#fun fact they smoke weed every friday together

[snailsmeller]

MY SONIC [Tragedy] AU!1!1

I didnt know what else to name it so i chose the most basic option ever 😼😼

This takes place a year and a half after sonic boom aired and these are all my redesigns of the characters!! (Not including eggman ill make that in a separate post or smth)

The last piece is the reason why tails only has one tail in my au… roblox adopt me trust trades are wild..

[lovestuckyhatemarvel]

Season 3 finale! Episode 8!

1.) “We don’t know it’s your kids.” “Yes, we do.” We really do, Murray. They’re the only kids who do shit in this town.

2.) Jonathan could have been a track star.

3.) They really did not CGI that wound well. I forgot Jonathan reaches into the wound at all though. I just remember El using her powers to rip it out.

4.) And the gang’s all together again!

5.) I love Erica.

6.) I loved the group hug.

7.) STEVE’S HER DADDY NOW. Cute that you think you’d be the one being called Daddy, Steve. You’re a total bottom. Edit from the future: this isn’t me saying only tips are daddies or even only dons are daddies. I just don’t think Steve is a daddy because of vibes.

8.) “Oh honey, I’m gonna be fine.” It’s true. People will riot if Winona Ryder’s character dies, so I think she has plot armor.

9.) Oh, they finally remembered how Hopper actually talks to El.

10.) Here comes douchebag Billy.

11.) This elevator is definitely going slower with the adults in it.

12.) Andddd we’re back to bickering.

13.) Scoooooops Trooooop, do you copy?

14.) Move! That! Car! Oh well, didn’t work.

15.) Murray’s call sign being Bald Eagle is very funny.

16.) El dug through the trash to destroy a can of New Coke. They love to advertise Coke. I mean also they needed a way to say her powers are being on the fritz but they could have done that with the car.

17.) Mind Flayer dead above.

18.) That bitch big.

19.) “I think we make a pretty good team.” Never once did you act like a team, what the fuck are you talking about? And like, it pisses me off because they FUCKING DID WORK TOGETHER WELL IN SEASONS 1 AND 2 WITHOUT BICKERING THIS GODDAMN MUCH.

20.) I forgot these two idiots set up a date for Friday at 7 p.m. at Enzo’s.

21.) A;LDKSFJ;ADKSFLJ I FORGOT THAT THE FUCKING MIND FLAYER CREATURE ANSWERED THE WALKIE TALKIE. THAT’S SO FUCKING FUNNY.

22.) Fun Fact, I had to take a break during this episode because I think I discovered that flashing lights while watching tv in the dark is now a migraine trigger for me. Isn’t that fun? I took a pill and let my friends blow weed smoke in my face because I am whatever’s a step lower than a lightweight. I’m a baby weight? THat doesn’t make sense. I’m a lighter weight. I’m the lightest weight.

23.) The bald eagle has landed.

24.) Machine go off. Alarm go eeeeeeeeee. Monster go grrrrrrrr.

25.) Smiling and nodding works.

25.) 662608004 is not the code.

27.) Nancy WHeeler staring down a car with a gun in her hands, ice in her veins, and my total admiration for her. HELL YEAH STEVE TO THE RESCUE.

28.) Steve definitely has a concussion and both of them (him and Robin) have whiplash.

29.) Susie has a big ass house. Do we talk about how Susie has a big ass house? She’s also reading Wizard of Earthsea. I don’t actually believe the Duffer Brothers have read that book. I think they just put that in there because they know it’s a nerd book written by women.

30.) Susie is so goddamn cute.

31.) the Iconic Singing from Dustin

32.) I am shocked that Hopper doesn’t interrupt to be like WE NEED TO NOT DIE FROM RUSSIANS, PLEASE.

33.) I forgot that the monster is chasing the few people in the car before turning around.

34.) Hopper shooting the ceiling does cross language boundaries.

35.) Oh it’s Arnold from Wish. I hate that bitch.

36.) Do you think it was awkward filming a scene where you’re being carried over Dacre’s shoulder and if you open your eyes, you’re staring straight at his ass?

37.) “Don’t be afraid.” I don’t think that worked, Billy.

38.) Hell yeah fireworks. Yeah definitely don’t watch this show if you have a light sensitivity. BTW, I’m super mad that I have migraine triggers now. Like thanks Covid. Thanks for ruining big lighting things that I used to love.

39.) I think the Duffers rely too much on a plan never going the way it’s supposed to. Like they do it every single season and at this point it’s like, expected. It is straight up no longer a surprise. I’m now just constantly looking for how it’s going to fuck up.

40.) Mike and Max definitely have concussions.

41.) This is a sweet scene but I just realized she’s describing this scene like she’s trying to get a sketch artist to draw it at first. Like I get it, he got a shit fucking deal. I STILL DO NOT FORGIVE HIM FOR WANTING TO KILL LUCAS. No one made him do that! No one made him nearly kill Steve! Like yes he did a good thing at the end and I think MAYBE with some work people (probably not Lucas or Steve) could have learned to forgive him and maybe he could have earned forgiveness, but dying doesn’t actually earn that. Not even dying to protect El and Max.

42.) I do feel bad for Max though.

43.) Why doesn’t Hopper even try to move? Also I just realized they did that fade to black to hide him being taken away at the last minute because you don’t see him on the walkway before the explosion.

44.) I love how that mega powerful explosion that disintegrates Russians can’t touch glass though so Joyce is fine. I’m telling you, that woman has plot armor.

45.) Max is so sad. Honestly I am shocked she’s that sad, that fast. Not that it’s wrong for her to react that way, but IDK. I think I just want more representation of that first initial sock of like ‘I don’t know what I feel. This person sucked’.

46.) I forgot the fucking soldiers show up as soon as everything is already completed. Say what you will about the commies, but they were prompt all season.

47.) Owens showed up to have a disappointed dad face at a red crack int he wall.

48.) Will is getting so tall. I love him and Joyce reuniting. But also poor poor El. For a rare time they actually manage to convey information through acting and not words.

49.) THREE MONTHS LATER. I love that the deaths has Barb and Bob BUT NOT BENNY OR THE MORE THAN HALF DOZEN OTHER PEOPLE WHO FUCKING DIED IN SEASON 1. The show literally forgets who all died.

50.) Steve put his mom down as a reference because she’s ‘like super well-respected’.

51.) Steve isn’t an idiot, he’s just dyslexic and is bad at answering on the spot. But he definitely has seen all 3 Star Wars movies without being forced. It wasn’t actually nerdy to see Star Wars in the 1980s, guys. They were blockbuster hits that everyone and their mother watched.

52.) Byers are leaving Hawkins. Joyce has a terrible history with dating.

53.) I love Max and Lucas singing together.

54.) Okay Mike and Will are gay for each other.

55.) I didn’t expect Jonathan’s carpet to be that clean.

56.) Nancy Wheeler is the big spoon.

57.) “A wise man said, we’ve got shared trauma.” And I say Nancy’s a comphet lesbian

58.) El’s hair is so cute.

59.) everyone likes presents

60.) “Mike, I love you too.” Wait she says that and according to fanfiction he never says I love you back? What a dumbass. I guess I’ll find out though.

61.) Why are they acting like Hopper needed to be coached to write this letter? It’s super similar to what he said off the cuff to the radio in season 2.

62.) Millie Bobby Brown is very good at being pretty while crying.

Okay so season 3 is a mixed bag at breakneck pace. Hopper’s characterization is inconsistent as hell. I don’t care about Mike/El, tbh. I also think the Duffers don’t understand most media, let alone feminist literature enough to make a cogent point about anything. By this time the Russian angle was already super played out and being set in the 80s doesn’t make it better, honestly.

Anyway, it’s once again a mediocre season elevated by a good cast but I love Steve and Robin being friends. It has good moments and if they’d had a better script it could have been great. But that would require smart men. Smart men who don’t do a circle jerk because they remember 80s movie references.

[allthingsarmin]

fratboy/stoner armin!! in love with how you write asshole! armin ❤

Thank you for your request! I feel I didn’t do a good job with this one, so I will probably go back later and rewrite it. (And I really appreciate your feedback <3 I hope this dose of asshole!armin will satisfy your needs haha)~

MINORS DNI! Ft. NSFW TOPICS (weed, one mention of vomit, and sex (groping, drunk noncon), mentions of religion, one mention of sexaul assault).

Fem!Reader, FemBodied!Reader

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who dresses like a gentleman - wearing white shorts and a white button-up collared shirt under a cerulean sweater that compliments his mesmerizing blue eyes as well as a dainty silver watch on his left wrist and always comes to class with a freshly shaven face and cologne that is just a little too “manly” for him - but acts like a complete hooligan, making inappropriate jokes in class, pranking innocent passersby on campus, and getting black-out drunk at frat parties every Friday night.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who looks so poised and has such a refined posture, having enough manners (like holding the door open) to swoon enough girls but is such a menace when it comes to anything serious… like being harshly shushed in the library because he was being too loud or skipping finals to go on a spontaneous road trip with his frat buddies then sending an email to his professor saying he was sick, even printing out a fake doctor’s note, or pranking the sorority across the street by TPing their house or even how he can’t seem to care less when the police ruthlessly question him because there have been so many reports of sexual assault done by his frat friends.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who thinks he is so smart because he’s a business major and genuinely believes he is better than everyone else because he gets out of class to go to all these events even though he is undoubtedly one of the most irresponsible and reckless people on campus… having unprotected sex with countless unfortunate women who have fallen for his false compliments, throwing parties that become too big for him to handle - so loud the police become involved, so messy with red cups littering the floor and vomit being found in every trashcan in the house - and failing nearly every class he’s in because “it’s too easy for me, my advisor put me in the wrong class, and the teacher is an old hag.”

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin whose backpack is filled with anything but college textbooks and notebooks, like a chewed pencil, three packs of condoms, some headphones, and an energy drink.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who swears he’s being a good boy when his rich parents who are on their abroad trip ask him how he’s doing over the phone but is actually spending most of his weekly allowance buying weed and smoking it with his frat buddies, who often gets into intense fights with them because he “knows he had two ounces left, but now he only has one,” and who shows up to class high the few times he does actually decide to go - eyes red, a constant small smirk, can’t stop rambling about useless things.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who walks together with his big group of frat friends, taking up large amounts of room on the sidewalk and in restaurants, cat-calling girls they think look fuckable and loudly mocking those who look prude.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who has a main Instagram where he looks so well-mannered, posting pictures with his family or his frat buddies when they go on a trip together but also has a secret Instagram where he posts thirst traps, follows barely clothed women, and stalks accounts of girls who go the same college as him, even DMing the men at your college to see if they have your nudes.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who knows how handsome he is, who knows how easy it is to make your knees weak and your heart flutter when he looks at you from across the campus soccer field with such intent, biting his lip, maliciously smiling because yet another girl has fallen for his seemingly innocent aura as you excitedly wave at him.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who revels in the fact that he can convince you to do anything. When he’s whining so pathetically in the driver’s seat and pressuring you to just hit the blunt one time while he locks you in his car that’s parked on the far end of the campus parking lot. And you, so submissive and selfless sitting in the passenger seat, not wanting to disappoint him because his frown harshly tugs at your heart, take a hit, choking on the fumes and heart pounding at the unfamiliarity as a warm buzz sets in.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who pressures you to skip class with him so that you both can go to the campus cafeteria and buy an unholy amount of cookies and chips because he’s high and he’s hungry… and now you know why his bedsheets at the frat house reek of weed and why his crusty floor is littered with food wrappers.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who so easily persuaded you to play those type of sexually suggestive games at the weekend frat party where everyone is drunk, breath seething with vodka, and sweatily rubbing up against each other, so horny for a release, and so desperate to feel something besides the headache from the loud music… who you somehow wind up in the closet with, his right arm holding you close against his body as his left hand slithers into your panties and forces itself into your cunt because he wanted you to play ‘seven minutes in heaven.’

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who promises that there’s nothing to be afraid of because he’s ‘secretly a sweetheart’ but calls you his “bitch” and pats his thigh, signaling that he wants you to come sit in his lap so that he can feel you up in front of his friends at the frat party when drinking cheap, shitty beer.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who swears he won’t bite but gets you so drunk at parties that you can’t even tell him no when he takes you upstairs, locks the door, and practically forces his hard, throbbing cock into you while holding you into a mating press, covering your mouth to suppress your cries as his tongue trails your jawline and neck.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who prays before every dinner, keeps a bible in the lowest drawer of his nightstand, and goes to church promptly at 10am every Sunday with his frat buddies despite being hungover. Sitting in the front pews, he listens intently to the preacher, letting the word of God spill into his heart even though he was rigorously fisting his cock the night before to your pictures on Instagram, cumming four times but his balls still swollen and cock still desperate for your messy cunt, having to hold back his needy whimpers each time his slender fingers brisk past his sensitive tip as he imagines your warm, wet tongue licking off the pre-cum.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who invites you to a Sunday lunch with his frat. Of course, he looks so polished: a clean, white button-up with a baby blue sweater hanging around his shoulders and a pair of new Sperrys. When you show him what you’re wearing, he tells you that you could do better as he convinces you to wear something a little low-cut but not too much because he doesn’t want his frat buddies to think he’s dating a slut.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin whose friends look at you like starving dogs when you both finally get to the restaurant, never including you in the conversation except for when they comment on your body and how irresistible it is.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who doesn’t defend you and instead soaks up all of this appraisal.

“Yeah, she’s a good toy to play with,” he proudly smiles while gripping your thigh in his strong, pale hands.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who makes you order a small salad and only allows you to drink water because “you need to watch your figure.”

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who’s the perfect predator, the perfect manipulator. He can do whatever he wants without ever getting caught, howling at the fact that you try to tell advisors or teachers how Armin violated and manipulated you, but they just never believe you. “You’re talking about Armin? Armin Arlert? He would never do anything like that,” they chuckle… because everyone knows Armin’s an angel; he’s part of the frat, so that makes him a good boy, right?

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who you can’t possibly ever escape from because he’s done such a good job at manipulating you to be his little slutty girlfriend, his heaven-like appearance making it impossible for others to believe what a devil he is, isolating you as he convinced all of your friends that you’re just some cock-hungry whore.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who has done such a good job at defiling you, successfully taking your virginity and eagerly pressuring you to do things for him, letting him so easily enter your sloppy cunt as he takes in the sight of your tender breasts, contorted face, and bright red hand imprints on your thighs.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who despite all the manipulation and sexist comments, you don’t want to leave because he smells so sweet thanks to all the treats he eats; because his arm muscles look so good when he plays golf with his rude friends; because he makes your high from weed more fun as you two cuddle and talk about nonsense; because he is able to bury your shy side and awaken your submissive side as he slowly degrades the human being in you and raises a filthy slut whose pussy he makes so wet, so needy, and so pathetically sloppy.

[evening-starlight]

Warm Beers

Taglist is OPEN! Dm or comment to be added

Posting Schedule: Monday, Wednesday, Friday

This takes place before season one

All Works Master List

Warm Beers Master List

13

Word Count: 1125

    The beer was flowing, and the weed was rolled back at John B.'s place. Music played from Pope's phone while everyone giggled and joked around. Kenzie was cuddled into JJ's side as they lay in the hammock, laughing at John B.'s poor attempt at balancing on one foot while drinking a beer. He was drunk as a skunk tonight.

    JJ sets one foot on the ground and gently pushes the pair back and first as the group party around them. One hand holds his beer while the other arm is wrapped around McKenzie comfortingly. She makes grabby hands towards the joint hanging from JJ's lips. "Use your words, Princess," JJ teases, grabbing the jay in his beer hand and out of her reach.

    "JJ, please?" Kenzie whines, reaching for the roll again, her face coming closer to JJ's. JJ relents and places the weed to her lips gently. They maintain eye contact while she takes a drag. The humidity seems to suffocate Kenzie as she blows out the smoke, watching as JJ's eyes trail down to her lips. It felt like she was breathing through a plastic straw, hard and borderline painful, as the party slowly fades away around them. Her sole focus was on JJ next to her.

    His perfect blue eyes were rimmed with red, and his pupils were blown from the drugs that the gang passed back and forth. Kenzie's head was underwater as she continues to stare at JJ's face. She already knew every curve, freckle, and acne scar, but it felt like the first time all over again.

    "Hey, love birds," John B. calls, pulling the teens out of their staring contest. Kenzie snaps her head to look at the smirking boy. "Get a room."

    "What do you want, Routledge?" Kenzie snaps, adjusting so she's not entirely curled up into JJ's chest. John B. smiles knowingly and shrugs.

    "Wanted to annoy you," He laughs with a shrug. Kenzie sighs and clammers off the hammock the best she could in her state. "Oh fuck," John B. laughs again and stumbles away into the grass. Kenzie knows she's too drunk to chase after him, so she flips him the bird and turns on her heel to go inside.

    The humidity was getting to be too much, causing her to grow hot and red in the face. Kenzie stumbles through the house, her head fuzzy with the mix of weed and alcohol. Her body felt like it was floating, making it harder to remain upright as she gets into the spare bedroom.

    Soft sheets surround Kenzie as she falls face-first onto the bed. She was either highly crossfaded, or these sheets were the softest thing she's ever felt before. It was most likely the former as she remembers the countless nights complaining about the scratch. JJ walks in quietly to find Kenzie rubbing her face into the duvet.

    "Having fun there?" He asks, scaring Kenzie. She squeaks and looks at him before bursting out laughing. JJ chuckles along, shaking his head at his faded friend.

    "These sheets are so fuckin' soft. Come feel," Kenzie commands, scooting to the side so JJ could lay next to her. He plops down, causing Kenzie to bounce with him for a second. They both giggle uncontrollably while they slide their faces across the sheets.

    The teens stop and look at each other, laying on their stomachs, with shining smiles. "Want to know something about me?" Kenzie asks JJ. The drugs and alcohol making her feel bolder than she usually was. Added to the fact that JJ makes her feel safe to admit anything. He nods and watches as Kenzie's face changes from drunken delight to something more serious. "My dad's not my dad." She confesses voice mumbled from her squished cheek as she shrugs her shoulders.

    JJ stares at her with eyebrows pulled together and hooded eyes. He was high out of his mind. "What?" He asks, confused at her confession.

    "Victor isn't my biological dad. My mom cheated on him and told him I was his until I was about five months old. The only reason he found out was that along with the divorce papers were parental rights termination papers. Signed by her and my biological father, who she chose over my dad," Kenzie explains with another shrug while she continues to look at JJ.

    "So why do you call him dad?" JJ asks. He knew it was insensitive the minute it came out of his mouth, but he couldn't stop himself from asking it. The weed was to blame on JJ not having a filter.

    "Because he raised me by himself for sixteen years. He'll always be my dad, biological or not." JJ nods and slings a drunken arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him in an effort to comfort her.

    "Want to know a secret?" JJ asks, feeling awkward that she shared something so deep and he could say nothing. His eyes slowly close. As soon as he stopped moving, a wave of fatigue washed over him. Kenzie begins to feel the same tiredness, closing her eyes as well as she hums for him to continue. "I think I like you," JJ confesses.

    "I like you too, J," Kenzie whispers, mishearing him in her fucked-up state. She thought he meant he liked her as a friend. He's said it multiple times before.

    "No, Ken," JJ tries again, opening his eyes to see her squinted ones staring back. "Like, like like you. Like kiss your face and bring you ice cream on your bad days, like you." Kenzie stares at him in shock. He had to be out of his mind to say those things to her.

    Maybe JJ was just feeling confident like Kenzie was when she told him her secret. These could be his real feelings, and he finally admitted them. But then again, why would he like someone like Kenzie? She wasn't anything special compared to the usual girls he went for. She was average compared to the skinny blondes he usually hooked up with.

    "I think I like you too," Kenzie admits, the words coming out of her mouth surprising her. Did she really mean them? She thought about kissing him all the time, but she always thought it was curiosity and nothing more. The love songs playing in her head would always bring up pictures of JJ with them. Was she just telling JJ what he wanted to hear, or did she mean them?

    JJ smiles and nuzzles his head into the sheets again, closing his eyes slowly. "Cool," He mumbles, rubbing her back gently. The soft-touch lulls Kenzie to sleep quickly, the slurred words hanging in the air around them and playing parts in her dreams.

Taglist: @queenofallhobos @gwenlovesharrystyles @x-lulu @cognacdelights​ @gviosca​

[jade-of-mourning]

theformat wrote, "im floating with the birds im talking to the weeds look what youve done to me"

in which i spontaneously take several hours to translate nate’s awfully punctuated commentary on dog problems into Comprehensive English Words. partially so i can write my stupid essay on it for fun. but yes here you go, 4.2k words from a 2006 livejournal archive that i managed to snatch out of two saves. here’s a link if you want to read it from the source, but i’ll have you know it’s a nightmare. early 2000′s nate ruess learn how to type properly challenge.

theformat wrote,

[@ 2006-5-18 18:44:00]

"im floating with the birds im talking to the weeds look what youve done to me"

Hi,

Sitting on my couch, watching ESPN. Damn, it’s good to be home. Things have been pretty crazy the last 6 months. As a lot of you know, we were dropped by our label — we went and recorded a new record, labels became interested, [and] we decided to release it ourselves. We went on tour, and now I’m [...] home for the next week: my first week off in six months. What do I do? 

Well, my roommate and I got memberships to the YMCA down the street from our house. It’s an amazing place. Downtown Phoenix is pretty much an amazing place. It’s not like the rest of the state — speaking of which, I’m declaring war on Scottsdale, it’s the opposite of Downtown Phoenix.

Anyways, so I wake up at 9am every morning. I don’t know what it is, really — I’ve been a "pro" musician for about 3 years now, [and] we are supposed to wake up at 11 or 12. I know some dudes that wake up at 1, but no; since I’ve been home the last few days, I’ve been going to bed at 1 and waking up at 9. My roommate has a job, [so] I think it has to do with that. 

See, there are 3 showers total in our house. I have the big bedroom, so I have the big shower, [and] since I’ve been off on tour and recording, he has gotten used to the nice shower in my room (Which is fine — anyone that’s gotten close to me knows I’m not too fond of showers, so it’s not like I use it that much). So every morning around 8:45, I wake up to my door opening and my roommate going through my room to use the shower. 

You know what it’s like when you’re half asleep but you want to act like you’re awake so as not to freak someone out with all the crazy babble, but you just end up saying all the same crazy babble? I do that every morning. I turn and look at him and try to act like I wasn’t just dreaming about tootsie rolls and parrots that shatter like glass. "Hey [Roommate's Name], that was some game last night" [is what usually] comes out of my mouth — something to that extent — and I think he feels sorry for me, but continues to walk right into my bathroom, and use the shower. 

At this point, I’m awake. I usually have to pee, and I have to then use his restroom. It’s a terrible swap, and it always ends with me wide awake on my front porch (har har) smoking a cigarette and wondering how the hell I’m gonna fall back asleep when the air conditioning is broken. Ah, what a wonderful life at home, [but] that’s the weird thing — I love it. Now we wake up and we go to the [YMCA]. We run, we play basketball, we jump in the pool, we play pool basketball, we get yelled at for dunking the ball. We don’t use soap before we go into the sauna, and the night usually ends with a poker tournament. This is the life I love to live when I’m away from the road. It too is the opposite of Scottsdale. It’s who I am, [and] it’s pretty much who I’ve become.

See, for the last 23 years, it’s been about the highs and the lows for me. I’ve got an addictive personality, [so] I stay away from a lot of things because of this; however, when I find things, I get generally excited. I go crazy. It’s all I think about and all I do for the next howeverlong. For the first 23 years, it was either talking non-stop or locking myself in my room. It’s either great or terrible; not good or bad. Dog Problems changed that.

Initially, Dog Problems was supposed to be that — the original concept of Dog Problems was to be 2 sides of music, the first half taking over where Interventions [+ Lullabies] had left off: "We'll be together in the morning…"

We weren’t, in fact. We were over before Interventions was even released. We were over two weeks after it was recorded, [and] I spent the next 2 years feeling terrible. We got back together… we broke up… we got dogs… we broke up… we got back together and got dogs…

I was still miserable, but I wanted Dog Problems to get me through everything. I wanted it to help me, not anyone else — just me. The first side was supposed to be me down in the dumps [and] everything that went down: how the two of us were dealing with it differently, [and] the second half was supposed to be a realization.

The first inkling of realization was a day [when] we were on tour. We were all laughing about something I’m sure Marko or Adam said. Here I was supposed to be depressed, but the fact that I can spend all of my days in different states with my best friends, all of us doing what we love — that was major! Then my mom called… I’ve got my parents! My friends! What else could I possibly need?

At that point, I felt as if a relationship in a Michael Bolton sort of way didn’t mean anything. It was the people you surrounded yourself with — those were the people that made the difference, and that was going to be side two. I was convinced that when I just closed my eyes and thought about the wonderful people around me, I was going to be great. Not good, [but] great.

I didn’t get that far, no. I got back into the relationship. 

I was sure it was going to work. At that point, life would be perfect, and we all want perfection right? [But] things went right back to far from perfect. Things went to terrible. I couldn’t stop feeling sorry for myself, but I had a concept. At that point, I figured that even by singing and recording these positive songs I was going to feel better, so Sam showed me what was then just a short acoustic guitar version of Snails.

This was it. This was my first chance to prove to myself that life can be beautiful. The thing is, I had never been more miserable. I remember writing the lyrics to Snails: my roommate was at work, I was on the bed, on my night stand was a giant bottle of booze, and somewhere off in California she wasn’t calling me back on a Friday night. So I went to work, listened [to it] over and over. I wanted to get it right; I wanted to be positive. I passed out, then I woke up the next morning [with a] big headache (P.S. drinking is not really that cool; it’s cool when you condemn it for the first 22 years of your life, then it becomes not cool, then it becomes ok when you moderate yourself) and I started writing everything positive I could think of. [...] Snails was, in Sam’s mind, supposed to be a 2 minute kid’s song, [but] I wrote so much that there was no going back. I thought that was it — Snails solved all of my problems.

It didn’t get that far either. Nothing could shake the depression, [and] I really started to worry about myself. Here I want to feel great, but I only feel terrible, [and] a few months later it got really really bad. I had to go to my parents house that night, I didn’t want to be at my house. I wanted to feel like a kid.

It’s funny how we always want to be adults when we're younger. We want to drive cars, we want to have girlfriends. I still didn’t consider myself an adult — all I wanted was to come home, be tucked in, know that everything was going to be alright. I woke up the next day [and found out] she met someone new. I’ve got to figure myself out…

In the meantime, we've got 4 songs we are recording over at our friend Aaron’s house (he is an amazing producer and [...] musician, and his house and his roommates have gotten me through a lot of tough times. They’re some of the only people I know who would rather spend their Saturdays getting dinner and watching a movie instead of going to a party. I like that). All of this turmoil in my relationship was going on at the time, and I was trying to write side two [but] I couldn’t. There was more fuel to side one. These songs have to be done, so I wrote about what I knew, and at that point I knew how to feel terrible.

So much for side two. Dog Problems is going to be one giant mess of depression and "look what you’ve done to me".

Atlantic got those four songs, as well as a few others. They were not psyched, to say the least, but some people at the label actually cared about it enough to say "go record". So we were able to pick our producer, we met with a few people, talked to a few more. Things were looking up. Dog Problems was going to happen. 

I remember meeting Steve McDonald at his house — Sam and I were excited to be [there] because we knew his wife Anna would probably be there. Anna was the lead singer/songwriter for a band we used to obsess about called "That Dog", her brother was one of the ten drummers in the world that I actually liked, so Steve couldn't be so bad. And he wanted to produce our record, so he had to be pretty cool! 

He was just that, and more. Sam and I were eating every word that came out of his mouth. He had stories; he was young, hip, energetic, and yet very all knowing. We saw someone that was going to let us do whatever we wanted to do, and in the meantime he was going to make us laugh and make sure we didn't lose our minds. From that point on, I knew there was someone I could always trust. I made a friend pretty quick.

Things were moving forward. Steve McDonald was to be the producer. I hated Los Angeles so there was no way in hell I was going to record there, [so] we decided Palm Springs would be perfect. Weird, but perfect. I had a phone conversation with Steve that night and we were finalizing everything. I was going to call Atlantic in the morning and let them know just how everything was going to work, [but] I didn't get that far.

I was sleeping in a blowup bed at the house when my phone rang. I didn’t wake up and answer like it was my roommate and he was coming into my room to use my shower, [because] this call felt different. Right away, I was awake.

It was our manager: "You’ve been dropped." 

When I heard that, the first thought going through my mind wasn’t "Oh man...how are we going to be famous now and make boat loads of money?" It was more like "fuck...but Dog Problems. We were supposed to go make Dog Problems."

The thing is, Atlantic wasn’t into Dog Problems. They were into whatever it was they thought we were. Never had The First Single made more sense — what was supposed to be a song about getting the band started and doing something with it had actually turned into a song about how stuck we were in the labels eyes because of the song. I was past that; we're proud of something we wrote when we were 19 and 20, but when I think of music, I think of progression. 

I think of all of the wonderful records I had been introduced to when I had nothing to do riding in a van. I think of all of the new influences, all the instruments, all of the "How did they do that?" And I think of how much it gets me through everything.

Music has been the consecutive[ly] great[est] thing in my life. It’s been that one thing, and with Dog Problems, it wasn’t about "I want everyone to sing along because I can write a catchy song." It was about feeling. It was paying tribute to all of the bands that we obsessively listened to. It was for Harry Nilsson and Van Dyke Parks, it was for Jellyfish and XTC. It was our way of saying thanks for making our lives better, whether it be lyrically or musically. It was never about being something, being told something, and sticking to something. It was an adventure, for the artist and for the listener.

[And] they didn't get that. They wanted the old record, the old songs, just with different words and a few different chords here and there. They didn’t care about Snails or Dog problems [or] what it meant to write those songs. They knew it wasn't going to be huge; the guitars were not big enough (if big guitars are your thing that’s fine, it’s just not really our thing right now); it wasn’t going to be competitive, and so they dropped us. And rightfully so: we weren’t going to change, and obviously the major label business is never going to change, [so] now it comes down to who goes down first. And we weren’t ready to go down.

Sam and I had conversations about it, whether the business end of things have been fucking with us so much that we'll never be sane enough to just enjoy it. We thought about getting out — it wasn’t [be]cause we hated each other, or the songs; it was because we hated the business.

Steve called to let us know that he was still onboard, label or not, [and] we let him know we were still on board. We were going to make this record, [and] I was going to feel great! But the record was going to cost something. How could we afford it? 

We were lucky that we had a management company like Nettwerk. Not only are they the most forward-thinking music business people around, [but] they’re also (for the most part) Canadian. Oh, and they care a shit load about the music we make. They could have waited for the ship to sink, but they told us they would pay for the record if need be. Fortunately, we were able to get money for getting dropped — Atlantic actually paid us to leave, so we could afford the recording ourselves. The only stipulation was that it had to be done quicker, and when you want something quick, you have to go to the "right here, right now" capitol of the world: Los Angeles. I was a little irked at the thought at first, then Steve said it was his personal goal to make LA a wonderful city for me. Like I said, I would jump off a cliff if Steve said it was the best way to get coffee, but I wasn’t jumping off of cliffs. I was too excited to make Dog Problems, [so] LA it was.

Sam and I moved to the "Silver Palace" in Silverlake California in the middle of December. We found an amazing studio in Burbank, California and an amazing engineer in Ken Sluiter, and our goal was to just do everything free from a record label and someone constantly messing up the recording process by saying things like "that’s not high octave enough". The only pressure we had at all was from our manager saying "You have a tour you accepted in March, [so] get it done by then.” Other than that, it was me, Sam, Steve, and Ken working 13 hours a day for 6 days a week.

It became our lives we were putting so much of ourselves into. Everyone that worked and played on the record was the same way when they were there contributing. I would leave the studio at 2 in the morning and wake up at 10 to be at the studio by 11. There was no free time — the four of us were so invested in this. We all bought into the concept. 

In the meantime, things outside of the studio were getting interesting. We had a lot of labels calling and constantly asking about it. During one week of recording, I remember at least 3 different label people coming down to the studio. Our minds weren’t made up as to what we were doing with the record once it was recorded — all we wanted to do was finish it — but we kept our options open and let people sit in the big chair and listen to what we had been working on. The response was overwhelmingly positive, but we didn’t really think about it too much beyond the compliments we were receiving. Sam and I got used to LA — I was 10 minutes away from where I had been the previous summer when I was back "on" in my “on and off" relationship. I was ten minutes from her, she was calling every day, I was singing about it… but how was it not getting to me? Why did I not care?

My phone was off. I woke up in Silverlake one morning and started wondering why for the last month I had a smile on my face. Sure, I was down at times, but the thing that had been bringing me down for 3 years was now the last thing on my mind. Apparently, it had been that way for awhile. Something that took 3 years to get over… I was finally just okay with it. No big realization — just the fact that things happen. People make mistakes. And I came out of it alright. I was good; not great… I was good, and that felt good.

I wasn’t looking for great anymore. I was okay. The last song on Dog Problems is all about that. Here, this record was supposed to be the downs, and the ups, and it ended with the middle: the realization that I don’t need to be talking; I don’t need to be locked in my room — I need to enjoy what’s going on around me. And if things go wrong, they go wrong. There’s always tomorrow.

Dog Problems means so much to me in so many different ways. I’ve never been more proud of anything in my life. I cried so many times during the making of the record. All the money I had spent on therapy, and all I had to do was go make a record, realize that I’m alright, and realize that I made something that I’ll forever be proud of.

Shit… the record was supposed to be about how California can change you for the worse, [but] it played a huge part in doing the opposite!

So as we were putting the finishing touches on the record (all our friends came in and recorded! A ton of people we admired came and worked on the record! All of their responses were so positive that it's hard not to get an ego about it. These are the people I worship. They’re the ones I wanted to pay tribute to, and they think we've made something unique and special. It’s like Michael Jordan telling you that you have a nice jump shot (no more sports references… I swear I’m done)) and we started to think about what we were going to do with it. How we were going to release it. Labels were getting pretty into it, and we knew we would have to make a decision soon.

After much debate and discussion, we decided that the record was something we had made completely on our own, so why not release it completely on our own? Nettwerk was going to take care of the distribution so it would have a major label distro. It would be inside all of the Best Buys; what more did we want? We didn’t want a big fat check — we did that last time. It made us miserable, and nothing came out of it. Barely anyone at the labels helped us, we weren’t making music videos, our songs weren’t on the radio, so why would we take their criticism? After all, everything that we’ve done — any success we’ve had is from being real people who make music. From showing up to play, from 3 years on the road. 

On Interventions [+ Lullabies], there might have been an Elektra logo on the back of the record, but it ended right there. We were the ones SHOWING people who we were. I wouldn’t have it any other way — no one knows us better than ourselves, so why not release it ourselves? To me, it’s not only a testament to the hard work we put into the band (Mike, Don, Marko, Toco, everyone else involved in putting these songs to life — you guys are the best thing we have. It’s pretty special when your best friends are some of the most talented musicians), but I really feel like the people who come to our shows are such good people that they don’t give a fuck what label it’s on.

They are there because we are doing something positive, and because we care about them as much as they care about us. So for the time being we've said "fuck the middleman": we're the only people we can blame at this point. I’m so tired of even talking about major labels and the split and everything like this. The music is the only thing I care about. Dog Problems is the only thing I care about, so why let someone else ruin it?

The Vanity Label was born.

The record got finished. We had no time to rehearse, and we had to go right back out to tour. Our first show before the Motion City Soundtrack tour was in Nashville — I remember the last time we were in Nashville, there were about ten kids. Reuben’s accomplice kept asking them why they hate whales, so we figured why not go there and get some of the rust out of the way. After all, we haven't toured in a year so there should be like 3 kids there; we can mess up if need be.

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to mess up. On a Sunday night in Nashville, with Ted Leo playing across the street (I <3 Ted), our first headlining show outside of Arizona in almost a year was over sold out. What the fuck happened? 

We thought we were going to have to play for another 3 years just to get back to where we were when we left, and yet it’s sold out on a Sunday night? It didn’t end there either — the whole tour went like that… night after night ("nite after nite?"). I couldn't believe it. As if having Dog Problems wasn’t enough, now we have people showing their support in the most positive way: coming to the shows, being there from the only thing they knew before. Those two months were such good months. It was the last thing I expected. Thanks so much to all the bands that played with us, and thanks so much for everyone that came to the shows and sang along. We'll be back in July.

In the meantime, things were going great on the Vanity Label front. Business actually felt natural. We are shooting a video with the directors we had always dreamed of doing a video with (it won’t be serious...no pouty face). There were magazines like AP and online magazines like AP taking notice, supporting the whole idea and concept. We actually took press photos. I’ve never been through any of this before, it’s exciting. I don’t think it’s going to change who we are, not one bit, but it’s still exciting to see people who can help out actually help out.

So where does that leave me now? Sitting on my bed. I’ve rambled for hours, the air still doesn't work, and I’ve been told that Dog Problems (something that isn't supposed to come out till July) has been leaked. Not the best news when you just got out of the pool, but it happens. I freaked out at first — I thought I was going to lock myself in my room. After all, this is something that we spent over two years making. It’s something that you have to take the time… listen to in headphones… play loud… listen to in order of the tracks… the artwork… Sam did the best artwork he has ever done. The packaging is something we paid extra for because Sam’s concept was so brilliant, and now… it’s leaked on the internet? I was locking my door, then our manager called.

"Hello?" 

"We're releasing it on the website today." 

"Wow."

So, here goes. You’ve read enough. I shouldn’t have to go on about it anymore, but I will say, if you wanna wait for the full hard copy release then do so. It’s July 11 — we are gonna be touring right after that — but if you want to get it now,.please do it by purchasing it right here. We released it, it’s our money, it’s our little baby — you should take the time to listen to it all the way through, free of distraction. You should turn the songs into your own. It’s an adventure, and it’s something that we put everything we have into; and if anyone deserves it first, it’s you guys who have been here with us all along.

Without further ado...

"Dog Problems"

- Nate

[chappedandfadedvds]

Nov 13th, Friday 23:16

Jens stood in the doorway to his mother’s bedroom, as she was fixated on the screen of her laptop, sitting propped up against the backrest behind her. A thick blanket covered her, as she froze easily lately, always big wollen socks on her feat and a cozy cardigan within arms reach.

She looked up at him, the blue light in contrast to the warm orange tone of the lamp on her nightstand.

„Everything’s alright?“

Jens could just shake his head. 

They had eaten dinner and his mother had brought Lotte to bed, while Jens had chatted with Yasmina for an hour, going over the short presentation they had to prepare for french. And after all that was done, he had sat at his desk, feeling incredibly lonely, without any real reason.

His mother smiled at him, lifting the blanket on her right side, as she closed the laptop and put some loose papers with it away onto the nightstand.

Jens didn’t hesitate and quickly went to join her side, sliding down low enough that the blanket reached his chin, much to his mother’s enjoyment, as she laughed and ruffled his hair. He complained for the briefest moment, not saying another word when his mother began to carefully comb though it with her fingers.

„Lucas is a nice boy.“

Startled at his mother’s attentiv words, he looked up from his position, clearly not having expected her to have met him. Not that she didn’t know that a friend would sleep over, but his mom had only kept to her room for the whole day til the evening. Jens had only brought her late breakfast before he had seen Lucas out after second period.

„You two talked?“ He inquiered curious and very impatient for an answer, as his mother grinned at him. Almost letting him think that something must have happend.

„Well when you brought Lotte to school, I thought I may get some water and smoke in the kitchen. Lucas came downstairs not a minute later and found me, my freshly rolled joint in hand. He was a bit overwhelmed, I reckon.“ Yea Jens could definitely see that. „But he immidiately asked if I also wanted some tea and how could I decline his polite offer, so we both drank our tea and smoked a bit, while he told me about himself. That he was from the Netherlands and you helped him out on his first day. And that he is glad to have made one friend so quick, as with the corona regulations in place, he would have felt very isolated. I told him he was welcome any day, before I went back upstairs for work.“

His mother finished, leaving Jens quite surprised as Lucas hadn’t said a word to him about having had met her. Also they smoked weed together? In what kind of world did one’s...potential boyfriend?...smoke weed with one’s mother? Sure she did it for medical reasons, hence the really good stuff she had, nonetheless it didn’t change the absurd picture building inside his head. 

It was then that she seemed to remember something else.

„Oh right! He took a picture of me too, that was quite fun. He said he liked to take photographs for his account or something along those lines. He told me how to sit and everything. It was quite nice and you couldn’t really see how shit I looked, my hair even looked like it used to be, not so thin and flat. It felt quite nice. But what I just wanted to tell you is that I like him and I’m fine with you inviting him over whenever. And that I didn’t tell him about my illness.“

Jens wasn’t sure where to even start thinking, as the words and their meaning fromed in his mind. What photographs? What account? Also his mom specifically stated that she liked him...did she assume there was more and wanted to let Jens know she was fine with it? 

„You okay there, sweetheart?“ She asked him carefully, as he was basically frozen in his position beside her. So he nodded to give her some sort of indication that he had listened to her and then looked up again, meeting her smile.

„I didn’t know that he enjoyed to take photos. His insta is pretty sparse contentwise.“

„Well you learn something new every day, especially with new friends, huh? But I think he said it was private or something. Just for himself.“

Okay new goal, get Lucas to show him his work. He was so curious to see, how the dutch boy saw the world around him. And if he had taken any pictures of Jens. That was probably the most important thing to figure out.

„Also thank you for not telling him. But you could have, if you wanted to. I don’t try to purposely hide you from my friends.“ His mother gave him a look, one that only could only mean she saw straight through his little lie. It was Jens who had told her mid lockdown in spring, that he wanted to have til the end of the year, if possible, to be allowed to keep living a halfway normal live as a teenager. Just get some more normalitiy with his friends. He wanted to attend parties and hook up with girls, make stupid videos for their youtube and play videogames all day, without their pity or constant offer to help him out. 

He knew it was a lot to ask of her, but she had assured him that she was fine and that she could understand him and would try her best to do as much as long as possible. He still was sometimes overcome by a faint tug of guilt at his conciousness. Jens was selfish in that regard. It just got so much harder in the last couple of month, the balance shifting gradually to Jens taking over most tasks. The year also came to an end and with it the fear that he may not even be able to push his pending explanation of truth towards even january. 

Every week he just prayed for another one to follow after, to procrastinate till he grew old.

He knew very well that that wasn’t going to happen.

He just couldn’t quite accept that fact yet.

Jens lifted his head, shuffeling closer to his mother, lying his head onto her lap, as she continued to comb through his hair. She wasn’t talking.  She was just there in that moment. Existing, breathing, alive.

„I want to sleep here tonight.“ His voice was dropping into a whisper, a little ashamed to ask his mom at his age, but he only heard her chuckling quietly, a quick „of course, I’d love that very much“ followed by a kiss on the top of his head.

He couldn’t hold back the little smile on his lips, happy to have a bit more time with his mother, even if it would just be tonight. That was alright with him.

They both started moving, ready to find some sleep, as his mother turned of the lamp on her nightstand and slid down, the blanket pulled up high, mimicking her son.

Jens was so tired, physically but much more mentally, that he immidiately drifted off, his eyes closed as the room turned dark and the warmth wrapped around him.

He could feel his mother blowing a kiss to his forhead, like she had done when he was still her little boy. He didn’t know how much he had needed this, when the last thing he heard was his mother telling him goodnight. Maybe there was a quiet quiver in her voice, Maybe it was just his imagination. He would never tell any of his friends about this. It was close to embarrasing. But in this minute it meant the world to him.

„Sleep well my brave boy. I love you.“

__ __ __

tagged: @odi-et-amo85, @tayspots

[bnhabadass]

Budding Love | Mina Ashido x Reader

A/n: This is a small collaboration I have taken part in along with a few other members of the bnharem server. If you want to read the other pieces (which you absolutely should) the link to the master list can be found here.

Rating: 16+ Warnings: Weed consumption, minor use of swear words.

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Your friends all knew about your little crush on Mina Ashido. It was painstakingly obvious to everyone except her. You always agreed to every reckless thing with her friends so long as she was involved.

“You’re going bungee-jumping this weekend? I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that.”

“Mina will be there.”

“Cool, what time do we leave?”

You were always caught staring at her by your friends and they constantly teased you for it. It’s annoying, but you don’t hate it if you’re being honest. You know they just do it out of love for you and respect for your non-existent love life.

The pink girl had you whipped and she had no idea.

You were sitting on the couch in the common room, watching a few of your friends battle each other in Mario Kart, when Kirishima came up to you with a proposition.

“Wanna get stoned with us this weekend?”

Your eyes grew wide and you thought they were about to bulge out of their sockets. “Huh?”

“Sero has this god-like dealer apparently who grows, and I quote, ‘some of the most dank shit you’ll ever smoke.’ So we thought we’d all try some. You in?” Kirishima’s bright and pointy smile felt like it was cornering you.

“I don’t know.” You scratched the back of your head with your hand and averted your eyes to the floor. “I’ve never done something like that. Is it safe? To do it on school property I mean.”

Kirishima just laughed. “It’s fine. Sero and Kaminari do it in the dorms all the time. And we’ll be right there with you helping you through it all.”

As he spoke more and more, you were beginning to like the idea. It was a little nerve-wracking, yes, but you trust your friends and you like being a part of their squad.

“Besides,” he added. “Ashido was wondering if you’d join us.”

And that sealed the deal. “Okay,” you said, the biggest smile lighting up your face. “Let’s do it!”

The week went by quicker than you had expected, and the weekend had almost arrived. You didn’t pay attention in class on Friday, instead opting to stare out the window and drum your fingers against the wood of the desk to pass the time.

You overheard Sero talking to Kaminari about meeting his dealer after class, and a nervous pit formed in the middle of your stomach at hearing that. You had never smoked or done anything like that before, and as the minutes drew closer to the time you were meeting your friends, you felt all the more lightheaded.

Once back at the dorms, you sat on the edge of your bed eating some crackers and drinking some water. Forcing yourself to get rid of your anxiety only seemed to strengthen it. You had told your friends you would meet in Mina’s room around six o’clock. It was 5:54, and you hadn’t budged from your spot on your bed since you sat down.

Rolling off your bed, you dragged yourself over to the mirror hanging on the back of your door and brushed your fingers through your hair. Straightening out your clothes, you did a double check to make sure you didn’t have crumbs of any sort on your face.

“Alright,” you said to yourself. “Let’s do this.”

The door to Mina’s room had been decorated with a hot pink feather boa. A half sheet of paper dated with today’s date was taped to the door. It read “DO NOT DISTURB.” You figured that was her subtle way of letting everyone know she would be a bit...preoccupied. Raising your hand, you gently knocked on the door.

It swung open, and Mina’s eyes widened at seeing you. “You’re here!” She grabbed your wrist and dragged you inside. “I didn’t think you’d show and I thought I’d be smoking all alone.”

“Why would you be alone?” you asked. “Where are Kirishima and the others?” You’re not sure why you asked. It was obvious that the others bailed as a way to get you two alone. They say hindsight is 20/20, and you’re a fool for not realizing their plans earlier.

“Bakugo is taking the boys out for some late night training. Weird, right?”

You nodded as you took in your surroundings. You had seen Mina’s room before, but actually sitting in it and hanging out with her felt so surreal.

“Anyways, Sero gave me a baggie of his dealer’s stuff and told me to go nuts. Have you ever done anything like this before?” Her eyes were genuine, curious as to what you had to say.

“Um, no. I’ve never smoked or anything like that.”

She smiled. “Me neither.”

You were surprised. Had she not smoked with Sero and Kaminari like Kirishima had suggested? She seemed so chill and laid back, like maybe she was always on some substance. But maybe that was just the silly and loveable personality you had found yourself falling for.

“But there’s a first time for everything, right?”

You smiled at the optimistic outlook she had. “Yeah. I’m a bit nervous, though,” you admitted.

“Oh me too.” She held up the bag with the green buds inside. “Like, I have no idea how to roll a joint.” The joint papers lay at the corner of her desk.

You smiled and giggled. “Well it’s a good thing we have the internet to teach us.”

The two of you crowded around Mina’s desk as you looked up how to roll a joint. You were both surprised at how many weed and stoner forums you came across. Mina offered to do the rolling, which you were grateful for since you were still confused how to do it.

The joint looked more like a scabby cheeto than anything. She didn’t disperse the weed out evenly, and you were a bit worried the pot would burst out in some places.

“Do you want to take the first hit, or should I?”

You blushed. You thought that you would be doing this with more of your friends, and even though Mina was there to help you through it, you couldn’t help but feel as though you were alone in the room, just you and the foreign substance begging to be smoked.

Mina could sense you were uncomfortable, and you were grateful for that. “Here, why don’t I.” She was about to hold the joint up to her lips, but you stopped her.

“No, that’s okay. I’ll go first.”

She hesitated but handed you the joint and lighter.

You stuck it in your mouth and lit it the way you’ve seen characters in movies light cigarettes. Your lungs have never inhaled such an intense amount of smoke before, and when you sucked in, you had the worst coughing fit of your life. “Oh...wow,” you said between coughs.

“So, how is it?” Mina’s big eyes looked up at you like a puppy in need of attention.

“I don’t think it’s kicked in yet. Do you have any water or something?”

“Yeah I bought a whole bunch of munchie snacks.” She pointed over to a big grocery bag sitting on her desk chair. She ran over to grab a couple bottles of water and a big bag of popcorn. Racing back over to you, she handed you the bottle, and you traded her for the rest of the joint.

“Here.”

She looked at the joint with curiosity. “Do you think I’ll like it?” A bit of ash fell onto her carpet.

“I mean, we have it so we might as well try it, right?”

She nodded, but it was more out of reassurance than anything. “Right.” Holding the joint up to her lips, she sucked in and held it for as long as possible. It wasn’t long before she was left a coughing mess next to the pile of ash left behind.

You couldn’t help but giggle. Her pink face was turning a shade darker. “It kind of hurts going in.”

“Yeah no kidding.”

Even though Mina stopped coughing after taking a sip of water, you were still laughing. You couldn’t stop. It’s as if fish hooks kept pulling your cheeks up until there was nowhere left for them to go.

“Holy shit you’re high.”

“Huh?” Your reaction time was off. You were confused. But for some reason you couldn’t help but continue to laugh.

“You can’t stop smiling and your eyes are all squinty! You’re definitely high!”

But you couldn’t focus on what Mina was saying. Your eyes kept focusing in and out as she spoke, and the pink hue of her skin was looking more vibrant against the other psychedelic backgrounds of her bedroom.

“Are you okay?”

You focused back in on her. “Huh? Oh yeah.” You then continued laughing and she joined in. Any worries of what the drug would do to you had washed away. Mina was laughing with you and you were not nervous to be around her in the slightest.

Once the drug had finally hit her, you both decided to put on some cartoons and anime and see how different it would look, and even how it would feel. You both lounged on her floor staring at her laptop. Fuzzy pillows were in each of your hands and you were stroking them, admiring the texture as it smoothed between your fingers.

“Why haven’t we hung out before now? Just the two of us?” Mina asked.

You stopped stroking the pillow to grab the butt end of the joint on her table. Lord knows you would need it to have this conversation. “I don’t know,” you mused once you took your hit. Exhaling, you watched as the smoke dissipated and left the room slightly hazy. “Never really had the opportunity, I guess.”

“Well if I knew how much you also like anime I would have invited you over sooner.” She smiled and rested her head against your shoulder. The tip of one of her horns was very close to poking its way into your ear, so you adjusted into a more comfortable position with Mina still leaning against you.

You felt oddly comfortable around her now. Perhaps it was the fact that both of you were trying something new and different together, or maybe it was just the drug messing with the rest of your senses. Either way, you felt a sense of euphoria laying about with Mina at your side. There was nothing to worry about in that moment, no stains on your clothing you worried about her spotting, no saying anything dumb or any voice cracks that she might make fun of. It was just you and her side-by-side and the anime playing in the background.

--

“Let’s play truth or dare!”

A few hours had gone by and after about four episodes in, the two of you were getting rather bored. The initial weed you smoked had worn off, and you were rolling another joint with the remaining weed Sero had given you guys.

“Huh?” You looked up from the joint as your tongue darted across it, sealing it shut.

“Come on it’ll be fun!”

“I guess we could.” You held the joint up to your lips and took one long inhale. You passed it back and exhaled. “We should probably open up the window or something. Get the smell out, you know?”

“Oh yeah,” she said between puffs. Running over to the glass door, she slid it open, and the cool chill of the night’s air and the sound of crickets swept its way over the room. “Okay, truth or dare?”

“I dunno, truth?” You’re not sure why you said truth. It was stupid on your part. Everyone knows that when someone says truth, the first question anyone asks is…

“Do you have a crush on anyone?”

You looked down at your feet and wiggled your toes in your socks. You could start to feel the weed take its course, and yet again your cheek bones lifted up into the air.

“You do!”

“Huh?” Your face flushed and your eyes widened. “What?”

“You’re stoned and in love,” she mused. “That’s so cute!”

“Okay let’s just move on.” You didn’t make eye contact with Mina. You didn’t want to look at anyone, let alone her. “Truth or dare?”

“How about dare.”

You smiled and looked up. “Okay okay okay. I dare you to go downstairs and have a conversation with someone, but you can’t let them know you’re stoned.”

Mina completed the dare, much to your surprise. It helps that her eyes can’t get bloodshot, so when she went downstairs and asked Sato about the croissants he was baking, he didn’t suspect anything.

“I’m impressed,” you said once you both made your way back upstairs.

“Yeah it’s a good thing the oven caught fire and he had something to distract himself with. I think he was starting to catch on that something was off.”

You flopped onto her bean bag chair. “What do you want to do now?”

Her smile grew wider and you could practically see the light bounce off her white teeth. “Now it’s my turn to ask, silly. Truth or dare?”

You could feel that anxiety return to your stomach. It was a little gremlin bouncing up and down your insides. “Dare, I guess. I already said truth.”

Her smile turned into a wicked one. “I dare you to call your crush and serenade them with a love song.”

You swallowed any anxiety you felt the need to barf up. Reaching for your phone, your hand began to tremble. You could always refuse the dare. You could say that you weren’t comfortable with that, pretend that the weed was giving you paranoia and freak out about calling her. But something was guiding your  hand. It had a mind of its own as you unlocked your phone and went straight for Mina Ashido’s contact.

“Holy shit you’re actually doing it.”

You didn’t hear Mina as she spoke. You just took a shaky deep breath in and squeezed your eyes shut as you pressed the call button. It took a moment for the ringing to go through and Mina looked over at her phone which was now vibrating on the table.

“Huh? Who’s calling me.”

You shrugged and held your phone up to your ear.

She looked at her phone and her eyes widened when the contact photo staring at her was your smiling face. “Wait why are you calling me?” You didn’t answer, just smiled as the realization suddenly dawned on her. She slowly slid her thumb across the phone and raised it up to her ear. “Hello?”

“Happy birthday to you,” you began to sing. In your stoned state of mind, the only song that you could think of the serenade her with was the fucking happy birthday song. “Happy birthday to you.”

She clasped her hand over her mouth and chortled with laughter.

“Happy birthday dear Mina. Happy birthday to you.”

Her face was a dark magenta as she blushed and laughed. She had tears pricking in the corner of her eyes. “So you like me?” She said into the phone’s speaker.

You nodded and hung up. “I’ve liked you for a very long time.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

You shrugged, the feeling rippling through your body. “I don’t really like rejection.”

Mia looked down at the cuff of her pants. “But what if I didn’t reject you? What then?”

Your eyes widened and you felt your breath stagger in your throat. You couldn’t speak. Any words in your head refused to come out.

“(Y/n), do you want to go on a date with me next weekend?”

Your voice cracked and Mina couldn’t help but chuckle. You followed soon after, and the two of you became a laughing mess on the floor. Your cheeks ached but you didn’t care. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s do it.”

--

It was around two in the morning when Kirishima knocked on Mina’s door. “How are you two doing in there?” he asked from behind the door.

When he and Kaminari creaked the door open, they were met with the adorable sight of both you and Mina wrapped in each other’s arms. Wrappers and other trash left over from your snacking littered the room, and the tail end of some romcom was playing on Mina’s laptop. Both you and her were sound asleep.

“God it stinks in here,” Kirishima said. He tiptoed over pieces of trash in order to pause the movie.

“Yeah but look at them,” Kaminari mused. “Do you think we did a good thing in leaving them alone?”

“Oh definitely.” Kirishima grabbed the blanket off of Mina’s bed and draped it over your sleeping forms.

At the feeling of having the blanket draped over you, you snuggled closer into Mina’s arms and she closer into yours.

[we-are-inevitable]

Modern javid au: where they walk through their first (meeting, kiss, apartment, pets, kids etc). Also your writing are amazing.

ok i got carried away with this one again!! this is only the first part-  i’m going to like,, get into their married life in the second chapter!

Rating: G

Warnings: Underaged drinking, recreational drug use (nothing major, just one scene)

Word Count: 2069

Read on AO3!

--------------------

They never dreamed they would be here right now, sharing their tenth wedding anniversary on the balcony of their apartment, sipping wine in the moonlight while reminiscing about the years that had flown by. Curled together on the floor, their legs dangling out from underneath the guardrails, just like they did when they were stupid teenagers in love. 

Ten years had changed them. Beaten them down, bruised them, made them work for their love and their relationship- but the bad times? They had been over for so, so long. David could remember all of their bad firsts, like their first fight, the first time they ever made each other so angry that they both broke down and slept in different rooms for a week and a half. The first time that they had ever shared grief, first time they’d been harassed in public, first financial struggles, first funeral they’d attended together. Those firsts were what truly had pushed them to be better, to become better, to finally put their differences aside and cooperate together instead of trying to work without changing themselves.

The bad times were what pushed them further, but the good times were much better to remember. 

“Hey, baby- remember how hard I embarrassed myself when we met?”

“Oh, darling, how could I forget?”

--------------------

Their first meeting had been nothing short of embarrassing. David had been studying in the library when, all of a sudden, a shelf to the left of the table he had sat at toppled over, causing a loud boom to sound in the library. David looked up with wide eyes and a startled look on his face, meeting the gaze of another guy his age. David, who had only been at the school for a week at that point, instantly recognized him. They shared their english class together; David was pretty sure his name was Jack.

“...Uh, hiya,” Jack let out a high, nervous chuckle, attempting to look cool standing next to the mess he had made, and David couldn’t help but laugh. 

He remembered standing up, dog-earring the page of the textbook he was reading, and taking a few steps toward Jack. “Looks like you could use a little help.”

It had taken the two of them almost an hour to sort the books like the librarian wanted them to, but luckily they both had an aid hour to spare. They talked idly about anything and everything, and that was the first day that David had been invited to sit with anyone at lunch

--------------------

Their first hang-out session had happened about two weeks later. David had been pretty well integrated into the group by then- he had a permanent spot at the lunch table next to Jack, which made his heart flutter more than it should have. And if he thought that was a lot, then he certainly wasn’t ready for the heart pounding, nerve wracking thought about seeing Jack out of school- but, of course, that came sooner than later. That Friday afternoon, Jack and David had met up after school, walking the opposite direction of David’s place to get to Jack’s foster mom’s theater. He remembered Jack mentioning that they didn’t have a huge apartment, since he had a few other foster siblings, but said that the theater was a much more fun place anyway. And really, it was. They spent hours sitting onstage and talking, after Jack had given him an extensive tour of the place, and David had even met Jack’s foster mom, Medda, for the first time. That afternoon had held a lot of firsts, but what really hung around in David’s mind was the fact that it had been the first time Jack had ever looked at him, smiled, and called him “Davey.”

--------------------

Their first kiss happened before their first date. Race had invited David to his place for a “small get together” which, with the help of the other guys, ended up being pretty big. It had just been their friend group, plus some girls that some of the guys had invited. It wasn’t really a party, but it wasn’t exactly just a regular hang out session, either. For one, David knew that a few guys had been smoking weed in one of the back rooms, which was very evident when they came back in. He didn’t care, but politely declined more than a few offers to take a hit. Secondly, the amount of alcohol had doubled from usual. Everyone had gotten a little tipsy, even David, which meant he was far more grateful that Jack had been kind enough to invite him over to stay that night. 

The party had dissipated a little after midnight, leaving only a few stragglers behind- Race, Albert, Katherine, Jack, and David, as well as a few others that David wasn’t really close with. Everyone had gotten into a circle, playing a classic game of truth or dare, when Albert smirked. “Davey,” He had said in a sickening sweet voice, obviously a little on the far side of tipsy. “I dare you to… Kiss Kathy,” He had said, causing laughter to erupt from the rest of the group- excluding David and, more surprisingly, Jack.

David stared at Albert for a moment, took a drink from his bottle, and shrugged. “I’m gay,” He said calmly, for the first time in front of the group. Everyone went quiet for a moment, before Albert got a wicked grin on his face. 

“Okay, then. Davey, I dare y’to kiss Jack. He’s bi, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“‘Ey, dipshit, I ain’t the only other not straight guy in this group--”

“Yeah, I know, but you’s the first one I thought of!”

David really wanted to back out, but he had been boasting earlier that he was never one to back down from a dare. It had been a stupid decision, but he really, really wanted to fit in, and if that meant losing his dignity over a dare, then so be it. 

David had been sitting on the other side of the circle from Jack, so they slowly maneuvered their way to the middle. Jack seemed nervous, but oddly enough, David felt his nerves melt away after seeing the flush on Jack’s cheeks. “You sure you’re ready for this, Kelly?”

“Bring it on, Jacobs.”

The kiss felt like fireworks, like bombs were exploding within David’s chest. And, judging by the surprised noise Jack made low in his throat, Jack was feeling the same way. They heard the rest of the group count to five, signalling the end, but Jack just wound his arms around David’s neck, and David did the same thing to Jack’s waist. 

They didn’t pull away from each other until Race threw an empty water bottle at Jack, which bounced off of the side of his face.

--------------------

Their first date officially happened the day after the party, when they woke up lying next to each other in Jack’s bed. They went to an art museum that day- partly because David was shocked that Jack, the group’s resident artist, had never been, and partly because the admission price was discounted for students all weekend. 

Both of them still had their ticket stubs from that day, nearly sixteen years later.

--------------------

College was a huge change for the both of them. They both went to school in different parts of Manhattan- with David getting accepted into Columbia and Jack getting accepted into the New York School of the Arts- but still saw each other every day. After dating the majority of senior year and staying attached at the hip all through their last summer before college, it just made sense to find an apartment and live together. They were able to find a horrid, run-down little place that was almost equidistant from both of their schools, and, sure, it may not have been the prettiest, but it was /something/. It was cheap, and it was theirs.

They spent a while getting it cleaned up, and though the furniture was mismatched and it was barely big enough to hold their friends, it was home for the next four years. That apartment had been everything they had wanted. It was their safe haven, their little paradise in the city, their life that was perfectly their own. There had been some skeptics- mainly David’s parents, just because they thought it was too soon for the two boys to move in together, but regardless, they supported David’s decision.

--------------------

Judging by the proposal, that decision had worked out. Four years had passed since college began, and five had passed since Jack and David first got together. After the whirlwind of working their asses off for a part time paycheck, graduating and finally getting their dream jobs, the two of them had pooled together their resources to find a better apartment. They moved into a much more decent one, and though it was nothing glamorous, it came with a view that Jack was in love with. 

David had walked into the apartment after work one day, stopping in his tracks as he saw Jack sitting on the floor in front of the large window overlooking the New York skyline. It had been one of Jack’s days off, so David had expected him to be in the guest room that they had converted into a studio, but Jack was locked in place, watching the bustling streets of New York.

David smiled wide at the image. They had been in the apartment exactly one week, and Jack was still mesmerized by the smallest details. 

When Jack heard David’s footsteps, he stood up, arely getting any time to welcome his boyfriend home from work before David was pulling him into a soft, gentle kiss. “Well, hello to you too,” Jack murmured as David pulled away.

David just smiled at him, his hands resting against Jack’s hips. “I missed you,” He said softly, before gulping. He had been planning something. Something big- something that Jack wouldn’t even know about for another month, but this felt perfect. This, right here, holding the man he loved in their new home, their dream home, was better than any five star dinner, better than any elaborate plans. “Jackie?”

“Yeah, baby?” Jack asked softly, a grin on his face. God, he wouldn’t be expecting this. Wouldn’t be ready.

Regardless, David started speaking before his mind could catch up with his mouth. “I love you,” He said sincerely, a megawatt smile making its way to his cheeks. “I love you so damn much, Jackie... I-- I never, ever dreamed that we would be here, that we would be living in a place like this together,” David said softly as he walked over to the nearest table, shrugging his bag off of his shoulders. “You look so damn happy here. I’ve never wanted anything more than to make you happy like this,” He continued speaking,slowly opening up one of the zipped pockets. He pulled out a little box, carefully holding it behind his back as he walked to Jack, who had a loving-but-confused face. “Five years ago, I fell hard for you, Jack Kelly. I fell for the way your eyes light up when you see a dog, I fell for your obnoxious snorting when you laugh too hard,” David paused, smirking as Jack shot him a glare, “but most importantly, I fell for how kind you are. How caring and loving and selfless you are. You make me the happiest man alive, Jack,” David said slowly, gulping. 

He could feel himself tearing up as he watched the gears turning in Jack’s head, before Jack suddenly gasped, a hand coming up to cover his mouth. “Davey, Davey, oh my fuck, are you--”

“Quiet down, will ya? Just let me finish,” David said with a chuckle, a wide grin on his face. He let out a loud laugh as Jack flipped him off, but Jack was smiling so wide and had tears in his eyes and David knew he was making the right decision.

Slowly, David pulled the box out from behind him, hands shaking as he lowered himself to one knee. “I love you, Jackie, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you... Will you marry me?”

David didn’t know what he was expecting, but he was not expecting to get knocked over by the sheer force of Jack throwing himself into David’s arms.

[perscinnamon]

BONSAI!

    1. Everett

Sometimes, it's a simple answer found in your own home.

1999; a year of restless anticipation and empty grocery stores, a considerable population of gym rats and game shows and the bitter smell of black coffee through the suburbs of Everett, Washington.

The world was coming to an end as we knew it according to David Eddy and McGraw-Hill which, to Mark, seemed fucking ridiculous. But, what did he know? He was too busy trying to keep his joint together, bits of weed falling between his shaking fingers. He had woken up at exactly six-thirty for the past month and a half so he could clamber his way to the upstairs bathroom, the only one in his house with a window, to smoke before school. He knew his parents slept in unless it was Sunday. He also knew that they didn't know the difference between the smell of incense and the smell of weed.

When he was finally able to assemble his joint, sticking his tongue out a bit to lick both sides and stick them together, he sighed in relief.

He grabbed his lighter off of the counter and put the toilet seat down, climbing up on top of it to unlock the window and push it open.

Mark leaned each elbow on either side of the windowsill, lighting his joint and taking a deep inhale. He watched the cloud of smoke as it left his mouth.

He liked this feeling; the cold fall breeze nipping at his skin as his heart fluttered in his chest and his head felt light, the high settling in quickly.

The sun was just starting to rise. Of course, Mark couldn't actually see this since he was facing the West, but he watched with sleep in his eyes as the sky slowly lit up, cascading the neighboring houses in a blurry coat of morning sun.

Yeah, he liked this. He liked this a lot.

That is, until the sharp sound of a car horn in his driveway jolted him from his weed-induced reverie.

"Ah— Ow, what the fuck..." Mark groaned in pain, holding his head where he had hit it on the top of the windowsill.

He leaned over as far as he could, looking past his roof to find exactly who he'd expected.

Johnathan Suh, a lanky 22-year-old sitting in a bright red 1987 Corvette Convertible was grinning smugly up at Mark, his long arm swung over the passenger-side headrest. Mark had known Johnathan for as long as he could remember, the Suh family were regulars at their church.

"What do you want?" Mark croaked from his bathroom window, joint still in his right hand.

"What do you think? I'm driving you to school!" Johnathan yelled back, not bothering to consider the fact that it was 6AM in a sleeping neighborhood.

"Why?" Mark said, taking a hit from his joint.

"Because your parents don't trust you after last weekend. They trust me, so hurry or I'm leaving." Johnny said with an impatient hand gesture.

Mark exhaled dramatically, flicking the stub of his joint off the roof and hopping down from the toilet seat. He glanced at his reflection in the bathroom mirror and ran a hand through his messy hair, his cross pendant flashing around his neck as it caught the dim bathroom lights.

He was clad in a pair of navy blue boxers that hung at his hip bones as he made his way to his room, pushing the door open and reaching for his dresser drawer. He managed to throw on a pair of black trousers and his wool uniform sweater, a pair of mismatched socks on both feet as he took two steps at a time down the carpeted stairs. He grabbed the pair of P.F. Flyer's he kept by the welcome mat and his black Jansport backpack, making sure not to slam the door behind him as he padded to Johnathan's car.

"Took you long enough." Johnathan said, wearing that same grin he always seemed to have plastered on his face. Mark shook his head with a soundless chuckle, hopping over the passenger door and throwing his bag in the backseat.

"Buckle up, kiddo. I don't want another ticket under my belt. I got pulled over last week because one of my taillights were out. One!" Johnathan exclaimed with frustration, still grinning, as he pulled out of Mark's driveway and cruised down the street.

"I mean... That's still illegal." Mark said, his voice still relatively hoarse with sleep as he pulled on his shoes.

Johnathan's car was definitely a hand-me-down, given to him by his uncle with a rearview mirror missing and three flat tires. He managed to clean it up decently enough but it never seemed to be the kind of car he could see Johnny in. Mark could see him in some 1970s Shaggin' Wagon. Or an Achieva.

"Yeah, but, like, the car is ol— Wait, you're one to talk about legality!" Johnny said as he slowed at a stop sign, throwing a quick peace sign up at the Nissan Quest passing us.

"It was one time, Johnny." Mark said with a frown. Here we go again...

Johnathan had been grilling Mark incessantly for his recent drunken fiasco the previous Saturday since their parents spoke about it at church Sunday morning.

"Dude, yeah, two days ago. How did you even manage to get ahold of a bottle of wine near a Jewish holiday? They buy that shit up every Shabbat." Johnny said with a chuckle, pulling on to 41st St. past the cemetery.

"I got it from Paul's. I managed to get out of there before he opened up a can on Jacob's brother. That's why I was driving so fast, I wasn't even that drunk!" Mark explained hastily, looking out at the passing headstones. Some were in the shapes of crosses or angels or hearts. It would suck to be buried in Everett, Mark thought as they drove by in a blur.

"If you pull some shit like that you're in for it, Markie-boy. Your dad doesn't play around. I'm actually surprised he didn't ground you." Johnny said calmly, turning right on to Rucker Ave, past the Safeway Fuel Station.

Mark shrugged, bored of the conversation topic as he rested his chin in his palm. He hated when Johnny ruined his high like this, especially when he talked about his dad.

He loved Johnny like a brother and for a Tacotime employee that carved wood into spoons and smoked Nutmeg in his free time, he was a pretty cool guy.

He could also be totally overbearing.

As they pulled into the roundabout at the front of Mark's school, he faced Johnny with ruffled hair and a pink nose.

"Could you pick up a gram or two for me later? I'm gonna be at Hyuck's."

Johnny hesitated for a moment, rubbing his forehead with a sigh.

"Fine, now get out of my car." Johnny said with a playful shove to Mark's shoulder.

Mark grinned winningly before getting out and grabbing his backpack, turning around to say one last thing.

"Pick me up at two."

"Three."

"Two-thirty?"

"Whatever, go to class."

Mark chuckled, walking towards the school with his untied P.F Flyer's, his laces swinging around his feet angrily as he shoved both hands in the pockets of his trousers.

He didn't mind this place. For a stuffy private catholic school covered in brick and vine, it wasn't too bad.

It was the kids that were the worst.

He liked a few of the student's at St. Pius School. He liked his friends and, although he didn't talk to the girls too much, he definitely liked looking at them.

As he made his way up the front steps, he caught sight of a Bully Piston bike racing by him. He watched it screech to a halt in front of the bike-racks.

"Hey, Hyuck!" Mark called from the top of the stairs.

Hyuck turned around as he was locking up his bike, a grin on his face as he flashed a peace sign, rushing up to Mark and shoulder-checking him.

Mark stumbled back with a laugh and shoved Hyuck with his elbow as they made their way through the double-doors.

"How've you been, bud? Heard you knocked over the Bailey's mailbox last weekend."

Mark grunted, rolling his eyes.

"Can people stop bringing that up? It's been, like, almost a week."

"I haven't been here to press you about it. Also it's Monday." Hyuck said nonchalantly, stretching his arms over his head as he nodded to a giggling group of girls to their right.

"Where've you been, anyways?"

"Out."

"Out where?" Mark asked again as they approached his locker. He rotated the lock carefully, silently mouthing his combination numbers.

"My dad's." Hyuck said, leaning his shoulder up against the locker next to Mark's.

Mark frowned. He knew about Hyuck's situation with his parent's recent divorce but didn't know it would resort to him being taken away for an entire weekend.

"That's dumb."

"I know." Hyuck said, ruffling his dark curls with his hand as he watched the students around them waste time before they had to head to morning mass.

"I'm coming to your place later, right?" Mark asked, glancing at Hyuck before putting a binder in his backpack and slamming his locker door shut.

"Yeah. I might have a few people over Friday if you wanna stop by to pregame." Hyuck said, yawning.

"Maybe. I'll see how my dad's feeling."

"Kate might be there."

"Oh- Okay." Mark said after a minute, not really knowing how to reply to this statement. Kate was a pretty blonde that sat on the other side of his Psych classroom in third period.

"Don't be weird about it, Mark. I'm trying to get you laid." Hyuck said with a low chuckle, playfully bumping Mark with his arm.

Mark rolled his eyes.

"Thats all you think about, Hyuck."

The bell rang.

Hyuck shrugged.

"I like to have fun, can't blame me."

**

Morning mass was always a slow process, all the students gathering into Ardolf Hall at an irritatingly slow pace. The stress of having to find his friends in the pews before looking like a loner was too nerve-racking for Mark. That's why he avoided it.

He had ditched Hyuck to go to the bathroom and separated himself from the usual crowd of people that we're headed towards the double doors of the school chapel five minutes ago, heading down the empty hallway with his head down, staring at the floor pattern and stepping from one green tile to the next.

The boy's bathroom was always pretty gross, in every sense of the word, but there wasn't anywhere else to get away.

Mark walked in, scrunching his nose at the smell as he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, eyes red, lips chapped, face pale. He sighed in frustration at his appearance before dragging his eyes down, towards the stall directly behind the mirror.

Mark shrieked and jumped back, scaring the girl sitting on the toilet behind him who let out an almost identical yell.

"What the hell?!"

"Damnit." The girl said as she stared at the coke on the floor that she had previously been forming into a neat white line on top of her Economics textbook.

They stayed like that for a bit, the girl sitting on the closed toilet seat with a textbook on her lap and her coke dusting the tiled floor, Mark leaning up against the sink with wide eyes.

"Wh— What are you—"

Heavy footsteps drew closer outside the bathroom door.

"Sh." The girl said, holding her hand to her mouth cautiously.

They came closer, a hand reaching for the bathroom door and swinging it open.

The girl peeked past the stall door and her shoulders relaxed, lunging towards the boy that had just entered the room and hitting his shoulder.

"Christ, Duffy! You almost gave me a heart-attack." The girl said with furrowed eyebrows.

"Not my fault you're so damn jumpy all the time."

Mark stood there awkwardly, his cheeks bright red.

"Since when are you buds with Mark." The guy, Duffy, said to her, gesturing his head towards Mark with a raised eyebrow.

Mark scratched the back of his neck, pushing off of the sink he had been leaning against.

"I'm not. He walked in and scared me shitless." She said, glancing back at him.

"I'm just gonna go. Sorry." Mark said, inching past the couple slowly.

"Hold on. What are you doing over here, anyways?" Duffy said, a look of suspicion on his face. The girl stood behind him, arms crossed.

Reid "Duffy" Durbin was a notorious presence at St. Pius. He was a self-proclaimed DJ and if he wasn't hosting a party he would show up anyways, always with a baggie full of pills nobody bothered identifying as they scarfed them down. He sported a bristly excuse for a go-tee and a patchy buzzcut. He and Mark didn't really run in the same crowd, although Duffy and Hyuck were pretty tight.

Mark didn't really have an excusable answer so he just shrugged.

"Just getting some air..."

"Not much air to get in here." The girl said with a chuckle.

Duffy groaned in annoyance, "Okay, I hate to be an ass, but... Mark, can you leave? I'm trying to run a business here." He said this as he held up a baggie of what Mark assumed was more coke.

The girl crossed her arms anxiously.

"Um, yeah... Okay. Sorry." Mark said with hesitation, reaching for the door handle and pulling it open.

**

His strange interaction that morning had killed his high and left him drowsy for the remainder of the day, forcing him to watch the clocks at the front of his classrooms as the hand spun clockwise in repetitive circles.

Mark thought about the run in with Duffy and coke-head girl all day, half humiliation and half curiosity. Since when does Duffy sell coke? He had always been just a friendly neighborhood weed plug.

It was weird, but Mark didn't think much of it as he waited by the bike-racks while Hyuck unlocked his bike.

"Isn't Johnathan picking you up?"

"Yeah, but not until two-thirty. I'll probably wait in the library until he gets here."

"You can just hitch a ride with me, you know." Hyuck said as he walked his bike down the sidewalk, Mark following beside him.

"Yeah, but he's bringing bud."

Hyuck made a face that indicated that he understood Mark's rationale.

"Fair enough," Hyuck mounted his bike, "see you at my place, then!"

Mark nodded and waved, watching Hyuck race off, dodging a mini van pulling into the roundabout. It honked at him and he gave it the finger.

Mark snorted at the exchange and turned back towards the school, kicking a half-eaten apple core lying on the sidewalk.

He kept his head down the entire way to the library, kicking acorn tops and stones, stepping over the cracks in the sidewalk instinctively.

Step on a crack, break your mother's back.

**

Mark made his way into the library, the smell of dust and paper overwhelming. There were a few people sitting at the wooden tables in the middle of the room, books or lined paper spread out in front of them. A few people sat at the computer desks at the back as the librarian piled books on a rolling medal cart.

He took a seat on the floor in a back aisle near the history books where nobody ever bothered going. He stretched his legs out and unzipped his backpack, pulling out the book he had been reading for his English class. The Crucible.

The only thing he could hear in the room was the occasional sound of the printer going off or someone coughing.

A kid stepped over him to reach for an obnoxiously heavy Civil War book, a thick History packet in his hand as he eyed Mark and walked off, scuffed Nike's shuffling against the dirty carpet.

Mark had been reading for almost fifteen minutes, his tailbone already aching, when he heard the doors to the library slam shut. He jumped and looked up and around, only seeing the aisles of books that surrounded him.

His eyes, wide as ever, scanned the area as he got up with a grunt, creeping away from the history books and towards the middle of the room, the hair on his arms standing up.

As he approached the middle of the library, he realized he was alone. Not one person reading a book at the wooden tables, nobody typing away at the clunky old computers in the back desks, not even the librarian with her dusty medal cart stacked with books.

"Hello?"

He stood there as his voice's muffled echo filled the room.

And suddenly, it was dark.

[jon-astronaut]

Hii!! After Jonas and Hanna’s weird, tension filled moment on Friday and their texts at weekend my love for them grew again. I said why not write a fic and here we are! I hope you'll like it!

You can read it on AO3 too!

Beers & Noses

Summary : The moment Hanna and Jonas gets back together!

Jonas was with Carlos and Abdi hanging out at Matteo’s. Normally, Matteo should be with them too but he was on a date with David and their dates tended to go longer than expected. They would lose the concept of time around each other and always were late to any plans made after. Jonas and the boys never complained, rather they teased the couple. Everybody could see how in love they were and how happy they were with each other.

So now Jonas was chilling in the living room. He was slumped back on the couch, one hand holding his phone and the other a beer bottle.

The girls were there too. They were there before the boys came and it was actually Hanna who opened the door to them which made Jonas confuse the year and the place. But then he saw the other girls behind the door too.

Carlos was somewhere with Kiki, probably making out. He hoped they weren’t doing it on Matteo, Mia, Hans or Linn’s bed because he really didn’t want to lose their flat share privilege. Abdi was in the kitchen flirting or more like trying to flirt with Sam and laughing like a kid after everything she said.

All of this was why Jonas was sat alone in his best friend’s living room, refreshing Instagram every few minutes. He was hearing the laughs of the girls and his friends and ran a hand through his hair messing his curls. He was on good terms with all the girls. He had fun hanging with Sam, he loved talking to Amira… But standing next to Hanna, smiling and chatting with her like everything was normal was hard.

It wasn’t hard like a few months ago. He was better now. It took some time but he finally quitted smoking realizing the harm it was doing. He smoked and drank to feel numb because everything hurt, thinking about Hanna hurt. At some point he wanted to feel again, not the love necessarily, but he wanted his head clear. He wanted to be himself again. He understood Hanna more than anytime at that point.

Hanna wasn’t the only reason for her constant “high state”. His stupid teenageness played a part in it too. Once he got used to being drunk or high almost most of the time, it continued. Until he felt tired of the drowsiness of the days that followed.

He started by throwing away any weed he had. Now, he wasn’t even smoking one joint. Then, followed the decreasing of the amount of alcohol he consumed. He still drank, obviously, but it was to have fun not escape from things. After, he started to swim. He loved swimming since he was a kid because something calmed him about the way water blocked everything around him. It made him feel so good to be active. Finally, came being on talking terms with Hanna and being friends like they promised a year ago. He would text her to ask about exams or life in general. They talked about Matteo here and there too.

The fact that he was better now and happy with his life now didn’t mean that he still didn’t miss Hanna. Sure, he made out with girls and had sex with others but they were an attempt to move on. Were they fun for him? Yeah but none of them were anything serious. And anyway, like he said ‘relationship sex was better’.

They would have these weird moments with Hanna like that look they shared after she asked for a beer a couple of weeks ago. Or how they always were confused about how to greet each other; Hanna would lean in for a little hug while Jonas extended his hand and vice-versa.

He didn’t want to interpret them deeper because even though he wanted something more with Hanna again he didn’t want to lose her friendship. The radio silence after he tried to kiss her was tough to get by. Also, they were friends first before all the cheating and them dating and the other cheating and drama.

After the break up talk Hanna gave him, he thought back to their relationship and he sadly realized that he wasn’t always the best boyfriend. He never meant to hurt Hanna but he did things without thinking how they would affect her and their relationship like inviting the boys to the cabin or keeping secrets from her. But he knew better now. He was trying not to act without thinking, in all of his relationships. He promised himself the next time whether with Hanna or somebody else that he would be better. (Also watching Matteo and David inspired him a lot too. He was constantly taking mental notes.)

Normally, he tried not to dwell on her but he was alone and Hanna was just in the next room so he couldn’t help but to check her Instagram. He took a sip from his beer and pressed the photo of her eating the pizza. He didn’t just say it, he really thought she was beautiful even when he was taking the picture.

Then he straightened up a little on the couch and let out a huge breath. He clicked on the Youtube app and opened a song from Trettman.

It was the middle of the song when Hanna entered the living room. She had been secretly wanting to go next to Jonas ever since the boys showed up on the door but she held herself.

After everything they’ve been through it was nice seeing Jonas healthily and she loved that they were talking like friends. She had really missed having Jonas in her life. She never blamed herself for his state a couple months ago but she wanted to help him. He didn’t let her and now looking at it maybe it was the best. Maybe just like how she found herself on her own, Jonas needed to get better on his own too.

She guessed she never stopped loving him. It was just suppressed for a while because she needed to prioritize her own self first. Now that they were both grown up she thought maybe they could start again but she didn’t want to mess what they already had and also she had seen Jonas flirting with other girls. She wasn’t so sure he felt the same too.

When she entered and heard the song her lips curled up:

“Trettman, huh?” she said which made Jonas almost jump up.

He nervously shook his head:

“Yeah, yeah.”

Hanna didn’t know but there was a reason he listened to Trettman so he felt like he was caught.

She walked over to the couch and sat facing him. She smiled a little:

“How are you doing?”

“Good. And you?” He took another sip from his beer.

“Good.”

They stayed in silence for a few minutes after that with both of them lookin around the room. Until Jonas mustered up the courage to talk:

“The other day, I made this awesome sweet potato mash.”

Hanna looked at him with a big smile and raised her eyebrows:

“Not awesome as mine I suppose.”

Jonas shook his head with a big smile paralleling hers:

“Never.”

Both of them were still smiling big. Looking at her made Jonas feel warm. He could literally feel himself getting physically warm. She had this calm energy that made everything better somehow. While he was in his thoughts Hanna asked:

“So, what are you thinking about for university?”

She was really nervous to ask that. She planned on staying in Berlin and she hoped he was planning the same because she really didn’t want to lose their connection or any chance for them in the future.

“I want to stay in Berlin but we’ll see.” He shrugged his shoulder. "I want to study politics.”

She felt a relief when she heard the word ‘Berlin.' Of course Hanna thought. Jonas who was at almost every demonstration, who was always found reading some article, who actually taught her a lot about the world would study politics.

“I can’t imagine you studying anything else.”

Jonas felt happy that he got her approval for his plan. Then he realizing he forgot to ask her about her plans he hit his head:

“What about you?”

“I want to stay here too.”

Jonas felt relieved hearing that.

“Do you know what you want to study?”

Hanna sighed:

“Nope. Maybe psychology. I have no idea.”

“Well, you still have time. You can apply to multiple things.”

He said with a soft smile trying to reassure her. Then he added:

“You know you are great at a lot of things. Like getting dressed by yourself, brushing your teeth, opening a beer bottle.”

Now he was laughing as she flipped her off and laughed too. He desperately wanted to kiss her like he did a year ago after saying almost the same thing.

When their laughs died out Jonas set his beer on the floor. And added one more thing:

“But seriously, you are great at a lot of things. You are very empathetic and not judgmental at all. That could be good for studying psychology. You are good with people and you are extremely kind. If you want you could be a really amazing psychologist.”

Jonas was looking so serious with a straight face listing all of those things but Hanna’s smile was getting bigger at every second. She could feel her eyes almost tearing up. This was the proof she needed that maybe they could work this time. She wasn’t offended by what he said first. Just like a year before she was genuinely laughing. But hearing him get all series and compliment her for real, trying to help her for real without expecting anything in return was everything she wanted. Also, it the reason she said the following things:

“Thank you.”

In the meantime Jonas had grabbed his beer again:

“Anytime.” He said and truly meant it.

Hanna took a deep breath and gulped. She slowly pointed at the beers on the table and said:

“Can I have a beer too?”

Jonas immediately grabbed one and held out the bottle and the opener to her, knowing better this time not to try to open it.

She grabbed it, opened it and took a huge sip, thinking of it as liquid courage. Hanna looked up at Jonas’s soft brown eyes. He was trying to avoid her gaze looking around or down at his bottle because it made him nervous. But there was no escaping her gaze and they locked eyes. She took a deep breath:

“Can I have my nose back too?”

He almost dropped his bottle to the ground but caught it at the last second. Then, he forgot how to breath. All the noises from the next room faded. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The step he wanted to take the most but were too afraid to take it came from Hanna.

Finally he couldn’t stand there anymore. He walked over and sat next to Hanna. Just like a year ago in the bed, he made his fingers walk on her face and lended them on her nose.

“Here you go. Take good care of it, it’s important to me.” He said with the quietest voice.

They slowly leaned in. Every inch felt like it was taking forever. Both of them were trying to figure the other out as not to push their boundaries and were trying to take it all in.

When their lips finally met it was like coming home after a really long day at school and smelling the cookies freshly made in the kitchen. They felt the childish happiness, the sense of security, the relief, the warm feeling of love at the same time.

It was half an hour later when Matteo and David finally arrived, Kiki and Carlos’s making out session was over, Abdi was done flirting with Sam and the whole group entered the living room. What they found was a cuddling Jonas and Hanna. Then, the celebrations ensued.

[ofmarcos]

( shawn mendes, cismale, he/him ) i just saw MARCO SPIEGELMAN walking down the street’s of provincetown the other day playing 100 BAD DAYS BY AJR out loud. rumor has it that the TWENTY TWO year old is WARMHEARTED, but can also be UNNECESSARILY OVERWROUGHT — overall they’re a POLYMATH. they remind me of A WORN GUITAR NECK WITH OLD STRINGS, COMING HOME THREE MINUTES BEFORE CURFEW, A CRACKLING WOODFIRE, AND FRESHLY BLOWN OUT BIRTHDAY CANDLES. ( ophelia, 19, est, they/she )

hello guys, gals, and non-binary pals, my name is ophelia and it’s lovely to meet u all!! i am nineteen, living in florida, work at an escape game, and my t key on my laptop gets stuck so um if u ever see me leave a t out of a word that’s why. also, fun fact!! i’m originally from a small town in ma about a two hour drive from provincetown :O but enough about me !! this is marco, he’s an actual meme, and you can read all about him under the cut. like this and i’ll come slide into ur dms for plots. <3

(also this got way longer than anticipated, i’m sorry, pls love me)

PINTEREST.

tw: cancer, death, car crash, addiction

marco joshua spiegelman was born on an overcast august day in the city of boston, massachusetts. he was the fourth child and the youngest by seven years, meaning that in some way, he was his parents’ last hope.

the spiegelman family practiced orthodox judaism – his dad was raised orthodox and his mom converted from reform judaism in order to marry his dad– so marco’s childhood was very much focused on religion. the spiegelman family went to services every friday night, celebrated every holiday, forced marco to wake up early on sundays to go to hebrew school, and treated him they same as they had treated his older siblings. however, as his siblings grew up and moved out, they all stopped devoutly practicing judaism and moved into a more modern and laid back interpretation of their religion. marco craved this from a young age, but because he was stuck at home with his parents, he was forced to follow their rules and beliefs.

marco went to jewish private school for elementary and middle school, had his bar mitzvah in the seventh grade, and tried to blend in as best as he could. he liked history and english, eager to learn more about the past and help shape the future. at this point in his life, he had his goal of becoming a politician pretty much set. he would help the end the fighting in israel, solve world hunger, and just be an all around awesome guy.

however, his plans shifted on valentine’s day his eighth grade year. after coming home from school, his parents sat him down and told him that his dad had stage four exocrine pancreatic cancer. he knew that his dad had been losing weight and not eating as much recently, as well as complained all the time that his back hurt, but marco didn’t realize that it was something so terrible and life threatening.

with a survival rate of about one percent, the spiegelman family knew that his dad’s chances of survival were not good. the next few months were difficult, his dad went through lots of chemotherapy and experimental trials, but nothing seemed to be working, and he passed away before june. this crushed marco and his mom; his dad was a kind, gentle, and loving person, and the three of them had grown extremely close with each other due to marco being the youngest and the only child still living in the house.

it was hard for the two of them to live by themselves in a town that his mom didn’t really have any connection to, so a few months after his dad’s passing, marco and his mom moved to provincetown, the place where she had grown up, to try and start fresh. their new beginning came coupled with the loss of their connection to their religion, and marco and his mom no longer practiced judaism

freshman year in a brand new town was intimidating for marco, and this resulted in him being extremely quiet and shy for the majority of the year. however, his history teacher saw how invested in history and current events he was and convinced marco to join the debate team. this is where he found his voice once again.

marco did a type of debate called public policy debate, a style of debate where you talk extremely fast and have to do an insane amount of research to ensure that you know what you’re talking about. in order to participate in that style of debate, his teacher assigned him a partner and he grew extremely close to her very quickly. the two of them went on to win the national title their sophomore and junior years

after joining debate, marco grew more confident in himself and began to talk more both in and out of class. being good at something gave him the boost he needed to no longer be shy, and he was well liked by most people at school. this was also when he found the snackpack, and he has always been grateful for their presence in his life.  marco’s sophomore and junior years were quite possibly the best years of his life.

however, right before the trophy ceremony his junior year, he got a call from his mom, telling him that his sister had gotten in to a car crash and that she was in a coma in a hospital in san francisco. marco flew to san fran immediately after receiving the call, leaving his partner to collect the trophy on his behalf.

for the following two weeks, marco rarely left the hospital for fear that his sister would pass away without him there. although the two of them were not that close, losing another family member was something that marco could not imagine. on the fifteenth day of her being in the hospital, the doctors said that there was nothing they could do to save his sister. so they harvested her organs as donations, and the spiegelmans were forced to put another member of their family into the ground.

senior year came around and marco was a changed person. he was not as passionate or confident as he used to be, he quit debate, and he focused on judaism again to try and give his life some meaning. however, he explored the type of judaism his sister was into, reform judaism, based more on learning and exploring the ideas of religion than sitting in a sanctuary and praying.

although he skipped school often and had mediocre grades, he managed to graduate, his dreams seeming unimportant and his life in shambles. throughout this, he still managed to keep a positive attitude, now convinced that god had a plan for him and that everything would work out fine. he does have really bad anxiety tho, so it’s this classic combination of trying to have faith in the way things work out but never really being sure that they will

without his debate professor, he wouldn’t have even gotten into college, but with the help of someone making sure he followed through, he got into u mass amherst to study sustainable food & farming. this seemed like a out of the blue choice, but it combined marco’s love of research & science, and allowed him to feel like he could have a greater impact on the world than he could as a politician. 

college went by without incident, but here are some highlights (joined hillel and loved being w/ other jews, was a nerd, did nerd things **including a lot of acid, lived his best life)

he just graduated and is home for the summer, he has a job working for the local farmers’ market, and is just chillin’, trying not to think about the other shoe that is bound to drop

he’s doing okay, and that’s all he’ll ever answer the question “how are you?” with

headcanons:

marco worked as a waiter at an italian restaurant in high school so that he could have spending money. money was never a problem in his household as his mom is a cardiologist, but he always felt bad asking for money for things, so he made his own money instead

if marco was a crayola crayon, he’d be pine green. the color is a bit darker than most of the other greens in the crayola family, just like marco in his family, but also has a hint of blue in it, hinting at the sadness that lies beneath marco’s outer layer.

marco really loves old school video games. his old nintendo 64 is collecting dust in his closet, and although he rarely has time to play it anymore, he refuses to throw it out. while growing up, video games were his way of connecting to his two older brothers, his older sister always watching on with a disapproving gleam in her eye. whenever the siblings get together, however, they always manage to turn on an old, favorite game of theirs, and the competition is always heated

in high school, marco smoked a lot of weed. he would always be seen outside at any high school party, smoking by himself or with a group of other people. however, after graduating, marco switched to cigarettes. he smokes frequently, but will furiously deny being addicted if approached about it

marco plays as waluigi when he plays mario kart/party

marco has a slight boston accent

marco is a night person. he utterly hates getting up early in the morning, but staying up late comes easy and natural to him.

marco recycles religiously. if something is recyclable and you don’t put it into the recycling bin, he’ll lose a bit of respect for you as a person

marco absolutely loves space and the universe and stargazing (part of his appreciation for nighttime), but he also wholeheartedly believes that aliens are real, no doubt about it.

wanted connections

his debate partner from high school 

romantic connections (male or female or nb!!)

exes w/ lingering feelings

exes who ended on good terms

the person who took his virginity l m a o

that person that he’s been pining after since freshman year in high school who he just wants to get w/ but has convinced himself he cannot

neighbors when they were growing up

current roommate

that friend that u always compete with and like ur friends w/ them still, u are, but also u always want to brag about how great ur doing

someone who confides in him who he rarely confides back to

u KNOW they probably made a band in high school

people he went to college with

anything ur heart desires!!

[anachilles]

hey! about ficlet ideas about hanna x jonas maybe one where when jonas is sober the next day he apologizes for trying to kiss her?

Hey anon!! I was originally planning on only doing short lil ficlets for these prompts, but after having so many emotions because of Friday’s clip of them, this one got away from me. So thanks for the prompt/inspiration!!

Words: 2.6k

Summary: Jonas needs to apologise for the way he acted the night before, and may have gotten more than he bargained for when Hanna puts everything into perspective for him. Whether he necessarily wanted to hear it or not.

» [ read on AO3 ] ☼

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[ SAMSTAG; 12:16 ]

In the stark light of day, clear (but sore) headed, Jonas knewhe’d fucked up. Actually, no, he knew that last night pretty muchinstantaneously after he did it.

Waking up, thankfully in his bed (God bless Matteo for seeing tothat), feeling like he’d been ran over by a semi-truck and regretting what hedid the night before was becoming a regular occurrence for him lately, and hecertainly didn’t feel any better for it.

After he woke up, he just sort of lay there and contemplated theaborted move he’d tried to make on Hanna, cringing through every second of thememory. The whole night was submerged in a drunken fog, but that particularmemory cut through it and he recalled it clear as day.

Jonas couldn’t believe he’d done that.

He was wasted.

He was upset.

He missed her so fucking much.

He... was an asshole for putting her in that position.

Despite their rocky break-up, the last thing he’d ever want inthe world was to hurt her, or make her feel uncomfortable.

Jonas closed his eyes against the sun streaming in through thegap in the curtains, and groaned as he tried to scrub some of the ache out ofhis eyes with his fingers.

In the cold light of day he just felt like a massive arcshloch. Andit didn’t sit comfortably with him.

Hoisting himself upright, Jonas grabbed his phone from itscharger on the bedside table. He sort of dreaded to unlock it, flopping downagain against the pillows.

Whatsapp: [Hanna]: Did you get home okay?

There went that funny feeling in his chest again. The dumb,pathetic one that raised its head any time Hanna so much as acknowledged himthese days.

He took a moment to scroll up through their chat log, noting allthe times she’d tried to initiate conversation, to reach out to him - but ithad been too painful for him to do anything other than leave her on read orblow off her offers to catch up.

[You]: Yeah lol, all thanks to Matteo

She read the reply pretty much instantly. Jonas nervouslychecked his other messages (firing one off to Matteo in both appreciation andapology), and flicked through a couple of apps, waiting for... literallyanything.

He tended to miss her most in the quiet moments. Where she’d beexactly here on the other side of the bed, stretched out beside him, or cuddledin close to or around him. Just existing together. Totally at ease.

When she didn’t say anything in response, Jonas feltinevitability creeping round the corner. He had the insatiable itch to run awayfrom this situation, to avoid it, shut down communication, quash it down andpretend it wasn’t an issue. If there was one flaw Jonas had that he was nowcompletely self-aware about, it was his tendency towards avoidance and wilfulignorance rather than facing issues head on and dealing with them outright. Howthat allowed things to spiral and blow out of proportion and control.

It led to destruction and pain for all involved.

So, basically, he knew he had to put on his big boy pants andactually deal with this. He couldn’t imagine walking into school and seeingHanna every day with this dark cloud hanging over them, as much as he’d beensulking and wallowing this past while.

Taking a deep breath, Jonas started to record a voice message.

[ “ Hey. I, uh... I understand if you’d rather not, but do you...want to meet? Like, later today maybe? What I did last night was shitty and Ijust want to apologise face to face. You deserve that much. If not - that’scool. Bye “ ]

 [ SAMSTAG ; 15:31 ]

 Every nerve in Jonas’s body buzzed with nervous energy, practicallyvibrating where he sat in the little booth, right in the corner of the coffeeshop as he waited for her.

The coffee shop was dimly lit, cosy (with seating that was actually comfy), not far from school,and served the best homemade coffee cake they’d ever had.

It was strange; the place was as comfortingly familiar asit always had been, but the overall vibe felt… off. He and Hanna used to come and waste so much time in here theywere practically on first name basis with some of the baristas, but he didn’trecognise anyone behind the counter that day. Big, ornate maps hung on theaged, wood-panelled walls in decoration, and had prompted countlessconversations between the two of them about all the places they wanted to seewhen they left school.

Hanna talked wistfully of having wanted to go on a girls’holiday with Leonie and the rest to somewhere warm; like Italy, or maybeGreece, before all the drama and had shit not hit the fan as badly as it did.

(Looking back, Jonas feels guilty about not taking the sadnessin her voice as seriously as he should have. More examples of his God-giventalent for wilful ignorance. Maybe it was easier to pretend and convincehimself that she was okay).

Jonas talked, somewhat jokingly (but also sort of not) aboutwanting to go with Matteo and the boys to Amsterdam.

But the best conversations were the ones about the tripsthey’d promise to take together. Most ideas were far-fetched, dumb and probablynot feasible (at least finance-wise) anyway, but it was fun and dreamy enoughjust to talk about and imagine going on adventures to all those cool places withher.

“OnceI’m selling out arenas all over Europe, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go”

This is Jonas’s first visit back to this place the break-up.

His leg jiggled incessantly up and down and he worried athis lip with his teeth.

Eventually, the door opened and he saw a familiar head ofred hair. And his heart promptly dropped into his stomach.

“Hi…” she greeted carefully, approaching a littlecautiously before sliding into the seat across from him. She looked tired.

A ghost of a smile twitched at her lips as she nodded downtowards the table, upon which sat what was recognisable to her as her usual drinkof choice, and between her cup and his, a plate with a slice of coffee cake onit. One fork.

“You didn’t have to”

He shrugged.

“It’s nothing. Call it penance, or a peace offering orsomething”

Hanna nodded and took a sip from her cup, then picked upthe fork.

“I’m not sharing this with you, by the way” she said, hervoice edged with a slight hint of playfulness.

“It’s all yours” he replied, throwing his hands up inmock-surrender.

“Knowing you, you probably already had a piece before I gothere”

“More like, ‘couldn’t stomach it’”

The comment appears to yank Hanna’s mind back to the matterat hand; why they’re actually here. And it wasn’t for coffee, cake, and mutualreminiscing. Her face fell back into a serious expression.

An extended beat of awkward silence settles over the table.Neither look directly at each other, and neither speak. As if they’re bothwaiting for the other to go first.

Jonas is the first to crack.

“Look – I’m reallysorry about what happened last night. The position I put you in; it was unfair.I was w-”

“Wasted. Yeah, I could tell”

Jonas felt guilt settle in his stomach, her accusing tonecutting somewhere deep inside him. He started fidgeting with his hands under thetable.

“I don’t mean it as an excuse, just… explanation”

“You were always a sad drunk” she commented.

He laughed humourlessly.

“That’s why I smoke weed so much more than I drink. Well –apart from recently, obviously”

It was true. Even in back when things were normal, he had anotoriously small barrier between ‘fun and tipsy’ and ‘drunk and maudlin’. Hedidn’t always like who he was when he drank, but somehow between now and thenthat fact had become easier to disregard.

He looked across at her sincerely, body suddenly still andat peace, and she slowly met his gaze.

“Honestly, I’m really sorry if I made you feeluncomfortable. I’d never intentionally do that to you, I was just… too drunk.And upset”

Hanna nodded in acceptance, but her face remained serious.

“It’s okay, I forgive you. Forget about it. But for real,man – what’s been up with you these past few weeks?”

“You know what’s beenup with me”

“I don’t really, seeing as every time I try and talk to you,you shut me out!”

“You can’t have it both ways, Hanna! You broke up with me,which I understand, but it hurt. Itstill hurts, clearly. And it hurts even more you trying to be my friend rightnow because it feels too close to what we had before, and it’s playing with my feelings”he explained, visibly frustrated.

She looked as if the words had reached out and slapped her.Fuck, he hated disappointing her but what more could he do now than just tellthe truth.

“It was easier before school started again. Before we hadto see each other every day, and Matteo started talking to your girls, andCarlos got involved with Kiki. I thought I had it together but all theproximity just made me realise how not over you I actually was” Jonascontinued, speaking more honestly than he had in a long time, even to himself.It was these sorts of thoughts he’d been running from – clouding in smoke, drowningin alcohol, and blocking out with the deafening club music.

Thoughts he didn’t entertain because they made him feelpathetic whilst Hanna was out there being amazing and having the time of herlife. That made him wonder why he couldn’t be like that too.

Hanna’s expression turned sympathetic. Almost painfully soft

“I get where you’re coming from. And I’m sorry for tryingto force something you weren’t ready for. It’s selfish, but I just… reallymissed you. No matter ‘where’ we are, I’d never want you to not be in my life,so maybe I hung on a bit too tight when I should’ve let you have space”

She took a breath, with which came a steely edge to her voice.Jonas tensed, knowing what it looked like when Hanna had something she needed to say.

“But that being said, in the nicest possible way, you needto pull your head out of your ass with all this dumb self-destructive shit you’redoing. Seriously. All the drinking, getting high in school and before exams,wallowing. If it’s all for dealing with pain, then you’re just going to end uphurting yourself and feeling worse than when you started”

Jonas feels like he shouldfeel patronised or annoyed at what she was saying, but honestly - he was sotired and sick of everything that he knew it was what he needed to hear. Theincident with Hanna last night had been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“And if it hurts just to see you like this, I can’t imaginewhat it feels like inside your head. But you owe it to yourself more thananyone to sort things out”.

It was uncomfortable to hear, but it was necessary. He’d beenlooking practically everywhere but her eyes before as it took it in, but suddenlylooked up and met her gaze.

“Be the best version of yourself you can manage, and thebest possible things will come to you” she finished, causing Jonas to have asudden break of hilarity in what should’ve been an otherwise serious moment.

“Did you come up with that last line all by yourself?” he joked,smiling despite himself.

“Okay – it might’ve been something Amira said once, but itwas a good point!”. Her smile mirrored his.

The jokes and laughter felt easier between them, likefamiliar ground. It was a dynamic they both felt comfortable in together, andstill came easy to them. It made Jonas happy to see that was still there atall, though he had his suspicions after the secretly shared smiles between themat the Christmas party.

“I’m excited to see you be ‘you’ again – you deserve to behappy” she said, still smiling at him. It made his chest ache a little, but nowsomehow it felt like a more bearable pain.

“You too. I didn’t realise how much I missed seeing yougenuinely happy until after everything was over”

Hanna smiled solemnly and nodded, taking the final sip ofher coffee that ended up emptying the cup. She unlocked her phone screen infollowing silence to check the time, then looked out to the grey, dimming skiesof Berlin on a winter afternoon.

“I should probably think about heading home. Dad’s home thisweekend and I promised him I’d help him make dinner; ‘bonding time’ apparently”

Jonas chuckled lightly as he started gathering his stufftogether.

“Which we all know to be Hanna-code for ‘watch him peelpotatoes while I sit on insta’” he teased.

She quickly flipped him the bird before getting out infront of him and leading them outside.

He hung around for a second more as she unlocked her bike fromthe rack, more comfortable in a moment alone with Hanna than he had been in along time.

Once the bike was free, she turned to him.

“Remember to be nice to Matteo, by the way. He sulks aroundlike a lost puppy whenever you guys aren’t speaking”

Jonas rolled his eyes.

“Oh c’mon, that was one day!”

“And all that sorrow on his little face for that one daywas almost too much to bear. You need each other”

Assuming she was alluding to the tense situation with Matteo’shomelife, Jonas instantaneously decided that he’d call him when he got back.Thank him properly and check in.

They hesitated for a second after that, prompting a silenceJonas didn’t know quite what to do with. Hug her? Wave?

“Thanks for meeting with me. It helped a lot – and I’msorry, again” he settled on, with a curt nod.

“No worries. I’m glad we did it too. See you around”

Then she cycled away, and he stood there watching herleave, icy wind whipping her hair about her face as she rode.

Jonas leaned up against the lamp-post he was standingbeside and pulled out his little pouch of rolling tobacco and papers, making acigarette for himself and lighting it. The first inhale immediately calmed him.

Of course, not everything had magically been fixed and maderight. He still loved her more than he’d ever imagined loving anyone, he still missedher so much it ached – their laughs, their intimacy, her overall presence inthe world and inclusion in his orbit. It still hurt to feel a distance betweenthem.

But he felt so much… lighter. Like he’d unloaded some arduousburden on his soul by sitting down and having an honest conversation with herabout everything, coming clean about what he felt. And hearing how she sawthings too. It felt like a step forward to something better.

He loved her, and maybe he always would. Maybe he’dnever stop at least a tiny bit of himself from wanting her back – but for thefirst time in a long time it felt possible to accept the reality of the breakup. Perhaps even move on.

At the very least stop sulking around and torpedoing hisown life in self-pity and melodramatic heartache. Feel better about himself.

Inhale.

Exhale.

He set off home, her smile lingering in his mind.

[dillydedalus]

what i read in january

too many books....

the unwomanly face of war, svetlana alexievich (tr. from russian) oral history of soviet women who served in ww2 (whether as soldiers, pilots, field nurses, laundresses etc, plus partisans) - interesting and harrowing, but honestly (& this just comes with the format i guess but it still made the book less enjoyable for me) pretty repetitive. 3/5

my sister, the serial killer, oyinkan braithwaite dark & snappy novel about beautiful ayoola, who has a habit of killing all her boyfriends, and her resentful but protective older sister korede, who always ends up cleaning up after her - until ayoola starts dating the man korede is in love with. not suuuper substantial, but an entertaining, twisty read with some hidden depths and great dark humour (ayoola about her trip w/ a boyfriend: ‘it was fine.... except he died’). 3.5/5

the private memoirs & confessions of a justified sinner, james hogg (uni) fucking wild ride of a book about (and mostly narrated by) a young calvinist radical who believes that, like, since he is one of the elect of God and his place in heaven is guaranteed no matter what he does, he might as well DO SOME MURDER!!! it’s fun, the theology is absurd, and one of the main characters (our young calvinist’s shapeshifting friend) is probably the devil! 4/5

friday black, nana kwame adjei-brenya collection of mostly speculative/dystopian short stories, some of which work very well, some of which don’t really. the stories based on racism in america are mostly very good, satirically heightening current issues to absurd levels while still feeling true. some others are not as good, including one where a man talks to the ghosts of the fetuses his girlfriend just aborted (like. bad.) the last story, a post-nuclear-apocalypse groundhog day type thing, is brilliant and i almost wish he’d turned into a novel/novella instead. 3.5/5

mythologies, roland barthes god, i wish french crit was always as fun as roro ‘kill the author’ barthes making fun of the myths of american evangelicalism and french imperialism. 3/5

moon of the crusted snow, waubgeshig rice set in a northern canadian first nations reservation, where one autumn, electricity, communications etc. fail. when no news (or scheduled deliveries of food etc) come from the south, the community has to figure out how to get everyone through the winter, relying increasingly on traditional survival skills. quiet & reflective twist on the post-apocalypse/social collapse narrative; occasionally the writing is a bit clumsy, but i’d still recommend it. 3.5/5

the haunting of hill house, shirley jackson a psychological haunted house story, more quietly disturbing than downright scary, but i really enjoyed the way the characters interact with each other and the visceral wrongness of hill house. also interested if anyone has done a queer reading bc i def feel like there’s some subtext between eleanor and theodora that plays into the horror (time to check jstor). and i just love jackson’s style of writing. 4/5

tentacle, rita indiana (tr. from spanish, i read the german translation) weirdo dominican queer post-apocalyptic time travel book involving yoruba/voodoo mysticism, time travel via anemone, art collectives, a trans protagonist who is the chosen one, destined to save the ocean, and a mention of einstürzende neubauten (automatic 0.5 point bonus). really cool! there is a lot of sexual & gendered violence so uh. that’s something to be aware of. 3.5/5

the orenda, joseph boyden ugh. so this is a historical novel set in 1600s northern america, centred around the huron/wendat nation and three characters: the wendat warrior bird, a jesuit missionary called christophe who lives among the wendat, and the young iroquois girl snow falls, who is... forcibly adopted?? by bird to replace his murdered family. interesting concept and a promising first third or so, but unfortunately the book is way too long, the characters and their relationships seemed shallow and their development was more Told than Shown to me, and it just never really came together for me. plus, halfway through i found out that boyden has apparently been either greatly exaggerating or completely making up his own native heritage so uh. bad. 1.5/5

nichts was uns passiert, bettina wilpert smart & very precisely observed story about an alleged rape in a lefty/academic social circle. anna claims jonas raped her at a party, while jonas says the sex was consensual. anna eventually goes to the police and as rumours begin to spread, the people around them begin to take sides and try to figure out how to deal with this thing that Does Not Happen To Us (the title) and is definitely not Done by People Like Us. in a smart twist, this is presented as testimonies collected by an unnamed first-person narrator who questions jonas, anna, their friends and family, which i found very effective as a narrative tool, making everything just ambiguous enough. ends on a legalese gutpunch. 4/5

o caledonia, elspeth barker lovely dark book about janet, outcast at school and in her family, always too intense, too earnest, too clumsy, as she grows up first in wartime edinburgh and then in an old house in the scottish highlands, feeling at home only among animals and the wild & harsh & romantic landscape. lyrically written, sometimes morbid and grim (the book opens with janet murdered at 16 y’all), but often funny and bittersweet as well. loved it! 4.5/5

espedair street, iain banks look, this is a novel about a burnt-out rockstar looking back on his rise to fame and wild life, which is like. incredibly unappealing to me from the beginning. tho i gotta give props to banks for managing to make me at all invested in this story with good writing & well-engineered weirdness - so i guess i need to read something from him where the very premise does not make me roll my eyes. 2/5

eiger dreams: ventures among men & mountains, jon krakauer i would never willingly go mountain-climbing but i sure am highkey obsessed with reading about it. this is a collection of short essays about mountain climbing, some about krakauer’s own experiences (trying to climb the eiger nordwand etc), some about special areas of climbing, infamous climbers etc, and krakauer is a good writer & funny dude (don’t smoke weed in your tent while on an expedition lmao). krakauer says in his foreword that “most climbers aren’t in fact deranged, they’re just infected with a particularly virulent strain of the Human Condition”, which is a great sentence, but based on this and into thin air it seems like that’s in fact the same thing! 3.5/5

fool’s errand (the tawny man #1), robin hobb y’all. i missed my silly silly son fitz who is now significantly older than me, and i was immediately captivated even tho the first 200 pages are mostly fitzy’s Hermit Homesteading Routine with Occasional Visitors. i loved that shit. i loved fitz being reluctantly-but-maybe-not-that-reluctantly being caught in court intrigue & schemes again even more. anyway, hobb’s strength as always is amazing characterisation that makes every character immediately seem real & rich and the relationships between those characters, which are nuanced and fraught and painful and wonderful (also when will fitz & the fool kiss JESUS). also it made me cry a lot about nighteyes, so well done there. 4/5

anyway i am now forcing myself to not just abandon all else and just speed thru tawny man but i really really want to so everything else is going quite slowly 

[call-me-eds]

Poison

Getting high has never been so stressful, but then again, everything that Stan did had an edge to it.

Masterlist

Not a single drop of alcohol, a single hit off of a joint, or even as much as an energy drink had ever gone anywhere near Stanley Uris’ body. He knew what could happen if he got mixed in with bad things like that. Not because of experience or seeing anything more than Bill throw up in bushes outside of a random house, but because he was smart. He couldn’t imagine putting poison into his body by choice.

           Well, until The Loser’s Club entered the eleventh grade. Bev and Richie had been passing cigarettes between them since the seventh grade, and the transition to weed was smooth. Bill got high with them a few times, but he much preferred alcohol, especially after he made out with a girl for the first time after having two beers at a party. Besides having a glass of wine at dinner sometimes, Eddie never really was interested in drinking or doing drugs. He liked to be in control and didn’t mind being the one to look after his friends when they got a little out of hand.

           Truly, he never really had to take care of them all. Ben could handle his alcohol fairly well and would disappear with Beverly halfway through every party, tailgate, or get together they ever went to, anyway. Mike had his truck that would haul them all to parties, so he usually stayed sober throughout the night. He liked being able to leave when he wanted and knowing that if anything went wrong he would be in his best state of mind to help, no matter who it was. Mike was never crazy. He always had his bearings. While Mike and Eddie were fine being around their friends and people they barely knew while they were sober, or fairly sober, Stan hated it.

           He didn’t understand the appeal of being so out of control of your body that you needed people to hold you up, and he told Richie that every time he was holding the taller boy up while they walked down the street away from a party that Stan never wanted to go to in the first place.

           “Hey,” Mike said, pulling Stan’s attention from the horses in the large field. Stan was visiting Mike on one of his slow afternoons at the farm. He was leaning up against the fence and watching his Mike talk to and tend to the horses, and Stan wasn’t sure which one was more beautiful.

           “Hey,” Stan smiled. “All done?”

           “Almost,” he shrugged. “I was just thinking that maybe when I’m done we could go hang out with the guys,” he suggested.

           “Yeah, okay,” he smiled. “Where?”

           “Bill said they were all going to meet at the quarry. I think they’ll be drinking, though. Just us, it’s not a party,” he said.

           “Yeah, okay. Let me pay for gas, though, you picked me up to come here,” Stan said.

           “Well, I’m not going to drive,” he shrugged. Stan nodded and tried not to think about how he would once again, be the only sober one. He wouldn’t have a beer bottle to occupy his hands or a cloud of smoke between him and whoever he was talking to.

           “Okay,” he nodded. “Yeah, alright. Well, finish up, so you can shower and we can get going.” Mike nodded and kissed Stan quickly before going to finish up his work. Ben picked them up in his mom’s car and talked the whole way to the quarry, which Stan was fine with. He didn’t have much to say and was just thinking about what he would do when he saw his boyfriend under any influence for the first time.

           “You okay?” Mike asked as they got out of the car. Stan nodded and they walked a little through the trees until they saw their friends. Bill had a case of beer at his feet and was cracking one open, tapping it with Eddie’s own can.

           “Finally, you guys got here,” Richie said, leaning up on his elbows and smiling up at the three boys.

           “Were you waiting on us?” Stan asked.

           “Always, Baby,” Richie winked, pulling the joint out from behind his ear and patting his pockets to find his lighter.

           “Shut up,” he said, sitting down on the blanket and waiting for Mike to sit next to him. Bill held out a beer towards Stan, who shook his head.

           “Stanley, if you go to college without ever having done anything fun you’re not going to make it,” Bill told him.

           “Who says I’m going to drink in college?” he asked.

           “Stan,” Beverly said. “You’re going to be thrown into all of these situations and meeting all new people, you’re going to try something eventually. It’s better to try these things when you’re around people you trust.” Stan stayed silent and his friends could tell he was getting a little uncomfortable with the conversation.

“We���re just concerned that if you go to school and haven’t ever tried anything that you’ll get into a bad situation,” Ben said. Stan was feeling bombarded and overwhelmed. His breathing started to pick up and he started to scratch at his arm. Mike noticed, like he always did, and discreetly started to rub Stan’s back to calm him down.

           “We have a year and a half left until college, we don’t have to worry about this now,” he said, leaning up against Mike more.

           “Oh, come on, Stanley,” Richie rolled his eyes. “What’s going to happen when-”

           “Beep beep, Richie,” Mike rarely ever stifled Richie’s voices or his tangents. He wouldn’t have anyone making Stan feel bad, though, for sticking to his guns. This was just one of the many ways that Mike built up Stan’s self-esteem and encouraged him to keep saying what he was thinking and feeling rather than hiding behind his snarky remarks. At first, Stan felt like it was a big patronizing, but soon the rewards of being treated with more respect by everyone in his life as he treated himself with more respect became more evident in his life.

           “I brought my stereo,” Eddie said quickly, tuning it until some rock started to softly play from the speakers.

           “You’re sure you’re okay?” Mike said softly to Stan.

           “I’m fine,” he promised, leaning forward and kissing him softly.

           “Okay, now my turn,” Richie grinned. Stan flipped him off and normal conversation started to flow again between the group.

           “Just one hit,” Bev smiled, invading Stan’s personal space and waving the joint in front of his face.

           “No,” Stan pushed his arm away and tried not to choke on the smell despite being in the open air. Mike was carefully sipping his beer, still on number one while Bill was laughing louder than usual as he opened number three.

           “Do you like it?” Stan asked Mike softly. Mike sighed and shrugged.

           “I mean, it’s fine. No big deal. Want a sip?” he asked. Stan shook his head and Mike nodded. “And you-”

           “If you ask me if I’m okay again, I think that I’m going to scream,” Stan said softly. Mike laughed and threw his arm around Stan before kissing him again. Stan thought that maybe the alcohol was effecting Mike even if he didn’t notice it. The soft duo was never really into PDA, Eddie wasn’t even sure if he had seen them do more than hold hands.

           After another beer and a half, Mike was holding Stan close to him and Stan was trying not to be totally uncomfortable about the night.

           It was relatively painless, the whole evening. Ben took them home and the only after-effects of the night was that Mike had a small headache in the morning. Stan knew in his heart that the world wouldn’t explode if he drank or smoked, he just genuinely had no interest in it. Mike did seem relaxed, and Beverly always told him how fun it was, but maybe it was the fact that he didn’t know what would happen if he actually tried it.

           In Health class a few weeks later, they were taught about the dangers and the repercussions of marijuana. Stan wrote down almost exactly what the teacher said, as always, and tried to process as much information as he could. After letting his mind float to his boyfriend and the words on the board, he decided that he was going to finally try letting loose. So he swallowed all of the pride he had in his body and stood at Richie’s locker, waiting for him and Bev to arrive like he knew they would.

           “Can I help you with something, Stanny?” Richie practically yelled as he threw his textbooks into his locker. He mumbled his request and Beverly leaned forward.

           “What was that?” she asked.

           “I, um, need something” he sighed, his face grew red and neither of them had any clue what could have gotten him this flustered.

           “What? Condoms? A new hairstyle?” Richie grinned.

           “Some weed,” Stan said softly.

           “Some what?” Richie asked, trying his hardest not to say every one liner running through his mind right now. Bev stepped on his foot and moved in front of him.

           “Okay, how much? Are you selling it? Giving it to someone?” she asked.

           “No,” he sighed. “I’m going to smoke it, and you both know it,” he huffed.

           “Okay, let me tell you what,” Richie said, putting his hands on Beverly’s shoulders. “First time is free, and I’ll help you roll it just because you’re so pretty,” he winked. Stan blushed and nodded.

           “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Just don’t say anything to Mike,” he asked. The two raised their eyebrows at each other but agreed nonetheless. All three of them knew that Stan didn’t want to be in Richie’s bedroom on a Friday afternoon, getting frustrated and ruining more of Richie’s rolling paper than he had used in an entire month.

           “Just do it,” he sighed, pushing it towards Richie.

           “Woah, be careful! That’s not cheap,” Bev said, licking the end of the paper and rolling the joint before Stan could even register what she was doing. “Here,” she handed it to him and smiled.

           “So, what, you smoke it like a cigarette?” he asked, embarrassed but not wanting to do it wrong.

           “Yeah, but you’ve never smoked a cigarette,” Richie scoffed.

           “This was stupid, you two just take it,” he shook his head. Bev glared at Richie and moved to sit next to Stan on the bed.

           “What’s up, why are you so nervous?” she asked.

           “I’ve just obviously never done this before,” he said, a red tint coming to his cheeks.

           “No more bullshit, Stan, you just have to suck it up. What’s going to happen in college? Mike probably won’t be there with you, and neither will we. Something’s going to happen, and we want you to be safe. Who would teach me shit I don’t need to know if something happened to you?” Richie asked.

           “Shut up,” Stan said. “Thank you,” he said to Bev, holding the blunt in his hand gently. “Okay, I guess I’ll go now.”

           “You’re not even going to hang out with us?” Richie asked. “You’re going to take my weed and Bev’s services and then leave?”

           “Have fun,” Bev smiled, pushing him towards the door. Stan walked the few blocks back to his house and rushed up to his bedroom. He locked the door and contemplated what he was actually doing.

           Stan Uris didn’t do this. He didn’t get high and he certainly didn’t get weed from Richie Tozier. He pulled his health notebook out of his backpack and went over his notes another four or five hundred times before deducing that he would survive this. He didn’t have to read or look through anything, though, to come to the conclusion that he would feel safer doing it around Mike. He would feel safe doing anything with Mike.

           So he hid the joint in his backpack as he asked his mom to borrow the keys. She said yes, like he knew she would because he told her that he was just sleeping over Bill’s house. He took deep breaths the entire drive over to Mike’s farm, who didn’t even know that Stan was coming over. He parked where he always did, a few hundred feet away from the house. He walked up onto the porch and Mike was sitting on the porch swing, reading in silence.

           “Well, this is a nice surprise,” he grinned, moving over so Stan could sit. He didn’t sit, though, he just stood there.

           “I have weed,” he blurted. Mike calmly dog-eared the page he was on before putting his book down. “Richie gave it to me and I decided that you’re all right, I should try stuff,” he rushed out.

           “Well-”

           “And I wanted to know if we could go to the barn because it’s quiet and I like it in there and I trust you,” he said.

           “Okay,” Mike nodded, standing up and taking Stan’s hand. They slowly walked over to the barn, hand in hand. The knowledge of the blunt in his pocket was weighing down Stan and his breathing was starting to become a little erratic. Mike rubbed his back and helped him up the ladder in the barn before he spread a sheet out over the few bales of hay they always sat on.

           Stan sat there bouncing his leg and Mike just started to talk softly.

           “Hey, is that mine?” he smiled, pulling at the flannel Stan was wearing. Stan nodded and tucked his head into Mike’s neck.

           “I’m nervous,” he said.

           “Stan, you don’t have to do anything. I’ve never smoked or anything, why do you feel like you need to?” he asked.

           “Because everyone is doing this stuff and the other night-”

           “You’ve always been okay with me drinking,” Mike frowned.

           “And I was, I swear. It just looked like you guys were having fun, so I wanted to have some fun of my own,” he said. “But alcohol tastes bad, Eddie told me. So I figured this was easier.”

           “Did Richie pressure you? Or Bev?” Mike asked.

           “No, I want to do this. I just feel dumb for being scared,” he sighed.

           “Well, if you’re scared then I’m not letting you do it,” Mike shook his head. He reached forward and grabbed the joint from Stan’s trembling hand. “You don’t get a high just by being with me?” he teased.

           “Mike, stop,” Stan moved away and sighed. “I feel so stupid,” he frowned. Stan was so logistical that sometimes the only thing Mike could do to calm him down or get him to listen was to distract him. Stan’s mind was always running at a mile a minute that he never stopped to take a breath, he just kept obsessing over what was going on in his mind.

           “Don’t feel stupid,” he sighed. “Come on, let’s just hang out. We can go to the drive through or something.”

           “I don’t want to go to the drive-through! I want to be a normal teenager who wants to get drunk out of my mind! I want to want to be high in some kid’s basement and have to put in eye drops when I get home so my parents won’t kill me. I just want to be like everyone else,” he said. Mike smiled sadly and ran his hand through Stan’s curls.

           “Please stop torturing yourself over this,” he begged. “You’re smarter than all of us put together, you’re not melting your brain with all of this shit,” he smiled.

           “Then why does it feel like everyone is looking down at me for it? I like knowing I can drive home and I like being able to walk through my front door and say goodnight to my mom without having to sneak in. That’s fucking lame,” he sniffled and would feel pathetic if he was around anyone else other than Mike.

           “That’s not lame. That’s a good thing,” Mike promised, holding his face gently and pressing kisses to his forehead. “It’s a good thing, Stan.” Mike was incredible at making Stan feel like he wasn’t alone and like he wasn’t the only person in the world who was having the same feelings as him. Right now, though, he knew there wasn’t much he could do or say. All he could do was hold Stan until he felt better.

           “It doesn’t feel like a good thing,” he sighed. “Richie said that-”

           “Richie doesn’t know anything. I’ll kill him,” he smiled. Stan laughed a little and Mike smoothed down his shirt. “Want to go back inside the house?”

           “No, let’s stay here,” Stan said, nuzzling his face into Mike’s neck.

           “For however long you want.” He had never meant anything more. Because while Stan would risk getting made fun of by Richie for kissing Mike and would sneak out of his house to go see him, Mike would do anything and everything for Stan. He didn’t want anything in return, and he didn’t expect anything, he just wanted to be there for Stan as long as he would let him. And Stan would let Mike do just about anything.

[onewfantaesy]

ur my favorite writer what the Heck! but do u have any angsty updates for uncle yunho or maybe even secret adoption or bullied au...

💖💖💖 tysm this is so nice omg

as for angsty updates, let’s go back to secret adoption au bc that’s such a good au i love it also i forgot if key or minho have any place in this au but let’s just say they’re jonghyun’s friends and sometimes taemin hangs out with the three of them

Taemin, at the ripe age of just-barely-fifteen, stumbled into the house one Friday night just after the new school year had started. He had been hanging out with Jonghyun, which wasn’t unusual, but what was unusual about that night was that Jinki saw a car that wasn’t Jonghyun’s drop Taemin off from his bedroom window. Jonghyun always drove Taemin home, and Jinki couldn’t figure out who it was that Taemin had just said goodbye to. 

It was late, nearly midnight, but Taemin had made it home before his curfew, so Jinki couldn’t go grill him about that. Instead, he walked out into the kitchen where he saw Taemin’s backpack sitting on one of the chairs and Taemin rummaging through the fridge and freezer.

“Ooh,” Taemin moaned, “jackpot.”

He pulled out a box of blueberry waffles, but as he closed to doors to the freezer and fridge, he saw Jinki standing near him and he flinched.

“You scared me,” Taemin whined, putting his hand to his chest. 

He straightened up, though, and went right over to the toaster, nearly tripping over his own feet. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Jinki asked, stepping forward.

“Nothing,” Taemin said. “Just hungry. Do we have syrup for these?”

Jinki took the syrup out of the fridge and put it on the counter next to Taemin, and when he got close enough, he took a whiff of his too-fidgety son.

“What’s that smell?” Jinki asked. “What do you smell like?”

“Air freshener?” Taemin asked. “Key made us smell all of them. We went to Target for a little bit.”

“Key?” Jinki asked. “You said you were hanging out with Jonghyun.”

“And Key and Minho,” Taemin said. “It was really fun, kinda weird though, but only the Target part. Some old lady looked at me funny. I don’t know why, though.”

“Are you alright?” Jinki asked.

“Yeah, I’m great, why?”

“You’re acting,” Jinki paused for a moment, “strange.”

“I’m just really hungry,” Taemin said, stumbling over his words. His head snapped towards Jinki, and Jinki didn’t miss the way his elbows kept tensing up. “Do we have pie? We were watching TV and this one commercial kept coming on and it had a pie and I just really want pie. Can we go to McDonald’s? I mean, they don’t have blueberry pie, but a McDonald’s pie would do. Can we go?”

“Come here,” Jinki said, putting up his hand and flicking his pointer finger.

Taemin stepped towards him, and when he got close enough, Jinki grabbed his shoulder and tugged him closer. He smelled the top of Taemin’s hair, and without saying anything, he tightened his grip on Taemin’s shoulder and stared hard at him.

“Do you think I’m stupid, Taemin?” Jinki asked. “Were you smoking pot tonight?”

Taemin didn’t say anything, but his mouth opened and closed a few times. 

“Tell me,” Jinki said. “I’m going to be more upset if you lie about it.”

“I didn’t smoke it,” Taemin said. 

“Don’t lie to me.”

“You asked if I smoked it!” Taemin whined. “I didn’t!”

“Then why do you smell like weed and why are you eating waffles and asking me to take you to McDonald’s?” Jinki asked. “Air freshener can only cover so much. Your hair smells like weed.”

“I didn’t smoke it,” Taemin repeated. 

“Were your friends smoking it?”

“Yes,” Taemin whined. “But I didn’t smoke it. It makes me cough too much.”

“You’re lying, though,” Jinki said. “Because you’re acting like you’re high.”

“I am high,” Taemin whined. “But you only asked if I smoked it.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, did you have an edible?” Jinki groaned. 

“Yeah, Key got it for me,” Taemin said. “It’s crazy though, it took forever to hit me. Then I kept thinking I heard you talking, it was wild. You were like, in my head, but you were all around me, it was weird. It was like an out of body experience, but with you talking to me. But now I’m just hungry.”

“How do all these kids get drugs,” Jinki muttered.

“Jonghyun’s sister is in college,” Taemin said very matter-of-fact-ly. “And Key’s got friends who have siblings who get them edibles. I’ve never done one before this, I don’t think I like it very much. Like, I’m talking a lot now. I don’t like it.”

“Yeah, you’re definitely not going to like it when you’re grounded for the next month,” Jinki told him. 

Taemin chewed on his bottom lip, and Jinki could see him still twitching slightly.

“Can I still eat my waffles?” Taemin asked in a quiet voice. 

Jinki sighed, but he sat down with Taemin at the kitchen table and let him eat his waffles. Jinki watched as Taemin ate, and he reached his hand out every now and again to swipe the hair out of Taemin’s face.

“Did your friends drive you home high?” Jinki asked.

“No,” Taemin said through a mouthful. “Minho drove, and he didn’t smoke or anything.”

“Fifteen years old and you’ve already got a designated driver,” Jinki sighed. “What did I do wrong?”

Taemin looked at him, and his eyebrows furrowed while he swallowed down a half-chewed chunk of waffles.

“You didn’t do anything,” Taemin told him.

“Then why would you go get high?”

Taemin shrugged, and he picked at the waffles still on his plate. 

“Everyone else was doing it,” Taemin mumbled. “And it’s kinda cool, sorta. But when I thought I heard you talking to me, I got really freaked out, that wasn’t cool. Key just said I was being paranoid.”

“I don’t know if I want you hanging out with Key,” Jinki said. “He doesn’t seem like a good influence.”

“But he’s my friend,” Taemin said. 

Jinki just sighed and ran his hand through Taemin’s hair, “We’ll talk about it more tomorrow.”

Jinki watched as Taemin shoved the last of his waffles into his mouth and then got up from his chair to rummage around the cupboards. 

“What are you doing?” Jinki laughed.

“Looking for more snacks,” Taemin said. “I wanna watch TV.”

Taemin turned around with his arms full of pretzels, chips, pringles, and cookies, and he looked at Jinki and said, “Let’s watch TV.”

“Okay, you get two snacks,” Jinki said. “Put that all back and pick two.”

Taemin whined, “That’s too hard!”

“Then I’ll pick for you,” Jinki said, and he got up and put the cookies and pretzels on the counter before putting the rest of the snacks back. “Come on. We’ll watch for a little bit, and then you’re gonna take a shower and go to bed.”

Taemin let himself be pulled over to the couch and he leaned against Jinki’s side as he put cookie after cookie into his mouth.

“You’re way less pissed than I thought you’d be,” Taemin muttered, crumbs falling down his chin.

“Oh, I’m furious,” Jinki told him, smiling. “But there’s no point in yelling at you when you’re not in your right mind.”

“Oh,” Taemin mumbled. “Cool.”

Jinki snorted, but he patted Taemin’s shoulder and held him close. 

“Dad,” Taemin mumbled, and when Jinki hummed, he continued, “if my neck was bent in, like, the broken kind of angle, you would tell me, right?”

“Yes,” Jinki laughed. “Your neck is just fine.”

“Okay,” Taemin said. “Because, you know, it doesn’t feel like it’s fine.”

“I promise you it’s fine,” Jinki said, and he moved his hand to rub the back of Taemin’s neck.

“Dad?”

“Hmm?”

“When kids fuck up, why do parents always think it’s their fault?”

Jinki was quiet for a moment, and he looked down at where Taemin had his face buried in his shoulder, his eyes closed.

“Because parents are supposed to make sure that their kids never fuck up, that’s why,” he said. “Taemin, sweetie, why’d you get high?”

“‘Cause it’s been a bad last little while,” Taemin mumbled. “And people always say it makes you feel better. And it did. But now I’m tired and I’m sad again and I don’t even have any pie to eat.”

“Why are you sad?” Jinki whispered. “You can tell me. Parents are here to make those things better, baby.”

“Everything that happened just made me sad, that’s all,” Taemin said, his words slurring together. “Sometimes I think about it and it makes me sad. It’s not all the time, though, just sometimes.”

“You need to tell Mom and me when you get sad like that, okay?” Jinki said.

Taemin only hummed, and Jinki watched as Taemin’s breathing evened out and his eyes stayed closed.

“Taemin?” Jinki whispered. “It’s time for bed, buddy.”

Taemin didn’t move, and he didn’t say anything.

“You’re too big for me to carry you to bed, baby,” Jinki whispered.

Taemin still didn’t respond, so Jinki moved carefully out from underneath him and laid him down on the couch. Jinki sighed, and he stayed on the ground, leaned up against the couch, and he watched as Taemin slept. He stayed with him, all night, just in case anything happened and Taemin needed him.

Besides, this way, he could lecture Taemin bright and early on the dangers of drugs. It was a win-win.

[artificialqueens]

Until we find a way (Biadore) Chapter 1- City Angel

Hi!! So i’m finally daring to publish this story and I hope you guys enjoy it, I’m open for suggestions and any form of critiques! I would like to thank the beautiful Dottie and Matilda for being so nice to me and helping me with this story. I appreciate all your love and help, you are the best. 💕💕

“So” Shane began as he was concentrated trying to follow a cooking recipe,  cooking had become one of his new found hobbies.

“What?” Danny answered as he scrolled down on his phone carelessly.

“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about, what’s going on between you and Roy?” Shane questioned, continuing to chop onions and tomatoes.

“Oh my, are you like a fan or something?” Danny mocked. Ever since the finale of Drag Race, he was continuously asked that question by fans and people on the street. It wasn’t a secret that the so called –ABC of drag- spent a lot of time together when they were not being absorbed by tours and shows all over the world.

And it also wasn’t a secret that, Danny and Roy were closer than anyone else in that season, which caused lots of rumors and hypotheses from the fans about their relationship. Danny had found it amusing to read the endless fanfiction that was written about them, and even read it to Roy when they were bored, which lead to endless hours of laugher and fun for the both of them.

“There’s nothing going on between us, nothing more than what goes down between me and you” Danny answered not paying much attention to his surroundings or even the words that he had just mumbled.

“C’mon Danny” Shane insisted as he stirred what he was cooking, “I know there must be something going on between you, that little game of yours is not normal” Shane continued as he glanced at the boy.

“What game? What are you talking about?” Danny inquired finally shifting his gaze from his phone to the man standing in front of him.

“That one of yours, that –you’re my hubby- kind of thing” Shane said, mimicking the way Danny treated Roy.

It all started months ago when Danny answered and interview question and jokingly called Roy his “hubby”. Since then, it developed into something he’d do even when they were just texting each other.  For the younger boy, it wasn’t something he had put much thought into. It was just a game.

“It’s just a game Shane, I don’t know why everyone freaks about it” Danny admitted as he got distracted again by his phone.

“It just doesn’t seem too normal for me” Shane replied insisting on the subject, “You don’t just call a friend your husband for no reason”.

“Have you been reading fanfiction or something?” Danny teased “Any good biadore stories?” he laughed and rolled his eyes.

“I’m just saying,” Shane continued, “It’ll be cool if you guys got together”

“And I’m just saying it’ll be really cool if we could have dinner already, I’m starving.” Danny replied in a whine.

…

As the days went by, Danny kept receiving the same question again and again, and it was starting to get in his nerves. Roy was still touring in Europe with his “Not Today Satan” show and Danny kept in touch with him almost every day.

Danny- I miss you bitch, how much longer till we get a pizza and wine afternoon?

Roy- What are you doing up this late? I miss you too. I’ll be back this weekend, you better have dinner ready for me when I get there.

Danny- I can’t sleep, what time is it there?

Roy- It’s almost 8:30am, you should really sleep man. I don’t want your health to be affected.

Danny- Oh so you want me to leave? It’s only 12:30 am, Are you with other guys and you don’t want me to bother you?

Roy- Oh sure queen, I forgot you were my lawfully wedded husband! lol

Danny- Oh so now you forget me! Anyway bitch I’m pretty sure you have work to do, I’ll leave you to it. I’m gonna smoke some weed, watch porn, and sleep. Miss you! See you soon.

Roy-Sounds like a fun night . Just try not to smoke too much, Danny. I hate that habit of yours.

Danny- All right mom lol, I’ll try, love you!

Roy- Love you too.

…

The week couldn’t go fast enough for Danny to feel at ease. Roy was his best friend and his accomplice in so many things; they had developed this strange relationship that people perceived as something else, but deep down Danny knew it was nothing more than a good friendship.

It was only Friday night and Danny was losing his mind thinking of all the endless conversations he would get have with Roy the next night. For now he had to focus on his show. Lately his fame was growing, and with that, his insecurities. It took him to a point of anxiety that, according to him, only weed could control.

The time had come and Adore was ready to take the stage, the crowd was raging and she was ready. Performing gave her life, it made her forget how small she felt when she was offstage. Just one more drag to her blunt and she’d be ready.

Adore took the stage and she felt untouchable. Whatever was going on around her felt so small. She was the spotlight of everything; her body felt relaxed and she was having fun for the first time in a long time.

“Aren’t you proud of her?” Shane’s voice was barely audible above the noise inside the club.

“I am” Roy replied, his eyes were stuck on the dancing silhouette on stage.

“She’s been missing you a lot” Shane continued, taking a sip from his drink.

“Really?” Roy questioned, surprised.

“Yeah, I don’t know what you guys have going on, but it’s cute.” Shane teased.

Roy rolled his eyes and stared deep into Shane’s green emeralds defiantly with that signature Bianca look that always muted the blond man.

“What?” Shane asked once the silence was too long.

“Nothing is going on between us,” Roy reassured him, and at the same time he tried to convince himself that indeed nothing else was going on between the two of them.

“Roy” Shane began “I’ve seen you, I know you, and the way you act with each other is not the way you behave with me or with anyone else” both of them staring at each other’s eyes.

“It’s nothing. We’re just friends, and Danny is too young for me anyways” Roy said turning  his gaze over to Adore who was turning it out onstage

“So, if he was older, or you younger, would you like to have a relationship with him” Shane asked as he smiled cheekily at a mesmerized Roy who couldn’t take his eyes from the stage.

“Quit it Shane,” Roy answered, clearly annoyed by the question. “Danny and I are just friends.”

“All right,” Shane said, not convinced with the answer.

Adore continued to perform with an incredible amount of energy and the audience loved it; she held hands with the crowd and performed for the hundreds of phone cameras that were recording her.

“Alright motherfuckers,” her singsong voice sounded agitated due to the dancing and prancing she had been doing for a while now.

“For this next song I’m going to need a hot guy to get on stage,” she said as her eyes searched the room for a man that she found attractive.

“You” she yelled “The one in the red shirt, come over here baby” Adore called the guy and sat him down on stage.

The melody of DTF started to blast from the speakers and the crowd went crazy, she began to dance and flirt with the man on the red shirt that was now underneath her in a chair.

“Oh my” Shane giggled as he turned to Roy, “I’m guessing you are right, you are just friends” he said as Roy glued his eyes to the performance.

Roy didn’t said a word; he just watched Adore grind and lick the guy all over. He had his hands on her hips and was coping a feel every now and then, and she was enjoying herself. Something inside of Roy wasn’t ok. Something made him… angry? He couldn’t quite put his finger on it but it was bothering him.

“Look at her go,” Shane commented while Adore was making out with the man onstage.

“Yeah, she must have smoked quite a lot for her inhibitions to be that low,” he managed to say. Something inside was bothering him, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it but it was burning inside and Roy was trying his hardest to ignore it.

“Are you ok?” Shane asked, staring at Roy once again.

“Yes I am, we should go to his dressing room to surprise him,” Roy said and began to walk towards the room, followed by a confused Shane.

All the way from the bar to the room Roy was trying to shake that feeling out of himself. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t seen Danny in a while, and seeing him grind on a stranger wasn’t the best image, or maybe it was just all of the questioning. Not only from Shane but the fans were also making him doubt his own feelings.

While they were waiting for Adore to come back to her dressing room, Roy was praying for her to come back alone. He didn’t want to deal with a stranger on the day of their reunion.

“Are you sure you’re ok? Did it bother you to see her perform like that?” Shane inquired as he stared at himself in the mirror.

“I’m ok, but I’m bothered now because you keep on asking the same question, so shut up and don’t ruin the surprise,” Roy answered, trying to not sound rude.

Finally, after 15 minutes (that felt like 3 hours for Roy) Adore’s voice came from the hallway. Roy felt his heart beat in anticipation, he had been waiting for this moment for at least a month now, and he knew that seeing her was going to revitalize him.

“Yeah, thank you, see you soon,” Adore said as she held the door open.

She finally stepped inside the room and sighed, she was coming down and her anxiety was growing by the minute. She sat down in front of the mirror, took her pipe in her hands, and just as she was about to fill it up, a voice broke the silence.

“I told you I hate that habit of yours” Roy’s voice came from the back of the room and she stared at him through the mirror, her eyes lit up and she felt her heart race.

“Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up!” Adore said as she ran towards Roy and held him in her arms, tighter than ever.

“Easy girl, I’m old. We don’t want my ribs to break,” Roy giggled as he held Adore close and breathed in her scent.

She smelled like perfume, sweat, and weed. So typical of her. Their eyes met and Roy couldn’t help it but smile along with her.

“I thought you were coming back tomorrow!” Adore said, finally letting go of Roy’s embrace.

“Surprise bitch, I came earlier just to see you perform,” Roy said staring into her deep eyes.

There was something so magnetic about them, you just couldn’t miss them, even if you tried. Adore’s eyes would trap you, and that’s something that Roy learned from day one on Drag Race.

“What? Am I not pretty today?” She asked concerned. Roy was her biggest supporter and her biggest critic at the same time.

“Nah bitch, you are. I was just taking all in,” he admitted, a little bit embarrassed for the time it had taken him to remove his eyes from her.

Shane observed the bizarre scene from afar. Something inside of him said that those two were more than just friends, and he was more than willing to investigate it.

“Where are we going tonight? I want to meet hot guys,” Shane mumbled breaking the tension.

“You whore!” Roy giggled.

“I know just the place, bitches!” Adore said and began to de-drag.

…

After a while, Danny, Shane, and Roy were headed toward downtown LA.  

The place was raging, but everyone was drunk enough already to not make a big fuss over the presence of the trio. Immediately, Shane ordered a round of shots for the three of them to celebrate the unusual reunion.

The night went by and the drinks kept coming, at some point in the evening Shane got lost, only to be found later alongside of a very handsome man that wasn’t letting go of him. Danny and Roy divided their time between talks, long stares at each other, random dancing, and drinking around the club.

It was 3am and both of them were considerably drunk. Shane had left earlier with the guy he was flirting with the whole night and Danny and Roy were left together.

“Pajama party at my place?” Danny drawled. “I want to cuddle with someone,” he continued as he brushed his lips against Roy’s ear.

Roy was drunk, but nowhere near Danny’s state. He giggled at the young man’s proposal but nodded in the end. There was always something about that boy that made him want to keep him safe from all harm in this world, and if someone was going to be leaving with Danny that night, it better be Roy.

The cab ride was a thrill. Danny’s drunkenness made everything funnier, and the fact that his inhibitions were so low made the physical contact much more interesting.

Danny laid his head on Roy’s shoulder sometimes hiding his face on the crook of his neck, it sent shivers down Roy’s spine. It wasn’t foreign to him, the thought of Danny in his bed, but lately that desire had grown.

Ever since the kid began that game of calling him husband, Danny’s teased him more and more. They were always touching each other in some form, and whenever they were left alone, the sexual tension between them became heavier. Finally, they made it to Danny’s house and got inside.

“It’s a nice place you got,” Roy commented as he allowed his eyes to wander around the room.

“Thanks,” Danny replied from the kitchen. “I try to make it so chill. It helps me with my anxiety”

“That’s good,” Roy replied.

“Come here bitch, I want to cuddle,” Danny said as he sat down on the couch and turned the TV on.

Roy walked towards him, and laid next to the young boy.

“Hug me,” Danny demanded.

“You missed me huh?” Roy teased as he wrapped his arms around Danny, who just nodded like a little kid.

“How did you like my show?” Danny asked, changing channels, searching for some background noise for their conversation.

“It was great,” Roy began, while he caressed Danny’s brown hair “Except for that porn show you gave,” he finally said. Ever since he saw Danny with that guy it had been bothering him, but he knew that if he brought it up when Shane was around it could be misunderstood.

Danny turned to face him.

“It was just part of the show” he said.

“I know, is just that-” Roy began but changed his mind “Nothing, never mind.”

“Say it,” Danny demanded.

“I didn’t like the way that guy touched you,” Roy whispered.

Danny’s eyes were locked on Roy’s, who was staring at some point in the distance.

“Why?” Danny asked confused. “Is not like I did anything wrong.”

“I know, it was just a stupid thing I felt. Old people’s feelings,” Roy tried to make a joke out of it.

Danny rolled his eyes and giggled as he placed his gaze on the TV. Roy’s train of thought wandered in all directions now. Why did he said that? Why did he feel that way? Was he even allowed to feel it?

As the time passed, both of them were lost in the movie, and their bodies were moving closer and closer. Danny’s head was now resting on Roy’s chest and his body was lying on top of him. While Roy’s hands caressed Danny’s back up and down and stopped just above his ass.

Danny’s body trembled with every stroke of Roy’s hands. He’s had lots of sex dreams about this man since they met, but he always thought Roy was out of his league so he hid that desire deep inside of him. But lately that flirting game that they had was bringing it up again.

In a slow move, Danny hid his face on the crook of Roy’s neck and softly nibbled it. He felt how the man underneath him shifted but he didn’t stop, he was just teasing. He wanted to see how far this could go. He looked up, only to find a confused Roy staring back at him.

“What?” Danny asked in that signature bimbo voice “Is it too much?” he giggled.

“Queen, it takes more than that for a man to have a piece of me” Roy teased, wanting to see what Danny would do.

“Oh really?” Danny lifted his head to see straight inside Roy’s dark eyes, “Do you mind if I try?” he teased, not even waiting for an answer. The alcohol in his veins was giving him the guts and the heat inside his pants was urging him to touch the man underneath him.

Danny’s lips caressed softly the edge of Roy’s and his breath was like a drug for the older man. His hands went straight to Danny’s ass, a place he had long dreamed and fantasized about. Danny moaned softly at the contact of Roy’s hands, he brushed his lips once again, not daring to kiss them yet.

“It looks like I’m the one who’s giving you too much,” Roy teased, referring to Danny’s growing bulge.

And as if that was the push Danny needed, he pressed his lips aggressively against Roy’s. The kiss was filled with lust and desire; they needed it, and finally the alcohol was letting them have it. Roy bit Danny’s lips and stopped the kiss long enough for them to breathe. As their lips found each other again, their hands began to wander around.

Danny allowed Roy to take control and flipped them, so that now he was on top. The kissing became more and more aggressive, their hands wandered around, and their bulges were growing. Roy’s hand travelled down to Danny’s crotch and began to caress it. Danny’s soft moans turned him on even more.

“I’ve wanted you to touch me like this forever,” Danny confessed, moaning into Roy’s lips. “Fuck me,” he whispered.

Just as the heat was growing between them, the sound of the doorbell broke the moment. It could only be one person.

“Open up bitch!” Shane’s drunken voice came from the other side of the door.

“Fuck,” Danny mumbled, and Roy stopped completely.

“Open up! It’s me! Pretty tiny little Courtney!” Shane drawled as he giggled on the other side of the door.

“We should open it,” Roy suggested. “Uhm I’ll just use the bathroom,” he said as he stood up and walked away slowly.

Danny got up and walked towards the door as the pain in his crotch began to burn. He opened the door to find Shane giggling at his phone and unbelievably drunk.

“What took you so long?” Shane asked as he stepped inside the house.

“I was busy,” Danny said annoyed.

“Oh I see,” Shane drawled. “You were masturbating you nasty whore,” he pointed out staring at the bulge in Danny’s pants.

“Uhm, yes I was,” he admitted as they walked towards the living room.

“You would never believe this guy,” Shane began.

“What the fuck bitch, you scared the shit out of us,” Roy mumbled as he walked out of the bathroom. Danny’s eyes wandered straight to Roy and he smiled softly as the man sat down next to Shane.

As Shane babbled about how his trade wasn’t what he expected, Danny’s mind wandered all over the place. All he could think of was the feeling of Roy’s touch on his skin, the taste of him, the way his heart skipped a beat when that man was touching him all over.

“Can you believe it Danny?!” Shane said, bringing Danny’s attention back to reality. The boy seemed confused. Roy was staring at him directly, and Shane seemed like he was waiting for an answer to whatever he’d asked before.

“Party,” Danny managed to answer as he came back to the conversation.

“You egocentric bitch,” Shane laughed and then stood up, beginning to walk towards the bathroom.

“Do you know what he said?” Roy inquired in between giggles.

“Not at all. I got disconnected,” Danny admitted a bit ashamed.

“The guy she left with was hoping you’d appear to have a steamy threesome with both of them,” Roy laughed, but his words came easy.

“What!” Danny responded in that signature voice, “Fucking crazy. I’ll never have sex with Shane,” he said shaking his head, trying to eliminate the images his mind had created.

Roy laughed along as Shane appeared once again and sat right in the middle of them, the famous trio was together again, and God it felt so good.

“I love you both so so so much,” Shane mumbled as he placed his arms around both men.

“And I love you right back, but we all should go to bed now” Roy said. He was always the voice of reason.

The three of them walked towards Danny’s room, and crashed on the bed. Danny ended up in the middle of the bed and as he closed his eyes he felt Roy’s safe embrace around his waist. Everything was ok. The whole world was ok…at least for that night.