#exposed nerve. I was miserable myself and I was miserable to be around. That weird rawness is better but hasn't gone away completely

[rasairui]

Looking back on my mental health feels really surreal. Like I'm not about to go on an anti medication rant, I still do want to be medicated just on. Different stuff. The worst I've ever been was about three years ago when I had a severe reaction to a medicine I was prescribed (so severe that I had a seizure and developed a tic disorder, but we didn't figure out that's where it came from until later. Yay minor neurological damage) and my psych did not listen when I told him it made me feel like shit so I just stopped taking it cold turkey. Then it came out one of the meds I was on significantly raises your chances of dementia if used regularly, which I had for five fucking years so I cut out that one too. So yeah I really feel like that initial bad reaction + quitting two medications really fucked me up and it's taken 3 years to get back to any sort of baseline.

And maybe I do have a bias against medication now, I haven't thought about that much. But I also do think I'm feeling and doing better now that I'm not taking anything. Don't think it's a long term solution, I'm still very much unwell but I'm not anywhere near where I was and that's a relief. Idk if I have a point I just realized I've gone weeks without any tics and my old triggers don't do anything to me anymore. It's pretty much something that only happens if I'm having a full-blown meltdown now. It's a big deal to me that just a couple years ago my tics were severe enough that I'd have to pull over and I was always worried about having another seizure. I'm glad I never did and it's surreal feeling confident enough to say I don't think I ever will.

[sunshineseung]

Journal Part 2 // Jeongin

🍄 | genre: smut ☁️ | pairing: Yang Jeongin x female!reader 🌿 | wc: 3.2k 🌸 | includes: milf!reader x babysitter!college student!virgin!jeongin, solo masturbation (m), “mommy/ma’am”, other pet names, more smut within smut [spanking, punishment], breast play, begging, agreement of safe word, unprotected PIV, choking, creampie, male overstimulation, a lil bit more but that’s the main stuff

🌊 | One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Finale |

The dim light of the desk lamp was all that lit the room as Jeongin desperately jotted his thoughts down into his journal. It was very late at night, almost sunrise, but he couldn’t stop thinking about you. As he was writing, he was completely hard, and his hand was lazily stroking his cock, not in an attempt to reach an orgasm, but rather just to relieve some of the pent up energy he had inside of himself. 

This journal will no longer have to be fantasy. Finally, after years of going after girls and failing miserably, I have a girl that wants me, but not just a girl, a woman. Ms. L/n, the woman this entire book is for, said she needs me, and she did get me like she wanted. Although I wasn’t thinking straight, I remember everything. Her defined hands worshipped my body while she teased me, and even with my underwear on, it was hard not whimpering and moaning as she gripped my cock like I’ve wanted her to for so long. When she went down on me, it felt like a dream. I almost pinched myself out of fear that it was all a dream, but when I looked down to see my release covering her chest, I knew it wasn’t. 

The kiss… Her lips were so pretty and soft. The way she kissed me made my heart burst, like my life was just starting to begin. As cheesy as that sounds, I can’t shake the feeling that my neighbor who I once only lusted for was becoming more than just the woman I think about when I’m needy. I want to be with her all the time, and not just for sex. It’s too early to say I’m in love, of course, but despite her being over ten years older than me, would it be crazy of me to say that I like her?

Jeongin shut the journal, putting it in his bookbag for tomorrow. Looking back out of his bedroom window, the light behind your curtains was off, signaling it was way too late for him to be up. He slept good that night knowing all of his wildest and dirtiest dreams were about to come true, or at least a few of them.

🍓🍰🐤🍀💐🍯

School was always a drag, but only having one class on Friday’s was a gift from God for Jeongin. All he had to do was get through an hour and a half of class, then he could go to your house. Through text, you told him to be prepared to stay late, possibly overnight, and being the overly excited (and horny) teenage boy that Jeongin is, he couldn’t help but let his imagination run wild. Late night sex, morning sex, shower sex, the things he wanted to do with you were endless. Still, he also wanted to hold your hand, as weird as that sounded.

Putting his feelings aside, he joined his last class of the week and scrolled through his phone as his teacher blabbed on about who-knows-what. He needed something to distract him from the massive distraction that was your entire existence. 

He dashed out of his house right when class ended, showing up to your house earlier than usual only by a few minutes. You thanked him for watching your kids and left, and the casualness of your mannerisms alarmed Jeongin. You’re all he’s been thinking about for the past day, so how were you so calm and collected as if you weren’t wearing the same shirt that had his cum on it, albeit washed and dried right after the fact.

Your kids certainly help Jeongin get his mind off of you when they immediately ask him to play once you leave. After going through every jigsaw puzzle and playing with every Barbie doll, he finally put them to bed, giving him over an hour before you get home from work to write whatever he wants in his journal. He just has to avoid falling asleep this time. 

“Please hit me harder ma’am,” I whine as she has me bent over her lap. I deserve this, and even more so, I want this. I want Ms. L/n to spank my ass as hard as she can while I writhe in her lap with my hard cock rubbing against her leg. “I’ve been a bad boy, haven’t I?” The marks she leaves on my ass burn in the best way. Feeling her nails dig into my skin when she grabs the flesh that she’s made bright red, I cry out of pleasure and pain. What’s so rewarding about being punished, and why does it make my cock twitch with excitement when you treat me like shit?

Subconsciously, Jeongin’s free hand has moved to the tent in his pants, rubbing over the fabric of his jeans for the slightest bit of stimulation. Feeling himself, he puts the journal to the side after writing nearly two pages of disgusting fantasies. Despite having a nice, wholesome time with your two daughters under an hour ago, his mind, as usual, wonders to the thought of you pleasuring him and yourself as much as you want. To Jeongin, he’s your babysitter but also your toy that will happily let you use him however you wish, basically making him your slave. 

Getting home a few minutes early, you walk into your house to see the living room empty, although you were expecting your babysitter to be on the couch. Opening the door to your kids’ room, they’re sound asleep with no sign of him. Your head spins when you hear muffled groans coming from your bedroom. Being only mildly pissed, you storm into your room to see none other Yang Jeongin curled into your comforter, jerking off while his head is buried into your pillow.

“Couldn’t wait for me, huh?” Jeongin feels the edge of the bed dip as you sit on the edge, but he doesn’t stop. Actually, he speeds up, moaning louder now that you’ve closed the door. He’s still partially dressed with his cute little ass hanging out of the back of his pulled down jeans. “Aw, is my pretty boy about to cum? Who are you thinking about, hm?” 

“Y-you.” Jeongin sighs loudly, feeling himself get closer to his climax just by you mentioning it. “I was thinking about you, only you, ma’am.” His whines of this new name make your face flush. You reach out for his thigh, turning him so he’s laying on his back. He flops into position like a ragdoll, but his hand remains pumping his cock. Just by feeling your hands on him, he cums all over his wrinkled tee shirt. Embarrassed he came so fast, he apologizes, but you know very well he isn’t really done yet.

“Don’t be sorry, baby. You’re so young, and I’m sure you can go another round.”

You pull his pants and underwear down his legs, making him gasp from the sudden exposure despite you seeing it all before. “Now sit up and take that shirt off.”

Fully obedient, he stands off the bed and strips until he’s totally naked, face red as he awkwardly holds his hands to his sides. You sit in front of him, running your hands down his arms until you grab his hips and bring him closer until his cock is right at your chest. Although he’s still a little soft, you’re sure he’ll get hard in no time.

“Undress me, Jeongin.” His eyes go wide as he looks your figure up and down, scared of what he’s about to see, and even more scared of what he’s about to do. With a dramatic gulp, he unbuttons the familiar work shirt you were wearing, exposing your bra. He slowly leans down, carefully not to faceplant into your chest, unbuttoning your top entirely before you shake it off of your shoulders, the article of clothing falling behind you on the bed. “I’m guessing you don’t know how to unhook a bra?”

“N-no. I’m sorry.” Jeongin moves back and covers his face with his hands as you reach behind you and easily unhook your bra for him, dropping it onto your thighs and tossing it somewhere on the floor. When he removes his hands from his face, his jaw hangs open. He can’t take his eyes off of your tits, which are much nicer than he could ever imagine. “May I touch them, mommy?”

“Of course, baby.” You take his wrist in your hand and pull his right hand to your left breast, basically forcing him to squeeze it between his fingers, not that he minded. Seeing him so flustered and confused only made you more turned on. He was so innocent, yet the things he wrote in his journal were so vulgar. You could hardly believe that the words in that cursed book came from the boy that didn’t know how to unhook a bra. “Put your mouth to the nipple.” 

“Huh?”

“Don’t act so naïve, Jeongin. I know you’ve thought about this before.” He finally looks up to you out of shock. “So shy? Now? But when you write in that book of yours, you’re not shy, are you?” 

“No ma’am. I’m sorry.” 

Stopping his hand, you pull him down to his knees by his wrist. He’s eye-level with your stomach, but he quickly raises himself up to connect his lips with one of your nipples. You moan shortly as your hand tangles in his hair, pulling him closer into your chest. Even after breastfeeding your two kids, your nipples were sensitive as ever. 

“Good boy.” You stare down at him as he’s focused, swirling his tongue around your bud. When he finally looks up to you, your head is thrown back from the mild pleasure Jeongin’s shooting through your nerves. 

He’s starting to feel bold. Jeongin moves from one nipple to the other, massaging your other spit-coated breast with his hand. His fingers rub your nipple, twisting it just enough for it to all feel good. Your moans become more frequent, and being able to hear you groan for him is all he’s ever wanted. 

“Mommy, can I fuck your tits?” You’re the one that’s shocked this time. He pulls back, his hand becoming still on your other breast. “I want to fuck your tits so bad, please?” 

“Whoa there, baby boy. Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you?” You laugh at his eagerness, pulling him by his hair to stand up. Just seeing how hard he’s gotten by sucking on your tits is enough to make you almost laugh again, but you wouldn’t want to be too mean to the poor boy. 

Moving back on the bed, you lay down and spread your legs. His eyes immediately direct towards your heat, still covered by your work pants. When you gesture towards the obstacle, he lets out a tiny “oh” before pulling your pants down, leaving you in your sopping panties. 

He hooks his index fingers on the hips of your panties, gently pulling them down your legs before dropping them to the floor with your panties. Again, this is greater than anything he could have imagined. 

“C’mere, my little prince.” You take his hands in yours, dragging him to sit on your thighs while you lay under him. You don’t let go of his hands, and he really doesn’t want you to. Your pet names for him always make him blush, but this one in particular made his heart beat even faster than before. “Have you written anything about me since yesterday?”

Jeongin’s mind becomes clouded by all of the things he’s written in the past 24 hours. Every scenario and confession fills his head, and it takes him a few moments to answer before he comes back to reality to answer you. “Y-yes mommy.”

“What did you write?”

Pause. “S-spank me?” Jeongin’s voice is only a light whisper. 

“What was that?” You lean up a little, holding your hand behind your ear to tease him. “You have to speak up, Jeonginnie.”

“I wrote about you spanking me.” His voice returns to him, now fully speaking from his chest. “Punishing me, treating me like a doll.”

“Oh my God, baby. That’s so perverted.” You rub his thighs up and down as you stare at his cock, now twitching with your every word. “You want to be my little doll? Let me do whatever I want to you?” 

“Y-yes!” His overexcited nature makes you giggle as you feel around his pelvis, hands getting dangerously close to his dick. “Can I be mommy’s little toy? I’ll be good, I promise!”

“But don’t you want me to punish you too?” You bite your lip as you look up at him. He’s looking off into the distance, imagining all of the nasty things he wants you to do to him. “Spank you, degrade you, deprive you?” 

“Can’t I have both?” His retort is quick. You didn’t know he could answer you so soon since he was clearly dipping into subspace, although he didn’t even know he did that. “Be your good boy and make you punish me?”

“Wow, so dirty~ We’ll need a safe word, alright?” He nods in understanding, watching you as you try to come up with a word that you could both comfortably say. “How about ‘mango’? Would that be good for you?”

“Mango is good, yeah.” You feel around the base of his cock, watching precum drip from his tip as he groans.

“What do you want to do right now, baby boy?”

“Oh,” he ponders for a second, “p-please fuck me.” 

“Ah, I love it when you beg.” You roughly push him over, his body falling onto the bed right where he was jerking off not too long ago. Climbing over him, you line his member up with your entrance, running his tip through your folds. He whimpers under you, biting the side of his hand to hold back any unwanted sounds he might let out. “Are you ready?”

“Y-yes, mommy! Please let me feel you.” The hand he isn’t biting down on goes to one of his nipples, feeling his chest like he just did to you. You slowly lower onto him, watching his facial expressions rapidly change as he gets used to feeling your cunt around him. He isn’t the biggest, but he still manages to fill you up and make you feel just right. 

Once you’re fully lowered onto him, he grabs your hips and holds you, whining your name over and over again. You can tell he’s trying to get something out, but his brain is too blank to form a sentence. Adjusting yourself on his cock, he groans with a high-pitched whine following shortly after.

“Wait, w-what if I cum inside you?” You look down at him, smiling at his cuteness. “I don’t think I’ll be able to last too long.”

“Don’t worry about a thing, baby.” You lean over and kiss his forehead, holding his face in your palms. “No matter what, I’m not stopping until I cum, got it?”

“Y-yes, ah~ Y/n!” Leaning back from his face, you raise up on him while he is mid-sentence, making him moan out for you. When you start to ride him, his sounds just can’t stop. Fearful that he’ll wake your children, you lean forward again and cover his mouth with your hand, still allowing him to breath through his nose. Ignoring your hand, he continues to cry and wail, feeling like he was on cloud nine just from you riding him. 

“You have such a nice cock, Jeonginnie. It’s even better inside me, though.” Your mind starts to fog, ignoring the younger boy’s needs to chase your own high. While one of your hands covers his mouth, your other hand wraps around his neck, choking him just enough to make him sob from the thrill. A few tears rolled down his cheeks, and without being able to warn you, he reached his climax and shot his load inside you, but you didn't stop.

Cum leaks out of your hole as your movements become quicker and rougher. The hand that covered his mouth has now joined your other hand around his neck, choking him as he sobs from the overstimulation, yet the predetermined safe word isn’t even crossing his mind. He loves everything you’re doing to him more than he could ever describe with words.

Your thumb runs across his bottom hip and he opens his mouth, light sobs leaving his throat. Ducking down towards his face, you kiss him with full tongue, something he’s never experienced before. Still, he quickly learned the movements and kissed you back, loving the feeling of your mouth against his. 

Pulling away, you stare down into his eyes. You looked beyond beautiful to him, and the entire visual of your half-lidded eyes, gaping mouth, bouncing tits, and dripping cunt making his cock disappear over and over again, he couldn’t help but get hard again.

“Cum for me, please mommy?” He pouts, giving you the glimmering eyes that always make you shudder. His hand hesitantly makes his way down to your clit, circling it with one finger while you ride his cock. You’re not entirely sure how he knows where the clitoris is, but it feels so good that you don’t even care. 

Mewling with your entire throat, your cunt tightens around Jeongin’s cock as you ride out your high, shallowing your movements. The sight of you cumming from him makes him moan right with you, nearly cumming inside you again. AS you come down from your orgasm, you slowly pull yourself off of him, his cock dropping against his abdomen, covering in the combined juices of you two. Catching your breath, you lay next to Jeongin, secretly hoping he’ll turn to his side so you can spoon him for a minute. 

“I can stay, right?” Jeongin turns to you while you lay on your side, looking to you for any sign of discontent. You nod as you stand up to go to the bathroom and clean up. “Oh, where are you going?”

“I can’t sleep like this.” You laugh as you gesture to your pussy, clearly in no shape to sit overnight. “I’ll be right back out.”

You disappear into the bathroom, ready to take care of the mess between your legs. Jeongin grabs a tissue and wipes himself clean of any release left on himself before laying back down and going on his phone, seeing a plethora of text message notifications from his friends’ group chat. He doesn’t have the mental capacity to check them right now. He just wants to bliss out, joyfully going through the entire night over again in his mind, cementing every action and event in his memory. 

Walking back from the bathroom, you toss yourself onto the bed and lay next to Jeongin, asking him politely to turn over so you can be the big spoon. With your chest pressed against his back, he puts his phone down and falls asleep.

Suddenly, your phone rings, and you quickly reach over to answer the call without seeing who it was. Unfortunately, it was your ex husband's voice coming from the other end, and you wish you had turned your ringer off. Jeongin was asleep, just like your kids, but as you rubbed your eyes from tiredness, you couldn’t help but regret answering the call.

“Y/n, are you fucking one of my students?”

Shit.

[inspired-by-the-music]

For You: Stand By Me

Taglist: @jineunwootrash​

If you would like to be added to the taglist of any of this blog’s works, please ask!

Recommended Reading: For You: 4 O’Clock; these works have separate, independent, but deeply interwoven timelines.

Warning: This chapter contains themes of bullying, especially in regard to one’s appearance. 

Chapter 4: The Boy Who Couldn’t Give More

Lei’s POV 

When I turned twelve, I was officially cast as an S.M. trainee. For many reasons, I would rather not describe every trial and hardship. I don’t want to tell you every high and low, so I will just tell you about what stands out as the worst and (somehow) the best day of training. 

I’m sorry if you think this approach isn’t entirely honest. There are just some things that I would rather not remember. Plus, I worry that if I detail everything that ever troubled me, you won’t be able to understand that I was, in my own way, happy. I hope you understand me. I hope you believe that I am happy— that I have always been as happy as I can be.

I was probably naïve to believe that I would find a real friend in the training rooms full of people closer to my age. Environments like the one in which idols are trained aren’t exactly conducive to healthy relationships, if you know what I mean. Everything was a competition. Everybody wanted to be the best dancer, the best singer, the best rapper, the best visual. 

Everybody except Mark Lee, who was content with being his best. I would never tell him this because he would probably get the wrong idea, but I admired him first. It was never a crush. I just wanted to possess his passion, his optimism, his ability to smile through every challenge. 

Because of Super Junior’s influence, I didn’t struggle with dancing, singing, and rapping as much as some of the others. By no means was I perfect or anything. My pronunciations were always weird because of my accent and my braces. I could probably count on one hand how many times an instructor praised me. Talent-wise, I was average. I could have passed on to my debut under everyone’s radar if I didn’t look so different. 

Even though I was among the youngest trainees, I towered over the other girls. While they were petite, I was naturally muscular, and my dedication to taekwondo only added definition to those muscles. My hair, although long and dark like everyone else’s, fell in tangled curls over my shoulders. While my braces were closing the gap in my front teeth little by little, my teeth were still way too big for my face. At age twelve, the only beauty standards I met were credited to my cartoonish eyes and pale skin. 

Anyway, there was never a moment for as long that I can remember that I didn’t feel different because of my appearance. At twelve years old, I think the last thing anybody wants to do is stand out— especially for looking the wrong way. It was uncomfortable enough when I cursed myself for looking the way I did; it was worse when others noticed the differences and started to point them out. 

I guess I always knew that I wasn’t popular. Because most of the girls were older than me— and none of them were quite as inviting as Taeyeon or Amber— I didn’t quite know how to befriend them. Heeding Sehun’s advice, I didn’t talk to the boys under any circumstances. Everybody probably thought that I was mute or that I didn’t understand the language well enough to speak. 

Still, even though I didn’t have any delusions about my popularity, I wasn’t quite prepared to hear what they— the girls— thought of me. 

I looked like a chipmunk. I was a giant. My hair looked like a bush. My pale skin made me look like a vampire— and apparently not in a cool way. I was fat. 

That last one always bothered me because in all my years of self-criticizing, I never once thought I was fat. Yeah, my cheeks were full and I wasn’t crazy about looking like a super tall baby because of that, but my body— I wasn’t overweight. And even if I had been, why should that warrant commentary from people who never bothered to say a word to my face?

The most insulting part was that the girls would drop their voices just slightly into half-whispers. They would speak Korean quickly, obviously assuming that I didn’t know the language, assuming that I hadn’t lived in the same country as them for most of my life. 

Trying to follow Sehun’s advice, I reminded myself that some people wouldn’t like me. I told myself that was okay. I fixed my eyes on the shiny wooden floor and kept them there through every practice. Just keep your eyes down, I told myself, and they will stop staring. 

Even when they kept staring, I knew that I wouldn’t stand up to those girls. How could I have argued when I agreed that (visually, at least) I was as far from perfect as an idol could be? I think that if I could have disagreed with them, even internally, their voices wouldn’t have followed me. 

Mark didn’t want to argue with them either, but he must have heard them too. Every day that we had co-ed training, he would sit next to me and, between stretches, say, “You’re beautiful, Lei.” 

At first, I eyed him cautiously, unsure of what to do with the attention. Nobody who wasn’t Mom or Super Junior or any of those “safe” people had ever called me beautiful before Mark did. 

It wasn’t that I didn’t believe Mark. There was always something endearing about the obvious fact that he couldn't have lied even if he wanted to. The issue was just— what did it matter if Mark thought I was beautiful if I couldn’t smile at my reflection? What good were Mark’s compliments when his voice didn’t follow me into the dark? 

Sehun told me that it doesn’t matter if people dislike me. During trainee days, I learned that it didn’t matter if people liked me either. Maybe that’s toxic. Maybe it’s untrue. But it’s what I believed for years. 

The mean girls’ voices followed me because they spoke my insecurities. If I could have learned to admire myself, then Mark’s voice would have followed me. Even then, at twelve years old, it was clear that Mark’s admiration was no substitute for self-love, so — please don’t judge me too harshly for this— I didn’t want him to look at me with little hearts in his eyes. His feelings served no purpose, and, to my absolute horror, everybody noticed how Mark looked at me. 

Everybody noticed that we spoke exclusively in English. Everybody who couldn’t understand us misinterpreted our very casual friendship as a young budding romance— even our dance instructor, who warned us once when we were partnered together, “Be mindful never to meet each other’s eyes while performing for an audience. Be mindful!” 

Mark and I flinched as we heard for the first time, “You don’t want to end up like the idol who never debuted because she was distracted by romance!”

No, I decided then as the instructor looked solely at me, I didn’t want to end up like the idol who never debuted. 

Squirming under scrutiny whenever I stood too close to Mark, I understood why Sehun warned me to stay away from boys. It doesn’t matter what your intentions are; people see only what they want to see or whatever will justify their hatred. That’s another lesson I learned as a trainee. 

Anyhow, I think I was doing a pretty good job of hiding the fact that I was absolutely miserable behind a carefully crafted blank stare until the day I overheard one of the girls saying, “You know, she’s only becoming an idol because her mom is a manager!”

That was true enough that, even if I had the nerve to bicker back, I couldn��t have truthfully argued. I lowered my head so I wouldn’t catch my blush in the mirrored wall. 

I hadn’t even lowered my backpack before another girl said, “Yeah. I bet she’ll get to debut before all of us because—” She glanced over to see if I was paying attention. Satisfied when I broke our eye contact to stare down at my sneakers, she continued, “her Mom has been sleeping with Heechul for years. Who knows how many executives rely on her for favors?”

When I looked up from my feet, I saw red. Before I even processed the words, I had grabbed the girl around her shoulder, fingers digging small bruises into her bare skin exposed under her tank top, and growled, “Who are you talking about?” as if I didn’t know.

Even if she hadn’t been trembling like a leaf as she stared up at me, too terrified to speak, I wouldn’t have let her answer. “Just go back to calling me chipmunk cheeks or bush head or vampire or fatty or Mark lover or whatever makes you feel clever and better than me.” My entire body flushed, and I hoped that I was burning her with my fingertips. “Don’t say another word about my mom ever again, or I’ll—”

I didn’t even get to threaten to knock her crooked teeth down her throat. Johnny, who was my senior by about four years, carefully pried me off of the girl, tutting, “Ladies, ladies, isn’t training challenging enough without all this fighting?”

It was.

“Can’t we all be friends?”

No. I never could have been friends with those girls, and I said so plainly, snatching my hands out of Johnny’s gentle grasp to cross my arms over my chest. You’ll find that I can hold a grudge like no other. I’m not saying that’s a good thing; it’s just a fact.

“We don’t want to be your friend either,” the girl spat at me. “We don’t want anything to do with the daughter of a glorified hooker! Just look at you.” Her glare trailed from my head down to my toes. “You’re wild. I don’t wonder where you got it from, but at least your Mom knows how to hide—”

Had Johnny not been standing there as an insurmountable barrier, I would have punched that girl, and I probably would have been kicked out of the agency, and my behavior would have reflected poorly on Mom. Fortunately, while I was too furious to think clearly, Johnny was there to wrap me in an almost suffocating hug, trusting that I wouldn’t strike him in my rage.

“Just take the day off,” he urged quietly. “I’ll tell the trainers you got sick, and—”

I started to shake my head and insist on peacefully standing my ground before a sharp pang of nauseated hunger pierced through my stomach. Owing to my lack of appetite those days, I hadn’t eaten much for dinner the night before, and I had woken up too late to eat breakfast that morning.

Johnny promised, “I’ll take care of these girls. Just go and take some time to yourself, please.”

When he wiped my cheeks with the pads of his thumbs, I realized that I was crying. I ran out of the room purely to escape the embarrassment of having been reduced to scalding tears by something so stupid in front of so many other trainees. It was a failed attempt; embarrassment followed me into the hallway.

Eager to try again to make me feel better, Mark chased after me, calling my name. “Are you okay?”

As I slumped down at the table by the vending machine, I thought the answer was obvious. Still, I took the chance to lie. “Yes.” When I brought a hand up to touch my cheek, I was relieved to find that I wasn’t crying anymore.

I had an epiphany: even if I’m not strong, I can pretend to be. Clenching my jaw, forcing my hands into fists under the table, I said, “You should go to practice, Mark, and you should stay away from me.”

“What?” His eyes widened. “Why?”

“Because,” I forced myself to look away from his pained expression, “you don’t want people like those girls to talk about you. They’ll bully you if you keep being nice to me.”

“I don’t care.” Mark stood across from me, but he wouldn’t take a seat. He shifted his weight from one foot to another.

I said, “Well I care.” I really did. I didn’t want to put the target on Mark’s back. “I don’t want to end up like the idol who never debuted,” I swore without knowing her whole story.

Mark scratched at the back of his neck. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything. I just know that I like you, and I’m not gonna pretend that I don’t to please anybody.”

Too annoyed by Mark’s stubborn resolve to like me without knowing me to feel flattered, I kind of rolled my eyes.

“Does that mean you don’t like me that way too?” Mark wheezed, and I understood that he had a crush on me. On some level, I guess I had always known, but I tried to ignore it because I didn’t want to hurt him.

No, I didn’t like Mark like that, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him— not when he looked so sad. Thinking of Sehun (as usual), I mumbled, “I’m sorry. I’m not allowed to like anyone like that.”

Slowly, Mark nodded, and I think he understood that I would never return his feelings. “Well, if it’s okay with you, I’ll just keep liking you anyway.” Without waiting for me to reply that I didn’t think feelings worked that way— I didn’t have to give him permission to like me— he bowed and ran back to practice, carrying most of the burden of his unrequited feelings.

I was sitting there, feeling small because I had given in to my temper, feeling cruel and cold because I rejected Mark’s pure infatuation, when Sehun sat across from me. I didn’t meet his eyes as he laid his head down on the table.

He asked, “What’s up with your face?”

For some reason, that question set my eyes watering again. I tried to wipe the tears before he could notice, but nothing got past Sehun. His eyebrows twitched. “What’s wrong, Lei?”

My chin dimpled as I lied, “I’m just hungry.” Well, it wasn’t quite a lie. My stomach growled loudly enough for him and everyone in the building to hear.

Perhaps eager to believe that I wasn’t troubled by anything too serious, Sehun nodded. “That’s nothing to cry about.”

I watched him spring from his seat and pound a fist against the side of the vending machine. A pack of chocolates fell out without payment. “Here you go.” He tossed the candy before me. When I only stared at it, he said, “If that’s not enough, and if you’re not busy, I was about to go to McDonald’s. You can come if you want.”

That must have been the first time that I didn’t burn to be in Sehun’s company. I didn’t exactly want him to rush to leave, but I also didn’t want him to stand there looking at me that way— like I was falling apart. It’s impossible to please me when I’m upset. I frown if you try to talk to me about my feelings, and I frown more if you try to act like everything is okay.

More than anything, I wanted to be alone in my room where nobody could see my flaws. I couldn’t even console myself with the thought that these feelings would pass within a few years by the time I debuted because it was starting to sink into my mind: the realization that every day for the rest of my life, people would try to tear me apart with their eyes. They would try to weigh me down and drown me with their expectations. There wasn’t any way to eradicate that overwhelming sense of dread because it was rooted too deeply in reality.

I would just have to try to silence it— the dawning knowledge that I would always be more human (a wounded one, at that) than idol— until Mom found me at the table by the vending machine as she always did at the end of long days. Then, I would be too afraid to say anything on the ride home. And then, not too long after we walked through the door, she would probably fall asleep on the couch again, and I wouldn’t have the opportunity to tell her about the unnamed monster tearing me apart even if I miraculously found the courage to string words together. I would just turn the television off, drop the remote on the coffee table, run upstairs to my room, and tuck my radio into bed so I could fall into restless sleep while listening to SHINee because they were real idols. I would comfort myself by imagining that my voice could become for others what Onew’s, Jonghyun’s, Key’s, Minho’s, and Taemin’s— especially Taemin’s— were for me: inspiration and healing.

I wouldn’t have wanted to repeat those girls’ insults to Mom anyway. Imagining her disappointment if I confessed to almost punching someone, I sank. It was best to just keep biting my tongue. I would get used to the taste of blood, and soon the pain would scar and numb.

Looking back, I can see that I kept too much to myself. I went through too many trials alone because I was determined to become strong and self-sufficient even if that meant being forged by fire. In some ways, now I think that strength is a little overrated. Maybe I could have been happier— maybe my shoulders wouldn't have felt so heavy had I talked to Mom or Heechul or Yesung or Donghae or anyone. But I couldn’t. I just couldn't.

Once upon a time, I prided myself on my honesty, but it’s easy to be honest when your feelings are simple. It’s easy to be honest when you feel the right things— happy when you’re supposed to be happy, excited when you’re supposed to be excited, sad only when you’re supposed to be sad. It was too hard to shake the fear of being a burden. I never wanted to be a burden.

Despite deciding to carry my own weight, I wasn’t strong enough. That's why I dropped pieces of myself left and right to become something like the blank canvas my instructors wanted.

Sehun broke through my spiraling thoughts with the promise, “I won’t make you talk about it. I just—” he gnawed on his bottom lip— “I’ll feel like trash if I leave you here alone when you’re hurt.”

Sehun rarely talked about feelings first. His shoulders were tense; the muscles along his jaw were protruding. Obviously, he was making himself uncomfortable in an attempt to console me. Half numb with shock, moved by his concern, I nodded and (after grabbing the candy) followed him outside where we boarded the bus.

This is a little embarrassing to admit following my promise to work through my feelings alone: our bus wasn’t even five minutes down the road before I blurted, “I almost punched somebody today.”

He blinked, clearly taken aback, but he tried to hide his surprise and/or disapproval behind his natural stoic expression. Taking the candy from my hand, he opened the box, popped a colored chocolate into his mouth, and asked, “Why?”

“A girl called my mom a hooker.” I tried to replicate Sehun’s calm, even tone.

Sehun choked, and I felt somewhat vindicated in my rage when his pale face flushed crimson.

“I tried to be good. I tried to be a proper lady,” I promised. “I tried to be strong like you said. Remember my tenth birthday, when you explained that some people are just gonna dislike me, and I can’t shed tears for everyone?”

“Yeah.” Sehun nodded once he noticed that I was looking to him for a response. He returned the candy to me. “I remember.”

“So I tried not to shed tears when they made fun of my hair, my teeth, my skin, and my weight. I told myself that even if they’re right—”

Sehun interrupted to say, “They’re not,” in a tone so stern and authoritative that I never could have argued back.

I nodded, cheeks burning pink. “Well, even if they were, and I’m not saying that I believe them,” I added when Sehun cut his dark eyes at me— “I told myself that being pretty isn’t that important anyway.”

“It’s not,” Sehun agreed instantly. “Being pretty on the outside isn’t important at all.”

Without thinking, I grumbled, “That’s easy for you to say. You’re the most handsome person on the planet.” I didn’t care that he gave me that warning glare. I was telling the truth, not flirting. Heart pounding, I maintained, “It’s easy to say that beauty doesn’t matter when you’re beautiful.”

Sehun frowned at me. “I didn’t say that beauty doesn’t matter. I said that being pretty on the outside isn’t important at all, and I’m right. Superficial beauty is overrated, and nothing as subjective as the words ‘pretty’ and ‘handsome’ can ever define a person.” Turning his gaze out the window, he concluded, “Or, at least, they shouldn't. Those words are too small.”

It occurred to me that Sehun was right. I was in danger of becoming the kind of person who couldn’t look past my reflection long enough to find anything worthwhile inside. Shame washed over me, and hot tears spilled onto my hands, which formed fists around the candy box.

“Please don’t be disappointed in me, Sehun. I promise that I’ll work harder to believe what you say.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I swear that I never would have tried to fight about anybody’s opinions about my appearance. I’m not that shallow. It’s just— they talked about my mom, and she—” my voice wavered— “she’s everything to me. If my whole world was just one person, it would be her. She— you know, there aren’t many people who only deserve compliments, but she’s one of them.”

It didn’t matter that those girls were probably too cowardly to ever talk about Mom where she, Super Junior, or any of the many idols who loved her could hear. They had no right to insult Mom when she worked to the point of exhaustion, when she greeted everybody with her sparkling smile, when she treated everybody with kindness, when she was the most beautiful person in the world— inside and out. They had no right to ridicule her when they wanted to hurt me.

“I know,” Sehun said softly.

When I looked up at him, he was looking down at me, eyebrows knit together in anger or concern, and for half a second, I thought he was mad at me. My stomach sank until he swore, “I’m not disappointed in you, Lei. I told you not to care what people say, and I also told you not to be a pushover. I’m—” He wrestled with his words before deciding, “I’m proud of you. Not just for following my advice, but for working so hard to become an idol. I know it’s not easy.”

He raised his hand, and I held my breath because I thought he was going to hug me, but his hand stopped short and landed atop my head. He patted my hair twice. “Maybe just— um— try to avoid fist fights. It won’t be good for anybody if I have to get involved.”

At first, when Sehun retracted his hand, his protective anger was real and frightening. It lit a fire in his eyes. But then he made a spectacle of popping his knuckles, and we broke into a fit of laughter that lasted so long that we missed our stop.

It wasn’t often that I heard Sehun’s laugh. It sounded more youthful and golden than you can probably imagine. Still, as happy as I felt even with our mistake, I apologized as I finally stuffed a piece of chocolate into my mouth. “I’m sorry we missed the stop.”

“Don’t sweat small stuff like that,” Sehun instructed, shrugging. Moments later, he said, “I’m sorry too.”

I cocked my head to the side and wondered aloud, “For what?” but Sehun didn’t respond with words. He gave me this look that I had never seen before— one that held about a thousand foreign words that I wanted desperately to understand, but my conscience whispered that it was wrong to ask for a translation.

It seemed that Sehun was sorry for a lot, but I couldn’t understand why. From the day we met, he had been an unlikely sort of friend— a protector— and all crushes aside, I truly loved who he was in my life. Beyond the childish infatuation that made my heart race and painted my pale cheeks pink, there was a warm love that shaped every memory of him— a love that shaped aspects of my own character.

It didn’t matter that he would never look at me the way I looked at him; maybe no two people ever look at each other in the same light anyway. He didn’t have to love me or stay by my side as an almost imaginary Prince Charming. I was just grateful that we crossed paths, even if the way we met determined that he would always see me as a gap-toothed nine-year-old. I was beyond happy to sit beside him for a moment where I could admire him up close. I was content, knowing that I would always remember my first crush as a good person.

Of course, I didn’t tell Sehun anything like that. He didn’t appreciate that sort of sentiment. While talking to Mark, I decided that I would never date because I couldn't stand the whispers or the stares. Looking at Sehun, though, I knew that I would forget that decision in an instant if ever we woke up one day (when I was older, of course) and Sehun wanted to love me.

If that day should come, I wouldn’t notice any stare because I would be too busy admiring his every feature. I wouldn’t hear any whisper because I would be too busy listening to his every word.

For that moment, however, I was fulfilled just by smiling at him because I believed that feelings don’t have to be expressed with words to be real. Feelings don’t have to be reciprocated to be real. Sehun didn’t have to give me permission to love him; I always had, and I always would, and nothing could change that.

“I’m about to say something very mushy,” Sehun grimaced, “and I have a feeling that you’re really gonna like it, so write it down or record it in your memory because I won’t repeat myself no matter how many times you beg.”

Holding my nose up in the air, I asserted, “I never beg.” Sehun laughed, and my heart swelled, and I prayed with all of my soul that someday somebody with a warm, gentle touch and a kind, bright smile would make his heart swell too.

“You’re like your mom,” he said, meeting my eyes. He didn’t say it as an insult like those girls did. He said it with a faint hint of a smile— the smile that imprinted forever on my heart. “You’re one of the people who only deserve compliments.” Then, as if he couldn’t tell from my unrestrained smile that he had given me the greatest praise imaginable, Sehun turned his gaze back out the window and mumbled, “I’m really sorry that I can’t give you more.”

[duckbeater]

Courtship, pt. 2

Writing about happiness is very difficult and boring. The below are some small attempts I’ve made to write through my happiness. My small, important readership deserves an update, says my brother, whose sensibilities have only rarely steered me catastrophically wrong.

I AM BUYING CHAMPAGNE TO CELEBRATE MY LOVER

Today’s the last day of his job and he’s throwing himself a little party. In September he begins med school and in the next month he’ll put his affairs in order, readying for the big move. I have the sense that tonight begins our diminuendo, despite his staying over last night and spit-fucking me, and I’ll surely stay over tonight, after the many champagne toasts to his prosperous life ahead. 

We’ve started sleeping as two spoons embracing chest to chest, with our faces tucked awkwardly in a neck or an armpit. Of course I wake up gasping, my mouth sucking after a less hot pocket of air, and turn, and enjoy that he pulls me tightly back to him. He’s a heavy sleeper and I’m a light sleeper, and our bedding situation resembles something like a rock in a tumbler with my rolling over and over and over again, arising too early, wildly underslept, shining with sweat, but ecstatic that we’ve touched all night long. I’m attending his celebration in a sleep deficit that I’ve covered with caffeine and a long, soulful run beside the lake. I’ve been thinking about us a lot. 

He wouldn’t call himself my lover, I think, but I’m hoping the expensiveness of the champagne I’m bringing will convince friends in attendance that that’s what we are. I’m hoping my largesse goes noticed and commented on—that it’s interpreted as my being in love with him, and that his peers compel him, by either fretting over my largesse, or pitying me for it, or anyway finding it impressive or amusing or tender or charming—that they tell this young man I’m adoring him and I’m adoring him well. That my adoration seems steadfast and considered. And despite the riskiness of the circumstances (our differences in age, the widening gulf in distance, a sometimes depleting lack of shared cultural references), when we are together I feel comfort and joy. This must be obvious to him without the expensive champagne. I’m always saying it out loud, or anyway variants on the theme of “comfort and joy,” like a seasonal blessing, a profusion of blessings, needing remarked upon. I’m seriously afraid I mother him.

“Let us take in the scene,” I have said before, “let us only observe for the moment my sitting in your lap, your hands on my neck, my constant kisses. What joy!”

He’s done something to my sense of my proportion, and also my prose style. I can’t seem to describe our relationship without slipping into the sardonic, recursive, mildly-institutionalized voice of Robert Walser, a writer I find too cute by half. I’m finding my life too cute by half, I fear. If this is what happiness feels like, I don’t really want much more of it. It’s making me stupid. “People will think that pain has made you stupid,” wrote Walser, a statement that comes back to me when I can’t distinguish between the good times and bad times making me an idiot.

AFTER THE SPIT-FUCKING

We stayed up late talking about what it means to say goodbye to people who don’t know you’ve cared for them. I don’t pretend this conversation had subtext. For the last two years, he’s worked with profoundly disabled people, first as a case worker and then, after the pandemic closed the campus and made that job “nonessential,” as a nursing assistant on the same floor. 

He spent months feeding, changing, bathing and bedding non-ambulatory children and adults. Most cannot speak, a few cannot see, and none can walk, of course. It is a world I’ve rarely thought about—indeed, a world many of us rarely consider, because in its theater of human need are scenes of unremitting hopelessness. It is a languageless suffering and it perdures. I can become very mystified, very shallow-breathed thinking about his care for these souls, however quick he’s been to dissuade me from romanticizing or elevating his ministrations. “One of my verbal residents tells me to fuck myself all the time,” he’s noted. Still, I would point out that birth defects and accidents account for a small percentage of his caseloads’ impairments, and that active neglect and abuse perpetrated intentionally by former guardians (or unwittingly by the American healthcare complex) have hobbled his charges for life. I don’t like hearing stories about choked babies and toddlers left so long in beds their soft bones grow slab-wise, so I’ve asked him, coward that I am, to please skip origins if he’s entering an otherwise benign workaday anecdote.  

His most patient complaint: using his iPhone to FaceTime parents who want to see their son, then listening to one-sided conversations, burbling, giggles, tears, even story-time. His campus closed to all guardians—a devastating precaution. “Don’t send anything xrated today,” he’d text, and I’d know he was hosting a reunion. So I’d keep my clothes on. And he’d answer the phone from an immediately weeping seventy-year-old mother saying, to her forty-year-old son, “Why good evening, Max, good evening. This is your mother. Hi, baby. Hi. I love you. I am your mother. I will always be your mother. I am sorry I cannot touch you, I cannot hold you, I cannot be with you in this time, but you are my Max, and I am your mother. And I love you always. You can hear me and I’m gonna tell you all about my week, okay? And then I’m gonna ask Scotty here how you’ve spent your week, okay?” He said he usually cries on these calls and when I asked why, he said, “Because it seems polite?” And I pressed harder and he said, “Because I get to—I get to connect these people who have missed each other so much, and it’s so sad. They haven’t touched in months. They might not touch this year. My phone sometimes runs out of battery. It’s so weird.”

I’ve asked him whether families are happy to be rid of their incredible dependents and he said that by and large families are miserable to give over members to the institution: that age arbitrates the giving. “A mother and father have a baby at twenty-five. They can care for him well into their fifties—their twenty-five-year-old, their thirty-year-old son. But when these parents enter their sixties? Their seventies? They can’t lift an adult male. They can’t bathe him or change him. Even basic nutrition gets hard. Meal prep is tiring. It’s long. They start to lose track of medications, and they have medications themselves, you know? So the situation gets very difficult and if they want to live, and if they want him to live, they feel like they have to give him up.”

We’re at the point now where intimacy is a given. He doesn’t swallow, but brings me to orgasm, taking me in his mouth and then dribbles it, I guess, my cum, back onto my stomach, apologizing with a flushed red smirk. “I hate that,” he says, “I really hate it.”

“Go ahead, eat it,” I say, joking.

He gives me dark eyes and showily palms the wad into the black pillowcase behind my head.

“Holy Christ!” I yell. “The nerve! The pluck! The audacity!”

There must be a phase in relationships when extracting intimacies—not only of the “terrible things I did in high school”-vein, or the “times I cheated”-vein, or the “unwittingly right wing ideologies I support”-vein—that close couples endeavor. Where you’re always compulsively revelatory, to seem as interesting as you did in early courtship, as erotically forward and emotionally captivating. We’re in that moment and we surprise one another with small tributes as befits that level of affection.

One of the intimacies I proffered is that I’m going through a religious re-awakening, a need for ritual and sacraments. He finds this funny. (I find it embarrassing.) Yet one of his duties has been wheeling charges to his building’s Tuesday Mass, and then helping to administer the Eucharist. I don’t think he in fact touches the host (I don’t think many in his care can safely take of the host; “I’m mostly there in case anyone seizes,” he said), but he did slip a large wafer away for me and now it’s in my apartment, among my candles, possibly growing mold. He asks me when I’m going to eat it and I tell him around Christmas. 

(That was a lie. I’ll eat it when our romance is over, to consecrate the time we had.)

“I eat it,” I say, and he glowers.

I TOLD HIM ABOUT A MYSTERY SURROUNDING MY FAVORITE AUTHOR

Norman Rush. For a decade and better I’ve wondered about the long dedication in Mating, whose last lines read, “...and to the memory of my father, and to my lost child, Liza.” The novel, set in Botswana and borrowing heavily from Rush’s time there as director in the Peace Corps, suggests that perhaps Liza died in Africa or was born still. She goes unmentioned in his Paris Review interview, in subsequent novels, short stories, and reviews. There’s no hint of Liza’s fate. (As I edit this, I recall a phrase in Mortals, the narrator’s idea that “children exposed you to hellmouth, which was the opening of the mouth of hell right in front of you.” Explaining further: “[I]t was the grandmother, the daughter, the granddaughter tumbling through the air, blown out of the airplane by a bomb, the three generations falling and seeing one another fall, down, down, onto the Argolid mountains. With children you created more thin places in the world for hellmouth to break through.” And then, in Subtle Bodies, Rush describes a wayward teen boy, whose angry and aggressive behavior corresponds exactly to Rush’s own troubled teen son. In fact, Subtle Bodies is about the decision to have children at all. Nina follows Ned to a funeral, to fuck him. So, Rush has indeed remarked on children and strife, as he has lived it. Anyhow—) Yet by accident I listened to an old Fresh Air interview where Rush is asked to comment on the aspect of family in his novels, and to clarify that inscription. 

“I have a daughter who is now thirty,” he says, “who was born with diffuse brain atrophy and has been institutionalized for many years. Um. But I think the rest is pretty self-explanatory.”

“What was her condition?” presses his interlocutor.

“She is uh profoundly retarded,” pauses, “and will be so.”

“So you feel she is lost to you?”

“Yes. There is no recognition possible between her and us.”

I reproduced this exchange from notes on my phone. Scotty replied, “I don’t think that’s right, actually. Maybe between her and—who—who was it?”

“Norman Rush and his daughter Liza.”

He said, “Maybe between Liza and her dad—yeah, maybe she was so disabled she couldn’t recognize him. I take care of men like that. But I recognize them.”

We were talking about important books at all (I mean that semi-seriously) because his co-worker had gifted him three works, including a volume of Yeats’ complete poetry.

“Why did Paco give you Yeats?” I asked.

“He thinks I need more poetry,” said Scotty.

(Frankly I have felt and still feel sexual jealousy against Paco, who recently got brilliant red and black knee tattoos of spider webs. Like, Spider-Man spiderwebs, covering both kneecaps. Every few weeks he cooks a large meal for Scotty, and they talk about life until 4 A.M. drunk on bourbon, immobilized by edibles, full and warm and caring, and it makes me mad. It makes me mad, because I can’t really see the point of staying up until the uncomfortable small hours between 2 and 5 unless there is sex involved, but Paco is straight, a father, an excellent chef, a dedicated friend, and so my grousing is a kind of unwarranted possession that baffles me into silence on the matter.)

I didn’t have anything intelligent left to say about Norman Rush. I groped along a narrow thought, however, a thin ledge. “You know—a novelist, especially a novelist as concerned with language and comprehension as Norman Rush, would feel particularly devastated by the condition of his daughter. He would see it as ironic and then as punitive and again as senseless—supporting his comforting regime of a militant atheism.”

Although very sober, I recited the first stanza of The Second Coming, tripping over two lines (but the best lines), saying, “The worst lack all conviction, while the best/Are full of passionate intensity.”

“What?” said Scotty.

“I just—that was Yeats.”

“Who?”

“Go ahead and tell your boy Paco that your hot fuck gave you a teach on William. Butler. Yeats.”

“What?” said Scotty. He grinned at me. He got up and ate a yogurt.

[hol-whore]

erina pendleton x fem!reader -- poetry, ch. 2 : story

You and Erina break some very, very thin barriers.

notes: again, link is to ao3! this is uhh,,, little bit hurt/comforty i suppose, erina and you spend quality time together, and.... a confession! whaddya know. that’s crazy.

You haven’t spoken much to Erina in days.

After her sudden request to “give back” to you and your subsequent realization of your emotions (and, quite possibly, her emotions), you had frozen up completely, unable to utter a word to her. She ended up hurrying off on her own, back to her chambers and locking herself in.

Lady Erina hadn’t asked you to stay with her once since then.

It kinda stung, really.

You even offered, a few times, only to be met with silence.

Anytime you see her, she’s thumbing through the poetry book you’d gotten her, mouthing the words she read under her breath and furrowing her brow. You’d seen her crying a couple times, but reaching out to her did nothing.

She seemed so frustrated over something, and you had your suspicions, but not ones you could bring yourself to ask her about.

2 days pass.

3 days.

4 days.

After 5 days of almost pure silence, Erina smiles at you and says thanks after you dress her and make her bed that morning.

She calls for you at lunch, and when you open the door to her chamber, she looks like a new woman. Her skin is so bright and flush with color, a wonderful pale yellow dress adorned in bows and such hanging on her as if she were born wearing it. She smiles at you, holding up a wicker basket and an old bedsheet.

“Come, maid, it’s lovely out.” she pleads, offering you the sheet, “I had the cook prepare light sandwiches and fruits, like we did when we were younger.”

“Milady…? Is everything okay?”

She meets your question with a playfully-hurt expression, pouting a little. “It’s just been so long, and it’s so warm. I need to get out of this stuffy old room.”

That was the truth.

You take the sheet under your arm and Erina smiles, then leads the way out of the manor.

-------

The old, gnarled tree you usually shared your picnics at is abundant with life, and it’s incredibly refreshing. Ivy curls up the trunk and wildflowers bloom all around the meadow; you and Erina marvel at their simple beauty, pointing out your favorites. Erina insists on braiding them into your hair, and you retaliate by sticking some behind her ear. Birds chatter above you, telling their stories to the wind as the two of you relish in each other's company, talking about everything and yet nothing.

Erina lays your head in her lap, gorgeous blue eyes watching you fondly as you -- lovingly as possible -- gossip about the other maids, and discuss your plans to surprise the cook with a new knife set for her birthday. Her hands thread through your hair now and then, brushing it back in place when the wind picks up. You feel like pudding, settled so close to her like this.

The afternoon continues even past your lunch being finished, the two of you laughing and joking as if nothing had happened.

But of course, something had happened.

You finally sit up, turning towards her while you catch your breath from laughing too hard (Erina could mimic her father’s old butler perfectly). You clear your throat and find the courage to reach for her hands. She looks at you as her laughter dies, something like worry and excitement filling her eyes, and squeezes your hands gently.

“Milady, I...I was worried about you. I hated seeing you so miserable, and it felt like you’d be like that forever.” You swallow hard and suddenly realize your hands are shaking.

Tell her, cries the voice in your heart, tell her you love her more than anyone ever will. Tell her you love her as the flowers love the sun and the birds love the wind.

You don’t, of course.

Your heart picks up as you continue, unable to stop yourself. “I-I thought I was going to have to go the rest of my days not seeing you as yourself anymore, or staying by your chair as you read, or hearing your laugh -- oh, your laugh…”

You’re crying a bit, now, and Erina holds your hand tighter in hers. She scoots forward some, gently raising your hand in hers to her cheek, then presses her forehead to yours and sighs shakily.

“Dear heart, I couldn’t bear to do that to you. To myself.” She sniffs, and hesitates for a moment before pressing a chaste kiss to the sweating palm of your hand. Her lips are so, so warm, her cheeks are wet with tears, and when she pulls away her eyes are puffy and red.

And yet, she’s still the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. You can only stare at her, awestruck, and Erina giggles softly through faint tears. She casts her eyes to the side and brushes loose hair behind her ears.

“I’m sorry. For worrying you and about the other day. I don't know what got into me, but… well, I would be lying if I said I didn't mean it. And a good lady never lies. You’ve been so good to me, always doing more than expected and offering a listening ear, and I owe you so much.”

“Mi-” you pause, remembering her words, then start over. “Lady Erina, most of my services are employed. You don't owe me a thing, really.” You bite your lip and steel yourself a little. “Though, I suppose if it means that much to you, I can’t quite say no.” That feels too forward, insists your nerves. “Just this once.”

Well. You were not a ‘good lady’; “Just this once” was a lie. Deep in your heart, you almost wish Erina could bathe you anytime. It just felt slightly less wrong, now.

Erina looks overjoyed to hear just her name from your mouth. She grins wide, her eyes lighting up and her cheeks flushed red. She looks around briefly, then takes off one of her gloves, pushes her thumb into a patch of dirt by the sheet, and smears it onto your cheek before you can stop her.

“Oops. Bath time, then?” she giggles, her delighted grin now more coy and smug, and you can’t really be mad at that. You roll your eyes, rub your fingers in the same patch, then hold her face in your hand and smudge the dirt down her cheek.

“I suppose we must; look at you, Lady Erina, such a mess.” you tease, feigning disappointment. Erina laughs like a bell and gives you a playful slap on the wrist, then stands to dust off her dress. She helps you to your feet, a goofy grin on her face as both clean up your picnic.

-------

Erina is the first to be washed up; with you so familiar with her routine, it takes no time at all.

When it comes your time to bathe, you suddenly have to fight your heart out of your throat as you realize the reality of what’s happening. She offers you a small smile and gently turns you around, delicate hands working your dress off your body.

When she said she wanted to give back, she meant every step.

It doesn't take long, of course; your simple dresses aren't as robust as Erina’s gowns sometimes are. But Erina still takes her time with it, and sets every layer down as gently as you would treat hers.

The water is fresh and hot as you lower yourself in, resting your back against the wall of porcelain and sighing. Erina hums something under her breath as she stirs the water around. It feels weird being so exposed around her, but she seems completely unfazed, if a little bit flustered once in a while.

You catch her staring, on occasion. Something tells you you should feel violated or something; but the gentle adoration plain on her face is too comforting and warm. You feel more at ease than you expected and, if you were being honest, you were glad it was her getting to see you so vulnerable.

Erina passes the time reading to you and making conversation as if nothing else mattered. It all feels so natural, so right, just the two of you in your own privacy. Almost like you belong together this way. And when you run out of talking points and lose interest in the books and she asks to wash you, you decide her hands even belong on you.

They sweep over your shoulders and down your back with ease, first bare, then with a soft rag. She takes extra care wiping the dirt from your face when you turn around, dabbing under your eyes, brushing her thumb across your lips. Her eyes flutter shut as she presses a kiss to your forehead, completely unprompted, and she’s delighted when she sees you smiling up at her instead of looking scared or hurt.

She brings her rag across your sternum, rubbing gently, and her hands falter a bit when she touches your breast and stomach. Her face is flushed deeply when you look up at her, and she clears her throat awkwardly before continuing.

She doesn't wash past your hips -- you rarely did for her, after all, -- but she does go so far as to wash your feet, something you figured she’d find to be way beneath her, even with her humility.

When she washes your hair, you swear you could fall asleep. Her hands work your scalp, gentle yet firm, and something about the feeling puts your heart at such an ease that you aren't quite sure you’ve felt in years. All you can do is sigh and lean into it, and Erina laughs quietly.

“You’re lovely, dear. Is this not the best feeling, being cared for? Do you see how I feel with you?” she mutters, pressing a kiss to your back and rinsing shampoo from her hands. Your heart aches at that, deeply, and you can only muster a nod. Erina takes her time washing the froth from your hair, and only after she’s completely certain it's thoroughly rinsed does she help you out of the tub. She hands you a towel and smiles warmly, letting you dry yourself as she picks up the books you two had been discussing and takes them back to her room.

You sit on the stool, absently patting water from your body and stewing in your thoughts. As scary as it would probably be --- though you doubted she would react negatively, at this point --- you wanted to confess so badly. Years of being by her side had made your heart so soft over her, but you’d not realized the words for it till that day she’d shut herself away.

All the kisses on your head and shoulders, something you’d only seen couples and sisters and friends do, made you that much more convinced you needed to tell her.

But how?

Erina knocks once on the bathroom door, and you hurriedly dress yourself before letting her in. She looks exasperated and apologetic, a clean pair of gloves and a soft blue dress adorning her body. She sighs, handing you a small slip of paper and pouting a little.

“Father’s sent a carriage this way; there’s some surprise dinner he wants to take me out for.” she mutters rather quickly, “I had no idea it was already 4:30…Oh, I love him, but I do wish he’d communicate better. I’ll not be gone long, but here’s a couple things that I need done.” She stops a moment, then offers a small smile. “We’ll spend time together tonight, yes? Tea and more reading?”

And as soon as you nod, Erina is off.

You peek at the note; it’s nothing out of the ordinary, just the usual clean-up, until you notice “page 124” scrawled hastily along the bottom. There’s no title, but you immediately have a feeling you know where to look.

A slight panic rises in your heart, and you decide that looking now would interrupt your focus while cleaning. You make a mental note to look in the poetry book while cleaning her room, later, then set to work with your other duties.

-------

You do not, in fact, remember to look for the page she’d noted. You mind gets too full of distracting yourself, of hard work, and as soon as you settle in to your quarters to rest your eyes, you fall fast asleep.

It’s 8:23 when one of the other maids comes around, touching your shoulder gently and rousing you from your slumber.

“Miss,” she starts shyly, a frail smile on her face, “I’m terribly sorry to interrupt your rest, but Lady Erina’s requested your presence in her chamber.”

Hazily, you recount the evening and realize with a heavy heart that, while you had gotten most of your work done, you’d forgotten to clean her room.

And therefore, had forgotten to read whatever note she’d left for you.

You all but jump to your feet, thanking her quietly and tidying your appearance in the mirror before hurrying to Erina’s room and knocking on the door gently. She greets you warmly, beckoning you in and closing the door tightly behind you before gesturing to the small table and pair of large chairs you two always read in. They’re facing each other, which is new, and there’s only one book; Erina looks anxious as she sits herself down on the edge of the table (This also catches you thoroughly off-guard, but you say nothing) and makes a motion to your usual chair.

Your heart races, unsure of what to say at first, then you give her an uncomfortable frown and sigh as you sit.

“Sincere apologies, Milady, I. I fell asleep. Before I had the chance to clean in here, a-and I saw you left a page number for me to look at, presumably, but it slipped my mind and-”

Erina laughs somewhat at that, clearly anxious.

“There, there. I… I think I don’t mind explaining it myself anyway.” she practically whispers, picking up the book and opening to the near-back.

“While I was finishing this collection, I read something in the commentaries from the contributors that made a little too much sense. It…made me think of myself, and of all the books you've brought me, and of you. And I thought at first that, perhaps, these were the words of one of the male contributors; there was only a last name, after all. But after carefully looking at the poems by this person, it was fairly clear she was a woman.” Erina clears her throat nervously, and casts you a frail glance.

“Would you like to hear it?”

You hear your heart in your ears as you nod.

Erina takes a deep breath, then quotes the text softly, “‘I love and only love the fairer sex and thus beloved by them in turn, my heart revolts from any other love than theirs.’” She meets your eyes, then closes the book and leans forward, taking your hands. Her hands are sweating, shaking just a little, and she breathes deep.

“She loved women, darling, and I… I think I do too. And I think I love you. I didn't know what to feel after I read it, and I was afraid. I didn't want to scare you off. But I remembered our history so fondly, and all the books you and I shared with women who loved, and I feel like they loved more deeply than people think.”

Erina pulls you forward, closing the small space between you both, and presses her forehead to yours as she did earlier. “I am in love with you, my treasure. I don’t want you as a maid, working yourself to the bone because you must. I want you, wholly and truly. I want you as dear Jonathan and Robert have each other. I want your hands in mine, always, and I want you by my side through life as a partner, and I want you in my bed at night so I never have to feel alone.”

You’re speechless --- any plans you’d even considered that involved confessing your feelings deflated, replaced by relief and raw emotion unlike anything you’ve ever felt. You feel tears fall from her face onto your hands, and you pull away to wipe them from her cheeks. And despite your shock, you know exactly what to say.

“I love you too, Erina.”

There’s only a brief moment of stillness between you before Erina leans in and presses a soft kiss to your mouth. The world feels like it melts away around you, and you kiss her back, cupping her face with one hand and smiling against her lips. It’s not unlike a dance, one of you pulling away to breathe then the other bringing you together again. You don't know how much time passes before she pulls back for good. She sighs and looks at you through lidded eyes, her hand coming to stroke your cheek lovingly..

“Stay tonight, my darling. It is so cold in this lonely bed…” she mutters, hands clutching yours as if you would disappear if she didn’t.

And, as usual, you wouldn't refuse an order from your Lady.

[hollowphobia-casual]

The Amazing World Of Friendship Part MMXIX, The Return Of The Rising Awakened Empire

It’s that time of year again! The time I let down my defences and expose my emotions bare to all my friends so that I may thank and gush all over them, because despite my cynical hate filled shell, deep, deep, deep, deep, deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep down I’m actually someone who just wants to be loved, maybe.

But joking and honest truths disguised as jokes aside, there is something I would like to say, most of the time.., I feel like I have imposter syndrome, not regarding my art and my work, but with my friends! I have SO many wonderful friends and I honestly love them to bits and yet every year due to work, time zones, time schedules or just my inability to start a conversation I don’t get to talk to them or they go neglected for ages and I hate that so much about myself. My friends, all of them, are such wonderful people and they deserve so much better than what I give them, I love you guys, so very much..., I’m sorry for being such a terrible friend.

THAT SAID! It’s time to embarrass these lovely losers by letting them know just how much I care, kukuku.

@articbleu​ [Twitter]

Hah! Speaking of friends whom I’m constantly feel like I am neglecting, where do I begin without feeling like I’m treading over the same ground? You are one of the many artists whom I consider an inspiration, your dedication, drive and sheer will is aweing inspiring, like, I dunno if I can ever get over how much I think about it, I remember a time where we were both almost at the same level and now you are off doing who knows what, last I checked, you were studying in Korea, which is awesome, I’m so happy for you. But when ever I’m working and I feel like I can’t achieve, I look to you and tell myself, I can do better. I dunno if we’ll ever talk like we used to, so much time has passed since we last spoke, I dunno if we are the same people and there are times when I look back on my past, things I said that I regret and wonder if maybe you shouldn’t be my friend, not because I hate you, but because there are better people than me, who are more deserving of your attention, admiration and so much more, but regardless of what comes and what may happen, you have been or are, my friend and I love you, please, keep shooting like the star you are!

@nightmargin​ [twitter]

Okay, imagine this, so you met this cool girl who likes to draw weird, amazing and beautiful things on Deviantart, you enter a character tournament two with them, you chat about anime and stuff, then just a few years later THEY RELEASE ONE MOST ACCLAIMED INDIE GAMES KNOWN, like Whaaaaa-, there is not a day that goes by I don’t see One Shot stuff like, wha-, I dunno.., and she’s still making stuff it’s fucking incredible, WHY ARE MY FRIENDS SO TALENTED.., hah, go damit didn’t want to be melancholy.. ..,But like, shit, I just want to support my friends and let them know how much I give a shit, just how impressed I am, how happy for them I am but truth is I hardly get to see them, which is not your fault, you are making games, doing art, and having to be a social media presence, it’s exhausting, I understand, I just hope you know that I care still, that when I see your characters around the web, in fanart, in VRchat and other places, it makes me SO happy, I just want to hug you and let you know that you are doing an amazing job and that I couldn’t be more proud of you, I hope you know that.

@doodlediddy​ @doodledittydaisy​ [Twitter]

AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!! Okay so, this is a friend where neither of us are to blame for staying out of touch because, HOLY FUCK YOU HAVE A BABY! AAAAA, you made a little person and they are so cute! On the rare occasion I go onto the hellsite that is Facebook, I get to catch glimpses of you and your lovely child, whom I terribly do not know the name or gender of A+ friendship right there, but yeah, GURL, you have an infant and they are precious, I don’t blame you for a second for not being in touch, it feels so weird, not too many years ago you were talking me off the ledge and then you got married, then you got baby fat AND NOT IT’S ESCAPE! I’m so happy for your family, fuck, that’s so weird, it’s YOUR family, not your family, YOUR FAMILY! AAAAaaaaa!

@mistercrowbar​ [Twitter]

I MET HER!, I MET HER!, I MET HER! No you guys don’t understand, I MET CROWBAR AND IT WAS FUCKING AWESOME! We looked at beautiful lakes, we watched netflix, We ate burgers, looked at destroyed cranes, went to Ikea, watched more netflix, bought DnD stuff, ate more burgers, tried a beaver tail, more netflix, talked about lobsters and my little pony, looked at fossils, got mad at the ocean, yelled at drivers, more netflix… It was great, I loved it, would sleep on the floor again, 10/10. But Okay so I know that many people would think of Crowbar as intimidating, she’s not an emotionally open person I know, but to be honest it just makes friendship with her special, getting to know her on a level where you can read her is something that is truly treasurable and I’m so lucky to have that, she’s a unique person to love and that’s what's so great about her, she isn’t like everyone else, I wouldn’t change her for anything in the world…, okay maybe I’d allow her let me hug her more so I can tell her how great she is and she can’t flee, haha. I know I get on her nerves sometimes and I’m probably not the best friend on her list, I mean, I’m guessing, but considering how I measure up to some of the other people she knows, I can easily see that, I mean who knows thow, maybe I’m not a tier friend and maybe just a different friend and I just.., haha, I dunno why I obsess over this, how important I am to my friends, maybe because I just want them to be the happiest they can be and when I know I’m depriving them of joy, I question myself. But I am happy for what happiness I do bring to her, the moments I’m useful, when I am needed or just enjoyable company, those are the best moments for me, I’d give anything just to hear Crowbar laugh once every day, that’s how important of a friend she is to me.

@valbey-the-girl​ [twitter]

THIS ASSHOLE! Has been with me since I can remember, which probably annoys him, because I’m not the easiest person to friends with, specially of late, my mood has been all over the fucking place, I’m happy, sad, depressed, angry, frustated and yet he doesn’t complain…, that I know of.., and in return.., I send him lewd christmas gifts that make his parents question him and his life choices. Haha, friendship. But honestly, I like that about him, he’s one of the true people I know that makes me feel like we have a ‘normal’ friendship, we are not overly affectionate, we can speak openly to one another and we don’t like all of them same things and all I want to do is make him laugh and find a game that I’m good at and that he sucks at, because god damit, he seems like he’s an expert at everything, fuck you! I know times right now are tough for you, I can’t imagine it’s easy, shits going down at home, work and there is some asshole asking if your free once every Saturday so you can pretend to be a dwarf, just know if you need anything, you can always ask me, you’ve been there for me, don’t forget I’m here for you.

@dansome0203 [Twitter]

Don’t say how you are terrible friend because you haven’t been talking to him much, you say it every year, Don’t say how you are terrible friend because you haven’t been talking to him much, you say it every year, Don’t say how you are terrible friend because you haven’t been talking to him much, you say it every year,... -checks Script- “I’m a terrible Friend..” FUCK. -inhale- The man I look to for inspiration on cute girls and large boobs! God, I only really got to know this guy at the tail end of my Deviantart carrier before the big move to Tumblr and even then it was less a ‘WE ARE FRIENDS SWORN TO A BLOOD OATH’ and more me oddly poking him now and again, trying to start a conversation failing miserably, a tradition that would continue for about…, nine years…, nine years.. God I am a terrible friend. But enough about my inability to simply converse with people, what can I say about this Dan, he’s fucking great to start with, on the odd times I do actually get to talk to him I know he is nothing more than a chill dude who creates a lovely and warm atmosphere around him that draws people in, he has a fantastic sense of humour which is only equaled by his creative flair, no I’m not talking about the boobs, but more his designs for his characters, colour choices and so much more, I am honestly not joking when I say that I look at this guys work for inspiration from time to time, because I find his designs just that appealing and insightful. I would love for nothing than to just sit in a call with this guy and talk shop, or talk, or anything…, I wanna love you Dan, let me love you!

Gwyn Graham

And right of the gates… I FORGOT WHAT THERE TUMBLR USERNAME IS GOD DAMMIT! So for once me being a bad friend is entirely my fault!, we’ve always had a rocky time zone/schedule conflict even when we use to play DnD with each other, because life sadly, is not easy, fuck I wish it was. But also sadly I dunno what you’ve been up to, I dunno how you have been. I hope you are well and happy, did you get date? Are you on the lamb for murder? Who knows, but I like to think you are happy, I hope you are, I wish that you are.

@taplaos @tapliciousart [Twitter]

I bought three shirts from you and my father ignored the washing instructions so they are now basically ruined.-sigh- That said they are some amazing fucking shirts, so gonna try and be less of a downer here, but yes, like most of my friends, I am terribly out of touch with this wonderful person, HOWEVER, they have been fucking busy, designing some of the sickest Pokemon related merchandise I’ve ever seen, two things immediately come to mind when ever I see their amazing work up on my twitter, one… Why have Nintendo/Game Freak issued a take down notice and second, WHY HAVEN’T THEY HIRED YOU and I don’t mean that in a fanboy sort of, I love you pay attention to me sort of way, I actually mean that, your designs are so appealing, humorous, creative and at the same time, family friendly, like, there is such a demand for Pokemon related merchandise and you are just popping it out like nobody's business, christ, you are too good at this, it’s why I really need to sit down and talk to you about helping me design T-shirts at some point. Honestly, if you haven’t, go check out their stuff, seriously, do it, DO IT NOW!

@tuz-ohtopia @dm-tuz [Twitter] [Patreon]

When I started out I was ‘aware’ of Tuzzy, but I didn’t really know him, it wasn’t until I started getting involved with DnD that I started to know him and that was because he was the DM of my two other friends, so sadly I can never say that me and Tuzo have had the strongest of friendships. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I dislike Tuzo, I think the guy is great, the times we’ve actually spoken it’s been fantastic and talking shop with him was always a highlight, but it just.., amazes me, how I guy I barely knew went from a simple background presence to almost being everywhere I look. For you who don’t know, Tuzo is now a DM for hire and even has a Patreon where he offers up custom monsters, tiles and such, it’s so amazing to see how far he has come, it’s great, even if he has an unhealthy obsession with a lesser version of DnD, haha. I’m so proud of him and his unbound campaign is so enjoyable, experiencing it though his players is incredible and the assets he creates are outstanding, I just wish I had his time management, because I can not create assets to the same level or detail he does. This man has inspired me as a DM, an artist and a creator, and I don’t know if he is even aware that he has done that, Tuzo, keep doing what you're doing, because it’s amazing.

@nickala [Twitter]

Nicki’s Twitter describes her as a wannabe concept artist and an actual scientist and I’m probably the reverse haha, a wannabe scientist, god I love Nicki’s job, I really should talk to her about it, but then again I dunno how much of it she is allowed to openly discuss, she is after all handling human remains, so… I’ve mentioned it before, but I love Nicki, she makes life, make sense and it’s great, but more importantly than that, she’s just.., fantastic, funny, caring, but human. Like she feels so relatable with how she expresses herself, everything comes with a little frustration, a little guilt and honesty, which might sound like a weird thing to admire, but there are so many people these days who want to be fake, they want to be these, ideal versions that don’t exist, trying so hard and it becomes, exhausting and almost impossible to talk to them, because they wear a mask and you don’t know what their true intentions are. But not with Nicki, they talk and you can feel that raw emotion, it’s so satisfying to read text, to hear a voice and just know the complexity of a person, it’s refreshing and I cherish it.., even if I don’t talk to them that often.., I’m a sham of a friend -cries-

@mortooncian-art [Twitter]

I just met this lovely gal this year and…, I’m as bad with talking to them as I am with Dan…, I hope it doesn’t continue for about nine years…, I don’t want to be awkwardly skirting conversations at 37.

Sadly I can’t say much of them as a person, mostly because I’ve only really gotten to meet them this year, the aforementioned being a terrible person/friend, but I can talk about what drew me to them, because I was always aware of Thren? Mortoon?...uh.. Oh god I dunno what to call them..FU- I had always been aware of them since Deviantart and their art was appealing I just never made the leap to try and talk to them, because COWARD, it wasn’t until sometime last year, I can’t recall who but someone was reblogging their work, I believe it was Dan or Calien, it was from his DnD session and her little tiefling was just.., so..fucking CUTE! I loved her and wanted to know so much about her and looking into her work I found more and more cute loveable characters, and I dunno how to describe it, but her art just has this beautiful, cute and sexy charm to it that makes you just want to.. LIKE AND REBLOG IT… So after that, I just wanted to get know her, it seems so stupid thinking about it, liking someones art you think to yourself, hey I want to know this person on a personal level and maybe talk to them! And then, you get it and you clam up due to your social awkwardness and inability to manage a time schedule, haha.. But yes, I’m so glad I’ve been given a chance to talk to her, maybe if time allows it, I won’t screw it up in getting to be her friend.

@clauseart [Twitter] [Webcomic]

Yes, my fellow british artist whom I constantly compare myself against to measure my self success and my constantly conclude my lack of value… ...That’s not a joke I really do do this. Enough about me, I’ve mentioned it before with a few.., or most.., artist here, met on DA and look at where they are now, this girl, this them, this BEAST, started out with a crazy pinwheel and appearing in almost every OCT (Original Character Tournament) you can think of and now, they have an amazing webcomic about an amazing buff ginger and a kid whom I dislike (I’m sorry, I just wanna punch him,). Also a DnD character who seems from a distance seems like the drunk aunt who hates her family children.., I dunno I know nothing about their character and I really should ask someone, but if I’m right I want a gold star. But regardless, I am so proud of them, their creativity and artistic skill seems to have nothing but skyrocketed since the end of the OCT era of our lives and the dawn of tumblr, not to mention the just general progression of their comics, which I will leave a link to and if you don’t read this super funny and amazingly well drawn comic I will.. I really want to say more about them, I do! Sadly, I consider myself a friend, but I dunno if I even have that right, our friendship was very, distant, not in a negative way, but more like someone you chat to in a tescos (For any curious americans think Walmart), and now, I feel like I’m just a one man cheer squad. And honestly, I am okay with that, I get to see them improve and feel proud for them and they have a wonderful life as it is, what's more to want?

@lou0 @hunnylou0 [Twitter]

Lou has been one of my longest…, acquaintances? Okay I’m not saying that Lou isn’t a friend, I mean, I consider her a friend, but I’ve known her since I rejoined DA under the name Clockworkable, since then she’s been a source Joy, laughter, inspiration and to some extent a free expression, but, I could never feel like I was her equal or at least a friend, we were never close, despite how I tried to be.., she’s a difficult person to talk to, which isn’t her fault! Nothing ever seems to go her way, which.. Pisses me off so much, because she’s just a nice, beautiful and kind person who just deserves nothing but affection and I’d love to give it to her, even if it’s just a hug. But I know it can be hard.. That said, I’ve gotten the chance to really talk to her, getting to know her, the true her and it’s as wonderful as you’d think it would be, she is a true expression of her art, joyful, cheeky, funny, playful and kind, sweet, brutally honest, but that’s never a bad thing in my books. I dunno even now if I’m a good friend to her, I dunno if she’d even think of me as one, but I am happy that I’m a little bit here for her, more than I was before, I just want to make her happy.

@sunshinedrago [twitter]

Don’t be friends with this woman, it starts off small like “Oh, would you like to play Final Fantasy XIV?” and then the next thing you know your talking to scottish fairies and questioning your life decisions. I met this crazy spanish.. “ITALIAN!” Italian woman about three.., maybe four years ago? I can’t even remember how we met, like I know we met because we needed someone for a DnD game, but I can’t recall if it was me she contacted or someone else, haha, I’m getting old. Either way it doesn’t matter, because I’m so happy that I did, she’s encouraging, kind, sympathetic, honest and joyful, but more importantly realistic and down to earth, this woman is not a pity party and has introduced me to some of the most important anime and shows I could imagine, as well as help fueled my addiction to some games, a few years back I’d never played an MMO and now look at me...a broken shell of my former self…, obsessing over loot drops and glamorous for a fictional 3D bunny girl…She’s also one of my more active and talkative friends, which helps with my crippling depression haha, I dunno what else to say, It’s not like there isn’t a lot to say, just that I’ve said it over and over again, she’s a great friend and someone I wish I knew sooner, she feels like a friend I’ve always had, but I only met three years ago. Yeah.

@jabbage [Twitter]

What can I say, Smart, dedicated, driven, focused, talented, learned and amazing… ...Yep…, not just saying that because I am terrible friend…, not another example of not staying in touch with people, made worse by the fact they live in england…, nope…, are you buying it yet? I want to talk about how they inspire me, how they fuel my motivation, but sadly I have to just slap myself and twitter, because GURL never appears on my dash, but just.., THEY’VE WRITTEN SO MANY STORIES! H-how! I just.., I can’t get one webcomic done, I am so proud of her because of this, I should just be able to say that, but I don’t want to, I mean I do, I am proud, but I always want to talk about them as a person, I wanna mention times they’ve made me laugh, made me smile, but there is only a fleeting moment in a minecraft server sometime ago and… I am so sorry, for being a bad friend, but you don’t really need me to enrich your life.., JUST LOOK AT ALL YOU’VE ACCOMPLISHED! You are so amazing, one woman army, just AAAAA, so great! I love it, I love you, keep being amazing!, don’t stop! Burn bright, burn far and burn hard! Go!

@flunafloon [Twitter]

I can’t say how much of a bad friend I am again.., please, she deserves better than me, here is the link to her Etsy store.

@daco-taco [Twitter]

God I have a bleeding heart.., I say because I don’t really know Daco, hell I dunno if I even register as ‘friend’, I’ve followed them since Deviantart and I loved their art, for the most part I was content to be just that and then…, I just saw them upset, and fuck me, haha. I hate that I hate people being in pain so much I dunno why it destroys the core of who I am.., so now I’m in a discord server, or trying to be, feeling constantly judge, because I want to make someone happy and I dunno if I am even doing the job. Haha, what does that say about me?

Charanty 

I want to say a lot about charanty, I want to say we were great friends, I wanna say we talked from sunrise to sunset, I want to so badly.., dumb ideas we had, silly jokes we shared, moments of confusion, anger, tears.., bliss, regret.. But sadly I can’t, not that I don’t like them, no no, Charanty is amazing, but like something truly amazing, they are never around all the time, which sucks, because they are truly amazing, creative, beautiful in their mannerisms and perfect in their imperfection. I wish I could enjoy them more often.

ChubbuChu

I have many friends whom I want to be happy, Chubbu probably more than anything and sometimes I blame myself for their sadness, I know I am not the root cause, but I can still blame myself for moments of silence, moments of stupidity and overall not trying harder. Chubbu is.., affectionately irrational and down to earth, the best of times they are infectiously fun to provoke, play with and tease, while at the same time being caring and hopeful, I’ve only had the pleasure of knowing them for this year and even still it feels like I’ve known them longer, but I can’t wait to get to know them more as time goes on, I hope I do, I wish I do.

@hypertronic [Twitter]

Hyper…, Hyper.., “Your a terrible friend again aren’t you?” I mean.., YES, okay so Hyper started off as someone who was a fan of one my characters and since then I’ve had the pleasure of being taken out of the limelight and watching them grow into an amazing artist and COMIC CREATOR, AAAAA, so Park Of Plutonia, Hyper’s comic was a silly little RP group that was on DA, but look at it now! The amazing world she had hidden away in her head, now for you to read and I really recommend you go read it, especially if you want something different and unique, I really want to say more than just ‘go check out her comic’, I really do.

Mon

-breaths- “You were a bad friend again” GOD DAMMIT, YES! You know the saying never meet you idols! Because all you will do is upset them and make them judge you, HAHAHHA, SO! I became aware of Mon thanks to a small show I’m pretty sure NO ONE has heard of called Critical Role, they drew fanart for it quite regularly and I loved it! I even commented on their stuff from time and time, but there wasn’t much to it. Then I had a friend drag me into the world of FFXIV and to my surprise I met Mon…, after like a week or ten before I realised who she was, how would you describe Mon as a person? Like a rabbit doped up on sugar and caffeine, especially when she’s tired, cause then it’s like x2, what I’m saying is Mon is excitable and positive, which sadly doesn’t really gel well with my down to earth, grumpy I hate everything because I can’t act cute attitude that I’ve cultivated. So despite how much you’d think we are friends and how amazing and creative she is, we clash a lot, and honestly I feel like I am just WAITING for the moment, where she declares she has had enough of me and just throws me out of the friendship circle, because…, I know that not all people gel and sadly as much as I want to, I feel like I’m bringing her nothing but pain and I don’t want to do that, she’s creative and amazing, as well as so positive, she doesn’t need someone like me hurting her all the time.  

@spookydraws, @spesiria, @totalobelisk, @ssksscrapboard, @horrorjuice, @riyamilea

“More friend’s you have trouble staying in contact with?” Mmm.. “Amazing wonderful people who you’d love to talk to for days on end, but you are always just too busy for them, too involved in yourself to even say hi?” Yeah.. “Are they even your friends anymore? Are you worth anything to them, I think at this point you should do them a favour and unfollow them, because in the schemes of their lives you aren’t exactly making an impact are you? If anything you slow them down, maybe you are just slowing everyone down? How many more of you ‘friends’ are going to be added to a stockpile of names you can just gush over, because you don’t know them as people anymore, they don’t impact your life and they probably haven’t had a second thought about them?” …, I just think they are amazing people who need to be recongised for how talented and beautiful they are, life is hard and the voices in our heads can be fucking disgusting to us, so everyone just needs a moment, a person to just hug them and them, I love you, I dunno if you even know me but you are so important, don’t forget how important you are and just how meaningful you are, I’m probably just a stranger to you, but you have never for one second not been important to me in some way, I hope you are happy and that you live every second of your life knowing that you are loved by atleast one person. Cause in the end, that’s all we really want isn’t it, we just want someone to tell us that they love us, that we mean something to them, that we are important.

@phantomdotexe [Twitter]

The living definition of too kind for her own good, it’s both your best quality and your worst quality. An amazing talented person who’s managed to influence a small cults worth of people under the ideal of one uniform symbol and then gets upset how she hasn’t done anything with it. I love you to bits, your drive, your kind nature, but at the same time I worry for you, you have so many self defeating thoughts and worries, all stemming from your lack of respect for your own skill and your ability to try and please everyone at once, which can especially be seen with the ‘everyones opinion is valid’ If you made short stories based on your vision or merch, you’d make money in no time, but as it might contradict with someone else's, you don’t. Now I know this is meant to be a ‘I love my friends’ thing, but the truth is I do, I love you so much, but at the same time I have to tell you, you need to stop fretting, you always worried about other people, asking when they are going to bed and such, but then you are equally as bad of the same thing, burning the candle at both ends, rather than trying to resolve any of your problems. As someone who cares, let other people worry and focus on yourself, see you strengths for what they really are and go and make bank.

Plasma-Dragon

Only had the pleasure to speak to you twice on live streams, mostly knew you for your art, I dunno what I can really say? Here, you’re a new friend and I can’t wait to get to know you more… Man this was short.., fuck.., I really wanted to say something else…, uh.. .. .... ....shit

Lady Violi

Man, I wish I drew more personal projects like you did, haha, Okay so, a bit of honesty, when I first saw you on DA I have to be frank and say I didn’t think much of your art back then, but I am so happy to see not only was I proben wrong, but your art had grown incredibly sicne there, no just in scale and scope, but in detail, colour, it’s fantastic, is there places it could use improvement, yeah, but no one is perfect, but that’s enough about you creatively, what about you the person!

Well like I said I didn’t think much at first, but as time went on I became a little intimadated by you, probably cause of my own guilt more than anything else, but, doesn’t really matter, I’m just happy we actually talked, because discussing things with you is always a high light of my day, I’m so eager when your online because have such a nice easy and approach manner of conversation that’s infectious to me, and I love it.

And the best part! It’s only been a year since we started talking, I’m so excited how we’ll grow in friendship as time goes on, I know it’ll be worth it!

---

And.., that’s it, If you actually read through all of these and not just your own, I’d be surpruised, but I’m happy I wrote this, even if my arm hurts, things needed to be said, apologises needed to be made and love needed to be shared, thank you all.

[thestarsaroundyourscars]

I met you in the dark, you lit me up, ch 2

Chapter 2: The day after

Summary: In which Richie Tozier is dying to call Eddie Kaspbrak, aka the love of his life since last night, and ask him out on a date. But before he can do that, he has to explain to Stan and Mike why he ended up in their apartment and just how he went from a sulking mess to a love sick idiot in just one night. He must also convince Beverly to get him Eddie’s number. Not to mention get over his own doubts and nerves and actually call the kid.

Pairing: Richie Tozier x Eddie Kaspbrak

Words: 3,294

AO3 link

Chapter 1 link

tag list: @daddyphantomtbh enjoy <3 

And I’m also tagging @richietoaster @yes-dillman-yes @beepbeeprichiellc and @thetheatregal  because you commented on the first part and I thought you might want to read this one too, hope you all don’t mind <3  

When Richie went to sleep earlier that day, he planned on sleeping till noon to the very least, but Stan, Mike and their cat, Noodles had a very different idea.

Richie knew his friends were morning people, and he had gotten used to sleeping through the noise of their morning routine after countless sleepovers in their years of friendship. What he was not used to was having a cat mistake his legs for something he could sharpen his nails with. 

Luckily for Richie he had been too tired last night to take off his pants before he fell asleep on the couch and Noodles’ nails did more damage to the fabric than to his skin. He still felt it though and, in an attempt to shake the cat off, he kicked at it with his legs making both him and Noodles fall from the couch, but whereas Noodles landed gracefully on the floor, Richie most definitely didn’t, hitting his elbow against the coffee table on his way down.

“Fucking hell!” he shouted, rubbing at his injured arm. He tried to stand up only to get tangled up in the blankets and fall again, hitting his head this time, “This is all your fault, you stupid cat.”

“I can hear you Richard, leave Noodles alone” he heard Stan say from the kitchen.

“Tell your evil hairball of a pet to leave me alone then!”

“He is not evil. He is a sweetheart and he is harmless” Stan said.

“Harmless my ass, he was using my leg as his personal nail sharpener.”

“Well, you took over his couch so, can you blame him?”

“Sometimes I feel like you love this cat more than you love me, Stanley” Richie replied flatly while disentangling himself from the mess of blankets on the floor.

“More like, always” Stan answered. Richie could hear Mike laugh at that, “Especially considering said cat doesn’t wake me up in the middle of the night to ask if he can sleep over.”

“I already said I was sorry, if anything you should blame Beverly, she was the one who sexiled me” he said entering the kitchen. Stan was sitting on the counter sipping coffee from a mug, while Mike stood in front of the kitchen cooking breakfast, something delicious if the smell that filled the room was any indication, “Hiya, Mikey” he said and took a seat next to Stan.

“Hey Rich” Mike answered waving at him with the spatula.

“Even then” Stan replied, “you are to blame. If you had other friends you could’ve crashed at their place instead of ours.”

“Oh but who needs more friends when I already have you, Stan the man” Richie said throwing an arm around his friend’s shoulders and messily kissing his cheek.

“Uhh get off of me, you menace” said Stan, forcefully pushing Richie’s face away but failing to hide how the corners of his mouth were curling up in a smile.

“How about instead, you two get off my counter and go sit on a chair, you know, like normal people?” Mike said.

“Aww Mikey. You should know by now we are nowhere near normal, ain’t that right, Stanny?” Richie joked but they did get off the counter.

They made small talk while Mike finished cooking and Richie and Stan helped set the table. Then, before they sat down together to eat, Richie went to the bathroom and searched through the cabinets until he found some ibuprofen and took it, he didn’t get hangovers anymore, two years of college and years of being friends with Beverly Marsh will do that to you, but sometimes he did wake up with a headache.

I wonder how Eds is feeling though, he thinks, he seems like the kind of guy who does get hangovers after drinking too much, and he drank an awful lot last night. The thought of Eddie and the memory of last night brings a smile to his face, something both Stan and Mike notice when he joins them at the table.

“Okay, spill, what happened last night” said Stan.

“What?”

“You have the exact same stupid smile as you did when you showed up.”

“Can’t I just be happy, Stan?” Richie replied trying to shrug it off but he could feel his cheeks starting to pink up.

“Yes, you can, but Beverly called me yesterday afternoon saying you were sulking over the Heather thing again” Richie flinched at the mention of her name and Stan smiled sympathetically before continuing, “she said you refused to talk to her or go out or even eat and yet, here you are not even 24 hours later smiling and joking and you expect me to believe nothing happened?”

Richie considered bullshitting his way out of this one, but these were two of his closest friends and truth be told he was dying to tell someone about Eddie, so he sighed and said instead, “Fine, you’re right.”

“Of course I am, I know you better than anyone” Stan replied smugly, “now spill.”

Mike added, “Yeah Rich, tell us”.

“Fine, you nosy losers. So, after hours of being annoying Bev managed to drag me out of the apartment last night and we went to this bar. Then the guy Bev has been gushing about, Ben, shows up, right? So, Bev wasn’t exaggerating when she talked to you, I was in a really shitty mood cause of the whole Heather thing so when she went to say hi to him I stayed behind, cause I didn’t feel like being around anyone. Except she didn’t only say hi, she sat down to talk to him some more. So I drank for a while but then, when I was about to leave, this guy and I swear to you, he was hands down the most gorgeous guy I’ve ever seen, just sits next to me.”

“Ah, everything is starting to make sense now” Mike said grinning.

“Yeah and turns out, he knows my name and at first I freak out a bit cause weird, right? But then he gets so flustered and nervous and tries to explain and turns out he’s Ben’s friend and he saw me walk in with Bev and figured if our friends were going to ditch us we might as well keep each other company” Richie is full on grinning by now and Mike and Stan are both giving him a knowing look, “so we talked, got to know each other, then Bev tells me she’s leaving with Ben and that I need to find a place to stay, and he, Eddie, says that I can stay at his apartment”.

“Wait, so if he invited you to stay over, why did you come here instead?”

“Patience, Stanley dear. I did go to his apartment but he was drunk, I mean so was I, but that’s not the point. The point is, he wasn’t feeling well so it didn’t feel right for me to stay there, let alone do anything with him, even though he did ask me to. Stay, that is. And to kiss him. Gosh you should have seen him, he was pouting and it was the cutest fucking thing ever and…”

“Richie.”

“Right, focus. So I helped him to bed and told him I’d call him today, maybe ask him on out a date? I mean, I didn’t tell him that but I really, really want to ask him out. He’s just the most amazing guy and he’s so beautiful and his eyes are so fucking pretty, you guys, and truth be told I think I might be in love with him” he finishes and there’s that silly smile again. He can see Stan opening his mouth to say something but before he can, he adds “I know what you’re going to say…”

“Oh do you?” said Stan with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, you’re going to say that I just met him and that I can’t be in love with him”

“Actually, I was gonna say I’m glad you met this guy and that he was able to cheer you up. No matter what I say, I hate seeing you all mopey and miserable.”

Both he and Mike stared at him and Stanley just shrugged as if saying ’What?’, then Richie said, “Hold me, Stanley I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. In fact, I wish it was possible to screen shot a verbal conversation so that I could show it to you the next time you claim that you hate me.” The three of them laughed at that.

“When are you going to call him?” Mike asked.

“Well I need his number first” he said “don’t worry, I already told Bev to ask Ben for it, I just don’t think she has seen the message yet. Can’t blame her though, if it had been me getting laid last night I wouldn’t have read my messages either.”

As if on cue Richie’s phone rang. He went to get it and found Bev’s response to the text he sent her the night before.

 Bev: Love of your life, huh? Aren't you getting a little bit ahead of yourself there buddy?

Richie: Uh no, he is the love of my life

He just doesn’t know it yet

Bev:  Is that why he didn’t give you his number?

Richie: No, he didn’t give me his number because he was drunk and fell asleep before I could ask him for it

Bev: Wait, so you did leave with him? I thought you went to Stan and Mike's

Mike texted me saying that if Stan killed you, it was my fault for wanting to get laid

Which reminds me, thank you for telling them, asshole

Richie: You never said I couldn’t tell them? And I had to defend myself if I was to survive Stan’s wrath

But yeah, I did leave with Eddie

But I also went to their apartment

Bev: ??? That explains literally nothing

Richie: It's a long story, they can fill you in later.

RIGHT NOW I NEED YOU TO GET ME EDDIE'S NUMBER, WOMAN

Bev: You exposed me to them, why should I help you?

Richie: Because you love me

AND BECAUSE I'LL KILL YOU IF YOU GET BETWEEN ME AND MY LOVE

No, but seriously Bev I really like him and I want to ask him out and date him and love him

Please <3

Bev: Fine

But only because Ben saw your texts and he thinks it's cute you like Eddie so much

Richie: TELL BEN I FUCKING LOVE HIM

Bev: (215) 509-6995

Richie: YOU ARE THE FUCKING BEST, BEVERLY MARSH <3

Bev: I know

Now go get your man ;)

 He saved the number under ’Eds <3’ and returned to the kitchen. Mike and Stan were cleaning up, so he joined them, all the while thinking what he was going to say to Eddie when he called him.

After they were done with the cleanup, Mike and Stan invited Richie to hang out with them. I can always call Eds later, he thought, he’s probably still asleep, so he said yes and stayed at their apartment. A few hours later he said his goodbyes, promised to tell them how everything turned out with Eddie and head back home.

Once he was there, Bev and Ben nowhere to be found, he took a shower and figured he might as well get some work done. He knew he was putting off calling Eddie but he told himself he was giving him time to recover from his imminent hangover, but the truth was that he was nervous, it had been a while since he had felt like this with anyone, especially someone he had just met and he was afraid of somehow ruining it before it even started.

After hours of stalling, he finally forced himself to grab the phone and dial Eddie’s number, he almost hung up especially because it was a while before Eddie answered and when he did answer Richie almost dropped the phone.

“Hello?”

“Eds! Hi!”

“Richie?” He heard the surprise in Eddie’s voice and he felt bad for not calling him earlier, it was clear he thought Richie wasn’t going to.

“The one and only. Sorry I didn’t call you earlier Eds”

“That’s okay” he didn’t sound convinced though.

“It’s just… I was a bit nervous I guess” Richie explained.

“Why would you be nervous?” Eddie asked, confused.

“I didn’t know if you actually wanted me to call you? I thought maybe last night was just the alcohol in you talking” Until he said it aloud Richie hadn’t realized it was true, he was worried that maybe sober Eddie didn’t like him as much as drunk Eddie had seemed to.

“Hey, you don’t have to be nervous. As embarrassed as I am for saying what I said… I meant all of it. I’m really glad you called, Richie.” He said softly and Richie smiled.

“Me too. I missed your voice, Eddie Spaghetti” and before Eddie could say something about the nickname, he added, “How are you feeling?”

“Oh, uh I’m good. I slept a lot, so. Bill actually checked of I was alive when he got home around noon and saw I wasn’t up yet” he chuckled, “and when I woke up I did have this horrible headache but the aspirins you left out for me helped, so thanks for that and, you know, everything else.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Eds” he said sincerely, “I’m just glad you’re all better now”.

“I do, and I also feel like I have to apologize to you. I’m sorry you had to see all of... that” Richie could practically hear the grimace in Eddie’s voice.

“Eds, stop worrying. It’s not the first time nor the last time I’ll have to deal with drunken sick people” he assured him, “ and I can promise you none of them were as adorable as you, so really it was my pleasure”.

“Oh God, please stop” Eddie said but he was laughing, “I am not adorable, and definitely not while laying sick on the bathroom floor”.

“Sorry babe, I meant what I said. Not even vomit can stop you from being attractive” he said and he knew that by now Eddie was probably blushing like crazy both at the nickname and what Richie said. God, I wish I could see his face right now, he thinks.

“You’re an idiot” Eddie replied and Richie smiled at the fondness with which he said it.  

They both felt silent after that, it wasn’t an awkward silence but it made both of them anxious, they wanted to keep the conversation going but they didn’t know what to say. C’mon Tozier, they don’t call you Trashmouth for nothing, just say something, Richie said to himself.

“Uh, so I got attacked by a cat today” Seriously, out of all the things, that’s what you choose to say?

“You… what?” Eddie asked and he seemed to not know if he should take this seriously or if it was some joke.

“Stan and Mike’s cat, Noodles, attacked me. You would think a cat with a name like that would be a sweetheart but the truth is that he’s the spawn of Satan and he fucking hates me.”

Eddie chuckled, Richie could be so dramatic, “What happened?”

“He thought my leg was one of those things cats use to scratch their nails on?”

“A scratching post?”

Richie pauses, “is that what they’re called?”

“I think so”

“Huh, interesting. Anyways yeah, he did that.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“I mean, he messed up my jeans and when I tried to defend myself I fell from the couch and hit the coffee table, but I lived.”

Eddie exploded in laughter at that, Richie would have been offended if it wasn’t the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. Eventually, his laughter dissolved into giggles and Richie was sure he was going to die with how cute Eddie sounded.

“That sounds awful, I’m glad you made it out alive” Eddie said, still giggling.

“You don’t sound so concerned” Richie said with fake offense.

“Oh no, I am. I know cats can be dangerous.”

“Oh yeah? You ever been attacked by one?”

“Not attacked, but I used to be really allergic to them and there was this one time where I ended up in the hospital after Bill and I rescued a lost kitten from the rain and took him to his house” he explained.

“Seriously? Just picturing that is giving me a fucking cavity Eds, it’s too fucking sweet” A small Eddie carrying an even smaller kitten under the rain? Yeah, definitely the most adorable thing ever.

Eddie snorts and Richie can hear someone call his name in the background.

“Hold on a second, Rich” he tells him and then there are muffled voices, Eddie’s and some other guy’s, they conversation lasts a couple of seconds and then he’s back on the phone. “Sorry, that was Bill, I’m supposed to drive him to work and he has to go in a bit earlier than usual”.

“Oh. So you have to go?” Richie says, and tries to keep the disappointment out of his voice but fails miserably.

“Unfortunately” Richie took comfort in the fact that Eddie sounded just as upset as him to end the phone call, “But, uh, we could text? I mean, not while I’m driving of course, but you can text me and I’ll answer as soon as I can. If you want, that is.”

“Can’t get enough of me, can you, Spaghetti?” Richie joked, but the idea of continuing to talk to Eddie, even if it was through texts, excited him.

“Oh shut up, I could practically hear you pouting when I told you I had to go” Eddie replied in defense.

“You got me there” Richie admits. No point in denying it, he thinks.

There’s silence again and Richie hears who he guesses is Bill calling Eddie’s name.

“Shit, I really have to go Rich”

“Fine. But can I ask you something first?”

“You just did” He can hear the smirk in Eddie’s voice.

“Don’t be a smartass” he says but he’s laughing, “so, I wanted to know, if, you know, if maybe you would like to, I don’t know, go out? With me? Like, on a date?” He face palms at how that came out. Real fucking smooth, Tozier.

Eddie doesn’t answer right away and Richie starts to panic. He’s trying to decide whether he should apologize or just hang up, when Eddie answers, “I’d love to.”

“Oh, thank fuck” Richie exhales and both of them start laughing giddily.

It’s Eddie who talks first and he says, “Listen, Rich, Bill is one second away from stealing my car and driving himself to work so I really have to go, but let’s discuss the details over texts, okay?”

“Sure thing, Eds” Richie answers and he’s smiling so much his face is starting to hurt. Richie is glad he didn’t make this call while still on Mike and Stan’s apartment or with Beverly around, he would be in for so much teasing if he had.

“Great! Talk to you soon then” Eddie said.

“Bye, Eddie” He says and hangs up after Eddie’s small “Bye”.

He sits there, on his bed for a couple of minutes, still smiling. Then he opens the group chat he has with Beverly, Stan and Mike and types a message.

Guess who has a date with the most adorable boy in the history of forever?

And before either of them can answer, he sends second message.

That’s fucking right, you losers, it’s me!

Then he opens a new chat and texts Eddie, eager to start planning their first date.

[imadirtyclownfucker]

Chapter 3

Warning: language, mild nudity

Summary: A young, small town, female artist is staying in a hotel in the city for her first big gallery opening. There’s a mix up with the rooms and she ends up sharing with sweedish actor Bill Skarsgård, who is attending a movie premier.

Authors Note: This is my first fanfiction published on tumblr. I’m planning on writing two different endings. One being where the main character and Bill end up having a purely platonic almost sibling like relationship, and another where they end up together. I’m incredibly slow at writing so it might take a while to get new chapters up. Feel free to point out any spelling or grammatical errors (or offer ideas for a title because I’m at a loss). I don’t own the pictures unless stated otherwise.

We went back to the room without a word spoken between the two of us. I flipped on the light and kicked off my heels, sighing before heading to the bed. I quickly gathered my things into my case. With another sigh I reached up and tore the elastic holding my hair up letting it fall in a tangled mess down my back.

“This is gonna suuuck.” I groaned reaching for my brush. I hate brushing my hair. I’m a tender headed pussy. I clenched my teeth and began the battle with my hair. I was attempting to forget Bill’s presence and failing miserably. But hey, a girl can dream right?

Suddenly there was a hand in my hair. “Fuck!” I shrieked and jumped halfway across the room wielding my hairbrush like a sort of weapon.

“Did you know your hair is green?” Bill questioned his hand still held in front of him.

“Did… What? Of course I know my hair is green. How could I not?” I snapped leaning my head back with my eyes closed and my hand placed on my chest in an effort to calm my racing heart. “Damn dude, how do you move so quietly?”

“I’m sorry miss, I didn’t intend to scare you. I was just surprised is all.” His hand dropped and he leaned back against the wall.

“Look,” I opened my eyes and looked at him, “I’m sorry for snapping. I’ve got a lot going on and I’m a cranky bitch at the best of times. And you can just call me Lenny. It’s weird to be so formal. Lenny, Linnea, hell I’ll even take my art world name.”

“Lenny,” he flashed me that Roman Godfrey and I felt my heartbeat stutter and my lungs spasm, “I like it.”

I choked out a breathless ‘thanks’ before turning towards the wall. This might become a new look for me. My hands shook as I raised the brush back to my hair. My heart is going to give out if this keeps up. I’m going to have to figure out how to keep myself busy for the next couple days. I can’t stay around him too much or my heart would literally fail. “Do you mind?” I asked hesitantly, pulling my phone from my sweats pocket.

“I’m sorry, what?” He looked up from digging through his luggage.

“Music. I don’t like silence much. It wears on my nerves and drives my anxiety wild. And I’ve gotta get myself put together.” The shrug I gave was supposed to look calm and apologetic but just ended up looking jerkey and uncomfortable.

“Uh, sure. I don’t see why not.” He flashed another smile and I gave a high pitched shriek in response. Tapping furiously my music started playing and I set the device on the side table. A sight of contentment slipped from my lips at the feel of my dress against my fingers. Though I was really beginning to regret my choice of dress now that I was sharing a room with a literal human god. My dress was a little scrap of fabric really, soft and thin and silken. It was the green black of an oil spill that shifted to show subtle hints of purple or blue depending on the angle and lighting. I turned to face the wall again before hastily yanking my shirt over my head and dropping it to the floor. A soft moan accidentally slipped from my throat as the feather light material settled over my frame. The dress almost felt like I was wearing nothing, which is my favorite thing to wear. The dress was perfect. It clung to me in all the right place, a delicate brass chain connected behind my neck to hold the dress in place over my chest. My back was left exposed down to the dip in my lower spine. My ribs stood, carved like valleys and my spine jutted like mountains. In this dress it looked natural, almost accidental even. I pulled my hair from under the chain and pulled off my sweats.

“Shit,” irritation laced my voice as I knelt and rummaged through my clothes looking for my sheer black lacy panties selected specifically for this dress.

“Everything okay?” Bill’s voice quipped from just behind me. “Did you lose something?”

“Yeah, just my fucking underwear,” it came out as a growl.

Bill glanced around the room before reaching for something on the bed, “These ones?” He held them up with one finger by the thin strip of lace at the waist band.

“Yes! Oh god thank you!” I snatched them and slipped them on quickly attempting to hide my blush. “This dress is way too short to go commando.”

“You’re a weird little girl you know,” he crossed his arms over his chest and looked down observing me.

I scoffed and rolled my eyes as I grabbed my makeup bag and pushed past him to the bathroom. “I’m not a 'little girl’ thank you. I’m twenty-five, and I’ve seen my fair share of life. I’m not short either. You’re just a giant.”

“I was referring more to your nearly emaciated frame, but you definitely don’t look twenty-five.”

“Shouldn’t you be doing something?” I rolled my eyes again as I slipped my glasses on. “Isn’t there, like, a movie premier or something tonight? That’s what actors do right?”

“Yes, but I’m already ready. All I need is to grab my jacket.” I heard him plop down on the end of the bed.

“Glasses? Or contacts?” I muttered to myself starting on my hair. My thin fingers making quick work pulling, twisting, pinning, and braiding into a messy yet elegant updo. I pulled my glasses off and studied my face.

“Contacts. The glasses take away from your face. Your wide eyes add a trusting innocent look to your otherwise… seductive look.” Even he looked surprised at the words that had spilled from his lips. I raised an eyebrow at him.

“Thanks man.” I leaned close to the mirror and put my contacts. Eyeliner, mascara and a dark wine red matte lipstick and I was finished. I turned to smile in thanks but froze when my eyes settled on him. It felt like a stack of bricks had been dropped on my chest. “Oh, fuck me daddy.” I whimpered under my breath clenching my fists. Having only seen him on screen and without my vision, it was as if I had been struck dumb upon seeing him clearly.

“Are you okay? You made an odd face.” Bill watched me with concern. His lips turned down in a small frown and a panicked shriek escaped me.

“I’m fine! I’ve gotta run! The gallery opening you know. I mustn’t be late!” I hastily grabbed my clutch and rushed for the door. Just before the latch clicked I shoved back into the room to grab my shoes and room key card. I made it all the way to the lobby before realizing I had forgotten my phone upstairs. I hesitated for a moment then groaned before pushing through the doors into the street. Fuck it.

[save-me-for-a-sunny-day-blog]

In This Summer Heat

Loki x Reader

Summary: It’s a hot summer day, and what better way to cool off than chompin down on a frost giant? No real plot, just some fuckery ;)

Warnings: SMUT (18+ only plz), swearing

Word Count: 2213

Author’s Note: Inspired by this summer heat!! I’m dying… Really wish I had my own personal frost giant to cuddle with and cool down with haha

…………………………………..

*Reader’s POV*

This. Is. The. Absolute. Worst.

“Tony, please turn on the fucking air conditioning!” I beg the rich boy helplessly.

“I would, but it seems to be malfunctioning… I’m working on fixing it, but it may take a few hours to get the whole building back to a decent temperature.” He explains, causing a chorus of disappointed groans from me and the rest of our team.

“I have to go outside, at least there might be some breeze out there…” Steve says walking toward the elevator. Natasha and Clint nod in agreement and follow.

“I’m just gonna stay here for a while,” Bucky announces, standing practically inside the freezer.

“This heat is worse than the summers on Asgard!” Thor complains, taking off his shirt and fanning himself. Normally I’d complain, but why would I when he looks that good?

“Please, just hurry up and fix the damn AC, Tony!” I whine annoyed. Everyone seems to be in agreement complaining about the ridiculous heat, all except for Loki. He simply stands in the corner of the room smiling to himself. 

“Ugh, I can’t take this anymore!” I hop off the couch and slug my way to my room. The fan is on high, but it makes no difference. I strip my sweaty clothes off my body and throw on something cooler. Usually, I wouldn’t be caught dead in these types of clothing, but today had to be the exception. A pair of extremely short pajama shorts and a tiny tank top exposing too much skin for my liking. I instantly regret wearing them, knowing the comments I’d get from the rest of the team, but the temperature difference I felt was undeniable. I simply thought, “Fuck it…” and went on my way. Heading back into the common room, I sneak in hoping to not alert attention to myself. However, as soon as I step in the room, everyone turns their heads to my direction. At first, they simply glance and look away, but then they all snap their heads back to me and do a double take.

“Damn, Y/n…” Sam whispers loudly, causing a blushing Bucky to slap his arm. Everyone else simply stares in awe, making me feel extremely exposed.

“Y/n, you look… cooler?” Thor smiles awkwardly at me, making me blush intensely.

“Ahaha, yeah… I’m just trying to stay cool, I guess…” I pull down my shorts in vain, as there was no hiding just how short they were. I avoid everyone else’s gaze and head back to the couch. After sitting down, I notice everyone else has gotten back to their complaining. Everyone except Loki, who’s practically glaring at me from the corner. I don’t know what to do, so I just smile awkwardly and wave to him. Immediately after, he pushes himself off the wall, grabs Thor’s arm, and leads him down the hallway.

“Well, that was weird…” I thought to myself. His angered gaze hurt me slightly, as I’ve always wanted to get along with Loki. I’d never admit it to anyone, but I’ve had a little crush on Loki ever since I joined the team. At first, he was as harsh with me as he was with everyone else, but then he seemed to soften a little. I made sure to always be kind toward him and always give him the benefit of the doubt. Clint and some of the others are brutal towards Loki, with somewhat good reason, as Loki did try to take over Earth and killed several people. However, Loki definitely seemed to change and better his ways, so I made sure to respect him for doing so. Loki always made it a habit to tease me when he could, which I didn’t mind all too much because I was at least getting some of his attention. However, recently he’s been rather cold towards me, and even going as far as to avoid me. I can’t remember if something happened to cause him to do so, but it made me sad nonetheless.

“I gotta get outta here, outside has to be better than this…” Sam says and practically runs to the elevator. Bucky shrugs and follows. I decide to get up and join, but then Thor walks in the room once again and smiles suspiciously towards me.

“Y/n! You’re still here, good! I think Loki is in need of your assistance!” Thor exclaims, pointing down the hallway from where he came.

“Loki needs… my assistance? With what?” I ask confused.

“Oh, um… well, he didn’t say! He just asked for you to uh… meet him in the library!” Thor tries to lie but fails miserably. Normally I’d be smarter and not fall for this kind of trick, but if Loki really asked for me then by God I’m gonna take the bait.

“Alright then, I guess I’ll go find him…” I say begrudgingly. Thor offers me two thumbs up and a cheeky grin. I chuckle at him and go on my way. I walk down the hallway boiling. I attempt to fan myself but nothing seems to help. I make it to the library, but I don’t see Loki.

“Loki?” I call out but get no answer. The library is huge, so I begin to wander around in hopes of finding him. After minutes of trying to navigate through the maze of books, I begin to get pissy.

“C’mon, Loki… I’m too hot to play these games. Where the fuck are you?” I yell out, but then feel someone’s hands grab me from behind. I yelp, but one hand covers my mouth and the other hand wraps around my body, holding me in place.

“You don’t want to play these games, little minx? I severely doubt that…” Loki growls into my ear, sending shivers down my spine. I try to shove my way out of his arms, but he’s so much stronger than me that I can’t even make him budge. He must notice my confused expression, so he lowers the hand covering my mouth and places it firmly over my neck, squeezing gently.

“W-what the fuck, Loki? Let me go!” I continue to fight his grasp in vain.

“You think you can just parade yourself around in those little fucking shorts without any consequences, huh?” Loki’s hand lowers down my front across my tummy and into my short. I gasp and turn a deep shade of red.

“L-loki, what’re you…?” I attempt to speak, but his chilled fingers find my clit in seconds. I can’t help but let out a moan as he begins rubbing circles around my sensitive bud.

“You think I don’t notice your glances at me? Think you’ve hidden your attraction to me? Wrong, little pet. I notice everything. Your gazes that last too long, your kind acts and words, I remember everything. I know you want me. I’ve been waiting for you to work up the nerve to do something about it, but I’ve waited too long. I’ve become impatient. And now that you’ve exposed yourself in this skimpy little outfit, attracting the attention of every other person in the room, now I knew I had to make you mine before someone else snatches you away from me.” Loki goes on pleasuring me, torturously rubbing slow circles around and around. Whimpers escape my lips as I stop fighting his grip. He’s known his effect on me this whole time, and now he’s using it to his advantage.

“Loki, ah! I-I just… I didn’t mean to tease you by wearing this, I-I’m just too hot,” I try to explain myself, but Loki simply chuckles darkly.

“Well, little minx, I can cool you down as long as you do as I say.” Loki offers. Suddenly, he stops and spins me around, pushing me into the nearest shelf. He grabs each of my wrists and holds them up high over my head.

“What say you?” Loki smirks, already knowing my answer. Trembling, I nod in agreement. With that, Loki grabs my shorts and panties and rips them down my legs. Kneeling, he lowers himself to my cunt and throws one of my legs over his shoulders. I grab the shelf behind me for support, as my legs are already weak from excitement. I stare down at Loki with wide eyes, and he begins to blow cool air onto my aching core. I buck my hips, needing to feel something more, but the air feels nice and refreshing.

“L-loki…” I whine. He quirks his eyebrow in response. “Please, ah! S-stop teasing…”

“No, pet. I get to do what I want. You just have to sit back and take it.” Loki smirks, but places his chilly hand on my cunt and begins to run his fingers up and down. He avoids the clit, though, teasing the fuck outta me. My face is flushed from embarrassment. I hate how easily he’s gotten me worked up and needy.

“Loki! Please!” I cry out in frustration, causing a tsk from him.

“What a baby. If you can’t handle the teasing, don’t dish it out to others, hmm?” Finally, he licks a long, slow stripe up my pussy. I sigh loudly in relief and grip the shelf tighter.

“Now what do you say?” Loki looks up at me with lust blown eyes, expectantly. I furrow my brows in confusion, then realize what it is he wants.

“N-no way…” I frown. Loki’s glare comes back.

“Excuse me? Weren’t you just begging for me to touch you? And I get no ‘thank you’?” He grins wickedly. He begins to rub his thumb up and down my folds, teasing me yet again.

“Ugh, stop! P-please, just…” I cover my face in embarrassment.

“Just what, pet? Tell me what you want.” Loki coos.

“Just eat me out already!” I give in and exclaim, lowering one of my hands to grab ahold of Loki’s long raven hair. I push him gently towards me, hoping he’d just play nice already.

“That’s more like it…” Loki then begins to suck on my clit, causing me to moan out loudly, finally feeling some release. Loki hums in approval, sending vibrations into me. This time, Loki wastes no time with teasing. He furiously runs his tongue around my clit, sucking every now and again. 

“Ah! Loki!” I moan, covering my mouth in attempt to quiet myself. Loki’s grip on my thigh tightens in disapproval.

“No no, pet. Let everyone hear how good of a job I’m doing.” He growls. With the flick of his wrist, my hands are magically lifted above my head. I try to pull them down, but whatever magic is holding them there is too strong for me to fight. This is so embarrassing, I can’t believe I let myself do this in the fucking library…

“L-loki, ah! I’m close…” I tell him, breathing heavily. With that, he lifts my leg higher to get at a better angle and begins to tongue fuck me. This drives me wild. I let myself become a moaning mess, not really caring about who hears anymore. My eyes roll back and my vision gets blurry. I’m ever so close, but then it all stops suddenly. I can’t even help the whimper that comes out of my mouth.

“Why’d you stop?” I cry out feeling as needy as ever.

“Because you’re only allowed to cum when I give you permission. Understand?” Loki looks me in the eyes with a deadly serious expression. I nod quickly, hoping he’d continue. Instead, he stands up and begins to unbuckle his pants. My mouth waters as I stare down, ready for him. He takes out his cock and it’s bigger than I thought it’d be. Definitely bigger than any human man’s cock I’ve seen. 

“Come here,” He says, releasing the magic around my wrists. Loki wraps his arms around my waist and squeezes my ass firmly. Then he lifts me up into his arms with ease. I wrap my legs around his waist and hold onto his arms tightly. I reach down and position his dick in line with my entrance, and without warning, he thrusts in.

“Ah!” I gasp. Loki sets a brutal pace, pounding into me. I look at his face and see his brows furrowed and his eyes closed. It seems he was just as needy as I was. The pleasure begins to be too much, so I lower my head onto his chest. Moaning out his name over and over again, begging to let me cum, he finally gives in.

“Alright, pet, cum for me.” With that, I let myself go completely and cum hard on his dick. The ecstasy is overwhelming and I go limp in his arms. He holds me close and works me through my orgasm, whispering praise into my ear sweetly. Afterward, he pulls out and gently sets me on the ground on my knees. I look up to him with knowing eyes, opening my mouth.

“Good girl,” Loki seems pleased. He pumps his cock a few more times, then cums into my mouth with a low groan. I swallow every last bit of his cum with pleasure. Then, the two of us gaze into each other’s eyes with sheepish smiles. This has to be the best way to cool off in the summer.

…………………………………..

I hope you enjoyed! This is my first time posting smut, so any feedback would be welcomed! If anyone has a story they’d like to request, feel free to send me an ask or a dm!