#first doodle she's meant to be like thirteen I think!

[liothebiblioklept]

Anya doodles for thy soul

[presidentdisastraofgallifrey]

The Doctor's journaling styles as I have established them so far:

One: generally grumbles about everything so you have to read between the lines for both his feelings and actual events, but will randomly and unexpectedly include very amusing jokes and anecdotes

Three: starts complaining about being stuck on Earth with imbeciles and gets distracted talking about his latest experiment or something fun he did with his current companion

Four: so much editorializing. The most unreliable narrator. I think he actually writes down the feelings he doesn't share aloud, though. Also has a habit of realizing what someone/something meant days later but only writing this down

Nine: writes about his adventures while leaving himself out of them as much as possible

Ten: writes TOO MUCH about his feelings, the emo bastard (affectionate). Like, two paragraphs describing his adventures and then ten about how sad it made him

Eleven: starts off writing about his adventures and companions in an excitable tone, only to get distracted and make a list ranking planets by the view of their moon, write himself an out of context reminder that makes no sense, doodle some bow ties, and then circles back around to the end of the adventure without writing down the second half of the middle

Twelve: grumbles and complains mostly, sometimes writes about the newest hobby he picked up ("ironically"), tends to mention adventures long after they happen except the particularly traumatic ones, which he will rave against the universe about. Missy got hold of it for a few decades and wrote entries basically roleplaying as him

Thirteen: so! many!! exclamation!!! points!!!! Writes in accurate detail about her adventures (still infrequently), in ways that look emotional because of the enthusiasm, but really she never says much about her own feelings

Fourteen: has a routine of writing every night and though he doesn't keep to it perfectly, manages to write much more frequently than the others. Writes with wonder and awe at the most random human things he's been trying out because he has the time now, and sometimes amusement or sometimes annoyance or even boredom when he notices some Earth-shattering thing happening that isn't his problem now. While in therapy was made to practice writing out his emotions not connected to something that just happened, and then letting them go. As time goes on, he practices sharing them more out loud instead of in the diary.

Fifteen: keeps the habit of writing more frequently (at first, while Ruby is around, anyway, and slowly gets more and more distracted from it) and in almost painstaking detail about his adventures and reactions to them, though his reactions tend to be focused on...not the main thing. Like he almost died but prefers to write about how great the food was or something. He still includes the fact that he almost died, but spends much longer talking about the food

[jiminrings]

OKAY LISTEN idk if someone or you already planned sth like this but how about y/n finally decides to confess/tell jk but someone else claims to be her before she could do it so * cue to the angst bc y/n sees the whole thing/she hears from her friends * and ofc koo eventually finds out bc that b*tch doesn't even have the fucking lunchboxes 😑

cold senior!y/n x stem major!koo masterlist :D

stem koo's the three-peat king for having the best research papers, but he's the worst when it comes to believing the right person

"i think i'm gonna tell him."

you say it to no one in particular, really, but you hear yoongi rISING from his nap on the couch

it wasn't meant to wake him at all

it was just an epiphany of sorts that popped into your head

physically felt as if your head would just bursT if you didn't say it out loud to affirm your own thoughts lmao

"for real???" he's rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, very evident that he wouldn't wake up to finish his thirteen pending assignments but he 10/10 would wake up to hear your epiphany

yoongi is awake for the action!!!! lmao does professor roux from calculus think that he wakes up at the morning and doing shapes (or whatever they teach at calc) is the fIRST thing in his mind????

"interesting," he nods solemnly when you nod your head, reaching out for a fist bump before he plops to your shoulder, "i suggest dressing like a virgin wearing H&M when you confess. it would hit close to home."

yoongi's the touchy affectionate one between the two of you but you'll forgive him bc he's still sleepy

NOOOOOOO

jungkook doesn't look like a virgin wearing H&M :((((

his clothes aren't from there lol

"pass."

"say that you're a top verified contributor both in quora and brainly."

PLEAAAAAASE SJWHSHWHHWV

"nice idea," you snort as yoongs genuinely thinks that it'd get jungkook to propose on the spot, "but no cigar."

"pretend to love big bang theory."

"you're getting onto something here."

"your hobby is fact-checking rick and morty."

"yoongi wow you are on fIRE today-"

"your guilty pleasure is not wearing protective gear during experiments."

"where is this coming from??"

"OH!!!! i'll pretend to mug him or something and you can attack me!!!"

....

??????

yeah yoongi's train of thought just crashed

you were pretty sure he was going on a science theme there wHY DID IT DERAIL

yoongi looks confused because you look confused, as if he didn't just give you the mindblowing idea,, free of charge

lol but no he really didn't

"i'm not doing any of that shit, yoongs."

"oh yeah???" he squints at you and hollows his cheeks, taunting you entertainingly while he worms his way to your lap to nap again

"what are you planning to do?"

holy sHIT this is nerve-wracking

she feels like she's gonna pass out the whole time that she's been rehearsing this in her head

she's been waiting outside the classroom for twenty minutes now and the bell finally rang and she can't believe it!!!! omg is it game-time now

everyone's filing out of the room and she could just feel that jungkook would come out of the room last-

ALRIGHT FUCK THE BELL RANG

you could do this!!!!

everyone's filing out of the room and you know in your heart that jungkook would stay behind, his routine being to politely chat with the professor before he leaves

you're a lil nervous alright

you're scanning the room and there's only a few people left and your eyes instinctively go to the mini desk next to the door and-

FUCK

DID YOU FORGET TO BRING IT HOME YESTERDAY??????

goddamn it

yesterday was when coach jeong was mad because someone from your team just hAD to bring beer!!! and not even have the common sense to put it on a discreet thermos or sth and you know!!!! to not drink it in public or in front of the coach!!!!

doing laps on the oval field will now make you hurl on command just by thinking about it

you physically did not have the cognizance to go and fetch the lunchbox to wash it,,,, or like even move at all

FUCK IT

how are you gonna swipe the lunchbox now? now when the professor's packing up, jungkook's loitering around the classroom, and there's this girl who's-

wait

who's this girl??

who is she and wHY IS SHE EYEING THE LUNCHBOX

fuck it!!! here goes nothing

she's stepping completely into the room and making sure her block heels generate enough clacking,, hands already moving in practiced moments as she attempts in making it seem like she's rushedly putting the lunchbox bag into her tote — as if it's from there, and she's always done this

jungkook hears noises coming from the back of the room, eyes widening before he comes up the stairs in record time

"no. get your own."

he grips the girl's wrist, about to pry off her hands from his lunchbox

he hears her giggle sweetly, the melody being something he's heard before

"i did. after all, i did get you these."

:O

"hyeji?"

hyeji's a pretty girl!!! a nice girl in jungkook's year that wears fit dresses and cartier bangles :D

she stands out really, sometimes literally because she appears in the school's flyers and advertisements

"hyeji," jungkook breathlessly connects the dots including the fact that she looks caught in the act; holding his lunchbox, her tote bag open, and a peek of another completely different lunchbox in her other hand, "i-it's been you this whole time?"

hyeji blushes, sheepishly tucking her perfectly shiny and neat hair behind her ears, "you caught me then."

kook laughs both in nervousness and giddiness, pushing his glasses up and suddenly conscious that he should've worn contacts, "b-but how? we don't share this class."

:O

hyeji bursts into a giggle, blushed cheeks staining further than the five minutes she tried getting the perfect amount

"r-right! kinda amazing what depths you'd go for a person you like, hm?"

jungkook is about to pass out

HE'S PUT IN A SITUATION

a situation that he likes and is too giddy to find a reply for

he apparently doesn't need a reply, because a chair scrapes harshly against the floor and it brings him down to reality immediately

you cannot fucking believe what you just witnessed

you stand abruptly from the seat you've been frozen in with a great deal of urgency because you cAN'T stand to be in this room any longer

they actually forgot that the two of them aren't alone

that you're still here

little miss hyeji's just as shocked

you feel stupid and even more stupid that you're still holding a stupid notebook you even decorated

it has a doodle in the front and all the remaining pages are of the copies you've replicated on jungkook's sticky notes — the same ones you've been trying to make perfect just for him

"y/n!" he sputters when your backpack accidentally leans too much to your side and hits him on the way out

"move."

you’re feeling everything but fine and god you just hated that you always willed yourself to move oN

you’re beyond mad when you put on your jersey!!!

you’re irrevocably dejected when you put on your cleats!!!!

you feel cheated on when you zip up your duffel and walk all the way to the field!!!

it’s a combination of the type of frustration that makes you want to move plus the type that paralyzes you, the whole thing unlike anything you’ve ever felt before

you’re clearly in your head and frankly, you’re just too good

too good that there's no game at all because the only thing happening is you scoring

there's no passing going on or the sort

everyone is just :O looking at their captain to be in the most furiously determined state that they’ve ever seen you in

you don’t even realize that you’re the oNLY one moving in the whole field

“alright, alright — jesus christ! go to the bench and sort your head out, captain,” coach jeong literally has to JOG over to your spot to jolt you

oh there he is again

jaehyun just had to bench you didn’t he

sometimes it’s lost on you that jaehyun, just like seokjin, used to be your senior

he hated juniors with a burning passion and you’re the ONLY one he’s taken a tolerance for

((you lent him your umbrella and it coincidentially had to be a bad day for him tHEN that made him like you))

you’re having none of it though because this time, you’re the one who has the bad day and the captain title does nothing to appease you

“sure, coach.”

you mumble just as lively and walk to completely the fURTHEST side of the bleachers, being so far out that you could barely see your team

what are you supposed to do? simmer in the thoughts you so badly didn’t want to have in silence??????

"y/n?"

the voice you least expected to hear perks up right next to you

what the hell is jungkook doing here now??

he looks lost, two hands clinging onto his backpack straps before tentatively looking at you again

“did i do anything to upset you?”

so he wants to ask that?

you snort automatically, suddenly wishing that you didn’t walk this far because you can’t make an excuse that jaehyun’s calling for you

"because my bag accidentally hit you on the way out? no, jungkook."

jungkook knits his brows in question, seemingly take offense to what you’ve just said to hom

"we're not exactly associated for me to be mad at you, are we?" you emphasize even further, not caring the least bit that your words have an edge to them

he deadpans, pursing his lips before sarcastically smiling at you

".... so you're upset at me?"

://

jungkook takes your silence for him to delve further, not paying attention to how your eye is begging to twitch at him

"i asked if i did anything to upset you, and you said no. but that doesn't necessarily mean you aren't. you could be upset at me even if i didn't do anything to you."

wow

you sound like a real fucking nerd jungkook

"do you have any idea how condescending you sound right now?"

kook barely has a solid inch on you yet the nagging feeling that he’s belittling you makes you grip your fists tight, posture wavering

"so you do admit that you're upset at me?"

he’s not the most patient person either but something about you and the situation right now just makes him tick a little faster

your eyes narrow at what he’s aiming to get at, your hand on your hip feeling heavy at this point

"what does it matter to you if i'm upset or not? we are not-"

"i am associated to you!!! even to a degree!!! you walked me home!"

jungkook is the one who breaks first and he doesn’t look fazed to have opposed you so loudly, still standing by himself

"i would walk anyone home."

"no you wouldn't-"

"i would walk anyone who was as vulnerable and as anxious as you were, jungkook!!"

it is true

you’d walk anyone home within reason regardless if they were jungkook or not!!!

the guy in question only looks at you straightly, brows not stubborn but still just as unrelaxed

:((

"good to know. then you're not upset at me, and i didn't do anything to upset you."

"sure."

you only say just to spite him, about to turn your back and leave him completely to go back to your practice game

jungkook surprises you again and flips a switch just as quick as your mini argument of sorts escalated

"anyways!! i'm sorry for being a little off when i interviewed you that day. i got a 100 on that assignment, by the way :))"

what?

what’s he still doing here?

he’s talking about his grades and whatnot to you as if literally twenty seconds ago did nOT happen!!

"why are you still-"

"and the one who's been giving me my lunchboxes confessed to me today!! for hyeji to be the girl giving me them, it makes perfect sense."

you shrug away the weirdness that jungkook’s moved on from the argument as fast as this, trying a take two for a peaceful conversation

this time, you’re the one who unknowingly flips a switch at her name — something so foreign and sudden yet something you quickly grew to hate

"i wouldn't be so trusting if i were you."

that seems to hit a nerve on him again, making him scoff in reply

"good thing you aren't me then."

what is ON with him????

"watch it. i'm your senior, kid."

you’re more irritated than the first and second time around that you’ve been agitated this day

"why? are you normally this self-absorbed that you wouldn't trust a girl who's confessed??"

self-absorbed?

you aren’t the most selfless person ever but god do you know for a fact that you’re not vain as jungkook’s insisting you to be

you hate him.

you hate this version of him that isn’t the same jungkook you’ve known to like ever since the start of the semester

"same thing as polygraphs not being a hundred percent reliable. anyone could tell the truth as long as you ask the wrong questions," you detail on further because jungkook loves details, right? might as well give him several

"or did you even ask?"

jungkook scowls as if you’ve insulted his mother and his entire lineage, face contorting into everything but warm

"what does it matter to you? didn't you just tell me that we aren't associated? why are you projecting all your moaning on hyeji?"

WHAT

WHAT????

"you know what? maybe i am associated to you. i think i'd also tell this to everyone i'd walk home — maybe you shouldn't be too trusting, huh? maybe you shouldn't just let anyone walk you home."

the tears this time are more insistent to come out this time but you’d rather dIE than for jungkook to stain your pride like this

"no one should walk me home, besides you? is that what you're trying to say?"

no!!

for fuck's sake you aren't even finished with your point!!

before you could continue, jungkook shakes his head at you — the most disappointing shake of his head that it curses you soft

"what am i even doing? you wouldn't understand."

he closes the distance that’s been alarmingly shorter throughout the whole time, jungkook being the one to break it

"because no one gives you lunchboxes. no one exerts effort in making you cheerful — no one wants to go the extra mile for you, and no one wants to walk you home."

he's insulting you right to your face and that’s when your dam breaks, lips quivering impossibly as you stare him down with a genuinely pained gaze you didn’t know you carried

"you wouldn't know what i feel, because no one likes you."

jungkook gets the last word in.

he leaves you in the same field he's first approached you in nervousness.

today, he leaves it differently.

sweat isn't the only thing on your face but instead it’s the frustrating hot tears you haven’t had in awhile

your fists are balled but there's no power to the anger behind it

you’re almost always alone outside the company of the closest friends you’ve ever had — but this is the only time that you truly felt that you are alone.

today's a good day to give up on jungkook.

[wincore]

childhood dreams | mark lee

pairing: singer!mark x reader

words: 3.3k

summary: you’ve been thinking of childhood dreams lately, and it seems like mark’s been doing the same.

genre: childhood friends to strangers to lovers(?), fluff, angst

warnings: none

song rec(s): childhood dreams - seraphine (cover) [orig. ARY]

a/n: im obsessed with this cover and i need to write cheesy drabbles to prevent writing droughts so here u go friends 👁👁 

Mark sits at his desk, bouncing his leg in compulsive habit as he has for the past half an hour. Your presence doesn’t make much of a difference to him—and it would be far more disheartening if there wasn’t more than half a decade of unsaid things between the two of you. With notebook pages crumpled on the floor, a mild scent of musk in the room and Mark’s refusal to look you in the eye, you don’t think this reunion could get any worse.

Or it could, you tell yourself when Mark clenches another page in his hand, glancing at you before turning back to the neatly bundled pages on his desk. He looks uncomfortable, and discomfort wasn’t something you ever recalled in your friendship.

“Mark,” you call. “Why don’t you take a break?”

He looks up at you again, doe eyes and rosy cheeks, and you wonder where it went wrong—where you could have gone wrong. There’s no explanation and there hasn’t been one since tenth grade. He used to look you in the eye back then at least, and joke with you, study with you, hang out with you. Is it wrong to say you were best friends then? You can’t really tell right now, as you cross your legs, withering into your own being on his bed that looks like it hasn’t been made for three days. Some things don’t change, after all.

And some things do.

“Okay,” he says, pushing himself from the wooden desk, which now looks a little lonely. He turns his chair to you, eyes still trained on his lap and occasionally shifting to your form. Dark, messy mop of hair and a face much more grown than you remember—he’s lovely to look at.

You’ve never seen him agree to a break when you were kids. The memory that surfaces makes you hold back a smile. The school library closed at 6 p.m. and Mark had all the books you needed for finals week by four. The sky used to be a warmer colour and so did your room, though you can’t quite remember the colour of your walls. You remember the hot pink ink you used to doodle with though, and Mark’s tired complaints when you wouldn’t let him study. Half of your doodles were inevitably on his notebook pages.

“You know, I didn’t think we’d meet again this way,” you start, trying to smile.

“Yeah,” he says, opening his mouth to continue but closing it quickly. 

There’s a quiet pause, filled in by the rustling of leaves and the reminiscence of winter winds outside. Late January nights aren’t close enough to winter and yet still, far from spring. You think of third grade, all of a sudden, of the first snow you saw and Mark Lee’s terribly postured snowman. 

“I… didn’t know you were songwriting for idols,” he says, with hesitant punctuation.

You chuckle, looking down at your feet. 

“I- I don’t mean it like that- I mean- I—”

“Mark,” you interrupt the mess that’s leaving his mouth. “It’s okay. You didn’t say anything wrong.”

He scratches the back of his head, looking a little guilty. You can’t really pinpoint exactly what’s going on in the space inside his head and it bothers you more than it should. You have been apart for a long, long time. You’re not as entwined as you used to be, not two peas in a pod anymore and not a matching set.

It feels colder, even in Mark’s modest apartment room.

“We’re friends,” you say. “Since college. Sohee and I. She wanted to sing and I wanted to write.”

“Oh. That’s neat.”

You chuckle. “You get to do both. I’m kind of jealous, you know? You’re talented. You’ve always been good at everything.”

“Oh, come on. That’s not- No way.”

You roll your eyes. “Some people see modesty as incompetence, Mark.”

He blinks, something rekindling inside his eyes, you tell with the way he stares at you.

“Oh my god. Mrs Wilsbury used to tell us that.”

The two of you laugh. It’s not particularly the thought of old Mrs Wilsbury, with her sharp words and shriveled face, but the spark of recognition in Mark’s boyish laugh that makes you feel a trembling inside your chest. 

“She was horrible,” you say, pulling a face.

“She was nice to me though,” Mark defends.

“Everyone was nice to you.”

Mark furrows his eyebrows and you roll your eyes at him trying hard to remember your high school days. The expressions he used to make haven't changed much; he’s just grown up and into his larger, masculine frame. It’s endearing now, more than ever.

He gasps suddenly and scrambles back to his desk, scribbling in a bunch of lines onto the paper. You lean back on the bed, sighing. It’s supposed to be the two of you writing verses but the way Mark works differs so much from yours that you decided it’d be better for him to do his thing while you’ll be the supporting cast. You don’t really mind when you’ve missed his words so much. You don’t really mind if it leads to him.

“Sorry,” he says when he’s done, a little awkward in tone.

A part of you feels sad for him, however. You feel sad that he’s had to work alone all these years as a solo singer-songwriter. It can’t be easy. You know it’s not easy. But Mark—he has a way of making dreams come true. Every kid dreams and yet, your best friend from years ago is living his. Perhaps, it makes things better, easier to look at.

You glance at Mark again, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration and lips pressed together. Something tells you he wants to scowl right now.

“Hey,” you call again, feeling comfortable on his bed now that it’s warm. “What was your debut song again? Dreamer?”

You know the answer. You just don’t want to give in to the feeling that’s calling for proximity again. Things change, and sometimes—most times—they’re out of your hands. 

You should be worried about nosy reporters right now. You in Mark Lee’s own room would give anyone attuned to celebrity news a sickening, sugary treat. A few headlines pop in and you shove them aside. You were surprised by the offer but apparently, his studio merges with his bedroom. (It did take an awkward explanation on his part as to why he invited you to his bedroom.)

Embarrassingly, you wish some of those headlines would come true. Your feelings haven’t changed since you were fifteen. 

His walls are blue like the sky and there’s more than enough lights but he only uses the one at his desk. It’s like a little sun, rays caressing his cheeks, nose and lips with a warm, orange touch. You would make fun of the gamer chair but he said it’s from Lee Donghyuck before you could even start breaking the ice you’re standing on. You wish the warmth would return between the two of you, the faint memory of holding hands in second grade floating in.

“It was Dreamer, yeah.” Mark’s voice breaks you out of your old teenage daydreams. You chuckle to force the heat off your cheeks.

A sudden impulse takes over your cold fingers and you take the acoustic guitar by his bed, playing the opening chords to his debut song. Mark’s eyes widen at your action and you give him your biggest smile—it’s like back then again. It used to be Mark on the bed though, with fingers strumming his worn out guitar and kind smile and honey eyes. You pause your playing. Mark’s still smiling at you in awe and you pat the spot beside you on the bed.

All of a sudden, you desperately wish for the past even if it isn’t meant to be recalled this way. 

You start playing again and Mark mumbles the beginning of the song, unsure, eliciting an annoyed sound from you. You stop playing and glower at him.

“Those aren’t the lyrics,” you say with mock distress. “You’re ruining the song.”

“It’s my song,” he responds with an incredulous laugh.

You begin again, and though Mark has to google his own lyrics, you spend an hour or so figuring out beats and tunes that vaguely resemble feelings you don’t feel anymore and thoughts you only remember empty decorated shells of. You’re not fifteen anymore, or fourteen or thirteen. Someday is now today. You’re not fifteen anymore but being fifteen is a part of you. The music floats seamlessly.

Your cheeks heat up when you think of the last time you met him, when you said you liked him and laughed it off in the awkward teenage fashion. You pray he doesn’t remember that embarrassing parting. It would be too silly an ending.

That’s why when you heard his name from Sohee’s manager, you couldn’t help yourself. After all, old friends should meet up once in their lives, right? You should close the door you left open if you can’t set foot into the house.

“Okay, but I genuinely didn’t know you write songs for Park Sohee,” Mark says, legs crossed on his bed as he leans in a little towards you. The dim lights of his room make his face look more rugged than usual, the tired lines spread across his face. You wonder if he’s kept up his habit of ditching breaks.

“I’m surprised you’re not in a boyband,” you reply, leaning against the wall. “And that your bed is this small.”

Mark stammers out a garbled explanation and you gasp.

“Wait- wait, oh my god. Don’t tell me… don’t tell me you’ve never had anyone over! For, you know...”

The comment runs a deep flush through his cheeks and you giggle at his expression.

“I- I- I just- I just didn’t have the time,” he says, biting down his lower lip possibly at his own awkwardness.

“Looks like you’re still a loser, Mark Lee,” you say, smiling smugly.

He narrows his eyes at you. “Looks like you’re still mean to me, (name).”

“Oh lord, when was I ever mean to you?”

“When were you not?”

You stick out his tongue at him and he laughs, relaxing against the sound of you and him—old friends. It could have been this way; it should have been this way.

“Why did you move away?” is what you want to ask. What was so urgent that you were left staring at the ghosts of his figure in his empty house, in his empty room and at the empty classroom desk? It’s not anger but a soft sense of regret, boosted by his quiet breathing and tired, thoughtful eyes. You could have stayed this way but instead, there’s a rift between the two of you. There’s years and years, and time isn’t a product to sell back and forth—you can’t buy those years back. Your chest hurts but you clutch the feeling tightly in your hands, afraid it might escape.

“This collab means a lot to Sohee,” you say, after a while. “You know, after the hiatus she’s been on.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I totally get it,” he says, sitting up straight and sobering from the bubble of you two. “We should get back to work.”

You hum. “You mean me staring at you tear all your hair out?”

Mark reddens in the face. “I’m not usually like this. Just saying. I need to be... inspired, I guess.”

“Maybe it’s time for you to revive your soundcloud account from when you were twelve,” you say, leaning back against the soft material of the bed.

“You’re making fun of me again,” he says, the smile lines on his face deepening.

You let out a smiling sigh. It’s just so easy. The thought still eats away at you, however, of what could’ve been. If you were younger, you wouldn’t care for this, you suppose. You’d just get along like nothing had passed at all.

“(name).” His voice sounds deeper and softer. “It’s nice having you back. To talk to, you know? It’s been a long time.”

Your face must have fallen because he straightens, eyes wide and wavering lips trying to form words. You sigh, looking away and see his form inch closer, some sort of fuzz leaving his mouth. 

“Mark. Mark.” You shake your head. “I think I’ve been a bad friend. I don’t know why I didn’t keep in touch—”

“Hey,” he interrupts, looking you in the eye. “It’s on me too.”

If you were younger, you would have confessed over and over again in ways private to everyone but you. 

You nod instead. If your childhood together was a prelude, there’s quite the long, awkward silence following it. You have to start the music soft and slow.

“It worked out though, didn’t it?” you ask, looking up to find his face nearer to yours than you would have expected.

When he tilts his head, you explain further, “We’re both doing fine, right? We- We did things, got our life and plans set and… now we’re here.”

Mark leans away from you. “I- I guess.”

There’s a pause, and you know there’s a lie fluttering between the two of you.

“I… I still feel like I’m running,” he says, a weary undertone carrying his voice forth. “I know I’ve done things… achieved things and I still- I still feel like I’m running a marathon. There’s still something out of reach.”

You scoot closer to him and offer a smile, your hand resting on his shoulder. 

“You can say you’re tired. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Thanks, (name). I appreciate it. I just don’t know where I’m going anymore.”

You give his shoulder a gentle squeeze before pulling him into a hug. You can’t hear his breathing over the sound of your pulse drumming in your ears but it’s warm, at the very least. His arms wrap around you after a few moments, heavy but comforting when his hand holds the back of your head, just like old times. The fabric of his mellow green hoodie is warm with his skin and you bury your face into it deeper.

“I’ve worked alone for a really long time,” he whispers. “It’s nice like this. I wish… I sometimes wish we could go back.”

You giggle, looking back up. “We could build a snowman for old times’ sake.”

Mark furrows his eyebrows. “There’s literally no snow. Besides, you just want to make fun of my snowman. Again.”

“You remember that?”

“Of course.”

His cheeks colour, one of his hands leaving your torso to scratch the back of his head. Suddenly aware of the lack of space, you pull back slightly to a more decent enough distance. Mark frowns but he rests his palm against the bedsheet, leaning his torso onto it.

“You could also let me draw in your songbook for the memories,” you suggest, smiling wide. “In hot pink.”

Mark scoffs. “Oh no. I know what you’re trying to do.”

“I’m not as immature as you think, Mark.” You roll your eyes. “It’s not like I’m going to draw a bunch of hot pink dicks.”

Mark opens his mouth and closes it. “I wasn’t- I wasn’t suggesting that.”

One look from you, however, and he realizes his defeat. It’s almost the same look as the one in spring break after tenth grade, except much happier and more carefree. Your eyes shift elsewhere when you remember the argument you laughed off, details lost but the gist was clear. You acted as though it didn’t matter if he moved away—something about that happy-go-lucky persona you’d developed. Oh god, you were an idiot.

The silence isn’t welcome. There’s no rhythm, no melodies in moments like these—moments in between things that should be happening and won’t ever happen. Mark takes a sudden precise intake of breath, making you look at him. His eyes are rich and resolute, and somehow as pure as they were when he was younger.

“When you- when you said you liked me,” Mark begins, and you hold your breath. “When we were fifteen, you said you liked me. Before I moved. I- I don’t really know if you were joking but… Do you- do you think you still would? If we started over?”

You look at him, his eyes unable to meet yours and shoulders tense, and find yourself at a loss for words and for breath. 

“Sorry,” he says quickly. “Stupid question.”

“I- I do- I would.”

Mark looks up at you reluctantly, almond eyes shimmering with some sort of emotion—innocent and curious as though you’re fifteen again.

You cough awkwardly and he looks away in a similar panicked fashion. This isn’t as romantic as you thought it would be and you almost think about taking your words back.

No. Not again. 

“I would,” you continue, dragging the syllable. “If you maybe asked me out on a date, at least.”  

Mark blinks, slack jawed like he’s seen the birth of a phoenix, or something equally dreamlike.

“Yes! I mean, wait- I- uh…”

He clears his throat, cheeks flushing with scarlet heat. “Do you- do you wanna get coffee tomorrow? No, wait- it’s a Monday. Th-This Saturday? …I’m doing this all wrong, aren’t I?”

You can’t hold back your laughter anymore, clutching your stomach at the sheepish look on Mark’s face and his slouched shoulders, much like the ones you were used to seeing as a stressed, sleep-deprived teenager. 

“We can make time after this project.” You smile.

“We have to wait until after—no, I mean, that’s totally cool.”

The defeated grin makes you laugh some more. Your eyes drift to the deserted work desk and notebook paper, and you gasp. Dawn will arrive at this rate, crashing in waves.

“We really should get back to work,” you tell him, your fingers against his chest. “Twelve year old us would be very disappointed in us now.”

The two of you laugh in shared memory, of the time when romance was as appealing as ice-cream dropped on the sidewalk. With eyes full of stars and a head full of clouds, where do you go? Right back to each other, you think. 

“We’ve come a long way,” you marvel. “We used to think of a different future every five minutes. Me, more than you, perfect poster boy.”

“You wanted to be an astronaut,” he laughs.

“And you wanted to be a swimmer. Said you’d even swim in a lake in Russia. In winter.”

“Yeah, I remember,” he says, eyes faraway. “We had all those childhood dreams.”

“You’ve reached one of them,” you respond, laughing.

There’s a short pause. Back then, everything was visionary. What the two of you had in mind had evolved, molted, shed its skin but now you’re here, in each other’s arms again—in a way that you haven't been before.

“It’s two,” he whispers, and the next thing you know, his lips are on yours and his arms are around your waist, pulling you closer. 

He pulls back in wide-eyed, careful consideration. “I- I meant to ask first.”

You respond with a kiss, his mouth warm against yours. 

He pulls back again.

“That was cheesy, wasn’t it?”

“Just shut up and kiss me, oh my god.”

You can’t help it, smiling against his lips and making him laugh at the feeling. Your finger brushes over the mole on his neck, unchanging in the same way he still uses too many hand gestures to talk or the way he still likes to lean his head on your shoulder. 

There are unchanged parts of him so vivid in your memories that some time through the night, you wonder if you’re dreaming. Then a terribly executed joke later, you have to nudge him with your elbow or smack his arm—and it falls into place in your reality again. Maybe you could’ve saved time; but it’s so much sweeter this way.

[sinsetcurve]

JATP FIC RECS

Oneshots-

All Those Little Moments- A series of the individual, chronological threads that make up the tapestry of the love of Julie and Luke.

It’s Always Been You (Even if it’s fake)- Julie Molina is not an idiot. She’s insanely smart and extremely talented. But, she does tend to do idiotic things. The most idiotic being telling her family that she's dating Luke Patterson and is bringing him home for spring break.

Ray and Rose and that Guy Trevor- Ray's POV on Rose's friendship with Trevor, through the years. (In which Trevor is kind of guilty but also kind of innocent.)

Head Over Knees- That one time Alex had an existential crisis over his knees.

Wrap Me Up- Julie is absolutely miserable. She’s caught a nasty flu and is so busy pretending to be fine that she’s totally pushed away everyone who could be taking care of her. Luckily Luke is more than prepared to step in.

Promises Kept- This is a missing scene from the fic We Found Wonderland. You need to read that first to really understand what's going on here. This cover's Luke's reactions to major events towards the end of We Found Wonderland.

I’m Still Breathing- Julie has asthma and when he was alive Reggie did, too. So, Reggie helps her out and cements himself as her big brother.

I’ll Love you There, Too- In her heart, Julie knew that Luke was going to propose eventually, she just didn’t know that it would be so soon, or how nervous he really was to do it.

This Hurt that I’m Holding’s Gettin’ Heavy-When Carlos got home from school Tuesday afternoon, he wasn’t expecting to find one of Julie’s bandmates in his bedroom, studying his bookshelf.

Come Again Bright Days- Julie and Luke haven’t spoken since they graduated from high school. But one night during their senior year of college, they find themselves in the exact same bar for the exact same reason: they were dragged there by their friends in an attempt to make them feel better after their respective break ups.

But Suddenly from somewhere out of the blue, I see a different light around you- Julie and Luke, family friends, end up sick together. While cooped up sick at Julie’s, a little conversation leads to a lot of secrets.

Like You Could Love Me- Julie hadn't slept in almost 48 hours. Luke was waiting for her on the porch when she gets home. Exhaustion + unspoken feelings and things are about to get interesting.

Not So Secret Relationship- Alex and Willie have been secretly dating for about a month and they've had yet to tell their friends about it. Alex decided he's finally ready to come clean to them.

There’s one thing on my mind- home didn't seem like home anymore for luke patterson, and so he was desperate to find a new place to write music. after an especially brutal fight with his mother, he finds himself in front of l.a. books. he isn't expecting to get much out of it, it was solely a last resort. but then he sees her, julie molina, and he ends up coming back every week just to keep seeing her. bookstore au

I’m Gonna pop some tags- Alex thinks working at Julie's family's thrift shop over the summer is going to be a good way to make money while also hanging out with his friends. Good. Easy. Fun. He isn't prepared for the skater who ran him over to be Ray's new hire.

Always- Luke is in love with Julie, and she loves him too. But it's not meant to be, he's been dead 25 years and she has a whole life to live. He wants to know why they can't just rewrite the stars, and eventually she finds a way.

He’s a little into it- Willex Hockey AU where Willie and Alex are on opposite teams.

Do a Kickflip!-It's Spring 1995, and Julie wants to spend some time at the new skate park. Unbeknownst to her, five boys are waiting to turn her summer (and life) for the better. Or! 5 times Julie ran into Sunset Curve, and 1 time she met with them intentionally.

Multi-Chaptered-

This is Where I want to Be- Luke is going through heaven and hell in his life and things take a turn when a especial someone drops unannounced into his life making him question his sanity. OR: Luke has a wicked beauty as his guardian angel and loses his mind

I’ve Got This Crazy Feeling This Isn’t our First Time Around- One second he is rocking the night away, the next he wakes up bloodied and battered in an alleyway. Found by a frantic curly-haired girl, he comes to realise nothing makes sense. He doesn't know where he is, who she is or how he got there, but one thing's for sure: It's not 1995 anymore.

Walk a Mile in my Doodled Shoes-The one where the boys use their newfound possession abilities to help Julie out of jams.

If I was you (I’d wanna be me too)- When Carrie wakes up, the morning after Julie and the Phantoms play the Orpheum, her father is gone. When her father has a breakdown, Carrie is forced to move in with Julie's family, and must confront some uncomfortable truths - about her family, her life, and herself. A house full of ghosts just comes with the package.

Time Of Our Lives- Alex, Reggie and Luke have been given an unexpected new chance at life. Will they fulfil their dreams this time?

We Found Wonderland- At the end of season one Julie isn’t able to save the boys and they are jolted out of existence. But what if there was another way? Julie finds herself back in 1995 with a chance to stop the boys of Sunset Curve from ever dying at all. But will she able to find her way home afterwards? Will she want to? Or has Alice really gone down the rabbit hole this time...

Midnight at Mona’s- Julie Molina expected many things on her impromptu road trip to Texas. She expected Flynn to be confused but ultimately supportive; she expected to relax and gain a new perspective; and she expected (or at least hoped) to rediscover the music she’d lost over the past year. What she did not expect was to be bunking with cranky rancher Luke Patterson, or the mysterious (and quite possibly magical) karaoke bar that would lead them on an adventure full of new friends, dangerous enemies, fun music, and a whole lot of love.

How Wonderful Life is While You’re in the World- Red, White & Royal Blue but Willex.

Our Life is a Playlist- They were best friends, they were family, and Julie had come to believe that they were soulmates. By the time the kids had turned thirteen, life had started teaching them the hardest lessons.

That’s Life- Julie Molina feels invisible most of the time. So what happens when she finds herself unexpectedly "married" to her handsome, popular, longtime-crush, Luke Patterson? She is about to find out. When she and Luke are randomly paired up to work on a project together for their Reproductive Health class, they have to learn to navigate the world of adulthood side-by-side for better or worse. All while dealing with the reality and drama of high school. Julie quickly discovers she's not as invisible as she once thought she was, especially to Luke. Does extra time spent together mean sparks will finally fly between them, or will it all go up in flames?

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[somedayonbroadway]

I found a quote from Ally Condie that could be used as a prompt: Growing apart doesn't change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I'm glad for that.

I have no idea if this is good or not, but let’s post it anyway, shall we? ;)

Can be seen as romantic or platonic, and I missed posting for you guys. Ya’ll are the best.

TW: mentions of bullying and slight mention of child abuse, teen pregnancy, sick background character

“Growing apart doesn't change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I'm glad for that.” ~ Ally Condie

They were just kids once, kids that believed in monsters and fairy tales and true love, kids who came from two different places and still ended up at each other's side all because one moment, one single instant that changed everything.

David had gotten hit in the back of the head with a dodgeball.

It wasn’t that David had been trying to play sports. In fact it was quite the opposite. David much preferred sitting in the classroom and reading a book. His twin sister said he was just boring. They were six.

On this day in particular, Mrs. Mills had closed the classroom for recess. Something about needing private time and David needing fresh air. David had been out there for almost a full seven minutes and he did not understand what all the hype was about. He could hardly focus on the words he was trying to read on the page. It was much too noisy and the kids out there pulled on his hair and spat little papers at him.

Still, David sat by the wall, curled up with his book, his knees to his chest as he dared devour every word.

No one really understood him. Hence, the dodgeball that hit his head.

David looked up quickly at that, his wide eyes searching for the monsters who had disturbed his concentration. There was a group of kids, two boys and three girls, snickering at him. He neatly put his perfectly crisp bookmark between his pages and carefully set the thing down on the ground. Then he waited for more.

“Get him!” one kid yelled, Morris Delancey, one of the snickering boys. David didn’t make any move to run. Logically, he knew he wouldn’t get very far. He would take the headache over some scrapes on his knees and elbows. So he waited for the attack patiently, making sure his book was safely out of the way.

The dodgeballs came flying.

All David could really do was try and stop the things from hitting his face. Other than that, he was an open target. That is, until another voice from the crowd called out, “Hey, everyone, free ice cream in the cafeteria!”

Eyes snapping up at that, David watched the dodgeballs drop from the other kids’ hands as they all ran off, squealing annoyingly as someone grabbed his wrist. David barely managed to grab his book before he was almost dragged across the playground into the grass. “Here! They won’t find you over here,” another boy said.

His book hanging at his side, David tilted his head. “There’s no ice cream in the cafeteria,” he stated obviously, as though the other boy with the messy brown hair and forest green eyes should know that.

But the boy only shrugged. “They don’ know that,” he stated, sitting down under the tree and then twisting over to lay on his stomach. There was a piece of paper laying in the grass. It was a dry day, so the paper wasn’t wet. David still wondered how this boy was okay with one side of the page being dirty as he moved his pencil over the page. “I’m Jack. Jack Kelly,” the odd boy introduced, not even looking up at him. “You can call me Jack. Or Kelly. It don’ matter.”

Squinting a bit at that, David hesitantly sat on the grass, cringing at the dirt that would now be on the back of his pants. “I’m David,” he said back. “I haven’t seen you before,” he mentioned, picking at the cover of his book.

Jack just shrugged again. “That’s cause I’s new,” he stated. “Prob’ly won’ be here long. I don’ think my foster ma likes me so much.” Jack said those words like they held no weight at all and David did his best to understand. Jack ma didn’t like him. He didn’t get it. A mother always loves her kids. That’s how mothers worked.

With a small shrug, David just nodded like he knew exactly what Jack was talking about. “Thanks for helping me,” he said, sitting down under the tree they were close to. He picked up his book and opened it back up.

Smiling a little as he doodled, Jack responded, “sure, Davey.”

“My name’s David,” the boy tried to correct.

Jack nodded. “Okay, Davey.”

And that was the beginning of something good. Something that was meant to be. That encounter was fate. Maybe some of their teachers warned against this relationship. Maybe Jack and David were too different to be friends, to even be allies. David always had his nose in a book and Jack was always getting into trouble from that day forward. It was odd. They were odd.

But they were inseparable ever since.

—

Years went by and the two stayed the same, only, Jack never got to stay in one house for longer than six months. By some miracle, the two still lived close enough for a nine year old Jack to knock on his only friend’s window at midnight.

The two knew each other too well. Jack had known that Davey would have his nose once again stuck in a long, long book that he would go on and on about for the next week and a half. He knew his friend wouldn’t be asleep. He knew Davey would let him in.

“Jack, what happened to your eye?!” Davey gasped as he turned a light on and helped Jack climb in.

“Shhhhh!” Jack hissed, terrified of waking someone else up. “Nothin’, I just fell over,” he insisted, immediately collapsing in Davey’s bed and curling up in the blanket, shoes and all. “What are you reading?” Jack always asked. Maybe he just liked hearing Davey talk. Something about it was calming, familiar and steady. He didn’t hang on every word. He let them wrap him up in an invisible, warm blanket.

Trusting his friend, Davey jumped on the bed in front of Jack and grabbed the book. “I can read it to you!” he offered. And Jack’s eyes lit up.

See, Jack had never been the best reader. Davey knew that. The words were all jumbled when Jack tried to read. None of it ever made sense and it hurt his head when he tried to focus. His teachers always got mad at him. But not Davey. Davey liked to read to him. So Jack nodded, and watched his friend get comfy on the bed next to him as he started to read off every word. Jack just watched him in amazement, wondering how everything was so easy for Davey and he could still care about someone like him.

Davey had a lot of things. He always said he didn’t, but he did. Davey had a nice sister and a cute little brother. And he had his mother and father. He called them weird names, but maybe they weren’t so weird to Davey. Ima and Abba. Davey had a whole room to himself and more books than Jack could read in a whole lifetime.

Sometimes, Jack wished he was Davey. He wished he could have a nice family and a nice house and nice warm food that wasn’t locked away and out of his reach. He wished he could curl up in this bed without a care in the world.

But then he thought that Davey deserved this life more than him. He was just glad to have Davey there with him.

So Jack covered Davey with more of his blanket and then yawned beneath the safety of the heavy thing before letting his best friend’s voice lull him into a dreamless sleep. “Goodnight, Jackie,” Davey whispered.

“Goodnight, Davey,” Jack managed to mumble back.

This was not the first time this had occurred. And it would not be the last.

—

Still, the boys had to start growing up eventually, no matter how they tried to stop it.

Jack was there when David was told he’d be the man of the house.

His dad was sick.

Jack and Davey sat side by side in that waiting room. Their feet only barely touched the floor. Jack had refused to leave ever since they’d gotten the news. “You don’t have to stay,” David said. They were thirteen and terrified.

Jack shrugged and picked up the book that was next to his friend today. “What are you reading, Davey?” he asked.

Shaking his head, David wiped at his face. “It doesn’t matter. You should go home—“

“I’d rather stay here,” Jack shrugged, looking around awkwardly, wishing he knew how to make Davey feel better, wishing there was anything he could do to make the other boy smile. So he opened up the book, grabbed his pencil and started sketching. David didn’t stop him. He loved it when Jack doodled. Only, Jack was beginning to do a lot more than just doodle.

The picture caused David to snicker a bit as a few loose tears fell down his face. He ended up laying his head down on Jack’s shoulder and just laying there, letting himself be sad. And Jack didn’t move away. He didn’t speak. He just sat there with that book in his hand, those pages opened up, doing everything he could to be there for his friend and his friend’s family.

Sarah, David’s twin sister, sat down beside them with their baby brother Les in her arms. “Are we gonna be okay?” she whispered to David, trying not to upset the boy in her arms.

But David didn’t even have to answer. Because Jack was there. And Jack answered expertly, “You’re gonna be just fine. I’ll be right here for ya… whatever ya need,” he promised.

It was a promise that Jack kept. And David could be nothing but grateful. He leaned on his friend and closed his eyes, trusting he would be safe for the rest of the night.

—

Davey was there when Jack found out he was getting adopted.

Davey thought it was supposed to be a happy day. Jack was terrified. “He don’t even like me!” Jack insisted, pacing across Davey’s room like he’d done so many times before, his fourteen year old voice breaking as he told Davey everything. “He’s doin’ it for the money! N’ he don’t give a single penny of it ta me! Ain’t that money s’posed ta be for me?”

“Jack,” Davey called, noting that his friend was frustrated. “You’ve always wanted to be adopted—“

“No!” Jack argued, pausing and thinking about it. “Okay, fine, sure I have, but… not by him…” he sighed, collapsing on Davey’s bed beside him. “Can I stay here tonight?”

All Davey did was shrug. “Always, Jackie,” he promised. “The real question is, what movie are we watching?”

Relaxing at that, Jack climbed into Davey’s bed, curling up beneath his covers and pulling the book out from beneath him when he found it. “Anything as long as we can convince Sarah ta make us some cocoa,” Jack decided.

With a small laugh, Davey put on a movie that Jack would forever refuse to admit was his favorite and he let Robin Williams explain the story of the lamp as he curled up beside Jack. “You know you’re part of this family, right?”

Looking over at him, Jack squinted. “What?”

“You’re practically a Jacobs,” Davey muttered, texting Sarah on his flip phone for some cocoa and popcorn. “You know, you’re just… a Kelly,” he shrugged.

Jack squinted at that. Davey was usually so good with words and here he was leaving Jack confused in a whole different way. But before he could ask what the meant, Sarah was standing in the doorway saying, “yep, just making sure you both still had two legs. Go get your own stuff.”

With a dramatic groan, Jack pouted. “But I’m a man in distress!” he groaned.

So Sarah rolled her eyes. “You owe me one, Kelly.”

The two boys snickered as Sarah walked away, curling up only slightly closer and watching their movie.

—

They grew up, side by side, much too quickly. They’d laughed together and cried together and fought and played and gotten each other through hard times and breezed through the best times. And now came this time, this time when Jack and David were sitting across the room from each other, fifteen years old and confused and terrified.

“I got into Roosevelt—“

“I got Amelia pregnant—“

They both froze at each other’s words. Jack could’ve cried. “Roosevelt?” he whispered. “Davey… that’s… that’s in Santa Fe—“

“You only slept with her once because of some stupid game! How the hell is she pregnant?”

Neither of them felt like they could breathe. “Davey… y-you can’t leave me here like this— if Snyder finds out—“ Jack shook his head. “I-I don’t know what ta do…”

David shook his head, turning back to his suitcase and continuing to fold up his clothes. “I told you not to play that stupid game—“

“Davey, I get it! I’m an idiot! Just please don’t go!” Jack begged. “Davey, I…”

Turning to him, the taller boy finally revealed the tears falling down his own face. “You think I want to leave you?” he whispered. “Jack, you’re the only friend I’ve ever had.”

“Then why is this happening?” Jack asked.

“Because it has to. Maybe… maybe it’ll be good—“

“I just knocked some girl up! Snyder is going to kill me and my best friend is moving across the country!” Jack rushed out, his voice breaking. “What am I supposed to do?”

Pulling Jack to his chest, David sighed. The two of them just stood there for a long moment, clinging to each other until Davey pulled away and handed Jack a book. “Want me to read to you?” he asked innocently. All Jack could do was nod.

They had no idea what was truly going to happen next.

—

The phone calls used to be constant. The messaging was daily. But those were gone within the first year.

Jack’s child was born. He was kicked out to the streets. He was left with nothing. And he was too proud to ask for help.

David’s career fell into place. He was drowned in paperwork and student debt. He had to work two jobs in order to make it all the way through law school.

The letters grew fewer and fewer until one day they stopped. Years past and Facebook was the only thing that told them the other was alive. Jack posted about his art and his life as a single, teenage dad, and Davey posted about his life as a successful lawyer.

It just never felt the same.

It wasn't until one day, when David picked up a book for the first time in months that a few clever little doodles made him smile. He ran his fingers over the things, opening his computer almost fifteen years later and clicking on Jack’s profile, a picture of him and a boy named Tyler James. The boy was almost fifteen. David smiled to himself and opened up the messages, typing in a simple quote.

“Growing apart doesn't change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I'm glad for that.” ~ Ally Condie

And then he waited. For a long time, he just stared at that screen, watching nothing until those terrifying three dots appeared.

“You know if you want to meet for coffee, you could just ask,” came Jack’s reply.

And David smiled wider than he had in years.

[thedeathdeelers]

so I’ve had 3 finals in one day ☹️ and I’m dying so I’ve decided to send you a piece of my Juke promposal fic (yes I’m taking a break from a final to send this shush imène i need your happy vibes to make me feel less dead) - 🌙 hope you like it

It didn’t help that Luke had been planning to ask her to prom. Sure he kept backing out last minute but it wasn’t his fault she made him so nervous.

One second, before class on Tuesday, they’d been joking about how bad country covers of rap songs were and showing each other clips of the worst ones on their phones. Julie had shown him a terrible twangy cover of Nicki Minaj’s iconic “Super Bass” on an acoustic, and then she’d looked up at him with those deep brown eyes and tooth gap peeking out and suddenly he thought he would die from lack of oxygen. She was just so pretty. He never got over it.

Like that day in class, he’d been watching that horrendous cover and practicing what he would ask her in his head on repeat before she’d scrambled his thoughts with those gorgeous eyes and curly hair and her eyelashes were so curly at their tips he wondered if they ever tickled her cheeks when she blinked.

Julie, would you like to go to prom with me? No, that’s too boring.

Julie! How bout prom? God no, he wasn’t cool enough to make that work.

Julie, do you have time on Friday after our gig to hang out? I wanna ask you something. That had potential, he could set up a blanket in the Molina’s living room and while they watched a movie he could take her buttery fingers from shoving popcorn in her mouth and make her look at him. As talented and magnetic as she was, he knew Julie didn’t really like being the center of attention if she wasn’t singing on stage. She wasn’t shy, exactly, it’s just that she liked to keep some parts of herself private for those she cared about so asking her in front of people had never been a question. He wanted it to be about them - about him trying to convey that he maybe had been in love with her since they met in Miss Harrison’s class during their freshman year.

He’d even debated about how he’d start it off, if he’d say she was beautiful or if that was too cheesy. If he should say when he first saw her mass of curls and jeans covered in doodles he thought she was the coolest and prettiest girl he’d ever seen. Or how when he heard she had picked “Baby Can I Hold You” by Tracy Chapman as her first song to perform in class, his heart had been hammering in his chest so loudly because he just knew she was going to kill it. When she had sat at the piano and opened her mouth, he didn’t need Bobby’s snickering to tell him his mouth had dropped. Her voice was a wrecking ball to his already dangerously fast beating heart. Her ability to flawlessly control her mixed voice, the cries she used to enunciate the vowels, her raspy bluesy voice melding with a powerhouse voice meant for ballads. She was music.

What he can’t deny is how affected he was by Julie and he hadn’t even met her properly at that point. If he’d ever gotten the guts to ask her to prom, he’d wanted to tell her he almost didn’t perform that day in class because he didn’t think she’d like the electric guitar. He’d wanted to beg Harrison to let him bring his acoustic because then maybe the pretty curly haired wrecking ball with a shy smile would look at him with half of the amazement he had looked at her. He wanted to tell her, he’d snuck into bars to perform open mic nights with the boys since they were thirteen but he’d never felt more fear than the first time he had to sing in front of her. Luke still flinches thinking about how he messed up the chord progression because his palms were so slick with sweat he couldn’t make enough friction to push down on the strings. He had wanted to tell her she wasn’t wrong when she’d come up to him after class and said it looked like he was singing directly to her during his rendition of The Police’s, “Message In A Bottle.”

“What if I was?” He’d never known how to play it cool but apparently Julie had and she was quick to meet his sass with her own.

“I guess you get a pass since you caught your mistake with that chord progression pretty fast,” she’d shrugged at him before leaving.

Luke had been in a daze for the rest of the day with Bobby, Alex, and Reggie all taking turns guiding him to the majority of his classes. The next day, when she’d smiled at him and asked about some of his favorite guitar riffs with a wink he knew he was a goner. But besides the innocent flirty tone and teasing that their friendship had, Luke had never been able to tell if it was just an aspect of how they were or if it meant she might’ve liked him too - and now with Nick in the picture he was afraid he’d never find out.

oof moonon:( i’m sorry, that sounds rough. hopefully it’ll be over soon tho!! good luck in the meantime ♥️♥️ YOU CAN DO IT

ok as for the snippet

I LOVE IT SM🥺 i just want to read the whole thing rn- crushing luke is so damn cute 🥺 and confident julie from the get go??? hell ya

ugh i’ve been half asleep all morning but this definitely helped wake me up a lil thank u 🥰

[aquaminwrites]

Paper Cranes | Kim Taehyung (M)

PAIRING: Kim Taehyung x F!Reader

GENRE: Fluff, smut, angst. Non idol AU. College AU. Best friends to lovers. Slice of life.

WARNINGS: Explicit sexual content, unprotected sex (stay safe!), so much fluff you might pass out

WORD COUNT: 18.3k

DESCRIPTION: It is said that if someone folds 1000 paper cranes, they will receive one wish. Kim Taehyung has been folding you paper cranes since he was six years old. He won’t tell you what he’s going to wish for once he reaches his goal, but even into your twenties, all you know is that he’s been wishing for the same thing every time.

You’re six years old when you receive your first paper crane from Kim Taehyung.

Your first year of elementary school is almost over—there’s only two months left until summer break, and you’ve been counting down the days until you are finally free to wake up as late as you want and play with your friends until the sun goes down.

That’s also why it strikes you as odd that there’s a new transfer student, his newly assigned seat right beside yours, being introduced to the class. His eyes are big and wide underneath a fringe of dark brown hair, and he’s cute in the way that all kids are cute—with rosy cheeks, big ears, and a shy demeanour that tells you that he would most likely rather have stayed at his previous school.

After a brief introduction of Hello, I’m Kim Taehyung, he shuffles over and takes his seat. He doesn’t really look at you, keeping his head down as he pulls his notebooks from his backpack. You see that the margins are covered in doodles, little cartoons and make-believe stories etched onto every far corner of the page.

You open your mouth to introduce yourself, but the sound of your teacher’s voice has you facing the blackboard once more. You try not to think too hard about the new boy sitting beside you, gently humming to himself as he doodles butterflies in an open meadow.

At recess, you’re playing with a few friends, doing cartwheels and rolling around on the grass. You’re giggling with your friend, Chaeyoung, when you hear a ruckus happening not too far away.

“Hey! Please, no, give it back!”

You glance over and see a group of three known playground bullies who have circled Taehyung, holding his notebook up above his head, so high that he can’t reach.

“What’s so special that’s in here, anyway?” One of the bullies taunts, as he starts to leaf through the pages. “This your diary or something?”

“Please, just give it back,” Taehyung begs, trying to jump up to grab his book.

Another bully places his hand on Taehyung’s chest and shoves him back, and the suddenness of the motion has the smaller boy falling and landing hard on his tailbone.

It’s when you see tears pricking his eyes that you begin to fume. You distantly hear Chaeyoung hissing at you to get back here, you’re gonna get in trouble! as you stomp your way over to the group of boys, ones that you know are in a grade higher than yours. So why are they picking on little kids anyway?.

“Hey,” you bark, tiny fists with white knuckles at your sides. “Leave him alone!”

The bully holding the book swivels in your direction and snorts. “Or what?”

Not one to back away from a challenge or a fight (to Chaeyoung’s dismay—you hear her groaning as she catches up with you), you defiantly stare him right in the eye before you wind back your foot and kick him in the shin—hard.

He yelps and drops the book, and you’re quick to snatch it back. “My big cousin is thirteen and he does judo,” you warn, venom dripping from your voice. “So I suggest you leave both of us alone if you know what’s good for you.”

Having recovered from the kick, the bully glares at you with flared nostrils, and he takes a step forward as if he’s ready to continue this fight. You just lift your chin and cross your arms over your chest, one eyebrow raised. When he sees that you’re not about to back down, he lets out a grunt and mutters, “Ain’t worth it. C’mon, guys.”

And just like that, they turn around and leave.

You hand the book wordlessly back to Taehyung with a trembling hand as Chaeyoung runs over and basically tackles you with a hug. The boy is still on the ground when he accepts the book from your grasp, looking up at you with shiny, doe eyes.

Chaeyoung can’t help but gush in her excitement. “You are so cool! And so tough! Wow! Wait—are you shaking?”

“Oh my gosh, Chae-Chae, I was so scared!” You wail, dramatically collapsing into your friend’s arms as the adrenaline bred from confrontation finally starts to slow. “I thought I was gonna get punched in the face for sure!”

Chaeyoung gasps. “You really think they would hit a girl?”

You roll your eyes. “Dummies with no brains will hit anyone.” You sigh and then turn to ask Taehyung if he’s alright, but when you glance over, he’s already gone. The only evidence that he’d been there in the first place was the patch matted grass where he landed from the fall.

After recess, you and Chaeyoung file back into your classroom, and you wander back over to your desk. To your surprise, there’s something resting atop it, though you had cleared it before going outside.

You get closer and notice that it’s a paper crane, folded with a ripped out page of a notebook that has doodles of butterflies in an open meadow on it. You glance at Taehyung, and he meets your eyes and offers up the tiniest of smiles.

“Is this for me?” You have to ask.

His smile widens, boxy and adorable. “I just wanted to say thank you.”

You cradle the paper sculpture in your hands and examine it carefully. Along the top of one of the wings, in surprisingly neat penmanship, he’d written, “Because you stuck up for me.”

“What they did to you was wrong,” you reply quietly, thumb running along one of the creases. “I hate bullies. I always have.”

Taehyung looks at you with something you can’t quite pinpoint dancing in his vision. After a beat, he gently says, “Don’t throw it away, promise?”

“I would never!” You gasp with mock-indignation. Taehyung just patiently waits for the response he wants to hear, his heart-shaped lips settling in a neutral line. You sigh, and then sincerely respond, “I promise.”

His boxy smile returns, and you can’t help but grin as well.

Maybe the new kid isn’t so bad after all.

—

You’re ten years old when you finally ask why he’s folding all those cranes.

It turns out that the Kim family had moved walking distance from your house. Their home is a little more isolated, with Taehyung’s parents owning a small strawberry farm with a decent amount of property. It’s ten minutes away by foot, and only a few minutes if you take your bike.

After that first meeting, you and Taehyung become the best of friends. He makes you laugh with his silly but innocent way of speaking, often acting out skits and things he’d seen on television for you because he knows it makes you giggle when you hear his girly falsetto.

It soon becomes routine for the two of you to go to and from school together, since your house is on Taehyung’s way. Every morning for the last four years, he’s either walked or biked to your house to pick you up. Sometimes when he shows up early, your mother ushers him inside for a post-breakfast snack. Other times, he brings your family baskets of strawberries from the farm, just because he knows how much you like them.

All the while, Taehyung still gifts you with paper cranes.

You think you’ve amassed around a hundred by now. Taehyung likes to make them for you on your birthday and special holidays, interspersed with random ones when he finds an interesting piece of paper he think you’d like, or even newspaper clippings, and his own doodles on lined paper. You keep every single one pressed flat and placed in a shoe box under your bed.

They’re all different sizes, and some of them were made with pieces of scrap paper. But they always have a message written on the wings, and you always cherish them because Taehyung took the time to make them for you.

On the day of your tenth birthday, you throw a party in your backyard. It’s the end of summer, just before school is meant to start up again, and you’re finally an age that has two numbers in it. You feel older, more mature.

And as an older, more mature version of yourself, in your pursuit of knowledge, you can’t help but ask Taehyung as he digs into a second slice of cake, “Why do you fold so many paper cranes?”

Taehyung’s eyes go wide, as if he thought you knew already. “You mean you haven’t heard of the legend?”

You narrow your eyes at him. Taehyung is a few months younger than you, so he’s still nine, a child.

“No?”

Taehyung shovels more cake into his mouth while he speaks, clearly ignoring Chaeyoung’s look of both disgust and fascination from where she’s been snacking on popcorn not three feet away.

“They say that if you make a thousand paper cranes, you get one wish,” he says simply without offering up much else in terms of explanations.

You wait for a beat in case he’s just taking a dramatic pause, as he’s known to do. When he contentedly licks the icing off his fork, you can’t help but regard him curiously. “What are you wishing for?”

Taehyung only offers you a wink in reply. “If I tell you, it won’t come true.”

Taehyung ends up getting you a charm bracelet with your birthstone on it, as well as a charm with the letter “T” that dangles down from one of the beads. Your mother tells you later that night, after the party has cleared out, that Taehyung saved up all his allowance to buy that for you. She heard so from his mother. You feel warmth rise up to your cheeks as you think of your best friend and his kind, boxy smile and the ten paper cranes he’d neatly stuffed into an envelope in lieu of a card.

This time, the message on the wings says, “You’re finally double digits! Happy birthday! Love, your best friend, Tae-Tae.”

—

You’re thirteen when you start to look at him differently.

“You want me to what?”

You roll your eyes in an attempt to act flippant, though the hands worrying at the hem of your shirt give you away. “Come on, Tae, it isn’t that big of a deal.”

��Sorry,” he holds up his hand, his eyes still squinted in confusion. “But you want me to what? Why me? Why now?”

You groan, already embarrassed by the question you’d posed in the first place. At the insistence of him repeating your request, you fear you might actually spontaneously combust. The two of you are in your room, sitting on your bed, and Taehyung is staring at you as if you’ve grown a second head from the top of your shoulder.

“It’s just a kiss, Tae. I don’t want to start high school without having kissed anyone before. And you’re my best friend, I trust you.”

“Chaeyoung’s also your best friend,” Taehyung grumbles, his shoulders slumped as he glances anywhere but you. “Why don’t you just ask her?”

“I’m not attracted to her, you dummy,” you huff, arms crossed over your chest.

Taehyung, a budding flirt, cannot help but quip, “So, you’re saying that you find me attractive?”

You roll your eyes again so hard that you’re fairly certain that you just saw the back of your skull. “Don’t be stupid. Are you going to help me out or not? Because if not, I’ll ask Jimin or something, he probably wouldn’t ask as many dumb questions—”

“Jimin?” Taehyung gawks. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

You don’t know why, but you’re surprised when he agrees. You asked, after all. What had you expected? Taehyung is a lot of things, but he has never once let you down in the seven years you’ve been friends. The weight of the verbal contract starts to sit on your shoulders, not to mention the act in question that is about to take place. You wipe your damp palms against your shorts and scoot a little closer to Taehyung, who is staring intently at you with his big, beautiful brown eyes.

You’re so close to him now that you can feel the body heat he radiates. Your eyes scan all over his face, and you think to yourself that he’s grown up a lot since you met him all those years ago. He still hasn’t quite grown into his ears, and he still has the scrawny gangly quality that all early adolescents have in their limbs. But you suppose he’s objectively cute, and not a bad face to kiss for your first.

When you get close enough, you let your eyelids close and you tilt your head just slightly in anticipation. Taehyung meets you halfway, and you feel your heart hammering against your chest as soft, gentle lips press lightly to your own.

You’re expecting a quick peck, for it to happen and then be over. What you’re not expecting is for Taehyung’s hand to reach up and cup your cheek when he senses you trying to pull away, thumb grazing over your skin as you allow yourself to sink into him just a little more.

After a few seconds, Taehyung drops his hand from your jawline and you slowly pull apart. You instinctively run your tongue along your lower lip before nibbling on it slightly, too shy to look at Taehyung in the eye as he scratches the back of his head.

After a thick silence, full of something you can’t quite explain, Taehyung clears his throat.

“So, uh,” he begins, his voice cracking just slightly at the end. “Was it okay?”

You finally look at him, his eyes warm but also apprehensive. You can tell by the way the muscles in his shoulders bunch, and he curls inward as if to make himself smaller. You hate when he does that.

“It was perfect,” you say honestly, sending him the tiniest of smiles, if only so that his worried frown would go away. “Thank you, Tae. Really.”

He clears his throat. “Uh, yeah, no problem. Hey, look, I have to head back home, I promised my parents I’d help with some stuff on the farm tonight. So I’ll see you at school on Monday?”

You watch dumbly as Taehyung is already up and off your bed, straightening out his clothes before making a beeline for your bedroom door. You barely have the chance to say a proper goodbye before he makes himself scarce, slipping out of your room, barreling down the stairs, and out the front door.

Your hand rests upon the warm indent of where Taehyung had just been sitting moments before, and you furrow your eyebrows in an attempt to understand what just happened. You were the one that asked him if the two of you could kiss, so why do you feel so weird about it now? Why did Taehyung touch you like that, like he really wanted you to be in his arms?

You raise your fingertips to softly run along the edge of your lower lip as you replay the kiss in your mind. A thought threatens to weasel its way into your consciousness, but you shove it down and pretend as if the butterflies in your stomach are only a result of being kissed for the first time. You tell yourself it isn’t because of Kim Taehyung, and that you’ll see him at school on Monday and everything will go back to how it was.

Although, you find it harder and harder to keep those thoughts at bay when you discover the paper crane folded in your locker with a small, single heart etched onto one of the wings.

—

You’re seventeen when everything changes.

You and Taehyung pretend the kiss never happened. You never talk about it after, and part of you wonders if Taehyung wants to talk, but is just too shy or nervous to say anything. Either way, as soon as high school starts, there’s no time to think about such silly things as a preteen kiss.

Everything feels the same, but also different. Your friends start to worry about things like popularity, something that wasn’t that big of a deal just a few years ago. Friend groups split up and people move on to different cliques, girls start wearing tighter clothes and the hallway by the boy’s locker room always smells like cheap body spray.

The one constant in your life, though, is Taehyung.

The two of you share a good number of classes together, and you still walk to school side by side every day. You always sit together at lunch in the cafeteria, and are always speaking in stupid inside jokes that make your other friends roll their eyes at you. You know there are rumours about you and Taehyung, but both of you constantly squash them down.

But it does’t help that neither of you have dated over the past four years since entering proper adolescence. You both just tell people that you don’t have the time, or that you just haven’t met anyone worth being with. And besides, you’re happy with how things are. Why would you want them to change?

You’re best friends, and you always will be. That’s all.

You’re in your senior year and it’s right around the time that everyone is receiving their admission packages for university. You had worked really hard the year previous to get good grades, and you just hope and pray that it’s enough to warrant an acceptance to your dream school.

When your mother hands you a thick, large envelope with the university’s header in the upper corner, you practically rip it from her hands and tear into it right in front of her. Happy tears blur your vision as you squeal upon reading the first line.

Dear Y/N,

We are pleased to offer you early admission to Seoul National University…

The first person that you want to tell is Taehyung.

You grab your heavy winter coat, tug on your boots and mittens, and run as fast as you can down the street towards the Kim’s farm. It had snowed the night before, so it takes you a little longer than usual as your boots crunch through the freshly fallen tufts of white. Because Taehyung’s area is a little more rural, the plows have a harder time getting there to clear everything away. But you pay no mind, overjoyed at the news you can’t wait to share.

When you get to the house, you knock on the door before peering into the side window. You wave at Taehyung as he comes down the stairs, a look of surprise on his face at your sudden appearance.

“Hey,” he greets, opening the door for you. You step inside and he offers to take your coat. He’s grown tall, you realize, as he easily moves around you to hang your things in the hall closet before ushering you further into the warmth of his house.

“Are your parents home?” You query, poking your head around the corner into the empty living room.

“No, they had to go run some errands,” Taehyung shrugs. “Winter’s pretty slow for us here, anyway.” He leads you upstairs to his room, a place where you’ve been thousands of times, and he plops down on his bed as you take a seat next to him. “So to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

You try to ignore how Taehyung man-spreads across his duvet, and how thick his thighs have become since he started working out with that sophomore friend of his, Jungkook.

Finally, you blurt out with the biggest smile across your face, “I got in.”

Taehyung immediately sits up, pin-straight. “You did?”

Your smile somehow gets wider as pride and joy spread across his face. “I did.”

“Y/N!” He beams, jumping up and gathering you in his arms. “That’s amazing! You did it! I’m so fucking proud of you!”

You wrap your arms around his neck as his find your waist and you bask in the feeling of being held by your best friend. He’s always been so warm, and on a cold day like today, you welcome his embrace and his love for you.

Finally, you remember to stop thinking of yourself for five seconds and ask, “What about you?”

Taehyung suddenly goes still, and his grip on you tightens just slightly. “I…I’m not going.”

You pull away and look up at him. He’s dejected, eyes downcast and his face angled away from you as if he thinks you’ll be disappointed in him. You’re not, though. You never could be.

Sighing and running your hands along his shoulders in comfort, you say, “I’m sorry, Tae. I’m sure you got offers from other schools though, yeah? You worked just as hard as I did last year to get your grades up.”

“It’s not that,” Taehyung sighs, a crease forming between his brows. “I got in.”

You’re officially confused, taking a step back to purposely put yourself in his line of vision. “You got in? So what do you mean you’re not going? I thought the plan was that we were going to go to Seoul National University together.”

Taehyung exhales hard through his nose and scrunches his face, his eyes closing. It’s the face he gets when he’s overwhelmed with stress, unsure of how to articulate his words. You wait for him to be ready, smoothing out the collar of his sweater to keep yourself occupied. His hands grip tighter on your waist, and it takes you a second to realize that he’s still holding you.

“My parents need help with the farm,” he says quietly. “I declined my offer of admission.”

At those words, your heart breaks and your mind starts to race. Every thought you have at first is selfish—what will you do without Taehyung? The two of you have spent over a decade together, seeing each other damn near every day. Will your friendship survive the distance between Daegu and Seoul? The plan was to always stick together, to experience college milestones side by side.

You force yourself to push those thoughts aside so that you can focus on Taehyung. You know that SNU is his dream school, too. And not only did he get in, but he had to turn them down. You know that it wasn’t an easy decision for him to make, but he’s always been selfless like that—he’s always put you first and taken care of you, so it’s no surprise that he would do the same for his blood family.

“But it’s not forever, yeah?” You ask gently, brushing a strand of hair away from his eyes. “I’m sure that since you got in already, they can hold your admission until you’re ready.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he nods, but you can tell that he’s done talking about it. He doesn’t want to think of a reality where he’s stuck on his parents’ strawberry farm laying down fertilizer while you’re off in the big city making new friends and having new experiences. You see it in his eyes when he finally meets yours. He’s scared. Terrified of a future without you.

Always able to read his mind, you pull him in for another hug, nuzzling into his neck as you murmur, “You’re my best friend, Tae-Tae. Just because we won’t live down the street from each other anymore doesn’t mean I’m just going to forget about you.”

His inhale is shaky, and it takes all of your willpower not to cry, too. “Promise?”

You don’t know what possesses you, but you rise to your tip toes and press a soft kiss against his cheek. He whips his head to face you with wide eyes, but you just send him a tiny smile and reply, “I promise.”

The rest of senior year, you and Taehyung are practically inseparable—even more so than before. You find out that Chaeyoung also got into SNU, and the two of you manage to work it out so that you two can be roommates when you move into the dorms. You find solace that you at least won’t be completely alone in a different city, though your heart still hurts at the thought of Taehyung missing out on his opportunity.

The two of you spend as much time together as possible, almost as if the clock is ticking down on your friendship with your imminent move coming up. Summer is full of laughter and long nights by the river, reminiscing about simpler times when you were kids. When things didn’t seem so complicated, and distance was never an issue.

Your moving day rolls around faster than you could have ever anticipated. You’ve loaded the last of your things into the back of your parents’ van when you see Taehyung jogging down the street towards your house.

You’d texted him earlier that morning to let him know that you were leaving soon. Of course, he’d known that it was going to be today, but he still wanted to make sure he got to say goodbye to you before you drove to Seoul and out of his life.

When he reaches you, his eyes are misty and red and you’re sure you look just like him. It feels like the end of a chapter, like a pivotal moment where you’re stepping away from your childhood and moving into life as an adult.

Taehyung stops at your feet and just stares at you for a second, his eyes darting all over your face. You look up at him, doing the same, until a tear slips from the corner of your eye and then suddenly you’re sobbing into his chest and he’s holding you and whispering sweet nothings into your ear.

“You’re going to do great,” he promises, rubbing small circles on your back. “You’re going to make so many new friends, because it’s impossible for people not to love you. You’re going to become the city girl that I know you’ve always dreamed of being, and you’re going to make Seoul your bitch.”

You laugh at the last comment, pulling away to look at him again. “Thank you, Tae,” you hiccup.

He smiles, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “And you’ll call and FaceTime me all the time, right?”

You sniffle, giving a nod. “Of course.”

Taehyung reaches up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “Promise?”

You exhale shakily, but meet his gaze head-on. “I promise.”

He looks down and something in his line of vision glints. He notices the charm bracelet on your wrist, and he can’t help but chuckle. “I can’t believe you still have that.”

“Of course I still have it,” you say with the tiniest hint of a smile. “It reminds me of you.”

You hear your mother calling you from the passenger’s seat of the van, ushering you that it’s a long drive and you need to leave now.

Taehyung clears his throat a few times, trying to be strong for the both of you. He takes your hands and presses something into your palm, and from the feel of it, you already know what it is. The paper crane in your hand makes you cry more, and Taehyung presses a kiss to your forehead.

“Go on, Y/N. Go find your future.”

Your lower lip trembles as you speak. “I don’t want to leave you.”

This time, when he smiles, the warmth is back in his eyes. “You’re not,” he swears. “We’re best friends, remember? Wherever you go, I won’t be far behind. Just wait for me, okay?”

You promise him again, because how could you not?

“Okay.”

Once you’re in the car, you put your headphones on and select the playlist that Taehyung made you of all his favourite songs. It reminds you of him, anchors your heart in Daegu, where he remains on his parents’ farm until it’s his turn to pursue his dreams. You look at the crane that you hold like a precious gem in your palms, and the tears start welling up again as you read the message written on one of the wings.

“Don’t forget about me while you’re off at university. I know you’ll do great things.”

—

You’re nineteen when you meet Park Jinyoung.

You notice him immediately when you walk into one of your tutorials—an elective on music history that you take because you’ve heard that the professor gives great lectures.

Also, because Taehyung was the one who introduced music to you all those years ago, and you’ve grown to love it too. He also loves hearing about what you’ve learned in lecture when you do get the chance to talk, which, as the years go on, becomes less and less.

It’s no one’s fault, really. Distance makes things hard, as do the responsibilities that come along with being a university student. You have paper after paper due, and Taehyung tells you that he doesn’t want to bother you when you’re in the middle of your studies. Your schedules also just don’t align, with him still helping on the farm and having to be up at the crack of dawn and going to bed early, and with you opting for afternoon and evening classes so that you can get a little more shut eye to start your day.

He still mails you paper cranes every now and then. Not as often as he used to, but it still makes you smile when you get to add another one to your growing collection. You must have close to five or six hundred by now, and you’ve had to start a second shoebox to make sure everything fits.

But Park Jinyoung is different. And he’s here.

For one, he looks like a Disney prince. Like someone had pulled him from a designer fashion catalogue and plopped him in the middle of your tutorial. You’re nearly late, so the only remaining seat is next to him. He smiles shyly at you when you sit down, and you try to hide the blush dusting your cheeks behind the length of your hair.

You dig into your bag for your laptop and flip it open as your TA walks into the room, prepared to take notes. But then you check the battery on your computer and notice that there is definitely not enough of a charge to keep it alive for the duration of your class.

Cursing yourself for not charging it overnight, you notice that the man sitting beside you has the same model. You muster up all your courage, turn to him and ask, “I’m really sorry about this, and I’m usually not this unprepared, but do you happen to have a laptop charger I can borrow? We have the same one, so I figured—”

He smiles at you and your stomach does flips. “Of course.” He pulls the charger from his backpack and hands it to you, and you gratefully take it and plug in your computer. “I’m Jinyoung, by the way.”

“Y/N,” you introduce, shaking his offered hand.

“You know,” he says after a beat, a drawl in his voice that has a tiny hint of mischief in it. “Letting you borrow my charger is a pretty big favour, considering that we’re basically strangers. I think I might need some kind of repayment.”

You raise an eyebrow at him curiously. “Oh? Like what?”

“A cup of coffee,” he states. “After class?”

There’s no use in hiding your blush now. You smile, biting your lip. “I can do that.”

It doesn’t take long for Park Jinyoung to become your boyfriend. You and Chaeyoung move into the off-campus apartments after your freshman year, and it turns out that Jinyoung lives in the building next to yours. He’s as sweet as they come, the perfect, doting partner, someone that loves you and isn’t shy about it, either.

He holds your hand in public, guides you by the small of your back through large crowds, brings you flowers just because he feels like it, and proudly shows you off to his friends when you’ve hit the six month mark of your relationship.

His only thing is that he thinks the charm bracelet you’re wearing is weird. So he asks you to take it off. And so you do, and sits in your jewelry box, pretty much forgotten.

Things are good. Really, really good.

But of course, life always likes to throw curve balls your way.

One afternoon, you’re sitting on the couch with Jinyoung in his apartment, his arm wrapped around your shoulders as you watch some true crime documentary on Netflix after an early dinner. It’s just starting to get good when your phone rings on the coffee table, the loud buzzing startling you as you take a look at the screen.

You pick up and in a confused tone, answer with, “Mom?”

“Hi, sweetie,” she replies, sounding tired.

You sit up straight, suddenly on high alert. Your mother doesn’t really like phone calls, much prefers texts for some reason (she’s partial to emojis, and you almost regret downloading the keyboard onto her phone), so the fact that she’s calling at all is unusual.

“Is everything okay?”

She’s quiet for a second, and you can hear your pulse in your ears. Jinyoung pauses the movie and adjusts how he’s sitting so that he can fully face you. He gives you a curious look but you just shrug your shoulders helplessly.

Finally, your mother sighs and says, “Taehyung’s grandmother passed away two nights ago.”

You suddenly feel cold all over. Why are you only hearing about this now, from your mom of all people? Why hadn’t Taehyung told you himself? You try to think of the last time you spoke to him, and you realize that it’s been months. Ever since you and Jinyoung started dating, you’ve completely neglected him. And the realization that you promised you wouldn’t starts to weigh on you, and you’re crying before you know what’s happening.

“When’s the funeral?”

“Tomorrow,” she responds. You immediately stand up and swipe at your eyes, grabbing your coat from the front hall of Jinyoung’s apartment. He rises to his feet and pads after you, confusion plain as day on his face.

“I’m getting on the next bus,” you say. “See you soon.”

“What’s going on? Is everything alright?” Jinyoung asks in a minor panic as you grab your things and already have a hand on the doorknob.

“Family emergency,” you say, already weary. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back for class on Monday.” You rise to your tip toes and press a lingering kiss to his lips, to reassure him more than anything that you’re going to be okay. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” he murmurs against your mouth, stealing another peck. “Text me when you get to your parents’ house, okay?”

You nod. “Okay.”

You manage to catch a late bus to Daegu, and you make it home just before midnight. You text Taehyung to let him know you’re coming home, and you just get a heart emoji in response. You know how close Taehyung and his grandmother were. She practically raised him while his parents were busy making ends meet. She was always so kind and so warm, a precious soul who treated you like you were also her grandchild. She used to braid your hair and make you flower crowns when you were small, and the world is a little less bright without her.

It feels weird being back home. Since Seoul is so far, you don’t get to visit as often as you’d like. You really only make it home for the holidays, and even then, you don’t stay very long. But now that you’re here, everything seems so small. Everyone knows everyone else’s business, and it’s just not like that in the city. Everyone there is too busy focusing on achieving the next goal to worry about the trivialities of others. There it’s so loud, with cars and buses and drunken college students in the streets every weekend.

Here, it’s quiet. And in your neighbourhood too, it’s dark. Living on the border between rural farmland and suburbia means that there aren’t as many street lights to illuminate the roads. You haul your overnight bag over your shoulder and make your way up the driveway to your front door.

Your mom is there before you can even knock, pulling you into her arms in a tight hug. You can tell she’s been crying. Taehyung’s family is your family too, after all.

“You must be exhausted,” she says, kissing your crown. “Why don’t you wash up and get some rest?”

You can’t help but agree, your back stiff from sitting on a coach bus for three and a half hours. But once you’re all settled into your old room and lying in your childhood bed, you find yourself unable to fall asleep. You toss and turn for about fifteen minutes before you rest flat on your back and sigh loudly.

Turning your head, you see the framed photo of you and Taehyung from his birthday the year you turned eight. It was winter wonderland themed, and you and the other kids were allowed to make snow forts in the big field behind their house. The photo was of you and Taehyung cheek-to-cheek with rosy cheeks and noses from playing in the snow. It makes your heart ache thinking of the pain he must be in. So you send him a text.

[Sent 12:31am] Y/N: Hey. Can I call?

[Received 12:33am] Tae-Tae: Ok.

You tap the phone icon beside his name and wait as it rings. Taehyung picks up almost immediately, but he’s quiet on the other end.

You take the opportunity to speak first. “Hi.”

After a second, Taehyung responds, voice heavy with melancholy. “Hey.” He lets out a derisive laugh with no joy behind it whatsoever. “It’s good to hear your voice again. I was starting to think you forgot all about me.”

You don’t know how to address your absence in his life, and you don’t think you’re ready right this second to tell him about Jinyoung. So you deflect.

“How are you holding up, Tae-Tae?”

He’s quiet again, and you hate it when he gets like this. When he doesn’t know what to say, or how to process what he’s feeling aside from crushing despair, so he just stays quiet because he knows how much you hate to see or hear him cry.

Finally, he croaks out, “I’m not.”

You feel a tear slide from the corner of your eye down your cheek as you sit up in bed. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He laughs again, hollow and empty. “What would be the point? She’s gone.”

“Tae…”

“I’m really sorry,” he cuts you off. “But I just…” He sighs hard on the other line and you play with a loose thread on your comforter as you wait for him to be ready. “Is it okay if we talk tomorrow? I just…have some stuff I want to say that I can’t do over the phone.”

You bite your lip, exhaustion just now beginning to settle into your bones. “Y-Yeah. Okay. Sure.”

“Okay,” he repeats, more to himself than anything. There’s another long stretch of silence, and then quietly, he adds, “I miss you.”

Miss. Not past tense. Present tense. His choice of words doesn’t escape your notice, and guilt starts to weigh heavily on you. Taehyung is supposed to be your best friend in the whole world, the person you’d spent every day with from ages six to seventeen. You love him, and he loves you, and you’re supposed to tell each other everything.

So why is it that he couldn’t tell you about his grandmother? And why is it that you feel like you can’t talk to him right now?

You realize you’ve gone quiet on your end and respond, “I miss you too, Tae. Try to get some rest, alright? I’ll see you tomorrow. Love you.”

He takes in a shaky breath and lets it out slow. “Okay. Goodnight.”

And then he hangs up.

The funeral takes place on a dreary Saturday. It isn’t raining, but it’s overcast. Taehyung stands with his family as he grips his mother’s hand. You stand with your own at their side, though you can’t quite see Taehyung when he’s flanked by both his parents. You hear him though, the quiet words of encouragement he sends to his mom, his voice thick as he works through the tightening of this throat to offer her comfort.

Other people in the neighbourhood, aside from just Taehyung’s family, also show up for the funeral. His grandmother was loved by many, and it at least warms your heart to know that she lived a long, happy life.

After the burial is over, Taehyung’s family hosts a reception at their home. You smooth out the fabric of your black dress after one of Taehyung’s cousins offers to take your coat. Gazing into the living room that is packed with friends and family, you try to spot Taehyung, but can’t seem to find him.

You wonder if maybe he’s in his room, just wanting to be away from all the noise for a second. You know that he wants to talk to you, to tell you something. But you can’t help but be a little worried, especially after how he’d ended the call last night. You know he’s hurting, and all you want to do is help.

So you slip past the crowd huddled around the refreshment table and tiptoe upstairs and down the hall, towards his bedroom.

You notice his door is slightly ajar, and he’s sitting on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands. You knock gently so as not to startle him, and he turns to look at you before rising to his feet.

He’s taller now, you notice. Broader too. He’s grown into his ears, his hair getting long with his fringe obscuring his eyes. His heart-shaped lips are pressed tightly together in a worried frown, and there’s a crease forming between his brows that you want to smooth out with the pad of your thumb. He looks…handsome. Different, but he’s still Taehyung. Your Taehyung.

You hate how breathless you sound as you say, “Hi.”

Taehyung doesn’t move at first. He just looks at you, eyes darting all over your face. He looks like he’s seen a ghost. You can’t stand the thick tension that settles between the two of you, so you boldly stride over to him and loop your arms around his middle, burying your face in his chest. He stiffens at your touch, but after a second, you finally feel him embrace you back.

You squeeze him a little tighter and that’s when the dam breaks.

“Fuck,” he whimpers, leaning his weight on you as you feel tears hitting your shoulder. You rub small circles against his back as he cries, his body wracked with sobs. You guide him back towards the bed and help him sit once his breathing evens out, and you fetch him some tissues from his desk so that he can blow his nose.

You sit beside him, still rubbing his back with your head on his shoulder. He doesn’t really make any move to touch you or hold your hand like he used to when you were kids and one of you was having a hard time. The thought of it makes your heart sink. Have you two really grown so far apart?

The silence is long and awkward. Something you’re not used to with Taehyung. But you suppose, it’s been two years since you’ve properly seen him in person. Even when you’d come home for winter break, things with your family are always so hectic that you never really get to see anyone outside of your extended relatives before you have to go back to school. There are so many things that are different now. You aren’t children and life stops for no one.

“How’s Jinyoung?”

You whip your head to face him, eyes wide. You never told Taehyung about him. Not for any particular reason, it just…never came up.

You swallow past the dryness in your throat. “How did you—”

“Your tagged photos on Instagram,” he replies quietly, staring at the floor. “I saw it last night before you called. And,” he notes, gesturing to your bare wrist. “You’re not wearing your bracelet anymore.”

Your hand immediately stills.

“Why didn’t…” He reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose. You move your hand away from his back, settling it into your lap to nervously fiddle with your fingers. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a boyfriend?”

You search for words, but come up short. “I…”

“You what?” Taehyung spits. “You get your first boyfriend, and then what? I don’t exist anymore?”

It’s your turn to sigh. “Taehyung, you’re not being fair.”

“No, you know what, fuck that,” he seethes, getting up from the bed so that he can pace back and forth in front of you. You look up at him helplessly, wringing your wrists as he fists at his hair. “You promised me, Y/N. You fucking promised.”

You’ve made so many promises to Taehyung in the past that your brain short circuits trying to figure out which one he means. Frustrated, you challenge, “Promised what?”

You regret the words as soon as they leave your parted lips. Taehyung stops, his hands now hanging limply at his sides. His hair is a disheveled mess, and you swear you catch a glimpse of a falling tear as the light catches it on its way to the ground. When he answers, it’s barely above a whisper.

“That you’d wait for me.”

You feel your heart fall into your stomach, and you stand up, reaching for him. “Tae, I—”

He moves away from you, and you retract your hand as if you’d been burned. He reaches for something on his desk, and you can’t help the shaky exhale that leaves your lungs when you see that it’s another paper crane. This time, it’s made with black paper, and you can see the inscription done with silver ink.

“Here,” he mumbles, holding it out for you to take. “I made it for you yesterday when my mom told me you’d be coming back.”

You accept it, because how could you not? Wave after wave of guilt washes over you. It shouldn’t feel like this, you think, with Taehyung. This is your best friend in the whole world, the one you share everything with. Guilt isn’t something you should feel for having met someone, for accepting love from someone else. It isn’t fair that he’s making you feel guilty for being happy. For living your life. Nothing about anything makes sense anymore, and when you look back up, Taehyung is already halfway out the door.

“Tae,” you call out one last time. He turns, and his face doesn’t suit the sadness that mars it. You don’t know what to say, so you settle on, “I’m really sorry.”

He offers you a solemn half nod. “Thank you for coming. Grandma would have been happy to see you.”

And then he’s gone, leaving you in the solitude of his empty bedroom.

You look down at the paper crane, heavy in your palms. You read the words etched onto the wing and it makes you hate yourself just a little bit more.

“Thank you for not forgetting about me.”

You allow yourself just one minute to cry. One minute to face the fact that you feel like you’re losing the most important person in your life, and you don’t know what to do to fix things. You let yourself break down from the sadness of being all alone in a house that used to feel like an extension of your home. But now…it’s just a house. It’s just a house in a small town that has nothing left for you.

So after your sixty seconds are up, you muster up all your energy and do the only thing you can.

You go back to Seoul.

—

You’re twenty when the shift happens.

It’s also when things start to fall apart.

You haven’t spoken to Taehyung since his grandmother’s funeral. It’s been months. Your birthday came and went without a text from him, and it was the first time you cried yourself to sleep since you were in high school.

You feel like a piece of your soul has been ripped from your body. And what’s worse is that you know that if you were to give Taehyung a call, he would answer. Regardless of whatever fight you two are having, no matter how angry or frustrated or confused you are with how you feel, you know that if you need him, he will be there for you no matter what.

But you don’t call.

Because you’re scared.

Scared of what, you aren’t entirely sure. But after returning to Seoul from Daegu, something changed. You’d started isolating yourself more, focusing only on school and not spending time with any of your other friends or going out like you used to.

Jinyoung notices as well—notices that you don’t invite him over as often as you used to, that he needs to coax affection from you when you used to give it so openly. He definitely notices when you fake an orgasm just to be done with sex. Your mind has just been so preoccupied, and part of you had believed that being intimate with your boyfriend would snap you out of it.

But the entire time, your mind is elsewhere. And you don’t know how to ask him to stop, so you squeeze down on him and moan like you know he wants to hear, arching your back off the bed just so that he’ll hurry up and get off of you.

Once he’s finished, Jinyoung rolls back onto the mattress and stares at the ceiling. Your room is dead silent, save for the sound of the both of you catching your breaths. You take your blanket and tug it up so that it’s covering your nose and mouth, hoping that he won’t notice your obvious discomfort at just lying in bed beside him.

Jinyoung exhales hard through his nose. “You wanna tell me what’s on your mind?”

You bite your bottom lip so hard, you’re sure you’ve broken skin. “Nothing’s on my mind.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” Jinyoung remarks, sitting up and running a hand through his dark hair. He leans his elbows against his bent knees and stares off into the distance. “I know you’re in love with someone else.”

His remark shocks you so much that you sit up and scoot away from him, sheets clutched tight to your body. “What are you talking about?”

Jinyoung observes your body language and snorts, but it’s not one full of mirth. It sounds sad, like he’s finally coming to terms with something he’s been wrestling with for months.

“Even now,” he notes, lightly gesturing to your posture. “I just told you that I know you’re in love with another man, and instead of reassuring me and telling me that I’m crazy, you’re hiding. You’re hiding because you know I’m right.”

Your mouth feels so dry. You try to squeak out, “Jinyoung, that’s not true, I just—”

“Don’t,” he says with a tone of finality to it. He reaches down and grabs his boxers first, then slips out of your bed to gather the rest of his clothes. “I’m not stupid, Y/N. I know you’re not happy. Fuck, I’m not happy. And that’s not what a relationship is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be two people in love, not one person in love and the other pining over some guy from back in Daegu.”

Your blood runs cold. “W-what did you say?”

He exhales slowly, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. His face is scrunched in regret, as if he’s just revealed something he wasn’t supposed to know.

“When you came back from Daegu after you had that family emergency,” Jinyoung explains, “You seemed…different. Sadder. You wouldn’t talk to me about it, so I spoke to Chaeyoung. She told me about that friend of yours, Taehyung? The one who would always send you the paper cranes in the mail?” He chuckles derisively. “Best friends since age six. How am I supposed to compare to that?”

Your lower lip starts to tremble. By now, he’s fully dressed. “Jinyoung, you’re being unfair.”

He laughs again, louder this time. “I’m being unfair?” He scoffs. “You’re supposed to be my girlfriend. We’re supposed to be partners. If you’re having a hard time, you’re supposed to be able to come to me. I’m the one who has been here through everything, and yet I’m the one being tossed aside like I don’t matter.”

“But you do matter,” you insist, shifting to rise to your feet. Tears are blurring your vision now, but through the mist, you can see Jinyoung holding out a hand to stop you.

“I get it, you know,” he says, so quietly you almost miss it. “Really, I should have seen it coming. You used to talk about him all the time. Your friend from Daegu. You never told me his name because you wanted to protect me, right? Didn’t want me to know that you were only dating me so that you could get over him?”

You’re more confused than ever. “No, Jinyoung, that’s not it, you have it all wrong, I love you, I—”

“Please,” he cuts you off, voice strained. “Please just…let me talk, okay?”

You hiccup through a quiet sob as you hug your knees to your chest under the blanket. You nod. You can see in his eyes that he’s really hurting. And so if he needs to say his piece, you will let him. He deserves as much.

“I should have known right from the beginning when I found those boxes of paper cranes under your bed.”

Your heart stops dead in your chest and suddenly you’re furious. Wave after wave of confusion, anger, and betrayal wash over you as he continues to speak. Jinyoung was snooping around your things? Had he read all the messages that Taehyung had written for you over the years? Those were meant for the two of you only, not for anyone else.

You squeeze your eyes shut, trying to calm your mind. You want to scream at him. You want to tell him to get out, to leave, to never speak to you again. But then you open your eyes, and you see him standing by your bedroom door, eyes full of tears, heartbreak weighing his shoulders. And that’s when you know that you can’t.

As much hurt as you feel right now being confronted in this way, you know that Jinyoung is hurting even more. You don’t know exactly how long ago he found the cranes—he may have mentioned it, but you still can’t properly focus. You just know that the two of you aren’t meant to be. Maybe you were when you first met, and the two of you really were happy for the year and a half that you dated. But the space between you, both physical and metaphorical, is too great of a gap to conquer. And at this point, you don’t even know if you want to try.

And it���s the uncertainty that Jinyoung reads on your face clear as day.

“I’m going to go,” he says, placing a hand on the doorknob to your bedroom. “But we had a good run, yeah?”

A tear slips from your eye and rolls down your cheek. “The best.”

He shoots you a half smile before shoving his free hand into the pocket of his jeans. “Lock up after me, okay?”

You don’t shift to rise from the bed, but agree anyway. “Okay.”

And then you’re alone.

You slide your clothes back on, a simple tank top with an oversized hoodie and a pair of sweatpants. You make sure the front door to your apartment is locked, your fingers lightly grazing over the door handle where Jinyoung had been not moments earlier.

It’s hard to breathe in the silence. You feel your lungs starting to constrict, and then the tears start pouring out. You slide to the ground, back against the door as you cry into your sleeves. It takes you a minute to gather the strength to get up in search of your phone, but all you know is that right now, you’re not okay. Right now, you can’t be by yourself.

You’re dialling the number by muscle memory alone before pressing the device up to your ear. It rings once. Twice. Three times. And then—

“Y/N?”

His voice floods your ears and you let out a sigh of relief as it washes over you. It’s just your name, but when he says it, it sounds like music. You’ve missed his deep baritone so much over the past year that as soon as he speaks, you immediately break down again.

“Tae, I…I…”

“Where are you?” He immediately asks. You hear him shuffling, and the sound of car keys. “Are you at home?”

You sniffle, trying to calm your breathing. “Y-yeah.”

“Okay,” he says gently, and your heart clenches. You really don’t deserve a best friend like him. “I’m on my way.”

He hangs up before you get a chance to argue. You text him your address just in case he’s lost it, although you know that he probably knows it off by heart by now. You know that Taehyung is driving all the way from Daegu, so you curl up on the couch and decide to watch a movie to distract yourself while you wait. The movie plays, some chilling true crime documentary, and you jump slightly when you hear a knock on your front door.

Turning off the television, you scramble over and peer through the peephole.

It’s him.

You throw the door open and you’re breathless, looking up into the molten brown eyes that you hadn’t realized just how much you’ve missed. You just stare at him for a second, eyes searching his face, his brows furrowed in concern. He’s doing the same, taking you in, as if it’s the last time he’ll ever lay eyes upon you.

“Hi,” he says in a rush. You launch yourself into his arms at that, pressing your face to his chest and collapsing into a fit of sobs. Taehyung holds you steady, stronger arms than you remember leading you back into your apartment as he closes the door behind him with his foot.

He guides you to your couch and sits you down before you’re clinging to him again. You feel like an idiot for calling him and making him drive all the way down from Daegu just to comfort you through a break-up, but you suppose that’s the magic about Taehyung. You didn’t even have to ask, didn’t have to say anything other than his name and he was already on his way over.

Taehyung’s arm pulls you closer to his side, and you end up halfway in his lap with your head resting on his shoulder. Your nose brushes against the crook of his neck, and he stiffens for just a second before relaxing once more. He smells like cedar wood and cypress, a comforting smell that fills you with nostalgia.

After a few seconds, you squeak out, “I’m sorry, Tae-Tae.”

He glances down at you, and you can’t help but notice how close his face is to yours. “For what?”

“Making you come all the way here,” you say, moving away from him to give yourself a little distance. The rush of emotions filling you is too confusing—you blame it on the fact that you haven’t seen your best friend in about a year, and not the fact that he’s even broader and more chiseled than the last time you saw him.

Jinyoung’s words echo through your mind and you squeeze your eyes shut. You were just dumped by your boyfriend of over a year, how are you already thinking about someone else? You feel so conflicted, because you don’t want Jinyoung to be right. You don’t want to admit that somewhere deep down, over the course of your lives together, you started feeling something for Taehyung.

Who else would drive all the way down from Daegu to Seoul just to comfort you because he knew you couldn’t be alone? Who else would set aside whatever hurt he felt over the fight you had that made you not speak for a year, just to be by your side at this very moment? Who else does any of the things that Taehyung has ever done for you?

Your chest feels warm, and you know that Taehyung is watching you carefully. His arm is still around your shoulders, but it’s loose, and leaning more on the material of the couch than your body.

He fiddles for a second with the material of your sweater’s hood before letting out the tiniest chuckle through his nose. You turn to face him curiously, and his eyes are distant with thought.

When he notices you watching, he gestures to your clothes. “That’s my hoodie. I was wondering what happened to it.”

You look down at your sweater and swallow past the dryness in your throat. It is Taehyung’s, you realize. You had swiped it from his closet before leaving Daegu. It was your favourite hoodie of his, one that he always let you wear, even though it was his favourite as well. He always said it suited you better, so he just let you get away with it. You had brought it with you to Seoul so that you could bring a little piece of him with you, a small comfort in a difficult time of transition. You’d worn it so many times over the past few years that you forgot it was even his.

Taehyung looks around. “Is Chaeyoung home?”

You shake your head, using the sleeves to dry your eyes. “She’s at her boyfriend’s place tonight. Jinyoung was over, and…”

The implication is there, and you see hurt flash over Taehyung’s expression for just a fraction of a second. It’s there and gone so quick that you’re unsure if you actually saw it or not. You bring your knees to your chest and make yourself small on the couch. Taehyung notices and scoots closer, hand resting directly upon your shoulder as he brings you back into his warmth.

“It’s okay,” he says quietly. “You can talk to me.”

And so you do. You tell him about what happened with Jinyoung, leaving just a few details out. You tell him about how you knew that it was over with Jinyoung a long time ago, but just didn’t have the courage to end things. You tell him how much it hurt to realize you had fallen out of love with him when it was clear that he was still in love with you. He talks you through your breakup, lets you know that you’re an amazing person and the right guy will come along one day and sweep you off your feet in the way that you deserve. That you’ll be loved unconditionally, and that when it’s the right person, you’ll just know.

You look up at him then, and a silent moment passes between the two of you. Taehyung’s lips part gently, and you swear he’s getting closer. You feel drawn to him, like the pull of a magnet, but you know that this isn’t right. Jinyoung left only a few hours ago. And while you can’t ignore the way your heart hammers in your chest, you know that you can’t. Not right now.

“I’m tired,” you whisper before he can get any closer. “I think I need to go to sleep.”

Taehyung gives a quiet nod, but doesn’t look away from you for a second. You swallow, and decide to let yourself be selfish one more time.

“Come with me?”

Taehyung doesn’t need to be told twice. You take him by the hand and lead him to your room, shuffling through your belongings to see if you have anything big enough for him to wear to bed. He’s already in a loose shirt, but his jeans pose more of an issue. You see a pair of Jinyoung’s sweats in one of your drawers, but the thought of giving those to Taehyung seems disrespectful to both of them.

“Hold on,” you say, before darting out of the room and towards Chaeyoung’s down the hall. Her boyfriend, Namjoon, is pretty tall and you know he’s left some clothes here before. You find a pair of pyjama pants in her closet and rush back to give them to Taehyung.

After he changes, the two of you slip under the covers. It isn’t the first time you’ve shared a bed together, but it’s the first time you’ve done so as adults. Taehyung turns to face you, and you do the same. You feel a tear slip from your eye, and Taehyung lifts his hand to brush it away with his thumb.

“Why are you crying?” He asks, voice deep and gentle.

“I don’t know,” you admit, scooting a little closer. “I missed you, Tae.”

He offers you a smile. “I missed you too, Y/N.” His hand moves from your face to rest along your waist, and you bite at your bottom lip to prevent any unwarranted sounds from escaping at his touch. But you don’t shy away from him either, letting him touch you, letting yourself be held by someone you care so much about and who you know just wants to protect you and keep you safe. “Get some sleep, yeah? We can go for pancakes in the morning.”

You smile at that, an ear to ear grin that has Taehyung smiling in turn. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he promises. He leans in and brushes a soft, barely-there kiss to your forehead, and you’re glad it’s dark in your room so he can’t see the blush that paints your cheeks. “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Goodnight, Tae-Tae.”

You wake up the next morning feeling more rested than you have in ages. You move to sit up but realize that you can’t budge. You glance over to your side and see Taehyung fast asleep, his dark hair mussed and his cheeks puffy. He’s got a leg slung over yours and his arms hug your back to his chest, and he’s snoring just slightly as day breaks through your window.

You can’t help but smile and  allow yourself to sink back into his grasp for just a few more minutes.

Finally, the two of you get up and head over to your favourite hole in the wall diner for breakfast. Taehyung’s only been to Seoul a few times, so it’s a big deal for him to be in the city. He looks at everything with wide eyes and an even wider smile as you walk down the busy streets. You know that he wants to be here, wants to live an exciting life in the city with you nearby. You want that, too. You always have.

You get to the diner and you both order short stacks with way too many sugary add-ons. You’re digging into your breakfast when Taehyung says, “I’ve been meaning to tell you, I have a surprise.”

You crinkle your nose at the sight of him chewing with his mouth open. “Gross, Tae. What is it?”

He swallows with a roll of his eyes to get you to quit nagging, and it warms you to see that nothing has changed between the two of you. Finally, he announces, “I’m moving to Seoul.”

You nearly choke. “W-what?”

“My parents don’t need my help on the farm anymore,” he declares, and you can see that he’s practically vibrating with excitement. “I contacted the dean of admissions at SNU. You were right, they held onto my admission offer until I was ready. I’m moving here and starting work on my degree.”

After your brain finally processes the information, you lay your utensils down and slip into the opposite side of the booth where he’s sitting and hug him close.

“You’re moving here?”

“I’m moving here,” he affirms. And you feel your heart soar. The world is shifting, and you can’t help but feel like things are starting to move into place.

The two of you catch up over the rest of breakfast, and you offer to help Taehyung look for apartments while he’s here. He tells you that he still has to get back to Daegu, and that his parents are probably going to be worried if he doesn’t return soon. You promise to keep an eye out for listings for him anyway, and you can tell he’s just as excited to be getting out of Daegu as you were. Probably even more so, since he’s been trapped there even longer.

When he leaves, it’s with a bear hug and a promise to keep in touch, for real, this time. You both swear that you’ll never let anything like that tear your friendship apart again, and you tell him that you’ll count down the days until he moves to Seoul.

You get back to your apartment, and you feel lighter. Happy. You think to yourself that you should be sadder, more melancholy over your breakup, especially since you did love Jinyoung and the two of you were together for a long time. But as you tidy up your apartment a little before Chaeyoung comes home, your mind begins to wander.

You start to ask yourself if you were only with Jinyoung as a distraction, if he was right in that you were only using him to forget about someone else. And then once the distraction wasn’t working anymore, you stopped trying to pretend. You run a hand through your hair, wincing at the thought. You hope Jinyoung finds someone who will love him the way he deserves to be loved. He’s a good person, and he deserves a happy future with someone who will cherish him.

Once the common area is clean, you shuffle back into your room only to spot something on you desk. You let out the tiniest laugh at the sight. It’s a paper crane, made out of some scrap paper that Taehyung had no doubt found on your desk. You pick it up and look at the message written on the wing, something you haven’t done in over a year.

It’s longer than the other notes you’ve gotten from him, spanning over both wings, but then you realize that it’s a quote. You’ve heard him say it before, in quiet, contemplative moments. It brings a smile to your face as your eyes dance over the neat penmanship.

“Close friends are truly life’s treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves. With gentle honesty, they are there to guide and support us, to share our laughter and our tears. Their presence reminds us that we are never really alone.”

You chuckle to yourself before carefully pressing the crane flat and holding it close to your heart. Taehyung always did love quoting Van Gogh.

—

You’re twenty-one when you realize you’re in love with your best friend.

With Taehyung living in Seoul, it’s like nothing ever changed between the two of you. You hang out nearly every day, sleeping over at each other’s apartments a few times a week when it’s too late to walk home and neither one of you feel like spending money on a cab. Seeing him happy and thriving in the city brings you more joy that you can express. He takes up darkroom photography as a hobby, and you love looking through his contact sheets to pick your favourite shots.

The two of you are closer than ever. It’s confusing, feeling this way about Taehyung. But you can’t ignore how your heart feels when he’s nearby, how you get nervous around him when he looks into your eyes for a second too long. You tell yourself it’s nothing when you wake up with his arms around you, holding you like you’re lovers, and remind yourself that you’re just friends when he presses kisses to your forehead when you say you have a headache.

You may have been using that excuse a little more liberally than necessary in the recent past.

You’re in love with Taehyung. And admitting that to yourself is easier than you realize. It’s the fear of the unknown, of the possibility of rejection upon confession that has you waiting for the right moment to tell him.

Because how could you not? You two have never kept secrets from one another before, and you know that even if he doesn’t love you like you hope he does, you’ll find a way to work past it. You would rather tell him the truth and hurt for a little if he doesn’t reciprocate, than never tell him and keep more secrets from your best friend.

It’s the end of the year already, and everyone around you is abuzz with talks of New Year’s celebrations. But around this time, you never really think about New Year’s, if you’re being honest. You care more about the fact that it’s Taehyung’s birthday, and that you finally get to celebrate it with him in Seoul after so many years.

You manage to gather up your friends to throw him a surprise party in your apartment, which is where they’re all hiding, now. You and Taehyung had gone shopping for his birthday, and you had plans to go for dinner and drinks later. You tell him that you have to drop off your bags at home first, since you don’t want to bring all your stuff to the bar, and he agrees.

You open the door to your apartment and immediately slap your hand over your face when you see that your polite house guests have all taken off their shoes and left them along the front hall. You chuckle and take Taehyung by the hand, who is also biting back a smile, and lead him to where you both know your friends are attempting to hide.

With a flick of your finger, you switch on the lights. All of your friends jump out of their hiding places and scream, “SURPRISE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAEHYUNG!”

He’s laughing so hard that his eyes have turned into crescent moons. Jimin emerges from the kitchen with a cake and lit candles, leading the singing when it comes time to shut the lights off again. Taehyung looks over at you with adoration in his eyes and you give him a one-armed hug.

“Make a wish,” you gesture to the cake. His eyes linger on you for a second longer before he turns and closes his eyes. He’s quiet for a few seconds, and then blows them out, getting all of them in one long breath.

Everyone cheers and claps before someone, presumably Yoongi, puts on some background music. It’s a chill hip-hop playlist that he curated a while ago that often plays when everyone gets together. If there’s one thing Yoongi is good at, it’s creating sonic atmospheres that fit every situation.

The party is in full swing. People in the kitchen are taking shots, a few of which you and Taehyung participate in, while others are in the living room either having nonsense conversations or playing Settlers of Catan. You notice Taehyung nursing a drink from the corner of the room, observing everyone quietly until he sees you watching him. You put your cup down and walk over to him, taking his free hand in yours and lacing your fingers together.

“I have a gift for you,” you whisper into his ear, needing to rise to your tip toes to do so. He turns to you with a grin and then gestures to the party.

“This wasn’t the gift?”

You laugh and shake your head, a warm and comfortable buzz humming through your veins. “Trust me. You’ll like this gift more.”

You sneak him away to your room, which you had expressed to your friends prior to their arrival was strictly off-limits (Chaeyoung graciously offered to use her room for everyone’s coats and bags). Once the door is closed and the two of you are alone, suddenly, you feel really nervous. Taehyung stands by your desk and his eyes dance over the little trinkets and things, as well as photos he’s taken that you’ve pinned to your wall.

While he’s distracted, you pick up the gift you bought him from under the table and hand it over. It’s in a bag with multicoloured tissues sticking out from the top, and he takes it from your hands with a boxy smile.

Moving the tissues aside, you see his face shift into a look of awe when he pulls the heavy book from the bag. He stares at the cover, holding the tome in his hands as he struggles to find words.

“It’s letters from Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo,” you say, just to cut the tension. “I know how much you love him, and I read a few parts of it from a copy I found at the library a while back. I figured you would like it.”

“It’s perfect,” Taehyung breathes. “Thank you, Y/N. For…everything.”

“You’re welcome,” you reply, suddenly bashful. You look up at him and his eyes are on you, and he’s looking at you in a way that you can’t quite read. It’s now or never, you decide, and you take the book from his grasp and lay it on your desk. “I have something else for you. But you have to close your eyes.”

Taehyung cocks his head to the side but agrees, closing his eyes until they fall shut. Exhaling shakily, you take a step closer until you’re nearly toe-to-toe. You gently cup either side of his jaw and lift yourself up, pressing your lips against his. The kiss is soft and lasts only a few seconds, and when you pull away, you lean into his ear and whisper:

“I love you, Taehyung.”

You move to take a step back, bashfully looking away when you feel his arms loop around your waist and tug you flush against him. His lips are on yours again in a split second and you whimper against his mouth as he kisses you for all he’s worth. His hands are everywhere as your fingers tangle in his hair, both of you desperately trying to get closer and closer.

“Never thought I would get to do that again,” he jokes when he finally breaks away for oxygen. Then, as if he’s suddenly remembered something, he says, “I have a gift for you too.”

Your eyes automatically dart down to the growing bulge in his pants. He laughs and swats at your arm.

“Not that, you perv.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a paper crane, one made with paper that has little pink and red hearts all over it. He re-shapes it so that it stands up on its own and gives it to you, and you look up at him curiously before looking at the message.

Your heart nearly stops as you read the words.

“Because I love you.”

Tears are in your eyes as you repeat them. “You love me?”

Taehyung’s grip on you tightens, and he leans his forehead against yours. “I love you,” he affirms. “So much. And for so, so fucking long.”

You kiss him again at that. It’s slower this time, and now that you have both spoken your truths, there’s no need to rush. You’ve loved Taehyung your whole life, and you’ll continue to love him for the rest of it. You feel the back of your knees hit the edge of the bed and then you’re tumbling down, taking him with you. The length of his body is pressed flush to yours, his strong, lean thigh parting your legs as he slips his tongue in your mouth.

The moan that escapes your lips as he grinds into you is lewd and you have to remember that all of your friends are literally just down the hall. You try to be quiet but Taehyung is having none of that, his large hands playing with the hem of your shirt until he’s tugging it up and over your head.

His lips are everywhere, worshipping you with his mouth and tongue as he nips at the curve of your breast and maps out galaxies across your ribs and stomach. Under his questing fingers and insistent mouth, you feel like an absolute goddess. His touch is so reverent, so intoxicating, that you nearly cry out his name as he presses a kiss to your core through the denim of your jeans.

“F-fuck, Tae,” you whimper as he begins to slowly unzip your fly. “Please, I need you.”

“I have been waiting for years to hear you say that,” he admits, working the material down your legs. He drags your panties down too, and you sit up to unhook your bra. He’s still fully clothed, you realize, but there’s something so sexy about how he’s looking at you, crouched at the foot of your bed, your bare legs thrown haphazardly over his shoulders that you don’t protest just yet.

He presses a kiss to your inner thigh and you can’t help but shiver. The smirk he sends your way is devastating, and you feel yourself getting even wetter at the sight of him with his mouth so close to where you desire him the most.

“Keep your eyes on me, baby,” he murmurs before he’s flicking his tongue directly against your clit. You yelp, not expecting it when he closes his lips around your sensitive bud and alternates between sucking and flicking motions. Your thighs tighten around either side of his head until he pins them open, exposing you completely.

His eyes never leave yours as his tongue gets to work exploring you for the first time. He licks a stripe up your cunt, not too hard, but just enough so that you know he’s there. He pays extra attention to your clit, noticing just what makes your body sing and sigh so that he can do it again and again and again. You jolt slightly when you feel one of his fingers prodding at your entrance, and Taehyung kisses your mons gently.

“Really want to fuck you with my fingers,” he admits. “I’ve been dreaming of it for so long. Can I…?”

“Yes,” you gasp, fingers tangling in his hair. “Please, Tae, fuck—”

“So fucking beautiful,” Taehyung groans as he gathers your wetness on two of his fingers and starts to press them into you. You moan at the stretch, of the feeling of him touching you so intimately. You feel his knuckles slipping past your folds until his fingers are buried deep. Then he curls his fingers in a come hither motion and tugs gently on the front of your walls, and your eyes nearly roll to the back of your head. You slap your hand over your mouth as he rubs that spot over and over, lips and tongue back on your clit. You whimper and try to keep quiet, but the slick sound of Taehyung’s fingers fucking into you and his tongue lapping at your most sensitive area are just too much.

You feel yourself starting to shake, like that coil inside of you is about to snap. You can’t believe how well Taehyung knows your body already, how he can tell exactly what you need. You feel yourself teetering along the edge, and you gasp out that you’re close. Taehyung takes his free hand and fondles your breast, pinching at your nipple until you’re crying out.

“Come on my tongue,” he moans against your skin. “Come on my tongue and my fingers, come for me baby, c’mon, soak my face, I know you can do it—”

Your orgasm hits you so hard that you nearly scream. Hands fisting the sheets, you squeak out his name and buck your hips, grinding against his mouth as you come. His fingers keep working inside of you, as does his tongue on your clit, to prolong your pleasure for as long as possible. When the feeling starts to border on pain, you whimper and squirm away.

Taehyung kisses a wet trail up your stomach and between your breasts, stopping to lavish each nipple with attention as you impatiently tug at his shirt.

“Get naked,” you whine, gripping his sleeve. “This is torture.”

Taehyung smirks at you, purposely slowing down as he licks and suckles along your neck. “Baby, I haven’t showed you torture yet,” he purrs with an edge to his voice. You can feel how hard his cock is through his jeans, and the rough scratch of denim against your sensitive core is becoming too much.

You start to grind against him, aching for some kind of relief, and it’s your turn to grin when you see him squeezing his eyes shut.

“Fuck, you’re going to be the death of me,” he pants, sitting back on his haunches as he peels off his shirt. You get to work on his belt and his jeans, unable to stop yourself from staring when you see just how big he is. You look up at him with wide eyes and he laughs breathlessly. “You really know how to make a guy feel good, you know that?”

He moves to kick off his jeans and boxers, and then you’re finally both bare, both exposed and vulnerable for the first time. Taehyung places his hands on the bed and crawls over you, pressing his lips to yours to kiss you slowly. The kiss is gentle at first, and then becomes more insistent as he adds more pressure. His tongue on the seam of your mouth coaxes you to open up not only your lips, but your thighs as well. You part both for him as he settles himself against your heat.

Your thumbs massage gentle circles against his jaw as his tongue gently caresses yours. You hitch your leg over his hip and bring him closer, moaning quietly as you feel the underside of his cock brushing against your clit.

“Condom?” He asks, panting. You shake your head.

“I’m on the pill and I’m clean,” you say in a rush. “Just wanna feel you. I trust you.”

“M’clean, too,” he promises, dipping down to kiss you again. “Been waiting for this moment my whole life. I love you, Y/N. So much.”

“I love you too, Tae,” you murmur against his lips. You trail your hand down to grip his cock, hot and heavy in your palm. You take some of your slick and pump it along his shaft, and you love the groan that leaves his throat at the sensation. Then you guide the head of his cock to your soaking entrance, and he slowly pushes into you.

The stretch is immense, but not painful as he fills you inch by inch. This, you realize, this is how it’s supposed to feel when you’re with the right person. Taehyung fills you so completely, like the missing piece of a puzzle, and you whimper out his name once he’s reached the hilt.

You feel his hot breath against your neck as he just stays there for a minute, cock pressed deep into you, unmoving. It’s as if you’re both memorizing each other, this feeling of being so close and yet needing to be closer still. You squeeze your walls down on him just slightly and he chokes on a breath.

“Fuck,” he grunts. “We really were made for each other, huh?”

“Yeah,” you breathlessly agree, turning to kiss the corner of his mouth. “I feel it, too.”

He pulls out nearly all the way before thrusting back in, slowly, so that you can both savour the feeling. You sigh out his name and hook your legs around his waist, urging him to go deeper, harder.

Taehyung obliges, his lips never leaving yours as he braces his knees on the bed and one hand against your headboard, and starts to fuck you harder. The way he rolls his hips makes you dizzy, and you’re clawing at his back to pull him in even more. It’s so intoxicating, having him this close, bare skin against bare skin, offering up your rawest forms to one another. You feel his heartbeat against yours, pulsing in rhythm.

You whimper at his next deep thrust, one that has you shifting slightly up the bed. The pleasure is starting to overwhelm you. You’ve never felt more safe in anyone else’s arms, never felt more loved, more adored. Taehyung makes your heart soar, and the realization that you want to be with him forever brings tears to your eyes. You gasp out that you’re going to come, and his fingers are on your clit in an instant, somehow always knowing exactly what you need.

His name falls from your lips as you come, clenching down on his cock like a vice. He thrusts shallowly through your orgasm to prolong it as long as possible, his arms holding you as you quake and shiver from the aftershocks. Once you’ve come down, your eyes flutter open and you see Taehyung gazing down at you, his eyes full of wonder.

“You look so beautiful when you come,” he confesses, blush dusting his cheeks and chest. You laugh, a little breathless, and reach up to kiss him.

“Your turn to show me what you look like,” you purr against his lips. “Fill me up, Tae. I want to feel you, please…”

Not needing to be told twice, Taehyung adjusts the angle of his hips and starts fucking you harder, the blunt head of his cock pummelling against your g-spot. You feel that familiar heat starting to pool again, and you’re still shaking from the overstimulation. But Taehyung sees this and keeps doing it, keeps focusing on fucking your g-spot over and over until you’re moaning loudly and the bed frame is rattling against the wall.

“Come with me, baby,” Taehyung begs, lips and teeth on your neck. “I know you’ve got one more in you. Need you to come with me. I’m going to count you down, and then you’re gonna come on my cock. Okay?”

You feel your walls fluttering already, but you try to suppress your urge to come and weakly reply, “Okay.”

“Okay,” he pants, fucking you harder, the wet slap of his hips against yours obscenely filling the room. “We’re gonna come together in five.”

He maintains the same pace, but thrusts a little bit harder.

“Four.”

Harder still. It’s when his fingers land on your clit that you actually let out a scream.

“Three.”

You’re a mess as he fucks you faster, stapling your hips to the mattress with every thrust. You’re certain you’ll bruise after this, marks you’ll wear like badges of honour. But that’s for later. Right now, you need to come, and he’s stalling. You blink up at him and see that he’s watching you, making sure you’re paying attention.

“T-Tae…”

“What number are we at, sweetheart?”

You shiver at the pet name, and manage to squeak out, “Two.”

“Mm, good girl,” he grunts as he buries his head into the crook of your neck and delivers another particularly hard thrust. He feels you shaking underneath him as he furiously rubs at your clit. He can see in your eyes your desperation, your need for him. But he wants to stall for just a second longer. Just a little bit longer—

“Tae,” you cry out, your throat dry. “P-please, I can’t h-hold it, I—”

“One.”

Come, you hear him order. You feel like you’re floating. Like there’s nothing that exists in the universe except you and Taehyung, bathed in a beautiful white light as pleasure ripples through your bodies at the same time. It’s overwhelming, how good he feels, how intimate and right it feels to be with each other in this way. You cling to him, holding each other as you both reach euphoria in the safety of one another’s arms. You feel him filling you with thick ropes of come, marking you as his, and you take all that he has to give until you’ve both come down from your highs.

He lifts his head to look at you, gazing into your eyes before you pull him in for a kiss.

After he pulls away, Taehyung murmurs, “Thank you.”

“Hm?” You nuzzle your nose against his. “For what?”

He grins at you, big and boxy, and the sight alone makes you smile.

“For making my birthday wish come true.”

The two of you quietly clean up and get dressed once again, remembering that there’s a party just outside in the next room. Taehyung helps you straighten up your hair as best he can, though it still looks a little matted in the back. And you try to tame his hair as well, though your determined fingers had been keen knotting his locks. Once you both look somewhat presentable, you place your hand on the doorknob.

“Wait,” Taehyung says. You turn to face him, and he simply kisses you. You melt against him, so happy to finally be able to do this whenever you want. He pulls away and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” you respond, and give his hand a squeeze. You intertwine your fingers and open the door, stepping out to rejoin the party.

Chaeyoung is the first to notice when you come back and she literally screams when she sees the two of you.

“Finally! Oh my god, Namjoon, look, it finally happened!” Chaeyoung is still screaming, tugging on her boyfriend’s arm. Everyone then turns and sees the two of you holding hands looking bashful, along with the blossoming dark marks dotting your neck, and a chorus of cheers rings out through the room. You playfully glare at your friends that are blatantly exchanging money, and hide your face against Taehyung’s chest when Jimin and Jungkook come over to high-five you both.

“We have been waiting for this day since forever,” Jimin drawls, alcohol slurring his words slightly. “Kookie and I had a bet to see if you would get together before the end of the year, and you just made it with a day to spare. So now Jungkook owes me fifty bucks.”

“Two more sleeps!” Jungkook whines. “You lovebirds couldn’t wait for two more sleeps?”

“Regardless,” Jimin interjects. “Thank god it finally happened. I don’t think I could have waited much longer.”

“Hey,” Chaeyoung butts in, Namjoon watching her in amusement. “You don’t get to complain about waiting for those two idiots to get together. Did you know I was there when they met? And did you know that I figured out that Taehyungie had a crush on Y/N the second week that he joined our class?”

You look up at Taehyung in alarm. “You’ve liked me for that long?”

Taehyung blushes, suddenly bashful as he gives your hand a squeeze. “Yeah. Since the first day we met. Chaeyoungie figured it out and flat out asked me one day at recess. She had me cornered, so I had to tell her. But she promised she would keep it a secret. And, apparently to her credit, she has.”

“Damn right, I have, I’m a great friend,” she grumbles. “Even though it literally killed me to see you both not acting on your feelings for over a decade.”

“Enough about that,” you say hastily, waving your arms. “It’s Tae’s birthday. Did you want to open presents? I can get you a slice of cake.”

Taehyung just chuckles and nods at your obvious ploy to divert your friends’ attentions. “Sure. Let’s go open presents.”

“Can I also just say,” Jungkook declares, a shit-eating grin on his face. “I don’t know what was going on in there, but Tae, you deserve a high-five.”

You swat at your younger friend in dismay. “Jungkook!”

“You were pretty loud,” Chaeyoung admits with a shrug. Jimin nods pretty vigorously.

“Neither of you noticed when we turned up the volume on the music?”

Taehyung glances at you and scratches at the back of his neck. “Uh, no…we were…a little…preoccupied.”

You groan and slap your hand over your face. “Did everyone hear us?”

From across the room, Yoongi barks, “Yup.”

You’re about to hang your head in shame when Jimin lifts his cup. “I propose a toast!”

You and Taehyung are handed drinks, some fruit punch concoction that Seokjin mixed up. You all raise your cups as Jimin ponders what to say. Suddenly, he snaps his fingers, and beams at the two of you.

“To wishes coming true.”

You lean up and peck Taehyung on the cheek.

“To wishes coming true.”

—

You’re twenty-three when Taehyung folds his 1000th paper crane.

Being with Taehyung is like a dream come true. He really is unconditional with his love, and even when he simply looks at you, it makes your heart beat a little faster against your ribcage. He’s just so passionate and so open about his love for you, and being with him is incredible.

Not that it isn’t also without hardships. Every relationship falters from time to time. Angry words are exchanged, stubborn attitudes have gotten in the way of reason and logic and instead allowed for emotion and hurt to rule. But you always come back to one another, always talk it out. Because you both know that love is a choice, and that being in love and staying in love takes work. And so you both put in the work.

It doesn’t take you both long to decide that it’s time for the two of you to move in together.

And after months of planning, it’s moving day. It’s a day that’s been a long time coming. The two of you were already basically living together in Taehyung’s tiny bachelor apartment, but this new apartment is going to be the both of yours. A shared space for the two of you, one that you can make a home.

You’re unloading the last of the boxes from the truck into your new place, surveying the area with a sigh. You and Taehyung have already decided on what colours to paint the walls and what art to buy, so it’s just a matter of getting everything unpacked and sorted.

“Are there any more boxes left in the truck?” Taehyung asks, stretching out his spine with his arms raised above his head. You plop down on the couch and groan, shutting your eyes for just a second.

“That’s the last of it. Finally.” Cracking an eye open to peer at your boyfriend, you ask, “Did you want to start unpacking now?”

Taehyung shrugs, lifting the lid off a box that’s labelled Kitchen. “Might as well. We can unpack for a bit and then maybe go get something to eat in a few hours?”

You rise up to your feet, heading for your new bedroom. “Sounds like a plan. I’m going to make the bed and unpack our clothes, okay?”

He’s already trying to figure out the best place to put your drinking glasses, peering at each cabinet for what feels like the perfect spot. “Okay. I’ll come help you once I finish up in here.”

You make your way into your room, the bed having already been delivered and assembled prior to your actual moving day. You, being the more organized of the two of you, had scheduled your moving day so that it would be a little later in the month. That way, you and Taehyung were able to order your new furniture and assemble it without all the clutter of cardboard boxes getting in the way. Now, it was mostly just a matter of unpacking your essentials and decorating.

Unpacking goes relatively smoothly. You’re done organizing yours and Taehyung’s clothes, placing his silk button-ups on hangers so that they can be properly stored. There’s a pile of flattened cardboard boxes on the ground in the corner of the room, a symbol of your triumph and accomplishments. You’re feeling good, having found your second wind, and reach for another box.

When you lift the lid, you suddenly freeze. It’s the box you packed that has three shoe boxes in it, and you gingerly lift out each one, placing them down on your bed before doing away with the larger cardboard box. You take a seat at the edge of the bed and place one of the shoe boxes in your lap. You lift the lid and see all those paper cranes, made of different sizes and different kinds of paper.

You can’t help but smile, thinking about how Taehyung’s been getting back into the habit of making you paper cranes again recently. He had stopped for a while when you first started dating, maybe giving you one every few months, but as of late, he’s been making them more and more. And the messages he’s been writing on the wings have been for little things, nothing major or monumental like when you were kids.

You recall just last week, he made you one  that just read, “Because you made me the best coffee ever” after you bought a new Nespresso machine. Taehyung always did like celebrating the everyday moments, the ones that you would have probably overlooked. That’s one of the things that makes being with Taehyung so exciting, so wonderful. He makes every day seem like magic.

You’re just in the process of reading some of his old messages, the ones with messier penmanship that were crafted by a child, when you hear a throat clearing by your bedroom door. You look up and see Taehyung smiling at you, hands stuffed in his pockets.

“Kitchen’s mostly unpacked,” he states, wandering over to you. “What are you looking at?”

Gesturing to the boxes, you smile, “The cranes that you’ve made me over the years.” You scoot over to make room for Taehyung, who immediately takes a seat at your side, thighs touching as he loops one arm around your waist and rests his chin on your shoulder. Pecking you on the cheek, he gives a low whistle.

“That’s a lot,” he notes. “I can’t believe you kept all of them for all these years. When you see them all in one spot like this, it looks kinda crazy.”

His tone is bashful, almost a little embarrassed. You turn to face him, pressing a sweet, soft kiss against his lips. “It’s not crazy,” you promise. “It’s a beautiful, romantic gesture, and it’s made me so happy ever since we were kids. And it still makes me happy when I look at them. So there.”

Taehyung laughs at your tone of finality and nuzzles his nose against the crook of your neck. “Okay.”

You lean into his embrace, an automatic reflex at this point. You shuffle through the cranes until you find the one you’re looking for. You gasp when you see it, and you carefully pull it out. It’s old and worn, yellowing along the edges, but it’s the one. The one made from a ripped out piece of notebook paper, with butterflies drawn all over it, flying through an open meadow. Your eyes start to well up when you read the first message Taehyung ever wrote for you: “Because you stuck up for me.”

“The first one I ever made you,” Taehyung notes quietly, his arm tightening around your waist. “I remember that day so clearly. I remember when you came over and scared away those bullies, I thought you were an angel.”

You laugh at that, nudging him playfully. “Oh, come on. That can’t be true.”

“It is,” Taehyung insists. “You’ve meant so much to me since we were little kids, you know? And I’ve loved you ever since then. We’ve seen each other grow up, seen the best and worst parts of one another…” Taehyung sits up a little straighter and looks deep into your eyes as he says, “No one in the world knows me as well as you.”

You lift your hand to brush his fringe out of his eyes, lingering to softly caress his cheek as he leans into your touch. “The same goes for me,” you promise. And then you joke, “I feel like you know more about me than my mom does.”

He laughs at that. “Probably.” Taehyung suddenly goes quiet, his eyes focused on the boxes of paper cranes on the bed. “How many have I made for you?”

You ponder for a second. “A lot. Maybe around nine-hundred…”

“Nine hundred and ninety-nine,” he replies. “The one I gave you three days ago was number nine hundred and ninety-nine.”

You cock your head to the side. “Why did you ask if you already—”

Taehyung suddenly looks nervous. You see it in how his expression changes, how his shoulders curl inwards and how his foot taps anxiously against the ground.

“I love you,” he says, and it sounds like he’s saying it for the first time. He reaches into his pocket and pulls something out. “I love you, and I want you to have this.”

It’s a paper crane, one that he takes his time properly re-shaping so that it can stand on its own before laying it on the flat of his palm and extending it out to you.

“Number one thousand,” you remark with a smile, picking it up and holding it in your hands. You frown slightly, noticing that it’s heavier than it should be. It feels a little like something is inside of it, and you regard Taehyung curiously when you see that there’s no message on the wing like their usually is.

He bites at his lip slightly, and you feel your heartbeat drumming faster and faster.

“Open it.”

With shaking fingers, you carefully unfold the piece of paper until it’s flat in your hands. You look up at Taehyung, tears rolling down your cheeks, as he slips from the bed and takes your hand, lowering himself to one knee.

Taped to the inside of the paper is an engagement ring, along with the message, “Will you make my wish come true?”

You can barely see Taehyung through the tears, but you’ve never been happier. The way he’s looking at you now, open and honest, makes you even more sure of your answer.

“I know we’re young,” Taehyung says in a rush. “And I know we’re just moving in together now, and that I’m still only halfway done school. But we can always wait to get married, it doesn’t have to be anytime soon, I just needed to ask you because if I didn’t, I was going to explode, and I—”

“Yes,” you laugh, wiping hastily at your eyes. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

Taehyung carefully removes the tape from the ring and slips it on your finger, his boxy smile practically blinding as he takes in the sight of you as his fiancée for the first time. Once the ring is securely on your finger, Taehyung kisses you, and it’s like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. You quickly clear everything off the bed, albeit a little hastily, as Taehyung’s curious hands start to wander, and your clothes, one by one, hit the floor.

You take your time with one another, committing each other’s bodies to memory with your mouth and hands before Taehyung finally slides home and has you seeing stars. His touch is like fire, melting away any fears or insecurities about the future until all you can see and feel is him on you, inside of you, offering you forever and you gladly accept with an open heart.

Boxes are left abandoned for the echo of moans along the temporarily barren walls. You never do finish unpacking the rest of the apartment that night.

Instead you fall asleep, tangled in the arms of your soulmate, bare skin against bare skin. You can’t wait to spend the rest of your life with Taehyung, though it wasn’t as if living without each other was ever going to be an option, anyway. Not with how the universe put the two of you together. Your best friend, your fiancé, and two years later once Taehyung gets his degree, your husband, and a few years after that, the father of your children.

You’ve never been loved so wholly, so completely, so unconditionally as you have with Taehyung. And while it might have taken him a thousand paper cranes to muster up the courage to propose, but you can’t help but think that he’s been making every single one of your wishes come true since he walked into your classroom in Daegu all those years ago.

You can’t wait for forever with him. So for now, you sleep, the brilliant diamond resting upon your ring finger full of promises of a bright, beautiful future with Taehyung by your side. Just as it was destined to be.

A/N: Finally, it’s done! I hope you liked it. I’ve never written in this kind of format before, so I hope it all made sense. Let me know what you think, and please share it if you enjoyed! Constructive feedback is always welcome :)

[kai-n-ali]

In the Fields of Asphodel (My Regrets Follow You to the Grave) | Chapter One

Eleanor Blum didn’t know what to think of this man, this Peaky Blinder devil that made all of Small Heath cower before him, this almost-stranger with his dead wife and dead stare, but she wished he’d stop showing up at the flower shop she worked in. And that he’d stop looking at her with those blue eyes of his. 

Follows aftermath of Season 03 throughout Season 04. Tommy x OFC.

Warnings: Depictions of child abuse, antisemitism towards OFC (slurs), canon-typical violence, canonical deaths, sexual themes, etc.

Word Count: 5K

Chapter Two ❀ Chapter Three

                               Chapter 1: Citron (Ill-natured Beauty)

   The bell let out a series of chimes as the door creaked on its hinges, and in a small florist shop tucked between a gelateria and an abandoned butchery, Eleanor Blum officially met the devil of Small Heath.

   She wasn’t impressed.

   Flora’s, the little florist and botanical shop, had become a haven for the twenty-three-year-old in the time that she’d lived above Cora Evans’ storefront: only a few short weeks. Flora’s, partially named after Cora’s granddaughter, Florence, was a bright spot of color among the grit and grimness of Birmingham, with flower boxes brimming with asters and foxgloves, strawflowers and marigolds. Along the south-facing wall, honeysuckle crawled up the scratched brick, and the thick, sweet scent of the flowers almost washed out the stench of shit wafting up from the nearby horse stables or the sour-milk scent from gone-off gelato dumped in the dumpster, left to fester in the summer heat.

    Inside, the shop was cluttered, bouquets dotting the window display and trailing back in colorful bunches all throughout the front of the store, some put in ornate vases, others in ribbon-adorned mason jars, and a few placed into half-rusted buckets. Petals and leaves dotted the floor, and the room reeked of lavender and fresh-cut stems, grassy and clean. In the back of the store where the rare plants were, packets of seeds labelled in Cora’s handwriting, and now in Eleanor’s own scrawl, lined their worktable in rows.

    When he first came in, she didn’t bother looking up from her spot bent over one of the tables, hands streaked in dirt from potting snapdragon cuttings—they were very fashionable right now for front gardens, apparently—and the charcoal from her pencils. She’d plucked a honeysuckle bloom off its stem earlier in the morning and was practicing the loose lines of it on paper with strokes of a pencil. 

    The bell chimed, and Eleanor heard none of it, not until a voice cleared its throat a few paces in front of her. Eleanor jolted up, pushed a few curls out of her eyes.

    The man in front of her was beautiful in the way most wild things were when trapped behind glass. The way vines were beautiful when they were confined to the cracks of cobblestone, peeking out in glimpses of brilliant green. With cheekbones that looked like they’d split the pads of her fingers if she reached out to touch, that looked like they were meant for dinner parties as much as they were for being flecked in blood, Eleanor felt herself stiffen. She knew this man. Sort of.

    That newsboy cap was just ridiculous.

    Thomas Shelby, the husband of Grace Shelby, stood in her new place of employment. The last time she’d seen him, Eleanor had been at a gala in a new dress, gems dripping from her throat and beading trickling off her hem while she grilled his wife on her new orphanage and its living conditions for the second time.

    He was a ghost. Some half-wilted thing.

    Eleanor tilted her head, taking in the stiff lines of him, the strained civility held in the pale blue of eyes, and thought: how disappointing.

    She hadn’t taken Shelby for the kind of man to wilt.

    Meanwhile, it seemed Mr. Shelby was studying her as well. The startling blue of his eyes trained on her, cut across by the thicket of his lashes. He swept up and down her form, and she avoided fidgeting just barely. It seemed he recognized her, perhaps from the charity gala for the Shelby Foundation that went so wrong. Eleanor herself had only seen glimpses of him at said event, dressed in a black tux, the cut of his jaw severe and the stretch of his coat across his shoulders making her mouth go dry. She’d seen him as a dark shadow lingering behind his wife, his hand curling around her pale shoulder or tucking a loose, golden curl behind her ear before he was up and off again.

    Though, she realized she’d lied before. The last time she’d seen Thomas Shelby, it’d been a black-and-white photo shot from quite a distance, his back ramrod straight as he stood over the coffin of his dead wife. Surrounded by chrysanthemums and hydrangeas. His family stone-faced beside hordes of men in full military garb.

    The thought of Mrs. Shelby made her wince, and if anything, that made him stare harder. Something in his eyes questioned, how do I know you? Eleanor wasn’t obliged to answer.

    She locked her jaw and crossed her arms over the dirt-streaked cotton of her blouse. “Can I help you?” she asked, “or did you come just to ogle?”

    Somewhere from close behind, Eleanor heard a small squeak. She turned to face the noise. Florence, or Flora, sat on one of their many wooden benches, nearly toppling over a vase of petunias with every swing of her feet. Her eyes were very wide. “Ella,” she said, high-pitched, in a more-than-loud whisper. “Ella, that’s Mr. Shelby.”

    Flora was a girl of thirteen, with straight, dark hair cut right below her ears, and a smile that grew more lopsided the harder she grinned. When the chores were through and if the shop wasn’t busy, Eleanor would sit down and entertain her with little doodles, half-formed sketches.

    Right now, however, she was white as a freshly bleached sheet, her gangly legs jiggling with nerves. She hadn’t grown into them yet, but Eleanor found them endearing—almost coltish. Her eyes darted for her grandmother, but Cora was long gone on an errand.

    Mr. Shelby seemed unaffected, clearing his throat again with a cough. One hand rested on his pocket-watch, as though already eager to check the time. “Ella, eh?” She’d never heard him speak before, and the coarseness of his voice made her stomach flip-flop alongside the annoyance burning away at her. “Well, Ella—”

    “Eleanor.”

    There was a slight furrow to his brow now. It really was painfully fucking charming. He just sort of looked at her, head cocked, considering. Eleanor let out a gust of a sigh.

    “It’s Eleanor. My name. Not Ella.” Not to you, she thought. There was a pause, and she heard more than saw Flora place her head into the palms of her hands.

    “Tommy Shelby,” he said, as if she didn’t know that, and offered her his hand. Eleanor looked at that hand, the deceptive slimness of his fingers and the narrow taper of his wrist. His callouses were faded, softened with time.

    There was dirt under her nails and specks of dried mud up to her wrists, but she shook Mr. Thomas Shelby’s hand like she was wearing silk gloves. All lowered lashes and a coquettish flick of her wrist bone. The high-society ladies back home would surely applaud her if they saw.

    Then she ruined it.

    “What kind of grown-ass man still goes by the name Tommy?” she blurted before she could stop herself, her hand still in his. His hand had looked almost delicate before, but it engulfed her own. The shocked jerk of it against hers sent a vibration up her arm, and she suppressed a smirk. His eyes narrowed in on her face, a sudden intensity there he hadn’t possessed before. Like he wanted to peel back her skin and look beneath. Off-to-the-side, Flora let out a distressed little sound, akin to a mourner at a funeral. Viewing the body one last time before it lowered into the earth with the worms.

    The next sound past his lips was a huff that could’ve been taken for a laugh. If he were any other man. “One without a stick up the ass, I bet.” He tossed a glance Flora’s way, quirked up his mouth. He really had a lovely mouth. “Miss Eleanor.”

    And Eleanor couldn’t hold back a grin. “Hm. Agree to disagree, Mr. Shelby.” She crossed her arms over her chest, leaned over the countertop until her curls swung into her face. They were close enough now she could almost feel his breath ghosting the top of her head. “So, what’re you here for, then? Haven’t got all day.” Now, she sweetened her smile so the next bit wouldn’t bite, only sting. “Not even for the likes of you.”

    “Y’ know,” and his voice was a slow drawl that made her spine tingle and her hair stand on end, the way his lips formed around the words with the barest hint of threat, of teeth, “people rarely speak to me this way, Miss Eleanor.”

    “Not to your face, I’m sure.” She paused. “Mr. Shelby.”

    Was it just her, or was he almost smiling? “Fair enough. Just a bouquet for me.” His eyes hadn’t left her face. “Of your choosing.”

    “Right away,” she said, but something nagged at her. Taking a glance at his clothing—well-pressed and well-tailored, with a dark coat that had to be far too hot for the late July humidity and slacks with a crease down each leg—and thought he looked like a man heading to a funeral. Or a gravestone. Eleanor swallowed. Thought back to that black-and-white photo from near a year ago. Chrysanthemums and hydrangeas.

    Despite herself, she wondered if those had been Mrs. Shelby’s favorite flowers. They weren’t the flowers of funerals. Of mourning.

    Eleanor cast her gaze around the shop, but there was no arrangement that caught her interest, that fit the bill. She worried at her bottom lip. “Gimme a moment,” she muttered, almost to herself, and stepped out from behind the table. She felt his eyes on the back of her neck.

    Off-to-the side, pressed against the wall, were paint buckets filled with loose flowers, rows upon rows of color and texture, bunched together and stems kept in nutrient-enriched water. Among them, she found what she was looking for: chrysanthemums, white and ruffled with their pale green centers; hydrangeas, their purple petals in clusters. She also went for baby’s breath, as sparse and dainty as it was. A good filler for a bouquet, with the bonus of a powerful meaning. Everlasting love. Not that Thomas would know that.

    From a pail on one of the many counter spaces, she hunted for a ribbon. All knotted up in a ball, it took her a moment before she found the perfect one and managed to untangle it from the rest. Silky, sage green embroidered with indistinguishable little white buds. Perhaps a touch too long. Plucking and tweaking until it formed into a proper flower arrangement, if not a bit of a rustic one, she made a simple bow around the bundle before turning back to her customer. Taking quick steps to get back behind the main counter. “All done,” Eleanor said. She couldn’t look at him. With the heft of one shoulder, an almost-shrug, she offered the bouquet forward, level with his chest. She traced the pattern of his vest with her eyes, the stitching.

    The bouquet was smaller than a lot of the ones on display, less elaborate.

    But it felt right.

    Reaching into the pocket of her skirts, she rifled for the few spare coins she kept there for emergencies with her spare hand. He’d yet to take the bouquet. She slapped them onto the space in front of him with a clink. Just enough. Flora was strangely silent. “And already paid for.”

    Thomas’ eyes felt hot on her face. Almost a brand.

    He didn’t say a thank you, just gave a hum under his breath, and when he reached out to grab the flowers, his fingers grazed her own. She wondered what he thought of the scar tissue stretched across her knuckles, her fingers, if he could feel it against his skin, bumpy and rigid. This touch felt different than when he’d shook her hand, and it sent pinpricks of sensation up her forearm. When he let go, she shook out her hand away from view, trying to force the odd tingling away. It lingered.

    “Good day, Mr. Shelby.”

    “Eleanor.” And when he left, it was with a chime of the shop’s bell.

    For a moment, the whole shop was suspended in a hush, as if the world itself had paused, reverberating with that single chime. But then Florence was up in a flurry of movement, flinging herself into Eleanor’s space with a string of expletives that didn’t belong in the mouth of a grown man, not to mention a fourteen-year-old girl. Eleanor laughed despite herself. Threw back her head with the force of it.

    “Language,” she chided.

    “D’ you ‘ave a death wish?”

    Florence’s round eyes were roving over Eleanor’s face, her hands on her hips. She looked very serious—or would’ve, if not for the spot of dirt on the side of her nose.

    Eleanor smiled. “Not recently, no.”

    The younger girl didn’t seem to find that very funny, and a scowl twisted her features. “That’s Tommy Shelby you just ran your mouth off to, Ella,” she stated, jabbed a finger at her chest. Adorable, Eleanor thought. “Tommy. Shelby.” The stress on these two words was punctuated with another two jabs.

    “I know his name.” I’ve met his wife.

    “You don’t get it,” she said, and there was a franticness to her voice, her posture. Her hands twitched and fidgeted. “’E’s the leader of the Peaky fuckin’ Blinders. People say ‘e’s worse than the devil ‘imself."

    “Language.” But Eleanor’s head was already tilted in curiosity. Worse than the devil? “Peaky Blinders, huh?" She snorted. “Cute.”

    “Not cute, Ella, not cute. Dangerous. Deadly. They’re the biggest gang in Birmingham. Turned businessmen. They own us.” She puffed a stray hair out of her eyes. “You get a glance at his cap?” At Eleanor’s nod, she continued. “They sew razors into the brim. You fuck with ‘em, they cut out your eyes.”

    Huh. “Is that very effective?” she asked, eyebrows raised high on her forehead. “I mean, that’s a bit of an awkward angle, isn’t it?” Flora groaned, flopping onto a stool besides her, propping her elbows on the counter and resting her forehead in her hands. Eleanor rubbed her back. She seemed to do this quite a lot when Eleanor was around.

   Her next words came out muffled by her palms. “The Blinders ain’t no joke, Ella. They set fire to The Marquis for messin’ with one of theirs. Their enemies get found in The Cut without their faces.” Her voice became very quiet, near trembling. Almost tearful. “You shoulda never spoken to Mr. Shelby like that.”

   Despite her best efforts, Eleanor felt a shiver run through her. Only she could be stupid enough to meet a devil and reach out to shake his hand. With a smile, no less. Well, it was too late now. She leaned until her shoulder pressed into Flora’s own. “Hey,” she soothed. “Look at me, huh?” Eleanor tapped at the girl’s cheek with a nail until she peered up at her, eyes a bit puffy. “Relax, sweetheart. I doubt he’ll be back anytime soon. Not with the warm welcome I gave him.” And she smiled until Florence couldn’t help but smile back.

    The second time Eleanor saw the devil of Small Heath, it was a week later. At Flora’s. And it would be the same as the first.

    That damn bell chimed.

    It was with relief that Eleanor noted Florence was out of the shop when a Mr. Thomas Shelby arrived for the second time, having been sent off by Cora to the gelateria with just enough money for scoop of her favorite, strawberry swirl. This time around, it was just her and Cora in the near silence of the shop, the record player in the back a mere whisper of jazz. Instead of being up to her elbows in damp soil, she had a paintbrush in her mouth and another clutched between her fingers and thumb, making a new display sign with some thick paper and her tin of watercolors. A sketch of Flora, blowing petals out of the palm of her hand. It was as she was halfway through mixing a color for the shadows of her face that the front door opened. At her side, using twine to bind their loose flowers for the paint buckets, Cora gave a sharp intake of breath.

    “Mr. Shelby,” the older woman greeted, hurrying to stand. A strong-featured woman of near fifty, Cora Evans wasn’t one to show fear, or much emotion at all beyond a muted amusement at her surroundings. This sort of “why the hell not?” air of being that she'd clearly perfected over her years. Yet, while her own blue eyes were unwavering on Thomas’ own, Eleanor detected the tense line of her broad shoulders, hiked nearly up to her ears and tickling the grey-brown of her hair. Thomas inclined his head at her boss, and if he looked her way, Eleanor didn’t see it, because she had already turned back to her work, watering down a vermilion for the high spots of color on Flora’s youthful cheeks.

    If she didn’t look at him, maybe she wouldn’t be compelled by whatever urge had struck her before—a sudden desire to pick at and tease, to wrestle up a smile on that pretty mouth.

    Eleanor shook her head, a minuscule gesture, and huffed a curl out of her eyes. Get it together.

    “’Ow may I ‘elp you, sir?” And Cora’s voice was polite, restrained, the normal warmth in her Brummie accent stripped into something foreign to Eleanor. “On the ‘ouse, of course.” At that, she felt her lips pinch despite herself.

    While Cora hadn’t been upset when her granddaughter had finally told her the story of Eleanor back-talking to a Peaky Blinder, she had gone a bit pale, setting down the pot in her hands with a heavy clunk on their scraped-up work table. Staring at Eleanor with new eyes. “Pretty fuckin’ stupid of you, love,” she’d said. “They’ve set fire to businesses for less.” And she’d shaken her head. “Messin’ with that Blinder Devil—thought you had some wits about you.” In the end, though, Cora shooed her off when she hastened to spill out apologies, holding out a hand to pat her on her shoulder.

    “That Thomas Shelby is more sensible than most of ‘em put together. Not like his mad dog brother. It’ll work out for the best, I bet.”

    But now he was back yet again, in a suit lighter than the one before, a pale grey waistcoat with no jacket in sight. His tie was missing, she could tell even from where she hunched over her work, the top button of his dress-shirt undone at the throat. Still looking unbearably hot for the weather. Even the thin material of her house dress clung to her skin with the sweat of being trapped in the shop all day. She didn’t know how he bore it.

    “No need,” he said in that already familiar rasp, and she ducked her head further down instead of looking up and catching a glimpse of his face like she wanted. “Found myself in need of another bouquet.” And she could hear the amusement in his voice. “Eleanor. If you would.”

    The empty space to the upper right of her drawing distracted her. Should she fill it with roses? Lilies? There was a pause that could be felt hanging in the shop, like a physical touch against her skin, but she kept her gaze to that expanse of untouched white.

    “Eleanor,” Cora said, touching gentle fingers to the bared skin of her upper arm. She very rarely wore short sleeves, but with the heat, it felt unavoidable. The circular burns that peppered her arms like kisses—they weren’t even that noticeable, not anymore. Still.

    (On another August day, one from over a decade ago, she recalled the press and hiss of the cigarette when it hit her skin, and the way the mud never dried in that miserable backyard back in New York. Before her uncle came and packed her off to London. The backs of her knees were slippery with it as she squirmed and kicked. But the older girl kept a firm grip on her, and Eleanor stayed in place, sinking into the mud and dead, yellow grass. The cigarette was pulled back, still fizzling, and with the click of a lighter, was relit again. And again.)

    Eleanor blinked. Blinked again and rubbed a hand over her eyes, eyes that felt much more tired than before. She pulled the paintbrush from her mouth, set it on the countertop. “Of course, I can make you another bouquet, Mr. Shelby. Anything in mind?”

    She couldn’t see him, no, but she knew his eyes were smirking at her. Her fingers twitched on her remaining paintbrush. Smug bastard. “Oh, just something to brighten up me office, I think.” And Eleanor clenched her jaw, because that sounded like such shit to her. Why’re you here again, Thomas? She nodded nonetheless, kept her eyes down. You make it very hard to behave. She set down the brush with a clatter.

    “I can do that.”

    She searched for the most spiteful fucking flowers she could think of. Valerian, an herb frequently used for insomnia, green stems bloomed with clusters of white flowers. Readiness. I could take you, Mr. Shelby. Borage, or starflower, brilliant blue with hints of blush from the blooms with their white spines. Rudeness. Bluntness. And buttercups, their delicate yellow blossoms. A personal favorite and a good splash of color against all the blues and whites. Childishness. And, finally, Love-in-a-mist, or Nigella damascena, with their needle-point leaves and rich indigo petals ending in jagged points. A confession more than anything else, not that he’d know it. You puzzle me.

    In her youth, she’d gobbled up all the books on plants and herbs that she could find in her botanically obsessed uncle’s extensive library, and that included tomes on the language of flowers. The knowledge had stuck. And now more than ever, she found herself grateful.

    Eleanor plucked all the respective flowers out of their different buckets, organized by color, and set to work gathering the right amounts of each. She took a canary yellow ribbon from the ribbon pail with a flourish, flicking it in the air to get the kinks out. Grabbing a random empty vase that had once housed a beautiful but boring bouquet of a dozen roses—bought by a very frantic man in worker’s clothes and sturdy boots an hour prior, who looked like he was running quite late—she set the mass of flowers inside and set to arranging them.

    Flora, who hid a chuckle with a cough at the sight of her flowers of choice, left with a quick word to the backroom and a warning glance that burned into the back of Eleanor’s head. She tried not to fidget.

    She was wrapping the ribbon around the hunk of stems when a throat cleared from right by her side. Fuck. Eleanor started, spasming fingers losing the ability to form a bow. Fuck.

    “What’s a rich socialite like yourself doing in a flower shop in Birmingham, eh?”

    But, God, she couldn’t help but spin to face the man now. Thomas stood with his hip propped up against the table she was using, head tilted and pieces of the unshaved part of his hair near falling into his eyes. Seemed he recognized her now. He looked curious. Hungry. Up close as he was, their shoulders near brushing, she saw the hint of freckles beneath his eyes, on the bridge of his nose. It seemed even devils tanned in the sun.

    Everything about him was all graceful command, words spoken in a way that showed he expected to be answered, obeyed.

    It reminded her of his wife.

    The first time she’d ever seen Mrs. Grace Shelby, it had been at a luncheon held at The Midland Hotel, for the sake of convincing the richest of London society to donate to her cause—the Shelby Foundation, whose first action was building an orphanage in Birmingham. When her uncle, Samuel Connolly, had told her the news, alongside the fact that he’d been invited to attend a luncheon on the subject, she’d begged to be brought along.

    “If anyone would have a stake in this,” she’d said at their breakfast table, pointing at his chest with a grapefruit spoon, “it’s me, don’t you think? Let me see how genuine this is.” Sam had set his hazel eyes on hers, lips pursed, but he hadn’t disagreed.

    “You’ll have to dress up,” he’d warned, and she’d stuck out her tongue at him, taking a stab at a section of fruit.

    Eleanor remembered the way the beading of her dress weighted her down that afternoon, and how all she wanted was to be back home in a pair of trousers, lounging with a book in her lap and Fennel, Sam’s Spinone Italiano, laying on the tops of her bare feet. Keeping her warm. But the rich had an ability to do any good works as half-assed as possible, and with all of her blunt Brooklynite manners from childhood, she had sworn to dig out the truth from this Mrs. Grace Shelby even if it meant pulling out the plyers and using some old-fashioned elbow grease.

    That hadn’t been necessary.

    The waitress that escorted them both to the hotel’s largest dining room was a near-silent woman, who meekly commented on the pale jade color of Eleanor’s dress before showing them to a room with a table longer than she’d ever seen. A rich, dark-colored wood leaning near black. The napkins were a fashionable rose, the plates rimmed in gold and dotted in florals along the edges. All the candles smelled of faint vanilla and sandalwood.

    Even for Eleanor, who had spent her teen years and beyond in Sam’s by-no-means-minuscule manor and had attended many a party due to his notoriety, it was extravagant beyond measure.

    At the head of the table, not yet seated and chatting with a plastic but pretty smile on her painted lips, was a woman with honeyed hair and aristocratic, well-bred features. She radiated old wealth in a way Eleanor never could, brought into the fold far-too-late.

    (“Oh my, it’s the little orphan bastard.” One of the wives of some business mogul whispered to her friends behind a glove. They all tittered away at her remark, and Eleanor, all awkward limbs and pale pink scars at fifteen years old, sunk back into the shadows of the sitting room. Uncomfortable in her new dress. Uncomfortable in her new life. “How quaint. It seems he really did pick up a new stray, after all.”)

    Most of the night was a blur, filled with soft, exaggerated laughter and mutual back-patting. In the dining room, the lighting was dim, almost sensual despite it being only two in the afternoon. Flattering everything into a near dream-like state. At the front of the table, Mrs. Shelby had glowed. Almost an hour prior, her hand had been soft and unblemished in Eleanor’s own. Even her handshakes felt soft as silk. But when Eleanor had cornered her later in the evening over a round of drinks, her own whiskey-sour in a fine crystal glass that felt like a paperweight in her hand, she had revealed pure steel beneath the refined veneer. Eleanor could barely recall her barrage of questions now, from over a year ago.

    “What of the orphans with surviving family? Will they be entitled to visitation? And the staff—what of them? Would they be receiving proper background checks prior to their employment?” It had gone on-and-on, and Grace Shelby had answered with assurance blanketing her tone, and a blade tucked beneath her tongue, ready to wield. Her eyes steady. Demanding trust. Eleanor had, though begrudgingly, given it. And promised to have more questions the next time they met. Mrs. Shelby had seemed, almost, like she was looking forward to it.

    But, well, the second and last time she’d seen Grace Shelby. Well.

    In the present, Eleanor zeroed back in on Thomas. He was studying her.

    She knew the red of her lipstick must be smudged. That there was surely charcoal streaked on her face from using her pencils earlier in the day. That the nape of her neck was sticky with sweat, soaking the curls there.

    Still, Eleanor arched her brow at who, apparently, was the most fearsome man in Birmingham. “I used the wrong fork,” she drawled. “Perilous mistake.”

    “Yeah?”

    “Yeah.”

    They locked eyes, and Eleanor wasn’t going to be the one to blink first. Without looking, she knotted the bow and pulled tight. “All done,” she said. She rambled off a price, perhaps one a little higher than necessary. She couldn’t help herself.

    He blinked at her before reaching into his pocket for the money, and Eleanor let out a gust of air when his eyes left her. How were they so blue? Reaching under the table for some tissue paper to wrap the bouquet in, she offered it forward, gripping it by the bottom of the stems. His own fingers grasped it above her own and tugged it out of her hand. He was oddly gentle about it. “Have a nice day, Thomas,” she told him, a clear dismissal, and he quirked a brow at her in a barely-there question. Whether it was because of the curt tone or the usage of his first name—it had just slipped out, she didn’t know why—she wasn’t sure.

    Either way, he left. And Eleanor slumped, boneless, against the countertop. What the honest fuck.

    Now, she knew better than to believe this would be the last time they saw each other.

    And true enough, they met yet again. This time at no fault of their own.

[handonshipper]

If I Knew Then : Chapter Two

Mentions of abuse and neglect. Nothing graphic.

Landon finally reached the school, not caring about the fact that he was still dressed in the uniform for the Mystic Grill. He stopped at the closed gates and frowned slightly. He went over to the keypad, wondering what the code was. If Hope were here, she would probably know the code to get to  the Salvatore School. She was Dr. Saltzman’s favorite student after all. Finally, Landon pressed the button that was meant for assistance. 

A voice he did not recognize spoke through the speakers. “Hello, can I help you?” 

Landon furrowed his eyebrows in confusion at the sound of the voice. “Uh, hello, I’m Landon Kirby. I’m a student here.”

There was a long pause on the other end, and Landon waited impatient, desperate to see Hope and figure out what happened. Finally the voice spoke up again. “We do not have a student here named Landon Kirby.”

Landon frowned deeply at that. He was quite certain he was a student here. "Could you check again?"

A moment later, the voice said, "I'm sorry, but you are not a student here. Wait there. I will come out to speak with you" 

The light static in the background ceased, and Landon waited patiently as he looked around, trying to spot Hppe through the iron gates, though he doubted she would be out here. 

Instead, however, the gates of the school opened inwardly, and a blonde young woman stepped through. It took him a moment, but he soon recognized her from the photos Josie had shown them from the time he had been dating her and hanging out with her. 

Caroline Forbes (also referred to as Caroline Salvatore-Forbes) was the mother of Lizzie and Josie Saltzman and the other Headmistress of the Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted. He hadn't gotten to meet her before because the vampire had been too busy in Europe, trying  to save the twins from an ancient Gemini curse. 

"Hello, my name is Caroline Forbes" the woman said, looking at the teen. "I am the Headmistress of the Salvatore School"

"Landon Kirby, though you already knew that. I thought you were in Europe?" Landon said, looking at her. 

He had his suspicions of what had happened, but his mind was trying to wrap around the possibility of it all.

"Yes I was, though I am back now" she said with a kind smile. She looked at the 15 year old curiously. "Do you mind accompanying me? I have some questions for you"

Landon frowned slightly and nodded, thinking. Caroline led Landon to the school, and the phoenix stilled in his tracks as he noticed the front of the school. 

"What is it?" Caroline asked 

"The front of the school should be damaged" he said, starting to be unable to deny the truth. 

"No, it shouldn't" she said with a small frown. She paused. "Come on. We should discuss this more inside my office"

Caroline led Landon to the main office, and Landon looked around a little before looking at Caroline. "Where is Hope?" He asked, worried. 

“Hope?”

“Hope Mikaelson?” Landon said, looking at her. 

“I wasn’t aware Hope had any friends outside of the school” Caroline said. She took a step closer to him. “What all do you know about this school?” 

Landon took a step back, not liking that he was being compelled again. “Where is Hope?” he repeated, looking at her. He didn’t trust the headmistress. Especially not after she tried to compel him. 

He was a student here. Yet it was finally sinking in what had happened. That this wasnt his home. That things were different. The reason behind him working at the Grill when he hadn't in three years. None of it made sense logically, but this world wasn't logical. So could it be true? Before he could analyze further, he noticed the blonde's expression at his words.  Caroline furrowed her eyebrows in confusion and swiftly locked Landon in a cellar before disappearing. 

Landon breathed out slowly. Locked up in small spaces again, he thought carefully, struggling to focus on his thoughts instead of the memories that threatened to take over him. It wasn’t the first place his claustrophobia had been tested. Just last year, he had crawled through an air vent, despite the way it had made his heart pound and his breathing a bit struggled, all so he could help the school and get everyone deslugged. Now, however, he wasn’t doing it for the greater good. He was just trapped in here without a spell making the ceiling be a night sky. He took deep breaths, trying to calm himself down. 

Landon had just upset his foster father, though he couldn’t exactly remember what he did wrong. The child seemed to easily find himself in these situations, no matter which foster family he had gotten thrown into,  The man grabbed Landon by the arm, and the child struggled a bit as he was brought to the locker 

“Let me…” he said, shoving the child in the room. The foster mother protested at the treatment the young boy was receiving. “You sit here and think about it” his foster father said from many years ago. 

Landon was terrified, despite it being a common occurrence. Even back then, he hated small spaces because of things like this. The man shut the closet door, and Landon rushed over to the door, pounding on it, not wanting to be in the closet any longer. He felt as though the walls were closing in on him even though it was just his imagination. 

“Please don’t lock me in here! Please!” the young boy called out, continuing to pound on the front door. He yelled out for a while longer before finally falling silent and squeezing his eyes shut as his knees were brought to his chest, struggling to breathe from his fear. 

Landon breathed out slowly, trying to keep his current breathing under control as he closed his eyes, his heart pounding a bit, but he tried to keep himself relaxed. It was the Salvatore School, his home. He would be fine. He just needed Hope. 

He took a seat on the ground and leaned against the bed, closing his eyes once more. It felt like an eternity, like he was in a cage at a zoo or back in that closet from when he was a child. All he wanted was to get out of here. Unfortunately he wasn't sure Hope knew he was here. 

Landon's hands shook just slightly before he clenched his fists and relaxed them, steadying them. He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but he had eventually stood up again and raised his shirt a little, looking at the scars he had underneath. Some looked fresh and others were more visible than they had been before he arrived at the Grill. Dying for the first time had caused his scars to become mostly faded. As though he had been almost completely made new. Reborn. Yet here the scars were, which meant he had not died yet. 

He was back in time.

Landon Kirby wasnt sure how this was possible, but that was the only explanation he could think of. But if he was in his old body, it wasnt like Back To The Future. This was different. Maybe a little like Groundhogs Day. Except its thrown back about three years rather than repeating a day over and over and over again. How could a golden arrow effect him in such a way? He thought, curious about the line in the prophecy. Had this what it meant by him falling? Not dying but somehow miraculously falling back in time? That was crazy. Then again, crazy was normal. He had his heart ripped out and bitten into by Cupid’s brother Pothos. He had been stabbed by a sword that was intended to kill a Japanese demon. And he himself was a Phoenix. Someone who couldn’t die, even when he killed himself. Their lives were crazy. But he was okay with that. As long as he had Hope. And Rafael of course. 

He breathed out slowly once more as his situation started to get to him again, and he leaned back again, his eyes closed. He concentrated on trying to get himself fully under control. But before he could, a voice spoke up.

“Are you okay?” A slightly familiar voice questioned. 

Landon stood up and looked over at the person quickly and curiously. “I’m not good with small spaces” he said after a moment, finally distracted from his many memories. 

“I could talk to my mom. See if you can get moved to a less closed up space.” she suggested, looking at him. “Who are you anyways? Why are you here?”

“Your mom?” Landon asked, looking at her, frowning slightly.

“Caroline Forbes. The Headmistress” she replied, looking at her. 

Landon’s eyes widened as he looked at her. Josie? He questioned silently. He could notice similarities, sure. But she did look different than she did when she was older. He guessed Lizzie did too. Josie was, what, twelve at this point? Thirteen? He hadn’t been in Mystic Falls, working at the Grill for years so it had to be about that time frame. 

“So who are you?” Josie repeated, looking at him, frowning curiously.

“Uh, I’m Landon” Landon said, looking at his future ex. 

“I’m Josie” Josie greeted Landon with a small smile. She did a spell to unlock the cell door. “Just come with me. I’ll get you somewhere you can stay that won’t be as… closed up” 

“Thank you” Landon said, stepping out of the cell, his mind spinning on what to do. 

“Come on” Josie gave him a small, shy smile before leading him out of the cellar. 

Landon followed after Josie, looking around the school, curious to see how much has changed. From the looks of it, not really much of anything had changed except he only saw a couple of people he had recognized from around the school. Most of the vampires hadn’t come to the school yet. Some of the wolves hadn’t triggered their werewolf gene yet. Mostly it was just witches he had recognized, such as the witch that had magically sent a doodle of him with wings while he was in class. She didn’t look that different, just a bit softer around the cheeks. Not quite as dressed up. 

It felt very refreshing not seeing Josie as dark Josie, not that he had seen much of her being consumed by Dark Magic since everything seemed to happen while he was doing something else, such as trying to help Rafael or when he was trying to figure out how he flew. He didn’t want to be a bad friend, but everyone else had been focused on Josie. Someone needed to be focused on Rafael and his crisis. And Emma hadn’t thought it was a good idea for him to be doing the simulation game, despite nearly being shot with the Golden Arrow and having Dorian nearly die saving his life. 

He had no idea what to do about his current situation. What was one supposed to do when they were sent back in time. Would it be right not to change anything to preserve the future? Was this his chance to somehow make a better future? How much had happened by this point of time? This was three years before where he had been stabbed by the Golden Arrow. That meant this was about the time when Hope’s dad, Klaus MIkaelson (also known as the Great Evil in some of the books at this school), was killed. 

About the time he had sacrificed his life to save Hope, causing her self esteem to lower even further due to survivor’s guilt. Landon was unsure of the details in which this had occurred. However, he wanted to keep Hope from feeling that loss. But what if saving Klaus meant the death of Hope? He already knew what his answer would be before the question crossed his mind. He would do whatever it took to keep her safe. Whatever it may be. 

With that thought, Landon took a step inside the room that Josie had led him to. It was an empty dorm bedroom. She did a spell on the doorway, To keep him from leaving, he assumed, She walked further inside and opened up the dorm room window, letting the breeze flow in. She looked over at him. 

“I hope this is good enough. If mom wants you locked up, she has her reasons. But you clearly have issues with small spaces as you said. I figured a bedroom should be able to help out a bit. Better than a transitional cellar” Josie said. 

“It should help out at least a bit. Especially the open window. Thank you” Landon said. 

She nodded a bit as she looked at him. "Good, I'm glad. I should get going. My sister has these plans, and she won't be happy if I'm not there" she chuckled lightly with a small smile. "I might stop by and see you later. I have some questions about you" She looked down slightly and walked out of the bedroom, leaving Landon standing alone in an empty dorm room. 

Landon sighed softly once he was alone and looked around, feeling more at home. He took a seat on the bed and looked out towards the open window, thinking about everything. It seemed he couldnt stop thinking. Especially when he was alone with nothing else to do. 

[cowboykoschei]

Partners

Chapter One

Rating: Overall E, this chapter T

Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Kix (mentioned), Jotopa Kaid, Toby

Warnings/Tags: Eventual Smut, dehumanization of clones, mutual pining, a pair of idiots running around a jungle

Summary: Anakin calls up his friend and fellow Knight Jotopa Kaid to run "a little mission" with clone captain Toby and basically ruins both their lives.

--- Mission Start ---

Unlike most of his brothers, Toby looked forward to the dreamlike state of deep stasis. He did not enjoy the fact that, born and bred as he was to command troops, he was put up in storage when not in use. Ever since the first hint of beard stubble had dusted the edges of his jaw as a gangly limbed cadet, whenever he dreamed, he dreamed of her.

Dreaming was not something of which he put much stock. Often, it interrupted what could otherwise be a deep and restful sleep with things he would much rather not remember. Even when he was young, it was so. It was better to sleep hard and think of nothing than so lightly that your mind is free to plague you with nonsensical renditions of all your fears, insecurities, and mistakes rolled into some terrifying metaphor that might trouble you for hours or days after and possibly lower your efficiency rating.

But dreams of her…

Despite popular belief, there were women on Kamino. There was the female Kaminiise, of course. They were as professional and impersonal in their treatment of him and his brothers as their male counterparts. When they hit puberty, the long necks exhibited the same levels of generalized disgust at their bodily emissions as well as their frequency. The Kaminiise seemed especially horrified by the fact that their position over their human creations and overall role as oppressors did not preclude them from being subjects of crude humor and worse. As if any human male had ever been especially picky when it came time to jack it. Their trainers, who they collectively regarded with a mingled sense of hate, respect, and misplaced love, also received the same treatment.

Not even the women trainers whom he had grown up under, who were brutal and competent, terrifying and awful and beautiful in the way only Mando’ade could be, could hold a candle to her.

He dreamed of her hands most often. The first time he saw them (in what his studies and training told him must be a forest though as a gangly seven and a half-year-old he’d still never set foot off Kamino, and half that first dream he spent staring in amazement at everything around him, everything he could never have dreamed of imagining) he’d been struck by how much smaller they had to be than his own were. A deep, dark brown, so rich he immediately wanted to reach out and touch it, the bones of her fingers long and delicate and strong. Elegant, he thought, the first time he’d ever needed to use the word seriously, these must be the hands of a princess. And then he watched enraptured as those lovely, lovely hands shouldered a rifle and sniped a man from three hundred meters.

Other dreams, regrettably, were not as violent or visceral in their intensity, but as he grew, his appreciation for them increased. Toby liked to see the galaxy through her eyes. He enjoyed seeing the vaunted, columnated, and shadowed halls she seemed to dread entering a little more each time he visited her. He looked forward to dreaming because it meant he might get to watch her practice movements that were strange and familiar in a room that seemed older than the bones of the planet he had been made on.

At first, nearly bursting out of his skin with excitement, with longing, with the urge to describe each new and incredible image seared into his rib cage, he would crawl into his brothers’ tubes and tell them about her, the beautiful princess he saw in his dreams. Pyro, the oldest after him, would listen sleepily so long as Toby let him stick his face in his neck and cuddle and didn’t complain about drool. Kit would listen absently as long as he offered the blank expanse of his back as a sacrifice for her doodling while he ranted. Checkmate wasn’t interested in his princess so much as her surroundings, and he would interrupt Toby’s sometimes painstaking descriptions of the exact curvature of her hips to ask detailed questions about her surroundings. Snow only cared when he mentioned food. But that who Snow was period, so Toby was unrepentant and unresponsive to his vod’ika’s complaints about missed sleep. Lucky was his most sympathetic brother in all things, always forgiving him his many, many faults, so he didn’t often disturb his rest with this.

Bad enough to be saddled with an ori’vod such as himself; Lucky should at least be allowed his complete ration’s sleep. And of course, for Toby, there was no breaching the solid wall of disdain Joker and Blue had erected. Within a few years, he learned to keep mentioning her to himself and focused on overcoming the mountain of defects he was decanted with.

When Toby was nearly full-grown and in ARC training, he comforted himself at night by recalling the vivid flashes of her in what must have been a festival in a small village. She’d caught the briefest glimpse of herself in a hazy mirror in that thick crush of sweaty, celebrating bodies, and the impression of her body burned in his mind’s eye. But there was still so much he didn’t comprehend no matter how he turned it over in his hands. He understood the glimpses of her thigh he got as she slapped a bacta patch over a wound, the sounds of blaster fire, of measured breathing as she ran or jumped or leaped what seemed to be impossible distances. She was a warrior and a competent one by all accounts. He did not understand why these seemed to occur less and less the older he grew. Why did the sound of her laughter make his chest ache? Why did it hurt more when reproachful silence replaced her laughter? And why, no matter how hard he tried, couldn’t he explain any of it to his brothers?

Though he had very little to go on, Toby knew she was the most beautiful woman in the universe. He knew it like he knew the feel of his blasters, knew it as intimately as his face, and Toby knew that if given a chance, he would do whatever he could to hear that laugh again and ease the ache in his chest its absence created.

Neck still slightly wet, and his hair freshly shaved into his trademarked undercut, toweled dry but still damp and curling in the crisp, sterile air of medbay, CC-4267, Toby slowly pulled on his blacks and armor as his superior officer stood off to the side with the medic, Kix, and made small talk.

He hadn’t been in stasis very long this time, he thought quietly, putting away thoughts of her, watching the way Skywalker and Kix spoke with such easy familiarity and not even noticing the pang of envy that lanced him, applying himself to the ordinary tasks of cataloging his kit and body. He’d been in the stasis tank long enough for his wounds to close but not so long that his newly acquired scar had smoothed over. Several times in the scant hour he’d been conscious, Toby had to physically stop himself from fingering the thick tissue running the width of his nose, from grimacing at the way it pulled when he so much as twitched his mouth. It would take getting used to. Thankfully, that’s what buckets were for, and so far, no jetiise he had the displeasure of working with had been so desperate to see his ugly mug as to order him to part with it.

His kit was the same as the last time he laid eyes on it though someone, likely Rex for reasons Toby could never understand, had retouched the scratched and faded blue lines. All of it was standard issue infantry gear and had been brand spanking new when given to him his first days under Skywalker’s command. It had only been the work of a few missions to rectify that. His loadout hadn’t been all that different in the Guard, really, but it was more trouble than it was worth to try and blast all that distinctive red paint off the plastoid when he could be issued fresh. He was a new man. Shiny to go with his shiny new promotion and shiny new unit. In the end, all he’d been able to take from his native company was his kama and the pair of gloves a fellow lieutenant had surreptitiously stuffed in his pack.

The helmet, of course, was new and looked utterly out of place, but that was fine. It would match its owner in that regard. He’d have to go down to the armory to check out his deecees, but unless the blast that had cracked his bucket and given him his pretty new scar had also done damage to his blasters, Toby was sure he would be issued the same pair of 17s he’d carried since coming to the 501st.

He rolled his shoulders, irritated to find that they were already knotted up with tension, and started pulling his armor on.

—

When Jedi Knight Jotopa Kaid of the significantly diminished House Ordo was somewhere around twelve or thirteen years old, she began to have strange dreams. They came, as many odd dreams do to young and inexperienced Force users such as herself, right as her life was turning to shit. She found it hard to give much thought to the jolting sense of awareness of vague l o n g i n g, a hollow, itching pull in her chest that tugged with a dull sort of insistence always in the same general direction when her Master had just up and abandoned her. D’Aleric traded her away to a Corellian smuggler for a juicy piece of intel, and even with her sheltered Temple upbringing, she knew enough to be terrified by the long and considering look Choruk Vance gave her once her Master’s ship made the jump to hyperspace without her inside.

But the Force, and Choruk Vance, had something else in mind when the smuggler looked into eyes that, though frightened, still bravely met his own. It was not long before Jotopa found herself handed off again, this time to the Mandalorian, Asha Kaid, herself and her sabers swapped for some previously agreed-upon amount. Asha Kaid would bestow her clan name upon Jotopa. But in those early days, it remained a mystery how or why a Mandalorian would want a discarded padawan.

These events kept her from thinking about her dreams, but as weeks then months went by, it truly settled in that her Master had abandoned her. She may as well get the grieving process for her old life over with sooner rather than later, she began to retake note of them. They were nothing to write home about initially, impressions more than anything: of being submerged, of pale, statuesque beings walking to and fro, their forms hazy, a sleepy sort of awareness over everything. It was strangely soothing and familiar in an almost primal way. She paid it no mind, and the dreams were not such a frequent occurrence that it was worth interrupting the daily rhythms of learning what being Mando’ade meant, especially for her.

It was not so different in its way than her early years at the Temple had been though the lessons were learning her way around various types of blasters and blades, detonators and when to use them, when to stand and fight and when to save your strength for another time. Though, she knew better than to say so to Asha Kaid! Her mentor, quickly her buir, was a typical Mandalorian and would not have appreciated the comparison for all its accuracy. She kept her sabers and the skills associated with them sharp because the Force was another tool in her arsenal, and only a foolish warrior did not use every tool at her disposal.

The years passed with slow surety. Jotopa fought, she meditated, grew in the Force, and her murky dreams gradually expanded. Now there would be startlingly vivid flashes of the same group of identical faces, their brown eyes wide and old in their young faces, and when she would wake, something about the sight of their still baby soft hands disassembling rifles would disquiet her for the rest of the day. A week would pass or perhaps a month or two, or maybe she was seventeen now, a time when once again her life was going to shit. Her memory is a bit chaotic, but she sees them again, older now, but she’s sure it’s the same set of identical faces, the one that she knows lying down and humming soothingly to another one. Somehow, she knows that a live-fire exercise killed one of her special boy’s brothers.

She carries his grief on the back of her tongue, its weight as heavy as the presence of her Master come to reclaim her.

You don’t have to go, her mother said with the resigned air of a lifelong inmate. You don’t have to go back to the Jetiise, kebii’tra.

And just as resigned, looking not at her Master but through him, thinking instead of the golden-eyed boy in her dreams, she said, No, but I want to.

But going back to the Jetiise did not make her a Jetii. Not to her, and not to them. To be sure, to the Council it did, and in the end, it was their opinion on the matter that most counted, but in the final long year of her apprenticeship in which she and her Master did not pretend to have any illusions with one another, it was not so.

Do you think me cruel, Kadijah? D’Aleric’s question, like so many she could recall put to her as a young learner, did not warrant an answer, and yet the use of her birth name encouraged her to do so regardless. Her Master used it so casually, as though he was still worthy of the honor of knowing the young girl to which it belonged. As if that girl still existed. Typical Jetii bullshit, she thought, looking steadily into the crimson eyes and rich sapphire face that had looked into her own and found her wanting.

I think nothing of you at all, Master. She’d said with a small, deprecating laugh. Who am I to challenge the will of the Force as interpreted by my elders? She paused then, eyes dark and hard as unworked beskar. And you will call me Jotopa from now on.

A series of whistles and chirps from her astrodroid shook her from her half-dreaming, half meditative state. From the wide span of the viewport of her standard-issue starfighter, Jotopa could just make out the ruggedly elegant outline of the Resolute breaking up the uniform blackness of open space around it. Her droid, R6, well used to her mistress's ways, had dropped out of hyperspace farther away than was usual for most Jedi, and Jotopa didn’t think she imagined the wearied tone the droid took with her.

“Yes, thank you, R6; I can see we’ve made it. I wasn’t sleeping; I was meditating! Please, please: don’t let me stop you from hailing them! I don’t want to be on the receiving end of their guns either.” She said with a laugh in response to R6’s messages. The little astrodroid was a delight to a life spent so much skimming the surface of other’s turmoils. She rather hoped that she would be able to take her along on whatever “top secret, super special, you’d be doing me suuuuuch a huge favor, JaJa, pleaseeeee” mission Anakin had called her across the galaxy for.

The Force prickled across her skin, grew thick and heavy in her blood. A sense of anticipation that weighed almost as heavily as her curiosity as she landed in the large bay. Jotopa sat for a moment with the feeling, breathed deeply even as her eyes scanned across the familiar armored forms moving here and there a respectful distance away from her ship. Clone troopers, she thought, has it been that long since my mission with Lieutenant Thire? Maybe I’ll get to talk to one or two before I leave and find out how he’s doing. The feeling settled to a manageable level, and she opened the hatch, releasing R6 from her place. The little blue and pink painted droid wheeled around to where she was indulging in a full-body stretch on the wing of her fighter. Jotopa noted the trooper who seemed to be waiting patiently for her and tilted her head at R6.

“I don’t have to tell you, but see about getting a tune-up while I’m busy? Who knows what sort of trouble Anakin has in store.” She said to her droid before jumping down from the wing of her ship and approaching the trooper. She bowed to him in greeting, a move that, though he was completely encased in his armor, surprised him because when she asked if he was there to escort her to General Skywalker; it took him several seconds to process the question and answer in the affirmative.

The walk was mostly silent, which was fine by her; there was plenty to see. Boarding the Resolute was her first time on such a large ship, and the immensity of it, its incredible smallness in the grandness of the universe, was startling. The life energy of the troopers pulsed around her, bright as any star, and when she caught a look at a few of them without their helmets, she saw the same freshness of face that had unsettled and humbled her in Thire. And permeating all, the sense of anticipation thickened so that she could barely breathe around it. This is it, the Force whispered as they walked down hallways and took lifts. They were going to medbay, the trooper was kind enough to explain. He was fresh, she thought around the shouting in her blood, too young and earnest to die in a war like this. This is it. This is it. This is it, thisisitthisisthisisitthisisitthisisitthisis itthisisitthisisitthisisitthisistthisisitthisis

“We’re here, sir.” He said at the entrance to medbay, and behind the impassive face of his bucket, he was eyeing the details of her serene face, the rich dark brown eyes only outdone by the hue of her skin, her lush mouth, and the black, coily cloud of her hair framing it all, and he sighed, inwardly jealous of the vod who was assigned to accompany her on her mission.

“We certainly are. Thank you for guiding me, kotep’ad. I can take it from here.” Jotopa said absently, completely missing the subtle double-take the trooper gave her. Were her steps hesitant? No, nothing scared her, not since that night. Her steps lengthened. She could hear the low tenor of Anakin’s voice and could tell that he was in a good mood as he spoke to two others. His Force presence was as it always was: a red giant, swollen and pulsing. No. A more apt description would be a star on the verge of going supernova. A star could go millions, billions of years in that state, existing just on the edge until something tipped it over, and the resulting blast destroyed everything in its wake.

The medbay of the Resolute was moderately full, which told her that their last battle was recent but not terribly so. Most of the troopers in the beds were either sleeping or busying themselves with their datapads, but she could see sabacc cards and even a few poorly concealed dice bags. A few were well enough to sit with each other, a fact that one with heavy beard stubble and a healing slash across his eye seemed to regret as she noted him being bombarded by his very chatty bedmate. Jotopa was still stifling her laugh into her hand at the longsuffering look he shot her way when she passed him when she finally approached the row of bacta tanks and beds next to them.

Anakin was standing with his back to her, talking with a clone dressed in medical scrubs who she assumed must be a technician of some sort. Behind them was another clone, but she could only see his boots and the blue paint of his shin guards. This is it! Her blood was singing with the strength of the Force’s exultant song. This is it! Finally! Finally! It crackled over her skin, and her fists clenched around the wild desire to run and dispelled it. A sense of questioning, a tendril of sentience that most wouldn’t dare speak of: This is it, are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?

Those armored legs, the nervous tapping of fingers in a curiously red-painted gauntlet as he shifted slightly forward and a knee came into view.

Yes, she answered. Yes. Yes.

“I could’ve killed you ten different times by now, Anakin.” She said, grinning when he spun around, lively blue eyes wide and startled.

“Sleenspit, JaJa, you scared the hell outta me! Is it your mission in life to shave years off of my life, huh?” He asked, bundling her up in a friendly side hug. She rolled her eyes and tilted her head up.

“It wouldn’t be so easy if you weren’t so trusting.” She said pointedly, and now it was his turn to roll his eyes. Anakin was one of the few who had not shunned her when she returned to the Temple. Perhaps because of his pariah status, or maybe because they often ran into each other in the same deserted halls of the Temple, despite the vast gulf in their training though not their comparative years, the two of them had become fast friends. When she had been Knighted and took on the mysterious work of the Sentinel, he was one of the few she kept in contact with.

“Yeah yeah, you’ve said it a million times: a friend is quicker with a knife than an enemy. I hear you, O wise Jedi Master, I hear you.” Jotopa barely refrained from scoffing and instead glanced at the medic, who was watching their interaction with undisguised curiosity. Anakin still had her tucked loosely against his side, and his sturdy form blocked her view of the other trooper, the one the Force was leaping for joy around. Couldn’t Anakin feel it? Couldn’t he tell how special, how important that man was?

“Aren’t you going to introduce me? I know Master Obi-Wan taught you better than that!” She jabbed him gently in the ribs. With his flesh hand, he rubbed the spot where her elbow had dug into his side, his face relaying his usual crack about her sharp elbows. He nodded toward the young clone in the scrubs, a smile of pride lighting over his features.

“This is Kix, my Chief Medical Officer. He oversees any time any of my guys comes out of stasis, and this,” he said, (Finally! This is it! Finally!) stepping back so that the trooper sitting on the bed could be fully seen, “is Captain Toby. When I heard about this mission, I knew he’d be the perfect one to help you with it, JaJa. He’s great.” Anakin’s words seem to come to her from a long way off. She heard them, and she was sure she was saying something, but Jotopa couldn’t tear her eyes away from the man sitting on the bed. He was sitting at attention, his shoulders stiff with a tension that wasn’t noticeable in the politely attentive expression on his face. The thick scar that stretched across his nose looked fresh, still shiny in a way that explained the faint twitching of his nose, as though he wasn’t used to how it pulled at his skin. He didn’t look thrilled to see her. There’d been something akin to horror on that achingly handsome face for the briefest of moments, but when she queried, hesitantly, of the Force, she was nearly bowled over by the certainty of the response.

This is the one. This is the one you’ve been waiting for.

Well shit. At least she could breathe a bit easier now. After accepting the datapad with the mission details from Anakin, Jotopa turned and watched as he and Kix walked away with only the slightest hint of rising hysteria. Leave it to Anakin, who did everything from the seat of his pants, to use her utter shock against her and dump a mission and a strange man on her. She didn’t even know if he’d requisitioned a ship for them to travel in, and the mental image of her attempting to stuff the captain in her starfighter nearly made her choke.

“Ah, excuse me…? Knight Kaid, sir?” He asked, and Jotopa closed her eyes and inwardly swore. His voice! It was just like hangar bay trooper’s and like Kix’s, and yet neither one of their voices made the fine hairs on her arms stand on end. Perhaps from being in stasis? It sent goosebumps rippling up her bare arms. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice. She forcefully released her anxiety into the Force and turned to face him. She’d met countless handsome men in her lifetime. He was no different, Force shenanigans or no, and she would not ogle him; she would treat him like the competent soldier he was, complete this mission, and that was that.

--

When General Skywalker told him the Jetii he would be working with was a good friend of his, Toby wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or a curse. He liked his General and admired his courage and fighting spirit, but it didn’t take an incredibly smart vod to notice how much of a disaster the man was. And with Jetiise in particular, like attracted like, so he couldn’t help nor dispel the nervous jiggling of his leg that started up when it came through that the Jetii, Knight Kaid, had arrived and was making her way to medbay. At least in the Guard, you knew what you were getting into day to day with snooty senators. Each Jetii was as different as a fingerprint. Skywalker, kind in his awkward way, noticed his show of nerves.

“You don’t have to worry about a thing with Jotopa, Toby. She’s excellent; you won’t have any problems. If you two don’t come back as best friends, I’ll file my reports on time.” He said with his usual confident smile.

Kix snorted. “Better not then, sir. If the General starts filing his reports on time, Captain Rex might keel over from the shock to his system.” Toby huffed a laugh at Skywalker’s indignant exclamation.

He would have thought they would announce her presence over the ship’s comms, but she slipped in among them silent as a ghost. His first glimpse of her was around the startled twist of Skywalker’s body, a flash of dark skin and a cloud of hair, and then her voice, soft and husky and sweet even in the chiding tone she took with her fellow Jetii. There was a feeling, overwhelming and strange and familiar. He swallowed his heart back down where it had lodged beneath his jaw, unsure where to look and even more unsure why, and then there was nowhere to look but Knight Kaid because Skywalker was stepping back and introducing them. It was all he could do to sit at attention and keep the blank face that hid all feeling because it was her, the woman with the elegant hands, the princess he saw in his dreams, and dead stars; she was even more beautiful in person. Like Skywalker, she didn’t wear the traditional Jetiise clothing; instead, she wore a sleeveless black leather vest brightly detailed in red and pink embroidery. It was half unzipped and revealed a mesh undershirt. To keep himself professional, he looked instead at the well-cared-for utility belt around her hips. Toby noted her black spandex shorts covered by a delicately detailed kama made of sturdy cloth. Her boots ended at midcalf. His eyebrows twitched in surprise when she turned to watch Skywalker and Kix leave, and he spotted the cleverly hidden handles of two knives on them.

Now that the full force of her gaze wasn’t on him, he ran a gloved hand through his hair and reasoned with himself. Calm down, di’kut. You’re still loopy from stasis. It can’t be her. She’s a figment of your imagination, a product of getting knocked around too many times as a cadet. Don’t start acting like a karking lunatic around this Jetii and get sent off for reconditioning. It made sense. It made a ton of sense, just as it had when Joker, sick of hearing his talk about his dream princess, had first sat down and said it to him. Lucky had told Joker to leave him be. It was a harmless fantasy, a coping mechanism. Just his luck that his coping mechanism manifested herself right before his eyes. She was still turned, the datapad held loosely in her hand, her head tilted. He got the impression that she would be content standing there until the last star burned out.

Against his better judgment, he got her attention. She turned to face him, a soft frown pulling at her full lips, and panic surged up his spine. Had he already managed to upset her?!

“Captain? Would you do me a favor please?” She asked, and now she was at the edge of his personal space, just enough that he could log away in the back of his mind that she smelled like jasmine and vanilla and had to tilt his head up just slightly to meet her eyes. Her eyes were an even darker brown than her skin but just as rich, he thought. From a distance, they appeared black.

“Yes, sir. If I can, I will.” He liked the way her nose crinkled around the smile she gave him at his answer.

“I know it’s probably in your regulations, gotta respect rank and all, but at least when it’s just you and I, do you think you could call me Jotopa? I would appreciate it a lot.”

He didn’t know who the brave soldier it was who rumbled, “Elek, think I can manage that, sir,” in reply but if it earned him more of those looks, a look he wasn’t sure she knew she gave him, he was fine with the vod seizing hold of his faculties every now and again.

She cleared her throat and looked down at the datapad in her hand, her brows furrowing as she scanned the details of their mission. Suddenly, she laughed, the sound vaguely disbelieving.

“I pity the trooper tasked with putting this briefing together. They might as well have not bothered. The barest details are here: the planet name, coordinates, and our objective. I’ve done more with less, but this is ridiculous. And I still don’t know if Anakin got us a ship.” Toby bit the inside of his cheek to control his expression. She was grousing like an old field sergeant! And had the face to match! He recalled his earlier sentiment about Skywalker and his friends and bit his cheek harder.

“May I see the datapad, sir? I may be able to see if the quartermaster requisitioned any supplies for us.” She handed it over easily enough, an annoyed glint playing around her dark eyes, another fascinating expression Toby memorized and logged away in the back of his mind before quickly focusing on the pad. It was interesting having her eyes on him while performing one of the simplest tasks he knew. Something about the heaviness of her eyes, her gaze almost a physical weight: it scattered his focus like water through open fingers. But still, it wasn’t more than thirty seconds before he had the pertinent information pulled up.

“Here it is, sir.” He said, muting his amusement as much as he could.

“Where?” She asked, and now she was entirely in his personal space, bent over to scowl at the screen, her hair and its thousands of tiny coiling ringlets brushing his jaw.

“Ah, see? Right here, it says you were issued a small ship, one ARC-rated clone, and two months’ worth of rations, plus weapons.” He said, only daring to breathe again when she pulled back, a sheepish expression on her face. She half-turned, her hands clasped in front of her. He had the fleeting thought that she was upset. The surety of the notion prickled across his skin, and Toby shivered, unsure of what to do with the feeling or why he was feeling it. He cocked his head, considering. Should he say something…? But she was smiling at him, her posture calm and assured again, and he dismissed it as more stasis nonsense. She was fine. She was a Jetii, wasn’t she? Wouldn’t appreciate the undue concern from the likes of him, of that Toby was certain.

“I’m glad to see that our supplies are in order, Captain. If you’d like to say your goodbyes to any of your brothers and gather whatever else you need, I’ll meet you on our transport when you're ready?” Toby knew a dismissal when he heard one, so he nodded and stood. It wasn’t important for her to know that there were no brothers on board who cared much about his comings and goings, so he followed her out of medbay, went right when she went left, making his way to the armory to check out his DCs. They were the same ones. The armorer, Oops, held him for about fifteen minutes because she wanted to know just what he’d gotten into for the blasters to need the kind of TLC she’d had to put into them to make them serviceable again. Since she loved his babies probably more than he did, he did her the solid of telling her the story blow by blow. They needed to let the kid out to see a little action now and then, but she had the magic touch when it came to breathing life into weapons that looked beyond saving. He made a note to bring her something nice back from wherever the hell he was headed if he could.

“All set?” Knight Kaid asked when she spotted him heading up the ship’s ramp with his weapons and pack. He paused halfway up to see her walking his way, a backpack and cloak slung over her shoulder, and a pink and blue astromech droid following after her.

“Yes, sir. Ready to go when you are.” He said, still studying the droid. It was of the same type as Skywalker’s R2-D2 though he doubted Knight Kaid’s was near as modified. The little droid’s casing was mainly white and pink with blue detailing. As the droid and her mistress walked up the ramp, the droid beeped at him in a distinctly disapproving manner. Knight Kaid laughed.

“Captain Toby, this is R6-D4. R6, this is Captain Toby. He’s a vital part of this mission, young lady, so be on your best behavior. Captain, if you don’t mind raising the ramp? I’ll get us into hyperspace while you’re getting settled in your quarters, and then we’ll try and puzzle out what the kriff we can do.” She called from within the ship, and Toby was halfway through following her orders before the rest of her sentence fully registered in his conscious mind.

“Skywalker, what the hell have you gotten me into?” He murmured as he watched the ramp close and felt the rumble of the engines warming. The ship shuddered slightly as it became airborne, lifting up and away from the Resolute. Toby put his hand against the hull and closed his eyes, breathed slowly and deep to attune himself to the hum of this ship and these engines, breathed out again when he felt the gentle lurch once they made the jump to hyperspace. Only then did he find the empty room that was his and dump his helmet and pack. Toby would have to be careful. More careful than he usually was. There was something…

He hovered just inside the doorway of the cockpit. His steps were light and near-silent, but Kaid still spun around in the slow, measured way of someone who’d sensed his presence a long way off. Her expression was not as animated as it had been on the ramp or even in medbay. Still, he thought it was softer and more genuine now, the tilt of the faint smile on her lips more real than even the playfulness she and Skywalker had openly displayed with one another. He rested his weight against the frame, at a more relaxed position of parade rest, and the faint smile widened.

“Our objective is a world called Cassios-7. The scans are centuries old, the latest intel just as ancient. There are Temple ruins there, and you and I have been asked to recover the important artifact that has been minding its own business all these long years. Sounds delightful.” She said dryly, and he didn’t know what to do with the odd desire he had to laugh at her tone. Rather than heed it, he tilted his head slightly in acknowledgment. The beautiful Jetii’s lips quirked curiously at him before she continued.

“Luckily for us, Anakin wasn’t too terribly far off from Cassios-7 to begin with. We should be there within five hours. A few days, a week at most, and I’ll have you back with your brothers and all the comforts of civilization, Captain.”

“I can’t wait.” He said in much the same tone she had just used. She smiled widely and motioned for him to sit in the copilot’s chair. Toby moved to obey, masking his surprise. None of the other Jetiise he’d had the displeasure of working with since leaving the Guard had ever offered him a seat. As he gingerly eased into the chair next to her, he realized he’d relegated all Jetiise barring Skywalker and Kenobi as being on the same moral level as the snobby senators. They treated him and his brothers as little more than well-trained animals.

“I love your enthusiasm, Captain,” she quipped, her gaze casual but somehow probing even as she threw her legs over the arm of her seat, careless of the way the edges of her kama splayed around it to display the bare skin of her legs from mid-thigh to the tops of those sturdy boots.

“It’s one of my better traits, sir.” He said, proud of how evenly the words left him and glad for his helmet and the way it hid the direction of his eyes. It would have been harder not to look at the dark brown of her legs when they were in such close quarters. The only way to avoid it would be not to look at her at all, which would be rude. And obvious. Behavior like that would land him in the stasis tank, and he was so tired of that, so tired of being put in storage when he wasn’t in use, like a rifle that didn’t have an owner.

It was just that she was so pretty. It was just that when she used his name, it felt like she meant it. And that must be a trick, right? Some Jetiise power he was only just encountering: this ability she had to make him feel important just by looking at him and saying his name.

In his lap, his hands flexed as he tried to dispel the unwelcome tension in them. Just a few days. You can handle that, can’t you?

Their first view of Cassios-7 was as they dropped out of hyperspace and settled into lazy orbit around it to complete a few scans to update their intel. The planet was a sapphire jewel flecked with shards of amethyst and emerald, whispers of white clouds swirling at its poles and trailing like wedding veils behind the sparsely located but dense and steaming jungle island chains that were the main landmasses. The purple was floating remnants of destroyed Temples, this planet having, as Jotopa theorized with a furrowed brow and an exhilarated light in her eyes, been part of some ancient war and then lost to obscurity.

“I can only imagine that it’s all this fighting that’s awakened the artifact inside the remaining Temple structure,” she said pensively.

“So, we’ve been called here to retrieve it before the Separatists do and possibly weaponize it against us, sir?” Toby asked as he watched her hands move over the controls. She had slender, elegant fingers. Her movements were competent, the fingernails blunt and bitten down, though this did not negate his preceding opinion one bit. She had hands that looked like they knew their way around a blaster. He jerked his eyes up to her face, flushed to see her smiling at him with seeming pleasure at his comment.

“I believe so, Captain. You and I may be able to save a lot of lives by securing this artifact.” She answered, and he didn’t think he was wrong in identifying a note of melancholy in her voice. He filed the observation away, shifted his focus toward the glittering shards of Temple ruins sedately hovering on one of the floating rock isles. Jotopa locked in a course towards it and stood up to stretch.

“Alright, then! We’ve got a few minutes until we land, so I’m going-”

There was a strange jolt; that’s what the both of them would later recall. A jolt and a winding down sound and then the s i c k e n i n g lurching of the stomach as it rammed up past the heart and made a home next to the brain stem.

Falling, free falling.

Heaving breathing. The sound of his blood pounding in his ears drowning out everything for a terrifying moment before everything snapped into laser focus.

Knight Kaid’s hands grappling with the controls. Her eyes, fierce, determined, focused.

Silence loud with the sound of turbulence and rushing wind.

Green, so much fucking green, rich with brown and purple and the azure blue of the sky, and Maker’s tears, they were going to die, they were going to die, they were going to -

[brooklynfm]

            { aisha dee. twenty-six. cis woman. she / her} Did you see BROOKLYN MCCARTHY left their door cracked open again. You think they’d learn after living in 3A for TWO YEARS. Last time they did this you could hear LIABILITY by LORDE blasting in the hallway. If you passed by you might have even caught a glimpse of them  DOODLING IN THEIR FAVORITE SKETCHBOOK. The rest of the floor says they can be CLUMSY and MAGNANIMOUS . Seeing them in the halls always reminds me of THE BRIGHT SOUND OF JOYOUS LAUGHTER, STRAWBERRY SCENTED PERFUMES FILLING EVERY ROOM SHE WALKS INTO, and LATE NIGHT TEXTS LEFT ON READ. { raq / she/her / cst }

okay hello!! you’ll probably catch me on discord but you’re welcome to dm here too. quick introduction i’m raq and this intro is... a bit messy. i’m ironing out brooklyn a little more so if she’s totally different in a week -- pretend she isn’t lmao. i love love love to plot with you guys and get writing asap ( i miss writing SO much). sorry if this intro is a bit long like i said, still working out the kinks. alright, hit me up! 

full  name:  brooklyn  layla  mccarthy

gender: cis woman

pronouns: she / her 

nicknames:  lyn or/and brooks 

age: twenty - six

date of birth: march 18th

sign: Pisces  

place of birth:  new york, new york ( the bronx ) 

sexuality: bisexual

biography  /  (  tw; divorce mentions, I think that’s it !  )* 

Lydia Sheffield often describes the day she learned she was pregnant was the “final bullet” to an already dying relationship with her parents. At the ripe age of 16, Lydia had to confess to her ultra religious parents that she was pregnant with 17 year old Myles McCarthy’s child. The middle class and conservative  Sheffield family were absolutely furious. Her father, Jeremiah Sheffield and his wife, Esther Sheffield were so indignant that their own daughter would go against their purity beliefs they kicked her out. Naturally, it was the McCarthy family who took Lydia Sheffield into their own home. Lydia and Myles were madly in love, despite both of their parents' critiques of them being so young. The couple decided to simply get their GED’s and work on saving up for a place of their own. and, lucky for them, the McCarthy’s already owned a second house just a few blocks away. gotta love having the convenient landlords for  parents  They  rented it out to Myles and Lydia as an easy way to stay close to their  future grandchild.

Myles McCarthy always talks about how bitter cold it was the day his only daughter was born. a long, painful, thirteen hour labor led  to the birth of their pride and joy. 

There was nothing under the sun that Brooklyn didn’t try. A childhood filled with chasing the whim and  wonder of a forever curious child.  At age five she would’ve already tried and hated ballet. By six, it was piano. Seven, soccer. Yearly, changing hobbies and interests and never truly getting very good at any of them  ( she’d never stick to them long enough ).  Up until she was around eight when she dove into her grandmother’s old painting set, easel and all left behind in their old shed. It was like love at first brush, painting was the first outlet that Brooklyn had and never strayed away from. Suddenly, her days were filled with the billions of colors and canvases of scribbles resembling her mother’s favorite flower or the neighbor’s dog she loved so dearly. Growing up only a child to a hardworking, young waitress and a mechanic, Brooklyn spent a good amount of time in quiet solitude and vying for her parents' costly attention with her latest works of art.  Time is money thus their hectic work schedules didn’t exactly allot tons of bonding time with their daughter.  A lonesome childhood that only led such a glowing extrovert to really shine in school. Though her reasonable likability doesn’t exactly lead to popularity. Brook was hardly popular and didn’t really have a stable friend group most of the time. Not for lack of trying, however.  She was a clear social chameleon who tried to get along with anyone. Not quite fitting in but not really belonging either. A real people pleaser -- which almost always lends to teenhood of bad circumstances in a multitude of friendships and relationships.  

And her teen years only got progressively more complicated. Remember how her parents were so  “in love”? Well, the lack of time for their daughter bred a lack of time for each other as well.  Big surprise, her mother was a serial cheater. Her late night jobs at the diner were actually trips she’d take to go see some guy named Peter. Of course, having gone to the diner just to surprise his wife only to see she wasn’t even there, Myles always suspected she was cheating on him. Lydia got a bit reckless and brought the man home one day while Myles was out of town. Brooklyn walked in on them and their marriage was history. After this, her relationship with her mother weakened as her father grew even more distant -- willfully burying himself in his work rather than properly coping with his emotions despite gaining full custody of his daughter. The burned marriage and constant worry for money a big distraction in being heavily involved in her life. . 

Going away for college and making it on her own was meant to be her way out of her small town. Getting into NYU with her portfolio studying studio art, things were looking quite bright for Brooklyn even despite her fragile relationship with the only family she has back home. Though, she’d soon discover her talents aren’t getting her nearly as far as she hoped. So now, with a healthy bit of debt and a decent job at an art museum -- the life of a lost and very lonesome late twenty-something is in full swing. She spends a good chunk of her free time out at bars or painting in her room, wondering if this is really all her life will come to be. 

personality  /  ( musing tag here ! ) * 

Her independence is huge to her, likes being able to care for herself and others without  help. A real motivated go-getter type ( though as of the last few years, she is struggling to remain optimistic  ).  Brooklyn is booksmart. But,  still has plenty of maturing to do. Can be perceived as naïve in that regard due to her people pleasing and will to do... essentially anything to be liked. 

Just a sweet soul deep down and very loyal. Subsequently, tends to be the first to forgive anyone no matter how much they might’ve slighted her. Horrid at taking criticism ( she’s very sensitive) definitely the type to sugar coat the truth to save someone’s feelings. 

Impulsive to a fault, probably has a billion stories of the crazy she has gotten herself into. Clumsy meaning she tends to just stumble into and fumble through situations for better and ( the more likely option ) for worse. While loyal to a fault often, she’ll change her mind quickly loose interest in frivolous relationships.  Not very smooth with letting people down or saying no either.  

To sum up, I feel like she gives off really great positive vibes. Just cozy caring warm that is somewhat a mask to hide her constant indecisive impulsivities and craving for belonging. ( that got... emo -- ksdfjasd ) 

wanted connection  /  ( click here for some more ideas ! ) *

tbh i’m down for whatever you guys might need for your muses but off the top of my head... 

would love to see a best friend or two ! the first few people she grew close to during her time at floor3

college friends

work friends ( not just at the museum, could’ve met while she was in college at part-time job )

exes turned really good friends

really anything!

[eastsidestella]

( SYDNEY SWEENEY , 22, CIS WOMAN ) I JUST BUMPED INTO [ STELLA MONTGOMERY ] THE OTHER DAY WHILE WALKING DOWN [ EAST ] KINGSBORO, WHERE [ SHE] LIVES. I HEAR THEY CAN BE [ ALLURING ] AND [ RECKLESS ], BUT WHEN I THINK OF THEM I IMMEDIATELY THINK ABOUT [ GLOSSY LIPS, HIGH HEELS, AND EXPOSED HICKIES ON YOUR NECK ] (SARAH, 24, SHE/HER, EST )

Trigger warnings for mentions of alcoholism, child neglect, and drug abuse 

Stella is the oldest out of five children. She has two brothers and two sisters. Their ages are the following: Nick (sixteen), Amelia (twelve), Liam (eight), and Serenity (four).

Stella’s parents were ultimately the kind of people who probably should have never gotten married, nor had children. 

They have always been quite the chaotic couple, always hot and cold, up and down. It was never out of the ordinary for them to have constant arguments and have the cops called on them for domestic disputes. Let’s just say, their neighbors always hated the small army of a family. 

The Montgomery clan has always been broke from the start. Stell’s mom and dad could never hold down a job for too long, getting fired and having to somehow find new one’s. They were constantly behind on bills, rent, and everything in between. From a young age, she learned how to pick pocket from people, steal, and overall be a great con-artist. Who else was going to put food on the table?

Growing up in East Kingsboro meant that she gravitated towards the ‘trouble makers’ as far as kids her own age. She began partying and sneaking out as early as thirteen, fourteen. Chain smoking cigarettes, drinking straight vodka from the bottle, running from the cops? All apart of her routine. Even though she has always been a wild child, she has always made sure not to go over the edge. The last thing she wanted to do was end up like her parents.

Stella ended up having to drop out of high school half way through her junior year due to her mom dipping out on her whole family. Her dad had relapsed yet again with his alcohol addiction and somebody had to step up and try to keep a roof over their heads. While she secretly wanted to maybe try and graduate (even though she was far from a model student), family has always come first to her - always.

Worked mulitple jobs when she was seventeen to nineteen, but always disappointed that she could never come home to any decent income. 

Ended up applying to work as a bartender at Peppermints, eventually mustering up enough courage to audition as a stripper there. She’s been dancing at the club since she was nineteen.

In addition to being a stripper, she escorts on the side. Stella books private meetings and has build up quite the list of connections.

She’s pretty and she knows it and is not afraid of using it for her benefit.

Secretly has a love for drawing / doodling. Her ultimate goal in life is to possibly be a tattoo artist.

For now? She’s wanting to save enough money to set aside for her sibling’s college fund and buy a house in one of the nicer parts of Kingsboro. 

I will probably add more to this, but hopefully this is enough for you all to get to know Stella more!

[n1ghtt1me-stars]

Part 10 (1)

Warlock saunters vaguely through life (Warlock saunters vaguely into their lives part 10) - this work is around 20,000 words so will be uploaded in eight parts every week

work on ao3, part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven, part eight, part nine  

The five years after the non-apocalypse passed quickly and peacefully.

And Warlock really didn't want anything to change.

In school, he had very few friends - really they were more acquaintances than friends - other quiet people he sat with in the library and the computer suite because everyone knew that they wouldn't disturb each other. Warlock wasn't even a hundred per cent certain on all their names.

After his last GCSE exam, he went straight home. It was physics and Warlock was pretty sure he lost all the marks except on the parts about Space, as Crowley had helped him revise that topic. There was talk about a party that all his year was invited to, but it felt presumptive to assume he was a part of that group.

The tube had become part of his everyday routine: headphones in, head down and praying that it wasn't crammed (though it usually was).

There was a well-done-on-your-exams cake waiting when he arrived home. Crowley and Aziraphale stood proudly behind the table with the cake on it. Smiling, Warlock walked over and gave them a hug. Neither of them really understood human school though they celebrated each achievement and somehow cake became a part of it.

Aziraphale began to plate some slices of cake while Crowley turned to him and asked, "How was school, dear?"

"S'alright," Warlock replied. "Hated the test but my physics teacher gave us sweets afterwards. I think she pitied us."

Crowley laughed and Warlock continued with descriptions of his classmates' looks of despair. Aziraphale chimed in with "Oh those poor dears. Were exams one of mine or yours?"

Leaning back in his chair as he thought, Crowley eventually said, "I can't remember. I think I did it but it could have been a favour."

"I swear," Warlock said, "if you didn't give me cake, I would be really annoyed right now."

**

Later that evening, Warlock laid on his bed on his phone. Somehow, he had become friends with Adam and his lot. Not so much Wensleydale and Brian (Warlock did get Wensleydale's help with physics as well though it didn't pay off). He spoke a bit with Adam who really liked plants, and Warlock had grown up in Crowley's garden so they had some common ground.

Mostly, Warlock messaged Pepper. They both did ICT as a hobby and as a GCSE (Brian also did the exam but only because he thought it would be easy). Pepper was also into social justice and Warlock knew the best way to be heard in both Britain and America through his father’s complaints.

(They also both liked romantic comedies and were too ashamed to admit it to anyone else)

Is Adam still prepping for the party? Warlock sent Pepper after their rants about exams died off.

Of course. Been planning this since his fifteenth. Warlock can feel Pepper rolling her eyes. He's even made a truce with Johnson because he can get drinks for the after-party.

 That's dedication. How's he hiding it from his parents?

 Convinced Anathema it’s a rite of passage. She's going to distract all the adults including your parents after the barbecue so we can go to the treehouse.

Sounds fun. And it really did. Since his eleventh birthday, it had become a tradition to throw a joint party with Adam. His parents were usually abroad so they travelled to Tadfield for roughly a week.

 To you maybe. Adam’s been setting up rubbish bags and threatening to fight anyone who litters in his woods.

 Haha so glad I don't help plan these things

Wish you did, Pepper quickly replied before sending another message, it's annoying that you can't come during Christmas or Easter

 I know. Two more years and then I don't have to go back to my parents’ house.

Only two years. Can't believe we're all growing up. Pepper sent.

Yeah, neither could he. Growing up was a surreal thing. Changes happened without you noticing; he doesn't know when the last time he called Crowley Nanny was. He remembered being teased for having servants and stopped referring to Nanny in school. And then, it bled into his home life. Warlock wasn't sure if Crowley noticed because he never said anything, but it made Warlock a little sad thinking about it.

 I know. Think Adam will mature once we turn 16?

 Nope. Still be thinking he's the centre of the universe till someone knocks him down a couple of pegs

Warlock laughed aloud at that. Adam was regularly self-centred, but he meant well most of the time. Once, when they were thirteen, he didn't talk to Warlock for weeks after he couldn't come over for Christmas despite him explaining why. It took Pepper hitting him for Adam to apologise.

The year after, Adam posted a book about coding to the Dowling house. Warlock still wasn't sure how he got that address.

Before he could reply to Pepper, she messaged again that her mum needed her so she'd talk tomorrow. It was only ten so Warlock doodled in his notebook a bit; he could do rough sketches of a variety of plants and flowers without thinking. For his art GCSE, most of his coursework had been based around plants because he could use Crowley's garden as a source. A few years ago, Crowley had expanded to a greenhouse on the roof (which Warlock was pretty sure was closed off to tenants) and it was so beautiful and full of lush plants in there.

It was definitely one of Warlock's favourite places.

A couple of weeks later (most of it was spent catching up on sleep), Warlock packed for their trip to Tadfield. Technically, he wasn't a military kid like the others he grew up with who moved every few years. But, on the other hand, as a diplomat's son, he went on more short-haul trips so packing was a breeze.

Going through his mental list, he packed his clothes effectively so he could take his tablet and laptop. He knew Aziraphale would be taking enough books for the week so he didn't have to worry about that.

Suitcase ready and his phone on charge for the car journey, he went up to the roof. He passed Aziraphale prepping packed lunches in the kitchen: most likely simple sandwiches if he was trying to make something without magic.

It was a rare clear day and Warlock could see miles of the city all around from the rooftop however he couldn't hear the busy streets. Apparently, plants needed a calm, clean atmosphere (even though they were already in a greenhouse) so the roof was quiet and smelled of clean air and not the usual scent of exhaust fumes.

Pushing open the door to the greenhouse, Warlock was met with a warm wall of humidity. Crowley stood over some vibrant green ferns with his water sprayer, inspecting for any damage and threatening them.

"You all better grow well when I'm away," he said as the leaves trembled. "or you'll know what'll happen. I don't think any of you can survive a fall from a roof."

Warlock gently stroked a shaking leaf and it stopped trembling. As if communicating with the others, all the plants went still and Crowley turned to glare at him. "You and Aziraphale are way too nice to them."

"Yeah," Warlock said, "We're the ones who are too nice."

Crowley waved the spray bottle at him before giving the plants one last glare. Walking out of the greenhouse, Crowley asked, "Are you ready to go?"

To be honest, his stomach was turning. Each year, it was terrifying to be celebrating his birthday with people he only saw once a year and only knew because he was standing in the background when the world nearly ended.

"Yep, can't wait," Warlock said. He must have sounded convincing because Crowley told him to put his stuff in the car before going to find Aziraphale.

**

They stayed in the same rented cottage every year that was always empty despite it being the height of summer. Like the flat, it was a lot smaller than the house he grew up in, but Warlock preferred it. Every floorboard creaked and the chairs felt like they would collapse whenever someone sat on them but it was never empty.

Unsurprisingly, they arrived before lunchtime because of Crowley's driving, so they had the sandwiches at the cottage. Warlock had several messages from Pepper demanding he come into the woods as soon as possible because Adam is getting stressy about the party and someone needs to distract him.

Leaving Aziraphale and Crowley to sort out the cottage, Warlock jumped the fence in the garden as it was the quickest route into the woods. He only came once a year, but he could walk this path with his eyes closed. It was cool beneath the shade of the trees, yet the light that filtered through made the whole area a nice golden hue. The air had a similar feel to the greenhouse: clean, fresh and the furthest thing from the city air.

The first thing he heard was Adam's voice. "Hang the paper chains evenly in the branches," he shouted. Warlock walked into the slight clearing in time to see Pepper glare at Adam. "Please," he added reluctantly at her look.

No one was really sure if Adam still had his powers, but Adam swung round to lock eyes with Warlock as if he just knew he was there.

"Warlock!" He shouted and smiled widely. However, Warlock's response was cut off when a weight slammed into the back of his knees. Stumbling forwards, Warlock stopped himself from falling as Dog continued to jump and bark at him. For some reason, Dog was always overly enthusiastic around him and no one else.

"Hey," Warlock said as Dog ran over and sat down at Adam's ankles. "How are you?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Adam said. "It's good you're here actually, you can help Wensleydale with the paper chains. He has no idea how to spread the colours evenly."

Looking over at the tree, Warlock could see what Adam meant. There was a large patch of red on one side of the tree, a couple of stands if blue next to it (where Wensleydale was precariously sitting) and other colours in a pile on the floor. If left to his own devices, all the colours would end up in distinct blocks which would just look weird. "Sure," Warlock said, "I'll save the tree."

"Thank you," Adam said earnestly. Suddenly, he shouted "Brian, no!" before running off to deal with another impending disaster.

On his way over, Warlock said hi to Pepper who was setting up some solar-powered garden lights. "We'll have to take some of that red down," he said to Wensleydale who was clambering down from the tree.

"Yeah," Wensleydale said sadly. He cleaned his glasses on his shirt and put them back on to stare at the paper chains. "I guess it would look better if they were mixed together."

"Yeah..." Warlock said as he studied the colours. "If you get back up in the tree, I'll pass them up and we can spread them out?"

"Sounds good," Wensleydale replied and he climbed the tree again. As they worked, they chatted mostly about the recent exams because that was the only common ground they had.

"How did your RE go?" Wensleydale asked. Warlock was grateful that they had quickly moved on from the physics paper.

"Alright I think," he said as he passed up a green chain. "But it didn't help that Aziraphale kept telling me about misprinted bible quotes. They were all I could remember in the exam."

"Oh, I read about some of those. I think my favourite was 'Thou shalt commit Adultery'."

Laughing, Warlock said, "Nah, 'the unrighteous shall inherit the Kingdom of God' is definitely the best one. It's amazing how these were so wrong with just little mistakes."

Finally finished with the tree (which now looked like an explosion of colour instead of a paint-by-number), Warlock realised that his stomach was growling. Brian and Pepper disappeared a while ago once they had finished their jobs and Wensleydale quickly left as well, claiming he was tired from scrambling around the tree. That just left him and Adam, who was trying to get Dog to stop playing with a scrap piece of paper that he was intent on tearing to bits.

"Dog, drop it!" Adam said. Warlock laughed as Dog ignored him. "Drop it," Adam continued sternly, "or no treats for dinner."

Dog dropped it and Adam looked at Warlock smugly. "I'm pretty sure he only stopped because you mentioned treats," Warlock said and Adam's expression faltered slightly.

No," he said stubbornly. "Dog understood the threat."

"Sure he did," Warlock said, filling his voice with sarcasm. "Well," he added, "I'm hungry so I'm going to ..."

"Come to mine," Adam interrupted. "My mum will be preparing dinner soon."

"Uh..." Warlock couldn't see a valid reason to refuse, except that being around the adult Youngs was weird, but he couldn't admit that to their son. "Sure," he said, "let me just message Crowley."

"Awesome," Adam said, and, as soon as Warlock put his phone back in his pocket, grabbed his arm and started dragging Warlock to his house.

*

Excluding all the supernatural elements, Warlock wondered if there was anyone else in a similar situation where the child was the one to know that they were adopted and not the adult.

He couldn't help thinking about it as Mrs Young pulled him into a hug and Mr Young gave him a firm handshake. Really, he looked nothing like Mrs Young who shared the same light hair and soft face with Adam, and the only similarity he had with Mr Young was the dark hair colour that his mum also had. Adam, though, did actually look like their son despite not being related.

The situation was strange and Warlock usually tried to ignore it, especially around his family because his father could not find out he wasn't biologically his.

It would be the straw that broke the camel's back; it would be all the excuse his father needed to disown him.

"Sit down," Mrs Young said, ushering Warlock and Adam to the dining table. "I'm making bangers and mash so I hope you're hungry."

"They're vegetarian by the way," Adam said to him.

"Yeah, that's fine," Warlock said. He knew that Adam went vegetarian a while back and that his parents followed his example. Anyway, you could never go wrong with sausages and potatoes.

Warlock could hear the sound of ceramic plates being set out and the kettle whistling in the kitchen. Despite his reservations, Warlock did love being in Adam's house. It was loud and full of life and reminded him of the times when he, Aziraphale and Crowley tried to make a new dish together (with varying degrees of success). It was also the furthest thing from the empty estate that he used to live in.

Once everyone was sat down and eating, Mr Young turned to him and asked, "So, what exams did you do Warlock?"

"Uh, ICT, RE and art," Warlock said, "plus English, maths and combined science of course."

"A good range," Mr Young said, meeting Warlock’s eyes as if he was genuinely interested, "Your parents must be proud."

"Yep," Warlock said, quickly shoving a forkful of mash into his mouth so he didn't have to say anymore. He was pretty sure his father's lecture on why he should do more useful subjects like politics or business lasted an hour when Warlock told him his chosen options.

Thankfully, Adam started talking about the party. He omitted the part about the truce and Johnson bringing alcohol but he waved his cutlery around as he spoke about all the decorations and the games they' were going to play in the woods.

"I'm thinking that we play games that we used to play as kids," Adam said, as though he never stopped playing those games. "Forty forty in is good in the dark..."

"How do you play?" Warlock asked.

Adam turned to look at him with wide eyes, "You've never played?" Adam said. Warlock looked away slightly from his shocked look. As a child, the only game he could remember playing was soccer (well football here, that was probably the only American thing about Warlock) when some of his mother's friends brought their children round. Names of games like 'bulldog' and '123 home' were suggested if he remembered correctly but soccer was the only thing they all knew so they didn't have to waste time explaining it. He never had regular friends to develop these kinds of games with.

"No..." Warlock eventually said, focused on the food in front of him as he cut the sausages into tiny, regular pieces. "I've never heard of it."

"That's fine," Adam said, his cheerful mood not at all affected. "You can be on my team and we’ll destroy the others."

"We never played in teams," Mrs Young added. "If you was IT, you had to do it alone."

"Well, in my version there’s teams and it's more fun when you have someone to work with."

"Okay dear, finish your food," Mrs Young said, gesturing to Adam's half full plate which he had been ignoring whenever he spoke.

They finished in relative silence and Warlock helped Mrs Young carry the plates into the kitchen as Adam took Dog out into the garden. "You're such a polite boy," she said, "not like the chaotic demon I raised." Warlock laughed though it was more at the fact that she didn't know how right she was. "Are you excited for the barbeque tomorrow?" she asked.

"Yeah," Warlock said. "Thank you for hosting it again. They're always brilliant. This will be the fifth one-- won't it?"

"Oh its no trouble," Mrs Young said, dismissing his praise with a wave of her hand. "I can't believe you're all growing up so fast. Soon, you'll be at university and then adults. First, it was Adam's sister and now Adam. Oh God," she paused and wiped her eyes, "I better stop before I start weeping."

Warlock scuffed his feet against the floor. "It's alright," he said, feeling like an intruder. Adam had told him late one night in a rare honest conversation that his older sister visited less and less and that it made his mother upset. In return, Warlock told him how his parents had been distant growing up and he disliked people like his sister, who selfishly took their parents' love for granted.

Adam didn't argue with him. He only said that he was glad Warlock was with Aziraphale and Crowley now.

"Go hang out with Adam," Mrs Young said as she shooed him out of the kitchen. "I'll get Arthur to help me."

Leaving her shouting for her husband, Warlock went into the garden where he found Adam laying on the recently-mowed grass with Dog. The sun was just setting, turning the sky red (Warlock hoped that meant the weather would be good tomorrow for their birthday). Sitting down next to him, Warlock saw that Adam's eyes were closed but he knew that Adam was aware that he was there. He waited in silence until Adam opened his eyes.

From his position sitting up, Warlock had to lean over slightly so he could make eye contact with Adam. "Are you going to stay there all night?" he asked.

"Maybe," Adam said with a smirk. Honestly, Warlock wouldn't be surprised if Adam actually did as he always seemed to belong more outside.

"In that case," Warlock said as he stood up, "I'll be heading back to sleep in a proper bed."

Adam groaned but scrambled quickly to his feet. "I'll walk you back," he said. There were grass stains all down his back and loose stands in his hair. Warlock tried to help by picking some of the pieces out but stopped quickly when he felt Adam still beneath his hand.

"You don't have to," Warlock said, feeling slightly guilty for disturbing him.

Adam waved him off. "I want to," he said, smiling brightly.

Adam took them along the main road instead of the through the woods even though it was longer. Surprisingly, Adam kept quiet (only interrupting occasionally to ask questions) when Warlock spent most of the walk talking about some new plants Crowley had gotten recently and how they were so pretty Warlock had already drawn them many times trying to capture them right.

Finally, they reached the cottage. Pausing at the gate to say goodbye, Warlock was shocked when Adam pulled him into a quick hug. Adam pulled away too soon for Warlock to hug him back and said, "You're so going to love your present tomorrow."

"I bet my present for you is better," Warlock said almost automatically as his brain was still processing the hug.

Adam laughed and said, "Doubt it," before running off.

When Warlock woke up the next morning, his memory of his conversation with Adam was crystal clear while the rest of the evening after that was a complete blur in his mind.

Next part

[thenovelartist]

His Heart Song

Hot dang, this was supposed to be short!!! But my muses wouldn’t fricking shut up. This is based off @edendaphne‘s  Lukanette commission for @bbwoulfc.

Even if you don’t like the pairing, it’s a beautiful picture and I LOVE IT!!!!

~AO3~   ~Fanfiction~

...

The first time he met her was because his sister brought her over to hang out. Just like Juleka, she was thirteen, two years younger than him. She was adorable and easily flustered and all over the place like a bee over a flower field.

He enjoyed teasing her when she stuttered. Surprisingly, it got her to relax, which got her to calm down just enough for him to hear her heart song.

He played it for her, and that was the beginning of their friendship.

Within weeks, he was able to read her inside and out, and she didn’t hang out here with his sister that often. Yet, reading her was second nature. Which was surprising considering he had to dig under her wave of notes to get to her heart song. And even if it did take extra time, he found out…

It was worth it.

…

“Why is your heart like this?” he asked, playing her heart song, something sharp and stuttering.

She smiled bitterly. “I’m just a little nervous.”

“Why? For the date?”

She nodded. “I mean, I’m excited to go and he’s a nice guy. I’ve just never been on a date before.”

He hummed. “Would you feel more comfortable if I took you there and took you home?”

She mulled it over, her lips in a line. She didn’t want to bother him.

He smiled. “That’s a yes?” Luka said.

“How do you do that?”

“Magic,” he always said.

It always got her to smile. “Only if you’re willing.”

“Of course. Anything for a friend.”

“Then yes, I’d appreciate that, Luka.”

…

She was fifteen when Luka lead her to a first date for the last time. He would always be there for her, because she was his sister’s friend, because she was her friend, because she meant more to him than just a friend would.

And because he loved her that way, he encouraged her to go chase the guy she really liked.

He regretted it from the selfish standpoint. But he remembered true love wasn’t selfish. She didn’t owe him anything. And she didn’t belong to him. He couldn’t hold onto her nor old her back. So he let her go.

He played his heart song that night, and it sounded an awful lot like the breaking of a guitar string.

…

“Stay still,” she said, holding a sharpie to his arm.

“Why?” he asked with a chuckle.

The sixteen-year-old beauty flipped her hair away as she leveled him with a blue-eyed gaze. She was growing into a stunning woman, and her heart song was beautiful, too.

“You always know how to play people’s feelings,” she said. “While it took me a while, I finally figured out your pattern.”

“My pattern?” he asked, though he surrendered his arm to her as she tugged at it.

She nodded. “Yup. You know how some people walk down the street in a color or a pattern or a symbol that just screams ‘them’?” her face fell when she realized that she was the designer and he was the musician. “Oh, no, that’s not your thing. Anyways, it’s totally a thing, and you have a pattern that I only just figured out.”

He chuckled. She’d dove head first into fashion, and just when Luka was beginning to think she had reached the bottom, she dove deeper. But she was so passionate. Her heart song when she was like this was wild and wonderful and free. He could rock out to it for hours, easily.

Instead of rocking, though, he was listening. Listening to her hum everything from his original tunes to Jagged Stone songs as she doodled on his arm with the sharpie.

Two sharpies, actually. The black was shadows, but everything else was his favorite teal blue. “It suits you,” she had said.

For half an hour, he stayed and relaxed, feeling the sharpie color his arm and watching her expression change with every portion of it.

She grinned when she was done. “Your pattern, sir.”

He looked over the artwork that covered his arm from his shoulder to his wrist. The detail and time she put into it… it just fit. He could hear her heart song sing proudly over the work she’d done. It was such a beautiful sound. He played those chords over and over in his head until he memorized them. “I love it.”

She grinned in pride, and that song took off.

“What’s your symbol, pattern, color?”

She shrugged. “Symbol.”

“What is it?”

“A flower.”

“What kind?”

She shrugged. “A flower.”

“I want to see it,” he said. He looked up and down his arm before pointing to a free patch. “Here. I want to see it.”

She looked at him with a slowly growing smile of amusement. “If you insist.”

“I do.”

Which he rarely ever did.

She pulled out a pink sharpie, one that suited her to a tee, and doodled her flower in that open spot on his arm, right in the crook of his elbow that he could keep protected.

“It suits you,” he said, looking at the flower and feeling a warm beat fill his heart.

She just shrugged.

When she left, his mind raced back to her song. He wrote it down as quick as he could, then began playing it over and over again.

As he looked in the mirror that night and took in the artwork on his arm, the artwork the girl his heart sang for had done just for him, he realized that he couldn’t bear to part with it.

The next morning found him in a tattoo shop. It wasn’t cheap, but walking out at the end of the day, he knew it was worth it.

She was worth any cost.

…

“Luka, you did not get that tattooed on you.”

“I did.”

“I can’t believe you.”

“I like it,” he said with a smile. “Do you have a problem that I’m forever wearing your artwork?”

She shook her head, her grin unable to be hidden. “No,” she eventually said. “Not at all.”

…

He was so excited to share the news with her. Nineteen, and his dreams were coming true in the best way. His favorite artist had heard his stuff, loved it, and was ready to beg and grovel to buy a couple songs.

Luka had laughed at that.

But for the Jagged Stone to come to him and admit he loved Luka’s music was incredible, and Luka was willing to sell a couple on one condition.

“I want to play with you.”

Their impromptu jam session had been amazing. Jagged was a true artist, and Luka counted himself lucky his idol hadn’t let him down. He was a great guy who warned Luka to never stop honing his talent.

“Luka,” his mother called out, “Marinette’s here.”

He was buzzing with energy. And that all came to a halt when he caught sight of her, her heart song playing in his ears. Something slow that tugged on the heart strings and overflowed your tear ducts.

“What happened?”

She sniffed, wiping away a tear. “He just… ended it.”

So they sat on his bed, her head against his shoulder while he played anything that would ease the tears.

“You know,” he said once she had calmed down and was paying attention to his music. “Your heart it beautiful. It beats like this,” and he played for her.

“And I don’t like hearing it sound like this.” He played a few more notes, and he saw a smile pick up on the corners of her lips.

“And for that guy,” he continued. “To just end it like that?” He plucked a few disharmonious chords.

He felt like a winner when she huffed a laugh.

“Thank you, Luka.”

He smiled and continued playing a song for her. “Anything for you, Marinette.”

…

“So you’re really leaving?”

As excited as he was, he hated that the answer to her question was yes.

“Don’t get me wrong,” the eighteen-year-old girl said. “I’m really happy for you. Like, really happy. It’s amazing that you’ll be touring with Jagged Stone and playing your music and I’m really really happy for you to be living your dream.”

He could feel a ‘but’ coming.

She tackled him in a hug. “I’m going to miss you.”

He held her as tightly as he dared. Heaven help him, this was going to rip his heart out. “I’ll be back before you know it,” he lied.

“I know,” she said. “And I know you have to go. This… this is your dream. And people will love you and your songs and it will be amazing. I’m really happy for you.”

But she wasn’t happy. And he wasn’t happy she wasn’t happy.

“Keep in touch,” she begged.

“I promise.” Because his heart couldn’t take it if he didn’t.

…

He was loved by the crowds. People were buying up his music and his gear and talking about how much they loved Jagged Stone’s opening act.

But none of that love came from a girl with a beautiful heart song. They came from screaming fans who all wanted a piece of him. He couldn’t hear their music. He couldn’t play it back to them. But honestly, he didn’t quite care. There was only one song he wanted to hear.

And he hadn’t heard it in months.

Sometimes, he’d play her songs that he’d written down. It reminded him of her. Reminded him of home. Mostly, it grounded him. But there was always a part of him that realized that the songs were just a little emptier than he would like it to be.

“That’s some good stuff, mate,” Jagged commented.

“Thanks, but that’s not something I wrote.”

“Huh. Who wrote it?”

He paused. “People have songs. I just listen for them.”

“I hear where this is going,” Jagged said, smile in his tone. “Your girl?”

“I wish she was my girl,” Luka said. “But she’s just the girl I love.”

Jagged hummed. “You’ve told me about her, I think.”

“Probably,” Luka said with a mirthless smile.

“You see her lately?”

“With time differences and all, I rarely get a call. Mostly its e-mails and texts.”

Jagged hummed his understanding. “You should invite her to a show.”

“She’s busy studying her passion,” Luka said. “I won’t take that away from her.”

“Well, you can’t always go off living your dream while she’s living hers. You two gotta be a part of each other’s dream, too. Penny taught me that.”

Luka smiled in fondness. Jagged may be a rock star with a bunch of women screaming at him for his attention, but he understood the power of one woman vs a thousand. “Yeah, well, I won’t make her sacrifice too much. I’ll wait for her school to go on break.”

Jagged smirked. “Whatever you say. Just be careful that in letting her be, you aren’t pushing her away.”

Luka didn’t like how those words settled in his heart. So he put his guitar away for the night. And didn’t pick it up again until the show.

…

Two weeks later, and he was trying to figure out Marinette’s schedule so he could send her tickets.

“Luka,” Penny called form outside his door at the hotel. “Someone is here to see you.”

His brow furrowed in confusion, but he walked out into the hallway—

And his jaw dropped.

There, in a red tank top and jeans with her hair cascading around her shoulders was the one who made his heart sing.

She smiled. He couldn’t help it, he scooped her up as she flew into his arms, and he spun her in a couple circles before slowly setting her down on the ground.

“I missed you,” he murmured, one arm holding her against him while the other wove into her hair.

“I missed you, too,” she responded.

“How did you know I was here?”

She pulled away, and her expression turned confused. “You weren’t the one to send me tickets?”

“No,” he answered honestly. “I was waiting until you were out of school because I wouldn’t want you to miss it.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh,” she breathed out. “And… and here I thought it was because you didn’t want to see me.”

His eyes widened as something akin to a screeching violin sounded in his head. “Of course I wanted to see you,” he quickly assured. “But I couldn’t ask you to put your dream on hold for me.”

She smiled, a myriad of emotions pouring off her in one wonderful symphony. “It’s one week. That’s not ‘putting my dream on hold’.”

“I still didn’t want to interrupt your school work,” he said. “Design is your passion. Your dream.”

“And you don’t think you’re important enough to interrupt it?”

The tune changed right then and there. Everything changed to suddenly become harmonious and wonderful to his ears, and he could just stand there and listen to it forever.

“Are best friends important enough for that?” he asked quietly.

Her eyes fell away from his, her cheeks suddenly turning pink. However, her eyes fell to his tattoo. More specifically, her symbol in his pattern. Gingerly, she touched it, and he was certain his face turned pink, too.

“Luka,” she began, looking up to meet his gaze. Her breathing quickened, and his heart begged her to say the words he could hear in the wonderful melody rolling off her. “You… you need to know… after you left, things… they weren’t the same.”

“They haven’t been the same for me, either,” he encouraged.

“And…” her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m sorry for taking you for granted.”

“When have you ever?” he asked.

She touched his arm, the one with the tattooed sleeve on it, then looked back up to him. “Friends just don’t spontaneously decide to tattoo a doodle on their arm.”

“It’s my pattern,” he argued.

“Not this part,” she said, rubbing circles with her thumb over her symbol.

He smiled.

The music changed once again as understanding passed between them.

“Luka,” she whispered, her blush deepening. “I’m sorry for only just figuring it out.”

“It’s okay,” he assured.

“I love you.”

He beamed. He couldn’t help it. His fingers buried deep in her hair, wrapping around to cradle the back of her head as he pulled her closer to him. “I have always loved you, Marinette.”  

She smiled, leaning into his embrace as he smiled so widely his cheeks hurt.

“And,” he continued as he pulled her against his chest and pressed his nose into her hair. “I always will.”

[never---ending---story]

How do I passive Aggressively Say ‘Fuck You’ In Flower

Possible Triggers: Swearing

word count: 3058

—————————————————

Eli’s eyes scanned over the words of the gardening magazine he was reading. He wasn’t necessarily processing them but he knew that if Nicolette found out she’d scold him for not trying. Which was completely fair, he wasn’t trying. He just needed extra money. The only thing that seemed to catch his interest was the flower meanings but last time Nicolette caught him reading the same book on flower meanings she said that if he didn’t learn how to pot a plant he’d be dead, and he really couldn’t afford to die with his scholarship on the line. So sitting behind the counter of a flower shop it was. A flower shop that was mainly just him sitting at a counter reading about how to actually take care of a plant. He may be learning how to save human lives but for the sake of all, you hold dear don’t let him plant sit. Nicolette was teaching him, but it was difficult for him to catch on.

Honestly, as much as Eli wanted to have a plant, to be able to say he had a son named Carl who was actually just a mason jar with a small cactus sitting in it, he just didn’t understand why they needed to be so high maintenance. It didn’t make sense. He could take care of a rabbit but not a fucking shrub. Eli heaved a sigh and pushed his glasses up his nose. He was bored beyond belief and was extremely relieved to hear the bell above the door jingle. He sat up.

“Mr.davidson we just got- oh” Eli was expecting the same old man who came on every day to get a flower for his wife, but instead it was a really cute boy.  The guy looked to be about his age with feathery black hair and annoyed brown eyes. He looked upset. He had on platform boots, pale blue jeans, and a black t-shirt with a simple doodle of a mountainscape. He had a set scowl on his lips as he walked up to the counter, leaning against it.

“How do I passive-aggressively say fuck you in a flower bouquet?’ he asked with an indignant tone. That question had definitely caught Eli off guard.

“Uhm,” he thought about it “meadowsweet flowers mean uselessness”

“That’s a bit harsh don’t you think?” the guy questioned

Eli shrugged “You’re the one asking how to say fuck you in flower.” Eli bit his lip and thought for a moment “I do think I can arrange a bouquet to say that though. Unless you just want orange lilies. They mean hatred. That’s close enough right”

The corner of the guy’s lip twitched but it went away as soon as it appeared. “Tell me about the bouquet oh wise flower boy”

Eli let himself smile at him “Well it has meadowsweet, which as I already said, mean uselessness. Foxgloves mean insincerity, Geraniums -- stupidity, yellow carnations-- you have disappointed me and the orange lilies.”

The guy considered that “would you get that for me flower boy?”

Eli chuckled “Sure thing sir,” he said, stepping from behind the counter, “would you like a card with that?” he asked as he grabbed the Geraniums.

The guy propped his head on his hand, still leaning on the counter “sure. I’ll let you fetch my bouquet of doom while I think of what to put”

Eli nodded and shuffled around picking out the nicest flowers he found for this special boy, even if his bouquet was less than friendly. Once he had gathered all the flowers, he grabbed a sheet of paper to wrap them up. No matter how many times Nicolette had taught him how to wrap them he always messed up, but this time it didn’t quite matter for this bouquet of pissed off glory. He looked up at the man who wanted the flowers. He had a teasing smirk on his face as he watched Eli struggle to wrap the flowers.

“And the card?” Eli asked 

The guy’s smirk only grew as Eli grabbed a small card and pen that had a paper flower on the end. “Dear dad” he began “Fuck you, I don’t need you anyway. I’m 22. Signed, Damien” he said, sounding satisfied. Damien huh? Eli went to write that down but after the first few letters he looked up.

“What?”

“You heard me,” the guy looked at Eli’s tag “Elijah?”

“Just call me Eli. Jesus, what did your dad do to you?” 

Damien shrugged “Disowned me. I should’ve seen it coming”

Eli finished writing and stapled it to the paper, binding the flowers “Then I guess he deserves this bouquet. Wanna throw in some butterfly weed.”

“Depends oh wise flower sage. What does it mean?”

“It means ‘leave me’. Kinda like fuck off” 

The man considered this and nodded after a pause “By all means throw it in.”

Eli laughed a bit and once again left the counter space, walking to the left side of the store. He grabbed two butterfly weed flowers and slid them into the bouquet. “Anything else?”

Damien shook his head “Nope. That’s it.”

Eli quickly rang up the guy for his flowers and scribbled his number on his receipt writing, “tell me how it goes >:D”

Damien inspected his receipt for a moment and caught Eli’s eyes when he looked up. He had a mischievous grin plastered on his face

“Sure thing blondie,” he said pocketing the receipt

Eli chuckled “He deserves a worse bouquet but unfortunately I don’t think you want to accidentally send him a death threat”

A chuckle sounded from Damien and he nodded “Yup, don’t want any police at my apartment.” he paused for a moment “thanks Eli”

Eli nodded in response “It’s my job. Your bouquet was fun though”

Damien laughed “I can only imagine.” he glanced at the clock on the wall “Shit I’ve got to get going” he muttered and then turned back to Eli “I’ll text you”

Eli nodded “You better. Now get to where ever you need to go”

Damien nodded and ran out of the shop yelling “TO MY DAD’S HOUSE”

Eli was leaning behind the counter tapping his fingers on the wooden surface. The door to the flower shop was cracked open so a cool breeze swept through. Spring had arrived. Spring meant more flowers. More flowers that Eli had already planted. Now he was sitting bored, wishing no one, in particular, would walk through the doors with his black fringe and platform boots. As soon as he thought about him his heart lept. Footsteps echoed across the tile of the shop and Eli’s eyes shot up.

“Damien-” he was sad to realize that this time it was Mr.Davidson. “Good afternoon  Mr.Davidson how can I help you?” he asked lazily

Mr.Davidson was a cheery only man with blue eyes and shiny white hair. He smiled at Eli.

“Hello, Elijah,” he said happily with a sweet smile. He adjusted his tan cardigan over his shoulders “I’m looking for some tulips. Those are in season aren’t they son?”

Eli walked out from behind the counter. He couldn’t help but smile at the short, happily go lucky old man, “they sure are sir. Are you looking for seeds this time around or just flowers?”

Mr.Davidson glanced around the shop as he contemplated, “well, I think I’ll get flowers.” he looked back to Eli, “Now, do you know what those signify, Elijah.”

Eli nodded as he led Mr.Davidson over to their tulip selection “Perfect love,” he answered wistfully, “it’s awfully sweet that you’re getting these for your wife sir.”

The old man looked at the flowers “Well I love her and feel she deserves them” the old man said, “I think I’ll get a bouquet.”

Eli sighed “Do you want me to wrap those for you?” he heard another set of steps enter the shop and looked over his shoulder to see Damien. He felt the heat rise to his cheeks as Damien met his eyes “I’ll be with you in a minute.” he squeaked.

Mr.Davidson raised an eyebrow at Eli “You don’t need to wrap them. I do think that you like that boy over there though.”

Eli flushed more, and he looked away ash he started to pick out flowers. He made sure nothing was amiss and cut the stems, handing the flowers to the old man.

“Thirteen  dollars even,” he said holding the bouquet out to the old man who smiled and happily handed sawyer fifteen dollars 

“Keep the change,” he said before walking out. Eli waved to him and turned to Damien

“Sorry I’m once again the only one working. Sawyer’s got a stomach bug.” he walked up to him and smiled “What vengeful bouquet do you need this time”

Damien chuckled “How do you say: Sorry, you’re not my type in flower”

Eli raised his eyebrows “Ooo did someone ask you out?” he said wiggling his shoulders up and down, pretending like that didn’t make his heart sink to the floor.

“Yeah” Damien replied starting to walk around the shop “She’s my math tutor. Name’s Nicolette.”

Eli practically choked on air and Damien turned to him with an alarmed expression as he started laughing.

“She’s-” Eli put a hand over his mouth and laughed a bit more “She’s my boss, dude! I can’t believe you rejected her she’s so cool. Scary, but cool.”

Damien’s eyes widened “Well, it’s not my fault I like guys!”

The boy in the floral apron paused for a second. Damien was gay? Eli turned his attention back to Damien. “Yeah, okay. Fair point.”

Damien crossed his arms and looked protective of himself. Eli faltered when he realized why.

“Hey don’t worry. I’m gay too. I happens to the best of us” he nudged Damien’s shoulders “I think I know a flower that will work. Do you still want to be her friend?” Eli asked, changing the subject.

Damien looked at him with an expression Eli couldn’t discern. He uncrossed his arms. “Well, yeah. I do. She’s a good tutor”

Eli smiled at him, “She’s good at math!” he said cheerfully “I think yellow roses would fit perfectly. They signify friendship.”

The other boy nodded

“I could throw in some pansies” Eli added as he started to gather the yellow roses “Pansy was a name given to flamboyant gay guys like a hundred years ago

Damien snorted “that’d be great actually.”

Soon enough Eli was back behind the counter, facing the challenge of wrapping flowers. He heaved a heavy sigh and grabbed the paper.

Damien looked at him and smiled. “Do you want help there, flower boy?”

Eli looked up and bit his lip “Well, um”

Damien just chuckled “of course you do.” he said and then he walked behind the counter. He got way to close for what would usually be Eli’s comfort zone, but he couldn’t bring himself to care apart from being a bit flustered.

Damien pulled the flowers and wrapping paper over to himself. He looked over at Eli with a grin, you forgot the tissue paper.

Eli sighed “right, right” he grabbed a yellow piece of tissue paper and handed it to Damien who took it gratefully. The boy in black put the tissue paper under the flowers (but over the wrapping paper) and began to fold the paper.

As much as the silence was comfortable, Eli didn’t want that. He wanted to talk. So he did.

“So what’s with the platform boots?” He asked “You’re taller than me now, and I’m 5’10”

Damien looked over at him “I’m also 5’10. I just like to feel tall” he said with a shrug going back to folding the flowers “they’re only adding like three inches to my height and I’m 5’9”

Eli smiled “I’m taller than you?” he asked leaning against the counter.

Damien rolled his eyes “I guess so. Good thing I never take off these shoes. I’ll always be 2 inches taller if I can help it.”

Eli smiled “What color ribbon do you want to tie it off with?” he asked, sitting up straight.

Damien shrugged “surprise me, flower boy.”

Eli nodded and opened the drawer under the counter that held the ribbon. He grabbed green and cut off what Damien would need.

Damien tied a neat bow “Easy,” he said holding the flowers up. He looked over at Eli with a grin “no offense though”

Eli snorted “yeah okay.” he said, rolling his eyes. There was a moment of silence between them and Damien smelled the flowers and smiled. Eli felt his heart do a somersault.

“I’ll pay for the flowers” he blurted out.

Damien’s head snapped into Eli’s direction “really?”

Eli nodded hastily “yeah, I mean, you did wrap them. It’s how I’ll repay you.”

Eli could’ve sworn he saw Damien’s cheeks flush before he ducked his head away for a moment. Eli chewed on the inside of his cheek. 

“You’re an angel thank you,” he said.

Eli nodded “of course. Anything for a-” as Damien walked past him, he kissed Eli on the cheek and Eli stopped talking.

“I’ll see you soon Eli. I’ve gotta go” he said before walking out of the store. Eli stood in his place, feet glued to the ground as blood rushed to his cheeks. Did that just happen?

Eli hummed a tune idly to himself fanned himself with a magazine. He didn’t have much to do anyway. Classes were out and summer was in full swing. People came and went from the shop but Eli didn’t care. He was just excited that a certain someone was going to stop by. He had been texting Damien the night before who said that he needed to pick up some flowers. They had been texting a lot recently, but they never got the chance to meet up in real life. Between Eli’s classes and the job at the flower shop, he didn’t have time. Neither did Damien, he had classes when Damien didn’t. Luckily it was summer now, and they could sneak a chance. Eli wanted a different change though. He didn’t just want to hang out with Damien. Sure, hanging out is nice, but what Eli really wanted as a date of some kind. Maybe going to a coffee shop or a nice walk through the park. He didn’t know, nor care.

In his daydream, he had failed to notice someone walk in. The very someone he had been waiting for. 

Damien snapped his fingers in front of Eli’s face who jumped. He looked up at Damien. “I hate you” he hissed with no real malice. Beside him, his co-worker, Sawyer, was laughing at him. 

“You’re such a wimp sometimes,” he said, chuckling a bit.

“I’m not a wimp!” Eli fought “I’m studying to be a doctor!”

Sawyer stuck his tongue out at him and went back to texting someone on his phone.

Eli turned his attention back to Damien “that’s Sawyer” he said with a sigh, “anyway, what do you need. You didn’t cheat on someone this time did you?”

Damien shook his head “I’d never do that. I need a bouquet that means I think I’m in love with you.”

Eli froze, eyes wide with shock because, for some reason, he knew that was pointed at him. Maybe it was the blush on Damien’s cheeks or the shifting of Damien’s brown eyes.

“Well um…” he smiled at the boy in front of him “Well roses obviously stand for love, but begonia’s stand for deep thinking. Those two together could mean that you... y’know. Think you love someone.”

Damien smiled “well that sounds perfect to me,” He said sweetly.

Eli kept his eyes on Damien as he stepped out from behind the counter.

“Who are the flowers for?” he asked innocently, walking over to where the store had roses.

Damien grinned his beautiful grin “You’ll see Eli.”

Eli had grabbed three flowers but he turned to Damien “Eli? I thought I was flower boy” he said with mock offense.

Damien chuckled softly “Shut up flower boy.”

Soon enough Eli had gathered the flowers and he handed them over to Damien to wrap. “You’re good at it” he had said to which Sawyer called him a bitch for not trusting him to do it. He was getting awfully good at ruining cute moments.

Damien quickly wrapped the flowers up in red wrapping paper. He did it quickly but still managed to make it look pretty. Eli shoved him onto the other side of the counter.

“You have to pay this time,” he said with a small smirk.

Damien stuck out his bottom lip, “you’re so mean to me.”

Eli rolled his eyes as an idea popped into his head. He stuck a price barcode sticker onto the flower bouquet and scanned it.

“That’s going to be 13 dollars and a kiss,” he said cooly looking up.

Damien looked shocked but hid it quickly. “A price is a price” he replied, setting thirteen dollars on the counter. Then, in what seemed like without a second thought, he leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to Eli’s lips to which Eli happily kissed back. They were at an awkward angle leaning over the counter, but neither of them seemed to mind. Eli easily fixed it by making them meet in the middle. Damien was the one to break it. 

“I think I’m all paid up then,” he said, picking up the flowers, “they’re are for you by the way,” he said. Damien put the flowers in front of Eli once again. Eli picked them up. “Thank you,” he said.

Damien nodded and kissed Eli one last time. “I’ve gotta go. Call me when you’re done working flower boy.” Damien winked before turning around and leaving the flower shop.

As the door swung shut, Sawyer spoke up. “What the hell just happened?” he said aloud.

Eli looked over at Sawyer and felt blood rush to his cheeks

Sawyer looked at the door and then to Eli, his platinum hair swishing with each dramatic turn of his head. “That was the smoothest shit I’ve seen.” he muttered, “You’re supposed to be an awkward baby!”

Eli laughed at Sawyer’s confusion, embarrassment fading away. He didn’t need to feel embarrassed about Damien, not now, not ever.