#i made a list of my top ten characters a few months ago and like agonized over it i wonder if it would still be accurate

[blackbatcass]

i imagine most of your followers generally know who your favorite dc characters are. but what i wanna know is who do you think are the HOTTEST dc characters?

LMAO….. im laughing so hard at this anon you have no idea. absolute number one FUNNIEST thing you could ask me, an aroace who is notorious for not knowing who is attractive and who isn’t. comedy

that being said I’ll probably put my money on kory and helena. those are the two characters I most consistently go ‘omg gorgeous’ when i see them

[reallyhardydraws]

2023.

i hope any of you reading this will forgive the essay. i started posting to this art blog ten years ago in 2013 when i was just at the very end of high school, uploading short animations i'd made for one of my final projects, preparing myself for art school where i was gearing up to become an illustration/animation student.

i went into my art foundation course in 2014, still thinking i was going to be going into storybook illustration or with faint hopes of becoming like a concept artist for game/animation, although even then i'd started thinking about patterns...

and then in 2015 i did go into my BA, going in for that illustration with animation degree that... usually when i talk about it in real life, i say didn't really feel like the best place for me. if i think back, the best things i got out of it were two of my best friends, one of whom is now my partner. looking back on my BA era, there's some bits of sketchbook stuff...

and while i was at university my main fandoms were thunderbirds are go and x-men for a bit... these are from the end of 2015 into the beginning of 2016...

then for a little while i was doing this still sort of pastel-ish lineless situation:

and i alternated between that and this thin fineliner type work (pretty sure all of the linearted pieces were done on paper and scanned, and all the lineless were graphics-tablet-only) - it was in this style that i started to offer commissions for the first time too.

and i also had fineliner-lined work in sketchbooks that i coloured with marker and posca pens, the colours of which were generally a bit more intense just based on not being able to slide the hue/saturation around on paper:

also 2016 was when i discovered the spongebob musical just after it's trial run in chicago (which ended in july of 2016) and i started making fanart at that point... which would have the biggest effect on the way i drew (and i did end up handing in a piece of spongebob musical fanart as one of my art school homeworks lmao)

from summer 2016 until early 2017 things were still quite soft and pastelly in my digital art, colour-wise:

and then suddenly everything got whacked up to 100% on saturation. also i was using the binary tool to give everything really thin pixel lineart for some reason.

then i went on vacation in summer 2017 and didn't draw for maybe a month? just short of? and when i came back i decided to change everything up again... giving characters blobbier, more ugly-cute faces with large squinting eyes and big nostrils and i was worrying a lot less about making anything look smooth, lineart-wise. i turned off the pen stabiliser in SAI and let it wiggle.

then... the spongebob musical opened on broadway in late 2017, i went to see it live in person for the first time... and my whole brain was ENTIRELY consumed by my love of it. i was putting that david zinn inspired pattern explosion into everything, even if it wasn't sbm fanart.

as we go into 2018, i started colouring my lineart. my biggest interest was still broadway musicals (with spongebob at the top of the list)

i think summer 2017 - early 2018 is probably my favourite art era, i was at my most bright and colourful and exciting... although i know in my actual real life i was struggling a lot with my home situation and i had been for some time. art was definitely my escapism back then, and i think a lot of the time i drew really bright, joyful stuff to try and inject that feeling into myself.

as for my university work, i was putting my focus into 3D paper-mache puppets:

and i was also starting to do more repeat patterns, mostly inspired by things around me. i'd learned how to make patterns actually tile and repeat in 2017, so made a few during my time at uni just to accompany some of my projects, but never as the focus of them. one of my university tutors told me that maybe i should put more focus on doing surface pattern, and maybe applying it to textiles, but i said i wasn't interested.

i graduated from my BA in the summer of 2018, and immediately began volunteering at the whitworth art gallery doing anything i could - stewarding, helping with arts and crafts, dancing with families...

in 2019 i was still very colourful... i was trying out more chunky colouring on characters skintones that i think was def inspired by tumblr artist jadenvargen:

but the blobbyness and ugly-cute style of drawing faces was gone by here, and i think... the way i drew characters probably had better *anatomy*, proportions were maybe a bit more realistic...

in 2020 i started adding the black shading to under the chins and some other places on characters' bodies because i started watching the anime my hero academia with my brother, lmao (and i was starting to pastelise colours a bit again, these are the most pastel-ish examples) my lineart has really smoothed back out too, though i never turned my pen stabiliser back on in SAI. i think my hand just adjusted. probably seems a bit insane to miss that, but i do.

by the end of 2020, the almost-year of lockdown over cobid had... made me a bit insane, i think, and i moved out of my mother's house and into a flat with a friend from university.

in 2021 i think things were much the same... i think from this point on is where things have sort of settled. i don't want to say stagnated, but i do think things have been very... like this for a while.

2022 - got the most exciting examples out...

also i was very into these little frames in 2022.

and then on to 2023! in 2022, i did begin trying to shift gears a bit -- hoping to put more energy into sewing and making products (like my tutor has suggested back in uni, even though i'd really resisted the idea.) i sold at a few in-person markets during winter of 2022, but got disheartened by the amount of money i had to sink in up front to sign up for a spot...

which has made me VERY grateful for the people who have supported me via online sales. it has really helped me stay afloat in 2023 - AND it has felt more wonderful than i can describe that there have been people interested in my work... especially when a lot of it has been my original designs, rather than the fanart that i expect a lot of people initially followed me for.

i've also... in the past 2 years... branched out a bit more when it comes to 'being an artist' - and have had the opportunity to deliver arts & crafts workshops with local refugee & asylum seeker support charity, afrocats. it's taken me to their home base in a church to hotels across the city where asylum seekers were temporarily placed while waiting on their new homes, and of course to my beloved whitworth art gallery, where we welcomed visitors from all backgrounds: from the typical white middle class visitors the gallery usually expects, to all the refugee visitors coming into the space for the first time.

and through my volunteering at the whitworth, i showed up so often they decided they might as well pay me. so i've also become a facilitator of... creative play sessions, my favourites of which have been outdoors. monthly, year-round, we have 'outdoor art club', where i get to paint with mud and make potions from leaves with kids & families - here you can see me tell you a little bit about it in this video below with 'crempog' a puppet character that makes videos about activities for kids and families around manchester (my bit starts at 01:10 although i am in the intro and thumbnail haha)

and then of course the summer 'PLAYTIME' activities we've had the past two years: scrap studio in 2022, and play market in 2023. it's the best freelance gig ever -- just to hang out and encourage families to be creative and have fun.

in working more in these new avenues... outside of being - as i've called myself for a long time - "an internet artist"... i've found myself more interested in this sort of thing. in being a "real world artist" too. in doing surface pattern design, and being a workshop facilitator, i find myself wanting to put more energy into these sorts of projects.

in 2023 i've also dabbled a little bit more in youtube videos! i have had a channel for a while and have made videos in previous years, but 2023 has been the year i've done the most in. admittedly most of them haven't been about my art, and more just like... random things that interest me (the spongebob musical in particular) but i've really been enjoying video editing. that's kind of an art form too, so i'm including it here!

moving forward, want to keep putting even more of my energy into other things. my shop, with a bigger range of products to offer. workshops in real life, where i can make a difference.

as for my art blog... i feel like i've done the least drawing in many years in 2023, and... well, things have been weird and complicated for a bit in my real life. i hope to draw for fun a bit more again very soon, and to return to doing things in more of a wild and crazy way, to be more creative and exciting with the way i draw things. still, here's some of my favourites from 2023:

thank you so much to everyone who has borne witness to my art journey this past decade!!! i hope you will stick with me, who knows, maybe for another 10 years if tumblr holds out. especially a big thank you to everyone who has ever commissioned me, or bought anything from my store, you literally keep me able to make art at all and i cannot, cannot, cannot overstate how much it means to me.

i'm moving homes soon, possibly into very cramped temporary conditions for a little while before HOPEFULLY starting my real life with my partner. if i can take one more moment to plug my work, then [here is a link to my online shop] and [here is my ko-fi page too.]

cheers, cheers, cheers!

- LOREN 🌈🍍🎉

[girltigerclaw]

breaking into ur house rn

top ten characters and bottom ten. reasons are optional

I just finished this chart thing i think i actually stole from your blog a few months ago <3 Slightly edited to my own prefs.

If anyone wants the template check the reblogs, and feel free to add you own. I'd love to see. I'm just rambling under here:

Leafpool: She is more special and sacred than the virgin mary. She has everything. Daughter of the first protagonist, ex boyfriend for me to hate, TONS of wlw situationships<3, a lifetime of tragedy, and some of the most gorgeous canon art to exist.

Crookedstar: Crookedstar is a trans woman to me. Her life is genuinely just so tragic and fucked, I love it. The erins asked: “How much truama, death and misfortune can you fit into a single cat?” and then they wrote Crookedstar’s promise.

Tawnypelt: GIRLS WHO HATE THEIR FATHERS. The erins dont love her like I do.

Tallstar: I love old men… I fucking love seeing older characters and how much they’ve changed from their younger selves. Tallstar is considered one of, if not the most peaceful leader in the clans. But also when he was like 19 he went on a quest to fucking murder a guy :3

Cloudstar: I rlly do not care abt anyone in Skyclan(I like Leafstar but she's not a fav yknow?) Cloudstar... he was based as fuck. Why did Starclan get away with this shit for real??

Scourge: It’s fucking Scourge. He’s awesome

Briarlight: I’m disabled and I love her. She has such a consistent fun, sweet personality and she makes me happy!!<3

RavenBarley: It deserves all the attention and hype it gets. Though I wish mlm ships didn’t overshadow wlw ones in this fandom, RavenBarley is genuinely well written and makes me very emotional even if the publisher didnt allow it to be explicitly canon.

CrookedBlue: TRANS WOMEN CROOKEDSTAR YURI. Two leaders having a forbidden relationship and kits is way more interesting than Oakheart. The angst of Crooked and Blue sitting next to eachother every gathering while the entire forest has their eyes on them. Don’t look for too long, don’t let the mourning slip into your voice. You have to pretend your lover is a stranger. You… have become strangers. You can never be together again. You're enemies now. This is what we wanted, isn’t it? …We’ll never be happy again.

Mothwing: Her novella delving into her relationship with Hawkfrost was so good and heartbreaking.

Heathertail: Daughter of leader, sister of a major villian, and former love interest of a protagonist! Why did she fall off the second po3 ended. She’s shown to be very compassionate and willing to put her own feelings aside for the sake of others. Would’ve honestly prefered her as a mate to Lionblaze or get a pov herself over the nothing we got.

Blackstar: *Murders an elderly woman trying to stop me from kidnapping children. Supports a dictator openly abusing/neglecting children and the elderly. Murders a man for refusing to kill mixed raced children- then tells said man’s sister that she will never be safe.* Man…. i sure do feel bad for abusing and killing all of those people…. Good thing I will face no consequences and proceed to be made leader, where I will have even more power over the wellbeing of others.

I hate. This guy.

The New Prophecy: A classic. My first series was actually tnp! i feel more attached to first arc cats tho, if you couldn't already tell by my list lmao

Johanna Map- Best Tawnypelt content out there

BlueQuince: My personal handcrafted, homemade Yuri. Bluefur feels terrible about Tiny going missing and promises Quince she’ll help her find him. They never did, but they had a very… fleeting but intimate relationship. Quince is grieving and Bluefur feels so overwhelmed by the duties in her clan. They’ve always thought of eachother since but never met again.

Tigerclaw: My name sake<3 The angst of his earlier life is so, so facinating to me. Starclan being straight fucked up and decided killing him is their only option? He was a kid and they saw him as a lost cause from the start. They never tried any other methods, never tried to steer him in the right direction or… even just take it into their own hands and kill him themself, which they have SHOWN they’re capable of.

They watched all the the horrific crimes he commited, entirely aware they were going to happen. Thats. Fucking. Horrifying. Starclan is scary as shit… and his death? FANTASTIC. I only wish he’d gotten lives from cats he killed so that him coming back to life to suffer over and over was an actual curse from Starclan and not blessings. They knew how he would die and they gave him the lives to torture him for his sins…

Flywhisker: Adhd girlies. Painfully relate to that feeling of the constant scolding for never being “good enough” because I prefer to do things a certain way or struggle to focus. So, SO happy for her when she left the clans! You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone! Hope she’s happy and warm indoors with her brother💕

(P.S. I was very suprised to find she actually had an official art piece!)

Bluestar: Get behind me women with mental disorders. I will defend you. Beautifully complex and tragic character, my favorite written in the series. Literally can't think of a single other female character in handled as seriously and with the complexity of Bluestar. (Although her super edition was a bit of an L with how others treated her, it ultimately makes her breakdown even more painful.)

Exile from Shaodwclan: Nightstar my beloved! He's such a great guy. The rightful leader of Shadowclan, always and forever.

Ravenpaw's Farewell: HE DIED IN BARLEY'S ARMS, TELLING HIM HE WILL FIND HIM, NO MATTER WHERE HE IS. FUCK.

Crookedstar art: So beautiful. I genuinely think she's one of the prettiest cats in the series. This along with her official art by Wayne Mcloughlin.

Leopardstar: As a kid I hated her and loved Blackfoot, now I hate Blackfoot and love her. #feminism. But seriously I think she has way more going for her than he ever has. Her father is a medicine cat who hates violence, the DRASTIC change in Riverclan's view of outsiders upon Crookedstar's death and her leadership. Her already having a position of power before proving she's unworthy of it. (Unlike Blackstar who gets rewarded for his racism and violence by being made leader afterwards) and the fact she has to interact with her victims on a daily basis after what she did.

The writings attempts to redeem her are really lame and dismissive of the actually damage she did, but at the very least they TRIED to do something else with her. Personally, I would have loved to see her assassinated by Mistyfoot. Just like her mother Bluestar was almost killed all those moons ago by Tigerclaw... The parallels of violence for power and violence for peace. A victim repeating the actions of the very man who killed her brother to put an end to what he started in Riverclan.... A shadow in Riverclan, if you will. (<-Pretending erin hunter has hired me to rewrite their series)

Windclan: Tunneling as a concept and inviting outsiders into their clan so friendly and casual makes the clan seems so much more diverse than the others. It always stuck out to me!

Andddd there are my current warrior cat options as of 2023! If someone actually read this whole ramble ily<3

[gallifreyshawkeye]

Intro for anyone new, Hiya/Update for anyone from "yon olden days"

The tldr: my kids have brought new joy into old fandom and old hobbies and my older kiddo has asked me to finish the series PROPERLY and make Alec Hardy not sad anymore (😆) and to write Tentoo whump (child, you have NO idea what beast you have unleashed!).

So I have found myself coming back to this blog thanks to my kids after a hiatus of several years due to (partly) said kids taking up an increasing part of life, as they should, on top of everything else. BUT, they are now late elementary and early middle school age and I decided a few months ago it was time to properly introduce Doctor Who to them as a show to watch. So we started properly with Rose and Nine and they were hooked harder than I could have ever hoped. They chose to watch nothing else until they had binged ALL thirteen seasons in about only four months! It was amazing!

It was also really cool to watch it again from as fresh and unbiased a perspective as I think I'm ever going to get. 11 and 9y/o's aren't influenced by other fandom perspectives, I refused to give them any spoilers along the way, and the whole experience was overall just such an unexpectedly refreshing and renewing one I can't put it into words. It's also been fascinating to get their takes. Here are a few:

- Ten is both their favorite Doctor, but Twelve isn't far behind at all, and my 9y/o son has them at almost a tie. In fact, when I asked each of them which Doctor they would want me to write a fanfic about, my son picked Twelve.

- They both haaaaaaaated the hand waving-ness of Moffatt's grand story arc conclusions: the Doctor being brought back by Amy simply remembering him, the soppy/cheesy way Clara got the Time Lords to give Eleven more regenerations, the entirety of Amy's pregnancy, and for that matter River having regenerations simply by being conceived in the TARDIS they never bought into. You should have seen the skeptical looks on their faces when they heard that line given as an explanation! It was quite priceless! And like I said, I gave no spoilers, no personal opinion ahead of time, nothing. I deliberately let them simply watch the show for what it is.

- They both liked Bill and Nardol way more than Clara

- Both were super confused by the the absolute mess of character arc in Chibnall's era. Not so much for the Doctor, they thought she was ok, just kinda bland, but the Master. They were in complete agreement that nothing he did made any sense whatsoever.

- They were in disbelieving shock and over the moon when David Tennant showed back up as Fourteen when Thirteen regenerated, and they were FURIOUS that they were going to have to wait six whole months before the specials came out 😆

As an added bonus, my 11y/o also has become quite the David Tennant fan. They were so devastated when Ten regenerated, they immediately wanted to watch something else DT was in, so in the process of listing things off, I mentioned MAAN as something him and Catherine Tate did together that was non-angsty and even after emphasizing that it was Shakespeare, they still chose to watch it (not that I was complaining! ;) ). They were literally sliding off the couch with laughter at the absolute comedic perfection that is DT and Catherine Tate in MAAN, and it's been all things David Tennant ever since! I got lots of things thrown at me during the course of Broadchurch because of, and I quote, "His stupid sad eyes and his stupid face!" and I have been ordered to write a proper ending that makes him properly happy. So maybe I'll have to dust off the epilogue fic I'd been writing all that time ago and finish it off for good.

Meanwhile, Doctor Who has been rewatched from the beginning nearly all the way through again and is pretty much the only show my son currently chooses to watch besides his favorite Minecraft YouTuber (Grian, for anyone interested and who knows that realm of things).

So it's been in the process of both my children falling into these fandoms as much on their own as it is possible for children their age to do so, that I have found myself back here. It started because I was looking up some of the whump gifsets I made of Ten in the episode 42 to show my 11y/o, and partly as a confession of sorts to them of how deep into the fandom I used to be.

And then the specials came out and there was Fourteen's beautiful face and big sad eyes (yes my 11y/o has a phenomenal point!), and now I've also found myself relistening to all the Eighth Doctor audios, and idk, whatever the combination of reasons I've found a new joy in it all.

And it's all combined to make me feel like I can write again, like something's been freed or been unlocked. I can imagine scenes and character arcs and come up with new characters and revel in meta minutia that will never explicitly make it onto the page but is vital for plot consistency.

I feel like I found part of myself again.

[choices-binglebonkus]

Top Ten Books/Series I forgot existed

So this has been sitting in my drafts for like a month or two and I just got an ask that made me want to actually post it. I think I made this simply because I was bored, couldn’t sleep, and enjoy making lists, so I decided to make a top ten list featuring books/series that I totally forgot about because…they’re just forgettable, no two ways about it. Because let’s be real here: there are great Choices books, there are terrible Choices books, and there are Choices books that are like…hey…hi…I’m just kinda here.

10. Shipwrecked. PLEASE do not quote me on this, but I *think* it released sometime this past year. Honestly most of the reason this book suffered was due to the lack of interesting characters, or characters in general because off the top of my head all I can remember are the MC, the LI, Dr. Hale, and the LI’s old business partner but I can’t even remember their name at this point. Hell, I can’t even remember much of the plot, and even after playing a chapter I remember forgetting almost everything about it pretty much immediately.

9. Wishful Thinking. I actually quite liked this book. It was lighthearted and pretty fun during a time where we needed some lightheartedness to balance out the more intense/angsty book releases. But unfortunately, the plot itself was kinda meh, and since it was a standalone, there was no real reason to remember it. Even worse, this book began the unfortunate trend of reusing background characters as MC’s “close friends”.

8. Foreign Affairs. Remember when FA was announced and, the dumbasses that we were, we were all convinced it would save the fandom from the book drought? Yeah…it feels like such a distant memory now. The book seemed really, really promising. And it could have been. But holy hell, it was executed so poorly and the premise of the plot was so flimsy. What I once thought would be a great book is now one of the ones I just squint at when I remember it even exists.

7. A Very Scandalous Proposal. I’ve talked about this one a little bit before. The main appeal of AVSP was Simon/Ava. If you didn’t like them? Tough shit, buddy. The main goal of the book was to uncover the secrets of the Montjoy family. Unfortunately, PB didn’t give us a reason to care about or find interest in said Montjoy family, which is probably why the book faded from my memory so quick.

6. Passport to Romance. This is kind of a weird one for me. I forget it exists most of the time, but then when I do remember it, I remember how truly terrible it was, while most of the other books on this list aren’t very fresh in my memory. It was so unimpressive, bland, and the characters were tolerable at best and obnoxious at worst (ELLIOT LANGDON).

5. Rising Tides. The book was okay…but it pushed a generic “save the earth” message while forcing us to pay to clean the town. The MC was a sidekick in her own story which would’ve been fine, but Charlie was such an annoying character that it wasn’t even enjoyable. Also, the Big Bads conceded waaaaay too easily at the end. I’m not even exaggerating when I say that I forgot about this book in less than a week after the final chapter aired.

4. Witness: A Bodyguard Romance. Believe it or not, despite how awful this book was, I forgot about it pretty quickly. It could’ve been a really cool story, but it focused too heavily on romance when the MC and Cassian’s lives were on the line quite literally at every second. Other than that…I truthfully do not remember much about this book other than the Irish mob.

3. Ms. Match. This book was decent enough and it didn’t stop releasing until that long ago. However, the plot was one of those “fight to reach the top and win the competition” plots which quite frankly have been overdone in Choices for a few years now. Not to mention, there weren’t a lot of interesting characters except for Maggie and maaaaaybe the MC’s dad but that’s pushing it a little. The reason it’s so high on this list is because it didn’t end that long ago, yet I can’t seem to remember a damn thing about the book, other than that I HATED the love interest.

2. Home for the Holidays. Many moons ago, this was considered one of the worst, if not, THE worst, book in Choices. And many moons ago, I agreed. But the horrific mediocrity of this holiday flurry of fuck was outshined by some truly awful stories and simply faded into obscurity.

1. Sunkissed. As I made this list, I scrolled through the series on the app, and while most books on this list elicited an “oh yeah, I kinda remember this” from me, when I saw this one, I was like “holy shit, I completely forgot this book was even a thing”. While Home For the Holidays and Sunkissed are both sort of (for lack of a better word) Hallmark-y, Sunkissed was longer and, in my opinion, a little sloppier. The book just wasn’t sure what it wanted to be. A lighthearted summer beach romance? A tale of a family’s struggles with grief and interpersonal conflict in the wake of a father and husband’s untimely death? Fuck it, we’ll uncomfortably cram BOTH into the main plot, execution be damned!

[muldoonlives]

"What is wrong with Danny Glick?"

The first window scene is what people remember the most about 1979's "Salem's Lot". I at least watch the film once a year or skim through the DVD. First seeing it at 11 going on 12, I worried about what was going to happen to Danny Glick. In my experience, people who were attacked by vampires died or became one right away. They didn't get "sick" and go to the hospital. As soon as I saw the fog outside the hospital window and Ralphie glide through it, my question was answered. I knew Danny was going to be a dead kid. Well, an undead kid.

Ralphie's hypnotic power seemed stronger during the second visitation. No fear turned to smiles from Danny this time around. He robotically got out of bed to open the window like it was a nightly ritual. As he flew towards Danny, Ralphie looked content like a hungry vampire should when they find a host. His facial expression abruptly became a grimace as he raised his head and bobbed down to sink his teeth in to Danny's neck.

It was something different to see. Up to that point, evil kids I saw in movies and tv shows spoke with arrogance and acted like mini-adults. This kid who looked truly scary was a silent predator. Hell, he wasn't even a kid vampire to me. Ralphie was a creature. The only sound he made was a bat-like screech right before he made the kill.

Danny was the first vampire to speak, but it didn't make him more human to me. The moment Mark grabbed the window latch, Danny let out a short gasp of delight. He reminded me of a dog watching its owner dragging a bag of kibble to the dish. Another creature pretending to be a kid. "It's okay, Mark. I'm your friend."

This was late 1999 when I first watched "Salem's Lot". "The Shining" remake was released two years prior, and I had a feeling The Lot would be revisited in the future. I knew it wouldn't happen, but I desired to play Danny Glick in a remake. Almost five years later, the remake premiered on TNT, and I recorded it on a VHS player. After it ended, I wasn't disappointed that an Australian actor got to wear Danny's communion suit(what the character was buried in according to the novel). Andre De Vanny did a good job, and the window scene was more accurate to King's telling of it. Although, the updated version as a whole just wasn't very good. No scares and the changes made to the original story weren't impressive. It was simply okay and worth a watch.

I'm happy The Glick Brothers haven't been forgotten. Custom made toys and clothes with their likenesses is something I dreamed off long ago. The only thing needed is official action figures by Neca so I can pack out my bedroom some more.

This is something I never have told anyone except my dad once. A few months after watching "Salem's Lot" for the first time, I had a dream about it. I never really had nightmares about scary things I watched as a kid which is why this dream was such a standout. In the beginning of the dream, images played out like scenes on television. Loud speakers were shown installed on the power poles of my neighborhood. The next scene was Ben and Mark inside a rundown building. They stood behind a desk cluttered with sound equipment.

"Ten minutes until sundown," Mark said to Ben. Ben craned his neck towards a microphone, but the scene cut off before he delivered the message. I was finally in the dream then. I heard Ben's message over the speaker. For some reason, I was about to leave my bedroom, but I opened the door to see Danny Glick standing in the hallway. The dream ended with me wrestling to close the door on Danny.

"He commands it!" whispered Danny as he peered in while leaning against my door. After that, I woke up. I don't like to speak on things like this. Some people really have dreams like that while others bullshit for attention. I always fear being thought of as the latter.

Brad Savage and Ronnie Scribner were credited at the bottom of the cast list, but their performances were top-notch.

“The town knew darkness…but no one dared talk about the high, sweet, evil laughter of a child…and the sucking sounds…”

[paisley-print]

10:00pm / Happy Birthday

About: It’s Jack’s Birthday and you planned something special. 

Warnings: Marriage problems, infidelity, alcohol.

Rating: 18+

Characters: Agent Whiskey x Reader

Note: You wanna see some real speed boy? (Months of not posting and two chapters in less then 24 hours. Whack.)

Series Master List

@scorpionerd  @just-here-for-the-moment@sherala007 @jediknight122 @pintsizemama​ @kenbechillin @elegantduckturtle @hearttbreak @tintinn16 @showbuckysomelove​ @somenerdyuser @kesskirata @ohyeasam @athalien @spideysimpossiblegirl @littlemisspascal @sheresh0y​  @voteforpedro09 @greeneyedblondie44 @feel-it-on-the-way-home13

“Hi Jack, it’s....” you glance over at the clock on the stove, checking the time. “It’s ten. I’m calling to see when you’ll be home. Okay, love you, bye.” You played the message back, cringing a little at the way your words slurred together, but sent it, anyway. 

You reached over to pour yourself another glass of wine. It was your third one, but you were already feeling the effects. He said he would be home at seven. If you knew he was going to work overtime tonight, you wouldn’t have spent all day rushing around. 

Your stomach hurt just thinking about the tray of lasagna and birthday cake you spent hours working on. Still though, you wanted to wait to eat until he got home. 

This year had to be better than the last. You doubted whether you could make it through another twelve months of silence. Plus, with the whole Ezra thing, you needed a grand gesture to show that you were willing to work on this. He cared for you; he had said it. He loved you. He would always love you, and although he looked through you as if peering at a specter, you believed him. You hadn’t been the best wife these last few months, so you felt as though you owed him this. 

Tonight was just for him, and everything had been prepared perfectly. His favorite movie on the TV, beers in the fridge, birthday gift all wrapped on the nightstand upstairs. Months ago, he mentioned a pair of cuff links his father used to wear while the two of you were combing through old photo albums you had found in the attic. They were square, with yellow gold trim and two crossed six-shooter pistols set into a background of black onyx. 

Jack’s father left when Jack was nine, and one of the few happy memories he had was the day his father brought home his first suit for Sunday mass. His father taught him how to make sure his shirt wasn’t creased, how to wear a necktie, comb his hair back with gel, and finally the importance of cuff links. 

While looking over the photograph, Jack had mentioned liking the style of the cuff links in passing, but you could see they held quite a bit of emotional value. After that, you had spent weeks tracking down the exact set. With the help of a Reddit board, a few antique shop owners and one generous seller on Etsy, you secured a pair identical to those in the photograph. 

Keeping the secret had been tough. You almost let it slip a few times, but you will yourself to go on a little longer. The surprise would be that much more meaningful if you gave it to him on his birthday…. if he ever planned to show up, that is. 

As you finished another glass, you stood from the table and walked into the guest bathroom to reapply your lipstick. A few hours ago, your makeup was perfect, but it was now looking smudged. You tried to fix it as best you could while the room around you spun.

You had one of his dress shirts, with thigh-high stockings and a new lilac set of lingerie you bought specifically for this occasion, and heels you took off about three hours ago. You felt so incredibly ugly looking at your reflection, and you weren’t sure why. A few hours ago you were on top of the world, now you were willing yourself not to cry. 

Once you were done touching up your lipstick, you grabbed another glass of wine and took a seat on the couch. It was then your phone buzzed, and a number you recognized popped up on the screen.

You picked it up, becoming aware of how fast your heart was beating in your chest. “Hello?”

“Little bird?” Ezra’s voice came floating over the receiver. “Forgive me for calling at this hour, but I was becoming worried about your lack of response to my messages. Noticed your car in town today on my way to work and I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

You felt guilt grip tightly at your chest. He had sent you a few texts since the night of the shooting. You couldn’t bring yourself to respond. This man was bad for you. It didn’t matter how much you liked him; you were a married woman trying to work on your relationship. Ezra knew that, he should respect you and understand why you weren’t jumping to text him back.

“I’m fine” your aid.

He paused, hearing the way you were slurring your words. “Little bird-”

“Stop fucking calling me that,” you snapped, anger rising out of you from nowhere. “I’m not your little bird, okay? I have a fucking name.”

Ezra seemed incredibly taken off guard “my apologies-”

“And I need you to stop texting me and calling me. Whatever the fuck you think we had, we didn’t. You were convenient, that’s all. I think it’s seriously creepy how you keep trying to hit on me when you know I’m married. Seriously, go find yourself a real fucking girlfriend and stop trying to ruin my marriage.”

The silence that followed was deafening, so you continued, “okay? Please get out of my life.”

“Understood,” he said simply. “Have a nice night.”

You hung up the phone and threw it onto the other side of the couch.

-

It was nearly 5:00am when Jack finally came through the door. The first thing he noticed was the half empty bottle of wine left open on the table, then you, asleep on the couch. He set down his satchel and locked the door behind him. Then he went around, shutting out the lights, then the tv. Once he was done, he sat next to you and rubbed your arm to wake you up. 

His patience was running thin. He had wished you up in bed by the time he got home, asleep, so he didn’t have to deal with any of this. “‘Y/n’ come on. Time to go to bed.”

You drew in a slow breath and blinked at him as you woke. You could still feel the effects of the alcohol burning bright. “What time is it?” you mumbled, sitting up. 

“Come on, I’m gonna pick you up. Ready?”

 You nodded and allowed him to stand you up and put you over his shoulder. You noticed how his shirt was untucked in the back.

Once in the bedroom, he laid you down on the bed. He moved towards the closet but took his hand and stood. He sighed in annoyance and moved his face away as you wrapped your arms around him. 

“Happy birthday,” you smiled, the heat from the alcohol making your face feel warm. 

“Not my birthday anymore,” he said, trying to gently pull away from you.

Some part of you knew you were making a fool out of yourself. “I got a gift for you-”

He shook his head. “You’re disgusting.”

The words stung. You let go, your eyes widening, like you were about to cry. Then you realized what he thought you meant by gift. He knew you were too drunk to sleep with, so implying that he would have offended him.

 You laughed, trying to smooth over the awkwardness. “No, not like that. I’m sorry about - I. I drank when I was cooking because I thought you would be home earlier.” You noticed a smudge of pink on the inside of his collar. Then you noticed he wasn’t wearing a tie either. You lifted your hand, intending to touch it “What’s-”

 He jerked back, then turned, going into the bathroom and slamming the door shut behind him. You jumped at the sound and the way it made the photos hung on the wall rattle. You weren’t exactly sure what you did or saw to deserve a response like that. 

When you heard the shower turn on, you figured you would get ready for bed yourself, but before you did, you withdrew the gift from the nightstand and placed it on his side of the bed. After that, you made your way to the guest bathroom to take off your makeup, then back downstairs to heat up some food. Nausea was already beginning to set in. You needed something in your stomach. While you were down there, you made a point to pack some leftovers in Tupperware containers that he could grab on his way out the door in the morning.

-

You slept in the guest room that night, figuring it was best to allow him space. He left before you woke, but you could have sworn you felt the mattress dip sometime in the morning and a soft touch come up to smooth down your hair. It could have very well been a dream though. The hangover was a bad one, and it was times like this you realize your age was catching up with you more quickly then you would like to acknowledge. Your plan for the rest of the day was to clean, mostly because you didn’t know what else to do and if you sat mulling over the events of last night it would just make you sad. 

[godza]

top ten characters and media i dont think abt until im reminded they exist and then i go waaa waaa like a little baby. midnight makes me make lists. girl just make a mediareccs post

ace attorney for some reason despite having a large poster of it. i peek behind my curtain and pheeny is there. sup dude. its the headphone art btw i love it. edgey is just too much behind my curtain for me to see him easily. talked my moms ear off abt the diff games bc i was reminded or herlocks existence

bede. i have never played swsh nor will i ever but. thats my son. i could save him i could fix his role in the already dogshit story. i rlly like the word dogshit ive been using it a lot recently.

assault lily. now you have seen me post abt this show all the time but. i could fix it. does it even need to be fixed. well maybe the final arc wasnt well executed like spoilers but they gave them a daughter and then brutally killed her like next eipsode but. yuri. she makes me cry. al rewrite where i just keep her alive. and its such a silly plot just watch it and suspend your disbelief just be like yeah charms huges whatever sure go be gay now

boueibu: three people on the planet have watched it. like its not deep its not groundbreaking its just guys being dudes in fancy outfits. its very forgettable like the characters and stuff but ill never forget the series itself

code geass: do we all remember when i watched it a few months ago and went crazy. yeah me too. it made me worse. i cant even describe my thoughts on it bc tbh i have no thoughts i liked it very much. like thoughts are there but its mostly waaaa waaaa

hey have you watched march comes in like a lion its genuinely one of the best anime ive ever watched like it wont stick in your mind but its a lovely show

sarazanmai???? dear god. i am begging you to watch it. gay people real. ive forgotten the plot sorry but the characters are so good and yeah. beautiful art too. whenever the ed comes up on shuffle i get sooo upset

[fruitcoops]

Would love to see a wired autocomplete interview with coops! 🥰

Anon, did you read my mind? These two have such chaotic energy when they’re given an outlet and it was a true pleasure to write it. Dorcas is exhausted. Sweater Weather credit goes to @lumosinlove!

“Wait, I want to pull the tab,” Remus said, tugging on the edge of the cardboard lightly as Sirius tried to hold it out of his reach without falling off his chair.

“I get to read it out loud for you and then we switch!” Sirius protested, smacking him gently on the head with it. The resulting bonk noise made them both break down laughing.

“You guys know we’re rolling, right?” Dorcas asked as she gathered a stack of cards in her lap, looking highly amused.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” She turned to the camera with a bright smile. “Welcome back to Lion Pride, hockey fans! I’m Dorcas Meadowes and I’m here today with Sirius Black and Remus Lupin to answer some of the internet’s most pressing questions. How are you two feeling?”

“Terrified,” Sirius said.

“The internet is like the Twilight Zone,” Remus agreed. “Who goes first?”

“Sirius, you’ve got a card already. Take it away.”

He cleared his throat and grabbed the edge of the first pull tab, ripping it off slowly. “That is so satisfying, woah. How tall is Remus Lupin?”

“I am five foot eleven and a half.”

“That half inch comes from your sneakers and you know it.”

“It does not!”

Sirius just smiled and removed the next paper slip. “What language does Remus Lupin speak?”

“I speak English and a little bit of French. Tried to learn Spanish in high school, but failed miserably.”

“I love the wording on this one,” Sirius said as he turned the board toward the camera. “Remus Lupin Green Bay Packers.”

“Dammit, now everyone knows my full name,” Remus sighed. “Uh, the Packers are cool.”

“I think people were wondering if you ever played on the team,” Dorcas said.

Remus raised an eyebrow. “Do I look like a football player to you?”

“Next question!” Sirius ripped the tab off and took a good section of the paper above with it. There was a beat of stunned silence. “I am…so sorry.”

Behind the camera, Marlene burst out laughing, along with most of the camera crew. “It’s fine, keep reading.”

“Okay, um…” Sirius squinted at the partially torn-off question. “Remus Lupin name meaning.”

Remus groaned. “I hate this question. Yes, it does mean Wolf Wolf. Yes, my dad’s name also means Wolf Wolf. Yes, my mother’s maiden name is Howell. I’m aware of the endless puns.”

“Don’t you mean a-were?” Sirius asked as a slow grin spread across his face. Remus grabbed the card and bonked him over the head with it.

“Remus, your turn.” Dorcas handed him a poster board and took the blank one.

“I’m going to be careful with this one, unlike somebody,” he teased, kissing Sirius on the cheek. “Is Sirius Black…related to Pascal Dumais?”

“In all the ways that matter, yes.”

Remus grinned when he read the next one. “Is Sirius Black missing a tooth?”

“No!” Sirius gave the camera an offended look. “I have all my teeth, thank you very much.”

“Is Sirius Black mean?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Reporters don’t like you very much.”

“The feeling is mutual. I love the fans though, most of them are so sweet.”

“Oh, I like this one. Is Sirius Black married?” Remus rested his chin on the top of the card and batted his eyelashes, making Sirius laugh.

“Almost! Ask me again in July.” Remus set the card on the floor and Dorcas passed Sirius a new one. “Does Remus Lupin wear glasses?”

“Nope.”

“Does Remus Lupin—I have never said your name so many times in one sitting, my god—does Remus Lupin have siblings?”

“Yup.”

“Does Remus Lupin—”

“Can you elaborate?” Dorcas asked with a laugh. “How many siblings? Names? Ages?”

Remus turned to the camera. “I have one brother named Julian and he’s ten years old. He likes piggyback rides, ice cream, and hockey.”

“Much better. Take it away, Cap.”

“Does Remus Lupin have allergies?”

Remus frowned in confusion. “Why do people want to know that? Uh, yeah, I’m allergic to some pollens. Spring is hell.”

“How many of these do we have?” Sirius asked as he tossed the board over his shoulder and crossed his legs.

“Quite a few! Loops, you’re up.”

“Where is Sirius Black from?”

“Canada.”

“Where does Sirius Black live?”

“The Lions ice rink. I set up a tent in the middle of the goal posts every night so that I’m never late to practice.”

“Sirius Black gay.”

Sirius paused. “I think we’re missing a couple words in there.”

“That’s literally all it says,” Remus laughed, moving it to show him. “Sirius Black gay. I don’t know, honey, Sirius Black gay?”

“Sirius Black very gay,” he confirmed. “Sirius Black thinks people need to have better grammar.”

“Is Sirius Black’s hair naturally curly?”

“No, I use a curling iron every morning to do each individual curl,” he said. “It takes me seven hours and thirteen minutes, and I use a full can of hairspray.”

Remus scooted over so Dorcas could hand him a new card. “He keeps a stopwatch and tries to beat his personal record every time.”

Sirius pulled the first tab away and immediately started laughing too hard to speak.

“What does it say? You can’t just leave me hanging!” Sirius turned the board around and Remus leaned down to read it. “Is Remus Lupin hockey? Yes. I am the entire sport of hockey condensed into one being. I’m coming for basketball next. Thanks for asking!”

It took a few seconds for Sirius to get his breath back. “What is Remus Lupin—”

“I thought we just answered that.”

“—what is Remus Lupin zodiac sign?”

Remus paused. “Is that the thing Pots was talking about the other day? With the quiz?”

“That was love languages.”

“Your zodiac sign depends on your birthday,” Marlene called. “When were you born?”

“March 10th.”

“You’re a Pisces.”

“I’m a Pisces!” he said brightly to the camera. “No idea what that means, but it sounds cool.”

“It means you’re two fish.” She laughed as Remus sucked his cheeks in for a fish face. “Very nice.”

“Thank you.”

Sirius was especially careful as he pulled the paper slip off the next question. “What is Remus Lupin first job?”

“The grammar of these questions is killing me. Um, I worked in the university bookstore during college.”

“On the list of ‘things that don’t surprise anyone’,” Dorcas joked.

“Did Remus Lupin go to college?”

Remus gave the camera a look. “First of all, I have a medical degree. Second of all, did people completely forget about the whole ‘about to be drafted right out of college’ thing? It was a grand total of four years ago! Google it!”

“That’s what they did,” Sirius pointed out, gesturing to the board.

“True.”

“Last one for this card: how old is Remus Lupin?”

Remus thought for a moment. “Y’know, I kind of lost track after the first few centuries. My turn…what is Sirius Black real name?”

Sirius glanced at the camera. “It’s Sirius Black? Is this a trick question?”

“There are people out there who think that’s a fake name,” Dorcas said.

“Um, okay. Yeah, my real name is Sirius Black, my brother is Regulus, my dad is Orion, and I have cousins named Andromeda and Bellatrix.”

“What’s your uncle’s name again?” Remus asked.

“Which one? Cygnus? Phineas Nigellus? Arcturus?” At Dorcas’ surprised look, he laughed. “Oh, I could go all day long with this. That’s the tea on old French families with weird-ass naming traditions.”

“This next one is similar: Sirius Black middle name?”

“Orion.”

“Fun fact: the first time I saw your full name, Moody had written it and I thought it said ‘onion’.” Remus laughed as Sirius’ jaw fell open. “Those three seconds were a highlight of my life. Alright, what’s next…what color are Sirius Black’s eyes?”

“Blue.”

Remus shook his head. “They’re gray, almost silver.”

“Basically blue.”

“There’s nothing basic about you, babe.” Remus slid the board onto the floor and passed Sirius a new one. “Hit me with your best shot.”

“Is Remus Lupin Canadian?”

“I wish.”

“Is Remus Lupin left-handed?”

“No, but a lot of people seem to think that I am.”

“Is—” Sirius cut off with a snort. “Is Remus Lupin scrappy?”

“Are you fucking with me?” Remus asked, leaning over. “Is that actually what it says?”

“Yep.”

“Scrappy? Really?” He shook his head, lost for words. “I mean, I guess. Nobody’s ever called me scrappy before.”

“I don’t like this last one. How much is Remus Lupin worth?” Sirius wrapped an arm around his shoulders and kissed his temple. “You’re priceless.”

“I’m worth at least half a PB & J, but only if you use the good peanut butter. If you use the shitty Skippy stuff, hand over the whole sandwich. My turn! Does Sirius Black have piercings?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Does Sirius Black have an Instagram?”

“I do. Sblack12, if you want to see pictures of my friends’ kids and this cutie.”

“Is Sirius Black Australian?”

“Fuck off. I’m French Canadian, how the hell did anyone think I was Australian?”

“Sirius Black birthday.”

“I have one.”

“What is it?” Marlene asked. “I’ll tell you your zodiac sign.”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “November 3rd.”

“Scorpio bitch.”

“Hey!”

“On the bright side, Scorpios and Pisces are super compatible.”

“What a relief, I was really banking on our astrology compatibility,” Remus said drily.

Dorcas handed Sirius a fresh board. “First up: can Remus Lupin sing?”

“Eh.”

“The correct answer is yes. What is Remus Lupin like in real life?”

“I’m horrible. I kick every puppy I see and carry one of those sticky hands from arcades to steal candy from children.” A smile twitched at the edges of his mouth and Sirius’ cheeks turned pink from suppressing his laughter. “Like Spiderman, but evil.”

“What happened to Remus Lupin after college?”

“What didn’t happen to Remus Lupin after college?” he laughed, leaning back in his seat. “These past couple years have been bonkers fucking yonkers. I became a PT, got a secret boyfriend, and now I’m engaged and an NHL player. There were, like, three seasons of character development squished into eighteen months.”

“Alright, last one. Why Remus Lupin kissed Sirius Black?”

“Because he’s hot and nice. Also, because he’s my fiancé.”

“Is that the criteria for kisses?” Sirius asked. “I just have to be hot and nice?”

“Pretty much. You’ve got both boxes permanently checked.”

“Final card,” Dorcas warned as she handed it to him. “Make it count.”

Remus cleared his throat. “How does Sirius Black work out?”

“I rollerskate and hula hoop for six hours a day simultaneously.”

“How old is Sirius Black?”

“Ageless.”

“How did Sirius Black meet Remus Lupin?”

“Fun story, actually. You know the movie Ocean’s Eleven?”

“Are Sirius Black and James Potter—”

“Dating.”

“—still friends.”

“Damn, I thought I had that one.” He did a double take. “Still friends? What happened? I saw him an hour ago, tops.”

“You might have to google it,” Remus suggested as he slid the board across the floor. “That’s it!”

“Way to go, guys,” Dorcas laughed. “I know literally nothing new about you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sirius said as the two high-fived. “We were completely honest the whole time.”

She faced the camera with a poorly-hidden smile. “Thanks for joining us today, Lions, and remember to like and subscribe for more content!”

[luulapants]

Stories We Tell

When I was eight years old, my parents split up, and my dad, as divorced dads are wont to do, got a shitty apartment in a weird neighborhood.

The building was two stories with sixteen units. There was an in-ground pool out back, unheated in the shade, so the temperature hovered just above arctic. Half the time, instead of swimming, you ended up fishing a dead squirrel out and changing your mind. The laundry room in the basement flooded every time it rained. The appliances were junk, constantly breaking. The doors and locks, too. The landlord never fixed anything.

I didn’t give much thought to the neighbors until I was fourteen, when my dad got full custody. Someone broke into our ground floor apartment around the same time (and by “broke in,” I mean waltzed through a door with a broken lock) so we moved to the second floor, where it was a little safer. Our new balcony looked out over the rodent graveyard pool.

Over the next few years, I developed a colorful picture of our neighbors:

--

Across the hall was Doris, a madam and a raging alcoholic. She was in her fifties or sixties, but there were always astoundingly attractive young women coming and going from her apartment. She threw parties where she was the oldest woman by about three decades.

On quieter nights, Doris would sit on her balcony and get wine-drunk. If my friends and I were walking past, she would lean over the railing and shout super appropriate things at us like, “Izzat yer boyfriend, honey? R’you two using protection?!”

One time, my dad did some legal work for Doris. She paid him with two cases of wine.

(My dad doesn’t drink wine, but somehow, it was still gone by the end of the summer. I dunno, Dad, it’s a mystery to me. Couldn’t tell ya.)

--

Next to Doris was a big old dude that used to stand on his balcony in whitey tighties and watch me and the other kids while we waited for the bus. I never learned much about him, except he was creepy with a capital “Eeeugh.”

--

Across the hall from Captain Underpants were the Five to Eight Guys. So called because there were at least five of them living in that two-bedroom apartment, but no more than eight. They all looked vaguely the same: twenty-something stoners with a lot of tattoos and piercings and a fashion sense that hovered somewhere between Hot Topic and PacSun, while somehow managing to be worse than either.

I don’t think all of them were drug dealers. But at least some of them were. Absolutely. People would go into the apartment and re-emerge thirty minutes later in a veritable cloud of smoke. Our coat closet shared a wall with them, and my coats always reeked of pot. I mostly started smoking because people assumed anyway.

The summer after my Freshman year, they hung blankets up around their balcony to create an extra room. I told my dad, “That’s smart – there’s so many of them living in there, so they made an extra bedroom.”

My dad looked up at the tell-tale red glow of a grow lamp peeking out through the cracks of the blankets and told me, “Kiddo, I don’t think it’s a bedroom.”

--

Below the Five to Eight Guys were two elderly nuns.

Yes, really.

They never had a mean word for anyone: not the madam, not the drug dealers, not the creepy old man standing outside in his briefs. That wasn’t to say they had a kind word for them. Their go-to was smiling and minding their own fucking business.

I liked to think of them as our building security. Because, sure, we had no real security to speak of. The doors were always propped open, and I don’t think there was a functional smoke alarm in the entire building.

But surely God wasn’t going to let anything too bad happen to a building with nuns living in it, right?

--

Next door to the nuns was the strangest of the whole lot: Crazy Cat Man. He was Russian, in his seventies, and had lived in the building since before the landlord added the ‘no pets’ rule to the lease. And I’m pretty sure Crazy Cat Man was reasons A through Z for that rule.

I never got a real count on the cats, but it was somewhere in the ballpark of ten. But ten cats wasn’t enough to sate Crazy Cat Man’s love for animals. Oh, no.

One winter, he decided to feed the geese, and hangry geese laid siege to the building for weeks.

Another time, I heard the landlord’s voice downstairs. He was screaming, “What the fuck is the matter with you!”

And Crazy Cat Man was yelling back, “I no let squirrel in the apartment! I never!”

He had. He had spent weeks feeding the squirrels, getting friendly with them. Then he started cracking the patio door to lure them inside.

Crazy Cat Man was married. His wife had albinism and was photo-sensitive, so I only ever saw her outside once.

See, once a year, Crazy Cat man delivered phone books. It was his only job. He spent the rest of the year trying to fix his van up so it would run well enough to deliver the phone books. He was constantly working on it. Every part he put in, the van attacked and destroyed like a body rejecting a donor organ.

One day, he hadn’t pulled the van quite far enough into his garage, so when he lowered the garage door, it hit the back bumper and got stuck. That day, I learned that his wife’s absolute favorite thing in the world was watching her husband be incompetent, because she came out of the apartment for once. He couldn’t get the door back up, so he had to try to crawl under it to get inside the garage, and she was standing there shouting, “My husband is an idiot! My husband is an idiot!”

My dad and I stopped to watch this seventy year old man crawl under a mechanically compromised garage door. My dad said to her, “If he’s not careful, he’s going to be a dead idiot.”

The albino wife turned to him and hissed, “I should be so lucky.”

--

My senior year of high school, the recession hit, and my dad’s law practice went under, and my older brother died of a brain aneurysm. A week after I graduated, my dad told me we were going to be evicted, and I’d have to find somewhere else to stay until I went to college.

We moved everything out of the apartment, so nothing would be trashed when they evicted us. My dad ran off to the mountains to contemplate suicide (as one does), and, for about a month, I had this big, empty apartment to myself. My friends and I threw parties, got drunk. Hot boxed the bathroom.

And I slept in a sleeping bag on the floor in the living room, because it felt too weird to sleep in my old room with none of my things in it.

Late one of those nights, alone in my empty apartment, I heard screaming outside. I went on the balcony. All the neighbors were coming outside to see what the noise was.

On the property behind ours, across from the squirrel-killing pool, there was a huge cottonwood tree, maybe fifty feet tall. On the end of this long branch near the top, there was a raccoon. Closer to the trunk were two more. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a raccoon scream, but it’s almost human sounding.

One of the two at the trunk rushed at the third, and forced it farther to the end of the branch. Then the two raccoons started bouncing the branch. The one at the end screamed.

I think we all realized what was happening at the same time, because I heard someone downstairs say, “What the fuck,” at the same time I thought it.

It took a long time. Pushing the raccoon back, then bouncing the branch, then pushing it back again. By the end, the one raccoon was hanging from the end of the branch, which was pointing straight down. It was screaming continuously.

When it finally fell, you could hear the thud.

I heard the same person say, “What the fuck,” and I had no idea who it was.

--

If found out years later that the rumor in the complex about my dad was that he’d been a lawyer for the mob, and he got on someone’s shit list, and that’s how he ended up so broke. And it’s why he had to disappear so suddenly.

The truth was, my dad was a good lawyer, but a terrible businessman. His clients were mostly small businesses and everyday people. When they didn’t pay him, he assumed it was because they didn’t have the money, and he didn’t want to rub it in by asking.

When I heard that theory, it occurred to me that I had created characters out of our neighbors with no real regard for what was true or logical, only what was interesting. I think that night with the raccoons was the closest I ever got to any of them, as real people. Standing in the dark, faceless, watching something horrible that we had no control over.

I’m not sure what the rumors about me were, but here’s the truth: by all logic, I should have been a pretty miserable kid. My dad had untreated depression, and sometimes he stayed in bed for days. When there was no food in the fridge, I assumed it was because we didn’t have the money, and I didn’t want to rub it in by asking. I went to friends’ houses to eat. That guy that broke into our apartment when I was fourteen? He had a brain tumor, and he thought I was his girlfriend. And I should have been scared shitless that a forty-something year old man had tried to get in bed with me before my dad woke up and beat the bajezus out of him in front of me.

But instead, I started making these stories about the weirdos we lived with. I loved them. I was obsessed with them. I talked about them all the time.

“Say, Julia, how are things at home?”

“Well, you’ll never guess what the Five to Eight Guys were up to yesterday, let me tell you!”

--

I saw Crazy Cat Man two years ago. He’s still delivering phone books, and he looks nothing like I remember him.

[refriedweeb]

LOVE ME WHEN YOUR WRISTS ARE BOUND (18+ SMUT)

A/N: I’ve had a feral-ish predator/prey smut idea roaming around in my head for the past couple of weeks now and I finally figured out a premise for it to exist on which has lead to this sinful post.

Prompt: You’re Pro-Hero Prisma, the name speaking for itself as your quirk is being able to turn yourself and others around you invisible just by touching them. Hawks, your on again off again fling that is far too arrogant for your liking, is sent off to go to a training retreat where you’re there. An old age game of hero and villain tag goes underway...but what happens when the stakes are raised?

word count: 4,957

warnings: rough sex, feral sex, sex.

Your hands smooth back any flyaway hairs that might have come out of your slicked back ponytail. When dressed in your pro-hero costume, you try to remain as sleek as possible. It makes being able to turn yourself invisible far easier when there isn’t as much for you to focus on turning invisible. You’d been in the pro-hero game for a few years now, having your own fair share of rescues and criminal takedowns that has quickly procured you in the top ten heroes. While the listing isn’t as important to you as managing to do the job you’d dreamt of doing since you were a little girl, it is a nice ego booster to know that the public thinks so highly of you. Being able to help people, to bring peace to a troubled community, had done a lot for your confidence and journey of self-love, and you’re in a place of your life where you feel content with things in your personal life the way they are.

When the commission had told you that you would be heading to a resort with a handful of other heroes to get some training out of the way, you were stoked. It wasn’t as much of a vacation as much as it was a chance to reconnect with some pro-heroes and old friends that you didn’t get to see half as often as you would have liked given the demanding nature of your job. You’d packed your bag for the week long course and had jetted off to the foliaged location that kept the exact location of the hero training grounds a secret from any prying criminal eyes. And just as imagined, you got to see plenty of your old friends who were assigned to different distracts of work that you hadn’t since your days at UA. 

And then...

“Well, well, well.” There was that infamous drawl that could send shivers down your spine when it was right at your ear. A voice that was so silken and rough around the edges at the same time just earring it sent a spark down your spine no matter how annoying the owner of it was. Son of a bitch. Or in this case, a hawk. “I see they’re just letting any old talent in the resort now.” And as arrogant as ever.

You turned around, your bag bumped against your hip. Hawks somehow managed to look as smug as he ever had, being none too subtle about the way that his body swept over your frame until he was looking you in the eyes. Damn those honey glazed eyes that had always managed to suck out the air in your lungs. But that wasn’t a temptation you were going to give into right now. The last thing Keigo Takami needed was a boost in his ego. You did the same, looking him up and down while you crossed your arms under your bust. “Look who it is, a lost chicken.” Your tone was drenched heavily in sarcasm, not one to have ever backed down from Keigo’s taunting and arrogant status. In response, Keigo stuck his tongue against the corner of his mouth, letting loose a dry chuckle. “You should go back to the city before a fox makes you lunch.”

“So hostile, kid,” Keigo murmured, coming to stand close to you. Close enough that his thigh bumped the edge of your bag and you were glad for that bit of buffer. It’d never been easy to have him close to you. “I’m just here for a little bit of fun.” His eyes dipped over you once more, the sun rising and setting in how he did. Damn him. Finally settling over your lips, Keigo smirked. “Among anything else worthwhile I might find.”

Hawks pushed past you, his shoulder brushing past you. While you’d been able to keep your cool at hearing his voice after months passing since the last time you’d seen one another, the physical contact between you stole a breath from you the moment the electricity crackled from the curve of your arm. You turned after Keigo, mouth hung open, expression narrowed at the audacity of this man.

Damn him. Damn him and everything that he was.

That interaction had been two days ago, and thankfully nothing had happened with Hawks. You were each given your own room to settle in for the next week, and you were living in the lap of luxury. Mount Lady was on the resort with you and you’d been spending most of the group training exercises with her. Strengthening your quirks, decreasing the weaknesses that came with overuse. It was similar to the ones you’d went on as a kid with UA, though this one was far more intense and there was less leniency with messing up as there was when you were still a student. But you didn’t mind. It drove you to be better, to refocus your purpose on why this was your calling. You felt good about the progress you made, the blinding spots and lights that came with overuse of your quirk fading quicker than they had in the past. 

And, much to your determination not to give him the damn satisfaction, you’d only been mildly distracted by the bird man who knew how to drive you up a wall. It was hard not to watch him speeding through the air, the way he moved so graceful. Hawks had always been impressive even before he’d become a pain in the ass. His frame was lean, not exactly the type of body that you saw unless it was on a power quirk. But there was hidden strength in muscles that were hardly shown due to the jacket he wore as part of his costume. He was a show off, of course, but it was hard to ignore moving art in the sky.

Today was a different day in the training course, and as the group of pro-heroes lined up outside of a deep foliaged area, you had a twisting sensation in your stomach. This wasn’t going to just be a group training idea, there was something special about this one. And for some reason...your eyes went to Hawks. He was talking to Masaki Mizushima, otherwise known as Manual, when his eyes flickered to you. There was that dangerous curve of a closed-mouth smile that had your eyes snapping away. You chided yourself for even looking.

“Alright heroes,” your attention turned back to the instructor leading your training exercise today. “Today we’re doing capture and releases. You’ll be teamed up with a hero that has a quirk meant to makes yours difficult, and vice versa.” Your eyes widened, that sensation in your gut twisting. Son of a bitch. “This is to help adapt you to situations you’ll be in as pro-heroes where you’re not always the best suited quirk to take on your opponent’s.” The instructor’s voice faded away. This was some sort of karmic punishment for something that you’d done in a past life, you just knew it. You knew who the opposite of your quirk in that line up was, and it’d been the one person that you’d been trying to avoid all week. You listened as the instructor went down who was paired with who, and what role they’d be taking in the touch and go. You were grimacing, knowing what was coming.

“Prisma and Hawks, you’ll be teamed up. Prisma can turn herself invisible and will challenge Hawks to use his vision to the best advantage to spot her through the foliage. Hawks, you’ll be the Hero.” you gave a small groan. “Prisma, you’ll be the villain.” You turned to look at Keigo, letting out a sharp exhale through your nose to see that it was now he who was watching you, that smug expression larger than what it’d been several minutes ago. There was a waggle of his brows as he pushed his goggles over his nose and slapped his headphones on. If you were playing the role of villain through this exercise, it’d only make sense for the character if you killed him, right? Right?

You walked over towards the section of foliage you were assigned for your specific training exercise, Hawks watching you like a starved man as you swaggered over. One of his favorite parts of your body had always been your hips, curved and full, what your mother and grandmother had always stereotyped as ‘birthing hips’. He’d never been able to get enough of it, hands digging in at any given moment the two of you were together. There’d even been a point in time where he’d bit your ass because he’d been unable to help himself. Keigo Takami was a man who knew what he liked and had no problem showing it, and considering that your hero costume was as skin tight as it could possibly be due to your quirk, he was practically drooling. Frankly, you wouldn’t be surprised if he had some part in this.

“Shut up.” Is all you need to say before Keigo chuckles, zipping his mouth shut with his fingers and tossing the key. You know it’s not something that’ll last for long, but it’ll give you enough time to get over the blush you feel at your cheeks and ears.

“Prisma, Hawks. The objective of this training exercise is to exploit your weakness and strengthen it. Hawks, your weakness is that you can fly high up with great speed, but rely on your feathers too much. You’ll be challenged to look with your eyes on something you can’t see. Prisma, your weakness is that the longer you stay invisible, the worse your eyesight gets until you can’t see. You’ll have to focus on using your quirk intermittently with staying out of Hawks’ line of vision from the sky. You have until nightfall to either, as the villain escape, or as the hero apprehend the villain.”

You tip two fingers against your forehead in a lazy salute, sighing as you center yourself on what you’re about to do. Like hell you want to be caught by Hawks, dedicating your focus to avoid getting caught. You want to win, you want to work on straightening the limitation you have on your ability so you can help serve better. The two of you are stood at the entrance to your training area, a thick forest with trees of varying height that are either going to work to your advantage or disadvantage depending on how Hawks uses them. Speaking of the devil...

As your instructor walks away, Keigo comes to stand behind you, leaning forward just enough that he’s not touching you, but you can hear his voice in your ear. That same sarcastic drawl, dripping in arrogance like he’s already won. “How about we raise the stakes, kid?” Your stomach drops lower to the spot between your hips, and your back goes rod straight. “How about if I catch you before you make an escape, I get to fuck you where I find you.”

Your breath caught as the shivers raced up and down your spine. The feeling of Keigo’s fingers whispering against your hips almost enough to make your knees buckle. If there wasn’t a worse person that you could have been paired up with. It had to be the on again off person that you fucked. Your eyes rolled to the sky, taking in a deep breath. “Because you know...” he continued, breath hot against your ear. “I’ve always been a fan of catching prey when they’re on the run.” Your heart is hammering in your throat and you’re sure he can hear it. It’s hard to remember what it is to breathe in that moment, and you almost lean back into his body because, after all, old habits die hard. 

“Who says you’re going to catch me?” you ask, turning your head so that you can catch his eye over your shoulder. That feeling hits deep in your belly once more once you see the narrowed slit of his pupil. Usually round, you know this look on Keigo. It’s predator, it’s hunter, it’s Hawks. And you know in that moment you’re going to be fighting more than one enemy in that simulation. It wasn’t just your weakness with your quirk that you were working against. It was your weakness with Keigo Takami as well.

“Because, kid,” Keigo’s eyes drop to your mouth. “I don’t lose.”

Damn.

“Well, Hawks,” you turn to him, taking slow and measured steps back into the foliage that was going to either aid you or ruin you. You made sure to lean into your hip heavily, swaying back and forth that had Hawks’ attention almost immediately. “Catch me if you can.”

And with that, the two of you split your separate ways. Hero and villain. Hawks shot into the sky in a flurry of red wings, and you coated yourself in invisibility as you ran into the foliage, careful not to step too heavily as you darted under the trees. Looking up, it was near impossible to spot Hawks speeding through the sky, dipping down and flying up as he looked for any sight of your impressions on the ground. Your terrain was an uphill one, and soon enough your trek uphill had left you out of breath. You dipped under a tree, letting your invisibility fall as you became visible to the outside world. Except, of course, you were not foolish enough. Keigo’s words in your head were still settled deep within your belly, but you weren’t about to lose just yet. You shed your boots, setting them at the base of a tree before you took coverage in a tree that you climbed. With your eyes turned towards the sky, it’s only a matter of time before Keigo’s wings come into focus, beelining straight for the boots. 

He extended a gloved hand as if to grab for the boots and snatch you out, only to stop short and skid along the ground as he realized there was nothing attached to them. “Clever, kid.” He called out, doing a quick swipe around. Luckily, you’d cloaked yourself once more before he’d spotted the tree you were in. That would have been game over, though watching the sweat that clung to his forehead...didn’t seem too bad. You pinched yourself, reminding yourself that you were a villain and it was your objective to get out. “You’re somewhere here, aren’t you?”

But that didn't mean that you couldn’t have a little fun...right? Slowly, carefully, you lowered yourself from the branches you’d been hiding away, wincing at the slight rustle of ground gave in when you hit. Hawks whipped around again, eyes wide, pupils narrowed. “Come on songbird, let me hear you sing.” That static ripped through your belly again, and you took measured steps closer to him. You bent over, cloaking a rock once more before chucking it off on the other side of you that hit a tree. Hawks spun around again, a couple of small red feathers shooting out from his wings to try and pin what he thought was you against a tree. It took everything not to laugh in that moment, looking at how focused he was. 

You were doing your best to ignore the feral look in his eyes. How windswept his hair was from his flying. How you knew what Keigo was like when he wanted to win at something. And to see how determined he was when you were the prize. You squeezed your thighs together, rolling your lower lip between your teeth. “What’s the matter, Keigo?” you asked, doing your best to throw off your voice from your current location, slowly edging up the steep incline. “I thought you wanted to fuck me.”

Hawks shot out from where he’d been, coming for where you’d been only seconds before. You took off running up the hill, ignoring the pain searing through your thighs at just how much you underestimated the sleepiness of the climb. Still, you pushed through it, your vision starting to dizzy as you ran. How long had you and Hawks been at this? It didn’t feel incredibly long, but then again the sun was in a much different positioning than when you’d started, and the sky was starting to turn shades of purple. Almost nightfall. Had the other pro-heroes finished their courses already? Maybe it hadn’t been the wisest decision to take off your boots, either, as you came in contact with a patch of wet mud. Your footing slipped, and with it your invisibility cloaking. A gasp hit you as you saw your hand clear as day, and in that moment you knew you were down for. In a last ditch attempt to redeem yourself, you cloaked back up but the sharp yank to the right as one of Hawks’ feathers tore through your hero costume. 

A yelp escaped from your throat as you found yourself pinned to a tree at the nape of the neck, leaving you dangling from the trunk of the tree. With the gig finally up, you dropped your invisibility as you folded your hands under your chest. On one hand, you were pissed you’d been unable to outlast Keigo. On the other hand...you’d been taunting him just moments ago and knew what that did to him. The sound of rustling feathers came and Hawks sauntered around the tree, looking at you with that same infuriating expression from the beginning of the exercise. 

“So close too, kid. So close.” He teased, running his tongue over his canine tooth. Keigo came to rest his hips against yours, your mouth dropping open at the presence of him there. It’d been so long since it’d been like between you two, but how could you forget that? “And you would have won, too, except you just had to go on teasing me like that. You know what your teasing does to me, kid. Damn near maddening.” he pulled off his glove with his teeth, coming to grip your jaw. “So damn mad.”

Your eyes widened as he dug his hands into your chin, holding you so tight that you couldn’t look either way. Only at him. Your throat was tight as you swallowed, Keigo continuing on as he pulled your hands apart, using a spare feather to pin your wrists to the bark above you by the fabric of your costume. Keigo, despite his earlier disposition, is serious now. And you know how in trouble you are. You can see it in that narrowed slit of his eyes, the color of the sun burning there. “Can’t let that go, songbird. I’ve gotta remind you not to fuck with me.” He leaned in, the hand that wasn’t gripping your jaw in an iron lock trailing down the curve of your side, coming to thumb the space between your thighs that you’d been ignoring ever since he whispered into your ear down at the base of the mountain. “Gonna have to remind you of that,” Keigo murmured, eyes lowering as he leaned in over you. You could feel the length of him against your thigh, instinctively angling it out so you could feel him closer to your core.

“Keigo-” you gasped as he rolled his hips in against you. “Keigo what if we get caught?” Though by the feeling of his presence, you didn’t know if you’d mind that much if you got your itch scratched. 

“And what about it?” he breathed. His thumb slipped over you again, causing you to shudder. “You really think I give a damn who sees me fucking you? Claiming you like the little slut for me you are?” You squirmed against the hand he kept between your thighs, letting out a harsh exhale. “Already so needy for me. I’m starting to think you lost on purpose, kid.”

You opened your eyes, glaring at him. “I lost because I slipped.”

Hawks chuckled, giving a shrug. “If that’s what you wanna say there, kid. All I know is I won...and now I’m claiming my prize.” The static runs straight from your brain to your core, and you let out a whine. Keigo hummed, reaching up behind your back and leaving you with cool air against the heat that had been growing between your thighs as he undid the back of your uniform. “What a fuckin’ prize, huh, kid? I get to ruin this body all over again.”

The feather that had been pinning your wrists together removes itself, reforming to Hawks’ wings as he yanked you around, pressing your face in against the bark. It burned, but it was the furthest thing from your mind as Hawks pushed down the skin tight fabric of your pro-hero costume, his hands finding their way under the fabric and rolling it further and further down until it was just beneath your ass. 

You yelped as the sound of a smack sounded through the air, the stinging sensation hitting your backside seconds later. He’d just landed a sharp slap across your ass and you were about to make another comment when another came again, causing you to squirm. “This is what you get for teasin’ me, kid.” he said, and you were able to catch the way that Hawks was leaned back, his eyes dragging down the length of your exposed back and skin. The leather of his gloved hand struck again, causing you to whine. Keigo’s eyes flashed to look up at you, the look there positively feral. You can feel the heat starting to seep through your legs, and that has Hawks’ attention in a matter of seconds. “So filthy, aren’t you? You like it when I slap you on the ass. You want to be punished for being such a filthy little slut,” the slap came again and your groaning, attempting to push your backside in against his hips. “So fuckin’ eager, kid.”

Keigo places his hands on your hips, pulling you back against his hips so you can feel how hard he’s gotten in the time he’s caught you. This is the whole thing. The chase is what excites him and the most and what better example of his highest fantasy is there then getting to chase you through foliage like the bird of prey that he is? And true to his word, he’s going to fuck you as his victory claim. You grind your backside his, angling yourself so that you can feel the full length of him slipping between you. You groan, your head falling back against your shoulders as Keigo realizes this, pushing up into you.

“I wanna hear you beg, kid. Swallow that fuckin’” a sharp slap comes across your behind again. “Cocky attitude you had earlier.” He slaps your backside again, and you can’t fight the moan that escapes you. “Your mind kid, I’m always gonna fuckin’” another slap. “Win.”

At this point you can feel the wetness between your thighs, and your squirming as he rocks his hips back and forth as if he’s already fucking you. “Keigo-” you whine pushing your hands against the tree so you can be flush with his hips. “Please.”

“Please, what?” You hear the sound of his belt coming undone, the buckle slumping.

“Keigo,” you breathe, only to feel that sharp leather across your backside that causes you to cry out.

“Please, what?” he repeats. His voice is hardened as the cock between his legs. The zipper of his pants sounds, and you can feel the rawness of him against your lips. He’s teasing you. He wants you to beg. To ask nicely. “Beg for it, songbird.”

“Please fuck me,” you gasp just as he pushes himself up and down the length of your lips again. 

Keigo’s hands find their way to your hips again, fingertips digging in as he lines himself up. “Since you asked so fuckin’ nicely...” 

You hold your breath in anticipation. Keigo’s wings puff out on either side of you, providing little coverage for what he’s about to do to you. You catch yourself admiring the beautiful red color of them before he’s slamming his hips in against yours, throwing you forward at the shock and power behind it. The sound of Keigo’s groan behind you turns your knees to putty, almost enough to cause your legs to give out from underneath you. “Ahh, fuck, there it is.” he groans, slowly pulling himself to the edge of his length before slamming back into you with the same intensity. You lurch forward again, hands pressing into the tree in front of you to keep from ramming in against it. “Feel so fuckin’ good, kid.” He fucks into you again, your head dropping to your shoulders once more. Eyes shut, you don’t see Keigo reach out with that gloved hand, and hook two fingers against the side of your mouth. 

The sound of skin slapping against skin starts to fill the area between you along with the sounds of Keigo’s breathlessness and the small whines falling from your mouth. Despite his erratic breathing, he’s kept a good pace, your inner thighs positively soaked from what he’s done to you. He’s entranced by the way your skin bounces and moves each time he comes slamming back into you, filling you up with every ounce of his cock. “You like that, songbird, you like how fuckin’” slap “Good I feel inside of you?”

You struggle to answer him, your head wrenched back at an angle with Keigo’s leather wrapped fingers pulling out your cheek. Your legs are shaking, and it’s everything you can do to keep your muscles from collapsing underneath you as he fucks into you, creating a mess of your insides. Finally, you moan as a response, reaching an arm back just to be able to touch him in some respect. Keigo, not the complete asshole, leans forward so that you can grab onto the front of his jacket. The hand he’d been using to steady himself against your hips slips down to your front, massaging at your clit. This sends you into a spasm, wrestling against the overstimulation that your body was currently being sent through, desperately whining as he continues to tap, circle, and stimulate your clit meanwhile continuing the fluid motion of fucking in and out of you.

Keigo’s got the advantage here too, and seeing you struggle against getting him to lay off before you come, only sends him into more of a fury. His thrusts become faster, more erratic. They starting hurting as they hit into you, causing you to moan in pain and pleasure each time. You’re squeezing your legs together, clenching down around him as he fucks in and out of you. Your high is close, and your knees start to falter under you as it does. “K-Kei-” you’re unable to get his name out as another wave of pleasure rolls through you, threatening to push you over the bridge right there as Keigo starts to fuck you even faster, the wetness on your thighs crawling down further.

“You gonna cum, songbird? You gonna cum around this fuckin’ cock just like you always do?” The whine pushes through you as he yanks on your cheek. “Go on then, sing for me, you’re my fuckin’ songbird.”

And with the permission granted, you unravel around his finger and his cock, your legs spasming as you cry out, your inner thighs becoming even wetter than before. Your moan is none too quiet as it rips through you, your back arching as the shivers run up and down your spine once more as you ride out your orgasm. You’re panting, breathless, dripped in sweat, but Keigo isn’t done. “What a good fuckin’ slut, (Y/N).”

You moan as he returns both ands to your hips, spreading you further as he quickens his pace once more. “Gonna fill you up so good, so fuckin’ much.” You whimper as he buries himself in you, his thrusts sloppy and hurried now. He’s close now, and in order to help him reach his own orgasm, you lean back, body flush against his. “Fuck yeah, ah, fuck yeah.” he’s panting in your ear now, his face buried in the crook of your neck. Once you reach back and feel the space under his jacket and shirt where feather meets wing, it’s game over. 

“I’m gonna cum, fuck, I'm gonna cum,” his voice is gravely, pained as he loses the last of his momentum. The sound of your moans mingle together as he does just that, spilling himself inside of you. His drip joins the slow race down your thighs, and with one final thrust, empties the rest of himself in the folds of your heaven. 

The two of you remain there in silence for a period of time before he pulls out of you, leaving a mess between your lips. You’re immediately on your knees, unable to support yourself anymore from what he’d just done to your insides. Your breathing is still labored, as if you’d just run up and down the mountain without break. Your legs are spent, still riding out the tidal wave that was your orgasm. Behind you, you hear Keigo zipping up his pants, adjusting the buckle.

He looks as spent as you feel, and he pulls his glove on with his teeth as you lock eyes. That feral look is still there, and you doubt you’re done with one another for the night. You sure as hell don’t think you are. “What’s wrong, kid?” Keigo leans over, landing a gloved slap to your ass. “Get up, gotta go tell the instructor what a good hero I was in apprehending such a bad, bad villain.” 

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - No Time Like the Past

While I wouldn’t call this the worst episode of the series, there are several others I dislike more, I would call this the most ill conceived story in the show. 

All the other bad episodes have potential but are let down by poor presentation, boring predictability, or sloppy planning. This one however, is fundamentally flawed in it’s very basic premise and so ranks in the bottom of most fans lists. Even people who are far more forgiving of season three and than I am, and are hardcore New Dream stans, still dislike this episode. That’s how bad it is. 

Summary: Rapunzel discovers Old Lady Crowley tossing out Cassandra's things. She is upset and demands that they be left alone. She then has Lance and Eugene help her save all of Cassandra's mementos and personal belongings, but she becomes saddened when Eugene reminds her that Cassandra turned her back on "her". Rapunzel takes a box of her things along with, unknowingly, a mysterious hourglass. As she examines it, she accidentally drops and smashes it and she and Pascal find themselves sent back into the past. They run into a teenage Eugene and Lance who keep calling Rapunzel "Sideburns". Rapunzel realizes that she and Pascal have inhabited the bodies of the Stabbington Brothers and decide to recruit the young thieves in getting the hourglass from the castle back.

Fun Fact! That Dummy is Rapunzel’s Doing 

Minor nitpick here, but Cass had nothing to do with putting Eugene’s face on her sparring dummy. Rapunzel voluntarily did that back in Under Raps. Cas never requested it nor even expressed any joy over receiving said ‘gift’. 

Basically the show is attributing one of Rapunzel’s mistakes/flaws to Cassandra in order to introduce a very nonsensical plot point later. So I need ya’ll to keep that in mind as we go along.  

Lets Talk About the Episode’s Ordering 

We don't have production codes for season three like we did for the previous two seasons. So we can’t know for sure what order everything was originally planned in, but I would argue that this episode should have came before Return of the King. 

For starters this is a “bottle” episode; it takes place mostly in the past and the only present day characters who show up are Eugene, Raps, Lance, and Crowely. As such you could potentially slot this episode in anywhere before Cassandra’s Revenge. You can’t really do that with most of the other episodes so it could have been easily moved around when airing. 

Therefore, I would argue that it should have been the first episode after Rapunzel’s Return for three key reasons. 

It would have given Edmund time to travel to Corona and give Raps time to start up big building projects like fixing Old Corona. In fact she’s already approving building plans for the capitol city at the start of the episode. Which could even explain why she took so long getting to the castle repairs if she was taking care of the stuff that the Saporians messed up else where.  

Rapunzel’s stance over wanting to keep Cassandra’s things makes more sense early on, both in universe and in a meta context. Raps would still have hope if Cass has only been gone for a month or two instead what would now be four or five months down the line. It also makes sense that Crowely wouldn’t wait around for that long. And from a meta standpoint, the audience would still be oblivious to what the heck Cass was up to and could theoretically side with Raps better; or at least empathize with her view point more, even while disagreeing with her. 

Events in this episode better explains Eugene’s decisions in Return of the King and gives the audience more context for certain stuff.  

So Why Is There a Random Magical Time Traveling Hourglass in the Storage Vault?

Slowly but surely the series has abandoned all pretense that there’s any logical world building in the show. Magical things just appear randomly now without any explanation whatsoever. Worse than that, things like the hourglass and map to the cursed tomb are treated as if they were always there, unlike the magical beings that they happened to run into in past seasons. 

The problem with this is a lack of consistency. You can’t have sceptics like Eugene and Varian if magic is so common and wide spread that anyone can run into it at anytime. Not to mention it diminishes the specialness and importance of the sundrop and moonstone if powerful magical items can be so easily found and stirred, undermining important plot points and the tension surrounding them. 

But most frustrating of all, is that this could have been easily fixed by just stating on screen at some point that magic attracts other magic. Meaning it’s only Rapunzel herself who routinely runs into these things and not just everybody and anybody. 

None of This Stuff Holds Any Meaning

Show don’t tell!

At several points through out season three, both Raps and Cass morn over Cassandra’s left behind things. They tell us constantly that these objects hold significant meaning to them, but I, the viewer, have no damn clue as to why. 

We were never shown on screen what was so special about these things other than the fact that it was junk Cass collected. There’s no story attacked to these assortment of objects nor any previous indication that Cassandra valued them beyond their usefulness. As such, any scenes involving her stuff fall emotionally flat. 

Eugene is the One in the Right Here. 

Eugene’s right. 

Any well adjust and mature adult will tell you he’s right. 

If someone doesn’t want a relationship with you, than that’s it. There is nothing you can do but to move on. It sucks, but its life. To ignore that is to ignore someone else’s boundaries and personal autonomy; while also devaluing yourself and you’re own needs. 

In a competent show this would be a set up for Rapunzel to learn something about letting go and taking care of oneself emotionally. 

But this isn’t a competent show. 

But Lobster is for Poor Folk

Food history time!

Lobster, and shellfish in general, have been considered low class food for centuries. Especially around costal areas like Corona. It’s easy to attain, cheap, and not regulated like hunting was in much of Europe. In America, specifically, lobster was fed to prisoners and there’s historical accounts of riots being started over it.  

Heck, less than forty years ago, no one lived on the coast but poor people. That’s why there’s historical communities of black people living on the southeastern islands in the US and why my father grew up in the swamps of Alabama during the 50s and 60s. 

The gentrification of coastal property and seafood, like lobster, is a very recent phenomenon in human history, starting in the late 70s early 80s with the booming tourism industry and increasing globalization.   

So while I understand that the joke here is meant to be reflective of our current understanding of lobster being a status symbol, in universe, it’s the equivalent of Eugene getting excited for chicken nuggets instead of his usual bowl of cereal because the story takes place before the 20th century.  

This means that these kids are so poor that fucking mcdonald’s fast food would be considered a rare treat compared to the slop they usually eat. Yet again what is meant to be a lighthearted joke turns suddenly dark when you stop to think about it for all of two seconds all because the writers are so flippant about their world and characters. 

This Wasn’t Planned Out, So the Timeline Doesn’t Add Up Anymore and Resources are Wasted

Remember the flashback in The Return of Strongbow?

Now I need you to remember that season three is two years later from season one and the movie. Eight years ago then, would be ten years ago now. 

The Eugene and Lance in the bottom picture is suppose to be roughly the same age as the Eugene and Lance in the top picture; give or take a few months. 

I know teenage boys can grow fast, but not that fast. 

Eugene at 16 looks the same as he does at 26. All because the writers were too lazy to preplan things out ahead of time. 

We should have seen the teen models with recasted voices back during that first flashback if they were going to tell this story later. Or the previous plot point should have been less than eight years ago. 

In fact the first flashback no longer makes any sense being so many years ago given Eugene’s engagement and recent breakup with Stalyan, and the later reveal that he was working for the Baron during the original movie. 

Sloppy planning like this not only makes for a confusing timeline but it also wastes limited resources. I like the new models, I like the actors cast for these younger roles, and I do like the concept of seeing more of Eugene’s past. But going through all of that trouble and money for what amounts to one throw away episode is mismanagement of the budget and work schedule.  

Baby Varian Is the Episode’s Only Saving Grace 

I know people are divided on the deign here. Some love it and some hate it, but that’s a personal taste thing. The actual scene itself is golden either way, because it’s such a funny eater egg. Fans on both sides made memes out of this for days. It’s legendary. 

Personally I’m more in the ‘love it’ camp, though I can see the issues people have with the design. My main defense of it is more the fact that we got kid designs for the other OCs in the show and it’s only fair Varian got one as well. The fact that he’s in smaller versions of the S1 clothes doesn’t bother me anymore than when Lance ran around for two seasons in the same outfit, including when he was a kid. 

So if I like it, then why am I talking about it a salt review? 

Cause the most memorable part of an episode shouldn’t be a throw away gag! 

People bring up baby Varian way more than they do about anything else in the episode, and no it’s not just because the character popular. It’s because most would like to forget what comes after this scene. 

Where is Quirin, by the Way?

Why is your six year old son running around the big city unsupervised?

This wouldn’t get talk about as much it wasn’t for the fact that Quirin being neglectful in season one was a motivating factor in his conflict with Varian. A conflict that was suppose to be resolved back in Rapunzel’s Return but we the audience have yet to visually see any difference in behavior since then.  

Quirin’s absence here in the past highlights his absence in the present day and reminds the audience aware that we’ve not been given a satisfying conclusion to one of the most important arcs in the series.  

Lets Talk About Wasted Potential 

Like I said, I like the idea of exploring Eugene’s past. But we should have gotten that back in season two when it was more relevant. Part of why this episode fails is because Eugene has reached the end of his original character development. He’s now on an identity crisis arc which has nothing to do with this episode.  

But you know who still hasn’t finished developing? Rapunzel. 

Rapunzel has lots to still learn and viewing her past through outside eyes could have turned this story into something really special. Especially with the ‘inhabiting another body’ plot point. 

You have no end of options here, 

Have Raps inhabit Cassandra’s body for a day and gain insight into what motivates her. It could have been either before or after they met, both offers up possibilities. 

Have Raps inhabit Eugene’s body and experience what he had to deal with growing up and come to see his point of view. (This could have also worked with the Sabbingtons set up had the writers not been stupid.) 

And my personal favorite, send her back to right after Queen for a Day and have her stuck in either Varian’s or Ruddiger’s bodies. Force her to see what she did to him and have her acknowledge she was wrong. 

And those are just the most obvious choices, there’s other more out of left field things you can do that would still work with good writing. Like exploring Lady Caine’s past, inhabiting Arianna’s body and learning how to be a real queen, get dumped into actual young Gothel and lay out clues to the future Zhan Tiri plot, or possess one of the Brotherhood and experience the final days of the Dark Kingdom; the list just goes on and on and on. 

But I Thought You Didn’t Put Kids in Jail Frederic?

Remember that Raps and Pascal are possessing the Stabbingtons who are still teenagers here. They can’t be much older than Varian. 

This means that Varian isn’t some special case. Teens have received harsh and deadly punishments in the past for non-violent crimes like theft. 

Also teens are called kids still by the majority of the cast. They’re aren’t considered adults with the same rights as someone in say their twenties, yet they can be punished the same as an adult would. Which is horrendous in any time period. 

So in conclusion, Frederic is a fucking liar! 

Tangled the Series can’t decide if it’s in the far past or a reflection of the modern day. As such it winds up supporting the worst of both worlds. Barbaric practices like hanging for minor crimes and prison slave labor are treated as the norm and never called out for the horrific things that they are; treated as a joke even, but we’re suppose to accept that this world also somehow views adolescence through the lens of late 20th century sensibilities even as it forces minors to go through such atrocities. 

Like what are you trying to say show? What is your message on the transition of adolescence to adulthood regarding rights and responsibilities? And don’t tell me ‘it’s not that deep’ because this is suppose to be a coming of age show! That’s the entire premise of the series! 

So How Old Are Stan and Pete Again?

I was always under the impression that Pete was a newbie guard, closer to Cass and Eugene’s age than say Cap or Frederic. That’s why he screws up so much because he’s inexperienced, why he seemed to be the closest thing to a equal colleague Cass had in the guard when she was also just starting out, and why I assumed those braided girls from the movie were his sisters. 

I mean there was nothing on screen previously that would necessarily contradict this reveal, it just doesn’t feel right, that’s all. I guess he could be like 20 here and be 30 in the show. That would make him only a few years older than Eugene, but still doesn’t explain why he’s so useless a decade later. 

I’m fine with Stan being here though. I always thought of him being the older of the two. In fact I headcannon Willow as his mysterious wife that he talked about back in Monty’s episode during season one. (She’s Stan and Pete’s beard, and they’re totally in a open poly relationship. That’s why they’re allowed to stay in the royal guard despite being so incompetent cause they’re technically Ferderic’s in-laws and Rapunzel’s uncles. Just no one ever talks about it cause it’s a minor sandal for a princess to marry lower class and Willow’s hardly ever there.) 

And Why Does Xavier Have All Those Plot McGuffins? 

I know we’ll never get an answer, but at this point Xavier’s exposition fairy powers border upon ridiculousness. It’s just lazy and a waste of character. 

So How Does Time Travel Work In This?

There are three types of time travel stories in fiction. 

First is the ‘Changeable Past, Changeable Future’. You see this in Back to the Future. What you do in the past will change the future, i.e. your present. You may or may not remember that you did it, but be warned you could change things too much and break stuff. Like erasing yourself from existence, or ruining your love life ect. The only way to fix it is to go back in time again and change stuff again. But beware of paradoxes or you may destroy the universe altogether.  

The second is the ‘Alternate Timeline’, where changing things creates new realties and it’s a matter of finding the right reality again. The tv show Sliders is a great example of this. Each new timeline is a different dimension. What you do in one won’t effect your original point of origin, only that particular world. The challenge if often getting home again because the probable diverging timelines are infinite and the changes of getting back are a zillion to one. 

Third is the ‘Closed Time Loop’. No matter what you do nothing will change. The future is inevitable and whatever you do in the past was always meant to happen anyways. Gargoyles handles this really well. You can also have ‘fix points’ where certain important things are set in stone but small things can be changed like in several Doctor Who episodes. Braking a fix point breaks the universe once again, while paradoxes are often the solution rather than the threat. 

So which type of time travel is Tangled dealing with here? 

Scenes like the conversation regarding Pete’s and Stan’s mustache or the ones involving Eugene working on his smolder suggest a closed time loop. Yet the ending to this episode reveals a changed future. Further still the grandfather paradox revolving around the hourglass would make you think an alternate timeline yet, we’ve no indication that anything else changed other then Eugene’s opinions on Cass, and Raps shows no concern about getting back to her original point in time indicating that it actually isn’t another dimension.... so what is it then? 

You don’t have to have a tightly plotted time travel story to have an entertaining piece of media. Endgame is riddled with plot holes and contradicts itself constantly, but what it lacks in coherent plot it makes for with fun characters, emotional story beats, and good pacing that manages to balance the action with the drama while hiding the cracks just enough that you don’t lose immersion. 

Tangled however fails at even this because it gets the character beats so fundamentally wrong.  Like you may dislike where the characters ended up in Endgame, but can’t say that those developments didn’t match the characters’ previous storylines and logical trajectory. Tony finally becomes the selfless hero by committing the ultimate sacrifice, Steve learns self care as a mirror to Tony’s arc as they were always parallels to each other, Bruce learns to accept himself, Thor processes his grief and lets go of the role he was assigned at birth but never truly fit into, and Nat becomes the leader she was destined to be rather than the sidekick.  

What happens to the characters in this episode however makes no sense. 

This is Another Missed Opportunity to Explore Eugene’s Past

The other problem behind the episode is that we don’t actually learn anything new. If you’re going to promise a story focusing on Eugene’s past then I expect to actually glean some new insights. 

We still don’t know why he’s working with Baron or how he fell in/fell out with him, what his relationship with Stalyan is like, how he became so cynical; not just the general basics, like the orphanage, but that point in his life where decided that survival meant giving up his morals and ethics; where did he first learn his better ethics that he originally suppressed (cause it sure as heck wasn’t Rapunzel), and when did he and Lance become separated? 

This are questions that series decides to raise by making allusions to them and building conflicts off of them but never wants to explain the details of where they originated from. It’s super frustrating and wholly unnecessary.  If you didn’t think the story of Eugene’s past worth telling then why did up repeatedly bring it up Chris? 

Why Are You Surprised by This Rapunzel?

Rapunzel you know Eugene’s past. You know what he used to be like. You were literally there in the movie and saw him being an ass before this. You didn’t start to like him until he dropped his guard down in the flooded cave back when you both where about to die. 

You fell in love with him when he showed you his real self and he fell in love with you when you proved that you were accepting of that. You earned each others’ trust. This here; angrily yelling at him and judging him, when you’re already hiding who you really are from him both literally and figuratively, is a breaking of that trust. 

Who the fuck are you any more, Rapunzel? 

Cause you’re not the same character from the movie. You’re not even the same character from season one. But whoever hell you are now, it’s not an improvement I can tell ya that. 

So How Did The Hourglass Go From the Treasury to the Basement Storage, and How Would Raps Know It Was There At This Point and Time?

I’m guessing the implication here is that Crowley put Cass’s stuff in the vault, but like why the fuck would she do that? We’re not talking about a family attic here, but the royal safe. The most heavily guarded room in the castle with the kingdom’s most priceless treasures and antiques. Nothing Cass owned was that valuable.  

Rapunzel Is Full of Shit

Oh let me count the numerous ways in which this whole lecture is stupid. 

Rapunzel left Varian behind. Rapunzel left Varian behind multiple times, including that time he was thrown in jail. She was not a good friend, and no, this is not a case of her learning from her past because not once has she ever admitted that she was wrong to do that. So this scene just makes Raps look like a hypocrite. 

Eugene does not need to relrean a lesson on being a better a person. He did that during the movie and has progressed beyond that point. This ‘lesson’ is a waste of time and a misuse of the characters.

This reframes Rapunzel as being in the right during her argument with older Eugene at the beginning of the episode, even though she’s not. In fact this is such a counterintuitive plot point that it boggles the mind. Who structures a narrative this way? Why so blatantly point out how the main character is wrong if not to have her learn something? Why frame the story to make the person who’s personal conflict isn’t even the episode’s focus, into the one who needs to learn something? Especially if that something is already a lesson that they’ve learned on screen beforehand.

And why, oh good heavens why, would you teach children such a toxic message? Like on the surface it sounds like something you’d hear in a children's show, but the context of it is justifying harmful behavior where you selfishly ignore other people’s wishes and boundaries just to satisfy you’re own personal desires.  

And finally, Eugene and Lance do not work as a parallel to Raps and Cass. Cassandra is an adult who left of own free will. Lance is a teenager who was arrested due to Rapunzel’s own actions. Eugene isn’t the one who is responsible here, its Rapunzel. Who also left them both behind in her carelessness. Secondly, Eugene’s decisions are spurned by years of trauma and a healthy fear of dying, while Rapunzel’s is wrapped up in her own need to always be right and to keep her immature and fanciful outlook of the world intact. As harsh as it seems, what Eugene did was based off a predetermine agreement and presumably Lance would have acted the same way or been pressured to act the same way by Eugene. In short, Eugene’s cynical world view as a teen is not the source of his disagreement with Rapunzel but an adult perspective back by common sense and a respect of others choices. It makes no sense for present day Eugene to ‘learn’ anything from this misadventure that he didn’t already know and for Rapunzel to not learn anything that would actually tie the parallel together. 

Locking Another Teen Inside a Jail Cell With Another Adult as a Joke, Does Not Erase the Inappropriateness of Varian’s Story

The episode tries to add another joke about Shorty sneaking into the prison without the guard knowing, but that still doesn’t excuse the fact someone had to have tossed Lance in there with him on purpose. Otherwise Lance wouldn’t have assumed Shorty was a fellow prisoner if he or the guard that locked him up saw Shorty sneak in before then. 

Furthermore Lance’s nonchalant response suggests this is not an out of the ordinary occurrence. Nor do any of the other guard comment upon the irregularly of teens being jailed with an adult. Now add in the fact that the show fails to clarify that previous ‘cellmate’ line from Rapunzel’s Return and now gives us more confirmation that Varian was underfed and malnourished for a year with that gruel joke and you have a horrifying picture. 

Shorty might be non-threating, but that doesn’t mean Andrew, a known attempted murderer and manipulator, is too. Nor any other adult who previously was housed with a teen before then. This is still very much not okay and no amount of ‘jokes’ will suddenly make it right.  

Raps, Who is an Adult, Just Physically Threatened Two Teenaged Boys and It’s Played as a Joke.... 

How many times do I have to say it? Humor does not fix bad writing. I’m not laughing when a heroine at age 20, threatens a couple of kids for merely annoying her. Especially when said heroine has a history of abusing children; because let me repeat once again, neglect is abuse!

This is a Lie

No you wont. 

Rapunzel never tells Eugene what happens on screen. I suspect that if she ever did, they would no longer be together, because what she wound up doing here was a violation of trust and boundaries in the worst possible way.  

And This is Now a Time Paradox 

A Grandfather Paradox to be specific. How can Rapunzel be here in the past to break the hourglass if the hourglass that sent her here is broken? 

In a competent series this would be the point of a future conflict and not the actual resolution. It’s not a closed time loop because of the paradox and the changes we’ll see in the future. 

So either she’s in an alternate timeline/dimension and just doesn’t gives a shit; leaving the real Eugene, Lance, Cass, ect. to go on without her; or she’s just broke the universe and everything is slowly unraveling around her; galaxies are dying as she whines about being dumped, people in the future are being eased from existence, and God is cursing her name for ruining his creation, all the while she carries on oblivious to the destruction in her wake, as usual. 

That’s it. Those are you’re only two options now. Is everyone from here on a fake copy or is Rapunzel the damned destroyer of worlds? You decide. 

So This Confirms That the Stabbingtons are Indeed “Family”

Another reason why I place this before Return of the King; it explains why Eugene considers the Stabbingtons ‘family’. Though if it was Rapunzel he actually bonded with and not the real Sideburns, then how much of his feelings are real and how much of them were fabricated by her? How much agency did this episode steal from him?

So What Exactly Did We All Change?

Well the dummy no longer has Eugene’s face, but Cass’s painting of the three of them still has him ripped out of the photo, soo... Keeping in mind that Raps painted the dummy anyways and considering that Moonandra tries to kill him later on; I’m going to guess that Cass’s feelings weren’t actually altered. If anything their relationship might actually be worse now, cause Cassandra keeps acting like she’s never had friends and Eugene has taken up Rapunzel’s blind devotion. 

All that development in season one is just, poof, gone. Also it’s quite possible that the first movie as well has now it has been erased from existence as Eugene got his needed character development eight years too early. How the hell that’s suppose to work, I don’t know. 

Outside of the that we get no confirmation how anybody else was effected, even though a more brainwashed Eugene running around would undoubtedly have caused a butterfly effect. Don’t expect that to be explored anytime soon. 

Though, it would explain why he’s suddenly such a doormat in season three, if this was the second episode as theorized. 

No! This is the Wrong Lesson!!!

Let me explain narrative promises. 

Everyone, on some basic fundamental level, understands how stories work. We hear them recounted to us over and over again from the day we're born to the day we die. It’s integral to how we communicate as human beings. Everyone knows innately how to tell a story even if that person couldn’t tell you how stories or structured or what certain literary terms mean, but they do it every day just through speaking. And while most audiences can’t always pin point what upsets them about a story they can for sure notice when things are off and not satisfying to experience. 

Now that doesn’t mean that everyone can write an awarding winning novel, that study of a craft isn’t important, nor that every amateurish critique thrown at any given media is valid. But it does mean that people have come to expect certain storytelling practices and can pick up on narrative cues. We’ve familiarized ourselves with the language of film, novels, comics, ect, into order to comprehend what’s going on. 

Rules of writing are just following that established language so that the audience can keep up. You can break these rules, sure, but unless you know what you’re doing and have a good narrative reason to do so, then you can easily lose you’re audience. And if you’re making money off said audience that’s something you want to avoid. 

A narrative promise is a cue; a set up that lets the audience know that ‘hey this is important, pay attention to this cause it’ll come back into play later’. Now that the audience has been alerted to the plot point they expect fulfillment of the promise. If you break that promise, either through poor set up, lack of follow through, or by breaking an established convention of writing for no other reason then because you just wanted to, your audience is going to walk away unsatisfied. 

The argument at the beginning of the episode was a narrative promise. It was a cue that set up the interpersonal conflict of the main character. For add context, I know that this is a coming of age story. Convention would dictate that the protagonist would resolve this conflict by learning they were wrong. 

That’s not what happened here. 

Convention was subverted. It wasn’t the protagonist who grew and change, it was the person they were in conflict with who did. And it wasn’t subverted because of any greater narrative reason, or future pay off, or even as effort to be shallowly ‘clever’; it was subverted because the author just didn’t want to hold the main character accountable for anything. Because said character has now become his avatar for his wish fulfillment fantasy and having the main character admit fault would be to admit fault in ones own self. Rapunzel doesn’t feel like Rapunzel this season because she’s just Chris in a wig. 

The episode broke a narrative promise to the audience; both within the episode and in the greater premise of the story, because of ego. 

I don’t claim this episode is bad just because of personal taste nor because I find it morally repulsive (even though both those things are true), I call it bad because it exhibits bad writing. Plain and simple. 

Way To Undermine The Entire Point of the Original Movie, Show

Speaking of breaking narrative promises.... 

TTS is suppose to be a squeal to the original movie. It’s even in the title of the show; both of them. In one fell swoop, the series has managed to sabotage it’s very reason for existing, as it erases Eugene’s motivation and the inciting incident that kick started the film. 

 Way to fucking go. 

To further twist the knife, it diminishes the duel protagonist of said film in order to prop up a series original character, who isn't even present in the episode itself. 

I don’t mind Cassandra’s existence. I don’t even mind her being the new deuteragonist and one of the main villains; even though she wouldn’t have been my first pick to fulfill those roles given her lack of set up. But I do fucking mind it if she upstages other characters and/or derails their character arcs in the process. 

This is the Death of New Dream 

I was still in denial when this episode first aired. I honestly believed that this and The Return of the King was build up to a third “betrayal” where Eugene finally became fed up with Rapunzel’s bullshit and joined forces with Zhan Tiri. I thought the end of the series would have Rapunzel apologize to everyone she did wrong, Varian, Cass, and Eugene, in order to break ZT’s hold on them, and that true love’s kiss would reunite the sundrop and the moonstone and that would just tie everything together into a neat little bow and give us a truly daring character study of a Disney hero. 

Oh dear merciful heavens, was I ever wrong.  

How did we go from season one’s challenging and mature storyline, complete with Disney’s first real anti-villian, to this?! 

What the hell happened!? 

Rapunzel not only disrespects Eugene’s opinions, violates his privacy and trust as she manipulates him as a teen, and then brainwashes him to think like her (even if accidentally), but doesn’t even have good grace to tell him. She instead has the audacity to look all happy and self congratulatory because she got want she wanted. She, and the show at large, doesn’t care what evil thing she does to get the desired outcome Rapunzel wants. 

Rapunzel in this show is a spoiled brat. And the image of her and her now lobotomized boyfriend staring dead eyed at a picture of the creator’s previous waifu OC with plastic smiles on their faces, sums up this series perfectly. 

Conclusion 

This isn’t even the worst episode of the series guys. I don’t know if it would even make it onto a bottom five list. That’s how much crap I have to wade through when it comes to this show. This is however the most damaging episode to the franchise as a whole. 

Not even the most hardcore of New Dream fans want to acknowledge the existence of that final scene, and Rapunzel stans won’t defend her beyond, ’well she didn’t mean too, it’s the writing that’s bad.’ Yeah, the writing is bad, that’s why the character can’t and shouldn’t be defended, not here and not in other badly written episodes where she also does bad things and never makes up for it. 

Anyways I’m finally caught up to where I left off, before the move, though sadly I don't think I’ll get this series done by the end of the month like I had originally hoped. But if you would like to help out I have a ko-fi you can drop a tip into if ya want. 

https://ko-fi.com/rachelbethhines

[delaber]

Just Friends (Part 3)

Story Summary: After moving to America for a 3-month long internship, you meet two interesting characters on a boring night out.

Word Count: 2.2K

Pairing: Rafael Casal x Reader

Warnings: Alcohol, minor drug use, smut, slight dom!Rafa, swearing, and loads of British references (sorry not sorry lol).

Chapter Note: let me know what you think

Tag List:  lonelydance mysearchforgratification

Other Parts: See Masterlist

FIVE WEEKS LATER

With the amount of work you had had in the lab in December, five weeks passed by easily, and before you could truly process what had become of time, you had spent your first Christmas ever away from England.

Still, even though five weeks had passed by, you caught yourself thinking about this guy, this Rafa, annoyingly often. 

You couldn't believe that you had fallen for (what you assumed were) his regular normie cad tricks: He had talked you up, walked you home, made you feel special, and then he hadn't given you any sign of life since then - and now the complete lack of contact was driving you insane! You knew that he was only interested in the shag, and so were you to be honest, but it still annoyed you immensely that the mere thought of him roughing you up had taken over most of your thoughts.

As if Rafa was a professional womaniser, it had only taken him a couple of hours and an obnoxious fuck boy-attitude to etch himself into your brain. And five weeks later, he was still on your mind?! What was going on with you? If you'd only invited him inside to boff back then, he probably wouldn't even have been the least bit interesting here five weeks later.

Thus, irritated with yourself and your flair for the dramatic, you often cursed yourself for having left him on the pavement that night back in November. On the night in question, however, the need to stand up to his spoiled attitude had been stronger than the urge to let him win and shag him senseless - and as a result, you often found yourself fantasising about him when you lay in bed at night. So in a way, he had won anyway.

And you hated it. You hated that he had somehow gotten to you. The way he had acted around you had made you aware that this boy was an avid smooth talker who was probably used to get whatever and whomever he wanted by any means necessary.

And you were having none of it. Forgetting about him was definitely for the best. You needed someone to knock the naughty thoughts of him out of your mind. By any means necessary.

You had never really cared much for New Years Eve, but this year, you found yourself in the right spirit for the first time ever. You had changed into the most form-fitting, festive dress you owned in the hopes of meeting a cute guy with whom you could spend the night. A guy who could knock the last thoughts of Rafa out of your head.

In the mood for an eventful evening, you had showed up for Miranda's all-girls pre-party right on time, tagging your roommate Samantha along with you. The first part of the evening passed by quickly; you had loads of champagne and ate a fancy dinner at Miranda's place surrounded by all of her best friends and some of your colleagues from the Hospital. You had all clinked to the new year as the date shifted to January 1st and you soon found yourself in a taxi on the way to an exclusive party downtown that Miranda's friend had secured you all tickets for. Big, fancy parties like this wasn't normally your scene, but you could make an exception for tonight. It was New Years, after all.

You had arrived at the club, had had a few drinks at your private table, and had even talked to some pretty cute guys, but for some reason they all bored you. At one point you found yourself cornered by a handsome - but particularly boring - gentleman when Samatha finally saved you.

"I just flirted my way to a bottle of champagne!" she squealed as she came running towards you with a magnum flask in hand.

"You did what?" you laughed at your bubbly roomie, the bore of a man by your side already forgotten.

"I just asked a random guy at the bar if he wanted to buy a table of pretty girls a drink - and the patsy did," she laughed, "not in my wildest imagination had I ever expected him actually to do it," she squealed as she twisted off the cork with a loud pop.

"So you just let the poor guy pay for it and then you ran away?" you laughed at her while holding out your glass, waiting for her to fill it.

"I reckon he did it to make me go away - I think he may have found me annoying," Samantha laughed, "He told me to take the bottle back to my friends' table and clink his glass from a distance. Look, it's him over there," she raised her glass to a guy that you recognised immediately; you would've recognised those fluffy black curls anywhere.

Rafa's friend Diggs.

When he noticed you looking at him, he too raised his glass and sent you a warm smile, silently telling you that he definitely recognised you too.

"Hey; I know that guy," you said slowly, "I met him when I'd just moved here."

"You know him?" Samantha stared at you with a sly smile, "Probably why he was so eager for me to bring the champagne back to the table instead of drinking it at the bar with him. How well do you know him if you don't mind my asking?" Samantha wriggled her eyebrows.

"Not like that," you laughed, "I only talked to him for a couple of minutes."

Samantha nudged you with her elbow, "you should go thank him."

"Yeah," you hesitated, turning away from him, "I'm honestly surprised he even recognises me."

"Well, you must've made quite the impression," Samantha was still looking at him from over your shoulder, "Oh shit, he's coming over here right now," she squealed in a whisper.

"Be cool!" you laughed before turning around, suddenly face to face with Diggs.

"Happy new year," he smiled and squinted his eyes slightly, "I think we've met before."

You nodded, reciprocating his wide smile, "we have. You're Rafa's friend," the words escaped your mouth before you could stop them.

He nodded, "...and you're Rafa's girl."

You could feel your cheeks getting warm now, "I've had like an hour long conversation with him. I would hardly refer to myself as his girl," you squinted your eyes at the handsome man in front of you.

He shrugged and laughed, "you know what I mean."

You cleared your throat, "well thanks for the champagne. You really didn't have to."

"I wanted to," he smiled, "I was hoping to catch your attention."

"Why? We've exchanged about ten words..."

"Yeah, but I'm sure Rafa would love to see you again."

"He's here?" your eyes widened. The mere thought of meeting Rafa again tonight was making your heart beat faster. You reminded yourself that you needed to keep your cool. He may be handsome and charming but he was also loud and obnoxious and a sleaze.

"We have a table in the back," Diggs nodded and pointed to an area that was cordoned off with red rope, "you should come with me."

"I don't think so," you managed to say with as much clarity as you could muster. You needed someone to help you get rid of Rafa - not indulge further in him. He was dangerous.

"Aw, come on," Diggs smiled charmingly.

"What makes you think he even wants to see me?" You tried, "as I said; I've had an hour-long conversation with him over a month ago."

"Trust me," he smiled convincingly, "I know my best friend. Are you coming or what?"

You weren't exactly sure whether it was a good idea or not. You were quite sure that if Rafa was acting just half as charming as last time, you'd be throwing yourself at him at the first chance you got and you were scared that his bad boy demeanour might lead to you wanting more even though you were going home in a couple of weeks. ..But then again, you were on the prowl for someone who could knock Rafa out of your head. Maybe actually being with him would be enough to finally close that chapter.

"Oh, she's coming!" Samantha said loudly while giving your back a small shove.

"Great!" Diggs shot you a blinding smile and stretched out his hand for you to take.

"Uhm, okay..." you said, actually glad that Samantha had made a decision for you.

As Diggs pulled you towards him, you looked back at Samantha who was looking at you with huge eyes and moving her lips without any sound, "who's Rafa?" she mouthed.

"I'll tell you later, okay?" you whispered to your friend.

Samantha tilted her head and whispered back, "well, if all of his friends are just as handsome as that guy," she nodded towards Diggs, "you're coming back for me!"

You laughed at her, "of course. I'll see you later," you said before taking Diggs' hand, following him straight through the club's dance floor and towards the closed off area.

When he reached the bouncer, he pulled up his sleeve and showed him a stamp on his wrist. "She's with me," he nodded towards you and the bouncer stepped aside, letting both of you enter the scene behind the red rope.

"Is this some sort of VIP area?" you asked Diggs as you took in the room that had been closed off to the rest of the party. The tables back here looked far more fancy and were lined with much more expensive booze than what had been available where you had been sitting only moments before.

Diggs looked at you with a weird expression, "Uh yeah..."

"It looks very expensive."

"Yeah, well..." he looked a bit uncomfortable, "we  - uh - we have a good friend who's a bit over the top with these things, but we just roll with it."

He sounded weird. Almost as if he was lying. You quickly shrugged it off, however, telling yourself that of course he was being honest; it would've been a weird thing to lie about. "Must be a good friend for you to spend this amount of money on his comfort," you mumbled as you watched a girl open up a bottle of ridiculously expensive vodka.

"Yes, well... come on," Diggs said and urged you to follow him.

You scanned the room as you tagged along Diggs, noticing several low-key famous people that you were sure were known for something semi-popular but that you couldn't quite place your finger on. You'd never really been the type to care for fame. Still, you turned to Diggs and asked, "hold up; are you famous or something?"

Diggs sent you a shrug, "...or something," he said mysteriously and pointed to a table in the far back, "our table is over there."

Slowly, you turned your gaze away from him with a feeling that you were definitely missing out on something. You followed the direction that he was pointing in and found a table lined with people. You quickly scanned their faces, eyes landing on Rafa almost immediately.

Just as you had expected, he was laughing obnoxiously loud, his Adam's apple bouncing up and down in his throat in time with his vociforous outbursts of laughter. He was wearing a dark suit and he had his blonde hair slightly slicked back, making him look particularly dark and handsome. It was pure sex.

Okay, you definitely needed to keep your cool.

He was chatting up a very attractive girl who was twirling her black hair between her fingers and smiling suggestively at him. His signature charming smile was in place as he leaned closer to her and whispered something in her ear. Whatever he was saying was definitely working as she kept touching his arm and batting her eyelashes seductively. He seemed to enjoy the attention, scooting closer and closer to the beautiful woman with each passing sentence. The sight of it made your stomach drop slightly.

You contemplated turning around and go back to Samantha before Rafa had had the chance to see you. Clearly, he was busy. You told yourself that you didn't want to be the reason why he was striking out with this girl who he was clearly trying to charm the knickers off - when in reality, you were angry with yourself; It was stupid of you to think that he actually wanted to see you when he hadn't stopped by since that night five weeks ago.

You took a step backwards to go back to Samantha but immediately felt Diggs standing behind you like a concrete wall. His palm came into contact with your back as he gave you a light shove between your shoulder blades, pushing you towards the table. "Hey Rafa!" he called out, "look who I found!"

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

Home Bound (Part 3)

Summary: Dean has finally moved out with Sam to Lawrence and is beginning to move on for himself when a chance coincidence changes everything for him...

Masterlist

Pairing: Dean x reader

Word Count: 2,100ish

Warnings: language, angst, injury, mention of character death, mourning, supernatural events

A/N: Written entirely in Dean’s POV. Enjoy the final part!

______

Two Months Later

“Hey,” I said, popping into the kitchen in Lawrence to see Sam and Eileen both eating greasy breakfasts. “Hangover?”

Eileen nodded and squeezed her eyes shut, Sam giving me a careful look. We’d only moved out the week before and he was still watching my every move carefully. 

“A bit. We got plenty of bacon left over,” said Sam.

“Nah. I’m gonna run into town and get some coffee, see if I can find out if any garages or construction crews are hiring,” I said.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I shouldn’t be gone more than a few hours. Want me to pick up anything?” I asked. They shook their heads and I grabbed my keys from the front table. Sam stood up as I put on my jacket and I watched him from down the hall. “Yeah?”

“There’s a garage over on Henderson. Small place. They got an opening,” he said.

“I’ll check it out,” I said. “I’ll be back by lunch.”

Ten minutes later I was parked on a side street and walking along main, hands in my black winter coat Samson had shipped back to me. Sammy had been right on that front. Back when the leviathans were trouncing around with our faces on, his parents had shown him that was the Winchester boy apparently. He said his sister was doing good and he was planning to come out soon to get to know her again. They talked most days and she was staying with her parents, not too terribly far away. He had a sneaking suspicion that she’d snapped and killed the man that took her but the evidence pointed to a home intruder that had hit her on the head and that’s what was causing the memory loss. 

I told him I’d look into it if he wanted but at the moment he was simply happy to have her safe again. And that I was keeping the coat. 

At least I’d convinced him to let me buy him a drink when he did come out for a visit.

I tugged up my collar as a light snow filtered down on the March day and spotted the coffee shop that apparently had the best pie in town. God, I hadn’t had pie in months and I was so looking forward to bringing some home.

It was around nine so the morning rush was gone when I stepped inside, the little bell going off. A few people were eating pastries and sipping on drinks at the tables but there was no line and I walked right up to the counter, taking a look to find something called cinnamon death pie on the menu. Well that was definitely on the list.

“What can I get you?” asked the girl in the baseball cap, her back to me as she wiped up some spilled coffee from the back counter. The voice sounded so familiar and I stared at her, looking her over. She stood and turned around with a smile, my eyes wide. “Coffee? Baked good? It’s all fresh.”

“Y/N?” I said and she smiled again.

“That’s what my name tag says. Wow, you are really attractive,” she said. I kept staring and she shook her head. “I’m sorry, that was...what can I get you?”

“Dean. It’s Dean,” I said. She grabbed an empty cup and jotted down my name at the top, glancing at me. She looked happy and warm and she had no idea who I was. “Um. Black coffee. I’ll take a blueberry and cinnamon death pie to go too.”

“Full pies each?” she asked, marking off the cup.

“Yeah,” I said with a thick swallow.

“The death pie is the bomb. It’s so good on cold wet days like today,” she said. She put in the order and I watched her get my coffee together. Someone brought out two boxed pies in a bag and set it on the front counter. She brought back the coffee and hummed. “Alright. That’ll be fifteen dollars even.”

“Thanks,” I said, handing out the money. I stuffed a fifty in the tip jar and her jaw practically dropped.

“Sir, that’s too much.”

“Take it. Go to school. Buy a house. Go on vacation. Just...be happy,” I said. I grabbed my things and left, ducking out the front door. I skirted around to the alley and leaned against the brick. “Fuck.”

“Dean,” she said. She was standing there in her waist apron and a t shirt, getting soaked and goosebumps covering her arms. 

“Just take the tip,” I said, trying to head down the alley when she caught up and grabbed my arm.

“Before...I thought you knew who I was. You know, the Whiltiston girl that was kidnapped,” she said. 

“What?” I said.

“I know. But...you ever just meet someone and you just have a connection? Some part of you just knows that’s the one? I know I sound nuts but the way you looked at me back there...maybe you understand what I mean,” she said.

Shit. Fucking shit. Exactly what I wanted was right in front me. When I’d finally, finally, just started to have a glimmer of not feeling like crap all the time. My first day out and of course she’s there all happy with a real family and having no idea all the horrible things she’d been through. I’d have to push her away and fast.

“Lady. You’re nuts,” I said. She frowned and bit the inside of her cheek like she did when she was upset and didn’t want anyone to know.

“I know it sounds crazy but you sounded like you knew me or something. I don’t know. I just want to talk to you for five minutes. Please. I don’t remember a lot of stuff so well. I do but there’s all these gaps. It’s like I know you. I don’t but I do. Do you understand?”

Her shirt was soaked through now and she was shaking a bit. I’d have to be mean if I wanted her gone, wanted her to forget the fuck about me.

“No,” I said, stepping up and getting right in her face. “I think you’re crazy. I don’t blame you for whatever it was that you went through but that’s not how the real world is. You’re delusional and you need serious help.”

Her eyes watered a bit and she swallowed.

“I am not crazy. I have head trauma but I am sane. I don’t even show signs of PTSD that’s how little I remember of whatever was done to me. You’re just a cruel person who wants everyone else to be as miserable as you are.”

“Fuck you,” I said. She glared at me and I knew I’d made a mistake. She was still upset but now she was pissed and for Y/N that meant no backing down. “Listen. I-”

She grabbed my collar and kissed me. Hard. After a split second it softened and she moved away, staring at me. I blinked and then she was pounding her fist against my chest.

“What the fuck is wrong with you! You were just gonna leave me here!” she said, hitting me a few times before she was kissing me again. She slid her hand down and rested her head against me, taking deep breaths. “Dean Winchester I could kick your ass right now.”

“You remember?” I asked. She nodded and looked at me. I squeezed her way too tight, hearing the gasp of air escape her as I picked her up. I set her down after a moment, shaking my head at her.

“How…” I said and she smiled.

“You know my evil parents? Apparently the witch that gave them those powers or taught them at least...she put a little curse on them. If they used their powers to harm a child and that child died before them, they’d die not too long after. A few months was all. When my old piece of shit father croaked, I came back very confused. We know that witch, De. Red head. Queen of Hell. We might be friends with her and she always was leery of people hurting kids I guess so Ro had my back I guess. I think she did magic so I wouldn’t say anything on accident to the cops.”

“So you’re okay?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m livid with you for nearly walking away from me but I’ll get over it,” she said. She shivered and I set the bag and coffee down on the ground, taking off my jacket and tugging it over her. “I like your coat.”

“Your brother gave it to me.”

“You know Sunny?” you asked. I cocked my head and she smiled. “Samson? We call him Sunny cause son.”

“Yeah. He picked me up when I woke up in the middle of Colorado. We never did quite figure out why I came back or why there.”

“It’s not a coincidence my brother was the one who happened to find you,” she said.

“No, I don’t think so either.”

“When did you come back?”

“January 8th, about midnight. I had a dislocated shoulder.”

“I dislocated my shoulder that night. I slipped on some ice when I was coming home from a late dinner with my parents. You know it took the fake dad two months to die after I had. January 8th was two months exactly after I came back.”

“You think I came back because you did?”

“I don’t know. Apparently I can still tell you’re my person even with no memories. It’s sounding more likely. We can always ask Rowenna.”

“Yes, dearie,” she said, suddenly beside us both. Y/N jumped into my side and I wrapped my arms around her. “Sorry. If I’d known...I’m a different witch now. You’re both fine. You could have called though Winchester and I would have cleared this up. Also, that smells delicious and I’m taking it.”

She bent down and took the pies before disappearing, Y/N starting to giggle.

“She took my pie!” I said.

“She did kind of bring us both back,” said Y/N. “Come on. I’ll get you some more.”

She grabbed my hand and walked me back inside, ducking behind the counter in the back. Ten minutes later she walked out with three pie boxes, her coat on and mine tucked under her arm.

“I told them I’m not feeling well,” she said, handing me the coat. I put it on and took the bag in one hand, using the other to take her hand. We walked down the street aways until we got back to Baby and she slid in the passenger seat. “There’s forks in the bag too.”

“Come here,” I said as I sat down behind the wheel, setting the bag in the back for the moment. I moved over and pulled her into my lap, brushing off a bit of melting snow from her cheek. “Don’t go away again.”

“You were ready to walk away not ten minutes ago.”

“Because I thought you’d be better off not knowing about everything you’d been through,” I said. She smiled, that soft little smile that always made me feel better.

“Some parts were bad. But it wasn’t all terrible. Some parts were really, really good,” she said. She kissed my cheek and bumped her nose to mine. “I’ll take it all if it means I get to love you again. I don’t want to ever forget that I love you, Dean.”

“Me either,” I said, holding onto her tight. “I don’t know what we’re gonna do now but you’re not going anywhere.”

“Good,” she said. She was quiet, tucking her face in my neck and I smiled for the first time in months. She was happy and safe and mine again. “Want to drive to the park and eat pie in the backseat like we used to on rainy days?”

“Absolutely, sweetheart. That sounds like the best day ever. I’m so happy you came home to me.”

“Me too, Dean. Me too.”

________

[southslates]

leave our lovers / ao3 / 2209 words / one-shot / post-canon / kanej / rated T / tw major character death & suicide attempt

He had been waiting at the docks.

He always was. The routine was that she’d pull up and he’d wait on the docks and then she would try to sneak up on him, but he’d see her and pull away. And then they’d hold hands, or hug, or kiss on the cheek. Depending on the year.

It’d been six years. Kaz thought he might be able to manage the lips today. He’d practiced, thought through the moment, the motions. He would do it—he would kiss the love of his life as she returned today, and he’d feel peace. Her last letter had come a week ago and she’d told him that she wasn’t sure how many journeys she had left at sea. She’d done her work cleaning the oceans out of slavers and set up a network of ships that were doing the job as well. Perhaps just another year or two, she’d written, and then I will spend my time with my family and in Kerch, of course.

It had been an opening. That was what Inej had written; what she had meant was commitment. She had told him I am going to stay with you and not leave you. She had told him I am never yours but I will keep coming back. She had listed out plans about what she would do with the children she collected on her travels, the schools and orphanages she wanted to run under the Dregs’ protections. She’d not even questioned his support.

Kaz and Inej were partners, after all. Sometimes he felt as though he’d left the beating part of his cold heart out on the ocean with her. When she came back he felt as though he was reunited with his soul.

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to see the fluttering of red in her cheeks, he wanted to hear that magical laugh as she pulled back from him; she’d ask really Kaz, you’re doing this here, or perhaps, I love you.

He’d never said the words but he wanted to. He wasn’t a seventeen-year-old kid anymore—he wanted a future. He was pulling the Dregs into a legitimate business, he was ruling the Slat and half the Financial District. He was in good books with the Fjerdan and Ravkan governments. This country was his. He wanted to be hers.

Her ship rounded the horizon and his breath caught.

It was minutes later that Kaz realized something was wrong. There was a somber look about the crew on deck. Inej normally wasn’t on top, but quite a few of her hands were, and none were. He ran scenarios through his mind and tried to wonder what could have occurred—perhaps the ship was slightly wrecked? The Wraith looked fine to him, but he was no sailor. He hated the sea.

The boat docked. He held his cane carefully out and turned a cold-eye to Specht. “What’s occurred?”

“Sir . . .” Specht choked. He looked right into Kaz’s eyes—nobody ever did that. “Sir . . .”

Something terrible, dark, indescribable—something like Jordie—fell into the pits of Kaz’s stomach. “Specht?” he croaked in his rasp.

Inej had usually attempted to sneak up on him by this time. He could see her. Ever since that first night at the Menagerie he’d always been able to feel her, thrumming around him, comforting. He couldn’t feel her.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” Specht choked. “I’m so, so sorry.”

On the ship’s deck, two of the burly hands pulled a body—clothed in cotton, wrapped in sheets—out from below deck.

Kaz could make out a braid.

Kaz turned and walked away.

When was the last time Kaz Brekker had cried?

Perhaps about Jordie, all those years ago. All those fucking years ago. And now the Reaper’s Barge was streaming down his face. He went back to the Slat and dragged himself up all of the stairs—his newest office was Per Haskell’s, on the bottom floor, but he still kept the one in the attic. It was their room. He picked the door open and then opened it and slid against it and looked at the window.

He could see her there, feeding the crows. Laughing, smiling, facing him. Come on, Kaz. I know they’ll love you. Living things hate me. I don’t hate you. Thank you, darling. She’d been magic. He’d felt it all drain from him—money, vengeance, Jordie’s voice. He’d been surrounded by nothing but her.

Kaz sat against his door and he didn’t move. He cried. He’d made his bed in this room for her last night. The cabinet at the side had some of her clothes. He had her toothbrush. They hadn’t made it that far but they’d been able to sleep in a bed across from each other, holding hands, waking up to see each other.

He'd never kissed her.

He’d never told her he loved her.

And now she was—

Kaz got up. He walked to his desk and took out a pen and a piece of paper and he wrote to Nina. He didn’t know what he was asking for. Can you come? Can you give me one more chance? Can I—

He threw it into the trash. He swallowed. He knew Nina couldn’t bring back the dead. He needed to tell Inej that he loved her. What if she hadn’t known? Why hadn’t he told her before? You are so weak, Kaz Brekker. What kind of man couldn’t tell his girl what she meant to him? And now she was gone.

Now everything was gone. Something knocked at his door. Someone called for him. Jesper or Wylan. Kaz could only see hazily. His locks would hold them. He reached for his safe and pulled out a stack of letters. I think the Slat gets cold, she’d written, wouldn’t your leg fare better in another part of town? She’d written: do you think we could stay in another district, Kaz? Do you think we could ever be more than Dirtyhands and his Wraith?

“Yes,” he said aloud. He had never spoken to Jordie’s ghost, nor his father’s or mother’s. This felt the same and different. He wondered if she was here with him. Would she be with him?

Jesper was pounding at his door. “Kaz!”

He read the letter. He read the letter a thousand times. He soaked up everything. I think I’ve grown a fondness for paintings from Shu Han. They have such an interesting quality to them. He’d stolen one from a mercher’s house two days ago. It was rolled up under his bed. The opposite of Heleen, if you will. There’s so much terrible in the world. I haven’t kept in much contact with Zoya. Let me know how she is when you get back, of course. I miss your terrible stew. Do you think we could visit Ravka next summer? I think if all goes well I’ll have three months at home.

She’d signed off: Yours, Inej.

Kaz read the letter a thousand times, a million. He read it until those words were imprinted in his mind. Then he threw it out his window and watched it fall. Then he fell.

“You need to tell her parents,” Wylan said gently. Kaz sat still. He felt glassy. He hadn’t moved in hours. “We can push off the ceremony till they come. She said she wanted to be cremated and then placed into Fifth Harbor."

Kaz’s voice did not creak. “She said?”

Wylan nodded. Then he handed Kaz a piece of paper, something limp, a page broken off a map. “Specht said this was for you. They didn’t open it.”

Kaz took it and kept staring forward. Wylan took in a deep breath. “I’d ask if you’re okay.”

“Why aren’t you?”

“I can only imagine. What do you need?”

“Merchlings to leave me alone.”

Wylan left the study and turned to look at him with a sad frown. “Don’t do anything stupid, Kaz. It’s not what she would have wanted.”

Kaz Brekker always had a reason. It was how he’d built the Slat from nothing.

Kaz Rietveld no longer had a reason.

I coddle my grudges, Kaz thought. He was in his room. He stared into the mirror and then at his hands. They were ungloved, pale and clean and dirty. I treat them with respect and let them have minds of their own. I let justice right itself.

He could almost see a face in the mirror, behind him, cloaked. He wanted to turn to her, to see Inej. She wasn’t coming back. Why did you leave me here? a part of him thought. I’m alone. What do I do now?

He had nobody left. Not that he wanted anybody. He looked into the mirror and saw something else behind him. He was not alone.

Death serves no man, Jordie had said. Kaz had proved him wrong, or thought he had.

“I won,” he said into the mirror, at the ghost behind him who wasn’t there. “Greed bows to me, and death will too. I won. There has to be a way. If I won then, I can find a way now. You’re with me. Let her be with me.”

“I am not her. That wasn’t the fight. You know it.”

Some part of Kaz had always known that he would come out of his youth unscathed. He could say that in retrospect, but he genuinely felt it—luck, risks, the cards were on his side of the game. He didn’t believe in gods, but perhaps something—someone—had been watching over him. Or perhaps he’d truly mastered the art of thinking ten steps before everyone else, of trading in information. Perhaps he was human and it was all his mind. But Dirtyhands could not bring back the dead.

“Yes it was,” he said. The shade behind him laughed. Jordie was always so cruel to him.

“Oh, no,” it crooned. “You have not won. You will be alone always and then you will die. Death serves no man, Kaz Rietveld.”

Inej’s parents came. Kaz didn’t talk to them. He had no words to say. He watched her cremation from a roof.

He had the paper in his pocket. He hadn’t read it. If he was to open it, it would be the end. There would be no coming back.

He opened it. It had four words. He closed it and tucked it into his shirt’s pocket. His breath caught for a final time. He jumped off the roof and his knee buckled. He had been next to this same building when he’d heard Inej’s cries and gone to pick her up six years ago. He’d called her an investment. He choked. He saw Inej’s parents release her into the ocean. He went back to the Slat.

Kaz Rietveld no longer had a reason. He ignored Anika and Pim. He went to his room and sat at his window. He reached under his bed and threw the Shu painting out of the window. He made sure Inej’s side of the bed was neat. He opened his cabinet’s left drawer and took out two loaves of bread. He tossed those outside of the window too.

Do you believe in magic, Kaz? It’s all just tricks. You know that, I know that. I don’t think it’s all tricks. You’re not normal, Kaz. The way you do it—it isn’t normal. Don’t tell me you think that I’ve got magic hands? Kaz! Inej. Come here. That night he’d unbraided her hair. He’d laid her down to sleep. She’d kissed his cheek.

Six months and I’ll be seeing you again. Tell me you’ll miss me. I’ll miss you. Oh, progress? There’s no reason to hide truths. No games, Inej. I’ll miss you too. Once a week? Once a week. Write in more detail, too. I know more happens to you than you say. Jesper writes to me too, you know. Get some sleep, Wraith. Wake me up before you go.

She hadn’t. He’d slept to her hand in his. He looked to his bed now. If he closed his eyes he could see her. He looked at the crows. He thought about magic.

He unlocked his desk and took out a pistol. She’d had it made for him in Novyi Zem. There were crows embedded onto it. He’d never used it.

Kaz Rietveld no longer had a reason. He closed his eyes and pressed the pistol to one side of his head.

I think I’d like to live somewhere else. Wouldn’t it be nice? To escape the city and spend my old age in the countryside? I think I’ll die young. And I think you’ll cheat death. Living is what’s hard, Kaz. Remember that.

Do you believe in magic? I think you’re magic. I think we’re magic.

“I love you,” he whispered. When he opened his eyes she wasn’t there. “I’ll be there for you.”

He almost pressed the trigger. He didn’t press the trigger. He went to his desk and sat down. He pulled out four words from his pocket.

Kaz. Live for me.

He put the pistol away. He swallowed. He held Sankt Petyr to his chest and prayed to whatever god would grant her good fortune.

[joheun-saram]

To Make A Power Couple (knj) | 05

Chapter 5: 30 under 30

previous | masterlist | next

Summary- After a bout of long distance our couple reunites for a weekend where they are both invited to the Forbes 30 under 30 celebration.

word count- 13k 😅

pairing- idol!namjoon x ceo!reader

rating- R

genre- series, slow burn, fluff, smut, strangers2lovers, angst (😱)

warnings- alcohol consumption, softdom!Joon, oral sex (f. receiving), orgasm denial, explicit sex, hints towards depressive mindset, overworking

a.n- new chapter? NEW CHAPTER! AND THERE’S ANGST?! I would like to point out that the Namjoon’s struggles in this chapter are in no way meant to reflect the real Namjoon’s thoughts. This is a fictional character. I use writing as an outlet to work through my own issues so the only headspace they accurately reflect is my own at times. If you relate, or need someone to talk to you, my messages are open - I’m here for you!

Thank you so much for the love you all have given this series so far! I’m loving writing this! Also, I’m still simping for this couple and writing the last two scenes was heartbreaking.

s/o to @moccahobi​ for beta reading! ily!

Feedback much appreciated! 💕

taglist - @beach-bitch-bitch-beach​, @sscheherazadee, @rjsmochii​, @jinjccns, @joyful-jimin @sideblogger​ @agustdpeach @diamonddia-mond

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“So how much do I have to bribe Sejin to let us be in the same room for the Forbes thing?” You settled in bed, wearing one of your boyfriend’s t-shirts, as you Facetimed him a few countries away, his scent making you feel closer to him. To say his comeback had him busy was an understatement. Since the night you two had agreed on labeling your relationship, you only had a few weeks together to cuddle, visit your favorite places, and argue philosophies of the books you were reading, before being thrown into a long-distance relationship. First, your investor meetings had you traveling from San Francisco to Seoul every few weeks and then he set out on the Asian leg of his promotions and mini-tour. The days that you were in the same city were spent staying in bed and ordering take-out (mostly jjajangmyeon to satisfy Namjoon’s cravings), alternating between his apartment and yours.

“Literally nothing? Obviously we’re in the same room! He’s not gonna stop me from staying with my girlfriend who I haven’t seen in like two months.” He looked tired, his brows creased as he massaged his shoulder. Your heart panged wishing you could be there to massage it for him.

“Oh. But what if we get caught?” This was not a new concern. Since day one, you had to ensure that all your dates were private, pretending you both were single at events you were obligated to attend. He had an image to portray and although it sometimes weighed on you that you always had a group of friends with you whenever you went out in public and that you couldn’t hold hands during your outings, you respected him too much to tarnish his career.

“By who? The room service guy?” He rolled his eyes as he now started to punch his shoulders.

“Yes, or fans who hack the security system. I remember some One Direction fans doing that.” You pretended as if some of those fans were not your old university friends. You don’t talk to them anymore, but you have to admit it was hilarious seeing a group of coders hunched over their computers to get access to grainy pictures of Harry Styles walking in the hallways.

“You are so paranoid. We’ll be fine, baby. Trust me.” He dismissed you with a huff as he finally let go of his shoulders and moved on to removing his makeup.

“Also, I didn’t know you told your company.” You both had decided to wait to tell BigHit about your relationship until you were done with this long-distance leg, opting to go in together to announce it. Neither of you wanted to go public so you assumed the meeting was going to be quick and painless.

“I told people who needed to know. Hyung included.” He shrugged.

“Aww, I was looking forward to sneaking around some more!” You joked as he carried his phone to the bathroom to wash his face.

“You’re annoying.” He whined as he put on copious amounts of skincare before dropping on his hotel bed like a brick. Looking at his bare face, his dark circles and tired eyes were much more evident. Tonight’s show must have been really hard on him.

“Aw, do you miss me, baby?” You cooed, hoping to make him laugh. You wanted to hug him, cuddle with him as the little spoon as you usually did when he had a hard day, but all you could do at the moment was make jokes and hope that was enough. Shit, you missed him.

“I always miss you. Phone sex sucks.” He sighed, making himself comfortable among the pillows.

“I knew it! You only like me for the sex.” Just give me one laugh Namjoon, come on. A chuckle, anything!

“Yes and your sexy brain, pretty girl.” He laughed lightly as he stared at you through the screen, the longing in his eyes mirroring yours.

“Hey! That’s my line!” You giggled, relieved to see the crease between his brows finally disappear.

“Fuck! Three more days!” He said excitedly, shaking the phone in his hand making him look more like a crazed anime character with his new pink hair and lopsided glasses than your boyfriend.

“Three more days!” you squealed.

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Your body ached from the thirteen-hour flight as you walked through the lobby of the Metropolitan Detroit hotel with Siwon. Grateful for how organized Namjoon’s company was, you seamlessly checked in and made your way to your suite, dropping off your stuff before meeting Siwon at his to go over the weekend itinerary. Even though you knew he was still in the air since the boys and his flight wasn’t due to land for another five hours, you texted him your safe arrival.

Over the past four months since the gala, Jiyoung’s hard work had started to pay off. You were no longer an unknown entity controlling a company; you were now an “influencer entrepreneur”. Your personal social media, now closely tied to the company, showcasing not only usual photos of you at museums and galleries (courtesy of Namjoon’s camera) but photos of you in boardrooms and speaking at events (courtesy of Siwon’s camera). You had significantly surpassed your corporate accounts in followers over a month ago, with a steady stream coming in after your interview in a fashion magazine of all things (apparently your “street style” was deemed a breath of fresh air for businesswomen) and another stream coming in when you were invited to this year’s class of Forbes 30 under 30. 

Although you usually didn’t care for flashy awards such as this, Jiyoung had worked overtime on your nomination and the fact that you were one of the ten people invited from Korea made you pretty happy. The coverage and clout that came with your invite had made you a role model for young female entrepreneurs and that was something you were actually proud of. When you started out there were barely any female mentors and you wanted to change that, give back to other young women running their own ventures. You were excited to meet women around your age who you could relate to this weekend. This was one of the first years that there were this many women invited, making up almost 40%, and your extroverted self was buzzing. Of course, an added bonus was that out of the ten winners from Korea, one was your boyfriend and six were his bandmates, who were slowly but surely becoming your close friends as well. You had been looking forward to this weekend since it was announced a month ago.

Arriving at Siwon’s room you ordered some lunch and planned out the weekend. Tonight was a free night where you could explore the city and the pre-festival activities, although to be honest after almost two months apart, the only thing you’d be exploring tonight was your boyfriend. Tomorrow would be a brunch meet for all the winners followed by a gala in the evening filled with dancing, dinner, and drinks. Then the next day was the festival, which you were still undecided about wanting to attend or not.

“Honestly, it’s up to you. It seems pretty useless to attend if you want to hang out with Namjoon instead.” Siwon offered as you both started on a pro-con list for reasons to attend.

“I don’t know. What if there are some big clients we could get?” Although you missed him dearly, there was no way you could forgive yourself if you let your heart cloud your judgment.

“Yes, we can definitely teach Detroit some English.” Siwon rolled his eyes. “Most of the companies here are tech companies, too small for our caliber. Take a break. This month’s been tough.”

As much as you wanted to disagree with Siwon, he wasn’t wrong. This past month has probably been the toughest month for you in terms of deadlines and stress in the past two years. With the added pressure of maintaining a public persona, your days at the office had stretched from the usual ten hours to sixteen. Most of the time you would be holed up at your desk going through proposals or stuck in meetings with your board as you planned strategies after strategies for expansion into Japan only to get shut down and asked to reassess by one or multiple of them. On top of that, your evenings were booked with conferences where you were invited to speak, given your new spotlight. Most times when you reached home you barely had the energy to change as you fell into bed, falling asleep under ten minutes, usually with Namjoon on the phone as he went through similar motions. You were stressed. Even this short trip was cutting into your time and although you had made good use of the plane’s wifi to work, there was still one proposal that you would have to finish sometime this weekend. Suddenly, the idea of not going to the festival was looking better, so you relent to Siwon as you bid him goodbye and make your way back to your room.

After a quick shower, you decided to work on the proposal before Namjoon arrived but soon as you sat on the desk typing away, the exhaustion of the day caught up with you, and with your head on the table, you drifted to a dreamless sleep.           

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Namjoon hadn’t been this excited in a long while. He could barely focus on the conversation in the car as he followed the little blue dot on his phone that was showing the way to the hotel. He had texted you as soon as he landed but you hadn’t responded and he was getting a bit antsy.

“Namjoon! Are you paying attention? Hey! I’m talking to you!” He begrudgingly looked up from his phone to see Jin pouting at him annoyed that he missed his comment. He rolled his eyes at him as he launched into a rant about him never listening to his stories. How Jin had this much energy after a twelve-hour flight was lost on him.  

“Let him be. He’s just excited to see Y/N.” Yoongi spoke, not even bothering to open his eyes. Although Namjoon was glad that Yoongi had his back, he wished he hadn’t said anything because suddenly everyone forgot about their long flight and started cooing. He felt himself get annoyed as their teasing increased but he couldn’t help the goofy grin that made its way to his face. He couldn’t be mad at them, they all had people at home they were missing, and he was lucky that unlike them he could get a break from missing you and actually hold you in his arms. He wouldn’t tell you but initially, his company had decided to send in their regrets for this event but he may or may not have convinced them to move the shoot for their new music video that was taking place in Los Angeles to next week so they could be here this weekend. If he had to just see you through his screen for another month he was going to go crazy. If it was up to him he would not leave your side at all the next three days.

Namjoon had to restrain himself from sprinting to his room as soon as he was handed the key card. He barely noticed a few of his members following him as he opened the door to spy you hunched over the desk in the corner of the large room, your laptop displaying multiple pictures of your friends and the both of you together. He figured you were asleep but he couldn’t wait to gently wake you up as he usually did, instead opting for screaming a loud “baby” and running to hug your sleeping form.

What he didn’t expect was for you to wake up so startled that you scream and elbow him in the ribs making him stumble backward till his butt met the floor, much to the entertainment of Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook who were cackling in the background.

“Oh my god! Joon?” He could see your face go from confusion to recognition and then into one of the most beautiful smiles he had seen as your puffy eyes go wide. “Joonie!”

You launched yourself from your chair into his arms as you collapsed on top of him in something between a hug and a cuddle as both of you fell to the floor erupting in giggles. Your scent enveloped him and he could feel himself getting delirious. He didn’t know whether it was the long flight or the long-distance but his heart felt like it was going to explode in his chest. He hadn’t been this happy in a long while.

“I missed you!” He exclaimed as he peppered aggressive pecks on top of your head, his arms around your shoulders tightening, making you squirm and laugh. Above you the maknaes squealed a chorus of “cute!”, cooing loudly.

“I missed you more!” You countered, grinning into his chest, before attempting to get up only to be pulled in tighter after Namjoon’s whine. “Babe, we have the whole weekend!”

“Hey! We missed her too! I want a hug!” Jimin mock yelled at Namjoon, who was now sitting up with you on his lap, still not letting you go.

“No. Get your own Y/N.” He pouts, placing a kiss to your shoulder as you giggle. You hadn’t seen this cute clingy side before and you were sure you had heart eyes. Ignoring his whining you managed to wriggle yourself out of his grip and stood up, greeting the boys. You barely talked for five minutes before Namjoon got impatient again and suggested “as their leader” they go rest after the long flight. You all made plans to meet up for dinner and drinks later that night to properly catch up.

You waved bye to the boys as Namjoon pushed them out the door, ignoring their groans. As soon as the door was closed, he grabbed you by the waist, his lips crashing into yours. The kiss was hungry, all tongues, teeth, and desperation. Your arms went around his neck, fingers pulling at his hair as his hands moved lower, groping your ass in an attempt to pull you even closer, grinding against you and making you moan into the kiss. Soon Namjoon was pinning you against the wall, his hands roaming all over your body as yours do on his.

“Missed my pretty girl,” Namjoon says after a few minutes, beaming and panting, his forehead against yours, his hand caressing your sides. Hearing your favorite nickname makes you melt. Even though his heart is beating a mile a minute, heat encasing his body, he hasn’t felt this relaxed in months. Just being in your presence puts him at ease.

“I really missed you.” You reach up to kiss him again, slower this time allowing yourself to relish him after being deprived for so long. He returns the kiss just as tenderly, making your heart melt in your chest as he cups your face, thumbs running over your cheeks. Even though things had started heated, this is what you truly missed, just being in each other's presence.

When you break the kiss, he lifts you up bridal style as you squeal, your arms automatically going around his neck. He grins at you, making you feel the same butterflies you had when you first met him as you poke his dimples, and he carries you to the bed, gently placing you among the pillows before kissing you again.

He was on top of you as you kissed, and you had almost forgotten what it felt to have him there with you as your tongues wrestled, his weight cushioning you to the mattress. Your hands reached the hem of his shirt, pulling it upwards till he sat on his knees to remove it, looking at you with his signature smirk as you ran your hands up his body, feeling the contours of his muscles, enjoying the way his chest flexed under them. That is until his smirk turned into one of the biggest yawns you had ever witnessed.

“Am I boring you, Joonie?” You saw his face flush as he looked at you sheepishly before leaning back over you and kissing your lips before moving on to your jaw.

“I read somewhere that yawns are just your brain's way of getting more oxygen” He whispered while gently kissing your neck, making you moan, as his hands moved under your shirt, roaming over your chest. “And all my blood’s somewhere else now so it makes sense” He kissed your ear, making you giggle.

“Wow your dirty talk sure has gotten scientific.” You couldn’t hold back your laughter as you processed what he had just said, your moans turning into cackles. He nipped at your ear as he leaned up to look at you, a goofy grin on his face.

“I’m out of practice!” He shrugged and pretended to glare at you but it only lasted a few seconds before he started laughing again because this time it was you who was yawning. Somehow the earlier sexual tension fades into comfort as you both get caught into a yawn loop.

“Maybe we should just nap first” you suggest pulling him back to you as you peck his lips.

“I do feel like I do better when I’m well-rested.” He lays on his side pulling you into him, one arm under your head and one around your waist. You hum in approval as you cozy up into him. You kiss as you slowly doze off, the adrenaline of your reunion wearing off into a soft glow of contentment.

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“Y/N! You have to call me oppa. We’re close enough! Stop calling me Mr. Seokjin!” You rolled your eyes as Jin yelled from the couch across from you. You had hung out with him quite a few times and every time he got drunk he insisted on making you call him by the term of endearment. You didn’t mind the term, in fact you called all your older male friends by it since moving to Korea, but riling up Jin till he started rapping was too funny an opportunity to pass up. 

“I can just call you Jin instead if you hate Mr Seokjin?” you smirked as the room around you burst into giggles. You were sitting on the couch in Hoseok’s room, leaning into Namjoon, his arm around your shoulders as he sipped his beer, shaking his head at your antics. After you and Namjoon had become official, you had made it a goal of yours to get to know most of his friends, as he had with yours. Before being separated, you would go out for dinners with your combined friends, and hearing them say they missed you warmed your heart. 

The first time you had had drinks together you had introduced them to King’s cup, one of your favorite drinking games from university, and their penchant for petty competitiveness and gross punishments made the game and you a regular occurrence whenever a few of you had free time together. In fact, Jungkook was so into it that he brought a deck of cards on tour to carry on the tradition, even though you had shown him multiple apps that could do the same. The same deck of cards was the one sprawled around the cup filled with Taehyung’s strawberry daiquiri, Siwon’s IPA, and Yoongi’s whiskey on the coffee table. No one was looking forward to pulling the next king card. 

The room was a bit crowded, filled with people. Although dinner was just you and the boys catching up, everyone had decided to invite the boys’ stylists and managers, as well as Siwon, for drinks. Hoseok had lost the game of rock, paper, scissors so he was made the begrudging host. 

“I’m older than you. You can’t call me just Jin!” he pouted, red cheeks puffed and arms crossed across his chest.

“Yeah by five months!” This is how this argument always went. It was pretty much scripted at this point, as evident by Taehyung who was gleefully mouthing the words before they even came out of your mouths. He’ll argue that Yoongi still called him hyung, you’d retort that’s because Jin forced him and that he was dumb for following through, Yoongi would then interrupt saying that he was still one month older than you and you’d rile up Jin more by calling Yoongi oppa the rest of the night while he would complain about you disrespecting Korean culture and you’d annoy him by telling him that he was disrespecting Canadian culture by not letting you use just his first name. You’d finally relent after seeing him stew only to pick up the same argument the next time you all drank together.

“Stop arguing and pick a card!” Hoseok whined, his sweet demeanor slowly phasing into his zombie persona with each sip of his drink. You loved hanging out with him but the man could not handle his alcohol. Namjoon kind of felt bad that Hobi was the host. He would normally offer him his bed once he inevitably passed out but Namjoon had other plans for his bed once this party was over.

Jin obliged as he picked up a card, careful not to break the circle lest he was forced to down his concoction of mini bar liquor and fruit punch. He picks up a jack, requiring him to start a game of Never Have I Ever.

“Alright, never have I ever disrespected Kim Seokjin.” He said smugly, looking straight at you egging you on to drink. You oblige by raising your glass to him before sipping your drink. To Jin’s annoyance, almost everyone else did that same thing, causing him to grumble.

“Okay that was a boring waste of a question,” Jimin states, rolling his eyes, already drunk sitting on the couch’s arm next to Namjoon. “Let’s make the couples here uncomfortable. Never have I ever had sex in public.”

Surprisingly, Namjoon, you and a stylist are the only ones that drink, making Jimin scream a loud “Kinky!” and prompting Sejin to start his lecture on being careful in the public eye since you were pretty known now and the press would have a field day. Before he can get into the full swing of his chiding, you decide to save you and Namjoon by protesting that you didn’t even hold his hand in public, let alone do anything else, and suddenly the whole atmosphere in the room changed. All eyes went from Namjoon to the stylist, with him glaring at Jimin and her awkwardly downing her drink before leaving. Confused and drunk, you don’t hesitate to ask what’s wrong in the silence that ensues, till it finally dawns on you. That’s the ex he worked with. Oh.

Namjoon could see the gears turning in your head as you put two and two together. He was going to kill Jimin and then himself. Why didn’t he think before taking a sip? He wanted tonight to end with you in his arms, not with you mad at him over something that happened two years ago. However, before he could think of how to make it up to you - maybe he could get you flowers or that whiskey you really like - you laugh, breaking the tension in the room.

“It’s okay guys, everyone has exes!” Still giggling you sip your drink while Jimin apologizes, waving him off. “Why would I get mad at this?”

That caused the room to return back to normal, people resuming the game and enjoying their drinks, but Namjoon was still confused. He knew you were a pretty rational person, but he had just told the whole room of your friends that he fucked his ex in public when you confirmed that he wouldn’t even hold your hand. Surely, he wasn’t wrong to assume that you would be at least a little peeved, but here you were laughing along at Jungkook’s stupid jokes without batting an eyelid. Before he could dwell too long on it, it was your turn to pull a card - pulling a king and effectively ending the game.

“Ewwww. I hate this. Ugh. Is this punishment for introducing you all to this game?” You scrunch your nose sniffing the liquid in the cup as the whole group chants “chug!”. Before you can put it to your lips, Namjoon grabs the cup from you.

“Allow me.” He says as he chugs the drink, almost in one shot, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and barely concealing the shiver that runs through him at the disgusting taste. Half the crowd boos as the other half coos at the chivalrous gesture. You can’t help smiling sweetly at him as he grimaces, and putting your arms around his waist pulling him in an embrace, exclaiming an overly exaggerated “My hero!”.

“Anything for my girl!” He says as he returns your hug and cups your face. “But you gotta suffer the taste with me!”

You’re not one for public displays of affection but you let him pull you into a sloppy kiss, almost forgetting your surroundings as he deepens it, his hand gripping your waist, his tongue tasting mostly of fake strawberry flavoring. Before you can get too carried away, you are interrupted by Yoongi, poking you both and wedging himself between you when you separate.

“Stop being gross! Some of us are single!” He says, making himself comfortable with an annoyed look on his face. 

“Awww hyung! They are so cute! Let them be gross!” A drunk Taehyung exclaims, clapping gleefully from the floor where he’s laying in Jungkook’s lap.

“Yeah! Rapmon hyung and Y/N noona are OTP!” Jungkook says as he sips his wine, almost dribbling it down his chin.

“Nobody says OTP anymore, kid.” Yoongi drawls but refuses to move from his position. “Plus I’m the one responsible for this okay? Your OTP would be nothing without me.” He looks smug as he finishes his sentence, sipping his drink and shrugging his shoulders. Namjoon and you exchange a smirk at his remark and proceed to hug your grumpy friend tightly from both sides much to his over the top protests. Namjoon was truly grateful Yoongi had given him the courage to speak to you that night. He can’t even begin to explain the impact you have made on his life. As he looked at you tipsy and giggling, now arguing with Yoongi over which Kanye album was the best, he felt his heart blossom. You were beautiful and he was in love with you. He was sure you weren’t there yet but he promised himself that before this trip was over he was going to tell you without chickening out at the last moment like the last four times. 

The party comes to an end soon after. Hoseok almost passes out after his third nursed drink and Sejin has the right mind to kick everyone out while Namjoon and Jimin help Hoseok to his bed, your heart warming as your equally drunk boyfriend forces him to brush his teeth and get into bed. Once Hoseok is firmly tucked in, Namjoon turns to you and squats.

“Get on!” He smiles looking at your direction.

“Joon we’re like two doors down. Get up!” You giggle tipsily at his offer to piggyback you.

“I wanna carry you!” He pouts against your protests, finally giving up on the piggyback after asking three times and instead draping you over his shoulder as you squeal. 

“You’re gonna hurt your shoulder!” You scream but your protests go unheard, even as you take the opportunity to smack his butt from your position, a smack that he returns with a warning to behave, but you’re feeling drunk and cheeky as you continue to smack him, even going so far to rap to the beat that you’re making as he unlocks the door to your room.

He tosses you on the bed, pinning your arms above your head before you can wrap them around him and smirks at you, his eyes full of mischief.

“See, I was going to apologize for my ex but you had to go and be a brat.” He kisses you breathless as he takes both your hands in one of his while the other moves under your shirt, raising goosebumps where it caresses your stomach.

“Apologize for what?” You pant as he breaks the kiss, and he can see the confusion on your face.

“You’re not mad?” Now it’s his turn to be confused. He was sure you were mad. He would’ve been mad. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t still thinking about it since the awkward incident.

“That you had sex with your ex-girlfriend while you were dating her?” You do a dramatic gasp as you giggle at his dumbfounded expression.

“Yeah… and told our friends about it.” He looks at you sheepishly, his earlier dominant persona fading into your soft boyfriend. His hand loosens its grip on yours as he searches your eyes for any signs of hurt, his eyebrows scrunched.

“Joon you fuck too good to have been a virgin when we met.” You lift one hand to poke at the crease between his brows as you laugh and he holds your wrist, still gauging your expression.

“You’re not mad? Or… jealous?”

“Pfft. I know I fucking rock your world better than she ever did.” You try your best to do a hair flip from where you lay under him, failing miserably and making him laugh, his head coming to rest on your shoulder.

“That you do, baby. That you do.” He pecks your shoulder as he moves to your neck, kissing up to your jaw before crashing his lips onto yours. As your hands go to his hair, he brings them back over your head, breaking your kiss but not before pulling your lower lip with his teeth, coaxing a moan from you. “But you’re still getting spanked for being a brat.”

You feel his deep voice reverberate through to your core as you look at the lust in his eyes and feel yourself getting wetter. He kisses you again, his arm hooking under your waist as he sits up pulling you with him, making you gasp at the sudden movement, your arms going around his neck. Your heart’s beating a mile a minute as you make out in his lap, grinding slowly. Even after months of being together you still can’t get used to how easily his switch to this persona turns you to putty. You whimper as his hands find your ass, his fingers groping the muscle hard enough to bruise.

“Get naked.” If you were wet before, you’re dripping now as he moves you off his lap, sitting on the edge of the bed, his legs spread and leaning on his elbows. You decide to make a show of it, jumping off the bed and slowly peeling off the layers. You smile over your shoulder as you rid yourself of your bra, watching him smile, eyes hooded, from where he watches relaxed. Your hands find the waistband of your jeans, slowly unbuttoning them and shimmying out of them, swaying your hips as you do. You’re sure you would find this strip tease embarrassing if it weren’t for how his hungry eyes drink in every expanse of new skin exposed. You bend down to give him a view of your ass as you pull your panties off, a thread of your slick following them as they reach the floor, making him groan loudly. “Fuck. I love your ass.”

You drape yourself on his lap, the material of his jeans on your bare skin making you shiver in excitement as he gently caresses your behind. “Since you love rapping so much, how about you rap that song from earlier, hmm?” he says as he lands a loud smack without warning making you jump at the contact. The sharp pain quickly ebbs into pleasure as he soothes the heated skin under his big palm. “What’s your safeword?”

“Rap monster.” That is not your safeword, but your drunk self thinks it’s the funniest joke as you giggle looking up at him to see his face crack into the smallest of smiles before reverting back to a stern look as he glares at you.

“Seems like someone doesn’t want to cum tonight.” He smacks you again, harder this time making you gasp before you’re apologizing at his threat. Namjoon watches your skin bloom red as he tries to maintain his composure. Trust you to make jokes even when he’s spanking you, and trust him for finding it funny.

“Sunflower! It’s sunflower!” you yell as his hand lands yet again on your ass.

“Good girl. Let’s hear that rap then.” You’re not even sure what song you’re mumbling as his hand rains on your behind, each spank making you wetter till you’re dripping down your thighs and whimpering in his hold.

“Fuck so wet for me.” He hisses as his fingers trace your swollen folds making you jump and mewl as he lightly caresses your throbbing clit. He leans down to kiss your red cheeks as he guides you off his lap and on to the bed and lies on top of you, smiling brightly as he cups your face to kiss you, slow and deep. “You did so well, baby. You’re really into ASAP nowadays aren’t you?”

“You really need some variation in the playlists you send me.” You quip, chuckling as you gently guide his face back to yours, kissing him again, his tongue intertwining with yours. As he leans on one elbow, his other hand makes its way down your body, stopping briefly to tweak each nipple and making you moan before he reaches the apex of your thighs. His fingers dip in you slightly gathering your arousal before starting to circle your clit as he starts kissing your neck, suckling the spot he knows makes you go crazy. It’s like your whole body’s on fire as he finds a rhythm, driving you quickly towards the edge, your mind turning blank as eyes squeeze shut and your lips moan his name. You’re so close and he can feel it by how your nails dig into his shoulders, making him hiss, but before you can cum he moves his hand away, bringing his fingers to his lips to clean them as he watches you glare at him with a whine.

“You really think I’ll forget your little joke earlier?” He whispers in your ear, his voice deeper than usual, as he nips on it before sitting up between your legs and unceremoniously stripping himself of his shirt and jeans. The sight of the bulge in his boxers makes your walls clench around nothing as you stare at him open-mouthed. Enjoying your reaction, he places one of your legs on his shoulders, the back of your knee fitting perfectly next to his neck as he moves back towards you, his clothed length pressing against your core as he kisses you again roughly, making you whimper as his hands dig into your sides. Your leg burns as he licks and kisses down your jaw towards your chest, his lips taking a nipple and rolling it around with his tongue. You’re sure he can feel your wetness seep through his boxers as he grinds into you agonizingly slow. He nips at your chest and you moan as your back arches off the bed into him.

He continues his slow kisses down your body turning you into a writhing mess under him. You think you’re going to lose your mind by the time he gets past your hip bone and places a chaste kiss on the top of your mound before moving on to your thigh, nibbling at the sensitive skin and paying no attention to your dripping core making a mess of the sheets.

“Joon please…” you beg, rolling your hips to entice him as he pays you no mind, placing an arm over your hips to halt your motion and continues to mark your other thigh. When he’s fully satisfied by his work, he places his forearms under your thighs and pulls to close to his face, licking a stripe from your entrance to your clit, and it’s like you’ve been electrocuted; your earlier orgasm picking back up as your back arches off the bed, the moan emitting from you barely sounding like yourself. You clasp a hand over your mouth in shock as he continues licking you, his tongue expertly flicking at your clit before he adds two fingers inside you, the digits slipping in easily, making your walls clench around them. He hooks his fingers and you try to grind against him to no success as his arm pushes your hips into the bed. He relishes your moans as your hand moves from your mouth to grasp at the sheets, the sensation too overwhelming as your eyes close shut. 

“Are you close baby? You’re not allowed to cum till I tell you.” He feels your walls tighten around his fingers as he thrusts faster and a chant of please rolls off your tongue, your hand twisting in your hair. It’s like every cell in your body is alight from your toes to your scalp, tingling as you get closer, your eyes welling up with pleasure. But once again before you can come undone, his fingers slow down to a snail’s pace, his mouth moving away. The frustration builds in you as a few tears escape and your fists punch the mattress.

He chuckles lightly as he sees you pout under him as, your hair a mess, your lips swollen and red from where you’ve bitten them. God, even glaring at him like you’re gonna kill him, you look adorable. Deciding he’s taught you a lesson, he pulls his dick out of his boxers, his tip swollen and weeping with precum, and lines it towards your entrance, teasing you further and gathering your juices.

Your eyes roll back with pleasure as he replaces his fingers with his cock, filling you to the hilt in one swift motion. The stretch combined with his teasing makes your head hazy and you can hear him groan above you as he puts both your legs in the air together, holding them against his chest with one arm as he thrusts into you slow and hard. You feel so much tighter in this position and he has to bite his lip to ensure he doesn’t cum immediately. You can feel every vein and ridge as he moves slowly and deliberately and even at this pace you are getting close.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck Joonie… please can I cum? Please I’m so close!” You don’t care that you’re yelling, you’re desperate for release, the earlier tension returning tenfold. You vow to break up with him if he denies you one more time. Fortunately for your relationship, he increases his pace, making you see stars.

“Hold it just a little bit longer baby.” His pace doesn’t falter and you’re writhing against him, a babble of incoherent pleas escaping your lips as your hands try to grab on to his forearm. Your legs are shaking and he can feel your walls tighten harder around him. He increases his speed as your pleas get louder.

“Okay baby. Cum for me.” At his command, your vision goes black and it’s like your body is one big nerve ending, pleasure zipping through you making you cry out his name as you spasm in his hold. He fucks you through your orgasm, pace not faltering, till you go limp, your breath coming out in loud pants as he praises you. “That’s my girl. Good job, baby.”

Without changing his speed, he releases your legs, pushing them to your chest as he leans down and kisses you. The new angle hitting your g-spot as you whine in his mouth at the oversensitivity, but instead of slowing down, he picks up his pace yet again, his fingers coming to trace your sensitive clit, making your head buzz with the overwhelming sensation.

“I can’t… Joon,” you whine as he fucks you hard, panting above you and you can tell he’s close.

“Do you want to use your safeword?” He looks at you with concern, slowing down and closely reading your expression. As you tell him no his hips snap into you again, his fingers working faster on your clit as the pain morphs to pleasure. He’s chasing his release, his movements becoming sloppy.

“Cum again baby. I know you can do it. Come on, that’s it” And soon you’re cumming again, screaming as tears fall down your face and your walls clench around him coaxing him to orgasm. He grunts loudly, moaning your name multiple times, as he cums, painting your walls with his seed. His breath is heavy as he pulls out and watches his cum dribble out of you, using two fingers to push it back in before he collapses on the bed next to you.

He brings his fingers up to your lips and you happily suck on them before he pulls them out and kisses you gently, his hand smoothing your hair. He then puts his arm under your head as he cuddles you into his chest, his other arm pulling your waist into him and his legs over yours. You’ve never felt safer or more comfortable than you do tangled up in him.

“Are you okay?” He asks as he gently caresses your cheek, wiping your runny mascara with his thumb, kissing you once again.

“Holy fuck. That was-” Your voice is hoarse from your screaming and you have to clear your throat a couple of times before you can speak clearly. “That was amazing.”

“Phew! The suspense was killing me!” He laughs as you playfully swat at his chest before pulling his lips on yours again. “Shower?”

“Yes. But this time you really have to carry me.” You raise your hands grabbing at the air as he stands up.

“I got you, pretty girl.” He grins widely, his eyes scrunched together, as he kisses your forehead, picking you off the bed and carrying you to the bathroom. 

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

Namjoon looked at you from across the room as you chatted with a group of women with a cup of coffee, your breakfast untouched, totally distracted from the guy who was telling him about some app he had made for producers to make it easier to find samples. He rarely got to see you in your professional element. In fact, the only time he had seen you was during the gala and he felt an unparalleled surge of pride. The way you carried yourself was so different than when you were with him. It wasn’t that you weren’t relaxed, it was just effortless - the way you seemed to answer each question with confident authority, the way you gave advice to people who were probably much older than you, and especially the way you tried to engage the quieter people of the group in conversations. It reminded him of why you had caught his eye the first time he met you, and why he was so unbelievably whipped for you. Your duality of being goofy and sexy when you were alone to being this serious vat of knowledge and experience when networking made him weak in the knees.

“So do you think you would use it?” The founder of the sampling app, Lee Seungmin, asked Namjoon. Seungmin was one of the other people invited from Korea, and seemed pretty adamant on selling his product to Namjoon. It took all of his energy to rip his gaze away from you.

“I’m sorry I missed that. What did you ask?” Namjoon asked politely, looking at the shorter, much chubbier man dressed in slacks and a shirt with his company logo on it.

“Wouldn’t blame you. She’s really hot, eh?” Seungmin jokes, making Namjoon choke on his coffee. Although he knows that this guy isn’t privy to your relationship, it makes him a little annoyed at his comment. Who was he to dare objectify you?

“Yes, but I don’t think they invite people here for their looks.” He couldn’t help how curt his tone was effectively shutting him up and making him move away to talk to someone else at the table. Namjoon would feel bad if he didn’t overhear him start the conversation about you with the next guy. Rolling his eyes, he went back to his lunch, talking to Hoseok and Yoongi instead, wishing this brunch went by faster than it did. He was getting sick of people trying to suck up to him or sell him something. Someone even had the audacity to ask him to pose with their product so they could put it on their website. He politely declined, but the thinly veiled attempts at using him and his members for clout were starting to get on his nerves. He could feel himself getting stressed, much like he did when he had to pretend to be perfect for the media, and falling back into the headspace of last month - cloudy, annoyed, and frustrated.

He was relieved when you both arrived back at the room. You held his arm for support as you leaned down to take off your heels, sighing in relief as your feet met the flat ground.

“God, I hate heels!” You exclaimed as you walked over, dropping your blazer on the ground and plopped on the couch, stretching your feet. Namjoon picked your jacket off the floor, draping it on one of the chairs as he situated himself on the other end of the sofa, putting your legs on his lap.

“Since when do you wear heels?” He asks, as he gently runs his hands over your legs, covered with a pair of navy pants.

“Too often nowadays.” You sigh with your eyes closed, and he can’t help frowning at how tired you looked, even though it’s barely past 2 pm.

“You okay, babe? Want a foot massage?” He doesn’t wait for your answer as he starts massaging your feet, smiling as you relax further into the couch.

“Shit. That feels good!” You moan as you relax. “You know they don’t give Grammys for best boyfriends, right?”

“I’m offended you think I’m doing this for something as dumb as a Grammy.” He chuckles, but he knows you well enough to know that you’re avoiding the topic. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“It’s nothing. I’m just stressed about work. Don’t worry about it.” At that you pull your legs from under his hands, walking over to grab your laptop before sitting on the couch again to start working, eyebrows furrowed as soon as you open the your laptop. Namjoon knows he shouldn’t take your dismissal to heart, but he can’t help be taken aback by your lack of openness. You always told him what was on your mind and he felt his heart ache that you didn’t want to share what was wrong. He couldn’t fully blame you. He hadn’t told you about his stresses this past month either, but unlike him, you hadn’t even noticed he was stressed. It made him a little wary, bringing his thoughts back to last night and your reaction, or lack thereof, to meeting his ex. As much as it hurt him, maybe he was right after all. You didn’t love him yet. He sighed as he got up to grab his book, hoping that he could change that before leaving you tomorrow night.

After a few hours of work, you started to feel bad for ignoring Namjoon. He had been nothing but doting this whole trip and you hated yourself for having to finish this proposal this weekend. Feeling your brain turn to mush anyways, you stretched as you walked over to your suitcase, watching your boyfriend who seemed to be engrossed in his book. You felt guilty for avoiding his questions earlier but you could see how stressed he had been from work - in fact, Jungkook had told you as much over text last week when he shared that Namjoon had collapsed during rehearsals. You knew how empathetic he was, he would do everything in his power to make sure you were feeling good, so how could you burden him with your stresses when he had so many of his own. Sure this last month had been hell and you were barely functioning but if you told him that, you know he would worry about you, and you would rather bottle everything up than have him worry.

Reaching into your suitcase, you took out his favorite packet of ramen, hiding it behind your back as you moved over to stand in front of him.

“I got you a present.” You bent down till you were face to face as he looked up at you with a smile and kissed him gently.

“I think you’ve already given me this present.” He said as he cupped your face and kissed you again, lingering longer.

You laugh as you straighten up and pull the ramen from behind your back, watching his eyes go wide in excitement as he grabs it, his dimples poking his cheeks as he hugs you. You knew he always missed home when on tour even if it was just an Asian tour, and his ramen cravings were the top priority when he arrived back to Korea. You hoped this would cheer him up as you grabbed the packet and walked over to the kettle, starting the water.

“Speaking of presents, I was saving this for tomorrow, but now I’m excited.” He says before grabbing the slim velvet box from his bag and walking over to you, wrapping you in a back hug as you pour the seasoning from the packet into the cup of dry ramen. He puts the box in front you and opens it, making it now your turn to go wide-eyed.

Inside the box is a necklace with the most delicate gold chain holding a pendant shaped like a gold slice of pizza with pepperoni made of small rubies. It would seem tacky if it didn’t look so intricate. No one had given you a gift that was so you, and it made you speechless.

“I know it’s cheesy but I saw it in Tokyo and it reminded me of our first date, but if you don’t like it I can take it back and I’m sure I can return it, I mean they gave me a gift receipt and everything.” Namjoon knew he was rambling but you were eerily quiet and the fact that he couldn’t see your face made him uneasy. 

“It’s perfect,” you whisper as you turn around, your eyes glistening as you wrap your arms around his neck. He was alarmed. You never got emotional, even when you both watched Up together you barely showed any signs of being moved while he was sobbing. 

“It was meant to be for our 100 day anniversary next week but I thought I’d give it early.” He pressed his forehead to yours, drinking in your smile as he held you tighter.

“I’m literally the worst girlfriend. I forgot about that.” You frowned as you looked away before you looked back at him, your eyes wide. “Oh my god! I only got you ramen! What the fuck is wrong with me?!”

“Y/N… Relax. I didn’t get you a present for you to get me one. Plus I know you’re nothing without your calendar app. I swear you’d forget to eat without it.” He laughed trying to reassure you as he kissed your frown away. “If anything it’s Siwon’s fault for not programming it in there.”

“I don’t deserve you.” You sigh as you hug him tightly, making Namjoon’s heart swoon as you ask him to put the necklace on you. He does so, kissing the nape of your neck where he clasps it and telling you that you deserve the world. You wanted to tell him you loved him before you chickened out again but before the words could make it out of your lips his were against them.

Later that night, he feels even happier as he sees you wear it to the gala. Even though he knows he can’t hold your hand, the fact that you have a symbol of his love for you around your neck makes him giddy.

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

“Joon, seriously. I have to get this done.” You giggle as he kisses your neck, moving the strap of your tank to the side as he continues lavishing you in kisses. Namjoon was impatient. He had spent the whole night watching you from afar. He’d be damned if he had to wait any longer to have you in his arms. Work can go to hell.

To say that Namjoon hated the gala would be an understatement. First, you and Yoongi ended up unintentionally matching, and he found himself irrationally jealous at the fact that his stylist didn’t choose the Louis Vitton outfit for him so he could match with you. Second, even though all the attendees were placed on tables according to country, you had decided to sit next to none other than Lee Seungmin, the creep checking you out at brunch, who wasted no opportunity to shamelessly flirt with you, even going so far as to put his hand on your thigh a couple of times. The number of times you politely rejected him for him not to get the hint made Namjoon’s blood boil, so much so that Jin had to poke him to relax his face lest the photographers captured his reaction. And lastly, when he had to watch you dance with some old men as you were too polite to refuse, while they leered at you. Through it all, Namjoon could just watch helplessly as you seemed more uncomfortable. Now that you were both back to your room and in your pajamas, he just wanted to hold you before all the jealousy and insecurity of the night caught up with him. He knew if he kissed your neck enough, you’d soon comply.

“Do it later. We only have till tomorrow. Let’s watch a movie together?” He gives you another kiss that makes your breath hitch, a soft moan escaping your lips. Before you can get too carried away, you move his head away from you, sighing and gathering all your self-control. If you didn’t finish this proposal today you’d be in big trouble - like losing a multimillion-dollar contract big trouble. As much as you wanted to just forget work existed, you had to take a two-hour reality check on this trip.

“I can’t do that. Please understand.” You looked at him softly, but Namjoon couldn’t help getting annoyed. Didn’t you yearn for him like he did at that gala? Were you happy to be hit on by those creeps?

“Are you seriously being like this right now?” He scoffed, pulling away from you, eyebrows knitted together. Namjoon couldn’t understand why you had to work right now. You had been apart for so long, didn’t you want to spend as much time with him as he wanted to with you?

“Like what? I told you I need to have this done by tomorrow.” He could hear the familiar edge in your voice. You were starting to get annoyed.

“Do you know how much groveling I had to do to get this weekend together and you’re going to waste it on stupid work?” He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. You didn’t know he “groveled”, as far as you were aware this was part of his schedule. Why was he being so difficult all of a sudden? It’s not like you had a choice. Does he think you would seriously spend time away from him if you didn’t have to?

“Are you seriously mad at me for taking two hours, two hours, out of three days to finish some work?”

“Yes because these three days are all we get together for the next month.” Namjoon knew he was being stupid, two hours were not a big deal, but at the moment he couldn’t help but feel abandoned like somehow the scales in the relationship had tipped where the balance of affection was off. He cared so much for you, why couldn’t you feel the same?

“Oh don’t be dramatic. I will be done soon.” You snapped, your attention turning back to the screen. If Namjoon was going to throw a tantrum there was no reason for you to indulge him.

“Don’t dismiss me like that. You’re the boss, just tell the people to wait. Or delay it.” He walked closer to you, shutting your laptop, standing with his arms crossed. He wanted your full attention, and he was going to demand it. He hated how condescending you were being.

“Are you kidding me? I can’t do that. This is for a client.” You stand up facing him, anger flowing through you, indignation plastered on your features. Even though he was significantly taller than you, your glare could have made anyone feel small.

“Just do it later and apologize.” Namjoon knew he was being stubborn, but the reason for the fight was forgotten, he just wanted you to admit that you were wrong. As childish as it seemed, he wanted to win. 

“What the fuck? I have a whole company that I need to pay, I can’t just skip shit.”

“Oh don’t give me that bullshit. Missing one deadline won’t make you miss payroll - you’re not a struggling small company anymore.” That hit a nerve, he could see it in your eyes as they flared with anger. He would feel bad for making you angry if he weren’t so happy to get a reaction.

“The fucking hypocrisy. Sure Namjoon, have RM miss a concert. It’s okay you’re not a struggling small band anymore!” You poked him in the chest as you moved closer. He hadn’t seen this side of you before. You had never been angry with him before. You had never fought like this before. Your anger only seemed to fuel his. He had no control over his schedule, you did. Why couldn’t you understand that fundamental difference?

“That is not the same thing. You are overworking yourself for no reason.” He was talking with his hands, you knew he only acted like that when he was pissed, but you were not going to have any of this petty behavior. For all his bull and bluster about being a feminist, he’s going to pull this shit on you? His job is great and not stressful or busy but when it comes to you he’s going to pull the overworking card? When he literally collapsed during rehearsal last week and hid it from you? You were livid.

“You’re going to talk to me about overworking?” You laughed sarcastically, your eyes burning. “Oh is it not the same thing because it's my job and not yours?” 

“You know that’s not what I meant. Whatever. Fuck this. Enjoy writing your proposal!” Namjoon couldn’t argue anymore. He felt his anger rising to a point where he knew he was going to say something he regretted if he hadn’t already. Using his one remaining rational brain cell, he walked out of the room, not before maliciously slamming the door behind him.

“I will!” you screamed into the empty room, panting with anger as you picked up the water bottle on your desk and threw it across the room, tears in your eyes.

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

Y/N: Have you seen Namjoon? He’s not responding.

Yoongi: Isn’t he with you?

Y/N: No.

Yoongi: What happened?

Y/N: Nothing, we just had an argument and I haven’t seen him. It’s been two hours.

Yoongi: Okay don’t worry. We’ll find him.

Y/N: Thanks Yoongs

Yoongi: Where are you?

Yoongi: Hello?

Yoongi: Namjoon. Answer your phone.

Yoongi: Y/N is really worried about you

Yoongi: Listen Namjoon if you don’t answer in the next five minutes, I’m reporting you missing

Yoongi: Enjoy that press 

Namjoon: Stop calling me. I’m fine.

Yoongi: No. Where the fuck are you?

Namjoon: I’m just on the roof.

Namjoon: Please don’t come here. I just want to be alone.

Yoongi: Are you okay? Y/N told me you guys had a fight

Namjoon: I’ll be fine. Don’t tell her where I am.

Yoongi: Okay. Text me if you need a friend.

Namjoon: Thanks hyung.

Yoongi: He’s on the roof. He said he’s fine, but not to tell you.

Y/N: Thanks friend

Yoongi: You should go find him

Y/N: He doesn’t want me, there he made that clear

Yoongi: I’ve known him and lived with him for a decade, trust me. He needs you.

Y/N: Okay, but if we break up it’s on you.

Yoongi: Just go find him Y/N.

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

Namjoon rubbed his face as he sat on the rooftop of the hotel, his back against the railing. Replying to Yoongi he tossed his phone aside. He’d been sitting here for the past couple of hours his anger dissipating into guilt far too quick. Dried tears streaked his face as he tried to gather the courage to go back to the room. 

He was scared. The image of your angry face as he dismissed your work popping in his head. He didn’t know why he did that. He respected what you did, but he felt like a hypocrite. All his exes he dismissed when they asked him to take care of himself and not overwork. All the times they came to his studio to force him to leave, only to have the same look of anger that you gave him. He laughed bitterly as he pulled his legs to his chest.

At the edge of the guilt, he could feel it again, the same feeling he’d had since the comeback started, a sort of brain slush. Like a haze shackling him in place. He had felt it many times before but it was never this strong, this force of unproductivity, making him want to forget everything and hide. The stress of this comeback wasn’t any different than other ones. He always made it a priority to write new music in between promotions and shows but his creative block from four months ago was back and nastier. He could feel it gnaw at his neurons, forcing him to stay awake for hours after he should be in bed staring at a blank Ableton file. Usually, he could trick his mind out of this fog by working harder, but lately, it was like it was getting thicker seeping into every aspect of his life, painting his vision sepia, making every movement robotic. 

He remembers when encouraging messages from ARMY would make him happy, excited to make more music for them but nowadays it just made him feel guilty. He wasn’t doing enough for them, he couldn’t even string together a series of 808s without it sounding like a gimmick or worse like plagiarism. Last week he had fucked up so bad that his body shook from the memory. He had stayed up all night in some sick form of self-harm, scrolling through hate comments on Twitter then Reddit. He was never sadder to know multiple languages because even if the characters were different the messages were the same. He was a shitty musician, too overhyped by fans, his awards were bought by his company, his dances sucked, he tried too hard, and of course that he was too ugly to be an idol. His rational side would argue that these messages were meant to hurt him, his friends and you would comfort him by telling him they were lies, but he never told anyone about this habit, and his rational side often lost out. If anyone asked why he did this he would say to fuel another song, but he knew the real reason - he just couldn’t stop. So he stayed up all night till his eyes were dry and scratchy from staring at the screen, and had three espresso shots before the show even though he hated espresso, his body eventually giving out during rehearsals. He got quite a few lectures about that. A leader’s job is to set a good example. You have been doing this for so long, be a professional play in your limits. But there were no limits, not when it literally took a mantra of just “power through it” to get out of bed and shower.

He had been hoping this weekend would solve everything - that seeing you would solve everything. As he sat on the roof, the first few drops of rain falling on him, he curled in further into himself. It wasn’t your responsibility to make him happy, clear the fog, but you had done it the first day. His mind felt clear but it was gone too soon. He didn’t know when it happened but he could see it after a while that you didn’t feel the same way he did. You didn’t crave to be next to him like he did, speaking affirmations in his ear as he did in yours. Hell, even when you saw his ex for the first time, you barely reacted. Maybe it was the way you were so adamant that he not leave any marks because you might not be able to cover them this weekend, or the way you made sure to not sit next to him at the gala even when you were seated on the same table by some stroke of luck. You didn’t love him like he did, and he would be happy with scraps, but he couldn’t afford to miss you more than he did. He laughed again, cackling maniacally, as he realized where he was: a rooftop in the middle of a downpour, just because you once said rooftops had magical healing powers. There was nothing healing about being alone looking at lights shining in offices no one was in - it was lonely.

He was so desperate to feel anything other than this fog that even anger was a better option. Maybe he wanted you to put him out of his misery, leave him as he was sure you would eventually before he burdened you with more of his fucked up life before he relied on you further just to have his legs cut out from under him. He sighed, shivering even though the rain was warm, resting his head on his knees. Could he survive if you left him tonight, justly so?

“Joon…?” You call out as you reach the rooftop, searching for him through the rain.

“I told hyung not to tell you. I wanna be alone” You barely hear him mumble from the corner and you make your way over to the dark figure. He’s hunched in on himself, his arms around his knees, his face in his hands and it breaks your heart. Your boyfriend is a tall, broad man who can easily throw you across the room if he wants to, but at this moment, he looks small, almost tiny. It takes everything in you to not just go and wrap him in your arms. 

“Namjoon, what are you doing?” You squat in front of him, resting your hands on his arms. You wouldn’t usually push him like this when he seems distraught, you knew he didn’t respond too well to direct conflict but you needed him to let you in, your inherent need to fix going into hyperdrive. When he refuses to look at you, you cup his face and pull it up firmly to look into his eyes. He looks like he’s been crying and it makes your eyes well up. “Look at me. Why are you driving me away?”

With nowhere to run, all he can see is your face, your eyes puffy, red-rimmed and glassy, your nose a dusty pink. He made you cry. He made the person he was supposed to take care of cry because he got pissy over something she couldn’t control, something he was guilty of as well. All his guilt bit at his chest again and he hated himself. You didn’t deserve this. You should leave him. Why were you here in the rain trying to comfort him when he was such a useless asshole?

“Fuck... I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” His voice sounded hoarse and broken, and he knew all the apologies in the world wouldn’t make him worthy of forgiveness. He wished you’d just leave and let him wallow in the rain by himself - he deserved that. Tears filled his eyes and he hoped the rain would ensure they were invisible.

“Hey, hey. Baby, it’s okay.” You kissed him on the forehead, settling on your knees in front of him. His eyes were wide as he looked at you, his hands on top of yours, gripping your hands a little too tight.

“I… don’t know why I picked a fight.” He averted his gaze, not having the courage to look at you.

“It’s okay.” You move your hands to the back of his neck as he places his on your shoulders, opening his legs wide enough for you to move closer, your forehead against his as you caress the hair on his nape. 

“No, it’s not. Fuck! It’s like when I saw you yesterday I could finally breathe! I’ve felt so numb these few months but when I saw you, it’s like I could finally be happy.” He cups your face. He knows he needs to be honest but he doesn't know where to start.

“Joonie…”

“And then I could feel it escape again. I felt it. My head getting cloudy like I was slowly going underwater, and I don’t know… I just… I can’t ask you to be responsible for my happiness. It’s not fair to you. I can’t. I can’t.” He knows he’s not making any sense but his chest feels tight and he can’t fight his tears anymore as they mix with the raindrops on his cheeks. He can feel himself hyperventilating. He doesn’t know why he can’t tell you this without breaking down. What was wrong with him? Maybe that’s why you didn’t love him. Maybe that’s why you never got jealous because you knew he wasn’t worth it. How could he support you when he could barely stand by himself. He was so fucked up. 

“Joonie. It’s okay. Just breathe, okay? You’re okay.” You cradle his head against your chest, kissing the top of his head.

“I can’t lose you Y/N. I can’t be the jealous idiot that I always am and lose you.” He’s clawing at your sweater, pulling you closer than you are, making your eyes well up at his desperation. Why does he think he’s going to lose you? As far as you knew you had never given him any indication of that. You loved him and you couldn’t imagine a future without him.

“Namjoon. Look at me. It’s going to take more than a stupid fight to drive me away.” You pull his face away from your sweater and hold his gaze, his eyes red and still full of tears. The image breaks your heart but you hope you can convey your honesty to him.

“No, but you shouldn’t be with me. I’m fucked up, you know. You deserve better.” His actions speak otherwise as he holds your upper arms in both his hands tight enough to bruise as if you would disappear if he let go.

“Where is this coming from? Namjoon you’re not fucked up, you’re human. I don’t care how fucked up you think you are. I love you.” You look deep into his eyes, urging him to believe you. You had been trying to tell him you loved him all day but you always chickened out, but not now. You needed him to know that you were here for him. You were dying to know what started this, why he felt this way, but you needed him to realize that you had no plans of leaving.

“You… love me?” His voice was almost inaudible as his bottom lip quivered.

“Of course I love you. I love you - good parts and bad parts. I love 100% of you.” You kissed him gently, wiping at his face with your thumbs.

“Why?”

“Cause you’re you. You make me happy, even when you make me mad you make me happy.” You put your forehead against his again as the rain picked up, pelting the both of you. “Just don’t run away from me, please?”

“I don't deserve you. Fuck. I love you so much it scares me.” He kisses you at that, rough and full of yearning. It’s like the first kiss you shared this weekend and it makes your heart ache. Did he feel this way when he saw you again yesterday? Like he didn’t deserve you? You wished you could go into his head and learn all his worries - this did not seem like only work stress to you.

“Hey. I’m scared too okay? It just means it’s real.”

“How do you do that? How do you sound so sure all the time?” His head is on your shoulder as you caress his hair. It seems as if all the energy has been drained from his body as his grip on you loosens and you feel his weight lean on you.

“Because I believe in us. We’re Rapmon hyung and Y/N noona. We’re OTP, remember?” You lift his face and smile at him as he musters a small one of his own, as you kiss him again. “Let’s get out of the rain, okay baby?”

You both are drenched from the rain when you get back to your room, and you lead Namjoon to the bathroom. He just stands there, eyes glassy as you start a bath and grab a towel, drying the rain on his body. Once the bath is full and bubbly, you undress him and guide him in, discarding your own own clothes before climbing in behind him.

“I always sit behind you when we bathe.” He says, voice barely audible.

“Let me wash your hair, is that okay?” you say tentatively, kissing the back of his neck as he nods.

Suddenly, his head snaps up as he speaks loudly, a slight panic in his voice. “I have to use the special shampoo so the colour doesn’t fade.”

“Yeah. I have it right here.” You smile as he relaxes and you foam the shampoo on his pink hair, massaging his scalp gently. You take your time, washing it out before moving onto the conditioner, letting it sit as you massage his shoulders. You hear him sniff as you work at the knots. As you’re washing the conditioner off his hair, he turns at the waist, bringing one hand to your cheek as he looks at you. You realize he was still crying as your own eyes threaten to fill with tears.

“Thank you, Y/N. I… I know I don’t deserve this. Thank you.”

“Shh… I love you Joonie. You deserve this and more.” You kiss him gently on each cheek and then on the lips. You are not sure how to make him believe this but you hope he can see how much you love him as you wipe his tears. Namjoon’s never been this vulnerable with you, never given up this much control, and if you’re being honest it scares you seeing him this way. In a way, you feel helpless. You’re a fixer and there’s just no immediate way to make him feel better, you just have to make sure he knows you’re here for him. 

After you get dressed, he lays in bed as you do his skincare routine for him, running your fingers over his face gently. Namjoon hasn’t felt this way with someone before, so raw but soothed at the same time. He never shows his negative emotions to anyone. Right now it feels like his emotions are a livewire, but the way you gently tap the serums on to his skin, making sure not to miss a spot, he realizes how wrong he was. All the ways he convinced himself you didn’t love him were wrong. You don’t show love through jealousy or possession or even words. This is how you show love - in the quiet of your room making sure that he doesn’t go to sleep drenched from the rain, or skip his eye cream so his eyes aren't too puffy in the morning or at breakfast when you always cut the crust off his bread because he once mentioned he doesn’t like it. He opens his eyes as you say all done and sees you smiling softly at him, some of his confidence coming back. He smiles at you even though it’s difficult, and pulls you to his chest. As you lay on his bare chest for a while, feeling how tightly his arms wrap around you, an idea pops into your head.

“I want to come with you to LA.” You usually don’t make such impulsive decisions, but you could feel that he was not ready to be separated and you were definitely not ready to leave him, but you didn’t want to make him feel like he didn't have a choice so you add, “Is that okay?”

“What about your work?” He asks softly and you can hear his heart beat faster as he awaits an answer.

“I work from home all the time. It’ll be fine.” You rise up slightly to look at him, your chin resting on his chest, making sure to look him in the eyes. “I want to be with you.”

For the first time that night, you see him smile wide enough that his dimples poke through his cheeks and you’re sure you’ve made the right decision.

“I love you, Y/N. Thank you.” He pulls you further so you are fully lying on top of him and as you tell him you love him again, you feel his breath even out, both of you falling into a much need sleep.

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