#genuinely when i googled it i thought 'i bet so many people have made this connection already'

[gnfard]

but tell me why there seems to only be one (1) essay on the parallels between Timon of Athens and the book of Job online

like. it's right there????? is no one writing about it because it's just so obvious or. what gives. is Timon really that much of a nothing play that no one cares enough to write an easy slam dunk of a paper on it

[livythewriter]

The "Date" With Elsbeth (Elsbeth x Reader)

Word Count: 2296

Warnings: Lots of fluff, kind of a tense description of a horror movie

I decided to wear my favorite outfit to see Elsbeth tonight. I had texted her my address so she could pick me up.

I waited outside of my apartment until she showed up 30 minutes before the date. I got into Elsbeth’s car, suddenly feeling a little nervous.

“Hey, how’s it going?” I asked, not really knowing what else to say.

“Oh I am doing great, especially getting to hang out with you!” Elsbeth looked over at me, a big grin on her face.

“Yeah!” I said, feeling light and airy.

“So, is there anywhere specifically you wanna go? I can’t promise I’ll know the way, but that’s what this trusty GPS I got with me is for!” She pointed at her phone, which had Google Maps pulled up on it.

“Well, I kind of want to go to this one really cute clothing store. I think you’d like it! It’s a thrift shop, but for certain types of clothes.” I explained to her.

“Alright, just gimme the address and I’ll put it in the GPS.”

I told her the address of the store, and we drove there, mostly in silence as I seriously didn’t know what to say to her. I didn’t want to mess things up between us by getting too weird, but at the same time, maybe she didn’t mind weird? She was pretty unusual herself.

We finally made it to the store and I went inside with her.

The thrift store was filled with many articles of unusual, colorful clothing. The type of clothing that Elsbeth would wear. I wanted to go to a place that she would like, and thought she would probably like this store.

“Wow, you really did mean it when you said it was for certain types of clothes! I love everything here!” Elsbeth wandered around, looking like a kid in a candy store as she checked out the various items of clothing.

“Yeah! I didn’t know the prices of the clothes here, so sorry if it’s a bit expensive.” I said a little sheepishly.

“That’s alright, I have enough clothes at home anyway, so window shopping should be okay!” Elsbeth continued to look around, seeming to feel the textures of each shirt she found.

I also looked around the store, finding a few articles of clothing that I liked. Luckily I had just gotten paid, so I picked out the clothes that stood out to me, and went to the cash register with them to pay for them. I even got an extra shirt that I knew Elsbeth would like to give her at Christmas.

I regrouped with Elsbeth, seeing that she had gotten a few clothes of her own.

“Can I see what you got? I bet you got some nice clothes, after all you have great taste in fashion!” Elsbeth complimented me, making my cheeks flush a bit.

“Oh, I can’t show you all the clothes in these bags, but I can show you these bags!” I gave her the bags that didn’t contain her Christmas gift.

“These are so cute! I think they suit you. Can I just say as well that I love your personality? And these clothes express it perfectly!” I felt like I was on Cloud 9, Elsbeth’s compliments were from the heart, so hearing them overwhelmed me with giddiness.

“Oh, thank you. I think your clothes are perfectly you as well.” I replied, grinning at her.

“Where do ya wanna go next?” She asked.

“I guess we could go grab something to eat. What are you in the mood for?”

“I kinda want those fancy donuts, you know the ones with the fancy decorations.”

“Sounds good to me!” We went to a donut shop that sold fancy donuts, and I got a matcha donut.

“Are those any good?” Elsbeth inquired.

“I like matcha, so probably.” I answered.

“I’ll order the same thing then!” Elsbeth ordered her donut and then we sat down waiting for them to be served.

“This night has been so much fun you know, I love hanging out with you.” Elsbeth said.

“Yeah, me too. You’re genuinely amazing to be around, like you’re so kind and just fun to hang out with, and pretty funny too.” I said earnestly, maybe getting a little overeager.

“Well, I can say the same about you! People tend to avoid hanging out with me too much, I think it’s because they’re not used to a personality like mine. It doesn’t usually get to me too much, and I would never suppress myself for others, but it can get a little lonely.” Elsbeth paused for a second. “I’m glad I have people like you and Kaya in my life. I feel like you truly get me.”

“I feel comfortable to be myself around you…” I scratched the back of my neck, avoiding eye contact.

“That’s good! Oh I think the donuts are ready.” We grabbed our donuts, left a good tip, and left the place.

City lights shone around us, cars rushing past. Luckily it hadn’t rained recently, so we didn’t have to worry about getting splashed by a car. Everything was loud, but so peaceful at the same time. But honestly, I had mostly tuned out the noises around me, being too focused on Elsbeth’s presence to my right as I walked, and the sweet flavors of my matcha donut.

As I ate, I suddenly felt a warm hand around mine. How Elsbeth was able to keep her hands warm in such cold weather was beyond me, but I didn’t mind, it warmed my hand, along with my whole body. Her hand gently squeezed mine, but she kept her gaze ahead, as if she didn’t have me wrapped around her finger right now.

“Wanna go see a movie?” She asked out of the blue.

“Sure.” I wanted to say ‘Sure, if we can keep holding hands like this.’ but I worried I’d come off too strong.

We walked to the theater and ordered tickets for the newest horror movie. I didn’t really do good with horror movies, but I still enjoyed them nonetheless.

When we entered the theater, the trailers were playing, and even those made me sweat a bit from the tension and scares. We sat down in the seats closest to the screen, and I knew I was in for a ride.

The lights dimmed, and the movie started. It took me a second for my ears to adjust to the volume but when they did, the movie was quite enjoyable. At least, the first 30 minutes were. Then the horror set in.

Things were building up, the suspense, the tension, the creepiness and the atmosphere, as the main character did their best to navigate their situation. Then the first jumpscare happened, and I jumped out of my skin. My heart pounded in my chest but I enjoyed every second of it.

A scene came on that was too unbearable to watch, and I found myself looking away from the screen, but in doing so, my eyes landed on Elsbeth. She watched the screen intently, shoving fistfuls of popcorn into her mouth. She noticed my staring and looked back at me. I looked back at the screen, hoping I didn’t make my staring too obvious.

“Are you scared?” She whispered in a tone that encouraged me to answer honestly.

“A little, this is an intense movie!” I said, laughing.

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t let that monster get to either of us. I’ve seen enough of these movies where I know exactly what to do in this type of situation!” She assured me, a crooked grin on her face.

“Oh yeah, and what would that be?” I asked.

“Well I gotta wait until after the movie’s over to tell you! We gotta be quiet, remember?”

“Alright, I can’t wait to hear what you h-OLY SHIT!” A jumpscare happened and I jumped back in my seat. Elsbeth chuckled, her hand finding mine and giving it a squeeze. Her hand stayed there for the rest of the movie, squeezing mine gently whenever something too scary would happen.

We left the movie theater and walked some more to go back to our car.

“You should have told me you don’t like horror movies, I would have picked something more lighthearted.” Elsbeth said in a teasing but gentle tone.

“Oh, it’s not that I don’t like them. I love them. They just get to me easily. God, I cannot believe I yelled like that back there though! So embarrassing.”

“I’m sure everyone’s already forgotten about it. But I won’t, because it was really freakin’ cute!” I groaned internally, but gave her a sheepish smile.

“What were you saying about surviving that horror movie?” I asked.

“Oh yes, I would personally not pick up a doll from the side of the street that says ‘Do Not Touch!’ in red lettering. Even if it wasn’t haunted, who knows what kind of materials it could be made of. It could have lead in it! Warnings exist for a reason, you know.” Elsbeth shook her head in disapproval at the main character’s actions.

“What would you do if the doll just came into your life and started haunting you?” I asked.

“Well, I think I’d hire an exorcist. I’m not exactly religious, but those seem to work.”

“What if that didn’t work though?”

“Well, I guess I’d destroy it by either burning or smashing it. Probably burning it, though.” Elsbeth shrugged.

“And what if that didn’t work?” I prodded on.

“I don’t really know what I would do then, honestly. You’re backing me into a corner here.” Elsbeth said, chuckling.

“Sorryyyy, I guess I’m feeling a bit giddy right now.”

“Oh yeah, why’s that?”

“Cause I’m hanging out with you.” We reached her car, and began to drive home.

“You’re so sweet!” She gushed.

“You’re even sweeter.” For some reason, I was feeling a little more confident, and comfortable with borderline-flirting with her.

We reached my apartment, but I didn’t want to leave, so I lingered in the car for a bit longer, just enjoying the comfortable silence.

“You know, I think you’re different from any friend I’ve ever had.” Elsbeth said in a voice so quiet I could hardly hear her.

“Oh, why’s that?”

“I don’t know. I just feel so comfortable around you, even happy. You feel special to me.” Elsbeth replied, and I could have sworn I heard a tinge of vulnerability in her voice.

“Well, you feel special to me too.” I didn’t know if I should tell her about my feelings for her.

“Shame we have to cut this night off, I would love to continue hanging out.”

“Maybe you could stay at my place for the night?” I offered.

“Oh, I’d love to! I bet your place is lovely.”

“It’s a bit messy, but otherwise it’s an expression of my interests.” I said, and we got out of the car, going up to my apartment.

We entered my apartment, and Elsbeth looked around in wonderment, “Oh my, this really is a beautiful place!”

“Thank you. Is there anything in particular you want to do?” I asked.

“Can we watch some TV? There’s something good on, I’m sure.”

“Alright!” I turned on the TV, and we sat on the couch watching the show. Elsbeth was right next to me, but I had to resist the urge to snuggle up next to her.

After a few hours of watching TV, my eyelids began to grew heavy. Elsbeth noticed this, “Maybe we should go to bed, do you have an extra bed to sleep in?”

I was snapped awake by the sudden revelation, the horrifying realization, that I hadn’t planned ahead properly, because I didn’t have a spare bedroom.

“No… I can sleep on the couch if you want. Sorry, I wasn’t thinking ahead properly.” I tried to hide my embarrassment.

“Nonsense, I’ll take the couch. Or, because I get the feeling that you’re really adamant about this, we could both take the bed. There’s nothing weird about it!”

“Yeah, I’d be alright with that. Let me just change real quick.” I grabbed the bottom of my shirt, and began to pull it up, before I realized what was happening and my hands flew back to my sides as my eyes widened. “I am so sorry, I’m just so used to being here alone. I don’t know why I started to do that.”

“It’s alright. One time, I was in my room with a friend and started changing clothes in front of her! It wasn’t until I had my top off that I realized what I was doing. God I was mortified!” Elsbeth said, laughing.

“Oh dear, that sounds so terrible! I’m sorry!” I started to laugh at that, “Sorry, I’m not laughing at you! That was just a really funny story. Anyways, I gotta go change.” I got up and walked to my room, closing the door and changing into my pajamas. I came back out and handed Elsbeth a change of clothes.

“Wow, we’re not even dating and I’m already wearing your clothes.” Elsbeth gave me a cheeky grin, but then looked slightly horrified, “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that. I’m gonna go change as well.” She went into my room and came back a few minutes later with the pajamas on. While she was changing, I had been thinking of what she said. Was that maybe a sign she liked me?

We went to bed and I turned off the lights.

“Goodnight, Elsbeth.” I said drowsily.

“Goodnight. I really enjoyed today.”

I tried to ignore the butterflies in my stomach at sleeping next to her, and closed my eyes, falling asleep with a long night of dreams about Elsbeth.

[wisteria-lodge]

snake primary + bird secondary

Hi, I'm here to submit a SortMe, but take your time getting to it, it's no rush ^^ To start, I'm pretty sure I'm a Snake Primary with a Badger model. As a kid in school I was quite a stereotypical Badger, kind, openminded, helpful etc. but I was still kind of a spoiled brat (3rd and last child). My family bowed to my whims many times, and I threw many tantrums... in fact, I was very kind only outside the house, and quite selfish with my family.

It's kind of interesting that you had SUCH different presentations at home and at school, and are so self-aware about it. It's kind of making me think Actor Bird, because those personas are situation specific. School!You and Home!You.

Another note is that I never had a proper best friend(s) in school or anything, I was the type to be on the fringe of the social circles, knowing most people,

That also kind of makes me think Actor Bird: a different "you" for every group? And if you were a Courtier Badger, which is possible, I would have expected you to befriend *groups* more. But here it's all about individuals.

being friends with some, but never really super close. I was always jealous of that.

I see where you're getting Snake primary, this does sound like a primary thing.

Anyway, as I got older, depressed, burned out, my Badger burned and trying to help everyone in the world became too much. I thought at first I was a Burned Badger Primary, but I realise that while I do sometimes feel guilty about not helping every person in need, I get more satisfaction helping myself or my own friends. Genuinely the things I can excuse my friends for has sometimes lost me other friends. So I think I'm a pretty solid Snake Primary.

Yeah, I'll second that. Maybe at one point you thought you *should* be a Badger primary, or were *supposed* to be a Badger primary. But Snakes are practical, and you don't seem to be cut-up over any of that.

The Secondary gets hard. Depression and lack of purpose, motivation

... and People, I'll bet

made me burn and for a long time I didn't know what my Secondary was. Now I think I may be a little Bird/Badger, but I've associated that with studying/hard work so much it felt alien to me. But while schoolwork has always been a chore, for fandom stuff I can go nuts making quizzes and spreadsheets for innocuous things most people don't even care about. I run a video posting account and when I'm saving videos to post, I'll sort them into categories despite the fact that I usually don't go through the categories later at all?

You know what Bird secondaries like? Categorizing, organizing, preparing.

I've made a dozen different accounts for different fandom purposes—bots, roleplay, etc. I'm not sure if any of this helps actually, but I feel like it's the only way to see my Secondary LOL.

It's Bird :)

All those descriptions about Birds gathering a billion different skills for opportune times never resonated with me, though. So I was never sure if I was really Bird.

I think you're probably defining 'skill' differently than I am. To me, running dozens of blogs, knowing how to write bots, quizzes, roleplay, make spreadsheets... those are absolutely skills.

Maybe it's just Badger? I do like to have people around me to rely on, but that might be a social anxiety thing.

Or a human thing.

I suppose in a problem I tend to default to asking friends for advice before I google stuff. Okay so maybe I am a Badger Secondary? Damn did I just answer my own SortMe? Um... well anyway I hope you can help me figure it out/confirm it haha. Thanks for reading this far.

You're a Loyalist primary, and it sounds like you've got people now (which is good.) I would be surprised if you didn't talk with them. But the actual evidence and descriptions of problem solving... have all been Bird. Your secondary was Burnt, and I could see how that could make you distrust/devalue it. You might absolutely have a Badger model, or maybe the Bird is a model you built *because* you burnt out the Badger (that absolutely happens.) But I'm just saying what I see.

[lifeswack]

I made a small analysis on the recent drdt episode!

(heres the link to the google doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jvUy2txjIYfixGA_ortVeSpr1457b5GHb5hsH78vP8A/edit#heading=h.vp6z4l5f7buz ) and now heres what i have so far

insane literature girl (david) analysis

Peeps i used:

 @nsmiaumiau,@moonzeiw

the link to my notes, its very scrambled so beware: 

The Morse code at 4:21 translates to:

"You still believed in me despite everything I've done, but that's just a fantasy isn't it? I simply chose to believe you did. Afterall I'm incapable of being somebody without you

That morse code and the scene at 2:24 are bothreferring to xander, the one at 2:24 is obvious, you can even see david referring to xander as “important” this fact alone could solidify that the person david is referring to at 4:24 is xander however there are still a few more people who it could be 

The reason both instances HAVE to refer to Xander is that David was never really close to anyone else. The only two people it could have possibly been are Hu and Arei, but through a process of elimination, we can rule out Hu since she's still alive. Even if you say Hu no longer respects david, While the Morse code at 4:21 uses past tense, it's safe to say Hu was never very close to David in the first place. Now, let's talk about Arei. She's a bit harder to debunk, but she's also eliminated for the same reason. Arei was only on good terms with David for about a day and a half, and that time was spent focused on her. Additionally, David wouldn't really feel like himself around Arei due to her vulgar and foul mouth, constantly berating everyone she knows. Although she may have changed slightly, she remained aggressive. However, to give Arei some credit, she knew David's secret, but I'm eliminating her as a possibility anyway. Xander is the only person we have confirmation (from 2:24) of being important to David. David even stated that Xander was a sort of role model to him, as Xander represented everything David pretended to be. But I do believe they were genuinely close; I mean, come on, guys, the bromance is there!

Before I present my own theories, let's debunk a theory:

 that David manipulated or asked Xander to kill Teruko. I find this possibility plainly impossible (haha, Tsumugi reference). David is well aware of the consequences of murder and was genuinely distraught and upset when Xander died. Moreover, I don't believe David was the one who said "I have to kill Teruko Tawaki" at the beginning of DRDT; it is widely accepted to be Xander, but I have my own issues with the Xander theory.

Once again, huge thanks to @nsmiaumiau – she, he, they???? – for being a tremendous help throughout this.

The video contains word searches for every character except David, with text aligning to each character. Although some don't seem to match perfectly, we can use the descriptions as our best bet to assign the numbers to characters. Many of them appear nonsensical, like Hu's crossword being "???: Go and cry," Julia's being "Do it like that lets live together!" and Nico's being "even if you try to think idk!!! (Lmao)." I noticed that these texts are either sarcastic or ominous. Let's take Nico's, for instance; it's very sarcastic and oddly worded, so I'll try to make it less headache-inducing: 

some of the word searches mention this mysterious (????) person, and it could either refer to David himself or the red-haired girl who keeps appearing. I'll do my best to make sense of everyone's crossword and figure out their significance.

Crossword analysis

(desclaimer despite coming tpo the conclusion these are davids thoughts i still analayze some of them as random strings of text and not thoughts)

1. Xander - His crossword is odd, saying "I have no idea if it counts (the world of abnormal sentient dance)." All of these make my head hurt, and this one takes the cake, but it does bring up the word "sentient," which I find interesting. Since I've already deduced these are David's thoughts, I'm going to have to look at it from that lens. The part "I have no idea if it counts" is what intrigues me. Like I said before, the Morse code at 4:21 is referring to Xander, so it might be David saying "I have no idea if Xander cares"??? It's definitely a shot in the dark, but I'm doing my best, okay!! The phrase "(abnormal sentient dance)" could be interpreted in several ways. I see it as an odd conversation, think of it as the phrase "the conversation has a mind of its own" – add "abnormal," and it would be akin to an odd conversation or if you add "dance," an odd situation.

2. Rose - Her crossword states "I think, therefore I am": This phrase is a famous philosophical statement attributed to the French philosopher René Descartes. In Latin, it is "Cogito, ergo sum." The phrase expresses the idea that the act of thinking itself proves one's existence. It's a foundational element in Descartes' philosophy and is often seen as a starting point for understanding one's own existence and consciousness.

"(confused)": The addition of "(confused)" after the famous philosophical statement adds an intriguing twist. It suggests that even though Rose acknowledges her existence through her thoughts, she experiences confusion or uncertainty about her identity or reality. The inclusion of this word creates an interesting contrast between certainty (thinking) and doubt (confusion).

3. Charles - The phrase "if you doubt" further proves that Charles is not one to accept things without scrutiny. This trait is vital in chemistry, as it involves testing hypotheses and theories through experimentation and analysis.

The second part of the crossword, "brittle things are broken," indicates Charles' knowledge of material properties, including fragility and how certain substances react under specific conditions. As an expert chemist, he understands the importance of understanding the characteristics of different substances to handle them safely and predict their behavior accurately. But that's just a literal analysis. In Charles's own words, "are you really gonna take that at face value?" So if I were to be crazy and analyze this, I would probably think this is referring to people. Maybe Charles doubted his brother at a certain point in time, and it led to his brother's death? :33

5. Arei - I think it's partially straightforward. The last time Arei got any major screen time was before she died. She cried to David about how she wanted to change and be a good person, questioning why Eden was allowed to be a good person without anyone taking advantage of her. Additionally, she was constantly harassed, assaulted, and verbally abused by her sisters, which resulted in her crying. This is likely what the crossword is referring to.

6. Ace - His crossword says, "'Right now, why do you go insane?'" Again, fairly straightforward. If I had to take a guess, it would be from how malnourished our poor boy is. His motive secret literally was "your body's falling apart, and yet you still refuse to eat." He's probably starving, and some of it is just because he's a hot-headed asshole.

7. Arturo’s is “mind exercises 1 2 3 4!” which confuses me just as much as xanders confuses me, if it were any other maybe i could have come up with something but this really just dosent fit him, he’s a cosmetic surgeon not a psychiatrist, since we know very little about Arturo im assuming this has something to do with his obsession with J, perhaps he finds J’s situation mentally stimulating?

8. Since julias the visual affects artist the part where it says “do it like that” maybee its referencing her more creative side an a way for things to go her way?

The second part, "let's live together," is intriguing and could imply several things. It might suggest her wish for harmony and collaboration in the theater world, emphasizing the importance of teamwork to create a successful production. Alternatively, it might hint at her vulnerability and a desire for deeper connections with others, as she tends to appear tough on the outside but is sensitive on the inside.

Considering her disdain for actors, the phrase "let's live together" might also indicate her longing for a community where egos and spotlight-hogging behavior are minimized, promoting a more supportive and cohesive environment in the theatrical world.

9. I think i already explained what i think of nicos crossword but ill explain again for you dimwits! (haha miu reference)  it's very sarcastic and oddly worded, so i tried to make it less head ace inducing but heres my raw unfiltered analysis “even if i try to think, idk! (lmao)” i think its still david being sarcastic, and he’s referring to one specific moment, when nico tried to kill ace, davids telling him he didint think and that even if he did think he’d be too blinded by rage

[daminakhair]

Please read this if you finally have the time. 💌

** An open letter to my first love **

My dearest Damian,

Hiii. How are you? I hope you're doing just fine. It's been weeks or a month since we've spoken last, isn't it? It felt like forever.

I know you have no patience to read but I'm writing this anyway, to give myself peace and finally let go of any confusion, doubts, and questions that have been weighing on my mind. I want to end our relationship on good terms, so if by chance we meet in person, I can look you in the eyes with no ounce of regret, hatred, and pain. I just want to formally bid my farewell to you, so let me. Please take your time reading it, and if you don't wish to, I completely understand.

I want to start by saying, that it's not our fault, neither of us should take the blame. It's just not the right timing. We were both pressured in life and got caught up in everything that we missed each other. Our relationship wasn't easy at all. It wasn't perfect and ideal but we started okay and I had fun in the middle. It was a complicated setup but we somehow managed to make it work for a while, and I'm proud of it.

I know it's the end but let's just think that what happened was a typical shallow misunderstanding that can be resolved. Let's pretend that our ending is something we've already talked about way before we even started. Let's take it as a beautiful memory we have once shared for a lifetime.

We may not close our chapter properly and say each other's farewell but I know it's gonna be fine between us.

I'm terrible at handling breakups and you know why, right? I don't even know how to cope with it but thankfully there's Google. I'm betting my moving-on phase on it.

I know it's not gonna be easy [for me], even writing this and having the courage to send it to you is difficult to do. You've become a part of my daily routine and it feels strange not having you there anymore. I must admit that I still miss you every day. It feels empty starting my day without you and ending it with no trace of you. My life is back to gray again and it hits differently. It's quiet but not as peaceful as when you used to be around. But I swear I will be fine. And with time, we'll both be able to heal. I'll take this heartbreak as a lesson that will help me grow emotionally and mentally.

Damian, meeting you was one of the best things that ever happened in my life. I never had any regrets. I learned a lot about myself after I opened my heart to you. You were the first man I learned to love unconditionally, without judgment. Too bad we ended too soon, I didn't even get the chance to hold your hands. I am grateful for everything you've shown me. You've taught me so many things even if you may not realize it. You could've denied it but I know you loved me because I felt it. In just 6 months, I enjoyed every second of it even if we only spent 4 hours a day talking. What we had was something worth remembering despite our love story only existing through phone screens. Most people might consider this type of relationship unserious, but to me, it was real. What we had was genuine. I hope it's the same for you too.

I don't know when I'm gonna be ready to completely let go of you. I even still find myself thinking about you at night, and waking up with thoughts of you still in my mind. But I promise you, I will find myself again and live a happy life even if it means you're not there anymore. While the plans we made to do things together for the first time remained just "plans", the mere thought of them is enough for me to cherish.

I hope you're not upset with me. I hope you don't hate me. I hope you don't regret anything from us. I hope you remember me as someone who loved you wholeheartedly. I hope I am a happy memory in your heart because you are to me. But if you ever felt bad about us, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I've said and done. I'm sorry if that's all I can give. I'm sorry for my lapses and shortcomings. I'm sorry if I can't live up to my role as your girlfriend before. I'm sorry that I was too far from where you are. I hope you forgive me for all the things I mistakenly did. I never had any intention of hurting you in any way. And if you think you're sorry too, it's okay. I have already forgiven you. Don't worry about it.

As I end this letter, could you please do one thing for me? Please, be well. Please treat yourself kindly. You are destined for great things in life, so promise me that you will never give up on your dreams. Please go to Japan even if I can't make it there. I will forever cheer for you and support you even from afar. Even from the very beginning, I have always been proud of you and I always will be. I am your number one fan, remember? Don't be sick. Do everything that you like. Don't skip your meals. Take extra good care of yourself. Please find the love that you failed to find in me. I hope that if you love again, she will give you all the love you truly deserve for the rest of your life. I hope she's the one. Most importantly, be happy all the time. Your happiness is mine too. And please don't worry about me, for I make sure to keep every single one of your reminders in mind. Of course, how can I forget my water?

These would be my last words, and I apologize for writing a lot. These are just 1/4 of the things I wanna tell you before you go. This may be lengthy, but these are nothing compared to what we've talked about during our time. I missed that already. Talking random geeky stuff with you and your random out-of-curiosity questions is one of the things I'd miss from us. I know what we had was a short-lived love story but it was so far the best I ever had in my entire life.

Thank you for allowing me to know you and for making my lonely life worthwhile. I firmly believe that we're fated to know each other. Also, thank you for letting me be vulnerable with you; for listening to all my nonsensical rants in life, for putting up with all my dramatic complaints, and even for all the weird things I love that you may not have understood. You felt warm and gentle to me. You treated me just the way I wanted to be treated. I will never think bad of you because you once made me happy and that's all I wanna remember from you.

I love you, my baby. Yes, I did and still do. I always have and always will. Parts of me will still love you no matter what happens and where life takes us. Always remember that, okay? Because this will be the last time I'll remind you of it. This would be my last "good morning" and "good night". You're forever in my thoughts and prayers.

Damian, I will remember you as the calming rain that brings me warmth and comfort. And just like our favorite sunset, we ended beautifully; full of love and hope.

P.S. If this isn't goodbye yet, then we're destined to finally meet soon. Hopefully, in Nihon.

Until then, my soulmate! 🤎

[storiesforallfandoms]

small world ~ corpse husband

word count: 2053

request?: yes!

“Can I get a Corpse x fem reader where reader an corpse are both streamers and they meet each other for the first time and realize they used to know each other as kids? I know Corpse has said that he didn’t have many friends when he was younger so maybe have it where reader was someone that was really nice to him? Sorry for the long request and thank you if you do it! 😊🖤”

description: he never would’ve thought that the new addition to their friend group would be someone from his past

pairing: corpse husband x female!reader

warnings: swearing

masterlist (one, two)

“Hey Corpse,” Karl said. Corpse hummed in response, focused on the drawing he was doing for their Jackbox game. “(Y/N) is also from San Diego. Do you know her?”

(Y/N) chuckled. “Karl, San Diego is pretty big. We’re not bound to know one another. Besides, just because he lives here doesn’t mean he grew up here.”

“I did grow up in San Diego actually,” Corpse said. “I don’t think we would’ve known each other though. Even if we happened to be in the same area, I didn’t talk to many people and I dropped out in the seventh grade.”

“I was, regrettably, popular in school,” (Y/N) added.

“Regrettably?” Karl asked.

“Yeah. Looking back, I hated being popular. I hated it when I was popular even. My friends were mega jerks and made fun of everyone, even me sometimes. I would try and make them be nice but they just let the popularity go to their heads. I haven’t spoken to any of them since we graduated. There was this sort of outcast in middle school I used to have a crush on. I tried to be friends with him, but he preferred to keep to himself. I always wished I had been friends with him because I feel like I would’ve been so much happier. I never saw him again either. I wonder whatever happened to him.”

Something about her story triggered a memory in Corpse. The year before he dropped out, there was a girl in is class who was always nice to him and tried to talk to him. He brushed it off as another way he was being made fun of. When it kept up, though, he realized she was likely being genuine. He still kept his distance, but he found himself gaining some feelings for her as well. When he dropped out, he never heard from her again.

I wonder where she is now, Corpse thought to himself. Man, what was her name?

Corpse accidentally gasped, drawing the attention of everyone in the Discord call.

“You good Corpse?” George asked.

“Y-Yeah,” Corpse responded. “Just uh...just realized I fucked up my idea a bit. No big deal, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

The game started prompting for everyone to show what they had created. Taking the opportunity of not having to speak, Corpse went to Google (Y/N)’s YouTube channel. She had come into the game as a friend of Karl’s and Corpse hadn’t heard of her channel, but now somethings were starting to click together.

The first thing that popped up with the top Google Image for (Y/N)’s channel name. It was a beautiful girl laying in a garden of flowers with a wide smile on her face. Corpse sucked in a breath as he realized that the girl in the picture looked familiar.

“Corpse,” came Karl’s voice, snapping Corpse out of his trance. “It’s your turn.”

“Sorry,” Corpse said. “I was distracted.”

The rest of the stream Corpse felt like he was in a daze. He continued to play the games and forced out laughs when he realized someone was making a joke. Every time (Y/N) spoke, he felt his heart flutter with excitement. He couldn’t believe that after all these years he had finally been reunited with her. And what was better was that she had actually admitted to having feelings for him too!

Don’t get too excited, he thought to himself. She said she used to have a crush on you. That was a very long time ago.

He tried not to seem too eager when the stream finally ended. He waited for someone else to leave the call first before he exited out of it himself. He waited another few minutes before messaging (Y/N) directly on Discord.

hey. it was fun playing with you tonight. weird request, but can we voice call maybe? just the two of us?

Corpse didn’t expect her to respond any time soon. It was late in San Diego, like nearly 3am late. Most people were going to bed by now. She had mentioned once during the stream that she was starting to get sleepy. He figured she’d see it in the morning and either call, or just ignore the message.

To his surprise, near seconds later, she was calling him.

“Hey stranger,” she said when he answered. “Long time, no speak. You must’ve missed my voice a lot, huh?”

Corpse chuckled. “Exactly, I really did.”

“Makes sense. I do have the best voice on the internet.” She laughed this time. It sounded like such a perfect sound. “For real though, is everything alright? Why did you want to call?”

How did he even tell her? Hey, so you know that outcast you liked? It was me! Surprise!

No, he couldn’t say that. Maybe she wouldn’t even remember, or maybe she wouldn’t believe him. He had to figure out some way to bring it up.

“I kind of wanted to talk more about your popular school days,” he said, trying to keep his voice light and teasing. “It’s not every day I meet a streamer who’s in my own area code. It would be nice to get to know someone who isn’t like a five hour drive away.”

“Oh!” She seemed excited by this response. Her excitement was almost contagious. “Okay, where should I start? The shitty friends or the shallow popularity?”

Corpse chuckled. “You pick.”

She talked for nearly an hour about her high school experiences with her popular friend group. Despite how much she despised being popular, (Y/N) still spoke with a light tone in her voice. She tried to bypass a lot of the more negative details and speak only of the good experiences she went though, which was nice to hear.

Corpse nearly jumped with excitement when she began to talk about middle school unprompted.

“It really was the last good years I had in school,” she admitted. “All my friends, the ones who went on to be super popular with me, they were nice then. Annoying, but all middle schoolers are. We didn’t care about popularity or social rankings. We were just...we were just kids. We didn’t even really know the difference between ‘losers’ and ‘popular’, which was why it was so easy for me to talk to that guy that I liked at the time. My friends weren’t mocking me for having feelings for an outcast.”

“You said you never saw that guy again,” Corpse said. “Do you know what happened to him?”

She sighed heavily. “No, I don’t. He just stopped showing up before we hit high school. I thought he moved, but I knew his mom and I saw her around everywhere. I don’t even remember his name anymore to look him up. Wherever he is, though, I hope he’s doing better. Even if they weren’t sucked completely into their popularity at the time, my friends and the other kids were still awful to him.”

“I feel that,” he said. “I wasn’t exactly the most liked kid in school. Before I dropped out I didn’t even have any friends.”

“That’s awful.”

“It wasn’t too bad. I’m not really a friendly person I don’t think. I’ve worked on it since that time, but the thought of trying to maintain a social relationship still gives me anxiety from time to time. There was one girl who tried to be friends with me the year before I dropped out though. She was nice.”

“What happened to her?”

Corpse smiled to himself. She would figure it out soon, he knew she would.

“I just didn’t hear from her after I dropped out,” he responded. “I guess that’s mainly my fault. I never reached out to her or anything, but I barley knew her name. Just her first time, and she never gave me a number or anything. I couldn’t look her up online. Maybe we just weren’t destined to be together.”

“I don’t know about that. Maybe you two were just right people, wrong time. Maybe you’ll cross paths again and finally have that opportunity to be friends with her again.”

“Maybe you’ll cross paths with that guy from your middle school, too.”

There was a prolonged silence. Corpse wondered if (Y/N) was starting to put the pieces together. He could barley even hear her breathe. The longer she went, the more worried he was becoming. He was about to say something when she finally spoke again.

“I made him a Valentine,” she said, her voice soft. “Special handmade one. He was the only one I gave it to. It had some really badly written, sappy poem in it. I watched him open it and...I really think he got emotional while reading it. Of course, he’d never tell anyone that.”

Corpse had gotten emotional over the Valentine (Y/N) had given him. It was the first real Valentine he had ever gotten. It wasn’t one of the generic ones that everyone gave out to every classmate so no one felt excluded. It was made from the heart, and that fact alone touched his. Like (Y/N) said, though, he didn’t let anyone know how emotional he had gotten. It would’ve just been more mental ammo for them to use to bully him.

He quickly got up from his chair, racing to his room where he had his box of memories shoved in his closet. It was little things from throughout his life that he kept in a shoebox. Whenever he felt particularly down or depressed, he would open the shoebox and look at all the things that made him smile.

At the very top of the box was (Y/N)’s Valentine.

He went back to his computer and took a picture of the Valentine using his phone.

“That sounds really nice,” he said as he went into the Discord app on his voice. “It must’ve meant a lot to him that you put so much time and effort into a handmade gift.”

“I don’t know if it did. I never got to ask him what his reaction was.”

“Oh, I’d bet anything he was happy.”

He sent the picture through Discord and waited for (Y/N) to open it. The silence between them felt deafening. The seconds felt like they had slowed to hours. He wondered what (Y/N)’s reaction would be. Maybe she’d be weirded out by the fact that Corpse kept the Valentine, or by the fact that Corpse was the middle school crush in general.

What if she’s upset that this is who I am now? he asked himself. What if her crush was just a middle school thing, and the moment you dropped out she moved on?

“I knew it.”

Corpse couldn’t help the smile on his face when he heard the slight excitement in (Y/N)’s voice.

“I knew it was you!” she continued. “Well, I didn’t know know, but when you asked me to call you I had a bit of a suspicion. I can’t believe it...it’s actually you!”

“It is me,” he confirmed. “And it’s you.”

“Small world we live in, huh?”

“Yeah, small world.” Do you still like me? Did you ever stop? Do you know that your kindness stuck with me for so long?

The silence returned. Corpse was starting to get sick of it, but he didn’t know how to fill the void between them. When he heard her yawn, he realized how late it had gotten. “I’ll let you go, you sound tired.”

“We just had this breakthrough and you’re asking me to sleep?!”

Corpse chuckled. “You have to sleep eventually, (Y/N). It’s like 3:30am, normal people sleep at this hour.”

“I am offended you would think I’m anywhere near normal.” She yawned again, cutting off her short lived rant. “But you’re right, I am tired. Listen...promise me you’ll answer when I call tomorrow. I...I’d really like to catch up. Maybe...to pick up where we left off.”

“Okay,” Corpse said, then realized that wasn’t really a response. “I promise. I’ll be waiting by the phone the moment I open my peepers.”

(Y/N) giggled. “I’ll be sure to call you the moment I open mine.”

“Goodnight (Y/N). Sleep tight.”

“Goodnight Corpse underscore Husband.”

kind of a bad ending, but i wasn’t really sure where else to go with it as i wrote it. sorry! :(

[machine-gun-casie]

Funnel Cakes, Ferris Wheels, And Some Feelings

anon: A fluffy best friends to lovers concept with MGK where he and the reader spend the day at the carnival and end up admitting their feelings for each other on the Ferris wheel👉🏼🥺👈🏼

wc: 2.3k

tw: bad driving, food, a tik tok song if u squint.

:: :: ::

“Colson, please.” You whined, dragging out the ‘please’.

“I already said no.” He spoke monotonously without looking up from his phone. You pouted and gave him your best puppy eyes. “Stop with that shit you do with your eyes. It’s cute, but it’s not cute enough.”

“Then what is cute enough?” You threw your head back to add to the dramatics. “I really wanna go, but a carnival is no fun alone. I mean, I’m guessing.”

“You’re guessing?” Colson raised his eyebrows at you and only slightly lowered his phone. “If you’ve never been to a carnival alone, now’s a great time.”

“No,” you laughed and shoved his shoulder, “I’ve never been to a carnival period.”

“You’ve never been to a carnival?!” Colson asked a little too loudly in disbelief. “How have you never been to a carnival?”

You shrugged and made that hum people do when they have no clue. “I figured since this one’s in town, we could go together.” You let out a long heavy sigh and flopped onto Colson, pulling out an ‘oomph’ from the blonde haired giraffe boy. “But if you really don’t wanna go…”

“Alright, get up.” The words were short and clipped, and Colson only pulled out this tone when he was serious.

“What? Are we going?” Sitting up a little too fast, you looked at Colson with eyes that were incredibly hopeful.

“Yes, we’re going. Go put on your shoes.” He nodded and pointed to your shoes by the door.

“Aaah!” You squealed obnoxiously loud and smiled when you saw Colson wince. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Colson pushed you farther away from him with a gentle kick of his legs against yours and closer to the door. “Go! Before I change my damn mind!”

“You’re no fun.” You pouted, dropping to the floor to put on your shoes.

“I’m taking you, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” You rolled your eyes but a soft smile slowly spread across your face. You jumped up and looped your arm through Colson’s when you were done, hugging his arm close to your chest. “Thank you.”

Colson noted the genuine sincerity in your voice and his demeanor softened as he led you out of the front door. You and him were always bickering, but everyone, including the two of you, knew that it was only playing around. “You know I was gonna take you as soon as you mentioned it, right?”

“I know. I’m just- yeah, I’m just thankful. For you.” You chuckled and shook your head, stopping in front of the car. “Fuck. That was really sappy, huh?”

“Oh yeah, way too fucking sappy.” Colson nodded, a teasing smirk on his face. He opened the passenger door for you and held out his hand to help you in. When you put your hand in his, he grasped it and pulled you closer. You let out a sigh as he pulled you into a hug, your arms around his waist and one of his was around your shoulders while the other cradled your head. He placed a chaste kiss to your forehead and smiled. “But sappy isn’t always bad.”

The car ride to the carnival was about as hectic as any car ride with Colson. A few red lights ignored here, a few fire hydrants almost crashed into there, and a long hearty giggle fest at the tree Colson almost burned down not that long ago. You arrived faster than the google maps approximation of an hour, L.A. traffic surprisingly not that bad. Still very very bad. But less so than usual.

“Alright!” Colson slapped his hand on the roof of the car as soon as you were parked and out of your seats. “Rule number one of carnivals: Funnel Cakes!”

He pointed towards a stall right past the ticket vendor, and he was clearly right as people flooded from the ticket vendor right up to the food truck.

“I think we need to get tickets first.” You chuckled, rounding the length of the car and reaching Colson. You grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the ticket vendor.

“I know that.” Colson rolled his eyes. “Aside from the obvious, there’s rules to going to a carnival.”

“Oh, is there?” You asked, humoring him.

“Definitely.” Colson nodded as seriously as he could. “You have to eat funnel cake, you have to go on the carousel, you have to win a huge ass teddy bear, and you have to end the night on the ferris wheel.”

“In that order?” You asked once you had secured your place in line at the ticket vendor.

“And no other order.”

“Does the bear go on the ferris wheel or does it wait on the ground?” You asked, always the logical one. “It could fit on the ferris wheel, right? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure I’d steal a huge ass teddy bear left unattended. Can’t blame someone else if they felt those same urges towards our future abandoned huge ass teddy bear.”

“You make some great points.” Colson nodded, moving forward in line. Now only three other couples stood ahead of you.

You mentally scolded yourself for the use of the word ‘other’. You were not a couple. Colson is your best friend. Nothing else. You weren’t even sure if he considered you his closest friend. He had so many, it was hard not to compare yourself to them. All the clips online, the videos he posts late at night, the stories he’s told you of wild nights out. You felt like you could never compare.

Colson was always so calm with you. Made you wonder, did he slow down his usual escapades for you? Were you holding him back?

“-if not, we’ll put it in the car.”

“Huh?” You furrowed your eyebrows as you shook yourself out of your thoughts.

“We can put the bear in the car if there’s no space on the ferris wheel.” Colson repeated himself, eyebrows furrowing like yours. “Where’d you go there?”

“Hmm? Oh, nowhere. Yeah, bear in the car if need be.” You looked ahead in the line and saw that there were now two couples in front of you. “You know, if you really don’t like carnivals, we can head back. We haven’t bought any tickets or anything-”

“Hey, woah, what?” Colson interrupted you. “No, you can’t do that to me! Now I’m excited to win you a huge ass teddy bear! We’re not going anywhere.”

“Alright alright, I was just making sure!” You defended yourself. You felt the blood rush to your ears at Colson’s words. He was gonna win you the teddy bear. Like a sappy movie. Yeah this was definitely not helping your feelings.

Tickets were bought soon after, and true to his word, Colson’s first order of business was buying each of you a funnel cake.

“With this, there’s something you gotta keep in mind.” You nodded for him to continue. “You do not think of how ginormous it is. You just eat that shit. Every last bite. You gotta finish it, even if it’s too much.”

“I don’t think I can eat the whole thing, it’s huge!” You held the extremely large deep fried web of cake up to show him how truly gigantic the serving was.

Colson opened his mouth to tell you ‘yes, you still have to finish it. no exceptions.’ But then he saw your face. Fuck. He really couldn’t say no to you, could he? “Fine, you can give the rest to me. But only ‘cause it’s your first time!” When you smiled and nodded, Colson felt a wave of joy course through him. And after that a shock wave of fear.

This was not the time nor the place for his romantic feelings for you to come up. He really thought that he had successfully shoved those feelings deep into the recesses of his mind, but alas their heads keep rearing back into the forefront of his brain. He felt wrong about the feelings he had for you. Almost like he was taking advantage of you. He felt like you would regret all the time you spent together if you found out that during every movie night, every late night grocery run, and every early morning drive, Colson had a raging boner of the heart for you. He chuckled because he knew that his phrasing would bring you to a giggling heap on the ground.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothin’.” He smiled to himself and looked down at his funnel cake.

“No, now you gotta tell me.” You smiled, glad to see that your best friend didn’t seem to hate being here. “Spill, hot stuff.”

Colson flushed at the nickname and cleared his throat. “Just thinking about how Case would have loved this place.”

“Yeah, I bet she would.” You mused as you looked around at all the kids running around. “You should bring her the next time she comes down here. If it’s still around, I’m not su-”

“We should.” Colson corrected you, stopping you mid sentence.

“Hm?”

“We should take her. Yeah, she’ll like it if I brought her to one of these.” He shrugged. “But she’d go crazy if you came too. She’s obsessed with you, you know?”

“I can’t blame her, I’m amazing.” You shrugged with a smirk.

“Ha ha ha.” Colson dusted off his hands and reached over to pop the last piece of your funnel cake into his mouth. “Get your ass up, it’s carousel time mother fucker!”

Carnival activities took more time than you thought. The games took time because of the long lines at every stall, and the rides took time because the operator couldn’t start them until most of the seats were filled. In conclusion, when Colson said that you were to end the night with the ferris wheel, you really didn’t think it would be dark out by the time you were lugging the huge ass teddy bear towards the colorful manifestation of the fear of heights.

Thankfully the ferris wheel had four seater booths, so the teddy bear you affectionately named Wild Boy got to ride with you. You sat him on the bench opposite you and Colson and fastened his seat belt just to be safe. Once you were settled and the ride started moving, you let out a content sigh.

“That was so much fun.”

“Yeah?” Colson asked, placing his arm around your shoulders. You nodded and pulled yourself closer into his side. “What was your favorite part?”

“Definitely when you wasted six tickets to get Mr. Boy over here.” You giggled.

“Hey!” Colson raised his hand a little. “How dare you say that was a waste. It was an honor using up six of our precious tickets. I don’t think you get it, y/n. I had to get you this big ass teddy bear.”

“You had to?” You asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yup.” He popped the p and nodded, looking straight ahead and trying his hardest to keep a neutral facial expression. “Them’s the rules.”

Your face broke out into a tightlipped smile as your giggled escaped as puffs of air through your nose. “Where is this rulebook of carnival trips?”

“Up here, baby.” Colson grinned, tapping his temple. “I haven’t gotten it published yet, but I don’t know if I will.”

“Mmm.” You hummed and nodded. “The information is too sacred for the public.”

There was a lull in the conversation, leaving you to review the last few spoken words between the two of you. You sat up a little straighter and furrowed your brows once you recalled Colson’s previous words.

“What?”

“Oh my god, did you,” you paused and turned to look at Colson, “did you call me baby?”

Colson had never called you that. Come to think of it, Colson has never called you anything but your name. Not that you were complaining, but the deviation certainly stood out to you. You couldn’t blame him really, you had to stop yourself from calling him something similar all day. Today’s activities felt almost too much like a date. But you thought you only felt like that because you had feelings for him.

Colson looked straight ahead and furrowed his brows in thought before he slowly turned to you. “Maybe.”

“Uh.” You felt a small smile sneak itself on your face.

“Is that okay?”

“Yeah, it’s cool. I like that.” You tried to respond nonchalantly, mentally face-palming yourself over the words you chose.

“Cool.” Colson smiled and relaxed, leaning back again.

You both stayed silent for a few moments, simply processing. Then you quickly snapped back to face Colson only to see that he had done the same thing.

“Wait, does that mean-”

“Fuck man, it better.”

Your eyes grew wide when you actually realized what just happened. You reached out and pulled Colson towards you so quickly that the ferris wheel booth you were sitting in shook. You looped your arms around his neck and quickly placed your lips on his. Before you could question whether or not he wanted this too, he grabbed you by the waist and pulled you closer to him, deepening the kiss.

When you pulled away, you saw that you were halfway through your trip on the ferris wheel, leaving you and Colson at the very top. “Holy shit, I’d like to quote Mod and say ‘movie.’”

Colson couldn’t help but agree. It was the most cinematic moment of the day.

“So you’re telling me, this whole fucking time-” Colson couldn’t help but chuckle. “I thought you liked Baze!”

“Baze?!” You gasped. “No! It’s been you, it’s been you for a long time.”

“Good, ‘cause it’s been you for a long time for me too.” Colson grinned. “Does that mean I can kiss you all the time now?”

“You never even have to ask.”

[chuckbass-love]

Intrusion | Andy Barber

A/N : I’m so excited to be entering my first ever writing challenge on this blog. This is probably the first of many entries and i hope everyone enjoys. This is for the Shameless Hoes for Chris challenge. Feedback is welcomed and encouraged, it’ll help me improve. 

Disclaimer: My work is not to be posted anywhere else other than MY Tumblr, Wattpad and Ao3 without my permission. However, reblogs are welcome.

Thank you so much for doing this challenge @stargazingfangirl18​ & @navybrat817​ enjoy...

Pairing : Andy Barber x Reader

Word count : 2,462

Summary : You accidentally walk in on Andy naked...

Warnings : explicit language, sexual content and smut. 18+ 

I used scenario prompt 13. ‘Accidentally seeing the other naked’

GIF NOT MINE!!! Credit to whoever made this gif, if anyone knows who made it pls let me know so I can give credit. I genuinely just search gifs up on google and I never manage to find out where the original gif is from bc of so many people re posting gifs. I never wanna give credit to the wrong person! So if this gif is yours or if it’s someone you know then let me know and I’ll credit them. Thank you💗

It’s Friday afternoon and you’re stuck at work in the last meeting of the day before you get to go home and relax for the weekend. 

You’ve got plans to hang out with your neighbour Andy tonight. The two of you got rather close once him and Laurie split, he got quite lonely in that house which was understandable. 

You recall the time you saw him get takeout for the third time that week and you couldn’t stand the sight of it. So you made some lasagne and took it over to him in an oven dish. 

He was beyond grateful for the kind gesture and even invited you in to eat with him to which you gladly accepted.

Ever since the two of you have developed quite the friendship. He wasn’t ready for anything romantic so despite your little crush on him, you decided it was never going to happen. You had gotten used to it being strictly platonic. 

You always had plans with him every Friday night and tonight was no exception. Tonight is movie night at his place.

“Right okay, that’ll be all then guys” your boss calls out, breaking you from your daze. You have to admit, you didn’t pay attention during that meeting. Hopefully it wasn’t anything too important though.

You gather your stuff and head back to your office to collect your bag before heading out to your car. Once you reach it you check your phone to find a text from Andy.

‘Hey, just checking we’re still on for tonight. I’m gonna jump in the shower, back door is unlocked so let yourself in’

You smile down at your phone before starting the car and driving out of the parking lot. Once you reach your road and pull onto the drive next to your house, you contemplate showering first before going over but decide against it. Instead you walk across the road to Andy’s, going straight to his backdoor. 

You notice some popcorn on the kitchen counter, he must’ve picked that up on his way home. You start to wonder around whilst you wait but he seems to be taking forever. 

Surely he wasn’t still showering, he must have been in there for 30 minutes now. You wonder over to the staircase and start climbing, noticing that the shower isn’t on and you don’t hear any noise coming from the second floor.

“Andy, are you in he- OH SHIT” you curse as you walk into his room to find him stood there butt naked. You quickly rush out of the room and run downstairs. You’re utterly mortified. You can’t imagine he’s feeling any different.

Well, now you’ve seen your friend naked. Guess you can tick that one off the old list of things to do. You put the popcorn bag into the microwave and stand there in shock, attempting to process the sight that stood before you no less than a minute ago.

As much as you hate to admit it, the crush you had on him was still very much present now. Walking in on him naked has not helped in the slightest. You can’t get over his body, hell even his dick is huge. Just like you always imagined it to be. 

You try to wash away the impure thoughts, luckily for you, you’re snapped out of them by his voice.

“So... about that” 

“That was my fault, i’m sorry. I just wondered where you were. I shouldn’t have snooped” you ramble.

He lets out a deep sigh, walking over to you. You get the popcorn out and pour it into a bowl before walking away from him and into the living room. You plop yourself down onto the couch, seconds later he joins. 

“What movie have you picked?” you ask, in hopes that he’ll drop the awkward subject. Thankfully he does. 

“I chose American Psycho” one of your all-time favourites. You grin at his suggestion as he sets it up on the tv.

“I love this movie” you kick your feet up onto the couch, your skirt riding up your thighs slightly but not enough to give anything away.

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

The credits roll up and you yawn and stretch, moving the bowl to the coffee table in front. It’s been a long week at work and tired is an understatement, you are well and truly shattered.

You sit upright and turn to Andy who is looking back at you, his lips curling into a smile.

“What?” you giggle nervously, unsure of what he’s smiling at.

“You just look really good” you both freeze, did he really just say that? You sit there for a second, not sure of how to respond to him but soon enough the sarcasm comes.

“Well, don’t i always?” you flick your hair in a sassy motion, he chuckles “I can’t deny that” is this what you think it is? is he hitting on you?

“Anyways, i bet-”

“Did you like what you saw?” you know exactly what he means but you decide to play dumb.

“I’m sorry what?”

He shuffles closer to you on the couch, closing the space. 

“You know what i mean, did you like my body earlier, when you walked in on me?” you try to fight the smile that tugs at the corners of your mouth but it’s no use, your cheesy grin comes out to play and you feel your cheeks heat up.

“I’ll take that as a yes then” he traces his finger over your bare arms until he reaches your shoulder. His mouth soon replaces his finger as he presses a kiss to your shoulder, then moving the kiss to your neck, then jawline and then finally he reaches your mouth.

Your faces are inches apart and you can feel his breath hitting you, you can’t help yourself anymore. You tried but failed. You crash your lips to his passionately. All your feelings for him come out in the kiss, you can just tell he feels it.

His kiss is rough and nasty but also intimate and loving all at once. You feel like you see fireworks going off in your mind, like all of time is standing still for the two of you. 

You get the impression that he’s wanted this for a long time, just like you.

You break away and your chests are heaving.

“That was one hell of a kiss” you pant, he releases a small laugh, nodding his head in agreement to your statement.

“I’ll admit, i’ve wanted to do that since the moment i first met you” you just give a look as if to say ‘i know’

You can’t believe your ears though, you felt it but to hear him say it out loud is something else entirely. 

“I’ve had a crush on you for so long” you look everywhere but his eyes, you feel nervous now, really, really nervous.

“I know” you cover your face with your hands, had you made it that obvious?

“You actually admitted it to me when we were drinking once. I ignored it because i wasn’t in any position to act upon it despite feeling the same. But i’m more than ready to act upon it now” you make direct eye contact with him and within seconds, he pulls you onto his lap so you’re straddling him.

He grabs a hold of your hair, pulling your head back as his mouth attacks your sweet spot. You feel him start to bite down, almost as though he intends to mark his territory. Like you belong to him now.

You let out a breathy moan, biting down on your lip at the intense feeling, he’s not holding back. You were sure to wake up with more than just a couple of hickeys in the morning but none of that matters right now. You want to live freely in this moment.

“Let’s take this elsewhere” he stands up and your legs wrap around his torso.

He makes sure the doors are locked before taking you to his room and throwing you down on the bed like you don’t weigh a thing.

He removes his shirt and pants, leaving him in just his boxers. You can see the huge situation forming and you can’t help but lick your lips at the sight and thought of him eventually being inside of you.

“Now, let’s remove this shall we?” he tugs at your blouse, you untuck it from your skirt and he rips it off your skin. That’s one blouse you won’t be wearing again. 

“I’ll buy you a new one” he mutters whilst sliding your skirt down to reveal your red laced panties.

A grunt leaves his mouth as he removes them too, exposing how soaked you are for him. You spy his dick getting harder and harder.

“All this for me baby?” you hum in response, desperate for him to touch you.

“Please Andy” you whimper underneath him.

“Please what?” you prop yourself up onto your elbows “touch me” you beg, he smirks down at you.

He starts peppering kisses along the inside of your thigh, teasing you until he’s inches away from your sex. You try to buck your hips up but he pushes you down.

“Patience baby girl” he warns and you relax onto the bed, awaiting his touch.

It feels like you’ve been waiting forever but just when you go to speak up his mouth starts sucking on your clit and he slides two fingers inside of you, without a warning.

“Ah yes, just like that” your eyes roll to the back of your head, the pleasure he’s giving you consumes you entirely. He’s skilled, you gotta give it to him.

“Please fuck me daddy” did you really just say that? You feel the touching come to a halt and he crawls his way back up so he’s face to face with you.

“Daddy huh?” you open your eyes to find a cocky expression plastered across his face.

“I’m sorry-”

“You want daddy’s cock huh? Well then you’re gonna have to beg for it sweetheart” you gulp, his mere presence turns you on and is words only make matters worse. You feel shivers run down your spine. 

“Please daddy, please fuck me” you put on your seductive voice, spreading your legs wider for him and reaching your hand down to palm him through his boxers. You then use your other hand to rub at your clit.

“I need it, so badly” your eyes go wide, your teeth tug at your bottom lip. You know for certain that he’ll give in now. Sure enough... he does. 

He sighs as he watches you beg for him, he can’t hold it any longer. He gets off the bed to rid himself of his boxers. His face returns to it’s position between your legs and his tongue licks up your folds, stealing one last taste of you. 

“You taste so sweet” you giggle at him, pulling him up the bed.

You pump his hard cock a couple of times before urging him to bring it closer to your entrance. He tuts at your desperate state, taking your hands, lifting them above you and pressing them down into the mattress.

“No touching”

You feel his tip pushing at your tight hole and all of a sudden he rams himself into you, shifting you up the bed.

“Oh fuck” you curse as he stretches you out but the pain soon gets replaced by mind blowing pleasure. Your back arches and you try to remove your hands from his grip but you fail.

“Is this what you’ve wanted all this time?” thrust “to be fucked like this, fucked like the dirty girl you are” thrust “bet you walked in on me on purpose, wanted to see me all exposed” thrust. You wrap your legs around him, signalling for him to go deeper. Your wish is his command.

He releases your hands and you hold onto his biceps. He grips your legs, forcing them all the way back to your head.

“Andy, fuck” this new angle is allowing him better access, he’s hitting your cervix repeatedly. You know you won’t be able to last long if this goes on. You clench down onto his length, earning a grunt from him.

“Such a tight fucking cunt. That’s it, cum on this cock princess” his words push you closer and closer to your peak. You always guessed he was a talker in the bedroom and hearing it now is a million times better than all those nights you imagined it whilst touching yourself.

“Keep going, i’m gonna cum daddy” you whine, digging your nails into his biceps, the sharp pain causes him to jolt slightly, he only uses the pain to fuck into you harder. The sound of his skin slapping against yours mixed with your combined moans is like heaven to your ears. All your fantasies about this moment were nothing like this, this was better in every way.

With every thrust, moan and hit to your cervix your toes start to curl a little more. You feel it, it’s coming.

“FUCK” you release all around him, clenching down harder than ever before. Your back arches, your now chest to chest. He sits up, leaning back and pulling you with him. You’re now straddling him, you clench down again, milking him for all that he’s got.

He twitches inside of you and you feel his hot seed fill you up. You throw your head back and he wraps his arms around your body, squeezing you tight.

You stay like that for a couple of minutes, allowing you both time to ride out your intense highs. He eventually lifts you off of him and you both fall down onto the bed. 

“Well that was quite something” you both burst out into laughter.

He stands up, walking over to the bathroom and whilst his back is turned you can’t help but check out his ass. He was definitely a sex god, sculpted to perfection.

“Here, let me clean you up” he bends down to wipe up the mess the pair of you made before cleaning himself up too.

You can’t believe that just happened. It happened so quickly, you’re still in shock.

He joins you in bed, pulling you onto his chest and his arm drapes around your shoulder. He starts tracing his finger along your back, making you shiver.

“You up for staying the night because i’d quite like to do that again in the morning” a smile forms on both of your faces as you lean your chin on his chest, looking up into his eyes. 

“I’d love to”

You stay like that for a a while before eventually drifting into a deep slumber. It finally happened. You feel so happy.

[katnissmellarkkk]

Andddd here’s my chappy three thoughts 🥳🥳🥳

Hmmm Katniss saying that her mother has a dress made of velvet is actually really interesting because it shows that Mrs. Everdeen Lily-Rose really was well-er off before she married Katniss’ father Hunter.

Or did she get the velvet dress from Maysilee? Oh well, who knows.

Aww, Katniss’ nervous habit of touching soft things repeatedly to soothe herself 🤧🤧.

“Crying is not an option. There will be more cameras at the train station.” — someone tell that to Peeta 🤣🤣🤣.

Okay I gotta stop picking on Primmers, I know but like. How small is she that she sits on Katniss’ lap like a toddler but then in the following year is the same height as her? Doesn’t matter I know but still I wonder.

Okay so Mrs. E is the doctor for the people of the Seam? Idk I never thought about this but who does people like Peeta or Madge or Delly go to if they’re sick or hurt? Is there a still running apothecary shop that Katniss never mentions? Are her grandparents still running the family biz?

Also okay, I gotta stop having so many thoughts on all the lil details I know but like. Katniss says here she’s familiar with the herbs her mother doesn’t grow on her own so like a). Katniss is more of a healer than she leads on because no average person knows what kind of plant is medicinal and b). Her mother is just growing herbs and Katniss never mentions it again in the whole series? Or I just missed it.

Okay imma move on from this one singular paragraph but Gale and her made a pact a year ago that they’ll supply each other’s family with game if they were to be reaped... I’m feeling like their close friendship is probably only one year old then? Idk. Just my interpretation.

Honestly I love Katniss getting mad at her mom here.

She’s sixteen, for God’s sake, of course she’s angry at what her mother’s illness put her through.

Also I lowkey like that her mother got mad back because that lady in the movies had zero personality.

“Boys who are two to three times my size.” She sounds so little, omg 🥺🥺🥺.

“I don’t care if we’re rich, I just really want you to come home” 🤧🤧🤧😩😩😩😩 okay Primmers, you got me here.

“the Peacekeeper is at the door, signaling our time is up, and we're all hugging one another so hard it hurts and all I'm saying is ‘I love you. I love you both.’ And they're saying it back...” this is so sad leave me be 😫😫😫😫

Katniss is burying her face in a pillow to block out her emotions this is too much for me 🥵🥵🥵

Omg I forgot Peeta’s father visits Katniss 😅

Why does he visit Katniss?

She describes Peeta’s father as a “big, broad-shouldered man.” And then describes Peeta as stocky. Idk the comparison of the two descriptions has always led me to think Peeta is gonna be a big dude when he grows up like his father. This made no sense and had zero correlation but I thought, so I said it, no regrets

Oh he brought her cookies 🤧

WAIT WAIT WAIT. I just had a new thought, y’all. What if instead of the baker bringing cookies being a thing he does for all tributes, what if he’s bringing the cookies because Peeta asked him to, because he made them and wants to give them to Katniss and knows she’ll never accept / trust them coming from her competition? What if that’s the real reason the baker visited her in the first place? Because Peeta asked him to? This was such a shipper comment but idc, no regrets, remember?

Omg Peeta’s father is just mute 🤣🤣🤣

Between an abusive, angry mother and a mute for a father, the Mellark brothers must have had a fairytale of a childhood 😅😅😅😅.

But seriously #PoorPeetaMyBaby

Aww Peeta’s father is gonna help keep Prim alive 😭

Omg I just remembered he’s her mother’s ex boyfriend. Haidon Mellark, as I named him in my fics.

That one fic where he was thought to be Prim’s real father is just playing now in my head, rent free.

But does Katniss not realize that he may be offering to help Prim as a favor to her? Like she claims Prim is just so wonderful people adore her but there’s like zero evidence in the text that make her endearing? Okay I need to turn this bus around, I need to find a love for Primmy Deen.

Madge is not one for preamble apparently. No “hi, how are you? I’m sorry you’re gonna die? What will your last meal be?” Just right to “here, wear this family heirloom of mine, k thanks.”

I like that Madge had to kiss her cheek for Katniss to realize they were friends 😅😅😅.

I remember always loving her and Gale’s hug here. I’ve always felt like it was platonic, but especially when I first read the books and had zero preference one way or another for Gale or Peeta, I really liked how she said even with nothing romantic between them, “when he opens his arms, I don’t hesitate to go to him” or something I’m paraphrasing ok I’m lazy

Also though, this is the first time they’ve ever hugged? Idk why that surprises me? It shouldn’t because where is a hug gonna fit into a hunting trip 😅🤣😂 “I just caught a deer!” “let’s celebrate with a hug!”

I like that Katniss remembers how her father even failed to make a good bow sometimes. Random, I know.

I like that the Capitol weren’t entertained by the people freezing to deaths because it wasn’t bloody enough 🤭🙃

“How different can it be [to kill a human vs an animal]?” She’s about to find out, Gale 🥺. And when she comes back you won’t understand 🙄😔

What did Gale want to say before the Peacekeepers dragged him away?

I used to think it was a confession of love but I’m actually sure it wasn’t now? Just the wording “remember I-“ doesn’t sound like it, considering he never confessed anything prior to her coming home.

I’m assuming now he was just gonna give her some more advice to stay alive 🤷🏼‍♀️. Clearly if it were relevant it would have made its way to the others books.

Aww, she’s never been inside a car before 😭😭. I didn’t even know they had cars in this universe but okay.

I notice though how she says “In the Seam, we travel on foot.” So is Peeta just riding his trolly down the street every day with the other merchants then? 🤣

Peeta just openly crying on camera 😅😢.

I like how Katniss is like “ooo is this an act to get sponsors?” when in reality Peeta’s like “no, I’m just a soft and genuine boy ™️”

Omg I just realized this totally goes along with Peeta’s thing later on “I want to die as myself”

He’s refusing to hold back his emotions because he thinks he’s doomed to die and he’s already refusing to pretend to be or feel something ingenious.

But a Johanna mention in book 1 chapter 3 woohoo 🥳🥳🥳 also Katniss comparing Jo and Peeta is kind of like foreshadowing of their shared torture in book 3.

Omg she just called Peeta broad-shouldered and strong. 🥰🥰🥰 my headcanon for his post-canon body is confirmed

Also why does Katniss keep allotting his strength to carrying bread trays around? Are they heavy? Why have I never once heard of people who carry bread trays being strong? I always thought Peeta was really strong because he learned to fight in order to defend himself against his mother but that’s probably wrong.

But if a mother is abusive, it can lead to one of the kids being physically violent as well and we know Peeta isn’t but he has two older brothers I’m gonna cut myself off now but I think we all smelled what I just stepped in.

Also I just find it so fascinating now how she regards herself vs Peeta here.

When talking about herself, she says, “The competition will be far beyond my abilities. [...] Oh, there'll be people like me, too. People to weed out before the real fun begins.” But when she talks about Peeta, she immediately says, “It would take an awful lot of weeping to convince anyone to overlook him.”

It’s just funny how she discounted herself right from the start but thought he was a real contender and then come to find out, Peeta believes it’s the exact opposite 😂🙃. They’re both so stupid I can’t even take it.

Wait did they actually give the location of the Capitol and the location of District Twelve in today’s world? And I just overlooked it? Brb I’m gonna go to google maps right quick.

Okay so basically what I gathered is the Capitol is probably in New Mexico and District Twelve is somewhere between Kentucky and Alabama. Irrelevant I know. But just a reminder now to everyone that Katniss and Peeta are literally speaking, crying and screaming in thick, backwoods southern accents.

It’s literally so sad how everything for Katniss is about food. Like every motive she has, every action she does is about preventing starvation ever again. 🤧🤧🤧

First mockingjay mention 🤭🤭.

“My father was particularly fond of mockingjays” 😭😭😭 I bet he was 😭😭😭😭

We always go on and on about how Katniss is a mockingjay or her children are mockingjays but Katniss herself here says mockingjays represent her father imma cry, y’all 😫😫😫😫

“It’s like having a piece of my father with me, protecting me” shut up shut up shut up shut up

Awww, Katniss has never had food like this before 😔😔😔

Neither has Peeta 🤧🤧

Katniss disliking the way Effie put the two kids from the year before down and so began to eat like a pig just to prove her point, is so her. And the beginning of her fighting for the underdog.

Omg the Rue introduction 🥺🥺🥺

Bahahahaha the commenters calling District Twelve backwards but charming 😅😅😅 they really are the hillbilly district

Peeta’s unexpected laugh 🥺🥺🥺 I love you, baby

“He was drunk. He’s drunk every year.” “Every day.” Katniss and Peeta are already finishing each other’s sentiments and teaming up to get on Effie’s nerves I love them so much 😍

Oh my God, Effie, you selfish jerk. They’re kids having fun for like one second, no need to throw in their faces they’re gonna die if the drunk won’t help them. I’d forgotten why I don’t really like the book version of her. I actually prefer her as comedic relief in the movies.

I actually just realized I really dislike Effie Trinket, I hope they never speak to her again Post-Mockingjay. Idc how you’re raised you don’t need to treat teenagers who are sentenced to a probable death badly just because they laughed at you 🙄🙄🙄😡😡😡😡. They didn’t even really laugh at her, she’s just annoying and awful, we don’t stan Effie in this household.

Okay, that’s all for my thoughts on chapter three! Until next time, y’all ! If anyone actually read this long mess of a post.

[atlafan]

My Everything - Part Three

A Take it Slow Sequel

What happens with Harry and Y/N after he proposes? How will the two navigate the engaged life while also continuing to juggle their jobs, friends, and families? Let’s find out.

Warnings: Fluff and Smut.

a/n: not proofread fam, I didn’t have the strength.

Masterpost

“Oh!” You pause the TV.

“Y/N! It’s the middle of the second season finale are you fuckin’ kidding?!”

“I forgot to tell you something earlier.” You giggle.

“Alright, what is it?”

“Our new intern goes to my college, my undergrad, and he’s part of the film club, the one I helped create when I was a student, and he asked me to come to a meeting next Thursday. Would you wanna come with me? The meeting itself is at like 8PM, but I thought we could go beforehand, I could give you a little tour…”

“He asked you to come to a meeting?”

“Yeah! He wants me to like explain what I do now, and how being the film club helped me in a professional sense. He’s even going to email the director of alumni relations to see if they’ll do an article on me for the alumni magazine, but I doubt they will.”

“Why not? You’re incredibly successful, and didn’t you say an alum helped you get the job? I bet once you tell them that they’d feature you. You could talk about how important the alumni network is.”

“Harry!” You squeal and tackle him down, kissing him all over his face. He starts laughing underneath you.

“What? What?” He could barely breathe from your sudden affection.

“You’re so cute when you’re being supportive.” You nuzzle into his neck and he rubs your back.

“Well then I must be cute all the time then, huh?”

“Mhm.”

//

You forgot how beautiful your campus could be in the fall. Even though it was in the city, it had some beautiful parks and pathways. After work you had changed into a pair of jeans and a blouse. You didn’t want to look too fancy. You showed Harry different buildings where you had class, and the dorm you lived in freshman year. You both decide to go eat at a pub you used to love.

“Harry, it’s okay, have a beer if you want.”

“But I feel bad…”

“I really don’t mind. I’m fine with the seltzer water.” You smile reassuringly and he order the beer.

Once you’re done with everything you walk him around some more. You show him where you lived sophomore year, and then start walking towards the building where the film club meeting is. You see a group of people walking towards you and you gasp.

“No fucking way.” You groan and hide slightly behind Harry.

“What?”

“Nothing, we just need to walk very fast by-“

“Y/N?” A man says.

“Shit.” You say under your breath. “Um, Chris?”

“What are you doing here?!” He goes to hug you but you clutch at Harry.

“I was invited to a film club meeting…what are you doing here? I thought you graduated…”

“I did! I’m an RD.” He smiles and looks at Harry.

“Sorry, uh, this is my fiancé, Harry.”

“Hey, mate.” They shake hands.

“Wow! Congratulations. Well I won’t keep you. We should catch up sometime.”

“Sure.” You give him a fake smile and keep walking. “Gag me.”

“Who was that?”

“A guy I hooked up with like once, and he wouldn’t leave me alone. It took me going to California for him to stop asking me to come over. It was so annoying. Like take a hint dude.”

“Why didn’t you wanna hook up with him again?” Harry asks with a laugh.

“Oh, like you would always hit it twice.”

“Good point.” He smirks. “Suppose I don’t blame him, I mean, I’ve seen what that ass looks like when it’s bouncing up and down on my cock, I’d probably want you to come over again too.”

“Harry!” You smack him in the arm, making him laugh. “One beer at dinner and you’ve gone all goofy.”

“I’m just teasin’.” He throws his arm around your shoulders as you continue your walk to the building.

“Here it is, let me just text Zach that we’re here.” You both wait a few minutes, and Zach comes out to open the door.

“Hi, Y/N! Thanks again for coming, everyone is really excited. You must be Harry.” He smiles and shakes Harry’s hand. You both walk into the building. “Y/N talks about you all the time, it’s so cool that you have your own photography studio. I bet you could show some of these guys a thing or two.”

Harry liked Zach so far, he seemed polite and genuine.

“All the time, huh?” He nudges you.

“Not all the time, only when it’s relevant.”

Zach leads you into the room you knew very well. It was a computer lab you used to hold your film club meetings in. There was a screen, projector, white boards, all things you and your friends needed to have productive meetings.

“Hey, everyone!” About fifteen or so students turn to look at you and Harry. “This is Y/F/N Y/L/N and her fiancé Harry, Y/N graduated in 2017 and she’s one of my supervisors at my internship. She is one of the founding members of this club!” They all clap for you, and you’re a little surprised. “Come on in, tell them about yourself, what you do.”

You step further into the room so you can see everyone clearly.

“Thanks Zach, um, hi everyone!” You say brightly. “I’m feeling really nostalgic right now since I used to have my meetings in here too. We worked on so many cool projects, and my sophomore year we even made a short film that I stared in.” Harry’s eyebrows raise. He didn’t know you were in front of the camera as well as behind it.

“That’s why you look so familiar! At the beginning of every school year we watch a ton of past projects. You played the girl that went missing right?” A students says.

“Yeah, that was me.” You laugh.

“And you made that one about the purple pencil, that cracks me up.” Another says.

“Yes…that one was like a film challenge that the president at the time had us do. It was a lot of fun. Being in this club really took me out of my comfort zone. I never would’ve learned how to properly use a camera for filming or even taking pictures if it weren’t for film club. I have a job in marketing now where I get to edit video and sound clips, and I even supervise part of our social media department now. I really enjoy what I do.”

“Y/N was able to do well in her interview because another alum was already working there, and gave her some tips.” Zach explains.

“That’s right. It’s really important to know who your alums are, that’s why LinkedIn is so crucial.”

“Could you pull yours up?” A student asks.

“Sure! If that’s something everyone wants to see…”

They all agree and Zach logs onto the computer that’s connected to the projector. Harry takes pictures of you while you’re going over your LinkedIn.

“I think the best advice I could give is just don’t be afraid to try things. If you want to get better at something you need to practice. I went from using Windows Movie Maker, to iMovie, and now I use Adobe Premiere. It’s okay if things take time, and if there is something you want to do and you’re not sure how, don’t be afraid to Google it. I remember I had no idea how to do like a slow zoom, and I just looked it up and it was super easy to get the hang of. Create the content you’d want to watch, and have fun with it.” You smile.

A few students ask you some questions, and you end up giving out some of your business cards, good thing you brought them. Some students wanted to be able to reach out to you for resume help.

“Thanks again for coming. I’m gonna put another bug in the director’s ear. I think this is something that should be in the magazine. Oh! Do you plan to come to Homecoming Weekend?” Zach asks.

“Um.” You blink. “God, I haven’t gone to Homecoming since I was a student myself.” You snort.

“It’s alumni weekend too, you should come. I’ll be working at the alumni table, then I could introduce you.”

“When is it?”

“First weekend of October.” You look up at Harry. He looks at the calendar on his phone.

“Think I’m free…” He says.

“We could certainly try to swing by…that’s like next weekend…I have some friends that might wanna come too.”

“I can send you an email with the registration link and with all the activities for the weekend. It’s a lot of fun, as I’m sure you remember.”

“Yeah, I sort of participated in different activities…” You blush.

“Well either way.” He shrugs.

“I’ll let you know at work if we’ll be able to go. This was a lot of fun though, I’ll come back any time.”

You say goodbye to everyone, and walk out hand in hand with Harry.

“You’re really good at explaining things.” He says to you.

“What do you mean?”

“Like…you never got frustrated, or annoyed. Some of their questions were stupid, I easily would’ve gotten aggravated.”

“They don’t know what they don’t know.”

“All I’m saying is, like, ten years from now I could see you bein’ a professor or somethin’. You’ll have your MEd, you could teach an online class as a TL and see how you like and then go from there. You love learning, Y/N, why not get paid to do it?”

“I think I could see that for myself, but yeah, ten years from now. I’m curious to see how I could keep moving up at work. It would be weird to leave there. I mean, I know people don’t stay at the same place for thirty years anymore…but it would be sad to go. Plus I would miss Niall way too much.”

“Yeah, but he could easily find another job if he wanted. You shouldn’t stay somewhere just because your friends are there.”

“Says the person that persuaded the two friends he made at work to follow him to his studio.” You nudge him playfully.

“Alright you got me there, but seriously, don’t use him as an excuse.”

“I know, you’re right. Let me actually get the Med first, and then I’ll start thinking about things I wanna do years from now, okay?”

“Sounds good to me.”

You both get into your car and head home.

“So I know we like just got engaged, but I was thinking while the weather is still nice it might not be a bad idea to start lookin’ at some potential spots we’d wanna get married at…” You could tell he was slightly nervous to bring it up.

“I think that’s a good idea. I think you and I need to sit down and consider a budget before we hop in the car and start looking. We need to do some research online.”

“That money you wouldn’t let me pay you I was thinking could go towards the wedding.”

“Harry.” You sigh. “Shouldn’t that money go back towards the business? Or couldn’t it be saved for a holiday bonus for Mariah and Isaac.”

“I have money set aside for that already.” He says matter of factly. “You won’t let me pay you, and that’s money you’ve earned. So we should use it towards something.”

“Fine.”

“At least we’ll save money on a photographer. Mariah’s really talented.”

“I know! She’s great at capturing the moment. Did you want her to be the one to take the photos?”

“Considering how Lou’s probably going to be my best man, she’s the only other person I would trust.”

“That’s so cute you both are gonna be each other’s best men.” You giggle. “I sort of had an idea for Niall.”

“I’d really rather him be in my wedding party, he’s been my friend longer, and-“

“Actually, I don’t want him in either of our wedding parties.” You pull into the parking garage and you both get out.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he’s the whole reason we’re together right?”

“Yeah.”

“So…why not let him be the one to make it official?” Harry stops short when you get into the lobby of your building.

“You want him to officiate the wedding?”

“Yeah…it just feels right.” You shrug. You both get into the elevator. “What do you think?”

“I think I need to make sure I’m filming when we tell him because he’s gonna cry.” Harry smiles. “It’s a great idea, Y/N.”

“We should pick up a little gift for him, or like take him to dinner.”

“Ohhh, I like that.” He kisses your cheek as you both enter your apartment.

Buster greets the two of you, he was doing much better. You both sit down on the sofa and flip the TV on.

“Who were you thinkin’ for your wedding party then?”

“Well, it’s going to be really hard to pick a maid of honor…it always supposed to be Kate. I was her, you know? But obviously that’s not happening. I don’t know how I’d be able to choose between Sarah and Rachel.” You sigh. “I’m equally close with them…I’ll have to talk to them about it and see what they think, honestly. I don’t want anyone’s feelings getting hurt.” Harry nods. “Then my sisters would be in the party too, El of course.” You think a bit more. “That might actually be it. I have other girlfriends, but I don’t need a ton of bridesmaids. What about you?”

“Louis, obviously, Mitch…him and Sarah said congrats by the way I completely forgot to tell you. I was thinking of maybe askin’ Isaac…I’d like my sister to be in my party too.”

“Aw, that would be so cute! Oh, and I bet by the time we actually do get married Michael will be able to walk all on his own, he could be like the flower boy or something.”

“That would be really cute. Didn’t you say you wanted it to be kind of Jewish too? Like you wanted someone there to bless us?”

“My cantor from my old temple, yeah…but we don’t have to if that’s too formal.”

“No, I think it would be nice to add in there. I just don’t wanna wear the little hat if that’s okay.”

“Don’t worry.” You laugh. “You don’t have to wear the little hat.” You burst out laughing.

“What?” Harry laughs.

“I was just picturing Gemma walking one of my sisters down the aisle.” You wipe tears from your eyes. “We’ll really have to figure all this out soon.”

“That would be pretty funny.” He puts his arm around you and pulls you close. “It’s nice talkin’ about this without it bein’ hypotheticals, like, this is really happening.” He kisses your forehead.

“I know, I’m really excited, babe.” You give him a quick peck. “We just need to get through Erica’s wedding and Lou and El’s.”

“I know, a lot is gonna happen all at once.” He sighs. “Lou’s is before your sister’s though, June if I’m remembering from the save the date correctly.”

“Yeah, and Erica’s is in July, I could kill her.”

“Why?” He chuckles.

“Because it’s going to be the dead of summer, we’re going to look sweaty and gross. And of course she’s getting married at some farm, so it’s gonna be all humid and blah.” You groan. “Whatever makes her happy I suppose. I’m just glad Mike finally asked her, took him long enough.”

“Everyone does everything in their own time, baby. Weren’t they really young when they first got together?”

“Yeah she was a senior in high school, and he was out of school for a couple of years…it was a pretty cute way they met. She was working at a RiteAid at this outlet mall, and he was working at Game Stop, and I guess he would go to RiteAid like every day for a snack on his lunch break, and he would say hi to everyone but her, so one day she gave him shit for it and they started talking. Turns out his aunt was our neighbor and we had like played with him when we were kids and didn’t even know. And his older sister was best friends with Bridget when they were in high school.”

“Wow, small world.”

“Right?”

“That is a pretty cute story, but I like ours better.”

“Oh, you do?”

“Yeah, I mean, how romantic is it that a mutual friend set us up, and we had this really great dinner date?”

“It’s pretty romantic, doll.” You yawn. “Yikes, I’m tired. I’m glad tomorrow’s Friday.”

“Me too, let’s head to bed.” He stretches as he stands and follows you to the bedroom.

//

It felt so good to sleep in Saturday morning. You stretch as you sit up, and start to get out of bed, but Harry yanks you down to him, making you squeal.

“Why do you always insist on gettin’ right up?” He mumbles as he wraps himself around you to spoon you.

“I don’t want Buster to shit himself.” You giggle.

“He knows to go on the piddle pad if we don’t get right up.” He pushes his morning wood against your ass.

“Jesus.” You groan. “You don’t wanna cuddle, you just wanna having a morning fuck.” His arm slips up under your shirt so he can caress one of your breasts.

“I want both.” He says into your ear. His hand slides down to between your legs and he smirks. “Seems like you do too.” He starts to rub circles on your clit while he grinds against you. You back up against him to really feel how hard he is.

Heavy petting was rare between you two. Usually you would just end up diving into the sex, but this first thing in the morning was like heaven. The way he would really ease you into it. His fingers slowly start to slip inside, and you find yourself turning onto your stomach. Harry gets full on top of you, his chest flush with your back. You your ass up slightly so he can continue to finger and rub you. He gets his fingers in and then drags them out and up to your clit. You moan out in your pillow. He continues to grind against your ass, getting right between your cheeks. He had his boxers on so you weren’t worried about anything slipping into the wrong hole.

“You’re so wet.” He groans. “Want me to fuck you, baby?”

“Yes.”

He leans up, only for a moment, to get his boxers off. He gets back on you the way he was, nice and close, and slides in.

“Ah, fuck.” You moan out.

Harry keeps his fingers on your clit while he rocks in and out of you. His other hand slides up to the back of your head, and he gets a light grip on your hair. He knows not to pull too hard.

“Feels good, angel?”

“So good, Harry.”

He continues to rock in and out of you, and once you come from him rubbing on your clit, he pulls out to flip you over. He yanks your shirt off so you’re fully exposed to him. He slides back in and wraps his lips around one of your nipples. One of your hands is tugging on his hair while the other is digging into his back.

“Really give it me, babe, come on.”

“Want it hard, Y/N?”

“Hard and fast.”

Harry grins and sits up, grabbing both of your legs to put over his shoulders. He stretches his neck and cracks his knuckles, making you laugh. He loved when you two would laugh when you were intimate. It didn’t always need to be so serious. He pulls out nearly all the way and slams back into you. You gasp at the feeling, but you love it. He does this over and over, picking up the pace each time, making the bed start to shake. He was hitting the right spot over and over. You fist at the blankets with your head slamming far into your pillow. You grit your teeth as you feel your orgasm approaching. He could tell you were close from the way you were clenching around him. He almost wanted to pull out and make you beg him for it, but he also loved seeing how far gone you were and didn’t want to tease you. He knew he was hitting just the right spot, just a few more thrusts…

“Holy shit!” You scream as everything in your vision goes white. Tears well up in your eyes as he fucks you through the orgasm that was making you feel like you were going to collapse from within. “Oh my god, Harry! Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Your praise was enough to make him lose it, and his come spurts inside you, filling you to the brim. He looks down at you to see your chest still heaving. He pulls out of you slowly and you whimper from the loss of contact. He leans down and gives you a kiss on the forehead.

“Good game.” He shakes your hand.

“Oh, shut up.” You swat at him and laugh.

You both shower quick, and go out to feed Buster. He did, in fact, need to use the piddle pad. After he eats Harry takes him out for a proper walk while you get some breakfast for the two of you going. Just some simple oatmeal.

“So, do you wanna go over a budget today? We could set up at the dining room table, and you could get a spreadsheet goin’ on your laptop.”

“Yeah, we can definitely do that.” You smile.

You and Harry sit down at the dining table, while Buster rests his head in your lap as he sits at your feet.

“Does he do that a lot?”

“Hm?” You look down at Buster. “Yeah, he likes to sit under my desk like that with me at work.” You grin at Harry. “He’s just like his daddy.” You pinch his cheek and he swats your hand away.

“Shut up.” He nudges your shoulder. “Want me to replace him right now, cause I will.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

You pull up excel and name a bunch of rows with what you’ll need money for. Venue, food, drinks, photographer/videographer, DJ, hotel rooms, bachelorette/bachelor party, bridal shower, dress, etc.

“My friend Adam, the guy we got Buster from, is actually a really good DJ…”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, he always used to put playlists together for our parties and stuff. I’m pretty sure he has a DJ business on the side. I could ask him what his rates are.”

“That would be great. So…I don’t want this to be crazy expensive…like it seems silly to drop what could someday be a down payment on a house on a party for one night.”

“I agree. I don’t want it to get out of hand. I feel like the venue will be the most expensive. Let’s try to figure out where we want it so we can compare prices. Some hotels have the food and drinks included and some don’t.”

“I think…like in my wildest dreams, I’d love for it to be at a hotel on the Cape, like have the beach behind us…the ceremony outside, and then the reception would be indoors, but maybe there’s this outside patio area or something?”

“Ohh, I can really picture that. We both love the beach, let’s look and see.”

“I feel like that’s gonna be expensive.”

“We won’t know unless we look.” He grabs your laptop and opens Google. “Maybe we could find an inn or somethin’.”

“True, that would be cute actually.”

The two of you see the different options out there and find two you really like. You book a couple of tours on their websites so you can physically see the spaces.

“Oh, I wanted to ask, are we doin’ like a traditional cake or did you want cupcakes? I’ve seen a lot of people save money on just doin’ cupcakes, and then havin’ a small cake just made for the couple.”

“I think that’s a great idea. Then we could have a variety of cupcakes so everyone could find something they like. There’s a bakery I really like that back home that did my Bat Mitzvah cake, I’d like to go there to maybe do a tasting?”

“Sure.” He smiles. “I’ll let you set that up, and you can just tell me when.”

“Okay.”

“Maybe we could do like a lemon cake since we both like that.”

“Mm, my mouth is already watering. I’ll definitely set that up soon. I guess there’s not much else we can really do until we set a date, and then we can work backwards.”

“Guess you’re right.” He rubs his eyes and rests his chin in his palm. “What were you thinking for a bachelor and bachelorette?”

“God, I have no idea. I’m the sure the girls will think of something.”

“Did you wanna do a combined thing, or be completely separate. S’not like it’ll be the night before the wedding, like it could be a month or so ahead.”

“To be honest, I’d like to have a weekend with just the girls…”

“Alright.”

“Is that okay? I mean, I had a lot of fun for my birthday, but-“

“No, I really don’t mind. I just didn’t know if you wanted a combined trip, but we can have separate things.” He shrugs.

“What do you think you wanna do?”

“I was thinin’ maybe like a trip to Mohegan Sun with the guys. We went years ago, and it was a lot of fun.”

“Oo, do a little gambling, that would be fun.” You sigh. “I’m not gonna be able to drink during any of this.” You groan.

“You’ll still have fun, baby.”

“I know, but I’m gonna have to tell my friends why I’m not drinking…”

“You can just say you’re on a medication that doesn’t allow you to consume alcohol, you don’t have to specify any more than that if you don’t want to. Do you really think they’ll judge you?”

“It’s not the judgement…it’s the look on their faces I know they’ll give me. The medication has helped me a lot, I think.”

“I’m really proud of you for taking it so consistently.”

“I just take it with my birth control…it’s easy to remember.”

“Babe.” He saves the file you were working on and closes your laptop. He turns so his body is facing yours. “Can you take a second and just think about how far you’ve come? In the year that I’ve know you, you’ve made so many great steps. I can remember times you getting so frustrated because you never thought you’d be in a place where we’d be able to just go at it. I mean, think of how we had sex just this morning. You weren’t in a place this time last year to be able to do that, and now you are. I know it’s not just about sex, there’s a lot of mental progress you’ve made too, but I feel like physically, I just feel so close with you, I feel like every time we do it we get closer.” Your eyes were glossy while you listened to him.

You felt overwhelmed by his kind words. He was right about everything. You had made a ton of progress, and you didn’t reflect on it as much as you should. You stand up and he pushes his seat you. You sit down on him and wrap your arms around his shoulders, and nuzzle your face into the crook of his neck. He holds you close and rubs your back. Buster yips at the two of you, clearly upset that his head was no longer comfortably resting in your lap. You both look down at him.

“He really is just like me, huh?”

[generallybarzy]

smile like sunshine

Introduction: ~7,600 words

mat barzal series

summary: A lot changes in ten years, and a lot changes when someone grows used to having constant attention, fans, and fame- so surely the boy you knew back then was long gone. Even if you had been the closest of friends that one month back in 2008, there was no way he remembers you, or even wants to talk to you anymore...

an: Here it finally is!!! I know, I know, it's super long. I was gonna split it up, but it made more sense to keep the intro in one part for the backstory and setting up the main plot and then have the rest of the story on the beach. I really hope this comes together like I want it to!

From the moment you first saw him, you knew you were going to be best friends; but what you could never know, at only nine years old, was that you were going to fall head over heels in love with him one day.

Looking back now, he was adorable as a child, but that wasn’t what your little nine-year-old mind was thinking at the time. All you were focused on back then was the sheer awesomeness of that sandcastle he was building and the overwhelming amount of loneliness that was overtaking you on what was supposed to be a fun, month-long family vacation. He was just a boy, caked in sand from crawling around on his hands and knees to construct what you thought back then was the most complex structure of architecture in existence, and you were just a girl, your desperation for a friend to play with outweighing your shyness. Your parents seemed too busy with the new babies to pay attention to you, so you had to find someone else to hang out with, and here was this boy. You had approached him hesitantly, just really wanting something to do and someone to play with other than your annoying siblings, hoping that he wouldn’t turn you away.

“Did you make that?” Your first words to him were spoken shyly, hesitant, and had him looking up at you, squinting from the sun through his dark locks of hair.

“Yeah.”

“All by yourself?” He nodded again, looking proud. “It’s awesome!”

“Thanks!” He glanced back to his work for a second before pushing himself to his feet and offering you a sand bucket. “You wanna help?”

“Yes, please.”

“Cool.” He smiled brightly, showing off a missing tooth, and you smiled back, it was impossible not to with how full of sunshine this boy seemed to be. You followed him out towards the water to scoop up some wet sand. “I’m Mat.”

“I’m (Y/N).”

It was really that simple to become friends. You soon came to find that Mat was really funny, one of the funniest people you’d ever met- and still to this day you couldn’t forget how green his eyes sparkled in the sunlight while he was laughing, even if he was just laughing at his own silly jokes. The two of you slaved away at building your sandcastle in the hot sun and laughing at each other’s jokes for what seemed like hours before your parents came over to find you playing with a new friend. Your parents and his talked- about nothing you cared about at that age- while you and Mat sat with your feet in the water, eating ice pops and getting sunburned without a care in the world.

You still thought back to that month to this day. It was still one of your happiest memories: those hot watermelon and ice pop summer days giving you sticky faces and hands and sunburnt skin, eating ice cream on your tenth birthday and skipping along the pier next to him with your moms chatting behind you, collecting shells and messing with crabs together, being splashed with seawater and laughing even though you wanted to be mad at him. That was your happy place.

One conversation you remember distinctly from later that month was when you and Mat were sitting on the beach, sifting through the sand and collecting shells. Well, you were the only one actually collecting shells; Mat thought it would be funny to sit there and throw little crustaceans at you and make you shriek. Eventually, a hush had fallen over the two of you, and Mat spoke up. “I’m gonna be in the NHL one day.”

“The what?” Mat laughed at you, but you genuinely didn’t know what he was talking about. You laugh at yourself today, looking back.

“Do you know what hockey is?”

“Duh. My dad watches it.”

“I like to play hockey. I’m going to as a job one day.”

“That sounds cool!” Your young mind couldn’t even comprehend having any adult job, let alone knowing at this age what you want to do for the rest of your life Obviously, Mat was a boy who had plans. “It looks dangerous, though, do you get hurt?”

“I don’t really get hurt much.”

“I bet you’re good at it, then.”

“I am!” You smiled and laughed with Mat and leaned over your pile of shells to hug him, the deepest form of showing affection you knew at that point.

“I’ll come to see you play one day. I promise.”

Remember when life was so simple that a sandcastle was all that was needed to spark the beginning of a wonderful friendship, even if it only lasted a month? Remember when we didn’t have to worry about grades and work and money and taxes? Sometimes you wished you could take yourself back to that month, so you could have a distraction. You’ve been looking for a distraction like Mat had been all your life- while your parents fought from the other room, while you stressed over tests in school, during heartbreak after heartbreak, while you dealt with pressure taking standardized tests or getting your first job, or moving to New York City alone only weeks shy of your 20th birthday during the summer before you started college. Every now and then you would forget about that summer, but the moment you’d stress over something, your mind just drifted off and daydreamed of that lighthearted smile, and those shining green eyes, and you hoped he was happy wherever he was.

Mat.

Damn it, you would have tried years ago to google him or something if you knew his last name, or even where he lived. Unfortunately, those aren’t topics of interest to children, so they never popped up in your conversation, and neither your mom or dad seemed to care enough to remember what they talked about with his parents, probably too busy fighting all the time, you mused.

The fall after you’d moved to New York for college, your roommate Amy, who was extremely welcoming and always made you feel at home, decided to introduce you to the sports teams of the city in an effort to get you out of your apartment and away from your work. It was just your luck, you realized later, that she was especially into hockey. You were vaguely familiar with hockey, your dad used to be a huge hockey fan in your youth, but stopped many years ago in the midst of your parent’s marriage practically falling apart. Now he only watched it occasionally, a few years behind on who was up-and-coming. “Hey, might as well learn the sport. Maybe one day you’ll reconnect with that boy from your long-ago summer romance!” She spoke teasingly, lightheartedly, always loving to hear the sweet story of your childhood best friend who had slipped away and may have disappeared forever. She was always one for cliches. You had told her many things about your time with Mat, but never used his name; no, that felt too personal, as if he was a secret for only you to know about.

“Oh, come on, Ames!” You laughed, but you couldn’t help but hope. “We were, like, ten! I don’t think that qualifies as romance.”

“Maybe not, but the way you describe him… If you would’ve met in your teens, that story would have ended with some cute, awkward first kisses.” She loved a good love story, and you smiled and shook your head. Yeah, honestly, you wish you’d known him later in your life.

“Yeah, maybe.”

So, eventually, she took you to an Islanders game, letting you borrow a blue hoodie of hers from her large collection of NHL merchandise so that you would look like more of a fan. You sat through the game with her, excited and interested and eager to learn as she kept pointing things out to you to help you understand the game. Despite it being an NHL game, you hadn’t thought of the boy that sparked your interest in the sport all night, until, about halfway through the game, you saw a name mentioned overhead.

Mathew Barzal.

You knew it was nothing. Literally nothing. There are plenty of other people named Mathew, idiot. But you couldn’t help the soft spark of memories in you. You pushed it out of your mind and went back to the game, even though something, just something was nagging away in your head. When you looked up to the screen above the ice, you caught a glance of the name again. Mathew, spelled with one ‘T’.  A vivid memory pops to your head- you and Mat tracing your names and other words into the sand with sticks, just for fun, because that’s what entertains a ten-year-old apparently.

“I’m gonna be in the NHL one day.”

Mathew. One ‘T’. NHL. You knew it wasn’t that big of a deal, plenty of people probably spelled it that way, and you were probably grasping at straws, but hey what were the odds? A hockey player, Mathew. If only you could get a good look at the guy. Or… or something. You probably wouldn’t even recognize someone after ten years of not seeing them; you could hardly recognize ten-year-old you in photos! In your head, Mat was still eleven years old. Honestly, was there even a way to figure out if it was him or not? Ask him if he happened to meet a girl on a family vacation a decade ago? Yeah, and when would you get the chance to ask a professional athlete such personal questions?

...Well, tonight, apparently.

As you left your seats after the game, everyone happy and celebratory after a win, you almost had a heart attack when Amy grabbed your arm and shrieked. “Oh my God, oh my God, (Y/N)!” She pointed to her phone in shock, and you still couldn’t tell what she was reacting to, but calmed down, realizing it probably wasn’t life-threatening.

“Holy shit, Ames, are you trying to kill me?”

“Listen, listen.” She calmed down a bit, letting out a small laugh. “So let's just say someone I know, knows somebody,” You laughed a bit, knowing this was gonna be some new interesting gossip. “And they know where the players are going out to celebrate tonight.” She sent you a suggestive, winking look.

“No way. You want to go and… interact with them? Professional athletes? Us, talking to professional athletes?”

“I mean, yeah. Are you telling me you don’t want to flirt with a hockey player?” She saw the look on your face and shook her head. “Or! Or not even flirt. Just talk. Get a picture with them, or a signature? Or just let me talk and you can wave to them. I can promise you they’re all pretty nice to their fans.”

“You sound as if you’ve talked to them all before.”

“No, only one. And it was more of me talking and him saying ‘cool, cool.’ while he signed my jersey. But I always hear that they’re really sweet.”

“Well,” you thought for a moment. It would be pretty freaking cool to try and befriend a professional athlete, or even just pretend for a night that you knew them. You definitely don’t go out enough, you hadn’t really been to many bars- you had only turned 20 a few months ago and couldn’t drink yet, so what was the point? In fact, you’d barely left your tiny apartment since moving, and even though you weren’t one for bars or clubs, you were in New York City, for fuck’s sake! Might as well go out and live, right? “Alright, let’s go. But if we actually see them, you have to be my wing-woman.”

“Oh, hell yes.”

The bar you were going to wasn’t far from the rink, and according to a google search of the place, it didn’t seem too sleazy or gross- that was good. Of course it’s not sleazy, why would someone as rich as a bunch of professional athletes go to a sleazy bar? Because it was only a little further than where you had parked, the two of you walked together. As it settled in your head that you might actually see professional hockey players tonight, you started feeling a little nervous. Partially because you’ve never been in a place with that many famous people at once, but also because of the name that was still circling your brain.

“Hey, so I’ve had something on my mind because of this game.”

“Oh yeah?”

“You’re gonna think I’m completely crazy, but listen.” She looked up with a face, ready for your story.

“Give it to me.”

“Okay, so... this kid I told you about, that I met that summer? His name was Mathew. Spelled with only one ‘T’, I remember that clearly.” You laughed a bit, wondering how crazy you must have sounded to her. “And he told me he was gonna play in the NHL, right?”

After a second, you saw it click in her head. “No fuckin’ way. You think it’s Barzal?”

“Ames, I don’t know, I don’t know! There are plenty of Mathews who play hockey, right? But maybe he doesn’t even play hockey after all. Kids aren’t great at choosing their career paths, ya know? I just never learned his last name. I need his age or... something to identify him with.”

“He’s… like, 21, I think.”

“Yeah?” You paused. Why was this all actually matching up? “Yeah. So ten years ago he would’ve been eleven.”

“Holy shit, hoooolllly shit.”

“But I’m sure there are plenty of Mathews who are 21 right now.”

“Girl, holy shit. Look up a picture of him right now. If you had a summer romance with Barzy, I need to know immediately.”

“Okay, it still wasn’t really a romance, but same.” You pulled out your phone and typed his name into the search bar. “I don’t even know if I’ll recognize him after ten years.” Immediately after you opened the images tab, the first thing you noticed about him was the hair. Dark and thick and kind of wavy and looking extra soft in a few pictures, it did remind you of your Mat- whose hair had been full of sand and salt water and kept drying softly as he ran around in the sunlight- but you still couldn’t be 100% positive. It was after you scrolled past all the on ice pictures where you couldn’t really see his face well behind the helmet and found a picture of him- unstaged and off the ice and genuinely smiling- that you felt a strange spark ignite inside of you. Sunshine. His smile felt like sunshine. Maybe. Just, maybe.

Scrolling through other photos, your eyes caught one in particular. You opened a close up of his face and zoomed in a tiny bit more. Those eyes, shining all pretty and green in the sunlight. You could never forget them- not after ten years, and not after a hundred. His eyes, his chin, even the size of his goddamn nostrils, all the tiny, stupid details in his face… was this actually him? “Biiiitch....” Amy leaned closer to you and bumped shoulders with you in acknowledgment.

“What? Do you recognize something?”

“Kinda, yeah. It’s so weird.”

“So you think it’s seriously him?”

“I don’t know. But the last picture of his smile, I’d recognize that smile anywhere and… this. His eyes- that eye color…. I remember thinking it’s so pretty… even his fucking nostrils, Amy!” The fact that you took note of his nostrils might have been funny at another time, but you were currently having a crisis as to whether or not you were once friends with fucking Mathew Barzal.

“Yeah, I mean, they’re kinda big…”

“I… I don’t want to say that I think it’s him, that might just be me being too hopeful. But...”

“Holy shit. You might have been Barzy’s friend at one point. You could reconnect with him, and we could hang out with the players!” You shot her a look, and she knew to calm down. “Sorry. Alright, whether or not it was him, I’m still gonna get you to talk with him tonight.” You hadn’t realized that you had basically arrived at the bar, and you felt your heart start pumping you full of nerves as she opened the door. “You have my word.”

The bar wasn't too crazy- there was music playing overhead and that weird hazy bar feeling lingered in the air. Immediately you could see that there was a celebratory group of of tall men, some standing at the bar talking with each other, others talking with girls- some shared wedding bands with the women they were talking to, their wives apparently. So you figured those were the players. 

 “I can’t believe it.” Amy was still in shock next to you; you were too, but you needed to pull it together. “You and Barzal…”

“Well, we don’t actually know yet.” You pulled her into you by the elbow. “But please please don’t mention that to them, I don’t need them to think I’m crazy before I even talk to them.” She nodded back, but before either of you could comprehend what was happening, somebody- obviously one of the hockey players- seemed to catch her eye as they came into view near the bar. “A player you like?”

“Anthony Beauvillier.” She pronounced his name with an obvious swoon and you laughed. Oh, so this was that favorite player that she kept talking about. “Tito. Yeah. He’s cool.” She nudged you, smirking. “Oh! And he’s besties with Mat! I bet I could get him for you.”

“You? Talking to them?” As much as Amy liked to talk and wanted to meet the players, you knew she wasn’t the type to just go out and throw herself into conversation with somebody, and you knew she easily got tongue-tied- that’s where the two of you were most similar. But maybe it was just the fact that she was trying to help you out that gave her the boost of confidence to begin chasing after him. “Hey, actually, maybe we shouldn’t bother them. I’m sure they’re tired of dealing with fans.”

“We won’t pester them or anything. I’m sure they’ll see we’re not like, crazy crazy fans. Anyway we have a mission.”

“A mission?”

“Operation… I don’t know, Operation Find Mat Barzal for (Y/N).”

“Wow. Creative.”

“I know.” She laughed and smiled at you reassuringly. “Come on, both of us need to learn to be more assertive, don’t you think? We’re not annoying them, just telling them we think they’re cool, and maybe getting a picture. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.” There was nothing you could say before she was- to your horror- reaching out and tapping Anthony’s arm. You were sure you looked nervous as he turned to look at the two of you, and your friend started rambling with a big starstruck smile on her face. “Hi, uh yeah. You’re cool.” You weren’t only feeling embarrassed yourself, but also for her. “I’m a big fan!”

To your surprise- or maybe not, he seemed like a sweet guy- he smiled back at her, and you almost melted under kinda his blue eyes as he looked between the two of you. He thanked her as she complimented his performance tonight and motioned to the phone in her hand. “You want a picture?”

“Yes please!” You took her phone for her to snap a couple of pictures of the two of them, glad that this guy seemed so chill and friendly. After the picture was taken, Amy still didn’t let him leave, no, to your absolute horror, she motioned to you. “My friend here, (Y/N), tonight was the first game she’s ever been to.” You could feel your cheeks heat up when he looked over at you, but couldn’t help but smile back up to him. Oh, he was kinda really cute...

“Oh yeah? Hope you enjoyed it.”

Oh. Oh, he was actually talking to you! “Yeah, yeah. I didn’t understand everything that was happening, I’m still learning, but.. it was still really fun!”

“Actually,” you felt Amy’s arm fall across your shoulders, and you looked over at her. God, what was she planning now? “(Y/N) happens to be a big fan of Barzy.”

“Oh God, Ames stop…”

“And I’m sure she’d like a picture with him. So if you could, I don’t know… point her in his direction, please? If he’s here? And if you think he’s got time for it?” You were in the middle of burying your red face in your hands in embarrassment when you heard him laugh goodheartedly.

“He wouldn’t mind. He likes talking to his fans.”

“Really?”

“I’m sure he’ll be especially happy to meet a new fan. He loves the praise.” All three of you laughed a bit, and you couldn’t believe that you were currently chatting with an NHL player. He looked behind his shoulder for a moment, before moving aside and motioning to the bar. “He’s over at the bar somewhere, by himself for the moment. Better hurry before someone else beats you to it.” There was a certain lilt in his voice, was… was he teasing you? You smiled- but it probably looked pretty nervous- and glanced over to Ames.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” She winked at you and nudged you in the direction of the bar. “Go!”  

You bit your lip to hold back the growing smile at the thought of getting to talk to him, whether or not he remembered you at all. You looked up at Tito with a quick “Thank you!” before snaking around him and finding your way to the bar.

It didn’t take you long to notice him- he had a recognizable face, and you’d recognize him anywhere after looking at pictures of him for the whole ten-minute walk from the rink to this bar. He was standing at the bar, drink in his hand, and scrolling through his phone, a lock of dark hair drooping onto his forehead. His skin looked so golden in this light, as if he was back under the sun on a hot summer day- and it gave him a striking resemblance to the boy you knew ten years ago. There was something so different about seeing him in person rather than as a photo on your phone- it sparked up a weird feeling inside of you. If this was really him, it had been ten years since you last saw him, and a lot changes in ten years of somebody’s life. It may have been a strange thought but, wow, puberty really hit him in all the right places. He looked… wow. His cheekbones, his jawline,…. Okay, maybe it was kinda thirsty- ogling him like this- but you couldn’t help it.

Not only had he obviously changed physically, but he might be a completely different person. He was a professional athlete now- why would he need you anymore? That much attention changes a person. He might not be as kind as he was back then at eleven years old, he might not want to be friends with you or reconnect.

That is, if this even is him.

You swallowed down all your nerves and slid up next to where he was standing.

“You really made it to the NHL, huh?”  No shit he made it to the NHL, you thought. What the fuck kind of conversation starter is that?  It was a painstakingly slow moment as he directed his full attention away from his phone and towards you, and could practically feel the shot of confidence and adrenaline draining from your body when his pretty, confused eyes met yours. Oh, they’re a lot more light brown than they are green, you noticed, and you wondered if maybe all your memories of his “dazzling, gleaming green eyes” were wrong. You realized how strange you must look to him- you were just a random girl, approaching a super successful, let alone attractive, professional athlete at a bar. He probably thought you were trying to get a drink off of him or get into his pants for the clout.

Maybe you were expecting him to look up and immediately recognize you after ten years and sweep you up into a hug like in the movies, but it certainly didn’t seem like that’s what was coming.

“Yeah…?"  

He looked confused- his eyebrows furrowed up a bit as he looked you over, sizing you up or checking you out or just trying to figure out why this stranger was approaching him about his career choices. Suddenly, you found it difficult to hold eye contact. Of course he didn’t remember you. Who needs to remember their one-month-long friendship when they’re busy getting into the NHL? This was really starting to make you feel pathetic for holding onto the memory of your super short friendship for so long.

Well, you officially wanted the floor to open up and swallow you. Right now would be great. "Okay… that probably sounded really, really strange if you don't remember me. Or if it’s not even you. Umm, we hung out together in 2000 something…. 2008? The summer of '08?” You laughed awkwardly, trying desperately to lighten the mood. “We were, like ten, eleven?" He still said nothing, just watching you with a strange, unreadable look in his eyes. Oh god, you wanted  lightning to strike you dead, NOW. Literally anything would be better than standing here waiting for him to say something, anything! Even if he just says 'Who the fuck are you?' It would be better than silence. The silence was humiliating. "Okay, I’m so sorry. I probably got this all wrong and look like a weirdo." Right as you started to back away to run to find Amy and get the hell out of here, he held out a hand.

“Wait, wait!" His eyebrows shot up as if he couldn’t believe something, his outstretched hand reaching back to run through his hair. "Holy shit. Is it… (Y/N)?"  Your heart almost stopped right there, the moment he said your name, either that or it was beating so fucking fast you couldn't feel it. He said your name. Your name. He knows your name.

"Yeah.” You watched his face relax into a gleaming smile. Like sunshine. It’s him. You knew it now. “So I’m not crazy? It's… it’s actually you? Mat?"

"It's actually me." For the first time since you set foot in the bar, you felt yourself relax completely, and although you hadn’t had any alcohol, you felt all warm and fuzzy inside. Jesus, it was actually him. You crossed your arms on the bar and lay your forehead down on it. "Sorry, I just, it took me a second. I should have recognized you sooner.” You laughed a little bit into your arms at the sheer craziness of the situation. He still had that same warmth to him, the way he was always able to make you feel happy and safe, like when he distracted you on the beach while your parents were yelling inside or when he went too far trying to scare you with crabs and had to hug you and promise you he’d protect you from them.

“I can’t believe this.” You lifted your head to look back up at him, and he had a wide smile spreading across his face. “We actually ended up in the same city ten years later without even knowing each other’s last names.”

“Holy shit. Ten years? I feel old. Sometimes it feels like just yesterday.” Your heart soared at the idea that he still thinks of you- of the fun you two had together that summer. He took a sip from his drink, going quiet and just staring at his glass with a smile.

“You still think about it?”

“Sure, sometimes. I wonder how you’re doing, and where you ended up. I guess you ended up in New York.” He looked back up at you, eyes catching yours and gleaming all honey-hued golden brown and sending butterflies straight to your stomach. You could barely contain yourself, it didn’t matter that this was Mathew fucking Barzal you were talking to because to you he was still just your Mat, and that was even better. The sandy little boy with scraped knees. You couldn’t help but imagine how many people would kill to be in your position right now.

“I guess I just thought you would have forgotten about that summer, considering how successful you are now and stuff.”

He shook his head, smiling softer and reassuringly. “C’mon. I could never forget about that. It was my favorite summer to date.” He extended an arm and dropped it across your shoulder, pulling you in closer- no closer than two friends should be, but much closer than you ever thought you’d be to someone of his "social rank". It wasn’t any closer than you’d been in the past, but you were children back then. Now, you were young adults with hormones. He was a man. You would be crazy not to notice how warm and built he felt under his hoodie from obvious years of playing hockey, and there were dirty thoughts spinning around your head as soon as his large hand dropped to your arm and the dizzying scent of his cologne hit your nose. “You want a drink?”

You blushed and stuttered, shaking away any indecent thoughts. “Uh, I- I can’t. Yet.”

He seemed confused for a moment before laughing. “That’s right! You're a year younger than me, right? Aww, you’re still a baby. Can’t even drink yet.” He ruffled your hair gently, careful not to actually mess it up, and called the bartender over and asked for a glass of water, making sure to let him know that you weren’t old enough to drink yet. You could only laugh, remembering how much he loved to tease you back then. He obviously hasn’t changed in that department. “Ya know, you could’ve just DM'd me or something as soon as you found me. You didn’t need to dramatically approach me in a bar.”

“Well, I did kinda only find you tonight,”

His eyes went wide with a smile. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, like an hour ago. Listen...” You launched into your story as to how you came to realize that your long lost friend was NHL star Mathew Barzal, and how you didn't actually know who he was as a player. He actually listened intently, unlike any of the disappointing boyfriends you’d had in the past. Man, whatever girl he gets is gonna be lucky. “I wasn’t sure if it was you or not. I spent the entire walk here looking up pictures and trying to decide if I actually recognized you or if it was just my brain being hopeful.”

“Wow. I guess I’ve changed, huh?” He rubbed a hand across his face, still smiling that stupid, beautiful smile that made you all nervous, and your eyes followed, tracing over the familiarity of his features- from his eyes up to his hair and down to his chin, maybe lingering for a second too long on the way his lips looked so soft and tender right now, curled up at the corners into a little smirk.

“Not that much, actually.”

You hadn’t realized how intimate that moment seemed until he caught your gaze, smiling cheekily, and you were pretty sure he knew you were just checking him out. “Lucky for you, you got to skip past my awkward teenage years.” He lightened the mood, poking fun at himself like he knew how to do. Brushing the hazy hot feelings out of the air and blaming them on the rush of meeting your childhood friend after all these years, you reached for your water in order to cool the fire inside of you and the blush on your cheeks.

“Oh, I’m sure I would’ve loved to see that.”

You and Amy were over the fucking moon when you went home that night. You had exchanged Instagram handles and said your goodbyes to each of the men you had been talking with- she claimed to have been talking to Tito for the rest of the night and honestly, you’d believe anything at this point, after learning that your childhood romance- ahem, friendship- was with Mat Barzal. It took everything in you not to shriek like crazed fangirls. As soon as you got out of the bar, the realization finally hit you that you finally found Mat, and meanwhile, Amy was starstruck, having spent the night actually talking to NHL players and actually holding solid conversation.

“Holy shit please tell me everything! Right now!”

“Ames…” You could have told her what it was like to talk to him, disregarding anything in your past, the way he listened intently and made you feel like the only person in the world when his eyes were on you. You took her hands and looked into her eyes seriously, “Ames, we were right.” Okay, so much for not shrieking. Your friend threw her arms around you, jumping up and down for you. You couldn’t blame her, everything that happened tonight was crazy.

“You’re telling me that the kid you hung out with at ten years old has evolved into the one and only Mathew Barzal? Did he remember you?”

To be honest, it had taken everything in you not to try and drag him home with you or go home with him. He was intoxicating in all his warmth, the way his nose scrunched up, and his eyebrows arched when he smiled. The way he threw his head back when he laughed. The scent of his cologne had buzzed around your senses all night, clouding your judgment and making you want to say “fuck reconnecting as friends” and jump him right there. In fact, it still lingered around you after being pulled against his chest all night, and part of you wondered if it was the alcohol in his system, though not enough to make him drunk, that caused him to wrap his arm over your shoulder. If you had maybe harbored a tiny crush since your summer with him, it was heightened times 100 because of tonight.

You could tell that reconnecting with him- and eventually becoming friends again- was going to take a lot of self-control if you were gonna feel like this the whole time.

“Yeah. And he wants to catch up tomorrow. He said he’d DM me.” Amy was in the middle of shrieking in joy for you when, as if on cue, your phone buzzed in your pocket, and the first thing you saw after opening it was a message.

barzal97: Get home safe :)

“Girl, he loves you!” You laughed and shook your head as she shook your shoulder and patted your back, “You snagged yourself a hockey player!”

After you left, Mat didn’t see any reason to stay out longer. He almost couldn’t believe it- had someone slipped something in his drink? Was this just a dream? But then he opened Instagram and scrolled through your Instagram momentarily after DMing you and stopped on a picture of you and your friends, it was clear- he’d found you. You’d found him, more like. After ten goddamn years. It felt like a movie. You still had the same vibe, he could feel it in him the moment you were beside him. What was it…? Familiarity. Warmth. Comfort. Nostalgia. Whatever it was, it was you. After taking a moment to reflect on everything that had just happened, he was quick to finish his drink and find his friend, wanting to head home and prepare for his little meetup tomorrow.  

As he was heading out the door with Tito, Mat knew he needed to confide in somebody. “You’ll never guess what happened.”

“Does it have something to do with that girl I sent over?”

“(Y/N)? You sent her over?”

“Yeah, I was talking with her friend. I noticed she didn’t come back after going to look for you.” Mat noticed the suggestive tone in his friend's voice and felt his face go pink at the thought of hiding away in a bathroom to make out- and maybe more- with you.

“No! Nothing like that. She was my friend when we were kids.” He had a serious look on his face, and Tito knew that Mat wasn’t kidding about this. “Really. We have a crazy story. We met ten years ago on vacation. We hung out for a month, and I haven’t heard from her since. I didn’t know her last name or anything, and she didn’t know mine, so it’s not like we could look for each other. But she found me.”

“Wow. She just said she was a fan.”

“Well, wouldn’t you think they were crazy if they told you that story.”

“It does sound like a movie.” He laughed a bit, patting Mat’s back. “So, what’s the deal with her now? Friend? Do you liiiike her? Do you like-like her?” The teasing tone in his voice didn’t go unnoticed.

“What are we, in middle school?” But he still shrugged, sighing. “I don’t know. We’re going out to catch up tomorrow.”

“Ooh.”

“Shut up.” He went silent for a moment, wondering over his question. Did he like you? He wasn’t sure. “Ya know, she’s with me in almost every photo from that summer. That’s how much we were together.”

“Well, if you guys hit it off, you should date.  I don’t need a competitor for best friend.” It was a joke, Mat knew and smiled at it, but he honestly couldn’t shake the idea of dating you. No, no, he’s only feeling this way because he hasn’t seen you in a while. It’s nothing but a bunch of resurfacing memories.

Hopefully, anyway.

The two of you really did hit it off the next day. And the next. And the next. And the next. You still got along just as well as you did when you were young, and maybe even better, now that you were adults and had more interesting things to talk about. He was funny, even funnier than he was as a child, and despite your original thought that the fame of being in the NHL must have changed him, he was actually kind of modest and shrugged and smiled with a pink flush on his face when you brought up his accomplishments. It was easy to be with him. He could talk and talk about his life and still keep you comfortable, inviting you to tell your own story, gushing over accomplishments that felt so small to you.

And that one catch-up date ended up being months and months more of friendship.

Friendship with Mat was one of the best things that ever happened to you. He was the ideal friend, he listened to you and kept an eye on you and pushed you out of your comfort zone when it was necessary. He loved hearing you talk about things you enjoyed and tried his best to find joy in your hobbies, even if he thought some were funny or boring. He was sweet, endearing, teasing. And it wasn’t long before he began bringing you out on casual outings with some of his personal friends, gushing and getting really into telling the story of how you were separated for ten years and reunited by maybe fate, maybe luck, who knew.

The only problem was that you wanted him to kiss you.

You wanted him to kiss you when you went out with him and Tito and Amy on Christmas, singing carols together and teasing him, asking him to sing louder because you loved the sound. You wanted him to kiss you on New Years, when you stood hand in hand in Times Square, shivering and smiling with red cheeks, but instead settled for a hug. You wanted him to kiss you after returning from his first All Star game in January, you wanted to congratulate him on being an All Star, because he spent so much time praising you and you wanted him to know he was just as amazing. You wanted him to kiss you when he was drunk on his 22nd birthday, all red-faced and giggly and dancing in the nightclub with a red solo cup in his hand and that stupid snapback on that made him look like a frat boy but suited him so well. He was hugging you to his side with one arm and, even like this, you were just praying that he would lay a messy, drunk kiss onto your cheek.

You just wanted his lips on yours. So, so bad.

But despite that, behind Amy, who was still holding onto the title of best friend, he was always the one you went to when you needed comfort or a companion or a distraction, or just to talk about certain things. Things like this.  

A week after his birthday, seven months into your friendship, you showed up at his door without warning, slumping against the doorframe when he opened it. “I have a problem.”

“With showing up unannounced? Yeah, I know.” He was joking and smiling, but maybe you missed it with how stressed you were. When you didn’t respond, he must have noticed the tired, strained look on your face and his happy expression dropped. He let you into his apartment, snaking an arm around your shoulders and pulling you into his chest. It wasn’t an odd thing in your friendship, he was always a touchy guy, especially when you were down, and you always welcomed it. He pulled you over to sit at the island in his kitchen and sat across from you. “What’s wrong?”

“I got a voicemail from my parents today.” You were already pulling out your phone to play the voicemail for him. Ever since that one month on the beach eleven years ago now, you and your family had been going back every summer for a week, up until four years ago, when you suddenly had a summer job and couldn’t afford to take a week off. You missed the beach, sure, but you definitely didn’t miss the way your parents would always find a way to argue and fight. Now, they were calling you and asking if you could come along this year.

“I think I’m missing the problem here. What’s so bad about a beach trip?”

You sighed and lifted your head. “Well, I want to go, and I already got my boss’s okay to take that week off. I really miss the beach. But my family is just… so overwhelming sometimes. I could try to hang out alone the whole time, but I’ll go crazy before the week is over.” There was a pause as Mat leaned back in thought, considering his options. Was this crazy? Was he crazy for doing this? Definitely. But, fuck it, ya know?

“I can come with.”

You scoffed. "No way, I'm sure you have other plans."

"Not really. Not that week." He saw the look on your face, and he really didn’t want you to have to deal with your family all alone for a week. "Look, I'll pay for my share of the trip, and I won't bother anybody." You laughed. There's no way Mat could go a week without bothering anybody. He laughed along, glad to see you happy. "Seriously. If you need somebody, I'll be there."

And that was it. That was how you ended up on a beach trip with the one and only Mathew Barzal, eleven years after you first met..

The first few hours of the trip down were blurry. Your family, in true vacationer nature, decided that all of you, your parents, siblings, you and Mat, should carpool together. So, at 8:00 AM, you loaded into the car, your parents up front, obviously, your younger twin siblings behind them so they could be monitored, and you and Mat in the very back. This was definitely a bad idea, 100%, but you couldn’t help the giddy feeling that sparked up inside of you when you told your family you would be bringing a boy along. Or the feeling you got when you looked at Mat sitting next to you, looking worn out and sleepy after six hours of travel-rest stop-travel-gas stop, with four more hours of travel left and suggested he try to get some sleep. You slept through the rest of the day, only waking up for bathroom breaks and rest stops, until eventually, you woke up around six in the evening with your head on Mat’s shoulder and his body angled towards yours, snoring softly and looking ever so soft.

“Mat, Mat wake up.” You shook him gently, laughing at the way he was drooling a little bit. He blinked his pretty eyes open and looked around, a little dazed.

“Are we there?” His sleepy, mumbling voice was so cute.

“Technically, yeah. But we can’t get into the rental house until tomorrow morning. So we found a place to sleep.” He groaned, his eyes slipping shut in protest, and showed no sign of moving from his seat. “Come on, you’d rather sleep in a real bed than this car, right?”

Those words had him slipping out of the car, his eyes half shut and holding your hand loosely, dragging his feet the whole way as you led the way to your shared room. He looked so cute in this outfit, grumpy and soft in a tee shirt and shorts and his hair looking extra messy. There was nothing you wanted to do more than sleep, but one detail had you stopping in your tracks as you opened the door.  Your parents had paid for three rooms- one for them, your siblings, and you and Mat- and of course, since your parents hated each other and apparently can’t stand to sleep in the same bed anymore, you and Mat got stuck in the room with one bed. Mat didn’t seem to care though, as he dropped his slides by the door and immediately collapsed in the bed, falling asleep almost immediately after mumbling for you.

“C’mon, (Y/N), get in...”

As you dropped down beside him in bed an appropriate distance from him and tried to ignore the sleeping beauty beside you, you began wondering if this whole trip was a bad idea. No, no way, you quickly pushed that thought away. This was Mat, your Mat, and you’re actually on the beach again with him. You fell asleep that night with a smile on your face, listening to the soft snores of the man beside you and trying to imagine what your week had in store for you.

Realistically, there's only one thing you can predict about this trip- it’s gonna take a lot of self-control.

[enzo-zzz]

A vent on the fandom + cg

If you dont wanna hear any negativity, please just ignore this post. It includes dissatisfication on the yttd fandom and ongoing belief in it. I'm not going to use very kind words here, so just ignore this post. 3b spoilers included.

I like yttd so much, but the english fandom, i cannot interact because how toxic it is. Even the smallest different of which route you choose, will attract anyone to abuse, harrass, ridicule or humiliate you. And to be truth, there are many of them who are so judgemental, to the point that there is only one thing that are right and the other are wrong. Black and white mindset. The term "canon route" is what fans created itself. I guess there are many of them who are teens or kids, since most of kids who havent grown up yet tend to lean towards black and white mindset, even if they believe they are not. If you find people who keep arguing especially on social media, you can bet that its teens. Adult are too tired to involve in things like fighting with strangers. There is one time when the poll asked your age and the age range quite small to teens age. I guess thats why i think so.

OTHER THAN THAT, THERE'S ONE THING I'M ANNOYED WITH. ABOUT THE CG AND HOW THE FANDOM DECIDES THAT THE MORE CGS, THE MORE CANON IT IS. To be perfectly honest, i'm the one who came up with the analysis that on certain route 2-2 ending the cg is more. But people really use it the wrong way and now thought that anything that has more cg is the canon route. The word canon route is wrong in itself, who tf come up with the term canon route in yttd? Is the reason for creating two route is for one to be canon only, or for sparing different characters, or for having different storyline? (I personally think that on different route, the story will change and the ones who got to live at last is probably different ). Now i see those who misuse that information everywhere. "In sou route 2-2 ending evil joe AI dont even have new cg but in kanna route he has. See how biased the devs are? he should have drawn more if he really meant the route to be the canon one. Kanna route will get happy ending, sou route is bad ending." I think thats stupid. B*tch, he keep reusing his old art here and there. You can check for yourself. Joe and midori has same hand based on the cg? He's just reusing the hand art. The arm in 3b and 1-1 is the same arm he reuse. Sou and kanna 2-2 ending basically use the same sou drawing, he just changed it a bit. Sara in 2-2 kanna ending use the same cg as when keiji try to calm her in front of computer, he just changed the face. Midori and sara on the 3b game screen cg basically use the same cg in the 3b content, but changed a bit. So i can think why need to create new cg when joe is still malicious as the hallucination in 2-2 sou ending? If i want to create something i will also reuse this to save my time.

So if you wanna really use this cg argument, then maybe you can consider why alice memory game got so many more cg than reko's? and how ranmaru gone insane has so many new sprite and pose with the hair like that. And why when dummy is dead they got cg's. Especially the ranmaru dying one, he got moving cg's and how it was put more effort into that. Then that means dummy dying is actually the canon route since when they alive they got no addtional cg? This is my assumption, but i think the devs just do as many cg as it takes depends on how impactful the scene he's working on, not because its canon, thats really a lazy take if he is actually unwilling to do extra route but still forcing himself to do it anyway. Imagine if dummy is dying but no cg, instead a message " ranmaru/mai/anzu died ". Do you think that will really give impact to you? This game clearly hinting that joe is going to be the spotlight of the game, even in 3b. So when sou set the real joe ai in kanna route for sara, the script is written for the real joe to genuinely react to sara. of course thats going to be heartwrenching since joe himself is the very important part of sara's life. When the script is made that way, lacking of cgs will hamper down the storytelling nankidai genuinely want to deliver. All i can say is it come from the heart of the author himself. If it is just only text for something as tearful as that moment and no cgs, it wont really touch the feeling isnt it? It is the same with alice memory game that tells about how alice "kill" midori. I'm not sure how many it is but atleast there is 3 cgs with one of them has variant. The story of how alice kill midori is also important and should have impact, thus the extra CG's. I can say its about being passionate and indulged in the storytelling.

I dont even know if joe will ever heal sara in sou route, but based on how the story still keep joe relevant til the end, then there must be something that need to happen between them in the end right? Nankidai even made sure that sara see the dog keychain in 3a if player probably choose to not ask gin about the dog keychain he's hiding in ch 2. Its also for relating ranmaru and joe. Having closure or conclusion with joe in the middle of game is still valid, and having a closure with joe at the end of the game is still valid. Imo, having closure with joe at the end of the game after all of those suffering involving him makes the better climax or impact for sara chara development since the game build up to highlight joe and mr. Policeman, it can be even better if all of it are to be pull together in the ending.

Even if the devs has route he prefer, he's not abandoning any route he less prefer, only if its true that he ever have a route he prefer. Plus you dont know which route he's prefer if any. He's taking his work seriously, it just some "fans" looking down on him, even to the point calling him biased, he's punishing the one who take another route, treating like he only use his career for egostatiscal reason (it somehow clearly mirrors that you are the one who egostatiscal to the point of wanting to find any excuse to punish other, you just using the devs name to validate your mindset). If he's dislike people who chose that route that much, then why create that route? If he know its tiring to make alternate route, then why still make the choice to let 3 dummy alive route at the end? It will make more work. I can only assume its out of passion, or just that he deep down wants the character to be alive atleast in a route ( idk if this is correct, i just read google translated version of his public fanbox that he's actually very reluctant at first when the time comes and "crying" so hard when he had to kill joe in chapter 1. So the part where he wants to spare some character is only my assumption ). By this punishing logic, shouldnt he not make alice die when you push reko ai to spare gin, and only do it to those who dont push the ai to save gin by killing real reko? I am more sure that the variants is to tell a different story or who to spare, and specifically for who sara actually was.

Happy endings? I'm not sure. I've expected that once from story with a lot of deaths, wishing for atleast the protagonists alive. Anime or story with a lot of death is definitely my jam, but from what i see, most of them has bittersweet ending, it depends on how the author wants it to be. Some author dont mind killing them all till the end, and some author just easily kill them all because they plan to revive them later. And everyone sense is different. Some japanese people sense in storytelling is a bit different imo. As the one being the audience, happy endings is the most common wish the audience wants. But its all up to the sense of the author. This is why i'm annoyed with some kids from overseas who rarely watch or play many things that involves a lot of death from japan suddenly says that this "one happy ending, this one bad ending! Everyone will survive in this route, everyone dead in this route"

Just play any route you like, nothing wrong with that. Whats wrong is to start this war of ridiculing others or have that irritating attitude towards those who play their own first route and start bad mouthing or desperately throwing bad assumption that one route will end very bad just for the sake of feeling better for your choice and to scare others.You do know that when you read a book, you'll only know if the overall story is good or bad until you know the ending right? The ending will conclude everything that happened. What happening in the fandom is now like, you only read 3/4 of the book and already expecting that this one will have good ending and bad ending. What if its not about the binary, but for the difference in direction? Its not that bad if the story of the book is kinda predictable, but with how plot twists become the main part of yttd's charm, its getting more difficult to predict how it will end. There's a lot of story which was masterpiece in every part as seen by fans, until the ending hits. Its what the author wants, but its not what the fans wants.

If you pick fights with others, even passively, the consequence is all on you. Good luck taking care of your mess.

Thats why i'm reluctant to publish any theory because the fandom will always use it as an excuse to pick fights with other and say " i'm more right bcs i got this proof" . U see in my caption i dont want any of those harasser to even digest my theory. If you are one of them get out of my blog.

[harry-pottery-barn]

As Your Future...

Draco Malfoy x Hufflepuff!Reader

a/n: This is part one of a mini-series I’m doing – look out for part 2 and possibly a part 3. This is also my first one shot, so any feedback/constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated!

word count: 4.1k

warnings: light cussing, some French words (google translate works well for these but knowing the meaning isn’t necessary for the storyline)

requested by @fenxiaomao​ on tumblr

posted on tumblr and wattpad august 26, 2020

art: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pottermore/comments/fovxjq/draco_malfoy_artwork_by_me/

********

“Looks like we got paired up again, L/N.”

“What a coincidence,” you groaned sarcastically as Professor Slughorn smiled at the lot of you. “We get paired up for everything, don’t we?”

You clenched your jaw as the white blonde boy sat down in the stool next to you. You hated the British mannerism of calling everyone by their last name. You didn’t dare look at him while you flipped through your crisp copy of Advanced Potion Making.

“You say that as if I wanted this to happen,” spat Draco, his awkward smile now curled into a scowl.

You despised everything about Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The teachers, the classes, the weather, the uniforms, the houses, the castle, and especially the students.

The students who never paid you any attention unless you were involved in a rumor. The students who shot sideways glances at you in the halls. The students who didn’t bother lowering their voices when they gossiped about you because they assumed you didn’t understand a speck of English… even when all of your classes were conducted in English.

Even the students of your own house seemed to keep you on the sidelines, so much so that you had given up on trying to become friends with anyone.

At least they acknowledged your existence, you kept reminding yourself.

You spent a lot of your time wondering why the so called “kind and caring” Hufflepuffs didn’t go any further than simple pleasantries with you. Perhaps it was false that they were all accepting, or perhaps they thought someone of your lineage would be better suited in Slytherin.

It was utterly clear, even to you, why nobody seemed to bat an eyelash at you. You were the prestigious, pretentious, pure-blood transfer from Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. Or, as you knew it, Académie de Magie Beauxbatôns.

Of course, nobody knew why you had transferred so late in your education. Your parents advertised their desire to move to England to their friends, co-workers, and even the school administrators. It was extremely plausible that they simply wanted you close by while you were at school, instead of in another country. What people didn’t know, however, was that you just so happened to move to Wiltshire – more specifically, a mansion that was just down the street from Malfoy Manor.

You came from a very well known family – the longest line of pure-blood wizards in all of France. Your family line had only been “muddled” by a Squib who married a Muggle and started a Muggle family back in the 1400s. Besides that one branch, every single bit of your family tree is pure-blood. Your parents strived to uphold the so-called purity of the L/N bloodline. And, as two of the most ambitious and determined people you knew, you were aware of just how far they would go to keep it that way.

As members of one of the largest pure-blood families, you and your parents often attended French, as well as international, galas, balls, and fêtes for those with similar bloodlines. This, of course, is how your parents first met the Malfoy’s.

The night you first saw Draco had to have been ages ago – nine years to be exact, when you were both only seven. It was a rather private event, celebrating the 90th birthday of some old man, in the manor that you were destined to live in about a decade later. However, you had no idea back then.

At the time, Draco religiously slicked back his hair, had chubby cheeks, and was a couple inches shorter than you. He didn’t say more than a simple “hello” before hiding behind his mother’s leg, staring at you the entire time. You ignored him and had a conversation with his sweet, almost warm mother, while your parents discussed something rather serious with his father, who you were genuinely terrified of.

Now, nine years later, you were sat next to Draco Malfoy in a potions class with the task of successfully brewing a Wound-Cleaning potion within an hour.

Wordlessly, you stood up and gathered your ingredients from the pantry. With your arms full of jars of honey-water, dittany, boomslang skin, stewed mandrake, asphodel, and lion fish spines, you made your way out of the store and to your desk, where Draco was turned towards Blaise Zabini, laughing. Just before you reached your table, someone very tall and massive bumped into you.

There was a loud, earsplitting shatter that echoed through the stone dungeon, silencing any small talk. The large bottle of honey-water had fallen from your arms, and the entire bottom half of your uniform was soaked.

“Bloody hell, Goyle,” giggled Pansy Parkinson, who peered from behind Gregory Goyle.

Gregory’s feet and shins were also covered in honey-water and shards of glass. He glared at you, pure anger in his eyes.

“Bet she did it on purpose,” he muttered. “Wasn’t my fault Beauxbatons wasn’t looking where she was going.”

“Knock it off, Goyle,” said Draco sternly from your desk.

You shot him a quick glare before rolling your eyes.

“Is everyone alright?” said Professor Slughorn from his desk, looking over his glasses at us.

“Nobody’s hurt,” you said.

You leaned to the side and set down the rest of your jars on a nearby table.

“Beauxbatons dropped a jug of honey-water,” Gregory said, glaring at you all the while.

“It’s Y/N L/N,” you said clearly, pulling your wand from your robes.

“Bloody hell,” gasped Pansy.

Gregory took a step back, stumbling into another table. He scrambled for his own wand and pointed right at your neck, gripping it in his gigantic hand.

“Mon dieu! I’m trying to clean up the mess!”

“Watch where you’re going, Goyle,” muttered Ron Weasley, a Gryffindor whose cauldron had tipped over and rolled across the table.

“Pfft,” said Gregory, pocketing his wand. He continued, fake coolness dripping from his words, “I knew that, Beauxbatons.”

Pansy cackled from behind him. She passed you, whispering loudly to Gregory, “You should’ve hexed her; then perhaps she’d go back to where she came from.”

Without another word, you waved your wand at the floor. The glass bottle pieced itself back together, while the honey-water evaporated from the stone floor and your uniform. You didn’t bother with Gregory’s. He slammed his giant shoulder into you again as he trod into the pantry.

“Connard,” you said under your breath.

“Let me get a new one.”

Draco had already leapt out of his stool and passed you, following Gregory. You rolled your eyes, knowing you were perfectly capable of getting a new jug, before gathering your other ingredients and finally sitting back down at your cauldron. You began preparing the ingredients, glancing at the textbook only once to confirm a measurement. You seamlessly cut, ground, and poured each ingredient from memory by the time Draco finally returned with a new bottle of honey-water.

“How did you prepare them so quickly?” he asked in awe, the jug hitting the desk with a low thud. He added, with his trademark smirk, “switch ingredients with Granger, did you?”

“My school specializes in healing,” you scoffed.

You lit the fire underneath your cauldron and measured the honey-water, immediately pouring it into the cauldron.

“I’ve known how to brew this since I was thirteen. What took you so long?”

“Had to have a conversation with Goyle and Parkinson,” he said.

“About?”

“I think you’re smart enough to know what it was about, L/N.”

You glared at him, unsure whether to feel exhausted or exasperated.

“I can handle myself without your chivalry, Draco.”

“What was I supposed to do? Let him walk all over you?” he asked aggressively, yet barely louder than a whisper.

“He didn’t walk all over me,” you replied in an equally quiet voice. “I just didn’t pick a fight with him. At least I can go a day without insulting someone’s family, wealth, or appearance.”

“Stop acting so high and mighty, L/N. We both know you’re in a more damning situation than you like to tell.”

You kicked Draco’s leg under the desk before peacefully continuing with brewing the potion. You could tell, even without looking at him, that the Slytherin was bright red with anger.

“We also know that we’re not supposed to bring it up around other people, don’t we?” you whispered in a sickly sweet voice, trying to be as demeaning as possible.

You didn’t like being rude, but you would rather play Draco’s little game than run the risk of Hogwarts knowing why you had transferred. Draco fumed in the stool next to you, then began to jot things down in a notebook for the rest of the class as you silently finished brewing the Wound-Cleaning Potion. Your mind began to wander as you added and stirred in each ingredient.

You had only met Draco three more times before attending Hogwarts. After your very first meeting, you saw each other again about five years later, at a gala for Quidditch sponsors in Germany. Just like the first time, your parents began talking; however, you and Draco were left alone.

It was awkward to say the least.

He was much cockier and more confident, and he spent most of your time together talking about himself and his successes as Seeker on his team at Hogwarts. You probably managed to squeeze in five sentences during the hours you were stuck alone with him at that table.

The third time you saw each other was in Marseilles, France, at the housewarming party for your parents’ beach house two years ago. Luckily, many of your friends from Beauxbatons were there. You couldn’t help but feel bad for Draco as he stood awkwardly with your friends, nodding his head while clearly not understanding a single word that was said. You decided to start speaking in English, which you eventually regretted. Draco took the opportunity to talk about how great he was once again. Your friends all gaped in awe, asking questions and fawning over him. You passively listened as Draco got an ego boost, answering question after question like a celebrity.

The last time was in Malfoy Manor last July. You had been out of school for no more than a couple of weeks when your parents decided to take a trip to England. Once you arrived, the Malfoy’s had happily invited your family over for dinner last-minute. Or at least, you thought it was last-minute at the time.

That dinner, as well as the trip itself, was all planned by your parents and Draco’s parents years before. And just as they had planned on the first night you and Draco met, they gave you news that would change your life.

“You’re kidding,” you said, no other words coming to mind.

“We are not,” said your father sternly, “and we would appreciate it if you would hold your tongue while Mr. Malfoy is speaking.”

“Thank you, Mr. L/N,” drawled Mr. Malfoy.

You fell silent as you clenched your fists under the giant dining table.

“In the winter of 1998, after you are both eighteen, you will be married here in Malfoy Manor,” explained Mr. Malfoy. “This, of course, is to ensure that the L/N and Malfoy bloodlines are secure from any filth that would accompany half- and mudbloods.”

“As you are both only children, we deemed it was only fitting to merge our two families together, creating an even better bloodline for the future,” continued your father. “This also allows the opportunity for the two of you to marry someone who is not a cousin of any sort.”

As you panicked, your eyes fell on Draco, who was sitting next to you at the table. His blank face stared at the wall in front of him, without a single reaction.

“And, so the two of you do not enter a marriage without knowing each other first, we have decided to move to England, and Y/N will be transferring to Hogwarts in the fall,” said your mother.

“WHAT?!” you shouted, standing up abruptly. “I am most certainly NOT transferring to Hogwarts! And I am not going to marry Draco! This is absolutely absu--”

“You will learn to keep your temper under control in the presence of others, Y/N,” growled your father.

What felt like two large, invisible hands pushed down on your shoulders, forcing you back into your chair.

“Of course, Y/N, you do not have to do anything. You have choices,” your father said.

A sense of relief flooded your system.

“Either you can transfer to Hogwarts for your last two years of school and marry Draco the following winter, or you can explain to the Dark Lord why you will not be doing so.”

You felt your heart stop. There was no way in hell you were about to try to tell Voldemort himself why you didn’t want to keep your bloodline pure by marrying Draco.

“That’s what I thought, ma fille,” said your father with a smile, before continuing to discuss details with the Malfoy’s.

You didn’t remember much else from that night. Your mind began to wander just as it was now, while you were brewing this simple potion.

The potion was purple, but not smoking, in just under forty minutes. You called Professor Slughorn over to inspect it, causing Draco to jolt. He seemed to have dozed off while you were working.

Figures, you thought helplessly.

After Professor Slughorn joyously celebrated your potion, he allowed you and Draco to leave class for lunch as soon as your station was cleaned up. You quietly replaced all of the ingredients in the pantry, emptied your cauldron, packed your things, and left the classroom.

“That was brilliant, L/N,” said Draco, who had caught up to you in the empty corridor. “I didn’t have to lift a finger.”

“For the last time, Draco, it’s Y/N. You know I hate the whole last name thing,” you said, not looking at him.

“Perhaps I hate the whole first name thing.”

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t speak to me at all,” you fired back.

“If I had the chance to never speak to you again in my life, trust me, I would take it,” he snapped.

You weren’t quite sure why, but his words stung in a way no insult had hurt you before. You remained silent for the rest of your walk, until you reached the Great Hall. You didn’t even feel hungry anymore.

“I’m going back to my common room,” you muttered, turning away from the massive oak doors and walking towards the Hufflepuff Basement.

“Ah, she speaks,” said Draco, in a tone that was maddening.

You stopped dead in your tracks. You looked at him again, contemplating if it was worth getting into a quarrel over.

“It’s just that-- well, you’re an awfully quiet person.”

“Really? Hmm, I haven’t noticed,” you deadpanned.

A group of first years passing by suddenly stopped walking. They started whispering and giggling amongst themselves, very clearly about you and Draco.

“What are you looking at?” spat Draco. “Go before I give you all detention.”

With small screeches, they rushed past you into the Great Hall, still whispering and giggling.

“C’était superflu,” you mumbled to yourself.

“Unnecessary? They were laughing at us!” said Draco. “If I had the chance, I would’ve straightened them out!”

“They’re first years! They’re barely eleven! You truly expect a group of eleven-year-old’s to pass by two teenagers who are alone and not be immature?”

“I was never that immature.”

You scoffed. “Never that immature”? Did he know how he acted at parties? “Never that immature”, my ass, you thought.

“Do you have something to say, L/N?” he demanded, daring to take a step closer to you.

“Putain de bâtard, it’s Y/N!” you shouted.

You turned swiftly on your heels, noticing the odd stares and whispers of students going to lunch, and marched down the corridor. You didn’t look back while you sped to your common room, only stopping to tap the barrel that opened the door. The large circle door swung open. You scurried through and slammed the door, relieved to be in the Hufflepuff common room.

Merlin, how Draco pissed you off. As if having no real friends at school wasn’t terrible enough, the man you were destined to marry was always there to make you angry on an already bad day.

It took all of your willpower to not fight back. The way he was treating you, as well as everyone else, was just plain wrong. On a regular day, you might have made a couple of comments back, but you never called him names or raised your voice. You kept your temper in check, letting him berate and poke at you every day.

You sat down in a large, golden armchair and stared into the fire, finally realizing what you had said to Draco.

A wave of panic rushed over you. Draco was surely going to tell his father of this incident, and if Draco’s father heard of it, he was surely going to tell your father.

Your father scared you more than Voldemort himself. He knew how to get to you, and he managed, without hesitation, to discipline you from the longest of distances. You honestly never had a clue how he always found out about anything slightly wrong you had done, but he did… every single time.

The uneasy feeling lasted throughout the rest of the day, clouding your thoughts and ruining your appetite. By the time dinner rolled around, the last thing you wanted to do was eat. Since you had missed lunch, you forced yourself away from your library desk, without a single assignment completed, and to the Great Hall, hoping you didn’t run into Draco along the way.

Once you were a single turn away from the Great Hall, you heard your name echo through the empty stone corridor.

It was Draco.

You sighed heavily, strong feelings of anger, fear, and exhaustion overwhelming you.

“Please, not now, Draco,” you groaned.

“But you don’t know what I was going to say,” he replied, confused.

“Honestly, I don’t care.”

“Y-you don’t care?”

That was odd. You tried to recount another time Draco had stuttered, but your mind was blank.

“I know it’s going to be something either insulting, negative, or inflammatory, and quite frankly, I don’t want to hear it. You’ve probably already told your father I cursed at you, and I’m sure my father’s punishments will begin promptly tomorrow morning, so thank you,” you said without taking a breath. “I need to force myself to eat something, so if you’ll excuse me--”

“Why would I tell my father you cursed at me?” he asked plainly.

“Don’t you tell your father everything?”

“Well, not everything… just when someone needs to be discipli--”

“Disciplined or punished, yes, I know. You sound exactly like my father.”

Draco suddenly became very shy. You had never seen him this way before. He was so thrown off his game, his act had completely dropped.

Suddenly, you felt very lightheaded and dizzy. You quickly stumbled towards the wall and caught yourself before you fell. You pressed your fingers to your temples as you leaned back against the wall, sliding down until you sat on the ground.

“Merlin, Y/N, are you alright?”

“Oh, just a little lightheaded.”

“Why’s that?”

“I didn’t catch breakfast this morning, and then I didn’t eat all day today because I’ve been nervous about what kind of fresh hell my father would put me through if he knew I called you a bastard,” you explained with a weak laugh.

Draco slid down the wall and sat on the cold stone floor next to you.

“You don’t have to act like you care about me,” you groaned, resting your chin on your knees.

“Who said I was acting?” asked Draco, in a soft voice he had never used before.

He glanced around the corridor, as if making sure it was empty.

“You are my future wife, after all,” he continued very quietly. “Might as well try to get along.”

“Could you sound any less pleased about it?” you chuckled.

“I’m sure we can both agree it’s a rather unfortunate situation to be in, but is it so terrible for me to care about the general well being of the person I’m going to be spending the rest of my life with?”

You fell silent. This was the first time he had ever said something remotely nice to you. You were very taken aback, searching for something, anything to say. You and Draco sat in peaceful silence for about a minute, completely uninterrupted. His words rang in your mind: Might as well try to get along.

“Do you ever wish you could do what you wanted?” you asked abruptly.

“Excuse me?” Draco asked, bewildered.

“Oh, come on. Don’t pretend your parents don’t control your every move and your future. Do you ever wonder what things would be like… what your life would be like… if you were the one in control?”

Draco didn’t answer. You turned your head, laying your cheek on your knees, and glanced back at him. He looked as though he had never considered a life with his own decisions before.

“Personally,” you started, catching his attention, “I would want to own a potion shop. In the southern French countryside. I never decided on where specifically. I figured I would have the rest of my life to imagine a village that was big enough to not know everyone but small enough to be quaint. My shop would be a cottage on a plot with a few acres to grow my own plants and herbs. All of my ingredients would either be locally sourced or imported from humane places with the best quality potion ingredients. My potions would be brewed by myself and a couple other potioneers – preferably from different countries in order to bring new perspectives to the table. It wouldn’t necessarily be a lavish way of life, but it would be mine, and it would be helping others as well.

“I’d want to be able to fall in love and get married on my own accord,” you explained further, “regardless of their blood status, but preferably a wizard so the potion shop could work out as well. We’d either live in the second floor of the shop or in a different cottage a short walk away. We’d have a dog and a cat, and perhaps children if it felt right and we were old enough. I would be able to be my own person without walking on eggshells, trying to do what would make my parents the happiest. I would leave the stuck-up, grandiloquent snob my parents raised me to be, and I wouldn’t have to live up to the generations of standards put on me. I would have nothing to do with my parents, nothing to do with the Ministry of Magic, and nothing to do with--”

You caught yourself before you said the name of the castle you were currently in. You sighed, knowing that this fantasy you concocted for yourself would never become a reality. That you were stuck in the narrative your parents wrote for you, unable to pick up a pen and rewrite it yourself.

You leaned your head back against the stone wall with a small thud, breathing deeply. You saw Draco tilt his head toward you out of the corner of your eye. You looked back at him, studying his face.

His white blonde hair fell down in front of his eyes ever so slightly. His expression was just as woeful as yours. You couldn’t help but notice the faint tinge of blue in his light grey eyes.

“That’s the most I think I’ve ever heard you say,” he said with a slight chuckle.

“Believe it or not, my friends back at Beauxbatons call me loud and outgoing,” you admitted.

“I promise you,” he said in a determined tone, his eyes never leaving yours, “that, as your future husband, you will one day have that shop. I will make sure of it.”

A smile crept onto your face – the first genuine smile of yours in a long time. You leaned your head on Draco’s shoulder. The smell of expensive cologne and green apples washed over you as you stared out the large, arched window that looked over the school grounds.

The sky, which was bright pink from the sunset, gave the trees and rolling hills a beautiful warm glow. The clouds were painted orange and dark purple, and you could see the silhouette of an owl soaring from one side of the window to the other.

You felt content and at peace for the first time in what felt like your entire life.

And suddenly, the world didn’t seem so dim anymore.

[gottawriteanegoortwo]

Darkstache - Seeing the Truth

A follow-on from the prompt where Wilford discovered Dark was colourblind. He’s determined to help Dark experience the beauty that is colour.

Word Count: 1,565

-

If there was one thing every single ego working in the studio could agree on, it was that Wilford was not the smartest of the bunch. He struggled with reading, had difficulties keeping track of time, had an unreliable memory on bad days, among other things. Which was why there was surprise when it was discovered Wiford was undertaking heavy research. Sitting at the desk in his dressing-room-studio, the reporter was immersed in work on his laptop. There was a notebook beside him where he attempted to write legible notes. Several drinking glasses had been conjured and emptied so he could work without the distraction of moving. Another notebook was open and drying on the radiator after some water spilled on it.

But if anyone walked in with the intention to see what he was doing, they were blocked by an invisible bubble. To Dark’s frustration, it included him.

“You know you can’t work on anything without telling me about it. As the company’s lawyer, I need to make sure what you’re doing keeps you out of legal trouble.” Dark folded his arms with an irritated expression. In response, Wilford pulled himself onto his feet, sauntered across the room, and slipped through the bubble barrier to take Dark’s hands in his own.

“Yeah, buuut Google told me that’s only if I’m workin’ on somethin’ fer th’ studio. This is a personal project that I want perfect before I tell anyone!” A seemingly simple answer had alarm bells ringing in Dark’s mind. Wilford always put his brainstorming on display for others. Why was he being so secretive? He tried to pull his hands away, but the reporter’s grip was too tight. “Ya gotta trust me, sugarplum. I’ve been workin’ hard like a little bee in here. Just gimme a little longer an’ I’ll show ya everythin’.”

“Will this be before or after you cause whatever trouble you’re planning?”

“Who said anythin’ ‘bout causin’ trouble?” Wilford was hurt by that, though he was quick to shake it off. “When it’s ready, yer th’ first person I wanna show. Promise.” He kissed Dark on the cheek and added, “Yer still free after work, right?”

--

When the other egos and regular staff had called it a day, Dark returned to Wilford’s empty office. To his surprise, the barrier bubble was gone, but the desk space had been cleared. There was no evidence he could see that might tell him what Wilford was up to. Wilford had actually remembered to shut down the laptop for once. This was certainly an unusual setting for the reporter who was terrible with technology. There had to be a clue somewhere that he wasn’t seeing!

“Babe!” Wilford’s voice made Dark jump. He spun around to notice Wilford had changed clothes to wear a faint blue (maybe) shirt, black trousers and white suspenders (he could tell those colours easily). “Thought I’d catch ya before ya left yer office. Ya ready ta go?” Dark nodded, crossing the room to take Wilford’s free hand.

“A basket?”

“Well, yeah! Can’t have ya gettin’ cold on me, eh? We got a great evenin’ planned an’ I want ya ta be cosy!”

--

The car pulled up at their normal viewing spot outside the city. Dark tried to weasel information out of Wilford, but the reporter was unusually tight-lipped. All he could learn was that the pair were sky-gazing. As much as Dark liked spending time with Wilford, he couldn’t help but feel Wilford forgot that Dark couldn’t enjoy seeing the day sky in the same way. Surely he wouldn’t need to ruin the night by having this conversation a second time, right? Stuck with indecision on what to do, Dark didn’t notice how Wilford sat on the picnic blanket and began pulling things out of the basket at first. A little vase of flowers, a notebook, some juggling balls, a small balloon, a black case… 

“Wilford… What are you doing with all this stuff?” Before Dark could sit, Wilford quickly scrambled back onto his feet.

“No, no! Not yet. Tonight’s a special night. Gonna be one of th’ prettiest views an’ I don’t wantcha missin’ it ‘cause yer askin’ why I have so many things with me.” Wilford wagged a finger playfully at Dark. A graceful bend allowed him to scoop up the black case and hand it to Dark. “A present fer my beautiful shadow.” Dark accepted the case, clicked it open, and frowned.

“... Sunglasses. At 8pm?”

“Well, yeah! There’s gonna be some big bright flashy thing of some sort tonight. Bing was ravin’ ‘bout it. I’m surprised ya didn’t hear ‘bout it!” Wilford had whipped out a pair of sunglasses and rested them in his messy curls. “Go on! Try ‘em on. Betcha look real handsome with ‘em~”

Something wasn’t right, but Dark couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Wilford was acting peculiar, like he was trying to distract the entity from something. Google never mentioned anything about events taking place in the sky. With all the random objects scattered at his feet, it could be Wilford’s way to pull attention away from some crime he had committed while out. That’s why he changed clothes, it had to be! Even with those worries in his head, Wilford looked genuinely excited. Dark never wore sunglasses, but maybe he could humour Wilford and play along. 

The glasses were put on.

The world exploded in a way he never could have predicted.

What was originally a murky mesh of blue, yellow, and grey had now become so much more. Everything was brighter, vivid, alive! He quickly lifted the glasses to see the world as he was used to, then dropped the glasses back down to see this new world. It was the glasses. The glasses were somehow letting him see colour in a way he never could have imagined and couldn’t possibly explain. The colours seemed to shift a little the longer he wore them, possibly as his eyes adjusted to it, allowing him to see so much more. A hand covered his mouth as emotions welled up inside him. Never did he think he would ever see something like this in his entire life.

“Ya doin’ okay?” Wilford’s hand gently squeezed his shoulder. Dark nodded.

“I… I’ve never seen colour like this before. It’s beautiful… I thought you brought me here because you forgot.”

“Nah. I wrote it down when ya told me. This is what I’ve been workin’ on all week that no one knew ‘bout. I wanted ta help ya see colour. These glasses were th’ best way ta do that. Bet it must be weird fer ya.” 

“I never would have guessed how many types of green there are. It all looked the same, but the leaves on the trees and the grass all look so different…” He turned to face Wilford, only to trail off as he took in the sight of his boyfriend in full colour for the first time. He was wearing a purple shirt, not a blue one! Wilford could see the emotion in Dark’s eyes through the tinted lenses as the entity’s hand reached up to Wilford’s face. “... Is that pink? Your moustache… It’s brighter than I could have imagined.” Tears finally slipped underneath the glasses as he laughed. “It’s perfect for you. I can’t stop smiling as I look at it. Oh! I never even realised it was in your hair either! I thought your hair was all one shade!” Fingers looped strands of pink locks to examine them better. “I knew I was right to think of you when I tried to imagine what ‘pink’ looked like.”

“Ya can admire me an’ my pretty pink all ya like later…. But turn ‘round again. I think y’ll like what yer ‘bout ta see.” Wilford kissed Dark on the nose before encouraging the entity to spin back the way he was originally facing.

There, in all its majestic glory behind them, was a sunset. With the distraction of the glasses, enough time had passed for the sun to dip low enough below the horizon. Dark slipped an arm around Wilford’s waist and held on tightly as he took in every inch of the evening sky.

“I knew it was yellow, I knew it was blue, but all the colours in between… No wonder you were always so excited to look at sunsets. I could stare at this all night if I could. I’m seeing colours I never knew existed before. It’s perfect.”

“I thought y’d say that. I try ta keep a diary ta help me remember things so I thought, ‘why not do th’ same fer you’?” A spiral-bound notebook was passed to Dark, open on a page that had coloured squares labelled. “I made ya a little chart so y’d know what colours are what.” A simple gesture had the emotions bubbling over all over again as Dark hugged Wilford tight.

The pair would sit in silence and enjoy the full beauty of the sunset. Wrapped in a purple and white blanket, Dark was given all the time to process what he was seeing. Later, the pair would use the notebook to show Wilford what Dark could now see in the random assortment of items that dotted the blanket as they undertook a masterclass of colour.. But for the moment, seeing the beauty of a colourful world took priority.

---

Note: For those who might be curious, I highly recommend checking out EnChroma, who do indeed make glasses to help those who are colourblind. There are plenty of video reactions to people wearing them for the first time if ever you need to rediscover your appreciation of colour.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HERE'S WHAT I JUST REALIZED ABOUT CIRCLE

It's hard to think of startup ideas. If this is true it has interesting implications, because discipline can be cultivated. Try talking to everyone you can about the gaps they find in the world, and this is easier for writers as well as readers. That means they want less money, but also that there are more and more valuable. When they go to VC firms. Anyone can see they're not the target market. If that's true, most startups that turn down acquisition offers is not necessarily that all such offers undervalue startups. That will change the atmosphere, and not before. The time required to raise money. Whoever the next Google is, they're probably going to have to be at the mercy of their own imagination. About 20% of the startups from preventable deaths.

Investors collude. If you look at the instruments. I didn't make a lot of time on the software. One could do a lot better for a lot of investors will reject you in a way that seems to violate conservation laws. I took embarrassingly long to catch on. I said in the second version, why didn't I have the easy confidence winners are supposed to have? It's equivalent to asking how to make a difference. A palliative care nurse called Bronnie Ware made a list of n things is a degenerate case of essay. Angels can take greater risks because they don't have to look for things that seem completely unrelated, like social networking apps. It's supposed to mean that a deal is going to be. Distinguishing between wise and smart is a modern habit. Dropbox: an SAT prep startup.

Philip Greenspun said in Founders at Work that Ars Digita's VCs did this to them. It certainly describes what happened in Viaweb. But neither should you let them run the company. Another drawback of large investments is the time they take. There do not seem to be superficial reasons. In the time of Confucius and Socrates, wisdom, virtue, and happiness were necessarily related. If you run out of money, you have to figure out what you'd need to reproduce Silicon Valley. I would guess that practically every Stanford or Berkeley undergrad who knows how to program has at least considered the idea of starting a startup means the average good bet is a riskier one, but most can upload a file. What surprised me was their reaction when I called to talk about buying you. If you look at the way successful founders have had their ideas, it's not the deciding factor. Everyone he knows has seen that picture. To evaluate whether your startup is worth investing in.

I decided the critical ingredients were rich people and nerds—investors and founders. It takes an effort of will to push through this and get something released to users. Google's founders were willing to fund teams of MBAs who planned to outsource their product development—which to my mind is actually a lot riskier than investing in a pair of 18 year old hackers, no matter how finished you thought it was important for a founder to be an expert in business. A termsheet is not legally binding, but it is a definite step. There seem to be ideas for companies, just things that would be the first to switch to it. And yet when they started the company. But Mark already lived online; to him it seemed natural. That may not be possible to do that completely. One of the two founders was still in grad school, but we're focusing on growing the company. But coming up with startup ideas is to work on a recipe site. This is one of the people who are committed enough to prefer that, and c only hire people who are committed enough to prefer that, and c only hire people who are really good at acting formidable often solve this problem by giving investors the impression that while no investors have committed yet, several are about to.

But I've proposed to several VC firms that they set aside some money and designate one partner to make more, smaller bets, and they bounced back. Even a bad cook can make a decent cheeseburger. Reading Fred's post made me go back and figure out if they were returning to work after a months-long illness. You could replace high schools too, but there are signs it might be as much as a half. You generally shouldn't pass up a definite funding offer to move. Start a company? But there are limits to how well you answer their questions. A good deal of willfulness must be inborn, because it's common to see families where one sibling has much more of it than another.

Recipes for wisdom, particularly ancient ones, tend to have a qualification appended: at games that change slowly. I don't know exactly what the future will look like, but I'm British by birth. No amount of discipline can replace genuine curiosity. Now I would guess that practically every Stanford or Berkeley undergrad who knows how to program has at least considered the idea of switching seems thinkable to me. You have to be generated by software, so we wrote some. The idea that a successful person should be happy has thousands of years, then switches polarity? This leads to the phenomenon known in the Valley as the hot deal, where you can assume that if you can't predict whether there's a path out of an idea, a working prototype; if you win an Olympic gold medal, you can be wise without being very smart. Judging startups is hard even for the most successful of that group by an order of magnitude larger than the number who want it, not how to convert that wealth into money. To count as research, the less likely it is to be something that could only ever have appealed to Harvard students, it would be an amazing hack. You're all smart and working on promising ideas. Something that curtly contradicts one's beliefs can be hard to sell. If startup failure were a disease, the CDC would be issuing bulletins warning people to avoid day jobs.

As I was leaving I offered it to him, as I've done countless times before in the same spirit. In a sense there's just one point, you don't really understand them. They insist on it. So why did I spend 6 months working on this stupid idea? Corporate Development, aka corp dev, ask yourselves, Do we want to keep in close touch as you develop it further. And not just because we make small investments; many have gone on to raise further rounds. VCs: How would you like a job where you never got to make anything, but instead ask do we suck? They say Yeah, maybe I could see myself—making at least 4 of these 5 mistakes.

Considering how basic a red circle is, it seemed surprising to me when we started YC. The last one might be the most progressive. You can't use euphemisms like didn't go anywhere for something that's your only occupation. One Canadian startup we funded could appear in a Newsweek article describing them as the next generation of billionaires, because then the cycle of generating new versions and testing them on users can happen inside one head. After they merged with X. So here's the recipe for impressing investors when you're not already good at seeming formidable the first time in history they're no longer getting the best people. I mean truly evaluate whether your startup is worth investing in, rather than whether it's going to take, and the doctors figure out what's wrong. Probably no one who applied to Y Combinator to work on projects that seem like they'd be cool. The only way to decide which to call it is by comparison with other startups.

Thanks to Patrick Collison, Jessica Livingston, Sam Altman, Robert Morris, the founders of Zenter, and Justin Kan for smelling so good.

[freckled-words]

Repost: Haunted Anxiety

This was originally requested by a follower, who I do not remember the name of and did not keep in my Google Doc. If you remember being the person that requested this, two years ago, your story still lives on!!

I do not recall if this is edited :D

Anti was relentless when he wanted something. Thankfully most of the things he wanted were small. Certain snack foods, movie marathons with cuddles, and sometimes late night walks.

For whatever reason Anti wanted to go out to a carnival that was in town. He’d caught sight of it the other night and had been badgering you to go since he came over that morning. You thought it was adorable how excited he was about it and could easily see him running around like a little kid through all the attractions. 

The only problem was that it wasn’t in your comfort zone. You’d never been one to willingly go near large crowds. The press of people and abundance of noises were overwhelming. You were prone to anxiety attacks in those situations, particularly if something unexpected happened that startled you.

Anti, in all his excitement and determination to go with you, completely forgot about this.

It took him the better part of the day but finally you reluctantly agreed. You would have felt so guilty if you’d turned him down. 

You told yourself over and over, ‘You’ll be okay. You’re with Anti, and there’ll be room to move around. It’s outdoors so you won’t be trapped. You’ll be okay.’

~~~~~`

The carnival was situated in an abandoned field outside of town. There was a ferris wheel, a haunted house, a small tunnel of love, and a bunch of food and game vendors. Just as you pictured it Anti was a ball of childish delight wanting to go from one thing to another. 

What you didn’t anticipate was Anti dragging you along behind him. He held your hand tight and made you go with him to the ferris wheel. Inside that tiny rotating booth you felt yourself calm down from your initial insecurity. You were with Anti, he wouldn’t anything bad happen to you. Just now he was leaning over the edge of the bar trying to peer down at the ground. His eyes were alive with energy as he pointed out that game booth and the churro stand. After the ferris wheel you found yourself having fun. There were times when you were crowded on all sides, particularly when you were getting something to eat, and each time you clung onto Anti. He held you close, his arm around your shoulders just thinking you wanted to be closer for the physical contact. In truth it was the security of feeling his shirt under your fingers, and the scent of mint and musk that he had to him that drove you closer. They grounded you, gave you something to focus until you got free of the throng of people.

The sun was beginning to set when Anti decided you should end the day with the haunted house. You’d been dreading it all day. Anytime you walked past it you saw people going in as a steady stream. The people controlling the attraction made sure it was no more than 10 to 15 people at a time, but there wasn’t that much room between people being let it and people coming out. 

You barely got a protest off your tongue when Anti grabbed your wrist and dragged you to the entrance. 

You tensed up going through the doorway. Fake fog swirled through the halls, the only source of lights were black lights and lasers. You could hear people laughing and joking up ahead. People crowded in behind you and there was a group of rowdy college students in front of you. 

Your eyes danced around the space trying to watch for anything or anyone that might make an attempt to scare you. Anti’s grip on your wrist let go, he pointed to a stuffed scarecrow twitching in autonomous motions, “Bet I can make it better!” Before you could tell Anti to wait he ran over to the scarecrow and slipped inside it’s electronics. You backed against the nearest wall, needing something solid to keep you steady. The throng of people inched towards the scarecrow and suddenly it was alive with movements not pre-programmed. More than a couple people let out a genuine scream and dashed onwards. 

Despite hearing Anti’s laughter you couldn’t shake off the growing feeling of being alone. You wanted to leave, you wanted to get outside and away from all the noise. The air in the house was clogged with the smell of beer, popcorn, the artificial fog, and the musk of too many people close together. 

The coast clear Anti popped out of the scarecrow. Seeing you against the wall and looking a little shaky he dropped his smile. He got in close, “Oi what's wrong?”

You shook your head. Your chest hurt and you weren't pulling in enough air, “Can we go? Please?”

Anti saw what was happening. He hasn't seen you like this in a while. But he knew what to do. Putting his arms around you he guided you over to a corner out of sight. His grip tightening he warned you, “I know ya don't like it but we’re getting you out.”

You buried your face against his chest just as you felt yourself get propelled. You really didn't like it when he glitched you places. The disorientation was bad enough, but it also had a tendency to leave your stomach back where you'd started. 

Soon enough you were out of the haunted house and the carnival grounds all together. The fresh air was welcome, as it already began to ease your overwhelmed senses. He’d taken you to the nearby baseball field. With everyone more interested in the carnival it was abandoned for the evening. 

Anti had a kind of green glow around him, providing the only source of illumination in the dark. His hands on either side of your face he asked, “Better?”

It was better. Without the feeling of eyes on you, and the lack of other stimulants your mind began to calm down and the pain in your chest began to ease. You drew air in through your nose and out through your mouth, “Better.”

Feeling more stable you mumbled, “Sorry Anti. I didn't mean to ruin your fun.”

“What the fuck are you apologizing for?” Anti was incredulous. The lights surrounding the field flickered with his spike in energy. 

“If you didn't have me with you, you could have had more time at the carnival.”

The field lights flickered brighter as Anti gawped at you, “More time? Cripes your logic!” He grabbed your hips and brought you in closer, “Now listen here. You know I can fuck off and do whatever I want whenever I want. But what I wanted to do, was spend some goddamn time doing something fun with ya. But I’m also a fucking moron and didn't think about you.”

As he ranted the lights kept up a steady pulsing. Seeing that he was done you told him, “I want to spend time with you too. I really do, it's just….not comfortable for me to be in places like that.”

“And I already knew that! My head just went up my ass getting all excited.” He put his knuckle under your chin and made sure you met his eyes, “That bit of your brain that don't like crowds is a part of ya. Same as my brain sometimes wants me to go stabbing people. You still let me hang around. I got no right to not want you around for yours.”

You'd never really thought of it that way. You’d always known Anti was dangerous, hell you knew that before you even got to know him properly. There had been times when he'd come over with black eyes and blood coating his hands. You never said anything at those times, you just waited for him to clean himself up and calm down. The black would leave his eyes and he would come to you for comfort. He didn't care that he killed people, he did care about you being scared of him. The comfort and cuddles were for him more than for you. You always gave it. 

To know that he thought of his murderous impulses the same way you thought of your anxiety disorder was rather grounding. You leaned in holding Anti properly. “Still, I want to make it up to you. Is there anything else you'd like to do tonight?”

Anti pressed a rare chaste kiss against your hair. His eyes scanned the field and he got an idea, “Lay down and watch.”

You gave him a curious smile but did as told. Laying down you watched Anti rub his hands together eagerly. The field lights died and he took off.

Changed to a current of energy he bounced between all the field lights and the score boards faster than your eye could follow. A streak of green light was left in his wake. You watched in amazement as it became an odd design but gorgeous design of green light blazing in the night sky. 

The entire time you listened to Anti hoot and holler with laughter as he just cut loose in a way you could both enjoy.