#i was trying to take toast out of the toaster and i fucked it up real bad

[boydykedevo]

i burned my finger btw... also my dog bit the very same finger earlier today (my fualt)..... very sad

[togament]

i firmly believe that togame is BY FAR the best pussy eater of all the boys and no, i am not taking criticism. you straddling his face with your wet cunt in the morning is his perfect breakfast and judging by the noises he makes it's honestly hard to tell who's enjoying it more. i go will bathe in holy water now kbye.

Anon. YOUR MIND. Let me in for a little bit real quick I’m trying to see something 😳😳! But anyway yes I see!!! I see you!! I see the vision!!!!!! I agree. The man’s an undefeated eating champion. Eating FOOD ok lol puss puss eating champion does work too 😳 *adjusts glasses, stretches back* let me just work on a little somethin’—

𝐇𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐫𝐲 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐓𝐨𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞.

“Ngghh—Jo! W-wait a sec-“, you yelp, knees bent comfortably on your pillow with your plump thighs trapped in your lover’s strong clutches as he’s needlessly lapping away at your beautiful, juicy petals like a man starved. “T-the breakfast!”, you manage to add, warning him of the toast that’s definitely burning, your coffee now forgotten. Pulling away momentarily, he mumbles a slow teasing, “got mine right here,” against your flesh before he dives in again once more.

Feeling a sense of weakness in your legs, you stagger slightly and he immediately hooks his arms over your plumpness to secure you. Secure you so you won’t wobble again. To secure your pussy to his needy and hungry mouth. He licks a fat strip up your pussy before he nuzzles his nose into your clit, lapping and lapping at your juices.

Good God. You hold desperately on your bed-frame, knuckles a pasty white. You can feel him smiling into your cunt when you continue soaking his wanting lips. This bitch.

Looking to your side, you can see the sun peeking from behind the curtains—it’s barely risen, the sky a gradient sliver of azure and rust. You momentarily think back on the times he’s shown you how much of an eater he could be. Food, definitely. Never occurred to you he’d be this ravenous when eating you out. Thrown out of your thoughts, your lover sucks and laps harshly at your clit and you let out a delicious moan so loud you’re sure your waking neighbors could have heard you. Clasping a hand over your mouth, you stare down at your lover between your legs.

His eyes are shut, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. But once he feels you staring, he opens them. Emerald eyes boring into your skin, your breasts and blushing face a delicious sight to him. It only makes him need you more. With another harsh suck on your nub, he mutters, “eyes on me, doll.” and you obey. How could you not? With that voice? Yes sir.

Now you’re there, pinned underneath Togame, legs deliciously spread on your couch so obediently for him. His head’s trapped between your thighs again. The sun’s fully risen now. You both managed to make it to the kitchen to turn the coffee maker and toaster on but he’s got you in his grip as soon as they’re off.

Fingers tangled his hair, you urge him to move, your hips bucking into his tongue and clit bumping against his tall nose. He hums into it, sending shivers and vibrations up to your head you swear you feel high. A mixture of “G-god yes-!”, “You’re so good, baby-“, “right there!” and other expletives escape your reddened lips. You shudder as you squirt around him for the 5th time this morning, gripping at his hair tightly. He hums once more, tongue rapidly working away at you with his three fingers knuckle deep inside you. “Sweet-“, he says with a hungry lick, so annoyingly slow, “s’fuckin’ sweet t’me. Give me more-“ his voice grew a tad demanding, with his grip tightening around your legs he moves against the couch to ease his cock lazily. It’s been hard and leaking ever since you started. “More.” his licking grows more intense, hooking his fingers up to your gummy insides, prodding away at the sensitive bud. Your moans grow louder while he expertly devours you. You don’t want him to stop but you’re so fucking sensitive— “w-wait!! I-“ a desperate plea you mutter, but he manages to rip another one from you. You’re absolutely gushing. He hasn’t made you squirt this much—to soak the couch under your ass. But your lover doesn’t stop. Not until your legs stop shaking. God he’s hungry.

Minutes later you’re both lying there, sweaty and breathless, couch completely soaked. You massage his scalp weakly as he peppers kisses along your soft flesh. Neither of you utter a single word for a good while.

He reaches over to your side to grab some tissues to clean you up with. He pauses when he feels something hard hit his hand. He almost feels apologetic when he knew what it was.

He grabs a familiar bottle. Opening it, he squeezes a healthy amount of it on your still sensitive cunt and your inner thighs.

Flavored lube.

Your eyes widen as you feel yourself grow needier. Fuck is he grateful to have such a giver. Easing your legs open, he licks a line of the lubricant slowly, licking around your clit just to mess with you. Pressing kisses and kitty licks along the flesh, around and above the sensitive bud. You whine.

He gives you a lazy smile, fingers rubbing along your folds once more.

“Y’gonna give me another one right, doll?” he says so slowly, so low you swear it sounds like a growl. His head dips down, hot breath directly on your waiting pussy.

“M’not done yet.”

a/n: eheheHEHEHEHE. Thank you for sending that in, anon. I am now dipping and swimming in a pool of holy water. TOGAME THE EATER TOGAME THE EATEEEERRRRR 🗣️🗣️

[writingoddess1125]

Relationship Weirdness

Kurt Wagner x GN Reader Headcanon

Funny and Silly established relationship

Masterlist

This Link leads to Kurt Wagner- Or does it???

THE NICKNAME DILEMMA

• Kurt has a Love, Hate relationship with the seemingly endless stream of nicknames you seemed to have for him and how you constantly

• Sure he had ones for you, but all classic in affection!

• Like Schatz aka his treasure, or Engel! He loves calling you Engel, Liebling also, Sweetie too in English

• However from you he does get the 'Love' Or 'Babe' but also he gets-

• 'Fuzzy Butt!', 'Blueberry', 'Sugar Booger-'

• Some he was fairly sure one was a drug inudendos as well!

"Schatz- What is will the constant changing nicknames?" He ask you one day after you kiss his cheek and weirdly called him 'Sugar Booger'

"Do you not like them?" You ask, he shakes his head.

"Nein, I like them. It's just- Isn't that a slang? For a bad thing?" He questioned, watching a weird smile goes across your face as you suddently snort up his arm like you'd done a line off him.

"Yes- You my Blue Cocaine"

He stared at you with a deadpan stare, trying to hold back his laughs as he covers his face with his hands.

You're so fucking weird-

PHYSICAL AFFECTION FUCKERY

• Kurt's tail has a mind of its own especially with you, so more often then not it will be wrapped around you, sliding up and down your back, sliding across your thighs or trying to find its way into your hands.

• He never notices until you reciprocate the affection, often leaving to him being a blushing mess when you run your fingers up the velvet like tail-

• He is naturally very physically affectionate so will cuddle you or lean against you most times.

• Sitting on the couch? Kurt will slide in right next to you. Making dinner? He will lean his weight on your back and look to see what you're making- Personal Space doesn't exist

• While Kurt is Cuddly, You are grabby-

• His tail? His fluffy little ears? His sides? All fair game!

• Seeing two fuzzy asscheeks in the shower, you see how the hair sort of swirls like a cowlick-

• You can't help but touch them-

• Earning a loud surprised noise from Kurt as he turns to look at you quite literally messing with the hair on his ass

"Really?-"

THE BEARD ERA!

• Kurt is very feline like in nature and the facial hair adds to this as well it seems.

• He will like to rub his neck and cheek against you, sometimes giving a growl/rumble as he does so.

• You can protest all you want but he will just give you an evil smile and rub his cheek against yours harder before teleporting away to avoid the consequences for giving you mild rug burn on your cheek!

• When Kurt's beard starts growing thicker he gets some ingrowns on the part were his neck meets his head so you have to open pin him to get at them-

"Stop being a big baby! It's deep!" You yell as you pin your boyfriend, watching him squirm under you in protest as you get the tweezers closer to the series of bumps.

"NEIN! LASS EN IN RUHE!" He screamed as you get the tweezers to get a big ingrown that protruded from his skin.

"AHHHHHH!!!"

THE FOOD FIASCO

• Has very weird eating habits- You often forget he was raised in a circus in Germany so he eats like it too.

• AKA Hawaii Toast-

• Your mortal enemy and the thing that you are willing the kick box over in terms of the kitchen area. The first time you saw Kurt make it, you almost sobbed at this atrocity towards both Hawaii, Italy, Bread and maybe Humanity

• "What the fuck is that!?" You almost cry out as you see the monstrosity on the counter.

"Hawaii Toast-" Kurt says calmly as he butters bread, adds ham, a ring of pineapple and some kraft cheese on top before chucking it into the toaster oven while grabbing some ketchup-

You stare at him in horror as he makes direct eye contact with you and takes a bite of this- monstrosity

• He does know how to cook luckily even if he makes Hawaii Toast for himself- Him learning recipes from your culture and you learning from his. As well as taking turns with kitchen duty!

• For Drinks- Kurt is the Master! He can open any bottle, he can make the perfect pours! He knows the exact drink you'd like off the top of his head

"You're a fucking Wizard Blue-"

You say in awe as you watch Kurt make you a drink calmly, raising a brow as he opens the beer bottle with his tail like nothing.

"I know~"

[vivwritesfics]

Set The World On Fire

Chapter Twelve

Lando Norris had been incredibly angry when they met. Incredibly angry, but sweet enough to help her. Turns out he just needed somebody to talk to, somebody to be there for him.

He was easy to fall for, and that put her in a world of danger

Warnings: blood, dream violence

Mafia AU

1.3K

Series Masterlist

Lando pressed her against the kitchen counter, his lips against her neck. She whined and moaned as he touched her. Red, bloody stains were left on her cheeks when Lando's fingertips touched her. And then a sharp, stabbing pain erupted in her side.

Lando pulled away from her and her lips chased his. But she couldn't follow him, stuck to the counter. When the fuck did Lando get a knife? And why the hell was that knife covered in blood?

Her hand was covering that stabbing pain in her side. When she pulled her fingers away, they were wet, red with blood. A scream left her lips and she wanted to collapse to the floor, but she couldn't, still stuck to the counter.

Lando shed his shirt, and his entire skin was covered with blood. But it was so clear that the blood wasn't his own. He brandished the knife as he strode into her living room.

It was just the two of them in her apartment. So, who the fuck was Lando walking towards? Her heart pounded in her chest as Lando walked over to the couch, to the person sleeping there. Who the hell was it?

But it didn't matter. Lando plunged his knife into their chest. He didn't stop there, though. He kept going, completely disfiguring them. She couldn't stop screaming as the blood spilled around her apartment, around her safe haven. The wound in her side was forgotten as the blood ran down her body, pooling on the floor.

Hands held her. "I've got you," someone was saying, pulling her close as she woke up with a start. Hands that had just been touching her, leaving blood on her. Even if it was in a dream.

She let out another scream as she fought against him, pushing away and crawling across the bed, away from him. "Stay away from me!" She cried, pulling her knees up to her chest.

Lando didn't reach for her again. He sat on the other side of the bed, watching as she tried to get her breathing back under the control. "You're okay," he said, hand moving across the sheets. But she couldn't even look at him, and Lando's heart snapped in two.

He stood up and walked back to the room. "Wait!" She called, and Lando couldn't stop the way that his heart jumped. "I locked my bedroom door before I went to sleep," she said. "How the hell did you get in?"

Lando had only felt pain like this once before, when his mother died. But the woman he loved, she was trying to keep him out. She'd locked the door to keep him away from her, and Lando wouldn't be surprised if she never trusted him again after breaking in.

He walked out of the room and pulled the door shut behind him. He'd fix this. He'd have to.

Lando didn't get back to sleep that night. How could he when her screams filled the apartment. It was a wonder that the neighbours didn't come knocking. He stared at the ceiling, pillow behind his head as he rested on the sofa.

It was one of the longest nights of his life. When the sun rose, he listened as her door opened and she walked out of her bedroom, looking just as tired as she looked. "Baby," Lando whispered as he sat up and rubbed his hand over his forehead.

She ignored him as she moved to the kitchen and made herself a coffee. Her hands shook as she boiled the kettle. Lando couldn't help but watch as she placed bread into the toaster. The way her hands shook, there was no way she would have been able to butter it on her toast.

Lando stood. He walked over to the counter, coming to stand beside her. "Let me help," he said, taking the butter knife from her hands.

"Lando," she whispered, his hands gentle against her own. His hands may have been gentle, but he was still a murderer. "You... kill people."

His head dropped, curls falling over her eyes. "I know. Baby, trust me I know." She couldn't move as he reached up and pushed her hair behind her ear. "But they were bad people." The lie slipped so easily from his mouth, he couldn't help it. Being in this apartment without her touch was killing him.

"Aren't you a bad person, Lando?" She muttered, but she didn't move away from his touch. Not until her toast popped out of the toaster and she flinched.

Lando took it out of the toaster and buttered it for her. "I am, baby. But I need you to know that I'd never, ever hurt you. You're too precious to me." He kept his hand on her cheek as he leaned in and kissed her.

She didn't pull away, not right away anyway. But, when she did, she shut her eyes. "Lando, I love you," she said quietly. "But I need you to give me space."

"Okay," he said, pulling away and leaving her toast in front of her. "Do you want me to find somewhere else to stay?"

She shook her head as she picked up her toast. "I still want to know you're safe," she said and took a bite. She left Lando standing there in the kitchen while she sat herself down on the sofa and ate the rest of her breakfast.

Lando let out a breath. She loved him, she didn't want him to move out. At that, he could rest easy.

He watched her as she ate. She didn't deserve this, didn't deserve a monster like him in her life. "I'm gonna go and shower," he said as he pushed away from the counter top. "And then maybe we can talk some more."

She shook her head as she stood up and placed her plate on the counter. "Can't," she said and finished her coffee. "I've got work."

Panic flooded Lando. "Baby, you can't."

She let out a huff. "I have to, Lando," she said and walked into her bedroom.

For the entire day that she was at work, Lando was on edge. It took everything in him to not text her every five minutes. But it was just because he wanted to make sure that she was alive.

Unable to do any work, Lando did nothing but lounge around on her sofa. As much as he needed to sleep, he couldn't. He tried cleaning, but Lando had quite literally never cleaned anything in his life, and he only served to spread the mess around.

As Lando sat in her apartment, he couldn't help but picture a little cat curled up beside him. It would have been there cat, one they adopted together after he moved into her apartment. And moving in with her would have been Lando's escape, his way out of the mafia world that he fucking hated.

He hated it more than anything now.

If that was the reason he lost her, Lando would never be able to forgive himself.

Hours later, the door unlocked. Lando brandished the nearest thing to him to use as a weapon. The television remote. It was pitiful, really. But then she walked through the door and he visibly relaxed.

"What do you want for dinner?" She asked instead of saying 'hello'. She placed her bag down onto one of the chairs in her kitchen, rolled up her sleeves and pulled open her fridge.

In an instantly Lando was on his feet and racing towards her. "I've been sat here all day doing nothing," he said as he stood behind her. "Let me sort dinner."

She let out a breath as she pulled out a carton of eggs. "Do you actually know how to cook?" She asked as she began preparing dinner.

She cooked in silence. Every other time she'd made dinner for Lando, he'd gotten in her way, giggles sounding as she danced around him. But there were no giggles now. God, he missed her smile so fucking much.

Please let me know if my taglist is working it's really pissing me off

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[daysofyellowroses]

peanut butter

carmen berzatto x reader | 1.8k | prompt was: a carmyxreader where r is really struggling with getting regular things done with their ADHD & Carmy takes a day off for them to body double and be there while she does their tasks as requested by @thecapricunt1616 - i hope you like this!

disclaimer: i do not personally have ADHD, so i can't write from personal experience, but from research and what I've learned from friends with ADHD, i hope this is a respectful and accurate portrayal!

🐻

The alarm going off on your nightstand had you flinging your arm over your eyes as you rolled onto your back. Alarms on a weekend should be illegal, really. Once the alarm tone started looping back around, you slowly rolled over to grab your phone, tapping at the screen a few times before finally turning the alarm off with a swipe.

You took a deep breath before slowly getting out of bed, yawning as you stretched your arms. The sunlight streaming in through the window made the room brighter if not warmer, you rubbed your arms a little as you made your way to the bathroom.

The tiles were cold under your feet and you cursed yourself for not grabbing some socks first. You plucked your toothbrush from its holder before sliding open the shower door and leaning in to hit the button.

Once the water started running you went to brush your teeth, looking at your reflection in the mirror and leaning in closer, swiping your thumb over a small bump on your chin. Setting your toothbrush down, you opened the mirror cabinet, rooting around for some acne cream and sighing as you only found an empty tube. You threw it in the trash before closing the mirror and gripping the edge of the sink. 

After a moment you turned off the shower, going into the kitchen and turning on the radio, the sound of music filling the kitchen. Searching the cabinets, you managed to find the last of a leaf of bread, popping two slices onto the toaster. 

You went to the refrigerator, taking the pen that was connected to the notepad stuck on the door. Your eyes fell on the photo strip tucked beside it, smiling as you looked at the pictures of you and Carmy pulling stupid faces, laughing, and kissing in the last one. You two had gone to an amusement park with Richie and Eva, and when you spotted the photo booth you couldn't resist tugging Carmy inside. 

Opening the refrigerator, you looked inside it for a moment, turning your head as you heard the toaster pop. You went to take out the toast, leaving it on the counter as you got a plate, dropping the toast onto it before wiping your hands and going to your bedroom to grab your phone.

You opened it up to a flurry of notifications, sitting down on your bed and taking a breath as you read them. 

Go to the gym! Grocery run! Pay car insurance! Do laundry!

You held your phone tightly in your hand, closing your eyes for a moment and trying to organize your thoughts, all of them getting tangled in your mind and blaring like neon signs. Taking a deep breath, you looked down at your phone and cleared the notifications from the screen, bringing up Carmy's number and hitting the call button.

It almost seemed like he wasn't going to reply when you got a response, silence for a moment before a tired “Hello?”

“Hey,” You smiled softly, picking at invisible thread on your pajamas. “It's me, I'm sorry if I woke you up, I'm not sure what time it is.."

“You didn't wake me up, baby,” Carmy's voice is low and soft in your ear and you feel yourself begin to relax. “I promise. I've been awake for a while, down at the restaurant trying to get stuff done without cousin in my ear.”

In the background you heard a ‘I fuckin’ heard that!’, which made you laugh.

“How is everything over there?” You asked, your thumb gently sweeping over your nails. “Are you okay?”

“It's fine, yeah,” Carmy replied, hesitation in his tone you decided not to comment on. “I'm..I'm good, how are you?”

“I'm-”

‘Oh, fuck me!’

“I'm okay,” murmured softly, resting your fist on your thigh and closing your eyes. “You're busy, you got a lot going on, you don't need me in your ear.”

“Baby don't say that, hang on,” You could hear the bell sound at the door and traffic in the background. “You sure you're okay? You'd tell me if you weren't, right?”

“Right,” You nodded, biting your lip. “It's..I don't know, I'm just really struggling with-”

‘Hey, we need you back in here, Carm. ASAP.’

You could hear Carmy's deep sigh on the other end and your heart ached.

“You're needed there,” You smiled half-heartedly. “I'll see you later..I love you.”

You hung up the phone before Carmy could respond, falling back onto your bed with a groan.

Just under an hour later, you opened your eyes as you heard a knock at the front door. You hadn't planned to fall asleep but apparently your body decided you needed a nap. Getting up from your bed, you smoothed out your pajamas and made your way to the front door, opening it up and raising a brow as you saw Carmy standing on the other side.

“What are you doing here?”

“Hello to you too,” Carm rolled his eyes with a grin, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around your waist, your falling around his neck. 

“Hi,” You murmured softly, closing your eyes and burying your nose in your boyfriend's hair. “I just didn't expect to see you until later, that's all.”

“I figured I'm owed a day off,” Carmy murmured softly, gently stroking your back before he gently pulled away and placed his hand on your cheek. “I had a feeling I was needed elsewhere.”

You leaned into his touch, letting out a breath. 

“I'm just having one of those days. I really didn't mean for you to drop everything.”

“I know,” Carmy smiled softly, leaning in to give you a kiss before stepping into your apartment and closing the door. “But everything is under control, Syd and Sug know what they're doing, and I don't want to be anywhere but here with you.”

You couldn't keep the smile off your face, pulling Carmy in for another kiss.

“You're wonderful,” You whispered softly, your hands resting on his chest. “just in case I don't tell you enough.”

“I don't mind hearing it,” Carmy grinned, gently tugging at the hem of your t-shirt. “Have you had breakfast yet?”

“Uh..no,” You replied, slightly distracted by Carm's large hand moving under your t-shirt to your bare waist. “I made toast but..I never ate it.”

Carmy smiled as he gently stroked your waist, stepping closer to you so your bodies were flushed together. 

“Why don't you go have a nice relaxing shower, and I'm gonna make you breakfast.”

“I have barely any food in the house,” You sighed softly, resting your arms around Carmy's neck. “I need to go food shopping, and do laundry, and..”

“Hey,” Carmy murmured softly, gently stroking your waist. “Don't worry about any of that right now. All you need to do is go have that relaxing shower, right?”

“Okay,” You nodded, gently stroking Carm's cheek. “I will.”

The shower was indeed relaxing, you took your time and wondered what Carmy could possibly cook from the remnants of your fridge. He always seemed to be able to make something from nothing, you loved that about him. Once you had showered and brushed your teeth you made your way to your bedroom, picking out your clothes.

Just knowing Carmy was in your apartment made you feel more at ease. Every time he came over, you felt calm and relaxed, he was a soothing presence even when you knew that he had his own stress and worries. He never complained or moaned about his own issues, even though you always told him he could, encouraged him to talk to you about anything. But you realized that he wasn't not telling you things because he didn't want to or he didn't trust you, he wanted the time he spent with you to be an escape from all those other things.

You wondered if the two of you were to live together if Carmy would open up more to you, if your place wasn't just an escape for him. You pushed the thought aside, getting dressed and grabbing your phone before heading into the kitchen.

“It smells amazing in here,” You smiled, resting your phone on the table. “It usually smells of smoke after I've been in here.”

“That's why you got me,” Carmy smiled, walking over to the table and setting a plate down. “Coffee is nearly ready.”

“Oh wow,” You smiled, looking down at the plate. It was scrambled eggs with little bits and pieces from the fridge, your abandoned toast reheated and cut up beside it. “This is so great, thank you.”

As you sat down, Carmy placed a mug down by your plate before sitting down himself with a mug.

“Anytime baby,” He took a sip of coffee, watching you for a moment with a smile. “So what's on the list for today?”

You held your fork in mid air, picking up your phone and handing it to Carmy before taking a bite of breakfast. 

“Let's see,” Carm smiled, opening your phone and checking your calendar. “This doesn't look so bad, we can do this.”

“You don't have to,” You insisted, picking up your mug. “If you don't feel like it.”

“I want to,” Carmy smiled. “You can do all this, I know you can, but I'm happy to do it all with you.”

And he does.

After breakfast, he cleans the kitchen while you organize your laundry. You tell him about work when you take the laundry down to the ground floor of your building and load into the washing machine. He tells you about the latest developments in the restaurant when you're in the grocery store. He picks out some things “for when I make you dinner” and your heart swells.

Back at your apartment, you unpack the bags and laugh as Carmy tells you the latest mishaps from work. You go downstairs and transfer the laundry to the dryer, ending up sitting on the machine with Carmy between your legs, kissing you like you're teenagers again.

You pay your car insurance, you clean your apartment, you fold your laundry, and put it away. 

Carmy gets a call he has to take, and you worry your little domestic bubble will burst, and your mind will be tangled knots and neon signs once more.

“All good,” Carmy smiles as he comes back into the kitchen. “What's next on the list?”

“Let me check,” You smile, picking up your phone and checking. “Hm..just the gym. I'll go get changed.”

“If you want,” Carmy nods, walking closer to you with a grin. “Or..you could just have a workout at home.”

You laugh and wrap your arms around his neck, letting out an excited squeak as you are picked up, your legs wrapping around Carmy's waist. 

“Lead the way.”

[redroomreflections]

Gentle Hands Chapter Nine

Natasha Romanoff x fem!reader

Summary: Natasha suspects Reader is in an abusive relationship and tries to convince her to leave

9/10

W/c: 4.3k

Masterlist | General Masterlist

Warning: Domestic violence

Note: so close to the finish line

Mornings are anything but peaceful these days, a far cry from the calm you crave. You can’t help but question your decision to do this on your own. If anyone walked in right now, they’d probably wonder the same thing. Kaia, half-dressed and clinging to your leg, whines for attention as you try to focus on an important email about your financial aid, your heart racing with every word.

“Action required,” You read to yourself. With a smack of your lips, you pull Kaia into your arms, adjusting her on your hip, as you try not to let your frustration show. “Mama’s sorry, Kai. I know you want to hang out with me but we have a lot to do today.” You talk to her knowing it won’t help the cries coming from her. They’re dangerously close to your ear and you’re sure you’ll be hard of hearing by lunch. The smell of burnt toast mixed with the sound of Kaia’s wails filled the room as you fumbled with the stove, your phone slipping from your grasp and shattering on the kitchen floor. "Oh, fuck me." You sigh as you bend down to inspect the shattered screen. You could swear you heard the crunch of glass under your slipper, causing a shiver to run up your spine.

The toaster dings, startling both of you. You look up to the ceiling, mumbling something about a higher power as you try to compose yourself. You walk Kaia over to the highchair, placing her inside of it despite her hating the thing, and walk over to pick up the shattered pieces of glass. You hadn't even known such a thing could happen for a supposedly durable phone.

Kaia lets out a shriek and you're not sure how you don't go deaf. You look at her and she's staring back at you with big brown eyes, tears threatening to fall. A part of you feels bad that she has to sit and watch while you clean up and cook, but you need a few seconds to catch your bearings. You seem to be going a little too fast, as a shard of glass nicks you and you curse to yourself. You have to do so many things at once it's a little jarring. You quickly reach for the outlet and unplug the toaster. You turn off the stove, rejoicing in the fact that your scrambled eggs will only be a little dry. You rush over to the sink to rinse your bleeding hand. You can hear Kaia begin to whimper and you groan to yourself.

"Mama's coming, baby. Hold on." You call over to her. "I have to clean up this glass before I'm able to let you walk around."

Your chest is tight and you feel like a terrible mom, unable to provide comfort. Kaia voices her frustration with an even louder shriek. You sigh. What a mess.

"Miss, it seems your heart rate is elevated," JARVIS, Tony's omniscient AI thing reads aloud to you. "Do you request the services of Ms. Romanoff or Mr. Rogers?"

"What? No, no I don't," You speak into the air. It's the third time JARVIS has asked this week and it still takes you by surprise. He only listens to you half the time and this isn't one of them. You're unsure of the settings on this thing but you'd like to change them.

"As you wish, Miss. Please keep me informed if you need assistance."

You scoff and mumble, "You're not my therapist."

You hear a door shut and you know exactly who's behind you. You thought you told JARVIS not to ask her to come.

"JARVIS told me you need some help," Natasha says, her voice quiet and comforting.

You sigh, "I told him not to tell you."

"You know he's not really a good listener." She shrugs.

You don't say anything back to her.

"Why did you tell him not to tell me?" She asks.

"Because I can handle this myself."

"I know you can," Natasha says carefully. She assesses the situation with a quickness before starting out with the obvious. Kaia raises her arms to be held and Natasha obliges. "Are you sure you don't want help, though?"

You let out a long exhale.

"No. I'm just overwhelmed," You confess. "I have to get over to my school for orientation. All of the classes may be online but it's in person for whatever reason."

"Understandable. Do you need me to stay and help?"

You want to say no. You want to tell her you can do it all on your own. When you look over and see Kaia resting her head tiredly on Natasha's shoulder you know better. You've only been at the tower for a few months and you're already noticing the subtle differences in your baby. She's finding comfort in someone else. She trusts another adult to take care of her.

"I'd appreciate that," You nod, smiling lightly.

"It's no problem, Y/N."

You watch as Natasha places a kiss on Kaia's cheek and she smiles.

"Are you giving your Mama a hard time?" Natasha coos to the toddler. Kaia looks back at her with the biggest tears in her eyes and the cutest pout. "I'm sorry, baby. Let's give Mama a break, okay? She's going through a lot right now."

You're thankful for Natasha's presence, though you'd never admit it out loud.

With Kaia settled you can give yourself a few minutes. You need to find a bandage and a new shirt that isn't filled with baby tears and snot.

"Go," Natasha urges you softly. How was it she's always been able to read your mind?

With a silent nod, you rush off to your bedroom and into the ensuite bathroom. There are baby toys along the floor that you maneuver around. You kneel, reaching inside the cabinet for the first aid kit, before finding a small bandage. it's not a huge cut but it needs attention. As soon as you've put on the bandage, your phone begins to ring. It's the alarm reminding you to get a move on. Your heart races again and the room suddenly feels too small. You rip your shirt over your head and toss it onto the floor.

Being so messy isn't in your nature but lately, it's been a sort of power move. Keith hated it when you'd left anything on the floor. He'd berate you and nag about all of the things he disliked about the smallest things. You remember leaving your shoes in the hallway one night, just needing to rest your feet. When you woke the next morning, to see he'd thrown them in the trash you had been devastated. You had to wash them twice to get the smell of leftover tomato juice and onions out of it. You shake your head. You don't want to think about him.

The sound of Kaia babbling brought you back to reality. You had to get a grip. You sift through your dresser drawer to find a simple shirt. You chose a business casual striped button-up. You stood closer to the full-length mirror to get a look at the entire outfit together. You tried not to notice the weight gain. You're carrying a baby it's supposed to happen. You're supposed to be happy about the tiny swell of your belly. You are. That doesn't mean all of this doesn't still make you nervous. Another baby. This new life you have. You caress your belly, turning to the side to inspect yourself.

"You look great," Natasha’s voice cuts through the haze of your thoughts, grounding you before the negativity can take root. You hadn’t even noticed her slip into the room, her presence as subtle as ever.

You turn to meet her gaze, feeling exposed, not just because you're standing there in nothing but a bra and pants, but because of the way her eyes linger on you—steady, reassuring, and warm. A flicker of vulnerability passes through you, the thought of someone seeing you like this, both physically and emotionally, is unnerving. Yet, Natasha’s presence doesn’t add to your discomfort; instead, it’s oddly comforting.

“Sorry, it got quiet in here, and I wanted to check on you,” Natasha apologizes, her tone gentle, almost hesitant, as if she knows this moment holds more weight than a casual check-in.

“He’s growing,” you murmur, almost to yourself, placing a hand on your stomach. “I’ve noticed a bump.” The words hang in the air, a mix of awe and anxiety. There’s a new life inside you, and with it, a whole new world of responsibilities and uncertainties.

Natasha steps closer, her eyes never leaving you, her expression softening into something that feels like admiration. “You look wonderful,” she says, and the sincerity in her voice makes your chest tighten, a wave of emotion swelling within you. It’s been so long since someone has made you feel this seen, this accepted.

An impulse strikes you, and you’re surprised by your desire to share this moment. “Do you want to feel? I mean, it’s too early to start kicking…” you shrug, feeling a bit awkward, not entirely sure why you’re offering. But there’s a part of you that craves connection, that wants to share this journey, and in this moment, Natasha feels like the only person you can trust with it.

Natasha nods, her lips curving into a soft smile, her eyes alight with a childlike excitement that warms your heart. You find yourself smiling back, a lightness filling you as you gently place her hand on your stomach.

"I was smaller with Kaia," You muse aloud and her eyes travel to yours. "I didn't start to really show until the end of my second trimester. I guess this little person is eager."

"You're amazing," Natasha says and you blush. "I don't think I could ever do something like this."

You chuckle, "That's not true. Everyone's different."

"I was made for other purposes," She admits, her tone laced with a hint of sadness. She allows her hand to drop to her side.

"I'm sorry," You frown. "I didn't mean for this to-"

"No, it's okay." Natasha interrupts. She shakes her head, and when her eyes meet yours, the sadness is gone, replaced with a hint of humor. "Besides, I don't think I'd be any good at being a parent anyway."

"I don't think that's true," You reply. "Kaia loves you. I mean she's taken to you and you guys barely know each other."

"Kaia's a sweet girl."

Speaking of Kaia, you wonder why it's so quiet.

"I gave her a plushie to play with," Natasha answers. "I figured you'd want to eat breakfast with her."

"Yeah," You smile. "I'll just put this on." You raise the shirt in your hands and Natasha nods.

"I'll leave you to it. I'll make her a plate. Take your time."

You watch her leave the room and exhale, feeling your body relax. She's right. You do need to take a breather. You button the shirt with efficiency before heading back to the kitchen. Natasha has pulled Kaia's high chair to the breakfast table. She's also managed to cut up some fruit which the toddler is happily munching on.

She's already got your food on a plate, waiting for you. It's just a slice of toast with bacon and fruit, but you can't deny that your mouth waters at the sight.

"Thank you, Nat," You say again, feeling slightly guilty.

"No worries," Natasha smiles. "How did you make the eggs? I thought they triggered your morning sickness."

"While holding my breath." You joke. "Kaia likes them so I make them for her."

"You're a good mom." Natasha hums.

"Thank you," You reply. "It's not always easy."

"Mama," Kaia begins. "Up!" She holds her arms out, waiting for you to hold her.

"Hi, sweetheart. Thank you for being so patient with Mama." You say as you pull her out of the highchair and into your arms.

Kaia gives you a toothy grin, a piece of mango on her bottom lip.

"Oh, baby," You wipe the mess from her mouth and kiss her on the forehead. "I'm going to miss her while I'm at work."

"Steve or Darcy watching her?"

"Darcy," You answer. "They get along. I think she's the best choice."

"Darcy's a good one. Steve, too."

"I'm sure," You agree. "But I'll be right downstairs so it should be fine."

"Are you nervous about going back to work and school?" Natasha asks you.

"It's a bit scary. I know I'm doing the right thing, though."

"If it gets too much, you can always stop," Natasha says, her voice gentle, but the concern in her eyes is clear. "Or I can keep Kaia some days too."

"You guys are too nice to me," You say, a small uncertain smile tugging at your lips. "I know how busy all of you are. You're Avengers that can't be such a promising schedule."

"You're family, Y/N." Natasha insists. "It's no problem. And, as much as we love our jobs, we love her more."

“Thank you,” you murmur, looking down at Kaia, who’s now playing with a toy in your lap.

But even as the words leave your mouth, a pang of doubt tugs at your heart. You know you’re grateful, but a part of you struggles to accept that you’re worthy of all this kindness. They’re Avengers—heroes who save the world—and yet here they are, bending over backward to help you, someone who feels so… small in comparison.

You swallow the lump in your throat, forcing yourself to meet Natasha’s gaze. “Really, thank you. I just… sometimes I don’t feel like I deserve all this, you know? You all have so much to deal with already.”

“You do deserve it, Y/N. Don’t ever doubt that. We care about you, and we want to help.”

The sincerity in her voice wraps around you like a warm blanket, and though the doubts still linger, you allow yourself to accept her words, even if just for a moment.

************

*****************

Standing in the crowded financial aid office, waiting in line to plead your case, you can’t help but second-guess yourself, even though Stark has already given you a pay raise and bumped up your salary, your mind still convinces you that you won't be able to pay the bill. You're not used to such generosity, it's not something you're accustomed to, and it's difficult for you to grasp. It's even more difficult when the line moves slowly. There's a little less than ten minutes before you're called to the front and you can feel your palms begin to sweat.

"Hello, I'm y/n y/l/n, I'm here to fix a few things with my financial aid package," You inform the receptionist. "I received an email today about still owing."

The woman at the desk is young, probably fresh out of college herself, with a tired but kind look in her eyes. She gives you a sympathetic smile as she clicks around on her computer, searching for your information.

"Your file seems to have a mistake," The young lady explains. "Your scholarship isn't paying off for another semester, though it looks like your bill has been paid already."

"What? When?" You stretch to see her computer screen as she turns it around for you. "I was looking to do a payment plan but if it's gone."

"Someone has paid it in full. Do you have an idea of who could have done it?"

"No," You reply, baffled. Your mind immediately jumps to Natasha. It seems like something she would do, quietly taking care of things behind the scenes, always looking out for you in ways you never expect. But this feels different. Natasha isn’t one to step in without at least consulting with you first—respecting your independence, and knowing how much you’re trying to reclaim it. It doesn’t quite fit her style to make such a significant gesture without a conversation.

"Well, I'd consider it your lucky day," She smiles gently at you.

"Thank you," You mumble, still a little dazed.As you gather your thoughts, you wonder if it could have been Stark—he’s known for his grand gestures and might see this as a way to ease your burdens. But even that feels off. You can't shake the unease, the nagging feeling that someone has stepped in to help without asking, leaving you both grateful and unsettled.

"Is there anything else we can do for you today?"

"No. Thanks."

With that, you're sent on your way, thoughts swirling as you leave the office, the mystery of your benefactor lingering in the back of your mind.

*************

Your first day back at the office is nothing short of stressful. You feel incredibly out of place after not being at work for so long. There are two other receptionists for the front desk of Stark Tower and they've always had more experience than you. Now, however, it's the complete opposite.

You'd been in charge of the scheduling of everyone on the lower levels. It wasn't the most glamorous of jobs but it did help with the day-to-day.

"Ms. Y/L/N," A familiar voice calls. You look up and see your former supervisor.

"Hey, Miss Johnson. It's good to see you," You greet her.

"It's great to have you back."

"Thank you. I wasn't sure if I would come back or not."

"Well, I'm happy you decided to. How's your daughter?"

"She's growing. She's got a personality now."

Miss Johnson laughs. "I'm sure. Kids grow up so fast."

"They do," You agree.

"I've gotta get back to it," She says. "Feel free to stop by my office if you need anything."

"Thank you, I will." You say. That's about the only real interaction you get for the next forty minutes. People stop by only needing you to be directed to th other areas of the tower where the public is permitted. It's not bad, though. It's stable and easy. The first thing in your life you're able to do with ease you think. You'd just finished sending off a memo for one of the R&D developers when there's a clearing of a throat in front of you.

You look up and you smile.

Steve.

"Hi," You greet him. It's been a few days since you've seen your friend. He's been away on a mission in some random country.

"Hey, stranger," Steve grins. "It's good to see you."

"Good to be seen," You tease.

"So, this is your new spot, huh?"

"Yup," You say. "Just a few feet away from my old one." You joke.

"How's it been?"

"Easy," You tell him. "People are nice."

"Well, that's a given," Steve points out. "How is Kaia?"

"She's good," You smile, your heart swelling with pride. "She's with Darcy for the day. It's taken everything in me not to check on her."

"That's understandable," Steve chuckles. "She's a sweetheart. Have you eaten lunch yet?" He offers.

"I have," You raise a container filled with leftover pasta. "Though I could use a couple minutes to stretch my legs."

"Then let's go," Steve smiles.

"That's probably a good idea."

Steve waits for you to grab your jacket and you both head for the top-secret entrance and exit. There's probably a fancy name for it but that's what you call it. It's a given the Avengers would need their own space like this considering how much the public is usually crowded around the main doors.

"So, how was your mission?" You ask as you're riding the elevator down.

"Successful," Steve answers. "We had a lead and it was a solid one. It was just a matter of getting there in time."

"I hope that's good then," You nod.

"It is," Steve reassures. "Things are calming down."

"Good," You say, relieved.

The elevator reaches the ground floor and you follow Steve outside.

"How's the uh, the baby," Steve asks awkwardly.

You chuckle, "It's not contagious, Steve."

"No, I know," Steve sighs, blushing a little. "I just wasn't sure if you'd be comfortable talking about it or not."

"It's fine," You shrug. "The baby is fine. I think."

"Think?" Steve looks over at you, his expression concerned.

"No, not like that," You laugh. "From what I know the baby is fine and developing as he should be."

"That's good," Steve exhales. "I'm glad."

"You're not the only one," You walk so close you bump shoulders with him. "You're a good guy, Steve."

"I'm just me," Steve shrugs.

"And you're a great friend."

"I'd like to think I'm a good one," He admits.

"When are you going to settle down and marry or something?"

"Or something?" Steve laughs. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know, maybe find a girlfriend."

"I don't think it's for me," Steve shakes his head. You remember the story he told you about Peggy, the love of his life from a time long gone. It wasn’t just any love story—it was the kind of deep, unyielding bond that seemed to transcend time itself. Steve had spoken about her with a quiet reverence, his voice filled with both warmth and lingering sorrow. Peggy was the one who got away, the one he could never forget, and in a way, it felt like no one else could ever compare. For Steve, moving on wasn’t as simple as finding someone new. His heart had been spoken for long ago, and even though he’d found his way into a new world, that part of him remained in the past, with her.

And maybe, you think, that’s why he’s content to just be a good friend, the steadfast, loyal companion—because he’s already given the best parts of himself to someone he can never truly be with.

"What about you?" Steve asks. "Do you think you'll ever love again? You know after Keith."

"I don't think I'm ready," You admit.

"No?"

"I'm not," You frown. "My heart doesn't want to try. There's nothing left."

"I understand," Steve nods.

"It's hard to think about you know," You stop walking to gather your thoughts. "I was with him since I was eighteen years old. The past six years have been so interesting. I was in an abusive relationship that took everything from me. How am I supposed to trust someone else after that?"

"It'll take time," Steve offers.

"I wish it was easier," You admit. "I wish I could turn off that part of myself that cares."

"Yeah," Steve agrees. "Sometimes it's hard."

"But if I were to ever start dating I know what I want," You say with such conviction it has Steve raising a brow.

"Oh, really? And what's that?"

"To be treated like a queen," You joke.

"Well, anyone would be a fool not to treat you that way."

"I'm glad you think so," You nod. "In all seriousness, I want someone kind. Honest. Not only with me but with themselves. Someone who isn't fond of knocking me around is a good deal too. It's all bare minimum."

"That's not the bare minimum, Y/N," Steve's brows furrow together, a slight frown on his face. "You deserve the world. All the best things."

"Yeah," You scoff, your heart heavy with the knowledge that you haven't received such things before.

"And you deserve the truth," Steve says, his voice softening.

"What truth?"

"That you are worthy of love," Steve continues. "You deserve the best things because you are the best things."

"If I didn't know any better I'd say you were trying to propose to me yourself," You joke, trying to lighten the mood, but the words feel hollow, even to you. The compliment hangs in the air, heavy and uncomfortable, wrapping around you like an ill-fitting coat.

It’s not that you don’t appreciate Steve’s kindness—it’s just that you’ve never been one to accept compliments easily, especially not ones that cut this close to the bone. The idea that you could be deserving of love, of the best things in life, feels so foreign, so out of reach. The wounds from your past still linger, making it hard to believe anything good about yourself, let alone something so profound. Steve’s words, however well-intentioned, only serve to highlight how far you feel from the person he’s describing.

You shift uncomfortably, forcing a smile, but inside, a small part of you recoils, unsure how to reconcile the person you see in the mirror with the one Steve sees standing before him. It’s going to take time—more time than you want to admit—before you can even begin to believe any of it.

"Come on," Steve nudges your shoulder, offering you a warm smile. "Let's get you back to the tower."

You give him a grateful nod and walk beside him in silence, the weight of his words still heavy on your mind.

"Have a good rest of the day, Y/N," Steve says as he drops you off. You stand on your tiptoes, wrapping your arms around his shoulders to hug him. Truly hug him.

As you hold him close, a warmth spreads through you, a comfort you haven’t felt in a long time. It’s not just the embrace—the realization that you have people in your corner, friends who genuinely care. For so long, you’ve been used to fighting your battles alone, to keeping your guard up, always expecting the worst. But here, in this simple hug, you feel the weight of that loneliness lift, if only a little.

It feels like you’re finally starting to understand what it means to have a support system and people who stand by you, not out of obligation but out of genuine care. It’s a feeling you’re still getting used to, but it also fills you with a quiet sense of gratitude. For the first time in a long time, you feel like you’re not just surviving—you’re being seen, valued, and cared for. And that, more than anything, makes you feel like you’re truly healing.

---> next part

[stargazedwinchester]

Womanhood | Dean

Summary: Dean helps to comfort you during your time of the month, without much experience about periods, he tries his best.

This is a little different to the actual request, I hope that’s okay! I’ve tried my best to replicate it though :) Let me know if you want Sam’s/Cas’s version too!

Based off of this request here, thanks!!

Word count: 1,134

Warnings: some swearing, not loads!

♱⁺. ⋆˙✧⋆✧˙⋆⊹.♱

This morning, you woke up with the most unbearable pain, cramps that felt like your appendix had ruptured. You groan in pain, hoping it would subside soon. You clutch your belly and slowly get out of bed. Your alarm clock flashes 7:39am, and you let your head fall. “I love when I have no sleep,” you mumble to yourself, letting out a huff. Looking behind you, Dean isn’t passed out, snoring so loud it would’ve probably woke you up anyway. You hold your belly and walk out toward the kitchen.

“Morning,” you grumble, and Dean turns around from the stove. His face lit up seeing you at the doorframe, your hair a mess and in one of his spare Star Wars t-shirts and your own pyjama shorts. “Someone’s looking rough.” He jokes, noticing you’re not smiling back. “Aw honey, what’s wrong?” He asks, his smile quickly fading. The smell of breakfast hovers over you, like it’s mocking your morning sickness. “I think I’m coming on my period today…” you say, and Dean turns round to face you, letting the eggs and bacon sizzle quietly on the stove. Toast pings out of the toaster at the same time. “Are you sure you’ll be okay for today’s hunt? If you’re in pain, I’m sure Sammy and I will handle it fine.” He genuinely looks concerned, as if you haven’t had plenty of periods before. It hurt like hell, sure, but you could manage just fine. Along with the fact that periods can make you super emotional and/or angry, you were certain it could come in handy when killing a couple of monsters.

“I’ll be fine Dean, honestly. I want to come with you both.” You smile, leaning over the counter top. Dean nods in agreement. “It’s always fun having you around. If you change your mind just let us know, okay?” He shoots you a quick grin before turning back to the stove, plating up your breakfast. “Where’s Sam?” You question, usually he’s already by the table reading his favourite book or getting ready to go out for his morning jog. “I think he went for a shower, I’m not sure.” Dean spins round and passes you a plate with 2 slices of toast, egg, bacon and hash browns. “Wow, this looks really good, Dean. Thank you.” You smile warmly at him, and he returns the gesture.

♱⁺. ⋆˙✧⋆✧˙⋆⊹.♱

Your rapid breathing causes you to hunch over and rest your hands on your thighs, you take a deep breath. “God damn…” you say, looking up at Sam, who’s right in front of you. “What a kill!” You chuckle to yourself, wiping your hair out of your face. You stand up, giving Sam a high-five. “Good job, Y/N. It’s like you don’t need our help.”

“I know, right? I’m just that go-“ “Y/N! Watch out!” Sam cocks his gun and tries to shove you out of the way, a sudden loud bang shocks you as you feel something sharp pierce your skin abruptly. You fall over, Dean rushing to your side. “I’ll cover you, Dean, make sure she’s okay!” Sam quickly checks back at you, noticing blood is pouring out of our calf.

“Fuck. Y/N, are you okay? Does it hurt?” He panics, shuffling over to apply pressure on your leg. He rummages in his pocket for a handkerchief and immediately applies it to your wound, he rushes to whip his belt off and tie it tight enough around your leg to hopefully stop the bleeding. You can practically see the fear in his eyes, and you laugh quietly.

“What’s so funny, huh? Almost dying?” His hands shake, trying to keep the pressure on your leg at all times.

“I’m not gonna die, Dean. It’s just a gunshot. Stop worrying,”

You place your hand on his, and he gazes at you with so much worry. His gorgeous hunter green eyes comfort you, even though he’s feeling the complete opposite. You pull your hand up to his face and caress his cheek, he finally shows some sign of calming down. It’s like his whole body relaxes by just your touch. “I’ve honestly felt worse.” You joke, slowly moving your body to sit up. You wince, feeling cramp in both of your abdomen and your leg. “Help me get up,” you say, and Dean pulls you up, anchoring you from underneath, your arm draped behind his back. “Let’s get you home.” He says, catching his eye on Sam, making his way back inside.

♱⁺. ⋆˙✧⋆✧˙⋆⊹.♱

It had been a few hours since you arrived back at the bunker, you lay across the sofa, clasping your belly as the cramps still hadn't subsided. Your leg, however, had been patched up neatly by Sam, and were given some painkillers for it. It didn't seem to work that well.

"How're you feeling?" Dean pats your foot, walking past the sofa to perch himself on the very little space left on the armrest. "I feel like I've been shot in two different areas," You try to joke, but it only makes Dean glare at you, waiting for a real answer.

"Could you get me some period pads, or tampons, please? Either work," You state, trying to sit up. "Uh, yeah, I can do that. What... size?" Dean looks puzzled, which only makes you smile. "Regular, Dean. Get the ones with wings."

Dean stands up and gathers his thoughts. "Pads with wings. Tampons with wings. Got it. I think." He places his hands on his hips and looks to the ground, then to you. He smiles lovingly. "I'll be right back." He says, before grabbing his flannel and exiting the door.

♱⁺. ⋆˙✧⋆✧˙⋆⊹.♱

An hour or so had gone by, and you hadn't moved from the sofa. your cramps have worsened to the point of also giving you a headache. You hear the door open, then close. Dean's back from the store, and he's got a white carrier bag full of items. "I'm back," He chuckles, "Got you a few things." He walks up to the sofa, laying the bag on the coffee table next to you. "Oh, Dean, you didn't have to..." You trail, as he takes out chocolate, a small teddy bear with a t-shirt that reads 'Get Well Soon' with a small red heart underneath it. He had also bought you the pads that you had asked for, aspirin, fresh bandages for your leg and a small bunch of red roses.

Your smile gleamed as your eyes met his. "You really didn't have to." Your voice almost a whisper, and he moves closer to you. "I know, but I wanted to." He smiles, leaning in to give you a quick kiss.

"Thank you." You say, reaching your hand up to the nape of his neck, pulling him in for one more.

[moonstruckme]

https://www.tumblr.com/moonstruckme/742320236814041088/dude-we-know-that-peter-makes-his-own-suit-right?source=share

Well, gender neutral is fine by me. Actually, I just like to read your fic, so I have no problem with the gender part. As long it's you who write it. I'm 100% sure you'll rock it

Thank you sweetheart! Hope you like it :)

tasm!Peter Parker x gn!reader ♡ 733 words

Morning light is pouring in through the cracks in Peter’s blinds, laying itself out in slats over the floor and reaching for the opposite wall, when you stumble out of the bathroom. It’s a signifier of your ill fate. 

“Fuck, shit,” you mumble to yourself, putting a piece of bread in the toaster and grabbing your lunch from the fridge. You know you’ve half-assed fixing your hair and you’ve still got crust around your eyes, but appearances are no longer the priority. 

When Peter pads out of the bedroom, stretching his arms over his head with his plaid pajama bottoms just grazing the floor, you’ve got one shoe on and your toast clenched between your teeth like a bit. You think you probably look sleep-addled and half rabid, but his brown hair looks adorably mussed and the buttery morning light kisses his skin like it likes him best. He smiles at you, soft and lazy. 

“Late start again?”

Your response is muffled by the toast in your mouth. Peter carefully pinches it between two fingers and removes it so you can speak. 

“One more time?” 

“I said,” you huff, not at him but at your adrenaline-cursed fingers as they fumble your shoelaces, “that not all of us have cushy jobs with flexible hours.”

“Sorry.” He sounds like he half means it, crouching down beside you to thumb at your chin with his free hand. “Hold on, you’ve got toothpaste.”

You don’t know if it’s a ruse and you don’t really care, the soft warmth of his lips connecting with yours is plenty good enough for you. You tug the knot on your shoe tight as you pull away, taking your toast back from him. 

“You got your lunch?” Peter asks you, rising and going for the coffee machine. 

“Mhm,” you say through a bite. 

“Water?” 

You swallow, shouldering your bag. “Yup.” 

“Good, good.” He leans against the counter as the coffee machine rumbles to life, regarding you with still-sleepy eyes. “Actually, c’mere. I need another.” 

“I really have to go,” you laugh, but oblige him, darting over for another quick peck.

Peter does his best to draw it out, palming your face and kissing your bottom lip softly, but you drag yourself away. You try not to think too hard about the light scratch of his stubble against your chin as you grab your keys from by the door. 

“One more,” he begs. 

“You can have it later.” 

“Wait—hold on just a sec.” 

“No, I actually have to go.” 

You go for the door handle, but webbing attaches itself to your wrist, forcing your hand away. You look at your boyfriend, incredulous. 

“Pete! I’m seriously gonna be late.” 

“No, I know, I know.” He hustles toward you, taking your arm in his hand. “But your shirt’s messed up, baby.” 

“What?” You look down, and your sleeve is torn from your wrist to halfway up your forearm. “Shit.” 

“It’s all good,” Peter reassures you, peeling the sticky webbing off you before backing away towards your bedroom. “Just take it off.” 

You do, clumsy fingers nearly ripping out the buttons as you go. “I totally forgot, I snagged this on a door handle last week.” You’ve already taken your arm out of one sleeve when you freeze. “Peter? I don’t have any other work tops.” 

“Easy, I gotcha.” He comes back in with one of your other tops, the one you’d burnt a hole in the back of last week. “You can wear this, I just finished with it.” 

“Yes!” You grab it, pecking him on the lips euphorically. “Thank you!” 

“No sweat.” Your boyfriend sounds smug, but given the circumstances you think you can allow it. He picks up the other shirt from where you’ve dumped it on the floor. “I’ll fix this one while you’re at work today so you can have it for tomorrow, cool?” 

“That would be so cool,” you agree, hastily buttoning up the replacement top before shouldering your bag again. “Thanks, Pete. Are you sure you have time for that?” 

He shrugs, chucking the torn shirt onto the couch. “One of the perks of having a cushy job with flexible hours,” he says. 

You groan, and Peter laughs, catching your chin one more time before you get out the door. This time, you indulge him in a longer kiss. You’ll definitely be late, but you figure he’s earned it.

[peargreen-jellybean]

random, poolverine hurt/comfort idea. wade is a little less insane in this bc i think he mellows out a bit at home and bc i’m too lazy to write more

(below cut if you give a shit)

after the time ripper

logan wakes up and expects to be in an alleyway or the back of a bar bc the owner was too nervous to make him leave. expects a hard surface and broken glass in his chest. but he’s on a crappy couch, in clothes not belonging to him, and inside what looks like an apartment

the memories sluggishly come back, almost too absurd to believe, but when he’s fully awake he hears a radio and cautiously follows the sound to, he discovers, a kitchen

and there’s wade fucking wilson, wearing “i <3 hot dads” shorts, an apron, crocs. no shirt, no mask. turning a toaster this way and that, and shaking it like he wants information from it

wade notices the lingering man in the doorway, chirps a ‘good morning peanut’, gestures to a “hero’s breakfast” and tells his guest to help himself. the toaster is being a dick right now and he’s trying to fix it

a bit taken back, at the sheer domestic-ness of it all, logan drops into a seat at the wobbly table and takes the tabletop in. half burned toast, mostly scrambled eggs, and an assortment of other breakfast time items he hasn’t really seen, much less eaten, in years

what does it? old memories and guilts, recent events and their pains, the familiar smell of coffee, wade grumbling at the counter over a broken toaster like a strange picture of domestic living? really it could be anything, but logan starts to tremble in his seat. something is tight in his chest, too tight and still tightening. it’s overwhelming. too much at once

is he really going to break down here, now, in wade fucking wilson’s kitchen, wearing his worn-soft clothes and listening to a quiet song on the radio?

yeah, he is. fucking pathetic

but logan is startled out of his spiral by:

fingers sliding into his hair. a hand tugging at his head. his face pressing into a warm, solid body

wade has abandoned his toaster and now cradles him to his hip

logan yanks his head away with a ‘what the fuck are you doing’, or he tries to. wade doesn’t let him escape far, pulling him back into the dip of his hip. gently holding him and rubbing his scalp with his fingertips once he feels logan give up the fight

‘easy peanut.’ wade hesitates for a moment. ‘vanessa used to do this… when shit got really bad.’

he doesn’t elaborate. he doesn’t have to. the weight of the softly spoken words is enough.

and while he wants to fight it- he doesn’t need sentimental crap or pity- logan takes a breath just long enough to pause here in this moment, and let’s himself feel

wade is constant, steady; the weight of his hand gentle, but grounding. the dip of his hip holding his head near perfectly. the warmth of him seeping into his skin, then flesh, then bones, settling in his chest

wade is anchoring him

maybe he should fight this, or be annoyed, or just generally pissed at the coddling, but when was the last time he was held like this? comforted like this?

wade will be insufferable after this, probably smug and a whole new level of too comfortable touching him, but right now, right here, he’s calming. he’s- something logan can’t quite name

and call him weak, call him pathetic- because maybe he is- he’s gonna savor this for as long as he can

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

that’s it. that’s all i got. enjoy, or don’t. that’s up to you ig

[crystalsoobin]

burnt toast! ➤ c. beomgyu

#. pairing bf!beomgyu x reader

#. synopsis gyu tries to cook you breakfast in bed and fails… miserably.

#. genre romance, comedy, fluff

#. warnings mild swearing, gyu almost causing a fire 😃

#. author’s note i’m back??? im taking a creative writing class in uni this fall so i thought id get some practice in lol

a small smile lays across beomgyu’s face as he admires your sleeping frame one fine morning. he had woken up quite early that day, eager to surprise you with breakfast in bed.

he gets up silently as to not wake you, and makes his way to your small apartment kitchen. not sure what to make, beomgyu opens the fridge and stares inside as if the idea would just present itself in front of him.

he finally settles on making eggs and toast, an oldie but a goodie. only problem was, beomgyu never cooks.

it can’t be that hard to fry an egg, right?

at least he knows how to toast bread, so he starts there first. grabbing some bread from the pantry, he walks to the toaster where he suddenly stops, a little confused on how to work it.

shade?? hmm, i think 8 is good.

he drops two pieces of toast in the slots and pulls down the lever, stepping back to the fridge to pull out some eggs. he grabs a pan and puts some oil on, maybe a little too much oil.

beomgyu cracks the two eggs, one by one. satisfied, he puts it on high heat so that — in his mind — it’ll cook faster and he won’t have to wait too long.

he then reaches over to the cabinet and pulls out your favourite mug, which was a gift from him. then going over to the coffee maker, listening to the loud crackle of the eggs on the pan.

when he’s done making the coffee he turns around to find the toaster smoking, and a nasty burning smell coming from it. in panic, he runs over to it and tries to take out the toast, almost burning his fingers.

“dammit!” he exclaims, disappointed by the burnt toast and realizing 8 was way too high. he finally succeeds in pulling out the burnt toast, the smell remaining throughout the kitchen.

as he returns to check on the eggs, his eyes widen, also finding them burnt and smoking, a lot. he panics, trying to blow away the smoke with his hands as to not set off the fire alarm. in his panic, he obviously forgets to turn off the heat, making it worse for himself.

and as if the morning couldn’t possibly go more horribly wrong than he imagined, the fire alarm does in fact go off.

“no no no! fuck!” is the first thing you hear as you walk into the kitchen after being woken up by a loud beeping noise and your boyfriend not in bed.

you watch as beomgyu finally remembers to turn off the stove, sighing disappointedly with his face in his hands as his back towards you.

“what. the fuck. did you do.” you finally speak. beomgyu yelps and turns around, surprised at your presence in the kitchen.

“i- i didn’t mean to baby, i swear! i was just trying to make you breakfast!”

“gyu, i really appreciate the sentiment but you know you can’t cook!”

“i know, i’m sorry,” your boyfriend leans into you for a hug, saddened that he couldn’t surprise you with a nice breakfast, “i thought i’d at least be able to make eggs and toast.” you wrap your arms around him and give him a small kiss, suddenly you bursting out into laughter as you look around at the mess your poor boyfriend made.

“why are you laughing?” he asks. “i actually wanted to surprise you, im serious.” he pouts.

“i’m sorry,” you chuckle, “it’s just so funny when i think about it.”

beomgyu hits you playfully on the head as he steps back and stares at his mess.

“hey, at least i made the coffee right?” he handed you the mug. you grimaced as you tasted it.

“i think you forgot milk, and sugar.” setting down the mug, you get an idea, “you know what, why don’t we clean this up and the i teach you how to cook eggs and toast.” you smile.

beomgyu chuckles in agreement, “sounds like a good idea.”

© crystalsoobin / do not steal

[youvebeenlivingfictional]

Making breakfast for them before they leave w/harvey specter pleaaaaaaaaaase

Send me a comfort prompt

Warnings: Mentioned sexytimes, but not shown; fluff

"What do you wanna eat?"

"Eat?" Harvey scoffs, picking his shirt up off of where it's hanging on your bed frame. "I thought you didn't do one night stands."

"And I thought you didn't do sleeping over, but you're here, so. Your point?"

"My point is this is all seeming a little too cozy."

"I'm not sending you out of here running on empty. And after last night, I know that you're running on empty." You smirk smugly, resting your hand on your hip as a slow smile curls Harvey's lips. "It can be toast, or coffee, something. But it has to be something. So?"

"...Toast."

"Butter?"

"Yes."

"Jelly? Jam?"

"Honey."

"Yes, dear?"

"For the toast," He chuckles. Your brows raise and fall as you take up your robe and draw it on, tying it as you head into the kitchen. Honey on toast, that's a new one.

You're trying not to overthink the last twelve hours—going home with a stranger that you met at a mixer, having what was quite possibly, the best sex of your life, and waking up to find him still there. He'd looked so deliciously disheveled and sleepy, and had smiled gently at you as you'd opened your eyes.

You shake your head a touch to try and rid yourself of the thought as you get the bread and butter from the fridge. The honey's already on the counter, so that's that squared away. You pop a couple of slices into the toaster and grab a plate for it before you turn to the coffee maker.

You don't have to overthink anything. You know that, logically. That doesn't stop your mind from racing. Are you ever going to see him again? Did he have a good time? He must've, right? He wasn't drunk when he came home with you, and he spent the night. He had at least a bit of a good time, right?

C'mon, don't be so hard on yourself. You know what, he had a fucking great time. More importantly, you both did.

"Coffee smells good."

You jolt a little as he comes into the kitchen. You glance back, nodding and waving toward the toaster.

"Toast is toasting."

"Thank you."

"Sure."

You pour the freshly brewed coffee into a mug, sliding it over.

"Milk's in the fridge if you want it."

"No thanks."

"Sugar?"

"Yes, sweetheart?"

You snort a laugh, shaking your head as your face goes hot.

"You know what I fricking mean."

"No thank you." He settles against the counter beside you, taking the mug up and drawing in a sip.

"You always insist on feeding your one night stands?" He asks once he's swallowed.

"No."

"So I'm special?"

"I wouldn't say that. I just don't usually...Have one night stands."

"Well that makes me even more special."

"If you say so."

Harvey reaches out, gripping the tie of your robe and using it to tug you closer. You let him, watching him as his eyes skim your face.

"Remind me where you work?" He asks.

"McHenry, Sigmund, and Lowell."

"Good firm."

"Yes, it is."

"Not the best, though."

"Is that so?"

"Nope. If you were working for the best, you'd be working with me."

You reach out, prodding the toaster as the bread pops up.

"Honey," You nod toward the jar on the counter, beside the butter. Harvey lets go of your robe, turning to the toaster and plucking the slices out of the toaster. You take another mug down, taking your damn time about pouring your own cup of coffee. You take a few sips, giving him a guarded glance as you hear him take a bite of his toast. Harvey hums softly at the taste.

"Alright—" He speaks up through his bite, "I was knocking you about making me toast, but this was a better idea than I thought."

You smile smugly, giving a little shrug as you take a sip of your coffee.

"I'm very smart, Mr. Specter."

"Clearly."

You look over, smiling curiously as he dusts his fingers off and reaches into his jacket pocket. You raise a brow as he draws a card out of his pocket, holding it out.

"What's this for?"

"We ought to have a conversation."

"Because we slept together?" You ask, taking the card.

"No, god no," Harvey chuckles. "I mean, it was great, but that's not why we should hire you."

"Nice save."

"I mean it. You made some damn good points last night—though you made an even better one when you brought me home with you. " He pops the last of the toast into his mouth before he turns away from the counter, chewing still as he says, "Alright. Now I have to go."

You nod, pushing off of the counter and drifting after him as he heads for your front door.

"You've overlooked one critical thing, Mr. Specter."

"What's that?"

"I'm not in the market for a new job."

"That's a mistake." He turns to face you, smiling. "But that number's also good for...Other things."

"Such as?"

"Drinks, dinner...Anything else that may follow."

"And if I choose not to use it?"

"Well," He glances away, shrugging a shoulder. "That's up to you. But it's another mistake." He takes a step closer, cupping your cheek and drawing you in for a kiss. You expect it to be a quick peck, but you sway into him as his lips slip tenderly across yours, his tongue gently prodding between your lips. Before you can really give into it, he leans away, giving you a bright smile as he gently pats your cheek.

"Have a good day—and thanks for the toast."

"Yeah...Yeah, you, too," You smile.

--

You can't stop thinking about him. It's not overthinking, not this time, but he's just...On your mind, all week. His card is burning a hole in your pocket. You've been carrying it around with you,m switching it between bags and purses and jackets, and just...considering.

Now, you've decided to do a little more than consider. It's Friday night, you've got no plans, and you're sure he does, but...You make a call. He picks up on the first ring, and chuckles when he hears your voice.

"I was hoping to hear from you."

"Oh?" You grin, flattered as you sink back in your desk chair. "Why's that?"

"I owe you some toast."

[fictionalcharactersaremypassion]

“I’m thinking about divorcing Mickey.”

A hush fell over the table. Lip stared, his coffee mug still being held up but not touching his lips. Liam had stopped eating his cereal, and even Debbie was caught off guard by the news.

“You’re what?” Lip set the mug down, seemingly trying to process this. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am,” Ian said simply.

“You just got married!” Debbie exclaimed. “What the fuck happened?”

Ian busied himself with the pot of coffee on the counter, pouring himself some. “Things change, Debs. Sometimes you don’t know who someone really is until you marry them.”

“Did he cheat?” Liam asked carefully.

“It’s Mickey,” Lip said as if that was enough of an explanation. “There’s no way he’d cheat on Ian.”

“He didn’t cheat,” Ian said, voice tight.

“Something happened,” Debbie said matter-of-factly. "What is it?’

“I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay, but are you jumping straight to divorce?” Lip asked, his face screwed up in confusion. “You wanted to marry him and it’s been, what, a couple of months. Don’t you think you should, you know, talk to him about it first before jumping the gun?”

“No,” Ian took a long drink, relishing in the caffein. “He knows what he did wrong.”

His siblings could only stare.

“So that’s it?” Debbie said in disbelief. “We did all that for you guys only for you to throw it down the fucking drain?”

“It’s his own fault,” Ian shrugged.

Lip exchanged a glance with Debbie, approaching Ian with caution. “Have you taken your meds today?”

“I’m about to,” Ian said. “Why?”

“Just wondering,” Lip muttered, rubbing a hand over his face and heaving a sigh.

From the other side of the house, Mickey came strolling in, his hair damp from the shower. “You’re out of hot water,” he told them all, opening up the fridge to search for something to eat. He came to stand side-by-side with Ian after taking the butter out for some toast. “You still pissy?”

Ian said nothing. This made Mickey grin.

“Oh, I see. I’ll take that as a yes.”

Debbie had been watching them like a hawk and evidently couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Does he know?” She burst out.

“Debs,” Lip hissed.

“Know what?” Mickey said, eyebrows raised.

“He said he’s going to divorce you,” the words just kept coming out of her mouth, her eyes wide, darting from Ian to Mickey.

Mickey glanced up at Ian, his face unreadable.

This went on for nearly a minute.

“Is that so, tough guy? It’s over, huh?”

Ian stared him down, crossing his arms. “Maybe if you hadn't ate the last fucking pop tart, it wouldn't be.”

“What?” Debbie and Lip said simultaneously.

They were ignored.

“I told you I was going to have it,” Ian said sulkily.

“This family is fucking insane,” Debbie muttered, clearing her dishes up to dispose of them in the sink.

“Too fucking bad, Red,” Mickey snickered. “Ain't it supposed to be what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine?”

“That's not how that goes,” Ian said, unamused.

Smirking, Mickey kissed him. Ian's hand came around to cup the back of his neck. “Relax,” he said when they parted, “you'll get some more.”

“You're gonna buy me some?” Ian said skeptically.

“Hell no, bitch. You know where the store is,” Mickey put the bread into the toaster, turning around to walk out of the kitchen.

“Mickey, come on,” Ian followed him, frustrated.

Liam waited until they were out of hearing range, glancing at Lip. “Those guys are not normal.”

“You don't know the half of it, Bud,” Lip shook his head.

[rouiyan]

𝘞𝘌’𝘙𝘌 𝘕𝘖𝘛 𝘙𝘌𝘈𝘓𝘓𝘠 𝘚𝘛𝘙𝘈𝘕𝘎𝘌𝘙𝘚 [ 𝘭.𝘮𝘬 ]

⧏ back to teaser || redirect to playlist ⧐

marks manages to land himself in a forty-two hour drive across the country with his archaeology major ex-girlfriend in the passenger seat. but for the duration of the whole ride, the only thing he can think about is that one twitter meme that states that “a majority of archeologists are women due to their natural ability to dig up the past.”

✧ photographer!mark lee x (fem.) archaeology major!reader ✧ exes to lovers, road trip au, referenced college au ✧ genres — fluff/angst, hurt/comfort ✧ word count — 25.2k

✧ disclaimers — profanity, mentions of food, legal (u.s.) alcohol consumption, they make out like once, emotional insecurity and vulnerability (i.e. several panic attacks, social anxiety), possible terminal illness (not of mcs), generational conflict, y/n cries a lot, mark sucks at parking

✧ caveat — this fictional plot is set in present-day america and does not accurately reflect the locations referenced. furthermore, this publication is not an endorsement of the brand or the product featured. all credit is given where it is due. (sources linked upon conclusion)

✧ author’s note — happy 24th birthday to my dear mark! note that the first scene is the exact same as the teaser, so if you've read that already, feel free to skip over! also note i half-assed the proofread so please let me know of any typos, plotholes, and other stupid stuff that i forgot to adjust. as for myself, you can catch a little update on the past two years of my life at the end of this fic so for now, enjoy!

「 DAY 00, 01:42 PM 」 — CUPID DABBLES IN BURNT TOAST

"oh, come on. i thought you were nicer than that!"

it's at times like these where mark is led to think that haechan only considers him as his very best friend for three things. his toaster, his car, and then of course, how easy it is to torment him.

he’s experienced enough to know that the guilt he feels is really only a direct result of haechan's guilt-tripping antics. and so he responds sarcastically, "yeah, nice enough to save a girl from a week of being in close proximity to the person she hates most in the world."

the toaster dings and haechan catches the two pieces of toast in their flight. he sticks one in his mouth, breaking off a bite, whilst turning to toss the other onto his friend's plate. chewing roughly, he leans back onto the counter opposite of mark, watching in contempt as the latter spreads jam across the burnt slice of bread.

haechan points a finger and juts it in his direction, offhandedly commenting, "i'm starting to think that it's you who hates her," a fact that both friends know isn't true. and because of that, mark doesn't make a big deal of denying it. "i don't hate her. i'm just..." he trails off and haechan takes the opportunity to craftily stage his intervention.

"not trying to make her uncomfortable?"

"yeah, i guess."

"not wanting her to hate you more?"

"there's that too."

"not over her?"

"hey, not cool."

a passage of silence elapses as mark sets the butter knife aside in exchange for his orange juice. gulping it down, he gets through two thirds of the glass before haechan perks up again. "actually, i think she still has a thing for you."

mark sputters, barely swallowing his drink before it could hurl out his disbelieving mouth. trying to smooth over his show of defiance, mark recovers a nonchalant expression as he deadpans, "there's no way. you know better than i do that she fucking hates me."

haechan takes another bite, aware but indifferent at how the crumbs have been gathering at his feet. his eyes trail absentmindedly to the clock on the wall behind mark, but only briefly for the hands are far past where he'd expected them to be. shoving the last of the toast into his mouth, he rushes to gather his belongings whilst uttering to his bewildered company, "shit, i'm gonna be late. pack it up."

obediently downing the rest of his orange juice, mark grabs his half-eaten, jam-slathered, burnt-to-a-crisp toast in one hand as the other reaches for his car keys on the way out. the unbearably hot sun of an early summer afternoon only hurries mark further along to his car, his wishes that he had worn shorts instead of jeans already too late to come true. but once both car doors have been shut and seat belts have been strapped, haechan carries on with his agenda without missing a beat.

"just give her the ride, mark. she'll keep you company and, i don't know, make sure you're not falling asleep at the wheel. and plus, she said she'll split the toll and gas fees."

mark shoves the last bite of toast into his mouth, the charred-ness of it procuring a nice crunch. even after he swallows, it takes him a second to respond. and though his answer is still far from budging, it sounds more like a justification, as if he needs convincing of his own opinion. "tell her it's cheaper to just catch a flight. and faster too."

exasperated, haechan retorts under his breath, "that's the same thing i told you," to which mark gives a raised brow, not catching what he said. instead of repeating, haechan only says, "just take her. you guys need to make up anyways."

that renders mark quiet for the rest of the ride as he tosses the thought over in his head. it's a thought that he knows he's been pushing away for far too long, hoping one day it'll become redundant enough to simply forget about. unknowingly, mark begins to speed a little, his turns become a little tighter, and when the traffic light signals red, the nose of his car is pulled daringly close to the car in front.

mark parallel parks shoddily in front of the archeology department building four minutes earlier than google maps had estimated. his best friend looks over at him expectantly and that in itself is enough to squeeze the reluctant words right out of him. "fine, i'll think about it."

haechan's face lights with a satisfied glow as he swings his backpack over his shoulder, making his way out of the car as quickly as he can. and just before mark can think to wish him good luck on his last exam of the spring semester, haechan blurts out the one crucial detail he had neglected to bring up until now. 

"thank god, because i already told her you said yes."

「 DAY 01, 07:48 AM 」 — ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD

the trunk of his beloved subaru crosstrek slams shut from behind. mark winces. the car door of the passenger seat slams shut shortly after. mark winces once again, but doesn't venture to comment on it. instead, he comments on something else entirely. "so why am i picking you up from the hospital?"

you roll your eyes, traces of hostility already to be found in your expression. "as if that's any of your business." you position the tote bag you brought up front by your feet and the contents inside clank against one another. mark gives you a questioning look, thus questioning, "what’s in there? rocks?"

instead of answering with what he would assume to be the same thing you said prior, you simply huff and lean back into the seat to fasten your seat belt. mark does the same, then hastens to shift the gears from park to drive. "you ready?"

lips set into a firm line, you're staring straight ahead when you say, "ready to get this over with." mark takes that as his cue to start the forty-two hour drive across the country, past barren lands and hilly roads, trading the smog of new york for the smog of los angeles.

the drive begins with a screeching hour of silence, all of which you’ve spent scrolling on your phone. and when you finally look up from your screen, the city view outside has already mellowed into sprawling countryside. mark takes this new development as a window of opportunity to spark up conversation, although you beat him to it nonetheless. “how many stops are we taking?”

he clears his throat for fear of a cracking voice and gathers his scattered thoughts to form a response. “about two or three times a day.”

“and how many days are we gonna be on the road?”

“three to four. i’m thinking we should take a few overnight stops as well. and also,” there’s a break in his sentence where he stops to scrunch his nose, “i might want to stop at random points to shoot some pictures. is that fine with you?”

you take your eyes off the road momentarily to get a good look at mark. he has a hand on the wheel and the other propped up by the window adjacent, eyes held forward all the while. looking back ahead yourself, you give in with a slight hitch of indignation in your otherwise colorless voice. “sure, why not.”

mark refers back to a time where the silent air between the two of you would sit comfortably and thinks of how he might have brought about conversation back then. he tries, as he might, to do the same with this scenario, catching the moment before the prolonged silence warrants it too late. “so what’s your business in LA?”

surprisingly, he spots less bite in your tone the more you speak. “my sister asked me to be maid of honor at her wedding next week.” mark’s automatic response comes out first as a laconic, “oh nice” but he follows up quickly after with an inquiring, “is it...is it still jaehyun? or is that a thing of the past?”

“it’s still him. they’ve been engaged for a while, remember?”

mark nods in agreement. he even remembers that exact phone call you received from your sister on the day your freshman year finals ended. sat across the couch, he can even recall the way you tried to motion the whole conversation with your hands to him while on the phone with her, your excitement on full display when you later hugged him tight since he was the only other person in the room.

he bites down on his bottom lip at the thought of the memory that’s still fresh in his mind. time seemed to pass more quickly for him now that it wasn’t divided into semesters and school years. taking a glance over at you, mark can’t help but think that while college life turned out to be unsuitable for him, it had done wonders for you in just the past year.

with little to no trace of the temper you initially harbored, your voice is about as neutral as it gets when you take your turn in questioning him. “what about you? what are you doing in LA?”

his answer is simple, really. his plan originally focused more on capturing the sights along the way to LA rather than the city itself. but seeing as how you’d expressed wanting to make the trip as curt and necessary as possible, he acquiesced for the lesser truth. “i’m just planning on taking some pictures and meeting some friends there. it’s a change of scenery too, i guess.”

the prospect of conversation eased in difficulty the more it steered in the direction of friendly small talk and catching up with one another. his career and his career-related decisions were always somewhat of a prickly topic, after all. his parents scorned him for it, calling it “easy money” that would just as easily come and go. his friends always said he just got lucky in the industry. and his old professors had shook their heads when he told them about his plans to drop out. 

to mark, you were the only one who had ever cared to really understand his relationship with the passion that was now his life’s work. and because of that, his answer comes most naturally when you ask him, “what’s still keeping you in new york, though? i mean, you’re not there for school anymore and you’re not exactly a street photographer either.”

and without a thought to spare, mark blurts out, “you.”

what a perfect way to kill a perfectly fine conversation, he thinks in the midst of the grand silence that follows. red creeps its way up from his next to his ears until he’s flushed clean with embarrassment and terrible terrible regret, the only consolation being that your eyes seemed to be glued up ahead and not at him.

although it seems you’ve since dropped the conversation — seeing as how you’ve checked your phone five times in the last five minutes — you still make it your job to clear the air for any future attempts at conversing. after all, you’re going to be stuck with him for the entirety of the next three days. and that’s at the very least.

“mark, i don’t even want to know what you meant by that, but can we just keep our distance as…” you pause when you realize there really isn’t an appropriate label to describe your relationship with him. what do you call someone that you know really well, but aren’t on talking terms with, and have a long history of romantic instances with?

at the three-second mark in your hesitation, he lends a hopeful suggestion, “as friends?” and it’s another three unsure seconds spent on your end — unease on his — until you finally give in with a sigh and a small, albeit resolute nod. “as friends.”

he’s going at almost a hundred miles per hour on the empty road when you noticeably look over at him in time to catch the quirk of his lips, before he reassesses with a nod of his own in confirmation. with the first of (what you’re sure will be) many awkward exchanges passed, you reach a hand into the backseat to draw forth a thin blanket. “alright, i’m going to continue sleeping then.”

“mhmm,” he hums, watching in the corner of his eye as you lower the seat back. the position you assume, curling into the blanket, is as familiar as it gets and mark is reminded of countless road trip memories that he has never bothered to unearth. he sighs. “go ahead, we got all the time in the world.”

and after making sure you’ve fallen fast asleep with your slowed breathing and occasional snores, mark slows the car to a cruising 70 miles per hour.

「 DAY 01, 10:33 AM 」 — MORE THAN I THOUGHT

“keep right to stay on the i-81 south.” you slit an eye open, wide enough to see that the road ahead is blanketed in a gleaming white. the sun must’ve parted from the clouds. you close your eye in an attempt to fall back asleep. but just before you do, the automated voice from mark’s phone perks up again. “keep right to stay on the i-81 south.”

annoyed and disgruntled, you shrug the blanket off of you and, this time, crack both eyes open. sitting up in your reclined seat, you rub at your eyes and realize two things. one, the car is no longer moving. and two, you’re in the car alone. suddenly alert, you jab your finger into the ‘cancel’ button on his phone just as it continues its mantra of “keep right to sta—” and grab your own phone as you make your way out of the car.

the car itself is parked haphazardly in front of what is labelled to be a colon and rectal surgery building, with half the whole vehicle outside of the designated lines. but just as you begin to question mark’s motives, you turn to see a vast expanse of water on the opposite side. there’s small islands and clumps of trees jutting out and just across you can see a rise of buildings in the distance. 

approaching the road that separates you and the riverbank, you bring a hand to shield your eyes from the light of the sun which you have yet to adjust to. and sure enough, through the blinding haze you make out a figure on the other side of the road, unruly black hair scuffed by the wind with a giant camera held at his hip. his other hand is held in the same shielding stance as you, and even his posture alone is enough to tell you that it’s mark.

both hands now cupping your mouth, you yell out a resounding, “mark!” just as a truck whizzes by but when the body of it passes, the man is revealed to be looking back at you with a silly smile plastered across his face. he holds the heavy film camera with both hands now, as he rushes up the slight grassy incline and jaywalks casually across the street.

you’re about to scold him for not even looking out for any incoming cars but up close, he only grins harder. mark is less than five feet away when he thinks to enlighten you, his beaming smile quickly growing sheepish, “google maps told me to keep right but i stayed on the right for so long, i ended up exiting the highway altogether.” his free arm gestures outwards in exclamation while he beams, “but look where we ended up!”

the sincerity of his bright eyes and bright smile puts a dampener on the tension, so much so that you even venture to joke, “the upmc pinnacle colon and rectal surgery center?” whilst pointing back to the sign. “you’ve no idea how confused i was when i woke up.”

“sorry about that. we’re in harrisburg now. so i’m guessing this is the susquehanna river.”

you shoot him a surprised look, “nice. almost halfway through pennsylvania.”

he ducks his head, a small smile adorning his nod in agreement, “yeah almost.” mark likes this new development of mood you seem to be in. chipper? not exactly. but much more pleasant than before? absolutely. he knows from personal experience that it’s the sleep. good sleep and good food do that to you. and thus he suggests, “should we get a quick brunch before getting back on the road?”

your eyes ignite a glow — rival to his — at the sound of brunch, though you have enough patience to consider, “did you get all the pictures you wanted already?”

mark nods once again, even though he isn’t even through a fourth of his first roll of film. he figures he’ll have plenty more opportunities to use it up down the line. plus, he likes the little smile on your face way too much to be the one to deny you what you want. and so he rushes to get his equipment back in their travel straps and he clambers back into the driver’s seat, all to careen his way about four blocks down to the mcdonald’s (but only after you’d shaken your head whilst he was pulling up at the wendy’s).

he orders drive through and you’re pleasantly surprised when he turns to ask, “same as usual?” and though you’re sure your usual order has changed at least once or twice in just the last year, you nod anyways. mark pays at the till and you’re handed a sausage burrito with large fries. as you’d supposed, it’s not your most up-to-date order but at this point, almost anything will get your mouth watering.

at your first bite, you sneak a glance over at mark. his head is bowed over the egg mcmuffin in his lap, hands clasped lightly together as he says grace. looking away, you give an unprompted chuckle under your breath in remembrance of his faith, new memories ringing up old habits in the back of your mind.

the next time you place a glance towards him, there’s crumbs littering the lap of his jeans and sauce smothered around the curves of his mouth. and when he looks over at you, an eyebrow raised in question at the sudden onset of attention you’re giving, you pay little mind to the fact that you have to stifle yet another chuckle in exchange for simply tossing a napkin his way. 

sitting here in the passenger seat of his car, you can’t help but think that there must be something inherently wrong about spending time with an ex. especially when the two of you parted on terms that seemed somewhat insignificant, though only at the surface of things.

for the most part, mark was a good boyfriend. and the mark that sat to your left doesn’t seem any different than the mark you knew back then. maybe he got around to shaving his stubble a little closer and cleaning up his car a bit more often, but he wears the same carhartt jeans, eats as clumsily as he always had, and still drives his car as if he had extra lives to spare.

from his nose scrunches to his dutiful faith, the mark you’re sat next to now is undeniably the same mark you fell in love with what seems like ages ago.

and as he backs out of the parking space, almost reversing straight into the car opposite, you catch the uttered “shit” that falls so casually from his lips. the same lips that you could never get enough of against yours. the song that’s blaring from the speakers is a favorite of his, you know that best, and it has him humming lightly with the same voice that once serenaded you to sleep. his fingers drum incessantly on the steering wheel as he waits for a red light to turn green, the same fingers that once struggled, but succeeded against all odds, in learning how to braid your hair.

you swallow thickly and think of how unfair this has come to be. it feels impossible to have to sit with the fact that you revoked his license as your boyfriend, but now have to regard him as just a friend. it’s the same as holding someone you once held close at arm’s distance. and it’s like trying to purposefully forget the name of your favorite show, or your beloved dog, or even your own name. 

all of a sudden, you feel like you’ve been caught in a fervid windstorm so strong that it threatens to uproot whatever reasonings had kept you grounded, amplifying whatever feelings lingered in his wake. except, the only thing you have left to hold onto is the realization that although the mark in the driver’s seat is the same mark you fell in love with way back when, he’s also the same mark that broke your heart without even a single word said.

「 DAY 02, 01:17 AM 」 — MARK LEE SMOKING?? (100% CLICKBAIT)

a bout of carsickness hits you at seven in the evening, right after sitting in at a roadside diner that served mashed potatoes that were suspiciously tinted green. but even after he pulled over so you could throw up on the side of the road, you’d implored mark to keep on driving until the two of you were at least at the outskirts of illinois. and that had happened on three separate occasions.

reluctantly, he’d kept his promise and poorly parked his car in front of relax inn, the closest and cheapest place that google maps could turn up. located in marshall, illinois with a striking two-star rating, it had everything you needed: free parking, shitty wifi, and even complimentary breakfast. or, it had everything you needed except two separate and unoccupied rooms.

you had been surprised, at first, when the man at the front counter had only charged mark $58. but that was after he had conveniently left out that the amazing deal was actually for only one room, not two. sighing, you drop your bag to the ground in resignation at the sight of the single queen-sized bed. despite the stiff sheets and musty smell, it still stands to look inviting after ten hours, give or take, of almost nonstop driving.

with only two stops taken for restroom breaks or gas fill-ups, you figure that either one of you has reason enough to claim the bed. there is a thought of mentioning how the two of you had slept side by side with no sexual implications many times before but it’s fleeting, dismissed, and gone within seconds.

instead, you begin drafting your argument, pulling out the persuasive points of your monologue about why you were more deserving of the bed. sure, he’d driven the car the whole while, his eyes must be strained and his ability to concentrate and energy have probably been rendered null. you, on the other hand, could pull the motion sickness, weak composition, nauseated passenger princess card. yeah, surely that’d do the trick.

your opening lines are right at the tip of your tongue, ready to win over a hefty opponent, when you turn to see that mark has already situated his belongings on the ground by the couch. wary of how you’d been standing there for a good two minutes completely unmoved, he looks your way and very plainly comments, “you take the bed. i’m fine with the couch.”

and suddenly you feel very supremely guilty for having even thought of going into a full-blown verbal altercation for a slightly more comfortable place to rest. you now think about thus commencing a full-blown verbal altercation over the slightly less comfortable place to rest, if not to ease your guilty conscience, then just out of politeness. but you digress because after all, mark is way too nice and you’re way too in need of a good night’s sleep. even if it’s just slightly better.

laying in bed, scrolling on your phone, you recall that this is how it’s always been with mark. that at one point, you became too tired of always trying to be the nicer person out of politeness when mark had the kind of genuineness you’d find in about one of a million persons. sometimes, a simple exchange of things like who should get the bed could blow itself out of proportion without either of you meaning for it to have gone that far. you came to the conclusion long ago that fights about who was the nicer person weren’t necessarily fights on character, but rather just fights like any other. and choosing to let mark carry through with his niceness — accepting the last french fry, taking his jacket when it was chilly, and now letting him have the couch — didn’t mean you were inconsiderate. in a way, it was a compromise of its own to allow him the opportunity to be of service to you.

you think of showering the following morning for it seems unlikely that you’d depart the comfort and looming sleep the bed provides. squirming around, you tuck yourself under the blankets but before you could fully relinquish your body to the confines of sleep, a soft rustling by the edge of the bed coaxes your eyes to open a sliver.

mark’s squatting so that you’re right at eye level with him. his hair is mussed more than the wind had done and wet at the tips, sticking up in several places that seem to defy the laws of gravity. with an elbow set on the bed, he peers at you over the screen of his phone, eyes wide and set in the frame of his black-rimmed glasses. he doesn’t whisper though his voice comes out so low, you wouldn’t be able to tell much of a difference anyways. “sorry, i know you’re tryna sleep. just wanted to ask when you’d want to wake up tomorrow.”

repositioning to face him, you smush the side of your cheek into the pillow and the unease in mark’s face ebbs away. half alseep and a good amount dehydrated, your throat is scratchy when you pass it back to him, “what do you think?”

mark scratches the back of his neck with his free hand, “i, uh well… maybe six...?” and he traces your eyes as they find the clock on the nightstand. it reads 2:02 AM and he seems to share the same thought as you. “...thirty? six-thirty?”

you close your eyes, already losing your grasp on what he just said as you mumble out the last of your thoughts, “okay, we’ll grab breakfast downstairs and leave at seven?”

whatever he responds with goes in one ear and out the other. and it isn’t until he wakes you up, bright and early at 6:20 AM, that you remember the conversation even happened. in reality, you roll around in bed, trying to find another sweet spot that will lull you back into sleep, for about ten whole minutes. by the time you’ve given up, gotten out of bed, and begun collecting your garments for the shower, it’s 6:30 on the dot. it doesn’t even register in your mind that mark had accounted for your scheduled morning bout of grogginess until you’re out of the shower with a clearer head.

you sit across from him at breakfast and he passes the black pepper when you spoon your scrambled eggs. he offers to go refill your orange juice at one point and at another he apologizes adamantly for accidentally nudging your foot under the table. it’s only after he takes your empty plate with his back to the clean-up counter that you really bother to take a good look at him.

he must’ve skipped his morning shave, for his stubble is visible though not much more than a mere shadow. there’s a silver chain at his neck, one with a dangling cross pendant, and it sits prettily atop his plain black pocket tee. mark leads the way towards the front desk to check out. you notice the way he swirls the both the room key and car key around his fingers, his straight posture when he walks depite the heavy backpack mounted on him, and even the worn-in outline of his wallet from the rear pocket of his jeans.

and when he mistakens the pristinely cleaned glass door for a wide opening, resulting in a blooming red splotch on his forehead, you take the time to consider his big endearing head, and his big boyish eyes, and his big sloppy smile. you laugh along with him, but perhaps for more of a different reason. mark may have a big head, but at least it’s filled with good and godly things. 

seconds later in the parking lot and you think to rescind those same regards. mark may be nice but there’s no way you’ll be the one to compromise on this one.

you’re fully in the seat and ready to get the car going, except mark is standing right where the door should be closing with his arms crossed and a foot hiked up on the frame of the car. his stance is a plain show of defiance, as are his firmly-stated comments. “i’m not letting you drive. you were vomiting everywhere just last night.”

“give me the keys, i need my redemption arc to happen right now.”

mark only tilts his head in disapproval, eyes boasting a look that emanates something along the lines of ‘are you kidding me?’ you press your lips thin in consideration, realizing that this has turned out to be harder than you’d bargained for. eyeing the keys hanging loosely from his left hand, you decide that your efforts were going to amount to nothing if not by way of force.

when you lunge for the keys, mark takes that you’re attacking him or something of the sort, throwing his hands out in front to block. in the three seconds the debacle had taken to unfold, the sharp end of the car key had scraped the length of your inner arm, nicking your skin clean apart. much to your chagrin and his relief, you end up in the passenger seat anyways.

mark wipes diligently at the long cut with an alcohol pad, whilst you use your unpunctured arm to search for where he’d claimed the first aid kit with the bandaids would be. you look away from the glove box to find his unimpressed disposition, and you hold the gaze until he meets it. but he only meets it for a split second before ducking his head back down to the red-stained alcohol pad, muttering low but loud enough for you to catch. “god you’re a mess, y/n.”

you return your attention to your search for bandaids, eyes rolling far into the back of your head. “i already admitted defeat. do you have to rub it in?” to which he responds with but a fleeting laugh. and by the time he can come up with a, “there we go, all clean,” you’ve conjured four bandaids for him to top it all off.

as mark busies himself with finding the most appropriate arrangement that would cover the length of the cut, you shove the first aid kit back to where you’d retrieved it in the far corner of the glove box. it’s then that the streak of red that was presumably tucked behind it catches your eye.

by the time mark returns from discarding the wipes and bandage packaging, it’s already too late for him to stop what’s to come. the red box — at first glance, what looks to be a sizable pack of cigarettes — had already found its way into your unsuspecting hands.

「 DAY 02, 07:09 AM 」 — BROCKHAMPTON SATURATION II, TRACK #16

when haechan first introduced his sophomore photography major best friend to you back in freshman year of college, he had described him as the guy with no emotional depth. and you had shaken his outstretched hand anyways, awkwardly laughing along even though you had no idea that it was an inside joke between the two of them.

you laughed again on christmas day, same year, same joke. however, you still had yet to figure out what it meant when haechan had gifted your new boyfriend the card game, cased in a brilliant red box. he had said something along the lines of “maybe this’ll get him to dig deeper” and your group of friends, most of whom had known mark since high school, seemed to find it funny and fitting.

the game itself, you knew; it was a popular drinking game among your college friends. you had played it several times yourself at more intimate gatherings, the reflective conversational prompts amounting to several instances of sob fests, tissue shortages, and long hugs. it was good for heartfelt conversations, and apparently mark wasn’t one for feelings. put two and two together and that made enough sense for you to laugh along and move on without much thought.

but well over two, almost three, years later, you wonder why it’d been shoved into the back of his glove box, the plastic wrap still intact and pristine. it’s as if mark had quite literally buried his feelings into the depths of this car, subsequently forgotten and later dug up by his girlfriend turned ex. life’s a funny thing, because only now as his ex-girlfriend do you understand what the gag gift meant in the first place.

looking out upon the barren gas station, you feel restless standing in the face of ten — bordering eleven — hours of driving beside mark of all people. but when he slips into the seat beside you, freshly washed hands wiping themselves down the length of his jeans, you begin to think of a better, or at least more interesting, way to pass the time. holding the box of cards out for him to see, your bouncing leg finally comes to a still as you suggest, “wanna play?”

mark regards the box with a joking manner, and while his casual, “yeah, why not” might prove his act of nonchalance convincing, you like to think you know him better than to look past the way his eyes had lingered, or the hesitance set in his brows, or even the readjusting of his position. he starts up the engine and moves the gear out of park as you fumble with the plastic wrapping. a small tear later and you’re peeling back the packaging, throwing small glances at mark’s way whilst he throws unsure glances at the box of cards.

two minutes back on the i-70 west, you’ve shuffled the cards until your fingers began to feel sliced through, and only then did you deem it time to begin. fanning the deck out to your left, you gesture for mark to select his first pick. he shakes his head and wordlessly gestures back at you to make the first move, a lick of his lips giving his uncertainty away.

shoving the rest of the deck into one of the cup holders on the middle console, you read along as your other hand sets forth in finding your phone. “wildcard. press shuffle on your music library. explain the first song that comes up!”

phone in hand, you look over at mark inquiringly, “me or you?” and if you had to guess his next words, there’d be no doubt that it’d be a stiff and uttered, “you.” almost taking glee in his squirmishness, you pull up spotify on your phone and click into your mess of a “liked songs” playlist. mark passes you the carplay cord and you plug it in, pressing the shuffle button apprehensively after the beep indicates it’s been connected.

heavy piano chords pan out from the speakers and a smile is slow to spread across your face as you come to a realization of what song it is. for better or for worse, mark seems to know as well, retracting his gaze from the road for less than a second to meet your eyes. there’s a sort of ‘ahh’ in them, an understanding, an underlying fondness.

in the heat of the summer…

“do i really have to explain?”

you know that you should be my boy.

“give it a go at least.”

in the heat of the summer…

“well…”

you’re so different from the rest.

you find yourself at a loss for words. amongst many other things that arise in this moment, your train of thought does its best to rationalize. why was this song still in the playlist? simple, you forgot to take it out. it’s only normal that things get buried with time. why can’t you just say that to him, then? simple, because then it’d be so easy for him to brush it off as a lame excuse, a cover-up, as to how plainly you still held onto your relationship. what the fuck are you feeling? panic. doubt. frustration. longing.

panic at the thought that he would read into it too much. doubt at the thought that there were other reasons for why you’d let this song gather dust in your playlist. frustration at the thought that there was only you to blame for this situation that you’d gotten yourself into. and longing. longing that had sat untouched for the same amount of time you’d decided to shove your feelings away instead of confronting them. longing that had since settled into your flesh and bones, going unnoticed. longing that, at the first chords of this song, had you casting your eyes downwards from the road ahead.

hastily, you grab for your water bottle, taking steady but large gulps. suddenly, your throat had become too dry. swallowing thickly, you wonder why the lump in your throat refuses to fall back. your breathing becomes noticeably haggard while the thing lodged in your throat remains. at the slightest indication of mark’s head turning your way, you snap your own in the direction of the window to avoid his questioning gaze.

biting down on your lip, your eyes fall closed even with the sprawling hills unfurling just outside. the sun is climbing to its height, as is your sudden onslaught of emotions that drowns out all noise except the sound of mark humming along to the song. you are numb, you are deaf, you are void of everything except his voice.

“do you remember?”

reverberating through you, it’s all you are able to feel.

“do you remember last summer at the lake?”

mind emptied, it’s all you know.

“it’s one of my favorite days, i’ll have you know.”

body capsized, it floods you. and it fills you to the brim until you can’t take it anymore.

“isn’t it funny that all my favorite days have been spent with you?”

and when it overflows, it comes in the form of tears.

your vision blurs and the wetness on your cheeks is quickly pulled into a pool at the edge of the seat. closing your eyes is a daunting task, even then, because you know just what you’ll see. you make the mistake of trying to blink away the tears, making them fall far faster than they had before. but for what it’s worth, it had been a favorite day of yours as well, albeit bittersweet.

the water was emerald green and the grass was knee-high. the sun rested overhead for almost fourteen hours a day and you had a tan comparable to that of a professional-grade spray. the wind was light though unrelenting, apparent in the way the clothes strewn across the clothesline were at the cusp of being carried away. everything under the sun was warm to the touch. the rocks, the grass, the water, his skin.

you snap your eyes open and only then do you notice that the car has come to a stop, pulled over to the side of the road. your hand is pressing into your forehead and the tears are still running free when you care to peer over in mark’s direction. both hands resting on the wheel, his eyes emanate in concern, lips pulled tight as if an apology was attempting to push past from within. it’s hard to pinpoint your finger directly to it, but there’s something about his expression that ticks you off so greatly that you regard him for less than a second before slipping out of the car.

the first inhale of fresh air makes the stuffiness inside the car feel like you had been breathing in water. the wind, just as it had been that day, is light though unrelenting, and it dries clean the tears in your eyes. your body sags and you give your weight into the side rails of the road, sitting against it and heaving thorough breaths to bring you some peace of mind. if you stared at your surroundings for long enough, the short grasses growing beside the road would grow long and the valleys in between the hills would carve out an emerald lake. the warmth would find its way back to you, but it’s far from pleasant and rather close to burning, scorching even. you fist and unfist your hands, recoiling from even the thought of it.

instead, you focus on the way the roughened wood of the rail nips at your skin through the thin spandex of your shorts. when you shift your position, the metal that accompanies it is hot to the touch and the uneven pavement beneath you is riddled with its fair share of pebbles and wood chips alike. taking your time, you come to pay more mind to your breathing, allowing the intakes to fill up your belly rather than your chest. the sky is a clear blue, the single cloud is pear-shaped, you can count up to seven peaks in the hills, and there are four dirt patches within your line of vision. it’s these little things that ground you.

seven minutes past. you hear a car door open you but you never hear it close. footsteps stop maybe three feet from your left but they never step any closer. he says, “whenever you’re ready,” but he never says anything more. 

and perhaps that’s what hurts the most.

「 DAY 02, 01:56 PM 」 — LITTLE CRAZY LOVE SONG, MARY OLIVER 2014

“what’d you say?”

“nothing much, really—”

“well, you obviously said something if she’s voluntarily passed out for the last six hours.”

static crinkles on the other end and mark looks around at the endless stretch of trees surrounding the lone gas station. the signal is clearly not having its best moment here in the thick of the forest, but he rejoins anyways. 

“i brought up last summer…” he trails off, hoping that just the season would provide enough context to tell of the situation without him explicitly having to name it as terrible, godawful, and no good whatsover. to be frank, mark wasn’t expecting understanding and empathy when he dialed haechan’s number. hell, he wasn’t even expecting to receive encouragement and good faith. perhaps all he wanted was recognition for the bad deed he’d committed and someone for him to bicker out his frustration with. and surely, haechan delivers just that.

“mark, you whole-hearted idiot. wh—”

“okay but in my defense, i thought we were having a momen—”

“i think only you were having a mo—”

“it just slipped out, i swear it wasn’t on purpo—”

“how the fuck did you think she’d react to your sappy bullshi—”

“—but it’s all cool now.”

the other end goes flat after mark’s statement and he thinks it’s owed to the faulty service, until haechan sputters in disbelief, breaking the quiet at an ear-splitting decible, “cool? you call that cool?!” mark furrows his brow at his friend’s overuse of emphasis whilst he busies himself with retrieving his credit card one-handedly. he knows that somewhere along the line, he fucked up. and he thinks he knows exactly where but at the same time, mark isn’t quite in the headspace to own up to it. so he retaliates.

“it’s like you set me up for failure.”

haechan justifies, “hey, it’s not like i did anything wrong. a friend needed a ride and i found someone who could give her just that.” but mark can hear the sarcasm in his voice and he decides he would rather confront his friend than question his ex. “i highly doubt she’d be down for a forty-two hour drive over a six-hour flight. what the fuck did you even say to convince her?”

the younger doesn’t waver when put in the spotlight. in fact, he gives it away as if it’s all just a fun prank on his end. and that’s not to say that isn’t at least partially the truth.

“i told her you already agreed to take her, same thing i said to you.” 

smart as ever, he hangs up before mark’s initial surprise gets translated into brute annoyance. the silence after the disconnect tone hits him almost immediately and thus, he finds himself standing in the middle of an empty gas station, in the middle of the eerily quiet city of winona, missouri, which is sat at the edge of a brimming forest where nothing but trees run on for miles and miles on end. there’s a town & county supermarket in the same plaza and a rundown dollar general down the street he’d passed to get here. 

it suddenly feels as if he’s the only person alive in this whole wide world, trapped inside his four-walled mind with no one to talk to except his regretful self. more than confronting his friends or even you, mark has known for a long time that he feels the most social anxiety whenever he’s left to confront himself. he tries to shake the thought, pocketing his wallet as he makes a beeline for the supermarket across the desolate parking lot. it’s far on foot and with each step, he descends down into the depths of despair, digging up all the times he must’ve made you uncomfortable with just his presence. for once, he doesn’t think it’s such a wonderful thing to be alone in the world with the person he loves most.

seven hours of almost straight driving is bound to make a person go at least a little insane, as mark wonders if he even remembers the last time he saw anyone other than you. he grabs a bag of popcorn, a charcuterie box, and a gallon of water at the supermarket and only at the cash register, manned by a live and tangible human, is he freed from the confines of his tortured mind. 

gas filled to the max and provisions restocked, he’s once again met with the struggle of having to close the car door as quietly and undistrubingly as humanly possible. you’re still very much asleep and the last thing he wants is to jolt you awake when your latest memory of him is how he’d insensitively instigated a panic attack at barely seven in the morning, albeit unintentionally.

after he closes the door with exemplary caution and barely a thud, mark lowers his guard with a sigh in relief in tow. though in this fleeting moment of mindlessness, the very next moment he’s dropped his keys on the center console. wincing, he watches as the clattering elicits a stir on your end, fluttering eyelids, and then — to his utter horror and dismay — you wake up.

mark plays it cool, or so he thinks, by letting out a low “oh shit” to make sure you know of his accidental mistake. rubbing your eyes, the first glance you place his way isn’t strictly a glare, but it might as well be with how you barely acknowledge his stilled presence. mark waits until you’ve had a couple sips of water in your system and a full routine of arm stretches before speaking up carefully. “how’d you sleep?”

you look his way and tiredly blink a few times before saying, “fine.”

back at square one, he thinks. mark hands you the bag of popcorn and charcuterie box and reaches over to drop the giant water jug into the back seats. you eye the bag and the box confusedly, then the blanket draped across your knees that you’re sure wasn’t there when you fell asleep, and then finally your surroundings.

“what time is it?”

“about 2:20.”

“where are we?”

“missouri. just outside the mark twain national forest.”

you eye the landscape beyond the windows where you’re met with the parking lot, a few commercial structures, and a shitload of trees. you turn back towards mark, “are we on schedule?”

he nods. “we’re actually ahead of schedule. we were supposed to be just out of illinois right now.”

you give him a tight-lipped smile that does little to ease the tension. removing the blanket, you make a move for the door and mark thinks that this must be it. you’ve had enough of him, you’re tired of tolerating his presence, and you’ve set your mind on walking the rest of the way to los angeles. it’s a rather immature thought but he entertains it for a split second regardless. the second half of the second is spent coming up with a hastened, “wait.”

you’re halfway out the door when you look back over your shoulder, a left eyebrow cocked in question. mark doesn’t have anything on hand to say, so he blurts out whatever question he had first in queue, “why… why did you agree to come?”

fully out of the car, you stand facing him with one hand resting on the car door and the other situated on your hip. in your freshly awakened state, you cock your head at the absurdity of his unprompted question. there’s a trace of thought pooling in your eyes before you answer rather nonchalantly, “i wanted to see how you’ve been.” the words hang in the air, waiting for mark to process them, and when he does it’s as if he’s had the wind knocked out of him. breathily, he recites a quiet, “oh i see,” and then you shut the door square in his face, leaving him with only an equally quiet, “i need to use the restroom, be right back.”

mark thinks back to why he himself had agreed in the first place and he’s not sure how much of a role haechan’s little ruse had played anyways. he appreciates the honesty with which you answered because it gives him the space to be honest with himself as well. he’d agreed to go because a part of him wanted to see how you’d been doing as well, but he’d also agreed to go because a part of him simply just wanted to see you. the little stunt that haechan had pulled was just the tip of the iceberg of reasons that led to this whole ordeal, and mark thinks — or at least hopes — that that had been the case for you too.

when you return, freshened up and looking more lively than you had in hours, mark’s more prepared than the last time he’d thrown a haphazard question your way. you’re fastening your seat belt when he asks, “since we’re ahead of schedule, do you wanna go for a drive around the forest?”

he sees where it starts, slow in the upturn. what looks like the beginnings of a frown blooms into an easy smile. it doesn’t reach your eyes, but it doesn’t need to for mark to know that you mean it. “around?”

he smiles too, quick with a flash of teeth and a breathy chuckle. “in, i mean. in the forest.”

you let your head retract to facing frontwards, leaning back into your seat as you nod, “sure, let’s go.” folding the maroon blanket into your lap, you follow mark’s pointed finger until your eyes set on his backpack shoved under your seat. “there should be a map in there. can you be my guide?”

for a second, he thinks he’s being too greedy with your patience but your easy smile flattens to show complacency. “i can do that,” and you salvage the map from the front pocket of the mess of his backpack. seeing about an inch-thick stack of maps in the same compartment, you look towards him with your smile now edging towards a knowing tease. “you planned for this, didn’t you?”

mark shakes his head fervently though he can’t find it in himself to audibly deny. after all, number two on his bucket list is to visit all the national parks and forests the country has to offer. how could you have expected him to resist when passing by a city that sat directly under 1.5 acres of forest land? and with the extra time to spare, it was a given.

you have the map crinkled open on your lap as you load up the top destinations with your phone in hand. mark’s excitement seems to be rubbing off on you; his giddy smile lends into your glittering eyes, his drumming fingers on the steering wheel translating to your bouncy leg. twenty-four minutes north — one right turn and one left turn — later, you’ve successfully navigated the both of you to alley spring and mill, a three-story red statement with a clear turquoise spring tucked behind.

the summer heat licks at the nape of your neck when you first open the door. you grab the blanket, the charcuterie box, the bag of popcorn and — with a thought spared in consideration — the stack of cards shoved into the cupholder after tucking your phone into the waistline of your shorts. the rush of water grows louder as you approach, the uneven pavement ebbing off into scuffed dirt and then brustling grass further down the stretch. pausing a good distance away from the decades-old structure, you hear a sigh in wonderment coming from behind.

mark’s mamiya rz67 weighs down one hand, the other raised to his brow to deflect the glare of the sun. he has a sort of satisfied look to his face, one that only grows as he makes his way to catch up to you. “good find,” he comments, tearing his gaze away from the sights to meet your eyes. pride snuggles into the corners of your smile and you duck away from his stare. 

“lemme go find somewhere for us to settle down for a bit,” you hold up the blanket in gesture and then wave him off with another smile, “you go do your thing, don’t mind me.”

there’s a few people here and there coming in and out of the mill and a few more along the skirts of the spring, but you manage to find a quiet spot along the water with some trees to offer a decent amount of shade. it’s much cooler down here, where the spray disperses itself fresh from the water and into the air, and you drape the blanket over the mildly damp grass. spreading the contents of the charcuterie box across a napkin and pouring a portion of the popcorn into the now empty box, the setting begins to look as if it were all planned and not, in fact, an impromptu day trip that fell in motion less than a half-hour ago.

slipping your shoes off, you ease into the spot, appreciating the clear air while you can. if you shield your eyes, you can see mark in the distance with his phone held up to the red building to check the light settings. he takes a shot there in that position, and you swear you can hear the ka-shink! of his shutter even from this far away. nibbling a corner of brie cheese, you watch him closely as he jogs in a zig zag across the plot to find another interesting shot to frame.

mark gets six or seven more in before he rounds upon where you’re sat, having finally found the alcove of shade you’d claimed. he’s still holding his camera with one hand, the size of his palm making the five pound camera seem small. in the back of your mind, you can still recall the weight of it from a year ago as mark demonstrated how to advance the film for your first try at a shot. you remember how difficult it was to get the hang of medium format photography, much less the bothersome large format that mark used to haul around wherever he went.

“may i join you?”

snapped out of your momentary reminiscence, you glance up at mark as if you hadn’t even seen him coming your way. at the nod of your head, he takes his spot across the blanket with his legs criss crossed. the seconds tick away while your eyes trace the lines of his hands, moving familiarly to load a new film stock into his camera. the delicacy of his movements, the steadfastness of his grip, the roughness of his knuckles, and the baby soft pads of his fingers.

there’s nothing to do with his hands when he’s done with his camera so he resorts to fiddling with the folds of the blanket and occasionally reaching for a grape. mark looks a little lost, if you are to be honest. or at least, it seems as if he’s unsure of his presence; too scared of breaching boundaries thus he shies away from interactions altogether. his patterns of behavior are nothing new to you. and though there was once a time where you’d despise having to always be the one to coax him out of his shell of insecurity, you aren’t nearly so distressed to do so when there’s no strings attached, no long withheld feelings that come with it.

“when should we get back on the road?”

mark looks up at you in surprise and relief floods his face when he realizes no sign of annoyance in your expression. as if he were taking a firm hold of the hand you’d extended, he responds kindly, “it’s best if we go before five, so we can take our time on the road.”

you check your phone and the time reads a quarter past four. scrolling down your notification screen to see if you missed any important messages, you find about four consecutive texts from haechan, sent just before you woke up from the six hour stress nap you inadvertently took. 

【 2:06 PM 】 bro u good? 【 2:06 PM 】 mark told me what happened 【 2:06 PM 】 should i beat him up for u? haha 【 2:08 PM 】 call me when u get a chance ;)

shutting off your phone, you retrace your attention back to mark. he’s the spitting image of a kid whose one and only friend didn’t show up to school today, hence he had to sit at his own table during lunch. you chuckle under your breath at the thought and he happens to hear, giving you a raise of his brow to which you only shake your head in dismissal.

so badly do you want to just clear the air — his newly uptight demeanor being a nightmare to get along with — but you know better than anyone how avidly mark avoids confrontation at all costs. to bring it right to his front steps is just asking for uncalled-for frustration. you zip your lips, and eye your surroundings, hoping for a topic of conversation to jump out at you.

sure enough, the red boldface catches your eye and it lingers. who says confrontation is the only way to subdue the tension? sometimes all you need is a little fun. and what’s better than a game to do just that? you place a hand atop the deck and wait for mark to recognize your intentions before softly suggesting, “your turn?”

the expression he dons is a bit squirmish as he reaches for the cards, but you can tell that he’s glad his careless words hadn’t ruined the game for you forever. his fingers make quick work in shuffling them neatly and, face down, he draws one from the pile at random.

“what do you think is the hardest part of what i do for a living?” 

mark glances up at you from the card expectantly and you’re thrown off guard for a moment. “i answer? i did the last one though.”

he only laughs, “yeah i know. but even if i wanted to answer, i couldn’t. you don’t have a job.”

“oh that’s right,” you smile, masking a tinge of embarrassment at your late realization,” okay, i’ll answer it then.”

you cross your legs like his and pluck a grape for your fingers to play around with. momentarily in thought, you realize that there’s not much to the question, not when pertaining to mark and not when asked to you.

“the thing is, i’ve seen a lot firsthand. and i think you know what i’m going to say.”

it’s his turn to be thrown off guard with wide eyes and a hand to his chest, “i do?”

nodding, you pop the grape into your mouth to give leeway for your thoughts to string into words. shortly after swallowing, the words follow in suit, “i mean, you love your job and from what i remember, it pays your bills. which is great, it’s really great.” careful with your next words, you approach them with caution, “but at the same time, i think — and correct me if i’m wrong — i think...it’s put a strain on some of your relationships.”

mark doesn’t look the least bit surprised. in fact, you’re sure he’d known the answer the second after he read the question. hardly disappointed, he smiles wide when your eyes brim with uncertainty. reassuring you, “you’re right on point,” and then nudging you along, “i still want you to elaborate on it though.”

“okay,” you smile back at him, mostly in relief, “i know this is pretty personal, but since you insist…”

and so you trailed on about what you knew. on how his job drove a wedge between him and his parents. on how they told him it was one thing to chase after your dreams, and a whole other to let your dreams crush you. but to him, dropping out of college didn’t make those two semesters a waste of time and money. rather, he thought that going to college in the first place made it easier for him to realize it wasn’t the path he wanted to walk. there were always going to be times where he wouldn’t be able to make ends meet but that was nothing to him if he could have the support of his friends and family to do what he loved most.

you knew very well that a “strain” was a light way to put it. his parents cut him off at nineteen when they realized he wouldn’t be returning to school. as most parents would be, they were worried but unwilling to financially support their son who they no longer believed in. his mom still brings stacks upon stacks of tupperware kimchi and side dishes each month and his dad still passes money under the table at family dinners. but for some reason, they could never look him straight in the eye.

“do you ever feel like they betrayed you?”

“no, never,” he declares almost immediately. “it’s easy to think that they did. it’s harder to really feel that way when i know how much they love me. it’s just that we value different things.” mark says it so convincingly that you nearly dismiss the suspicions behind your question. when you meet his eyes and they are dark and glossed over, you start to believe them a lot more than what he’d just said.

seeing his pain resurface as if it were there the whole time, you’re reminded of the guilt you carry for breaking up with him at perhaps the most vulnerable point in his life. knowing that mark could never blame you for it, you blame yourself in his place.

looking down from his gaze, you hold your left hand in your right, imagining it as his, and hope that just the thought of wanting to hold his hand offers him some comfort, in some sort of cosmically significant way.

「 DAY 02, 10:34 PM 」 — TOMAYTO TOMAHTO

mark drove past the ‘welcome to oklahoma’ sign at 7:30 PM. between cherokee and muscogee nation, he considered stopping at tulsa for the night instead of oklahoma city, the capital. it was around 9:00 by then and you were still fairly energized; he took from that to continue even though it was you who slept through the day, not him.

in your search, etrip.net claimed holiday inn to be $19 for a two person room, seemingly a ‘too good to be true’ deal for a four-star hotel with an indoor pool. you booked it anyways — though only after confirming that he was fine with sharing a room — and keyed in the address into google maps for mark to follow. 

when you look out the window less than a half hour to your destination, it’s near pitch black, save for the distant outlines of buildings behind large fields of what you assume to be grass. the two of you are just outside the city and when you roll down the window; the air is rather cool and crisp for a summer night. there’s a truck in front of your car with a shipment of fresh tomatoes and the scent of them wafts sweetly in the dawdling air.

basked in a comfortable silence for the first time during this whole trip, you feel that summer break has finally started. the days are long and long gone are your day-to-day worries about when this assignment is due and how much this exam will affect your grade. in hindsight, they were all passing worries, things that never irked you for long enough to be significant. and now that you had finally made peace with it all — moved on, and slowed down — the world seems much more pleasant, less frantic, and more at ease than you remembered. it’s quiet and you’re happy.

glimpsing to your left to check how mark’s holding up, the first thing you’re met with are his wide, frenzied eyes. you trace his line of sight whilst venturing to ask, “you good?” before noticing the oblong shape that’s been planted straight into the dead center of the windshield. upon further scrutiny, there’s a redish secretion that’s oozing down the glass. 

“y/n...what the fuck is that?”

the two of you are stunned in your seats, frozen at the thought of what it could possibly be. (a hockey puck! a donut! a scoop of ice cream! a bloodied body part?!) though soon enough, your conscience returns in time for you to register it as a tomato, straight from the truck ahead.

“holy shit,” mark mutters, and he begins to slow the car down and away from the alleged source. a second hits, (“fuck!”), right where your head would have been if not for the window. the third and fourth follow shortly, splatters sounding more like fist-sized rocks under the sheer force of impact. mark sees you ducking and dodging, this way and that, and his blood pressure sky rockets as a huge portion of his side becomes slathered in goop.

both of you are screaming at this point, mark has no way of knowing when the road will curve, and he’s still going seventy miles per hour, occasionally speeding faster whenever a jolt of adrenaline hits too hard and he loses fine control of his foot on the gas pedal. “roll up the damn window!” and your fingers fumble around for the button, almost opening up the whole door in the process.

you swerve your head right after the window’s safetly shut to see if anyone’s tailgating. “pull over, mark. there’s no one behind us.” and when the car comes to a stop, the two of you are panting uncontrollably, despite having barely moved for hours. there are no thoughts running through your mind — absolutely none, zero — when you turn your head to meet his eyes. and the second you do, the two of you burst into laughter, in utter disbelief at what just happened.

still breathless at the thought, your hand comes to your mouth in belated shock. the aftermath is disastrous. cautiously opening the door, you can spot remnant tomato juice dripping from the bottom edge. mark rounds the car twice in inspection, only to find that every last corner of his precious subaru crosstrek is coated in a sheen of red except for the back, bottom, and some of the top. the meager stack of napkins you saved from earlier in the day does the best they can, sweeping off most the meat but none of the juice. the scent doesn’t seem so sweet anymore when it’s all you can smell from a mile away.

you notice that mark has been standing in the same position for the last four minutes, unmoved with both hands on his hips, sweat gleaning from his brow, and a distant look in his eyes. you fear speaking up will spook him into tears. luckily, he speaks first. 

“y/n.”

“yeah?”

“can you find the nearest coin-op car wash on my phone?”

“okay.”

“i’ll…” he trails off into a breathy laugh, that kind of echoed laugh that makes you want to give him all your hopes and dreams, support and love. “...i’ll be here for a bit.”

you clamber back into the passenger seat, careful not to transfer any of the liquids indoors. his phone is mounted on a stand and you pry it off, wondering how you would get past his passcode. you key in his birthday, a reasonable first try, but the lockscreen doesn’t budge. pressing your lips thin, you try to recall what his password had been way back then. mark was never one for unnecessary changes; he held onto his possessions and habits stubbornly.

after an aha! moment comes a moment of doubt. to get the code right was one thing, but you weren’t sure how you’d feel if it was indeed unchanged. shrugging off the hesitation, you press in the four numbers anyways, and sure enough it unlocks.

dumbfounded, your hands drop into your lap and your vision stills, zoned out on the curve of the steering wheel. it’s hard to really understand what you’re feeling and it’s even harder to discern mark’s intentions behind keeping his passcode set as your birthday after all this time. the signs have been there—and you had kept to avoiding them—but now is the first time you’re facing the possibility that mark still has feelings for you. and even just the thought of how it doesn’t disturb you greatly warrants extra precaution on your end. 

mistakes are made so that they won’t be repeated.

you repeat the sentence to yourself perhaps five times over, and carry on with locating the nearest coin-operated car wash station as per his instruction. mark got in the car five minutes later with a small smile on his face. “it is what it is,” as he had put it. with only thirty minutes left, the car ride resumes in silence though this time around, there’s nothing comfortable about it. the man next to you is humming along to some john mayer song, oblivious to your disconterting mood that was induced solely by him (and partially by you, if we’re to be crystal clear).

deciding not to get too worked over it, you fixate, instead, on playing word games with haechan. time passes quickly as you win most of the rounds, half the time wondering why he’s even still awake when it’s already fairly late in his timezone. you make a mental note to call him when you get settled at the hotel, sooner the better if anything.

mark manages to hum along to every single song that comes up on the radio, sometimes even singing with a full voice and vibrato. you’re partially relieved that he’s no longer so on edge around you, also aware that now it’s you who’s way too in over your head. figuring that it wouldn’t be much of a problem once you call it a night, you move past your concerns and finally take a glance up from your phone.

marvelling at the ever-changing landscape on the other side of the window, your mouth falls agape at how the bare grasslands have since given away to streets among streets of buildings. you can peer even further down, where the city lights of oklahoma city make out a twinkling night sky, replacing the stars with their light pollution. devon tower stands the tallest and most discernable of the skyscrapers and for a second, your troubles melt away as you fall captive to The Big Friendly.

long past rush hour, the streets downtown are jam packed with both cars and pedestrians, forcing mark to brake every other second. the city night life in oklahoma feels warmer than the busy new york city had ever been. flourescent signs flash bright in invitation for you to enter, people flood the streets, swarmed with laughter and filled with good food. you keep a smile to yourself as this tedious road trip begins to feel a little more like a long-anticipated vacation.

marks pulls up at the coin wash station you’d found for him earlier. with it being a ten minute’s distance from the city’s main streets, the surrounding areas are quiet at this slow hour. when you reach over to unbuckle your seat belt, a hand comes to stop you and with a patient smile on his face, mark simply tells you, “wait here, i’ll clean it up real quick,” as he slips out of the car.

given no time to react much less disagree, he shuts the door behind him and you end up sitting in the car by yourself, watching mark as he busies around with his coins and then gets to hosing down the red streaks striping his car. presumably, they had dried in the wind. what a sight his car must have looked like, rolling through the city streets as if it’d been dunked in ketchup.

you get the idea then, while you’re idling around, to call up haechan quickly while you have the moment to yourself. if you could be curt with him, beat around the bush like the annoying little brat you are, you’ll have no problem with wrapping up the call within the next five to ten minutes it takes for mark to get the car scrubbed and shiny.

the phone rings a whopping total of seven times before he picks up. you put him on speaker and the groggy voice you’re met with is a telltale sign that you’ve freshly awoken him. “the fuck you want? i just fell asleep, you cow.” at least he went to bed, you think, whilst turning his loud ass voice off speaker and bringing your phone to your ear.

“woah, no need to be so vulgar. you’re the one who told me to call you.”

you hear a scoff coming from the other end. at his next quip, his voice is no longer groggy, now boasting a new tone of feisty. “yeah. i meant when i’m actually awake and willing to answer. bye, i’m hanging up now.”

“hey,” you whine, “you’re awake and i’m free right now so let’s just get it over with. what did you want to talk about?”

there’s a clear pause of deliberation on his end, only for less than three seconds though. “how’s it going with mark? i heard he made you cry.”

you sigh into the receiver, fingers having found the rim of your water bottle and decidedly tracing the cap around and around. “so he told you everything, i see. he just brought up some bad memories and i got overwhelmed in the moment. it’s all cool now.”

the line goes silent for while longer and the blasting hose outside just happens to shut off at the same time. you look up from your water bottle and through the shower of water, mark’s peering in with a sponge in hand, gleeful eyes greeting you hello. you give him an absentminded wave in return with your free hand.

usually, haechan had too much to say about everything but to your surprise, he only ponders with a lilt, “...it’s all cool?”

“it’s all cool,” you confirm. mark sweeps his sponge-equipped arm across the length of the windshield, the thick lather of bubbles building a wall between you and him. but just as his fingers dot two eyes and a big smile into the soap for you to see, haechan synchronizes, “so you guys are getting along?”

mark peeks into one of the holes to see you smiling as wide as the playful smiley face he’d drawn, the same one that was now at the mercy of the drooping liquids. contradicting your ear-splitting grin, you remark offhandedly, “we agreed to be friends.” and after a beat, you fill in the missing blanks, “for the sake of this trip, i mean.”

“friends…” haechan seems to have his panties in a twist today, for he’s pausing at all the weird moments, saying all the weirdest things. you can almost imagine the shake of his head as he cryptically states, “that won’t do.”

“what won’t do?”

the hose water is turned back on as mark directs it right at the windshield this time. you almost shriek in surpise, barely catching the click of his tongue that haechan gives. after dousing the windows clean, mark reaches for the snow broom to shimmy off the remaining water droplets. going row by row, he gives you a sore attempt at a wink when you meet his eyes. you supress your giggles as haechan’s dissatisfied voice soars past your ears without much thought.

“how can you be just friends with him when you still like him?”

you’re in no mood to be taking him seriously, so you end up saying the first thing that pops into your mind. “i’m pretty sure he’s the one that still likes me.”

“well you’re not wrong there.”

mark throws in another silly face — a really blown out toothed smile — and you decide then that you should probably end the call soon before haechan drags you into another discussion of who’s still hung up on who and who’s still in love with who. you decide then that, for tonight at least, you want to set aside the messy feelings and just have fun. because that’s what’s easiest when you’re with mark lee.

momentarily forgetting that you’re still on call, you hastily ramble out a quick, “hey i gotta go, something came up,” and the eye roll that haechan’s sure to give is predictable as it is true. “fine,” he deadpans, “talk to you later. or not, i don’t know maybe something will come up and i’ll forget about you for two weeks.” and with that, he hangs up right as mark reenters the car, eyes all shimmery and filled with glee.

“you have fun out there?”

he messes around with a few wet tips of his hair. “a lot of fun, actually. you should help me out next time.”

your heart races messily and mercilessly at the thought of ‘next time,’ so much so that you only have enough mindpower to muse absorbedly, “maybe i should.” he gets his seat belt buckled and you cap your water bottle after taking a long swig. 

“so…” mark starts whilst pressing the start engine button, “who was that on the phone?”

“haechan wanted to know if we were ripping each other’s hair out yet.”

mark chuckles, reversing the car out of the small lot. his eyes tell you he knows that a lot more than just that was discussed, but he resists prying to a certain extent. “so what’d you tell him?”

“well...” you take a moment to admire his side profile, his one hand resting casually on the wheel, and the gentle way his lips curve into a smile when you say, “i told him that i still have a full head of hair.”

「 DAY 03, 12:00 AM 」 — YOU ARE MY SOUVENIR, MY PROOF THAT I WAS HERE

what etrip.net forgot to mention was that the $19 you happily gave away was actually just a reservation fee, and not — as they had deceived you into thinking — the actual price of the room. you direct a sheepish smile towards mark as the bright-faced young man at the front counter charges $124 on your card. evidently, the internet is why you have trust issues.

the hotel sits right in the belly of downtown oklahoma city, with the touristy bricktown district only two blocks away. you’re given a card key to a spacious room with a queen sized bed draped in a crisp and plush duvet. from the updated appliances to the chic furniture and decor, every corner of the room smelled like fresh lemon verbena.

“i guess this is what you get when you pay top dollar.”

mark nods dazedly, but at the mention of money, he snaps out of his haze. “here,” he fishes out his phone from his back pocket, “i’ll transfer you the $62.”

you recline into the white lounge chair in the corner of the room. a ding! sounds from your bag that you’ve set on the floor besides you, signaling the transaction. eyes now closed in respite, you direct your “thanks” towards no one in particular.

there’s no couch this time, despite having paid a ridiculous amount, so mark sets himself atop the left side of the bed. he rummages through the front pocket of his backpack until he draws forth a thin booklet with a giant OKC in bolded yellow on the front. as he remembered, there’s a checklist list on the second page that covers all the must-do, must-see activities and locations that oklahoma city has to offer. 

mark looks up at you, then back down at the book, then back at you and back down at the book. he knows you well enough to see that you’ve yet to fall asleep. but give it another two or three minutes and the snores will catch up to you. but before those two or three minutes round upon him, mark decides that he has nothing to lose. if you want to come, you’ll come. if not, he still has a whole city to plow through in one night.

“hey.” there’s a hand on your shoulder and it’s shaking you lightly. distantly, you think that you’ve entered a state of lucid dreaming. a second after, the voice returns to say, “y/n, wake up,” and you’re conscious enough to recognize it as mark’s. willing your eyes to open, he’s hovering right above you with apprehensive eyes. “let’s go out.”

still not quite awake and still unsure of what you just heard, you blurt rather obtrusively, “what?”

“i mean...i mean like let’s go out out,” and he gestures to the window to make his point clearer. “we can get late dinner, or really early breakfast, or just walk around for a bit.”

not very convinced, you only frown at him. in turn, he’s prompted to ramble on further. “okay, but when’s the next time you’re visiting oklahoma?”

“like… never,” you drawl out slowly. mark nods fervidly as if there were a right answer and you were at the precipice of discovering it. impatient or in sudden fervor, he exasperates, “exactly! so you should make the most of tonight and see what it has to offer.”

he’s like an overly enthusiastic salesman and you decide that even if it’s just to please him, there’s no harm in playing tourist for a few hours; you could sleep as much as you want on the road anyways. you give in, “okay fine,” and watch as he pumps a fist not-so-covertly. “gimme like five minutes to change first though.”

by the time you meet him at the lobby, mark’s switched out his tour guide booklet for his phone, having loaded up all the destinations in preparation. the warm air outside is breezy to a fault and the wind picks up your hair and sloshes it this way and that. mark is quick to laugh but equally quick to tuck the wandering strands behind your ears. unknowingly, you blush and when you don’t break the stare, he breaks it for you. the tips of his ears are red when he looks away.

the first stop — a touristy jazz club — is closed for renovation, and the next one that you guys attempt had rebranded into a strip club. unease begins to nibble away at mark’s intial excitement, as his exhaustion and embarrassment collide to dampen his mood. the sidewalk crowd doesn’t care to part for two, so mark grabs hold of your wrist, leading you towards what he hopes is the final destination for the night.

mark finds his composure being built up and chipped away by your presence in the exact way he’d expected it to even before this whole ordeal of a trip. he can avoid your careful eyes and feign ignorance towards your attempts at civility, but he will never be one to deny to himself how much he still cares, how much he has always and will always care, about your opinion of him. it’s in the littlest ways that he hopes if not to impress you, then to make you smile at the least. mark doesn’t endeavor to lie to himself about that — that he wants you to smile and that he wants, even more so, to be the reason behind it.

he thinks he’s done a rather good job of accomplishing that tonight. from afar, “the flea” is but a green box with brick facing and a short line abutting the entrance. but upon entering, the ambiance of the bar feels rather like an old school arcade, with low ceilings and dimly colored lighting. it’s littered with games from pool to cornhole to connect four, and people are drunk and having fun. mark glances at you to gauge your liking, and supresses the urge to pump a lame and loser-ish fist at they way your eyes glisten in response to your lively surroundings.

he’s not sure if he’ll ever get the courage to apologize for the consequence of his thoughtless ramble from earlier in the day. and he knows that an apology is what you deserve. but in his own selfish and self-serving way, he hopes that this one night of drinking and games will at the very least make up for your soured impression of him.

you order two beers at the bar and amble over to mark, who’s found himself a spot at the darts corner. handing him the drink and taking a swig of your own, you query with a cocked eyebrow in the direction of the board, “wanna bet?”

taking the drink from your hands, mark deadpans, “you suck at darts.”

mouth full, you quickly swallow before laughing aloud, “maybe i got better, you never know.”

mark rolls his eyes in disbelief, but concedes nevertheless, “so what’s on the line?”

you take a quick scan around the room in consideration when a girl standing on the opposite side of the room by the pool table catches your eye. but not because she’s looking at you. feet crossed at the ankles and left hand swirling a half-emptied margarita, she has her sights set square on mark. a small smile dawns upon your face, and you turn back towards him. “you lose, you get her number.”

once glance around the room and he, too, knows who you’re talking about. maybe his heart sinks a little. and so he laughs. maybe he wishes you wouldn’t be so quick to write him off with another person other than you. mark takes a sip of his beer, and looks around the room once again. maybe he doesn’t mean what he’s about to say. “you lose, you get his number.” maybe he wants you to know that he still likes you, at least a lot more than the guy by the bar with the sleazy smile. 

you take a look at him yourself and decide that he wouldn’t be too bad of a punishment. some part of you felt the need to distinguish you and mark as two single friends who were just hanging out. the barrier needed to be defined after how it’d been ebbing between the extremes of exes and more than exes the whole day. it’s hard to say that you don’t like mark at this point. and that while any other guy could make you feel things, it would never amount close enough to what mark made you feel. 

but it’s even harder to say that you would want to get back together with him.

mark decides on a 200 point game and whilst you get off to a good start with two 20-pointers, mark beats you out by almost a hundred point margin to sum up the game. today, he feels up for admitting the truth to himself, for he knows well that he had tried his best to lose. but any further effort on that attempt would have made it obvious, as there was no conceivable way for him to out-lose your constant 1-pointers without suspicion. 

he watches as you down the rest of your beer before gesturing in the direction of the bar. he smiles back when you mouth, “i’ll be back,” over the blaring music. he knows why you’re being like this. he knows that it’s mostly his fault. he also knows that you’re doing this to protect yourself, that it’s not a means of punishing him. but mark accepts his punishment anyways, looking onwards as you approach the guy with a tap on his shoulder. he watches as the guy’s eyes rakes your figure in delight, sets a casual hand on your waist, smiles along to your cheesy pick up line.

but mark tears his eyes away before the guy can smash his greasy lips onto yours, or before you respond in kind. even seeing him lean in made mark sick to the stomach. he goes to retrieve the darts from the board and when he returns, you’ve returned too. “got it,” you show him the contact and number in your phone, “and i got a smooch on the cheek too.”

a small, “ew,” is all he can muster in his confusion of equal relief and disappointment. mark keeps you close for the rest of the night. you suggest many times that he go talk to this girl, or how that girl looks like his exact type. but you don’t seem to understand that mark only wants to talk to you and that you’re the only person in this room, or even in the world, he’d consider to be his exact type. you are nowhere near the understanding that mark has never felt this unlucky to be spending the night with a girl he wants but has lost the privilege to have.

you’re tipsy, with an arm linked with his and your head on his shoulder, as he walks the two of you back to the hotel. mark can’t tell you — at least not in this state — how he’s thought of trying again at least a million times. he’s come up with a million scenarios of how he’d somehow loop himself back into your life and slowly regain your trust for him. a million times over, he’d lost the confidence to follow through, always so sure that he would fall in the same patterns of negligence and immaturity. even so, he’s never wanted to try as much as he does right now.

he places your shoes by the bedside and slips off your dirty socks to add to the laundry. rummaging through your toiletries bag, he comes upon the micellar water and reusable cotton pads. he swipes it across your sleeping face to collect the makeup and extra debris, then washes the two pads and clips them on a hanger to dry. mark is dutiful in drawing the covers up to your chin, in pulling your hair back from your face, in everything a boyfriend would do.

mark is sober when he sets his lockscreen as the only thing he has to remember oklahoma city by: a photo of you, smiling at him.

「 DAY 03, 8:21 AM 」 —  HIS APOLOGY

“what is the hardest truth you had to face this year?”

you place the card to the back of the deck after reading the question aloud. mark takes his eyes off the road for a split second to glance at you. fiddling with a used toothpick with your fingers, mark wonders when you started flossing after years and years of ignoring your dentist’s nagging. yesterday, he noticed you were using a different chapstick brand than what he remembered as your go-to. you wear your hair up more often, and you frequent warm-toned clothing as opposed to your routine neutrals.

the more time he spends around you, the more mark realizes he’s never felt this distant from you. in barely two days time, he’s been surprised by how much you’ve changed in the relatively short duration the two of you spent apart compared to the time you had spent together. mark’s even more surprised by how little he’s changed in comparison.

the thirty seconds you’ve taken to formulate a response — to decide your terms of vulnerability in just how much to divulge — weren’t nearly enough for mark to be prepared for what you were about to share.

you don’t look at him when you speak. with your eyes set on the passing hills just outside, your voice breaches lowly into the air and across the car, right to mark’s utter confusion at the first of your words.

“i’ve learned that no amount of love goes wasted. i’ve learned that bad, unfortunate, terrible things happen to good people everyday, most of the time for no reason.” when you next blink, there’s a thin film of tears that gloss your eyes. “i’ve learned that the same bad, unfortunate, terrible things can happen to the very people that you love, and that sometimes there is nothing you can do about it.”

he thinks he can hear your breaths, or some similar rhythm pulsing in the thickened air, taut with tension and the fragility of your words. two beats pass, then four, before mark confirms it to be your now labored breathing. it stops shortly after, and you continue speaking to your best ability, which even then amounts to very little. “i’ve learned…”

mark turns to look at you for a little longer than he should, and the composure with which you held your head gives out, the weight of his gaze somehow heavier than that of your circumstances. he’s never seen you like this. he doesn’t know what’s your reality, and that this car, this trip, this moment, is your escape. 

“i’ve learned what it means to grieve for someone before they’ve even passed.”

he doesn’t know that you’re running on stolen time. he doesn’t know, wasn’t there, never saw how your mom had given your hand a squeeze, feeble but certain. how she faults her poorly-timed illness. how she struggled to sit up to give your grief-stricken, heartbroken body a hug and a kiss goodbye, regretful she might never be able to rejoice in her daughter’s marriage, and yet grateful that at least her other daughter can rejoice in her stead.

when you find it in yourself to lift your head upright, mark takes in another glance at the puffiness around your eyes and the streaks running down your cheek to your neck. he knows he should free a hand to locate the tissue box or offer that hand in support but he can hardly breathe, much less move, when you start speaking again.

“it’s my mom. her cancer, it’s relapsed.”

for a few seconds, all he can hear is the white noise of his car tires on an endless expanse of road. it’s like your words dissolve into the noise, refusing their impact on his own ears, richocheting between reality and his imagination. mark holds so still that he might as well have stopped breathing, or thinking, or being. 

it’s only when he hears a sob escape from you that his gravity returns to him out of a sense of realized necessity. a sort of certainty courses through his veins when he pulls over the car. there’s barely anyone on the road to witness him exit and circle around to your side. mark moves with conviction when he pulls your door open, unbuckles your seat belt, and embraces you whole. neither of you register the tears leaking from his eyes nor the way his hands shake ever so slightly, because his expression has been set straight, and his body sturdy for you to lean on.

forehead pressed to his chest, you’re gasping for air and making all sorts of incomprehensible sounds of anguish. you weren’t sure of where your strength had come from to confide in him like that, after you’d dutifully dedicated yourself to a trip detached fully of worries beyond your control at home. but you know it now. in the way he pats down your hair, rubs circles into your back, holds all the same grief-stricken, heartbroken pieces of your body together like glue, you know that it’s because it’s mark.

he doesn’t yet know what he’s saying but it’s coming out of him anyways. “i’m sorry. i’m so sorry.” he panics even more when you’re shaking your head in his arms, your hitched breaths unable to let forth any words of disagreement. but mark shakes his head too. you don’t know.

you don’t know how much it hurts him. from his heart, in his bones, through every fiber of his being he feels it. his apology.

“i’m sorry for not being there when you needed me most.”

you make up for your loss of words by looking up at him, finally. his mask of placidity folds, first at the seams with the furrow of his brow, but then in full as his face scrunches into what can only be described as indescribable heartache. his shirt is fisted in your hands as you sob, “how could you… how could you have known?”

mark shuts his eyes because he doesn’t think he has it in him to bear witness to the misery written across your face. his heart hammers inside his chest, unpromising of any relief any time soon. he holds you together, closely, closer, until there’s hardly a hardly a point of separation between the two of you.

your question rings in his head, because it makes no sense, because it only makes him feel worse about the last year he’s spent alone, because even without you by his side…

“i should have just known.”

only now do you realize that your trust in mark is the one thing that could possibly nullify your entire messy history. in hindsight, it was obvious. you knew that if you told him, he would make it his duty to make you feel better. you told him because maybe that’s precisely what you wanted to feel. and maybe you needed mark, more than anyone, to hug you like this and to convince you that everything was somehow going to work out. because maybe, just maybe, you would begin to believe it for yourself.

「  00:00  」 —  AMARANTH

it was something that you didn’t think was possible. to live with someone, to inhabit the same room, sleep in the same bed, and yet, to be so distanced to the point at which you were strangers.

sometimes he’d leave a mug on the kitchen counter, lukewarm coffee left idle. other times the tv would be left on when you got home from class, or the shower was wet when you stepped in. it was these small things, like traces of a ghost, that reminded you of your relationship with mark, or what was left of it.

on the off chance that the two of you would meet face-to-face, he was always reserved to himself. a few small apologies, maybe a peck to your lips, and always a search for reassurance — that you would’t leave him, that you wouldn’t understand where he was coming from, that you knew he wasn’t doing it on purpose.

the it was complicated. on the surface, the it was his absence in the physical sense. despite dropping out from college and having a suddenly abundant amount of free time, barely any of that time was spent with you. despite moving in to your apartment after being cut off financially from his parents and being forced to move out of the school dorms, the it was him rarely being at home. mark was always out on some unnamed errand, or to shoot at some far away location, hours away from anyone and anything. 

but under all that, the it was his inability to face himself and his future head on. the it was his latent realization that there were consequences to his impulsive and headstrong decisions, more than he had the foresight to think of, more than what he was capable of dealing with at the time. the it meant that he was incapable of putting any of these feelings to words, and even more so unwilling to say these words aloud to you.

mark didn’t know how to tell you he was lost without feeling like he had lost the one thing that was left of him — his dignity. he had held his head high when he’d passed word around that he would quit school, certain that it wasn’t the right path for him. he had held his head high when he had left his parents’ house, his childhood home, after his own father had gotten on his knees to beg him to just finish up his degree, to hold out for one last year. but he couldn’t even admit to himself, much less you, that he didn’t know what to do with himself after all his bravado had worn off.

it was an adulthood thing, he’d much later come to understand, his own version of a dramatic coming of age movie where he needed to lose himself in order to find himself. and it led him to the job of his dreams: somewhere between a full-time photographer and a part-time influencer, traveling the world, capturing it on film, documenting his process and growth journey for others to be inspired by. ever so passionate and devoted to his work, mark poured his whole into perfecting his craft. and only when he emerged atop the hill he had climbed all by his lone self — without a degree and without the support of his peers and parents — did mark realize that he had lost the one person that would have supported him through anything. you.

but the damage had been done. at that point, there was no such word in the english dictionary that could remediate the month and a half of unexplained absence. in response to his silence and refusal to confide in you, you had withdrawn from the relationship yourself, having given up on getting him to clue you in and having to deal with your own problems as well. 

it was too late for mark to say anything about it, far too late for any verbal apology to make up for it all. mark figured that his actions would speak louder than his words ever could.

at the height of summer, the sun couldn’t have shone brighter. it was that day where you had come to understand that mark’s place of refuge had never been the apartment you thought you’d both called home; it was the lake. the emerald lake would have a special feature in the photobook that mark would publish months after the two of you had broken up. in his captions, he’d write that it was there that he would turn to when his thoughts overwhelmed him, when he didn’t have it in himself to face the world.

and it was beautiful, in the most heartbreaking way, to see for yourself that in his most vulnerable state, he had turned to these waters and these winds. it was most beguiling, in the most earth-shattering way, to watch as he submerged himself bare in the water, to realize that he could never bare his heart to you, didn’t know how to, didn’t want to, didn’t care to.

he didn’t understand how badly you wanted to love him for everything that he was. he was too proud to let you see the worst parts of him, too proud to let you love the worst parts of him.

to him, the water was a symbol of renewal. to bring you here, where his heart lay, meant that he was opening back up to you, urging to you enter his waters. to you, it was a symbol of cleansing. to enter the water where you were beckoned meant washing off all the grief and bitterness that had accumulated towards the tail end of your relationship. you hadn’t yet figured out where you stood with him, if you still loved him, or if you even knew him well enough to say that you still loved him. 

it was ill-fated timing, really. your mom was diagnosed with hodgkin’s lymphoma, not even a week after what mark believed to be the turning point of your relationship. you had called him from the hospital, voice thick with affliction, rambling about chemotherapy and medical bills and breaking the news to your sister and everything else that had brought your world to a standstill. and yet in the midst of all your despair, mark could not for the life of him string together a single sentence.

later revealed, her cancer was at an early stage, so one round of chemotherapy was enough to quell it into remission. it wasn’t, however, easy on your family in terms of the financial burnden and emotional turmoil that steadily built over her four months of treatment.

all of this, mark would only hear of through haechan, for your relationship had ended the moment you had hung up that call.

blocking his phone number and social medias was the easy part. the hard part was convincing haechan to let mark move in with him. it was completely and utterly stupid and unreasonable, according to him, to end a fully committed relationship just because the guy couldn’t formulate a response to your trauma dump. “why?”

“because he’s emotionally constipated,” was the easy answer with an easy counter that haechan was sure to give, “but you knew that even before dating him.”

you sighed. however impossible, you could hear his impatience over the phone. it was enough to get you to be fully honest with your best friend. “he can’t talk to me. he can’t be honest with me. he can’t look me in the face and say ‘i’m sorry.’ tell me, hyuck,” your breath picks up and you’re mere seconds away from sobbing, “tell me, how am i supposed to come home from the hospital everyday and tell my sob story to a fucking wall?!”

later that day, haechan came over to your apartment to pick up all the belongings of your ex-boyfriend. you had dumped him because your life was in no state to house someone who didn’t know how to shoulder a burden. you had dumped him because, for the sake of your well being, you could no longer put up with his inability to communicate openly with you, to tell you what he was feeling, to tell you to ease your worries, or even just to tell you that he loved you.

but even now as you’re sat in the passenger seat of his car, if mark told you he didn’t love you anymore, you probably wouldn’t believe it.

you know it in the way he looks at you, with eyes so tender and attentive to your every motion, ears perked at every intonation, and heart worn bare at the foot of his sleeve. these were all made fact from the moment you first stepped in his car, when the simple idea of seeing him still made you apprehensive and guarded.

but with how low your defenses have since dropped, there’s no reason left to deny that mark wouldn’t believe you either if you told him you didn’t love him anymore.

and you can’t say it’s any sort of impulsive feeling, or an effect of loneliness that’s gotten the best of you. it’s evident to you now that the mark beside you is not the same mark you fell in love with. he is a result of your breakup, the one thing that he could not bury away with the rest of his feelings. the one thing that, if he ever turned to the lake for refuge, would only haunt him in the form of the memory of you that day. he could not run from the torment of losing you, because it had consumed him whole.

the mark beside you gave you your space when you needed it, and held you close even when you didn’t know you needed it. he still is awkward in responding to your questions, but he responds nonetheless. he apologized.

he’s not the same mark you foolishly fell in love with, overlooking his weakness until it ruined your relationship. the mark beside you is someone you have the choice of falling in love with, in full admiration for his growth and strengths, so much so that it begs the question:

what do you do when the reason you broke up with your ex no longer exists?

「 DAY 03, 12:47 PM 」 —  WILL YOU GO ON A DATE WITH ME?

“thank you.”

mark jolts in his seat, though he keeps enough of his cool only to answer somewhat lamely, “uhh… for what?”

“for comforting me.”

mark doesn’t look over at you. he can’t. he’s afraid of what you have to say, of what’s to become of your fleeting friendship, of the boundaries he’d overstepped. so he merely brushes it off, hoping you don’t read too much into his actions to feel uncomfortable about it. “oh that? it was nothing, no need to thank me.”

but you look over at him, and continue to, for seconds or even minutes on end. the profile of his face is perfect to you, round eyes, the slope of his nose, an equally boyish and nervous smile playing at his lips. you could almost cry, again; this time at the irony of how your break up was so ill-fated by time, but your reunion so auspicious.

“it was not nothing to me. it was… everything.”

now he looks over at you with curious eyes, but you just shake your head slightly. “it just meant a lot to me. that’s all.”

mark returns his gaze up front. he’s still nervous, afraid, and ever so conscious of you, but at the very least, he’s glad that he seems to have successfully communicated his care for you. in silence, you’ve spent the last three hours switching between playing sudoku on your phone and annotating a red-covered book titled all about love by bell hooks with a pink pen. 

until a few seconds ago, mark hadn’t had any insight whatsoever as to how you were feeling, whether you wanted more space to yourself, or if you wanted to just put it behind you and move on to cheerier conversations. and with bated breath has mark awaited some sort of sign that you were doing okay. now, as if given the green light, he sighs in relief and begins to speak, almost a little too eager to be able to strike conversation with you again.

“we’re almost halfway through texas now. well, the tip of it.”

the view just outside is completely flat for as far as the eye can perceive. blocked with only two colors, the vivid blue sky is completely void of any cloud, just as the dirt ground is void of any plant. seeing the landscapes change restlessly before your eyes over the past few days has felt like putting your life on double the speed, and the constant and unchanging blue and brown just outside feels like a welcome contrast. in all the flurry of this trip, you yearn for a moment to reorient yourself. and so you ask, “where are we staying tonight?”

“not sure yet, but if you want to you can look up some hotels in new mexico.”

you ponder the suggestion to yourself before suggesting an idea of your own, “how about we go camping? i saw your gear in the trunk.”

it’s gradual and awfully subtle, but you watch intently as the corners of mark’s lips upturn into a small smile. you even take note of how the sunlight from outside catches in his eyes, a small glint that gives his whole countenance a boyish radiance. he chuckles under his breath, simultaneously spotting a sign on the right side of the road. there’s almost a singing undertone in the way he says, “wanna take a break somewhere, grab some food, and plan something?”

you notice that the smile is still on his face as he sits across from you at a wendy’s in the middle of amarillo, thirty minutes later. in the same plaza there happened to be a taco bell and a denny’s, with an ihop and mcdonald’s across the street, inciting a fifteen minute heated debate as to which would make you less likely to vomit all over his car. in reality, there was no right answer. they were all wrong, but mark lee isn’t usually one to win arguments.

he has a few travel brochures splayed on top of the table, though he spends more of his attention typing into his phone and scribbling down notes on a yellow post-it. while he put himself in charge of finding a suitable camping spot somewhere in eastern new mexico, mark put you in charge of something you couldn’t mess up, and something you thought was too easy for the high paygrade of your company.

you did it begrudgingly and anyways, opening up the notes app on your phone, not all that happy to be left with the comparatively more boring job of coming up with a list of things to buy. with some on-the-go food options and a blanket on the list, you contemplated what kind of alcohol would most appropriately suit the occasion, looking up from your phone in time to catch mark as he did the same. briefly, your eyes met across the table.

he knows you both thought of the same thing. you must have. 

he’s the only one who knows he didn’t actually need to study for any of his finals that semester, with most of them being projects and the only outlier being a general education psychology course. but mark was at the library every day and night with you, knowing you were scared shitless for your first week of finals as a college student. you were in two completely different majors, with no overlapping classes or even departments, and yet he was there, quizzing you on your human anatomy or art history notes. you’d get all in your head about the answers, rethinking and doubting yourself. and then you’d look up at him, eyes meeting across the table just the same as now, and you’d say the correct answer.

and there was that one time, in the complete silence of the top floor of the main library, where mark had slipped you a post-it note, eyes attentive and lips pulled into a line as he watched you read over his penned question. and as always, you had said the correct answer. i would love to go on a date with you.

just like back then, you smile at him brightly and fondly from across the table. mark looks taken aback for a second, either reeling or pleasantly surprised by thought of the memory. he takes a bite of his burger, chews a bit, then swallows roughly. you look back down at your screen and quickly type ‘soju’ before setting your phone down, figuring something stronger than beer would be able to get more truths out of you that wouldn’t escape so easily when sober. seeing as how this trip had you revealing more than you expected, even going as far as confiding your most vulnerable self to mark, you wish he would let go of some of his own thoughts as well.

mark sets his phone down too, as you rummage through your bag to find the red box you’d taken from the car. he watches as you set it on the table and after recognizing it, quips almost incredulously, “you still wanna play? after all that?”

“well i was thinking i could use a break from answering.”

“you want me to answer?” he quirks an eyebrow up, and you pass the set of cards over to him. barely shuffling, he draws a card at random and his eyebrows move again, this time to furrow as he skims the question. mark reads aloud, “how old do you feel, emotionally?”

it’s a question that you yourself can’t answer for him, even if you wished to. there’s no way for you to tell what kind of changes had occurred between then and now, but at the very least you know that he’s years wiser than the mark that once sat across from you at the library. and that thought alone pulls at your heart incessantly.

after giving the question some thought, mark answers in all the ways you least expect him to.

“i feel like i know nothing.”

and he doesn’t bother to elaborate further.

“what?”

mark laughs a bit. it’s evident that his thought was underdeveloped, and so he develops it some more, “i feel like a newborn baby, but like… really smart.” he continues to make no sense, so you laugh at him. and then you’re both laughing. it’s sweet, really.

he had spent so long in that library with you, dutifully studying for what would be the easiest final exam of his life. mark reread his psychology notes so many times that week that they would be forever ingrained in his mind. but to you, the next thoughts he shares are completely out of the blue.

“you know like crystallized and fluid intelligence?” he pauses to laugh some more at the quizzical look you’ve thrown him. “like crystallized is like accumulated knowledge and stuff like facts, while fluid intelligence is like problem-solving and reasoning or something.”

now he really needs you to stop laughing because it’s infectious. “and what does that have to do with anything?” your laughter is especially infectious to him, because he really can’t bring himself to stop laughing despite the point he so desperately wants to make.

“just let me finish my thought, okay? and then you can laugh all you want.”

at that, you stifle your laughter by pressing your lips together, and all mark can think of is how cute you are. he pushes past that thought and does his best to sound like he’s not stupid.

“i mean like, i feel like i have a bunch of crystallized intelligence from being in the world for so long, but at the same time i have zero fluid intelligence. like i’m a newborn baby with all the knowledge in the world, and no idea what to do with it.”

and you catch on immediately, “so basically like… adulting? like facing the real world after being coddled your entire life?”

mark isn’t laughing anymore nor was anything he said that stupid, but he has this stupid dopey smile on his face. because if there’s one person that can comprehend his thoughts so completely and so easily, even as he uses the most unorthodox methods to explain them, it’s you. always you. only you.

and just like that you understood it all. the months he spent in solitude after dropping out of college weren’t spent alone, they were spent facing the real world. you had always been so bitter that he would rather endure those rough moments by himself than shoulder his worries with you, but you understand it now. and he didn’t even need to say much at all. mark had needed space to figure out himself, for himself. he needed to unlearn everything that people and society had told him about who he was, what he was good at, bad at, should or shouldn’t do, and for once, spend time to get to know himself. after all, how was he supposed to be in a relationship with you if he didn’t even have an idea of who he was?

sitting across from him now, you can see in full how mark’s grown into himself, his passions, and his work. he’s facing the world still, and will always be, but he is confident instead of prideful. he isn’t ashamed of what he doesn’t know, for he will learn in due time. he isn’t afraid of failure, because he knows he’ll only grow from it.

it’s astonishing how these past few days have brought everything into a full circle. in hindsight, the messy break up was really just what the situation called for. and this impromptu reunion turned out to be a miracle of timing, to the degree at which the both of you can’t help but think…

right person, right time.

「 DAY 03, 10:12 PM 」 —  MY DREAMS COME TRUE (WHEN I’M WITH YOU)

you found it strange, but didn’t think too much of it.

it was like there was some foggy haze over everything, like a honeyed film that made your world a little sweeter, softer, and more precious. you had spent almost a full two years juggling your classes, extracurriculars, and family and relationship issues, flitting between school and home and the hospital and then repeating it all over and over until you couldn’t even trace when you’d gone a bit insane. to you, it was something between a secret orchestration of the universe and an answered prayer to find yourself out here, surrounded by cicadas and under the scorching sun.

to him, it was everything he could have asked for, and more.

sumner lake state park had his favorite hues of greens, blues, and browns. and you were grateful, for mark frequently paused your impromptu hiking trip to shoot on his camera, leaving you moments to catch a breath and take in the views along the lakeshore.

the sun had set at half past eight. that was almost two hours ago, and two hours after the two of you had luckily scored a spot at the eastside campground. whoever made the original reservation would forever have no clue as to what they helped achieve by simply not showing up.

it was like a dream, except you were awake. it was like a movie, except you were the star. it was like a book, except it wasn’t all about love. it was all about mark lee.

he has one hand holding his mug and the other on your thigh. again, there’s the glint in his eyes, this time sourced from the small campfire he’s made. the summer night is hot enough, but mark had insisted. “for the ambiance,” he’d said, “for the memories.”

this is how the memory will go. for whenever you think back to this moment, you will always remember the glow of the fire reflected in his eyes, the buzz of cicadas, the sound of the lapping lake, and his hand on your thigh.

you take a swig of your soju, face scrunching at the initially bitter taste. setting your mug down, you lean back on the palms of your hands and look up towards the sky. it reminds you of the color pencil set you used to use as a kid, the black you’d always confuse for a dark navy and the dark navy you’d always confuse for the black. and dotted with a white color pencil were the stars, shining one by one, all too similar to the light in his eyes.

the water of the lake reminds you of him. the leaves of trees he’d dedicated countless rolls of film to reminds you of him. the singing of birds, as soft as his mindless humming, reminds you of him. the sweetness left by the soju in your mouth reminds you of him.

maybe the world felt a little lighter on your shoulders when you were with him, and everything seemed a little brighter because of his bright eyes and carefree smile. he makes you feel like you’re a kid whose imaginative color pencil drawings of her dreams spin off the paper and turn into reality. like a kid who, in her heart, only has space for hope for the future.

and you think, that must be what it means to love someone. to see everything in a different light, to see only the best of situations, of people, of the world around you. and ultimately, to love the world, everybody in it, every thing ever created, because you love him. 

and so when he draws the next card, it’s the most ridiculous question ever.

“how did you get over your first love?”

you laugh a little, then gulp down the rest of the soju in your mug. wincing at the taste, you decide that it would do no harm whatsoever to be a little more honest with mark. compared to the first day you stepped in his car, back into his life, you now have a very good idea of how mark had changed, how he knew how to handle your feelings with care this time around. it’s a newfound trust, and you plan on exercising it.

looking him straight in the eye, you cock your head a bit to the left as if considering the thing you already knew you were to say. “i don’t think i’ve ever gotten over you.”

mark has no reaction. he just stares at you for longer and longer, until you tilt your head to the other side and he seems to remember that time hasn’t stopped for him. suddenly he’s also downing the rest of his soju, throwing his head back and gulping it down thickly.

truth be told, he used to be intimidated by the honesty with which you always spoke, but he thinks he gets it now. whether it be with other people or with himself, mark feared that the truth about his feelings, his pridefulness, or the nature of his insecurities weakened him. but at the end of the day, what good has avoiding the truth done for him? it was through losing the most sincere person in his life that he realized being forthright and overcoming the fear, the uncomfortableness, and sometimes the displeasure of being honest, made him all the stronger.

and it’s with these thoughts that mark is able to muster up the courage to regain your gaze with all the softness in the world. maybe it had a little to do with the alcohol in his system, but the words seem to slip right out of him. “i don’t think i’ve ever gotten over you either.”

you hold your gaze for only a few moments longer, for shortly after processing his words you break out into a grin so wide, mark can’t help but think the alcohol’s gotten to you too. and then you’re laughing a bit — whether out of relief or bewilderment, he can’t tell — but he’s glad. mark is glad to hear your honest answer, glad to give an honest answer back. he watches as you fully recline on the air mattress in the trunk of his car, looking onwards adoringly. there’s really no way to tell if he’s feeling this giddy because he’s drunk or because for the first time, there is no need to suppress his feelings for you. mark suspects it’s both, at the same time, in full effect. 

he grabs another card, reads it for all of two seconds. mark leans over to where you’re peering up at him and, smiling fondly, he tells you to, “close your eyes for a sec.” you think of the campfire, the cicadas, and the lake, but when you recall this night in memory, this exact moment is what you remember most vividly.

it was bound to happen. you just didn’t know it’d happen like this.

the air mattress isn’t uncomfortable, per se; it’s just that it feels hot against your skin. chills run down the length of your spine, but it isn’t the doing of the wind from the half-open windows. it’s mark lee and his lips on yours. his hand comes up to your arm feverishly, barely grazing it, and more chills ripple from wherever the rings on his fingers ghost your skin. 

mark stops for a moment. takes a breath. looks back up and peers into your eyes. he kisses you again.

you don’t know what to do except kiss him back. he has both hands on you now, the one on your arm and the other one on your neck. and he keeps kissing you, lips molding to yours with slips of his tongue here and there, gentle and prodding. he’s scared. for what exactly? he doesn’t know. maybe for his life.

his life, that you seem to be holding in your hands, the same hands that are now making their way around his waist. mark can’t breathe. the skin at the back of your neck is warm and soft to the touch, but he already knew that. he’s known it for so long. everything about you is familiar to him like a well-worn book or the lines of his favorite song. the sound of your voice is so low when the briefest of groans escapes you, but to mark it’s almost predictable. this is the you that he knows, the you that he couldn’t forget, the you that he lost.

mark can’t breathe, and so he stops kissing you. he mumbles an embarrassed, “i’m sorry.” he buries his head into your shoulder. he thinks he loves you. he knows he does.

but he can’t bring himself to say it out loud.

out of fear, he can’t tell you he loves you. it’s not the same fear that held him back from sharing any vulnerable side of himself with you, but instead the fear of losing you. even as you admit your lingering feelings and kiss him back like you’d never stopped, mark is filled with the fear of how overbearing he’d be if he fully leaned into his desire for you. he can imagine himself, in this same moment but in a million different universes, and in each one he messes up.

in one, he moves too fast by saying the words but he’s got the timing all wrong, and all of a sudden his feelings are a burden to you whose own feelings lack the depth of his. in another, he never says them at all, and this night marks the last of any intimacy he’ll receive for the rest of his life. in all of these universes, he knows why he kissed you, but he doesn’t know what you meant when you kissed him back. in all these universes, he wants, more than anything, to do right by you.

“sorry for what?”

mark lifts his head up to look you in the eye, and when he still fails to say a word, you tease him a bit to lighten the suddenly dour look on his face. “for kissing me? really?”

to your delight, he chuckles at that and shakes his head lightly. 

you can tell he has a lot on his mind, but his neck and ears are flushed red and you don’t mean to use his inebriation to pry the words out of him. you pat the empty side of the bed, “lay down, we should get some sleep.”

slowly and cautiously, he moves to the spot next to you. laying down flat on his back and staring at the darkened ceiling of his car, mark wonders if this is the universe where nothing happens at all and he misses his chance completely. he sinks into this feeling and almost lets it consume him whole when he realizes he’s the only person who has the ability to change that.

the blanket the you bought earlier in the day has been discarded by your feet, the summer heat imanent even in the dead of night. you don’t know how to process what just happened, and you don’t get a chance to. a warmth is felt along your side before you realize mark’s arms have found their way around your waist, bringing you closer to him. he nuzzles his face into the sleeve of your shirt, eyes closed and humming in satisfaction.

his voice is barely discernible when he mumbles, “i’m sorry if that caught you by surprise.”

the sound of cicadas chirping just outside fills the space between his apology and your forgiveness. “it’s okay. i didn’t mind it.”

mark shifts his position a little. he places a small kiss at the base of your neck. “do you mind this, then?”

though his eyelids remain heavy and all his words are slurred together, he’s more alert than he has been all day. he doesn’t hear your small laugh so much as he feels it pulse against him, and it fills him with much joy. perhaps this has been his superpower all along, changing his universe in small and big ways, however he desires. perhaps, as long as he is true to himself and honest with his feelings, he will always find a way to have you close by his side, feeling every rise and fall of your breath. 

that night, in the brief moments before sleep overcomes him mark decides that he will create a universe where you are his, happily, rightfully, and fatefully.

「 DAY 05, 1:44 AM 」 — JUST TELL ME YOU LOVE ME

number three on mark’s bucket list — the one he made in his sophomore year of college — is to one day visit the svalbard islands. located in the arctic circle, the northernmost town in the world, called longyearbyen, goes about half a year without sunlight during its dark season. it is there that mark wishes to undergo the challenge of photographing in almost complete darkness, something he’s never quite been able to catch the hang of.

number four on his bucket list is to start a company that produces camera gear for his own needs, and for the needs of the many people he’s inspired with his work. number five on his bucket list is to buy an old ass subaru manual transmission wrx and fix it up until it’s perfectly to his liking.

out of all these ambitions listed on his bucket list that mark had told you about way back then – the previously mentioned visiting of all the national parks and forests, shooting in svalbard, starting a camera gear company, and owning a wrx — he’d neglected to tell you what tops his list at number one.

after two years, his bucket list remains unchanged, even the mystery number one: to complete everything on his list with you.

when you had asked a few days prior why mark hadn’t bothered moving out of nyc as it no longer served his needs, he had said you were the one reason he couldn’t part with the city. it had made you frustrated as to why he kept you in the equation even after your relationship came to a close, but more so confused as to why he still held you to such importance. 

you had spent the many months after the break up working hard at keeping your life together, removing all emotions, situations, and people that stood in the way of your priorities at the time, which were school and family. while that still holds true for you, mark’s priorities hadn’t changed either; you have continued to be a priority of his to this very day. and only now, when he’s right in front of you, do you realize this.

maybe it had been your insistence on moving on from him that you believed all his actions were nothing more than displays of his latent guilt. he’d send boxes of protein drinks to your front door, salves and balms for cracked skin, and woven hats for your mom who was undergoing chemotherapy at the time. and for you, there’d be the occasional uber eats ramen or chicken noodle soup that would arrive at your doorfront unprompted, and especially right at the times when you were up studying all night.

under suspicion, you had stopped complaining to haechan whenever you were feeling particularly tired or hungry, and the late night meals that were sent to your house lowered in frequency, and weren’t as punctual to your needs. mark wasn’t outright with anything, never showed up himself, or contacted you personally, but he wasn’t exactly discreet either.

only you, haechan, and mark knew your door code, for you hadn’t bothered to changed it after he moved out as there was no apparent need to. after the lightbulb in your kitchen went out and you had asked haechan a favor to buy you one at the nearest hardware store, you came home later that day to find it already fixed. knowing haechan was also busy with school and wouldn’t go to such lengths without further bribing, you had surmised it was mark and decided to put it to the test. the next time when your shower faucet started leaking, you mentioned it in passing to haechan and before the end of the week, it was good as new.

could it have counted as breaking and entering? that’s debateable. but you were aware of it and yet did nothing about it, rendering it legal at the very least. back then, you had given the vitamin supplements he had sent to your house to your mom, eaten every meal he bought you, and accepted all his covert services without a second thought, because you were firm in your belief that any form apology sent your way was useless in repairing the relationship you had put to a stop. you might as well accept it, move on, and wait until the day mark was no longer ridden with guilt, and no longer felt the need to perform such acts out as a result. 

that day never came, and it’s evident to you in retrospect that he did nothing out of guilt, but everything out of care, for your health, your well-being, and safety. his care, simply, for you.

it’s evident to you in the way mark exceled in his role as the passenger princess the entire day. after he lost another argument to you, you finally found yourself behind the wheel which, somehow, felt like the safest seat in his car. he fed you snacks, kept you entertained, put on all your favorite songs, and navigated the both of you safely to the white sands national park in new mexico.

mark kept an extra pair of sunglasses in the central console of his car. mark also had facial oil blotting papers in the glove box. in the trunk, there was an extra pair of sandals in your size, and a set of two fold-out camping chairs. the way he never stopped caring, it was as if you never broke up with him.

there is no city in the world that mark would rather live in, if you are not there. there is no national park he would ever visit, if you are not with him. he would freeze to death in the northernmost city in the world, without your warmth beside him. he would run his company to the ground without your input, and his favorite wrx becomes just another car without you in the passenger seat. all his life goals lose their meaning in your absence. this is how it’s always been for mark. this is why you are a priority to him.

even with his sunglasses on, the white sands were exceptionally bright. for the duration of 45 minutes, mark had guided you along the dunes drive, a scenic eight mile drive through the famed gypsum dunefield. the road conditions were harsher the farther you went along, and so he instructed you into the nearest parking lot, and swapped seats with you before going on. mark held your hand while driving, and he also squeezed it whenever he inevitably hit a bump here and there, as if in apology, as if it was his fault.

mark had kissed you again, with nothing but the white sands and blue skies in the backdrop. he’d taken pictures of you, using up his most expensive film stock on your priceless smile. he’d paid for the motel too, knowing you hadn’t initially wished for the trip to be more than three days, but wanting you to stay for yet another.

all of this has you wondering if you have it in you to care for him the way he cares for you.

you wonder how much importance he holds to you, how much of your heart you’d be willing to give to him, where your love for him would take you if you set it free.

as it turns out, your unanswered questions would be answered in the wee hours of the following morning. this is after mark had driven another six hours to ensure you would be able to make it to los angeles by the day after that to help with last minute preparations for your sister’s wedding.

you are in miami, a city in which — up until the last hour of your life — you had no idea existed outside of florida. you are in arizona, a state in which you would never have had a reason for visiting, if not for mark lee.

you are in a room, at the two-star rated el rey motel. and now you are in the bathroom, dimly lit by the dispersed light of a plastic water bottle placed atop your phone flashlight. you are in the bathtub, and though the water’s no longer hot, the temperature maintains its warmth from the heat emanating off your body. alongside mark lee’s.

it’s a forced darkness; the single lightbulb was out, and the early hour meant the motel staff had already retired for the night. with only one weak light source, the darkness of the room sets a tension so high that both of you are afraid to speak, much less move. but you put it upon yourself to break the tension, as it was your idea in the first place. bathing together.

the silence and the darkness combined makes it so every movement and every breath is unmistakeable and pronounced. the same applies to the sound of your voice when you start to speak, “thank you.”

all of a sudden, mark repositions himself. you can barely see it, but you hear the water sloshing and you feel it move about you. he’s sat across the tub, and you find it fascinating that even without light, his eyes still manage to shine. looking into them, you resume, “thank for everything you did, after we broke up.”

you can hear him swallow. the more you talk, the more you feel the tears pricking at your eyes, your emotions rising as you continue to speak, “and thank you driving me across the country, and for always being considerate, and for apologizing, and for…” your voice lowers to a bare whisper, “...everything. for everything you have ever done for me.”

“you don’t… you don’t have to thank me for anything.”

whereas your tears are at the precipice of falling, you notice that mark has begun crying. they’re silent, the way his tears roll down his left cheek. the water around you shifts, ebbs and flows, as you move closer to him and reach a useless wet hand to wipe his tears. you keep your hand on his cheek. and again, mark finds that he can hardly breathe, “i did it all… i did all of it, because i…”

mark breathes a sharp inhale, the air struggling to squeeze past the three words that remain lodged in his throat. he’s twenty-four now, and he’s still scared of the dark. but by no means is he scared of the monsters under his bed. without light, a camera has to resort to longer exposure times to piece together a full picture. without light, the human eye has to dilate to capture more of what is right in front of it. if his exposure is set too low and if his eyes fail to dilate, all that will remain will be a blurry image, uncertainty as to what was, nothing when there was actually everything. 

here in this bathroom, where there is nothing but you and him and a million unsaid truths, mark finds that he is terrified of losing what’s right in front of him to the darkness. again, he is most fearful of losing you.

both of your hands now cup his cheeks, bringing his face in line with your own. he has his arms around you, and you can feel his fingers pruning on the skin of your waist. you think you have an idea of what he’s about to say, was about to say, but you’re scared he won’t say it. with nothing but a thin veil of air between your noses, you decided to help him overcome his fears.

“i think we feel the same way about each other.” please say it to me.

mark blinks, breaks the stare, looks away, upwards, to the side, “we can’t possibly feel the same…”

he sounds almost exasperated, in the most diminished sense, but you push again, “even then, i don’t mind,” just tell me you love me.

“we can’t possibly feel the same…” mark returns your gaze again, and you watch as his pupils dilate, “because there’s no way you love me as much as i love you.”

the veil of air between your two noses lifts as you lean in for a kiss. a small one. one that says, i will always love you.

of all the things water could symbolize, the water in this bathtub surrounding the two of you represents life, the life that was breathed back into your relationship. this is owed to truth, which is a funny thing for it often hides in plain sight. a year ago at the lake, where the sun had touched every surface on the face of the earth, it had not bothered to dig deeper than that. it is only in the darkness that the truth has nowhere to hide. and if mark had been fearful of the dark moments ago, it is for this reason that he isn’t anymore.

「 DAY 06, 1:18 PM 」 —  LIKE WE JUST MET

the trunk of his beloved subaru crosstrek slams shut from behind. mark winces. the car door of the passenger seat slams shut shortly after. mark winces once again, and complains rather brashly, “can you not do that every time you get in my car?”

“you’re late. we’re late. can we just get going already?”

mark huffs, turning his attention to the front because the both of you are at fault. you, for not treating his baby with love and care. and him, for picking you up almost twenty minutes after he was supposed to. the wedding venue was an hour away including traffic, and now mark had only forty minutes to not jeopardize the state of his new old relationship.

he’s all but broken your neck by the time you arrive — only five minutes late — after accelerating and braking as aggressively as was necessary to get you to your destination.

while you collect your belongings, mark exits the car, straightens out his tux, and makes his way over to your side of the car, pulling the door open for you. you meet him with a glare while clambering out the car, “you’re lucky nothing’s started yet.”

with you as the maid of honor and with him as just your plus one, he spends most of the time idling around and mingling with acquaintances he hasn’t seen in ages, whilst you headed to the suites of the beachside resort to help your sister get ready. mark is shocked, more than he has been in the past week, to find out that you hadn’t told a single relative that you’d broken up with him in the first place. still, he plays his role as “boyfriend for almost three years” quite well.

throughout the rest of the day, mark notices a few things. 

1) you like the venue, a lot. a summer wedding on the beach, with pastels and flowers and the wind in everyone’s hair. and since you’d commented on these things more than once, mark made sure to commit it to memory for future reference.

2) your sister made a face at you before turning around and throwing the bouquet, which you caught. did everyone think he was supposed to propose right then and there? he doesn’t know, but something about the way your sister had regarded him the whole night makes him nervous. as in the “meeting the in-laws” kind of nervous.

3) lastly, you were more beautiful that you were yesterday. but also, yesterday you were more beautiful than you were the day before. mark had recognized this ongoing phenomena ever since you’d stepped in his car, and it doesn’t seem like there’s a cap to his admiration for you. at this point, it’s like he’s just waiting for any day now where it gets out of hand and he does propose.

it’s on the dance floor where this last point becomes very apparent to him. you’re laughing at everything he’s saying, eyes beaming up at him as he sways you this way and that. when he leans down to plant a kiss to your forehead, mark swears the smile you give in return could save lives with just how radiant it is. he feels a bit silly, like he’s gone a little crazy, but mark knows that the next wedding he’s going to will be his.

and it’s as if your minds communicated on a frequency that only the other could hear, as just the next moment you whisper in his ear.

“us next?”

✧ [ FIN. ]  copyright © 2023 rouiyan all rights reserved.  

✧ author's life update — honestly who knew i would get back into writing ff... basically i graduated from high school, got into a few t20 colleges, lost a parent to cancer, gained a parent, lost two best friends, broke up with my long term boyfriend, got my license, turned legal, AND saw the dreamies in concert. so if anyone's wondering why i left.... i'm just glad to say i'm so bored that i'm back. and yes this fic is mostly a self-indulgent account of what i wish my relationship and family life turned out to be but the moral of this story really is: if you're emotionally unstable, seek professional help before relying too much on your s/o. unless they are, of course, mark lee.

sources wnrs card game wnrs free deck (shhh) upmc pinnacle colon and rectal surgery center brockhampton saturation ii track 16 one star relax inn review little crazy love song alley spring mill the flea holiday inn at ok my fav tea that got me thru this wendy’s in amarillo sumner lake state park svalbard wikipedia things to do at white sands national park new mexico el rey motel

[lincolndjarin]

Oh Honey. ✩ Chapter 2

chapter two : beware the jabberwock

series masterlist ao3 kofi main masterlist

a/n : took a while to get out but here is chapter two !!! i have a lot of fun writing this fic bc the pacing is so much different than bks but i'm excited to get this chapter out bc i loved writing it so much and i'm so happy that people enjoy this fic so far !!

pairing : monster!joel miller x mortician!reader

rating : 18+ mdni - explicit content, read all warnings

word count : 15.1k (i'm so sorry idk what happened)

summary : new relationships are tricky, especially when your boyfriend likes to disappear for several days with no explanation.

warnings, etc. : dub con?? i'm gonna tag this with that because the sex is like weird in this?? a lot of it is angry or reluctant from one participant at times so i'm gonna tag it just in case, soulmates au, no outbreak au, language, graphic descriptions of violence, gore, fear, feeling of being stalked, feeling of being watched, me making up things regarding the embalming process, animal death, graphic description of the mortuary process, menstruation, derealization (sort of), smut, oral f!recieving, p in v, biting, just like a lot of mouth stuff lmao, cum eating, rough sex, degradation, sort of dumbification, joel is a bit beastly, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, praise, use of the pet name bunny, nightmares, periods, menstruation, joel is a terrible boyfriend, angry sex, injury, blood, blood drinking, manipulation, not a/b/o but something i made up that is sort of along those lines??, body horror, monsters, predator & prey dynamic, a lot of stuff happens this chap so i might have missed some sorry!!, no physical description of reader but joel is described as being abnormally strong and does pick reader up, there is no actual fucking of a monster yet we can't just do that right out the gate it's a thriller it destroys the thrill if they fuck immediately, that being said; this is a monster fucker fic - proceed accordingly

comments and reblogs are appreciated!

You don’t sleep well after your dream.

Just staring up at the ceiling until the sun is starting to shine through the windows. 

Not that you’ve been sleeping well recently to begin with. And Joel suddenly feels less safe, the grip of his arms around you feels more like it’s trapping you rather than protecting you.

It’s Joel. 

Just take a deep breath. 

It’s Joel. Joel Miller. Sweet, handsome, kind, Joel Miller. Joel who came back, even though you assumed you’d never hear from him again. 

It was nothing more than a dream. 

Stop making up monsters. 

You slip out of his arms, quietly making your way over to the fridge to try and find something to make for breakfast. You haven’t gone shopping in a while, all you’ve got is half a loaf of bread and a few eggs. Good enough. Clicking the stove on you set a pan down, cracking the eggs with a small sizzle as they hit the metal. 

“Up already?” You didn’t hear him wake but when you turn he’s propped up on an elbow watching you. 

“Couldn’t sleep.” Not technically a lie. 

“Are you okay?” He sits up a bit and you can feel him sizing you up. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” 

You aren’t really. 

But you can’t really tell him why, so why bother. 

He stretches his arms above his head as he gets up, making his way over to you, wrapping his arms around your waist, and resting his head on your shoulder as you flip the eggs. 

“Hungry?” You’re desperate to think about anything but your dreams, as you speak his grip around your waist tightens. 

“I could eat.” You shudder for several reasons as his teeth graze your neck before nipping at you. 

“These should be done in a few minutes, I just gotta make the toast.” You laugh softly as the scruff of his beard brushes against you. 

He makes it too easy to forget your fears. 

“Mhmm.” The vibrations from his humming make you gasp, nearly dropping the spatula in your hand as he squeezes you for a moment. You work around his advances, putting the bread in the toaster as one of his hands slips under your shirt. 

“How many do you want?” You hold up the bread in front of him, trying to get him to pay attention but it’s getting difficult to stay focused on your task when something is currently pressing against your ass. 

“I think I’m fine with just this.” He squeezes the bare flesh of your torso making you yelp a bit as his hand drifts further up. 

“What happened to your third date rule?” He groans as you reach over to the stove, turning the burner off to keep the eggs from burning before turning around in his arms, your back pressed against the counter. 

“We should go to dinner tonight.” He smiles before leaning forward to kiss you but you put a hand between his mouth and yours. 

“What makes you think I’ve forgiven you enough to warrant another date?”

He pouts. His bottom lip sticking out a bit as he frowns. 

“Wouldn’t matter if I did anyway, it would only be the second date.” You shrug. 

“Last night was the second date.” He says rather matter of factly. 

“That didn’t count.” You can’t help the smile that threatens to form on your as his frown deepens. 

“So you wanna wait for two more dates.” 

Definitely not.

“Tonight?” For a brief moment you try and think of anything else you might be doing but you don’t exactly have a social life here in Honey. 

“S’gotta be, I’m spending tomorrow with Ellie and then I’ll be busy with work, gotta catch up on some things.”

Why would he need to catch up if he’s been busy all week?

“Tonight works.” Even after what he put you through you still feel the strangest pull towards him, dragging him to the table with you as you set down a couple plates. 

“I’ll be here at eight?” He sits, an accomplished look on his face. 

“Works for me.”

You have an uneventful breakfast. 

Neither one of you talks about his disappearing act. And eventually he has to leave for work and so do you, so he gets his things together once you eat.

“Get dressed, I’ll drive you to Maria’s, I gotta pick up Tommy anyway.” He takes a sip of whatever juice you had left over in the fridge as you nod, finding something clean to wear before following him out to the truck. 

He makes it too easy.

He smiles like everything is fine and he holds your hand as he drives.

“Have a good day at work.” You return his smile and he leans across the truck cab to kiss your forehead.

“You too, I’ll see you tonight.”

“See you tonight.” You wave at him as you walk up to the house, Tommy’s just leaving, giving you a pat on the back as he passes you before jumping in the truck with his brother. With a weak smile you watch them go. 

There are no bodies today.

It’s a paperwork day for both of you. You know Maria’s dying to ask about what happened but she never does, just staring up at you every once in a while, always looking like she’s about to say something before choosing not to. 

You decide to throw her a bone. 

“I’m having dinner with Joel tonight.” You can’t ignore the surprised smile on her face. 

“I’m glad you two seem to be getting along.”

“Yeah, apparently he got caught up in his work for a few days.” You try and get a reaction out of her but she goes emotionless, giving you only a hum in response. 

You don’t try to start another conversation after that until you say good night at the end of your shift. Giving her a small wave before stepping into the misty evening air. 

You keep your eyes on the trees the entire walk home but nothing seems out of sorts and before you know it you’re safe in the camper.

You’re dressed and ready to go when the truck pulls up. You aren’t sure where exactly you’re supposed to be going but you’re ready nonetheless, deciding on just jeans and a plain tshirt. What you aren’t expecting is when Joel steps out of the truck with grocery bags and a grin plastered on his face.

“I thought we could cook together.” He says as he makes his way up the steps inside. 

“You know how to cook?” You try not to sound as surprised as you are but he just laughs. 

“I have two kids. I know how to cook.” He sets the bag on the counter and you open it, he’s brought bread, cheese, and cans of tomato soup. 

“What exactly do you plan on cooking?”

“Grilled cheese.” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world and any worries you had about tonight go out the window. 

“You really went all out for tonight.” You raise your eyebrows at him.

He nods, searching through the cabinets for a pan and a pot. 

“When you said cook together you meant you cook and I watch, right?” You lift yourself up onto the counter as he lights the stove. 

“Obviously.” He sets everything down and you watch him fish around the top of the fridge for a few seconds before pulling down a rather dusty old radio. “I knew she had one somewhere.” He grins as he sets it down beside you, plugging it in and fidgeting with the knobs until the static turns into music. 

You don’t recognize the song that plays but he does, as he hums along, opening the two cans, emptying them into the pot. 

You had been so nervous about tonight, nightmares aside, you had expected a totally different Joel, the kind of person who ignores you for a week and expects immediate forgiveness. But instead he continues to be just Joel. Joel, who’s very presence lulls you into an overpowering sense of comfort. The moment he stepped inside the camper the entire space became heavy with his cologne, everything smells like the forest, as if you’re surrounded by pine trees and not the four walls around you. 

“We should do something this week.” He turns to you as he butters the bread, setting it in the pan with a quiet sizzle. 

“Don’t you have work, and Ellie?” You tear open the plastic wrapper on the cheese, handing him a few slices. 

“I do, but I can get Tommy to watch her for a night.” He tosses them down onto the bread before opening a drawer, riffling around until he finds a spatula. 

You hum along to the music with him when the song changes to something familiar, watching him cook. 

He looks at home with you, like he belongs right here. 

You both laugh your way through dinner, it’s outrageous how charming he can be, he tells you about the house he’s building, and how his brother ordered the wrong kind of cement. (You didn’t know there was a wrong kind.) And he tells you about how Ellie’s picked up some curse words, apparently there’s quite an argument happening between the Millers regarding who she learned them from. 

You’ve always been hesitant to talk about work, especially on dates because you never know how people are going to react. Not everyone has the same relationship with death that you have. So when he says, how has working for Maria been? You aren’t exactly sure what to say. 

“It’s good.” 

“That’s it? It’s good?” He looks up at you, giving you that lopsided fucking smirk and you can’t help but just melt at the sight of it. 

“We’ve been… busy, lots of work the last few days, now we’re just funeral planning, this week we’ve got a funeral pretty much everyday, Maria’s swamped.” 

“What made you choose this line of work?”

You never really know how to answer that question. 

“Because I like to play with dead things.” Never gets the laugh you hope for, and the real answer just makes you sad.  

“I like to fix things.” You instinctively break eye contact, staring down at an uneven floor board you’d never noticed before under the table. “I like knowing that I can help people in that way, to fix them one last time.” 

For a moment he doesn’t speak, when you look back up at him he simply looks at you with something that resembles yearning. 

“That’s nice.” 

You’re glad he thinks so. 

He takes the dishes, rinsing them in the sink despite your protests. 

Your palms are getting clammy. 

This is, by his count, your third date. 

Is it weird that this feels scheduled? It was different when you’d brought him home after your first date, that felt natural, your body innately wanted to be with him. How do you even start this kind of thing when it feels so planned? You both know what you want but it feels strange to just outright say, so is this the part where we have sex? 

He dries his hands on his jeans and clears his throat as he turns back to you, holding his hand out, you aren’t really sure what he’s doing until he pulls you up from your seat, wrapping his other arm around your waist.

It isn’t the kind of song you can slow dance to, it’s fast and upbeat.

But as far as you can tell, Joel isn’t the kind of guy who dances in the first place, so you bring your free hand up to his shoulder and join him in his attempts to dance. 

I heat up, I can't cool down

You got me spinning

There isn’t a lot of floor space in the camper but he makes it work by holding you close and mostly just spinning you as he nods along to the music.

'Round and 'round

'Round and 'round and 'round it goes

If his goal was to put you at ease then it’s working, any remaining nerves you have fizzled out completely. You laugh in earnest, not out of fear, as he bumps his nose against yours. 

Where it stops nobody knows

Every time you call my name

I heat up like a burning flame

Burning flame full of desire

Kiss me baby, let the fire get higher

He keeps his forehead flush with yours as you continue to sway your hips back and forth to the beat, the both of you laughing and spinning, you watch curiously as he closes his eyes, inhaling deeply. 

Abra abracadabra

I wanna reach out and grab ya

Abra abracadabra

Abracadabra

With a satisfied sigh he opens his eyes, his gaze going from simple infatuation to something darker. When the song ends he pulls you close, so you’re chest to chest and reaches over, turning down the radio. 

“So…” You can’t stop smiling as you stare at him through your lashes. 

“So.” He gently guides you, his hands on your hips as he walks you backwards until the backs of your knees hit the bed. 

“I’ve got a long day tomorrow, I should probably get some sleep.” You give him an exaggerated yawn and point at the bed, plastering a mock apologetic look on your face. 

“You’re really funny.” He leans down to give you a chaste kiss before picking you up. His strength is still a wonder to you. 

The way he throws you down onto your bed makes you erupt into a fit of giggles but he certainly isn’t laughing anymore as he drags you by your ankles to the edge of the mattress, a look of concentration on his face now. 

“Joel!” You shriek as you hear the tearing of the zipper on your jeans. 

“M’sorry.” He grumbles, making no effort to slow down as he tugs them down. 

He doesn’t sound sorry.

“It’s a zipper, just unzip it for Christ's sake.” His sudden change in demeanor leaves you a little breathless, in the blink of an eye he’s gone from remarkably gentle to practically unhinged.

“S’too late for that.” He groans softly as he kneels on the camper floor, throwing your legs over his shoulders. 

“You owe me a new pair-” Your voice trails off into a stuttered moan as his mouth latches onto the front of your panties, dragging his tongue over the wet spot that’s been forming all night. 

“We can go to the mall sometime this week.” He mumbles against your cunt before you feel his teeth grazing the fabric before tearing it apart completely. 

“Jesus, Joel!” Instinctively your hands grip his hair as he buries his face between your legs. 

How sharp are his teeth? 

He’s all consuming. Like he’s trying to lay claim to every single part of you. And he’s loud, it’s a good thing you don’t have neighbors. Lewd slurping noises as he laps at your dripping hole like it’s his fucking job. 

He flattens his tongue, dragging it through your folds, for a moment you aren’t sure what he’s doing, but it feels fucking amazing. The way his tongue moves in and out of you, occasionally drawing a lazy circle around your clit, it isn’t like anything anyones ever done before. It takes you a moment to realize that he isn’t necessarily trying to make you feel good (despite the effect it may be having on you,) you’re pretty sure he’s tasting you. 

Drinking you in. If he’s trying to get you off it’s only because he wants more. 

“S’ so sweet.” He mumbles against your thigh, biting the meat there making you cry out a bit before he returns to his work between your legs. 

“Joel- fuck, Joel please.” You manage to stutter out between gasps, when did he become so gruff? You never could have predicted that he would be like this in bed, his grip on you is certain to leave bruises and you can barely think straight after just a few minutes with his head between your thighs. The noises he makes as his lips wrap around your clit are down right pornagraphic. Your vision is starting to go white around the edges as he does the first gentle thing since he started, sucking that bundle of nerves almost lazily. Through shuttered breaths you manage to mumble out his name a few more times your vision whites out completely. 

You’re a little surprised at how quickly he manages to pull an orgasm from you, your skin coated in a thin sheen of sweat as you sit up, pulling him up by his hair as you crash your lips against his, tasting your own slick on his tongue. He moves so feverishly as you feel his hands spreading you again, teasing your entrance with two fingers before slowly pushing them in. 

“Joel- oh my god-” He silences your rambling with his mouth again, swallowing your groan once he’s knuckle deep inside you. His brows furrow in concentration as he starts to pump them in and out of you. “P-please.” You stammer out. 

It’s such a sharp contrast to the Joel you’re used to, he’s so… unruly. 

“So fucking tight.” He mutters before grinding his palm against your clit, pulling another series of gasps from your throat. “Such a pretty, tight, wet cunt.” He whispers against your jaw and you feel a third finger pushing into you. 

You hadn’t expected him to be so vulgar, turns out he’s only all southern manners outside of the bedroom. You’re starting to see stars all over again as you feel the stretch of his thick fingers, he nips at your jaw before pressing them in deep, focusing on grinding the heel of his palm into your clit until you’re soaking his hand, hands tugging at his hair as a second orgasm is ripped out of you with a shudder. Your head falls back with a noisy whine, you can’t decide if you want more or less, his touch burns your skin but you feel so cold without it.  

“Please, please Joel.” You exhale the words, scratching lightly at his shoulders with a whine. 

“Tell me what you want.” His voice is lower than ever and you watch as he unzips his jeans, shoving them off and taking his cock in between his fingers, still slick with your release. Your eyes go wide as he strokes himself a few times, he’s thick, hefty, you’re trying not to stare slack-jawed at the way he fills his own hand.  You grab the bottom of his shirt, pulling it off in an attempt to feel more of his skin against you.

“Fuck me… please.” You tack on the please at the end hoping he doesn’t make you wait much longer as you gawk at his pretty tan skin. You don’t even know where to look, you run your fingers through the coarse sprinkle of black and gray hair on his chest as he crawls further up the bed to hover above you.

He takes your thighs, pushing them up against your stomach, his eyes dark with something reminiscent of hunger. You hook your own arms around your knees to keep yourself in that position as he takes hold of his cock once more, guiding himself into you with a strangled groan.

“Christ…” He mumbles under his breath as he slides just the tip of himself in, your own breath hitching at the size of him. He tilts head town, pressing a soft kiss to your chin. 

He splays his palms out on your thighs, leveraging himself as he carefully rocks his hips back and forth, slowly working himself into you. The camper fills with the sounds of your collective noises. Joel is loud. Grunting and growling as he fully buries himself in your heat. 

He scans your face for signs of distress, tears pricking the corners of your eyes, the tiniest sting from the stretch pulls a whine out of you but you only nod as he stares into your eyes. 

“More, Joel.”

Once he has your approval he starts moving, setting a pace that for a few thrusts is slow before picking up. Quickly becoming downright brutal, every slam of his pelvis against yours drives his cock deeper into you. He feels as if he was made for this, he’s just big enough that it doesn’t hurt, simply an overwhelming feeling of fullness. 

Your body begins to tense up all over again, you wrap your arms around his torso as much as you can in this position, scratching at his back. He leans forward, going in for a kiss before moving around your face, kissing your jaw, forehead, nose, and temples. When he kisses the apples of your cheeks you feel his tongue darting out. 

Did he just lick up a tear? 

He snaps his hips forward, disrupting your train of thought, his teeth barred as he does so, eyes fixed on every one of your reactions. He’s practically snarling as you let your head fall back against the mattress, the head of his cock driving into your g-spot.

“Wanna come again already, bunny?” You make a real spectacle of yourself, hooking your legs around his waist, trying to pull him in deeper. “Greedy little thing…”

“Joel please-”

“Joel please.” He mocks. “Is that all you can say now?” You keen softly but he only grins as you tighten around him. 

“P-please…” You squeak out as he snaps hips forward once more. 

“Come again, I wanna feel this pretty cunt come.” He snarls against your neck, leaving a trail of bites until he reaches your shoulder, a particularly harsh bite has you crying out.

“Joel!” You grit your teeth, a wave of heat washes over you as you come one last time, you feel his tongue dragging across the bite mark. 

It’s all so close to being painful.

Your stomach aches from the overstimulation, and you register a faint stinging feeling when he laps at the bite. Your walls clench around him, strangling his cock, and his hands instantly leave your legs, gripping the sheets instead.  

“Fuck, fuck.” He barely pulls out in time, coming on your stomach. You reach down in your haze, scooping some of his load onto your finger before sliding them between your lips. 

Fucking salted caramel. 

Sweet and sticky on your tongue. 

He pants above you, watching with an intoxicated look as you dip your fingers into his cum over and over again until your stomach is bare.

He nudges his nose against yours, rubbing every part of his face against you for a few minutes. It’s wildly intimate and you're once again a little taken aback by his sudden tone shift. 

“Was that okay?” He drawls, once again searching your face for any indication that you might not be. 

You nod, beaming up at him and letting him rest the bridge of his nose on yours for a few moments more before you slip out of his arms, stepping into the bathroom. You relieve yourself before going to sort yourself out in the mirror. 

You’re bleeding. 

Where he bit you, two mirroring crescents, red and angry on your shoulder, leaking blood. 

“Shit.” You grab a handful of toilet paper, wiping it clean before rinsing it in the sink and returning to him.  

“Everything okay?” He’s pulled his boxers on, tossing you his shirt which you’re eager to put on. You don’t want him to see the bite. 

“Everything’s fine.” You crawl back up into the bed beside him. 

He stays the night, pulling you to his chest and caging you in with his arms. 

And you aren’t haunted by dreams. 

In the morning a part of you worries he’ll disappear all over again, you’re a little surprised when he texts you just a few minutes after he drives off.  [ can’t wait to see you again soon bunny ]

Joel follows through on his promise. 

A few days later he picks you up from work and drives you to the outlet mall about an hour away, saying he needs to get some stuff for Ellie as well. Apparently she likes to throw plates so he wants to find the kind that suction onto the table. As he drives the radio plays a country song you don’t recognize which he hums along to as you watch the trees outside the window. 

“You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you about my aunt.” He turns the music down once you start speaking. 

“Darlene? You probably know her better than I do.” He doesn’t seem very eager to talk about her but it only makes you want to know more. 

“Doubt it. All I know about her is that she wasn’t close with anyone in my family.”

“You weren’t close? But she left you her camper.”

“That’s why I need to know anything you might know about her, I know nothing.” He seems hesitant and you’re worried if you keep pushing it he won’t tell you anything at all. 

“She was a lonely old woman, had me fix things for her often, I honestly think she just wanted company.” His voice softens a bit as he says it. 

“She didn’t have friends here in Honey?” 

“Not that I know of, she was a bit of a shut in, sweetest woman I’ve ever met, just a bit… skittish. She worked from home and I’m pretty sure someone delivered her groceries. The only time I ever saw her outside was when I was fixing her roof and she sat in a lawn chair to talk to me while I did.” 

“She worked from home?” 

“Yeah, something on her laptop, I’m not entirely sure.” You’ve never seen a laptop. 

You’ve been living in the camper for nearly six months and you’ve never seen a laptop. 

But that’s not what interests you the most right now. 

“What do you mean by skittish?” You’re trying to gauge his reaction but he doesn’t seem to have one. 

“Maybe skittish isn’t the right word. Eccentric? Some of the kids in town called her ditzy Darlene.” His expression sours as he says it. 

“That’s horrible.”

“It was.”

“Why?” He seems more reluctant than ever but now you’re just upset on behalf of the woman who left you everything.

“She fed into a lot of the legends around town, and didn't seem to have any hobbies outside of monster hunting.”

“Monster hunting?”

“She was the only local who went to the gift shops, searching for a monster she swears she saw.”

Sounds familiar.

“Did she ever find any?” 

“Monsters?” He laughs. “Not that I know of.”

“Did you think she was crazy?”

“I think she was lonely, and I think when you spend that much time alone your mind can wander.”

“But did you think she was crazy?” 

“No.” He puts an end to the conversation by putting the truck in park. You hadn’t even realized you were there, the outlet mall is so small. His southern manners remain persistent as he jogs around the truck to open your door for you, holding onto you to provide balance as you hop out.

You aren’t sure where anything is so you just follow him, taking his hand in yours as you walk. He takes you into a clothing store you don’t recognize the name of and waits patiently as you try on a few different pairs of jeans. It’s been quite some time since you’ve bought new clothes so you get a few pairs, you’re worried it’s boring for him to just wait outside the changing room but when you walk out with three pairs slung over your arm he still looks happy as can be. When you go to pay he opens his wallet, silencing your protests with a reminder that it’s his fault you needed new jeans in the first place. 

After that he takes his time, the two of you walk hand in hand through each store, he doesn’t even look around most of them, seemingly content with just spending time with you. 

He manages to find a few rubber bowls with suction cup bottoms for Ellie as well as some spanish flashcards and you decide to get a pair of blue hiking boots, if you’re gonna be walking everywhere you might as well be comfortable. 

At the last store you stop at you find a nice perfume, spraying a bit into the air and inhaling. It reminds you of springtime, it’s light, floral, but when Joel catches a whiff of it he scrunches his nose up. 

“You don’t like it?” You set the bottle back down. 

“I like the way you smell now.” You frown, trying to remember what shampoo and body wash you’ve been using. If you recall correctly it’s just some generic brand you’d bought ages ago. 

“I didn’t know you spoke spanish?” You remark, pointing at the bag containing the cards, opting to just change the subject rather than give yourself a headache trying to remember. 

“I don’t, but Sarah does and she’s been insisting I teach Ellie while she’s gone, something about it being better if she’s bilingual.”

“I think that’s sweet.” You swing your arms a bit, keeping his hand in yours as he walks you out of the store and in the direction of the truck. 

“Of course you think it’s sweet, you're not the one with two daughters who will be using their secret language against you.” He takes his keys from his pocket, clicking the unlock button. 

“It’s not a secret language, if your baby can learn it then I’m sure you can.” He helps you up into the truck once more, shutting the door behind you.

It’s almost comically difficult to keep your hands off him when you’re alone, especially now that you have a taste for him. Even just being in the truck with the windows up is suffocating, the smell of his aftershave or his laundry detergent drives you mad the moment you’re stuck in an enclosed space with him. 

You slide across the truck so you’re in the middle seat as he pulls out of the parking lot. It’s like you feel sick when you aren’t touching him, like you’re suffering from this barely noticeable nausea and you don’t realize you were even dealing with it until it’s gone. 

You watch curiously as he keeps one hand on the wheel and brings the other to rest on your thigh. His shoulders relax the moment he does, his frown lines smooth themselves out a bit. 

He’s just so warm, and he’s so nice to be near. Today he smells like a candle you used to have, something you lit around Christmas time. He smells like cookies and peppermint. 

You can’t help but turn your head a bit, trying to discreetly inhale the scent of his jacket.

To say that Joel Miller becomes the perfect boyfriend would be an understatement. 

He drives you to work, he sends you flowers, (which gets confusing in a funeral home.) he holds open doors, and he always texts you back. 

Quite literally everything gets better once he’s back in your life. 

You don’t get anymore mangled bodies, only a few from the nursing home and one from a nearby hospital, it’s mostly just funeral planning these days. You see Joel daily, Maria and Tommy seem a little surprised every time he dotes on you and you can’t help but wonder what he’s done to earn such a reaction, but he’s so sweet you hardly care. Between both of you working and him having a toddler you’re shocked he makes as much time for you as he does. You see him every morning when he takes you into work but he also insists on seeing you twice a week, whether it’s going out, or ordering in, or just dragging him into your bed, he always makes time for you. 

You even spend a little time with Ellie. Joel spends a lot of time with her at the funeral home so you often see her in little doses, she seems indifferent towards you which worries you until you realize she acts that way towards everyone but her father. It’s remarkable to watch him with her, he’s soft with you but with her it’s something else entirely. She sticks to him like glue and you’ve never once seen him look bothered by that fact, you assume she’d get bored just sitting in his arms but she never does. He likes to tell her jokes and you aren’t even sure she understands them but without fail she bursts into a fit of giggles every time he gets to the punchline. 

It’s good with him, everything is easier. Everything just sort of makes sense with Joel and for the first time in a long time everything feels right. 

Until the morning you wake up, a sticky feeling between your legs and an ache in your belly.

“Shit.” You roll out of bed, quickly shedding your clothes, tossing them into the laundry bin before texting Joel.

[ hot date idea for us, you drive me to the laundromat and then watch me do my laundry ] 

Setting your phone down you hop into the shower, washing away the blood with a groan, you spend far too long under the water, when you finally step out and check your phone you’re running late, you pull open the curtains a bit to see if Joel’s already waiting for you but much to your confusion you aren’t met with the familiar sight of the truck.

You had never really discussed him driving you to work; it was just something he’d started doing, you probably shouldn’t have expected it to be a permanent thing. 

You haphazardly pull yourself together, tossing on whatever looks clean before grabbing your phone and bag, rushing out the door. 

The cool morning air stings your face as you quickly walk down the familiar gravel driveway towards the home, you’re already preparing your excuse for why you’re so late but Maria doesn’t even notice as you step into the office, she’s busy on a call.

You recognize the look on her face, she’s talking to a family. You step inside, taking a seat in one of the chairs across from her desk as you wait. She seems to be at the end of the conversation. 

You couldn’t be more grateful that she takes care of telling the families. You’ve never been good at that kind of thing. She hangs up with a gentle, goodbye, smiling up at you as you try and imagine a situation in which your job was to deliver such terrible news. 

The ache in your stomach snaps you back to reality. 

Fuck. You forgot to bring anything.

“Any chance you have a pad?” You give her an apologetic look.

Based on her expression you’d think you’d just asked her for a lung. Several emotions flash across her face in an instant, but mostly she looks like someone who just solved a riddle that had been plaguing them for quite some time. She snaps out of it quickly though, giving you a curt nod. 

“Of course, let me just run upstairs.”

It’s an older man, graying and wearing what is obviously hiking gear.

Poor guy. 

He’s torn apart, the worst you’ve seen so far, his limbs have all been individually torn off, they lay, separated from the rest of him on the table. 

It’s an open casket so you’re gonna be down here all day. 

You text Joel one last time before setting your phone down. 

[ gonna be pretty busy all day, got another bear attack, i’ll call you when i’m on my way home. ] 

With that you get to work, putting on your gown and gloves, and starting at the torn clothes. It’s hard to figure out where his clothes start and his skin ends with the condition his body is in but you manage to cut him out of everything so you can properly assess the damage. 

You’re getting used to seeing these messy wounds, the sight of torn flesh. It should be a pretty easy job all things considered. He’ll be in a suit so you’ll just reattach everything and no one will ever have to see the extent of his wounds. 

You check everything twice, making sure that you’ve got the left and right correct before you start sewing things back up. You try to mimic the way you saw Maria do it, careful and practiced stitches.

You finish the legs easily enough, both had been ripped off just above the knee, you’re about to start on the arms when you drop the needle in surprise. 

How didn’t you realize this before? 

You’ve been preparing these bodies for weeks now and you’ve never once noticed one harrowing detail. You’re used to tending to bodies that have already seen a pathologist. Bodies with their organs in a bag, with their blood drained, ready to be prepared for a funeral or cremation. And you’ve been so focused on doing a good job to impress Maria that you’ve failed to take note of the most obvious thing before you. 

There’s no blood. 

None of the bodies you’ve tended to from the bear attacks have blood, all of their organs remain intact but because Maria declares cause of death you know she doesn’t drain them. You’ve drained everyone who hasn’t been sent in from a bear attack. 

Maybe Maria drained them before you got in.

But that isn’t possible, you know that, you’d have seen the equipment, and you’ve gotten bodies straight from the scene, already drained. 

You reach over to grab a scalpel off the table. 

You shouldn’t do this. You could probably be fired for it, but as long as no one finds out you’ll be fine. All the damage to this cadaver has been done to its limbs, so hypothetically, if you were to slice open his chest you would see blood, dried or otherwise. 

So you do just that. 

You carve out a small, clean, incision vertically on his sternum. 

Nothing. 

You’ve got a pen flashlight that you shine into his chest cavity only to find his organs. Dry. 

He’s been completely drained of his blood. 

You stitch him up quickly, finishing the job as swiftly as possible before running up the stairs, mumbling a rushed excuse to Maria before running the entire way home. 

Joel doesn’t text you back. 

This isn’t happening, not again, he wouldn’t do this again. 

You feel like you’re gonna be sick. 

An image flashes through your mind. 

Joel.

Lips curled back in a snarl. 

No. That wasn’t real, it was just a dream. Although the line between the two has been getting blurrier. 

Joel isn’t out there draining people of their blood, that’s absurd, even if he goes missing and those dates happen to coincide with the days that you get bloodless corpses. 

It’s a coincidence. 

Or it isn’t. 

Maybe for one second you should just let yourself consider the possibility that something is terribly wrong. 

You thoroughly check the two bodies you get the next day. 

They come in together, a couple from out of state hiking in the park. Neither one of them bleeds. 

The day after that you wake up early and walk to the funeral home as the sun rises. You watch the hearse wheel in the body, and you make sure you’re the first person to see her. 

A tragically beautiful woman who appears to be in her late forties, maybe early fifties. 

None of her wounds are bloody, and when you open her chest cavity it’s like someone drank her insides with a straw. 

You’re nearly at your breaking point, nothing you’re looking at makes any sense. 

You spend that night in bed, unable to sleep as you try and figure out what the hell is going on. 

Joel doesn’t answer your calls. 

He doesn’t respond to your several angry texts. 

And something deep down within you tells you that asking Maria would be a mistake. 

You’re completely alone on this. 

So you call Maria and you tell her that you’re sick and won’t be in tomorrow. Then you look up the bus schedule in and out of town.

The bus comes in and out of Honey twice, every other day. Lucky for you, today is one of the days the bus will be there in the morning, and return in the evening. 

The bus stop is empty when you arrive, the misty morning air clings to your skin as you stare out into the surrounding forest. 

Something is out there. 

And you’re gonna find out what it is.

You can’t keep being afraid, this is your home now, and you won’t be driven away by some imaginary monster. 

It starts to drizzle when you look out the window of the bus, watching Honey disappear behind you. 

You have a plan. 

Well sort of. 

You’re going to find some literature on the subject. You’re sick of feeling crazy so you’re going to prove yourself right. Something is very wrong in Honey, and monster or not, you’re going to figure it out. 

You don’t catch the name of the town you end up in, you just get off at the stop that looks the most tourist friendly, assuming that there has to be a book store somewhere in town. 

You only have to walk main street for a few minutes before you find it. 

It’s a quaint little shop tucked in between an attorney's office and a gift shop. 

Betty’s Books

Dimly lit and jam packed wall to wall with books, a small elderly woman sits behind the counter, reading a Stephen King novel. 

“Excuse me?” You clear your throat as she looks up at you over her wiry glasses. 

“How can I help you?” Her smile is warm, it fills the entire shop with an aura of comfort. 

You’re going to sound ridiculous. And the moment you do this you’ll be speaking it into existence. 

You don’t have any other options. 

“Do you have anything on local urban legends?” You try not to sound too ashamed but her smile never falters as she points. 

“Back left corner, dear.” 

“Thank you.”

“Let me know if you need anything else.” She’s already buried her nose back in her book before you turn towards the rest of the shop. 

You begin searching the shelves for anything that could possibly help you, there’s several different books on bigfoot and the loch ness monster. There are a lot of empty spaces between books and you have to assume that this is what most tourists are buying. 

People in search of ghosts and myths. 

Are you any better than them? 

Running out into the darkness, looking for a monster you very well may have made up. 

You look through a few more options before finally settling on a thick, leather bound book, you pull it from its place and stare down at the embossed cover. 

A Beginners Guide to Cryptozoology : West Virginian Monsters 

You aren’t going to find a better place to start. 

You move back towards the front, stopping in front of the children's section.

Lullabies & Poems for Bedtime 

A rabbit with a pocket watch, asleep under a tree, adorns the cover. 

Ellie might like that. 

Even if you’re madder than hell at her father. 

You grab the little white book, setting both onto the counter, paying before stepping out into the rain. You’ve got hours until the bus back to Honey returns so you quickly make your way to a diner across the street, keeping the books tucked into your jacket. 

A little bell chimes as you push the door open, sitting yourself at one of the free booths you set the books down on the table. 

The waitress brings you coffee and water as you set your jacket aside, you order a plate of fries just to give you something to do as you watch the rain on the diner windows for a bit. 

Eventually you know you can’t put it off anymore so you open up the book and sit back, taking care to read every single page, not wanting to miss a thing. 

The first thing you learn is that there are a startling number of unnamed monsters. 

It covers the basics in the first few chapters, mothman, bigfoot, chupacabra, and werewolves, but the second half of the book is entirely monsters with no names, only ink drawing accompanying the descriptions. For a while you find nothing, eventually ordering a milkshake which you sip as you skim the pages.

After two hours you’re about to give up when you stumble across a page that finally shows something familiar. 

A drawing of a body, mangled, with wounds you recognize. 

Five slashes across the chest, both arms completely torn off. 

This creature is thought to reside only in heavily wooded areas, it was speculated to be located in the southern United States for several decades before disappearing completely. 

Since then people have claimed to have seen this creature in many different locations although the majority seem to be centralized to the east coast of North America, resembling a lich, or a wendigo. 

When you turn the page the illustration of the monster stares back at you. 

It’s hard to make out what’s what and it looks mostly like inky scribbles but within those lines you see the creature you’ve been imagining. Long, sharp limbs, massive shoulders, and a face almost reminiscent of a humans, everything is just… distorted. 

While technically unnamed, there are many unique pieces of folklore attached to this specific creature. Witnesses claim to have seen this monster transform from human to creature and vice versa, as if they walk among us in their free time. 

What sets the creature apart from many other creatures of this variety is their affinity for humans. More often than not we’ve gotten reports of these creatures seeking out human mates.

We have several different claims from people saying they’ve seen the transformation happen right before their very eyes. One man claimed to have watched his sister in law turn at Thanksgiving dinner. Another says that he saw a cousin's boyfriend disappear into the woods during a wedding, transforming into a beast as he did. 

According to old legends there is thought to be a connection between these creatures and their mates, quite literally bonding them in blood. The males are believed to be linked to their human mates menstrual cycles; if they have one, the females are linked to their own. There are many different descriptions of what this means for human mates. Some believe that when this creature comes in contact with their mate that they permanently revert to their human forms. Others believe they’re hunger for flesh only grows after coming in contact with them.

But most believe that they eat their mate. Plain and simple. That their blood is more potent to them than anyone else’s, so much so that any love they may harbor for them is irrelevant, they are simply blinded by their bloodlust. 

Its victims often resemble that of an animal attack. Bodies torn apart, mangled, often believers of this legend are ‘disproven’ because of this fact, but there is always one thing that separates this creature's kills from that of an animal. Animals who eat their victims will do exactly that, eat them, this creature does no such thing, while it does massacre its victims it will rarely consume its flesh, preferring the taste of blood. 

There have been no confirmed sightings of these creatures and we have been unable to trace its origins or obtain any photographic evidence, maybe it really is just an animal. 

Monster or bear? It’s up to you.

It’s up to you. 

You slam the book shut.

It’s nonsense. 

Joel isn’t some blood drinking, period monster. But you came all this way, looking for a monster, and seemingly you’ve found it. 

You pick up the little book for Ellie, taking a sip of your coffee. 

Maybe it’ll make you feel better. 

You open it to find a familiar little song on the inside of the cover.

I know you,

I walked with you once upon a dream. 

You flip through it, mostly admiring the beautiful illustrations, they look like watercolors. There’s a frog with a crown, princesses with flowing gowns and witches grinning up at you from the pages. It isn’t until some random page in the middle that you actually stop to read the poem. The drawing accompanying this one isn’t colorful, only black ink, a drastic change from everything so far. 

Jabberwocky

By: Lewis Carroll 

It unsettles you to look at so you focus on the words instead. You know this creature, it’s from Alice in Wonderland. The poem is whimsical, you can imagine a child finding it rather entertaining should a parent read it with enthusiasm. You don’t have a parent reading it to you though, you’re alone, staring at the lines that have caught your eye. 

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

No more books today. 

When you check your phone there are no new notifications. So Joel is either a terrible boyfriend or a potential murderer. 

How comforting. 

Fuck it. 

You click on his contact.

[ TEXT ME BACK RIGHT NOW. OR WE’RE THROUGH. ] 

Monsters aren’t real. 

Joel Miller is just the worst boyfriend (soon to be ex-boyfriend) on the planet. 

It doesn’t help that you catch a glimpse of a tampon wrapper in your bag when you throw your phone back into it. 

It’s a coincidence. 

You can’t say anything to anyone about this, how would it look if ditzy Darlene’s niece showed up and started spinning stories of her own? You can’t do it, you know exactly what people would say. They’d say it ran in the family and they’d find a reason to be cruel to her even in death. 

So you take the bus home in silence. 

For the next few days barely speak to Maria other than polite greetings, you’re certain she doesn’t notice, both of you are swamped. You’ve got a body everyday the rest of the week and she’s up to her neck in paperwork. 

And Joel never texts.

Maria’s juggling Ellie and trying to fill out papers when you get in the next morning. 

“Thank god you’re here, can you run upstairs and grab something for me, there’s a little makeup bag on the counter in the bathroom, I forgot it earlier and I’m waiting on a phone call regarding the couple we had.” 

“Of course.” You set your things down before reaching for Ellie. “Here, let me take her so you can do that.”

“You’re a lifesaver, thank you.” Almost as if on cue the phone rings the moment she says it. You head towards the stairs, the toddler in your arms scrunches up her face as if trying to recall your identity. 

“You know me, silly, I’m friends with your daddy.” At the mention of her father she seems to relax and you open the door at the top of the stairs. 

You’ve never actually been in this part of the house before, you’ve always stayed in the business section. You don’t get a chance to look around, the bathroom is the first door on your left. A bag the size of a pencil box is on the counter, you hand it to Ellie, her little hands play with the bag as you carefully bounce her in your arms. 

“Do you know where your daddy is?” You poke her in the belly making her smile at you for the first time. “Not gonna snitch?” You tickle her side, earning a tiny giggle. You let her play with the zipper as you bring her back downstairs. “Any bodies today?” You yell as you descend the stairs. 

“Had a cremation from the home this morning, I’ve just got a lot of papers, I’m planning six funerals simultaneously right now.” 

Six massacred corpses in six days. 

“Where’s Tommy?” Ellie puts up a bit of a fight for the bag but you set it down on the desk just in time to watch Marias grip on her pen tighten. 

Yikes. Must be a sore spot right now. 

“He’s got a work thing, left me with that little monster.” She uses the pen to point at the toddler who’s already starting to get antsy in your arms. 

If you’ve got no bodies today you might as well offer to help.

“I can watch Ellie if you’d like.” 

“Really? You don’t mind?”

“Of course not, want me to keep her upstairs? I’m sure you don’t want me watching her in the basement.” You laugh a little as she nods. 

“You really are a lifesaver, I don’t know how I managed without you.” 

“Oh stop, you clearly did just fine before I came along.” Your face gets a bit hot at the compliment. 

“I’ll be up in a few hours once I finish up here, you two have fun.” She doesn’t give any instruction beyond that so you just take Ellie back upstairs. You haven’t spent much time with her beyond the small interactions in passing but you know she doesn’t like doing nothing unless it’s with Joel. She’s trying to get out of your arms the second you’re at the top of the stairs. You set her down in the entryway and she’s already running into the kitchen. 

You don’t want to snoop but you actually get to take a good look around as Ellie settles in front of a pile of notebooks and a mess of crayons on the kitchen floor. It’s a pretty open floor plan, the kitchen and living room are all one big room and from the looks of it they must watch Ellie often, an outsider would assume they have a child of their own. A play pen is set up on the floor of the living room and toys are scattered everywhere. 

“Are you hungry, sweetie? Do you want something to eat?” There’s different snacks on the counter as you walk over to where she’s playing. 

“Yes please.” Her voice is clear and high pitched, you’re actually a little surprised, you didn’t even know she could talk, she’s always silent when you’re around. There’s an assortment of different things on the counter so you just find something that’s already open. Handing her a little container of apple puffs, she doesn’t look up from her drawings, just blindly reaching over and grabbing a handful as you sit at the counter to watch over her. 

She’s a very well behaved baby all things considered. 

You have to stop her from drawing on the walls a few times and at one point she stuffed a handful of food between the couch cushions but other than that she’s rather relaxed. She sits and draws mostly, only occasionally getting up and doing a few laps around the room before returning to her papers. 

At one point she makes her way to where you’re sitting, slapping your leg to get your attention until you pick her up, she points to the window above the sink and when you take her there she simply stares out at the trees. 

She’s focused on the woods as you watch her expression, her face is oddly serious. 

After a few minutes you set her down, unease filling your body. She doesn’t seem to mind though as she runs back to her drawings, you return to the counter, checking your phone for a few minutes until she appears in your peripherals once more, tapping your leg again, handing you one of her drawings. 

At several different moments this week you’ve thought that you’ve reached your breaking point. 

None of those compare to how you feel when you pick up the paper Ellie had been scribbling on. 

It’s crude and mostly indiscernible but you know exactly what you’re looking at. 

A monster. 

A broad shouldered, sharp toothed, crayon monster. 

You stare at the little girl, trying to keep your composure as you pick her up, setting her in your lap and pointing at the mess of scribbles on the page. 

You feel crazier than ever, asking a toddler for help but no one else is around and you’re running out of options. 

“Can you tell me what that is, sweetie? What did you draw?” You hand her the drawing back which she crumples a bit in her fist before setting it on the counter, you point again at the creature. “Ellie, honey, can you tell me what this is please?” You’re doing your best to keep calm as she kicks her legs a bit before staring up at you with a frown. 

“Daddy?” For someone so small she speaks so loudly and clearly, but you just shake your head. 

“I know, honey, you want your daddy, I wish I knew where he was but you’re stuck with me today.” You smooth out her hair a bit as she scrunches up her face, looking rather upset. 

“Tío.” She points down at the drawing before looking back at you for approval, you just smile. You feel like an idiot. Asking a child for help. A child who can barely speak. 

“It’s okay, you’re too little to understand.” You hold her under one arm as you walk around the counter to the fridge. “How about I get you some juice.” 

You find a clean sippy cup, pouring her some apple juice before setting her back down, handing her the cup and searching through your bag. 

“I almost forgot, I got you a present.” She perks up immediately, setting her cup down as you hold the little white book out towards her.

“Thanks!” Her eyes light up as she takes it from you, it’s one of the few times you’ve seen her smile without her father being in the room, sitting on the floor before looking back up at you, tapping the spot next to her until you sit as well. 

“Do you want me to read it to you?” You watch as she sets it down in front of her, she’s surprisingly gentle as she flips open the cover. 

“No thank you.” She’s enraptured by the illustrations, not caring for the text, laying down on her stomach, and sitting up on her elbows as she slowly flips through the pages, her eyes wide as she points out everything she sees to you. You rub her back, nodding along, you’re mostly just happy that she’s excited. 

She kicks her feet as she explains the big red bird on the page to you. After a few more minutes of her babbling she turns the page again.

Jabberwocky 

She giggles wildly as she points at the page and suddenly you’re filled with dread all over again. She’s positively captivated by the drawing, refusing to turn to a different page when you urge her to move on.

You don’t speak again until Maria comes upstairs to check on her, when you do it’s to tell her you aren’t feeling well, and you’re going home.

You’re going on a monster hunt. 

There’s nothing left to do. You need to soothe your fears before you lose it completely and you aren’t going to stare at the trees and wonder for the rest of your life. 

You stop at one of the tourist traps in town, you need supplies for tonight. 

A camera. 

It’s an easy in and out stop. You buy a polaroid camera, and several packs of film. 

No one will believe you otherwise, you’ll be ridiculed the same way they did Darlene. You think of her as you walk back home, what if she was right about everything? She spent her life in fear of a monster no one believed in and they mocked her for it, and at the end of the day she might have been right. 

Maybe the monster is real and it isn’t Joel. 

Either way you’re going into the woods tonight. Your backpack is packed with the essentials, your water bottle, camera, an extra film pack, one of the knives from the kitchen (wrapped in a towel,) and a flashlight. 

Once you’re packed you put your boots and jacket on and head out. 

It’s like everything quiets down the moment you step outside. The forest hums, beckoning you in, and how could you refuse such an offer? 

You manage to keep your hands steady as you flip the switch on your flashlight, stepping into the trees. It feels so much colder now than it did when you were walking home. 

With dusk settling the sun is no longer there to keep you warm or to guide your way. You haven’t actually seen much of the forest, so you decide to walk in a straight line to avoid getting lost as you carefully step over a tangle of roots. As a child you loved nothing more than playing in the woods behind your house. But after just half an hour in these woods you suddenly resent the trees, they no longer bring you any comfort as you carry on into the cold dark night. You’re just about to give up and turn back around when suddenly something changes.  

Without warning and with seemingly no cause you feel a chill rush through your body, your hair standing on end. Your blood runs cold and you hear a sound you’re all too familiar with at this point. 

The tearing sound rips through the air. 

Your instincts tell you that you’ve become prey rather suddenly in this situation but you can’t turn back now, not when you can prove to yourself that you aren’t losing it. 

As quietly as possible you reach back into your pack, grabbing the camera already loaded with film and holding it in your free hand. The beam coming from your flashlight trembles slightly as you carry on towards the noise. 

It’s louder than it ever was in the dreams. In the dreams it was subdued, almost as if you subconsciously knew that it couldn’t hurt you. As you carry onward you can’t help but wonder if you’re just imagining it at this point. It doesn’t seem to get louder as you walk. It simply fills the air completely, you’re being directed purely by your instincts. You know it’s this way as you move forward a few more steps. 

You scan the trees with your light, seeing nothing out of the ordinary until you finally see it. Your finger instinctively flips off your flashlight. 

You almost didn’t catch it. 

But your legs keep moving and you get closer and closer to the hunched figure. 

It’s hard to describe, like your eyes don’t want to accept what you’re seeing. A voice in the back of your mind tells you that you’re getting too close but you can’t seem to stop yourself as you carry on until you can get a good look at it. 

You can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief as you realize it isn’t Joel. But that relief only lasts a moment as you see what you’re actually dealing with. 

You aren’t sure how big it is. It’s big. That much is clear but it’s crouched down, it’s almost human, it may have once been human. You’re having trouble making out most of it in only the moonlight. It’s less broad than the illustrations you’ve seen, almost slim, with how close you are now you can see that it’s eating. 

A buck, one of the biggest ones you’ve ever seen is splayed out across some rocks. It’s stomach has been ripped open. You watch, with morbid fascination as it digs its maw deeper into the gore. 

How curious, it’s wearing clothes. Or at least the remains of some clothing, a bit of fabric clings to its crooked spine, it wears the tattered collar of a shirt like a necklace. Navy blue sweatpants stretch around the creature's waist, the fabric pulled taut, it looks like they make it just past its knees. The elastic around the ankles has snapped. 

The funniest part of all of this is that you feel nothing but fear for the creature. You aren’t disgusted and you certainly don’t hate it. You’re just afraid, so afraid that before you can slap your hand over your mouth you burst into a peal of laughter. 

Fuck. 

It all happens so fast, you aren’t ready in the slightest to be face to face with it and suddenly you are, purely on instinct your hand twitches and with the flash of the camera you get a single moment to stare at it. 

It’s so close to being human.

It’s mouth is too big, a blood soaked tongue falling past a row of jagged, pointed teeth. It’s almost like someone stretched out a person's face like it was made of clay. And it’s male. Intricate branching horns stretch out from under the hair crowning its head. 

“The doe’s don’t have antlers.”

Your dad was a hunter, you know your antlers,  you aren’t exactly sure but if it was a deer it would be a thirteen pointer. You should run, you’re about to but then you finally look it in the eye, just as the final remnants of the camera flash flicker out. 

There is something worse than hunger, or thirst, or rage in its eyes, if that was all there was you could scream or cry. But this leaves you frozen in place. 

Recognition. 

Like it knows you. 

And the moment it recognizes you it snarls, an ear-piercing sound that rips through the quiet of the forest, blood spewing from its maw at you, flecks of crimson tint your clothes and hands as your eyes go wide.

It’s a good thing your legs move faster than your brain, you’re already sprinting away from the creature. 

You lose your flashlight almost immediately but you know where you’re going, you couldn’t be more thankful for your decision to go in a straight line. You don’t stop moving, running blindly back the way you came, never once daring to look behind you. 

You know it’s there, you can hear it, and you can feel it. 

Its breath is hot on your heels, you can hear the branches splintering directly behind you. Everything is a blur, stray branches sting your exposed skin but you don’t stop, you can’t, your muscles ache as you push onward, keeping your hands out in front of you to guide you through the darkness until you finally see the road up ahead. 

You’re nearly there, almost feeling relief, almost. 

An icy hand wraps around your ankle, you’re yanked backwards before you can process what’s going on, your back dragging across the forest floor and in an instant you’re beneath it. 

This is it. 

You wanted a monster, you got one. And now you’re going to die for it. It snarls as its maw falls open, you’re face to face with a row of shimmering, gore smeared teeth. This is it. 

He smells like cinnamon. 

It tilts its head ninety degrees, its jaw closing in on your throat as you close your eyes, tears now flow freely down your face and finally you can’t contain your terror anymore. 

You scream. 

A trembling shriek falling from your lips and much to your confusion a killing blow never comes. After one more shuddering breath you open your eyes only to find you’re just staring up at the trees. You sit up, still out of breath. 

He’s a few feet away now. 

Thrashing around frantically as he stumbles backwards. As if your scream had upset him. He bellows, his twisted hands clutching his skull like he’s angry with himself. You cover your ears instinctively when it snarls in pain.

He can’t help it. 

You’re scrambling to your feet once more, giving him one final glance, you look into each other's eyes.

“Run.” 

It speaks. 

You break into a sprint once more, not daring to stop until your feet touch pavement. You don’t get the sense that you’re being followed anymore but you’re still in shambles. The adrenaline is slowly starting to fizzle out and you’re painfully aware of the wound you sustained during that encounter. Your ankle is torn up, two deep gashes from where it grabbed you are bleeding an alarming amount. You stumble, the sight of it making you nauseous. 

You get a moment's respite and you manage to compose yourself enough to retrieve your phone from your pocket. Walking backwards, keeping your eyes on the forest as you slowly continue to back away. In your desperation your blood stained fingertips frantically swipe across your phone screen, you don’t realize until it’s too late that you’re calling the only person who isn’t going to answer. 

Yet when you bring the phone to your ear you hear a click. 

“Joel?” You can’t fucking believe it. He actually picked up. 

“Sweetheart? Are you okay?” He can definitely hear the panic in your voice. 

You just break down.

“I’m by the road, on the way from Maria’s to my camper, I- I need you to come get me, please, it’s- it’s following me, but I think I lost it please, Joel.” You’re in hysterics as you catch a glimpse of one of the few streetlights down the road. You hear the sound of keys and you swear you hear Maria saying something in the background but you’re too frenzied to focus on that. 

“Who’s following you? Stay right there m’on my way.” You can hear the truck starting in the background as you keep running, not daring to stop even though it doesn’t feel like you’re being pursued anymore. 

“The monster… in the woods… it’s not a bear Joel.” You’re out of breath when you finally stop, standing in the middle of the road underneath the street lamp, spinning around to try and somehow keep an eye on all of the darkness around you. 

“Stay where you are, I’ll be there in two minutes, okay? Stay right where you are.” You’re about to beg him to hurry when the line goes dead. 

You must look like a mad woman. Standing in the middle of the street, covered in blood, and spinning in circles to try and keep an eye on every single direction as you listen for any signs of movement. 

Your heartbeat never slows, you can hear it pounding in the crushing silence that surrounds you. 

It only takes a few minutes before you see headlights approaching in the distance. You don’t even let the truck come to a full stop as you open the door and jump in, closing it behind you as you scramble towards Joel as if he could protect you from the goliath you saw in the darkness. 

“Drive! Now Joel, go!” You yell as he accelerates just to the point of following the speed limit as he heads towards your camper. 

“Bunny, please, calm down.” He wraps the hand that isn’t on the steering wheel around you but you shove him off, sliding back to the other side of the truck. 

“Don’t tell me to calm down, Joel, not after what I just went through, I saw it, a real monster grabbed me.” You’re stumbling over your words, trying to get them out as quickly as possible.

“Slow down, just tell me what happened.”

“I told you on the phone, I just found a fucking monster, Joel, that’s what happened.”

He’s gone silent now.

He probably thinks you’re crazy. 

That’s fine. You know you aren’t, you saw it, watched it feed. There’s deer blood on your boots. 

“You didn’t see a monster.” When you look he’s shaking worse than you are. You don’t dare turn your head further but you watch in your peripheral as he grips the steering wheel, his knuckles going white. 

He’s lying. 

Why would he lie? 

“I did, I took a-.” You reach into your bag and your stomach fills with dread as you realize you dropped the camera. 

“You didn’t. You’ve been spending too much time alone, and you shouldn’t be going out in the woods by yourself to begin with.” 

“And who’s fault is it that I’ve been alone?” You snap.

He doesn’t have a response to that. And you don’t have anything else to say, not like he’d believe you if you did. You should probably break up with him, for several reasons. 

Except you can’t. 

If you do, how will you stop people from being needlessly murdered? He may not be the monster, but he knows something, and you need to find out what it is. 

So you’ll ‘forgive’ him. Again. Because you need to get to the bottom of this.

And maybe, despite it all, you’re still terribly attached to him. He keeps disappearing, without warning and with halfhearted excuses as to why and all you can think about right now is how badly you missed him, and how badly you need him.  

“Does Tommy have Ellie tonight?” You mumble, trying not to sound too irritated. 

“I was stopping in to see her before leaving her with Maria for the night when you called.”

“Why?”

“I was gonna come over here and apologize.” He sounds just as sincere as he did last time but you still scoff.

“What’s the excuse this time?” When you turn to scowl at him he looks guilty.

“I was out of town on a work trip.”

“And you couldn’t answer your phone.”

“I forgot my charger at home.”

It’s a preconceived lie. You’re certain of it based on how quick he replies, and it’s not even a good one. He could have borrowed a coworker's phone or bought a new charger; it wouldn't have been difficult. But he doesn’t want you to know where he really was. 

Every bit of this confuses you. 

You saw something in the woods, but it wasn’t Joel? Joel was with Ellie and then he was with you, he couldn’t have been slaughtering lost hikers. It doesn’t make sense. One thing is for certain though, and it’s that you can’t break up with Joel until you know what's going on or more people are going to be killed by that thing you saw in the woods. You aren’t really sure what to call it, but you know that you found the thing that’s been killing. 

And he knows something about it. 

He had no reason to get as rattled as he did if he didn't know something about what you saw. So you can’t break up with him, not until you figure this all out. Until then you just have to play the part of a clueless, loving girlfriend. Which shouldn’t be too hard considering the fact that for some reason there is still a sick and twisted attraction to him despite everything you know, settling in your stomach. You bite your tongue, going the rest of the short drive in silence. When he finally pulls up to the camper the engine goes quiet as he turns the key. You had no intention of inviting him in but you won’t stop him if he follows. 

You slam the truck door shut, stomping up to the door, his footsteps following close behind. 

“Let’s talk about this.” He reaches for your arm as you’re unlocking the door but you just shove him off. You leave it open, kicking your shoes off as you slip out of your jacket as you flip on the lights. 

“I don’t want to talk.” He shuts the door behind him, you note that he locks it behind him. 

How presumptuous. 

Correct, but presumptuous. 

“You’re clearly upset, bunny.” He kneels down, untying his own boots before kicking them off. You glare down at him until he stands, trying to pull you into his arms but you just shove him away again. His eyes go wide as he takes you in.

Based on his reaction you really must be quite a sight. 

“Jesus, you’re a mess.” He looks genuinely concerned but you brush it off. 

“Thanks.” You scoff but when you look down you realize you’ve been leaving a trail of blood in your wake. 

“Do you have a first aid kit?” You should send him away. Tend to yourself and go to bed, but instead you just point to the cabinet containing the kit, sitting on the table as he retrieves it, tossing it down beside you. He doesn’t ask what happened, grimacing as he lifts your leg to examine your ankle.

He doesn’t need to ask, he knows what happened. 

He tends to your wounds in silence. You wince as he wipes the lacerations on your ankle, they look bad enough that you consider just going to the hospital but he doesn’t seem too worried. They’re just shallow enough that you don’t think you’ll need stitches. 

You don’t watch as he sprays it with antiseptic, quickly wrapping it in a layer of gauze and then bandages. 

When he’s finished you’re ready to get angry with him all over again but the moment you open your mouth to yell at him he grabs you by the chin, taking a clean piece of gauze and gently dabbing the thin cuts that litter your face. 

You stare up at the ceiling light, refusing to meet his gaze. 

He tends to every one of them, taking extra care as he smears ointment on each one. When he’s finished he takes anything bloodied and gathers it in his hand, standing to toss them into the bin under the sink. You don’t turn, but out of the corner of your eye you see him bring his hand to his mouth. 

Your blood.

He tasted your blood. 

You can feel the bile rising in your throat but you just swallow it back down. 

“Now we can talk.” He makes his way back over to you but you just shake your head. 

“I already told you, I don’t wanna talk.” 

“Bunny-” He takes another step towards you. 

“Shut up.” 

“Don’t be like that.” There’s real remorse in his eyes, you might even feel bad if you didn’t know that he was lying to you. 

“Shut. Up.” You push him so he stumbles back onto the bed. “I’m not crazy.” He props himself up on his elbows to look at you as you say it.

“I know.” He sounds almost apologetic. 

“Take your clothes off.” You mumble, already tossing your shirt to the side. 

“Are you sure?” 

You’re sure that he knows what’s out there in the woods and he isn’t telling you. 

“I am.” You kick your jeans off to emphasize your point. You know he won’t deny you this. Whatever sick, unexplainable force pulls you into his arms affects him as it does you. You don’t just want him, you need him. 

You hadn’t realized it until he’d disappeared again, but now you couldn’t be more aware. It’s as if your entire life you’ve felt wrong. You’ve been in a state of discomfort for as long as you can remember, like a vital part of you was missing. But you got used to it, and you learned to live with the odd sensation of never feeling like you're in the right place, nowhere ever felt like home. 

Joel feels like home, in a sort of twisted way. 

From the moment you first saw him everything cleared up. It was like you had finally found your center of balance, and when he disappeared he took all of that with him. 

This is more than just attraction. 

With that he tugs his flannel off, you grab the bottom of his shirt, impatiently pulling it up over his head, not wanting to look him in the eyes, you stare at his shoulders as you climb up onto the bed, straddling his lap. 

“I really think we should talk-” He starts again so you reach behind yourself, unclasping your bra, glaring at him as you let it drop.

“Then talk.” 

He looks at you like you’re something to eat. 

“That’s not fair.” He finally manages to pull his gaze off of your chest, looking you in the eyes, his pupils swallowing his irises leaving you to stare into the darkness of his eyes.  

“There’s nothing to talk about, you went away for work and you forgot your phone charger.” You reach between the two of you to remove his belt, tossing it behind him on the bed before trying to unzip his jeans. “It was just an unfortunate series of circumstances.” You grumble before lifting yourself off his lap so he can shove his jeans off.

He’s glaring at you now. Good. He should know that you’re challenging him. Everything from this point on is a game, you just have to catch him in a lie. You grind down against the straining fabric of his boxers, hands on his shoulders to balance yourself as you rub yourself against his clothed erection, drawing a hiss from between his teeth. Before you know it his hands are gripping the hem of your panties. 

“Go on Joel, rip them off. I know you’re plenty capable.” You say it like the accusation it is. He’s strong enough to do a lot of things, you aren’t sure if tearing a person in half is one of those things but you’re determined to find out. He knows what you’re implying but he does it anyway, grabbing the fabric on either side of your hips and easily tearing them to shreds. 

“You don’t know what you do to me.” He murmurs, leaning forward to press his forehead to yours. 

You do. 

He does the same to you. A carnal desire, your most basic human instincts are reduced to nothing the moment your skin is against his. 

You don’t waste any time, slipping your hand under the waistband of his underwear, watching his cock spring free, slapping against his stomach. You unceremoniously spit in your hand before taking him in your fist, watching his jaw go slack as you rake your nails against the underside of his cock, feeling him twitch in your hand. You keep your eyes trained on his face as you notch him at your entrance, tilting your head to the side as you hesitate. 

The veins in his neck jut out as you slide the head of his cock over your clit, hissing softly as you do. 

He’s purposefully showing restraint. 

He clutches the sheets, his knuckles go pale and you can’t help but wonder if he isn’t touching you because he’s worried he’ll hurt you. 

“Fuck me, Joel.” You lean forward, biting his stupidly plush bottom lip. He doesn’t move his hands from where they are and you can’t help but scowl against his mouth.   

He’s holding back. 

He knows exactly what you’re doing and he’s trying to prove you wrong. How long has he been holding back?

In one sharp motion you slide down on his cock, forcing an obscene moan out of yourself, but it isn’t loud enough to cover the ripping sound. Your eyes wander downward, his are rolled back but all you can focus on now is your torn bed sheets in his clenched fist. 

Holy hell.

“Fuck. Me.” You rasp out, lifting your hips again before dropping them back down. His head falls forward this time, his mouth latching onto your shoulder, muffling his growl.

You know that growl. 

“Fuck me or leave, Joel.” You take his face in your hand, roughly pulling him back so he’s eye to eye with you.

You heard that growl in the woods less than an hour ago. 

“You’re playing with fire, bunny.” He glares at you but you just stare right back. 

“I won’t say it again.” You give him one last warning and he finally brings his hands to your hips, with a grunt he lifts you up, slamming you back down on his cock, you can feel him brushing against your cervix as you cry out. 

At his age he shouldn’t be able to do that. 

He does it again, moving you like a ragdoll up and down on his length, a lewd squelching fills the air, egging him on. He tilts his head down, his teeth scrape against your breast, and you can hear a roar building in his throat. He fucks you like a fleshlight, moving you effortlessly up and down on his cock, your chest bouncing with each thrust.

He shouldn’t be able to do any of this.

Neither one of you speaks, you can feel the camper swaying ever so slightly as he slams into you, thrusting his hips up to meet yours as he pulls you down onto him. 

He makes it look effortless. 

Another growl rips through the air and you know neither one of you is gonna last long if he keeps going at this pace. He hammers into your sensitive spots with every thrust, your clit rubbing against the dark curls along his pelvis.

He’s merciless with the force at which he moves you, he’s started nipping at your shoulder and you know he’s close as they get harder and harder. You finally feel him break the skin and just like that he’s lifting you off of him, his mouth clamped down on your flesh, you feel his cum between your legs as he finishes on your folds. The sensation of him slipping out of you sends you over the edge right along with him, your stomach tightening as you groan, letting your head fall forward onto him.

You feel better already. 

Not good, just better. 

He manages to keep you both upright for a few more moments before collapsing down on the mattress with you in his arms. 

And then it’s just quiet.

Until the mattress squeaks as you get up. Wiping yourself off with a towel and turning the lights off before returning to bed without a word. He’s the one who finally breaks the silence.  

“If you want me to leave, I’ll leave.”

 “You can stay.” You mumble, rolling over to face away from him. 

It’s better if you know where he is. 

That’s what you tell yourself. 

It’s easier to swallow that excuse than the truth, that you can’t shake the terror from your encounter with the creature and now amount of fucking is going to change that. You don’t want to be alone, no matter how angry you are. He doesn’t seem to take the hint though, snaking his arm under yours and pulling you to his chest. 

You start to push him away but you feel a wave of calm wash over you when he does so you just settle back against him. You close your eyes, praying sleep might come but all you see in the darkness is that open maw closing in on you. 

You know that growl. 

It isn’t Joel. It can’t be Joel, he was with Ellie and then he was with you. 

It wasn’t Joel.

You’re more than used to waking up in the woods at this point. Monsters and men torment you in your dreams whenever they get the chance to. 

But tonight is different. 

You don’t feel the cold, wetness of the forest floor on your back before you open your eyes. Instead you only feel steel, you make an attempt to sit up on instinct but you can’t. In a panic you open your eyes to find yourself cuffed to the cadaver carrier from Marias basement. 

This can’t be happening. 

This is the kind of dream you get after your first body. 

You’ve had this dream, years ago when you’d just started studying mortuary sciences. Although now it feels worse, more ominous than it had previously. 

That probably has to do with the fact that you can’t move. 

In response to that petrifying thought you begin to uselessly tug on the cuffs, your ankles and wrists attached to the cold unforgiving steel of the table you’ve sewn countless bodies back together on. 

You don’t strap cadavers down, there’s no need to. 

The door swings open and you’re thankfully able to sit up enough to watch Maria and Joel walk in, solemn looks on both of their faces. 

You open your mouth to call for help but something stops you.

No.

No, no, no.

Your jaw is wired shut. 

The sudden realization makes you gag as you shake the table with the force of your panic. 

Maria is always thorough, your mouth is full of cotton.

They act as if you’re as lifeless as any other corpse as they stand beside you, despite your muffled screaming, tears immediately flowing from your eyes as you feel your throat constrict around the cotton.  

“What happened to her?” He sounds so far gone even though he only stands a few feet away. 

“You know what happened to her.” Marias sorrow turns to a look of resentment as she turns to Joel. 

“Bear attack.” He says it more to himself than to her. 

“Keep telling yourself that.” 

“I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“You never do.” Her voice is full of a hatred you haven’t ever heard in reality. 

She looks at you with a pity you’ve had on your own face before. It’s the same look you give every corpse on a table.  

You follow Maria’s gaze down at your body and find your chest sliced open, the inside dry. 

And then you wake up. 

Of course Joel is there when you sit up in bed with a strangled cry, a fresh flood of tears falling down your face. 

“Bunny?” His groggy, sleep ridden voice resembles a growl, sending you backwards away from him, your back hitting where the mattress meets the camper wall. He’s already up, he moves towards you but the moment you flinch away from he stops. “Are you okay? What hap-“

“Don’t come any closer.” Your voice is barely above a whisper. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Thankfully he doesn’t move towards you, he holds his hands up ever so slowly. He’s acting like you’re a cornered animal. 

You can’t seem to find your voice. Every single logical and rational part of your body and mind tell you to get as far away from him as possible. To fight tooth and nail to get past him, to run away and never look back. You’d never get away with that though, he’s too deeply rooted in you already. He’s made for you. Sculpted by the gods to be everything you’ve ever wanted all in one neat little salt and pepper package, served up to you on a silver platter.  

“Sweetheart, it’s okay, you’re okay.” He inches forward a bit but the way you pull your legs up against your chest, trying to make yourself smaller makes him move back. “It’s okay, it’s just me.” 

Yeah Joel, that's the problem.  

a/n : i have such mixed feeling abt this chap but whatever i really like it so ?? idk

I am no longer doing taglists so follow @lincolndjarinnotifs and turn on notifications to be notified when new chapters are posted !!

[sparkly-sediment]

Hiya. I saw you were taking suggestions. How about Soldier with a hippie s/o. He might have despised her in the begging but she was too chill and laid back to be intimidated by him and he fell for that? :)

Tf2 Soldier x hippie s/o who doesn’t give a fuck (loves him tho) headcanons

Obsessed with this idea??

Soldier yells a lot. Obviously

It’s not incessant but if you piss him off (which you will!) he will stand a give you the ass chewing of a lifetime.

Smokes your ass like a cigarette. Veins popping, spittle flying, his head is pounding can barely breathe from his yelling. And he says pretty fucked up shit too!

Told Scout his mama was so loose he flew out on accident (Scout cried himself to sleep)

When he enters a fit most mercs try to hide. They ignored him in the beginning, but papi will get your attention and it will be with a riding crop

The most defiance anyone shows during Soldier’s rage is when Spy cloaks and flees

This hippie chick though…

Soldier didn’t like her in the beginning!!! He is a man of order and strength, and this woman is chill, she laughs at him when he is not funny, and she doesn’t seem to gaf when he barks orders

“Oh okay” “thanks Soldier” “mhm yeah for sure” “… totally”

It drives him bananas. 🍌

She’s nice enough, and does a good job on the battlefield. She never gets too drunk or wild which is a bit weird to him (what else do you do?)

Once, everyone is in the kitchen area before work, and his goddamn mitts are too big to get his toast out of the toaster so she puts it on a plate and hands it to him

Soldier like that but didn’t like that he like that

She’s always doing these small sweet things???? He doesn’t understand why and overall he doesn’t *get* her.

The others are pretty easy to read, but it’s almost as if she isn’t acting for personal gain 🤯

Even if they are relaxing (drinking) after work or on a day off, she doesn’t puss out of conversations like Scout and Sniper and doesn’t get angry like Spy and Medic

She’s just… chill? Nice to him? Exasperated but endeared?

Cue some Saturday and Soldier is yelling again. A real holler fest, reverberation is shaking the walls

Most of the mercs have clear out but she’s just sitting on the couch reading and paying literally no mind, which upsets him more

Soldier locks in on his target. Marches over to the back of the couch, looks down at her reading like A FOOL! And starts his engines

“DO YOU EVER CARE ABOUT THIS TEAM?? ABOUT THIS-“

She interrupts his spewing to stand and make eye contact this bitch is crazy!!

Hippie chick smiles, sighs, and tells him to stop yelling please, it’s not that big of a deal, and we are all teammates so please don’t make me want to hurt you ❤️

Soldier is stunned into momentary silence and before he can counter with a well places RAHH she leans in a kisses his cheek! The fuck!

He short circuits and she walks away victorious. Long story short, our little patriot realizes he has some feelings to sort through

I feel like Soldier would be very clearly head over heels and think he is hiding it so well and nobody ever knows ever but she knows and the others are to scared or in disbelief to say anything

She wears an American flag bandanna and he jizzes in his pants 😩😭🇺🇸

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Unexpected 1

Sequel to Unsolicited

Warnings: non/dubcon, pregnancy, Lloyd being the worst, and other dark elements.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

The devastation of your marriage forms a malaise around you. One in which you wade through unseen waters. Your reality is rippled and unclear. One moment you feel fine, neither gloomy or bright. The next, you’re restless and lost in emotion.

Even Lloyd’s peculiar way of riling you cannot part the murk of your moods. Besides, it’s all his fault. He’s done this to you.

Mr. and Mrs. Hansen. You stare at the program, gold on ivory. Ridiculous and unnecessary for a Vegas drive-by. 

You cross your arms and face the rack of gowns sheathed in garment bags. Another elaborate expense for a second marriage. Wearing white isn’t very appropriate given the circumstance. Black would be more fitting.

You turn and shield your eyes. They water at the winter sunlight streaming in through the window. You go to tug shut the curtain. Your head vibrates from insomnia that’s haunted you since that fateful day. 

Thirty-six days. You’ve counted every sleepless nights. Trapped beside him. On top of everything you could despise about him, he snores like thunder.

You rub your stomach as another stir of nausea swirls. You haven’t been eating much, you’ve forgotten several times despite the greedy knotting in your stomach. You could devour everything but want for nothing at all.

Another trip to the bathroom has you yawning and rubbing your cheeks, another urgent stream spills into the bowl. You haven’t been drinking more than usual but it’s like every other minute you have to go. You wipe and pause before you can drop the tissue in the toilet. Light red specks.

You dispose of the toilet paper and pull down your skirt. You wash your hands and scowl at the mirror. Great, now you get to beg Lloyd for a doctor’s appointment. Another fun conversation you don’t want to have. 

You finish up and resign yourself to a meal of toast and butter. If you don’t eat something soon, you’re going to dry heave. You slip two slices in the toaster and push the plunger down. 

Fucking implant. You’ll have to get it check and figure out what’s going on with that. When you took the pill, it was the same fucking thing. You don’t need a period adding to your already towering stack of problems.

The bread pops up and you smear the melting butter across it with a knife, the scent of it making your mouth water. You bite into it, nearly half the slice as you chew without restraint. You gulp it down and go to the fridge, pulling out the orange juice with your free hand. 

As you pour a glass, you hear his descent. Great. You wish he would fuck off to wherever it is he goes. Pack his gun and get lost. 

You put the carton down and take a large gulp as he enters, crossing to pick up the juice and drink straight from the spout. You roll your eyes and reach for your other slice of toast. He takes that too.

You face him and he watches you with a smirk as he bites into the crisp toast. You hold back a sneer. You’re getting good at that. Pretending you don’t care. You like the way your vacant stare makes him deflate. Today is not different as his lips straighten and he drops the toast back on the plate.

“Try on the dresses yet?” He asks.

“You pick one.”

He takes a breath, nostrils flaring as you reach for the unfinished slice. Finishing it, unbothered by the missing portion. He watches you cap the orange juice and put it back. You face him again as you gobble up the last of the crust.

“I needa see a doctor,” you choke out as you swallow your mouthful, “I can give you the number. I know you still don’t trust me with a phone.”

“You haven’t signed the papers,” he ignores your request. “It’s been over a month.”

“I am reading them.”

“You promised you would. Don’t make me drag that twerp here at the end of a glock–”

“Calm down,” you dust off your fingers, “if I sign, can I see a doctor? Or go to a clinic?”

He tilts his chin, jaw twitching as he thinks, “why?”

“Why? Because.”

“Are you sick?”

“Wouldn’t you be so worried,” you roll your eyes and his eyebrow tweaks. You’re losing yourself. He’s getting the best of you and that’s only fun for him, “if you must know, I’m bleeding.”

“Bleeding?” He squints.

“Spotting. Downstairs.”

“I haven’t noticed,” he sticks his tongue out, “a little blood on my balls never bothered me.”

“I don’t get a period. Not supposed to anyway. So, grab a pen. I’d rather get this sorted sooner than later.”

He nears, dragging his hand along the counter as he does, “you feel okay? Headache? Maybe an upset tummy?”

“Tummy? Lloyd, I’m not a child.”

He grins, “you’re comin’ around, sweetheart.”

“You’re driving me crazy.”

He nods and brings his fingers up to smooth his mustache, the thick line of hair finally back in full effect. You watch the habitual gesture with barely concealed irritation. He really is a trip.

“Spotting… check. You’re eating toast and butter, probably an bit of a grumbly tummy,” he says the last word emphatically, “and you scowl everytime you see the sun. Light sensitivity.”

“So what. I didn’t know you had a PhD.”

“Pretty huge dick. Pretty sure even you would admit that,” he snickers, “but no.”

He spins and pulls open the cupboard. He points his index fingers along the large canister of protein powder and the many bottles of vitamins. He swipes one out of the row and plops it on the marble. He turns the label to face you.

“St. John’s wort,” he announces, “I read it’s supposed to help with depression or some shit. I’m all about the natural remedies. It can also cause light sensitivity and some nausea. Headache too, and some insomnia. Oh, sexual dysfunction as well but you don’t seem to be struggling there.”

“I don’t… I don’t take that shit.”

His mouth slants and his eyes drift away for a moment, “I added a little to the medium roast.”

“Lloyd,” you hit his chest without thinking, “what the fuck?”

“I don’t know. I thought it would help brighten you up for the wedding. Excuse fucking me for trying to be a good fiance.”

“What the fuck! You’ve been drugging me.”

“It’s just a plant actually,” he corrects you, “I’ve been helping you. You’re like a little puppy, I just gotta hide your medicine in a piece of cheese.”

“Wow, you really are sick in the fucking head.”

“Look, if I knew you were going to be a bitch about this, I would’ve told you sooner,” he brings his hand up to chin and frames it, “I missed you yelling at me.”

“Fuck off of me!” You shove him again. “I can’t believe you.”

You open the next cupboard and take out the bag of medium roast. You take it to the bin and stomp on the pedal, flipping up the lid. You drop it inside and let it close. He is oddly calm as he watches you. You catch him staring at your ass as you turn to him again. Typical.

You resist the urge to storm out as his eyes focus on your stomach. You jut your chin out and cover your middle, “what are you doing?”

“Hmm,” his eyes meet your angry ones.

“What are you staring at?”

“You?” He seems confused by the answer.

“My stomach?”

“Ah, you didn’t let me get to that little tidbit, honey,” he leans back and grips his hips, “St. John’s wort can interact with some forms of birth control. Um, oral contraceptives,” he brings one hand up and counts as he starts his list, “some IUDs, implants–”

“Implants?” You growl, nearly knocked back by the word, “implant? Lloyd! I have an implant.”

“I didn’t know that,” he can’t hide his amusement.

“You think it’s fucking funny? If I’d known, I’d–”

“What? You wouldn’t be taking loads like a fucking champ?” 

“Ew,” you snap, “Lloyd, Lloyd!” You barrel towards him and grab the front of his tacky polo, “I can’t be pregnant. I can’t. What the fuck would I do? What would you do?”

“Ah, yes, what would we do, Mrs. Hansen? That would be a tragedy,” he bites his lip as he splendours in your fury, “I suppose you’re right, we should call the doctor.”

“I–” you scoff at him, “you did this on purpose, didn’t you?”

His eyes roll up and his forehead wrinkles as he pretends to think, lips pouting in his act. You let go of him and take a step back. You throw your hands up, speechless, then stretch them out, dropping them back to your sides. You don’t know what to do. You could strangle him but he likes that too much.

You wave him off sharply and bluster away. You enter the front room and stomp towards the rack of dresses. You grunt as you tip it over, the crash of metal softened by the layers of fabric. You swipe up the program from the table and crumple it up.

As Lloyd appears in the doorway, watching you with an air of amusement, you sweep back towards him and toss the paper in his face.

“Fucker.”

“I think you mean, ‘mother fucker’,” he quotes with his fingers smugly.