#i’ll take any excuse to draw passive

[collared-n-green]

My YB MC! Ft. Pearl (Gender-bent Peter)

Still haven’t settled on a name yet but I’ve referred to them as “Boar” so far, they’re a gender fluid Mexican American in their early to mid twenties who is just trying to make it day by day.

On the surface they are somewhat outgoing and laidback but do have a limit, being a passive aggressive little shit once they’ve become irritated and overwhelmed. They try their best to be more self aware and hold themselves accountable for any negative behavior and I’d like to think Boar is similar to Peter in some aspects, more so that Boar could be just like Peter and it would just take one bad day to fall into the same destructive mindset. Although, a lovely green haired coworker of theirs has been a big motivator for Boar to keep themselves centered…

Also, Pearl! Look, I just wanted a good excuse to draw some toxic yuri later on. I’ll probably share my current head canons later as well, mind y’all, I’ve only played the demo so I’ll be so far off canon but the brain rot took no breaks.

[nightcolorz]

18 >:)

HEHHEHEH THANK U SM FOR SENDING THE PROMPT KATE ILY, SORRY I TOOK SO LONG!! This ask is following an ask game where u can send me prompts from here: https://www.tumblr.com/nightcolorz/735473060637016064/drabble-challenge-1-150?source=share and I’ll write a Drabble!!

this Drabble is about Louis and Lestat book verse some time around the pl era.

18- Get over it.

The following silence was thick, in that old cliched way. Those eyes were dark, pupils pointed, looking into me. I’d never felt he’d looked at me so intently, like he actually saw me. And he was furious. “Excuse you?” I spluttered, like a plain idiot. It didn’t bear repeating, of course I had heard him. I felt that if I heard him say those things again I’d simply die. “Get over it.” He summarized his earlier statement. “Get over it soon, or I assure you, you’ll find me as lost to you now as I was then.”

I was thankful that I didn’t laugh. “Get over it? Louis.” It was condescending of me to explain. “My darling boy, my precious Angel. Be serious. You watched me be killed and did nothing. You even helped the killer discard of my corpse! Forgive me if I have a lingering bitterness. I should be the one forgiving you! Actually, I have, remarkably, given you an infinite amount of grace. Is that not enough for you, my love?”

He said nothing, only glared at me with a coldness so severe I felt a chill go up my spine. After a beat he spoke, quietly, with a commanding force behind his voice strong enough to take me back. “The killer…” he echoed. “Don’t you mean Claudia? Our daughter? The little girl you ripped from her mother’s arms and forced into a life of damnation, tormented an innocent to our hell, then caged so utterly to you that her only mode of escape was to murder? That “killer”, you speak of? That killer who would have never killed if you had not raised her too! Against my will? And you dare be surprised that I tell you to get over it. You dare resent me when I could not save you from the consequences of what you had done. You blame me? You wonder why I chose that innocent over the devil who’d stolen her soul? You should be thankful for how I have chosen to be with you now, after it all. Is that not enough for you, my love?”

I was stunned. I knew somehow, deep down in my ignorant soul, that he was right in his reasoning, right to tell me what was what, as I was being rather petty and cruel with my blatant passive aggression concerning things so firmly in the past. I’d been taunting him, needlessly, implying his inadequacy for allowing my murder all those years ago. And he had fought back, so fiercely eloquent. This is what I thought on, how far away all this business was, and how removed the man in front of me was from the boy who had stood helpless and cried, as if capable of nothing else, while I begged for him, bleeding out on the floor. I expressed this. “You’ve changed.” And as the words left me I realized that they were not what he wanted to hear. 

“Haven’t I?” He affirmed. “Are you surprised that I don’t sit silently any longer and take your abuse?” I shrugged. “A little.” I said. “I don’t know why I am so awful, to you and in general. It’s like there’s something within me that compels me to be cruel and spiteful when all I really want is to be with you and to love you and for all of it to be forgotten and alright.” 

We locked eyes for a moment, simply and honestly, without fury. “I just want you Louis. I don’t care about the past, I don’t know why I choose to be angry. I am just, you’re right, a devil.” Louis frowned patiently. “No.” He said, to my surprise. “I don’t know that you are. We are only…we are both half stuck in that draw of the past, and we must free ourselves, because we are different now.” I was enamored with his words, their unusual optimism, and the apparent love he felt for me. It was so precious that this was how it was now. I almost wondered I was still bleeding out on that floor, and that this was some fantasy I’d conceived as my spirit fired off its last sparks within my preternatural body. If only I could stop disturbing this bliss with my inherent awfulness.

“You are not that devil who took Claudia’s life any longer.” Louis continued. “That creature would’ve yelled or stormed out and hit one thing or another at my words. No.” He almost smiled. “You’re something altogether gentler and easier to love.” I wanted to weep. “And you are” I began “You’re not my fledgling any longer, if you’d ever been so at all. You’re the vampire I could never be. And I’m honored to be permitted to stand by your side.”  He fully smiled now. “And I’m sorry…” I tasted the word on my tongue, sorry. “I’m sorry for how it used to be. For Claudia, for everything. I want it to be better.”

“Lestat?” He asked after a bit of contemplative silence. “Yes, my Louis?” My response was immediate. “Could you pass me that please.” He requested, gesturing to a lighter sat unassuming and domestically on a nearby table. “Of course.” And so I passed it to him, and he took it, only to ignite a candle that he used to light the words on the pages of his very worn addition of John Keats. I watched the flame flickering safely by his side, saw those green eyes reflected as I have many times, within the flame, and I wondered if creatures such as ourself were truly ever capable of change—or if rather we got very close before we inevitably repeated the same cycles in unending loops for all of time. “I’d be content to watch this fire burn forever.” I thought rather insanely, before I went towards him and took my place in the red velvet arm chair by his side. 

[hells-wasabii]

Just to be clear, did something cause you to be aware that minor(s) were requesting you to make nsfw/smut stories? I'm curious cuz I saw a post had a smut request denied entirely. Is this related to that, and if so, did you find it out so that they were a minor? Just curious, don't take this as anything aggressive as I am a regular fan of your works (just curious on what caused such post)

Oh you’re good, I don’t perceive this as aggressive. Unfortunately yeah, I was made aware that a minor had requested smut. I’m not gonna go too into it as to not cause any issues between involved parties, but yeah…

I already tend to go through bios of accounts who request stuff anyways, but I put a lot of trust in you guys when it comes to nsfw/smut requests. Like I said in my post I can’t completely control who reads my stuff, but I am able to control who can ask for what. Someone was kind enough to point out that someone in my inbox is a minor, though they did so as an anon.

And let me just say, as an account who survived the great tumblr purge and seen various other shit go down on the internet this was utterly terrifying to find out

The post you mentioned that I denied it, already had a couple of red flags that made me not want to really touch the smut part of the req, though it was mostly the vibes as dumb as it sounds. Admittedly I felt bad since I usually don’t turn requests down unless I don’t know what the request is about but the fact someone reached out only cemented my decision. And I’ll make one thing clear. If I had gone through with making that smut, it would have been deleted in a heart beat, doesn’t matter. I’m not having that be connected to a minor.

I already tend to go through my follower list to make sure no one super young is loitering around but it’s also not exactly hard to lie about age on the internet, hence why I put trust in you guys about it. I’m a pretty passive person, but stuff like this is where I draw the line. I keep my smut tagged as such and include warnings so there’s also no way a ‘I didn’t know’ excuse works either

The way I see it, I want to continue producing works for you guys safely as much it’s I want it to be consumed safely. I care a lot about my readers and I don’t want anything bad happening to anybody.

I’m currently deciding whether or not I want to put regulations on how smut works are requested, and if I do, what kind to put in place, but I also know how embarrassing it can be to ask for it so for now anonymous asking stays on.

This got a little more long winded than I had expected but anywho, stay safe out there everybody

[gently-decaying-flowers]

HEY THIS IS THE FIRST CHAPTER OF MY WIP “The Fall of the Raven”

TW: mental health fuckery, su1c1d3 mentions (please read safely i promise it gets less sad later on)

tagging @niallermybabe bc ik you were interested :]

————————————————————

The Beginning

For once, or the hundredth time, it was in fact a dark and stormy night. The thunder rolled and rumbled in the dark sky, lighting illuminating the Earth for a second before vanishing. Revon listened to the hard pattering of the rain on the roof. Staring out into the night they wondered what they were doing here. A voice called after them but they didn’t hear what it said.

The pain will end. The pain will end. The pain will end. The voice echoed around the walls of their mind. A firm hand gripped their wrist, forcing them to face the figure.

“Excuse me Mx, it’s just- it looks like you’re about to jump. I wanted to make sure everything’s alright.” It was dark enough that Revon felt no need to study the figures' features. The grip on their wrist loosened and they were gently pulled from the ledge. The top level of the parking garage was high enough, they figured.

“Everything’s dandy.” They snapped, tearing their arm back. The figure calmly stepped back.

“Do you have a ride home? Or someone to call? It’s not smart to drive in your condition.” Revon gritted their teeth at the condescending tone. Instinctively their hand flew to their knife, and their knife at the figure’s chest.

“Mind your own damn business and we won’t have any more issues.” They growled. Surprisingly calm, the figure lowered Revon’s knife and cleared their throat.

“Seriously Rey, not your best move.” Upon hearing their nickname the voice of the figure was familiar. Revon groaned.

“Jesus Christ, Lukas. Why are you here?” They put their knife away. Lukas chuckled.

“Well, I’ve been coming here every night. For my own reasons of course but also because this is your fourth suicide attempt in the last month and someone needs to care about you.” He said, smugly. Revon’s jaw clenched up again but they knew better than to draw their knife on Lukas purposefully.

“I don’t need to be cared about. I can handle myself just fine.”

“Not if you’re lying dead in front of the parking garage. Don’t argue with me Rey you’ll never win. Let’s go.” They silently obliged, fists clenched at their sides as they followed Lukas to his car.

“What about my car?” Revon asked, hoping Lukas would realize they drove themself here and let them go. Another tension filled car ride with Lukas was the last thing they needed right now.

“I’ll drop you back here tomorrow morning. You’re coming back with me. Now get in the car.” He passive aggressively opened the passenger door and they angrily plopped down. Lukas started up the car and the vibrations rumbled in Revon’s core. The drive to Lukas’ was familiar, even while the city was blanketed in the dark of night. It didn’t take long to get there but time passed slower in the car.

“Home sweet home!” Lukas sang as they pulled into his driveway. Revon rolled their eyes and slithered to the guest room, slamming the door. Crawling onto the bed, shoes still on, they fell asleep.

A knock came at the door causing Revon to jolt awake. Danger. The person behind the door is dangerous Revon. Grab your weapons. They reached for their knife. Slowly slinking toward the door they assumed their position. The door swung open and Revon thrust the knife at the person behind it. Lukas ducked down and dropped the mug in his hand.

“Good morning to you too, Revon.” He groaned. Revon put their knife back away and stepped back.

“Yeah yeah, just take me back to my car.” They ordered, stepping around him and the mess on the floor.

“Chill dude, now I need to clean up the coffee I so graciously made for you.” Lukas grabbed paper towels and the broom, slowly cleaning up the spill. Revon anxiously tapped their foot, itching to get out and back home. When Lukas finally finished Revon nearly ran to his car.

“What’s the rush hm?” He asked smugly. Revon angrily cracked their neck, trying to avoid another fight with him. It never ended well.

“I just want to get back to my goddamned car okay?” They practically growled.

“Alright whatever dude. Don’t pop that vein in your forehead.” He laughed which made Revon more pissed off. Lukas took everything too seriously but covered it up with a laugh and a joke. The air in the car was thick with anxious anticipation. Lukas slowly circled all the way to the top of the parking garage, parking next to Revon’s car. They leaped out, slamming the door without another word.

Revon drove off, Lukas didn’t follow. They clenched their hands around the steering wheel. It’s a good thing he didn’t try to follow them. Despite his stupid sarcasm and shit attitude Lukas cared a lot about Revon. They knew he really had gone up there every night. He knew them well, and he was genuinely scared for them. It’s not like it’s the first time Revon had gone through a spell like this, it happens a lot actually.

Revon and Lukas met at camp. It was a summer camp for troubled kids. Revon was forced to go by the state after they had been arrested at fourteen. Revon had beat up a kid at school, and ended up breaking their ribs. It punctured the kid's lungs and he died, they didn’t necessarily mean to kill him. Lukas was there for petty theft, going to camp was an alternative to community service once school started. Revon isolated themself and Lukas was appointed by the counselors to talk to them. They hated each other at first but one day Lukas found Revon by the lake, they made a truce after he offered them a cigarette. They never really split up after that.

Before they knew it, Revon was home. Their hands ached from gripping the steering wheel so tight and they cracked their knuckles. Calmly, they walked into the building. Susan, who works the front desk, looked up over her glasses.

“You didn’t come back last night dear, you know I have to alert parole correct?” Revon just grunted in response and stomped up the stairs to their apartment. Their neighbor, Lindsay, was smoking outside in the hall.

“Good going, your officer is already here.” She warned, pointing toward Revon’s door.

“It wasn’t a choice, I was taken.” Revon stated blankly. Lindsay’s eyes went wide.

“Really? What-”

“My… acquaintance. He uh- found me last night and insisted I went with him.” They corrected, not sure why they wanted her to worry.

“Oh, well, don’t get yourself hurt, Revon.” She put her cigarette out on the wall and went back into her apartment. Revon tried to shake the conversation away and unlocked their door. Their parole officer was lounging at their kitchen table.

“Hello there Revon, take a seat and tell me where you were last night.” Revon complied, of all of the parole officers they had, they liked Officer Santez the most. She was scary, took no shit and striked a compelling fear in them.

“I went to the parking garage.” They replied. Santez immediately rubbed her temples in frustration.

“Been taking your meds? I know for a fact you haven’t missed counseling because I take you there myself.”

“Yeah I’ve been taking my meds. Sometimes, the voices win Santez.” They spat. Santez glared at them and they cowered, lowering slightly in their seat. “Lukas found me again, he just didn’t want me driving this time. I was at his place, you can call and ask if you feel so compelled.” Revon said, softly.

“Well, I believe you. Lukas is a good friend, I hope you know how lucky you are to have him.” Officer Santez loosened up, she always likes when Lukas comes up. It’s the one thing Revon hates about her.

“He’s not my friend.”

“Remind me again, how long you’ve known him?”

“Uhm…” Revon counted on their fingers. “Eight years.” They muttered.

“And how many times has he found and saved your life?” Officer Santez asked, rhetorically.

“Every time.” Revon slumped lower in their seat.

“Sounds an awful lot like friendship.”

“I don’t make friends.” Revon rolled their eyes. Friendships meant caring about other people. They lost that ability at a young age.

“What about that poor girl Lindsay next door? Every time I get here she’s anxiously smoking and always asks me if you’re okay.” Santez smirked. Revon stopped, their blood running cold. What? It had to be a lie, no one cares about Revon just like Revon doesn’t care about anyone.

“You’re lying. No one gives a shit.”

“Well this is running in circles and I don’t have time for this shit. You didn’t die or break any laws so my work here is done. Take care of yourself Revon, soon you may not have anyone who will do that for you.” With that, Officer Santez left. Revon heaved a sigh of relief. Things always got all mushy gushy and they weren’t in the mood for that today.

Their day was as usual, they sat around until dinner time, ate a half assed meal, showered and went to bed. Laying in the dark of their bedroom Revon’s mind wouldn’t quiet down.

All of what Officer Santez said this morning is true Revon. Lukas and Lindsay both care for you. What would they do if you killed yourself? Lukas wouldn’t be able to live with himself, Lindsay would probably start drinking and ruin her sobriety streak. It would be all your fault. You’re so selfish.

Unable to fall asleep with the never ending guilt trip in their head, Revon stepped onto their balcony. Next door, Lindsay was smoking.

“Evening.” She muttered to them.

“Why do you smoke?” They asked bluntly. Lindsay exhaled a puff of smoke out of her mouth slowly.

“It’s a good stress reliever. Want one?” She reached over the balcony, Revon took it and lit it with the lighter they left next to the door.

“Officer Santez was all mushy again today.” Revon sighed. Lindsay chuckled.

“What now?” She was used to Revon’s late night shenanigans by this point, they’ve been neighbors for four years. Revon hesitated, not sure how much of the conversation to share. They realized they don’t actually care.

“Oh the usual, how lucky I am to have Lukas as a friend. She did have more to say though. I tried to convince her I don’t have friends but she told me I do. Not only Lukas who has been there to save my life every time for eight years but also…you.” At that, Lindsay raised her eyebrow and lit another cigarette.

“Why does she say that?” Her hand seemed to be a bit shaky but Revon didn’t care to question it.

“Apparently every morning she’s had to check in, you’re out in the hall, stress smoking and asks where I am and if I’m okay.” Revon looked over and Lindsay let out an exasperated puff of smoke.

“Well yeah Revon, suicides are hella common here and I never know if you’ve actually done it. I know you like to think you’re this stone cold bitch. Don’t get me wrong, you totally are but that doesn’t take away the imprint you leave on other people. I’ve been here, talking to you for four fucking years. I can’t imagine how horrible it is for Lukas either, he’s known you longer. Despite how much you hate it, people care about you, Revon.” Silence followed. Lindsay catching her breath and Revon processing what they just heard.

“No. No one can care about me. I don’t care about anyone else, that means no one can care back. Why care about someone who doesn’t care about you?” Revon said finally. Lindsay scoffed.

“Sometimes our brains are fucked up. Love isn’t conditional.” With that Lindsay left. She never leaves first. No one’s ever told Revon they loved them. Lindsay didn’t either, she really just made a statement poorly timed for the context of the conversation. Revon looked down at their phone, shaking slightly in their hand. They made a decision.

[imagine-loki]

Can you Keep A Secret

TITLE: Can you keep it a secret?  CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: 3 of 4

AUTHOR: ValarieRavenhearst2 ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine working with Loki in some way but you keep your distance because you have a massive crush on him and you tend to always embarrass yourself. Alas you find yourself in need of his help as you need his magic and he’s the only one for the job.

  All the incubators in the lab make it feel like a sauna today, with so many new species needing direct heat, we’ve had to give them their own room. All my specimens look healthy and well after yesterdays’ sampling and I record their status on my iPad. After working by myself for half an hour I make the easy decision to take my jumper off before I start to sweat. As I start to wiggle out of it by easing it over my head, my shirt begins to rise with it and I make that awkward wiggle to try and magically make my shirt fall down without putting my arms back down. Whilst in the midst of my struggle I can hear the keypad being used to unlock the lab door and instinctively I throw myself to my knees to hide as my shirt has risen over my bra. Instant regret. I quickly correct myself on the ground as I hear Dr Banner and another botanist talking idly. The side of my abdomen stings viciously in warning as the material of my shirt goes back over it. I quickly flip it up again to inspect a small scratch now etched over my ribs, ending just under my bra. I hiss quietly in annoyance at my own stupidity as I stand calmly to inspect what I could have scratched myself on.   Dr Banner greets me in surprise, obviously questioning what I am doing on the ground.

“Good morning.” I give them both a greeting smile, “I just dropped my jumper.” I wave it at them as proof and they go back to their conversation whilst I look at the plant specimens in front of me. This odd, black looking orchidaceous plant looks awfully ominous with its long bristly thorns of an olive green hue. It must have been the culprit as none of its neighbours have any type of protruding bristles. With a slight panic spiking in my veins I try to examine it’s ID card but it’s information is mostly blank as it hasn’t begun rigours testing yet. Shit! What if it’s poisonous. Surely it would be in a covered incubator if it was known to be poisonous and over in lab 2 with the others.  I try not to act concerned as I question if the other two know anything about it and the other botanist, Swanson? I think. Says that the whole table is due for testing today by his team. I just nod in acknowledgment and calmly exit the lab. I mean, I feel okay, right? I don’t feel faint and or woozy.  I canter off to the bathroom after throwing my jumper over my chair; I quickly raise my shirt again in the mirror to get a better look. It’s not that bad … I suppose. The thin red slice is only about six centimetres long and it doesn’t look like there’s anything caught in the wound. Honestly, what an idiot. I can’t believe I was so reckless. If bloody Branson found out he’d have my head and he’d carry on for eternity how right he was about me. Oh the ridicule! He’d have me on desk duty till he dies. No one can know! I’m breaking every safety protocol we have but if I am to die from it so be it. I’d rather die quietly than admit my fault to that grumpy old git. After a quick rendezvous with the first-aid box I should be fine. I’ll just have to spy on the other team later to see if they come with anything concerning on the evil looking sucker. Ugh! I can’t believe I just did that.   As I exit the bathroom mumbling curses at myself, adjusting my skin tight black turtleneck, a wisp of black enters my peripheral and I know that the god of mischief has returned to the floor. His eyes find me as I cross the open bullpen to my desk and I let go of the hem of my shirt and make an effort to make the concern vanish from my face. Draped in a navy Asgardian attire, he is what my high school best friend would call a snack. I briefly notice accents of gold and olive lining the leather but I am quick to advert my eyes and look busy. I suppose he would be a nice distraction from the sting in my side but I needn’t the extra embarrassment on top of my slightly spiked anxiety. I can hear Branson’s old decrepit voice engaging with that sultry sirens call as they wander by my desk but I make myself continue typing on my computer as if my life depends on it. As soon as he’s passed me I can smell his cologne lingering to tease me. Do Asgardians even wear cologne or is that just him? I shake my head, determined not to let my thoughts distract me.   As I continue to work at my desk for the day, every time I stretch and move around I check on the other team working in the lab and notice that pointy little sucker is still out in the open so my panic levels have been low and every time I go to the bathroom I check my side; gently peeling off the large non stick plaster to inspect the fading mark. The redness has reduced so much that I have to strain myself to notice the mark.   I steal glances with the God of Mischief throughout the day as he wanders from station to station. I smile politely whenever our eyes meet and always breakaway first to continue working, which I notice earns me a sly grin after the fifth time. See, I knew that tricky bugger was up to something. I just know he purposefully loves to get under my skin. But I am not giving him the satisfaction of watching me blush today. Two can play at that game. Danny surprises me at lunch by bringing me a latte and childish teasing. He sits on the edge of my desk and immediately notices Loki working in the adjacent Lab in clear view of my desk. Trying to be noticeably subtle he continuously taps my shoulder whilst cooing in excitement like a giddy school girl. I shush him and punch him hard in the leg whilst acting like his antics haven’t phased me. I’ve been doing an amazing job of ignoring his presence all morning, he is not going to trick me into actively swooning now.

“Oh he looking.” Danny murmurs whilst turning his head away, tapping my shoulder again.

“Shut up!” I mutter back as I briefly glare at him in warning before retuning my attention to my computer screen.

“Girl he’s definitely checking you out.” He rearranges himself as he opts for standing behind me and leaning over me like he’s studying what I’m doing.

“I’m going to kill you.” I swivel in my chair so that I’m facing away from the Lab. “You’re such a trouble maker.” I hiss and jokingly shove him so not to make a big scene. “Don’t you have work of your own to do?” I question as I make an excuse to walk out of sight by taking my drink bottle to fill it up. Danny follows, chuckling evilly to himself.

“Yeah but this is more fun.” I threaten to throw water on him. “But seriously, he’s definitely watching you.” I could feel it! But I ain’t playing into Danny’s game.

“Yeah right,” I scoff as I begin back to my desk with Danny in tow, “what for? A good laugh if I stumble?” I take my seat but swivel so I’m facing Danny and away from Loki.

“Well no ‘cause I don’t think he’s ever laughed when you’ve embarrassed yourself.” Danny leans against the empty desk adjacent to mine and I gasp at him with forced hurtfulness.

“Are you saying I’m not funny?” I question mockingly and his face grimaces fiercely as he shrugs in agreement.

“Well, either he’s attracted to you or just pities you.” He deduces with his great sleuthing skills. “Which would you prefer?” I scowl so hard at him that he might burst into flames yet his shiteating grin is till carved into his face. I don’t answer, not diving into this ridiculous conversation (not to mention unsafe when he’s so close). With a steady, yet annoyed breath, I exhale loudly before turning back to my computer and turn my concentration up to a hundred and ten percent to block out Loki’s alluring figure in my peripherals.

“I have work to do and if you’ve only come to tease me you can piss off.” I purse my lips together in my best passive resting bitch face before flipping him off. Honestly what an arse – breaking basic friend 101 rules. Don’t joke about the crush in front of the crush.

“So touchy today.” He laughs and kisses me on the cheek before stepping around my desk before I can clock him one. “I’ll see you later.” He teases before leaving and I can feel myself being watched and it is so tempting to look to where that burning urge is coming from but I just know if I make eye contact I’ll blush several noticeable shades. I’ll remain strong, purely out of spite.   I finish all my paper work earlier than expected and manage to send off all my reports just has mid afternoon rolls around. Spite is a good focuser. As I’m scanning through my emails to see if I need to reply to any I get a page from Clint to say that he’s on his way up to check out his new arrow heads. I beam excitedly in remembrance, jumping up from my desk and heading over to Lab 2, where I had been storing them in the cool room at the back of the lab. I had been experimenting and developing  new knockout gasses and combustibles and I thought adapting them to Clint’s arrow heads would be a more challenging task then the standard grenades. Thus far the little project has been a success, they just haven’t had any field time yet.   I notice Loki watching me through his lashes as I swipe into the lab and punch in the code. We’ve already exchanged pleasantries for the day so there’s no need for me to make any form of acknowledgment as I enter. As I enter through the double doors he straightens himself, most likely in expectance that I had entered to speak with him since it’s only he and another botanist in the Lab. But I just walk straight through without a glance which gives me such a surge of power, knowing how  much confusion I was causing him even though his poker face is exceptional. After punching in the security code on the fridge I gently pull out the draw with the arrow tips and remove the tray, taking it with me. I have to make eye contact on my way back since focusing straight ahead would be too obvious and the key is subtlety here if I want to be one up on his intimidating behaviour. My lips curve pleasantly at him but I don’t say anything as I head back to the door. Clint is already at my desk and is glancing around for me. He waves happily when he sees me and opens the door for me so I don’t have to.

“Hey,” he smiles at me and I pass him the tray, “you sure these work?” He questions mockingly.

“Have I ever failed you before?” I coyly quirk my brows in rebuke.

“Want to test them with me?” He nods his head at the door for me to follow him and I do with a skip in my step. I did archery as a child but I got nothing on him. I take my time to relish in the fact that Loki hasn’t taken his eyes off me as I exit through the corridor and I even dare a cheeky, subtly seductive glance over my shoulder just to make sure. Oh it feels good to be bad .. no wonder he loves it.

[bakujho]

A rant about some shady eels...

Let’s talk about Floyd and Jade… like really talk about them. I see a lot of things that paint them in a very different light than they’re presented in canon and I’m not sure if their character is just being missed all together, or it’s been collectively decided by the fandom that they’re too shady so lets all pretend they’re cute, kind, and cuddly… or something. 

Cause reading and rereading the cards really drives home the disconnect between the majority of fandom eels vs canon eels and it drives me fucking nuts. So where do I start with this? I guess we can start at the ‘please actually read the stories that have the eels in them’. Pretty low bar, but here we are. Read the main story. Then the event stories. Then every card story they’re present in. Twstarchives has a list of who appears in what story and that makes it REAL easy. If y’all have read the stories and still wanna disagree with what I’ve got to say, I’m happy to discuss. Also, If you’re cool with OOC eels, feel free to continue on and enjoy the content how you will.

I think imma have to start with Jade cause I see SO much of him being the perfect butler and gentleman, which of course he is, but it’s always missing the underlying cunning. Jade isn’t a docile little slave following orders because he enjoys it. He likes people watching, and doesn’t like when people pay attention to him. How better to go about unnoticed than to stand beside someone like Floyd or Azul who draw attention to themselves simply by existing? He’s almost always planning *something* it’s just not always clear what, and has made it clear that people are easier to manipulate if they trust you.

Jade likes chaos just as much as Floyd does, he’s just better at maintaining his composure about it, which makes him a better architect for it. The poise and grace is an act in order to completely charm and manipulate. That’s why him and Floyd are a team, they’re like the good cop bad cop, both out to get you, but have very different parts to play. His voice lines make it really obvious that he’s got a running interest in causing problems too, “...I would never say that. Yes, ‘I’ wouldn’t”, “Whenever I see someone heavily concentrating on something, I get the urge to start talking to them...”, “...I simply enjoy anything that entertains me” etc etc Him and Floyd both enjoy playing with people, and watching them struggle. 

Let’s talk some Jade facts:

Observant as fuck

Manages to pull one over on Vil, who KNOWS Jade is up to something, but still isn’t able to figure out what.

Tells off Floyd for threatening the students too early...and reminds him that they’re much easier to manipulate if they trust you first. 

Has dirt on LITERALLY every student in the school

Has ZERO problems exploiting Floyd for Azul to fulfil his contract (contrary to the ‘they are inseparable and never fight’ line of thought)

Blackmail is an eels best friend. 

Happily dishes out backhanded compliments

Utterly willing (and probably very ready) to completely destroy someone if he felt the need to.

Now, Floyd is a bit harder to get a read on because his moods flip so easily, but I always feel like he’s portrayed as too childish, too stupid, and too passive. One of our first introductions to Floyd in his SSR is him telling Jade threatening people with words takes too long and it’s SO MUCH EASIER TO JUST BREAK THEIR BONES. Gentle reminder, that literally every single instance Floyd has said he’s going to squeeze someone it has been a THREAT. It’s been shown MULTIPLE times that the other students are terrified of getting on his bad side, he picks fights with people constantly, and he literally harasses people for fun . Floyd is “the muscle” of Octavinelle, and doesn’t bother with all the planning and scheming like Jade, he’s much quicker to violence and clearly loves the thrill of the chase. He’s going to have fun, and it’s very likely at your expense. 

Floyd says on multiple occasions that he does whatever he thinks is fun, and no one can control his moods. Azul and Jade both get annoyed when he starts being a brat, but still can’t control him to do anything that he doesn’t want to do when he’s in said mood. He’s shown multiple times to simply do what he thinks is fun, fuck everyone else and what they’re trying to do. Who cares if basketball club doesn’t mean dodgeball club, he wants to play dodgeball, so get out of the way or you’re getting hit with a ball. The end. There’s no controlling what he does, and he’s not likely to sit and play nice with anyone for hours on end because that’s BORING. All he does he does because it’s fun, and the second he gets bored of something he’s off to do the next thing. He doesn’t like following orders and has been shown getting hostile after being told what to do by “humans”, and doesn’t even follow directions in classes because it’s boring. I can literally not stress enough that Floyd does what Floyd wants, fuck everyone else. 

So here’s some quick floyd facts:

will do what he wants, every single time.If it’s boring, he’s done with it.

is brilliant… if he feels like putting in the work

can be kind...if he’s in the right mood

enjoys playing with people and watching them struggle

doles out threats like they’re candy

has said Azul looks delicious in Octopus form twice (reminder both him and Jades favourite food is octopus)

Okay, so we’ve determined that both the twins like to play with people in their own ways, but what about their relationship with each other and Azul? They’re obviously very close, but not without issues. Floyds mood swings still frustrate Jade and Jade’s compliments often come off as antagonistic to Floyd to the point he picks fights with him. It says that they chose to live together, and are both glad of it cause they each keep things interesting...Which is where their relationship with Azul comes in. They say they knew OF him as children, but didn’t really take an interest in him until middle school and decided to stick with him because he was interesting. Floyd says a  lot of things to do with the Coral Sea is boring, so I suspect an ambitious octopus was intriguing enough for the both of them to force their friendship on him.

...That being said, Jade doesn’t 100% trust Azul. He says he’d never be willing to give him his unique magic for any reason, cause Azul could make up any excuse to get his hands on it (Floyd of course, is much more casual with his magic and has said he could live without it so doesn’t care as much). The twins mention that they continue to stick around with him because he’s entertaining, and the second he’s no longer interesting they’ll challenge him/drop him, whichever is more beneficial to them at the time. So while the three of them seem inseparable, it really is the duo+Azul on the side, and while I personally can’t see them dropping him anytime soon, the threat is still there. (Of course, all of this could be taken as jest as well, so this is just my interpretation here) 

To tie it up, I’ll leave you with the voice lines from their duo magic, in case you still thought they weren’t shady murder eels.

Floyd: “Ahahaha! We’re gonna do ‘em in, Jade~!”

Jade: “As long as you’re having fun, Floyd.”

And

Jade: May I ask that you entrust me with this today, Floyd?

Floyd: ‘Kay~ Jade. What’re you going to do~?

[sagemusesoutloud]

Anti-Romantic, Part 4

(credit to the original owner of the image)

Character | Jaehyun x reader

Genre | nonidol!au, Mutual Pining, Slowburn, Fluff, Angst

WordCount | 1.5 k

WARNING | Mentions of verbally abusing relationships! It's brief, but there. If you or anyone is going through something similar, please seek outside help!

Author'sNote | I'm not giving excuses as to why it took so long to update, but I'm trying my hardest to be consistent! Let me know if you like how the story is going so far!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 4.5

Sorry I’m an anti-romantic, I don’t believe in romantic

I am afraid that it will burn my whole heart, It will only leave behind ashes.

When you were younger, your family used to call you ‘spitfire.’ They said you were too fiery, argued too well, and too passionate. They had never meant it as an insult, in a way, it was a form of flattery. You grew up as the only female cousin in your family, but you were always leading your cousins on whatever diabolical plan it was that you had come up with: sneaking off to kitchen in the middle of the night to eat all the pastries meant for the morning after, convincing everyone that leaving your grandma’s territory and into the forest in the middle of the night to see if you can find the fairies, racing along the town’s border to see who was the fastest on their bike, and many other child-like plans. You were tough and you were proud, you never allowed yourself to lose.

Later on in life, that same nickname evolved to a less loving version. As you grew older and started to date, your partners always called you out for having strong opinions and for not bending at their will. They never saw you for what you wanted to be; which was an equal. If they said something against one of your friends, they expected you to throw away the friendship. All because they were the opposite sex and made your partner insecure. How could a girl and boy only be friends? Later on, when rumors would spread about your partner and other girls, they would get exasperated with you. If they’d get caught, they would only blame you for being too stiff.

“Why couldn’t you be more passive? If I want to kiss you, I’ll kiss you. You’re my girlfriend, why the fuck would I need permission? Is that what your ‘guy friends’ do? I bet you’ve let them all have a run at you, huh? Keep acting like a bitch, get treated like a bitch. And you wonder why I cheated? What a joke.”

You had to admit, you didn’t really date the greatest of guys. But you could say that now, because you knew now. Back then, you really thought you deserved those kinds of relationships. Like how they say, you only accept the love you think you deserve. However, in a way, it was why you were the way you were now. You always made it a point to communicate and avoid misunderstandings because you didn’t want your partners to throw your words back at you or your actions. It’s why you treaded carefully and avoided one-night stands. You’d rather get to know a person first and then start dating. It’s the exact reason the date you had with that other barista didn’t go through, majority of the guys you talked to thought you were too much work and therefore, not worth it.

Now that you’re an adult, you’d rather be too much work than let a guy walk all over you. Boundaries were important to you because how else were you supposed to gauge their respect for you? You had a tight grip on your morals and rules.

But damn, you’re only human!

The moment your lips crashed, it’s as if the only thing you could keep in mind was one word.

More.

You needed more of him, needed to breathe the same air as him, needed to feel every ridge of his hard body against your soft one, needed to cling to him as close as possible and for as long as possible.It’s as if his lips were the only reason you needed to dive into whatever this was. You were tired of keeping a strong hold on yourself. All that boiling anger turning into dangerous tension, and the only way to release it was to give into the passion between you two.

You settled your arms around his neck, taking that last step closer into him as he cradled your face and deepened the kiss. His other arm wound tightly around you, hand sliding dangerously close to your ass. You feel a deep groan against your chest, one of your hands wandering down his torso, enjoying the shiver you feel as you move lower. His tongue swipes at your bottom lip, a question, so you reply by opening your mouth, tongues fighting for dominance. For every move you delivered, he retaliates just as ardently. You feel your head grow lightheaded as you bring your hands to hold on to his shirt, anything to stabilize you. His hand finally squeezing your ass, shifting you closer to his hips. Oh, lord.

You let out a moan as he bites your lower lip, his kisses descending as you fight to catch your breath. You involuntary let out a whimper as he finds your pulse point and sucks the skin, soothing it with light kisses. Leaving behind a trail of purple blotches, beautifully contrasted against your skin. You’d never been into marking, had it always felt this good?

“Jae…” you can’t think, you can’t even stand properly as he pushes you with his hips against the counter for support. You don’t even know what you wanted to say, do you want to ask for more? What do you want?

“God, I’ve wanted to do this for years.” You pause at that, your hands freezing on their tight grip on his shirt. You feel as if someone had just dumped a bucket of ice water at you, your rationality finally catching up with you.

He leans back to look at you, “if you’re going to stop me, do it now because if you don’t say anything I’ll keep going. And I don’t think I can stop on my own.” His hands drawing gentle, tantalizing circles along your hips where your shirt had ridden up.

You gasp at that; finally bring your eyes to his. He looked exactly how you felt, desperate. His lips were red and puffy from your kisses, his hair messy after running your hands through it. In the light of the kitchen, you could still see how his pupils were blown wide. You’re pretty sure you’re not in any better condition.

“Jae,” you whisper, brining your hands to his shoulders, either to support yourself or to brace yourself for what you were about to say, “if we do this, there’s no going back.”

He lets out a deep breath, “I know, and I’m ok with that.” He offers a gentle smile, “I want that.” His heart drops as he notices how you drop your gaze and bite your lips.

“if we do this, can you guarantee that it won’t ruin our friendship?” for some reason, you can’t bring yourself to speak higher than a whisper or to look at him. “can you promise that you won’t run away again?”

You wait for his response. When it doesn’t come you finally look up, only to find a frown forming on his brow. You don’t expect when he takes a step back, “is that all I am to you? All this is? Just a risk you’re not willing to take just because you don’t want to ruin the ‘friendship’?”

“I don’t know…Am I supposed to forget what you just said a few minutes ago?” He gives a humorless laugh as he paces around the small kitchen.

You’re frozen in place, spaced out at his words. It’s like as if you’re watching yourself from somewhere else. But you think about it, is that what it is?

Before you can respond or come to a conclusion, he stops at the entrance to the kitchen, back towards you. “Are you really not understanding what I’m saying or are you avoiding it?” his shoulders sag but he keeps going, “If loosing me is what you’re so worried about, then let me make it simple for you.”

Your body grows number by the second, what’s wrong with you? You’ve finally done it, burned away the last semblance of security and friendship. Just like a thoughtless spitfire.

“I can’t go back to this back and forth bullshit. I’m tired. I don’t think you even know what you want, so until you do, I think I need my space.”

He motions towards his front door, “I’m gonna go, if you’re still here by the time I come back, I’ll take it as a sign that you do want us…to happen. If you leave, I’ll pretend the last two days didn’t happen and we can go back to how we used to be. I’ll never cross the line again, and I’ll do everything to move on.”

You only notice you’re sobbing when you tears blur your vision. What have you done?

You don’t even hear him leave, only when the door slams after him.

I can clearly see the end, Worse than a hangover

It will be hard, Now, Just end it somewhere here

EndNote | Damn, I've never written a kiss scene before. Hopefully it wasn't too awkward. This is a lot of angst too, which I'm not a big fan of reading, but wow... who hurt me lmao. Promise the next chapter won't be as bad, or will it?

Previous: Part 3 | Next: Part 4.5

[a-lil-perspective]

I have been silent for some time now. I have refrained from exhibiting any plaguing thoughts that might warrant me the label of “that person”, but I’m at the point where I’ve had my fill.

Ramble under the cut so as to not... offend or inconvenience anyone. There’s absolutely no obligation to read this. It’s Tumblr. You can block/ignore me. The option to do so is readily accessible.

I’ve been a Bad Batch fan since day one. While I didn’t start creating that very same day, it was relatively close. Point being, I’m a long-time dedicated fan. As the premiere to their series draws closer, I feel like there is going to be a great shift, rift here. That being said, I figured now is as good a time as any to make this post.

I love those boys beyond words. They’ve been the one constant in my life amidst a rapid and debilitating change. I love getting to give them life, even if my interpretations aren’t the most accurate.

Yes, I am a new Writer and yes, I am new to Tumblr, as I am sure both of those things are painfully apparent.

I get that it is impossible to please everyone. It’s something I’m learning more and more with each passing day. It’s something that gets harder to swallow, even more so.

I’d like to say that being here has been a largely positive experience, with all of these great connections and opportunities. But honestly? It’s been more isolating than anything. I’ve actually never felt more isolated than since I joined a year ago.

As a content creator or even just a general blogger, I don’t ask for much. I don’t ask for anything, in fact. I consider myself very low maintenance. I don’t demand/harass/play the martyr for reblogs. I have never mentioned it once, and never will. Some people on here are so damn passive-aggressive about it, and quite frankly, it’s embarrassing. It’s very stigmatizing. While I completely understand the frustration surrounding the like-to-reblog ratio, I think it’s neither tasteful nor reputable to threaten to call people out for not reblogging your fics. I wish I could say I was joking on that one. But I’ve seen it profoundly. Not cool.

And yet, no one says anything or raises any concern there.

Yet I make metas, harmless rambles, and I get shot down? Seriously?

—I need to “chill”, it’s “overkill”, I’m “overthinking”. I and my content are apparently just so damn arduous to interact with.

If you don’t like me, please just move on. There are plenty of other Bad Batch creators for you to enjoy. You know that. My work is absolutely not the final say, and I’ve never claimed it to be.

What is so wrong, with sharing one’s thoughts? Why do people inherently have a problem with other’s creative efforts? I see it time over again. Why do I feel like if I was making a bunch of smutty posts it wouldn’t be as much of a problem, that it in fact would be infinitely more welcome? (Absolutely NO shade to people who create smut, okay? I’ve made my own share. I admire those bold enough to do so regularly. I absolutely love them. Please teach me your ways).

This ramble really has nothing to do with the most recent event regarding my contributions. Rather, it’s a culmination of experiences over the past several months that have brewed and festered to the point where I can no longer keep downplaying it.

Social media, at its core, is one big popularity contest. It always has been, it always will be. But I’m not here to win. That’s never been my objective. That’s not what I’m about. Surprise (or not), I am not a popular blog. Not by a long shot. I’ll never claim otherwise.

I don’t ask people to view/interact with my content, I’m not an activist, I can’t even fathom exuding that kind of confidence. Even though I, admittedly, crave it. I suspect I crave interaction as much as the next creator. It’s a nice feeling. Yet there’s never been any obligation for it, especially with me, so I don’t understand what the problem is. As I’ve said, there are ample ways for you to block/avoid me. It’s the internet. In this day and age, there’s no excuse for viewing anything you don’t want to.

I came here in the hopes of finding like-minded individuals, uplifting and interacting, and exercising some otherwise stunted creativity.

All Tumblr as taught me is that creating and contributing is largely a thankless, empty endeavor. You can give and give and give and be reduced to nothing. There’s a profound imbalance between “giving” and “receiving”, and in regards to both ends of the scale, it’s became apparent to me that if you don’t cater heavily and in unreasonable degrees or get “noticed” by a popular blog, you get nothing, and your efforts are null and void.

Truthfully? I constantly feel like I walk on eggshells here, and it’s all I can do to not crack under the pressure, even though it’s my blog and my headspace. I should feel comfortable and free to express myself here, and I don’t, and I’m unsure of how to achieve that sense of stability. To be completely honestly I feel like a constant bother and a nuisance. When I post, I literally feel like there is a collective eye-roll that comes with people receiving a notification from my blog. Even though I know, rationally, that can’t be true, that’s an absurd level of thinking. I can’t say I can pinpoint exactly where it stems from.

But regardless: I hardly ever talk about/create the things I actually want. I only recently just got ballsy enough to share some metas, and we all know how well that’s going. I try not to have smut out of respect for my asexual/minor mutuals, even though the tag to blacklist is very much an option. I try not to bring up conflicting topics, Tumblr, political, or otherwise, even though with proper tagging I could. But I try not to even bring that into existence. Even though it’s my right to, I don’t.

I don’t actually feel like I fit into any narrative here, especially in the Bad Batch fandom; even though we are all basically the same steadfast group of bloggers. We all know who we are. We all coexist in the same space. It’s nearly impossible to be unaware of each other, at this point.

And yet, I’m not in a bunch of Discord servers or backed by a team of beta readers and all that jazz. It’s basically just me talking to myself out here. It’s very isolating.

Part of that—most of it—is my own crippling social anxiety, and the genuine belief that I don’t deserve to be in the same space/servers as all of these brilliant creators. Because I’m just me, and there’s not a whole lot of value there. With that mindset, it’s hard to actually feel like I belong anywhere. I know that is a mindset I have to conquer alone.

My excitement over my creations has largely dwindled into nothing. I seldom ever bounce my ideas off of others—another issue that stems from the fear of presenting as a burden—and even though I try to write for myself, even that fire has pretty much died out. I’m not even sure how or if I could even reignite it, at this point. It’s really quite sad. It makes me very sad, actually. All I wanted was to safely ramble, project all my thoughts and creativity that has otherwise been repressed through prolonged detrimental circumstances.

More than anything, I wanted to find and hold onto something that makes me feel useful, meaningful, happy. More and more I wonder if that’s even possible. I don’t think it is, not here. I often wonder if joining and sharing on Tumblr was a horrible mistake. I miss the innocent joy of when I first started creating. It was so simple. I’m trying to find that simplicity again.

But I’m burned out. I’m running on fumes. I have been for some time.

At this point it goes beyond just “taking a break” from Tumblr. It’s the fact that it all feels like this meaningless, monotonous cycle. I wonder every day if I am an isolated case in experiencing these emotions.

And yet, come tomorrow I will still be here, business as usual.

I’m not asking for sympathy or playing the victim or attacking anyone or trying to guilt-trip into more interaction. I am very aware of my shortcomings and incorrect mindsets. I’m just trying to make sense of it all. I feel very disconnected from everyone here and it’s lonely. This took a lot for me to share. I will most likely delete this because anxiety will eat me up, as it does with everything I post. Yes, everything.

[prinxlyart]

Now that i think of it. How would it be the Willumity trio with a jealousy situation before and after they confess to each other? Like, a very handsome man comes to Luz and talk to her while Amity and Willow just want to destroy him or something like that.

So I actually addressed this in one of my first Willumity posts but I only did it with Amity so I’ll go into more detail about each of them because buh da bup bup bah, I’m Lovin This

Luz:

Before they all start dating, Luz just sort of deflates whenever she sees someone else flirting with her girls. Especially when they’re flirting with each other. Because she wants to be happy for them, they’re receiving positive attention!!! Romantic attention!!!! And Luz is Too Chicken to do it herself so she just bites the inside of her cheek whenever she sees it happening and goes quiet (always a strange occurrence, everyone knows something is wrong if Luz is quiet).

Also mentioned in one of my very first willumity posts: Luz is extremely insecure about her feelings towards Willow and Amity, especially when she realizes she’s having these feelings at the same time. Their friendship was broken for so long but once they started mending it? Luz could see their chemistry coming back to life. She liked to tease Willow about it sometimes too, but she didn’t do that often. Normally she would use that to deflect Willow’s worried looks aimed at Luz.

After they all start dating? She gets a little passive aggressive, ngl. That is, until she gets Directly Aggressive. If she sees someone flirting with one of her girls, she’ll sorta subtly go to their side and wrap her arm over their shoulders and insert herself into the conversation (usually only if she can see that her girls are uncomfortable. She knows Amity and Willow are more than capable of handling themselves). If the person trying to flirt just keeps going though, Luz will go into Sniper Mode. They’re not getting the hint? She will zero in on them and deliver a devastating line to properly deter them. And if that doesn’t work, she’ll go full-throttle Feral Mode and just start yelling. If she makes a big enough scene, she knows the other person will either flee or a big enough crowd will draw to see that someone is supposedly harassing them.

Again, Willow and Amity are totally capable of handling themselves so it rarely ever comes to that. There’s been maybe one instance where Luz has gone Feral™️ on someone who just couldn’t take a hint and someone had to physically subdue her before she ripped them to shreds. At that point it isn’t even about jealousy, it’s just about basic respect and decency.

Her jealousy doesn’t creep up as jealousy, at least not usually. It mostly manifests as a deep fear of Willow and Amity somehow coming to the conclusion that they like each other more than they like Luz and will end up leaving her behind. She’s scared of losing them, so she does get clingy sometimes, but not usually in situations where she’s scared someone else is going to take them away from her.

Willow:

Similarly to Luz, she suffers in silence whenever someone flirts with Luz or Amity before they all start dating. A lot of people flirt with Luz because, I mean, why wouldn’t they? She’s smart, she’s a human learning magic, she’s faced the Emperor and lived, and that’s not even accounting for how cute and funny she is. How genuine she is. Willow hates seeing other people make Luz blush tbqh; it takes her a hot minute to figure out why it makes her so angry but when she realizes it’s because she has a crush on Luz she just sort of dies inside. Whenever she feels that rage start to build up, she has to excuse herself to go outside and rage in a secluded section of the surrounding forest; she can’t constantly cause property damage to the school by disrupting its foundation with her vines.

She especially resents the Blight twins for making Luz blush every now and then. She knows they’re just doing it in jest but that doesn’t stop that oddly jealous curl from forming in her chest. It’s different though with Amity??? She’s not sure why (at first) but Amity making Luz blush just makes Willow’s chest fluttery because she does like watching Luz blush. And for some reason, she doesn’t mind it when Amity is the cause of said blush.

After they start dating, Willow isn’t one to actually get jealous all that often. She may get concerned if someone started flirting with Luz or Amity, mostly just if she’s never seen this other person before. But she has a weird sense of peace about her girls being flirted with once they are all dating; she knows they’re all polyamorous and any love they might feel for someone outside their little group doesn’t have any effect on the love they have for each other. So unless this anonymous person is actively making her girls uncomfortable, she likely won’t step in.

Amity:

She can get almost unreasonably jealous. She’s extremely protective of these relationships she’s somehow managed to curate with two of the most important people in her life. If she sees anyone outside of their immediate friend group even look at one of her girls in a potentially suggestive way, she is immediately by their side and glaring at the person that dared to think of flirting with her girlfriend.

Of the three of them, she’s the one with the most anxiety about them being “exclusive” despite being a polyamorous triad. She’s so worried about losing her girls to literally anyone else. It takes a while for the notion to really settle in that her girlfriends won’t be swept away from her by some stud with an animal sidekick. I think maybe Luz or Willow even gets a crush on someone outside of their little triad and it sends Amity into a panic spiral she thought she’d already dealt with. She really doesn’t want to lose them.

That original post I made about Amity’s jealousy had her be the type of jealous where if she saw one of her girls being hit on and was clearly uncomfortable, she’d stomp her way over and dip her girlfriend into a searing kiss that leaves them breathless and just stares down the person that dared to make her girlfriend uncomfortable. Which I’m defo still here for. Those girls are hers, and she’s not about to let just anyone get close to them.

I think maybe for the first....year? Two years?? They’re dating? They have to sit down frequently with one another assuade fears and clarify boundaries. Being in a polyam relationship is hard work and everyone needs to be clear with their feelings and concerns. They do figure out their rhythm though and once they are secure in their relationship and feelings towards one another, if anyone ever catches even just a fleeting sensation of feelings for someone outside their little group, the other two will start teasing them relentlessly.

Also thank you for giving me that good Willumity Prompt, it feeds my soul

If anyone else has headcanon questions they’d like to send me, please direct them to my owl house sideblog @edasnest !!!! Oh and go bug @sterling-jay in the meantime because their headcanons are the poison that kills me and the salves to my emotional wounds and it’s killing me

[filmwuju]

Hi! Firstly, thanks so much for translating the SG’s confession in Ep 10 in such detail! I feel like I understand a lot more because of you and can appreciate the scene better. I think the argument between MJ and SG in front of their hotel rooms in Ep 9 might also have had some missing details because I couldn’t quite understand it. Only if you want to, I’d really appreciate if you can break down that scene too. Thanks!

hello~ i’m really glad to have helped with the confession scene :)

ah, the ep 9 argument scene is a difficult one. i had a hard time understanding too when i watched it. so while trying to break down the conversation, i also seeked help from few native speakers to confirm that my understanding of the lines made sense. hopefully, it would do the scene justice. this might be a long one too... please bear with me.

i’ll just talk about this portion since the other parts were quite straightforward:

the official subtitles:

MJ: Whenever I feel closer to you, it feels as though you push me right back. You didn't seem to like it when I said you put up walls, so I'm rewording it. I'm not upset, so don't take it the wrong way.

SG: But I told you that I don't put up any walls.

MJ: Then why do I feel like I'm outside an invisible wall right now?

SG: I don't want you to be outside those walls that I didn't even put up.

MJ: Likewise.

SG: If I've become too boring, then tell me so.

MJ: It's just that when I'm with you, I feel left out during the most important moments. And that feeling doesn't happen on its own.

a wordier, more literal, and awkward translation of the conversation:

MJ: Whenever I feel like I've gotten closer to you, it feels as though a line was drawn. It seemed like you didn't like the expression of "drawing a line" (when I said it) last time, so I'm wording it as "drawn." I'm not mad/upset, so don't misunderstand.

SG: But I clearly told you that I don't draw (any lines).

MJ: Then/But why do I feel like I'm outside an invisible line, right now?

SG: I don't want you to be outside the line that I didn't even draw.

MJ: That's what I want too! (to not be outside the line)

SG: If I've become boring (for you), just tell me so.

MJ: When I'm with you, I feel like I'm left out/excluded during the crucial moments, that's why. And the feeling of being left out is something that is difficult to be felt (by someone) on (their) own.

whew, i’m not sure if my translation even made sense. i would have to strongly suggest that you read on the detailed explanation to better understand the lines!

first of all, you might have noticed that the phrase “put up walls” is nowhere to be seen in the literal translation. that’s because the korean phrase they literally were using was “draw a/the line.” my understanding of the phrase is to set a boundary (between two people), which basically means the same thing as “put up walls”, but im letting you know the original phrase for your reference.

now onto the detailed break downs!

MJ: Whenever I feel like I've gotten closer to you, it feels as though a line was drawn. It seemed like you didn't like the expression of "drawing a line" (when I said it) last time, so I'm wording it as "drawn." 

this translation just doesn’t make a lot of sense even to me, you have to understand the entire context and where mijoo is coming from. i’m not exaggerating when i said i lost sleep over this line. what even is the difference when mijoo changed her expression from drawing a line, to a line was drawn?? anyway, while im sure most of you know this, if you just look at the two phrases on its own, drawing a line is an active action, like someone actually took the initiative to do it. a line was drawn is passive, there is no action taker. 

because seon gyeom claimed that he isn’t putting up any boundary between them, so rather than saying “you, seongyeom, drew the line”, mijoo reworded the phrase to “a line was drawn” —  something like, “while you did not purposefully, actively draw a line, you or your actions made me feel like a line has been drawn.” while seongyeom did not draw a line, it was due to seongyeom that mijoo felt like a line has been drawn between them.

MJ: When I'm with you, I feel like I'm left out/excluded during the crucial moments, that's why. And the feeling of being left out is something that is difficult to be felt (by someone) on (their) own.

the feeling of being left out is something that is difficult to be felt by someone on their own. meaning, it is that kind of feeling that you don’t just easily experience on your own. there has to be a cause, a reason, a certain someone or group that did something for you to feel left out. so the way i understood it is, mijoo was indirectly saying that seongyeom is the reason why she felt left out.

so there we have, the two most confusing lines (at least for me) from the conversation, i’ll add just one more perhaps unnecessary explanation just to make sure things are clear!

SG: I don't want you to be outside the line that I didn't even draw. MJ: That's what I want too! (to not be outside the line) 

i’m worried that my translation may cause confusions due to the don’t wants and wants, so just to clarify: what seongyeom literally literally said, in a very standard korean sentence structure, was “i hope that you don’t be outside the line that I didn’t even draw.”  which mijoo answers with “that’s what i want (to be like) too.”

let me just use this post as an excuse to publicly appreciate siwan and sekyung’s acting skills! i especially love the micro expressions that siwan had during the conversation. the look in his eyes, tiny movement of his brows —  they pained me so much because he looked so confused, and maybe even hurt, when finding out about how mijoo felt. also during the entire ep 9, before the argument, his eyes were literally shooting laser beams of hearts and endearment towards her!! i cannot wait to see more from them.

thank you for reading and please do leave me your comments/opinions about the scene, the lines, or just the drama itself!

[kidmetsu-no-yaiba]

What They Do When You’re Having A ‘Split’ And Become Angry  

This includes: Tsukishima, Kuroo, Bokuto, Kita, Suga, Ennoshita, Ushijima

This is just how I perceive them as what they would do for a best friend/romantic partner that experiences BPD anger in a similar way as I do. Also I'm off my stabilizers haha..ha.

Also none of these are meant to be mean about the characters I literally chose my faves for this.

Uh TW for bpd I guess?

Gender Neutral reader bay bee

Tsukishima (Not the trigger):

Doesn’t even recognize it at first, thinks its just a normal bad day from work

After, like, 30 minutes of you just sitting there and glaring at your phone without talking or even changing your expression he starts to get a clue.

Goes about his normal chores that upset you, but he plays your “Calming” playlist out loud on his phone just loud enough for you to hear

If he’s exhausted every chore and you still haven’t talked, he purposefully looks for funny or interesting news articles about stuff you like and reads the headlines out to you to get you to look at him or talk

Once you start at least looking at him, hopefully talking too, begins trying to coax out what triggered you

Ignores if you make any outright mean or just passive aggressive comments towards him instead of answering but will get aggressive in return

If he manages to get What Happened out of you he immediately calls you an idiot. Regardless of what it is. Is a mean comforter.

“Getting mad over your best friend talking on the phone too long while you’re hanging out isn’t an excuse to be mean”

“You’re stupid if you think it’s your fault that your friends aren’t paying attention to you, not everything is about you.”

It hurts but, it works even if sometimes it feels like he’s going a Bit Too Far

Will watch comforting videos or shows with you if it calms you down but that's about it. Very big on “You’re an adult and I’m not your psychiatrist, figure it out yourself.”

Kuroo (Is the trigger):

Instantly recognizes the Shut Down while teasing you, when you stop responding, your face is blank except for your down turned eyes.

‘Oh I’ve Fucked Up™’ is his immediate thought

“Y/N you know I didn’t mean that right? We were just playing, I’m sorry!” “Don’t you have a proposal to finish.”

Immediate shoulder drop. Is also upset now but decides to wait a little bit before trying to calm you.

After 30min or so of you hiding under your blanket he decides it’s time to try and pull you out of your head.

Cooks your most aromatic favorite food so the smell wafts into your room

Blasts your comfort playlist on a speaker and loudly sings along to it

When you still don’t come out when the food is done, sits outside the door saying “oh FUCK this shit is BUSSIN’” comically loud, overexaggerates your favorite things about it outloud.

When you eventually give in, just to get some food, he corners you with his body

“What about what I said upset you?” As a genuine question, not a mean one

After you explain, he lets you eat and offers a sincere apology when you finish

Offers to draw a bath with your favorite scent if it’ll help you. It does.

Bokuto (Is the trigger):

You came home and Bokuto had the tv up high while watching tiktoks and listening to music. After a moment the tea kettle went off. Before turning it off he realized you had walked in and bounded over to you. There were Too Many Noises.

He tried to talk over the noise but realized your eyes were boring into his and you had The Look

Also a ‘Oh I’ve Fucked Up™’

Rushes to take the kettle off the heat and turn off his phone before checking on you only to see you’ve already gone in and shut the bedroom door. You didn’t even take your shoes off..

Big pouty, sulky fool. Mopes around for a bit after turning off all the noise in the house.

Eventually looks for other things that upset you and finds that the house is, kind of a mess actually. Decides to clean as quietly as possible.

Does all of your least favorite chores first incase you re-emerge from the bedroom too soon

When everything seems to be done he opens your door and finds you tucked into bed and scrolling on your phone, very quiet music playing from it.

It was only 5pm but he took off his street clothes and climbed into bed as well. 

Absolutely gets up behind you and grabs you around your waist and snuggles in without saying anything even though he wants to

When you finally feel comfortable you look over your shoulder to see Bokutos already fallen asleep. Idiot. 

You order takeout for when he wakes up because, even though he tried his hardest to be quiet, you could hear him washing the dishes and didn’t want to ruin the work he did for you

Kita (Not the trigger):

Very straightforward the second he realizes you are Not Good

"Y/N if you tell me what's wrong it'll end quicker" 

When you don't even look at him he still continues talking "We both know you hate when you're like this. It'll make you feel better if you just talk to me even if you don't want to."

Is fairly stern when talking to you at the beginning. Not mean but just very much like 'this is going to get done whether or not you cooperate.'

If you don't cooperate then he begins to ignore you until you snap and eventually scream and air out everything that's wrong and what triggered you. 

Goes through everything you said with you and gives you an objective perspective although it basically boils down to "I know you can't help it but your ego is hurting you. Not Everything Is About You."

Once your conversation on that is over he asks if you want him to watch tiktok or listen to music or something with you

 Suga (Is the trigger):

He hadn’t meant to ignore you all day. He’d woken up before you and been so busy at work all day he didn’t get a chance to text. It was the club he advised’s meeting day and it was dragging on longer than usual, he hadn’t texted anyone all day to be fair

When he finally comes home he’s confused as to why you’re tucked in on the couch

“Hey Y/N you tired? Sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk today there was a lot of bureaucratic shit going on and then the club president decided we were all going to stay until the end of the activity. Kids am I right?” He laughs and smiles towards you but you continue to ignore him

After some physical encouragement, poking and whatnot, it dawned on him that you are Probably Going Through It

Jesus Christ

Immediately decides he is not having it and moves your legs off the couch so he can sit next you

“Y/N I looovvveeee youuuuu~~~” He says as he pulls you to him by the shoulders “I love you I love you I love youuu” 

Just babbles honestly, goes on and on about how he didn’t mean to ignore you and how he was honestly busy but he’s here now

And like yeah, he is here now so eventually you level out and let yourself be coddled for a bit longer

Makes pinky promises that he promises to text you when he’s busy or going to be running late

Also runs you a nice bath just in case

Ennoshita (Not the trigger):

Knows what's going on because he’s been watching you stare at the tv for about 20 minutes but, the tv is off. 

Is objective with his words like Kita but with more emotional appeal

“Y/N I know you’re in the middle of something but when you’re ready, I’ll be ready to listen to you,”

If, after a while, you don’t make any effort to talk to him he tries to point you in a better direction than staring at walls and moping around

“You don’t have to talk to me but I found a tiktok I think you’d enjoy” or “You know you haven’t tried that new nail polish you bought a bit ago” 

Is okay with just letting you figure it out on your own so you can apply the stuff you’ve worked on with your psychiatrist but will feel a little guilty if he doesn’t say anything at all

Will do anything that you need to get done but aren’t because of your episode like dishes or tidying your room

Ushijima (Not the trigger):

First of all, calls your episodes “tantrums”

Literally has no clue when you’re in an episode unless you tell him, he is not very bright

If you do tell him that you’re having issues he defaults to trying to use physical affection against whatever it is that you’re feeling

May or may not make you angrier by doing that

Although he wasn’t the original trigger, him being so dense might override it tbh

Like you love him but oh my god oh my god oh my god how have you survived this long 

Eventually decides “I do not know how to deal with this” and just leaves. He goes to the store and gets the shopping done for the next 2 weeks and gets some cool looking snacks. 

Thinks ‘well I’m already out, I might as well get the car washed’ after, turns into ‘Oh Y/N needed to get their new prescription too..’ ‘I think I remember a discussion about their package getting stuck at the post office..’

Literally accidentally does every single errand that needed to be done for the next month because he didn’t want to go home and upset you more

When he finally comes back home with 50lbs worth of shit from errands you’re like ????? because how did he know that you were stressed about all the house stuff that needed to be done????? 

It’s not an instant mood changer but you definitely go from seemingly uncontrollable rage to ‘Okay I was being a bit much’ but as you watch him prep veggies before storing them away the way you usually do it, you level out

He is unaware you’ve levelled out so he tries to remember the coping skills you said you talked about with your psychiatrist and you are deeply confused when he asks you to open your palm and places an ice cube in it

When you realize what’s going on you laugh and tell him you’re okay and apologize for how you were being earlier and explain what triggered you

He gives you the cool looking snacks

[gallavictorious]

Once again the fandom coming together to daydream about Mickey helping Ian out and seeing him back on track to become an emt again but why is that on Mickey? Why does he always have to do things to make Ian happy when Ian's usually nothing but annoyed by Mickey and does nothing to make Mickey happy? Truly shows which character y'all care about more.

This got absurdly long, because I am who I am and did take the opportunity to go off on a tangent about valid conclusions and what not, so I put it under a cut. Read at your own risk! Oh, and I also do address the actual question about whether or not Ian's career is on Mickey, and whether or not Ian never does anything to make Mickey happy. ;)

For the sake of clarity, I got this ask in response to this post.

And I gotta say, nonnie, getting this ask perplexed me to the point of running off to Trusted Fandom Friends, demanding to know how my undying love and loyalty for Mickey could ever be doubted. Had to laugh at myself a little, actually, and the strenght of my befuddlement. It reminded me of the time I went on a trip with people from the 501st (cosplayers dedicated to the bad guys in Star Wars) and Rebel Legion (cosplayers dedicated to the good guys in Star Wars) and a lot of people assumed I was a Rebel sympathizer simply because I had friends in that group and those were the people who had invited me. Excuse me, I didn't yell, I have like 30 Darth Vaders in my damned home, how dare you question my allegiance? I was so used to always being known as a diehard Vaderkin fangirl that the mer fact of strangers failing to recognize me as such genuinely fucked a little with my sense of identity. My love of Mickey isn't anywhere near as deeply ingrained into my sense of self, since he's only been an occasional presence in my life since 2016 while Darth Vader's been my main man since 1994, but it was still a little jarring to suddenly find myself (mis)identified as an Ian stan.

Being a fangirl is strange.

And I want to make it clear that I do love Ian. He's a fascinating character and, to me, he's a character that's often much harder to understand than Mickey. He rewards careful analysis and discussion, though, so I guess I tend to talk a lot about him? I don't need to spend as much time considering Mickey's feelings and motivations because they are (almost) always pretty obvious; I don't need to tease them out. But at the end of the day, Mickey is my favourite. (Though I'll always love Ian and Mickey together more than I love either of them on their own. It's like fresh cilantro and mint – each perfectly lovely in their own right, but the combination of them creates a flavour that's just out of this world.)

Now, you might argue that you don't follow me and so have no idea who I am and what I like to post about, and that going only by that single post (which, in fairness, was tagged with 'i just want ian to be happy okay?') I give off the general impression of an Ian stan. And that's fair enough; I'm an obscure blog in a decently big fandom and you're not required to keep track of anyone. However, if you want to throw around passive aggressive accusations of caring more about one character than the other, I will ask you to do your research first. Reacting to one single piece of data without considering the context is a common but highly unfortunate practice that needlessly complicates meaningful conversations, and we'd all do well to abstain from it.

Oh, you don't want to spend a lot of time and energy on consdering every single thing a specific Tumblr blog has ever said on a specific topic just so you can draw a valid conclusion about their stance? That's perfectly understandable, nonnie, and easily sorted: refrain from making unsubstantiated claims about what other people think or don't think and you won't have to. Ask them, if you wonder. If you see a tendency in fandom to put the responsibility for Ian's wellbeing and career or Mickey's shoulders and want to discuss that, that's totally cool! I am game (and will address that question below)! But it's very possible to do that without somewhat rudely ascribing perferences and opinions to other people, and you'll get better answers for it (for instance, you won't have to wade through me rambling on about valid conclusions and my memories from other fandoms... ).

It seems to me, though, that this touches upon a long-held frustration of yours. If I interpret your ask correctly, you think the show gives us an Ian who is mostly annoyed with Mickey and doesn't do anything to make him happy, and you think that the fandom responds to this by relegating Mickey to the role of Ian's caretaker, whose sole purpose is to serve Ian's needs without any regard for what might Mickey himself happy. Have I got that right?

If so, it should be noted that I don't agree with either of these takes: I don't think that's the Ian the show gives us (a point I will return to below), and I don't think that fandom at large only cares about Ian's happiness, and I particularly don't think that my post can be used a evidence of the latter.

For instance, when you sent me this ask the post in question had all of 40 notes. As I write this, it has just over 70. ”The fandom coming together” seems to be slightly overstating the case, don't you think? There are certainly fans who care more about Ian and only see Mickey as valuable as long as he contributes to Ian's happiness, just as there are fans who care more about Mickey and only see Ian as valuable as long as he contributes to Mickey's happiness - but this single post with less than a hundred notes does not support that either of these stances would be predominant within the fandom. (And, while on the topic, I'd like to state that I don't actually see a problem with either of those stances; these are fictional characters that exists for our entertainment and we don't have any moral obligations to treat them equally and fairly. Don't ruin other fans' fun by dumping on either of them in the character or shipping tags or on character and shipping posts and this is not a problem. It might be a somewhat unpopular opinion, but I don't think you have to love or even like all characters in a ship to ship it: I refuse to drink plain tea because it's nasty but put a splash of milk in it and its my favourite thing ever. You can love a combination without loving all the seperate pieces on their own. And yeah, I do revert to food metaphors a lot. I like food.)

Secondly, whether or not the post can be said to represent the feeling of the fandom at large (it cannot), I think that reading a post specifically about ”Mickey helping Ian out and seeing him back on track to become an emt again” and then extrapolating from that that Mickey ”always have to do things to make Ian happy” is a little wild. The very first thing I wrote for this fandom was a vision of Ian offering Mickey comfort, goddammit. (Ian giving Mickey a hug is so high on my list of desires, you can't even imagine)

As for your actual question (and, ah, imagine how much shorter this post would be if you had just left it at that) – of course that's not on Mickey. That much, incidentally, I've actually explicitly stated in another post. Ian might have his issues but he's still an adult and responsible for himself. That being said, I don't see it as particularly strange that someone would go out of their way to help their partner when they see them struggling? If I realize that someone I care about is unhappy and there's a way for me to help, I would want to help because I love them and want them to be happy, even if it's – ethically speaking – not my responsibility to do so. Pretty sure Mickey, who is action-oriented and so very protective of the people he loves, feels the same way.

Of course, if it's a one-sided thing – if one partner is always the one to do stuff for the other and never receives any support in return – that's not a healthy relationship, and I assume that this is what you're seeing in the show and taking exception to?

Only... I can't help but wonder who this Ian is, this uncaring, selfish version you see – because I don't quite get how it can be the Ian who emptied his bank account for Mickey, or the Ian who was ready to throw his parole and stay in prison for Mickey even when they were in the middle of a fight specifically because Mickey said it would make him happy, or the one who kept trying to talk to Mickey and win him back after Mickey punched him in the face, accidentally broke his leg, and took off with a new lover (I'm not taking sides in this one, btw – I have a lot of sympathy and understanding for both of them and their actions throughout this whole sorry affair), or the Ian who immediately wanted to marry Mickey protect him from the consequences of a murder Ian thought he had actually comitted, or the Ian who went along with arranging a real wedding even though he initially didn't at all understand why this was important to Mickey and who had someone come serenade him once he did, or the Ian who chose At last for Mickey to walk up to the aisle to, or the Ian who keeps trying to reach out to Mickey and to touch him and discuss their issues in a mature way even when he's (justifiably) upset about Mickey using all their wedding money without telling Ian. (Though Ian deciding for both of them that they're saving the money isn't great either.)

I mean, Ian's absolutely done shitty things, as has Mickey. They're human, and they're the products of a chaotic and often hostile enviroment. They do mess up a lot; they've hurt each other rather badly over the years. Depending on your perspective and preferences, you may think one or the other have behaved worse, but as far as I can see, the claim that Ian never does anything to make Mickey happy is simply not supported.

Ian has seemed unusually annoyed with Mickey this season, I'll give you that, but while that's not always the most fun thing to watch and I strongly sympathize with the wish to just see Ian look at Mickey with that fond look again, I don't find him being frustrated right now all that weird, given the circumstances. I'd argue it has less to do with Mickey and more to do with a general frustration over thwarted ambitions and not being able to hold on even to a really shitty job, though Mickey's attitude doesn’t exactly help (which is not to say that I think that Ian's the one in the right here, becasue Ian's way of handling things hasn't always been been stellar either). However, I do have faith in them sorting this out – because even though they fight and bicker and get annoyed with each other, there's never any indication that they're not both committed to making this marriage thing work. They certainly stumble, they misunderstand each other and lash out, but they calm down and go to sleep in the same bed and compromise and keep trying. Every day, they – both of them – choose each other.

I'd like to finish this off by noting, even though it's not entirely relevant to my argument, that that the number one thing that does make Mickey happy is being together with Ian, and even when Ian is pissed at Mickey and withholding sex (which was very ill-advised but says a lot of interesting things about his character, I think!) no one's sleeping on the couch, there are no nights away from the house and each other, and even in the middle of an argument they sit and stand next to each other. I think that's pretty telling of Ian's dedication, especially given his propensity for running away from his problems.

Phew. Okay, nonnie – though we don't agree and I doubt you'll find this answer satisfactory, I hope you see that I have done my best to understand your point of view and treat your arguments fairly and give you a thoughtful response. If you'd like to get back to me and elaborate on your stance, I'd ask that you show me the same courtesy. :)

[p-artsypants]

I’ll Handle This (9)

In Which Plagg cuts the Umbilical Cord

Howdy folks! Thanks for the patience! I like to pretend I’m regular with uploads, but we all know that’s not true. And for a little while, it’s going to be worse. I had a gallbladder attack this week, and I have to wait about a month to get it out. In the meantime, I get sick pretty easily from most foods. So I’ve kind of put writing on the backburner. 

Oh, I’m also planning a wedding!

Thanks for understanding and not sending demands for updates!

FF.net | Ao3 

—

Adrien was feeling pretty darn good, all things considered. 

Ladybug, or Marinette rather, had been so adamant for so long that no one could know their identities. It was a mantra he stuck to, though he desperately wished to know her outside the mask. 

With Nino in on the secret, it felt more liberating than he expected. All night, he told Nino stories of his terrible excuses and narrow misses of getting caught. 

“I don’t know how I didn’t catch it sooner.” Nino had said, hindsight being 20/20 and all that. 

And Adrien admitted that he felt dumb for not realizing Nino was Carapace sooner. So Nino’s guilt was lessened a bit by that. 

While the boys talked, Plagg stayed rather neutral. He didn’t divulge any more of his plans or prepare them for what was to come. 

Because he couldn’t. Plagg was preparing for several different outcomes, all hindered on many overlapping factors. He just had to hope for the best for now and not stress Adrien out. 

The kid deserved to enjoy his first sleepover.

—

Being an ancient being, Plagg’s passive perception was relatively high. He noticed things and had an awareness that surpassed most other entities on the planet. 

Though, he rarely acted on anything he noticed, since he could phase out of most danger.  It mostly kept him from being seen by people who weren’t supposed to see him. 

However, alarm bells were currently going off like crazy inside his—or Adrien’s—head. 

Lila was hovering just a bit too closely for comfort. 

Though she was usually the main attraction in a conversation, she wasn’t very good at spying. She hovered, just at the edge of the circle, throwing out plenty of ‘oh, don’t mind me’s, but keeping her eye trained on him. She even followed them when they went out for lunch. Far enough away that no one would notice, mind you, but there none the less. 

Lila was not Gabriel’s muse. She was his stooge. His little puppet. His meat camera. 

As long as Lila was around, Gabriel was aware of every action he took. Who knew what kind of bull shittery she’d pull if he did something remotely different. 

But what exactly was she watching for? Just reporting his change in behavior? 

Had Gabriel suspected too much? 

It was high time Plagg put the next phase of his plan into action. 

But first, he needed to throw Lila off the trail. 

It was after class, and everyone was packing their stuff up and discussing how the weekend had gone. 

This seemed like the perfect opportunity. 

“Hey guys! I taught Lila how to play Magic at the last photoshoot! Anyone want to play with her?” 

The words were like fresh blood in a tank of sharks. Lila was grabbed and sat down at a desk, as she tried to come up with an excuse to leave. 

“Oh, I’d uhh...I’d love to play. But my mom has a doctor appointment after school and she wanted me home...” 

“Oh Lila, it’s okay,” said Plagg. “Don’t feel bad about skipping our study session. This is your chance to really bond with the boys in our class!” 

Lila just sent him a tight lipped smile. 

“Okay, Kim, let Lila use your deck.” 

“What? No! ‘Soul Sisters’ is perfectly crafted and only an expert can really unlock its true potential.” 

Alix swiped the deck from his hand. “Yeah, you build a deck with all the tig-bitty angel wifus. It’s great. Take a break, horn dog.” She slammed the deck down in front of a traumatized Lila. 

Max was her partner. “Don’t worry, we’ll go slow and I’ll explain everything as we go along.” 

Plagg smiled to himself, watching as the boys, and even some girls, crowded around to watch. 

He then caught Marinette’s eye and gestured out to the hall. There was no way Lila could stealthily maneuver her way over to him without drawing the attention of all their classmates. 

In the hall, Plagg took Marinette’s hand and led her away, into a secluded corner of the upper floor. Hopefully, Lila wouldn’t spot them if she tried to do something rash. 

“Is everything okay, Adrien?” Marinette asked, her face tinged pink. 

“Not...not completely. Lila was following and eavesdropping on me all day.” 

Marinette gasped, covering her mouth. “That’s sick!” 

“Yes, I agree. I’m not quite sure what she was looking for, but I’m fairly certain she’s spying for my father.” 

Marinette squeezed his arm. “I’m so sorry, Adrien. If I knew how to help...” 

“I should be the one apologizing.” He said, genuine sadness in his voice. He had hoped solving Adrien’s problems would have helped Marinette out, but he worried it would be the opposite. 

“What do you have to apologize for?”

He took her hands, holding them delicately in his own. “I told you that I made a deal with her to get you back into school. But…”

She whispered. “Adrien...” 

He touched her face, ever so gently, laying the charm on thick. “Marinette, I care about you so much, and if I could avoid this I would, but...” 

“But what?” 

“Lila’s made it clear that she’s taking this feud I’m having with my father personally. She’s going to take whatever chance she can get to go back on our agreement. She’s going to go after you again.” He shook his head, conjuring tears into his eyes. “I can’t bear to see you hurt by her!” 

“Oh Adrien!” She gasped, before throwing her arms around him. “Please don’t cry. I can handle her, honest.” 

“I have a plan in motion,” he clarified, squeezing her. “She won’t get away with her lies and harassment for much longer. I just need you to be strong.” 

“Whatever you need, just let me know. You don’t have to do this alone.” 

“I know. Thank you, Marinette. Now, I have to go before Lila escapes my trap.” 

Her smile was genuine and full of gratitude. “I’ll see you tomorrow then! Bye!” 

Eager to take what head way he could get, Plagg pressed a kiss to Marinette’s cheek before hurrying away. 

He missed her squealing and dancing after he turned his back. 

—

“I really dislike that sausage-haired cretin.” Plagg muttered as he walked home. “It’s one thing to lie to get attention, but for her to spy on us all day? Talk about creepy!”

“Thank you for warning Marinette,” Adrien said as he floated by his shoulder. “I agree that Lila is looking for any opportunity to go back to bullying her. I think with the warning, she’ll be able to come up with some way to protect herself.” 

“Nothing against your lady’s ability to find solutions, since that is her job as Ladybug, but I don’t know what kind of back up plan she can have against a compulsive liar. Why is every adult in Paris so gullible?” 

“I have a theory,” Adrien suggested. “They aren’t gullible. They just see a pretty young girl crying and they just go along with whatever she says to make it stop. They just assume she’s exaggerating or something.” 

“Good observation,” Plagg commended. “I agree.”  

“But I think we should put off worrying about Lila for a bit and focus on my father. He hasn’t seen you since Friday morning when you serenaded him. I can’t imagine he’s going to be happy to see you.” 

“Adrien, we’ve been over this. I can handle a grown ass adult throwing a temper tantrum. There’s only two things he hasn’t tried yet, and they’re both pretty extreme. I don’t know if he has it in him. I called his bluff before, anyways.” 

“What two things?” 

“Having me arrested...or getting violent. I dared him to hit me and he swore he never would. I just can’t imagine he was telling the truth.” 

“Are you trying to drive him to it?”

“I’m trying to drive him to a place of ‘I give up, what do you want’? Hopefully we can talk, and he’ll come to see you aren’t a child anymore. As much as I think your dear old dad is capable of being a butt head, I think he’s also capable of understanding. He is a successful businessman after all. Business doesn’t come without a little mercy.” 

“That’s a...way to look at it...” 

At that point, they reached the mansion, and Adrien returned to the pocket. 

Plagg decided not to ring the doorbell, and instead climbed the wall. 

He strolled very nonchalantly up to the front door, and entered, slamming the door shut behind him. 

Then he waited three seconds. 

“1...2...”

“Adrien!” Gabriel rushed out of his office. “I didn’t expect you home already.” 

“Because Lila didn’t text you with my location?” 

Gabriel just stared, slightly wide-eyed and pale. 

Caught red handed. 

“She is spying on me for you, right? This isn’t just her stalking me on her own. She’s not smart enough for that.” 

“I—“ 

“So what? You don’t know how to communicate with me so you go to the only person in my class that I not only dislike, but has a record of compulsive lying? Seriously? You thought that was your best option?” 

“You do not get to lecture me about my choices!” Gabriel barked. 

But Plagg just shook his head. “You make no sense to me.”

“My decisions and actions don’t have to make sense to you. You are my child, and you will obey me! Do you understand?” 

Plagg just gave him a patient smile. Arguing with him never went anywhere, because Gabriel always turned his ears off the second Adrien said something he didn’t want to hear. 

Which was anything that wasn’t “yes sir.”

“I understand what you want. But I can’t give it to you. You haven’t listened to what I’ve said. You’re so caught up in injustice, that you haven’t seen how your yelling has affected me. I’m just pulling farther and farther away. Do you want to lose me for good? Is that what you want? Because that’s the road you’re heading down. I’m 15 now. Three years of this, and I could easily move away and never speak to you again after how badly you’ve treated me.” 

“I do not treat you badly! Have you ever gone without food? Without a soft bed? Without clothes or showers? No! You have it better than most people in this city.” 

“You’re right, I should be without want or need. But you’ve severely neglected my heart. Gabriel, I’m lonely, and sad. I’m disappointed every time you break a promise. I can go anywhere and have food and shelter and whatever, but only you can give me the love of my father.” 

Gabriel was silent at this, staring at his son, his lips in a firm line. 

“So I’m going to go. I’m staying with some friends for a while. Just to give you a taste of what it’s like without me. If you like it, then, when I’m 18, I’ll leave, and never come back.” 

Gabriel looked to the ground, but found himself unable to say anything. Plagg ascended the stairs, and went into Adrien’s room. 

“I don’t want to leave…” Adrien said, quietly. “I’d rather stay and…” 

“And do nothing?”

Adrien looked away. 

“Look,” said Plagg, directing his chin up. “Your father is a hard nut to crack. We just have to push harder and harder. Do you still trust me?”

“What choice do I have?”

“It’s going to be okay, kid.” He rubbed his thumb over his whiskers. “I promise.” 

He packed up his duffel that he had taken for his sleepover, and came back down the stairs. 

Gabriel was right where he left him. “So, you’re going? Just like that?” 

“At this point, I think it’s for the best. Just for a little while. Give us both some perspective.” 

“You’ll regret it,” he warned. 

“Maybe. But what’s there to learn from if I don’t make mistakes?” 

Gabriel didn’t stop him as he walked out the door. 

After he left, Nathalie emerged from the office. “Your son is surprisingly mature for his age.” 

“No, he’s stubborn. Just like his mother. I give him three days before he comes crawling back.” 

“And if he doesn’t?” 

“Then I’ll make him come back.” 

—

Chat Noir bounded over rooftops at sunset. He had a destination in mind, and getting spotted by Lila or one of Gabriel’s other goons would ruin it all. 

After traveling in circles, he finally reached the Lahiffe house and stopped on the fire escape outside Nino’s room. 

Nino looked up at the sound. “Oh dude!” 

“Nino Lahiffe, the time has come.” Said Plagg in his ancient voice. “This is the Miraculous of the Dude.” He opened his hand to show a single Hersey’s kiss. “You will use it for the greater bro-kind, and let me crash here for the foreseeable future, as I have run away from home.” 

“Dude...” Nino took it reverently. “I will fulfill my sacred oath...but you should probably come in through the front door, and we should kind of explain this to my mom, or she’s going to wonder how you got in the house.” 

“True. Meet you downstairs in five!” 

—

Marinette laid in her bed, eyes trained to the sky through the sky-light, hands clutching a pillow tightly to her chest. 

She sighed.

The sound made Tikki roll her eyes. She knew Plagg was hamming it up, but did he have to be so…charming?! 

“Tikki…” Marinette announced, after mooning for over an hour. “I think…I think I can tell him tomorrow.” 

The words were music to her ears! Finally! “You can do it Marinette!” 

Then a shadow passed Marinette’s face as the worst past through her mind. “But what if he hasn’t been earnest? What if the way he’s been acting has just been to get back at his father or Lila?” 

Tikki almost groaned. “Marinette, Adrien loves you. He really really loves you! The way he pulled you aside today and warned you about what was going to happen with Lila? He didn’t do that for anyone but you. That was real care! The longer you beat around the bush, the more you’re putting off your own happiness. And you don’t want that, do you?”

Marinette sat up, resolve hardening. “Tomorrow then. I’ll tell him tomorrow, and get my happily ever after.”

[comic-book-jawns]

Like Her

One year later, and Dani still found herself helplessly staring at her overall-clad girlfriend. Normally, Jamie dressed up a bit more for work, but she’d recently instituted “causal Fridays”, mostly as an excuse to not have to do laundry as often. And Dani certainly wasn’t complaining.

Jamie looked especially cute at the moment because she had multiple smudges of dirt on her face: one by her eyebrow, another on her cheek, a third on her nose and the most recent addition on her chin. They were entirely self-inflicted, of course. Jamie had a rather bad habit of touching her face — especially, ironically, when she was tending to her plants.

Dani still didn’t fully comprehend everything that went into caring for the plants, which only made Dani even more in awe of her. So, when things were slow, Dani would just stand behind the counter and watch her be in her element.

Unfortunately for Dani, two customers, a woman and her teenage daughter it seemed, had just walked in. For the moment, they appeared to be browsing, but Dani still had a job to do. And loathe as she was to do it, she didn’t want Jamie to be embarrassed in front of the customers, so she walked over to her now, wet paper towel in hand.

“Hey,” Jamie said, grinning.

She made a few finishing touches on the plant and then turned to face Dani, who couldn’t help her smile widening as she took in Jamie’s face up-close. Jamie had apparently smudged her other cheek in the few moments Dani had looked away to grab the paper towel, which she raised now in a display of incredible willpower.

“C’mere.”

Holding Jamie’s head steady, Dani gently got to work. She could see Jamie blush even under the dirt.

“Oh... ” Jamie laughed awkwardly. “Thanks.”

Dani bit her lip to keep from giggling. This was not the first time she’d done this, but Jamie still got adorably flustered every time.

“Mom! Do we have to do this right now?”

The duo had been bickering since they’d walked in, but it had been passive-aggressive enough for Dani to be able to tune out. Now, evidently, that would no longer be the case. Dani saw her own discomfort mirrored on Jamie’s face, but neither of them looked over.

“You’re going to college.”

“Why?! I don’t need to to get a job!”

“Yes, you do. To get a respectable job.”

“What does that even mean?!”

“Lower your voice.”

In her periphery, Dani saw the woman glance over at them. Having worked her way down, Dani was now wiping Jamie’s chin.

“You’re the one who started this!”

“Because you need to hear it. If you don’t go to college, you’ll end up... like her.”

The last bit had been said as a stage whisper at best, and the woman’s voice was so grating that it carried quite far across the room.

Dani immediately felt Jamie tense up. Her cheeks turned from pink to red, and her gaze plummeted to the floor.

“Jamie?” Dani whispered, not wanting to draw any more attention to her but desperate to help her.

But Jamie stepped back, clearing her throat.

“Thanks, Poppins. I’ll just, uh, get back to it, then.”

She cleared her throat again and turned around to work on a new plant. Dani, letting the anger she’d felt instantaneously boil to the surface now, turned to their customers as she squeezed the paper towel in her clenched fist.

“What did you say?”

The woman glanced over.

“Oh, I wasn’t talking about you, dear.”

Then, she turned back to her daughter. Dani felt her face flush.

“This woman right here is the reason this place exists. I’m not her boss. She’s mine.”

“Dani - ”

Dani had seen Jamie turn back around out of the corner of her eye. Dani reached for Jamie’s hand without taking her steely gaze off the woman, squeezed it and pressed on before Jamie could object further.

“All of this.” Dani gestured broadly with her other hand. “All of this beauty. It’s all her. And it is a privilege that you get to see it!” Dani took a breath to steady herself. “And maybe you should try listening to your daughter, instead of assuming you know better. Because if she ends up anything like Jamie... she will be better for it.”

The woman looked dumbstruck at first, then outraged. But just as she went to speak, her daughter cut her off.

“We were just leaving.”

The woman turned to her, scoffing.

“You’ve made your point, Mom. Please, can we go?”

The woman turned back to Dani, harrumphed, then turned around and stormed out. Her daughter followed but glanced back when she reached the door, trying for an apologetic smile, it seemed. Dani knew it well. It had become muscle memory to her growing up. The girl looked like she wanted to say something, but then she turned back and walked out.

Dani exhaled, frustrated but relieved. Then, she turned to Jamie and felt her face fall. Jamie was crying softly.

“Oh, honey, I’m so - ”

Just then, the door reopened. Dani swung around to give the woman another piece of her mind.

“Oh, sorry. I can - I can come back.”

It was a different, apparently more empathetic, woman.

“No.” Jamie cleared her throat and turned inward toward Dani so the woman couldn’t see her face as she wiped it. “Can you... ”

“Yeah... of course. Are you - ”

“I’ll be in the back room if you need me.”

“Okay.”

Jamie squeezed her hand, then released it and walked away. Dani plastered on a smile.

“How can I help you, miss?”

*****

Unfortunately customers just kept coming after that. Admittedly, it was strange to view that as a problem as a business owner, but Dani was itching to check on Jamie. She also knew, though, that Jamie would be more embarrassed if Dani held up their customers or even turned them away on her account. So, Dani pushed through.

Finally, about an hour later, they hit a lull. Without a second thought, Dani locked the doors and flipped the sign and slowly opened the door to the back room.

“Sounded busy out there.”

Jamie didn’t look over and continued doing inventory. She didn’t seem to be actively crying anymore, though.

“Yeah.” Dani walked in and closed the door behind her. “I’m sorry I would’ve come soon, but - ”

“No, I’m sorry for leavin’ ya to handle it on your own.”

“Jay... ”

“Won’t happen again.”

Dani sighed and walked over to her.

“You know that’s not why I came in here.”

“No?” Jamie finally looked up from her clipboard, smirking. She raised an eyebrow. “What’d ya have in mind, then?”

Dani tried and completely failed to keep a straight face and could feel her cheeks roasting. Jamie laughed and then looked away again and got back to work.

“I don’t care what that twat said.”

“Jamie... ”

“Sorry, WASP.”

“Jamie!”

Dani tried to say it firmly couldn’t help laughing a bit. She saw Jamie smile briefly.

“Okay, maybe I do... a little... But that’s not... ” Jamie sighed, put the clipboard down on the counter and looked back over. “I was cryin’ ’cause ah what you said.”

“Oh.”

Dani wanted to facepalm. She should’ve known. Granted, most people would react more emotionally to scorn than support. But Jamie wasn’t most people.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to worry ya.”

Jamie was blushing again. She looked down. Dani stepped closer and rubbed her back.

“No, no. It’s okay.”

“Thank you, by the way.”

Dani smiled.

“I was just stating facts.”

“Dani!”

Jamie whipped her head back up. Dani’s hand froze on her back.

“What... Oh, sorry!”

Jamie’s eyes were still red-rimmed, and Dani could see now that new tears were starting to glisten. Dani pulled her in for a hug.

“I’m sorry!”

Jamie laughed shakily.

“I won’t say anything else for the rest of the day, I promise.”

Jamie laughed harder, then sighed.

“I love you.”

Dani smiled as she cradled Jamie’s head and rubbed her back. It had been a couple weeks since Jamie had said it for the first time, but Dani could tell she was still getting used to it. She usually said it once a day now, right after they would turn off the lights to go to sleep. It was becoming her routine, and Dani was so proud of her.

She’d even heard Jamie say it in her sleep a few times, too, and felt her heart burst out of her chest. This was the first time Jamie was spontaneously saying it while she was awake, though — the first time since that first day, at least. She’d said it quite a few times that day.

As her smile widened, Dani breathed in and then remembered what she’d just said.

“You can say it back.”

Dani giggled.

“I love you, Jay.”

Dani felt Jamie smile into her shoulder, then pull back.

“Are you okay?”

Dani cocked her head.

“I just - what ya said. Wasn’t all about me, right?”

Dani just stared at her for a moment and then raised her eyebrows. Even in the midst of her own emotional turmoil, Jamie had picked up on something she herself had already forgotten.

“I - yeah, but I’m fine. It was... it was kinda cathartic, actually.”

“Yeah?”

Dani laughed humorlessly.

“Closest I’ll ever get to confronting my mother.”

“Doesn’t have to be.”

Dani gaped at her.

Dani had told her everything there was to know about her mother. And Dani hadn’t even talked to her mother in nearly year, not since she’d mentioned Jamie during a phone call.

She hadn’t even had the chance to fully explain who Jamie was to her before her mother’s tone had caused her to slam the phone back on the hook. And here Jamie was offering to meet her, full well knowing what that would entail.

Dani shook her head.

“I could never put you through that.”

“I don’t mind.”

Dani smiled and cupped Jamie’s face.

“I do.”

“All right... but if ya change your mind - ”

“Thank you.”

Jamie smiled, then laughed.

“So should we reopen, or?”

It was early afternoon still. Dani laughed.

“Right... Are you - ”

“Thanks to you.”

Dani smile’s widened. She leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss Jamie’s forehead, then took her hands off Jamie’s blushing cheeks.

“Wait, what if we stayed closed... a little longer?”

Jamie’s smirked returned as she raised an eyebrow.

“Poppins... ”

Dani rolled her eyes.

“I meant to go get ice cream.”

“Oh.” Jamie’s face lit up. “Yeah, all right.”

Dani beamed, took Jamie’s hand, turned around and walked back into the main room.

“Can I get sprinkles?”

Dani scoffed as she grabbed her purse off the coat rack.

“What?”

“It’s offensive that you felt the need to ask.”

Jamie giggled, then kissed Dani’s shoulder.

“Sorry, Poppins.”

Dani sighed.

“You’re lucky I’m not crying right now.”

Dani once again failed to keep a straight face. Jamie stopped dead in her tracks.

“Oi!”

Giggling, Dani released her hand and ran out the door. Jamie followed a few steps behind.

“Just for that I’m makin’ mine a double!”

[entitynumber5]

iceberg blues

this fic is basically one long jonmartin road trip but with depression and angst and yearning!!!!!! here’s the link to ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30788036. or you can read it below the line!!! <3

Content warnings: depressive episodes, disassociation, panic attacks, discussions of death and mortality, grief, emetophobia, economic anxiety, intrusive thoughts/images, very brief allusions to transphobia and xenophobia (in the context of UK politics), swearing, passive suicidal ideation, food, disordered eating, mention of hospitals, smoking, addiction, arguments, brief references to coercive relationships.

Martin has been sitting at his desk, shivering in his coat, for over half an hour. Still enough that the automatic lights have switched off for the night, one by one in an imploding cascade down the corridor he can see from his desk. Tim and Sasha left a while ago, and Martin had put his coat on and promised he would been right behind them, he was just going to check his emails one last time, when he’d seen Sasha had sent her part of the report on Naomi Hearne’s statement to him. He doesn’t know how to explain why he opened the document and scrolled through to Evan Lukas’s death certificate. But here he is. Stuck and staring.

He doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to be staring at the death certificate of a man he doesn’t even know. Since Naomi Hearne’s statement two days ago, Martin has been—well, off. He wishes he had a better explanation, but his creativity has jumped ship, apparently, and either a wall springs up every time he reaches for a way to name what he’s feeling or it is energy he doesn’t have to waste, forcing his mind into forming words.

It feels like there’s a balloon inside his chest and no matter how much he expands his lungs, no matter how many deep breaths he takes, he can’t make it smaller. He’d vomited, when he got back to his flat on the day of the statement; yesterday, he had opened the cupboard and stared at the ingredients but been unable to make himself make anything. On the Tube to work, when a stranger looked at him, just in passing, Martin had wanted to cry, and that feeling lingered with him but nothing came of it except an odd sort of internal tension, like a headache.

Yet at the same time, there’s something so dull about it all. He can feel the boredom in his teeth. The blunt edge of a knife, never drawing blood. Why does it matter? Why does it need to be a big deal?

It isn’t, as far as Martin’s concerned. No one else has noticed, and sometimes he doesn’t either. Sometimes it just slips his mind that this isn’t how he feels all the time. Even now, staring at the computer screen, he almost forgets that he’s cold, that it will be dark outside. That it’s Friday, and he usually calls his mum on Friday because the care home gets fish and chips delivered, every week, a whole event, and it’s easier for them both if she has a proper excuse not to answer.

“Martin,” Jon says.

Martin jumps, but his movements are slower than he expects. His shoulders lift enough that the waterproof lining of his coat makes a high-pitched scraping noise, but he can’t move the hand that’s on the mouse to close the document in shame he knows distantly he should feel.

“Martin,” Jon continues, looking somewhat confused, as if he’d already said his name a number of times. There’s a hint of defensive disapproval in his expression. “You’re still here.”

Martin tries to talk, but his voice croaks as if from disuse. He clears his throat and tries again. “Yeah. Just, um… finishing up.”

“It’s after seven.”

“You’re also still here,” Martin points out.

Another time, he thinks he’d be embarrassed by the remark. He should be feeling that hot, sharp lance of fear that this might be the fireable offence. But there was nothing in his tone except the monotone stating of a fact, and the phantom embarrassment is so vague he doesn’t even feel guilty about its reason for existing.

There’s a short, soft huff of laughter. Martin drags his eyes to Jon’s face, just in time to see his expression of defeated amusement before it disappears.

“Yes, well, I have my reasons.” Jon averts his eyes and doesn’t elaborate.

Martin turns back to the computer. It should be simple, moving the mouse to the corner of the document, pressing the red cross, shutting down the computer for the weekend, off-off, at the wall and all, not standby or Rosie would moan about the Institute’s already-failing green initiative. But he just can’t do it.

Jon lingers.

“Is… something wrong?” Martin manages to ask.

“I need to lock up,” Jon replies, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He lifts the small ring of keys in his hand as if in justification, a supply of proof. “Unless you would like to spend the weekend in the Archives, I suggest you leave in the next five minutes.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah, I—I’ll just—let me just…” He moves the mouse to the corner of the document, hovering, but he can’t bring himself to click off it. Suddenly, he doesn’t want to go home. He desperately doesn’t want to go home.

“Sometime today, please, Martin,” Jon presses.

Martin forces himself to close the document. The balloon in his chest feels very big. In his mind’s eye, he can still see Evan Lukas’s death certificate. The clinical recital of the cause, the dates echoing around in his mind. He feels like he might, at any moment, abruptly blurt the words out loud.

“S-sorry.”

“Yes, well,” Jon bristles, “I do have somewhere to be.”

Martin wishes dully that Jon wasn’t here. He could just pull the computer plug out of the wall and be done with it, although his fingers feel numb and he’s not sure he has the strength. Or rather he does have it, it exists, just not within reach.

Martin goes through the motions of small talk, nonetheless. A kneejerk courtesy that reminds him of all the commutes home he can’t remember, the familiar going-through-the-motions, arriving at your destination unharmed, but having done so on muscle memory alone.

“You do?”

“I do.”

“Right.”

Jon lifts his eyes to the ceiling, as if he had considered rolling them and thought better of it. He takes a moment before he speaks again. “Actually, I had planned to drive to Wormshill this evening. There is a detail in Miss Hearne’s statement that I would like to check myself.”

“You’re going to Kent?”

“Yes,” Jon answers defensively. “It’s not far. A two-hour drive, at most.”

“But it’s—you just said it’s after seven.”

“Because I have an obligation to ensure my employees are not in the building after hours. What you do with the rest of your evening is none of my concern.”

Martin nods. The motion carries him away for a moment, and he gets lost in the gentle repetitiveness of it. He’s definitely nodding for longer than is acceptable—everything is taking longer than acceptable, today—and he should be embarrassed, but its vaguely soothing, a blip in the otherwise flat, linear trajectory of his mood.

Jon sighs. Loudly. “Is there anything unsaved on this computer?”

“No,” Martin replies, “Don’t think so.”

“Good,” Jon snaps, and then promptly switches it off at the wall.

Martin stares at the blank screen. He can just about make out his hollow reflection. “Oh.”

Jon is still standing there. “Martin…”

Martin hums in acknowledgement.

“There is—well, there’s the matter of the Institute’s health and safety guidelines, which stipulate that any employee conducting research in the field after seven p.m. must be accompanied by at least one other person,” Jon says, rushing but still somehow managing to keep the deep, unimpressed tone. “Ordinarily, I would disregard such bureaucratic nonsense, but I, uh, I rather suspect I’ll be receiving a complaint from Miss Hearne, and I’m—reluctant, I suppose, to attract any further attention from Elias.”

Martin doesn’t understand what Jon is trying to say.

“What I’m trying to say, Martin,” Jon continues, “Is that while I would much rather conduct my investigation alone, it might be pertinent to have company. If only to share the burden of driving.”

In the computer screen, Martin’s reflection doesn’t react to Jon’s statement. His eyes are cloudy, out of focus behind his glasses.

“Fine,” Jon huffs, “I’ll be direct, since nothing else seems to be getting through: Martin, will you come to Wormshill with me?”

Martin must say yes, because the next thing he knows, he’s still shivering in his coat but he’s outside, standing next to Jon on the steps of the Institute while they wait for the taxi that’s going to take them across the river to the car hire place in Croydon, apparently the only one willing to loan a vehicle on such short notice and at this time on a Friday. In his own coat, jaw set against his own shivers, Jon keeps stealing sideways glances at Martin as if expecting him to bow out of the bizarre excursion at any moment.

It occurs to Martin that maybe he should give Jon an out. A reason to go alone, since that’s what he seems to want. Now that Martin’s outside, at least, he thinks he can make it home. He can drift through the weekend, try to sleep off the feeling sitting heavy beneath his skin so that he can plaster on a smile again for Monday.

“Jon,” Martin says, “I can’t drive.”

Jon’s face snaps fully to Martin’s. “What do you mean, you can’t drive?”

“I mean I—I never learned how?”

The car was one of the first things they’d sold, when they could no longer afford to top up the meter, and when he’d turned seventeen, it had been too much money and too much time away from his mum to take lessons, even though so many jobs stipulated—illegally, he’d been told by one disgruntled employee at the Job Centre—that he needed a licence to apply. He knew his mum resented the lack of transport. She would complain about the tins getting dented or the fruit bruising on the bus journey back from the supermarket. Martin would take on extra shifts to cover the taxi costs to and from hospital appointments. But otherwise, they were stuck. There was no way around it.

Moving into London had helped with getting around, but not so much with money, and it had been a sort of comfort to Martin that mostly no one expected you to own a car or even drive here. Until now.

“Why didn’t you say something—?” Jon begins, but at that moment, the lights of the taxi slice through the darkness and a white Prius jolts to a stop in front of them, the driver giving an impatient toot of the horn to get their attention.

“I—I’m sorry,” Martin says. “I thought you knew.”

“How on earth would I—?” Another blare of the car horn. Jon makes a disgruntled sound and starts off down the steps. “Just get in the taxi.”

Martin stares down at him. “What—but I—are you sure?”

Jon, with his hand around the door handle, looks expectantly back at Martin. “Yes, Martin, just—come on.”

In the taxi, Martin sits on his hands as his mind lists restlessly between the vivid, intrusive image of opening the car door for no reason and the worry that he should be making conversation, before settling back into familiar numbness. Jon doesn’t make conversation either, which Martin supposes is a relief. The driver fields a number of calls during the journey and ends up doing enough talking for the both of them.

Jon pays the taxi driver with the Institute credit card when they reach Croydon. Martin stands on the pavement and watches the back lights of the Prius fade into the distance, the way you might watch to check someone gets into their house safely after you walk them home, because he can’t really think of what else to do until Jon demands, “Are you coming?”

Martin jogs after Jon, catching him up just as they reach the car park of the hire place. Jon tells Martin to wait outside, so he waits outside with his hands tucked into his pockets and wonders idly if Jon has picked up on his quietness. And if Jon has noticed, does he think it’s a relief, not having to suffer Martin’s small talk, his stammering inquiries and useless observations?  

About ten minutes later, Jon emerges with a set of keys and a collection of paperwork. He barely glances at Martin, making a beeline for the car parked nearest the door, a yellow Citroën.

When Martin stops beside the car, waiting for Jon to unlock it, Jon snaps, “It’s all I could get on short notice.”

Martin stares over the roof of the car at Jon. Is Jon embarrassed because the car is yellow? Because it’s a Citroën? Martin feels like he’s missing something. “I didn’t say anything.”

Jon just huffs and climbs into the car. After a moment, Martin follows, ducking inside and settling into the passenger seat. Jon hands him the paperwork, somewhat unceremoniously, and Martin takes it and places it in his lap and doesn’t say anything about the fact that Jon has given the hire company a false name. Which likely means he has a fake ID. Which is a can of worms that Martin isn’t sure he’s ready to open.

They drive for a while in complete silence. Jon’s driving is a little shaky, at first. He stalls three times in the space of five minutes, and at one point gets flipped off by a teenager hauling Deliveroo via bike. Martin laughs, despite himself, a small huff of air through his nose—it’s a start, he supposes.

“Would you prefer to take the wheel?” Jon snaps and when Martin’s face drops, he adds. “I thought as much.”

Martin sinks back into his seat, the laughter forgotten. He stares out of the window at the other cars and wonders where their occupants are travelling—back to their families for the weekend? When Jon has to merge onto the M25, he clings to the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turn white, and Martin wishes he hadn’t laughed earlier.

On the motorway, at least, Jon seems to settle into the familiar motions of driving and eventually reaches for the radio, tuning into Radio 4. They’re broadcasting a political debate, and Martin tries to watch without being caught as Jon’s face twists or he snorts at a particularly egregious comment from one of the participants.

“Who’s that?” Martin asks, surprising himself, when Jon rolls his eyes for the fifth time—he’s counting—at the same voice.

Jon blinks, turning momentarily from the road before returning to his eyes-ahead vigil of the motorway. He rolls his lips, like he’s pushing down a retort about Martin’s ignorance of politics. After a while, and a sixth eye roll, he says: “That’s Ann Widdecombe.”

“Oh,” Martin says, “She was on Strictly.”

Jon once again looks like he wants to launch into a lecture about Martin’s witlessness. Instead, he says, in that dry voice of his: “Yes. She has also been a particularly insidious member of the Conservative Party for forty years.”

“Right. Of course. I know that.”

“I should hope so.”

“I didn’t vote for her,” Martin tells him, “On Strictly.”

Jon doesn’t say anything.

“Or in the general election,” Martin adds.

“Not least of all because you don’t live in her constituency.”

“I mean I didn’t vote for the—”

“Yes, Martin, I understood what you meant.” Jon pauses. “And for the record, neither did I.”

There’s a very long stretch of silence after that. Martin wants to point out that he used to watch Question Time with his mum, before she moved into the care home, plus he’s trans and what little family he has left are Polish, so it’s not like he can be ignorant about the UK’s political climate, and just because he’s not some Oxford-educated prick who listens to Radio 4—but what’s he trying to prove, really? It’s a waste of energy, and the lull of the car and the cold pressure in his chest quickly extinguish the flare of indignation.

A radio drama about wartime Britain replaces the debate, and Martin tips his head against the window. He can make out the sound of the words, but not what they mean, and the inside of his mind feels like the road ahead: a blur of sharp asphalt and red-white light, the kind of place where it’s not safe to stop. He feels vaguely sick.

Martin thinks about the weekend again. He wishes he could sleep through and wake up feeling better, feeling real. He wants so badly to pause this feeling and pick it up when he’s ready to deal with it. A break. He just wants a fucking break, so badly that the tight-throat tension of tears he knows he can’t shed is back. He closes his eyes, in case Jon notices, and plays with the paperclip holding the contract for the hire car together.

He doesn’t know if he falls asleep fully or just drifts, but the next thing he’s really aware of is the slam of a car door as Jon climbs back inside. Inside? Martin squints at him through the sickly light of the streetlamp outside the car as Jon manoeuvrers his way back into the driver’s seat while holding a cardboard tray of drinks and two greasy paper bags. He hands one of the bags to Martin. It’s warm in his hands, almost burning, but he doesn’t think to let go.

“Where are we?” Martin asks, detached from the question, uncaring of the answer.

“Just outside of Maidstone,” Jon replies, balancing the drinks tray on top of the clutch with meticulous precision before gesturing with far less accuracy in the general direction of the service station. There’s a glowing sign indicating the presence of a Costa and a number of other chains. “Do feel free to use the, uh, the facilities.”

“I’m fine,” Martin mumbles, “But thanks.”

Martin realises he can’t remember the last time he used the facilities, as Jon so delicately put it, even back at the Institute. It should be embarrassing, but even this is hard to care about. There were plenty of opportunities, at work, to get up and make a cup of tea, or to reach into his rucksack and pull out the water bottle he’d bought with the markers specifically to remind him to drink at regular intervals. But he just… didn’t. And he’s dehydrated, clearly. And he doesn’t care.

“Right,” Jon says, looking like he would rather be anywhere else, “If you’re sure.”

Martin has no idea what to say to that. Jon saves him the effort by clicking the radio back on without starting the engine, and the midnight news drifts from the speakers in a deep, sombre voice that makes Martin feel intensely tired.

Jon clears his throat. “I hope you like cheese and tomato.”

Martin blinks Jon’s shadowed face back into focus. The lights are strange, transient—the orange glow of the streetlights interspersed with violent flickers of white as new arrivals pull into the car park.

“Cheese and tomato toasties, that is,” Jon adds, “That’s what’s in the bag.”

“Oh. Oh.” Martin blinks again, almost dizzy. “Thanks. I—I do. Like cheese and tomato toasties. What do I—how much were—?”

“You really don’t need—”

“I insist.”

“It’s fine, Martin.”

“But—”

“I bought it with the Institute credit card,” Jon interrupts, blunt. “If you would like to thank Elias for the cheese and tomato toastie on Monday, be my guest.”

It’s not really funny, but Martin finds himself giving one of those pathetic, half-formed laughs again. Jon looks momentarily surprised before he smiles and turns away.

Martin eats by rote because what else is he supposed to do? There’s an odd safety to mirroring Jon, following his lead. And so Martin does just that. He doesn’t taste the cheese and tomato toastie, and he can’t even tell if there’s sugar in the tea Jon hands him from the cardboard drinks tray, but it sits warm in his stomach, reminding him he hasn’t eaten anything other than crackers for nearly two days.

When Jon begins to drive again, the radio is playing a reading of a book about a Spanish painter Martin has never heard of. He feels like he owes Jon, in some way, for the cheese and tomato toastie, no matter who actually paid for it, and so he decides to remedy his previous disregard for Radio 4’s programming.

“This book sounds interesting,” Martin announces. There’s not much in his voice—no confidence, no real presence—but at least he’s saying something. “I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this Velázquez guy.”

“It’s Velázquez,” Jon corrects, although his pronunciation sounds no different to Martin’s.

“It’s a shame it’s the final episode,” Martin presses on, even though it’s painful. “Would have been nice to have a bit of context, you know?”

Jon hums in disinterest. “I suppose.”

This brief attempt at conversation is uninspiring, to say the least, so Martin instead resorts to an even more ridiculous line of inquiry. “Did we just pass a sign for Leeds Castle?”

“Yes,” Jon says, although he seems somewhat more engaged this time.

“But we’re in Kent.”

“Well-observed.”

“So why is it called Leeds Castle?”

“Well, there’s actually some debate as to why. In the Doomsday Book…”

Martin’s not watching the clock, but if he was, he would know Jon talks for a full twenty-three minutes about the etymology of Leeds Castle. It’s oddly soothing. Like a repeat of the emulsifiers at the ice cream parlour, except they’re not sitting across from each other, they physically can’t make eye contact, and there’s distance and darkness enough between them that they can both drop the performance. Martin doesn’t want to be looked at, to be seen, but he feels grounded by Jon’s voice. And Jon doesn’t stop every few minutes to make sure he isn’t being a nuisance, that he isn’t stealing time that others will resent the loss of.

They’ve made it to the Kent Downs. Martin supposes he should ask what it is they’re here to investigate. He manages it, and watches with something adjacent to despair as Jon’s open, almost excited expression falls away.

“Miss Hearne mentioned a chapel in her statement,” Jon says. His voice has dropped down an octave again, into the tone he uses in the Archives. “I can’t find any record of its existence, but I would like to be sure.”

Martin feels suddenly, impossibly cold. Like he will never be warm again. He shivers, and Jon turns up the car’s heaters. “I remember.”

Jon’s hands tighten around the steering wheel again. “You listened to the statement?”

“You—you asked me to transcribe it.”

“No, I asked Tim to transcribe it.”

“But Tim—well, he has an ear infection, he’s on antibiotics and everything, and Sasha’s the only one with access to the hospital records so she was cross-checking those, and I—I thought it was only fair if I transcribed it instead,” Martin says, the words falling out of his mouth in a blurred rush.

Jon deflates, just slightly, with a tired sigh. “Of course. I must have—I didn’t—I’ll apologise to Tim on Monday.”

Martin sits on his hands again. If he was feeling better, he might wonder if Jon has ever considered apologising to him. But perhaps he’s more truthful, when he’s in this place; perhaps he’s right when he thinks he doesn’t deserve it.

Jon sighs again. “So you heard…?”

“Yeah.”

“Brilliant,” Jon mutters, clearly meaning the opposite.

“Do you really think she’s making it up?”

“Of course I don’t—‘making it up’ would imply some kind of fault or, or blame, which is not at all what I was suggesting.” Jon’s jaw is set, tense, even as he spits out the words. “There is nothing made up about trauma and the very real impact it can have on a person’s life. I think Miss Hearne’s experience was significant and, as I told her, she should certainly seek out help from someone more qualified to address the grief of her fiancé’s death. As for empty cemeteries and chapels hidden in fog, well, I’ve read enough statements to know that the point at which they start to sound like an overdone ghost story is the time to deploy a reasonable amount of scepticism.”

Martin stares at the dashboard. The car’s heating is on its highest setting, the warm air blasting from the vents drying out Martin’s eyes, but he’s still shivering. Still so deeply, immovably cold.

“He was…” Martin whispers, but he can’t finish the sentence.

“He was very young, yes, and his loss was unspeakably tragic. That is not what I am seeking proof of, and that is far from Institute’s area of expertise in any case, but—”

“No,” Martin interrupts. His voice still so quiet, but Jon stops to listen nonetheless. “That’s not what I… I was going to say that she sounded lonely.”

Jon’s mouth opens, but he doesn’t seem able to form words. His teeth click as he shuts his mouth and turns back to the road, driving on in silence as the radio idly broadcasts the shipping forecast.

“I—I don’t mean the part with the empty cemeteries and chapels hidden in fog, although I believe her. I do.” Martin pauses, letting himself linger in that realisation. “The loneliest part was when she spoke about him.”

Jon takes a deep breath. He frowns, as if he wants to say something, but he keeps quiet.

The tightness is sitting in Martin’s throat and behind his eyes again, and he wishes he could cry. Maybe if he cried, it would leave him be, he’d be emptied but in the right way.

“They only got two years,” Martin whispers.

“They were…” Jon says, his voice a feeble imitation of comfort. And when his voice fails, his jaw tightens and the defensiveness flashes back across his expression. “Does it matter how long they got?”

“Yes, it matters. Of course it matters,” Martin snaps. He surprises himself with the vitriol behind his words.

“The length of their acquaintance doesn’t change the extent—”

“Their acquaintance? They were in love.”

“I’m aware.”

“They were going to get married.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Martin,” Jon hisses. “I’m not unfamiliar with grief.”

“Then why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“Why didn’t you tell her what to—how to—to move on, or—I don’t know, couldn’t you just have humoured her? Couldn’t you have dropped the act for one day to help someone experiencing the worst thing that’s ever happened to them?”

Jon stares at the road ahead, exhaustion sitting in the lines of his shoulders, the twitch of his jaw. He hardly moves, aside from occasionally checking the mirrors, and Martin doesn’t expect an answer. The silence is cloying and choking and Martin lets it fester.

“If I knew how to move on,” Jon says, very quietly, after an indeterminable amount of time, “Well, let’s just say that’s not information I would withhold. And as for humouring Miss Hearne’s experience, what would you have me say?”

“You could have told her you believed her,” Martin presses.

“That would be a lie.”

“It would be a comfort.”

Jon’s lips twist humourlessly. “Aren’t those synonymous?”

“Then why are we here? Why drive around the Kent Downs in the middle of the night if you think it was all just a trick of the mind?”

“Because I need proof.”

“Of what?”

Jon doesn’t answer the question. Instead, he snaps: “I shouldn’t have bought you.”

“Probably,” Martin agrees, falling back into his seat.

“I’m pulling over,” Jon announces without preamble, as if this is a natural continuation of their argument. “I need to check my notes. I’m sure we’ve passed that sign for Bredgar at least twice already.”

Martin doesn’t say anything. Jon pulls the car into a cramped passing place on the side of the road and then takes his phone out of his pocket. The radio drones, and Martin stares out of the window at the darkness of the stretching rural road, the few specks of light in the distance where the sparse houses state their presence. He thinks about the process of lighting torches in order to send a warning. Smoke signals.

“No signal,” Jon mutters in frustration, and then he opens the driver’s door, climbs out and slams it behind him with enough force that the body of the car shakes.

Martin curls into his coat. His face is wet, he realises, and when he lifts his hand to his left cheeks, it’s cold with tears. Jon is a silhouette caught in the car’s headlights, shoulders up, body tensed. To Martin’s surprise, he seems to have abandoned his phone in favour of lighting a cigarette. Martin recalls Tim mentioning that Jon had quit, a while ago. He considers getting out of the car, too, and trying to convince Jon not to lift the cigarette to his lips. But he can’t move. He’s frozen in place, shaking with a chill that doesn’t belong to him.

In the silvery-grey plume of cigarette smoke, Martin thinks he sees the outline of the chapel they’ll never find.

*

Leaning against the car hood, outside a service station near Preston, Jon sneaks a cigarette while he waits for Martin. His hands are restless, twitching, and if he’s being honest, he has played hard and fast with the meaning of ‘quit’ ever since—well, ever since he started working in the Archives. And he needs a distraction because, for the first time since they left the Lonely the day before, Martin is out of his line of sight.

It hasn’t been long. Five minutes, at most. But Martin had insisted on going alone, had told Jon he was feeling car sick and needed a moment to himself to get cleaned up. To brush his teeth, which he had said with an odd smile, like this was a novelty. So Jon had let him go, and regretted it almost immediately, and began smoking soon after to take the edge off his gnawing anxiety.

Now that he’s alone, Jon finds himself thinking about the journey beyond the heart-pounding panic of getting out of London and the slower-burning worry over Martin’s drawn silence.

His lips curl into a humourless smile around another drag of the cigarette, and he huffs a small laugh. When Jon had turned on the radio after they’d finally made it onto the M6, it was already tuned in to Radio 4. He didn’t have the heart to change it, not least of all because he would have to explain to Martin, after all this time, that he doesn’t particularly like Radio 4. It’s not his station of choice by a longshot. The last time they’d been in a car together—a lifetime ago, it feels like—Jon had still been trying very hard to appear older than he was and, in a moment of panic, decided the only way to do this was to listen to a radio station that didn’t even play music, for god’s sake.

Ironically, he has been listening to Radio 4 recently, if only because Daisy insists they both stay appraised of The Archers. Insisted. Jon’s smile falls. Only a few weeks ago, while Jon had been attempting to organise his office while Daisy complained at the latest pastoral plot point, he had found an old, half-folded Post-it note. A jumbled collection of words in Jon’s handwriting: Martin Secret Santa. Velázquez - The Vanishing Man??

“What’s that?” Daisy had asked him. “I can’t read your handwriting.”

Jon had slipped the Post-it back into the drawer, although this time with his rib rather than the jumbled collection of paperwork it had been coexisting with before. “Then I’m not going to tell you.”

“Oh, come on, Sims.”

“It’s nothing important.”

“I don’t think I believe you.”

The Eye had informed Jon that The Vanishing Man was the name of the book reviewed on Radio 4 on January 16th 2016, in the early hours of the morning, when Jon had been driving with Martin around the Kent Downs. Jon had written the name of the book down so that he’d know what to get Martin, if he drew his name for Secret Santa.

In the car park, Jon’s throat tightens with grief. There was never another Secret Santa after Prentiss. It seemed a silly thing, with everything that had happened, to care about. They’d never been a normal workplace, not really. And yet Jon still craves that brief glimpse of ordinariness, of a pointless tradition everyone rolls their eyes at and complains about but which is still repeated every year.

Jon is just about to walk to the bin and put his cigarette out in the tray resting on top when he notices Martin’s slow, almost unsteady approach. He quickly disposes of the spent cigarette and tries to look as nonchalant as possible, like he is perfectly capable of spending five minutes away from Martin without falling apart.

Except that as soon as Martin’s face catches the light and his expression became visible, Jon has no hope of maintaining the act.

“Martin,” Jon says, stumbling forward to meet Martin before he reaches the car fully.

“Jon.” Martin recognises him. It should be a relief, but there’s a dull echo to his voice that reminds Jon far too much of the Lonely.

Jon can see that Martin shivering, even in the too-big knitted jumper Jon had guided him into when they’d woken up sometime after midday, after sitting together on the sofa all night, Jon crying softly against Martin’s shoulder while Martin slept. He remembers the way Martin’s curls had sprung out of the jumper and how Jon had felt like crying again with how much love he felt in that moment, staring at the crown of Martin’s head, wondering what it might be like to kiss him there.

When Jon takes Martin’s hand, it’s so cold Jon feels a bolt of ice shoot up his own spine.

“You’re freezing,” Jon murmurs, pulling gently on Martin’s hand. “Come on.”

Jon places his other hand on Martin’s back, making small, soothing motions as he opens the passenger door as wide as possible and gently encourages Martin back into the seat. He pulls up the fleece blanket in the footwell up so that it covers Martin’s legs, where the worst of the shivering seems to be concentrated, and squeezes Martin’s hand until Martin’s eyes move to his.

“I’m just going to walk around to the other side of the car and get in, alright?”

Martin nods. Jon squeezes his hand again, one last time, before standing up and jogging around the car to the driver’s side. He climbs in quickly, kicks on the engine so that he can start up the heaters, and then re-takes Martin’s hand. Martin stares straight ahead, his eyes cloudy and fixed on a faraway point Jon can’t identify.

“Martin,” Jon ventures, trying to keep his voice as soft as possible. “What happened?”

“N-nothing.” Martin shudders violently. “It was nothing.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing.”

“Jon,” Martin sighs.

“We don’t have to talk about it now,” Jon agrees, trying to keep the reluctance from his words. “But it might… maybe it would help?”

“To see what we’re up against?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the Lonely, it…” Martin laughs, a hollow, humourless sound. “It’s not just going to let me go, is it?”

Jon doesn’t know what to say. They sit for a while in silence, the only sound the rumble of the engine and the whir of the heaters. In a moment of desperation, Jon almost considers turning Radio 4 back on, and he nearly laughs at his own ridiculousness.

“I—I was in Costa,” Martin says, at last, disrupting the quiet. “I was going to get you some coffee, since you’d been driving all evening. I’m sorry. That I can’t—that I don’t have a—”

“Martin, it’s fine.” They’ve already had this conversation. Jon brushes his thumb over Martin’s knuckles and tries not to well up because Martin thought to get him coffee, when he knows for a fact that Martin despises coffee as a point of pride and refuses to even keep it in his flat.

“I always wanted to learn. To drive, that is.”

Jon smiles, but it fades quickly. “Maybe you can. When we get to…”

Martin hums. “I ordered the coffee, that was… it was fine. A bit awkward, I guess. Haven’t talked to strangers in a while, you know? Or anyone, really. But I got through it. It’s just that when—when the barista called my name, she just—she looked through me, like I wasn’t there.” A brief, bitter twitch of Martin’s lips. “Maybe I wasn’t.”

“Martin.”

“It’s fine. It’s—it has to be—I’m fine.”

“Martin.”

“I just stood there, while she was calling my name. Looking at me, but not,” Martin continues, still staring out of the window. “In the end, she gave the coffee to the person who was cleaning the forecourt.”

“Oh.” Jon tips his head back against the seat. “I can—did you order anything else? Are you hungry? I can go back inside. Or we can go… t-together.”

Martin shakes his head minutely.

“We’ll eat when we get to the house,” Jon says, like it’s already decided. “I can make soup.”

“What kind?” Martin asks, so quietly Jon almost misses it.

“Whatever kind you like.”

“I don’t know. Is that something I—should I know?”

“We can find out.”

Martin doesn’t say anything else.

“Are you ready to move on?” Jon ventures.

At Martin’s minute nod, Jon reluctantly untangles their hands and retakes the wheel. He pulls out of the service station, and once they’ve navigated the helter-skelter of roundabouts and made it back onto the motorway, Jon lets his hand drift towards the radio. Would it be so earth-shattering, to listen to something other than Radio 4? Surely it wouldn’t shake the foundation of their relationship more than everything else that’s happened in the last two years. And yet he feels an extraordinary amount of pressure, like he’s about to expose some vulnerable part of himself to Martin by revealing what sort of music he enjoys.

“Jon?” Martin murmurs.

Jon retracts his hand. It’s ridiculous, it really is, but he’s not ready. “Sorry. Just, uh, just checking I know where the—the hazard lights are in this car.”

Martin doesn’t seem to be in any position to question him. Jon returns his hand to the wheel and stares at the straight, sparse road ahead of them. There’s not a lot of traffic, late at night and mid-week, and Jon loses himself quickly in the motions of driving. It’s strange, he thinks, the way skills stay with you after so much time dormant and unpractised. He wonders if he could remember the cords he used to play on his grandmother’s piano, if he sat down in front of one now, or the lyrics of the song Georgie taught him, his voice matching the gentle strum of her guitar. He wonders if the Eye would let him be bad at it, let him rediscover these half-realised skills or supply him with the unearned knowledge of how to perfect them.

Instead, he thinks about teaching Matin to drive. If the Eye is going to insist on perfection, Jon might as well share it with the person he cares about most. The Scottish Highlands aren’t the easiest place to learn, and they probably shouldn’t attract the attention of anyone nearby by hiring an instructor, but it would be something to do. A reason to spend time together. They’d argue, almost certainly. He can hear it: yes, Jon, I know the highway code and Martin, you’ve missed the turning again and well, maybe your instructions should have been clearer and I resent your tone and I resent your directions and—he smiles. Petty arguments, of course, the kind that don’t hurt, not really. They would laugh about it when they got home.

He turns to Martin, as if this is already a joke between them, already spoke out loud, only to find him fast asleep against the window.  

The suspended moment of surprise lasts far longer than Jon would admit to anyone, even himself, and he has to force his eyes back to the road just in time to avoid a large lorry with smiling cartoon produce on its flank. He takes a moment to breath around his pounding heart as he settles back into the speed limit. And then he can’t stop stealing glances at Martin’s sleeping form.

Martin’s head is tucked between the headrest and the window, a position that will likely give him an aching neck later, but Jon can’t bear to wake him. The fleece blanket—yellow with white flowers, Jon remembers, although he can’t see it in the monochrome lights of the motorway—rests atop Martin’s gently rising and falling belly. One of Martin’s hands is hidden beneath the blanket, curled around his knee; the other lies half-up in his lap, fingers twitching every so often. His mouth is open slightly, top teeth just visible. During one stolen look, Jon notices Martin’s nose curling slightly in sleep, his eyelashes twitching. It’s so endearing that Jon has to smothers the urge to cry.

Once again, Jon thinks about the last time they shared an unfamiliar car to traverse unfamiliar terrain. Martin had seemed to sleep then, too, although looking at Martin now, Jon isn’t sure it was actual rest. More just closing his eyes, because there was no real difference between that and keeping them open, staring absently at the road ahead.

When Jon had dropped the hire car off in Croydon around eight a.m. that Saturday morning, Martin bid him goodbye with a hollow smile, assured Jon he could would be fine getting home, and walked—purposelessly, somehow, even though he had a destination—towards the nearest station. Jon had gotten another taxi back to the Institute, weekend be damned, he needed to write up his notes, and picked up his phone at obsessive fifteen-minute intervals, beset with the need to text Martin to ensure he’d gotten home safely.

He never did text. And he still regretted it, even when Martin came in on Monday—still pale, still withdrawn—and assured Jon his weekend had been fine. Even now, two years later.

Worse still, he knew something wasn’t quite right with Martin that week. Tim and Sasha had been worried about Martin, and had come into Jon’s office before leaving for the night and asked that he ensure Martin wasn’t still there when he locked up. Jon had no real issue letting Tim or Sasha stay in the Archives after-hours; he trusted them, and they were experienced researchers, and they both worked best in their own time. Martin, not so much.

But he had noticed that Martin’s quietness in the days since Naomi Hearne’s statement, the way he drifted distracted through the Archives and sometimes seemed to be somewhere else entirely. Perhaps that’s what compelled Jon to invite Martin with him to Kent. To this day, he’s still not sure why he extended the offer. Why he made that decision over and over again, even when opportunities to turn back presented.

He does know how different he feels now. How sorry he is, that he tried so hard to avoid this. How angry he is, that it took him so long to discover this feeling. And he knows exactly why he invited Martin with him to Scotland.

He supposes it’s good, if Martin didn’t—couldn’t—sleep back then, that he is managing to rest now. Jon makes himself focus very closely on the road, on driving gently so as not to disturb the sleep Martin so clearly needs.

It’s not until they’re about half an hour away from the Scottish border that Martin begins to stir, a deep sigh followed by a more discontented murmur. Jon tries to keep his eyes on the road ahead, tries not to think it’s only been an hour, please let him rest just a little longer, but his gaze keeps wandering to where Martin is curling in on himself against the window, beginning to shudder again.

The car’s heating system is already on its highest setting, which Jon discovers when he reaches to turn it up. Perhaps he’s also running cold from their encounter with the Lonely, and the shivery anxiety still gripping him after their escape from London. Jon thinks about reaching across, waking Martin, but just as he wills his hand away from the steering wheel again, Martin sits up with a noise of confusion, the rasping outline of Jon’s name.

Martin stares at the darkness in front of the car, cut through with the white glare of the headlights. He’s stock still, the only movement the rise and fall of his shoulders at pace with his frantic breathing, and the small quivers running through him at merciless intervals. It’s almost reminiscent, Jon thinks, of the time they drove to Kent, except there is something visibly uncalm about Martin’s posture this time.

“Martin?”

Martin just keeps staring.

Jon reaches across the car towards him. “Martin?”

Martin draws a sharp breath, flinching away from Jon’s outstretched hand so quickly he thumps his head against the window. The impact seems to wake him fully, but his breathing gets quicker, if anything, and he hides both his shaking hands beneath the blanket, gathering it up to his chin as he attempts to stop his teeth from chattering.

“S-sorry,” Martin murmurs, “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Jon replies, trying to match Martin’s voice for gentleness, although his does not shake or warp with almost-tears. “Bad dream?”

Martin hums, but says nothing more.

“Would you like to stop? I think we’ll be coming up to another service—”

“No,” Martin interrupts, a new sharpness to his voice. He takes another breath, slower but still unsteady. “No, thank you. I’m—I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

Jon tries to smile, as soothingly as his can, but Martin won’t return eye contact when Jon glances his way. “Alright. We’re not far from the border now.”

Jon drives, trying very hard to focus on the road rather than Martin in the passenger seat. Every time Jon looks Martin’s way, the shivering seems to get worse, accompanied by a blurring at the edges of his figure that Jon attributes, at first, to the late hour, to the fuzziness of the light and the growing exhaustion behind Jon’s eyes. When he tries to focus on it, it gives him an odd, momentary headache—not dissimilar to when he attempts to Know something too big or too abstract.

It’s then that Jon realises this is the Lonely, clinging to Martin like heat haze to the road, except there’s something distinctly sinister and chilling about it. A claws-out, cloying presence in the car with them.

“Martin…”

“I’m fine,” Martin replies, voice as tense as his jaw as he fights down another teeth-chattering chill. “It’s—it will pass.”

Jon swallows around the ache in his throat. “Can I help?”

“It’s fine.”

“Martin—”

“Jon, I’m—”

“You’re not,” Jon snaps, not meaning to sound so harsh, but the worry explodes out of him sounding closer to anger. “You’re not fine, Martin, and I—I can’t just sit here and watch—”

“Then don’t watch,” Martin hisses back. “Would that be so hard? To just. Not watch. For once in your life just stop—stop looking, stop asking to know things that will—that will—”

“That will what?”

“That will destroy you, okay? Stop throwing yourself into—into the eldritch version of staring directly at the sun!”

“Already been there and done that, I’m afraid,” Jon mutters, with no small amount of bitterness.

“Oh, great! And how did that turn out? I’m not some—you can’t—I didn’t ask for this. I’m not a statement, I’m not—you can’t just Know me, Jon, that’s not—not fair. It’s not—” Martin is gasping now, almost gagging on his words, on the tears threatening to implode his facade of distance. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair.”

When Jon turns to look at him, there is still something blurred and unspecific about Martin, like he is both here and somewhere else. Like half of his image is being left behind by each forward movement of the car. But he is crying, fully crying. And by some cruel twist of fate, Jon can see this more clearly than everything else around them.

“I know what you’re going to say. I know nothing’s fair. I know that’s the—it’s the way our world is now, right? Nothing’s fair, and nothing’s safe, and everything…” Martin coughs miserably, his voice stolen momentarily by the tears. “Everything ends.”

“Martin—”

“Don’t, Jon. Don’t say my name like that.”

“What would you have me say instead?”

“I don’t—I can’t. Not yet.”

So Jon says nothing. He drives. He tries very hard not to look at Martin, who curls against the door, crying in such a quiet, self-contained way that Jon wants to weep with the intensity of grief Martin seems to be denying himself.

By the time they’re nearing the border, Martin is even quieter. Jon risks a glance at him and finds that he is still crying, but sporadically, just tears now, falling silently onto the blanket he’s still holding beneath his chin. His face shimmers when it catches the headlights leeching across the road from the southbound side. The glassy look has returned to his eyes, and Jon wonders if he even knows that he’s still crying.

Up ahead, Jon spots a sign for Gretna Green. It twists a wretched, tearful laugh from his throat.

“What is it?” Martin rasps.

Jon turns to him, not caring if he misses the moment they cross the border—which before had seemed such an important milestone to him, a prerequisite of the journey. Martin is still crying those silent, ignored tears, but his gaze has moved from that absent nothingness to Jon’s face instead.

“I was just—Gretna Green,” Jon says uselessly. “We’re near Gretna Green.”

Martin takes a shuddering breath. It sounds like it could have been a laugh, too, if they were somewhere else, someone else—a perfect twin to Jon’s. “Oh?”

“Did you know that you can no longer get married at Gretna Green without at least twenty-nine days’ notice? In 1856, a law was passed requiring one member of the couple to have resided in the local parish for at least twenty-one days in order to be eligible to marry there. That has since been repealed, but the longer notice period maintained.” Jon didn’t know this until just a moment ago, when the Eye supplied it to him. “The tradition of Gretna Green marriages dates back to at least 1754, although the practice didn’t become commonplace until a toll road made it a more accessible location to those travelling from England. At the time, Scottish law was guided more by Celtic rather than Catholic tradition, and so allowed a couple to be married by anyone so long as there were witnesses, which gave rise to so-called anvil priests—local blacksmiths willing to perform wedding ceremonies.”

Martin swipes at his cheek with the back of his hand. He seems sturdier, more present. “I didn’t know any of that, actually.”

“The most famous anvil priest is Richard Rennison, who was recorded as having performed five-thousand, one-hundred and forty-seven wedding ceremonies before ‘irregular marriages’ were outlawed by the Scottish government in 1939.”

“That’s—that’s a lot of weddings,” Martin murmurs, a hint of humour in his voice. “He must have seen a lot.”

Jon frowns. “Of what?”

“Well, love, I guess. But it can’t all have been good.”

“Perhaps.”

“I mean, I’ve read Pride and Prejudice, for a start.”

“Yes, but Mr Wickham is not a particularly helpful example of a potential husband. Would you hold his entire character against the integrity of Gretna Green?”

“I guess they never actually went to Gretna Green, in the end. But I bet there’s a lot of real-life examples of people manipulating their partners into a shotgun wedding across the border and then—”

“Goodbye happily ever after.”

“I never had you down for a hopeless romantic.”

“I was agreeing with your last point.”

“Yeah, but none of the points before that.”

“Yes, I was.”

Martin makes that noise again, something adject to a laugh that warms Jon’s heart. “No, you weren’t.”

“Yes, I was.”

“No, you—” Martin stops, shakes his head. “This is ridiculous.”

“Fine,” Jon says, lifting his hands momentarily from the steering wheel in a gesture of surrender. “I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a hopeless romantic, thank you very much. But is it so terrible to imagine that some of those marriages were—well, happy or exciting or—or fairer? Than somewhere else? That there was a great deal of love here for a great deal of time, and that makes this place—unique. You’re right: not all of it could have been happy, or good, or honest. But—”

“But you’re a little bit in love with the idea of this place,” Matin says, and it takes Jon a moment to realise he’s teasing.

Jon feels heat rush to his cheeks, and he’s glad that it’s dark inside the car, that they’re between streetlights and passing vehicles. I’m a little bit in love with you, too, Jon thinks, and feels his blush deepen even further. The thought is so vivid that for a moment, he’s convinced he actually said it out loud. But Martin is just looking at him, his expression still somewhat distant, but there’s something like a smile sitting on his lips. No hint that Jon might have just confessed his love.

“Yes, well.” Jon clears his throat. “Sometimes it’s nice to…”

“Have a little hope?”

Jon nods, just once. When he looks at Martin, his smile has disappeared and there are tears in his eyes again.

“I’m sorry,” Jon whispers.

“For what?”

“For everything. For—”

“Jon, you can’t be sorry for everything,” Martin cuts in. “It will eat you alive. God, you—you don’t have to be sorry. Not for anything you think you’ve done to me.”

“Martin, I—”

“No, Jon, I’m the one who should be sorry.”

“What an earth for? You haven’t—”

“I have. We’ve both—we’ve both made a lot of mistakes. And that’s… probably why we’re here.” Martin sniffs, curls his hands tighter around the blanket. “But I…”

Jon waits. He thinks they must have crossed the border into Scotland now, with little fanfare. Too absorbed in each other’s words to notice the transition.

“Can we stop soon?” Martin asks at last, breaking the silence.

It’s not what Jon is expecting, but he nods nonetheless. “Of course. We’ll stop at the next service station.”

True to his word, Jon stops at the next service station—which just so happens to be Gretna Green. He asks Martin if he wants to keep going, to bypass this service station for another, but Martin simply shakes his head and doesn’t say anything as Jon finds them an empty space.

They walk inside together, only splitting off into separate cubicles when they reach the toilets. Martin says very little, but allows himself to be guided by Jon through Waitrose, which is open despite the late hour. They’ll have to sacrifice affordability for practicality this time, since they’re only two hours away from Daisy’s safehouse and it seems like a bad idea to risk stopping again. Jon fills their basket with tea bags, powdered milk, custard creams, bread, bananas, baked beans and pre-grated cheese. None of it particularly glamourous, but it will tide them over, and he’s not sure either of them is in a state to do more than microwave what they have available.

Just before they reach the check-out, Jon notices the chocolate Martin likes. He remembers, because Tim had once returned from his lunch break having bought the entire box from the nearby supermarket when Martin had been staying in the Archives. Caramel Cadbury, the contrasting purple and yellow wrapper always showing up in the bins after that, and Jon feeling an odd sense of jealousy that Tim had so effortlessly, it seemed, made Martin’s unexpected stay more pleasant.

Jon places two bars into the basket with the rest of their goods. With the hand not holding the basket, Jon reaches for Martin. Martin closes the distance, taking Jon’s hand, and they cling to each other through the transaction and the return to the car.

“Are you hungry?” Jon asks Martin.

Martin shakes his head. Jon adds this to the list of things to address later, when he isn’t so sleep-deprived he’s sure to say the wrong thing, push the wrong buttons. He places their shopping bags in the boot of the car and reluctantly relinquishes Martin’s hand so they can both climb back in.

Jon doesn’t start the engine.

“I can’t stop thinking about Naomi Hearne,” Martin announces, after a long stretch of silence. “I had a dream about her statement. Earlier. It was… different, though. I think it might have been—I think maybe I was—I belonged to that house.”

Jon doesn’t know what to say. His own silence is choking him, and he knows now is not the time to cry, but it’s a difficult thing to wrestle down the onslaught.

“I was so stupid,” Martin hisses. He’s crying again, so suddenly Jon feels like he must have missed something. “I should never have gotten involved with the Lonely. I’m—this is—it’s all my fault. I did this.”

Jon swallows his own tears. “Martin, I don’t understand.”

“The Lonely won’t let me go.”

“It will. It has,” Jon says, quick, desperate.

“No.” Martin shakes his head with a mirthless laugh. “No, it hasn’t, Jon. You remember Evan Lukas.”

“Of course,” Jon replies, although it wasn’t a question.

“He escaped. He escaped, and it took him back in the end.”

“No.” Jon leans back, as if struck. This is—why has he never thought about this? But no, it can’t be true, it can’t be a possibility. “No, that’s—Martin, you aren’t like him. Evan Lukas was—he was born into it. The Lonely was with him for longer than it ever was you.”

“I think the Lonely always had me.”

“Don’t say that. Not again. Not now.”

“But it’s true, Jon! When I listened to Naomi Hearne’s statement—”

“I should never have let you—”

“You didn’t let me. I chose to.”

“It wasn’t a choice.”

“It was.”

“No, it—it compelled you, somehow. The statements, they can do that, they can—”

“I wanted to read it.”

“Exactly!”

“No, I wanted to read it because I was doing my job, because I was helping Tim and Sasha. I didn’t know it would—it just seemed like a normal statement. Until I listened,” Martin continues, voice growing in strength. “It called to something inside of me. I recognised so much of myself—”

“No, Martin.”

“My life is—was—it was just like—”

“Stop,” Jon snaps, “Stop. Please.”

Martin stops, but only momentarily. “We have to talk about this at some point. I know I’ve been putting it off, too, but… we have to.”

Jon drags a hand over his face, suddenly so exhausted he could fall asleep. But his heart is pounding and his hands, he realises as he’s lowering them from his face, are shaking. There’s no rest to be had yet. “Alright.”

“Being cut off from the Lonely might kill me,” Martin says, “Like it killed Evan Lukas.”

“I’ll be cut off from the Eye, too. I’ll—”

“Basira is sending you statements,” Martin interrupts, “And you’re going to read them, okay? You have to read them.”

“Then you’ll have to—to find a way to feed the Lonely, too.”

“I won’t do that.”

“That’s the only deal I’m going to make.”

“I won’t sacrifice anyone to that place,” Martin spits. “You saw it, Jon. You were there. How can you think I would ever send anyone there just to save myself?”

“Oh, and you think feeding the Eye is without its sacrifices?” Jon demands, fury rising to meet his grief in a perfect storm. “Is it okay to subject people to nightmares, to reliving their trauma again and again with me drinking it all in, just so I can survive?”

“At least they’d be alive!”

“Martin, this is ridiculous. You can’t—”

“Stop trying to find a way out of this.”

“Stop acting as if this is the only way!” Jon shouts, loudly enough that Martin flinches back.

With a shuddering breath, Jon tries to contain his anger, to hide it until it’s not so raw. He thinks about the last time they were in the car together. The argument then, and how he had pulled over and gotten out and smoked to avoid finishing the confrontation, to avoid letting his true feelings show.

He won’t do that again. He can’t. Not this time.

“Evan Lukas didn’t—it might not have been the Lonely that killed him. We don’t know for certain that it was,” Jon continues. “And if it was the Lonely… did Naomi Hearne’s statement give any indication that he lived his life differently because he knew it might happen? No. He got a job that he cared about. He surrounded himself with friends. He fell in love. You can have all of those things. You deserve all of those things.”

Martin’s tears drop faster and faster, an unstoppable flood, and Jon wants nothing more than to reach across and wipe them away with his thumb. He would, except that Martin is holding himself so tightly, curled with his back against the car door, and he looks so devastated, so far away, so unwilling to be reached.

“He died,” Martin sobs. “He died, and he left the person he loved behind.”

“Oh, Martin.”

“No, Jon, I—I know what that feels like.”

“Martin,” Jon murmurs. Afraid of what’s coming next. But he knows he has to say it. He has to keep going. “Can I ask you something?”

Martin hesitates, wiping at his eyes, digging his fingers into his sockets. After a protracted moment, he nods.

“Do you think Naomi Hearne wishes she never met Evan Lukas?” Jon asks.

Martin stares at him, still crying. “I don’t know.”

“I think you do.”

“I don’t…” Martin takes a shuddering breath. “No. I don’t think Naomi Hearne wishes she never met Evan Lukas.”

Jon almost smiles. “Neither do I.”

“But she was lonely again, afterwards.”

“Maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she reached out to Evan’s friends. Maybe she realised they were her friends, too.”

Martin stares at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Do you know that?”

“No.” Jon sighs. “No, but I—I can Look.”

“No, that’s not fair.”

Jon steadies himself. Across the car park, he watches a young father bounce a little baby, pacing the length of his sedan as he does so. In the car, the faint silhouette of his partner is just visible; they look peaceful, at rest. Jon’s heart aches.

“Can I ask you one more thing, Martin?” Jon whispers.

“Yes,” Martin rasps, reluctance replaced with resignation.

“Do you wish you had never met me?”

Silence. Jon forces himself to keep watching the father, murmuring now to the fussing baby, giving Martin time to consider the question, all of its sharp angles, its gentle core. He wishes, more than anything, that he could reach for Martin’s hand and hold it. Hold it tight, kiss his knuckles.

“Jon?”

At last, Jon turns to look at Martin. Their eyes meet and then, in a blur of movement, Martin reaches for him, his hands pausing on Jon’s shoulders for just a moment, giving him time to pull away, but Jon reciprocates in full, grabs hold of Martin’s jumper and pulls until they’re a tangled mess, holding each other, crying and clinging and trying to move closer than the small car will allow.

“No,” Martin says into Jon’s shoulder. “I don’t—of course I don’t regret meeting you. God, Jon, I—please don’t—never think that, okay? I don’t want you to ever think that.”

Jon lifts his hand to Martin’s hair, runs his fingers through the tussled curls where they’re fuzzy from sleeping against the door. “Martin, meeting you—it was a gift. It’s always been a gift.”

Martin sobs, his face wet against the seam of Jon’s jumper. “I wish I’d never agreed to Peter’s plan.”

“I understand why you did. And I forgive you, if you need to hear it.”

“But I’ve ruined everything.”

“Nothing is ruined beyond repair, Martin.”

“What if the Lonely calls me back?”

Jon holds tighter, as if the Lonely is already at their backs, creeping closer. “We’ll deal with it.”

“You said yourself…” Martin sobs again. “You said—when we went to Kent—you said—”

“I said it didn’t matter how long Naomi and Evan had. I remember.”

Martin is shaking against him. “Did you…?”

“I meant it. Not because—it’s not because I didn’t care, although I know I was trying very hard to give that impression, at the time. I meant it because no amount of time would have been enough. Love is… it’s outlasting. It makes its own time.”

“Jon—”

“No, please, Martin, I—I need to say this. No matter how long we get, whether it’s days or—or years. It won’t be enough. I’ll always…” Jon laughs, a small, fragile thing. “Well, I’ll always want more. Perhaps you don’t believe me, or you—you can’t, right now. But you, Martin, you are enough. Always. I will spend every moment we get together ensuring you believe that. If you’ll have me, of course. There’s—of course, there’s no obligation, and I would—I’d understand if—but it’s true. It’s all true.” Jon laughs again, feeling giddy. “I want to spend all of my time with you, Martin. For as long as you’ll have me.”

Slowly, they pull away from each other, but not far. Jon moves his hands up Martin’s arms, over his shoulders, until they rest on his cheeks, and he finally allows himself the privilege of wiping away Martin’s tears with his thumb.

“I wish it hadn’t taken—well, all of this—” Martin makes a vague gesture with his hand, which still somehow encompasses everything: tea stains on statements, worms at the door and shoulder-to-shoulder against the wall, trips to the café heavy with paranoia, quiet goodbyes, missed moments. “To get here.”

Jon rubs his thumb against Martin’s cheek. “We can’t go back.”

“I know.”

“Will you…?” Jon takes a steadying breath. There are so many questions, but only one matters, in this moment. The rest will follow, one day. “Martin, will you take it day by day with me? And if that doesn’t work—hour by hour, minute by minute. Together.”

There’s a breathless pause. And then Martin laughs, a genuine smile splitting his face for the first time in—well, Jon can’t remember how long. It’s small and tentative, but it’s there. And it means everything to Jon.

“Yes,” Martin tells him.

Jon smiles, too.

“I’m scared,” Martin murmurs, smile wavering slightly.

“Me too.”

“But I—I want to try.”

Jon feels his smile grow. “That’s enough. Always.”

Martin’s smile finds its feet again.

“Are you ready to keep going?” Jon asks.

Martin lifts his hands to Jon’s and squeezes. “I’m ready.”

In the silvery-grey headlights on the tarmac ahead, Jon thinks he sees the outline of the words he is still looking for the strength to share.

I love you.

Soon. He’ll say it soon. He has time.

*

The sun is just rising when they reach the safehouse. It welcomes them like an old friend, worn stone bathed in newborn sunlight as if to say hello, as if to smile at their arrival. Jon insists they are safe here, though his heart is unsure. Martin can’t shake the feeling that this is won’t be forever, though his heart wants to hope this might be it.

Maybe they will have a lifetime here. Maybe not.

Love makes its own time, Martin thinks. And Jon smiles and leads them both towards home.

[im-whatchamccallit]

When They’re Jealous//ATEEZ

A/N: An attempt was made lol

Hongjoong

“This sounds incredible!” You couldn’t stop smiling as you listened to the song you had just finished recording, your producer doing as you asked and not auto-tuning your voice like the previous ones had.

You were making your comeback album and needed a new producer immediately, one that understood you were talented without vocal enhancements and could respect that, but all of them ignored you and only followed what they thought sounded right, causing the general public to mock you as an artist. But then you met Jihoon, or Woozi as he wanted you to call him. He was an excellent composer and an even greater producer, having a great ear for music that he even helped you find your range, something your vocal coaches even ignored or struggled with.

You were enjoying the moment until you felt your phone vibrate erratically, your heart sinking into your stomach as you read Hongjoong’s name from the screen. You excused yourself from Woozi as he continued to touch up on a few songs. He was always so immersed in his work.

“Joong,” You breathed out once you removed yourself from the room to drown out the noise inside.

“Hey. I came by your apartment so we could eat dinner together but I forgot you said you’ll be at the studio tonight. You mind unlocking the door for me once I get there?”

“I-uh-how about we go to the cafeteria upstairs? People get mad when we bring food in the studio anyways.” You said, biting on your bottom lip in hopes he would agree, but you knew that was too much to ask.

“I’ll make sure we clean up well this time. Besides, I wanna help out on a few of your songs.” You wanted to cry at this point, knowing there was nothing stopping Hongjoong from walking into his worse nightmare.

“O-okay. I’ll leave the door open for you.”

“Thank you, baby. I’ll be there soon, love you.” You gave a small ‘I love you’ before hanging up, rushing back into the room only to be met with a soothing melody played on the studio provided keyboard, but it didn’t ease your anxiety.

“Woozi, listen, you need to go before Hongjoong gets here.” You said bluntly, watching as his fingers stopped before looking at you, his eyes filling with worry at the sight of your own panicked expression, your bottom lip close to bleeding from how hard you were biting it.

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“I just can’t have him know you’re here. Please, you just need to trust me-“

“Is Hongjoong hurting you, (Y/n)?” Woozi asked with genuine concern and a hint of outrage.

“No, but he’ll hurt you if he knows your my producer so you need to-“

“(Y/n/n)…”

You turned around and tried to hide your fear with a large smile, Hongjoong staring at you with an almost pained expression that made you let out a small whimper despite your seemingly casual appearance.

“Hongjoong! This is Woozi. He’s a-“

“Producer, I know. So you helped on (Y/n)’s album?” Hongjoong stated with a bitter yet monotonous voice, handing you the large bag of takeout before making his way into the room and taking a seat next to Woozi, your heart ringing in your ears as you watched them interact.

Hongjoong was always begging you to collab with him on a song or album. You could just picture his smile as he talked about how he’d listen to it over and over again, reminding himself that, even though your relationship wasn’t allowed by your company and he wasn’t able to show the world how great you were together, he’d be able to say you were great together as musicians and collaborators. But you crushed those dreams by asking Woozi to help with your album instead.

Hongjoong couldn’t deny he was hurt, and maybe even a bit jealous. Woozi was an amazing composure and producer, but so was he. Did you think he wasn’t good enough and that’s why you didn’t ask for his help? Or maybe it’s because you always liked Woozi better. Hongjoong recalled all the times your absentmindedly praised the older male’s musical abilities, a mixture of anger and self-doubt consuming him as he gave half-assed comments on the tracks Woozi played from your upcoming release. They were perfect, and that only made Hongjoong feel worse.

It took some time for you to regain your composure as you set the food down and stood beside Hongjoong, listening to him give a bit of critique to your title track, praising it despite his entire demeanor showing he was less than pleased with the situation.

“I’m gonna head home now to give you two some space. You need me to come by tomorrow to work on that bonus track?” Woozi asked while packing up his belongings.

“No, that’s fine. Thanks again for today.”

You both watched as he finally left, the tension in the air nearly suffocating you as you tried to find the words to say.

“He’s a great producer. Glad he helped with your album.” The tone of his voice was so defeated and sad, the small sigh you released doing nothing to relax your tense body.

“I wanted to ask you but you were already focused on Ateez stuff.”

“I would’ve made time for you.” He finally looked at you, his gaze soft despite the painful thumping in his chest fueled at the thought you went to another man for help. It almost felt like he was just cheated on.

“That would’ve been the most selfish thing for me to do and you know it. But look,“

You walked around to the seat Woozi previously occupied, finding the notebook you kept for all of your songs and picking out a loose sheet of paper. It looked a bit faded and old but you could read the lyrics perfectly.

“I wanted to make a bonus track that’d be released before the album and, considering we wrote it together, I thought it’d be wrong of me to have Woozi work on it.”

Hongjoong gently grabbed the sheet and read over the page that had strange doodles in the header and margins, a small smile appearing on his lips. He wrote this for you as a confession while he was still a trainee, giving it to you as a birthday gift before you returned it with drawings and extra lyrics added, you both going back and forth like lovesick kids until both sides of the page were filled.

“Are you doing this to pity me?”

“I’m doing this because you’re a great producer with amazing talent that will make this song better than I could ever imagine.” Despite your words being genuine, he felt you were only telling him what he wanted to hear. And he was okay with that.

“Alright, should we get started now?” He asked eagerly, moving to the keyboard to find a perfect melody for the love song.

“Let’s eat first. I’m starving.”

“Nope. With me it’s business first, leisure second.” He said with a nonchalant yet peppy tone, your body sinking into the seat as you realized he alone would go days without a meal until he perfected a song, so there’s no telling what you’ll have to endure with him. Maybe you should’ve stuck with Woozi on this one.

 Seonghwa

You couldn’t read him at all. He was smiling like usual but his eyes were somehow narrowed with a glare. His body was so relaxed yet the arm around your waist was holding you into his side so tightly. And his voice; he was holding a conversation like normal yet sounded so sarcastic and bitter.

You could never pinpoint Seonghwa’s jealousy, he was a master at hiding it. But he knew when it kicked in, especially with the way your work husband, as he introduced himself, came rushing towards you with a bear hug during your company’s recent office party. He knew there’d be someone at the office interested in you, it’s hard not love someone so kind and energetic. But he also had to make a point of you being his, and what better way to do that than with class?

“Every day I come in, (Y/n) manages to make it better. It kinda bummed me out when you told me you were with someone, cause I would’ve had you for myself by now.” You coworker joked with a laugh, you and Seonghwa returning the laughter before the same arm around you tightened once more and you were certain you’d pop any second now.

“Well, let’s just consider you unlucky, right?” Seonghwa’s joke left an uncomfortable silence between you three, your eyes going between him and your colleague.

“I think (Y/n)’s incredible, sweet, talented. I’d say you’re a hard worker but that’s pretty obvious since you practically live at your office, right?” Seonghwa continued, facing you as you tried to make sense of what he was thinking and feeling, slowly piecing it all together with his little rant.

“But I think the greatest thing about you is that you’re mine and mine alone, and no work husband could ever compare to your real one.”

“My what?!” You snapped out of your trance as your coworker finally spoke up, apologizing if his comments made either of you uncomfortable, your head shaking frantically as he excused himself.

He was the only fun person you worked with that was around your age, everyone else in their 30s or 40s and having no time to joke around. His presence made your job bearable, and now you probably lost that thanks to the passive aggressive fool next to you.

“Why would you make up a lie like that? I should’ve known you were just jealous from the start.” You grumbled, wanting to remove yourself from his arms and apologize to the man that would usually give you a coffee with a joke written on the cardboard sleeve.

You gasped as you were pulled back once more, not too harsh but enough to make you turn and face Seonghwa, staring down at you in such an intimidating yet passionate way. It was scary yet exciting.

“I didn’t lie at all. You’re mine just like I’m yours and, we may not be married now, but it’ll happen soon.” He clarified, standing upright and looking away from you as a familiar smirk played on his lips.

“And I never get jealous, you know that.” Liar.

Yunho

Jealousy wasn’t something Yunho typically felt, but when he felt it, it hit him hard.

He wasn’t sure why he was so jealous, you were only talking to an old friend, one that you introduced him to as your “first crush”. But those feelings were from years ago, you were with Yunho now so there shouldn’t be a problem. Until he remembered he was also your crush at one point, you pining after him for two years until he caught on and accepted your feelings. If you could wait that long for Yunho, who knows how long you’d wait for this guy.

You were in a public space, walking alongside one another in the park Yunho always took you when he was stressed from work and practice, but this situation was just as stressful. Yunho felt like a kicked puppy at the way you gave all your attention to someone you haven’t seen in years and, from the sounds of it, had nothing in common with anymore, just fond memories. He didn’t want to start pouting because he’d be too obvious about his envy, his eyes rolling whenever you laughed at a lame joke he said. Seriously, he wasn’t that funny.

“Yunho, I forgot to ask what you did for work.” The other man, Chris, spoke up, causing Yunho to finally give him his attention.

“(Y/n) and I work together. I’m an idol while they’re our makeup artist.”

“Makeup artist? I can’t believe that’s still your dream job after these years. Congrats.” Chris smiled down at you before reaching to place his hand on your head, ruffling your hair as you let out a cute faux-whine and that was the last straw for Yunho.

You gasped as you were suddenly spun around, crashing into your boyfriend’s chest as he held onto you tightly, trying to hide his glare as he looked to a shocked Chris.

“Sorry but I just reminded myself we’ve been on break too long and I have to get back now.”

“Oh, well (Y/n) and I can hang out while you head bac-“

“No.”

You barely managed to give a proper apology and goodbye to Chris as Yunho dragged you off in the opposite direction, your body fighting against his until he released you, only to grab onto your hand with a gentle yet iron-tight grip. You’ve only seen this side of Yunho once before, and it was when you first began dating, the head makeup artist being a male that you had to give your undivided attention to in order to learn properly.

The lack of eye contact, the way his lips formed a pout despite him licking them occasionally to erase it or at least hide the fact it was there only to have it come back deeper than before, and the stand-offish yet clingy affection he gave you, almost as if he was angry at you but desperate for you to comfort him. He was jealous, and it was honestly amusing.

“You know, you have to stop getting jealous like that.”

“I’m not jealous.” He said bluntly, a small giggle leaving your mouth.

“Okay, sure. I bet you were fine with the fact Chris kept calling me his ‘love’ too, right?”

“When did he say that?!” You couldn’t stop the laughter leaving you at his outburst, ceasing his steps to face you with a devastated look.

“I’m sorry, I was only kidding, I just love how cute you get when you’re jealous.”

“I was jealous that you weren’t including me in your conversation. Him calling you love is just disrespectful to our relationship.” He clarified, your head nodding understandingly.

“Well, that doesn’t matter because he’s not my type.” You paused to kiss the hand holding onto yours, looking at Yunho’s face with a small smile.

“I prefer giant crybabies.”

Yeosang

You couldn’t contain your excitement as you stood alongside Park Bo Gum in the makeshift apartment on set, your heartbeat ringing in your ears as you watched him recite his lines for the third time that night. Sure, he was probably annoyed and exhausted because you could only stare at him in absolute admiration which led to you forgetting your own lines, but the words he spoke never got old to you. The character he was playing was confessing to you, something a rookie actor like yourself could only take to heart, especially when the man opposite of you was your celebrity crush.

But that only made Yeosang stand far behind the camera sulking. Seeing as you were always so excited after the end of filming each day, Yeosang took it upon himself to come watch you, only to realize this was the cause of your joy. When you said the leading actor for the upcoming drama was a ‘surprise’, he didn’t think you meant Park Bo Gum, yet here he was: staring down at you with soft eyes and a toothy smile that made Yeosang want to roll his own.

After various attempts, you final managed to deliver your lines, you and the slightly older male ending the day with a seconds long kiss that would be edited to last an eternity, the entire cast and crew relieved that you got it together so they can wrap up and go. Yeosang couldn’t help the way his face burned with irritation as he swallowed his jealousy, it always happened when he did. He also couldn’t help how cold he was acting as you approached him with a large smile.

“Did I do well? Did you like it?” You asked hopefully, Yeosang slowly cracking at the nervous and childlike gaze you gave him, a sigh leaving his lips as he wrapped his arms around you.

“Yeah, you did really great, sweetie.”

“(Y/n)!”

Yeosang’s bitter scowl came back as Bo Gum approached, his typical smile planted on his face and the poor boy couldn’t help but admit he was a real life prince. No wonder you could barely speak in front of him.

“Sunbaenim!” You greeted, bowing politely before gesturing to the obviously angry man next to you.

“This is my boyfriend, Yeosang.”

“It’s nice to finally meet you. (Y/n) talks about you all the time.”

You watched as he kindly extended his hand, Yeosang’s eyes staring at it pathetically before drifting upwards to glare at your elder, a shocked gasp leaving you as you apologized to the equally shocked, but honestly amused, actor.

“I’m so sorry. He’s a bit socially awkward outside of his performances so you’ll have to excuse him.”

“It’s fine, I get that way sometimes. But you did great today, don’t forget to practice more when you get home.”

You nodded and watched as he strolled away to return the outfit used for today’s filming, your head snapping to your boyfriend’s unbothered figure.

“What the hell is wrong with you? You just disrespected Park Bo Gum! Are you insane?”

“Stop talking about him like he’s some god. He’s just like anyone else.”

“Even if he is, that doesn’t excuse you being rude.”

You huffed as you walked away from him, the crew and director putting their items away as he stood awkwardly with his arms crossed over his chest, upset but still willing to wait for you to collect your items so he could take you home. You didn’t know why he acted like such an angry brat when he was jealous, but you could understand that you having a romantic scene with someone you’ve admired for years would obviously be an ego killer for him. You couldn’t help that you put Bo Gum on a pedestal, it was the fangirl in you. But your boyfriend was just as famous and meant even more to you, so why weren’t you treating him the same?

Yeosang heard your timid footsteps stop just in front of him although he refused to look at you, your arms wrapping around his torso as you pried his own apart with your head so he could hold you properly, staring up at him with a pout.

“Stop being angry with me.” You tried to say in your cutest voice, Yeosang trying hard not to break his sour puss persona.

“Act cute all you want, but I think Bo Gum would probably like it way more than I do.”

“I’m too young for him. Besides, he probably doesn’t like weirdos like me.”

You felt two warm hands cup your face before squishing your cheeks together, making your pout more prominent and fish-like, Yeosang finally smiling as he playfully tilted your head from side to side.

“Yeah, you are pretty weird.”

Everything seemed fine and well for you two again, especially when he leaned forward to plant a small kiss to your lips, only to retract instantly with his previous stone-faced expression.

“You didn’t wipe your mouth after he kissed you, did you?” Your eyes widened in realization just after he released you, turning on his heels to walk away only for your body immediately follow his, preparing to fix things once again.

“Wait, I forgot to! I didn’t leave it on purpose! Yeosang!”

San

It all happened last night: San taking you out to dinner, the waiter flirting with you heavily, you giggling in a mixture of awkwardness and flattery, and San biting back his jealousy. All of that was last night, so why the hell was San romancing the hell out of you now?

You watched carefully as he maneuvered himself around the dorm’s dining room table, standing at your side as he cut your steak for you and even opted to feed you, his eyes staring into yours lovingly as you chewed although you were starting to feel a bit overwhelmed, finally bringing yourself to look away.

“Shouldn’t you take a seat and eat as well? I feel weird having you do this for me.”

“Nonsense. I’d rather starve before I learn you haven’t had your meal first.” Your eyes widened at his words, staring at him in disbelief as he eagerly held another piece of meat to your lips.

The jealous San you knew was pouty and clingy, but this one was suave and charming, making your heart skip a beat whenever he looked at you. But you could tell he had some impure motive behind this, most of your instincts telling you he wasn’t just spontaneously feeling enamored.

“Well, I can’t take another bite knowing you aren’t eating either. Please eat, Sannie.”

He gave a small smile before setting your utensils down and pressing his lips to the corner of your mouth, making his way back to his own seat where he didn’t even look at his food, just stared back at you with the same gaze as before. You mentally groaned, knowing this would be a long night.

And, by god, it was.

From the painfully uncomfortable dinner, to the way he held your hands and complimented you as he presented a necklace with his name on it, to the way you slow danced in the center of their dorm. You just couldn’t handle it. But you still allowed him to sway your bodies together as he held the same joy on his face, almost oblivious to the fact you wanted to push him away, a simple sentence leaving him that made you snap.

“I just want you to know that there’s no other man in this world that’ll treat you like I do.”

You glared up at San before removing yourself from his grasp, walking towards his phone placed on the nearby table and turning off the music he had playing before returning to stand in front of him.

“Listen, it took some time for me to figure out you were jealous, but to go through all of this? You’ve clearly lost it.”

“I just want to show you how much-“

“You love me? Because this ain’t it, San. You just wanted to one-up a waiter that I laughed at because I was uncomfortable and wanted him to leave me alone.” His eyes widened at your words.

“So you didn’t like him talking to you?”

“Hell no. I was hoping you’d do something besides sit in your corner having a pity party. Now, here we are, in the middle of your dorm slow dancing while you’re in slacks and a dress shirt and I’m still in my pajamas. And we both know Seonghwa made that steak, so don’t take credit for it.” You’ve said so much already yet your rant didn’t end there.

“I think the worse part of all of this is that I asked you for this necklace when we started dating last year, and to finally receive it under these circumstances makes me not even want to wear it. I honestly prefer your usual whiny self to this.”

A brief silence, your hard gaze boring into his shocked one, neither of you knowing want to expect next until San acted first, wrapping his arms around your body and pulling you into him with a whimper.

“You promise you didn’t like him more than me?” You couldn’t help but smile and place a comforting hand on his back. This was your San.

Mingi

He felt so childish and stupid for being jealous, but how could he not be when his own partner was sitting on his lap but giving all of their attention to Hongjoong.

He was happy you were getting along with his group members, but hearing how you laughed and talked with his elder, your body perking up at every word he said, your conversations dragging on as you discussed your shared interest, something you and Mingi struggled to do as you were totally different people, his eyes widening whenever you mentioned a new fact about your life. He sat back and silently wondered if you preferred Hongjoong over him, if you ever wonder what he’d be like as a boyfriend. His thoughts were so negative, only growing grimmer and sadder with each scenario playing through his mind, his arms loosening from around your waist as he abruptly stood, your lips no longer moving as you stopped your conversation to check on the giant leaving you.

You followed him into the kitchen silently, his back to you as he rummaged through the fridge, not wanting to see or talk to you as of yet.

“I was gonna head out to eat soon, wanna come?”

“Why not go with Hongjoong?” He muttered, not being able to help that the snarky response slipped out.

“Because the main person I want to be with right now is my boyfriend.” You were met with silence, causing you to sigh and desperately grab onto his arm until he finally faced you.

“Mingi, what’s wrong?”

“Do you like Hongjoong? Like, are you interested in him?”

The laugh you let out was loud enough to cause Hongjoong to questioningly glance towards your direction although he couldn’t see you, your body doubled over as you tried to ease your hysteria.

“Holy fuck, no. What makes you think that?”

“You two just have a lot in common and get along a lot better than we do.” You sighed and reached down to grasp his hands, staring into his eyes despite him shyly looking away, obviously still battling with his insecurities.

“Hongjoong is a great friend, but I’d be so bored with him. I like to talk about our hometown, and how we both love Iron Man films, sure, but you’re always teaching me new things and increasing my hobbies. Remember how I didn’t like rap before you? Now I love it! And it’s because I chose someone I can stay with forever and learn something new about every day.”

You felt your lips tug upwards as he finally looked at you, unable to contain his smile as he pulled you into him, a light squeal leaving you as you held one another in a tight embrace. As much as Mingi wanted to scream to Hongjoong that he won, having you choose him and only him, he stayed silent and mentally celebrated his victory.

Wooyoung

Unbeknownst to you, Wooyoung liked to make you jealous. He found it cute when you shoved his arm and told him to stop being so flirty with other people, only to apologize and remind you that you were his one and only. It was a stupid and silly cycle he loved. But the second you started being cute and flirty with anyone else, hell broke loose.

You didn’t know you were coming off flirty, thinking you were your typically friendly self as you spoke with a fellow idol, congratulating them for their win on tonight’s music show and praising their talent. Sure, he gave a few winks and flirtatious remarks here and there, even stepping closer to you as you continued to converse in the backstage area, you completely unaware of the angry body quickly approaching yours, but Minho catching onto his presence quickly.

“Wooyoung! You did great tonight.” The older star said, Wooyoung giving a curt smile and nod, wrapping an arm around your waist and bringing you to face him, your eyes wide and cheeks burning at the sudden action.

“Same to you. I’m just upset our song wasn’t part of this week’s voting, we would’ve won thanks to my good luck charm here.” If your face wasn’t bright red before, it surely was now, not used to Wooyoung being this touchy in front of others.

Minho’s eyes widened as he finally realized the situation, bowing respectfully and apologizing for not realizing you two were together, your hands gently pushing Wooyoung to pry him off, not liking the way he stared at you with amusement and an almost predatory glint.

“A lot of people don’t know about us, and I think it’s because I’ve never gotten them a necklace or something to show they’re taken. But I think I have a better alternative.” You gulped as you once again tried to escape, knowing exactly where this was going.

“Wooyoung, don’t you dar-“ You were cut off by your own whimpers, eyes shutting in embarrassment as Wooyoung latched his lips onto your throat, sucking harshly and squeezing your body closer to his.

You knew how Wooyoung got when he was jealous, he was possessive and willing to do such risky things to show whoever was entranced by your natural beauty and presence that you were his and only his, and that a simple touch from him would prove that true as you only craved more.

You released a sigh you didn’t realize you were holding as he finally pulled away, admiring the purple and red mark stained onto your neck before finally giving Minho a glance, the other boy staring at you both in what you could only assume was embarrassment and shock.

“Now, I’m gonna head home. You can come with if you don’t feel like staying out too long, okay? Congrats on that win again.”

Wooyoung went back to his usually cute self, kissing your cheek and casually turning away to stroll from the room filled with a few forgotten people that took in the scene, your bottom lip being sucked into your mouth before bowing and apologizing profusely and rushing out the door. Not because you were mortified, but because you needed to catch up with Wooyoung, unsure if you wanted to yell at him for humiliating you or finish what he started.

Jongho

As a barista, your job was to provide excellent customer service and, not to brag, but you were beyond excellent. Your friendly smile and bubbly personality made it impossible for people not to gravitate towards you, leaving you in a loop of minutes long conversations about nothing with each and every customer while also serving them with their order. Seriously, you were basically perfect.

That kind of perfection is what caused Jongho to fall for you, coming by your shop every day for the same drink just to have more conversations about nothing, and you enjoyed his companionship, your typical work related jokes becoming personal rants that he happily listened to, loving how you both finally grew closer to one another. Of course, he hadn’t asked you out yet, but that was his main and only goal for the day as he entered the small shop. Until he realized you were giving the same undivided attention you gave him to someone else.

They were the only customer as it hasn’t hit peak hours yet, you both sitting at a table just by the window, your head tilted as you listened closely to his words, nodding along as he smiled softly and spoke. Jongho didn’t want to intrude but he was curious. What did this man possess that was similar to or, worse, better than him? The light giggles you occasionally let out didn’t put him at ease either. This man really must be something.

“You’ve honestly really made this day better, (Y/n/n). Seeing you doing well on your own is making this moving thing a lot easier on me.”

His hand, reaching across the table to hold onto yours, brushing his thumb over your skin as you stared ahead giving a shy laugh and smile. Your body shivered as a strange chill ran down your spine, your body feeling stiff and tense as if something was looming behind you menacingly and, once you turned to invalidate your suspicions, you let out a loud yelp that they were true.

“Jongho! I can’t believe I didn’t hear you come in! Come on, let me make your usual.” You said cheerfully while standing from your seat, only for the stone faced boy to ignore you, eyes boring into the man he still had no idea about, but a lot of opinions of.

“You must be Jongho. (Y/n) talk a lot about you.”

“That’s good to hear, since they don’t mention you at all.”

You stood there with wide eyes, blinking away your disbelief before hurriedly looking towards the male, apologizing profusely much to Jongho’s dismay. The unidentified man took the hint that there was a bit of tension from his presence and decided to leave, avoiding giving you a hug as he usually would. As soon as he was out of sight, you crossed your arms, ready to give Jongho a piece of your mind until he cut you off.

“Don’t let anyone else touch you. Or look at you. Especially when you smile because that makes them want to talk to you more.” He stared at you with a small pout and round puppy like eyes.

“And since when have you become my boyfriend?”

“Since now.”

Quite honestly, this was the coldest confession you’ve ever received, but it made your face heat up all the same, a playful smirk making its way onto your face as you approached the still pouty and jealous boy.

“I think I can accept that, as long as you direct your jealousy to someone that isn’t my brother.”

The realization and embarrassment that crossed his face was an instant pass to your forgiveness.