#i hope he and his team knows that if he’s ever coming back to asia after this

[brightgolden]

.

[persephoneflouwers]

I have eyes everywhere. On every blog. 💀 When harry had to cancel some tour dates, the reaction was “Poor babe. He’s sick. I hope he can rest and get well soon 🥺” not a single fan said “he doesn’t give a shit about fans who spent money on plane tickets, hotel, cars, trains, ships, spaceships, ufos etc... now it’s all Louis’ fault. “Fans need an explanation. They need to know why he canceled a whole tour is asia. They need to know. This is so poorly written. His team needs to let fans know. Louis needs to come to my house and tell me why TF he canceled a tour is Asia! His tweet was so fake. He doesn’t care. Why is he acting like he’s canceling a Saturday night with his friends? LOL” and I’m here thinking...you don’t deserve to be his fans. “Leave this guy alone. Forget about him.” At the end of the day, these people can only criticize him. We don’t know what really happened. Why he canceled that tour. It’s wrong that it happened all of a sudden. I feel sorry for his fans. I’m sure he’s sorry too because he Couldn’t wait way to get back on tour. All I see his fake trolls saying “he canceled because he didn’t sell enough tickets” and I’m here saying “he even sold the tickets to your parents!!! That wasn’t the problem!” Something happened. Who knows what. But this “louis is this. Louis is that. I’m so disappointed...” sounds like the usual non larries/louies pretending to be fans. Just to spread hate. And certain blogs let them do that.

You were doing so great lmao then you dropped the “you don’t deserve to be his fan” and fucking hell, nope nope nope. You don’t get to say things like this. I’m sorry, but there are upset people who haven’t ever had the chance to see him. So, if they are disappointed for how poorly it all was managed, they have all the rights. We need to stop with these excuses. They’re big boys who know the pressure they are under.

He’s always there saying he loves his fans, he owns his fans everything and wouldn’t be here without them and then when unforeseen circumstances happen, it’s 🦗🦗🦗🦗. It’s a tweet, guys. It takes 2 minutes tops to type 140 characters on twitter where you mention 1. Your Asian fans 2. What was wrong. As I said in tags, he really went on instagram posting his xrays to say he was sorry for the London shows, but when a whole tour leg is cancelled, you type… that? People will find it weird. People will be upset. The fandom police should stop saying “you’re less of a fan for saying this or saying that” because fuck it, that’s not how it works. I think explaining what went wrong would do him no harm, because fans would understand and support him next time he goes in Asia, for example. You don’t have to say the actual truth… you have to sound credible and honest. That’s it. Otherwise next time your fans will think twice to spend money on your tickets, knowing there is a possibility for whatever reason that the show will be cancelled. Because the problem is not about the tickets per se, it’s all that comes with a show: booking hotels, flights, trains or whatever. And fine, that’s our problem if the show gets cancelled but you bet I would overthink until the next time I book something again for another show in general lol this is not a cult. You don’t happen to be blindly devoted, you have to pay back the support and loyalty with respect and empathy.

Don’t get me wrong. Things like this happen all the time. My maneskin show was postponed like three times for two years. Lewis Capaldi postponed it too. Shawn cancelled his tour, Stromae did et cetera et cetera. But he was in Tokyo saying he was excited for tour just a few weeks ago and now this? It’s upsetting and of course people will demand answers. Some people act like this privacy thing is the biggest deal ffs it’s just about being professional.

And I agree with the pressure part. I said it in tags a few posts below. It is tiring to always have to defend him from people calling him a flop or asking too much from him, but saying something more about why all of your shows in Asia got cancelled? This is not too much.

[mdhwrites]

I think one of the more annoying things i've seen amongst Owl House fans (other than how toxic they can be over 'liking a FICTIONAL morally bad character' or 'Criticism') is when there was a spike in people saying Hunter should have been the main character.

It was annoying because the same people got very angry when Amity took the spotlight from Willow in Understanding Willow, some even claiming it was White favouritism. But they seem to go dead silent when it comes to Hunter doing the same thing, for example in ASIAS, where Hunter does Willow's plot for her, he got all the other members for her team, he won the game, he named the team.

(which felt odd considering this was her dream because her dads were in Flyer Derby, but then Hunter does all the actual stuff for said dream, even the tiny scraps Willow gets are actually for another character.)

The writers and the fandom truly do not care about Willow or Gus, i really do wonder why Dana even bothered making them.

Weirdly enough, the take of "Hunter should have been the main character" is not one I'd actually heard of. I also think it's kind of dumb as his position in the world would mean a fundamentally different story. His position is too drastically different from Luz's, or ANYONE'S, to have the same story told with him. I've seen some fan comics try a little of that and it always comes off clunky and forced in order to make him hit the same plot points as the show. It's almost like where your protaganist is from and who they are matters. Admittedly, TOH is enough of a mess that I also don't blame people for asking who would have been a better main character. Luz is so disconnected from the plot of TOH, interacts so little with her friends, even to some extent her girlfriend, that... she feels weird as a protaganist. Like... BITCH DO SOMETHING. And then when she does, the show smacks her into the ground with 'trauma' for it. Of course, the show thinks it's clever for this. That's why you get stuff like Eda constantly trying not to let Luz be a part of things in Season 2 because 'she's just a child'. Yes, she is but literally every time you tell her no one something she wants to do, she gives you a middle finger and puts everyone in danger for the sake of what she wants to do and makes her feel special. It's literally been happening since episode 2 of the series so MAYBE you should know better Eda? It's really just a problem that comes back to that fundamental schism of the show. If Luz focuses too much on the plot, she can't go on school trips or get closer to her girlfriend. If she focuses too much on those elements, she can't focus redeeming villains and actually even considering doing something about Belos, not that she does anyways. And people will feel that. People have been wanting some real focus out of TOH since between Seasons 1 and 2. It's just that it's usually shown through hype for the ideas they're invested in rather than criticism. So what is that fans of Hunter as a main character are actually asking for? They'd like the plot. They'd like to feel like the show had a point to everything it was doing because that's ALL Hunter is about because he's right next to Belos. You would hope there'd be more intrigue and more momentum to events, as well as more satisfaction to him leaving his uncle. I think that's also why I didn't really ever see anyone ask for Amity to be the main character and instead call that white favoritism (outside of possibly these being white chicks claiming white favoritism who look at Hunter and want him). Amity... Doesn't have a focus. She should theoretically interact with the plot too but she struggles to even interact with the plot hooks connected to her FAMILY. She would fracture the show more, not less. At least in whatever warped version of the show doesn't have Luz. It's a mess but it's a fairly benign mess. I think it mostly speaks to the fact that Luz just... isn't as special a main character as some people preach. I mean... I grew up on Danny Phantom and Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide. Those had nerd protaganists. Protaganists who were bullied and the like. Who adapted behavior somewhat to that unlike SOMEONE. Luz is... a cheerful, excitable protaganist in a fantasy world that she's excited to be in, gets powers only she has in and forms a quick hare- cast of characters around her of the most special people there. She's really not that new, let alone for an Isekai. Anne was more shocking as a protaganist simply for the fact that she DIDN'T WANT TO BE THERE. But going further with that is... A whole different blog. For now... Same criticisms as always effectively. TOH's focus sucks so why wouldn't want someone who is given the importance of a main character to be a new one for it if it meant more focus? Because Hunter IS treated like a main character, more than even Amity, with how important he is to everything and everyone.

[orpheous87]

A little thing that presented itself to me on my morning dog walk and wouldn’t leave me alone until it was written. I’ll put it on AO3 later, but for now, please enjoy.

Thank you to @purplehotmess for a wonderful betaing job on this ❤️

A Thousand Miles Apart (and I know I love you)

Harry laughed as he leaned back against Draco’s chest. They’d not been back long from a night out and everything was funny.

“I can’t believe you’re going on the international tour tomorrow,” Draco sighed, one hand absently combing through Harry’s hair. “Who will come out on wild nights with me while you’re gone?”

Harry laughed again. “I know. It’ll be over with before you know it, though.”

“I can only hope you don’t miss me too much to concentrate on the Snitch,” Draco deadpanned before laughing.

“You could come with me if you wanted,” Harry suggested, sitting up to look at Draco, who shook his head. “Friends are allowed to come.”

“I can’t. Just because I’m free of house arrest, doesn’t mean I’m free. I can’t leave the country for another six months.”

“Oh yeah,” Harry said with a frown, resuming his previous position and putting his head back on Draco’s chest. “I forgot about that.”

“Lucky you,” Draco muttered.

Harry’s frown deepened. Since Draco’s house arrest had finished three months ago, and he had turned up on Harry’s doorstep to both thank him and apologise to him, they’d slowly but surely become firm friends. In fact, they probably spent more time together than they did apart, now that their friends were busy starting their families (or in Pansy’s case, had moved to France).

At first it surprised Harry how easily they got on with one another now that all of the issues from their past had gone. He hadn’t felt animosity towards Draco for a long time.

Rolling onto his side, Harry looked at Draco. “I’m sorry. I will fire call you and send you owls every day I’m away if it helps.”

Draco snorted, a look of amusement passing across his face. “Like you’d have time.”

“I’d make time. Really, I would,” Harry replied. “You know I would.”

Draco sighed again. “You’re right. I do know you would. Listen, I’m getting tired now. Do you mind if we turn in?”

“Not at all. Let’s sleep.”

And sleep they did. Right there on the sofa because neither of them could be bothered to move. It wasn’t the first time they’d fallen asleep together and Harry was sure it wouldn’t be the last. There was an odd sort of comfort that came from having a warm body next to him, whether it was in bed or on the sofa, and he suspected that Draco felt the same.

***

Three weeks later, Harry found himself in the middle of an international Quidditch tour with Puddlemere United. They’d been through Europe and were now somewhere in Asia - Singapore, he thought - playing against some of the top teams in the world. He should have been happy. He loved nothing more than flying freely, and catching the Snitch, but every night after his team mates had left him in the bar of whatever pub they’d found that day, he couldn’t shake the feeling of loneliness and sadness that settled over him.

He had spoken to Draco a couple of times, but the time difference made it hard to schedule a call. The calls he had managed to make, though, had brought a smile to his face like no other. He’d been able to hear Draco’s mood lifting too as soon as he realised it was Harry on the other end.

On his third night in Singapore, while he was sleeping, Harry awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed. His skin was warm and clammy, glistening in the moonlight from the same sweat that was sticking his hair to his neck and forehead. His chest was heaving, his boxer shorts and the bedsheets were damp. He’d dreamed about Draco before, of course, but never like that. That had been something different. Something, he realised, he wanted more of and next time, he wanted it for real.

***

The next day, after securing himself an international Portkey, Harry stood on Draco’s doorstep. He’d waited for what felt like an eternity before the door was thrown open. Draco stood in front of him, bleary-eyed and his hair standing on end. Harry smiled.

“What the bloody hell are you doing here?”

Harry didn’t answer straight away. He’d rehearsed what he wanted to say the whole time he was travelling, but now that he was here with Draco in front of him, he’d forgotten what words were. Instead, not caring who saw them, he stepped forward and kissed Draco. It was more than a peck on the lips, but he stopped himself from taking it too far, and then he was gazing at Draco once more with his lower lip caught between his teeth.

Draco, who had definitely kissed back, was looking back at him with an open mouth. They were both breathing hard.

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, finally. “I’ve… been doing some thinking while I’ve been away.”

“So I see,” Draco replied faintly. “Do you want to come in?”

Harry nodded and followed Draco inside.

“Upstairs,” Draco said as he closed the door behind Harry. “Living room is too cold.”

Harry laughed softly and headed up the stairs to Draco’s room, kicking off his shoes as he went. They’d had many talks in the confines of Draco’s room, usually snuggled together under the duvet for warmth. This was not the Manor that Draco had lived in for most of his childhood, but a small terraced house in London itself. There was a small fireplace in the living room, but it couldn’t heat the whole house.

Settling themselves on the bed, Draco wrapped in his duvet, they looked at each other once more.

“Explain,” Draco said, softly. He sounded almost hopeful.

“I realised something. Last night, when I was in my hotel room in Singapore,” Harry began, frowning as he tried to put his thoughts into words. “For the last however many months, you and I have spent pretty much every waking minute together where we can. You occupy more of my thoughts than I ever knew. These last three weeks have been torture because you weren’t there. That’s not all. I had a dream last night. That you and I were… intimate.”

Draco inhaled sharply.

“Draco… I liked it. I immediately wanted more of those feelings that… well, that I imagined I felt with you.”

Draco shook his head.

Harry frowned, a look of hurt crossing his features. “N-no?”

“No! I mean, yes. But no, that… Harry. I fell asleep on the sofa and I had the same dream. But I don’t think it was a dream. It felt too real, I think we… somehow connected last night.”

Harry drew in a shaky breath. “Are you serious?”

Draco nodded, his cheeks turning pinker. “Yes. I’ve heard of it happening but it’s usually a mutual thing between a couple separated by distance. Not… two people who are supposed to be friends.”

“Friends isn’t enough,” Harry whispered, realising how close together they were. “I want more. I want you, all the time. Forever.”

“I want that too,” Draco replied softly. “But you… I’m…”

“Don’t. Don’t even think that,” Harry interrupted, recognising the look in Draco’s eyes. “What happened is in the past. It’s over. You’re moving on, you’re making amends. You deserve to be happy.”

“What about your reputation?”

Harry snorted. “Since when do I care what the papers think? They know we’re friends. They don’t have to like it, but they can’t expect me to care what they think. We have something special, Draco. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

Draco smiled. “I suppose you’re right.”

“I know I’m right. So… should we give this a try?”

Draco’s smile turned into a smirk. “Only if we can have a replay of the ‘dream’. I’d like to see you come undone.”

Harry grinned. “I think that can be arranged,” he said, closing the gap between them and kissing Draco fiercely as he pushed him back onto the mattress.

[sluttyten]

All the Stars in the Night Sky

summary: hendery is a rich playboy type in public, lonely in private, and when he lets you into his life, neither of you are sure you’ll ever be able to leave

length: 16,255 words

tags: male reader, smut, daddy kink, angst, idk it felt like it got a little emotionally dark sometimes, some family troubles, happy ending (I promise)

Hendery would never admit to his friends (if he could really call them that at all) how miserably lonely he found this life. 

He was rich, sure, and that meant that many doors were opened to him, that he had dozens and dozens of people vying to be his friends or to warm his bed for a night or two. When he’d once attempted to go near the topic with his close friend (the most genuine one of the bunch), Xuxi had laughed and gestured around them while saying, “How can you ever feel bad about anything in your life when you have all this? Like you’ve got an entire chest of drawers and an additional display case just for jewelry.”

That was true.

Jewelry was nice, it could buy him attention and a few friends, but it was nothing real or meaningful.

So Hendery set out on a great journey to find something that would fill the gaping hole of loneliness. Along the way, he earned the name of richest playboy in East Asia, Huang Guanheng, or Hendery to his friends.

He fucked his way across the world’s map, his body count growing each day. None of the girls or boys in his bed were it, they couldn’t fill up that void of loneliness. Xuxi and Dejun tried their best, but they were both in a similar state to him—earning money faster than they can hemorrhage it in an attempt to feel better about their lives.

On the first night you met Hendery, you were covering a gala where his father was the guest of honor. Most of the reporters were left outside the event, but you had managed to catch the eye of the eligible Guanheng as you’d dressed for the gala in the hopes of getting inside, a nice sleek suit paired with a bowtie.

He looked you up and down then gestured for the security team to allow you inside. You couldn’t miss the hisses and curses behind your back as you left the cluster of other reporters to enter the party. As you came up beside Guanheng in his handsome suit, his hands glimmering with rings, he plucked your phone out of your hand and watched as a guard stepped forward to frisk you.

“Hey!” You smacked at the guard’s hand as he got a bit too handsy at your inseam.

Guanheng called off the guard, but didn’t hand back your phone. Instead he tucked it into a hidden pocket of his suit jacket. “You can have this back later. It’s a media blackout event, so I can’t have you taking photos or recordings, you know, but it would be such a shame for someone like you to miss out an event like this.”

You decide that you don’t really mind. Even without photos or video inside the gala, you would still have the experience of being inside, and your boss would love that more than whatever pictures you got from outside. And besides, you were personally being invited inside by the most notorious young man on this side of the world.

“You can call me Hendery.” He said as you stepped through into the heart of the event. And then as you looked over at him, he smiled and leaned closer, laying the charm on so thick that you could almost taste it, and he said, “Or you can call me Daddy.”

If you weren’t already so attracted to Hendery, you would have left right then. Fuck your phone, a line like that one he’d just given you would usually have you walking the other way. You’d known him for less than five minutes. You were a reporter meant to be covering this event in an official capacity, and he had to go and make an inappropriate comment like that? Cocky assholes were not your type.

But, lucky for him, you actually did have a weakness for guys who liked being called Daddy, and more importantly, you had a weakness for the pretty curl of his smile and his dark eyes and the comforting weight of his hand at the small of your back.

Your knees felt weak.

You’d heard about the games he played before. A friend of yours had once met him at a party and she’d given you the step-by-step of his seduction. The way he’d charmed her thoroughly and then he’d gotten himself drunk before he fucked the breath from her lungs and left her so jelly-legged that she was still a little unstable when you saw her two days afterwards.

So you weren’t terribly surprised by anything that followed. Hendery was charming. He knew all the right things to say, he knew the way to look at you to break through the last of your walls, and he definitely knew just the right things to whisper in your ear any time that you began to mentally talk yourself down from pursuing where the night was inevitably going to end.

And that’s how you found yourself in the bathroom with Hendery, facing yourself in the mirror as he fucked you. The sound of your bodies colliding and your moans, his low instructions for you to call him daddy, all the sounds of the two of you together echoed off the dark tiles and the mirrors of the bathroom, and you gazed into the reflection as you felt yourself growing closer and closer to your orgasm.

Hendery’s ringed fingers came down hard on your ass, and the sting of pleasure sent you crashing through your orgasm.

You only barely managed to hold yourself up to still look into the mirror as you came for Hendery. You looked up at the reflection of his face, and what you saw there scared you a little. You saw the dark look in his eyes, an emptiness as he fucked you like it would make him really feel something, but it was then that you saw that all his charm and seduction was just a mask, and right then you were seeing Hendery without his mask, robotically fucking you to make himself feel something.

When he cums inside the condom a moment later, you look away from his face, and the next time you look up after he’s pulled out and is disposing of the condom, you find his mask back in place. A cocky smile as he tells you that you sounded so sexy moaning daddy for him, begging for his cock.

But now that you’ve seen beneath his mask, you can hear the hollow sounds behind his words.

He rocked your world absolutely, you’ve never had a better orgasm. But even after you leave the event that night, you can’t forget the way he’d looked, and how even with all of that lack of true emotion or passion for what he was doing, he’d still treated you so good all night.

Your body craved another orgasm by his hand, or rather by his cock.

Luckily, you had the perfect excuse. You’d left your phone in that hidden pocket of his jacket. A full day and a half passed before you finally really needed your phone and you finally confirmed to yourself that you could go to a Hendery again if he would have you.

You called your phone from a friend’s, and you were so pleased when three rings in, someone picked up on the other end.

“Hendery?” You asked cautiously as he’d not said a word.

“Yeah, I’m guessing you want your phone back?” He says.

You cradle the phone closer. “I do sort of need it. Have I missed any calls?”

Hendery’s quiet for a second and then. “Two from your boss. Hope that doesn’t mean anything bad for you.” His voice is flat, tired, and you wonder if you just woke him even though it’s edging toward two in the afternoon. He yawns. “You can come pick it up at my place.” He rattles off the address, and you write it down on your hand.

His house is huge, gorgeous, and so out of reach from your position in life that it almost hurts when the gates swing open after you press the buzzer button. The taxi you’d taken here still rumbles and puffs exhaust behind you, and you just know the driver is still craning his neck to take in the place, probably thinking he should’ve charged you more for the ride. But the gates clank shut behind you, and then it’s just you, a massive drive way and a fountain and large green shrubs that are neatly trimmed, and the house looming up before you.

A butler—an honest to god butler with the penguin suit and everything—opens the door for you and tells you he’ll lead you to “Master Hendery.”

It takes the entire walk through the house to Hendery for you to decide that the butler is not joking about calling Hendery ‘Master’ as he even begins addressing you formally. You pass maids as well, handfuls of them dusting and sweeping and carrying laundry. And it’s all just incredible to you because it takes you as long to reach Hendery’s bedroom from the front door as it takes you to walk from your favorite take out place to your sofa in your apartment.

“This is fucking insane,” you say as you step through the doorway the butler holds open.

The door snaps shut behind you, and you take a moment to look around at the entryway you’re in. There’s a sitting area to your left, a spacious bathroom visible through a doorway to your right. And just right there you’re overwhelmed with the luxuriousness of Hendery’s lifestyle.

“Are you coming in?” Hendery asks, his voice from somewhere deeper inside his palatial suite of rooms. You finally do walk further inside, passing through the sitting area to eventually find yourself in his bedroom.

There’s a large unmade bed with a pair of feet hanging out the side and someone still snoring beneath the blankets. A bay of windows looks out over the side lawn of Hendery’s home, a manicured lawn with a pool and more neatly trimmed shrubbery. It’s against those windows that you find Hendery. He’s got his legs stretched out the length of the windows eat while he stares down into the yard and pops mouthfuls of something into his mouth from the plate in his lap.

You clear your throat, and he snaps away from the window, looking at you. Your gaze slides away, back to the figure in his bed.

Hendery stands up, dropping the plate onto the window seat as he gesture for you to follow him. “That’s just Xuxi. You know, Huang Xuxi.”

You do know. Everyone who’s paid any attention to the life of Hendery knows Xuxi as well as Dejun, the two most wealthy and most prolific with their sexual encounters, just one rung below Hendery on the list.

Hendery doesn’t say anything else about his friend, instead he leads you back through the sitting room, in through the spacious bathroom, and out the other side into his closet. You try not to let your eyes grow to wide at the wealth you see amassed in this one room. Hendery ignores your expression, the look of wonder on your face, and he points at the window into the room, another window seat, where your phone is plugged into a charger.

You don’t even consider what a strange place this is for your phone to be. You just walk over and scoop it up, sit down to check your notifications. You have two voicemails from your boss, the first irate, the second still irate but slightly concerned as you normally return his calls within an hour at most, and his two calls were 24 hours apart. You quickly shoot off a message to him apologizing and explaining the situation in as few words as possible, promising him that you have a story for him.

Being at the gala hadn’t been all fun and fucking with Hendery. You had actually been working too, gathering bits of information for you to compose into a story, which you’d begun on during the last day and a half.

“So everything okay with your boss? Not fired?” Hendery asks, and you look up at him, having half-forgotten that he was there and halfway believing that he would’ve left the room and returned to his bed and best friend.

“Not fired, I hope. He was just angry that he hadn’t heard from me.” You stand up and unplug your phone, tucking it into your pocket. And then you hesitate. You came all this way for your phone, it seems such a shame to leave so quickly. Especially after you’ve been thinking almost non-stop about Hendery’s cock.

Something in that must show in your eyes because Hendery smirks. “You’re a thirsty bitch, aren’t you?” You gaze works down from his smirk to his chest and then even lower to the loose linen sleep pants he wears. “Bet you forgot your phone in my pocket on purpose so you could come try to get me to fuck you again.”

You hadn’t planned that, but it truly had worked out that way.

Hendery comes closer, and you sink back down onto the windowseat, and when he stands right before you, you find your mouth level with his swollen bulge in the front of his pants.

“Do you want me to fuck your mouth, slut? Want Daddy to make a mess of you?” Hendery asks, and he pushes his fingers through your hair, tilting your head back so you’re forced to look up at his face again. “You want Daddy’s cock again?”

You swallow and suddenly your tongue feels too big for your mouth. You nod silently.

“Then open up.” Hendery runs a hand down to your jaw, thumbing at your bottom lip. “Show me what you want.”

Your mouth drops open, and you look up at his face, ready for your mouth to be filled with his big cock. Hendery tsks at you, and he reaches down to push his pants down, freeing his cock, and then he pushes immediately into your mouth.

Hendery doesn’t wait for you, he just pushes in, setting off your gag reflex, and he moans as you choke around him. He only pulls back slightly to let you breathe a bit, and then he pushes forward again. This time you take him slightly better, still gagging a bit, but Hendery seems to love that. He swears and moans, puts his hand on the back of your head and sinks forward until you’re straining to take all of him in, but you’re pretty sure that you can’t possibly take even the little bit of him that’s not yet between your lips.

“You’re taking Daddy’s cock so well,” Hendery tells you, stroking the back of your head. He starts thrusting, pulling back to thrust in sharply again. Your jaw aches already and you’ve barely even started, but the hunger for Hendery makes you brush off the ache as if it’s nothing.

You close your eyes, open up your mouth as wide as you can, and you let Hendery fuck your throat. You reach for his hips, trying to hold yourself steady, and Hendery fucks your mouth harder at your touch, he sinks into you like he’s searching for something, hungry for the feel of you around him. You think again of that look in his eyes while he fucked you at the gala.

Looking up at him now, you see him watching his cock pushing between your lips. The light coming in through the window sets his face alight, all sharp angles and perfection. His jaw clenches when you moan and suddenly try to push forward, fucking your throat down on his cock instead of the other way around.

Hendery swears and the hand on the back of your head pushes your forward, his other hand curls against the back of your neck, his thumb brushing the length of your throat in the front. You feel at last the final bit of his cock passing between your lips, your face buried against his abdomen and you’re actually choking around him now, your body rejecting this and you love it, the way that Hendery keeps holding you down on him.

He cums to the feel of your throat convulsing around him, shooting his load deep down your throat. You can feel the drool leaking from the corners of your mouth, even some tears dripping down your cheeks.

Hendery starts to pull out, and you make an awful noise of choking again. He strokes your neck and throat, murmuring some words to you that you can’t make out over the sound of your heartbeat and your own coughing.

Hendery pulls most of the way out, but you’re not ready for him to leave you yet, so you suck around what of his cock is left in your mouth, and he thrusts shallowly a few more times, weak pumps of cum leaving him, and at last you both pull away from each other.

It’s quiet for a moment.

“Who’s that?” Xuxi asks where he leans in the doorway, clearly amused at what he stumbled in upon. You wipe at your mouth, and Hendery just tucks his dick away.

“Don’t worry about it.” Hendery turns away, moving toward a smaller doorway that you missed before, leading into yet another room in this labyrinthine suite of rooms. “You know the way out!”

You’re not sure if he’s addressing Xuxi, but you’re positive that he’s addressing you. You push to your feet and brush by the other wealthy man, who turns to watch you. After a few feet, you hear him walking to catch up with you.

“So, what are you doing hiding in Hendery’s closet?” He sticks close even when you push out the door of Hendery’s room. You can’t remember which way you came from, but Xuxi taps your shoulder and then points to your left. You start that way with him tagging along. “I know you weren’t here when I passed out this morning, and Hendery never mentioned a booty call.”

“He had my phone,” you finally tell him. “We met at the gala the other night. He took my phone and I forgot to get it back before I left.”

Xuxi hums in thought, and before he can think of anything else to say, you’ve reached the front door and shoved your feet back into your shoes, dancing through the door so he can’t try to say anything more. But unfortunately, his legs are longer than yours and he catches up.

“Let me give you a ride home.” He suggests. You don’t know what he’s playing at, so you turn him down.

“I’ve got a friend on their way to come get me.” You lie, but you’re already pulling your phone out to message one of your friends who doesn’t live too far away to come pick you up. “It’s too late now for me to cancel on her. She’d be pissed.”

Xuxi doesn’t seem too impressed by what you’ve just said. He offers it up once more and then heads away to his shiny luxury car parked nearby. You’re still standing there waiting for a response from your friend when Xuxi’s speakers begin booming from the bass, and he shoots off around the driveway, sending up a small shower of the little white pebbles that make up the drive. The gates open and close behind him, the booming of the bass fades away.

Still no answer from your friend. You try another. Call your first option. No answer from either of them.

It’s not necessarily cold outside, but you shiver as a breeze skirts around the side of the house. Your phone sits silent in your hand, and you feel like all the windows of the house are watching you, the maids and the butler and most of all Hendery. You tell yourself that’s foolish.

But even if it’s foolish, you think it must be true that you were being watched in some way, because after ten whole minutes of waiting with no response from your friends, the front door of the house open behind you.

“You can come back inside, if you’d like.” Hendery stands there, looking weary. He looks so different from how he looked when you first laid eyes on him. Gone is that glamor, the rich boy polished to a shine in front of all the cameras. Here you see the tiredness, the soft edges that had been so sharp in public. “You’re clearly waiting on your ride, and it’s rude of me to just leave you waiting outside. Plus, I owe you an orgasm, don’t I? Come inside.”

He sweeps his hand in a gesture for you to step through the doorway, and it doesn’t take much more than that for you to return inside Hendery’s home.

Back within his suite of rooms, Hendery plucks at your clothes while you walk toward his bed. You shed them obediently, leaving a trail from his door until the mess of his sheets, which he tumbles you into.

In the haze of lust that takes you over, you’re not even sure what all positions Hendery bends you into. You’re aware only of the pleasure, of his cock and fingers breaking you apart only to pull you back together and do it all over again. His stamina is incredible, and it’s only when you cannot physically stand another orgasm, that Hendery finally backs off, rolling over into his back, and casting the condom toward the trash half hidden in the corner.

You curl up and look at him. The cool shuttered look on his face. He stares up at the ceiling.

“Hendery.” You reach over and hit him in the chest. He jumps and grabs your hand, pushing it away. You try not to feel hurt, but you do anyway. After all that you just did together and he rejects even just a little touch of your hand? You clear your throat and try again. “Hendery, are you—“

The last word, okay?, hovers unspoken in the air when Hendery sits up and walks away, grabbing his pants from the floor and yanking them up. You wait for a moment to see if he’ll come back, and when he doesn’t, you go looking.

You find him in the bathroom washing his face. Or, more accurately, staring down into the sink with water dripping from his face.

Part of you thinks that now is the time for you to leave. He’s clearly going through some stuff and doesn’t really want you there. He just wants someone he can bury his cock inside of, nothing more. Even if you have to walk home from here, maybe it’s better than staying.

The other part of you feels that you should stay. He’s clearly going through something, and maybe he just needs to someone to stick around and be there for him through whatever this is. But when you take a step closer to him, Hendery looks up, and the second that he spots you he comes over and sweeps you into his arms, trying to kiss you and pick up again where you left off in bed.

You push at his chest. “Stop. Are you okay?”

Hendery makes a sound of frustration, and tries to kiss you again. You push at his chest again.

Hendery spins away, walking into his closet, walking deeper and deeper, and you follow him this time, slipping through that narrow doorway from one room of the closet into the next.

He walks through a section that is nothing but shoes, another that seems to be just suits. You follow him through a private laundry room, and you see a maid slipping back through a narrow door as Hendery passes by. You follow him until there’s nowhere else to go.

In a small square room at this end of his suite, there are windows set into three of the four walls. Half of the ceiling is also glass, and below that is a pile of pillows and beanbag chairs. Hendery collapses down into one of them, and then looks over at you. There’s a flicker of surprise before it’s replaced once more by a somewhat petulant expression.

“Why did you follow me?” He asks.

You fold your arms in front of you. “Because you’re clearly upset about something. I don’t know what. I know I’ve only known you for hardly even two days, but there’s clearly something going on with you and you’re using sex to cope.”

Hendery rolls his eyes, grabs a pillow and squeezes it against his chest. “You can leave now. You got your phone. You’ve had my dick as well as a month’s worth of orgasms. Bye.”

His absolutely dismissive tone stokes a fire to life inside you. You hate the way that you’re just trying to show some genuine concern for him, and he’s just brushing you off and being rude about it. He was mostly fine until you denied him fucking your again. And now he’s throwing a tantrum basically, like a spoiled rich boy, unused to not getting what he wants.

“You’re such a rich brat, you know that?” You stand firmly in the doorway.

Hendery doesn’t look at you, but the way that his head turns ever so slightly lets you know that he’s listening.

“Throwing a tantrum because I won’t let you fuck me for the fifteenth time today? And getting genuinely pissed off when I’m trying to find out if you’re okay.” You want to storm out of the room but you also want to storm over to him and drop down in his lap, make him look at you and tell you why he is the way that he is. “But maybe you’re right, Hendery. Maybe I should leave you here all alone in your ivory tower. You’re right, I got what I came for: my phone. And I got to be fucked by you again. Maybe you’re used to just being used for sex, for what you can give to others without being given much of anything else in return to recognize when someone is trying to actually show some interest in you and your personal wellbeing.”

Hendery turns his head again, almost facing you, but just looking at the floor, refusing to make eye contact. You think you must’ve hit a nerve of some sort.

“If you really want me to leave then tell me to leave. I’ll go. But I hope we’ll see each other again, Huang Guanheng. I hope the next time I see you, you’ll smile and mean it, that you won’t just drop the smile as soon as you think no one’s looking. I’ll see you around.” You turn today leave.

A hand catches your wrist. “Wait,” Hendery says. “Don’t leave me alone.”

You half turn back to him, and he squeezes your wrist.

“Stay.” He says, and with just that one word, a part of you breaks and you feel like you’ll never leave him.

Hendery pulls on your hand, drawing you closer and down to sink into the beanbag chair with him. He doesn’t look at you, but he softly pleas again, “Just stay. I hate sleeping alone.”

You sit for a while together silently, squished together in a beanbag chair as the sun sets, and at some point you rest your head on his arm and you just look at him. Hendery falls asleep, his head tilted back to look up at the glass part of the ceiling, and you watch his eyes close and hear his breathing fall steady and slow.

Maybe it’s weird to just watch him while he sleeps, but where else are you going to look? Any time that you shift, his arms twitches beneath you, as if he’s ready to pull you back to keep you from leaving him.

Hendery looks so soft as he sleeps. So relaxed, freed of whatever it is that plagued him while he’s awake. His pretty hair falls back from his face, leaving his forehead visible, unblemished by a frown or stern set of his eyebrows. His lips are parted and you notice that they’re turned up in a slight smile. You admire his profile—the line of his nose, the length of his eyelashes, all of the little attractive qualities about him. The sound of his breathing is like a lullaby.

You’re nearly about to fall asleep yourself when you realize that Hendery is awake again.

You don’t know when his eyes opened, but between one slow blink of your heavy eyes and the next, you realized that Hendery was gazing up at the sky through the ceiling, the stars growing more visible as night settled.

“I’m lonely, that’s my problem.” Hendery says the words softly as if he’s not sure if he really wants you to listen. “No one ever sticks around, and even if they do, they don’t really care.”

You get more comfortable with your head on his shoulder, and you tell him, “I’m here, Hendery.”

“Because you wanted dick.” Hendery keeps staring up at the ceiling, beyond it to the stars. “That’s why you’re still here.”

“Yes, at first.” You answer honestly. “What are you looking at, anyway?” You shift your head closer to his. His ear touches your cheek. “Do you know astronomy, Hendery?”

He jerks his head. “No. I just like looking. It’s dark enough and clear enough around here that we can actually see the stars somewhat decently.”

His arm beneath your head curls, draping over your shoulder. It’s comfortable, and you sink into Hendery’s touch, keeping your eyes up on the night sky as well. “Do you know anything about any of the stars?”

So Hendery begins telling you a few things, pointing out the constellation you can see, telling you stories behind the constellations, stories that you’re not familiar with, but the longer Hendery talks about them, the more you can see that he’s put some time into learning them. After a while you look away from the stars and back to his face, to the passion in his eyes and the smile on his face, the way that he stares up at the stars in awe.

You wake up in the morning with an achy neck and no memory of actually falling asleep. The last thing you remember is Hendery’s musical voice painting a story of a dragon across the night sky.

But now, Hendery is nowhere in sight.

Sunlight pours through the windows of the room, and you squint, shielding your eyes against the blaze. You rub at your eyes as you sit up, and a blanket falls down into your lap. You drag it up around your shoulders like a cape as you pass back through his extensive closet and the bathroom. The sitting room is empty as well, but he’s sitting on the edge of his bed, raking his fingers through his hair and talking on his phone.

Not wanting to pry, you quietly head back to the bathroom, hoping that by the time you’re finished showering and everything, his phone call will have ended.

His shower is massive, and it takes you somewhere close to three minutes to figure out all the controls, but finally you do stand in the glass shower, steam pressing against the walls, warm water massaging your back, racing through your hair and relaxing the ache in your neck. You start singing, quietly to yourself at first and then louder. The acoustics in the bathroom are wonderful, and you’re admiring that as you wash down your body, when another voice joins in.

You swear and turn around toward where you think the door. Your voices echo around the room, but Hendery speaks again, “You’re awake.”

You feel a spray of cold air cutting through the steam, and then you see Hendery, his bare form stepping up to stand beside you under the showerhead. He smiles, once again that charming playboy rather than the vulnerable side of himself he’d shown you last night.

“Plans today?” You ask him.

“Not really. Do you?” His gaze flicks up and down your frame, dragging slowly up from your feet, lingering when he reaches the apex of your thighs, then suddenly he’s gazing into your eyes with a fiery hunger, a half-hidden plea for you to stay, to clear your schedule for him.

You drape your arms over his shoulders, moving so you’re standing in front of him, your wet bodies fitting together. “No plans. I can send my boss my story from the gala tomorrow. As long as you promise to keep me entertained today?”

Hendery lowers his mouth to yours. He slides a hand around to palm at your ass, the other comes up to press between your shoulders, holding your chest firmly against his. His busy fingers on your ass slip into the cleft between your cheeks, dipping in deeper and deeper until you moan and press back on his fingers, just wanting him inside you.

“You gonna be good for Daddy?” Hendery speaks the question against your lips, backing off just enough that you can moan for him. “Yeah, you want me to fuck you again? Thought you weren’t here just for my dick?”

You shake your head. “I’m not, but fuck, you’ve got me all worked up now.” You reach back to hold onto his wrist, keeping him from pulling his curious fingers away from your entrance. “Just touch me, please. Daddy.”

That’s what does it.

Hendery kisses you again, his mouth hot and sharp on yours as he steps forward, pressing you backwards until you feel the glass wall of the shower cool and damp against your back. He pulls your hips forward so his wrist isn’t trapped so uncomfortably between your ass and the glass. And then he slides his finger over your needy entrance, and when you make just the sound he’s been listening for, he presses it inside you.

You pull your mouth away from his, dropping it back almost painfully against the glass. Your moan echoes between the glass walls. Hendery fingers you and mouths at your throat, soon working another fingers inside you, opening you up for his cock.

When you’re bucking your hips forward, rubbing against his erection, moaning for him, that’s when Hendery pulls his fingers away.

He flips you around, pressing your chest against the glass, drawing your hips back flush against his.

“Look at you, slut, hungry for my cock, just needing to be stuffed full.” His hand comes down on your ass. You whimper. Hendery swears and you know he just saw you clenching around nothing, looking so invitingly snug for his cock. “You want Daddy to fuck you?”

“Yeah, fuck me.” You push back, only to feel his hand burning against your ass again. “Please, Daddy, want you to put your big cock in me, I need it so bad.”

Hendery takes hold of his erection, drags it between your legs, teasing it over your entrance. You feel weak, twitching with the need to get off and touch yourself, but you don’t even have to try that to know that Hendery doesn’t want you to touch yourself. He wants you to cum solely from what he does to you.

He slaps his dick against your ass cheeks, and then pushes into you.

It burns sweetly as he pushes in deep, as you stretch around him. Even though you had him multiple times yesterday, it feels all new today. Hendery pounds into you, nailing right into that spot inside of you that sends stars across your vision, pleasure unfurling through you and turning your vision white.

Hendery presses in as deep as he can go as you cum, your walls squeezing around his cock, feeling so sensitive but still craving to be touched.

He’s so into the feel of you around him, that you don’t think he notices when your hand slips from the glass, reaching around to wrap your hand around yourself, whimpering daddy all the while. Hendery thrusts into you still, continuing on to his orgasm, carrying you too toward a second one which you feel swiftly coming towards you.

“Ah, fuck,” Hendery groans, snapping his hips forward so harshly that you knock against the glass. A whimper spills from your lips. Hendery reaches around you, drawing you back again, and that’s when he notices that you’ve been touching yourself. He clicks his tongue in disapproval. “Trying to cum again on my cock? Well, come on, baby.”

He fits his hand against yours, his fingers lining up with yours, touching you while you touch yourself, pumping his hand on your cock all while he still thrusts deeply inside you.

You feel yourself growing close again, pushing back on his cock. Your moans and cries of daddy and Hendery! are swallowed up by the steam billowing around the pair of you, and Hendery cums without warning, pulling out of you so quickly that you don’t even have time to miss him before you feel his hot cum painting stripes over your ass, his soft moans he leaves against your shoulder along with soft kisses.

Your joined hands continue to work on getting you to your second orgasm, and it’s when Hendery bites down on your shoulder that you spill over. Hendery rubs you through it, kissing your shoulder and murmuring to you how sweet you look cumming like this, dripping cum over your fingers and the glass, making such a mess.

“I’m tired again,” you tell him, slumping forward against the glass.

Hendery hums and pulls his hand away, bringing it to his mouth to lick his fingers clean. You rest your cheek on the glass, watching him do this, and it makes you feel warm with desire still, but you can’t take more right now. Not even when he grabs you by the hips and drags you back under the shower’s spray, cleaning the cum off of you carefully. 

You end up down in a large overly fancy kitchen. A chef has several things going at once, and you’re not sure what to look at or do, but Hendery sits down at the table, pours himself a glass of juice, then pushes out the chair beside him, nodding pointedly at it. “Sit down.”

Breakfast, which is really more like brunch given the hour, is extraordinary and rich. You feel absolutely stuffed by the time you’re finished, ready to just laze about with Hendery. Until he gives you the news.

“I’m having a party here tonight.” He rubs a hand on your thigh, smiling a bit conspiratorially. “All sorts of friends are going to be here. Booze, drugs, whatever you like. Just don’t go writing about it.”

Being with Hendery makes you almost forget about your job. And you like him. You wouldn’t gossip about him even to get paid.

“DJ’s coming. Xuxi too.” And then he lists several other names that sound vaguely familiar, like you’ve heard them in connection with his name before—celebrities and other rich kids—and some less familiar names as well. “Will you stay?”

Hendery kisses your cheek and then goes lower to your neck.

You grown and push at him. You’re still sitting at the kitchen table. His chef is just a few feet away. His hands are constantly moving, massaging, stroking, attempting to entice you to stay.

When he kisses a sensitive spot on your neck and strokes at your thighs, you almost moan.

Instead you push him away more firmly this time. “You don’t have to make everything about sex, you know? Why don’t you show me around? Or tell me more about you?”

Hendery grumbles a little bit, but he stands up, takes your hand, and leads you out of the kitchen. He shows you around, showing the pantries, a greenhouse, the gym and sauna, the pool, the private movie theatre. There’s the great room, the sitting room, another sitting room, a study that holds so many books you can’t even take them all in before he’s whisking you away. He shows you the garden and the outdoor pool, the mini golf course his father had put in when he was younger.

“And where is your father?” You ask him as Hendery you pass by a gardener and the groundskeeper who are arguing over a flowerbed. “He lives here too, right?”

Hendery looks sideways at you. “Oh, you have a real Daddy kink don’t you? You trying to bump into my dad, baby?” He laughs and you can tell he’s completely joking with you. “Trust me, you’re not my dad’s type. He likes them pretty and dumb with big tits. You might be very easy on the eyes, but you’re not dumb at all. And your dick might be a bit of a problem for him.”

You can hear the bitterness clear in his tone.

You’re familiar with the story. Mr. Huang had been married to Hendery’s mother, by all accounts was head-over-heels crazy for her, but she passed away when Hendery was still very young. Mr. Huang quickly moved on to a young, hot girl. And after her there was another and another and another. An endless stream of models and actresses and heiresses, all beautiful and sweet, but none of them lasted too long.

“My father is in Moscow on business at the moment,” Hendery says coldly. “He’ll probably come back with my next mom.”

To change the subject (because you really don’t like the dark cloud that suddenly rains on Hendery’s parade), you ask him, “What’s your favorite room?”

Hendery brightens up a bit. “We’re on our way there now.”

You walk through a bit more of the garden, fragrant flowers and neatly trimmed grass, stepping stones cross a small pond swimming with koi fish. There’s a tall tree and a small picnic area, and then Hendery pulls you beneath a pergola woven with wisteria, then right through a pair of glass double doors.

The room inside is shaded on one side but on the other side sunlight spills through windows set high on the wall. It’s quiet inside, just dust motes dancing through soft sunlight. There’s a piano and drums, a violin and cello, guitars and microphones and every instrument you can imagine.

“Father always had me study music. I think he thought it would calm me down as a child. Pretty sure it made me louder and didn’t teach me nearly as much discipline as he’d have liked.” Hendery walks away from you, trailing his fingers almost lovingly over the instruments he passes.

When he reaches the piano, he looks back at you.

“Can you play them all?” You ask.

“Most of them. Not always well.” He sits down at the piano bench. “Do you play?”

You shake your head no.

As a child you’d often dreamt of playing the piano. Not necessarily to become a master of it, but just simply because you enjoyed the sound and that watching a pianists fingers flowing smoothly over the ivory keys was mesmerizing. Your parents hadn’t been able to afford the lessons and when you once attempted to play the piano in the music room at your school, you’d realized it was a little more difficult than you’d imagined. So you’d given up and never looked back.

Until now.

You slide down beside Hendery on the bench. “No I don’t play. But if you do, I’d love to hear.”

Hendery smiles. “Anything in particular you’d like to request?” He flexes his fingers, stretching them in preparation.

Suddenly you can’t think of a single song. Your mind goes blank and you just gaze at Hendery, all lit up in a heavenly golden glow. He’s so handsome, and right then as you sit shoulder-to-shoulder with him in his favorite room of this massive home of his, you really look at him and feel an ache deep in your chest. A stupid, silly ache. Like you’re falling in love with this rich playboy who’s just using you so he doesn’t feel lonely.

When you don’t give him a song to play, just continuing to stare at him distractedly, Hendery laughs his goofy but wonderful laugh, and he starts playing anyway. It’s not a song you recognize, but it’s lovely all the same. After that he plays another and another, and you listen intently, amazed by how well he plays, watching his fingers move over the keys.

“You’re really good,” you tell him.

Hendery runs a hand through his hair, messing with it nervously. “Thanks. Part of me always dreamed of playing, pursuing music as some form of a career, but my father insists that I follow him with the business. A career in music wouldn’t allow that.”

“Do you sing?” You ask, nudging him. “I bet you have a lovely voice.”

Hendery laughs, the sound filling the whole room. “I can. I’m better at rapping. When I was younger, Xuxi, Dejun, and a couple other guys seriously considered forming a group. Father brought his fist down on that. Even though he’s the one that got me started on music in the first place. So now I just satisfy myself with coming in here to mess around sometimes.”

For the better part of the next hour, Hendery picks up different instruments, playing a bit for you on each one. He’s still actually humming along to a melody as you leave the music room, exiting back out under the wisteria. The sunlight of the early afternoon feels great, kissing your cheeks, the breeze pushing pleasantly warm air over your arms. You tilt your face up to feel it all the better.

Hours later you find yourself emulating that pose. Your face is turned up to the sight of Hendery standing on the second floor of the house, speaking to the crowd of partygoers. He’s decked out again, hands gleaming silver with rings and bracelets. A drunken couple of girls giggles beside you, falling over each other, and one of them mentions how sexy Guanheng looks with his hair like that.

You have to agree. Sex hair that he’d never fixed does look quite good on him.

You’d raked your fingers through it as he went down on you, sucking your life through your dick until a knock on the door of his suite of rooms announced the arrival of Xuxi and Dejun, who in turn announced that other party guests were starting to show up.

And now he presented his hair messed by your fingers in front of the whole party while you stood below, drinking something Hendery had shoved into your hands before he dashed up the stairs to make a speech.

He’d already introduced you around to a few people. Xuxi and Dejun, of course, and then also a singer, an actor, a producer, a rich kid whose daddy owned a car company and made the guy a racecar driver the minute he turned 18. All old friends, he told you, and as you looked at them and Hendery, you could see the connections, the constellation that they made. Age-old lights gleamed in their eyes.

You wanted to tell Hendery that he wasn’t nearly as alone as he might think. He was like all the stars in the night sky, part of something greater than they could see from where they stood.

The party raged on. You saw faces you’d only ever seen in entertainment spreads before, heard names that you’d written about. There were things going on there that you knew would fetch a pretty penny if you wrote about them, but though your hands itched to write, they were tied behind your back by your promise to Hendery. Nothing you saw tonight would make it to the gossip columns.

Even when you saw Sicheng, Hendery’s actor friend, flirting with a pretty young actress who was rumored to be dating an actor that she was filming a movie with, you kept your hands still. Even when he pulled her into his lap and she kissed his face and giggled, you just distracted yourself from the urge to write a news story by instead staring at Hendery, reminding yourself of the promise, distracting yourself with fantasies.

Hendery caught you looking a few times. It’s the fifth time as you’re looking at him over the edge of your glass that he grins back at you, draping his arm over your shoulders. “What’re you looking at?” He laughs, pulling you close enough that he can affectionately rub his head against yours.

“Just you,” you tell him.

Hendery keeps smiling a wide, loose smile that spreads wider than normal due to the alcohol. He slides his arm from your shoulders, instead laying a hand on your thigh. You stare at it, remembering the way his fingers had moved on the keys of the piano earlier, wishing that he would touch you as he’d touched that instrument, to master playing your strings and keys as well as he was with the instruments in that room.

“You really like him, don’t you?” The boy sitting across from you both says. You look up and see one of Hendery’s friends looking at the pair of you and how close you sit, the familiar way in which he touches you. “How long have you known each other?”

Xuxi butts in then, “Like two days. I caught him blowing Hendery in his closet when I was leaving yesterday. They didn’t seem too close, something about a phone, right?” He squints at you and you nod. That is what it had been. Then. But things had changed for you since then. “Clearly I was wrong, and you’ve gotten closer since I left. I thought we both were leaving, huh? Not fair that you traded me in your bed for him, Hendery.” He raises his eyebrows at you and Hendery.

Hendery’s hand leaves your thigh, and he grabs for the drink in Xuxi’s hand instead. “Fuck off. As if it means anything when we mess around, Xuxi? And it’s not like it’s a big deal.” He gestures between you and him, and then tilts his head back and downs the glass in one gulp.

You want him to lean back beside you, settling his warmth around you like a comfort in this strange atmosphere of his friends and his guests, but Hendery moves farther away, drowning himself for a few moments in a drink that someone hands to him. And then after that he leaves you there as he goes to talk to someone he spotted across the room.

The night had been going well.

Hendery kept his distance after that, winding deeper and deeper into the maze of the house, always fitting himself into the hearts of groups, dancing away any time that you finally spot him. You comfort yourself in the company of his producer friend, Kun, talking about some of the tracks and artists he’s been working with lately, talking about the time you did a story on him and his partner before he branched off to make a solo production company.

You try not to feel hurt that Hendery’s abandoned you at the party he invited you to stay for. But as the night grows later, edging toward dawn, Kun leaves the party, and you consider leaving as well. You did tell your boss you’d send him your story today, and Hendery’s not paying any attention to you, so maybe you should head home. You go in search of Hendery to tell him you’re leaving.

One of the pretty girls from earlier in the night has edged her way closer to him, and you find Hendery with this girl pressed up on him, perched in his lap. She’s laughing and clinging to him, and Hendery lets her. And then his eyes land on you. His arm on the girl’s waist tightens and she squeals in delight, kissing at his neck, giggling and murmuring sweet words to him, slipping her hand down between them so she can touch him.

His eyes slide from yours as he turns toward the girl, pulling her mouth to his.

You shouldn’t be upset. You knew what this was.

You were a hook up at the gala, a one night stand when you came to get your phone. Hendery is just a rich boy, a playboy who fucks around with anyone pretty who catches his eye. It’s not anything more than just a no-strings hook up when you’re with him. You have no right to feel upset by what you see.

But you do anyway.

You turn on your heel before you see anything else. You move through the party without noticing anyone or anything, brushing by people, knocking over something that luckily doesn’t break onto the ground (no matter how much you want it to, just to see something that looks the way you’re feeling right now—jagged and broken and out of place, all spread over the floor).

Already you’re out the door and halfway down the drive when you realize you don’t have your phone. Or your clothes. You’re still wearing Hendery’s borrowed clothes and you’d left your phone in his room, and you’ll be damned if you have to come back here for either of those reasons again.

You’re already stripping out of the clothes the second you step through the doors into his room, and before the door swings shut behind you, you hear footsteps, and then the door pushes open again, Hendery says your name.

You glance back at him, at the even more unkempt state of his hair and the way that his shirt’s collar is tugged askew. There’s a smear of that girl’s lipstick on his throat.

He says your name again.

“What? Why’d you leave her? It seemed you really liked her, Hendery. I mean, please, don’t let me leaving ruin the fun you were about to have.” You say. “I’m just getting my phone and my clothes and then I’ll be gone, and you can go back to using sex as a coping mechanism and a means of distancing yourself from people who want to be close to you. Have you ever thought maybe you want to be alone? That you cause this for yourself by pushing people away, not letting them get close to you?”

You drop his borrowed shirt over the back of a chair in his sitting room, and you keep walking toward the bedroom. You hear him following you.

“Maybe,” you continue, “you don’t want to be vulnerable and open. You just want to keep to your dark broodiness, you want to keep yourself isolated so you have something you can complain about because you’re so incomprehensibly wealthy that you don’t have any other problems to deal with, so you’ve created one for yourself.”

You drop the pants, and then reach for your own clothes that are piled right where you left them the day before. His bedsheets are still a mess, you can see a gross cumstain on the sheets, and you freeze, remembering for a moment how it had felt as he fucked you on his bed, his body covering yours from behind, your hips grinding against the sheets, his teeth digging into your shoulder and neck, and the way you’d moaned at the feel of his cock pounding inside you, right against your prostate.

A hand touches yours, and Hendery brings you around to face him.

“Are you really going to leave?” His voice sounds small. “Don’t go.”

He dips forward as if to kiss you, to reel you back in to his orbit so easily. But you push at his shoulders, and say, “This is what I’m talking about. You’re using sex to make yourself feel better, to manipulate people into getting close. But you don’t want anyone to stay.”

“Please?” Hendery latches onto your hand again. “Stay. The chef’s already up, he’ll make us whatever we order, anything at all. Name the most delicious thing you can think of, and I’ll send down for him to make it. Stay for breakfast.”

“Hendery.” You groan, and push at his chest again. “I don’t care about that. I’m going to leave because I need to go home and sleep so I can finish my story for my boss. I’ll grab a burger on my way home, a cheap, disgustingly greasy burger. Why don’t you go find that pretty girl who was so eager to get into your pants. Or Xuxi, you’ve already made it obvious that he’s fine with warming your bed. Or I’m sure you’ve still got guests down there who would be so excited to have you fuck them or throw your wealth at them. And even if not, you’ve got all this around you, I’m sure you can preoccupy yourself somehow. Maybe count all that jewelry in your closet, but don’t pretend for a second that you want me to stay because I actually mean something to you.”

“I don’t care about all that! I don’t want it!” Hendery cries in frustration as he pulls the rings from his fingers and throws them across the room. You hear them bouncing and plinking off the tiles and the wall and the windows. “Don’t you get it? Haven’t I already made it clear? All of this money doesn’t do a damn thing for me! I’m still lonely. I still feel like no one appreciates me for anything other than my money or for sex. They all are only interested in what I can give them!”

But then he steps forward, his hand touches your cheek, and then he touches the other, cupping your face between his hands. And in a voice far gentler than the one he’d just been using, Hendery says, “Except for you. You are the first person I’ve met in I don’t even know how long who’s made me feel like I’m more. The way you look at me, I don’t feel like you’re looking at just me on the surface, you’re looking deeper. Maybe that’s a lame thing to say, but I feel like a person when I’m with you. Like I can feel things and want things, like I don’t have to give and give and give. I can see that you want me, that you love the way I make you feel when we have sex, but it’s not like that’s all I see when you look at me. You listen. Even when I’m talking absolute nonsense about stories of dragons in the sky, when I’m banging out a bad tune on the piano, anything I’ve said, you’ve listened.

“And you’re right. I do use sex to cope, to fill in this gaping hole of loneliness, and I fail every time and I’m still hollow and aching. I want to have people close to me, but it scares me. I haven’t— I haven’t been open with someone totally in years and I got hurt, and maybe I shouldn’t be telling you all this because we don’t really know each other well and you’re a reporter so if things go wrong then you’ve got this shit to write a story about. But I opened up and got hurt and I’m so lonely and tired of feeling used, and you’re the one person I’ve met in so long who doesn’t make me feel like a vending machine for what other people want of me.

“So stay. Please stay.” Hendery drops his forehead against yours.

And just like that, you do.

Not because he wants you to. Not because of that whole eloquent speech (well, okay, partially because of both of those things), but you stay because you want to. Because over the last approximately thirty-two hours that you’ve spent with Hendery, you got to see a side of him that you really liked. The boy behind the mask his father made for him. A boy who’s more than just lonely, but a boy who wants to be heard and seen, who wants to be loved for who he is. 

You don’t know what that trauma is from his past that hurt him so he pushes people away while  desperately begging them to come closer. All you know is that with his hands on your cheeks and his forehead against yours, you slide your arms around his waist and never want to let him go again.

Dawn finds you wrapped together in the garden, a thick blanket draped around both of you as you sit together and enjoy cheap, disgustingly greasy burgers from a 24 hours place that’s not too far off, just a short drive there and back. You rest your head on Hendery’s shoulder, listening to the sounds of nature waking, and the snores of a few partiers who passed out on the patio nearby.

Eventually, as Hendery starts nodding off, you convince him up onto his feet as the first rays of sunlight spread across the lawn, and together you return to his room, crawling into bed with dew still wet on your toes. 

Hendery really doesn’t like it when you roll out of bed when the clock shows it’s nearly noon. He groans and reaches for you, trying to grab onto any part of you to pull you back in, but you dance out of his reach. 

“I really do have to go home. If I want to keep my job, I can’t miss a deadline. I’m already cutting it dangerously close.” You lean back in and kiss his forehead, earning yourself a handsome smile from him. “I’ll see you later, right?”

Hendery nods. “Yeah, I’m not pushing you away. Hey.” He grabs onto your hand, squeezing. “I am really, really sorry about things. I like you, I genuinely truly like you, and you’re totally right about my coping mechanism and everything, and I’m stupid for trying to hook up with that girl last night when I’m fully aware of how much I like you. Like, a crazy amount. I promise,” he says so honestly and soberly that your heart beats faster, “That I am going to try my hardest to not do anything that will mess this up. So, please, come back after you’ve written a wonderful story about my father’s gala and the handsome and charming Huang Guanheng that you met there.”

A week later you find yourself back in Hendery’s arms, though this time he’s at your humble abode, squeezed into your bed, both of you pretending that you can’t hear your upstairs neighbor yelling at her husband. 

“It’s not as nice as your house.” You apologized when you let Hendery in, but he didn’t seem to care. His eyes moved over every square inch of your apartment. The small kitchen, the living room which was a futon and a coffee table that was covered with half-drunk coffee mugs, old drafts of stories your editor had sent you all marked up in red with necessary revisions, your laptop, a goldfish bowl that was now home to a lovely little cactus ever since your beta fish died, and a tall stack of books.

At the other end of your single-room apartment was a divider you’d drawn across the space to shield your bed from view if ever you decided to entertain anyone. Not that the divider seemed to block Hendery’s curiosity, and a few seconds after he stepped inside he was guiding you by the hand toward your own bed. It took no time to strip each other and then Hendery had you on your back, your fingers twisted in his hair as he sucked your cock.

Hendery’s mouth was heaven, his talent with his tongue left you speechless, tugging on his hair in a way that had him moaning in delight, and just as you’re riding up to the edge of your orgasm with your hips rocking up off the bed, Hendery pulls off, dropping all contact.

You gasp and sit up, ready to whine and beg, but Hendery’s just stepping back to root through his pocket for a condom.

“What are you doing?” You ask, clenching your bedsheets in your fingers. “I have condoms. Get back over here.” You reach under the edge of your bed, bringing out a condom as well as a bottle of lube. Hendery drops his pants back on the floor, and you tip back onto your back, spreading your knees apart for him to fit between your legs.

You look up at your ceiling as you listen to Hendery popping the cap on the bottle of lube, squirting some out onto his fingers. He kisses your thighs, nipping at them lightly with his teeth as he works the lube over his fingers, warming it up a bit before he carefully eases one finger inside you, opening you up for him, sucking at your cock once again.

In no time, Hendery has you close again.Three fingers in, his mouth working magic on you as well. You tug and pull on his hair, dragging him up off your cock, and Hendery kisses a fiery trail up your body until he reaches your lips. 

“I need you. Now.” You moan.

Hendery swiftly rolls the condom down his length, then pulls you up as he lies down. “I want you to ride, Daddy.” 

Too eager to have him inside of you, you immediately move to straddle him, sitting right down on him. Hendery wraps his hand around your dick, swiping his thumb over your tip, cooing at you and telling you how good you look riding Daddy’s cock. It’s hard to not focus on just getting yourself off.

The way Hendery’s hitting so deep inside you, his cock brushing past your prostate each time you drop your hips back on him. And his hand on your cock, jerking you off at the same pace as you’re riding him. It’s all too much.

“Hendery!” You cry out, so close to your orgasm. He pulls his hand away, instead grabbing at your hips, holding you right where he wants you so he can thrust up into you, fucking you with hard, quick thrusts that soon have you cumming untouched onto his belly. And as soon as you’ve finished, he’s touching you again, a hand wrapped around your spent, sensitive cock, and he continues fucking you at a brutal pace.

You’re certain your neighbors can probably hear you, but you can’t hold in your moans, whimpers of oversensitivity.

Hendery nails your prostate with each thrust, and your cock keeps blurting out drops of cum onto his belly, his hand milking you for all you’ve got. 

When you can take no more, you collapse on top of him, and Hendery just holds your hips tighter and chases his own orgasm, moaning in your ear, saying, “You feel so right around Daddy’s cock. God, so tight. Like you were made for me.” 

You moan and tuck your face into his shoulder, biting his skin lightly between your teeth as Hendery cums. His body shudders under you, his cock jerking and filling the condom inside you, and you cum again too at the feeling, just adding more to the sticky mess on your bellies. 

Hendery wraps his arms around you and you stay like that, dozing off with him still buried inside you. It’s only when your neighbors start arguing that you wake, and Hendery reluctantly leaves the bed at last to dispose of the condom. 

You roll over and bundle up in your sheets, then you notice him reaching for his clothes. “What are you doing? Stay.” 

You throw back the blankets, ready to forcefully pull Hendery back into bed with you, but you find that unnecessary as he drops his clothes and tackles you back into bed as if all he’d been waiting on was an invitation to stay. As if all he wanted was to be wanted in return. 

This time you wrap your arms around him, his head on your shoulder as you play with his hair, and you tell him that later you’ll make dinner for him, there’s a recipe you saw online you wanted to try out. Hendery clings to you, presses a smile against your bare skin, and tells you, “I can’t wait.”

And later, when you do finally drag yourselves out of bed (after another round or two), you cook dinner with Hendery hovering at your side, not quite sure how to help you but eagerly wanting to take part. And so what if it doesn’t turn out quite the way you want it? A little bit burnt around the edges, a dash or eight too much salt. You and Hendery made it together and you eat it together and laugh and then drown out the flavor with the alcohol he digs out for you. 

That night, after drinking yourselves to a point where you both feel light and happy, Hendery lets you do whatever you want with him. He lets you spread him out on your bed so you can kiss over every inch of him. He sighs with pleasure when you drip wine over his chest and lick it off his skin, drinking it from the hollow of his throat. 

Hendery cums embarrassingly quick when you grind against him, licking and sucking at his throat and murmuring dirty things against his skin, whimpering how needy you are for Daddy’s cock to fill you up again. 

He fucks you later against the window, telling you that he wants the whole city to see how you look with him inside you, and you look at your reflection in the glass. 

You see Hendery behind you, like the first time you were together, but this time his face isn’t cold indifference just trying to feel something. No, this time Hendery’s eyes burn with passion, his face shows the strain of trying not to cum again already as your walls flutter and clench around him. 

This time Hendery touches you all over, his fingers leaving burning trails over your skin, like asteroid tails on the night sky. 

This time Hendery kisses your neck and pulls you back against him so he can reach around you and palm at your cock, so he can feel it when you cum, dripping down over his fingers, painting the window. 

This time Hendery buries his face against your shoulder and doesn’t let go. He doesn’t put a mask on to hide his face from you. He just holds you close enough that you can feel his heart beating against your back. 

When you wake in the morning, it’s to the feel of Hendery slipping back into bed. His socks touch your bare leg. Cold fingertips skim your back, and you shiver, flinching away. His breath warms your shoulder and he sneaks his cold hand once more onto your skin, over your belly where he presses his palm flat as he whispers to you, “I got breakfast.”

You open one eye and look at him. There’s a flush in his cheeks like he’d run up the stairs. He’s wearing your jacket. 

“How did you get back inside?” You yawn and roll over, stretching your arms up and then flopping into place on top of Hendery’s chest. 

“An older lady was leaving just as I was coming back. She let me in.” Hendery pokes at you. “But I brought breakfast back. Get up and come eat it.”

Everything feels so domestic as you sit down on your futon with Hendery. He unloads the breakfast. You open your laptop, checking your emails to see if your editor has any news for you. You eat together. Hendery tells you about his dream from last night about being on an airplane, and something about a pregnant woman and a cat. It’s simple and easy and you both bask in the pleasure of each other’s company.

Hendery’s in the middle of pulling you apart on his fingers, swallowing your moans as he stretches your hole wider, when there’s a knock on the door of his rooms. You whine as he rolls you off of him, drags the sheet up to cover you both, and calls for whoever it is to enter. 

The man who comes inside is no one you've ever met, but you recognize him all the same. Hendery’s father. 

His eyes land on you first, half-hidden in his son’s bed, and then he looks at Hendery. “You’ve been keeping busy while I was away. My assistant says you haven’t been into the office.”

It’s been weeks that this has been going on with Hendery. You’ve spent nearly every day together to at least some degree, and you’ve definitely not heard him say anything about going into the office. Instead the two of you have mostly been spending time together, in between making out and having sex, you’ve also been watching movies together, teaching Hendery how to cook, he’s started teaching you a bit on the piano.  You’ve hung out with some of his friends, particularly Kun, the producer, as you convinced both of them to try to make some music together, and Hendery dove headfirst eagerly into it, and Kun was extremely supportive. 

But now, with Hendery’s father standing in front of the pair of you, you can already see that light that’s been growing steadily brighter in Hendery diminishing again. You slide a hand onto his shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze. His father notices. 

“Maybe if you weren’t so focused on fucking whatever pretty creature slithers into your bed, Guanheng, maybe then you wouldn’t be such a disappointment,” his father says. 

Hendery drops his head forward, not looking at his father anymore. 

But you do. You glare at the older man. “Just because he’s not following the rigid life you chose for him doesn’t make him a disappointment. Hendery is amazing. He’s incredibly talented and smart, and he doesn’t need you to tell him how to succeed.”

Hendery grabs your hand tightly. “Stop.”

You look at him, at the downtrodden look on his face. He jerks his head. You close your mouth, but you have so much more you want to say. Hendery is a fantastic person. His father is an asshole. You want to say as much, but you know that it’s not what Hendery wants or needs right now. 

“I’m sorry, Father.” Hendery ducks his head lower in apology. “I allowed myself to get distracted. I’ll come by this office this afternoon.”

His father nods and then turns and leaves the room. The door of the suite slams shut behind him, and as soon as it does, Hendery slumps back into the pillows. 

“Hendery....”

He shakes his head and closes his eyes. “Don’t.” 

You wish you could leave it. Hendery clearly doesn’t want to talk about what just happened. But you do. 

“Why do you let him walk all over you like that? If you don’t want to follow him in the business then don’t.” You crinkle the bedsheets up between your fingers. “Follow music. Or something else you’re passionate about. Don’t make yourself miserable to make your father or anyone else happy.”

Hendery groans and rolls away, rising out of bed so he can pace. You watch him like this, admiring his body in the clear light streaming through the windows. He rakes his fingers through his hair. “You don’t understand what it’s like. The business is my future. It always has been, and my father makes sure that it always will be.”

You frown and scoot to the edge of the bed to be closer to him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he says as he comes to stand still in front of you, and continues, “that my father has always been the one controlling my life. He chose my friends. He chose my schooling and my teachers. He chose my first girlfriend. It was up to him to approve of anyone that I tried a relationship with, and it was my father who ruined the first real relationship I had, the only time I’ve ever fallen in love.”

You wait, knowing he’ll elaborate if he wants to.

Hendery continues without you having to prompt him for more. “The autumn I turned eighteen, I fell in love with a girl a year older than me. Father had called her in to tutor me in economics, but I was already kinda, I guess, what everyone calls me. A playboy, fuckboy, manwhore. All of the above.” He pushes his fingers nervously through his hair again, squinting as he stares past you out the window into the bright sunlight. “Anyway, I managed to seduce her, so lessons were less likely to be about economics and much more about anatomy. But then it turned slowly from sex and pretending that we were learning economics, to me actually taking her out on dates, and I fell in love with her and she, like you, tried to convince me that I didn’t need my father or the business. She didn’t know about my music, but she tried showing me different career paths. And then one day while she was meant to be tutoring me, Father walked in and found us together and a little bit more digging revealed what she’d been telling me, trying to convince me to do. And then she broke up with me, which was devastating in itself, but then Father told me that he’d paid her to leave me. Just one check from him was enough to eliminate everything between us. And then, to top it all off, a few weeks later she was back, actually tutoring me, and then she became my latest, newest model of a stepmother. She lived it up rich for a few months until Father grew tired of her.”

“I still don’t understand why that means that you have to do something that you’re so dispassionate about?” You ask. 

Hendery sinks down to his knees, and you watch as he lays his head on your lap. “Because. He’ll find a way to ruin anything good I try to make for myself outside of what he wants.” He takes your hand and brings it to the back of his head, so you begin stroking his hair. “It hasn’t really mattered in a long time. Not since her. He didn’t care if I was fucking around, if I was jetting off to parties on the other side of the world as long as he knows there are other wealthy people there to make connections with. He doesn’t care as long as whatever I do will profit him in the end. And it didn't matter because up until a few weeks ago, I didn’t have anything for him to ruin because there was nothing I loved enough for it to matter. But then I met you.”

You pause, your fingers going still in his hair, your breath catching in your throat. 

Hendery, the once cold and indifferent playboy you’d let fuck you in the bathroom for a fun night, now tilts his head in your lap and looks up at you so softly, his gaze tender and warm on your face. 

“I love you,” Hendery tells you in a voice so quiet and small that it could almost get lost in this room. “Please don’t leave me.”

You can’t help the noise you make. One of alarm and sadness and reassurance and love and need. You curl your fingers against whatever part of Hendery you can touch, and you pull him up. He climbs back into the bed, over you, covering your body with his, and then his mouth is smooth and sweet on yours. 

“I love you,” you tell him too, feeling the truth of it swelling, burning and beating in your chest. 

And Hendery repeats, “Don’t leave me.”

You know there’s such a depth behind those words. Now, it’s more than just a lonely boy who doesn’t want to sleep alone. More than a lonely boy who sees someone who finally listens and sees him too for who he really is beneath his facade. Now, you hear the plea of a broken-hearted boy who has had the love bought and sold from right between his fingertips. 

You hold his face in your hands. “Never,” you promise, and seal it with a kiss.

Hendery’s money is the last thing on your mind. You don’t care one bit for it. You like going on cheap dates with him to the movies on a Tuesday afternoon when it’s cheapest, even if the movies showing are only the bad ones. You amuse yourself by taking him with you on public transportation, both of you leaning together and making up stories about the other passengers; some of them are so funny that you both burst into laughter, drawing odd looks from everyone around you. You enjoy lazing about in the garden of his home, sunbathing beside the pond, or sitting beside the pool while you write your latest entertainment story, Hendery swimming laps and singing up at the sky, his voice echoing off the side of the hostage and the trees and hedges on the property. 

His father doesn’t like you, and all three of you know that. 

He doesn’t hide it. 

When you sneak down from Hendery’s bedroom at midnight to steal a snack from the refrigerator, and his father is just concluding a video call, and you bump into him as he comes out of his office, he just scowls at you. When you and Hendery are sitting at the pool with Kun and Xuxi and Dejun, laughing and filming Hendery for a music video for the song he and Kun have put together (with a little vocal assist from Dejun), his father nearly explodes. And while you and the other three boys flee back to the safety of the music room, you can hear Hendery’s father shouting about how music isn’t a viable career choice, that it’s useless. 

Hours later, Hendery fucks you until you’re both numb from the intensity of multiple orgasms, and he wraps himself so tightly around you, that you’re not sure the knots of his fingers with yours will ever untangle. 

And finally, after months, when Kun and Hendery have compiled a few songs, Kun wants to release the music as an EP. 

Naturally, you encourage him to go for it. 

And word of it gets back to his father. 

Hendery’s just left your apartment one morning, the taste of him still lingering on your tongue, and you’ve just sat down to work on your latest story—an exclusive interview you’d snagged with the lead actors of an upcoming film that was slated to be a big hit at international film festivals. There’s a knock on your door, and at the same time as you hear it, you spot Hendery’s wallet left behind in the mess on your coffee table. 

You grab it up and spring toward the door. 

But when you open the door, it’s not Hendery standing on the other side. 

“Mr. Huang?” You stare in confusion at Hendery’s father, looking so out-of-place on your doorstep. “Can I help you?”

“May I come in?” He asks, but he’s already stepping inside. 

He enters your apartment and looks around with such a judgmental eye that you almost just walk out your door to avoid whatever harsh words are surely about to come out of his mouth. But you stick firmly to your spot, letting the door swing shut as you stare at him. 

He turns to face you after he’s had his fill of your apartment. “Mr. Y/L/N, I don’t know what your parents taught you about respecting them, but I have always demanded absolute respect from my son. Guanheng has always been a distracted boy, easily caught up in things, finding himself miles away from where he needs to be. But he’s always respected me and the wishes I have for his path in life. I have done my best to keep him on the straight and narrow, but clearly, there are times when he doesn’t heed my guidance.” He looks pointedly at you. “Right now, he is straying from the path, and it’s my duty to make sure he returns and won’t stray again. You understand?”

Yes, you understand what he’s saying. But no, you don’t agree with it. 

“Mr. Y/L/N, it has come to my attention that you have been encouraging my son to pursue music, which is a fickle industry and not worthy of his time. It’s simply not a good path for him. That friend of his, Mr. Qian, his father has ties in the industry that gave him a great leg up when he began. Mr. Qian has a talented ear, and he lives up to the standards that his father set for him. But those same standards fall far below what I expect of Guanheng, you understand? Guanheng already has his path laid out before him, nice and safe and smooth from his birth until his death. Following me into the business means he’ll never have to worry about a thing.”

On some level you know that, but does a safe, boring life have to take precedence over an uncertain, yet passionate life? 

Hendery’s father looks you straight in the eye and says, “This dangerous path you’re leading him on is unacceptable. I am willing to give you ten million dollars if you will drop this subject and leave my son alone. Ten million, all yours, to just stay out of my son’s life and stop ruining it.”

You can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of you. “Are you kidding? You think I am the one ruining his life by encouraging him, showing him positivity and love, showing an interest in the things that he enjoys, rather than just squashing them out of him until his life is flat and dull and lonely? Sir, I mean no disrespect when I say this, but you are the one ruining his life.” You take a step back, open the door of your apartment, and gesture out of it. “I love your son. Completely. No amount of money or bribery you can offer will convince me to break his heart. Please leave.”

You don’t wait to watch him go. You walk away from the door and back over to where you left your phone. You immediately pick it up and call Hendery. You tell him about what just happened, not to start any shit between him and his father, but just because you feel that being open and honest about what just happened is crucial. You want him to know that you will never leave him, that you don’t want to leave him.

The warmth of summer is finally sticking, penetrating even the house, and you and Hendery hang outside, floating on your backs in the pool or seeking the coolest patch of shade in the garden. 

He’s stretched out on his back in a shady patch of grass as you look down into the koi fish pond nearby. You hear a splash and when you look over you see a little frog. He squirms when you pick him up, but then he sits in your palm, a soft damp little body, quivering in your palm. You walk towards Hendery to show him, but as soon as you call his name and are within a few feet of him, Hendery swears and scrambles away. 

“What are you doing with that? Oh my god! Put it back!” He runs as far away as he can while he can still see you to make sure that you walk back to the pond and leave the frog there. 

“I’m sorry!” You laugh. “I didn’t know you were scared of frogs.” You wipe your hands off on your shorts and settle down in the shade, beckoning him over to join you. He comes over cautiously, as if he thinks you’re going to pull another frog out of nowhere. “Hendery, I’m sorry.”

He makes a face at you and finally does come closer, sitting with his legs folded in front of him, and you take that opportunity to lay your head in his lap. 

“What else are you afraid of?” You ask. “Or is it just frogs?”

“Toads, too. And heights. Sometimes the dark, but only really pitch black dark, like in a cave or somewhere with zero light penetration.” He shivers. “And you know, also, being lonely. Losing you.”

You make a face up at him. “Cheesy.” You grab his hand, holding it over your heart. “But same. I’m scared of losing you. I’m scared of the dark, needles, and this one ridiculous scary story a friend told me when I was a kid.” You shudder just remembering the story, unable to even bring yourself to put it to words. “But we’ve got each other, right? I’ll keep you safe from frogs, and you can keep me safe from needles. But we’ll both have to do something about the dark.”

You’re still laying like that in the grass when afternoon begins to sink towards evening, the sun turning the sky amber, the grass striped emerald and navy. The first early stars begin to peek through. 

And that’s when Hendery’s father strolls out into the garden. He’s on his phone, so he doesn’t seem to notice either of you at first, but Hendery stiffens. 

“Have you spoken to him yet?” You ask. Hendery was so angry that day when you called to tell him about the bribe his father had offered you to leave him. You were so sure that a nasty argument was going to ensue, but Hendery hadn’t said anything to you about it yet.

“No, I’ve been too angry.” Hendery’s fingers clench, flexing against your chest. “And he’s been away. Plus I’m a little bit scared.”

You lay your hand reassuringly over his. “Don’t be afraid. You can’t let him control your life.”

Hendery nods, and you watch his face as a look of pure determination and strong will takes over. He taps your shoulder, and you sit up so he’s free to get to his feet. 

You watch Hendery strut across the garden and come up to his father who is still on the phone. You hear him say, “Father.” The older man holds up a finger, not even sparing Hendery a glance. Hendery looks back at you, then takes a deep breath, steeling himself, and he faces his father again. “Father, I’m marrying Y/N and we’re moving to America.”

Both are outright lies, but they send a thrill through you all the same. You imagine marrying Hendery in a small, formal ceremony. Owning a home together, moving somewhere new together, or just traveling the world together and experiencing all the great places there are to see.

The fantasy fades as you realize that his words caught his father’s attention too. 

“I’ll call you back,” he says into his phone, and then all of his attention is on his son. “What the fuck did you just say to me?”

You watch as Hendery tenses his shoulders, clenches his fists tightly at his sides, and tells his father, “I’m marrying him because I love him, and I’m never going to be alone again because of something you’ve done.” 

His father looks from Hendery to you, and then back at Hendery. “Do you think you’re really going to be happy like that? Married to a mediocre reporter? And what if I cut you off?”

“I’d rather be poor and happy than always second-guessing the motives of people who get close to me.” Hendery spits back. “At least I know he won’t betray me for money, not ten million dollars, not a billion, not for all the stars in the sky. I just want to be happy, Father. He supports me, from the day we met, he’s supported me in pursuing music. I love making music. Kun and I have been working together to produce some stuff, and I want to release it. If it flops, then it flops, and I’ll just continue making music for me and anyone who wants it. If it’s successful, then that’s even better. But I just want to try to be happy, and you’ve made it clear time and again that that is not something you want for me.”

You can hear cars passing by on the road outside the property. Birds singing in the trees. But in the air between father and son, it is entirely silent for a few long seconds. 

It feels like a private moment, something that you shouldn’t really be seeing even though for the past few months, it’s felt like everything has been building toward this moment. You want to look away, yet even when you do turn to look down at your hands, you can still hear them. 

You hear Hendery’s father clear his throat and say a quiet, “Well.” Then it’s silent for another little while before he gathers together the words to say. “I do want you to be happy, Guanheng. I want you to be secure and happy, and that is always why I’ve pushed you toward this future I had planned. A nice stable future where you would never have to worry about anything, where you can be happy. Music is a hobby, not a job. And you fall in love with people who try to tell you that it’s a viable life choice, but it’s not, Guanheng. I’m just trying to protect you. Is following my footsteps into the business such an appalling thing? So horrible to you, so unsettling and disheartening, that you would leave me and disown me as your father?”

It sounds a bit like a guilt trip, in your opinion, but you keep your eyes on your hands, your mouth closed. 

“You’re an adult, and maybe it’s time I let you make your own decisions, your own mistakes to learn from.” He clears his throat again. “I do want you to be happy. Maybe I don’t show it in the proper ways, but I mean it.”

You lift your head then, just checking on them. And as you look, you catch his father’s eye. 

He’s still looking at you as he says, “Release your music, Guanheng. Marry your boyfriend. But I don’t want you to give up on the company. If music falls through, you’re taking a job in the company, and that’s the last I’ll hear of it. Be happy, but be secure in your future too.”

Hendery relaxes. Those tense knots in his body all loosen at once. “Thank you.”

And then you watch as his father claps a hand down on Hendery’s shoulder, then draws him in for a hug. 

“Your mother always loved music too.” The words are spoken quietly, intended only for Hendery, but the garden is so silent you can’t help but overhear. “I guess you got that from her.” 

He pulls out of the hug abruptly and walks back inside, leaving Hendery frozen in his spot. You push up to your feet and go to join him, wrapping your arms around him. 

“He never talks about my mother.” Hendery tells you. “And he said yes? Are we sure that’s my father?” 

You smile and kiss his cheek. “Are you happy?”

“Beyond. I should call Kun, tell him to go ahead.” He reaches for his phone, and as he scrolls through it for Kun’s contact, he looks up to meet your eyes. “And I wasn’t lying, you know. I do believe I want to marry you.”

“I want that too.” 

And after Hendery calls Kun, after they celebrate and excitedly talk over the phone for like an hour and a half while the nighttime settles around you. After it all, it’s just you and Hendery, stretched out together in the now mild summer night, looking up at the stars. 

“Remember that first night?” Hendery asks you. “Do you remember the stories I told you?” 

You look up at the constellations visible overhead, all those tiny stars millions of lightyears away, the patterns that they make from your viewpoint down here. “I remember. I remember the look on your face as you told the stories to me, the way that you looked up at the stars, like all you wanted was to be part of something great like them.”

“Yeah?”

You nod. “Yeah. You were just telling me how lonely you were, and you looked at the stars like you were jealous that they were never lonely, that they’re a part of a constellation, of a story.” You roll up onto your elbows so you can look down at Hendery. “You know, you’ve never really been alone? I’ve watched you, Hendery, the way that you are with your friends. The seven of you make a constellation of your own, and they’re all drawn into the gravity of you. Just like me. Caught in your orbit.” 

“Are you saying I’m a star?” Hendery laughs. Then he teases, “You gonna make a wish on me?”

Leaning down to kiss him, you stop just a breath away from his lips. “Oh, Hendery, I’ve already made countless wishes on you, and I’m pretty sure they’re all coming true.”

And when Hendery lifts his head from the grass so his lips meet yours, that kiss feels like a new wish, burning bright in the sky.

a/n: okay this took me a little longer than it was meant to. I originally started out making this a drabble in response to this message: Aksdhgfdj Hendery the “rich playboy who would definitely treat you right for a few nights” I would like to say I’m here for IT! which was in response to what I said about how Hendery looked during this periscope he did with Xiaojun, like black on black is truly a god-tier look for Hendery (this is only made truer after I saw him during the Wayv Beyond Live concert like oh my god I was dying of thirst)

Anyway, as usual, thank you if you read all this mess. I’m pretty sure there are a few spots that are a little messy, but if you read it all, I still really really appreciate it 💗 comments and reblogs are always greatly appreciated thank you!! 💗💗💗

[just-castlevania-imagines]

My Thoughts on Castlevania S3

So I cant sleep, I've binged this series twice now & I really need to get this out. For context on me as a person, I am an LGBT+ WOC (specifically Asian & bisexual). Castlevania is my favourite game series + the reason why I pursued Game Design as my career. The show means the world to me & I thoroughly enjoyed s3 for the most part. I acknowledge the flaws & these r just MY opinions, they do not reflect the other mods intentionally in anyway.

The art + animation was so CLEAN. There was not one scene that did not take my breath away. The attention to detail was phenomenal I have no words to describe it.

Some of the best fight scenes ever just ridiculous, it's like john wick. The action is upped every installment + its just so CLEAN

The entire team puts so much time + effort Into making Sypha such an enjoyable badass it's so amazing. I am never disappointed with her, never ever.

The lesbians. Striga & Morana, god I wish that were me.

Isaacs character arc was so good. Like the budget really went to Sypha + Issac this season LOL

Sumi + Takka, they meant so much to me. I love them, I really do. I cant say I'm not hurt seeing them at the end. I'm actually very hurt, my heart aches. I never thought I'd get to see representation like that in a series that I loved but felt idk invisible to. LGBT Asians in a historical setting outside of Asia, it was just...a dream for me. I fell in love w/ them instantly & I think that's why I tend to over look their faults a lot.

But when you see yourself on screen in something you've dedicated years to & you're just finally seen its...its so hard. The last time I felt this full was Shiro from V*ltr*n and we know how that shit went down. Idk I'm happy for what I recieved, grateful even, for however short it was. I loved their characters, i love sumi + takka i just wish they got a better ending. They all deserved better

More info on Cho I really oof I could not have asked for more. This bitch was so extra & I love her

That music score, the sound design. Bruh I can't even with all this TALENT

I call episode 9 the Fuckening

The Portals to different worlds really confuses me but I am here for it, I hope it's just like an Easter egg to their future projects or that the writers were all high around then

I see u w/ that jojo reference, I bet you think ur all so slick

Hector's entire story arc, wtf was that? My guy you can't be like "Oh humanity is evil and stupid and eats shit" and then be that gullible I-ooof u frustrate me u beautiful boy. Like s2 implies he burns his family alive & I'm sitting here deadass like how the fuck did u even pull that off

The forgemasters being called pretty + their reactions were priceless

I want Richter Armitage to read me a bed time story

Trevor, Isaac & Sypha r just so well done this season

THE. HORSES. ARE. HEALTHIER.

Isaac rode a demonic purple unicorn around the world, he's my fucking hero

Alucard a confirmed bottom + bisexual thank u

The sex scenes were juxtaposed to the intense fighting but it felt awkward to watch but it was also very fitting in an odd way????

The dolls were hilarious

I learned a lot about toilet paper

The Judge being like "no kids run around in my village" is the equivalent to Mr. Mosby from Suit Life of Zack & Cpdy being like "dont u run in my lobby" AND I CALLED IT OUT AND AND WAS RIGHT

This show has taught me to never trust bald, old white men w/ interesting voices

Carmilla was just a hot ball of anger for the most Part & got annoying real fast, but that night robe tho. That was everything

I liked Lenore's character trope. Being that sweet innocent looking one, but shes really just this cruel evil bitch. Like everyone complains about Carmilla but at least shes evil to ur face until this fake bitch over here

Takka doesn't do mornings? Niether do I

Alucards wardrobe upgraded from deep Vs to fluffy Victorian Lestat cosplay

I really really want an empire run by 4 vampire sisters. Like I know they're all evil, cruel bitches but the sisterhood they showed for each other is such a goal. Women supporting women is amazing I just wish they weren't the fucking villains

A lot of my gripe is that all the rep I want & thirst for all falls into a negative category in some way/shape/form

This whole season feels more like a bridge to season 4. Kinda like a season full of fillers.

The ending hurts me I'm several ways, but objectively it is a haunting image and it really invokes so much on it's own w/o context backing it. W/ it tho, even more mindblowing and heartbreaking

Thank you so much for pronouncing Kolkata properly

I'm always blown away by character designs ur doing great sweety

The angel has the juiciest ass

Where the fuck is Cezar?

Aight I think that's all for now. If you got issues then come to me about it, not the other mods. But I'll let u know I will not tolerate racist shit (which I've gotten on IG already). I really needed to dump these feelings out. I stan Sumi & Takka, I love them and I'll carry all that on my own if I have to.

- Sincerely Mod Wall Chicken

[shiroekoyuki]

☕️ Miwa 🤗💛

*Breathes in*

b O I

Where do I begin

Let's get the obvious out of the way. I think he's an underrated sweetheart who's clearly best boi.

He's always watching. Always watching his friends get stronger together. Always making sure his friends are okay, and always seeing if there's anyone who needs help or some company. He's also Kai's translator. Kai is a kind and caring person, who hides them all behind a stoic and fierce front. Miwa knows it, and he loves (be it romantically or not) and supports him. Miwa is the bestest friend anyone can ever hope to have. He'll go above and beyond for you. He'd sacrifice himself for you. He will do all that he can to prevent a friend from going into the bad side, and if he failed, he'd join them to make them feel less alone. He's kind, loyal, cheerful, funny, energetic, selfless, helpful, caring, understanding, super protective (especially over Kai), and he deserves to have a friend like himself. I have no idea how he doesn't have anyone to date him yet. Like, sure, he simps over pretty girls, but everyone has flaws. He's not completely flawless, and that's fine. Heck, so what if he simps over pretty girls and tries to hit on them? He tried to hit on Asaka in the reboot, but the second he realised she was from Team Asteroids, the team Miwa is trying to protect Kai from, his attitude towards her did a whole 180. So it's not like he blindly goes for anyone who's pretty. He is a strong player, and just because he doesn't enter tournaments doesn't mean you should underestimate him. He can and will destroy you with a cheeky and proud grin.

He is seriously an amazing and extremely loveable character with so much potential, but he doesn't get the amount of attention he deserves. I love him the way he is, and I never want him to change. I don't expect him to be joining tournaments, or be some kind of world renowned player. I love how he's just that one amazing character who simply enjoys watching his friends get stronger and be happy for them from the sidelines. I just wish there was more screen time of him, you know? I love him so much, he deserves the whole universe and more. He's a sweetheart who loves his friends so much, but we know so little about him. The series don't tell us anything about him. Like, y'all who only watched the anime, do you guys know that Miwa canonically has an older sister? Yeah, I was surprised when I found that out too. It was never mentioned at all, only in the manga. We never even get to see her. We don't know Miwa's home situation, we know close to nothing besides his wonderful personality. I mean, yeah, we get to use our imagination to come up with tons of headcanons for him, but I still wish I could know some more canon things about him, you know? I'm glad the reboot is giving him more screen time. It's exactly what he deserves.

And Kagerou will always be Miwa's deck for me. The idea of Miwa using the same deck as Kai melts my heart. Miwa and Kai has such a deep bond, and both of them used the same deck. Miwa used Kagerou to try and save Kai from the Reverse, and it was such a beautiful and memorable moment. He used Kai's old clan to remind the latter why he played and loved Vanguard in the first place. Kai even said Miwa mastered Kagerou. That whole battle of Miwa Vs Reverse!Kai was one of the best and most heartfelt fights, in my opinion.

And I really can't stress enough how much of a good and loyal friend Miwa is. Reboot Miwa carried Kai miles upon miles from Card Capital to the Tatsunagi Corp, and when he knew Kai was going to do something dangerous, he would follow him (and kick down doors for him). He tried to protect Kai from Team Asteroid by battling Asaka with the VF gloves. When he met Kai after years of not meeting him, he felt guilty. All because he could see that Kai was suffering, but he didn't know why and he couldn't help. And from then on, he swore to never, ever leave Kai's side.

In Vanguard Koshien, he was ready to fight Morikawa so that Kai could have a battle against Aichi.

In Vanguard Gaiden IF, he stated that all he wanted was to protect Kai's smile. The original Miwa and the distorted Miwa were the exact same, they just wanted to protect Kai. That's why he joined SK4, and that's also why he betrayed SK4. Unlike the rest of the 4 knights, his priority was never Aichi. It has been, and always will be, Kai Toshiki. He even rushed right in front of Kai so that Ibuki would Delete him instead of Kai.

Similarly, in the OG series, this guy would go to the underground, a place full of people he's terrified of, in an attempt to protect Kai. Even after he was Reversed by Kai, his loyalty and love towards him never once faltered. Instead, he became even more loyal, supportive and protective of Kai. The only thing in his mind was to keep Kai company, help Kai reach his goal, and that whatever Kai wants, Kai gets. He'll get rid of anyone and anything in his way. The moment he realised he was going to be UnReversed, the very first thought he had was how Kai was going to be all alone again. He's literally so selfless, it's almost worrying sometimes.

In Legion Mate, besides his genuine care for Aichi, of course, he wanted to get Aichi back because he knows how big of an impact that blueberry had on Kai. He appreciates Aichi for being able to change Kai, and how he encouraged Kai to become more open. To smile more, to rely on people more, and to genuinely love Vanguard again. He probably sees it as something he wasn't able to help Kai achieve, so he wants Aichi back because he didn't want Kai to revert back into his old self.

I know I've been talking about Kai and Miwa's relationship a whole lot, (and honestly, I can still go on forever about these two, like how Miwa is still scared that Kai would suddenly leave him again one day, like he did in the past), but make no mistake. Kai isn't the only person Miwa cares for. Sure, he's Miwa's closest friend, but Miwa has other friends and he loves and cares for all of them too. He's always cheering Aichi up whenever the latter was down, he would ask to tend the shop for Misaki so that she could have a cardfight with her friends (because he could tell she wanted to, she just couldn't. He knows, because he's always watching over his friends), he worked part-time in the shop for them while they went on the Asia Circuit, and in Vanguard Zero, he planned a whole hot spring training camp for them, and even chaperoned it in Shin's place. When Jun felt out of place in Card Capital, Miwa told him that he fit in just fine. Jun, someone who held him hostage to lure Kai to the underground. He was nice to Jun and tried to make him feel comfortable. In Vanguard G, when Kamui was feeling down because Emi was so dense towards his feelings, Miwa offered to buy Kamui dinner. In Vanguard Gaiden IF, when everyone was worried about whether or not they could defeat Ibuki, he acted as their ray of sunshine, and told them that they'll definitely work something out together. He loves and cares for all of his friends. He's a whole sweetheart and a half, and I just love love love him so much.

EDIT: this post is important

Thank you so so so much for this ask!!! I love talking about Miwa!!!

[guigz1-coldwar]

'Tribute' : New chapter for "Redemption in a Spirit in a Cold War" is out !

"Tribute"

"I'm just trying to find out who I am in this world and I know that you & my friends are behind me to help....as always !"

Chapter Summary : After learning from Woods of their new lead in Laos, Yirina & Park are on their way to get there but before....something needs to be made.....

To read it on AO3, click here !

Words : +3100

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Well, I can say that our moment to have longer peace wasn't going to be fullfilled because of Woods's call to Park, they have found an lead for saving Adler and it's in the South-East Asia...in Laos where an man named 'Naga', an warlord has Adler but that was the only things that Woods told to Park, giving to her, of course, the location of an CIA safehouse that we will have to join him and his team, getting us finally back on the race to have Adler back with us....if only we weren't forced to do that...if only....

But, instead of directly pack up our things and go to the airport to have an private plane for us that will bring us to Vientane, we decided to stay for the day in Century House, preferring to take the plane for the next morning. We spent time with Zasha, not wanting to fully let them alone in here and it allowed me to meet the team they were going to work with, making myself some nice people to chat but not talking about myself to be honest. These people were really great to talk with, I know that Zasha will get along very well with them, I can be sure of it !

After that day, we returned back to the same hotel to spend the last night in London, giving me some time to write in my diary as it was an long time since I didn't write on it and in the early morning, it was time for us to get going, taking our own equipments and then, going to the airport to catch an plane to fly away from London to Laos but that wasn't going to be an direct fly to it because of the distance between the british capital and the laotian one and I wasn't catching up where the plane were going to stop as I decide to take another nap in the plane, just wanting to have some calm.....

"Why are we here, exactly ?" This was the voice of Zasha themselves adressing to me as where we were dressed in Perseus uniform in the middle of the jungle, in an sort of little military camp set up by the Perseus collective, seeing the flag of the group in our tent.

"Perseus said that he managed to have an contact with someone." I replied, looking myself through an mirror, checking up my face & hair at the same time...my hair as that time was very different to say. "He wanted to have me here." I added, sighing.

"We're here because he decide that he needed you ?" They demanded, sounding an bit confused, getting up from their chair to get next to me.

"Listen..." I started, removing myself from the mirror to face them. "Honestly, even me didn't want to be here, preferring to stay at the office but he said that my presence was primordial." I continued, looking around me and it was true that I was wondering why I was here. "I'm stupid to have accepted." I then sit up on an chair that was next to the mirror, getting my hands on my face. "I'm very stupid."

"Not at all, Yirina, you're not stupid !" Zasha affirmed as they start to move to stay near me.

"I can say the contrary, I brought you with me because I thought that you were going to get bored without me at the Lubyanka." I stated, my eyes focused back on them before I take an breath. "You can tell it to me : I'm stupid !"

"Yirina, I already told you, you're not like that." They reaffirmed to me as they decide to get away, going next to their bed....looks like we were sharing the same tent in that camp...."It's me that was stupid to have accepted."

"I'm sorry, Zed." I apologized to them because I was the reason they were here and I could see on their face that they weren't pleased to be here. "Don't worry, we will be away in an short time....at least, I hope so." I added, raising my shoulders.

"Yeah, let's hope so."  They breathed as they were taking in hands an little bag.

"What's this ?" I demanded, very curious about it.

"Oh, that's something that Portnova did for me before I left with you : some snacks." They replied, getting out of the bag an little cake. "You want one ?" They proposed, handing to me this particular cake.

"No, thanks, maybe on the flight back." I politely refused, shaking my head on the same time.

"You're sure ? I might be having eaten the whole bag before we could step inside an plane." They scoffed, starting to eat some snacks from the bag, looking at them with narrowed eyes.

"If I'm paying you coffee, you're letting me some ?" I proposed, sounding like someone who is corrupting someone else.

"Why not ?" They whispered as they closed the bag to put it back under their bad, still having some snacks in mouth.....

"What are you talking about ?" Another voice suddenly came in the tent, discovering Stitch himself, entering our tent like that, without preventing us at all.

"Stitch !" I exclaimed, going up from my chair to face the man, wearing his usual mask and his hood above his bald head. "Why did you storm in here without saying that you were coming ?" I questioned him, a bit angry of his non-politeness

"Because I have to do this ?" He sniffed through his mask, rolling his only eye around. "It's not because you're considered Perseus little daughter that I have to politely tell you that I'm coming !" He added to his statement, making me clench my fists.

"I'm not his daughter, Stitch, don't ever call me like that again, understand ?" I pressed him and his only reaction was to breath away from me, not even scared about me before looking at something that was on an table.

"Hmmm, fine girl to say !" He said as he was moving to an picture....of Portnova and he literally took it in hand. "Wonder if she's free for some fun !" He laughed.

"Hey, back off !" Zasha stepped in, taking the picture back from Stitch's hands and looking very angry to be real. "You don't talk about my lover like that."

"Oh, because she's your lover ?" Stitch told them, never have flinched from Zasha as they were getting Portnova's picture back in their jackets. "Even if she is, it's not an problem !" He joked, making Zasha really angry but I decided to step between the two, not wanting to have troubles here and to save Zasha from him.

"Listen, Stitch..." I started, pointing at him with my left index finger and with the other hand, keeping Zasha under control. "If you ever put your hands on Zasha or Portnova, I will personally break your arms until you plead me to end you !" I threatened him directly, meeting my deadly glare before she sigh.

"Whatever." He snorted, slowly getting away from me & Zasha. "By the way, I was here to tell you that  Perseus is awaiting for you near the helipad, Vang will arrive in a few moments." He finally told us why he was here before he could left the tent.

"What an fucking dick !" Zasha stated, giving their thoughts about Stitch and they were damn right about it. "You should have break your arms like you said."

"I know but it isn't the time for that." I whispered, seeing them calm down before I removed myself from them. "Okay, let's go meet with Perseus." I added before I move away from them to grab my jacket.

Once I did put my jacket on with Zasha awaiting for me near the tent entrance, we could finally go out of the tent, seeing some soldiers walking around and in an instant, we were on our way to join Perseus near the said helipad of the camp as Stitch told us and during the way to get to Perseus, I could see that some soldiers were looking towards us, probably astonished to see me there....because of my said nickname I gained years ago.....

Then, we arrived at the 'helipad' where Perseus, dressed in his usual uniform was awaiting for us alone, his hands in the back and looking at the sky as an american type helicopter started to slowly approach the camp, it was an helicopter dating from the Vietnam war, it seems.

"Yirina, here you are." Perseus sensed that I was arriving behind me with Zasha, peaking his head to look at me & Zasha. "You too, Zasha Smirnov." He added and Zed's eyes went wide as it was sounding like the first time that they were adressed by them with their full names.

"Perseus, who are we meeting, to be honest ?" I asked him as even me were kept in the dark about the concerned person.

"An drug warlord named Kapano Vang." He replied as the helicopter was slowly landing on the helipad, it was surely something belonging to this Vang. "I proposed that man to meet with us to discuss of an lot of things he could do for us in the future." He continued as the helicopter was finally landed, making me & Zasha discover an man with sunglasses, his face hidden by an green hood.

"You must be the mysterious Perseus ?" This man spoke up, getting out of the helicopter and approaching Perseus, me & Zasha staying behind him.

"And you, the famous warlord of the Golden Triangle, Kapano Vang." Perseus told him back, offering his hand for an shake and the two shook hands in front of us.

"It's better that you use my other name...Naga." Naga suggested to Perseus who nodded to him.

"I understand, my friend." Perseus said before he removed himself to let Naga see us for good. "This is Yirina Grigoriev, our 'Winter Soldier" and next to her, is her assistant, Zasha Smirnov." He presented and in me, I wasn't feeling great to be called by that nickname.

"Ah...some worthy allies as I heard...If you were working with the americans, your deaths would have been slow as you are facing some of my ferocious dogs, dismembering you part to part."  Naga exclaimed, wanting to put some fears in us, seeing if we were going to flench from him but me & Zasha know well of it....I'm already hating the guy, seriously !

"Very funny, my friend." Perseus scoffed around as he was getting next to Naga, making him look around the camp as me & Zasha, stayed in place, wondering of why we were here before Perseus start to slowly walk away with Naga....

"I think it's the beginning of an beautiful friendship !"

"Yirina." I could feel someone shaking me gently as I was sleeping peacefully in my seat and I was already knowing that it was Park herself that was doing as we were the only one in the plane....if we don't count the pilots...."Yirina !" She said an bit louder, prompting me to open my eyes to see her, standing up in front of me.

"Hi, Park." I whispered with my voice, sounding low as I was awakening slowly from her shaking towards me. "Why did you shake me up ? You could let me sleep an little more."

"I know but there's something." She expressed as I was passing my hands through my face to clean up my eyes that was like dried up from the sleep.

"What ? We're at destination ?" I demanded but she shook her head at me.

"No, it's something else." She replied and then, I looked outside the plane, finding out that it was stopped in an airport, thinking at first that we were really arrived.

"Where are we ?" I asked, curious that our plane was on the ground....maybe it was one of our stops until we got to Vientane.

"Uhm...we're in Tel Aviv !" She told me, making my eyes go wide as I was looking outside.

"Why are we here ?" I exclaimed, an bit surprised to be honest before she took an deep breath from me;

"We...I decide that you wanted to do something important with me." She started, joining her hands together before looking outside at the city that was in the morning to say as we left London at 5 AM. "I think that you would like to visit Lazar's grave." She added, stunning me in my seat.

"You...you want me to see Lazar ?" I breathed, feeling weird in an sudden. "I...I..." I couldn't finish as I was in an loss of words, thinking about Lazar

"After Cuba 3 years ago , his body was....recovered and brought back to his family here." She looked back at me with eyes that was filled with tears, she was moved to be here and I was soon like her too. "I think that you wanted to pay your respects to him, you know ?"

"Yes...I think I wanted to to do that !" I admitted as we were talking about Lazar before I stand up too, biting my lips. "Do you...well, did you know that we could go there ?" I questioned her.

"As Tel Aviv was on our way to Laos, I thought that it would be time for you to do this." She responded, slowly moving her hands towards mine, joining them together. "With our work that was avoiding us to do that, now is the time." She continued, looking at our both hands joined. "So, you're coming ?"

"Yes, I have to." I whispered before taking an deep breath, looking at her with good eyes.

After some few moments, we decided to leave the plane, letting our bags in it as we didn't need them at all. Park did make an call to have for us an car that was awaiting for us in the parking of the airport the plane landed. She told me that our stop was lasting for an least one hour, giving us enough time to visit Lazar's grave as the maintenance crew were filling up the plane with fuel and then, we were off the airport.

But before going to the place Lazar was resting, Park decided to go to an florist to get some flowers and she did go alone in that shop in the middle of the city, letting me alone in the car for an few minutes with people around before she came back with some flowers that she gave to me and then, we were finally going to the cemetery Lazar is....I think that I would have to prepare myself to face that grave....

"You're ready ?" Park asked me before we could step out of the car after we arrived at the place and multiples deep breaths from me, holding the flowers in my hands.

"I am." I replied in an very low voice, nodding at the same time in case she didn't hear me saying it before we could go out of the car, nervous for me. "I was thinking : what are these kinds of flowers ?" I demanded.

"Well, these are orange roses." She responded, looking at the bouquet of flowers I was holding. "These....were Lazar's favorite one."

"Really ?" I breathed as we start walking inside the cemetery, following Park.

"Even if he was an fighter, Lazar liked these flowers in particular, it kinda representing him to be honest." She stated, taking an quick look at me. "Filled with desire...enthusiasm...everything that Lazar was dreaming of."

"I didn't know that he was into that." I said, astonished about Park's knowledge about flowers but also learning that Lazar was into flowers. "You're right about him, he was the best." I exclaimed, sure of my words and she nodded.

"Surely the best, I'm sure that an lot of flowers are representing him." She repeated as we were engaging ourselves in an alley and soon arriving into an dead-end until we arrived in front of his grave...Lazar's grave, it was so strange to seeing it, making some tears to fall from my eyes. I could see his full name : Eleazar Azoulay and his date of birth, October 25 1948...and his date of death...March 13 1981. "Hi, Lazar." Park waved at the grave slowly.

"Hey, Laz'." I did the same thing as her with my free hand in an low voice.

"I...well, Yirina came to see you, we didn't have time but here we are." Park started like if she was talking to Lazar himself through the grave and for me, it was normal. "Lazar, I....I'm sorry, you were an good man." She added, starting to be filled with tears before she looked back at me. "You might want to have an little talk, you know." She proposed as I was also filled with tears like her.

"Yes...maybe." I expressed, getting my free hand on her shoulder, trying to recomfort her as she was looking back at the grave.

"I...I will be just an few meters away..." Park told me before she start to slowly walk away and like she said, stopped herself at a few meters from me, she wanted me to have an moment with Lazar, so I faced his grave slowly, holding the bouquet of flowers.

"Laz..." I began before I decide to sit on the ground, crossing my legs and looking at the grave, with moved eyes. "I wish...I wish things were differents, an lot of things." I exclaimed, sounding sure of my words. "I wanted you to be there with you but...." I then stopped myself, trying to not think of that day. "I'm trying to say to myself that it wasn't my fault but there's always something that's saying that it's mine." I added before I looked at flowers, seeing the orange color of them, astonishing.

"You & Park, you...you were the only one who believed in me for real, you know ?" I affirmed after taking an few seconds to clean up my tears but talking again was making them fall for the second time. "For me, you were my brother and even if we knew each other for an few weeks, you did have an impact on me." I admitted, remembering the talks I had with him : always kind, generous, full of desire and enthusiasm like these flowers. "You were always there for supporting me." I looked at those flowers with great eyes.

"I'm...you know, I'm fullfilling the promise you asked...to take care of Park and to stay with her, I just want to make you know that I'm doing this." I spoke, peaking my head to see Park looking at me, proudly but also moved at the same time. "You were the best man I have met, Lazar, the very best." I added before I finally decided to put the bouquet of flowers in front of his grave. "I love you, brother....." I started as I was slowly getting up from the ground, still looking at the flowers.....

"And I'm missing you so much....rest in peace, Lazar."

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

Do you have any hope for concerts this year?

I assume you’re asking about concerts from Harry and Louis’ tours, because gigs are all go here - NZ artists are playing bars, clubs, arenas and stadiums, and this is not the only place where that’s happening.

And that’s not just a weird boast - the uneven nature of the world situation will have a significant impact.  I think there are a series of questions, some of which I have guesses for and others I don’t.

1. Will the touring party be vaccinated, by the currently scheduled dates? Concerts are very high risk workplaces - for all sorts of reasons (insurance, the risks of being required to self-isolate, and then also basic ethics and health and safety) I don’t think tours of any scale will go ahead until the touring party can be vaccinated).

I don’t know whether either Harry or Louis’ tour will be able to be fully vaccinated by their currently scheduled dates.  In the UK, all adults are supposed to have been offered a first shot by 1 July, but there’s a three month wait for the second shot.  To be fully innoculated (second shot plus two weeks) by August, when Harry’s US leg and Louis Europe leg start (more on Louis earlier legs in a bit) then people need their vaccination by the end of this month.  That seems optimistic to me.

It would obviously be possible in the US, where the gaps between vaccines are less.  Harry might think about crewing out of the US, and if necessary flying out the key members of his team out early and getting them vaccinated in the US.  But this would be a pretty awful thing to do for anyone who was going to work his tour and have been unemployed ever since.

2. Can they travel there and back again?  At the moment most people in the UK and Europe can’t fly to the US directly, they need to spend two weeks in a third country first. This is a problem for a US tour, because people’s time is very expensive.  The UK is changing its policies about where you can come back from constantly, and that’s a worry for a tour, because it’s a potential risk. Again Harry would have the option of just bringing people he’s prepared to take to a third country for two weeks (and some key members of his touring party are already in the US).  I think this rules out Louis’ Australia dates, because I don’t think it’ll be worth it to self-isolate for two weeks assuming he could get a visa (and it doesn’t work with the touring schedule).  Basically in order for tour to happen people will have to be able to reliably fly into and out of places, without having to go into isolation.

3. Are venues open?  This is rather obvious - but it’s important to understand that it won’t be enough for them to be open - they’ll need to be reliably open.  While open can just mean a government with contempt for human life, reliably open needs either zero covid or a successful vaccination programme. The zero COVID countries are generally that way because they won’t let people in.  And with other places it’s mostly where has a half successful vaccine programme and quite a lot of contempt for human life.  My guess is that UK, US and Dubai will all have open venues by the end of the year.  The UK is certainly acting like everything will be possible by mid-summer (although more of why that might not be enough in 5).

4.  Are things clear enough so that they know they can get insurance by the time they have to start spending money? Risk and timing are pretty key to everything.  It won’t be enough for people in Europe to be able to go to the US, it’ll have to be announced long enough advance that planning can happen.  I suspect insurance to tour Latin America (which is already a challenge) will not be possible - there’s very little chance of that leg happening. In the UK and US, low covid numbers over summer and then a surge in Autumn is a risk that it’ll be very difficult to rule out until it doesn’t happen.  What do insurers make of that?

5. How much of a tour has to happen to be cost effective? The US is pretty attractive as a touring possibility (if they can get in), because it doesn’t have internal borders, and it does have a pretty successful vaccination programme.  Would Harry go ahead with the US leg of the tour, if other parts of the tour didn’t seem possible? What if that meant cancelling the Canadian dates? What if gigs were possible in the UK, but not in mainland Europe? Would that be economically possible? 

I don’t have the answer to those questions.  My guess is touring the US as the only leg of your tour that takes place this year, and postponing everything else to 2022 might just work economically, but I’m not sure. I don’t think you tour Asia-Pacific until you can do everything that you’re not canceling (and that won’t be until 2022). I don’t think Louis will be able to do all of his Europe tour while scheduled, so the question will be whether it’ll be economically feasible to just do select dates.

6. If something is legal does that mean it’s going to happen? If venues are open, but only two thirds of people are vaccinated, and your audience is very much more likely not to be vaccinated - what are the implications of touring? Will people come? What will the economic pressures be? Does anyone involved care about the ethics of that?

7. How desperate are those involved? I suspect 1D members will be less desperate than other artists, but the more desperate people are the more things will tend to break towards things happening than things not happening when there’s a line call.

I think it’s possible that there’ll be gigs this year, it’s even possible that that won’t be a terrible idea, but there are lots of variables and the economics of it all are very complicated and for people just sitting on the sidelines, there are a lot of unknowns.

[cutiepisenpai]

Gifted Part 3

Spencer Reid x F!Reader

Warnings: Fluff, minor porn reference, mentions of unsubs crimes nothing graphic, and one supernatural reference

The next Monday at work it was as if nothing had happened at least for Y/N. When she walked in at the same time as always, a chipper smile telling everyone good morning. She runs into Spencer in the kitchenette as he is making his morning coffee with too much sugar. “You know the consumption of excess sugar doesn’t actually provide you with more energy; it's a common misconception. If you ate more actual solid foods you would have energy. Eating an apple and a handful of almonds would garner better results.” Y/N says to Spencer referring to the ungodly amount of sugar he is pouring into his coffee. Spencer as most of his coworkers have come to know is not much of a morning person and rarely coherent without coffee in his system. “Is that why you’re so chipper in the morning. Because you eat real food?” He says groggily as he continues to pour sugar into his coffee. “No, I actually alternate between boxing and yoga to start my morning. And if you don't stop pouring sugar that will be molasses before you know it.” Spencer stops and looks down at how much sugar he had actually poured into his mug. It was too much but what the hell he would drink it anyway. “So, how was the rest of your weekend?” He asks. “It was boring, you know grocery shopping, picking up dry cleaning, repacking my go bag, that kind of stuff. What about you?” What he didn’t want to tell her is that he spent the entire next day trying to figure out why she reacted the way she did, so he lied. “Oh just reading a new book.” “Oh really, what book?” She asked. He did not think that through and he hadn’t read anything new so he lied again. He thought of a book he heard JJ and Prentiss talking about, “Twilight, have you heard of it?” “You, read twilight?” She asks, with a knowing smirk on her face. “Yes, what I can’t read something that isn’t science or classic literature?” He asks defensively. “Oh I know I just didn’t take you for the tragic vampire romance kind of reader but to each their own. Sooo, what did you think about it?” Thankfully at that moment Hotch came to get them, they had a new case. 

Their new case is taking them to Shreveport, Louisiana where a body had been found floating in a lake and  upon further inspection after dragging the lake they found a dozen more bodies. When they land Hotch sends Morgan, Prentiss and Rossi to the lake, Y/N and Spencer to the M.E. and He and JJ go to meet the local police. Unfortunately for Spencer being stuck in the SUV with Y/N while driving to the M.E. 's office gave her time to interrogate him on his Twilight knowledge. “So what did you think of the book? Are you going to read the others?” Others?? Spencer thinks to himself how many of these are there. “It was good but I don’t think I will read the others.” He says hoping his mediocre response will suffice. It does not. “Care to elaborate? I have seen you dissect a blog post more in depth than that.” “No I wouldn't, we should be focusing on the case, not some book.”He says in a huff. “Wow okay no need to get defensive what insights do you have on the case?” She is met with silence, he didn’t have anything to say about the case; he just wanted to stop talking about the book he didn’t read. But she didn’t push him any further okay with keeping quiet for the rest of the ride. The M.E. informs that because of the deterioration of the bodies in the water the cause of death at this time is undetermined. “Is there anything you can tell us about the remains?” Spencer asks. “All of the victims are men and it appears they were all in their mid 30’s at the time of death and the earliest body shows to be about fifteen years old.” The M.E. says. “Well at least we know the unsub’s victimology. Is there any chance we will be getting any of these men I.D.’d soon?” Y/N says. “We’re working on dental records but that’s all we have to go off of.” With this information Spencer and Y/N head to the police station to meet up with the team. Getting out of the SUV when they arrive at the station, “Ugh I detest coming to the south, it’s so gross and muggy and humid my clothes are sticking to my skin. Why does 100% humidity even exist? It should just be called wet without rainfall.” Y/N says, pulling off her blazer and pulling her damp hair into a bun on her head.  “100% humidity occurs when the dew point temperature is equal to the temperature outside.” Spencer says with a smug smile. He is met with a glare, “I understand the science behind it but that does not make it better. And how are you wearing like what four layers of clothing and have no problem with it?” She rants. “This is only three layers.” “You have on a sweater vest and a cardigan seriously how are you not dying?” He just shrugs.

Two days later and the team was having trouble with the case the ac in the precinct they were in wasn’t working and the increasing heat was making everyone agitated. Spencer was currently on a call with the M.E. regarding the official cause of death while everyone else sat around the table complaining about the heat. “So the M.E. says that the official cause of death is belladonna.” Spencer informs the team. “The porn star?” Y/N and Prentiss ask in unison. Spencer gives them a questioning look, “the poison.” “Oh” they say in unison again. “Belladonna is native to Europe, Northern Africa and Western Asia and it's not something you can bring through customs so how did they get it?” Y/N asks “They could have bought it on some kind of black market and then planted it here there is a lot of land and most people probably wouldn’t question it.” JJ adds in. This was the only lead they had so far so they had Garcia looking into it. With no other leads and nothing else to do for the time being Hotch sent everyone to their hotel rooms to rest for the night so they could start back fresh in the morning. 

The team ends up not solving the case, the unsub was laying low after their disposal site was revealed. “Man this sucks.” Morgan grunts out. The team is on the jet heading back to Quantico all feeling a bit defeated by this case. “I know but if this guy ever resurfaces  we’ll be back and we’ll get him then.” Rossi says. With that everyone relaxes for the most part knowing that every case won’t go their way. Y/N and Spencer are sitting side by side reading as everyone else has fallen asleep. “So, is that book better or worse than Twilight?” He really thought she had let it go seeing as though she hadn’t brought it up in the last couple of days. “It’s better more of my style.” “It doesn’t hurt to try something new. So what was your favorite part?” She really wasn’t letting this go, he wonders if she knows he is lying. She hasn’t been a profiler for too long; she might just be that curious. “How did you know I was lying?” He finally decides to just tell the truth. “From the moment you said Twilight. If you didn’t want to tell me about your weekend that’s okay I just didn’t understand why you felt the need to lie.” Y/N says turning back to her book. The rest of the flight is quiet, both of them joining the rest of the team and falling asleep. When the team arrives they don’t have any paperwork so they can just head home. “Did you drive today?” Y/N asks Spencer knowing he took the train sometimes. “No but don’t worry I can get home.” “I can give you a ride, I’m heading in that direction.” He considered declining but he didn’t want to go through the trouble of calling a cab so he accepts. The car ride was filled with unbearable silence. “I didn’t want you to know I was bothered by how you reacted when I hugged you.” Spencer says breaking the silence. “What?” “When I walked you home from the museum I hugged you and you tensed. Did that bother you?” Spencer says, his voice getting lower with each word. “Oh that wasn’t a you thing, I don’t usually hug people well except Garcia and that is not by choice every time she hugs me she tells me to relax and that I will get used to it.” Y/N says with a laugh. “Sorry if I upset you.” “Why don’t you hug people?” “I don’t have a real reason, it just feels weird and rather unnecessary.” “Well I’m glad you weren’t bothered by me hugging you.” Tension is gone now they have gotten into an intense conversation about facts on hugging. Pulling up to Spencer’s apartment they are ready to say their goodbye but they stay in the car talking, “So do you have plans for your days off?” Spencer asks. “Nothing.” “Would you like to go out somewhere together?” “Like a date?” Spencer has wanted that since they met on the elevator. “Yes as a date?” “Okay call me to let me know the details.” Y/N says with a smile before Spencer exits the car filled with joy. 

[s-o-m-h]

If you’ve recently watched the new Hulu show Love, Victor then you know it has songs from many artists playing throughout the first season. My favorite of them all though is Greyson Chance.

If you’re a fan of his work then you know who he is, but for those of you who don’t I’ll give you a backstory. In 2010 a video of him singing Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi was posted to YouTube and after it went viral it had caught the eye of Ellen DeGeneres.

She invited him onto her show immediately and after an interview and a call from Gaga herself, she signed him to her new label eleveneleven.

From there he went on to release an album, tour all over Asia and with Miranda Cosgrove and Cody Simpson, guest star on Raising Hope and film a music video with Ariana Grande.

He was like a little Elton John on the piano and girls LOVED him. Everything about him was different from all the other teen heartthrobs out there at the time such as Justin Bieber or even his tour buddy Cody and I was literally mesmerized whenever I heard him sing.

Unfortunately though, while millions of girls thought he was like a god, it wasn’t enough and eventually his label decided to drop him. Then his whole team started dropping like flies. I spent years wondering why he promised music but never released it or why he hadn’t been putting anything out. He never told us completely what happened and it was years before he did. Of course he put out a few singles, an EP and provided vocals for producers in between, but they were so spread apart and it almost felt like there was something holding him back.

In 2016 he decided to attend the University of Tulsa for a major in history and was pretty determined to never come back to music again.

In 2017 he came out as gay on his Instagram and while I can still hear my 12yr old self screaming because her “future husband” is unavailable, I’ve never been more proud.

In 2018 he left college, came back to music and released one of my favorite albums of all time. It was then that he really started to open up to us and talk about everything he’s been through since his cover of Paparazzi and while I could go into the details of everything, you’re better off watching any interview from the last two years because he talks about it a lot in them.

I’ve always admired the person Greyson is since I was a young teen, especially since he always stood up for what he believed in, but these last few years have really made me glad I stuck around so long. He’s been through hell and back and came out stronger than ever. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I really hope people who hear his newest song Athlete decide to check out more of his work because he truly deserves it and you won’t regret doing so.

[slapshot-to-the-heart]

Flatbush & Atlantic: part ix

part i part ii part iii part iv part v part vi part vii part viii

And here we’ve got part ix! This will be the second-to-last part of the series, I’ve got some thoughts also running around for a possible epilogue if that’s something anyone would be interested in reading. As always, there’s literally nothing writers love more than hearing from you all, so don’t be afraid to come and tell me what you think - my inbox is open, comment on the post, reblog with your thoughts!

part ix

April 27 (tues)

Mat’s mind was racing. If he was honest, he hadn’t been able to concentrate worth a damn since Cass had dropped the news about her job offer. Hong Kong? He knew she was brilliant, knew that her skills could and should take her anywhere in the world she wanted to go; the thought that she might leave New York, leave him, was still terrifying. Becoming more worried by the minute, he pulled out his phone, dialing the first person he could think of that might be able to help. 

Tito answered on the first ring. “Hello?”

“Hey, Tito. What’s up?” Mat asked nervously. 

“What’s wrong, Mat?” He immediately asked. Mat cursed under his breath; even over the phone, Beau was always able to read him like a book. 

Mat grimaced. “That obvious, huh?”

“Mat, we see each other pretty much every day. Not to be a jerk or something, but you don’t really call me unless something’s wrong. What is it? Did you and Cass have a fight?” Mat could imagine him crossing his arms on the other end. 

“Not exactly,” he said, scratching his head as he wandered aimlessly around the park. “She got this job offer, and it sounds like a really exciting opportunity, but…” He trailed off. 

“But?”

“It’s all the way in Asia. It’s in Hong Kong.” 

Tito sucked in a breath. “Oh, wow. That’s a big one. Big move. Has she said if she’s going to take it?”

“Not really, she hasn’t decided.” Mat shook his head, not realizing Tito wouldn’t be able to see. “We talked through it a little, they’re offering a really good starting salary and she likes the company values, but it’s such a huge jump that she’s not ready to make the call yet.” 

“Did you talk about what it would mean for you as a couple?”

“A little, though not as much as we probably should have,” Mat admitted. “Neither of us would want to break it off just because it would be long distance, but logistically it would just be a nightmare. It’s something like a 15 hour flight from New York, so it’s not like either of us would ever be able to make that more than once or twice a year. Did you know that it’s a twelve hour time difference from here?”

“No,” Tito said, “and it’s obviously not like I know exactly what you’re going through. Paige is a kindergarten teacher, so it’s not exactly like her job would suddenly pick up and move to another country. But it’s obviously a different story with me.”

As distracted as he was, Mat felt compelled to respond. “You know they’re going to resign you, right? It would be a terrible move for them if they didn’t.”

“Yeah, I mean that’s what I’ve figured,” Beau responded. “And my agent told me to expect negotiations to start in the next month or so, but still. I could be sent to Winnipeg or Phoenix or Vancouver pretty much without notice, and I wouldn’t want to ask her to just pick up her whole life and follow me. So, I get the feeling.” He paused for a moment. “How do you feel about it?”

“Mixed feelings,” Mat answered honestly. “I’d never want to hold her back from anything, that’s not the kind of person I am and it’d be a dick move regardless. She’s her own person and deserves to be able to make her own decisions. And I would never want her to grow to resent me if she decided to stay for my sake. That would almost be worse. I just..I really love her, Tito, and I would hate for us to never be able to see eachother because of her job. Or worse, for this to mean the end of us because the distance was too hard to deal with.”

It took Tito a minute to respond. “I know you love her, Mat. It’s pretty obvious. You look at her like she hung the moon. But if they all say that things will work out if you love each other and talk it through, then what are you so worried about?”

Mat took a deep breath before answering, trying to gather his thoughts as best he could. When he spoke, his voice wavered. “Because I’ve never been this gone for a girl, Tito. What Cass and I have...I don’t even know how to describe it. I’d stop the Earth turning if it made her happy. It’s just...she’s it for me. I’m done looking. And the idea that I could be 13,000 kilometers away from her isn’t even something I had considered. I wouldn’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.”

“Wow. That’s...that’s big, Mat. You serious?”

“As a heart attack,” he replied. 

“When do they need to hear back by?” Tito asked.

Mat looked down at his watch, checking the time. “Not for a few weeks. She’s got some time to decide, which is almost worst.”

Tito hummed sympathetically. “Just talk it through. I can’t pretend like I know what’s going to happen, but I have faith in you. It’s going to work out.”

“I hope so.”

 May 13 (thurs)

 It was nine days before Cass graduated, and if she was being honest, her time may have objectively been better spent studying for her finals, the first of which was Monday. But this was Mat, and this was the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and she supposed that her studies could wait for a night while she spent her evening at Barclays. It was Game 5 of the Eastern Conference final, and there was no way she was going to miss her team’s chance at the Wales trophy. The tone in the arena was tense from the moment she stepped in; ever the optimist, Cass liked the Islanders’ chances, but the fact remained that they were down 3-1 in the series after a 4-0 rout by the Lightning in Game 4. The series had started off with forward momentum after winning the first game at home, but the three-game losing streak had done little for the fans’ hopes and even less for the team’s morale. 

The only bright spot, if she could call it that, was Mat’s return to the ice. He knew as well as anything that the recovery time was for his own good, but he wasn’t made to be cooped up in his apartment for nearly two weeks straight, save only doctor’s appointments and short trips to the complex gym. Per his usual dramatic fashion, Mat had been cleared in time for Game 7 of the second round, returning to raucous cheers and scoring two goals in the eventual 4-2 win over the Capitals. She had caught up enough on her work to be able to make the game, and it was one of the great joys of her life to be up in a box surrounded by her friends when the love of her life scored the goal that sent the Islanders to the conference finals for the first time in nearly thirty years. 

That kind of a dramatic win had made the losing streak that much harder. Game sevens are always exciting, especially with someone coming back off of injured reserve. While the win hadn’t made the team cocky by any means, the confidence had carried over into something more closely resembling complacency. They won Game 7, they won the first of the next series, so some of the team — mostly the younger players who hadn’t yet cut their teeth in the league — had made the mistake of assuming that the rest of the round would be smooth sailing. They should have known better, Cass thought ruefully as the Lightning scored two minutes before the first intermission to even the score at 1-1. Why couldn’t this be the round before, filled with confidence and coordination and laser-focused passing on every line? Why couldn’t it have been the celebration after? 

---

May 3 (tues)

 Winning a game sometimes called for going out. Winning a series almost definitely called for going out. And winning a series in Game 7 that sent your team to the conference finals for the first time in recent memory called for going out, and going out hard. As much as Cass would have loved to get as hammered as the rest of the group, especially considering the stress she was under with finals and graduation and her job offer piling up, they didn’t want a repeat of the afterparty from the All-Star Game, and Cass still had school the next day. So, she had committed to limiting herself to three drinks. “I want to be tipsy, not shitfaced,” she had explained to Paige on the drive over. Tito had driven his car over, Paige volunteering to DD so the boys could let loose and everyone could let off some much-needed steam. 

Someone had already opened up a tab for everyone by the time their car had gotten there, and it wasn’t ten minutes before they had claimed a few couches in the corner and Cass had a caipirinha in her hand. She was a little worried that Mat’s tolerance had tanked in the past few weeks; he hadn’t really drank since before the concussion and it was their first time at a bar in a few weeks regardless. Mat noticed her nervous glances out of the corner of his eye. “I’m fine,” he reassured her. “I specifically asked the doctors if I was good to drink at my last appointment and they said I was in the clear.”

Cass giggled, sipping her drink. “You asked your doctors if you could drink alcohol?”

“What can I say?” Mat shrugged. “I wanted to go out and get lit with friends, can you blame me?”

Cass’ giggles had evolved into full-on belly laughs. “Lit? What are you, sixteen?”

Mat’s cheeks reddened in what was probably a combination of alcohol and embarrassment. “My cousin said it once.”

Cass headed back over to the bar a few minutes later for another drink, leaving the boys to talk amongst themselves with the occasional interruption from an excited fan. On a high from the win, the team were more than happy to take photos and have quick chats with anyone who stopped them, and thankfully weren’t mobbed by the crowd inside the bar. For the most part, Cass and her relationship with Mat had been able to fly under the radar — well, as much as she could being Mat Barzal’s other half. Her Instagram hadn’t been private since college, and while a fair few fans and fanpages followed her, it had all remained mercifully low-key. Waiting at the bar, she resigned herself to scroll through Twitter for a few minutes, knowing it would be a little while before the bartender got to her. 

“Are you Cassidy Shaw?” Cass’ head turned slowly towards her right, where a short blonde girl looked at her with a shocked expression. 

“Cabrera Shaw, but yes?” She answered slowly. 

“Sorry!” The girl apologized, “I didn’t mean to be weird or anything. I follow you on Instagram, it’s just so weird to finally see you in person.” Cass gave a nervous laugh. She had fans? On Instagram? Who were excited if they met her in real life? 

“One Southside and whatever your favorite IPA on tap is, please,” Cass said to the bartender who had just leaned over the counter to get her order. “Thank you? You’re welcome?” Cass smiled awkwardly.

“I just wanted to say that I think it’s super cool how you’re not a typical WAG or anything. My name’s Sierra, I’m a junior at St. John’s. I’m applying for law school next year. It’s just, like, awesome to see a woman being successful in her own right apart from her partner, especially when they’re in such a visible position and it’s not what’s expected of them. I’m sorry — I’m rambling, aren’t I?” 

Cass laughed, a genuine one this time. “No, you’re totally good. Don’t worry. That’s really sweet of you to say, thanks a lot!” She sipped the Southside the bartender had just handed her, sliding Mat’s beer over. “Yeah, I have so much respect for the other women who choose to do more philanthropic work or be stay-at-home moms, but that’s not what I feel pulled to. Right now, at least.” 

“Right, totally,” Julia said, grabbing what looked like a rum and coke from the other bartender. “Anyways, I should let you get back to the celebration. Tell the team congratulations, it was a great game to watch!” 

Cass picked up the other glass, nodding. “I will. Thank you for your kind words, that was sweet of you to say.”

“Anytime!” Julia chirped happily. 

Cass walked carefully back over to the group, keeping an eye on the drinks. She handed Mat’s beer to him. He looked up curiously, taking a sip. “Something hold you up at the bar?”

She shook her head, then nodded, then shook it again. “Kind of? I think I just had my first fan encounter.”

He laughed, leaning over to plant a kiss on her cheek. “Comes with the territory, babe.”

---

The game was scoreless through the second period, which didn’t help the tension in the stadium or Cass’ blood pressure. She and Paige had decided to get actual seats for the game, which Mat and Tito were more than happy to arrange. The Islanders were doing well through the first half of the third period, other than a little bit of messy passing the lines were good. But good wasn’t good enough sometimes, good wasn’t close enough to score and give them the lead. Cass’ heart sank as soon as one of the defensemen, she wasn’t sure who, made a turnover in the neutral zone to give the Lightning the puck. Kucherov picked it off, skating past the defenders and around the goal while the rest of the line nearly tripped over themselves trying to skate back in time. 

She was on the edge of her seat as he wrapped around the goal, silently praying that Varlamov would somehow be able to get a piece of the puck with his blocker or that it would have one of those one-in-a-million deflections off of the post. You could hear a pin drop in the stadium as everyone waited for the shot; tall of the sudden, time seemed to move like molasses. And then the puck went in, the red light went on, and the scattered sections of blue-and-white clad Lightning fans threw their arms up in celebration. 

Cass allowed herself exactly ten seconds to hold her head in her hands. There was still seven minutes, thirty nine seconds left. There was still time. Then there was five minutes, forty-two seconds left, and Maroon got two minutes for tripping, and that was their chance. That was supposed to be their chance. But then the penalty came and went, and it was three minutes left. Two minutes left. They pulled Varlamov at one minutes fifty-eight seconds left, and then it was the last shift. Forty-nine seconds left, and it was time for a Hail Mary. Out of habit, Cass’s lips began moving in the prayer. Hail Mary, full of grace...It was a holdover from her lacrosse days, when they were down in the last quarter with seemingly no hope in sight. It didn’t always work, but it sometimes did. It didn’t work that night. It didn’t work because the clock ticked down to zero, the score was still 2-1, and the Islanders had lost. They were out of the playoffs. Fans began shuffling out of the rink, shoulders slumped and heads down, as Cass bit her lip and tried not to cry. The team had worked so hard for this. God, they had worked so hard. And if she was taking it this badly, if it was affecting her this much, then she couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was like for the guys on the team. 

Paige turned to her after a few minutes, when there were only a handful of people still left in their seats and the Zambonis had come out to resurface the ice one last time. “We should probably get down there, do you think?” She asked softly. Cass nodded. She was referring to the tunnel, outside the locker room where everyone usually got to greet their partners with kisses and hugs and words of congratulations, but where the mood would be profoundly different on that night. Cass grabbed her bag and straightened out her jersey, squeezing Paige’s hand. Neither of them really knew what the environment was going to be like after such a devastating knockout; Paige had started dating Anthony the summer before, and Cass obviously had even less experience. They had dealt with losses, they had dealt with disappointments and losing streaks and points droughts, but this was something new entirely.

They rode the elevator in silence before walking down the corridors to the room, where the rest of the WAGs and other family had congregated. Kerry rubbed her shoulder sympathetically as Lauren walked over. “We in the Islanders family have a lot of experience with getting knocked out of the playoffs,” she said with a weak smile, trying to crack a joke, “so here is how it usually goes. The guys should be coming out in a few, it takes longer than usual because the media typically has some end-of-the-season wrapup questions and Trotz and Anders will probably make speeches or say something. Some others might too.” The two women nodded. “Don’t treat it like just another loss, but it’s also no good to hover too much. It’s obviously a real disappointment, so it usually takes a week or so before most of them bounce back to being their normal selves. They know what coping mechanisms work best for them. Most will hit the gym more, read or cook if they’re into that, something to get their mind off of it. Obviously they’re still players and still want to know how they can get better, so they might want to go over tapes of the games and make notes of where they went wrong. That’s fine, but don’t let them beat themselves up about it too much. This was a hard series, and Mat especially,” she gestured towards Cass, “tends to be more than a little bit of a perfectionist.”

“I’ve noticed,” Cass said. 

“One last thing,” she continued. “Let them process, let them cope, but a loss not an excuse for them to treat you any worse, any less kindly. Be understanding, of course. But don’t take any crap from them, regardless of the circumstance.”

“Thank you,” Paige said gratefully. Cass echoed her sentiment. The next ten minutes were filled with checking emails and making half-hearted conversation before the team started to trail out of the room. Embracing their partners and families, most couples exchanged no more than a few words before turning down the hall that led to the players’ parking lot. Paige left with a squeeze to her shoulder and a promise to get coffee the next week before grabbing Tito’s hand and guiding him towards the cars. 

Unsurprisingly, Mat followed right behind. He hadn’t combed his hair after his shower, the top button of his dress shirt was undone and only haphazardly tucked into his pants. Mat had been on the shift when Kucherov scored, and if there was anything she knew about her boyfriend, it was that he’d take it personally. He dropped his bag on the ground as she embraced him, and the thud against the concrete floor felt as if it could echo all the way across the Long Island Sound. 

“I’m so proud of you, Mat. So, so proud. I know this didn’t end how you wanted it to, but you worked so fucking hard to get here, and that’s what I see. That’s all I see,” she whispered. 

Mat wasn’t crying, but his breathing was labored nonetheless. “I just feel...I feel like I let everyone down. I wasn’t supposed to be that far up on the ice, and if I hadn’t, maybe I would have gotten back in time to steal the puck, or check him or something, or…” He trailed off. 

Cass sighed. “I know, chou, I know how you feel. But just try to remember that this is a team sport. You win with the boys, you lose with the boys. Do you get mad at Tito when he makes a bad play? Or Jordan, or Anders?” Mat shook his head. “It’s the same way with you. They don’t stop being proud of you or think you’re any less of an incredible player because you made a bad decision. Bad decisions get made all the time, and it doesn’t have to reflect on the person who made them. It’s a hard game, love, but you did your best and that’s all anyone ever has a right to ask of you.” 

Mat’s thumb rubbed against the small of her back. “I know I’ll be fine, eventually. I mean, we’ve all dealt with this before. It just seems different this time, because we were so close to actually making the finals. It seems kind of silly to say since I know I’m only 23 and I know I’ve got so much time left to play, but,” he took a shaky breath, “I look at all the veterans, all the amazing players whose entire careers have gone by without ever having gotten the Cup. Lundqvist and Thornton and Marleau and all of these legends. And it sounds kind of selfish and naive, but I don’t want to be one of them.” 

They stood like that for a few more minutes, just holding each other, before either spoke again. “Do you want me to stay with you tonight?” Cass murmured to Mat as she carded her hands through his hair. She felt a tiny, almost imperceptible nod against her shoulder. Her bag had her laptop, books, and chargers. She had a whole drawer in Mat’s room by then, a combination of stray shirts that were his-turned-hers, a few pairs of leggings — they took up an entire drawer of their own back at her apartment — and balled-up socks from her one unsuccessful attempt at doing the laundry in his building. She had a spare box of tampons in his bathroom, her floral shampoo next to his 2-in-1 Old Spice. No matter how hard she pushed, Mat remained oblivious to the benefits of having separate shampoo and conditioner. 

He pulled away, reaching into his pocket and handing over his keys. “Do you mind driving?”

She shook her head. “Not at all. Whatever you need.”

The ride back home was about forty minutes, and it was almost halfway through before either of them spoke, the lull of the 80s rock channel filling in the silence. “Where’s your head at, Mat?” She asked carefully. 

He was looking out the window, distracted. “Hm?”

She repeated the question and he tensed slightly, leaning back into the passenger seat. “Just feeling kind of...confused about the whole thing. Seems like I’m being pulled in a thousand different directions one day, but then all of the sudden something like this happens and I’ve got nothing. It’s overwhelming. I know I have a life outside of hockey, I know it’s not all of who I am, but sometimes it seems hard to believe that when it seems like that’s all I’m recognized for.” Keeping one hand on the wheel, Cass reached over to cover his hand with her own. His fingers held onto hers like a lifeline. 

“You’re right, you know?” She said as they passed into the Queens-Midtown tunnel. 

“About?”

“Being so much more than people perceive you to be. I get that, it’s like that for me too sometimes. And Mat, you are so much more than ‘just a hockey player.’ You’re a good son and an amazing brother to Liana, and an awesome friend to Tito and the guys on the team and everyone back home. And,” she added, cracking a smile, “you’re a pretty good boyfriend too.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Just pretty good?”

“I didn’t want to fluff your ego too much,” Cass said. “But seriously, Mat. You’re incredible entirely on your own merit. You care so deeply for the people in your life and you love so hard, and it’s an honor and a privilege to be able to witness that firsthand.” 

Mat bent down to the center console, brushing a kiss over her hand. “How do you do it?”

Now it was her turn to question. “Do what?”

“Always know the right thing to say.”

“I don’t,” Cass admitted. “And sometimes I get it wrong. But I know I love you, and I don’t want to see you hurting if there’s anything I can do about it.” The car exited the tunnel into the dotted lights of a Manhattan evening. 

“Well,” he cleared his throat, “if there was an Oscar for pep talks, I’d have to give it to you, hands down. No offense to any of the guys on the team.”

She laughed, stopping at the light. Right on red wasn’t legal in New York City, a rule she found out the hard way two months after moving. “I’m glad it helps.”

“It does,” Mat said softly. “It means the world to me that you care enough to do it. You mean the world to me.”

Her cheeks heated. “You sure know how to flatter a girl, eh, Barzal?”

“I meant every word.”

---

May 20 (thurs)

 She was done. After three years, six semesters, dozens of classes, and hundreds of hours studying, Cass had just finished her last final of law school. Her classmates stumbled out of the lecture hall, not entirely believing that all of their tears and heartache and hard work had come to a head in such an anticlimactic fashion. Turning on her heel, she walked south. It was just before seven, and her friends had a group reservation at some ridiculously extravagant French wine bar. It was Les’ idea, who had a penchant for all things expensive and who had made the reservation months prior because “you never know, John Mayer could book the whole place up and as much as I love dollar slices, we don’t want that to be our only option for what’s supposed to be a very prestigious celebratory dinner.” Les, Fiona, and Samaira were coming, along with Daniel, another editor on the law review, and Robin, one of Cass’ friends from first-year criminal law and the president of the Women’s Law Association. She had initially been wary about inviting Mat; it wasn’t that she didn’t think he’d get along with her law school friends, but she didn’t want him to feel out of the loop. After Les had announced that he was bringing his boyfriend, Xavier, Cass had extended the invite to Mat as well. 

It was only a ten minute walk, and the hostess directed Cass to their table, where she realized that she was the last one to arrive. “Don’t worry,” Robin said, “we’ve just been interrogating your man.” 

Cass scooted in next to Mat, kissing him quickly before rolling her eyes. “I hope you haven’t been too hard on him.”

Mat smiled. “Nah, they’ve been good. But being questioned by six lawyers who all seem very adamant that I don’t deserve you —”

“You don’t,” Samaira cut in, though it was clear she was joking. 

“Was more than a little intimidating,” Mat finished, handing Cass the menu. 

“Order whatever you want, I’m paying,” Daniel said as he flicked through the wine menu. “Well, technically, my parents are.” Daniel came from money; his mom was a partner at a firm in Chicago and his dad was a law professor at the University of Chicago. “If they’re going to insist on sending me to law school and sheltering me my whole life, the least I could do is take advantage of their generosity,” Daniel said, plunking his credit card onto the table. Fifteen minutes later, the group was sharing plates of escargots, crab tartine, and roasted cauliflower; twenty minutes after that, entrées were served. Mat had recognized the waitress’ accent and was chatting to her in French in between plates. Cass sipped on her wine, a pinot noir, and took a moment to look around the room, a moment to relax. Two more days, and she graduated. Everything that she had worked so hard for was finally coming to fruition. She still had to pass the bar in July, sure, but for one night — for a few days, really — she was going to let herself finally rest in the ability of her accomplishments. 

Dessert was maple bourbon crème brûlée with Sauternes, and Mat may have had a little too much fun breaking the caramelized sugar. Cass was full of good food and conversation; after everyone was done it was after nine. Les, Daniel, and Xavier had decided to get drinks, but Robin had barely slept at all that week, Samaira was going to watch a movie at her boyfriend’s, and Cass and Mat had to wake up early to get her grandparents from the airport. Mat took her hand as they walked towards the subway station. He had parked a few blocks away and offered to drive Cass back to her apartment, but she didn’t want him to go out of his way and all things considered, taking the subway at night had become something of a routine for her. 

They walked down Manhattan Avenue, resting in the kind of comfortable silence that only came with being with someone who really gets you. Cass had decided not to take the Hong Kong job the week prior. It was just too much distance from her family and Mat, and while the job seemed interesting enough, it wasn’t the kind of position she thought she could really be happy in long-term. “Have you figured out what you’re doing yet?” Mat asked as they turned the corner. “I’d say you should just move in with me and become a full-time housewife, but something’s telling me that’s not exactly the kind of opportunity you’re searching for.”

 Cass laughed, bumping him with her shoulder. “Tempting offer, the housewife thing, but I think I’m going to have to pass. Plus that would necessitate you wifing me up.” 

Mat kissed her head. “All in due time, pretty girl.” “But anyways, about the job search.” Cass said, a smile playing on her lips. “I was going to wait until graduation to surprise you, but since you asked…” She paused for dramatic effect. “Chris offered me a job. Permanently.” 

Mat stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “Chris? Like Islanders Chris? Lawyer Chris?” 

She giggled. “Yes. Islanders lawyer Chris. You’re looking at the new Associate Counsel for the New York Islanders, Mat.” Mat damn near hollered in celebration, picking Cass up and spinning her around before pulling her into what was very possibly one of the best kisses of her life. Cass barely took notice of the tourists watching them from the side or her own public display of affection. It was New York City. They had seen weirder. 

It felt like a weight had been lifted off of Mat’s chest. He was being honest when he said that he wouldn’t have done anything to get Cass to stay, it just wasn’t his place. But he also would have been lying if he had said it would be anything but heartbreaking to see her leave. It was like he told Tito. Not even giving the future a chance to work itself out would be worse than a breakup. And with any luck, they’d never have one of those either. They rounded the last corner, steps down to the subway in sight, when Mat remembered what he had wanted to ask her but had been interrupted by her news. Her incredible, perfect news. “What would you think about spending some time in Canada this summer?”

Cass, seemingly oblivious, answered, “Oh? Like as a vacation?”

He shook his head. “No, like in Coquitlam with my family.”

“You want me to spend the summer with you and your family?” Cass asked, eyes wide.

“Yeah, only if you want to, of course. And I’m not sure when the job with the team starts, or…” He looked down.

Cass smiled. “I’d love to, but are you sure it isn’t too much? I don’t want to feel like I’m intruding on family time, I know you don’t get a lot of time with them since you’re here most of the year. I don’t want you to feel like you’re obligated to bring me around just because we’re together.”

They stopped by a lamp. Cass leaned up against the post. “Cass. My parents have made it very clear to me that you’re family, and that they’ll have my head if I’m ever dumb enough to let you go.” She snickered. “Just so we’re clear, I don’t intend on ever letting that happen. My family loves you, my sister thinks you’re way cooler than me.” 

“She’s got good taste,” Cass said, tilting her head.  

Mat laughed. “She does. She told me you guys were texting the other day about the guy she’s interested in, giving her advice. Sure, it was my idea to invite you, but they were so on board from the moment I mentioned it. Plus, my friends back home are getting annoyed with me because they haven’t met you yet with how often I talk about you.” 

She bit her lip. “How long were you thinking of staying?”

Mat shrugged. “Leave in a couple weeks, I usually stay two months or so, so until sometime in August?”

“I’d have to fly back to take the bar in July, and I’d still need some time to study while we’re over, but my contract doesn’t start until the end of August, so…”

“You’ll come?” Mat smiled hopefully.

She nodded. “I’ll come. I’ve never been to Canada before, did you know that?”

He shook his head, leaning in and brushing a kiss on her hairline. “You’re going to love it.”

[whatcouldgowrong-ohthat]

Earth 5620 - Chapter 1

Summary: When fractures start appearing across the world, S.W.O.R.D. and S.H.I.E.L.D. work together to create a team of...specialists. It’ll take them coming together to stop two dimensions from colliding.

Word Count: 2604 words

Warnings: Um, none that I can think of?

Marvel Kiddos

A/N: I haven’t written anything on here in a WHILE. So I hope you like it. :)

--

January 15th. Seattle. Washington

Covert. That was what they were supposed to be in this moment. Calm, cool, collected. Gathering information because this was a clusterfuck. They were waiting for higher-ups. That was their orders. Still, when she got the call, this wasn’t what she had expected.

A split between dimensions.

Cracked – but who swung the hammer? Who manipulated the reality?

Boots scuffed against concrete as she reached for it. The best way to learn was to discover. That was what she always believed and now seemed just as good a time as any to practice that idea.

“Director Carter.”

Sharon sighed. Her hand dropped to her side as she turned to see who S.W.O.R.D. had sent to help. “It’s not exactly comforting when they send in their best, Captain Rambeau.”

Monica smirked. She loved being sent in. Desk work did her no good and she figured the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. was the same way. “What is it?” She gestured to the crack. No, Fracture. Definitely a Fracture. It was too big. Too noticeable to be anything else.

“Was hoping you could tell me. This area is more your specialty, don’t you think?”

Her smirk grew into a smile as Sharon gave her a knowing look. It was true. S.H.I.E.L.D. specialized in super soldiers, arrogant billionaires, and things like vibranium. Mutants too, but that was because of Sharon’s aunt. There was a special interest there for them.

S.W.O.R.D. handled the weird and freaky. Things that had no real explanation. Infinity Stones…Alternate Realitiess? Or Aliens? Powers that were more than genetics and Masters of the Mystic Arts? That was Monica’s area.

There was a mutual respect between the two. One neither woman would ever dare to overstep even if their specialties chose to intertwine.

She turned her attention back to the Fracture, circling it. However, as she reached its side, the crack vanished. “It’s two dimensional.” She glanced at Sharon who mirrored her movements.

Sure enough. It was like looking through a window.

“I’ll get my men to do some readings.” Monica was already heading back to the vehicles, knowing her men were waiting on an update. “Let’s see if there’s anything on the other side.”

Surprisingly quiet, Sharon couldn’t take her eyes off the anomaly. As interesting as “another side” sounded, she had to wonder –

Was this the only occurrence?

March 19th New Orleans. Louisiana

“We need to stop meeting like this.”

Monica’s gaze shifted from the Fracture to her newest guests. “Director Carter.” She didn’t move from her spot on the ground. The reactor in her hand was still struggling to get a reading. The last thing she needed was to mess that up. “This is only the second, remember?”

“Yeah, but I’m worried about the lack of information.”

Monica sighed. Passing off the reactor to a S.W.O.R.D. operative, she rose to her feet and walked around the Fracture. It was at least twenty feet long – more than twice the size of the one in Seattle. And she wasn’t the only one to notice. She joined Sharon’s side and only just noticed the worry on Sharon’s face. It was etched so deep in her features, as strong and unwavering as diamond. Monica understood her fear. Truly.

Things had grown considerably calmer since Thanos was destroyed. This sparked problems and no one had a clue how big they were. The questions were surpassing their answers and it was enough to make both women feel ill.

“Let my specialists work, okay? If a third pops up, we’ll talk about a POA. But right now, it could be a coincidence. We got a lot of them in this line of work.” With a gentle nudge and a friendly smile, Monica reminded her, “You know that.”

“The last time we believed something was a coincidence, we had to learn the hard way that Hydra and Weapon X were one and the same.”

Monica winced. “Okay. Bad choice of words.” Looking back, she knew they should worry. At least a little. But she didn’t want to react yet. Sharon was always ready for a fight. And while Monica was too, there had been a fair amount of peace that she wasn’t ready to let go of.

Not yet.

May 7th. Boston. Massachusetts

Darcy couldn’t take her eyes off of it. It looked as if glass was breaking. In the middle of the air. It sounded ridiculous, she knew that, but it was an accurate description. This was something she would expect from an Asgardian visit. Instead – it was hovering in the middle of the Boston Public Garden. Appearing out of nowhere.

She’d guess it was at least a mile long and half a mile wide. It was huge.

“That looks weird.”

“You could say that again.” Darcy kept up her trek across the ridiculously huge park. She looked ahead and found the guy that had spoken. He wasn’t paying attention to anyone that had run away or the officers that were attempting to evacuate the park. He was completely wrapped up in the same thing she had been staring at. She joined his side. “Doctor Darcy Lewis – astrophysicist.”

He hadn’t realized she had spoken to him until she cleared her throat. Pulled from his thoughts, he glanced down at her and nodded. “Will.”

“You’re not scared of it?” Darcy raised a brow. Did he have a death wish?

Will chuckled. He propped his glasses on top of his head and gave her his full attention. His eyes – a splattering of rainbows and crystals – were almost impossible to look at. “I’m really good with weird.”

Behind them, just entering the park, Monica and Sharon slowed their run. It seemed their realization was mutual. This wasn’t just a couple cracks, or Fractures as Monica called them, this was something big. Very big.

Unable to tear her eyes away, Monica asked Sharon, “So you remember that POA I mentioned?”

She nodded. “I got a couple ideas. A few phone calls we can make.”

May 12th. Afghanistan. South Asia

He should be lifting spirits right now, being a leader.That was all that was on his mind. Hope was key – especially with the men and women. Their chance to go home had been prolonged for another five months. Five months with no contact for his soldiers. No way of reaching their families.

It was so much to ask of them. And instead of trying to give them hope, he was here. Why? He spared a glance across the room, recognizing the other guy. He was lower rank, but a specialist. His name – Benjamin couldn’t bring himself to remember it.

“You’re Master Sergeant Rogers, right?”

Benjamin couldn’t hide his surprise. There was no way. But as surprised as he was, he was also impressed. “Yeah. And you shouldn’t be talking.”

The specialist chuckled, shoulders shaking. “Our parents fought together.”

“How did you know? No one else – “

“Everyone knows. We just don’t say it.”

Benjamin huffed, nostrils flaring. He looked away only for a moment before remembering, “You’re Clint’s and Nat’s kid. Jensen, right?” He nodded and Ben shifted in his seat. “I’m sorry. About her – your mom, I mean.”

Jensen scoffed. “Look, we don’t have to get into that. I was just pointing out that we’re Superkids. That’s probably why we’re here.”

An awkward silence fell between them. Jensen, who had no interest in acknowledging the tension, simply stayed put. But Ben found himself counting the seconds, the minutes.

It took ten of them. Ten minutes of uncomfortable tension before the door finally opened.

The two stood, backs tense and hands poised, ready to salute whoever walked through those doors.

They hadn’t expected to see James Woo, FBI agent and overall awkward individual. He nodded, offering a curt smile as he said, “Hi.”

Ben and Jensen shared a look, hands already mid salute when Jimmy shook his hands.

“Don’t do that. Seriously. I’m here with a friend and we…Well, we need your help.”

Furrowed brows and confusion hung in the air. It seemed a million questions silently morphed over their features before they saw Jimmy’s friend enter behind him.

Ben smiled, recognizing her from many a training session. “Captain Rambeau.”

“Master Sergeant Rogers.” She smiled. “It’s been a while.”

“Just a decade or so.”

The two shared a laugh, easing a bit of the tension in the room. And while that was great for them, it left one person still in the dark. Jensen shifted from one foot to the other, raising a hand as if he had to be called on. “Look, reunions are great and all, but can I bring up the elephant in the room? Why’re you here?” He pointed to himself and Ben. “And why’re we?”

Monica huffed. “About that…”

Queens. New York

Flying through the air, an excited laugh tumbled from her lips. She landed on the fire escape with ease and released the webbing. Sparing one quick glance, fingers curled around her window and she crawled inside.

It fell shut behind her. With a sharp exhale, the mask was tugged off and her massive curls freed. Lena checked her appearance for a quick moment. Flipping her hair and nudging it with her fingers, she was satisfied enough. Next came removing the Spidersuit, replacing it with comfy, pink joggers and keeping the sports bra.

She was home. Extra effort didn’t have to be made in her attire.

“Lena!”

She squeaked, jumping a foot in the air when she heard her father’s voice. Normally, it was Lena’s mom shouting for her to do the dishes or some other boring chore. Her dad didn’t yell. He didn’t like yelling. Grabbing her phone, she was quick to leave her room only to find herself particularly confused when she saw her dad wasn’t alone.

Well, at least the yelling made sense now.

“Dad?”

Peter looked up. That goofy smile of his, the one she had known all of her life, was staring right back at her. But it was different. Proud? Maybe that was the word? Not surprising. He was always proud of her. “Hey, how was school?”

“It was good.” Her eyes drifted back to the blonde. She was edgy in a weird sort of way. While Lena had grown up hearing how rough and tough her mom was, this woman was different. She redefined the meaning of the word. “Who’s this?”

“This is Sharon Carter. She’s the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Hey, Miss Parker.” Sharon offered a smile. It was enough to melt the edges away. She softened, but Lena didn’t buy it. It was too much. As if Sharon was trying to relate to her.

“Yeah, cool. What’s this about? I have homework.”

Peter leaned against the counter. “Since when do you care about homework?”

Lena pouted. Okay, that was fair. But she found herself taking a quick step back when Sharon walked around the dining table.  It was weird. She should trust her. Her dad did. But their histories in the Superworld were different. And this wasn’t a face she recognized.

“Is this you?”

Lena’s gaze shifted from Sharon’s face to the clip on her phone. It was her in her Spidersuit, swinging in and out of those random cracks that had appeared in the MoMa in Queens and the Brooklyn Museum. According to the news, a couple more had popped up in New Jersey and California. She shrugged. “Um…yeah. No one had closed them off yet.”

Sharon’s face morphed into that of amusement. She zoomed out on the clip, showing the warnings and Agents that were securing the area or had just finished.

A blush tinted Lena’s cheeks as she looked from parent to agent and back again. “Am I in trouble?”

Sharon shook her head as Peter grinned from ear to ear. “Far from it actually. If it’s okay with you, I’d really appreciate your help.”

May 20th. S.W.O.R.D. Headquarters

Terrance’s fingers impatiently drummed on the steering wheel. He really didn’t like this idea. He didn’t trust it. “Look I know Dad wanted us to help out Sharon ‘cause she’s family, but we don’t know anything about these guys.”

“Sure we do.” Sasha’s small smile didn’t reach her eyes. She didn’t like it either. She definitely didn’t trust it. “We’ve known Sharon since Dad and Papa adopted us. And neither of them would send us anywhere they didn’t think was safe.”

Terrance parked the car, getting out as Sasha followed suit. “I’m just saying, there are a lot of other big-name heroes they could be calling. This isn’t our territory.”

“And I couldn’t agree more, but I did my research. S.W.O.R.D. helped take down Weapon X and Hydra. They played a big part in bringing our parents back. We can do this.” She looked at Terrance. “But I’m not going in if you aren’t.”

He looked at the massive building, having to crane his neck. It was huge. Gaudy. Too much for people who were supposed to be blending in to do good. “They just want our abilities, Sash.”

“Maybe. But what if they need us?”

His distaste shifted to a plain, old grimace that he had given his sister one too many times. “I hate when you do that.”

She laughed. “And I love it.”

The two stepped inside the building. It was too bright. Too clean. Neither of them liked it, but they had grown used to this being “normal” for these types of organizations. You must look good to do your job. At least that was what these groups shoved down their throats.

“Maggie!” Sasha immediately brightened at the sight of her old friend making her way towards them.

“Hey, guys.” Smile unwavering, Maggie tackled the two in a hug. It made Sasha soften, but Terrance was still tense. Some things never change. “Guessing it was Uncle Bucky that talked you into this?”

“More Dad actually,” Terrance told her.

Though surprised, Maggie appreciated that Sam had managed to do this. “Well, I’m just glad to see two familiar faces,” she admitted. “C’mon. I was just heading towards Monica’s office.”

--

The screaming could be heard far before they actually reached the door. Terrance grimaced, already looking at Sasha as if she owed him for getting him here. Who could have caused such a huge fight when they weren’t even there yet?

And hearing so many voices, he had to wonder – how many people had they asked for help?

“Um, I think we’re in here.” Maggie grabbed the door. With a sharp tug, she held it open for them and gave them a peak of the chaos inside.

Overlapping voices, overwhelmingly loud. A girl in a green Spidersuit hung from the ceiling with no intension of coming down. A blonde guy, super tall and screaming “Captain America” vibes was currently holding back a smaller, brunet.

That was the guy doing most of the shouting. And it wasn’t to everyone. No. It was to one guy. He was arrogant, smirking because he clearly held the power. He wasn’t shouting. He didn’t feel the need to. Instead, he shrugged and waved to the newest additions in the room.

One guy currently being shielded by two familiar faces. Monica and Sharon. They were desperately trying to calm down the screaming guy.

And then there was the last one – standing by the door. He looked over his shoulder, nodding to Terrance, Sasha, and Maggie. “Glad you could join us.”

Terrance shook his head, his elbow hitting Sasha’s rib. She hissed, rubbing her side as she muttered, “Ow.”

He gave her the look. That look that every sibling gave when they truly meant what they said next. “You owe me.”

--

Tag list is open? If you want? Lol

[carnationcreation]

We Are VR (Rocky DeSantos x VR Trooper!Reader)

Masterlist

TITLE: We Are VR (Rocky DeSantos x VR Trooper!Reader)

Prompt/summary: (MMPR season 2 episode 32, Rocky just wants to have fun) Reader moves to Angel Grove, her Trooper powers are revealed after the rangers need help freeing Rocky. 

Word Count: 2,385 (exposition is a bitch)

Warnings:  none

Authors note: I can’t exactly remember if these are in the same universe but for this imagine they are :)

Being a Trooper is not easy. Being a Trooper that has moved miles away from Cross World City is even harder. (Y/n) liked Angel Grove but hated being so far away from her friends. Ryan, Kaitlin, and JB were understanding over (Y/n)’s situation and tried their best to visit whenever they can.

(Y/n) made their way to the Youth Center of Angel Grove. The popular hangout spot had become a favorite for (Y/n) because of the smoothies. Their transformation virtualizer hung around their neck and (Y/n) always ran her finger over it when they got nervous. And (Y/n) was nervous a lot after the move. 

Billy and Rocky had just sat down to study when they both noticed someone new sit down at the table next to them. Rocky looked up to see (Y/n) sitting quietly with a book and sipping on a smoothie. The red ranger blushed, that had to be the cutest person he had ever seen. (Y/n) looked up and locked eyes with Rocky and they both smiled.

Billy snapped his fingers in front of Rocky’s face. Rocky shook his head and turned back to the math equation in front of him.

The two boys decided to take a break from studying. Earnie had just finished setting up the new pachinko machine on the bar, “Hey guys check this out!”

“What is it?” Rocky asked.

“It’s a Pachinko machine. It’s really popular in Asia, you activate this handle and watch the ball bearing chart and unplanned trajectory course through the game area.” 

“Yeah,” Earnie said, “the idea is to get more balls so you keep on playing. Try it!”

“Okay,” Rocky said. He began a round on the machine and suddenly he was hooked. “This is too fun!”

Little did they know that Lord Zed had casted a spell on the game, making Rocky become addicted to it. He couldn’t take his eyes off the silver balls falling through the glass.

Before he knew it 20 minutes had passed, Billy sighed and turned around, “Rocky we really need to hit the books again.” 

“All right, just let me finish this game.”

BIlly nodded and turned back around to the books with a sigh. More time passed and Rocky was still playing, “Rocky come on man.”

“No way! I’m having too much fun!”

Hours passed and Rocky ordered smoothie after smoothie. (Y/n) watched the boy and his friends closely. They noticed the boy at the pachinko machine start to get more aggressive at the game as time went on.

“Hey is he okay?” They asked the boy at the table.

“I don’t know, he started acting weird once he started playing that game.”

(Y/n) stuck her hand out, “I’m (Y/n), want me to help you clean up your books?”

“Yeah thanks that would be great, I’m Billy by the way.”

Rocky whooped as more balls flooded into the bottom chamber, Billy stood up to confront his friend, “Rocky, we should really get back to our math.”

“Well go study then, brainiac,” Rocky snapped, “I’m having fun.” 

Billy’s eyes widened at Rocky. Something was definitely wrong, Rocky would never say that to him. He turned back to (Y/n) and shook his head. They both began to pick up the books slowly hoping that Rocky would get a hint. 

Soon a girl walked up to the red ranger, “I’m ready for my karate lessons Rocky.”

“Karate’s out. It’s too much work, why don’t you play a video game huh?”

“But I can’t,” the girl said, “My green belt test is coming up and I need to practice.”

Rocky scoffed, “Practice by yourself. I just want to have fun.”

(Y/n) and Billy shared a knowing look. They both could tell something was very wrong with Rocky. The girl walked sadly over to Billy, “What’s wrong with Rocky?”

“That’s a good question.”

Billy excused himself and ran to the park to get the other Rangers. (Y/n) followed closely behind him but stayed out of sight.

“Hey Billy, what’s up?” Aisha said.

“Guys, we got a real problem.”

“Oh no, Zed?” Kimberly sighed. (Y/n)’s ears perked up at that. 

“No, it’s Rocky,” BIlly said. The other Rangers stared at him in shock.

“Rocky?” Tommy said.

“Yeah,” BIlly explained, “He seems to be obsessed with Earnie’s Pachinko machine. My new friend (Y/n) is there keeping an eye on him for now.” 

The group began to walk away.

“We should go to the youth center and talk to him,” Adam suggested. 

“That’s a good idea,” Tommy said, “Let’s go see what’s up with Rocky.”

“Yeah let’s check it out,” Aisha said.

Suddenly, Puddies appeared on the playground in front of them, “Puddies!” Kim yelled.

“Battle positions everyone,” Tommy ordered.

(Y/n) stepped out from behind the tree, running to the group as they began to take the mutants down.

“(Y/n)?” Billy yelled.

“Figured you’d need some help,” they yelled as they flipped a puddy over a seesaw. 

Billy didn’t say anything and went back to fighting. (Y/n) learned quickly to hit them on their Z. Soon Rocky showed up and picked a frisbee off of the ground. 

“Rocky’s out of it man,” Adam told Tommy.

“We’ll just have to defeat them without him.”

 After a while all the puddies were taken out and the group formed a circle.

“Who are you?” Tommy asked the new person.

“My names (Y/n), I’m from Cross World City. I met BIlly earlier at Earnie’s.”

“Oh well welcome to Angel Grove, I’m Kim,” she introduced, “That’s Aisha, Tommy, and that’s Rocky over there.”

The group turned and saw Rocky swinging on the monkey bars.

“So who’s this Lord Zedd guy?” (Y/n) asked. 

The group's eyes widened as they turned to Billy, “How do you know about that?”

“Well I heard you guys earlier and I remember Professor Hart saying something about it at our base one time.”

“Wait a minute, is that a virtualizer?” Billy said, pointing to the crystal on (Y/n)’s necklace.

“Yes?” (Y/n) said.

“So you are a trooper! Zordon told me about you guys.”

“What’s a trooper?” Aisha said. 

“I am the fourth VR Trooper. Luckily I got to keep my powers after I moved to Angel Grove. I do get called back to help my team from time to time though. We get our powers from the reality barrier, It separates our world from the virtual world. We believe it might be connected to your morphing grid since our transformation virtualizers are similar to your morphers. They transform us into Troopers and help us to travel into Virtual Reality. A creature from a virtual dimension named Grimlord is trying to break through the reality barrier and into our dimension. ” 

“That’s morphenomenal!” Billy said.

Before anyone else could say anything they heard an explosion and looked to see a monster forming in front of them.

“Rangers! Step right up and try your luck!” it yelled. 

“Aw man,” Billy said, “it’s a big Pachinko head!”

“Right, it’s Morphin time!” Tommy yelled.

“Trooper Transform!” (Y/n) said, they held their virtualizer in the air and yelled “We are VR!”

After they had morphed the group stared in shock at their new friend. (Y/n) stood next to Tommy and summoned their weapon, a laser saber. 

Rocky finally joined in on the fun when he realized how much ‘fun’ it would be. He ran around the team making strange noises. 

The monster set off a blast, ”Look out!”  (Y/n) yelled. Adam, Tommy and  (Y/n) rolled away onto the grass. The blast caused Billy, Aisha, and Kim to turn into pachinko balls. Rocky just clapped the whole time. The monster and Rocky began to play soccer with the ranger balls 

“We gotta get those balls,” Tommy said.

“Okay, I’ll do it!” Adam said as he charged forward.

“Adam wait!” Tommy yelled.

Adam flew through the air landing a kick on the monster's big eye. 

“You’d make a shiny pachinko ball!” It yelled as it turned Adam into silver before turning and blasting Rocky as well.

Tommy turned to (Y/n), “Grab that frisbee!”

The Trooper grabbed the red disk off the ground, “Hey gizmo head! Catch this!”

The frisbee went off in the distance and the monster turned to follow it. Tommy ran forward and started picking up his friends, “Oh man, I just hope Zordon can help us.”

“Can I come with you? I might be able to help out.”

“Right, let’s go!”

___________

(Y/n) had not expected the command center to be so dark. As they de-morphed Tommy showed (Y/n) the control panel.

“Zordon, this is (Y/n). They’re a VR Trooper and helped me save the others.”

“Greeting (Y/n),” Zordon said, “I’m glad the Rangers got to meet you. You’ll be of great help to us in the battle against Lord Zed.”

“I’m happy to help,” (Y/n) smiled.

“Ay-yi-yi!” Alpha yelled, “He’s turned them all into giant Pachinko balls!”

“Not only that, but Rocky was fooling around,” Tommy explained.

“He wouldn’t even help us fight the monster, I’m sure that’s not like him,” (Y/n) said.

“It is not,” Zordon said, “Alpha, run a diagnostic scan on Rocky.”

The android grabbed a red wand and began to hover it over Rocky’s ball form.

“Rocky has been placed under Lord Zed’s powerful spell of irresponsibility. Anyone under this spell just wants to play.”

“Can we get the others back?” (Y/n) asked.

“Ay-yi-yi! Reversing Lord Zed’s spell won’t be easy,” Alpha said.

“Tommy, hurry to the amusement park. Pachinko head is on a rampage,” Zordon said.

Tommy nodded and turned to his new friend, “Are you gonna be alright here?”

“Yes, I’ll stay here and contact Professor Hart, he might be able to help us. Contact me if you need help.”

“I’ll insert (Y/n)’s virtualizer into the communicator’s system,” Alpha five said.

“Thanks Alpha,” Tommy said, “I’m out of here, keep working to free the others.”

“Be careful Tommy,” (Y/n) said.

“I will,” the ranger said as he teleported out of the Power Chamber. 

___________

With the help of (Y/n), Professor Hart, and Alpha, they were successful in freeing Rocky from the pachinko ball chamber. 

“Ugh, what happened?” Rocky said.

“You were placed under a spell by Lord Zedd which forced you to neglect what was important and desire only what was fun.”

“Pachinko head turned everyone but Tommy and I into pachinko balls,” (Y/n) explained

Rocky smiled shyly and turned to (Y/n), “Hey, I promise I’m not normally like that.”

“It’s alright I guessed that already,” the Trooper chuckled. 

“Where’s Tommy now?” Rocky asked.

“He’s trying to stop the monster from anymore destruction while we work on getting the others back to normal,” Zordon explained. 

“This is all my fault,” Rocky said.

“Stop blaming yourself,” Alpha said, “We’ll get the others back.”

“ Rocky go and help Tommy,” Zordon commanded.

“Alright,” Rocky said, he looked at (Y/n) and they both smiled shyly at each other.

“It’s morphin time!” 

__________________

(Y/n) watched through the power globe as Rock’s zord fought the pachinko monster.

 Alpha had finally gotten the others back into their human forms and they all sighed in relief. 

“It’s sensational not to be spherical,” Billy said.

“Guys I’m so glad you’re back! Rocky left to help Tommy fight the pachinko monster,” (Y/n) said.

“Lord Zedd is about to take over the city. Zedd’s monster damaged Tommy’s zord, he is alright but the zord needs to be recharged. I have already sent Rocky to take his place but he needs your help.” 

The group looked at their new friend, “Go, you don’t need me now. Help Rocky and Tommy.”

Kim nodded, “Alright we’ll be back soon. It’s morphin time!”

(Y/n) turned back to the power globe and watched their friends summon their zords. 

________________

“You did it!” (Y/n) yelled as they ran up to the Rangers entering the power chamber, giving each of them a hug but lingering on Rocky. Billy chuckled when he noticed causing the two to pull back with a blush. 

“Good job Rangers,” Zordon yelled.

“Let’s go get some smoothie’s, I’m so tired,” Kim said and the others agreed.

Rocky walked out of the locker rooms spotting Billy, Aisha, and (Y/n) studying at a table.

“Hey guys,” Rocky said. He put a hand on (Y/n)’s shoulder causing both of them to blush.

“Hey Rocky, gonna hit the books with us?” Aisha asked. 

“Right after karate class,” Rocky said, (Y/n) felt something being slipped into their hand and they looked down to see a note.

‘Meet me outside afterwards?’ it read. (Y/n) smiled and nodded as rocky turned and walked over to his student. 

________________

(Y/n) watched the red ranger practice with Kayla and they couldn’t help but smile everytime they met eyes. Aisha and BIlly slowly caught on to what was happening after seeing (Y/n) blush and look down. 

Soon enough the practice came to an end and (Y/n) walked with Rocky outside of the Youth Center.

“So do you have to go back to Cross World anytime soon?”

“Not unless the team really really needs me,” (Y/n) smiled. They sat down on a bench outside and looked up at the sky. It had started to get late so the sky was a beautiful orange.

“That’s good,” Rocky said.

“Why?” (Y/n) looked over at him.

“Cause it gives me plenty of time to take you on a date,” he smirked. 

(Y/n) smiled, “That sounds like a pretty good plan to me.”

Rocky put his arm around (Y/n)’s shoulder and they leaned onto his. He bent down to kiss the top of their head and sighed as they both stared at the setting sun.

Everything was perfect until they saw a flash. They turned around, ready to fight if it was a monster, to find the other rangers there. Kim held a polaroid camera with a new picture forming at the top. 

“I ship it,” Kim smirked.

“Oh I’ll get you!” Rocky yelled.

(Y/n) laughed as the rangers began to pass the photo back and forth trying to keep it away from the red ranger. He finally had enough and trapped Kim, beginning to tickle her as the other rangers laughed. (Y/n) bent down to pick up the picture that had fallen from the camera.  It showed both (Y/n) and Rocky on the bench with the setting sun in front of them.

“That’s a keeper.”

[wordsandshawn]

Ours

Summary: Your four-year-old son gets sick while Shawn’s away playing shows in Asia. When Shawn returns home your son only wants him. 

2.5k of seriously heartwarming dad!Shawn.

The sound of coughing pulls you from your half-asleep state. You weren’t fully sleeping. As a mom, you never fully sleep when your child isn’t feeling well. You automatically open your eyes to check on your four-year-old son, Lucas. His eyes are still closed, so you watch him breathe for a few seconds to make sure he’s fine. He’s sleeping in your bed tonight. Having him closer helps you to worry less, even though you’ll worry no matter what. 

At this point, you’re pretty certain that it’s just a cold, although you are still concerned because of how quickly it developed. He was fine in the morning. He went to pre-school. He was even in a good mood when you dropped him off. He almost made it to the end of the day when the school nurse called you to pick him up because he wasn’t feeling well. This was definitely one of those times you really wish Shawn was home to tag-team this parenting thing with you like he’s done for the past two years. You were in the middle of a really important project at work, but you had no other option except to leave. You’ll definitely have to make up those hours as soon as possible.

Stressing about work and worrying about Lucas keeps you from going back to sleep right away. Knowing Shawn is on tour in Asia right now, you know it’s sometime in the midafternoon there. Taking your phone from the bedside table, you press facetime on his contact, quickly turning the sound down so it won’t wake Lucas. A few seconds later, Shawn’s face fills the screen. “Hi, baby.” He says with a smile.

“Hey, Shawn.” You respond smiling in response, but you know your tiredness shows through your voice and your eyes.

He notices immediately. “What time is it there?” He questions.

After checking the time, you respond. “Two am.”

His eyes widen in surprise, knowing you always go to bed early if possible. He asks, “Is he still not feeling well?” You know without having to clarify that Shawn’s talking about your son since you had been texting him earlier in the evening and had let him know Lucas was sick.

Glancing over at him briefly before turning your attention back to the screen, you nod. “He’s coughing still.”

“Is he up? Can I talk to him?” Shawn questions, but you shake your head.

“No, he’s asleep.” You respond quietly gently running your fingers through your sleeping son’s brown hair.

“Okay, you should sleep too, then,” Shawn responds, knowing how important it is for you to sleep when he’s sleeping. When he’s sick, it’s almost like he’s a little baby again, and there’s no telling how long this sickness will last.

“I know, I just wanted to talk to you.” You say while yawning.

“Get some rest, baby. I’ll be home soon.” You nod, truly looking forward to Shawn’s return. Luckily, he’ll be home in a couple of days, and even that feels too far away. 

Now, it’s crazy to think there was ever a time without Shawn in your life. It’s crazy to think there was a time where it was just you and Lucas. Even Lucas doesn’t remember a time before Shawn. Shawn’s the only dad Luke’s ever known. In the beginning, you made sure Shawn knew that you didn’t expect him to be a dad to Luke and you didn’t expect him to share in the responsibilities of being a parent. Actually, in the beginning, you did not even want to give Shawn a chance, and you didn’t want to let him close to Luke. However, Shawn is persistent if nothing else, and he kept pursuing you and kept showing up for you and Lucas whenever you needed him. Eventually, you couldn’t deny your feelings for Shawn, and you couldn’t deny that he genuinely loved your son, and Lucas loved him just as much.

“I’ll see you soon.” You whisper to Shawn, careful not to wake Lucas up.

“I love you, baby. Call me if Luke gets any worse, okay?”

You promise you will before hanging up the phone and trying to get some sleep.

~

The next two days are rough without Shawn. You take Lucas to the doctor, but they tell you it’s a virus, and you’ll have to let it run its course. You have to stay home from work because he can’t go to school while he’s running a fever. He’s extra clingy because he’s sick, and you’re exhausted from barely sleeping and trying to take care of Lucas with his constant whining and crying. You can’t blame him because he’s not feeling well, but it’s certainly taking a toll on you.

By the time Shawn walks in the door, coming straight from the airport, you’re beyond exhausted and happy to see him. He drops his bags quickly and quietly before approaching the couch where you’re seated with Lucas asleep across your lap. It’s the only way he’s been able to sleep lately, on top of you. You know it’s going to make him sleeping in his own bed when he gets better difficult, but if it’s the only thing that’s making him feel better now, you’re not going to deny him that.

“Hey,” Shawn whispers, leaning down and kissing you on the forehead since you can’t move from the spot on the couch without disturbing Lucas.

Shawn sits down next to you, looking at Lucas lovingly before asking, “How’s he doing?” Even though he had texted you for an update about Lucas as soon as his airplane landed an hour ago.  And he texted you before he took off checking in on Lucas, knowing he wouldn’t have service for a while. And he called when he woke up in the morning, wanting to talk to Lucas.

“He’s the same.” You whisper back.

Shawn leans closer to you and Lucas. “I’m here now.” Shawn quietly says, and you’re not sure if he’s saying it more to you, Lucas, or himself. 

“I’m glad you’re home.’’ You tell him. You know it really bothered Shawn to not be here when Lucas was sick. Lucas asked for Shawn more than once over the last few days, and you tried not to let on to Shawn how badly Lucas wanted him there because you knew Shawn already felt bad enough.

You can’t help yourself, risking possibly waking up Lucas, you shift so you’re able to rest your head against Shawn’s shoulder, and he wraps an arm around you pulling you closer to himself. 

Having him back feels like it’s taken a huge weight off your shoulders. You’re not sure how you ever did this on your own, because being a mom is hard, and Shawn does way more for your son than you ever remember to thank him for. You start to feel guilty because you realize how much responsibility you’ve put on Shawn, especially when your work gets intense, and you don’t always take into account how much work Shawn has because he never complains when you ask him to pick Lucas up from school or to make dinner when you have to stay late at work. Shawn even takes Luke to the recording studio with him sometimes and has a toy drumset and guitar there for Luke to play with while he’s they’re rehearsing. Shawn’s made more sacrifices for your little family than you ever asked him to or even thanked him for. 

You’re pulled from your thoughts by Lucas as he begins to stir and slowly open his eyes. At first, he reaches for you, but as soon as he sees Shawn, he scrambles towards him instead. Shawn scoops him into his arms, saying, “Hey little buddy. How are you feeling?”

Lucas mumbles something incoherent back, and Shawn simply responds softly with, “I know.” As he cuddles him closer to himself. Watching Shawn with Lucas never fails to amaze you. The two are practically inseparable now. Sometimes you joke Shawn misses Lucas more when he’s gone on tour, but at the end of the day, you feel like one of the luckiest girls in the world. You found someone who loves you and loves your son like his own. 

Lucas buries his face against Shawn’s shoulder, and Shawn rubs his back comfortingly. Knowing Lucas is in good hands with Shawn, you excuse yourself to use the bathroom, something you haven’t been able to do for the last two hours while Lucas slept on top of you. 

When you return to the living room, Shawn and Lucas aren’t on the couch anymore. You make your way into the kitchen to see Lucas sitting in the counter, something you definitely don’t approve of, but Shawn always lets him. Shawn is naming random condiments in the fridge, asking if Lucas wants to eat them, and Lucas is laughing so hard at the antics. You haven’t seen him laugh or smile this much since he first got sick. You’re glad he seems to be feeling better, and if you’re honest, you’re sure it’s got something to do with Shawn finally being back and not just a reduction of symptoms, although that could play a part in it too.

Shawn sees you and scoops Lucas off the counter, shooting an apologetic look your way. He knows you don’t like having him up there, but you’ve given up believing he’ll ever stop letting him sit on the countertop.

Lucas is still laughing, and you say, “Seems like you’re feeling better, baby.”

He just smiles and leans into Shawn, wrapping his tiny arms around his neck. “We’re having ketchup for dinner,” Shawn says nonchalantly, which causes Lucas to laugh even more, and you can’t help but smile at the two. Shawn always knows just what to say to make Lucas laugh and most of the time its stuff that doesn’t make sense to anyone except the two of them.

Despite Lucas and Shawn’s protests against having anything except ketchup for dinner, you make spaghetti, hoping Luke’s feeling well enough to actually eat something since he’s barely eaten these last few days. Everything feels a little normal in the most comforting way as the three of you sit down to dinner together, and you’re more than grateful to finally have Shawn back. By the end of the meal, Lucas managed to get spaghetti sauce absolutely everywhere. “Let’s go take a bath, baby.” You tell Lucas as you start to grab him out of his chair.

“No. Daddy.” He tells you, pushing you away and motioning for Shawn, making it clear that he wants Shawn to give him a bath and not you. Shawn starts to stand up, having just watched this interaction but you respond, “Daddy’s tired, baby.”

You noticed the bags under Shawn’s eyes, and you know that the time difference is huge meaning Shawn basically stayed up all night since it’s nearly morning where he just came from. Shawn never complained or even alluded to being tired, but you know that when he’s on tour, he’s working non-stop, so he deserves all the rest he can get when he’s home.

“It’s okay,” Shawn responds to you. “I can bathe him.”

“You shouldn’t have to.” You respond to Shawn. It’s not fair to him to have to take care of Lucas. Normally Shawn does a lot for Lucas, but knowing he just got back from traveling and working nonstop for three weeks, he deserves to relax, not come back to more work and responsibility.  

“I want to.” He reassures you. “Go rest. I know you’re tired too. There’s no point in fighting with Luke.” He whispers the last part, and you step back. He’s right. You’re tired too. Even though Luke’s only four, he knows what he wants, and he obviously wants Shawn right now. If you try to bathe him instead of Shawn, he’ll probably have a full-blown meltdown, making everything more difficult for all of you. That’s the only reason you don’t argue.

Shawn takes Lucas out of his high chair. He leans over kissing you lightly on the forehead as you stand there defeated and exhausted. Once they leave, you slowly make your way around the kitchen cleaning up the dinner mess. You can hear Shawn and Lucas in the bathroom when you walk up the stairs. Ten minutes later, you’re lying across your unmade bed, exhausted, when Shawn enters, carrying a freshly bathed Lucas wearing pajamas.

“Say goodnight to mommy,” Shawn says, putting Luke down on the bed. He crawls across the bed and wraps his arms around you. “Goodnight mommy.”

“Goodnight baby.” You say, kissing him on his forehead as Shawn picks him up to take him to his bedroom, but he stops and gently pulls you up from the bed.

“I refilled the bathtub. Go take a bath and relax. I’ll put him down.” You’re about to argue, to tell Shawn that you can put Lucas to sleep because he should relax, but he knows what you’re thinking before you can say anything. “I got him. It’s okay, y/n.

You don’t have the energy to argue, so you listen. It’s the first time in a long time that you haven’t had to worry about responsibility or making sure that Lucas is okay. Even before Lucas got sick, you had been on your own with him for three weeks while Shawn was playing shows in Asia, and you were so busy you didn’t have any time for yourself.

When Shawn finally joins you in bed after you bathed and he put Lucas down and showered, you can tell he’s exhausted too. “Thank you,” You tell him as he gathers you into his arms, treasuring the feeling of having you close after three weeks.

“You don’t have to thank me, I left both of you for three weeks, the least I could do was take care of him tonight. I missed him too.” He says with a shrug.

“I do,” You respond fighting against the desire to fall asleep, “You didn’t sign up for this. He’s not your responsibility. I’m sorry.”

He kisses you lightly, “Stop. Don’t feel guilty. He’s not just your responsibility either. I know he’s not mine by blood, but he’s always been ours, from the first time I met him and he fell asleep in my arms, I just knew, and I think you did too. I love you and I love Lucas, and I’ll do anything for both of you.”

“I love you.” You say, too tired to say anything else as Shawn turns off the light, and you’re asleep within minutes. 

[twoflipstwotwists]

There are only four spots on the 2021 United States Olympic team for women’s artistic gymnasts, down from five at the 2016 Summer Games, and Sunisa Lee, a 17-year-old high school junior from St. Paul, Minn., has a good chance of grabbing one of them.

At the world championships last fall, Lee, whom people call Suni, helped the United States win a team gold medal and also took home two individual medals, a silver on the floor exercise and a bronze on the uneven bars.

But it was Lee’s performance at the national championships in August that proved her toughness, as she excelled despite facing a situation that could have crushed her.

A day before Lee left for the nationals in Kansas City, Mo., her father and biggest fan, John, fell off a ladder while helping a friend trim a tree branch and sustained a spinal cord injury. He was paralyzed from the chest down.

Lee told only a few gymnasts at the competition about her father’s injury because she was afraid of being overwhelmed by emotion and she didn’t want any distractions. During the first two practice days at the nationals, she could hardly concentrate as her father prepared for an operation on his spine.

But on her first day of competition, he contacted her by FaceTime from his hospital bed. She recalled his saying, “I’m OK. Just go out there and do what you normally do.”

So that’s what she did. Lee finished second to Simone Biles in the all-around event and won the uneven bars competition. These days she’s limited to merely swinging on the bars to keep her hand strength.

Her goal is to make it to the rescheduled Olympics next summer for her father, for the rest of her family and for fellow members of the Hmong community, an ethnic group from Asia that has established a large population in and around St. Paul.

This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

It hasn’t really hit me that the Olympics aren’t happening this summer. I have a countdown to the Olympic trials on my phone. They would have been in June. I get sad when I see it, but I won’t delete it. I’m scared to let go of the fact that it’s not happening, even though I know it’s not. I don’t want it to be real. I guess I don’t accept it because the Olympics were my biggest dream and goal. I’ve been training for that goal every day for 12 years now and couldn’t wait for the Olympics to happen.

And then after the Olympics, my family had planned to go to Laos, because my parents are from there. They wanted us to see what their lives were like before they came to the United States. They want us to know that not everything came so easily for them, and they want us to do better and try harder so we can have good lives. So it’s disappointing to have to cancel that trip. It’s all so disappointing.

My motivation to get to the Olympics has always been my family and my community. It would be such a big deal for a Hmong American to be in the Olympics for the United States. I want to be one of the best in the world, but I also want to succeed for my family — we have a really big Hmong family — and the amazing supporters that have helped me. I want to do it because a lot of people don’t know that I’m Hmong or what Hmong even is.

Right now, I’m at home most of the day because so many things are closed. My gym closed in March, and I used to spend maybe six or seven hours in the gym every day, so that’s been weird and different. Now I spend a lot of time with my family. I live with my parents and my three younger siblings who are 3, 8 and 10. I also have two older siblings, my stepsiblings, who stay with us sometimes. We all help my dad now that he’s in a wheelchair. I’ve also been helping my mom with cooking and cleaning, because I know she has been through a lot with my dad. I know how to make all the Asian egg rolls like my mom.

But we just found out that our gym is opening on June 1, and I’m really excited. To be able to go to the gym and actually train again is just crazy. I think it’s going to be amazing. I’m so ready for it.

School during quarantine isn’t so bad for me, because I’m used to mostly doing it online. I used to go to the actual public school for an hour a day. I’d go to one class and do the rest at home. I take Algebra 2, Global Studies, World Literature and Chemistry, and now we get our assignments online every morning. I missed a lot of school last year because of the world championships, so I’ve been really busy catching up with my assignments. I really miss school because I got to see my friends there. Now we just FaceTime.

I go to the gym sometimes to do my work. It’s closed to the public, but my coach, Jess Graba, opens the doors for me and he is there cleaning up the gym or sending emails while I work. One of my teammates, Lyden Saltness, does schoolwork there, too, because her mom is a teacher and she comes to help us. There are a lot of people in my house, and it’s quieter and the internet is better at the gym. I set up in the lobby and try not to think about how much I’ve lost because I haven’t been training and how I haven’t seen my friends in such a long time.

Lately, I’ve been doing some basic conditioning or stretching at the gym when I’m there on school days. It’s kind of the same stuff I’d do if I was at home. If the Olympics weren’t canceled, I’d be on my way to peaking, which means I would’ve been in the best shape ever, doing my hardest routines. My coach says it will take many months for me to get back to where I was before the quarantine. He says for every week I missed, it’s going to take three weeks of work to get that fitness back. I’ve missed about nine weeks already.

I’m trying to stay positive, but I do worry about things. I worry that I’m going to randomly catch the coronavirus and bring it home and not even know that I have it, and then my dad catches it. He’s really vulnerable right now, so obviously that would be really horrible. I worry that nothing is ever going to go back to normal and the Olympics next year will be canceled. I’m just scared that I won’t be able to get back to where I was physically. I don’t know if my body can take another four years of this, because so much mental, physical and emotional training goes into it. But there’s nothing I can do about any of this so, I guess, I will just hope for the best and believe that if I can put in the hard work, good things will happen.