#i feel like i should know those characters on the bottom but its been a bit since i watched season one | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

octaneink · 2 months ago

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Easy Love

Will Lenney x Reader

Summary: The Reader tries a new scent, Will definitely notices. Warnings: None! Notes: Not an ask, just a random idea I thought would be cute ☺️☺️☺️

You'd been meaning to reorganise the junk drawer all week.

It was a task that nags at you every time you fish for a pen and come up with nothing but dried-out pens and a handful of foreign coins. Today, the mess had reached critical mass when you'd been searching for the spare key to your place and instead unearthed three dead AA batteries and what might have been a receipt from 2019.

So at 2 PM on Sunday, with golden afternoon light pooling across the kitchen tiles, you'd upended the entire drawer onto the counter. The contents formed a sad little monument to domestic chaos: twisted phone chargers, a single cufflink, half a dozen IKEA Allen wrenches, and at least three pens that definitely didn't work.

Will had watched this from his throne in the living room armchair, one eyebrow arched over the top of his novel. "Spring cleaning?" he'd asked, already knowing the answer.

"It's making me itchy just looking at it," you'd grumbled, aggressively untangling a knot of cables. "How do we even accumulate this much crap?”

That was an hour ago.

Now you're kneeling on the kitchen floor, elbow-deep under the sink, fingers brushing against the cold pipe as you search for the trash bags you could have sworn you bought last week. The cabinet smells faintly of lemon cleaner and something metallic, and you're fairly certain your jumper is collecting dust bunnies the size of tumbleweeds.

"Will," you call, voice slightly muffled by the cabinet, "did you move the—"

The only response is the soft whisper of a page turning. You twist to see him through the doorway, still curled in the armchair with his book propped against his knees. Afternoon light gilds the curve of his shoulders, catching in his hair where it's fallen across his forehead. His thumb moves absently along the edge of the page, but his eyes never leave the text.

"Will?" You try again, louder this time, knocking your knuckles against the cabinet door for emphasis.

"Hm?" It's the kind of distracted noise people make when they're only physically present, their mind still wrapped around a plot twist or character's fate.

You give up with a huff, the cabinet door swinging shut with a hollow thud as you rock back on your heels. The floor had left angry red impressions on your knees, and your shoulders ached from being hunched in that cramped space for so long. When you finally straighten up, your spine cracks in three distinct places—the kind of satisfying pops that make you feel both ancient and temporarily relieved. The clock above the stove reads 3:07—if you leave now, you can make it before everything closes at 4.

"I'm running to the shop before it closes," you announce, brushing dust from your clothes. "Need to grab milk anyway. I'll pick you up a snack for work tomorrow—want anything specific? Those protein bars you like, or should I see if they have more of those weird spicy nuts?"

Will makes a noncommittal noise, but you’re already heading for the hallway, stripping off your dust-streaked jumper as you go.

In the bedroom, you tug on a fresh top and pause, eyeing the little glass bottle on your dresser. The perfume was a gift from a friend last month—“It’s so you,” they’d insisted—but you’d barely used it. Today feels as good a time to use it for the first time. You spritz it on, the scent blooming: vanilla, bright and sweet at first, then something deeper, spicier, like amber melting into skin.

You give your wrist an absentminded sniff. Nice. Maybe your friend was right, it does suit you. Leaving your bedroom, you walk to the door and grab your tote from the hook, digging through its depths for your keys. They jangle somewhere near the bottom, buried under crumpled receipts and a pack of gum.

That’s when you notice it.

The silence.

No rustling pages. No absent tap of Will’s fingers against the armrest. Just the weight of someone’s gaze, like a touch between your shoulder blades.

You turn.

Will hasn’t moved from his chair, but his book lies forgotten in his lap, spine bent at an unnatural angle. His eyes lock onto yours, then drop—slow, deliberate—to the curve of your neck. His throat bobs as he swallows.

“Going out?” Will asks again, his voice gravel-dipped. It’s not really a question. There’s an edge to it, a tension that makes your pulse skip. You finally fish out your keys with a triumphant jingle. "Yes, Sherlock," you say, shooting him an amused look over your shoulder. "Like I said five minutes ago when you were too busy with your book to listen."

His abandoned novel lies splayed on the armrest like a wounded bird, pages crumpled under his restless fingers. The sight gives you pause, Will never treats books this way. “Want anything else?”

His answer comes in movement rather than words. He rises with sudden purpose, the book tumbling to the rug as he crosses the space between you in three long strides. Before you can react, he's shrugging into his coat with uncharacteristic haste, the wool collar sitting askew, his hair mussed from where he'd raked an impatient hand through it.

"I'm coming with you," he says, his voice low and rough around the edges.

You blink. "Since when do you volunteer for grocery runs?" The tease in your voice falters as he steps closer, shrinking the hallway with his presence. The heat of him radiates through the scant space between you, his hand brushing the small of your back as he reaches past you for the door. His touch lingers just a beat too long, sending an unexpected shiver up your spine.

The intensity in his storm-grey eyes betrays his usual calm—something restless simmers beneath the surface. You notice the faint tremor in his fingers as he holds the door open, the taut line of his forearm muscles as he gestures you through.

Outside, the evening is crisp, the streetlamps casting honeyed pools of light on the pavement. Will walks closer than usual, his shoulder bumping yours whenever you round a corner. You catch him staring again, his gaze snagging on your throat, your wrists, and the pulse point behind your ear. When the wind tosses your hair, he inhales sharply, as if stealing a secret.

“You’re quiet today,” you say, half-turning to face him.

He stops short, his eyes darkening. For a heartbeat, you think he might say something—do something—his breath warm against your cheek. But then he steps back, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Just thinking,” he says, the words rough, like they’ve been dragged through gravel.

What’s got into him?

The shop's sign buzzes louder as you approach, flickering in the gathering dusk. Will lingers by the door just long enough to hold it open for you, his arm brushing yours as you pass through. The warmth of his body lingers where he touched you, even as he falls into step beside you.

You grab a plastic basket from the stack near the entrance, its handle creaking in your grip. Will reaches for the same one too, his fingers briefly overlapping yours before you both pull away. There's a charged moment where neither of you move—just stand there in the harsh light, baskets in hand, breathing the same air.

You tug one free, its grip creaking under your fingers. Behind you, Will shifts closer than necessary—his chest nearly grazing your shoulder—as if drawn by some magnetic pull. Out of the corner of your eye, you catch his hand twitch forward, fingertips skimming the air just above yours before curling into a fist.

For a heartbeat, neither of you move. The fluorescent lights hum overhead, bleaching the linoleum into a sterile white. You can feel the heat of him against your back, smell the faint cedar of his shampoo mixed with something sharper, almost feral.

“Right,” you say, clearing your throat, pivoting toward the dairy aisle, "Milk first."

The aisles are narrow enough that Will has to walk behind you, his presence a constant warmth at your back. When you stop to examine expiration dates on the milk cartons, he crowds closer than necessary, reaching past you to grab one. His chest brushes against your shoulder, solid and warm.

"Got it," he murmurs, his breath stirring the hair at your temple. The milk carton drops into your basket with a dull thud, but neither of you move away immediately.

At the coffee display, the rich, roasted scent wraps around you both as you survey the options. You reach for your usual blend at the same moment Will does, his hand covering yours completely. His skin is warm, his fingers slightly rough against yours. Instead of pulling away, his thumb strokes once—slow, deliberate—across your inner wrist where your pulse jumps.

"Sorry," he says, though his voice is anything but apologetic. His eyes drop to your mouth for a heartbeat too long before he finally steps back, leaving your skin tingling where he touched you.

You swallow hard, focusing on the coffee labels with sudden intensity. "S'alright," you manage, dropping a bag into your basket with slightly unsteady hands. When you glance up, Will's watching you with that same dark intensity, his fingers flexing at his sides like he's resisting the urge to reach for you again.

The moment stretches, thick with something unspoken, until Will clears his throat and reaches past you for the sugar. His arm brushes against yours, his chest nearly pressing into your shoulder as he leans in. His breath ghosts warm over the shell of your ear, sending an involuntary shiver down your spine.

"Forgot we were out of this," he says, voice pitched low just for you. The words vibrate through you, and you're suddenly hyperaware of every point of contact between you.

At the checkout, the cashier—an old woman with a knowing smirk—watches with undisguised interest as Will crowds into your space while you unload the basket. His fingers keep brushing yours as you both reach for items, each accidental (or not-so-accidental) touch sending little electric jolts up your arms.

When your hand trembles slightly while handing over cash, Will's fingers cover yours again, ostensibly to help but really just another excuse to touch. "I've got it." he says, his deep voice resonating in your chest as he stands close enough that you can smell the faint remnants of his cologne mixed with something uniquely Will.

The cashier arches an eyebrow as she hands back your change, her eyes flicking between you two with amusement. You can feel the heat rising in your cheeks, your pulse hammering in your throat, as Will's hand finds the small of your back to guide you toward the exit.

Outside, the cool evening air does little to calm your racing heart, especially when Will's fingers slide down to tangle briefly with yours before he seems to think better of it and shoves his hands in his pockets instead. The charged silence between you is louder than any words could be.

The walk home stretches taut between you, the grocery bag’s handles digging into Will’s palm as he walks just a half-step too close. His sleeve brushes your arm with every other stride—cotton whispering against cotton—and each incidental contact lingers like a brand. The city sounds fade into background static: a distant ambulance siren, the click-clack of a dog’s nails on pavement, the hum of a faulty neon sign above a shuttered laundromat. All of it feels muffled, drowned out by the rhythm of Will’s restless energy.

When you pass beneath a flickering streetlamp, its sickly yellow light catches the sheen of sweat at his temples. His gaze flicks to your neck again, lingering on the damp tendril of hair clinging to your skin. You watch his throat work as he swallows, the sharp line of his jaw flexing like he’s biting back words.

“You’re being weirdly intense today,” you say, nudging him with your elbow. The gesture aims for lightness, but your voice betrays you—it comes out breathier than intended, almost a challenge.

Will’s laugh is a rough scrape of sound. “Am I?” He shifts the grocery bag to his other hand, plastic crinkling like cellophane fire. His free arm swings briefly toward yours, fingers grazing your knuckles before he shoves both hands into his coat pockets. The fleeting touch leaves your skin buzzing.

You slow your pace, studying him. Moonlight bleeds through the clouds, silvering the tension in his shoulders, the way his collar sits crooked against his throat. There’s something feral in his profile—the dilated pupils, the slight flare of his nostrils as the wind shifts—that makes your stomach swoop. For a heartbeat, you think he might press you against the graffiti-tagged brick wall to your left, his body caging yours in the shadows.

But he keeps walking.

Three more steps, then he stops dead. You nearly collide with him, catching yourself on his forearm. The muscle beneath his sleeve jumps at your touch.

“Will—?”

He doesn’t turn. Just stands there, head bowed, breathing audibly through his nose. The grocery bag hangs forgotten at his side, a litre of milk threatening to slip free. When he finally speaks, his voice is ground glass. “You should’ve worn a jacket.”

You blink. “It’s not that cold.”

A beat. Then his coat hits your shoulders before you can protest, his hands linger at your collarbones, adjusting the lapels with unnecessary focus. His thumbs brush the hollow of your throat, once, twice, before he steps back.

“Better,” he mutters, already striding ahead like he can outpace whatever’s clawing at his ribs.

You hurry to catch up, the coat sleeves swallowing your hands whole. Up close, you notice what you missed before—the tremor in his left hand, the way his pulse thunders visibly at his neck. When he catches you staring, he angles his body away, jaw clenched tight enough to crack walnuts.

The remaining blocks pass in a fever dream. Every rustle of fabric, every shared glance, every time his shoulder bumps yours feels amplified. By the time your building comes into view, you’re both breathing like you’ve run a marathon, though neither of you will admit it.

At the front door, Will fumbles the keys twice before managing the lock. His hand covers yours on the doorknob, pressing down hard enough to feel the ridges bite into your palm.

“After you,” he says, but doesn’t move aside—just crowds you through the doorway, his chest grazing your back, his breath hot on your nape.

You tell yourself it’s relief that makes your knees weak when he finally retreats to the kitchen, the grocery bag abandoned on the counter. But as you hang up his coat, you press your shoulder to hide the wide grin on your face.

Dinner unfolds in a series of fractured moments. Will stands at the counter, chopping carrots, each thwack echoing off the tiled walls. You sit at the kitchen table, sorting through the junk drawer’s survivors: paperclips glinting like insect legs and rubber bands coiled tight as nerves.

The air smells of ginger and soy sauce. Every time you glance up, his eyes snap back to the cutting board, shoulders rigid. He’s wearing that grey Henley with the stretched collar, the one that exposes the hollow of his throat when he leans forward. You notice sweat dampening the fabric between his shoulder blades.

“You’re hovering,” you say, louder than intended.

He doesn’t answer. Just sets down the knife with exaggerated care and reaches for the kettle. You track his movements—the flex of his forearms as he fills it, the way his thumb rubs compulsively over the handle’s curve. Steam rises as he pours boiling water into two mugs.

The tea appears at your elbow without warning, Earl Grey swirling amber in your favourite mug he’d bought for you last winter. His pinky grazes yours as he withdraws, a spark of contact that lingers.

“Movie tonight?” he asks, leaning back against the sink. His arms cross over his chest, biceps straining the sleeves. Will leans back against the sink, the edge of the counter biting into his hip, but he doesn’t seem to notice. The sleeves of his Henley strain against his biceps, fabric pulling taut where his muscles flex unconsciously. A droplet of water slides down his wrist, tracing the ropy veins of his forearm before disappearing under his rolled cuff. You track its path, hypnotised by the way it catches the flickering kitchen light, until his throat bobs with a hard swallow.

He clears his throat. The sound is sandpaper-rough, startlingly loud in the cramped kitchen. You drag your gaze upward, past the smudge of flour on his collarbone and the damp hair curling at his nape, to find him watching you through his lashes. The fluorescent light overhead buzzes, casting sickly shadows under his eyes. For a heartbeat, he looks almost feral—jaw clenched, nostrils flared, the pulse at his temple throbbing visibly. Then he blinks, and the illusion shatters.

“Sure. Your pick.”

He nods but makes no move to leave the kitchen. His gaze burns a hole through the back of your head as you resume sorting. Rubber bands snap into a jar. Paperclips clink like loose change. The silence stretches, taut and humming, until—

“Casablanca”, he says abruptly.

You blink. “Since when do you like old movies?”

“Since never.” He pushes off the counter, mug abandoned. “But you do.”

The admission hangs between you, fragile as the steam still curling from your tea.

The couch has never felt this small.

Will’s usual sprawl—all loose limbs and careless angles—has been replaced by a coiled tension that makes the cushions dip dangerously toward him. His left arm rests along the back of the sofa, not quite touching your shoulders, but the heat of him bleeds through your thin jumper anyway. On screen, a spaceship disintegrates in silence. Neither of you registered the title when he queued it up, too busy pretending not to track each other’s movements.

His fingers find your hair first.

It starts as a graze—the rough pad of his thumb brushing the nape of your neck as he tucks a stray strand behind your ear. You stiffen, but he doesn’t retreat. Instead, he twirls the lock around his index finger, the motion hypnotically slow. His breathing hitches, audible even over the movie’s sudden explosion of gunfire.

“Will?” you whisper, turning your head just enough to see his profile.

He freezes. Moonlight from the half-open blinds stripes his face, sharpening the hunger in his expression before he can school it into something neutral. His thumb presses harder against your neck, a silent plea for you to stay still.

Then he sniffs.

A slow, deliberate inhale, his nose dragging along your temple. His breath fans hot over your skin, uneven and shallow, as if he’s been running. You feel the flutter of his eyelashes against your cheekbone when he blinks.

“You smell different,” he rasps, lips grazing the shell of your ear. The words vibrate through you, low and frayed at the edges.

Your heart stutters. “I—what?”

He doesn’t answer. Just buries his face in your hair, nuzzling the sensitive spot behind your ear with a low groan that makes your thighs clench. His free hand grips the couch cushion, fabric tearing under his fingernails.

“Your perfume,” he mutters, voice thick. “It’s… new.”

You try to laugh, but it comes out as a gasp. “Since when do you notice my perfume?”

His teeth graze your earlobe—a split-second scrape that might’ve been accidental. “Since it’s this one.” The hand in your hair tightens, tugging just enough to tilt your head back. His other palm lands heavy on your knee, fingers digging into the denim. “What’s in it?”

“I don’t—vanilla? Amber?” You’re babbling, hyperaware of his thumb tracing circles on your inner thigh. “Why?”

Will huffs a laugh against your skin, his arms tightening around you. “Been driving me fucking mental all day.” His voice rumbles through your chest where you’re pressed together, warm and honey-thick with confession.

Heat floods your cheeks. “You—” You twist to face him, but he catches your chin, calloused fingers tilting your head up. His eyes are heavy-lidded and gleaming, the blue-grey irises gone stormy at the edges.

“Yeah,” he admits, unashamed. “Full stalker mode. Followed you around the shop like a starving dog.” His thumb swipes over your bottom lip, daring you to scold him. “Pathetic, really. Nearly growled at that old lady for smirking at us.”

You laugh, swatting his chest. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Guilty.” He nuzzles your jaw, scruff catching on delicate skin as his earlier intensity melts into something softer, sweeter. “Should’ve warned me. That perfume’s a biological weapon.” His nose trails down your neck, inhaling deeply with an exaggerated sniff that sends you into giggles.

“Oh, please,” you snort, tangling your fingers in his hair. “You’re just dramatic.”

“Dramatic?” Will nips your earlobe, gentle this time. “You leaned over the milk cartons. Practically waved your neck under my nose.” His hands slide up your sides, thumbs brushing the underside of your ribs. “Sabotage.”

“I was checking expiration dates!”

“Cruel.” He kisses the offended pout off your lips, slow and lingering. He groans, flopping back against the cushions and dragging you with him in a tangle of limbs. “Going to have words with your friend,” he grumbles, even as his hands settle possessively at your waist. “Gifting chemical warfare disguised as perfume. Criminal negligence.”

“Hey!” You pinch his side, laughing as he jerks away with a yelp. “She has excellent taste!”

“Taste?” Will rolls his eyes, but the smile tugging at his lips betrays him. “That stuff’s lethal. Bet she’s cackling in her evil lair right now.” He tugs your wrist to his nose, breathing deep with a mock-agonised sigh. “Probably spiked it with pheromones.”

You prop yourself up on his chest, smirking down at his ridiculous pout. “Jealous she found my signature scent first?”

“Devastated.” His hands slide up to frame your face, thumbs brushing your cheekbones. For once, there’s no humour in his stormy gaze—just raw, disarming honesty. “Should’ve been me.”

The kiss starts soft, a barely-there press of lips that quickly deepens when your fingers find his hair. Somewhere in the apartment, the forgotten movie’s credits music swells dramatically. Will breaks away first, forehead resting against yours as you both catch your breath.

“For the record,” he murmurs, nose bumping yours, “you’re banned from wearing that to Ikea. Or libraries. Or—”

The protest dies in his throat as you kiss him—really kiss him—your fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt to pull him closer. His lips part instinctively, a low hum of satisfaction vibrating between you as he tilts his head to deepen the angle. There’s nothing tentative about it now: his hands slide up your back, anchoring you against him with a possessiveness that steals your breath.

He tastes like Earl Grey and the dark chocolate bar he’d pocketed at the shop—bitter-sweet, addictive. His stubble scrapes your cheek as he breathes you in, but neither of you care enough to pull away. When your teeth graze his bottom lip, he lets out a ragged groan, fingers tightening in your hair.

“Christ,” he mutters against your mouth, the word more prayer than curse. His thumb brushes the hinge of your jaw, coaxing you to open for him again, and you do—gladly—melding together in a rhythm that feels older than either of you. The couch creaks as he shifts, pressing you into the cushions until there’s no space left between hips, between heartbeats.

Before you can protest, his arms lock around your waist like steel bands, dragging you sideways into his lap. His legs loop over yours, pinning you to the couch in a tangle of limbs. A shudder runs through him as he buries his face in the junction of your neck, nose pressed to your pulse point.

“Will—?”

He doesn’t answer. Just holds you tighter, his breath hot and unsteady against your skin. Slowly, you relax into the vice of his embrace. Your fingers card through his hair, nails scraping gently at his scalp. He lets out a sound, half groan, half sigh, and nuzzles deeper into your neck. The tension bleeds from his shoulders incrementally, his death grip on your waist softening to something almost reverent.

“You’re clingy tonight,” you murmur, smoothing the rumpled hair at his temple.

“M’not,” he mumbles into your collarbone, though his legs immediately tangle with yours, pinning you to the couch. His nose nudges the hollow of your throat, inhaling deeply, as if memorising the scent. “S’your fault. Drugged me.”

You snort, fingertips tracing idle patterns down his spine. “Dramatic to the end.”

He hums, noncommittal, his lips brushing your pulse point. The credits still roll, bathing the room in shifting blue light, but Will’s breathing already slows—deep, even pulls of air that stir the neckline of your shirt. His grip loosens incrementally, heavy limbs going lax as sleep claims him.

You don’t dare move. Not when his lashes flutter against your skin, not when his fingers twitch against your hip in some dream. The weight of him is solid and warm, his heartbeat a steady drum beneath your palm.

“Will?” you whisper.

A soft snore answers, his exhale warming the hollow of your throat. You stretch carefully, fingertips grazing the crumpled throw blanket at the foot of the couch. The fabric whispers as you drag it upward, dust motes swirling gold in the TV’s dying light.

He stirs when the blanket settles—a grumpy murmur vibrating against your collarbone. His arms tighten reflexively, legs cinching around yours like living rope. “Nuh,” he slurs, half-asleep, protest muffled in your skin.

“Octopus”, you accuse under your breath, laughter softening the word.

His only reply is to nuzzle deeper, lips brushing your pulse in unconscious affection. You let your hand drift back to his hair, carding through the messy strands. His sigh is a quiet surrender, breath evening out as he sinks deeper into dreams.

The credits fade to black. In the sudden dark, his heartbeat becomes your compass—steady thuds beneath your palm, syncing with yours until you can’t tell where he ends and you begin. His legs stay stubbornly tangled with yours, a human anchor keeping you grounded.

Sleep comes slowly, tethered to the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath your cheek. His breaths paint the silence—a soft whistle in his nose, the faint tick of a swallowed snore. You press a kiss to the damp hair at his temple, lingering just long enough to memorise the warmth of his skin. Your eyelids grow heavy, the last thing you feel is the weight of his arm across your waist, anchoring you to this moment—to him—as the world dissolves into the slow, heavy pull of sleep.

#willne x fem!reader #will lenney x fem!reader #will lenney x reader #willne oneshot

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dokkamj · 2 months ago

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HEAR ME OUT!

⚠️ Note: Due to some misunderstandings and assumptions that may have come off as disrespectful, I want to clarify that this story is set during the second year of college — meaning all characters depicted are 19–20 years old. Please keep in mind the post is tagged 18+, and the context should reflect that clearly.

saw this on my TikTok today and i do really can’t help myself but write a fiction about it, i know my topics are usually and only COD, but if you won’t mind sometimes me switching on something else lmk.

i think that armin and nerdarmin are two completely diff people, like the alterego or sum shi and man this is how i see nerdarmin👌🏻

this might can be a bit out of character 🥀

ENGLISH IS NOT MY FIRST LANGUAGE sorry for eventual grammars mistakes.

MDNI! this is a 18+ story, so as my whole profile this content contains: strong explicit language, sexual content explicit, if this makes you uncomfortable please scroll.

I FREAKING LOVE THIS.

art credit on TikTok: musapylsa

“nahh are u serious him??” your friend asked with a giggle, even if the whole school saw you as a heartless bitch, a popular one, your best friend sat just in front of you knows that you are sweet as chocolate.

“why that long face?” you ask back, rolling your eyes, the topic was, ,cute boys i would sleep with’

“because you are gorgeous and he is just—“ she turns around to look at Armin, baggy jeans t-shirt those glasses... “so nerdy…” she sighed, your speciality was to fell for losers literally.

“he is so pathetic i love it” you giggled, its been weeks you tried to catch his attention but it was like, he wasn’t even aware that you were teasing him all around.

when both of your gazes meet you just bit down you bottom lip nervously. “i wanna talk to him” you announced.

“gosh no do not—“ you can hear your friend calling out your name but too late, your heeled boots where already tapping on the ground.

flare jeans, rolling stone t-shirt, that witch aura of yours and your hips swinging where already in front of Armin.

“Hello” you smirked, you were short too that’s why the heels, you reached his height and maybe a bit more.

“i— uh” he looks at his feet muttering your name, he was full aware of who you are and how many stupid ass guys follows you around like pets trying to have their sweet threat, at least one thing that he admires about you is the fact that instead of being like the others girls that sleep around here and there, you never.

at least… he never heard anything about you. “sorry if i disturb you” you said shoving your hands in your back jeans pocket “i just wanted to ask if maybe you could help me with math you know” you said trying to act as innocent as possible.

oh the only desire was to eat him alive.

“can’t Mikasa do it like she usually—“ you stopped him “i— actually asking you because i want someone that have a softer approach to me, that i struggle a lot.” you nodded, you where hella good in math but you really don’t know what excuses invent anymore.

he sighed, looking in to you completely, wow you where such a fucking pretty woman that everyone would show off like a trophy.

“i guess i can of course” he gulps down that strange feeling, no one beside his small group of friends talks to him in school so it was unexpected.

“uhm do you prefer idk, your house or mine?” you asked, looking at him for an answer “i uh my place sounds good,” he nods.

you hand him your phone “give me your number so we can accord when” you nodded and he shyly type in his phone number.

later after some classes you texted him ,hey i’m y/n so this weekend??’ the response came up fast, you wasn’t surprised he was always on his damn phone. ‘your place is good, i mean if this is okay,

you bit your bottom lip ,ok Friday evening? i live alone so no worries’ you texted back and forth nothing special, but you liked him, and it made you laugh how he was trying to approach you with respect and sweetness.

Friday came up really quickly and no one was aware of your evil plan, or at least no one knew you really liked that boy. Opening the door he was there, his hair tied in a little low messy bun, glasses loose on his nose, hoodie and jeans with converse.

“oh hey” you smiled, hugging him even if he didn’t hug you back but that was ok? you guess. You two started with math problems and he didn’t know how but you ended up teaching him.

he let his glasses rest on top of his head “sorry i mean you are even more better than me why did you asked me for teaching?” he rise up a eyebrow and you gulped.

“it was just that— you seem cute and i was just thinking what if i get to know you better??” you explained quickly “ah really?” he giggles, then smirked.

“poor y/n, you didn’t have enough attention?? you don’t like pretty boys that salivate at the sight of your ass?? why do you want me? so cruel to yourself to end up with a fucking looser like me?” he asks and your eyes widened you clearly didn’t see that coming.

“cat got your tongue? huh?” he stood up as you remain frozen on your chair in the living room. He stepped in front of you, his hand come up to grab your chin “what? did you want this?” he bend down and the second later his lips where against yours.

He took off his glasses and let them slide on the wooden table, you couldn’t help but kiss him back, with that passion and fire that you usually hold back. “who is the pathetic one, tell me” he bit your bottom lip “answer me y/n what the fuck.” he ansimate against you.

“me, fuck i’m sorry i needed to be more clear with my intentions.” you mumble, his hand on your bare tights, your pajama was doing such a bad job keeping you hidden.

“good pretty girl.” he murmurs, in all of this you kept kissing him back, and your hands slides down his hoodie, touching his bare stomach, you could tell he actually workout, not a lot but still.

and in a bunch of minutes he was on top of you on your bed, legs spread, shorts on the floor and panties tucked to the side as his slim fingers slides into your folds “already sucking me in so deeply?” he teased licking the outline of your lips and you moaned.

“pathetic.” he said almost proudly, this was a joke, the nerd with no friends and no social life was fucking you like a greek god? this was a damn dream. Mornings ago you were the one calling him pathetic and now? He got you creaming his fingers.

your legs tremble “yes this is how you like it mh?” he muttered, fingers deep and curling up inside of you as his thumb was playing with your clit he spits down just to lube that pretty bean of nerves to get you spasm against him before coming heavily. Hips jerking back and your gasps became screams.

“ah so this is your weak spot.” he tortures your clit mixing to the fact that you just came everything seems more sensible, overstimulating. “please— need you” you mutter shamelessly.

“no pretty girl, i decide here” his lips against your neck sucking heavily to leave hickeys to mark her, his cock was painful in his jeans but he wasn’t ready to let himself go yet, he wants you painfully undone.

he goes down on you, making you position your legs on his shoulders before he starts to slurp on your wet cunt, making you spasm and tremble following by his hand pressing on your lower belly to keep you down as the other was playing with your clit and his tongue slapping against your folds.

you taste fucking heavenly. That acid but sweet and your own perfume made him roll his eyes back into his skull, goddamn. And you cried as you came another time screaming his name like a slut that you where, at least at the moment.

He stayed there for a minute observing his masterpiece, your cunt dripping juices on the bed sheets your clit puffy and overstimulated and your legs still spasm from the orgasm.

“i think you are ready here.” he smirked his hair messy his body clean and neat almost like he did knew what he was about to do tonight, “bastard” you muttered to yourself.

when he take off his jeans and boxer, you gulped down, it was long thick enough to get that sweet spot scratched by him. “what you staring at? wanna a taste mh? say A” he smirked again, bringing you onto your knees on the floor as he stood before you.

“com’on be gentle mh? and suck on this dick” before grip on your hair to bring your mouth on his tip, you obey because hell this guy could make your cunt happy and you wasn’t going to say no.

you open up like a whore and swallowed him whole, making him gasp and rest his arms on the bed as he start to move his hips against your mouth “fuck” he mutters almost pathetically.

you could see how his moods shifts, sweet and rough, rude, then kinda fucking pathetic, and why does this turns you even more on?

“enough, com’here” he demand, helping you to go back to lay on the bed, your legs open wide for him as he was settle in the middle “so..” he begun “condom?” his tip slides sweetly on your clit “or no condom?” his tip now on your folds slapping it making your cunt doing those wet shame sounds.

you wined gasping for air, it was a torture but a goddamn sweet one. You swing your hips to get more friction even tried to lowers yourself on him to suck that cock with your cunt.

“i don’t fucking care Armin, fuck me and shut that nerdy mouth.” you came up with a little comeback too frustrated as you clench around nothing.

he smirked and exposed your chest before go all the way in, with only a trust making you curl up your toes and gasp and he moaned because he didn’t expect you to be this wet and this fucking tight.

“oh gods” he rolls his hips back and forth and his pathetic personality was coming back you could see it as he whines against your neck slapping his hips against yours as you moaned loudly.

“oh— fuck yes” you moaned encouraging him to go even rougher, your hands in his hair as he bites your breast angrily, the slaps sounds grew louder and more irregular. Your legs shook and Armin grabbed the occasion to overstimulates you by bringing his fingers to his mouth to lube them and torture your clit.

“com’on, i know you can do that…” he suggested but you clearly was too much wrapped up in your own feelings that you didn’t really heard him. And before you can knew it the orgasm hit you like a ton of bricks making your eyes roll back your legs spasms and your cunt squirting as he kept pumping into you before pulling out and stroking himself to release on your folds.

and that shit? made you even more turned on and you didn’t even knew how that was possible.

“what the fuck.” you gasped looking at him “what? never done that before? or— you didn’t know you could do it?” he asks with a smirk.

okay who is this guy? because the Armin you knew?! completely disappeared! completely wrong!

“how did you—“ you mumble “you know being a nerd and reading a lot, if you put that together with some sexual education books and, well that’s the result” he points at the mess making your face redden more than it already was.

“you done this before?” you asked breathing heavily, “i mean yes but you are my best masterpiece.” he smirked slapping on your ass playfully.

You spent the night together, and he was the sweetest soul you ever meet, the dom Armin? gone. It was like he had problems with personalities, well for what you just experienced with him.

the morning after he was there, handing you a mug of coffee “show together? i can massage your back.” he said with a shrug and you just pinch yourself because you still think this wasn’t true.

“how did you even know how to make coffee with my machine…” you said sleepy “tsk i just search the brand and scroll in their site find your machine—“ he cut himself off “just nerd things.” he said.

you smiled “you keep surprising me” your giggles filled the room suddenly, and if for you was like winning the lottery, for him it was like he just found heaven on earth, and it was a woman named y/n.

this is how you two ended up being a real couple, a damn weird one, but things worked because yourself too have so many interests like the videogames. Still today you try to understand how much he is just strange… a moment it’s the cute nerdy Armin and the second layer puff he is all horny and all over you.

#fanfic #armin arlert #armin x reader #armin x you #armin x y/n #aot #armin aot #nerd armin #smut #smut fanfiction #attack on titan #shinjeki no kyojin #eren yeager #eren aot #aot armin #aot fanfiction #levi aot #levi ackerman #smut story

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chocosvt · 11 months ago

Text

HER | part four.

✧✎ synopsis: wonwoo, a heartbroken and burnt out writer nearing the end of his math degree, wants nothing to do with the seemingly perfect, intimidating girl who has everyone under her thumb. you. unfortunately, his literary talent has got him shoved him between a rock and a hard place when you want to write a book and require his expertise. you two are the furthest from compatible. wonwoo can’t see this going well. at all.

pairing: wonwoo x fem!reader word count: 22.5k genres/tropes: writer!wonwoo, university!au, plug!vernon + boyfriend!mingyu as prominent side characters, SLOWBURN (i am not fucking around this is my slowest burn yet), relationship drama, soul searching, strong angst/hurt (i’m coming for the jugular), comfort, romance, smut, a smoothie of every emotion on earth.

(!) warnings: drug use (weed, cocaine, ecstasy), wonwoo has anxiety + anxiety attacks + fairly dark thoughts, prescribed medication, gambling, intense language, infidelity, throwing up.

✧✎ a/n: just some quick things i want to make apparent!

the fic is told from wonwoo’s pov, not the reader’s!

all major timeline events are organized through chronological dates

any smut or potentially triggering scenes are NOT MARKED bc the content is already quite mature, so just plz be aware of that!

bolded and italicized text implies the characters are conversing in korean, tho it doesn’t happen often!

the fic in its entirety is 140k, so it has been split into 6 parts.

here we goo. part four :o i can't believe it's already the fourth part!! i guess the last chapter ended on somewhat of a cliffhanger so may this quench your curiosity! but, beyond that...

this part has a punch of its own... dotdotdot...

⇢ part one | part two | part three | part five | part six ⇢ soundtrack for those curious! ⇢ read at ur own pace! :)

Wonwoo was lucky to discover an empty, spare guest bedroom down an off-shooting hallway for you two to refuge in while the volcano settled upstairs. Furthermore, he was grateful that you had relaxed enough to be released from his straightjacket arms, and even more grateful the room was quiet. The confrontation had shot his nerves. His hands were still trembling. As you took a seat on the bed, Wonwoo moved toward the window and stared into his darkly silhouetted reflection, taking paced breaths until everything stopped pressing down on him. He’d already had his fair share of stalling fights between Vernon and other drunks at the downtown bars.

He had never anticipated stopping you from a fight.

“Fuck, I feel like absolute shit…” you groaned, and when Wonwoo turned around, he saw you crunched up, fingers digging at your hair while you sat at the very edge of the primly dressed bed.

“Should I get you anything?” He asked in a soft voice, coming over to crouch down in front of you. “Do you want some water?”

You wouldn’t look at him, instead staring into your knees that were bent and flush against your chest. For a moment, there was nothing said, until you sniffed that very distinctive sniffle of someone who’d just snorted a line. Rubbing at your nose, you nodded.

“Please?”

“Yeah, ‘course. I’ll be right back, okay?”

Wonwoo didn’t know where to get water, though he did remember the bottle dropped at the bottom of the staircase. He practically ran to grab it. Coming back into the spare room, Wonwoo clicked the door shut as quietly as possible and joined you at the bed.

“Here,” he offered, uncapping it for you.

You sipped from it eagerly, gulp after gulp, then wiping off your lips when it became too cumbersome to swallow.

He took the bottle back, capping it again and throwing it somewhere random on the bed. Wonwoo could see with concern that you weren’t entirely there—jaded, from the drinking and smoking and intaking a dangerous substance you probably shouldn’t have. Your face appeared so hazy, disconnected, as though you were staring off into a warm light buried in the distance that only presented itself to you.

“That was a lot, wasn’t it?” Wonwoo sighed into the dark room, rolling up his sleeves, unsure of what he should do or even say.

You sniffled again, and shook your head. “I feel sick.”

“I know, I’m sorry... what do you want to do?”

Breathing out heavily at the small amount of labour it required to look backward at the bed, you nodded. “I want to lie down.”

“Okay,” Wonwoo said, feeling relieved, “that’s a good idea.”

You smiled at him, though it was misted over and a bit loopy.

He watched you lean down, fiddling with the tiny buckle belonging to the right heel strapped over your foot. Afraid you might hit the floor like a flour sac if you stayed hunched over for too long, he instantly squatted down to help you, gently nudging your hand away.

“I’ll take them off for you,” Wonwoo reassured, loosening the buckle enough to slide the expensive, black heel from your foot, doing so with the utmost delicacy, akin to sorting fine china.

Just before he removed the other heel, Wonwoo caught you staring down at him with a particular admiration behind those glassed eyes that made his entire chest become swollen. He tried to ignore the feeling, no matter how elated it made him on the inside.

“Thank you.”

“Uh, no problem,” Wonwoo answered, standing up and gesturing to the bed, “do you think you’ll take a nap?”

“… I don’t know.”

“That’s okay… should I get Princess to come stay with you? Or, I can always get Mingyu, too. Whatever you think is best.”

You were still looking back at the guest bed, unresponsive, and Wonwoo had wondered if you even heard him speak. The moonlight that cascaded in from the windows patched an intricate shadow overtop the quilt, and you started spreading your hand across it, as though you could pick up the silhouette and move it.

And then you glanced at Wonwoo again, smiled slightly. “Would you lay down with me… if I asked you?”

He immediately cleared his throat, “uh, lay down with you?”

“Mmhm,” you nodded, “I need your company. Please?”

He clenched his fist tight, an index nail carving along the cuticle of his scarred thumb. Logically, Wonwoo should leave—he should march back upstairs and go search for Mingyu or Princess to help nurse you through your brain fog. Realistically, however, Wonwoo wasn't going to do any such thing. Realistically, Wonwoo was very high, and very delirious, and completely at your beckon.

Kicking off his sneakers, Wonwoo crawled onto the guest bed alongside you. He breathed out a sigh of comfort as his back was perfectly cushioned by the supple pillows organized against the headboard. If he thought about it for too long—relaxing on a stranger’s bed in a stranger’s home at two or three in morning beside a girl who’d just snorted coke upstairs in the attic and nearly leapt on her friend in a fight—his head would start to ache. So, Wonwoo didn’t think about it. He let everything happen as it naturally desired to.

You tucked yourself close against Wonwoo, closer than what was appropriate for two people who were presumably friends, stretching your leg across his waist and latching it over his hip, an arm around his wide chest, your head settled cozily underneath his chin.

He couldn't care less about the morality.

Especially when he wriggled his arm beneath you, his knuckles coming to stroke up and down your bare, soft back, feeling along the subtle groove of your spine with every lulling, especially tender caress. Truly, Wonwoo didn’t know why he cared so remarkably little about how wrong it was to touch you and hold you. Maybe it was your shallow and warm breathing that kept tickling his neck, or the weight of your leg against his pelvis—you as a whole seemed to smudge his rationality—his own personal drug.

“Can you please tell me a story?”

“Hm?” Wonwoo murmured, stilling his fingertips at the top of your shoulder blade. “Tell you a story? Why’s that?”

“Because, my head hurts. And I want a distraction.” You then poked your face up from his neck, staring at Wonwoo through the clouds in your eyes, sounding sleepy enough to lose consciousness. “And I love the sound of your voice, and how it makes me feel.”

He proceeded to rub something off your chin with a few brushes from his thumb, and nodded, tucking your head back down.

“Okay… let me think for a second...”

“Wait—” you suddenly mumbled, awkwardly reaching behind you for his hand rested against your shoulders, “—I liked when you were going up and down. It felt good. Please, can you do some more?”

“Yeah, sorry. I just stopped to think,” Wonwoo hummed with an amused smile, continuing to stroke his knuckles and hearing the heavy sigh you breathed aloud.

He thought a few moments longer for a story that he could tell you; something interesting, but not too detailed.

“I’ve got one.”

He made a rumbling noise in his throat to clear it, staring off at the dresser mirror opposite to the bed, where Wonwoo could just decipher that vague, silvery thread outlining your entangled bodies.

“When I was around eleven, twelve years old, my family used to go to this waterpark every summer, like an hour car ride from our house. My brother and I made up this game. We called it lifeguard, or, like, swimming attendant. Basically, you play dead in the water, and whoever’s the attendant has to save you. Anyway, it was a pretty stupid fucking game to play at a water park as you can imagine. But when we got there, the lifeguard wasn’t in his chair. So, like, my brother, trying to be cool or funny, thought it would be a good idea to sit in the chair himself. I had to pretend to drown.

The problem with that, though—the actual life guard was coming back. He sees me pretending to drown, thinks I’m actually drowning—I don’t know, I guess I was selling it super well—and he dives right into the water, pulls me out and everything, lies me across the cement all surgical like. I’m so fucking embarrassed, my brother’s ran off somewhere—I just go along with it while everyone’s watching, knowing damn fucking well I’m a sham. My mom’s panicking. She didn't realize it was part of some idiotic game we made up. I hated my brother for a week straight. I’ve refused to swim ever since.”

There was a chuckle against his neck, and Wonwoo felt your body vibrate with a soft fit of laughter. He hadn’t recalled that story in years, though it dusted off the latent anger toward his older brother that he had never quit holding. Nonetheless, it was still rewarding to tell you. That water park was once his most cherished place to visit, admittedly during a much different period in his life, when the only thing he worried over was whether or not they’d have his favourite ice cream flavour or if he might miss that gigantic bucket full of freezing water that dropped every half-hour.

“I’m sorry that happened…” you mumbled against his neck, your breath akin to a sweeping feather, “but it’s a bit funny.”

“No, I know,” Wonwoo agreed, grazing his hand low to the base of your back, “I can laugh at it now... even if I’m still mad.”

“Can I ask you something, please?”

“Sure.”

“I just want to know… when did you move here? Did you come here for university? Or, was it before that? And, like… did your family come with you? Did you move alone? I’m just curious…”

“So, I spent two years at a university in Korea, for something different than what I’m doing now. It was accounting stuff—”

“Oh, more boring.”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo laughed, reaching his hand underneath the warm plump of your thigh to adjust it more comfortably against his hip, “I actually agree with you. It was boring, and I was… to put it lightly, miserable. Very, very miserable. So, I dropped it, had a really long and excruciating conversation with my brother about the whole thing—what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go. I have an uncle that lives out here. Not close to our school. He’s hours away. But I figured, I’m old enough. I need, just—I need a fucking change. I’ll move out, stay with him, find my footing. And, uh, I ended up here.”

You smiled against his skin, lips practically pressed at his neck, and then you exhaled, pulling a shiver along the length of his spine.

“Hm… I’m glad you made that choice.”

Wonwoo’s fingers fleshed deeper against the underside of your thigh as he sighed into the still bedroom air, thinking back to the pressure, the bickering between himself and his parents, the desire to at last pull the pin and take a risk, even if said risk was going to crash and humiliatingly burn at his feet. In a way, it had. But with you, his reward was building back up again. It wasn’t all fruitless.

“Me too.”

"Thanks for sharing that with me,” you murmured, snuggling impossibly closer into his body and breathing him in like the sweet, baked scent of pastries fresh from a hot oven, or the airy honeysuckle outside on a summer’s day. “I like knowing about you.”

For once, Wonwoo wasn’t scared that you knew.

Maybe he should be scared. He wasn’t being cautious enough, instead pouring more soul into his heart than his logic. But then—why did it feel so good in that moment? Something he was terrified of had flipped on its head and turned into a real, tangible happiness. He continued to lay with you in the silence. The ceiling was full of shadows that he studied to keep himself awake while his thumb rubbed easy circles into your thigh. Your body was giving him heat.

If no one ever opened that door, Wonwoo wouldn’t complain.

He could lay there until the earth caved in.

“Wonwoo?”

“Mm?”

“I want to try getting up now.”

Rubbing the heel of his palm against his eye, he massaged away the desire for sleep that had finally managed to catch up to him.

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Okay—” he began slowly pushing himself upward, helping you in the process with an arm at your waist, “—I’ll grab your shoes.”

“Thank you.”

Nonetheless, he knew you couldn’t stay cocooned against him forever, even if he wanted it more than his next breath. It felt awfully vapid to lose your warmth. The air around him was so much colder, like an icy metal. Wonwoo had nearly stumbled over his sneakers as he searched around the end of the bed, prompting him to squat down and shove his shoes back on. Next, he collected your lacquered, expensive high heels, which had practically blended into the darkness if not for the moonlight raining through the windows.

You were sat at the edge of the blankets, waiting for him.

“How do you feel? Better?” Wonwoo asked while crouching at your knees and fishing up the right heel first.

“My head still hurts a little. But I think I’ll be fine,” you admitted, allowing Wonwoo to softly touch at the back of your ankle as he helped guide your foot through the black loop. “It’s like—I can feel it a lot more now. I’m getting that weird, dreamy sensation, right before it really hits. And my mouth is kinda dry.”

“Hm,” Wonwoo hummed, now helping to fasten on the other heel, “I’m sure there’s more water upstairs. Is that too tight?”

You wriggled your toes and rolled your foot.

“No, it’s perfect. Thank you so much.”

“Should we try standing?”

Wonwoo straightened back up, reaching out his hand for you to grab. Carefully, you intertwined your fingers with his, and then he accepted some of your weight as he gave you a supportive tug. At first, you wobbled, but Wonwoo was right there to steady you.

You complained about the dizziness, but after a few more steps it had gotten better, and Wonwoo let go of your hand.

“Oh—uh,” he gently grasped your elbow, “before you leave—”

Lifting up your arms, you watched rather cluelessly while Wonwoo pinched at the fabric of the very short, white skirt and tugged it further down your thighs, covering the sensitive areas where it had ridden up when you were stretched out against him. A hand latched into his shoulder for balance, and you sighed out gratefully.

“Fuck, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Please don’t tell me if you saw my underwear.”

He laughed, “I won’t.”

A manicured finger scratched your cheek.

“… They’re pink… with hearts.”

Wonwoo stayed quiet, but then he couldn’t fight his smile.

“… I know. Cute.”

You seemed flustered at the offhanded comment, which came as a surprise to Wonwoo, because he truthfully didn’t believe much—if anything at all—could fluster you. The phone in his back pocket buzzed with a text message and Wonwoo assumed it was Vernon asking him about where he’d gone. It was best to go back up to attic and reunite with your friends rather than dwell in the guest bedroom for an eternity. Though, Wonwoo didn’t want to leave at all.

“Uh, Wonwoo? Can you please wait one second?”

As you two paused at the door, his hand fell off the knob.

“Everything okay?”

Uncharacteristically, you fumbled with your fingers, tugging at the joints like they were disconnectable. He tilted his head at you, curious, and when your eyes locked with his he bit back a dumb facial expression at how wide your pupils had dilated, like an ocean abyss.

“Um, so, that girl Seokmin was talking about earlier? Sarah Gomez?” Sarah? He knew you meant Sierra, though he didn’t bother correcting the mistake. “I chatted to Vernon about it. He said she likes you and was flirting and... well, like, I-I have no issue if you… if you like her and want to do something, and—” you took in a really big, long breath that felt like a reach for self-comfort, “—just, if you two want to start hanging out, if you can still make time for our writing.”

Wonwoo stared at you for a second, blinking vacantly.

“… Oh, you think—no, Her. It’s not anything. It’s nothing."

“Nothing?”

“Yeah, nothing. I promise.”

And it was exactly that. Wonwoo would never—could never feel anything even half as strong as the yearning he felt for you. It was something unmeasurable, something bigger than the universe, and yet, it fit into the core of his own chest like a dense and heated star compacting in on itself. Despite being so numbed by heartbreak, and years of a growing apathy, and all that disappointment he harboured toward himself, Wonwoo had sensed each and every time you thawed him out. You—a light, and yet a cold, awakening breeze.

The girl he was in love with.

Stupidly and utterly in love with.

Your shoulders began to sink as you relaxed at his remark.

Wonwoo shook his head. “She’s nice. But I’ve talked to her once, and that was tonight, for like, two minutes at most.”

“Really?”

“Mmhm.”

“Oh, okay. Sorry. I just—I didn’t want you to think that I hated it, or that I was going to jump her ‘cause of what happened upstairs… I don’t want to talk about what happened upstairs, actually, but that’s not what—anyway. Sorry. And, uh, thank you… for being there for me. I didn’t mean to ruin your night.”

“No, no. Nothing is ruined,” Wonwoo reassured you, picking up your hand and giving it a squeeze. “I’m having fun. It’s all a lot but… I’m enjoying it. I’m always going to be here for you, alright?”

You smiled at him. It was oddly shy, but Wonwoo loved it.

“So, if you want to head back up, I’ll join you soon enough," he said. "I’m gonna attempt to find a washroom in this place.”

“There’s one by the staircase. Clara and Bells used it.”

He kissed his teeth as you giggled at him.

“… Oh. Right.”

After you disappeared back upstairs to the attic, Wonwoo locked himself in the washroom for a moment of quiet. He checked his phone, realizing the time—3am—in addition to the horribly spelt text messages from Vernon, saying that Mingyu had taken Bells on a walk outside to calm her down. He sighed, signing off on the texts with a thumbs up. The night was only getting louder. Wonwoo didn’t know how much longer he could survive or who he would even call upon to get a ride home. Everyone was plastered or buzzed.

He had no desire to sleep here overnight, though if push came to shove, Seungcheol would likely have guest bedrooms to spare.

Turning on the sink faucet, Wonwoo set his glasses aside and cupped a handful of cold water against his face. It was a shock at first, yet it felt so refreshing, and Wonwoo couldn’t help but splash some more water until he felt the drops begin uncomfortably running down to his elbows and nudged the tap back off. Once patting dry his cheeks and forehead with a towel folded through a rung secured into the wall, Wonwoo proceeded to sit down on the tiled floor.

Readjusting the glasses back to his face, he stared across the dimly lit room at the half-opened shower curtain and its patterned seashells. For a second, he didn’t move at all. But then Wonwoo was getting up, walking over to the curtain and yanking it fully open. He returned to his initial position, sitting against the wall, and started counting all the different seashells. They weren’t organized in rows like the yellow rubber ducks from his aunt’s shower curtain back in Changwon—they were miscellaneously placed, spotted more than organized, and Wonwoo counted all the shells at least three times.

“Thirty-two,” he whispered to himself.

Deep within his pocket, Wonwoo’s phone buzzed again.

[ Vernon | 3:09 am ]: h ey glasses where tf are yoi?

He decided to text his friend back, though he knew Vernon was most likely off his face and wouldn’t notice for another hour.

[ Wonwoo | 3:09 am ]: Washroom. Be up in a few.

To his surprise, Vernon’s little typing bubble immediately appeared. Wonwoo developed a sick, squirmy feeling in his stomach for some reason, only to watch the bubble abruptly disappear and not return. God—he hoped the boy hadn’t fucking fallen out the window or slipped off the billiard table in his inebriation.

Setting his phone down on the tiles beside him, Wonwoo raked his fingers through his hair and sighed aloud again. He didn’t care much about messing up the very particular way he’d brushed and swooped it. Instead, Wonwoo thought about you.

He was just with you, and yet he missed you.

Unsure of when the feeling had ever started, Wonwoo began to recognize the ache for you some time ago—and like a little kitchen light in a prairie house that never burnt out, seen across meadows and rivers, even through the darkest nights—Wonwoo had felt the ache ever since. He thought it would die away quietly. It hadn’t. It wouldn’t. He thought that love would never again step foot inside the house that was his heart. But it had. And it was the little light.

His phone vibrated.

Wonwoo glanced down at the illuminated screen, skimming over the jumbled, misspelt words to Vernon’s text with little regard, thinking nothing of it other than how sky high his friend was.

Another text. He scooped the phone up, grumbling to himself.

[ Vernon | 3:12 am ]: yo I dont mean t be weird buthahha I’m not gbnna lie u shud come upsrairds of u wanna see it

[ Vernon | 3:13 am ]: acyaully don’t lol

Wonwoo had not a fucking clue what Vernon was rambling about and was half-considering it to be all hallucinations. Maybe another fight had broken out. Maybe you were dancing on the table and had kicked over someone’s drink. There was a small cherry pit of curiosity in his stomach, though Wonwoo wasn’t ready to get up. He sat on the washroom floor for another ten minutes or so, deciding that he would go back upstairs, pitch his goodbyes, and book an Uber.

It had been fun, tiring, enlightening even.

But Wonwoo had no energy left to give.

After playing with his hair in the mirror and smoothing out the pieces he’d disheveled, Wonwoo at last pulled open the door and emerged back into the warm corridor, the music still soaring underneath his feet. He began making his way upstairs and back to the attic space. There were at least ten new people to fill the smoky room, none of whom Wonwoo recognized, though he assumed most were Seungcheol or Mingyu’s friends. Vernon was seated on the couch, his arm sunk around a girl’s shoulders—the girl that had almost bumped into him when leaving the kitchen hours ago.

Someone had cranked the music loud enough to rumble the speakers sitting on the desk. Wonwoo could hardly decipher a single word that came from Vernon’s mouth, forcing him to lean further down as he grasped onto his friend’s hand and announced his leave.

“Awe, you’re headin’ out?!” Vernon shouted into his ear.

“Have to,” Wonwoo replied, “my brain’s gonna pop.”

Vernon slapped his shoulder. "All good—hey, thanks for even comin’ along, y’know? Stay safe. Text me when you get home.”

“Yeah, will do. Uh, you seen Princess or Seungcheol?” He asked by Vernon’s head. “I’d be nice to see them before I leave.”

“No fuckin’ clue where they went, to be honest!” Vernon answered, leaning back with a shrug. “Oh! Fuck!” He’d suddenly latched onto Wonwoo’s arm. “Dude, you missed it. But if you’re lookin’ for Her—no luck. She’s uh, a little busy right now.”

“Hm?” Wonwoo mumbled. “I can’t fucking hear.”

Vernon proceeded to jerk his friend closer, breath fanning hot against Wonwoo’s ear. He turned frozen solid as he intently listened.

“Her—she came back upstairs, high as a fuckin’ kite. Mingyu came back up right after. I don’t know what happened, but, like, within a few minutes, they were on each other, man. I got scared—thought they were gonna start fuckin’ on the table. But, nah, Mingyu took her to the bedroom down the hall. We all scurried down and listened for a sec. Holy shit—she had to be gettin’ pounded—like, must’ve been face down ass up, fuckin’, gettin’ her guts rearranged or some shit. They were both so out of their minds. It was insane, y’know. You’re not gonna see her for a good while.” Vernon then sat back with a hopeless, husky laugh. “Mine as well shoot her a fuckin’ text and hope she can still read when Gyu’s done with her!”

For a second, Wonwoo didn’t believe him. Not at all. He thought it was a joke—staring at his friend, waiting for his face to break like sundried clay, not caring whatsoever that the girl tucked against his side was clearly annoyed at their conversation and waiting for Wonwoo to leave. It was all a stupid joke and Wonwoo wanted to hear Vernon say it. And then, he would punch him for it.

“Funny,” he chuckled.

But Vernon merely shrugged, folding an ankle over his knee. “Hey, Glasses. Dunno what to tell ‘ya! S’all true. I saw it. So Did Seungcheol n’ Princess. Go down there! Listen for yourself!”

Wonwoo shook his head, beginning to laugh. “Go fuck yourself.”

“Jeez! I’m just tellin’ you the truth!”

“And you expect me to believe that?” Wonwoo shouted overtop the bass, smiling, even though he was feeling more and more enraged under the surface. “You’re high as a kite, too, yeah?”

“I saw it, man!”

“Yeah. Actually—go fuck yourself. Night.”

Vernon stretched out a hand, attempting to catch Wonwoo by the elbow as he brushed past him, yelling something that was drowned to the humid, loud atmosphere. Wonwoo still believed it was a joke—a very awful, incredibly distasteful joke that he would probably ignore Vernon over for at least a few days. Wonwoo knew he wasn’t your boyfriend. He knew you most likely didn’t reciprocate the all the same feelings with as much passion as him. But you wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t discard him after he’d been so vulnerable.

He came to the corridor and gazed along the hallway.

Go down there. Listen for yourself.

Vernon’s words wriggled in a bold font to the forefront of his mind, even when he wanted to squeeze them out. But Wonwoo was exhausted, and now highly annoyed, and he knew the last thing he should do is excavate a truth that would be better off buried.

The thing was—Wonwoo had to know.

It was excruciating to not know.

And so, he walked up to each door, lightly attempting the handle or pressing his ear to the wood. He found nothing, and the relief that opened up and flowed throughout his body was equivalent to the freshest breath of air. Wonwoo was about to text Vernon that his stupid stunt had failed when he heard it—that suspicious, croaked sound which prompted his fingers to stop dead in their typing tracks.

He stared into the door, focusing hard.

No, it was the music. It had been playing all night, anyway.

But then there was a thump. Once, twice, three times.

Wonwoo shoved his ear back against the crack in the threshold, one hand coming to rest ever so softly on the brass handle.

Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.

Muting even his breath in case it interfered with or somehow warped the noise, he listened longer, his stomach twisting in knots.

“Fuck! Mingyu!”

There was ice in his veins. All the blood froze so quickly. It was cold enough to turn his skin to frost but Wonwoo kept listening.

“If I fuck you any harder, I’ll break this fuckin’ bed, sweetheart. Is that what you want, huh? Tell me, baby. Are you that much of a slut for me? Hm? Are you that much of a whiny slut?”

“Y-Yes, Gyu! M’n-nothing—ff-fuck—!”

“Answer me or I’ll stop!”

“No—nonono—m’such a slut for you! Such a whiny l-little... Fuck! Mmm—c-can’t take it, Gyu! S’too much!”

“Move your fuckin’ hand! Take it, just like you asked for. If you’re gonna act like such a slut then fuckin’ take what I give you!”

Wonwoo couldn’t bear to hear a second longer. He knew it was your voice, your skin, your breath, your pleasure. It was entirely you at the rigid and exploitative hands of Mingyu. And Wonwoo felt sick. Something acidic surged up his throat in a stinging burn. With a hand latched over his mouth, Wonwoo raced toward the washroom, immediately locking himself inside before collapsing at the toilet and upheaving all the contents in his stomach. The nausea had never hit him so quickly before. His insides filled with even more dread.

But he wasn’t actually sick.

It was merely the horrible, haunting anxiety that came with opening up—its effects reaping toxically into his flesh because it had all been thrown back in his face like a sloppy high school lunch tray. It was hearing the girl he positively loved moan and writhe and beg for another man who didn’t care for her interests or thoughts or soul.

He’d cut himself open for you, but it didn’t seem to be enough.

—JUNE 16TH.

By the time Wonwoo woke up, it was five in the evening. His face was practically plastered—no, moulded, into the pillow—with a dried trace of drool streaked down his cheek. Wonwoo had never drooled before. The groan he released upon rolling from his stomach to his back was groggy and brittle, with his hand slapping cluelessly against the bedside table until he managed to grab hold of his black-framed glasses. He slid them on, and then wiggled further up the bed.

Before his irritable hunger, or the twisting of his full bladder, or the headache pulsing behind temples, Wonwoo felt a very gorged wound scissored into his heart. It was stinging raw, like sea salt from the ocean touching at an unbeknownst cut hidden somewhere sensitive on the body. Except, Wonwoo knew exactly where the cut was and how deep it ran and how much he was struggling to even breathe. He stumbled into the washroom, switched on the faucet, but Wonwoo couldn’t even bring himself to stare into the mirror.

Instead, he crouched down to his haunches, hands shakily gripping at the edges of the stone-cold porcelain for stability while the water gushed above him. With his eyes pinched shut, Wonwoo focused hard on every breath he took, so hard that white smudges began blossoming against the pitch blackness of his eyelids. His mouth suddenly jutted open, and he inhaled the biggest breath he could manage, but it cracked somewhere in the middle and Wonwoo knew he was going to start sobbing.

Unable to hold the sink any longer, Wonwoo let go of its sharp edges and curled up tight on the floor, the tears sprouting unbridled and glossing to stain over the rouge of his cheeks. In his mind, it was the most pitiful sight. He thought he would have learned his lesson the first time about opening up and trusting another, yet, somehow, he was back in the same fucking place. He thought he was being cautious. Not cautious enough. He thought he was taking his time. Not enough time. Wonwoo never judged anything right.

—JUNE 17TH.

[ Vernon | 8:08 am ]: hey glasses

[ Vernon | 8:08 am ]: haven’t heard from u since Friday

[ Vernon | 8:08 am ]: pls tell me u made it home alright

…

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 11:30 am ]: Hey Wonwoo! It’s Seungcheol (got ur number from Seokmin btw)

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 11:31 am ]: Really nice to meet you and glad you could make it out! Ur a super cool dude. Idk if you like pickup basketball but I always play on weekends at the uni B gym. If you ever want to come down or wtv let me know!

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 11:35 am ]: Princess says ur awesome

…

[ Seokmin | 12:57 pm ]: Hey Won

[ Seokmin | 12:57 pm ]: Make it home alright?

[ Seokmin | 12:57 pm ]: It was nice to see you!!

—JUNE 18TH.

[ Vernon | 10:01 am ]: Seokmin and I r going mini-putting at that glow in the dark place I got fired from lol u in or nah?

[ Vernon | 10:25 am ]: helloooooooo? u there beautiful?

…

[ Vernon | 3:45 pm ]: glasses are you fucking alive dude?

[ Seokmin | 3:50 pm ]: Everything okay? Did u get sick?

—JUNE 19TH.

[ Vernon | 7:13 am ]: okay haha it’s not funny anymore

[ Vernon | 7:13 am ]: wonwoo I swear if you don’t fucking text me back in the next 12 hours I’m breaking ur door down cuz wtf man im fuckin pissing my pants over here

…

[ Her | 9:00 am ]: hey!!

[ Her | 9:00 am ]: I hope you made it home okay :) sorry I didn’t text you. I’ve been sick as a dog omg but I feel better today

[ Her | 9:02 am ]: I’m so glad u came even if it was a little tense or overwhelming at times lol. I loved seeing u there. don’t quite rmbr everything that happened but I’m sure it was fun

[ Her | 9:03 am ]: miss you a lot alrd

[ Her | 9:10 am ]: we still good to work on the book tmo?

Since he slept well into the afternoon, Wonwoo didn’t notice any of the morning texts until much later, when he finally sat down at the dining table to slowly nibble a piece of strawberry jam toast. It wasn’t that he was ignoring Vernon or Seokmin’s texts, more so the fact he had been trying to stay off his phone altogether. It was just too much and he couldn’t afford to worry about anyone else but himself, though, he supposed it might be time to answer poor Vernon.

Wonwoo had disregarded your texts—didn’t glance at them for longer than a millisecond or absorb one written word. At the moment, he didn’t know where he stood with you. Saturday had been brutal, Sunday was stupendously worse, on Monday he’d called in sick because the thought of stepping one foot outside his apartment made him ghostly ill, and Tuesday, today, he was quite mopey, lethargic, and hardly contained enough energy to even feed himself.

But he still took another bite from his toast.

It was better than completely and utterly rotting.

[ Wonwoo | 1:42 pm ]: Sorry.

[ Wonwoo | 1:42 pm ]: Wasn’t feeling the greatest.

[ Wonwoo | 1:42 pm ]: I promise I’m alive.

He set the phone down beside his plate, continuing to tear at small sections of the toast to make it easier to eat. Wonwoo didn’t bother replying to anyone else. If they were truly that concerned as to why he hadn’t answered—which he knew they weren’t—then Vernon could disseminate whatever information he pleased.

Poking his glasses up with a pinky finger, Wonwoo saw his phone screen illuminate with a text from Vernon.

[ Vernon | 1:44 pm ]: jesus christ wonwoo

[ Vernon | 1:44 pm ]: don’t scare me like that I legit thought something happened to u

[ Vernon | 1:44 pm ]: man check ur fucking texts lol

Wonwoo pushed the dish aside and picked up his phone.

[ Wonwoo | 1:45 pm ]: My bad.

[ Vernon | 1:45 pm ]: it’s ok

[ Vernon | 1:45 pm]: soz u got sick

[ Vernon | 1:46 pm ]: u feel any better?

No—Wonwoo had almost audibly laughed. He felt pulverised, like a piece of trembling jelly hardly able to walk. If he was lucky, he might be able to keep the toast down without his grief getting in the way and tormenting the nutrients back out of him. But it wasn’t like his friend could do anything about it or make his nightmares end.

[ Wonwoo | 1:47 pm ]: Yeah, I’m okay now.

You were right—Wonwoo really was a liar.

[ Vernon | 1:47 pm ]: good!

[ Vernon | 1:48 pm ]: yeah got pretty sick myself tbh

[ Vernon | 1:48 pm ]: next day was ass

[ Vernon | 1:48 pm ]: well uh if theres anything u need lemme kno im gonna b out today I could prob stop by whenever

After thumbing up the message, Wonwoo grabbed his plate, walked over to the sink, and tossed it in, hearing it crash into the stainless-steel emptiness. He didn’t know what else he would do today. Probably nothing at all except lay in his bed and sleep.

[ Her | 7:00 pm ]: hey pls check ur messages <3

…

[ Her | 8:09 pm ]: hey can u fucking check ur msgs

…

[ Her | 10:15 pm ]: wonwoo this is embarrassing for me PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CHECK UR MESSAGES!!

Hearing his phone ding for the third time that night, Wonwoo at last rolled over to drag the device aglow from the bedside table. As he lazily fixed the glasses over his face to squint across the fine print, his stomach dropped faster than the incline on a roller coaster. You were getting blatantly impatient with his lack of response.

The thing was, he always answered you. Even if he was in the middle of working, or blazed from his head to his toes, or half-asleep and hardly conscious—Wonwoo would always make time to text you back because there was nothing more important in his life.

It wasn’t that he was void of all desire to talk to you—it was that his body physically couldn’t allow it. His fingers suddenly felt so stiff, like they were wooden, and his mind flashed blank with not a single word to spare. He was still devastated with you, and that was putting it fucking mildly. Breathing out all the conjured despair and pain through his nose, Wonwoo left the phone on his nightstand, rolling back over to his side in another attempt to sleep.

—JUNE 20TH.

[ Her | 8:02 am ]: wonwoo why aren’t you answering me?

[ Her | 8:02 am ]: I was going to get rly mad at u and send a long nagging text or a voicemail but I feel like somethings wrong

[ Her | 8:10 am ]: we’re supposed to write today :(

[ Her | 8:35 am ]: I’m starting to get worried ugh

—JUNE 21ST.

[ Her | 11:20 am ]: wonwoo can you please send me something so I know you’re okay? even just a thumbs up?

[ Her | 11:25 am ]: please

—JUNE 23RD.

[ Her | 9:30 pm ]: okay it’s basically been a week since the party and idk what to do. I’m so fucking pissed off at you bc why can’t you just answer me? Ik I’m not blocked which leads me to think you’re not pissed at me? otherwise u would block me

[ Her | 9:31 pm ]: you’re reading my texts ik u are

[ Her | 9:34 pm ]: just why are you doing this I don’t understand I feel like crying bc I don’t know what I did or why you’re ignoring me?? if I did something can you please tell me I just hate this fucking guessing game and I hate you for putting me thru it

[ Her | 9:35 pm ]: fuck you honestly

[ Her | 10:36 pm ]: but I still miss you so much

[ New voice mail from Her | 10:58 pm ]

—JUNE 26TH.

Wonwoo felt the phone continuously buzz in his pocket for the third time that afternoon—he was getting another call while at the pharmacy and at that point even his boss was beginning to take note. He hardly ever worked morning to afternoon shifts, but another staff member was sick and so Wonwoo was unfortunately hailed upon to take their place, though, he had realized it might be a good idea for him to experience the fresh, softer air against his face, which chiefly prompted him to accept. Even if he had thrown up his breakfast in the washroom just before his shift started, at least he’d tried to eat something—thawed out blueberry waffles with butter were still too much for his stomach. He should probably stick to toast.

As he stood behind the counter, marking down another bundle of vitamin bottles and their expiry dates from the clipboard, his boss was handing out prescriptions. Wonwoo was in the midst of a long, impossible-to-hide yawn when his phone started vibrating again, that stupid Sencha ringtone practically grating his ears.

“Wonwoo,” his boss said, “I think you better answer that.”

“No, it’s nothing. I’ll shut my phone off.”

Her reading glasses were poised at the tip of her nose as she typed some information into the computer, each click from the chunky keyboard notably slower than the last.

“Well,” she huffed, clearing her throat, “whoever it is, that was their fourth time calling you… I do believe that warrants some attention. Now, if you’re sure it’s nothing at all, then I’d rather you keep that phone in your locker, alright?”

He paused, staring down at the clipboard in his hands.

“… Can I take just five minutes?”

Glancing over the shoulder of her pristine white lab coat, his boss nodded, and Wonwoo left the clipboard sitting alongside the vitamin bottles. He slipped into the employee break room and out the heavy backdoor, stepping behind the building for the utmost privacy.

Wriggling out the phone from his pants pocket, Wonwoo stared at the four separate notifications, all spread out within the past hour. Vernon had been attempting to reach Wonwoo for whatever reason, though he didn’t know what could possibly be so goddamn pressing that a text message wouldn’t suffice. He didn’t want to find out, either. But Wonwoo had already excused himself, and he didn’t want to waste the precious five minutes he’d been anointed.

He dialed his friend back. The call was picked up instantly.

“Vernon, what the f—”

“Glasses! It’s about fuckin’ time you answered your stupid phone! Where the hell are you, anyway? Mars?!” His voice boomed through the staticky line like a boxer’s jab and Wonwoo immediately moved the device from his ear, taking a second to orient himself.

“I’m at work, dumbass. Use your fucking head.”

“Work?! Oh, give me a break. Work! That’s your excuse?!”

Letting his temple prop against the uncomfortable brick wall, Wonwoo rubbed at his nose, his eyes squeezing out the sunlight.

“Just tell me why you’re blowing up my phone…”

“How about ‘cause I almost got mugged! That’s why!”

“Wha—mugged? Vernon, what? By who?”

“Your girlfriend, that’s fuckin’ who!”

Wonwoo pushed off the wall using his shoulder, taking a few steps across the cigarette butt-littered walkway. He absolutely hated it beyond comprehension whenever Vernon referred to you as his girlfriend—even more so now—though he was plagued by the thickest confusion and he needed Vernon to calm down in order to explain everything succinctly.

Taking a thorough breath, he stopped pacing.

“Okay, chill out, for just a second. And then talk to me. Because I don’t have a clue what you’re yelling about. I told my boss I’d be five minutes and I’m wasting out the clock.”

“Fuck—okay. So, I was gettin’ gas, alright? Mindin’ my own business when I see Her come outside the store. I thought, oh, hey, I know we’re probably not on the greatest terms yet but I’ll say hi.” He heard the boy cut himself off, and then laugh a bit, as though he were still reeling from the incident. “Dude, the second she sees me, I think I’m gonna die. She practically corners me at my Camry, like, askin’ me all this stuff: what happened to Wonwoo? Where’s Wonwoo? Do you know what’s goin’ on? Why isn’t he talkin’ to me?”

At that point, Wonwoo had squatted down in the middle of the walkway, rubbing a hand dreadfully against his cheek. He didn’t have a cigarette on him, but if he did, he’d be smoking it down to the pathetic nub. Vernon coughed and then started up his story again.

“I try to tell the chick—hey, I’ve got no fuckin’ clue! He told me he wasn’t feelin’ well, we haven’t spoken much—like, fuck if I know all the details to your goddamn life! She doesn’t believe I’m givin’ the full truth. I tell her again: look, he’s real private, he doesn’t talk about much. If he is goin’ through somethin’, just give him space and time—blah, blah. She tells me I’m a bad friend! Like—what the fuck, first of all! A bad friend?! She’s—okay, anyway—"

Wonwoo began to pull at some green sprigs of grass pushing up from between cracks in the cement, just to give his nervous, trembly fingers something to do. His heartbeat was climbing higher in his throat.

“She thinks you hate her, o-or I don’t know what she fuckin’ thinks, actually. What I do know is that she hates me ten times more than she did before, n’ that you need to get off your fuckin’ ass and talk to her! Do y’know scary it is to have Her yellin’ at you?! I thought she was gonna light my hair on fire with the gas pump or some shit! Fuck. My heart’s like, still racin’. And not to terrify you but she might stop by your place later today—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” he interrupted Vernon while shooting back to his feet, beginning to anxiously pace all over again, “you think she’ll stop by my apartment? No, that can’t—” Wonwoo stumbled on a rock, then reared his foot to punt it hard across the cement, “I-I don’t want to talk to her. I fucking can’t. It’s too much.”

“I don’t know what to do about that…” Vernon sighed, followed by the distinctive spark of a lighter crackling in the background. “Didn’t even know you were ignorin’ her… what happened, anyway? I mean, this shit seems real serious.”

The silence was so thinned but still unbearably long, and as Wonwoo listened to his friend ignite a blunt in order to mellow out, he felt that unmistakable pain twist at the pliable centre of his chest, like he was being carved into with a whittling tool.

Put simply, Wonwoo wasn’t ready to see you, let alone have a civil conversation that could be separate from his bitter, hurt emotion. There was too much he needed to decide alone, and as the hot, stinging summer air around him became concerningly harder to breathe, Wonwoo had no other choice but to hang up on his friend and burst back into the employee washroom. Eventually, his boss had stopped by to knock on the door, to which Wonwoo answered with the most reluctant, pained, hoarse voice he could muster.

“S-Sorry—be out soon…”

“… I’ll give you a few more minutes,” she answered after a momentary pause, most likely realizing something was very wrong.

But he couldn’t hide it any better than that.

Wonwoo stepped inside the pottery shop, the bells overhead tinkling, and the attention of his landlord now piqued as she glanced up from the earth-coloured vase being washed by her paintbrush.

“Back from work?” She asked.

“Yeah…” he sighed, making his way toward the staircase, already reaching for the handrail, “can hardly stand. I’m exhausted.”

Sweeping some dried pieces of clay off her messy, weathered apron, she lent Wonwoo a sympathetic smile. “Well, rest up.”

He nodded at her.

Coming up to his apartment, Wonwoo was inexplicably relieved he hadn’t run into you at any point. He clicked his lock shut with another sigh, a more distant one that arose from somewhere so dusty and cold inside his chest. Maybe Vernon was right, Wonwoo thought while kicking off his shoes. Maybe it would be best to get such an excruciating, uncomfortable conversation out of the way rather than ruminate over how awful it was bound to be.

He scrubbed his hands clean at the sink, then trudged into his bedroom to change from his pharmacy appropriate clothes.

But as he came to sit at the edge of his bed, thinking back to that night—all the touches and tender glances and how foolishly he presumed it would be okay to open those clandestine, personal pages he always struggled to share—Wonwoo knew it was still too premature. If he were to speak with you now, nothing productive or relatively good would come from it. He leaned forward into his hands and raked them distraughtly through his hair, tugging against the black fronds until he worried about legitimately pulling them out.

You were obviously concerned and worried—he knew that, and part of him ached because it was due to his own ignorance.

It just couldn’t happen yet.

Wonwoo was mad at you. He felt betrayed, disrespected, used. There was sadness, heavier than his body weight. So much emotion was blistering and alive inside of him with nowhere to go.

Collapsing backward, arms tossed beside his head, Wonwoo closed his eyes and hoped he might fall asleep deep enough in order to never wake up. That way, he would never have to face reality—he would never have to stand in front of you and cough up some half-baked explanation that only served to protect himself.

Through the haze and mist of his bizarre dreams that whipped by akin to reels from old age movies, Wonwoo saw someone he didn’t think would ever reappear in his subconscious again—Jeanie.

He had no idea where he was, or what those disembodied figures were that shifted in the blurred distance. She was the only detail he could pinpoint. Wonwoo walked toward her, pushing through something invisible but notably thick, like molasses. He tried inconceivably hard to absorb the intricacies of her face, but when he stared for too long, her features would start moving, almost melting off her as though she was a wax figure in a sweltering auditorium.

Yet, he could hear something.

There were voices becoming louder in his ears, and the more intently he listened for them, the clearer Jeanie’s face became.

The girl’s hair was chin length, dark. Dark like timbre. Or very fine-grated flint. It looked soft to one’s touch, if, in fact, one could possibly touch her without her shattering. I remember thinking that. The girl will shatter if I bump her, even if it’s an accidental thing—a gentle scraping sort of contact that wouldn’t even disrupt a feather.

I remember her eyes, too. My brother owned a box of marbles when he was twelve years old. When I looked into the girl’s eyes, it was like I was eight again, staring over the discarded sewing tin that held my brother’s smooth, large, galactic marbles he told me to never play with. I hated him for it. I think a part of me still does. But I don’t feel that resentment when I look into her eyes. Rather I feel the mystery and curiosity I believed was permanently erased alongside my youth.

Then there were her lips, which were small but plump. They seemed almost stained. I thought an artist took a stroke of watery, blood red paint to her mouth. It’s even hard to hear her when she speaks. I have to lean in so closely that my chest shrinks in on itself with coyness. I love it too much but I can’t let the beautiful, quiet girl know.

Wonwoo knew every word—he could recite them endlessly, without a sweat or a hiccup. It was his own writing after all, from the book he’d attempted to write for her during their relationship. Finally, he could see Jeanie standing in front of him, at the edge of clarity. Close enough to embrace and kiss and beg so pathetically for forgiveness.

But Wonwoo was never given the chance.

The voices scattered in a mere instant, whisking away into the baby blue nothingness that engulfed him like a handful of sand grains on a windy beach. Instead, he heard knocking. It rattled his brain.

Knock, knock, knock, knock!

The atmosphere started to crumble. He was caught in that peculiar stretch of being half-asleep and half-awake, when it’s impossible to decipher reality from the reverie that doesn’t quite want to let go just yet. Everything shuddered and swayed like a house on stilts.

“Wonwoo! Open the fucking door! For fuck’s sake!”

And then, he was shooting up in bed, fast enough to prompt the dizziness that whorled the entire room into a confusing mélange of shapes and evening clementine colours. His heart was barraging against his chest, and Wonwoo had to settle a hand overtop the pulse to confirm with himself that the organ was still inside his body. As he wiped off the sweat that glistened by his temples, trying to mentally grasp the fading fragments from his dream, Wonwoo heard the knocking sound again. Louder. As though his door would cave in.

He knew it was you. You weren’t going to leave, either, not unless someone had to drag you out the building by the ankles, or until you spoke to Wonwoo about his impromptu ghosting.

The thing was, Wonwoo was fucking pissed.

He was pissed that such a bittersweet dream had been ripped away from him like everything else in his life—most often love and trust—and he was pissed that he never got any closure.

Wonwoo was just boiling over, tired of everything.

Knockknockknock!

Stumbling into the living room, Wonwoo approached the door that was currently receiving the abuse of a lifetime. His hand grazed the knob, though it was nothing akin to the first time he’d let you inside his apartment, so nervous, flustered, doubting himself. When he opened the door, Wonwoo opened it with an unwavering abruptness that presented you at the threshold, your closed fist left still in the air like you were a marionette frozen by your orchestrator.

With your mouth agape and soundless, Wonwoo wondered if you would even speak. The shock was slowly spreading throughout your face, adorned as usual with that picture perfect makeup.

But he’d assumed too quickly.

“Jesus fucking Christ! So, you are alive!”

He stepped aside while you stormed into the apartment, and then he let the door swing shut, capturing the two of you in privacy.

You spun around to glare Wonwoo down.

“What the actual fuck is your problem?! Did you forget how to read?! Write?! Answer your fucking phone?! I mean, would it kill you, Wonwoo, to text me back? Even just one word? Or, is that too fucking difficult?! It’s not like I’m asking for a goddamn scripture!”

Since March, Wonwoo had known you. It was nearly July.

Never had he seen you like this before. Sure, there were times you had gotten angry and that short fuse inside would burst. It was always jarring, but you tended to regain composure within the next minute or so, shaking off the confining chrysalis of your rage.

This didn’t seem so easy to shake off.

You were furious. Wonwoo watched you begin to pace the living room, your hands gesturing about wildly. There was practically a radiation that glowed from around you, red like singed charcoals.

“I can’t believe the rollercoaster you have put me through this past week, you asshole! I mean, seriously! I've never been this baffled! At first, I just assumed you were sick! Because—who wasn’t sick after that night? But we had to write the next day, and you always get back to me, so when you didn’t, my stomach started twisting up! I thought, something has to be wrong—Wonwoo doesn’t do this! He never stands me up! But I didn’t want to pry, because you fucking hate when I pry, so I left it alone! I left it and then I still get nothing!”

A Rubik’s cube was sitting on the coffee table. For some reason, you snatched it up and started jamming at the panels while continuing to pace the living room. Your hands were fizzling firecrackers, surging with ample energy, needing a task to direct all that accumulated anger so the fingers wouldn’t fly off your joints.

“But I see Vernon getting gas! And, wow, everything is just so peachy for him! Life is so sweet and sugary for the local drug dealer who just milked hundreds of dollars out of some stupid rich kids and their latent drug addictions! And you know what I had to do? I had to back him up like a feral fucking cat just to wrangle some information about you! Because I thought maybe you were dead, or kidnapped, or you just suddenly hate me! I looked like such a psychopath!”

You slammed the unsolved Rubik’s cube back onto the coffee table hard enough to dislodge a few pieces. They spotted his carpet like blood spatters. A tattered, deep breath was sucked up your nose.

“So, here I fucking am, screaming my head off because I am so pissed at you, Wonwoo! I want an answer even if it kills me!”

The air was dead silent, and Wonwoo wanted to let the room breathe for just a minute at most. Every single word you had spewed was compressed into the spaces of his apartment and if he didn’t give the atmosphere enough time to settle then his walls would undoubtedly burst. You refused to stare anywhere else but him. There was so much need and pain and agony behind those glassy eyes.

Wonwoo glanced down at his socked feet, swallowed hard, and then back at you. He had to speak. Nothing else would suffice.

“… Honestly… there’s no answer I can give you that won’t hurt, or make you any less upset… I don’t want to drag this out, either.” A subtle breath entered his mouth. “Her, we shouldn’t do this anymore—the book. I don’t want to help. You can finish it yourself.”

It was sharp, so meticulously sharp—a clean, smooth cut.

Though he was calm water on the outside, he felt a trembling behind his ribs. His heart was groveling with him to not be so cruel.

You laughed, titled your head. “What?”

“I can’t continue to help you write.”

Again, the room was silent.

“… You… you’re… you what?”

Something wasn’t connecting inside your brain. For some reason, you could not comprehend what Wonwoo was insisting. His patience was translucent and the longer he stood across from you in the living room, thinking about his interrupted dream and the vulnerability you stepped all over and the time he wasted—he could only get angrier. His fingernail scraped over his thumb like a tooth.

You wiped something off your face and started to laugh again.

“God—okay. There’s—I’m sorry but there’s absolutely no way you just said that to me… I come here, sick to my fucking stomach, worried about you. Yes, I’m mad but—I-I still care. And you—you’re going to—fuck.” A hand then clasped over your mouth as you pointed your gaze to the shag carpet, and for a moment, Wonwoo couldn’t decide if you were masking a laugh or a sob. “You’re going to tell me that we should just… stop, in your words. Or, you’ll stop, and I can keep trudging on. Am I hearing that right? Is that what you said?”

Wonwoo nodded.

He hadn’t realized it, but he’d just detonated a bomb.

At first, there was not a single crease or wrinkle that ruptured your disturbingly placid face. But, surely enough, he was beginning to observe the slow, inevitable fracturing that started with a twitch in your upper lip, and then a wicked furrow pulling down your brow, and that irritable blinking of your eyes as though someone had just blown a cloud of dust into them. Wonwoo knew it was coming.

“Fuck you.”

It was so spiteful, almost demonic.

“You should go,” Wonwoo said, sighing.

Instead, your head rung back and forth.

“No, actually—” you stepped toward him, fingers pinching at the thick, almost palpable air while your eyes fumed with every malevolent thought that burned inside you, “—fuck you, Wonwoo.”

He stared back at you, somehow unfaltering.

“Listen, if you don’t—”

“If I don’t what?!” You screamed, your palms slamming against his chest and prompting him to stumble backward. “If I don’t leave, then fucking what?!” Even though it was just you shouting, it sounded like there were hundreds of anguished women behind each word.

Wonwoo felt the pin drop into his gut.

“Y’know what I think, Wonwoo?! I think this is just like that time at SRX, when you told me the same fucking thing! You just picked up all your shit and left! No explanation, no prelude, no nothing! Is that what gets you off? Huh? Treating everyone like they’re pieces of scrap metal with no fucking emotion?! You can just do whatever you want! Doesn’t matter! Who gives a fuck about whose feelings I’m totally disregarding, whose time I’m wasting. I’m Wonwoo! I get to pull the plug on everybody because who cares!”

Your voice had employed a fake, mocking tone.

And while Wonwoo knew the better choice was to maintain his quiet, mature composure, it was much easier to disregard the guise altogether—chuck it straight out the window like a browned banana peel because as much as he’d like to believe he was refined, evolved, and in control, Wonwoo hadn’t ever been anything of the sort.

He shook his head at you.

“I disregard people’s feelings? People’s time? Me?”

“Yes, you!”

“That is such bullshit.”

“Oh, come the fuck on, Wonwoo! Don’t be so damn deluded!”

“Do you even hear yourself? A single word that you’re fucking saying? I disregard people’s feelings? Well, what about you, then? You—and, sorry if this puts a nick in the perfect, angelic image you have of yourself—but you just use people. And I don’t want to be used anymore. There’s my fucking answer that you want so badly.”

You gagged at him, slack-mouthed down to the floor.

“I use people? Wonwoo, are you fucking insane?!”

“No more than you.”

“How?! Tell me how I’ve used you!”

He laughed at the demand, rubbing a hand across his scalp. “Oh, come on—don’t make me spell it out for you, Her.”

“No, please do! Please spell out in that scholar-kissed, prestigious vocabulary of yours how I’ve used you!”

Wonwoo paced over to the fireplace mantel, this light-headed, tingly sensation beginning to merge with his blood and flow to every crack and crevice of his body. He couldn’t believe this was happening, but now that you two were shredding into each other, Wonwoo saw no point in sugar coating a damn thing. If you wanted the truth, then he would give you exactly that—it mattered no less to him.

“The book. How is that not obvious? I mean, for the last few months, that’s all I’ve done. Is help you. You didn’t even care about who I was before. You just wanted someone who could make your life easier and bend to all your whims at the drop of a hat. I’m the one who has to put up with your obsessions and gripes and your crazy fucking mood swings—I mean, do you even know how draining that shit is? You don’t, because you care about you. You care about writing this masterpiece for Mingyu—who, I should mention—doesn’t give a fuck about you. But you know that, right? You’re a smart girl, aren’t you?

You know it when he treats you like a dumb object, belittles you in front of your friends, puts down and shows no support in your interests—like, really, Her? That’s who you’re in love with? That’s the man you want to spend the rest of your life with? Or do you just like him for his status? Is it because he pays for your coke and your clothes and your entire fucking life? And what about Seokmin? Your little puppy dog. Always so eager to do whatever you ask of him. He just does all the shit that’s not worth your breath. So, instead of wasting your time, you waste his instead.

Bells and Clara? Why the fuck do you even keep them around? You treat them like they're insufferable. But you know they make you look better—so much smarter, more organized, goal-driven—they’re just the two annoying drunk girls that tag along because as much as you despise them you just can’t deny how good they make you look. But that’s what you do! You use everyone around you and no one ever says a fucking thing because you’re such a tyrant!”

Wonwoo was fully cognizant of how sadistic it all was—that’s what he intended. If every word was not going to lacerate or bite or sink so painfully deep into your tissue that it felt like a bony dagger, then there was no point in saying anything at all. You were across from him, vibrating like an excited atom, your fists clenched while every possible hue of rage spilt down the length of your hollow face.

Simple enough—you’d asked him to spell it out, and that’s what he’d done. If could make it any clearer, he would. You then gulped, and there sounded a quiver to your voice that Wonwoo had never heard before. He stood tensely, awaiting your response.

“H-Hm, so… that’s what you think of me?” The end of your question sharply pitched off. “That’s your conclusion?”

“It is,” Wonwoo answered, pressing up his glasses.

Rolling your shoulders and clearing your throat, you nodded, meanwhile you stared down at your hands which began to slowly unfurl. Wonwoo realized that your fingers were trembling like dry, autumn leaves in a soaring wind. He’d never seen that before, ever.

“So, actually, what I think—” you coughed, placing an elbow overtop your mouth to catch the spit, “—I think that…”

For a moment, Wonwoo thought it was over. Your voice was so quiet, hushed, with hardly an ounce of tenacity or grit. But he should have known better than to suspect you of being so spineless.

“What I think, Wonwoo, is that you love to write, and read, because the only person you can communicate with is yourself. You… you are so emotionally stunted that it should be fucking studied. That was the most I’ve ever heard you speak, and you used all of it to basically call me fake, manipulative, and shallow.”

“Because you asked.”

“God. You are so empty, Wonwoo. You’re just a shell. You would rather exist inside your literary delusions than reality because there is nothing for you here. No real relationships, no real aspirations, nothing. And you know why that happened? You can’t fucking talk about anything. Instead, you just hold it all inside—you hold it and hold it until it starts seeping out and poisoning everyone around you. It’s your own fucking fault, Wonwoo. You're gonna drive everyone away. And then have the audacity to somehow point the finger, like they’re the one with the fucking problem. But it’s you.”

He could almost hear the clatter of the metal against the hardwood as you dragged out the metaphorical dagger. There was even a physical pain throbbing at his lower back, though, Wonwoo quickly began to accept the pain was aflame everywhere on his body.

Your lips were pressed together in a strict, firm line. If you opted to speak just one word more, then maybe the dam would break, and his apartment would transform into a sodden, soaked mess.

He watched your head begin to shake, and then you were swallowing down a gigantic, stinging lump. Of course, even at your most barren, emotionally exhausted self, you would get the last word.

“So you can go fuck yourself.”

And Wonwoo was willing to let you have it.

He closed his door at the sound of your wrenched sob in the corridor. There wasn’t much else for him to do other than click the lock shut, pick up the broken pieces from his Rubik’s cube, and walk back into his bedroom. Wonwoo whipped the curtains shut, crawled underneath the cold, thin covers that he stretched over his head.

In the isolating darkness, he slept.

Alone again.

—JULY 21ST.

It was some time in the evening.

A soft, nearly unsettling quietness engulfed the train station.

There was nothing even relatively stimulating that Wonwoo could do apart from aimless surfing through his phone, sparing the occasional glance toward the directory desk with its few uniformed clerks. A navy-blue suitcase was at his side, stuffed full of folded clothes and charging cables. As organized earlier in the year, Wonwoo had spent the week at his uncle’s house—even his older brother managed to stop by for a few days to celebrate Wonwoo’s birthday.

For the most part, Wonwoo enjoyed his time there. The house was more like a cottage, situated on a fresh, small lake shaded over by the summer canopies of sycamore and evergreen trees. While he didn’t dabble in any swimming, Wonwoo had liked stretching out on the webbed hammock down by the firepit, rocking himself back and forth using a long leg that he kept strewn over the edge.

He missed that peaceful feeling engendered by the lakeside wind and the rustling leaves—how rejuvenating it all was to escape the monotonous hell that was his life back in the grey, stiff city.

Wonwoo clicked on his phone to check the time.

5:50 pm.

He would need to board his train soon.

Unfortunately, whether he liked it or not, Wonwoo had to go back and he had to pick up where he’d so painfully left off. No more pieces of refrigerated chocolate cake straight from the box or sitting outside on the maplewood patio to jingle a fake mouse at the paws of his uncle’s cat. No more packed joints beside the ebbing shoreline at midnight, or waking up to the most ethereal, golden light warming through the curtains as though the skies were made with honey.

Wonwoo sighed, plugging in the earbuds left dangling at his shirt collar. He scrolled through his music looking for a song to play.

Above all, it had nearly been a month since he last spoke to you.

Spoke wasn’t even the right word. That day, Wonwoo had set out to ruin you, because he could not bring himself to steep in all that misery and vitriol alone, bearing its weight like he was made from pressurized diamond when in truth—he was flaky and feeble.

The weeks that passed afterword were all blurred together. He talked to no one. Seldom saw anybody. Wonwoo had hardly existed.

A voicemail was still sitting in his inbox. You had sent it to him during a late night in June after the crazed party at Seungcheol’s family mansion, though Wonwoo never bothered listening to it because it was one of his biggest weaknesses—your voice—the most beautiful sound in the world as you had once phrased to him back at the café Wonwoo used to frequent. Then, he’d laughed it off, believing you were beyond full of yourself. Gradually, however, it became truth.

To hear you talk was to feel so in love that it physically ached.

“Train to Lees Station will be arriving within the next five minutes. Please make your way to platform C for boarding.”

The announcement finished with a ding.

Wonwoo got to his feet and grabbed the suitcase handle, beginning to pull it behind him while following the small, silent crowd toward the elevator. It was finally time to go home. Although home didn't seem like much to him anymore, if not just an aimless place in a bleak city that had lost all its warmth.

10:48 pm.

Wonwoo couldn’t sleep, or even take a nap.

When he would rest his head against the window, his eyes could only stay shut for no longer than a measly, frustrating minute. He’d completely exhausted his playlists. By midnight, the train would stop at his station, anyway. There was nothing left for him to listen to… except that voicemail. It was an awful fucking idea, but Wonwoo hadn’t been able to shake the temptation since it first crept into his memory all those hours ago.

Wonwoo didn’t want to think about you—not until he’d stepped off that goddamn train and had fully left all remnants of his short summer vacation behind. When he was back amongst the ignorant city people, and those towering glass infrastructures, and the constant honking, beeping, and roaring of motorized vehicles, would he even probe the thought. But—then again—so much time had passed. So much time to regret, anguish, and loathe his actions.

“… So, um—I-I just want to say first and foremost how much you suck for doing this to me, actually. You… god—fuck, if I have to blow my nose one more time… you suck, Wonwoo! You just—you fucking suck so much! You and your stupid privacy! I-I’m not trying to invade your life o-or get—or pry into something I shouldn’t be—I just want an answer, I want clarity, I want you to—I want—I need you to be a fucking person and just talk to me so I don’t hate myself! Because right now I feel like this is all my fucking fault!

… And it sucks because I don’t even know who I can talk to about this. I want to talk to you. But I can’t a-and… oh my god… we were supposed to write a couple days ago. At the park. I knew you weren’t going to show up but I went there anyway. I tried so hard to put down a sentence. But I hated all of it. I looked back at everything I’d written so far and I wanted to erase every single fucking word and blame you for it… f-fuck… I’m running out of stupid fucking tissues… oh… where’s the extra box?... I’m such a wreck.

… And, um, oh my gosh. Yesterday, at the mall, I went shopping, and I saw this really cute shirt. It was so pretty. Um… dammit! Sorry, I just hit my elbow… that hurt, Jesus Christ… uh—right, so, I saw this shirt and it was so cute with little buttons on it. It was white and blue. A little bit of frills. I know you don’t like frills but I promise it was just the right amount. A-And I have the perfect skirt to go with it. So, um, I put it on, and it fit really nice. I took a picture in the fitting room and I wanted to send it to you but you’re not talking to me right now. But, uh, I did buy it.

I was wearing it today. But then, like, the worst th-thing ever happened… um, it ripped. I ripped it. I don’t even know how, I was just going through my closet and it caught on a broken hanger or something and then all I heard was a b-big rip… it’s totally ruined now. I don’t know but I burst into tears. I was crying so hard and you were the first person I wanted to call but you’re not talking to me, a-and—fuck, I don’t know what I’m saying anymore… I just—I’m mad at you, I’m so fucking mad but I still care and—please, I miss you. I really, really miss you, Wonwoo. It hurts inside.

I’m sorry this is so long… I think m’gonna stop talking because my sinuses are closing up and my throat is burning. Um, I’ll go n-now. Just—fuck you. Please text me or call be back. Please.”

The message blipped off.

For a moment, he was frozen solid, staring back at his reflection through the dark window at his shoulder. I’m so fucking mad but I still care. Then, in an instant, Wonwoo had wished he never listened to the voicemail. He tore out his earbuds and bundled them up, shoving them into his pocket alongside his phone.

He was on the precipice of a horrifying change, but he didn’t know exactly what—just that he was looking at something so smooth and grey and warmed up from the blistered sun.

He was looking at the rock.

—JULY 22ND.

By the time Wonwoo had returned to his apartment last night, he was dead tired—a zombie, practically—scuffing his feet against the wooden flooring with his suitcase rolling behind. Face-planting upon the bed that hadn’t felt the dip from his body weight in a week, he thought he would rest his drooping eyes and give himself a moment to settle. Except it wasn’t just a moment, it was hours and hours of sleep that felt like a single second. When he woke up, his arm was completely numbed from being tucked under his cheek.

It had actually scared him. Wonwoo immediately shot up, staring down at the lifeless limb which he couldn’t move an inch.

“Fuck…” he mumbled to himself hoarsely, squinting against the sunlight which blinded the bedroom. “How long was I out…”

Digging the latter hand into his pants pocket, he let the blood slowly tingle back into his other arm while checking the time on his phone. However, the device was dead. For all he knew, it was the year three-thousand and there would be flying cars and Blade Runner infomercials gleaming in the city smog. Once he was able to move his arm, Wonwoo slid off the bed and laid down his suitcase, beginning to zip open the compartment.

His charger was packed perfectly on top.

Letting his phone recharge on the bedside table, he returned to unpacking. His laptop, toothbrush, books, socks, pairs of underwear and oversized shirts—he stored everything back in its appropriate place, tossing the occasional article into his laundry hamper, until the suitcase was nearly emptied. The only item which remained inside was a small plastic bottle, translucent orange, baring a white prescription label with a few pills remaining side.

His venlafaxine.

Wonwoo had started taking the medication again, roughly a week after his fight with you. Upon completely losing his ability to sleep or eat or survive an entire day without crippling in on himself like the world was a sinkhole waiting for him to slip, Wonwoo came to the realization that—what the fuck—he didn’t have to plainly suffer, and that all the time he spent ignoring the drug because he couldn’t even value his life enough to swallow one tiny pill was a useless, cruel disregard for the body that tried so fucking hard to protect him.

Even when it didn’t feel like it.

By the time Wonwoo ate breakfast—a simple piece of toast with peanut butter—his phone was halfway charged.

1:01 pm.

He’d slept for thirteen hours straight.

“Get over it, Wonwoo. Don’t overreact... c’mon, c’mon, don’t give me that sad little face… it was funny!”

“Leave me alone.”

“No.”

“Leave me alone, please.”

“No.”

“Bohyuk! Stop!”

“Stop what?!”

“You’re poking me! Bastard…”

“Oh, you just said a curse word. Mom is gonna be so mad. Kids your age aren’t supposed to start swearing yet.”

“Tell her. I don’t care.”

“You don’t?”

“No.”

“Well, what if she takes away your books? I bet you’ll get upset then, won’t you? Or those weird little playing cards you have. What if she’s so mad, she burns them! You’ll cry yourself to sleep like a little baby.”

“I said stop touching me!”

“Or what? What? Nothing to say?”

“No.”

“Figures.”

“… I told you I want to be alone.”

“I know you do. And I let you sit here sulking. But now I’m just trying to get you to talk instead of mope. When you’re in a bad mood, it puts mom in a bad mood, and then I have to suffer with both of you being all brooding and cranky. Talking is an important skill, you know? Especially when you’re all pissed off. ”

“Mom is always cranky.”

“And you double it.”

“Shut up.”

“I really don’t understand why I’m the piece of shit, here. We always play Lifeguard at the water park. Now you want to throw a tantrum because, what? It was funny!”

“You left me there, Bohyuk! Alone!”

“Okay, so what? Did you die, Wonwoo? Did you get banned from the park? Did you ruin your entire life?”

“No…”

“Exactly. It was uncomfortable, and you didn’t like the situation. I get that. But you put yourself in that position, alright? Stupid shit always happens when we play that game. You know the consequences. We’ve been over this before. Remember when you threw that life preserver on my head and almost gave me a concussion? I was pissed at you. But you’re a kid, and you weren’t really thinking, and I should’ve known. That’s why I didn’t curse you out. Let’s say we both learned a lesson from this and call it a day, huh? C'mon, the bucket is filling up. Let's catch it before we leave.”

—JULY 28th.

Wonwoo was sitting in a wicker-back chair downstairs in the pottery shop, his laptop placed on the corner of a table that had been covered with a white, plasticky sheet. The white was hardly visible through all the smears and stains attributed to month-old dried paint and clay. His landlord had asked him if he would oblige to waiting for the mugs her last class had just sculpted to finish drying in the kiln while she ran to the bank. An egg timer was placed on the desk in her office, and Wonwoo could hear it ticking away in the background.

The door to the shop had been propped open using a mandala decorated rock, and while Wonwoo browsed along an online book on his laptop, he partly listened to the miscellaneous bits and pieces of conversation pushed indoors by the midday summer wind.

Initially, he’d dreaded coming back to the city after the week-long repose at his uncle’s, but in truth, Wonwoo was adjusting better than anticipated. Maybe because he was attempting to look after himself more than usual—he was actually taking his medication and he’d weened himself from frequent, almost daily smoking to once every few days, though Wonwoo did realize his bud was getting low and the only person he knew to inquire for more was Vernon. He hadn’t seen his friend in person since the party, and their texting had admittedly dwindled ever since Wonwoo fought with you.

That was just over a month ago now.

Wonwoo had gone an entire month without texting you, talking to you, seeing you. He was doing better, feeling lighter.

But there remained one core part of him that was still very incomplete and damaged. Suddenly, Wonwoo was shivering in his seat. The warm sun was brightening up the shop and reflecting its light off the stained glass windchimes dangling from the ceiling, though he chose to blame the chill on the breeze trickling indoors.

Deep down, however, Wonwoo knew he’d done something wrong. So, very, very wrong. He’d hurt you like a bullet through bone.

“Okay, this is it, right?”

“Yeah.”

Wonwoo glanced up from his laptop, where he’d been staring into the screen with a glazed over and distant expression. Instead, he saw a young woman, about his age, walk into the pottery shop hand-in-hand with a little girl who couldn’t have been older than twelve. For a moment, Wonwoo didn’t recognize the woman’s features—chin length, wavy hair, coarse and russet brown, tanned skin and a face polka dotted with freckles. Piece by piece, the memory rebuilt itself in his mind and he felt somewhat stupid.

“Oh—jeez, Wonwoo! What the heck—you’re like, the last person I would expect to run into here. Wow, it’s been a while!”

“Uh, yeah. Since the party, I guess.”

Sierra, the girl who’d fashioned together his drink.

“Yeah. That feels like forever ago... what’re you doing here?”

He pushed down on the laptop lid and sat up straighter in the wicker chair, accidentally looking into the eyes of the girl who was shyly clinging to Sierra’s side. She immediately glanced elsewhere.

“I live here, actually.”

“Oh! That’s cool,” Sierra smiled. “Your family owns it, or?”

“No. The lady who runs the pottery shop also has ownership of the units upstairs. She rents them out. I live up there.” He pointed his finger toward the ceiling as to emphasis his point.

“Okay, okay, that make a lot more sense. Still really cool.”

“What’re you doing here?” He asked, adjusting his glasses.

“Oh—yeah. So, this is my younger sister, Cora,” Sierra explained, grabbing onto the petite girl’s shoulder. “She was supposed to have her first class today, but she was feeling, um—well, you know how kids are. She’s just a bit shy. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“No, of course not,” Wonwoo concurred, noting the resemblance between the two. “I was deathly shy when I was little.”

“Right? We were just gonna stop by to meet to the teacher ahead of her next class. I thought it might make everything easier.”

Wonwoo frowned. “She left, actually.”

“Shoot, really?”

“Yeah, said she had to run to the bank. I’m sitting down here because I’m waiting for the pottery to finish drying in the kiln. I would give you an ETA, but I have no idea when she’s coming back.”

Glancing down at her sister, Sierra ruffled the girl’s hair.

“That sucks, huh?”

But she said nothing, just clung tightly to the back of Sierra’s yellow shirt, deciding to nod her head in response. Sierra shrugged.

“Is she usually here around this time?”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo confirmed, “you could try again tomorrow.”

“Okay, wicked. I would wait but I’ve got a list of errands for today and I’m not even halfway through. And I’m sure Cora wouldn’t want to sit around, anyway. We just got a pool put in at the house.”

“Sounds fun.”

“Do you swim?”

“No, not at all. The most I do is dip my feet in.”

“Aw, boo,” she said with dismay, shoulders sagging. “Well, it was nice running into you, Wonwoo. And—um, it might not be your thing, but I work at the Honeymoon almost every night—like, six to midnight. So, if you’re ever in Centertown, you should stop by.”

“Oh, good to know.”

“M’kay, later!”

Wonwoo waved. “Bye, guys.”

Once they left the pottery shop, Wonwoo set his elbows onto the plastic-sheeted table and leaned into his cold hands, sighing heavily as the egg timer continued ticking. Sierra was polite. She seemed warm like the sunshine and beautifully sincere. Wonwoo could read from her tender brown eyes that she desired more out of him—a friendship, a relationship, maybe something blissful, blurred, and in between. Though, it was nothing Wonwoo could give her.

He thought about the comment she made in regards to their pool—if he ever swam. Wonwoo didn’t swim, not since that horrible incident of Lifeguard all those years ago, back at the waterpark he used to attend alongside his older brother. Still, it got him thinking.

Reverting to his desktop, he looked for a folder.

writing.footage

It contained all the video clips he’d taken of you with the camcorder throughout your writing journey. He had every single one, from the grassy running ring at the high school to the footage he’d taken of the evening sky the day you two visited the beach.

His mouse hovered over a clip.

Fuck—he really shouldn’t do that. Every moment would sting like a red hot, peeling sunburn. The mouse moved away from the video clip and Wonwoo sat back in his chair, rubbing a hand against his face at the near torment. But… it had been so long. He missed you.

“Whatever…” he sighed to himself, clicking the video.

It took a moment to start up.

“Okay! So, this is Mooney’s Bay. It encompasses chapter three, and—Wonwoo, you have to film my intro! Why are you filming the sand?”

“Sorry, the lighting’s not good.”

“Oh.”

“Stand this way.”

“Those people will get in the shot.”

“Who cares? They’re far away.”

“I’ll stand in front of them… okay, are you zoomed in?”

“You told me not to zoom in.”

“No, I didn’t!”

“Remember when I zoomed in and you said I shouldn’t do that because it doesn’t capture the scenery properly?”

“Well, I said that because you were zooming in on me when you were supposed to be getting the ambiance shots! That’s why I said don’t zoom in. You can zoom in for the intro. Is the light better?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Does my hair look good? Actually, do you think it’s too windy? I’m worried about it being too windy, and then I can’t hear my introduction. I have to be able to hear my introduction. I’m really nervous. Wait—let me take off my flip flops. There’s so much sand in them and I hate it. Okay. Am I covering the people?”

“Yes.”

“Should I start now?”

“Go ahead.”

“Okay. So, this is Mooney’s Bay, and… and… wait—oh no! I forget my lines. What was I supposed to say, again?”

“I’m not sure, it’s your script. Something about chapter three.”

“Oh, I remember now! Okay, again from the top. Cut this out!”

He remembered that warm day as clear as the bay’s shiny water—specifically, the plethora of takes he had to film because you kept fudging up the script typed out on your phone. Wonwoo surfed through the rest of the clips pertaining to the beach, smiling to himself whenever you would fumble the words for the umpteenth time and groan in sheer frustration. Eventually, the backdrop turned from blue skies to an evening sunset. You two had spent hours there, and the filming had ended with tangy lemonade and watermelon.

He moved to a different assortment of clips.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, introduce the flavour. Like show and tell.”

“Oh, like a vlog?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. This is my flavour: it’s strawberry cheesecake. The red bits are the strawberries and those chunks are the cheesecake. I picked it because this is the flavour I got when I went on my first date with Mingyu. I love strawberries the most. Cheesecake is my favourite cake. Um… I don’t really know what else to say…”

“Where’d you get it from?”

“Oh—from The Big Chill!”

“What would you rate it?”

“Like, seven out of ten.”

“Not perfect even though it’s your favourite things?”

“Well—because the ice cream is too hard. I like soft ice cream. If I waited like, ten minutes, then ate some, it would be higher.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“Okay! You’re not supposed to be inserting your personal comments! You’re just supposed to say prompts and stuff. Don’t make me revoke your camera privileges.”

“You know anybody else with my camera operating skills?”

“Seokmin.”

“He couldn’t film his way out of a paper bag.”

“I’ll be sure to tell him that.”

“It’s nothing I haven’t already said.”

The abrupt end to the video made Wonwoo sink down in his chair with a dumb, wide smile. You did in fact, wait the entire ten minutes for your ice cream to significantly melt in the cup, then forcing Wonwoo to watch with unfiltered judgement as you stirred it up like a smoothie. You said it helped with your sensitive teeth.

He could understand that.

Knowing he wouldn’t be able to watch much more, he chose one final clip to open—the most recent one he’d taken. It was from the day you raced home in the rain after exploring the nature museum, right before Princess had swung by to pick you up. He had been fooling around with the camcorder while you two sat on the couch.

“… Um, so… do you care if I keep this shirt? It’s a good bedtime shirt, and I don’t really have any. I mean, only if you say it’s okay.”

“Uh, sure. I hardly wear it anymore, to be honest.”

“Oh. What’s it from?”

“A math competition thing. If you straighten that part out… that’s Euler’s number… this other one is your classic integral.”

“Hm, yeah. That’s such a great conversation starter. Have you guys ever heard about the integral symbol? Such a classic!”

“You jest but it got me quite a bit of recognition.”

“Like you want recognition.”

“Yeah, that’s why I stopped wearing it.”

“Ah, okay. So if I wear it out, will I get random geeks coming up to me on the street asking about it?”

“Probably.”

“Mm, okay. I’ll keep it.”

“You want that, huh?”

“Yes, so when they come up to me, I can say I have a really smart, talented, loser friend who owns it. So I can brag about you.”

“That’s… nice, I suppose. Can you drop the loser part?”

“No. It’s to keep you humble.”

“Seriously? Life has already humbled me enough, I think.”

The clip ended, and Wonwoo was staring back at himself in the screen’s black reflection. He could recall that oddly hollow feeling which situated uncomfortably large in the pit of his stomach when he realized how much he missed you.

But how could he not yearn for you? When you were so captivating, and infinitely brilliant, and stubbornly hard-headed in a tantalizing way that made him feel completely alive and invigorated.

I fucked up—it was all he could think as he pushed his laptop away and buried his head into his arms—I fucked up, I fucked up, I fucked up and I pushed away the most amazing girl I’ve ever known.

Suddenly, the small egg timer that had been sitting on the landlord’s desk a room away erupted. It started rattling and clanging and while Wonwoo should have shot up from his seat to turn it off and check the sculpted mugs cooking in the kiln, he stayed in his seat.

He felt glued to it.

All he could think about was how badly he needed to talk to you, hear your voice, see your face, smell your scent. Maybe he didn’t deserve it—Wonwoo knew he didn’t—but he loved you too much.

He couldn’t let you fade into a deep, dark memory.

—JULY 30th.

Wonwoo hadn’t been to his favourite café on Sunnyside Avenue for almost two months. He was therefore quite surprised at their new interior upon giving into a last-minute whim—visiting for a quick coffee. They had finally swapped their metal chairs for more cushiony seats, and the circle tabletops for square, wooden ones. The style of chalk writing on the overhead menu boards had changed, too.

He didn’t even recognize the baristas.

Usually, Wonwoo only stopped at the café to work on his writing and indulge in a raspberry lemon scone that was supposed to be a treat for having been productive, though he always ate it before a single word would ever grace the paper. Since he began helping you with your book back in March, he frequented the café less and less. It brought a smile to his face, recalling the incident of you slapping your hand against the window and jarring him half to death.

He used to be so afraid of you. Never would he imagine the comfort you’d end up bestowing him—and the fact he’d lose it all.

“I can help whoever’s next!”

Turning his attention from the corner where his old table used to sit—now occupied by two girls sharing a latte and giggling as they perused their phones—Wonwoo approached the barista he failed to recognize, waiting to take his order. Realizing he’d lost his metaphorical loyalty badge and that he could no longer just coolly toss out, ‘the usual’, Wonwoo had to remember what it was he even liked.

“Just an iced coffee,” he said, “and, uh… do you still have those scones with the raspberry and lemon filling?”

As the barista pressed something into the tablet screen, he shook his head. “Unfortunately they’re not made here anymore.”

“Oh, damn.”

“We do have a new strawberry scone, though, for summer. It’s got a confectionary sugar drizzle. It’s pretty popular.”

“Uh, don’t worry about it, I’ll just take the coffee.”

“No problem, man. Total is three ninety-nine.”

“Card, thanks.”

It might have been stupid, but Wonwoo couldn’t think about strawberries without thinking of you, because you always smelled like a sweet, ripe, and vibrantly red strawberry—it was the scent of your skin, which he so pathetically missed feeling warm and velvet against his. He bet one-hundred percent you would have ordered that scone.

After tapping his phone against the card reader, Wonwoo stepped aside and waited for his coffee. It was a Sunday. He had work tomorrow. There wasn’t much happening in his life.

“Iced coffee, right here.”

The barista slid the cardboard cup across the counter. Wonwoo grabbed it with a polite thank you, and then settled an inspecting glance around the café for a place to sit. He shouldn’t have come in the afternoon—it was always their busiest hours apart from early morning—and it seemed the redesign had promptly boosted their relevance, because Wonwoo couldn’t remember a time when the tables had ever been so filled. He stepped further into the seating area, though, someone familiar had just caught his eye.

Princess.

She was sat at a table close to some beautifully potted ferns and palm leaves, typing on a laptop while a plate with a half-finished sandwich and a plastic cup of matcha remained by her elbow. At the exact moment that Wonwoo saw her, Princess had also looked up, and as though by magic, their gazes caught without hesitation.

At first, Wonwoo panicked. The breath dropped out of his chest and he pondered waving to her, turning tail, and fleeing. There was not a single doubt in his mind that she was aware of the fight between you and him—she was your best friend—and Wonwoo knew from the manner in which her lips apprehensively curled into a numb smile that Princess already knew everything. Still, she waved at him.

Wonwoo gulped, waving back.

Maybe it was an indescribably stupid decision, but Wonwoo opted to swallow the fear and dread and anxiety in his throat. If she didn’t want him to sit with her, then he trusted that Princess would make such a boundary extremely clear—but Wonwoo had to try. He had to make some sort of initiative, some form of amends, and above all, he wanted to know about you, even if the answer hurt terribly.

“Uh, hey… how are you?”

Princess’ tattooed hands stilled on the keyboard. She flitted her round, deep brown eyes up at him, and he felt frustrated that he could extract little to nothing from their depths. Again, she smiled.

“I’m alright. Just working on some forms for work.”

Wonwoo nodded. “Do you, uh… do you care if I sit?”

She didn’t speak, but continued to stare at him with a lip worried between her teeth, and it was then Wonwoo could realize the conflict swimming through her gaze. The panic started to build again, and the regret surged into his stomach like a tsunami.

“Really, I don’t mean to make things awkward,” Wonwoo was urged to clarify, the cold cup feeling increasingly slippery in his clammy hand, “I can go. I don’t want to cause any problems."

“No, no—” Princess shook her head, meanwhile her tone remained strained and uncertain, “—it’s okay. Uh, yeah. Sure. Take a seat. I mean, it’s plenty full in here. I’m not that busy.”

“Are you sure? Because—”

“Yeah, I’m sure. You can sit, Wonwoo.”

He exhaled softly, proceeding to pull out the chair. It felt quite nice sitting against a cushion rather than the hard metal he remembered.

Princess reached for her matcha, placing the straw between her lips and taking a long, heavy sip as though to prepare herself for the awkward nature of their incoming conversation. Wonwoo did the same. He didn’t even know where to start. Was it better to burn off his nerves through small talk or jump straight into the heat?

She moved the long braids off her shoulder, heaved in a breath.

“Well, let’s just get the bulk of this talk out of the way. I know what happened. I know you’re not friends with Her anymore. I know the way it ended was super ugly. I know that she spent, like, three days at my apartment, miserable, in tears over you, Wonwoo. So, I do feel a certain way toward you. I hope you can understand that.” She closed the lid of her laptop and sighed. “But, we’re adults. And I guess I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious about… some things.”

“No, I—I get that.”

Already, he wanted to throw up. Despite all his repressing, he could still hear that choked, vulnerable, completely broken sob you croaked out the day you left his apartment—how mercilessly it had haunted him for the entire week—made him believe he was a monster, a masochist, the lowest form of human being. Wonwoo felt there was no excusing it. He would always hate himself for it.

“What are you curious about?” Wonwoo asked quietly.

Princess glanced down for a second, staring at the smooth, black surface of her laptop. She then clicked her nails together.

“I-I just… how could it… how could it go so wrong?” The girl wondered aloud, leaning back into her chair, seeming despaired at the aftermath. “From the second I saw her get defensive of you at Spring Street, I knew how much she cared. I knew that you meant something to her and for whatever reason, she wasn’t going to let anyone screw it up. And she became so much lighter. Everything wasn’t an attack. Everything she did wasn’t so agonizing anymore.”

Wonwoo’s knee wouldn’t stop bouncing underneath the table, the nervous energy accumulating rather than draining away. He wished he had the perfect answer, but he couldn’t yet find one.

Her head tilted, shoulders shrugging. “I don’t know… I thought you could be so good for Her. She doesn’t have anyone in her life that’s like you. But—I mean—fuck, we’re here, now, aren’t we?”

“Mmhm,” Wonwoo mumbled, staring straight into the girl’s shiny, unwavering eyes that held so much sentiments of angst and betrayal, like she herself was carrying your rage. “Princess… I… I want, so fucking bad, to give you a good answer for why everything blew up. I do. But—just—every time I try to look inward, every time I try to understand it at its core, I feel like it’s all shrouded. I know I fucked up. I know it. She made—makes—me happy, too. But I’m not there yet.”

“You’re not where?” She asked, pressing forward. “At a place where you can understand what you did? Why you did it?”

Fiddling with his cup atop its cork coaster, Wonwoo nodded.

He then chewed into his bottom lip, feeling the skin break.

“Can I ask… what did you think of me? When she told you what happened? If you have to be brutally uncouth, I don’t care.”

Princess abruptly laughed at the request, head tumbling forward into her gold-ringed hands. He wasn’t sure if she would oblige, as the laugh sounded nervous yet tinged with disbelief, which led Wonwoo to believe she had thought some very unpleasant things.

“Um… let’s see...” she chuckled hesitantly, smoothing antsy hands along her dark skin, “I was definitely gagged, let’s start there.”

He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know—I just—I didn’t believe that you would be capable of being such a fucking asshole. I mean—” she collapsed back into the chair, throwing up her arms, “—can you blame me? You’re quiet, well-mannered, intelligent. Everyone loved you at the party. I think the fact you could turn around and be so… s-so cruel, so hostile, like you were—I don’t know—trying to gut her, just seemed impossible. But Her doesn’t lie. She has no reason to make it up. I wasn’t able to think much at all because I went comfort mode. I just wanted to focus on getting her mind off you.”

“And… afterward?”

“Well, I wanted to destroy you, obviously.”

“… Fair.”

“So, can I ask you something?”

Instantly, his stomach dropped to his feet, and Wonwoo was certain his face had paled like a washed-out t-shirt. Princess’ gaze settled upon him with intense focus. Wonwoo scratched at his thumb.

“Okay.”

“… Do you love her?”

He didn’t answer. Even if he wanted to, the words erased from his mind in a mere snap of one’s fingers. Instead, Wonwoo stared at the girl while she politely waited for a sign, knowing his very loud, lacking response was an answer enough in itself if his eyes weren’t already panicked and practically writing the narrative for him. To admit his true heart to another person was the most horrifying predicament Wonwoo could articulate. He was far from capable.

Princess raised her brow. “I’ll take that as a—”

“You can’t tell Her. Please, please, please, whatever you do, whatever you think of me—just, please don’t tell Her,” Wonwoo blurted, the perspiration drenching the palms that sunk into his knees. “I-I don’t know what I’ll do if she finds out. Really, I—”

“Wonwoo.” Princess reached under the table, and he felt her cool, soft hand settle overtop his. “I’m not going to say anything to anyone, okay? Just breathe. You look like you’re going to have—"

“Don’t say it,” he exhaled shakily, “I-I know…”

He proceeded to close his eyes, draw in a long, deep, thorough breath, while his knee continued jittering and his chest felt so tight and twisted with fear. He closed his eyes and recalled the washroom belonging to his aunt’s house in rural Changwon, with the bright blue shower curtain and its pattern of yellow rubber ducks.

Wonwoo counted all the rubber ducks on that childhood curtain, the number having been scorched into his mind like a scar, until he felt the world fall back into tune. The steadiness of Princess’ hand over top his was a gentle reminder that he was indeed alive and not a puddle of mistakes melted to the café floor. Pushing up the glasses that had slipped down his nose, he reopened his eyes to see the girl’s the sympathetic, earnest face. Wonwoo cleared his throat.

“Um, yeah—I’m okay… just—uh, th-thank you.”

She pulled her hand away, smiling, “no problem.”

The two proceeded to sit in silence as Wonwoo further collected his bearings. He glanced around the café, recognizing no one else amongst the crowd, and spotting more and more modifications that had appeared since his last visit—the light fixtures overhead were different, the decorative wall art had been replaced, and the baristas were all wearing hats with a new, improved logo. So much had developed in his absence. So much had to change.

He looked at his iced coffee, which he took a sip from, and realized that he didn’t prefer the taste quite like he used to.

Wonwoo sighed, pushing the drink away from him.

“Princess?”

“Yeah?”

“I know I don’t deserve this. I know that me even asking this might seem so unprecedentedly stupid. Her probably doesn’t want you talking to me, which I get, and I know you feel conflicted about me being here�� but… fuck… Princess, I have to know something about Her. Anything. I don’t care if it’s the smallest, most insignificant detail you could think of. Just one thing… that’s all.”

The delivery was undoubtedly begging, perhaps pathetic, but he could not find it within himself to care. He missed you too fucking much, to the point it was becoming insufferable, unliveable.

Folding one leg over the other, Princess leaned back and grabbed onto her matcha, spinning it slightly. She was no longer meeting his eyeline, and that drowned his hopes in a watery grave.

He settled his elbows onto the table, his finger gripping at the air with every pleading word that he could somehow conjure.

“I know you don’t want to; I-I know it. I know she fucking hates me, detests me, wishes we never met. But this is the most regretful I’ve ever been, a-about anything in my life. And—I know that I’m pushing you—I’m sorry—I’m so fucking sorry—if I can just know one thing, I’ll leave you alone. I-I mean, is she… did she get a new shirt, after that one ripped, on the hanger? Does she still go to the SSA meetings? Or—I don’t fucking know—is she writing? Is she doing something new? Have you seen her smile at all? Or heard her laugh? Genuinely laugh. The one where she can’t even breathe and she grips onto you and buries her head into your neck? Is she still just as quippy? Constantly rambling over herself? I miss that so much… I miss all of it… everything about her… there’s nothing I don’t miss.”

Princess was biting her lip, refusing to say a word.

Wonwoo hadn’t intended to barrage her. Nonetheless, he couldn’t leave the café without wholeheartedly trying.

“Fuck…” he exhaled, placing his forehead against the black wood of the table, breathing back the bitterness, the frustration, the tears. Princess was a boulder, it seemed. He’d lost, picking his head back up after a moment of composure, and pushed out his chair.

“You’re leaving?” She asked, her gaze heavy with sadness.

He nodded. “I just—I… yeah.”

“Okay… later.”

“Bye, Princess,” he answered, his throat irritably tight.

“… Well—o-okay, actually…”

As her voice picked up amongst the cluttering dishes and drawls of conversation, Wonwoo turned around to see the girl’s remorseful expression and the hands shoved tightly under her arms. Princess paused, staring at the coffee mug he’d abandoned at the table.

“… She needs you.”

Wonwoo stiffened, then nearly scoffed in disagreement.

“She hates me. What do you mean?”

But Princess shook her head, making a twisting motion at her lips like she was fastening the lock to a chest. It was her one thing.

And Wonwoo had no idea what to make of it.

It had been far too long since Wonwoo last texted, spoke to, or saw Vernon. When he left for an entire week to stay at his uncle’s cottage in the midst of July, he hadn’t even shot the boy a message that he was leaving. As cold or uncompassionate as it may have sounded, Wonwoo never really considered Vernon to be that important or necessary to his life until he sat back and thought about their relationship: a studious loner with an unperturbed drug dealer who somehow formed a bond that hadn’t predictably eroded.

Sure, it helped that Vernon became his plug and there was technically a reason for their symbiosis, but what Wonwoo hadn’t taken note of was their closeness over the months.

Perhaps it was guilt, or the sting of losing you and having experienced Princess treat him like an ugly secret, or the simplistic, innate need for human contact, that Wonwoo finally decided to reach out and invite the boy over for a smoke. Vernon agreed, though it wasn’t until the near cusp of midnight that he stopped by. Together they sat on the complex rooftop, two perfectly packed blunts between them, lit by their sparking lighters. The conversation drifted from topic to topic like a passive leaf being tugged through a breeze.

Wonwoo was able to realize how desperately he needed a moment like that—no guards, no anxiety, no hyper-analyzing every little goddamn comment or action—just friendship.

And Vernon made it easy.

“Not to mention the fact that Seokmin—he fuckin’ sucks at mini-puttin’ by the way. Jesus Christ, man. There was a twelve-year-old girl a hole behind us who was makin’ shots like Tiger Woods, and then here we are, waitin’ for Seokmin to make a shot that is damn near impossible to—like, okay—tell me why he’s got one leg on the fuckin’ rock and the other stretched halfway across the laneway like he's droppin’ into the splits? Why does it need t’be that hard!”

Shaking his head, Wonwoo half-laughed, half-coughed into his elbow, the smoke instantly rushing back out his mouth.

“Holy fuck. I wish I’d seen that in person.”

“No,” Vernon deadpanned, rolling up his sleeves, “you don’t. At that point, just pick up the ball and move it into the hole, man. That twelve-year-old’s got places to be and we’re over here climbin’ on rocks and crawlin’ under bridges like it’s a fuckin’ jungle gym.”

“I’m surprised they even let you in.”

“Oh—me too,” he chuckled. “Fuck someone once in the storage closet at glow-in-the-dark mini-put and suddenly you’re ‘a detriment to the company.’ Like, get the fuck outta my face.”

“You live, you learn.”

“Well, she’s still there. Somehow.”

“Ruby?”

“Yeah—just sold her like two-hundred bucks of ecstasy.”

Wonwoo threw his head back and cackled.

“You still talk to her?!”

“No, no—Ruby’s chill! Always came to work stoned half the time, though. Dude, no. It was the other girl that fuckin’ ratted on us.”

“Damn… so, is Ruby the one?” Wonwoo teased.

As Vernon removed the joint from his lips, a swift trail of smoke ejected into the nighttime air. He huffed in disagreement.

“Nah. She’s a good friend you can screw on the low. Know you guys won’t catch feelings. Makes it easy. That’s what I’m about.”

“Yeah. Simple enough.”

Scraping his thumb against the rough spark wheel of his favourite Bic, Wonwoo lit the small, dancing flame, bringing it close to his blunt and crisping the paper more heavily. He proceeded to draw in a long, smooth breath. The atmosphere was almost silent if not for the distant murmur of midnight traffic. Wonwoo watched the abundant smoke as it slowly streamed out his nose. It eventually dissipated against the blackness, existing just long enough for Wonwoo to appreciate that weightless sensation it gave him.

Vernon swept a hand through his hair, smiled at Wonwoo.

“Okay, so, feel free to tell me to fuck off—” the boy began with notable caution, taking a quick hit before removing the blunt from his lips “—but, uh, what exactly… did happen… between you and Her?”

For a moment, the vigilantly placed question hovered in the cool summer air as Wonwoo breathed out another cloud. However, he didn’t let the smoke disappear on its own, rather he blew into it harshly and forced the flurry to melt. One way or another, he knew this topic would surface. And Vernon was right—he completely had the right to tell his friend to fuck off—because no matter how much time had passed since, Wonwoo still felt the wound with all the freshness and intensity of that night. He remained stiff, thinking.

Sensing the reluctancy, Vernon abandoned his request.

“Y’know, it doesn’t matter. We’re havin’ fun, anyway.”

Wonwoo was going to agree—yeah, let’s skip it—but at the last second, he burned the reliable safety of his choice. The thing was, he hadn’t really discussed the fight with anybody. Sitting down and talking to Princess didn’t bestow the alleviation or closure that Wonwoo thought it would, especially considering her loyalty to you and the fact she hadn’t desired that conversation more than she desired a hole in the head. He was able to relieve some tension upon visiting his uncle’s, but, ultimately, Wonwoo was doing the exact thing you had accused him of—letting things sit and fester.

Shutting everyone out.

Poisoning himself, and those around him.

After tugging at the edge of his thick beanie, Wonwoo rubbed a knuckle against his forehead and decided to bite the bullet.

“Uh, no—all good. You’re curious, I get it.”

Vernon’s eyes widened underneath the moonlight and the warm, glowing radiance that crept over the building precipice. He nearly choked on the smoke.

“Wait—dude. Really?”

“Yeah.” Wonwoo angled his face toward him, nodding.

“Okay, uh… wow. Wasn’t expectin’ to get this far.”

“Need a moment to catch your breath, yeah?”

“Psh—shut the fuck up, Glasses… actually—no, yeah. Let me take a hit first. I feel like this is gonna be a deep-dish pizza, y’know?”

“Somewhat, I suppose,” Wonwoo agreed.

He copied his friend, crisping the blunt one last time before pressing his lips around the paper and drawing in a big breath.

Right before the prickling could desiccate his throat, Wonwoo exhaled everything into the abrupt breeze—not just the smoke, but his fears, his worries—whatever might stunt or thwart him from understanding that it wasn’t so terrifying to be candour.

Vernon shook out his shoulders.

“Okay, player. You’ve got my attention.”

Wonwoo swallowed.

How the fuck does one go about saying this?

“So, uh…”

Where does he even start?

“I guess the important part is…”

What’s going to happen if he chokes on all his words?

“Okay, so, we basically… um…”

Wonwoo, you have spent practically your entire life writing and crafting sentences and the most adolescent, tormented prose imaginable—how is it that you cannot configure one thought?

“I’m… I’m kind of in love with her.”

He thought about glancing at Vernon to gauge his reaction, especially when his friend didn’t offer one word in response, not even a pointed hmph, or a sniffle, or something satirical to suggest that all his teasing had some actual truth and substance.

But Wonwoo didn’t look.

Vernon was giving him the floor to keep going.

“And… that night, at the party, we had this really sincere moment… I mean, maybe it wasn’t that sincere—she’d just done a line of coke and had been sipping alcohol and smoking all night. But that’s how it felt when it was happening. After the bullshit with Bells, I took her to a spare bedroom to calm down. She asked me to lay with her.”

Wonwoo paused to collect his breathing. Even just the memory of your body pressed against his was enough to rake up those buried emotions from his insides like old, autumn leaves. The memories of your heat, and the giggling into his neck, and the way your fingers would occasionally trace shapes on his chest as you listened to him talk—nothing had ever felt so cosmically right.

“Um… yeah. I don’t know why I agreed. I didn’t care about if it was wrong or right. If Mingyu came barging in, or someone else, or—fuck, if the goddamn roof caved in—I didn’t care. I just wanted to be with her so fucking bad. We didn’t kiss or anything. We just laid there together, like, intertwined, you know? I told her some stuff. We were just talking… I think, in my mind, I just wanted to have this moment where I was something to her, more than a friend. And I just—I put this stupid fucking notion in my head that it was true.”

Eyes squeezed shut, blunt poised between his fingers, Wonwoo rode the high of another hit, ignoring the deep, sensitive pain cutting his bone marrow. He kept excavating despite the hurt.

“But—I-I mean, a girl like that?” He laughed, head bending down between his propped knees. “A girl like that, you know? She is so—sh-she’s—I shouldn’t want her at all. I should want nothing to do with her. But—I don’t know—she has drive, and things she’s passionate about, and she can be so unrelenting and fucking bossy, but then so soft, and calm, and I just get drawn into her like a moth to a flame. I think everything’s okay, you know? I don’t get that… that dread—that feeling like I’m constantly failing, and useless, and like everything is out to get me.”

Wonwoo hadn’t glanced at Vernon once. He didn’t want to.

That way, it felt like he was alone, talking to himself, maybe talking to the moon. It erased the veil of pressure and eased his typically constrained, rigid muscles. Feeling his glasses begin to slip, Wonwoo lifted his head, pushing the circled frames back up his nose.

“I don’t know why it’s like that. I don’t know why it’s her, specifically. Sometimes I wish it wasn’t. She has Mingyu to love. And it just—it fucking frustrates me so much—" Wonwoo breathed out the irritation, licking his lips, “—because we’re having this sweet moment, and it’s so perfect, and right. But then all of a sudden, he’s just—he—she's letting him fuck her. Like that moment we had was nothing, like I didn’t just be the most open I’ve ever been with her. And—I know, I know—she’s high as fuck and not thinking straight. So, what do I chalk us up to, then? A bad trip? A blur in time? A moment you live once and then just forget? What the fuck do I make of that?”

Something crackled inside him, akin to match being lit, palpable enough that it motivated the boy to his feet because this cramped, knees-to-chest position wouldn’t suffice in channeling the energy he felt. Wonwoo moved the blunt to his lips, attempting to speak while it hung at the corner of his mouth, though he only left it there for a few seconds in his urgence for another hit. He started pacing.

“That was such a dogshit moment, you know? Going down there, wanting it to be a lie, almost believing it, but then—I hear it. I-I hear the way she’s getting fucked and I hear her moans and her whimpers and I hear the way he’s using her.” Wonwoo kicked a stone off the edge of the building, one hand shoved into his sweats pocket while the other fed him a brief inhalation from the blunt. “I’ve never felt that before. Awful. Like, indescribable devastation. I ran to the washroom to throw up because my body just couldn’t handle it. It felt like such a kick in the fucking teeth. And I was mad at her—like, fuck you for throwing back all that trust into my face, you know?”

He shook his head, then balancing at the rim of the complex like a fall from that height wouldn’t leave him broken.

“I was so fucking pissed at her…” Wonwoo muttered, staring down at the shadowed streets, “every time I thought about it, I just felt sick… but, obviously, we have to hash it out. That’s why she jumped you, or whatever—I wasn’t texting her back because I knew nothing good would come from it. Like I said, though… she’s unrelenting. Shows up at my door, banging on it like there’s a murderer outside. I was in a terrible headspace. I… I kind of…”

The words jammed on his tongue.

Wonwoo had to walk away from the ledge as a foggy sensation muddled his senses. Hands, beginning to tremble, pulled in torment down the back of his black beanie, the blunt caught between his fingers as he remembered the inexcusable maliciousness to his ranting. It echoed through his head like a gong.

He squatted down, rubbing at his wrinkled, aching brow.

“I… I basically—j-just—I tore her to fucking shreds.”

There was so much emotion clogging his throat. Every word was a struggle to enunciate, and each one burned and stung more tangibly than the last, as though he’d swallowed knives.

“It didn’t even feel good, you know? It wasn’t cathartic, or victorious. I felt like… do I even deserve anything? She went into the hall and… that sob. Oh my god… bawling her eyes out because of my stupidity. Because of my inability to be a fucking person as she mentioned.”

Wonwoo stared at the grit covering the roof.

He reached out his hand, letting the small bits of rubble stick to his fingertips, thinking, about everything, how he destroyed it. You were just a panicked river, trying to heal and soothe, but the message was lost under the current. Wonwoo had been a scalding fire, one that charred everything the instant it touched his vengeful heat.

There were only ashes. He didn’t know how to rebuild a relationship from something so fragile and ruined at his beckon.

The frustration was boiling in Wonwoo’s gut. All his shortcomings, the ignorance to the flaws he buried, how he treated you—it was all bubbling together like some sort of poisonous, infectious brew and if he didn’t somehow release pressure then he would crack like ceramics. Wonwoo maneuvered the thick blunt from his fingers into his palm where he crushed it, hard.

“Uh, Wonwoo? It’s… it’s okay, man. You—”

“Fuck!”

The tattered piece of crisped tobacco paper and grinded weed flew into the air, the breeze pulling the remnants somewhere unimportant. Vernon immediately smothered his words. He could only stare, frozen, as Wonwoo tore off his glasses, rubbing a sweater sleeve against the beginning pricks of tears that bulbed up from his eyes. He sucked in a long, shuddering, ragged breath.

“I fucking hate this, Vernon. I-I’m everything she said I was. I do it to myself. I always do it to myself. I want to change so badly but it never feels like it’s happening fast enough, a-an-and—and—and—”

“Glasses, relax, okay?”

Vernon was on his feet in an instant, quickly brushing his hands off against the fabric of his jeans, the blunt now tucked behind his ear. Wonwoo continued rubbing into his eyes. His friend’s face appearing before him was nothing but watery smudging, almost like a ruined oil painting. Wonwoo hiccupped.

“No—Vernon—y-you don’t understand, you—I-I fucked up, alright? I fucked up so bad! I—” he could hardly breathe, his glasses dropped somewhere on the roof, “—I just wrecked everything and—”

“Wonwoo! Jeon Wonwoo!” Vernon gripped his shoulders and shook them sternly. “Shut up! You’re takin’ all the fuckin’ air!”

The abruptness snapped a wire in Wonwoo’s brain. It was so unexpected that he almost wasn’t sure if it happened. However, his torrent of seemingly endless anxious thought began to falter, with a very slow but gradual concentration toward the softness rosying his friend’s blurred face. Vernon rubbed against Wonwoo’s trembling arm, and with a gentle tug, urged him to sit down.

“C’mon, get on your ass… there ‘ya go. Awesome. Now… where’s your—oh, shit—they’re right here. Lucky you, huh?”

Vernon crouched down in front of him.

As Wonwoo busied himself with carving those scratches against his thumb, Vernon extended a hand to his friend’s cheek.

“Let me rid get of these tears… so you… can actually… see…”

With a grunt, Vernon fell back onto his butt.

“Let’s put these on, yeah? Are you okay with that?”

Vernon seemed to accept the quietness as him not quite being ready, and so the boy settled for resting a tattooed hand on Wonwoo’s knee, familiarizing him with a grounding touch. In due time, Wonwoo was relaxed enough to properly swallow.

Vernon smiled at him.

“So, does Glasses need his glasses now?”

Wonwoo sniffled, imitating a rumbling sound to clear his brittle throat, meanwhile there was a breeze ghosting along his exposed nape. It was just as comforting as Vernon’s touch.

“Y-Yes… thank you.”

“Hey, no problem. I’m just glad they didn’t get crushed.”

When his friend’s calm face clarified in the silver moonlight, with his unjudgmental eyes, and his compassionate smile, Wonwoo began to realize that… perhaps, being trusting and vulnerable and honest was not the worst thing in the world. There was merit and relief. There was a friend waiting on the other side with an open hand.

“Vernon… I, um… I’m—”

“Listen, Glasses. If you’re gonna apologize to me, then shove it right back up your ass. Seriously. There’s no need.”

“Well, I mean…” Wonwoo wiped his runny nose, “I kind of unloaded on you, and, I didn’t intend for that. I really didn’t.”

“I asked you a loaded question in the first place, didn’t I? I ordered a deep-dish pizza and that’s what I fuckin’ got.”

“Well… I-I… I’m glad you can look at it that way.”

“God, Wonwoo. You’re actin’ like this was a total blindside. I know you, y’know? Maybe not to a tee, but I know you.” Vernon kept his hand against Wonwoo’s knee, dusting some grit from it. “And I know you’re gonna feel regretful about all this, but you shouldn’t, alright? ‘Cause, look—you did somethin’ that most people—they go their entire lives without doin’. You dug deep and acknowledged your flaws. And not just the pansy shit, like—oh, I’m bad at time management, I forget to put the dishes away, I don’t fill up the ice cube tray, I never reply to texts—I mean the real stuff.

The really dark, uncomfortable stuff that we know is there but it’s so much easier to ignore. The stuff that gets in the way of our happiness, or success, or connections—bein’ the sin-sincerest versions of ourselves—it’s so much easier to pack all that bad stuff down. It’s there but at least it’s not out here. But then, like, maybe one day it is out here. And it’s hurtin’ everything around you. And some people will still let it slide because there’s always somethin’ else to blame. What is that bullshit—acceptance is always the hardest part? I don’t fuckin’ know. Anyway, you should give yourself some credit, Glasses. Seriously. I’m proud.”

“Proud?” Wonwoo chuckled weakly, returning the warmth of his friend’s honeyed eyes. “That's such a mom thing to say.”

Vernon’s hand shifted to whacking Wonwoo’s arm. “Don't get smart.”

“No, uh—I’m joking. Thank you, Vernon… really.”

“Hey, I know I’m your drug dealer, but I consider us friends, y’know? And not every friend’s gotta be your support beam. But I think you’re someone worth supportin’… hey—that sounded pretty smart and eloquent, right? I’m basically you, now.”

Wonwoo smiled. “You're missing the glasses.”

“I’ll just take yours,” Vernon chided, giving his friend’s chest a light push, “what’re you gonna do, anyway? Four-eyes.”

“I think if you wore these for more than five minutes… you’d get a migraine,” Wonwoo supposed, watching Vernon nod his head.

“Damn. You’re probably right. Not worth it.”

“Mmhm…”

“… But, um… y’know what I do think is worth it?”

Wonwoo raised his eyebrow.

Vernon paused, as though to contemplate his response, but when the words left his mouth, there was pure firmness behind them.

“Man, you need to talk to Her.”

Pressing his lips together, Wonwoo stared off into the corner.

Vernon nudged his arm, attempting to engage him.

“I’m serious! You know she’s perfect for you, right? A bossy girl who’s about her shit but can soften up for you is exactly what you need. Girls like that—they care so fuckin’ much, y’know? And she’s majorly into you. I saw how she hugged you at the party. How she got all smiley and sweet. I mean, she was gonna punch Bells in the fuckin’ face to stop her from makin’ a move on you. She’s got a man, I know. And I’m not sayin’ be a fuckin’ homewrecker. But, like, I don’t know… Mingyu’s all image and no substance. A fuckin’ airhead.”

Wonwoo massaged along his forehead, chuckling.

“I thought you liked him.”

“Yeah, well, I liked him a lot more when he was handin’ me two-hundred ‘a Seungcheol’s bands. I know he just invited me to that party ‘cause I can get him n’ his rich friends high. I’m not stupid. Keep your enemies close, and your friends—wait, fuck—keep your—”

“Friends close and enemies closer?”

Vernon grinned, wide and gummy. “Bingo.”

“Good advice.”

“You’re insane if you don’t do it.”

“If I don’t talk to Her?”

“Yes! Don’t let her go! Are you crazy, Glasses?!”

“What am I supposed to say? I-I was such a cunt.”

“I don’t fuckin’ know, man—offer to lick hers. Bet she’ll forgive you right there on the spot. Damn. That’s how I’d do it.”

“No, you wouldn’t. Idiot.”

“Eh, whatever. You’ll figure it out. I know you will.”

Wonwoo exhaled a large, solacing breath, glancing toward the moonlight that beautifully shimmered down in its pearlescent webs, bathing the rooftop akin to the blue mirages at the nature museum.

Vernon was right.

He couldn’t let this be the end of your story.

—END OF PART FOUR.

#seventeen scenarios #wonwoo scenarios #seventeen imagines #seventeen x reader #wonwoo x reader #svt fanfic #wonwoo fanfic #jeon wonwoo #svt scenarios #seventeen angst #seventeen fanfic #seventeen fluff #seventeen smut

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thexsilentxwordsmith · 1 year ago

Text

Jealous!Possessive!Simon "Ghost" Riley x Fem!reader

Fandom: Call of Duty

Character(s): Simon Riley, Reader

Summary: A night out at your favorite local hangout is what he promised you after being away on deployment for so long, but one small incident throws him over the edge into full on possessive episode. Something about the way he is pulling off to the side of the road might mean he can't make it home before reclaiming his prize.

Word Count: 5.1 k

Warnings:

“Come on, you promised,” you say as you straighten your skirt and adjust your top, looking back at Simon from within the bathroom mirror as he stands behind you, watching you finish getting ready. “You said we could have a night out once you got back from deployment, just the two of us. We always stay in; I want to go out.”

Simon sighs; he can’t ever say no to you even though he is not keen on the idea. “I did, didn’t I,” he agrees with defeat as he advances into the bathroom until he is within reach to wrap his arms around your middle, pulling you flush against his broad, hard chest. “Ya know I’m not against it, I don’t like to fuckin’ share ya is all.”

Heated lips are caressing the skin of your shoulder making it prickle under his touch as he kisses all of that exposed skin. You only allow yourself to enjoy the feeling for a moment before you shift in his grip, any longer and you are going to be right where he wants you: at his mercy and forgetting all about going anywhere tonight.

“Later,” you breathe. “I promise; just want you to take me out first. A few hours at the bar, a couple drinks with a bit of conversation, and then we’ll be back to end the night right, okay?”

He nods. “If that’s what ya want, sweetheart, then that’s what we’ll do,” he agrees and you pull him in for a kiss on his lips before sending off to get dressed.

The bar is already gathering a good crowd inside by the time you arrive. With Simon’s hand firmly wrapped around your hip, you enter the familiar hangout and instantly you are drawing looks in your direction. It’s easy enough to get attention, being as massive of a man as Simon is, it isn’t difficult, but that is exactly what he wants. He needs those here to see his hands all over you, needs those around to be aware of who you’re here with so that there won’t be any trouble tonight.

He knows what a prize he has; you are his and god help the idiot that doesn’t get that.

It is the same each time you step foot out of the house together, some part of Simon has to be connected to you at all times: a hand on your lower back, his arm snaking its way around your waist or hip, your combined hands locked into one another. Anything and everything to show that you are taken. Those brown eyes scan the area, taking note of those that look your way as you walk to where you’re going to sit.

A table is chosen off to the side, one out of the way of the main area where you can be more secluded. Here he can have you all to himself just the way he likes it. From the minute he returns from the bar with your drinks and he sits down, his coarse hands with those rough fingertips are on you, lightly brushing over the tops of your bare thighs that poke out from the bottom of your skirt. That brown gaze cannot stay off you as he looks you up and down as you talk through his mask which he occasionally pulls up to sip at his glass of bourbon and take a drag from his cigarette.

After a while you decide you want one more drink and move to get up to go order. Simon tries to convince you otherwise, he can go get whatever you need just as he has all night, but you dismiss him.

“I’ll be right back,” you say as you give him a quick kiss on his exposed lips and walk off before he can answer.

He should be the one to get it, he shouldn’t have allowed you to go, but he let his judgment lapse as the night has been fine so far without consequence. He looks up as you make it up to the bar all alone and unattended and out of his immediate reach. Standing there looking like you do, short skirt and tight top showcasing your most tempting assets, it would be hard for anyone not to have a peak.

It is then that Simon catches a bastard plastered off his rocker stumbling over from a few seats down, right to where you are. There aren’t many other pretty little things around tonight and so Simon is sure this asshole is going to shoot his shot cause there is no way he is wanting to go home alone and that has his blood already boiling.

A few slurred words he musters out to get you to engage with him, even though you are quickly shaking your head it isn’t enough to get him to leave you be. Simon is getting up from his seat when the drunkard’s hand inches down onto your lower back, thumb rubbing up and down, catching you by surprise to make you gasp. You have no time to react before Simon is seeing red and he moves in hastily with his fist clenched and ready to connect with the guy’s mouth.

“Get your fuckin’ hand off ‘er,” his angry voice bellows as he rips the guy away from you and shoves him hard causing the idiot to stagger over his unsteady feet. Emotions are high so once he’s got him off you fists start flying from both: one for touching you and the other for having his play messed with. Too bad for the drunk that Simon isn’t one to be messed with; his fist wallops him square in the jaw so that the man falls to the ground.

But it isn’t finished, not until this bastard learns his lesson. Simon makes his way on top of him and waylays into the man with heavy punches that make repeated contact with his face, not giving the guy a second to get any hits in himself.

“Ya like putin’ your hands on things?” Simon growls menacingly through the tussle, “just fuckin’ try gettin’ ‘em on me. Fuckin’ can’t, can ya?”

The altercation is drawing stares from the other patrons, though no one is really keen on getting in the middle of things. You can’t blame them; Simon is a huge man with enough weight to throw around and that makes him a formidable opponent to anyone outside of a heavyweight boxer. Who is going to willingly step in front of a freight train barreling down the tracks?

“Simon, fucking stop,” you beg as the corner of your eye clocks movement from the bartender bolting up towards the front of the bar to where the bouncer stands just outside the door. “You made your point. We’re going to get kicked out. Fucking let him go.”

Simon doesn’t care; another man has put his hand on you and he can’t let that go. He won’t. You are his, HIS, and inebriated or not he will not stand for anyone trying to move in on his territory. This idiot is gonna learn real fucking quick to fear his masked face and think twice whenever he comes in here again.

“Goddammit Simon,” you sigh under your breath angrily as you know what’s coming next - two people are fast approaching. The bartender is back with the bouncer in tow who immediately jumps into ripping the drunkard out from Simon’s grasp and standing them both back to their feet, but separated.

“You’re outta here, buddy,” the bouncer says to a panting Simon and points a stern finger to the exit with a look in his eyes that says not to take this further or else. “Leave, now.”

You wrap your hand around Simon’s wide bicep and tug, but he has some parting words for the prick with the bloody nose still standing close by. “Best learn your fuckin’ lesson not to touch what ain’t yours. Next time ya might not be so fuckin’ lucky,” he growls menacingly before flexing in your grip, ripping his arm away.

"Come on," he barks at you as he storms out while you quickly pay the remaining tab, offer an embarassed apology, and rush after him.

By the time you get outside Simon is leaning against your car with a cigarette already pressed between his pursed lips as he irately sucks the stick down fast as he can, billowing smoke out like a chimney. His shoulders are tense, his free hand clenching and unclenching itself at his side. You storm over to him, the heat in your cheeks making your face burn as your heartbeat pounds heavy and fast in your chest.

“What the fuck was that?” you ask, venom in your tone.

He avoids your question, his eyes pointed at the ground. “Get in the car,” he says sternly through another large cloud of smoke.

You know he isn’t drunk, he’s barely finished two glasses of bourbon all night, so you want to know why the hell he flew off the handle like that. You know that Simon can be a bit jealous, a bit possessive, evident most when you two go out together. If he catches a lingering eye there will always be a stern glare or at most a bark to back off, but this is the farthest he has ever taken things and you aren’t sure what to feel about it all, so anger settles in first.

Shaking your head, you stand your ground. “Not until you tell me what the fuck is wrong with you,” you demand, but he just silently opens the driver side door as he flicks the butt of his cig to the ground. “You realize they may never allow us back in, right?”

“Get. In.” he orders with authority as he sits down. “Now.”

This isn’t getting anywhere and you’re done causing a scene in public. Gritting your teeth behind your closed lips you march over to the passenger side of the car and fling open the door to scramble inside, slamming it shut before he does the same, starts the car, and peels out to head back to your shared flat. You cross your arms over your chest and huff, agitated that the night has to end this way when moments before everything was going fine.

“Whatever,” you spit back harshly.

Keeping his eyes fixated on the road ahead, uncomfortably shifting in his seat a few times, Simon drives on in complete silence. His grip on the steering wheel is turning his knuckles white from the pressure and yet he won’t let up. Fine, if he wants to stay quiet that’s his prerogative. Too bad for him you aren’t done speaking your peace yet.

“I can’t fucking believe you,” you say, breaking the heavy stillness that permeates the car, “you’re always getting jealous of shit that I can’t help, but this time you’ve gone to far; Christ, you’ve been gone for too long to ruin our time together like this. What are you, twelve? The guy had no chance in hell of getting any farther than that, but you had to go and blow it all out of proportion. I could have just told the bartender and gotten him thrown out or something and we could have gone back to enjoying our night, but no.”

You continue your tirade as Simon turns the car down a deserted road and you notice something is off. This isn’t the usual route you take back to your place; you think it a little odd, but you are too angry to care and so pay that small detail little mind. “You and your goddamn jealousy are really turning me off lately. Get it together, Si. What are you so worried about, hmm? You think he's just gonna steal me away just like that without even trying?”

Simon still isn’t saying anything and that only makes you more agitated. The least he could do is apologize and promise to make it up to you for ruining the night. Spitting a few more heated things under your breath as you turn your head away, you don’t notice that the car is suddenly being pulled over to the side of the road until he brings it to a full stop in the grass off the shoulder, putting it in park and turning it off.

The spot is shadowed by a group of trees that block the nearest streetlight just a few feet away. You can just barely make out the outline of his body in the dimness, though you can clearly hear the movement of him adjusting his seat, slamming it back until it latches, followed by his hand reaching around near your side until he latches onto your wrist.

“Ya think I'm worried about some bastard tryin’ to take ya from me?” he asks, speaking for the first time since he told you to get in the car.

“What’re you…?” you ask back in confusion as he pulls and keeps pulling at your arm until you are forced to move closer, your hips within reach so that he can take hold and forcibly guide your body directly over top of his lap, knees digging into the seat cushion until you are straddled over his crotch. The steering wheel bites into your lower back as you fit yourself into the tight space between Simon’s hulking form and the dashboard panel.

Without a single word, he pushes your hips down hard to press your pussy flush against him, your legs being forced to spread wide from his stocky thighs pushing them apart as your skirt rides up to your waist. He then starts to grind roughly against you with rocking movements, hips rolling into you again and again. The hot air of his mouth can be felt on your lips as it filters through the fabric of his mask, your faces so close together that only that thin piece of cloth keeps your mouths from meeting.

Over and over he pushes himself up against the crotch of your panties unhindered by the opening, his cock bulging and straining against your sex the longer he ruts into you with just a few measly layers of fabric between your bodies. His cock is hard and unyielding as it rubs into your petals trying to push through and up into your entrance.

Your panties are bunched in your slit, slowly dampening the longer he grinds into you until the fabric has been soaked through and gathering on his jeans. The adrenaline coursing its way through your veins heightens all of your senses so that every hard touch of his hands, every nuzzle of that engorged appendage between your thighs, every trace of his fingers over your bare skin feels like electricity and you can hardly contain yourself. The anger that was festering now alters course as he forces you to ride him by guiding your hips down to get just a little more friction; now it is replaced by a much stronger emotion: desire.

“Do ya not understand, luv? Guess I’m gonna need ta be more direct,” he says, the cold spot growing on his denim now being felt against the skin of his inner thigh. “First, take off the mask.”

With unsteady fingers you search for the edge of his balaclava and draw it up over his mouth, his nose, over his forehead, and finally off his head entirely so that his face is revealed to you. His hands leave your hips, one clasping around your chin to wrench your head out of the way while the other paws heavily at your breast as he leans his face in towards your neck.

“Now I’m forced to make sure my pretty girl knows who the fuck she belongs to,” he groans, low and guttural before his mouth is on you.

Sharp teeth are dragged down the length of all that delicate skin on your throat, bursting capillaries to leave his mark before his mouth latches on to the side just below your ear and you feel the sting as his teeth dig in. The pressure is so hard from the suction of his lips you can almost feel the skin bubble up into his mouth; there is no question that there will be a big, angry, purple blotch by tomorrow if he keeps at it. And he doesn’t seem like he is going to let up anytime soon, not until his signature takes.

Stinging and pressure, mixed with Simon’s warm, sticky breath moistening your skin from his lips, and your sanity is slowly fading. You want to stay mad at him, to make him pay for the way he acted, but the longer he works your body the harder it is becoming.

“What if I’m still too angry to do anything with you?” you question.

Even you don't believe that lie, but still you aren't going to give in without a little pushback.

His movements don’t even slow for a second. “I don’t fuckin’ care,” he says in a breathy whisper, punctuating each word for emphasis.

Simon groans into your skin so that it vibrates in his mouth, his hand around your breast kneading it more aggressively as he can’t get enough purchase through your clothes. He needs these damned things gone and quick, his body is burning to touch all that soft flesh. Fabric strains and seams pop as he grabs your shirt in his hands and pulls, ripping the skimpy thing right down the middle and leaving the top and your bra in tatters just to pull your tits out of the opening the tear has created.

“Fuck this, need ta feel these,” he breathes as his face dives back into your neck.

Tits palmed in his gigantic hands, his fingers toy with the nipples ceaselessly until you can feel a pulsing deep in your clit from the stimulation. A pathetic whimper escapes your lips that you can’t swallow down and you swear his mouth is forming into a smile against your skin.

Finally he emerges from your throat, lips swollen and red from the constant pressure against your neck. The warmth of his breath makes your neck tingle where his saliva has dampened it. “Let me make this crystal fuckin’ clear. You’re mine,” he breathes, his low, gruff voice sending shivers down your spine. “Mine: with, taken, spoken for. I don’t give a fuck how far ya were gonna let it get with that bloody bastard, you’re mine. And no one, no one, touches what’s mine, understand?”

There is no fight left in you to deny him of anything, not the way he has your mind already in a disorienting haze. You nod your head in submission, even though you can hardly remember what he just asked.

“I’m the only fuckin’ guy for ya,” he groans with a malicious smirk, “the only one that can have ya. And ya want me too, don’tcha sweetheart? Ya know I’m gonna be tha only one to always protect ya, to look after ya…”

Reaching his hand between your bodies, he shifts his hips under you so that he can undo his belt buckle, then the button on his jeans, and finally pull down the zipper. Sticking his hand inside the shadowed recesses of his boxers, he pulls out and releases that thick, veiny appendage that has been steadily engorging from the moment he got in the car. It throbs and jerks in his hand as he pulls up his shirt over his chest and angles his cock up towards his stomach.

“..and if I have my way tonight I’m gonna be the one watchin’ my DNA leak outta ya just ta prove that you belong to me and only me,” he says, breath hitching from the sensitivity as his hand moves over the tip.

He pulls your hips forward so that you are positioned over top of it and you can feel his cold piercing brush against your clit as he forces you to grind on him over your panties. That fucking thing is always a surprise, the Prince Albert he’s had since before he even joined the military, though it is always a welcome one. He’s teasing you, tempting you, forcing you to fall apart without giving you anything more than a raw humping and it’s working like a charm. Up and down his cock strokes through your clothed petals, rendering you a writhing mess.

“I’m not playin’ anymore when it comes to you,” he says firmly. “I know what I got and I ain’t sharin’. You’re the only one I want and I won’t have some bastard try to take ya away.”

Aggressively, calloused fingers divide through the strands of your hair at the back of your head so that his grip is securely woven into you. He holds your head in place as he locks his auburn gaze onto your eyes, mouth inching ever nearer, but stopping just shy of your begging lips.

“Next guy that touches I’m gonna fuckin’ kill,” he breathes as his mouth connects with yours mercilessly, stealing the air from your lungs as he captures your lips to claim that mouth as his property.

Minutes pass with him overwhelming your senses: his thick cock slipping between your legs, his lips locked to yours in that fight of back and forth, his fingertips digging into the bulk of your hips to hold you down onto him. It’s almost too much and the longer it goes on the worse of a mess you become.

The tears are pooling at the rims of your eyes, your body aching and overwhelmingly sensitive that all you want to do is put his cock in, have your pussy swallow him up and fill you full so that you can finally come and end the torment, but he doesn’t stop. No, he wants you to cry for it, plead for it, be so incredibly desperate for it that you’ll let him do as he pleases without question.

He wants to ruin you for anyone else, keep you so addicted to him that you won’t think of even looking at another. Just as addicted as he is to you.

Your limbs are vibrating, tingling and near numb as he forces you to roll your hips over his piercing persistently to catch it on your clit until you can’t see straight. You press your hands into his bulky abdominals, using his torso as leverage to keep you steady. A bit of precum dribbles out of his tip and down the shaft, into the hair trailing down his pubic bone to his cock.

He switches up the rhythm a few times to disrupt the constant repetitive pressure that is needed for you to climax so that you are whimpering in distress, practically begging him with incoherent sounds to stop teasing and just let you come already. It’s too much, he feels too good; you need to come after all this buildup.

“P-please, p-pleas-se,” you stammer.

Grabbing your chin, Simon forces your face pointed towards his. “Look at me,” he demands and you lock eyes as best you can through your shimmering vision. “Keep those pretty eyes on me. I want ya to show me how well ya suck it and maybe if ya fuckin’ do it right I'll put it in ya and not make ya wait till we get home.”

His efforts have worked like a charm so that you don’t even balk as you push yourself off of his lap and move onto the seat beside him, moving onto your side and lowering your head until your lips are near the tip of his cock. Looking up, you hold his gaze through your thick eyelashes as you grab the base with your hand and wrap your mouth around it, pulling in the tip with your tongue.

“Fuck sweetheart, that’s it,” he sighs, “show me how good ya suck it. But keep them pretty eyes on me.”

There is condensation gathering steadily on the inside glass of the car to fog the windows as you take him all in until you reach your hand, suctioning your lips around the shaft as the saltiness hits your taste buds before drawing your head back up. The veins that run the length of his cock are pulsing with his rapid heartbeat and they throb against your tongue as you come back down as far as you can. You repeat the same movement over and over again, breathing through your nose to help keep your throat from spasming.

Simon looks down at you, keeping up that eye contact as you choke, your mouth so full of him that you can’t breathe. You never let your gaze falter, no matter how hard he hits your gag reflex. He’s so big there isn’t enough space in that orifice to fit him all in, though you try. Small droplets stream down from the corners of your eyes to match the dribbles of saliva dripping from the corners of your mouth and he gently wipes some of them away with his thumb as his hand rests on your cheek. Even with everything working against you, you are still sucking on him with everything that you have and goddamn is he bewitched by the way you look gagging on his dick.

“Such a pretty mouth, baby,” he praises, making your stomach flip-flop excitedly.

The more you suck, the more his hips begin to rock until he is thrusting his cock smoothly into your lips, fucking your mouth so that you don’t need to bob your head anymore. He thrusts into your throat repeatedly and soon they become more desperate the more that familiar warmth gathers itself in his belly, threatening to tear through him without warning. It’s after a few more minutes of this that he abruptly stops you by shoving your shoulders back, pulling your lips off from around his cock.

There’s only one place he wants to come and that isn’t your mouth.

You are being lifted up like he owns you and moved back over his lap while his hand adjusts his cock between your thighs. He holds onto the base as he takes the crotch of your panties with his opposite hand and wrenches them to one side so they are out of his way. He aligns himself and the tip of him pokes against your entrance that is dripping and ready.

“I only want what’s best for ya, sweetheart. Wanna keep ya from all them bastards that won’t treat ya right. I know ya better than anyone, so you’re not gonna fuckin’ question how controllin’ I am movin’ forward, are ya?”

Agonizingly slow his cock breaks through the threshold of your pussy with a shared involuntary gasp. You mewl loudly, choking at how quickly it stretches you out and he’s barely even in at all. Simon stops at the edge of his hand so that the tip rests just inside that moist barrier. “Answer,” he pushes for you to respond to him.

You nod your head vigorously, unable to speak.

He grins devilishly through heavy breaths that make his broad chest rise and fall at a rapidly growing pace. “That’s right; you’re not. Good girl. Don’t worry, it won’t be all bad. Just let me handle things and I’ll give ya everything you could ever fuckin’ want; what’s mine is gonna be yours. And what’s yours tonight…is me.”

With that he slips in the rest of his cock as he pushes you down hard onto him, filling your tight cunt until he gets to the base and there is nothing he left he can give. You cry out as your back hits into the steering wheel, causing the horn to beep briefly before Simon pulls you against him.

You are so fucking warm, so soft and your body so pliable under his hard grip that is around your ass. “Mine, only mine,” he repeats the assertion with more desperation in his tone as the squeezing from the walls of your pussy around his rock hard cock makes him so delirious it’s as if he is losing his goddamn mind.

Grunting through those first few bits of movement, he wastes no time in making your body bob up and down on him. He lifts you up only to slam you back down harder and harder each time, shoving his cock as far up into you as possible. But it isn’t enough; he needs more. He craves to fuck you harder.

Holding your waist he leans you both back to change the angle of his hips so he can pound into you as he has you secured to his chest. The sloppy sounds of your overly wet cunt being penetrated roughly grow louder, keeping time with his growing desperation. There are no more thoughts left inside his head except one and that is to rut into you until he comes.

You moan as Simon’s cock rubs into that sensitive bundle of nerves within you time and again. How you’ve lasted this long is a miracle, but that is quickly coming to an end as your orgasm cannot be held off any longer. The warmth in your stomach has gathered to its peak and all you can do is whimper in short bursts to let him know that you are about to fall over the edge.

His pace is relentless as he pumps with those powerful thrusts that bury him deep with, unyielding as everything comes to a head and with a shudder your orgasm rockets through you fiery hot, making your body writhe in his grasp. God, it doesn’t stop, second after second it just keeps building stronger and stronger. Simon does not let up and soon you are whining from the over-stimulation.

Thrusting through your release he finally feels that chord that has been tensing in his core snap tight and he is spilling over the edge with howl, his hands crushing your hips until they are stinging from the pressure of his strength.

His face juts forward to yours so that he can capture your mouth, kissing you through the pain until he has rode out his orgasm and can let go of your body. Minutes lengthen so that time seems to slow down, but soon his pace eases until he comes to a stop.

“My good girl, my pretty thing,” he pants through the euphoria coursing through his veins. “Gotta get ya home. Wanna make sure your a complete fuckin’ mess until there isn’t a doubt in your mind that I’m the only one for you.”

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saintzweig · 6 months ago

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as a christmas treat (for myself mostly), here's how i think gift giving would go with my favorite characters!! (characters giving you presents)

art, patrick, tashi ୨ৎ challengers

– younger art would love giving you handmade gifts, your first christmas together he gave you a sweater his grandma had knitted just for you (molly weasley vibes eek) and the second year, he had her teach him how to knit so he can make it himself. it wasn't perfect, in fact a little bit wonky in some places but he was so so proud of it and put his heart and soul into making it.

– older art is very into christmas, he'd be ordering the perfect white christmas tree and convince you to decorate with him. and not even halfway through december the bottom is already filled up with presents he got for you (he bought your entire online shopping cart without you knowing) and aside from those he'd plan date nights as part of your presents, gingerbread houses, movie marathons, scrapbook making, anything teeth rotting sweet.

– patrick in general is very bad at christmas, not because he's jewish but because his family is so indifferent with the holiday. so really his only experience with gift giving is with art and well, you're not art so. you seem to really value christmas and he can see how you're so excited to give and receive presents and he doesn't want to disappoint you by giving you nothing so his solution is to buy you the most expensive products– handbags, perfumes, makeup but when he sees the uncomfortable smile on your face he's instantly sweating.

– older patrick wouldn't be able to buy you anything since he can barely get by so he makes it up to you by taking you on roadtrips, which is far better than any inanimate object can give you. driving through the different states, blasting and singing along to music and laughing all throughout, not to mention the sex every single time you stop by to get gas (he may or may not intentionally not fill the tank all the way just so it can happen more often, expensive? yes but it's worth it)

– i think tashi in general loves spoiling you, keeping a list of things you've mentioned all throughout the year that you've wanted to buy but never done it. she surprises you with a picnic basket filled to the brim with all those things, mixed with a few handmade gifts of course. at one point, she'll make your gift in advance in the form of an advent calendar that her sisters helped her out with. she also loves buying a journal with you at the end of every year for you to fill up and go through at christmas.

jess mariano ୨ৎ gilmore girls

– jess before christmas would be so hard to reach because he's working his ass off at the diner and at walmart, just so he can take you to a nice restaurant and give you a nice gift, and then he sees the gifts you've received from other people and feels insecure about what he got for you that he just lies and tells you he forgot to buy a gift. and he sees the way you're trying to hide your disappointed by acting like its fine and that christmas is more than just gifts that he couldn't take it anymore :( just pulls you aside at the end of the night and gives you a set of handmade jewelry (necklace, rings and earrings), tells you he's been attending a workshop so he can make you something special. you haven't taken it off during that night.

harry potter ୨ৎ

– this boy goes all the way when it comes to giving you gifts, why should he be stingy about it when he's got the money and the loveliest partner? he takes you shopping, buys you a bundle of books, clothes, let's you pick out his new broom so he can take you riding. ends the day by bringing you to a picnic by the black lake :") with snacks dobby helped him prepare, oh also he got dobby a sweater because why not!!

stiles stilinski ୨ৎ teen wolf

– i think he's the type to go around and say he's the best at gift giving when he's erm, not exactly that. he can hardly wrap a gift properly even when it's the easiest shape so i don't think he'd care for it. he'll give you books or videogames that he's been wanting to read or play with you (that's code for these gifts are actually for me) and your christmas dinner is pizza. but he makes up for it by having so much fun with you and giving you the best time :)

edward cullen ୨ৎ twilight

– his credit card ... or he'd buy you a luxury car or an apartment ... because what's stopping him?

୨ৎ message from mars!

merry christmas my beloved tumblr friends!!! so so thankful that 600 of you put of with my bullshit for months now and actually enjoy some of them :") i love you guys even though i struggle to show it (with replies and stuff, i get overwhelmed pretty easily lol) but despite that i want you all to know that being on here helped me get through a lot of things and that's all thanks to you!!!

also i would've written more but i literally forgot everything i've ever seen and every character i've ever loved... i'm just a girl really

#challengers #patrick zweig #art donaldson #challengers x reader #tashi duncan #jess mariano #harry potter #edward cullen

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seeingivy · 2 years ago

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the beach

actor!eren x f!reader

**part of my method acting fic

an: 14k. buckle in. song mentioned is sparks by coldplay!

previous part linked here

to sukuna’s mother

eren: we’ll be there at five am.

lana: OH ITS HAPPENING

sukuna: did she slap you?

lana: DID SHE KISS YOU?

eren: she cried a bunch while watching it. and she hasn’t said much…she’s just been staring out the window of the airplane blankly

lana: oh that’s not-

sukuna: AHAHAHAHAH

lana: well, anyways. we’ll wake up for you.

sukuna: she’ll be fast asleep. i will wake up for you.

eren liked a message

The second Eren closes his phone, he looks to his left to find your pink, teary eyes looking at him and immediately pales. Your eyes are positively red at this point, an itchiness settling in his throat at the sight of it.

“I’m sorry. Did you say something?” he asks.

“No.” you murmur.

Eren pauses.

“Did you want to say something?” he asks.

He watches you pause, almost like you’re mulling over the question. He supposes that it was quite stupid for him to ask, because if it were him in your spot, he probably would have talked your ear off for every little detail.

“You can ask me anything you want. I’ll tell you the truth, I promise.” Eren adds.

You give him a halfhearted nod, before looking back out at the window, at the little lights glittering amidst the clouds beneath. It’s like being asked to pick up each grain of sand on a vast, mile long beach. Almost impossible.

“I don’t even know where to start, Eren.” you murmur.

Eren gives you an understanding nod before yanking out his laptop before setting it flat in your lap. You swallow hard, knowing fully where he thinks you should begin. With that USB that’s been burning in your pocket, ever since he handed it back to you at the house.

Of Eren’s interview, on the Life in Love podcast.

Eren leans into your space, handing you one of the earphones that you settle into your ear, as you press the little play button at the bottom of the screen. The video starts - Eren and Lana sitting with the chunky headphones on their ears - with the interviewer sitting in between them.

“We’ll start with you, Eren. Have you ever been in love?” the interviewer asks.

You watch as Eren’s face splits into a bright smile, surely one that was echoed on your face too the day after the beach, as you feel a twinge in your chest. That whenever you saw clips of the interview, they filled you with such intense, deep rooted hatred for Eren that all you saw was red.

And that he didn’t even deserve one fraction of it.

“Yes. Of course, I have.” he responds.

“The person that you’re most associated with, Eren, is your co-star, Y/N L/N, from Attack on Titan. Can you comment on that, on what it’s like to have your first love be something so public?” the interviewer asks.

Eren sighs, before he leans back in his chair.

“First love is a funny way to describe it, when it almost feels like it’s more than that? I know a lot of people like to assume things and we’ve never said it publicly, but we did date. Obviously. She’s basically been scored on my heart since the second I met her in my chemistry read, but we ended up officially dating around season three of Attack on Titan. But it’s almost like that concept or notion is too trivial to explain what I even felt for her. She was never just my girlfriend or just my best friend.”

“Was it one of those…acting became too real situations?” the interviewer asks.

“I guess that you could say that. We had originally started, I guess, thinking that way when we started doing our character work. It was a whole thing we did together, while we were filming Attack on Titan. Method acting. The reason Y/N and I act so well in Attack on Titan, and win awards from it, is because we had started doing it outside of it too.” Eren responds.

“Can you elaborate?” the interviewer asks.

“We had started by kind of putting ourselves in that headspace, off of the set, in order to feel more connected to our characters, their relationship together. I think one of the things about Attack on Titan that makes it so compelling is the fact that my co-stars and myself, not to pat myself on the back, put time and effort into translating our characters into something that is real for us.” Eren states.

“It’s also something that you kind of just possess as an actor with certain co-stars. Some movies, like rom-coms or drama pieces, just function and work so well because you have that chemistry with the person whose on the other side. And make no mistake, Eren and Y/N aren’t short of any chemistry themselves.” Lana responds.

“What it is about her that struck you really differently, Eren? Clearly the two of you have a special relationship that you haven’t really been able to replicate else place, certainly not with Hyla Clarkson, for example? I mean, if you’re comfortable, you can share what you told me before you we started recording.” the interviewer states.

A searing, red hot anger flares through you, at how friendly, how approachable the interviewer seems. The fact that they’re purposely trying to make him feel safe, just to later edit the words as they see fit.

“Make no mistake, what I have with Hyla Clarkson is like that thing thing that Y/N had with Ricky James. We all have managers, we all get asked to do things that we don’t exactly want to do. I guess that’s the part that people don’t really understand, when they find out about PR relationships. That it seems so morally wrong. But we’re all actors, we’re all part of the entertainment industry - it’s almost like it’s part of the job to do these types of thing. And at that point, Y/N and I weren’t dating and I have strict managers, so…” Eren states.

“Are you saying that your relationship with Hyla Clarkson wasn’t real?” the interviewer asks.

“The first time she kissed him he threw up on the other side of a yacht. Do you think his relationship with her is real?” Lana asks, earning a laugh from the two of them.

“It’s kind of hard to wrap your head around. But we do these things, pretend a little. It’s basically like we’re acting all the time. None of that chemistry, or that character is there. I don’t even think I could ever really like her like that. And it’s not like the relationship I have with Y/N. You asked me why she was different than everyone else? It’s easy. I’ve never met anyone else like her. I’ve never had a relationship like the one I’ve had with anyone else.”

Eren sighs, nervously knitting his fingers togther, before he talks again.

“I grew up with this backdrop, of this really fractured relationship with my brother. I was always told as a kid that my family, that the people around me who were real, were the things that were going to keep me tethered to my real life. That if I choose to do this, that I’ll be in the public eye, that people will say things, and it’ll be on me to build trust. To choose the right people.” Eren starts.

“It was already so jarring to feel like I couldn’t trust my own brother, that my only family didn’t want me. And Y/N…she just kind of walked into my life and there was something so earnest about her. She felt like family basically the second, or third time I had talked to her. She was just something so real. And I’m not sure if it’s because she had a normal childhood, if she came into this on her own or what, but she always got to give me that dose of reality, of realness that I had always craved.” he continues.

“She was really gentle with me. Always quick to wipe my tears away, to give me support, that felt more full and honest than anyone else. Some part of her made me feel like a real person. I’d always be in my own head, convincing myself that I was made up sometimes, that my feelings were manufactured, that I was just putting on a front for everyone, but I never really felt that way with her. She’s always seen past that, always seen me, in our relationship. Even when we were just friends.” Eren finishes.

“And that’s just a quality that she naturally possesses. The first time she met me, she basically had no reason to have any trust, to have any good conviction of me. But by the end of the third or fourth day I knew her, I basically felt like the girl had seen right through me. All the way down to my core. And of course, all she saw was good. That’s how she is. I think for people like Eren and I, who naturally think so rotten of ourselves, someone like Y/N, whose so determined in how she shows her love, you almost….start to love yourself too. It’s not something that’s isolated to her, but it’s definitely something rare. People like Y/N and like Marco Bodt…that type of thing is just a part of them.” Lana states.

“That’s wonderful to hear, especially from you. Y/N has an interesting track record with her own friends, like Historia and Jean and Mikasa that many people have pointed out before. That there’s a part of her that’s conniving, that she uses those around her to get to the top. Is that ever something you’ve noticed, Lana? Especially as someone who would be in competition with her, as a singer-songwriter yourself.”

“Absolutely not. I think she has drive and ambition and I think that people confuse that with being conniving or competitive. Her existence means that people are going to put her against me or Historia, but that’s just because we’re women. That has nothing to do with something that’s isolated to Y/N and more with people who are just shitty and can’t see two women succeed at once.” Lana states.

“She’s very focused on her craft - any role, any song she writes - they’re so deeply personal and authentic. That’s why she is so successful, why people covet after her so bad. I don’t consider myself to be in competition with her at all. And if I actually thought I was, I don’t think I would even last a day.” Lana continues.

“That’s something I’ve always admired about her. You’re in competition - and people are putting you there, against people you love - and you have that thing you really want, you’ll do anything to get it. There’s a mentality that people get about it. There’s only one person who ends up on a pedestal and if you have to kick people off to get there, that’s what it is. But she never, ever, put her own friends at stake in ways that she could to do that. I mean all of those rumors about Historia were coming out and she wrote dorothea of all songs, about how important their relationship is always going to be her.” Eren states.

“You have to hold onto those type of people around you, in this type of industry, when you find them.” Lana states.

“Good thing for me, then. I never intend to let go.” Eren adds.

The interviewer smiles, turning to the camera, before talking again.

“Eren’s prepared a song for us, his first in a while, that he’s going to perform for us live. What’s the song called, Eren?”

“Sparks.”

“Any hints to what it’s about?”

“It’s quite obvious.” Eren responds.

Lana starts strumming on the guitar, as Eren sings and those godawful tears of yours return. You loop your arm through Eren’s free one on your side, entirely jarred by how calm Eren is watching the interview. At how he’s not a mess, a ruin, like you are at seeing this.

My heart is yours It's you that I hold on to Yeah, that's what I do

And I know, I was wrong But I won't let you down Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I will, yes, I will

Yeah, I saw sparks Yeah, I saw sparks And I saw sparks

The video ends, as you wipe the wetness away on your cheeks and look over at Eren on your side. You lean your head on Eren’s shoulder, unable to look at his piercing green eyes, as he returns the favor and leans his head on top of yours. You try to figure out how to broach it - this big mess of questions in your head - but it seems that Eren saves you from figuring that out and talks first.

“You said the other day on set you wanted to know why I want on that podcast and said what I did. You wanted to know if I still cared about you…do you know now?” Eren asks, his words so slow and careful.

“Is it idiot day?” you ask.

“Huh?”

“Is it idiot day? Do you really think I’m still sitting here being mad at you? You….”

You reach forward to cup the side of his face, brushing the softness on his cheek.

“I have a hundred things I have to say to you. I-I don’t want to speak wrong. Can you give me a second?” you ask.

Eren smiles, lifting his hand to place it over where yours is on his cheek.

“I made you wait like…three years. I think I can wait a second for you, Margaret.” Eren whispers.

You frown, nodding as Eren places his hand on your head and leans it back onto his shoulder.

“Thanks, Bruce.” you murmur back.

“Go to sleep. I’ll wake you up when we’re there.” Eren repsonds.

It’s only when the two of you are walking up the cobblestone path, barely illuminated by the light of the rising sun, that you realize that Eren’s brought you back to the same beach house that the two of you had visited before.

In the past twenty four hours (the ones you’ve been awake for anyways), the only thing that seems to be replaying in your mind is that night. Because every action of Eren’s that you’ve doubted seems painfully obvious now. The song he wrote, the way he insisted that the two of you were real people, only together.

That Eren gave you so many signs. And that you didn’t know how to read them.

The salty air stings at your nose as Eren pulls up the mat, pocketing the key placed under it, and giving you a smile.

“Isn’t that really dangerous? To keep a key under their mat when they live so…out in the open?” you ask.

“Sukuna put it there for me. And no one knows they live here. This is technically Lana’s brother’s house, so they never really suspected it.” Eren offers, shoving the key into the lock as he twists the knob open.

You and Eren quietly set your bags by the door, making it a point to tip toe in the early hours of the morning only to pad into the main room to find Lana standing near the counter, cracking eggs into the bowl.

“Oh my god! Don’t tell me that Lana No Middle Name Price is awake at a normal hour of the day?” Eren deadpans, giving her a jeering smile as she all but drops her little spatula and runs over to hug him.

You watch the two of them, the way Eren seems more calm in his demeanour now, as the two of them lean against the counter and talk. His shoulders are more relaxed, the softest of smiles on his face while Lana looks unlike you’ve ever seen her.

Her hair is extremely short, barely secured into a ponytail at the back of her neck with a pink ribbon. But even more than that, it’s something about her smile, the way her eyes are glimmering that it fills that gaping hole that’s been burning in your chest with the smallest warmth as you watch the two of them.

“Sukuna’s going to get mad when you burn those cookies.” Eren states.

“I’m not going to burn the cookies, Eren. That was one time.” she responds.

“You almost fed your son a carcinogen. And burned the house down. Also, we all inhaled a lot of smoke so you probably ruined our lungs for all we know-”

Lana lightly smacks him straight across the face, as he laughs and immediately swats her hands off. The two of them continue that way - pushing and shoving each other like siblings - until Lana pushes Eren a little bit too hard and he backs up into you.

Eren immediately looks back, his hands on your shoulders as he stables your wobble, and you shoot him a grateful smile. It’s only then that Lana notices you standing there, at the front of her little kitchen, and you shoot her a smile.

Lana’s quick to run to your side and give you a hug - the pressure on your body so tight that you can feel her squeezing that little burden of hurt that’s been sitting in your chest. Lana makes no move to let go, as you quickly deflate into her arms and start sniffling into her shoulder, immediate warm tears sparking in your eyes as her hands rub circles into your back.

“We’ll talk, Tinky Winky. About all of it, okay?” she whispers.

You give her a nod, as you wipe the tears from your eyes. You follow the two of them into the kitchen, as Lana continues to roll the little cookies into circular shapes.

“Eren. Go away.” Lana states.

“Wow. Is this how you repay me? After I take care of your son?”

“He is your godson. You should be happy to take care of him. And they just left for their walk not that long ago, you can catch up.” Lana states.

“Sukuna is a speedwalker. They’re probably long gone.” Eren whines.

“Eren. Respectfully, get out of my house. Go sit on the beach and stare at the water like the little freak that you are and let me talk to Y/N in private.” Lana states.

“I do not-!”

“Yes, you do. Y/N, I swear to god, he sat out there everyday and we had to drag him back in like we were pulling an anchor out of the sea. Now get out.” Lana states.

Eren sticks his tongue out, before shooting you a warm smile and padding out onto the sand. You stick your hand into the bowl, rolling the cookies into little circles with her as you give her a smile.

“Cute ribbon.” you murmur.

“I wore it for you. A Y/N classique.” Lana responds.

You smile in response, as the two of you continue to roll the batter and decide what you want to talk about first. And just like Eren, she bites the bullet for you first.

“Sukuna’s here. He’s just on a walk right now with Teddy.”

You smile to yourself, the thought of it filling you with an immense amount of joy.

“Do they do that often?”

“Every day. Teddy’s quite the insomniac and wakes up extremely early. Sukuna lets me sleep in a little and takes him on a little walk along the beach. Says that they need their father son bonding time.” she muses.

“I remember that about him. Theodore or Teddy, I mean. When Eren brought me here, in the dead of night, he was awake. With your brother, making cookies.”

She smiles, setting the little tray in the oven, as she gestures for you to follow her onto the couch.

“Theodore, huh? Eren did tell me he had quite the crush on you back then.” Lana states.

“Huh?”

“He doesn’t really go by Theodore. Eren and I call him Teddy and Sukuna calls him Theo, but…Theodore just feels a little bit too formal. He only uses it for really important people. Like you. And when he starts talking to Elsa on the TV screen.”

“I’m glad I’m keeping such important company.” you respond.

You laugh, hiking your knees to your chest as you decide to bite the bullet full on.

“Lana….Ricky isn’t in his life, right?” you whisper.

She gives you a nod, placing one of her hands on yours, as she gives you a warm smile.

“No. Thankfully, he’s never even met Teddy. And he’s not going to.”

“Does he know about him?” you ask.

“Yeah. I had told him, a few weeks after it happened. When I started showing. And you know how he is…he wanted me to have an abortion and be done with it. But I…I couldn’t go through with it.” Lana states.

She sighs, cracking her knuckles.

“I know it seems weird. I really do hate Ricky, everything about him, but Teddy isn’t really…his in my mind. And-”

“He’s your son. And Sukuna’s. I wasn’t even thinking that. And…and even if I was, you don’t need to explain yourself to me of all people.” you respond.

Lana scoots closer to you on the couch, as she leans her head on your shoulder and you place yours on top of hers.

“I kind of saw it as my way out for some time. LIke, I was so deep in with everything and all the people that we were working with. It would have never been acceptable to take a break, not unless I had to take one. And I’m not saying that I had him because I wanted to get away from work, but to me…it just kind of felt like a sign. I got to crank the brakes.”

“I’m sure it was good for you, in ways that you might not even know about yet.”

“I think he saved my life, Y/N. I was so deep in that shitty, self-absorbed bubble of the industry and how it is and he just…reminded me other things were more important. He took his first steps and he’s learning how to play the piano…his entire world is confined to what movie we’re going to play after lunch. Who's going to tuck him into bed at night. That’s how life should be. And that’s always how I wanted mine to look. Soft, calm.”

You smile, squeezing one of her hands interlocked with yours. At the thought of Lana, wishing for this exact future when she was a kid, only to have it now. That she fought nail and tooh for it, but still got to have it.

“I would have told you about Teddy. About everything. But I wanted to keep it as under wraps as I could and-” she starts.

“You are entitled to share your secrets with whoever you want. You don’t owe anything to me.” you state.

“I know. But just know, it’s not because I didn’t trust you. You mean the world to me, in more ways than you could ever possibly know.” Lana states.

You shake your head dismissively, as she quickly brushes you off.

“No, really. Eren and I…I know it can be really hard to understand why we did what we did. Why we kept so much but from you. But we grew up in this type of thing. It seems difficult to confront these things head on, when they’re basically what your whole lives have revolved around.” Lana states.

“I get that. But…you guys seem fine doing it now? Especially with the documentary and all, I guess I just…wish I knew earlier. Could have helped you both to this point sooner. I feel shitty because you did it all on your own and you didn’t have to.”

Lana smiles.

“You know we only did that because of you, right? The documentary.”

“You mean Eren.”

“No. I mean Connie. Me. Sukuna, even. And you know how…private he is. But we did it because of you. You’ve always reminded us, in your own ways, not to take shit from people. And at this point, we don’t really have anything to lose. Only things to gain. Like you back in our life. Control over our lives again.”

“You guys are building me up into this big thing I’m not. I hid out for two years because I was too scared to confront everything. I ignored all of you because it was easy for me to do. I’m far from this big..confrontational person you think I am. And I’m definitely not as good of a friend or supporter to you all like you think I am.” you murmur.

“Or…you just think too little of yourself. You went through something big, traumatic even. So did we. It’s no shit that Eren was special to you, so of course the loss of him was going to be big. And you also had your fucking life’s work stolen from you, which is nothing small, Y/N.”

“I guess.”

“One of the biggest, most important things that Eren has taught me was having grace. Don’t ever tell him that because you already know how big his fucking head is. But…there’s a lot of patience that you have to have with yourself to get yourself out of that headspace. I lived there for years. And it is so not feasible for you, Y/N. At the end of the day, you’re still someone in our lives whose stood for the right things. And you still have that impact, even if you feel like that’s not what you’re doing right now. You don’t always have to be one thing to be the same person. Who you are, who you’ve always been, won’t ever change.”

You swallow hard.

“So you missed a few days? There’s another one tomorrow, Y/N. You lost a few years with Eren? That doesn’t matter because he’s still always going to be there for you.” Lana states.

You give her a nod, embarrassed that she’s read so quickly through you when it comes to Eren, as you pinch a smile for her.

“Just like the moons and the suns, with the certainty of the tides, just like hope springing high, still you’ll rise.” Lana states.

Eren’s words from the beach.

“Maya Angelou. Eren’s told me that one before.”

Lana smiles, rolling her eyes.

“He’s cheesy. But it doesn’t make it any less true.”

You wrap your arms around her, sighing into her shoulder, as she hugs you hard.

“I’m really proud of you for owning it all. I hope that you get to drag Ricky’s name through the mud. For good this time.” you respond.

“A girl can hope.”

“And hank you, Lana.”

She tilts her head in confusion.

“You took care of Eren when I couldn’t. I won’t exactly be able to repay you for that.” you murmur.

“Consider yourself repaid. You did the same for Sukuna before I knew him.”

You scoff.

“As if. Sukuna and I are nowhere near how you and Eren are.”

She shakes her head dismissively, as she hops up on her feet and drags you by the arm to the hallway. The walls are littered in little frames, each little photo sweet little memories.

There’s pictures of Lana, Sukuna, and Teddy on the beach and of Eren sitting at the piano with Teddy in his lap. Of Lana and Eren fast asleep on the couch and of Sukuna and Yuuji pulling each other’s cheeks as kids. And the last one in the row is of you and Sukuna, cheesing on the set of Ten Things I Hate About You.

“It might not feel that way to you, but you’re his best friend. He’s told me that you were one of the first people - to meet him and treat him like a person. It’s no shit that everyone hated him when he was sixteen, but you were the one to extend your hand to him and be friends. Means a lot more to him than you think.” she murmurs.

You give her a nod, as the two of you shuffle back into the kitchen and take the little tray of cookies out of the oven. You nicely plate them all onto the platter and turn around to wash your hands, as Sukuna, Teddy, and Eren pad back into the kitchen.

“Ryomen Sukuna, if you track sand into my house again, I’m sending you right back out and you’re staying there for a few days.” Lana warns.

You turn around to find Sukuna giving Lana an eye roll, as he leans forward and presses a kiss to her cheek. His arm is still secured around her as he faces the platter of cookies.

“Lana Price. Did you bake something without setting the house on fire?” Sukuna asks.

“Yes. I’m not incompetent, you know?” Lana responds, trying to shove him off.

“Right. Making ready-made cookies is such a difficult task. Quite the feat if you ask me.”

“It is! You have no idea.” she deadpans back, as Teddy runs up to hug her legs and she lifts him straight into her arms.

Teddy reachs for the little ribbon in her hair immediately, twisting it in his little hands as he yanks it out of her hair.

“Teddy, tell your dad he’s being very rude. And that I’m a very good cook.” Lana states.

“Mommy. You almost made a car engine.” Teddy responds.

“Buddy. It’s carcinogen. Car-sin-o-gen.” Eren repeats, annunciating every syllable.

“Eren, quit teaching my kid bad words. You’re a horrible influence. And Y/N was watching me while I made them so…” Lana murmurs, pressing a kiss to Teddy’s cheek before setting him back on the floor and letting him run up in between Eren’s legs.

Eren gives you a smile from your little vantage point near the sink, as he gestures for you to come closer to him. You follow and crouch down to where Eren - and Teddy - are standing as Teddy nervously peeks at you from behind Eren’s back.

“Okay, bud. This is my pretty friend, Y/N. Can you say hi?” he asks.

Teddy’s cheeks turn bright red, as he nervously toussles his hair, before extending his little hand to you.

“My name is Theodore Price. My mommy calls me Teddy. And Eren. And my dad calls me Theo. And the mailman always calls me kid.” Teddy rambles.

You fight the urge to laugh, at how cute he is, as you smile at him.

“Well, it’s very nice to meet you. I’m Y/N.” you respond, shaking his little hand as you watch a little smile spread across his face.

You look up to find Sukuna making eye contact with Lana, mouthing Theodore? as Lana shakes her head dimissively at him. You give Sukuna a smile, which he actually returns, before you focus back on Teddy.

“I have a gift for you.” Teddy states.

“For me? On your birthday?” you ask.

“I didn’t buy it so it doesn’t actually count.” he responds.

“Sound logic, my friend. What is it?” you ask.

“You have to close your eyes and put your hands out.”

You look up at Eren, giving him a disbelieving look, as he gestures for you to follow. You close your eyes and cup your hands out to the two of them, as you hear Eren laugh.

“Okay. You can open them now.” Teddy states.

You open your eyes to find a pink ribbon in your hand, specifically the one that Teddy just snagged from Lana’s hair, as you hear Sukuna and Eren laugh. You smile hard, twisting it in your hands.

“Thank you, Teddy. That’s very kind of you.” you respond, giving him a smile.

He returns the favor, his cheeks bright pink, as he runs up behind Sukuna’s legs and burrows his face into the fabric of his pants. You and Eren stand back up, as Eren leans into your space and whispers.

“He still has a crush on you.” Eren states.

“He’s a baby, Eren.”

“You’re so rude. Babies aren’t capable of love?”

“Well, you’re standing right here so that’s obviously not true.” you deadpan.

“Haha. Now give it.” Eren states, holding his hand out to you.

“Give you what?”

“The ribbon, dingus.” Eren responds.

“Actually, Eren. He gave it to me. Maybe if you were cuter, he’d give it to you.”

“Okay, Megamind. Don’t get a big head now. I was just going to put it on for you.” Eren responds.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

You place the little pink ribbon in Eren’s hands, as he gestures for you to turn around. He’s quick to secure the ribbon into the little ponytail in your hair, giving your head a little pat when he’s finished.

“So cute.” Eren says, sarcastically.

“Shut up. I’m adorable.” you respond.

Eren smiles.

“Yes, you are.” he responds, zero hint of sarcasm in his voice.

Sukuna gives Eren a nod, as the two of them switch spots, and he takes your side. You get to take Sukuna in full this time, at the little smile wrinkles near his eyes and the salty, beach smell that seems to emanate off of him.

“Y/N L/N. Are you finally gracing us with your presence?” Sukuna asks.

“Father Sukuna. I think I am.” you respond, placing your hands on your hips.

Sukuna smiles, reaching forward to mess with your hair.

“You and I are going to talk after breakfast. And that’s only because Lana will burn our house down if I leave her alone to it.” Sukuna states.

“Deal.” you respond, smiling at him.

You and Sukuna settle down onto the little patio, the waves of the ocean crashing against the sand in front of you. He sets the little plates in front of the two of you, giving you a smile, as you both lean back in your chairs.

“Pumpkin pie?” you ask.

“You want some?” Sukuna asks.

“Sure.”

And then Sukuna lifts the plate and immediately smashes the pie into your face. It’s cold and squishy, as you quickly smear it out of your eyes just to glare at him.

“Eren! Bring Y/N a towel. And another slice of pie.” Sukuna states.

Eren sticks his head out of the screen door, widened eyes at the state of you.

“What happened?” Eren asks.

“She fell into the pie. She’s always been such a clutz.” Sukuna states.

“Into the pie? On the plate?” Eren asks.

“Yes.” Sukuna responds.

Eren gives the two of you a weird look, as he shuffles back into the house and returns with a towel. You wipe all of the filling off of your face before hitting Sukuna straight in the face with the towel and crossing your arms.

“Is it asshole day, Sukuna?”

“That’s rich coming from you. I’m the asshole?” Sukuna asks.

“You just smashed a pie into my face.”

“And you didn’t return my calls for two years.” Sukuna responds, glaring.

You sigh, leaning back in the chair, as you look at him.

“Make no mistake, Y/N. I’m not Eren and I’m not Mikasa. I’m not going to beat around the bush just for you.” Sukuna states.

“Thanks, Sukuna. I can always count on you to support me.” you deadpan.

Sukuna stops in his tracks, before swallowing hard.

“Lana told me to be nice to you.” he states.

“You don’t have to be. Whatever it is you’re feeling…I’m sure that I deserve it.” you respond.

“Contrary to your belief, I don’t actually enjoy being rude. I actually hate it. But…there are things you have to know. You’re really fucking stupid sometimes, Y/N.”

You roll your eyes.

“You’re a changed man, Sukuna.”

Sukuna shifts in his seat, as you quickly bite your words.

“I wasn’t being sarcastic. You really do seem different. Better.” you murmur.

Sukuna smiles.

“I am. Different. Better.”

You lean forward, placing a hand on his forearm.

“You’re a fucking dad, Sukuna.”

“I know. Who would have thought?” he asks.

“Me. I always knew you’d be great at this type of thing.”

“Yeah right.” Sukuna responds, sarcastically.

“No, really. You…you have that ability. The type that really good parents have. You always know what to give people, what they need to hear. You know that people don’t give things to me straight, so you always do it for them. And you’re the only person on my side - the only person who says that and means it.” you respond.

Sukuna leans forward on his elbow.

“I could have done better by you. I know that.”

“Sukuna-”

“The awards show. I could have stopped you. I…I figured that Historia and Jean were riling you up. That you were already far past a point of reason and I just…”

“I would have cussed you out if you tried to go against me in that moment, Sukuna. Kicked you out of my house.”

“I thought that much but…but still. I could have made you listen.” Sukuna responds.

“Don’t get me wrong. I find lots of value in your words. But really, I wouldn’t have listened. And…and you were still there in the way that I needed you. Don’t think that I’ve forgotten that the person who dragged me out of that dressing room that night was you.” you murmur.

Sukuna sighs.

“I fucking hate you for not talking to me, Y/N. I get not talking to anyone from Attack on Titan. To Levi, Hange, whatever. But I was never apart of that. I was your friend, Y/N. I was always on your side.”

“I’m sorry.” you respond.

“You don’t think I would have fought for your albums back with you? That I wouldn’t have wrung Eren’s neck out if he asked me to? That I wouldn’t have crawled into your shitty house and stayed there with you if you needed me to?”

You swallow hard.

“It’s embarrassing to be around people when I know I’m doing something wrong. But it’s infinitely more embarrassing when that person is you, Sukuna.” you respond.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean…you’re one of the best people I know. You’re always saying what’s on your mind, you’re exactly what I want to be. Honest. Earnest. A good friend. I know I can be shitty. It’s just really hard for me to do it in front of you.” you respond.

“You think too much of me.” Sukuna states.

“You think too little of yourself.” you respond.

“Don’t quote my girl back to me, L/N.” Sukuna sneers, lightly shoving you.

You smile.

“Your girl, eh?” your respond, smirking at him as you watch a pink flush crawl up his neck.

“Do you think you’re funny? We have a kid together.” Sukuna responds.

“You have a crush on Lana.” you respond.

“Okay?”

“That’s so cute, Sukuna.” you respond, exaggerating each syllable as he rolls his eyes at you.

You lean forward and wrap your arms around him, hugging him as hard as you can as you feel the tears collect in your eyes. Sukuna pulls back the second he feels you sniffling, his eyes pinched in annoyance.

“Why are you crying?”

“I’m so happy for you, Sukuna.” you whisper.

Sukuna deflates, pinching his lips shut.

“You could have told me too, Sukuna. About all of it, everything that happened. When-when you were a kid. I would have listened to you. And I would never tell.” you whisper.

“I almost did tell you. That night that we were in my trailer. When Historia released Lacy.”

You gesture for him to continue.

“I told you that…that hundreds, thousands of people loved me and I didn’t even know who I was looking at in the mirror. It was more humiliating for me than that. I looked in the mirror and didn’t know who I was, how I let that happen to me-”

You feel the tears immediately burn in your eyes.

“-but it bothered me even more. Because I look just like Yuuji, Y/N. Yuuji means the fucking world to me, just like you do. Like Lana does. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for him. And…and at that point I realized. That I didn’t even hold myself to that standard. That I didn’t see that happening to myself and think that I deserved better.” Sukuna states.

“Sukuna. You deserve so much better. So much better.” you whisper.

“I know that now. And I have it too, Y/N.”

You and Sukuna turn your heads to look at Lana and Teddy through the window, the two of them showing Eren something in a book. The two of you smile at each other.

“Luckily for me, Lana showed up right when I needed her. I can’t believe that I’ve been walking around her for years, on red carpets and at awards shows. She was right under my nose this entire time and I had no idea.”

“There’s this legend. An invisible string of fate. That the person that you’re destined to be with, the two of you have a little string tied around your pinkies the second you’re born. And no matter how far you go, you’ll still have a pull on each other. End up together.” you respond.

“Yeah?”

“I’m pretty sure the two of you have been making steps towards each other the entire time, Sukuna.” you respond.

He smiles in response.

“Me too.” Sukuna responds.

You wipe the wetness from your cheek, as you lean back in the chair.

“Okay, Sukuna. Give it to me straight.”

“Give what? A slap?” Sukuna asks.

“No. I know you. You’ve probably got a lot to say to me. So…just come right out and say it. I can take it.”

Sukuna smiles, almost too sinisterly.

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Positive? You can’t fight me on any of it.”

“Fine. Just tell me.”

He takes a deep breath before talking, the tone in his voice so matter-of-fact that it catches you off guard.

“You have no right to give Mikasa shit for picking another maid of honor. Even if Amy’s a bitch to you. Quit playing the victim with her on that one, becuase first and foremost, you will lose. And second of all, she’s getting married. You’re the one who needs to bite the bullet and make sure that she has a good day.”

“Wait-” you start.

“Why aren’t you writing any music anymore? Why are you accrediting all of your success to Danny and Sareen when you’re the one who wrote those songs?”

“I’m not-”

“Aren’t you though? And when are you going to stop punishing Eren for something that you did to him first.”

“Sukuna.”

“What are you mad at him for? That he didn’t tell you what he was going through? Isn’t that what you did to him first? Because yeah, you’d call him before all your shows and pretend like things were fine. And then Eren had to find out from a fucking interview that those two dickwads were starving you. That they were controlling you like you were one of their assets.”

You sigh.

“I’m not playing the victim with Mikasa.”

“Aren’t you though? Because if it were me, if I had not talked to my best friend in two years despite the fact that she reached out multiple times, I’d think that I was in the wrong.”

“I was struggling.”

“And you don’t think she wasn’t? Did you know that she almost broke up with Jean in the years that you were gone?”

You pale.

“What?”

“Did you ask her? Did you ask her how she was when you came back?”

You swallow hard.

“You don’t think that she needed you for that? For something as big as almost losing Jean when he’s always been by her side. You don’t think that she needed you for even small things even beyond that? Someone to talk to. Someone to support her?”

“Are her and Jean okay?”

“Yes. Eren was there. But Eren can’t exactly replace what you are for Mikasa. And god knows he has the emotional capabilities of a fucking teaspoon.”

It seems that every time you’re at the depths of your regret, of your guilt, you find that there is always a way to sink down further.

“Quiet now, aren’t you? Fight me about the music.” he states.

“No.”

“Because I’m right?” he asks.

“So what if you are? I just don’t want to write anything anymore. It’s not that serious.”

Sukuna leans forward, inches between your faces.

“It’s not that serious, for any normal person. But it is that serious for you. Because you love to write music, Y/N. You scribble lyrics onto your scripts when you’re supposed to be reading them. You hum songs when you’re basically doing anything. And you’re not doing it now, because you’re still in that godforsaken hole you sank yourself into in your house.”

“So what if I am, Sukuna? What if I am? Don’t you get that I’m fucking scared of this type of thing? That it is isn’t easy? I lost Eren. And then I lost my music. All of my friends. You don’t think that type of thing was fucking hard for me?” you respond, warm tears spilling out of your eyes.

Sukuna leans forward, wrapping his arms around you and squeezing hard.

“You were never one to back down from a fight. What kind of hold do you think those two idiots have over you at this point? Need I remind you, that they’re only famous, that they only have a claim to their names, because of you. Did you lose Eren? No. Because he’s literally peering through the fucking window right now because you’re crying. Did you lose your music? No, because he fought so hard to somehow get it back for you. And you didn’t lose your friends. We’re right in front of you.”

You pull back, glaring at him. Because as annoying as he is, he always did point out the truth. You give Eren a smile through the window, gesturing to him that it’s okay, as he gives you a disbelieving look and walks away.

“I’m mad at Eren for what he said to me.” you respond.

“That’s valid. But have you ever considered that he might have been mad at you for what you said to him too? Or even worse, that you could have really hurt him?”

“What did I say to him? Because he-”

“You didn’t pick him.”

“But, Sukuna. I had to do that. Sareen and Danny-”

“So you get it. You get that what you did was because you had to. So why don’t you understand that what Eren said to you was because it was what he had to say too?”

You sigh.

“Don’t be a hypocrite, Y/N. You know I don’t say any of this to hurt you. But you’re not twenty-one anymore. And neither is Eren. It’s time for you to face this head on. Both of you.” he states, the tone in voice so caring that it makes you falter.

You sigh.

“Did you know that Eren was struggling that bad?”

“No. And I gave him tons of shit at the time for it. You’re not the only one with regrets.” he states.

After a fresh shower, you pad back into the main room to find Eren in the kitchen, while Sukuna, Lana, and Teddy cuddle in the crouch. Eren gestures for you to join him at your side, as he pushes a little cutting board and the food towards your side.

“Are you trusting me to cut the vegetables? Are you finally viewing me as your equal, Eren Jaeger?” you ask, feigning shock.

“It’s a safety knife. That’s what Teddy uses when Lana teaches him how to cook.” Eren responds, smirking at you.

You elbow him, accompanied with nice string of insults as you stand at Eren’s side. You look to the picture at the your side, of Sukuna, Lana, and Teddy dressed up nice in a little courthouse.

“Hey. What’s this?”

“Lana and Sukuna are married.” Eren states.

“Excuse me. You said they were dating.” you state.

“We said dating in the documentary, because they were dating at the time. But at their one year anniversary, they did a small little court wedding. The three of them got takeout sushi and came home like right after.” Eren states.

You walk over to the picture, inspecting it in full this time. At Lana’s white slip dress, at their matching rings, and the little bouquet in Teddy’s hands. The three of them are smiling so brightly, Lana and Sukuna leaning their temples together, with their eyes closed and bright smiles.

“Eren.”

“Hm?”

“How did that happen?” you ask, gesutring over to the three of them.

Eren sets his knife down, lookng over at the picture as he places his hands on his hips. You can already tell from his stance that whatever he’s about to say is going to be bitingly sassy.

“Okay. When two people love each other, they get in a be-”

“Shut up, idiot. I mean, Lana and Sukuna.”

Eren shoves you in the side, as the two of you avert your eyes to the three of them on the couch.

“After that night, when I had said everything to you, I had immediately called Levi and Hange. Lana and I had been debating calling them and asking for help the second I ended up in the hospital, but that night was kind of the final straw for me.” Eren states.

“Your injury should have been your final straw, Eren.” you respond, pinching your eyes at him.

“At that point, I was ready to drag Scott Clarkson into the ground. From my standpoint, I didn’t really have anything to lose from suing them. And Connie and Lana, it didn’t take them much convincing to follow. But Levi basically wanted to stack all of our cards in our favor, that if we were going to say something, anyone else who has something to say would get to take that chance too.” Eren adds.

“That’s where he came in.” you state, to which Eren gives you an affirmative nod.

“Sukuna had told us almost everything about what happened to him, except for…you know.”

The sexual assault.

“Yeah.”

“Lana was the first person that he told. And I don’t know what she told him, since that’s not something I understand having experienced but she obviously does, but…they both just kind of came to us one day. Told us that they wanted to own it.” Eren adds.

“So, they just got close? From all that? Not that it’s not a thing that connects him, but he…he’s always so reserved.” you ask.

“I think he just naturally gravitated towards her, that’s all. I think they have these deep, all encompassing emotions that they don’t share with other people. The feel things deeply, love really hard. It was just like an underlying thing…that they knew they would get along in that way. Like you and me.”

“Like you and me?”

“Y’know. We were close right off the bat. No awkward stage, no holding things back from each other. Well, in the beginning at least.” Eren states.

You hum in response.

“Sukuna met Teddy pretty early on. When Lana and Sukuna started dating, they were serious straight off the bat. He kind of just…fit in perfectly with them. Nothing really changed. Teddy just kind of called him dad in passing one day. No one really said much about it, but I did find Sukuna crying later.”

You frown, clutching your hands on your chest.

“I’m really happy for them, Eren. There’s no one who deserves it more than them.”

You feel a brush past your shoulder to find Sukuna and Lana at your sides, the two of them tip toeing into the fridge and pulling a little box out. Eren hands you a little box of candles, as you pull out five little green ones.

The four of you huddle over the cake, perfectly placing them and lighting them, as you walk over to where Teddy’s still sitting, fully engrossed into the screen. Sukuna turns to the three of you, quietly counting down, before you all burst out singing and Teddy turns around excitedly.

You watch as Sukuna smashes a decent amount of frosting onto Teddy’s cheeks after he blows out the candles, as Lana quickly snaps a picture of the two of them with the cake.

“Is that your thing now, Sukuna? You just smash dessert into people’s faces?” you ask.

“Well, you deserved it. And I’ve been doing this since my first birthday with him.” Sukuna states.

“Don’t tell me you smashed food in a grown woman’s face?” Lana asks, deadpanning.

“It was pie. That hardly counts as food. And again, need I repeat, that she deserved it.”

Lana comes over, securing her hands around your shoulders, as she presses a kiss to your cheek.

“You’re rude. Our princess does no wrong.” she states, gesturing for Eren to join him at her side.

Eren follows suit, gesturing for Lana to get in the picture, as he points the little camera at them, and you peer over his shoulder at the viewfinder.

“Teddy. What did you wish for?” Eren asks.

“Don’t say! Your wish won’t come true.” Lana whines.

“Y/N!” Teddy states, giving you a bright smile.

Sukuna laughs, reaching for his sides to tickle at him.

“Sorry buddy. You already snoozed and lost on that one.” Sukuna responds.

The three of them shuffle to the counter as Sukuna starts cutting the cake into little slices and placing them on the plates. After a decent amount of dessert and sweet pictures, Eren shuffles away with Teddy to set him to bed, as you shuffle into your own room and muse over what you’re going to say to Eren later.

Eren makes his way down the following morning, to find the three of them mulling around in the kitchen. He makes it a point to shove Lana and smack Sukuna, before pressing a kiss on top of Teddy’s head and taking the seat next to them.

“You’re not going on your walk?” Eren asks, looking up at Sukuna.

“Someone already claimed the beach.”

“Huh?”

Sukuna points behind him, as Eren looks out the window to find you sitting there in the sand, on a little blanket. Your back is facing towards him, your hair slightly swaying in the light breeze of the beach outside.

“What’s she doing?” Eren asks.

“She wants to talk to you, Eren.” Lana states.

Eren pales.

“Out there?” Eren asks.

The two of them nod as Eren feels knots twisting in his stomach, that whatever semblance of relationship that the two of you were building back together was going to come crashing down in a second. That the harsh, cruel justice that he was owed was finally going to be served to him.

“Fuck. Okay. Do I look fine?” Eren asks, turning to the two of them.

Sukuna and Teddy squint their eyes in confusion, as Lana gives him a big thumbs up and all but pushes him onto the patio. He turns around and gives her a pointed glare, which she only returns with a smile as he starts trudging towards you, feet digging into the sand.

You notice Eren before he can creep up behind you, as you give him a smile and gesture for him to take the spot next to you. It’s decently overcast, a slight chill in the air as you pull your hoodie around you and watch the waves crash ahead.

“Hey.” Eren says.

Eren takes the spot at your side, hiking his knees to his chest, as your elbows brush against each other in the cold.

“Wanna go skinny dipping?” you ask.

“I beg your pardon?” Eren resopnds, eyes nearly bulging out of his head.

You can barely contain your laughter, as Eren quickly catches on. His cheeks are positively pink as he starts grumbling under his breath about how mean you are and you choke out an apology. The two of you sit there in silence as the water pulls close to the shore, just to quickly retreat back into the big mass of water.

You bite the bullet this time.

“The song that you wrote that day. The one that you sang to me on the beach.” you say.

“Yeah?” Eren asks, almost too attentive as he hangs at the ends of your words.

“That’s my first question. What did it mean?” you ask.

Eren looks back out at the waves.

“I thought that what we had ran it’s course when I wrote it. It was a few days before you got there. And by that point, I was already so down in it that all I was left with was the feeling of being grateful. That I did get to experience that love, with you, at some point. And you know. You’re the moon. I’m the ocean. It was a nice solace to think our love would last forever that way..” Eren responds.

You nod in response.

“That night. When- when you tried to kiss me. I told you I couldn’t because you were still with Hyla. Why didn’t you tell me then and there that you had broken up?” you ask.

“I could have. But I wanted to know if you wanted me still, with such extreme urgency, that-that I kind of forgot that I was technically dating her in the first place. I said it before, but I never really considered that real, Y/N. She didn’t even warrant a mention in my mind. Or ever mean anything to me.” Eren responds.

“Okay.”

Eren pauses. You suppose your response was barely convincing and that he can most definitely tell.

“I’m only telling you this part because Sukuna is going to tell you anyway and he’s been holding it over my head for weeks.” Eren states.

“What?”

“It’s embarrassing. Just- pretend like it’s nothing when Sukuna says it to you.”

“Okay?”

“The yacht. When-when Hyla kissed me.”

“Oh. Vomitgate.” you respond, smiling at him.

“Don’t call it that!” he whines.

You laugh as you gesture for him to continue, his cheeks lightly dusted pink.

“Hyla likes to wear a lot of lipgloss. And she..she always wears this red one. That smells like cherries.” he states.

“Okay?”

“I didn’t know that it tasted like cherries too. And when she kissed me, I-I could taste it.” Eren mumbles.

“Congratulations? I’m glad it tasted good while you were kissing her.”

“No! No, Y/N. You don’t get it. You….you taste like cherries when I kissed you. Or when you used to.”

“Huh?”

“The slushies. Your lips always tasted like cherries. So when she kissed me, I-I immediately thought of you. And…and then I realized it was her.”

“And then you…projectile vomited?” you finish.

“Okay, you promised you wouldn’t make fun.”

You smile. Primarily because he’s so embarrassed that it’s cute. And that in the most evil way, the thought of him being so disgusted by kissing someone that isn’t you that it makes him vomit makes your heart warm in a special way.

“I said no such thing, Eren.”

The two of you sit there in silence for some time, as you muse over his words. The air only seems to get colder as time goes on, the clouds swirling in the sky above the two of you.

“The things that you said to me, Eren. I-I know they weren’t true. But I want to know how you came up with them. Because I understand that it was something you had to say. But they just fell out of your mouth so easily. That you only wanted me for that and nothing more and-”

“In no way were those words easy for me to say. Don’t even say that.” Eren states, the urgency in his tone so adamant that it makes you sweat.

“How did you come up with it? Because it must have been in the back of your mind if-”

“Y/N. I come from literally the shittiest, meanest place that you can imagine. I’ve told you before. The things that Zeke had said to me.” Eren states.

“And?”

Eren stops. His voice is softer this time, almost laced with a pinch of hurt.

“When life gets harder, I have to get harder to match. If you show up and I can’t have you, the thought of it fills me with so much anger, so much hurt that it all comes out. On you. And that doesn’t make anything I said okay, but you being there. Having you so close to me and having to send you away. It had to be something cruel. You wouldn’t have gone otherwise.”

“Well-”

“Don’t even say that to me. Because I know for a fact that if I had told you any of this then, you would never leave. You wouldn’t listen to me because you’d want to stay with me.”

“Is there something wrong with that? With me wanting to be there for you?”

“Of course, not. It’s just that you being there with me required you to be there. With those shitty people. And if it comes to you or me, I’d pick you. Even if I had to do something shitty to make sure that you were far away.”

You’re immediately reminded of the conversation that you had with Eren. Or more acutely, the fight that the two of you had. Of what Eren had said to you.

But I couldn’t have you there. Because if it came down to it, when I had to pick between covering someone else or taking care of you, I’d pick you.

You swallow the lump in your throat. Of the implication that if Eren was faced with the choice - of you and Teddy or you and Connie - that he would pick you.

Even if it was the wrong choice to make.

“And Armin?” you ask.

“That’s the thing about you two. You both came in so hot. I was expecting after the interview that the two of you were going to cuss me out, leave without even saying anything. But your instinct - both of yours - was to immediately believe it wasn’t true. Bittersweet, because you knew me well enough to know I’d never really say that but also shitty becuase then I had to bite back to make sure you left.” Eren states.

You lift the little cover at your side and slide the little box into Eren’s hands. You see his eyes go wide immediately, as you hand him a polaroid camera, the exact specific brand that Erwin had gifted Armin all of those years ago.

“I can make my amends with it. Even if it hurt my feelings. And hopefully that helps you make amends with Armin.” you state.

“Where the fuck did you find this? I’ve been looking for this for a better part of the past year.” he states.

“I found it this morning. And…I’ve eavedropped on one of your fights with Armin.” you state.

“Nosy.”

“Okay, I’ll just go return it.” you state.

“No!” Eren states, quickly clutching his arms around the box as you laugh.

Eren sighs.

“Thank you. You don’t know what this means to me.” Eren responds.

“I think I have an idea.” you respond.

Eren smiles, albeit halfheartedly, as he looks down at the box.

“My turn. Unless you had more?” he murmurs.

“No. Go ahead.”

“The awards show. What do you think about it now?” Eren asks.

You sigh.

“What you were saying, it seems much more obvious now. That it was Historia and Jean there. That they were riling me up. Historia, she was already mad at you for what I said, for going against what we had as kids, and for Jean. It was personal. He basically felt like you had betrayed him and told me that. I suppose now that if Mikasa was there, she wouldn’t have let me go as far as I did.” you respond.

“Mikasa wanted to come. Danny and Sareen didn’t let her. They knew for a fact she wouldn’t let you. She’d want to be there for you in the way you needed. Probably put my face on a dart board and talk shit about me.” Eren muses.

“I would have preferred that over what I really did. But I remember that now. Danny and Sareen said that her hysterics weren’t conducive to the situation. And granted, Mikasa’s never short of being dramatic but…always calm when you need her. I can’t believe I forgot about that in the moment. And Sukuna, he never gave his opinion. He just told me to make my own decisions and that he would support me, which makes more sense in hindsight too.” you respond.

Eren nods in response, content with your answer.

“Why did you cry when I was singing the grudge?” you ask.

“Why did you cry when you were singing the grudge?” Eren asks.

“The fight we had. You told me beforehand that..that I didn’t have any faith in you like you did in me. It was the first time that it might have crossed my mind. That you didn’t mean anything that you said and…and then I was singing a song about how I’d never forgive you. And you were crying during it. It pretty much sold me on the fact that I was right.” you respond.

Eren nods.

“For me, it was the fact that you were playing the piano. On your own. I was waiting for years to see you do it on your own, to take that step and be confident in your own abilities. You’ve always been great and all I wanted to do in that moment was to stand there. Tell you I told you so. And I couldn’t.”

“What did you mean? When you said I didn’t have faith in you?” you murmur.

“I was just really upset in that moment, Y/N. I didn’t-”

“I want to know.”

Eren sighs.

“You thought right. I was upset that you believed it so blindly. That you believed an edited interview of me. And what I had said that night, which you had every right to believe. I was just-”

“It’s okay.”

“I wasn’t mad at you. And I’m still not. I regretted it after I said it.”

“Okay. I appreciate the grace you give me, Eren.”

“Nothing you haven’t given me first.” Eren responds.

You both avert your eyes from one another.

Anything else?” Eren asks.

“I guess not. Is there something you want to tell me?” you state.

“I want to know what you were doing in the years that I wasn’t with you.”

“In the house?”

“No. No, when you were with Danny and Sareen. After-after we said fishbowl on the rooftop.” Eren states.

You sigh.

“I feel fucking stupid about it all in hindsight.” you respond, warm tears filling your eyes.

Eren’s quick to notice, like he always is, as he pulls you closer to him and you lean your head against his shoulder.

“Hey. You’re okay, just take a breath-” Eren whispers.

“I did three albums with world tours back to back. Movies in the hiatuses.” you state.

“And?” Eren murmurs.

“And I didn’t take a break once. I-I only realized when I locked myself in that godforsaken house how much time I had lost. How much of it I swam through when I came back and Falco was basically grown. I left him when he was barely a teenager and then he was just…this whole person. Comforting me when that’s always been my job. That Jean and Mikasa had moved so far in their relationship that they were actually going to get married. That we all fucking grew up.” you respond.

You wipe your nose.

“I realized really quickly that I wasn’t making money off of the Lucky One. I had spent that entire first year, not even thinking about you or anything else, because I was just fighting desperately behind the sidelines to get them back.” you state.

Eren snorts.

“I think when you stopped fighting is when I started. We had won the lawsuit at that point and I-I was told to negotiate for whatever I wanted.” Eren responds.

“How did you know?”

“Danny and Sareen. At the awards show, they had made it a point to me. That it was always their goal. I had been inquiring about it ever since then and…the second you released the Lucky One and disappeared I knew they were going to do something. I tried to negotiate the entire album back, money and all, but all I could get you was the rights. And I’ve talked to Niccolo about it. You can re-record them or-or we can do something else but-”

“Thank you.” you state.

You look back at the ocean. You don’t say something for sometime, which fills Eren’s stomach with an overwhelming amount of discomfort as he rests his head against his knees. But you can’t even stomach it. How you’re supposed to thank Eren for what he did. For what he’s always done.

For how consistent he’s always been. When it comes to you.

“What are you thinking?” he asks.

You look over at him, or more precisely, at the little tattoo on his bicep as you open up his arms and rest your fingers against it. He mimics your motions, smiling at the little inked skin.

“I was half convinced you were going to get it removed.” Eren states.

“I almost did.” you respond.

He laughs.

“I always thought it was stupid. That you wanted to be the ocean when I thought you were the moon. You know, like a light shining on a dark night? That’s always what I thought you were for me.” you state.

“It feels like there’s more to that statement.” Eren responds.

“Can you see the moon right now?” you ask.

Eren looks up at the overcast sky, the clouds dense above.

“No.”

“But you can see the ocean. All the time, whenever you want. The waves pull back, but they always return.” you state.

Eren looks up at you, in confusion.

“I don’t follow.”

“I’m saying you picked right. I am the moon. Fickle. Unreliable. I disappear at the first sign of a storm. But the ocean…”

You look over at your right, to the waves crashing.

“It’s one of the only things in nature that keeps its promise. Keeps crashing back on the shore, against the pull.”

Eren’s eyes falter.

“You had every right to do what you did.” Eren responds.

“I know that. But it was always you and me. From the start. I was the one who lost sight of that when I let you go.” you state.

Eren swallows hard.

“Why did you do that?” he asks, his voice in the smallest whisper.

The fact that he even asks shatters something in you, into tiny little pieces. That you had sown so much doubt into him.

“I…I had so much faith in us. What we had…it came to us so easily. Snuck on me so quickly that I took it for granted. I figured that if I had to let you go for sometime, you’d come right back to me. The same way that we were before.”

“You were nineteen.” Eren states.

“I was stupid. Because that’s not how you saw it.”

“No. No, it-”

“Don’t lie. You thought I left you.”

“It’s water under the bridge.” Eren responds.

You sigh.

“Eren. Eren, if you felt that way, why didn’t you say that? I- I fucking adored you. I would have pulled back and said no the second that you had asked me not to. Surely you must have known that I would move any mountain for you?” you ask.

Eren looks at you, the look in his eyes faltering as you realize.

“Eren. Did you know that I would do anything for you? Did you know that I loved you as much as you loved me?” you ask.

“I did.” Eren responds, the lightest hint of disbelief in your voice.

You pull him closer, cupping his face in your hands.

“Eren. You were my person. I loved you so, so much and you didn’t even know?” you ask, warm tears filling your eyes.

“It wasn’t anything about you. It was me. It’s my fault that I didn’t think that.” Eren whispers.

“Don’t. Don’t fucking say that, Eren.” you respond, pulling away from him as the hot, embarrassing tears pour down your eyes.

At the fact that Eren’s so willing to forgive. So quick to look past the fact that you took the love that he had given you for granted. That you hadn’t appreciated it, and him, half as much as you should have and now it was never going to be the same. That he was so insecure in himself, that he couldn’t accept the love that you had given him. And that you didn’t even notice.

Eren sits quietly at your side, making no move to comfort you this time. All you can see are his green eyes, looking directly into yours, almost like he’s waiting. Mulling over the exact words that he has to say to you. And the fact that he’s sitting there trying to comfort you, when he should be cursing your name, makes it ten times worse.

“Y/N.” he murmurs.

“No.”

“Y/N.” he repeats, softer this time.

You shake your head as he scoots closer to you, cupping your cheeks in his hands as he gives you a smile. He wipes away your constant stream of tears with his thumbs, as his face washes over in the softest, most comforting look.

“You know that stupid, cheesy as fuck saying? That you can’t give love to someone else if you don’t have it for yourself?”

“Eren.”

“It’s not a bad thing to give yourself kindness. To give nineteen year old you grace the same way I give twenty-one year old me grace.” he whispers.

“I was old enough to know better.”

“And so was I. But your life isn’t meant to be a punishment. Neither is mine. We’re not supposed to sit here and never forgive ourselves over something what’s already happened.” he whispers.

“I picked wrong. You- I let you leave, Eren.” you cry.

Eren smiles.

“Am I gone?” Eren asks.

You sigh.

That’s not the way you meant it.

Eren smiles, tilting your face up in his clutches as he gives your cheek a little squish.

“Answer my question, Margaret.”

“Why do you call me Margaret?”

“You first. Am I gone?”

“Yes.” you deadpan.

Eren leans closer to you, noses almost touching, as he whispers.

“I’m right here. I’ve spent far too much time without you. Don’t tell anyone but…you’re kind of my favorite person, ever. You’re always going to be my best friend. And as long as you don’t send me away again, I’ll always be right here.”

You sniffle.

“I won’t tell anyone. There’s no one else to tell.”

Eren smiles so wide, so bright at you repeating the same words you had used all those years ago to him, as he pulls you straight into a hug. You deflate straight into his arms, wrapping them around his torso as you inhale his biting, minty smell once more.

“Wanna know why I call you Margaret?” he asks.

“Please. I know for a fact that it’s not just some random name you picked.”

Eren pulls back, a devious grin on his face.

“Margaret is the name of the moon.”

Of course.

“...of Uranus.” he finishes.

“Huh?”

“Uranus. It’s the name of one of the moons of Uranus.” Eren repeats, emphasizing every last syllable.

You can tell from the way he’s smiling that he’s incredibly pleased with himself. And it makes uou break out into a teary laugh.

“You’re fucking with me.”

“No, I’m not. All of Uranus’s moons are named after Shakespeare characters. And the first one that came to mind when we were having that talk out of all of them was Margaret.”

“So you intentionally gave me a name based off of an anus?”

“Not just any anus, Y/N. Ur-anus. It’s very significant to our relationship.”

“Ew, Eren. Oh my god.” you respond, the two of you laughing as you look at him with disgust.

“What?”

“I can’t tell what’s worse. This or Hobo Eren.”

“Hey.”

“Nevermind. It’s definitely Hobo Eren. That’s an atrocity to humanity, Eren.”

“Okay, okay. I get it. I’m horrendous” he responds, slightly shoving you in the side as you return the favor.

“I’m so glad we’re on the same page. It’s been putting a real damper on our relationship.” you respond.

Eren looks over at you and smiles.

“Are there any dampers on our relationship now? For real?” Eren asks.

You shake your head.

“No. But…you and me on the same side now. Always. You can’t keep secrets from me and-”

“I won’t.” he responds, definitively.

“Then no. No dampers. You and me till the end.” you respond.

Eren smiles as you look back at the waves crashing and you lean your head against his shoulder again. He softly murmurs into your hair.

“Why do you call me Bruce? Yours had to be just as deliberate as mine.” he asks.

“You don’t need to know. It’s not half as cute as yours.” you respond.

“Well, nothing is as cute as Uranus unfortunatley.”

“Naturally. I…um. You…you know that shark from Finding Nemo? That…that pretends to be friends with the fish and then tries to eat them?” you state, giving him a peachy smile.

“No fucking way.”

“I’m sorry!” you whine.

“You’re so rude, Y/N L/N. I gave you a sweet, sentimental nickname and that’s how you repay me.”

“You gave me Uranus, Eren.”

“There is nothing more scared than my anus, Y/N. You know that.”

“You’re so immature. You have the humor of a twelve year old.” you respond.

“And you love it. One would argue that…that you enable this behavior from me. I’d never make these jokes if you didn’t think they were funny.”

“You tell jokes based off of me?” you ask, sarcastically.

“Yes. I want to see you laugh. You think I’m just out here saying stuff just to say it?”

“You’re full of shit.”

“And you’re not even half deserving of my anus.” Eren responds.

You and Eren bicker back and forth. And the sun rises, straight through the patches of the clouds.

On the two of you, together again.

next part linked here

an: MEOW

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cookieshipshowdown · 1 month ago

Note

my good pal manyminded sent this blog to me so i must submit my favourite polyship for review: Whatever this is (mysticsugar is there too i just made this before the es update) (cacao is sitting to the side, romance repulsed style)

i can define the colors of the lines but honestly its more fun without context

OMORI PFP !!! Anyways

This is so intriguing to me just on principle of timekeeper being here. I want to say grey is either dislike or intrigue and I'm not sure which is funnier. Red is love/crush probably, black is The Nightmare Polycule, green is friends-

Wait are these just the ovenbreak colors. Hang on.

THIS IS POSSIBLY FUNNIER IF IT'S THE OVENBREAK RELATIONSHIPS COLORS. WE BALL (Yellow is admiration, I don't think purple or black exist on the chart so uhhh. Idk about those)

Oh wait I think the purple are soulmates/soulsharing fuckery. Ok

Also if it IS the ovenbreak colors. The Ancients not trusting each other is possibly the best part about this. They're fucked up <3

Starting top right and moving to bottom left!!

Eternal Sugar and Pitaya bonding over their shared love for Hollyberry. My OT3 forever. Sugarberry other half, no surprise there, happy that Pitaya is included on the chart and everything. Such an interesting guy, my Pitaya <3

Admiration and tension between GC and Sugar is kinda par for the course? Like think about it. Stasis hell for all your subjects. Wings. Desperately holding on to the people you care about and not letting them leave you (dying in GC's case, getting out of the paradise in ES's case). I should do a character analysis of GC sometime. Maybe.

Rivalry between The Girlies. I think it's friendly rivalry, like they looooove competing in things. It's enrichment. Let them blow up a house and then rebuild it. They all take turns making dinner and burn down a kitchen at least thrice a week.

Holly holding admiration for WL guys. Guys. Admiring her for not running away and facing her problems head on. Lily admiring Holly for not giving up and continuing to be loud and laughing despite The Horrors. "I wish I could be like you"-type beat from both of them. They think that the other handle their problems so so well. I'm insane. No one listen to me.

Silent Salt and White Lily. The sheer. AUUUGH I have over them. They aren't even out. This is so far into AU territory but I'm so far gone. The knight and their lady. They need to make charm bracelets for each other this is very important to me

LILY AND VANILLA. GUYS EVERYONE SHUT UP I NEED TO YAP ABOUT PURELILY. No it's not "childhood friends to lovers" no it's not "I'll always come back for you" no it's not "Thank you for being there when no one else was" IT'S NOT !! Pure Vanilla falling in love with the idea of Lily, finding out that she never really was who he thought she was. I think that that's why the fandom mischaracterizes her so often!!!! Because quite a bit of our information about WL up until the silver kingdom update was THROUGH PV. And PV does not understand her to the extent he thinks or says he does!! She shares the dream of peace for Earthbread! Of happiness for all cookies!! Pure Vanilla saw this beautiful, smart, amazing cookie in the library and holds her up in a pedestal in his mind because that is Who Lily Is to him. When Dark Enchantress rises, that pedestal shatters. Because the person in front of him is not his friend, is not the White Lily in his mind -- the Lily in his mind would not stoop so low as to rip Earthbread apart (but he can't understand, doesn't understand, how this has always been a part of her; just one that has never been brought to the surface in such a potent way before) and he CANNOT reconcile the two in his mind. When Lily wakes up in the Silver Kingdom update. Can you IMAGINE how PV feels. Overjoyed. This cookie that he admires, this perfect cookie who he's known all his life, is still alive. Never mind that he doesn't know her favorite color, favorite food. Never mind that Lily seems more withdrawn. You would think that he goes to comfort her, but GINGERBRAVE STEPS IN. It's GingerBrave and co. that invite her to join in the festivities. PV only comes up once GingerBrave has started to make her feel better. Can you IMAGINE how Lily feels, disoriented and seeing her friend after 50-odd years. Conflicted. She knows what Dark Enchantress has been up to, to some extent. She doesn't fully disagree with the reasonings -- just with the methods done to achieve DE's goals. She was always a part of Lily. WHEN SHE SAYS "OUR PATHS DO NOT ALIGN" GUYS. THE VISCERAL REACTION (/pos) THAT WENT THROUGH ME. White Lily sees what PV refuses to; if PV cannot pull himself out of his head and see her, REALLY see her, than their relationship cannot continue. That's all there is to it. She isn't perfect, and he needs to learn that.

ANYWAYS. Yikes I yapped. Silent Salt and PV holding admiration I want to say is Salt having respect for him. This guy has managed the stress on his shoulders so well. Predictions for Salt's arc incoming btw !! I feel like they, as the Virtue of Solidarity, had so much pressure to keep people together, to be there as a rock of support for people to bring their worries to. Always the comforter, never the comforted. That's why I think SilentLily works so well. Mutual agreement of worth. White "Just your presence is enough for me" Lily Cookie and Silent "You are always going to be enough for me" Salt Cookie. They cannot believe that they are worth anything if they aren't helping someone, so they believe it for each other. But THAT'S why I think Salt corrupted -- the stress of all that and never being able to tell anyone was too much for them. (Again with the too much. Bashes fist on the ground.)

Rivalry between Salt and Smilk because they have some sort of something going on. I feel like they're the embodiment of "I suffer so much every day and for what. girlish whimsy" "girl you have something more sinister going on" <- that. that is them in a nutshell. Am i making ANY SENSE or have I lost the plot. The knight and their jester. They keep koi fish in a pond to stare at for hours while talking about everything and nothing. Smilk was the closest Salt got to feeling like someone cared about them before they corrupted but then, well. Smilk stopped coming to their weekly chats. The silence was so, so loud. And then the tree happened, and now they're trying to figure out where they stand with each other now.

Tension between Timekeeper and Salt is the funniest outcome. Timekeeper on this chart in general is HYSTERICAL. She's such a bitch I love her.

OKAY NIGHTMARE POLYCULE (BLACK LINES) TIME.

TIMEMILK. MY GUILTY PLEASURE RAREPAIR. They hate each other sooooooo much guys. The worst fucking dynamic on the planet -- two annoying bitches who never shut up <3 They THRIVE on violence and shenanigans. Anyone within a 5-mile radius WILL feel a deep sense of dread until they've been formally pranked by the two. They both go to the bar and wail about how much they hate GingerBrave and co. because "FUCK THAT STUPID CRUMBLY BALD-LOOKING BLUE EYES WEIRDASS FUCKER". And then they take a shot, grimace, and call for another. The alcohol doesn't taste good, and it takes unholy levels of it for either of them to get drunk, but it's more for the experience of yelling about all the people you can't stand than anything.

SDVN I already yapped about so I'll spare you all. This time.

The DE/WL/PV triangle is such a hot mess. SUUUUUCH a hot mess. The HOTTEST mess.

Pure Vanilla and Dark Enchantress is such an interesting concept based on the above rant about PureLily. Here, there ARE no pretenses. He sees her for what she is; someone who found out a horrible truth, couldn't stand it, and dealt with it in the only way she knew how. She's done awful things, and really, he shouldn't even be trying to forgive or redeem her, and yet. Here he is, doing the same thing he did with smilk. And on DE's side, she sees someone who is only now just starting to understand her, and it frustrates her to no end. Who is he to have the right to get to know her? How dare he try to claim that her vessel is someone so weak? He had his chance, and he fumbled it. But Lily asked her to try, so try she will. LilyEnchant. Do I have the capacity to keep this small, because I fear if I get started, this will just turn into "Loaf yaps about WL and DE and character foils" instead of "polls about cookie ships!!" (like this isn't already happening. denial is wonderful, everyone.) I'll keep it small because this post is already big as-is. They, more than anyone else, more than any Beast or Ancient, understand each other on a fundamental level that is nigh impossible to achieve. This is what Smilk wanted, with PV. With TR. That's why the admiration for DE is there. Lily is so incredibly sorry for all that DE has gone through. DE sees it as pity for the longest time, and Lily always says that it's never been pity, and never will be. She knows herself, and she knows that she could never pity DE. Eventually, DE recognizes the empathy, the compassion, the love and self-loathing in equal measure. They both blame themselves for various things, and they both empathize with the other. "I'm sorry you had to go through that," they whisper to themselves when they think the other doesn't notice. "I'll be better. For you," they promise. They ignore the thoughts of killing the other, of taking back the life they once shared, of becoming just one being; either Lily, or Enchantress. There's room enough for both of them, and that space grows more and more with every day, every improvement. It's self-love on the most literal level, and they are happy to continue along this path.

Anyways. Those are! My thoughts! :3

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fratellis-pizzeria · 1 month ago

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Proship is literally just anti censorship, because bookburning is what nazis do, and because fiction Is Not Real.

Imagine if someone got abused in an avg relationship and said that every single relationship ever was inherently abusive and said that no one can ever be in a relationship ever again, solely because they personally experienced abuse. This is literally what you are doing. Your experience is not proof that generalization is okay, you are literally just a nazi.

WOHOAH COOL YOUR JETS BUDDY THIS IS THE FUNNIEST FUCKING THING IVE EVER BEEN SENT WHAT DEMONS ARE YOU FIGHTING HERE DUDE

Thank you for this though, because you have now given me an opportunity to air out a bunch of shit I've wanted to say but never knew where to start with!

First of all, not true! Proshipping is in fact not "literally just anti censorship", I can concretely say this because I am in fact, actually anti censorship like a normal person, and I do not identify as proship! Novel concept I know (OR antiship for the matter, both sides are tar pits that were disastrous for my OCD and I try to avoid involvement with either as much as I can.)

Y'see where you start making up a person that does not exist is the fact that I actually do believe that darker topics like trauma and incest CAN be discussed in fiction, and arguably that they SHOULD be. The issue arises for me an most other people when you're going down the delicate line of a respectful depiction and take a hard left turn into fetishization and romanticizing it when it's something that can an has actually ruined real peoples lives. Fiction DOES have an effect on reality, otherwise why would fiction be made at all?

I'm not even going to entertain that downright insane strawman you threw at me in that last part so I'm gonna skip right to what I really want to say here lmao.

Now, you don't really see this on this blog but on my main I have a long history of writing about nearly every single character I own going through unimaginable traumas and horrible situations, I actually am guilty of a lot of the more (arguably innocent- at least if it wasn't done so shittily) things Kittycorn has done myself, because I have several publicly posted characters who are very obviously based on people I used to know who did horrible things to me that I use to work through my feelings about them and what happened, where it differs though is that they aren't just a carbon copy of the person or a hollow shell just to fulfill my desires or whatever the fuck, they were still actively written to be their own people separated from the ones they were based on as much as would be reasonable in my eyes, not out of a desire to put those people through the torture nexus or something, but to write out actual closure that I've never actually gotten at a single turn in my entire life. If it weren't for my desire to create and put my feelings on paper in the form of colorful little creatures and animals I genuinely do not think I would still be here talking to you faceless little gray cowards right now.

I say this to emphasize that what Kittycorn is doing is not healthy, the people kit is surrounded with are not good for her, and no matter what she tells herself this will not change until she gets out of there and into a healthier environment, and with how its looking and how kits behaved in the past about this I don't think that's ever going to happen. I am not here to downplay anything she went through, I am simply here to say that making a world where everything is just peaches and cream and a neon furry incest slop utopia is not closure and not a healthy way to go about any of this, and don't even get me started on the fact that she apparently had included fetish material in sparklecare while MINORS were on the crew, and whatever the fuck was the deal with og cometcare from top to bottom honestly, and everything that was done to the victims to rope them into being okay with the mess, and shielding known predators and continuing to be buddy-buddy with them in spite of it all because they enable her and wont take kit out of her incest fantasy world. And I could probably keep going honestly. There is no coming back from this shit dude there's no if ands or buts about that here, what kc has done is completely and utterly fucked through and through this is FAR beyond just a "pro vs anti" argument.

I have long since given up all empathy toward Kittycorn and any hope of her actually getting better by this point, and no amount of calling me an ACTUAL NAZI (????????) is going to change the fact that this isn't actual censorship, this is simply the consequences of her actions, I don't know how to break it to you bud but its not against the first amendment to experience personal repercussions for the insane shit you post on the internet, almost makes me wonder why you'd send this on anon instead of showing your face? Almost like you do understand that to be true and don't want this rightfully thrown back at you, but hey, what do I know? I'm "literally just a nazi" right?

And if you see this congrats on being my first ever anon hate by the way !! cheers to you luv xoxo I am never making a post like this again if I can help it <3

#sperklacera #sludgetalkz #mod charles 💊#long post #I do not fuck around with this topic buddy you sent this ask to the wrong person

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breawycker · 1 year ago

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He's the reason this show exists. Louis D'Esposito (co-president of Marvel Studios) showed him the comic when trying to get a collaboration with Fishburne's production company and Fishburne actually used to read the original Moon-Boy and Devil Dinosaur comics by Jack Kirby. He really liked them and got the idea to make an animated show about the series. He got Steve Loter who used to work on Kim Possible to help develop and Loter and his team made a rollerskating video with Sweatpants by Childish Gambino to pitch to Disney (which was used in the 3rd episode). He's also amazing as the Beyonder. Everyone should go watch Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur! It's got heart, great humor, awesome fight scenes, and some great representation! With the Owl House, Amphibia, and now The Ghost and Molly McGee over (😭), we can't lose this too.

[Photo ID: the poster for season two of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. The poster has a gold and light purple border with blue stars and gold star sparkles and in the center there is a large black rectangle featuring (clockwise from top left to center): Casey Calderon (Lunella's best friend and "manager". She is an original character for the show. Disney Wiki describes her as "a short 13-year-old Puerto-Rican-Jewish girl with brown skin, long black hair, and noticeably big black eyes. She possesses blush, lip gloss and nail polish, all colored in a coral-pink. She wears a blue shirt with a white collar, a black belt, and blue shorts with two large pockets in them. Additionally, she has large black shoes with white socks and wears gold hoop earrings." She is posing with her arms up and her pointer fingers pointed to the left, her right eye closed, looking pumped), Kid Kree (13 year old Kree warrior in training who is from the "Cosmic Cooties" storyline from her original series. He has blue skin and is wearing black, grey, and teal armor that covers everything but his mouth and has a black mohawk. His armor has this star/diamond like shape on it. He is smiling evil and is pointing his left arm put, his hand in a fist like he's gonna shoot a laser cannon), on the bottom we have some of the supporting characters all of whom are wearing a black "IS 833" shirt and striking different poses, which is the name of the school: a black girl kneeling down with a smug "whatever expression" with her hands up and flat like an "I don't know" pose, her black hair is partially down partially up in a bun and wearing long navy green pants, a lighter skinned person with shorter brown hair that spikes out on top, their right hand at their side, and their doing a peace sign salute with their left hand, in between these two groups is the Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur logo, then left of that is a boy in a wheelchair with brown shorts and short dirty blonde hair who's doing a similar pose to Casey but with his hands flat, a girl with dark long brown hair wearing blue, square glasses, an orange beanie, and long grey pants, her arms are crossed and she's doing a thinking pose, up to center left is the Beyonder (tall, skinny, sharp, dark orange skinned man wearing a mostly white but some black suit with blue quaffed hair, his fingers are very long and pointed almost like a claw, smilingly almost evilly with his right hand up like he wants you to give him a high five), in the center is Moon Girl (Lunella Lafayette, 13 year old black girl, short wearing her purple and yellow costume that has her dark brown hair sticking out as a ponytail, her mouth is the only thing visible and her goggles have a virtual eye shape that's like rectangles pointed up slightly. She's giving a triumphant stance, her mouth open wide in a smile, her hands in two fists pointed up), lastly is Devil Dinosaur (Large red T. Rex with black spots on his back, the way his scales look it's like he has little Devil horns on his head, he is wearing some kind of contraption as a backpack that gives him a mechanical left hand and the other is a three barrel gun that shoots the blue goop that traps people on bubbles). There is a large gold star behind both of them. On the bottom of the poster on the left is a stack of books behind a little Devil Dinosaur plushie and on the right is various beakers with a bubbling light teal liquid plus a little spherical gadget that is kinda shaped like Moon Girl. In the middle, the poster says that new episodes start on Disney Channel on Friday February 2 at 8pm and then on Disney plus the next day and below that it says OnDisneyPlus.Disney.com

End ID]

Hello sorry to bother you with this all of sudden ,and this might be coming out of nowhere, and I’m not trying to force you but I m trying to get more people into this show with great potential. If your not interested it’s fine but Have you heard of or watched moon girl and devil dinosaur? Season 2 comes out February 2.

The main character i love she gives me autistic vibes I’m autistic. The show has interesting characters, action ,great music, and animation ,good themes and representation, Anime references, it even has an eyecatch season 2 is going to be more story driven if you find that interesting. It be good if you watch the first 2 season 2 episode when they air so the ratings will be higher. And watch the other season 2 episodes when they air.

I think Disney might be trying to sabotage the show with them probably dropping 14 episodes on Disney + on February 3. They did similar with season 1 and the ratings where low ,please watch season 2 episodes when they air on. But more importantly also watch it on Disney + on feb 3 and when they air it on YouTube. Unfortunately they are dropping 14 episodes on Disney + so watch them all in one day but also when they air the first time.

I’m not just saying only cable just also. I’m saying please support this show. Despite that it still won 5 Emmys. Also if it’s no trouble could if it alright with you spread the word about this show to others you know like either online or irl. Time is limited!

I know of the show, but I haven't seen it. I don't have cable so I just watch everything on Disney+.

BTW, did you guys know that Laurence Fishburne is in this show? Morpheus from The Matrix. Isn't that crazy?

#that was a lot #i feel like i should know those characters on the bottom but its been a bit since i watched season one #but yeah watch show #is good #a lot of diverse characters and voice actors #two non binary characters and a trans character #very pog #moon girl and devil dinosaur #image described #accessibility

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spongebob-connoisseur · 16 days ago

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Yeah, I guess you could say I'm a pro gamer😎

I Slappy-fied my 3ds! Since modding it and having a new found use for it in the big year of 2025, I figured I should give it an exterior refresh too since it was looking so beat up.

I haven't gotten around to making a Slappy 3ds theme yet for it. I actually didn't want to post this until I did but I got impatient. I wont be making one anytime soon cuz busy™ but there is other things I wanted to share:

I downloaded all the old Spongebob game boy games! When I was a teenager I really really wanted to play them (especially the very first one SBSP Legend of the lost spatula for the game boy color) but I didn't have a proper computer to download and emulate the games (and I guess it never occurred to me that I could do it on my phone)

Anyways I quite enjoy playing them since this is a handheld console. Not -exactly- the same as a game boy color or game boy advance but it feels closer to how it was originally played ya kno? I also like that I can play this whenever on the go. I keep my 3ds in my purse all the time. Its very nostalgic.

The SB games I have thus far are legend of the lost spatula, supersponge (you know that one gba game that had inappropriate drawings of the characters hidden in the game files) , spongebob movie game, battle for bikini bottom, creature from the krusty krab, lights camera pants. They are all so nostalgic to play. I feel like legend of the lost spatula, while the most simple of them is the most nostalgic. There's literally SO many references to season 1 episodes. It's whole vibe is literally season 1. It's so simplistic and adorable, it feels like falling in love with the spongebob franchise all over again.

I literally have not felt so warm and fuzzy from spongebob like this in so long. Don't get me wrong I will always love the show even in its modern era and spinoffs and all but this is what I have been missing! It ached like like a phantom limb how sweet and positive it used to feel😭😭 where have you been spongebobbert??

I love how he does the little jellyfish jam dance as an idle animation. It's literally so precious.

As for the other SB games, I enjoy them too, it's just lofls feels special in a way thats different from the other games. The rest of the others are for the game boy advance and feels a lot closer to the games I specifically grew up playing (I grew up playing ds games primarily, the dsi was my first console).

I feel like gba and ds games feel very similar to me. I was more interested in seeing how much those games differed from the other versions since that was a thing. I always knew lights camera pants for the PC was a different game than the one for the game boy for example. For the most part lights camera pants for the gba just feels like a regular sb themed platformer with a very loose story slapped on😅 when you play them one you played them all. I'm not upset though because I can't get enough of spongebob (despite what my peter lorre fish hyoerfixation might have led you to believe)

Also what is wrong with him?

That's all I have to share for now. When I get around to making a Slappy 3ds theme (and possibly a proper Spongebob one since I couldn't find s good spongebob 3ds theme that I liked) then I'll share it here. Also if you want any more info about how to do this then always feel free to leave your questions in the ask box. I am very slow at getting to asks so be warned.

Bonus:

Biblically accurate Slappy relationship status going on in Tomodachi Life

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canmom · 3 months ago

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a theme in art that fascinates me is imagining the ultra-long-duration future of humanity, in which our forms become increasingly abstracted and strange to us.

i encountered pop-rock duo Zager and Evans' song In the Year 2525 from, naturally, a Fallout: New Vegas music mod. idk if this embed will work for you or if it gets copyright-slapped, you might have to click...

youtube

...but anyway, it follows an imagined 10,000 year future of humanity in ~1010 year increments, projecting various things that might occur. its concerns are, naturally, terribly 1969: babies selected from the bottom of a 'long glass tube', behaviour-controlling pills, bodies atrophying because everything done by machines, at some point God shows up - not a mention of computers, they weren't even on the horizon. the song has spawned numerous parodies and variants, from a Jewish version to the theme song of 90s American action show Cleopatra 2525.

I feel like what makes it work is the tone: the rising and falling minor arcs, the sense of resignation in the lyrics. far more than the specific scenarios imagined, which are a bit corny, there is that glimpse of the disorienting feeling that the forms we inhabit now are just an emphemeral passing phase, and how vast the possibility space of life could be.

Man After Man (1990) by Dougal Dixon takes another approach: using the tools of speculative biology, Dixon tries to imagine all sorts of strange hominids that could emerge out of us. you most likely know it from the Seasons Greasons meme, in which we become a screaming furry ape biting a larger, fluffier screaming ape. but Dixon has many weirder ideas. CM Kosemen went for a similar project in 2006 titled All Tomorrows. I regret to say I have read neither of those books, so I'll have to leave it at that.

of course, the GOAT on this subject is Don Hertzfeldt (who we visited way back on AN89). starting with his film The Meaning of Life, which I recently watched at the GSFF, the long-term weird future of humanity became a recurring central theme in Hertzfeldt's work.

youtube

Hertzfeldt's film is almost entirely without dialogue. a huge variety of human characters walk across the screen to and fro; then the timeline accelerates and increasingly weird designs appear, interspersed with representation of timing of the solar system. at the end, two characters have a discussion in a nonsense language where only words that vaguely resemble 'meaning of life' can be discerned. the larger character seems to scoff at the smaller one's question, leaving the smaller staring out at the universe.

of course, the best-known version is probably that time he did an intro for the Simpsons, which speedruns a similar idea in about a minute and a half.

youtube

like with the eponymous phrase in The Meaning of Life, the film depicts some kind of heavily decayed signal being preserved even as everything else changes around it. it throws in a lot of Rejected-style surrealism for humour, but there's still a core affirmation: 'still love you homar', text reading 'I will never forget you' - a willful absurdity in the face of everything else arounding it underlining that entropy will win and everything must become unrecognisable.

the substance of the theme becomes more concrete in Hertzfeldt's three-part film It's Such A Beautiful Day, which tells the slow, relentless story of a character losing his memories, identity and cognitive abilities to dementia. to spoil the final moment of the film, which you should really watch... at the last minute, as it seems certain the character will finally die, the film - which has been entirely grounded so far - swerves into narrating the character's immortality, outliving humanity and watching until the heat death of the universe. it is performed as a desperate and tragic choice by the narrator to switch into a different story, but it also serves to underline by its absurdity how all of our defining information will decohere and our fate is the same as Bob's.

(I won't go into World of Tomorrow for now, though it is probably Hertzfeldt's best work, because I really need to rewatch it - I don't feel confident summarising it and its relevance to the theme right now lol)

I have a strange desire to see what happens next for humanity. 'I' get to bear witness to this brief... maybe 70, 80 years if average life expectancy stays where it is. I can absorb as much information as I can into the whorls of my brain's neural network, encode it in various communicable forms so that what I have learned and what I value can outlive me. but once I'm gone, only memories of me and artefacts I have left behind can continue to affect the world. I might still have a distinguishable causal effect on the world in decades, perhaps hundreds of years after I'm gone. after that my existence is indistinguishable from noise. and subjective-experience wise, I don't get to see it anyway!

but what if I didn't go? what if we got to live forever?

when I imagine getting to see the far future, I imagine the current me getting to see it, as if I got to step in a time machine. but the creature I become will be native to that time period.

let us imagine the set of states available to a brain. we can provisionally think of it comprising a dynamics model and stores of information such as memories, but that might prove insufficient. regardless: these things in combination learn to build an approximate model of the outside world and my place in it. they evolve with time. storing new memories causes older ones to decay gradually. the dynamics model is reinforced by the habits of thinking it performs.

it is a theorem that a one-dimensional system undergoing a random walk will eventually visit every possible state available to it an infinite number of times. but a 3D system is only 34% likely to return to its starting point, and an N-dimensional system becomes increasingly unlikely to ever return there as the dimensions increase. moreover, any two points undergoing a random walk in a high-dimensional space will grow infinitely far apart in the same way.

if we imagine the evolution of the brain as being like a random walk (perhaps through some lower-dimensional latent space rather than the space of all possible neuron firings, except the latent space and architecture may well change as the brain learns new environments and the possibility to self-modify comes into existence)... I guess that means that in the long durée, 'I' will become increasingly alien to the current me, and also everyone I know presently. what difference does it make that one person in a hundred thousand years has a special causal chain leading back to the 'me' that exists now, and another doesn't?

you could say there is some anchor or attractor in the space, some persistent life goal or set of values or 'inner law', which you would orbit even as the world transforms drastically around you. we try to stay consistent with ourselves, after all. but my experience is: dubious. I have changed a lot in some ways, less so in others; themes from when I was a lot younger seem to recur unexpectedly. I can read a story I wrote a decade ago and still recognise the voice of it. but it feels like it is a set of different timescales of change rather than anything being fundamentally immutable.

replication, attractor states, the nebulous goal-seeking structures that are being called 'diverse intelligence': these things can keep a pattern around. but only so long.

in one timeline, I die at a distinct point: all the processes shut down more or less at once, the organising principle decoheres, and the assembly of matter ceases to be an organism as it was just a moment earlier. in another timeline, 'I' disappear gradually as memories are overwritten and by brain learns to act differently; there is no definite point where I definitively cease to be the same person.

(some human relationships end abruptly, such as in a big fight, or a death. others end through a gradual divergence. I have experienced this many times in even the short period I've been alive. sometimes though, a stable feedback loop keeps the two people close over a very long period, even as they change. these feel special, they accumulate far more memories, they are more painful if they break. two or more humans might live happily together for 70 years, easily enough. but could a relationship last indefinitely? over billions of years?)

so what sort of mind could take it all in? comprehend all the different eras and forms?

I think about associative memory. to crudely oversimplify, we consolidate and store short-term memories accumulated through a day during sleep into a long-term form. kirsanov says they go into the neocortex but I am not sure this is as settled as I thought; it doesn't really matter. when awake, we retrieve memories associatively: something will 'remind you of' something else that might be relevant. however, it would follow that only so much information can be retrieved for processing at once.

to make the inevitable analogy to artificial neural networks and computers, we don't have anything so simple or precise as a 'context window', but at any given time I feel like there must be only so much 'bandwidth' to pull in additional memories into the working memory 'cache'. imagine if you could have a vast 'library' of semantic and episodic memories, and look up something relevant very quickly, but you can only 'read one book' (or a few books) at a time. and the way you think and behave depends significantly on the books you pull out.

at that point you have to be a creature who can perform many different 'characters'. you might have memories of both, but your 25th-century-sona might be very different from your 41st-century-sona. you are sort of inescapably plural. shoggoth wearing a mask, etc. etc., you know where I'm going with this.

is this necessary? would it be possible to have a 'brain' that can consider vastly more information at once in parallel, like the planet-running Minds in Iain M Banks? or is there some kind of linear bottleneck, the putative 'main thread' which may or may not be identifiable with 'consciousness'? even without a bottleneck, it takes time for information to propagate. you could pile neurons onto a brain, letting its broad plasticity adapt them to whatever function it might need, but at some point it's more like a vast space where multiple 'wavelets' of collective thought-excitation are moving around and interacting with each other than a unified thing.

but perhaps that is no obstacle: perhaps a process in there could just duplicate instances of itself and have some mechanism to reconcile them periodically and pass information between these units, and the whole thing can be a nice little universe-contemplating superorganism. until some nodes start to defect. but oh dangit, we just invented multicellularity again. and GPUs. and... human society?

so perhaps that's the resolution to my little wish: this little 'node' right here may only be able to consider the parts of history that it's exposed to, but it's a component in a larger system. it can receive compressed representations of thoughts from other nodes, and send them in turn. we call that 'language'. that's what you're reading right now, hi!

well, that's nice and pretty and all, but it still leaves us with entropy and the arrow of time. maybe the superorganism will eventually see the whole future, but its older memories still decay, and I am not the superorganism.

in the absence of a total perspective vortex, then... without the means to know 'halloween'...

well, that leaves constructing fantasies of it, as an artistic gesture, a game to play in the present. it will absolutely certainly get everything wrong and one day feel as dated as Zager and Evans. it still calls to me, though - to fully dissolve what is familiar, and take no arbitrary assumption. who can say why.

#introspective nightposting #science fiction #Youtube #i guess this is another specimen of lisdexamfetamineposting

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thanksbutno98 · 2 years ago

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Helloo!! When I say that I spent the whole day binging both your series on price and simon. Literally ate every chapter up!! Its so good and the characters are all fleshed out so well<3

It makes me so happy that the captain's wife still maintained her career<3333 It would really funny as well if the kids one day decided taht they will investigate their moms office and find a bone artifact she's working on and they freak out because why is there mother dearest keeping bones in her office

The Holidays

John Price x fem!reader

Authors note: This one little idea sparked so much inspiration for me. Thank you so much for your request and kind words!

Summary: The preparation for Christmas has never been easy but now being eight months pregnant has only made it tougher. As your family enjoys the holiday, tensions become high dividing John’s family.

Warning: swearing, angst, family conflict, slut shaming, pregnancy, toxic mother in law, mention of infidelity, hint at child abuse, not edited.

——————

“Psst, Jj.” Evelyns hushed voice floated through the air.

Turning only slightly from the Christmas movie on the television Jj could see his little sister just peaking her head around the doorway that connected the living room and dinning room. Narrowing his eyes Jj could see the mischief in hers.

“Why do I feel like you’re about to get us both in trouble the day before Christmas?” Jj asked.

“Not if we don’t get caught.” Evelyn waved her hand for Jj to come follow and before he could say another word he watched as she ran out of sight towards the back door.

With a deep sigh Jj turned the volume up a bit on the television in hopes his father would not hear what they were up to. Hoping over the back of the couch quietly Jj silently shuffled over and peered up the stairs.

“No, John it goes here.”

“Where should we put the rocking chair then?”

“I was thinking over there.”

The coast was clear. You and John were busy setting up the nursery having been at it for most of this rainy Christmas Eve. This gave Jj the chance to slip away unnoticed and figure out what his sister wanted. Quickly Jj made his way to the back door but he did not see where his sister went.

“Psssst, this way.” Turning Jj heard Evelyns voice coming from the behind basement door. Creepy. Jj shuttered at the thought of going into the ominous cellar. The rain pounding down outside and loud thunder did not help.

Quietly the eight year old opened the slightly ajar door to see his ponytailed sister kneeling on the bottom stair waving for him to follow. Her galaxy leggings and red t-shirt were illuminated by a singular light that was buzzing loudly. It was one of those draw string lights that dangle in the middle of the room.

The basement was a large square room bisected by a concrete wall. There was a wall jutting out at the bottom of the stairs that ran straight back cutting out a corner of the first room. It was where the water heater lived and a bunch of other stuff but the boy did not know what. There was one rectangular window in this room and two in the room across from them. It allowed the dim light of the rainy day to trickle in.

Creeping down the stairs Jj pulled the door back into place the way he found it. He made sure to avoid the creaking stairs but his stealth was far from proficient. Slipping and falling on his butt in his socks.

“Ow.” Jj mumbled getting back up and rubbing the sore area. Evelyn was giggling at him but he ignored her and continued to descend the rickety stairs.

“We’re not allowed down here. This is where mum does her work.” Jj scolded in a hushed tone.

“Well now it’s daddy’s office too. Since that dumb baby took it from him. They should just keep it down here.” Evelyn rolled her eyes.

Glancing around the portion of the cellar they could see. It was filled with all the belongings from their fathers office that eerily sat in the same position as it had upstairs. Now it was in a dingy concrete basement with little light making the mahogany of their fathers desk look menacing.

“Dad never let us in his office either. And I don’t think babies are suppose to be in basements.” Jj was annoyed by his sisters words. She had been upset about the baby lately which the young boy understood, he just kept it to himself.

“Well, doesn’t matter right now I found something cool.” Evelyn shot back.

“Evie, you’re gonna get us in trouble.” Jj complained finally stepping into what use to be the storage area.

Boxes were stacked under the stairs now and old furniture was piled in the small space next to the stairs to make room for John’s belongings. It was not ideal to have his office in the basement now but you lived in a four bedroom house and there was more need for a nursery.

“No, I’ll show you really quick then we’ll run up to the couch like nothing happened.” Evelyn spoke while she swiped her finger through the dust sitting on the old hutch that use to sit in the living room.

“Fine.” Jj groaned his curiosity outweighing the risk.

Evelyn scurried past the packing boxes filled with her fathers books and made her way to the opposite end of the basement that was separated by a concrete wall. Slowly she opened the old wooden door that lead into what you considered your study. It was an unfinished basement so it was nothing special. A bit dingy but this area was nice and clean.

The concrete floor was covered in a large Moroccan rug decorated with intricate designs. The ruby red rug brought out the dark chestnut furniture you had down here; such as your desk, old living room couch, coffee table and your old dining room table set. It looked spooky and like an old time morgue with the metal medical cabinets pushed against the left wall, stocked with supplies so you could examine artifacts here when you brought your work home.

Jj gulped as he took in the sight of your makeshift office. The lamp on your desk being the only light on casting a menacing shadow over the otherwise dark room. The trinkets and antiques you had collected throughout your career on display only making the room seem scarier to a child. Jj had only been down here a few times and it was always with you. No matter what it always gave him the creeps. There was a strict rule in the house that they were never allowed in here without explicit permission. You were scared they would break a centuries old artifact or find the key to your supply cupboard and get hurt.

Taking Jj’s hand Evelyn guided him around the old dinning room table and over to your desk that sat on the wall parallel to the door. Opening the bottom drawer she pulled out what looked to be a shoe box of sorts but it wasn’t quite right. Placing it gently on your office chair she kneeled in front of it and Jj did the same. Slowly taking off the lid Jj felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead as the contents of the box were revealed. There was a skull of some kind sitting in the dusty box. It’s jaw lay separate, with sharp fang like teeth.

“It’s a head. It’s like it staring at us.” Evelyn whispered looking fascinated but also slightly afraid.

Normally she would keep her brother out of her antics but she had freighted herself finding this and needed reassurance from her big brother. Silence filled the cellar as they both looked at the piece of bone that had a crack down the center. Jj assumed he knew what a human skull looked like and that was not it. Gulping down the fear he began to reach out to pick it up out of the box.

“What if you touch it and its spirit haunts you forever?” Jj froze as Evelyns words. What if she was right? There was a long lapse of silence as they continued to stare at the beige, stained bone.

“You should still touch it just so we know.” Evelyn whispered her face a few inches from the box.

“Why do I have to be the one who gets haunted?” Jj pursed his lips glancing between his sister and this terrifying skull that seemed to be staring back at him.

“Cuz you’re bigger?” Evelyn asked not convinced with her own argument.

“Well-“

“What on earth do you two think you’re doing?” The sound of John’s voice roared like thunder through the room. Both children gasped then screamed bolting away from the office chair and straight to their father. Evelyn stumbled a little practically throwing herself at him. John froze for a moment as his children clung on to him. Evelyn was hugging his waist and Jj was behind him holding on to the back of his shirt.

“Thank you daddy! Jj was about to be haunted by the skull spirit.” Evelyn’s words only confused John more.

“Uh-What?” John asked prying his children off of him. The look on their fathers face had their feet rooted into the concrete floor as John waltzed over to see what they were looking at.

“Your mother is going to have a fit when I tell her you were messing with one of her artifacts.” John’s words were laced in frustration as he placed the lid back on the box and put it on your desk.

“But we weren’t! We didn’t even touch it.” Evelyn pleaded. Turning to Jj she motioned for him to add something but he just shook his head at her. Accepting they had been caught and preparing himself for the consequences.

“You know he’s watching you right now.” John turned and pointed up to the ceiling.

“Who, the skull spirit?” Evelyn looked scared and confused.

“No, Santa. And if you’re not behaving he’ll bring you coal.” John said exasperated.

“Doubt it.” Evelyn shrugged her father off.

“Sorry dad. We know better.” Jj apologized. John could only sigh. There was no point in chewing his son out when he so clearly saw his wrong doings.

“You’re not allowed down here for your safety. Upstairs, I’m going to let your mum decided what to do with you.” John shuffled his children out of your office and through the storage portion of your basement that was soon to be his office.

“So we can’t visit you down here?” Evelyn asked as she slowly went up the rickety wooden stairs.

“Only if you have permission. But from now on the basement is off limits. Understood?” John stood tall over his children as they got to the top of the stairs and stood by the back door.

“Yes, sir.” Jj and Evelyn said in unison.

“Now, go do something you’re allowed to but don’t be surprised when your mum comes down cross with the both of you.” John waited with his arms crossed over his chest watching as his children shook their heads. With that being said both of them were off, running up to Jj’s room and accidentally slamming the door so they could try and figure out a way for you not to be mad at them. The only reason John came down here in the first place was because it was too quite and when it was too quite his kids were usually up to no good.

Letting out a deep sigh John went back upstairs to the new nursery. You were folding baby clothes you had bought earlier that weekend and were putting them away. John stood in the doorway admiring his eight month pregnant wife before he told you what your children were up to. You were dressed in a fitted grey long sleeve dress that went down to your knees. It stretched over the now very large baby bump making your belly look incredibly round. Your hair was braided and pushed out of your face with the head band you had on.

“God, you’re beautiful.” John’s deep and raspy voice filled the air. You did not turn to look at him only smiled to yourself as you played with a tiny pair of socks.

“Yeah, that’s why you keep knocking me up.” You said back sarcastically.

“I already got snipped it won’t happen again.” John said dryly. Walking over to you he wrapped his strong arms around you from behind, placing his large calloused hands on your belly.

“Oh, someone’s awake.” John lit up as he felt a firm kick against his left hand.

“Yeah, she wasn’t moving until you came in. Must be the sound of your voice.” You glanced over your shoulder to see such a love struck look on your handsome man’s face. Turning in John’s muscular arms you hugged him softly. Smiling like a fool as your husband kissed your forehead then bent down to place his ear against your belly.

“You gonna be a football player too?” John asked feeling another strong kick against his hand.

“Absolutely, Jj and Evie never kicked this much.” You giggled out. Blushing slightly as John placed a kiss to your belly.

“Speaking of, what was that all about?” You pointed in the direction of Jj’s room referencing the slamming door from moments ago. Standing to his full height John sighed a bit weary about telling you what your children had been up to.

“They were rummaging around your office. Found some animal skull. Said something about being haunted by it.” John shrugged as he stared down at you. Your jaw went slightly slack as the new found knowledge. You let out a frustrated huff, then placed your face in your hands.

“I feel like they’re terrorizing me.” You mumbled into your palms.

“It’s their job, they’re kids after all.” John reassured you. John wrapped one arm around you and pulled you into his chest.

“Now let’s get this all finished up. We have the whole family coming over tomorrow for Christmas dinner. And we have to get the presents under the tree.” John’s words were slightly commanding as he rubbed your back. Placing your chin on his chest you looked up into wintery blue eyes.

“Don’t remind me.” You groaned.

“It’s okay, I’ll keep my mum out of your hair. Just think about how happy the kids are gonna be when they see their present in the morning.” The small smile John gave you had your stress melting away slightly.

“Yeah, you’re right.” You spoke in a whisper as you ran your fingers over John’s muttonchops.

The excitement of you being pregnant died down at month four. Then it turned into your children becoming needier than usual when you really started showing. Jj was kinder about it but when asked if he was excited to have another sibling he would say ‘not really.’ Other than that he did try to be a good sport about it. Even telling his sister to knock it off when she gave you a hard time.

Evelyn had been huffy with you since you were not able to pick her up anymore. Claiming that daddy had to love her more because he still carried her up to bed and picked her up when she cried. After that comment John had stopped picking her up in general since she was six and too old for it anyway. This did not make the little girl happy resulting in many outburst on how the baby was dumb and she did not want to have a little sibling anymore. It only got worse when you found out you were having a girl. Evelyn kept making you and John promise she would be your favorite daughter. Telling her you loved them all the same did not suffice.

To say your feelings were hurt was an understatement. This was the most blissful pregnancy you had ever had suffering from almost no symptoms besides mood swings and swollen ankles. You were enjoying it so much and for your kids to be unhappy about it spoiled part of it for you.

John had been amazing keeping your children at bay and helping you with everything. Doing what he knew you needed without being asked because this was his third time doing this. John was now a seasoned father and knew what to expect most times. Whether that be a heating pad for your sore back, rubbing cream on your belly to help with stretch mark, or running across town to get you your latest craving.

John was as excited as you and he could not hide it. Spoiling you and showering you with love and affection. When you helped him put his office into boxes you found a small pair of Evelyns old baby shoes sitting in one of his drawers. John told you they looked to cute on Evelyn when she was born that he kept them all this time. Now you had a proper use for them instead of it being a keep sake. It made you so incredibly happy to see John your normally stoic and stern husband being a sentimental softy.

——————

It was Christmas Day and your house was filled with John’s family. The smell of a beautiful Roast was swimming through the air along with the cookies you had baked that morning. The party was in full swing as your children and their cousins played in the living room. The adults were split between the kitchen and foyer, drinks flowing in both rooms and loud chatter.

John had decorated the downstairs while you told him where to put things. Garland wrapped around your stair way banister and both entry ways. The Christmas tree stood tall and luscious, decorated by your children with the ornaments they had made throughout the years. A few were from John’s childhood and Evelyn insisted on taping your husbands baby picture on the star. You were not sure why but it made you laugh to see John’s chubby baby face atop your tree; he did not agree with your sentiment.

Both your children had been ecstatic to see their present that morning. Jj who was just starting to out grow the idea of Santa was a good sport and did not spoil anything for his sister. Telling her she should write Santa a thank you card which the six year old ended up doing at the breakfast table. It was panning out to be a perfect day. The only thing missing was your father who did not celebrate Christmas and chose to skip the event since he had a strong dislike for John’s mother.

“Think Jj just scraped his knee.” John’s gruff voice got your attention. You were chatting with Sarah’s husband.

“I’ll grab a bandaid. I promise I’m capable.” You stopped John from moving. He had hardly let you lift a finger the past few days.

“Fine. Don’t get lost.” John teased giving you a sweet peck to the lips.

Smiling from ear to ear you made your way into the kitchen to grab the first aid kit. Walking through the dinning room you could hear Mary, John’s mom talking indistinctly, she was ranting about something. That was no surprise to you. What was surprising was to hear the vile words she had just spoke about you as you walked in. She was completely unaware you had been in ear shot, if she knew she would have bitten her tongue.

“You’re fucking joking.” The words left your lips before you even registered you said them aloud.

“Wh-“ Whipping around Mary looked shocked and embarrassed having been overheard.

“Don’t you dare swear at me!” John’s mother was irate hearing the way you had just spoken to her.

She was standing in your kitchen in front of the stove amongst John’s siblings. The three of them all let out a shocked gasp before you had entered the room at their mothers words. Everyone was slack jawed and in stunned silence at what had just been said and the fact you heard it before any of them could come to your defense.

“You just said John should ask for a paternity test because I’m clearly a ‘slag.’ Do you hear yourself? You’re in our home speaking about me like that. What if Evie or Jj heard you.” You were livid. You never spoke to Mary with an attitude or any negative emotion. It felt like the years of pent up frustration and hurt feels were about to come bursting out of you.

“You may have him and everyone else fooled but not me. I’ve known you were like this since the moment I met you.” Mary spat her words at you. The embarrassment of getting caught only fueled her anger.

Taking a breath through your nose you tried to maintain a cool calm composure before you spoke. All eyes were on you, a hush falling over the kitchen. Everyone watching as your cheeks turned red from humiliation and your lip quivered from a mixture of anger and held back tears.

“Get out.” You said simply, voice hushed.

“Excuse me? You have no right to kick me out on Christmas. After keeping my grand babies away from me for so long!” Mary was now walking up to you. Harrison John’s oldest brother was quick to step between you both. His mother was not capable of violence but it was still shocking to see her try and get into the face of a very pregnant woman.

“Mum, stop.” Harrison spoke still in shock.

“What is wrong with you, mum.” Sarah spoke trying to come over to you but you turned on your heels and made your way down the hall.

You were so angry you could cry but forced yourself not to, especially in front of John’s whole family. You just needed to be as far away from Mary as humanly possible. When you passed John he gave you a quizzical look. He was not expecting you to return without a band-aid and with an upset, no furious, look on your face.

“Darling, is everything okay?” John followed you quickly to the foot of the stairs. The adults in the room turned but the children did not seem to notice anything was wrong and continued their rough housing.

“I’m going to my fathers, I’ll have him pick me up. After tonight your mother is not welcome here anymore.” Your words were coated in disdain and took everyone off guard.

In all the years you had been together with John you never once made a scene. John stood there stunned as you waddled up the stairs. Trying to follow, you told your husband you needed space so he gave you that. John knew something horrible had happened or was said so he quickly made his way into the kitchen as he heard Harrison start yelling and Grayson joining in. It was never a good sign when Grayson shouted.

When Mary found out you were pregnant she made a similar accusation but dropped it when John gave some push back. Since then little rumors had been circulating around the family all coming from her. John’s mother was convinced you were unfaithful and it had driven a wedge between her and you. Normally you tried to be sweet and kind because Mary was not your biggest fan and you wanted her approval but this was the last straw for you. You had been avoiding her the whole pregnancy and refusing to let her be alone with Jj and Evie because you were afraid of what she might say.

It had put a strain on you and John at the beginning but that quickly faded when John heard the things that had been said. Cutting off most communication with his mother and only seeing her at family events like tonight. You two thought things had settled down but clearly they had not.

“What’s going on?” John marched into the kitchen to see Harrison finger pointed in his mothers face and Grayson standing a couple feet behind him yelling over his mothers shrieks. Sarah stood with her hand over her mouth as she watched her normally calm brothers lose it.

“Get your finger out of your mothers face.” John’s father burst past him smacking Harrison hand out of Mary’s face. If this was 30 years ago Paul would have done a lot more than swat Harrison’s hand away.

All hell was breaking loose as everyone slowly flooded into the kitchen. Amy Harrison’s ex wife kept the children in the living room as Sarah pulled John aside. Now John’s father was shouting back in both his sons faces but they were not backing down either. Everything had devolved into chaos as people shouted and shrieked over each other. John was watching them intently feeling as if someone may start a physical fight.

“Mum called Y/N a slag and said you needed to get a paternity test. Y/N overheard the whole thing and confronted mum before we could say a word. She told mum to ‘get out.’” Sarah whispered into John’s ear.

John’s ears rang until all he heard was silence. He could see people lips still moving and by his father and brothers faces they were still shouting. A white hot rage slowly crept up John’s spine. His mother was turned to him crying but John still could not hear straight. His pulse now becoming rapid, fists clenched, breath slowing, and a sense of clarity washing over him as he rolled his shoulders back.

“ENOUGH!” John was so loud you swore the house shook. You could hear him clear as day from your bedroom with the door closed. Silence enveloped the room as everyone turned to look at John. The only thing that could be heard was the Christmas music coming from the other room. John’s face was stone cold as he cast an icy stare at his mother.

“Go.” John ignored everyone else. Pointing to the door he order his mother to leave.

“Johnathan, h-“

“Harrison get mums coat. She’ll be leaving.” John cut his mother off. Unblinking, nostrils flared, and mustache twitching as he held back his rage. Everyone was stunned but the people who were in the room when Mary said those cruel words were sullen because it was the right decision. John had to stick by your choice of asking his mother to leave, he owed you that.

“John, you can’t kick me and your mother out on Christmas. What about the food and grand kids?” Paul, John’s father squared his shoulders, shaking his head, and giving his son a disappointed look. As if John should be ashamed of himself.

“Fuck, the food. You don’t have to leave she does. If you chose to go with her that’s your cross to bare.” John was unwavering. Mind made up and knowing this might be the last time he saw his mother for a very long time.

“Johnny, you weren’t even in here. You didn’t hear the way she spoke to me.” Mary was crying pathetically as she spoke. Harrison’s jaw dropped and rage flashed in his eyes. Grayson was staring out the window shaking his head in disbelief, his wife was rubbing his back trying to calm him down.

“Leave.” John closed his stormy blue eyes trying to gather himself. Breathing out hard and ragged through his nose his anger was palpable.

“We’ve got it Johnny. Go check on Y/N.” Grayson nodded at John and so did Harrison and Sarah.

“Johnny, please.” Mary cried as John walked out of the kitchen and down the hall. She was sobbing loudly yelling how you had stolen him and turned John against her. How you ruined Christmas and should be ashamed.

“Daddy, is everything okay? Nan sounds so upset.” Evelyn was trembling as she ran over to her father. Jj was right behind her, tight lipped and ready to help.

“Yes, love. It’s nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about.” John squatted and gave her a big hug and a kiss to the top of the head as he moved to go upstairs.

“Can I come upstairs with you?” She asked as John went to go check on you.

“Stay with me Evie, I’ll let you put bows in my hair.” Jj was quick with his response. Taking his teary eyed sisters hand and guiding her toward her new hair and makeup kit. John sighed in relief at how much situational awareness Jj had. It was his saving grace at the moment. John said a thank you to Amy for watching the kids but she shooed him away to go check on you.

Bounding up the stairs two by two John took a deep breath before he lightly knocked and then entered your shared bedroom. Walking in John saw you had kept the lights off opting for a few lit candles instead. You were laying on your side hugging a pillow to your chest on his side of the bed and now in your matching plaid pajama set. You were already staring at John as you began to sit up awkwardly from how large your pregnant belly had gotten.

John was quick to shut the door and help you get comfortable. Sitting next to you John wrapped a muscular arm around your shoulder allowing you to lean into him and rest your head on his toned chest. You two sat there in silence the commotion from downstairs beginning to quite as John stroked your hair, his other hand resting on your protruding belly. The tears came slow and you sobbed weakly already feeling cried out from the time you spent alone before John came up to check on you.

“I’m sorry, darling.” John spoke into your hair.

“I can’t do this anymore, John. I can’t be around someone who is so cruel and nasty to me. I’m sorry I can’t tough it out. I just can’t. I’m so sorry.” You babbled and sobbed. Clutching your hands on John’s sweater you melted into his embrace. You never thought you would get to the point you had to draw a line that it was you or his mother. You had spent too many years trying to make it work so John would never have to chose between you two.

“You don’t have to anymore. I’m handling it.”

——————

“Good morning!” Evelyn sang as she walked into your room.

It was December 26th and you were still tucked in to bed. The stress from the previous night had taken a toll on your already exhausted body. Once things had settled downstairs John’s siblings each gave you a very heartfelt apology on their mothers behalf. You all still sat around the dinner table and ate together. It was awkward and you wanted to melt into the earth feeling so humiliated. People were treating you with kid gloves and you were so happy once everyone was gone.

You blubbered like a baby on the couch as John shut the front door. Your children even started crying seeing you in such bad shape. It was quite the emotional mess for John to clean up. Having to comfort his children and get them into bed and take care of his pregnant wife.

Your belly was weighing heavier after crying yourself to sleep in John’s arms after dinner. So he told you that you were exiled to stay in bed today and he would pamper you so you could recover. So far you had received a foot rub, cup of tea, and were tucked in with your show playing.

“Hello, pretty girl.” You smiled waving for her to come join you. Checking over her shoulder Evelyn zoomed into your bed. Slipping under the cover and hiding there.

“Pssst, down here.” Evelyn beckoned you. Sliding down and pulling the covers over your head you could see her pretty blue eyes staring at you seriously.

“Got a secret for me or something?” You smiled, allowing her to crawl into your arms so she was cuddled up to you. Both your heads resting on the same pillow.

“Daddy, said we need to let you rest today so we aren’t allowed in here. But I missed you so I snuck away.” Evelyn whispered.

“I missed you too.” You whispered back placing a kiss to the top of her head.

“Mummy?”

“Evie?”

“Does Nan hate the baby?” Evelyn asked. Her big blue eyes were looking at you with confusion and uncertainty. This was something a child should never have to worry about and it made your heart ache.

“I don’t know. But she loves you and Jj very much.” You answered honestly. You did not have the kindness in your heart to say anything more than that regarding Mary.

“I decided I like the baby. I don’t want you to cry again.” Evelyn buried her face into your shoulder after she spoke cuddling as close as possible to you. Your normally boisterous, opinionated, and brutally honest little girl was in here worried about your feelings. You wanted to cry at the kindness of how she came around and to be so young, you felt proud to be her mom.

“You know I love you so much. You’ll always be my little daredevil.” Cupping the young girls face in your hands she smiled back at you.

“Promise?” She asked blinking at you.

“Promise.” Quiet giggles erupted from the pair of you as you hugged her tight, squishing her into you.

“Is Evie in here?” John’s voice came from your bedroom door. Evelyns eyes went wide worried she was about to get in trouble for disobeying her dads orders.

“Who?” You asked pulling the covers from your head to see John leaning against the doorway with a quirked eyebrow and amused smirk.

“Oh, her names Evelyn but we only call her that when she’s in trouble. You might know her as Evie. She’s about this tall, blue eyes, loves to climb, and cute as hell.” John moved his hand to show you her approximate height. Giggles erupted from under the covers as Evelyn heard her father description of her.

“Nope, haven’t seen anyone who fits that description.” You tried to keep a straight face. Evelyn was kicking her feet causing the covers to rustle.

“Really, you’re not lying? Because if you are I have ways to get it out of you.” John was stalking into the room with mischief dancing in his eyes. His smile was wide showing off his pearly white as he approached the bed.

“How’s that?” You asked sitting up slightly to let Evelyn crawl further away under the covers.

“I’ll tickle it out of you.” John threatened. That seemed to do it. Evelyn burst out from under the cover standing on your bed with her hands out to stop her father from approaching any further.

“Stop! Don’t tickle mummy, she hates when you do that!” The young girls voice was stern as she tried to protect you in her own little way.

“Well, someone has to get tickled.” John said confidently. Evelyn booked it past John and ran out of the room in a fit of giggles abandoning you to be tickled. You were laughing as you watched John let her get a head start.

“I told her to let you rest.” John’s words were soft as he climbed into bed and sat with his back pressed against the head board. You shimmied over sitting next to him and laying your head back against the cushioned fabric. John’s hand took yours, his thumb stroking over the back of your hand gently.

“She was being sweet with me so don’t get her in too much trouble.” You spoke softly letting your head lull to the side and rest on John’s broad shoulder.

“Sweet? And she wasn’t expecting anything in return?” John joked about his cunning daughter.

“She asked if your mum hates the baby. Then told me she ‘decided she likes the baby.’ She seems upset about me crying so much last night.” Glancing over you could see your husbands pain riddled expression.

“They’re both upset about you crying. Been asking me all morning if you’re alright.” The admission made you and John both sigh heavily. Your kids were going to be scarred by this and probably get anxious around Christmas time next year.

“I feel so bad they had to see me like that.” The guilt weighed heavy. All you wished was that you could have stayed strong until both Jj and Evelyn were in bed.

“Darling, any normal woman would have cried too. Stop holding yourself to these impossibly high standards.” It sounded like a complaint but you knew John was only trying to comfort you.

“What are we going to tell them?” Taking a breath you closed your eyes trying to fight back the stress weighing you down.

“That Nan can be quite a bully and you finally stood up for yourself. And now when we go over to visit her it’ll just be me taking them.” John said confidently. You did not think it was going to be that simple but you allowed him to take solace in his words.

“You’re sure you’re alright if I stop going over or attending any family events she’s at?” You asked already knowing the answer.

“Yeah, and we’ll only be dropping by and then we’ll rush home to spend the rest of the day with you.” John nodded confidently. Wrapping his arm around you and kissing your forehead. His thick bearded tickled the sensitive skin making you feel safe.

“Thank you.” You whispered.

“I still don’t see myself taking them over for a very long time. Not until you’ve received and adequate apology.” John added for good measure. You already knew that after the conversation you two had in the early morning before the kids were awake.

“You might never see her then, John.” The words were meant to be teasing but it was something that might end up being true.

“Let’s hope she comes ‘round. Now, on a lighter note. How does scrambled eggs and toast sound?” John kissed you hard after he spoke. Then getting out of bed he turned with a small smile to see you staring at him with a bit of worry dancing in your eyes.

“Are you making it?” You asked skeptically.

“Course.” There was a long lapse of silence as you and John stared at each other.

“Takeaway?” John asked.

“Might be best.” You smiled having little faith in his cooking abilities.

“On it, same as last time?” The words were distant as John turned and headed out the bedroom door.

“Yes, please.” You smiled sweetly.

“Oh, I forgot to mention.” John paused in the doorway turning only slightly to look at you from the corner of his eye.

“Your last Christmas present is in my sock drawer.” With that John left the room. The floorboards creaking under his weight as he jogged downstairs.

You perked up at the idea he had one last thing for you. You both had promised no big gifts or anything of the sort. John had given you a pass to an all inclusive couples spa retreat that you were stoked to use after you had the baby. You had gotten him a new pair of hiking boots and put together a large package of assorted sweets and candies from around the world. John was ecstatic going on a tangent of how he had tried certain sweets while deployed and then began ranking which ones were the best.

Getting out of bed slowly you made your way across the room to his dresser. Opening his sock drawer you began to rummage around. First finding an envelope that had a few scandalous Polaroids of you; rolling your eyes you put them back. Then you found a small navy blue box. It was square and about two inches by two inches. Opening it you were expecting John to have splurged again and got you a piece of jewelry but your eyes widened when you saw the contents that lay inside.

“JOHN! Did you buy me a car!?”

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