#first exam week is almost done free me.... i got a majority of my assignments finished before friday so i figured id spend some time drawin | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dreamescapeswriting · 4 years ago

Text

Together ~ KNJ [Request]

WORD COUNT:5.3k

PAIRING: Namjoon x Reader

GENRE: College AU, friends to lovers, angst, fluffy ending,

A single cough erupted from one side of the giant lecture theatre that you were sitting inside of causing everyone to stare over at the kid that coughed. He blushed deeply but anyone would with around 100 students sitting and staring at you because you coughed. All of you were just sitting there waiting eagerly for the exam to end. Tapping pens could be heard as you glanced around at everyone, it was the final exam and it appeared as though everyone had already finished and was just waiting for the bell to ring. All you wanted to do was race out of the lecture hall and out into the hot summer weather to tan for a while but you had to sit there, in silence until the test was finished otherwise the whole year of learning would have been for nothing.

All the hours of countless cramming for tests would have gone to waste so you sat there. Staring forward at the chalkboard and around 60 students heads since you were right at the back of the hall.

It was finally the end of your first college school year and you were looking forward to the next eight weeks of pure bliss, not having to worry about waking up early for lectures or staying up all night studying for a test. It was going to be the best summer vacation you could ever possibly want, you already had what you were going to do planned out. No one was going to be in the dorm house that you shared, they all had their own plans so you arranged to stay inside for the first week, catching up on everything that needed to do before deciding to relax, binge watch shows and do whatever you wanted.

"Pencils down and close your booklets, if you have no finished you're exam don't worry. I'm sure you can make it up when you repeat this year," You looked at the woman at the front of the room, she was a woman in her early 40's with a Karen haircut, she'd been brought in when your original tutor for the course left to have a baby and never bothered coming back. It was a surprise to you that you even knew half of the questions on the exam, the teacher was useless you practically taught yourself late at night reading through the books and countless research articles online.

"Single file lines! You're adults, we shouldn't have to tell you how to behave!" She screamed as people began rushing to get out of the hall, you stayed behind not wanting to get trampled in the herd of people.

The room was silent again apart from the shuffling of papers as Mrs Kim collected all of the papers. Leaning behind yourself you began packing things into your bag not noticing that your best friend was lingering up behind you.

"Boo!" He yelled out as he placed his hands on your shoulders and shook you a little making you cry out in surprise.

"Joonie," You whined as you saw the surprised look on Mrs Kim's face as she heard a sudden noise come out of nowhere.

"Sorry Mrs Kim, I've come to steal my best friend." He practically pulled you free from your chair and dragged you out of the hall and into the hallways where people were talking amongst one another.

"I'm not even going to ask how it went, you're my best friend and I already know you've passed," He said in a matter-a-fact tone as he wrapped an arm around your shoulder and that was when you knew he wanted something. The two of you had been friends since you could walk and talk you knew exactly what he was up to when he was flattering you.

"Whatever it is, no. I'm not doing it, I'm not driving you, I’m not doing a late assignment for you, I’m not going to pick you up late from a party and I'm not going to kill someone for you," You went through everything so you didn't leave a single thing out but Namjoon tutted at you.

"I am offended that you would even think for a second that I was trying to get something out of you," You stood still as you looked at him with a blank stare,

"Okay fine I need something," He grumbled pulling you with him as he walked out of the main campus building.

Back at the house, you waited for Namjoon to tell you what it was that he wanted, the whole walk home he'd been avoiding the question or distracting you with something else. The house you lived in was huge, it had around nine bedrooms in total all with their own bathrooms and two main bathrooms. It used to be an old mansion home but it was renovated when a college was built nearby and rented out to groups of college kids. The last year you'd been living there with Namjoon and six of his college buddies, all of you got along which was perfect, no awkward meetings in the hallways or kitchen.

"You can't just tell me you need something and then not say anything," You told him as you picked up a slice of pizza from the box and began eating it. This was what he did when he wanted something, he would try to bribe you with food or do something nice for you, you'd known him long enough that this meant he was going to ask for something big.

"You're not doing anything in the summer, right?" You put down the slice of pizza and brushed your hands onto a napkin as you got up to leave. You already knew what he was going to ask and you weren't interested,

"No way, there is no way of me going on that stupid trip." You told him as you began heading for the staircase wanting to go to bed but he grabbed your wrist.

"You're my best friend, we're supposed to look out for one another," He whined as he looked at you, his large brown eyes turning into puppy-dog eyes as he attempted to persuade you.

It was the summer vacation he and some of his friends had been planning to take together,

"Kyong is going and I don't want to be alone with her," He told you as he looked at you, tugging on your wrist as he waited for you to say something. Mi Kyong, his ex-girlfriend that practically ripped him apart and left you to stitch him back together again. Cheating on him so many times in the relationship you wondered how he stayed with her for as long as he did. To you, she was the devil in disguise but to Namjoon she was and would always be the love of his life.

"I'm weak if I go near her I'll break," That wasn't a lie, you knew that if Namjoon even stayed in the same room as her alone she would somehow manipulate him back into her life only to break him up into pieces yet again.

"I thought Jungkook and the boys were going," You sighed thinking about how your perfect relaxing time was going to be ruined by going out to some log cabin in the woods.

"They're taking their dates...Please...We'll have fun I promise and you can bring books...Music, painting gear...Whatever you want," You knew he was never going to let it go so you nodded slowly at him, at least this way you could keep a close eye on him at all times.

The two of you were back in the living room, pizza slice in your hand as you were ready to curl up and watch Grey's Anatomy together,

"There's just one thing," He called out, you turned to stare at him pizza slice in your mouth waiting for him to continue.

"You have to pretend to be my date." The pizza slice slipped from your hands and onto the white leather sofa as you stared at him.

"What?" Your voice cracked thinking that maybe you'd heard him wrong or he was just trying to joke but he shook his head.

"You have to pretend to date me, nothing major just...A cuddle and holding hands," You stared at him feeling your heart pounding against your chest at the thought of doing something like that was Namjoon. He wasn't the type of friend that cuddled or held hands with anyone so suddenly doing that bought back all of the feelings you had for him that you had repressed. You never wanted to admit your feelings for him and when you moved into a house together for college you pushed them down so deep you thought you'd gotten over him.

"And share a room, which we've done before it's not a big deal." He mumbled as he began watching the screen. Not a big deal? To him maybe it wasn't a big deal but to you, it was bringing up all of the repressed feelings you'd hoped you had been over.

"Y-Yeah, no big deal." You mumbled staring at the screen as you suddenly didn't feel like eating anymore.

"I gotta go pack," You said suddenly, leaving the pizza with Namjoon and rushing up to your bedroom. Slamming the door and looking around as you thought about all of the things you didn't have for a summer vacation, tomorrow was going to be an impromptu shopping trip as early as possible.

The car pulled up outside the large home and you thought it was some kind of joke until everyone began pulling their bags out. You took Namjoon by the hand and stared at him,

"I thought you said it was a cabin in the woods," You whispered turning to look at the large mansion behind you which was defiantly not a small cabin in the woods.

"No, I said it was a home in a remote area." The remote area part was right, the ride had taken you almost four hours to get out here and it was in the middle of the woods but it was not a home of any kind. It was huge and modern. All of it was an open plan area with large floor to ceiling windows. The walls were white and black and that was just the outside.

"I couldn't let my boys slum it for the summer," Kyong's voice said as she trailed her hand along Namjoon's back, you watched as he tensed up. The original plan was for him to be in the car with her but you managed to get Jimin and his girlfriend to swap with you both, riding along with Yoongi and his girlfriend instead.

"It's costing me almost 650,000,00₩, for the month. I know you're only here for a week but I decided I would stay." Everyone seemed to have their eyes glued onto the building as they stared at it,

"Nine bedrooms so I'm afraid Y/n might have to be on the sofa," She said in a condescending tone but that was when Namjoon wrapped his arm around your waist and drew you closer to him. Sparks felt as though they were shooting off your body and you hoped no one picked up on the fact that you were so shy from the small touch.

"Actually she'll be in my room since we're together." He stared at Kyong as he said it and the smile on her face was wiped away, leaving a shocked look as she tried to think of something to say in response.

"Really? You and Y/n- Wow...I never would have thought your taste would have changed that much," You knew it was an insult but you chose to ignore her, pulling at Namjoon's hand.

"Come on babe, let's go find a good view." You cooed, pulling him into the front door and hoping that Kyong would finally leave him alone now that she heard you were dating, that way you wouldn't have to go through the butterfly feelings every time he touched you, even a little.

"Babe?" Namjoon chuckled as he walked behind you, he'd never heard you call him anything besides Namjoon or Joonie, or if he was in trouble, Kim Namjoon.

"You need it to be convincing, right?" A smirk played on his lips while you had your back to him, he let you lead him through the house to try and find a room for the two of you but it was huge and you thought you might have needed a map to find your way around.

"Here," Namjoon laughed pulling you into a large bedroom, your bag dropped from your shoulder.

The bedroom had its own sitting room so you weren't going to have to worry about sitting downstairs where Kyong would bother you. There were large glass windows leading out onto a balcony that looked as though it had grass on it.

"Why does the balcony have furniture, there's no door-" You stopped speaking when the glass doors that you originally thought were windows began to move and open up, folding into the walls so you could walk out onto the small balcony area that looked over a giant pool on the ground floor.

"This place is incredible," You breathed out as you laid your hands on the balcony railing, looking over at the woods that were just beyond the house.

Namjoon was looking around the room, an ensuite was connected to it all white marble. A walk-in shower and a corner bathtub with jets.

"Hey I-whoa," Namjoon stopped as he looked at you and the view wondering where the windows had gone.

"So that's what that switch did," He chuckled softly as he thought back on the switch he had flicked on the wall.

The night came sooner than expected, you'd spent most of the day unpacking everything you'd bought along with you and planning what you were going to do the next day and now everyone was gathered in the kitchen.

"I made us all a pasta dish, I figured it would be nice for the evening," Not for one second did you believe that Kyong had cooked the pasta, mostly because there were take out containers in the bin but also because Namjoon told you about the last time she tried to cook. She almost burnt her entire dorm down just trying to use a rice cooker.

"Are you really going to eat all that?" Kyong questioned as she watched you piling pasta onto your plate,

"I mean pasta is known to bloat us but I guess you're obviously not bothered about looking bloated." Namjoon was suddenly by your side ready to take over for you,

"Y/n looks perfect, so why don't you just focus on yourself," He ordered, taking your plate and his over to tone of the many dining tables that were in the home.

"Ignore her, she's just trying to get under your skin." He reassured you as he smiled weakly, you knew he still had feelings for her but it was nice to see how much he was stepping in for you when he needed to.

"What did you ever see in her?" You mumbled as you began eating some of the pasta, trying not to let her lingering words bother you so much. It wasn't as though you and Namjoon were really dating, it didn't matter what you looked like anyway. If a person didn't love you for who you really were then that person didn't deserve the time of day.

"I'm not sure, I think I was looking in the wrong direction," He laughed as he watched you eating, smiling as he couldn't help but look at you. All the years he'd known you he had been hopelessly in love with you but never realised until it was too late. Until you both in college and busy with everything else to deal with one another, he never wanted to ruin the friendship that he had with you.

"What?" You questioned as you noticed how much he was staring at you,

"Nothing...Did you bring my favourite book with you? I might sit by the pool with you tomorrow," He was trying to change the subject and distract his own mind from thinking about you in that way.

"Do you have spare blankets over there?" You asked Namjoon later when you were back in your room,

"Yeah but I don't think you'll need them, it's summer." He chuckled looking up to see you standing over at the sofa in the bedroom getting ready for bed. You were dressed in one of his old football shirts from high school and a pair of shorts. Namjoon's mouth nearly fell open, he'd seen you in his clothes before but this was something different.

"I meant because I'm on the sofa, I can't sleep without something covering me," You laughed awkwardly when you felt how much he was beginning to stare at you, you shifted your weight from one foot to the other.

"Why are you on the sofa? We have a huge bed right here," He laughed pointing at the large California King Bed that was in the room but you never would have thought that he would be okay with sharing with you.

"You want to share a bed? You? Mr Kim Namjoon who hates being cuddled?" You laughed as you slowly made your way over to the bed, pulling back the covers a little.

"Don't worry, it's not as if I'm going to cuddle you in the night." It wasn't something that worried you though, it was a thought that excited you.

The next morning Namjoon bought breakfast up to you on the balcony, telling you that he and the boys were going to go for a hike.

"Sure, sounds good...Get some good photos," You told him as you bit into the apple he'd bought up to you, he smiled just watching you. That morning he'd woken up before you to find himself wrapped around you, one arm draped over your waist while your legs tangled together under the thin sheet you had both chosen to sleep in.

"I will, what are you planning on doing today?" The plan was to sit in the bedroom and avoid Kyong as much as possible but you knew it wasn't going to happen,

"I'll sit by the pool and read...Maybe go for a swim or bike into town." There was a small village just down the road, it was almost a two-hour walk but maybe an hour on the bike if you were lucky.

"Sounds like a good idea, maybe I can ride with you later. We can get some snacks to bring back," Agreeing with him you couldn't wait for the day to pass just so you could spend some quality time with him but right now you were looking forward to curling up beside the pool.

"Have a nice time," You whispered to Namjoon as you stood by the back gate of the house, all of the boys were getting ready to leave on their hike, the girls staying behind.

"Wait!" You turned around to see Kyong rushing over in hiking boots, a coat and some short shorts that were going to do nothing to protect her from the bugs and nettles that could get her out there.

"You're going too?" You questioned as you looked from her to Namjoon, it was clear he had no idea it was going to happen.

"Yeah. Me and my boys going for a long hike. It'll give me and Joonie a chance to chat." Hearing your nickname for Namjoon roll out of her mouth made your blood boil and you wanted nothing more than to trip her up but Namjoon looked at you and you instantly felt calmer.

"Baby please come with me, it won't be the same without you." Frowning you stared at him wondering what he was doing when he pulled you close to him by your waist, leaning his face down so close to yours that you could feel his breath on your skin.

"Fine, let me change..." You looked at him going to leave when Kyong scoffed at the pair of you,

"Not even a kiss goodbye?" It was obvious that she didn't believe you and Namjoon were truly dating and you knew Namjoon wanted her to believe it so you grabbed him back the back of the neck and kissed him. The moment your lips touched it felt as though your legs had turned to jelly and you were about to fall but Namjoon held you steady, holding you by the waist as he pulled you closer to him enjoying the kiss between you. For that moment no one else was around you, it was just the two of you as you finally kissed for the first time, your heart hammering against your chest as if it was trying to escape.

"I'll go and change," You whispered as you pulled away, your voice was hoarse as you stared at him biting down on your lip as you hoped that would happen again.

"I'll wait here," His voice was almost as hoarse as yours as he watched you run back into the house, his eyes never leaving your body until you disappeared.

"Well, that was a nice performance," Kyong mumbled but Namjoon didn't hear her, he just waited for you to return.

The week was almost over and you were enjoying your time there more than you originally thought you were going to. You and Namjoon spent a lot of time with everyone else which meant pretending to be a couple most of the time, holding onto one another, kissing him whenever you had the chance. It started to feel as though you were pretending anymore and that this was really happening, even if you knew deep down inside that there was nothing to this. That it would all be over as soon as you got back to your dorms but for now you were going to soak up as much of his attention as you could get for yourself.

"I don't like being blindfolded Joonie, it makes you think you're up to something," You whined as he continued to walk you through a bumpy area, you could hear gushing water and footsteps but that was all. He let out a deep laugh that seemed to echo around wherever you were and you whined again,

"Relax, here-" He began to untie the make-shift blindfold and you let your eyes adjust for a second to see that you were somewhere you'd never seen before. It was a cavern that had a pool of water inside, flowers spreading over the walls of the cave, the walls and ceiling seemed to have silver reflecting on them because of the water.

"Hot springs," He said with a smile, bending down to touch the water as it began bubbling, your mouth almost dropped open at the sight.

"I didn't bring a bathing suit, you didn't tell me what we were doing," You laughed softly as you looked at him and then to the pool behind him, it looked as though it was going to be relaxing.

"Is it deep?" He shook his head in answer to your question,

"Probably reach your shoulders, there are some rocks just under the water we can sit on and relax." He promised as he began to unbutton the white shirt he was wearing, you gasped and turned away not wanting to make him uncomfortable.

"I didn't bring a bathing suit. I'll wear my underwear, it's just the same," He said as he looked at you, hoping that you would do the same but not once saying what he wanted out loud.

The two of you sat there side by side in the water just enjoying the peace and quiet, Kyong had done nothing but follow the two of you around all week long leading you to "pretend" you were both together for as long as possible.

"This week has been one of the most amazing times of my life," You told him as you rolled your head over to look at him, your gaze meeting his as he smiled at you. You didn't know if it was the low lighting or just because our feelings for him were resurfacing but his eyes seemed to sparkle, as though they had a golden hint to them.

"Even with all this pretending, that's been going on?" He questioned as he looked at you, biting down on his lip as you shrugged,

"There's been one thing that's bugging me all week." He sat up straight making you do the same as you watched him, tilting your head to the side as you waited for him to elaborate on what he meant.

"I don't want to pretend...I want to be yours and I want you to be mine." Closing the distance between your mouths, you kissed him. At that moment it was clear that everything you had been feeling that week, the sparks, the butterflies, was all real. Everything you felt for him he felt the same for you and it excited you. He placed his hands on your waist lifting you up and placing him on his lap under the water as you continued to make out in the hot springs.

His teeth biting down softly on your bottom lip as he asked for entrance, which you gladly granted him, letting your hands wander into his hair as you tugged him closer to you.

"We're not pretending?" He questioned as you pulled away to catch your breath, you shook your head desperately,

"Never again," You whispered before reconnecting our lips with his, going back to your steamy make-out session in the water.

Namjoon left soft kisses on your shoulder as the two of you laid naked in the bed, looking out at the night sky as you cuddled with one another. The two of you had made it back late after your make out in the hot springs and continued your session in the bedroom where it lead to more.

"I'll go get us a snack," He chuckled as he heard your stomach growling, even if it was almost 3 am you were hungry from the activities you had both done together.

"Thanks," You kissed him softly as he changed into a pair of shorts and a white shirt, disappearing out of the door and leaving you alone with your thoughts.

Letting out a small excited squeal you laid back against the pillows and smiled to yourself, you never thought this day would come and now it had, you couldn't contain yourself. Everything you had ever wanted was becoming a reality.

Time passed and Namjoon still wasn't back with your snack, you figured he was going to cook something so you laid there for a second, trying to rest a little before he came back not expecting to fall asleep within seconds of closing your eyes.

Waking up alone the next day you frowned to yourself, he was supposed to be beside you,

"Joonie?" You called out as you changed into some leggings and a baggy shirt thinking maybe he had gone for an early walk or something. You headed down to the kitchen shocked to see Kyong nursing a hangover but that wasn't the part that shocked you. The part that shocked you was that she was dressed in nothing but Namjoon's shirt, the one he had put on the night before to go and make a snack for you.

"I made this, drink it." Namjoon's voice called out to Kyong as she smirked at you, turning her head to look over at him and that was when you saw the deep purple bite marks up and down her neck. At that moment it felt as though your whole world was falling apart as you put it all together, dressed in his shirt, he was looking after her and she was covered in marks.

"I-I can't believe it," The glass Namjoon was holding slipped from his hand and smashed against the floor, the green liquid splashing all over the white floors and cabinets while Kyong smirked.

"Y/n, it isn't what it looks like." You scoffed at him, rushing back up the stairs towards the bedroom as you began throwing clothes into your bag, trying to get some money together as he begged you not to overthink it.

"It's not what it looks like," He pleaded as he stood in the way of the door so you couldn't leave the bedroom,

"Was she dressed in your shirt?" You questioned as you stared at him, his eyes widened with panic,

"Yes, but-"

"Was she covered in hickies?" You asked him again, cutting him off. All you needed were the answers you knew exactly what had happened. He fell back into her arms the way he always did, crawling back to her every time.

"Yeah, but that-"

"You didn't come back last night, were you or were you not with her?" His face fell and he didn't answer, tears rushed to your eyes as you pushed past him heading down the stairs and in the direction of the front door.

"You can't just leave, we're miles away from home." He called out as he chased after you, Kyong holding onto his arm as she whined at him not to yell anymore.

"That's my problem to deal with," You mumbled as you threw your bag over your shoulder and took one of the bikes, heading to town was the best plan for now. Once you were there you could figure out where to go by Kyong groaned at you,

"They're for people staying on this holiday." Locking eyes with her you threw the bike onto the ground before heading down the long driveway, ready to start your long walk back into the town.

"Y/n!!" Namjoon yelled as he chased you down the road, grabbing you by the hand as he made you look at him.

"You have to let me explain, I know how it looks." At this point your tears were already rushing down your face as you looked up at him, you thought that he would be the one person you could trust in the world. He knew how much it hurt to be cheated on and yet he still did it to you, was it even cheating? Were you nothing more than a fling for him?

"What was it? I was just there until she decided she was jealous enough to take you back? Or were you both in on a joke about it, she knew I had a crush on you and thought she could get kicks out of it?" He didn't blame you for being angry but he held your arm as he tried to make sure you listened to him.

"You thought, I can't screw my ex so why not fuck my best friend over instead?" Namjoon's eyes watered as he stared down at you waiting for you to finish,

"How could you ever think I would hurt you like that?"

"Because you did-"

"No. I didn't. I went down to get you food last night and I found her, drunk and on the floor covered in her own vomit." You pulled a disgusted face as he explained what had happened, leading you over to a rock as he sat you down beside him.

"She was covered in her own vomit, along with bite marks, hickies. She said she'd been into town for drinks and got a taxi back. I changed her into my shirt and took her to bed but she wouldn't go to sleep without me there," You looked at him, feeling bad for accusing him of doing the one thing you knew he hated her for doing to him.

“I sat beside the bed the whole night, I didn’t get into bed with her, I just wanted to make sure she was okay.” He sighed and you realized how much you must have overreacted.

"Joonie..." You breathed out as you felt bad for everything,

"I know what it looked like but I would never do that to you. I'm in love with you, always have been and always will be but I loved her too...She may have hurt me but she's still a person and someone I once cared for so I wanted to make sure she was okay," That you could understand, you knew how deeply Namjoon cared for everyone he met so you weren't going to hold that against him.

"Now, please...Come back so we can drive home together..."

"Together?" You questioned as he locked your hands together, linking your fingers with his,

"As a couple?" He questioned looking at you, making you smile brightly as you nodded your head.

Tagline: @lyoongx @mitzwinchester @rjsmochii @taestannie @sw33tnight @innersooya @sweeneyblue1 @jin-from-the-block @acciocriativity @mwitsmejk @anxiousbobatea @justbangtanthingz

#bts #bts x reader #bts x you #bts x y/n #bts imagine #bts imagines #kim namjoon #namjoon #namjoon x reader #namjoon imagine #namjoon imagines #kim namjoon x reader #kim namjoon imagine #kim namjoon imagines

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wevegottogetaway · 4 years ago

Text

El Patrón

I’m so excited to finally be posting this piece. I’ve been working on it for the past few days and it’s been consuming my mind. If you like angst, smut, art student Harry, and great plot twists, this story is for you, so buckle up, cause you’ve got 13700 and then some waiting for you! And on that note, I don’t thing I have many words left in my brain... so, hope you enjoy xx

TW: smut, fool language

After her first day back to classes, Y/n is not surprised to see Harry Styles’ lanky frame standing behind the bar of Bottom’s Up. She hoped that he would bugger off to work some place else but alas, all her summer prayers were unanswered. For yet another semester, she would have to endure bartending by his sides, trying with all her might not to jab a corkscrew at his throat every time he opened his gob. Granted, she could have switched jobs herself, but the pay is too good to turn down and the bar sits literally right around the corner from her place; a match made in heaven if you ask her. Besides, she’s been mastering the art of tuning out the insufferable green-eyed prick for two years now, so what’s one more? Of course, knowing it is likely to be the last - having just kicked off the final year of her psychology major - makes the news easier to stomach. And with any luck, the fool did some sort of soul-searching over the break and came back a changed man.

"Well, well, well. Look who decided to grace us with her delightful presence again. Knew you couldn’t stand to live without me, y/l/n." Harry greets her with a smirk as he looks up from his phone.

Well, some much for change, but luck has never been on y/n’s side anyway; she knew it was wishful thinking to entertain the idea of a pleasant or even tolerable Harry. "Shut it, Styles. I’m not in the mood for your bullshit," she quips back and goes straight to the employee’s locker room to dispose of her stuff and swap her top for one bearing the bar’s logo. Once done, she takes a brief look in the tattered mirror still hanging by the door to readjust her ponytail, before joining her co-worker behind the counter. The bar is rather quiet for now, clock having not chimes 6pm yet, but y/n expects the place to be soon crawling with students drinking the classes’ return off their mind.

The next few minutes are spent in unexpected peaceful silence, y/n prepping for the upcoming rush while Harry idly sits by, not lifting a single finger to help her out. Admittedly, he’s completed all his pre-shift duties during the last hour, but y/n doesn’t think it warrants the smug look painted on his face as he watches her battle a jar of olives with an old opener and a concentrated frown. So peaceful silence was a bit of a stretch, maybe.

Then to make matters worse he decides to taunt her, "I see you’ve grown zero muscle strength over the break. Too busy vegetating on the beach?"

The surge of anger triggered by the provocation is enough impetus for her to crack the can open, but it doesn’t stop her from turning to face him, "I see you’ve grown zero neuron in that thick head of yours. Too busy making people miserable instead?" she counters with flaring nostrils and a look of disdain hardening her features.

"Ah, still got a feisty mouth on you. ‘Was worried you might turn soft on us." Harry sasses back, but y/n doesn’t bother telling him off this time. No matter how strong her comeback, he’ll just brush it off with that smile of his that irritates her to no end. That’s the thing with Harry, the bastard has the thickest skin of all, he’s downright unattainable. And believe it or not, bad-mouthing doesn’t come naturally to y/n, he just seems to draw it out of her, perhaps as the trigger of some kind of survival instinct. Time and time again she’s tried to come up with a quip that would leave him speechless, tail between his legs, but he always has a wittier reply to throw back at her. For so long they’ve been playing this debilitating game of ping pong and she has yet to claim a point to his countless wins.

It’d been the case since their first meeting on that dreadful Friday two years ago. Y/n was about to embark on her second year at uni and decided to get a job so she could afford her own place instead of the dreary dorms she’d gotten used to. Bottom’s Up had seemed to be the perfect choice, a 2 minutes walk from the sweet little apartment she’d just visited a few days prior. She’d been excited for her first shift that night, air still warm from the Indian summer sun drawing a plethora of eager students to come enjoy their last day of freedom. Her happy jitters had quickly dissolved once she’d made her way in the staff-only area located behind the bar though. There, she’d walked in on a very frustrated Harry vociferating at a lost-looking colleague, "how many times do you have to fuck up before doing your bloody job, Steve? Stop sitting on your lazy ass, or I swear I’ll-"

She’d come to this Steve guy’s defense then, furious at the tall curly hair jerk for bullying his way around, "stop it, you asshole. You can’t talk to people like trash, who do you think you are?" Granted, she didn’t know it at the time, but the lost look on Steve's face was in fact pretty standard for the amount of weed in his system; nor did she know that the lad could actually win the Olympics of lazy asses hands down, should such a discipline be appended. It was too late to call off the hostilities though. War had been declared, and aside maybe from that one time he had graciously accepted to cover for her when she’d had a trip to Brighton planned for one of her classes, no truce had ever been reached. Besides, she’s sure it was more so because he was low on cash rather than to fulfill the hidden desire to help her out for once in his life.

Now, as she finishes wiping her work surface with a wet cloth, y/n wishes more than ever to be teleported in a parallel universe where she doesn’t have to work with the bane of her existence, much less see his annoyingly handsome face four times a week. (Also, exams would only be optional in this alternate reality of hers, but that’s another fantasy for another day.) Mainly, she’s just glad she doesn’t see him around campus ever, the art building standing all the way across from the psychology department. At least she’s Harry-free the moment she steps out of the bar; she’d probably have a nervous breakdown if she had to put up with his antics outside of work.

***

A month in the new semester, the novelty of it all has finally worn off to make way for routines to settle in. Y/n’s weeks now consist in a well-practiced cycle of sleep, study, eat, work and occasionally go out with her best friend Mia. Her shifts at Bottom’s Up still prove to be challenging because of the company she’s forced to keep but things seem to have calmed down at the bar too. Students are now less inclined to party the week away, mainly indulging during the second half of the week, but more importantly, Harry appears to be less of a smug bastard and more of a sulky sod. For some reason, the lad has been stuck in a sullen mood, constant frown wrinkling his forehead. He has reverted to distant one-word answers as though he is saving a dictionary worth of words for whatever conundrum is going on in his brain. Y/n doesn’t mind though, and almost welcomes the transition if it means less digs taken at her expense.

Now y/n finds herself on her way to the campus library for a much needed paper-writing cramming session (the assignment is due the following day and she barely has two thirds of the work completed). After a quick stop by the coffee shop down the block, she finally strides in the lobby of the library, ready to dive nose first into the riveting matters of cognitive psychology. She’s already so focused mulling over concepts’ definition in her mind, that it takes her a minute to realize something is going on.

It’s nothing major really, no big fire rushing around the premises or fist-fight breaking the crowd into a frenzy. No, just everyone seemingly hushing and gasping, bewildered expressions etched upon their faces as they keep pointing towards the nearby study room. Truthfully, y/n might have been completely oblivious to it, it she weren’t a psychology major; but reading people’s feelings and interactions is kind of her thing, so she does notice the bubbly energy infiltrating the usually quiet space. What could possibly have them so intrigued, she wonders as more students come out of the room with the same looks of wonder.

Her confusion is finally quelled when she steps into the study room in question and her eyes fall on what has everyone so engaged. On the wall to her right, between two sets of shelves brimming with decades-old books, hangs a life size canvas of audacious shapes and bold colors. Not one seems to have been left out, the painting seemingly transporting the viewer in a psychedelic albeit appealing trance. It’s full of contrasts, an embodiment of serenity and boldness at the same time, and y/n can’t stop ogling the masterpiece for the life of her. The amount of passion is so obviously overwhelming, yet she can feel all of the artist’s emotions underneath each of the brushstrokes.

After another minute of wondrous observation, her thoughts are interrupted by a foreign voice. "El Patrón? I wonder who that could be," the stranger wonders aloud, and her eyes immediately drift off to the bottom right of the painting to catch the small but unmistakable signature: black cursive letter spelling the two words withholding the real artist’s identity. The mystery only adds up to the appeal of the work and y/n already feels a bubbling feeling in the pit of her stomach at the idea of ever finding out what beautiful soul is responsible for such mind-bending work. She hopes this won’t be last she sees of it.

***

It’s Friday night and unfortunately for y/n, she’s stuck at work with her least favorite person in the world. It’s all the more unfortunate that Harry seems to be back to his usual annoying self, his thoughts finally free from whatever trouble had plagued them, and eager to fall back into nuisance mode. Less unfortunate for y/n and much to Harry’s discontent, Mia decided to stop by and keep her company. Though she feels slightly sorry for her having the act as her buffer for the night, y/n figures she’s more than making up for it with every free cocktail she keeps sliding towards her friend. Their conversation is scattered at best since patrons keep interrupting them for a fresh pint of ale, but as the night slowly dies down they manage to talk longer than 20 seconds.

The manager of the bar has long clocked off and gone home, as per usual on Friday nights, leaving both her and Harry the pleasure to indulge in a few drinks of their own. They don’t do it every week and always keep it low-key of course; Mia’s tonight presence mostly accounting for y/n’s partaking while Harry just likes a nice glass of tequila when the week-end comes around and there’s nobody to tell him off about it. One thing they never do though, is drink together, like two friends celebrating yet another week they survived at uni. Come to think of it, the only thing they do share is a job position and their never-ending bickering. Cheers to that, y/n takes another sip of her gin martini in sarcasm.

She’s brought back to reality by Mia as the tipsy brunette lets out a loud gasp before she inquires in a slightly high-pitched voice, "y/n! totally forgot to tell you, went by the library today and you’ll never guess what was there!"

"Oh my god, you saw the painting too, didn’t you" y/n answers, excited at the idea of discussing the whole thing with her best friend. Truth be told, the majestic work of art hasn’t left her mind since she’d first seen it a few days before.

"Yes" Mia squeals in confirmation, "I mean, it’s kinda impossible to miss. I wonder how they got it there without anyone seeing."

Y/n has wondered the same thing and she came to one conclusion, "they probably sneaked in last Sunday after the library closed, it’s the only time the building is empty," Mia humming in agreement. The campus library is opened 24/7 all days except on Sundays, so realistically speaking it is the only window of time that would allow for such an experiment. Whether said experiment required an actual break-in or was conducted in full legality remains a mystery but that is just bygones in y/n’s eyes. She’s much to mesmerized by the work to give a damn about how it got there in the first place.

"Oi y/l/n! What are you two fawning over this time" Harry chirps in the conversation, uninvited as always, and y/n hates how condescending he just sounded.

"Not that you could ever understand something with substance, if your lack thereof is any indication, but it’s none of your damn business," y/n spats out dismissively but Mia’s Margarita-induced brain seems to have forgotten all about their concerted hatred for piss-taking bartenders.

"Harry, you’re an art major aren’t you? D’you know who’s behind that beautiful painting at the library?"

Y/n tilts her head back in a sigh at her friend’s behavior before turning to watch the puzzled look on Harry’s face. He seems to silently gauge the both of them; for what, y/n doesn’t know, and then his whole expression switched to a blasé look. He shrugs in disinterest, "who cares? ’s just one more Banksy wannabe who’s trying at it too hard ‘f you ask me."

Y/n takes it as a personal offense, her admiration for the painting outweighing any instinct she has of avoiding the brazen man taking a sip of his tequila on rocks across from her, "of course you’d say something like that. You’re just jealous you’ll never compete with his talent."

Harry raises a brow at her accusation, "and how would you know since you’ve never seen any of my work?"

It’s a valid point, but not enough to rebut her. "Doesn’t take a genius to know a shallow mind like yours could never create something as deep and transcending. That would require actual emotions from you Harry and we both know the only emotion you’re capable of spreading is irritation."

For once she’s confident she’s gonna have the last word, but in true Harry fashion he just gives her a bored look as if to say ‘is that all?’ towel thrown over his shoulder, "right, and here I thought talking to people like trash was a bad thing. You should really take a page out of your own book, y/n, wouldn’t want anyone to think you’re as big of a jerk as I am." Then he turns back to face the room full of customers, and tends to one disheveled looking guy slurring out an order.

Y/n barely registers the friendly "alright Joe, but ’s the last one," Harry rasps out to the guy, her ears are still ringing from the last words he’d said to her. More specifically, the little truth they held despite how much he deserved the backlash, and y/n absolutely loathes the way her throat seems to be closing in on itself. She’s afraid she’s turning like him, bitter words at the ready and always trying to outdo his own taunting spiels. Before anxiety can settle in her bones though, she swallows back the knot tightening in her airways and goes back to serving customers and conversing with her friend.

***

The next time it happens, she expects it even less. A couple weeks have passed since her gruesome interaction with Harry at the bar, and along with her doubts, all thoughts about art have seemed to vanish from her busy mind. She’s had a few tests occupying all her free time and now that they’ve been done and over with, all she can think about is calling Mia up to plan their next night out; she needs a few drinks that she didn’t make for once.

She’s about to take her phone out of her pocket to send her best friend a text, when she enters the lecture hall of her Monday experimental method and research design class. The déjà-vu feeling that creeps up her spine stops her from completing the action, and y/n frowns at how her fellow students seem to be all entranced in deep conversation, exchanging baffled looks with one another. Even the sleeping kid that sits at the back seems to be more alert than during their last fire evacuation procedure test.

It’s then y/n turns around to see what is hanging at the front of the room, covering the large board. This time, the colors were carefully handpicked by the artists, flashes of pink and yellow dancing along to a frenzied rhythm of salsa as their union creates powerful jets of oranges across the canvas. It vaguely reminds her of the pendant she wears on a daily basis, rose gold laurels wrapped around a delicate sunflower, an orange topaz incrusted in its center. The painting is of abstract nature much like the last one, but the movements of the brush still bring her mind back to the jewel presently nestled between her collarbones. How odd.

The piece is slightly smaller than the last but no less impressive, catching the attention of even the least artistic eye. The sensibility of the artist is so distinct, intentions clearer and more in touch than most people with their own. For a second, y/n thinks she’s glad the pieces have only been ones of unadulterated happiness and colorful bliss so far, because god knows how heart-wrenching the outcome would be if all this uncorrupted honesty was used to fill canvas with pain.

As the professor enters the room, everybody settles back on their seat, and wait for the chap’s reaction. "Well, that sure is something. It seems we have a bit of a mystery painter on our hands, don’t we; and a talented one at that," y/n’s professor smiles at the class as he pulls a computer out of his satchel and places it at top of the front desk. His words make her look back at the artwork, this time settling on the small signature reading El Patrón on its corner. And it’s all it takes for Y/n’s obsession with the anonymous artist to be back in full force.

***

That night she can’t stop raving about the painting as she starts closing the bar after a long and tiresome shift. She’s got a shoulder pressing her phone to her ear, Mia on the line, while she absentmindedly sweeps the floor. Normally the exertion of the job would have her stifling yawns and her bones aching but tonight her voice is perky as ever as she recollects the pinnacle of her day, "you shoulda been there Mia, it was gorgeous. And same as last time, like you’d be minding your business, doing your thing and then boom, it’s there. Damn, this guy is a genius."

As she comes back around the counter, Harry makes sure she notices the roll of his eyes. He’s been wiping and tidying the bar space after making sure everything is stocked up for the next day, all the while listening to her drone about El Patrón and his stroke of genius, praise after praise falling from her lips. She completely brushes off the patronizing gesture and that’s perhaps what irritates him the most. She’s barely acknowledging him or his stunts with all her attention placed on the mystery painter and well, Harry quite likes riling her up. Doesn’t do it out of spite, but merely because he likes the way it ignites a fire in her that he’s seldom seen in people. But now, all her fire is directed elsewhere and he doesn’t know what to think of it.

***

Over the next month, the rumors around El Patrón spread like wildfire as more and more of his works are found scattered around campus. Much to y/n’s delight, she always seems to fall upon them as though they’ve been placed specifically on her path. It didn’t start as obvious though; the first following pieces hung in common areas around campus such as the lunch hall or the student center but as time went by they tended to follow her whereabouts somehow. Y/n knows she’s probably fabulating but when she’d stumble across two absolutely stunning pieces in the lobby of her gym and at the entrance of the psychology building, she couldn’t help but feel deeply attached to them. And the possibility that this mystery artist might have the same attachment to her, only fuels her obsession further, sending her reeling with all but one nerve-wracking question: who is this guy?

And it’s not like she’s the only one pondering over their identity either. Hell, the genius has literally everyone on campus under their spell, trying to uncover the enigma of the year. Everyone seems to be determined to find clues, easter eggs hidden within the paintings that could lead them closer to the truth. El Patrón has effectively turned the whole uni into a large-scale game of Cluedo, people speculating left and right and swapping theories about who it can or cannot be, what year they are probably in, or whether they have an accomplice. Nobody has ever executed such a tour de force in the history of campus, and it has everyone one edge, y/n included, desperate to be in the loop.

The fact that each painting is more beautiful than the last and always seems to connect with her in personal ways doesn’t help her daydreaming either. Take the one she found at the gym for example, for a few second she’d sworn she was looking at a familiar piece of the English South Coast, dark hues of blue fighting dots of white, reminiscent of the way foam always seems to top even the most raging waves as they crash along shores. She’d only had to close her eyes to feel the wind blowing her hair in a thousand directions and the sand engulfing her feet, making its way between her toes and every crevice of her skin. She was still in the middle of her gym when she reopened them though, her sport bag straddling her shoulder as she kept gaping at the painting in adoration.

Her suspicious keeps nagging at her head, the desire to unveil the identity of her beloved artist getting stronger by the day. The feeling is almost unbearable when she spots yet another work of his across from Bottom’s Up. The coincidences keep piling up and the more she mulls it over, the more she’s convinced this mystery guy is talking to her. Damn, is it possible to have a crush on someone because of their work? After months of this cryptic scavenger hunt, she’d dying to know if all her theories are right and the fact that she has no way to find out, is positively killer her.

That’s why when she stumbles across a flyer for a midterm exhibition gala hosted by the art department as she waits in line at her favorite coffee shop, she doesn’t think twice before jotting down all the info. In a week time, most of the uni’s art students would be gathered up in one place to present their term’s work. The chances are too high for y/n to pass up the opportunity, her guts telling her he’ll be there. It makes sense doesn’t it? Surely, this El Patrón ought to be an art student if not a teacher. How else would they have access to all the campus amenities most of the paintings were found in?

As she goes to pick up her coffee from the counter, y/n walks with a newfound spring in her steps; she really can’t wait for this gala to happen.

***

Y/n stands at the entrance of the art building, a black floor-length long-sleeves open-back dress hugging her curves in all the right places. Her heart speeds up at the nervous jitters crawling underneath her skin, and the million question swarming her frantic mind. What if he actually doesn’t know her and doesn’t give a damn about her thoughts on his work? What if it’s actually a woman and she’s been hiding a man’s pen-name to consolidate her deceit? Is she about to make the biggest fool out of herself by coming to this exhibition? She doesn’t know anyone here, nor has she ever been to this kind of event before but she’s decided this guessing game has run its course. Maybe this all thing has nothing to do with her and that’s okay. All she really wants is to have a chance to tell this exquisite mind how remarkable their work is; the rest be damned.

Y/n slowly makes her way inside, and after a quick stop at the coat room to dispose of the unnecessary garment, she is finally greeted by a room full of dressed-up people roaming and chatting around, champagne flutes in hands. How cliche, she thinks with humor, before picking up a glass of the bubbly beverage. It’ll help sooth the nerves, she reasons as she starts walking around the place to observe each of the displays. Despite not having had a glimpse of her number-one painter yet, she finds herself having a good time. Most of the work offered to her is engaging in one way or another; some pieces quite provocative is their depiction, others straight out pushing the limits of 2D, with structures coming out of the canvas as though they were about to grip at the viewer.

Turning at a corner, she comes across his art before she sees him, having almost forgotten art was supposedly his thing too, and she realizes she actually knew someone here apart from the mysterious painter. She takes a brief look at his tall frame, the baby blue suit over his crisp white shirt fitting him perfectly. A black tie is completing the look, and it makes y/n waver for a second. She’s never seen him dressed in anything other than jeans and the bar’s t-shirt every employee is supposed to wear on call. Granted, even that he can make work better than anyone else she can think of, but that suit is something else altogether.

Her eyes shifts back to his work, not wanting to waste too much time on his appearance; she is here on a mission after all. She can’t deny his painting is good as much as she wants too. It’s made of a perfectly executed optic illusion that has her pause for longer than she intended to. The colors are picked wisely only adding to the entrancing design, tempting the viewer to reach out to the painting to convince themselves that this is fact a pretty subterfuge and no reality; the frontier between both worlds much too hard to distinguish. Just like for the rest of the exhibition, a single plaque hangs underneath the canvas, introducing the title of the piece above the name of its artist: Fine Line by Harry Styles. Damn, the bastard had to be talented…

"Is it as depthless as you thought it would be?" A hoarse voice interrupts her inner thoughts. She knows it’s his at the first word and already she regrets ever thinking positive things about him.

"Funny, I would have shared a compliment but you just had to go and open your stupid mouth," she bites back as she fully turns around to face him. She can feel is eyes shamelessly scanning her body, sending her nerves on overdrive. She wants this exchange to be as curt as possible, she’s got important matters to tend to.

"Here for you mysterious bloke, I presume?" he inquires in a taunting voice.

"What’s it to you, anyway?" y/n dodges the question with another, hoping it’ll steer the conversation toward its end.

She’s answered by rosy pouting lips, a hand on his heart in faux vexation, "ouch, was just hopin’ you’d come to see me, and now you’ve just crushed my dreams, love."

The pet-name is not lost on her and Y/n has had enough. In own gulp she downs the rest of her champagne and forces the glass to his chest for him to hold as she makes her way past him, "just leave me alone and go be a pain in someone else’s ass, Harry." She doesn’t wait to see if he’s following her as she marches across the room in long and purposeful strides.

Something in the corner of her eyes catches her attention right then. Halting abruptly, almost making someone walk right into her, she turns her head to the side and that’s when she finally sees it. A whole part of the wall has been dedicated to his work, a shrine of his most outstanding pieces randomly hung against the white surface. Y/n recognizes each and every one of them, but then her eyes take in the extra work added for the exhibition: next to each of the pieces are displayed a bunch of photos capturing the students’ expressions as they first discovered the paintings. Dozens of faces lighting up in amazement, widening eyes and finger pointing at the unexpected intrusions; some show confusion and puzzlement while others simply behold laughter and animated conversation.

In the center of the wall, a video is projected. It’s a compilation of those same moments but this time captured on tape. The sound was removed, but as y/n takes in the faces of her fellow students she can almost hear the sound of their laughters; she’d been there for most of it after all. She thinks the idea is amazing, El Patrón has managed to make the viewer a permanent part of the art. The paintings are marvelous of course, full of emotions and passion, but the mysterious artist has gone one step further by also displaying how those emotions had reflected back on the audience. It is an ode to art, to the power of sharing, and proves art is limitless; not owned by museums, not bound between walls and certainly not restricted for trained-eyes only. Because art isn’t all about beauty, it speaks for the need for sharing that human have but often forget, and this is a perfect reminder of it.

The next tape playing has her eyes doubling over the video, a small gasp escaping her lips as she takes in her own figure. It was taken the day she found the painting at the gym and unlike all the other videos she’s alone. No group of students by her side elbowing her in disbelief, or sharing a puzzle look with her. Just her doe eyes gleaming at the painting, lips slightly parted in pure wonder, as she studies every inch of the canvas. And the feeling that this might mean just as much to him as it does to her comes back crashing on her. She’s not paranoid; this artist his using her as some kind of inspiration, she’s sure of it. Random cannot be this accurate, it would defy any laws of statistics.

After the slideshow finally moves on to the next video, y/n looks around in the hopes of finding the man that has wormed his way into her heart. She’s imagined it a thousand times over during the past week. A young man would be discretely standing on the side, watching the evening pan out and waiting for her to find his work. Then they would make eye contact and he’d make his way over to greet her and share more of his beautiful mind with her. That’s the happily ever after she’s hoped for since that first painting in the library, but alas everyone around her seems to be engrossed in conversation about this and that.

"I thought he would be there too," the unexpected voice makes her jump. She recognizes the student from that first day, she’d also be intrigued by the mysterious man.

"I know, all of his work is here, he has to somewhere around," y/n tries to convince herself. She hasn’t given up yet, she won’t let herself unless she goes home tonight empty-handed. Only after that will she stop searching, she promises herself. If he doesn’t show up tonight, then that’s because he doesn’t want to be found.

The girl next to her has the same disappointed tone when she explains, "you’d think so, but I’ve been asking everyone around and nobody has a clue still."

Before y/n can come up with her own rationalizations, someone starts speaking in a microphone, asking for everyone’s attention. It’s a man in his early fifties making a speech about the whole reason behind the exhibition so y/n pegs him as the head of the art department. "Thank you all for coming tonight, it is always a pleasure to see so many of you supporting our young talents. As you may know, tonight’s exhibition signs off our students’ final work for the semester, and will also see one of them receive a one-time collaboration with a renown art gallery in the city. Now, before the judges finish deliberating, let me tell you a bit about the topic of this exhibition which, by the way, serves as the main criteria for this contest. Our artists were asked to work around audience engagement and crowd reaction. The task was to produce art that would prompt an active response from the viewer and go beyond a passive experience. I hope this info helps this event take all its sense, I’ll let you all meander for a couple more minutes before we announce the winner. Thank you for your presence."

Since she has a couple more of minutes, y/n decides to take advantage of the fresh insight she was just given about the artwork and goes around the exhibition one more time. The whole thing does take on a new meaning, now that she knows what was going one in the students’ mind as they first got their assignment. But what has her in awe really, is El Patrón’s coup de maître in all of this, because unlike any other applicant here tonight, he’s had the strongest reactions from the public for months now and had even documented it. So really, in a way he’s already won, no bias to blame. The amount of work and planning behind such a tour de force surely has exceeded everyone’s expectations and secured the number-one position for the still-to-be-revealed artist. In the pocket, as they say.

"Alright everyone, without further ado we are going to announce the lucky talent selected by the judges tonight," the head of department speaks up again. "On behalf of the whole department, I would like to salute each and every one of the students that presented their work tonight. Skills are certainly not scarce among you all, and as always it gives me great pleasure to see you all grow into yourselves alongside your craft. As you know, there can only be one of you coming up to this stage tonight and I must say, this semester has proved to be full of surprises. Never in my 26 years working here have I ever seen something of the sort, so ladies, gentleman, I have no idea who is about to join me now, but please give a warm round of applause for El Patrón!"

The room explodes in loud cheers as people clap their hands in honor of the mysterious artist. Y/n probably the loudest amongst them all, is still craning her neck in every possible directions trying to catch sight of anyone moving towards the stage. The standing ovation quickly fades into silence as everyone realizes nobody is coming to claim their prize. The usual hushing following any of El Patrón’s stunts is once again spreading across the room to match people’s incredulity at the situation. It was one thing to keep their identity a secret, as it was clearly a crucial condition for the plan to work, but now that it is all over and done, prize ready for the taking, it doesn’t make much sense.

"Mister El Patrón? I think you more than deserve to drop your mask and receive your prize," the host reiterates in hopes that the much awaited artist comes out of his lair, but he’s met with the same result. Perhaps he’s not here after all, or perhaps y/n was right to think he might not want to be found, but regardless a strong feeling of disappointment takes over a body. He won’t be coming, she knows. No matter how many times the host calls for him, he won’t be coming.

She lets out a long sign in frustration then, she really thought tonight was the tonight. But now that the evening is coming to its end, tears pearl at the corner of her eyes and she just wants to go home and forget all about El Patrón. Aren’t artists supposed to be dark and twisted anyway? Maybe she just dodges a bullet, she tries to make herself feel better, but no amount of sarcasm can save her from the painful pinch at her heart. As she comes to term with the fact she won’t get any more answers by staying (and possible ever), she decides it’s her cue to go.

On her way to the exit, her eyes fall upon Harry’s slightly hunched figure. He seems deep in his thoughts, eyes fixed towards the floor though he’s not looking at anything in particular. For some unknown reason, y/n is not irked by his presence like she usually is. He’s just lost a great career opportunity so his preoccupied disposition is understandable. Feeling as though she needs to end the night on a different note - whether positive is yet to be determined - she approaches him slowly as not to startle him. "Your painting is really good. I’m sorry you didn’t win, but you should still be proud," she softly tells him to cheer him up. At least, one of them might get to go home in higher spirits.

He looks up at her then, curls bouncing on top of his head, as he aligns his two glistening emeralds to her own gems. He seems quite surprised to hear her voice, probably rightfully so since he can count on one hand (scratch that, one finger) the number of times she’s actively sought him out for conversation. She can tell he’s debating whether to say something or not, as they keep their eyes locked. It’s probably the longest and only civil exchange they’ve ever had, and somehow it manages to soothe some of her sorrows.

Y/n likes this reflective side of him, she realizes. Not that she wishes him any torments (at least not tonight) but his quietness makes him look vulnerable in that beautifully human way for once. That’s twice he’s proven her wrong about the assumptions she had on him, tonight: first his talent, now his character; she doesn’t know what to make of it. Silently, she accepts the timid smile and light nod he offers her in gratitude, before making her way to out at last.

***

Two days after the night of the exhibition, y/n still has a hard time to let her grievance go. Her mood has yet to upgrade from crappy at best, and the fact that all the artwork has been removed from their previous spots is not helping much. Of course she knew they had been put down for the big night, but her heart still missed a beat when she went to the gym only to find the walls of the lobby bare of any craft that would liven up their otherwise dull and colorless structure. Just like her state of mind, she’d joked. And y/n is not one to throw pity parties, especially to herself; but then again, she’d never fallen under the charms of a faceless virtuoso because his art brought to life parts of her that she’d believed otherwise dormant, only to be metaphorically stood up at the end of the process. So really, what does she know anymore?

Now that she’s back at work, she revels in the constant effort she has to provide. The ever-growing list of task to complete gives her mind reprieve and focus, but she still hasn’t budged from her unusually distant and withdrawn self. Even harry’s own standoffishness hasn’t caught her attention; a week ago, his awkward demeanor would have flashed red flags all over her radar. An unfiltered narcissistic prick he could be, but y/n has never known him to be anything even resembling reserve; apart maybe from that one fate-less night not even 72 hours ago when she found him on the outskirts of the attention even though she knew full well that he is more of center kind of guy.

As they’re about to start closing, the awkwardness becomes more palpable by the second. They’ve skirted around it during the whole shift, the steady solicitation of customers enough to ignore the growing tension; but as the last of the patrons finally make their way out of the bar, an eery silence settles in their wake, making them both want to crawl out of their skin. Even the heavy-served drinks they’ve indulged in, despite the absence of their respective motives, hasn’t help assuage the strain between them. Instead, they start their usual routine in overrated silence, y/n in charge of the floor while he tends to the bar. Then before long, Harry bursts the uncomfortable bubble they’ve locked themselves in, voice void of its usual teasing tone, "so, what’s got you so grumpy?" he inquires.

"Please don’t start, Harry. I really can’t be bothered tonight," y/n sighs in response, failing to recognize the note of concern in his question and thinking she wouldn’t survive another bickering session. It hasn’t been the lad’s intention though, so her false accusation has his thick skin itching against his will. To be honest, Harry’s never taken much offense from any of their past squabbles no matter how hard she’d come at him, but this one he can’t brush off. Not when for once, he’s trying to be decent, dropping the attitude he knows rubs her the wrong way and she responds by telling him to get lost.

"Fuck sake, I wasn’t tryin’ to start anythin’" he berates her for lashing out unjustifiably, "you need to take a chill pill." The hostile reaction as her pausing mid-swipe in the middle of the room. He was always so unbothered by everything she said, she hasn’t expected him to be so hard on the defensive (or even know what a defensive is in the first place).

Still, she doesn’t appreciate the same chastising tactic he’s used on her countless times, especially because given his serious temper, she knows he means it for real now. "Oh I’m sorry Harry, I didn’t know what sympathy actually sounds like coming from your mouth," she quips back in sarcasm.

The response makes him livid, "you tell me I’m a jerk every chance you got, but you sure know how to be a bitch, y/n" he spats before finishing wiping the counter. As his hand reaches the end of the surface, he finds his half-empty glass of tequila, most of the ice completely melted through the amber liquor by now. He takes one long sip in a vain attempt to calm his nerves but the alcohol merely tingles the back of his palate and warms its way down his stomach. His mind is still burden with frustrations he doesn’t know how to alleviate; the end of term, the exhibition, his career’s future, and y/n’s stubborn nature all wreaking havoc in his tired brain.

"Shut the fuck up, Harry. I didn’t ask for your attention," y/n retorts, trying not to expose how bruised her heart is. While he’d mocked her plenty during the past two years, he’d never resorted to calling her names, unlike her; so the insult does more damage than she’s willing to admit, even coming from Harry. And to think she’d thought of him as a half decent being not three days ago…

"Right, I forgot only anonymous bastards are worthy enough of your attention," he replies before checking the shelves behind the bar to make sure they’re stocked enough for the next shift. "And even when they turn out to be cowards, you still choose them over the people that are actually around you. You need to open your eyes and wake up, it’s pathetic."

Y/n has almost finished cleaning her area but at this point, she’s ready to call it quits and run as fast as she can, away from him. "Go fuck yourself, you don’t know anything you’re talking about," she manages to croak past her swelling throat and quivering lips. The man in front of her is breaking her heart even though he’s never had it in his calloused hands, and y/n doesn’t know why.

"Fuck this, ’m done," he quite literally throws in the towel, leaving it in a bowl on the counter before making his way back to his drink. In a swift movement, he grabs the bottle of tequila to pour himself a new one. "You keep blindly mopin’ about your precious painter, I don’t care, you’re probably right anyway," he says before chugging the bitter spirit in one go and slamming the bottle of tequila down on the counter in a loud bang that has y/n jump in fear. "I don’t anything about bloody anything," is all Harry says as he locks eyes with hers, before making his out of the bar, not bothering to put the bottle back to its rightful place.

Y/n is still trembling from the exchange, and it takes her a hot minute before she can finish what she was doing. As she resumes wiping the floor with shaky hands, she tries to even her breath out. Why had he been so hurtful? What could have possibly impelled him to utter such malicious words? The questions are still reeling in her mind as she twists water out of the mop for the last time. Once the floor is spotless and all the tables are no longer sticky with spilled alcohol, chairs stacked up onto them upside-down, she makes her way back behind the bar, checking that Harry didn’t leave any of his duties unattended before his theatrical exit. She spots the bottle of tequila sitting lonely on the counter but just as she goes to reach for it, she freezes.

It’s a cold shower pouring over her body all at once then, dots finally connected as her eyes read over the label of the fat bottle she’s seen him take out of the stack countless times before. Everything that happened for the last few months falls into place and suddenly there is no mystery left to be solved. ‘You’re probably right, I don’t know anything about bloody anything’ Harry’s final words keep playing on a maddening loop in her head.

Y/n takes in the small bee design printed under what is unmistakably the last piece of the puzzle she’s been craving to complete: one word that has her stomach churning in a myriad of emotions she can’t possibly untangle. Anger, relief, surprise, fear, curiosity, warmth and more, are all rushing through her in one colossal wave, because printed on that bottle in black capital letters is the brand of Harry’s favorite drink: Patrón.

***

The next day, y/n navigates through her classes purely on autopilot mode. She doesn’t quite remember picking the floral blouse nor the light-shade pair of jeans she’s wearing, and barely recalls the brief conversation she had with an old lady during her bus commute to campus. One thing she sure as hell hasn’t paid one iota of attention to, is the behavioral psychology class she’s just got out of. Two hours she spent pacing up and down every twist and turn of her mind only to come out more lost than she’d started. Add to that the fact she’s running on 4 hours of sleep, she’s quite simply a recipe for disaster. Fortunately for y/n, she isn’t due at work tonight, having called sick this morning, because sleep-deprivation aside, she still has no idea how she’s supposed to face Harry.

The revelation of the night prior is still something she has trouble wrapping her mind around, as it goes against every constructed opinion she’s made about her life. Harry is Patrón, she’s pretty sure. Harry, the allegedly conceited asshole she’s been bickering with since their first minute spent together, is the mind-blowing painter that had taken residence in y/n’s heart since the first time she set eyes on his art. The two characters have yet to fully merge into one in her mind, despite the fact it makes perfect sense to her.

The Brighton painting, the one inspiring her necklace, it was all true. And with that revelation comes two intimidating truths y/n is kind of scared to delve into: one, all this time she’s been right to think she is the muse behind this all scheme; two, if Harry is the mystery painter, that makes her Harry’s muse more specifically. And that’s the part of the equation she struggles the most with, because up until last night she was pretty positive that the twat despised her (the night in itself being prime evidence of that) but now she doesn’t know what to think.

It’s like there are two versions of Harry battling in her brain, splitting her heart in halves; the one that made her miserable at work for years and made her cry last night, and the one she’d gotten a glimpse of at the night of the exhibition. The one that hid a fully blossomed bouquet of emotions behind teasing banter to protect a diamond-rough talent that had the power to touch just about anyone’s sensibility. The one that had her wrapped around his finger in awe with that beautiful mind of his. The question is, can she or will she see this Harry the next time she’s facing him or will all their bad-blood history come crashing down on her instead? Y/n doesn’t think she’s ever fit more the definition of having mixed feelings about something.

On her way home, she makes sure she doesn’t fall asleep against the bus window, despite yawning every thirty-seconds. It feels like the trip is taking forever, she almost lets out a cry of relief when the automated voice finally announces her upcoming stop. Once she’s thanked the driver and stepped out of the bus, she’s met with a gust of brisk air, instantly blowing her hair all over her face. She draws the lapels of her coat tighter around her shivering body and starts making her way towards her apartment building.

It doesn’t take her long to complete the walking distance to her place and tread her way up the stairs, but the sight greeting her in the hallway of her floor almost sends her down on her ass. Because right across from her door, is Harry hanging yet another one of his chefs-d’oeuvre. He’s dressed casually in his usual jeans and t-shirt ensemble, with a thick grey hoodie covering his broad upper-half in a feeble attempt to combat to cold weather raging outside. As he reaches in the back pocket of his jeans to retrieve a sharpie - no doubt to apply his trademark signature - the movements of her feet on the laminated floor catch his attention. Spinning around in a jolt of surprise, he realizes too late that he’s been caught red-handed. There was no going back this time, but he doesn’t necessarily see it as a bad thing.

There is a short moment where they are both just standing in front of each other a few feet apart, as their eyes bounce back in silent conversation, before y/n softly breaths out, "so it is you." The weight of her words has him swallow in nervousness, "of course it’s me," he replies in a gentle tone. A smile pulls at his lips when he realizes she’s not running for the hills or bursting out in a furious rant.

"I just…how? why? I mean, you gotta help me understand Harry, cause I’m pretty fucking lost over here," she blurts out with wide doe-eyes begging him for answers. Her obvious jitters earn her a soft chuckle., and for a hot minute all he can bring himself to do is study her snuggled figure and the way she keeps fiddling with her keys. It’s so endearing to him, if they were at his place, he would have offered to make some tea. The thought has him hesitantly looking at the door across from them, "can we maybe talk inside?" he inquires, beckoning his head towards her place. "I know I haven’t given you much reasons to let me in, but I promise I’ll explain everythin’," he feels the need to convince her, " after that, you can kick me out if you still want."

The last bit has her smile timidly, "yeah, let’s go inside. I wanna hear what you have to say," y/n admits as she steps to the door and unlocks it. She’s intrigued by how gentle and well-mannered the man following her to the living room seems to be, light years away from the rowdy lad she’s come to know.

For a second, y/n is worries about the state she’s left the apartment before she rushed to classes this morning, but her apprehensions quickly go away once she takes in the sight of her rather tidied living space. A velvety throw blanket is covering the couch in a makeshift comforter from the way she spent the night on the couch, and apart from a few class notes scattered across the coffee table, everything seems to be where it’s supposed to be.

They both discard their top layers on the armchair adjacent to the couch, Harry slipping his hoodie off above his head in one swift gesture, while y/n simply lets the sleeves of her coat slide down her arms. He brushes his hair back into submission with one swoop of his hand, before sitting down on the couch and directing his attention back at her. She decides to leave some distance between them, taking the other end of the sofa and the move desperately makes him wonder what thoughts are running through her head. The only way to uncover them however, is if he starts talking first; and so he does.

"So uhm," he starts clumsily, clearing his throat, "remember the first day we met, you walked in on me telling some stoner guy off," he watches closely as y/n nods. "It was our first ever conversation and we fought through the whole thing. I was pretty pissed when it happened, not gonna lie, but once I got home and slept it off, I thought it was really cool how you’d stand up for that random guy." The admission has her eyebrows raising but he keeps going, "and okay maybe, just maybe, I found it a lil hot, the way you tried to put me back in my place."

He stops to make sure he hasn’t offended her, "tried to?" she challenges instead, Harry laughing at her objection.

"Right, maybe you did. My poin’ is, no-one really calls me out on my bullshit, so it was kinda refreshing that you did. But then the next day, you were still mad at me, an’ we bickered that time too. It felt like you’d already made up your mind about me. So in a way, all I had left was doin’ this thing where I push your buttons and rile you up. Know it doesn’t make sense, but it was the only way you’d interact with me so I kept doin’ it, because being jerk-Harry was better than having nothin’."

He pauses for a minute and waits as y/n swallows all the information. All this time he’s been teasing her just to have some sort of connection, no matter how perverse, while she thought he just hated her guts. When she shares this thought with him, he shakes his head with a smile, "never hated you. If I ‘ad, I wouldn’t have bothered talking t’you."

Suddenly, her chest feels lighter, as though all this months of anguish had evaporated from her mind, now that she knew their rocky relationship was the result of miscommunication, "sound logic, Styles," she replies in good humor. Then she remembers the El Patrón’s fiasco so she urges him to go on.

"My final. Right. Well as you know, we were given the assignment at the beginning of the semester, and I came up with the idea of creating this alter ego that would plant his work around campus. I thought by taking people’s by surprise I was guaranteed strong genuine reactions. People are always more opened when they don’t expect it. Like if I had just brought my paintings on the night of the exhibition, the same people wouldn’t have reacted that way, probably because they’d know they’d be observed so they would have adjusted their behavior accordingly." They both know he’s getting slightly off trail, but watching y/n so enthralled with his words makes it hard for him to stop. Fact is, for month she’s dreamed of meeting and picking at the brain of this mysterious painter, and now that he’s sitting on her couch, walking her through his thought process, she finally feels like she is.

"Anyway," he resumes the storytelling, "I started with that painting in the library and it worked so perfectly, I knew if I followed the plan I would have somethin’ really good. But then you just had to go on an’ rave about the paintings without knowing they were mine, and it was killin’ me inside. Because I knew if there was a real chance I could change your mind about me, I’d do anythin’. But no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t tell you. Couldn’t jeopardize my final… so I tried to tell you through the art. I started painting stuff that made me think of you and placed the pieces in locations I knew you’d pass through. It was the only way I could tell you."

Harry’s confession had Y/n’s heart beating so hard in her chest, she can almost feel it thumping through her ears. Her next question is on the edge of her lips, but she takes her time tracing each of Harry’s graceful features until his eyes catch hers, "tell me what, Harry?" she asks barely above a whisper.

His response comes in three bashful steps: first his lips curve into a shy grin that has him look down with rosy cheeks; then his hand inches its way along the soft fabric of the couch to gently hold her fingers, thumb grazing over her knuckles; and as he looks up from their joined hands to connect their gaze once more, he finally spells it, loud and clear, "tell you that I like you, y/n."

The sentiment sends her own emotions reeling in a tornado of passion. This is it, this is what she’s been half-knowingly wishing for, and now that she knows the truth in full, she’s ready to embrace it. Her eyes twinkle in bliss, a growing smile illuminating her face as she squeezes his hand in a silent invitation to slide closer to her. Harry is much happy to oblige, and once he’s sitting directly next to her, knees grazing her own, he cups her face with one of his bear-paw hands. A few strands of hair are caught in the cuddling gesture, but none of them care. Harry just keeps smiling at her, waiting for her next move, and his beam grows two sizes wide when she mirrors his affection. "I like this side of you," she whispers fondly, as her thumb draws slow circles across the skin of his cheeks.

Harry closes his eyes at her words, "this is the real me, I promise," he reassures in an almost pleading tone, vulnerability seeping through. And y/n feels like she’s lying down on cloud nine really, because dropping his fortress of pretentiousness is all she’s ever want from him. With a hushed ‘okay’, she finally brings her mouth to taste the rose-tinted flesh of his. It starts off chaste and slow, lips dovetailed in perfect symbioses like they are made to cohabit, but quickly the kiss heats up to a full on make out session. "Show me, then", y/n mutters out when they part for a breather.

Harry slowly nods his head, before helping her straddle his lap and y/n immediately brings both her hands to his neck once she settles her hips against his. The friction already had them deeply inhale, trying not to work themselves up too fast, but Harry doesn’t think he’ll have much self-control when it comes to y/n. Already he can feel his cock fattening up inside his brief, the tingling sensation making him roll his hips up into hers. Their lips are back in a sensual duel, tongues tentatively taking their turn to lick their way inside the other’s mouth. Every now and then, he teases her bottom lip with a graze of his teeth, and the move as her tugging the root of his hair at the back of his head every single time without a fail.

He loves discovering all the quirks and tells of her body, thinks he could spend hours on hand learning every single one of her curves and memorizing each of her special spots. The smell of her fragrance infiltrates his nostrils as he dips his head to her neck to plant open-month kisses along her skin. Head angled towards the ceiling to make room for his ministrations, y/n can’t do much but let her hands scout any expanse of skin accessible to her. She starts at his shoulder, squeezing the flesh to feel out the strong muscle laying underneath, before making her way down his tone arms, then to his hands currently holding onto to her waist. She gives them an affectionate pinch at the same time she presses down onto him with a deep moan, and Harry retaliates with a buck of his own.

As he starts kissing down the exposed skin of her cleavage, y/n finally drops her head to place a tender kiss to his hairline. One of her hand is back at his neck, holding him firmly to her chest as he licks at the valley of her breasts down her sternum. The other worms its way underneath his shirt from the neckline, nails grazing down his back in soft enough pressure not to leave any marks.

Harry’s descent is obstructed by the soft material of her blouse, so he takes the garment off of her in one swoop, and places his hands back on her newly exposed body, rubbing up and own the skin. As his mouth goes back to the supple flesh of her breasts, y/n increases the pace of her hips grinding on his cock. The sensations seem to be not enough and too much at the same time for her; the heavy material still covering their most sensitive parts in the way of her pleasure, while Harry’s work has her going into overdrive under his velveteen mouth and calloused fingers. She starts kissing her way up from his shoulder to the edge of his jaw, and Harry revels in the sound of her moans tickling his ear.

Done with the excess of fabric between them two, y/n grips at the top of his shirt and pulls it upwards, leaving him shirtless. "Fuck, I didn’t know you have so many tattoos," she babbles against his lips, while her hands smooth over the ink.

"Plenty you don’t know about me, love," Harry chirps as he bask in the praise and the feeling of her skin of his.

He then circles one arm around her waist to bring them chest to chest, and the contact has y/n once again intensify the friction between their crotches. "Wanna find out," she murmurs against his neck while she grinds on his clothed member, "Harry, please take me to bed."

He jolts at the quick bite she delivers to his neck, the impish gesture her way of saying ‘now’ but before she can make her way out of his lap to bring him to her room, he presses her back down with both hands on her waist. "Nuh uh, y’not goin’ anywhere. Want you to come once, b’fore I take you to bed, pet," he says, smoothing his hands over her ass to guide her rocking motions. The term of endearment sounds so innocent yet dirty all at once, it sends a chill down her spine. Nobody had called her that before.

"Can’t," she shakes her head, "can’t feel you through the jeans."

"Alright then, stand up," he calmly asserts and she doesn’t hesitate to comply, standing in between his spread legs, in her flimsy bra and jeans. "Take ‘em off then, ’s what you want no?" he sends her a tantalizing look and bites at his lips as he watches her peel the pants off her legs. He can’t help the light squeeze he gives himself through his own jeans, as y/n stands in front of him awaiting his next instructions. "Come sit on my thigh now, think should be enough to make this pretty pussy tingle in all the right places, no?"

Y/n’s insides are already twisting in a knot as she settles back on his lap and lets the rough material of his jeans against the softness of her cotton panties spread a prickling sensation through her pelvis area. Quickly, she resumes undulating her hips, gripping back at Harry’s neck to pull him in a languid kiss, pleasure vibrating against their lips. It is not long before her pace picks up, and her eyes shut at the intensity of her bliss. "That’s it, pet. Already makin’ a mess of me. You’re doin’ so well," he coaxes her with his words.

As promised, y/n feels the lips of her sensitivity start to throb at her impending release, the sensation making her clamp her thighs tighter around his meaty limb. As her knee now presses against his bulge, Harry cries his sudden pleasure out in her mouth, and that’s all it takes for her to let her orgasm consume her. She unravels on top of him, one of her hands shooting to cup at her pussy in an attempt to quell the overwhelming throb. Harry draws soothing caresses down her back as he look at the sticky mess she’s left in her panties, damp patch matching the one tainting the material of his jeans. "All ruined, just as they should be," he smirks at the sight before giving her a sweet kiss.

Flushed skin and blown pupils, she slowly regains her breath, "take off your pants and take me to bed now?" she requests.

"You’re quite demanding for someone who’s just gotten off," he keeps taunting her. After all, winding her up has always been one of his favorite thing to do, and dare he say in the past two years, he’s gotten quite good at pushing her buttons. Now he’s got new ones to figure out and play with, the thoughts has him pulsing in his jeans.

Y/n doesn’t relent in her advances, she’s never been one to bow at his mockery, "thought you like how bossy I could be. Something about the way I put you in your place, if my memory serves right."

"Anytime, anywhere, you’re the boss of me, love. But this," he cups at her cunt, adding pressure on her clit, "this is mine to have. Understood?"

Y/n’s about to combust from all the desire firing up every one of her nerve-endings. His words might be the strongest aphrodisiac she’s ever experienced, she can’t wait to see what more tricks in has up his sleeves. "Now get up and show me the way to your room, pet," he softly commands before leaving a peck on her cheek.

They both get up from the couch, and y/n guides them both down the hallway to her room, her hand wrapped in his tightly. Once they’re standing by the bed, Harry is surprised to face a patient y/n, biting her lips and awaiting his next directive. He doesn’t think he’s ever been more turned on in his life, "undress me, love" he murmurs against her skin after kissing her forehead.

His jeans are quickly discarded but before his boxer briefs follow suit, y/n can’t help but tease him in reprisal, "looks like I’m not the only one who made a mess in their panties."

He lets out a boisterous laugh while she smears open mouth kisses along his stretching jaw, "mmm, I’d rather make a mess somewhere else," his innuendo causing her to gasp while he works the strap of her bra. Once she’s gotten rid of his last piece of clothing, his cock springs up, free of it’s confines, dollop of pre-come already pearling at his tip, and sticking to the skin of his stomach.

With a gentle grip at her hair, he has y/n’s head tilted backward, to let his mouth make its way towards her already pebbled nipples. Since she can’t look down, y/n blindly reaches out to wrap her hand around Harry’s thick shaft and starts massaging him in languid strokes. "Your hand feels so fuckin’ good around me, pet, I wanna fuck you so badly," he hisses around her nipple, before kissing his way back up to her lips.

He starts backing her towards the bed in small steps, but she brings a hand to his chest at the feeling of the edge of the mattress brushing against the back of her knee, "wait, wait, wanna taste you first," she insists and Harry doesn’t think he could ever say no to that face, no matter how much he wants to just sink home inside of her in this moment.

"Fuck, you’re killin’ me, love," he pinches at her waist and lays his forehead against hers, "you want my cock in your pretty mouth, before I drive it home in your cunt, is that it?" She nods, eyes turning into two lustful fireballs. "Okay, love, but y’ can’t keep it on your tongue fo’ too long, cause I really need to fuck you, alright?"

Y/n hastens to lower herself when he bids her "right then, on your knees and open wide fo’ me," and her brows furrow in confusion as she watches him stray from her spot. Picking up a plush cushion from her bed, he places it on the ground for her to knee upon, "there love, want you to be comfortable," he runs his fingers through her hair, and her heart grows three sizes bigger at how tender he can be in amidst his filthy ways.

Sensually, y/n brings her lips around the crown of his cock, her tongue teasing its way across the salty skin. Once she’s licked up all the previous mess, she starts working her way down his cock, hand stroking at the base. After bopping up and down a few time, she removes her month from his swelling cock, and lets a string of spit fall down onto its head and make its way to his balls. "S’right, pet. Get me wet," Harry rasps in appreciation. Now that she’s got him properly slicked, she goes back to pumping his hardening cock and takes him into her warm inviting mouth, determined to have him all the way inside. She feels her throat expands to accommodate his thickness, and the pressure makes Harry tighten his hold in her hair, "fuck, that’s it, love. Take me good."

Muscles already tensing up in preparation for his climax, when y/n’s hand finds his full and swollen balls to roll them together like dice, he is quick to calm her zeal, "Christ pet, you gotta stop before I can’t help myself," but his tone hardens when she defies his demand, "come on now, s’enough."

Once she pulls off, the sight of her flushed face and puffy lips induces an animalistic groan to come out from his chest, as he thumbs through the wetness coating her chin. Taking the hand resting on his hip to guide her up, he captures her lips in a searing kiss, the taste of his arousal blending in their mouths.

His hands come down to knead at the flash of her ass, before he scoops her up and on the bed with a quick flex of his biceps. "Harry, please," she whines in impatience, hands gripping at his sides to pull him down against her. His rock hard cock slides against her clothed pussy, pins and needles cruising along their skin and only fueling their eagerness.

"Need me in your belly, pet?" Harry keeps working her up, as he slides her soiled panties down her legs, "need me to fuck you so good, you forget I was ever a jerk?"

She’s putty in his hold, legs wrapping around his waist to feel the pressure of his member on her bare lips , "yes, yes, I wan’ it," she pleads.

Harry would love to tease her further, have her writhing and proper begging underneath him, but at this point it would be self-torture to even consider. Instead he pumps at his shaft to give himself some relief, their sex so close his knuckles graze at her clit every time his fist comes at the top. "You ready?" Harry utters softly while spreading and skimming her cleft with the head of his cock. It has y/n gripping at his hair, a series of delirious ‘yes’ tumbling form her mouth, so he doesn’t wait a second more to push his tip past her threshold and begins his descent in her warmth. "Fuck, t’feels so good. So wet, and tight, and warm," he thinks out loud once he’s stuffer her full, balls pressing against her ass.

Y/n whimpers against his lips, urging him to start moving to quell the building pressure coiling in her belly. A slow roll of his hips finally gives her reprieve causing her to moan in gratitude. She’s already so close, it baffles her how this man could have her coming apart at the seams without doing much. His thrusts starts gaining zeal then, betraying his own yearning to take the final leap. "So tight, love. Can feel you squeezin’ me, are you close already? Is my girl gonna cum fo’ me again?" he grunts in her ear while he pounds into her dripping cunt. Y/n doesn’t offer a response, too caught up in a daze of bliss, but her clenching muscles is all the answer he needs to start nudging his thumb at her clit. A several flicks across the sensitive bud later, her orgasm is pulsing through every bone and fiber of her body, walls hugging Harry’s cock so tight, it has to pause his hammering.

Waiting for her to catch her breath, he peppers delicate kisses along her cheek, "was that good, love? Think you can give me another, uhm?" he asks when she’s regained some of her senses. The pressure at his groin is growing more and more the longer his cock remains unmoving entombed within her vice, and the luscious agony must be written all over his face, "yes, Harry, wanna be good for you" y/n cups his jaw tenderly.

He nods at her approval, "good girl," delivers a sweet earnest kiss to her pouty lips as he pulls out and spins her around to lay on her stomach. His hand brushes the hair off her skin so he can sew a string of kisses at her shoulder blades and neck. Painfully red, his cock is propped between her buttcheeks, "can I take you like that?" he punctuates his inquiry by rolling his hips backward, tip lingering at her soaked entrance. Y/n clutches the sheets firmly, as she murmurs a faint ‘please’, back arching at the thrills consuming her mind.

Harry plunges in her wet core in one smooth swing, hand digging at her hip to keep her steady as the other one interlaces with hers to lay on the mattress above her head. Unforgiving lunges have y/n cinch around him, face buried in the sheets and muffling salacious wails of pleasure, and he doesn’t think he’ll be able to steer from his end for much longer. He slows his cadence to steady and firm strokes, slipping a hand around her waist to polish her swell.

A million tremors spark off the onset of Y/n’s climax as she shudders in a firework of ecstasy. Harry doesn’t relent until he’s worked her through completion and can no longer stop the coil in his loins from snapping. His release fills her in several spurts of wet warmth before he flops down next to her, positively fucked out.

They both lay unmoving in comfortable bliss for a few minutes, before y/n plops her head on his chest and an arm around his torso, her leg sneaking in between his. "Well, here goes two years of sexual tension," Harry says jokingly, fingers drawing abstracts design on the skin of her back. It might just be his favorite canvas to paint on from now, he muses before chastising himself at the onslaught of filthy thoughts tagging along. A playful slap on his abdomen takes his mind out of the gutter, "don’t ruin the moment," y/n says in fake admonition before placing a tender kiss on the spot she just abused.

"M’sorry, love. M’just really chuffed to be in your bed finally," the last word reminding her that while she’s struggled to come to term with her feelings for him, ransacking her mind for a possible change of heart, he’d only seen her in but one light. The revelation still has her floored and giddy, "can I ask you something?" she asks as there was still one question pacing back and forth the pathways of her mind. Harry hums in acquiescence, "anythin’ love, by brain is yours."

She feels his hand cradling her skull followed by a small peck to her forehead, and she smiles at the gesture, "why did you stay away that night at the exhibition when you got the prize? Why not coming forward?" It’s been bugging her brain since it happened. Although she didn’t have much insight on anything at the time, most of the pieces of the puzzle fell in place after the big reveal; but this, she still can’t make sense of.

Harry lets out a long breath, organizing his thoughts, "two reasons," he starts off tiredly. "One, I kinda like having this secret business going on, and like, as long as nobody knows, I am in control of how and when it happens, you know? And the moment I let go of that, I can’t go back." He searches her face for any hint of confusion but she’s just patiently listening. "Two, when we bumped into each other at the gala, I got convinced you’d never see me differently regardless of how good a painter I was; and that had become a big part of who El Patrón was."

It’s the first time she hears his alter ego’s name from his mouth and with how flowingly natural it sounded coming out of his lips, y/n suspects that it’d been a conscious decision on his part. She recalls their interaction that night, the way they fell in their usual ways of ping-ponging vindictive words until one of them has enough and leaves the premises (usually y/n). A lump starts forming in her throat at the recollection of all the other fights they’ve had and how they’d all been pointless wastes of time and energy, now that she knows she is meant to be in his arms. She wishes things could have been different but the warmth of his body around her overweighs her regrets. They’re here now, looking bright toward the future, and it’s all that matters.

"I’ll keep your secret if you want, be the Lilly to your Hannah Montana," she tells him lightly before they both laugh at the silly reference.

Happiness and glee has Harry tightening his hold around her shoulder, "nah, I don’t wanna play double-agents anymore. I wanna be the guy who gets the girl." He dips his head to catch her lips between his own, reveling in their newfound intimacy. Turning her face against his chest, Y/n impresses her bashful smile on his swallow-tattooed skin, before she lays a trail of pecks tickling the area underneath his armpits, "well, you got me now."

➪ Masterlist

#harry styles one shot #harry styles fic #harry styles imagine #Harry fic #enemies to lovers #angst #so much angst #smut #I didn't think I could be this filthy lol #uni au #artstudent!harry #art #harry fanfic #harry styles writing #reader insert #harry styles au

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sumrtm · 5 years ago

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* wanted plots !

* hi my friends ! i went ahead & elaborated on a wanted connections list to make for easier plotting . a lot of these plots are taken straight from movies & tv shows , but they’re all open for the taking to all genders . i enjoy progressive connections , so every one of these plots are written with the intent to constantly develop over time & with the notion that anything can happen . i also have a few plots at the bottom of my intro here ! btw , everyone’s free to message / add me on disco to plot & chat , too ! 𝐥𝐮𝐯_ꮪꮖꮯꮶ!#7392

* i’ll look after you ⤻ platonic .

* i imagine there’s a support group of sorts on campus for mental health , & one of summer’s many secrets is her own crumbling mental health . she regularly attends group therapy & met your muse there , & after a few sessions , they became unlikely but very close & supportive friends . as a result , sum confides in them quite often , opening up to them completely , & does her best to be the shoulder they cry on as well .

* falling in like at a coffee shop ⤻ platonic , flirtationship .

* summer frequents a coffee shop near or on campus to not only soothe her unhealthy dependency on coffee , but for a little bit of solitude as it’s a hotspot for studying . she met your muse there after complimenting a song they were listening to in their airpods , & sparked something in your muse that has them starting to frequent the coffee shop a lot more often now hoping they’ll see summer . & maybe , just maybe , she chooses to sit by the window instead of in the back like she usually does , or gets in line behind them for a second bev when her first one is still half full to “stumble upon” them b/c she wants to see them just as badly .

* no halo ⤻ platonic .

* whether it’s stress from an exam , the frustration after seeing an ex post their new ting on insta , or simple boredom transferred into trouble , sum can count on this muse for some chaotic coping techniques . including but not limited to skipping classes altogether to get high at sum’s mom’s house , getting ( more ) impromptu matching tattoos or piercings , traveling to the city overnight to a rival college’s frat party , or streaking after hours around campus . nothing like some debauchery to relieve stress !

* 4EVER ⤻ formerly romantic , now platonic .

* summer’s a new student , so she doesn’t have more than two exes including this one , but this muse came into contact with summer in freshman year when she was in a long distance r/s with her ex from high school & would visit campus . they managed a long distance friendship & got into a medium in length but meaningful r/s shortly after she & her other ex broke up in sophomore year . figuring in spite of their feelings for each other , they worked better as friends in the long run , they too broke up for reasons tbd , but are now best friends .

* smack a b*tch ⤻ enemies .

* let the record state that there will be no actual smacking ! for one reason or another , your muse & sum have an ongoing rivalry . whether it’s cheerleading , their families knowing each other & are feuding ( a really good one would be if your muse’s mom is who sum’s dad cheated on celia with & is now engaged to ! ) as a result , secret attraction , sum & her eccentric personality ANNOYS them , or w/e else we can conjure . one thing’s for sure though — they are very much this whenever they’re around each other .

* heaven ⤻ muse , platonic .

* summer has an intense love for music & writing , hence her majors . she pens & records her own music with the help of your muse , finding the sound of their voice or the curve of their features leave her roused . sometimes , she’ll call your muse up just to be in their presence , b/c all it takes is a melodic laugh , a scrunch of the nose , or the sun to make their eyes flicker for her to get inspired . she sends all of her writings & music to them before anyone else , & lets them know in the email or airdrop what it was about them that created the piece of art .

* RYD / DARK RED ⤻ sexual .

* although it’s purely lust , this muse & sum have a LOT of sexual tension between them that’s almost dangerous to cut . they’re extremely attracted to each other , they both know it , but are both acting hard to get in order to see who breaks first . it’s almost a game of cat & mouse where they’re both the cat & mouse interchangeably , & when they finally give in , it’s bound to get dirty .

* never call me ⤻ sexual .

* this muse & sum hooked up within the first week of school , a hookup that wind up being a one night stand . usually , sum’s not one to get caught up in s/t like this , but whether it was a really good night or she’s upset that she wasn’t the one to ghost , she’s upset over the way things went , wants answers , & tries to be seen by your muse . your muse ? unbothered . you shouldn’t have saved that number after all , sum !

* trust ⤻ platonic .

* while sum is extremely intelligent & one of the top students @ dillon , someone who parties as much as she does can’t always maintain straight a’s — that’s where your muse comes in . using the gifts god’s given them , they get their way more often than not after working one of the campus hackers , & essentially gain access to future essay material , scheduled exams with their corresponding answers , & lesson plans weeks in advance to keep them on top . the best part is when they act swamped & stressed along with everyone else when these assignments are presented , knowing they’ve already got everything done .

* misc ⤻ all plot types .

study buddies who are slowly getting to know each other outside of homework . after all , sum basically pretends she doesn’t already know hers , so she’s got plenty of time to bond .

frenemies . they don’t hate each other , but they’re faker than khloe kardashian’s ass to one another while smiling in each other’s faces .

neighbor . “ make sure you check out her mom’s boob job , they’re hard as rocks ! ” this muse’s family lives in the same neighborhood as summer’s mom , right next door at that , so they’ve heard lord knows what during one of summer’s parents’ fights over the phone or mrs. verona’s revolving door of rebounds to get over walker’s new engagement . not to mention the first time they met mama verona & her children while completely inebriated & proceeded to embarass everyone involved .

enemies that are becoming friends . maybe enemies is an overstatement , but they didn’t get off on the best foot . however , that’s starting to change . slowly but surely .

music soulmates . someone sum discusses music & only music with . there’s even a pipe dream being thrown around between them to start their own band & perform on campus . who knows , it might happen sooner than they think !

fake significant other . the opposite of a wingman , this guy , girl , or nonbinary more often than not pretends to be sum’s s/o when she wants the attention of parker or her ex , or even if someone’s bein’ a pain & not taking hints so she’s gotta mack on her “s/o” to get them to fuck off . it goes without stating that she returns the favor !

friends around campus , classmates , friends she only talks to at games , tinder hookups , absolutely anything !

#mental health tw #ily all sm ! <3 #i'll try to update this as much as possible but i really wanted to get the ball rolling !

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pixieungerstories · 6 years ago

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Housemates - 25

Trigger Warning - attempted poisoning, drugging someone’s drink

Vinny had snuck down from her bathroom and into Derick’s room hoping to avoid the others. She had come to care for all of them, in there own way, but Derick was still her favourite. They still went running most mornings. He was like her own personal cheering section. He cared about the fine details of school and would remember which lab partner was useless and which ones she liked working with.

Kogan was good like that with major assignments. Gently encouraging her to focus when she would slack off, or when a study break started to go long. He was also good at finding her little rewards when she did well.

Tristan was the guy to hang out with when she needed to just escape from her life for a while.

Her relationship with the others had been strictly professional. Until now. Now she couldn’t quite figure out what to do.

Right now, she was snuggled up to Derick who was gently tracing patterns on her back. However lost in thought she was, he was paying attention. “What’s wrong, Vinny?”

She jumped slightly, then started to stall, then just blurted out, “I had a threesome…. Or maybe a foursome with Thea, Dren and sort of Bazur. I wasn’t planning on that. I thought Thea was just going to give me a back rub.” She felt Derick tense under her. “Not… I mean, I wanted it. I asked. I could have said no. I just… I don’t know what to do now.”

Derick nodded, “First, I want to say thank you for being nice to Thea. He really needed that. As for what to do now, well, now you just act normal. You haven’t done anything wrong. If you want to spend time with them, that’s fine. If you don’t that’s fine too.”

Vinny just shook her head, “What kind of woman fucks six guys in two weeks?”

Now Derick sat up, “A well adjusted one who knows what she wants. Is shame really what you want here? Or are you just worried about what your mom would think?”

“My sex life is none of my mother’s business!” Vinny replied firmly.

“OK,” Derick agreed. “So tell me what is bothering you.”

“I don’t know,” she finally said. “This isn’t… normal.”

Derick sighed. “I’m sorry, I really am. But no one here is normal. That doesn’t mean that we don’t all care about you.”

“I know,” Vinny muttered. “I guess I just need time to get used to the idea.”

“That’s fair. But I need to know something. Is the reason we are in here instead out there with the rest of the family because you are ashamed?”

Vinny nodded.

Derick was really quiet before he asked, “Are you ashamed of us?”

“No!” she didn’t even hesitate. “I’m just… Look, it isn’t… typical for a woman to have… what? A harem?? Six lovers. If I just suddenly start talking about you, all of you, there are going to be negative repercussions for all of us.”

Derick shrugged, “So just don’t talk about it. How is it anyone’s business but yours?”

“It isn’t. Just…” she stopped talking to think. “I don’t know. A lot to take in.”

Derick nodded and lay back down, pulling her close so he could go back to drawing patterns on her back. “That I understand. It will be ok. If you want to stop, that’s OK. If you want to just play it by ear, that’s ok. And whether you tell anyone or not, we will support you whatever happens.”

Vinny nodded.

“And I’ll talk to the boys to make sure we are discrete around Kevin. Given the whole jello incident, I can see why you would want to exclude him, but we will try to at least be tactful about it.”

She didn’t know what to think about that. She wasn’t trying to exclude Kevin anymore than she was trying to have… whatever that afternoon was. The opportunity arose and she just went for it. Yeah, she had felt embarrassed and betrayed by the jello thing, but that was months ago. She wasn’t holding a grudge because it had really been the point where Kevin had started being a decent person around her.

The problem was, even if she hadn’t looked up minotaur porn, and had looked up drider porn. Mimic porn was the sort you accidentally stumbled on when out on the web. It was right up there with the gang bang you didn’t want to see.

It was generally included with the fucking machine videos. After all, society didn’t consider Mimics to be people. It was straight line from person using a vibe to person tied down and a vibe being used on them to a person tied to a mimic.

Vinny squirmed a little, because now that picture was in her head too.

-----

Vinny was celibate all through midterms. There just wasn’t time. She just made do with two minute quickies with her vibe in the shower.

But they were finally over. The exams were written, the reports handed in. Right on time for the halloween parties to start. Vinny and Jenn were on a pub crawl. By random luck Derick’s was the last bar of the night, so the plan was to shut the place down and have him give them a lift home. Vinny had planned ahead and was going as little red riding hood. Jenn was Wonder Woman.

They never made it. They were at The Fish trying to be good and drink some soda and eat a plate of nachos to balance out all the booze, when some jocks came over with drinks for them. They were flirty and the one somehow managed to flex as he stole their nachos.

Vinny was still sipping her iced tea, but Jenn was finished her coke. When she reached for the pink and fruity drink they guys had brought her, an orc hand darted out first and caught it.

“What the hell man?” the jock demanded.

The bouncer and another orc were right behind the guy now holding Jenn’s drink. “They put something in this between the bar and the table. And maybe it’s nothing, but I would like to see one of them drink it.”

Three of the guys just looked confused. The last looked cagey.

That was the one the Bouncer grabbed a hold of and dragged away. The guy holding Jenn’s drink picked up Vinny’s as well. The last orc lead Vinny and Jenn to the manager’s office. “I don’t think you will need to give a statement, since you didn’t see the pill go into the drink and you didn’t drink the drink. But you can wait here if you want.”

Vinny looked at Jenn who was shaking. “Yeah,” she said, “Thanks.”

“No problem! Me and Joe are part of Kogan’s tribe.” He pulled off his hoodie to show off a familiar looking tattoo. “He asked us all to keep an eye on you. I spotted you as soon as you came in!” he said proudly.

“Uh.. thanks?” Vinny honestly wasn’t sure what to say about that. Jenn wasn’t saying anything.

The orc looked at his hoodie, then at Jenn. “Miss? Did you want to wrap up in this? I’m a bit worried about you going into shock.”

“Thank you,” the hoodie fit Jenn like she was wearing a tent. Vinny was well aware of that look.

The cops were very discrete. The female officer who talked to Vinny and Jenn was very polite. And very concerned about them having a safe ride home. That was when they realized they had missed the pub crawl bus.

Jayce, who had shared his sweater with Jenn had a suggestion. “Vinny? Call Kogan and check me out!” He pulled his wallet out of his pocket and handed her his driver’s licence. “I can take you to the next pub, if you want.”

“Do you know this man?” the officer asked.

Vinny shook her head, “No, but he says he’s part of the same tribe as one of the guys I live with.”

“Vinny is a live in housekeeper,” Jenn hurried to explain.

Vinny blinked. The orc’s face froze. The officer nodded, “Calling to check out this guy before you go off with a stranger is a good idea. Getting a cab is a better one.”

They both nodded. Vinny doubted they could get a cab in this neighbourhood at this time of night. They would all be hanging out near the upscale bars downtown. By the time they were free to go, it was really too late and they were too sober to try to track down the bus. Vinny texted Derick to tell him they were just going home.

Then she called Kogan. He was running security at an event that night.

He picked up the first ring, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine! But… some guy tried to slip Jenn and I a date rape drug and some orcs stopped him, then we had to wait for the cops and now we just wanna go home. But it’s 1:30 in the morning and we are at The Fish.”

“Jesus. Um… I’ll just… I need a minute to figure out who can come and get you.” Kogan replied.

“It’s just that… look the guys who stopped him say they are part of your tribe and they can give us a ride home, but-”

“Pass the phone over to them, please.”

Vinny did. There was a long conversation in orcish. About half way through Jayce straightened up and was suddenly a lot closer to the ceiling than he had been when he slouched.

He handed the phone back to Vinny. “Yeah, you can go with him. Have him drop off Jenn first, then he can wait for me at the house, OK?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Somehow, Jayce and Jenn ended up flirting in the front of the car while Vinny was riding in the back. When they got to Jenn’s dorm, she went to give Jayce his sweater back.

“Keep it. You can call me next week and let me know how you are doing. I’ll pick it up then.”

Vinny rolled her eyes. Jenn just giggled. She leaned across the car and gave Jayce a peck on the cheek before running inside. Vinny climbed into the front. Jayce was grinning like an idiot.

He looked at her, “Think she likes me?”

Vinny rolled her eyes. “I’ll let you know,” she said sarcastically.

“Really? That would be great! Thanks Vinny!”

Jayce drove her home in silence for a long moment. Then he said, “She didn’t know Kogan is your mate.”

Vinny shifted uncomfortably. She started to talk a couple of times and stopped. What she finally said was, “My mom is strictly Catholic.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

“You have my sympathies.”

He said it so sincerely, like he was consoling her on the loss of a loved one.

Vinny burst out laughing. “I’m sorry! That probably wouldn’t be that funny if it wasn’t almost 2 am.”

Jayce grinned, “that’s why Kogan wants me to stay with you. And trust me, how ever hard you find it to explain your relationship to your mother, Kogan had the same problems taking his relationship with you to the tribe. It’s probably just that he has more -” Jayce broke off for a moment, then continued, “experience than you do.”

“OK, now tell me what you were going to say.”

Jayce shrugged as he parked his car in front of the house. “Humans don’t have a word for it, as far as I know. Kogan’s title in the tribe means war hero, grandfather, respected elder, boss, life coach and counselor all at the same time.”

“That’s a lot to put into one word,” Vinny agreed as she unlocked the door. The porch light was on. The front entry light was on, but she remembered too late that everyone would be out except for Kevin.

Damn it. She climbed out of her shoes and hung up her coat. She just wanted a shower and to go to bed. She wasn’t even planning on waiting for her hair to dry. But she was not comfortable doing that while there was a stranger in the lobby.

“Well, thanks for seeing me home. I don’t want to take any more of your time,” she hinted.

“Oh, it’s no trouble. Kogan wanted me to stay with you until he gets home in case anything happens from any of your other drinks.” Jayce thought for a moment. “I should get you some water and something to eat. Which way is the kitchen?”

Vinny was going to protest that he didn’t have to, but she remembered Kogan’s protective streak and just pointed. She staggered into the lounge. Kevin was currently a chaise. He tottered over on short legs and bumped against her calves. Vinny sat down heavily. Then she put her feet up. Kevin’s arms snaked out of somewhere and pulled a blanket over her.

“ ‘ank oo,” Vinny mumbled.

She was asleep before Jayce returned.

She was vaguely aware of Kogan coming home and Jayce updating him on what was going on.

“Is she passed out, or just asleep?”

“Well, I was asleep, Kogan.”

“That’s fine. Go back to sleep, Vinny.”

That was fairly easy, she hadn’t actually opened her eyes to comment. Sometime later, she was carried up the stairs. Someone carefully cleaned off her makeup using her wipes, and tucked her into her bed. She slept some more before Kogan got her up to change out of her costume and drink some water. At which point she really had to pee, then she was awake anyway, so she had a shower and washed her hair. Then she refilled her cup from the sink and drank some more water.

She came out to find Kogan, Derick and Kevin sitting on her bed. She blinked at them, feeling fairly confused.

Kogan nodded at her, “You are sleeping with us tonight, little girl.”

Vinny frowned a little.

“Kogan has the biggest bed and we are all worried.”

Vinny considered that. “I’m not actually sober yet.”

“I know darlin’ that’s why it’s just sleep,” Kogan assured her.

Hey - if you like this, check me out on Patreon. I have several books of reasonably priced content up there.

#Minotaur #mimic #slime #orc #werewolf #gargoyle #drider #terato #exophilia

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theancientgeekoroman · 6 years ago

Note

While this might not be your area of expertise could you lend any advice to a high school senior (almost college freshman) planning on going into History, looking at a masters in museum studies? I’m a bit over whelmed and not entirely sure I know where to start

Hi, Nonny!

Okay, I did actually get an MA in Museum Studies from the University of Oklahoma, so I do have some experience there :3 I work in a museum professionally at the moment as well.

For History in general at the university level is a lot of analysis and reading and a lot of papers. If you’re in the US, I would suggest looking into CLEP exams for the introductory courses (History 101, 102), depending on your university, if you want to skip over the beginning courses. CLEP will help you test out of courses before you go into courses and can save you money in the long run. (If you’re not in the US, you can always look into an equivalent program that lets you test out of lower-level courses in your country if your university system works that way).

One of the things I’d suggest before going to your university is to e-mail the professors in the history program (look up and see what courses they teach) and express your excitement of working with them. You can also see if they list any of their syllabi online to get an idea of the kind of workload they assign and what textbooks they expect you to have for their courses. One of the most useful thing I did as a history major was keep all my textbooks because I needed them again - one of my undergraduate textbooks I had in 2015 I ended up needing this year for graduate school! So, you never know.

The other thing I did was I color-coded my notes/highlighter for different eras for my classes. It helped a lot because my ancient history was always yellow, Medieval was blue, Renaissance was orange, etc. That worked for me, but remember that you have to try and figure out what works best for you.

I know that my history homework (in 3-credit American courses) always had about three hours per course each day I had class - so if I had it three times a week, I was reading about 9 hours a week. I have dyslexia and ADHD, so I had to make my schedule to accommodate for that, so the three hours, depending on the day, it might take me 6 hours for something that would usually take half that time. Make sure you take a lot of breaks during the readings because it can really get overwhelming. Stand up, stretch, get a glass of water, and if you have trouble concentrating on one of the readings, don’t be afraid to change which homework you’re focusing on.

As I’ve said with other advice, remember to talk to your professors. This is especially important in history because it can be overwhelming. One of my favorite professors was a Medieval professor, and I kept in touch with him well into graduate school. As you go through the program, don’t just meet with your assigned advisor, but talk to all of your professors. A lot of them will be good for recommendations in the future, and a lot of them give invaluable advice about how to proceed in your career.

Here’s the thing about Museum Studies degrees that I didn’t realize before I was already halfway through my program: the field is exceptionally over-saturated with people with museum degrees. However, having said that, if you want to get the degree, I wouldn’t blame you. I got mine because I wanted it and then I decided to pursue my MA in Classical Studies. So, I’m going to give you a couple of options because I know this is overwhelming, but remember, you still haven’t even started university yet, so grad school is still a bit away for you, and there might be even better options once you’re graduating!

The first thing I would suggest is that if you can, over the summer, try to volunteer at a local museum and see if they’ll let you float over different departments to see what you like best. Related places like local art galleries are also an option! A lot of places also have internships, but you might need a little bit more experience before an internship (high school internships happen, but it’s been my experience that many museums prefer interns that are enrolled in college already).

Most universities have galleries and museums so you can volunteer there, too. Some university museums have front desk paid positions for students, so check that out as well!

Museum Studies isn’t the only graduate degree to consider when you’re thinking about working in a museum after graduate school. Another thing to consider is getting a graduate degree with a Museum Studies graduate certificate to complement it could be an option for you.

If you’re thinking about working in a science-based museum, multiple different science degrees would be applicable. One of the jobs I looked at ended up requiring an Entomology degree, so you never know! Other degrees that might help would be a graduate degree in Anthropology, Art Conservation, Art History, Education, History, etc. One of the things you should do is look at the museums you would like to work at and see the educational background of the current employees and the openings there to see which is the best route to take. (Additionally, if you have an MA in any of those fields, depending on where you live, you could also teach community college in addition to or while you’re searching for a museum position).

Another degree to consider that I think is applicable is a Master in Library Science, some degree programs of which have a Museum Studies specialization (such as the one at Kent State University: https://www.kent.edu/iSchool/museum-studies). The good thing about pursuing an MLIS with a focus on museums is that you can apply to public and academic libraries as well as museum libraries, which gives a little more flexibility.

The reason why I give you all these other options (I know it’s a lot) is that I didn’t get a museum job until six months after I got my BA degrees and moved across the country - twice. This was also after having an apprenticeship, several internships, and uncountable volunteer hours as well. So, that’s a lot to consider. Once I got to where I live now, though, I got a museum job almost two weeks after I moved here, so you have to take where you live into account, too. Las Vegas is a pretty transient city, and a lot of people here don’t have Museum Studies MAs, so it’s a rarity. Other places that I lived (like Chicago) have so many people vying for the same jobs, it’s difficult to get your foot in the door. But, that’s why the volunteering, internships, and networking is so important. Professors are part of your networking, so keep that in mind, too. If your university has an art history club or history club or museum club, join it/them. Go to the museum and gallery openings at your university and talk with the people there. Usually, they have a lot of the professors and upperclassmen there, as well as local museum professionals. Go to events at local museums and art galleries, too! One of the things I wish I had done before I did that was make business cards that I could give to the people I met there, which is what I do at my current place of work when I meet people who want to keep in touch with me. Small things like that could go a long way.

I would spend some time researching the schools that you’re interested in for graduate school (as I assume you’ve already chosen which university you’re going to next year already) and compare their programs. While you’re an undergraduate, try to take one course in other fields that might interest you. A lot of times you can take courses in Anthropology or Art History for general education requirements and sometimes they’ll count towards a history major. Don’t be afraid to explore outside of your comfort zone.

The last thing I would recommend is after you do all this research, and you still want to go to graduate school specifically for Museum Studies, then you should do it. I loved my program, and although everyone told me once I graduated that I would not see a good ROI (return on investment), I had wasted my time. But one of the things I did during my program was an internship at a museum on the same campus where I would get my first full-time benefitted position. I learned how to run a museum. I learned best practices and how to curate. I learned basic exhibition design. I learned art and museum law. There was a lot that was covered in the program that was generalized that will help me in any museum I work at in the future, which is part of why I liked the program. The MA in Classical Studies was my next move because I would like to be a curator of Ancient Greek and Roman art eventually.

Just remember, take a deep breath, and you don’t have to worry about graduate school quite yet, but if you want to make sure you’re keeping up with the job market, keep an eye out and follow positions you want on sites like Indeed.com so you can see what people are looking for and begin to gain skills in those areas.

Also, and this is weirdly important for a history major, but I have seen current university students not know how to do it - learn to write and read cursive, in your native language and the language of any historical figure you might be studying. Somehow this has become a special skill, but I know it because we were required to use it in Catholic school.

I hope this wasn’t too overwhelming, and if you want to ask me more about my MA in Museum Studies, feel free to do so. Let me know if you want any clarifications on what I’ve outlined here; I know it was a lot.

All the best,

Tychon, the Ancient Geeko-Roman

#history #museum studies #ask #asks #academia #anon #anonymous #long post #Anonymous

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camkablam · 6 years ago

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Of Wands and Bubbled Cupcakes

(14th birthday present to @lunarthemooncake . Happy Birthday, Lunar!)

In total honesty, Toni had little idea as to how he started hanging around a fourth year. He was fairly certain Ariza had been the one to introduce them, but beyond that he had no idea; she’d simply shown up one day and hadn’t left. Not that Toni wanted her to leave. He liked having her around, even if some of the other students thought a friendship between a seventh year and a fourth year was strange.

Another thing Toni didn’t care about.

Something he did find himself caring about quite a bit was the fact that Ariza, his girlfriend, had already graduated Hogwarts and hadn’t returned with him and Lunar this year. She was working at a little store in Diagon Alley, something both Toni and Lunar had helped her set up over the summer. It was just down the road from the little bookstore Rainy had deemed her own.

With both Rainy and Ariza gone, things were considerably quiet. Of course, Toni spent the better half of his free time writing letters and sending owls back and forth with Ariza, sometimes Rainy- something Lunar also did, although not as much.

The school year had hardly started- they were only just finishing week two- and yet Toni already found himself being a little miserable. He kept making to ask if he could hold a hand or peck a cheek that wasn’t there, only to falter a second later as he realised she wasn’t there. Sure, their relationship had started off long distance and had been that way for years before she transferred to Hogwarts, and even before that she always returned to America for the summers- same with Lunar. She’d just come over to England a few days earlier to see Ariza before she and Toni jumped on the Hogwarts Express.

He missed her.

But he definitely hadn’t meant to forget Lunar’s birthday.

He’d been sitting at the Ravenclaw table during breakfast, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he spread jam across his slice of toast and waiting for an owl to come with a new letter. He must have been particularly tired (staying up all night to read will do that to you), because it took him a moment to realise Lunar had slipped into the seat across from him and was helping herself to some pasties.

Her bright yellow tie clearly stated her as a Hufflepuff, but sitting at each other's tables had been something Toni and his friends- the majority of which were from different houses- had done regularly. Ariza herself had been a Hufflepuff, as was Rainy. Gommie had been a Gryffindor and Red a Slytherin, although Gommie had been pulled from Hogwarts and now attended Ilvermorny. Toni wasn’t sure what happened to Red. Maybe he moved back to France, attending Beauxbatons, or was in Ilvermorny with Gommie.

That aside, it wasn’t uncommon to see students sitting at different house tables during meals so they could be with their friends anymore. Toni found the fact that it had, at first, seemed like some sort of unspoken rule to only ever sit at your own house table ridiculous. They’d certainly gotten themselves a few odd stares when they’d first started doing it.

Not that any of that really mattered anymore. Especially considering Lunar had taken to watching him somewhat expectantly.

“You want coffee?”

“Coffee,” Toni echoed, “Coffee sounds wonderful.”

She poured a cup for him and passed it over a platter of bacon and eggs. He accepted it with a grateful smile and took a sip at the steaming liquid.

“So, uh… anything planned today?”

“Not really,” Toni shrugged, “I mean, I should probably get started on that Transfiguration assignment. What ‘bout you?”

Lunar blinked up at him, fork frozen in her hand. Then, abruptly uncertain, she bit her lip and her eyes darted to the side. “Um… I dunno. Maybe I’ll do some more writing for The Lodge.”

“Can’t wait to read it,” said Toni, biting into his toast, “Not sure how much reading I’ll be able to do this year, what with my NEWTS and all.”

“Yeah,” Lunar muttered, her eyes trailing down to her untouched plate, “Exams suck.”

Toni did exactly what he said he would- well, after messing about for a good bit, but he did get to that Transfiguration assignment. Not before checking the Owlry about twelve times, because Ariza had yet to send a letter that day. Maybe the bird had been forced to take a detour or had been caught in a storm.

Whatever the reason, the letter wasn’t here. He spotted Lunar in the library a few times, and she even sat across from him and started to scribble on a piece of parchment without a saying a word. It must have been around dinner time that he lost track of where she was, and around dinner time that he finally got that letter.

Silly things, silly things. How things were at the shop. How her brother was going to be visiting for a week. How she and Rainy went out to lunch yesterday. This new book she was reading. How her games were coming.

He froze near the end.

Wish Lunar a happy birthday for me.

He hadn’t meant to forget. He honestly, truly hadn’t. He could make an excuse and say that his calendar had been torn to bits during the first week (which it had), but it certainly wasn’t good enough. The thing was he’d forgotten, point blank, and it didn’t take much to make him feel like a crappy person to begin with.

But Lunar was nowhere to be found. He tried asking a few Hufflepuffs- some girls he knew shared a dorm with her- to see if she was in the dormitories or the common room, but they came back a few moments later to tell him she wasn’t. He tried to Ravenclaw common room next, because Lunar somehow always seemed to be able to figure out the riddles (he absently wondered if she either had superpowers or had somehow managed to get Google to work at Hogwarts) and frequently popped in herself if she was looking for him or just wanted to browse through the common rooms expanse personal library. It took him a good fifteen minutes of pure frustration to figure out the doors stupid riddle (he sometimes wondered why the heck hack he was a Ravenclaw), only for it to be a total waste of time upon discovering that the common room was practically bare.

He checked the kitchens. The halls. The classrooms. The grounds. The library. The Great Hall. But she might as well have never been there to begin with.

Curfew drew nearer and nearer, and Toni made it just in time to get some Hufflepuffs to see if she was in the common room or dormitories again, but, just as last time, they came back and told him she wasn’t there. That they hadn’t seen her since before lunch.

He stayed out past curfew. The lights flickered and dimmed to the point that they might as well have not been lit at all. Shadows drew lengthy figures along the walls and floors. He kept expecting something to jump out at him; be it a monster or a professor.

There were a few close calls. He was able to duck behind a pillar, a statue, around the corner or into a classroom mere seconds before they could spot him, and it always left his heart pumping so loud he was almost certain they’d be able to hear. He drew his wand and cast a few cloaking spells, that unpleasant sensation of an egg being cracked on his head and trailing down the back of his neck making an appearance. He wasn’t the best at this particular spell; he just hoped he’d be able to find Lunar before any of the professors (or monsters) could find him.

He wasn’t sure when he decided to go up to the Astronomy Tower, but he soon found himself mounting the spiralling staircase up to the top after a particularly close call with a certain cat. His feet had started hurting an hour or so ago, and exhaustion weighed heavily on his shoulders. When he reached the top of the blasted staircase, he tilted on his feet and almost went tumbling back down them again. He was thankfully able to grab the bannister before that could happen; he’d rather not have to explain to Professor McGonagall or Professor Flitwick why he was up in the Astronomy in the middle of the night. Or climb back up said stairs again if he’s somehow not caught or his bones don’t get broken too badly.

Toni tried the door that would lead to the circular room where their lessons took place and, to his surprise, the handle submitted and it swung open. He faltered in the doorway, peering into the shadows. There was no one there. The telescopes and moon charts were all packed away, the desks pressed up against the far wall and the chairs seated on top of them. But then his eyes found the small figure leaning against the railings on the other side of the classroom, looking up at the stars, and he almost fell back down the stairs again in his relief.

It was, without a doubt, Lunar. She had a notebook open in front of her, balancing precariously on the bannister, the only thing stopping it from falling all the way down to the grounds being her own hand gripping its corner. She was twirling a pen in her other hand- quills were fun and all, but after a while they became a bit tedious, especially when you’re a writer and random ideas pop into your head that needs to be written down immediately before you forget them- and she wasn’t star gazing as he’d originally assumed; her eyes were glazed in deep thought.

She didn’t come out of it as he shut the door behind him, nor as he made his way over. In fact, he got as far as leaning against the railing directly beside her before she blinked the glaze from her eyes and looked up. To her, it must have been as though he’d appeared out of thin air; she jerked, pen dropping from her fingers to clatter against the cool floor (thankfully not the grounds below). Her notebook wobbled dangerously, and would have likely tipped over the edge had Toni not reached out and steadied it.

“Hey,” he muttered. Lunar gaped up at him for a moment, still seemingly coming to terms with his newfound powers of teleportation, before releasing an almost shaky breath and returning to the bannister.

“Where the heck did you come from?” she asked in a quiet mumble; her eyes darted over to the clock mounted in the shadows on the far wall, “It’s past curfew.”

“I came from my mother,” Toni informed her, “And I could point out the same to you.”

“I didn’t realise it was that late,” Lunar declared. Toni rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, and you daydream up here often.”

Lunar bit her lip, tapping her finger against the bannister. Toni flipped her notebook shut and handed it back; the girl accepted it with a tiny, thankful smile and tucked it into one of the pockets of her robes.

“How come you aren’t in bed?” she asked, after a moment. Toni shrugged.

“Was looking for you,” he glanced at her, “Why aren’t you in bed?”

“Because I’m a vampire.”

Toni snorted, “Fair.”

They sat in silence for a moment, staring up at the dark sky of sparkling stars. Then Toni shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out a glistening bubble about the size of his hand. There was something inside it.

“What is that?” Lunar asked. In answer, Toni pulled out his wand and tapped the tip against the bubble, causing it to pop. He held it out to her.

“Happy Birthday.”

It was a chocolate cupcake, purple frosting swirled on the top. Lunar accepted it tentatively; Toni sent her a somewhat forced but no less apologetic smile.

“I, uh… I’m sorry I forgot.”

She blinked, then huffed a small laugh, “It’s fine. Thanks.”

“It’s not fine,” Toni insisted, smile slipping, “I’ve known you for years and I forgot your birthday.”

“What do you want me to say, then?”

“I- I dunno,” the boy frowned, running his fingers through his short hair, “Just… not that it’s fine. ‘Cause it isn’t. I guess just that you… forgive me or something. But I want you to know that it isn’t fine; I know I probably hurt you, and even if I didn’t, it’s not okay.”

“Alright,” said Lunar, holding up a hand as though to stop him, “Alright, I forgive you. I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”

Toni’s shoulders slumped in relief, and he sighed, “Okay. Thank you.”

Lunar smiled at him, then turned her attention to the cupcake, “Where did you even get this?”

“The kitchens,” Toni admitted, “Those house elves are adorable, honestly. Like hairless cats.”

The girl snorted, “I can’t believe you just compared them to hairless cats.”

“Well, they are,” Toni huffed, “Like, everyone thinks they’re a bit creepy looking but they’re actually adorable. You know?”

“Whatever you say, Toni.”

He smiled at her. It turned a little sheepish. “I, ah… didn’t know what flavour of cupcake you liked, so I…”

He reached into his pockets again and pulled out another bubbled cupcake. Then another. And another. And another. The floor was quickly covered in bubbled cupcakes. Lunar looked torn between laughing her guts out and hiding her face in horror.

“Oh dear Merlin,” she breathed, covering the smile threatening to take over her face, “What- How did you- Why?”

“Well, I’d originally wanted to get you a cake,” explained Toni, still emptying his pockets of bubbled cupcakes, “But then I realised I didn’t know what flavour you’d like. So I asked them to just make me a cupcake of every flavour. It didn’t really occur to me that there’s a heck of a lot of cupcake flavours out there.”

“Oh my god.”

“Also,” Toni continued, tossing yet another bubbled cupcake into the ever growing pile around their feet, “Now that I think about it, I don’t really know how I would’ve been able to carry a cake around. It wouldn’t fit in my pockets.”

“How are these fitting in your pockets?”

“I have no idea. I might’ve been an expansion spell on them. Would explain why I keep losing my pens.”

That earned him a disbelieving laugh. Toni pulled out one last bubbled cupcake, ruffled around in all his pockets to make sure that truly was the last one, before standing back and observing the giant pile of bubbled cupcakes surrounding them.

“Huh,” he muttered, then turned to look at Lunar, “You know, some of these are bound to be really interesting. I mean, one’s Dark Chocolate Bacon. And another’s, like, Parsnip and Maple Syrup or something.”

Lunar’s eyes bulged, “Seriously?”

“Yup. I think one of them’s Beer and Sauerkraut Fudge.”

“Beer? Beer?”

Toni nodded, “Beer.”

“With fudge?”

“With fudge.”

“That sounds disgusting.”

Toni grinned, “I guess we’ll find out, huh?”

Lunar shook her head, unable to smile her own smile, “You’re ridiculous.”

“You love me.”

She sighed, “I do.”

“I think there’s a spicy one too.”

Lunar raised an eyebrow at him, “A spicy cupcake?”

“Yeah, like, Mango Chilli or something.”

“Ariza would like that.”

The boy chuckled, “She would, yeah. Wonder what one Rainy would like.”

“Maybe we can send each of them one.”

“That’s a great idea!” Toni exclaimed, eyes sparking, “I mean, I love cupcakes, and I’m pretty sure you do too, but I don’t think all these’ll get eaten before they go off even if it’s the two of us.”

Lunar chuckled, shaking her head, “Yeah, that’s… that’s a lot of cupcakes.”

“Most certainly.”

The girl chuckled again, looking up to smile at him. But then that smile slipped, before falling entirely, the joy draining from her face at a startling rate. Her eyes had become almost desperate. “Please don’t go.”

Toni blinked, staring down at her, startled, “What? Where am I going?”

“You’re leaving,” Lunar clarified, “Hogwarts, I mean. This is your last year.”

“Oh,” he muttered, blinking again, “I… yeah. It… it is.”

“Rainy and Ariza have already left,” Lunar continued, not looking at him now, “And- And sure, I’ve got other friends here, but… I’m gonna miss you guys.”

“Lunar,” said Toni, taking a step forward and reaching out to grip her shoulder, “We’ve still got a whole year together. And it’s not like we’re going to stop being friends or anything. And we’ll write, just like how we’ve been writing Ariza and Rainy.”

“But it won’t be the same,” the girl sighed, rubbing her forehead as though to hold back a headache, “You guys’ll be living somewhere in London or Diagon Alley and I’ll be up here in Scotland through the school year and then over in America during the summer. You can’t tell me that we won’t start to drift apart. We can’t even text for the majority of the year.”

“Yeah, I’ve always wondered how Rainy got her headphones to work here,” Toni muttered, before shaking his head and returning to the matter at hand, “But you know what, Lunar? Just because we’re not together every day doesn’t mean we’ll drift apart. I mean, I hardly even talk to my twin anymore, but that doesn’t stop us from being brothers, right?”

Lunar sighed, “I guess.”

Toni squeezed her shoulder a little tighter, “Hey, Riza and I picked an apartment with two rooms for a reason, you know. You will always be welcome there, be it for the Christmas holidays or during the summer or even if you decide to sneak away for whatever reason during the school year.”

She looked up at him, a tiny smile lifting her lips, “That sounds great.”

“And it’s not like we’re going to be staying in England forever,” Toni continued, “Well, we’re still debating over it, but I’m still good for moving to Canada once you’ve finished school.”

Lunar laughed, before stepping closer and wrapping him in a hug, burying her face into his chest. Toni immediately returned it.

“I love you,” she mumbled, “You and everyone else.”

He smiled into her hair, “Love you too, Lunar. Happy Birthday.”

“Thanks.”

They hugged in silence for a moment. Then Toni, without pulling away, spoke again.

“We should probably do something about these cupcakes.”

The girl laughed, “Uh, yeah, we probably should. And get back to our dorms before any of the professors find us.”

“Or worse. Filch.”

Lunar pulled a face, “He gives me the creeps.”

“He gives everyone the creeps.”

“Very true.”

They finally pulled apart, turning to regard the bubbled cupcakes again. Toni tucked his hands into his seemingly endless pockets and flapped them.

“Help me get these back in before he finds us, please.”

“Great idea,” said Lunar; then, seeming to realise she was still holding the chocolate cupcake, bit into it, “This is good.”

“Oh, by the way,” Toni said, as they got on their knees and began to scoop the bubbled cupcakes off the floor to shove into their pockets, “Ariza says Happy Birthday too.”

Lunar smiled.

“Good to know.”

Characters: @toni4eyes, @lunarthemooncake, @arizaluca (mentioned) and @raintagwasalreadytaken (mentioned)

#writing #short #harry potter #hogwarts #Ravenclaw #Hufflepuff #self-insert #happy birthday #birthday present #happy birthday lunar #14th #one-shot #writing short #cupcakes #toni4eyes #lunarthemooncake #arizaluca #raintagwasalreadytaken

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iampikachuhearmeroar · 7 years ago

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how to keep yourself together during uni semesters in australia:

im not gonna lie: over the past 3 years at uni, i have never kept myself together. so, im probably not the right type of person to give anyone advice on how to keep yourself “together” at uni lmao. but i felt like doing it, since im close to finishing so here you go, people:

class/subject and degree advice:

- if you’re not doing a double degree (which will probably give you four or five subjects to do each sem, and a full 4-5 days at uni each week, like some of my friends), stay home on your days off. take those days both to relax, and also fill yourself in to do some of your readings (although i’ll admit i only started the “doing my readings” thing this semester after two years of ignoring them, lol whoops.) this will help your stress levels a bit (hopefully) bc at least you know what the fuck you’re talking about in class and can actually say something during your tuts/lectures.

- if you’re doing a single degree or even a double degree (again i know some people who’ve done it with double degrees), and your full load of 4 or maybe 5 subjects is stressing you the fuck out, drop down to three units per a semester, if you want to actually keep a full load for certain things. yes, it will make your degree go slower in most cases, but not as slow as going part time. it will obvs make your load a tad lighter (if you’re a full-time student), and it’ll free up your days spent at uni. it will give you fewer deadlines to worry/stress about.

on another note, go part time if you want to/have to. i met one person at a careers fair this year who’d been at uni for five years doing her commerce degree with just one subject a semester bc it gave her less stress and plenty of time to actually work at her job.

- go to your faculty’s/school’s help desk to find out whether your course progression is right. also book meetings with the head of your faculty whenever you can; according to the head of the students bookings are open or wherever possible in your timetable. doing this lets you know whether you’re progressing with your course in the right time-frame, or right time-frame for you. remember, these people are there to help you. this saved me hours of worrying throughout my degree.

- TRANSFER DEGREES IF YOU HAVE TO: if you feel out of your depth, or completely disinterested in your degree, transfer from it. in some cases (mostly if you’re in the same faculty and the degree is a flexible/general one) you can easily get the first year subjects in transfer credit. this is what i did in first year, when i realised that i felt very out my depth, personality-wise and for other reasons, in the bachelor of communication and media studies in 2015. i knew, after one semester of it, that it was not what i wanted to study.

I realised that forcing myself through marketing and management subjects and studying blogging at uni just bc i had a tumblr- yes, that was my kind of ridiculous and super misguided reason for picking the course, believe it or not- would “kill” me, (like obvs not literally) but it would drain tf out of me if i continued w/ it. but luckily, since it was in the same faculty, all i had to do was do an extra subject in spring sem in 2015 (bc degree changes required you to have 24 credit points in a semester to transfer at my uni for most courses), and that sem sucked, but i got a years worth of credit in my degree, so i finish one semester earlier.

- for classes in a single degree, try and find your ideal amount of days at uni. my ideal is three days. i almost had the opportunity to have a two day week at uni this sem, bc the timetable gods were almost good to me. but unfortunately, the timetable gods were assholes and managed to let a two hour tut for one class (editing) on tuesdays ran through my US literature lecture. but i also didn’t really want just 2 days at uni, bc i knew that i probably wouldn’t be fucking productive at all in the 3 remaining days i had off during the week.

- go part-time if you have to, no matter whether you’re on a single or a double degree. do your degree on your own terms.

- don’t listen to your parents spiel on your degree or what majors/minors to do. same goes for running your subject choices by your parents.

- or if uni is really, really getting you down, you can defer for six months and go back later. (also, for mental health, see a councilor/psychologist either from your uni or outside of uni, i started doing this after a mental breakdown in second year).

- on feedback from your professors/tutors: okay, so. i’ll admit here that i’ve become the asshole student that literally only gives a shit about the number grade, rather than the quality etc comments that the professor (usually) gives back to me after they’ve marked my assignment, bc i don’t really have the heart to read what they’ve written etc. but, like. actually read their feedback... or listen to it.

if you have an odd professor that likes to give audio feedback (one of my philosophy profs did this, and no. i didn’t listen to it on either assignment, particularly bc it was my least fave subject that sem and bc i had a drama with the essay that lost me like 20% of my grade for that subject), listen back to it and see what they say on your (presumably, i have faith in y’all) well bullshitted essay. their feedback is valuable. also don’t be afraid to approach your tutors for feedback either.

- on asking for help/advice on your assignments or the subject in general from your profs/tutors: DO THIS. of course, it’ll just be general guidance in their consultation hours or via email, but, don’t be scared to ask them! it might boost your marks a bit or help you clarify your essay’s argument or something like that. i was too terrified for the better part of my degree, and then too stubborn to ask for help from my profs/tutors and i think that’s why my marks and my mental health got kinda shitty. idk how to ask for help. but then again, idk how many people actually do this in the courses i did. but y’all do it.

for the general side of this, they can help you by giving you extensions (if they’re not an asshole) or whatever to help you sort your shit out. this is something i never did. but do it when you need it.

- on the topic of marks, they don’t matter. but don’t try and settle in the “p’s get degrees” mindset... even though i say this whenever i get a final mark and it’s a pass. i aimed for a credit average tbh, marks wise. i’m dead average lmao. but then again, i’ve never been a straight-A student, born to graduate uni with like high class honours or the like.

general uni life and life advice:

- GET YOUR P’S OR BLACKS (i.e. GET YOUR DRIVER’S LICENCE Y’ALL), if your family circumstances permit it or if you’re motivated enough, before you get to uni. it’ll open up so many opportunities on campus (if you don’t live on the campus and you live far away from it). and also other ops outside of uni. (but then again you might not bother driving to uni everyday bc like uni parking, depending how it is at your uni, will always be a fight for spots.

- although i said earlier to use your days off to do some study... also use them for self-care and like life admin meaning the following:

face masks

actually take a looooonnnnngggg fucking showers y’all. the shower is the one place you’ll actually fully relax while you’re at uni. also it’s a good place to mentally plan and map out your essays etc.

yes, netflix

BUY A KINDLE (if your budget permits ofc). although it was a big cost on the outset obvs (its like $200), it was the best investment for me. i saved a fuck ton of money for some subjects, bc the books were either free or like $20-$30 cheaper on my kindle and not anywhere between $20-$40 for some texts in the uni shop. like, textbooks for english lit/creative writing or even philosophy (sometimes) etc subjects, can amount in costing to $200 or more in total for buying separate texts, just like a single, average business/law/nursing/science textbook.

read books from outside of your prescribed texts, and get totally engrossed in them if you can. i did this in first year with the complete tomorrow, when the war began series and the ellie chronicles (it’s sequel trilogy) by john marsden. and yes, i completely ignored by readings for these books, bc i hated like 90% of my uni texts. but i’ll admit that it made uni a tad more bearable, though.

if you have free days, do not go into uni. use them to catch up on sleep. or do my next point.

apply for jobs. maybe you’ll be lucky to get one and learn how to balance study with work. also it can keep you sane, money wise. something i didn’t get to have during these last 3 and a 1/2 years. but you’ll also get to know how hiring works, in general.

make yourself a fucking study timetable. this will help you get an idea of when you’re set for study. and i know, i know. it’s so hypocritical of me to suggest this bc i never bothered to make one for myself anf instead went with “i’ll study when i feel like it”......... which, um, barely ever happened all throughout uni... until this sem. lol whoops. try and stick to your timetable.

if you can, delete you fucking tumblr.

COFFEE! COFFEE! COFFEE! MAKE THIS BEVERAGE YOUR FRIEND.

if your uni has a bar, don’t avoid it. you might make friends there. i was alone at uni for a vast bulk of the time, so i avoided the bar and mostly stayed in the library.... which didn’t give me much time to make friends.

if you make good friends at uni, talk to them often, so that you can coordinate some of your classes/tuts with them and so you can exchange not w/ each other to save time come exams. it’ll also save your ass in some classes where the prof passes around the roll in the lecture and doesn’t really check the attendance

also try and pick subjects that have recorded lectures, those fuckers save your ass come essay writing time etc.

if you’re doing literature/creative writing etc subjects, read some of your prescribed texts in the uni break- in either the november-march break or the june/july break. yeah, it’ll drive you insane bc you’re reading for a class in the holidays, but, fuck. it’s saved my ass a couple of times with books that are anywhere between 200-400 pages long (e.g. wuthering heights, lady chatterly’s lover, the grapes of wrath, any of shakespeare’s plays etc etc) giving me either a lighter reading load bc I’d finished the book during break or I’d left a few pages near the end of the book, but had read the bulk saving me a fuck tonne of reading time during the heavy part of the sem.

AUDIOBOOKS BITCHES. i only started using audiobooks on youtube when doing shakespeare. but damn. they’re amazing if you don’t really want to be engaged in a physical book sometimes, and great for gauging the tone of whats being said/picturing the characters more clearly when doing literature/creative writing subs. i’ve heard several times that they’re particularly good for commuting to and from uni, if you live far away. but sometimes they can be a bit pricey.

buy secondhand textbooks y’all.

DO NOT BUY YOUR TEXTBOOKS IN ADVANCE, in some cases. i did this for a lot of my subjects, and some times one to two of the texts changed each year... or in one case, THE WHOLE FUCKING READING LIST CHANGED. LITERALLY, and i’d spent like $200 buying the books in advance. but also, i got to read some good books by accident. don’t waste your money. but if you can find them cheap (like old editions in other fields obvs, that students are selling, buy them if you hella need the book)

take lunch in to save money on expensive campus food. but on that same note, don’t forget to spoil yourself with some of the nice food on campus every once in while.

also for lit/creative writing subjects, go to your local op shop or thrift shop to find some of the older books and get them for like $2 or 90cents instead of the fucking $15-$30 that your uni will have you sell your soul for.

Feel free to add more!!! and defs for other fields!

#life #about me #shut up ilona #uni #uni life #ilona tries to give advice

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a-mentalhealth-universe-blog · 7 years ago

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I Miss The Old Me

In my final year of college, aged 17/18 I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life. Going to university is what you’re pushed towards these days, pushed by staff at college and in my case by my family. My parents pushed me not on purpose, but it was clearly the future for me that they wanted, I also felt some pressure coming from the fact my two older siblings had been to large universities and gained top degrees. I applied to a number of universities in the North of England despite home being far away in the South West. I ended up with an unconditional offer for one of the uni’s I had really liked the look of and found myself incredibly excited.

Fresher’s week rolled around and it seemed I’d hit the jackpot, I had six flatmates and they seemed like lovely people and the flat next door where also keen to join in. I’m in my third year now and can confirm that two of the guys from my flat and the flat next door have become my best friends. We all went out for every night of fresher’s week and many nights for the next few weeks after that, I can’t remember specifically if it was at the end of fresher’s week or sometime the week after that things became a little strange. I’ve had what I now know to have been small episodes of depression before, but what hit me in those first few weeks was something very new to me. During college I had self-harmed, not majorly or very often, just small scratches in places usually well hidden. It’s not that I wasn’t happy, I was, I loved my college years and I think back on them as the greatest years of my life so far. This episode that hit me early in first year made me long to hurt myself like nothing else. So I did. I’d go on a night out, have a good time and then return to my room and pull out my pen knife and cut across my wrist. The reason why was quite terrifying for me, it is a fairly long story but I feel the need to explain it all so please bear with it. When I finished secondary school I got my first major taste of how cruel life could be, I’d just finished my year 11 exams and felt positively about how I’d done in them, I was looking forward to the summer ahead in which I was going to a music festival with a huge group of friends and my then girlfriend, I was also going away on holiday with ‘the lads’ and looking forward to many parties followed by the exciting prospect of starting college. It was just a few days before the festival and a day or two after my final exam that my parents broke the news to me that my mum had been diagnosed with breast cancer and would be going to hospital whilst I was away on my lads holiday. I can’t explain the feeling that came over me the evening I found out. I did what I often do when I felt down and went for a walk, I’m lucky to live in the middle of the countryside surrounded by farmland, forests and rivers, it was on this walk that I made the realisation that I believe triggered my first episode of depression and has never quite let me free ever since. My mum’s cancer was my fault. This sounds impossible I know and I am also aware that there is no way that what I’m about to say makes it my fault but I still blame myself. A few months before the news about my mum I liked school very much and had a number of great friends but I just existed in that school, I wanted to stand out, be more noticeable or special in some way, maybe in a way that made me more interesting. Then I considered that if something horrible happened to me, or my family, like it does in many films, there would be a happy ending for me as those people in films always go through something terrible and end up being noticed. I was instantly ashamed by this thought, I wouldn’t dream of seeing anyone I love suffer, having now had therapy I’ve been told passing thoughts like this aren’t unnatural. But anyway, I blamed myself and that’s a lot to carry. Importantly, my mum pulled through and has regular check-ups and passes clear every time but that summer was a lonely time, I wasn’t myself at the festival, lost my girlfriend but managed to hold it together for the holiday with my friends. The rest of the summer I isolated myself, for some reason I couldn’t tell my friends what had happened and rather than pretending to be happy and listening to their petty troubles I kept it all to myself. When I got back from my holiday and my mum was in hospital I’d sneak out of my house in the middle of the night, walk through fields in pitch black and lie down under the stars, it was my first taste of true loneliness. During that time and throughout college I had some nightmares of myself with cancer, I’d dream about staring at myself in a mirror, just a few strands of hair left on my head, skin grey and clinging to my thin and fragile body, eyes empty and as grey as my skin. This is the image that came to life when I started uni and it drove me mad. Instead it wasn’t just there in my dreams; I could see it, this ghostly image of myself right before my eyes everywhere I went. It brought back the guilt of my mum’s cancer and made me feel even more guilty thinking I was more worried for me than her, and so I hurt myself, several times. One night, when completely drunk, a flat mate of mine noticed my wrist and had a chat with me, as drunk as I was I let her into a few details and so she took my pen knife and I promised I wouldn’t hurt myself again, the second she left my room I put my fist through a photo frame smashing the glass and tearing up my knuckles, I then grabbed a shard and drove it into my wrist. For one of the first times in years I cried properly, scared of what had happened to me, convinced it wouldn’t end and seeing no solution. I had barely cried when I had found out about my mother, my grief was real but crying wasn’t my solution, that night at uni was terrifying. The next night we went out again and someone had heard that there was a great view of the city at the top of a public car park, so after the club we went up there, I strolled around the edge of the roof by myself and leant over the edge and looked at the drop to the solid tarmac below, I don’t think I need to specify the thought that went through my mind at that moment and, admittedly being drunk didn’t help, but I don’t think I’ve even admitted to myself how close I came to doing the last thing I would have ever done in my life that night. That night I cried again, all night, I spent the next few days alone and knew things had to change. Eventually they did, they improved a bit, truthfully I think I’ve just learnt to live with the thoughts I have.

When university itself started it certainly wasn’t what I thought it would be, I find it very difficult to explain this because I didn’t have a specific idea of what uni would be like in the first place. In a way it just felt no different to me than college, work was presented on presentations and the lecturers would talk about it in more detail than was shown on screen. Assignments were just longer versions of essays I’d already written at college and field trips were managed by staff with clip boards and registers like I’d seen through my whole life. What I’m saying is university itself disappointed me; you’re not treated like an adult any more than a college student is. Obviously the living situation is completely different to what most teenagers have ever experienced, living with people your age, buying your own food and doing everything for yourself came as a bit of a shock to me as I’m sure it does to all first year students.

By Christmas time I realised that university wasn’t making me happy and I really didn’t enjoy my course at all, my attendance was incredibly low because my sleeping pattern was completely ruined and my depression kept me locked in my room and in my bed for hours each day. If you’ve had depression you might understand what I’m saying, everyone’s depression is different but it’s more incapacitating than I could ever explain. It appears as pure laziness but it feels like you’re not in control of your own actions, you wake up in the middle of the day and even if you’re in pain from hunger, desperately thirsty and keen to get up and make something of the day it’s the one thing you can’t seem to do. It’s not like I spent this time on my phone or watching TV, I simply lay there, alone with my own thoughts, listening in on the sounds of the city and envying the lives of those who occupy it with me. Depression is draining, you feel tired despite doing nothing and the thoughts that pass through your mind are truly horrible. I can’t remember a day when a thought hasn’t gone through my head telling myself that I’m useless, worthless, ugly, horrible, boring, and selfish or a day I’ve not felt numb, cold, frustrated, despaired, overwhelmed and empty.

I went through the early stages of dropping out of university and by February was almost a signature away from doing so, not that I’d told my parents anything. The day I went in to uni to make the final decision a rainbow shone over my university building and something felt different that day, a positivity I’d almost forgotten was possible and in that moment something made me stay, at least until the end of the year to give me a chance to discuss it with my parents and let myself get into a better state of mind to make a better decision. So I stayed, passed all my assignments and exams (just), spoke to my parents over Easter (who certainly weren’t pleased) and got ready and excited to be home for the summer. Again something had to go wrong.

I was unwell for a few days before I went home at the end of first year, it was getting progressively worse and by the time my parents came to collect me I wasn’t in a good state. The next day, back at home I went to the doctors who, after a few tests, told me I needed to go to hospital very soon as my right kidney simply wasn’t functioning properly. I spent a terrifying five nights in hospital during which many tests were carried out to specify the cause of my problem, they couldn’t find one from the basic tests and so I convinced myself my nightmare had come true, that I had kidney cancer and soon the ghostly image of myself would become a reality. However I improved, and when I was told I was fine and certainly well enough to go home I was delighted. The pain persisted over that summer so my cancer doubts took months to fade. But it was my time in hospital where I had a weird sort of epiphany that I should continue with university, things could be a lot worse clearly, besides I had no backup plan and no job I wanted to dive straight in to.

Coming out of hospital I had new lease of life, I found enjoyment in so many things that normally go unnoticed, the warmth of the sun, the simple beauty of green fields and blue sky and the sound of birds. I started running and cycling, worked every day I could and I met up with my friends and girlfriend at every opportunity I got. I prayed that things would stay so sweet and I did manage to sustain the optimism into the start of my second year. I arrived at our lovely new house and tried to continue being healthy and happy. I ate well, joined a gym, slept and woke up at regular times and attended almost every lecture and seminar, which was a huge improvement for me. Things were going well and carried on like this for a few months, and although the content of my course still wasn’t exactly lighting my fire I knew that I was getting enough enjoyment out of my life to carry on and get through it successfully. It was then that I was reminded that life could be cruel, not that it was clear how cruel it was being for quite a while, but it turned out that everything was about to change.

I was ten minutes into a lecture and a horrible sensation came over me, light headed, heart pounding, shaking and a feeling of incredibly intense sickness that started in the pit of my stomach and quickly grew, occupying my entire abdomen and then pushed up my throat as if I was going to throw up, I stood up, pushed past people to get to the isle and ran up the steps and out of the lecture doors straight to the toilet where, to my shock I wasn’t actually sick. Being sick has never bothered me at all, apologies for the details but I’ve made myself be sick before when it needed to be done. Confused, still feeling very sick, I stayed in the toilet until the lecture was over, and not wanting to make a scene walking back into the lecture, let alone possibly having to walk out again. Afterwards, my friend brought out my things for me, and I went home, deciding to miss the next lecture and get into bed as clearly I had some kind of bug. I can’t remember specifically what order it happened in, but this feeling of sickness or feelings similar began spreading to other aspects of my life, eating out, the gym, any shop I went to, the cinema, pubs. Everything. This happened over a period of a few months, firstly it occurred in all lectures and by January I practically gave up going, it wasn’t worth putting myself through, I wasn’t paying attention if I managed to stay in the lecture and every time it happened I just felt crap in every way for the rest of the day.

During this time I had another cancer scare, feeling generally unwell for weeks, I’d had a cough for months, I got easily out of breath, felt continually tired and a pain had developed in my shoulder. Rule number one of any illness should be to never search for your symptoms online but stupidly I did and everything I was experiencing seemed to correlate with lung cancer. I was a heavy smoker throughout my first year at uni but had quit shortly into second year so with this history I was only more convinced that once again I was on the path to the ghostly figure of myself I’ve long feared. I went to the doctors and he practically laughed at me when I asked if I may have lung cancer, a response that didn’t fully convince me but certainly made me realise I’m far too hasty to make assumptions. It was then he asked if I had any other issues with my health and I mentioned the sickness feeling I was experiencing in an ever increasing number of situations. It was then I was referred to a mental health professional, deep down I had already figured out this was what was going on with me. The wait to be seen was long as the waiting list to see any mental health worker in this country always seems to be. But to cut a long story short by the time my meeting with her came around I was already aware of what she was going to tell me, I have developed some quite severe form of anxiety and of course there is the depression alongside that. No offence to her but she wasn’t much help, she wasn’t trained for therapy and the waiting list for CBT on the NHS was at least 9 months. Apart from signing me up to an online course there wasn’t a lot that she could do for me, especially with second year only having a few months left.

I slipped back into my old ways, sleep didn’t come easily to me so my sleeping pattern was destroyed I didn’t eat particularly healthily and certainly not regularly. I don’t know if I’m alone in this way but I have an ability to completely hide what I’m going through from others, I could be lying in my room blankly staring at my TV with no hopes of achieving anything that day and then someone could walk into my room and I’d chat enthusiastically and laugh and smile, then they’d leave my room and my face would drop and I’d sink back down into my bed and hide from the world around me. The scary thing is I’m not sure if any of that laughter and smiling was ever real. Near the end of second year I was virtually incapable of eating out, could barely enter any kind of shop without walking out feeling sick, hadn’t been to a lecture or the gym in months or really done anything. There was a month without lectures (not that I was going) at the end of the year where things did improve a little, I forced myself to do a few things like join my friends at the pub and go into shops. I got my assignments done but unfortunately had an exam coming up, I hadn’t tried to get help from university for my problems which was stupid as I could’ve got deadline extensions and possibly a different style of exam. The night before my exam I felt as sick as I ever had and didn’t sleep for one second. Not a problem I’ve ever had before, people used to tell me I was way too relaxed about exams in previous years. I was seated at the very back of the exam hall which helped for some reason as I felt if I had to leave I could do so more inconspicuously. The exam was just an hour long and when writing I was slightly distracted from the feeling I was imminently about to throw up. When the exam was over I had a feeling of pride, I’d done it, if I could get through that surely I can conquer the feeling altogether in all aspects of my life.

A week later came the thing I’d been dreading the most, a week long field trip to the Czech Republic. Once again I didn’t sleep at all the night before but in the morning I felt a bit better, I was okay on the day of travelling which included long coach journeys, the airport and being on the plane itself, all things I had assumed would really be a problem for me, the night we arrived I even at some food in the hall with everyone else on my course. I couldn’t believe how well it was going, the next morning I ate breakfast in the hall again along with everyone else and almost felt excited for the next five days. Then we all had to sit and listen to a lecturer walk us through the details of the days excursions, five minutes in the feeling that I was going to be sick came out of nowhere and felt so incredibly real once again I couldn’t resist getting out of that room. Rather than walk you through all the details I can confirm that I didn’t stop feeling sick for a significant amount of time at all for the entire week. I assumed I must surely be genuinely ill; normally I could eventually get comfortable in situations to the point where I could just about manage. However, as soon as we got home and I had a meal in my own house I felt fine. That week in the Czech Republic my anxiety meant I missed out on all of the education each day and all of the fun in the evenings, I barely ate, barely slept and felt utterly miserable. I never knew that it was possible for anxiety to take hold of someone for an entire week, this sent me to the worst point my anxiety has ever been. I couldn’t do anything, I was going home for summer soon and hoped that wouldn’t be so bad as anxiety wasn’t something I associated with life at home but within days it was clear I was wrong. If I was in my girlfriend’s house and one of her parents came to stand in her bedroom door to have a chat I’d feel sick, feel trapped and helpless. We went into town to go shopping and I felt sick before we’d even left the house, I couldn’t go into the smallest shop without feeling sick. I couldn’t eat at my own dinner table if my parents had friends over.

This is what university has done to me, I’m not saying it’s fully universities fault as clearly this isn’t a problem faced by most students but certainly the whole university environment had something to do with it. In school and college I was never the most popular but I was always up for doing anything, especially if it was a laugh, I wasn’t afraid to make a fool of myself in front of people. I could make jokes in class and talk to anyone, go anywhere even if I knew nobody, now I can’t even go to a small and quiet pub with my friends.

As I said, I’m in my third year now, wishing I could go back in time and drop out half way through first year to potentially avoid any of this anxiety rubbish. I haven’t fully enjoyed anything I’ve done for almost an entire year now as I’ve either had a full on anxiety attack, mild panic feeling or I’ve at least had it nagging away in my mind, never letting me be free. It controlled me completely for a little while, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be fully free. I told my parents about my anxiety early during the summer, they were great and got me to go to a therapist and I made real improvement over the summer, I could go and eat in certain small places, go into shops and pubs and never feel fine but I could usually cope, as great as this is as I’ve missed it so much it’s so far from where I want to be. For the majority of the summer I was quite positive, getting to do things again was great and I got back into routines. I returned to uni in quite high spirits, after everything I’ve started to overcome maybe I can get through this year reasonably well. Lectures have been running almost 2 months and I’m afraid to say I haven’t attended a single one. I really did try, but I’ve never even got past the door. I’m just living with one other person, my best friend, who is very motivated for his course and spends much of his time on his work, I don’t blame him for this at all, it’s just a shame as it leaves me with many hours spent alone each day. I’m feeling very low, thankfully I’ve gained the strength not to hurt myself despite quite a strong longing to do so sometimes. But the scars on my wrist will be a constant reminder throughout my whole life that I didn’t always have this strength and that I do have the ability to hurt myself. The main reason I refuse to do it again isn’t for me, it’s for others, hardly anyone has spotted my scars as I’m incredibly careful but those who have are more hurt by them than I ever was, and hurting other people only makes me feel worse about myself.

Why do I feel so bad about myself I’ve been asked? I’m spending £9,000 a year on uni fees to stay in my room and do nothing, I’ve received lots of help now and haven’t really made much important progress, so I’ve let the people who have tried helping me down, including my parents who paid for my therapy at home. I feel like somehow I brought all of this upon myself, it took me a while to figure out how, but during my therapy over summer I was subjected to some hypnotherapy where my counsellor tried to make contact with my subconscious thoughts, ultimately she was trying to figure out what caused all of this, when speaking to me there was supposed to be a voice in my head telling me the answers to her questions. No matter what she asked me or said to me all that little voice in my head ever said was “because you deserve this”. Why I subconsciously think I deserve to suffer in this way I’m not entirely sure but I assume it’s punishment for my mums cancer which I hold responsibility for and seeing as I don’t have cancer myself, despite my regular scares, this is the format of punishment I’m getting.

One of the most annoying parts about my anxiety is that I know I’m not going to be sick, of the dozens of times I’ve had the feeling I’ve never been sick, so people have said to me well if you know you’re not going to be sick what’s the problem? Well the problem is they’ll never understand quite how horrible the feeling is and the body and the brains instincts when you feel like you’re imminently about to throw up is to get out of there. Besides it’s not just the sickness, it’s the racing heartbeat, the sweating, the shivering, the light headedness and the ringing in my ears that make it all the more difficult.

Undoubtedly though what scares me most is the thought that I may never get the old me back. I don’t believe I’ll ever completely budge my depression, but right now I would do anything just to be free from my anxiety. When it was just depression I could go out and get some relief from it, escape from it even if just briefly and came in waves meaning there were times I was free. My anxiety hasn’t loosened its hold for one second since it became severe.

#depression #anxiety #mental health #mental illness

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chellann-nicollares · 7 years ago

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Exam Survival Guide

As September is coming to an end, I realized that a lot of you MB kids out there are probably stressing out about midterm exams. I did too as a college freshman. In fact, I almost failed my very first midterm. But I’ve learned to work harder and smarter and eventually graduated cum laude. I’ve put everything that works well for exam prep into a step by step attack plan that you can follow (yes, massive nerd=me). I really hope y’all find this helpful. I just want you kids to do well, ya know? ;) Let’s get into it!

Step 1: Categorize Your Exams.

This means determining what kind of skill your upcoming exam is testing you on. I’ve found that the vast majority of exams fall into the following three categories:

- Category I: memorization test. These are your survey classes of an entire field such as intro psychology or intro astronomy, your social sciences such as American politics, and your second language requirement courses on the intro level--beginner French/Spanish, etc., even some upper level science classes such as neuroscience. If your course introduces a vast amount of information and don’t delve too deep into it, or is very heavily reliant on teaching you vocabulary and concepts of the field, your exam is very likely memorization-focused. You will be asked to do IDs--look at a concept and define them from memory, talk about important people or discoveries in this field, fill in the blank with the correct conjugation, listen to a segment of music and write down who composed it, etc. You will be pulling things from memory and putting them on paper.

- Category II: skill application test. These are those classes where you are taught formulas and algorithms and expected to know how to use them in new situations. These are your calculus and statistics and other maths classes, your hard sciences, your engineering. This is the type of classes where your assignments are problem sets instead of readings. Your exam will come as a set of problems where you need to use principles and formulas, show you work, and reach the correctly calculated result.

- Category III: writing test. These classes are based in deep reading--reading large quantities of text and developing deeper understandings and perspectives on them. That would be your philosophy and literature classes, your film theory, your seminar classes. This is the type of classes where you need to express your perspective on the topics to show both understanding and originality. Your exam will come in a small number of essay questions where the professor will give you questions that ask you to talk smartly, e.g. how do the perspectives of Big Shot A interact with that of Big Shot B on this particular topic? What is your take on Big Shot C’s use of [insert archaic art theory] in the oh-so-famous-piece-of-work?

Granted, your will have exams that are a combination or two or more of these categories. Economics is a good example: you may be ask to both define what the federal reserve is and demonstrate how they calculate their rates. But overall, think of your exams in terms of what they want from you. Now that we’ve named the beasts you’re fighting, let’s look at the weapons.

Step 2: List Your Review Tasks for Each Exam by Category.

- Category I: your exam is testing memory, and what you need to do is--memorize!! You need to figure out what it is that works best for you to remember the important stuff. Your tasks here would be to 1) review your notes and skim or even re-read your assigned readings, 2) put your IDs and other things that will likely be tested into one document or list, 3) read them out loud, make flash cards, get into study groups with your friends and test each other, whatever you need to help you memorize (*cough* flash cards *cough*).

- Category II: now you got problems, and I do think you can solve them. You also start from your notes and 1) review what theories/principles you’ve learned, 2) review and possibly rework your assigned problem sets, 3) pay special attention to questions you got wrong--make sure you read the correct calculation process and perform it yourself. 4) This is also the type of exams where if you have something that you don��t understand, ask for help immediately. Go to office hours, email your TA, make sure you comb through the confusion because the course is likely to build week by week upon the previous knowledge you’ve acquired. If you don’t know how to calculate exponentials in writing, you’ll be in a big world of hurt when you are expected to graph them. Put asking the professor/TA into your task list to give yourself an extra push.

- Category III: for this category, your notes and your readings are the most important. 1) you gotta re-read your notes carefully--what topics of discussion did your professor specifically raise in class? Were there particular points made that she really liked? What kind of comments did she keep giving? This will help you gauge how the professor thinks about the subject and how they might test on them. 2) If you have time, and especially if you haven’t done this during the semester, read your assigned texts carefully and annotate them. Annotation can be as simple as summarizing what a paragraph is trying to say, pulling out a key concept that helps you sound really smart, or jotting down your personal thoughts inspired by the reading. All of these will help you write a smarter response. 3) Consider practicing writing a few paragraphs of reflection on your readings. This will help you work out the kinks in how to establish a position and elaborate upon it in a coherent flow. This is basically what you’re asked to do in a Category III exam. 4) If you have time, also talk to your professors and TAs on things you don’t understand and gauge their perspectives.

Step 3: Figure out How Much Time You Have.

This step is the easiest. Mark all of your exams on the calendar and look at how many days you have in between. Which days do you have classes? How many hours do you have in between classes and is that enough time to go to the library and make some flash cards? How many hours at the end of the day and during the weekend are you willing to devote to studying? I would mark the time intervals that you can use to study on your calendar as well.

Step 4: Figure out How Much Time You Need.

How many sessions have you had for the course? Sit down, put your timer on and do everything on your task list to review the material of one session, see how long it took you and multiply by the number of sessions you had. That’s your rough estimate. Now do this for all your courses.

Step 5: Make Your Day by Day Attack Plan.

This is the last step of your planning. Now you pull out your calendar, and fit your tasks into your available time slots. Do this with the following considerations:

1) Do you need to choose your battles or make more time? If you’ve figured out that you only have 30 hours in the next two weeks, you have three exams and they require 35 hours in total, for example, then you may need to cut a few tasks. Is there one class that you really don’t need to re-read every single thing and instead skim the important sections? Is you poli-sci midterm worth 30% of your grade while the film theory one is only 15%? Should you put off that movie you wanna see until after exams and get 2 extra hours in? It’s better to know whether you’re going to run out of time before you start. Trust me. This is also why you should start early. If you give yourself two weeks instead of one, you won’t feet pressured to rush through the review.

2) Alternate your subjects and review activities. Don’t plan to sit in the same spot and read art theory papers for four hours unless that’s just how you roll. Make some flash cards from 2-3pm, read your notes from a different class from 3-4, and look over questions you got wrong in your problem sets after dinner. You would have had a very productive study day without murderous impulsive thoughts.

3) Put it all in writing and stick to it. You want specific hours in each day and what to do during those hours, and put satisfying little check marks on what you’ve completed. You can do this in a planner book, in your E-calendar, or even print out a calendar on a piece of paper and write your tasks in the boxes. I’ll give you a fictional example:

9/28 Thurs

2-3 pm: read intro psych section 1 notes and make flash cards

6-7:30 pm: re-work wrong questions in statistics problem set 1

9/30 Sat

10-11:30: re-read poli-sci book chapter and assigned articles from session 2 and compile ID list document

2-4:30: re-read film theory Mulvey writing, annotate, and write a three-paragraph reflection on her theories

5 pm: grab coffee with #$^%&^% person and go through some poli-sci IDs.

As you can see, if you know exactly what your exams want from you, make to-do lists accordingly and fit them into specific time intervals of each day, your exam review is very manageable. You know exactly what to do and don’t need to feel like you need to chain yourself to your desk all day. You would also know exactly what you already achieved and feel wonderful about it. If you have any questions about this, feel free to ask me! Now go and crush your exams.

#exam tips

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ashavant · 7 years ago

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The American University System: Oppressing the non-elite.

So let me get this straight...in the 70's there was a community outcry to lower the amount of tax money that got put towards college tuition for future generations? American tax payers used to cover over 70% of college costs, allowing the young students straight out of highschool the ability to work a minimum wage summer job to literally pay their entire tuition. Those with part time jobs while in school were not very common. This allowed for an ability to succeed without the unnecessary baggage of financial stress and lack of sleep at 18 years old while taking 14+ credits, which for those of you who dont know is a true 40-60 hour work week alone. All of this hard work and achievement paved the way for these kids to enter adulthood as educated, debt free, and with the world at their fingertips. Not to mention, they had the incredible privilege of not having to become a self sufficient adult in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the depression...

Compare that romantic reality to our drastically different reality today. I will use my experiences as an example for this, while probably on the extreme spectrum of experiences, they are valid and carry merit nonetheless. I was always told as a child, "you have to go to college, its not an option" Yet, when i graduated highschool, my parents grew quiet. I grew up in a 5 person household in Orange County, CA (one of the most expensive places to live in the country) in a family who made roughly $40k a year, give or take (thats poverty folx). My step-father was an electrical contractor so income was often spuratic. Anyway, needless to say they had not one penny saved for my college tuition. My parents failed to put a single penny aside for anything regarding my well-being honestly. With no car, no money, no job, and no idea when or how I could recieve a college education, I was kicked out of my parents at 17 years old with nowhere to go. I couch surfed and was able to get a couple jobs, one at a crafts store and one at a sandwhich shop. After 2 long years of working my way out of homelessness, all I wanted was to start college! So, at age 19 I applied for financial aid. However, I was told because I was under 25 I needed my parents tax information. Well, my parents never filed on time and were incredible dodgy with communication. So, after months of going back and forth I ended up paying out of pocket for a full time coarse load at a community college. I was able to work my jobs and pay this, but with nothing left over for rent or food. I ended up getting kicked out of my place, had to apply for foodstamps, and had to start over from square one. Little did I know I would have to wait 5 years before I could finally give college another shot.

I had almost given up the idea of higher education. I was making good money in the food industry at this point and had a nice company car and a great home with an awesome roommate. But then, I met a boy. We traveled the country for three months with his bluegrass band and saw 32 states. Afterwards, we again found ourselves broke and homeless. We hunkered down, worked 80+ hour weeks, saved up, and moved to Portland Oregon, "where young people go to retire". Little did we know, retire would be the LAST thing we did when we got there. Cost of living was rising in Portland, but still nothing compared to Orange County, CA. We got good food jobs and nested for about a year. My boyfriend (we will call him N) got great grades in highschool and high test scores in his exit exams, so in 2014 he chose to get back into school as a Music Composition Major at age 26. His journey is a whole other terrible story. I wanted to return to school so badly, but knew I had to wait until I was old enough to not warrant my parents tax info. Finally, at age 24 I filed my FAFSA and went to a career counselor. I was directed in the career of Civil Engineering. Having no prior knowledge of this career or topic, I dove in blindly headfirst. I chose a community college due to the fact that I barely finished highschool and did not take ant exit exams. To my surprise, I did very well in my college settings. After one year I was able to transfer to a university! Me! I WAS GOING TO A UNIVERSITY! I could not believe it, and was soo excited. I had no clue how hard this would be, not the work, but just surviving through it. I should mention here that I have a mild dissability. I have endometriosis which is a chronic illness linked to hormones, ovarian cysts, and all that jazz which can result in disabling pain and in my case an emergency surgery from time to time. I also suffer from a mild form of PTSD. So, with those alone handling high stress loads can be very hard on my mental and physical well being.

Ok, so I was a 24 year old first generation college student (first person in my family to go to college) disabled lower class person wanting a higher education. Seems logical right? Well, once I got accepted to the university, I chose to change my major to Architecture, I had taken an intro class for general ed and fell inlove. My beginning of my first year was great! Lots of lectures and reading. Aside from my tuition multiplying literally 3x from my community college tuition which did not affect my financial aid disbursement, I was fairly stress free. Now keep in mind, my partner and I are both working 20-30 hour weeks to make ends meet while taking 12-14 credits. Its basically having 2 full time jobs. Anyway, the last term of my first year came around-my first studio class. I was so excited! Time to actually do architecture! I got the syllabus and was told was supplies were needed to be successful in the class. I was also told that doing all of the requirements for the assignment would result in a C grade, if any grade above that was desired extra work had to be put in. I thought, no biggie, bring it on. The next thing she said was, "absolutely no sleeping in the studio!" Thats when I had a feeling I was gonna be in trouble. After class I went to the art store got my supplies. I almost started crying as they read my total to me: "$682.80, please." And that was with my student discount and not including all of the future supplies I would need just for that term, which I will tell you now after all the drawings and models ended up being about $2,000. That is a whole lot. These studio classes also require many all-nighters just to have enough time to complete the assignments. Many times, due to having to work outside of school I could not complete my assignments or had to do them with less craft and care than I would like just to turn it in. This year, I recieved less in financial aid, my rent has gone up significantly, tuition went up, and there are new grade requirements: if you get anything less than a B-, youre immediately dropped from the school of Architecture. So, not completing assignments isnt an option anymore. This last term costed my much less money, but once I told my instructor I was out of money, his response was, "well, this is Architecture school." What the fuck am I supposed to do with that!? A roll of Velum (drafting design paper) costs $50-$70 pencils are $2 a piece, models cost like $100 each, the list of tools go on and on. I am already paying $10k a year for tuition, ensuring at the very least $70k of debt including my masters degree which you need to get your Architecture license. And at least $100k with the $500 a month I need to borrow a month for rent. I should not need to add thousands more of that for supplies my school should be providing. And this insane pressure of pulling all nighters to get done the amount of assignments it would take us to do in a whole week last term in 2 days!

The moral of this very long story is that college is not meant for those of us trying to climb the life ladder. Its meant for the already elite. Its meant for kids right out of highschool with parents who make enough money to pay their tuition, their rent, their whole lives! Meant for kids who travel to Europe for the summer instead of working 60 hours a week to make up for the money lost during school cuz you physically cannot work more than 25 hours. Its meant for kids who can call their mommies and complain about how mean their teacher is, not for those of us who cry every night about being afraid of ending up back on the streets in the snap of a finger. Its meant for kids who can work and think about school all day every day, not those of us preoccupied with being able to pay all of our bills and being able to afford food and health insurance.

HOWEVER, even if you are like me, worse, or better, YOU CAN DO IT! I have a damn 3.7 GPA. I may only get 3 hours of sleep a lot, cry almost weekly, probably have lost years of my life due to stress, and feel scared for my health, but shit IM FUCKING DOOOOIN IT! Even though our government, or school presidents, and pretty much everyone in power disagrees, you are so worth it and you are so capable of success no matter how much harder you have to work than everyone else. Because we have to work so much harder now, we will get to party that much harder when we make it. I WILL GRADUATE IN SPITE OF THE SYSTEM! I WILL SUCCEED IN SPITE OF THE SYSTEM! I WILL CHANGE THE FUCKING WORLD CUZ I AM A BADASS AND CAN DO ANYTHING YOU PRIVELEDGED FUCKS CAN DO, JUST BETTER!

#university #college #university system #academic witch #academia #opression

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coffeeandcalligraphy · 8 years ago

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Still Trying to Do the Write Thing

So it’s almost midnight, I have a major practical exam tomorrow, but when that’s over, I’m ALMOST home free. (Just need to do one last thing for art and then WEEE free as a bird)

Today was SO hectic. As per usual. I’m wrapping up my classes really quickly, and saying goodbye to this creatively challenging semester. I had a really bad start to my afternoon (haaaaaaahaahaaa), but the night got progressively better as I got away from said negative source. I’m done all my work in my first period, so I finally started tackling The Huge Round of Edits.

I don't know if I’ve mentioned this on here, but real quick: The Huge Round of Edits is the time of my writing process in which I go back and edit all of the words I said I would edit and then never did. I’ve got around 30 pages to go. I’m doing these now because there’s no point in trying to sit down and draft right now when I’m so busy, but I’ll be back at it very soon.

Wanted to share an excerpt that I straight up cracked up reading because IT’S SO ME. (Actually, I wrote the latter half of the dialogue just as a joke for myself, but still, MEEEE)

“I keep fucking up,” His hand tightens around mine. “And I’ve been fucking crying for a straight week—just look at me. I’m a fucking mess.”

(the crying for a straight week thing was just for me when I wrote this lol)

(I aint changing it, this is gold)

(Lonan is speaking.)

(OF COURSE Lonan is speaking)

(ANGSTCLUB2K17)

(#CLIFFORDWHEREYOUAT)

Anyhow, my life will definitely ease in its hectic-ness by the end of tomorrow. Like I said, the final thing I have to do is dump coffee on an art assignment, so when that’s done I’m a bird set freeeeee.

That’s it for now. Not writing has been so draining, but these line-edits are really fun.

(I’ve also been researching another subplot for this book and it could technically push it to a book six cuz it’s got a lot of room, but HAHAHAHAH no.)

(I’m going to write this stupid sixth book aren't I)

(Rachel I swear to god.)

(RACHEL I SWEAR TO GOD.)

#Writing

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irarelypostanything · 8 years ago

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7th Grade

Mr. Xu had not spoken in 30 minutes, so we knew he was pissed off at someone. At first he sarcastically told us to go on and keep talking, the way any teacher might—but then it went dead and he still kept it up. I knew it had been exactly 30 minutes because we were counting each one.

“I’m really sorry,” announced Nate, breaking the silence. Mr. Xu just shrugged. Was Nate the one talking? Probably not, because that didn’t work. I looked around the room. Everyone looked uneasy.

Mr. Xu was what many would describe as a strict teacher, but it wasn’t textbook strict. You weren’t allowed to yawn, but maybe Mr. Xu thought that yawning was genuinely disrespectful. You were told to get up and teach the class if you talked too much, but maybe Mr. Xu genuinely wanted to put people in his position. My own table was talking once, and he told us to teach. We didn’t know what to do, so he repeatedly complained that he would tell his parents about what lousy teachers we were.

A whole ten minutes passed.

I don’t remember how the conversation...or...lack of conversation managed to shift, but he did finally start talking again. After saying a few sentences about the importance of paying attention, he asked me and James if we were sorry. A little too automatically, we said that we were.

The bell rang. We walked out of earshot.

“What did you guys do?” Terry shouted at us, though he may have just been raising his voice over the hallway crowd.

“I don’t know!” I shouted back. James later explained to our angry class that he had only said the name Evan after it went quiet, and Mr. Xu had assumed we were talking.

Nope. No one bought it.

In 7th grade, our classes were divided up by our electives. We had a core group of about 30 people, and we saw them almost every class period. I, along with six others, was in advanced orchestra. Somewhere between 10 and 20 of us were in advanced band. Then there was drama, and art, and a subset of intermediate music...I don’t remember how it added up to 30. The way they formed our class was arbitrary, only it wasn’t.

A lot of our class took seventh grade really seriously because they wanted to get into Lowell, which was the academic magnet high school of San Francisco. I don’t remember if I wanted to go there, but it sure doesn’t seem like it. My “Seventh grades” more or less put Lowell out of the question.

That was way more sevens than I had intended to use.

7 years later

Agnes, Tammy, Carlos and I were assigned to the same group in BIS2A, or introductory biology. We had met one time before at the UC Davis 24-hour room, which sucked because it didn’t have air-conditioning at the time. Thankfully we had met in the night, which was the only time in summer session I ever felt like doing anything.

Nighttime was still hot, the way a frying pan is still hot even after you turn off the heat.

This time it was a Saturday. I woke up at 11:30 AM in a daze, and even after two tylenol my head was still spinning. I biked to Tako and met up with Agnes. The other two came later. Agnes and I had biked; Carlos and Tammy came on foot. We walked our bikes with them and headed toward the dorms.

“You can feel yourself get more stressed as you walk toward campus,” said Tammy. She wasn’t wearing sunglasses, so I couldn’t read her expression.

“Yes,” agreed Agnes, I think. I don’t remember every detail of that day. I remember that it was almost 100 degrees, and I know that you had to walk about five blocks to get from downtown to campus. I remember that there weren’t many people around, not because they were at home but because they weren’t at Davis.

We walked to Alder, which Carlos had access to. Alder was air-conditioned, and this is one detail I remember extremely well. Coming into the refreshing coolness was like entering a different world.

When we met our TA for the first discussion, the first thing she said was that she saw some familiar faces. Why? Because they had failed the class last time. Her best advice was to be afraid of the class, because many students regretted not being more afraid.

But we had a whiteboard. We had markers. We had CrashCourse, and Khan Academy, and some other resources that it would have been nice to have had in Mr. Xu’s class. We were going to take on BIS2A, and it was going to be an epic story that we would one day tell our grandchildren about.

We spent ten hours at Alder. Agnes and I biked home together, at midnight, and Agnes said we should talk the whole way because she might fall asleep otherwise. We exited Segundo, with its endless rows of bike racks, and we traversed three bike circles with no one else on the road to collide with. We left campus, and we bypassed the arboretum, and we talked about the class, food, and what it was like to live in South Davis.

We realized our houses were next to each other.

Mr. Xu was a thin, middle-aged Asian man who had freckles and wore glasses. He never raised his voice, regardless of what emotion he sought to convey. He held a 4.5/5 on RateMyTeachers, alongside a considerably lower score for easiness.

In high school, too late, some of the things he told us about biology came rushing back.

I remember feeling like there was an impassable wall that I could only try to overcome. It stuck because Mr. Xu himself used the metaphor, but some people really had managed to overcome it.

7th grade was a time of stress, and teen angst, and students who tested each other’s limits by saying the rudest things possible. It was also a time when people said what they meant, held nothing back, and started to come to grips with what they were bad at.

We took our first midterm and we got our scores back. At first they accidentally gave us random numbers for the free response, and some random numbers were really good and some of them were randomly bad. Mine just so happened to be about the same, random and corrected.

I felt good, like I somehow had a stamp of approval for my efforts. I could write as a disclaimer that it wasn’t phenomenal, but it’s been a while. We continued to meet up, and we met someone named Shirley. Shirley was the highest scorer for the first midterm.

I walked with Shirley to the library (air-conditioned) and we talked about English classes. She had wanted to be an English major, but decided to study animal science instead. For reasons I am not sure of, Shirley took a year off of college but did so abruptly, the way someone might restart a project after getting the first few steps wrong. That’s why Shirley was my age, while Agnes and Tammy were a year younger.

Agnes and Tammy were both pre-pharm, and this (among other things) allowed them to get close extremely fast. Carlos still met with us on occasion, but he didn’t share our enthusiasm (or our stress) for the class.

We knocked out a worksheet, talked about studying, then got dinner at the Old Teahouse. This was a nice goto place because it was open ridiculously late, and we enjoyed studying around that general time.

“I think we might break up,” said Tammy, regarding her boyfriend. Agnes offered her helpful advice, but I didn’t personally have much experience in this “relationship” thing. I had taken a class called HDE12, though, which included lectures on proper communication with a romantic proper. The next morning, I sent Tammy a .ppt file. One of my favorite tips in this lecture was to never, under any circumstances, insult someone’s character.

It occurred to me that Mr. Xu never did that. He would embarrass people about their presentations, and he would try to make people feel guilty for not knowing things, and on one occasion he read out the names of people who scored badly on a test. But he never called someone stupid, or hopeless, or unhelpable.

On a level, I think that everyone craves that brutal honesty. It’s the simple idea that we’re not performing well enough, that there’s cause for concern, that we’re failing to meet expectations. It’s the idea that all of that can be okay, though, because we have the capacity to get better and make things right if we only try harder.

Did it work? For some it did, and for some it didn’t. One person he called out for his score went on to intentionally fail a placement exam, so that he wouldn’t get Mr. Xu again.

Summer session was only six weeks. We took our second midterm and then we hunkered down. Tammy’s boyfriend broke up with her. Agnes’ boyfriend visited us. Agnes and I bought discount blueberries, and Circle K had a kickback every Thursday, and my housemate played tennis every evening with a girl he had known since high school.

I liked to swim when I could. An advantage of growing up in San Francisco is that everything warm felt like vacation.

I went to the Ramen Festival with my first-year roommate and some of our friends. My high school friends visited me a few nights before the BIS2A final. I woke up the next morning with a note in my pocket, in my own writing, that said: The best oreo is the one you feel WITH YOUR MIND.

We took the class and we were done. We had wanted to celebrate, but after those two hours we weren’t feeling it. I packed my bags and I left.

Honesty...is that the only thing Mr. Xu gave us? I still hear his voice sometimes. He’s sighing when he hands me back my test.

We saw him again once in high school, and he was perfectly cordial.

Honesty...is that what I’m missing right now? Sometimes everything feels so filtered. The way we talk to each other. The way we present ourselves. Everyone carries all this pain and insecurity inside, and I think we should share all of it...right? Do I?

A lot of parents complained about Mr. Xu. Sometimes we could tell he was hurt by it. At least five of my friends said Mr. Xu was the best teacher they’d ever had, and was simply misunderstood. James, the other person responsible for holding up the class that one time, disagreed. He managed to get an A in Mr. Xu’s class.

“I realized Mr. Xu was a terrible teacher,” he told me, years later. By now he was at UC Berkeley studying bioengineering. “I had a bio book, so I just stopped listening to him and self-studied. That’s it.”

I wrote before of the impassable wall. A better analogy is that I felt some people had the key to understanding, and others didn’t. If I only had the key, I could decode the incomprehensible things Mr. Xu taught and become one of the smart people.

Just before I graduated college, I took a 2-unit class from someone who gave us motivational speeches. He talked about a woman who knew how to push a person’s buttons. He talked about an 80-year-old man.

Out of nowhere, the 80-year-old man screamed at her. He shouted, “You’re just like my first grade teacher! She would belittle me, and I hate that!”

That was 74 years. 74 years, and he still carried that pain with him all the way through.

So whose fault was that?

#fiction #short story #prose

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demonsonthemoon · 8 years ago

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There’s No Time For Toeing Waters

Fandom: Vikings Word Count: 3578 Pairing: Lagertha/Ragnar Note: The original idea for this fic was coined by Caro A.K.A. @anastasiapullingteeth. I started screaming to her about it a few years ago, and it stayed in the back of my mind all this time without ever getting set to paper. Now it's set, or at least part of the story is. Happy birthday Caro! Summary: Athelstan liked his routine. He was perfectly happy going to university, spending most of his time studying, and staying in his comfort zone. Until his comfort zone almost got set on fire and a bunch of weird people tried to buy his silence with coffee (kind of).

Also available on AO3.

The question they always ask in interviews is this : How did you all meet ?

For most of them, the answer is obvious. It was Ragnar who decided to put the band together, and it seemed logical to bring in his brother Rollo and his childhood friend Floki. Then, when he started dating Lagertha and it appeared that she had the voice of a murderous goddess, it had also made perfect sense to have her join the whole thing.

Athelstan was the enigma of the group.

The first time someone asked, he replied that he had been trying to stop Floki from burning down a library. The interviewer had laughed and passed it off as a joke in her article.

Since then, all of the group members have been giving completely different and ridiculous answers.

Nobody ever realised that that first time, Athelstan had been completely honest.

It happened like this :

Athelstan enjoyed spending time in the library. Yes, even his free time. And if that made him the perfect stereotype of a student majoring in History with a minor in Theology, well... He had accepted his fate long ago. He even had his favorite corner, one hidden away in the far end of the Theology section. It was almost always empty, except the weeks right before exams, but then Athelstan just studied at home anyway. The library didn't feel like his if there were too many people around.

He was doing some assigned reading for his class on Jewish mythology when a strange smell made him look up from his book. Was that... smoke ?

He carefully marked his page and stood up, taking a turn at the end of the aisle to see where the smell was coming from.

He stopped dead in his tracks.

There was someone there talking on the phone – Athelstan quickly turned off his iPod, which he just realised was preventing him from actually hearing the person talking – and that person also had a burning stack of paper in their hand.

« Yup, it's done. ... No, I'm actually... Yes, I know, I can actually be careful from time to... »

« What are you doing ? » Athelstan didn't think before he asked the question, but he wished he had, because this was clearly some kind of lunatic, and what if he got the flames too close to the books, the whole library could burn down, he had to do something he-

« Oh, shit. Call you back. »

The pyromaniac turned off their phone, looking Athelstan up and down. The sheets of paper were still burning, almost reaching their hand.

« Hello, » they said, voice calm and elegant.

« Um. You're... You're gonna burn yourself. »

« Oh. » Athelstan watched as the person distractedly threw what was left of the burning papers in a metal bin. When they looked up and crossed his eyes, he desperately thought that he should say something, though he had no idea what.

The stranger's phone started ringing. They sighed and picked it up, rolling their eyes. « It's done, Ragnar, OK ? Calm the fuck down ! ... I'm in the Theology section. It doesn't have a fire alarm. ... I can't. I ran into someone. ... Nooooo. We're just gonna have a little chat. » They grinned at that, and a cold sweat started running down Athelstan's back. He slowly took a step away from the stranger, without even realising. « Yeah, see you. » They locked their phone again and put it in their pocket. The smile they turned towards Athelstan was predatory, and the eyeliner around their eyes only highlighted the weird glint that was in them.

« Um, » Athelstan started. He had no idea what was happening. This was the Theology library. Shit like this wasn't supposed to happen here. « I didn't see anything ? And I'm not gonna tell anybody about it ? »

The stranger started giggling, which did nothing to reassure Athelstan. « Oh my god, you're about to pee your pants, aren't you ? »

« Um... No ? » Athelstan replied, failing to muster up any kind of dignity.

Their mouth twisted up in a feral grin. « Yeah, sure. »

Athelstan managed to get an ounce of composure back, just enough to ask. « What were you doing ? »

« I thought you hadn't seen anything ? » the other responded with a raised eyebrow.

Athelstan bit down on his lower lip, trying to judge what his options were, here. He really didn't want to piss off someone who was used to burning stuff in the middle of a library.

He was saved from the dilemna of finding an appropriate answer when a blond woman appeared behind the stranger.

« Floki ! Leave this poor kid alone, he's gonna pee his pants ! »

« I'm really not, » Athelstan managed to grumble as the first stranger – Floki – errupted into giggles again.

The woman rolled her eyes at them as she came closer and extended a hand towards Athelstan. « I'm Lagertha, » she said. « Sorry about all of this. »

Athelstan said his name as he carefully shaked her hand, still unsure of what exactly was going on and how his life had managed to deviate so drastically from its usual routine.

« Um. It's okay? I'm still not sure what's going on, though. »

Floki smirked. Lagertha shaked her head, then smiled at him. Athelstan feared that it was pity he could see in her eyes.

« It's complicated. It involves my boyfriend Ragnar and getting rid of evidence, and a whole lot of shit you probably don't want to get involved in. Trust me, I'm telling you this for your own good. »

If Athelstan had been terrified of Floki before, he wasn't sure there was a word to describe how much fear the casual way Lagertha was speaking put in him.

« Can I take you out for coffee, though ? » she asked. Then, gesturing towards Floki : « As an apology for their attitude ? »

Athelstan quickly took in the pronoun used, but hesitated before giving an answer to the offer of coffee. On the one hand, he was broke, and could really use the caffeine. On the other hand, terrified. But if he refused, he probably wouldn't be able to focus on his work again anyway, so in the end he nodded, and was rewarded with a beaming smile from Lagertha.

« Great ! »

« I'm gonna leave you losers to it, 'kay ? » Floki said, already turning back and waving with one hand. The movement made the sleeve of their shirt that had been hanging just under their shoulder fall back towards their neck. « Have a nice day, Athelstan ! »

The history student could only stare at them as they walked away. Then he felt Lagertha's hand tap his shoulder. « Coffee ? »

He nodded, dumbly, and followed her towards the exit of the library, after having quickly picked up the book he'd been reading and his backpack.

They had barely taken a few steps outside when a voice started shouting Lagertha's name. They both turned around as a man jogged towards them, a huge grin on his face. His hair was shaved on both sides, with the central part tied in a plait that reached his shoulders. « You've got company ? » He asked, looking Athelstan up and down. The young man instinctively tried to make himself smaller under the scrutiny. The light blue of the man's eyes was almost electric, he noticed with a shiver.

« I do, » Lagertha replied. Her voice was warm, somehow reassuring despite the weird situation he was in. « This is Athelstan. I think Floki traumatised him, so I'm taking him for coffee. Wanna join ? »

Athelstan felt like he was being used in some kind of private joke, but it was easier to just go with the flow and not ask questions. He was too tired and confused to protest anyway.

The man in front of them shrugged with an easy smile. « Sure, why not. I'm Ragnar, by the way, » he said, extanding a hand just like Lagetha had done before. Athelstan repeated his own name and they shook on that. « Sorry you had to meet Floki first, » Ragnar continued. « They can be... a bit intense. »

Athelstan nodded, though he didn't comment on the fact that he was fairly sure Ragnar and Lagertha were definitely capable of the same level of intensity.

They reached the campus' coffee stand. Luckily, since it was the middle of a class period, the queue wasn't too long. Ragnar ordered a caramel latte, Lagertha a capuccino, and Athelstan asked for a small black coffee, but Lagertha immediately told the barista to make it a large one.

They took a seat in the empty cafeteria, since it was still early in the year and too cold to sit outside, and Athelstan thanked Lagertha as he took a gulp of his coffee.

« You're welcome, sweetie, » she replied. Athelstan almost choked at the pet name, but she didn't even seem to notice she had said it. He looked at Ragnar to see how he would react, since she was his girlfriend, but the blond man was frowning at him, thoughts elsewhere.

« Hey, totally random, » Ragnar started, « But you can play the guitar, right ? »

Lagertha seemed to perk up at that, immediately interested, and Athelstan blushed under their combined attention.

« Yeah, well, I play a little. »

« Nah, I saw you, you played for Thyri when she did the open mic thing, right ? »

Athelstan nodded. He had befriended Thiry the year before, when they were both in their first year of uni. Since then he had played with her a few times, mostly to help her practice, though they had done two songs publicly at an open mic night a month before.

« Oh, when she sang Patti Smith ? » Lagertha asked enthusiastically.

Athelstan nodded.

« I thought I recognized you from somewhere ! And don't sell yourself short, from what we saw that night, you're really good. »

« Thanks. » Athelstan blushed again.

When he looked up, Ragnar and Lagertha were exchanging a gaze that lookd like it was a conversation in and of itself. Ragnar shrugged, with a smile that his girlfriend then mirrored. They both turned back towards Athelstan with perfect – and eery – synchronicity.

« Can you play punk ? » Lagerthat asked.

« And metal ? » That was Ragnar.

« And celtic music ? » That was Lagertha again.

The caffeine had woken him up a bit, but in that moment, Athelstan felt as confused as he had been before. « I guess it depends on the song ? I never tried metal because I only have an accoustic and a classical guitar, but I've dabbled in folk punk and played some celtic tunes before ? Why ? »

He had a feeling he was getting into something he had no control over. This should have been frightening, but maybe he had used up all of his fear earlier, because instead it only left him exhilarated. He could feel his heart beat loudly in his chest as Lagertha and Ragnar exchanged another look.

« Do you want to be in a band ? »

« You don't have to say yes immediately, » Lagertha had immediately reassured him. « I mean, you should at least hear us play once before you give us any answer. »

« And of course you can change your mind whenever you want, » Ragnar had added. « it's not like we're gonna have you sign a contract or anything. »

Athelstan had agreed to go see one of their rehearsals. After all, he had already taken coffee with them, and if Lagertha had wanted to kill him, she could have done so in the library.

He hadn't quite expected to be invited that very same day, but in the end it was probably a good thing, because knowing himself, Athelstan would probably have been too anxious to go if it had been later in the week.

« When do your classes finish ? » Ragnar asked.

« 6 PM. »

« Okay. We usually start aound five, but you can come in later, that's no issue. » He bent down and rummaged in the messenger bag he had at his feet. He brought out a sheet of paper and a pen. « Here... is my phone number, and the address. Just call me when you're at the door. We don't really hear the bell when we're in the basement, but I'll have my phone on vibrate. Is that okay with you ? »

« Sure, okay. » Athelstan still felt like he was being carried away by strong currents instead of sitting in a cafeteria chair, but he was also becoming more and more intrigued. « Is it your place ? » He pointed at the address.

« Nah, Floki's. Their parents own the building. They and Helga have the ground floor and the basement for themselves, the two other floors are being rented to other people. And we use the basement as rehearsal space. »

« Okay. So... Who's actually in this band ? You two, Floki, Helga... ? »

« Helga doesn't play, » Lagertha replied. « Though she mixes awesome cocktails and has earned an honorary membership in our hearts with them. » She laughed. « But otherwise, I sing, Floki plays the drums, Rollo – that's Ragnar's brother, by the way – plays the bass, and Ragnar is mostly on the violin, though he will play whatever he can get his hands on if you let him. »

The blond man raised his shoulders with a grin that showed he didn't feel one bit guilty. « We've been talking about getting someone to play the guitar for a while now, » he added. « Lagertha does it sometimes, but it's harder for her to focus on her voice if she has to play at the same time. So if you're into it, it could be great to have you around. »

Athelstan felt a bit anxious of what Floki's reaction was going to be if he came to the rehearsal, but curiousity had taken the better of him this time. He promised the couple to see them in a few hours, and said his temporary goodbyes as he quickly walked to his next class.

Athelstan stopped in front of the building and considered what to do next. His day had been a mess. A complete destruction of his comforting routine. But it had been exciting to mean new people, and Floki, Ragnar and Lagertha all looked interesting, if all slightly terrifying in their own ways. And, hell, he was a college student. College was about getting out of your comfort zone, right ? Making new experiences ?

Athelstan took a deep breath, and called Ragnar on his cellphone. The man didn't answer though, and Athelstan was about to try again when Lagertha opened the door, a bright smile on her face. « Come on in ! » she said, sounding like a little kid on Christmas. He followed her into a hallway/staircase, and immediately through the door of the ground floor apartment. Inside, she turned to the left towards a steep and narrow wooden staircase and let him to the basement.

He could hear someone playing nonsense on the bass as he carefully walked down the wooden steps. He was feeling more and more certain that the stairs would break down under his weight with each step he took.

« Ta-da ! » Lagertha exclaimed as she showed him the rehearsal space. It was crammed, a complate drum kit as well as several amps taking up most of the place. They had still managed to add a three people couch and two chairs that had apparently been salvaged from scap heaps. The whole place had a quality to it that could only be associated with the feeling of home.

Floki was there, sat behind the drums, still wearing their black long-sleeved shirt that left one of their shoulders uncovered. Ragnar was only wearing a t-shirt above his jeans, which Athelstan completely understood, because the atsmophere of the room was suffocating. The second man, Athelstan assumed, was Rollo. He probably wouldn't have guessed that he was Ragnar's brother. While one of them was blond with clear blue eyes and radiated easy charm, the other had brown hair, dark irises, and greeted Athelstan with only a cold gaze and a vague grunt that could have been either « hello » or « fuck off ».

Lagertha clapped a hand on his back. « Go sit down ! Hopefully we can play you a few songs without messing up too much, and then you can tell us what you think ? »

He nodded and sat down on the couch, then gratefully accepted a water bottle from Ragnar.

« Sticks and Bones first ? » he asked, turning towards the rest of the band.

« Okey-dokey, » replied Floki, picking up his drumsticks.

Lagertha took her place behind a mic, and Ragnar picked up an electric violin already hooked up to an amp. Athelstan didn't really know what he had expected from the music. After all, « punk », « metal » and « celtic » had been the only description he'd had of the band style. He could understand why they had chosen those words, though. While the drum and bass lines were reminiscent of hard punk and early metal, Lagertha's voice leaned more towards symphonic metal. He was surprised when Floki was the one to take on the backup voices during the chorus. Then there was Ragnar on the violin. He was the one bringing in the more celtic vibe, his instrument adding to the melody as much if not more than Lagertha's singing.

They ended that song and quickly moved on to another.

All in all, the music was as confusing as Athelstan's day had been, and in that it was perfect. The melodies were fairly simple, though the interferences between the two melodic lines definitely gave them something special. And at least all band members seemed fairly confident in what they were playing. He could understand why they wanted to add a guitar to their mix. While it already worked fairly well – and the complicity obvious in the looks all members would exchange while they played definitely helped with that – the background beat was only supported by the bass and the drums, which made the interplay of melodic lines come on a bit too strongly at time. Adding a guitar could help balance the whole.

Athelstan wanted to say yes. He liked playing. It had been one of the only things that his parents encouraged when he was a child that he had actually been enthusiastic about, and this past year and a half in college, it had been one of the only remnants of his old life, as well as a way to sometimes escape the pressure of classes. He liked playing, a lot, and he was interested in what this band was doing, genuinely so.

But they already had their distinct style, and Athelstan wasn't sure he would be able to follow it. That, and all the people involved already seemed so close to each other. It wasn't hard to imagine that Athelstan would be the odd one out in their relationship. And sure, Lagertha and Ragnar had both seemed enthusiastic and welcoming (frighteningly so, Athelstan thought, considering he had only met them a few hours before), but he still didn't know what Floki and Rollo thought of his presence here.

The second song stopped, and Lagertha picked up a bottle of water from the floor.

« Just one more song and we're done. Good ? »

Athelstan nodded. He was glad they weren't asking for his opinion just yet. It would give him some more time to think.

Well, that was what he had thought, but the third song was the fastest one they had played yet, and it ended in less than two minutes on a high-pitched scream from Lagertha.

She ran a hand across her brow and put a few strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear. Ragnar carefully unplugged his violin and put it down.

« So ? What do you think ? »

Ragnar and Lagertha were both looking at him with what he could only describe as puppy eyes. Even Floki looked expectant. Rollo was the only one pretending to ignore his presence, but he was probably still listening too.

It was an awful lot of pressure.

« I like it, » he said, completely honest. « You're good. You have your own style and all, it's great. » He tried for a small smile, but wasn't certain he had actually managed it.

« So you're in ? » It was Floki who asked the question from where they were still seated behind their drum kit. Athelstan must have gaped a little, because they added : « Don't look at me like that. We need a guitar, and those two- » He gestured at Ragnar and Lagertha. « told me you're good. »

« I... » Athelstan looked around at the small but cozy rehearsal space. He wanted to say yes. Oh, he wanted to say yes so much. But then what would happen to his routine ? What would happen to his quiet life ? This wasn't only about playing one or two songs with a friend at an open mic night. This would mean rehearsing at least once a week – probably more, because they seemed to be serious about this – with people he barely knew. For what ? A chance to play interesting music ? A chance to get to know those people ?

He shaked his head.

« Yes. I'm in. Well. I'm willing to try. »

Lagertha and Ragnar gave each other a high-five.

« I can't promise anything, though ! I mean, you've barely heard me play. And... Well, I don't want to mess up your dynamic, because you've got this great thing going and... »

« You'll fit in, » Ragnar said. « And if you don't, we'll think of something. That's not just on you, it's on us too. Trust us. It may not look like it, but we've actually thought about this. »

Athelstan wasn't 100% convinced, but well. He had already committed. He was going to try.

#Meeni writes fics #anastasiapullingteeth #Vikings #Fanfic #Lagertha/Ragnar #OTP: The Unholy Trinity #Fic: Sunstone

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