#fic: personal space

[jeonqkooks]

yoongi + 40 (fluff) + 49 (smut) (ONCE AGAIN CONGRATS ON YOUR MILESTONE AND HAPPY ALMOST BLOGIVERSARY LOVE 🫶)

personal space | myg (m.)

pairing: yoongi x f!reader prompts: "are you blushing?" + "shut up and pin me down." rating: 18+ (minors dni) genre/warnings: fwb au, brother’s best friend au - jimin's the bro, a lil fluff, a lil angst, definitely smut; the only warning i could think of for the smut is fingering lol it's pretty mild, unedited bc that's how we do <3, smut right under the cut word count: 1.2k note: hi nary !! thank yuuuuuuu for the request heheheh i know i'm SO SO LATE to this one but better late than never right :D this yoongi has been on my mind since last august but i'm so glad to release him into the world. hope you like this lil piece <3

as always, i’d appreciate any thoughts or comments you may have, and please drop a like and/or reblog if you enjoy reading ♡

"Did you miss me?" Yoongi pushes your panties aside, his slender fingers stroking your bare core as a cocky grin graces his face. Your arousal practically drips down his fingers. "Oh, you did miss me."

When you decided to come to his welcome home party tonight, you hadn't counted on this happening, though part of you was secretly hoping for it. It’s not necessarily a bad idea to be in such close proximity with Min Yoongi again, just a dangerous one.

Old habits die hard, you suppose.

"Shut up," you groan when the pad of his middle finger circles your entrance, dipping into your heat but only allowing the digit to sink up to the first knuckle before he pulls out. The fucker, always such a tease. "Shut up and pin me down."

"When did you get so bossy?" he tuts, but he complies anyway. Yoongi carries you to the bed with your legs around his waist while his palms busy themselves with your ass, kneading your skin like it's the first time he's touching you. He doesn't throw you on the mattress roughly like you expect, but instead, he lays you down gently, like you're porcelain and he's got slippery hands. When he hovers above you, the guitar pick of his necklace dangles to rest on your bra-clad chest, and the coolness of the metal makes you shiver. It stings a bit, you have to admit.

"Since you left," you say, like it's all so casual. In a way, it is. That's how it used to be between the two of you - hiding another layer of honesty in the truths you exchange and knowing full well that the other person understands it. A secret language that only you and Yoongi speak, like hiding in plain sight. Although, that was the one part you were never particularly fond of - the hiding - but you knew it had to be this way. Jimin would've killed you both if he ever found out one of his best friends was railing his sister on the DL. "You subjected me to a lifetime of mediocre sex with mediocre men."

"It wasn't a lifetime," Yoongi disagrees, but the smirk on his face tells you that he's pleased with what you're insinuating. That he was the best. He was the only one who knew how to make you feel good. The man nudges his nose against yours, prying your thighs open as his hand settles on the warmth between your legs again. "It was three years."

"Which was a long time."

He kisses you then, and it makes your head spin from how soft it all feels. He kisses you like he has all the time in the world, like Jimin isn’t completely shit-faced in the next room, like kissing you is everything that he’s been thinking about for the past years, and now he finally has the chance to do it again.

After a moment, he breaks away to drag his mouth along your jawline to your ear, whispering things that the old Yoongi never would.

He plunges two digits inside you without any warning, but it doesn't take your breath away nearly as much as his words do. "I missed you," he says. "Missed you a lot. There were days, maybe even weeks, where I think I did nothing but miss you."

Your cheeks burn easily until they turn a shade that could compete with the rose bushes in your back garden. You grab fistfuls of Yoongi's t-shirt as his fingers fuck you slowly.

"Are you blushing?" he chuckles. "I'm knuckles deep inside of you and you're blushing?"

"Shut up," you repeat, because he didn't seem to listen the first time. "Don't say shit like that if you can't see it through."

"Who says I won't see it through?" he asks. His beautiful fingers that you've missed don't ease up for even a second, scissoring you open and forcing a whiny moan out of you, despite the sudden somberness of the moment. You clench around him when his thumb meets your clit, making you impossibly wetter.

"You never did."

"Neither did you, sweetheart."

"Because I'm a coward." You buck your hips to meet his hand as it thrusts into you, delicate fingertips brushing your g-spot on every stroke. "But you're not a coward, are you, Yoongi?"

It's strange how you're close to coming even though the conversation is making you sad, but that's Min Yoongi for you. He's got you wrapped around his finger - figuratively speaking, but of course, you suppose it takes on a literal meaning this very second - ever since day one.

It started out as just sex. It was supposed to be just sex.

He was supposed to just be one of Park Jimin's goofy friends.

You were supposed to just be Park Jimin's sister.

You were, until you became someone that Yoongi could love. Someone he did love.

And he still does, there's no doubt about that.

He stays quiet just long enough to make you come undone. His thumb rubs your clit expertly, just the way you like, as if you two never spent any time apart. You give him a broken moan, and he gives you a wave of bliss that washes over your body and swallows you entirely when he curls his fingers, fucking you with determination as you gush into his hand. Your legs start to close but Yoongi props them open, prolonging your high until you're shaking from the sensitivity.

"Yoongi..." you whimper, and only then does he pull his fingers out, soaked in your essence, only to shove them into his mouth. You watch as he hums in delight, eyes falling shut like he's trying to savor the taste. You say his name again, softer this time.

Yoongi looks at you then, propping his forearms on either side of your head to hold himself up. He rests his hips on yours, and you feel him even through his jeans, hard and pressed against your bare thigh.

"I was a coward," he admits. "But I'd like to think I'm not one anymore."

Then you both just stare at each other for what feels like hours but in reality, it's probably mere minutes. You want to believe him, you really do, but there are too many things that you don't know if you should risk. It takes a leap, but unfortunately, you're scared of heights.

You pull on his shirt, silently telling him you want it off. "We can talk about this tomorrow."

"I'm finally talking about it and you don't want to listen?" he chuckles but takes off the tee anyway, tugging it over his head and throwing it somewhere across the room.

"I do, just not right now. Now I only want you."

"You've got me."

"Not like that."

"Yes," he says. "Yes, like that."

You give Yoongi a look that makes him sigh. You just want to have him, without thinking of any of the things that make you feel like it's impossible to truly have him. Just one night, that's all you're asking for.

He touches your face, tracing your cheekbone, trailing down to caress your jawline. "I'll see it through," he tells you.

You wrap your arms around his neck, urging him closer until your lips brush. You give him a chaste kiss, letting your eyes flutter closed momentarily before you whisper, "Tomorrow."

all rights reserved © jeonqkooks. reposting, translating and/or modifying is not permitted by any means. [posted 10.06.23]

[areseebee]

in honor/celebration of the 1-year anniversary of my fic, Personal Space, i have a little bit of new writing to share about james and erin's first christmas in derry after everything that happened in Smoke Break. includes mention of an OC from my current fic, Someday - faye, who james has just started dating at this point in the story timeline.

James had barely been sat at the Quinn’s kitchen table and all four of the girls had been admiring his new jacket when Clare had let it slip: “Is this the one that Faye made for you?”

It could have been a harmless question, if James had had any foresight. He could have answered easily – “Yes” – and moved on with their Christmas celebration. 

He’d been eager for this Christmas celebration and he’d been determined to enjoy it. It’d been a long time since he’d seen them all together like this; since August, in Clare’s Dublin flat. And it’d been months and months of him feeling so morose – the whole term, practically – that he’d been looking forward to the cheer.

But as soon as Clare had asked, he’d stiffened in his chair and he’d felt the corners of his mouth turn down and his eyes get very wide and he’d given the scantest shake of his head to Clare and all of them had seen. 

Michelle sat back in her chair, gleefully assessing, and asked, “Who the fuck is Faye?”

Orla had even stopped surreptitiously poking at her hastily wrapped present – James had tried to fold it just right, but the flimsy wrapping paper had been so clumsy in his hands that he’d finally given up – and looked up at him in interest.

He didn’t know what Erin was doing. He had hardly been able to bring himself to look at her, even when she’d answered the door and let him and Michelle inside. Maybe he’d made sure not to catch her eye, but he’d allowed himself a quick glance that had shown him a happy flush across her cheeks and very bright eyes and a sort of frenetic energy bouncing around in her; she was too quick to smile, was touching her hair too much, adjusting her headband and the lightly curled ends of her hair against her collarbone too frequently. 

He’d made himself look away. And now, at the table, she was right there at his elbow – maybe he wasn’t looking, but he’d felt the way she’d stilled at the mention of the name.

And Clare – well Clare was already glaring daggers at him. Don’t get mad at me, her expression seemed to say, I didn’t know it was a secret.

James swallowed and tried to affect nonchalance, albeit much too late. “She’s a friend from school.”

“Who makes you clothes?” Michelle asked disbelievingly.

“A good friend,” he shot back.

Michelle gave him a long, narrow-eyed look which he tried to match with his own, but he lost his nerve and looked away, down at his hands. He could hear the cocksure smirk in her words when she said, “I’ll translate: he’s been riding her.”

“I –” he started, about to lie, about to say “no,” but stopped himself. It was out now; why lie? “You don’t have to be so vulgar about it,” he answered sullenly instead.

“Vulgar? I’m not the one being a dick, keeping the poor girl a secret,” Michelle sneered. “What would she think?”

Nothing about it, he wanted to say. He wasn’t keeping Faye a secret; or, at least, not from anyone but three of the girls seated around the kitchen table, and for very good reason. Michelle didn’t need to know until she had to, Orla would just tell Erin, and Erin – well, he wasn’t sure why he hadn’t wanted Erin to know. 

Maybe because it seemed like things were normal again, or as normal as they could be, and he didn’t want to mess it up, not again. Maybe it was because he didn’t think she deserved to know, didn’t get to have him offering up every piece of him to her again, especially when she wasn’t asking for it. Maybe it was because he’d tried to tell her, had had the words on the tip of his tongue every time Erin had called him over the past weeks, but he’d been too much of a coward.

What will she think, he’d wondered, and then hated himself for wondering. He’d told himself over and over again that Erin wouldn’t even care, that she never cared as much as he thought she did. And maybe he didn’t want to finally learn that it was as true as he suspected it was.

“Well it’s not a secret now, is it?” James glowered. “I have a girlfriend. She made me this jacket. Can we open presents now?” he asked, trying to sound as matter-of-fact as he could manage. He didn’t want to talk about this anymore, not with all of them there.

“The fuck we can,” Michelle scoffed. “Dickhead’s got a girlfriend. Well – who is she? What’s she like? Are you blackmailing her?”

“I vote for opening presents,” Erin interrupted testily from where she sat at James’s right. He’d nearly forgotten she was there, she’d been so still and quiet. Nearly – he’d never quite forgotten. He’d been all too aware of the absence of her earlier fidgeting, the way she hadn’t immediately jumped in to ask a question.

“Aye, me too,” Clare chimed in. James shot her a grateful look.

“I can tell mine’s a box of fruit pastilles,” Orla said.

James gaped at her. “How could you know that?” he whinged.

“You try having as many fruit pastilles as I’ve had and then see if you can’t tell,” Orla said smugly.

“You missed a corner with the wrapping,” Erin groused, finally drawing his eye to her. “We can all tell.” Her face was still flushed, but it was all blotchy, and she looked back at him, her gaze guarded and blank. He blinked, and she looked away.

“Ok, you’re all ruining Kris Kindle,” Clare fussed. “No one’s supposed to know who got who yet!”

“Come off it, Clare. There’s no point. You already know who everyone has anyway,” Erin muttered, crossing her hands over her chest petulantly.

“Well someone had to plan it! Can’t count on you lot for anything.”

“Fine,” Michelle huffed. “Let’s get this over with. Here Erin.” She tossed a lumpy parcel across the table.

“Thanks,” Erin muttered. She leant down and picked up the precisely wrapped gift that had been sitting on the floor near her foot and slid it over to James across the table. “Here.”

“Oh,” he said softly, looking dumbly down at the gift in front of him and the tag on top that said – he felt a funny lurch in his stomach – To James. Love, Erin. “Thanks.”

James carefully stuck his finger under the bit of tape on the side and let the paper pop open before turning the present around to the other side and doing the same.

“Why are you going so slow?” Erin asked, looking very unimpressed with the care he was taking with it.

“Stop watching me. I can open my present however I please,” he said archly. He felt her shift beside him again, her earlier fidgeting having seemingly returned.

He peeled back the paper carefully until all that was sitting in front of him were a stack of three VHS tapes: Armageddon, Notting Hill, and Ghost.

“Oh,” he said again, staring down at them. 

The two of them had seen Notting Hill together at the cinema that summer, sitting in the cool, quiet dark as they watched a girl stand in front of a boy and ask him to love her. James could remember vividly sneaking glances at Erin’s enthralled face in the light of the screen. She’d been so wholly absorbed. He wanted to take her hand. He’d wanted to take her whole attention, to have it all directed at him the same way it seemed to be directed at Hugh Grant. She’d even mentioned visiting him in London for the first time ever as they walked out of the cinema. He remembered because he hadn’t had to bring it up first. Maybe it was then that he had started to hope.

As for the other two films – well. They hadn’t exactly watched them. James remembered that, too.

“It’s stupid, I know,” she stammered to cut through his silence. “I just thought they were…some of our favourites. And I thought you’d want to have them. So you could watch them. Whenever you want.”

“That’s an…eclectic range of films,” Clare said, craning her neck over Michelle’s shoulder to get a closer look. “There was a £10 limit, you know.”

“They were discounted,” Erin shrugged irritably.

"It's a waste of your money," Michelle said, eyeing the tapes and shaking her head. "We already own two of these."

"Well they're for him to take back with him, aren't they, Michelle?" Erin snapped. Four pairs of eyes, James’s included, turned to look at her in the wake of her outburst.

“Jesus, Erin. What crawled up your hole and died today?” Michelle chided.

“Nothing,” she grumbled, slumping an inch down in her chair, and then added, “I’m hungry. Can we eat already?”

They cleared off the wrapping paper now strewn across the table while Clare set to re-heating the Chicken Ball Specials that Erin and Orla had picked up earlier that day for their Christmas dinner. In the end, the wine and Christmas crackers put them all in a better mood. When Mary Quinn checked in once to see how they were faring, Erin only grumped a little bit. And Michelle didn’t bring up Faye again. 

All in all, it was exactly what James had been wanting. It felt normal. James liked normal. He’d been worried it would never be normal again. Maybe Erin was a little quieter and maybe she didn’t say much to him since he’d opened the tapes, but maybe that was normal, too. Maybe all of the times he’d ever caught her eye or shared a joke or brushed her knee with his wasn’t normal. Maybe it’d only ever been him doing it. Maybe she’d found it fun to reciprocate, whenever she did. Maybe it wasn’t ever anything more than that. Maybe now that he had a girlfriend, he’d never have any of that from Erin ever again.

That was normal. He knew that. But it still sort of felt a little bit like he’d lost something again, underneath it all.

By the time the second bottle of wine had been opened, Michelle suggested putting on a film to end the night. “One of the ones Erin got. Notting Hill.”

Erin had sat for a few minutes through the opening, up until Hugh Grant spilled coffee all over Julia Roberts’ shirt, when she pronounced that she’d go “clean up” and disappeared into the kitchen where sounds of the running kitchen sink and clanking dishes soon followed.

James only waited until Hugh Grant offered Julia Roberts apricots soaked in honey before he decided to use the toilet. He wasn’t much in the mood for Notting Hill, either.

He dallied for as long as he could without seeming suspicious and skirted around the edge of the room on his way back so that he could slip into the kitchen unnoticed.

Erin was standing at the sink, hands immersed in the water in the sink basin, staring idly out the window into the dark back garden. 

“Want help?” he asked from the threshold. She jumped in surprise and glanced at him briefly before turning her attention back to the dishes in the sink.

“Aye. If you want.”

He took his spot next to her and wordlessly began rinsing the soapy dishes.

“I don’t think I said a proper thank you. For the gift. It was…thoughtful,” he offered after a long silent minute, trying to sound cheerful.

If this was normal, then he could stand here next to her and say thank you and not have it mean anything.

She hummed her response and fell silent again, only the clatter of cutlery scraping along the bottom of the sink and the sound of the film in the next room filling the quiet.

After a long moment, her hands stilled again in the soapy water in the sink basin. “Why didn’t I know?” she asked, her voice sounding small. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

This wasn’t what he had come into the kitchen for. He was here as a peace offering, not to learn how to regret something entirely new.

“It wasn’t really any of your business,” he said tersely, his eyes trained out the window on nothing but the few distant lights he could see from neighbouring houses. It was too dark out to see much of anything. He looked anyway.

She was silent for a long moment before she answered, the sound of water and soap plunking up against the sides of the sink as she cleaned another dish. “Clare knew.”

He didn’t respond, only rinsed the plate she handed him.

“You could have said,” she tried again. “I wish you had told me. Then I wouldn’t have –”

“Wouldn’t have what?”

“I –” She stopped and took a shaky-sounding breath before finishing the thought, “I would have gotten you something different.”

They were silent as she washed the last dish and, while he was still rinsing and drying, she drained the sink, dried her hands, and walked away, back to the sofa to join their friends.

Michelle was downright wrathful the next day when Erin called to tell her that she was going back to Belfast early.

“She’s missing New Year. It’s the new millennium, James. And she won’t even be here. I’m so fucking ripping, if she weren’t already going to be gone she would be uninvited.”

It didn’t bother him that she left early. Not being bothered is what would be normal. They’d have a perfectly fine time on their own, the four of them. If Erin wanted to go back to Belfast, if she preferred spending her time with people there who she saw all the time instead of the friends who she saw only more and more infrequently, well that was her business.

If, when the clock struck midnight, he missed her, well that was something he would plan to forget about by the morning.

And if, when she next called him up it was to tell him she had a new boyfriend, well that was good, because now he had Faye.

[tubesock86]

idk what happened I’m fully back on my steddie bullshit HAHA

[tossawary]

I just know in my heart of hearts that in "Star Trek" at one point, there was some moral panic somewhere on Vulcan (among the uppity sorts) because Human culture was "infecting" the local youth with their overly emotional, destructive, unproductive, frivolous, and uneducational ways.

And what was actually happening was that a bunch of Vulcan kids got really into 23rd-century "Minecraft" or something.

Small Vulcan child @ another Vulcan child: (in a tone that sounds flat to Humans but angry as hell to Vulcans) "You have compromised the optimization of my fortress. I am having an emotional urge to blow up your house... in Minecraft."

[bigfatbreak]

Hi quick question about the host au

Does lila think marinette is being legit haunted?

Because for some reason i could see host tikkis powers (which i think act up with high emotions because of that one post in the manynette au) acting up around her out of anger

yup. I actually have a chunk of fanfic written up for the AU that really goes into it, that I never finished nor posted, and now I'm considering posting it as a standalone just for fun

[hana-no-seiiki]

YAN! BOSS : I would kill for you.

OVERWORKED! READER: With all due respect, I just need a fucking break (or paid vacation).

[drenched-in-sunlight]

saying this as respectfully as possible but. Do not put fandom content creators on a pedestal. We are also just fans contributing to a community just as you are. We have boundary on our own work and that’s it. What I say is not and should not be considered sth the whole fandom should listen to. I’m just a normal ass person ranting about things on my blog. If it does not have a fandom tag for others to engage in, do not make it out to be me trying to start fights or addressing the whole community. Because it’s not.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, my art, my lore talk, is biased. I’ve never tried to hide that I view Marika a certain way and will always develop my theory following that base assumption.

Aside from translation stuffs and pointing out in-game items, everything else I say you can look at it, agree or disagree, and move on to form your own opinions. Just because I draw stuffs doesn’t mean you get to saddle me with responsibilities about managing fandom expectations. What the hell? I’m a fan artist, I’m the last person who you should look at for “leaderism” (?) WHAT?

I can and will be a hater in my own space, like I know sometimes other artists will just post their stuffs and not engage too heavily with fandom, and for a while I did try to do that here (because I’m already a dramatic ass on twitter), that’s just not me though.

You will get art and you will get my opinions as well.

[littlecrittereli]

I don't usually post my sketches but I really like how this one turned out.

What's the point of angst without some good aftermath healing?

[leenfiend]

castle lounge redesign :)

[omaano]

"I've grown these for you."

My first entry for the @rexobibingo - because what is a Gardener/Gardening about if not making leafy things grow out of love? (You can, of course, grow your leafy things out of spite too, I guess, that's always a very fair motivation if you ask me)

Keeping to good old habits from my previous bingo experience, please allow me to wholeheartedly and very passionately recommend @dharmaavocado's fic that has been on my mind throughout the whole time while I was working on this drawing We Who Love Our Hands in Dirt which was likely the first fic that has sold me on this ship, and Hanahaki as allergies will never stop being fascinating to me as a concept *w*

[liauditore]

cw// implied character death, double life nonsense

because you are love itself.

[some-stars]

took a couple days off to spiral but im back on the writing horse, have an excerpt from today's work:

"Al!" Wade hollers. "Slop's up! And you better be decent when you come out here, we've got company and Logan doesn't want to see your granny panties. I do, obviously, but you can show them to me later, when it's just the two of us and a big bottle of Boone's Farm Fiesta Strawberry."

A moment later a door opens. "Logan," Althea says, "give him the claws for me, would you?"

"Excuse me?" Wade squawks. "Stab me yourself, you coward!"

"I've tried. You always dodge like a little bitch."

"I've told you a million times, that's training! Do you want to become Geriatric Black Daredevil or not?"

Logan looks between the two of them for a second, then shrugs and lets the claws out. Wade tries to bend out of the way of the swipe, but his balance is off since he's trying not to drop the food, and Logan shreds right through his t-shirt and a little skin. Not too much, though. He doesn't want Wade dropping anything either.

Wade stares at him, his face a mask of cartoonish outrage. "Domestic violence! Under my own roof!"

"That's what makes it domestic, dumbass. Thank you," Althea says to Logan, sitting down at the table. "He's had that coming for a good long time."

Logan joins her, feeling the corner of his mouth twitch. "Happy to help."

[areseebee]

someday timeline and masterlist

i’ve compiled the backstory details and the timeline of the derry girls james/erin fic i'm currently writing, someday, into this one post. under the cut is info about the 8 years between smoke break and someday, related bits of writing, character info, links to art, and other little fun things. i'll continue to add to it as there's more to add!

the timeline:

summer 1999: smoke break

fall 1999: james meets faye in a class at uni when he's back in london, they begin dating; erin meets liam the same term, but she's not interested because she's convinced herself that when she sees james again at christmas, she's gonna just say "let's go for it." if he wants to. she only waits so long because things feel very precarious right after the summer is over; james doesn't return her calls for weeks until, one day, he does.

christmas 1999: everyone's back in derry/NI for the holidays. erin learns about james and faye. she returns to belfast for new years when she kisses liam at midnight. they start dating soon after.

2000-2001: james and faye date seriously, they share a flat together, but once they graduate they decide the relationship has come to a natural end especially as james has decided to pursue filmmaking (specifically documentary filmmaking). they remain dear friends.

2001-2002: james is in new york city. there he dates diana, an actress. they break up when he moves again. they remain friends.

2002-2003: james meets miles on a shoot (he's also crew). they break up when james moves again. they remain friends (it's a pattern).

2003-2005: james is in california. he's, for once, not dating anyone; 3 back-to-back relationships, varying in seriousness, which have ended because he's left and gone somewhere else, have worn on him. erin visits in june 2004.

2000-2004: erin and liam date through university. everyone thinks they're going to get married. erin thinks they're going to get married, except that she feels weirdly anxious every time they talk about, every time she thinks about it. they break up shortly after erin visits james in california, where he's living at the time for work.

2004: erin moves into her someday flat, her and michelle meet rafael. she sees rafael for around a month, then it's over. she doesn't date anyone - seriously or not - spending most of her time with michelle, rafael (who has a young daughter, sienna, from a previous relationship), and clare and orla when they're around. she feels like she just messes things up and should probably focus on not. she is beginning to write her book at this time.

2004: after erin visits, james jumps into two very short, not at all serious situationships with first isadora and then nathaniel.

2005: erin sells her book.

2005-late summer 2006: james dates willow. it could be very serious, it sort of is - james could see himself being perfectly happy, if he'd let himself - but in the end it's just not quite right. they break up. somewhere in here, clare and faye start dating.

october 2006: erin and james meet briefly - like 12 hours - in nyc where he's about to leave for brisbane and she's in town for a publisher meeting.

february 2007: someday begins.

the exes:

[thanks @derrygirlstrash for your thought partnership around these characters. i've had the best times talking with you about them!]

james:

faye

- faye art by @imstressedx - appears/is mentioned in this short piece of writing and in this post. also this one!

2. diana

- diana art by @derrygirlstrash

3. miles

- is mentioned in this post

4. isadora

- isa art by @imstressedx

erin:

liam

- appears in this short piece of writing. - mentioned in this post and this one

2. rafael

- rafael art by @imstressedx

other art:

smoke break art by @derrygirlstrash

maybe someday series cover art by @imstressedx

someday erin art by @imstressedx

more someday erin art by @imstressedx

someday james art by @imstressedx

someday erin and james art by @imstressedx

other bonus content:

here are a couple of smoke break-era scenes that were written for tumblr after the fic was completed

a james/erin focused scene set during the christmas after smoke break.

someday mood board

maybe someday spotify playlist - includes both smoke break and someday songs in a rough order from smoke break, through the intervening years, through someday.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

Riz has counted four casseroles this week alone. Five, if one goes by the method of cooking, but Yelen's scary when she's crossed, and calling her burek by its proper name is important to her, so Riz does her the courtesy and doesn't include it in his mental tally.

He holds the tupperware over his head to keep it out if the way as he takes careful steps over the piles of notes in his path. The dockman case just closed, relevant documentations handed over to relevant personnels, evidences dealt with as needed; all he has lying around now is just record of the process and traces of himself thinking through it. Unsurprisingly they still haven't invented a surface more convenient for people under five feet who like to pace to put pieces of paper on than the ground.

Actual records go into the case folder with the other documents. Anything else with at least one side still blank is going to the school kids in the block - they chew through an astounding amount of paper just learning arithmetic. The rest is for the recycling basket.

Later. It's his mandated lunch break right now.

Riz sits down in front of the corner file cabinet. In an office often overrun with papers and strings and sometimes even thumbtacks, he's never really managed to clutter up this exact square of surface like every other ones. Ever since the bottom drawer rattled for no discernible reason a day long past, his eyes have always just kinda decided to slide across the space without acknowledging it.

It's years out, now. Riz doesn't know why he thought it such a big deal anymore, back then. He wasn't scared, he doesn't think. Not anymore. Maybe just uncomfortable with the idea that certain things persist despite all efforts to change.

He opens the tupperware. Dame Carabelle's experiment greets him with enough spice in the aroma alone to knock out a small mammal. When he chopped the vegetables for this casserole he couldn't really imagine the eventual heft of it, evident even through just these few ladles' worth, maybe weighing heavier for being still warm. His folk eat more through the smell and the textures and the aftertastes than the taste itself. His folk's meal is really the cooking rather than the eating. The eating is the meal's end.

"Hey," he tells the file cabinet's bottom drawer. "Um."

It's the anniversary. Riz doesn't know the exact date of his dad's death; nobody currently alive does. He and Mom both use the date of the funeral, though as he moved out to Bastion and then got more directly involved with Interplanar he hasn't really been going to Dad's grave as much. Doesn't seem like very efficient use of his time, catching a train or borrowing a car or spending a whole spell slot on going somewhere he knows Dad isn't at. They're sorta coworkers now. They talk on and off every other week between missions. When he goes now, it's just to clean up the place, keeping the landmark tidy and respectable.

Without that work to mark the date he doesn't really know what it serves anymore. But he still remembers it. Still takes note, absently or not, when it comes around.

There's not really a good way to tell the drawer that. Riz looks for another way to start the... conversation, hopefully. The question at play, he'd guess, is why he's doing this. He's been pretty content ignoring all the rattlings and the knocks from inside and the times it sits slightly ajar without him ever opening it himself; hell, he still uses the three drawers on top of it. Space is fucking precious in Bastion.

Precious enough to finally fix this damn drawer so he gets his turn to use it? Riz asks himself. Is that what we're getting to? Then he dismisses the thought - he didn't manage to fix it the times he actually tried, let alone-- now. When he doesn't really care that much to.

That's probably a good place to start. "'s fine if you keep being in there, turns out," Riz says.

The lunch hours are quiet in the block, sleepy and bright with the brief window of sunlight that manages to break through roof overhangs and extended balconies and laundry lines and climbing vines. Riz's work isn't loud here (the loud parts happen away from his office, if everything goes right), but the fragment of early summer heat reflected in the steady warmth his meal still carries compels him to lower his voice even more. It makes the words feel intimate, in a way he's never been familiar with - if he says something he just says it. He doesn't whisper. If he gives his friends something, he gives it open-palm. He's found out, along the way, that people usually don't think of rituals and courtesies the way he does.

Small voice for a diminished monster. "You know why I think so?" Riz asks. "Because almost two decades ago you kidnapped me and almost killed me, and now you rattle a drawer in my office."

It doesn't sound as much like a taunt as Riz wanted it to; the drawer has made a lot of noises again this morning when he checked the calendar, and he was definitely annoyed at it. Now, though, facing it like this after cooking the whole morning with more grandparents and peers from the block than he can count on both hands to cater for a tenant union meeting, he thinks the annoyance has morphed. Changed shape.

It has the shades of something like pity. Riz is not prone to pity, and especially not at these kinda matters. It's slightly maddening that he coheres perfectly outside of this one spot. That he commands his spaces, except for a drawer.

He puts the tupperware onto the floor between himself and the cabinet. "I know we're aware it's the anniversary," he says at the drawer. "You do this every year. You make a ruckus every time I decide to go do my job instead of mooching off my friends' aircon, and every time I get an invitation to some stupid social thing I want to turn down, and every time one of the old people tries to introduce me to a child or a nibling, because being a bachelor over thirty is weird," he pinches the bridge of his nose. "I have three fucking jobs. I love doing my fucking jobs. I'm forcing funds into infrastructures. You're never leaving, are you."

The drawer vibrates lightly. It's a very, very mild acknowledgement, considering the history of reactions Riz has gotten from this thing. Riz thinks it's emanating joyous agreement, or satisfaction.

It only sharpens the pity. Riz doesn't like that, but it's how it is. That's, ultimately, the lesson he's been taught over and over and over again, just by existing as himself, turned every which way by space after space that don't see him eye-to-eye: it's not like he'd quit living over any of it. It's not like any of it can sand off these fundamental pieces of him.

He's outgrown a lot of things, he's found out. Again, and again, and again. A childhood home, a yearly trip, a monster.

"'s probably scary for you, huh?" He asks. "Because I left."

He thinks he hears joints creak that sound like you did. Probably the way a scorned lover would say it, in a movie or a yellowback. He has no more connection to the idea than he did as a kid. Less, because it doesn't even scare him.

"That's what it is, right? That it's the anniversary, and I'll never be like Dad." He raises a knee from the floor, pulls it back closer to him. Slings an arm over it. "You love to remind me. The thing is, Dad also left. He loved Mom and he loved me, and none of us wanted it to happen, but it still did. Because love does fuckall to make anyone stay on its own."

He's long past being bitter about it. It's just the facts. Once upon a time he looked into the future and the specter of his friends' happily-ever-after casted lightless, fathomless shadow over him. Love, marriage, that kind of devotion, to a fifteen-year-old with more solved cases than friends seemed so eternal. Final.

But you can only watch your friends build up apps' worth of jilted lovers for so long before getting over it.

"You know what I learned?" Riz tells the drawer. "Love doesn't make anyone stay. Project management does."

He stands up, and picks up the tupperware of Dame Carabelle's casserole, that he helped make, that he helped share with a block's worth of neighbors and members of a community he's at home with, and goes sit at his desk to eat. "Last chance to get any," he drops an offer over his shoulder as he walks away.

He doesn't eat all of his share in one go. What he's spared he leaves on the desk when going outside for a smoke break. Baron looks the exact same as when he saw them last, when he catches a glimpse; they haven't grown at all. They aren't there when he comes back inside, but the leftover has gone days-old cold, like someone's sucked the future out of it.

[lenle-g]

@soniabigcheese asked me for "John and a ginger cat called Bagel", inspired by @gumnut-logic

[cryptocism]

next chapter fit lets goo