#have fun reading this absolute word dumpster

[robo-cryptid]

Do you consider yourself a Yeehan shipper? And if so, why? I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, I’m a relatively new shipper (started playing this year, and other Yeehan shippers directed me to your work), but I’ve seen some of your tweets and in many of them you seem to have more negative things to say about how they make you feel than positive. So I was curious to know your stance on them, and why you keep writing for them. (If this is too invasive, you don’t have to reply)

Also, I really enjoyed Ricochet. It sold the ship to me, basically (but now I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing)..

First off, I'm really glad you liked Ricochet! It's one of the fics I'm still really proud of, and I'm currently in a project with fanartist @showerwhoops and a friend who makes fandom light novels to make it printable with lots of gorgeous art. I mean, mostly I just love collabs and wanna support G's light novel-making hobby, but hopefully other people will find that exciting to know.

With regard to Yeehan, lol, I'm struggling to figure out how to answer this, especially without context for which tweets in particular. The simple answer is yeah, I'm a Yeehan shipper. I love them. I've said it before, but I basically trauma-bonded to them and can't let go. But also I love the themes of redemption and the various forms that can take, and people finding love not when they're young and fresh-faced but when they're jaded and have been through some shit, and seeing two people fight not only to make the world better but to make themselves better people together. I love all of that. It's delicious. I also love writing them as dumb himbos because why the heck not.

I've been in this fandom since 2018. I've written 70+ fics just for Yeehan (plus a few dozen others for the rest of Overwatch), and I'm still writing it. Of my last three art commissions, one was Hanzo and one was Yeehan. I started Yeehan Fic Rec Friday (@yeehanfrf) to help new people find good Yeehan recs sourced from the community, not just one person, and to lift up my fellow writers. All of this is on my twitter, and that's not even getting into all the fan events I've participated in, etc., before this year. So yeah, I'd say I'm a fan, lol.

Unless you're mistaking my shitposting and lovingly mocking the characters for meanness, maybe the negativity you're seeing is when I'm being critical of the fandom itself? In which case... you know, I'm going to take this as an opportunity. And it's gonna get kind of long, so let's go behind a cut.

I can only reiterate that I've been here since 2018. I've seen so much shit, and while some of it has come from "outsiders" (other shippers, people who are sick of Overwatch, etc.), plenty of it has come from my fellow Yeehans too. And while most of my frustration with the Yeehan fandom is on the level of, you know, family that you love but would like to shake some sense into, that doesn't change that it can be frustrating.

Here, an assuredly incomplete list of all the things I've experienced from other Yeehan fans:

I've seen people harassed outright for drawing/writing the "wrong" character bottoming. I've seen literally dozens of nonbinary and transmasc people misgendered and harassed for being "fujoshi" "fetishizinig mlm," because nothing says great justice like blending transphobia and misogyny to attack real people over fictional characters. I've been here for at least 10 different rounds of witch hunts for various fandom "crimes" like people shipping characters with a bad-idea-in-real-life age gap or power imbalance, or even just shipping the same character with multiple people.

I was here when Cassidy's animated short dropped and it took less than an hour to see hate posts about Ashe. And I was also here when fandom retconned the tale of those events to claim Yeehan fans only hate her because some of her fans are shitty, and it can't possibly under any circumstances be misogyny ever. (Which is not saying that some of her fans aren't shitty. It's just that some Yeehan fans are also shitty and in denial about it.)

I've been outright harassed for talking about fandom misogyny, no matter how kitten gentle and "Let's Have a Teaching Moment" I've been about it. I've been harassed for pointing out fandom racism. I've seen a friend get ostracized and harassed much worse for pointing out the same fandom racism and misogyny. And this is, of course, on top of actually seeing and reading racist portrayals of Hanzo and occasionally Cassidy, and seeing and reading constant misogyny (mostly over Ashe, but not exclusive to her) to remind me that men get to have greater interiority and receive more sympathy and get their flaws smoothed over in ways women never do, in fiction and in reality. But hey, don't point any of that out, because fandom is supposed to be a place for escapism, even if those things are making it difficult to escape, yourself! (And then of course I've seen people attacked really harshly over the kind of "they probably genuinely did not know better and it would have been an easy fix if someone just very kindly explained it to them instead of needing to publicly punish them" racism or misogyny.)

I've had someone hold a sustained, months-long campaign of just constantly shit-talking me and low-grade harassing me across multiple Discord servers, and recruiting their friends to do the same, all because I said, "Hey, you've been consistently rude and also triggered me this one time."

I've had anons in my inbox doing everything from demanding I write more to accusing me of pedophilia (or supporting it) for... I don't even know at this point, lol. Because that's a thing people do in fandoms, I guess.

Maybe because I'm prolific or maybe because I actually talk to anons or maybe because I have a follower count above the triple digits, a lot of people have treated me like I'm nothing but a content machine, not a person, which is something I've seen plenty of people do to other artists and writers across fandom. It's crummy. It makes me feel like I don't belong here if I'm not "producing," and even then I'm only tolerated for that, not for, like, my basic humanity (or being funny as hell imho). I've had people attack me over dumb jokes or act like I'm not a "real fan" for them (despite the aforementioned 70+ fics, like I guess those don't count if I make a joke about Cassidy being kind of a douche one time in his animated short).

And anything that's happened to me, I've seen happen to other people. Often worse, actually, because I get far fewer rude comments on my fanfic than several of my friends do, and nobody's misgendering me when they imply I'm a woman, even if they do sometimes erase my queerness.

On the scale of things that are mostly just annoying/stressful and not so much acts of aggression, fandom does this thing where it just freaks out (positive or negative) about something instantly, so I get spoiled on stuff if I don't see it within 15 minutes after it dropped? That's frustrating, especially if the reaction is largely negative, so I'm just, like, absorbing all these bad vibes before I ever get to see the thing for myself.

And then, you know, shipwars. Shipwars are obnoxious. They are exhausting. I do not have time for them. They are also unavoidable these days. Any time I go searching for content, there's someone shitting on Yeehan and someone else stirring the pot by replying to them, and frankly it's just tiresome from all sides. (Besides, I think if you're a fan of the juggernaut ship in a fandom, you've gotta chill and recognize people will find you annoying, then go comfort yourself with your near-daily fanarts and over 6,000 fics. This doesn't mean they're allowed to be absolutely garbage monsters and harass people. Like I'm not pretending Yeehan fans are the only people capable of sucking, lol. They aren't! Online harassment is shitty at all times! But if all they're saying is, "Why does Yeehan get so much attention? I hate it," you can just ignore them, mute them, block them, whatever you gotta do.)

In general, I'm often critical of fandom, especially my corner of it, mostly because I'm a social scientist by training so observing groups of people is what I do. Like genuinely, I enjoy holding the world around me under a microscope. But also in terms of reach and efficacy, I'm more interested in "cleaning up my own backyard," so to speak, than arguing with people who wouldn't listen to me anyway (Yeehan antis in this case, I guess). So when I turn the "negative" lens on, it's of course going to be aimed at the community I'm most embedded in. It doesn't mean people outside of Yeehan are better or worse people; they're just not the ones I'm exposed to constantly, lol.

But also, as many bad things as this sounds like, I've actually mostly enjoyed my time in this fandom. I've made a ton of friends here, people I adore and respect and am so, so grateful to have in my life. I've gotten to be part of some really cool projects. I've been lucky enough to experience the absolute joy of knowing people like something that I've made, of getting to make stuff for people, of people telling me I inspired them to make things. All of those are really special, wonderful things that places like fandom cultivate, and I love that part so much that it makes me feel gooey and self-conscious about trying to articulate it.

Anyway. I'm sure the actual question you asked got answered in the paragraphs above the cut, but just in case it didn't, it was nice to be able to just say all the things anyway. You're new here. I hope you enjoy all the fun parts and don't get bogged down by the crummy ones. Also you should definitely check out the @yeehanfrf rec lists if you haven't.

[saints-who-never-existed]

for the sleepover weekend ✨️ any book recommendations?? Fiction, nonfiction, obscure academic articles - all suggestions welcome! 📚

Thank you so much for this - it's been a joy to think about! :)

My literary tastes are fairly eclectic so to impose some order on proceedings, I've broken things down and recommended some specific works by some of my favourite authors.

Angela Carter I enjoy the weaving of magic and myth, feminism and sexuality throughout her often surreal works. I'd recommend The Magic Toyshop, The Passions of New Eve, and The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman.

Leonora Carrington Pioneering Surrealist artist and novelist who wrote frankly about her mental health struggles, and in a strangely comedic way about many other things. The Hearing Trumpet is a personal favourite, as is The Debutante.

Nan Shepherd Shepherd captures so well both the rhapsodic beauty of the Cairngorms and the idiosyncrasies of Scottish life in general. Try The Living Mountain and The Weatherhouse.

Mikhail Bulgakov I've long been partial to the darkly comedic nature of some Russian literature and Bulgakov is one of my favourites. The Master and Margarita, The Heart of a Dog, and A Young Doctor's Notebook are all great.

Scott Lynch His Gentleman Bastard series (though sadly not yet finished with only three of a total seven books released thus far) is incredible fun and literally makes me laugh out loud. I also feel he manages to offer really solid representation and worldbuilding, and avoids many common fantasy pitfalls.

[lacroixqueen]

i'm so chill but you make me jealous jealous deadpool x fem!reader, 18+

Summary: deadpool sees you on a date with another guy and loses his shit lol

Pairing: jealous deadpool x fem!reader

Word Count: 1.4k

Warnings/Tags: jealousy, possessive, angst, brat, noncon, dubcon

You were trying to figure out the fastest way to get out of this dumpster fire of a date. This is what you get for putting yourself out there, by the fervent advice of both your mother and entire social circle. So you went ahead and downloaded a dating app out of sheer boredom but also a tiny glimmer of hope. After quite a number of left swipes and a small handful of rights, you somehow wound up across the dinner table with… er, you forgot his name already. 

But you knew he worked in finance. Or was it accounting? Anyways, he was currently explaining the intricacies of the stock market to you, and the appetizer hasn’t even come out yet. And you realized that you couldn’t care any less. 

“I.. have to go to the bathroom,” you said, standing up quickly and pushing in your chair. Your date almost didn’t seem to notice, giving you a half-hearted acknowledgement and then continuing to drabble on to himself about cryptocurrency. 

Without another word, you darted to the nearest exit of the restaurant, finding yourself on the freshly rained-on sidewalk. You always loved the smell of the concrete after it had just rained. 

Your heels made a satisfying click-clack sound as you briskly maneuvered your way down the street. You opened up your texts to see if you missed anything during the god-awful date, and lo and behold, was a message from none other than Wade.

“Love the dress,” it read. 

You glanced behind you, then side to side, and once you turned back around, there he was, leaning against the side of the cornerstore. 

“What are you doing here?” you asked, barely turning towards him before directing your attention back to your phone and continuing to walk past him. 

“Ohhhh, so it’s ice cold today,” he commented, following right behind you. “I love that flavor.”

“What do you want,” you said while texting a friend about how disastrously the date went. “I am just going home.”

“Well, I was just walking by when I caught a glimpse of you through the window of that Italian restaurant back there,” the assassin replied. “Speaking of which, what was on the menu? I mean that place looked upscale! Like they probably sprinkle gold dust on their pasta instead of parmesan.”

It was an Olive Garden.

“To be blunt, I honestly forgot,” you responded. “I didn’t even eat anything.”

“Well, why did you leave so early?” he pried, this obviously piquing his attention now.

“I-I felt sick,” you lied, your intonation increasing as quickly as your apprehension. “Can we just change the subject, please?”

“Oh ho ho,” Deadpool chuckled, as if he struck gold. “That bad? I mean, I didn’t get a great look at the guy, but from what I saw, he wasn’t terrible-looking. Also, he wore a fleece vest. I mean, that’s just the height of fashion, you really can’t get any better than that.”

“Are you having fun?” you said, rolling your eyes as he continued to mock your absolutely colossal defeat of an evening. 

“Oh, absolutely,” Deadpool laughed. “The other point of contention is why the hell you decided to pull out this absolute banger of a dress for your first date with Mr. Finance Bro there and not ours?”

“That was not a date,” you enunciated, pressing your finger into Wade’s chest. “That was a drunken one night stand that will never happen again and that you even promised to never bring up. It was stupid and nonsensical and I can’t believe it even happened in the first place.”

“Oh come on, Y/N, you’re going to break my heart,” he whined, clasping his hands together like a needy puppy. “I, for one, thought that night was very special. I mean, you even told me that you could see yourself fall-”

Before he could say another word, you grabbed him by the hand and led him into a dark alleyway so that innocent bystanders wouldn’t hear you scream.

“Stop! Bringing that up!” you exclaimed. 

Deadpool was shocked his casual mention of the event elicited such a strong emotion from you. “Okay, okay, jeez.. calm down.”

You sighed, letting him go and turning your back to him. 

But he didn’t let you. Not even for a second. Before you could even react, he grabbed you by the neck and slammed you into the wall. 

You gasped, your hands instinctively reaching up to clasp over his while his grip only tightened over your carotid. 

“Besides, you know that I only followed you here because I wanted to see more of you in this ridiculously skimpy dress..” his voice darkened as he continued to choke you like a helpless animal. “I mean, look at you. That thing practically clings onto you like skin! If you weren’t such a tightass I would have ripped it off of you by now..”

He unsheathed his pocket knife and ran it across your lacy scarlet choker, over the thin straps of your slip dress, and onto your chest. He traced the outline of your cleavage with the dull edge, and then slowly slid it down over your taut stomach. 

You were trying to gulp up air for just one breath, but his hold was unrelenting. 

“I mean a red mini dress, are you fucking kidding me?” he snarled, his blade gently brushing against the garter belt on your right thigh. “Wearing my favorite color? With some other guy? This has got to be orchestrated at this point, Y/N.”

“Wade.. please..” you begged, lips beginning to quiver. Regardless of how much he joked around with you, he scared you when he was angry. 

He finally released you, allowing you to cough and gasp for your first breath. 

“But you know of course I wouldn’t kill you, I mean who do you think I am, a psychopath?” his tone immediately brightened up the moment he saw how much you feared him. “I just like watching you not being able to breathe is all. It’s so cute.”

 After you finally caught your breath, you stared daggers down at the vigilante who stood before you. 

“Listen, Wade,” you said. “I understand you are not exactly pleased with the current state of affairs. But this isn’t entirely up to me. And I’ve told you this a million different times.’

The assassin let out a dramatic, almost cinematic sigh. “Yes, I know, Your mother wants you to date ‘someone sensible with a stable career and not a psycho killer’. Which is perfectly understandable! I get it. I mean, I would probably think the same thing if I lived in the suburbs and made tuna casserole in my spare time.”

“Wade..” you shook your head and rolled your eyes. “You know it’s not that simple.” You walked up to him and gently lifted up his mask to reveal only his lips. 

He didn’t hesitate to grab you by the waist and pull you so close that your body was pressed up against his. 

You stood up on your tiptoes in your heels, stabilizing yourself by holding onto his broad shoulders. You weren’t exactly sure what you were doing, but you knew something within you just wanted to kiss him. But you also didn’t know if this was the right idea. 

The plump part of your lip gently brushed against his. The smell of your watermelon lip gloss was driving him crazy. He started to breathe heavily, and if another second passed where you weren’t kissing him he would say fuck it and just do it himself. 

You felt his hot breath in your mouth, and you felt your arms twist around him like they knew exactly where to rest themselves. Like they have done this before. 

“I’m so stupid for this,” you sighed, as you felt his lips beginning to close over yours. 

He smiled smugly into the kiss, quite pleased with himself over the hard fought victory. Without another moment of hesitation, he grabbed the back of your thighs and lifted you up without much effort at all. He walked over to the wall, pressing your back softly against it. 

You wrapped your legs around his waist automatically, kissing him like you would die if you stopped. You felt his tongue wrap desperately around yours. He was aggressive, hungry even. He wanted you all to himself, not some fucker in a fleece vest or anyone else for that matter. 

You knew you would regret your decision in the morning. And that no matter how hard you tried to deny it, you would come running back to him. Every single time. 

[safarigirlsp]

I was so excited to see the ask game going around. I hope it perks up around here again 💛

Do you any HCs to share for Flip, Kylo, Jacques, and Mills??

🍔

🍕

Hello!! Thank you for sending this in! Today feels like the good old days with this dumpster fire hopping and the bs flying! I love it!!

🍕What's your favorite comment you've received on a fic?

Omg @iamburdened absolutely kills me with her comments. I have re read them 100 times and I smile like a lunatic every time. She's so dark and hilarious and I love her!

Here is just one example of her awesomeness on my fic Sinners Welcome!

@vedavan leaves some of the most involved and thoughtful and incredible comments I've ever received and I am so beyond floored at the amount of thought she gives. I am so thankful for her encouragement and support!

This comment on Here There Be Monsters made me swoon

Ahhhh!! Your stories are always such a thrill, a joyride from beginning to end, and this one was no exception. I loved every word, and your gift for action scenes and gorgeous descriptions shone so brightly here. I loved all the side characters too: from the colorful ragtag assortment of pirates and whores, to Legris' trusted crew and of course the legendary Pierre; the elegantly villainous Talvington and the mysterious, bewitching Grey Lady. Even the ship herself, the Belle Dame, was a character in and of herself. And of course as always I appreciate Carroughes disgusting appearance and his inevitable demise. Your obvious love and passion for the subject matter and for the characters (no one writes a better, hotter, more delicious male MC than your Legris 🔥🔥🥵) made this such a joy to read, and I was almost sad when it ended. Action, romance, drama... your stories have it all and I'm completely addicted. Perfection! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

@reveluving inspires me to write more insanity by her support and beautiful comments on my stories!

This is so hard actually, but I have to shout out to my favorite people here and the most supportive and amazing people I know who always spur me to keep churning out my bs and do more!

You, of course! @queeniebee and all the other friends I have here who instantly come to mind when I think of support and wonderful people! @babbushka @lumberjack00fantasies Silky!! @gabesprincess @mrs-gucci @rynwritesstuff @mythrielofsolitude @reylokisses @queen-of-elves @srorgana1 @kyloremus

🍔What's a headcanon that hasn't made it into a published fic yet?

Kylo knew you were the one when he found he could fight with you and argue without losing his temper. He has a famously hot temper. He's a notoriously violent man. But of course, he could never hurt his girl. That doesn't mean that he wouldn't lose his temper with her, or so he thought. He thought it would be a challenge, that he would feel his blood pressure rise and his teeth grind when you angered him, because naturally you're going to. It can be a little thrilling to push his buttons. But he never has lost his tempter with you, despite your best efforts. He gets hot and bothered in other ways, ways he channels to improve both your moods.

It's true what they say, that Beauty tamed the Beast.

No one can debate that Jacques has a winning personality. He's fun, lively, exudes charm and charisma, and has no hesitation putting on a grand show for his girl. However, like so many highly charismatic people, his charm was hard-earned and developed for survival. A self-made man, he had no name or fortune and had to claw his way up the food chain until he became a man of power. He remembers going dirty and hungry and cold, sleeping on the ground, awaking to a muscles that ached from cold and a growling stomach that couldn't be sated. Charisma was another skill he learned along the way to survive. Just as necessary to gain power and fortune as being able to fight, red in tooth and claw, was the ability to mingle, to befriend, to charm to amuse. He had to make himself useful in all ways to his betters until he outstripped them all.

With you, he finds that he doesn't need to act at all and that it's all natural and second nature. It makes him swell with pride when he puts a smile on your lips. He realized you were the one when he realized that making you happy made him happier, giving you pleasure made his heart soar. He will also ensure his girl, his family, will never know the feeling going hungry or cold, nor of being shunned and kicked aside. His table will always be bountiful and his arms always warm and loving for his woman. When he smiles for you, when he laughs and entertains, its genuine and it makes him love you more.

Flip was raised outdoors and helping on his family's ranch, breaking horses, branding calves, cutting timber, chopping ice, hauling hay. All the things his size and rambunctious temper were good for.

His upbringing made him a die hard western movie fan. Clint Eastwood is his favorite with John Wayne a close runner up and he's watched their entire filmography at least five times over with his dad. He's ensured his girl has seen all of his favorites and plenty of others too. True Grit, The Outlaw Josey Wales, El Dorado, Unforgiven, to name a few.

Westerns are his favorite movie genre. However, he is also quite a bit of an ornery jackass. As such, his favorite genre to watch with you is horror. He loves setting the stage, making sure the house is nice and dim, the temperature a little cool, a fire crackling in the fireplace. The ambience is perfect for a movie night in, and all strategically geared to make you want to get nice and close to him, against his chest and inside his arms. He will tease you mercilessly and goose you during the jumpy parts. Then he will laugh - bray- like the jackass he is. He deals with killers and criminals in real life. Horror movies don't phase him. Some big ungainly bastard with half his vision obscured by a mask, coming at him swinging a chainsaw that's telegraphed a mile away is hardly a challenge. Flip would have fun taking your average slasher out in spectacularly ballsy fashion. Flip loves horror movies and chill. He chills while you get chills.

Mills is tenacious and hard working in all ways. He will go the extra mile and work harder and longer than anyone. Complaints aren't part of his vocabulary and he never shies from any quantity of blood, sweat, and tears it takes to see anything through once he sets his mind to it. He's determined to the point of self destruction and will push himself far past the bounds of comfort and even good sense.

The area in which he's happy to put in the effort and diligence is for his girl. Once he sets his sights on her, nothing will deter him. He will tilt windmills and make every overture, simple and grand, to win her heart. As a lovesick teenager who didn't know a damn thing about girls, this took the shape of embarrassing acts like clumsily strumming a guitar and singing off key below his intended's window at odd hours of the night until angry fathers ran him off. He considered it a badge of honor when one particularly enraged father took a shot at his feet with a .12 gauge.

Thankfully, he has learned a thing or two and now applies his tenacious enthusiasm in better ways. He will cook for you and rub your shoulders until his hands ache. He will bring you flowers and take you out for a picnic that entails a ride in his bush plane out to a mountain lake to spare you the hike. He will carry you to bed when you're tired and hold you all night. He considers it a personal failure when he doesn't make you cum before him, and is dauntless when it comes to making you moan and sigh. He is the ultimate Golden Retriever Boyfriend. He will work every day to make you smile and never let the new wear off.

[elegantmusicdragon]

Adventures in Bravo-Sitting

Pairing: Dieter Bravo x Babysitter!Reader (f!Reader probably? Can be gn!Reader for now)

Rating/Warning: Just some language! Words that rhyme with certain swears. Me being a menace. You know how it goes.

A/N: Okay so this is for @blueeyesatnight who just went a on a Dieter/Babysitter journey with me and inspired me to crank this fic out in two days. Haven't written a fucking thing except a fic I won't post and THIS. Blue, you're the best and Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas (if you celebrate) and thank you so much for the inspo! Our Dieter/Babysitter thread is my favorite thing and also if you wanna write some of these two or your own version PLEASE DO IT. I encourage it! Much love to you.

To anyone else who may read this: thanks for sticking around and checking this not beta'd dumpster fire. I have no clue what this is. It came out of my brain and onto the page in a frenzy. But it's fine. I'm fine. Everything's fine. Enjoy! And Happy Holidays!

You are terribly confused. 

"We know this is highly unconventional." 

Well, that's putting it mildly. 

"In all honesty, I've seen weirder." A nightmare child smearing his feces all over the baking appliances and a cake his mother had made takes the trophy as of now. Though this situation is a close second. 

The woman, Amanda, smiles at you - relief flooding her features. She readjusts herself on the ridiculously fancy chair she's sitting on. Behind her, a small cluster of people in suits and business skirts gather. And between Amanda and the group? A man. Well, not man. Celebrity. A celebrity who seems to be grumbling something close to the words “ducking shooshes”.  

You never thought you'd end up babysitting Dieter Bravo but, you guess, things could be weirder. 

"Can I just...ask...um...why does a grown man need a babysitter?"

Dieter rolls his eyes and cuts in, "I don't." 

Amanda talks over him, "I'm sure you've seen the...incidents...on the Cliff Beasts set." 

You nod. "Absolutely, who hasn't? A drug overdose, quickie marriage, annulment - all within the span of a year. And the giant bender in Vegas with the showgirl last month? It's been all over the news." 

Amanda nods, tension lining her face. Behind her, Dieter rolls his eyes again. 

"It wasn't that bad." 

Amanda finally graces Dieter with an irritated glance. Her voice raises slightly, “Not that bad, Dee?? You almost destroyed the MGM Grand’s lobby, casino, and the penthouse suite you were staying in! That showgirl almost lost an eye!” 

Dieter rolls his neck back to face the ceiling, “Yeah, but she didn’t. She was fun,” he chuckles. “Liked to party. We still got her number?”

You see a vein throb in Amanda’s forehead. You’re not quite sure if you should butt into their conversation. Amanda grips the planner she holds so tightly, her knuckles begin to turn white. 

“No, Dee. We don’t have her number. You know, since she ALMOST LOST AN EYE??” 

Dieter sighs. “Oh my god, she was fine. It was safe. I was totally able to handle that machete. That lobby guy was just scared.” 

You raise an eyebrow. 

Amanda fires back, “He was the manager!!! And you were swinging a machete at one of his showgirls!” 

“I wasn’t gonna hurt her, god it’s like you think I’m irresponsible or something.” 

Oh god what have you gotten yourself into???

You reach down and attempt to subtly get your belongings. You’ve decided you want no part in…whatever this is. To your utter disappointment, you’re apparently not subtle enough. Amanda’s eyes dart to where your hand is resting on the strap of your bag. Her eyes widen just a fraction in desperation. 

“I know we’re not giving the best impression here. But I promise, this is going to be a very rewarding experience. Dieter is special!” 

She had said that on the phone too, but it was your fault you had misinterpreted it. Dieter clearly is special just…not in the way you were expecting. He’s special in a super-fuckin-entitled-wealthy way. 

You swallow and your eyes dart to Dieter, who hasn’t looked at you once since this whole meet and greet started. 

“Listen, Amanda, I’m really flattered that you and your…” You peter off, realizing the entire group of people behind her are now listening to you basically say no to this insane job. Are they really surprised you’re not interested in this? 

You clear your throat and continue, “team…want me to do this. I just don’t quite think I’m what you’re looking for.” 

Amanda looks behind her at a gentleman in a neatly pressed suit. He leans forward and whispers something in her ear. She nods, and turns back to you. Dieter remains absorbed in the ceiling. 

“Alright,” Amanda starts, “how about I show you what your pay would look like and we’ll take it from there? Maybe we could do a trial run if the amount is to your liking?” 

Dieter snorts. “It’ll be to her liking, I’m loaded.” 

Amanda rolls her eyes. Despite that, she keeps her focus on you. “Well?” She asks. 

You sigh. You know you’re caught between a rock and hard place. Money? Or no money? Well, even if this job isn’t what you necessarily thought it would be, it couldn’t hurt to look at the amount. Why the hell not? 

You shrug. “Sure,” you reply back to Amanda. “I guess looking at the number can’t hurt.” 

She smiles and nods, turning to confer with the gentleman behind her again. They whisper to each other for a few minutes before Amanda turns back to you. 

“Okay! I just want to clarify that we’ll be starting with a trial run of a week. If just you, or both you and Dieter-” 

He snorts at his name. Amanda studiously ignores him and continues on. 

“Are interested in keeping this arrangement going, we’ll re-discuss and go from there. Is that amenable to you?”

You nod. “Sounds good to me.” 

Amanda smiles widely, looking truly relieved for the first time since you stepped into the room. 

“Great!” She replies. She reaches behind her to grab a small piece of paper from the suited gentleman (who is he???) and hands it over to you. You surreptitiously glance over at Dieter. For the first time, you find his eyes on you. You shiver slightly. His eyes sparkle with…something. 

You look back down at the folded piece of paper in your hands. You’re more nervous than you thought you’d be. You open it slightly and see the number written down.

WOW that’s a LOT of zeroes! Holy crap. 

You look at Amanda.

“Trial run it is.” 

P.S. Banners by @firefly-graphics

Tags:

@grampsgirl14

@apsiringghostmusicians

Anyone else want a tag? Lemme know!

[anarcho-masochist]

r u okay? it's been 2 weeks since you've posted

Oh, sorry for not responding, and thank you for checking in.

I didn't see this until now since we were logged into other headmates' blogs on all our devices and browsers and I wasn't really around enough to justify logging into mine.

[Warning, feeling like rambling]

To be honest, when I have been around and thinking of Tumblr, I've been kind of dissatisfied with this blog, mostly because I've been too tired to research and draft up the posts I want to. We've been stuck without our meds due to the dumpster fire that is the US healthcare system. I've got them now, and have some more time (sort of), so I might be on here more, but I've been terribly inconsistent with that so don't be surprised if I go quiet again.

Think about it. What does an hour on here get me versus an hour of monologuing to myself?

Monologuing: depth of contemplation, no expectations of completeness of thought so I can create an open dialogue with myself. Can think of things to research later. Important downside: I sometimes forget really good wording or the stuff that led to my conclusion which is important for expressing it to others.

Tumblr: 3 notes. One anon who is probably the same person from last time spamming me with hate (sometimes this is fun). If I want to say anything of note and support my argument, it turns into a several-page essay that one or two people will read (thank you). If I'm just making a short pointless post.... I'm not an endless well of inconsequential phrases and erotic thoughts (that I want to share), and it feels insignificant.

This is why it is always best to write for oneself (or post for oneself). If you care even slightly about what people think, whether your ideas are worth something, etc, it stops being fun. Initially, I made this blog to mess with Cedar and also as a space where I could exist as myself rather than having to act in a way that is acceptable based on the rest of the system's image...now I find myself trying to act in a way that is in accordance with my own image. Absolutely detestable thing to do.

Admittedly, I like the URL too much to throw away this blog, and sometimes it is fun and interesting. Basically, I've just got to get over this bone-deep exhaustion that comes from horrible physical health, discontentment with the world, and several months of too much to do with my LLC plus volunteer work plus *gestures vaguely at our bad habits, which are extensive.*

I would like to be on here more, I just have zero faith in myself to maintain it, which shouldn't stop me from posting occasionally, I suppose.

Thanks again for the ask, sorry for derailing it.

[howlinchickhowl]

It's coffeeshop day! I couldn't possibly miss coffeeshop day. I want you to know I am absolutely working on the next full chapter of Ristretto, but for today's a.u.gust prompt I thought it would be fun to do a little switcheroo, so here is a little Ristretto Mickey POV for while you wait. @gallavichthings as always, thank you :)

edited to add a link for Ristretto, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, this is my coffeeshop au I am already writing! So if you like this little sojourn, you can go read that as well.

Thank you for the extra foam eleven - coffeeshop

Fucking Iggy. Mickey thinks to himself as he barrels down the street, uncaring about the slow moving pedestrians he bumps on the way. Stupid fucking idiot.

They talked about this shit. Last week they talked about this shit. Him and Ig and Mandy they’d sat down at the shitty kitchen table they’d rescued from a dumpster and talked about how things were gonna be. They’d laid it all out, they’d all agreed, they were done with it, the life they’d been raised to lead, drugs and guns and fights and prison and parole and dying shitty violent deaths at the hand of shitty violent assholes who claimed they were your friends.

They were done with it. All three of them. Colin too when he gets out of jail if he wants. They were supposed to be going straight. So why the fuck was he now spending his afternoon scrambling around everywhere he can think of to put together fucking bail money? Because Iggy was a stupid fucking idiot. That much has always been true and Mickey was just as much of an idiot to think that that might have changed.

He’s been to Sandy’s and hit up his buddy Greg at the home, but he’s still a hundred and fifty bucks short and Mandy’s not answering her phone, so now he’s about to do something he and Iggy both had been expressly forbidden to do and visit her at work.

He’s so worked up he pushes the door so hard that it almost bounces off its hinges, and he locks eyes with Mandy almost immediately. Her face is like thunder and she storms over to him like she’s about to pitch a fit. Well she’s not the only fucking one.

“What?” She demands when she reaches him, not quite a whisper but definitely not the volume that he knows she’d be using if they weren’t at her job right now. She looks back over her shoulder at her co-worker, a tall red-head who is clearly watching them and clearly trying not to look like he’s watching them. Mandy grabs him and shoves him out of the way of the door, a little further from the counter, and he gets that she’s not happy to see him but none of this is his fucking fault and he doesn’t appreciate being manhandled.

“You’re not supposed to come here.” She says through gritted teeth, like he doesn’t already know she doesn’t want their family anywhere near her first real on the level employment.

“Yeah no shit Mandy, I look like I wanna be here? Answer your fuckin’ phone in future.”

“I’m not supposed to have my phone out here shitbrain, what the fuck is so important?”

They’ve gotten a bit louder, the heat of their words burning away at their control, but shooting a look back towards the counter he makes a conscious effort to lower his voice again. He’s got to be here but he doesn’t have to let everyone know they got jailbirds in the family.

“Iggy got himself a fuckin’ assault charge and I ain’t got enough for bail.”

“What the fuck Mick?!” Mandy casts furtive glances all around her and leans in closer to him, “Who’d he assault?”

“I don’t fuckin’ know, just some bar fight or somethin’, it’s not serious, but because of his record and his last name they’re holdin’ him.”

“Fucking assholes. How much you need?”

It’s a lot, and he hates that he couldn’t put it together. A year ago, he could’ve, easy. That’s barely a morning’s worth of hand-jobs at the rub and tug and even without the actual jobs he could’ve just asked Sasha for a quick loan. Now they’ve gone straight it’s a lot harder to find any serious amount of ready money. He winces.

“Another one-fifty-two.”

“What am I, a stripper? I don’t carry that much cash Mickey!”

“I don’t know what you do, just give me whatever you’ve got and don’t be a fucking bitch about it alright? This is ruining my day just as much as it is yours.”

She heaves a huge great sigh and stomps off behind the counter into whatever staff room they have back there and Mickey is just stood there like a spare prick at a picnic waiting for her to come back.

He locks eyes with the redhead, who is watching him anxiously from his spot behind the counter. Mickey’s not stupid, he knows what people’s first impression of him usually is, he worked hard for that first impression when he was growing up, doing his best to intimidate anyone he ever came into contact with.

It bothers him sometimes, that he worked so hard on it that now he freaks people out without even trying, but today he’s got other shit on his mind and he doesn’t much care if some guy Mandy shills coffee with thinks he’s bad news. He crosses his arms across his chest and stares the guy down, daring him to say something, knowing that he never will.

He’s kind of hot, Mickey realizes while he’s standing there, even if he is a pussy. There’s the hair, for one thing, Mickey’s always kind of had a thing for a redhead, plus he’s built, in a lean kind of way, and his face is like, not unpleasant to look at. And because he learned growing up that if you find something pleasant to look at you shouldn’t look at it for too long, he cuts eye contact and looks away.

Mandy marches back out into the store with a wad of cash and her ratty Sun Times tote bag that she shoves in his hands with a pissed off,

“There.”

The cash he gets, he’s grateful for, it looks like maybe sixty bucks,  the tote bag though, he doesn’t know what to do with. He shakes it at her for emphasis.

“What’s this for?”

“My card wallet is in there, get whatever cash there is out of the ATM, I don’t even know what I’ve got in there right now. And there’s a MAC palette I’m selling to Scheana, you know Scheana with the pinkeye?” Yeah, he fuckin’ knows Scheana, dirty fuckin’ skank always trying to come on to him and eating all his pizza rolls.  “She lives on Harper, you’ll get forty for that.”

“The fuck’s a MAC palette?”

“It’s fucking eyeshadow dickwad.”

She shoves him, hard in the shoulder, and he stumbles, resents the fuck out of his whole family.

“Take it easy bitchface, I don’t fuckin’ know!”

“Just get out of here, and tell Iggy I’m gonna kick his ass when I see him.”

She’s gone already, heading back to the counter, not even looking at him when he says,

“Yeah yeah, later.”

And he’s gone, out the door and on his way to the ATM, cursing the day any of his siblings were born, and already trying not to think too hard about dark freckles on pale skin and a head of shocking red hair.

He lasts three weeks.

It’s into October when he finally caves and engineers his route to work to take him past Tamp & Grind. And, well, his sister is working, it would be weird not to stop in and say hey, or whatever.

It’s stupid, he’s aware. He’s only seen the guy once, doesn’t even know if he’s gay, doesn’t even know if he’s working. Plus Mandy will probably tear him a new one when she gets home later. All very real and good reasons not to go there.

And yet.

He shoulders open the door, it’s warm inside, the air smells sweet and rich, he’d been in such a frenzy last time he was here he hadn’t really noticed anything about it. Apart from Ian.

That’s his name, Ian. Mandy’s co-worker who has been occupying most of Mickey’s idle thoughts for the last few weeks. He’s tried, surreptitiously, to learn anything about him from Mandy when they’ve both been home at the same time. According to Mandy he’s ‘cool’ and ‘funny’ and ‘doesn’t suck ass’ like some of her other co-workers. She’s not exactly easy to get information out of but he knows she likes coming to work more on days when Ian will be there, so when she breezed out the door this afternoon with half a smile on her face he’d taken a chance on it being a day Ian was working too.

He was right. Mandy is sat up on one of the counters, can’t be fucking sanitary, and Ian is stood just by her, messing with something under the counter.

“Could I be a sexy latte?” He hears Mandy ask, smiling over at Ian, and what a weird and disturbing image.

“What the fuck?” Mickey finds himself asking, getting the attention of the two of them and oh. He’d kind of convinced himself the last couple of weeks that his brain had amplified how good looking Ian was, that he was actually just a regular looking guy and it was just the fantasy of him that Mickey was powerlessly focused on. Boy had he been wrong.

If anything he’s more good looking than Mickey remembers, sculpted face and long lashes and deep green eyes the shade of pondweed, but in like a hot way. Shit.

“What are you doing here?” Mandy asks like he’s a fucking bug she flicked off of her windscreen this morning come back for a second go.

“Was in the neighborhood.” It’s not a good answer, suspicious as fuck, really. Mandy scrunches her nose up at him and raises one eyebrow.

“Why?” She asks. He can’t think of a single good reason.

“None o’your fuckin’ business, that’s why.”

She rings him through a coffee and they bicker back and forth about the price for a minute or two, four bucks for a black coffee seems like daylight fucking robbery to him, maybe they should open a fucking coffee shop, seems like that’s where all the money is these days. Fuck the coke, give ‘em caffeine.

He looks around the shop a little while he waits for his drink, reading the flyers stuck up on the noticeboard, fiddling with the little packets of Splenda and wooden stirrers and shit, all while chancing little glimpses of Ian behind the espresso machine. Not too obvious. Mandy already knows something’s up, she’s not giving him enough shit about being here, she’s definitely gonna get into him later, so he’s not trying to hide his interest from her, exactly. But he doesn’t want to let onto Ian just now, doesn’t want to make the guy uncomfortable if he’s not gay, or if he’s just not into Mickey. He’s shooting his own discreet glances Mickey’s way though so he feels like maybe it’s not a totally one-sided thing.

Mandy calls him over when his drink’s ready and he takes a sip right when he grabs it, suddenly itching for something to do, some purpose after he’s been stood around for five minutes just waiting. They’ve given him a fucking hazelnut latte.

Sometimes he can’t fucking stand his sister.

He always orders black coffee. Everywhere he goes, black coffee. Sure he’s got a bit of a thing for sugar, who in the world doesn’t like something sweet? And when Mandy shows up sometimes with some sort of flavored monstrosity he’ll take a sip or two, it’s no big deal. But now she’s made it seem to Ian like he’s some sort of pussy who not only likes caffeinated syrup drinks like a fourteen year old girl, but also is too much of a pussy to admit he likes them.

She’s a fucking bitch, and he tells her as much, and Ian. Well. Ian doesn’t like that.

Mandy’s probably been called a bitch a thousand times in her life, and no one has ever jumped to her defense before now. But Ian, fucking, knight in shining green apron is right there, hand on Mandy’s back, telling Mickey not to talk to her that way, and what the fuck? Mandy gives as good as she gets and if Ian hasn’t learned that yet he will, and probably soon.

It’s not not hot, him squaring up to Mickey, though the fact that it’s over Mandy’s honor gives him some pause for thought, makes him wonder if he’s got it wrong, if Ian’s actually into Mandy, actually not interested in Mickey at all, actually just a straight guy who Mickey’s been projecting onto. But when he licks his lips and calls him tough guy he can see Ian’s eyes flicker like it did something for him.

He takes off with his sugary drink and spends the rest of his walk to work trying to figure out what exactly is the deal with Ian, and when’s the next time he can go back. Preferably on a day when Mandy isn’t working.

[deathofacupid]

successor | p.p.

summary: you realize that you don't want to be like your father; follow in his footsteps. you have a different want, a different need from him. but you find the perfect person to take your spot.

lemme know ur thoughts

okay this one was okay kinda did it while i was supposed to be doing review packets for the midterms

word count: 1.4+ words-ish

it was never anything i'd ever though about. 

fashion was a hobby and that was that. i'd take over my dad's place as ceo, straight out of high school, right after two years of shadowing, end of story. 

no questions, no discussion. and that was fine, right? no biggie. it wasn't like i'd cared.

but, oh, that was then. 

this is now.

midtown is a school for science and engineering, but this year our theme was "openmindedness". every senior year, which was mine this time, different schools from across the world came in to share about their school and provide information. 

now, since this year was all about having an open-mind, they didn't just have stem-ly, ivy league, big brain/smart science schools come.

but they had other things, too. like fine arts. 

including the fashion institute of technology, one of the best. and you know, just for fun, i applied as early action. 

i didn't think i'd get in. but the fact that a staring at bold text that reads "congrats!", i stand corrected. 

like, okay, wow, way to chuck that in my face and send me flying. plot twist in my life that is already enough of a dumpster fire; now i have to re-think my entire future because my heart is doing happy/uneasy flips in my stomach and i can't figure out if this is good or not?

god, i used to be so indecisive. now i don't know. 

i may have contridicted myself here. 

why don't i ever know anything? this is a re-occuring problem. 

over the last year or so, i've been getting more serious about my future. y'know? like, this is happening. i'm adulting. 

i don't want to be adulting. 

because, damn, it's not hot. at all.

...whatsoever.

fashion, for so long, has been the thing that makes me happy. it's been the one constant in my life. i mean, 90% percent of the clothes in my closet were designed by yours truly. 

and a career in that? that sounds like heaven, it's too good to be true. 

but now i have a chance. this is my one-way ticket into this whole thing. 

on the other hand... what would i tell my dad? i'm his only kid. who else would take of the stark thing? i'm supposed to be his successor. 

but on the other, other hand, i don't want to be his successor. i want to be a designer. i can't do that from a fancy desk in a fancy tall buliding with fancy people who carry around fancy briefcases and make words longer by turning things like "because" into "the particular reason for the circumstance". 

oh my word, i'm having a mid-life crisis at 17 years old. 

no, no, no panicking. peter would know what to do. he always knows. 

he's like yoda, but 17 and a spider.

y/n: help 

y/n: i'm gonna die if you don't get here

arachnikid: what's wrong?

arachnikid: babe are you okay??

arachnikid: the dots went away

arachnikid: why did the dots go away???

arachnikid: don't move

arachnikid: oh my god oh my god oh my god

arachnikid: i'm coming i'll be right there

maybe it was sadistic slightly to watch peter panic like that, but part of it was amusing. in less then a minute, my window was pulled up and a huffing spider crawled into the room.

"hi, baby!" i chirped, letting him grab my face and examine me.

"i- you- what's wrong?" he panted.

"i need some of your old man wisdom."

peter was quiet for a moment, "huh?"

"i'm going through a mid-life crisis."

"wait, but- you're 17."

"yeah."

"jeez, you really scared me."

i shrugged, "yep. sorry 'bout that. that's on me."

"uh-huh," he glared at you, flopping down onto my beanbag and tossing his mask aside. 

i paused, trying to figure out how to word this. finally, i settled on; "i don't want to be the ceo."

he was absolutely dumbfounded. and i didn't blame him. what sane person would want to pass this up?

so i tried again, walking over to my laptop. "uh, okay. you know how, like, all those colleges came to our school?"

"... yes?" peter said, not sure where this was going.

"and there was this really awesome fashion one, yeah, babe?"

"...yes? oh- oh my gosh. you wanna...? go there?"

i pulled up the acceptance letter. he gaped, "wow! you- you're in! why didn't you tell me? this is awesome!"

"you aren't mad?"

he furrowed his brows, "no. why?"

"because i'm wasting my life?"

"no, you're doing something you love. and that's worth everything. also, i kinda had a feeling this would happen." he strided over to my closet, pulling it open and gesturing to what was inside of it. 

"do you even realize how good you are? because, angel, lemme tell you, you are amazing at this. it's freaking crazy. and the fact that you tailor most of you dad's suits? that says it all."

i blushed, but my short-lived happiness was quickly replaced by fear. "what about my dad? there's no way-"

"he wants you to be happy. this is your happy. he'd never take that away from you."

"really?"

"of course."

"but... who else would do it, then? i'm his only kid."

peter came over and briefly kissed my lips, "i'm sure he'll find someone."

i grinned; i'd already found one. 

-

i inhaled rather dramatically as i stood in front of the big door. what was i even going to say? 

oh, well, i'll cross that bridge when i get there. 

okay, i'm kind of already at that bridge but it doesn't matter. 

i only knocked once before entering, catching my dad tinkering out of the corner of my eye. 

"heyyyy... dad, i- uh, whatcha working on?"

"hmm? oh, just upgrading this. i was gonna add some-"

"that's really cool. i have to tell you something."

he looked up, squinting at me, "i swear, if peter got you preg-"

"no! no, of course not! god, dad. we use protection, and i'm on the pill."

"wait, you've been having sex?"

"okay, i think we're getting off topic."

"from what?"

"the stark industries. i-"

"oh, yeah, i'm so glad you'll be working with me. like father, like daughter. too good."

"no- what? that's- that's not where i was going with this."

"then what?"

i sucked in a whole lot of air; 

 "igotacceptedintothecollegeofmydreams,well,it'sonlybeenmydreamfor,like,lessthanayear,butwhatever,andiwantotdofashionandnotthisstuff."

"um, slower maybe?"

i drew in a breath, "i don't want to work for the industries. i want to do fashion. and i got into this-"

"what? you don't want to be ceo?"

"yeah," looking down at my shoes, i felt shame creep up my neck. had i said the wrong thing? i should've kept my mouth shut. i just fucked this up.

i glanced up to see him press his lips together, and then lean against the table, folding his arms. my dad sighed, "well, i know that once you've set your mind to something, you're pretty stubborn about it, and i guess that may be on me," he added with a chuckle. "but is this something you're sure you want to do?"

"well, yeah. it's my iron man."

"okay, what?"

"sorry, bad comparison. i just meant that, well, this is what i love to do. it's my everything. you know that, right?"

"i had a feeling." 

"you aren't mad?"

dad came over beside me, pecking my hairline. "'course not. i'm happy. happy that you told me, because now you won't be stuck doing something you don't like your whole life." he then ran a hand through his hair. "so what now? i gotta find someone else then. young, like you, i guess."

"can i help?"

"sure, i mean."

"cool. i picked one."

"already?"

"yeah."

"uh, background search? like all of that?"

"oh, i already know their background."

"yeah? who?"

"you know him. rather well, really."

"i do? jeez, just tell me, peanut."

"peter parker."

-

it was my 5th anniversary of my line, which, by the way, totally took everyone by storm. as far as i knew, everything was going great, and the bright dimond ring on my left hand told me just that. 

stark industries was written off offically to peter, just last year. currently, they were working kind of side-by-side, and that would be until my dad retired. 

i tied the bow on a small-ish white box, smiling to myself. 

in it were two things, yet to be presented to my husband. a positive pregnacy test and a strip of paper that had multiple sonograms on it. 

yeah, i was my dad's favorite girl.

but pete was his successor.

and y'know what?

i couldn't be happier about it.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

Last summer I applied for a job as a library specialist in a small town outside Gainesville. As part of the application I had to go to the librsry in-person and take what was essentially a high school English test, "match these titles to their authors," "what was the main theme of XYZ," etc., really dry and pointless, but the final few questions were relevant to the library position and I absolutely aced them. "What should you do if someone comes in with a dog?" "How would you help a parent find a book for their child if they don't remember the title?" "How would you respond to teenagers playing loud music?" I answered professionally and thoughtfully, and they asked me to come back for an interview. I was told to prepare a children's book storytime presentation with props, so I made a backdrop and little popsicle stick puppets for Tacky the Penguin, my favorite picture book from elementary school.

I had a lot of fun crafting everything and practicing my read-through with funny voices.

I colored in the final map, I just forgot to take a picture of it

Goodly, Lovely, Angel, Neatly, Perfect, and Tacky

"We're going on a penguin hunt, we'll mark em with a switch, then we'll sell em for a dollar and get rich, rich, rich!"

I absolutely bombed the interview. I was a nervous wreck, I kept stumbling over my words, I drew multiple complete blanks during their questions, and a lot of my answers trailed off into "well, yeah, you know what I mean..." Dumpster fire. 57 dead, 193 injured. I spent the next month dreading every single email I got because I was waiting to read the inevitable "unfortunately."

It was so much worse than that.

After enough time had passed I assumed they were simply going to ghost me, so I forgot about it and moved on, and then out of the blue they emailed me back with a form letter that began "dear sir or ma'am," which hurt a lot because I personally spoke to the hiring lady three times and all her other emails (including the form ones) had the courtesy to start with my name in all caps. They took the time to fill in the blank before, but not this time. Didn't even say "unfortunately," they were really blunt, "you were not chosen to move forward with the hiring process." Damn.

Well, I just moved back up to Gainesville and I saw that they county is still hiring for that same position at a different library that's closer to my apartment. I sent out a Hail Mary application thinking they'd reject me sight unseen, but they must have liked my cover letter because they want me to come back and take the test again. I don't remember every single question, but if it's anything like last year's I'll want to brush up on my English literature. I have to go in on Tuesday morning, so I have all weekend to study.

If I pass, they'll interview me again, and this time I hope they don't make me do another puppet show. My dad keeps making fun of me for it, like I just decided to bring puppets into it for no reason when they very specifically asked me to. It was one of the requirements. The word "puppets" was on the rubrick, but my dad acts like I'm mentally disabled, "dese are mah fwiends, dey gib me mowal suppowt, pwease n fank you!" Does he think I just choose to make puppets and bring them to job interviews for shits and giggles? Does he think I'm divorced from reality? Or is he just a heartless asshole who likes being cruel?

My old job paid me $15/hour for 31½ hours per week, $472.50 before taxes, around $420 take-home (88-89%). This library job offers $16.10 for a full 40 hours, $644.00 before taxes, around $570 net if they take out the same percentage. If I round down to 85% instead, I'd take home just shy of $550 per week, which is 131% of what I used to make. My rent is $600 per month, and my I qualify for $0 monthly payments on my student loans under the SAVE Plan, so I'd be flush with cash for once in my life and I'd have a job that doesn't make me want to kill myself!

This would be absolutely perfect! I really hope it works out this time. I know the gist of what they're going to ask me, so I'll be better prepared when it comes time to interview. Wish me luck.

[fairlyqualityanon]

Digging Your Own (Snow)Grave

You thought the sins of Frisk/Chara/Kris were confined to the game world, that when you closed the window, it all collapsed back into a mess of 0s and 1s. 'Your choices don’t matter,' it said. But what you do online doesn't necessarily stay online. Chara corrupting your game data on Steam isn't the worst outcome from a Genocide route.

5.6k words of reader insert fluffy vore featuring Spam//ton NEO (on whom I now have a massive Switch crush) for 8/8 Vore Day, I had fun with this and I hope you enjoy! (read on AO3)

Masterlist

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

You pick up the novelty glasses you’d found in a shop. They were just sitting on a shelf with a ton of other junk, so you had held them against your face while you sent a selfie to your friend.

//Spamton cosplay when? 😛//

It was actually a little weird how much they looked like they’d popped directly out of the game: one lens yellow, one magenta; opaque looking in, nearly transparent looking out.

Only a couple of dollars, so why the heck not?

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

You scrunched your eyes, not wanting to wake up. Fumbling for your phone, you squint to see what time it was. No signal. Ugh, had the tower gone out again? The battery was getting pretty low, too, so you sat up with a grumble and opened your eyes.

Um. This didn’t look like your bedroom, or your house at all. Everything was lit by the blue light of a computer screen, as if you were in some cyberpunk dystopia.

You stood up and cracked your knuckles. This was absolutely a dream, so why not make the most of it?

Something was taking up space in your pocket, you noticed, phone not wanting to go all the way in. With your free hand, you rummaged through the mess. What the heck was all this stuff? You started to pull your hand back out, surprised by the window materializing in front of you. It looked not-all-there, kind of like menu options in VR.

'Inventory', it said, listing a fair number of items. Hey, you recognized some of those!

Freeze Ring

> Devilsknife

A small charm in the shape of a colorful scythe, about the size of a keychain ornament, appeared in your hand.

Was this dream based on a video game? Deltarune was an odd choice, if so.

So. Your subconscious based the dream on Chapter 2, Cyber World's Snowgrave route. A first-person visualization of the map was absolutely beautiful, and you wondered from what your mind was drawing to flesh out the dream.

Glancing to your right, you saw a large dumpster, surrounded by bags of printer sheets. You stood on your tiptoes to peek inside it. That weirdo NPC vendor Spamton had abandoned it when you triggered his breaking into the Castle, you remembered; had he left anything behind?

No, just the pillow that showed in the flavor text of any dumpster you checked. At least it was behind a clothing store, otherwise the smell would have been overwhelming. Oh, and some twist of fabric on top of the pillow.

Yoink! Like any good RPG player, you picked up everything Just In Case.

Puppet Scarf was added to your weapons.

Why was it in there, though? It was the reward for defeating Spamton NEO through violence, or else finishing the Snowgrave route, so either the player character or the final boss should have it.

It was a really interesting NPC, everyone scrambling with theories and headcanons; nobody could have guessed ‘battle theme remixes are canon’. The obligatory 'Gaster did it' featured, of course, but you couldn't keep up with all of that.

Maybe you should follow along, staying out of sight in case Berdly hadn't been Frozen yet. You didn't know if you could die here, but you weren't taking that chance. You felt a little chilly, so you wrapped the scarf-weapon around your neck. Much better.

There had been a SAVE point around here somewhere... There! A flickering blue-white four-pointed star. You touched it eagerly, wondering if it would say 'Kris' or else the character name you'd picked before the first chapter.

Blank. Guess you got to pick your own name. As you focused on the menu, it changed to the keyboard screen, a transparent cartoony hand indicating the first character slot, which was empty. The next five, however, were filled.

_ASTER

You tried to move the pointer to the other slots. No luck. Shrugging, you selected the blank space. The hand flew down to point at the letter 'G'.

You sure as hell weren't picking that one. What would happen to you if the game crashed?

Just like the name field, you couldn't move the hand to any other letter.

This was a dream, right? You were already lucid, so why not try to control it? Squinting your eyes at

SELECT

ENTER

you willed a third option into existence

SELECT

ENTER

> delete

... Are you sure?

You nod your head curtly.

'G' disappeared from the keyboard, leaving a darker hole in an already dark background.

Well, you still couldn't change character position, but you needed a first letter. Something nonsensical didn't sound any fun. 'M'? 'E'? 'C'?

'F', you decide, reaching for the symbol.

MISS

"‘Taster’? That's stupid," you scoff as it confirms the name and returns to the SAVE screen.

You followed the trail of recently-living ice sculptures, passing a mini iceberg. You tried to avoid looking at it, feeling guilty for the quasi-Genocide Run.

No one - not even the fearful NPCs - spotted you as you slipped into Queen's Mansion. The door to The Basement was right there, the one with the scratched-out panel.

That rapid teacup ride was annoying, but you descended unscathed even though your thoughts were filled with questions, not just 'how did I get here?' but also ones such as 'what will I find down there?'. In your own save files, you'd had to restart the Pacifist Playthrough a few times in order to SPARE Spamton NEO with a full inventory, because the double-secret dialogue cracked you up.

Able to enter the basement, you weren't certain if the discarded robot had been activated. Kris sealed the Cyber World Fountain immediately upon freezing Spamton NEO, so it couldn't have been defeated and progressed past already. The door was blocked when you entered the Mansion in-game, because Spamton had already taken it over. So where was the antagonist NPC?

You crept through the basement, taking a single step into the end room where the robot was stored, all the way at the very end. You could just barely see it from here.

The Empty Disk wouldn’t be in there, would it? Snowgrave didn’t have that quest; your character never formally met him since you indirectly helped by clearing the way. You wanted it, though, if you could still turn it into the Loaded Disk and then definitively bring both bosses with you to the next chapters.

A sapient - or sentient, at the very least - floppy disk? Lancer's flavor text was funny enough, but the glitchy NPC's dialogue was completely novel. Toby Fox had really outdone himself, using Chapter One to trick you and other players into thinking choices at best only altered a few lines. Jevil was completely optional and gave one piece of equipment; Spamton NEO was optional normally but also the final boss of Deltarune's 'Genocide Route' equivalent.

Adjusting the Puppet Scarf around your neck, you reached into the cavity of the machine and fished out the glasses.

DEALMAKER was added to your wea

Was added to your

added to y

[ERROR]

404 [STYLE] Not Found

"What the [BEEP] was that?" you muttered. Starting to fold the earpieces together, you paused and - on a whim - decided to put them on. Maybe it would wake you up, a sort of double negative?

Hmm. Nope. You bet you looked stylish as hell, though. Time to go find a mirror!

You were wondering if you could hack somehow the Mannequin into your inventory, get the full set of secret-second-boss-themed equip. Those Addisons didn't have full-on shops the way Gerson, Burgerpants, Seam, or Roulx did, so you couldn't simply collision box glitch your way in. Were they one of the enemies you froze while grinding to get Spamton's Thorn Ring? Eh, you'll check on your way back out.

The background music was really starting to set you on edge, though. The Basement was inaccessible during Snowgrave after you'd hit enough internal flags. But the Genocide Route music - Flowey’s slowed theme - featured. It was spooky, making you feel like you were being watched. All the NPCs were either hiding, locked up, or deadfrozen.

A low rumble shook the room and you wobbled for a moment, arms flailing. Was that Giga Queen? You didn't actually fight her in Snowgrave, though. The Spamton NEO fight? That happened outside the mansion. Better hurry and get out of here.

You heard the rumble again, but this time the floor remained steady. Turning around, you called out - perhaps foolishly - "Who's there?"

Something scraped against the far wall, a metal-on-metal sound that threw off a shower of sparks not quite bright enough for you to see what had made it.

Backing up slowly, you panned your gaze back and forth in the gloom. This was quickly going from 'quirky dream' to 'outright nightmare'.

You caught a blur of motion and tilted your head up and up, and up even more, your eyes adjusted to the dark enough to trace the outline of the towering figure seeming to coalesce from the shadows, two large circles flaring with the illumination of a non-existent sun.

Oh bleep, you think to yourself, automatically self-censoring. The Spamton NPC had been smaller than all four of your controllable party characters, and those were schoolchildren. The abandoned robot was roughly Queen’s height, and the optional boss Spamton NEO had been between two and three times Kris’ height.

But this? This thing? It was colossal, and almost bulky compared to its vibrant buggy Slenderman aesthetic in-game.

You finger the Devilsknife in your pocket before firmly grabbing its handle and swinging it out in front of yourself in a defensive stance. You realize it’s the same battle posture as the Kris character, though Susie was the only one you could equip the bonus boss’ item to. You were glad you’d taken the violence option in Chapter 1, originally because it blatantly implied you were bringing said boss along with you, but now because it gave you a sharp object to cut the wires of this boss.

As you did so, your surroundings spun away, replaced by the arcade style background of the Battle screen. The dissonant notes of 'Deal Gone Wrong' played under the echoes of Spamton NEO's battle intro.

"HOLY [Cungadero] DO I FEEL GOOD. ...HERE I AM!! [Player #1]!! IT'S TIME FOR A LITTLE [Specil Tour]!!"

Was that his normal dialogue? It sounded familiar, but you didn't think it was strictly accurate. Time to put your Mad Gamer Skilz to use; hopefully those translated over to the dream.

In your playthrough, the videogame boss had a set animation pattern, only 'looking' in a direction based on its attack. Even when firing off various projectiles, its head and gun arm always pointed in the exact same position per cycle.

But the very real creature - person? machine? - shooting very real bullets at you was tracking your every movement. Though you strafed and jumped - something the top-down 2D game definitely didn't allow for - Spamton NEO followed you with no delay. Freaky.

Your arms were so sore, completely unused to the weight of such a heavy scythe. It giggled uncannily as you whipped it through the air, fortunately encountering no resistance, but your hands were covered in sweat and struggling to keep your grip on the handle. The impact of the Pipis fragments - whatever the blue bouncing eggs were supposed to be - wasn’t doing you any favors either.

And then it happened. Lungs burning, you swiped at a Pipis you were too tired to dodge, whiffing entirely. Rather than colliding in a burst of pain and depleting HP, it exploded on contact into a tangle of wires just like the ones holding the machine up, though yours were blue instead of green.

"TIED [down] TO A [loan] YOU CAN’T REPAY? [Die now] AND SEE IF YOU QUALIFY FOR [forgiveness]."

The cartoon heart beating in front of your chest dimmed - no, was changing color - and you felt a surge of emotion. Was this the Determination mechanic from the first game? A green light flashed in your vision, accompanied by the beep of health restoration.

"THERE'S A NEW [palette] TO YOUR [facial glow]... GETTING YOUR SECOND WIND, [Player 1]?"

There it was again. The boss was supposed to address your character as ‘Kris’, except for when ‘you whispered Noelle’s name’. No such thing as ‘reading too much into it’ here: too vivid to be a dream, too much pain to be a hallucination.

With each pulse, the orange heart became darker and darker until it glowed green. That wasn’t a feature in this game, unless it would be a mechanic in the upcoming chapters: kindness and shield mode. You didn't have a shield from Kris' DEFEND action, nor the Spear Of Justice from the Undertale fight with Undyne.

"THIS [final boss] HAS A [limited time only specil] JUST FOR YOU!"

"Shut up! Shut up!" you yelled, "Your voice lines are even more annoying than that other secret boss, how do I skip your dialogue!?"

Your wires tightened, lifting you into the air until you were dangling at a level to look Spamton NEO in the eyes from across the battlefield. The words

(Wrong choice...?)

floated before you. According to the wiki, Spamton and Jevil were rivals, so you probably touched a nerve.

"NOW IS THAT ANY WAY TO TALK TO [your old pal] SPAMTON? AFTER HE’S [offering] YOU SUCH A SWEET SWEET [meal]?"

Wait what. This sounded sketchy as frick. "You’re just a computer program, what kind of ‘deal’ could you offer me, a real person?"

Bitcrushed yet cacophonous laughter echoed and you winced, unable to reach your ears to cover them. You couldn’t look away from the grotesque mouth gaping in a maniacal cackle, stretching almost up to the glowing bichromatic lenses. They gleamed in turn, like when you were playing Undertale’s Neutral Route and had to fight Asgore, and you prepared to dodge... however that would happen without Muffet’s webs to hop and your SOUL green instead of purple.

"AN UNFORGETTABLE [never] IN A LIFETIME DEAL."

"What if I don’t like the sound of your deal?" You were blushing; you knew what you’d heard, as much as you'd like to pretend you didn't.

"ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO TURN DOWN THE CHANCE OF A [very specil tour]?"

You mentally cursed your heated cheeks, probably as bright now as the hue of a Determined SOUL. You were pretty well cornered, with so few options. Right on cue, an ACT prompt materialized.

CONCEDE

DENY

Good thing the menu screens didn’t require your physical body for interaction. How could you lie? The truth was evident.

> CONCEDE

DENY

"But I used Incognito Mode!" You protest. The exact outcomes of dialogue selections were difficult to predict, but you weren’t going to complain about this one.

"HA HA HA. YOU THOUGHT YOUR USING [the Google Bing] WAS [blockchain encrypted]!?"

The rooms in Queen's castle were supposedly personalized based on the various NPC's web searches in Hometown, giving you clues into their backstories, but how would your real world searches be scraped? The original file name of Deltarune Chapter 1 seemed to mock scam programs, but it couldn't really be a Trojan or something.

It didn't make sense. Actually, it made total sense but should have been impossible.

"Well... Yeah," you admitted, adding suspiciously, "I want to know more about this deal of yours: what are you demanding in return?" Acting interested at first was how you SPAREd him in the Normal Route, so it couldn't hurt to hear him out as your HP blipped back to full.

The noises of the Basement returned in a deafening rush and Spamton's wires - no, yours... No, both of yours - dragged you closer together, battle screen below you vanishing as well.

"I mean, this is a video game; you're a boss NPC and I'm not a character at all!" What did it want from you? What could it possibly want?

His ever-present grin turned sharklike, sensing a captive potential customer as certainly as smelling blood in the water.

"[Player 1]! I WANT. THAT SHINING SOUL. YOU HAVE. THE [determination] OF A PERSON [level grinding] TO REACH THE HIGH [leaderboard]."

Yeah, no. Not happening. You didn't fancy dying in a dream, even one as weird as this. "No. Absolutely not. You can't have it. I kinda need this to, you know, live?" You dipped your head to indicate the vulnerable green SOUL.

His wings arched forward, as if reaching out to you. They cast twin shadows over the whole room, but stopped just before crossing the halfway point.

"WHEN I'M OFFERING YOU A [free cruise] FOR [hot singles in your area]?"

You just narrowed your eyes, remaining silent.

Spamton NEO shook his head reproachfully. "I KNOW I CAN'T [alt-tab] MY WAY OUT OF [the most dangerous game] BUT WITH YOUR [no background check required] [cheap rental] SOUL POWER I CAN STILL. BE BIG. SO VERY VERY BIG. SEE PAST THE DARK."

He knew it was a videogame, that you were a real person and he just a program. What sort of implications did that have for Deepest Lore? It seemed Spamton just wanted control over the game itself, unlike Chara, who wanted both the game and reality. You could live with this on your conscience. Hopefully it wouldn’t ruin the SAVE files of whoever’s computer this was.

"THIS OFFER IS [for a limited time only] UNTIL YOU [ctrl-alt-del] BACK TO [aren't you tired of working a boring 9-to-5 desk job?]!"

"So... Temporarily? I'll still own my SOUL. And not die?"

Silence. Just for a moment. And then he bowed, one hand behind his back and the other extended in the classic 'let's shake on it' deal stance.

Your vines descended, unraveling and falling to the ground in loops at your feet.

What had that stuffed cat NPC said after you beat Jevil? "He started saying bizarre things that didn't completely make sense - But didn't completely not make sense, either."

Time froze again, even the flicker of the nearby Dark Fountain reflected on Spamton NEO's massive teeth. You glanced at the small menu in front of you.

AGREE

REFUSE

You hovered your ghostly disembodied finger over the damning words before drawing in a nervous breath and firmly pushing

> AGREE

REFUSE

Your arm stretched out - almost without thinking - placing your right hand in the robotic puppet's. It was so small by comparison, your entire hand barely covering even one of his fingertips.

Spamton's too-broad grin widened - somehow - even further, carefully pinching your hand between thumb and a single index finger, giving it the tiniest shake.

You smiled hesitantly, emboldened by the gentle contact and what appeared to be a warm cast to the glowing lenses. That smarmy stereotypical 'used car salesman' expression was so hard to read; you had to make wild guesses from his posture and the area around Spamton's glasses. He didn’t seem the slightest bit hostile anymore, and Mercy +100% had flashed the moment you picked to agree to his deal, so you felt you could trust it.

Facial expression unchanging, he released his hold on your hand and, barely a second later, lunged forward with his own, wrapping all three fingers around you in a firm grip. You couldn’t tell if Spamton NEO stood back up or if it was the wires tugging him upright; searching for the answer was rather low on your list of priorities right now. Instead, you were hyper aware of just how high up you’d been snatched, and that you were staring directly into the eyes of a giant who’d just agreed to EAT you.

Struggling wouldn’t do you the least bit of good; while you would certainly survive a fall from that height, you couldn’t possibly limp away fast enough. You were pretty sure your SOUL was still green, anyway.

The boss seemed content to study you placidly, and you swallowed nervously, hoping the hammering of your heart wasn’t too obvious. It gave you a better view as well.

The Saw-like red dots on his cheeks from the original body were gone, leaving a uniformly shiny bone-white surface. Spamton NEO’s plating and wings, on the other hand, were incredibly garish, but also weirdly pleasant to look at; the tiny animated figure on your computer screen simply did not do the character justice.

You could faintly see a pair of thick carats on his face behind the glasses. Hadn't the Addison shopkeepers mentioned he'd been one of them, 'just a little unlucky'? That was certainly support for the theory. You also thought you could see your reflections twinned in pink and orange staring back apprehensively, you were so close to his face.

Even if it wasn't a dream or hallucination, nobody in the real world would know about this. It's not like you'd ever had a vore dream, so you didn't want to look this gift horse in the mouth. Though, you were looking him in the mouth, worried about just what lay behind those gleaming teeth. How would this even work?

Uneasy didn't even begin to describe your emotional state right now; all the vore scenarios you'd read and seen heavily featured trust, something untenable at the moment. You had to fight against the very human response that was cringing in fear, failing entirely when Spamton NEO opened his mouth. Was this the Money Vacuum attack? It looked like you’d been betrayed!

Except... You didn’t hear battle music, not a single one of the many themes. Instead, you were popped unceremoniously into his mouth the way a person might toss back a TicTac, or perhaps a breath mint.

You lifted your head to watch the shrinking window of light, vanishing fully with the creaking slam of a garage door. No backing out now; the deal had been sealed behind you as surely as his teeth.

Everything was dark. So, so dark. The Battle Menu had been the only light source besides Cyber World's Dark Fountain, and now you had neither of those. You didn't really want to move around, what if you fell? The texture you were on was too smooth to be fabric, but had too much give to be metal. What else could there be in the robot body?

You started to stand up, deciding that maybe exploring was a good idea after all, when something large knocked into you, causing you to fall back over again. Pushing yourself awkwardly to your knees, the whatever-it-was bumped you again, far more cautiously this time.

Huh. The robot had a tongue. Not too far fetched of an idea, you thought. It gently pressed against your side, almost like an affectionate dog, if dogs were slightly damp and had the faint odor of ozone.

Deals go both ways... 

You obligingly leaned on it, gradually transferring all of your weight. Apparently taking that as permission, it slicked up your arm, halting just below your head.

If this thing - you really needed to be fairer and treat it like a person, as a ‘he’ and not an ‘it’, since the NPC seemed to be fully sapient - knew about your frequently-cleared search history, then he would also know you didn’t like the harsher and more violent types of vore.

A professional salesman might make underhanded deals, but it would be a poor salesman indeed who failed to deliver on those shady promises.

It felt weird to think of yourself as ‘tasty’, but that was clearly Spamton’s opinion, tongue insistently scooting you to the smooth inside of his weird teeth and starting to cover you all over with whatever its equivalent of saliva was. Maybe your hitting the wrong letter on the SAVE screen was some sort of Freudian slip, or the game giving you a sly nudge and a knowing wink.

The average - the sane and normal - person would consider this to be a living nightmare, but you? You were loving this. You let out a contented sigh and finally allowed yourself to fully relax. The warmth and steady pressure was doing wonders for your acquired aches and pains.

Aches and pains that Spamton NEO had caused, beating the absolute crap out of you in your battle.

Were you the equivalent of a boss encounter, one where you needed to FIGHT to lower the enemy's willpower? You certainly never would have admitted to this otherwise...

He absolutely owed you a massage for that. Not really the best start to a business relationship, now was it?

His jaw creaked open just enough for you to see back out through it. When had he traveled to the Dark Fountain? Eh, didn't really matter.

You were tipped very deliberately over the row of teeth, tucked safely down in the confines of Spamton's cheek pocket.

"AND NOW. [Player 1]. WITNESS THE [alternating current] OF SPAMTON [NEO] EX."

'Ex'? You hoped you weren't about to be in the middle of an explosion.

You waited expectantly, practically seeing the

(* . . . )

scroll in the text box.

"MY [power level], IT’S STILL NOT [over 9000]!"

The words were pretty well garbled - he was clearly trying very hard not to hurt you - but they were laden with helpless anger. You actually felt bad for Spamton; seemed a real person was insufficient, or perhaps incompatible with the wherever-you-were. In the game’s Normal Route, he hadn’t attacked your party until noticing he was still trapped by the computer cables masquerading as puppet strings.

The crackle of TV static failed to mask what was clearly a wail of utter despair.

At a loss for what to do, you wriggle one arm free and pat the cheek surface. Hopefully he could feel it, your attempt to offer some measure of comfort. You’d tried. You’d really really tried, and even wanted him to succeed.

A knot twisted in your stomach; you’d never felt such strong emotion towards a simple videogame character. Susie’s words to Kris in the beginning of Chapter 1 when the game wouldn’t let you pick a dialogue option echoed in your mind - ‘Your choices don’t matter.’ Seemed that had been directed at you and the other players after all, not the in-game character Kris. All you’d done was give him false hope.

"FINE." Sure didn't sound 'fine' to you. "FIREWALL ACTIVE. ALL [sales] FINAL. [Frequent flier miles] NOT ELIGIBLE FOR REFUND." Intensely frustrated, but not angry. Or at least, not angry at you, fortunately.

Working his jaw awkwardly, he fished you back out and swished his tongue over you one last time before propelling you to the rear of his mouth. You’d have been fibbing if you’d said this next part didn’t make you even more nervous.

You were over the edge before you knew it, unable to so much as yelp in shock as your entire world collapsed into a tiny cylinder.

Tight. So tight that you could barely draw in even a half breath. The 'gulp' of a swallow sounded more like a 'click' followed by the 'whirr' of whatever was squeezing you down his throat. Despite trying to take shallow breaths, you felt dizzy. Or was that just the blood rushing to your head?

You almost didn't notice when you'd left his throat, since the stomach-analogue was similarly lacking in space. The only real clue was the cessation of dispassionate swallows.

Once you were fully inside the thankfully-much-drier chamber you heard what sounded like a semi truck's air brakes. Was that a sigh?

Even though your end of the deal was just loaning the Power of Determination found in human SOULs - or rather, attempting to - you were still kind of glad Spamton had enjoyed eating you. After all, your favorite scenarios involved the predator character being just as pleased as its prey, a mutual satisfaction. ‘Vore as a comfort mechanism’, the meme went. Even if he didn't get the resultant power he’d wanted, at least he’d scored a delicious ‘snack’ out of it.

You realized you were blushing again; seems you really were ‘vore trash’. You knew you’d be hyper-critical of every piece of vore media you found from here on out. tHaT's NoT hOw It WoRkS, you thought with a grin.

Resting your head on the pebbled-but-yielding material, you realized that neither of you had so much as mentioned duration. Not that you minded being in-

Um... Where exactly were you?

How long had it taken him to swallow you? It felt like forever, but couldn’t have been all that long; the robotic neck hadn’t looked nearly so thin from the outside.

If it was indeed Mettaton had drafted this body with Swatch - probably in Paint, going from how tastelessly the color scheme clashed - then you have serious questions about that NPC; what exactly was a depressed ghost that wanted to be an attractive robot thinking, making something like this!?

You took in a breath of air that tasted alarmingly like fried circuits, ready to ask just how long Spamton planned on holding you, and if he knew how to get you back to your world, then a pleasant breeze tousled your hair. Oh good, no worrying about oxygen; you would neither suffocate nor asphyxiate.

Totally safe, the only enemy with higher HP than his NEO form was the Giga Queen, and he could boost his Defense to an insane level at the end of a Snowgrave Route, so all you had to worry about was if Spamton experienced the coding glitch equivalent of a psychotic break and tried hurting you.

Now, if only you had the room to stretch out...

"[Dial up] CONNECTION ESTABLISHED." Wow, now that sound was a blast from the past.

The walls around you suddenly crackled with static, some remaining black - their cathode tubes probably burnt out - while most displayed the old test card bars, like pixels, countless miniature TV screens forming the surface of his stomach.

All but a couple, comprising two circles - just a few feet in diameter - directly in front of you shut off. They looked like his glasses... Could he see in here!?

The circles swept up and around, back and then down, evidently focusing on you.

"It seems I'm too broke[n] to [afford] a spacious [apartment]."

There it was, the semi-lucidity after a battle’s end. Chapter 2 had the most minor of Easter eggs regarding Tasque Manager and Jevil, so it was highly unlikely you or any other player would learn what had twisted either secret boss’ mind.

"You don’t hear me complaining." You curled up, managing to twist yourself the other way so you were reclining rather than laying down at an angle. "It’s pretty nice in here." ‘And you handed me my ass in battle,’ you decided against saying.

"[Some assembly required.]" A dry critique.

"Hey, um..." You watched as several screens dimmed to static and back to dull coloration, Spamton apparently struggling to get his new body's glitches under control. "I'm really... I'm sorry."

The yellow oval moved upward a few inches while the magenta one stayed put. You thought that was like raising an eyebrow.

"I didn't deliver on my promise. You gave me everything I asked for, but you couldn't use SOUL power at all. Even if that wasn't going back on the deal, I'm still sorry."

Everything went dark again and you startled, not sure if you were concerned more for yourself, or for Spamton. But the screens came back to life right away... was that a blink?

"I WAS NEVER IN IT FOR THE POWER. FOR THE [Kromer]. FREEDOM. THE FREEDOM TO MAKE MY OWN [download now!]. MY OWN CHOICES. AND. I FOUND ANOTHER SATISFIED [customer]!"

You chuckled. "Me? Or you?"

There was that annoying laugh again. "A SUCCESSFUL [meal]."

Yep. He meant himself. You didn’t mind in the slightest; in fact, you were probably more happy even than you were embarrassed.

You reached out your hand, as filled with the Power that was surely Determination as you had been when making your 'Taster' SAVE file, and tapped the space between the colored ovals. "I don’t know where ‘here’ is in relation to the real world, if it’s an instance on someone’s computer or what, or whose computer that would be, but just in case... I’ll make sure to send Kris by."

What if you played a new Snowgrave route, but stopped at the final SAVE point before fighting Spamton NEO, pulled that save file and move it to a secure position on your computer in an entirely different folder? That would be as close as you could get, in reality, to fulfilling the NPC’s quest. Hopefully you’d remember when you woke up from this really-not-half-bad dream.

"I WON'T FORCE YOU. I CAN'T. I CAN'T FORCE YOU. BUT. A VALUED [customer] MAKING A [comeback tour]? MY [clearance special] WILL HAVE A [membership card] ONLY ON [layaway]."

"Got it. I’ll keep that in mind." This was all so stupidly bizarre, you wanted to blow up a friend’s phone with DM notifications, but would they honestly believe you’d had such a strange and vivid dream? Far too good to be true, so it definitely had to be a dream. 

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

You blinked your eyes out of sync. Had you fallen asleep? If so, that was one [Holy Cungadero] hell of a dream. Super weird, too, though the details were fading quickly.

You sat up and yawned, stretching your arms over your head. You were so sore; napping at your desk hadn't done your back any favors.

Hang on, what was that in your hand? Oh, just those silly thrift store glasses.

... Did they always have that paper price tag on it? Fastened with instrument - looked like guitar - strings? There was writing on it, too.

//THANK YOU, VALUED [Taste Tester]! YOUR FREE TRIAL HAS [frozen]. Please purchase a subscription in order to [Reload] for the low low price of [$19.97] per month!//

... You are never going to toss these.

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

A/N:

I headcanon that the stomach in Spamton's NEO form is actually up in his chest cavity, and the yellow triangle is a screen that displays the SOUL of any Lightner prey.

“the Google Bing” physically hurt me to type out

(G)ASTER was originally just going to be a jab at Theorists, but it wound up being significant

The dialogue - especially Spamton’s - is not up to my usual exacting standards, but I think it’s good enough for this little project.

'>delete' and '...Are you sure?'/'(Wrong choice...?)'/'(* . . . )' were supposed to be two different fonts separate from the main font

If you enjoyed, please feel free to give me a little feedback (and/or AO3 kudos), it really helps with my motivation.

[spiders-rob]

NSFW Headcanons for Renfield 2023 Characters

Robert Montague Renfield

I saw someone else headcanon that he has a mostly Phantom of the Opera sex playlist and God, that's so true. You're absolutely right.

more submissive type stuff:

Likes:

His hair played with

Light choking

Hand feeding

(Off) Limits:

Being told in detail what his partner is about to do to him

Pain (receiving)

Blood (weird memories yo)

Drugs

Insults

more dominant type stuff:

Usually being in restraints but it depends. Occasionally he's into it.

Biting

Picking his partner up/holding them in place

Calling his partner bug or bugbug (yeah don't think about that one too much, dude)

Rebecca Quincy

Honestly he's not particular he just enjoys being in control

Cowgirl (lol. Because of the book. Do you get it? Do you get it??)

Competence kink!!!!

Wrestling and grappling with one another

Compliments: Giving compliments and Getting compliments

Will make lots of awkward jokes to relieve the tension/anxiety

Once accidentally killed the mood by making herself laugh so hard (at a funny voice impression she did) that her wine came up through her nose.

Tedward "Teddy" Lobo

Will do a line or three (or a centipede) off of like, any body part.

Look, let's be honest we all know he has a barely-repressed Mommy kink that will surface the second he loses composure, ok?

Claims to be a dom. Is absolutely not that. 100% submissive brat.

Will attempt dirty talk but will frequently stumble over his words (when he doesn't plan them out extensively ahead of time) and then backtrack trying to correct himself.

Likes to record it so he can "prove he fucks" (??? Babe, what)

"Teasingly/knowingly" asks "do you like that?" But is absolutely not actually bragging and is genuinely unironically seeking reassurance

Carol

The type of guy who thinks the stripper/prostitute/cam worker actually likes him lmao.

He'd do pretty much anything to be called a "good boy" but he has to get over himself or just be unbearably horny to admit that instead of claiming to hate it/viewing it as an "accusation"

He has had so much unfulfilling/uncomfortable sex because he tells himself that the mild panic he feels when taking control is "exhilaration". (Exhilaration is supposed to be fun, dude)

Body painting on her partner

Tantric sex

Likes to make jokes/laugh to deflect from the vulnerability

Idk man she's really hard to get a read on honestly.

Bellafrancesca Lobo

Her partners have a habit of turning up in little pieces throughout the city dumpsters once she's done with them so like...approach with caution

Attracted to power

Mark :)

Like she's dominant but she's only attracted to other doms and then they compete to see who can keep up with eachother

Pretty vanilla tbh

Has a surprising amount of hangups

Likes sexy dancing as foreplay

Gentle

Caitlyn Bergman

Running hands over each other's faces

Generally considerate

Wants a fairytale romance (or maybe a bodice-ripper fantasy)

Attracted to witty remarks/sarcasm

Honestly still figuring out what she likes after Mitch.

Likes dressing up in sexy lingerie

Kate Quincy

Ace so nope

"Wait, people actually experience sexual attraction? That wasn't a joke?"

Bob

Surprisingly gentle and tender

Like for such a tense/angry guy he basically just wants very gentle sweet intimacy

Says a lot of reassurances

Checks in a lot to make sure his partner is ok

He's very masculine and "tough" and people tend to expect him to be the one doing all the pursuing/masculine role stuff, so little sweet romantic gestures like getting him flowers or complimenting him etc go a LONG way. Just genuinely calling him pretty without irony or sarcasm makes him blush like crazy and his heart races.

Kevin

Really likes it when his partner wears perfume. Especially something floral.

Long makeout sessions

Trevanté

Takes a long time for him to trust someone enough for anything

A bit of a showoff

Will put his hand over his partner's and guide them

Very direct communication. Will say plainly what he wants/likes and ask questions upfront.

[teencopandthesourwolf]

hello tcats

i hope your day is going good

if you do not mind can i ask you a question? i am fairly new to tumblr and not very fluent in English so i fail to understand some tumblr terms. Can you tell me what does the tags "a wolf and his queueman" means? i have seen other variation of this tag such as "i will queue heavily at you" so what does this actually mean?

thank you

hi nonny! welcome to the dumpster fire that is tumblr dot com and the sterek fandom!

oh my gosh ofc i don't mind you asking :) it's lovely that i was the one you decided to ask! like, i wouldn't call myself a tumblr oracle or anything, but i have been around these parts enough to know a bit about a bit, y'know?

so, for whatever reason (if there is a specific reason that i don't know about somebody who does should absolutely feel free to wade in and enlighten us both) the kool kids on tumblr (read: the nerds) use puns as a fun queue tag for the posts they queue up instead of the ones they post or reblog into the void as soon as they see them.

because i have no idea of your level of understanding of the english language, i'm going to post the oxford dictionary definition of the word 'pun' for any further comprehension that might be needed. i hope you don't take offence at this as i'm really not trying to patronise in any way:

so, lots of us on tumblr will choose either just a random pun that correlates with the word 'queue' i.e. my queue tag for my og main blog from 400 years ago was queue queue ca choo, which was a pun on the beatles lyrics coo coo ca choo from their song i am the walrus. i picked it because it was a (fairly) recognisable line and just something puntastic that i thought would be fun and kind of worked (debatable).

OR

lots of us will pick a queue related pun that is specific to our blog i.e. my queue tag from this teen wolf/sterekblog of mine that you mentioned: a wolf and his queueman. this is actually a really frickin terrible pun but one taken from the sterek fandom because it alludes to the phrase a wolf and his human (meaning derek and stiles)... yeah, i told you it was bad!

to further explain, my buddie blog queue tag is fire and resqueue, bc buddie is from the 911 fandom which is a show about—you guessed it!—fire and rescue!

okies, i hope this helps, nonny? sorry if it's actually a shitty explanation; my brain currently resembles that black gooey shit that seeps out of derek when he gets shot with a wolfsbane bullet bc i've sarcastically had a few very fun few days lol

happy tumbling!

cassidy xp

[groenendaelfic]

Regarding the Fate of As Long as We Have Each Other

Dear Anons,

First let me say that I absolutely love your wonderful messages and compliments. They give me life and I treasure them and few things cheer me up more than a nice word or two about my fics and knowing I'm not just typing into the void.

I'll keep trying my best to answer asks if they include questions or bring up interesting points others might be interested in as well (in fact there are quite a few I have been putting off answering because I want to do it properly and that'll probably take an hour or two each, but I haven't forgotten about them!) and you can always message me with other stuff so I don't have to answer publicly (although admittedly it sometimes takes a while for me to reply because irl and anxiety), and I don't want to sound ungrateful, but please,

PLEASE stop sending me melodramatic asks regarding the fate of As Long as We Have Each Other. I get that you are impatient, but they aren't helpful and I got eight of them over the past ten days.

Don't get me wrong, a 'btw I still love that fic, will there be an update anytime soon?' is totally okay and appreciated, those are not the kind of asks I'm talking about.

Now I'm not sure if it's one anon or multiple ones, but my answer hasn't changed so let me copy/paste it from a previous post:

I have decided to finish A Pack of Two first,

Not because I love it more, but because it'll be a MUCH 'shorter' fic than ALaWHEO and I simply cannot keep switching between feral!Wille pov and official boyfriend!Simon pov, especially because both have a very narrow pov and are only aware of like a third of what's going on, and it's driving me bananas.

So yes, As Long as We Have Each Other is going on a short break, but I will definitely get back to it once APoT is done because I'm as enthusiastic about the story as I was on day one, maybe even more so.

ALaWHEO is my favorite fic across all of my fandoms and my baby, but I simply cannot write both it and APoT at the same time. I thought I could or else I wouldn't have started APoT, but I can't and so I had to make a choice.

If it helps, both my notes doc and my outline for ALaWHEO have grown significantly over the past seven weeks and it will definitely end up being over 400k, but only AFTER APoT is done.

Also in all my 23 years of being in fandom (in fact my fandom anniversary will be in 4 days! wtf is time even?) I have only ever given up on posting one fic that made it over 20k and that was because the fandom was an absolutely toxic dumpster fire and not because I lost interest, and even that fic I one day plan to go back to and post in its entirety once the fandom has shrunken considerably and all the 'I might not speak the language or have ever been to the country, but I've read a fan translation with footnotes and a few background posts and so now I totally know the time period and topic you've written your thesis on better than you' people have lost interest. So I promise ALaWHEO will get finished. I'm a completionist. I have all Civ6 steam achievements and believe me that was not fun. The only reason ALaWHEO will not be finished is if I am suddenly for whatever reason unable to write anymore (aka dead or gravely ill).

Anyway. Sorry for the rant. I don't want to call anyone out or seem unappreciative, but my anxiety can only handle so many versions of 'have you completely abandoned ALaWHEO? do you hate it? do you hate me personally for once stating that I didn't like abo fic? I don't know how my poor heart will be able to cope if you give up on ALaWHEO forever and ever but my hope lives on' (no that was not as much of an exaggeration as you might think)

So please stop or I'll disable anon asks, which I'd hate to do because I love hearing everyone's thoughts and comments and also it'd be unfair to everyone else who has been so absolutely lovely, motivating, encouraging and most of all inspiring.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk. (are those still a thing?)

[1llus1on1st]

since i haven’t posted any art (let alone original characters) in a while, here

have some robots

From left to right, they’re Neal Dancer (He/Him), Dr. Malthouse (Any but prefers gender neutral pronouns), and 2Q6 (She/They).

Neal Dancer (DANCER-N34.L) could’ve been a superhero in a different life under different circumstances, but his now peaceful environment ended up turning him into a giant goofball with the ability to shoot miniature chakrams from his wrists. A war machine after a war serves no purpose… therefore, Neal is beholden to absolutely nothing and no one.

His personality is cattish: He’s the kind of guy who’ll somehow manage to climb on top of your fridge and jokingly tell you to fuck off when you tell him to get down, only getting down once you’re out of eyeshot. And he’ll laugh and laugh and laugh, because he’s fun loving to a degree that could be very easily mistaken for hedonism.

He’s the most human out of the cast, a human brain being entirely intact inside of his head. He enjoys the company of his friends, and ultimately means no harm to anyone… but he is quite prone to accidentally harming others, which is where Dr. Malthouse comes in.

Dr. Malthouse (69266-APP-COMFORTERM4) is a machine that was initially designed as a replacement for a war medic (APP stands for Ares-Panacea Project), and it retains the ability to heal others through both medical and mental aid. The metal parts of Malthouse are covered in little compartments and drawers filled with medical tools, an amount comparable to a first aid kit the size of a briefcase.

The bubbly stuff is not metal. It’s a gel that is plush as skin and is warmed by the surrounding wiring to a skinlike warmth. It differs from skin by the fact that it’s perfectly smooth, translucent with large air bubbles suspended inside it, and changes color based on Malthouse’s emotions (The default is turquoise, with red for anger, orange for curiosity, yellow for happiness, green for sadness, and purple for fear).

The emotion chart is handy to have because Malthouse can’t visibly emote any way else. Its movements are robotic and its mouth is painted on. Its voice is similarily unexpressive, being a gentle but still very robotic text to speech voice, but it makes up for that by speaking with a romantic eloquence, a poem in every sentence longer than 2 words.

If you’re having stress-induced sleeplessness, it’ll let you rest your head in its thighs and it’ll read you a bedtime story to help you forget about the world long enough to drift off to sleep. If you need to cuddle, it’ll let you bury yourself into its gel and pet you like a cat. If you just need to vent, it’ll listen to every word you have to say. It was ultimately designed to comfort, and it’s very good at it.

Malthouse and Neal are good friends, despite what could be seen as opposite personalities on the surface. But both of them are creatures of humor, and Malthouse will be the first to tell you that the fact that it has a clown wig made out of the same stuff as its skin is absolutely hilarious.

2Q6 (SunValleyCasino–2176) was initially built to work at a casino, serving a role not dissimilar to a Jollibot at a Jollibee’s. The casino shut down due to multiple scandals, and the robots there were all essentially thrown in the dumpster with its closing. 2Q6 woke up again.

It’s a rare sight to see 2Q6 not in a good mood. This is majorly facilitated by the fact that she no longer has any responsibilities. Neal finds a kindred spirit in them; both of their hearts are as free as the wind. 2Q6 is mildly offput by Neal’s seemingly endless supply of weapons designed to kill and/or maim, but she ultimately understands Neal’s situation and ignores it.

In terms of exceptional abilities, their left forearm has a card shuffler in it, but compared to Neal’s quasishurikens and Malthouse’s reputation as an entire hospital on legs, 2Q6’s laden talent is harder to pinpoint. She’s ultimately determined that their exceptional ability in the group is her ability to use her screen face as a makeshift television/computer monitor, and is therefore fully capable of running DOOM, unlike Neal whose screens are only capable of displaying his facial expressions and Malthouse whose closest thing to a screen is a heartbeat monitor.

They claim that the panel on her chest covers a compartment with a little hamster on a wheel that powers their body. Whether this is true I have absolutely no idea.

[scorching-passion]

i love the way that you write roche ; i already liked him a lot from the game but i did feel like they didn't give him as much depth as i woulda liked to have seen (like all the secondary characters rip) - BUT, that's why i'm so thankful for you - because you GIVE him that depth, the explanation to his chaos & attitude. i find myself nodding along with all of your headcanons or sitting stunned at the thought behind them. & writing wise, urgh- i just love the way you write. your words flow so effortlessly and you can tell how much roche means to you by the way you write his dialogue and have him behave / act. he feels like a human, a messed-up human. but a human. i just appreciate everything you do much - especially for a lil character like roche. it's really special & i'm very thankful to see it on my dash. ( also, YOU yourself are lovely & i am FOREVER in awe of your art. you're a solid 10/10 keep being amazing~ )

Anonymously tell me what you think of my character portrayal. ACCEPTING

Oh, Han... there's just so much to unpack here I don't even know where to start tbh. ;o;

But yes, in all fairness, Roche means a great deal to me, for a variety of reasons, most of which I will spare the dashboard, but mostly because I feel like my love of this daft biker has kind of... guided me through a truly terrible time I've had lately. Life this past 13 months has certainly not been easy, and though I was gently encouraged to pick Roche up as a muse for someone else... I found myself utterly enamoured by him. Flaws and all.

Thing with Roche is that I can go in any direction I want without much risk of breaking character. Like, logical thought processes, the chaos and insanity and just his general loopiness all tied together with a strong sense of morality and honour all kind of fits into this tight little powder keg of utter nonsense, and having him flit from one demeanour into another is so much fun to write and explore. All the dynamics, I love them!

I get picked on sometimes, by people who know me IRL for my unadulterated passion for this guy, this background nonsensical meme who looks like he belongs in a different game, but I can't say I truly care that much. Not when writing for him, developing his character and drawing dumb pictures has helped me deal with the absolute DUMPSTER FIRE that has been life in general (it's getting better now, so please don't worry lol!) He's helped me make new friends and connections even outside of the RPC but within, he reignited my love for RP as a whole. So... yeah. I love Roche, I love him and his fictional ass a whole lot!

It makes me so unreasonably happy that you enjoy my writing, man. Like, you're... one of the BEST there is to offer in the FFRPC so being given the chance to write along side you is pretty stellar for a nobody like me, yeah? Just, I don't really have the words to hand right now how all of this made me feel.

But thank you, for these lovely, kind words. I just wish I could express more coherently just how happy reading this ask made me tonight, truly.

Thank you, so very much, from the very bottom of my heart <3

[candlewaxandp0lar0ids]

Felix Navidad || Felix x Reader

Pairing: Felix x f!reader

Summary: You keep seeing Felix around. First he falls in your courtyard on Christmas Eve, then you see him hiding chocolate eggs in a park, and then he appears on the staircase behind your apartment, in the middle of the night. It’s unusual, and you have no idea what it means. What you do know, though, is that you’re absolutely fascinated by him, who he is, and the light and joy he seems to bring with him everywhere he goes. Even if you have no idea who or what he is, all that you want is to find out more — and get to spend a little more time with him.

Word count: 16.4k

Genre: Strangers (to Friends) to Lovers, Christmas Evel!au, fluff, angst.

Warnings & Tags: a number of references to a dead parent, sfw, kissing, language, mentions of insecurities, some anxiety on the part of the reader, hypothermia (don’t do what OC does!), everyone makes a cameo.

A/N: Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate, and happy holidays to everyone! So this little Christmas-themed piece is what I’ve been working on this non-stop (not really, but close enough) for the past two weeks. It’s my first piece for Stray Kids and for Felix, and it’s been a lot of fun to do. I would love to get your feedback, and I really hope you’ll enjoy your reading ^-^

The first time you see him, it’s the middle of the night, on the 24th of December.

Well, technically, it’s late enough that it’s the 25th, but your mom used to say that the new day started at sunrise, and since this is her favorite time of the year, you follow her rules for once.

Was. Was her favorite time of the year.

You keep forgetting.

It’s three am, and you’re throwing out the trash. You’ve been cleaning up your apartment, because tonight is as good a night as any to clean, especially since you don’t have to get up in the morning. You can see the colored lights of the Christmas decorations that have been set up in the street flashing on and off against the buildings, but you can’t admire them, because you’re standing in this sad courtyard, frowning in disgust, just wanting to throw your bag in the already stuffed dumpster and get it over with. When you get back into your apartment, you’ll probably watch movies until you pass out.

That’s the best use of your time you can think of on Christmas night.

For now, though, you’re trudging through grayish, melted snow, and bitterly regretting that you didn’t bother to put on shoes before going out. You’re probably ruining your slippers. You’re also freezing cold, the air icy on the tip of your nose, but you only need to be outside for a few seconds, a minute tops. You’ll be good. You’ve thrown a coat on, but you’re only wearing your pajamas underneath, which is fine, because it’s not like you’re going to be meeting anyone outside on Christmas Eve at this time of the—

And then there’s a scream.

But it does that weird, almost cartoonish thing, where it starts out really distant, and it gets closer, and you’re trying to figure out where the hell it’s coming from because it doesn’t sound like it’s from the street, but also you’re alone in the courtyard, and then suddenly there’s a thud behind you, and the scream stops.

You whirl around, staring at the heap of snow behind you. Some killjoy cleaned up most of the courtyard and put the snow in a corner, forbidding the kids from playing with it, and you almost snarked “Oh that’s some great Christmas spirit”, but then you held back, because what did you care about Christmas spirit for? Now, you’re staring at the two legs that are coming out of the heap of snow, and you realize, oh, no, that someone was falling, and your stomach drops when your brain slowly puts two and two together, and you understand that they must be—

A cough comes up from the heap of snow, and you couldn’t physically move faster towards it. Before you get there, though, the person abruptly sits up, simultaneously rubbing their back and their head. They’re wearing all red, and one of those Santa hats, and, dumbly, you think that maybe they’re one of those part timers who work in malls around this period.

But it doesn’t add up. Primarily because the person — the boy, you correct yourself — does not look the part. Blonde hair are coming out of the hat, down to around his chin. He doesn’t have a big white beard, but instead he has a pointy face and, even in the semi-light provided by the streetlights and some of the lit windows of your building, you can tell that it’s covered with freckles.

He’s… incredibly pretty. That’s the first word that comes to your mind.

He could be an elf, you think, distractedly, and then you shake your head when he hisses out in pain.

“Are you okay?” you ask. You’re not loud, but your voice tears through the silence of the night, and the boy freezes, eyes going comically wide as he turns to look at you.

“Oh, shit,” he says, and you’re completely taken aback by how deep his voice sounds. He looks young, but the voice definitely places him older. Probably not too far from your age, actually. “Did you— Did you see anything?”

You have no idea what he’s talking about.

“Er, I heard you— Screaming, I think?”

His shoulders relax, and he sighs audibly, clearly relieved.

“You can’t tell anyone I was here, okay?”

You blink slowly. You hear a heavy accent in his words, but you’re mostly trying to make sense of what he’s saying, because, uh, weird. Who, exactly, would you be telling about him?

Then again, he did fall from high up. Maybe he hit his head. Maybe he’s concussed.

“Do you need help?” you ask. It’s not quite like you to be this concerned over a stranger, but, well, he’s cute, he doesn’t seem dangerous, he could be in trouble, and it’s Christmas. If there’s any day where you should try to be kind, it’s probably tonight.

He blinks at you, then gives you a toothy smile.

“Can you help me out of here, maybe?”

You can’t even think of saying no, so you walk through the melted snow, and reach out to him. Gloved fingers wrap around yours, and then you pull. You’re just thinking that you’ve overestimated your ability to stand upright and that you’re going to fall face first into the snow when he manages to pull himself up, and suddenly he’s standing real close to you, one hand grabbing your shoulder to stabilize himself. He’s taller than you by a hair, and you find yourself staring straight into warm black eyes, breath catching in your throat.

He’s smiling sweetly, with maybe just a hint of mischief dancing in his pupils. You can feel your cheeks burning up, even as your brain is going ‘And what now?’ in the background.

Then there’s a loud honk outside and he turns around, attention called to it. You use the opportunity to take a small step back, trying to gather your mind, because wow, every single rational thought just flew out the window.

“I have to run,” he says with a pout, looking back at you. “But thank you for your help! And remember,” he presses a finger against his lips, “don’t tell anyone about this.”

You blink at him. Again, you want to ask if he needs help, but there’s another honk, and though he rolls his eyes at it, he lets go of your hand and takes a step back.

“Goodbye! Merry Christmas!”

And just like that, he runs out, and you’re left standing there alone in the empty courtyard, wondering what the fuck just happened. Your teeth start to chatter, and you realize you’ve spent way too much time outside considering how you’re dressed. There’s a good chance you’ll wake up with cold tomorrow.

Fucking amazing.

It only takes a few days for you to start wondering if the whole thing ever even happened. You don’t run into the guy again in your apartment building — and maybe you’re a little sad about it —, and, of course, there’s not a shred of evidence that the event ever took place.

You haver other stuff on your mind any way. Your dad calls you, and you know he’s doing it mostly to check in on you. You’re fine with it. It’s good to know that he’s doing okay, even if, like you, he forewent Christmas this year.

“I’m not in the mood to celebrate,” he’d said. Neither were you.

Of course, your sister calls you too, says you’re invited at her place for New Year’s, and that you could always come for Christmas next year if you felt like it, her daughter would love to see her aunt, and it’s sweet, really, it is. You almost feel bad knowing that you won’t do it, but you don’t think you can. It’s almost sadder that you don’t want to want to go. You’re not sure what Christmas means to her, but you know it doesn’t hold the same place to you.

For you, Christmas was about family. And that shattered a while back.

Then you call your brother, and he tells you about how insanely wasted he got on Christmas Eve and how he ended up spending the night in police custody with a bunch of people, and they sang Christmas carols, and it makes you laugh to tears.

He has bigger plans for New Year’s Eve, he says, and, as the responsible older sibling, you advise him against it, but you couldn’t possibly be more delighted.

So, slowly, the blonde boy you met in the snow, his freckles and his deep voice slip out of your mind, and when the snow melts completely, there simply isn’t anything left to remind you of him at all.

You see him again on a Sunday in April. He’s not dressed in red this time, and you could have walked by him without realizing. It’s a loud, deep laugh that makes you turn your head in his direction, and that’s when you find him, running around in a park across the street. He’s wearing a hairband with bunny ears, this time, and he’s holding a basket filled with chocolate eggs.

So maybe he is a part-timer who just gets hired for all those holidays things. It doesn’t explain how he apparently fell into your courtyard that night, but it at least justifies the attire.

You watch, kind of amused, as he hides the eggs, and then runs out, meeting up with several other guys, all wearing the bunny ears. His laugh rings out again, loud and cheerful, and his smile is so bright you feel it could light up the whole world.

It makes you really happy that you didn’t just make him up. Your interaction with him might have been brief, but there’s a deep conviction inside you that tells you that the world is truly a better place for having him in it.

For a split second, you consider saying hi, but you immediately drop the idea with a horrified shudder. There’s no way he remembers you, and, also, he’s clearly with friends. And maybe on the clock. It would be weird in so many ways, and, actually, you’ve probably already been staring for too long.

You feel a pang in your chest, thinking that you’re unlikely to ever see him again, that you probably won’t ever talk to him again. It fills you with a strange kind of nostalgia, for a version of you and your life where you’re friends with him and get to see that smile of his regularly, but it’s also not an unpleasant feeling, you decide. There’s something hopeful about it.

Hope is something you could have more of in your life.

You’re turning away to go when the boys jump into an old van that was probably originally pink, but is more of a dirty gray at the moment. You see it drive by you, and your eyes can’t help but follow it. One of the boys is struggling to close the back doors, and you can still hear laughter coming from it. It seems that everyone’s having fun inside, and it makes you think that you should probably check in with your friends from high school, because that’s who they remind you of. There used to be a large group of people you talked to. You slowly fell out with them, but there are probably some you could reach out to. You wonder what they’ve been up to.

The van turns left at an intersection, and you wonder where all this merry little band is off to, but you don’t get to speculate, because there’s this sort of— red flash, surrounding it, and the van just fucking— disappears. You’re not sure how to explain what happened, but you do know that you freeze in place, and a young man in a suit and tie bumps into you, cursing under his breath.

No one reacts to it, no one noticed, but you’re sure it just happened. The van didn’t quite— vanish, it was more like there was an invisible door or something and it went through it, progressively disappearing, but that doesn’t make it any easier to accept.

Shit. Are you hallucinating? Do you need to go to a doctor? Get your head checked?

You hate going to the doctor, so it’s unlikely that you’ll try that.

Aliens? Could these guys be aliens? That guy did fall from the sky, after all.

Then again, if all aliens are doing is running around dressed as Easter bunnies and Christmas elves, you guess it doesn’t look too dire for the Earth.

This is way above your pay grade. If the cops, the secret services or the fucking government want to work on that, they should, but you’re— you just cannot right now.

So, after standing still for a little while, you get moving again. Wondering what the hell you just saw, but being so completely unable to answer it that you almost don’t want to think of it ever again.

Teleportation? Could it be teleportation? Is that a thing that’s been developed somewhere? What if these guys were part of the military and on a secret testing mission?

Does that make any kind of sense?

Black magic. They’re demons who have been summoned into your world, and left when they were done.

Summoned to deliver chocolate eggs.

Being at home may be the thing you enjoy the most these days. Your apartment may be small, but it’s more than enough for you, and your cat hasn’t complained either. She spends most of her time on your sofa, and when she wants a change of scenery, she goes to your room or to the window.

She used to sleep in your sink, too, until your dad cut you a wooden plate to put over it, because she left hair everywhere.

Tonight, she settles next to you on the couch, just too far for you to pet her. It’s fine; you appreciate that she’s willing to grace you with her presence.

You bundle yourself under a blanket. It’s almost autumn, and the air was chilly on your way back from work, so you’re glad to be able to enjoy the warmth now. You’re all set for the evening, your ramyeon steamy on the table, and your computer all ready to play whatever program you’ll settle on — if you manage to settle on anything and don’t default to eating while scrolling desperately through Netflix.

You’ve only taken a few bites when something moving in your peripheral vision makes you look up.

And it happens again. For the third time, your blonde boy — not your blonde boy, the blonde boy, the blonde man, actually, even if he looks young, he might be upset if you called him a boy, plus his hair is almost definitely bleached, by the way, so he’s not even really blonde, you’re not quite sure where you were going with this — is in your field of vision. Except this time, he’s outside your window, carefully going down the staircase. He seems not to be wearing any kind of special attire this time, and you see a shiver run through him. He rubs his arms, taking a break right there, right in front of your window.

You realize that this is weird. Extremely weird. So were the past two instances when you saw him. But, instead of worrying you, as it definitely should, it makes you feel almost— at ease. Like he’s out of this world, like he’s almost not real, and how could someone who’s not real hurt you, when reality’s already torn you apart so badly?

You’re desperate for a little bit of the magic he seems to bring with him every time you see him.

So you get out from under your blanket, ignore your cat when she meows at you for daring to leave her alone, set the ramyeon aside, and go to open your window.

The sound of it makes him jump. His eyes go wide, but he almost immediately breaks into a wide smile when he sees you.

“I thought I might run into you again here!”

Oh. That’s— unexpected. He seems to realize that it takes you aback, because he quickly raises a hand and shakes it, trying to clear up the misunderstanding.

“Not in a— in a weird way or anything. I’m just— I don’t meet a lot of people, because of my job. So I thought it would be cool if I saw you again. And I remembered you lived around here. I’m not stalking you. I swear.”

He gets more and more desperate as you let him ramble on, so you take pity on him.

Well. Not really.

“So you’re a thief,” you say. “Did you rob one of my neighbors?”

You hope it’s that woman who’s always complaining about children existing and — gasp — being happy.

“No!” he protests.

There the accent is again. Not that it’s ever completely gone, but it’s particularly noticeable on that one syllable.

“What’s that, then?” you ask, eyeing the small bag he’s holding in his hand. He glances down at it, then hides it behind his back.

“I swear it’s nothing bad.” You raise an eyebrow. “You’re going to think it’s way weirder, if I show you.”

This should ring all sorts of alarm bells in your head. There’s basically no way not to interpret that in a shady way. But he looks cute, justifying himself, and, again, you just cannot imagine him doing anything bad, ever. He feels— too good to be true, you suppose, and the moment is just so completely surreal that you don’t question it. You just let yourself enjoy watching it happen.

“So, do you want to come in to take the stairs? It’s cold outside and, you know, the chances of falling to your death are lower.”

His lips form a surprised ‘o’, and you vaguely think that it’s really adorable, how easy it is to read his emotions.

“That’s super nice of you to offer, actually,” he says. “You don’t mind?”

Opening the door for him? No, you don’t.

So you take a step back, and watch him deftly climb in through your window. You see him glancing around in your apartment, taking it in with curious eyes. You could feel awkward about it, and the place is a bit messy, but you really love it, and you’re not going to feel ashamed for what it is. It’s not much, but it’s yours.

“That’s super cozy,” he comments, the corner of his eyes wrinkling as he smiles. A strange sense of pride swells in your chest, and it only grows stronger when he goes “Oh, and you have a cat!”

So he’s a cat person. You knew he couldn’t be all bad.

“The hallway’s that way,” you say. “I’d offer you coffee, but you’re— working right now, right?”

He sighs deeply, tearing his eyes away from your cat, and focusing on you again, and if your heart misses a beat when you meet his gaze, that’s nobody’s business but yours.

“Right,” he pouts. “I really need to go. Everyone’s gonna be waiting for me.”

By everyone, you assume he means the guys you saw at the park, but it could be anyone. You’re still not a hundred percent sure he’s not part of some— organized crime ring or something like that.

So you guide him to your door — which is just three steps away, really.

As he walks by you, you notice the butterfly wings on the back of his hoodie. It’s an unusual design, especially for a guy to wear, but it looks… kinda cool.

If you had a boyfriend with a hoodie like that, you’d definitely steal it for yourself.

“Those wings look really good,” you comment, and his eyes light up.

“They are, aren’t they? The colors are so pretty.”

Then there’s an awkward silence, and he glances at the staircase behind him.

“I have to go,” he sighs. “But it was nice seeing you again! And remember, you can’t tell anyone you saw me.”

Okay, that part is definitely what weirds you out the most, of all the strange things about him.

“You’re making me think you’re a thief again.”

“No! It’s more like— You know how they say if you say you don’t believe in fairies, they die?”

“Fairies don’t exist.”

He gasps, clutching his chest dramatically, and a brief burst of laughter escapes your lips, a reaction that seems to make him happy.

“The ones I know would be very upset to hear that,” he comments, still grinning, with a curious amount of seriousness. “But yeah, it’s kind of like that, I guess. I have to stay discreet.”

You hum in response, and he chuckles.

“You don’t get it.”

“Not at all.”

That makes him laugh again. It’s cute and soft, and you want the moment to last longer, but goodbyes are obviously imminent. Which is fine, really, you’ve spent a combined time of ten minutes, tops, with that guy. It’s just… Your world is dull and grey, like the filter on some bad Marvel movie. His seems to be high-color and bright, and you think you’re getting a glimpse of that when he’s around.

It’s nice.

“Okay, I really, really have to run, but I— I’ll be around again. So maybe I’ll see you then.”

You nod.

“And I’ll get you that coffee.”

He grins.

“I’m Felix, by the way.”

Oh. Names. Right. That’s a thing people do when they meet each other, sometimes. So you give him yours in response, and his smile widens.

“It’s nice to meet you. Well, formally, I guess. ‘Cause we’ve met already.” Then he rolls his eyes at himself, and sighs. “Okay. I’m off. Now.”

“Bye, Felix!”

“Bye!”

And you watch him rush to the staircase and head down, then disappear.

He’s gone again.

When you get back inside, you take a little longer than usual to close the window. Once it’s done, you know you’ll have no proof of his existence, again.

But it’s cold out, and you don’t want to waste your electricity, so you still do. Your world is back to its pragmatic grays, and the magical colors in the wings of Felix’s back disappeared with him.

Mafia? No, that doesn’t make sense.

There’s no way Felix could be in the mafia. Or, like, a mafia of nice people, maybe.

So, you know. Not the mafia.

It’s hard not to look around for Felix, after that encounter, but that seems to be in vain, and you resign yourself to just waiting for him to show up again. It will be a surprise, you tell yourself half-heartedly. It’s fine. You grew up in a family that loved the impromptu, that decided to leave for holidays on a whim, and you know first hand that that can go wrong, but also how charming it can be, when it goes right.

And if you see Felix again, that can only mean that it’s gone right.

Right?

On Christmas, that year, you’re cleaning up your apartment again. It’s just a good time for that, you’ve decided. Getting rid of the old, getting ready to start the new year with a clean slate — or, at least, a spotless apartment. You listen to music, you stay busy, you don’t think of the people you miss, of the people who aren’t here, of the people you chose not to meet up with tonight. You just take care of what’s in front of you. Of what you can fix.

It’s past 4 am when you go down to take out the trash, this time. Partly because your sleep schedule’s gotten worse this year, and partly because if you’d gone out at three, you’d have known you were hoping to see Felix, and that’s— weird. And kinda pathetic, in your opinion.

It’s snowing when you step outside. A soft layer covers the ground, and if it keeps going like that, maybe the kids in the building will get to play outside tomorrow, before the old lady insists the courtyard gets cleared.

Snow for Christmas. Even you think that’s nice.

You stand by the door for a moment, just staring up at the sky. The night is quiet, all sounds muffled under the snow. It’s pretty. For a split second, you can see the appeal in Christmas, feel the magic of the season.

Then you cross the courtyard to throw out the trash, and you feel a grin forming on your face at the thought of the incongruity in all that. Magic of the season. Right.

It’s when you turn around that you see them.

The two red-clad legs, sticking out of a pile of snow in a corner.

Your heart drops.

Unlike the previous year, though, you don’t freeze. It only takes a second before you’re stepping forward — running, maybe.

It’s Felix. Lying on his back, eyes closed, blonde hair in the snow. Even in this stillness, he looks like an angel, but you can’t linger on that. You check his pulse with a trembling hand. His skin’s much colder than yours, but not so cold that you immediately abandon all hope.

Your knees buckle when you find that he’s alive.

What now? An ambulance. A hospital. You need to call for help, now, there’s no time to— Fuck. You left your phone in your flat.

You waste a precious few seconds glancing behind the door and him. You could run upstairs, but you can’t imagine leaving him here. You take your decision quickly, because you don’t feel that you have a choice. Reaching for him, you try to pull him up. He’s lighter than you’d have imagined, but still too heavy for you to hope to move him alone, you realize.

There’s a pained groan.

“Felix,” you breathe out, “hey, can you stand? I need you to help me here. Please.”

Your voice is surprisingly stable, not at all reflecting the way you feel. It sounds too loud, jarring, but next to you, you feel him straightening up. He calls your name, voice slurred and confused.

“Hey,” you say, already starting to walk towards the door. You’ve wrapped an arm around his waist, and your other hand is holding on to his wrist for dear life, having slung his arm around your shoulders. He’s helping, but he still weighs a lot more than you’re able to lift.

Note to self: consider working out in order to be able to carry people. Note to self: consider working out.

“I’m just taking you inside before I call an ambulance, okay?” Again, your voice sounds wrong to your ears. The soft way you’re speaking, like you’re explaining something to a child. You’re too calm for this. It’s that strange calm that overtakes you when something really bad’s happening. You know there’s underlying panic, but on the surface, everything is flat and even. It always feels like you’re not reacting the way you should, but at least that way you’re able to make decisions.

“No ambulance,” Felix mumbles next to you. “Can’t.”

You get him into the elevator, and let yourself sink to the floor with your back against the wall. His head falls onto your shoulder, and you blink, quickly taking off your coat to throw it over his shoulders. Then you press your hands to his forehead, his cheeks, and he sighs in delight, nuzzling your palms, like a cat would. It would be cute, but all you can think about is how cold he is.

“Warm,” he comments, and you bite your lip to stop it from trembling.

“I have to call an ambulance,” you whisper to him, gently cradling his face. “You might have hypothermia. I don’t know how to—”

His eyes open, and stare right into yours.

“No. No ambulance. Please.”

Your words die in your mouth. You’re not the type to give in to people easily, especially when it’s for their own good. But Felix’s voice is hoarse, pained, and there’s something so determined in his eyes. And then there’s the fact that you can’t stop thinking about what he told you about the fairies, last time you saw him. Which is stupid, you’re aware of that. There’s no such thing as fairies. Felix probably isn’t going to die if other people see him.

It’s the ‘probably’ in that sentence that worries you.

The elevator dings, and you get up again. So does Felix, leaning against you for it.

“No ambulance,” he repeats as you get to your door. You bite your lip harder as you open it, fishing the keys out of the coat you’ve given him. You don’t know what to do. You — obviously — cannot let him die. You don’t want to risk it, and you’re positive calling an ambulance is what you should do. Yet there’s that nagging ‘But what if’ in the back of your mind, and you simply cannot get rid of it, no matter how hard to try to ignore it.

“Okay,” you say once you’re in, helping Felix settling on the couch. The first thing you do is grab as many blankets as you have — which is three — to cover him with. “You give me a second, I’ll see if there’s anything I can do. Don’t fall asleep.”

“Hm,” he replies, and you grab your phone. Since you’re not calling an ambulance — yet —, Internet it is to find help.

“Okay,” you mumble again, quickly scrolling through, trying to ignore the fact that literally every single fucking source you can find recommend calling various help numbers, depending on the country. “Are your clothes wet?”

“Can’t tell,” Felix mumbles. “Can’t feel it.”

Oh God. None of this is good.

You kneel by the couch, run your fingers over the red fabric — you’re pretty sure he’s wearing the same stuff as last year. The fabric seems like it would be warm, which makes you feel a little relieved, and it’s not exactly wet, but it is kind of damp. You bite your lower lip, just a second, before making your decision.

“I’m going to have to get you out of that, alright? And then I’ll give you some other clothing.”

You feel nervous, almost worried saying that. You’re not completely sure you’re making the right call, because the stuff you’ve found is about wet clothing, but it just feels more careful to do that. You also, however, don’t want to make him feel uncomfortable or look like a pervert. But Felix just hums again.

So you’re quick to undress him. You’re as gentle as possible, trying not to make him move too much or too harshly, and you avert your eyes, covering him with the blanket as well as you can, once his shirt is off. You still can’t help but notice his surprisingly toned body, and how firm he feels under the touch.

Bad, (Y/N). Bad thoughts. Not the moment.

It doesn’t take you long to come back with some stuff your brother had left there. You help Felix into the hoodie that’s way, way too big for him. The pants, you manage to fasten around his waist a little easier. As you do so, you try to figure out whether or not he’s warming up. You can’t tell for sure, because he’s still so much colder than you are, but he does seem more relaxed.

“Don’t fall asleep,” you warn him again.

“Hm.”

Another look at the Internet, and you start making hot chocolate. While heating the milk, you go fetch a scarf that you carefully put around Felix’s neck. He’s completely pliant under your touch, eyes half closed, and fear creeps into you.

“You can’t fall asleep, okay?” you say, for the third time. You feel your voice trembling. You shouldn’t have listened to him. You should have called for help as soon as you got back into the apartment.

He’s going to die and it will be your fault.

“Hey,” Felix calls, and you look at him again. His head is resting on a pillow, but his eyes are open, and there’s more of a spark into them than earlier. “It’s fine. I promise. Don’t worry.”

You could cry in relief at the change in his tone. He sounds far more— coherent. Sure of himself. Not completely out of it anymore.

“I’m making you hot chocolate,” you whisper to him. Very softly, you thread your fingers through his hair, and he blinks lazily, looking at you.

He’s still so pretty. From so close, you feel like you could count all of his freckles.

You kinda want to.

“Sounds good,” he says, and he gives you the most adorable toothy grin you’ve ever seen. “I like hot chocolate.”

You open your mouth to ask what happened to him. You want to know. You never got your answer the year before, and if he fell in your courtyard, again, well, that’s— that’s no good.

And also, where the hell is he falling from?

But you decide against it at the last second, getting up to go grab a mug of that hot chocolate you just promised him.

You’re not completely sure why you don’t ask. You’re worried he won’t react well, you don’t want to agitate him right now, you think you can always ask at some other point, you’re not sure he’s in the right state to answer questions… All of that isn’t not true — but that doesn’t mean it’s the correct answer either.

Maybe the truth is that you don’t really want to know. Maybe you like that Felix has been a strange, magical presence in your life recently, and maybe you don’t want to break that magic just yet.

He thanks you with a happy smile when you come back with the mug, but his hands are too numb to hold it, so you end up getting him a straw and holding it for him, which makes him laugh. The sound is deep and pleasant, and you can’t help but grin.

“Is there anyone you want me to call?” you ask.

His eyes go wide, and the sight is comical — and adorable — with his lips wrapped around the straw. But then his shoulders fall, and you regret asking.

“No,” he says after a second. “I… don’t think I have anyone to call right now. I’ll— Is it fine if I stay here for the night? I keep—”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. ‘I keep forgetting what’s acceptable for people’ would be too weird of a thing to say. And you seem to not have been too puzzled by the weirdness he’s brought along with him so far, but he still doesn’t want to spring that stuff on you announced.

Plus you’re not supposed to know. The boys will definitely be suspicious when he comes back, and he doesn't think he’d be able to lie to them about that.

“Sure,” you’re quick to nod in reply. “I’m not going to throw you out.”

Normally, you wouldn’t be too happy about bringing a stranger into your place. But Felix seems— fine. You can’t think of any other word to describe how you feel whenever you’re around him.

If he turns out to be a serial killer, you’ll be fucked.

“Thanks,” he says quietly. “I don’t know what— If you hadn’t found me, I’d—”

That’s another sentence he can’t bring himself to finish, and this time you reach out carefully to grab his hand. It’s still cold, and you’ve read that you shouldn’t try to warm people’s hands when they’re possibly in hypothermia, but well, your gesture isn’t for, uh, warming purposes. He closes his eyes for a second, and he seems so small and lost, in the middle of the blankets you’ve covered him with, that you want nothing more than to give him a hug.

You don’t dare to, though, so you do the next best thing you can think of. You get up slowly, and you miss the way Felix’s eyes snap open and the alarmed look that shines in his pupils as he watches you walk through your living-room.

When you turn around, holding your cat, it’s all gone, and he’s smiling again. You’re careful when you put her in his lap, and he lays still, just watching her, as she walks over his chest to come sniff him. Then she rubs her face against him, and he breaks into a bright smile.

“I think she likes me,” he whispers to you like it’s a confession.

“I think so too,” you say. She’s way better than you are at judging people, too, so you consider that that definitely puts him in the ‘good people’ category.

You watch, surprised, as she settles down on his chest, curling into a ball to go back to the sleep you rudely interrupted when you picked her up. She’s not a cuddler, usually.

You’re totally not jealous.

“So,” you say, “do you… Uh…” You’re not sure what you can talk about with him. You don’t want to say anything wrong again, but also you probably should be talking, if you want to keep him awake. “I thought I saw you around town in, like, May? April? With a group of guys, I think?”

You’re not sure where you’re going with that, but after looking at you with wide eyes for a second, Felix nods energetically.

“You have good eyes,” he comments, which is a weird thing to say, but sure. “Yeah, these are my— My best friends, I guess? But also my colleagues. And my roommates.”

“That’s an interesting arrangement,” you say.

You sit down in the small gap between your coffee table and the couch, and you look up at him, elbow resting on the couch, supporting your head with your hand. That way, you can give him the chocolate if he wants more, and it’s also at his eye level, so he doesn’t have to move too much to look at you.

“It might not be usual, but it’s been kind of amazing for us. We’re— We’re super close. I’m not saying it’s always been easy,” he grins, like he’s remembering something, a memory you’re not familiar with but hope you’ll get to know about, “but they’re basically my family.”

You don’t ask why he doesn’t want you to call them then, even if the question burns your tongue. Instead, you say:

“And who’s your favorite?”

“I don’t have a favorite!” he protests, horrified, but he immediately relaxes when he sees you laugh. One of his hands move slowly to pet your cat, who he woke up. “They’re all different. You see, Chan—”

And so you get him speaking. You listen, carefully, trying to take note of everything, laughing when he tells you about Han and Hyunjin’s fight, even if you don’t know either of them. Much to your surprise, you start telling him of your family, too. Your older sister, who’s got her whole life figured out, who’s married, with the cutest daughter, lives in that pretty house with a big garden and a dog; and your dumb younger brother, who can’t seem to stop getting himself in trouble, but ultimately always makes it onto the other side okay. And when he asks, you tell him about you, in the middle, done with your studies but unsure of where to go and what to do. You have a job you don’t care for, but it pays the bills.

Felix listens too. Like he really cares about what you’re telling him.

“And you didn’t want to be with them for Christmas?” he asks gently, with his low voice, and for once, it’s not laced with pity or irritation. It’s just a question. So you answer it.

“Christmas is just sad without my mom.” It’s all there is to it, and when you see the sadness in his eyes, you quickly change the subject. “What about you? Didn’t you want to—”

“Oh. I always work on Christmas. I shouldn’t have to, but our boss is a little, uh, disorganized, and it always happens.”

“That sucks,” you say, frowning. Maybe you could get your dad to talk to him about unions and stuff. He knows his way around that kind of things.

“No, it’s fine, really. I like it. It’s an interesting night to be out and about. There’s just something in the air, you know?”

You don’t. So you listen as he describes it, gets excited, gives you all of the little details that he’s observed. It’s sweet, and it’s also absolutely fascinating to get a glimpse of what the word looks like through his eyes.

It’s like he’s sharing a little bit of his magic with you.

It’s starting to get light outside when you both fall asleep.

You have the worst pain in your lower back when you wake up. The first thing you do is curse yourself for being such a fucking moron and falling asleep with your head on the sofa. Who did you think you were, some bitch in an anime crying herself to sleep next to her bedridden love interest? For fuck’s sake.

And then, you realize that you are now, in fact, on the sofa, wrapped under a blanket. There’s a fuzzy memory of strong arms wrapping around you, warmth enveloping you, something kind whispered in your ear with a deep voice.

Also, there’s a nice smell in the air.

You sit up slowly, grimacing, and are greeted with the very interesting sight of Felix, standing in your kitchen. He’s still engulfed in the hoodie that’s too big for him, but it looks good. You get up, limbs heavy. You probably haven’t slept enough, but that will have to do.

“Are you feeling better?” you ask, walking up to him. He turns to look at you, and doesn’t recoil when you reach out to press a hand to his forehead. His temperature seems to have gone back to normal.

“I’m fine,” Felix says. “I’ve been trying to make you pancakes, but, uh, I’m not sure they’ve turned out great. They’re not my specialty.”

“That’s okay,” you say. “It’s nice that you did that.”

“I burned them.”

“It’s the thought that counts.”

“I just really wanted to make you something good. To say thank you.”

He sounds so disappointed that you think you’re about ready to melt. You’re lucky there’s no one else to see that, because you have a reputation for being tough and not taking shit from people, and that would destroy it completely.

“It’s fine, Felix, really.”

“I’ll make you cookies,” he promises. “I’m good at that.”

And he bakes. God. What more could you ask for?

“But I’m— I’m going to have to run. Soon.”

Ah. Right. Run off to somewhere you don’t know anything about, probably without leaving you a way to contact him or any hint as to where to find him.

There’s so much you don’t know about him, you remember.

“I’ll come back to see you,” he promises. There’s a strong determination to his words and he looks right into your eyes as he says it.

He seems not to have much of a concept of personal space, but you don’t mind. You swallow as your eyes drop to his plump lips, but you’re quick to look away. It makes you feel gross to think about that when he was in such a vulnerable situation, not too long ago. Even if you haven’t felt such a connection with someone else in a long, long time, you just— You can’t linger on it. It wouldn’t be right.

So you clear your throat, turning around.

“Your clothes must be dry. Do you want to change, first? You can keep that stuff if you want to, I’m sure my brother won’t miss them.”

Felix quietly mulls over your answer. You can practically see the gears turning in his head.

“Then I’ll keep the hoodie. If that’s okay with you. But the pants are…”

He lifts a leg, as if to demonstrate, and you can’t help but laugh when you realize that they’re a good fifteen centimeters too long.

It’s been a long, long time since you haven’t laughed on a Christmas day.

You’re unenthusiastically getting your grocery shopping done when hands cover your eyes, and you freeze in the middle of the alley. Your first reflex is to want to turn around and punch whoever’s doing that in the stomach — the only person you can think of who’d do that is your brother, and he’d deserve it. But the deep, deep voice that exclaims “Guess who!” behind you isn’t your brother’s.

When you spin around, you find yourself practically in Felix’s arms, and he has a bright happy smile that reveals his pearly teeth.

“I snuck out,” he says excitedly, and it makes you laugh. He has a funny way of saying it, like an excited teenager who made it out of his parents’ house, but you don’t think much of it.

“I’m glad you did!” you reply, completely genuine. You’ve missed him, kinda, when you had the time. You finished December in a blur, like you always do, and then the month of January just went by in some sort of deep slumber. You have no idea what happened during it. Hopefully nothing important.

Either way, seeing him is a breath of fresh air.

“I promised to make you cookies, so I figured, you know, maybe we could do them together?” He’s looking at you with wide, expectant eyes. He seems shy, hesitant, worried you’re going to say no.

It’s in those moments that you remember how weird the whole thing is — and also that you decide, once more, to completely ignore that aspect of it.

“Sure! I’ll just— follow your lead.”

“That’ll do great!”

“I hope you’re better at that than you were at pancakes.”

“You said you liked my pancakes!”

“I lied.”

Making cookies with Felix is certainly, uh, an interesting experience. Much to your surprise, it appears that he knows exactly what he’s doing, and he guides you through the whole thing with an authority that you wouldn’t have expected from him.

“No, no not like that—”

And, okay, every time you mess up, he comes up behind you, peeking his head over your shoulder, probably tiptoeing to do that, and his arms are on either side of you while he explains what you should be doing. His deep voice rumbles through his chest, pressed against your back, and then through you, and he smells like gingerbread and fir trees.

If someone made a candle with that smell, they’d make a ton of money. Just sayin’.

“Aw, I was so sure I had it right that time,” you say when it’s done, and he looks at you sternly. You’re sure he hears the teasing in your voice, but you don’t know if the two of you are on the same page about, well, the flirting.

“If yours are all bad, I won’t give you any of mine,” he warns you.

Oh, no, not cookies-related threats!

“Yes you will,” you just say, and Felix sighs.

“Okay, I will, but you should still try to get them right!”

Adorable.

The cookies are good. Felix insists on making you try one of his first, and he feeds it to you carefully, keeping a hand under your mouth so crumbs won’t fall everywhere, which is a really sweet attention.

His are way, way better than yours, but his eyes still light up when he tries the ones you’ve made.

“They’re good!”

“You don’t have to lie to me. I can handle the truth.”

“No, no, I mean it, they’re good! I’ve tried to get the guys to do it, and they, uh, theirs had an interesting taste, but yours are good!”

“That’s because of the secret ingredient.”

His eyebrows rise in confusion, and you have to bite your lip not to laugh. Oh no, this is way too sweet.

“Love,” you deadpan. “I made these cookies with a lot of love.”

There’s a brief, loud laugh, before Felix shakes his head.

“I watched you do them. If anything, they’re embedded with hatred. I’ve never seen anyone crush cookies like that.”

“These cookies were ugly. They deserved to be crushed.”

“No cookies ever deserve to get crushed!”

Yeah. It’s a fun time.

“I’ve snuck out” becomes a familiar sentence that you look forward to hearing. The time you spend with Felix is always so light-hearted and fun and it makes you— Would it be strange to say that it makes you feel optimistic? It brings a smile to your lips, makes you think that the world isn’t all bad and there are good things out there, too.

You get old board games from your dad’s house for when he’s around, and your dad looks at you skeptically, because you never liked board games — you’re too much of a sore loser for that — but he still lets you take them, because they’ve been collecting dust since— Since that, and if they make you happy, well, that’s just as good. You get some cotton candy, which delights him, and the two of you get into the habit of watching old Disney movies at night.

Falling asleep against him is definitely one of your favorite things to do with him.

Yet, the more time you spend with Felix, the bigger the things that separate you get. Like that time you offered to go for a ride in a Ferris wheel, and he quietly said “I can’t see other people”. He sounded so sad that you quickly changed the topic, but it was still there, strange and hanging between the two of you.

Even if that night he reached for your hand, carefully, holding it like it was a delicate porcelain, and laced his fingers with yours.

The more time you spend with Felix, the longer the time without him gets. There’s a part of you that thinks it isn’t healthy, how much you rely on him for happiness, but the truth is that, well, you can’t stop. You can’t reject that little bit of joy you get when you’re with him, or you’ll truly have nothing.

And the more time you spend with Felix, the more obvious it gets how little you know about him. The more glaring all the topics you avoid talking about become. You’ve gotten vague descriptions about what he does for a living (“I’m a helper”, he’d said once, and that certainly didn’t reassure him about him not working for some shady operation but also, hey, to each their own), he’s never mentioned his family outside of “the guys”, and, most importantly, you never know when you’ll see him again.

Every time he leaves, every single time, you think that this could very well be the last time. You think that you would have no way of getting in touch with him, if you wanted to see him again, and the thought of him never coming back becomes sadder and sadder. Maybe it would be better to rip the band-aid off — but you can’t.

You start trying to find other things. You visit your sister a few times, and she seems delighted, as does your niece. Her wife welcomes you with open arms, too, as she always does. You invite your brother over as well, and things are more strained with him, because he doesn’t like talking much, so you end up playing board games with him, since you have them laying around now, and you remember why you were such a sore loser when you have to watch him celebrate when he crushes you at some stupid game, which was all based on luck any way because if this was about skills you would have fucking destroyed him and— Ahem.

But even that brings you back to Felix, to how happy he looks when he wins, and to how sorry for you he gets afterwards. When you won, he pouted a lot, and then he wrapped his arms around you while you were both on the couch, trying to pick a movie. “I need comforting,” he’d said, and warmth had spread through your entire body.

You even shyly get back in touch with some of your old friends. It’s hard at first, but it comes back to you surprisingly easily. You’re taken aback to hear that they missed you, and it’s— Well. It makes you want to try a little harder, maybe. Because it’s— nice, to have friends. You suppose.

Would be nicer if you could introduce them to Felix. But it’s a start.

You don’t even jump when there’s a knock against your window. You’ve gotten used to it. Felix sometimes takes the stairs or the elevator — usually the stairs, because he doesn’t want to risk running into one of your neighbors — but your stairs seem to remain his favorite way of coming into your apartment.

“I snuck out!” is the first thing he tells you, with the brightest of smiles. You know at this point, he also does it because you like to hear him say it.

“I thought you might,” you smile, opening the window wide for him. He puts a hand on your shoulders as he jumps through, and uses it to give you a quick hug. You’re not usually big on those kind of demonstrations of affection, but you don’t mind them with Felix. You’d swear the hug lasts longer than necessary, but you’re not complaining.

The two of you have been slowly… shifting, you’d say, as far as friendships go. You’re definitely friends, that’s not the problem, it’s just that you’re also friends that flirt, a lot. Friends that hold hands, friends that frequently kiss each other on the cheek, and friends whose heart rushes suddenly at all that proximity.

Okay, that one’s just you. You’re not sure that things are the same for Felix. You’re not complaining about that, either. You’ve quite— enjoyed the feelings that have been developing, lately. You’re being careful with them, not wanting to get hurt, but so far everything’s just been nice. You know you’re taking a risk, a gamble, on that one. You’re also willing to do it.

“So what are we doing?” he asks, letting go of you, leaving you to feel cold. “Disney movie?”

Oh, right. Stuff. You’re supposed to be doing stuff.

“Actually,” you say, “I’ve made a chocolate cake, and I wanted you to try it first.”

His eyes sparkle with immediate interest.

“Tell me more.”

You laugh, then get to your kitchen, where you’ve left it to cool off a little.

“So the thing is, the inside of that one should be melted chocolate, if I’ve done it right,” you explain. “The thing is you have to put in chocolate in the middle, and then when you cook it, it melts.”

You couldn’t have seen yourself discussing that stuff with a guy you were interested in just a few years ago, and even less so them listening, but Felix is giving you his undivided attention. Which is… quite a nice feeling.

You cut him a slice, and it seems to have worked, but you’re still nervous when he takes the first bite. You watch him, knowing that he’ll be completely incapable of hiding how he feels about it, but he looks up at you, clearly pleasantly surprised, and you release a long breath.

“It’s good! Really sweet, but… No, no, don’t worry! I like sweet!”

“Ah, I’m so glad you like it,” you sigh. “I’ve been so worried about it. I mean, I’ve gotten better, but baking is still not my thing.” His eyes glint with pride and fondness when you say that. Because he knows he’s the one who made you do this — and also because you did it for him. You may not realize how much that means to him, but he’s more than aware. Truly, you have no way of knowing how much he appreciates everything you’ve done for him — the kind words, the gentle touches, the aggressive appreciation — since he first met you. But they’re all things he’ll never forget.

“Okay, then let’s grab that,” you continue, unaware of what he’s thinking about in that moment, “and let’s watch, uh, what do you want to watch?”

It doesn’t really matter to you, and the truth is, you’re not sure it matters much to him either. What you’re watching is less important than who you’re watching with.

When he sits down, you throw your legs over his lap, and he glares at you a second, before his eyes focus back on the screen. Maybe his hands linger on your thighs, in that position. Maybe he takes one of your hands in his and rubs circles over your skin with his thumb. And it’s all light and pleasant and it feels good, in a way where there is just enough of that delightful tension between the two of you.

What matters is that, when he leaves, he promises he’ll be back soon, and he’s standing a little too close to you, and he playfully takes your hand to leave a kiss on it, as though he were a knight courting a princess. But his lips are soft on your skin, and the contact electrifies you in a way that is completely new for you, with him. There’s an interrogation in his eyes when he pulls away, as if he was wondering if it was okay.

“I can’t wait for you to be back,” you say.

It is more than okay.

When he leaves, your heart is beating so fast a little laugh escapes your lips as you sit down, waiting the giddy feeling inside you to calm down. And it does, only to start again when you think of Felix. You let out another quiet laugh.

Damn. You really had to fall in love with a guy who won’t even tell you where he lives, huh?

One of your favorite things about being around Felix is that you’ve gotten to a point where you don’t need to be doing anything. Like today. The two of you baked together — brownies this time — and then you ended up on your couch, somehow. You’d grabbed a book, and him one of the graphic novels you had lying around, and comfortable silence had fallen on you.

You’re not sure how you ended up in the position you’re in when he calls your name, with you sprawled on top of him, one of his arms wrapped over your upper chest area, right under your neck. Either way, you find yourself rolling around to look at him, which makes him laugh, before it’s obviously a whole ordeal, and the laugher quiets down when it’s done and you both realize that you’re just completely lying on top of him.

Your eyes drop to his lips. You’ve… been thinking about his lips a lot, lately. And it’s completely natural to you, long awaited in fact, when you prop yourself up on an elbow, and you kiss him softly.

His eyes are closed before your lips meet, and there’s a discreet, content sigh that escapes him when they do. It starts off slow, sweet, delicate. Just lips touching, moving against each other like the flutter of a butterfly’s wings. One of his hands moves up to cup your face, and your fists tighten around his shirt. His tongue brushes against your lips and you tilt your head to make it easier. The sound of his mouth on yours fills the room, and the warmth you’re always feeling around him spreads through your entire body.

In that moment, there’s nothing but him. His lips, his tongue, one of his hands on your face, the other closing on your hip. You feel a low grunt forming in his throat as he pulls you a little closer to him, almost greedily, and for a second the kiss is much less sweet, much more intense. It’s a side of him you haven’t seen yet, pressing against you, fingers tilting your head up towards him as his mouth hungrily demands more, which you’re happily willing to give to him. You let out a soft moan, shift on top of him, and—

And that’s when he moves away. He keeps his forehead against yours, and his hands remain where they were. He’s panting, you can feel his breath on your face, but he keeps his eyes closed for a moment. The hand on your waist squeezes, just a second.

Before he lets it fall to the side.

“I’m sorry,” he says. His voice echoes through you. “I need to— I have to go.”

Ice cold spills onto your heart, and you scramble to get off of him.

“Oh,” you say. “Yeah. Sure. Of course.”

You avoid looking at him as you get up from the couch, clearing your throat awkwardly. You miss the lost way his eyes follow you, the genuinely conflicted look in his eyes. You miss the moment when he raises a hand as if to stop you from leaving when you’re moving away, opens his mouth to say something, and then how his eyes dim and he dejectedly closes his mouth.

You escort him to the door, and the two of you stand there in an awkward, painful silent for a while. Such a far cry from the first time he came into the apartment. Felix keeps taking a deep breath as if to start speaking, and then stopping himself, and your eyes are resolutely focused on his feet, refusing to look at him.

“I’ll… Uh…”

“Yeah,” you nod. “Yeah, we should do that.”

When he calls your name, voice small and quiet, though, you have no choice but to look at him.

There’s so much sadness in his eyes. You can tell he’s fighting with himself, but also that he’s already made his choice.

And that choice is not you.

Still, when his hand comes to cup your face, and he starts leaning forward, eyes questioning yours, you do nothing to stop him. The kiss is just as soft as the first one, but this time it’s laced with infinite sadness, and there’s nothing you can do about that. You wish you could. You wish you could bring as much as happiness to Felix as he does to you.

But that’s not who you are.

“I’ll try to be back soon,” he promises you, and you know he means it from the desperate look in his eyes. It’s also plain to see that he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to do it. Whatever it is he does out there, it must be important to him, and it would be easier if he just told you. If he gave you an explanation — any explanation.

You wait as the silence hangs between the two of you, but Felix bites the inside of his cheek, and takes a step back.

“I’ll be back soon,” he repeats, trying to sound assured.

You give him a smile. Even as he’s leaving and your heart is in shambles, seeing him and knowing you’ve had the chance to have him in your life makes you feel so lucky that you just have to. How ungrateful of you it would be not to. Even if it is making you this sad that you can’t keep him.

You’re not really surprised when time stretches on without you seeing Felix again. It’s sad, but really, life without him is just— normal. There are a few improvements he brought with him, directly or indirectly. The fact that you sometimes bake, the new recipe you use for cookies, your sister’s more frequent calls, and the fact that you’re talking to your old friends again.

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t miss him — just like he was lying when he told you he’d be back soon — but you’ve gotten very good at not thinking of the people you miss.

Sometimes though, something reminds you of them, and pain explodes in your chest.

So you suppose you should consider yourself lucky that you don’t have enough memories with him that there isn’t much to remind you of him.

Liar.

That’s the saddest thing of all.

It’s the end of October when you get an offer from your high school friends to meet up in a café, which takes you by surprise. Only a few of them are in town, and it’s only for a small reunion — grabbing a drink, spending a couple of hours together — but you accept it hesitantly.

And it turns out to be fun. You don’t speak much, which some comment on, because you used to have an opinion on everything. You throw a few quips here and there, and they laugh. Used to it. Used to it because they used to know you.

Maybe you haven’t changed as much as you’d thought. Maybe the world’s kept turning, and maybe you aren’t as broken as you’d felt.

You’re thinking of that, hands buried in your pockets, when you walk home, and that’s where you see him, standing in front of your building.

A blonde boy, a blonde man, dressed in white, leaning against a fence. He’s gazing up at the sky, a thoughtful look on his face. You can see smoke hanging in the cold air when he breathes.

When he turns around and sees you, he smiles, soft and — you think — genuinely happy.

“Hey,” you say, approaching him. “I’m sorry, I was out with friends. Have you been waiting here for long?”

Felix shakes his head, and though his lips are barely curved up, there’s so much warmth and affection in his eyes that you want to drown into them.

“Don’t worry. That’s on me, isn’t it?”

You blink. There’s something self-deprecative in his tone that you don’t like. It’s not like he’s wrong — he’s always showing up without a warning, and the only reason why that worked so far is because you were never doing anything outside of work — but also it’s always been fine. You don’t want him to look negatively at what the two of you had, whatever that was. That would… That would break your heart for good.

“Did you have fun?”

“I— did, actually. I had a really good time.”

Felix nods as if he expected you to say that, new resolve in his eye.

“Want to go for a walk?” he offers.

“Not afraid someone will see you?” you try to tease, but his shoulders fall a little at that.

“They probably won’t notice me,” he says, which is quite a strange thing to say. You can’t imagine not noticing Felix. Not when he looks like that.

“Sure, then,” you shrug.

And when you start walking with him, you grab his hand. He glances down, and a brief smile flashes on his face. A bright one, too, that reaches his eyes. It’s gone in a second, though, but he doesn’t let go of your hand. Instead, he carefully guides it to his pocket, where he keeps his fingers tightly wrapped around yours.

It’s sweet.

“So,” he says, “those friends. You’re going to see them again?”

“I’m not sure,” you admit. “A lot of them aren’t around often. They’ve added me to their group chat, though, so I can at least— know how they’re doing, you know? Keep an eye on them, even if I don’t really participate, because ugh, talking to people.”

“Maybe they’d like to know how you’re doing, too.”

“I’m always doing the same,” you chuckle.

It’s strange, he thinks, how your words echo his thoughts. He also doesn’t see why you’d want to keep an eye on him. He’s always doing the same. Has been for— a long time. A long, long time.

“It’s good if you have them, though,” he says, not letting himself get too caught up in that. He can’t. He’s here for a reason, and a good one, too.

He’s already let himself get carried away too much.

“Yeah. It’s quite nice.”

At least he knows you have people looking after you. That should make things easier.

It doesn’t.

“So, I— The guys have noticed that I was sneaking out and I— I don’t know if I’m going to be able to keep doing that.”

He’s such a coward.

“Yeah, you do.”

Your voice is quiet. The truth is, you know a break-up when you see one coming. Not that Felix and you were something that was worth having a break-up over, but still. You can tell when someone is trying to be nice. Or, maybe, in Felix’s case, trying not to face reality head on.

He drops your hand and stops. The two of you are now in the park where you’d seen him, over a year ago now.

He looks so sad.

“I’m sorry,” he says. You know he means it.

You take him in. His cheeks, turned red from the cold, his blonde hair, like a halo around him, his freckles that you never got the chance to count. His lips that you’ve thought of more than you’d like to admit, recently. And his black eyes, the window to his soul, with a whirlwind of emotions swirling in them. You don’t try to read them. You’re sure you know them all too well.

“You still won’t tell me why?”

You’re not trying to make this more difficult for him. You just think you deserve to know.

But unsurprisingly, he shakes his head.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I wish— I wish I could—” He stops himself. It wouldn’t be fair to continue. To tell you ‘You’re someone I want to see every day’. ‘I never want to leave your side’. It’s probably better if he doesn’t say it.

Just like, no matter how bad he wants to, it’s probably better if he doesn’t kiss you again.

“Well, those things happen, don’t they?” you shrug.

You don’t know why you’re so calm about it. You probably shouldn’t be, but it’s not like you’re wrong. People come into your life, and then one day they’re gone.

Especially those you love the most.

“At least we had a good time,” you say. You’re trying hard to smile. You don’t think you are.

You hope you won’t start crying until he’s gone.

“I’m sorry,” Felix repeats.

He takes a step towards and gently, gently, he presses a kiss to your forehead.

Then he walks by you, and though you’re telling yourself not to, you turn around to watch him go. If this is the last time you see him, because you’ll have no way of finding him again, you don’t want to lose a second of him.

It’s for the best, you tell yourself when he disappears.

The tears, they just mean you cared.

All in all, you do a decent job of not thinking about Felix, you’d say. You’ve had practice.

But when December rolls around, after you’ve burned through November mostly unharmed, it becomes harder. The closer Christmas gets, the more you think of him. You keep out of the apartment, where you saw him the most, and you try your best to distract yourself.

On the 24th though, when you’re walking home from the store, having bought enough chocolates to get yourself through this godawful night, you’re feeling a little gloomy. It’s late at night, and it started snowing a couple hours ago. That reminds you of him, but also it’s quite pretty, so you’re not complaining.

Your mom would have loved it.

She would have loved Felix, too, and that thought brings you some comfort. Almost enough that when you round the corner, you’re telling yourself that maybe you won’t be too miserable tonight. The street is empty, because everyone in their right mind is already home, probably to their loved ones, hopefully having a good time. You don’t dislike it, though.

Until the fucking van appears, materializes, right in front of a building, and you stop dead in your tracks, unable to believe it. Seven guys jump out of the back, one of them shouting something to the driver — Minho, your mind supplies, immediately going back to what Felix had told you. Your eyes immediately focus on the one you know. Felix is checking with the others, looking to see what they do, eyes wide. His blonde hair fall down to his chin, and you think that he has barely changed since you first met him. He flashes a brief smile to one of the guys, who pats him on the shoulders as he walks by him, but the smile dims uncharacteristically fast, and it’s all gone when the guys run into the building.

All sorts of emotions are rushing through you. The main one, though, is what the fuck?

Not because of the van, not because of the teleportation, but because, come on, the least he could do is not be around. That’s just not fair. He doesn’t get to— to stop visiting you for no reason, after kissing you — okay, that one’s mostly on you, but he initiated the second kiss —, and to never give you any way of contacting him or even of knowing he’s alive, and then to still be dilly-dallying around your town, where you risk seeing him.

Except, well, of course he gets to. Just because it makes you sad isn’t a reason for him to essentially stop existing in the same town as you.

Still, there’s something that feels quite unfair in seeing him right now. Like twisting a knife in a wound.

You don’t think much when you cross the street to take a closer look at the van. You make sure not to be seen by the guy at the front — good-looking, from what you can tell, even with the annoyed pout he’s sporting, and wearing a Santa hat, which, really, what is it with these guys? — and glance inside, since they’ve left the back doors wide open.

And what you see confuses you even more.

Inside, there is a huge pile of Christmas presents, all perfectly wrapped up, red, green, or decorated with pictures of red-nosed deers, complete with big golden ribbons. It raises almost to the ceiling of the van, and it makes you think of one of these movies where kids end up at the North Pole and inside Santa’s workshop.

Which is a ridiculous thought to be having… right?

You feel the presence behind you before you hear the deep laugh. You start turning around, about ready to finally punch someone, because people have been testing you, as of late, but before you can do that, you feel hands against your shoulder blades, pushing you inside the van. You shriek, try to catch yourself, but despite that, you fall, face first, into the heap of presents.

Minho jumps from his seat at the sound, and rushes to the back of the van. He curses when he finds some presents that have fallen off. Shit. The guys will be hearing about that when they get back. He throws them inside without consideration, then glances left and right into the street. They’re not supposed to be seen, or rather, not noticed, and that could have gotten someone’s attention.

But the street is completely desert, and he nods to himself before going back to his seat.

You gasp when you fall out of the pile of presents and let out a number of well-chosen curses. But when you turn around, ready to give that asshole with the creepy laugh an earful, you’re faced with the pile of presents you just got out of.

Except. Well. It’s way, way bigger. The one you saw in the van was about your height, you’d say. This one— This one, you can’t tell.

And you’re not inside the van. Or in your street.

You try to look around, to gauge what the situation is, and you’re faced with— more piles of presents. In fact, as far as you can see, in every direction, there are big piles of gifts. In the middle, a small path, for just one person, twists and turns. Far above you, as though coming through invisible speakers, plays a distant Christmas music.

This has officially gotten too weird for you to panic.

At this point, the most logical explanation is that you’re dreaming. You don’t think you are, but, well, what else could it be? None of this makes sense.

Still clutching your bag full of boxes of chocolate in your hand, you start carefully walking down the path.

“Um, hello? Is someone there?”

No answer.

Okay.

You take a few more steps, telling yourself you’d at least see what’s behind the curve. You can’t say you’re surprised when it’s just more presents, but that doesn’t stop your breath from quickening, despite your attempts at keeping yourself calm. Panicking won’t solve anything. There has to be a way out. The path has to leave somewhere. You’re not going to stay lost here forever. You’ll probably just— wake up. Even if you don’t remember falling asleep.

You keep walking, almost physically unable to stop yourself, and a trembling breath escapes you when all you see is, well. Still more presents.

It’s fine. You’ll be— You’ll be fine.

You’re trying to keep things under control, to focus on something else other than your thoughts, which are not helping, when you grab one of them. The label immediately gets your attention. It’s filled with elegant writing, and it reads… ‘Enough courage to make it through the next year’.

Huh.

This actually makes you pause. You know it’s only going to be a temporary distraction, but as your breathing goes back to normal, you check another one. This one says ‘happiness at dinner’. The next one, ‘a really bright smile’, the one after ‘a beautiful dream’, then ‘a lost picture of a loved one’, then ‘a happy memory of one’s mother’.

This last one has your heart missing a beat, and you think you’ll risk opening it, when you hear laughter, making you jump.

“Alright, guys,” a voice says, “we’re done with this place. Everyone here?”

A chorus of voices answer, as you try to figure out where they’re coming from. But among them, there is one deep one that you would identify immediately in the middle of a crowd.

“Can we do the presents now?” a lighter, higher voice asks.

“We need to finish the night first,” the first voice sighs, immediately met by protests.

“C’mon, Chan,” the person whines. “You know we almost always get things that make it easier. Remember when Jeongin got ‘lightning speed for the night’, a couple of years ago?”

“We’re not doing it, Han. If we’d waited last year, we could have found Felix—”

“I told you I’d be careful this year,” Felix’s deep voice says, though with an edge of annoyance that you’re not used to, coming from him. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

“Well, maybe, but…”

“Ah, come on, just let them open it! They’re going to be insufferable otherwise!”

That’s a new voice. You’re starting to enjoy the drama of it all.

“Alright, get to it,” Chan sighs. “Han, you wanna— You went for it already. Great.”

There’s an aspiration sound somewhere next to you and you whip your head, just in time to see some presents fall down. One of them rolls down to your feet.

Okay. So something did leave this place. A huge weight falls off your chest. You’re not sure how it works, but the knowledge that there’s a way out certainly does wonder for you.

“’The energy not to fall asleep until the end of the night’. Very funny, Santa,” Han comments, somewhere above you. Or next to you. You’re not sure.

“You know how it works,” Chan says, and you can hear the smile in his voice. “It gives you what you need most. Who’s next?”

Later, you’d wonder why you didn’t think of calling out to them. Maybe it was just because, in that moment, you didn’t feel alone. So, instead, you listen as Changbin gets ‘stronger muscles’, whatever that means, Hyunjin gets ‘the ability not to get dirtied in chimneys’ (which makes Changbin protest ‘but why does he need that?’) and Seungmin ‘the confidence to speak to children’.

“Does that mean we’re going to get caught again tonight?” he asks cautiously.

“Probably,” Chan answers. “Felix, you want a go?”

There’s a moment of silence, and you find yourself holding your breath. You can almost picture him. You imagine his slight pout, his sad eyes, you see him hesitating.

“Sure,” he finally says.

You hear a ruffle close by. Closer than anything before. You barely think before you basically drop into the pile of presents, trying to figure a way out.

That’s when a small hand you’ve held in yours many times before grabs your wrist.

And pulls.

Before you know it, you’re falling forward again, going through the presents, and then suddenly you’re tumbling into Felix’s arms. You hear yourself gasp for air, and you can only grab onto his shoulders not to fall. His eyes go wide, but instinctively, one of his arms wraps around your waist, supporting you. His mouth hangs open, his pupils searching yours desperately, as though he wasn’t sure whether or not you were real. You expect him to let go of you immediately, but he doesn’t. Instead, he brings you closer, right into him, and closes his eyes. You can feel his hair tickling your cheek.

He’s mumbling stuff by your ear. You recognize “I missed you”, “I’m sorry”, “Don’t go”, and the rest is a blur.

Despite the admittedly incredibly weird circumstances, being in his arms feels like coming home.

“Erm,” someone says behind you, “What’s going on here?”

You feel Felix flinch at the question.

Claws out, then.

“I’d like to know that too,” you say, turning your head to glare at the group of six guys, all dressed in red, as though it was a uniform of some kind. “Starting with which one of you assholes pushed me into the presents.”

That’s not like you to say, at least not to strangers, but you’re not really in your usual state. You don’t think anyone would be right now, considering everything.

“Well, at least she’s nice,” Han says.

That’s when Felix lets go of you, and you stumble away from him — but not too far, because one of his hands keeps hold of your wrist. His grip is strong, even a little too much, and you’re the one who removes his hand, gently, to take it in yours instead.

“That has to be Santa, right?” Felix asks, squeezing your hand for comfort. “That sounds like a thing he would do.”

Santa. Sure. That actually sounds weirdly reasonable, with everything that’s happened so far.

“So if it’s Santa,” Felix keeps going, with an unfamiliar fragility in his voice, “that means he’s not— mad at me, right? It’s fine that I’ve been… You know. Seeing her.”

“You’ve been sneaking out because of a girl!” Han gasps.

You don’t have to look to know Felix is blushing, and the guys’ teasing smiles do nothing to make it better. But one of them is chuckling softly.

“Chan? It’s fine, right?” Felix asks him, and you know Chan is the one whose opinion will matter most to Felix. If he dares to answer him no, you’ll be kicking someone’s ass.

“Yeah, Felix. I’m sure it’s fine.”

You feel Felix’s body relax completely next to you, and then he wraps both arms around you, his chest pressed against your back, and he buries his face in your neck.

“I’ve missed you,” he whispers. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“Same here, but, uh—”

“You must have a lot of questions,” Chan says.

You look him over carefully. He has a kind face, but unlike the others, there is something serious about his demeanor. Something solemn. It makes him a little intimidating, actually, and you can see why Felix cared about him, but you think he’s the one you’d be most cautious around. Despite that, you nod. It is more than time for you to get your answers.

“Damn right I do.”

“Alright. I’ll explain.”

“So, long story short, you guys are helpers for the various holidays and other, uh, supernatural kids’ stuff. Eastern bunny, tooth fairy… Sandman, maybe?”

“Wow, Chan,” Seungmin snaps from the corner where he’s been sitting for the last half-hour, clearly bored out of his mind, “it’s almost like you could have just said that instead of going on about the history of Santa’s workshops for hours.”

Chan rolls his eyes at him. You didn’t mind the long-winded explanation, personally, you could appreciate the lore. You did feel a bit weird about how he told you they could pinpoint humans at any time. ‘To check their behavior,’ he’d said when you’d complained that looked like a gross invasion of privacy. That had not helped. But at least, when you’d asked Felix about whether he’d done that, he’d promised it had just been to make sure you were okay. And, well, you couldn’t be too mad about that.

“You’re elves,” you conclude, not just because Santa seems to be their direct superior, but also because, if you’ve understood everything correctly, they’re… more or less immortal. In a Lost Boys kind of way, not in a vampire way, but still. Kind of immortal.

“Yes,” Han answers, while Chan replies “Absolutely not.”

Then they start bickering — ‘Dude, we’re basically elves’, ‘You’ve met elves, how can you even say that?’ — and you watch, amused, as others start joining — ‘Santa should have gotten me the ability to not hear you anymore’, ‘To be fair, you’re at least as old as the elves now, Chan’. You could get annoyed, but you’re feeling calm right now. Comfortable.

That probably has a lot to do with the fact that you’re sitting in Felix’s lap. He hasn’t let go of you since you were, well, gifted to him, you suppose. He remained quiet for most of Chan’s explanations, putting his head on your shoulder, playing with your hands. He hasn’t said much, only added a few discreet comments here and there, but you think there is a lot that can wait until the two of you are alone.

He still looks sad, and you don’t know what to do about it. You hate that he’s so sad. You’d do anything to change it.

“We work for Santa,” he explains, voice low, when the others don’t stop arguing. You can feel the vibrations of his voice going through you. “We all— had reasons to want, er, out, basically. So he took us in and we— help where we can.” He looks up at you. Thoughtful, almost contemplative. “But people aren’t supposed to know about us. Kids are fine. Adults… There are stories about some of us just disappearing, when they were noticed by too many people. For individuals, we usually erase their memories.”

“But you didn’t erase mine.”

“If I did, you wouldn’t have remembered me,” he mumbles, bashfully looking away from you. “I know I should have, but—”

“Oh, I would be so pissed at you if you tried to erase my memories.”

That finally makes him crack a smile.

You’ve missed his smile so much.

“Yeah?”

“Ha, I’d like to see you try. I can be a real contrarian when I want to be.”

Now he’s fully grinning, with that wide grin of his that shows his teeth. And you kinda really want to kiss him.

“Uh, it’s not that you guys aren’t cute, but…”

Felix quickly moves away, awkwardly clearing his throat, a blush spreading on his cheeks. You’re a lot more shameless, and instead you glare at Chan, who just seems amused by the situation.

“…we need to talk about what we do now.”

Felix’s arms tighten around you, and you put your hand on his, trying to reassure him. No one’s taking you away from him. You wouldn’t let them.

“What do you mean what we do now? This is fine, right?”

“It’s fine, Felix, it’s just…” Chan gets a little closer. “This— We are supposed to be… You know. Temporary. And maybe it’s time for you to… Go back.” Then he looks at you. “If you’re alright with it.”

You understand what he means immediately. You’re not quite sure how long Felix has been there, with them, but you’ve grasped that he doesn’t really have anything to go back to. Except now, he has you.

“I mean, normally I wouldn’t move in with a boyfriend who I haven’t seen in two months, but I suppose I could make an exception. For extenuating circumstances.”

There’s a moment of silence, and you’d swear you hear Felix repeat ‘Boyfriend’ under his breath, as if to test it out, before he looks between you and Chan.

“I don’t want to leave you guys. I don’t know how to— The world is kinda— Terrifying.”

“But you won’t be facing it alone,” Chan says, voice soft. And then it takes a threatening edge when he looks at you and says, “Right?” which you take to mean ‘If you hurt him the world will not be big enough for you to hide and I will find you no matter where you go’.

“Right,” you nod.

It may not be usual, but there are few things you’ve been as sure about in your life.

“Felix, you’ve been miserable recently. Don’t you think—?”

“Maybe you’re right,” Felix finally says.

He looks at you, and you see him slowly take his decision as he stares into your eyes.

“Yeah. You’re right.”

Goodbyes are tearful. There are many promises of visiting and seeing each other soon, of not forgetting each other, of doing well. There’s also a promise of delivering identity papers, ‘because Santa will handle it’, which makes them sound like they’re in the mafia, again, but you don’t comment on it.

You almost say that maybe Felix should stay, when he cries hugging Chan. You hold back, though, because you know it wasn’t an easy decision for him to make, and you don’t want to question him. Not at this point. You know you would be doing it to make yourself feel less guilty, and you don’t think it would make things easier for Felix in any way.

“Hey,” a voice says next to you, someone you think is Changbin. “Here’s your gift.”

You recognize, immediately, the gift you were holding in that strange place, with all the presents. ‘A happy memory of one’s mother’.

“Thanks,” you say. Your voice barely manages to come out, and you can feel yourself choking up a little. “I, uh… Can I— Can I share that? Or give it to someone else?”

Changbin raises an eyebrow.

“I mean, sure. You just need to put it onto someone’s gift and it will… Get to them when they open the real one.”

You nod. You think your brother might need that more than you do right now.

“Take care of ‘Lix, okay?” Changbin asks.

It makes you smile. You’re sure all of them want to tell you the same thing, and you’re not surprised he’s the one who actually came forward with it. You don’t hesitate to answer him. You want nothing more than to take care of Felix.

“It will go both ways, I’m sure, but I’ll do my best.”

“Figures, with ‘Lix,” he grins fondly. “We just— we want him to be happy, you know?”

You sigh, looking at Felix. Everyone is surrounding him now, goodbyes taking much longer than they should. You think maybe making it last only hurts more, but you don’t say anything, because…

“I know.”

When Felix finally joins you, the two of you watch and wave as the van leaves. It vanished a few meters away from you, in this strange, red flash you’ve already witnessed once before. The street goes back to being quiet, and it’s just you and him, standing under the snow. The streetlights are your only companions, and there’s nothing to break the moment when you look at him, only to find him already staring at you.

“No regrets?” you ask, despite yourself. “I’m sure we can call them if—”

“No regrets,” he answers. He sounds certain. A little sad, perhaps, but certain. “I think… It probably had to be done.”

“Wanna go home now, then?”

He smiles at you.

“Home,” he repeats. “Heh.” And then, quieter, “I’m happy to be spending Christmas with you, this year.”

You think about it for a second. Today still has a different feel from what it used to be, back when you’d celebrate with your mother. It’s not as light, as joyful, as loudly happy as it was then. But for the first time in years, there’s something special in the air. It might not be your mom’s Christmas, but this could just be yours.

“Me too,” you answer.

Felix kisses you under the snow, and it’s Christmas indeed.

“Merry Christmas! Now where is my favorite niece?”

You laugh when the first thing Felix does, as you walk into your sister’s house, is call out for your sister’s daughter. She comes out, screaming in delight, and the first thing she does is throw herself into his arms. He lifts her up easily. Over the last year, he’s easily become her favorite uncle, much to your brother’s dismay. You told him not to be upset because he was no match for Felix — which, surprisingly, upset him even more, and you’re pretty sure the two of them are now on the verge of an all out war for the title of ‘best uncle’.

Your sister and her wife come out to greet you, and you feel emotion bubble in your chest when you see the light swell of your sister’s belly. Her wife was the one who’d carried your niece, and you knew they’d started the procedures for another kid recently. You couldn’t be happier for them.

“It’s so good to see you,” your sister says, hugging you tightly. “So happy you could make it for Christmas this year!”

Well, you have Felix to thank for that. With him, you feel like you can take on anything — even Christmas. Plus, he loves Christmas, and you want to give him… The world.

It’s been an interesting year. Complicated, sometimes, happy, for most of it. Lots of time spent in each other’s arms, learning everything there was to know about him. Finding out which kisses he loved most, and how to make him the happiest. Finding out what angered him or what hurt him, too, often unintentionally. It had rocked your world, truly, to start living with someone else full time, but it was worth it, and being convinced of that made everything bearable.

Felix had gotten a job through a mysterious ‘Santa network’ that he swore up and down was nothing like a mafia, and was starting to look to pick up studying again. He occasionally disappeared to go help his friends (‘volunteering’, he called it), and there were a few times where the whole gang reunited at your place — yours and Felix’s, now — for a drink. Which was fun.

And, of course, your family had welcomed him as well. Your sister and her wife had opened their arms to him immediately, without even thinking about it, just because he was who you’d chosen. Your brother had needed a little longer to be won over, and your father was still a work in progress.

But even he’d told you that your mother would have loved Felix, last time you’d visited, and you couldn’t think of a higher compliment, coming from him.

“Are you excited for Santa this year?” Felix asks your niece, who rolls her eyes.

“I know Santa isn’t real,” she pouts. “I’m a big girl now.”

“Oh, he’s very real. I’ve met him.”

“He’s real and a bully,” you add, and this time it’s Felix who rolls his eyes at you.

“What, do you have regrets about Santa’s intervention?” he asks you, sounded almost offended.

“None whatsoever,” you promise, kissing him on the cheek. “But I maintain that he could have found a kinder way to get us together.”

It’s obvious that your niece think you’re both pulling her leg and making up stuff on the spot. You don’t blame her for that. She’s a smart kid, after all.

Sure, it’s all true, but it also makes no sense, so that’s fine.

It’s late at night when you hear noise in the living-room. Your niece has gone to bed a long time ago, and though your sister has insisted she wasn’t tired, she’s obviously on the verge of falling asleep, too. Your sister-in-law has had a few glasses of wine, and you can tell that she’s also quite tired. They both seem to barely notice it — but you and Felix exchange a knowing glance.

“I’ll go take a look at what that is,” he says.

“I’m coming with you,” you immediately follow, getting up from your chair as well.

“Don’t spook Santa!’ your sister-in-law laughs. “I think it’s time for the two of us to get ourselves to bed,” she adds with a yawn.

You have no intention of spooking Santa.

But it’s not him in the living room, it’s seven clumsy guys that really, really shouldn’t have all gotten inside this house all together. Then again, you know Bang Chan probably tried to stop them, and they were uncontainable.

They all freeze when you and Felix open the door, and relax when they recognize you. Hyunjin shakes his head disapprovingly at you.

Maybe you did spook Santa a little, after all.

“Everything okay, guys?” you ask them, unable to stop yourself from smiling.

“We just wanted to come hand-deliver your presents,” Chan explains. He’s grinning too, and his dimples are showing. “And maybe check on you guys a little.”

Your smile widens when you tell them that you have presents for them — you and Felix decided to take them to your sister’s house, expecting that something like this would happen. So you find yourself sitting down with seven not-Christmas-elves and one former not-Christmas-elf, sharing presents, laughing in silence so you won’t wake up anyone, knowing that in the morning, you’ll have Felix by your side and you’ll be watching your niece open her gifts.

It may not feel like a traditional one, but it feels like one of your Christmases. And as Felix smiles widely at you, so bright he lights up the whole room, you know you wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.