finger, he traced the miniscule dots, marveling that you had your ancestry tattooed there, a birthmark of the highest order.

You looked up at the sky, gesturing there. "They're there now."

Indeed, when Billy lifted his eyes, he saw the stars arranged in the exact shape, its carbon copy on your skin. His heart felt as though it would overflow. He lowered himself again, pressing a kiss to your ribs, right over the constellation. "Angel."

Pulling him up, you leaned into his chest, nuzzling your head over his heart. Billy laid on his back, big hand smoothing your hair. You were artfully dousing him in a love that had previously only existed on the tongues of dreamers, now taking form in his arms.

You were more than the blood in your veins that pursuers of wealth lusted after. You were the one thing in the universe that made him whole again.

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