#i love marianas trench more than i could ever express

[ithinkyouhealedmyheart]

Ghostwriter Ch 10

Unbetad Unedited Unhinged || AO3

Character(s): Kendall Knight, James Diamond, Gustavo Rocque, Carlos Garcia, Logan Mitchell, Veronica Clark oc

Pairing(s): Kendall Knight/Veronica Clark, Kendall Knight & Veronica Clark

a/n: starstruck is by far my favorite movie, so, uh... keep that in mind lmao. I also have two songs I make a reference to in the beginning

Kendall heard music coming from the recording studio. He was under the impression that Big Time Rush was done with vocals for today. He and the guys were heading out for some quality time at the pool when he realized he left his beanie at Rocque Records. He followed the sound of the music through the halls, which led him to recording studio B. He also heard singing that didn’t belong to either Gustavo or Kelly. Pressing his ear against the door, he chuckled softly. Whoever was inside had no idea that someone else was in the building. They probably assumed Gustavo and Kelly would ignore them, but Kendall wouldn’t. This was the perfect opportunity to embarrass some poor soul. He cracked the door open and peeked inside, the poppy music flooding through the doors. 

“You could want this. See if it fits for a bit, and if you don’t like it, then you could go like you have been.” He froze when he realized Ronnie was singing. 

The song was playing over the speakers in the recording studio. She held a broom and swept the floor, dancing slightly as she jostled it around like a microphone stand. 

“This could hurt some, but if we don’t, we’ll never know what it’s worth to you. I saw you first. Do you remember?” Kendall snickered quietly. 

It was funny watching Ronnie sing and dance like no one was watching. Technically, it was like she was putting on a little show. Admittedly, Kendall didn’t want to make her feel bad, but he couldn’t help but laugh. In a twisted sort of way, it was cute. She was genuinely having fun while cleaning up after Gustavo and the guys. Although peeking through a crack in the door felt like an intrusion, she’d stop goofing around if he announced himself. The song died down, and another one started. Maybe she was listening to the CD Lucy gave her? 

“Testing, testing, I’m just suggesting you and I might not be the best thing. Exit, exit somehow, I guessed it right. All right?” 

Kendall’s smile fell off his face. Maybe he should stop listening and announce his presence, but he didn’t want this to end. Even though he apologized and could talk to her again, she was still closed off around him. Logan, Carlos, and James had more animated conversations with her than he could ever have. In a way, this was like he was picking her brain. 

“But I still want ya, want ya, don’t mean to taunt ya. If you leave now, I’ll come back and haunt ya.” 

“You’ll remember, return to sender now, now…” 

Okay, Kendall was making his presence known. He pushed the door open wider and cleared his throat. Ronne jumped and spun around. The broom clattered to the ground, and she stared with wide eyes like a deer caught in headlights. It was awkward, staring at each other, but it was getting even more uncomfortable listening to her jam out to what was most likely a love song. 

Kendall coughed into his hand, trying to lean casually against the door and pretend he wasn’t listening like a creep. He wasn’t being creepy because his intentions were pure, but she didn’t know that. 

“What are you listening to?” 

With the remote, Ronnie lowered the volume and brushed her hair out of her face. 

“Mariana’s Trench. Sorry, did you need something?” She laughed awkwardly and picked the broom up off the floor. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Gustavo told me to clean the recording studio,” 

“Seriously?” Kendall raised a brow. 

“Yes.” Ronnie furrowed her brows. She examined the expression on his face but was still frazzled from getting caught. “What do you want?” 

“Came back for my beanie,” Kendall said, noting that it was neatly sitting in one of the swivel chairs. 

“Oh– But you left an hour ago?” 

Kendall crossed the room quickly and grabbed his beanie, sitting on his head haphazardly. 

“James also forgot his lucky comb. Have you seen it?” 

“No. I haven’t seen his comb.” Ronnie shook her head. 

“Do you want help?” Kendall tilted his head. 

“Well, I mean, I’m almost finished. All I have left is… The sweeping.” She glanced at the broom handle. A minute ago, Ronnie had pretended it was a microphone on a stand because she thought she was alone. 

“Are you doing anything after this?” Kendall fidgeted with his hands. 

Ronnie choked on her saliva. Is there too much wax in her ears? 

“I’m sorry. Are you asking me out on a date?” She was prepared to kick herself if she misread the situation mentally. Kendall’s head snapped up, and he looked around for an answer. 

“What? No! Friends. We’re friends. I figured you haven’t seen much of L.A.” 

“And how would you know that?” Ronnie asked with an accusatory tone. “You’d have to have followed me around for that information.” 

“I don’t know… It was easy, considering you haven’t left the Palm Woods.” 

“So, what? You want to take me sightseeing?” 

“Yeah, sure. Why not?” Kendall shrugged. “I have my license, and I can drive you around to see all the best tourist spots.” 

Momentarily, Ronnie was quiet as she looked down at the broom in her hands. She had wasted time goofing off instead of cleaning as Gustavo wanted, but no one was there to yell at her then. She wanted to go sightseeing in Los Angeles. Take corny pictures before the Hollywood sign and grab one of those dumb keychains. She had no idea when Griffin or Gustavo would send her back to Vermont, so she might as well have a souvenir as proof that she went to L.A. It wouldn’t hurt to go sightseeing. 

“I know Gustavo barely gave us a lunch break. We could go to Sunset & Vine.” Kendall suggested. 

“Isn’t that place expensive?” 

“So? You have Gustavo’s credit card.” Kendall snapped finger guns at her. 

“I’m not going to–” Ronnie paused and considered it momentarily. “It’s an option.” 

“Exactly! So, whaddya say?” 

“Okay. I hope you’re a good driver.” 

She had less than zero confidence in his driving abilities. Kendall and his friends have a penchant for causing destruction, and it isn’t too far off to be weary of how well he drives. She was also thrown off that Kendall even wanted to hang out with her outside of work. It was strange. Ronnie figured he only realized he had to be nice to her, or she would ignore him and give him the cold shoulder. That was all this had to be, right? He acts friendly so that she doesn’t freeze him out and embarrass him in front of his friends. If they went to the same school, he wouldn’t have noticed her, and better yet, he would avoid her if he did. 

It wasn’t that Ronnie wasn’t confident enough or that she didn’t think any popular guy would go for her, but she never tried to step out of her comfort zone. Coming to L.A. was a pretty giant leap. If some jock asked her out, she would unfortunately turn the prospect down. Romance and relationship were uncharted territory, with too many unspoken rules she had yet to understand or figure out. Sometimes, navigating her friendship with Callie and Addison was more complicated than it should be. It was like navigating a social minefield. One wrong move, and someone blew up. 

“You’re a little quiet there.” 

Ronnie snapped out of it. They waited for the elevator at the end of the hall. She must have zoned out while walking. Her mind was an echo chamber, and it was hard to get her away once she got too deep. She felt like she didn’t have time to process everything. 

“I’m always quiet.” She shoved her hands in her pockets. 

“More like you always have too much on your mind.” Kendall raised a brow. 

“I think a lot. So, what?” 

“Hey, hey, hey. I never said it was a bad thing.” 

“Not those exact words, but you had that tone.” 

“Tone?” Kendall furrowed his brows. 

The elevator opened, and the both of them stepped inside. 

“Nothing. Nevermind. You’ll think it’s weird.” 

“No,” Kendall shook his head. “I wouldn’t think you’re weird.” 

“It was…” Ronnie sighed. “You said it almost like you were teasing me,” 

“Well, I wasn’t. Whatever you think I think about you is all in your head.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot that you’re such a nice guy.” 

“Okay, now you’re teasing me.” 

“Exactly. Because I am.” 

“Hey, I’m a nice guy!” 

“Nice guys don’t usually have to announce that fact.” 

Kendall paused and stared at her with his jaw on the floor. The elevator signaled they were on the ground floor, and he watched her walk out. He had to admit she got him. Maybe he wasn’t as nice as he thought, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. But her comment caught him off guard. He felt she knew him and who he was under the facade for some reason. Shaking his head, he followed after her. He won’t think about that now. 

“Why do you always act like you don’t want to spend time with anyone?” 

“What do you mean?” Ronnie tilted her head, staring up at him, confused. “I’m glad you want to spend time with me.” 

“Oh– You just seem… I dunno, indifferent…” Kendall shrugged and scratched the back of his neck. 

“Oh, right, sorry.” She cleared her throat and put on a fake smile. “Oh my Gawd, I am so happy to spend the day with Kendall Knight from the biggest boyband Big Time Rush! Tell me everything about yourself. Your favorite color, your favorite food, your favorite school subject!” Ronnie twirled a strand of her hair around her finger and mocked him with the fake Valley girl voice. 

“Why do you do that?” 

“Because, unlike your fans, I’m not head over heels for you.” 

“I think you might like me once you get to know me,” Kendall rolled his eyes and put on sunglasses that he seemingly pulled out of nowhere. What is it with people pulling things out of thin air? 

“Do you not have sunglasses?” He noticed how she squinted in the light and shielded her eyes with her hands. For a moment, he considered giving her his sunglasses. 

“I’m fine.” Ronnie lied, trying not to squint too much and make it seem like the L.A. sun was already affecting her. She knew she had forgotten something this morning. 

Mrs. Knight graciously let Kendall drive her second rental car after Katie’s fake friend drove the first rental in a high-speed chase. It was a beat-up Toyota with dark green paint. No celebrity would be caught dead driving one of these, and the paparazzi would be utterly unaware if he were in it. Big Time Rush wasn’t globally famous, but the group gained traction with their first album and a successful interview with Deke. Kendall opened the passenger door for Ronnie. He was somewhat of a perfect gentleman. Or at least he knew how to act the part. 

The passenger seat was uncomfortable, and the car smelled slightly like gasoline. She could only imagine the car would go up in flames if she lit a match. Pulling at the levers on the side of the seat, she adjusted the back. Kendall shut the door and ran around the car to climb into the driver's side. 

“Are you sure you don’t need sunglasses?” The blonde dug around in the door and procured a pair of sunglasses, flashing her a toothy grin. 

“Okay, okay.” Ronnie took the sunglasses from him and placed them on her face. It was strange how they sat on the bridge of her nose. The weird, fuzzy feeling made her want to scratch her face until it was red. 

“I can’t believe you haven’t checked out L.A., and you’ve been here for almost two weeks.” 

Ronnie was occupied with looking out the back while Kendall pulled out of the Rocque Records parking lot. She was convinced he would crash into something. 

“What can I say? I don’t have a lot of time,” 

“We have nothing but time!” Kendall laughed. 

“I’ve been too busy following you around.” 

“Really?” 

“I’ve been cleaning up after you and your friends and getting you out of trouble. If I’m being honest, I kind of don’t care about this stupid city.” 

“Okay, you don’t like me, but don’t take it out on Los Angeles.” Kendall scoffed. “This is one of the greatest cities in the world. I told you I’ll take you sightseeing, and I’m the best tour guide.” 

“Really? You? A great tour guide?” Ronnie deadpanned. 

Kendall turned up the radio, and a poppy duet flooded the speakers. Ronnie rolled her eyes and adjusted herself in the car seat. It was having fun in the sun and spending time with one another. It was pretty ironic, considering the circumstances. Leaning against the window, she watched the world pass by. Adjusting the sunglasses on her face, she sniffed. From the window, she watched Malibu beach whizz past. Ronnie didn’t necessarily hate the beach, but she preferred the pool. Sand got everywhere, and there were always too many people. She didn’t live near beaches, but her parents took her to state parks and swimming holes when she was younger. They weren’t the most fun because the gravel would stick to her wet feet, or some kid would accidentally push her into the water. For as long as she could remember, she liked looking at the water but hated being in the water. 

Their first stop was Venice Boardwalk. Kendall was decently parked, and he double-checked to make sure the paparazzi weren’t following them. The blonde hadn’t had a run-in with them yet, but he could only imagine what Gustavo and Griffin would be like if the tabloids got their greasy hands on some made-up scandal. Their reactions wouldn’t be positive in the slightest. Maybe even Gustavo would have a heart attack. Not that Kendall wanted him to have a heart attack. It was funny to piss him off or get him angry, but only with harmless antics. If the paparazzi saw the way Ronnie was glued to him amidst the crowd, he was sure they would prattle off about how the frontman for Big Time Rush found himself a new girlfriend after getting his heart broken by the actress from Newtown High. Just thinking about it made his skin crawl. The one thing he hated about being famous was the lack of privacy. It wasn’t as bad as someone like Dak Zevon would experience, but it was still pretty weird. Suddenly, people wanted to know everything about what he and his friends were doing. Where they shopped, what they liked to eat, and who they hung out with. 

Ronnie ordered a pretzel with extra salt and butter, and Kendall grabbed a slice of pepperoni pizza. It was starting to look like a picture-perfect day. The sun was shining, and there were no clouds in the sky. Los Angeles was pretty scenic once you got past all the car fumes and the people crowding every street corner. Ronnie stopped by a stand selling sunglasses. There were rounded shades, cat-eye shades, red shades, green shades, you name it. Looking at the maps, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Kendall handing the vendor some cash in return for a funky pair of sunglasses. 

“Try these,” he handed her square frames tinted purple and blue. 

She put them on and pulled her hair out of her face. 

“How do I look?” 

“Phenomenal.” Kendal gave her a thumbs up. “Keep them, they're yours.” 

“Wait– Really?” Ronnie pulled them off. “You bought them– I couldn’t–” 

“Keep them,” Kendall repeated. He stopped her from handing them back to him. 

“Thanks…” 

The two walked down the boardwalk at Venice Beach, weaving through crowds and mostly ignoring the sun beating down. Kendall was used to it at this point, but Ronnie wasn’t. He kept looking over at her, worried she’d sweat herself into a puddle of goo. Or the sun might melt her into multi-colored mush. She was peculiar. She was always wearing that yellow hoodie of hers. He rarely saw her without it other than when she fell in the pool and at Lucy’s Halloween party. He wouldn’t be surprised if it fused with her skin. Although Ronnie had a tough exterior, she was fun to hang out with. 

It wasn’t that Kendall hated his friends or wished he had better ones, but there was something different about hanging out with her. Sometimes, he was afraid to admit that James, Carlos, and Logan were too much. There was always something going on with them. When Jo broke up with him, he couldn’t strictly focus on being heartbroken because his friends had decided to get a temporary relationship and then break up with him to understand how he felt. It was heartfelt but resulted in Kendall and Logan having to make James and Carlos feel better. Sure, it took his mind off of Jo for a little while, but by the end of the day, he had been reminded of his heartbreak. For now, he’d been keeping his thoughts and feelings tucked inside. He knew his friends meant well, but he didn’t want to have to deal with fixing their heartache again. Of course, he should have figured they would go and do something stupid to relate to how he was feeling. 

A man on roller skates came by playing guitar. Ronnie’s eyes lit up, and she engaged the man in a lively conversation. Sure, Kendall played guitar, but he felt like an outlier in their discussion. He liked the way her face lit up when she was happy. It reminded him of James whenever his friend received a new beauty product in the mail. It was nice seeing her out of her comfort zone. She looked different without the permanent scowl or the angry look in her eyes. He took a picture of her on his phone without saying anything else. The lighting was perfect, and she looked so happy. This was a memory he wanted to capture. In the background, there was a paparazzi van. Looking up from his phone, he froze. 

“Ronnie.” She hadn’t stopped walking. 

“Ronnie.” Maybe she didn’t hear him. 

“Ronnie– We have to go!” Kendall grabbed her by her arm, and she let out a yelp. Not only did that alarm the people around them, but it also alarmed those wearing all-black clothing. 

“What are you doing? I was just–” 

“No time. We have to get out of here.” 

“But we have–” 

“No time. Let’s go.” 

Ronnie didn’t argue. The man on roller skates had already disappeared into the crowd. She helped him with the song he was working on, and in turn, it struck inspiration for her. The only problem was that she didn’t have her notebook. It was in the car. She didn’t want to stick around and find out what made Kendall so antsy. She tripped over her feet as he led her back into the car. He was acting strange. Did he not want to be seen with her? Was he embarrassed to be seen with her? She probably shouldn’t take it so personally, but it wasn’t like he would give her an explanation. 

“Something about the sunshine, baby. I’m seeing you in a whole new light.”

“L.A.s a breeze with the palm trees swaying, oh, it’s so right.” 

The Hollywood Walk of Fame was the next stop on their sightseeing tour, Something James had begged Kendall to take him to. James wouldn’t stop talking about how his name would be there one day. He was aiming for the stars… that people walk on. People also put their hands on the handprints, but they were part of the sidewalk, so people mainly walked on them. In Kendall’s eyes, they weren’t that great. Acclaimed actors and actresses got their names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but he didn’t see it as glamorous. 

When the crowd cleared and people walked away, Ronnie bent down at Christina Auguliera’s star. Like everyone, she put her hands on the handprints. Not exactly. Instead of putting her bare palms to the stone, she pulled her sweatshirt sleeves over her hands and pressed them down. It was strange and caught Kendall off guard, but he scrambled for his phone to take a picture. She looked cute, smiling up at him. He would have taken a few more photos if not for the fear that the paparazzi would find him and ruin his fun. 

“Hey, look.” Ronnie pointed to the billboard across the street. 

It was an advertisement for Big Time Rush’s first album. She had to admit it was a pretty good album, and Gustavo knew how to write music well. Of course, she was his protege and couldn’t say many negative things about him. Gustavo Rocque was the master, but she was a simple padawan studying his craft. One day, she would get to his level. One day, she would be famous for the music she writes and could maybe even sing it if she was confident enough. Addison and Callie always said she had an incredible voice, but having never taken singing lessons, she was pretty sure they were just saying that to be nice. 

“What a perfect day,” 

Ronnie barely folded the map as she looked out the window. She could see nothing but grassy hills for miles. The car was humming down the main stretch of road with no other vehicles in sight. It was actually a perfect day. She wouldn’t admit out loud that she had fun walking around and taking pictures, even though Kendall mainly took photos on his phone. The car turned a corner, and suddenly, three black cars appeared in the rearview mirror. 

“Not anymore.” Kendall frowned and looked over his shoulder. “God…” 

“Is that– Are they the paparazzi?” Ronnie turned and looked over her shoulder. “Why are they following us? Have they been following us all day?” 

“I don’t know. How do I lose them?” 

Ronnie opened the map. It took up a good chunk of space on her side. It was upside down, but she wasn’t thinking about that. Moving her finger along the roads, she had no idea where they were, but all she could hope was that the map was correct. 

“Take a left here,” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes.” Ronnie glanced over her shoulder again. The black vans with tinted windows were genuinely intimidating. 

The car turned, and the vans still followed. The songwriter looked back at the map again and then looked around. Kendall swore the hubcap fell off one of the wheels as the road switched from cement to dirt. Nothing but foliage surrounded them, and it almost looked as though they were driving on a firebreak. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at the map. 

“Okay, if you take your next left, the road loops back to the highway…” Ronnie turned the map once she realized it was upside down. “Or… maybe not.” 

The wheels kicked up dirt. 

“This isn’t even a road anymore. This is a firebreak. It has to be.” 

“Just keep driving.” 

After driving for a while, they passed a yellow sign. Kendall turned his head to get a better look at it, his eyes wide. They were utterly lost, and Ronnie couldn’t admit she was a horrible navigator. 

“That sign back there said ‘Deer crossing.’ There are no deer.” 

“You complain more than Addison.” 

“Are we on the right road or not?” Kendall groaned and turned to look at the map. 

“We are! I think…” 

“You think?” 

“Keep your eyes on the road!”

The car was starting to veer to the right. Even though no other vehicles were on the road, it was still essential to maintain safe driving. 

“Look, I’m the navigator.” Ronnie sighed and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. 

“Oh, is that what you call it?” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Means you’re a know-it-all.” 

“What?” Ronnie gaped at him. The map crumpled slightly in her hands. 

“A know-it-all!” Kendall repeated. “God, you are the queen of snap judgments.” 

The car came to a stop, and neither of them noticed. 

“‘Turn here! This is the right road, I’m sure of it!’” Kendall mocked her in a high-pitched squeaky voice, taking a hand off the wheel. 

“I was sure of it!” Ronnie huffed and peered at the map again. Then she looked out the window and saw the car wasn’t moving. 

“You’re sure. You’re so sure of things you couldn’t be sure about.” 

“I am not.” 

“And you’re defensive.” Kendall shot back. 

“Move the car! We’re not moving.” Ronnie groaned and massaged her temples. “God, you’re such a child…” She muttered to herself. 

Kendall looked ahead and then down at the pedals. He pressed on the gas, and the car roared to life, but the pedals were stuck. The wheels made an ugly slurp sound as they turned. Looking out the window, his eyes widened when he looked down. The car was in some sort of mud or quicksand. Ronnie leaned out the check window, and the vehicle suddenly jolted as it began to sink. She screamed at the sudden movement and quickly tried to unbuckle her seatbelt. 

“Let’s get out and push.” Kendall was surprisingly calm on the outside, even though he was also panicking on the inside. He unbuckled his seat belt, and they both moved to get on the car's roof. 

“Let me help you,” Kendall extended his hand to her, but she batted it away. 

“Don’t touch me!” 

“Why are you so mad?” 

“Oh, I don’t know. This.” Ronnie gestured to the rental car, slowly sinking into either mud or quicksand. 

“Turning onto this road was not my idea.” Kendall rolled his eyes. He helped her up even though she didn’t want him to. 

“You’re blaming me?” 

“Yeah, you’re a terrible navigator!” He snapped at her. 

“You’re a terrible driver!” 

“Hey, I’m a great driver.” The blonde held a finger up to stop her, staring down at her with a wave of anger flickering in his eyes. 

“Right.” Ronnie threw her hands up and laughed. “Because you didn’t get us into this mess!” 

“No, this is your fault! You had the map!” 

The car moved again, and Ronnie grabbed his arm for stabilization. The last thing she wanted to do was fall in the mud and get her clothes ruined or sink into the mud with the car and suffocate to death. She had a feeling he would leave her there to die. 

“Ronnie, we’re gonna have to jump.” 

“I am not jumping.” Ronnie rolled her sleeves up and looked around for something to get them out of this mess. 

“Got a better idea?” 

Ronnie’s eyes lit up as a metaphorical lightbulb turned on in her head. “Use the branch as a bridge!” 

Kendall moved toward the branch but turned back to her, momentarily questioning her sanity. The branch did not look like it would hold their combined weight, but he could only pray it did. He moved to the car's hood and reached his leg over hesitantly. The vehicle made noises as it sunk into the mud. The inside of the car began to fill with muddy water. The singer was safe on the branch, but Ronnie hesitated to move. She slipped while trying to get to the branch. 

“This was my mom’s rental!” Kendall whined. 

“I understand that. Just give me your hand.” Ronnie’s arm shot out, and she grabbed the fabric of his shirt. 

She teetered off balance, and in the blink of an eye, part of the branch snapped, sending them into the disgusting muddy-brown water filled with leaves and other things neither wanted to think about. Kendall pulled them both out as the car finally sunk under the surface. They watched the mud in the water swirl around from the open window—the watery pit kind of burped as it took the car. 

“Excuse you.” 

“Shit, my mom is gonna kill me…” Kendall ran his gross, muddy hands down his face, then sputtered in disgust, trying to get the taste out of his mouth. 

“My bag!” Ronnie dropped to her knees and stuck her arms in, searching for the rucksack she brought to Rocque Records that morning. “I’m dead. I’m dead.” The songwriter was frantic as she tried to search for it by touch. Not only was her notebook in her bag but her phone and her keys to the apartment. 

“Don’t just stand there! Help me!” The liquid coated her sweatshirt, turning the vibrant yellow a disgusting color. But it wasn’t as if their clothes weren’t already soaked from falling in. 

“Come here, give me your hand.” Kendall took hold of her arm as she reached in further, looking for her rucksack. His phone rang in his pocket. 

“I’m gonna die. That’s what's going to happen ‘cause my dad is going to kill me.” She complained as she felt around aimlessly. “Why did I have to get in that stupid car with you?” She groaned. 

“Answer your phone!” 

“Okay. Sorry.” Kendall let her go, and she fell face-first into the disgusting water. He fished around in his pocket for his phone; it was a miracle it didn’t stop working when he fell in. 

“Mom?” He pressed his phone against his ear. The other end was garbled static, barely resembling a voice. He pulled it away from his face to check if he answered the call. 

“Mom, there’s no signal. Can you hear me?” Nothing came in from the other end. “Hello?” He rechecked the cell signal and ended the call. It was useless if they couldn’t hear each other. 

He turned back to Ronnie, who finally pulled her bag out of the water. It was dripping dirty brown water and quite heavy. 

“Look at this!” She shot him a look. The shoulder strap squelched as she put it over her shoulder. “When we return, you’re paying for a new one.” 

“I’m paying for it right now.” Kendall furrowed his brows. Why did she have to be such a bitch? 

Ronnie turned and walked away in the wrong direction. Unaware, she had no idea where she was going. Kendall sighed and shoved his phone in his pocket. 

“Beach is that way.” He pointed in the opposite direction. 

She accepted she was wrong and turned to walk in the right direction, shouldering past him. On the bright side, their clothes would dry faster this way. Kendall caught up with her pretty quickly and was mildly irritated. Without a car, the only option was to walk for who knows how long. Neither knew where they were, and Kendall could only hope he was right about where the beach would be. For a while, they walked in silence. Ronnie’s anger was stewing, and Kendall was trying hard not to give her a piece of his mind. She had been pleasant all day but suddenly turned into a raging asshole. Kendall took a deep breath before he flew off the handle. 

For him, the silence was uncomfortable and suffocating. 

“I’m sorry, okay.” 

“Now you’re going to apologize?” Ronnie said snarkily. 

“I meant to apologize before.” 

“Then maybe you should have apologized then.” 

“What is your problem?” Kendall scoffed and walked ahead of her, turning around so he could walk backward and face her. 

“I don’t have a problem. I just wanna get back to the Palm Woods and shower to eliminate all this dirt and grime!” Ronnie glared daggers at him. 

“You know what? I wanted to take you out and have a nice day that wouldn’t end with us yelling at each other. Why do you hate me so much? Everybody loves me!” 

And there’s his arrogance. He turned and started walking away. 

“What? So that’s what it’s like with you?” Ronnie raised a brow. “You can’t handle someone disliking you, so you bitch and moan about it and then walk away? That’s charming. I bet your friends chase after you when you do that.” 

They both stopped walking. Kendall tensed up, hands balling into fists at his sides. A muscle in his jaw twitched. 

“Oh, Kendall, I’m so sorry I hurt your delicate little feelings. Kendall, forgive me for not treating you like the big, enormous star you think you are.” Ronnie mocked, batting her eyelashes and faking a pout. “What a brat.” She said under her breath.

Kendall turned on his heel and walked towards her, quickly closing the gap. He was pissed. It was written on his face. 

“I’m a brat? I’m a brat? What about you, huh?” He jabbed a finger in her face. 

“Me?” She stared at him in shock. 

“Yeah,” Kendall sneered. “For the last week, you’ve done nothing but whine about how I haven’t treated you right or that I haven’t been nice to you. I saved you when you almost drowned because you couldn’t fucking swim.” 

She narrowed her eyes but remained silent. She didn’t have anything to say to that because he was right. Ronnie didn’t know how to swim, and he did save her. Then, a thought popped into her head. 

“What? So, treating me like an emotional punching bag was just something nice to do? I pity your friends.” 

“You wish you were one.” 

Ronnie stepped closer, getting in his face. 

“I’d rather go down with the rental car.” She shouldered past him and walked away again. 

“Okay, I’m confused about something.” Kendall popped in front of her again, walking backward to talk face-to-face. 

“What?” Ronnie groaned and rolled her eyes. She was about five seconds away from punching him. 

“When we were on our little photography tour, I thought you liked me.” He looked so sincere, like a kicked puppy. For a second, Ronnie almost regretted yelling at him. 

“You thought wrong.” Her gaze hardened. 

“Why? Why don’t you like me?” 

“Because you think everyone likes you and that they should like you regardless of how you approach others.” 

“It’s ‘cause I’m likable.” 

“No, because you’re a star.” She laughed in his face. 

“What does that mean?” 

“You don’t even see it, do you?” Ronnie slowed her pace. He was genuinely confused, and it was laughable. “Your life isn’t real. Your house is practically a hotel. You have people waiting on you hand and foot. I mean, real people date someone because they want to be with them. Why were you with Jo?” 

“I– Well– I liked her– She’s nice–” Kendall stammered, floundering for a solid answer. She put him on the spot, and he was going belly up. 

“That’s all I’m saying.” Ronnie sighed. 

It wasn’t long until they found a lake. Kendall fell in first by accident, then he grabbed onto Ronnie’s sweatshirt and pulled her in. They both needed to cool off before the argument got even more heated. The lake was most likely secluded by nature, and it was scenic. A dip in the lake didn’t eliminate all the dirt and grim but they were relatively cleaner. Of course, when they get back to the Palm Woods they’d have to take a shower. But this was sufficient, for now. 

In a way it was like time didn’t exist. Ronnie sat on a log, her sweatshirt and rucksack hanging on the branch of a nearby tree. The wind tousled her hair slightly. She closed her eyes and sighed. Kendall sat in the grass. Their clothes were mostly dry. They had sat there that long. By the lake side, it was quiet and peaceful. No one could disturb them or interrupt them. And certainly no paparazzi. 

“This is kind of nice.” Kendall leaned back in the grass with his hands behind his head. 

“Yeah, it’s giving me the idea for a song.” 

“What about?” 

“A perfect date, or day. I’ll decide when we get back.” Here, with Kendall, she didn’t have the instinct to cover her arms. She wasn’t embarrassed or uncomfortable. Typically, she didn’t like being without her sweatshirt but there was something different about sitting in the sun with him. 

“I wish we could stay here.” 

“Why?” 

“Because everything goes so fast. It’s calm and quiet. For once, I feel grounded in the moment. I don’t have to put on an act or pretend I’m anything I’m not.” 

“I doubt people would hate you if you started acting like who you want to be.” 

“I don’t know, I never tried it. My friends think I’m the strong leader with nerves of steel, Gustavo thinks I’m the perfect ‘bad boy’ for the band, and my mom…” 

“Your mom would love you regardless.” 

“Sometimes I think she wishes I was better, you know. That I didn’t get into fights as often, or maybe wanted me to pursue something other than hockey.” 

“Okay, then what do you think?” 

“About what?” 

“When you start suppressing who you really are, it takes a toll on people.” She got up from the log and walked over to him. 

“I’ll be fine. I don’t have a choice.” 

“No, I think you do. But it’s your choice to make, not anyone else's.” She sat beside him in the grass and picked at the grass blades. 

“I just don’t want to disappoint anyone.” 

“Maybe… I don’t understand.” Ronnie pulled at the grass blades, twisting them in her fingers. 

“What?” Kendall propped himself up on his elbows. 

“Your life. You’re already so well-adjusted to the Hollywood scene. I can hardly imagine what that can be like. All this growing pressure to be something amazing.” 

“Right now, I don’t feel pressured to be anything. I can let go and be myself with you,” 

Ronnie snorted and shoved him playfully. 

“How do you like it?” 

“I like it a lot.” 

“Me too,” 

“So,” Kendall sat upright and faced her. This look in his eyes. “Tell me something about you,” 

“That could take a while. I live a fascinating life.” Ronnie joked. 

He laughed with her, his eyes filled with warmth and tenderness. She squirmed under his gaze and looked away. Eye contact made her feel weird. 

“Stop looking at me like that,” 

“Like what?” Confusion flashed across his features. Up close, he had a smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. 

“That thing… With your eyes.” 

To be funny, Kendall crossed his eyes and made a face. Ronnie snorted and held a hand over her mouth. 

“Comedy, not your next big career move.” 

“What? No, I’m funny.” 

“Yeah, funny looking.” She shoved him playfully. 

The songwriter got up and ruined the second little moment they were going to have. Gripping her hoodie and bag off the branch, she took a deep breath to try to calm herself. She didn’t like him. He was still kind of an asshole but more so misunderstood than anything. But she had to stay firm on her stance. Just because they got all heartfelt and mushy didn’t mean they would end up falling in love. Kendall frowned and hopped to his feet, following her. 

“Yeah, we should– We should go. Your dad would kill me if he couldn’t find you,” 

“Right, she cleared her throat. 

When they returned to Palm Woods, it was nearly sunset. Their feet ached, and they were both relatively hungry. James and Carlos were playing obnoxious music by the pool area. Kendall split off from her to check out what new idiotic plan they were implementing. Ronnie pulled out her phone, and it surprisingly worked. It was weirdly durable. Her lock screen lit up with missed messages from an unknown number and Callie, Addison, Camille, and Mercedes. She scrolled through while waiting for the elevator to arrive on her floor. 

Hey, Mercedes said I should stop by Rocque Records and meet with you in person. I can’t wait to find out who you are, Ronnie. ;)

[screechingsandwichtriumph]

possibly a part two to idol!reader, what if during fights they're not using their full strength? like yes they beat the absolute shit out of their opponents, but they purposefully never hit anything vital or do it too much. not out of malicious intent or anything, but because it's not necessary to do so. and they're relatively chill about doing this, their facial expression nothing more than like...slight discomfort (cuz punching people still hurts if you're really strong).

what if one day they weren't their bubbly, kind self? like they're not being mean to their friends or anything but they can all tell that something is very off with them. and then they go on a mission and the villian is just a fucking dick, hurting a bunch of innocent bystanders n whatnot.

then they just fucking snap. i mean every single pressure point on the villian's body has been hit with a force that rivals the pressure of the mariana trench, their stomach is so bruised and bloody that it looks like a red and purple blackout tattoo, and their face is UNRECOGNIZABLE. not even jarvis could figure out who they were after they got smacked down by this cutesy idol/hero.

and after all that, y/n just wipes their hands on the villains shirt, takes a couple cutesy pics with fans, and bounces tf outta there, leaving the avengers damn near mortified (and peter might lowkey be turned on but we dont talk about that.)

sry that the request was really long! love ur writing btw :3

At this point I think you are the only reason I write(thank you)

I am always so out of ideas but you have the best ones ever and also I am an attention whore so you asking ME to write things???

Top tier stuff

I will write it , but it probably won't be out until like Monday , or maybe Tuesday:)

[oldmyths]

on february 24, 2009, marianas trench released their second album ‘masterpiece theatre’. i don’t remember when i first saw the music video for ‘good to you’ on much music but i know i was sitting on the floor in my mom’s living room. i thought the male singer looked mildly attractive, and i was impressed by his singing, but otherwise didn’t give the band a second thought.

a little later my best friend told me she loved marianas trench, and had managed to get two tickets to a show of theirs. she wanted me to go. i loved spending time with her, so i said yes. the actual experience was kind of terrible—it was in a small venue, and we were pretty far away from the stage. there were no chairs. i was too short to see over anyone’s shoulder, and i didn’t want to stand anymore after a while. but the band caught my attention, and after we walked out i wanted to hear more of them.

since then i’ve seen marianas trench six or seven more times. when matt webb, their guitarist, released a solo ep and went on a modest, canadian tour, i went with my best friend and we had a blast. i’ve only ever seen marianas trench with her.

these four men have brought her and i closer and closer together. without them, i’m not sure if we would have spent as much time together as we have.

but, after all, i spent my time between concerts listening to their music alone; in the car going to school, going to town, in my room, whenever i could. masterpiece theatre stood out the most to me, it felt like a genuine theatrical experience, with the orchestral music fading in on the first track, masterpiece theatre i.

from there i discovered their first album, fix me, which left me feeling exposed and raw in so many uncomfortable ways that i wasn’t prepared to handle. and at the same time, listening to the album let me know that i wasn’t the only person who felt the way i did at the time.

then in 2012, they released their third album, ever after. when marianas trench announced their ‘face the music’ tour, i knew my best friend and i would see them again. but little did i know that i would inadvertently, indirectly meet someone who i would cherish and treasure to this very day at that concert. (we later met officially on tumblr, and i am always so thankful for him in my life.)

all that to say, marianas trench’s music has grown with me throughout my life. i don’t know who i would be without them, without masterpiece theatre. i’ll never forget how matt webb held my gaze and smiled as i sang his lyrics back to him, how josh ramsay gently encouraged me to stand beside him and called me ‘sweetie’. i’ll never forget the first time i was able to distinguish between matt and mike’s backing vocals in masterpiece theatre iii, dancing in the passengar seat to shake tramp, trading lines from decided to break it with my best friend. i’ll never forget hearing the song titles dropped in dearly departed live and openly crying in a sea of fans as josh ramsay did his best to sing the outro.

ten years ago today, marianas trench released their second album masterpiece theatre. i’ve never been able to know for sure what my top 10 album list would look like, but i know with absolute certainty that this album is on it.

thank you, josh, matt, mike, and ian, for this album. thank you for this music. thank you for the immeasurable happiness that you’ve given myself and so many other fans. i owe you all so much. thank you.

[suna-reversed]

Talking to the moon🌙

Gojo Satoru x fem!reader

minors DNI‼️

3k+ words

(quote^^ by- Richard Siken)

warnings/tags- blood and violence. oral (f.recieving), vaginal sex, anal, dacryphilia, slight praise, slight degradation, fingering. age gap. toxic relationship. mentions of harassment. yandere themes implied. heartbreak, moving on. fluff. angst. hurt/comfort. (all characters are aged up!)

Gojo Satoru is the moon. Ever changing and radiant. Beaming with light, even when he doesn't have any of his own. And much like the moon, parts of him stay hidden in an ominous darkness as he leaves you cold and alone in the tangled mess of sheets, wondering why your lover disappears at the crack of every dawn.

You had met him a while ago when he had first come into the bakery you worked at part-time, dazzling pearls on show as he ordered every single flavour of mochi off the menu. You didn’t know where it started; how the simple exchanges turned into conversations that lasted up to hours, your manager practically having to shoo him away so that you’d stop getting distracted.

You got used to him visiting you in the day during work, sitting on the barstool near the bakery counter, talking your ear off about the most random of things while he stuffed his face with mochi. You sometimes wondered how you happened to have so much in common with a man so much more older than you. 

You couldn't exactly remember how those innocent conversations turned into you being splayed across the marble kitchen countertop of your apartment at 3 am, the joyous man now turned into a ferocious beast as he devoured you whole, holding your legs apart, tongue licking in between your folds with such fervour that made it seem as if it was the last meal of his life. 

In all honesty, you didn’t know a lot about him, except for the fact that he worked at a private institute and often travelled overseas. He’d be as silent as a mouse as he slipped out of your place before sunrise each time. He never told you why, and eventually you stopped asking- the warmth and comfort of his body too addictive to have to give up for the question of ‘what are we?’ being answered.

On days that you’d find yourself waking up early, you’d simply let your eyes roam over the muscles of his back, adoring the dimples at the bottom of his spine, memorising each blemish, scar and mark as if you’d never see it again. You sometimes found yourself wishing he’d take off the peculiar fabric covering his eyes- your mind could barely fathom the shade of his orbs.

You knew that he was always aware of you being awake. But he didn’t acknowledge it, whether by accident or choice, you could never tell. So every time he’d finish pulling his shirt over his head, you’d roll away, focusing your mind out the window on the half disappearing moon instead of the crushing weight on your chest. 

Perhaps, this was the love they never told you about. The love that wasn’t afternoon picnics and obnoxious public displays of affection. The love that wasn’t late night grocery runs and feeding each other food at cafes.

Instead, this was the love that had you deleting messages and cleaning up the strands of ashy hair from your shower drain. The love that had you lying to your friends about the marks on your neck and pretending like he didn’t just have you pinned down beneath him the night before as you served him coffee.

Every morning that you woke up alone in bed, sore and unclothed from the events of the previous night, you found yourself thinking of ways that you’d turn him away the next time he showed up at your door. But then the bell would ring, and your feet would be carrying you to the half broken man covered in bruises and blood before you could think of it.

This time, you’re sure you tell him to go away, to stop treating you as if you were some toy, slamming the door in his crestfallen face. But then why do you find yourself clutching onto his scarlet stained jacket in the bathroom? The first aid box discarded to the side as you sob into his chest, a hand stroking your hair as he assures you he’s fine. 

That night, you find him buried deep inside of you, your heavy breathing filling the silence of the air, your back to his chest. The arms around you feel unbearably tight as he pulls you even closer to him. Why is he trying to snatch all the warmth from your body?

The hot breath of his mouth is right next to your ear. He’s telling you he wants to be tender and merciful while his teeth are digging into your jugular, the hand around your throat tightening as his hips rut into you harder. He does not wipe away the tears flowing freely down your face.

The next morning, you find a burning sensation rising in your chest as you stare at the empty space next to you; his underlying scent of strawberries and citrus still lingering.

What had you been expecting? Why would this night have been different from any other?

That question is answered when you realise the unfamilair feeling of a cold metal wrapped around your ankle while climbing out of bed. Looking down, you see that it's a thin silver anklet with two charms hanging off of it.

His initials and a crescent moon.

You can’t help the smile that’s on your face for the rest of the day.

--------

You're panting, the drumming of your heartbeat echoing in your ears, vision blurring as you try to make it back home. You’re gripping onto the walls to keep yourself from falling, the pain in your body near unbearable as you somehow manage to unlock the door, not even making it past the entrance as you crumble apart right there, curling in on yourself as broken sobs leave your chest. 

The sound of footsteps has you shutting your eyes, flinching from the pain and fear of knowing you can’t fight. The terror of your attacker being in your home makes your cries even louder.

Instead, you find your senses being flooded by the familiar scent of strawberries and the cologne that you bought him- warm muscular arms come to wrap around your figure, lifting you up. You’re still crying as he settles you down onto the bed, gently pulling your hands away from your face.

He lifts your shirt to reveal the expanse of wounds littered across your abdomen. An unreadable expression remains on his face as he skillfully cleans off the blood, fixing you up like you’ve done for him a dozen times. You don’t remember telling him where you were injured. Could the blood be seen through your shirt? None of it matters as he pushes you back down onto the plush mattress, your eyes fluttering close you as fall into a deep fitful slumber. 

It’s a full moon tonight, the light cascading through your window providing you an odd sense of comfort. You turn over in the dark, gasping a little as your eyes lock onto a pair of strange azure ones. Your mind is still heavy from the medicines you took, perhaps that’s why you don’t react, simply staring into the unfamiliar eyes on a face that you recognised better than the back of your own hand.

His slender pale fingers are trailing over the skin of your abdomen. Shouldn't it hurt more? A hand comes up to your face, gently cradling your chin as he examines the scratch on your jaw. Your heart skips a beat as his soft lips press a chaste kiss onto your brow. His voice is low and tense, anger barely restrained as he asks,

“Who did this to you?”

You try to form a response, but all you can hear is the shallow echo of the beating of your half-dead heart. Your chest feels hollow as words finally rise to the tip of your tongue, eyes dry as you tell him all of it. How a strange force had pinned you against a wall when you were walking back home, how the man who appeared from the shadows of the dark alley didn’t even lift a finger, yet it felt like each bone in your body was being cracked apart. How you barely felt the pain of the broken bottle that impaled your flesh as you were thrown aside, the stranger parting from you with just four words,

“Consider this a warning.”

You don’t care how crazy you sound as you explain the bizarre events that occurred. You don’t care that his orbs are as blue and twice as deep as the mariana trench. You don’t care that for once, his eyes hold something other than just lust as he looks at you.

Your throat feels raw by the time you finish, and it hurts to look at his pitiful face so you roll onto your side, fixing your eyes on the shimmering celestial body outside your window. You both lay in silence for a while.

“I liked thinking of you as the moon at times.”

The calm in your voice startles Gojo, but he remains quiet, wanting you to continue. It doesn’t matter if it's gibberish, doesn't matter if it’s words of hatred, of doubt, of regret; he’ll take it as long as there’s something- as long as you’re speaking. His arms tremble around you a little as a bitter laugh escapes your chest. 

“But at the end of the day,” you pause, taking a deep breath, “...all I am, is a mere star in a galaxy full of constellations.”

The raw sob that rips from your chest is a surprise to both you and Gojo.

“Tell me who cares about a star that burns out and explodes?” your voice is barely above a whisper as you turn around to face him.

For once in his life, Gojo Satoru can’t joke, fight or fuck his way out of a situation. A strange weight has been on his chest ever since he saw your eyes. The light and joy stripped out of them as he found himself staring back at his own reflection. 

His eyes glance down at the dip of your collarbone, the arch of your shoulder that he wanted to reside in forever, now covered in small scars. He knows who hurt you. 

He pulls you closer to him, tangling his feet with yours, the strip of metal around your ankle clinking at the movement. Perhaps it was a huge mistake to have bought you something so carelessly, knowing that the eyes of a few dozen enemies followed him wherever he went. 

He finds himself at a loss for words, opting to convey his emotions through touch instead as he melds his lips with yours. You sigh into his mouth and he kisses you even deeper, almost desperately as if trying to pass over his own breaths to you- as if trying to bring you back to life. He finds the taste of salt on his tongue and the wet drops falling onto his cheeks makes his flesh burn. He doesn't know whose they are as he continues to try and cling onto the shell of what was once a whole person. 

“Please” he finds himself mumbling as he pulls you even closer, heart cracking as you continue sniffing into his chest. 

“It hurts- it hurts- so much” You’re sobbing now, his own body shaking in tandem with yours.

Who is he to deny you when you look up at him, the broken plea leaving your mouth, 

“Make it stop please.”

---

Gojo finds the cold metal of his own initials pressing against the side of his face as he hoists your legs over his shoulder. His fingers are pressing down against your sensitive nub, spreading around your slick before he pumps two of his fingers into you. You buck your hips up, cries escaping you as his tongue licks your clit, suctioning it into his mouth as he increases the pace of his fingers.

You’re cumming undone within seconds, begging him to fill you up. He’s never so easily given in to your demands, but tonight, it’s as if he’s only there to serve your wishes. The sickening thought of getting hurt again just so that you’d get this treatment creeps up in the back of your mind. 

You moan as you feel him line his thick girth with your entrance, the tip catching onto your sensitive bundle of nerves as he rubs it between your dripping heat. He leans forward, pushing your legs up and safely tucking them against your chest, before crashing his lips against yours. It’s messy and rushed; tongue against tongue, spit drooling out as he pushes himself inside of you in one long stroke. The burn of it has you groaning into his mouth, hands moving to tangle into his hair. His thrusts are deep and angled, the feeling of it settling deep in your belly. 

“Fuck- you look so-fucking-pretty underneath me like this”

His words of praise are muffled against your lips, further drowned out by your moans as one of his hands moves down to play with your clit. You’re screaming his name as the coil in your stomach snaps, his own restraint breaking as he finishes, painting your walls with his seed. 

It’s not the first time you find yourself screaming and moaning that night. His cock is inside of you in one way or the other through the entirety of the next few hours- whether it be deep down your throat as his hands pull your hips down to his face, moaning at the taste of himself leaking from your cunt - or stretching the walls of your puckered asshole, the lube he pumped in with his slender fingers dripping out as he presses you to the shower wall, a hand coming forward to fondle your tits as his face falls onto your shoulder, grunting into your ear while he pistons in and out of your tight hole. 

You can barely move a muscle by the time you’re done, body and mind numb from both the exhaustion and overstimulation as he pulls the covers over the two of you, limbs entangled with each other’s, skin against skin, his hands rubbing circles onto your spine.

“No one’s ever going to hurt you again.” 

You’re barely conscious as he whispers that, humming and burying your face deeper into his cozy heat as he presses a kiss to the top of your head. You do not notice the solemn drop of moisture that escapes his eye, falling onto your cheek, a thumb brushing it away just as quickly, as if it was never there. Just as he wishes he could brush away his own existence from your life- no- just as he was going to.

“...I promise.”

---

When your eyes flutter open, they are not met with the moon.

Instead, the light of the rising sun casts a rosy hue across your room. And for once, you do not feel cold as you spread out your legs to take more of the space on the expanse of your empty bed. The sunlight does not feel like a curse anymore, even if the nostalgia of the moon’s glow stays buried somewhere deep in your heart. 

But at least there’s no more crying going to bed alone each night; no more hours of scrolling through social media looking for someone who doesn’t exist; no more one night stands and low grade hookups trying to fulfil the ever-growing void in your heart. 

In fact, you find yourself going out more, singing along to songs in the shower once again, even making friends with a regular trio that starts coming into your bakery every other day. They told you they’re college students too, all around your age, and you find yourself smiling a little more than necessary at one of them, even if a pair of ocean eyes floods the back of your mind each time that you do. You’re still hurting and healing, but at least you are moving forward. 

“At least he kept his promise”  You find yourself thinking as you climb out of bed, sighing in disappointment at the clinking of charms around your ankle. 

—-

“At least I kept my promise.” 

It had become Gojo’s new-found mantra. Every time he saw you drunk out of your mind at a bar, deftly bribing the bartender to replace your ordered shots with water instead. Every time he saw a random body pressed to yours, their tongue exploring your sweet mouth as you pushed them into your apartment. And especially that one time he found himself standing over the half-beaten body of the man who had tried to grope you on the bus. 

“At least I kept my promise- at least she’s safe.”

He knew his actions were of a mad man. Even though he took care of the problem which had hurt you in the first place, he still found himself paranoid. Following you around every other night, making sure you were still here- still alive under the same sky as him, under the same sun and moon and stars. He told himself he was doing it for you- even if he found his heart swell every time he saw the familiar glint of the silver trinket around your ankle.

-----

“No way!” You find yourself laughing around a mouth full of mochi.  

“No- I swear he likes you, he just doesn't want to admit it, you know how he-” 

“What are you two talking about?”

You both immediately snap your mouths shut as he returns from the restroom, sliding into the seat on his side of the booth. 

“Nothing!” you reply in unison. 

“Anyways, do you want me to get you anything else? Something that this idiot wouldn't shove into my mouth?” You joke, tapping your pen against the notepad. 

“Hey! I just wanted you to taste how delicious the mochi was!”

“I know- I made it!”

A loud cough breaks your banter with the light haired boy, 

“I-I do actually want to ask for something”

“Of course, what can I get you? The ginger tea you like?”

“Well- what I want is-” he pauses, and you don’t miss the mischievous glint in the eyes of his friend sitting across the table. 

“I’d like to take you to the festival at the park.”

You’re halfway through writing it down on the notepad before you realise what he’s asked, your head snapping up to see the slightly flushed tint on his cheeks as he glares at the howling boy across the table. Your own face heats up as he looks towards you expectantly. 

“You don’t have to if you-”

“Pick me up at 4”

“Oh” butterflies race in your stomach at the smile that he gives you, “...okay, 4 it is.” 

------

Weeks go by and you don’t realise the slow mending of your heart. Your broken pieces coming together each time he holds your hand, each time he presses a kiss to the tip of your nose, each time he whispers words of affirmations into your ear, and each time he comforts your shaking body, apologising for kissing your brow- even if he doesn’t understand why it made you cry. 

Eventually, you learn to not mind being just a mere star in the vast expanse of the cosmo.

You didn’t care because he looked at you like you held the universe in your eyes, cradling your face with such gentleness as if you were precious china. You didn’t care because when his lips came down onto yours, it felt like the collision of stars- your own little supernovae in the curve of his cupid’s bow. You didn’t care because when you woke up, you’d find him peppering kisses across the purple constellations he left the night before. 

You didn’t care because you never woke up cold and alone anymore.

------

“I’ll be back in just a second.” 

You find yourself saying as you move your head off his lap, waving to your other two friends, their own counterparts lounging beside them. 

“Is everything okay?’ 

He’s always so tender- except for when he has you splayed across the bed on your stomach, hips thrusting into yours as he tells you what a good slut you are for him- just for him. Heat crawls up your face at the memory from a few nights ago. The fingers wrapping your hand snap your mind out of its perverse refuge. Looking down, you find concern-filled eyes staring back at you. 

“Yeah, I just want to take a walk alone by the beach- get some air.” You reply, leaning down to press a chaste kiss to his lips.  

The sound of the waves lapping against the shore in the dark and the fresh sea breeze on your face is refreshing. You make a mental note to thank Nobara for dragging you onto this trip. You stop as you find a cozy spot in the sand, giving you a perfect view of the moonlit sea.

You don’t know how long you sit there, thinking of a particular set of emerald eyes and long lashes, your smile faltering as the promise ring on your finger grazes the forgotten metal on your ankle. Your face remains neutral as you unhook it, even if it feels like cutting your own hand off, but that’s all there is to it - familiarity and nostalgia. There’s no blackhole in your chest, ready to open up and swallow you whole, there are no tears shed as you bury the piece of junk into the sand, and there is no looking back as you walk away, back into the arms of your precious ‘gumi. 

Gojo stands at the rooftop, one hand clutching the sand covered jewellery, the other pulling down a side of his blindfold as he watches you entangle yourself in the arms of another, laughing as he places a kiss on the top of your brow. You’re happy, that’s all that matters- still, the irony of the situation pricks at him - especially after all he did to keep you away from his world. 

He had initially found himself at a loss for words when you had told him that he was the moon, and you, just a star. If you were to ask him again, Gojo would agree, but with only half of it.

He may have been the moon, but you were a galaxy full of stars and planets that harboured dreams and wishes he could never fathom. His mind kept flickering back to the constellations he littered your body with as he now watched his own disciple press kisses into the crook of your neck. 

Nonetheless, he found his own lips twitching upwards- almost tragically, but the warmth in his chest was real as he saw the joy on your face. You were right; he was the moon after all. He had shone as bright as the sun itself despite not having any light of his own. Now he stood there watching the same light reflect off the dark-haired boy who held you in his arms, and suddenly, it all made sense.

Perhaps he should have found another way back then. Perhaps he shouldn’t have underestimated his ability to be able to protect you. Perhaps- 

it didn’t matter now. 

perhaps at the end of the day, the moon was nothing but a dreamer.

© suna-reversed �� all rights reserved. please refrain from modifying, translating, reposting of any kind. plagiarism will NOT be tolerated.

[killing-all-joy]

I got inspired to write after Virgil wearing a skirt. Prinxiety with blink-and-you’ll-miss-it implied Moceit. I finished this late last night so I thought I’d post it today. I hope you like it!

cw: vague mention of food, self deprecation

Virgil stood in front of his room’s mirror, pivoting on his heels to turn his body left and right forty-five degrees. Patton and Logan had recently picked out skirts to wear, and Virgil decided in a (rare) rush of confidence that came after a particularly persuasive conversation with Patton to wear a skirt himself. His best friend was so excited about the skirt he wore, and Virgil had to agree that the skirt looked quite good on him (so didn’t Janus). Virgil figured that he wouldn’t be ridiculed so severely for wearing a skirt considering Logan, Thomas’ logic, had done the same recently.

He was in a purple and black plaid skirt, short sleeved hoodie, white shirt, white and black vertically striped tights, and black shoes with purple laces. He knew the look was adventurous, and was now trying to decide whether he looked okay. The anxious thoughts screaming in his mind that he looked terrible were momentarily muffled by his love for the outfit.

But, as they say, all good things must come to an end, and the negative thoughts started to get louder. As they started to get to a volume and intensity that started to pull his hands to his hoodie with the intention of removing it and changing back into his old outfit, his door slammed open.

“Viiiiiiiirrrgiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil,” sang the most familiar and distinctive voice Virgil knew. Roman was in his room.

Virgil started to panic. He forgot to lock his door (of course he did, things always go wrong), and now Roman, perhaps the least considerate of a person’s privacy (excluding Remus) in the mindscape, had opened the door without knocking and was now able to see what an absolute moron Virgil was to wear a skirt, I mean what kind of misplaced confidence-

Roman almost wished he’d knocked. That way, he would’ve been prepared for the sight that awaited him when he opened the door to Virgil’s room.

Why ‘almost’? Virgil was the most anxious thing to ever come to existence. If he knocked, Virgil would have snapped his fingers to change his outfit (they were imaginary, after all, and could change their clothing at will), and Roman would never have been blessed by the most beautiful sight ever to grace his eyes.

However, those things did not obscure how embarrassingly not composed Roman was after he laid his gaze on his fellow side. He couldn’t really blame himself, since he expected Virgil to be scrolling tumblr (as he normally was). It’s not like today was a special occasion either. Just that the afternoon had now become the evening and it was time for dinner.

Patton had made chicken and broccoli that smelled like heaven, and Virgil was nowhere to be found. Roman had volunteered to look for Virgil, his first instinct being his room. He had heard the quiet sound of shoes sliding against wooden flooring, and decided that Virgil was in his room. So, he did what any person would expect him to do and threw the anxious side’s door open while singing his name, holding out the vowels so long that only someone trained impressively well in breath support could be able to manage. 

“Time for di-oh,” Roman said, voice loud at the beginning of his sentence but starting to lower in volume as he noticed Virgil (particularly his attire).

Virgil was decidedly not in his normal outfit. Or his old one. No, the emo now donned a short-sleeved hoodie, a white shirt, tights, and the ultimate killer of Roman’s composure, a skirt.

Sure, Patton in a skirt, while adorable and attractive, did not surprise Roman. At least, not after he saw the design. Roman had smiled when he saw Patton’s skirt and told him that he looked quite good. Logan was a bit more (very) surprising, but Roman just gave him a teasing remark and then a more serious compliment without any gay-related problems. But Virgil....

Roman’s ultimate wish was that he could’ve received a heads-up before this. That way, he could have prepared. If he’d received a warning, he, well aware of his crush on Virgil and how much that could affect him in any given situation, would have been able to enter Virgil’s room without half the issues. Or maybe not. But still, it seemed like anything would have yielded better results than what was happening in the present.

Because Roman’s eyes were wider than the sun, his jaw dropped lower than the Mariana Trench is deep, and his movements ceased faster than someone turned to stone by Medusa. He was thankful he wasn’t holding anything, because he would have dropped it then and there. Roman wasn’t fully sure he was blinking or breathing, hell, his heart could’ve stopped and he wouldn’t have noticed or cared. All he could do was let his eyes stare at Virgil.

So, yeah. Roman almost wished he would have knocked.

“Roman?” Virgil asked, voice too quiet and shy to be a sign of anything positive. “Are you okay?”

Roman wanted to reply, say either “yes” or the truth. But, his brain failed him and he was unable to make any noise.

Virgil blinked. “A...um...I imagine you came to tell me about dinner. I’ll be right down, just let me change.”

Roman walked into the room slowly, not saying anything. He stopped in front of Virgil, grabbing his arm. Virgil had the tendency to slouch, so Roman had to look down slightly to meet his eyes. He tried to speak again, to tell Virgil that he didn’t have to change and could wear his outstanding outfit to dinner, but he found himself unable to find the words.

“Roman? You’re stopping me. Have I done something wrong?”

Roman shook his head.

“Wh- oh god, it’s the outfit, isn’t it. It looks bad. Too much. I know, I’m sorry. Patton and Logan did the whole skirt thing so I thought I’d try it out but that was obviously a terrible idea because now I’ve made my already bad appeara-”

Roman’s mind started to go on full alert when Virgil started explicitly voicing his self-deprecation.

“No.”

Virgil’s words died in his throat. He blinked. “What?”

“Do-...don’t...don’t change,” Roman managed to blurt out in a croaky voice. “Not unless you...you want to.”

“B-but I don’t loo-”

“Yes. Wait- no.” Roman threw his free hand to his forehead. “You look good.”

Virgil’s face pinkened. “Don’t just say that to be-”

“I...I’m not-” Roman took a deep breath, forming his next sentence carefully. “If you want to grade your appearance for some godforsaken reason even though that is very unhealthy, base it on me from two minutes ago unable to speak or move, hell, base you can base it on me now: unable to articulate my thoughts properly. Virgil, you need to...um...I am very very gay, and you need to understand that...that’s why I am acting this way. Be-because...because you are very pretty. Handsome. Beautiful.”

“Huh?” Virgil’s voice was two octaves higher.

“Yeah. Don’t change,” Roman repeated, “unless you truly don’t like it. Please.”

Virgil swallowed, looking back down at his outfit. “Alright. I won’t.”

Roman’s phone vibrated, signaling a text. He opened it and found that Janus had texted him saying he and Logan had been working all day without food so they started dinner already, and that Roman was a “slow jerk who takes his time” for not being at the dinner table faster.

“What is it?”

“They’ve already started eating.”

“Oh god, I’m sorry. That’s my fau-”

Roman, still looking at his phone, put a finger in front of Virgil’s mouth. Virgil stopped talking, and Roman kept his finger there as he put his phone away. “Don’t apologize. This is good.”

“...How?”

“We can have a dinner date in the Imagination together tonight,” Roman suggested, staring lovingly into Virgil’s eyes. “Just you and me. If you’d like.”

“I’d, um, really like that,” Virgil said, cheeks red and eyes cast down to his skirt. He started to play with its hem. “A lot.”

“I figured, since this incident is basically my, albeit terrible, love confession- wait, you would?”

Virgil turned his head back up and met Roman’s eyes. “Yeah. It sounds cool, or whatever, to go on a date with you,” he cringed at his awkwardness, “romantically.”

Roman’s eyes widened as he grinned and his entire face alit with happiness. “I am so glad, Stormy Knight!”

Virgil bit his lip. He looked a bit nervous for half a second, but then straightened his posture and stood on his toes, planting a kiss on the tip of Roman’s nose. “I’m glad you’re happy, Princey.”

Roman’s face flushed and his brain went blank at the kiss, but as soon as he registered it, he (somehow) grinned wider and picked up Virgil, spinning him in his arms. Virgil shrieked at Roman to put him down. Roman could tell he only did so because he was blushing up a storm.

Roman set Virgil down, then gently pushed Virgil back two paces so his back was against the mirror. Roman’s expression turned sincere.

“Virgil,” he said softly, like the name was fragile and could break if uttered at a louder volume, “may I, perhaps, have a kiss before we eat?”

Virgil nodded, unable to speak.

Roman put his arms around Virgil’s waist and brought their lips together. He kissed him intensely, but not roughly, and held him like he was a glass case holding all the things Roman treasured most. Virgil kissed back, wrapping his arms around Roman’s shoulders.

Dinner could wait for a couple of minutes.

~

Taglist: @somehow-i-got-an-account @justanotherhumanstuff

My first fic published to this account! Yay! I’ve always wanted to write another side being gay about one of the sides in a skirt, and I finally got the motivation to tonight with Virgil’s cool outfit! I hope you liked it!

[yeojaa]

NOT YOUR FAIRYTALE - ft. myg

What do you do when you've called your wedding off but forgot to cancel your cake tastings? Why, you ask your brother's grouchy best friend, of course. 

pairing.  min yoongi.  sort of.

genre + rating.  fluff-adjacent.  general.

warning / tags.  mentions of infidelity, cake tasting, cake tasting isn’t a euphemism, fluff and hurt/comfort, alternate universe, alternate universe - modern setting, friendship, friendship/love, childhood friends.

reading.   n/a.  a stand-alone three part one-shot.

word count.  ~3550

chapter ii.

You know he doesn’t mean it unkindly but you can’t help the way your heart sinks like a stone, the jewel of the ocean lost to the Marianas Trench.  It clenches pathetically in the pit of your stomach, squeezing painfully in a way that only he can elicit from you.

Because even a decade later - after countless distractions and even an engagement - you still carry some childish crush for him, hold a torch that somehow hasn’t gone out.  It still burns, embers of a rampant wildfire doused by heavy rain, smouldering under a blanket of ash and misery.  

“Oh.”  

The single syllable squeaks past the cage of your teeth - a willy rabbit disappearing beneath the underbrush - and morphs into a cough on the back of your hand.  You can feel the warmth already creeping across your cheeks, bathing apples in the colour of their namesake.  You don’t miss the way Yoongi watches you, closely as ever and yet in a way you can’t quite place.  It sweeps through the amber of his irises and disappears into the depths of his pupils;  you want to chase after it, coax it out from its hiding spot, but don’t.  

Instead, you fist your free hand between your knees and manoeuvre another forkful of vanilla cake past the delicate fortress of your lips.  Weakened, now, because they feel feeble and you’re half-worried you’re going to say something you shouldn’t.  That the words are going to tumble right off a stone wall and not survive the drop.

After all, you and your brother had a penchant for doing so.  Namjoon, for spilling secrets about surprise birthday parties and Mother’s Day gifts.  You, for waxing poetic about the ways you’ve dreamt of Min Yoongi throughout the years.

“Disappointed?”  He drawls finally.  It stops you from tearing apart the carefully constricted wooden box that you’ve kept those emotions locked in, little splinters cast below your nail beds – a reminder of hey, stop that.

“Of course not,”  you answer, voice a little reedy, too focused on denial to sound quite normal.  

He laughs then and the sound has your face burning, flames licking over your nose in the same instance his lips curl, revealing pink gums and bidding eyes to thin into amused crescents.  The joy that radiates off him in waves, pours from his pores like bioluminescence at shore, makes you scowl.  

It suddenly all feels very reminiscent of your adolescence.  Of callow teasing and baited breaths, his name scrawled into the margins of your maths homework.

“Stop that!”  You’re waving your fork at him.  It’s meant to be menacing but only makes him laugh harder, shoulders rolling beneath the soft cotton layers that keep him wrapped away.  When he doesn’t stop, you opt to shovel another bite of cake into your mouth, noticing with deep satisfaction that the slice is almost gone and Yoongi hasn’t even had a bite.

You’re going for the last corner when the tines of his fork collide with yours.  So he had noticed.

He meets your stare with barely concealed disapproval, aggressively shoving your own utensil off the plate with a nonchalant flick of his wrist.  “Greedy,”  he says, mouth full of reproach and then, a moment later, citrus and sugar.

“You already knew that.”  And now it’s your turn to turn water to wine, words full of playful reproach that makes him shake his head yet remain decidedly silent.  

It wasn’t as if he could dispute that – not when he’d quite literally spoken the words himself.

So he takes his loss in stride, a gracious loser as you stack the now empty plate with another.  “Go ahead,”  you offer, like some benevolent leader.  

“Oh, thanks.”  The sardonic twist of his words doesn’t go unnoticed and you both roll your eyes, almost in tandem.  Your brother sometimes wondered where you’d gotten your dry wit from, the derisive streak that was at complete odds with every other part of your rainbows and lollipops – his words, not yours – personality.  But here and now, it was easy to see.

It sprouts between your teeth in shades of muted greys and muddy greens, sowed by a one Min Yoongi and cared for by your tender green thumb.

“How is it?”  You ask, chin palmed by a small hand.  The consequences of devouring that last cake are making themselves known, turning your stomach with its weight.

He must notice the way you don’t go for another bite because he’s speaking around a short laugh, the exchange getting lost in how the sound bounces around in your ears and stirs that same childish embarrassment.  “Karma.”  But he doesn’t seem particularly bothered, proverbial feathers unruffled in a way that is very distinctly him.  “It’s good. Really rich.” ��Utensil gestures in the same motion his chin does - an unspoken invitation.

You don’t need to be told twice;  you loved sweets, would choose dessert over dinner nine times out of ten.

“Soooo rich!”  The flavour melts across your tongue, drenching every taste bud in cocoa, and you can’t help but hum in delight.  “I think this is my favourite.”  As if that means anything - as if that really matters.

That unreadable expression has found its way onto his face again, slapped neatly upon his features like a mask.  You try not to focus on it, taking another bite as you chew thoughtfully, gaze focused on a freckle in the birch wood grain of the tabletop.

“Last one,”  he muses and you wonder if it’s wistfulness you hear in his voice or if you’re somehow still that love-struck teenager you’ve always been, projecting a decade’s worth of emotion on the poor man.

It’s surely the latter.

“Go ahead.”  Verbatim, in that same sardonic tone you’d used on him, saccharine sweetness threading every syllable as if the sugar particles might turn it into something more palatable.  He's even got that little smirk of his, mouth quirked high over pink gums.  You want to roll your eyes - and do, with an exaggerated jut of your chin and a simpering smile.  

By the look on his face, he must be proud.  He'd instilled all of this in you - the spice softening the everything nice.

The tines of your fork sink easily into the dense, moist cake, gathering a generous helping of pristine white frosting and golden crumb.  You've never been the biggest fan of carrot cake - why would you want veggies in your dessert, you'd joke - but you think if every cake tasted like this, you wouldn't have a problem.  

"I think I'm a believer."  You're faux solemnity, features arranged in a straight line that causes Yoongi's own to split, amusement shining in between the fractures.  

"A believer in what?"

"Carrots.  Carrot cake.  Vegetables."  Spoken as if you didn't inhale green smoothies religiously.  

You appreciate that he plays along.  It's not very Yoongi-like but it's nice, a callback to the days when he'd indulge your naiveté.  "Unbelievable.  You're a disgrace to this family.  Namjoon is officially the better sibling."

Fingers fly to your throat.  You're scandalized, gaping at him as if he's suddenly grown a second head or admitted he's a wizard.  "You mean he wasn't before?  I took that top spot?"  You're not quite sure whether you're joking, the question rolling off your tongue with more hope than you'd meant. 

"No, Moni's the best.  Obviously."  Okay, you deserved that.  You can't really bring yourself to do anything but laugh, the sound twinkling bells.

"I'm telling Joon you said that."  

"He knows where you all stand."  The way he says it sparks curiosity, colourful fireworks illuminating your thoughts as you study him.  It shouldn't, but it does.  You think you can see something hidden there, buried treasure beyond the slope of his mouth and beneath the crags of his teeth.  It calls to you like a stark X on your map.

Another bite is thoughtfully chewed, flavours turning over on your tongue.  You're trying to find your words as icing melts, coating every inch in sugar.  "What's that supposed to mean?"

By the tick of his stare - the subtle tension at the corners - you think you've overstepped.  You recognize that expression well enough.  You'd become intimately familiar with it through the years.  Despite that, it seems you haven't learnt your lesson, repeating yourself when Yoongi's silence - and patience, you're sure - stretches thin.  You can practically see it, pulled taut between his teeth and in his brow.  

It's clear as day that this conversation is over.

So why you're still so intent on a reaction, you're not sure.  Maybe because this is the first time you've spent an extended period of time alone with him in what feels like years and it’s strange - akin to your first high school dance.  Awkward, forced, filled with promise but ultimately disappointing.

You wonder whether he can feel it too and if that means he regrets coming here.  You hope not.

“Sorry.”  It comes with all the lightness you can muster, sunshine filtered through eyelet cotton.  You offer a smile - full dimples and wrinkles at the corner of your eyes.  “You can keep your secrets, Min Yoongi.”

By the way he stares at you - levels you with just one look - you know he sees the effort.  It’s clear as day and he almost laughs, the sound bubbling quietly beneath the surface.

You were never good at doing things with any semblance of inconspicuousness - it simply wasn’t in your blood.  You wore your emotions on your sleeves, heart pinned neatly across your chest in neon pink.  It was both endearing and frustrating but you wouldn’t change it for the world.  It made you who you were.

“One day, I’ll tell you,”  Yoongi muses in a bemused tone that isn’t very convincing, lopsided grin of his own softening his features further.

“No, you won’t.”  And that’s fine.  You don’t mind, not really.

He laughs once but it’s enough.  “You’re right.”

The silence that finds a home between you now isn’t awkward.  If you weren’t so used to this give and take, you might’ve had whiplash.  

Instead, it’s made from years of friendship and shaped to fit between your cracks and crevices, filling the spaces between you with comfort.  It’s a nice reminder that despite everything, you can always come back to this.  That he’ll always be in your corner.

You try to express your gratitude in the way you speak, earnest as ever.  “Thank you for coming, Yoongi.”

Whatever he’s about to say is stolen by a new presence.

Petite - smaller than either of you, with full cheeks and a sweetly upturned nose - the woman offers a smile that fills you with warmth.  It reminds you of your mother’s, all crow’s feet and deep dimples.  There are stains on her apron, the sleeves of her pristine white coat pushed to her elbows.

“Did you enjoy the cakes?”  Her voice is rough but kind, rolling over syllables with an accent you can’t quite place.

“They were incredible!”  You’re quick to answer, gesturing to the free seat opposite you.  “Did you make them?  I wish I could do what you do!  I’ve never had a carrot cake so moist - or light!  And the chocolate— wow!”

You can practically hear Yoongi rolling his eyes beside you, because you’re rambling in your nervousness.

The woman laughs, sliding onto the stool with a little hop.  “Yes, that was me.  I’m glad you enjoyed.  My name is Celeste.”  Her handshake is firm, confident.  Despite the no nonsense tone she takes, her smile never falters.  It brings back memories of your favourite professors - full of guidance and wisdom and occasionally, tough love.  “Let’s talk a bit about you two.”

“Oh, us?”  The question stutters past your lips.  You hadn’t expected that.

“We like to understand the happy couple so we can better personalize our service.”  Another chuckle and her chin jerks toward where Siyeon mans the front desk.  “Did she not include that in her spiel?”

“Oh, no. She was great! I just—!”

Yoongi can sense you’re about to run the train right off the tracks and into a canyon.  It’s written into every inch of your face, the way your hand clenches at your side.

“What did you want to know?”  Control is taken seamlessly, both by words and touch.  His fingers curl experimentally around your balled fist, thumb ghosting easily across the back of yours.  He squeezes once and shakes gently - just enough to jostle the tension from your limbs but not enough to call attention to the movement.

“Anything you think is important.  How did you meet?"

You’re certain this is a standard question she asks regularly.  It doesn’t help the erratic beating of your heart.

“She’s my best friend’s little sister.”  This earns a laugh from Celeste, the sound bouncing off the table and into your ears.

“Wow!”  Arms cross over her diminutive frame and she studies the two of you with a glint in her eyes.  “And how's that?”  It feels like being interrogated by your halmoni - embarrassing and a little familial.  You wish you could find your voice.  You were great with grandparents.

“I never meant to fall for her.”

The words mean nothing - it’s all for show - and yet you very clearly note the moment you quit breathing.  How your lungs stop working, shuddering to a stop.  It’s in direct contrast to the way your heart triples in pace, nearly sending you into cardiac arrest.

“But you spend enough time with someone - and in my case, their annoying little sister - and it just happens.  You can’t really help it.”  His laugh sounds strange to your ears.  “At least I couldn’t.”

Across the table, Celeste’s face is inscrutable, her gaze trained on Yoongi’s. You feel almost invisible - or would, if you weren’t so keenly aware of the fact that he’s still holding your hand.  It's the only thing anchoring you to the here and now, a shackle looped neatly around bone to keep you from floating off into the great unknown.

"That's very sweet."  She says it plainly, like she's commenting on the weather or the colour of the sky.  There's no indication she sees through the carefully crafted facade the two of you have built.  You wonder if your - no, his - acting skills are just that good or if she's doing it for your benefit.  Surely she can see the tension in your posture, how you're ready to burst apart at the seams at a moment's notice.

"I think so, too."  You don't think you've ever heard him the way he is now, honey sweet and miles away from boy you grew up with.  His voice is decidedly soft, none of the usual grit coating the edges.  There's no storm just beyond the horizon; he's only calm blue as far as the eye can see.  "But she'd probably say differently."  

It seems your silence has carried on too long for his liking.  He nudges you above the table, a heart-wrenching smile drawing you back.  Somehow, despite his efforts to calm you - because that's what he's doing, with this grin he very rarely lets see the light of day and repetitive brush of his thumb - your nerves are lit up like a Christmas tree.  You think they must be flashing beneath your skin - a string of lights gone haywire.

"Right?"  A subtle widening of his eyes is enough.  You need to get it together, girl.

You echo him, laughter chasing syllables from behind your molars and into the open.  "Right."

Celeste's gaze bounces between the two of you, barely concealed amusement folded into the corner of her stare, the way her mouth purses into a wall she hides her laughter behind.  "You two are so sweet."

Well, you certainly hadn't expected that.  

"Really?"  It leaps forward before you have a chance to stop it, dragging roses over your cheeks.  The next words tumble out in quick succession, coming of their own volition.  You wish they hadn't.  "I never thought I'd see the day someone called him that."

The subtle flex of his fingers reminds you that you're still interlocked, intimately joined by twined fingers and white knuckles.  

"Well, he's sweet on you and that's all that matters!"  

"Exactly."  Yoongi is haughty and it looks good on him, framing his features and throwing them into a light you've only ever seen in the studio or on the basketball court.  "Don't forget that."  You think he might stick out his tongue - know he won't, but can almost imagine the expression.  It would fit the playfulness that you so rarely see, puzzle pieces filling in the spaces usually reserved for stoicism and austerity.

"Already forgot,"  you return, a little brighter than you mean to, with sunlight in your smile and stars in your eyes.  You can't help it.  Any minute, you might wake up from this strange wonderful daydream so you bask in it, a cat in a windowsill, long-limbed and at peace.

"Like I said—sweet."  There's a fondness in Celeste's eyes and you can't help but hold her stare as she continues on, undeterred by the world you seem so lost in.  "Are you looking for a traditional wedding cake?  What's your style?"

"We prefer understated."  You don't miss the way he speaks for the both of you or that he does so with such confidence.  The fact settles comfortably in the lining of your coat, tucking itself into the pocket over your heart.  You know you'll hold onto this for longer than you should.  "Nothing extravagant but something that clearly took a lot of care and work."

"He means no seven-tiered cake with sugar flowers and live doves,"  you supply helpfully, with glee you can't contain.  It forces itself to the forefront of your smile, displayed in blinding white enamel and gloss-slicked lips.  

"I'd take six-tiered with dead doves."

His deadpan rebuttal meets laughter - both yours and Celeste's.  He might just win Mister Congeniality with this performance of his.  

"What're your wedding colours?  Do you have any photos?"  That stops you sort.  

You blink once, twice, trying to remember the palette you'd decided on before your fairytale had come crumbling down, a castle made of sand at high tide.  It sparks pain from the tip of your nose to the soles of your feet and you reflexively flex your fingers, knuckles stark alabaster at the bitterness that sours your tongue.  

"We didn't even think of that."  Again, your knight in shining armour, refocusing the conversation when you most need it.  Yoongi chuckles but you see the tension in his eyes, how it lurks beneath the surface.  "Could we send some over later?"

"Of course!"  If Celeste notices the change in atmosphere, she keeps it to herself.  "Why don't you just send Siyeon anything you might have for reference and we can go from there.  I know being put on the spot can be hard sometimes."  There's an undercurrent of understanding, kindness cradling each word.  You wonder if you've blown your cover wide open - if there's a bright red FRAUD stamp across your forehead.  "Wedding planning is stressful, so take your time.  If we need anything pressing, we'll reach out."

You're echoing Yoongi's thanks, not quite processing that your meeting has come to an end.  If you really thought about it, you might feel bad - guilty for wasting their time.  Instead, you let yourself be guided from your seat by a warm hand at your back.  

"You two take care now."  She ushers you to the door with wide, wise eyes and a little smile.  "It was lovely meeting you."

Both you and your pretend partner bow, bidding thanks and farewell as the woman disappears back the way she came, imposing double doors swinging shut behind her.  Her departure feels like a weight has lifted off your shoulders, carried into the late afternoon sky that stretches above your heads.  You release the breath you hadn't realized you'd been holding and meet Yoongi's expectant gaze.  

"What?"

"Nothing."  You can tell he isn't going to give an inch.  He's back to being the Min Yoongi you know.

"Fine.  Thank you."  

"You already said that."

The scowl you level him with is impressive.  He must be proud by the way his mouth twitches, corners of his lips quirking just enough to belie his pleasure.  "And I meant it!"

It's the reaction he's expecting - easily baited with just the smallest ounce of antagonism.  Rather than respond, he snickers, nose scrunching characteristically.  

"Stop laughing at me!"  You half-whine, sneaker-clad foot stomping on the ground before you can help it.

"You make it too easy,"  he drawls, shaking his head as the two of you continue down the sidewalk.  "Everything I do riles you up.  Learn to control your emotions."  As if it's that easy.  As if you were the sort of person to bottle any of it up.  He knows you aren't;  he's only working you up again.  

"At least I have them, Yoongi!"  It's a low blow, a shot meant to surprise and silence him.  You don't really mean it.

And yet it's you that's left staggered - because you've never seen that mixture of emotion on his face before.  A combination of hurt and frustration painting shadows across his cheeks.

What had you done?

notes.  this was meant to be two parts but now it will be three.  oops.  

tag list.  @hoodmeup

[clairenatural]

destiel, 2k. dean’s self loathing but it ends up fluffy so it’s ok. pining. destiel finally becoming canon because sam just wants to drink smoothies in peace (this is a repost because the original got deleted!)

It’s a few weeks into all of them being back in the bunker, Sam and Dean and Jack and a rapidly humanizing Castiel, when Sam decides he’s had enough. It had been bad enough the past decade, when Castiel was always leaving and there was always another apocalypse to distract them, but the past few weeks have become damn near domestic and the mutual pining is driving him up the wall.

Sam finally snaps at a small bar in Lebanon. Cas is caught up by a pretty girl at the bar and Dean has barely touched his beer, instead watching the interaction with a mixture of longing and heartbreak, and Sam can’t take it anymore.

“Dude,” he starts, and when that fails, “Dean.” Dean looks at him. He frowns.

“What, Sam?”

“Just go talk to him. Or drag him back to the bunker and talk to him there. I’ll go stay with Eileen this weekend, I’ll even take Jack with me—just please, Dean. For me.”

Dean blinks at him, glowers a bit, and takes a sip of his beer. “Dunno what you’re talking about.”

Sam gives him a look, unimpressed. “It’s been ten years. And—” he puts up a hand to stop the protests. “And listen, I know it’s been…rough, but by some miracle things are calm right now. So just tell Cas you’re in love with him so I can stop feeling like I’m interrupting something every time I walk into the kitchen.” 

He shudders a bit, remembering the day before when he walked into the bunker’s kitchen to see Dean and Cas just staring at each other over two mugs of coffee, hands still touching where Castiel had handed the mug to Dean. Sam had cleared his throat and Castiel had jumped, spilling the coffee, and Dean had glared at his brother as he reached for a towel.

Sam had just wanted a smoothie.

He glances back across the bar table to where Dean is staring at him, open mouthed, and watches as his expression shifts to a glower as he apparently gives up on trying to deny it. Sam counts that as a small victory in itself. 

“Why? So he can freak out and leave again? Dude’s just starting to get comfortable, Sam, I’m not about to chase him away.” Dean’s tone is angry, but Sam knows him well enough to see through the facade. There’s no real anger there. Just fear.

His heart hurts a bit, for both his brother and their best friend. “Dean,” he starts, gently, leaning forward in his chair. “He’s an angel. He’s been here since the beginning of humanity. He put your soul back together. Do you really think he doesn’t already know?”

Dean’s staring at him again, as if he’s never considered that before. He looks apprehensive, and mildly terrified, but before he can respond Castiel appears back at their table. He slides a beer across the table to Sam, then to Dean, who doesn’t look at him, before settling down himself. There’s a half second of awkward silence before Dean changes the subject, and Sam sighs. Nobody could say he hadn’t tried.

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

Dean can’t sleep. 

He’s staring up at the ceiling of his bedroom, replaying the last few things Sam had said. He’s an angel, Sam had said, as if that wasn’t obvious. And it was, it is, but—it’s too easy to forget sometimes, especially the many times he’s ended up more human than angel, that Castiel is thousands of years old. Dean never forgets that he’s an angel, of course. That’s one of the staples of the voice in his head, the one constantly telling him to keep his feelings for Castiel a secret to the grave. Over the past ten years Angel of the Lord has become nearly synonymous with too good for you and better than you would ever deserve.

It's what being an angel means that Dean doesn’t think about. That Castiel has spent millennia as nothing more than a wavelength of light and celestial intent before giving it all up to drag Dean out of Hell. That he was a soldier, a seraph, a term that Dean thinks he knows but also doesn’t fully understand the weight of. Castiel misses a pop culture reference and Dean forgets that he understands the physics of the cosmos on a level his human brain could never comprehend. Or, not forget—he could never forget. Dean just doesn’t like to look too closely at it, because staring everything that Castiel really is in the face just makes the voice louder. Makes him feel like just a speck of dust in comparison, unworthy of the angel’s presence or time or attention. Makes him wonder why Castiel has given up everything that he is and was, everything he had since the beginning of time, for that one speck of dust.

So maybe Sam is right. And Dean hates that. Because maybe Sam is right, but Castiel has only stayed over the years because he has nowhere else to go. And he has nowhere to go because of Dean. Because the very touch of you corrupts. When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost, Hester said. Because too much heart was always Castiel’s problem, Samandriel said. Because I’m hunted, I rebelled, and I did it - all of it - for you, Castiel himself told him, once upon a time. I’m doing this for you, Dean. I’m doing this because of you.

And Dean had reacted in anger, like he always did. Like he always does. And Cas keeps coming back anyway.

He needs a drink.

He sighs as he hauls himself off his bed, creeping silently through the bunker on the way to the kitchen, but pauses when he hears the murmuring of the television coming from Castiel’s room. It’s a bad decision but he turns towards Castiel’s bedroom door and pauses for a moment, listening to the soft sounds of a nature documentary through the wood. What are you doing? The voice scolds. Sure, Dean. Creep outside his bedroom at midnight, that’ll make him feel real comfortable.

The television clicks off. Dean assumes he’s going to sleep, something he needs to do more and more lately, and is about to keep going to the kitchen when—

“Dean?” Cas calls. Dean freezes. He could leave quietly, and they’d both pretend it had never happened. They were good at that. He could also make some sort of excuse and continue on his merry way. He doesn’t do either.

“Can I come in?” He asks instead, and Castiel says “yes,” and then Dean is pushing open the bedroom door.

Castiel is sitting on his bed, cross-legged, wearing a pair of sweatpants they’d picked up from the local thrift store and a t-shirt that is (was?) definitely Dean’s. The sight makes his heart clench. He hadn’t considered the potential consequences when he’d dumped a bunch of his old clothing on Castiel’s bed, and it sure isn’t making anything easier.

“You sleeping tonight?” Dean asks, and Castiel shakes his head.

“I don’t need to.” He pauses. “You should be, though. Is everything alright?”

Dean shifts on his feet. He shoves his hands deep in his pockets. He looks back at Castiel, meeting his gaze. There's something so uniquely deep about it—it wasn’t there in Jimmy, and even now, nearly human, his blue eyes feel centuries old. But not like the ocean. The blue eyes/ocean metaphor is overplayed, and when Dean looks into Castiel’s eyes he doesn’t feel like he’s swimming in an endless azure ocean. He feels like he’s drowning in the Marianas Trench.

“Do you know?” Dean asks. He doesn’t mean to, but he isn’t surprised when the words come out of his mouth.

Cas blinks at him, then frowns. “Know what?”

“You know.” Eloquent as always.

Cas quirks an eyebrow. “I know many things, Dean, but even with my full grace I can’t read your thoughts.”

Dean blushes. He hopes the darkness of the room, illuminated only by Castiel’s bedside lamp, obscures it. “I guess prayers aren’t quite the same, huh.”

There’s a loaded pause. Cas shifts, moving away from the headboard to sit at the edge of his bed, facing Dean. “Praying is more abstract than humans think it is,” he starts. “Gratitude is often close enough. Longing can come through as prayer. Love… when love gets close enough to worship, it’s the loudest of all.” He pauses there, searching for a reaction. Dean isn’t sure what he’s looking for, but he doesn’t even think he’s breathing—he’d stopped as soon as Castiel said love.

After an excruciating moment, Castiel continues. “So if that’s what you mean…”

Dean braces for impact.

“Then yes, Dean. I think I knew before you did.”

And, well. There it is. For some reason, Dean isn’t running away. He thinks it’s probably because Cas isn’t running away this time—and because he’d come back. He still comes back. Regardless of the many, many times Dean had been the one to push him away.

So “I love you,” Dean says, quietly, voice rough, because there’s really no point in not saying it anymore. Then, “I mean…I love you.” He clarifies, even as saying it twice sets off alarm bells, because if there’s one thing they’re good at it’s miscommunication.

Castiel blinks at him. “I know,” he replies, puzzled. “Is that not what we were just talking about?”

Dean stares at him. “You’re still here.”

The confusion on the angel’s face deepens. “Yes, because I love you too. I thought that was obvious.” In another lifetime he would’ve used air quotes.

What.

Dean pauses for a minute, reeling, trying to figure out if he misheard.

“Obvious,” he clarifies, as if that’s the word he’s struggling with.

“Yes.”

Dean is still staring, feeling something akin to shock. Obvious?

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I have. Multiple times, in multiple ways.”

Dean thinks back to profound bond and I always come when you call and I’ll watch over you and I could go with you and hundreds of moments in between.

Oh.

“You didn’t care that I never got the message?”

“I’m thousands of years old, Dean. Ten years is nothing. I was willing to wait.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dean replies, because that is a whole bunch he doesn’t have the energy to unpack, and his brain still isn’t completely caught up to what’s happening.

“No, I’m Castiel.”

It’s an old joke, said with a smile, and that combined with the absurdity of the situation means Dean can’t help but laugh. He looks up and makes eye contact with Castiel, who grins back, and suddenly there’s way too much space between them.

Dean crosses the bedroom in a few strides, and Cas stands to meet him, and then they’re kissing, and Dean isn’t even sure who started it but they’ve both been waiting long enough that he isn’t sure it matters. He has his arms wrapped around Castiel’s waist, clinging to the soft fabric of the t-shirt that was once his own, when something in the back of his head starts screaming that this is a bad idea and he’s just going to leave tomorrow and are you dumb enough to think you can actually have this?

But then Castiel makes a soft noise in the back of his throat and deepens the kiss, pulling them impossibly closer together, and for all its years of practice Dean’s self-loathing can’t come up with a response to that.

Castiel pulls back first, flushed and breathing heavily, and Dean chases his lips for a moment before Cas catches him in his gaze, in endless blue. Suddenly, Dean isn’t drowning anymore. He’s on a lifeboat, and the trench is impossibly deep beneath him but he feels safer than he has in a long time. Home, his brain supplies, helpful for the first time in years, and Dean smiles.

Cas smiles back, bringing a hand up to Dean’s face to trace his thumb along his cheekbone. “Will you stay here tonight?” he asks, soft, and Dean leans in to press an equally soft kiss to his forehead.

Tonight and every night, he thinks. “’Course,” he says, and then leans in to kiss him again.

Two mornings later, Sam walks into the bunker’s kitchen to find Castiel pushed up against a counter, Dean kissing his way down his neck. He yelps and retreats around the corner.

“Come on, guys,” he yells, from safety, and the two have the audacity to laugh.

“You did this, Sammy,” Dean reminds.

“I said I wanted to stop interrupting things in my own kitchen,” Sam counters, but he can’t find it in his heart to be angry. He sighs. “Whatever. You know I’m happy for you. I just—” he pauses. “Can I at least come get my smoothie?”

[fangirlingalittletoohard]

Movie Moment

Q has just been recruited at MI6. Bond has worked there for years. When the pair meet by chance in Q's bookstore, sparks fly but neither is willing to admit it. A formal work introduction turns into an unofficial date at an art gallery and as Bond walks Q home in the rain, the two men screw their courage and take the opportunity to have a "movie moment."

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You can find the accompanying art by the wonderful 10kiaoi here.

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Word count: 3136

Warnings: NONE! Just 3k words of pure 00Q fluff!

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Q froze on his ladder as unfamiliar voices startled him, the pile of books balanced precariously between his hands and the top shelf wobbled slightly as he attempted to restock the thriller section of the little bookstore in which he worked.

“Are you… Are you James Bond?!” A hushed female voice murmured on the opposite side of the bookshelf that Q was filling.  

“...Yes.” Replied the hesitant, gruff voice of the man named James Bond. The voice reverberated around Q’s chest, making him waver dangerously on the rickety old ladder and forcing him to grip onto the bookshelf to prevent him from falling.

“Oh. My. God. You really are, aren’t you! They told us all about you in training! I’m such a fan! Did you really wrestle a shark on the bottom of the Mariana Trench?” The female voice practically hissed with excitement.

“...What?!” Bond replied again, as if failing to find an adequate response.  

“Will you sign my laptop case please?”

Q rose up onto his tiptoes, almost falling off the ladder again in the process of peeking over the top shelf to catch a glimpse of the man in the aisle opposite. He was tall and bulky with sharp features and dressed in an equally sharp suit: not his usual bookstore customer.

“Okay.” Bond replied blandly, following the girl over to a desk around the corner and out of sight. Q thrust the remaining books onto the shelf and stumbled down the ladder just in time to watch Bond’s dark-haired accomplice thank him and hurry out of the shop. Bond stood, looking slightly bewildered for a second, before turning and catching Q’s eye. “Excuse me,” he began, addressing Q and smiling a strained yet polite smile.

Q hesitated for a moment, clearing his suddenly dry throat before replying; “how may I help you, sir?” Bond’s cool steely blue eyes seemed to pierce through him and Q wasn’t quite sure how to react.

“I’m looking for a spy novel,” he began, striding closer to Q, his footsteps muffled by the thick faded red carpet, “and was hoping you had some recommendations.”

Q took a moment to weigh up the man standing before him; a stark contrast to himself. Everything about Bond was sharp - his eyes, his angular body, his suit, his neat hair - which created an almost comical juxtaposition with his own dark messy curls and soft, oversized sweater and chocolatey brown eyes, yet something in his demeanour told Q that he and Bond had a similar taste in books. “Follow me.” Q instructed, turning on his heel and leading Bond further into the shop.

He escorted Bond to the “spy thriller” sub-section of the store, slid a copy of John le Carré’s “The Night Manager” off the shelf and handed it to him. A satisfied, somewhat arrogant smile tugged at the corners of Q’s mouth as Bond scanned over the blurb and nodded approvingly. “Thank you,” Bond began again, his eyes flicking quickly down to the enamel name badge which was pinned to Q’s breast, “Q?” he questioned, understandably confused by the lack of name on his name badge.

“I, too, happen to be a fan of espionage.” Q confided, smirking subtly at the duality of his statement; Q’s love of espionage was not only satisfied through novels, but also through his recent appointment as head of Q-branch at MI6.

“Ah,” Bond responded softly, “well, I trust your judgement.”

The pair made their way over to the till where Bond paid for his book. “Let me know if I judged your taste in novels correctly.” Q concluded, blushing ever so slightly at his boldness in hinting that he would like to see him again.

“I will.” Promised Bond, gently opening the red-painted door of the bookstore and straightening his tie, the bell above the door tinkling and breaking the silence that threatened to shroud the shop once Bond had left.

“I didn’t catch your name.” Q called after him, blushing more noticeably now.

“The name’s Bond. James Bond.” He replied coolly, saluting in a lazy military style and smiling affectionately as the door swung closed behind him, the bell above the door tinkling again as he did so. Q bit his lip in an attempt to suppress the smile that was transforming his expression irresistibly as he watched James Bond walk away with the promise of return.   

 ---

Days passed without the return of Bond and Q was beginning to feel foolish for believing that he had a chance of seeing him again until he was handed the files of the double-0 agent to which he had been assigned quartermaster. Q’s breath caught in his throat as he scanned through the files labelled “007” in the semi-darkness of his office and stared down at the small black and white picture of James Bond, secured loosely to the pile of documents with a paperclip. Assigned to be James Bond’s quartermaster. The James Bond. According to his files, Bond had worked for MI6 for forever and Q knew that he looked vastly inexperienced in comparison. How had he not bumped into him before? All he had to do was find somewhere that he had the upper hand to re-introduce himself as his quartermaster. Why was he so nervous? This was a professional exchange, not a chance encounter like they had had at the book shop.

---

After a lengthy search of possible locations, Q settled on the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. The moment the gallery opened the next morning, Q was there. He spent hours wandering through each room and choosing his favourite paintings before finally whittling it down to a few paintings in room 34 and eventually settling on The Fighting Temeraire painted by J.M.W Turner in 1838. A quick google of the painting’s history and connotations reassured Q that he could be as pretentious as he liked with his impressive interpretations. He liked to be pretentious; it gave him a sense of superiority that he knew he would lack the moment his eyes met Bond’s again.  

---

Q returned to the bookstore for his evening shift, shaking rain out of his hair as he hurried inside, and froze on the doormat as his eyes met Bond’s. He was leaning against the cashier desk with two books in his hands. “Evening, Q.” Bond greeted, smiling subtly.

“How long have you been here?” Q asked in reply, unwinding the scarf from around his neck as he closed the door and paced over to Bond, placing it on the desk next to him.

“Only a few minutes. I came in this morning and asked when you would be in.” Bond replied nonchalantly as he tapped his fingers lightly on the wooden tabletop; he had always been forward and upfront when chasing his heart (or lust for that matter) but he felt almost nervous to be here with Q again and subsequently felt the need to conceal this by acting overly casual. To Bond, Q felt safe. He was soft and gentle but he seemed to have a sarcastic, almost dangerous side to him that Bond knew he could draw out if he tried hard enough. After years working as a double-0 agent and living the inevitable life of inconsistency which came hand-in-hand with the occupation, Bond longed for something constant, and the hint of danger that he sensed from him seemed to draw him to Q. “You were spot on with the book, by the way.”

“What?” Q began, before realising that Bond was only here because he had asked him to review his book choice. “Oh, well I do have a knack for judging people’s taste in novels.” Bond uttered a low-pitched chuckle that shook Q to the core and threw him off his game again.

“Well thank you for introducing me to le Carré.” Bond continued, turning and leaning closer to Q over the desk. Q shuddered and took a step backwards, stumbling slightly over a box of books as Bond placed two new books on the desk. Q caught himself in time and took the money that Bond was holding out to him.

“So I’ll… will I see you again?” Q asked, silently kicking himself for being so obviously attracted to him.

“You will.” Bond replied, already halfway to the door, his heart beating a little faster than usual as he realised that he’d committed to seeing Q again. He turned back as he opened the door, smiling to himself as he was greeted with the sight of Q fiddling with the sleeve of his sweater and watching him leave.

Once outside, Bond instantly regretted not bringing an umbrella as the unusually large raindrops were already beginning to seep through his suit and soak his skin. He had barely taken a few steps away from the cozy amber light of the shop window when the door swung open again and Q called his name. “That suit looks too expensive to get wet.” Q quipped, holding out a large black umbrella. Bond chuckled and jogged back to Q, gratefully accepting the umbrella and brushing some of the rain off his jacket.

“Thank you, Q.” Bond replied affectionately. Q smelled of tea and cinnamon and everything homely and Bond could barely fight the urge to reach out and grab Q’s face and kiss him but he couldn’t be sure that Q felt the same way. “I’ll return it.” He concluded, feeling a dull ache in his chest as he stepped away leaving Q in the doorway of the bookshop.

Q’s chest ached as Bond walked away. That was a perfect ‘movie moment.’ If he lived in a fictional universe, Bond would have reached out and grabbed Q’s face and kissed him under the rain and Q would have wrapped his arms around Bond’s middle and kissed him back as they were both soaked by the downpour and it would have been perfect. But this was real life and in real life you don’t get to live out ‘movie moments.’ So Q retreated into the warmth of the book shop and made himself a cup of tea and tried to forget about the fact that his hand had been so close to Bond’s when he handed over the umbrella.

---

Three days passed without so much as a mention of Bond’s name until the day came to meet him at the National Gallery. Q was dreading it. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get Bond off his mind. He felt like the epitome of a cliche. This was a professional meeting, not a romantic rendezvous. He needed to focus. Q took a moment to tell himself to snap out of his momentary anxiety and took the case containing a radio and a handprint-activated pistol and pulled his coat tightly around him against the cold as he began the walk to Trafalgar Square.

---

Bond ambled into room 34 and sat down as he had been instructed. Introductions to colleagues were usually just an exchange on names and a swift handshake carried out in the MI6 building, they were never as elaborate and mysterious as being sent to an art gallery with no idea who it was that you were meeting. An art gallery, of all places. It was much too romantic for Bond and he decided instantly that he would dislike (but begrudgingly tolerate) whoever it was that he was meeting until a familiar voice broke his train of thought. “It’s a little melancholy, don’t you think?” Bond didn’t have to turn around to realise that Q was standing so close behind him that he could just about feel his warm breath against the back of his neck as he spoke. He didn’t listen to any more of Q’s interpretation of the painting as he knew that he would be instantly engulfed by his chocolate-smooth voice and wouldn't be able to drag himself away to meet whoever it was that he should be meeting.  

“Excuse me,” he interrupted, turning away before Q’s deep brown eyes could convince him to stay.

“007,” Q interjected, placing a hand on his arm and quickly pulling it back as Bond froze. Of course Q had chosen an art gallery; it was eccentric and pretentious, exactly as Bond had imagined him to be. Bond tested his wit, harmlessly insulting him and complaining about his gadgets (which in reality, he thought were wonderful… he thought that anything Q gave him would be wonderful) and eventually held out his hand for Q to shake. It felt too formal and strange considering they had already met, but seeing as how his heart had almost stopped when Q’s hand touched his clothed arm he felt that this was the safest option.

---

Q placed his hand in Bond’s and shook it, feeling his heartbeat in his throat and his hair stand on end as the bare skin of his hand made contact with that of Bond’s. Bond’s hand was rough and his grip was tight and strong and Q couldn’t help but notice again the stark contrast between the two of them. He felt rather small and helpless besides Bond, but he was surprised by the fact that he didn’t seem to mind. “007.” He greeted again, feeling strange using his professional name.

“Q.” Bond replied in a tone that sent a warm shiver down Q’s spine. “So do you happen to know as much about the other paintings in here as you do about this one?” Bond asked, gesturing to The Fighting Temeraire.

“Not quite as much,” Q admitted, “but I can certainly make it sound like I do.” He concluded, his throat becoming suddenly dry as he realised where this was going.

“Well seeing as how we’re already here; please enlighten me.” Bond’s expression was soft and gentle, a contrast to his sharp appearance, and it was enough to convince Q that this was actually happening. He took Bond on the tour of the gallery that he had done a week previously and he and Bond played the game of “who can spot the most naked people in paintings” as they ambled through the many rooms.

---

Once the pair had spent multiple hours in the gallery and had made their way through every room, they began to struggle to find more reasons to stay together without it seeming so obvious. Reluctantly, they stepped outside into yet another downpour. “Bloody rain.” Q mumbled as the rain obscured his vision through his glasses.

“Here,” Bond offered, opening up Q’s umbrella that he had given him three evenings previously and moving closer to Q so that they were both sheltered underneath the fabric canopy. They stood so close together that Q’s arm was pressed against Bond’s, but Q’s hair still seemed to be getting wet so he swallowed what little pride he had around Bond and placed his hand in the crook of Bond’s elbow, pulling himself closer to him.

---

Bond slowed a little and smiled to himself. They had practically been on a date, even if it was unofficial, and now Q was pulling himself into Bond. His dark curls tickled the side of Bond’s face and his warm, unusually fast breath pulsed against Bond’s cold hand that was holding up the umbrella. He knew that to passers-by, they looked like a couple and Bond felt that ache in his chest again. Maybe Q did feel the same way about him. After all, they had spent an entire day together and he was now pulling himself into him. Bond tensed the muscles in his arm a little so that they gently squeezed Q’s hand.

---

Q felt Bond squeeze his arm and his heart rate increased even more. Maybe Bond did feel the same way about him. They were almost back at Q’s apartment now, having just turned down his street, and Q couldn’t bear to spend another week not knowing where he stood. This thought prompted him to grow a little more confident and he rested his head against Bond’s shoulder. Bond momentarily forgot to breathe and Q noticed this, smiling in an “I can’t quite believe this is happening” way. They walked on until they reached the entrance to Q’s apartment block, where the pair stopped and Bond turned to face Q, making sure to keep them both under the umbrella as a not-so-subtle excuse to stay incredibly close to the younger man. The sky had darkened as they had been walking and now they were illuminated by the orange toned twilight and similarly coloured streetlamps. Q allowed his hand to fall from Bond’s elbow, but Bond refused to accept the lack of contact and took Q’s other hand in his own. Q’s heart pounded against his chest; his feelings were definitely reciprocated.

---

Bond gazed down at Q, his wide, melancholy eyes revealing all of his feelings without him having to speak. He rubbed his thumb gently over the back of Q’s cold hand and hesitated. This was too good to be true. He’d always had his way with the countless women and men that he’d slept with, but no one had been good to him before. No one had actually loved him the way he knew Q could and it scared him. Q obviously noticed the fleeting expression of fear that had passed over his face as he placed his free hand gently against his cheek. “Bond?” he murmured, asking with that one word if everything was okay and simultaneously if this was what he wanted. Bond raised Q’s hand to his lips and placed the ghost of a kiss onto his fingers as a response. Bond felt him relax as he moved their hands back from his face before Q’s lips were on his and both of his hands were on his face and he was kissing him. Bond stumbled backwards slightly, almost sending them both toppling over backwards but caught them in time. Bond dropped Q’s umbrella onto the pavement so that he could place his hands on Q’s hips, pulling him as close as he possibly could to his body.

---

Bond was kissing back and pulling him in and it was raining and they had spent a day at an art museum and Q’s heart was thrumming against his ribcage as he and Bond stood outside his apartment complex, kissing. This was the ‘movie moment’ that he’d been dreaming about since they met a week ago. One week. Q marvelled at the fact that he’d fallen for someone so quickly and that someone had fallen for him so quickly. He removed his hands from Bond’s cheeks and wrapped them around his neck, rising up to Bond’s height on his toes and almost making him topple over again. This was the stuff of stories and movies and fairytales and it was just perfect.

[bakugouscentedcaramel]

Ah yes, the time has come.

It's time to get your pen and paper because class is in session!

There's plenty of things I could talk about and I pretty much covered the basics down below, but I'm more than willing to help y'all out with anything specific!

I have to preface that I'm not an English major by any means nor do I have any experience writing professionally, the things listed below are purely based on my opinions and submissions I have received.

Writing is forever a learning process, there really isn't a right way of writing but there are definitely some things that will hinder your readers. Here is a list that I compiled both with my own experiences as well as some user submitted issues when it comes to reading works:

•Big blocks of text

° Typos/wrong word usage

•Using the same words

°Too spaced out/not indented where needed

• Dialogue runs into normal sentences

° Speakers/POVs change without notice

• Inconsistencies, either in general or story inconsistencies

°Lack of description/Too much description

• Bland/Artificial actions/dialogue

° Misuse of punctuation/lack thereof

• Capitalization errors

° Long winded sentences

• Using italics for actions

° Confusing formating

• Changing in Tenses

° Using wrong tags/falsely advertising (ex. Reader x Blank should have Y/N, not an OC/Authors name)

• Author notes/comics/pictures in middle of fic

° "~This is a transition~"

• Forcing a character to be OOC for sake of story

° Filler characters

• Not sticking to a specific genre/jumpy moods

Now don't be intimidated by this list! Some of these are pretty self explanatory so I won't go into a few of them. There are plenty of ways to avoid these and in some cases it is perfectly fine to use any of the above. 

Let's start off with the basics!

Sentence structure is the backbone of writing, but it's a very flexible rule. Obviously you have your subject, verb, object and whatnot, but the true art lies in word choice and length.

When it comes to sentences, size does matter. If your sentences are too short they will seem choppy and unfinished, whereas if they are long they will seem winded and unnatural. The biggest tool you can use to find out if a sentence is too short/long is by reading it aloud! If you run out of breath it's too long but if you finish abruptly it's too short.

Word choice is my favorite weapon to work with, I could describe a blue jay as a normal bird or as a mythical animal just by picking the right words!

"The blue jay flew across the field while it sang it's melody."

Or

"A creature with wings made of clouds swooped across the field whilst roaring out a devilish tune."

Word choice can easily convey tone/feeling so it's definitely an important element to writing! If you ever have trouble finding that perfect word try googling for synonyms! Also this website might help you find that one word that you just can't think of!

Grammar is also a very important part of writing. Using the right words and punctuation can be difficult sometimes but there are some easy fixes!

Spelling is an easy fix, if you forgot/don't know how to spell a word consulting a dictionary or Google is a surefire way of solving your problem. You can even find synonyms if you feel like you've used a word too much. 

Punctuation on the other can be a big more difficult, however. 

Here's a couple of sentences that helped me learn basic punctuation:

A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink then leaves. Commas are a means of sewing two sentences together to form a compound sentence. These are mainly used to list out things and to add fluidity to your works so they don't sound as choppy.

A question mark walks into a bar? Question marks are pretty self explanatory. They either raise a question or form uncertainty.

Two quotation marks "walk" into a bar. Quotations are used for both dialogue and metaphors. I personally love using them for sarcasm!

A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to drink. This one is a tougher one that I personally never learned from any of my classes. A gerund is basically a word that can act as a verb or a noun which would be "drinking". An infinitive is the base of a verb, in this case it's "drink".

The bar was walked into by a passive voice. A passive voice is when you emphasize the action and object of a sentence rather than the subject. You can find that a passive voice tends to use past tense where as an active voice uses present/future tense.

Three intransitives walk into a bar. They sit. They drink. They leave. An intransitive verb is an action verb, expressing a doable activity like arrive, go, lie, sneeze, sit, die, etc.

Some other things that I commonly see are the wrong usages of words. For example:

They: a group of individuals/pronoun "Yeah, they said he'd be here thirty minutes ago."

Their: a possessive pronoun "Leave their stuff alone!'

There: location "What's that over there?"

Then: event/action "Val went to the mall then skittered to the park."

Your: possessive "Your self esteem is lower than the Mariana's Trench!"

You're: a conjunctive "you are"

Affect: caused by actions "The fallen french fry really affected Val's mood."

Effect: caused by events "Climate change has a negative effect on my Cheerios."

Peaked: a summit "Val has peaked at 10:19pm"

Piqued: stimulate interest/curiosity "You have piqued Val's interest by mentioning food."

Do time: "Val is fixin' to do time if she keeps slacking."

Due time: "Val will come with hydration in due time."

Per say: not a thing

Per se: by/in itself "She didn't write this late at night, per se…"

There are different tools you can use to spice up your writings, from metaphors to innuendos, all the way to zeugmas! Let's go over the basic definitions of these bad boys.

Metaphor: a figure of speech that is not literally applicable. "The darkness surrounded us like a shroud." Obviously the darkness can't physically shroud anyone.

Innuendo: a sentence with a hidden meaning "Is that a gator in your pants or are you just happy to see me~" 

Zeugma: a sentence containing words that can be used literally and figuratively, like a love child of the two above. "Val and her coupon expired last week." This implies that not only did my Colgate coupon expire, but I died as well.

Paragraphs are a necessity when it comes to writing. Big blocks of text are an eyestrain to readers and it's easy to lose your place, even if it's only 150 words. It's always best to use Tab or at least 5 spaces when indenting. A paragraph should only be 5-7 sentences long, this is so it's not just multiple blocks of text

When to add a new paragraph:

° A new person comes in

• New idea/context

° Setting changes

• New person is speaking

° Time changes

• The "camera" moves

° Tone shifts

• 5-7 sentences has been reached

Paragraphs help you organize your work in a way and they make it easier for your readers' eyes!

POVs are also very important. First person and third person are by far the most common ones so I'll only touch on these two. It's very important to write a story in one strict POV as to not confuse the readers. You can however jump perspectives like Heroes of Olmpyus by Rick Rodian, as long as the ready can easily tell who is telling the story.

First person is a story that is told from first-hand experience. It's the same as if I told y'all the story on how I almost chopped off my thumb in woodshop class back in middle school. First person tends to use a lot of I's and my's

Third person is a story that is told from a narrators' point of view. Such as "Once upon a time" type of stories. I's and my's should only be used in dialogue

Dialogue is probably one of the most important features of any fic/story. Dialogue can push plots forward as well as add life to a character. Here's a simple exchanged:

"Hiya 'Splodey," Val chirped.

Katuski smirked, "M'dumbass."

Dialogue should always come with a pair of quotation marks. Commas and periods generally go inside the quotation marks whereas dashes, colons, and semicolons almost always go outside the quotation marks. Question marks and exclamation marks however can go either inside or outside, it goes by a case by case basis. Always indent whenever a different speaker is talking, running quotes into each other is a no-go because it causes confusion and eyestrain.

You have to be wary of using simple dialogue exchanges though, if they seem off try saying them out loud! Dialogue is one of my favorite things to write because you can weave personality into them, not to mention you can always hear people talking to get a better idea on how to write dialogue.

For example, I have a southern dialect, meaning I sound different than someone from the north! I use words like "y'all", "fixin'", "finna", "ain't" and have a different vocabulary than that of my northern friends. This means that the characters you're portraying should have their own way of speaking! This will not only add flavor to your dialogue but it also adds to their personalities/backgrounds.

Describing things can be just as valuable as dialogue, but it is a bit more complex. Sure we've all heard of the "show, don't tell" rule. Which is a good rule to follow, however too much showing is just as bad as telling. Again, reading out your work is a great way to tell if you're focusing too much on one thing. Another thing to keep in mind is importance, such as do we really need to know that the grass outside was bluegrass? Which in certain situations it would be! For example:

The grass around the disheveled house was brown and straw-like, with the exception of a ring of grass. Bluegrass. Which wasn't even native to this location.

This paints a pretty good spooky picture in the readers' mind and even adds the element suspense by the implied uncertainty.

I've only covered a small portion of writing so if y'all have any questions or need any help feel free to slide into my DMs or send in an ask! I love getting questions about writing and I'm always willing to help a fellow writer!

[promethes]

Grief is as human an emotion as joy or melancholy. To live is to grieve and be grieved. If other emotions are ponds, grief is the Mariana trench. More “common” everyday emotions (happiness, sadness, excitement) can be expressed in a myriad of slightly differing ways. With one word, we can distinguish not only an emotion but specify how that emotion is felt. The umbrella of “happy” covers everything from pure joy to cheerfulness to contentment. “Sadness” can come in forms of melancholy or sorrow. Grief, on the other hand, is such an all-encompassing experience that it can’t be boiled down into a single simple word. While that may work to describe other feelings, no one word will ever be able to come close to describing grief. No matter what, any word used will fall short of capturing the profound feelings of loss humans can experience. Grief is immeasurable and indescribable which is why it is such a powerfully poetic experience.

Just like there is no one way to experience grief, there is no one way to write a poem. Poetry has no limits or qualifications. Ten-page ballads can be just as poetic as single word expressions. As long as it has a root in something innately human, almost anything can be described as a poem. The humanity of it is what sets poetry apart from prose, which is why such a deeply human experience like grief is poetic.

Perhaps one of the best examples of the duality of grief is Yusef Komunyakaa’s “The Towers”. Though the poem is explicitly addressed to his deceased son in the first line, most Americans who read it can relate to the hopelessness conveyed in the poem. Komunyakaa’s focus is on the death of his son which was a deeply personal occurrence. No person on this planet felt his son’s death the same way he did. However, he framed his son’s death with an event so widely felt that it’s still remembered every year almost two decades later. 9/11 is so ingrained into American culture that even people who were months old when the tragedy occurred still feel the residual grief from the massive amount of deaths incurred. We can see that Komunyakaa made a deliberate choice to frame the poem this way since his son didn’t die during 9/11. If he was confined to using prose to describe his son’s death, Komunyakaa wouldn’t have been able to tap into the grief of an entire nation to compare to the grief he felt like the father of a dead child. By moving away from the literal emotional pain of losing his child and using the more abstract pain felt from a national tragedy he made his pain clearer to a wider audience. Not everyone has experienced the loss of a child, but we all feel the effects of 9/11.

Using poetry to convey his grief was a perfect choice for the audience to truly understand what he was going through. It was also a good choice for Komunyakaa himself. By tapping into his emotions and putting them into words, he must have relieved some of his grief and come closer to closure. By the end of the poem, it seems as if Komunyakaa is finally letting go of his son when he writes “No, I’m not Daedalus, but I’ve walked miles in a circle, questioning your wings of beeswax & crepe singed beyond belief.” He acknowledges that he is still mourning, comparing it to walking miles but ending up in the same place again and again because he is stuck in the cycle of grief. His use of past tense (“I’ve”) shows that he’s since stepped out of the circle, perhaps because he’s finally found the answer to his son’s singed wings of beeswax and crepe. Like Daedalus, Komunyakaa, too, had to work through his grief to keep flying. He lost his son so early that he used the poem to breathe life into him one last time. For Komunyakaa to get closure, he’d at least need to see his son thrive in some way before the child was finally laid to rest in his father’s mind. He gave his son “wings… agile & unabashedly decorous,” literally letting his son soar and thrive in poetry the way he wasn’t able to do in life before his wings turn to “beeswax & crepe singed beyond belief” and his life ends.

Poetry is so profound that even just a couple of lines detailing a simple step by step routine can be turned into a deep look into severed relationships. Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays” is really about just that: his speaker’s routine on Sunday mornings during the winter. It could be read as prose, but that would be doing an injustice to the work. Yes, the basis of the poem is the literal things he and his family would do, but the spacing of the lines combines with the tone of his poem to create the scene of an emotionally strained family. In a way, Hayden’s speaker uses the poem to mourn his relationship with his father. Though he is not literally dead, his son still grieves his father’s life, one that has been spent on labor so grueling that his “cracked hands… ached”. We know that the speaker is talking about the past, and he acknowledges that he did not have a close relationship with his father. Instead, he’d speak “indifferently to him,/ who had driven out the cold/ and polished [his] good shoes as well.” Though at the time the speaker did not mourn his father and their relationship (which we can ascertain from his indifference towards his father), we can see that he feels that he should have been mourning the relationship at the time, maybe just so he could appreciate it while he had it. Obviously, he did not understand the father who would wake so much earlier than his son simply to warm the room and polish shoes. At that time in the past, the speaker couldn’t comprehend that that was the way his father showed his love. Later in his life, he finally understands, but perhaps too late. He ends his poem by saying“What did I know, what did I know/ of love’s austere and lonely offices?” implying that he never was able to understand his father’s displays of affection in time to return the feelings. Though we don’t know that his father is dead, we can glean that he is no longer in contact with him. With the short, blunt sentences Hayden uses, he casts a bitter tone over his wasted relationship with his father. The way he ends the first stanza sets the tone for the entire poem: “No one ever thanked him”, “him” being the speaker’s father. All of these factors come together to show a man grieving not only his separation from his father but the life his father lived with a son who spoke with him coldly and didn’t consider the sacrifices that he made for him. The son mourns the relationship that could have been if only he had seen how much his father cared for him earlier. This poem is a perfect example of how poetry can be used to work through several kinds of grief, including grieving what could have been: a healthy relationship with one’s son, a life spent on the kind of love that inspires community rather than isolation, or maybe even simply a life that consists of more than hard labor and waking up early on your days off for an unappreciative son.

Poetry can even be used to grieve one’s own self. The previous two poems mentioned both showed the grieving of those who have passed away and the more abstract relationships that could have come to be. Mark Strand’s “Keeping Things Whole” is much more poetry-like than “The Towers” and “Those Winter Sundays”. The first two detailed things that actually happened and arranged them into a way where they were more poetry than prose. If a few of their words were moved around and rephrased, their poems could possibly lose the strangeness that makes them poetry and become simple prose that doesn’t come close to conveying the emotions they convey in their poetic forms. “Keeping Things Whole” is pure poetry. If there was a physical scale of the literary versus the literal, his poem would drop the literary side faster than a brick. Every poem has some sort of “strangeness”, and when it comes to this one, that “strangeness” is basically the entire poem.

“In a field

I am the absence

of field”

can’t be twisted into something that actually happens. The fact that it is untouched by the literal makes the poem so purely melancholy that it inspires weeping in some readers (including, as you know, the author of this paper). When I try to think of the thoughts that would inspire poetry like this, I picture someone who feels grief so deep that no real-world comparison will do. Though it’s never explicitly stated, Strand perfectly conveys the emotions of someone grieving themself. Technically none of it makes sense, but the second one starts thinking poetically, the lines scream that the poet feels like he is someone who is fundamentally missing. He grieves himself, and the fact that he cannot seem to find himself, and “This is/ always the case”. The final stanza is especially raw and wrought with emotion:

We all have reasons

for moving.

I move

to keep things whole.

Not only does he convey the grief that he feels, but he also makes the reader grieve him. The image of someone who feels so empty that they see themselves as what is missing is so profoundly sad that I can’t come up with words that do it justice. The reader’s mourn along with Strand for the selfless person who never lets themselves stay in one place too long and find himself for fear of being “what is missing”. Someone who keeps moving to allow the air “to fill the spaces/ where [his] body’s been” is so self-sacrificing that they would rather never find themself to keep the world whole for others rather than cure his sense of self-loss. The way that he mourns himself paints the picture of someone who could be so valuable to society if only he would allow himself the chance to find a community. It’s hard to stop one’s self from grieving along with Strand for someone who so obviously cares about others but can’t find enough of themselves to know, let alone care for.

Poetry is perhaps the best way to put grief into words. For Yusef Kamanyakaa, he was able to change his son’s death from a “sad” event to something that inspired the image of “throbbing searchlights”, conveying a hopeless tone that the literal words with the same tone (like “hopeless”) would never be able to convey the same level of loss he was experiencing. He was able to not only work through the literal grief for his son but also to put it into words. Hayden grieved his relationship with his father and Strand his relationship with himself, both leaning into the poetic to fully convey the depth of their grief. No amount of technical language would ever be able to come close to even a single line of poetry describing profound emotions, especially grief. To mourn is to tap into humanity, and to write poetry is to let that tap run.

[kpopfanfictrash]

Scholars and Slackers

Author: kpopfanfictrash

Pairing: Namjoon / Reader

Word Count: 1,802

AU: Podcast

Dialogue Prompt: "I’ll be honest, I’m not fan of how tall he is. He could be like inch shorter, really. "

↳ part of my AU drabble game

“You know what’s the worst part about this podcast?” 

Leaning into his microphone, Namjoon adjusts his headset.

“No,” you say, propping both feet on his desk. Namjoon glares because he hates when you do that, but you don’t put them down. As you both know, his bark is worse than his bite. “Tell me, RM. What is the worst part about having this podcast?”

“The money. You know what they say. Mo money, mo problems.”

“Oh, right.” Seriously, you nod. “Sponsors are killing themselves to be heard on our campus-only podcast. Which – by the way.” You pause. “Drink Red Bull. This message is brought to you by… Red Bull.”

Namjoon snorts. “Yeah, you’re right. The problem is definitely not the money. In case any of you needed reminding, we’re just two broke college kids like yourself. Donate today!”

“If you’re waiting for a noble argument, we have none,” you add. “Keep us fed – or more accurately, help us get drunk at Klein’s on Friday nights. That’s where your donations are going. To alcohol.”

“We’re college kids first, humans second.”

“Anyways.” Leaning back, you wriggle your toes on Namjoon’s desk. “If money isn’t the problem, what is?”

“It’s your fucking feet on my desk.” Namjoon groans, his expression souring. “I know this is a podcast, so our listeners can’t see what Viola is doing – but she’s currently seated at my beautiful, hand-crafted desk with her shoes on top of my carefully taken notes.”

Viola is your podcast name and RM is Namjoon’s.

Viola, after the Shakespearian character of said nomenclature, your favorite of all he has written. The moniker seemed appropriate when you two began this podcast, since you met while watching the campus production of Othello. (It was terrible. You gave it two out of five damned handkerchiefs. Namjoon gave it one.)

Unimpressed, you glance at his desk. “He’s lying,” you say. “My feet are currently on top of a crumpled bag of those gross flavored Lay’s and what seems to be a diary. Ooo!” you gasp. “Anyone wanna hear RM’s deepest thoughts?”

The question is rhetorical since you aren’t live, but Namjoon snatches his notebook away like you are. 

“No,” he huffs, rolling his eyes. “My deepest thoughts aren’t that exciting. Not that deep, either. One time I thought about the Mariana trench. That was pretty deep.”

“Friday, October 17th.”  You mock-read aloud, in a dramatic tone. “Today I realized we’re all just wisps of time in the universe. All who came before us, all who come after and all who fail to leave their mark upon society – what was the point? Are those who altered history any happier in the beyond?”

“I’ll have you know,” Namjoon interrupts. “I’m currently seated on my bed holding my journal. Viola is reading from nothing.”

“Okay, true enough,” you say with a laugh. “That’s not what RM’s journal says. What it actually says is Monday morning, 7:00 AM. Jacked off in the shower. Monday afternoon, 4:17 PM. Jacked off in my bed. Monday night, 11:49 PM –”

With a loud thwacking sound, Namjoon hits you with his journal. 

“They get the point, Viola!” he says, making you snort with laughter.

The sight of his eyes crinkled, face squished makes your heart do a backflip. Fuck, are you in love with him. You have been ever since the week of your first, official podcast. 

It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact moment. Maybe the first time Namjoon ignored your rambling bullshit and pointed out exactly what you were thinking. Maybe when you ended the podcast and realized you’d talked for over an hour about nothing. Or maybe later than that, with your feet propped on his desk and his smile giving you heartburn.

Whatever the moment was, the result is a giant crush on your best friend. One you can do nothing about, since your podcast (Scholars and Slackers – two guesses as to which one you are) is a massive success on your campus. You didn’t expect it to be. What began as a mostly reviews hour – campus productions, local restaurants and the like – soon developed into something you never imagined. Namely, your friendship.

Viola and RM are known on campus, even if Y/N and Namjoon are not. Their friend chemistry is infamous and the spine of the podcast. It’d be suicidal to risk a relationship because, while Namjoon is correct and neither one of you is rolling in cash, the podcast does generate a substantial amount of income towards student loans. Things would be hard if the podcast suddenly came to an end.

Shifting forward, you crack open your laptop. “Let’s see,” you say, scrolling through last week’s comments. “I’m reading the comments from last episode and damn, some of y’all are thirsty.”

Namjoon chuckles. “Are they asking you to take your top off again?”

“No, but again.” You blink, shaking your head. “I don’t understand. You can’t even see me!” you say, as Namjoon starts to crack up. “Do you really want to subject RM to torture that badly?”

Abruptly, Namjoon’s laughter stops. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he says into the mic. “I think we should ask RM what he thinks before dismissing the topic so quickly.”

“Pass,” you say, waving his suggestion aside. “Anyways, here’s a comment asking how tall RM is.” Pausing, you frame Namjoon with your hands. “I mean, he’s tall. I couldn’t fit him in a bread box, if that’s what you’re asking. I’ll be honest, though, I’m not a fan of how tall he is.”

Namjoon sits up straighter. “No?”

“Nah. He could be like, an inch shorter, really.”

“And why is that?”

“The nook.”

“I’m sorry, the what?”

“You know.” You wave a hand. “The nook! The spot beneath a person’s arm where the other person fits. It’d be ideal if you were just a little shorter, RM, since right now your nook is just too tall. It’s hard to snuggle.”

Namjoon stares at you, mouth agape. “I – what? When have we snuggled?”

“We haven’t. I’m just guessing based off height ratios.”

“I...” Namjoon makes a strange, choked sound. “This is ridiculous. Come here. I’m going to disprove your dumb nook theory.”

“Come there?”

“Yes.”

“Why?

“I’m going to snuggle you, you ass.”

“RM. You are not snuggling me during our very serious podcast, just to prove a point.”

“Why not?”

“Because!”

“Viola, shut up and let me put you under my arm!”

“You sound like you’re going to give me a noogie,” you yelp, frantically moving away. “Hard pass.”

Rolling his eyes, Namjoon flops back on the bed. 

“Fine,” he grumbles, scrolling through some more comments. “Hey, look. I found another request for your top to be removed!”

“RM. That one is from your username.”

“It is not!”

The rest of the hour passes this way. You manage to get to the point eventually, reviewing a new café off campus which you felt had great atmosphere, adequate coffee. Namjoon refuted that atmosphere shouldn’t even be a requisite in food ranking and you spiraled from there.

Once finished, you remove your headset and sigh. “Another excellent podcast,” you say, sticking your hand out in his direction.

Namjoon stares at the extended appendage. “Are we concluding a business interview?”

“No, silly. I don’t want you to shake my hand, I want you to kiss it.”

Namjoon snorts, batting your arm away. As he stands and yawns, he stretches both arms overhead. The motion exposes a tanned strip of skin and, cheeks heating, you quickly look away. Rather than stare at your gigantic crush/best friend, you scroll through more comments. The oddest pattern has emerged as of late, even though you and Namjoon have yet to discuss it.

Most of the comments are related to content. People point out things they found funny, relatable or disagree with. Occasionally, people troll for someone to remove their shirt or do push-ups on air. Then, there’s the recent wave which seem to be multiplying by the week.

Jenny918: When will Viola and RM just kiss already??

hOOKEDonPhoenix: y’all if they aren’t dating within the year, I’ll eat my own hand

irredeemableDreamer: the tension is so thick in that room u need a HACKSAW to get through it

Jaw clenched, you read them all. 

You can only assume Namjoon’s seen them, but he’s never mentioned their presence. He’s never said anything about them at all and so, neither have you. It does make you wonder though, if your listeners are able to hear something you don’t. They all seem to theorize a tension which doesn’t exist.

Standing up from your chair, you push this from mind. Perhaps they just don’t have opposite sex friends of their own.

Slinging your bag over one shoulder, you shut your laptop and slip this inside. “Alright,” you say, glancing at Namjoon. “I have to go finish an essay. Lemme know if you need help editing.”

He nods, one arm behind his head. Namjoon’s glasses are on, squinting at the bright computer screen. 

“Sounds good.”

You wave, halfway into the hall when he speaks up behind you.

“Y/N?”

Paused on the threshold, you turn back. “Yeah?”

Namjoon’s expression is uncertain. Unusual, for him. Typically, you’re the mess and he’s the pulled-together one. Right now though, Namjoon seems to be dissecting a complicated math problem in his head.

“Would you want to…” Trailing off, he hesitates.

Although you wait for his sentence to finish, Namjoon seems to check himself. He bites down on his cheek, stifling the words.

After another long moment, you arch a brow. “Would I want to what?”

He inhales and glances away. “Uh, would you want to listen to the podcast before I post?”

Oddly disappointed by this, you nod. “Yeah, that’s fine. Just email me when you’re done.”

Offering a half-hearted wave, you leave. It could be your imagination but as the door shuts behind you, you swear that you hear Namjoon groan. The sound echoes in your mind down the hall, since you feel exactly the same.

The only difference is he’s groaning because he needs to edit an hour-long podcast and you’re groaning because you need to get your feelings for your best friend under control. If random listeners can hear the obviousness of your crush, you’re more transparent than you thought. It’s only a matter of time before Namjoon confronts you and when he does, you don’t know what you’ll say.

Thinking this, your lip quirks. Pulling your phone from your pocket, you log in with a URL Namjoon knows nothing about.

QueenMab01: RM, take your shirt off!!!!

Grinning widely, you return your phone to your pocket.

↳ part of my AU drabble game

© kpopfanfictrash, 2019. Do not copy or repost without permission.

[courtinginsanity]

Warning: this is going to be long af. (Also, this was started weeks ago and then life happened, so apologies for the weird timing lol).

TL/DR: you’re all amazing and I love you. 

Okay. So. First of all, I cannot express how grateful and humbled I am having been presented these awards in Granger Enchanted Survivors. I am so thankful to have such wonderful fandom friends and readers of my fics.

Let’s talk about ‘Necessary Evil’. It started as a random idea in 2013, and was originally published as ‘The Green Vase’. I did not plan anything, just wrote what came to my head. Chapters ranged from 1-2k. I had no alpha. No beta. I think I reached chapter 10 before getting bored and resigning myself to a life of reading Fanfiction rather than writing it.

When I decided to return to the story and rewrite it, I was in a much better place in my life. I was able to admit I needed help. So I started DFW, and I enlisted the help of a beta. I started with a long list of people, and then found the one I worked with best, littlered1992. She was tough but always kind and the story would not have been completed if it wasn’t for her messages asking where the hell the next chapter was 😂

On the 7th of May, 2018, a new reader went through the available chapters and left essay-length comments on EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. That was @mhcalamas, who is now one of my most dear friends and fellow writer. This is our fic. It’s the one that brought us together. Her encouragement and amazing comments kept me motivated and fed my muse. I couldn’t have done it without her belief in me and my ability to finish something.

As I gained confidence and learned to love critique, I found @ravenclaw-sass. Another one of my most dear fandom friends. This girl has an eye for everything and taught me the important skill of internal monologue. If I had a question or concern about characterisation, I knew who to turn to. I am a better writer because of this amazing human being.

Entering the Facebook world of Dramione fandom, I quickly found myself surrounded by inspiration from other writers and readers. I joined fests—too many fests—and continued to practice my craft. Each piece I’ve written, each person I’ve worked with... they made me better, stronger, more confident. I wouldn’t be where I am without any of them. In fact, it was a post in Strictly Dramione that led me to write ‘Taking Flight’!

So, I have some people to thank. In no particular order... 

@lovesbitca8 - you make writing look effortless. I know it definitely isn’t, but gosh you do it with such grace. I really admire you and your style, and have subconsciously tried to emulate it.

@senlinyuwrites - I don’t think I can really put into words how much I respect you. In my mind you’re the super-cool chick everyone wants to be friends with but are in total awe of. Like think leather, aviators, and a motorbike lol.

@ladykenz347 - my puffiest puff friend! I live for our conversations. Your never-failing enthusiasm for all things Dramione. Your descriptions slay me and I am so jealous of your raw talent.

@indreamsink - another cool-vibing chick. Another one who makes it look effortless. What I wouldn’t give to crawl into your brain and explore it for just an hour (that sounded way less creepy before I wrote it down lol)

@mykesprit - you never fail to make me smile, and for that I am grateful. Your sense of humour has inspired me to attempt to purposefully write something funny which may have been the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done.

@ms-merlinblack - is it weird to tell you that you make me feel safe in this pocket of the universe? Like I feel like I can do anything if you’re involved. You and LadyKenz are now my parents.

@otterlyardent - we’ve only just started getting to know each other and I wish I lived closer so we could catch up for a drink and a hug! Your raw truth is inspiring to witness and I aim to be more like you.

@themourningmadam - we don’t talk much but you must know that I LIVE for conversations involving you. Your insight is always hilarious and perfect. And your writing... if I eat it, do you think I’ll absorb the genius?

@frumpologist and @frecklesandbroomsticks - I don’t know why but in my mind you two are the Puff Pair. And I adore each of you for very similar reasons. You’re so down to earth and relatable. You’re unfailingly supportive of all my ideas even when they’re bad. And you’re both amazing writers who I’m honoured to know!

@thelastlynx and @hysteracal - another Dynamic Duo! You guys constantly make me laugh and I hope that one day I can be half as intelligent as you both! Thank you for always being super honest and open with me, and teaching me that you don’t need to sell your soul to be a Fanfiction writer.

@disenchantedglow - You may be the embodiment of all things good in the world. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you utter a negative thing to say about anyone and you inspire me with the simple elegance with which you write! 

@bionicallywriting - words cannot describe the joy I feel when you comment on my writing and tell me that it’s not complete and utter garbage lol. I highly value your opinion and am so grateful that you joined our little community! 

@deweydecimateher - I wish I had your sense of humour. I’d never be sad or down or anything becasue I’d just be constantly laughing. Can you please move to Australia, or send a pocket version of yourself I can keep with me always? 

@mrsren96 - I actually tear up thinking about how we became friends because clearly I am a giant sap. I still laugh when I remember how fangirly I got when I saw that ‘Mrs. Ren’ had commented on one of my fics and then I found out that it was you, someone I’d been talking to for a little while at that point. Inside my brain there’s a Buzz Lightyear going, “There seems to be no sign of intelligent life anywhere.” I could go on and on, but you know I love you, girl!  

@rzzmg - when I wrote for you in the Dramione christmas fest I almost  d i e d! I was so honoured and I loooooove your writing. I am a (mostly) silent fan but please know that I really admire and respect you!

@ravenslight - if I had a friend who was always ready to bail me out of jail, you would be that friend. I have taken for granted that you are always there waiting to beta for me but I really am grateful for all of your help! And (spoiler alert!) I’ll probably be sliding into your DMs again soon to beg for more assistance... and to continue my plan to steal you away from your fiance!  

@party-lines - I am actually so proud to know you. The whole world collapses around your ears and you just keep on going like a freaking boss. And you’re a fellow Aussie which makes me even prouder! So much love and respect for you, girl! 

@hginny25 - you have no idea the level of happiness I reached when you joined DFW! I love that this community brought us together and I’m excited to continue to get to know you! 

@naarna - we’ve known each other for aaaages and I am so proud of how far you’ve come both in terms of writing and life in general. I feel privileged that I get to keep watching you go from strength to strength. You are an inspiration! 

@kyonomiko - we don’t talk all that much but I really admire your creativity... and will admit I’m jealous of it lol. You bring such a grace to your writing and your interactions within the community I hope to one day emulate. 

@perilous-circumstance - this one actually let me beta for her. ME. I’m still in awe because your story is just so unique and amazing and I genuinely love it so much! We make a good team (I think) and I hope we can work togeher forever! 

@niffizzle - we’re basically bff’s now thanks to a mutual love of Panic! At the Disco and because you introduced me to Mariana’s Trench, for which I’ll forever be in your debt. You are a light in the community and I’m proud to count myself among the people who get to chat with you one on one!  

@ruthy4vrsmoak-ed - some days I don’t know what I would have done without your never-wavering encouragement and support of not only my writing but of DFW, too! Thank you for being so lovely! 

@felgia-starr - one of the DFW originals and a forward thinker! The group wouldn’t be where it is if it wasn’t for you and your support. Thank you for being my time zone buddy and someone I can rely on! Even though we don’t chat that often, I feel like if the world was falling you’d definitely help me and probably fix the entire situation in a sentence. 

@mrbenzedrine89 - and all your crew for organising the awards! I can’t imagine that it was an easy feat, so kudos to all of you! Also, massive fan, hi *waves awkwardly*. 

I feel like there’s a million people I haven’t thanked but should... I wish I could personally tag all of you but please know that I love you and I am so, so, so grateful for you! This community only works because you do, and I respect the shit out of each and every member of the Dramione fandom. 

Much love and squishy kangaroo hugs...

CourtingInsanity xx

[shadows-echoes]

The Logic of Emotion - Pt. 4

Pairing: Connor RK800 x fem!reader

Summary:  Connor’s just trying to complete his mission but he keeps running into the emotional roadblocks of those around him. You’ve been assigned to the deviancy investigation along with Hank and Connor, but you’re starting to ask questions no one seems interested in listening to. The investigation becomes more difficult for everyone involved as it progresses, and for vastly different reasons.

Warnings: Swearing.

Word Count: 3.4k

Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 5 // Part 6 // Part 7 // Part 8 // Masterlist

As much as Connor might vehemently try to deny it, he was edging towards that seemingly inevitable cliff of deviancy. There had been moments, snapshots in the past where he had demonstrated unadulterated humanity- likely without realizing it. Only tonight had been different. Tonight, Connor had made a distinct, conscious choice knowing full well of the repercussions it might create.

Tonight, the deviant hunter had let two deviants go free.

After a long investigation, some rather hilarious charges to Hank’s credit card, and a drawn-out fight, Connor had allowed two deviant Traci models -ones who had killed someone through self-defense- run. 

Connor had them at gunpoint and trapped. 

And then he lowered his weapon.

The girls were gone in an instant. 

Connor had stared after them, half shocked at himself, at what he had done, but he didn’t seem to regret it. Confusion and worry had filled you as you eyed Connor with apprehension. Hank, on the other hand, merely shrugged off the whole situation and made light of it.

At least, that’s what Hank had done before he brought booze into the equation.

He’d driven out to some park and perched himself on top of a bench, a bottle of something alcoholic in hand.

Now you stood with the river behind you and an icy railing digging into your back, a few meters from the bench Hank sat atop while Connor paced between you. Your arms were folded across your chest in testament to both your mood and in a feeble attempt to conserve some heat against the freezing wind and light snowfall.

Slowly, your mind was dragged back to reality, your eyes pulling up from the white, sparkling ground to land on Connor.

“We’re not making any progress on this investigation,” Connor states with some degree of frustration, crossing his arms over his chest. “They’re all different models, produced at different times, in different places…”

“Well, there must be some link,” Hank supplies, oh so insightfully.

Withholding something between a huff and a sigh, you forcibly unclench your jaw. “There’s a link.”

The speed with which Connor stops pacing and snaps his whole body towards you is nearly amusing. “What is it?”

Your lips purse as you glance between the android designed to hunt deviants and your lieutenant. How did neither of them see it? Were they both so wrapped up in the mechanics of the investigation to notice? Too blinded by the dichotomy between humans and androids to see what was right in front of them? How could they look directly at the causes of deviancy you had so far encountered, recorded, and substantiated, and then directly overlook what was staring them in the face? The most obvious answer? The simplest one?

“Each deviant we’ve seen has been abused, forced to endure something they didn’t want to experience, forced to comply to some program they didn’t want to adhere to, or all of the above,” you point out flatly. “They were denied free will.”

Connor stares at you, his blue LED flickering as examines your hypothesis. “Many deviants do show signs of PTSD and trauma,” he concedes, “but why would only certain androids be affected? Not all androids who show those signs deviate.”

“Human error,” you inform with a shrug. “Or- android error, I guess. Inevitable variables? There’s only so much of that shit a person can take before they finally snap.” 

Well, it was that or…

“Or?”

You blink back at his intrigued, awaiting expression.

You hadn’t meant to say that part out loud.

Or.

Or the androids were rigged to become deviant. 

It was the only other possibility, and yet it made you sound like a crackpot theorist in need of a tinfoil hat. Why Cyberlife would want their “products” to go rogue, you hadn’t the faintest idea. But if it wasn’t actually a virus then it had to be something already in their code which led to two possibilities. The first was that Cyberlife overlooked a big fat variable in the programming of hundreds of models over the last few months. Unlikely. The second option was that Cyberlife intentionally incorporated a possibility of deviation in their androids. Equally as unlikely but it would explain most of the existing questions -while adding a whole bunch of new ones-. 

Ugh. It felt like all you could get your hands on through this investigation was one-fourth of a giant puzzle with no side-pieces. You knew there was more to all of this just as you knew it was out of reach. It was maddening.

“Those two girls,” Hank comments, sounding deep in thought, his eyes looking somewhere far away. “They just wanted to be together. They really seemed... in love.”

Being forced into prostitution is evil enough. Being forced into it and having to sit idly by when the person you love is assaulted? Half of you wished the deviants had given that man a slower death- the other half was just surprised they hadn’t burned the Eden Club straight to the ground.

“You seem troubled, Lieutenant,” Connor observes. “I didn’t think machines could have such an effect on you.”

Hank takes a long swig of his drink before setting it down on the bench and strolling up to Connor with a gleam in his eyes.

“What about you?” Hank asks, staring Connor down. “You look human, you sound human, but what are you really?”

“I’m whatever you want me to be, Lieutenant,” Connor replies diplomatically. “Your partner, your buddy to drink with, or just a machine designed to accomplish a task.”

“You could have shot those two girls but you didn’t. Why didn’t you shoot, Connor?” Hank pushes- and punctuates the question with a heavy shove to Connor’s shoulder, sending the android stumbling backwards. “Hm? Some scruple suddenly enter into your program?”

Pushing off the railing, you slowly approach to stand by Connor’s side. You knew that somewhere, deep, deep -like Marianas Trench deep- down, Hank has a good heart. But even on a good day, the man had some issues. Today was not a good day. With the amount of alcohol he’d consumed in such a short time in combination with his mood, you were unsure how unpredictable he could get.

As genuinely curious as you were about Connor’s reasoning, there were better ways of accessing that information than through… whatever the hell Hank was doing.

“No. I just decided not to shoot,” Connor explains, hints of defensiveness coloring his tone. “That’s all.”

It’s not the most informative of answers. Quite honestly, on any other occasion you would have loved to talk to Connor about it, to understand, to determine where he stood and how his mind worked. 

But tonight was not any other occasion.

Hank’s hand darts behind his back and, before you could blink, he pulls out his gun, aiming it squarely at Connor’s forehead.

You’re moving before you think about it. Moving to knock the gun out of Hank’s hand, to grab it, to stand in front of Connor, to something-

But you don’t get the chance.

Without looking, without taking his eyes off of Hank, Connor’s arm shoots out in front of you, keeping you half a foot behind him. Your eyes drop from the dark gun shining under the streetlights, to the hand steadily hovering over your abdomen, then up to the face it’s paired with.

Snowflakes lightly dusted Connor’s dark hair and jacket, blew across the face that was pointedly ignoring your incredulity and shock.

Hank, ever the detective, fails to miss Connor’s actions as well. With narrowed eyes and a tilt to his head, he glances between the hand, your face, and Connor’s.

The river at your back sounded louder than before.

“Hank, what the fuck are you doing?” you bark, recovering from your gaping long enough to give him a wide-eyed glare.

“I could kill him and he’d just come back as if nothing happened,” Hank states begrudgingly. From the emotion in his voice, he could’ve just as easily been remarking on the weather conditions. “But are you afraid to die, Connor?”

To Connor’s credit, he appears incredibly calm with having a gun shoved in his face, as cool as a cucumber. If his posture was anything to go by, he could have been giving some speech about national security. His head was held high enough, and his shoulders were straight and pushed back, but his facial expressions betrayed him- if only by miniscule degrees.

“I would certainly find it… regrettable to be interrupted before I can finish this investigation,” he admits.

Wholly unimpressed, Hank inches the barrel of the gun closer to Connor’s forehead. “What will happen if I pull this trigger? Hm?”

“For starters, you’ll get a black eye and you’ll lose your gun,” you snap, bristling.

Hank rolls his eyes. “Nothing?” he prods. “Oblivion? Android heaven?”

“I doubt there’s a heaven for android’s,” Connor notes.

Something between a grin and a sneer crosses Hank’s expression. “Having existential doubts, Connor? Sure you’re not a-”

You jump forwards in a quick gamble and manage to pry the gun out of Hank’s hand by twisting his wrist and arm before he even notices you moving. He gives an indignant bark of surprise, but Hank puts up less resistance than you’d imagined he would. He probably only pulled the gun to get a reaction in the first place, you knew. Well, goddamn, he was certainly going to get one- even if it wasn’t from who he intended.

“You want to get drunk every night-” you fume, indignantly pointing the handle of the gun at Hank’s chest in lieu of an accusatory finger, “-that’s your business! You want to talk about existentialism and the meaninglessness of life?! I’m game. But what you don’t fucking do is pull your gun on people!”

“People?” Hank quotes, matching your raised volume and arching a cynical eyebrow. “Connor’s an android, Y/N! Or have you somehow managed to forget-”

“Does it look like I fucking care what he is?” you loudly interrupt, far from being done. “Did I not just mention that one of the triggers to deviancy seems to-”

“I am not a deviant.”

“-be assholes? Have you been so spitefully disinterested for this entire investigation that you’ve missed the blatantly obvious fact that androids- deviants- are more than they appear? And, frankly, I don’t care if Connor was some lagging computer from the nineties with only internet explorer, you don’t pull your gun unless there’s a threat! Certainly not because you’re having a temper tantrum and trying to make a point!”

Snapping your jaw shut, you clench your teeth together in a dull effort to prevent yourself from saying anything you’d later regret. Your glaring eyes are still locked on Hank, however.

He stares at back you, gaping, the umbrage and anger in his eyes mixing with the slightest hints of fear and shock. Hank had no idea how to respond; you did not have outbursts. It was practically a known fact around the station: you always kept a level head. Sure, you got angry occasionally, perhaps furious on a few bad cases, but you always managed to keep your shit together, always remained outwardly stable enough to get the job done. 

You, on the other hand, did not understand how Hank –or half the goddamn population for that matter- could be so blind. There had been a few instances when you were younger in which you had treated androids as commodities, but much to your own chagrin you’d felt horrible after each time. There was simply too much empathy in you. It took effort to be rude to others, so why bother when you were so naturally inclined to do the opposite anyway? Besides, why the fuck should anyone be hateful just because they have the option?

Even so, your investigation into deviancy had opened your eyes to a whole new extent. Androids- deviants had emotions. Or, they thought they had emotions. And with reality being as subjective as it is, “thought” was more than enough for you.

They could love. They could hate. And they wanted free will.

It was enough.

The silence dragged on. When Hank did not, or could not, immediately snap something back, you turn on your heels with something between an annoyed scoff and an indignant huff and march away. A part of you wanted to stay, to try and make him see, to make sure he didn’t try anything stupid -again-, but you couldn’t.

“Hey!” Hank growls, belatedly calling after you once you’re halfway to the car parked beside his. “Give me back my gun!”

“Ask me after you’ve been sober for a week,” you hurl over your shoulder, a scowl twisting your lips.

He grunts something but you’re too far away to hear what it is or care. Ignoring it all the same, you climb into your old car and force your nails to stop digging painfully into your palms.

Damn him.

Maybe androids were just machines. Maybe you were delusional in your empathy. Maybe you were making a fool of yourself. Maybe you were risking your job and reputation and prison for nothing.

But maybe you weren’t. And that possibility was enough to maintain your conviction.

As you turn the keys in the ignition of your old, beat-up car, the passenger-side door opens and Connor peeks down at you. Answering the unvoiced question, you silently tell him to get in with a small jerk of your head. On the few occasions the three of you used two cars, Connor would, more often than not, ride with you since you didn’t actively hold any serious disdain for him since the beginning. Sure, there were a few times you’d wanted to rip him a new one -mostly, and practically only, after he left you to fall- but you never thought about actually blowing his brains out.

Hank had probably told him to get lost. Or Connor didn’t feel like hanging around in the darkened, snow-covered playground with Hank. Either way, Connor got in the car and you started driving as soon as his door closed.

You drove in heavy silence, slowly easing the tension out of your body. You almost succeed, too.

“Lieutenant Anderson was right, you know,” Connor tentatively volunteers. “Even if he had shot me, I would have come back.”

Hands tightening around the steering wheel, you glare out the windshield. “That’s not the point,” you grind out bitterly. “And even if you did come back, I still would’ve had to watch you die in the first place.”

And you had done that once already, after an interrogation gone wrong. You were in no hurry to do it again, certainly not now that… now that you’d consider Connor a friend. It just wasn’t something you were eager to witness.

The next four blocks are spent driving in silence.

“Emotions are a complication,” Connor observes. 

Surprisingly, it sounded less like a reminder and more of a statement of contemplation.

An unamused laugh threatens to pass your lips.“Listen, I’m, like, the last person who’d vouch for emotions because you’re right, they are complications and half the time they suck. But there is…” you trail off, trying to find the right words. “Sometimes there is logic in having emotions. Without them, you’re just… objective.”

A machine.

Connor glances at you intently, his brows ever so slightly furrowed. “And you think objectivity is a bad thing?”

“I think it can be a great thing,” you admit, “but a lot of morality is derived from empathy. Emotions can help draw the line between right and wrong. I mean, they’re just as likely to drive someone from one to the other, but… they’re important.”

When Connor doesn’t retort, you sneak a peek at him. He was sitting normally -that is to say, not ramrod straight-, almost at ease, but as he eyed the passing lights, you got the impression he wasn’t really seeing them.

In the window, there was a faint reflection of a flickering yellow circle.

-

“Would you give me my gun back, already?” Hank not-so-kindly asks from his seat across from your desk.

It was a question you’d been waiting for all morning. The only two things that surprised you was the fact that Hank had actually shown up on time this morning -not sometime around lunch- and that he’d waited for so long before asking for it. A time which conveniently coincided with Connor’s trip to the evidence room.

With no small amount of dragging reluctance, you pull the weapon from the top drawer of your desk and slide it across the surface of your desk and onto his. Appeased, Hank picks up the gun- only to shoot you an exceptionally exasperated look.

He doesn’t say a word, just clenches his jaw and holds out an expectant hand.

“Hey, had you not noticed then you really shouldn’t have this,” you defend in an equally flat tone as you hand over the corresponding magazine. Okay, so maybe you weren’t entirely over what happened last night.

Hank snatches the magazine from your outstretched hand and loads it into the gun, giving it a quick look over for further tampering. “I might be slightly hungover but I’m not stupid,” he retorts.

“Can you blame me for checking?” you ask, biting back a small grin.

“Oh, screw you,” he scoffs. As unamused by the cheap jab as may have been, the comment held no real weight, no true ire. The light, as-per-usual banter managed to pull a corner of your lips upwards ever so slightly.

At least some things never change.

Not wanting to push your luck at this particular moment with this particular situation, you leave the conversation as is and turn back to your screen to continue reading. Still convinced that the link between deviants and what caused them was a lack of free choice paired with being pushed over that metaphorical edge -and some questionable programming by Cyberlife-, you’d been going over all the old files. Most of them you had read already, but there could be-

“You really care about him, don’t you?”

Slowly, your eyes shift from the screen to the man across from you. Hank was leaning back in his chair, a considering look on his face as he carefully observed you- despite the fact both of you knew it wasn’t a question he had vocalized, but a statement.

“Don’t mistake moral decency for care,” you state evenly, keeping your expression as much of a blank mask as Hank’s.

Where was he going with this? Why?

Hank hums, unimpressed and steadfast in the face of your answer. Seemingly content to wait you out, a game you had no intention of participating in, you turn back to your screen and ignore him.

“He cares about you too, you know,” Hank points out. It’s said like it was something obvious, something you should have noticed for yourself by now- but you can feel his stare and the words sound too much like bait for you to do anything but keep reading.

“He says he’s not deviant,” you remind, shrugging.

There’s the faintest of scoffs from across your desk, then, “but we both know he’s changed.”

That does manage to snag your attention. Pausing, you look up at Hank, at his plain expression and the small amount of worry right beneath the surface. Despite his actions the night before and his initial reaction to Connor, you knew Hank had grown fond of him. You both had.

“He’s adamant about completing his mission,” you note carefully, “but yeah.”

Connor had certainly evolved from being the cookie-cutter style android sent by Cyberlife that he had been when you first met. However, he was also far from being a deviant too. He would have to defy orders and programming, ignore or stop the self-scans he does every so often for that to happen.

Neither you nor Hank had apologized for your behavior the night before; both of you could have done things differently. But looking at him now, the two of you seemed to come to some sort of silent agreement: to look out for the android should he ever cross that big red line into foreign, half-hostile territory. Into deviancy.

-

A/N: I’ve passed over some scenes (e.g. the Eden Club, interrogations) because I think everyone has seen/played the game by now. While these scenes would be a lot of fun to write, we all know them already and they don’t necessarily add too much to this story so I’ve left out their details. But I’m posting these parts for you guys! So what do you think? Should I keep to the gameplay and write more of the scripted scenes or should this storyline deviate a small bit ;) ? Let me know what you think!

Again, thank you all for the support and comments. You guys rock! <3

Tags: @aya-fay @mamamemequeen @layinglonely @robin-rokossovsky  @simplysaying @superanonymousreader @aririna1412 @marinettelafayette @purpstraw @tinycyberhacker @lunarlexycon @littlemsrantsalot  @bibbo-boggerns @lost-and-found-jc @avispate @audiblehush @grievance-s @i-resent-this-hellsite @kylobien @fuckthatfeeling @fandomfreakgod 

[style-beat-webzine]

Michelle's Fashion Industry Pros and Cons series: Post #1

How many of you have ever felt personally victimized by the fashion industry?

Haven’t we all, in some way? Isn’t it wild to think that the fashion industry only allows in a small group of people? Like many, I’ve always had a love hate relationship with this industry. My favorite part about fashion is that it’s forever evolving, it changes because we evolve as human beings. Why stay the same when there’s so much to explore, in my opinion. As I sit here on NYE of 2020 I can’t help but to look back on my year, I can truly say that this is the first year that I felt my life had extreme ups and downs. I’m ending the year on a low, but that’s for another time when I have the energy to tell the story, for now let us stick to fashion. 

So the fashion industry, eh? All in all it hates my type, a petite-plus size gal, woohoo thank you, genes!! However, that’s never stopped me from dressing to express myself. In this series I talk about my love hate relationship with fashion, the pros and cons of the industry in my opinion and where I see myself fitting in. Spoiler alert, it’s not anywhere haha, but that’s what makes fashion so great you can mold it to fit you, but for some of us it takes some extra work to find items that work. I’m going to give one positive and one negative-opinionated blurb about the industry and fashion in general. I’ll start with the negative, because we should always leave on a positive note :)

The number one thing I hate about the industry is that it makes me feel like I’m intruding, like I’m not supposed to be there and everyone who’s in the know, lets you know you’re unwelcome. One time I was at the House of Blues in Chicago to see the band Marianas Trench, I went to see them by myself and if you’ve never been to a concert by yourself, I highly recommend, it feels spiritual, I promise. Anyway, I felt adventurous so I decided to walk up the stairs to see how far up I could go. I made it to the top level and it was almost nauseating on how high up it was. I will say it was pretty cool to see a concert from a bird’s eye view for a song or two, but that’s all I could stand before I started getting dizzy.   

Here’s the proof I was that high up haha. The lead singer, Josh Ramsay is in the back playing the drums, he was also singing while playing, pretty dang cool. 

As I was walking back down to the main level I got lost, (if you’ve never been into the House of Blues in Chicago they have a bunch of staircases with doors and actual doors that lead into rooms both types of doors look very similar.) I walked into one of those mystery doors to what I thought was the staircase I had used to walk up. Instead, I found myself in a room with a bunch of guys in business suits, who whipped their heads around to see who just walked through the door. All I remember is walking into a smokey room and all these guys were staring at me with puzzled looks, my anxiety got the best of me and I awkwardly waved and said “sorry, I’m trying to find the stairs,” turned around and left right away before they could even say anything. That's how the fashion industry makes me feel, like I’m walking in on something I have no business being a part of, which is a sucky feeling, if you know the feeling, hello I hope you’re doing well. I just want to let you know you’re not alone and I know how horrible the fashion industry makes you feel, and I’m sorry for both of us that this industry made us feel that way, but here we are against all odds thriving in it!!     One of my absolute favorite things about fashion is the creation of outfits and using articles of clothing that I already own. To me it’s a test to my creativity on how many outfits I can make using the same one item. Don’t get me wrong, I still buy new things to add to my wardrobe every once in a while, but  that’s few and far between, unless I’m super stressed or extremely emotional than watch out retail therapy, because here I come!! When I do make a purchase I try to make sure I can make at least three outfits with that one item before I finalize the purchase, well I usually try to do that. Sometimes you just buy things on a whim, and for me it usually becomes a staple in my wardrobe, I call it dumb luck. For example, when I was away at college I lived in a rural ass town in central Illinois, and trust me they’ll let you know you’re in central and not southern Illinois. There’s only a few places to shop for clothes in town, the biggest selection was at Walmart, which I frequented a lot, since well, you know there’s nothing really to do in a small town anyway. Honestly that’s how they get you with that one stop shop food and clothes in one place, hellz yeah!! I felt like I was always broke, but I would somehow always find money to browse the clothes section :) I normally only buy off the sales racks, because I took fashion merchandising classes and I know how things work, haha. This particular time, my attention was drawing me to this long shaggy vest, my first thought was, “This looks so 70s” then it reminded me of Penny Lane from the movie Almost Famous, so I knew it would be a smart addition to my wardrobe, because you can’t go wrong with anything fuzzy and warm, especially if it reminds you of one of your favorite movies. 

That whim purchase has now become one of my most prized possessions and a wardrobe staple. Do you ever do that math thing to figure out how much it cost to wear that one item you purchased? So lets take that shaggy 70s vest and say I wore it 10 times and made 10 different outfits with it, you take how much you paid for it, which was $26 and divide it by 10, so every time I wore that vest it was $2.60 a wear. Not too bad in my opinion and totally worth the buy!! That is one of my absolute favorite things about fashion, the ability to keep using the same piece for different outfits. And the more you wear that piece the more you’re getting your money’s worth!! Here are 3 outfits using that shearling faux fur vest.  

I hope you’ve enjoyed the first in my series, Michelle’s Pros and Cons of the Fashion Industry. I can’t wait to write more about the fashion industry through my eyes, and hopefully be able to connect with people through our fashion woes and finds. I’ll have to figure out a signature sign off, but for now enjoy your moment and thank you for the read!!

Sincerely,

Michelle 

[camsthisky]

Breathe Disaster

ao3 | ff.net

Summary: Dick’s been shot, Wally feels guilty, and Cassandra sheds some insight on why Dick fights.

Based on @haunt-the-stars‘s birdflash post. It did not turn out the way I thought it was going to at all, but I hope you enjoy! Title comes from Marianas Trench’s song Ever After.

“Come on, Dick,” Wally murmurs, head lowered as he sits in the chair next to Dick’s bed side (or should he say cot side, since they’re in the Batcave’s medbay. Maybe he would have, but even his mind, the joke falls flat). He has his hands clasped in front of him, and he hates this feeling of waiting. It’s too slow. It helps him feel better to talk to Dick, though. To mutter, “Come on, Dick. Wake up soon, or else Batman’s gonna fillet me.”

He won’t. Batman’s always been through here more times in the past three hours than Wally can count, and Wally doesn’t doubt that Batman’s too worried about Dick to do much more than grunt in Wally’s general direction.

Unfortunately, Wally hasn’t known Batman—Bruce Wayne—long enough to translate Bat-speak, so he’s at a loss for what that particular grunt means. He hopes it means that he’s not going to kill Wally. But without Dick there to translate, and with Tim being uncooperative and not speaking to either Bruce or Wally, it means that Wally is out of luck.

“You know,” someone says, and Wally looks up to see a girl about Tim’s age—Cassandra, Wally remembers—next to him, looking down at him. He doesn’t know her very well, but she’s always shied away from his exuberance.

“Don’t take it personally,” Dick had told him after one too many times she’d disappeared on them in the manor. “She doesn’t know you well, and you’re probably just too loud and obnoxious.”

“So are you!” Wally had claimed.

Dick had just shrugged with an easygoing grin. “Yeah, well, I’m her brother. She has to like me.”

That conversation had dissolved into wrestling pretty quickly, and Wally thinks that they’d broken one of Alfred’s weird vases. They’d scrambled to clean up the shards, both reminiscing about the times they’d done this before when they were kids. Wally is pretty sure he’d seen a shadow watching them that day, and he wonders now if it was Cassandra.

“You’re not going to wake him up by staring at him,” Cassandra says, eyes flickering over to where Dick is lying unconscious on the cot. She looks sad. “But he’s not in any danger, so it should be okay to rest and eat something.”

“I’m not hungry,” Wally says at once, even though it’s a lie.

He’s starving. Not to mention exhausted. But all he can see when he closes his eyes is turning around to see the bullet piercing through Dick’s suit. Dick falling. Wally had barely been fast enough to catch Dick and flash him away somewhere safe. The stricken looks of his family when Wally had brought him to the Batcave.

Cassandra hums, but it doesn’t seem like she believes him. “I know how your abilities work.”

“I don’t think I can leave him.”

“Alfred can make you something,” Cassandra offers, her eyes soft and her voice gentle, but there’s something powerful about her that Wally can’t quite place. But then she looks back over at Dick, and she hunches in on herself, and all that power turns to fragile hurt. She’s sad. This is her big brother, Wally realizes, and she probably hurts just as much as Wally does to see Dick like this, but she’s torn herself away from him to take care of herself. Probably because that’s what Dick would want.

But Dick is Wally’s best friend. And he was there when Dick was shot. He’d had to watch as Dick fell like a puppet with its strings cut. And he sits here and he doesn’t think he can tear himself away until he knows for sure that Dick’s eyes will open again.

Cassandra seems to understand, because she sits down on the empty chair and pulls her knees up. “It sounds bad,” she says quietly, “but we’re all used to this. It’s the price of being…human, I guess.”

“I’m human,” Wally croaks. “I’m human, and this doesn’t happen to me. I can dodge bullets at super speed and I have accelerated healing, and sometimes—sometimes I forget that Dick isn’t me. He can’t take the hits I do and keep on going.”

“Maybe,” and Cassandra sighs. “But Dick’s one of the best when it comes to this, and there’s a reason.”

“Yeah?” Wally snorts. “And what’s that?”

Cassandra smiles. “Friends. Family. The people he loves, and the ones who love him.”

Wally runs a hand down his face. “That’s not going to help him dodge a bullet when it’s aimed straight at him.”

“Maybe not. But it gives him something to fight for.” Cassandra hesitates, and then she stares at Dick again. She seems almost—reluctant. “Dick…is different. Bruce fights for the city, but Dick fights for love. Family. Friendship.”

“Shhh,” Dick moans, his eyes still closed and his face pale, but his hands twitches towards where Cassandra is sitting. “‘M tryna sleep over here, Cassie. You, too, Walls. Love ya, but shuttup.”

Wally blinks, a little startled as he looks over at his best friend, but from the corner of his eye he sees Cassandra bite back a small smile.

“Dick?” Wally asks, almost in disbelief, that guilt threatening to overwhelm him again. He hadn’t realized that Cassandra had been distracting him from it until Dick’s blue, blue eyes open and catch his green, and they just look at each other. Until Wally feels something hitch in his chest and has to wrap his fingers around Dick’s weak hand. “Thank God.”

Dick huffs an amused breath, his eyes hazy with pain killers, but he squeezes back as much as he can. “Come here often?”

“Shut the hell up, Dick,” Wally says, but something loosens and Wally is crying tears of relief. “God, you scared me half to death.”

“Jason’s the one who does the death jokes around here,” Dick half slurs, a loopy grin across his face. “He’s not gonna be happy you’re taking ‘em over.”

Wally laughs wetly, and he has to take a couple of deep breaths before he can speak again. But before he can, he looks around in bewilderment, because—

“Where did your sister go?”

“T’get Bruce,” Dick says.

“I didn’t even see her leave.”

“She’s sneakier than a ninja.”

“Why is she getting your dad?”

“He’s a worrywart.”

“You got shot.”

“So’re you.”

“It nicked a lung.”

Dick huffs another laugh, but he grimaces this time and shifts. “I think the pain meds are starting to wear off.”

It’s less guilt this time around and more worry that makes Wally lean forward and squeeze Dick’s hand just a bit tighter. “Are you alright?”

Dick hums and closes his eyes. “Ask me again in a couple hours.”

“Dick,” Wally says, and Dick opens his eyes up again. He looks exhausted, but he meets Wally’s eyes, and looks slightly more coherent than before. He waits patiently, giving Wally a I’m listening look, and Wally swallows. “I’m sorry I wasn’t fast enough.”

“And if I say I’m the one who’s sorry?” Dick says, his tone sharp all of the sudden. “Are you gonna let me take the blame for this one? Or are you gonna pull a Bruce and take all of the guilt?”

“Why would you be—”

“Because I jumped in front of it, Wally,” Dick says, his voice solemn, and Wally feels something sink his in stomach at the serious look in Dick’s eyes. At Dick’s words. “It was heading straight towards you, and I knew you wouldn’t have been able to get out of the way in time, eve with your speed. So, I jumped.”

Wally lets go of Dick’s hand and stands up, staring at his best friend. Dick looks—resigned. Like he’s expecting Wally to leave and not come back. But—that’s not—

“I can heal faster,” Wally says. “You shouldn’t have—”

“You can still die, Wally,” Dick says, and his voice is hoarse and there’s pain in his face that Wally thinks is from something other than the bullet wound in his chest. “Not even you can outrun a shot through the heart.”

Wally knows that his expression is showing all of the disbelief and pain and fear at the fact that his best friend jumped in front of a bullet that had been meant for Wally. “Dick—”

“I saw him pull the trigger and my body just moved,” Dick tells him. “And honestly? I’d do it again. I’ll be fine in a few weeks, but I don’t know if you’d be. There’s no way to know that if I hadn’t taken that bullet you wouldn’t be six feet under the ground.”

Wally sits back down and runs both hands through his hair, taking that in. He’s not—happy about it. But he’s not angry. He knows Dick. He knows that Dick is the kind of person to put someone above himself.

Dick fights for love, Cassandra had said, and yeah. Wally can’t believe how true that is. That Dick had taken a bullet for a speedster. For someone, if they’d just been facing the right direction and making a rookie mistake, that could just run away from it without a scratch.

But Dick had jumped in front. Had watched his back.

“Thank you,” Wally says, wrapping his hand around Dick’s again. “For saving my life.”

Dick shoots him a tired smile. “Anytime, Wally.”

[photowizard17]

I like when someone wants someone else to ask him/her so, would you like to answer these questions? I don't like the 'short answers' so you can say anything you want, the questions are: 2/4/9/13/16/21/22/24 especially( 27). :-)

HI! Ok so I knowthese asks were sent like a week ago and I apologies for the late response, butI wanted the answers to be accurate and in depth because you guys took the timeto ask! All of them are in the same post because a lot were duplicates.

So, thanks for asking... here we go!

Thank you again @lightning1999, @argentis and @glowing-coils-of-the-universe

1.    if someone wanted to reallyunderstand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to? So if someone really wanted to understandme and my strange little brain they should probably read my fanfiction. Myfanfics show them my writing style, parts of my personality and my interests.They would of course have to watch the Thunderbirds because I swear it is all Italk about, well that and funny animal videos! I got my dad watching them lol.As to that they would have to listen to… probably everything. Like peopletalking around them, the sounds of birds, cars, electronics. I am a veryobservant person so when I am out in public I pay attention to everything. Itend to notice things others don’t.

2.    have you ever found a writer whothinks just like you? if so, who? I did a while back, sadly I don’t remember theirhandle, the plot was well thought out and detailed, which I enjoy. And I havemet people who think like I do. They see things differently. It is veryinteresting.

3.     list your fandoms and one character from each that you identify with. Well fandoms, guess what’s first!Thunderbirds: Virgil. I feel like I identify with Virgil because he is verycaring and artistic. Which I would like to think I am. He would give anythingfor anyone, he is also very detailed oriented which I am as well. And I love him.

Anotherfandom would be The Flash, and I probably identify with Caitlyn most. She hastwo sides of herself, one side no one really knows, and the other dominant sidewhich everyone is familiar with.

A third fandom is Pacific Rim and I think Iidentify with Mako the most because she is underestimated and sets up tochallenges presented to her. She is very loyal and very a very independent thinker.

My fourth fandom would be MARVEL and I mean thereare so many characters how do I chose? Well if I had to I would choose either CaptainAmerica or Lady Sif. Both underestimated and want to do the right thing. Evenif they are not sure what the right thing is anymore.

4.    do you like your name?  isthere another name you think would fit you better? I do like my name. I find it veryfitting. Although I have always liked the name Mel, not Melody or Melony, justMel. She was a character in Digata Defenders and I loved her when I wasyounger.

5.    do you think of yourself as ahuman being or a human doing? do you identify yourself by the things you do? Kind of confusing but I will tryto answer… I believe for now I am a human being, just because I am young I havenot come to realize how I change and become a doer. I do stand by the things I do,if someone is being rude, I fight back, someone needs help, I help. I don’tbelieve in hiding who you are because you won’t have the full life experience youwant if you always have to hide a part of yourself.

7.    do you care about your ethnicity?I don’treally care, but I do care. I know what background I am, but I don’t know muchabout the history of my people (French and Scottish). I know more about my Scottishside because I Highland Dance, and I know a bit about my French side because I usedto live in Ontario, but to me it is not the ethnicity that makes my familyimportant, it is the people in the family. I actually rarely think about myhistorical background, and I only mention it when it is privy to aconversation.

9.    are you an artist? I would like to think so… Idabble in computer generated art and I try to draw, but mostly I do little claysculpture and tiny meticulous things like robotics. And if writing counts as anart than I am an avid writer and take great pride in my work!

11.  describe your ideal day. An ideal day to the lazy teenager inside me would beto get up and do nothing… but I guess I would wake up late morning, have a hotchocolate, scroll through my feed, email, messages, etc, then I would probably havesome lunch and spend the afternoon doing something with my family. In the eveningI would then do Sculpey (clay) or write or attempt to draw.

13.  inside or outdoors? I do enjoy both. I grew up where in the summer you would go swimming andhiking and in the winter you would ski and snowmobile and go snowshoeing. So Ido enjoy being outside doing things, doesn’t matter what. Although I do likethe idea of sitting inside wrapped in a blanket with a hot drink and a show orfanfic.

15.  five most influential books over your lifetime. Sadly I don’t read that much…but I would have to say Meg Cabot’s School for Teenage Spies series was veryinfluential. It taught me how a young woman could accomplish great things withthe proper training.

Other than that Goodnight Moon, the kids book,still influences me today. When I lived in Ontario my grandmother lived inAlberta, and every night she would phone me and read me this book. Then whenshe was in hospital I read it to her, and she read it to me when I was in thehospital. Even today, because my grandma grew up in a household that didn’treally say ‘I love you’, we say Goodnight Moon whenever we hang up or I leaveher place.

16.  if you’d grown up in a different environment, do you think you’d haveturned out the same? If thisquestion means like nature environment, I think personality wise I would be thesame, but I don’t know if I would enjoy the same things. Like the freshlyfallen snow in the morning or those cold frosted trees, or the heavy rain thatmade you realize how weird and wonderful the world is.

17.  would you say your tumblr is a fair representation of the “real you”? Yes, I can honestly say it doesbecause everyone knows that on Tumblr there are no boundaries. You get toexpress who you are with no shame. Although to be fair I don’t hide who I am onany of my social media sites. You can see by these answers :P

19.  which Harry Potter house would you be in? or are you a muggle? I don’t know Harry Potter but Ihave been called a Hufflepuff? And I just like that name.

21.  do you love easily? I do… I am a very naive person and I am very caring so I tend to investeverything I have into relationships, hoping to keep them alive, only to find outmost of the time the other person doesn’t feel the same way. Relationshipsbeing friend or potential love interest seeing as I have never had a bf. But there are those few who care just as much as I do

22.  list the top five things you spend the most time doing, in order.

1.Daydreaming, by far the thing I spend the most time on.

2. Probablythinking about or doing something pertaining to the Thunderbirds, kind of fitsin with the daydreaming thing.

3. Creating, either writing or sculpting ordrawing.

4. Watchingvideos… I have a lot of spare time on my hands

5. Mostlikely doing something else on my phone.

23.  how often would you want to see your family every year? With my immediate family (mom,dad, grandma) I am very close, so I would want to see them as often aspossible. I see my grandma about once ever week or so but I talk to her a lotmore than that and I would like that to continue if  I ever decide to moveout. :P

25.  could you live as a hermit? If that means alone… probably not for long. I enjoycertain human interaction, so as long as I am with the right people. Other peopleannoy me, most people annoy me… anyway...

27.  do you feel like your outside appearance is a fair representation of the“real you”? Yesbecause I don’t wear certain cloths to fit in, I don’t wear makeup to look overlyattractive and I don’t pretend around people. I dress for practicality and eventsand I don’t change who I am to feed the needs of the people around me. To quotePeggy Carter from Agent Carter, “I know my worth, anyone else’s  opinion doesn’t really matter.”

28.  three songs that you connect with right now. I don’t really feel like Iconnect to music, I just like music. If that makes sense. I don’t feel and emotionalattachment with music other than the odd motivational songs or just reallyupbeat songs. So I guess those songs would be Warriors by Imagine Dragons, WhoDo You Love by Marianas Trench and Waka Waka by Shakira.