#i will have 2 check out later!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[asksonicverse]

Happened to prism and paradox since the lights are out?

Not a lot of time, just a little bit of time. Like two hours before lights up! Anyways though, Part 2 later tonight so be on the lookout!

First, I wanted to announce I now have an account for my other sonadow/sonic art so go check that out! The @ is @verizzafai !!

I also wanted to use this post as a way to say: please do NOT hate on or attack any other ask blogs, AU’s, etc with a similar premise to this one. The idea of “push alternate versions of a character into a room and see what happens” is not a new one. Thank you!! Love you guys :)

(When Sonics and Shadows are alone with their respective counterpart, they switch back to calling eachother Sonic/Shadow)

Previous | names/start | Next

[eoieopda]

in limine | wjh

in limine (latin): at the threshold, in the beginning

synopsis: you think that by remaining single this year, you’ve found a loophole in your string of shitty valentine’s days. the universe thinks you should lose your paralegal on the eve of a major trial and see if you wouldn’t rather have all of those untimely breakups and missed dates instead. pairing: wen junhui x reader au: law firm, coworkers to something genre: fluff, minor angst, smut word count: 12.5k rating: 18+ (minors, do not interact) content/warnings: attorney!reader, attorney!junhui, pov switches, civil litigation (derogatory), forced proximity, discussions of shitty relationships, i haven’t practiced in this field of law in years, recreational drinking, explicit sexual content (v fingering, p in v penetration; use of protection isn’t referenced — the smut is v prose-y —but these two would not fuck without a condom!!). reader notes: afab, no pronouns used, no descriptions of hair/complexion/body/ethnicity/nationality/etc., canonically queer, has at least one (small, nondescript, hidden wrist) tattoo. a/n 1: this fic is part of the lonely hearts club café collab, hosted by @camandemstudios! please check out the rest of this masterlist, as well as their previous collabs! 💕 a/n 2: everything here is based on u.s. law, even though the setting is nondescript. family law attorneys: i’m sorry. this is based on my one (1) month in that practice area. a/n 3: smooches to the (w)hor(e)anghae beta gang — @jihopesjoint, @daechwitatamic, and @sailorsoons svt masterlist. svt permanent taglist. multi permanent taglist.

If you had a dollar for every exasperated sigh you’ve let out during this seemingly never-ending phone call with your mother, you’d be able to pay off your student loans in an instant. Though the frustration is palpable to you, causing your already elevated blood pressure to spike further, it’s invisible to her. 

Or worse, inconsequential.

“I’m just saying!” She offers, as if this takes the edge off. As if she’s ever said anything just to say it. “It wouldn’t kill you to give Mika another chance. It’s Valentine’s Day, after all.”

The next time you hear her voice, it doesn’t come from the phone pinched between your ear and shoulder; it materializes in the back of your brain and lingers like a poltergeist.

Don’t roll your eyes like that unless you want them to get stuck that way.

Across the counter, the person subbing in for your usual barista shoots you an impatient glare, then flicks his gaze to the growing line behind you.

“Mom, I have to —”

“— You really should return her calls, dove. Bitterness causes premature wrinkles, and you can’t afford —”

At this, the thread you’re dangling by snaps. Squeezing your eyes shut, you try your best to keep your voice down. “I don’t have time for this. I’ll talk to you later.”

When you hang up on her, the forceful tap against your phone’s screen sounds more like a rock against a window. Already wind-bitten from the walk here, your cheeks burn even more harshly when you note the multiple pairs of eyes watching you with poorly disguised interest. 

Not wanting to make an even bigger spectacle out of yourself, you hurriedly shove your phone in your pocket and accept the drink being handed to you, even though you can tell by the blatant lack of ice that it’s wrong.

“Thank you,” you mutter with a curt nod.

The second-string barista doesn’t acknowledge that you’ve spoken. That said, the throbbing vein in his temple disappears the second you back away from his counter.

With the americano you didn’t order burning a hole through your palm, you turn swiftly and head for the door. You barely make it two steps before your phone starts screaming from the inside of your coat pocket.

Leaning hard against the glass door, you force it open with your body alone and use your spare hand to instead grasp the source of all your morning’s problems. The pressure of that godforsaken brick shoves the post of your earring painfully into your neck. 

You growl, “When I said later, I didn’t mean by thirty seconds.”

A voice that is distinctly not your mother’s stammers, “Um — hello — This is Tom from Amato, Shapiro, and Santi.”

Never have you ever encountered a firm of assholes so aptly named.

He waits a beat, no doubt expecting you to apologize for your rude non-greeting, but you don’t. In fact, he could wait forever and still not get a mea culpa. 

It’s only fair, you think. 

Just last month, the serial sex pest he represents escaped liability for harassing your client, due in large part to Tom’s bullshit antics. If that poor woman couldn’t even get an apology for what she went through, Tom certainly won’t now.

“Yes, I know where you work, Tom.” 

You roll your eyes again. It’s a reckless decision, given how furiously you’re charging down the sidewalk. A dog-walker scrambles to get both himself and his tiny, white dog out of your way. 

“Do you need something? I don’t chat for free.”

The shitty little laugh you get in response makes your skin crawl. He doesn’t drag it out, though, immediately simpering, “But do you make use of the time you bill for?”

“What are you — ?” You begin to ask.

Tom cuts you off, his tone jovial and no less fake than his back alley Gucci loafers. “I’m inquiring about your witness and exhibit lists for the Qian divorce in two weeks. Really waiting until the last minute, huh? Trying to keep me on my toes?”

Though he can’t see you do it, you shake your head with a patronizing smile. 

“Nice try, Tom,” you sigh. “Judge Ito continued that to May. She’s the keynote speaker for that cancerous children charity gala, or whatever.”

You weave through two old women with a muttered apology. Both are too busy gossiping about their grandsons to hear you, which is no surprise. They didn’t notice the queue of pissed-off pedestrians stuck behind their roadblock, either.

“No,” Tom corrects you. “She issued an entry a month ago, advising the parties that the conflict was no longer conflicting; and the original trial date would stand.”

The block heel of your boot catches in a divot in the sidewalk. Although you don’t trip, you may as well have. The coffee you didn’t want sloshes violently, goaded by your sudden, harsh squeeze of its cup; and it splatters all over your top, burning your chest through sticky, soaked fabric. 

Because why not, you rue, the heel that did you in clatters separately to wet concrete when you lift your foot, having ripped itself from your sole.

Rather than lie down on the concrete and wait for death in the way you crave, you swallow hard and choke out, “I never got that entry.”

“It sounds like you never got competent support staff.” He laughs too loudly, making your blood boil. “Ultimately, it’s up to you which is more pressing: cleaning house or the Rules of Civil Procedure.”

Your mouth opens instinctively to tell him all the million ways he can fuck off and die. He cuts you off again before you can start: 

“Just know that I will make it a problem if you can’t get your shit together in time for court. My client is sick of yours dragging this out. Frankly, so am I.”

And without another word, Tom hangs up on you. 

Whatever.

Anything else he might’ve said would’ve been drowned out by the hammering pulse in your ears, anyway. What you did hear loops through your brain with every uneven step you take down the warpath, bringing your office building closer and closer into view.

Trial in two weeks.

Competent support staff.

As much as you hate to admit it, Tom has a point. You’ve been making excuses for your paralegal, Dev, for months, but this kind of fuck-up can’t be overlooked. No matter how endearing he is, Dev’s a goddamn disaster. Put simply, you can’t keep sticking your neck out for him only to have it trampled, time and again.

Dread churns in your stomach for the remainder of your commute, although the full-blown nausea doesn’t hit you until you exit the elevator and wobble out into your firm’s waiting area. A deep breath in through your nose is followed by a shaky exhale through your mouth. 

Neither helps. 

You make a mental note to tell your therapist that she was wrong, then another one to actually schedule an appointment.

Despite your unflinching exterior — and the profession you’ve willingly chosen for reasons still unknown to you — the simple fact remains that you don’t seek out confrontation. Nothing ruins your day quite like having to ruin someone else’s. Unfortunately for Dev, you don’t have a choice not to go nuclear. Likewise, you don’t have much time left to get your shit together prior to trial. All you seem to have is an ultimatum to present him for consideration:

Stay late with me tonight to clean up this mess, or be out of the job by the end of business hours.

“Fuck,” you mutter to yourself as you make a beeline for your personal office. 

There, somewhere amidst the out-of-date statutory reference books and evidence boxes, you’ve got at least one pair of spare Chelsea boots hidden for circumstances like these. 

Well, that’s not quite true. 

You’ve planned ahead for sudden court appearances or shitty weather, not for the abysmally bad luck you’ve experienced so far this morning. Regardless of why you have this contingency plan locked down, you’re grateful that you do. If nothing else, it will allow you to obtain some semblance of balance before potentially kicking Dev to the curb.

Upon hobbling into your office, you close the door behind you and immediately kick off your current shoes so violently that the broken boot flies somewhere out of sight. It takes several minutes’ worth of sock-footed scurrying to find their replacements. Eventually, you locate them in a far more reasonable spot than you expected: tucked neatly underneath the far edge of your L-shaped desk.

You drop yourself into your desk chair, suddenly feeling the crushing weight of your burdens against your shoulders, and begin to unceremoniously shove your feet into your boots.

It all just fucking figures, doesn’t it?

For as far back as you can remember, every Valentine’s Day you’ve experienced has been hellish. Comically cruel, like the showrunners in charge of your narrative are trying to maintain viewership, season after season; and they’re upping the ante as they go.

Last year, Mika couldn’t be bothered to remember your relationship, let alone the holiday. She spent it underneath someone else in your bed. Before that, the “first date” you had to be talked into in the first place ended the same way it started: with you sitting alone at a bar in a crowd of perfect pairs. The pattern started in undergrad, though the memories thankfully get foggier the further back you look.

By staying away from romance entirely for the last few months, you’d made yourself so sure that you’d cracked the code — that, for once, you’d make it through the fourteenth unscathed.

And yet, here you are, suffering immensely before your day even starts.

When your therapist’s bullshit breathing technique does nothing to soothe you, you close your eyes and mutter to yourself, “It cannot get worse. It will not get worse. Bad things have happened, but it is not a bad day.”

Whether the sudden sense of calm you feel is the byproduct of mindfulness or delusion, you can’t say. Whatever the source is, you’ll take it. You cling to that shred of perspective, push yourself to your feet with a grunt, and head back in the direction you just came from.

Outside your door, the hallway gives you two options: the waiting area, which you stomped through to get where you currently are, and the office shared by your firm’s two current paralegals. 

Tsia, the more senior of the two, is currently on maternity leave, which means that you’ll be able to dangle Dev off the ledge without an audience. That tiny piece of consolation is enough to get you moving in his direction, although the serenity you just barely managed to scrounge up starts evaporating more and more with every step you take.

“Dev?” You call out as you approach his closed door.

This, you note, is unlike him. He’s never been productive enough to need to shut out distractions; and he’s never been shameful enough to hide the fact that he spends most days scrolling through TikTok — without headphones, no less.

“Dev?” You try again, attempting to sound much more pleasant than you feel. “Are you on the phone?”

Hearing no response, you reach for the knob and turn it slowly, offering him some additional time to at least pretend to be busy. After counting to five, you push the door open. Then, you freeze.

Dev and his blasted cell phone are nowhere to be seen. His work laptop is on, which might have suggested that he simply stepped away, but the backlit sheet of paper taped to it says otherwise. You cross to his desk and snatch the note from his screen, eyes scanning quickly through his shockingly neat script and widening with horror at every word.

Boss,

Please consider this my resignation letter. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you in advance, but everything came about so suddenly that I haven’t had much time to wrap my brain around it. My partner’s business trip to Malta turned into a relocation offer, and now the two of us are going to –

Without bothering to finish that sentence, you crush the paper within your white-knuckled fist and squeeze your eyes shut tightly enough to sting. 

FuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK.

Unable to scream out loud, you slam that same fist down onto his desk with force. The smack of your hand against the wood doesn’t distract from the panic swelling in your chest, but it does bring his laptop back to life. The sudden appearance of his desktop is especially surprising, considering you told him no fewer than ten times to password-protect his shit.

Because the hits simply will not stop coming, you see two things at once that make you want to vomit. 

The desktop wallpaper is an adorable photo of Dev and his partner. Both are smiling, holding one another closely on a beach somewhere, as if the world isn’t capable of crashing down around them. 

At the bottom of the screen, below sand-covered feet, is a growing list of push notifications on his minimized Outlook application.

It’s the last thing in the world you want to do, but you can’t help it; damage control is impossible if you can’t properly triage the problem. Swallowing down bile, you click on the icon and bring up your firm’s primary email inbox, which Tsia and Dev are jointly responsible for manning. Of the hundreds of untouched messages, more than half are from either local Clerks of Court or Tom fucking Santi.

Just above the notice of your now-upcoming trial, you find the only January emails that Dev did read, confirming one-way plane tickets to Malta and the booking of international movers. That motherfucker not only lied in his quote-unquote resignation letter about the amount of notice he could give you but also about the billable hours he burned, planning his escape.

All at once, you feel your internal systems crashing out. Your eyes swim, your head reels, and your stomach lurches. You don’t know whether you want to scream, sob, or send yourself flying out of the nearby window. All of them — preferably at once.

The only reason you don’t do any of these things, no matter how strong the urges are, is the fact that your professional reputation is at stake. Your abject refusal to appear incompetent kicks you into overdrive. It kicks you so far, in fact, that you find yourself in your co-worker’s office with no real memory of walking there in the first place.

Yuki jolts when she looks up from her monitors and finds you looming over her with your eyes too wide to be normal. She gets up immediately and gestures for you to sit on the plush loveseat underneath her window. You don’t – rather, can’t – move, so she places her hands on your shoulders and ushers you onto a cushion herself.

“Dear god,” she mutters. “Are you okay?”

She should know by now that this is the worst possible question to ask you under circumstances like this. Of course, you weren’t okay when you barged in here to begin with. You’re even worse off now because your weakness is being perceived. 

Embarrassment and self-loathing bubbles under the surface of your skin, making you hot. Both threaten to leak out through your eyes. 

You don’t want to have to ask for help, period, but you’re out of options; and Yuki is the only person here who’s allowed to see you anywhere near a breakdown. That, and you’re certain she’d be available. Having drafted the shared parenting agreement for her and her ex-boyfriend, you know for a fact that their daughter will be with him tonight.

“If I buy you takeout, would you be willing to stay for a while after work to help with some last minute trial prep?” You can’t even bring yourself to meet her eyes when you explain, “Dev bailed, and I’m so, so, so fucked now.”

Yuki grabs your hand from your lap and squeezes. For a split second, you feel relieved. Then, you hear her sigh, and your hopes are dashed just as quickly as they were raised.

“Kimiko’s kindergarten class is having a daddy-daughter dance for Valentine’s Day tonight,” she starts.

The pained look on her face tells you everything you need to know. Nevertheless, she continues, “Ty flaked, as usual. I had to be the one to decide what would be more humiliating for her — being the only kid there with their mom, or the only kid who doesn’t get to go at all.”

“I’m so sorry, Yuki.”

You mean it, wholeheartedly. The only victim of your shitty love life is you. Yuki, on the other hand, has a six-year-old to protect from becoming collateral damage. 

She simply shrugs, too used to this sort of letdown to let it ruin her day. “Kimiko bounced back fairly quickly, which is pretty sad, in and of itself. She asked if we could wear matching outfits.”

You crack a smile for the first time all day. Gesturing to her entirely black, incredibly chic outfit, you tease, “Is she dressing for a funeral, too?”

“I wish!” Yuki throws her head back and whines, “The vibes tonight are tragically bright pink, and I have to leave early to shop before the dance starts.”

“Well…” You give her hand a squeeze, then let it go entirely. “I’m sending you thoughts and prayers, buddy.”

She swats at you, tells you kindly to fuck off, and then wishes you good luck while you head back out her door.

As you trudge back towards your office, you run through your list of contingency plans. 

The firm’s owners, Zavier and Jaein, are both out of the question. If they’re not spending the night with their respective spouses, they’ll be continuing their not-so-secret affair with one another. Even if they weren’t, you’d rather stand in front of an oncoming train than give them any reason to doubt your abilities. 

Next.

With Yuki out of commission, there are three other associate attorneys left for you to consider. 

Dani is engaged and definitely has plans with his smoke-show of a fiancé; there’s no point in asking him for help. You’d never hear the end of it if you did, anyway. He’s so committed to his one-sided rivalry with you that he’d probably make a plaque to commemorate your failings. 

Pass.

Sana and her wife are on a cruise somewhere far more pleasant than here, so she’s out. Thank god. Beating your head against a wall would be preferable to spending several hours in a room alone with her. Sana’s only personality trait is married, and she’s entirely incapable of talking about anything else. 

Hard pass.

The relatively new hire, Junhui, is still an unknown factor. In the few months he’s worked here, you’ve met him exactly once that you can recall. It was a brief encounter in the break room; and his mouth was so full of whatever he’d brought for lunch that he couldn’t respond beyond simply waving when you’d introduced yourself.

He seemed perfectly nice — and from what you hear, he’s perfectly competent — but yours is far too big a burden to shove onto a virtual stranger.

Besides, there’s simply no way that someone who looks like that doesn’t have better places to be tonight.

Junhui doesn’t realize that he’d nodded off until his bleary eyes travel down from his half-finished report and spot the time in the bottom corner of his screen. Apparently, it’s already a quarter to six. If he hadn’t fallen asleep at some point in the recent past, he’d be stepping off the train home by now. 

Of course, he isn’t. Now, with all the other commuters flooding public transit, the trip home will be at least twice as long.

Damn it.

He scrubs his hands over his face in an attempt to get the exhaustion off of it, though he doesn’t manage without yawning into his palms. 

Figuring that he’s already behind schedule, he slowly rises to his feet and stretches his arms over his head with a groan, dreaming all the while of the caffeine he can down before heading out. With no one left in the office, he’ll be able to fail his way through this acquisition without anyone knowing how completely inept he is at using the firm’s espresso machine.

As expected, Junhui’s walk to the conference room is lonely. Each of his colleagues’ doors are closed, making it clear that they all bolted the second they could. Even the cleaning staff managed to come and go without him noticing; all the trash and recycling bins have been emptied. 

Thankfully, he notes, someone forgot to turn off the conference room light before they dipped. If they hadn’t, all his steps would be taken in total darkness — because, even after three months of working here, he still doesn’t have a clue where the switches are.

As soon as he crosses the threshold into that sole, lit room, Junhui stops. The massive table that normally occupies the center of it has been shoved up against the interior wall, along with all its chairs. In its place, evidence boxes form a haphazard little fairy circle on the rug. You sit cross-legged in the middle, nose all but buried in a case file, wearing leggings and a crewneck instead of the suit you likely came here in.

“You look comfortable,” he muses.

It becomes abundantly clear very quickly that you, too, thought you were here alone. You jolt at the sound of his voice. All the papers you were holding drop and scatter, both across your lap and the floor you’re monopolizing.

Junhui’s hands fly up. “Whoa, sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

The look on your face is far from startled, though. Even from a few meters away, he can see how tightly your jaw is clenched. If he listens closely, he’d likely hear your teeth grinding one another into dust. 

He can also sense how stiff your posture is, now that you feel his eyes on you. His gaze shifts to the piles of paper near your knotted limbs; and he tells himself that he’s averting his eyes out of respect, not the tiny tremble of intimidation he feels working its way down his spine.

At this point, Junhui knows you by reputation only. He’s rarely at any of the courthouses you frequent, and his specific line of work keeps him out of the office, more often than not. Whenever he is here, you’re not — too busy with that massive caseload of yours to catch much of a breather.

The two of you may be passing ships in the night, but you have a lot of people in common. He can’t say that he’s made much of an impression on them so far. You, on the other hand, are both widely known and discussed. 

So far, anyone that’s ever mentioned you to him speaks about you as if they’re describing a force of nature. It’s the kind of awe people usually save for something fearsome yet worthy of respect, like a tsunami — with the sole exception being that sanctimonious cunt, Tom Santi, who most recently described you as a nightmare bitch from hell.

Of course, Junhui has no firsthand knowledge to back any of these claims up, but he figures it can’t be that far out of character for you to be here now, working too hard. For all he knows, it could also be on-brand for you to snap his neck for distracting you.

“Do you…?”

One of your eyebrows arches quizzically. His question dies on his tongue, halfway finished, because he doesn’t know where it was headed in the first place. Just the same, he can’t tell if that expression on your face is due to stress, annoyance at being interrupted, or some secret, third thing.

…Want me to leave?

Junhui points awkwardly to the espresso machine in the corner, which you’ve unintentionally barricaded behind the conference room table. Like a fucking buffoon, all he says is: “Espresso?”

Your face scrunches a tiny bit. For the second time, he finds himself completely unable to read you. Is it disgust? Suspicion?

No, he realizes, it’s neither. He sees the tiniest flicker of it when the corner of your lips twitch: amusement. While the smile doesn’t overtake your mouth, there’s a glimmer of it in your eyes. It’s reason enough for Junhui to breathe for the first time since he walked in.

“Yes, I do espresso.” You nod with your lips bitten between your teeth, like you’re seconds away from laughing. 

Too eagerly, Junhui nods, too. “Right. Got it. Order up.”

Order up?

Running away isn’t an option; and he can’t dig a hole to hide in without a shovel. All he has left to do is shuffle over towards the corner and slink through the obstacle course you’ve built. With what he feels is impressive agility, he makes it all the way to the machine before pausing suddenly. 

Under his breath, he curses, “Fuck.”

The jig is up now. Junhui has no idea which buttons to press, or even where the espresso beans are. Unfortunately for both of you, the only way for him to find out is to interrupt you further. 

Whoever handles his eulogy better leave out how little time it took him to provoke you into killing him.

Bracing himself for impact, he squeezes his eyes shut and smiles sheepishly. “Do you happen to know how to… use this?”

There’s a groan from the center of the room. Junhui cracks one eye open and searches for the fist coming his way. Instead, he finds you on your feet, twisting at the waist and stretching.

While twisting, you lock eyes — well, eye — with him, then you freeze with your torso still rotated in his direction. Your hinged arms stay where they are, held up at your sides.

“I’ve been sitting here like a goblin for too long,” you explain, tone self-conscious. “If you just heard every joint in my body pop…. no, you didn’t.”

Before Junhui can think of a quip in response — he’s capable of coherent speech, he swears — you step over the shoes you’ve discarded and make your way over to him, patterned socks clashing with the neutral carpet below. He steps back on instinct, although there isn’t really anywhere left for him to go. 

You either don’t notice how close you get to him, or you don’t care. Entirely unfazed, you set to work, grinding and tamping like it’s all second nature to you.

Junhui knows he should use this time to observe your processes carefully, but he doesn’t. That’s not to say the learning opportunity is entirely squandered, though. 

And he’s a quick study.

In less than a minute, he learns more about you than he has in the last three months. His first discovery is that you’re wearing a watch on your dominant wrist, which is weird as hell — until he spots the small tattoo hiding beneath it. He catches the very faint notes of patchouli at the base of your perfume, too, underneath the cassis and freesia.

It’s nice, he thinks, even better than the overwhelming scent of coffee that swoops in to drown it out.

“This goes here —”

The silver piece in your hand twists into place with a click, drawing his attention back to where it should’ve been all along. 

Fuck. 

Have you been talking this entire time?

“— and then you press the start button to release the hot water.”

You glance up at him then to confirm that he understood you. Junhui blinks, buffering while he tries to play this out.

“You’re good at this,” he improvises, although he admittedly has no idea if this is true. 

“No compliments until you survive drinking it.” You offer him a wry smile to go with the drink you’ve made him. “I’ve quite literally never touched this thing before in my life.”

With your vaguely expectant eyes on him, he takes a small sip, then he murmurs with his lips still hidden behind the glass, “I don’t think I believe that.”

“Why?” You smirk and tilt your head to the side. “Because it’s just that good?”

No, in fact, it’s terrible, but you don’t need to know that.

Junhui nods his head towards the center of the room. His reply is simple, and despite not being the full truth, it’s not a lie: “I’d expect more practice from someone who seems to live here.”

For the first time since he walked in, you offer a full reaction — not just a hint of one. He would’ve preferred a laugh, or even a genuine smile; however, that’s not what he gets. Instead, your face becomes pinched.

“Fucking Dev.”

Whatever thought you might have had about making your own shitty drink disappears. You stalk back over to your shrine of documents and drop once again to the floor, legs knitted. In the split second you’re not looking at him, Junhui spits out the bean shards you missed while grinding and tosses them in the nearby trash can.

Although he’s curious, he hesitates to ask what it is you’re working on. Clearly, whatever it is has got you stressed to the point that caffeine is no longer a priority. Based on personal experience, that’s a bad sign.

Still, Junhui can’t seem to stop talking to you, even though he’s sure it’s a bother. He takes a second look at the sheer amount of paper surrounding you and ventures a guess: “Class-action suit?”

“That would honestly be preferable,” you mutter, looking up from your notes long enough to glance over your shoulder at him.

He takes this as a sign that his presence isn’t entirely unwelcome. At least, it’s a good enough omen to draw him closer. He skirts back around the mess of chairs until he’s standing across from where you sit, and then he leans back against the table.

You look back down again, leaving Junhui to wonder if he made the wrong call. For what it’s worth, he also wonders what it really is about you that’s making him act so awkwardly all of the sudden.

“What are you still here for?”

His heart drops into his stomach, which is about ready to fall right out of his ass. His mouth opens, though nothing comes out.

Sensing the way he’s quietly spiraling, you look up at him. “In the office, I mean,” you amend quickly with a shake of your head. “We don’t really run into each other during business hours, so I didn’t expect to see you here after, you know?”

Ah, fuck.

Junhui swallows. 

The truth — that he’s only here because he dozed off on the clock — is offensive, even to him. Here you are, working hard enough for two people; and in stomps the clown whose tasks bored him right to sleep. While he doesn’t want anyone to know about his unprofessional little snooze, the thought of admitting it to you feels…

Nope. 

He’s not going to unpack this, not now. It doesn’t matter if it’s a desire to not look dumb in front of a colleague or one to be a little more impressive to you, specifically.

“I was working on an investigatory report,” he eventually says, conveniently leaving out the fact that his impromptu nap kept him from finishing it.

You arch an eyebrow again, which he’s beginning to believe is an unconscious tell of yours. Yet another quiet invitation.

“Investigatory report? Is that… common?”

The two of you look at each other. Now, he’s confused.

“You do immigration law, don’t you?” You gesture over his shoulder, out the door. “You’ve got five different name plates outside your office, written in as many different alphabets —”

Oh.

“— I kind of just assumed —”

Junhui laughs, which causes your other eyebrow to rise up and join the other. “I mean, I dabble. It’s all soul-crushing, though, so I try not to take those cases unless they’re, like, dire.”

Too many of them are.

You hum in acknowledgment. “So, what do you do?” 

“Guardian ad Litem work, mostly,” he replies with a shrug. “The name plates are —“

He gestures vaguely, but then all that suppressed, systemic frustration starts to bubble up, unbidden. He’s never been great at withholding his little rants, so he starts talking a little too quickly, a little too loudly. 

“There are a lot of immigrant families in the area, right? Whether or not they should, a lot of them wind up court-involved, especially where their kids are concerned.” 

As aware as he is that his hands are moving too much with each word, he’s unable to stop. 

“I noticed that absolutely nobody on the local courts’ appointment lists was multilingual, which is just fucking negligent —”

When you finally speak, it’s with your head tilted and eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Sounds to me like someone found their calling.”

And against his better judgment, Junhui takes his balled up fist, extends his thumb and pinky finger, and holds it up to his ear. “Might have been a wrong number, but it’s worked out well enough so far.”

And you laugh, sincerely and squeakily in a way that nearly makes him laugh, too.

“You’re weird. You know that, right? Like weird weird.” You grin as you say this, leading him to believe it’s a compliment of the highest order. “I never would’ve guessed.”

Junhui looks at you, looking at him, and he feels the charge your shitty espresso couldn’t muster. He feels bolder. Gesturing to your mountain of documents, he finally brings himself to ask why you’re still here. The second he does, he regrets it; he watches you deflate in real time, smile warping downwards.

“It’s a clusterfuck.” 

You take your eyes off of him and plant them back on the file in your hands. 

“I found out that a nasty trial of mine is taking place in two weeks, rather than twelve, and I have to get shit together tonight or I’m fucked – genuinely, irrevocably fucked. I can’t file a Witness and Exhibit List until I get through all of this discovery–” 

You shift your extended left leg to give one of the boxes a half-hearted kick. 

“– and if I don’t submit that for electronic filing by midnight, all my shit will be excluded.”

Junhui nods his understanding, then pushes himself off the table he’s been leaning on. You watch him carefully, waiting for him to excuse himself and walk out the door, but that was never his intention. Instead, he sits cross-legged on the floor across from you and grabs a packet of exhibit stickers off one of the nearby boxes’ lids.

“Letters or numbers?” He asks, holding the packet aloft.

You blink before you splutter, “Oh, wait, no. No, you really don’t have to. I couldn’t ask you to –”

“Letters or numbers?” Junhui repeats himself, softer but no less seriously.

“You seriously don’t have other plans?”

Now, it’s his turn to balk. Unlike you, his shock is entirely manufactured. “On a work night? In this economy?”

“On Valentine’s Day,” you correct him with emphasis.

Rather than feigned horror, it’s earnest embarrassment that floods his face. The tips of his ears start burning, too, in a matter of seconds. Smiling sheepishly, he admits, “Guess I forgot. Don’t really have much to celebrate, you know?”

You raise the manila folder in your hand and reach over to tap it against the packet of stickers in his.

“Cheers to that,” you scoff.

Junhui, it turns out, is even more productive than you are. He falls into lockstep with you the moment he sits down, and other than asking him to hand you things that are closer to him than to you, you don’t need to direct him.

Better still, he anticipates. Every time you finish reviewing one exhibit, he’s holding another one out to you – pre-marked – with a packet of post-it tabs for you to mark especially relevant pages. Though you certainly didn’t ask him to, the tabs he gives you follow a color-scheme, creating a key for easier reference.

Green for financial records, red for social media posts and other electronic communications, blue for your clients’ extensive medical and therapy records.

In only a handful of hours, you comb through everything you need to in order to truly start preparing. The sinkhole that’s been occupying your stomach since this morning disappears. In its place, all that’s left is a void of a different kind.

“I’m starving,” you announce suddenly and dramatically, flopping onto your back with your arm flung over your forehead. “Are you?”

When you don’t get a response, you pull your arm away from your face and crack one eye open in the face of the overhead fluorescents. If your vision wasn’t already blurry from all the time spent reading, this stupid decision likely would’ve blinded you. Thankfully, your eyes still work well enough to look over at Junhui.

Where Junhui was, rather.

You blink, dumbfounded. You didn’t see or hear him leave, which begs the question: were you too locked-in to hear his goodbye, or did he slip past you like Casper the Selflessly Helpful Ghost? You don’t know when it was that he even left, or why it is that you’re frowning now for the first time in six hours.

You reach for your phone to text him and ask. It’s in your hand before you realize that you don’t have his number and back in your pocket before you feel yourself truly start to pout. Although he was putting in unpaid labor on your behalf, you’d gotten the impression that he was enjoying himself. You were, anyway.

Deciding that you can manage lonely better than hungry, you force yourself to sit up, then to your feet. Without bothering to put your shoes back on, you step over the paper fortress you’ve spent all night building and shuffle off with heavy eyelids towards the door.

Someone in this office has to have snacks, whether they’d be okay with you sniping some or not. You cross your fingers while you head for the breakroom and hope for a nice, unexpired yogurt, at the very least. Maybe a leftover packet of oyster crackers if you’re lucky – ones that aren’t stale if you’re especially so.

Before you can step foot into the breakroom, a sudden, muffled shout snaps you out of your famished, fugue state.

“Hot!”

Your gaze snaps from the floor to Junhui, who stands in front of you with both of his hands full. His eyebrows now occupy the space immediately below his hairline; his eyes are wider than you would’ve previously thought humanly possible. Relief splashes over you. If you’re being honest, it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the two steaming bowls of buldak ramen you just narrowly avoided crashing into.

With two, paper-wrapped pairs of chopsticks held between his teeth, Junhui can’t say much of anything. That doesn’t stop him from trying, though. “Ih ooh mih meh?”

“What?” You snort.

Realizing how truly useless that question is, you reach up and carefully pluck the chopsticks from his mouth. A heart-shaped smile takes their place.

“I asked if you missed me,” he simpers. “I told you I’d be right back.”

You blink twice, quickly. 

Did he?

He jerks his head in the direction of the conference room. “C’mon. You’re hungry, and I’m burning through my epidermis.” 

As soon as you side-step out of his way, Junhui takes off at a laughable pace, footsteps measured and careful to avoid sloshing hot soup as he goes. You have to bite down on your lips to keep from telling him how much he looks like those sprint-walkers turning laps at the local mall. All he needs is a tracksuit.

When you finally catch up to him, you find that he’s already set both bowls onto the table and pulled up a chair. One chair. You open your mouth to ask him about this, but he senses your question coming and waves it away with his hand.

“There’s only ten minutes left to file your Witness and Exhibit List,” he points out. 

You don’t doubt him enough to check your watch, but you’re surprised to learn that he’s kept track of your deadline, even when you haven’t. Both of you move at once, nearly colliding a second time on your respective routes to your laptop.

Oh.

That single chair is for you.

“Seriously, eat,” Junhui urges. “I’ve got this.”

He sits down on the floor and hauls your computer into his lap without another word. You can’t seem to move, though. You simply stand there, watching him, and try to fight the very unexpected urge you suddenly feel to cry.

In fact, you’re still standing there when he calls out to you without looking up. “Case parties and who else?”

“The fertility –” You swallow thickly then clear your throat. “The fertility doctor, Eve Nguyen. She’s testifying to the in vitro hell my client put herself through while her husband was withholding the truth about his vasectomy from her.”

Junhui types furiously as you talk, face scrunching up in disgust without turning away from your screen. 

“Her therapist, too: Phoebe Miller. She’ll testify to the impact of the hormone treatments on Ms. Al-Hamin’s mental health, and the sheer amount of time she spent sobbing on Ms. Miller’s couch when she finally found out about her shitbag husband’s useless balls.”

“Eat,” Junhui urges again, more emphatically this time. He gestures with his head to the table, where the ramen he made for you is still waiting. “I mean it. I’ll figure out a more court-appropriate way to phrase shitbag husband’s useless balls.”

You do as he says and sink down into the chair he pulled out for you, pulling the food toward you eagerly. Thankfully, he doesn’t glance over at you to confirm that you are in fact eating. Though you’ve bonded quickly in this little trench of yours, he doesn’t yet have the kind of security clearance a person would need to see you scarf down noodles with reckless abandon. 

Maybe eventually the two of you will get to a point where he can perceive you unhinge your jaw like a snake just to devour a meal. 

Today is not that day.

Without needing to be asked, Junhui switches his focus to the stack of numbered exhibits to his left. As he thumbs through them, he adds each one to your Exhibit List in order, then quickly shuffles the one he’s identified to the bottom of the stack. He does it all so effortlessly that he finishes that task before you’ve finished your food. 

Unfortunately for you, that means he looks up in time to see the massive, final bite you stuff into your gaping maw. It’s not disgust that you’re met with, though. It’s something soft, a smile that’s entirely present in his eyes. You freeze and thaw at the same time, not giving a shit that those things should be mutually exclusive.

“Do you want to look this over before I e-file it?” 

You shake your head, mouth too full to tell him that you trust him. Setting the empty cardboard bowl down on the tabletop, you offer him a thumbs up instead, which makes him laugh; then a finger-heart, which makes him laugh harder.

Although he could, Junhui doesn’t stand up right away. He goes right back to typing, throwing you for a loop. 

“Hey,” you say. When he doesn’t stop, you do your best to mimic his softly commanding voice. “Eat.”

He shakes his head. When he speaks, he sounds a thousand miles away; too focused to be fully present. “I’m already over here. I might as well file these subpoenas.”

Now, you really want to cry.

“I don’t even know how to thank you.” You laugh to hide how close to tears you are. “Seriously. I don’t think I’m the kind of person who’d stay this late to help someone, let alone someone I hardly know.”

Junhui presses down on the trackpad, definitively hitting submit on the last of your work for the night. He closes your laptop, sets it back down on the box to his left, then turns to you.

“I think you would,” he disagrees with a gentle shake of his head. “Besides, I can’t say that I hardly know you anymore. I got paid for my labor with lore.”

You snort out a laugh. The buldak sauce lingering in your throat burns your sinuses, prompting you to close your eyes tightly and laugh even harder. When you reopen your eyes, it’s impossible to tell whether the tears on your lash line are steeped in mirth, spice, or bone-deep gratitude.

“Don’t say that like it’s just compensation,” you warn.

Junhui tilts his head to the side, his stare innocent and not at all challenging. “Isn’t it?”

Outwardly, you roll your eyes. Inwardly, there’s a war amidst the butterflies in your stomach; the majority love the way he looks at you when he’s perplexed, while the rest scream not to fall into the same old trap for the millionth year in a row.

You force a change in subject lest you start to choke on all the honey dripping from your eyes. 

“How about you actually eat this ramen you made while I clean up the mess I made of this room?”

Junhui sighs like he’s truly put-upon. Nevertheless, he holds one hand out to you, silently requesting that you haul him to his feet. Figuring it’s the very least you can do, you oblige. He’s towering over you in no time, shooting you a tiny, thankful smile that sends your brain into a tailspin.

He eats, and you busy yourself with the numerous trip hazards around him: first, shuffling your case files and boxes to the side of the room, then wheeling both Junhui and his chair back where the latter belongs. He protests all the while — not because you scoot him without his consent, but because you wave off every single suggestion he makes about waiting until he’s done so he can help.

“You’ve done enough!” You grunt as you forcibly drag the table back into place. “There’s above and beyond, and then there’s you — way past that.”

His cheeks go pink while he goes quiet. You bravely decline to stare at that dusty rose color and instead hop foot to foot while you tug your boots back on.

“I feel awful that you’re going to get, like, five hours of sleep before you have to come back here. Do you have —”

You lose your balance and the rest of that sentence, but you gain Junhui’s hands on your upper arms, preventing you from falling over entirely.

“— court in the morning?” You supply breathlessly, a little too shocked by his quick reflexes and concerned eyes to function.

Junhui waits for you to let go of the back of your boot and regain your footing before peeling his hands off you and shoving them quickly into the pockets of his coat. His response comes a bit clumsily, though you don’t have much room to talk.

“Nope,” he says, shaking his head and shrugging. “My schedule is pretty light this month, actually.” Then, he smiles sheepishly. “Especially compared to yours.”

Eyes narrowing playfully, you snip, “Don’t brag, Wen Junhui. It’s uncouth.”

He pauses for a second then asks, “Is it couth with you if I walk you out?” 

Your jaw damn near drops. His response is so stupid, so hopelessly devoid of rizz despite the beat he took to think of it, and yet you’re powerless in the face of it. 

This man is a loser; and even though there are a million Human Resource-related reasons why you shouldn’t, you kind of want him.

No, you do want him.

Badly.

You swallow that burgeoning need like a shot, then you let out a measured, cooling breath. 

“I’ll allow it,” you sniff.

The subsequent walk to the elevator, as well as the ride down, aren’t quiet. You’re grateful, but you can’t take credit; Junhui keeps the conversation going easily, notwithstanding your distinct lack of input. 

If he notices how quiet you’ve gone, it doesn’t seem to bother him. Just the same, if he notices how intently you watch him while he talks, he gives you the benefit of the doubt.

Before tonight, it never really occurred to you how pretty he is. Of course, you haven’t been blind. Your few passing encounters clued in you in that he was good-looking, at least from a distance, but he’s something else entirely when he stands as close to you as he is now. You can’t even pretend to look anywhere else.

No matter how many sharp angles he has — the high bridge of his nose, the L-shape of his jaw, and the peaks of his cheekbones — there’s softness to balance it out. You see it in the heart-shaped curve of his mouth when he smiles; the faint freckle directly above it; and the cat-like, slow blink when he occasionally glances down at you. It’s present in the almost breathy tone of his voice, the one that makes it sound like he’s reaching you through some dreamlike haze.

But then you realize how fucking stupid it is for you to look at anyone the way you currently are, let alone a co-worker.

You made a pact with yourself after breaking up with Mika to keep to yourself for the foreseeable future — to protect yourself from the series of unfortunate romantic events you can’t otherwise seem to avoid. For eight months, you’ve stuck to it, even though you’re lonely. It’s been working, too. Nobody’s been able to shatter you because you haven’t given anyone the hammer or the opportunity.

And your avoidance isn’t just for your own good, either. Something about you either draws shittiness out of people or grows it where none existed before. Everyone you’ve dated in recent years was fine until they got too close; they all seem to be better off now that they’ve gotten away from you. In fact, if your social media creeping has taught you anything, it’s that Mika is the only one of your exes not happily in a relationship.

The pattern is too significant at this point to be a coincidence, and though you try to pass it all off as shitty luck, you’re the common denominator amidst all these disasters.

Shouldn’t you be held accountable for that?

“Look alive, sunshine.”

You snap back to attention with a jolt.

Junhui stands in the opening of the elevator with his hand on the frame, actively preventing the door from closing on you. You didn’t hear the bell go off when it opened; you have no idea how long you’ve been standing there, zoned-out stare fixated on the floor.

He sees what must be a bewildered expression on your face and laughs. “Did you fall asleep with your eyes open? I apparently do that sometimes, too.”

“No, I —” You shake your head while you start to explain, but then your brain stops buffering. “I’m sorry, you what?”

“I didn’t say anything. Out you come!”

You let Junhui usher you out of the elevator, but as you do, you crane your neck to look up at him with unabashed wonder. “Like a prey animal?”

He holds his left index finger up to his lips to silence you, then goes as far as actually shushing you. The tips of his ears peek out from his wavy hair, bright red against the dark.

“Like a little bunny?” You tease, tugging at the hem of his coat.

He rolls his eyes, though no part of him seems annoyed in the slightest. He doesn’t even move away from you. Instead, he rebuts you while lingering at your side, “No.”

You take your fist and rest it on top of your head with your middle and index fingers extended upward, smiling brattishly while you wait for Junhui to look back over at you.

His gaze is locked on the door ahead, however. He raises his arm and points, drawing your attention. “What is that?”

The second you see it, you drop your head back and groan with everything you’ve got. “Fuuuuuuck.”

That would be the security gate, which the building security staff lowers over the front doors when they leave for the night. It’s electronic and can be easily opened with a passcode — which you don’t have.

“Oh, my god.” You shove your face into your palms. “Oh, my god. I’m so sorry. I completely forgot about the fucking gate. I don’t even know what time they close it.”

“There’s a pin pad over there.”

You can’t see him, but you’re sure he’s pointing.

“You’ve worked here for a while. They gave you the code, right?”

You will yourself to shrink, to turn into a speck of dirt on the floor and be promptly kicked away. If he can’t see you, he can’t hate you for getting him locked in the goddamn building after donating hours of his time to help you.

Oh, you fucking clown.

Swallowing harshly, you whisper, “I’ve never stayed late enough to need it. I’m seriously so sorry. Technically, we can get out through the emergency fire exit, but that will —”

“— Set off all the alarms and sprinklers,” Junhui correctly assumes, prompting you to nod with your head still buried in your hands.

Silence creeps in then and settles over the two of you, suffocatingly thick like a fire blanket. It’s fitting, given how badly embarrassment burns your cheeks. You want nothing more than to curl up and die — right here, where security can find you in the morning and atone on their knees for trapping you like a rat.

But then Junhui laughs — really, truly, deeply laughs — so hard that you feel him momentarily double over at your side.

You part your fingers and peek over at him through the gaps. With his eyes screwed shut, the mirthful tears have nowhere to go except the far corners of his eyes. They streak down his temples, glowing a hazy shade of blue due to the colored security lamps overhead. 

“I’m sorry.” His apology comes out squeaky on the tail of a wheezing laugh. “No one should have to spend this many consecutive hours with me. God, you were so close to freedom.”

You buy into the bit, rather than admit to the tiny thrill spinning dizzy circles in your brain. “It is a tremendous burden, yes. Of all today’s trials and tribulations, you will be my undoing.”

Junhui wipes his cheek, then glances over his shoulder at the elevator. He stares at it thoughtfully for a moment, gears turning, before he turns back to you with his head tilted sideways. 

“If I can bother you for a little while longer, I think I have a way to pass the time.”

In the far corner of the conference room sits a bar cart, weighted down with more bottles and glasses than is even remotely necessary for a place of business. Artfully curated for trial and settlement victories, it boasts at least six different kinds of liquor. Each one is more expensive than the last.

“You sure this is a good idea?” You ask, gesturing to the bottle of gin in Junhui’s hand.

He can’t make heads or tails of your hesitation. You strike him as the type to apologize later, rather than seek permission first. Even if his assessment of you is wrong, he knows without a doubt that neither Zavier nor Jaein would ever draw a sword on their most objectively successful associate. 

“Why wouldn’t it be?” He asks, tone laden with amusement. “You’re the reason we have this cart in the first place.”

You shoot him a warning look that lacks heat. He hopes you don’t intend to rebut him; there’s no need to be humble, especially when what he said is true. Without you, there’d be a hell of a lot less to celebrate around here. 

Come to think of it, the only thing more impressive than your trial record is the long list of happy client reviews that come up in internet searches.

Not that Junhui has Googled you.

Okay, not that he’s Googled you more than twice.

He twists the cap off the bottle and pours matching amounts in two glasses, keeping his eyes focused on his ministrations instead of on you. 

“Don’t tell me you’re scared of getting in trouble. What would Tom Santi think?”

Two seconds after he adds a splash of tonic, your hand appears from his peripheral vision and grabs the nearest glass from its spot on the edge of the cart. When Junhui’s eyes travel down the length of your arm and up to your face, he spots the innocent, bewildered way you’re blinking back at him.

Cotton-candy sweet, you lilt, “I’m just worried that you can’t keep up.”

You tilt your glass — a silent cheers — before taking a sip, a devilish smile appearing as soon as the cup leaves your lips.

His stomach flips excitedly even though he’s aware that it shouldn’t. There’s a fence of red tape building a perimeter around you, and it’s dotted with hundreds of warning signs: off-limits, trespassers will be prosecuted, etc. 

He needs to get a grip — quickly. Entertaining the idea of you finding him attractive, too, is idiotic in more ways than one, and he knows it. Not only are you astronomically out of his league, but you’re also his colleague. 

Assuming for the sake of argument that you did stoop to his level, you’d eventually come to your senses and realize that he’s nowhere near your caliber. When that inevitably happens, Junhui will still have to work down the hall from you. He doesn’t have the confidence to bounce back from something like that, not since his ex put his self-image in a blender half a year ago.

“Did you fall asleep with your eyes open again, bunny?”

He blinks rapidly, and you come back into focus. You’ve moved from his side since he zoned out. Now, you sit on the edge of the conference room table with your legs knotted, not unlike the way he found you on the floor several hours ago. Though you tease, there’s a distinct hint of concern in your narrowed eyes while you assess him.

Junhui’s instinct isn’t like a prey animal’s at all, but he knows better than to act on it, so he finishes pouring his own drink and recaps the bottle. Rather than put it down, he keeps it in his hand, grabs his drink with the other, and heads off for the door.

“Come with me,” he tells you.

You follow without question, footfalls sounding off quietly behind him as he leads you through the dark back to his office. Before you can get the wrong impression — or the right one, if the circumstances themselves weren’t wrong — he flicks on the lamp near the door and ushers you inside.

You’ve never been in his workspace, just like he’s never been in yours. Your office, he imagines, is as immaculately organized as you seem to be. That said, he wouldn’t be surprised if you had opposing counsels’ severed heads mounted on the wall.

His office, however, has a wildly different vibe. It seems to surprise you, so much so that you freeze halfway inside with wide eyes and a partially open mouth.

“You have kids?”

Apparently, it’s Junhui’s turn to be surprised. He glances over to where you’re pointing and laughs. 

On the wall directly behind his desk is a full collage of drawings and handwritten notes, most of which were done by kids under the age of ten. Though their backgrounds, ages, and abilities vary significantly, they all have one thing in common: they all got really attached to their court-appointed Guardian ad Litem, Wen Junhui.

He shakes his head, although you don’t see him do it. You have your back to him, too focused on reading the various letters to react when he finally speaks. 

“In a way, they’re kind of mine, just not… literally.”

You maintain your respectful silence, as if you’re wandering through a museum exhibit. He watches while you lift a hand and let your fingertips run gently overtop an especially artful tribute from a six-year-old named Iseul.

“Big fan of glitter and googly eyes, that one,” he muses, chuckling softly. “You have no idea how long it took me to clean up the visitation room at the community center when our meeting was over.”

You point to three stick figures, who hold hands in front of a large, grey building. Above them, a gigantic sun fills the corner of the page. It wears black sunglasses, the irony of which seemingly didn’t occur to Iseul.

“Who are they?” You ask.

Junhui points to each person as he explains:

“The — uh —  wonky-looking one with what seems like a bloody neck is me in a red tie. In the middle is the artist herself, Iseul. She took some liberties; in reality, she has all ten fingers and isn’t known to wear a crown. To her right, that’s her foster mom, who she calls ‘grandma’, even though she’s only 45.”

“Is she still with grandma?”

“Yeah, actually.” He grins, unable to help it. “That stately, grey blob behind us is the probate court. We finalized her adoption last month.”

“Cute. I wish my clients would send me celebratory masterpieces,” you hum.

Junhui snorts. “Are you sure you want that?”

He can’t even imagine what kind of shit newly-divorced adults would send you. Nothing cute, he’s sure.

“No, actually. I take that back.” You shake your head and laugh. “I just want them to pay their legal fees on time.”

“You’re really asking for the world, aren’t you?”

You take another sip of your drink, then shrug, smiling impishly. “A nightmare bitch from hell’s gotta do what a nightmare bitch from hell’s gotta do.”

Before he can start ranting about Tom fucking Santi and his shitty opinions, you change focus again and begin to drift towards the bookshelf on the opposite wall. The top half of it is lined with statutory volumes, while the lower half has books and activities for the kids who occasionally come with their parents and caregivers to meet with him here.

You grab a deck of cards off one of the shelves and turn back to him with a vaguely menacing look. 

“You brought me in here so I could beat you, didn’t you?”

“I brought you in here so I could beat you,” he rebuts. 

In the time it takes Junhui to cross over to you, you drop your work bag to the floor, move the two child-sized chairs out of the way, and sit directly on the floor without a second thought. He sits on the other side of the small table and reaches for the deck only for you to shake your head vehemently at him.

“Nope,” you state emphatically, popping the second consonant. “I don’t trust you to shuffle these. You have clearly stated ulterior motives.”

He opens his mouth to argue otherwise but is shut down.

“Despicable,” you tut.

Once again, he tries to defend himself. “Excuse me? Your intentions aren’t any better —”

But you block him, grinning wickedly.

“— I’m a guest here and will not have my ambition questioned, thank you! Now, would you prefer to be destroyed by luck or skill?”

He has the feeling you’re going to destroy him in any and every way, so he says, “Dealer’s choice”, and takes a pointed swig of gin.

You think on this while you shuffle, making a big show out of it with your eyebrows furrowed and bottom lip pinched between your teeth. Then your eyes light up to broadcast that an idea has come to you. 

Dutifully, you split the deck between you, doling out one card at a time to ensure the numbers even out. You slide your half over to you, face down, and gesture with feigned impatience for Junhui to do the same.

When he obeys, you look him dead in the eye. “I declare War.”

Four games and three drinks later, all your laughter finally catches up with you. With your abdominal muscles aching and eyes swimming, you tip over backwards and land on your back with a muffled thump.

“Okay, that’s bad, but I still think I can top it,” Junhui states with a shake of his head.

Your head lolls to the side so you can squint up at him properly. Once you catch his eye, you petulantly insist, “No way.”

There’s a flash in his eyes that says challenge accepted. 

You like it.

In fact, you like this side of him: the version that isn’t intimidated by you, that isn’t afraid to be bold. Neither of you is drunk by any means, but your respective masks are off now, and you have gin to thank for introducing you properly.

“I can’t believe I’m telling you this out loud, on purpose,” he starts, then takes a deep breath. “This is perhaps the stupidest way anyone’s relationship has ever ended.”

He sits cross-legged next to you on the floor, perfectly within range. Without sitting up, you swat his knee. “Stop stalling! I don’t have all night.”

You do, but that’s neither here nor there.

“So, the last girl I dated had this… kink, I guess? Where she wanted to tell me she loved me during sex. We’d only been seeing each other for a few weeks at that point, but I figured, why not? What’s the harm?”

Your eyes widen. “Famous last words.”

“See?” He snaps his finger and points at you, grateful to be understood. “That’s the thing. She dumped me not long after that because things were —” The reveal comes with air quotes. “— moving too fast.”

You set your glass down somewhere above your head. Even though it’s empty of liquor, melted ice spills onto the carpet. You ignore the mess you’ve made and throw out both fists, thumbs down. “Boo!”

“Thank god I didn’t like her much,” he sighs.

“You dog.”

Junhui levels you with a playful glare, so you withhold further jokes and simply ask, “What was wrong with her, other than the attachment issues?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. In fact, he takes his time in finishing the last few sips of his drink, then he sets the empty glass down on the table. Unburdened, he lowers himself onto his back next to you with one bent arm underneath his head. From there, he concentrates on the ceiling above.

“It wasn’t her so much as us.”

“Oh?”

Junhui heaves a sigh. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like there needs to be some sort of announcement during law school about how fucking hard it is to practice law and date.”

He’s not wrong. 

Your career has impacted every single one of your relationships, no matter how hard you try to keep them separate. You’ve never figured out how to manage it — to split yourself successfully between two spheres, both of which demand one-hundred percent of you. 

None of your other attorney friends have ever brought this up, though, leaving you to feel like the broken one.

Still staring thoughtfully at the ceiling, he fills the silence you’ve left. “I don’t think most people get it, you know? Not that they should have to — nobody should accept something they’re not comfortable with — It’s just hard to make things work with someone who doesn’t understand what this is like. What it costs.”

You’re well acquainted with that massive fucking toll.

The struggle to find community in an inherently adversarial system, the second-hand trauma that comes with managing the worst moments of people’s lives, the burnout, and all the shitty coping mechanisms these things lead to if you’re not careful.

You don’t need to speak on any of this now, though. For the first time in an abysmally long time, you’re sitting with someone who doesn’t need an explanation.

Junhui, however, seems to interpret your silence as discomfort. You don’t blame him. He still hasn’t noticed the heart-eyes you’ve been staring at him with since he started talking, so he has no idea

“Ah, nuts. I’ve made things too serious.” He screws his eyes shut then yells, “Aaaah!” 

You crack up, fully and immediately, which only prompts him to do the same. Never has there ever been a loser so endearing. 

Turning his head now to look at you, he urges with a grin, “Quick, say something stupid!”

And goddamn, if the first thing that comes to mind isn’t exactly that…

“Kiss me.”

Junhui doesn’t react, save for the grin slowly disappearing off his face. He doesn’t even speak. For a moment, all he does is stare right back at you, straight through the full-body cringe you’re experiencing.

Fuck.

Maybe now’s the time to use that emergency exit, fire alarms and sprinklers be damned. 

You open your mouth, armed and ready to explode into awkward apologies; and you suck in the breath needed to do so, but not a fucking word comes out.

His gaze shifts from your eyes, to your lips, then back again. The expression he wears all the while looks something akin to tortured — but you’re clearly batshit insane, so your judgment is questionable at best.

A beat passes again in silence. You’re ready to crawl out of your skin, an urge that only grows when he finally murmurs, “It’s a bad idea, isn’t it?”

Terrible. 

Perhaps the worst you’ve ever had, second only to you blurting it out just now. 

You have nothing better to say now, but that’s not what keeps your big mouth shut. It’s the fact that his question doesn’t seem to be directed at you at all. 

Something about that tone of his comes across as rhetorical, like he’s got to work this shit out separately from you.

But he doesn’t stay separate. The hand not being used to prop up his head reaches out and gently encapsulates your chin between his thumb and index finger. His thoughtful eyes narrow, searching yours. 

“Why doesn’t that make me want to any less?”

All at once, your heart skips; your breath hitches. You don’t have an answer to his question, just an inkling that you have as much to gain as you stand to lose. That cost-benefit analysis, coupled with the insatiable need you have to be kissed before you fucking expire, make you reckless.

Leaping past the point of no return, you grab him by the tie and pull him along for the ride.

Any timidness he showed you earlier is forgotten in an instant, replaced entirely by an assertiveness you didn’t know to expect from him. He gets you on your back without resistance, then settles himself above you with his weight balanced on a single hand beside your head and his knees on either side of your thighs. 

His other hand slips to the nape of your neck, deepening the kiss and keeping you where he wants you: well beyond the professional boundaries you’ve both crossed to get here.

You could be embarrassed by how quickly you melt, seep, spill, but your better judgment is discarded alongside your sweatshirt without a second thought. Junhui’s jacket, button-up, and tie are tossed into that same void, not long after.  

Absolutely fucking none of them are missed.

Lost under the warmth of his bare skin on yours, your brain is far too occupied to worry about which articles of clothing ended up where. All you're capable of caring about is his mouth on your throat; his hand between your thighs, slick fingers dragging you slowly out of your mind.

The orgasm his hand steals from you leaves you half-dead, but that doesn’t stop you from clinging tightly to him, begging for more, please, everything.

And that’s precisely what you get, though you shouldn’t be surprised. If this day has taught you anything, it’s that Junhui is synonymous with acts of service.

“Kiss me,” he commands breathlessly with his tip waiting at your entrance. 

You do, eagerly, unaware at first that this is an act of service, too — a distraction, more specifically, to take your mind off of the stretch he brings. Nails pressed into his back, you whimper against his lips and let that pressure melt into something perfect. 

“I can’t tell if you’re sleeping or not,” you whisper.

His eyelids may feel like lead, and you look like a dream, but Junhui is wide awake, laying half-dressed at your side. 

Of course, you knew this when you asked. You keep opening your eyes to look at him secretly only to find him watching you, amusement growing each time he catches you.

Even though his voice is rough from exhaustion, he musters the strength to tease you, “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“My co-worker dicked me down to hell and back, and I’m recovering, obviously.” 

You roll your eyes but can’t keep up your nonchalance for long. You bury it, along with your face, into his shoulder. When you finally tell the whole truth, it comes out rushed, as well as muffled.

“I spent most of the day wishing it was over. It was nightmarish, right from the jump. All I have to do is fall asleep, and it will be over…” Your shoulders sag under the weight of your sigh, which is delivered warmly against his skin. “But I don’t want that anymore.”

Junhui hums in acknowledgement. He pauses for a moment to consider what to say next, then decides to take a page out of your book. He’s an attorney, after all; he doesn’t ask questions he doesn’t already know the answers to.

“What changed?”

A lot.

“My co-worker dicked me down to hell and back, and I’m recovering,” you repeat. 

Your laugh makes his body move, too. Just the same, the smile he feels forming against his bicep mimics the one on his own mouth. “You know, you keep saying that, but it doesn’t seem accurate.”

This prompts you to pull away from him, prop yourself up on your elbow, and stare at him incredulously. “Excuse me? Need I remind you how many times you just made me cum?”

He makes a big show of counting on his fingers until you swat at him. Then, he gets back to the point: 

“What I meant was, is it co-worker or Valentine?”

You blink, no doubt stunned that someone was finally able to catch you off guard. Junhui doubts that this happens often. If that’s the case, he’ll keep this image of you, surprised into silence, in his back pocket for later.

“I’ll concede that those things aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive,” you eventually demur with a haughty shake of your head.

Junhui grabs your hand, pulls it to his mouth, and kisses the back of it. “Your concession is noted for the record.”

[mmmichyyy]

inspired by this snippet from the las culturistas podcast to write this silly gallavich ficlet 🥪

it's two in the afternoon, and ian is bored out of his skull.

the office temp job was supposed to be, well, temporary. an easy way to earn some cash, contribute to the squirrel fund, save a couple bucks for a rainy day.

but three months later he's still the office bitch - ordering office supplies, organizing files, killing a couple trees a day because documents can't be printed double-sided for some reason, getting everyone's coffee order, messing up everyone's coffee order (god forbid brenda drinks a latte with foam once in a while) - while spending every waking minute fighting the urge to blow his brains out.

ian checks his watch. two hours, fifty-five minutes, thirty-six seconds until he clocks out. thank god it's fucking friday, at least.

the great thing about being a lowly temp worker is the fact that no one pays him any attention. his cubicle is in a dusty corner with a desk and a worn out swivel chair that endless other temps have sat their ass on before him. as long as he finished his tasks for the day and people are sufficiently caffeinated, he can be on his phone and no one can say shit.

so obviously, he's swiping grindr on company time, because what the hell else is he going to do?

mickey. 23. dick me down hard or fuck off.

hm. the guy only has two pictures - one mirror selfie, blurry, though his slicked-back dark hair and blue eyes standout on milky skin. damn. already ian is into him.

but then. the other mirror pic, taken of his backside, is what makes ian believe in some kind of higher power up in the sky. because holy shit this guy might just have the nicest ass he's ever seen?? round, plump, partially covered in soft grey briefs, and ready to be devoured. hello?? yes??

ian: free tonight? i can dick you down good and hard :)

mickey: how long

ian: however long you want baby

mickey: i meant your dick dumbass

ian: oh

[attached image: my_dick_morning_wood_69.png]

mickey: meet me in 30 mins

ian blinks. thirty minutes? he glances at the time. 2:18pm. what kind of guy wants to meet for a hook-up in broad daylight? is he a sociopath? or a murderer who likes to see their victim clearly as he stabs them multiple times?

whatever. for a quality ass like that, it's a risk he'll have to take.

as usual, no one in the office even glances his way as he hastily grabs his backpack and bolts towards the elevator.

ian: address?

*

"i think you broke me," ian pants, flopping on his back, boneless and completely satiated. "oh my god. how... where did you even learn how to do that?"

mickey shrugs and casually lights a cigarette, as if he didn't just rock ian's entire world. twice. and again. "lots of practice."

"i didn't even know someone could bend that way," ian says in awe, completely fascinated by the magical gremlin with the nimble fingers. "and the thing with your tongue?? are you a trained acrobat or something?"

mickey blows out a line of smoke and offers up the cigarette between his fingers, to which ian eagerly accepts.

"i know what i like, and i'm good at it." mickey lightly pats ian on the cheek. ian responds by melting into a pile of goo. "you weren't so bad yourself, stud."

oh. oh no. ian is done for.

before he can say anything or unhinge his jaw wide open for round three? four? his stomach gurgles out a loud groan. very unsexy, quite possibly the least attractive sound, ever. ian blushes, hoping mickey didn't hear it. but then–

"you wanna get a sandwich?"

ian twists his neck to the side so fast, he nearly gets whiplash.

"what?!"

mickey snatches the nearly finished filter from ian's hand and stubs it out on the side table ashtray. jumps up from the bed and tosses over ian's shirt from the floor. "c'mon, get your ginger ass up. there's a deli down on the corner that makes a mean spicy meatball sub and the parm is to fuckin' die for. been thinking 'bout it all day."

"you wanted to have sex in the afternoon and now you want a sandwich? with me?" ian has had his fair share of hookups, but never has he met someone so sexually deviant yet simultaneously endearing like mickey. is he dreaming right now? "seriously, who are you??"

mickey scoffs. "you think i'm going to take it up the ass after eating a meatball sub? you're a fuckin' idiot. so you wanna go stuff yourself with tomato sauce or not?"

yeah. ian is in love.

[noriimura]

namgyu headcannons !

content warning: dark! namgyu, drugs, thinness, eating problems, addictions, family issues

a/n: my thoughts on how I see namgyu outside the game, it's okay if our ideas about him may differ. english is not my first language, so if there are translation problems, don’t judge harshly. this is my first post of this kind, so I hope you enjoy it

part 2 is coming soon…

i think he grew up without a father, with a cold, distant mother who didn't need him. he always tried to get her love and attention by doing housework, drawing her pictures with the caption "mommy, I love you" or "mommy, you're the best," then finding the drawings in the trash. he tried to study well at school, achieve heights in the classroom and be better than his classmates, thus receiving the excellent student syndrome. however, as he grew older, he realized that it was useless, his mother would not love him, the imaginary interest that was present only out of a desire to please his mother disappeared altogether. he gave up on his studies, and in high school he periodically skipped school with friends, drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes one after another. after finishing school somehow and passing the exams with a low score, he gave up on education and decided not to go further to study, he went to work in a nightclub on the advice of his friend who worked there

due to the fact that his mother was often absent from his life, he developed an anxious type of attachment. he is not sure of himself, he is afraid that he will be abandoned, that he can be intrusive, constantly demands confirmation of love, but without saying so directly, he considers it humiliating and shameful even in front of his partner.

speaking of his anxiety, his partner will have a hard time, he is the most anxious partner who will be jealous of every pillar, will constantly write and ask who his partner is with, will constantly suspect infidelity, check the phone for suspicious correspondence and make scandals from scratch.

there is also a theory that namgyu has an avoidant type of attachment, it is difficult for him to get close to people, show his emotions and trust, which is why he does not enter into a relationship in principle, trying to avoid any obligations, responsibilities and the opportunity to get attached, when he wanted to have fun, he met another girl in a club with whom he was rude, animal, dirty sex without any feelings. in the morning, deleting the phone number without giving a chance for something more.

it seems to me that he grew up in a family full of violence and debauchery, even as a child when his mother and father communicated but were not married, his father often came, they drank, smoked and then quarreled, he beat her, they hated each other, he saw it, he grew up in it, he absorbed such an attitude between parents this became one of the reasons for his cruelty and problematic nature, later his mother went into fornication, she began to bring new men to their house, they had fun, had sex, and drank, little namgyu saw all this, he hated her for it, this also became one of the reasons for his consumer attitude towards women.

he does not like to contact people, even though he works in a profession in which communication skills are extremely necessary. he never starts long dialogues with visitors unless they arouse special interest or are beneficial to him. if he is not interested, he shows it with his whole appearance, gaze and actions, he never tries to look interested, which is why he is not very respected at work. if he finds the dialogue not interesting, he will not say a word from himself in an attempt to maintain the dialogue, except for a couple of clear phrases that his work requires of him.

for namgyu, drugs are primarily a way to forget about all his sins, problems, and debts. It is in his hallucinations that he lives happily. before using drugs, he was trying to find himself, something that would save him. he stayed up late at computer clubs, draining money for an extra hour in the game, his hometown club and attempts to forget himself in new acquaintances, alcohol and cigarettes, which to this day help him relax. It was his first time trying drugs with his friends. hallucinogenic trips in which he could stay until morning, complete relaxation and loss of touch with reality, this was what he had been looking for for so long, only this state allowed him to smile and feel in his place.

although namgyu found an outlet in drugs, however, his gambling addiction remained, most likely he would have played some kind of strategic team games in the MOBA genre like dota 2, I'm sure he screams all over the apartment when he is killed or someone else's team demolished their throne.

namgyu prefers sportswear, usually a size or two larger, it seems to me that he would not wear fitted clothes in principle, making a choice towards slightly baggy T-shirts and wide trousers.

I think namgyu would have eating problems, he often has no appetite, which is why he refuses to eat or intentionally does not eat, plus due to drug use and lack of physical activity, the guy has a rather thin build.

he's a misogynist, which is already canon. i think as he gets older, he just gets disillusioned with women. perhaps he liked the girl who rudely and shamefully rejected him and he remembered it forever. Indifferent, strong, wayward and cold women remind him of his mother, which is why he literally wants to kill them so that the metaphorical death of his mother would happen. yes, he won't kill every woman he meets, but passive aggression towards them is clearly present.

[kinardsevan]

my heart, my life, will never be the same

maybe, someday, love - part 4 cw: hospitalization, helicopter crash, related injuries; word count: 1991, total wc: 6458 (sorry, yall. I got the flu and that kicked my ass for the better half of the past two weeks. But here's the next--possibly final--part!)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Three days. Three days and Burr holes is what it takes for Evan to stop seizing and wake up. Tommy fights for every minute he’s allowed to leave his own room and cross the hall the first two days, even though is body is far from capable of handling the movement. By the third day, his doctors are starting to discuss moving him to the telemetry floor, but every moment that he’s awake and confined to his own room is another fight with his doctors and their family to let him get to Evan’s side and be there for him. Still, being down a spleen and part of his liver is nothing to scoff at. 

He’s pushing his luck when he finally sees Evan’s eyes flutter, already exhausted and past the twenty-minute allowed visitation that his nurses have set him at. He straightens up immediately in his wheelchair, squeezing the younger man’s hand. 

“Come on baby, I’m right here,” he says softly. Evan tries to groan, still on the ventilator for his body to have one less thing to stress on in its healing state. His eyes flutter again, and Tommy strokes his thumb over the back of his knuckles, watching him with rapt attention. It takes a few more seconds, but Evan’s eyes finally slide open, quickly finding Tommy’s as he takes in his surroundings. They grow wide as he seems to realize where he is and Tommy’s current state, but his hands are still strapped down, keeping him from pulling at anything. 

“Hey, you’re okay,” Tommy tells him softly when Evan tries to pull on the hand he’s still holding. Evan squeezes it tightly, his eyes flooded with worry as his gaze shifts over Tommy, the IV pole he’s still attached to. Still, before he can get too rowdy or start asking questions, Tommy presses the call button purposely placed nearby so he can call for a nurse. 

The door opens a few moments later, and nurses are entering along with Maddie and Bobby. 

“You’re awake, Mr. Buckley,” one of the nurses says in a cheerful tone. He winces, and she apologizes, speaking in a softer tone. Evan looks back over at Tommy and tugs on his hand, drawing his attention back before moving his fingers as best he can to gesture at the restraints. 

“I think he’s asking why he can’t move his hands,” Tommy explains. 

“You suffered smoke inhalation in the crash,” one of the nurses explains as she checks his vitals. “Your lungs have taken longer to heal, and restraints were to keep you from pulling the tube out. I can remove them as long as you don’t try to remove the tube. We’re working on getting you off of it.” 

Evan nods as best he can, and quickly, his hands are slipped free from the bindings. He takes Tommy’s hand back quickly, looking back over at him with a concerned expression. He lifts his free hand and starts writing in the air. 

How?

“I don’t really remember,” Tommy answers him. Behind him, Bobby clears his throat, and they both glance toward him. 

“Fire investigation said by some miracle you managed to crash into a thick patch of trees, which cushioned the crash. You both still took some hard hits, and it’s also probably what made the fuel go up in flames, but without that, you both could’ve burned in the wreckage,” he explains. 

How long? 

“About a week ago,” Maddie interjects, stepping forward. She walks over to Evan’s other side and squeezes his forearm lightly. He looks up at her, and then down at her stomach, reaching out and touching it. She’s still months away from giving birth, but the prospect of having missed any of it…

Evan glances back at Tommy, looking him over again with that same worried expression. He squeezes Tommy’s hand again, holding on this time. Tommy nods, holding back with the same grip. 

“I know,” he murmurs. “I know.” 

. . . 

It’s still a fight to get across the hall, except once Evan is awake, the nurses station is getting it from both sides. For the most part, they end up having to settle for a continuous facetime video chat, given that neither of them is strong enough to be out of the ICU, and Tommy is still struggling to tolerate being out of bed for more than half an hour at a time.

Still, there are little wins. By the end of the first day he’s conscious again, Evan is taken off the ventilator. His neurological scans come back showing positive results, and Tommy’s blood counts are trending in the right direction, given the organ damage he survived. 

On the second day, they finally move Tommy out of the ICU. He doesn’t really leave, given that the minute he’s settled into his new room, he returns to Evan’s. The younger firefighter still can’t really talk, mostly due to the ventilator rubbing his throat raw, but he manages. It mostly leads to a lot of hand-holding and silent conversation with a fair amount of eye-fucking that drives their friends out of the room. 

And then on the third day, Evan is moved from the ICU to the neurology unit to allow for more observation before he can be discharged. It keeps him and Tommy apart more, mostly due to the need for both of them to be observed, but they stay in contact by text and video chat, at least as much as they’re able to when they’re awake. 

. . . 

“Evan, lay back down.” 

“I can-..” 

“Lay. Back. Down,” Maddie all but growls at him. She turns her head and scowls at Tommy. “And where do you think you’re going?” 

Evan smirks at the attitude Maddie is giving the pilot as he leans back into his pillows, wincing as he tries to shift his leg. 

“Why did I agree to come home with you,” Tommy grumbles under his breath. “My legs are fine, Maddie.” 

“Maybe so, but did we forget the whole ‘no spleen, damaged liver’, of it all,” she counters at him. “Your body needs to heal.” 

“I’m just trying to get some water,” Tommy complains. 

“Howie!” 

The paramedic pops around the corner a full minute later, carrying a tray with light snacks and two bottles of water, a knowing smirk on his face as he crosses into the guest room and sets it on the bed. 

“There you go,” Maddie states, gesturing at the tray. “Now. I better not hear any movement out of this room before dinner unless someone needs to go to the bathroom.” 

“I can take myself!” Tommy whines. “You’re impossible.” 

“Maybe,” she counters. “But Evan can’t, and you can’t take on his weight with his leg unless you want to rip your stitches.” She leans forward and pushes him with a featherlight shove, but it’s enough to get him to lean back into the pillows stacked behind him. She presses the TV remote into his hand after that. “Find something to watch and take the caregiving with a smile.” 

Tommy clenches his jaw before forcing a smile onto his face at her and grumbling a low ‘thank you’. Maddie pats his cheek dramatically before exiting, and Howie follows behind her, laughing quietly as he pulls the door closed until it’s just ajar. Jee-Yun has been told that her uncles aren’t really able to play, but they still need to be able to hear if Evan or Tommy need help. 

“This sucks,” Tommy states, glancing over at Evan briefly before he looks back at the TV. “I’m capable of-..” 

“You are literally the world’s worst patient,” Evan cuts him off. When Tommy scowls at him, it only makes him laugh, smiling at Tommy with an amused expression. 

“I’m not that bad,” he counters. “You-..” 

“I once tried to get you to drink tea when you got a sore throat after a three alarm, and you told me that you didn’t need me to pander to you,” Evan tells him. 

Tommy narrows his gaze at the younger man. “I was fine. And this is coming from the guy who wouldn’t take a nap with a hundred and three degree fever after working a full twenty-four under Gerrard. So who’s the impossible one here?” 

“You both are!” Howie yells from the hallway. 

Evan throws a pillow across the room, hitting the door with enough force to nudge it a few inches more closed. 

“Well. Shit.” 

Tommy snorts at him, turning towards him and pressing a finger to his own lips in a ‘shh’ sign. He slides off the bed and walks over to the door, wincing as he leans down to pick up the pillow. Still, he moves slowly, and returns to the bed a moment later, settling back into it gingerly before lying down next to Evan. He won’t say it out loud, but the five steps to the door was an exhausting trip. 

“Maybe we should just take a nap,” Evan comments, reaching out for the tray on the bed. Tommy grabs his water and sips from it before settling it on the nightstand along with the TV remote Maddie handed him. He glances back over at Evan as he shifts gingerly down on the bed. 

“Is your leg ok? Do you need the wedge adjusted?” 

Evan shakes his head. He reaches up for the pillows behind his head, and Tommy helps him ease down as best he can while keeping him from actually moving his leg. Once he’s settled Tommy moves in closer, but Evan is the one to reach his hand up and wrap his fingers around Tommy’s, given the way his sling has his arm pinned to his chest. 

“Still can’t believe I let you lot convince me to bring me back to Howie and your sister’s house to heal,” Tommy murmurs, his eyes already closing. 

“You can’t be alone right now,” Evan responds just as wearily. “And I can’t climb stairs. Suck it up, buttercup.” 

Tommy snorts, but he doesn’t open his eyes back up. Still, Evan is awake and when he doesn’t hear him nodding off, it keeps him from being able to. 

After five minutes, he cracks an eye open and raises an eyebrow at Evan staring across the room, looking befuddled. 

“What’s going on in that injured brain of yours,” Tommy murmurs. 

Evan turns his head toward him, looking slightly amused. “We survived a helicopter crash. In the god-damn mountains.” 

Tommy chuckles, nodding wearily. “Yeah, we did.” His eyes slide shut again, but he can feel Evan moving his thumb back and forth over the first knuckle of his fingers. 

“Kinda ruined my vibe though,” Evan says, his voice still sounding amused. “I mean, I told you I love you, and then we fell out of the sky.” 

Tommy opens his eyes, his expression deadpan as he looks up at Evan. “Are you really calling me out for trying to keep us alive instead of admitting a near-death love confession?” 

The corners of Evan’s mouth pull up just slightly, and Tommy rolls his eyes before closing them again. 

“You really are ridiculous,” he mutters, tilting forward and resting his forehead against Evan’s shoulder. 

“Seems like something that belongs in one of your romantic comedies, is all I’m saying,” Evan says back, his voice soft. 

“I love you, Evan,” Tommy replies, his voice lilting with just the slightest hint of annoyance, although it’s entirely affectionate. “Take that to your romantic comedy theories.” 

He hears Evan laugh quietly, followed by a soft groan at the pain it causes. Still, when he settles again, the way his breathing shifts tells Tommy that he’s finally starting to settle. Tommy shifts his head slightly, resting more against Evan’s shoulder. He continues to listen to the younger man’s breathing deepen, and for the first time in months, lets it lull him down the way nothing else has ever been able to. 

[sleepinglionhearts]

Love my absolutely unhinged stationery customers.

Today we had a lovely man come in about 15 minutes before close asking about fountain pens, my coworker comes to grab me to see if I can help since I know more than she does in this area, and I come out to the front to see the guy has opened a bottle of our ink and is already making a mess.

He asks me for my name and then for a tissue and if I can't please explain what all of these contraptions and pieces of the pens are? And maybe is there something that can get ink off of his hands?

Added to this every time he wants to see something or try something he OPENS THE PACKAGING AND STARTS ACTIVELY USING IT ON A ~$150 PEN HE HAS NOT PURCHASED.

He assures me, "I really want a nice pen, but I want to know how to use it, and figure it out while someone who knows what they're doing can help me. I WILL buy this stuff!"

I bring him a bottle of pen cleaner? Immediately opens it to pour a little on his hands to see if he can get the ink off.

Asks me how to insert and use a converter? Immediately opens the bottle of ink to dip the pen in and suck ink up w the converter.

Cartridge? Has me pop the converter out (ink all over MY hands now lmao) so he can try the cartridge. Oh. Hm. Not a fan of cartridges, he says. No thanks on the cartridges. I will later note "lightly used cartridge x1" on the box so I can let my manager know about it tomorrow.

Tells me he wants another bottle of pen cleaner. Just in case.

He then mentions, after I go fetch the second bottle, that he'd actually like a pen that makes a thicker line? What is this one? Extra Fine? Oh, no, please, maybe medium? There's a medium pen?! PERFECT! He then proceeds to immediately take the converter OUT of the EF pen, tear open the plastic on the brand new M pen, and pop it right in, and draw up more ink.

🥲

One more bottle of pen cleaner, actually.

All 3 of my bottles of pen cleaner are going to this man. I need to order more.

And then... and then, he puts the pen in his shirt pocket, and tells me he's ready to check out.

Buys all the stuff (except the EF pen and the cartridges) and is very excited to use his new high quality fountain pen. He looks ecstatic, honestly. Despite all the chaos and some mess and a pen I'll have to clean tomorrow and my other manager being very confused about this whole incident, he was a pleasant customer. Fantastic energy. Polite. Patient. Listened to my advice.

And then he discovers we have notebooks too! And leaves around 2 minutes before closing, after selecting a perfect notebook. Of course.

What a guy.

[writingoddess1125]

I feel like I've been skimping out of Soap a little-

Let's give him some love 💕

Love at ALDI

Johnny "Soap" MacTavish x FemReader

Fluffy Fluffy Ass Fluff

When one thinks of their hometown, they think of warm welcomes and hugs from relatives. A nice cooked supper greeting them-

Not Johnny however, Returning to Greenock was quiet- Often with him sleeping in mostly on his Leave. He didn't come here often anyway even when he was away from work, Only really stopping by to wish well to old Graves and check on the condition of the old house he inherited and had been slowly renovating for years.

For such a loud and proud man- His trips home seemed to gray and dull.. Having slowly began to realize that Base had been his new home and Task Force 141 had become his family, which seemed just as depressing of a reality.

Only one thing seemed to bring back his more 'Johnny' Self that so many saw on Base when here was one thing and one thing only..

ALDI-

His food paradise that he loved to raid, he was fairly sure at least a third of his checks when he came back to these rocks was keeping this damn ALDI alive single handedly.

Rushing in he had his reusable bags in his pocket as he went searching for his evening meal.

The man practically skipping as he grabbed a few of his favorites- Knowing he would stash these for later when his leave would come up as well. Practically crying in joy when he saw his oh so precious Potato Waffles, His Super Noodles, Bourbon Creams? Oh he was damn near hot in the Pants.

"Oh Hello my friends- Yes you were well missed"

The Male started down the different aisle and almost sliding in joy as he filled up his cart. However as he near the front walked something caught his eyes-

Johnny stopping mid step, turning on his heel as he looked at the register. His heart almost skipped a beat at seeing her..

(Y/N)..

His first when it came to it all..

His First Kiss.

His First Time.

His First Love..

Oh how he missed her, he remeber when you moved away he had cried in his bedroom for hours- making sure no one heard him as his heart broke that day when he had kissed you goodbye.

His heart fluttering in his chest in a way he hadn't done in a long long time.. A smile ghosting his lips as he stared at you from around the aisle corner- Probably feeling someone staring you started to turn and Johnny managed to duck back in the aisle just in time-

Shit shit shit!

Johnny looked around wildly. Now grabbing as many random shit as he could to make sure he had enough time to talk with you as possible.

After more stuff then he really needed was in his cart he smoothed out as many wrinkles in his jumper and walked over to your Lane. Beginning to unload stuff carefully as you gave a well rehearsed smile- "Welcome In, Hope you found everything you needed"

"(Y/N)? W-Wow long time no see" He manged out, Seeing how you blinked coming out of your working mode immediately.

"Johnny? MacTavish?" You recognized him, barely as he had changed so damn much. His face well sculpted and even through the old jumper he had clearly been well built- Truthfully you wouldn't have recognized him if it wasn't for those eyes and the boyish wide smile that always went over his lips when he saw you.

He nodded enthusiastically as he dumped the rest of his stuff without care and slid up to the front were you stood there.

"Long time no See Johnny, Didn't expect to see you here" You couldnf help but smile, especially seeing how he seemed to be trying to act cool- Leaning a bit on the ledge of the register which was too low for him making him unbalanced.

"Just got back actually. Gonna be here for a while (Now- before it would have been 2 weeks now hes thinking pushing it to 2 months). What about you? When did you come back? Thought you moved?"

"Ah I just got back actually a few months ago- Needed to save up and hopefully get myself back together" You admit, Johnny nodding at hearing that as he felt his stomach doing tumbles.

"I'd heard that you got married?" He Said softly (Lies he went to find your Facebook once and had a drunk fit when he saw engaged) you shook your head as you scanned his items.

"Unfortunately to a guy who said he would be a rock star- Aka Cheating on me with hookers and dipping with one of them across the country-"

You deadpan, Johnny giving a grimace at that- now realizing why you were back here.

"Damn- well I'm sorry.. But hey you're smart and I know you were pulling yourself alright. Im happy youre here an all, but still- Im sorry"

You shrug and laugh a bit to yourself. Looking up to him with those pretty lashes he remembered made his knees weak as a teenager and now they did the same-

"Well thank ya Johnny, Im trying my hardest though life isn't always kind- and right now at least I've retreated and taking time to lick my wounds"

You say softly, Johnny nodding softly at this- remembering times in his life where he had to do the same. However those were days he no longer had the luxury for, his time to recover was when he had these short moments in the place that felt like the shadow of his home.

"When did you get a kid?" You ask suddently, Making Johnny damn near jump as his face scrunch up in confusion. You holding up the bottle of baby formula randomly mixed in with his stuff.

His face flushed red as he waved dismissively.

"Grabbed it by accident- Don't have kids, or even a w-wife just yet ya know" He almost stuttered out and even his voice crackling at the end, You giving him a big Kool-aid smile as you set the formula to the side to return to the shelves.

Inside he was panicking- He could t the last time he had stuttered out let alonge a voice crack!? He felt like he was really sweaty all the sudden as well, like someone had a gun to his ass ready at any second to fire.

"Yet? Oh what a shame, You always struck me as the Marriage and dozen kids type"

He smiled, Remembering how he had said that to you once when talking about the shared future you two would have.

"I do- Just always wanted that with the right Lass ya know?"

You nod and smile up at him, Scanning what seemed to be the 5th bag of mini marshmallows on the belt. "Well You look Good Johnny wont be hard for you to get that wife of your dreams" He grinned wildly at this, Giving a comedic flex of his muscles.

"Think I'm looking Good?" He said, Going as far as the flex his Bicep at you drawing a deep laugh from you.

"Yes You do, The Mohawk is new but I like it as well. Very Buff and Fit" You say with a playful wink seeing how he seemed to flush and give a dorky smile.

"Take it still doing the tile buissness your Dad left? Always did say it would make you buff" You said softly, however regret it at seeing the wince on his face.

"H-Ha no.. Um I sold it actually... not long after Mum died" He shrugged.

Your hands slow down a little. Continuing to check out the items.

"..I'm sorry.. God rest her soul" You say softly, Remembering Mrs. MacTavish while not fondly it was still his mother non the less.

"Well- Shes resting somewhere" He mumbled softly, Rubbing the back of his neck again. Feeling that same raise of the hairs on the back of his neck when he mention.. Her.

"Well, What do you do now?"

John stared at you for a second akin to deer in the headlights, Like his brain was trying to figure out what to say-

"Military.. I'm in the Military now. Nothing too much" He mumbled the last part almost to himself. Johnny felt his stomach drop, realizing that the shadow of Soap would always be there... Would you hate him for that? The things he's done? How use he is to blood and how he sleeps with a gun by his side at all times.

"Well it still suits you well, Not the scrawny kid with a Bowl Cut- Someone who protects with a good heart" You say genuinely, like a light in Johnny's life you make those dark shadows wisk away.

"What can I say, Worth it just to hear you say those words- Also dont remind me of the bowl cut days" He couldn't help but run his hands over his admittedly slight overgrown Mohawk- His eyes going to the belt and seeing how you'd almost finished.

So he went in for the Kill..

"Hey.. Seeing how I'm on leave for a bit- and you're back in town.. Why don't we I don't know, we can have a few drinks at The Willow?"

You looked up at him and you couldn't help but see that same boy from before- The one who swore he'd marry you, the one who ran into a pole on his bike to ask you to the Church Dance.

The one who had the biggest smile on his lips when he first kissed you and who you'd first spent the night with- Staring up at the stars together wrapping around each other.

How could you turn that down?

"Sounds like a Date then"

Oh how Johnny could scream up to the sky in joy! He wanted to thank God or whoever the fuck was up there that he got his chance back!

"But first. It's 75£" You say with a chuckle as you see his face drop and look around wildly. Realizing the random shit he had grabbed at drove up the price by a ton!-

Biting his lip and Swallowing his pride and handed over his card.

You laughed at the pout on his face as he payed for the random assortment of shit- However there was still this giddy look in his eyes of excitement.

Writing your phone number on the back of the receipt just to add a bit of salt to the wound you handed it over to the poor Mohawked man as he took up his cloth bags.

"Hope to hear from Ya soon Johnny. Oh and enjoy the Tampons and Fig Jam"

You say with a chuckle, as Johnny took the receipt with care and his bags of items. A blush on his cheeks as he held up the cloth bags as he walked towards the exit.

"Thank you (Y/N)!"

[outset-or-something]

MEET THE MAiN CAST

Outset (name subject to change) is a story about two dudes, Sasha and Floyd. Floyd is a college freshman, who, due to some curious circumstances, becomes the roommate of a man named Sasha. Sasha has a lot of baggage. Floyd, always curious, gets himself dragged into the mess of Sasha's mysterious and suspicious past.

SASHA

Sasha is a grouchy guy with a past shrouded in mystery. Seemingly a washed-up musician, Sasha spends all his time as a hermit holed up in his apartment. He lives off of coffee and cigarettes, which might be part of the reason why he looks old for his age. He is extremely intelligent and more than talented. He has a small handful of scars around his mouth and chin.

-26

-He/Him (cis guy)

-Extremely skinny

-6'1"

-Autistic (undiagnosed)

FLOYD

Floyd is an upbeat kid, fresh into college. He doesn't have many friends, but socializes well with others. He's very kind and always looks for the best in others. Despite his bubbly nature, Floyd is not naïve by any means, and is notoriously curious. Maybe too curious for his own good.

-18

-he/him

-5'1"

-ADHD

ANASTASiA

A character who becomes important a little later into the story, Anastasia is Floyd's adoptive sister. They are very strong-willed and can be extremely stubborn at times. She loves to bake and is very openly affectionate to those she cares for. Works as a social worker for orphans and children who have been legally taken away by their parents. She has a strong southern accent and smells like lemons. After Sasha is forced to live with Floyd and his family due to being under house arrest, Anastasia becomes somewhat of a muse for him. The two end up forming an on again, off again pseudo-romance.

-24

-they/she

-5'4"

-tiefling

ViNCE

Vince is a super rich guy, and a popular singer beloved by the public due to his hefty monetary contributions to various charities. He is more than happy to indulge in every vice under the sun and lives the classic rock star lifestyle. Seems to know Sasha somehow. Acts a little more than friendly with him.

-30

-he/him

-5'5"

-extremely charismatic

SCOTT

An old friend of Sasha's, Scott is a quiet and reserved keyboardist. He can be sarcastic and knows exactly how to make Sasha upset. He lives a comfortable life with his girlfriend and cat and runs an instrument repair shop. Always willing to help those in need. Choses his words wisely. Extremely patient.

-28

-hispanic

-he/him

-5'6"

MAGGiE

Maggie is something of an older sister to Sasha. A skilled pianist, she now lives recently married with her husband and baby in a very nice house. She is motherly to a default, and knows the perfect balance between gentleness and sternness. She hates putting up with Sasha's bs, but continues to do so because she cares for him. Sometimes she can have a bit of a temper.

-29

-she/her

-half-elf

-5'3'

Thanks 4 reading until the end, I love being able 2 share my characters with others :]

under the link provided you can check out more art of these guys, and some other characters. good for references

[apeachty]

₊ ˚ ⊹ ♡ . ⠀wild roses | chapter 2 ; the stem

⠀⠀⠀neighbour!yeonjun x fem!reader

← to chapter 1 | ♡ you're here ♡ | to chapter 3 →

genre ; soulmate au, hurt/comfort, angst, fluff, humour, smut            wordcount ; 16.5k

warnings | tags ; unhealthy relationship with pain [mentions of self-inflicted pain]; yeonjun does some kinda questionable stuff; self-hate and self-pity.

smut warnings ; dom + soft sadist yeonjun x sub + soft masochist reader. mentions of wet dreams; making out but not really.

⠀⠀⠀[ event masterlist | my masterlist | wild roses masterlist ]

when you woke up a few hours later, you felt much better—your head was significantly clearer and your body didn't feel so weak. you weren't sure if you  had dreamed about yeonjun in your fever or not, because he had felt pretty much real, and you had allowed him to check on you. but now, he was nowhere to be seen or heard—your apartment completely quiet. of course, he could have left, but when you noticed the skimpy top you were wearing, half of the mark out in the open, you prayed you had only imagined him and undressed on your own.

but no—yeonjun was peacefully sleeping on the couch in the living room, and the uncomfortable feeling in your gut intensified. it meant he had seen you—that. was he going to start pitying you now? was that the reason why he hadn’t left, choosing to stay here, sleeping on a couch a bit too short for his height instead of returning to his own apartment? was he—your head started spinning, vision blurring at the edges, as you tried to lean against the bookshelf to keep yourself from falling, slowly sliding on the floor and accidentally knocking a few books down.

the soft thud stirred yeonjun awake and he rushed to you the moment he saw you sitting on the floor with your head in your hands. “hey, why did you get up?” he asked softly and crouched down, pressing the back of his hand to your forehead—it wasn’t too hot, so your body had probably just reacted badly to moving while still weak. “let’s go, i’ll carry you back to bed.”

you shook your head, “can you please just help me walk?” you asked, and he nodded, letting you lean on his shoulder as he wrapped his arm around your waist, helping you up slowly.

yeonjun wanted to fight you on it at first—almost out of habit—insisting he could easily carry you, but quickly realized he was still too weak, and it would be just dangerous for you, so he bit back his pride. surprisingly, it wasn't that hard—maybe because your well-being depended on it. or maybe because he was comfortable around you and didn't feel the need to show off. 

once you were back in bed, safe and sound, resting against the headboard with your legs wrapped in the blanket, yeonjun crouched down beside you. “are you hungry?” he asked, looking up at you with a warm smile. 

you wondered for how long he was going to ignore the elephant in the room, when the elephant—the mark on your upper chest—was right in front of his eyes. “a bit, to be honest,” you replied, too afraid to ask about his thoughts on the mark yourself. 

yeonjun nodded and left for the kitchen, returning not so long after with a tray of soup and rice. “here, it's fresh, i cooked it just a few hours ago,” he said, putting the tray on the bed next to you. “i hope it's to your liking.” 

you replied with a quiet ‘thank you’, grabbing the spoon and carefully—just in case it turned out to be too hot—tasting the soup. it was tasty, and under any other circumstances, you'd immediately tell yeonjun that it was awesome, but right now that would sound out of place and too awkward, so you kept quiet. 

he watched you from the corner of his eye, noticing how you didn’t look at him even once after he gave you the tray. he wondered if he had ruined everything. only now did yeonjun realize that he hadn’t even tried to wake you up first—he had been so scared because of how hot you were that he didn’t even think about it. he had wanted so badly to protect you, yet he had ended up being the one you needed to be protected from.

yeonjun stood up, immediately catching your attention . “i should go…” saying that broke his heart almost as much as the expression you got on your face—the one he always jokingly called ‘a left behind puppy’ look. why were you looking at him that way, though? had he misunderstood?.. “i… i’m sorry for undressing you. i never meant to make you feel that way, and i know it doesn’t excuse—”

“it’s not about undressing,” you mumbled, stirring what was left of the soup and still refusing to look at him properly. you noticed the way he frowned, though—probably confused. “at all,” you added even quieter. the air between you two had never been that tense, and you absolutely hated it. you had to get rid of it, despite being afraid of hearing the answer. “do you…” you cleared your throat that suddenly got dry. “do you know what this is?” 

yeonjun needed no clarification—the topic hovered over you both like a dark thundercloud. he swallowed thickly. “i do,” he admitted, watching the way you fidgeted with the spoon. you were so tense, almost scared, but no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t say what a mark like that meant to him. he knew he was too much of a coward. “it's a soulmate mark,” he had to force the next words out of himself. “of a wild rose.”

hearing it out loud felt completely different, the uncomfortable feeling in your gut growing stronger, and you could barely find the courage to continue. “people usually… pity the likes of me,” you said quietly, trying not to look at yeonjun directly. “or they…” you didn’t finish, but he knew what you were going to say. ‘avoid’. they either pitied or avoided. “nevermind,” you whispered, before continuing just a bit louder. “are you pitying me?” 

yeonjun couldn’t answer immediately—he simply didn’t know how. was he pitying you? no. but had it changed the way he saw you? yes. how could he explain it, though, when he was so afraid to open up? “i… i’m not pitying you, but i feel more protective over you now,” he admitted, running fingers through hair. “i know firsthand how shitty the bond can be,” the words left his mouth before he could stop them.

you leaned in slightly, eyes wide in surprise as you looked at yeonjun directly now. “you know a wild rose?” you weren’t sure you had heard right—wild roses were rare. of course, it wasn't rocket science to find one in that century with social media connecting the entire world, but you’d never tried. so finding someone, even through two handshakes, was shocking. maybe he knew something about the bond because of that? 

yeonjun only swallowed thickly and nodded. “i do. in some way,” he said slowly, studying your expression. you looked away for a second—he assumed you were thinking of the words ‘in some way’, unsure how close he was to that person. people. he knew many, actually—over a dozen for sure—but that wasn’t what he meant, and he knew he had to tell you. “it’s me,” he finally said—his voice quiet, yet the words somehow loud.

you froze—he was… you couldn’t get your head around it. your neighbour, one of your closest friends—the closest, probably. yeonjun was a wild rose. suddenly, the bud in his wallet, lack of soulmate, and his overall closed-off nature when it came to the topic all made sense. suddenly, the way you clicked so fast made more sense too—you were similar. 

yeonjun was sure you were shocked, but he couldn't understand what was going through your head. were you thinking he had lied? “i can show you the mark if you don't believe me,” he offered hesitantly. he didn't want to—truly didn't. in the moment, it felt like he'd rather be seen completely naked than show the mark to anyone, even you. but if it meant you wouldn’t leave his life because you thought he was lying about something like that, he was ready to do it—it was the least he could do.

“no,” you said almost firmly. “i believe you, you don't have to show me anything to prove it,” you watched his shoulders relax as if a few tons of weight had been just taken off them. “i know how intimate the mark is,” you continued, setting the bowls on the bedside table and placing the tray somewhere on the bed. you shifted your position, sitting on your knees, almost touching yeonjun's thigh with them. “but i want to ask you for something.”

yeonjun froze, not knowing what to expect. of course, he didn't think you'd make him do something you knew he'd hate, but his trust issues, that were caused by another wild rose… no, no. he'd never allow himself to see her in you. you were so different, he could be sure you wouldn't do anything to hurt him. “go on,” he almost choked out despite his bravado.

“please, don't shut down,” your voice was almost pleading. he seemed so wrong already, completely tense, like he wasn't sure about every breath he took, like he was already shutting you out. you were afraid he'd never open up if he closed off now. and that would only mean the end. “i promise i won't pry or push, i’ll give you all the space you need—”

“i promise i won't,” yeonjun finally looked at you properly—you were so close, he hadn’t noticed when you moved closer, but he felt warm inside from your words despite his increasing weakness. he knew you'd keep your promise, and he wanted to do the same for you. “thank you. really,” he tried to smile but it came out tired, and he closed his eyes for a second as if trying to rest at least a little. 

you noticed his state and, if you were honest, you weren't feeling too great either—new discoveries had exhausted you more than anything, and it lashed terribly with your cold. “you should lie down. we should,” you whispered, already feeling your body giving in, craving sleep.

yeonjun nodded, running fingers through his hair once again, weakness seeping almost into his bones. he had woken up too early, slept too little, and your couch wasn't exactly the best place to sleep so his body was sore, and he was mentally drained too. “okay,” he said quietly, standing up, palms rubbing his face. “you really should sleep more… i’ll be in the living room. call for me if you need anything, okay?”

you didn't let him leave, though, your fingers clenching the sleeve of his hoodie as you looked up at him. “you can sleep here,” you whispered, leaving yeonjun surprised. “if you are okay with it,” you added quickly, mentally slapping yourself—you had just said you wouldn't be pushy, and yet here you were. “i'm… fine with it. the bed is big enough. but if you don't want to—”

actually, it was too inviting. your bed was so soft, your laundry smelled so nice too—yeonjun made a mental note to ask you about the conditioner—and most importantly, it was bigger than your couch. and while his bed was even bigger, he didn't want to leave you alone. and he was too tired to fight you. “thank you,” he mumbled, getting onto the bed and moving the tray you had left there out of the way.  

you lied down, curling into a ball facing him. you weren't sure if it'd be better to face away, but you decided that you were so sleepy, that it wouldn't matter in a few minutes. it was probably the same for him, judging by the way he lay on his back and closed his eyes immediately, his body visibly relaxing. so you just tightened your hold around the big fox plushie, pressing it closer to your chest, and closed your eyes. you hoped being wild roses wouldn't draw a line between you two that you'd never be able to cross.

when you woke up later, the first thing you saw was the side of yeonjun's face, still sleeping peacefully, one of his hand resting behind his head, and he also had taken off his hoodie at some point, leaving him in just a black tank top. you moved a bit closer to each other in sleep—not too close, of course, but close enough that his other hand rested on your knee over the thin blanket. the feeling was strange—not just the warmth of his hand, heavy in a comforting way even through the fabric, but everything about you two felt strange, because somehow, it was too comfortable. as if this was how everything was supposed to be. and that thought alone made you feel uneasy.

you tried to get up as quietly and unnoticeably as possible, wanting to get some water, but yeonjun stirred awake anyway. 

“lay back down,” he said, firm but somehow still gentle, his voice a bit hoarse. you looked over your shoulder cautiously, but he hadn’t moved even an inch, eyes still closed. yeonjun waited for a few seconds, and when he didn’t feel any movement from your side, he opened his eyes and looked at you without changing position, only slightly turning his head.

he didn’t even say anything—his gaze was more than enough, as you laid back down with a small pout. “wanted to get some water,” you mumbled, pulling the blanket back over yourself the way it was before you sat up. “was i supposed to wake you up for that?” you asked, a hint of sarcasm in your voice, though not a biting one.

yeonjun ignored it. “yes,” he said firmly and sat up, ruffling his hair. he felt much sleepier than sounded, but his body wasn't as weak anymore—he probably just needed a few more hours of sleep, and a bit of certainty that everything was going to be fine. he was thankful that you let him sleep in your bed and that you didn’t act like for whatever reason you both being wild roses meant the end of the world, because he still couldn’t understand the way he felt about it. “i told you i’ll take care of you,” he stated, standing up and heading for the kitchen.

and yeonjun didn’t lie—he took great care of you, so you were back to life in a few days. he barely let you get up unless you needed to go to the bathroom or wanted to stretch your legs, cooked for you or ordered something tasty when you had to eat but didn’t want anything, checked your temperature every few hours even at night, and basically did anything you wanted or needed—even if it meant treat you like a bratty child, when you wanted something you didn’t actually need in your state. but you obeyed him so cutely, with a pout or death stare sent his way as if you were saying ‘i’ll do it but i’ll make sure you know i don’t want to’.

but no matter how much yeonjun enjoyed spending time with you, how comfortable he felt sleeping in your bed and how much he loved your bratty obedience, he could barely feel any of it, pushing all of his thoughts and feelings away until he was back in the safety of his home, where he could just sit and do his best to organize everything that was happening in his head. he barely noticed how he shut down from you, almost forgetting to say goodbye when he was leaving your apartment once you were back to health.

you gave all the space yeonjun needed, just like you promised, but by the end of the first week you started assuming he hadn’t kept his promise, because while before it took him mere minutes to reply to your messages unless he was working, now it took at least hours. and the text you sent on saturday morning was left unread, still sitting there even on sunday. so you gave up completely, no matter how painful it felt even to think about it.

you had to force yourself not to text yeonjun out of habit for the whole monday, unlocking and immediately locking your phone back every ten minutes—you’d never noticed how much you messaged each other before, and now you felt lonely without it. but if he thought that’s what was the best for him, you had no right to hold him back. 

soobin noticed something was wrong, and he wanted so badly to keep you company so you wouldn’t be left alone, but he had plans that had been set for weeks already. he told you he could reschedule them anytime, but you swore you were fine and that it wasn’t a big deal. still, soobin texted yeonjun, saying he wouldn’t be able to keep you company on your way home tonight, and yeonjun replied with a simple ‘np, i’ll do that’ a few hours later, less than twenty minutes before your workday was over. 

yeonjun didn't even notice how badly he had neglected you over the weekend—two days and a monday flew by in a blur of sleep and endless overthinking any second he wasn't sleeping. he hadn’t even looked at the clock, his phone lying somewhere uncharged since friday evening until he finally plugged it in on monday afternoon and immediately got soobin’s message. but the moment he saw notification, he rushed to check his chat with you—one unread ‘good morning, mint choco ice cream prince’ from saturday morning—and realized he bad he had fucked up. but at least he had an opportunity to try to make it up to you. throwing on the first clothes he could find, he almost ran out of the house—it was a twenty-minute walk to your work. 

these past few days hadn’t been easy for yeonjun, and he still wasn’t sure he was anywhere close to understanding what exactly he felt. in fact, it felt like he was unbelievably far from it, but when he realized it might be too late at all, none of it mattered anymore. he didn’t care about his trust issues, his past lying lover, or finding out why opening up was so terrifying—he had to do everything right and deal with the rest later.

yeonjun’s fear wasn’t irrational, but you had nothing to do with it, nothing to do with the scars he had carried for years. so many years ago, in his highschool years, while he was studying half the world away from home, he had met his soulmate—it was a dream come true. he was still young, and he couldn’t believe his luck. she was a wild rose too, and her confession felt like destiny. 

for nearly a year, he had lived in blissful ignorance, believing the universe had gifted him a perfect bond. it was impossible to check it properly—they were too close to feel each other’s pain intensely, but she had always known when he fell in the p.e. class or burned himself on something while sitting in a café with his friends, and to him, that was proof enough. he thought it was impossible to love someone more, and would have done anything for her, loving her fiercely and giving himself completely, as though nothing in the world could shatter their connection. 

but then it had shattered. she had been particularly insatiable that evening, leaving red lines all over his back with her nails—she had always enjoyed doing it. while it went against  everything he had heard about the bond—he was the one leaning toward causing pain—he brushed it off, because too many things about that bond were myths, and this was probably another one. but that time she had gone further than usual, and it hurt—still nothing he couldn’t endure, though. 

but just a bit later, when she was sound asleep on yeonjun’s chest, his hand was gently playing with her hair, he thought that he was probably the happiest person in the world. but then he felt it—the distinct, burning heartbreak of his soulmate—his true soulmate. it wasn’t his. of course it wasn't, he had felt like he was blessed, but that pain didn’t belong to the one sleeping on his chest either. it was like an arrow piercing through him, the kind of pain that was impossible to fake, and suddenly, he wasn’t so sure it wasn’t his, because the realization that the girl he loved had lied about being his soulmate hit harder than any betrayal he could have imagined. she hadn’t just broken his trust, she’d made a mockery of something sacred. 

the break up was ugly, and yeonjun wished he could erase it from his memory. at first, she tried to gaslight him, but then she played on all of his painful buttons—the ones she had discovered over the course of a year—like a silly melody on a piano. the last words he heard from her were about how he would never find his soulmate, and even if he did, they’d never want to deal with someone as pathetic as him, and how he’d wish he’d never pushed her away. he lost one of his best friends back then too—it turned out he had been the source of all her knowledge about all yeonjun’s injuries, and that was the reason he had stuck to yeonjun’s side so constantly. 

yeonjun finished highschool there—the bond with his real soulmate shut itself down in those months, but he barely noticed it—and returned home, despite having once dreamed of continuing his education abroad. being there felt unbearable, and he had an almost maddening need to breathe the air of his homeland. it helped, but only a little—he had to busy himself with something, and so it became endless dancing until he could barely get up from the floor of the practice room, studying from dusk to dawn, depriving himself of sleep some nights, and trying to find any information on the wild rose bond to define what was true and what was merely myth.

but despite searching for every wild rose yeonjun could find online, talking to them and even meeting a few of them—especially the ones who had found their soulmate—he never got closer to any of them than his research required. he had vowed to never open up to wild roses who hadn’t yet met their soulmates—he couldn’t risk that pain again. it made sense—he didn’t want anyone to exploit the bond for their own benefit, especially someone desperate enough to lie about it, like she had. it was hard to confirm being soulmates back then, but now it was almost impossible with the way he hadn’t felt his soulmate for years. 

there were other reasons too—the ones yeonjun didn’t want to admit even to himself, but had to while thinking about why the fact that you were a wild rose scared him so much. he feared his own judgment—if he had been completely blind once, what was stopping it from happening again? what if his feelings clouded his ability to see the truth? again. he feared the weight of the bond that connected all wild roses, soulmates or not, because two lonely wild roses, especially at his age, would inevitably step into a world of sharing vulnerabilities, emotions, and feelings, and it had started with you already. it’d mean opening himself up for your pain, and you doing the same for him, and he wasn’t sure he could go through more pain—both giving and taking—after the same thing happening before his connection with his soulmate had gotten shut. 

but most of all, yeonjun feared repeating what was probably the greatest mistake of his life—giving his heart to the wrong person, only to realize the truth when it was too late, when they had already dug their fingers into it hard enough to hurt him. knowing that you were a wild rose, made all of these fears he had never really worked through crashing back in full force. it wasn’t that he didn’t trust you—it was that he couldn’t trust himself.

all of that could be dealt with later, though. yeonjun knew you weren't a problem, he was one—he always was one, just like when he had almost ruined everything in the beginning. he would accept it if you decided to end your friendship, but he at least had to try to do everything right, and he definitely owed you an explanation.

you were so lost in thoughts on your way home, that you barely saw anything or anyone around you. was yeonjun at least okay? he had spent half a week with you when you had a cold, maybe he had caught it from you and was now lying feverish in his bed, while you were too preoccupied with self-pity to even check on him? the thought was making you walk faster—you had to check on him, goddammit. there were basically two steps between your doors, and yet you didn't try to at least ring the doorbell, afraid he wouldn’t want to see you. 

your shoulder collided with someone else's, and you threw out a quick but sincere apology, not having the time to stop and check on them. the person was tall, and their shoulder barely moved at the impact, so you assumed they'd be fine. your steps became even quicker, but then a voice from behind made you stop in your tracks.

“i don't take you to work just one day, and you're already—a: not wearing a scarf after having a cold not so long ago, and b: completely careless on the streets?” yeonjun teased you, smile—he just couldn't keep it inside—perfectly audible in his voice. he missed you so much—just seeing you already made him a bit happier.

you turned around and had to basically force yourself not to run to him after just one glance at him. but yeonjun still spread his arms a bit, trying not to make it look like he was forcing you into it, нуе still showing that he wasn’t just ‘not against it', but that he wanted it too. of course, you ran into his hold—how could you not? maybe it looked questionable, maybe friends didn't do that—though you were sure they did—but he was healthy, well and smiling right in front of you. and you missed him.

yeonjun was warm in your arms, and his hold was firm but gentle, as he palmed the back of your head, his thumb caressing your hair. “i'm so sorry, mouse,” he murmured, tightening his hold on you and involuntarily making you do the same. “i was an asshole. the biggest one,” and i feel blessed because you're not pushing me away, he continued in his head.

“it's fine,” you mumbled into his shoulder, fingers clenching his hoodie under the coat. you both knew it actually wasn't, you had both done things that made no sense, but it didn't matter now, because it was something that could be worked with now. “if you were one, it only means i have no self-respect right now, hugging an asshole.”

yeonjun laughed warmly at your words, letting you go. he untied the scarf from his neck, hooking it over yours and carefully tightening it despite your protests. “is it comfortable?” he asked, but instead of an answer, you tried to give it back to him, and he took your hands in his to stop you, his palms warm and comfortable against the back of your hands. “behave. i asked you if it was comfortable.” 

you pouted—you missed his ordering around, but you were worried about him too. you knew he wouldn't let you take the scarf off, though, so you pulled your hands away from his hold, reached out stubbornly, and wrapped the hood of his hoodie around his bare neck carefully, trying to not touch his skin with your cold fingers. “now more comfortable,” you stated, looking at him with a stubborn expression and realizing he'd been watching you with a soft smile all the time while you were doing it. 

“okay,” yeonjun said, his smile widening. he enjoyed watching you find ways to do your thing while, well, still behaving. and of course your care made him feel warm inside—not that no one cared about him; of course, his friends did and would do it, but you noticed the smallest things about him and his comfort. “home or café?” he asked as you two started walking towards your apartments, shoulders occasionally brushing against each other. “i owe you an explanation, i think.”

“hm?” you looked at him in question. well, if he wanted to… not that you felt like it was necessary. “i’d prefer the café, but if you really want to explain it and having extra ears around might make you uncomfortable, i’d definitely prefer home,” you admitted, and added after a few seconds. “but maybe takeout then?”

yeonjun looked at you almost weirdly. you were definitely one of a kind—who would even care about ‘extra ears’ around? the way you cared for his comfort was making him almost giddy. “it’s fine, don’t worry. our café?” he asked, and you nodded, both of you thinking of the word ‘our’ and how natural it sounded.

the café was rather crowded, but most people were choosing takeout, so at least you wouldn’t have to stay in the queue for a table. was yeonjun still sure it was fine, though?.. had he expected so many people? maybe—little nudge to your shoulder pulled you out of your thoughts, and yeonjun pointed at the empty table in the corner. you got a hint immediately, already turning away when he wrapped his fingers around your wrist and tugged your hand to get your attention.

“sweet or hearty?” yeonjun asked, not letting your wrist go, as if you’d run away without answering his question the moment he did. 

you thought for a second, considering what you wanted more. “hearty,” you said finally, and he let your wrist go with a warm smile and little ‘okay’. “but i’m paying next time,” you said before turning around to go to the table, to which yeonjun only shook his head—you were adorable in your determination. 

when you finally sat down, the atmosphere became tense again—yet another heavy topic hovering over the two of you. you realized that you hated that feeling of discomfort around yeonjun and decided that you’d do your best to avoid it in the future by trying to talk everything out as early as possible. you simply hoped he felt the same and would be open to communication too. 

yeonjun didn’t go into details—they weren’t needed, and he told you that it wasn’t an easy topic and he still needed time—but what he said was enough for you. he said that he was in almost a year-long relationship with another wild rose who claimed she was his soulmate, but he found out she was lying when he felt the deep pain of his real soulmate, and it couldn’t be her. he said he was afraid of opening up again, especially when it came to wild roses—not only because he was afraid of being lied to again, but because any close relationship with a wild rose would end up in opening up. it wasn’t everything, yeonjun knew it perfectly, but he prayed it’d be enough as a first step. 

you asked him if he would avoid you if he knew from the very beginning, and after gathering all the bravery he could find, ру admitted that he most probably would. but he was quick to add that he didn’t regret befriending you and would lose so much if he let his prejudices cloud his judgement—thanks to you, he realized that his past behaviour was stupid and maybe even harmful to people around him. but he knew you focused on the first part of his answer to your question, despite many words after, and was anxious to hear what you had to say.

but you only surprised him with a small smile and said that you were fond of how real and true to himself he was, not trying to tell you that you were “different” and that he’d “never let his trust issues come between you two, even in the very beginning”. you weren’t asking it to test him or anything; the question left your mouth before you could think it through, but his answer was exactly what you wanted to hear, even if you didn’t know it—especially the many words he added after it.

yeonjun had known for a long enough time that you were surprising, but now he realized he couldn’t wait to find out more. but he also wanted to be just as caring and accepting for you, which it meant he had to continue opening up. it was a good thing that you didn’t look or sound judgemental when he talked about his past—you only nodded and said it was understandable, because soulmate bonds were sacred and it was especially so for wild roses; getting betrayed like that would affect anyone. 

the conversation didn’t fix everything on the spot, of course. you both knew that no matter how much you tried to ignore it, being wild roses would affect the way you communicated, especially when there were many things about it that you shared. when you confessed to yeonjun that you had no idea how to act around him now to not hurt him more, he promised—adding that he knew his promises seemed to mean nothing, but he still wanted you to believe him—that he would take the lead in your friendship if you weren’t against giving him control. you let out a breath and said you’d be happy if he did. surprising him again, of course.

yeonjun kept both the new promise and the previous one of not shutting you out—you slowly but surely started getting closer again, but sometimes on a more sentimental level than before, almost fully led by him. it wasn’t hard for you, because he often knew what you wanted or needed, and even when he didn’t, you had no problem with telling him straight, and he adjusted whatever needed to be adjusted so it was comfortable for both of you. 

you wished, though, the gap would get smaller just a bit faster, because sometimes you still walked on tiptoes around him and had to bite your tongue before joking about something like clicking so well on your shared patheticness regarding your soulmate situations. you knew he’d be fine with it—jokes like that slipped from your lips one or two times accidentally, and he laughed despite your endless apologies—but you were still afraid to say something wrong, knowing you didn’t know everything about his soulmate bond. and while you didn’t want to push him into opening up, keeping yourself back wasn’t too easy either. 

but you found out you had to be much more careful with what you wished for, when one friday you were called from work a bit after lunch break because you were flooding your neighbours from below. you thanked the heavens it was cold water, not hot, while basically running home, where your landlord had already been present with plumbing service and an electrician. turned out it wasn’t you’ it was your neighbours above. the good thing was, the damage done by the flooding wasn’t too huge—it mostly went down the wall. the bad thing? it went down the wall right behind the electricity panel.

the water supply in the apartment above was turned off by the time you arrived, so you sat in the living room waiting for the electrician to check how bad thongs was. it wasn’t too comfortable, as the power supply that was keeping the apartment warm had been turned off immediately, and it was one of the coldest weeks this winter—you didn’t even take your jacket off, not wanting to get cold. 

yeonjun arrived not so long after you—his apartment wasn’t flooded, he just had a day off and went to meet his family for brunch, and he was surprised to find the door to your apartment wide open in the middle of the day, when you were supposed to be working. he rushed to it, afraid something could happen to you, but only found you sitting on the couch of your living room, warming your hands between your thighs. 

you only gave him a brief description of what had happened, when the electrician came up to you and said that it’d be better not to turn on the power supply for a few days until it dried completely, and that you should call electricity services about three or four days later so they could check if it was safe to turn it on. he asked if you had a place to stay, and you threw a quick glance at yeonjun, who only nodded—his place was yours whenever you needed. 

so when everyone left, he helped you pack the stuff you might need at his place these few days and let you in, telling you a list of his apartment rules—you could do anything you wanted, take anything you needed, use anything your heart desired, but you had to tell him if you finished something so he could buy it—you were listening carefully, almost making notes to yourself.

“so… what else…” yeonjun turned to you. there wasn’t much to show you as you’d spent enough time there already and more or less knew everything. “oh, right. the most important thing,” he waited for your nod that showed you were ready to write it down in your head. “pineapple pizza is prohibited unless you persuade me well enough that you need it, and you have to prove your loyalty by eating mint choco ice cream every five hours,” the death stare you gave him only made him more playful. “even in the middle of the night, mouse. no exceptions,” he added as seriously as possible.

you looked at your bags that were still unpacked by the front door and tapped your chin as if you were thinking. “if i kill you by rapidly hitting you with a pillow right now, i might have enough time to grab my stuff and get an alibi…” you said, pretending to think out loud.

yeonjun only laughed, hooking his arm over your shoulder and leading you to the living room to sit on the couch. “i beg you. the only way i’d die if you try to do that, is from laughing at your pathetic attempts to overpower me,” he said through laughter, making you roll your eyes, but your smile betrayed what you really felt. you were happy. 

you ended up staying at yeonjun's place longer—at first until the next weekend instead of the beginning of the next week, because, for whatever reason, the electrician couldn't come earlier, and when he finally checked the electricity panel, it turned out a few really important parts had been flooded and it was impossible to air dry them, so you had to wait until their replacements arrived, and the estimated date of arrival was rather vague. if the first ‘living period extension’ made you feel bad, by the second one, yeonjun completely assured you that it was fine and he was actually happy to have you there.

sharing an apartment and sharing a bed—you agreed that it made no sense for either of you to suffer on the couch as yeonjun’s bed was even bigger than yours, and, well, you had slept together in yours already—had indeed brought you closer. it wasn’t exactly easy to hide melancholy, annoyance or, let alone, anger from someone you lived with, and it was hard to keep the reason to yourself when that someone was ready to give you listening ears, support, encouragement and anything you needed. so yeonjun started to open up to you too, slowly, including his soulmate situation.

it started with tiny glimpses of things he had felt when he was younger, presented in the form of questions—similar to the one he had asked about cross-stitching on the first day. but the biggest one was probably about period cramps. you remembered it well—you had never seen yeonjun that embarrassed and it was… cute. he barely cared when your period started while you were staying at his place, making sure you were comfortable and had everything you needed, but asking about it was completely different. 

yeonjun had noticed that you functioned more or less fine, only occasionally holding your lower tummy and refusing to take painkillers because it “wasn’t that bad”. it reminded him of how he used to experience really bad cramps every month when he was younger, but then, suddenly, they stopped. he later found out it was caused by his soulmate’s period at those moments, but he had been too embarrassed to ask someone why the pain had suddenly lessened, despite being incredibly curious about it. but he felt a bit more confident with you to ask about it, and the question wasn’t completely out of nowhere too. still, he couldn’t help but feel embarrassed when the words left his mouth.

you were taken aback by the question, but assumed that it could happen because of birth-control pills, as many of them had that side-effect, as well as making pms a bit less… annoying. yeonjun barely thought before asking if your weren’t in that much pain because you were on pills too—he immediately wanted to apologize for the question, but you just shrugged and said that he was right. despite having really bad cramps when your period had first started in your early teenage years, you only experienced slight discomfort now, having taken the pills for years. 

but later yeonjun started letting you in more on the topic. it turned out that he hadn’t felt his soulmate for a really long time either, and breaking up with that liar of a wild rose was basically the reason why it happened. but he never called it ‘broken’; he always used ‘shut down’ when talking about it. when you asked him why he called it that way, he found out you had almost no idea how the bond worked, so he sat you on the couch and brought the box he thought he’d never touch again—not because of some bad memories or anything, but because he just didn’t need it anymore. yet it’d be much easier to explain everything he knew using these. 

yeonjun gave you the box and sat next to you on the couch. “you can open it and look through anything you find interesting,” he said, watching the way you hesitantly opened it and turned to him to take all the things out on the couch between you—a few notebooks, a tiny sketchbook, a bunch of different rose-themed tiny things, and a book, not bigger than his palm. looking at all of that was almost nostalgic for yeonjun.

the first thing that caught your attention was a little folded paper. you looked at yeonjun in question if you could read it, and he simply nodded. you opened it carefully, a big logo on the top of it catching your eye. soulmate matchmaking agency. you knew what the letter was—a mere automatic reply to any wild rose. you had a similar one lying somewhere between books you hadn't touched in years. 

they refused to work with wild roses for ethical reasons—it wasn't easy to check if two individuals of that bond were soulmates. you wondered if they still had that type of bond on their site in the drop-down list, only to send a refusal letter with apologies and some pathetic rose-themed souvenir. you got a postcard? you weren't sure. out of all possible things, you got the most stupid one. 

it probably was written all over your face, because yeonjun chuckled. “familiar letter?” he asked and you nodded. “i don't know why i saved it. probably just threw it there to all the other stuff when i got it,” he shrugged. “i sent an application, but found out they don't work with wild roses on some forums even before receiving… that. maybe they printed too many rose postcards and needed to get rid of them?”

you laughed and put the letter away, carefully taking the book next. you smiled, looking at it, your thumb caressing the cover gently—the silver decorations immediately caught your attention, when you saw it so many years ago in a box in the furthest room of your local library. you fell in love with it. the book was simply beautiful, and it looked good despite how old it was—it was maybe from the late 19th century, and you had no idea how a book so old could end up in a small library in some dusty old box where you found it. fleur de destin.

it felt like your fingers moved on its own when you opened page 138, making you realize that it was actually the number of your apartment now—what a coincidence. ‘rose sauvage’ was written at the top of it in a beautiful font, with drawings of thorny roses decorating it. you spent weeks looking at that page; translating old-fashioned french wasn’t too easy for an elementary schooler, especially as you had to use every translating dictionary you could find. and the result still was… questionable, but it was better than nothing. 

“so i can see you’re familiar with the book,” yeonjun said, when he saw how quickly you found the needed page and the way you smiled at it—almost fondly, as if you had only good memories about it. 

you nodded. “i found the same book in a library nearby when i was a child,” your gaze quickly ran over the lines you couldn’t even remember properly now. it was the only information you had on your bond for years, and it only had five ‘rules’—much less than other bonds in the book—and your translation left you with only three that you could understand properly. “i translated it, and it took a really long time to do it. and, still two of them made no sense, no matter how much i tried.” 

yeonjun’s eyes widened. “you translated it yourself? when you were a child? from french?” he was shocked. you were truly impressive—just like them. it wasn’t easy for him, when he was grown up; some words were extremely confusing, and putting them together in a sentence made it sound strange. “what exactly didn’t make sense to you?”

you looked at the lines again, finding the word ‘souffrance’. “the fourth one. i barely remember it, to be honest, but…” you bit your lip trying to recall the way you translated it. “something like… when it comes to pain, where one lacks, the other one has a lot?..” you said uncertainly. “and, um, it’s perfect and it won’t change. my only idea was about one being in pain and another not being in pain, but it sounded weird,” you admitted. 

your words make yeonjun chuckle. “it makes sense why you couldn’t understand it,” he smiled at you and took one of the notebooks lying on the couch. “the translation is a bit off, and you were also too young to understand the meaning,” he said, flipping through the pages. “it was ‘in matters of agony, where one is found wanting, the other is abundant, for such balance is divinely ordained and cannot be undone’,” he read out loud his note and looked up. 

you couldn’t help but let out a giggle. “you kept the old-fashioned style while translating?” it was so him—finding anything ‘yeonjun’ quickly became your favourite thing. “i loved it, though it barely cleared anything up.”

he shrugged. “anything for aesthetics,” he said, full of himself—he enjoyed how open you were about liking something he did, sometimes seeing the simplest things as if he put the stars in the sky. his friends sometimes used feeding his ego—or feeding his authoritative side—when they needed something from him, and yeonjun saw it perfectly, because it was a 180° switch in their behaviour, but he knew they actually thought that way, just kept it to themselves, so he gave in. and with you, it was almost the same, except you showed it—both admiration and obedience, actually—without exaggeration, it was exactly the way you felt. 

you smiled at yeonjun's proud face—confidence looked good on him, it was making him more attractive—you hadn’t even noticed the way the world slipped into your mind. you looked back at the book you were holding. “for aesthetics, but not for understandings?” you joked, before reaching out for the notebook he was holding to look at the proper translation, and he gave it to you without any problems. “so… instead of ‘lacks’, it’s ‘wants’,” you looked up and he nodded. “while one wants pain the other one… feels it?” it still made no sense. 

yeonjun shook his head. “not exactly. i'm sure you have read about it if you googled the bond,” he paused looking at the way you tried to recall anything that would be similar. “it's not that the other one feels it, they have it,” he explained. 

“is it…” you bit your lip, nails scratching finger pads in nervousness. you'd make a complete fool of yourself if you phrased it the way everyone said it, and it turned out to be not what he meant. you cleared your throat, deciding to use different words. “they have it for giving. is it about that…?” you threw a glance at yeonjun, and he obviously understood what you meant, but it seemed like he wanted you to say it straight. “about sadism—”

“and masochism, yes,” he finished for you with a foxy smile, ending the torture. “basically, it means one wants to receive pain and another one wants to give it, and they never switch roles,” yeonjun explained, watching your expressions. somehow, your reaction was important to him, as if deep inside, he wanted to know if his dreams were… realistic.

you bit your lip as your heart started beating faster—the conversation felt exposing, as if yeonjun knew the dirty things happening in your head. but it was one of the most commonly mentioned things about the bond, so it was nothing like that. “so… is any wild rose either a sadist or masochist?” you asked uncertainly, trying to fill the silence. “it's impossible for it to be different?”

yeonjun tilted head. the way you asked it… you weren't either of two and was thinking you were… broken in some way? “i don't think so,” he said, wanting to assure you that you weren't broken in any way. but the thought of his dreams lying to him about how much you enjoyed pain still hovered over him, and he tried to shoosh them away. “um, it also mentions ‘balance’, and while it's hard to find the truth, i think it's about the amount of pain.”

“you think… the balance is not in wanting to give or to receive pain, but in the amount they want to give or receive?” you asked, not completely sure you got him right. it made perfect sense—it was about soulmates after all. they were supposed to be perfect for each other in every way.

“yep,” yeonjun nodded. “i can’t be completely sure, because people usually keep that side of their lives to themselves… but i knew a couple who were rather open about it,” he chuckled, when he saw your widened eyes. “not in detail, i’m not that kind of a perv,” he laughed before continuing. “so one of them was a sadist and another one was a masochist, and they were… hardcore with it. the sadist one said that despite having a safe word, it was never used, simply because the masochist one always wanted to receive the exact amount of pain the sadist one wanted to give. and vice versa, of course.”

that’s how it was?.. once again, it made sense, and now it was obvious you wouldn’t have understood it back then, even with the right translation. “so, a soft sadist can’t be a hardcore masochist’s soulmate?” you asked, though you already knew what yeonjun would say. “they’re just incompatible.”

he nodded. “they are. it’s one of the way to check if you’re soulmates, but of course, a rather vague one,” yeonjun said and looked away in thought—should he tell more about his ex?.. he threw a glance at you. you seemed so soft, one of his sweaters on you—you’d gotten cold a few hours ago, and he just gave you the one he was wearing, as he was going to change into something thinner anyway. you weren't fidgeting with the book anymore, just hugging your knees to your chest and listening to him, softly slipping into melancholy. he didn't want to talk to you about his ex for whatever reason, it felt like mentioning her would shake the peaceful atmosphere. “so… yeah,” he said, trying to finish the thought.

you tilted your head, assuming yeonjun hadn’t said something he wanted to say, but shook it off—it was his right. you had something you were interested in anyway. “how does it feel for a sadist, though?” you asked, and he looked at you in question. “i mean, they enjoy giving pain, but when they do it to their soulmate, they should be feeling it too,” you explained. 

yeonjun shook his head. he was surprised how little you knew about the bond, but didn’t blame you—he spent years trying to find out the truth about how it worked in the midst of myths. “the bond has a bunch of… fuses? to protect soulmates,” he hoped you’d understand what he meant. “one wild rose can barely feel the pain they cause their soulmate, and self-inflicted pain isn’t exactly shared too, unless it’s the fifty-fifty rule—” he suddenly stopped. “you know the fifty-fifty rule, right?” 

you nodded. “any strong pain is shared equally, no matter the distance. they’d feel it even next to each other,” you said before biting your lip. “these… ‘fuses’ make it almost impossible to check if someone is your soulmate,” you sighed—its ‘protection’ felt more like a cage for one. was it protecting? yes, in some way. was it helping with finding your soulmate? not at all. “you can't pinch yourself to see if the person would feel it, because you're already near each other, and that fuse lessens it even more. the same goes for pinching the person to see if you'd feel it. how are you supposed to find your soulmate like that?”

these thoughts weren’t unfamiliar to yeonjun—he used to think that way for a long time, but eventually just accepted it, not wanting to make thoughts he already had worse. “you’re destined to meet with them, it’d bring you together no matter what,” he wasn’t sure he believed it himself—if it was true, he’d meet his soulmate by now, and you’d meet yours too. “even a shut down bond shouldn’t affect it. at least that’s how it’s supposed to work.”

you hugged your knees closer to your chest, laying your cheek on the couch’s backrest. “you keep on saying your bond is ‘shut down’, not ‘broken’ like mine,” you mumbled, caressing the rose keychain you took from the box, thorns tickling your thumb—the one similar to the one you had on the key you gave yeonjun the day you started talking.

yeonjun ran his fingers through his hair—it was easy to explain the concept, but it was much harder to explain that he believed it because he just wanted to. “it’s believed to be one of the fuses. when pain goes in cycles between soulmates, the bond shuts itself down to break the cycle until they stop hurting,” he explained, realizing how stupid it actually sounded, considering it had been shut down for him for almost a decade, even when the pain wasn’t so bad anymore.

you didn’t say anything—conversations about soulmates weren’t easy, especially when it felt like with each day the possibility of finding your soulmate was slipping through your fingers faster and faster. but it wasn’t the worst thing, because feeling the way you started slowly growing indifferent to it was much worse. you never realized how much of you was built on that bond and the trauma that went with it, until you started losing it, as well as losing yourself. you knew you wanted to let go of it, but you had no idea who you would be without it anymore. 

and then there was a thing you feared more than anything—if you open your heart to someone who wasn’t your soulmate, if you dared to fall in love with them, it meant that person still had their soulmate somewhere out there, and when they finally met them… you swallowed the lump in your throat—you hadn’t thought about it beforehand. you thought that opening yourself up to falling for someone who wasn’t your soulmate would protect you from the heartbreak caused by not meeting your soulmate, but in the end, it seemed like it’d only bring more pain. and now, it felt like dying alone was the lesser evil.

“do you really believe it’s unbreakable?..” you asked quietly, not sure if you were asking yeonjun it or thinking out loud. 

he didn’t reply immediately—he didn’t know, never thought of it. never wanted to think of it. and he decided to continue running away from it. “as far as i know, fleur de destin is right about—”

you interrupted him. “not fleur de destin. you,” you looked up. “do you believe it’s unbreakable?”

“i don’t know,” yeonjun admitted, looking away. “maybe i’d love to believe that i still have that connection with my soulmate despite not feeling them anymore,” he said quietly, his voice barely audible. “that there's still the possibility of meeting them one day and knowing for sure they are mine,” he swallowed thickly—opening up to anyone feeling too strange. he barely let these thoughts out in the open in his own head, but now he was saying it aloud to someone else. but it was you... “and i'm not sure which one is more painful—hope or lack of it,” he finished in almost whisper.

you didn't know either. you thought you’d experienced both, but could you be completely certain you had truly lost hope at some point?.. now, when you thought you were almost ready to give up and open your heart to someone else, you felt like your own thoughts and feelings were pushing you back in that cage—it was safe there, it was familiar there. was it the way losing hope felt? trying to dig your nails into it as deep as possible just to not let it go?

“i think mine is broken,” you mumbled, apathy slowly rising to the surface in an attempt to protect you from your own feelings. “not shut down. just broken. if it's impossible, i'm an exception. an error or a system failure. something broken,” you finished quietly. 

yeonjun felt his heart breaking at the way your voice sounded so empty and quiet; at how small you looked, hugging your knees to your chest, side of your head resting lifelessly on the backrest; at the empty look in your eyes as you looked through him. you looked like a shell right now, feelings and emotions turned off just so it didn't hurt so much. 

he quickly put everything back in the box and moved a bit closer to you, making space to lie down as he held his hand out to you. “come here,” yeonjun whispered softly, and you put your hand in his without thinking, not hesitating for a second. he tugged you closer, his other hand resting on your back, guiding you down until you were lying on his chest. “yes, just like that,” he praised you gently, one of his hands finding its place on the back of your head, playing with your hair to relax you. 

and you relaxed—obviously relaxed—in yeonjun's hold, and it felt so good for him. almost as good as when you lifted your hand to rest it on his chest, and he felt that you weren't just accepting his hug anymore, but were returning it—in the way you could in your current state. the way you shifted slightly up his body to be a little closer made his heart skip a beat—it felt like your coping indifference was slowly disappearing, making you seek comfort instead of accepting just anything, and you were seeking it from him.

yeonjun wanted to tell you that recently he started thinking more and more often that soulmates were overrated, and that maybe he wanted to just give up on waiting for that ‘one and only’ and open himself to someone else; that you weren't broken at all, and if you were, it’d make two of you. but he only whispered the sweetest praises he could come up with, hoping to pull you out of that dark place completely. 

it was nice—the nicest you'd ever felt, probably. yeonjun’s hold was warm and comfortable; it felt firm but still gentle, his arms safe, protecting you from anything—even from yourself. you could barely understand what he was saying, but it sounded like something so nice, and his breathy, soft voice lulled you to sleep better than any lullaby you'd ever heard. it felt like all of your senses were overwhelmed with him—his scent, his touches, his voice—and it felt like home.

the same thought appeared in your heads almost at the same time. but while yours was more like a phantom of a thought in a tired, half-asleep brain that you probably wouldn’t even remember the next morning, yeonjun's one was bright and clear as a day. since he discovered that you were a wild rose and told you he was one too, the line of friendship—that already seemed blurry for some people who saw you together—seemed to be fading slowly, and he was the one doing it almost on purpose. he’d promised you to lead your friendship, and you’d trusted him to do so. would you hate him for leading it in that direction?..

yeonjun fell asleep a bit later—he tried to think about what to do next, when you would wake up on his chest and probably freak out, trying to pretend it never happened, and what to do later to bring you back closer, when you tried to keep the distance after falling asleep on him. he was a selfish man, and you seemed just perfect for him—as a friend for sure, as something more… he didn't know yet. but he didn't want to let you go. he would—of course, he would—if you told him to, but he saw the way you needed him, knew that he was the first person you came to when you needed comfort and warmth.

the thoughts were tiring yeonjun out too much, though, and he decided to just go with the flow and watch you—after all, you kept surprising him, maybe you'd surprise him here too. so he closed his eyes and focused on the sound of your breathing and the way it felt so nice under his collarbone. your scent was enveloping him too, but he couldn't get rid of the thin, barely noticeable notes of his scent—perfume, hand soap, laundry conditioner—woven into yours, and he tried to push the thoughts of possession and belonging away, filling his head with you and falling into soft, gentle hands of sleep.

yeonjun woke up just a few hours later, in the middle of the night, from you fidgeting on top of him. at first, he thought you were having another wet dream—it wasn't that you got them too often, but he had woken up to your soft, barely heard whimpers only a few times, and it was enough for him to grasp what exactly you dreamed about. and, maybe, who you dreamed about too.

the first time it happened, on the second night of you staying at his place, yeonjun was almost scared, when he returned after jerking off in the bathroom—he had a wet dream that night too—and found you curled into a ball and whimpering. he thought you were having a nightmare. he crouched down next to the bed and tried to stir you awake, but you seemed a bit… strange for someone who was just awakened from a nightmare. you sat down to pull yourself together a bit, and he smelled it, it felt like he could almost taste your arousal, and it tasted so sweet, he nearly popped a boner again. 

you avoided yeonjun the next morning, but he knew well when to play oblivious. he asked you if the nightmare was too bad, telling you he went to get some water and woke you up immediately after returning and was so sleepy, so you let your guard down, believing he just didn’t notice any signs—if there were any. so when it happened next time, he just pretended he was asleep—he wanted to leave at all, but decided it wouldn’t look good if you woke up and saw his absence—you most probably would think you woke him up and he left. and when you hesitantly asked him the next morning how he slept, he shrugged and said he had dreamed of something weird like a few thousands of bees fighting godzilla, but nothing else.

yeonjun didn’t want to make you feel embarrassed, had no desire to even tease you about something you couldn’t control, but the way your were mewling his name so softly and quietly into your pillow or the fox plushie you took from your apartment first, was stroking his ego and made him hard sometimes just from the thought of it. so of course he started having more wet dreams too—but at least you weren’t a light sleeper like him. or maybe you were, and were doing the same thing he was doing… 

but that time yeonjun was sure you weren’t having one—your breathing was calm and you barely made any sounds, so you were probably just trying to find a more comfortable position. cute, he thought, caressing your back. but you were right—kind of, at least the way he saw your fidgeting—you both should move to the bed, as it was much more comfortable. and even though he perfectly knew that you’d be sleeping on different sides of the bed and he didn’t want to let you go, because your weight on top of him was comforting, he still shook your shoulder gently—your comfort was much more important.

“wake up, mouse,” yeonjun whispered, ruffling your hair a bit and making you nuzzle closer to him, refusing to wake up. “no-ope,” he chuckled, ticking your side, his heart warm at your clinginess, “wake up and let’s go to bed.”

you grumped into his skin. “comfy,” you murmured, completely refusing to cooperate. 

usually yeonjun would make you do what he wanted you to do, but his heart melted at your sleepy admission of being comfortable—something he doubted he’d get if you weren’t so sleepy—so he decided to do everything himself and carry you to the bed without making you move yourself. you still woke up a bit, but not enough to start seriously protesting and assuring him you could walk on your own. 

of course, yeonjun put you on your side and laid down himself the way you two always slept—with a gap between you. he didn’t expect you to crawl and cling to him, and you didn’t. but you still surprised him by hesitantly reaching out and laying one of your fingers on his, as if even hooking it around would be too much for you, too close. he was happy nevertheless to see that you wanted to touch him too, and he fell asleep content, his finger moving almost on its own to caress yours.  

since then, the line between you two started fading faster—even when you were finally able to return to your own apartment, some nights you spent at yeonjun’s place. it made sense to just stay there after another conversation in his living room that went past midnight—you had a lot of your stuff in his apartment anyway. and he stayed at yours too from time to time, so even when you were alone in your apartment—quiet and empty without him there—you still had signs of him wherever you looked. 

it was scaring you. the way your view on many things started changing scared you too. but you were afraid to ask yeonjun about where the two of you stood, and more than that, you were afraid of hearing his answer. ‘being something more’ scared you even worse than staying just friends—whenever you thought about it, your brain immediately pictured him with his soulmate when he found them, not caring about you or whatever you had anymore. 

it was hard to keep inside, and you couldn't go to yeonjun about it, so when these thoughts filled your mind to the brim, they spilled over to the only person you trusted almost as much as you trusted yeonjun—soobin.

“what would you do if you met your soulmate while dating someone else?” you blurted out one morning, standing next to the coffee machine in the tiny office kitchen, staring at it.

at first, soobin wanted to tease you, but the way you'd been occupying the coffee machine for a few minutes already without turning it on, just standing next to it with your cup inside, he decided it wasn't the time. “i don't know how exactly I'd reject my soulmate, but i would,” he shrugged. 

you pressed your lips together. “but they’re your soulmate. someone perfect for you.”

soobin shrugged again and chose coffee for you on the little screen before turning the coffee machine on. “and another one is my partner, someone i chose for me,” he said simply—he knew you weren’t judging him for choosing partner over soulmate, especially since you probably had the same view, but it seemed like you weren’t asking for yourself. “yeonjun?”

“huh?” you looked at soobin a bit lost at the sudden mention of his name, but, realizing what he was implying, you mumbled. “i don’t know…”

he didn’t want to bother you anymore about it, given how confused you were—he doubted he could help anyway except by giving you a little chocolate bar and a few kind words as a sign of support when you were back at your tables. you didn’t expect him, though, because the only one who could clear that confusion was yeonjun, and soobin already did enough—showed you that there were people who had that view on dating someone other than their soulmate.

you didn’t ask yeonjun about it that day. or the next day. or the day after. you were scared he’d get the reason behind the question wrongly—except deep inside, you knew the reason he might think about would be right, but you refused to admit it to yourself even, let alone to him. 

but yeonjun asked you that himself one day, in yet another one of your long conversation about soulmates, and before you could say anything, he answered the question himself—he did it often when the question was serious and he wanted to show you that he was ready to answer the question he asked, while you didn’t even have to. his answer was almost the same as soobin’s, and you hesitantly said you thought the same. 

unlike what you expected, the conversation went just as it had before, as if the question wasn’t asked at all. but you didn’t know yeonjun had made a note about that—he’d been making lots of mental notes like that recently. he noted the way you shied away when he tried to push, so he stopped, letting you control the pace with which your relationship was developing into… something. he was leading the way it developed, though, staying on high alert about whatever he did or said whenever the atmosphere shifted after conversations about soulmates or dating. it was tiring, so he loved it when you let yourself be free without thinking twice.

“you know,” yeonjun started one friday-almost-night, pausing the movie you were watching—it was horror and it seemed like he tried to avoid watching it at all, because he paused it three minutes in. “fleur de destin also has ‘colours of soulmates’ on the last page. have you translated it too?” he asked.

you nodded. “it was easy compared to the wild roses part,” you answered after swallowing a handful of popcorn—it was meant to be finished before the movie started properly, with the way yeonjun paused it every half a minute. “just a few epithets for each colour. look, we don’t have to watch it—”

“it’s fine,” yeonjun said firmly—you said you wanted to watch it despite being a scaredy-cat, and he was determined to ‘protect’ you from scary pictures and sounds. “just got a question out of nowhere,” he said and you nodded with a small teasing smile—of course. “so. as we both obviously say ‘fuck you, both of our soulmates’— why are you laughing?” he tried to sound serious, but his smile was even heard in his voice.

you shook your head, trying to contain your giggles. “i’m not sure when i said it, but i do feel that i agree with the take. sorry, continue.” 

yeonjun cleared his throat, and you tried your best not to laugh at how badly he tried to act serious. “so. what colour of relationship would you prefer to have?”

you didn't remember when you thought about it last time. colours of soulmates weren't exactly something you could check—mostly, it had just made sense to connect flowers to colours and use it for describing the main nature and vibe of the relationship between soulmates. you didn't choose it, you just naturally gravitated toward ‘one of the colours’ just like your soulmate did, and in the end, you made a perfect couple with the same wants and needs.

“i don't know… maybe i'm closer to pink?” you answered uncertainly—pink was… safe, but not boring. it was soft, loving, caring, silly at times, but still gentle and sweet. not too innocent, but not too emotional and passionate on the verge of fights either. perfect balance. “or maybe blue…” that one was new for you, heavily influenced by yeonjun and how deep your conversation with him went sometimes, how in tune you seemed to be with each other’s emotions. “i'm not sure…” you didn't want to continue thinking about it—you had already chosen the colours you'd describe your friendship with him. you didn't like the way your thoughts were going.

yeonjun chuckled—you were predictable in the most beautiful way. “nothing intense? no red and black?” he teased, already knowing the answer. you seemed like the epitome of pink, who needed blue sometimes. but he wasn’t exactly blue. he knew people who were, and he certainly wasn’t one—they weren’t as emotionally closed off as he was, and their bonds were built on deep, mutual connection. it didn’t come naturally to him. usually, he only revealed the surface, keeping his deepest fears locked away. he would love it, though—a faint blue gloss to his relationship. he would love to be able to open up, and he felt like pink friendship with you had exactly the right shade of blue shining on the surface. “boring baby,” he sing-songed.

you huffed, rolling your eyes and pushing his shoulder. “safe one. i want my relationship to be my safe haven,” you explained. “somewhere where i won’t be judged for anything, where i can truly relax and not wear any masks,” you got so wrapped up in protecting your ‘boring pink dream’, that you were far from noticing the way yeonjun was looking at you with the softest smile he just couldn’t keep inside. “i want to do silly things and not be afraid of getting laughed at and—” you stopped and looked at him. “what are you laughing at?!” you grabbed the nearby pillow aiming it at him.

yeonjun’s smile turned into laughter and he covered his head with his forearms as you swung the pillow at him. “i was smiling, dummy,” he tried to say through his laughter, as you kept on hitting him with the pillow wherever you could reach, making him back down until he was pressed between the backrest and armrest of the couch and you towered over him on your knees, cheeks and abs already sore from laughing. “okay-okay, give me it before you hurt yourself,” he laughed, trying to take the pillow away from your hands.

you only shook your head and stretched your hand up, holding the pillow as high as possible—yeonjun had no chance of taking it from you, height difference or not, since you were on your knees while he, as a sore loser, was sitting on his butt. he tried to lift himself up, but you placed your free hand on his shoulder, trying to keep him down, the leverage giving you an opportunity to hold the pillow even higher. 

your determination was admirable, but yeonjun knew just the way to make you lose composure for a second—and that would be more than enough. “enjoying being on top, darling?” he asked with a smirk, looking up at you, his face even foxier than usual, making your eyes widen and your knees back off for a split second—just enough time for him to wrap his fingers around your waist and pull you down on his lap carelessly, quickly snatching the pillow from your hands. “just like that,” he sing-songed, tossing the pillow somewhere else. 

yeonjun's hand still was on your waist, his thumb caressing your skin through the thin fabric of your t-shirt, making your breath hitch as you froze, heart thumping wildly in your chest—the two of you’d never been that close, and it was making you dizzy. you could feel his warm breath on your lips, carrying the scent of sweet mint and caramel popcorn long forgotten on the coffee table; only now did you notice your pinky kept accidentally brushing against skin of his shoulder, right next to the wide stripe of his tank top—you caressed it on purpose, barely aware of what you were doing. he was so warm…

you forced yourself to move your gaze away from his shoulder—you weren’t sure how a mere joint of bones could be so beautiful and captivating—and finally looked him in the eyes, swallowing thickly. of course, you knew they were dark—you didn’t need to have a phd in biology to know that—but you weren't sure they had always been that dark, like a fathomless pit in the ground that would swallow you whole if you weren’t careful enough. but you knew it only promised softness, warmth and endless sweetness—you’d gladly fall into it on your own.

yeonjun was captivated by the way you studied him, as if you were seeing him for the first time. it felt like he was witnessing the gears in your head turning, slowly piecing together a realization he had reached long ago. and the sight was truly breathtaking. he would let you study him all you wanted, however you wanted—with your eyes, hands, lips—if it meant you wouldn’t shy away from him when it was his turn to study you however he wanted. 

the realization finally settled in—you both could see it. you opened your mouth to say something, but your words were stuck in your throat and your brain was absolutely empty. yeonjun knew well enough that whenever your mind went blank, it often was quick to be filled with anxiety, so he did the only thing his brain—affected by your proximity too—came up with. he put his hand on the side of your neck gently, thumb on your cheek, as he pressed his lips softly to the corner of your lips—barely a touch, but it already made your brain short-circuit, heart going absolutely crazy in your chest. 

yeonjun felt his mind getting clouded too—he realized it, bright as a day when he felt your rapid pulse under his lips. he hadn't noticed when he moved his kisses to your neck—your sweet scent, the sounds you were making, the softness of your skin under his lips, everything was too intoxicating, exactly the way it was in his dreams and even better because it was real you—he had to force himself to stop. he had to clear your mind too. at least a bit—enough to give him a clear answer. 

“mouse,” yeonjun whispered, putting all of his strength into pulling away from your neck and laying his forehead on your shoulder. “[ yn ], darling. squeeze my right shoulder if you want me to stop or left one if you want me to continue,” he whispered, careful not to make unnecessary moves, not wanting to affect your choice or make you act on instinct like squeezing the shoulder he moved. he needed you to think, even if the only thing he wanted to do was to wrap his arms around you and press you into himself so hard that you could feel each other's heartbeats and barely breath, and to torture your neck with his mouth until it was sore and you begged him to stop. 

the words were a blur in your dazed mind—right, stop, shoulder, continue. stop… no, no stop… right shoulder—no, left shoulder, it was left. fingers of your left hand almost twitched and you forced them to freeze—wrong, it had to be your right hand. you squeezed fingers of your right hand hesitantly, before repeating the gesture a bit more certainly. 

you were embarrassed to ask for more, but it felt so, so good. yeonjun was always rough in your dreams, bringing you the sweetest pain you could imagine, and despite perfectly knowing it was just dreams, they still were affecting the way you saw him—you simply never expected him to be so gentle, and it was making you lose your mind even more, probably. the way he held your waist as if you were fragile, the way his kisses were feather-light, barely leaving any sign of his presence there—and you wished these marks were permanent—everything was making you dizzy again. 

yeonjun was scared of hurting you, afraid you might break if he wasn’t careful enough. he didn’t want to scare you off with how much he wanted to hurt you too—it sounded wrong even in his own head, no matter how much he tried to assure himself he meant it in a beautiful way full of pleasure. and he was ready to push each one of his dark and ugly desires deep inside and never let it come back if it meant he could keep holding you like that. he knew he was going absolutely insane, but at that moment he didn’t care—your sweetness was coating each one of his senses and he couldn't wish for anything else. 

you clenched the fabric of his tank top on his shoulders in your fingers, nails softly scratching his skin, and you moved your fingers away instinctively, leaving only the heels of your palms there—you were on the other side of that pain specter, it almost came naturally to you, but yeonjun moved his kisses up your neck slowly, whispering that it was fine, that you didn’t have to control yourself that bad with him. you nodded shakily and pressed your nails into your palms.

yeonjun moved you a bit closer up his thighs, chuckling breathily into the skin between your neck and shoulder. “don't hurt yourself, mouse,” he whispered, his breath tickling the sensitive skin as he reached out for your hand on his shoulder and took it in his, unclenching your fingers with his thumb. i want to be the one to do it, he continued in his head—he was sure he’d never let you know it and would never act on it, as he was gently holding your hand in his on your thigh. you were his little flower. his pink, gentle wild rose, and he couldn’t care less about your soulmate wandering around somewhere—they lost their chance the moment you hesitantly squeezed his left shoulder. 

the sounds you were making were becoming more and more shaky with every inch yeonjun’s lips moved down, your hand squeezing his. he tugged the collar of your t-shirt down, opening the top of the stem on your chest, almost groaning at the sight. yes, it was intimate—you came a long way to feel comfortable enough around him to wear something that showed even half an inch of it, and he felt blessed by your trust, but at the same time it was a mark. a mark of belonging, just like he had on his back, and he hated both. 

yeonjun pressed his lips to the lonely stem—oh, how he wanted to paint it with his bites and marks, to turn it into a mark of you belonging to him, not to some random who hurt you so much and made you feel like you had lost your soulmate, as if you were completely alone in that cruel world. but he couldn’t; not right now at least. maybe one day you would be kind enough to bless him by letting him do it, by allowing him to make the rose stem on your chest bloom with beautiful red flowers made by his lips and teeth. 

you froze when yeonjun’s lips touched the mark, though—all the pictures of everything that could go wrong because of falling for someone who wasn’t your soulmate flashing before your eyes like a slideshow with no happy ending. you could love someone—your brain refused to put his name there—as hard as your heart could and choose them even after meeting your soulmate, but it didn’t guarantee anything if they had a change of mind or heart when they met their one. the dizzying sweetness that was filling your heart just a moment ago was replaced with a sickening fear that was clawing on it, trying to leave the deepest marks it could.

“jun,” you choked out, weakly pushing him away by the shoulder where your hand still rested. you couldn’t do it—it was too painful, too terrifying.

your tiny, quiet call felt for yeonjun like a bucket of cold water had been poured all over him—the first second, it felt like you could read his mind and see all of his ugly thoughts, but the way your other hand was still holding his hand grounded him, chasing those thoughts away. he moved his head away from you and placed the hand that had been holding you waist on the couch next to your knee, fingers itching to caress it, but he held himself back. you didn’t look at him, your eyes glued to the hand you were still holding—you refused to let it go and he barely tried, if he was honest. 

“i’m scared,” you whispered before yeonjun could ask you anything or, worse, apologize. “of…” you opened your mouth to explain, but couldn't find words—of what? of him finally meeting someone destined for him, someone he'd been waiting for his whole life, who he’d gone through a terrible heartbreak and betrayal for? in no universe was it the right thing to think, let alone say out loud. you only shook your head in shame—for your behaviour, for your thoughts, for your feelings.

yeonjun was confused—what were you scared of?... him? his behaviour? getting so close to him? physically? emotionally?... he tried to find the answer in your eyes, but you still didn't look at him, and he wasn't sure what to do. he so often dealt with stuff by ‘manhandling’ everyone, that he had no idea what to do with you now, when he didn't know if it was right to touch you. he squeezed your hand that still was in his, though. “you don't have to be scared,” he whispered, trying not to make any unnecessary moves—you still were on his lap after all. “and thank you for stopping me.”

you looked at yeonjun puzzled. for… stopping him? he wasn't upset or angry or annoyed—he was thankful? this confusion pushed all the other thoughts away, as if it cleared the fog inside your head, making your brain start working to understand what he meant. you tried to find a hint of mockery in his eyes, tried to recall if you’d heard sarcasm in his voice, but there was nothing—he was sincere, absolutely sincere, looking at you with a soft smile. it felt like it was impossible to predict how else he'd surprise you next time, how he'd give you a glimpse of what a beautiful human being he actually was. 

when yeonjun asked you if you wanted to continue watching the movie or go home, you hesitantly admitted that you'd prefer the first option, but were anxious that the thing that had just happened between the two of you might ruin the night—and everything else, you added in your head—but he promised to keep the atmosphere light, and about ten minutes into the movie, the air around you became significantly less charged when he yelped and you whimpered at the way the demon appeared behind the character’s shoulder in the mirror, covering your faces with hands.

by the end of the movie you were hiding in yeonjun’s shoulder most of the time, not even lifting your head when nothing scary was happening, just turning it slightly to the screen—both in case of another jumpscare and because one of the main characters was on the verge of death. he never pushed your head away but teased you endlessly—while he wasn’t busy covering his face—for being so dramatic about a death that you knew perfectly well wouldn't happen, and later—for the way you basically fangirled over the character being saved by his wife. 

yeonjun couldn’t stop thinking about how cute you were, passionately trying to convince him that the couple of the main characters were completely pink and perfect with how much they cared for each other and how all-consuming yet sweet yet grown-up their love was. he wondered if that was what you wanted, what you dreamed of, trying to push the doubts away—would he be able to give you that? the one who felt red for his whole life, but dreamed of pink deep inside? could it be that your sweetness and gentleness of white would soften his red into the pink you both wanted? or would he only stain it? 

you stayed at yeonjun’s place that night, too scared to be in your empty apartment completely alone, even with a nightlight or just  a light turned on everywhere. and you realized you were right when you woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't fall asleep anymore, because whenever you closed your eyes, you saw all the ugly ghosts and demons you had seen for your whole life in games or movies, so you just sat on his bed leaning on the headboard and hugging your knees in the pitch-dark room. 

yeonjun stirred awake not so long after, slightly jolting at the shadowy shape sitting on the bed, before realizing it was just you, and leaned up on his elbows. “why are you not sleeping?” 

you sheepishly traced random patterns on your knee with your nail. “whenever i close my eyes i see the face of that ugly demon in nun clothes,” you mumbled, bringing your knees closer to your chest—you didn’t want to wake yeonjun up.

he hummed and sat up properly, reaching out for the remote control and turning the tv on. “why didn’t you wake me up?” he asked, trying to find something more or less neutral and stopping at some old episode of the ‘culinary class wars’. “wake me up next time, okay?” he lowered the volume to almost nothing and put the remote back, lying down. “want me to hold you?”

you hesitated before nodding and crawling to him, laying your head down on his chest. “you have to wake up early for classes,” you mumbled to answer one of his questions, subconsciously moving a bit closer to him—he felt like the epitome of safety, and you couldn’t care less about anything else when you needed it so badly. 

yeonjun hummed again, wrapping his arm around you and closing his eyes. it was only the second time you slept like that, and he was getting used to it a bit too fast—a few more times and his chest would feel too light and cold without you there, so he wanted to write it into his memory to never forget the way it felt. he was almost sure that in the morning you’d have to address the way he lost his mind the moment you were on his lap, and he didn’t know if it would end well. 

but you decided to address it earlier—you looked up at yeonjun and noticed the way his closed eyes still twitched a bit, the blue tv light making the room just bright enough to see it, and he opened them almost immediately anyway, feeling your movements on his chest. “about what happened before the movie…” you whispered, nails scratching the pads of your fingers, trying to lessen the nervousness. 

yeonjun interrupted you, though—he wasn’t sure he’d find enough bravery to say it so raw or say it at all if he had time to think about it. “i’m sorry if it made you feel uncomfortable,” he whispered, swallowing thickly. “i don’t think it was a mistake, but if you want to pretend it never happened—” he couldn’t find the words to continue—he simply didn’t know what was right. 

was he going to pretend it never happened too and just continue being friends like before? when it was obviously too late and would only bring him another heartbreak eventually, after he’d opened his heart for the first time in almost a decade? was he going to pretend your friendship never happened? pretend that you were no one to each other after everything you’d been through together? it was even worse, because it was basically impossible to do that—the bond you two had built with your own hands was too strong now. he couldn’t even dare to call letting you in a mistake in his own head, even if it was meant to bring him only heartbreak, no matter what he did next.

“i’m scared,” you whispered, your voice barely heard behind yeonjun’s thoughts, but it still caught his attention, and you felt him tense, waiting for you to continue. “scared of what it meant, of how it’d change things between us,” you paused, trying to find the courage to say the next words. “i’m afraid of getting hurt in the end,” you confessed quietly. 

wild roses had always been well-acquainted with pain—the steady presence woven into their existence. it had never been a stranger, never something to flinch from. half of them found pleasure in the rawness of it, while another half preferred to be the hand that delivered it—pain and wild roses walked side by side. but just as physical pain was a familiar companion, emotional pain was a relentless adversary, it lurked in the shadows, frightening even the ones who craved getting hurt. 

so yeonjun wasn’t surprised to hear it—he perfectly knew the way it felt, and it was probably even worse for you with how gentle and soft you were. he tightened his arm around you subconsciously, wanting to protect you. “i’ll do my best not to hurt you,” he whispered into your hair, “to protect you from any pain too. do you want to try?” 

did you want to? you were scared to answer it—one answer was a lie and the other one was… dangerous. so you decided to answer with the one that felt the safest. “i don’t know,” you whispered. 

yeonjun knew you did, and he knew you weren’t trying to deceive him with your words—you were just scared of getting your heart broken. he was too; it was always a risk when you dated someone who wasn’t your soulmate, but for him it was worth the risk—you were worth it. he caressed your cheek with his thumb. “it’s okay. we could just try.” 

you couldn’t push these thoughts away, though—what if he met his soulmate… but you knew yeonjun was waiting for your answer instead of getting the rest he so desperately needed between two tiring workdays. you clenched the fabric of his tank top and took a deep breath. “would you…” you swallowed—it sounded shaky and pathetic even to you, but you still continued. “if you meet your soulmate when we—” you didn’t dare to say the word yet, but he understood—he always did.

“no. no, i wouldn’t,” yeonjun said firmly. he knew it was ‘would you leave me for them’—you always chose pessimistic phrasings in questions like that. “i’ve spent years waiting for someone i don’t know, someone who doesn't know me,” he pressed his face into your hair, inhaling your scent. “i’m tired of that. i wouldn’t throw away something real for a stranger,” he hoped you’d look at him so you could see how sincere he was, but your gaze was glued to your fingers clenching his tank top. “i know you. and i want you. that’s my choice,” he finished, his voice soft. 

you felt your eyes tingle, a lump forming in your throat—you wanted to believe him so, so badly, was it fair to him to be such a coward? was it fair to yourself? didn’t you deserve happiness? even if it was short-lived, it was at least something. and if everything ended with him meeting his soulmate, it could mean that it was possible for you to meet yours too, one day. you bit your lip and took a deep breath. “okay…” you whispered. “okay, we could… try.”

yeonjun felt happiness bubble in his chest, as if flowers were blooming inside—tiny, pretty pink roses, gentle and delicate, with thorns too young and soft to truly hurt anyone. a stark contrast to the way huge, bloody red roses had pierced through his heart when a drunken seven minutes in heaven at some high school party brought him and his now-ex together. it wasn’t passion that was all-consuming that time, but quiet happiness that he didn’t want to share with the world yet because it was still too young—only with you. so he held you closer, murmuring that he felt so happy, as you finally relaxed, your body no longer tense, and closed his eyes, anticipating the next days. 

you fell asleep just a bit earlier—your head felt too light after such a weight was lifted off your shoulders, and you snuggled closer in an attempt to fill your mind with yeonjun so you wouldn’t overthink, and he once again knew what you needed, helping you with it—caressing your arm, murmuring something you couldn’t understand anymore, and bringing your head just a bit closer to his neck so you could feel his scent better. he was so good at overwhelming your senses, and you both knew it.

← to chapter 1 | ♡ you're here ♡ | to chapter 3 →

taglist ; @pagelets ; @hoefororeo ; @sbnslver ; @napipope-ta ; @sxmmerberries ; @whatblop ; @missychief1404 ; @brrytears ; @saejinniestar ; @imlonelydontsendhelp ; @urlocal-moa ; @melmochii

[isa-ko]

Random little things abt Mortier according to the biographies by Léon Moreel and Frignet-Despréaux

So today is Mortier’s birthday which gives me permission to go all out and yap about him. Idk how this list got so long but there’s a lot of free space here soooo hope no one minds🥺

* Léon Moreel describes Mortier as a “big boy.”

* He is literally his dad's clone. His dad was also very honest-natured and everyone liked him. His dad also was involved in merchant and farmland business. His dad also served for a time (before getting arrested)

* His mom was English. Mortier became fluent in English from the college he went to. One of his possible jobs after he was fired from his first one was a maritime job be he spoke english

* Mortier's first job was in a merchant's office in Lille. He got fired because he couldn't tie knots on the messenger bags well TT

* Mortier loved horses. He created a stud farm later in life where he bred horses specifically for his heavy self. His coat of arms have horses. He always checks up on his horsies even when he's far away. He had a favorite horse named Le Favori who went on 12 campaigns with him. He lets Le Favori retire on his land and live off his income until old age. Then he makes an epitaph for Le Favori when it passed away at age 28.

* In his retirement, he also created his own farm with crops and animal stuff too

* Mortier once got very mad at his drunk valet and called him a pig I know that's not uncommon for people in general but it's rare to find mad-Mortier moments like these

* Mortier and Louis-Philippe become good friends for many years. They first meet when Mortier was still just a volunteer in the army around 1792. Louis-Philippe was wondering what time it was and saw a huge Captain over there so surely that guy knows

* Mortier and Lefebvre are good friends too. One time Mortier found an enemy carriage by luck and sent it as a gift to Lefebvre. He also let Lefebvre take all the honor for capturing Danzig even though Lefebvre offered to enter the city together (according to Moreel, Mortier declined)

* Mortier and Soult are good friends too. Unofficial pen pals? For example, Mortier telling Soult what his new livery would look like lol

* Mortier and Moncey also seem to be good friends. They write to each other about farming techniques in retirement, and Mortier got a very sweet letter from Moncey that he cherished after returning from Russia as the ambassador

* Mortier and Bernadotte seem to be good friends too.. possibly? They hunt together and have lunch. Bernadotte writes to him that they’re besties at least

* Mortier once became Josephine's temporary window shopper in Hamburg 1806. And then he stole (???) from the Emperor of Russia's Chinese collection for her (????)

* Mortier's literal army baby is the 23rd cavalry regiment. Before he took command of it, he was not yet involved in cavalry and would dream of that position. Once he finally got it, he found that this regiment was suffering from something of an "inferiority complex." It apparently seemed too much like the King's Regiment and was once under suspicion and lost its rank. Mortier did his best to bring them back up. Even after Mortier had to leave his command there for higher ones, he always kept tabs on the 23rd and would try to provide for it and keep it close to him. Eventually it did get removed completely though...

* When he first got appointed Chef de Brigade to 23rd regiment, he got a whole new army fit so his first order of business was to go home to Le Cateau and show off the fit. He then takes a 2 day detour to Coblenz to show off his fit again but this time to his to-be wife Anne Eve Himmes

* The golden retriever comparison works so well. My guy is golden retriever personified. He is very loyal and very obedient to his boss and colleagues, a bit too much gets him in trouble at least twice

* Mortier would rather most anything else than have conflict on the same side. He fears a Vendée. He haaates internal conflict.

* He's generally very respectful to cities/states that are to be captured and governed. This is shown by all the gifts and letters that those places give him when he leaves and sometimes when he comes back :) A few of these places: Hanover, Hamburg, Anclam, Silesia, Saragossa, Talavera

* Hanover specifically gifted him two cannons with his initials E. M. on them. One of the biography authors, Frignet-Despréaux, is the greaaat nephew of Mortier and has written that he had fired these same cannons with Mortier’s grandsons. They were fired every year on August 15 at a Château de Sceaux.

* After Battle of Paris in 1814, he stays at Fontainebleau ready to be called on again by Napoleon. Once Napoleon abdicates, Mortier still stays with Napoleon, from April 10-12. However, that showed some offense to others, so on the 12th in the morning he gets recalled back to Paris by the Minister of War, but Mortier decides to stay with Napoleon for the rest of the evening anyways

* Mortier staying with Louis-Philippe (and Louis XVIII) even as Napoleon returns from Elba in 1815. When Davout sends his ADC telling Mortier to arrest him, he lets Louis-Philippe know and lets him leave. Then after he leaves and releases Mortier from his orders, Mortier gets called to Napoleon. Napoleon accepts Mortier but Mortier still tries to let him know that he had went against Davout's message 👉👈

* Mortier gets sciatica and is immobilized and cursing in his bed when Ney visits him to borrow horses for Waterloo lol

* Mortier having a “mini club” in Paris of people from his home region that he sometimes attended in person and they called him their president

* He was a 1.95 m farm boy. Can't forget that one. At the 23rd cavalry regiment on a staff map, he wrote down his height and scribbled, "promising to grow still further if that is the will of the Almighty.”

Frignet-Despréaux

Le Maréchal Mortier, Duc de Trévise (1768-1835) by Léon Moreel

[gvshing]

─ ⊹ ⊱ ☆ ⊰ ⊹ ─PRETTY GIRL DEALING─ ⊹ ⊱ ☆ ⊰ ⊹ ─

(warning for weed usage and dealing!!) pt 2. pt 3.

⊹₊⋆CHAPTER FOUR⊹₊⋆

How does a relationship develop? Is it long talks at midnight? Maybe it’s shy eye contact that’s quickly broken. Some may say it’s bonding over similar interests. For Ellie it’s everything and nothing at the same time. Feelings for you hit her like a truck almost instantaneously. Her feelings grow stronger everyday she talks to you. With each hang out together her chest, heart and brain grow heavier. She finds something wrong with herself, feelings grow too fast and she has whiplash. For you, all you can think of is Ellie. For Ellie all she can think about is you and heartbreak. Scared of breaking your heart or getting her heart broken. She’s allowing herself to open up and try this. But at what risk? Either the best thing to ever happen or the worst? Is the latter worth the potential? She thinks so. But, she’s not sure.

You two talk everyday for the next two weeks after your last hangout. She finds herself getting excited at the ding on her phone, signalling a text back. With midterms right around the corner and then spring break, you both have been too busy studying and making plans for the break to hang out again. It’s only been texting and hours long calls or facetimes while you both do random tasks or study. Enjoying the electronic company while doing mundane things. Your favorite task on facetime you’ve both found is smoking together, taking hits at the same time. Coughing up lungs in sync.

Soon enough through your duo smoking, time to buy more comes around. You should probably be laying off if you want to pass your midterms. But, you’re not willing to risk your favorite pastime with Ellie to come to an end. ‘Heyyyy can I come over tonight if you’re not busy >:) I want to be able to still join you in our joint activity (lol)’ you hit send on your low effort but over-explained text. You always feel the need to over-explain why you’re wanting to buy from her, as if that’s not what she does for a living. Throughout the weeks you’ve found yourself growing closer to Ellie. Though you can still feel a distance from her sometimes. Your flirting was met with awkward laughs from her. Unable to tell if it’s because she can’t tell you’re flirting or if it’s that she wasn’t interested, you couldn’t tell. You’ve taken a step back from the flirting, scared to make her uncomfortable. Sometimes it slips through the cracks nonetheless.

Hours laters you hear the telltale sign of Ellie’s text tone. Scrambling to grab your phone off the bed, pausing your studying, you feel anxiety flare in your chest from the long awaited answer. ‘Hey! Sorry for the late response! Classes ran weirdly long and then Dina demanded getting lunch together. That sounds good! Maybe want to hang too?? Miss my best friend (Don't tell Dina I said that) 6 as always?’ You pump your fist in the air and text back fast. Confirming everything Ellie asked, you check the time and throw your phone back on the bed. 2 Hours to go. You spend your time finishing studying, though you can’t really focus on anything but the clock. Looking at the bottom corner of your screen more than the information on it. By 5:45 you’re out of your desk chair and pulling shoes on and grabbing your belongings. By 5:50 you’re out the door and walking down the long dorm hall. By 6 you’re standing at her door.

Ellie listens to the taps against the thin wood. Standing and rushing to greet you she trips over air and stumbles the last few steps. She shakes it off and opens the door to you snickering. “You okay, buddy?” You question, giggles slipping through your throat. She clears her throat and leans against the door frame as nonchalant as she can muster. “Oh yeah. Totally, I’m good. Why wouldn’t I be?” You roll your eyes and smile wide at her, “Maybe because I can hear you tripping and falling in here?” It comes out sounding more like a question. She shakes her head and makes a ‘psh’ sound. “Nah, I’m standing so upright don’t even worry.” You shake your head looking down, laughs still making their way out of you. “Let me in, silly.” She moves out of your way and gestures inside. “Right this way madam.” Ellie says, putting on a british royal accent. You walk past her on a mission to sit on her bed. Throwing yourself down, back on the bed and legs dangling down. You stare at her glow in the dark stars. “I like your stars by the way. Have I told you that?” Ellie flops next to you, head turned to the side to look into your eyes. “Thanks, I don’t think so.” Smiling at her you look down at where her arm lies next to you. You could grab her hand. It’s just right there. Waiting for you to take it into yours. Before you can Ellie’s standing up and moving to her locked box of goodies. You sit up on your elbows. “Same as always, yeah?” You nod and make a ‘mhm’ sound. You lept to your feet and practically skipped to her desk to sit next to her while she weighed it all out.

On her desk seems to be an open sketchbook, one you don’t remember ever seeing before. “What’s this?” you question. It’s flipped open to a random page, a sketch in the beginning stages. It looks like a person, if you didn’t know any better, it looks like it could be you. But, certainly it’s not. Right? No, it’s probably Dina or some random celebrity. Ellie lunges forward and snatches the book and slam it shut. “Uh..nothing! Just a sketchbook.” That’s suspicious. “Okay? I didn’t know you drew. You seem really good at it! Can I see them sometime?” You looked at her hopeful. She sighs in relief you didn’t say anything about how it’s obviously you in the drawing. “Yeah, sure, sometime I’ll show you. I’ve been drawing for years, I love it.” She mutters the last half. “You’re so talented El! Guitar and drawing? You’re a true lesbian.” Ellie cackles at your blunt joke. “Hey! I was a true lesbian without those! The only qualifications are liking women!” She sets down her weed supplies and crosses her arms in protest. Her auburn hair falling out of her half bun half ponytail, cascading over her forehead. You tug on her arm to get her to unfurl them. “Come on! I was joking El!” She side-eyes you and gives in looking at your pleading eyes. “Fine, only because you’re cute.” You feel your face getting hot and now you’re the one pouting. She begins her weighing process. “You know, pouting won’t get you far.” You gasp. “Seems to work for you, I don’t know.” You mock her pouting antics, arms crossed and head turned away from her, ‘hmphing’ here and there. “Alright, you got me.” She ruffles your hair and you slap gently at her hand. “Ellie! Don’t ruin my hair!” you say jokingly. She puts her hand up in surrender. “My bad!”

You stare at her as she silently weighs the weed and packs it into the normal Ziploc. She smiles to herself. The smallest smile, pale green orbs darting around her workspace. Freckles littering her cheeks, you imagine laying next to her how you were earlier, counting all of them. Touching each one. Her eyebrows furrow, her scar etching the perfect line through her brow. Fuck. You’re in deep. “Ellie?” You’re not sure what you want to say, you just want to hear her voice again. Her melodic voice could lull you to sleep. She makes a ‘hm’ sound and glances at you. Her eyes land on you and your chest bursts out in flames. “Um.. How much do I owe you?” You decide, afraid you’re only other questions would border on ‘do you have a girlfriend? Do you want one?’ She smirks at you, almost as if she knows that’s not what you wanted to ask. “Same as always. 20 and a smoke sesh.” You roll your eyes. “How much do you charge other people for this?” She shrugs. “Els. Seriously. How much?” She rolls her eyes. “40.” You choke on your breath. “That’s double what I pay! Why do I get it for so much cheaper? Do you give me the shitty stuff?” You joke, knowing the only bag she has is the one lying on her desk. “I don’t know. You’re nice, and I enjoy your company, I guess…” She trails off, turning to face you as she reaches out to hand you the baggie. “Here.” When you take the bag from her, she’s quickly back to putting away her supplies in a desperate chance to ditch that conversation. What else is she supposed to say? That she thinks you’re cute and wants to kiss all over your face? Absolutely not.

You both carry on as normal, passing her bong back and forth. By 9 pm you’re both thoroughly stoned. Ellie sitting upright with her back against the wall, and your legs thrown over her laying down with your hands over your chest. Talking about something or other, neither of you are sure. Enjoying the mindless rambles of your high minds. Ellie pushes back her hair with one hand and lets it drop. Landing right above your knee. Your breath catches. Playing it off you ask her if she’s got any plans for spring break. “Eh. Not really? I’m gonna go see Joel, but that’s about it.” You ‘hm’ and nod your head. “I’m glad you’re gonna go see Joel! I’m sure he misses you.” She shrugs and smiles. “Yeah he does. I miss him too.” You smile at her and place your hand over hers, the one lying above your knee. You trace circles on the back of her hand. “I assume Joel is the one in the framed picture next to your bed?” You grab her green comforter and lie it over your body, making a dramatic ‘brrrr’ sound as you do so. You place your hand back on top of Ellie’s hand, which is now also covered by her comforter, going back to tracing circles. “Yeah! That’s my old man. He’s the best, truly. I know I sound indifferent sometimes, we’ve had our ups and downs but I love him. He’s punched old ass men for saying bigoted bullshit to me before. I wouldn’t trade him for anything in the world.” She smiles thinking back to that memory of him. “He sounds great, I’m glad you have him.” She nods in agreement. “What’re your plans?” You look at her and sigh. “Not really sure. I was going to go home for the break but I’m also loving the idea of staying here and getting high all week.” She laughs and lays her head on your shoulder. “You should go back if you can or have anyone you want to visit. You never know, it could be the best week ever.” You nod and hum at her. “You’re right. I think I will.” You stop your tracing on her hand and flip it over to interlock your fingers. She squeezes your hand and sighs in content. You lean your head on top of hers and close your eyes.

Waking up in a jolt you realize you and Ellie fell asleep in that position. You check your phone and realize it’s now 12:30 in the morning. You shake Ellie awake. “Pst. Ellie, we fell asleep. It’s 12:30. I should probably go home.” You whisper. She grunts, shaking her head. She mutters an almost incomprehensible ‘no’ and links her arms around your waist and snuggle deeper into your side. You giggle and try to shake her again. “Come on, Els. I don’t want to intrude or take up your bed space.” She shakes her head even more rough this time. “Nooo.” You chuckle at her and cuddle in next to her pulling the blanket up to cover both of you. You wrap your arms around her and position yourself to lay down and cuddle her better. If she doesn’t want to, you’re not going to say no. You quickly fall asleep wrapped in her warmth.

You wake up with a startle, unsure where you are for a second. Quickly the memories come rushing back to you. You look to your left and see Ellie still sleeping next to you, still entrapping you. You shake her awake, succeeding this time. “Ellie, It’s time to wake up.” You flip your phone over, 8 am. “It’s 8 am, El.” You stroke her hair, pushing it behind her ears to see her face better. The room is lit by the open blinds, a slight breeze in the air coming from the a/c. She unwraps her arms from around you and straightens them along with the rest of her body in a stretch that’s met with a loud groan. “Shit, sorry I guess we fell asleep? I’m really sorry you didn’t have to stay the whole night! You could’ve left in the middle of the night!” She rants, worry clouding her eyes and voice. Realizing what happened that led her to snuggling up with you in her bed. You shake your head viciously. “No, no! It’s okay! I didn’t mind at all! Plus, you wouldn’t let me leave. You wrapped me in a bear hug and pouted.” You giggle. She instantly looks mortified. “Say sike. I am so sorry.” She shoves her head into her hands and turns away from you. You wrap your  hands around her shoulders and force her into a weird side hug. “No! It was cute! Please don’t be embarrassed, Els!” she breaks out in a bright red brush, the tips of her ears turning hot. “Oh god.” she mutters into her hands. You cackle at her. “Don’t worry about it, Ellie. I enjoyed getting to cuddle with you, it was nice. You’re a good cuddler.” You plant a quick kiss on her cheek and stumble up to your feet. “I should get going, gotta make it to a 9:30 class. Thanks for keeping me company, cutie.” You shove your shoes on and wave to a flustered Ellie, her still sitting on the bed. Her hair crazy from sleep. You flee to the door before she can call you back. Opening the door, you turn back and wave once more, blowing her a kiss. Seeing her eyes widen in surprise right as the door closes behind you.

You practically skip back to your room. Chest on fire from your brazen actions. You reach your hands up and feel your burning cheeks. You have to see her again, ASAP. It’s not a want, but a need. The feeling of missing her and being alone sets in all at once. You decide then you’re going to make that first move. If she doesn’t want you to, she’ll let you know. Nevertheless, you’re over the waiting. You have to have her. You have to show her everyday how beautiful and talented she is.

Arriving back to your dorm you realize you left your weed there. You groan loudly. Pulling out your phone to text Ellie, you see she’s already texted you. ‘Hey, maybe you could come over tonight and keep me company again? You forgot something btw! You might as well hang out while you’re here grabbing it tonight. I miss you’ you grin. ‘Yes please. I miss you already. I forgot a few things. I think’ you wait for her reply, standing in the middle of your room. ‘Oh? I didn’t see anything else?’ ‘don’t worry I know where it’s at!’ She sends an eyebrow raising emoji and you send a devil emoji. Feeling yourself grow nervous to hang out tonight, you hope you don’t ruin your friendship.

─ ⊹ ⊱ ☆ ⊰ ⊹ ── ⊹ ⊱ ☆ ⊰ ⊹ ── ⊹ ⊱ ☆ ⊰ ⊹ ─

this one is a bit longer than usual, just a bit hehe. I hope you enjoy! I have ideas for the next chapter but not much after this so bare with me! The end is a bit... sloppy? I'm sorry :( I'm recovering from a root canal and am dyiiiing I hate it :(((((

[witchygagirlwrites]

Fix You-Part 2

Kelly Severide x Reader x Matt Casey/Sevasey x Reader

You're only supposed to be there for a set period of time. You're definitely not getting closer to everyone at 51, especially 2 in particular

The entire reason you first came to Chicago was because your aunt was needing help with end of life care and your uncle wasn’t in the shape to handle it. That was what originated your move from New York and also why you were working the temp pool instead of trying to find a permanent position for the longest. Your aunt had passed about three months after you started at fifty one so you kept your mouth shut and your eyes on the ten month mark. They talked like they wanted to keep you and god Chicago was feeling like home considering you’d been there close to two years but you didn’t truly belong there, did you?

You had to tell yourself that anyway. That was the only thing keeping you sane. You couldn’t let yourself believe they wanted you to stay as bad as you wanted to stay. 

You pulled up to fifty one and parked behind Matt’s truck, grabbing your bag and slid out. It was a long shift so you’d be at the station for the next two days, lucky you. You walked across the street and heard Ritter call your name and looked up about the time a volleyball was flying at your head and just managed to catch it “What in the hell?” you laughed and he grinned “That was the most awesome catch!” as he came running up to you.

You laughed and passed the ball back to him. “You better be glad I like you kid” he nodded “Believe me Spitfire I am” you shook your head and continued into the bays. Kelly was sitting in his recliner, Matt was at the table with Cruz, Capp and Tony. They all greeted you. You nodded “Fellas” and held out your hand for the extra copy of the crossword puzzle Kelly had gotten in the habit of keeping for you when he realized he’d found someone else that liked doing them. 

Matt winked at you “Five bucks says Spitfire finishes it in half the time it took Kel” the guys around the table all started putting bets on either you or Kelly. You grinned “Damn Sev, your fella just bet on me” he raised an eyebrow as his eyes skimmed across you then shrugged “Can’t say I blame him” you felt your face warm. If you didn’t know any better you would think Kelly had just checked you out. You shook your head and looked back at Matt “Let me put my stuff in my locker and I’ll come back out so you can time it. Fair and square” he nodded “Alright darlin” and you grinned before heading inside.

You walked through the common area and Herrman whistled at you “Hey sweetheart! You want some coffee?” you nodded towards the locker rooms “I gotta put my stuff away” he nodded “I know I was gonna pour ya a cup before these idiots get the good pot” a smile slipped onto your face “Oh then yeah, please”

He turned to grab you a cup as you pushed the door open into the locker room. Sylvie was inside, shoving her bag into her locker. “Hey Brett” you greeted with a smile and she grinned “Hey partner” You grabbed her hand after she finished putting her bag away “Come watch me kick Severide’s ass on the crossword again?” she laughed as she let you pull her out of the room “You and him are insane! Competing over who can finish a crossword first! In pen!”

You shrugged “It’s fun” Herrman passed you your coffee as soon as you hit the common area and you smiled at him “You’re the best person I have ever met” and he laughed “I think that’s the coffee talking but I’ll take it”

You and Sylvie walked out into the bays and Matt patted the seat next to him “Come on then Spitfire! Put your money where your mouth is!” you laughed and slid into the seat before looking over at Kelly “You ready?” he grinned “Oh honey I’m always” and Matt shook his head then counted down on his watch. “Go!”

Three minutes later you handed Matt your finished crossword and Kelly eyed you “Bullshit” you grinned “Not bullshit Sev. Look at the category” he glanced down and cursed “Son of a bitch. Of course she’d find everything first” Sylvie leaned over his shoulder and laughed when she saw that New York City was the category. “Your hometown” you nodded “Easier for me to spot the words”

Kelly shook his head “Little shit” you winked at him “Don’t be mad” he eyed you for a minute then shook his head “Naw, I couldn’t be mad looking at that face” there he goes again, IN FRONT of his boyfriend!?! 

Instead of getting mad however Matt simply laughed “It is a little hard isn’t it?” you cut your eyes at Sylvie trying to gauge if she was seeing what you were but her expression didn’t give anything away. 

Matt whistled and motioned for all the guys “Ok everyone who had the bright idea to vote against Spitfire put up or shut up” everyone tossed cash on the table and Matt picked it up and passed it to you “There ya go” you took the money and looked over at Sylvie with a shrug “Guess I’m buying lunch”

Of course lunch was interrupted by a call. You ended up wheeling into Med riding on the side of a gurney with your hand stuck in your patient’s chest manually pumping his heart. You spotted Fireball as soon as the gurney hit the sliding doors because she was currently on someone’s shoulders yelling at Will and there was a brunette cop standing to the side looking confused so you hollered “Yo babe! Switch out with me! My hand is starting to cramp!” and she turned to look at you and her eyes widened “Oh shit”

She hopped off the guy’s shoulders and ran over to hop onto the gurney, sliding her hand into place so you could slide yours out. “Thank you” you told her and she nodded as the guy she was just using as a step stool made it into the trauma room as well “Oh yeah Spitfire this is Connor Rhodes. Our new Trauma fellow. And the Brunette over there is Firecracker, Jay’s new partner” 

You nodded slowly, that was Fireball for you. She treated the weirdest situations like they were the most normal. Then again maybe that was why you and her were as good of friends as you were? You nodded to Rhodes “Nice to meet ya. Sure I’ll see ya again soon”  then looked at Firecracker “You’re Erin’s replacement?” she nodded “Yeah, she um she picked me”

You nodded approvingly “If Lindsay trusted you and Fireball likes ya that’s good enough for me. I’m currently out of fifty one. Good to meet you” then cut your eyes at Sylvie “We gotta go” Fireball was currently cracking the patient’s chest and looked over her shoulder “Bye” then went right back to work. 

______________________

“How did you meet Fireball anyways?” Sylvie asked when the two of you got back out to the rig. You laughed “I was working at another station house on the south end, and her and her guys happened to pass by a wreck and we were overwhelmed. We didn't have help there yet. She hopped out and jumped right in. Was helping me with one patient while she was yelling at Jay and Mouse how to stabilize another. She ended up riding with one patient into the hospital, damn near got into a fight with the chief resident there probably would have if her guys weren’t cops and had followed her. The three of them then offered to buy me and my then partner lunch”

Sylvie shook her head with a laugh “Sounds like Fireball” You shrugged “I’m the more controlled chaos but just as chaotic as her so who am I to judge..have you heard how she got that nickname?” Sylvie shook her head and you grinned “Ask her. It’s one helluva story”

When you walked into work you immediately noticed that Kelly wasn’t sitting in his recliner and Matt wasn’t at the table. The air itself felt heavier almost. What was going on? The usual easy nature of the mornings had been replaced by a somberness. It felt almost choking. You walked into the house and the common area was even worse. 

You cut your eyes towards the captain quarters to see Matt was in there with the door closed then looked to see Kelly was in the Lieutenant quarters with the door closed. Did they have a fight or something? No, they wouldn’t let it boil over to affect everyone like this. It had to be something else. You caught Sylvie’s eyes where she stood pouring a glass of orange juice and tilted your head towards the locker room.

She nodded and put the orange juice carton back in the fridge then followed you across the room. The moment the doors closed you stepped close to her and whispered “What the hell is going on?” “It’s Shay’s birthday” your heart dropped. Her and Matt both had told you about Shay. What she’d meant to the house and to Kelly in particular. Christ, no wonder the house was so damn somber. “Has he talked to anyone?” you asked and she shook her head. “He won’t even talk to Matt. Just a warning if we get called out today, especially to back the truck he gets a little touchy” “Go figure” you replied then nodded “Ok. Thank you for letting me know”

_____________________

Maybe it was a bad idea but neither of them had eaten lunch. You went to the captains quarters first and knocked. Matt turned and saw you and smiled before unlocking the door and letting you in. You held up the plate “Nothing fancy, just a sandwich and some chips but it’s better than a call come in and you respond on an empty stomach”

He nodded “Thank you, really” his eyes flickered towards the Lieutenant quarters so you took a deep breath before asking “I’m not trying to overstep into your relationship or anything because I know he hasn’t talked to you but I’m gonna try to get him to eat. Should I try to get him to talk? Is that disrespectful to you or to Shay?”

He shook his head “No darlin. That isn’t disrespectful to me or her. Hell she’d love you if she was still around” a small smile slipped onto your face at that. That woman was still the heartbeat of this place and to hear she’d love you? It meant a lot. You nodded and sighed, he looked so damn heart broken “Want a hug?” he laughed “If you’re serious yeah” you grinned and pulled him into a hug before saying “Don’t worry Matt. I can be quite annoying when need be” he shook his head “Not annoying, just persistent”

You walked over to the Lieutenant quarters and knocked. Kelly didn’t answer at first so you knocked again. By the third knock he finally opened the door “Yeah Spitfire, what is it?” You pushed past him into the room and sat the sandwich down on the desk before moving it over enough you could sit down on top of the desk too. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He sat down in the chair that was about a foot away from you and stared you down “About what?” you decided to play dumb” you gave him a smile that you normally used when trying to calm patients, it was a genuine smile but a controlled and practiced one “Whatever it is that’s bothering you so much Matt hasn’t even darkened your door. Your shoulders and jaw are so tense my muscles are aching by looking at em and your eyes look so damn sad Kel”

He sat there for a moment before his eyes started to tear up “It’s Shay’s birthday” you smiled gently “You want to tell me about her?” he nodded “She was god she was my best friend. I wish you could’ve met her” you listened as he told you everything about Leslie Shay. You found yourself standing and walking over to the chair, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and he laid his head over on your stomach as he cried. “I am so sorry Kel. I can not imagine losing someone like that. I just lost my aunt a little while ago and we were nowhere near that close.  Just remember those we love are never truly gone as long as we carry them in our hearts. Any time you want to talk about her, come and find me. I’ll be glad to listen”

“Thank you darlin” he whispered and a smirk slipped onto your face “Darlin huh? Pickin up pet names from your better half now are ya? You being all sweet to me. Shay must have been one hell of a woman indeed” he shook his head “You’re so mean to me but so sweet to Matt. Why is that?” you grinned “You’re a crash out. He’s a softie. You need different means of communication” he laughed and shook his head “Only coming from you would that make any sense”

You handed him the sandwich then said “I’m sending Matt in here, ok?” he nodded “Ok. Thank you” you smiled “Anytime”

_____________________

Matt walked into the Lieutenant quarters and Kelly was eating the sandwich you’d bought him. “She’s something else, isn’t she?” Matt asked and Kelly nodded “Yeah, she really is” both men cut their eyes up to see you were currently helping Cruz practice the Waltz for this wedding reception and a smile slipped onto their faces.

“Never judged them but didn’t see the appeal of three before” Matt blurted out then his eyes got wide as he looked at Kelly, expecting to see some sort of anger or something in his boyfriend’s eyes but instead Kelly nodded “Fireball,Jay and Mouse might have been on to something” and looked back towards you before leaning his head over on Matt’s shoulder “I love you. I’m sorry for shutting you out about Shay” “I love you too. It’s ok”

@desimarie12

[thewillowofveles]

Out of my absolute curiosity I decided to check who dubbed who in Polish version. I am talking strictly season 4-7 unless someone deserves the mention.

Bloom: the page of the actor DOESN'T EXIST and for season 1-3 the lovely lady also dubbed Twilight Sparkle but only in movies...

Stella: THE GOAT of polish dubbing Krystyna Kozanecka (Koza means goat in polish omfg) This woman dubbed everything. I kid you not we are talking about Jetsons, Flinstones, Mister Maker, Cinderella!!!! I-I have no words

Flora: no page...apparently she is a singer now...ok then.

Musa: she also dubbed Lagoona Blue in Monster High...explains why I could never like her in polish dub, she also dubbed Beth in Total Drama series. Over all quite annoying voice.

Tecna: 3-4 different actors. Jesus. OK. hmmm. In season 2-3 she not only dubbed Tecna. She also gave her voice to: Digit, Amaryl, Ofelia, Jolly, Barbatea and Nabu's mother. Girl was busy. In later season ANOTHER GOAT the ELSA herself dubbed Tecna. Please welcome the one and only Katarzyna Łaska.

Aisha: That lovely lady gave her voice in Once upon time LIfe and omg that page keeps on going! Brygida slow down! You know what...just have a link. In later season the Snow White in Shrek had her voice . Just impressive list. You can tell Poles love Aisha.

Icy: What the- Brygida!!!! maybe season 1-3. what! I didn't notice...I am shooketh. In season 4-7 plenty of Barbie movies. Miette, Falon, Maria. Well they are both blondes I will give you that.

Darcy: She gave her voice to PADME IN STAR WARS. and Daphne in Scooby Doo and Brittany in Alvin and Chipmunks. All Purple ladies...girl has a type and I love it!

Stormy: She dubbed Mei n Galactic Football omg!!! Best of the best. Wait...what!

-I

-I am

Deceased. AND ARIEL.

We love our villains that is for sure.

Sky: that dude dubbed other princes as well: Eric, Hercules, prince Daniel from Barbie and Swan Lake, prince Dominic from Barbie as well. I see you my dude I see you.

Brandon: Lambert!!!! and Heimerdinger from Arcane. wow. just beautiful.

Riven: over. six. different. dubs. whyyyyyyy

oh my love. He was Hades in Hercules. And Hopper from Bug's Life. An every single villain in Power Rangers movies. I am so proud.

In second dub though we are talking 180 degrees switch: Johnatan from Hotel Transylvania, Kristoff from Frozen, no wait he was Duncan in Total Drama series. hope has been restored.

Helia: Cycero from Skyrim! And Obi wan-Kenobi. Perfect just perfect.

Timmy: Spot from MLP. How cute is that? And almost everyone in Codename: Kids Next Door. Fitting. Second dubbing was known for playing for Dexter Charming in EAH. I just love consistency.

Nabu: Miss you every day my preferable version of a prince instead of Sky. He was Zane in H20...ow I am even more sad. And Trent from Total Drama. I am going to cry.

About rest if someone is curious I may add but for me that's where my search is being brought to an end.

I was a bit surprised with some and also cleared for me few questions I have had about our lovely characters. For now I am done.

choose your italian associations or perish

sky and mickey mouse are by the same guy. icy has dubbed hello kitty. valtor is a singer. darkar can be george clooney or mojo jojo

[aphel1on]

i have such a love for characters who descend into madness or villainy out of deep, deep empathy. characters who fundamentally cannot cope with the cruel realities they find themselves in and blow up about it in spectacular fashion. fallen angel type characters with tears of outrage in their eyes. characters who break before they bend, and break so badly they splatter blood all over their noble ideals. every variation on it gets me so good

[3-aem]

universal healthcare is not broken and anyone trying to convince you it is is delusional and a dckrider for big health insurance. yes there are wait times but waiting for care is Not the same as being denied care.

in america your physician prescribes care and an insurer can still cuck you out of it because someone across the continent who has never met you can say: doesn’t seem medically necessary. Leaving you to handle a bill that is wildly inflated by the same insurers that just denied you.

let me drill it through your head you can pay thousands a year in premiums and still end up sick and financially burdened for years by One incident. no insurance company is Avoiding going broke by denying claims. theyre doing it to profit off your misfortune and your illness. Because healthcare fundamentally does not cost the amount that they claim it to be.

[voluptuarian]

I love trying to do historical research, you want an answer to a simple question like "could Jews serve in the British army in the 1880s" and you get back

Jews in the American Revolution

Jews in the American Civil War

Jews in World War I

Jews who fought for Nazi Germany

Thanks, that absolutely covers the time period and country I specifically asked for, couldn't have done it without you