#i was just looking for another phrase i liked in that song so this title could match the original fic

[stolenslumber]

hang your head low in the glow (pjs)

In this moment, you’re glad that you’re anchored in his lap, because otherwise you think you might float away into the night sky, on your way to join the stars in the cosmos. Jay is so crushingly sweet; sometimes, you just don’t know what to do with the weight of all his sincerity. For now, you settle for a fervent, “I like you so much.”

OR: A selection of moments in between the parentheses at the end of devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes (some things may not make sense without reading that first, but it's up to you!).

PAIRING: park jongseong x female reader GENRE: established relationship, fwp (fluff without plot), no like seriously this is just straight up fluff and romance and making out with scant narrative WARNINGS: swearing, kms/kys jokes, kissing and suggestive content/sexual themes WORD COUNT: 10k (derogatory)

to all the boys i’ve fake-dated before (you, jay, sunghoon, yeonjun, chan, vernon, mark, and 5 others)

jay: peace out losers (except for my REAL gf whom i adore and cherish)

*jay has left the chat*

sunghoon: omfg no way???? jay bitchless era no more?

you: are u calling me a bitch

sunghoon: NOOOO i would never haha btw do u still talk to my sister

you: yeah

sunghoon: right so i’m just ur humble liege

chan: congrats, you two! well i guess jay can’t see this

you: i will accept your congratulations on his behalf :DD i’m really happy you guys 

mark: stop i’ll cry

vernon: no rly i’m next to him rn and he’s tearing up

mark: they deserve it so much!!! after everything i put them through 

you: excuse me it was mostly me

you: all jay did was orchestrate an elaborate scheme to get you and mina together (okay so he did a lot)

you: but we ALL participated

you: and i had to pretend to DATE you

mark: only for like two hours!!!!

yeonjun: wait this reminds me i’ve always wanted to know what ur ranking of us as fake bfs would be

you: in first place: park jongseong

yeonjun: and then?

yeonjun: hello??????

“Can I ask you something?”

Jay turns his head to you. “Of course, baby.”

Baby. Hearing it still makes you all silly and giddy, though it’s been four days since you started dating him for real and hearing it all the time. Baby, doll, Cinderella, mine. He sure has a way with words. You clear your throat, hoping that your voice won’t crack when you say, “Why were you so weird about the fake-dating thing in the beginning?”

He makes a face at you. “What do you mean, weird? You’re telling me you thought I was weird about it, even after you had to endure Sunghoon?”

“Sunghoon was just awkward. Really awkward, but still. You stalked me to my front door—”

“Your front door is, like, 90 seconds from mine.”

“— and walked with me to Nat’s at a glacial pace, while not saying a word. And then we talked for an hour about random stuff before you promised to help Mark with Mina, even though you weren’t sure you wanted my help. Why were you so weird about it all?”

“Pretty girls make me nervous?” He offers you a winning smile.

“Flattery won’t get you everywhere, Park Jongseong.”

“Yeah, but it’s getting me somewhere, isn’t it?” He rolls all the way over to hover above you and then dips so low that the pendant on his necklace swings in front of your face. The two of you had escaped the party in the frat’s basement after it had gotten too hot down there; Jay said he “knew a spot”, which made you laugh when it turned out to just be his bedroom. But then he pushed open his window and coaxed you out onto the flat roof, and that’s where you had settled on your back, gazing up at a cloudless sky, scattershot through with faint stars. 

Well, you were gazing up at the stars— now, Jay occupies your line of sight, and he’s all smiles and hearts in his eyes. It’s not an unwelcome substitute.

Your hand slips between your bodies so you can rub your fingers over the pendant on his necklace; you laugh when you realize what it is. “J as in Jay? Like T as in Troy?” 

He huffs, rolling off of you to sit back on his heels. “No, J as in Jopping. Yes, J as in Jay!”

You hold your hands up, still laughing as you sit up to face him. “Okay, okay, sorry! Didn’t realize my boyfriend was also a preppy high school girl.”

He rolls his eyes even as he pulls you into his lap. These days, he’s hopelessly afflicted with must-be-close-to-my-girlfriend syndrome. “I have layers, Cinderella. Like an onion.”

“... Are you paraphrasing Shrek?”

Jay flicks at the tip of your nose. “You know, it reveals just as much about you as it does about me that you caught the reference.” 

“You’re not helping yourself in the high school girl category,” you tease, but it’s all syrupy sweet fondness, punctuated by a playful tug at his reddening ear. 

He turns his head to kiss the inside of your wrist. “Do you want to hear my answer or not?”

You nod and straighten your spine with your hands folded neatly against your chest; the picture of propriety, if it weren’t for your legs straddling his waist as he leans back on his hands. “Yes, please.”

“I was… sussing you out, I guess. You know why I wanted to bring someone to my parents, but I couldn’t just bring anyone. I wanted to get to know you a little better, to see if you were someone I could actually see myself wanting to be with, because anything less would be a disservice to my parents. I didn’t want your help if I couldn’t confirm that you were the real thing. And then I saw how patient but also no-nonsense you were with Mark, and how quickly you were willing to help with a frankly crazy plan, and you just… felt right. You felt right to me; you felt like the real thing.” Jay blushes, ducking his head to avoid your gaze. Everything he said is true, of course, and he doesn’t regret telling you any of it, but saying it out loud like this makes his heart feel like it’s going to fall out of his chest.

In this moment, you’re glad that you’re anchored in his lap, because otherwise you think you might float away into the night sky, on your way to join the stars in the cosmos. Jay is so crushingly sweet; sometimes, you just don’t know what to do with the weight of all his sincerity. For now, you settle for a fervent, “I like you so much.”

Jay’s confidence comes back like a boomerang. He leans up and catches your hands in his, draping your arms around his neck before gliding his hands up and down your back. “Who’s flattering who, now?” 

You shrug. “Where’s it gonna get me, gorgeous?”

“Well, only because you called me gorgeous.” And then he’s kissing you, lush and lovely. 

Fall trickles into winter, and there are final exams and goodbyes to your friends before you and Jake leave on a two-week trip to see your family in Australia. You and Jay FaceTime almost every day; he complains about getting pasty staying indoors in the cold while you’re out tanning on white sand beaches. 

“Should I fly out there?” he muses one day close to the end of your trip. “You could be, I dunno, in danger! Because of the sun. No one to help you put sunscreen on your back… or check that you’ve applied enough on your legs… or your chest… It’s really important, you know. Skin cancer awareness.”

You laugh. “Thanks for the PSA, baby. I’m coming back in a few days, though, so I think I’ll be okay.”

Jay sighs mournfully. “I’m not. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” you confess. Living across the street from each other at school and seeing him in person almost every day for the past few months has spoiled you. 

“I miss you, too,” Jake mimics beside you. You’re in an Uber on the way to dinner with your parents, so you can’t commit much physical violence against him, but you do punch his shoulder.

Jay pipes up with, “Was that Jake’s voice I heard?”

You glare at your twin before popping out your earbuds to put the call on speakerphone. “Unfortunately.”

“Yo, what’s up, my man!” Jake cheers, shoving his face into view of the camera.

Jay and Jake chatter about some game they started playing with Heeseung, and you have to admit that you’re really happy about how well you and Jay have integrated into each other’s lives and communities. Of course, Jake had never been a big concern; secretly, you think he loves that his best friend is dating his sister. You’re two of his favorite people in the world, though he’ll only admit it when he’s four shots in. 

Soon, you approach the restaurant, and you have to say goodbye to Jay. He encourages you to keep sending videos of Jake falling into the ocean while surfing, which prompts a loud bout of complaining from Jake.

“You better not have shown that to anyone else,” Jake grumbles.

“Yunjin loved it,” you remark casually, just so you can laugh loudly when he jolts in his seat and turns to you with panicked eyes.

He whisper-shouts, “Why would you say that word? And why the fuck would you send it to her?” 

“What word— love? Oh my god, grow up. And she asked for updates on you.” Your eyebrows furrow. “I think she missed you, or something.”

“She did?” Jake beams; he’s entirely a different man now. “What else did she say about me?”

You point at him accusingly. “You have a lot of questions for someone who claims that they’re just buddies with my girl Jen. Which, again— grow up. Anyways, Jay, we have to go, but we’ll see you soon! Love you!”

“Love you, baby. And you, too, Jake,” Jay adds, before Jake can whine. 

A few days later, you’re finally reunited with Jay at the big New Year’s Eve party his family throws every year. The Parks always get to host the last party of the holiday season; you’re excited to experience it with Jay for the first time. 

An hour before the party is set to start, you let yourself into the Park estate and make your way surreptitiously to Jay’s room. His back is turned to you when you open the door slowly, and you stop for a moment to just drink in the sight of him, comfy and cozy in a cable-knit quarter zip sweater— the definition of huggable. Quickly, you sneak in and wrap your arms around his waist. “Hey, handsome.”

Jay cranes his neck around to look at you. “Hey! You’re here early.” 

You let go of him so he can turn around and hug you back properly. “Couldn’t wait to see you,” you confess. 

“Thank god.” He drops his head into the crook of your neck and inhales deeply. “Mm, the world is finally rightside up again.”

You laugh softly. “We are so dramatic.”

“Unavoidable for hot people,” Jay reasons. He pulls back up to wink at you; it’s so cheesy that you have to hold your hands up to his face to avoid looking at him. He laughs outright, and the return of that sound so close to your ears— as opposed to through the phone across an ocean— makes you smile uncontrollably wide.

“I really missed you,” you murmur. Finally, finally, he leans in and kisses you. It starts as something innocent and comforting, then quickly gets subsumed into fire and passion. You fist your hands into the collar of his sweater, hauling him closer to you with an enthusiasm that makes his fingers dig into your waist.

“Missed you so much. Missed this so much,” he says, right before sliding his tongue against yours. Soon, he transitions to sucking your bottom lip into his mouth, breathing a litany of love you, love you, love yous into you. The kiss is so deep it makes you go lightheaded, and when you separate for air, the sound of your mouth parting from his elicits a faint pop that makes you shudder. He’s considerate enough to back off briefly for you to catch your breath, though he doesn’t make it easy. “Pretty, so pretty,” he whispers against your cheek.

You have to close your eyes to calm yourself down. Right now, you think you could power a whole city with the desire that vibrates underneath your skin. “As much as I want to keep going,” you begin, already doomed with how hoarse your voice is, “I think you have to start getting ready.” The way your fingers pull at the zipper of his sweater is wholly unconvincing. 

He sighs and straightens up to rest his chin on the top of your head. “I should really learn how to reconfigure the time-space continuum. Time needs to stop when I’ve got my girl with me.”

You hum in agreement, curving around him slightly to scrape your teeth over the birthmark on his neck and grinning when he hisses into your ear. “You’re a smart guy; I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” you offer, continuing to tug at his zipper until you’re met with the end of the quarter zip. A frustrated sound escapes your throat at the obstacle.

“What’s your new year’s resolution?” Jay asks suddenly.

“What?” You blink hazy eyes at him; he has to pinch his own wrist behind your back to fight the urge to kiss you again.

“Just trying to kill the mood so I don’t go out there with a hard-on,” he explains, half bashful and half serious. “I have to make a speech, you know.”

“Thanks for coming, everyone! Hope you had a great last year, and here’s to an even better new year. There, speech done.” You withdraw your hands from his sweater to make jazz hands at him. “Wow, I’m such a speedy speechwriter! With all this extra time, we should keep going.”

“Brilliant,” he says dryly. “But you were right before; I do have to get ready.”

You frown and rest your cheek against his chest. “Past me was such a cockblock.”

Jay chuckles. “So, tell me, what is your new year’s resolution?”

Your eyes drift to the offending sweater in your peripheral vision. “Throw out all of your sweaters.”

“Very noble of you.”

“And get into grad school,” you say, more serious now.

“They’d be crazy not to take you for the Rhodes, baby.” Jay presses a final kiss to the top of your head. “I, um. I already asked to start in the London office of the company.”

You whip your head up so fast you almost give yourself whiplash. “Really?”

“Really. I want to be wherever you are.” He smiles so tenderly at you that your heart breaks and then mends itself back together in an instant; shattered and restored all at once by the strength of his devotion.

Sadly, there’s only so much time you can spend swooning at your boyfriend (Jay’s right; you do have to learn how to reconfigure the time-space continuum). He truly does have to give a speech soon, so he starts getting changed, pulling his sweater over his head and swearing when it gets stuck on the wire frame of his glasses. 

You laugh a little breathlessly at him, distracted by the strip of toned stomach revealed by his current position with his arms stuck above his head in his sweater. “My last new year’s resolution is to close the gyms,” you announce, finally moving into action to help him unspool the yarn of his sweater from his glasses.

“All of them?” His voice comes out muffled from inside his sweater before it’s over his head at last, and he’s shirtless in front of you. 

You drag your fingertips from the top of his waistband to the warm skin of his sternum. “Especially the ones you go to. You’re too tempting like this.”

He shivers at your touch but still manages to smirk when he says, “Just for you, doll.”

You groan. “Seriously, don’t call me that if you want to make it out there in time for your speech.”

“We should get rid of speeches, too,” he declares. He eyes the top of your fingers against his chest forlornly. “But I guess I’ll have to give the last one. Now, for real, tell me something extremely unsexy.”

You quip, “To help you get flaccid?”

He wrinkles his nose. “Excellent work; we’re headed in the right direction.” 

Your phone vibrates with a barrage of texts at that moment, which you check as Jay disappears into his walk-in closet to get dressed. It looks like your friends have arrived, and they’ve brought your outfit with them (you had come straight from the airport, dressed in leggings and a sweatshirt from high school). You tell Jay just as much, raising your voice slightly to be heard in the other room. “I’m gonna go get my stuff and change!”

He sticks his thumb out the door of the walk-in closet, pointing it upwards in assent. He assumes you saw it when he hears the door close, and then his phone goes off as well, inundated with a flood of texts from his newly arrived friends. 

hsm 3’s most underrated song: the boys are back (heeseung, jay, jake, sunghoon, jungwon, and sunoo)

jake: alright i have to k*ll myself

sunoo: why r u censoring all of a sudden

jake: i don’t want my fbi agent to take that seriously. although i do wanna kms

jungwon: why what happened

sunghoon: oh it’s HILARIOUS

jake: stfu

jake: so there’s eggnog being passed around right? and i see yunjin so i go to hand her a cup to be nice

heeseung: ~to be nice~

jake: kys

jake: anyways then i realize that the cup was really hot so i go and blow on her drink, like a fucking weirdo, and then i blow on SUNGHOON’S drink to make it seem less weird, except he’s drinking a HIGH NOON like an absolute idiot

sunghoon: hey i got the bartender to put it into a nice glass at least

sunoo: that’s my big (derogatory)

jay: perpetual bachelors jake and sunghoon! who’s surprised

sunghoon: NOT true i’m pretty sure the student government’s social media chair was flirting with me in the library before finals

jungwon: ??? wonyoung is a lesbian

jungwon: and she was just asking u to get out of the way bc u were spacing out in front of the printer

heeseung: L + me personally i’d kms

sunghoon: oh i know YOU are not talking

sunghoon: lee “the only time i feel the touch of a woman is when i go to yoga class at the university gym once a week” heeseung

heeseung: THE WOMAN WHO TEACHES IT IS HOT OKAY

sunghoon: oh heeseung mommy kink era?

heeseung: SHE IS MY AGE

sunoo: shouldn’t u be more concerned about breaking ur back every time ur there, grandpa?

heeseung: uncalled for wtf

heeseung: also tbh i wish SHE would break my back

jake: okay i’ve recovered from my earlier embarrassment. upon seeing what heeseung is texting, i’m thinking what i did wasn’t that weird

sunoo: bffr

jungwon: jake why don’t u just ask her out? instead of being emotionally constipated

jake: ew why would i ask her out i don’t want to be in a relationship that’s for pussies (respectfully) (i love women)

jungwon: yeah that’s definitely super emotionally mature of u

sunghoon: it’s 2023 pussy is a gender-neutral term

jay: you rly just say whatever the hell you want don’t you

sunoo: oh hey i see felix flirting with yunjin

jake: WHAT

jake: suddenly i have to go

sunoo: u r literally so pathetic

jay: btw i’m coming down now but if any of you see my gf before i do can you tell her she can change in my room

jake: gross

jay: GROW UP + stay single + kys

heeseung: GET HIS ASS

Jay’s idiot friends aside (he loves them so much), he actually is looking forward to seeing a bunch of his classmates and their families at tonight’s holiday party. Senior year seems to have crept up on him unannounced, and now he’s feeling slightly (a lot) sentimental about the idea of not living down the hall or at most across the campus from all the people who have made the last few years so formative (and entertaining as hell). 

He’s still thinking about how much he’s going to miss that place and those people when he hears your voice floating down from the top of the staircase. It sounds like you’re arguing with Kazuha about how many jello shots is too many for the after-party of the next phase of new member initiation at your sorority, which makes him chuckle quietly to himself. With four humanities and fine arts majors between the two of you, neither of you sound like you have the correct math. 

He opens his mouth, ready to give his two cents, but then he freezes at the sight of you descending the stairs. Vaguely, he processes the fact that Kazuha seems to have stopped arguing and even stopped coming down the stairs herself, just so she can give you two this moment.

This moment, which is making his brain short-circuit, because you are incandescent in a slinky, silvery dress that reflects all the candles that he’s now glad his parents made him light around the place. Countless points of light impart an otherworldly glow upon you, and you’re smiling at him; Jay thinks he must have saved the country in a past life.

When you reach him at the bottom of the stairs and he still hasn’t said anything, you tilt your head quizzically. “Jay? Everything alright?”

“You look like you just stepped out of a fairytale,” he breathes out. He moves on autopilot, bending at the waist as he takes your hand and kisses the top of it before straightening up to simply look at you some more.

“And right into the arms of my Prince Charming,” you respond, only half-joking. Right now, the dreamy look in his eyes makes you want to believe in happily ever after, as if it’s something he could forge with his own two hands. You kind of think he could, with the force of all his ardor.

Multiple phone cameras going off breaks the two of you out of your spell; you turn towards your nosy friends, who hold up variations of thumbs-ups and finger hearts. 

“Sorry, you guys are just too cute,” Yunjin says, not sounding sorry at all.

“Your parents would never forgive me if I didn’t get that on camera,” Sunghoon insists.

“Speaking of, I gotta go find them to make sure everything’s set.” Jay kisses your cheek. “See you later, Cinderella.” His fingers hold onto yours until the last second; your arm and his stretch out absurdly, as if you were parting for years, not minutes. 

“So dramatic,” Kazuha teases, joining you at the bottom of the staircase. 

“Unavoidable for hot people,” you explain wryly. You turn your attention to your gathered friends next. “I’m so glad you’re all here!”

“In 50 years, you could be hosting this party,” Sakura quips. Secretly, you hope it’s a lot sooner than that. 

“New Year’s Eve on Mars?” Jake suggests. 

Heeseung groans. “I’m scared of heights; can we not?”

“How many times do I have to tell you, dude, that’s not how space works!”

Half an hour passes happily like that, chatting and joking with some of your favorite people in the massive foyer. You don’t know exactly where Jay went off to, but the answer to that becomes clear when the music goes low and Jay clears his throat into the microphone set up at the front of the foyer. 

“Thanks for coming, everyone! Hope you had a great last year, and here’s to an even better new year.” Jay pauses to chuckle. “My girlfriend and I were joking earlier about me just saying that and calling it a night, but unfortunately for all of you, I am much more verbose than that.” Another pause for a light round of laughter from the gathered crowd. 

Jay works the audience like a pro as you watch with unbridled pride. A few minutes later, he winds down to the end of his prepared remarks, which you only know because he has asked you to proofread the speech weeks ago. You’re expecting him to wrap up with a final Happy New Year!, so you’re surprised to hear him keep going. 

“A couple of last things. To my parents, and everyone at the company, thank you for putting your trust in me.” Jay bows deeply. “I won’t let you down next year.” He straightens and looks right at you. “This year has been nothing short of wonderful. I’ve been so lucky my whole life, but the last few months have been particularly special to me. I’ve gotten to know people who I want to continue knowing for the rest of my life, who make me feel like my heart is too big for me, because I couldn’t possibly fit all of the kindness and love they give to me in the confines of my chest. I don’t know what I did to deserve it, but I do know that my life would be bereft without it.” Jay has to tear his eyes from yours because he knows he’s liable to cry if he sees you do so. “Bereft without you,” he continues, sweeping his gaze across the foyer. “All of you, who I’m so glad to call my friends and family. So, please stay healthy and happy this year, and I hope the new year treats you as well as this year has treated me. Happy New Year, everyone!”

Champagne glasses clink around you and people applaud, but all of it sounds far away. The only thing you can focus on is Jay, who’s making his way slowly through the throng of well-wishers to get to you.

When he’s finally in front of you, you have your misty eyes under control. He drops his hands to your waist and smiles gently. “Hi, pretty lady.”

“Hello, my favorite hopeless romantic.” Your palm goes to the sharp curve of his jaw. “You just had to go and say such sweet things. What’s gonna happen to my cool and unbothered reputation?”

“Right, your reputation.” He leans into your touch. “I can think of other ways to ruin your reputation,” he remarks, low and rough.

You roll your eyes, although you can’t stop your other hand from curling into the lapel of his suit jacket. “Romantic and horny! Duality of man.” 

“I meant what I said, you know.” His eyes soften at you. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me this year. Maybe ever. I have a lot of great people in my life, but only one you.”

“I know. You always mean what you say, and I love that about you.” You lean in to press a quick kiss to his mouth. He chases after you, tipping your chin up with his hand to kiss you deeper. Sadly, it doesn’t last for too long; you’re both aware that your friends and their parents are nearby.

But later, Jay makes sure to kiss you from this year into the next one, and you hope that you never forget what it feels like— fireworks exploding above your head and in your veins, lighting you up from within. Radiant, in the glow of someone who loves and is loved.

girlbossing soooooooo close to the sun (you, yunjin, chaewon, kazuha, and sakura)

yunjin: do u think it’d be weird if i got jake something for valentine’s day

you: yes extremely

sakura: don’t ask me i’m gay

yunjin: ???

yunjin: okay thx guys this was super helpful!

chaewon: i thought you weren’t dating?

yunjin: WE MIGHT AS WELL BE. i’m sick of waiting for him to actually ask me out

you: jokes aside, i think he’s really into you, like genuinely. but his head is so far up his ass he will never make the first move

sakura: boooooo emotionally repressed playboy how cliche

kazuha: omg u should try to do something romantic

yunjin: absolutely not i can’t be a SIMP

sakura: boooooo emotionally repressed maneater how cliche

yunjin: WHATEVER

yunjin: more importantly, what are we doing for galentine’s!!!!

kazuha: spa day i thought?

you: yes but i have to leave a little early :(( sorry ladies the community kitchen is doing a pre-valentine’s day dinner and jay and i are signed up to help

chaewon: i can’t even be mad at you that is SO CUTE

Jay gets sick in the week leading up to Valentine’s day, which puts a spanner in the works of his grand plans for your first Valentine’s together. You tell him that it’s not a big deal and he should just focus on resting and getting better, but that doesn’t stop him from moping about it. 

mother is mothering (you, niki, and jungwon)

you: can i just say that this gc name is not helping to put to rest the joke that jay and i are ur parents

you: also i Don’t think u guys know what this phrase means…

you: but anyways what’s up… children

niki: pleaseeeeee fix jay hyung

jungwon: fr we’re desperate

jungwon: he’s been playing sad john mayer songs for like three days straight I CANT LIVE LIKE THIS ANYMORE

niki: he called the coffee shop yesterday to see if we could set up a valentine’s day surprise for u

niki: we can’t, so i’m not ruining the surprise

niki: but he literally had such detailed plans for the surprise like WE R JUST PART-TIMERS

you: omg… my bf is so cute :(

jungwon: that is SO not the point actually that’s like the exact opposite of the point

you: dw i was gonna come over today after the community kitchen’s pre-valentine’s day dinner anyways

jungwon: THANK GOD

niki: YAY can u ask jay to help me with research material for my history paper btw

you: ask him urself?

niki: i’m scared he’s going to rope me into some other crazy plan to make it up to u for ruining ur valentine’s day plans

niki: which sounds like a HIM problem??? why is he getting ME, a CHILD, involved

you: oh so ur a child now but not when u want to sneak into frat parties

jungwon: omg SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PPL IN THE BACK

you: jungwon i know ur the one who helps him sneak in

jungwon: haha. love u mom :)

you: IM NOT UR MOM

you: btw i’m bringing back extra vegetables from the community kitchen and i expect u to eat them! jay mentioned u were stressed lately and not eating well

jungwon: okay ty… not-mom

It’s almost 10pm by the time you get to the frat house, bundled in your winter coat and weighed down with containers of food. You leave one in the fridge, labeled with a note that says “for jungwon— eat this or niki will forever be taller than you”. You take everything else with you to Jay’s room, pausing at the door when you realize you don’t even know if he’ll be awake or if he’s still sleeping off his illness.

The door swings open before you have the chance to knock, and you’re met with the sight of Jay in a bathrobe, shower caddy in hand. “I must be hallucinating,” he mutters. 

You hold back a laugh. “Nope, you’re still in the land of the lucid. I brought you some food, and I figured we could watch something while we eat. Go shower; I’ll set up.” 

Jay blinks rapidly. “Oh my god, you’re really here?” He drops the shower caddy to the floor carelessly, moving forward to hug you before he halts abruptly, inches away from you. “Wait, no, you shouldn’t be here. I don’t want you to get sick, too.”

“It’s been, like, five days. I don’t think you’re contagious anymore,” you argue, sidling past him to drop your stuff into his room.

“Really?” The hopefulness in his voice makes your heart melt.

“Really. I’ll ask Heeseung to ask his special friend to confirm, if that will make you feel better,” you offer.

Jay's eyebrows furrow. “We should probably stop calling her that, but yes, that would make me feel better. Ask while I shower, but seriously, I’m not touching you if she says no.” 

You salute him. “On it, captain.” Heeseung’s special friend is the girl who teaches one of the yoga classes at the university gym, and she’s also a nursing student. She has a name, but Heeseung refuses to tell any of you what it is. Truthfully, it wouldn’t be hard to look her up, but you think it’s kind of cute how nervous Heeseung is about whatever liminal space he’s in with her.

you: hey can u ask the love of ur life if it’s okay for me to be with jay rn?

heeseung: first of all DONT CALL HER THAT second of all why tf would she have an opinion on that

you: i wouldn’t have to call her that if u would tell us HER NAME

you: and jay came down w/ that nasty virus like five days ago remember

heeseung: oh my goddddd yeah he wouldn’t stop whining about how his valentine’s day plans were ruined

you: ur special friend is in nursing right? so can u ask her

heeseung: i’m starting to think i should tell u her name just so u stop coming up with new ways to refer to her

you: that’s what I'M saying

heeseung: but yeah sure anything to get jay to stop being so annoying

you: thank uuuuu i’ll leave u some cookies in the kitchen so give some to her okay?

heeseung: omfg u made COOKIES i am so glad jay is dating u

Ten minutes later, Heeseung texts to let you know that you’re probably in the clear. More specifically, he says that his friend says it’s ultimately best practice to stay away from Jay for another couple of days, but she thinks the two of you are so cute and she gets why you’d want to be with him, and you’re outside of the most contagious window now, anyways. 

You figure that’s close enough to a yes, which is what you tell Jay when he returns from his shower. He’s at your side in an instant, hugging you like his life depends on it. “I’m sorry,” he whispers eventually.

“What on earth for?” 

“Our first Valentine’s is going to be so lame, just because I got sick.” He sighs deeply. “I wanted to make it special for you, especially because you’re always running around helping everyone, and instead you’re here, taking care of me.”

“Jay.” You pull back from his chest to look at him. “Nothing is lame, and nothing is ruined, okay? It’s literally just a day. And you always make me feel special. Being with you is like— ahem.” You cringe at the words that are about to come out of your mouth; Jay is always effusive and free-wheeling with his declarations of affection towards you, but it doesn’t come as easily to you. The way you feel about him makes you want to try, though. “Being with you is like Valentine’s Day every day.”

He smiles gently at you, one dimple carving a crescent into his left cheek. “You deserve it, baby. And even if you didn’t, I’d still want to give that to you.”

The two of you stand like that for a while, swaying underneath the unattractive lighting in Jay’s room. His hair starts to drip onto your shoulder, though, and you remember that you need to go back down to the kitchen to set aside the cookies you promised Heeseung.

“Why does Heeseung get to have some of the cookies you made for me?” Jay pouts.

“Troll bridge toll I felt compelled to pay, all because you wanted a second medical opinion,” you respond dryly.

“I’m supposed to believe you were the first? And I’m telling Heeseung you called him a troll.”

“Keep that up and you won’t be getting any cookies, Park.” 

Of course, you feed him a cookie as soon as you’re back in his room. Jay has changed into his pajamas while you were away, and he points to another set he’s laid out for you after he’s done eating the cookie. Once you get changed, you settle on the rug in front of Jay’s bed and start an obscure history documentary together while eating the food you brought him. You warn him that it won’t be as good as what he makes (you are a far better baker than you are a cook). Undeterred, he makes an exaggerated effort to fawn over every dish and praise your skills.

Afterwards, you sit on the edge of his bed and let him lean his head on your lap as you blow dry his hair. “I heard you were being a pain in the ass this week about Valentine’s Day,” you mention. 

“That… is a distinct possibility, for sure.”

“Seriously, I think you scared away all of Niki’s coworkers. He wants your help with research for his history paper, by the way. Oh, that reminds me— what’s the name of your group chat with Niki and Jungwon?”

Jay grimaces. “Glucose father slay.”

You suppress a snort. “That’s… creative, if unsubtle.”

He hums contentedly from the just-right warmth of the hairdryer and the just-right softness of your hands. “We’ll get to have lots of Valentine’s Days together, right?”

"Of course, baby."

When it hits midnight, you’re curled up together in his bed, with his laptop still playing the credits of the history documentary. You enter February 14th like that, tucked under his chin, exactly where you want to be.

On one of the first randomly hot days that pop up in late March before the weather actually gets warmer, you’re holed up in the library, eyes aching after staring at the tiny text in ancient manuscripts for too long and shivering in the temperature-controlled special collections section of the library. While the rest of your friends are out at the college’s golf course enjoying the warm weather at a joint charity tournament, you’re stuck here, beholden to the block in your calendar which says “manuscript time :/”. The rare manuscripts you need for your thesis are only available to be looked at during certain times, but today’s research session has proven to be less than fruitful, given how often your eyes wander to the door to the exit and how empty your notes are.

You can feel yourself dozing off for the umpteenth time when suddenly, warm hands land on top of your shoulders, and a smooth voice murmurs in your ear, “Working hard or hardly working, Cinderella?”

Jay. You turn your head to meet his gaze; crescents of affection reflect back at you. “How’d you get in here?” Appointments are usually required for the rare manuscripts room.

He flashes you a smirk. “Charmed the librarian.”

“Wow, I didn’t know you pulled with the 40-and-up demographic like that.”

“Yeah, I told her I missed my girlfriend so much I’d cry if I couldn’t see her today.” He drops a kiss to your cheek, then maneuvers the chair next to you sideways and backwards so he can sit as close to you as possible. He crosses his arms on top of the back of the chair and rests his chin against his arms to stare at you, soft and beckoning. “You look like you want to leave.”

You sigh and turn fully sideways towards him, letting his long legs bracket yours while your knees push up against the back of his chair. “You look like a reason to leave,” you admit. It comes out breathy in a way that you hadn’t intended, but who can blame you— Jay is dressed for the golf tournament in a navy blue polo and crisp white slacks, and as always, his clothes fit like they were made for him. 

In the back of your mind, you make a note to ask where he gets his tailoring done. In the front of your mind, your attention roams from the clean line of his shirt sleeves against his biceps, to the inviting curve of his mouth, to the planes of his chest that peek out behind the top two undone buttons of his shirt. All these months later, looking at him still hasn’t gotten old; truthfully, you don’t think it ever will.

“Whatcha thinkin’ about?” Jay inquires, peering closer at you with a sly grin on his face.

“Like you have to ask,” you grumble, reaching out to pinch his cheek in retaliation for the teasing question.

He grabs your hand before it reaches him and gently bites the tip of your index finger, laughing when you make an offended face and pull your hand back. “C’mon, let’s get out of here, yeah? We should at least make an appearance at the tournament we organized.”

You glance back at the heavy tomes you’ve pulled out today— pages and pages of dense Middle English to get through. Then, you look at Jay, who has chosen that moment to skate his fingertips up and down the top of your right thigh. The decision is almost comically easy to make. “Yeah, fuck this. Let’s go.” 

You dutifully return your books and say a polite goodbye to the librarian, who coos at you both. Jay waves your joined hands at her. On your way out to the main section of the library, goosebumps form on your arms from the change in temperature: arctic vortex to plain old frigid, both of which are wholly inhospitable environments for the sleeveless golf dress you’d worn today in hopes of eventually getting to the tournament. 

“Cold?” Jay halts you both and sweeps his hands across your shoulders and down to your wrists, frowning at the chill he encounters on your skin. Normally, he’d offer you his jacket or sweater or something, but he just has the shirt on his back today. “This won’t do,” he murmurs, and then he’s pulling you in the direction of the secluded stacks.

It’s dark and shadowy there, with not a single soul occupying any of the carrel desks spaced in between the rows of books. Your heartbeat picks up despite yourself; you think you have a good idea of where this is going. This is also something that hasn’t gotten old yet and likely never will. “You know, I’ve always thought it would be kind of hot to hook up in a library,” you comment.

Jay trips over air, then quickly rights himself and shakes his head as if to clear it before looking at you again. “You would, you nerd,” he says, but it comes out low and contemplative. 

As soon as you reach the carrel desk located in the most isolated corner of the stacks, he brings his hands to your waist and lifts you up to sit on top of the desk. Happily, you hook your ankles behind his legs and draw him in to stand between yours. “You can’t tell me you weren’t thinking the same thing.”

“I just wanted to kiss you for a bit, so you could warm up,” Jay insists. He leans in closer, until your chests are pressed up against each other. “But now that we’re here…” 

“Now that we’re here,” you agree. Then you’re tilting forward to kiss him, and the tension in your body from a long morning at the library dissipates into the heat of his mouth and the softness of his hair.

Jay kisses you long and luxuriously, like he was born to do nothing but stand around and kiss you. “You did so well with planning the tournament,” he tells you in between kisses, smothering the words against your mouth. 

“You did, too,” you reply, dispensing the compliment in airy gasps against his ear as he moves down to your neck, feathering open-mouthed kisses against the skin there. A whimper escapes from your throat when he bites down at the juncture of your neck and your clavicle, transforming into a breathy moan as he soothes over the sting with his tongue. His name slips out of your mouth in a dragged-out whine: “Jongseong.” 

He shudders against you. “Warn a guy before you do that, will you? I don’t actually want to come in my pants in the library.”

You giggle, tugging his head back so you can look at him. You’re met with shiny lips, slow-blinking eyes that drag up and down your body, and tousled hair, messed up from Jay’s meticulous styling by your wandering hands. Temptation, personified. “Fuck,” you breathe out. “What if I do?”

“You’re not wearing pants,” Jay points out cheekily. His demeanor switches to sultry in an instant when he presses down on your bottom lip with his thumb, and he groans when your tongue darts out over it. “God, you’re so hot. C’mere, doll, let me sort you out.”

Twenty minutes later, you’re slipping out of the back door of the library and into the parking lot. You shoot off a quick text to Yunjin, asking her to hold down the fort for a little while longer at the tournament, and then Jay is tugging you into the backseat of his car with an urgency that makes your heart pound. Now, you get to sort him out, and it’s so much better than staring at old books.

yunjin: what is taking so long i sent jay to get u like 45 minutes ago

you: sorry be there in a bit love you babe!

yunjin: woooooooooow remember when i said i would never betray u for dick

yunjin: guess u DO NOT FEEL THE SAME

yunjin: ah well have fun don’t do anything i wouldn’t ;)

to all the boys i’ve fake-dated before (you, sunghoon, yeonjun, chan, vernon, mark, and 5 others)

you: were any of you fuckers going to tell me that jay’s birthday is TOMORROW?!

you: help!!!!! what do i get for him!!!!!

sunghoon: believe me that man wakes up every day thanking god that ur his gf. u don’t need to get him anything

you: as much as i appreciate the reporting of his simp behavior, i am IN A PANIC his birthday is in 12 hours why the fuck didn’t anyone say anything sooner?!?!

vernon: i’m gifting him a new speaker for the basement

chan: bro you’re getting that gift for ALL of us bc you BROKE the speaker in the basement

vernon: and jay is one of the many recipients of that gift!

you: FOCUS on me and MY problem please

mark: yooooo u could write him a song? i still owe u a favor so i’d be down to help

you: and make him listen to me perform it? i’m trying to keep this relationship going, not obliterate it

yeonjun: mans has one single move in his arsenal

mark: HEY it worked out pretty well for me

yeonjun: only bc u had like a million ppl helping u

sunghoon: i got jay tickets to that japanese singer he likes

you: FUCK that’s such a good idea why didn’t i think of that

sunghoon: bc u didn’t know his birthday was coming up

you: thanks genius

sunghoon: but anyways jay never makes a big deal out of his birthday

sunghoon: it’s mostly like a sentimental thing for his parents bc they tried for so long to have him

vernon: strictly speaking, they were trying to have ANY of the sperm inseminate ANY of the eggs so like it didn’t have to be him specifically

mark: dude wtf

chan: i’m sure jay will love whatever you get for him! maybe you could paint or draw something for him?

you: okay yes yes i can bang something out real quick in the studio 

vernon: that’s what she said

yeonjun: this is why ur still single

you: the sperm and egg comment didn’t give it away?

vernon: guys stop ganging up on me wtf

you: okay thank you ONLY to chan the rest of you were useless

you: chan u could start a business. like a gift-giving idea business

mark: like santa claus but without the actual gifts?

yeonjun: ghost santa claus

chan: none of you should ever be allowed to start a business

It’s 5am by the time you’re finished in the studio, and you know your sleep cycle is going to be all sorts of messed up for the next few days, but it’s a small price to pay so you can slide into Jay’s bed and mold yourself against his body, knowing that your painting of the scene of your first date is leaning safely against the wall across from you. 

Unfortunately, the swift arrival of sunrise and birds chirping outside of Jay’s window leave you unable to fall asleep (not to mention the energy drink you’d chugged at 2am). You give up on it quickly, comforted by the fact that you don’t have any classes today and can afford to sleep in when your body eventually gives out on you. 

Staring at Jay is not an unenjoyable way to pass the time, so that’s what you do. Sleep smoothes out all the muscles in his face, but the sharp angles of the underlying bone structure turn him into marble; idly, you wonder how many sculptors would kill to be able to craft something this beautiful, this timeless and exquisite. You’ve tried to sketch or paint Jay multiple times yourself, and you’re still trying (that senior portfolio is going to be the death of you), but to date, you’ve been left unsatisfied. Something about Jay is just too expressive, too lively, too attentive; you haven’t been able to nail down the exact way he moves through the world, much less the way he looks at you like nothing else exists. There’s so much love to give in those steady hands, and so many meanings to divine in those familiar eyes—

Oh.

Jay’s eyes have flipped open, displaying his least endearing habit: sleeping with his eyes open. It unnerves you to no end, even though it makes him look kind of silly, so you have to flip around with a small grin on your face. “You’re lucky I love you so much,” you whisper, mostly to yourself.

His arm tightens around your waist. “Tell me something I don’t know.” The words come out slightly slurred, and the movement of his lips against the back of your neck makes you shiver. 

You flip back around to meet his now closed eyes. “You’re awake?” Jay usually sleeps like the dead.

“I’m trying really hard not to be,” he drawls. Eyes still closed, he tugs you closer to press his lips to your forehead. “Go to sleep, doll.”

You hum tunelessly and fidget with the pendant of his necklace. “Happy birthday, Jongseong.” You can feel his lips curve into a smile against your skin, but you’re quick to nip that in the bud. “Or should I say… traitor? Why didn’t you tell me your birthday was coming up? I had to find out from Jungwon.”

“Typical mama’s boy.”

You giggle, even as you admonish him with: “Seriously, that joke needs to die. One of Riki’s coworkers actually thinks I’m his mom, and I just have a really good Botox supplier.”

Jay’s chest rumbles in amusement underneath your ear. Afterwards, it’s quiet for a long moment before he finally opens his eyes to peer blearily at you. “Are you upset I didn’t tell you about my birthday?”

You give him a tiny shrug. “Just curious, I guess. Plenty of people don’t like to celebrate their birthdays. Sunghoon said it’s usually more of a thing for your parents than it is for you.”

“Yeah, that’s about right.” Jay rubs his thumb over your cheek. “I’m spending the day with them, actually. We go to the same place for brunch every year, and then we just kind of walk around until dinner, which I’ve been cooking for the past couple of years.”

You smile automatically at the thought of his parents. They adore you, and the feeling is mutual— how could it not be? 

Jay’s thumb halts its movements as something occurs to him. “Well, hey, do you wanna come with us?” 

Quickly, you shake your head. You can spot Jay’s Mr. Nice Guy gestures from a mile away. “Nah, you should keep up your tradition with your parents. We’re still getting lunch with them this weekend, right? So I’ll get to see them soon, anyways.”

“My mom said she loves the insoles you sent her, by the way.”

“Right? Super comfortable. I can stay on my feet in the studio all day in those.” Just then, you’re hit by a yawn. “I guess I did the equivalent of a full day last night.”

Suddenly, Jay sits up straight, making you whine about the loss of coziness. “Wait, yeah, why are you here so early? Not that I don’t love waking up next to you, because I really do, but you weren’t here last night, and… oh my god.” He cuts himself off when he spots the painting against his wall.

You sit up as well. “Don’t freak out,” you begin. “I had fun making it, okay? And I don’t have class today so I can sleep alllllll day and if you’re not tired after dinner we can hang out afterwards, and seriously, Jay, light of my life, apple of my eye, etcetera, etcetera— let me do something nice for you without you feeling guilty about it, okay?” You draw in a deep breath. “I know I’m, like, afflicted with a chronic need to be helpful, but c’mon. Pot, kettle.” You point to yourself and then to him. “I love that you’re humble and kind and you know how lucky you are, but there’s nothing… to prove. You hear me? Just because you’ve had a good life doesn’t mean you have to give 110% of yourself to everyone else to deserve it. Please don’t make yourself feel bad because you get to take something from me for once instead of giving.” At the end of your rant, you blink in surprise at yourself. “Sorry, I don’t know when that turned into a lecture. All I’m saying is that you told me once that you’d want to give me Valentine’s Day every day, even if I didn’t deserve it, and I want to give that to you, too.”

Jay’s eyes flick between you and the painting and back to you, staring at you like he’s never seen you before. He’s speechless for so long that you count to 33 in your head in Mississippis that are definitely longer than one second. Finally, he crushes you to his chest in a hug that has your arms flailing around him with the force of it. “I feel like you just crawled into my head,” he says against your ear.

You make a face that he can’t see. “Didn’t need that visual in my head, but okay, baby.”

“I mean… I’m just feeling very perceived; that’s all. And I don’t really have anything else to say except that I love you so much, and thank you, and you’re my favorite person in the world.” He sniffles, and then preempts you with a, “Shut up.”

“Noooooo, I made you cry,” you coo at him, leaning back in his hold to swipe under his eyes with your thumbs. As you continue to fuss over him and he pretends to bite at your fingers, he hopes you know just how much he’s affected by your words and just how much you mean to him. Golden boy Park Jongseong, the prodigal son, the miracle child— he doesn’t think it could fairly be called a burden, because how could it be a burden to be so lucky, to be so loved, to have never truly suffered? But somehow, you get it. Maybe because you’re cut from the same self-sacrificing cloth, or maybe because you just understand him at an atomic level, but you get it. You get that he has dedicated his life to deserving his life in the first place; you get that he tries so hard, all the time, because he wants to be worthy of what he’s been given; you get that he gives, and gives, and gives, and he never wants to take, because he feels like he hasn’t done enough to pay back the gifts with which he was born, let alone take anything else from this world. And here you are, giving him your heart on his birthday— a day he doesn't think is anything special except for the joy it gives his parents— because you love him. Because you're just glad that you were born in the same timeline. He has never dared to ask for a gift like this.

Pathetically, all that he can get out is a simple, “I love the painting, by the way.” He nudges your nose with his. “I’m going to have it framed for our place after we graduate.”

“Our place?”

“Oh, yeah.” He clears his throat awkwardly. “I guess this is me asking. Do you want to live with me next year? Wherever it is that we end up. It would be, you know, economical.”

“Right, because we totally didn’t just have a conversation about your hang-ups with being born with a silver spoon in your mouth. And mine, too, I guess.”

Jay tsks at you. “Okay, or maybe I just want to wake up next to you every day. And make you food when you forget to eat, and listen to your horrible true crime podcasts while we clean up around the place, and hold your hair when you get sick because you forgot to take your Lactaid, and make sweet, sweet love to you every night—”

“Okay, okay, stop!” You’re laughing uncontrollably now, putting your hands up to stop Jay and the obnoxious kissy-face he’s making from coming any closer to you. “I didn’t need that much convincing, although I’m not sure how effective your convincing is when you’re just listing my bad habits, Mr. I-Sleep-With-My-Eyes-Open.”

“Yeah, but aren’t I lucky that you love me so much?” Jay smirks at you before tackling you down into his bed.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” you repeat to him. Sunlight slants in through the window behind his head, haloing him in a light so ethereal that you could be convinced the sun shines just for him. Like this, your words fade away from you, until all you’re left with is a quiet, heartfelt, “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, I’ll live with you after we graduate.” Softly, you stroke through the hair at his nape. “Stop wondering, by the way.”

Jay’s eyebrows furrow. “Wondering what?”

You reach up to smooth away the crease in his brow. “Wondering if you’re allowed to be this happy. I just told you, like, a million times. You are. The heavens have decreed that Park Jongseong shall be happy for as long as he lives, and a long time after that.” Dramatically, you tap each of his shoulders, as if you’re knighting him. “It is thus decided.”

Jay swoops down and plants a chaste peck on your lips. “Well, since it’s thus decided. Let me add something to that decree, though: I’m going to make you happy for as long as I live, and a long time after that,” he promises. 

And you know he will.

(London is overcast and dreary when you touch down at Heathrow; typical, for a mid-September day. You and Jay still carry tans from a summer of island-hopping around Asia and the Mediterranean, but you’re sure those will fade soon. Still, there’s nothing you can complain about when Jay’s arm is snug around your waist and he looks like a dream in a light wool coat and admittedly unnecessary sunglasses.

You tease him about the sunglasses all the way to the doorstep of your new, shared apartment. But then he kisses you across the threshold and whispers about how much he loves you and how excited he is to be with you for the rest of his life, and you are so, so happy. Unbelievably happy. Beautifully happy. 

Happy, forevermore. This, the heavens have decreed.)

[lovelake]

Sol hastily accepts your phone call all the while his hand is two minutes away from making him see stars.

solivan brugmansia x gn!reader | MDNI, 700+ wc drabble, masturbation, fantasized oral (receiving), takes place at the end of the 1st day

note: title is from the song ‘serial killer’ by ldr <3 as always, comments and reblogs are appreciated, thank you for all the support on the last fic !! alsoo i would love tkatb mutuals, so if anyone would like to be mutuals lmk 🫶

masterlist read on ao3 requests open

This was a bad idea. A really, really bad idea. He should’ve let your call ring until it ended. Rationality flew out the window when it came to you, though. 

“–anyways, I don't want to like…force you to come to the party or anything. Honestly, I’m not really into it but I’d feel kinda bad not going.” 

Right. The Halloween costume party. That’s what you were talking about. 

It felt like he was being edged. He couldn’t even be quiet in public spaces, he had to punch someone earlier for hearing him in the bathroom! There was another option entirely, one easier than being quiet—just stop—but he wasn’t about to do that.

He was getting lost in the clouds of his dangerous imagination once again. You were here at his house, in his room, on his bed. You were edging him. He wasn’t touching himself, it was your hand stroking him instead. Up ‘n down, nice ‘n slow. 

“Sol?”

Fuck. 

“Sorry, yeah.” Keep your breathing under control. “It’s not my thing either, but…uh, if you’re going then I want to go too.”

A lot could happen in a couple hours on campus grounds, he wasn’t letting you out of his sight, especially not at night.

“We can sulk together, then! I think it’s free. Let me double check…yeah, it’s free for admitted students. We just need to RSVP.”

“Cool.” If he kept his replies short then maybe you wouldn’t catch the shakiness in his voice. 

“Do you have a costume?”

“No, you?” 

“Nope.” You sighed, the sound made his mind fuzzy. “And I don’t really have any cool clothes to make one. I was thinking of checking out some stores sometime this week…wanna come with?”

“Right there…”

“What?”

“I’ll be there.”

There was no way you didn't notice the sound of his bedsheets rustling. But he could hear you start rambling, so he was in the clear for now. Art class, project, tired—just a few key words and phrases he managed to pick up on.

He envisioned you perfectly, head settled right between his thighs.

Would you be sweet and kiss it all over? Start from the bottom and trail up until you finally reach the tip? Suck for a while, pull it out with a pop, rest your cheek against his inner thigh to rest, then do it again? Once he finished, would you look at him lovingly and tell him how much you like him?

Or maybe you’d be more intense with him—take him right into your mouth and leave him an immediate moaning mess. A single bat of your lashes and a second of eye contact would make him topple over. Then you’d open your mouth nice and wide to show him you took it all.

Either way, he’d pull you up and kiss you, mumbling strings of praises in between each one before pressing you into the mattress to return the gesture.

Everything felt hot. Too hot. He needed to cool off. He lifted his shirt just above his nipples. They were already hard and proudly showing off their barbell jewelry.

He was close. Please hang up, he can’t hold it in. He was pathetic when it came to self-control. But what kind of person calls someone this late at night instead of just texting, anyway? He really hadn’t expected this while going about his usual nightly routine. 

And just when he thought he was doing a good job of keeping it in, he let a loud sharp gasp escape. 

Silence. He could hear his own heartbeat. 

You’d think nothing of it.

You’d think nothing of it.

You’d think nothing of it. 

“Was that a yawn?” You apologetically asked the question under your breath, like you were speaking to yourself for a brief moment. 

Then your voice picked back up. “Sorry for calling so late, I forgot it’s almost midnight! Anyways, I’ll let you go…good night. I’ll see you tomorrow, Sol.”

“…Night…” 

You hung up. Bless your heart, you barely managed to dodge the breathless moan of your name spilling from him. 

Dopamine in the shape of small hearts flooded his brain, static flowed through his veins. All his cells have the purpose of loving you, nothing else. He wouldn't have it any other way. It’s such a shame the testament of his utmost devotion had to land on his stomach instead of inside you where it belonged.

The haziness slowly died down, he opened his eyes—immediately met with the patch of pictures of you hung on his wall. How could such a perfect person exist? Gaze trailing down towards his counter, he could see an empty container, the one he kept all those sleeping pills in. He’d have to ask Hyugo for more.

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

Chapter 1: I Need You Now But I Don't Know You Yet

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!Reader, Reader POV

Summary: With a birthday printed on your wrist that happened over a hundred years ago, you always thought that you were cursed to never meet your soulmate. But when you finally meet the man that's supposed to be the other half of your soul, you wonder if the stars were wrong, and wonder how this man was meant for you. Reader is Hughie's sister, is not a supe, and is a Literature Professor that gets dragged into the middle of things. This fic takes place in an AU set loosely after Season 3 and does deviate from the plot of The Boys

Tropes: Soulmate AU, Little bit of Grumpy and Sunshine, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Protective Ben/ Soldier Boy, Jealous Ben/Soldier Boy

Warnings: Self deprecating thoughts, Little bit sad, Cursing, Mentions of drinking, Mentions of Sex, Mentions of Death, Loneliness, Longing, Basically the reader just wants to be loved, Reader wears glasses?, Soldier Boy might be a little OOC.

Word Count: 6.3K

Song Inspiration For Chapter: IDK You Yet (Title of chapter based on song) Y'all should listen to this song because it fits so well!

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal Monologue Is in First Person And Is In Italics

A/N: Guys you have no idea how excited I am about this story! It's already shaking up to have a TON of my usual angst, but I'm not surprised.😅 I'm also a little disappointed. I read a soulmate AU fic forever ago for Joel Miller where the birthday was printed on the reader's arm and I cannot for the life of me remember what it was called or find it. If y'all know what it is, please let me know. I'd love to read it again and give the writer a little bit of credit for inspiration. ❤️

Main Masterlist

Series Masterlist

January 24, 1919

The date on your right wrist haunted you, the bold black numbers mocking from the moment you learned what they meant. It had to be a celestial mistake, a misprint, something wrong in the stars that shone so brightly over others, but dulled above your head.

Sometimes you thought you were cursed, that some mystical being before your birth marked you, scarred you, and made you carry the weight of the whole world on your shoulders.

That whoever it was made you different on purpose and you hoped one day you understood what that purpose was.

You'd never met someone born with the same dilemma, to be saddled with a soulmate that was born over 100 years ago, and yet here you were.

You'd heard it all growing up, the hushed whispered "freak" from your schoolmates, the odd looks from your neighbors, the pitying frowns of your parents who had known each other since pre-k, and the hug from your older brother as he whispered the familiar phrase “it‘ll be okay" to soothe you.

But you always wondered…

When would it be okay?

You watched all your friends find their happy endings with their soulmates, the birth years printed on their wrists at least within the same few decades, but not you.

You were alone, different, cursed.

The date printed on your wrist made you different, because no one else had a soulmate that was born so far in the past.

Your soulmate's birthday brushed on your skin only brought a wave of disappointment every time you saw it, because what the hell did it mean? 1919? That meant that your soulmate would be over 100 years old when you met him, whoever it was.

If you even met him.

No one lives that long. My soulmate should be long dead. He can't still be alive. Can he?

Each year that passed was like another nail in the coffin, but you celebrated the birthday of your supposed soulmate with a cupcake and a beer, locked away in your apartment to shut out the jeers of those who knew your particular dilemma. And each year when you blew out the candle you wished that it would be the year you met him, but now you weren't sure it would ever happen.

Because it was impossible.

You didn't understand why you were different, why you were chosen to have a soulmate that was long dead. Maybe it was true, maybe you were born late, born under the wrong sign, or maybe you really were cursed.

You'd heard the stories of people who never found their soulmates, urban legends really, but it didn't make you feel any better. The stories of people who wasted away to nothing, driven to the point of insanity because they never found the other half of their soul, alone for as long as they could stand it before they finally crumbled to dust.

You refused to be like them, turning to books for solace and hoping to escape. Slipping into the pages and into other worlds where people found their other half to leave the loneliness that haunted you behind.

And in that solace your found your true love, literature. It wove around you and brought you peace in a world where you felt lost and different.

When you moved away from the small town you grew up in, you got a job as a Literature professor, reading the great works of others, while trying to forget about the date on your wrist and the soulmate you longed for each day.

It was incredibly lonely to think that you'd live your whole life with only one half of your soul.

Every time you opened a book from the era your soulmate was supposed to be born in you wondered if he had read it, wondered what it was like to live in that time, and imagined what it would have been like to be there with him.

Each day you covered up the date on your wrist with a splash of foundation and playfully laughed it off whenever someone asked you if you'd found your soulmate yet. All the while spending year after year fading just a little bit more as you lost the last pieces of hope that you'd ever meet him.

One Year Ago

You were running late. Frankly you were always running late, but in the city that never sleeps it was to be expected.

It was supposed to be a big day. You had about a hundred papers to grade, a test to proctor, and three lectures to give, but you couldn't complain about your job, you loved it. Loved the groans of your students whenever you announced a test or an essay, loved the soft evenings where you read papers with a cup of tea and learned what in the assigned text was special to your students, and loved to teach from the books that had become home to you, the books that tried to heal your wounded heart.

But today something was different.

Something nagged at the back of your mind, as if you had forgotten that something else was supposed to happen today.

Haircut? No that's not it.

You think as you walk to the large wooden desk in your living room/bedroom. It was technically a dining room table, breakfast table, and your desk, but you'd loved it since the moment you found it tucked into a corner of an antique store in Brooklyn.

Your small studio apartment was quaint, the bedroom and living room divided by a large mid-century wooden screen that you had bought for twenty bucks at a thrift store the weekend you moved into your apartment five years ago. The living room only housed a plump cream colored couch that faced out the window towards the living room window that gave you a spectacular view of the alley between your apartment building and the next. Sometimes you got to watch the couple in the apartment across from you having a terrific fight and then got a front row seat to the loud make-up sex they had almost immediately after.

Large stacks of books dominated every wall stretching up as high up to the ceiling as they could reach, some were pressed against the exposed brick walls, others serving as the base for the coffee table you’d made with a vintage window, and of course there was one stack that towered high above your bed on top of your bedside table.  You didn't own a tv, not when you spent most of your time reading.

Being a English professor meant that you could never have too many books not when they were like old friends that pulled you in whenever you opened their yellowing pages.

Meeting with the head of the English department? You bite the inside of your cheek as you shove your notebook, planner, pencil case, and laptop into your leather messenger bag. No, that's on Thursday.

You'd been working on a research paper that you hoped to publish about the Modern Period of Literature in America, but the head of the English Department wanted to see how much you'd done. In all honesty the only reason why you'd started studying the Modern Period of literature was because it was supposedly the time period in which your soulmate grew up and you thought that it would give you some insight into what his life was like. 

And despite your being an expert on that time period, the head of the English Department did not share your enthusiasm for it. The only thing the head of the English Department had any enthusiasm for was his self-published book of erotic poetry and staring at your legs for too long while making subtle attempts for you to sleep with him even though he was married.

You fight the wave of revulsion with the memory of the last time you had a meeting with him and give yourself a once over in the mirror hanging on the bathroom door that faces in to your living room. You looked the way that you always did, maybe a little more frantic than usual, but that was expected given the fact that you were running late.

Today you had decided to wear your favorite dark green chunky sweater that you'd knitted yourself, a dark gray argyle midi-skirt, chestnut brown ankle high-heeled leather boots, and your traditional pair of circular black-rimmed glasses.

It's going to be a good day. You smile at your reflection. Yeah, if I could remember whatever the hell it is I've forgotten.

You roll your eyes and grab a bagel from the bag on the counter.

No time to toast it.

You think mournfully before shoving it between your teeth as you run out the door, slamming it behind you so hard that it rattles the watercolor botanical framed prints on the inside wall of the apartment.

"Late again?" Your neighbor, Mrs. Charleson, asks opening the cheerful yellow door of her apartment.

She was wearing her traditional pink cat eye glasses and had her wavy gray hair pushed back by a floral headband. When you'd moved in five years ago, she had brought over some cinnamon swirl muffins and a pot of blueberry tea. She'd just lost her own soulmate and husband of sixty-five years and was looking for a friend about as much as you were.

And although she had about eighty cats, all of which who were named after literary figures (your own cat was named Heathcliff), and often smelled like mothballs, you enjoyed spending time with her. She knew about your dilemma and didn't judge you for it. She didn't throw you a pitying look or make outrageous comments about why you'd been chosen to never meet your soulmate. If anything she acted like the way you thought your mother always should but never did. Not with judgement as your mother did, but with concern and love.

"Always." You shout back, muffled around the sesame seed bagel, stamping your foot to get your boot in the right position.

"Tea later?"

"Mhmm."

"Get some earl gray macaroons!"

You make it down the stairs successfully without falling, before throwing yourself against the door that leads into the black and white tiled lobby. Your high heeled boots clack loudly against the floor and you step out onto the crowded sidewalks of the early morning.

Fall was just beginning in the city, your favorite season. The leaves in Central Park were turning reddish brown and yellow and there was a wonderful chill that swept through the crowded streets.

You wove through the people, walking in the direction of NYU and looking down at the antique wristwatch perched on your left wrist to confirm what you already knew- that you were going to be late for your 8:00 am lecture on 20th Century American Romantics.

Shit.

The city is lively for a Monday morning. The chatter of people on phones, the buzz of traffic, the high pitched screech of horns, and the smells of the city wafted over you. It was so different from the small town you grew up in, but you loved being here. Here no one knew you, no one judged you, no one muttered something under their breath about you, and no one grabbed their children and crossed the street as if you were contagious.

You felt free.

You round the corner still looking down at your watch, weaving in and out of the foot traffic the best you can, when someone bumps into your shoulder. Whoever hit you was solid, broad, and much taller than you. The bagel drops from your mouth as you jostle from the bump, and you let out a low groan.

There goes my breakfast.

You look up prepared to curse out the offender when you stop. Whoever it was hadn't stopped moving, but you catch a flash of his bright green eyes as he passes, meeting yours for only a moment.

But that moment seems to last a lifetime.

He was tall with wild dark brown hair so long it touched his shoulders and a scraggly beard that fell over his chest almost to his collarbones. He looked dirty,  almost worn, and was wearing a faded maroon track suit that had some writing on the sleeve in another language that you couldn't place. But his eyes were a brilliant green, so beautiful that they took your breath away.

As soon as his eyes meet yours, your skin hums, body lightening, warmth unfurling like the petals of a flower in the center of your chest curling outward reaching for the sun above. All sounds of the city vanish, leaving you only with the manic thud of your heart. Everything in your body turns towards the man, cells vibrating, reaching out, wanting more, begging you to grab him and hold him close. Electricity pulses and dances along your skin making your hair stand on end and goosebumps erupt along your flesh.

The birthday inscribed by the stars on your wrist sears against your skin like a brand beneath the foundation you smeared over it this morning. You look at him as if seeing for the first time, as if the past years of your life have been colorless, as if you'd been living in a cave for centuries and he's your first glimpse of sunlight, and as if you'd never seen the stars and he's the midnight sky.

You'd never felt any of this before.

The man's eyes widen as he looks at you, people passing between the two of you in a faceless blur, and you wonder if he feels it too.

He has to…

But the man shakes his head and turns his back on you continuing on his path down the sidewalk in the opposite direction, adjusting the strap of the bag on his shoulder as he goes.

"Wait-" You start to say, but your phone rings loudly in your pocket breaking the spell, and as you look down to retrieve it, you lose the man in the crowd.

What the hell just happened?

The rest of your day is chaotic, almost a blur, your body still humming from seeing that man on the street, wrist aching where the birthdate on your wrist burned against your flesh so hot that it seared through the foundation you brushed meticulously over the skin this morning to cover it up. It was no longer black, but flashed a brilliant gold with every shift of your wrist in the light as you moved your arm when teaching, peeking out beneath the sleeve of your sweater. Every flash distracted you from your lecture. Even your TA, Tate, who sat in the front row of your class began to notice how often you lost your train of thought.

You barely got through your 8:00 am lecture, stumbled through you 9:00 and 10:15, and canceled your 2:00 class much to the chagrin of your students who were expecting a test.

When Tate finally asked you if you're feeling alright, you wave a hand and tell him to take the rest of the day off, while you barricaded yourself in your office and stared at your wrist for hours, running your hands over the golden date confused. The birthdays always shone gold after two people found one another, and when your soulmate died, it went back to black, as if a reminder that the world had faded.

It was weird to see it shine so brightly when you'd lived your whole life staring at the mark and wishing for it to go away.

But he's not here, he's gone. I don't know where he went or how to find him…

Your friends back home described finding their soulmates before, tried to explain to you what it was like when they locked eyes with them for the first time, but everyone was different. No one could describe exactly how they felt when it happened.

Deep down you thought that it should feel like what happened when you locked eyes with the man on the street, like nothing else existed, just him and you but-

He acted like it was nothing like I was just another person and not the other half of his soul.

You swallow the lump in your throat, emotion from a lifetime of disappointment building, and finally the tears begin to crest and fall over your cheeks. You'd never heard of a one sided soulmate before, of only one person feeling drawn to the other one.

Then again, I've never heard of someone printed with the date of a soulmate who was born so far in the past.

Seeing him for the first time was like taking a bullet to the chest, the sharp spike, followed by the force of gravity jolting you into reality.

But why him?

You think again about how weathered he looked, like he'd been living under a rock for the past hundred years. And then you see the flash of his brilliant green eyes again in your mind, just for a fleeting moment, but it's enough to make the warmth trail along your skin, like the soft caress of a lover.

Was he really born in 1919? Or was this just another joke? Another way for the universe to laugh at me?

Frustrated tears blur your eyes as you stroke the birthdate on your wrist, heart breaking all over again, because it seemed that even if you had found the man the universe designated for you, he didn't care.

One Year Later: Present Day

You sigh loudly and hold up another dress in front of your body looking at yourself in the mirror. You had no idea what you were going to wear to Annie and your brother Hughie's housewarming party and you only had about another thirty minutes before you had to leave.

Your brother had been living in New York longer than you had, but he still made time for you. The two of you got lunch every week and it was your fault that he met Annie.

Meeting her yourself had been a complete fluke. You'd been sitting at your favorite bench in Central Park by the pond, reading your favorite book, allowing the gentle prose of the author to whisk you away for a few minutes, when someone sat down beside you and promptly began to cry.

And when you asked her what was wrong she'd told you everything about her problems at work and although you'd never been the best at comforting other people, you'd taken her to the closest coffee shop and the two of you had bonded over Chai Tea lattes.

You'd invited her over to watch a movie with your brother one Saturday night and then had a front row seat when the two of them realized that they were meant to be together. You'd tried to be happy for them, but the whole time Annie gushed about Hughie and Hughie stared at her like she was the last glimpse of the sun before it dropped below the horizon all you could think about was that it would never happen to you.

And now one year later, the two of them were finally moving in together in a fancy apartment uptown and you didn't want to imagine what the rent was. Your own studio was enough for you and you were lucky enough to have one that was rent controlled.

But you figured due to Annie being one of the Seven, she was probably making more than your measly teaching salary could ever amount to.

Learning that she was Starlight had been surprising, you weren't a supe, not even close and you didn't want to be. You had your hands full with teaching college kids, and didn't want to think about what it would be like to have superpowers or really what you would do with them. You certainly didn't need them to be a teacher and you didn't want to have them.

Plus, you always worried that you'd get some weird power like shooting webs out of your butt or making it rain blood. You didn't want to take that chance and shooting up Compound V felt like Russian Roulette.

You also worried about your brother working so closely with supes. The two of you hadn’t met any growing up and you worried that he was putting himself in danger every day when he went out to deal with them. But you were happy that Annie went with him, because you knew that she wouldn't let anything happen to him, she loved him too much.

As you hold up a black dress in the mirror you see a flash of the golden birthdate on your arm, and you're unable to fight the emotion that builds in your chest when you do.

It had been a year since it happened, since you locked eyes with a complete stranger on the street and felt your soul intertwine with his and he turned his back on you.

You'd understood that.

Understood that for some reason he decided to turn away like you meant nothing to him, like you weren't the other piece of his soul, and like a part of him didn't call out to you, a lighthouse over a stormy sea to a sinking ship.

It had broken you more than the first time you realized what the date on your arm meant. It always seemed ridiculous that something that brought happiness to millions of others made you feel broken, like there was something wrong with you.

And in that moment on the street something felt right for a few seconds, you felt whole for the first time in your life, only to have everything dashed against the rocks all over again.

But you hadn't forgotten him, couldn't forget him. His green eyes haunted you and each night you dreamed of him.

You saw pieces of his life, his memories, felt his pain, his anger, his frustration, and deep down his fear whenever you fell asleep. You'd never heard of that before, of a soulmate dreaming the memories of another.

You'd asked your neighbor, Mrs. Charleson if she had dreams of her soulmate's memories, she'd said no, but then she said that she'd heard about it, thought that it was only a myth, but it meant that the souls were fated to spend more than one lifetime together.

As if you knew what that meant.

It had broken your heart even more when she said that, because if that were true why did he turn away?

How could he turn away? Why did he leave me standing in the street and acted like I wasn't his other half?

It made you think that maybe he wasn't impressed with you and that he was disappointed that you of all people were his soulmate.

You'd had a mental breakdown at Mrs. Charleson's apartment when you went home early the day you met your soulmate or whatever the hell he was.

She'd made blueberry tea and rubbed you back. And when the tea hadn't worked she had cracked a bottle of red wine and ordered greasy takeout food that the two of you ate on her floral couch while her cats circled like sharks looking for a piece of your chicken and broccoli.

You would have called Annie, but she and Hughie were out of town on a long weekend getaway.

And when you went back to your apartment and crashed into your bed, you'd dreamt of him for the first time.

The memories you'd seen when you closed your eyes that night were not happy at all. You'd seen the early years of his life being berated by his father, years of him drinking and fucking his sorrows away, and then the worst, him being tortured in what looked like a lab. He was a supe, that much you could gather from the memories. But they were filled with pain, suffering, frustration- you'd never met someone who'd been through so much before. Endured so much torture.

You still didn't know his name, didn't see enough of his life to figure out who he was, only that he was different than you in almost every single way. The memories were terrible, filled with blood, death, and pain. It scared you to see your soulmate that way, see him so angry and see him hurt and kill people. You couldn't imagine the kind of man he was, the kind of man who could burn someone beyond recognition and feel absolutely nothing.

It was confusing. You didn't understand how someone who was supposed to be the other half of your soul, was the complete opposite of you. Someone that was filled with so much rage and pain was the man the stars declared was for you.

It doesn't matter anyway. He saw you and didn't want you.

You ignore the lump of emotion in the back of your throat and hold up a navy blue dress, but you hang it back in your closet with a sigh. Nothing seemed to be appropriate for you to wear to the party and you hadn’t been shopping for a new outfit in ages. Not to mention you knew that no matter what you wore Annie would look flawless.

You loved your brother's soulmate, but sometimes you were intimidated by how pretty she was and how together she was. It made you a little self-conscious about the long skirts, sweaters, and blazers you wore when you were at work and you were not together at all.

You seemed to always be running around like a chicken with it's head cut off, frantically running from place to place and trying not to lose the last bit of sanity you had left. While Annie was confident, poised, and glided into each room.

Finally, you reach for a pair of your favorite blue jeans and the same green chunky knit sweater you were wearing the day that you saw him for the first time. The sleeves were long enough to cover the mark on the wrist. You hadn't told your brother or Annie about that day and you didn't want them to see the golden date on your wrist and ask you where your soulmate was.

Guess I'm going a little more casual today.

On your way out you give your cat, Heathcliff, an affectionate scratch behind the ears and grab your purse. You were running a little early this time, early enough to pick up a Snake Plant around the corner at your favorite plant shop, 'Please Don't Die,' as a housewarming gift and then stopped at the liquor store next door to grab a bottle of Annie's favorite wine.

You figured that you'd end up staying late and drinking wine with her long after the party was over.

Hughie opens the door of the apartment when you knock. "Thank God you're here! Annie is freaking out and driving me up the wall-"

"No I'm not! I'm just expressing all the things that have to be done within the next five minutes or I really am going to go crazy!" You hear his soulmate shout back when Hughie lets you in.

The apartment is fancier than yours, all white walls and glass windows that display a view you would kill for. Your brother is wearing a nice light blue button down shirt and navy tie, and his hair is it's usual fluffed and curly self. He looks happy and it warms a piece of your heart because you knew how much that he deserved it. And that's all you wanted for your older brother.

Annie appears, wearing a white dress that wraps over one shoulder and falls to her ankles, effortlessly elegant as usual. It made you feel self-conscious that you'd worn jeans, when Annie was wearing something that made her look like a Greek goddess.

"I am so underdressed." You mutter to yourself

"No! You look great babe. I love those jeans on you." She smiles pulling you in for a hug.

"Well-"

"But please let me do something with your hair." Annie touches the messy bun at the back of your head making a face.

"What's wrong with my hair?"

"Nothing, I'm just going to spruce it up a little bit for you."

"But-"

Annie pulls the bottle of wine and the plant from your arms and shoves them at Hughie. "We'll be right back." And with that she drags you to their shared bedroom.

20 minutes later your hair has been perfectly curled and styled by Annie's skillful hands. She'd even adjusted your make up so that now you're wearing a bold red lipstick and a dark eyeshadow that matches your ensemble. And even you have to admit that you look better than you did moments ago. You usually didn't wear that much makeup, sometimes it made you feel like you weren't you, but what Annie had applied seemed stylish.

"Thanks Annie."

"Of course." She smiles brightly and leads you back out into the large kitchen filled with stainless steel appliances and real marble countertops. "How have you been? Did you finish that paper you were writing?"

By now several people have already begun to gather at different parts of the apartment, talking quietly with one another, while sipping drinks and eating finger food. The sound of their chatter is masked by the Billy Joel song playing from the speaker in the corner.

"Yeah. I submitted it, now I'm just waiting for the department head to read it." You frown at the thought.

"You don't think he'll like it?" She moves to the freezer to grab a bag of ice.

"Dale doesn't like the modern period of literature as much as I do so I'm expecting him to have a lot of critiques and reasons why he doesn't like it." You take the bag from her and set it on the counter.

"Sorry."

"It's okay. I'm used to it. He's never ecstatic about my research work." The thought makes you frown. "Even though he knows it's my specialty and the reason why he hired me."

"Isn’t he the creepy married guy that keeps trying to take you to dinner and wrote all those sensual poems about women who sound nothing like his wife?"

"Yep."

"Ew." Annie's face scrunches up in disgust.

"My thoughts exactly." You sigh looking around the kitchen for an ice bucket. "Do y'all have an ice bucket somewhere or-"

"It should be in that cabinet." She points behind you just as you hear someone knock loudly on the front door.

"Perfect."

The ice bucket is acrylic, see-through, and light pink, but you find it easily. The ice clanks against the sides as you pour, not bothering to watch Hughie open the door for whoever it was that hit the front door of the apartment with so much force you thought it would cave in.

Annie leans against the counter pouring herself a glass of wine and groans to herself when she sees who Hughie was greeting.

"What's wrong?" You ask her, your tongue between your teeth as you try not to spill any of the ice over the perfect countertops.

"I didn't think he would come." She grumbles.

"Who?"

"Ben." Annie all but sighs the name.

"And why didn't you want him to come?" You ask, pouring more ice into the bucket.

"He's just kind of rough-"

"Rough?"

"He works with Hughie. He's a supe. Thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread or whatever.” She sighs again and takes a sip of her white wine to calm down. "Actually he used to be Soldier Boy."

"Soldier Boy? You mean the supe from the 80's that died?"

Hughie didn't tell me he had a dead man working with him.

"It's a long story." Annie waves her hand as if to dissipate the thought, but it doesn’t make you any less curious. "Now he works at the bureau with Hughie trying to keep supes in check. Usually he and Butcher bump heads."

"Oh."

Hughie didn't talk much about what he did with Butcher, or really who he met, but after Homelander disappeared and Stormfront took over as leader as the Seven more supes began to come out of the woodwork, supes that had been afraid before, but now had no one to keep them in check. And although The Seven were feared in the city, no one was feared as much as Homelander.

"I'm sure that he won't try anything Annie. And if he does I'll keep him in check." You smile at your friend.

It's her housewarming party and supe or no if he's a prick I'm going to kick his ass out. Annie doesn't deserve to feel stressed today of all days.

"Thanks babe."

"What are friends for?"

She squeezes your arm and walks away to talk with MM who stands with a little girl who must be his daughter. You'd only spoken to him a handful of times, but he was always eager to talk about her achievements in school. He was so proud of her that it made your heart warm. Her mother wasn't his soulmate, but there hadn't been any hard feelings between MM and his daughter's mother.

That wasn't unusual. You'd known several people who decided to date other people before meeting their soulmate as a way of passing the time. You'd always thought it was ridiculous to commit yourself to someone else and fall in love with them, only to have your heart broken when they met who they were meant to be with.

It was why you hadn't tried to date anyone, because you might have never met your soulmate, but the other person you'd be in a relationship with would. And you didn’t want to give your heart to someone only to have them leave you when they met their other half. Which meant that you were probably going to die alone, especially because your soulmate doesn't want you. It hadn't helped that you'd seen a few memories from your own soulmate with other women over the years, women that didn't look anything like you, women that seemed more confident, more beautiful, and more stylish than you.

Maybe that's why he didn't want me.

Your feel the familiar twinge in your chest when you thought that and fought the tears that burned when you thought of how happy Annie and Hughie were. You didn't want to cry at their party.

The familiar question rises in your head again:

When will it be okay?

Probably never.

You turn toward the freezer holding the now half-full bag of ice intent on putting it back when someone bumps into you. The bag slips from your hands and ice goes skittering across the perfect hardwood floors in every direction, but just when you start to drop to pick it up, you feel a large hand grip your shoulder.

A gasp escapes from your mouth as it makes contact.

As soon as the palm touches you, you feel nothing else, not the shift of the sweater against your skin, not the slight chill from the air conditioner, not the brush of your hair against your cheeks, all you feel is the warmth radiating through your clothes and soaking into your skin from the person's hand.

The hand moves to cup your chin gently, the shock of the person's skin touching yours makes the feeling increase ten-fold as the hand tilts your face up to meet the eyes of the person who bumped into you.

You know it's him before your eyes meet his, know that it's the man from the street who you saw for only a few seconds a year ago, but this time when his beautiful green eyes meet yours everything you felt that day comes roaring back.

He's taller than you remember, shoulders proud and broad stretching a dark gray button down shirt over his chest that have the sleeves rolled up revealing tanned arms. His hair is shorter, still dark brown, but now only long enough to cover the tops of his ears and his beard is shaved so that only a thick dusting covers his cheeks, but it's still him. And he's more handsome than any version you could come up with in your mind.

All sound in the room vanishes, the drone of chatter fades, the clinking of glasses disappears, the only sound that remains is your own heart thudding in your chest and you swear you can hear his beating at the same frequency, both of your hearts calling out to one another.

Your entire body feels like it's vibrating, as if every cell is moving so fast that they're heating you from the inside, leaving behind a molten puddle of what you used to be. A golden cord weaves around the two of you securing your heart to his in your mind, making you gasp as it hooks to his heart binding his soul to yours. Time stops as he gazes at you, something brightening in his green eyes as they absorb your own gaze.

The man doesn't move. It almost looks like he's stopped breathing, and you realize that you haven't taken a breath since he touched your shoulder. His eyes drop down to your right wrist where your hand rests over his heart, where he knows his birthday will be.

You don't remember reaching out to touch him, but now that you realize it, you can feel his heart beating beneath the palm of your hand like a fluttering bird, gentle and judging by the memories you had witnessed from him, nothing about this man was gentle.

"I've been looking everywhere for you sweetheart." The man rumbles, the words vibrating against your fingertips where they rest against his muscular chest. He smiles down at you and somewhere deep down you feel something break open that you thought was locked away long ago.

And as you stand there looking up at the man you thought you'd never see again, the autumn sun warm against your back, you feel a flicker of something that could grow into a blaze spark to life in your chest.

A/N: I hope y'all loved the first chapter as much as I loved writing it! I've never written a soulmate AU, so I am a little nervous about it, but I think that it's going to be a lot of fun! And yes, I did give Ben the same birthday as Dean Winchester (not the same year). In my head Ben is Dean from a different universe, and it just made sense to me. 😂

Thank you so much for reading! Reblogs, likes, and comments are not required, but are always appreciated! I love hearing what y'all think 😊 If you'd like to be added to the taglist for this series please let me know! :)

Taglist:

@pamwritessometimes @roger-that-cap @my-obsession-spn @deangirl96 @kr804573

@roseblue373 @52ndstreeet @mrsjenniferwinchester @impala67stellawinchester

[silencesscreams]

"is there any chance i can fix this?" where james and reader are best friends since birth but he begins to pull away and spend less time with her in favor of the boys, so she just cuts him out of her life and after a while he doesn't know how to deal with it anymore. hiiiii

sad beautiful tragic

james potter x fem reader (angst)

a/n: sorry about any grammar mistakes, english isn’t my first language (also i’m pretty bad at writing angst but i tried my best) also immediately thought of the title because of the taylor swift song, so hope you don’t mind the association. also the first kiss part came to my mind because of a tiktok i saw a few weeks ago but i don’t really remember who’s it was to credit them

warnings: friendship distancing, kissing, fighting, cursing, a bit short (sorry), happy ending

“i’m sorry, okay? i’m so sorry, honey, please. is there any chance i can fix this? just tell me, please”

you knew james potter and he knew you. knowing meaning comprehending each other, meaning that you stood by each others side for as long as you can remember.

he was your first friend. he was your neighbor and you both grew up together, it was expected that you both would know each other better than anyone.

sure, it felt different when you both started hogwarts and suddenly he had new friends, but so did you. you spent the time you could together, always saving a bit of your days for each other.

during the sixth to seventh year summer vacation, he had spent the whole summer with you, you both would hang out all the time.

until he kissed you.

it was the last day of summer and you both had spent the evening in his room. you were talking about a book you had been reading recently and he listened quietly, like it was the most interesting thing he had ever heard of. until you paused for a brief moment and he moved closer to you. you were sat on the floor with him, the carpet tickling your legs as you played with the fluffy yarn under you.

“honey” he said, you looked at him, doe eyed waiting for him to continue. “a phrase. two words, six letters, two vowels. guess.” he said lowly whilst looking at your lips. your mind went blank.

one vowel for each word. you still didn’t get it.

“what are the vowels?” you whisper back, he smiles.

“i and e” he answers, not taking his eyes from off of you for a second. you knew.

“kiss me?” and so he did. his lips met yours abruptly, his hands grabbed your hips and yours went straight to the back of his neck. it completely changed the way you ever saw him, hell, it completely changed your expectations to a kiss. it was better than anything you’d ever experienced and you loved it.

when you got back to school, it seemed like he didn’t do that, actually, it seemed like he didn’t even talk to you the whole summer.

sure, he did casually say hello in the halls and you might’ve shared one or two conversations, but what the hell? he kisses you like that and expects you to just forget about it? that was the most fucked up thing anyone could’ve done. as the semester went on, your mind was absolutely torturing you over that kiss.

it made you overthink every single thing you ever did around him. but maybe he didn't have time, maybe he was really busy with his studies and quidditch, right? that was probably it.

he saw you every once in a while, said an awkward hi or whatever that thing signaling head thing he did was.

the crush you had developed for him didn’t help at all. it made you crave his presence in your life, even now that you hated him more than you ever thought you possibly could. you missed his pet names for you, ‘honey’ and ‘sweetheart’ sounded so amazing coming out of his mouth.

but from the moment he started to ignore you, you decided he was absolutely done. he was never going to see a smile coming from you ever again, he was never going to get another hello, nothing. james potter didn’t deserve a single thing from you.

your friends agreed. they thought he was a piece of shit and said you should’ve cut him off a long time before.

life went on without him, you barely thought about him. your studies were going well, everything was great.

christmas break came up and when you saw james at the train station, you were pissed. you knew he was going to be there for christmas dinner, he was always invited alongside with his family. you didn’t know how he was going to act then, was he going to pretend it never happened?

when you got home, your mother instantly started asking you what you wanted for dinner and you were glad to be home, you just hated that he was in the house next to yours.

a few nights after you both got home, you were invited for a date by steven, who worked at a bookstore near the city park. you said yes, he took you to see a shitty movie and tried to kiss you after dropping you off at your front porch. you dodged it and gave him a good night kiss on the cheek. james saw it all.

once the date left, you heard him yelling from his porch:

“who’s that?” you ignored him and went inside, sure, you weren’t going to see steven again but james didn’t deserve to know that.

on christmas day you went to the potter’s for dinner, your parents insisted for you to go, even though you tried to fake being sick. sirius was there too, you politely greeted all of them and didn’t bother to answer james’ “hey”.

when you sat at the side of the living room table james sat next to you, even though that wasn’t his usual seat. you played with your dress awkwardly and ate less, being there was making you so irritated you lost your appetite.

after taking a bite from your dessert, you thanked euphemia for the food and told your parents you were feeling a bit sick and that you were heading home, telling them to enjoy the rest of their night.

as you were opening the door to head out, you heard footsteps behind you. you knew james was there and you had no interest to talk with him.

“don’t” you simply stated, stepping out and shutting the door lightly on him, he followed you during the small walk between both your houses.

“hey!” he shouted, trying to get your attention. you were about to shut the door to your house on his face, but he held it with his foot, going into your house.

he pulled you by your wrist but you tugged it away from him.

“don’t touch me!” you shouted at him, staring into his eyes for the first time that night.

“now you can talk to me, huh? ‘the fucks up with you?!” he shouts back, brows furrowed. you couldn’t believe him, what a fucking nerve he had.

“whats up with YOU?!” you step closer to him, throwing your keys on the coffee table in the middle of the living room. “you’ve ignored me for the whole semester and now you wanna talk?” he had never seen you like this. you had never been this angry at anyone or anything around him.

“i’m sorry?” he had no reaction, he knew he was wrong, he just couldn’t deal with it. with anything. he didn’t know what to do after he kissed you, he couldn’t handle any of it. he knew that if he spent more time around you he would fall harder, he couldn’t risk it.

“i���m sorry! now that you don’t have anyone else near for you to talk to, i’m worthy of your attention? i’m so lucky, right?!” your eyes started to tear up, but you held it in, he was not getting to see you cry.

“honey, i’m sorry i didn’t talk much with you these past few months, but i tried to speak with you tonight and you didn’t even bother to answer me!” he ran his hand through his hair, looking at you as you sat down on the couch, staring at your hands.

“you didnt even look at me. the entire fucking night. one lousy ‘hey’ is not trying to do anything” he handed you a piece of paper, it was crumpled up in his jeans’ pocket. you knew he was bad with words, but the paper was written front and back. what was he even trying to do? did he think a letter was enough to fix the damage he had done?

“really? you’re a little too late for this, don’t you think?” you said, looking at him angrily.

“fine, don’t read it then. just keep it, okay?” he knew you were about to cry. it was the worst feeling he had ever felt.

“you don’t get to do this to me, james” you hold back tears once you say it.

“i know, honey, i know” he tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, cupping your face as you try to not melt because of his touch. he kisses you, but this time you pull away.

“no. don’t do this to me” you say, a single tear streaming down your face, he wipes it off but more tears just keep coming

“im sorry, im so sorry for everything i did and-“ you interrupt him.

“could you just try to listen?!” you shout, pulling away from his touch again. “what makes you think that i want this? after all you did, better, all that you didn’t do?! you kiss me and expect me to forget about it? expect me to be okay with you ignoring me all the time just because you kissed me again? i can’t be okay with any of this unless you actually explain to me what happened. i really try to understand you, but all of this doesn’t help!”

“i love you” he says “i have loved you all my life and i didn’t know, after i kissed you it all hit me and i couldn’t trust myself around you anymore, i didn’t want to hurt you so i pulled away, i just didn’t know it would hurt you more like that. i’m sorry, but im here now and i want to show you how much I do love you” he pauses and sits next to you on the couch.

“i’m sorry, okay? i’m so sorry, honey, please. is there any chance i can fix this? just tell me, please” he wipes the tears from off your face again. you knew he meant it, you just didn’t know how to trust him again.

“i don’t know” you whisper, looking into his eyes, you had never seen him look this sad. you wanted to trust him, you really did, but how could you? how could you know he wasn’t going to pull something like that again?

you couldn’t be sure of anything, you could only hope for the best and be careful. so you gave it a shot.

“come here” you say lowly, pulling him in for a hug. he buried his face in the crook of your neck and gave you small kisses.

“i’m so sorry, baby” he whispered.

“i know” you whisper back, he looks at you and gives you quick kisses all over your face. you can’t help but smile.

it was going to take a while for you to trust him again, but you knew you could.

[rin-sith]

*That* scene in Six Hundred Strike is not about vengeance, it's about vulnerability ... because the Vengeance saga isn't about vengeance

To think all of this started because I was trying to determine why it feels so natural to read intimacy into the torture scene in Six Hundred Strike ... See, I'm personally not someone who reads an angle like this into things easily, but this time I found myself doing it too. And I just needed to know why.

It just made no sense for a while, because if you look at it superficially, it shouldn't make sense; it's a freaking torture scene. But I don't know, somehow, I must have felt that there was something there ... and I think I figured it out.

See, the reason why it feels so natural to read intimacy into this scene is because ... it actually is incredibly intimate. Not in an actually sexual way, but more so in a, "Imagine you were suddenly able to read someone's mind, and they yours" kind of intimacy.

It's really easy to just assume Six Hundred Strike is literally about vengeance, but it isn't. Now, please stick with me for a bit because we are going on a bit of a tangent here, but I promise we'll get back to this eventually.

The tangent I want to explore first is (as you've probably seen in the title) that the whole Vengeance saga is, ironically, about the unnecessity of vengeance and how destructive grudges and resentment can be. Think about it:

In Not Sorry For Loving You, Odysseus lets Calypso rant and then walks away without confronting her or accusing her, even telling her what she wants to hear one last time. I already discussed why Odysseus is an incredibly non-judgmental, non-resentful person in my Monster essay, and here is another excellent example of that.

Charybdis (I'm skipping Dangerous because he doesn't encounter any enemies there) is the first "monster" enemy he leaves alive since Polyphemus (Scylla doesn't count because he still "kills" for the sake of getting past her, even if it's in the form of sacrificing his men.) While one might argue that he had no choice since Charybdis is virtually impossible to kill, I think placing this encounter here might be an intentional choice especially since it differs greatly from the way that Charybdis is in the Odyssey. There has to be reason behind this change.

In Get In The Water (my beloved 🫶) we are explicitly shown that Odysseus offers Poseidon (the god who killed his whole fleet and is responsible for most of his suffering) forgiveness. The reason Odysseus has to torture him in the first place is Poseidon's own refusal of this mercy—he's literally torturing Poseidon in order to make him finally release the grudge because he has proven that this is the only way to actually get through to him. It actually shows perfectly that Poseidon's own inability to release his resentment became his downfall in the end, disproving his own "ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves" motto as his own ruthlessness bit him in the a** this time, as I talked about in this post.

... And there is no resentment or vengeance in Six Hundred Strike either.

On one hand, it's easy to assume phrases like "For every comrade, every one of my friends, almost all of whom were slaughtered by your hand" or "How does it feel to be helpless? How does it feel to know pain?" indicate resentment, but ... not really.

We already know that Odysseus doesn't want vengeance, or he wouldn't have tried to lead from the heart one song earlier.

And then make yourself aware of something else: Not once during any of their encounters is Odysseus actually accusing or resenting Poseidon for anything.

"Almost all of whom were slaughtered by your hand" is an objective fact. It's just true. Someone vengeful may have said "I'll make you pay for all of those you slaughtered" or "All of their deaths are your fault" ... Odysseus just says, "for every comrade". He doesn't specify what he's doing for his comrades ... and it sure as hell isn't that he's (trying to) cause Poseidon pain or harm for them (which would be vengeance.)

For every comrade, he is fighting Poseidon, in order to finally reach his goal. For every comrade, he's doing everything that he has to do in order to get home, and in order to end this feud.

And then we get to the torture scene and it's ... actually so incredibly freaking intimate. Because it's not actually about vengeance, it's not about accusing Poseidon, or making him pay, or suffer more than necessary. If Odysseus were speaking from a genuine vengeance angle, he'd probably sound more like, "You killed my friends, now you pay for it. You did this to me and now it is your time to suffer." But he doesn't.

The torture scene in Six Hundred Strike is actually ... just another, much more extreme, repeat of Odysseus' lines from Get In The Water (my beloved 🫶): "Aren't you tired, Poseidon? It's been ten years, how long will this go? We're both hurting from losses, so why not leave this here and just go home?"

Odysseus tried saying it nicely ... now he's stabbing him with his own trident, hoping, practically begging, that he finally listens and accepts. Just lets them both go home.

And the thing is, this time, he isn't just saying "we're both hurting from losses" ... All you have to do is repeat to yourself Odysseus' entire monologue that he unleashes while he's stabbing him in a calmer, gentler tone and you'll see that what he is actually yelling out at Poseidon are all of the reasons why he is hurting. Sharing with him all of the pain that he probably hasn't shared with anyone ... ever.

"How does it feel to be helpless? How does it feel to know pain?" -> How does it feel to be vulnerable? I've felt vulnerable for so long without anyone to talk to or because no one truly understood me or what I'm going through.

"I watched my friends die in horror, crying as they were all slain. I heard their final moments, calling their captain in vain." -> This is why I am hurting. These are my losses.

"Look what you turned me into. Look what we've become." -> Look what I could be if I actually followed your lessons. Is this what you really want? Why can't you understand the harm that this is causing both of us?

"All of the pain that I've been through ... haven't I suffered enough?" -> Aren't you tired, Poseidon? It's been ten years, how long will this go? We're both hurting from losses, so why not leave this here and just go home?"

"You didn't stop when I begged you." -> I asked you to "Stop this, please" mere minutes ago. You didn't stop. That's why I'm doing this.

"(You) told me to close my heart. You said the world is dark. Didn't you say that ruthlessness is mercy?" -> I'm doing what you said you wanted me to do. Do you really want this? Do you really believe this? Can something like this really be mercy?

The first time I heard this, I firmly believed that Odysseus was actually crying during this part, and honestly, I believe that to this day. The canon visuals don't show us his face and I want to almost say that's intentional.

This whole scene is about vulnerability. Forced vulnerability, in a lot of ways, but raw, real vulnerability nonetheless.

This isn't just a torture scene; it's actually one of the most intimate scenes we've ever seen Odysseus share with anyone on screen. Seldom do we see him this honest in front of others (the vulnerable scene with Circe at the end of There Are Other Ways is the only other example I can think of.) Otherwise, all of his honest, raw songs are his solo songs (Monster, Just A Man, ...)

But here, Odysseus is essentially using the symbol of Poseidon's invulnerability—his trident—to force him into the most vulnerable position that he's probably been in centuries, if not ever ... and at the same time, he is being incredibly vulnerable himself. He's opening up to Poseidon in a kind of absolute way that we have actually never seen him open up to anyone.

... If that is not intimacy in its rawest, most painful, uncomfortable, and yet cathartic forms, I don't know what is.

As if that weren't sad enough... The saddest part about all of this is actually Poseidon's "Monster!" ... Because it tells us without a doubt that he is actually incapable of receiving or understanding those words from Get In The Water (my beloved 🫶). He is incapable of understanding vulnerability. All he can see is the "monstrous" act that accompanies it because that is something he knows and recognizes.

Although I believe, in the end, Odysseus did get through to him, and did get him to drop the grudge, I believe it happened on a kind of subconscious level rather than genuine acknowledgment or agreement. It's further proof of how Odysseus is capable of growth while Poseidon isn't (yet.)

Poseidon remains stuck in his ways, in his "ruthlessness" philosophy, because he isn't ready to acknowledge its flawed nature, essentially making it his own cage that prevents him from growing or moving forward. Meanwhile, Odysseus is walking away, walking ahead.

... Part of me almost wants to claim that he started begging Odysseus to stop so quickly not because of the physical pain, but because of his words. Because the vulnerability forced on him was hurting in a way that physical injuries, even from his own trident, never could. Because deep down, very deep down, he must've ... "felt" what Odysseus wanted him to understand and feel anyway.

Remember how I compared this type of intimacy to the sudden ability to read someone's mind before? I chose this analogy for a reason. What is intimacy if not using the very source of a god's invulnerability, essentially putting yourself into his divine shoes, doing what you know he would do to you ... in order to force him to connect to your mortal feelings and pains, even if he can still not truly understand them?

Here is where we see, for the first time, maybe ever, what even Odysseus and Athena couldn't do (yet), and the core reason why their partnership broke apart: a mortal and a divine genuinely understood each other's perspectives ... saw themselves in the other, even if only for a moment.

Given all that ... there is absolutely nothing I can say against kicking my feet and giggling excitedly over this scene.

[omegalomania]

ok listen obviously like everyone else i am Fucking Devastated but the fucking sHRIMPLICATIONS here are KILLING me.

the two last "new" songs we got before the hiatus were alpha dog and from now on we are enemies (equally fucked up song btw) and pete namedrops alpha dog as the last song they wrote before the hiatus and it's such a. it's SUCH a fucking. augh.

like it's so painfully and clearly a farewell. the lyrics all telegraph it. your time has passed. never means forever. walk off into the sunset. the discussion of how much effort is required to maintain this life and how they already feel burned out, past their prime when they were all in their mid-twenties and early thirties. and the sheer fucking POETRY of the way it was the last song they recorded - tell rock and roll i'm alone again - until they announced their triumphant return with save rock and roll in 2013. welcome to the new déjà vu.

and oh yeah the last word issued in the song's studio version is the word "abracadabra," which pete cites as the word that christian bales character in the film “the prestige” says he will utter before he disappears from prison. "abracadabra" was a key word in the viral ARG-esque marketing campaign leading up to the release of believers never die...right before fall out boy seemingly vanished off the very face of the earth.

and, OH YEAH, the first shows they played after reuniting involved a multi-song medley spanning all the stages of their career, with one of those songs being the first time they ever played alpha dog, albeit partially.

the notion of the wizard through the curtain speaking to a sense of bitterness (at least if pete's ten year old genius annotation is anything to go by) which is the exact same phrasing to the way joe would later talk about the band's fraught, strained feelings leading up to the hiatus in a podcast with kerrang while promoting his book.

many people have pointed out the parallels between flu game and alpha dog - the way they both discuss the exhaustion of being so visible and constantly putting yourself out there and how taxing that is, especially when you're simultaneously trying to cover up how hard it is. how isolating it is, when the whole world is squinting against the starlight feathering off you. it's worth noting that these parallels are not merely implicit, either. "flu game" is in and of itself an explicit reference to a famous game michael jordan played while sick in which he claimed that he didn't want to give up, no matter how sick and tired he was. and how did pete annotate a specific couplet, ten years ago?

we must make it hard to look so easy doing something so hard

another explicit reference to michael jordan, years and years prior.

and this is the first time they've ever played alpha dog in full. nearly 15 full years after the hiatus started. by now, fall out boy have been together for far longer than they've ever been apart. by now, fall out boy has been in their "posthiatus" era for longer than they have their "prehiatus" one.

i dont really have a conclusion to this. just, i dunno man. something about the repeated lyric "never means forever" on a greatest hits compilation titled "believers never die." something about i'm a star vs. so much for stardust vs. no more stardust. something about motifs that span decades, that span years of hurt and cracked-open wounds that have now been poured over with liquid gold, mending them anew. something about reclaiming old scars and ugly histories and reforging them into something filled with streaming starlight and sun-drenched smiles.

abracadabra.

[beardedjoel]

new addiction

boss!joel x f!reader one shot collection | part two

summary: you’ve been fantasizing about your boss, but when he leaves you a mysterious note to meet him after work hours, everything changes.

warnings: 18+! MDNI! non-apocalypse au, boss!joel is a lil mean but not too mean, oral sex (m receiving), dirty talk, unprotected piv, spit kink, size kink kinda, panty stealing? does that need a tag idk, this is a filthy nasty fic and i love it

word count: 4k

a/n: basically just a shamless one shot of joel being your boss and you getting to fuck him, this is not my most proof read work i’ve ever posted but i hope you all like it! inspired by the new taylor swift song “i can see you” it’s literally my religion right now

You feel the crinkle of the paper in your hands another time, staring down at it as if the words on the page are going to change any time soon. You read over the simple phrasing, almost wanting to trace your fingers over the inking just to check that it’s truly real.

my office

6pm

JM

You’ve been working for Mr. Miller - Joel, he told you to call him, but old habits die hard - for a little over four months now. You’d always been taught to refer to any person of authority this way, so it was taking some getting used to to just call him Joel. 

This has been the longest four months of your life, mostly due to the man in question - Joel fucking Miller, your boss, the man responsible for your livelihood, the man you absolutely should not be pining over. How you can stop lusting after him is beyond you when he looks like that - his dark hair has grown out a bit since you started, brown curls flecked with gray that match his beard traveling down his neck now. Curls you dream of sinking your hands into and tugging in the heat of the moment every single day. Every time his dark brown eyes catch yours during conversation, you have to fight your mind to stay on track.  Watching his lips move, wondering what they’d feel like on yours, on any part of your body. It’s been completely mind bending, the attraction you feel for him. 

It all started a few weeks ago, when you started to wonder if the attraction was mutual. At first, it was a sidelong glance that lasted a bit too long here and there, then a few times where he brushed his body a little too close to yours, and you’d feel the heat of it linger long after he was gone. You could scarcely breathe when he got that close to you, a few times he’d hovered behind you at your desk to look at something on the computer with you and you wondered how you weren’t combusting, flames dancing across your skin. The moment you’d felt his hot breath on your neck, you fought hard not to shudder, and when one slipped by, you cursed yourself, hoping Joel hadn’t noticed. You’d thought maybe he hadn’t, but he suggested as he walked away that maybe you get a sweater to wear inside if you were so cold.

Fucking asshole.

He had to know the effect he was having on you. No matter how hard you tried to hide it, he was flirting in his own, restrained way. The most you’d gotten out of him was when he put one of his large, my god, so large, hands on your lower back as he’d breezed past you in the small, cramped employee break room to get to the coffee machine. 

“‘Scuse me, doll,” he’d said gruffly as he passed, and you nearly choked upon hearing the little pet name from him. Doll… you’d rolled the word around in your mind the entire rest of the day, amazed you could get any work done.

It was a small office - just a little, rented space to run his contracting business out of, and you’d been hired on to do any kind of admin work, really. There wasn’t any kind of official job title, you’d just been needed to tend to the books, appointments, and making sure everything was in order. It wasn’t a bad gig, not your dream job by any means, but now that you’d fallen deeply into your infatuation with your boss, of all people, it was making it hard to want to leave. 

And if you’re honest with yourself, you should want to find a new job - Joel can be, well, an asshole, to put it mildly. He doesn’t have time for bullshit, and he makes that perfectly clear to everyone in his vicinity. All the employees at the construction sites and office do revere him, and know he’s one of the best in Austin to learn from and have on your resume as far as contracting goes. On his good days, however, he really is a pleasure to have around, and you relish in the times you get to see his warm smile and hear him laugh at one of his employees busting his balls. On those days, you can see the speck of hope that keeps the people around him in his life.

Joel typically stops in at least once a day before rushing off to check on things at his job sites, and sometimes you do worry he’s wearing himself too thin. He comes in looking exhausted some days, snapping easily and drinking copious amounts of coffee. But you have to constantly remind yourself that’s not for you to worry about - you aren’t his wife, his girlfriend, his anything. You can’t fight off the desire to be something for him, though, wanting to be there for him, to provide some kind of release for him on those tightly wound days. From there, your mind drifts to the deepest corners of depravity, thinking of all the ways you could help him release.

On one such stressful day, he dropped a note on your desk, so quickly in passing anyone else in the room might have missed it. He didn’t bother to look back at you afterwards, leaving you wide eyed, staring down at the small piece of paper that was folded in half as he continued on to his office.

You felt like you were floating the entire day, anticipation boiling in your gut as you wondered if this note could mean what you think it does. By the time 5:45 rolls around, Joel having breezed back into the building and shutting himself in his office thirty minutes ago, you’ve decided you’re either getting canned or fucked tonight, and both options are making you so nervous you might jump out of your own skin. The few people left in the office pack up for the day and head out, leaving you pretending to finish up work as you wave goodbye to them.

You stand up right on time, smoothing down the short pencil skirt you’re wearing before breathing deeply and reaching for the doorknob to his office. You knock as you open the door, poking your head in. Joel looks up from his desk, where he’d had his forehead on his palm, looking over some paperwork.

“See you got my note,” he says, his voice slightly hoarse from a day of likely speaking and barking orders at his various job sites. “Shut the door behind ya,” Joel adds, and you feel your heart jump further into your throat, a slightly shaky hand shutting the door behind you as he asks. 

“Sure. Er, what’s this about, Mr. Miller?” You fidget with your hands in front of you, resting them on your belly as you wait expectantly. 

“Joel, remember?” he replies with a cocky smile. You still haven’t quite figured out his intentions, and at this point, you figure it could go either way, and you’re bracing yourself internally for either losing your job or what could be the best sex of your life.

“Right,” you say with a shaky chuckle. “Nervous habit, sorry… Joel.”

“Nothin’ to be nervous about, why don’t ya come on in,” Joel says genially, a hint of a smirk pulling at his lips at hearing you say his name. 

You slowly make your way to the chair that’s across from his desk, a cluttered mess that you’ve learned is organized in his own way, as he always seems to be able to find everything he needs despite you offering many times to help organize it for him. S’okay, I’ve got a system, he’d repeat every single time, so eventually you’d given up on asking.

“How was your day? You seem stressed,” you dare to ask as you sit down, and Joel quirks a brow at you.

“Same old bullshit,” he says breezily, rubbing a hand down his face and pushing the papers on his desk aside, focusing his attention on you. “So fuckin’ stressed, but you don’t need to worry about all of that.”

“What if…” you start, swallowing hard. Now or fucking never. If you’re about to possibly lose your job, you may as well go out with all you’ve got. “What if I did worry about that?” you blink a few times, eyelashes fluttering in his direction and Joel gives you an indiscernible look, but you swear his eyes go a shake darker. “Just, that you’re stressed, I mean. Isn’t it my job to help you?”

Joel barely even reacts other than a flicker across his eyes that you only notice because you’re looking so intently. The bastard was probably prepared for this, like he knew you’d come in here ready to flirt your little heart out if the situation called for it.

Fucking. Asshole. But an extremely hot asshole with his eyes trained right on yours, making you melt instantly and forgetting all about the cursing him you were doing in your head.

“That so?” Joel says slowly with an amused, deep chuckle. He stands up, making his way around the desk towards you, and your heart picks up, practically beating out of your chest now. “That in your job description, hm? Help ol’ Mr. Miller when he’s stressed?” 

His tone, his body language, everything is screaming green lights for you to continue this witty repartee. “It could be, if you wanted it to,” you reply, squaring your shoulders back, not cowering from his gaze, but rather intensifying yours with a small pout of your lips. Joel’s movements over to you are slow and calculated, practically sauntering until he’s standing in front of you. He absolutely towers over you now, more than usual, his broad shoulders looking even wider from your angle below him. He leans back on the desk, perching on the edge, giving you a direct view at his crotch, a now very apparent bulge in his jeans.

“Pretty thing like you’d really want to do all that for me?” Joel asks.

You lick your lips, trying to steady your breathing. “Mhm,” you sound, and your confirmation is enough to have Joel leaning forward, placing a hand on your cheek, fingers ghosting along the skin as he makes his way down to your neck, the light trace of his calloused pads sending goosebumps along your arms.

“Like the way I’m touchin’ you, pretty girl?” he asks quietly, and you manage to let out another affirmative noise. You watch his thick fingers tracing down the top of your chest, silently begging please keep going, please. When his hand reaches the top button of your shirt, he pauses, and your legs squeeze together in anticipation. You nearly whine when he withdraws his hand, but seconds later he’s using a finger to tip your chin up, indicating for you to stand.

You meet him against his desk, his legs opening wide for you to step in between them, and you press in close, feeling unsure of what to do with your hands, how far he wants to take things. You delicately place a hand on his thigh to steady yourself, and he slips his arms around you, immediately sliding them down your back and to your ass.

“Fuck,” he mumbles as he squeezes your ass firmly through your skirt. “Such a sexy little thing, you wear this for me?”

“You’ve caught me,” you say with a sly look. The skirt isn’t anything that scandalous, but you do suppose it shows more of your legs than may typically be deemed appropriate in an office setting. You’ve always blamed the more skimpy clothing you’d wear on the hot Austin climate, but you know in the back of your mind, it was all always for Joel.

“Don’t have to wear all this to get my attention, y’know,” he says a little more tenderly, still kneading the globes of your ass hungrily, pulling your skirt up in the process.

“Seemed like you enjoyed it, all those times I saw you watch me leave your office,” you quip back.

“Damn right I did, ‘m only human, darlin’,” he says gruffly, yanking you forward, and the hardness in his jeans is pressing right into your own throbbing heat, sending a swirling wave of desire in between your legs. Slickness is gathering there quickly, leaving your underwear already wet and uncomfortable against your skin.

“On your knees, now,” Joel says, pushing you down by your shoulders until you bow under the pressure, getting down onto the carpet and sitting on your knees. “That’s a good girl,” he says with a smirk. He makes quick work of his belt and zipper, freeing his cock within moments, and it takes everything in you not to gasp at the sight laid before you.

His cock is beyond what you’d imagined - he’s a big guy overall, but you can’t say you’ve ever been with someone his size, and it’s immediately intimidating. And the bastard knows it, you can tell by his coy little smile as you look at his throbbing cock with wide eyes, taking in the size of him at full attention. You take a little comfort in the fact that he seems painfully turned on by you, the head of his cock leaking pre-cum, pink and pulsating for any part of you to be on it.

“Go on now, doll, ain’t got all night,” Joel says, snapping you out of your reverence for his cock, and you glance up to him before placing a few kisses on the head. Joel hisses through his teeth, his hips bucking forward at your face. When you lap up the drop of precum, swirling your tongue with your eyes locked on his, he lets out a full groan. You hover over his cock, letting your drool collect and fall down onto his shaft in a long string, and the warmth of it brings out a frustrated growl from Joel. He watches with darkened eyes, and his hand shoots to the back of your head, gripping your hair tightly.

“Knew you’d be so fuckin’ dirty, such a little tease,” he growls out. He uses your hair to tilt your head back, so your neck is craned up, facing him more directly now. “If you’re gonna act like that, be willin’ to take it in return, sweetheart,” Joel says more coldly. “Open your mouth.” It’s not an ask, but a command, and the authoritarian in him makes you want to listen. You pop your mouth open, shaking a little bit under his tight grip as you watch him gather his own saliva and let it slowly fall out of his mouth, straight down into yours. You taste the strangeness of the sensation, never having had someone else's spit in your mouth in such a copious amount.

“Now swallow,” he demands, and you make a show of swallowing hard, eliciting a devious smile from Joel. “And get back to work,” he says, loosening his grip on your hair and pushing your head back to the level of his cock, dripping and awaiting your mouth.

You immediately slide your mouth down his shaft, not wanting any more pushback from Joel on your teasing, and you taste the saltiness of him as your mouth stretches more than you’re sure you can accommodate. You start to bob more quickly, savoring the myriad of groans and hums Joel makes in the height of his pleasure. 

“Fuck… your mouth’s even better than I ‘magined,” Joel says, his hips thrusting in time with your bobbing, sending his cock back further into your throat. A gag slips out, but you swallow him down, allowing him even deeper as your hand works on the rest of him that won’t fit inside of your mouth. He inhales sharply before pushing you back by the shoulders, his cock leaving your mouth with a loud pop.

You barely have time to be confused by the sudden interruption before Joel pulls you up under the arms, spinning you and flattening you against his desk, and you scramble to slide back, papers and office supplies spilling and moving everywhere. He flings a frustrated hand to clear it out of the way, sending everything flying onto the floor, and you stare wide-eyed, thinking this kind of thing only happens in the movies. And here you are, living in a real life fucking movie.

Joel grips your face, turning your attention back his way before crashing his lips into yours, ravenous kisses and swipes of his tongue taking over every sense. You moan, grinding your hips into him as you return the energy of his kisses, pulling back to trace your lips along his chin, the roughness of his beard scratching your face before you reach his earlobe, giving it a few gentle sucks.

“Shit,” Joel hisses out, pushing down your chest to have you lay back on the desk. He tugs under your knees, pulling you to the edge and hiking up your skirt in the process. His hand slides up your thigh, and you’re panting in anticipation, knowing he’s about to see the very evidence of your arousal absolutely soaking your lace panites. When Joel hooks his thumbs in the sides, pulling them down, he makes a satisfied huff at the slick, shining stain that’s left on the black fabric.

“Now that’s a sight…” Joel says, holding the panties up before slipping them into his back pocket. “Didn’t know you’d wanted to help me de-stress this badly, darlin’, would’ve called you in here ages ago,” he teases you with a wry chuckle, clearly enjoying the very compromising position he has you in.

“I do,” you say impatiently. “Didn’t know if it was okay to… you’re my boss.” 

“More than okay. Y’see, I’ve been thinkin’ the same thing f’ a while now, havin’ to resist such a perfect little thing that walked right into my office one day.” He tuts with frustration, tightening his grip on your thighs. “Seen you watch me like you couldn't wait to get that mouth on this cock, sugar.”

You nod, confirming everything he said was true. “I j-ust see you so worked up, so much on your shoulders, Joel. Let me…” you heave, “Take it all out on me.”

You tempt him to take that next step, wrapping your legs around his hips, your ankles crossing over each other to pull him even closer. 

“Sure you ain’t gonna tell anyone about this?” Joel asks with a few huffs, clearly holding back from what he really desires right now. His body is radiating the unmet need of release that’s throbbing from his every pore right down to his painfully hard cock.

You shake your head wildly, the back of your head moving along the desk. You sit up enough to peer at him and make sure he knows you’re serious. 

“Our little secret,” you whisper huskily, letting a smile curl onto your lips. 

“Good girl.” Joel returns the smile, one much more cunning as his features darken and he pushes his hard cock against your opening, the large head alone already making your hips twitch with pleasure. When he pushes in you make a small whimper, but try to stuff it down quickly as he stretches you with a beautiful sting along your opening. 

“Fu… oh my god,” you murmur, as he pushes in further and further, until you’re sure you couldn’t possibly be more full of him. When he moves past even that point, you groan and realize he’s fully seated inside of you, deeper than you’d ever imagined was even possible. You quickly pulsate around him, your body adjusting to his size until it starts to feel more pleasurable than painful.

“There we go, look at that…” Joel says breathlessly. “Takin’ this cock so pretty, aren’t ya?” He doesn’t even take a beat before he begins thrusting, his massive hands holding tightly onto your hips to steady you as you jostle back onto the desk. Your back arches into the pounding of your two bodies together, warmth growing from deep inside of you where he’s hitting so perfectly. You decide that while you’d made this about him, you wanted to fulfill a fantasy of your own while you had the chance. You’d daydreamed of a certain scenario countless times over the weeks, one you intended to have come to life and turn out to be even better than you could have imagined.

“Fuck me over your desk, Mr. Miller,” you say, an extra bite on the last words, knowing he won’t correct you on his name this time. He growls, a noise deep in his throat at your words.

“Want me to bend you over ‘n fuck you right on this desk, d’ya?” Joel asks, not even allowing you to answer before pulling out of you. You brace yourself on the desk, hopping off and immediately turning around, standing up and pressing the entire length of your body back onto Joel’s. You reach an arm up around his neck and pull him down for a kiss, and he lets out a low hum, grinding into your back.

He doesn’t let it last, though, the tender kiss, before he pushes you down with the palm of his hand on your back, guiding you to rest with your ass out and body pressed low onto the desk. You pant hard, feeling slick gathering between your legs all over again at how close you are to fulfilling your ultimate fantasy with him.

Joel has no mercy, slamming his cock into you, and this angle is completely devastating, ready to ruin you at any moment as your legs immediately begin to shake when his cock hits against your walls hard. He thrusts into you over and over, and you can’t help but be anything but loud, moaning out his name and every expletive that comes to mind as you practically go wild over the way he pumps you so full each and every time. You feel tears sting your eyes, the release trying to build to a crescendo deep in your core. 

One of Joel’s hands finds your clit, rubbing tight circles and you fold, completely undone at the large pad of his finger starting to coax your climax out of you. 

“C’mon, let me feel you come on this cock, know you’ve been wantin’ to,” Joel says haughtily, and you give in to the sensation, letting the waves of practically transcendent pleasure overtake you as you come hard, screaming Joel’s name in the process.

“Fuck, sweetheart, I’m gonna - “ Joel says in the midst of your writhing, moaning mess, before being cut off by his own orgasm being pulled from your pussy squeezing his cock. He quickly pulls out, letting himself spill onto your back with a few extra jerks of his cock, the ropes of cum warm on your skin. Joel breathes heavily, caught off guard by the intensity and quickness of his climax, knowing he nearly didn’t make it.

“Jesus, sugar, gonna make a man fuckin’ crazy with a pussy like that,” Joel purrs, using a tissue to begrudgingly clean up your back - he’d thought you’d looked much better all flushed and covered in his cum, and was already plotting a way to see it again and again.

You hum a satisfied sigh, turning back to look at him before sitting up and settling on the edge of the desk. “Glad I could help, boss,” you say teasingly, and Joel already feels another twitch in his cock at your toying with him. “You still stressed?” you ask, batting your eyelashes innocently.

“You’ve no fuckin’ idea…” Joel sighs. “Got a whole new set of problems now,” he says, looking you over with greedy eyes.

“Well, you know where to find me, if you ever need any help with that,” you say with a wink before hopping off the desk and breezing out of his office, daring a last look back at him.

[kitchenisking]

Sterek Fic Rec

It's the first night of chunnuka! Enjoy!

Alpha's Heat by TombRaider008 - (Rating: Mature, Words: 1,192, sterek)

Stiles finds Derek in his bedroom. In heat. Wearing his batman boxer briefs, sniffling his used lacrosse jersey and dry humping the living daylights out of his bed. Sexy times ensured.

suck it, pup by DenaCeleste - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 843, sterek)

Stiles has an oral fixation, and Derek has something pretty specific in mind for his pup's enjoyment.

Katoptronphilia by ItsMe_Basil - (Rating: Mature, Words: 2,007, sterek)

"Oh, my god," he mewled, back arching. The hand around his throat tightened and a growl reverberated against him, in his ear, through his skin. 

"Are you looking?" Derek asked. Stiles nodded, a reedy moan pulled from his mouth as Derek let his thumb drag over the head before moving down to the base once more. 

"Look at how pretty you react to my touch," Derek continued. "I made that blush."

The words were whispered against the shell of Stiles' ear. "I made you hard and desperate, leaking."

Taking Care by RisingQueen2 (FallenQueen2) - (Rating: Mature, Words: 3,907, sterek)

When Derek finds out what Peter offered to Stiles and what Gerard really did to him in that basement, it caused him to finally act on his feelings for Stiles.

Get You The Moon by AClosedFicIsNeverRead - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 180,785, sterek)

Derek looked up in surprise to note that they were taking a private jet. Dread settled into his gut like a stone. “It has a cage, doesn’t it?” he asked quietly, and noted the subtle changes in his family members’ posture. “Is it for me?” Cora gave him a pleading look and nodded. “Is it because of what you’re going to tell me?” he asked, voice like gravel. Another nod confirmed it. Stiles. Oh, GOD. It had to be Stiles. Derek would not lose control over anyone else in Beacon Hills and they damned well knew it.

- OR - 

The one where Derek has been gone for 6 months building a new life, finds out that Stiles is being assaulted by Theo, so he comes back to Beacon Hills to kick some serious ass and rescue the loudmouthed human who stole his heart.

(You will need ALL the tissues, but it will have a happy ending by the time all is said and done!)

Title inspired by song:  ‘Get You The Moon’  by Kina ft. Snow

A Perfect Bait For A Knotty Wolf by KnottheWolf - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 3,062, sterek)

Day 9: Feral- “Let me just get this straight. You want me to become your feral Alpha werewolf nephew’s chew toy?”

Peter stroked his chin, “Honestly, I was going for the phrase bed warmer, but you often squeak like a little chew toy. So yes, I want you to be his chew toy. Unless however you want a bullet in your head?”

bad habits (i do em all for you) by nymphe - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 4,879, sterek)

wherein: stiles is sexually frustrated, stiles gets a vibrator stuck in his ass, stiles calls derek to help him with it, there's some kink discovery, a few orgasms, and some feelings. yep, that's about it.

it's just business by To_fill_the_sea - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 2,626, sterek)

Derek has been running a successful company for a long time and finally orchestrated a merger with another company. It has been eating up more time than he'd like and he just wants to spend some time at home. But people keep getting in his way and certain people are going to very surprised when Derek;s boyfriend decides to pop in for a surprise visit.

day of discovery by insert pseud here (EvanesDust) - (Rating: Not Rated, Words: 100, sterek)

...the one where they figure out Eli's a werewolf.

Down On My Knees by SophieTrancy - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 10,479, sterek)

Inspired by a Tumblr post by hoechloin. Contains major Teen Wolf 6x19 spoilers. 

Chris came looking for Derek, hell bent on convincing the wolf to come back. But, unless Stiles needed him there, he wasn't interested. 

"If I go back, it's not for Beacon Hills" Derek said, turning to look at the former Hunter "It's for Stiles" That is, until he truly understands just how fucked they are.

"You haven't heard, then" Chris spoke, watching as Derek arched his brows at him "That's weird, I always thought the kid was the only one who actually had a way to reach you" Chris said, chuckling to himself.

So Derek goes back, thinking Stiles was finally safe, away from Beacon Hills. But he was right to assume it wouldn't last long, of course he was. Stiles was his mate, after all, he should've known better. Things don't go according to plan, despite their best efforts. And it's like time stopped for Derek, watching as Stiles' body fell to the floor. 

Originally posted on tumblr.

[vidavalor]

When you get a chance, could you go into some of the wordplay around shoes, shoelaces, shoemakers, and cobblers?

One of the books I was looking up led me to the song Cobbler o’Morpeth, and I thought you'd explain it well.

Thanks!

Hi @kayleefansposts! 💕I would be happy to cobble (groan 😂) some opinions together for you on those topics. 😊 Sorry that this took me literal ages. On shoes, walking the Earth, and the professional midwife/cobbler below.

As we know, at the start of every episode of Good Omens is our opening title sequence. While there are a lot of hidden clues in the opening titles, one thing always remains the same and, I think, sometimes gets overlooked, and that is that the entire opening credits are always one, fundamental thing:

Crowley and Aziraphale walking the Earth.

The opening title sequence is a visual pun-- it's a literal representation of the figurative phrase to "walk the Earth," meaning: to live your life.

To walk the Earth is to continue to go forward, despite obstacles. It's to endure and to go on. It's to explore and to live.

It's this business of living that I think most of us would agree that Good Omens is fundamentally about.

This phrase of walk the Earth also showed up in S2. In 1941, Part 2, we learn that Crowley and Aziraphale wrote coded entries for one another in a publication of Hell with a title so wordplay-funny that I think it was undoubtedly their idea:

Demon's Guide to Angelic Beings Who Walk the Earth.

It is not called 'The Demon's Guide to Angels on Earth' or anything similar to that. It is, specifically, a guide to angelic beings who walk the Earth. What's the difference?

Anyone can be an angelic being.

An angelic being is just a being with qualities commonly ascribed to angels. When we say 'commonly ascribed', we mean by us humans. When we call people angelic, we mean they're kind, generous, forgiving, etc., right? You don't have to be a literal angel to be an angelic being. Your lovely great aunt could be described as an angelic being... and so, too, could Crowley.

The point is that angelic being is a term that can describe an angel, a demon, and a human alike. It's a term that categorizes all of them as a collective of similar living beings who have wants, needs and experiences in common. It is viewing all of them just as people.

And what are all these people doing? They're walking the Earth.

And why are they doing that? Because it's the largest thing around.

Earth actually isn't the physically largest thing around. That isn't how Crowley means it when he's trying to explain gravity to Gabriel. There are tons of things in The Universe that are bigger than Earth.

Large, in the way that Crowley is using it, means generous. It means bountiful, lavish, expansive, giving. All of the living beings want to be on Earth because that's where the opportunities to really live are and everyone, fundamentally, wants to live.

Crowley is empathizing with Gabriel here and telling him that he thinks that books (symbolically: people) don't stay up in one place-- they always eventually fall-- because they want to walk the Earth, which is the largest place around... meaning, they "go down" because they want to live, that falling is just part of living, and that Earth is the place where that can happen.

The Earth is choice and freedom. It's liberty. It's coffee.

Like coffee seller Nina will tell Our Villain at the end of the season, nobody ever asks for death. They do ask for alleviation of suffering and, at times, might see death as the only escape from that, but no one fundamentally wants to die. They want to walk the Earth. This is true of all angelic beings-- of all people, regardless of from where they come. I think that Crowley is saying to Gabriel that he believes it's as true for them-- for the angels and demons-- as it is for the humans which, we learn during the season, is something with which Gabriel would very much agree.

Earth is not in the physical center of The Universe but it is the center of The Universe for all of the living beings in Good Omens' story. For the humans, it's the only planet known to contain life and all life is centered around Earth. For the angels and the demons, their worlds revolve entirely around what's going on with Earth. No other options seem to exist, as the universe was even created to support Earth.

Demons and angels like Furfur and Muriel? They all want to escape the drudgery of their worlds by going to Earth. All of the goings on on Earth are the focus of everything in both Heaven and Hell. The demons are sent to Earth to get more souls for Satan and to stir up trouble while the angels are subjecting humans to ineffable lunacy and fixated on the doings on this planet that they... *checks notes*... are all living to destroy. Even if not all the angels and demons are living on Earth, they're all still obsessed with it.

In the Ineffable Bureaucracy flashback sequence, Beez says that most of their demons live for Armageddon and then adds: "if you can call that 'living.'" Gabriel agrees with them and says that most of his angels do, too. These two were already walking the Earth a bit separately and then quite a bit together and, in doing so, they've come to see that they both believe that Heaven and Hell have all of this backwards.

The angels and demons are not superior beings who are supposed to be above all of this and made to destroy it. It is for them, too.

Their dates begin as an imitation of living-- trying to blend in with the human environment around them-- and become steadily more free as they go. By the time the demon Beez acknowledges to the angel Gabriel that they have romantic feelings for him, they are doing so by telling him with the help of a human song, in recognition of the fact that the two of them are as human as the people of Earth.

Similarly, when Gabriel has a proposal to make? He asks for "no Armageddon." No war. No destruction of the Earth they were each exploring a bit alone and have come to walk together.

So, if you're an angelic being-- if you're a person-- who is walking the Earth, what do you need most for that long stroll?

Shoes.

Both literal and figurative ones.

Shoes were one of humanity's first inventions and remain one of our signature ones. Shoes separate us from the animal kingdom in a lot of ways because it is our opposable thumbs and our ability to evolve and our creativity and imagination that allowed us to create them and everything else we've made.

To make shoes, we had to be able to see the need-- which means we that we had to have an imagination and a will to explore the unknown. To make shoes, we had to learn about the Earth around us enough to select materials and develop tools necessary to build shoes. The invention of shoes is symbolic of human innovation, creativity, drive, and progress.

There is every kind of shoe possible for every possible activity or need. If one thing is assured in the world, it's that we're going to keep going forward with ever-refining the whole shoe thing, no matter what else happens, and that's metaphorical for how we humans endure and continue going forward overall, even if it it sometimes feels like we're taking ten steps backwards.

This show that is about walking the Earth and living is also a Biblical satire and has a whole thing going on with the literal and the figurative, as well as the figurative's life partner, the euphemistic. Everything that is used in a figurative and/or euphemistic way in the series also becomes there-is-now-an-actual-Kraken-in-the-ocean-level literal at some point during the story. 😂 This means that, as much as we're going to look at metaphorical shoes here?

We're also just going to have a lot of very literal shoes factor into the story as well in the walking the Earth/business of living story.

As in, one of the biggest surprises in S1: when we get to "Saturday Morning Funtime" and find Gabriel jogging in the park.

The Supreme Archangel at this time owns literally nothing but his clothes-- and we learn that even he's got a pair of sneakers/trainers. He's metaphorically on the run from Heaven already back in S1 before he has to run for his life in S2 and, when we see this most clearly back in S1? Our dude is literally running...

In S2, once Gabriel gets something to wear besides the tartan sheet, he also appears to have been given a pair of Crowley's shoes-- shoes from the professional cobbler himself and we'll get to that in a second. We have a lot of focus on shoes both visually and in language in the series. We have a character named Sandalphon, for instance... and a whole, long scene intro that is just Shax and her heels clicking their way through Hell as we see her amusingly intense little walk.

Speaking of Shax, there's also this moment:

Cobbler Crowley waggles Shax's shoe as he's asking Aziraphale what he did to stop the demon attack. The part of her shoe that he moves is the heel, which is not only one of the parts of the shoe most frequently mended by a cobbler but is also a word used an insult... and, further still, is homophonic for heal, something that Crowley had, in all honesty, been trying a bit to help Shax do in S2... and which also seems relevant in this moment in a physical health sense because Shax is out cold.

In S1, when Crowley and Aziraphale meet at the bandstand, Crowley asks if Aziraphale has "found the missing antichrist's name, address and shoe size yet?"-- a reference to the idiom of how knowing someone's shoe size is considered knowing them well.

The joke to them is that they're talking about the antichrist-- a supernatural being-- but they're looking for one that is really living as an eleven year old human kid and has been walking the Earth his whole life. Adam is the perfect example of how the point is that all of these beings are just people and that the real magic is in living. He didn't even know he was supernatural until near the end of the story. His story is really just that of any kid of his age.

Shoes and walking can also relate to pacing, which can be tied to anxiety.

Equally interesting in the series is when we've seen an emphasis on being barefoot... like the very first bit of Aziraphale that we ever see.

Back in The Garden of Eden, the first shot of Crowley and Aziraphale together actually introduces Aziraphale by first showing us his bare feet on the wall at Eden as Crowley winds up the wall to talk to him. When the shot widens to show both of them after Crowley is in human form, we see that Crowley is equally barefoot:

So, too, were Adam and Eve. The lack of shoes is what connects the four characters-- the first people to walk the Earth.

The known fifth of them to have been there for awhile-- Gabriel-- is also smack in the middle of all the shoe stuff, as we already mentioned, and a focus on his bare feet dodging some Eden-esque "love-apple" tomatoes was part of his Adam-and-Eve-paralleling arrival to the bookshop in 2.01.

In Before the Beginning's paralleling shot to the wall at Eden, note how, in the only scene we've ever seen so far that is set prior to the creation of Earth, Crowley and Aziraphale's robes fall in such a way as to not show us their feet. Why? There was not yet any Earth to walk.

It emphasizes the idea that shoes-- and, well, probably feet, too-- are metaphorically the most essential things needed for life on Earth. Crowley and Aziraphale as angels likely did have feet in their human corporations Before the Beginning but we don't see them because there's not really anywhere to walk and explore until the creation of Earth.

This is also a good place to just mention that the idea with walking the Earth is just remaining curious and continuing to go forward as much as possible. It's really about movement and just trying to go forward and be better than you were before. You don't have to literally be able to walk to do this-- Saraqael is capable of walking the Earth, should they wish to. You're also walking the Earth if you're driving through it, etc..

Then, more importantly, there's the metaphorical shoes...

People as shoes, providing protection and support and and comfort and keeping each other safe as they're all roaming through life.

People need literal shoes to wear and they also need people who act like shoes for them by helping them along and traveling with them.

People are shoes and those who walk with you-- literally and figuratively-- that you can trust and who will look after you the way that you look after them are your shoes.

In 1941, we learn Aziraphale's magic words, several of which are ones that we can then see Crowley bringing up when they were drunk in the bookshop in 1.01. I think that these words are a meta and a half in their own right but one of the layers to one of them-- shoelace-- is, among other things, a reference to Crowley's love of helping others and pairing up shoes.

[It's also a reference to his femininity via lace & his penchant for being tied up but let's just stick to the layers relevant to this meta for now.]

This aspect of connecting people together and to pairing up shoes then ties to Crowley being "a professional midwife/cobbler", as one of the meanings of cobbler is that it is a person who mends shoes-- so, someone whose purpose is to help others. One way that Crowley helps is through his love of playing Cupid. Another is the fact that if it often seems like he's everyone's unofficial sounding board it's because he kind of is.

Cobbler, though, has a lot of other meanings-- especially when we take into account etymology and Good Omens' whole words-within-words thing.

To cobble something together is pull together a plan, often seemingly out of nowhere and with not a long of lead time. Extremely Crowley, that. Cobblestones are a classic form of walkways and streets. Crowley has been on Earth for all of its history and likes to use his knowledge and magic to make for safer and happier paths for those around him. He's also the first demon to walk the Earth. He and Aziraphale paved the way for the supernatural beings that followed them.

Within the word cobbler are other words, like cob and cobb, which run the gamut in meanings from a leading man, to a male swan (which we saw Crowley visually tied to in the St. James' Park scene in 1.01) to a hazelnut or a filbert to the part of an ear of corn to which the seeds (grains/kernels) are attached.

There are other ties being drawn between Crowley and corn as well. The unicorn during The Flood scene that makes a run for it... the fact that, even though we know Crowley does eat, pretty much the one food we've seen Crowley eat in Good Omens is when he bought himself popcorn at the movies in S1. There's also this bit that we were looking at before with the record shop beginning "in the corner of Mr. Fell's bookshop." Not to mention that he and Aziraphale are (lovably) extremely corny in their shared sense of humor. Crowley also has a canonical love for corny films, like Richard Curtis rom-coms.

There's also, of course, the Cobb salad, which is a dish that contains pretty much everything and so, therefore, is extremely Crowley. Cobbler is also a fruit-based dessert and a sherry-based mixed drink.

If you count in homophony-- and all of the wordplay in Good Omens definitely suggests that we should-- cob and cobb are homophonic for the word known as kob... and this one is very relevant.

The Sanskrit kob means good omens and congratulations.

One level of "I am a professional midwife/cobbler" words out to:

"I am a professional deliverer of good omens."

In a story full of characters professing their roles in the world, Crowley, on one level, is kind of everyone's therapist/guardian angel. If he pops up when you're in need of some help, you're in luck because cobbling you up some assistance is what Bildad does.

There are other additional things, too, that we could pick at for awhile. For example, the word obb is within cobbler and it is the abbreviation for an obbligato, an essential part of a musical work that should never be omitted.

Everything I just said above about cobbler is pretty positive but, as you pointed out in your ask, the word was also once slang for cholera... which, ya know, obviously is not. The song that you mentioned-- Cobbler O'Morpeth-- looks like a great example of that (and what an uplifting tune, eh? lol). You might say that this seems like a truly horrific thing to align with a beloved character here-- and, in many ways, it is.

Even etymologically, the word cholera is not particularly pleasant. This isn't one of those words that grew to have a terrible meaning but originally meant something more upbeat. It's basically meant what it is forever and it comes from other words related to bile.

So, how could something as awful as cholera possibly relate to our beloved professional midwife/cobbler? I think there are two, interconnected ways where cholera could be analogous for Crowley.

The first is the role of the cholera outbreaks in London that are the foundations of modern epidemiology. There is a great meta that @flyting wrote about the London cholera outbreaks and how the real Berwick Street that is the basis for Whickber Street in Good Omens was at the heart of it.

In this way, it would be relating to how one way that Crowley is a professional cobbler is that he can take his understanding from his learned experience and use that to make life better for others around him. It goes back to him as a figurative shoe and a cobbler in the sense of being a source of support and protection for others.

But the other way that cholera relates to Crowley is in the symbolism of the disease itself. This is tied to one thing that he might be particularly good at helping others overcome, as some of his conversations with other characters already indicate.

Cholera is a disease born of untreated and/or mistreated water.

Within Good Omens, metaphorical and/or euphemistic personification of bodies of water and other aspects of nature are all over both Crowley and Aziraphale's wordplay and the show's overall use of symbolism.

Cholera lives at the exact intersection of Pestilence and A Character That Is Really A Concept that we know quite well: Pollution.

If Crowley is the personification of the sea-- if he is, symbolically, a body of water, the same way that he and Aziraphale use in their speak-- then cholera is disease born of that water becoming contaminated. Crowley is both the polluted water and the cholera-- in this case, mental health challenges-- born of the trauma, which is where we have to get into the etymology of the word pollution. [TW from this point on for mention of rape.]

The reason why cholera still exists on Earth, as we know, is because, as morally reprehensible as it is, the entire world still does not have equal access to clean water. Cholera has been largely eradicated in parts of the world that have access to water treatment facilities but in underdeveloped countries or places where war is raging, cholera still exists. If caught early enough and with the right treatment, people can survive cholera now far more than they used to be able to but access to resources and treatment is often limited in places where the water is unclean. A lack of care can still very often lead to death. Used metaphorically with Crowley, this is actually about mental health and trauma recovery.

There are known uses of the word pollution refer to the harming of the environment as far back as the 1860s but it wasn't until the 1950s that the word became synonymous with the environment to the point that, now, basically everyone immediately thinks of environmental pollution upon hearing the word. Its history prior to that reflects... a lot... about different attitudes about sex and gender at different periods in time.

The first known meaning of pollution dates back to around the mid-14th century and that was the rather specific definition of 'any discharge of semen outside the act of sex.' So, basically, it related to male masturbation. Within that same century, though-- and for many after it-- the word came to mean to defile, to contaminate, to 'make dirty'.

So, this word that had originally just meant a guy getting off evolved very quickly into a word used to describe rape and, for quite a long period of time, it actually meant both of these things at once. There is so much misogyny there that it's hard to know where to begin.

What Good Omens does with Pollution and their halo/headband-paralleling crown of mental health issues is to invert one of the most controversial metaphors in existence.

Where some other stories use rape as metaphorical for environmental devastation-- "the raping of the Earth"-- Good Omens has turned that around and, instead, is using environmental devastation-- Pollution-- as metaphorical for trauma and mental health issues, especially those born of violations of bodily autonomy.

Cholera is the foremost disease there is that occurs because of polluted water and Crowley is canonically a rape survivor. This one, very important word of cobbler is a great choice, though, because it contains so much that it shows Crowley as a full being, as the story always has. What makes Crowley glorious as a character is that many rape survivors in fiction are only ever that. Crowley is fully realized as a character. He's a whole range of things. His trauma is not unrecognized but it's also not all that he is.

And speaking of being a bit of everything? Let's also have a look at that other, very fun thing that cobbler is...

"I am a professional midwife/cobbler" is Crowley dryly self-declaring these fake professions for Bildad that are amusing him because, in reality, in a wordplay sense? The words really do fit him. One layer of what he's declaring ties into the etymology of the word wife and the fact that cobbler is also slang for testicles.

Originally, back in the day, the word wife simply meant woman.

It did not mean a married woman, it just meant a woman, period.

At one point, the English language took the most common word it was using to describe women and made it the word exclusively used for married women, as if a woman who wasn't married was in a state of non-existence.

This patriarchy-in-a-word is all at the root of the word midwife that the etymology-happy Crowley used to describe himself. His amusement is coming from him saying on the surface that he's a midwife-- someone who can deliver babies-- but meaning it more where the wife in the word is meant in its original definition of a woman.

A midwife, used in a wordplay way, is a "mid-woman"-- mid, meaning halfway there to something. (Sorry, not the Gen Alpha slang where it means meh. Crowley's a fine woman. 😊) There's another word that Crowley uses in wordplay to reference this as well, which is the word bad, which Crowley uses twice in 1.01 to refer to himself when flirting with Aziraphale.

Bad comes from the German baeddel, the original meaning of which is a word that we consider dated now: hermaphroditic. Baeddel as a term was more specifically defined historically (in their terms, not mine) as "a womanish man."

Just as with a lot of language evolution that isn't so inspiring-- like wife evolving from meaning woman to married woman-- the word bad and all its negative connotations is an example of linguistic oppression of people who don't fit a regressive, binary view on gender.

In modern times, though, as we know, it has also developed other meanings with more positive connotations-- badass; sexy; using the word bad to refer to something that you feel is actually good.

Whether people realize it or not, using bad in these ways is reclamation of language. Walking, talking etymological dictionary Crowley is well-aware of the historical definition of bad and clearly likes to use the word as self-descriptive because this thin dark duke feels it suits him.

Now, add in that among the many ways to look at the word cobbler is that it's Cockney rhyming slang for testicles. Gender expression is not biological sex and Crowley is always Crowley and a whole being. One level of "I am a professional midwife/cobbler" can be read as more related to gender expression and I think that it is. It also, though, can be read at the same time as a wink to the fact that Crowley varies his whole effort situation as well. It's not even the only nod to that in S2.

In the Aziraphale-penned Baraqiel entry for Crowley in Demon's Guide to Angelic Beings Who Walk the Earth, one of the meanings of the description of Crowley as "occasionally damp, most likely singed" would appear to refer to the fact that Crowley is "most likely singed"-- usually has a cock-- but is "occasionally damp"-- sometimes has a vulva.

The slang of cobbler meaning balls comes from a rather testicular-looking leather-working tool used by cobblers called a cobbler's awl. Awl/owl-- "A Conversation with Owls." They're wise, old birds of prey pray 😂 and owls are nocturnal, like nightingales, after which Crowley and Aziraphale named their hidden language. The start of that language was shown to begin to form during the scene in the courtyard in "A Conversation with Owls." That minisode is also one of the first times we see Crowley and Aziraphale literally walking the Earth together.

Crowley, despite being a cobbler, is also a person-- a shoe-- himself. He's an angelic being walking the Earth, like everyone else. Crowley is only able to be a good cobbler-- a mender of shoes, a deliverer of good omens-- because he has his own old shoe looking after him.

While Crowley's shoe, Aziraphale, does declare himself a "working, professional magician" in the 1941 scene with Furfur, there's a word that is a close synonym to that which describes what Aziraphale truly is. It's the thing he wants to be that Crowley reassures him that he already is: a professional conjurer. What's the difference?

A conjurer is a magician and an enchanter, yes, but it is also an exorcist of demons. It is a healer. It is, by definition, someone who calls upon supernatural forces in order to aide humanity. Etymologically, conjurer comes from the word conspire, which really originally meant to breathe together.

Aziraphale hesitated to go to Goldstone's Magic Shop at first because it's for "professional conjurers only"-- it's for the humans, in his mind. It's for who he thinks of as the real magicians.

But the professional cobbler whose personal demons Aziraphale helps to exorcise and heal knows that Aziraphale is a professional conjurer because by definition, what, fundamentally, is that?

It's someone who takes good care of others, as Aziraphale does Crowley. It's a good person, which is what Crowley's favorite shoe is.

[zzalina]

One day more or Sale el sol? Los Mis 2010

Okay so yesterday I made a post about Los Miserables 2010 and discovered there's more people who love it??? Someone asked me about the spanish translation of les mis and it was the straw that broke the camel's back for me to finally make a post. You have NO IDEA how long I've wanted to talk about this. Anyway, today I'll be talking about the 2010 spanish translation BUT I already have in my drafts a post comparing the spanish 1992, spanish 2010 and the original english versions (Edit: not in drafts anymore, here it is!). Without furhter ado, here are my thoughts about Sale el sol:

First things first: the title. "Sale el sol" means "The sun rises". I didn't use to like the translation because they could have gone with "Un día más" (as they did in 1992). It means exactly "one day more" and fits the music almost perfectly (you just have to pronounce it a little bit weird but nothing that isn't a common thing to do in songs). But then I saw this tweet:

"The phrase the sun rises instead of one day more to speak about resilience in a country in which the sun was used by fascists makes one feel mental peace, feel justice, feel art and revolution, it feels like recovering the light and coming out of the shadows"

A little bit of context: Spain was in a fascist dictatorship until 1975. There is a famous song from that time called "Cara al sol" ("Facing the sun"). It was the anthem of the Falange, a political party, but it's still used today by fascist groups. In this context, claiming the sun for a message like the one this song sends is really poetic justice and I just love it.

They also use the idea of the sun rising in "La canción del pueblo/Do you hear the people sing?" (I'll make a post about that one too) so it really links the two songs together in a very beautiful way. I could speak about the title for hours, but let's go to the lyrics:

On the left you have the original english lyrics, then the 2010 spanish ones and then the translation to english so you can see the differences. Pretty similar tbh

Marius being so dramatic in every langauge

Éponine's verses are always so sad but there is something about her feeling like she doesn't even exist for Marius that breaks my heart even more 💔

There's a lot I could say about Enjolras' part related to the 1992 translation but that will be a different post. Now take a moment to appreciate how Daniel Diges sings this lines pls look it up I love him

As you can see, in the translation we sadly lose the repetition of "one day more" 😔 Also Javert saying that the revolution will be born dead conveys to me the certainty that he had that it was not going to work. The army won't have to do much because the revolution will die by itself (and he was right, the people didn't join 😔)

Honestly I don't fully understand the Thenardier's part in english so I can't properly compare it, but they're so caothic in both languages, this part is so funny.

My favourite part of the song 😭 In english "Do you hear the people sing?" is the title of another song but since that one is called "La canción del pueblo" ("The people's song") they couldn't keep the verse exactly the same. But it's the first verse of The people's song

Just Javert's part bcs it's different, the others are kept the same than previously if I'm not wrong. Once again, there's no repetition in spanish 😔

I find it funny that since the original one talks about dawn at the end they translated it to "un día mas", doing the opposite of what they did with the title. It made me wonder for years why didn't they use it for the whole song since it fits the music. But now I know and you know too.

If you made it this far thank you for reading the post. If you liked it, there'll be more and if you didn't like it I'm sorry but there'll be more because I have a lot to say ✨

[palskippah]

Hellowi pretty people I come over to ramble about random Nimona projects and stuff bc I'm excited about them but nothing's finished

I'm writing a short thing for fun with the idea of Ambrosius getting hearing loss because of the explosion that made Nimona and the laser and I'm listening to songs to see if I get inspo for the title (so far the doc is called 'Ambrosius gets hearing damage' but that's not cool JSKSHD), and listening to Mistki I was like omg a fic called Why Not Me. But then I was like omg a fic regarding Nimona and her monster form with the title 'I'll be looking in their eyes when they're down' but then I was like no omg what about a fic about comic goldenheart with the title 'I always want you when I'm finally fine'

I have no idea what qualifies as a good lyrics title but I think they work

And I literally have no ideas besides a phrase and the vibes for it, and still got no title for the temporarily deaf Ambrosius thing but it's so fun to do this sjdkdj (also, I really like the headcanon of him getting permanent but parcial (?) hearing loss on the ear that was closest to the explosion, it makes sense) (also I've experienced some partial hearing loss (?) at some point earlier this year and it's just so not fun to go through that bc people get very mad at you when you need them to repeat themselves more than twice and ask them to be louder pipipi anyways everything keeps happening around him and Ambrosius doesn't catch half of it and he feels a bit too helpless and scared of not hearing again but it works out in the end (more or less))

I see why everyone always picks lyrics as title names they're so coolest also mistki's songs are so good 😔🙏 they make me sad and happy at the same time sjddj

Another thing that has a long way to go and I'm trying to find a title for is an au of the gay dads au with mpreg where Ballister is from the beginning Nimona's dad and Ambrosius is that ex that by chance slowly makes his way back to his life and accidentally becomes Nimona's stepdad (like in Look Who's Talking? I think sjdkdj) also Meredith's there and she's cool and doing her own thing, I'm glad I read the comic bc I changed her relationship with Ballister in the fic and I think it works better with his decisions and motivations and all that stuff

(in my head it's very epic but to you it may seem like anything JSKDH)

Ballister is not really having a good time (lonely, unsure about his decision, scared and stuff, especially when he has to have her) but he has his good moments, promise. Also he hugs Meredith and she pats his back awkwardly like in the comic, at some point

Also as soon as Ballister finds out that Nimona's a girl he gets many very pink clothes pipipi Ambrosius gets him pink stuff for her too bc he sees any cute baby clothes or accessories and he's like hey I bet Ballister would like this for his baby :) and buys it

Nimona doesn't like him much when she's born, and he's like aw c'mon :( I bought you so many gifts pipipi I helped fold your tiny little clothes that one time !! (Ballister points out that he had done a very shitty job at it and Ambrosius shushes him, covering Nimona's ears)

ALSO

I'm drawing stuff for a TikTok post about mpreg but for comic goldenheart and trying to make the comic plot fit into it and it's so silly bc they have nothing to do with one another.

Ambrosius and Ballister don't beat the shit out of each other at the bar but Ballister goes away all angrily while Ambrosius walks behind him going Ballister I'm not done talking to you !!! >:(

And Ballister's like I am !! >:( and then there's another drawing of him leaning against a wall with one hand going damnit because he overworked himself, and Ambrosius going all *touching his hands together nervously* do you need to sit down :(? And Ballister going ...no. fuck off.

Also Nimona telling him to just abort that thing when he first told her (and he hadn't known yet what to do about it), and then when Cyrus' born he's staring angrily at her (he's not, he's just newly born and scrunched) and Nimona's like, holy shit boss, he remembers 😟 and Ballister's like, ?? How's he gonna remember, he doesn't even know you.

Also Ballister getting sad about the discussion at the bar and Nimona cheering him up with the science fair, but him going this won't trick anybody, look at me😔 *gestures to his pregnant self* and Nimona's like, nah boss you just look like you got a beer gut, it'll work. How they manage to run away from the guards/knights and all that when Nimona's stuck in cat form, that's not my business 🧐

Also Cyrus is born sometime before the whole Ballister freaking out about Nimona's powers, so he's somewhere in the kingdom being babysat by a nice older lady or something when Nimona's part is destroying everything. Or maybe he's just peacefully sleeping very far away in the lair and Ballister goes around the whole thing with a baby monitor, whichever option works. (Neither does 😭)

So yeah yippie I wanna post this stuff but nothing's finished pipipi 😔

[shakingparadigm]

Heya! Warning, this is a bit long-

So recently I translated Love & peace to my language and it made me think about the lyrics. I don't remember if it was you or another user that seemed to think Hyuna is singing to Luka, but personally I see it more as her singing to Hyun Woo!

For instance:

"I look around here and there, but only catch a glimpse of you" - her hallucination (I suppose) of her brother in the prologue video/the one with Sweet dream

"But this love, I can't let you go" - She deeply cares for Hyun Woo, but she can't let (the thought of) him go, for she hasn't moved on

"I'll find it one day, inner peace that I long for" - Hyuna not being able to accept his death, not reaching inner peace, feeling guilt about the incident (but hoping to one day overcome it)

Of course not saying I'm inherently correct about this! If the song is about Hyun Woo though, it makes it really sad- I'd love to know your opinion!

Hello! I just wanted to say that it's nice to see you in my inbox! You've been interacting for quite a while now and it always makes me smile when I recognize your user :)

When Love & Peace first came out, I actually assumed it to be for Hyunwoo. I was pleasantly surprised that more people deemed it for Luka, but the song can really go both ways!

I'm glad to know that we share the same thoughts, actually. Especially the lyric of catching glimpses, that one in particular was so reminiscent of Hyunwoo running past Hyuna in Sweet Dream. Since Hyunwoo never grew old enough or reached the stage, it makes sense that she'd only be able to remember him in glimpses and vignettes. He's not someone she can simply find on screens or plastered around billboards, he now exists in a smaller, far more personal space. In short bursts of memory and tricks of the eye.

" I can't let you go " is so painfully fitting for her entire relationship with Hyunwoo. She is continuously haunted by his image and the guilt of losing him. Though, I suppose this could go for her tainted memories of Luka as well.

I find it interesting how the title, Love & Peace, is an inversion of the phrase Peace & Love, commonly used to wish goodness onto others. As the inverse, Hyuna's song wishes this peace upon herself as opposed to someone else.

Love & Peace carries so much pain and longing that I immediately thought of Hyunwoo. I personally came to this conclusion at the last lyric of the song: " I call out to you and hope my heart reaches you "

Same with you, I also can't be sure that this interpretation is correct lol. It's just nice to know that we share the idea! I can also see the ways in which this song might apply to Luka, though if I were to guess on the true subject of the song I'd say it's most likely a mix of both. I personally lean towards the Hyunwoo interpretation, though! Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

[realhumanithink]

coming back online to share to the world my list of evan things. if you relate to most these things i title you Evan Rosier Kin

note: all of these are headcanons and may not align with how you perceive evan. most of these are inspired by like tiktoks and stuff, but otherwise its mostly things based on me because i literally remind myself of evan so much

another note: phrasing of these may be harsh!! im not targetting anyone fyi, and i dont mean harm, but i wrote most of these in a fit of self-hatred and when i reread them, i realised "hey, this sounds like evan lol" so i brushed it up a bit, but there might still be harsh wording and accusations

last note!!!: i have no fucking personality and im using this to self-reflect so my fault lmao

wants to be an overachiever, a hard worker, but in reality is just a gifted kid who hasn't fully burned out and is too lazy to actually work hard.

30000 different genres of songs on spotify. wonders if that means you have no personality.

sometimes wonders if people would miss you when you’re gone. doesn't think so.

knows 6 different languages, not good at any.

can't take criticism.

ambiverted. wonders if this means you have no personality.

likes a style, but isn't sure you would look good in it.

supposed ‘smart and nice’ kid, but that's who you were 4 years ago. people still hold the same view of you. 

high standards. you've been brainwashed into thinking u can meet them but sometimes, u aren't so sure.

covers the parts of your face u dont like with hair. bonus points if it's a regular ass haircut like a fringe and your parents hate it.

gets overly clingy in friendships. not like physically clingy but mentally?? if you get me

wanna be insomniac. thing is, it just takes you a bit longer to fall asleep.

fluctuating confidence levels

feels like a second choice, always.

cringe culture holds you back from enjoying what you want to enjoy.

the people around you don't seem to care as much as you do. whenever you succeed, you look back and no one is cheering like you always do. sometimes, it feels like you are average or lower, but the people you are compared to are simply even lower and that's why you are supposedly ‘good’.

*does well* “duh, *** is always so good. they don't deserve praise” *doesn't do well or actually just does average* “*** DIDNT DO WELL OHHHH”.

when someone compliments you, you feel pressured to uphold their standard and wonder how long it'll take till they realise you arent so good.

EXAMPLE because my wording is shit: someone told me i was funny and since then ive been scared to text him because i was like 'oh fuk what if when i talk to him next im not funny enough'

deathly afraid of being cheesy/cliche. this holds you back from showing much affection, especially romantic.

shoes are worn half to death.

your answer to theoretical questions is always ‘depends’. wonders if that means-

everyone thinks your friends ‘influence’ you, but really you’re as whack as them, just not as obvious.

a group of people you hate significantly less than everyone else, and one person you love

[redhoodinternaldialectical]

30 for the writing ask?

30: describe a fic that almost happened, but then didn't.

Whilst away from my computer and therefore all my WIPs, I started a little one shot titled "Who the Hill?" and actually the premise is easier to explain by just giving you what I wrote for the fic before I abandoned it lol!

The bass thud of the club rattles Jason's sternum and thrums through his organs pleasantly as he surveys the rest of the room from his spot in the corner. He's not really looking for anything in particular, just too in the habit of counting exits and tracking glasses to stop even when he's just here to be around other people having fun.

Then he sees Tim - or well maybe that isn't Tim - or no that is absolutely, definitely Tim - but probably Tim's not the right name for the spike and chain adorned person leaned against the bar with the dark, expressive makeup, the short, black skirt, and the high heel boots.

Then he's caught staring and (Not?) Tim's eyes go wide in what looks like fear and ah shit, there's no way he she was ready to come out to him, but hey, he can be cool, he can roll with this and make sure she knows he's not gonna be a prick about it.

Tim watches Jason approach with absolute dread, because he never, EVER wanted to have to explain the whole 'hi, I'm bi and I love the way my ass looks in a mini-skirt' thing to the most depressingly unavailable straight guy he's ever met. He braces for simply the most awkward 'so is this a sex thing?' conversation ever held between two vigilantes.

Instead though, Jason surprises him, "Sorry for putting you on the spot like this, but can I ask for your name?"

Tim blinks and realizes that between the makeup and the breast forms there's a very good chance Jason has no idea who he is! In fact he probably only intended to chat up some cute goth girl, and if he can manage to play along right he might get out of this with his secret intact!

He pitches his voice up a bit and hopes to god that feminine cadence and the loud music carries him, "Carolina, but you can call me Carol if you like."

"Cool! I dig the spikes by the way," Jason smiles like Carolina's name is some beautiful treasure he's been allowed to glimpse and the dread comes right back up as Tim realizes that he's somehow going to have to find it in himself to turn Jason down.

He ought to do it right now. He ought to tell Jason he's an awfully polite guy but she's already late to go home and dropped her phone in the harbor and is currently walking out the door-

[That paragraph's phrasing was inspired by this song hehehe]

But right now Tim is a weak, weak man, who chooses to pluck at Jason's jacket flirtily, "Thanks, I dig the leather and the white streak! You dye it like that?"

Jason gives him the most adorable deer-in-headlights expression back, "Uh, it's um, it's actually a cold brand? You can kinda see the scar around it if you look close."

"Wait like, liquid nitrogen and metal- deliberately?"

"I mean I dyed it the once, but then uh..." He trails awkwardly with a shrug, "I like it. Nice not to have to do anything more to keep it there. Kinda annoying it doesn't keep any other colors, but, ya'know." Another awkward shrug.

"Huh," He'd always assumed Jason just came back with it, but it being an injury instead actually makes a lot of sense? Was it really deliberate though or was he just saying that? "That's pretty fuckin hardcore."

Jason smiles again, feeling warm at all the compliments, and then internally panics.

Tim Carol is flirting with him probably?! That was not- did he say something weird? How did he come off like... And even if he did how the fuck is he supposed to handle this??

She's a girl, and he's very gay.

It feels sort of awful and cruel to think that he might fall out of love with her just because she changed a few words and her shape. Are human hearts really so fickle that the same person in a different cloth cannot be loved the same way?

At the same time though, Jason has historically been a solid six on the kinsey scale and he's sadly gotta admit the boobs are really not doing it for him. But maybe the above the belt feelings will stay? Is that how this works?? Or maybe he can just kinda... Coach himself through moving to a kinsey five???

He nervously fidgets with his hands and tries looking at her legs. He usually really likes Carol's legs and wants to do all kinds of things with them, and legs are things most people have regardless of gender... He attempts to force himself to focus on all the same features he usually likes, but it's just not the same with the heels and the skirt. The spark is gone.

This is so fucking stupid. He's stupid. This isn't how anything works and he should know it, and maybe he even does know it...

He just can't bring himself to give up on this, though. He's never had a crush reciprocate anything before, and now the world demands that he breaks both their hearts over basically nothing?!

He can't and he won't and he fucking refuses!

[Lots more awkward and not so awkward flirting flipping between their perspectives. Tim enjoying the power trip of turning Jason into a nervous mess just by being fem, thinking it's newly realized attraction that Jason can't normally feel towards him, and Jason panicking about whether or not he can be attracted to her at all. This goes on until they leave so Tim/Carol can catch his/her taxi]

Tim glances out at the road, and prepares to rip his own heart out by giving him a fake number, "Hey, um, I kinda ordered a taxi like before I even went out, so... text me?"

"Yeah sure, I've still got your number, and I'll see you back at the cave tomorrow anyways."

Tim, half turned away, goes rigid, "When the fuck did you figure out who I am?"

"What? Who the fuck else would I think you were?"

"A woman!"

"But like, you are a woman though??"

Tim stares at him, baffled, until the taxi driver leans on the horn and he decides to have this conversation on the way home. He grabs Jason by the wrist and hauls him into the car.

Jason hiss-whispers, "Wait are you in disguise right now? Did you just fucking use me for a case?!"

"No!" Tim hisses back while slamming the door shut behind him, "No, it's unfortunately infinitely more stupid and embarrassing for me!"

"Then...?" Jason gives him a confused gesture to spit it out already.

"I'm a crossdresser. My name's not any different. I'm not a woman. I'm sorry, I swear I didn't mean to lead you on, I just didn't know what the fuck to do when you came up to me asking for my fucking name."

And that's as far as I got before I abandoned it!

The problem I had with it and the reason I'm never gonna finish it is because there's not really a way to resolve the core tension/conflict that would be satisfactory to me. I need to emphasize here that I don't care about trying to find some kind of """"morally correct"""" way to end it, I just mean personally satisfying for me; any of the possible ways to end it would be morally fine, they just also all make me feel bad lmao

So like obviously the original resolution to the miscommunication was that Tim was a cis dude who just happened to be into dressing up in girly clothes and enjoying men's attention that way. That part on its own would be good, but it does mean that the moment of resolution from Jason's perspective comes out to being "Oh thank goodness you're not trans/not a woman/not a trans woman" and I don't feel great about that. Again, not a morals thing, it'd just leave a bad taste in my mouth.

My second idea was to have Tim realize he might be non-binary/a woman via Jason treating him like a woman and being so accepting of her. As a gay trans man who likes to cross dress in order to enjoy men's attention, this would give me bone dissolving levels of dysphoria!

There was also the problem of how to resolve Jason's sexuality.

As a gay man who spent many, many years of my life attempting to convince myself I was bisexual, any version of making Jason bisexual would give me bone dissolving levels of dysphoria! But like sexuality dysphoria instead of gender dysphoria. It would also eliminate an important source of narrative tension and character motivation.

The traditional version of keeping him gay would mean that Jason turns Carolina/Tim down altogether, which would break Jason's heart, and break Carolina's heart, and break my heart, and also turn the reveal into "it's a tragedy that you're trans/a woman/a trans woman". Infinite pain for zero gain!

I'd actually love to have Jason simply want to try being sexually intimate with an enby/woman Tim and have him decide he likes it even though he's still gay and still not attracted to Carolina/Tim at all. The experiences of sex having ace folks and people who have sex with people they aren't attracted to are really interesting to me and I'd love to explore that - if there was a bit more room to explore it right. This is a tiny one shot. I don't feel like I could properly convey that without putting in way more time and effort than I have to spare on this side project.

I MIGHT someday be convinced to finish this for a few different reasons, but for the forseeable future it won't be worked on. I have SO MANY PROJECTS that are better, more interesting, less awkward to handle, and already half published, like I got better things to do lol, so for now this is the one that got away.

In the meantime though: Please steal this!! If you find the premise interesting, especially if any of the versions that would give me bone dissolving dysphoria appeal to you, please take my words and write more onto them! I'd love to see some version of this finished someday, and I don't mind if someone (or several someones!) end up doing it instead of me, just lemme know if you do and throw a lil bit of credit my way and it's all good :3

[joesalw]

Another ex-swiftie rant here. I had been a fan of hers since her debut album. I fell off the train in 2016 when Reputation came out because I was going through a lot of my own bs and couldn't be bothered to even listen to it. I listened to it after Lover came out and still didn't like it lol Anyways I really adored Lover and Folklore and Evermore so I got back on the swiftie train and I was so excited for everything. I had a feeling when Midnights came out that I was breaking away from the crowd. I didn't like half of the album that was apparently everyone else's favorite songs. (Vigilante Shit is awful, it's just like the majority of Reputation, she tries to make the awful things she does sound cool and it comes off as tone deaf.) Then she goes and dates that half drowned rat during the Eras tour and she was so aggressive about it. Her fans continue to sweep her defending a racist man's actions under the rug. Hasn't she heard the phrase "You are who your friends are"? And the people she hangs out with are drug addicts, racists, rapists, etc... it's really gross. She can say she's a liberal all she wants but she fails to walk the walk time and time again. And then TTPD! Oh boy, I was really skeptical when I saw the release date and album title. I was like "Really? Another sad girl album right before summer? Haven't we had enough angst? We're in a recession, the music should be making people dance!" and then it wasn't even a sad girl album, it was fucking deranged. For someone who's never gone to therapy because she thinks she's "very sane" she comes off as having gone off the deep end when her 6yr relationship ended. She uses something she's never gone through as an aesthetic like a white woman having a plantation wedding. She throws a temper tantrum because the public didn't like her very unlikable boyfriend. She looks like a hypocrite in "so high school", what? The cheerleader dating the football player aethetic is only cute when you do it? A lot of the lyrics were crazy triggering for me because they were basically shit my mom said verbatim when she was dating A LITERAL MURDERER!!! "You all just don't want me to be happy!" Ugh, it made me want to scream. I'm gonna spend the summer dancing to Ava Max and Chappell Roan, maybe stream Joe's movies for kicks. Even though I'm 6 years younger than her, I feel like I've finally outgrown Taylor Swift.

preach!

[yayroos]

anyway i've been saying this in like replies and tags but here's my take on the MCR thing here's my theory ok

so according to the caption under the video

a) it's been 17 years since the band The Black Parade was sent to the MOAT

ok so 'MOAT' is clearly an acronym but also they were sent there they didn't go, so someone did this one way or another.

b) In that time, a great Dictator has risen to power

ok so the fascist and the regime came about at some point after The Black Parade was sent away - if it was fairly soon after, then i would say the MOAT is probably complicated fascist political prison for people who might be useful someday. I don't know what it stands for but i have a vibe of what it is.

c) bringing about "THE CONCRETE AGE", a glorious time of stability and abundance

ok so that's a song title. like. come on.

d) in the history of DRAAG.

so 'DRAAG' is another acronym, presumably for the name of this country. It's phrased to imply that the country existed before the regime, but fascists like to make shit up to make themselves look good, so I'm gonna say maybe there was a very different place called that in the past and then the regime took over and is basically co-opting that because that's what regimes do

e) His Grand Immortal Dictator wishes to celebrate our rich and storied culture, fine foods, and musical entertainments by welcoming you to these great demonstrations of power and resolve.

politicians across the spectrum and for a very long time have taken and twisted and used music and culture to serve their own ends. This happens all the time. Other people have said it better in the last day or so but like think of who's played what songs in campaign rallies and on tv ads and shit over not just recent election cycles but for 30+ years at this point. This is a constant of politics, and only gets amplified when fascism enters the picture. This is propaganda, this is using people's memory of what The Black Parade used to be before to give legitimacy to the regime.

f) And lending voice and song for the first time in six thousand two hundred and forty six days,

that lines up with the 17 years, and IRL with their last Black Parade performance and 'the black parade is dead'

g) their work privilege ceremonially reinstated

this tells us a huge huge amount about the nature of the regime and makes it clear that the band was, we'll say, forcibly retired, at some point

h) will be His Grand Immortal Dictator's National Band... The Black Parade

the regime and the dictator have claimed them, even though we know from the start they 'were sent to the MOAT' before the regime actually rose. That means that after 17 years and a complete change in regime, the cultural identity still tied to The Black Parade is still valuable enough to bother wheeling them out at this point. That's a long time for a seemingly inactive band to stay relevant.

Knowing what we know about MCR and politics and the current political moment, The Black Parade then were political enemies of the rising regime. They've been off hidden away somewhere but the people still remember their music, which makes them prime material for the quiet little rebellions from which revolution grows. The regime then gets word of this, and brings the band back to a) take away the power of it being from before by rebranding it under their own banner, and b) try and squash the resistance by demonstrating that their rallying cry is actually totally on the regimes side (no don't worry about how they were 'sent to the MOAT' 17 years ago they were totally on board the whole time...)

So The Black Parade will perform, but we know MCR and we know Gerard and we know the moment we're in, so that's not the whole plan here. The show will start heavy on the regime themes, but the band will break out somehow and instead of doing what the regime plans for and shutting down the rebellion, it will fan the flames and tear the whole thing down.