#half of the ideas are about an oc and the other half is like. well

[ostensiblyfunctional]

I'd like to say thank you to @heartonxions for making my squirrel brain go on a rampage about how Gajeel got rid of his Phantom Lord mark. I have Ideas now, it's great, I love being hunted down by the writing bunnies /pos

[appri-dot]

Woody has yaoi with Fencer

Lemmy has beef with Construct

Now I need oc interactive goobs for literally everyone else

[sunderwight]

AU where there's no system (or a decidedly less restrictive one) and Shen Yuan transmigrates into an OC rogue cultivator before the start of the novel, and decides he's gonna steal the protagonist before Luo Binghe even gets to Cang Qiong.

The logic is sound -- he'll keep Luo Binghe from experiencing neglect and abuse at Shen Qingqiu's hands, raise him away from the pressure of the sects and the likelihood that anyone else might find out about his heritage and try to harm him over it, keep him fully away from the Immortal Alliance Conference, and then Luo Binghe's course will change trajectory because he'll have no reason to want revenge against the world and no access to Xin Mo. Shen Yuan will be able to spare Luo Binghe some suffering and possibly survive in a world less subject to the harrowing whims of a half-mad tyrannical overlord. Win-win!

However, the tricky bit is that he's not sure exactly how far ahead of the novel he is, and also Airplane didn't specify where Luo Binghe grew up. This means that Luo Binghe could be any age younger than twelve and in any number of places along or near to the Luo river.

Shen Yuan decides he's going to approach this by pretending he is looking for the long-lost son of his sister, traveling through the likeliest areas, asking after abandoned children who might fit the protagonist's description. It's a long shot, he knows, and he's mostly relying on the existence of Narrative Destiny. But eventually he is directed by several people towards a particular city, which is not as close to the river as he'd have expected Luo Binghe to grow up, but then again he only knows that was where baby Binghe was found, not where the washerwoman who took him in ultimately lived.

It becomes clear to him, though, that he's been sent to the wrong target. But also why he's been sent astray is apparent in nearly the same breath, because among the slave children living in this area is a little boy who could be his much younger clone.

Seriously, this kid looks just like him! Or, well, close enough. He looks a lot like Shen Yuan's actual nieces and nephews from his past life. It's uncanny.

Also, because of his search, the slave kids get wind of what he's looking for (his long-lost nephew) pretty quick. The boy with the obvious resemblance to him greets Shen Yuan's own assessment with wary cynicism, but he's just a little boy. So it's not difficult to notice the way he's also practically vibrating with hopefulness, half-hiding behind a protective older kid and looking at Shen Yuan with big dark eyes like he expects to be rescued or destroyed with whatever he has to say next.

Shen Yuan has a big problem now. He just knows that if he says something like "actually no this boy is too old to be my nephew" or whatever other excuse, no one will believe him, and also this poor kid is going to be permanently scarred by it. He's going to think Shen Yuan is lying just so that he can reject him. On top of that, he's not in a good situation here. None of these children are even remotely well cared-for.

Shen Yuan's rogue cultivator self isn't rich on the level of being like a wealthy sect leader or anything, but he's made some money since transmigrating by doing random cultivator jobs and quests along the way here. He uses it all to purchase two little slave boys (Do Not Separate), then takes another job and uses that coin to acquire a somewhat rundown manor which used to belong to the local gentry. The Qiu family (rings some bells but that's not exactly an uncommon name) kept it up for a while in case a branch family sprung up in need of a residence, but they've been in decline and the place is downright decrepit, so they had been looking to sell it instead. It's too big for a wandering bachelor like SY to ever need on his own account, but that's sort of the idea. He makes more money taking on cultivator work, at first taking his boys along with him for lack of any alternative. Nerve-wrackingly dangerous! Eventually he hires workers to start restoring the manor, particularly setting up a yard to be a school area, and then starts taking on any freelance jobs he can get in order to steadily buy out the contracts on all the other kids. He gets it nice enough to house and care for as many orphans as he can acquire.

Not because he's a big old softie though!

His story of looking for his nephew is a bust now, since he's apparently "found" the kid. So he's got to change tactics! If he can't find baby Binghe and the washerwoman, the next best approach is to create an opportunity for them to come to him. So once he's got his new household established, he starts offering free lessons to all the local kids. Not just the ones he's taken in, but also any who come by and want to learn some things. It's a tempting setup for anyone who wants their child to get education but can't afford a tutor, and Luo Binghe's mother had been entirely the sort of person who would have packed up and left her situation if there had been an opportunity for it.

On that note, SY also starts hiring single mothers to help look after his new gaggle of children and do the work he doesn't know how to do in these times, like keeping house, laundry, cooking, actually raising kids, etc.

His "little school" is not universally popular. A few groups try and ruin him, because the poverty in the region provides a basis of business for them. The ringleaders of the human traffickers in the area don't want their trade to dry up, even if it means selling all of their merchandise for this round, so when they find out that their underlings let Shen Yuan buy off all the kids they try and intimidate him into returning them (it doesn't go well for them). The Qiu family also isn't thrilled after it becomes clear what he's doing, and get him investigated by the local authorities (read: use their bribed officials and local goons to try and interfere.)

When that doesn't work either the sects get involved, because the Qiu go crying to Huan Hua Palace that Shen Yuan is sketchy and is trying to establish his own sect. So Shen Yuan talks his way around the matter, and frankly the Qiu are small fish even if they're the biggest ones in the local pond, so HHP doesn't care to pursue things much further. (Read: SY could mop the floor with the disciples they sent to investigate him, and it's not worth it to piss off someone this mysterious and powerful just to bully some impoverished children.)

Shen Yuan is appalled by all this bullshit though. Trust the world of PIDW to make it so hard just for a guy to teach some poor kids how to read and do math!

It makes him dig in his heels about it, because he is at heart a stubborn bastard. The fires that once fueled a thousand angry screeds on zhongdian literature site is now aimed at the local magistrate. One of the women he's hired on has some dirt on the Qiu family, which leads SY to dig up some more until he eventually has enough to turn the tables on them. Local officials won't investigate because they've all been bought, but that in and of itself is of some interest to their superiors closer to the palace, and so SY arranges an investigation of his own that goes way further than he thought? Turns out there are some ugly skeletons in the Qiu closets, and the imperial investigator comes down on them hard.

Well, he can't say they didn't have it coming? Though he does feel bad for the children in the family, especially the oldest son, who gets hauled off to jail along with his father. At least the girl is sent to live with relatives. Maybe he should have done more to shield the minors in the situation...?

His kids tell him not to worry about it, though, that apparently young master Qiu was known to run people down in the streets and beat his servants and do other cartoonishly awful things. SY's not sure how much of it is true and how much of it is his little flock of fluffy sheep trying to ease his conscience, though they do all seem to take a lot of vindictive delight in the whole affair. Especially Nephew, who clings to his sleeves and loudly declares that the investigator should have publicly flogged the discredited nobles so that everyone could go watch, and then begs him for sweets as if that wasn't a creepy thing to hear come out of an eight-year-old's mouth. SY just sighs and tells him he can have something good when he finishes his calligraphy practice.

Of course, it's not exactly easy running what is basically an orphanage-slash-school (and maybe a budding sect...?), especially when pretty much all of the kids have been traumatized and faced stuff like rampant dehumanization, food insecurity, abuse, and neglect. Hiring single mothers soon becomes not only a plan to try and lure in Luo Binghe's mom, but an absolute godsend of an idea because SY has no clue WHAT he would do on his own about the discipline issues or emotional breakdowns or acting out that some of the kids get up to once it registers that they're in a safe enough place to unpack their baggage.

Apart from Nephew, SY's favorite kid is the one who came with him, the oldest of the flock of former slave children. He's the big brother of the group, the one who tries his best to look after the others and to not make any trouble himself. But even poor Little Yue is still just a kid who has been through too much, and he also eventually starts having some meltdowns and struggles with processing everything that has happened to him as a vulnerable child in an unkind world.

SY really didn't mean to start a trauma center for mistreated children!

Though, that's still not necessarily a bad thing for Luo Binghe to one day come across, provided he ever actually shows up...

Eventually, Shen Yuan does figure out that he must be ahead even of Luo Binghe's birth, though he still doesn't put together that he's interfered in the scum villain's backstory. Probably something even more amusingly obscure, like the creation year of some random artifact Luo Binghe used in some wife plot or other, tips him off and he mentally throws his hands up in the air. He's got to wait DECADES? Maybe he ought to try and find Luo Binghe's biological parents and just follow them around at this point!

Not that he can, now, though, because he has to make sure no negative IQ villains (who will probably just be cannon fodder for a subplot one day) decide to send goons to literally burn down his orphanage. Also if he's gone for too long his kids get upset. Probably because no one else is as weak to their puppy dog eyes and pleas for treats and toys as he is.

At least it gives him time to shore up his position, and train Nephew and Little Yue more extensively in cultivation. Despite his initial assurances to HHP that he was but a humble orphan wrangler who was only incidentally a cultivator, Shen Yuan does also teach the other kids some basic cultivation exercises. There are a few reasons for that.

One is just the principle of the thing. No, these kids don't all have the potential to become great immortals or anything, but they can still learn some of it and it's good for their health if they do. The only trouble is if they try and push too hard or attempt things beyond their range, and that's a risk with everyone who cultivates. Or even just exercises!

Another reason is that it helps stave off the jealousy that some of the kids have towards those with more cultivation potential. Teaching a lot of the basics all around makes it into just another topic at school. Some kids might not be as good at it as others, but those kids might also be better at math, or memorization, or board games, and while cultivation can open more doors to people as adults, for the children this is generally enough to satisfy their sense of fairness. Or at least reduce outbursts and fights.

Finally, the impression that any of SY's kids might be a cultivator also makes wicked people more reluctant to try and abduct or interfere with them. Cultivators are revered and nearly mythological figures in the public consciousness. It isn't difficult to see why, if even a rogue cultivator NPC like SY* can mop the floor with most random muggers (*Shen Yuan is not a normal rogue cultivator). Not many people want to risk bringing SY's ire down on them, but of those who might chance it if he wasn't around to immediately react, even fewer want to risk that the kids themselves could kick their asses.

Not knowing that only two of the orphans probably could in fact mop the floor with them helps keep all the rest safer, and is more believable when all of them can conduct themselves enough like disciples to fool anyone who doesn't know what to really look for.

Developments that surprise Shen Yuan but wouldn't surprise anyone else who is paying attention:

People start leaving unwanted babies and younger children on his doorstep. Not all the time, but more than once has he had to frantically find wet nurses and worry that he's changed things enough that some fishermen might just randomly drop the protagonist outside his gate, and he wouldn't even know because Binghe would be a literal infant??

Nephew (SJ) and Little Yue (Yue Qi -- only Shen Yuan calls him "Little", especially when he gets taller than SY by the time he's sixteen) are prodigies who get really good at cultivation, really fast, and between that and Shen Yuan's OP skills they completely warp Shen Yuan's ideas for what normal cultivation potential looks like. This would probably cause more problems if he wasn't teaching all the kids how to cultivate anyway, but means his students actually do kinda run the usual range of skills for a small sect.

SJ and YQ swiftly reach the point where they need more advanced equipment than just SY's teaching can provide, if they're going to keep building their skills. Gaining access to certain tools, aids, and materials (like spiritual swords) is a real hurdle though, and usually is for rogue cultivators (one of the major disadvantages of no sect affiliation.) Shen Yuan is hesitant to use stuff from the plot, since it's For Binghe, but he eventually caves and starts going after some things that he doesn't think the future protagonist will miss much. He also ends up buying stuff from HHP, since they're willing to sell things like spiritual tools and weapons if the price is right, whereas most other sects like Cang Qiong reserve them for members only.

They get an invitation to the Immortal Alliance Conference. Not the one where the Abyss opens up, obviously, the one where (originally) Shen Jiu reunited with Yue Qi and killed Wu Yanzi. Shen Yuan debates on going but the boys really want to, and things have calmed down enough that no one's trying to burn down the school whenever he leaves these days, so eventually he figures it'll be interesting to see some of the Cang Qiong characters and should be safe enough if he keeps his disciples close.

They don't run into young Yue Qingyuan or Shen Qingqiu on the trip, but Wu Yanzi does show up and get killed, and SY only hears about it and assumes they just missed all that action. (WYZ just got caught by some senior cultivators who recognized him and killed him to avenge some disciples he murdered.) Nephew and Little Yue do meet young Liu Qingge, Shang Qinghua, Mu Qingfang, and Su Xiyan though! Which gives Shen Yuan the opportunity to tell them all (mostly Su Xiyan) that if they're ever in trouble near his school, they can come to him for help. Hint hint.

This open invitation ends up being accepted broadly by a lot of traveling cultivators after the conference, who from then on treat Shen Yuan's school like a free motel whenever they're passing through. Plenty aren't even people SY met, but it seems his statement was taken as a general one to fellow righteous cultivators all around! Luckily, this has some advantages. Shen Yuan has no qualms running off anyone who tries to take unfair advantage of him or especially his kids or staff, and no shame in conscripting anyone who is decent enough to help teach his students, even if it's nothing to do with cultivating, and somehow word gets around and people start bringing school supplies, medicine, food, or other useful things along with them as gifts to help repay the hospitality. Young Liu Qingge comes by a lot on his way to and from various quests, or even seems to just turn up randomly sometimes (he comes to challenge YQ and SJ to fights), and SY's just like "I guess this is happening now" and teaches him to recognize the early signs of qi deviation and advises strongly against meditating in caves.

At one point a young Shang Qinghua turns up in one of the spare rooms, very obviously hiding an ice demon. Shen Yuan again is just like "I guess this is happening now" and shelters them until Mobei Jun has recovered, and sends a message to Cang Qiong that one of their An Ding caravans was attacked and their disciple is recovering under his roof but isn't well enough to travel yet. Much less stressful situation for Airplane (who is desperately trying to figure out what he did to manifest SJ's benevolent uncle from somewhere???)

Su Xiyan seems like the only person they met at the Immortal Alliance Conference who doesn't turn up at their door in a state of emergency at some point.

A few years later, there is a big scandal involving her and the demon emperor. Su Xiyan disappears, Huan Hua Palace accuses Tianlang Jun of plotting against the righteous sects, and Shen Yuan is even invited to the meeting where they try and rally everyone to go kill Binghe's dad. Naturally, he declines to participate in the witch hunt, but the major sects agree to it. By luck (or narrative fortune) Shen Yuan comes across Zhuzhi Lang on his trip back home, and mentions the ambush and his distaste for it (not knowing who ZZL is). ZZL warns Tianlang Jun and the confrontation goes very differently, especially since there's no Yue Qingyuan wielding Xuan Su.

It doesn't go well for the sects involved. Huan Hua Palace gets decimated. The Old Palace Master gets killed. Shen Yuan is like uhhhh that's... whoops? Didn't Luo Binghe need that in the future?? Fuck.

But the sect isn't wiped out completely, they just take a massive beating. Some of their younger disciples end up leaving and turning up on Shen Yuan's doorstep, for some reason. The manor house is becoming too small to account for all of these foundlings! They have to expand. Though the expansions would be a stretch to term a "palace" they end up occupying a much larger chunk of territory, and even investing in farmland and some storehouses to help support the sect. That's still not really a sect, of course. Even if a lot of the business that would have normally gone to Huan Hua Palace starts coming to them instead. Once HHP is back on its feet the stream will probably dry out. Probably?

Zhuzhi Lang starts hanging around. He's actually looking for Su Xiyan or their baby, dead or alive and per Tianlang Jun's instructions, but he uses Shen Yuan's school as base camp for his kind of hopeless efforts to find any traces of them, while also looking for ways to try and repay Shen Yuan. All the kids are just like "oh great, another weird man has fallen in love with Shizun -- someone go run interference" about it.

Some years later, an older woman and her young son turn up. Shen Yuan's off on a quest at the time, so SJ receives them. As is standard procedure he gives the woman a job and places the boy in classes, after giving him the aptitude tests. The kid is cute and precocious, so SJ uses him to distract YQ while he himself sneaks out to go join LQG on a monster hunt (and claim the valuable parts of the beast's remains for himself), and neither SY nor ZZL notice anything until SY's going over the paperwork for stuff he missed while he was gone. Since he procrastinated, it takes him like a week to find out that Luo Binghe is finally under his roof. He's going over the admission form right when SJ arrives with The New Adorable Child to try and distract SY enough that SY will let him go on a solo hunt -- as far as being distracted goes, it is way more effective than even SJ anticipated.

Then he has to figure out how to let ZZL know, so that ZZL can let Tianlang Jun know, so that Luo Binghe will have more family than just his mom and more resources than just a shabby little not-sect! But even once he figures it out and sets up the dramatic reveal, TLJ is just like "great! so can he just stay with you? he's probably fine there" which... irritates SY.

SJ fully conscripts Luo Binghe as a minion in his many cons. He never lost his street kid conman tactics, although he now uses them less as a ruthless survival tool or weapon and more to just get things to go his own way. LBH has the face and disposition of a little angel, which SJ no longer can pull off as a full grown adult, so he fills a gap. LBH also knows full well what's going, especially since a lot of SJ's tactics involve throwing LBH at SY like a smoke bomb.

Luo Binghe inevitably still develops a big fat crush on SY, so this is fine by him. Especially when he gets older, he starts bringing SY tea and making him breakfast and running his errands until even SJ is like "wait a minute, this little brat's stealing my job!" and by then it's too late. Luo Binghe is SY's personal assistant, the disciple at conman puppydog eyes has surpassed the master! While SJ was busy being like "I'm going to trick this idiot into doing my chores" LBH was going "I'm going to trick this idiot into giving me his job".

SY takes too long to officially name his school so everyone calls it the Shen Sect, much to his embarrassment.

[malkaviian]

expanding on the "luca was bullied" thing, because i knew i was going to give this guy some trauma eventually

[dykeserket]

..

[maddragon15]

Obscenely late hermitaday day #23 & 25! - Impulse & Tango

Was this meant to be a simple cel shaded drawing on the 30th? Yeah, yeah it was lmao but somehow the power of fire excels at overtaking the rendering capabilities.

But since it's late I'll use this as excuse to ramble below about well, the headcanons and the process down yonder. Also there's variations.

(Also just realized that the compression is high with this one, please click on it to see the details pretty pleasee)

So! Let's talk about that haircut shall we? First off Tango's haircut is basically just me slapping my very neglected oc's haircut onto him lol. There's no function usage or any other lore about it, literally just I wanted to use that haircut more. But Miners and Crafters that's not all! The intensity of the flame actually has meaning believe it or not.

Since Tango in the headcanons is already a nether born blaze hybrid the redstone kinda didn't have an effect on him. This is because blazes produce glowstone which is a power source onto itself. He gets minor effects instead which is a mild (there's literally no other word) high, a intensified hair flame and a brighter eye night shine. Negative effects include mild joint & jaw pain, and a small localized headache behind the left eye.

I like to imagine that other blaze hybrids' hair flame aren't normally that intense, not white-hot heat but rather more red n orange hot similar to the flats. Mainly due to the fact that glowstone is not as powerful as redstone and it's also dependent on how strong a blaze is. Now imagine with me that blazes determine how strong each other are via the color they're emitting. Now remember the blaze boss Minecraft had a vote on to add or not to add? What if Tango is constantly mistaken as a high ranking blaze because of how intense his fire is and he doesn't get attacked a whole lot except for the few that want to challenge him. Meanwhile Tango is just highly infused with redstone like all the other redstoners and he doesn't know what's happening half time as seen by his terrified scream-laughs /hj

He's also semi modified with redstone for the pure purpose of comms just like the other redstoners minus mumbo. I also would've leaned into the steampunk aspect of this season but I figured I'd do a character sheet like etho for all of the redstoners and finalize the aspects on those.

Onto Impulse!

I like to imagine that Impulse was a regular human and over the course of redstone exposure he gained pointed ears and horns. For what reasons? I have no idea but redstone works in mysterious ways and mutates on whatever happens to be in their system. You may see that he has purple lines across his face but then red pupils, why is that? Well since he's cyperpunk themed this season he modified his redstone implants to be rgb. He can change everything else except his pupils because those are deeply affected by redstone and would require surgery to remove the build up of redstone. Will any of the redstoners ever actually get rid of it? No but you can beg all day.

You also might be wondering what's happening in their ears? Well those are the advanced comms that are actually used across all hermits except the ones who've opted out for glowstone variants. They kinda work like bluetooth except more hermit-magic way. I haven't had time to fully think of how it'd work down to the circuitry (that's my usual process for headcanons before I ship them out) but I'll post about it when I think of the full layout. Other design aspects on impulse are derived from his skin and the poster design by applestruda!

Process wise for this piece was kinda a rollercoaster heh. I had started this piece a while ago (can't remember the day on the dot) and then I got insanely busy during the last week of hermitaday. I had done sketch, refined sketch and flats in two days. Then events proceeded forth and we arrive on the 4th which I tried for an entire day to figure out how to render this piece. I then gave up and tried again the day after and pulled up references this round on Pinterest. Tango was surprisingly easy to paint with ref and went rather fast. I will admit the entire time I was rendering him I did say every minute or so "I love you man" because he was turning out so good. Halfway through I then realized I still had to render Impulse. That's when I pretty much ended that night because it was already 5 am working on Tango and demotivation was setting in fast. The next day I was able to continue with hesitancy on Impulse but I managed to keep on keeping on and in the early hours of today I finished up the piece. Where I'm now writing about it close to 2 pm in a restaurant. Man though it was kinda hard to make Impulse and Tango look like cohesive and as if they were painted together.

Enjoy!

(Side note I applied for inprint and if I am to be accepted this will be available along side the three different eefs I've drawn and doc.)

[boiohboii]

The Royal Way 《Pt.2》

(Leclerc!reader x Prince of Monaco!oc)

After his older sister marries into the Monaco Royal family, Charles knew he would be treated differently, to his surprise (and his sister's disappointment) his F1 team, ferarri, treated him the same way.... and that did not sit well with the new princess of Monaco

or

in which YN Leclerc uses her new familial connections to fuck up ferarri just like how they fucked up her baby brother's hopes and dreams.

N.B: so, this was supposed to be longer and the last part, but it's currently 3 AM and I have classes at 8 AM thus me splitting this little fic into a trilogy. Hopefully, I will have time tomorrow to post the third and final part! Thank you for reading and let me know what you think!! WARNINGS: NOT REALISTIC AT ALL!! if you are looking for a realistic revenge sort of plot, it is not here, I tried as best as I can to search up what the whole electronic system does and it's relation to the DRS, BUT I AM BY NO MEANS AN EXPERT NOR HAVE ENOUGH KNOWLEDGE, SO EXCUSE THE POOR RESEARCH. The car designs are from Pinterest... Some swear words (fuck, bitch, etc...) Let me know if I missed anything else please!

Faceclaims:

yn leclerc --> anya taylor joy

Prince Thierry --> louis partridge

Masterlist // part 1

Liked by ferrariisdone, charlesthefrench, leclercfam and 716,920 others

F1_updates_live: Prince Thierry and Princess YN Leclerc heading into the Ferrari motor home in LA. Neither of the Royals look ecstatic to be in this position and it's no doubt to do with the statement released by Ferrari's Formula one media team, where they had essentially blamed the newly wedded Princess, YN Leclerc and their own driver, Charles Leclerc, for his DNF in the previous GP.

username: let them cook

username: the amount of bodyguards they have is insane

username: they do not look happy

username: yeah, no shit sherlock, ferrari basically said that it was yn's fault that Charles is distracted

username: ferrari blaming everyone but themselves

LEAKED AUDIO FROM LAS VEGAS GP, FERRARI'S MOTORHOME: tensions rise in the Ferrari garage as the young royals of Monaco, Prince Thierry and Princess YN Leclerc, threaten Fred Vasseur of taking him to court after buying out the rest of Charles' contract with Ferrari.

(Princess YN Leclerc,Prince Thierry, Fred Vasseur)

"It has been proven time and time again that the team is so incompetent! Why won't you do any changes?"

"Do you think that it's easy? These are people's livelihoods we are talking about"

"You do realise you are talking to a princess, right? She is well aware of how to run a business and a team, unlike you."

"I am just saying that I can't just fire people because Charles can't manage the car!"

"CAN'T MANAGE THE CAR? Are you out of your fucking mind mr. Vasseur? There is evidence, very strong evidence for your information, that the problem was from the electronic system. Do you have any idea how fucked up your engineers and strategists have to be to send out a car with failed electronic system?"

"Correct me if I am wrong my darling, but don't the electronic system control the DRS?"

"Mmhhmmm"

"And if the DRS opens in a corner it might result in a crash, am I correct mr. Vasseur?"

"The DRS was fine, there was-"

"My husband is asking a yes or no question Fred."

"Yes."

"So basically, Ferrari's Formula one team had, intentionally and with their knowledge, put a member of the monegasque royal family in direct danger."

"But Charles isn't a member of the royal family! He is only YN's half brother!"

"PRINCESS YN MR VASSEUR! YOU WILL DO WELL TO REMEMBER THAT!"

"Charles is my brother, and you dare put him in harm's way. I am princess YN Leclerc of Monaco, I can and I will hold you accountable as the principal of this team."

"You can't do anything! Carlos had the same car-"

"Carlos did not have the same car and you know it!"

"We already know Fred, we have had professional inspections done on both cars, it's quite deceiving really, telling a driver that he's the priority and still disappointing him every single time."

🔊 a thud is heard 🔊

"This is the amount of money to buy Charles out of Ferrari, but don't spend it Fred, we will be getting it back in court."

"YN WHAT WE-"

"PRINCESS YN FRED! *sigh* it seems like no matter what you are still convinced that you and your workers did no wrong, we will see about that."

"There is only one race left, there will be no team to take in Charles now!"

"Oh, we are not looking for a team to take him in, we made a team for him."

{Taglist: @phillydilly @f1ln4dr3cl16mv33 @omgsuperstarg @formulas-bitch @brakingboundaries @kyuupidwrites}

[wyervan]

DCA SLASHER AU: THE FIRST YAP

@furiouspersonakitten @r0tting-rat @stalkersamsrptumbler @g3nderbee ( yaaas @/crabsnpersimmons mention :D they’re an awesome artist) & hopefully this finds you well, dear anon, for I cannot @ you personally

Flabbergasted at the comments and questions I’ve gotten after posting my doodles over the past coupla months. I feel a special kind of silly when I see your guys’s responses 🫠.

I will do my best to explain the premise. Feel free to ask questions! Though there are things I’d like to keep close to the chest with specific story beats that I’ve got bouncing around in my head. Also sometimes I prefer to show instead of tell 🖼️.

light yapping and additional sketches under the cut. it’s probably not as much information as some of you might’ve hoped, but I’m an even slower writer than artist ☠️

🌞 🔪 🤡 🪓 🌜 🩸👾 🌞 🔪 🤡 🪓 🌜 🩸👾

New town, new life, and a new (used) car! You’ve even already gotten a new job within the first week of your move-in! Some small arcade in town was hiring and after a whirlwind of an interview, you started working there the very next day. Your new bosses are… a bit weird, but it’s kinda cool working in an arcade and it pays fair enough.

Okay, actually, they’re really weird. One of them is a high-energy neurotic neat freak and the other sleeps on the break room couch for a half of the day and is kind of a menace for the other half. At the very least it’s entertaining to watch them squabble like an old married couple. And they seem harmless…right?

Final Girl Y/N

they them pronouns, but comfortable with most gendered language

nicknamed Star by Sun and Moon (“one of us. one of Us!”)

new in town!

kinda punk (huge dork)

this is just my version of y/n who really is more like a fnaf oc within the AU. feel free to project your own idea of the character onto them and the story in general! I would love to see you guys’s Final Girls :3

Sun n Moon

not brothers, but have been almost inseparable since they met as children

coowners of the Superstar Arcade & Playplace, recently reopened after being closed for two decades

Ex-circus clown performers, they still occasionally do shows for children in the playplace on slow days

questionable after-hours activities

First thing I gotta lay down (cause this is a FNaF AU) is that Sun and Moon are not targeting children. In fact, many of the people they are targeting are those Sun and Moon judge to be harming children in some capacity. The situation… complicates further along, but this is the basis. Sun and Moon are driven to killing by their strong instinct to protect children.

Now their intentions may certainly sound pure and noble, but in practice and method they are decidedly… not.

FYI, this isn’t to say that dead children will not be present in this AU… this is a FNaF AU. Other characters from the FNaF lineup likely will make appearences in some form or another.

But Wyervan, if Sun and Moon only pick victims that are bad people, doesn’t that mean that Y/N is safe as long as they’re not a dick?

Ha ha. No :o)

🌞 🔪 🤡 🪓 🌜 🩸👾 🌞 🔪 🤡 🪓 🌜 🩸👾

thanks for tuning into station 106-point-yap. it takes me… a while to write these things…i might make small edits and will likely eventually put out a v2. I’m really challenging myself to work on this as a longer-form personal project. I think about these characters most of my waking hours and i want to salt them, toss them in oil, and bake them at 450.

[ecto-implosion]

Hello Implosion Enthusiasts! As we are nearing the EI sign-ups day of September 1st, we would like to mention some changes that are gonna take place during this year’s event! We have already made a post detailing this year’s schedule, which you can find here.

With the new year of Ecto-Implosion, come new and updated rules, which you can read in their entirety here:

[RULES]

They include major changes like:

⋆⭒˚.⋆ Idea Clearance ⋆⭒˚.⋆

When first signing up, Artists will be required to submit their ideas. This doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind later, but it helps mods verify that each artist’s goal meets the event’s standards and rules. Major changes must be verified by an Artist Mod.

⋆⭒˚.⋆ Claims submission requirements ⋆⭒˚.⋆

Artists must provide adequate material for writers to work off of. Therefore we are requiring approximately 35-50% completion or at least a clear, visual concept of the artwork (i.e. a completed lineart - not a sketch) at the time of claims. Music submissions should focus on writing out the vast majority of the melody/main progression in order to give writers the clearest idea of the final piece.

⋆⭒˚.⋆ Partner Check-Ins ⋆⭒˚.⋆

As stated in the previously posted schedule, this year we are implementing Partner Check-ins. What that entails is that we ask our participants to confirm that they are in contact with their partner. All post-claims check-ins will require a partner check-in, in addition to normal check-in procedures.

⋆⭒˚.⋆ OCs ⋆⭒˚.⋆

Content with heavy focus on OCs will not be permitted. Fandom OCs (Wes, Kyle, Flynn etc.) are allowed. OCs that fill a pre-established role (an Ancient, a classmate, etc.) are allowed as long as they are not the main focus of the work.

⋆⭒˚.⋆ AUs and Crossovers ⋆⭒˚.⋆

Both AUs and Crossovers are permitted, but must be verified by a mod first. DPxDC is the only pre-cleared crossover.

⋆⭒˚.⋆Starting Early ⋆⭒˚.⋆

Artists are allowed to start their work before the sign-ups, but we ask to either DM @half-deadmagicperson or @the-oaken-muse about your idea or at the very least be aware that your idea will have to go through verification when signing up!

⋆⭒˚.⋆ Schedule ⋆⭒˚.⋆

Just a reminder of all the different sign-up dates!

⭒ Artists sign-ups: Sept 1 - Sept 13

⭒ Authors sign-ups: Sept 1 - Sept 16

⭒ Betas and Pinch Hitters sign-ups: Sep 1 - Sep 16

⋆⭒˚.⋆ [Full Ecto-Implosion 2024 Schedule] ⋆⭒˚.⋆

You can read more into all these points, as well as other requirements in the Ecto-Implosion Rules. If there are any questions, don’t be scared to reach out to any of the mods or send us an ask on here!

We hope to see you all on September 1st! Stay Imploding!

[bloodibambiidoll]

Cinnamon Girls

(Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader x Fem!OC)

Summary: Eddie never thought his nightly routine would include sneaking into a catholic collage to see his two girlfriends, but never say never, right? Wk:4.5k

Warnings: Established poly relationship, M/F/F threesome, spanking, choking, Dom!Eddie, Sub!Reader, Switch!OC, Pet names(Eddie has nicknames for both R & OC that I’ll explain in a different part), spint kink, scissoring, gum sharing?, oral (m & f receiving), unprotected sex. I think that’s it? Lmk if I missed any. 18+MDNI

A/N: Okay this idea came to me the other night and I was like possessed by it. I’m kind of obsessed with these three now and I’ve actually come up with other lore about them. I might expand on this lil AU if anyone’s interested. Thank you to my lovely betas @babygorewhore @bimbobaggins69 & @reidsbtch🧸🤍 Moodboard.

Eddie’s ringed fingers reach for the volume knob on the radio, turning it almost all the way down as he rounds the corner to his destination. He turns off the headlights as he slowly pulls his van close to the curb before cutting the engine. He always makes sure to be as quiet as possible, even if he is parked half a block down the road from the school itself. He pulls down the drivers side mirror, fluffing his unruly hair. He pops a piece of cinnamon gum into his mouth and exits his van, making sure not to slam the door like he tends to have a habit of doing.

He looks both ways, checking for bystanders. He was pretty sure there wouldn’t be anyone out on the street at 2AM, especially with the students strict curfew, but he always liked to be sure. If he got caught, he would be so fucked. He shoves the chain on his jeans in his pocket before hiking his leg up on the fence, vaulting himself as quietly as possible up and over onto the other side. He lands with a quiet thud, again checking his surroundings to make sure he was alone.

He walks around the edges of the campus, making sure to keep to the shadows and not set off any automatic lights. Once he reaches the building he’s come to know well he grabs a few small pebbles from the gravel beneath his feet. He tosses one up at the window he’s found himself crawling into most nights lately, and waits.

It only took a few seconds before he saw two heads popping into view, bright smiles on their faces. His heart rate immediately picks up, his stomach erupts with butterflies, and his cock slightly stirs in his pants at the prospect of what the night was going to bring.

Eddie quickly climbs up the conveniently placed fire exit ladder and the window is already pushed open for him when he reaches it. His long ripped jean clad legs enter the room and his boot covered feet hit the ground with a gentle thud one by one.

“My girls.” He smiles wide, taking the sides of your faces in each of his hands. “I missed you.”

“Eddieee.” You nuzzle your face into his palm, practically purring like a kitten. Looking up at him through your lashes with those big sweet eyes that drive him insane. “I missed you.”

“Hey nerd boy.” Mina chuckles, turning her face to nip at his fingers. “We saw you less than 24 hours ago.”

“So you didn’t miss me, pretty girl?” Eddie mock pouts, his thumb running along your girlfriend’s plump bottom lip.

“I didn’t say that, did I?” She rolls her eyes, taking his digit into her mouth and swirling her tongue around it, pulling a groan from his chest.

“Don’t fall for her tough girl act Eds, you should’ve heard her when I was underneath her skirt between classes earlier… ‘fuck baby, you’re so good, I wish I was watching Eddie fuck you from behind right now’ she totally missed you.”

“Hey!” She pulls off Eddie’s thumb with a pop, a string of spit still connected to her lips. “It’s not fair to use what I say when you’re eating me out like it’s the last chance you’ll ever get against me, brat!”

“That’s okay she pretty much lost me at ‘when I was underneath her skirt between classes earlier’… you two are going to fucking kill me, I swear.” Eddie groans, throwing his head back while he runs his hands down his face. The image of you and your girlfriend sneaking off in your little catholic school uniforms to get each other off driving both him and his cock insane.

“Is that doing it for you, Eddie? Thinking about us fucking when you’re not here? Because we do… All. The. Time. Before class, between class, after… we were just messing around before you got here actually…” The look on your face is innocent while the words leaving your mouth are anything but and Eddie swears every single time he comes here his dick gets harder than he ever thought possible.

“We tried to wait for you, but we just got so worked up thinking about you coming over… we couldn’t help ourselves.” Mina reaches up to run her long pointed black nails down his cheek and he grabs onto her wrist, stopping her movements.

“So you admit it then, you missed me? You can deny it if you want, but I bet the minute I get my hands on that pussy it’ll be dripping for me…” He smirks at her, his ember orbs boring into her mossy ones as his lips trail open mouth kisses down her wrist. “Show me…”

“Huh? Show you what?” Her eyes are wide, her body language much more relaxed than it had been in the last few minutes.

“You already getting all dumb on me, baby? All I did was put my lips on you…” Eddie’s large ringed hand grips her jaw, shaking her head from side to side. “Get on the bed and show me what you were doing with our girl before I got here.”

A whimper leaves her lips and it makes you clench around nothing. You always love watching them together. Mina was the more dominant of the two of you, often taking control in and out of the bedroom. So watching the way she submits so easily to Eddie makes you melt. They were both so fucking hot.

He releases her wrist and steps back, leaning against the desk near the wall. He crosses his feet at the ankles and looks at you both expectantly. His eyes finally take the time to drink you both in. If he hadn’t been so distracted by your dirty words and flirty banter what you were doing before he got here probably would’ve been obvious.

You were in nothing but a little pink cami that had a bunny printed on the front, your little white lace panties were adorned with a pink bow and you even had on fucking ruffle socks. You were the epitome of a little religious girl gone bad. Mina on the other hand was very much your opposite. Her black cut off tank top had a little skull and crossbones printed on it, her red g-string sat high on her hips, her feet were bare and the moonlight reflected off her black polished toes. She was the perfect example of what happens when religious girls rebel. Your lips were kiss swollen and her long dark hair looked like you’d been pulling at it. God, Eddie was the luckiest bastard to ever walk the earth.

He watches with his bottom lip secured between his teeth as she approaches you, one hand resting on your hip while the other grabs onto the hair at the nape of your neck. She uses her grip to pull your face to hers, kissing you with fever. Your hands snake around her to grab handfuls of her ass and she moans into your mouth.

“Wanna give Eddie a show, baby girl?” She mumbles against your lips.

“Fuck ya.” You pull back from her with a glint in your eyes and a smirk on your lips. Those mischievous eyes meet Eddie’s as you pull your girlfriend by the hand towards your bed. She sits against the headboard with her legs spread and you climb on top of her. You position your legs so your hips are tilted to the side, your barely clothed core sat directly on top of hers. You roll your hips causing both of you to moan at the feeling.

Her hands grip onto your ass to help you move against her while her hips grind up to meet your thrusts. You take her face in your hands and connect your lips again, your tongue darting out across her bottom lip, silently requesting access. She grants it to you immediately, intertwining her tongue with your own while she moans into your mouth.

Eddie licks his lips at the sight, the way your girlfriend’s long nails dig into the flesh of your ass, the way your tits are pressed up against each other while you grind together. His cock is so hard it feels like it’s going to pop the button on his jeans, he hastily reaches for his belt, clumsily undoing it. Then he moves onto his button and zipper, fumbling slightly, not wanting to take his eyes off the two of you. His cock finally springs free and hits his stomach, a drop of precum dripping onto his dark faded band tee. He spits in his palm before taking his cock in his hand, stroking it roughly. A moan rips through him at the feeling of finally being touched, even if it’s his own.

“Mmm look at Eddie baby…” Your head is turned towards him now as your eyes drink him in hungrily. Mina’s face leaves the crook of your neck to follow your gaze and the sight combined with just the right roll of your hips makes her whimper.

“Fuck, you like what you see, nerd boy?” She pushes your tank top up over your tits and takes them in her soft hands without breaking eye contact with him. Your hips pick up speed and you’re both so wet now that your combined juices are making the fabric of your panties stick together with each roll of your hips.

“You know I do, pretty girl.” He smirks right back, his hand still stroking his thick cock while his eyes travel over both your bodies. Her tongue licks around your areola before she takes your nipple in her mouth, causing you to gasp.

“I want more.” You whimper. She feels so good against you, but it’s not quite enough. You need to feel her. You lift your hips just enough to use your hands to push both of your panties to the side before lowering yourself back down onto her warm wet cunt. Her clit bumps against yours and you’re both so wet you practically glide against her. “Fuck, yes.”

Eddie approaches the side of the bed, taking both of your jaws in his hands, forcing you both to look up at him. “Goddamn, you guys are so fucking sexy, can you cum like that for me? If you’re good girls and make each other cum I’ll give you my cock.”

His words spur you on, your hands coming to rest on Mina’s shoulders for leverage as you grind your wet pussy against hers. She leans forward to take your nipple into her mouth, her free hand toying with your other one.

“Oh fuuuck, yes. You’re so wet baby, you feel so good. I’m gonna cum.” You press yourself down on her hard, moving your hips in a circular motion that has her clit gliding deliciously through your wet folds. Her teeth sink into the meat of your tit, sending you over the edge. Her hands grab onto your hips, guiding you against her as your high crashes over you.

“Mmm that’s it, good girl, cum for us.” She pulls off of you so she can watch your face as you fall apart on top of her.

“Your turn.” You’re still panting as you come down from your orgasm but you use one hand to shove her shirt up over her tits, your tongue immediately flicking out to lick across her perky peaked nipples. Your other hand slides between your bodies, finding her clit with ease. You grind your palm against her sensitive bud while your tongue and lips continue their assault on her nipples.

“Fuuuuuck.” You hear Eddie groan above you and your eyes snap his direction, immediately meeting his lust filled ones. His tongue darts out across his bottom lip and you can’t see from how you’re angled but the way he’s shaking you can tell he’s jerking himself off again. You can’t wait to get your hands and mouth on every inch of him too.

“Cum for me baby, I wanna hear those pretty sounds.” You insert your middle and pointer finger inside her while your palm continues its ministrations on her clit.

“Oh my fucking god, that’s so good, you’re gonna make me - I’m gonna fucking cum!” Her sharp nails dig into your ass and a pornographic moan rips through her as she cums around your fingers. You fuck her through it, leaving open mouth kisses all across her chest.

“That was the hottest thing I’ve ever fucking seen, shit.” Eddie’s voice breaks you from your Mina induced trance and you whip your head towards him. He’s shirtless now, his jeans still hanging low on his hips, his hard leaking cock on full display.

“Mmm does that mean we earned our reward? You look damn right edible, Mr. Munson.” You smirk up at him, practically salivating at the sight of the bead of precum dripping from his slit. Eddie groans, something about you calling him that makes his cock twitch.

“Yeah, I think you earned it, Bunny. Why don’t you get over here and suck it?”

He didn’t have to tell you twice. You climb off Mina, crawling towards him so you can sit in front of him on your knees. She follows suit, sitting close enough to you that your bare thighs touch. Eddie feels like he’s going to fucking cum just looking at you both on your knees for him, looking up at him through your lashes.

“Take your shirts off and stick out your tongues.” You turn towards your girlfriend, grabbing the hem of her already hiked up tank top and pulling it over her head. She does the same for you and then you both turn back towards him, sticking your tongues out just like he asked. “God fucking damn, have I ever told you I’m the luckiest man to ever live? Look at my beautiful girls, waiting for me to use their little throats.”

He slaps his cock against your tongue, that bead of precum you’d been eyeing dripping into your mouth just like you wanted. He glides his tip along your tongue a few times before turning to do the same to Mina. His large ringed hands come around both your heads, gripping onto the hair at the nape of your necks.

“Keep your tongues out.” He leans over you to spit in your mouth before using the grip he has on your hair to pull your face to his cock. You take the hint, taking as much of him as you can into your mouth. You bob your head up and down while he gives Mina the same treatment above you, pulling her head down next to yours once he's done. You feel her lips traveling up your shoulder to your jaw, she leaves wet kisses across your cheek until she reaches your mouth. Her tongue darts out to lick the part of Eddie’s shaft that isn’t down your throat, curling around it.

“Holy fuuuucking shit.” Eddie groans, he uses the grip on your hair to pull both of your heads back again, looking down at you with lust filled eyes. “Be good girls for me and make out on my cock.”

Mina smirks up at him before leaning forward to lick along the side of his length, you follow her lead, running your tongue up the opposite side. You both lick all around his cock like it’s a lollipop, your tongues occasionally touching and intertwining around it. She takes his tip in her mouth, swirling her tongue around it before taking him fully down her throat with a gag. You lean down so you can kitten lick across his balls, tasting the musky saltiness that is Eddie. You suck one of them into your mouth, your tongue massaging around the soft skin before pulling off and giving the other one the same treatment.

“Shit shit shit!!!” He pulls you both off of him with a gasp. “You gotta stop or I’m gonna fucking blow my load I swear you two are little succubi.”

“Mmm… you just taste so good, we want your human essence.” You giggle up at him, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. “You know Eds… I haven’t even gotten a kiss yet.” You pout.

“Oh shit, I’m sorry Bunny, I guess I got carried away, huh? Come here.” He grabs your face in his hands, leaning down to place a kiss that was much more gentle than you were expecting on your lips. He kisses you a few times before turning to Mina and attempting to give her the same treatment. But you watch as she grabs onto his hair and tugs, pulling his face hard against her own. Her tongue licks across his lips and his darts out to meet hers. She sucks his tongue into her mouth, bringing the cinnamon gum he was chewing with her.

“You’re sweet and all, nerd boy. But I’m still really fucking horny and I believe you promised us your cock? I’d like to cash in on that now.” She bites down on his bottom lip before pulling away with a smirk, popping his gum between her teeth.

“Yeah? You want my cock? Hands and knees, both of you. I wanna try something.”

Mina pulls her thong down her legs before flipping over on her hands and knees with her back arched, her ass in the air and on full display. You do the same, wiggling your ass back and forth as you look at Eddie over your shoulder. You watch with hungry eyes as he discards his jeans. His ring adorned hand comes down on your asscheek causing you to jolt forward with a yelp.

“Look at these perfect fucking assess, and they’re all mine…”

He pumps his cock a few times before running it through your slick folds, dipping the tip inside of your entrance before slapping it against your clit.

“Eddieeee…” you whine and wiggle your ass again, pushing back against him.

“Aww is a little Bunny feeling greedy?” You can hear the dumb smirk in his voice but you don’t have time to talk back before he’s shoving himself balls deep inside of you, knocking the air from your lungs. The stretch is so good, every single time. No matter how many times he fucks you it’s like he’s filling you up just right.

He starts fucking into you rough and fast, his grip on your hip is so tight that you hope the ring indents that had started to fade from last time are even darker than before. His free hand comes down hard on Mina’s asscheeks in succession before he’s soothing it with his palm and running his thick fingers through her dripping slit. He inserts two fingers inside her and starts to fuck her with them in tandem with the thrusts of his cock inside you.

“Fuck bunny, you’re so wet, this little pussy is squeezing me so tight.” The hand on your hip finds your clit, applying a delicious amount of pressure while he continues to bury himself deep inside you.

“Baby, gimme a kiss.” Mina’s voice almost sounds like it’s underwater with how close you are to cumming but you turn your face towards her. She grabs your jaw in one of her hands and smashes your lips together in a desperate moan filled kiss. Her tongue slips between your lips, exploring every inch, the gum she had just taken from Eddie’s mouth slips into your own and it still somehow tastes cinnamony sweet.

“I’m gonna c - cum, I’m gonna cum.” Your words are slurred against her lips, Eddie hits that perfect spot inside of you that has your eyes rolling in the back of your head.

“Yeah baby? You gonna cum? Mi, why don’t you be a good girl and cum for me too?” Eddie continues his assault on your g-spot while his skilled fingers curl just right inside your shared girlfriend's cunt. It only takes a few more pumps of his cock to send you over the edge, Mina tumbling over her own right after you.

Eddie fucks you both through your highs before pulling his fingers away, he uses his other hand to grip onto your hair and pull your back flush against his chest.

“Suck.” He brings the slick covered digits to your mouth and you greedily take them in, tasting your girlfriend’s sweet nectar. “Good girl.”

He releases his grip on your hair and you fall forward, catching yourself on your hands at the last minute. You go to turn around but he grips your hips, keeping you in place.

“Stay. I didn’t say you could move, did I?” He smacks your ass before turning to Mina, roughly gripping her hips. “You want my cock now, kitty? I think you’ve earned it.”

“Just fuck me already, Munson.” Normally Eddie would take the time to tease her for her attitude, make her beg a little, but he’s so fucking hard he needs to be inside of her, right now. He grabs onto his cock, lining it up with her puffy lips, he pushes himself all the way inside of her in one thrust, throwing his head back when she clenches around him.

“You’re such a fucking brat, you know that?” He leans over her so his lips brush against the shell of her ear, trailing a few kisses down her throat. He stops at the juncture of her throat, sinking his teeth down onto it while he starts to fuck into her roughly.

“Yeah, but you fucking love it.” Her chuckle turns into a strangled moan when he wraps a hand around her throat, his cock pounding into her so deep she can feel him hitting her cervix.

You look over at them and you can’t help but moan at the sight. Eddie’s head is thrown back, revealing the expanse of his thick throat, a layer of sweat covers his inked chest and he’s growling almost animalistically. Mina’s face is slightly red from the way she’s being choked, a bit of drool is dripping from the corner of her mouth and her tits are bouncing deliciously. You want to lean down and suck them, and lick the drool off her chin but you also want to be a good girl and for Eddie so you decide to stay put.

And damn does it pay off, because one second he’s pounding into your girlfriend like his life depends on it and next thing you know he’s pulling out of her and thrusting deep inside you. He’s fucking you as hard as he was fucking her, picking up the pace he left off on. He thrusts into you a few more times before he’s pulling out and plunging back into Mina. He continues like this for a bit, fucking deeply into one of you before switching off and giving the other the same treatment. The room is filled with the sounds of your moans and slapping skin, and in the back of your mind you’re thankful that the girl next door moved out last week.

“My good fucking girls, letting me use your little holes like this, you’re so fucking good for me. Fuck!” Eddie pumps his into your girlfriend deep and hard, before pulling out and plunging into your wet, waiting heat. “Mi, go get in front of Bunny so I can watch her eat that pretty little pussy from the back while I fill her up with my cum.”

She’s past the point of giving him shit, so fucked out that she will do anything he asks without question. She crawls so she’s positioned on her hands and knees in front of you and your grab onto her asscheeks, spreading them apart.

“Looks so tasty…” You spread her open a few more times, watching her clench around nothing, then you lean forward and plunge your tongue as far as it can go inside of her. You fuck into her with your tongue before licking down to her clit, sucking it into your mouth.

Eddie is about to lose it, your pussy is clenching him so tight and your ass is bouncing deliciously against his hips. The sounds and the sight of you devouring your girlfriend is enhancing his pleasure by tenfold. He reaches his hand around you to rub circles on your clit, angling his hips the way he knows you love it.“Fuck baby, I’m not gonna last much longer… need you to cum for me.”

You bring two of your fingers to Mina’s entrance, pushing them inside her and curling them upwards. She pushes back against you, her pussy clenches around your fingers and you can tell she’s close too.

“Shit, I’mgonnafuckingcum.” She whimpers.

“Cum for us kitty, cum on our girl's face. I’m gonna cum too - fuckingshit.” Eddie’s thrusts get sloppy but he’s still fucking you so good, the speed of his fingers picks up on your clit and you feel his cum start to spill inside you. Mina’s pussy is like a vice grip on your fingers and the moans she’s letting out are like music to your ears. It’s all so hot and it has your own orgasm wracking through your body.

You’re all panting as you pull apart from each other, throwing yourselves down on the bed with Eddie in the middle. You both rest your heads on his shoulders, your legs thrown over each of his thighs. You and Mina absentmindedly play with each others fingers that rest on Eddie’s chest.

“I can’t fucking wait until you guys get out of here.” Eddie sighs.

“Soon baby, just one more month and this catholic collage nightmare will be over.” Your girlfriend places a gentle kiss on his peck, resting her chin there so she can look up at him.

“Then our dads will finally get off our asses and release our trust funds to us. And we can buy a nice house, and get you studio time.” You lean up to kiss his jaw, mimicking Mina’s position so you can look at his beautiful face too.

“Yeah? You guys are my certified sugar mama’s I swear.” Eddie chuckles, bringing his hands up so he can cup both of your jaws. He rubs his thumbs over the apples of your cheeks and looks into both of your eyes, placing a gentle kiss on each of your lips. He seriously was the luckiest bastard to ever live.

[elodieunderglass]

I am absolutely wild and feral over HDM (legit like, daemons fit SO well. I'm watching dunmeshi wondering where Laios' dog went) and super curious if you do plan a sequel or other fics following this AU??

(In reference to the His Dark Materials / Dungeon Meshi fusion fic)

thank you so much for this question I love this question god!!!! Thank you thank you thank you

God sorry about HDM being delayed, I’m going through hell over it at the moment. It’s meant to end a little after the dragon, then a timeskip epilogue, with special coding so that you can read it two different ways, depending on whether you want spoilers for the manga/season 2. (My idea is that you’ll click a button to reveal/hide it, and the spoiler-free epilogue will be like found poetry.)

Firstly, if you or anyone else would like to take the concepts/characters in His Delicious Materials forward for themselves, you must do this. You don’t need my permission (but I’d love a link! so I can read, scream, reblog, comment, link to it, etc. there is also the “inspired by” setting on ao3 so we can link works directly to HDM, forming a collection for anyone who reads one and wants more.) I don’t own any of it! We are all just having fun! YOU can be the sequel you want to see in the world! If your heart feels a way forward, then follow your heart!! A daemon AU is really about revealing character and I find them really inspiring, like adding a whole engine to a story idea.

If I were to write something to follow up, I do know what the sequel WOULD be! It would be a sort of Discworld novel about the slow social revolution occurring in the half-foots as a chain reaction to Bee settling as a weasel, all occurring behind Chilchuck’s oblivious and unhelpful back. Pushed into a sort of bottleneck of sparrow- and mouse-souls, and marginalised to the very edges of society, half-foots are precarious and endangered. Chilchuck is mostly eating a ham sandwich unhelpfully in the foreground, and at the end of the story looks back and sees to his bewilderment that his people have found a way forward (they don’t have a Shire or a Chosen One, but they do have a goddamn functional worker’s union and their own collective dignity.) kind of Discworld-commentary-comedy, kind of a loving argument with Tolkien, kind of Sharpe hostile-and-awkward-protagonist-POV-doesn’t-know-and-wouldn’t-believe-that-his-men-genuinely-love-him, kind of about the experience of parenting, and kind of gently warmly political BUT FUNNY so it would be ok. but feel it would be too much of a stretch of people’s patience and the original materials’s intentions to call it fanfic. Too many OCs needed to carry the weight, too little reference to the other Dungeon Meshi characters, almost too little “payoff” for what would be a full 70k word work. So maybe to let the story breathe, it would be better worked up as original fiction?

(Plus, that is actually an actual novel: if people write their own novels and manga about orc coffeeshops and dnd parties, I could just write my own too: wait but how do you know if you should?)

Anyway, that is an entirely separate kettle of weasels and my own cross to bear! If your heart cries out for a sequel the best way to manifest it in the world is to write it!

If you feel that A Weasel Heart In Defiance feels like it would scratch that itch, here is a bit that is mildly relevant to Dungeon Meshi, which is Chilchuck and Bee starting to work away from home while the girls were still small. You’ll probably see what I mean from it.

About seven of the village children, including his own three, had a snake in a wooden bucket. They didn't look up.

The reappearance of a random guy who functioned mostly as a postal service and occasionally shouted at them about bedtime - in a way that could be easily blanked out if something more interesting was happening - simply could not be expected to compete for attention with a snake in a bucket.

Chilchuck could recognise this on some level, but as his own children ignored him, he felt very hot and angry, in a way that he had never wanted to feel about children, especially his.

Bee, also rigidly pissed off, growled, "Easy, boss."

This was where Chilchuck did the only thing so far that he was proud of, in this day. He did not start shouting, even though his temper was going something like What the fuck, kids, but worse. He stopped, took a minute, and remembered he'd had this whole thing where he'd wanted his kids to love him. He rubbed his nose, said, "Remind me," and his daemon reminded him: "What do we want them to actually do?"

And he said, "The bare minimum fucking acknowledgement would be nice."

And Bee said, "Have we explained that to them? Do they know?"

So Chilchuck and Bee, hot and tired and cross and still on the job apparently, sat down on the ground with the kids and looked in the bucket. The snake, poor bastard, looked very limp and tired. Chilchuck could relate.

After a while, Chilchuck said, "Girls?"

Or more accurately, something like, "Girls! Girls. Meifleurpatti-I mean Puck-PUCK. Listen up. Mei! Fleur, I'm talking - thanks Fleur - Puck. (Ryeland, stop the baby.) PUCK. Mei, Fleur, Puck - PUCK, eyes on me - thanks, Ryeland - PUCK. EYES," which condensed in parent-speak to a single roar of "Girls!"

When he had them more or less listening, he remembered to set his voice to the more singsong cadence one used for children, instead off the deeper version of his natural voice that he used for shouting at the top of his abilities at tall people; making the choice to be patient and gentle, or at least pretend to be someone who was; and in this manner he said reasonably, "Now, your dad's been away for a very long time and missed you all very much. What do you say? What do you say when your dad comes home?"

Six children stared at him blankly, and the baby toppled gently into the bucket. He fished it out, stuck it sideways under his arm, allowed the snake to escape in the confusion, acknowledged someone's grievously injured finger, stopped Fleur from pinching, took out his pocket handkerchief and wiped Puck's nose in essentially one continuous motion.

To be completely fair, now that he'd let go of the initial anger, he could see that the kids had absolutely no idea what he'd wanted of them. Kids had practically no social instincts at the best of times. Chilchuck coming home was remarkable, sure, but beyond their influence; how were they supposed to react? What do you say to a comet? What do you say to a hailstorm? What do you say when daddy comes home?

He repeated the question, as the children had universally drawn blanks and devolved into staring vacantly.

"Good morning, Daddy!" A child chirped helpfully, setting off the rest in an automatic drone of "good morning, Daddy," in the strangely universal dreary tone of all children saying that.

"So close, Fernwise! Is it morning? What else do we think?"

Bee, fighting for order among the kit-daemons, was simultaneously washing Fleurtom's daemon, Pantoufle's, face; receiving a long rambling report of a grievance from three incoherent witnesses; and minding the baby's chick-daemon; up to her ears in parenting. She said, around a mouthful of Pan, "Speed it up, boss, you're losing them."

"Where are your spots, Daddy?" Pan asked him. He was in the form of a young ferret and scrabbled against his mother's grip on his scruff.

"My what?"

"Your freckles," Bee said grimly, and seeing he'd been temporarily disarmed - and being a valiant beast in her way - charged in to her human's defense, "Is that nice, Pan? We don't want to make people feel bad about their looks, do we?"

"Yes we do," said Fleur.

"Fleur! We've just - we haven't seen much of the sun, that's all," said Bee, taking charge, the best and most loyal soul a man could have. "They'll come back, and they're not spots."

"Mei has spots."

"Freckles."

"Grimbob has spots."

"Yes, and you shouldn't notice," Bee said. "Think of Grimbob's feelings."

"I do, I think he feels spotty."

"I'm thirsty," Puck said flatly.

"Stick to the point, kids," Chilchuck said, recovering from the fact that his usual face was apparently indistinguishable to children from Grimbob's, who had been taking puberty hard. This was surprisingly difficult to do.

Ryeland, a mildly bright spark who was older than the Chils girls, connected two dots and suddenly roared "WELCOME HOME DADDY," so six children all repeated that automatically, and Fleur added sunnily, "I missed you Daddy!"

And just as a very small piece of Chilchuck's heart was finally allowed to melt, she added, equally sunnily, "Mei didn't."

"I did a little," Meijack said vaguely.

"That's great kids, well done, we got there in the end," Chilchuck said. "Remember it for next time, okay? It makes Daddy feel better about his stupid life. Now, next time, let's remember that it's traditional to do a hug."

He realised his mistake instantly, as six children and their daemons all bore him - and the baby he'd forgotten he was holding - to the ground.

___________

[tr4gictea]

how about reader who is a honeybadger human x house of hearth (platonic)

Honeybadger!Human!Teen!Reader w/House of the Hearth

❥Masterlist

Tags: child homelessness, orphan reader, fighting, jumping a man, illegal activity, fighting, curse words, oc orphans

Including: Lyney, Lynette, Freminet, and other house of hearth children

word count: 3,729 words

A/n: Hi! Thank you for the request! So sorry this took so long to come out. I got lazy and accidentally deleted half of my work while writting. But this was a fun request! I got to look into honey badgers, who are such interesting animals, and (Y/n)'s personality is based on a honey badger!

Living on the streets of Fontaine isn't as bad as people make it out to be. Sure you have to scavenge for food people have already eaten, fight other kids ten times your size, and be ridiculed out in public by people for your ears and tail but you hide them under a coat so it's no problem.

Your days are usually slow with you getting out of bed at whatever time. You then head to Café Lutece in the morning you swipe food off empty tables, which are pretty tasty, sometimes. You then go down to Fleuve Cendre and see if there are any jobs that can earn you a few mora. These jobs usually require you to deliver illegal luggage somewhere, slip something in someone's drink, or whatever the commissioner wants. These jobs are usually highly illegal but they pay so well that you don't complain. Not to brag but you were pretty good at it. After that, you get lunch depending on how much you earn from the commission. Once nightfall comes you have to go and find a place to sleep. There's one spot on the roof of the court that every street kid in the city fights over and you are always the one to take the spot. No kids in Fontaine have weapons that they can fight you with, but you have your claws. These can rip and shred any kid who tries to take your night spot. These street kids know to leave you and your spot alone for the most part.

But today when you got to your spot you found three young adults sitting in your night spot. Two boys and one girl. The first boy was wearing a top hat with clean-looking clothes. The second boy was wearing some kind of sailor hat. The girl was some sort of hybrid with a cat because she had cat ears and a tail, her outfit was similar to the first boy's outfit but blue. These were definitely not street kids and you had no idea how they got here.

"AY!" You yelled the three turned around in surprise. "Get out of my night spot unless you wanna pay for hospital bills tomorrow."

The first boy stood up "So sorry about this, we will be finished in a min-,"

"No." You snap at him "You'll finish now or I kick your asses all the way to Sumeru and back."

"You know you shouldn't be talking like that to people who are much stronger than you." He flashed his pyro vision to you and the girl and the other boy does so too. He gave you a threatening smile. "Give us a minute."

Fun Fact about honey badger: It is said to be the most unbothered animal as stated in the Guinness Book of World Records. So unbothered in fact that they go up against lions and venom snakes.

So when the man threatened you, the words went in one ear and came out the other.

"So? You got a rock that glows. You're still in my spot."

"You're quite the feisty one aren't ya?"

"..."

The girl sighed and got up. "It's not worth it Lyney. Let's go," And with that, they stood up and left your spot. They only moved across the roof away from you but it was enough away where you could sleep without hitting them.

As you lay down you could feel those people's eyes on you. You supposed they were still mad at you for making them move but you didn't care as long as they didn't bother you.

The next morning you wake up, expecting all three people to be gone, instead, you find the cat girl and the quiet boy gone. But the giant top hat man is still there. He was sat, just staring at you.

You thought of saying something to him, but you didn't care all that much. If he was gonna be a creep let him. As long as it didn't impede on your day. You continued with your day as usual. The first thing you needed to do was get some breakfast. There was a nearby cafe, Café Lutece, where you could wait for people to finish eating and then take their leftover food. Their outside seating made it easier for you to grab food

As you got up from your "bed" the boy also got up at the same time. He had an unmoving smile on his face. It unsettled you to your core. But you carried on with your day thinking he would leave. But no instead he followed you to the cafe. You couldn't help but sneer in disgust at the people there they were all dressed in the finest clothes and eating the most expensive food and they paid no mind to the suffering population of Fontaine. You staked out in the bushes. Your unusually thick skin helped you not feel the branches poking you.

As you stalked and waited for someone to leave, the top hat guy sat down at the shop. A few people leave but the waiters are quick to take the extra food before you can grab it. It looked like you're gonna have to skip breakfast for today until the top-hat guy left his table. You race to his table and find that most of if not all the food has remained untouched. There was a chocolate croissant, grapes, and bread with a side of jam. You stuff your mouth with food immediately for some reason it tastes better than usual.

Now with your stomach full you headed down to Fleuve Cendre to see if there were any jobs. For some reason, the man in the top hat is still following you. He seems harmless enough and you don't care enough to ask him what he's doing.

When you get down to Fleuve Cendre you are lucky enough to find someone who will pay you 5,000 mora to jump some rich asshole, you take to job without a second thought. That amount of mora could pay for a whole week of lunches! The commissioner hands you a picture of the guy with his name on the back and a letter. He gives you his instructions and sends you off to complete the commission.

You were about to head off to beat up the victim when you realized that the top-hat guy was still following you. He kept a good distance from you but you could still tell he was following you. You had to find a way to lose him.

The commissioner said the guy worked on the northside of the court so if I get this top hat guy lost on the west side of the court you can hope that you'll never have to see him again. Right next to the entrance of Fleuve Cendre, there was an ally that had pipes that were easy enough to climb up to the roof.

You put your plan into motion and quickly ran to the ally as soon as you were out of the sewers. You looked behind yourself to see if he was chasing after you but to your surprise, he was slowly walking towards you. Once you got to the ally you jumped from wall to wall, latching onto the piping as you scaled the wall. When you got atop the roof you wasted no time a sprit off to the location the commissioner gave you.

Arriving at the meet point you saw that the man in the picture was already there. The man's name was Louis and he had scammed some big gang out of the mora he promised them. All you had to do was to give him some lame excuse to get him to a secluded spot where you could beat the guy up.

Jumping down from the roof you ran up to the guy in a hurry. "Sir! Please! I need your help!" You exclaim while tugging on the man's sleeve.

"What?! Don't touch me! Gods, you street rats are filthy!" So he's a man who only cares about himself? You were originally gonna say that your friend got injured and you needed to help carry her to a hospital, but you have another idea now.

You release your hands from the man's clothes and bow to him. "I'm so sorry sir, but my master has injured himself. Please I need help carrying him to a hospital,"

The man looks hesitant "Who is your master anyway?"

Oh shit. I didn't think about that. I just need the name of a rich person. "U-uh, his name is uh, Abreo! Sir Abreo!" You heard it from a girl while she was having her breakfast this morning.

"S-sir Abreo!" That name seemed to do the trick as his demeanor immediately changed. "Well, why didn't you say so! Lead the way!"

Perfect everything was going to plan. Once he was cornered in the ally you sprinted forward and ran Louis straight into the wall. It was a blur after that. When you came to Louis' body was full of bruises, long claw marks, and blood dripping down his nose. The commissioner said to leave the letter they handed you in his hand and to take a picture of the guy beat up. Once you did that you left the scene without a second look back. If you did look back, you would have found top hat guy admiring your work.

Once you got back to the commissioner you showed him the picture that you got at the job. He gave you a pat on the back and handed you your sack of mora. You decided to get yourself a little treat and went to a nearby vending machine that sold Fonta. This would have been the plan if you had not been stopped in your tracks by that guy in the top hat blocking the exit of Fleuve Cendre.

He was leaning against the wall facing you while playing with a deck of cards. "You know, I haven't seen someone with features like you before." the strange man lifted himself off the wall and started taking slow steps toward you. "Nor, have I seen someone who can take on a full-grown man at your age with only raw skill. And from the looks of it, not strength from how weak you look"

Wait, how did he know you did that? Had he still been following you? And did he just call you weak?!

"I've been following you around for the day and I have to say you would make a perfect addition to the house!"

"Hm? What are you even talking about stalker?" You quirked your eyebrow still wondering what he was talking about.

"The house of the hearth of course!" He said, "We take in orphans, such as yourself, who we see have the potential to thrive in the house! And you have earned yourself an invite with that show of talent today!"

"Nah, I don't do orphanages they'r-,"

"We offer three meals daily and a warm place to sleep."

"Deal."

The house wasn't what you expected. You learned that the boy who recruited you was named Lyney. He directed you to a shared room where you slept with ten other kids about your age, you each had your own bed so you didn't have to fight each other for one. And it was apparently a rule not to fight each other?! It was a strange house for sure.

You met with some of the younger kids. They poked and pulled at your tail and ears. They asked so many questions like:

"Why do you have ears and a tail?"

"Because I'm a hybrid."

"Of what animal?"

"I don't know."

"Why not?"

"Uhh..."

"Why doesd your hair have two strips and not three?"

"I-,"

"I like the number three better than two so you should have two strips!"

"Uhhhhhhhhh...."

"Okay, guys let's leave (Y/n) alone and stop asking them so many questions." An older girl said as a younger boy pulled you away from the children. These two were the others on the roof that night. You learned that the girl's name was Lynette and the boy's name was Freminet. They were both the quiet type and didn't speak that much, you didn't know if it was because they were shy or introverted. But something was telling you that it was both.

"Sorry about that," The girl spoke, "They get rowdy when they meet new people who look different."

"It's fine,"

An awkward silence falls around you three until Freminet speaks up "So, um how are you adjusting?"

"I'm alright, it's weird switching from the streets to a warm house."

"Tell me about it," Lynette said, "When Lyney and I moved from streets to here we were having trouble sleeping a full 8 hours."

"You lived on the streets?" You're surprised considering how well they've adjusted to high society, being famous magicians and all.

"Yeah, the spot where we met you was actually where we used to sleep. We went back there to show Freminet where we used to live,"

"And he was appalled by the condition we had to go through!" A voice behind them said over dramatically. You pecked over the siblings' shoulders to see Lyney with his hand over his heart like he was wounded.

Lynette rolled her eyes at Lyney and Freminet began to defend himself.

"I-i did not! When did I say this to you?!"

"I heard it at every place we showed you 'Oh poor Lyney and Lynette!' 'They went through such hardship!' "

Lynette scoffs at this "Lyney, stop that,"

He sighed and relaxed his body "I'm only teasing dear sister! I just like teasing our little Freminet." The magician says while pinching the younger boy's cheeks.

"I'm not that much younger than you you know?" He says swatting his brothers hand from his cheek

"Yes, but you'll still be shorter than me," Lyney says with a wink. "Anyways, I came here to grab (Y/n)!"

"Hm? What for?" you ask curiously.

"I am going to assess your fighting skills." You say goodbye to Lynette and Freminet for now and Lyney walks you to the training grounds. This place is filled with all types of weaponry from swords to crossbows. You're sure that this one room would be enough weapons for an army.

"Here," Lyney snaps you out of your trance and hands you a wooden sword. "The first person to step out of the circle loses."

"Hm? What's this for?"

"For your fighting assessment,"

"Nah, I don't need it," You say as you toss the sword to the side. You honestly have no idea how to use it. "I just need nothin' but my bare hand and 2 minutes. I can push you out of the circle."

"Oh my, confident are we? Why? You think I'll get scared?"

"You said it, not me. If it makes you feel safer, you can use a real sword if you want." Even if the sword hits you it not like it would cut you, you have incredibly thick skin that can't be pierced by just any blade. But you weren't gonna tell him that.

"Hehe, the fight begins when I say 'go'." He says ignoring your last statement.

"Three," He gets into a fighting stance.

"Two," You do the same and you bring your fist up.

"One." You take a breath from your mouth.

"...Go."

Lyney rushes fast at you with his sword ready to hit your face. You block with your arm and Lyney's sword lands on your forearm. He attempts to use the sword to push you backward and out of the circle. But you manage to stay in place by grounding your feet.

You lean your arms back and push Lyney away from you. "Impressive I didn't expect this much strength from you." You ignore his comment and decide to attack first this time. You speed towards Lyney he raises his sword expecting you to go for the face but instead at the last second you drop down on your knees and chop the inside of his knees causing him to fall on his knees.

"HA! Got you!" You say as you grab Lyney by his shoulder and walk him out of the circle.

"Impressive!" He said with a smirk.

"I won! That's one point for me!" You say proudly.

"Actually, I won."

"What?! No! I won fair and square I got you to leave the circle."

"Uh-uh," He said shaking his finger at you. "I said the first person to leave the circle loses. And when you decided to drag me out of the circle you also stepped outside of it first. So I won that round!"

"W-what?! That's not fair!"

"It's perfectly fair! Come on let us go again and I won't go as easy on you this time." He said with a wink. "And this time try not to lose unknowingly

"That was a one-time thing!" You bark back at him.

After a bit of Lyney's training assessment, he excused you to go have some lunch. He said he had to practice a magic performance with his twin Lynette and his brother Freminet. The lunch for today was a beat salad, creamy pasta, and a warm slice of bread on the side. But your favorite was the honey packet. And good archons you LOVED this damn packet!

The first day you were here you were sat down in a fancy room with a lady discussing what would happen when you entered the hearth and the rules you would have to follow. Bored by her incessant yapping you looked around the room for entertainment. Your eyes landed on a small pack that came with your tea you had been served. It had words written in yellow lettering on it. You couldn't read so you had no idea what it said. You ripped the thing open and watched as a golden substance leaked out of it. You sniffed it first, it had a sweet and kinda fruity smell to it. You then licked it. The golden substance coated your tongue in a sweet thick coat. You were entranced by the taste.

"Mx. (L/n)?" The woman across from spoke up. "Are you alright?"

You jump up from your seat launching yourself from your seat to the lady across from you. "WHAT IS THIS SUBSTANCE?!" You shove the pocket in her face while the golden syrup drips onto your hand.

The lady jumped back in surprise, "M-mx. (L/n), please calm yourself!"

"I have never tasted anything so amazing in my life." You stared at the small packet as if it hypnotized you.

"It is called honey..."

"Honey..." You sit back down while you keep staring at the golden liquid.

"Yes, can we get back to the matter at hand please? Now, other operatives will..." After that, she talked about some other thing but you could not think about anything else but the honey packet in front of you and took small licks so you could savor the flavor of the packet.

After the meeting, you specifically asked the person serving food every day if they could give you honey packets.

Back at the present time you were enjoying your lunch when other orphans from the hearth entered the cafeteria. To your surprise, they made it a point to sit next to you every day. Specifically Celine and Adrien, (They are not cannon in the games they are oc) Celine is close to you in age while Adrien is one of the adults that have aged out of the orphanage but still works for the fatui.

"Hey, little critter." You feel a hand come down on your head and ruffle your ears. You grumble at the gesture. You look behind you to see Adrien, he's the only one in this place who dose that to you and it annoys you so much.

"Adrien, stop doing that too (Y/n)." You turn back around to see Celine sitting across from you. She also places a book next to her and opens it.

"I would but I how can I leave these cute ears alone without any love." He says as he grabs your ears and shifts them back and forth on your head.

"Hey! Stop that dude!" You finally speak up and swat away his hands from your head.

He sighs dramatically and flops into the seat next to you. "Fine, I'll stop... But just for today." He says with a wink.

A different voice appears across from you "Maybe they'd let you touch them more if you just asked first." Freminet speaks as he places his plate on the table next to Celine.

"Nah, this is more fun." Adrien chuckles.

"Even if you did ask I still wouldn't let you touch them."

"Oh hi, Freminet," Celine greets the boy, "Are Lyney and Lynette on a mission right now?"

"Oh, no I just wanted to sit here today." He said sheepishly. You all continue to eat your lunch with light conversation when you turn to your side to see Lyney looking over the cafeteria when his eyes land on your table. He starts rushing towards the table.

"Shit!" Freminet ducks under the table in a rush.

"Hm? Frem what are you doing?" Celine looks down on him with her mouth full of food.

"Just ignore me! Pretend I'm not here!" He says in a hushed tone.

Just as he says that Lyney appears behind you with Lynette close behind him. "My dear siblings! Have you seen Freminet we need him to serve as a part of our show! And I believe I just saw him over here for a second."

You give him a questioning look and, unintentionally, your eyes go from Lyney's eyes to the ground under the table.

"Thank you (Y/n)!" Lyney says still with his creepy smile on his face.

"Wait what?" You say confused about what you did but then Lyney crouches down and yanks a pair of legs from under the table. He drags Freminet from under the table and hoists him on his shoulders.

"(Y/n) how could you!" He says as he reaches out for you. You watch as Lyney and Lynette exit the room with an unwilling Freminet on his shoulders.

Man, this is a weird ass family.

More Genshin Impact Stories *ੈ✩‧₊˚

More Lyney Stories ₊˚.༄

More Lynette Stories ₊˚.༄

More Freminet Stories ₊˚.༄

Sorry I took a small break because I had an exzama break out and couldn't move my arm for 5 days because of the pain. But here is an extra long one for you all! Thanks for reading <3

[blackkatdraws2]

[Original Characters] One of the Tower Residents (who is usually very stoic) is acting strange. Did the Missiontakers trigger something? (-or is this an unscripted scene?)

[More Info under Read More.]

These two are fan-OCs for a webnovel titled [Being an Extra Actor in an Escape Game]

Quick premise for the novel: There was an apocalypse that trapped the whole world in a game-like tower. Missiontakers need to go into a Tower Resident's Nightmares and solve them in order to progress higher up the tower [and maybe escape.] What the Missiontakers didn't know was that the Tower Residents are actually also real people just like them, but they're more limited in what they're allowed to do because the tower forces them to become Actors and pretend like they're NPCs.

The older man is called Kim Seung-Jun.

He's a Tower Resident that's trapped on the higher levels of the tower.

He's never acted out any major roles for a Nightmare and is always in the background.

Even among the other Tower Residents, he's a hard man to talk to, only voicing a curt reply that doesn't leave any openings to continue the conversation.

The other man is called Nick Fuentes

He's a semi-well known Missiontaker that wants to climb all the way up the tower to find the escape.

He's usually the helper of the group and he's good at being flexible with adapting and making quick decisions in tough situations.

Gets attached to people quickly if they're nice to him.

Basic OCs premise: Nick Fuentes sees the usually stoic Kim Seung-Jun acting unlike his character. He starts to get more curious about the older man, and their slow development but eventual close relationship made him unravel a different point of view about truth of the Tower and everyone who was trapped in it.

-------------✦

KOREAN PEOPLE, please tell me in the reblogs and comments if I got the old man's name right!! I'll change it into something more appropriate for his character and age if it sounds silly. I'm a huge fan of Asian webnovels, the things I always consume are Chinese/Korean webnovels that I find in illegally English translated websites HAHAHA. It affected the way I named my characters because Chinese/Korean names are the only thing I'm constantly being exposed to. [But I have no idea if these names are actually correct or not. Sorry!]

Oh MAN, I have not re-visited this novel in YEARS. Literally one of my biggest worldbuilding inspirations [not to mention it has all my favorite tropes in it] and I will continue loving it forever.

I found the novel by pure chance. At the time, there was only one website that translated it into English. I thought the premise was interesting and decided to give it a try, thinking it was just another one of those garbage junk food novels that I'd drop half-way, but no, it was actually really good.

I'm not gonna spoil anything about the novel itself lololol I'm only gonna be working on my OCs.

To be honest, I'm probably gonna make an original world and story for them soon. I like this idea too much, I'll make it mine someday. For now though, I will have a minor hyperfixation.

Go check the novel out, by the way!! It's great.

[lowkeychenle]

the hardest part [ZCL] (M)

Description: You, Chenle, and Jay have been best friends since before you could even remember. After moving away to pursue your dreams, you don't talk to them as often as you should. One day, you get a call notifying you of Jay's passing. When you go back to your hometown, you find everything is different except for one person--Chenle.

Genre: (Hurt/Comfort) Smut/Fluff/Angst (please see content warnings)

Content Warnings: death of a close friend, survivor's guilt, lots of what-if scenarios, navigating life without someone you've always had around, mental break downs, panic attacks (not vividly described AS panic attacks), two people coming together to heal from grief, explicit sexual content (unprotected sex, oral sex, mentions of sex, etc. although it's not super crazy so do with that what you will)

Word Count: 16,965

Taglist: @amyjipark @sofix-hc7 @dinosaurtoothbrushwithninjasauce

Permanent Taglist: @sunnybutcloudy @neozon3nha @waffleuvs

Pairing: Zhong Chenle x fem!reader (featuring OC by the name of Jay)

A/N: thank you for 900 followers! :)

Juliet's Masterlist | Tell me what you think? :)

When you got the call, your life fell apart before your eyes. You didn’t believe it. Not at first, anyway, considering things like this don’t happen to people you know. They happen to people you’ve never met.

Tragedies strike everyone. Not only are you not exempt, but nothing will ever shake you more, you’re certain.

Learning of your childhood best friend’s death is not something you expect to hear at your age. It’s always sudden, tragically, unfortunately. As if any death is anything but those words.

Everything leading up to the funeral—from the phone call to the week it took you to get on the plane—felt like a fever dream. One you’d wake up from and everything would be normal again.

You’re too young. He’s too young.

Was.

He was too young.

Your throat tightens as you close your eyes, resting your head against the steering wheel of your rental car. The funeral awaits you inside, where you’ll say the goodbye he’ll never actually hear.

The entire week, you’d been looking through old pictures and videos, crying at the sound of his voice when you realized how long it’d been since you truly heard him.

You obviously had yet to accept what happened. You’re half-sure that the second you walk in, everyone will be in there as if they’ve all played an elaborate prank on you. How cruel of them to set all of that up in a funeral home. Was he in there right now, waiting for you to walk in with tears in your eyes so he could make fun of you?

You’d cry harder, punch his shoulder, yell at him for playing such a cruel joke on you.

But it’s not a joke.

You haven’t received a text in over a month—well past your monthly check-in time. That thought alone makes you want to scream. Monthly check-ins? You moved away from your friends years ago for college and a ghost of a dream. Now, the only ghost left is his, and you have no idea how to explain your absence.

You thought you had more time.

Maybe that everybody gets older—but that’s not true. He won’t.

A cold chill runs down your spine. You look up at the sky, wanting to curse it for the beautiful blue color when the shade inside your heart is so fucking painful. Gathering yourself and wiping away the stray tear, you brush your dress off and get out of your car. The lot is packed, considering how popular Jay is.

Was.

It’s not real for you yet. Even as you walk in through the doors, the miserable click of your heels on the concrete doing little to soothe the emotions running deep in your veins. The first thing you see when you walk in is a collage of pictures of him—and the one that catches your eye immediately is one of the biggest ones, portraying you, Jay, and Chenle from a few summers back. The three of you are beaming at each other, smiles too wide to not be painful.

A lump forms in your throat. You hadn’t even thought about Chenle. Not really. The three of you had been best friends growing up. Your parents all knew each other, and so you’d been grandfathered into two friendships. In your defense, nothing had been on your mind except for Jay. Not his family, not yours, not Chenle.

Jaw quivering, you trace your fingers over the two men in the picture. God, Chenle must be a fucking wreck right now. Your first goal was to find him.

It’s not like you weren’t friends with them anymore. You were busy, they were busy, and you had a friendship with both of them that made it easy to remain the same when together even if you spent months and months apart. You hadn’t seen either of them in person in over a year.

The doors are open, and you clench your fists together. You freeze just before the doorway. The second you walk in, all of this becomes real. Jay is dead, and you’ve failed to keep up with him and everyone else from your hometown. You’ve become someone else, and in the process, you forgot your roots.

You’ll never remember them again. Not when they’ve been cut at the source.

“(Y/N)?” A familiar voice sounds behind you, and you whirl around.

The tears you’d been holding back fall before you can stop them. You slap a hand over your mouth, and in the blink of an eye, Chenle’s closing the distance between the two of you and wrapping his arms around you.

“God, it’s been so fucking long,” he murmurs, tightening his grip.

You can’t talk yet. Guilt sets in regardless, because you hadn’t so much as messaged him when you heard about all of this. His palm rests on the back of your head, and he doesn’t say anything else. The two of you stand there, and you allow him to comfort you.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” you groan and wipe at your eyes. “This is all just…are you…how are you doing?”

“I’ve been better,” he admits. “Better now that you’re here, honestly. I went outside to take a break from everything and I saw you walk in. You have no idea how good it is to have you back here.”

“I can’t believe I’ve been gone for so long.” You glance up at the ceiling.

“Life happens,” Chenle says softly. He puts his hand on the small of your back. “If you’re ready, I’ll go in with you.”

“Thank you.” You take a deep breath.

Chenle has never been an emotional man. Even since you were children, you rarely even saw him tear up. Hopes of all of this being a prank dissipates quickly when you see the water gathered in his eyes as the two of you walk in.

The air inside is undeniably stuffy, bone-chilling, even. Silence is amplified by how you hear your own heart pounding in your ears. The carpeted floor creaks beneath your feet, and as soon as people recognize you, eyes are on you and Chenle. Nobody says anything.

The casket is on a stage of sorts. The left side is open, and you can’t see inside it from where you’re standing, but your feet freeze to the ground directly below you before you realize what’s happening. A flash of worry crosses over Chenle’s features as he steps in front of you to cover the view.

“Just breathe,” he whispers, hands on your shoulders. “It’s hard. I know. Trust me, do I fucking know, but it’s not about us and our feelings right now. It’s about Jay. You’ll get through this for Jay.”

“He’s in there.” You gulp. “It’s all real, and he’s…”

Your friend nods. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s real.”

Your throat constricts again, and you glance around. His family—his parents and younger brother—are in the front of the room, sitting down together. Much to your surprise, they’re not all sobbing, but the redness to his mother’s cheeks tells you she may have just shed too many tears to keep going.

“This is the last time you’ll ever see him,” Chenle says quietly. “You don’t have to go up there if you don’t want to, but I think you’ll regret it if you don’t. They put him in that stupid band shirt he never wanted to throw away.”

Your heart pangs, and warmth and fondness takes over. “Well, good thing he never did, huh?”

“Exactly.” Chenle chuckles. “I’ll go with you.”

Once you nod, he resumes his spot next to you and guides you up to your best friend to say goodbye. You don’t stay there long. After you see him, you’re sure you’ve been changed forever. It’s odd how serene and peaceful he looks. How nothing about him has really changed when everything about you and your life now has.

You speak briefly with his family, who are all thankful you came across the country for this—as if you’d ever miss it. You just wish you’d had that need to go home when death wasn’t involved. Yours, Jay’s, and Chenle’s parents stay at the funeral after you and Chenle leave. The two of you mutually agreed Jay would punch you both if he knew you were held up because of him.

You go to a cafe together, and despite you having zero appetite, Chenle insists you get something to eat. Grasping your warm coffee cup in both hands, you stare down at the steam while your friend is up at the counter waiting for everything else. You look out the window, watching the cars zoom past.

“It’s a little weird having you back here,” Chenle mentions as he sits down across from you.

“Well.” You sip your coffee. “It wasn’t exactly in the plan.”

“How long are you here for?”

“I took extended leave,” you tell him. “I’ll be here for a few months.”

He purses his lips and nods. “This town isn’t so great without you, you know. Jay and I used to talk about it all the time.”

“Yeah.” Your breath hitches and you stare at the steam from your cup. “I’ve been so…far away this whole time, and now it’s too late to fix it all.”

“Hey, there’s nothing to fix,” he interjects, eyebrows furrowed. “You’re out there making a life for yourself. We’ve never been anything but fucking proud of you, dude. You had the courage to get out. Neither of us ever could’ve attempted that.”

“Did he even get the chance?” You let out a pained laugh and set your coffee on the table.

“Whatever you’re thinking, stop it. He loved you, okay? Our friendship has always been easy. You don’t need to talk to people or see them every day to stay friends.” Chenle reaches across the table and grabs your hand.

Your shoulders slump. “God, you’re going through this at the same time I am and I’m just…making it about me. What’s going on with you?”

“Everyone grieves differently.” He pauses to think. “I’m…as okay as I can be, you know? But to be completely honest, I’m not sure how I am. Or what I’m gonna do. There’s not much I can do.”

“I still can’t believe it. He’s just…gone. How the hell do we keep going? It’ll never be the same.”

“You’re right,” Chenle agrees. “It’ll suck. It already does. But we’ll get through this together. I’m here for you.”

You squeeze his hand and give him a small smile. “And I’m here for you, of course. I’m gonna be better about staying in touch and visiting.”

“Where are you staying?” he asks.

“Well, my parents turned my room into a home gym, so I got a hotel for now.” You chuckle. “They really thought I was never coming back.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” His eyes widen. “You’re gonna stay in a hotel for a few months? Just come stay with me.”

“I didn’t want to impose on anyone.”

He presses his lips into a thin line. “C’mon, you’re not imposing and you know it. Plus, you haven’t seen the new house yet, so you may as well.”

“That’s right.” You gasp and shoot straight up. “You fucking bought a house.”

He grins. “Yeah, I did. And there’s plenty of space for you there. Plus, it’ll be better for both of us if we’re not alone right now.”

“You’re gonna make me play board games.”

“Obviously.” He scrunches up his nose. “You would have to even if you were staying in the hotel.”

Familiarity finally sets in, and the awkward air between you and Chenle has officially evaporated completely. He’s still your best friend, and the weirdness was in your own head. The two of you spend a bit of time catching up at the cafe—at times, you even find yourself laughing.

You missed your hometown. The friends you had when you were growing up. What a shame you’re missing one of the most pivotal people in your entire life. Your younger years were shaped and reformed by your friendship with Jay and Chenle.

When some girl bullied you in middle school, the boys were the first people to come to your defense. They’d walk you to and from class, and Chenle even called that girl out. In high school, when you got your first boyfriend, Jay and Chenle grilled him thoroughly. They were your family, and you were theirs.

One of the only times you’d seen Chenle cry was when he and Jay dropped you off at the airport when you were leaving for college. You hugged both of them so tightly, and you promised to visit often. They said they’d come see you, and that you’d never go too long without them.

Naive promises turn into friendships where you love each other, but you rarely see or hear from the other. Every time you did see them, it truly felt like no time had passed.

You and Chenle get into your car, and he directs you to his house. He tells you a little about it on the way—it’s not too big, two bedrooms, one bathroom, but the kitchen is really nice. He likes to cook, so, of course, that was a deciding factor when he was looking.

Your bags are still in the back, so he helps you grab them. He slings your backpack over his shoulder and grabs the larger of your two bags. Everything about your hometown feels foreign to you as you follow him inside. He flicks the lights on, and the first thing you notice is that same picture of you, Jay, and Chenle that you’d seen at the funeral home.

It’s framed in the center of the wall, and as soon as you see it, you exhale. Chenle stops mid-sentence, walking up to stand next to you.

“That’s my favorite picture of us.” He tilts his head. “He made fun of me for putting that up.”

“He’s always been so weird about mushy gushy friendship feelings.” You purse your lips. “Despite being the sappiest fucking guy I know.”

“He’d be so pissed at all of us for being sad.” Chenle chuckles. “He’d kill me if I let you stay in a hotel, too.”

“The last time I talked to him, he’d just broken up with that girl. What was her name?”

“I don’t even remember. She was weird, though. Like, he barely talked to you and she was all threatened I guess. You and Jay? You two would end up putting each other in headlocks.” He snorts and runs his fingers through his hair.

“We have put each other in headlocks,” you remind him, nudging his shoulder. “And I vaguely remember kicking his ass.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I’d consider that kicking his ass.”

“This…This feeling will go away eventually, right?” For some reason, you can’t lift your voice higher than a whisper as you force the words out.

“Which one? The gaping hole or the soul-crushing anxiety?” He throws his arm over your shoulders.

“Both.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t think so.” He sighs. “I’ve heard from many that you kinda just…learn how to live with it.”

“Even though he can’t.”

“Even though he can’t,” Chenle repeats. “Guess the hardest part of all of this is that he won’t grow up with us, huh?”

You inhale sharply and cover your mouth. “Damn it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “I’ve been a damn roller coaster this whole week. You don’t have to be scared to feel around me. You know that.”

“It feels so fucking selfish,” you breathe out. “I haven’t seen him in…months, so do I even really have the right to be this sad?”

“Are you kidding me?” Chenle scoffs.

“Would he even want me here right now?”

“Do you hear yourself?” Your friend gapes at you. “He never stopped talking about the next time you’d be in town. Neither of us have ever even had a negative thought about you, dude. You should know that. There was never a time where he didn’t want you here.”

“I guess I just thought we’d have more time,” you say.

“The world waits for no one.”

When nightfall comes, you and Chenle go to your separate rooms. He bids you goodnight, and you close your door. You sit on the edge of the bed and take in the room around you. Everything has changed immensely since the last time you were in your hometown. Your best friend bought a house, and you’d barely even thought or heard about it. Pride in him surges through you, but for a moment, you think it may be misplaced.

You don’t deserve to be proud of someone you’ve failed to talk to as often as you should have. Losing Jay has torn your world apart, and you still don’t truly believe it. You change into your tank top and shorts, and then grab your toothbrush and toothpaste from your bag.

You’re on your way to the bathroom when you find Chenle in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and bringing a glass of water up to his lips. He gives you a tired nod.

“You’re still up?”

“Sleep on a day like this?” He lets out a sarcastic laugh. “I’ll probably have some crazy ass dream or something.”

You forget your adventure to his bathroom and approach the kitchen island. Without a word between the two of you, he goes into the cupboard to get you a cup as well. He fills it with water and slides it across the countertop.

“Thanks,” you say.

He nods once and crosses his arms over his chest. “How’s life going, though? Current events aside.”

“Life is a constant revolving door of work,” you tell him. “Working my way up the corporate ladder and all that bullshit they spew.”

“You look good. As long as you’re getting all the things you wanted, I’m good, too.” He closes his eyes and tilts his head back.

“Kind of debating if it was worth it at this point.” You sigh. “I’m proud of you, by the way. Buying a house on your own is a big deal.”

“Family business money.”

“You work. You earned it.”

“I guess that’s true. Thanks.” He pauses. “I’m glad you’re here. I don’t think I’d be okay if you weren’t.”

“Like I’d ever leave you to deal with something like this alone.” You tap your fingers against the granite, admiring the swirls of color deep in the design.

“Regardless, I needed you.” Chenle gulps, glancing at his feet. “I still do. Now more than ever with Jay gone.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t come?” you ask.

He wets his lips and takes the bottom one between his teeth. “It’s not that I thought that, necessarily, but I did wonder if you were. I didn’t hear from you, so I kind of just hoped.”

Guilt takes another stab at your heart. “Chenle, I—”

“Don’t apologize again,” he replies sternly. “Life is life. There’s no way any of us could’ve predicted this, okay? Sometimes, shit happens. Not being around a lot isn’t the end of the world.”

“It was for Jay.”

“You were not the end of the world. You didn’t kill him, for fuck’s sake. There’s nothing any of us could’ve done. And reminiscing on it like this and placing unplaceable blame on ourselves is going to make things harder.” He sets his cup in the sink.

“I know. I know that, but for some reason, my head keeps—”

“Let’s watch a movie,” he offers. “Maybe it’ll distract you a little bit.”

You agree, and go into the bathroom to brush your teeth before you follow him into his room. It’s so innately Chenle in there, you immediately feel relaxed. Some things never change, and you’re glad he’s one of those things.

“Sorry, I don’t have a TV in the living room,” he says as he pulls his covers back.

“Just roll me off if I fall asleep,” you reply, climbing onto the untouched side.

Eventually, he’s next to you, and you rest your head on his chest while he finds something to watch. He selects some random comedy movie and then shuffles to put his arm around you.

His scent is familiar, too. The world calms around you when you’re with Chenle. One out of two of your safe places has left the Earth, but luckily for you, Chenle is more than ready to play both roles.

The movie does, indeed, successfully distract you from the impending doom of everything outside. You’re able to forget, even if it’s just for a couple hours, and sink into the familiarity of your best friend.

His chest rumbles when he laughs at the screen, and the feeling has you drifting faster than you’d care to admit.

Until finally, your eyes flutter shut and stay that way, and just like that, you have the best night of sleep you’ve had all week.

You wake in the morning to sunlight on your face and Chenle wiggling away from you. The brightness burns your eyes, and you curse under your breath. Chenle bites back a laugh.

“Did I wake you up?” he asks. “I was about to go make some coffee for us.”

You shake your head and turn onto your back. “No, the sun violated me. Sorry for falling asleep in here. I thought I’d be able to catch myself.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He waves you off. “You still like your coffee the same way?”

You nod. “Thanks, Lele.”

“Of course.” He pats the door frame and heads to the kitchen. The creaks in the floorboards from his steps get further and further, and you cover your face with your hands to block out the sun.

You smell the coffee as it brews, a sigh escaping your lips. His bed is the most comfortable thing you’ve slept on in a while, and you can’t seem to force yourself to get up. You and Chenle had spent the night together many times before, pretty much throughout your entire lives. Jay, too, of course, considering how inseparable the three of you had been growing up.

“Alright, lazy ass,” Chenle calls out. “Coffee’s ready. Time to face the world.”

“Asshole,” you shout back.

“That’s what they call me.”

You laugh and roll your eyes. Swinging the covers off of you, you follow him into the kitchen.

“The fuck is your mattress made of?” you ask as you take the cup he hands you. “Clouds?”

“It’s pretty nice, isn’t it?” He sips his coffee and cringes from the heat.

“The steam is like, a dead giveaway that it’s too hot to drink, you know.”

“I take back what I said, go back to sleep.” He grins. “Getting a decent night’s sleep has brought your sass back.”

“You know you love my sass,” you bite back.

He holds his hand up in mock surrender. “Whatever.”

“What’s the plan for today?” you ask, holding your cup close so it warms you up.

“No clue,” he says. “My parents gave me a few weeks off to, I don’t know, adjust or whatever. Even though I could probably use the distraction.”

“Comedy movie didn’t do it for you?”

He gives you a pointed look. “A two hour movie can only do so much.”

“We should do something for him,” you suggest, tilting your head as you try to think. “Like, to honor him.”

“What could we do?”

“Sky’s the limit.” You shrug. “I feel like I should.”

“If you do, it needs to be actually for him. Not to compensate for guilt. Guilt you shouldn’t even be feeling, by the way.” His eyes on you suddenly becomes too much. You avert your gaze. He’s always been able to read you like a book.

“It’s really weird,” you say. “Right now, I don’t feel…anything. But I really thought I’d be in a constant state of sad. That makes me feel guilty, too.”

“I get that. It’s the way things work, though. At the end of the day, we’re still alive. We shouldn’t stop just because he did.” Chenle looks past you to the picture on the wall.

You follow suit, letting the events from yesterday flood back to you.

“Lele.” You wait for him to look at you. “Thank you. For everything. And for not letting me blame myself. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’d be alone and sad and, quite honestly, wondering where I—”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” You glare at him.

He smiles. “You get it.”

You and Chenle spend some time with your parents. They’re quick to update you on everything everyone in the town has been doing, and you and Chenle exchange ‘when-will-this-be-over’ glances frequently. 

Chenle offers to help your dad cook, leaving you and your mother in the living room. She brings out an old photo album, and the two of you take a trip down memory lane. After flipping through a few pages, she gasps and points at a picture of you and Chenle next to each other at a bonfire. You’re holding the graham crackers, awaiting the marshmallow he’s toasting over the flames.

“You guys were so young.” She lets out a long sigh.

“Mom, that was like, six years ago.” You laugh. “We weren’t that young.”

She trails down the page, and the next one is almost the same, but Jay’s arms are around you and Chenle, and he beams straight into the camera. You smile at the sight, remembering how you swatted at his wrist the second after the photo was taken.

“You know, we all thought you and Jay would get married one day,” she says absent-mindedly.

“What?” you ask incredulously. “Seriously? Come on, you know we were never like that.”

“You kids don’t see it from the outside. I’ve never seen you act so comfortable with anyone. Chenle, too, obviously. I can’t explain it. It was different with you and Jay.”

“I promise you, he’s only ever been my best friend. Not even a smidge of another thought. Don’t speak ill of the dead like that—”

“(Y/N),” your mother scolds you, smacking your arm.

“No need to beat around the bush.” You shrug and close the album.

“Hey, do you—” Chenle’s cut off by your mother.

“If you actually visited as much as you said you would, maybe things would’ve happened for the two of you.”

She doesn’t mean it the way you take it, at least you don’t think she does, but it’s a stray bullet to the heart anyway. Your jaw drops, and it only takes one glance from Chenle for him to understand. He reaches into his pocket and hands you his keys.

“Go get in the car.”

“Chenle, it’s not—”

“Go. I’ll be out in a second.”

Your insides twist and turn, and despite the way your throat closes in on itself, you nod and practically bolt out of the house. The first tear drops as you climb into the passenger seat. You close your eyes and drop your head into your hands. How did life turn out this way?

It’s true that you and Jay had never had any sort of feelings for each other, but the insinuation that he should’ve been more confuses you more than anything. If he should’ve been, you lost that chance before you even knew it existed. But it doesn’t matter, does it?

You never had feelings for him. Never. But for some reason, it suddenly feels like you have to.

Now, a different type of guilt sinks in.

You’re shaking by the time Chenle gets in the car, but he doesn’t say anything before he drives away. Stress boils off of him, and you’re almost scared to glance over at him. Luckily, the ride to his house is short thanks to your small hometown, and as soon as you’re out of the car and inside, he lets out a loud sigh.

You intend to quietly and quickly head into your own room, where you’ll cry until you fall asleep or you need more water before you can shed a single additional tear.

“Don’t even think about it,” Chenle says, grabbing onto your wrist. “Talk to me.”

You stumble into his chest and hold onto his T-shirt like your life depends on it. He cradles the back of your head and sighs, thumb stroking your scalp.

“Don’t let them get to you,” he whispers. “They don’t understand.”

“What if she was right?” you choke out.

He leans away from you to look at your face. “Did you? Ever have feelings for him?”

“No, but what if—”

“There’s no use thinking about things like that.” Chenle’s brows furrow as he scans over your face.

“And now I’ll never know if he ever thought like that, and it’s my fault—it’s not what I wanted, because you know I’d rather fist fight him than anything else, but God, what if he—”

“(Y/N).” His palms reach up to cup your cheeks, making you look straight at him as he guides you to breathe. “I can very confidently say that Jay didn't have any sort of romantic feelings for you at any point, okay? Just take a deep breath.”

“I look like an idiot, don’t I?”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “No, you don’t. You look like someone who really cares for someone they just lost. These feelings are normal, dude.”

“I don’t think you were ever worried about Jay potentially having feelings for you,” you mumble.

“He was very much into women, so definitely never a worry on my part.” Chenle snorts and pulls you back into a hug. “She shouldn’t have said something like that to you. You’re probably hungry, too. I’ll order us some pizza.”

“Let me pay for it,” you say, reaching into your purse for your card.

“Next time.” He nudges you before walking into the kitchen.

You sigh and follow him, quickly wiping the wetness from your cheeks. He’s typing away on his phone screen, resting his elbows on the counter. He runs his fingers through his hair and sends a quick smile your way.

Without Jay around, things with Chenle felt off at first. Everything changed for all of the people you knew in the blink of an eye, and now, you’re left with one of two of your best friends while the other is galavanting up in the sky.

Things would never be the same for you, but you still have Chenle. And at the end of the day, he’s one of the only people in the entire world that have ever understood you. You don’t even need to say a word for him to get a read on you.

“Pizza’s ordered.” He drops his phone onto the granite. “I need a drink. Do you want something? I only have beer and liquor.”

“Beer’s fine,” you tell him. “I shouldn’t drink too much anyway.”

You’re halfway through the can when the pizza arrives. Chenle grabs you a piece, and you pause for a moment. This whole time, he’s been doing things for you—and it’s not just now either. It’s been like this for your entire life. Until the time you moved across the country on your own, you’d barely ever even opened a door for yourself.

You down the rest of your drink, and Chenle blinks at you rapidly.

“Are you good?” He chuckles.

“Just thinking of how good I had it here.” You shrug. “When I lived here, and I got to hang out with you and Jay all the time. I never felt lonely or sad or anything like that. Always happy with you guys.”

His face softens. “I miss those days.”

“Me too.” Right when you open your mouth to continue, Chenle stops you.

“Don’t.” He points at you. “We were the ones who told you to go in the first place.”

The two of you eat in a peaceful silence, where you steal a couple glances at your long time friend. Had you come home any other time before this, Jay would be here, too, and he’d most likely be making fun of you and Chenle right now. It’s like things have gone back to day one, and neither of you are sure how to interact with each other. The atmosphere, the air, the storyline has all massively shifted. You’re unsure of what to do.

“I’m gonna watch another movie,” Chenle says absentmindedly as he finishes sending a message on his phone. “You in?”

“Oh, not this time.” You shake your head. “I’m exhausted. Last thing you need is me hogging your bed again all night.”

He laughs. “Door’s open if you change your mind. Night.”

“Goodnight,” you tell him, watching as he retreats into his room.

The click signifies he’s out of sight, out of mind. You let out a long sigh and clean up your plate before heading into your own room. It’s not as homey as Chenle’s, and the mattress isn’t as cloudy either, but you’ll make do. With a deep breath, you rest back on your pillow, staring up at the ceiling.

Part of you wants to be with Chenle, but the other side of you knows you need to learn how to be okay on your own, too. If Jay’s death has taught you anything, it’s that not everyone you rely on will be around forever. Maybe if you’d relied on him less—

God damn it. You run your hands down your face, opting to scroll through your phone. Halfway through a random video, you receive a text from Chenle.

It’s a simple message of ‘found this and figured you’d want to see.’ It’s a picture of you and Jay, where you look like you’re ready to punch him in the face, and he’s beaming widely as if he’s the funniest person alive.

The photo makes you smile. Your memories of him will stand through the test of time, but that doesn’t mean you’re not going to feel it. One thing’s for certain—his loss will always be felt. You’ll just try and make the most of the time you have left, because it’s very clearly fleeting.

You feel decent enough that you start to drift to sleep, but it’s your dreams that send you through a whirlwind. Images of your earlier years flash through your mind, and you relive some experiences you’d forgotten about. When Jay found out his first girlfriend cheated on him, or when he and Chenle got into their first ever argument and made you be the mediator. Happy memories suddenly came to an end when your dream showed him in his casket, surrounded by the people who love him—the people you abandoned to follow your dream.

You jolt awake, tears burning at your eyes despite refusing to fall. When you look at the clock, hours have passed, and it’s well into the middle of the night. You pat your cheeks to ground yourself to the real world, and overwhelming worry hits you.

What if you lose Chenle in the same way? What if all this time that was wasted is truly…gone, and you’ll never be able to make it up?

You never got to say goodbye to Jay. The days will continue to get colder, but he’ll always be cemented on a bright summer day in the middle of June. Winters without him will be like a frozen hell, and the summers will never be quite as sweet. Your heart pounds in your chest where your guilt resides, and there’s only one solution you know that’ll work.

You throw your blanket off your body and slide out of bed. The floors of Chenle’s house creak beneath your feet as you walk the short distance from your room to his. You contemplate knocking first, but you’re pretty sure he’s asleep anyway.

When you push the door open, the noise catches his attention. He turns over, eyebrows furrowed as he catches you in the frame.

“(Y/N)?”

“Hey,” you mutter, clasping your hands together. “Sorry, I thought you’d be asleep.”

“Nah.” He sits up. “Not doing too great at that these days.”

“Oh. Well, um, do you wanna watch that movie?”

Chenle smiles gently at you and pats the other side of his bed. “For sure.”

You end up next to him, resting your head on him like you did last time. He wraps his arm around you and gently taps his fingers against your shoulder. Eventually, you completely relax and stare forward at the screen. Despite the movie playing, you already feel your tiredness pulling at you again.

“Are you okay?” he asks softly. “It’s just…late. You weren’t asleep?”

“I…” You pause and turn to look at him. “You want me to be honest?”

“Always.”

“I’m so…scared. I’m not really sure of what, but I have this ball of worry in me. It like, physically hurts.” You roll your eyes and tighten your grip on him.

“I get it,” he murmurs. “Seriously. When things like this happen, it’s normal to feel that way. And it doesn’t make you selfish.”

A lump forms in your throat. “I—Chenle, I don’t want to lose you, too.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he reassures you, pulling you closer to hug you. “I promise you, you’ll always have me.”

“But we never know, do we?” Your voice shakes. “All of it could be over in the blink of an eye—”

He cups your cheeks. “Just relax, okay? I’m right here. I’ve thought the same things about you, you know. To the point where I’m scared to let you out of my sight. But living in fear is worse than not living at all.”

“What do we do without…” You groan as the first tear falls, but before you reach up to wipe it away, Chenle beats you to it.

“We do exactly what he’d want us to do. Keep going and make life whatever we want it to be. He’d be so pissed if he knew we were sad right now.”

“God, he would.” You let out a short laugh. “He’s glaring at us, isn’t he?”

“Oh, for sure. For this and for having a fucking sleepover without him.” Chenle’s smile widens.

“He loved sleepovers.”

“He was insufferable about them,” he interjects.

“Thank you,” you whisper. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’ll never have to find out,” he says, and despite the obvious part of all of it being out of his control, something settles in you.

Your brows furrow as you gulp, studying him to figure out what about this feels…shifted. Things don’t feel like they have every single time you’ve come home in the past, but that may be because of the obvious. There was always three of you. How do you recover from that and become two?

“You don’t have to feel weird about staying in here,” Chenle tells you. “I sleep better when I’m not alone, anyway.”

“It’s not just being alone…I think I sleep better because it’s you.” You curl further into him, and he squeezes you gently.

“Me too.” He runs his fingers through your hair.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“What did you say earlier? To my mom.”

“Oh, not much.” He shrugs. “Just that it was shitty to say something like that to you after everything that’s happened recently. And that you already feel bad enough, and she doesn’t need to make it worse when it’s not your fault to begin with.”

“Not much, huh?” You chuckle.

“It wasn’t enough,” he replies. “I could’ve ranted for hours about how that whole thing was bullshit. But I figured you’d be hungry, so I took you home instead.”

Home.

His home. Not yours. But you’ve never quite felt like you belonged anywhere as much as you do right now. You slide your legs to tangle them with his, and he intertwines his fingers with yours. Without explanation, your heart skips a beat. The warmth of his palm against yours has your mind in overdrive, but you don’t acknowledge it.

“Try and get some sleep,” he whispers.

You nod, terrified of shattering whatever shroud of calm is over you. Instead of a verbal response, you just close your eyes and try to ignore whatever that nagging feeling is snapping at the back of your brain.

Chenle lets out a short sigh, and it doesn’t take long for his breathing to even out. You listen to the steady thumping of his heart, the rhythm guiding you closer to falling asleep. It doesn’t matter what happens. He’s alive. The sound you’re hearing is proof of that, so at that moment you make a vow to yourself. To him.

You’ll never let distance separate you two again. You’ll never let him go the same way you did with Jay.

You’re going to be better.

And that promise, resounding in your soul, is enough to make the night around you fade to black.

A week and a half passes, and you’ve yet to spend an entire night on your own. You try, but every single time, either your or Chenle cave. Sometimes, he’d crawl into your bed without a word, pull you close to him, and breathe you in before falling asleep in silence.

He very quickly becomes your comfort. The only person you want to be around or talk to in the wake of a monumental loss. You try not to let Jay consume your thoughts, but every time you allow your mind to wander, he’s waiting for you at every corner.

The only time you’re truly at ease is with Chenle, and you’ve started getting used to being around him all the time. Today in particular, the two of you decided to have an impromptu picnic in the backyard, the sunset turning the sky oranges and pinks. Both of you lie flat on a blanket he spread out, staring up at the clouds as they scour across the sky.

An empty wine bottle is on the grass not even a foot away from you, and another one is half empty in between you and Chenle. You’ve had just enough to bring a calm, steady feeling over you, and you’re able to forget the world for a moment.

Your best friend lets out a sigh, shuffling a bit closer to you.

“What’s up?” you ask him, turning your head to look at him.

You’re lost in the way the sunset illuminates his face, how overwhelming Chenle he is while equally being reminiscent of an angel.

“You think he’s up there?” he whispers.

Your gaze returns to the sky. “I’d like to think so.”

“He better be. We both know he wouldn’t last a day in Hell.” He chuckles to himself, shaking his head. “I guess I’ve been thinking like that recently. About where we go after…”

“You know I’ve always had a sixth sense about him.” You nudge his arm. “Wherever he is, he’s happy. I can feel it.”

“God, I hope so.” Chenle inhales sharply. “I just wish…I don’t know. That there was something I could’ve done to prevent all of this.”

“Don’t. You’re the one who told me the what-ifs are pointless. There’s nothing we can do to change that he’s gone, but we keep him alive in our memories. That’s what he’d want.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he admits as he clasps his hands together over his stomach.

“What do you mean?” you ask.

He wets his lips. “Jay’s gone. You’ll go back to work eventually. It’ll just be me here, and I—am I behind? Should I be doing something with my fucking life?”

“Chenle—”

“You’ve got these amazing opportunities out there for you, (Y/N). Jay doesn’t get the chance to try, and I’m gonna waste my fucking life away in this God damned town.” He gulps and lets out a defeated sigh. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be doing this right now. And I hope you know this isn’t your fault—”

“Zhong Chenle, would you look at me?” you snap, waiting for him to turn his head.

Chenle furrows his eyebrows, and as his eyes meet yours, you see the desperate worry behind them. The fear of a meaningless life after the loss of a friend who could never do better now that he’s gone, and the knowledge that his other friend got out while she could.

You know him like the back of your hand. He doesn’t want this life. Truth be told, he never did. He wanted to make something of himself, much like you were doing now, and he never got the chance. No moves were made.

You want to tell him there’s still time, but you know better than to go there at this point. With a soft smile, you reach over and cup his cheek, allowing your thumb to run over his cheekbone.

“It’s not your fault. There was nothing either of us could do to stop this, okay? And do you know how pissed Jay would be hearing you talk about yourself like this? Chenle, you’re the best person I’ve ever known. If there’s anyone in this world who can take it by storm, it’s you.” You pause and take a deep breath. “Jay…dying doesn’t mean you have to lay here and die, too.”

“I needed you,” he says. “When he died, I needed you, and you were here. And you always know what to say or what to do. Helping you took the thoughts away from me, because as long as you needed me, I was distracted from feeling fucking helpless about everything.”

“I needed you, too,” you tell him.

His frown deepens, but his gaze softens. Your heart seems to skip a beat, and you still haven’t moved your hand from his face. The stare you’re locked in with him has energy thrumming through your veins, and the atmosphere around you shifts. A slight purple hue from the sky flutters against his skin.

“I still do,” he murmurs.

You nod. “Me, too. I’m not going anywhere, Lele.”

As his eyes travel down to your mouth, you quickly find yourself doing the same. Your imagination runs wild, wondering what his lips would feel like against yours. Everything that happens next is so quick, you almost don’t believe it’s true.

Both of you seem to lean forward at the same time, and his mouth brushes yours. His hand ends up on your hip, and yours moves up to his hair. The soft strands have your breath hitching, and the next thing you know, he’s kissing you. You’re kissing him. You’ve never considered anything like this with Chenle before, but nothing in your life has ever felt so right.

His lips work so perfectly against yours, you forget about absolutely everything except for him. Fingers gripping onto the fabric of your shirt, he shifts closer to you to close the rest of the distance. You attempt to follow his lead, but you’re interrupted by the wine bottle between you falls right onto your lap, the deep red liquid making you gasp as it soaks into your pants.

“Shit,” you curse, jolting away from Chenle.

He quickly grabs some of the paper towel he brought outside and attempts to soak up the alcohol soaked into your clothing. His hand presses against your thigh, and with a gasp, you realize what truly happened.

You just kissed Chenle. You would’ve continued kissing him, too, if the stupid bottle hadn’t been in the way. But now you’ve got his fingers digging into your leg, the warmth zinging through your veins like lightning as you swat his hands away.

“(Y/N), I—”

“Don’t.” You shake your head. “Everything’s fine.”

You quickly stand and make your way into his house to change. And to avoid what will come of this situation. Once you’re in your room, you close the door and lock it behind you, sinking down until you’re sitting on the floor.

You don’t care about your pants. Every aspect of your life has been upheaved this week. You don’t need things to change with Chenle, too. Ever since you were little, you, Jay, and Chenle had always been open and honest with each other—probably too much, in hindsight, but you trusted them both with your life. As far as you were aware, none of you had ever even come close to romantic feelings for each other.

When Chenle said he needs you, is that what he meant? Does he need you or does he need someone?

Your calm buzz from the wine has disappeared, and now panic sets in. You already lost one best friend, and you refuse to lose another. It doesn’t matter how much you wanted to kiss him. Or how much you enjoyed it. Or how badly you want to go out there and ask him what the hell he was thinking.

You flinch at the knocking.

“(Y/N)? Are you okay?” His voice is strained, like he’s having just as hard of a time as you are.

When you don’t answer, you hear a shuddering breath escape him.

“(Y/N), please,” he pleads. “I’m so sorry. Seriously, I have no idea what came over me, and I just—I need you, okay? I can’t be alone right now.”

You sniffle and stand up, cracking the door open so you can see him.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “Please don’t hate me.”

“You idiot, I could never hate you,” you reassure him, pulling him into a hug.

He sighs in relief, the tension in his body deflating as he holds you as tightly as he can. And before you know it, he’s shuddering in your grasp, his body wracked with sobs. Your heart shatters, and you cradle the back of his head. He practically collapses into you, and it has both of you on the floor.

You’ve never seen him like this before. Worry has your stomach twisting and turning, and all you can do is run your fingers through his hair and make sure he knows you’re here. That you’ll never go anywhere without him again.

“I’m so sorry.” Barely coherent, he tightens his grip on you.

“It’s okay,” you whisper, rocking him back and forth as you fight your own tears. “Everything’s okay. I promise, Lele, I’ve got you.”

After a while of you rocking him back and forth, he stops crying. Your shirt is soaked, but you couldn’t care less. You know he needed this, to finally let go of every pent up emotion trapped in his heart, and you want to make sure his thoughts won’t build up like that again.

He falls asleep against you, his grip not loosening. Eventually, you doze off too.

When you wake up, you quickly realize you’re now laying in your bed. The room is pitch black, and it takes you a moment to adjust. Chenle’s nowhere to be found, even when you pat the bed next to you to see if he’d taken his normal spot.

You toss the blanket off your lap. Before leaving the room, you change your wine-stained pants to shorts, and swap your shirt out for a T-shirt. As you walk into the kitchen, you’re surprised to find the light on. Chenle sits at the table, a glass filled with bronze liquid in front of him. With his palms covering his face, he sighs.

“Lele,” you mutter, voice hoarse from sleep.

His tired eyes meet yours, and he quickly averts his gaze and takes a sip of his drink. You shuffle closer and sit directly across from him, clasping your fingers together.

“You’re still up?” you ask.

He nods once.

“Can you talk to me please? This is scaring me.”

He gulps. “I’m so sorry. For earlier. All of it. I have no idea what got into me, and then just—I should’ve left you alone after, too, and I didn’t, and I feel like a fucking ass—”

“Clearly, you’ve had some pent up emotions going on. It’s okay to be confused about them, and I’d never be mad at you for needing me. You’re my best friend. One kiss is not going to ruin us or something. If this is the first time you’ve cried for real since Jay died, you needed that, too.”

“I’m…I don’t know. Embarrassed?”

“Oh, come on.” You scoff. “You’ve done way more embarrassing things in your life that I’ve witnessed.”

“It’s different now.” He frowns.

“Different? How?”

“Everything is different. Jay’s gone, we’ve both changed as people, our families barely even talk anymore. And you know they’ve been best friends for as long as we’ve been alive. If they can drift apart, does that mean we will, too?” he rants, tugging his fingers through his hair.

“Is that what last night was about?”

“I can’t lose you, okay? I panicked last night after I kissed you, ‘cause it felt like I’d ruined everything. And you like, ran away from me, and I—shit, I don’t know. Everything inside me just…froze. All I could think about was that if you left me, too, I’d be completely alone.” He downs the last of his drink, cringing as the liquid rolls down his throat.

“I would never leave you. No matter what.” You reach across the table and grab his hand. “Whatever that meant for you, whether it was an impulsive decision or if you truly wanted it, you can be honest with me. We’re going through a big change right now, you know. Things are going to be confusing and the only way we’ll ever get through it is if we talk about those confusing things.”

He stares where you’re touching him, jaw tightening as his chest rises. “It wasn’t the first time I wanted to.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry if that’s weird—”

“Don’t. Just keep talking.”

“I don’t know what’s going on with me, honestly. I just…it feels like you’re the only person who understands me. The only one who ever will understand me.” His voice shakes as he speaks, and his grip tightens. “Ever since you’ve been back, things have…changed for me, I guess.”

Your heart pounds, apparently hammering against your throat and making it hard to breathe. You refuse to allow any reaction to come out until he’s done, because that’ll counteract everything you’re trying to do here.

“And I don’t know how they’ve changed, to be fair. It’s different. That’s all I know. We’re closer than we’ve ever been, and um…” He closes his eyes, forehead wrinkling as he gains the courage to continue.

“It’s okay,” you tell him. “Keep talking. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I think I…like you.” Chenle’s shoulders slump as the words escape him. “But this is so…so much right after everything with Jay, and I don’t know if I really do, or if it’s because—”

“I get it, Lele.” You send a small smile his way. “It’s not weird, and I completely understand what you’re talking about. At the end of the day, we’ll always be best friends. So if this is something you want to explore, the worst case scenario is we end up right back to being friends, right?”

His widened eyes dart back to yours, shock evident on his face. “What?”

“There’s only one way to figure out if it’s real or if it’s a product of circumstances.” You shrug. “And honestly, I’ve been…the same, I think. I kissed you out there, too. But we don’t have to make this weird. We can let things naturally progress if they do, and until then, we’ll just be us. Okay?”

“How long?” he asks quietly. “When did you start…”

“The night we came back here after everything my mom said,” you tell him. “I needed you, and you refused to leave my side.”

“It was that day for me, too. I saw the look on your face when she said all those things to you. The thought of you and Jay like that got me thinking, I guess.” He lets out a sigh of relief. “Thank you for not making this weird.”

“It doesn’t have to be. We’re both adults and we’ve known each other our whole lives. There’s nothing wrong with…exploring something as long as we’ll be okay after if it doesn’t work out.” You release his hand and grab the cup in front of him.

When you stand to put it in the sink, he leans back in his chair and watches you. You’re surprised by yourself, truly, because you expected some sort of awkwardness to start between the two of you after your conversation, but everything feels the same.

You make eye contact with him over your shoulder, and he gives you a small smile. When you make it back over to him, you put your hands on his shoulders.

“You need to get some rest,” you tell him.

“Come with me?” He places his hand over yours.

“Sure.”

He stands, and when he faces you again, the distance between the two of you is minuscule. You’ve known the man in front of you for your whole life. You’ve spent all that time with him, never quite feeling the way you do now.

Maybe it’s because of Jay’s passing, and the two of you are desperately grasping onto something familiar. There’s a pretty decent chance of that, but also…maybe this is how things were always meant to be.

You’re not entirely sure what to expect at this moment, but he pulls you into a hug, squeezing you tightly. You relax in his grasp, returning his gesture with ease. When he lets you go, he grabs your hand and leads you to his bedroom, and just like most nights before this one, the two of you quickly fall asleep wrapped up in each other.

A few days pass with no changes. You woke up first this morning, so you head into his kitchen to start the coffee. Leaning the small of your back on the counter, you close your eyes and inhale the scent of the dark, brewing liquid. Chenle’s shirt hangs off your shoulder, and it’s almost long enough to cover your shorts.

There’s a short knock on the front door, and with a frown, you move to answer it. When you open it, you’re surprised to find a woman behind it. She seems familiar, but you can’t place it.

“(Y/N)?” She frowns, eyeing you. “What are you doing here?”

You chuckle. “Sorry, do we know each other?”

“Oh, you probably don’t know me. Chenle and I dated not too long ago, and he used to tell me about you all the time. I heard about Jay and wanted to stop by and make sure he was okay.”

“Oh, he’s—” You pause, wondering what you should even say to this girl. “He’s sleeping right now. If you come back later, I’m sure he’ll be…um, accepting of conversation.”

Recognition comes back to you as soon as she explains who she is. They broke up over six months ago, and while Chenle didn’t really tell you why, he said he broke up with her. You hear footsteps behind you, and relief floods when you feel Chenle’s presence behind you.

“Did you need something?” he asks her.

“I, um, I heard about Jay. I know how close you guys were, so I wanted to see how you were doing. How are you doing? It’s probably good that (Y/N)’s back, right?” she rambles, clasping her hands together behind her back.

“Thanks for stopping by, but I’m alright. Having (Y/N) back is great, and you should probably get going.” Chenle’s tone stays steady, and you’re shocked to find him so stern with her.

“Chenle, I—”

“I don’t know what your goal was in showing up here, but you shouldn’t have. (Y/N), close the door please.”

You shoot a nervous glance over your shoulder, and then an awkward smile to the girl on the other side, and then do as he says. After, you turn to face him with a raised eyebrow.

“Not even worth the conversation,” he says, shaking his head. “Is that coffee I smell?”

You nod.  “Yep, I figured you’ve made me enough coffee, so it’s probably my turn.”

You rest the small of your back against the counter, and he approaches you, placing his hands on either side of you as he leans closer to you. Your heart races, lodged in your throat as you await his next move.

“You know, your eyes dilate when you look at me,” he teases you.

“Shut up.” You gently push at his chest and laugh. “It’s only because you piss me off.”

“Not according to science.” He gives you a smug grin.

“I cannot believe you’re flirting with me right now,” you tell him, scoffing. “I haven’t even had any coffee yet. I can’t keep up.”

It’s been days since the kiss. So much time has passed, and he hasn’t even so much as tried to kiss you again. The way his gaze flicks down and his smile fades has every logical thought escaping your brain.

“Relax,” he whispers. “It’ll never feel normal if you don’t.”

You let the tension release from your shoulders, and you nod. His hand slides beneath the hem of your shirt, the warmth of his palm directly on your hip. Your face heats up at the gesture, unsure of how to reciprocate or let him know you like it.

“I think we should really talk about all of that, though.” You clear your throat.

He quirks an eyebrow at you. “We’ll talk about it soon. Not at this very second.”

He lifts his other hand to the back of your neck, his thumb stroking your skin as he leans forward. You meet him in the middle and grip onto his shoulders. The kiss is short, and as he pulls away, his eyes flutter open.

“Again,” you say.

He kisses you again, and this time, he moves a little closer to you to make sure his chest is against yours. His fingers weave into your hair, and you let out a short moan. Embarrassment floods through you as you pull away from him and drop your head against his chest.

“Did you just—”

“Don’t you dare.” You shake your head.

“Maybe we should put everything out on the table,” he continues. “Like what…um, what we’re okay with during our…this, and what things are off-limits.”

“I would think that things shouldn’t be off-limits if we’re trying to see if this is real. If we’re…compatible.” Your cheeks burn as the words leave your mouth. “Why are we being like this? We’ve never been awkward talking about sex.”

His eyes widen and his face turns bright red. “Probably because we’ve never talked about sex together. Like me and you.”

“That’s really weird to think about.”

“Sure is.”

“Should we…move on? I think the coffee’s done.” You push his arm away so you can slide away from him. Clearing your throat, you grab two coffee cups from the cupboard.

Chenle leans his back against the counter where you’d just been, with his arms crossed over his chest. You make both coffees and mix them together before turning around to hand him his. He takes it with a smile and a quick thank you, and then you sip your own.

“So,” you start. “Tell me what happened with that girl.”

He sighs. “You really wanna know?”

“Of course, I do. It’s a little weird that I don’t know already.”

“She was weirdly obsessed with you and Jay. Like, constantly was bringing you up despite never having met you, and just…it was weird. Kinda gave me the vibes that she’d just be jealous all the time when you did come around.” He pauses, pursing his lips as he thinks further. “That, and she tried to fuck Jay.”

You choke on your coffee. “Hello? She did what?”

“Yep. Jay came to me immediately, obviously, and I broke up with her right after.” He shrugs. “We weren’t together for that long.”

“It was weird because she did act like she knew me.” You set your cup down on the counter and approach him again. Wrapping your arms around him, you place your head on his chest. He squeezes you closer to him.

“Jay and I talked about you all the time,” he reminds you. “C’mon, you’re our favorite person. Of course, everyone in our lives would know you.”

“You two have always loved to talk, that’s for sure.” You grin up at him, and he feigns annoyance and pokes your side.

It becomes an unspoken rule between the two of you that you’ll start trying to let things happen as naturally as possible. Living in a small town makes it nearly impossible to keep gossip from spreading, so any time you go out together, you make it look as friendly as possible. Regardless, people were going to talk anyway.

You and Chenle are halfway through a bottle of wine at dinner when both your mom and his mom show up. Chenle shares a panicked look with you, but you scoot over to let your mom sit down.

“What are you two doing here?” you ask.

“Yu Baeyoung said she saw you here.” Your mom nudges your arm.

You chuckle. “Yes, I’ve been around for almost a month and a half now.”

“No, silly, she means here. With Chenle,” his mom interjects.

Chenle’s face scrunches up. “Let’s not do this right now.”

“Do what?” Your mom’s brow raises.

“You guys have done this to us our entire lives.” You scratch the top of your head. “Can’t two friends enjoy dinner without meddling?”

“This is a nice place for a couple of friends to hang out.” His mom gestures to the wine. “Drink choice doesn’t seem friendly either.”

“Would you prefer us slamming shots of tequila?” Chenle presses his lips together in a thin line, but he’s incredibly stiff.

You decided not to tell your families about any of this for this exact reason—they’d get way too far ahead of themselves, and the last thing you need is for this not to work out and both sides asking hundreds of questions.

“Baeyoung said she’s seen you guys around together a lot, actually—”

“Mom, please.” Chenle lets out a long sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose. “If we had something to tell you, we’d let you know. And if you did think we were here for…I don’t know, whatever, why would you butt in instead of letting us continue?”

You grab your wine glass and finish off what’s left in it.

“We’re just curious.” Your mom pouts and crosses her arms over her chest. “I think you’d be good for each other—”

“For the love of God, you were saying you wanted me with Jay for years just last week. Can I have friends ever? I really think you should go.” You don’t know what part of that sinks under your skin and picks at your soul, but you’re already on a tightrope with your mother.

“Oh, don’t be like that.” She waves you off.

“All due respect, but we’re trying to be normal after our best friend died, okay?” Chenle scoffs and taps his fingers on the table. “The three of us used to go out like this all the time. We’re learning to live without Jay, and it sucks, so if you could not assume things this fast, that’d be great.”

Guilt sinks into your heart, and you drop your head into your hands. You wish you knew what Jay would think of all of this. If he’d call you both crazy for trying to be together when you’ve lost him, a pivotal piece of this friendship circle.

“Chenle, that’s a bit much, don’t you think?” his mom asks.

“It’s not. It’s really not. And not only was he our best friend, but he was the first…passing we’ve experienced. So, we need space if you guys are going to keep assuming things that don’t even matter to you. Even if we were dating, we’re grown adults and we’d tell you when we’re ready.”

You gape at Chenle. He slumps back against the booth and sighs. Your mother shifts next to you, and Chenle’s mom’s smile fades quickly. You’ve done well thus far in distracting yourself from Jay. The days don’t get easier, but they seem shorter, at least. Having Chenle by your side helps. He was right when he said it would never get better, only that you’d learn to adjust to it. Instead of a sharp, stabbing pain every time you think of him, the knife gets a little duller every day. That, or your heart steels in resolve a little bit more.

“He’s right.” You nod. “We’re not teenagers anymore, guys. You don’t need to know everything about us, or gang up on us at dinner. We’re adults trying to navigate life, and you need to give us the room to do that.”

“I never thought of it that way. This was all lighthearted fun, dear. We thought it might help to keep you guys distracted from everything, but we’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want us to do.” Chenle’s mom puts her hand on his shoulder.

Your mom murmurs an agreement, and then after a confirmation from you and Chenle, they get up and leave the two of you to your dinner. You empty the wine bottle between the two glasses and raise your eyebrow at him.

“I like when you stand up for us like that,” you say, leaning back against your seat.

A smile forms on his face as he rolls his eyes. “I can’t believe they just date crashed us. Maybe we’ll be able to go out without the town out to get us one day.”

“Doubtful. But hopefully, we’ll eventually know what this is.” You sip your wine. “Then, it won’t matter what everyone knows.”

His gaze softens and trails over you. “And we’ll be fine either way.”

“That we will.” You raise your glass and smile as he clinks his against yours.

When you get back to Chenle’s house, he guides you inside with a hand on the small of your back. He helps you take your jacket off, and the warm of his touch down your arms sends goosebumps along your skin.

At this point, you’re pretty sure it’s real for you. That your feelings aren’t a product of losing a friend and clinging onto normalcy, but the start of something beautiful you could have with Chenle.

You take a step toward your room, and he grabs your wrist to pull you back to him. He asks, “Where are you going?”

“To change, you loser.” You chuckle. “I’ll be there in a sec.”

“Can’t you just wear something of mine?” He wraps his arms around you. “I like when you wear my stuff.”

“Just say you wanna watch me take my clothes off, you freak,” you tease him.

His eyes widen, and he takes a step back while his cheeks redden. “I wouldn’t just ask you to do that, but if you wanted to—”

“Oh, my God.” You laugh abruptly. “You wanna see me naked.”

“Well, I mean, not if you don’t want me to.” He clears his throat, glancing up at the ceiling.

“You’ve seen most of me already,” you remind him.

“Context matters, you know,” he interjects. “Like, yeah, I’ve seen you in bikinis and stuff, but it’s not like we were gonna do anything about it back then. Am I even making sense? Sure, I’ve seen you pretty close to naked, but it wasn’t because of me? Please don’t let me say anything else.”

“Your awkwardness is slightly endearing.” You snort.

He pouts. “Ass.”

You take a step closer to him, wrap your arms around his shoulders, and press your lips against his. He reciprocates immediately, the gentle movement making your brain malfunction. When you pull away, he’s smiling at you.

“You kissed me.”

“Yes, I did,” you confirm. “We’ve kissed quite a bit the last few days.”

“We have, haven’t we?”

You chuckle and grab his wrist to pull him to his room. He follows you without hesitation and closes the door behind you both before he heads to his dresser. He pulls out a shirt for you and one for himself. You turn away from him and switch the top you’re wearing with his T-shirt. The fabric stops right below your ass, and you reach beneath it to unbutton your pants and push them down your legs. Once they’re off, you turn to get into his bed.

You find him in the exact same spot. His lips are slightly parted as his gaze travels down your body. Your entire life you’d been able to admit to yourself that you found Chenle attractive, because you had eyes. Of course, he was. But for him to not only be attracted to you, too, and also be vocal about it has your mind in shambles.

He watches you closely as you climb into his bed and pull the covers over yourself. You avoid looking at him as he changes, and within moments, he’s shuffling closer to you. He leans over you, pressing a kiss to your cheek, to your temple, to your jawline. Nerves spring in your stomach, but you turn your head to see him.

“Is there something you want?” you ask him.

“This is probably the worst time to say this,” he whispers. “But this is real for me. I know it. These feelings keep getting stronger and I—I wasn’t going to even say anything yet, but I had to tell you in case…”

You suddenly feel embarrassment rise to your cheeks. Chenle’s your best friend, but you did just get into his bed wearing his shirt and an admittedly skimpy pair of panties. You turn to face him.

“Before anything serious happened, I wanted to be sure.” He gulps. “Because that’s obviously…a big deal for us both, you know? And regardless of what we said, I think it’d be hard to go back to the way we were if we had sex and weren’t good for each other.”

“You ramble when you’re nervous,” you say.

“I do.” He chuckles.

“It’s real for me, too,” you whisper. Despite it being the complete truth, a lump forms in your throat. You’re not sure where it came from, but you fight it the best you can.

Relief relaxes his facial features, and then he leans forward slowly until his lips brush yours. His eyes threaten to close, but he waits for you to make a decision. You’re not entirely sure what comes over you, but all you know is that you’ve never needed someone on the level you need Chenle.

You complete the kiss, weaving your fingers through his hair as you shift closer to him. Immediately, it’s like everything around you catches on fire, and it’s much too hot to stay as you are. You gasp into his mouth when his hand trails beneath your shirt, his touch leaving those same flames all over your skin. He grabs your ass and squeezes, a shiver rolling down his spine when he swallows your moan.

“You had to know what you were doing with these,” he murmurs as he slides his fingers just beneath the hem of your panties.

His words sink in, but nothing about this feels awkward to you. You’d be embarrassed if he knew how wet you were from his simple touches. All of that is background noise—all you care about is getting closer to him.

“Why isn’t this weird?” you whisper as you slide your hands beneath his shirt to get him to take it off. “We used to cringe at the thought of—”

“Would you kiss me, damn it?” He pulls you back to him, but instead of the urgency you expect, he kisses you gently, his lips slowly moving on yours. You roll, tugging him to take him with you.

Then he’s on top of you, slotted perfectly between your legs with your shirt riding up to expose more and more of your skin. His eyes scan over you, and he moves his hand up your side until you’re lifting yourself up to remove the fabric. A slight pause befalls both of you.

“What is it?” you ask him.

“I just…can’t believe I’ve never realized this before,” he whispers, eyebrows pinching. “How well we work together.”

You smile. “We’re pretty fucking great.”

“This probably sounds cheesy as hell,” he begins and scoffs at himself. “But you’re the most beautiful person I know.”

“Oh, come on.” Your cheeks heat up.

“No, I’m serious. I’ve always known that. You’re fucking radiant on the outside and warm and kind and loving on the inside. Nothing has ever or will ever be able to take that away from you, and I…” he trails off, swollen lips parting as he searches for what he wants to say next. “Don’t ever leave me. Please.”

You reach up to cup his cheeks. “Lele, I’m not going anywhere. It’s you and me now, okay?”

“I’ll be here as long as you want me,” he murmurs as he lowers himself down. “No matter what.”

Chenle kisses you again, softer this time as if this energy between the two of you is fragile. You slide your hand into his hair and allow yourself to melt. Spreading your legs a little further to accommodate him, you pull at the hem of his shirt. He moves away from you only to take it off, and then he presses kisses on your jaw, down your neck. You’re gasping for air by the time he makes it to the swells of your breasts. He leaves open-mouthed kisses along the edge of your bra, allowing his teeth to graze you.

You let your head rest back against his pillows and sigh as he travels further, stopping once he reaches your navel. Your fingers clench the sheets as you prepare yourself for whatever he’s going to do next.

“This is okay?” he hums against your skin.

“Yeah,” you say breathlessly. “Perfect.”

Being in the dark with only the shine of the stars to illuminate the room has this feeling much more intimate than you thought possible. You’d never imagined yourself in this position—literally—with Chenle, but now that you’re here, you wouldn’t change it for the world.

He tongues along the hem of your panties, and you have to stifle your gasp. The chill of the air contrasts with the wetness left on your skin, and goosebumps travel up your body. His fingers loop through the waistband, and without any words from him, you lift your hips up to help him remove them.

Chenle’s lips find your inner thigh, and you can’t hold back the noise that leaves you. It’s been a while since you’ve craved someone’s touch, and you never want his to leave your body. He already feels so different than everyone else. He’s still your best friend, but now he’s so much more, too. You trust him inexplicably, and this moment will change the trajectory of your lives forever.

You feel his breath against your core, and you drop your head back. He shifts and brings his hand up to hold your body down to the mattress, his thumb sliding between your legs to gently nudge your clit.

“Relax,” he tells you. “I’ve got you.”

He seems nervous himself, but after another shuffle, his fingers slide along your entrance. Your back arches as he pushes them inside. His breath shudders as he feels your walls fluttering around him.

“You’re…perfect, (Y/N),” he says, entranced as he slowly thrusts his hand. “So perfect.”

You whine, squeezing your eyes shut as you adjust to the feeling. When he kisses your clit, you grasp harder onto the sheets. Knowing the man pleasuring you is the one person in the world that knows you the most, that knows who you are within your very soul, has you immersed in every movement he makes. Nobody has ever made you feel this way before.

Sounds of your arousal follow his fingers, and he finally wraps his lips around your clit. You let out a loud moan, your back arching at the overwhelming sensations. He sucks on your sensitive bud, flicking his tongue back and forth in a matching pace with his hand. You squirm below him, and your legs begin to shake at the sensation.

He moves just a little faster, his other hand flat on your stomach to keep you from moving too much. You fear any sounds louder than whispered pleasure might shatter this moment between you and Chenle, but as he brings you closer to the edge, you struggle to hold back.

He curls his fingers to find your spot, and your body jerks. When he repeats the action, he moans, the vibrations against your clit sending you to euphoria. You gasp and your eyes roll back. He aids you through your high, carefully bringing you down before pulling away from your core. You practically slump on the mattress, but you lift yourself up to look at him. He sits up on his knees to get a better look at you, and you watch his every move as he lifts his fingers up to his mouth and sucks your arousal from them. 

You gulp at the sight of him like this, his length straining against his boxers as his darkened eyes travel over your body. His tongue swipes along his lips one last time, and then he’s climbing over you again. You welcome his kiss despite the taste of yourself.

“I need you,” you tell him, pushing at the band of his boxers. “Can’t wait anymore.”

“Are you sure?” he whispers. “You can tell me if you change your mind.”

You shake your head. “Please, Lele.”

He inhales sharply, and then he’s assisting you in pushing the last barrier of clothing off. “Do we need a condom? I have some.”

“I—” Your face heats up. “I’m on birth control, and I haven’t slept with anyone in…um, a long time, so I’m clean.”

“I got tested recently,” he replies. “I’m clean, too. But this is up to you. Whatever you want is cool with me.”

“Waste of time. I want you now.” You pull him in to kiss him, and he sighs against your mouth.

He reaches down and strokes himself a few times before lining himself up with your entrance. His eyes travel along your body, almost as if he’s verifying you’re real. Slowly, he pushes inside, watching your expression carefully to ensure you’re alright.

Your heart thuds in your chest as he continues to move forward, burying himself deep inside you until he’s flush against you. He gives you a bit to adjust, leaning in to kiss down your neck. His hand snakes beneath your body to unclasp your bra, and you arch to assist him in taking it off.

“‘M good,” you reassure him. “You can move.”

“Just need a second like this,” he returns, dropping his head on your shoulder. “God, you feel so fucking good.”

His words send shivers up your spine, and you put your arms around his shoulders. He kisses you again, and pulls out slowly to push back in. The sensation of him rubbing against your inner walls has you gasping. His pace is slow but you’ve never felt so heavenly in your life. As his tongue parts your lips, you wrap your legs around his waist.

When you call out his name, he curses under his breath. Every time he thrusts in, you lift your hips to meet him, despite how you begin to shake from the intensity of all of it. His chest brushes yours with each movement, and his teeth sink into your bottom lip to pull at it.

Never in your life has anything ever felt like this. As if Chenle was the last piece of the 1,000 piece puzzle you deemed life, and you finally found it after all these years. His soft moans have your toes curling, and despite the knot tying in your stomach, you don’t want this to end.

As if he knows every last thought in your mind, he reaches between you and rubs circles on your clit. You shudder in his grasp and dig your nails into his shoulders. He moves faster, and once his tip slides into your spot, you crumble around him. You throw your head back, a moan tumbling from your lips as you fall apart.

Moments after you, his hips falter as he approaches his high. You kiss him hard, and he groans into your mouth, pushing as far into you as he can to finish. The sensation has you gasping all over again, but you hold onto him for dear life.

He thrusts a couple more times to bring you both back to reality, and as he slows to a stop, he peppers kisses on your face. Neither of you move yet. You bask in the feeling of him inside you, and his hand rubs up and down your thigh.

He carefully removes your legs from around his waist, and then he sighs as he pulls out of you slowly. “Let me grab a towel. Hold on.” With a quick kiss to your forehead, he stands up and slips his boxers back on before walking out of the room.

An inherent sense of peace overwhelms you, and once he comes back, he cleans up the mess between your legs before climbing in bed next to you. He cradles the back of your head to his chest, and he hums quietly.

“Try to get some sleep,” he whispers.

With him close and his heart beating beneath your ear, you don’t even have to try.

The birds chirping outside the window wake you up. You’re still tangled up with Chenle, blanket snug around both of you with you curled into his chest. Shifting closer, you think about going back to sleep until he’s ready to get up, too.

“Morning,” he mutters, voice hoarse from sleep.

You shake your head. “More sleep.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He squeezes you and lets out a sigh of content.

Peaceful silence takes the two of you over, and you can’t help but smile at the thought of how far you both have come. You’re on top of the world—your feelings for Chenle are real, and you’ve discovered something you never thought would be possible.

His fingers trace up and down your spine, a deep hum escaping him. “This is real.”

“Mhm,” you reply. “We’re naked right now.”

“And you’re so fucking soft.” He sighs. “Is there any reason we need to get up today?”

“Wouldn’t matter if there was. Not moving.” You kiss the base of his neck.

“Sounds good to me.”

Despite the prospect of being wrapped up in each other all day, eventually, both of you get hungry. He takes you to one of the local diners for breakfast, and you study him closely while he sips his coffee and looks through the menu.

You expected some aspect of your relationship with him to be awkward at this point, but nothing has changed between you. Well, with the exception that every time you see his fingers, heat rises to your cheeks. Besides that, you’re perfectly normal.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks without removing his eyes from the menu.

“Who, me?”

He finally glances up, a smile playing on his lips. “Yes, (Y/N), you.”

“Well.” You clear your throat. “I’m just…thinking.”

“I put that together.” He tips his cup to his lips again.

“What do we do from here?” you blurt out, immediately dropping your head into your palm.

He chuckles and clasps his hands together over the table. “I was waiting for you to bring it up. But if we both know it’s real, and we’ve…gone as far as we have, um, I was hoping we’d be together.”

“That doesn’t scare you?” you ask.

“Does it scare you?” he counters.

You shake your head. “Not at all.”

“Full transparency, then. That’s what I want. I want us to be together and, as insufferable as they are, I want our families to know, too. And I want it to be us against the world, (Y/N). We can do whatever we want.”

“I guess that also brings us to what happens next month.” You look down at your lap. “When I’m supposed to go back to work.”

He gulps but waits for you to continue.

“What if…What if I didn’t go back?” you start. “Think about it. We could stay here.”

“You want to come live here?”

“I…I guess I just—” You pause in an attempt to gather your thoughts. “After everything with Jay, it made me realize how long I’ve really been gone. And being back here…I missed it a little. You and my family and the town itself. I don’t want to miss any part of anyone else’s life. I really did Jay a disservice by not coming around as often as I should’ve.”

“You’d give up all of that work you did for me?” He frowns.

“It’s not just for you, but yes. I don’t fully enjoy what I do. It’s all work and it takes up all my time. Why do that when I could do something around here and get to spend actual free time with you?”

He reaches across the table and grasps your hand. “There’s always room for you with me, but I want you to be sure about something like that. You’ve worked so hard, and if you’re changing your mind because of us, I don’t want to come between you and your dreams.”

“I’ve been thinking about it before we started this,” you tell him. “From the second I heard about Jay. I certainly don’t want you out here by yourself.”

“Don’t think we could swing long distance?” He cracks a smile.

“Ridiculous.” You scoff and take a drink of your coffee. “We have some time. Let’s think about it later, alright?”

“Agreed.”

After breakfast, Chenle leads you out of the restaurant with your fingers intertwined. You try not to blush at the simple gesture, but you can’t help it. He leads you to the passenger side of his car, and you lean back against the metal. The distance between you two is almost non-existent, and his hand rests on your waist.

“You’re sure you don’t care if people know?” he asks.

“Positive.” You grin.

He cups your cheek, smiling back at you as he strokes your skin with his thumb. After, he leans in and kisses you. Oxygen is stolen from your lungs, but you relish in the feeling of him. The sun feels warmer, the day a little brighter, and your heart a little fuller.

You never expected this to be the answer—for you to find a different kind of solace in your best friend, but you’re here anyway.

He winks at you once he pulls away, earning him a slap on the chest. After you roll your eyes, he opens the door for you and guides you into the car.

By the time you make it back to his house, he leads you inside. You’re barely a few feet within the door when both of your phones start buzzing. He takes his out of his pocket, shows you it’s his mother calling, laughs, and tosses it on the couch. You follow his lead, and then he grabs your hand and pulls you towards his room.

“If you thought you were going to make it out of here for long, you were mistaken.” He wraps his arm around your waist and pulls you flush against him. “I have plans for us today. Our schedule’s booked actually, and it mostly involves us in my bed.”

“Luckily for you, that’s exactly what I was hoping for.”

“Oh, good. Hopefully, they don’t decide to come here. Probably not the show they thought they’d be signing up for.” He ponders the thought for a moment.

“Shame on them for not respecting our privacy,” you mutter, grasping onto the back of his neck. “Maybe it’ll teach them to back off a little.”

“You’re so right,” he replies, leaning in to kiss you.

Tugging you closer, he whirls you around to walk you back toward his bed, where you’re more than ready to spend the next few hours.

Later that night, you and Chenle are ready for bed, with you curled into his chest. He runs his fingers through your hair, humming quietly. You don’t recognize the melody, but he relaxes you all the same.

“Do you think this ever would’ve happened if Jay were still here?” you ask him as you trace shapes on his shoulder.

He purses his lips in thought. “I’d like to think so.”

“Me, too,” you admit. “This feels…like things were always supposed to be this way.”

“I can’t imagine it any other way now.” He takes a deep breath. “I needed this. You. And I can’t believe there was a time where we weren’t like this.”

You move so you’re resting on top of him, chests pressed together. He clasps his hands together over the small of your back.

“He’d be happy for us, right?” You scan over his face, tracing over his cheekbones with your finger.

“Of course,” Chenle says without hesitation. “I think he’d be asking a bunch of questions right now. Like how we knew, what we were gonna do about all of this, if he’s going to be the man of honor or the best man.”

“God, he so would.” You laugh.

“And he’d be insufferable about it, too.”

“He’d be the man of honor, by the way. I was his favorite.”

Chenle’s smile grows. “I love you.”

Your heart stops in your chest, and your lips part as you stare at him in shock. Although, you should’ve expected it. You fell for him, too, but hearing it verbalized is a whole new story you’ve never considered before.

Hell, the two of you frequently told each other those three words, but you know now they hold much more importance than they ever have.

“You…”

“Yeah, I do.” He nods.

“Like…romantically?”

“You’re such a loser,” he teases you. “Yes, romantically. Don’t make me take it back now.”

“I’ll be sad if you take it back, ass.” You narrow your eyes at him. “And I love you, too, if that wasn’t clear.”

He squeezes you tightly, chuckling when the air rushes from your lungs. While you never quite expected things to work out this way, you wouldn’t change what’s become of your relationship with Chenle. He was—and is—your best friend, and for some reason, all you can do is look forward to the future, where he’ll be more. Best friend always, but also the one you love.

The last couple weeks before you’re supposed to return to work are hectic to say the least. It feels as if you and Chenle are rushing to figure things out—where the two of you will stand when you leave and what you’ll do in the meantime.

So, in an attempt to get your minds distracted, you opt to go have a couple drinks with Jay. Of course, you had to stop and get his favorite beer—the same one you’d always hated and that Chenle’s not too fond of, but for Jay, you would endure it.

He brings a blanket. When you find Jay’s headstone, he spreads out the fabric and waits for you to sit before he joins you. You grasp onto his hand, and his knee bumps yours, but that’s the only physical contact you have with him.

Chenle opens up three cans—one for him, one for you, and one for Jay.

This isn’t the first time you’ve done this together, but it very well be the last. You don’t want to leave him. Not really. But he refused to let you give up what you’d worked hard for. You escaped the town, and he didn’t want you to even think about coming back when you’ve got so much left to do in your new city.

Chenle sips the drink, cringing at the taste. “Can’t believe he liked this shit.”

“He had peculiar tastes, that’s for sure.” You chuckle and refrain from touching your own. “You think he can really hear us when we’re talking to him like this?”

“Stranger things have happened,” he replies.

“That’s the truth,” you tease him and nudge his shoulder. “Maybe we should break the news to Jay.”

He takes the third can and dumps some over the grass. You both watch as it absorbs, and once Chenle’s satisfied, he purses his lips.

“You’ve missed a lot, dude.” He lets out a long sigh. “Almost three months without you feels unreal.”

You squeeze his hand and send a soft smile his way.

He continues, “But I seriously think you’d be pissed at us if we admitted we were still sad, so…(Y/N) and I are…together. Like, we’re dating. And to be honest, we’re both not too sure where it came from, but we keep each other sane after all this stuff.”

You loop your arm through his and rest your head on his shoulder. Fighting back tears, you realize how much you’d missed as well. There were stories you had yet to hear. Some you’d never get the chance to.

“I’d like to think you’d be happy for us.” You chuckle and take another drink. “You and this God awful beer.”

“I can almost hear him defending it right now.” Chenle sends a dazzling grin your way, and you watch him fondly. You never imagined coming back home would lead to all of this.

You and Chenle talk to Jay for a while. The sun shines pleasantly against your skin, warmth seeping into your bones. Chenle tells the story of you two falling for each other, how it was gradual and unexpected. Things had simply shifted, and everything became much more than you’d ever imagined.

When the sun begins to set, you wrap up your time with Jay. All three cans are empty. You grab them while Chenle folds the blanket, and then you head back to his car. His arm is firmly around your waist, and you fight the urge to melt into him.

As soon as you’re inside his house, he drops the blanket and takes the objects from your hands. Next thing you know, you’re wrapped up in one of the tightest hugs Chenle’s ever given you. You reciprocate the best you can, threading your fingers through his hair to soothe him.

“You okay?” you ask him.

“Yeah. Just wanna hold you for a sec.”

You hum in agreement, allowing yourself to melt into his grip. He kisses the top of your head, and when he pulls away to look at you, a fond gleam appears in his eyes.

“I’ve been thinking,” he says.

“Uh oh,” you interject, fighting your grin as he purses his lips in faux annoyance.

“What if I went with you?”

You recoil. “What?”

“I’ve wanted to get away from this place. You made it out. Let’s go together.” He looks at you earnestly as he awaits your response. “I love you, (Y/N). Being apart from you isn’t exactly what I want at this point.”

“You want…to move with me?”

“If you’re okay with it.” Chenle nods. “Think of the life we could build together. A real one that’s not influenced by the crazy ass people in this town.”

You flounder for words to say. This is the last thing you expected from him, but maybe you should’ve thought of this yourself. Chenle had run into a hard time because he’d wanted out for so long. You could help him.

“I don’t want you to give up everything you’ve worked for. Living here isn’t in the cards for you right now, and I understand that. But we both have an opportunity here. You keep doing what you set out to do, but this time, we don’t have to be apart.” He fiddles with the seam of your shirt, almost nervously avoiding your gaze.

“Okay.” You take a deep breath. “If you’re sure that’s what you want, come with me.”

He grins so widely, you’re almost worried it hurts. Cupping your cheeks, he kisses you hard, and you almost stumble backwards.

This was the beginning of a new journey for both of you. Neither of you were sure what to do without Jay around, and you wouldn’t feel right leaving Chenle all by himself. If he wanted to come with you, you’d be more than happy to have him.

You’ll get him out of this town he’s come to resent, and he’ll be by your side for every success and failure.

There’s something special about falling for your best friend—about loving someone who you’d already loved and known so thoroughly, it’s mostly as if nothing changed at all. Maybe this part of your relationship with him was always there, and you’d both been too blind to see it.

All you know is, after a clear shift in energy, things between you and Chenle became real.

You wonder about Jay. If he sees the two of you, if he’s proud of you. At the end of the day, you could spiral until your brain gives out, but if there’s one thing you could expect from Jay, it’s that he’ll never stop checking in on you and Chenle. Your group is incomplete without him, but you’ll learn to live in a different manner.

With Chenle by your side, there’s not a damn thing in the world that could bring you down.

[dadsbongos]

I love the way you write kabru, could you write some of the general headcanons for him?

super all over the place. i got maybe a bit too into the nsfw headcanons cuz i need to destroy him ~~~ general headcanons:

The type to imagine oc battle amvs in his head to their medieval music but pretends he’s just smoldering chill cool guy

Outside of general note-taking or journaling, I fully believe he’s had dreams of being a novelist as a kid

Probably avoids interacting one-on-one with Falin without Marcille or Laios as buffers because of her stubbornly remaining monster traits, as well as like… “hey girl you killed me!!”

But as time goes on n he gets used to her, he probably ends up just seeing her as a cutie pie like everyone else does

Would thrive coming up with criminal punishments, maybe not watching some of them because excessive gore icks him out but theorizing is always fun to him

Would similarly thrive in a court setting, and would jump at the opportunity to be the angel and devil on laios’ shoulders through the whole thing

I think he’s the type of man to bare a heavy conscious about things he considers immoral or rude, like having a hard time forgiving himself for mistakes or even just generally “bad” things in his past

Likes the idea of being a family man but gets scared shitless at the actual effort it would take to raise children and maintain a marriage

Would be a total reality TV junkie and anime lameoid in modern era - he loves the melodrama

if/when Mickbell ever gave him permission to refer to him by “mick” (or just any half-foots say he can call them by first name alone) he’d squeal and kick his feet for dayssss knowing what it means in a cultural context for half-foots

Tries not to be That Guy, but feels a little complimented when people tease at what a smooth talker he is. Loves getting to have his redditor “heh… just my natural charisma…” moment

Strikes me specifically as bisexual btw i dunno why but its just jumping at me

Not in love with Rin, but likes her? But doesn’t? But doesn’t NOT like her? He’s trying to maintain distance because sometimes he feels a spark, but then goes back to thinking of her as just a childhood friend. Feels very guilty and selfish if he thinks about her feelings for him for too long, especially since he’s kind of a known charmer. Earnestly hopes she moves on from him no matter the state of his feelings though

Nsfw headcanons:

Likes foreplay wayyyy more than sex because he gets off seeing how crazy he can drive his partners before they just start begging with zero shame

Would enjoy group sex or two-party affairs, his only iffy stance is being watched by someone else. Unless he knows the voyeur VERY well it just feels uncomfortable to be the one getting observed. Down to be the voyeur though hehe

Has a stupid lil whispy laugh he does when he’s getting teased im gonna get feral

Could never play a brat, you tell him shut up and he salutes you with sweaty hands

Could do hate sex! If he realllllllly doesn’t fuck with your vibe, but he’d have to know you personally. Hate sex feels weirdly more intimate to him because he has to expose real feelings he has, so in a way his ass doesn’t even hate you he’s just annoyed you keep bickering with him

If he’s supposed to be submissive, I think he’d like to get a couple light slaps. Maybe choke him a wee bit.

Can’t take humiliation unless its in a sandwich where the degradation is hidden between 2+ praises

Idk if its because its me or if this is real, but I can see him blurting out a “mommy” if he’s super delirious with pleasure

Circling back to the voyeur thing, I think his other hardcore no is somnophilia. Either way, he just can’t get into it. But he’s not the type to shame people for their goons

[taetaespeaches]

showing care through tending to each other’s hair

bts x reader (ocs) genre: fluff word count: 2K

a/n: Hi lovelies! Here’s just some blurbs about bts and reader/oc tending to each other’s hair in different ways. Idk if this is executed as well as the idea I had in my head, but I hope you all like it anyway. I just think caring for one another’s hair is kind of romantic... maybe? Thanks for reading! :)) 

↬ seokjin: “What on earth did you do?” Standing at the doorway of the bathroom, you eye your boyfriend as he lowers the kitchen scissors and flashes you a bashful and guilty grin. “I don’t like when my hair covers my eyes,” he pouts cutely, making you giggle. “Those are our kitchen scissors, Seokjin,” you point out as you walk towards him to inspect his hair cutting skills. Jin turns to face you and leans against the edge of the sink, fighting desperately to not laugh at your attempt to pretend like he didn’t completely botch his hair. “How does it look?” He asks, amused by himself as you snort in response. “Your stylists are going to kill you,” you finally tell him as you trace the uneven ends of his hair with your pointer finger. “Fix it?” He suggests cutely, peering into your gaze from under the askew fringe. Gesturing for the scissors, he easily hands them over, allowing you to take over. “You should have waited for me anyway,” you giggle as his arm snakes around your waist to hold you close to him. “I have actual hair cutting shears, you know.” You watch as his plump lips curve into an amused smile as he nods at you. “This is more fun though, don’t you think?”

↬ yoongi: Your boyfriend is sleepy as he watches the basketball game, his head resting in your lap. He’s spent the first half of the game re-explaining the rules of the game to you for the umpteenth time as you toyed distractedly with his hair. It’s gotten so long, enticing you to keep brushing your fingers through it. “I think your hair is long enough to braid.” You watch as he contorts his features into a confused look that makes him resemble an old grandpa except with pouty lips. “What’s that look for?” You question as he holds back a grin. “Why would I need to braid it?” Rolling your eyes, you comb your fingers through his soft strands. “Why not?” you counter before sectioning his hair into three pieces. As you thread the pieces together, Yoongi’s head becomes heavier against your thighs, his breathing deepening. Intertwining his hair a few more times, you smile to yourself and the pretty braid on the side of his head. “See? I told you,” you tell him, holding the braid together between your fingertips. He simply smiles lazily as he pretends to ignore you, much too enthralled by the dribbling of the ball. Unraveling the strands and brushing them out, you begin again, repeating the motions over and over. Looking up at the game, you watch as one of the players gets fouled and takes to the free throw line. “Wait, why do they get to shoot for that foul but the other guy didn’t?” You ask, getting no response. Peering down at the man, you find he’s been lulled to sleep by the gentle touches on his hair. Grinning at him, you continue braiding his dark hair, happy to see Yoongi so relaxed in your lap.

↬ hoseok: “What are you looking at?” your boyfriend asks over your shoulder as you sit on the kitchen stool, peering down at the phone that holds your attention. Gasping and tugging the device against your chest, you look over your shoulder at his pretty smiling face. “Can’t a girl get some privacy with her second boyfriend?” You tease, Hoseok immediately tsking in disapproval and shaking his head. “You’re so mean,” he playfully complains as you lower the phone to let him see the images you’re scrolling through. “I want to change my hair,” you tell him as he scrutinizes the different hairstyles. He oohs in excitement taking the seat next to you and leaning over your body, touching his pointer finger to the screen and swiping through your options. “Wah,” he suddenly exhales as though he was overwhelmed just by the thought of you with the style displayed. “You’d look really sexy with this,” he kisses your shoulder, causing a small smile to tug on your lips. “A bob? You think I should go that short?” You ask skeptically. “If you want,” she shrugs. “I think it would look really good.” Smiling at him, you deposit the phone on the counter and rise to your feet to stand in front of your boyfriend, squeezing yourself between his thighs. Draping your forearms over his shoulders, you bend just enough to leave a kiss to the apple of his pretty cheeks. “You always think I’m sexy though,” you point out, Hoseok giggling in amusement. “Because you are,” he replies, wrapping his arms around the back of your thighs and tugging you closer to him as he beams. “But still, I like the bob.”

↬ namjoon: You watch in amusement as Namjoon struggles to twist the top of his water bottle off. When he looks across the kitchen island at you with wide innocent eyes, you have to fight back your giggle. Reaching out your hand, he reluctantly places the bottle in your grasp. “Arm day?” You ask as you screw the cap a little, just enough to hear the cracks of it opening. “They’re dead,” he sighs, taking the bottle back from you when you hand it over. “Thank you.” Smiling at him, you tilt your head to the side. “You look like you need to relax for a bit,” you tell him, the man giving you a soft smile. “Let me wash your hair for you.” His eyebrows lift in surprise as he runs a hand through the soft strands. “What? Really?” Nodding at him, you start walking toward the bathroom. “Come on,” you gesture down the hall, telling him to follow you. He does, like a giddy puppy, following wherever you tell him. His face is all crescent eyes, a beautiful smile, and cute dimples as you turn on the water to let it warm up. “We need to give your massive arms a rest,” you tease, though being sincere. Namjoon scoffs but smiles in embarrassed flattery, his expression handsome and slightly goofy.  “Let me take care of you, babe.” You love taking care of him, and it’s not often that you get to dote on him in such a way. He shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut bashfully, but follows his shyness by taking his shirt off and stepping toward you a bit more confidently. Perhaps you didn’t think this plan through.

↬ jimin: Standing in front of the bathroom mirror brushing your hair, you catch Jimin’s reflection entering the bathroom with his eyes glued to you. “Want help?” He asks through a stunning smile, making you lower the brush and lift your eyebrows in expectation. “You wanna help me, angel?” You ask, Jimin appearing behind you and nodding. “Let me see.” You hand him the brush and tilt your head back slightly to give him better access to the strands. His strokes are gentle as he drags the bristles against your hair, taking his time. There is no rush, as though he would love nothing more than to stand just like this until you feel completely relaxed. Jimin has always been so doting and nurturing, always caring for you in any way he can. Shutting your eyes, you allow yourself to fully appreciate his soothing motions. That is until he giggles, making you pop your eyes open to find him in the mirror smiling in amusement. “I need you to stand up straight, Dear, you’re kind of melting into me here,” he laughs, placing a hand on your hip and guiding you forward. “Sorry,” you smile, realizing you had relaxed completely into his body. However, you immediately miss the feeling of his warmth, this time taking an intentional step back against him. “Dear,” he giggles, giving up and resting his chin against your shoulder. Laughing happily, you turn into his frame and hug your arms around his slim waist. “Sorry,” you say again, this time less sincere as you smile against his neck before leaving a kiss to the spot. “No you’re not,” he retorts, wrapping an arm around your shoulders. “No, I’m not.”

↬ taehyung: Eyeing the ends of your hair, you sigh. “I need a trim,” you pout from your spot on the bed as Taehyung hangs some clothes in the closet. “Want me to do it?” He teases from across the room, a small smile on his face as he finds amusement in his own joking. “Could you?” You suddenly ask, gaining his full attention as he snaps his head in your direction, his smile dropping into a blank expression. “What?” He asks in confusion, lowering the shirt and hanger to his side. “Just the ends,” you clarify, fighting back the smile that wants to break through in response to his concern. “I was kidding,” he points out. “I’ve never cut hair before.” You can see the gears in his head turning as he tries to figure out if you’re in your right mind. “There’s a first time for everything,” you shrug. Taehyung’s expression softens slightly as he cracks a small smile, still in disbelief of this interaction. “Peaches,” he sighs, making you giggle. “Dearest,” you reply with a grin. You know the idea of trying something new excites him, and perhaps that’s why you’re pressuring your boyfriend with no hairdressing experience to trim your ends. You’re prepared to tell him how good he is at it just to watch the confidence fill up his stature in that way you love. “You’re losing it,” he then grins as you stand from the bed and make your way towards him. He hangs the shirt just before you reach him and settle your hands on his hips. “Oh, I’m batshit, baby,” you joke. Resting his arms on top of your shoulders, he leans toward you, his lips almost touching yours. “And if I fuck it up?” You shrug again, Taehyung’s face opening into a wide boxy beam. “It’s just hair, Tae.” Pushing yourself forward, you leave a soft kiss to his lips, appreciating the way he has to break away because he’s smiling just a bit too much.

↬ jungkook: Sitting on top of the bathroom counter, you toss your head back in laughter, attempting to catch your breath as Jungkook stares past you and into the mirror with his bambi eyes. A streak of blue sits across his forehead as he asks, “Do you know what you’re doing?” With your blue-stained glove-covered hands held out to the side, you pull a face of offense. “No, but when has that ever mattered?” you question him, watching as a boyish smile overtook his features. “You’ve literally dyed your own hair before, and you’re worried about me.” He glances from his reflection to you as he sighs. “Do I look hot yet?” He asks, pulling a giggle from your lips. “Super hot.” When Jungkook mentioned wanting to dye his hair blue the other day, you jumped on the opportunity to do it for him. Wiping the blue from his forehead, you whisper a quick apology. “I’ll be more careful,” you grin guiltily. “Remember, you’re next,” he warns, flashing a mischievous smile, making you bite your lower lip in thought. “That was not part of the plan,” you argue as you place more dye onto his hair, only for him to take a step away from you to shoot a glare your way. “We’d be couple goals, babe.” Rolling your eyes, you cocked your head to the side, Jungkook mimicking your sassy stance. “We gotta match.” With a sigh, you relent, never really being that against the idea, and never being able to deny him anyway. “Fine. But you’re not done yet,” you nod for him to come closer again. “We’re gonna be so hot together,” he whispers to himself, making you giggle as you get back to work on his hair.