#i’ve started feeling bad anxiety about the whole situation

[ecowgirl]

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[tea-plantz]

Haiiiii! I recently read your anxiety head cannons and I’m like in loveee with your writing. If you don’t mind, could you do the same concept of the head cannons but with Ennui?

Thank you 💗💗

Aaa oh my god, thank you so much! That really made my day😭

I love Ennui, she’s so gorgeous oml, and she deserves some hcs as well! I’ve seen close to nothing about her, she does not get enough love >:(

~Ennui x Love emotion reader~

When you first appeared in the HQ as the new emotion representing love, Ennui honestly wouldn’t care. You were just another emotion, nothing special, she might even find you a little annoying. Something about the way you always seemed so hyper and talkative kind of pissed her off. You were just always so…. out there.

“You care too much about things”

However, as time went by, and Ennui got more used to your presence, she would tolerate you more and more. You were an extrovert (unlike her), and talked a lot to everyone, including her, causing her to slowly start getting to know you more. She even started to find your company…. quite nice. You would lay on the couch beside her as she scrolled on her phone, maybe even playing with her hair a little, or snuggling up to her. And even though she did find your flirtations to be a bit irritating, a small blush could still be seen on her cheeks.

Once the purple emotion came to the realization that she liked you, after some time of knowing you, she wouldn’t know what to do. She had never been in this situation before, and especially not with someone as vibrant and romantic as you. Ennui wouldn’t wanna admit to crushing on you, she would keep it to herself and try to act casually, although you did notice that she was avoiding eye contact a little more than usual.

The way you found out that she liked you was probably accidental. She might have fallen asleep on the couch whilst playing on her phone, and mumbled something in her sleep.

“Mmh… they are so flirty and annoying… but they’re so cute… ugh, why do I want them so bad?”

Then she went back to mumbling stuff in French. You, Anxiety, Envy and all the other emotions at the console just stood there, mouths wide open like a fish, and eyes as round as plates. When Ennui woke up a little later you took her somewhere private to talk about it, and boy was she embarrassed. It’s super rare to see Ennui look anything other than bored, but when you told her what she had said in her sleep, she looked totally frozen in place and flustered as hell. She had basically just told you that she likes you in front of the whole headquarters… yikes. Luckily, the feelings where returned<3

When you two finally started dating it would be like a super hyper and chill girlfriend duo. You would always be gushing about romance and love, talking a bunch and all that, while she would listen and nod along.

She takes sneak photos of you and keep them in a special album on her phone, I’m sorry-

Ennui would secretly really enjoy it when you got touchy with her, she might roll her eyes, or groan, but she actually loves it. Whenever you cuddle up with her, give her kisses or play with her hair, she feels all warm inside, and a small smile can be seen on her face. I also think she would find it sweet if you braided her hair, it’s not like she has the energy to do it herself anyway, it’s waaaay too much work. That girl doesn’t even pull her socks all the way up, like c’mon-

You guys play games on her phone, I hc that she is kinda obsessed with candy crush.

I feel like the only things she truly shows interest in openly is her phone, and you.

Ennui often tells you that you’re overly sweet, and kinda tease you about it. Like, not in a mean way, she just points out how romantic and all you are, and comperes you to a cupcake or something.

“Mon Dieu, you’re always so sweet, it’s sickening. You’re like a little walking cupcake, all giggly and cute”

Sometimes she kind of feels bad for how little effort she puts into anything, especially with you being so charming and romantic, so she would try her best to put in a little extra work. She’ll probably call you some pet-names in French, like mon amour, or mon chéri. That, and she’ll make sure to give you some hugs whenever she can, like she’ll wrap her arms around your waist from behind whenever you’re both standing by the console.

She loooves to lean on you!

Ennui isn’t usually phased by your flirting, she finds it cute and kinda cheesy. She might roll her eyes or smile a little, but sometimes, when you say something that really gets to her, she’ll stiffen up, her eyes go wide and she gets a dark blush across her face. I don’t think Ennui’s usually that blushy, but if you’re lucky, and use the right words, you get to see it from time to time. <33

She looks so Lilly with her eyes wide open, it feels cursed and cute at the same time

[maknaeswrld]

a life eluded | l.mh, h.js

wc: 6.5k

genre: soulmate au; reincarnation au; fluff; angst; poly!minsung x reader

cw: pov hopping; anxiety/panic attack mentions; food/eating mentions; Bee (I still feel like they need a warning); all soulmates are gn (they/them pronouns) for sake of future storytelling; past life memories in italics; please please let me know if I missed anything🫶

if you’re new here, start from the beginning: a life forgotten

Soulmates can be a painful thing. You didn’t think you’d ever be able to stop yourself from running away. 

Riley had left you with a hug, two phone numbers hastily written on a paper towel, and a promise to meet up soon. You and Lia counted off ten minutes before leaving as well, hopefully giving you enough time for Riley and any possible companions to be long gone.

You thought the idea of reaching out to them would scare you, but the more you looked at the numbers, the more you wanted to talk to them. You assumed Bee was the one that had yelled at your soulmates, drawing their attention off you long enough to make a break for it. 

They’ve been looking for you for a long time.

Riley’s words found themselves on repeat in your head, not letting up even slightly. How could they have been looking for you if they’d never met you? They couldn’t possibly have known you. But they still noticed your absence. Enough that it weighed on them, caused them to seek you out even without knowing who you were.

They’ve been searching for their ‘missing piece’ about as long as I’ve known them.

Their missing piece. Not a burden, not a hitch in all of their plans, not some unforeseen unfortunate circumstance. You were included in their future long before you even knew of your past, they’d been attempting to seek you out for far longer than you’ve been avoiding ever finding them. In their minds you were the final piece of an extensive puzzle. Their final piece.

Before you could talk yourself out of it, you were typing both numbers into your phone and creating a group chat. 

Y/n: you didn’t tell me which number belonged to who so i just made a gc, I hope that’s alright.

Unknown Number: Who are you and how’d you get these numbers?

Unknown Number: shut up Bee, I already warned you about this. sorry Y/n, I was rushing a bit, this is Riley and the other number is Bee’s :)

Bee (Changbin’s soulmate): WAIT!!! YOU’RE MINSUNGS THIRD?! THE ONE THAT RAN AWAY EARLIER?!

Riley (Bang Chan’s soulmate): Bee istg

Y/n: uhhhh yeah, I suppose that’s me

Bee (Changbin’s soulmate): I would’ve run away too, those idiots are so loud

Riley (Bang Chan’s soulmate): you are actually not allowed to talk, I think the only person in existence that can rival Bin’s loud ass is you. the both of you together are my eternal migraine

Bee (Changbin’s soulmate): SHUT UP WE AREN’T THAT BAD

You couldn’t help the laugh that wells up in you at their banter, after that you fall into an easy rhythm talking with them. They understand you in a way you’re not sure any of your friends ever have. 

It didn’t take even two days messaging back and forth for the three of you to make plans to meet for coffee, Bee going on about how unfair it is that you met Riley already. You thought you’d be nervous, you spent the whole morning getting ready waiting for the nerves to hit. These were the soulmates of not just two international idols, but close friends to your soulmates who were in the same group. Everything about the situation should be sending you into a spiral of anxious thoughts, but instead you felt more at ease than you do going to dinner with Lia. 

“You look hot, where are you off to?” Your neighbor asked as you were locking the door.

“Coffee with some friends.” It felt too natural, the way friends rolled off your tongue. You hadn’t even met Bee yet.

“Be safe babes.” Your neighbor smiled, entering her own apartment. You weren’t close with your neighbor, but you always looked out for one another. Living alone wasn’t always safe, so having someone who would notice your absence was always a comfort thing for you.

The coffee shop decided on was a twenty minute walk from your apartment, you spent the whole time thinking over everything. When you had found out about your soulmates, one of your biggest concerns was the fact that there were others like you, soulmates of idols who knew who they were supposed to be with and couldn’t get to them. Or worse, that there were friends of yours, people who were the soulmates of the people you knew you had some cosmic bond with, people important to you that you’d never get the chance to remember. 

Due to Stray Kids popularity, you got to have your memories with your soulmates members, the memories of how close you were to each of them as well in every lifetime, but knowing they had soulmates, that you likely were very close to their soulmates, that you couldn’t remember them, devastated you.

And now you were meeting two of them for coffee. The memories with Riley had already started to slowly trickle in after the short time you spent with them in the bathroom, you knew more would start engraving within your deepest memories after more time spent together. The two of you were close in every lifetime, it gave you hope that everything would work out in this one as well.

“Y/n!! Run!!’” Riley laughed, hand holding tightly on yours as the two of you sprinted away from the lady chasing the two of you with a broom. 

“Get out of here, street rats!” The lady called after you. 

After several twists and turns to make certain you were securely away from any possible danger, you both sat against a wall to catch your breath. You started giggling, causing Riley to look at you as if you’d grown two heads. 

“What are you-?” Riley trailed off as you produced two small pieces of bread you’d managed to snake while Riley distracted the mean lady. Riley’s eyes lit up before laughter filled the space coming from the both of you.

You each enjoyed your pieces of bread, savoring the taste and the feeling of something on your stomachs, just sitting in comfortable silence with one another. 

You’d shared your whole lives running the streets, keeping each other alive and moving, and you always thought it’d just be the two of you, until Riley found Chan and your lives got thrown upside down.

You stared at the sign of the tiny rustic looking cafe. It was the type of place you’d go to every day if you knew it existed. Now that you did, you couldn’t imagine not regularly spending time there. You knew deep down, if all went well today, you’d be spending a lot of time there with Bee and Riley.

A bell jingled above the door as you pushed it open.The whole place radiated comfort and you felt at ease instantly.

“Welcome in, I’ll be right with you!” A cheery voice called from what you assumed to be the kitchen.

“Y/n! We’re over here.” You found a table in a small nook surrounded by books where Riley and Bee were sitting, drinks already ordered. “We didn’t know what you might like and Sage already knows our usuals, but we were waiting for you to get food.”

Before you could take one of the open seats between the two, a short person with a bright smile, freckles, and long hair brushed to a shine seemed to dance toward you, hands wiping at their apron, they reached one out for you to shake. 

“I’m Sage, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Their grip was firm despite the dainty tinkle of their voice.

“Y/n.” You smiled in return.

“What can I get ya, Y/n?” 

You order your drink, you, Riley, and Bee also putting in your orders for food, and just as fast as Sage had appeared, they’d disappeared back into the kitchen. Taking your seat at the little table, you took a deep breath before looking up, only to find Bee and Riley already staring at you.

“So like, when are you gonna finally meet your boys? OW! Fuck Riles, what was that for?!”

Riley pinned Bee with a pointed glare. 

“Are you avoiding your soulmates?” Sage asks, gently placing your cup in front of you and taking the last seat at the table.

You turn beat red at the accusation. “Not exactly.” You mumble.

“Totally is. They found each other young so they’ve had five years together already and now this one seems to think they’re going to ruin everything, even though Min and Ji already know about them and have been looking for them.” Bee stated, sipping out of their own cup. “OW! Fuck, why are you guys always attacking me!?” This time, Bee glared at Sage instead of Riley.

“Because you make yourself an easy target. Listen, Y/n, if there’s one thing I’ve learned while owning this shop and spending way too much time people watching, it’s that no matter how hard you try to fight it, you’re meant to be with who you’re meant to be with. That's just the reality. If you were going to ruin their lives just by them finding you, you wouldn’t be their soulmate. Simple as that. Min and Ji have been in here a few times with Chris and Bin, they’re good ones, I guarantee you could never regret letting them in.”

“Your parents made a good choice with your name.” 

Sage grinned, gently lifting one shoulder in a shrug. “It’s a fun name to live up to.”

With that, Sage disappeared into the kitchen once again. 

“They’re right though. I don’t think you could ever regret letting them in.” Riley smiled, reaching over to squeeze your hand.

“Sage doesn’t know the boys are idols, do they?”

The way they called all of them by names Riley or Bee would refer to them as instead of any full name or stage name struck you as odd. Either they didn’t know or they were the bands inner circle, that thought making a strange sense of insecurity rise up your throat.

“Nah, Sage doesn’t really do technology and only really listens to the radio their grandfather had is his restaurant. They know next to nothing about the idol world, which is why the boys like coming here so much, it’s peaceful and off the beaten path.”

You nodded, sipping your drink. You could understand that, especially with the boys being idols with soulmates, a quiet coffee shop with next to no attention on it is the perfect place to be able to have uninterrupted time together.

Shifting in your seat to look around the small shop more, you found yourself wondering what your soulmates thought of the cozy shop and its somewhat eccentric owner. What were their regular orders here? Did they like having a regular order or did they change it up? You found yourself wanting to know how they decorate their rooms, if they like to read, what they like to watch. You wanted to get to know your soulmates personally in this lifetime, not just what you know of them from every life passed.

A few weeks ago, a few days even perhaps, that would’ve terrified you. You would have found yourself thinking of Jisung and Minho, and these thoughts plenty, but you always shut it down knowing it was fruitless, you wouldn’t get the answers anyways. But now that was different, now they knew you, now they wanted to get to know you just like you wanted to get to know them. Now everything was different, and the two men you love of your memories have a chance to become the men of your present if you so chose. 

While losing yourself in the thoughts, zoning out the conversation happening between the shop owner and your fellow Stray Kids soulmates, your eyes landed on a gorgeous trellis made of wood and covered entirely of vines and flora, reminding you painfully of the arch and altar at your wedding to the two men in one of the very first lives you had a memory of.

“Do not fret, Y/n. No one is going to show up to ruin your marriage tonight, and even if one were to try I am almost positive Changbin and Bee would stop them before you even knew about it.” Sage smiled at you over your shoulder in the mirror, helping you lace up the back of your outfit. 

“My father disowned me because of this wedding, it isn’t entirely implausible for him to not try and put a stop to it.” You sighed, worrying your fingers.

Sage pulled the straps a notch tighter than they needed to go, causing you to yelp and stare at your friend incredulously. “None of that.” Was all that was muttered before you were released and spun around, Sage’s hands finding their way to your shoulders. “Now, you are going to get out there, you are going to marry both of your incredible soulmates, and you are going to let your very oafishly protective elders stop anyone who threatens a bond as beautiful as the one you share with Minho and Jisung. Do you understand me?”

All you could do was nod, tears already welling in your eyes, as you pulled Sage into a tight hug. “Thank you, my friend.” 

“Oh goodness, have the waterworks started already?” Bee teased, leaning casually on the doorframe. “You look great, Y/n. And if you’re ready, so is literally everyone else.”

Squeezing Sage one last time, you smoothed out the non-existent ruffles in your clothes before exiting the building, finding Chan holding a bouquet and waiting patiently leaning against the outside of the tiny cottage. When he looked at you, the emotions welling in his eyes were all you’d ever wanted to see from your father, and while a part of you wished he would have accepted your soulmates, you're more than grateful for Chan stepping up to such an important role.

“Are you ready?”

“More ready than I have ever been for anything.”

And with that, you were led out into the field, to the altar put together with wildflowers and plants, to your soulmates eagerly awaiting you to join them, to the life you’d never regret despite what your father anticipated. 

Because standing there under the floral arch, Jisung’s hand in one of yours and Minho’s in the other, you knew you could never regret them in anything for even a moment.

Minho watched as his lover paced incessantly back and forth in the cutie dorms living room. 

Bee and Riley had informed them that they were in touch with Y/n, their third soulmate, and that they were going out with you for lunch today. Riley refused to tell either boy where they were going, knowing Jisung would show up without hesitation and that Minho would just to avoid leaving Jisung alone in any way.

“What if they decide they don’t want us?” Jisung finally spoke the words that had been weighing on both boys since you disappeared a few nights prior, and even more so since finding out you’d been in touch with Changbin’s and Chan’s soulmates.

If you were in touch with the other soulmates, you could have found Minho and Jisung easily at any point. If you were in touch, one of them found you that night, which means you were likely mere feet from Jisung, as he had been with Riley. There were questions flying through Minho’s head at the same rate as he could see them in Jisungs eyes, but he had to remain calm for his lover, if they were to both spiral, no one would be able to calm Jisung.

“They’re not going to decide that, Sungie. They just found out they have two soulmates, you can’t tell me it didn’t take us a while to process that one too. They’ll find their way to us when they’re ready.” Minho pulled the smaller boy into his arms, pressing gentle kisses to the crown of his head.

“What if they’re never ready, Min?” The youngers voice was soft and shaky, Minho felt his heart break at the sound.

“We can’t think like that, Ji. Y/n is having lunch with two of our family at this very moment, if they were never going to be ready they wouldn’t have agreed to that.” Minho tried to ignore the shiver that ran up his spine at saying your name aloud for the first time in this lifetime, he tried to ignore the peace brought to him just by your name alone. His hold on Jisung tightening, his head burying in the youngers neck. “We’re going to be okay.” He promised, ignoring the persistent what ifs echoing in the back of his head.

What if Jisung was right? What if you were never ready? What if you never chose them because of who they are in this life? As much as Minho wanted to negate those thoughts, memories of lives that turned out exactly like that made him question if this would be one of them. 

His hand tightened around their wrist, trying to pull them back to him. “Why do you keep running away?!”

“Because I have to!” You cried, finally turning to Minho, your eyes glassy with unshed tears. “I have to.” Your voice breaking on every word.

“You don’t have to. You can stay with me, we can figure it out.”

“Figure what out? Minho, soulmates are not the end all be all. As much as I would love to just run to you, run away from everything but you, I have responsibilities. I can’t just do what I want, not in this lifetime. We’ve found each other, awesome, great, we’re still in two completely different worlds. You’d be better off trying to find the one missing from our memories, you’d have a chance to have a life with them, to be happy with them. Do that Minho. Find our third soulmate, forget about me, and be happy. Because I can never be, that’s just not how this life played out for me.”

“You’re telling me that despite everything, you’re not choosing me?”

“God why do you have such selective hearing?! I don’t get a choice Minho. I never did! I was born into the fucking mafia, people don’t get to just walk away from that simply because they found their soulmate. 

“Soulmates are a weakness just waiting to be exploited, you’ll live your whole life constantly looking over your shoulder, constantly in danger, because of me. Is that really what you want for yourself? For whoever we’re missing? Is that the life you’d choose for someone else? Because I wouldn’t choose this life for anyone and I am begging you to leave Minho. Get out while no one knows, get out while there’s no chance for them to know.”

“But I’ll know.” He hated how broken his voice sounded even to his own ears. “And you’ll know.”

Your eyes searched his, looking for any sign that he would listen to you, that he’d walk away and never look back. But all you found was a horrifying sense of finality.

Minho wanted to take it away, let you be free of this world you were forced into. He wanted to take your hand in his and never let go, no matter the danger that came with it. 

He watched as your face morphed from the helpless near tears girl into a cold and emotionless woman, and it terrified him that you had been forced to learn to shed all resemblance of emotion within a blink. 

“I will not ever choose you over my family in this lifetime, Lee Minho. Your life isn’t of importance to me and if you’re so keen to get yourself murdered trying to talk me into leaving with you, then so be it. I won’t come to your rescue.” Saying the words felt like driving a knife right into your own heart and twisting, the look on his face as his grip loosened on your wrist only adding to the immense guilt. 

Ripping your arm away from his grasp, you turned on your heel, head held high, tears threatening your lashes, and left him standing there.

Jisung felt like he couldn’t breathe. All he could do was pace around like a lunatic, and every now and again stop to stare at his hands. The hands that held you, the hands that let you go.

Every time he closed his eyes, he could see the way your eyes lit up, the way your smile outshines every star and sunrise he’d ever witnessed. He could hear the perfect harmony of you and Minho singing together, the way you didn’t miss a single syllable in any of his rap parts.

Jisung thought finding you would bring him peace, completeness, the sense of warmth he already knew with Minho, and for those few minutes he had you, you did. 

Now, Jisung figured just knowing you were nearby, knowing you were close enough that maybe he would run into you again would ease the pain in his chest at the memories flashing through his mind, but when Riley informed him that they were on their way to get lunch with Bee, and you, and refusing to tell him where they were going, he felt his heart shatter all over again. His breathing growing uneven at the idea of you being close enough to enjoy lunch with two of his closest friends, and yet nowhere near him. 

So Jisung paced. He walked back and forth and back again until he was dizzy, trying to rid his body of a pent up energy he had no idea what to do with. If he stopped, he assumed he’d collapse into a full blown panic attack, if that were to happen Minho would have to calm him down, and if Minho has to focus on keeping Jisung level headed, he won’t be able to grieve your absence too. 

Jisung knew he was spiraling, knew he wouldn’t be able to bring himself out of it this time, but he had to pretend he was okay, he had to let Minho spiral if he needed to, which means he can’t. 

He tried to distract himself. He thought of Minho, of the way he curls into him in his sleep. How Minho nudges his hand, silently begging him to keep scratching his scalp when Jisung gets distracted and stops for any longer than five seconds. The memories of how the late afternoon light filters across Minho’s features, making him look like one of those beautiful paintings Hyunjin talks their ears off about. 

But within these thoughts of his incredible soulmate, flitters in you. The way you had a habit of playing with Jisungs hands, he wondered if you’d still do that in this lifetime. He fell into thinking of the way you would stick your tongue out and furrow your brows when you focused too hard on anything, from washing dishes to sewing up a stab wound. He wondered why he had memories of you sewing up stab wounds, and which lives those were from, what you were like in those lifetimes outside the flits of memories he was gifted from the short amount of time he got to be by your side in this one.  

No matter how hard he tried, everything kept coming back to you. Trying to distract himself by thinking of his other soulmate would lead to memories of him coming home to find both of you curled up together, fragments of time stilled in his mind of the two of you, smiling at each other, at him. He knew he would lose his mind if he were to be forced to remember you in every single way and never get to experience any of it outside of those few minutes he had on the street.

“You shouldn’t have come here.”

Your voice was like a melody to his ears, despite the harsh words echoing from it. 

“Maybe you shouldn’t be here.” He countered.

Despite the racing of his heart, the familiarity of you, he had a job. One that required getting through you at any cost. 

“Whatever it is you were sent here for, think very hard, is it worth the cost of your life?”

Jisung didn’t really put a cost on his life. He was raised and trained for one thing only, to carry out orders by any means necessary. And, as if you could sense that in him, you shifted your relaxed stance just slightly, preparing for an attack, but softened your features. 

“There is more to life than what you know, little one.”

At the nickname, he lunged, but it was as if you knew exactly what to expect, perrying and gently placing your hand on his arm, sending the both of you headlong into forgotten memories and lives. 

Coming to, Jisungs guard flew up. He didn’t move, didn’t attempt to attack you, but he shut down every possible emotion you could try to gather from him.

“I can show you a better world. One where you’d be in control of your own life, where you’d have an answer to what is and isn’t worth the cost of it.” 

Your words were gentle, everything about you seemed to be gentle. You softened your stance, returning to the relaxed position, no longer planning to attack him or counter any attacks from him.

“If you give me a chance, I could give you the world.”

“I think I want to meet them.”

Riley shot up from their position sprawled across your couch, Bee’s mouth dropping open in shock. 

“Are you serious?” Riley asked, searching your face for any sense of unease or dishonesty.

You’d been spending endless hours with the two, they’d quickly become your closest friends, aside from Lia. You’d also come to spend a lot of time at Sage’s cafe, quickly learning they are very much a piece of your many lives as well. You were still unsure of how exactly Sage fit into the grand puzzle of lifetimes spent with the same friend group, but you knew they did. Your suspicions only confirmed with Riley and Bee’s agreeance of having Sage within their past lives memories as well.

“Y/n/n, I need you to be so for fucking real right now, do you actually want to meet them?”

You’d seen Bee get serious about stuff before, they weren’t all jokes all the time, but the way they were staring at you at that moment, you knew you had to give the complete honest truth. Bee was protective, and while that insane protective streak has since expanded to you as well, you knew without a shadow of a doubt they’d evescrate you before you had a chance to even think about hurting Minho or Jisung.

“I’m terrified of it, that hasn’t changed. But maybe you’re right, maybe it will work out.” You smile at your friends. “I think I’m ready to risk finding out.”

It didn’t take even twenty whole minutes to get a meeting set up, Riley and Bee dragging you to your room to get you dressed and ready. 

“Is it really a good idea to do this now? I mean, it’s really fast, don’t they want time to like, I don’t know, prepare or something?” You’d been rambling the whole time Bee sat on your lap to hold you in place while fixing your hair. 

“No. Because ‘giving them time’ only gives you time to back out and the last thing we need right now is Ji going into another spiral because he thinks you don’t want them.” You could practically hear the roll of Bee’s eyes as they finally got off you, surveying their handiwork. 

Huffing, you accept your fate as Riley forces an outfit into your arms and shoves you into your bathroom, pulling the door shut.

After getting changed and taking in your appearance, you had to admit, Bee and Riley were good. You’d looked hot, almost to the point of it feeling like it was too much. Taking a deep breath and hyping yourself up in the mirror, you open the door to find Bee and Riley lounging in the hallway, both looking up upon hearing the door open, Riley grinning and Bee letting out a piercing whistle as they take you in, high fiving.

“You’re gonna knock 'em dead, babe.” Bee winked.

You blushed, but couldn’t help the smile stretching across your lips.

“Alright then, let’s do this.”

Not every life went smoothly, not every meeting was practically gold and rainbows. But this one was. Childhood friends and also soulmates is nearly unheard of, most people couldn’t fathom growing up with the memories of every life before the current. But you had met Minho and Jisung at the ripe age of five, Jisung was the baker's son, your mom was looking for work, and you and Jisung were forced to spend hours upon hours every day together.

At first neither of you really understood the full depth of your shared connection, but when you both met Minho, and shared all the same memories with him as well, your young minds didn’t have it in them to care. 

Growing up, the three of you would learn the full extent of what happened, but you never had the disconnect from the memories, having your past lives almost completely integrated with your current. 

“I wish we could find each other young in every lifetime. It made everything so much easier.” Jisung muttered into your hair. You hummed in contented agreement, fingers massaging Minho’s scalp.

“Unfortunately, that’s not gonna be the case Sungie. Some lives will be easier, some will be harder, there may even be some we never meet at all. But at least in this one, we’ll get to love each other for far longer than we went without.” Despite his words, Minho’s voice was a purr and you knew without a doubt that all three of you, whilst scared of what future lives may entail, were perfectly at peace in that one. 

Riley and Bee had never spent so much time away from the boys. 

From the very moment Changbin found Bee, they were a permanent fixture within the group. Bee helped 3Racha write and produce, they were in the studio almost as much as the group, and if they weren’t there, they weren’t far.

Riley, from the moment of finally accepting Chan at least, was never far either. They would always be around, making sure all of the boys were eating, weren’t overworking themselves, taking in enough fluids. 

To put it lightly, the gap of their absences was almost painfully noticeable in the weeks they seemed to all but vanish. Ever since their lunch with Y/n, it’s been as if the two were ghosts in the skz household. 

Jisung knew they were still around, the lack of moping from either of his fellow producers was proof enough, but he hadn’t seen a glimpse of them for days, maybe even weeks. 

He felt as if his world was fracturing. Minho was working tirelessly on new choreography, Bee wasn’t around to help him with songs, Riley wasn’t around to make sure he was drinking water, all of his members were enjoying their break before the next comeback, and he was exhausted. Jisung didn’t know how to get out of his head, and he wasn’t sure who to ask for help from. 

He knew if he kept the pace he was at, he’d inevitably spiral, and that wouldn’t be any good for anyone. Jisung had decided to hide away in his room and sleep, it was the best answer he could come up with, but just as sleep was threatening to finally overtake him, his door burst open, a downright giddy Changbin standing in the threshold.

“I’m about to take a nap, tell me about it later.” Jisung groaned, turning his back to his friend before his friend could say anything.

Changbin, not having any of it, stomped over and ripped the blankets away from the smaller boy, lifting him out of bed, carrying Jisung to the bathroom, despite his protests, and threw him in the shower.

Before Jisung could complain, yell, or even get a thought in, Changbin turned the water on, drenching him in seconds. 

“Y/n wants to meet, get cleaned up and ready to go in ten.” The older boy said before leaving the bathroom, closing the door behind him, and leaving an absolutely dumbfounded Jisung to slowly register the words, excitement growing with his understanding. 

````

Weeks. Minho had been trying to get the choreography for the next comebacks title track down for weeks. Everything he came up with didn’t feel right, and when it did he didn’t think it looked right. 

Hyunjin and Yongbok had offered to help, they’d even stayed with him, learning new dances, so Minho could see how it looked with multiple people, for a fresh perspective. But nothing was right. No matter how much Yongbok would swear he thought it flowed well, no matter how easy Hyunjin picked it up, nothing was right. 

Minho knew, deep down, it wasn’t the dances that were off, it wasn’t his choreography at all. He knew it was nothing to do with anything related to music that was wrong, but the only thing he could translate the misconstrued emotions to was dance. 

He created new dances every day to give his body and mind something to do, something to take away the wandering thoughts and memories. He’d rather tire himself to exhaustion than remember how it felt to have you by his side. 

Minho had come to the conclusion that you were not going to choose them, and he couldn’t blame you for it at all. His hopes were up after he’d seen his only hyung work things out with his soulmate, but not everyone could find it in themselves to be with an idol. Being an idol was hard enough, dating one was a whole other demon of its own. 

Despite knowing he has Jisung, despite being overwhelmingly worried about his lover, Minho simply needed to mourn the lover they never had a chance with. He needed his time to accept the fates cruelty upon their lives this time around, and then he’d help Jisung accept it as well. 

So he kept dancing. For weeks.

Minho had always found solitude in an empty dance studio. The way the mirrors would be completely empty save for his figure, the silence filling a typically boisterous room, there was just something peaceful about a place meant to be filled being empty.

He was stretching, preparing for hours of working out kinks in his newest routine completely unbothered. He wasn’t even supposed to be there. They were on break, all of the boys were off doing who knows what, and they were supposed to be relaxing leading up to their busy season. Yet Minho was in the empty dance studio, all by himself. 

He was lost in thoughts, already hacking away at the parts he wanted to rework, mentally trying to decipher how to fix them, when the door to the studio was nudged open. His eyes shifted to the door in the mirror, finding his only hyung standing in the doorway, a small smile gracing his features. 

“You might want to put your plans for the day on hold.” Chan said without even greeting him. 

“Why’s that?” Minho asked, being unable to stop the quirk of his brow. 

“Because we have lunch plans. Are you sweaty?” 

Minho shook his head, “Just got here, I was stretching.”

“Great, put on street shoes and let’s get out of here, we’ve gotta meet Bin and Ji at the dorms.” Chan smiled, moving to grab Minho’s bag for him. 

“What’s the rush?” Jisung hadn’t mentioned any lunch plans with the other producers, but to be fair he and Jisung had been somewhat distant from one another lately.

“It’s a soulmate lunch. Me and Riles, Bin and Beebee, you and your soulmates.”

Minho nodded his agreement, very used to soulmate lunches, working on lacing his street shoes when he froze in realization. 

Him and his soulmates.

````

To say you were nervous would be a gross understatement. You were downright jittery.

Bee and Riley were positioned on either side of you, both steadfast pillars of comfort bringing an almost overwhelming sense of security. You would be okay, because how could you not be with them by your side?

You’d agreed to meet at Sage's cafe for lunch, it was mutual ground and low foot traffic. Perfect for essentially a first meeting with your two idol soulmates and, from your understanding, Bee and Riley’s idol soulmates as well. 

You were ready to bolt. Ready to full on leg it home and lock your door, never to come out again. Despite the peace of knowing three of your closest friends would be there, meeting them was still an absolutely terrifying concept.

The what ifs a plague playing on repeat. What if they don’t like you? What if you ruin everything for them? What if their fans find out? What if, what if, what if. 

But with every bad what if, there was also a good one. What if you fit in seamlessly? What if they don’t care about their fans finding out? What if they are as scared and excited to finally meet you as you are to meet them? What if, what if, what if.

You knew you could bolt. You knew that Bee and Riley talked big, but if push came to shove and you needed an out, they’d have your back and get you out. You knew you could turn on your heel and walk the opposite way and they’d text their soulmates an update, and that yours would more than likely be devastated.

It was the fact that you could that kept you from doing so. The idea of Jisung and Minho waiting for you, the mental image of them deflating after hearing you’d change your mind, the thought of them being upset due to your actions, pushed you forward, kept you walking, and you knew no matter what you walked in on, you wouldn’t be able to back out now. You wouldn’t be the one to break the loves of your every lifetime. 

Seeing the familiar shop, your heart was in your throat. There would be no turning back, no changing your mind. In choosing to meet them, you chose to give them the ball, everything would be up to them, and the closer you got to the cozy shop, the more you realized you were truly okay with that.

You were never actually nervous about meeting your soulmates, you were giddy about it. 

As you pushed the door open, letting the familiar sound of its little bell notify Sage of your arrival, your eyes found your soulmates in record time, both sat at the table under the trellis covered in flora and vines. Your breath caught at the smiles gracing both of their faces, and you knew.

Even though soulmates can be a painful thing, you didn’t think you’d ever be able to run away from yours again. 

a/n: ahhhhh it’s almost overrrr😭🥺🥺 this was gonna be a lot angstier and then it just, wasn’t. and idk what that’s all about but I like how it turned out lol. I dragged my feet on writing this part for actual weeks and then wrote like, 5k of it in two days, so I hope it was good haha! thank you so so much for reading, please let me know your thoughts!!🫶🫶🫶

taglist: @starlostastronaut @mariteez @tired-of-life-86 @skizmee @elisiexoxo @cutiespaghetti @httpswilloww @sundownimup-1 @lolareadsimagines @rockstrhanji @quokkampi @kayleefriedchicken @vivirantshere @ciellebys

[reds-writings]

souls further entwined

(pairing: rust cohle x fem!reader)

a/n: finally an update for these two! sorry to keep you waiting! I've got a lot of life changes in the works so updates might come a little slower over the next few months depending but i hope this tides y'all over for a bit! this takes place sometime after if only tonight we could sleep

word count: roughly 2.5k

warnings: (PLEASE LOOK BEFORE CONTINUING) discussions of abortion, child loss, forced/unsafe medical procedures, bad family situations, angst angst, cursing, semi-not-so-smut at the end, minors avert your gaze or else!!

The hidden gem of a restaurant that Rust had brought you to somewhere in the French Quarter was rather nice with its live jazz band playing in the corner and lavish decor. The tinkering of silverware layered on top of the low rumblings of fellow diners did what it could to fill the void of silence that had long settled between you and the man sitting adjacent. He had spontaneously asked you– well more like told you to go out with him tonight. Something about wanting to do things right once and for all after all this tiptoeing around.  The whole notion had taken you off guard, admittedly.

You’d been buzzing so bright leading up to tonight that you could've probably put a lightning bug to shame. He’d asked you on a real date. A step forward from the semi-clandestine meetings you’d both been settling on for far too long now. It was unlike him to outwardly admit to much but you doubted it was a wide occurrence that he’d take a girl on a date just because he was bored. This had meaning.

With that thought swirling in mind, you’d found your best dress and took what constituted as way too long of a pampering shower to best prepare for a promising night out with the man you'd become so deeply enamored with. It wasn’t often you got to get all prettied up for some fun given that work always managed to swallow you whole. 

God you’d been so excited. 

From the time you’d gotten into Rust’s Ford up until you’d sat down to eat he had yet to utter a single word to you. Hell, he’d hardly even managed to look at you either and it was starting to cause a distasteful rock that went by the name of dread to sink lower and lower in your gut. 

Dexterous fingers stayed picking at the table cloth as a form of lengthy distraction and you fought the bubbling urge to snatch his hand and demand what gives. It wasn’t hard to miss the anxiety bleeding from his form with those tense shoulders and that telltale faraway look in his eyes. You didn’t want to continue the cycle of jumping to conclusions when it came to the routine lack of forthcoming involving his more vulnerable thoughts out of insecurity so you bit the bullet,

“Y’know…usually on a date there’s a bit more talkin;. Maybe startin’ with questions like ‘what’s your favorite color’-- it’s blue by the way, or ‘where’d you get that lovely dress’. Could also do with lookin’ a little less green in the gills.”

That got him to stop fidgeting but a response was not yet prompted. You sighed and looked down at the vibrant cloth napkin in your lap,

“If you’re startin’ to regret this we can just forget about it and head back-”

“I don’t know if I can be what you need.” He all but blurted and it had your head shooting back up in suprise.

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t…I don’t find myself being suited for marriage like before. I can’t give you kids because I don’t think it’s right-”

“Wait a minute just-...slow your roll for a second.” Your mind was going a mile a minute at his frank outburst and you were having trouble pinpointing just where it all came from. 

“First of all, I don’t necessarily need the promise of marriage to feel fulfilled. I’m about to hit 30 soon enough and I’ve supplied plenty for myself that I'm not sure some flimsy marriage papers can add on to. I’m not just sayin’ all this to make you feel better either so don’t go down that route.” You were tenderly stern in your delivery to make sure what you were saying was actually sticking without sounding offended.

All he could give was a slight nod as the tip of his thumb came to his mouth: a nervous tic.

“Secondly…” You cleared your throat slightly and gave yourself a moment of pause. The latter concern wasn’t that of an easy subject. For either of you. Besides your family and probably Marty, not many knew of your reality when it came to the idea of starting a family. 

“I can’t have children. So that wouldn’t even be on the table to begin with I suppose.” 

That seemed to stun Rust. His expression working out how, what, and when this came to be. You cleared your throat again. Talking about it was never easy no matter how much time passed.

“The gist of it is…well I got knocked up when I was sixteen. Total accident, shocker. And um…my pa didn't approve. Not one bit, bein’ the respectable county figure he was as a seasoned lawyer n' all.” 

Your sinuses began to sting but you willed away any threat of tears as you tried to explain. Rust didn't say a word, his expression hardening minutely with a knowing sense of where this was headed.

“I didn’t wanna listen. I was scared of course but the boy I was foolin’ around with at the time was nice and had a family who wanted to be involved so that was enough for me. My uppity family could shove it for all I cared,” You scoffed wryly but continued, “But pa was adamant. He couldn’t have some little whore of daughter muckin’ things up but we were a church family so abortion was obviously out of the question. At least one would think that was the case,” 

“Long story short he dragged me to some back alley clinic where things would be kept under wraps. They fuckin’ botched it of course and made me sterile. Didn’t really know how bad it was until another loss and a visit with the doctor after trying with a serious boyfriend some time ago…” You shrugged as you fiddled with your unused silverware. You hadn’t spoken with your family since then. Letting you be mutilated for the sake of preserving a frivolous public image was a hard thing to let go of.

You remember how sick you were afterward. Infection from the procedure and a decent amount of blood loss, go figure. You only recall the house's maids nursing you back.

Your pa had never been able to look you in the eye again. Your mama just pretended nothing had ever happened the way it did.

Sometimes your mind had the habit of taking a dark turn every now and then, wondering if they would’ve felt any remorse if their forced course of action ended up actually killing you. With a selfishness like they had you couldn't help but doubt it. 

They had always taken more pride in your sister anyway. 

“So yeah…you don’t have to worry about the possibility of kids when it comes to me. It’s not like with our line of work it’d be much of a good idea anyway. Marty’s a prime example I'd reckon.” Your laugh was brittle in a weak attempt to lift the heavy weight you felt like you’d set over the mood. 

Rust’s large hand reached over to encase your shaking one to garner your attention. Looking up you weren’t met with pity or disgust, but with recognition. One shared in the experience of grief. Of having something meant to be so precious ripped from you in the cruelest of ways. He didn’t feel sorry for you. He understood you. More than anyone else had or could. 

“You’re enough for me, Rust. I don’t know if you’ve noticed by now but there’s not much you can do to send me runnin’ for the hills. I like you as you are and I don’t need more. I wouldn’t expect you to change your mind over somethin’ like that anyway. It just wouldn’t be fair to ask.” His eyes glazed over at your words and he had to let go of the troubled breath he’d been holding. He brought your hand to his lips and kept them there as an unspoken thank you. 

After a moment or two he set your hand back on the tabletop, still grasped in his. 

“How about we find some shitty dive and let loose over there. This place is startin’ to feel a lil’ too stuffy for me.” Your light-hearted jab made the corner of his lips quirk up before he nodded,

“Yes, ma'am.” 

—

After a relaxing drive accompanied by the tunes of Willie Nelson in search of a dive bar that was sufficient enough, the ice from all the worries of earlier had melted as fast as they had formed. The establishment you ended up coming across was a more than welcome change of pace compared to that of the restaurant (as lovely as it was). It wasn’t big by any means but there was room to dance and plenty of open spots to sit around and drink. 

You looped your arm through his and leaned into his side as you made your way to settle down. There wasn’t enough time or clarity earlier to truly appreciate just how good he looked for the occasion but now you had all the time in the world to shamelessly ogle.

He’d donned a black dress shirt, forgoing a tie and leaving a few buttons undone in a way that had you feeling dizzy, as well as a nice fitting pair of jeans that had plenty of passersby’s eyes glued to his shapely form.

“The ladies of Louisiana might just beat me up for a chance with you. If your face ain’t motivation enough your ass surely will be.” You nudged him and he shook his head mirthfully. 

“One would say jealousy is unbecoming.”

“Who said anythin’ about jealousy? I’ve earned my stake in claimin’ you as eye candy fair and square. They can try all they want but they were just too slow to the draw.”

“With your pension for being scrappy, I’d say they wouldn’t have much of a chance to begin with.” 

“Gee, is that the only reason they don’t stand a chance?” You quirked a brow. You knew the answer but pestering him to fess up hardly ever got you far. 

“What d’ya wanna drink, Miss Envy.” He drawled, not one to fall into your traps so easily and you flicked him with narrowed eyes.

“Last time I checked my name don’t even come close to rhymin’ with envy so you can quit with that.” 

The shithead just smirked.

“I’ll take a jack and coke. Now run along.” You waved him away and he just shook his head. In his short absence you’d found a high top and decided to claim as your territory for the night. The music was clearer over this way and your heart jumped at the beginning notes of Fleetwood Mac’s Beautiful Child.

Upon his return, Rust had hardly been able to set the drinks down before you were grabbing at him to park yourselves out on the dancefloor. A few other couples were swaying in place so you figured it wouldn’t be all that awkward to steal a moment for yourselves.

It was strange, being able to be so open in your affections without the curious eyes of Marty or anyone else from the precinct to make judgments. You could just be yourselves. It was a breath of fresh air after all this time.

As the song gained momentum, you wrapped your arms around his neck, toying with the hairs at his nape while his strong ones made home around your waist to pull you in closer. A small spark of pride lit up your chest at him being able to be this comfortable with you.

As you rested your head along the expanse of his chest you felt the feather-light stamp of his kiss at your crown. The tenderness of the simple act almost had you turning into one hell of a mush puddle. You settled on burrowing deeper if that were any more possible as Stevie sang on. Fighting the effect he had on you was always going to be a losing battle. 

You wouldn’t trade this moment for a damned thing. 

—

It was nearing almost three in the morning by the time you arrived back home. Your mind had been pleasantly warmed by the drinks and all the dancing. Rust even seemed to have a newfound glow to him and it was triggering something innately carnal in you. 

Taking an opportunity from the pocket of silence, you scooted along the Ford’s bench seat to make a place for yourself along his lap. 

The relaxed daze displayed across his features was something you’d never had the pleasure of seeing before. It was nothing like the faraway trance he’d trap himself in with all the pills and whatnot in fruitless efforts of chasing undisturbed sleep. No, this was true content. 

“I had a good time.” You didn’t mean to sound so coy but it couldn’t be helped as your hands crept up to frame his fine face.

“That’s good. I’m glad.” He hummed as he took in every feature your beautiful face had to offer. It was like striking gold. Especially in this expansive wasteland of a state.

“When we get a chance we should do it again. S’nice to go out…feel normal…” Hair lying in his line of light distracted you as you moved it out of the way with a gentle sweep. The truck’s cab could probably burst with the steadily increasing tension so you did what any normal woman would do with such a man in front of them and kissed him with all you had. 

It started out syrupy and languid as if you had all the time in the world to be out macking in the car like a pair of careless teenagers. Your skin hummed like a live wire at his sudden grasp on the plush fat of your hips which served as the green light to go further. 

Your delicate fingers carded through his soft waves as the muscle of his tongue took dominance over the kiss. A meek whimper cracked within your throat as you tried to keep up with what little oxygen you had remaining. When Rust kissed, it was all-consuming. It was no act he took passively when it came to you which had been made crystal clear to you by now. With each pass of his wet-hot caress, you could feel everything he wanted to say to you without complication of expression through words. 

His mouth traveled across the apple of your cheek down the expanse of your neck, nipping and sucking with such lax reverence it had you arching as if you could fuse your ribs with his. Souls to be permanently intertwined.

With a starting grind of your hips that your body had no willpower to control you could feel him hardening with each intensifying roll. His choked moan had you remembering where you were and you’d be damned if your first actual night with him was in this old, damned truck right outside your house. 

“D’ya wanna take this inside?” You offered in a breathless huff, trying to catch your breath in vain. You’re sure that even in the dark of the truck’s cabin the heat of your face could set the whole space aglow. He nipped at your bottom lip and soothed it with another peck,

“I would.”

The sudden tangle of limbs clambering to make haste towards the beacon of your front door would’ve been downright hysterical had you any hubris. 

a/n: sorry to blue ball you lmao. I HOPE THIS WASN'T CRINGE AHHHHH. i'll probably come back and edit this later. feedback is always appreciated!

[mybiasisexo]

may i request 50 for the drabble game please? feel free to make it a pt 2 of personal trainer yeol 😂 but up to your creative flow! thank you 🩵

Distracted pt. 2 -- Cardio 🏃🏻‍♂️

Part 1 Genre: smut | personal trainer!au Pairing: Chanyeol x f.Reader Length: 2.4k Warnings: language | explicit sexual scenes

a/n: i feel like you dont have to read pt 1 if you dont want to, but it does add some context 😇. imma be honest...this was hard asf 😭. im not v confident in writing smut lol i get so nervous 😂 im just a girl ok?!??!! but yeaaah i hope it quenches yall thirsts cause youre obv THIRSTYYYY 💦😂 and if its bad just lie and tell me i did good lmfaoo

DRABBLE GAME | MASTERLIST

Two days passed before you’re back at the gym. When you found Chanyeol, he informed you it was a cardio day and left you to it.

Your anxiety soared while you struggled to climb the stair master. He told you to do forty minutes, so he must hate you. You were going to have to get a new trainer, huh? Hell, at this rate, a whole new gym! If you’d known this was how your relationship with Chanyeol would be after taking his offer, you would’ve declined it. Better yet, he should’ve never offered in the first place!

Personally, you didn’t regret what happened. It felt like the shaken bottle of your shared desire finally exploded. Actually, you did have one regret, and that was the fact you’d had only a taste—literally for Chanyeol—of that desire.

Still, you understood if Chanyeol had any qualms about the situation. He was your trainer after all. Eating your client out on company time probably wasn’t the best move. The distance he was currently giving you was telling. He rarely made you do cardio, and when you did it was for warm up. Was this his way of telling you that was a one-off thing? Was he silently hoping you wouldn’t show up? Despite the burning in your thighs, you pressed on even harder, needing a distraction from your racing thoughts.

“Too much?” The deep voice caused your lower abdomen to burn. Checking behind you, you saw Chanyeol moseying in your direction. Your forty minutes was up and you were now dragging your stiff legs to the locker room.

“I’ve never been on that thing longer than five minutes,” you whined. “And I might’ve pushed myself too hard. My thighs feel like they’re about to pop.”

He winced and followed you into the room. You plopped onto a bench with a sigh, closing your eyes and tilting your head back as you relished in your relief.

Your body tensed back up at the sensation of hands on your calf. You whipped your head forward, eyes sprang open to the vision of Chanyeol kneeling in front of you.

“What are—oh!” Your question turned into a moan as his thick fingers started messaging your sore muscles.

“We don’t want them to get too sore, now do we?” He murmured, focused entirely on your legs.

You melted under his hands and fought the little sensual sounds his innocent touch elicited from you. He worked on your calves first, slowly venturing higher to your painfully tight thighs. You knew he had to feel the goosebumps prickling your skin in answer to his ministrations, but he remained silent as he worked, and you wondered if this was his attempt at an apology. Well, you’d take it. It felt way too good not to.

“I’ve never done a day of straight cardio,” you said, breeching the topic of your concern.

Chanyeol sighed heavily. “I thought it would be best for today….”

“So that you could leave me alone?” You questioned.

“Yes,” he admitted. “But not for the reason you’re thinking.”

“How do you know what I’m thinking?”

He finally lifted his head and your breath caught at the sight. Chanyeol looking up at you from between your legs had your last shared memory come to mind, where he was in a very similar position.

A grin lifted a corner of his mouth, as if he knew where your mind had gone, and it only proved the point he was about to make.

“If your pouting throughout your workout was any indicator, I imagine you think I regret what happened between us.”

A thrill shot through you at the word: us. You tried your best to hide your pleasure before the man in front of you could notice.

“You don’t?” You asked. “Because I understand if you do. I don’t want you to get in trouble. I can get a new trainer or even go to a diff—ow!”

He’d put too much pressure on a particularly sore spot. He threw you a deceptively innocent look. “There was a knot.”

You scoffed. He ignored you, answering your question instead. “As much as I appreciate the sentiment, there’s no need to do that. Just because I licked your pussy doesn’t mean I can’t be professional.”

Your fingers curled around the bench as a wave of arousal swept over you. You let out a breathless laugh. “That’s a very professional thing to say.”

He shrugged. “If you want a different trainer, I won’t stop you. I did cross a line.”

He switched thighs. “But I’m hoping you don’t.”

That shocked you. He was avoiding your stare, concentrating on the thigh he was rubbing. You could sense the sincerity of his words, his vulnerability. You knew you weren’t going to trade trainers. It was only the doubt on his end that spurred the suggestion in the first place.

“Why?”

He peeked up at you, his fingers dangerously close to your now throbbing apex.

“Because I like you.”

You blanched. “You do?!”

He laughed at you. “How can I not? You’re silly—”

“I beg your pardon?”

“—And pretty, and mean—”

“When have I ever been mean to you?” You asked skeptically.

“You haven’t heard the way you talk to me at the end of core day. Plus, you have a glare that could scare the devil.”

That made your back straighten with pride. “Damn right I do.”

“It’s sexy,” he assured. “Everything about you is sexy, it’s unfair. And the most unfair thing of all?”

He bent his head down and pressed his lips to your knee. The tender action trapped your breath in your lungs. He peeked up at you from under his lashes. “You taste just like honey.”

“I do?” You choked out.

He nodded, pressing another kiss above his last. “It’s all I can think about. That’s the reason I sent you off to cardio. I feared I wouldn’t be able to control myself from begging you for another taste.”

He bit the fat of your thigh, dragging his teeth over the tender flesh. The sharp sting of his teeth had you gasping, your hips rolling slightly.

“I knew I’d end up here,” he groaned to himself. He stared up at you with pleading eyes. “So, can I? Taste you again? Let me make up for torturing you today, hmm?”

He kissed up your thigh. When he reached the joint of your hip, you shoved him hard enough for him to fall backwards. He caught himself from sprawling on the floor and looked at you in bewilderment. For a brief moment, you acknowledged that your workouts with him had been paying off if you could knock him over now.

“No.”

“No?” He repeated as if he’d misheard you.

Smirking, you crossed a leg over the other. “I think I deserve a bigger reward. For all my efforts today.”

He didn’t comprehend at first, but then understanding flashed on his face. Still, he remained silent, reluctant to answer in case he was wrong.

“What do you think?” You urged. Your gaze flickered to his crotch and a low grumble rumbled from within his chest.

“If you think that’s what you deserve….”

“I do.”

“Then it’s yours.”

You bit your lip in excitement as he stood up. He hovered over you, reaffirming just how big he was. You’d have to tilt your head allllll the way back to look into his eyes. You wouldn’t know though, because you were too busy reaching for the band of his shorts, thankful that all you had to do was pull them down.

He grabbed your hands before you could yank the offensive barrier off.

“So eager,” he chuckled. You quickly swallowed the whine you were about to let out, refusing to prove another of his points. You decided a glare would send a better message.

“Scary.” He pretended to quake in fear before cupping your chin, tilting your head up as he bent down to bring your lips together for a passionate kiss. It’s wet and all tongue, as if he was settling on these lips to satiate his yearning.   

You made out for a while, until you grew impatient. You wanted to return the favor for last time. You’d tried, after he tore an intense orgasm from you, you’d reached for his shorts just as you had now, and he’d stopped you then as well. He’d promised that eating you out was enough, but it’d left you longing for him.

With him distracted by your mouth, you slithered your hands back to the band of his shorts and slowly dragged them to his mid-thigh. The action made him pull away so that he could narrow his eyes at you accusingly. It made you laugh, but the sight of his dick took away your humor. There was nothing funny about that. You grew intimidated by the size as it bounced in front of your face.

“What?” he asked, sounding rather smug. “Having second thoughts, Sweetie?”

“Absolutely not.” You wasted no more time putting Chanyeol into your mouth the best you could. Your determination made him chuckle, but the feeling of your tongue swiping across his sensitive skin left him groaning. Tears blurred your vision from your effort, but it didn’t deter you. Chanyeol soon took the reins, holding himself up with one hand against the lockers behind you, his other hand holding the back of your head to keep it steady so that he could fuck himself into your mouth.

“That’s it, pretty girl,” he huffed. He decided to test your limits by shoving himself in until your nose pressed against his pelvis. Immediately, you’re gagging around him and his head fell back. “I knew you could take all of me. So good. You feel so good. Shit.”

You couldn’t help but moan from his praises, fighting the urge to play with yourself. The sound vibrated around him, causing his hips to jerk, sinking deeper into you.

He dragged himself out. “Shit. I need to be in you.”

“Fucking finally,” you coughed.

He barked a laugh. “Hey, you’re the one who wanted to suck me off.”

“True.” You sighed dreamily. He shook his head and started undressing. You followed suite, eager to get to the main event.

When you’re standing in front of him completely naked, he took a few steps back to get a good look. “Fuck, you are so beautiful.”

The compliment made you light up. It was so genuine and sweet, it made you want to please him even more. “Then touch me.”

He obliged you straightaway. Large hands roamed your body, lips wandered the expanse of your neck and chest before settling on your lips.

Without breaking the kiss, Chanyeol lifted you up to lay you gently on the bench. It wasn’t the most comfortable, but it would have to do. He slid you towards the edge where he stood and practically squatted to line himself up to you.

“Are you sure you want this?” He asked. He rubbed his cock against your soaked pussy distractedly as he awaited your consent.

You nodded quickly. “Yes. Dear god, yes, Chanyeol! I want this. I want you.”

“You want me?” You asked, teasingly.

“So bad,” you babbled. “Please. Please fuck me. Fuck me, Chanyeol. Now. Shit.”

His smile was so large, you swore you could see all of his teeth. “If you insist.”

Then he’s pushing into you. The stretch had your jaw dropping, had you holding onto the bench for dear life as he found a steady rhythm. His dick had you feeling crazy. Every thrust pushed a moan out your throat, as your head snapped from one side to the other, and words unintelligently left your swollen lips. All you could register in your lust ridden mind was him and the intense pleasure he selflessly gave. You’d never experienced anything like it. Chanyeol reached into your fucking soul, leaving you quaking from overstimulation. You wanted him to stop, needed a moment to gather yourself, but he wasn’t allowing you a moment of rest. You were too far gone to voice it anyway.

Little did you know, you were also too much for him. Too wet. Too warm. He’d imagined fucking you plenty of times, but the real thing was indescribable. Unlike anything he could’ve conjured up. You were beyond anything he could’ve conjured. “So perfect. You’re so perfect for me, Angel.”

He gathered you into his embrace, holding your damp body tightly against his own. Lifting you slightly off the bench, he picked up his pace. Your tortured sounds were now directly in his ear, tantalizing him. His strokes grew messy, fueled by a desperation that bridged onto the animalistic.

“I’m gonna come,” you urgently warned, but it wasn’t enough time. You were violently cumming as soon as you finished speaking. Your mouth fell open in a silent scream as you stiffened in Chanyeol’s arms. Toes and fingers curled as your head fell back, eyes rolling. You started squeezing him so damn tight he could barely move inside you.

“Oh fuck,” he muttered, barely having enough time to pull out. He came on your lower stomach in intense spurts that had his hips jerking hard.

Depleted, he fell to his knees, unable to hold himself up any longer. His head rested against your thigh as he fought to catch his breath.

“Holy hell,” he groaned. “You’re fucking amazing.”

You’d been staring unseeingly at the ceiling since he pulled out, but his words brought you back to reality. “I think you killed me.”

He chuckled and spanked your thigh playfully. “Hurry up and shower. I owe you dinner.”

You struggled into a sitting position so that you could see him. He had a content lazy grin on his face, eyes nearly closed as he leaned against you looking so cute your heart started to ache. Feeling sentimental, you started combing your fingers through his sweaty hair. “Like a date?”

He became thoughtful, lifting a finger to play with his cum dripping down your belly. His touch reignited your desire instantly, but you brushed it off.

“I would like it to be, yes.”

You’re absolutely beaming. “Okay. I’ll hurry.”

He backed away so that you could get up to head to the showers. Right before you entered, you turned to him. “Aren’t you going to join me?”

He jumped off the floor, trailing after you with a mischievous grin. “And here I thought you hated cardio.”

[bitethedevil]

The Devil's Dinner Party (Raphael x Tav)

Chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 (Finished)

Link to the fic on AO3

Summary: Tav accepts Raphael’s invitation to a dinner party after she had handed him the Crown of Karsus. None of her companions show up, so it is just her, Raphael, and a bunch of Raphael’s favored clients. Raphael is suspiciously kind to her, but everything might not be as perfect as it seems. (This is only the first chapter, it’s going to be a longer thing)

(AN: This isn’t super edited and it’s the first fic that I’ve ever posted, so bear with me. English isn’t my first language either, so there might be some odd words or weird grammar some places. I am an English major though, so hopefully it shouldn’t be too bad. This fic has just been gnawing on my mind since I started it yesterday. There will be more chapters.)

Tav took a deep breath to calm her nerves and adjusted her dress before stepping into the portal. She arrived in the foyer of the House of Hope in a swirl of embers and smoke. A tiefling servant greeted her politely when she appeared. Tav was ushered into the area where Raphael had brought them in the beginning of their adventure all that time ago. It looked the same, except the table in the center of the room had been switched out with a larger one.

She looked around the room in search of a familiar face. She cursed her companions internally when she noticed that she was the only one of them who had accepted Raphael’s invitation. She had thought that at least Astarion would have jumped at the chance to attend such a fancy event.

However, she was not the only person there. There were at least fifteen other people present who she had no idea who was. None of them devils. At least not as far as Tav could tell. Most likely, they were also favored clients of Raphael.

All the people around her were dressed in opulent clothing and jewelry. Tav felt grateful that she had decided on buying new clothes for the occasion, despite her almost attending in an old dress she had found in the back of her closet.

A drink was placed in her hand by one of the servants. She took a long sip to calm her nerves. She looked around for the one familiar face that she knew for certain would be attending, but the devil she knew was nowhere to be seen. Most likely he was somewhere waiting for the perfect moment for his dramatic entrance. Tav rolled her eyes at the thought and took yet another sip of her drink.

She suddenly noticed that a few of the other guests started looking in her direction. She jumped when she felt a hand being gently placed on her back.

“My, what have we here?” a familiar voice purred.

Raphael came up beside her. He was wearing his usual smug smile and even fancier clothes than she was used to seeing him in.

“I’m glad you came,” he said with a slight bow. “It shows that you have better manners than your dear friends, it seems.”

“So it seems…” Tav said, still feeling slightly bitter about the fact that they did had not shown up. “I apologize on their behalf. I’m sure they had good reasons.”

“I’m sure…” Raphael said with a smile that did not quite reach his eyes. “But no matter. You are here. The guest of honor whose name went on the contract that ensured me the crown. Without you, there would be no celebration tonight.”

“Mm…right…” Tav said quietly while absentmindedly swirling the contents of the glass she was holding.

There it was again. That nauseous feeling of guilt and anxiety that she had also felt when she had handed the Crown of Karsus to him. It had been her name on the contract. It had been her who handed him an artifact that potentially could destroy worlds and gods know what else.

It had been the whole reason that she could not decline his invitation as her friends had. Most of her companions had wanted to turn a blind eye to the idiotic actions of their leader and forget about it. Tav needed to see. Her attendance was a desperate attempt to gain some semblance of control over the situation.

“And if I may be so bold…” Raphael said in a hushed voice, shaking her from her train of thought. “What a precious sight. To see you in proper clothes instead of that ragged armor you wore when we first met. You look wonderful, my dear.”

Tav blinked as she wrestled herself away from the anxious thoughts in her head to return to reality. She dumbly looked down at her dress and then back at Raphael.

“Oh, thank you,” she said and forced a polite smile. “You look nice as well.”

Raphael gave her a smile and briefly squeezed her shoulder before walking to the center of the room to properly welcome his guests and invite them to sit down.

The dinner itself was as one could expect when dining in the House of Hope. There was every kind of food that you could possibly imagine. There were also expensive wines from all corners of the realms. The servants constantly ran back and forth to make sure that no one lacked anything.

To Tav’s great relief, she had been seated beside a talkative stranger, so she did not have to sit through the dinner in silence. The stranger was a young half-elf, who introduced himself as Rolim. Tav could gather that he was a merchant of some sort. He was quite handsome with his sharp elvish features. He had blonde hair, brown eyes, and a bright smile when he talked.

Tav barely got a word in while he was talking, but she found that she did not mind. He talked excitedly about the success of his business and the new mansion he had recently acquired. No doubt with the help of a certain devil, Tav suspected.

The few times Tav turned her attention away from the young man, she noticed Raphael unashamedly studying her from the other end of the table. He did not eat, but simply drank wine while he looked as if he was barely listening to the two people on either side of him who were eagerly speaking to him.

“…Don’t you agree?” Rolim asked her and pulled her attention away from Raphael’s gaze.

“Hm?” she said, having no idea what he was asking her.

“That Baldur’s Gate might be a promising place to expand my business to. That is where you said you were from, yes?” Rolim said with a smile.

“Oh yes, it is,” Tav said with a polite smile. “Certainly. Although I have to admit that I don’t know a whole lot about how it is to run a business in the Gate.”

“I think it could be promising,” Rolim continued cheerfully. “Perhaps I could visit sometime, and you could show me around the city?”

Oh. He was flirting with her, Tav realized.

“Hm, yes,” she said with a forced smile. “Perhaps…May I ask you something, Rolim?”

“Of course!” he said.

Tav leaned a bit closer to him and lowered her voice so that no one else would eavesdrop.

“I hope it’s not rude to ask, but why is it that you were invited here exactly?” she asked.

“Oh,” he spoke in an almost exaggerated hushed voice to match Tav’s. “I can’t really tell you the specifics, but I am a client of Raph’s.”

Tav suppressed a giggle. ‘Raph’? No doubt Raphael hated that.

“Right,” she said. “I thought as much. Just curious.”

Their talk was interrupted by a clinging on glass. Raphael got up from his chair to hold a speech. He started out by thanking those who had attended. Then it turned into a predictably dramatic and theatrical speech about his desire for the crown and his eventual success. He then, surprisingly, also credited the person who had brought him the crown. He spoke warmly of Tav exclusively, completely disregarding her fellow adventurers, much to her discomfort since everyone was staring at her while he did. She forced a smile until it was over.  

She was beyond relieved when it was finally over, and the other guests had stopped staring at her like she was a monkey in a zoo.

“It was you?” Rolim asked once the moment was over. “You defeated the elderbrain? Why didn’t you say? You’re the hero of Baldur’s Gate!”

“It wasn’t just me,” she said a bit too harshly. It annoyed her that her companions had not been credited in Raphael’s speech. “It was me and a whole lot of other people that I could not have done it without.”

“Still, you did it!” Rolim said excitedly. “I’ve heard the bards sing of it even in my corner of Faerûn.”

To Tav’s luck, people were beginning to leave the table. She saw her opportunity to escape the conversation and did not hesitate to take it.

“I’m going to get some air,” she said hurriedly. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

“Alright, but when you get back, I want to hear all about it!” Rolim called after her.

She walked through the house, desperate to get away from all the noise and curious looks for a moment. She found a balcony. She leaned up against the railing and closed her eyes for a moment while taking deep breaths.

All of it was just too much. She hated it. She shouldn’t have gone. She wasn’t a hero. A hero would not have handed the crown to a bloody devil. Baldur’s Gate might have been saved, but who could say what destruction the future might have in store with such powers in Raphael’s hands?

There was a reason why she had isolated herself after the defeat of the elderbrain. She never attended the events that she had been invited to by the city, because she could not look any of the people there in the eyes while they celebrated her. Her companions. Her friends. They were the real heroes. They had all suffered and overcome so much, even before the whole tadpole business. She might have wasted all of it by making one stupid decision.

She took another deep, shaky breath to calm her nerves and stop the tears that were threatening to fall. The view of the hellscape of Avernus did nothing to calm her. It was disorientating. It was night, but still it looked like it was day over the jagged and desolate red landscape.

“Enjoying the view?”

She jumped and turned around to find Raphael sitting down on one of the chairs behind her.

“You have got to stop scaring the shit out of me,” she said. “It’s getting old, Raphael.”

Raphael chuckled.

“Language,” he chided. “It’s hardly my fault that you are such a nervous little thing.”

She rolled her eyes.

“I’m sure your guests miss you,” she said. “I will be back in a moment. I just needed some air. I’m not going to snoop around in your house or anything.”

“I know you wouldn’t dare,” Raphael said smoothly while studying her with a tilted head. “My guests will be fine. No doubt they can fill each other’s ears with mindless chatter instead of mine. Sit.”

He gestured to the chair on the opposite side of the small table beside him.

“It’s fine, really,” she said. “I just needed a moment.”

“Sit,” he ordered again. “Something is clearly on your mind, dear.”

She could hear from his tone that he would not let it go, so she sat down.

Raphael snapped his fingers and a hookah appeared on the table. Tav raised an eyebrow and looked from the hookah to Raphael. They sat in silence for a moment as Raphael prepared it. Despite her restless mind, she could not help being slightly amused at the odd gesture.  

Raphael placed the mouthpiece at the end of the hose between his lips, took a long drag and exhaled the smoke smoothly. Then he offered it to Tav.

“For those pesky nerves of yours.”

“Oh,” Tav said and waved her hand dismissively at the gesture. “I’ve never smoked before.”

“There’s a first for everything, no?” he said. “Indulging once won’t kill you.”

Tav sighed slightly and took the hose of the hookah from his hand. She placed the mouthpiece between her lips and cautiously inhaled the smoke. She started coughing hard as she exhaled.

“Or perhaps it will,” Raphael chuckled as he took it back from her to take another drag.

As her coughing fit subsided, she felt light-headed. However, just as Raphael said, it did also make her feel somewhat more relaxed.

“Now,” Raphael said. “Tell me what it is that troubles you.”

“It’s nothing,” Tav said and shook her head.

“Don’t lie to me,” he said calmly. “I can see it in your eyes. I have my suspicions as to what could be bothering you, of course. Tell me and I promise you, I will not take offense.”

She looked at him. She did not know if was the effect of the wine, the hookah or the almost kind tone of Raphael’s voice that made her want to tell him everything. She wanted to tell him all those things that she had kept to herself and that had eaten away at her insides for months after the defeat of the elderbrain.

“I feel like a failure,” she said, her voice almost breaking at the confession. “We went through so much. Saved so many people back then. And for what? For me to hand over the crown to you. That was my decision…”

There was not as much as a trace of anger on Raphael’s face as she explained. He even looked somewhat sympathetic. He listened attentively while occasionally taking drags from the hookah.

“I saw it in their eyes, you know? I still do,” she said looking out over the balcony with an empty stare. “They didn’t say anything about it, but I know they were disappointed with my decision. I don’t blame them.”

“You are entirely too hard on yourself, mouse,” Raphael said. “You did what you had to do, as a good leader should. They are in no position to judge you.”

“No, they should. They should judge me,” she countered. “The defeat of the elderbrain was a product of their hard work as well. I robbed them of having a say in the final decision. I would never have gotten that far if it had not been for them, and I still spat in their face, and stupidly chose an option that might one day destroy all we fought to save.”

“Do not speak so low of yourself,” Raphael said in an almost angry tone. “It was your right to make that decision. You say that you would not have gotten that far without them, but that is where you are wrong. They would never have gotten that far without you. You made the difficult choices. You took on responsibility when no one else stepped forward.”

“But– “

“No, Tav,” Raphael interrupted.  “I will not stand listening to you speak ill of yourself in such a manner, when you only did what none of your companions had the sense of responsibility to do. They closed their eyes and handed the reins to you when things became unsavory, did they not? Is that not why none of them are present tonight?”

Tav hated what he was saying, but he did have a point. They had once again looked away and left the mess to her. She would also have been lying if she said that it had not been something that had irked her even back then. How they would leave the decisions to her, but still complain about it when they disagreed. She did offer them plenty of opportunities to take her place, but none of them ever stepped forward.

Raphael knew that he had hit a nerve and softened his tone.

“They don’t deserve you,” he said. “I meant what I said in the speech, when I said that you were the one to defeat the elderbrain. Without you, they would have gotten themselves killed long before they could even reach Baldur’s Gate.”

Raphael took one last drag and got up from his seat. He stood in front of her.

“As for my plans with the crown…” he said and extended a hand to her. “Come. I want to show you something.”

She took it and got up from her seat as well.

“You really ought to get back to your guests, Raphael,” she said as she held the crook of his arm as he brought her through the house.

“And neglect my very favorite guest? Nonsense,” he said with a charming smile.

He brought her to his archive. Artifacts were beautifully displayed on pedestals. Raphael brought her to the pedestal in the middle of the archive. She squinted at the paper displayed on the pedestal.

“Is that...?”

“Your contract, yes,” he said. “It still is one of my most precious possessions.”

She looked at her own signature at the bottom of the document. Then she read the sign beside it: ‘A most-cherished client.’  

It was sweet, in a way, that he would display it in such a manner, Tav thought for a brief moment. Then she immediately shook the thought away. This was Raphael, after all. She immediately became aware that she was still holding his arm even though they had stopped. She instinctively let go of it.

“Why are you showing me this?” she asked with curiosity.

“To remind you of our deal, of course,” he said. “You never did read it, did you?”

“It’s in Infernal,” she said with a shrug.

“Perceptive as ever,” Raphael chuckled. “Yes, it is. Though, had you asked, I would gladly have translated it…Would you like me to read it to you?”

She hesitated for a moment. Perhaps, it was better to not know. There was nothing that she could do about it now, after all. Still…she was curious.

“Please,” she said and gestured to it.

Raphael smiled at her before he started reading the first clause in Infernal. It shook her slightly to hear him speak in another language. Infernal being such a harsh and guttural language. Raphael spoke it with ease. Tav found it oddly attractive, which was no doubt an intentional effect that Raphael was well-aware of.

He went through each clause, first in Infernal and then in the common tongue. Tav found herself, not for the first time, lost in the way he spoke and that velvety voice of his. Especially because he made a show of looking at her while he did it. Impressively, he could recite most of the contract by memory.

When he was done, Tav surprisingly found herself more reassured than worried. It did contain all the things that they had agreed on. Raphael would not use the crown to dominate mortals and the crown would stay in the Hells.

“So, as you can see,” he said and gestured to the contract. “There is nothing to worry your pretty head over.”

She glanced at the contract again. She did feel less worried, but she also still felt like there could be something that she was missing.  

“I have never lied to you, Tav,” Raphael said as if he had just read her thoughts. “And I have always dealt fairly with you, have I not?”

“That’s debatable,” Tav said and looked at him. “We did exchange an insanely powerful artifact for a bloody hammer.”

Raphael laughed.

“An insanely powerful artifact that none of you would ever be able to harness the power of, in exchange for a ‘bloody hammer’ that your very survival depended on.”

“Hm,” Tav huffed stubbornly.

“Hm,” Raphael teased and mimicked her huff with an amused smile. “Come. Let us get back to those guests of mine that you seem to be so worried about.”

Raphael gently put his arm around her shoulders to guide her out of the archive. His little touches and his gentleness with her did not go unnoticed by Tav, but she found that she did not mind. Even though she knew better. She should be suspicious. She knew she should, but it was hard when the man was so damn charming about it.

[morallysuperiorlips]

Let's Talk About ✨ANGST✨!

What is ✨angst✨?

The Google machine describes ✨angst✨ as a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general.

The world of fanfiction/writing also uses it to describe stories that air on the side of sad/serious/more dramatic tones, themes, etc.

But morallysuperior, how do I write that sort of thing? Where do I even start?

Well, dear writer, it might seem daunting but this is VERY easy to break down.

There are a whole bunch of subgenres of ✨angst✨: hurt/comfort, trauma unearthed, working through loss, dealing with new traumas, etc. But, from my years of studying writing and writing words upon words of shitty fic and chipping away at my WIP, this is what I’ve deduced. All forms of ✨angst✨ fall into one of two categories:

Character-Driven ✨Angst✨ and Character Relationship-Driven ✨Angst✨.

From there, each of those categories can branch off into two slightly more specific but still pretty all-encompassing categories.

Character-Driven ✨Angst✨

Mental: Focus on your character hitting a low. Maybe their deepest fears have just been unearthed. Maybe somebody or something triggered a past trauma. Maybe something about their environment has left them in a terrible place.

Physical: Focus on your character getting hurt. Who hurt them? Why were they hurt? How badly were they hurt? What do they think about as they’re getting hurt? Is it something they can really recover from?

Character Relationship-Driven ✨Angst✨

Mental: Focus on the character’s relationship(s) hitting a low. Did they have a substantial disagreement that may or may not have unearthed some trauma? A miscommunication that resulted in a blowout fight? Do they have to separate for some reason, whether bad or good? How are their bonds being tested? What situation are they in that might make them question their relationship?

Physical: Focus on the character’s loved ones getting hurt. How does your character react? Do they do anything to intervene? Can they do anything to intervene? Did they perhaps cause it in some way? What happens after the fact? Can their loved one recover? How does it affect their relationship going forward? (Makes for great hurt/comfort)

Once you kind of identify those general concepts, I think the possibilities are ENDLESS, and you’re welcome to branch off in any direction your twisted mind desires :)

As always, go fucking write something <3

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

aita for acting like I don’t speak English to avoid socializing?

I, (F, teen) go to a tennis camp on Tuesdays and Thursdays to try get out of the house more often and learn a new skill. I’m someone with extremely bad social anxiety. My chest hurts around people and the prospect of talking to people I don’t know, I get blurry vision, I sweat, and more. More often then not, I embarrass myself as well, when I DO talk and socialize with people, other then the minimal close friends I have. When I started going to this tennis camp, I played really badly, and I could acknowledge that I would need to practice. When I heard that one of my instructors (M, 20) speaks a similar language from a country in the same area as my own, I jumped at the chance to pretend like I don’t speak English. He spoke with me in the language and we could understand each other, and it was easier for my social anxiety since it was (to me, at least) like it’s only one person I’m playing with. And for a slightly more selfish reason, it was a bit easier to blame my bad playing on that. I’m gradually getting better and today the secret that I do speak English (quite well, considering I knew it since I was a child) came out. I ended up lying that I’ve only been learning for a while but my instructors and peers were also suspicious considering I “hardly spoke any English last week” and I felt extremely guilty about lying even more. I won’t go much further into the excuse I used, but my instructor who was as kind as to help explain in the similar language we both understand, seemed kind of upset but joking at the same time (?). However I wasn’t around him enough to evaluate if he was upset or not about my ‘lying’.

I feel quite bad about the whole situation and how much I’ve lied, even though I had my reasons, but I can’t determine so, aita?

What are these acronyms?

[99hook]

crossed hearts | three

synopsis: two strangers make a drunken promise in the heat of the moment

a/n: i felt bad leaving y’all hanging like that so heres the third and final part. enjoy babes!! (hold on through the angst i promised a happy ending) 🤍🤍

part one | two

You were already running late for work but once that text came through, that didn’t matter to you. Your hands were trembling as a new wave of anxiety rushed through you the second you called the random number and put the phone to your ear.

You weren’t sure what exactly you were expecting, but it was not this.

A feminine voice answered the phone after the second ring, and you felt your heart sink for the second time. You opened your mouth to speak back, but suddenly the words were trapped.

“Y/n?” She softly says, and you weren’t sure why the fact that she knew your name made your stomach twist.

“Yes? Who are you?” You managed to speak back, even though your voice was strained.

There was a slight pause before answered you, not giving a name, but you supposed, a title instead.

“Tyler’s ex.”

You stared ahead at the steering wheel, a million and one thoughts coursing through your mind. The first one being, why would his ex be calling you? Second, why did she have his phone in the first place? Both of those thoughts made your heart physically ache, and suddenly you couldn’t think of a way to justify this.

“Listen, I just wanted to let you know some things that apparently you weren’t aware of. Me and Tyler have been trying to work things out for a while now, but don’t worry, because I’m done doing that shit. If you want him, you can definitely have him, but just know he’s not a loyal man and you’re not the first girl i’ve had to tell this to.”

You were stunned to silence, letting her words echo around in your mind over and over again as you stared blankly at the dash of your car.

“If you have any questions, feel free to ask them.” She adds on, and truthfully you had about a thousand of them, but she wasn’t the one you wanted to ask. You started to feel an unrelenting rage set in, so much so that your whole body got chills.

You didn’t have the time to analyze the situation or the things that she was confessing to you. Suddenly everything Tyler ever told you was a flat out lie and it made you feel absolutely sick to your stomach. You couldn’t believe that you trusted him so much. Maybe all those worries you felt, was really just your gut instinct screaming that he was way too good to be true.

“I appreciate you telling me this.” You muttered back, but before she could speak, you hung up and tossed the phone to the passenger seat. You felt the tears stinging your eyes but you tried not to let them slip. You weren’t sure how to go about this when you talk to him again, but you knew you needed to figure something out. Regardless, you didn’t think you’d believe anything he says if he does try to deny it, because the fact that his ex girlfriend got your number from his phone speaks for itself.

You reached up and grabbed that chain with his ring hanging from it, and ripped it right off your neck. The weight of the silver that’s sat on your chest for a month immediately dissipated, leaving a slight feeling of emptiness, but you couldn’t wear it after that.

You tossed the ring in the cup holder along with the chain and you just sat there, thinking. You didn’t want to go to work after this but you had to, and you knew your were going to dread this entire day. All you wanted to do was go inside, get in your bed and cry until your eyes run dry, but that wasn’t an option.

Tyler ended up sending you a few texts throughout the day. One saying that he hoped you were having a good day at work, the other one reminding you to talk to your boss about getting some days off, and another one was simply just a white heart. But you ignored all of them. If only you could ignore the pain in your heart when you read them.

Later on that night, you’d had four missed calls and a series of texts sitting on your screen from him, but you turned your phone on silent and left it in the kitchen while you curled up on the couch and let your thoughts completely consume you. You weren’t sure exactly how you were feeling, the mix of the emotions was making your mind spiral. You couldn’t sort through the thoughts or the feelings, you were just sitting there with a mind and heart at war.

You hadn’t ate anything, or did a single thing since you got home and collapsed on the couch. You pulled the blanket to your chest and then threw it across the couch when you got the scent of his cologne still lingering in the fabric.

Tyler was worried sick about you when you went all day without answering him, but you didn’t check your phone, so you didn’t know that. Either way, you wouldn’t have believed it.

You look at the time on your apple watch and realize it’s already midnight, and you unfortunately have to be up at five to get ready for work. You didn’t bother going to your room to sleep, because you already knew every time you lay in that bed, you think about him. That’s the last thing you needed.

You curled up on the couch and closed your eyes, attempting to find the sleep you desperately needed even though your mind just wouldn’t shut off. Somehow, someway, you were able to drift off around three, but your alarm woke you up right on time only two hours later.

Your body physically ached the second you opened your eyes. Your mascara from the day before that you didn’t care to wash off was burning your eyes and the couch just wasn’t comfortable enough, but none of that compared to the impending feeling of pure emptiness that took over when the realization hit you that you and Tyler were done. There was no closure or anything such as, because you knew you weren’t going to be strong enough to handle that.

You’d much rather avoid him at all costs. Block his number, get rid of everything that reminded you of him and move on with your life.

If only it was that easy.

You headed over to the kitchen counter and turned your alarms off. You had over fifty missed calls and texts from none other than Tyler himself, with the latest one being only two minutes prior.

You hesitated to grab your phone but you opened those messages anyway, not to read any of them, but just to send back one of your own.

“Need your address. I’m sending your ring back.”

You felt an overwhelming feeling of complete and utter sadness the second you sent that message, but you saw that he was typing immediately after and locked your phone before you had to see what he said.

You proceeded to get ready for work even though it was the absolute last thing you wanted to do. It felt like you were forcing yourself to properly function. Every bone in your body felt like it was being weighted down by solid stones and all you wanted to do was collapse right back on that couch and stay there for as long as you possibly could without starving to death.

You didn’t bother doing much with yourself. You threw your hair up in a messy bun and wiped the black smudges of day-old mascara from underneath your eyes before you walked out, grabbed your phone and your keys and checked the time.

You weren’t going to be late, possibly a little early but at least when you get to work you’ll be able to somewhat distract yourself. You planned to probably stay over a little while just so you can keep your mind off things. If that was even possible.

Tyler was continually calling and texting, but everything was going unanswered. All day long, the messages and the calls never stopped, so you left your phone in your car when you were on break just so you wouldn’t be tempted to answer him at all.

You didn’t bother checking it again after you got off. You were thinking it would be a good idea to just turn that phone off all together, because the temptations to simply see what all he was saying in the mix of all those messages was getting stronger and stronger, but you had to be stronger than that.

But all that strength was sure to go straight out the window the minute you pulled into your driveway and saw Tyler sitting on your porch step. You felt your heart start racing, somewhat in shock and somewhat ready to put the car in reverse and bolt. But, you didn’t.

He picked his head up from his phone and got up from where he was sitting, walking over to your car. You didn’t move a muscle when he opened the door and stood there next to you. You couldn’t even bring yourself to look at him.

You grabbed your phone and your keys and slipped out around him, ignoring him like he wasn’t even there, despite him calling your name repeatedly.

When you fumbled with the keys to unlock the door, he caught up to you, and the second you went to open the door, his hand pressed against it, keeping it shut.

“Y/n-“ His voice was a low, barely there mutter, filled with rasp from the aggravation and worry that he’s been dealing with.

You didn’t look at him. You kept your eyes trained on the door just waiting for him to move his hand so you could open it, but he didn’t.

“If you want to end things with me, this is a fucked up way to do it. At least tell me to my face instead of ignoring me like I don’t even exist to you.”

You rolled your eyes and shook your head, starting to feel that rage take home within you again.

“Why are you avoiding me? Everything was fine when we got off the phone yesterday, and then you just started ignoring me and now you want to give my ring back?”

“Everything was fine, Tyler. Until I figured out that you’ve been lying to me this whole time.” You spat, finally turning your head to look at him fully, but wishing you didn’t.

“Lying to you? I’ve never fucking lied to you-“

“Your ex called me.” You cut him off, giving the door handle a pull, but he wasn’t budging.

His eyes narrowed and jaw clenched the second he heard that, and you did your best not to shy away from that strong, intense stare.

“What do you mean my ex called you?” He lowly muttered, his voice suddenly ten times deeper than before.

“Exactly what I just said. She called me. Told me you and her have been working things out the whole time you and me have been- doing whatever this shit is.”

“That’s a fucking lie.”

“If it’s a lie then why did she have my number in the first place, Tyler? If it’s a lie then why would she have your phone in order to get my number at all? It doesn’t sound like a fucking-“

“You know why, Y/n? I’ll tell you exactly why. Two weeks ago, she showed up to my door drunk off her fucking ass at four in the morning. I couldn’t get her to leave. She was so fucked up she couldn’t even talk straight. She ended up sleeping on my couch and I guess at some point she found my phone and went through it or something. I don’t fucking know, but she’s fucking lying to you!”

You took a moment to process everything he said, but it wasn’t fully sitting right with you. You took your hand off the door handle and crossed your arms over your chest, fully facing him. He picked up on your skepticism immediately and pulled out his phone.

“I told the guys about it. I can call them right now and they’ll tell you the same shit. I’m not lying to you, Y/n.”

“Of course your boys will take up for you. I’m not depending on them to give me the fucking truth, Tyler. I just find it hard to believe that your ex came over and crashed on your couch, and that’s all that happened. You always sleep with your phone next to you. I’ve already noticed that shit. That means she must’ve been in your room at some point, i’m not fucking stupid!”

“Yeah, obviously she must have snuck in and stole my phone when I was fucking sleeping!” He shouts, his voice echoing around you, but you try not to let that affect you.

“I didn’t do shit with her. When I woke up the next morning she was already gone. You know what I told her when she stumbled in and tried to get me to sleep with her? I told her I’m with someone and i’m not ruining what we have! Don’t believe me? call her right now i’ll fucking prove it!”

Your mouth clamped shut after that. It was hard not to believe him when he had eyes so convincing in the first place. You were stuck in that battle with your head and your heart again, and as you were doing your best to figure out what to say next, he just realized that you were no longer wearing his ring. The second noticed it, you saw his face drop immediately.

“I don’t know Tyler.” You shrug, defeated. “You have to understand that this is not an easy thing for me in the first place. You’re always hours and hours away from me and that alone is hard enough to deal with. Adding your ex calling me to say that this entire time, you’ve been trying to work things out with her while you’ve been with me, and apparently i’m not the only one? It’s- this is just too much for me.”

“Y/n, I’m not lying to you. I have multiple ways I can prove that, but I wish you’d just believe me. I haven’t given you a reason not to, have I? I’ve never lied to you once. Matter of fact-“

He pulls his phone back out and clicks on a few things before you hear the dial tones through the speaker. A voice answers on the second ring and you somewhat recognized it.

“Darius” Tyler says as he looks down at you to make sure you’re listening. “Remember when I told you about my ex showing up drunk a few weeks ago?”

“Yeah” Darius responded. “Why?”

“What did I tell you happened?” He asks as he starts stepping side to side on his feet.

“Uh- pretty sure you said she crashed on the couch and left before you woke up?”

“Yeah.” He nods. “Well she told y/n another story and i’m just tryna get the facts straight.” he tells him as he anxiously runs his hand through his wild hair.

“What did she tell her?”

“That me and her have been together the whole time me and y/n have.” He grits his teeth, and you can’t help but start to believe him when he’s making the effort to prove it to you.

“Did you tell y/n that the girl is crazy?” Darius asked, and Tyler looked back at you with an expectant look on his face.

“Hopefully she sees that now.” He says. “Anyway i gotta go, i’ll see you wednesday.”

He hung up the phone and slid it back in his pocket, looking down at you with what seemed like hopeful, but worried eyes.

“I can call the other guys and even my dad if you still don’t believe me, y/n.” He shrugs, “But I swear to God I’m telling you the truth.”

You leaned back against the railing and dropped your head down. All the emotions started crashing into you the second a tiny bit of relief did.

He just stared at you for a moment before you heard him sigh and step off the porch, pulling out a black n mild from his pocket and sparking it. You watched him stare up at the sky as he blew the smoke above his head, and even though you were still fighting in internal battle, you knew all you wanted was to go inside with him.

“Where’s the ring?” He asked after a couple seconds, looking back at you.

“It’s in my car.” You muttered weakly.

There was another pause before he spoke again.

“Are you still going to give it back to me?”

That simple question held way too much weight for you to handle in that moment. You dropped your head back down to avoid his eyes and he simply watched you, holding onto the last little bit of hope that this wasn’t all coming to a bitter end.

“Y/n, if she would’ve shown up any time before you, I would’ve fucked her.” He shrugs, and your eyes snap to him immediately. “But now that I have you, that shit makes me sick to even think about. I’ll never jeopardize what we have for anybody. I don’t care how difficult the distance is or how bad it sucks that we don’t see each other hardly enough, cause when we do see each other, it’s so fucking worth the wait to me. I would be a fucking idiot if I ruined everything we have for any reason at all. I just wish you’d believe me. I wish you would’ve just called and talked to me first instead of believing my psycho ex girlfriend right off the bat.”

“If my ex called you and told you him and I have been seeing each other the whole time me and you have been together-“

“I would’ve asked you.” He shrugs easily. “Cause I trust you. I wouldn’t have believed him over you. I know you, y/n, and I thought you knew me too.”

You felt a new set of tears stinging your eyes and you couldn’t force them back any longer. Two slipped down your cheek and you had to turn away before he caught it, but it was too late. The first time he’s ever seen you fully cry and needless to say, it was breaking his heart. He put the cigar out and stepped back up on the porch, placing himself in front of you.

His arms instinctively wrapped around you and there was a slight pause before you caved and fell right into him, holding him back with every ounce of strength that you had while your tears soaked the fabric of his hoodie. He held you until you stopped crying, swaying side to side with you in his arms.

When you pulled apart, you noticed his eyes tinged red, but the worry was washed right out of them.

He ran his thumb over your cheek twice, his eyes roaming down to your neck for a split second.

“I don’t want you to give my ring back, but if it’s something you feel like you need to do, I respect your choice.”

Your heart won the battle against your mind, like it always ends up doing. You shook your head and wrapped both arms around the back of his neck before pulling him down to your lips.

In the midst of that heated embrace, he pulled back for a split second to look into your eyes, his thumb caressing your cheek again before he leaned back in and locked his lips with yours. He had three words on the tip of his tongue that he was dying to say for the first time, but the moment never seemed special enough.

It wasn’t until way later that night, when you only had two more hours until he had to leave and you were trying not to let that get the best of you both. You sitting on the hood of his car, staring up at the stars, and he was staring over at you.

“I don’t know if I ever told you this. But when I was younger, my grandma always told me the brightest star in the sky was my star. So every time I look up at them, I search for that one. And it’s… right over there.” You pointed, and he followed your hand to the particular star.

He was smiling when he looked back over at you, a rather relaxed look on his face considering the fact that he knew he was about to have to leave soon. His eyes glanced back down to your neck and he realized then that the ring was forgotten about by both of you, until then.

He slid off the hood of the car and walked over to yours, and you watched as he leaned in for a couple seconds and then came back out with the ring in one hand and the broken chain in the other one.

You watched as he approached you, holding the ring between two fingers out for you to take.

“I have another necklace inside I can put this on.” You tell him, but he just shakes his head and waits for you to take the ring, before he walks around to his door and grabs something from inside.

He shows you a little black box that he’s held onto for a little while now. He wanted to give it to you the next time he saw you, but he wanted to make the moment special.

You watch as he slowly opens the box, nervously eyeing you and your reaction when he reveals the silver necklace with a two conjoined hearts pendant.

“You can put it on this one.” He grins, you it was hard to form the words for you. All you could do was stare back at him in surprise with a giddy smile on your face.

He took the necklace out of the box and unclasped it before he took the ring and slipped the chain through it, then stepped behind you.

You gathered your hair and let him assemble the necklace, then felt his lips against the side of your neck afterwards.

“Want you to know how much you mean to me.” He muttered against you, placing a few lingering kisses between. “Don’t want you to ever think that there’s anyone out there who can ever change that, either. I want you, and only you, and I mean that.”

He stepped around you and his hands locked back in on your hips. His eyes were staring intently into yours as if he was trying to drive that point home. He wanted to make sure you believed him and everything he told you, and make sure you would from this point on.

“You don’t have to say it back, but I love you, Y/n. I know it’s only been a month and everything kind of happened fast with us from the start, but I wouldn’t change anything even if I could.”

You stared back at him in complete awe and he stared back at you with a million nerves wracking around within him, but it was all pleasantly soothed over when you leaned in and placed a series of soft kisses to his lips, pulling him as close as he could possibly get before you hummed against his lips, “I love you too.”

————

taglist: @madhatterbri @730hook @multi-fandom-things730 @willowgreens @shawtys-things @justdamnpeachy @wickedval @730bliss @theworldofotps @madds-97 @gethooked @benjaminka @5secondsofmoxley @adorestar @cypherpart15 @legit9thlunaticwarrior @littlemissbliss06

[manicallyrhapsodical]

when did i start hating birthdays?

my birthday is coming up in a few weeks, and i’m not sure how i feel. when i was a kid, i loved my birthday. it was a day (more like a week; i was spoiled) focused entirely on me! people gave me presents, celebrated with me, and told me how much they loved me. what’s not to love?

however, as time passes and i get older, the idea and concept of birthdays becomes less enjoyable. maybe it’s because i’m a summer birthday, or perhaps this is just how birthdays are regardless, but birthdays now remind me of how forgotten someone can be. don’t get me wrong, without fail, i’ll get birthday wishes from my family and best friend, random people i don’t expect anything from but am pleased to hear from, and friends i’m surrounded by now. however, it doesn’t matter how many people reach out to me; i always think about those who don’t.

why didn’t they reach out when i did on their birthday? how many people would still reach out if i deleted my social media and people didn’t have a reminder? i thought we were better friends, so why hadn’t i heard from them?

one of my deepest fears is that of being unliked by people and either not knowing why so i can’t fix it or knowing why and being unable to resolve the issue. to some extent, i think we all suffer from this fear. however, this is something that can paralyze me and make it hard to function. i think when things like birthdays roll around, it presents an opportunity for my overanxious brain to cling on to wondering if people even really like me or if i’m just as annoying, overbearing, awful, abrasive, and socially clueless as i sometimes feel i am.

recently, i had a friend over, and at the end of the night, i felt like i may have been a bit too callous in my humor and offended them. when they left, i kept myself up for hours, wondering why i was the way i was and trying to think what i could do to resolve this issue. the following week and a half, i made myself physically ill with how anxious i felt about the whole situation, and i woke up throwing up every single morning over the fear of them not liking me anymore. i kept myself up late at night, killing myself, thinking of how i could resolve the issue and could get them to like me again. finally, i subtly asked if things were okay between us after a forceful push from a friend.

to no one’s surprise, they hadn’t been offended and thought nothing of that night. while i know i’m not the first or the last to feel these emotions, i can’t help but liken them to my upcoming thoughts about my birthday.

what if people forget because they’ve secretly loathed me for years? what if people purposely don’t reach out because they want me to feel bad? even worse, what if no one reaches out because no one cares? what if no one reaches out, and i’m forced to confront that maybe i don’t have as many friends and people who care about me as i think i do?

these are the ramblings and thoughts of an anxious mind, and i do what i can to control it. misery loves company, and i’ve appreciated talking to a few people close to me who can empathize with how i feel when my birthday rolls around each year. obviously, this isn’t an overnight fix. still, hopefully, things can resolve themselves enough in a few weeks that i’ll spend more time being grateful for the time and attention i get instead of dwelling on the anxieties of the “what-ifs.” who knows?

[leejenowrld]

Hey! I hope you’re doing well. I just finished reading the first two chapters of Love Me Back and honestly, I’m completely hooked! I absolutely love how protective Mark is with Y/N. It’s so sweet, especially in those little moments like when he ties her hair back or makes sure to take things slow with her. It’s like the ultimate green flag 😍! You can really feel how much he respects her and how patient and gentle he is. I can’t wait to see more moments like that between them!

And oh my gosh, that plot twist at the end of chapter two! When Jeno and Mark’s dad catches them kissing, it totally threw me for a loop. I have such a bad feeling about it… I can already picture him telling Jeno everything, and that’s when things are going to get messy. I’m already feeling the anxiety creeping in just thinking about it 😅.

Oh, and I had a little question that’s been on my mind (sorry if I’m overthinking 😅): what if Y/N gets totally drunk at a party and ends up sleeping with Jeno? And then Mark finds out later—how do you think he would react? Just imagining it stresses me out! 😫 Anyway, your story is amazing, and I’m off to read chapter 3 now!

hiii first of all i want to apologise for the delayed response!! but i’ve been doing okay, how about you? <33 i’m so happy you’re loving it. and yes!!! i’m glad you’re loving the two of them together as much as i do. they’re such a fun and interesting pair and i’m loving writing all the intimate moments and the smut. they’re both so sweet to each other yet so hot.

ahhh yess!!! taeyong… i hope you’ve read ch 3 and i’m intrigued to hear your thoughts and everything about the chapter and how the taeyong finding out storyline played out :) spoiler… that storyline is nowhere near done, it’s barely started. consider ch 3 the calm before the storm lol

hmmm… that’s such an intense scenario to think about, especially considering how far y/n and jeno have moved past any romantic or sexual tension. but okay, if we’re going with the au-est au and this somehow happens, here’s how i think mark would handle it based on the circumstances:

1) if it happens before they became exclusive:

mark would be hurt, no doubt. he’s someone who takes emotional connection seriously, so even if they weren’t exclusive yet, it’d sting. but he’d try to see it from y/n’s perspective. he knows how complicated her history with jeno is, and he’d rationalize that they jumped into things quickly. i think he’d chalk it up to unresolved emotions on y/n’s part, especially since her past with jeno spans years. he’d still want to move forward with her but would likely need some time to process before committing fully again.

2) if it happens while they’re exclusive:

this would devastate him. mark has made it clear how much exclusivity means to him—it’s not just a label but a deep emotional commitment. he’d feel betrayed and question everything, especially since he trusted y/n with his whole heart. but, being mark, he might eventually hear her out because he’s empathetic and always tries to understand the why behind someone’s actions. that said, even if he forgave her, i don’t think they’d fully recover. it’d leave a crack in their relationship that might never truly mend.

3) if it happens while they’re broken up:

this scenario feels nearly impossible. y/n has grown so much by this point, and her respect for mark (and even herself) wouldn’t let her go there, especially with jeno now being with mark’s best friend. but if it did happen? mark would be done. completely. he’d see it as crossing a line that disrespects not only him but the progress they’d both made. it wouldn’t matter if they weren’t together—he’d view it as a betrayal of everything they’d shared, and there’d be no coming back from it.

basically, in every scenario, mark’s reaction ties back to his core values: trust, loyalty, and emotional honesty. but this kind of situation would absolutely test the limits of even his patience and forgiveness. (this kind of thing wouldn’t happen between jeno and y/n)

thank you to my love @strcwberi for helping me answer the last question about jeno and yn!!!!

[thecreaturecabin]

Exposure Therapy and Being Independent

Something I heard years ago that still sticks with me is “being brave doesn’t mean being fearless- it means doing things even though you’re scared of doing them.”

That’s something I’ve come to live by as I navigate life with severe anxiety, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot today.

In the last few months I took to exposure therapy to lessen my arachnophobia. It became too intense for me, and I decided I wanted to change that. I really didn’t like feeling helpless whenever I’d be alone in the house with a spider in the bathroom; no dad to come save me- his 22 year old daughter.

Maybe it’s a toxic state of mind, but I don’t like relying on people. I don’t ever want to be completely dependent on someone else, and that desire has led me to learning things I normally wouldn’t have any interest in (how to use a compressor, how to unclog the shower drain [hair], etc.)

Maybe I shouldn’t phrase it like that. It’s not that I don’t like relying on people; it’s more so that I want to be independent. And one of the things I could never be independent about was spiders.

I felt a bit ridiculous calling my dad to come save me from a tiny eight legged creature as a 22 year old. So I decided it was time to change!

I started using exposure therapy. I wouldn’t call my parents to rescue me from a bathroom spider anymore; I’d tell myself I would deal with it myself no matter how hard it was, no matter how long it took to hype myself up to do it.

It was MESSY at first. I fully cried from fear the first time I killed a spider on my own- and I didn’t stop trembling until an hour later, but I did it. I did it all on my own!

From that point on, I kept doing that. I’ve always been a bit unlucky when it comes to finding spiders, of course 🙄 so it wasn’t hard to practice.

Then when helping my mom garden, I told myself if I found a spider outside, I’d let it crawl on my hand. I didn’t want to, but I wanted to feel familiar with them. I wanted to make myself comfortable.

The first time I let a spider crawl on my hand, I was absolutely sloshed in the basement of a frat house. But I still did it. And then I killed it- which I’ve started feeling bad about doing. I don’t kill them if I can help it these days.

A few months later here I am, able to hold my own against the tiny crawlers. I still don’t like them and I still get scared, but I can DO it. I can do it on my own, and I’m proud of myself for that!

So now I have a different mission, my next fear to run through.

Public spaces.

I have anxiety, have had it my whole life, and after a year and a half of being on anxiety meds, I’m finally weening off. And I feel good. So, I decided it’s time to put my effort in healing to the test.

I love rollerblading. There’s this roller rink I’ve been going to since I was a kid, and I’ve always gone with friends or family. Never ever alone. Because I feel like a loser if I go alone- but.. my friends these days either don’t like roller skating or don’t know how and don’t want to learn- which is fine, everyone is entitled to their own opinion! I’d never force them to go with me for my sake; I don’t ever want to put my friends in a situation that makes them uncomfortable.

Which is why I’ve been hyping myself up over the last month to go by myself. To be independent. And for some reason, this has been so much scarier than killing spiders.

For three weeks now, I’ve tried to convince myself to go, and didn’t. Tonight it’s open and I’m trying to persuade myself to go. I’m not sure if I’ll succeed, but I really want to.

I’m scared- terrified even, of going alone. Why? I don’t really know. I’m scared of what people will think of me; going to a roller rink by myself. “She must not have any friends”. I’m scared of what they’ll think of my appearance. “She’s too big to do this”.

But no one has ever said those things to me. No one has ever even implied they think that way about me. And why do I care? These are strangers; I don’t know them and they don’t know me. My friends and family love me, and that’s all that should matter.

But this is something I’ve been battling my whole life; and it’s hard to get over! But I’m trying, I’m trying to be brave and face my fears head on. I’ll fail time and time again, but so long as I keep trying, I will succeed.

I’m being brave these days, and I’m proud of myself for it. It’s hard to be brave, but if the payoff means I can enjoy the things I love without fear, then it will be worth it!

[copperbadge]

Hi Sam! I’m really interested in what you said about taking an adderall before socializing so that you don’t have to spend the next several days agonizing about the awkward shit you said. I’ve never heard anyone talk about that as a benefit before.

Is it because taking it makes you less likely to say the awkward shit at all? Or because it just makes you less likely to fixate on it later? I mean, either way sounds pretty good, I’m just curious and intrigued.

Yeah, it's pretty fascinating. I'm going to try to put this in coherent order but there is a lot going on here, so let's start with the disclaimer that a lot of this is anecdotal or based in casual research, so I don't have sources to cite, but you should be able to google and explore for yourself.

SHORT VERSION: Adderall doesn't alter my behavior, at least as far as I can tell; it might somewhat inhibit my bad habit of interrupting, but that’s not why I take it. I take it because it prevents me from reacting emotionally to awkward moments in a social situation or remembering those moments later. The result is that instead of thinking "Oh, that thing I did was super awkward" and obsessing over it, when it probably wasn't awkward and if it was nobody remembers it anyway, I just don't have any strong emotion attached to it so I don't remember and feel bad about it later.

It's like if the color red constantly burned your eyes, and you could take a drug that would turn down the saturation. You still see the color, but now you see it the way everyone else sees it, and it doesn't hurt anymore.

The long version is...more complex, but I'm including it because I want to talk about why this maybe happens.

The reason I have such fraught emotions surrounding socializing is that I have Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, which is a common aspect of ADHD. It's not the only reason one might obsessively relive embarrassing moments, but if you have ADHD, RSD is the likely cause. RSD is linked to poor emotional regulation which derives from a deficiency in executive function. So this whole family of ADHD symptoms -- poor focus, poor short-term memory, time blindness -- all come from a basic failure of executive function, and so does RSD. And luckily for me, my poor executive function can be treated with stimulants (some people, even people with ADHD, don’t respond well to them). 

Even though RSD seems dissimilar to other aspects of ADHD, because the stimulant addresses a neurological root cause, anything stemming from that cause is, to some degree, alleviated by the medication. 

RSD can manifest in various ways. I'm generally fine when I'm present in a social situation, but I struggle to resolve shame and anxiety around past behavior. I have spent a lot of time worrying that people who, let's be clear, I know love and respect me, have finally had enough of me and something I said or did was the last straw. I know intellectually this is not the case and I have spent my adult life striving to remind myself of that so that I don’t come off as a needy creep who constantly has to be reassured of other peoples’ affections. Emotionally, however, I was incapable of reconciling these memories. They just hung around in my brain, causing me a lot of pain and regret.

So there’s a chain reaction of saying something, realizing it may have been somewhere between "slightly weird" and "deeply upsetting", and encoding it in my memory with strong emotions of shame and fear attached to it. I then involuntarily relive those memories and the emotions attached to them afterward -- usually only for a few days, but depending on the event, sometimes off and on for years. I suspect this derives from our very early ancestors, who had to hard-code dangerous situations into their memories so if they encountered them again they'd recognize them as dangerous. My brain simply encodes every social interaction as having a fairly high level of danger. This situation is fucking life-threatening, don't go near one again or you'll feel like this forever. Except in my case "this situation" is not dangerous, it's just a dinner party with friends or a meeting with a colleague or a first date. 

It seems that the Adderall switches off that instinct to categorize social interaction as inherently dangerous by allowing me to regulate my emotions. If I’m not feeling fear in the moment -- because there’s no reason to be afraid! -- then my brain doesn’t categorize the moment as dangerous, and won’t remember it negatively later. I won’t really remember it at all. So my memories go from “A dinner party where I said three terrible things that I feel shame over” to “A dinner party where I had some really nice conversations.” Do I remember the conversations? Not in detail, and that’s fine. That’s how memory is supposed to work. 

And now, because I know if I take an Adderall half an hour before a party starts I won’t feel shame or fear after the party ends, I’m even more capable of relaxing and enjoying myself, meaning I’m even less likely to feel negative emotions that would cause me to remember things with shame later. I just thought shame was a price you paid for socializing; I knew the amount I felt wasn’t right, but I thought everyone else just put up with some amount of it. But no, it turns out when your brain isn’t constantly looking for a fucking lion trying to eat you in the middle of cocktail hour, the reason people go out and socialize is that it’s...fun to do. And it turns out when I’m not subconsciously terrified that I’m about to be drowned in quicksand, I actually form fond and positive memories of things. 

Which is a little wild to be experiencing for the first time at the age of 43, but better late than never. And it means that while I still struggle a great deal with emotional intimacy, I’m much, much more capable of maintaining social contacts and deepening friendships because my friends can see and talk to me face-to-face and I can enjoy my time with them more. 

[lover-of-skellies]

cant believe no ones asked about cross's smoochability yet

Well guys, it looks like we’ve got our first perfect score! Cross got a rating of 12 out 12, so he’s the perfect candidate to be smooched

1) Is Cross’s mouth dangerous at all? From what I know, he has these tiny little fangs, as opposed to the standard flat teeth that most Sanses seem to have. His fangs could poke your lips, but not enough to do seriously injure you or draw blood, so that being said, his mouth is safe. 2 points for mouth safety

2) Would he bite? Not intentionally. I could see him maybe nipping a little on accident if the kiss is done in more of a clumsy sort of way, but he doesn’t seem like someone who’d purposely bite super hard with the intention of causing pain. Is he aggressive? He can be if the situation calls for it, since he’s not afraid to put his foot down. Most of the time and in casual settings though, no, I don’t see him as being an aggressive person. That being said, he gets 2 points for being nice and exercising self control

3) Are there any health hazards to the smoocher? That we know of, no there’s not. He’s clean and he keeps up with his hygiene, he’s not leaking gross fluids everywhere, and while he does carry weapons, he’s a former guard, so I’d assume he knows how to be safe about how he carries and handles them, to avoid accidentally hurting anyone. X!Gaster manipulating him in Underverse aside, I don’t see any health hazards about him, so there’s 2 more

4) Does he have a sympathetic backstory? From what I know about him and his whole story, he has a very fragmented relationship with his brother, because he wanted his own identity outside of being a Sans, and Paps didn’t really seem to fully grasp that. I could be missing details about their relationship, but I just know they don’t get along. Then there’s the issue with X!Gaster being a horrible father who was never there for either of his sons. He was emotionally absent, and he seemed entirely unconcerned about them (just from what I’ve seen and what I know). So right there, Cross has this horrible family structure; he’s got both sibling issues and daddy issues. Then from the little information I can recall right now, he got into it with Error and nearly died somehow, and then he was manipulated into working for Nightmare. Which… as much as I like Nightmare, he’s not a nice person. Cross went from a very shaky home environment, to a very shaky work environment, where he couldn’t really count on anyone. His only friend for a while was Ink, but we see how well that went over in Underverse. Things started to turn around for him when he left Nightmare and started working with Dream instead, but there’s no doubt that he probably still has a lot of residual trauma from everything. So for points, I think he deserves 2. His upbringing and backstory in general was super rough and there were areas that were very tragic for him, no doubt

5) Does he deserve a smooch? In short,, yes, absolutely. He had a very rough upbringing and it probably took a bit for him to actually open up to anyone, but rather than letting that consume him and turning completely bad and evil because of it, he made the choice to be better than that. He still had anxiety and probably some other issues too, but he chose to walk away from the toxic environment that was working for Nightmare. He walked away, and he went with Dream, who made him feel like more of an equal, and less of a subordinate. Cross walked away and made the choice to be better than his former boss and teammates, which paved the way for a somewhat brighter future. He made the right choices and he has my respect for that, so he gets 2 points

6) Is Cross cute or cool? He can be a cutie from time to time, and I do like his design, since the monochrome look is unique to him, I think. There are probably other Sanses that are monochrome too, but of them all, I think he’s the most well known. His strength and skills in combat, his laidback personality, and his look (despite being a bit rough around the edges) earn him a full 2 points for coolness

In total, Cross gets a rating of 12. He gets a perfect score! He’s awkward and may not have a lot of kissing experience, but he’s very careful about pretty much everything he does. I feel like if he was smooched, he’d get embarrassed, start blushing, and probably trip over his words for a moment before simply asking why you suddenly smooched him. If you already knew him really well when you chose to plant a kiss on him, he might even awkwardly thank you for it while trying to avoid eye contact, because he’s a bit of a tsundere from time to time like that

[ripplestitchskein]

Where do you see Stolitz being at the end of the season? I don’t know how much heartbreak I can take.

Oooh Nonnie I’d prepare for some ANGST but there’s nothing in the text to indicate it’s the bad kind imo. I feel confident that it’s gonna be that good productive angst that gets us places we wanna go, that we’ll flail about and be heartbroken about but not that Game of Thrones style pointless nihilist angst that is just for shock value or because the creators wanted a cliffhanger or a twist.

One of the things I find comforting about this show is the people making it are very much a part of fandom rather than corporate studios using general audience analytics or creators who are just there for a paycheck. The creative team of this show genuinely seems to care about these characters. I have a lot of anxiety about my hyperfixation ships so I feel you on the worry but it would be a huge waste of time and incredibly unsatisfying for the audience to change directions midstream. And the beauty of a cartoon is that even if the actors leave or people change out from the creative team as long as there is money and a drive to make it they aren’t beholden to the same logistics issues as a live action.

From a storytelling perspective it doesn’t make sense to reverse course and break them up forever. I’m not writing the show so I can’t tell you with 100% certainty but there are too many threads intricately knotted together and if they cut this relationship out the whole fucking show unravels. I’ve always said Stolas and Blitzo’s relationship was central in the first two episodes of the show, Stolas is how IMP does business, the 2nd episode was literally all about Stolas’s family drama and the show is about Blitz so it would take a lot of work to stop this train and still leave your audience satisfied at the end. Work that it doesn’t make sense to do. This is not a fanservice thing, like Stolitz is too popular or something like that, but a storytelling thing. It’s such a huge part of the show they can’t drop it in a way that wouldn’t drive the audience away, even casual viewers. And being an indie production they have to be very deliberate and careful with their choices, they don’t have the capital to be doing like two sample hypothesis testing with the story or trying out different threads. It’s just not feasible.

If the trailer did anything it was reinforce every assumption or speculation I’ve made, like I got so much dopamine from that fucking trailer. And all the speculation lines up perfectly with my episode deep dives and how I, as a writer and creative, understand the structure and narrative choices being shown. And I am SO PUMPED ABOUT WHERE THIS TRAIN IS HEADING. It’s gonna hurt but in the best way I think.

To answer your question, as far as the end of this season I am of two minds. Either Stolas and Blitz make the decision to start a relationship in S2 and S3 is them working through it during whatever trials and tribulations they are undergoing.

Or they are not together but we get a lot of delicious pining through S3 where they finally get together together and S4 is the working through the relationship season.

How I think it’s going to play out after a few days of rearranging things in my head:

Blitzø and Stolas are both excited and anxious about their upcoming rendezvous. Blitzø is doing sexy date prep and seeking advice from his bestie on sex toys. Stolas is drowning in anxiety.

Blitzø fucks up. Either he says something hurtful or embarrasses Stolas in some way, either about his royal duties or Octavia. I theorize that the issue with the Full Moon is Stolas’s fault and Vassago is the character who will bring that to his attention. Might possibly comfort him. Andrelphus and Stella are going to take advantage of the situation.

Blitzø tries to take it back, that’s why he’s reaching out but he’s denied.

In Apology Tour Blitzø tries to get back to their casual “If I ignore it it’s fine” status quo but Stolas is not having it. That’s the garden conversation where he’s serving so much cunt.

Stolas either defends Blitzø with his song at Verosika’s tour or it’s so heartbreaking Blitzø has no way to hide from it anymore. I also think Versoika herself will point out that Blitzø is treating Stolas quite a bit differently than he did her which also keeps him from shoving his feelings down.

I think at the end of this episode Stolas calls things off but Blitzo is now aware of how Stolas feels and how he feels. He is not ready to act on it yet.

Ghostfuckers I think will be primarily Millie and Blitzø. Blitzø will probably have to confront how he was when they first met, and other things like his mother and Barbie.

Mastermind is probably the CHERUB/DHORKS episode. I still think it’s probably a gag tbh. Like the actual episode is not about them at all because in my mind they are the Sir Pentious of HB. Like they believe they are this big bad but they just kind of fail and disappear and keep coming back as a running annoyance. I kind of think the real threat is maybe Satan or Andrelphus/Stella.

In one of three episodes, or at the end of Apology Tour something happens to Stolas. He is taken out of commission in some way. He loses his job, he is absent. I don’t think it will be his fault.

I think this will come into play in Sinsmas, which maybe very much like Seeing Stars where maybe Stolas promised Octavia something for the holiday or they had a tradition and he misses it because of being out of commission. She finds him with Blitzø who is rescuing him from Andrelphus. I kind of think Vassago will help him or tip him off that Stolas is in trouble. Octavia is mad and lashes out. That conflict I see going into S3.

Blitzø needs proof that he doesn’t fuck up people’s lives and right now the person who’s life is in the biggest shambles because of Blitzø (not like because of him but their involvement, you know what I’m saying) is Stolas. He’s divorcing, he might lose his job, his daughter is going to be pissed at him. Stolas will have literally nothing because of their dalliance. So either way I see no way that the breakup is permanent.

If they breakup for good that reinforces Blitzo’s fear he fucks up people’s lives. There’s no resolution to that conflict. Moxxie and Millie don’t have a lot of life problems related to Blitzø tbh, he’s creepy about their relationship but it doesn’t cause them strife only annoyance. Loona is fine too right now. Fizz and he have started reconciliation and Fizz out right told him he was doing well. Verosika is pissed and still a drunk last we see her but her career is taking off.

By having Stolas break up forever only reinforces the idea that you don’t get a second chance at love for Stolas (or a first chance), and says “Yeah, Stolas IS better off without him” and I doubt that’s the story they want to tell lol. On Stolas’s side it would be all kinds of fucked up to imply that parents can’t have romantic relationships because their kids are mad about it imo. That his only option as a loveless arranged marriage and continuing to lie to himself and the world. Like a child should be priority but parents are also fully formed humans with lives outside of their children and it’s not great to have a child throw a fit and the parent be like “Oh okay, guess I’ll just be alone cause my teenage daughter is sulky”.

Like the issues they’ve set up can only be resolved satisfactorily one way at this point, at least in my opinion. Whether that happens in S2 or later in S3 I still very firmly believe it will be a focus and we’ll get lots of little moments.

[afro-hispwriter]

Someone Special(TGC)

Tom Glynn- Carney x reader(one sided)

Summary- you have always had problems trying to find someone who would like you back, love you... and you thought that was Tom

Warnings- Angsttt, unrequited love, depression, panic attacks,

-

Tom Glynn- Carney. The name alone made you swoon. It was the name of your best friend, the one you swore not to fall in love with. 

But it was hard not too.

He was so charming, a great listener, gives amazing advice, handsome, and on top of it all he truly helped you with all the things you went through. With relationships, family, friends in general. 

Your depression got bad once, even anxiety built up. He's the one who pulled you out of the situation. When you had a panic attack he’d pull you somewhere quiet and away from people and rock you back and forth. He even who took you to get a dog who would slowly be trained into a service dog. Luna, she was truly a life saver. 

As the weeks, months, and years went by. You slowly felt a shift in your friendship. The longing stares, the lingering hugs, the holding your hand for too long. Maybe it was all in your head, but what if it wasn’t. 

What if the man you love, loved you back?

You now had to build the courage to tell him. Its taken longer than usual since almost all your experiences with confessing your feelings towards someone didn’t end well for you. But this time it was going to be different, you were sure of it. 

You found Tom in his tent , he was going over his lines.

“Hey.” Tom looked up and smile broke out on his face making your heart flutter and stomach jump. 

“Hey, are you leaving?” 

“Um yeah but I have to talk to you first.” You left out a nervous chuckle and could already feel your hands shake and heart start to race. Luna sat down next to you and dig her nose under your hand. Tom looked down at her and raised an eyebrow, knowing all of Lunas signs.

“You’re nervous, are you okay? Do you need to sit?”

“No im okay, but I guess I’ll just say it uh, Tom you’ve made me a better person, you helped me a lot and I thank you everyday so Tom, I really love you.” 

The silence that followed was nerve wracking as he took in the information. 

“Y/n.” He paused and passed his hand through his hair. “I-I have a girlfriend.” 

Your chest instantly tightened and you grabbed at it. 

“What?” Your lips quivered and Luna started whimpering.

“I’ve had a girlfriend for almost two years.” You looked at him in shock and started back up. Luna stood up on her kegs and leaned against you, a signal to try and get you to sit down. 

“W-Why didn’t y-you tell me?” 

“Y/n sit down.” He took a step forward and reached out but you shook your head.

“D-Don’t.” You were starting to hyperventilate and get dizzy. This was how it was supposed to go. Your eyes got blurry as a flow of tears ran down your cheeks. You sat yourself down on the floor and started sobbing. 

Tom dropped to his knees in front of you. His heart hurt at hearing you struggle. He didn’t expect what you said, he had to come up with a quick way to let your down. You were gasping for air, sobbing and rocking back and forth with your head in your knees. Luna was almost crying to, trying to push into your lap.

“Y/n breathe.” He gently placed his hand on your back and rubbed up and down. You tried to get his hand off but he just kept his movements. 

It took a few minutes before it passed. Tom grabbed a water and handed it to you. You almost drank the whole thing before setting it down and taking a deep breath. Tom sat back on his heels and placed his hands on his thighs.

“I- I should’ve- should’ve told you about her not-.” He was cut off by you slapping you hands on your ears and shaking your head.

“N-No I don’t want to hear it.” 

“Lets just talk.”

“I DON’T WANT TO FUCKING TALK TO YOU!” You screamed and pushed away from him to stand up wobbly. Tom was shocked by your outburst, the situation bringing tears to his eyes. “Im going home.” You grabbed Lunas leash and turned to leave but tom grabbed your hand and stood up.

“You can’t drive like this, let me take you home.”

“No- I cant- I cant be near you.” Your voice broke and you ripped your hand out of his. You walked out the tent with Tom in tow trying to reason with you. When you made it to the parking lot you immediately let Luna in the car and walked to the drivers side.

“You’re in no state to drive, you can crash.” You ignored him and shut the door and started the car. Tom stepped back as you sped off, only thing he could do was watch.

-

Tom sent a few messages but received no answers. He told himself you just needed some space, he’s usually patient but he just couldn’t be this time. So he went to your house and knocked. 

“Y/n its me.” There were noises coming from inside and shuffles of feet that slowly got closer. The door clicked and it opened revealing you, puffy face and eyes.

“Yes?” It came out raspy. 

“Are you okay? Can I come in?” He reached down but you shook your head and closed the door slightly.

“I thought it was going to be different.” He raised an eyebrow in confusion. “I thought I had finally found someone who loved me back.”

“But I do love you.”

“No you don’t, not the way I wish you did. I want to be the one to hold your hand, kiss you, wake up next to you, be the first person you think about.” 

“I should’ve told you, then this wouldn’t happen, im sorry.”

“Don’t ever apologize for being in a relationship, I mean two years, I never had a chance.” You tried to close the door but he stopped you.

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends?”

“That’s exactly what it fucking means, I can’t be just friends with you anymore. This has happened to me enough to know to not stay friends it just makes everything worse.” 

“You’re my bestfriend.”

“Leave me alone Tom, don’t call me, don’t text me. I need time to myself. Just go back to her. Go be happy.” 

“Don’t do this.” 

“Bye.” The door shut and the locks all clicked, leaving Tom to stand there is disbelief. 

-

@khaleesimel

@f4ll-for-you