#if your friend shoplifts while you're with them but doesn't tell you until after

[broodygaming]

idk if that poll means viv betrays you or like. solas. he kinda betrays you by wanting to end the world ig

Yes! Yes sorry i tried to say that later in my tags haha, I just mean the whole betrayal thing reminds me of this very intense first impression of Viv, that's all. Whenever I think about the whole "mage betrayal" thing, I think of that just because I knew that my hurt feelings over Anders "betrayal" REALLY colored my choices in that (fairly early) character quest, ya know? And I feel bad haha, like it sucks and I wish she'd just given me more context T_T

[night-raven-tattler]

Hello, hello <3 How are you?

I loved your writing!

The HC from the Heartslabyul group as parents left me thinking: how would Deuce react if, after getting married and having his own girls (Deuce is 1000% the father of a girl), he met an ex "friend" of his time as a delinquent who hasn't changed much in his ways and REALLY wants to piss off poor Deuce

(sorry, my English is unga bunga ༎ຶ⁠‿⁠༎ຶ)

-🌙

Hey 🌙! Mx Tattly is happy to share what she knows on the matter. He's happy to see you're sharing the same girl dad!Deuce vision. Here is the information you've requested!

Show of power, show of growth

Characters: Deuce x GN!Reader (romantic), unnamed older daughter and unnamed younger daughter

Warnings: threats, mentions of violence

By opening the document, you agree to Mx Tattly's terms of confidentiality.

-ˋˏ’✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Being part of an elite anti-mage division was an achievement both you and Deuce were infinitely proud of, but he had to admit the job was very time consuming

And, since he now was a father of two girls that he bent over backwards for to fulfill their every whim, Deuce has his schedule full to the brim

Despite his busy schedule, he loves taking his girls out for walks especially during the evening, an activity he has been doing ever since his cuties were just babies

It started as a chance to give you, his spouse, a few moments to yourself to relax and destress while he bonded with the babies

He'd point at various trees, shops, the sky, and talk about them to his kids, until they were old enough to start doing the same on their own

It was a late summer evening when Deuce came home after a stressful day, and the only thing he could think of to destress was to spend time with his family

Deuce was not lucky enough for his daughters to want any indoor activities, though

So he just accepted his fate and took his little ones for a walk in the neighborhood

His older daughter, the cutest chatterbox in the world, was swinging his left hand back and forth as she pointed with her free hand at the neighborhood cats, giving them names and making up stories about their lives

His younger daughter, a quiet observer, was holding his other hand while she occasionally asked her older sister or dad questions

It was an evening like any other, nothing seemingly out of the ordinary

Yet, something felt...off

Even without his specialized training, Deuce had always been able to tell when someone was watching him, overly curious eyes burning holes in his back

He turned his head around, and saw the person looking at him

A young man about the same age as him was walking towards him

He was wearing a jacket Deuce recognized as a sign of one of the city's smaller gangs, whose members focused on shoplifting and public disturbances

Why was this person approaching him?

“Oi, Spade. Been a while since I last saw ya. Middle school, maybe?"

At first, Deuce had no idea who the guy in front of him was

"Sorry, do I know you?"

The guy scoffed, looking offended by the idea of Deuce not remembering him

"Come on, man. Heard through the grapevine you're a cop now, but that doesn't mean you have to forget your old shoplifting buddy."

The words made his eyes widen and he tightened the hold he had on his girls as an old memory came to him

He was in middle school when him and an old classmate, Kateur Pilla, stole a few bags of chips off a shelf in a local shop without getting caught

"There ya go, ya remember me after all!'"

The memory brought a bitter taste to Deuce's mouth and his face was burning with shame, but he was brought back to reality by a small hand squeezing his

"Daddy, what's shoplifting?"

The guy's eyes fell on the source of the tiny voice, Deuce's oldest child, making Deuce shiver and pull his daughter behind him

“You even have kids now! Damn, man, you really became a good-for-nothing goody-two-shoes.”

The entire existence of this guy in his family's vicinity made his skin crawl

His grip on his older daughter tightened and he picked up his youngest

"At least I did something worthwhile with my life. Now scram."

“Aw, come on, you really can't spare me a chat?”

"No, not really.”

Deuce's response came through gritted teeth

His self control improved tremendously during the years, only because he has learned how to redirect his attention towards something else

In this case, his seemingly oblivious daughters

But he still felt the burning urge to grab this guy by the collar

“Not even if I promise to give you some info? Paid info, of course. Some guys I know got their hands on some stuff that's for sure illegal. How about we have a chat, hm? Or are you still that dumb to refuse such a golden opportunity? Man, cops really are stupid.”

His tone changed into something more condescending, even though he was still a small nobody compared to Officer Spade, member of the Queendom of Roses' anti-mage division

…but Deuce felt his younger daughter cling onto his jacket, feeling the intimidating air Kateur was trying to scare Deuce with

His blood pressure started rising, and he started slightly shaking, trying his best to control the urge to kick Kateur away from the innocent eyes of his kids

"Maybe you didn't change after all. What's that badge for if you're still the same dumbass you were years ago? Wanna go steal some cigs?"

Deuce felt his hands shaking 

But before he got to push his girls away and do something he regretted, he heard a familiar voice call his name

"Deuce? Honey, what's happening?"

With your talent for appearing wherever there's trouble, you made a beeline to your family, disregarding the presence of the guy and picking up your oldest kid

Without a second through, he handed you your second child

“Go home. I have something to deal with.”

You nodded and walked away with your confused and slightly scared little girls

Now that Deuce was finally alone, he had the opportunity to punch this guy for daring to disturb his family

...but he chose not to

“Listen here, ya punk.”

The guy flinched back as Deuce's voice boomed, obviously not expecting to be so rattled

"I am a good man now. I have a family. And I don't allow any human trash to speak to me that way.”

Cracking his knuckles, Deuce stepped closer, and the guy was backed into a corner

“Scram. Don't bother me or my family again, or I’ll forget I'm a good man.”

Kateur realized he has crossed a line, so he just tsked and walked away empty handed

Before he returned home, Deuce walked around a bit to shake off his anger, directed at Kateur... and directed at himself

Why wasn't he able to just ignore the guy?

Was Kateur right after all? Did Deuce really not change at all?

..No, he must be wrong, Deuce did not use violence, which was good

But he still threatened the guy, and that wasn't good

…Not arriving at any satisfactory conclusion, he eventually decided to just go home

You watched how Deuce walked into the living room of your small apartment, your girls welcoming him with open arms and high spirits, a striking contrast to not too long ago

The moment Deuce saw them, he smiled warmly and thought to himself how they inherited your talent to make him better 

When your older daughter kept asking Deuce again about what "shoplifting” meant, you sent the girls to their room so you could discuss with your husband what happened

He told you everything that went down before your arrival, expecting to be scolded for losing his temper, like a small child waiting to be sent to the corner to think about what he'd done

"To be honest, you did great! The girls are safe and happy, and you managed to shoo away the guy without getting physical. That's the best outcome I can ask for."

..You were right

He thanked you and gave you a kiss on the forehead for reassuring him before you walked together to your daughters' room to spend some time together

And you sighed with relief after watching Deuce relax as he played together with his daughters

He would have to change his usual route for a while, just to make sure they wouldn't be bothered again

But if he'd have to face the guy again, he knew he could do even better than that 

『••✎••』

[4evamc]

Misha Tweets

Transcript

Ed Levine: Welcome to Special Sauce 2.0. Serious Eats podcast about food and life. Every week on Special Sauce we begin with Ask Kenji, where Kenji Lopez-Alt, Serious Eats Chief Culinary Consultant, gives the definitive answer to the question of the week that a serious eater like you has sent us.

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt: Generally, sort of like delicate leafy herbs like cilantro, parsley, basil, they tend to not be very good in their dried counterparts. Thyme, rosemary, oregano, they actually work pretty well in their dried forms.

EL: After Ask Kenji, a conversation with our guest, today in house, Misha Collins. He is, of course, an actor best known for his role as the angel, Castiel. Did I pronounce that right?

Misha Collins: Castiel.

EL: On the CW television series Supernatural, and has now written with his wife Vicki Collins, The Adventurous Eaters Club: Mastering the Art of Family Meal Time.

EL: Now it's time to meet Misha Collins. He's, of course, an actor best known for his role as the angel, Castiel?

Misha Collins: Castiel.

EL: On the CW television series Supernatural, which has had an insane run, right? It's like 2008 to 2019.

MC: Yeah, we're in our 15th season right now.

EL: That never happens.

MC: No, it doesn't. I don't know why they kept us on the air.

EL: Collins is also the co-founder and board president of Random Acts, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding and inspiring acts of kindness around the world. He's also a published poet. Very impressive dude.

MC: Thank you.

EL: And has now written with his wife Vicky Collins, The Adventurous Eaters Club: Mastering the Art of Family Meal Time. So welcome to Special Sauce, Misha.

MC: I'm very happy to be here.

EL: So the first question I always ask, in your case it's particularly relevant, is tell us about life at your family table growing up. Your family table was not exactly traditional.

MC: That is true. I was raised by a single mom. My parents separated when I was three years old and I visited my father on every other weekend for most of my childhood, but he wasn't really a cornerstone of my upbringing. But my mother and my brother and our dog were a very tight family unit, and we lived in Western Massachusetts primarily growing up and moved a lot. We were in a new home I would say on average once every nine months or so. I think I lived in 15 places by the time I was 15.

EL: So you were like an Army brat, only you were a different kind of brat.

MC: Right. An Army brat without the parents building up a pension plan.

EL: Right.

MC: Another thing I think that an Army brat family has is a cadre possibly, of other kids that are going through the same experience, and I was generally going to a new school every year and meeting kids that were in fairly stable childhoods and who knew one another and who were familiar with the school, so I was always approaching schools and new towns-

EL: You were the permanent new kid.

MC: Yeah, with a little bit of trepidation, and trying to figure out how I could ingratiate myself to the new communities and the new schools. My mother was very eccentric and iconoclastic. She talked about the revolution a lot. I was born in 1974, and we lived through a tumultuous political time in our country, and she didn't want to have us grow up being conventional young men, so she would do things like dress me up in pink tights and paint my nails and send me off to Cub Scouts. Which I think in 2020 might actually fly, but in a working class community in Massachusetts, when you show up at Cub Scouts in the boys' locker room with nail polish and long hair-

EL: Not so much.

MC: And pink tights, you're ostracized. So, I kind of had to find a way to blend in and disappear a little bit as a kid in new schools, and I think that it built a lot of character in a lot of ways, and made me more resilient and adaptable and independent than I otherwise would have been. But at the same time, there's a certain lack of stable foundation that was challenging.

EL: I had not the same kinds of travails in my own childhood, but you do become resilient and eminently adaptable, but it also has a cost. It exacts a cost that you can't deal with as you're going through it, but you almost have to deal with it at some point in order to really resolve some of the issues that came out of it, I assume.

MC: Yeah. I'm sure you've found the same thing, but I feel like I'm a 45-year-old man and I'm still discovering things and unpacking them and repairing them, I think. There are definitely things that you take away from a childhood like that that give you real strength.

One of the things that I love about my childhood is that I know that you don't need money to be happy and you can get by on just about nothing, and that gives you, I think, quite a bit of power going into the world because you don't feel beholden to the comforts of ... I don't feel beholden to the comforts of money. I'm okay with scarcity. At the same time, I don't know that I was really terribly good at connecting with people or making friends, and I probably still struggle with that.

EL: Yeah. So, you wrote this amazing piece in The Times, and you wrote that “times were often lean, but one luxury we always had an abundance was food, even if it came by the five finger discount. My mother taught me how to steal peaches from the Stop and Shop grocery store when I was four. We were stealing from the man. It was a justified rebellion against an unjust system.”

EL: So, whoa. Okay, those sentences made me stop in my tracks. That's pretty intense. I was actually thinking about this movie, Shoplifters. I don't if you've ever seen it.

MC: Oh yeah. Yeah.

EL: Because in there the father figure, who turns out not to be the father, teaches the kids how to steal so they can eat. And so, wow. I mean, talk about that. Talk about getting conflicting messages from your mother. It's like, whoa.

MC: It's funny, because now hearing you read that, it paints a portrait of a parent who was raising children without a moral compass, and I think that was not at all the case. This was righteous rebellion. We were stealing ... We would never have stolen from the local co-op, but this was from a corporate entity, and these corporations were out to exploit the proletariat. I actually felt the exhilaration of feeling like I was part of a rebellion at that point, and frankly indoctrinated into that at a really young age. At the age of four, I was aware that it was us against them. We were the little guys and that we had a justice on our side. At the same time, it's a complicated thing to be training a little four year old how to steal.

MC: I have a very distinct memory of the fruit island in the Stop and Shop, and me grabbing a peach. This was the first time that I remember ever shoplifting anything. I grabbed the peach and then I ducked down behind the island, and my mother said, "No, no, no, no, no. You can't do it like that. You have to take it. You have to be very calm. You have to not look around. You can't show that you're distressed at all or that you're nervous, and then you put it in your backpack." Then we would go up to the cash register and we would pay for some of the groceries, so that we were distracting them, and then scoot out the door.

EL: And you just, I assume, felt that there was nothing particularly abnormal about this because you had nothing to compare it to.

MC: Right. Yeah, this was my normal.

EL: Yeah. You weren't stealing from somebody or something that needed the money, you were stealing as part of an ethos. Right?

MC: Right.

EL: As part of like, this is the way we work the system to fight the man.

MC: Right, precisely. Yeah.

EL: You also wrote, and I'm going to quote a couple of more sentences from the piece because it was so beautiful, "My upbringing taught me you didn't need money to be happy, that you didn't have to play by the rules, that the whole world was just begging to be explored. But now by the hindsight of fatherhood and from the comfort of a therapist's couch, I see that while my childhood had been rife with adventure, it also had been lonely and frightening and wanting." So you were always reconciling those two things, weren't you?

MC: I wouldn't say I was always reconciling them, because as a child I struggled at times. I felt sad and lonely, but I didn't think that it was because of my childhood.

EL: Got it.

MC: I thought my childhood was full of adventure, and I was proud of my childhood. Up until when I was 25 I don't think I looked back on it and thought that there had been any damage done by that.

EL: Right, and that there was anything dysfunctional about it.

MC: Right. And on balance, my childhood was incredibly ... I think I had a secure attachment with my mother. My mother was there. She was loving. She never failed to convey that love to me and my brother. So she served as my anchor emotionally, and that was unfailing. But because the rest of our life was so fractured and so nomadic, she was my only anchor.

EL: Yeah, because as you said, how do you establish connections with any kids when you're moving every few months?

MC: Right, and when you're showing up at school in pink tights at a working class school you're also getting alienated by your peers, and so the other kids actually ended up being kind of frightening to me.

EL: I read your Wikipedia page, and somehow you escaped and you ended up at a prep school, Northfield Mount Hermon, and then the University of Chicago. What a narrative your life has been. How did that happen?

MC: Now that you're asking the question, I'm reflecting on it possibly for the first time. But one thing that I know happened as a result of my childhood and and partly as a result of feeling like I wasn't fitting in with other kids, is that I was a smart kid and I could win the favor of my teachers. So when I was in school, I did very well in school. It was like the thing I could throw myself into and be safe and get some accolades.

EL: Some positive feedback.

MC: And some positive reinforcement. So I did well in school, and we lived in the town of Northfield for a little while, which was where Northfield Mount Hermon is. They had a program that had been implemented from the inception of the school where local day students could get pretty much a full ride if they were in need, and we were in need, so I could go to a fancy high school for free as a day student. Then I ended up basically getting the same deal at the University of Chicago.

EL: Amazing.

MC: Yeah. At the time, I thought I was going to go into politics, so I was sort of on a very clear path. And that wanting to go into politics was also born of my childhood and of my mother talking about politics all the time, and making me and my brother very aware of the plight of people in need in our country and around the world. It felt like that was the right place for me.

EL: Yeah. Again, and this is the final sentences I'm going to read from the Times piece, because it gets us back to food. Which is, "I recently found an old journal in a box in the back of my closet, and on the page from a decade ago where I had taken inventory of the good and bad of my upbringing the word cooking is circled and underlined with urgency in the plus column, as if I was thinking that food had been the cornerstone of happiness in my youth." Elaborate on that. I mean, that's an amazing statement.

MC: I think as a nomadic family, we moved around and we brought with us what we could, and in terms of material objects, there was very little that was a through line. But we did bring with us from place to place the tradition of sitting down for family meals every night.

EL: Even if you were in a teepee or in a park.

MC: Right. Even if we were sitting on a log in the woods in the rain, we would be sitting down and eating together. There were no distractions. There was never a television on, and there was no coercion in getting to the dinner table. There was no question about it. Not because it was an edict from an authority figure, but because we all just coalesced around dinner and loved it.

EL: You needed it.

MC: Yeah.

EL: It was a permanent form of glue for the family, right?

MC: Yeah. It really was important to us. We would go spend Christmas with my mother's mother, my grandmother, and she was a cook as well, and food was a centerpiece of that family interaction. And for me now that I have kids, I notice that when I'm feeling like a guilty or absent father, the way that I most quickly show my affection and love for my kids is I just make them food. It's like the way that I know to convey to a child everything's safe, everything's okay, and I love you.

EL: Yeah. But in 21st century America, and maybe all around the world, it's hard to do that, right? There are lots of pressures that are forcing people not to eat together.

MC: Right.

EL: Both parents are working, kids are all over the place. But you obviously, I think as a result of your upbringing, it was important when you had a family and a wife that you made that same time for dinner.

MC: Yeah. It feels very important to me. I think sometimes I'm actually kind of maybe forcing my agenda of cooking on my kids. Like, "Come on guys, let's make something in the kitchen." A lot of times they want to go outside and I want to work in the kitchen, and I have to check myself and say, "Okay, we'll go play a little bit of soccer first before we get to canning the pears."

EL: Right. Because the act of eating a meal and preparing it is imbued with so much more meaning for you than it is for them.

MC: Yeah, I think that's true. Yeah.

EL: So you end up being an actor, and I'm just assuming that like all actors, you struggled for many years before you found yourself on the set of Supernatural. So, tell us in a few sentences the arc of your acting career.

MC: Well as I mentioned earlier, my intention after college was to go into politics. I interned at the White House and I got a job at NPR in Washington, DC, and I was really disappointed with what I saw at the White House, and I thought, "Oh God, I have to come up with a whole new plan here." I thought it was going to be the best and the brightest minds under one roof. This was the Clinton administration. And instead what I found was the halls were filled with people who were sycophants, whose parents had donated money to the campaign. They were all yaysayers. There was no real discourse about political ideas, which of course is actually what you need in an administration. You need people who are going to be in lock step and are going to support your decisions, but I was too young and naive to know that.

So when I saw it, I thought, "This is not for me." I thought, "I will try to find another way that I can have an impact." I think there's a lot of hubris in this, but I thought, "I know what I'll do. I'll become an actor. I'll get famous and then I'll parlay my celebrity into some sort of political influence."

EL: Oh, because that happens all the time.

MC: Right. I mean really, really completely naive, and totally full of myself. Then I moved to LA and I thought it was going to take a couple of years to attain a certain level-

EL: To become rich and famous.

MC: To be rich and famous. And it took a long time to become-

EL: It took a decade, probably.

MC: To become moderately comfortable and a C-list celebrity. But somewhere along the line I stopped thinking about that end goal of I'm on this path so that I can have influence, blah blah blah, and I just started becoming an actor, and I was just acting for the sake of acting and not for this aspirational, high-minded goal.

Then a couple of years ago we got a new president, and that lit a fire under me. It was actually during the campaign when I started to think, "Oh, Trump might get elected. Oh, this is serious," and then my C-list celebrity started to come into play and I thought, "All right, well I can use the platform that I have."

EL: By the way, I think it's at least B-minus, okay?

MC: Well you, as everyone knows, grade on a curve, so thank you for your charity. In a strange way it feels to me a little bit like it's come full circle, and now that the show's ending and after 15 seasons I'm asking the question, "Okay, how can I be of use in the world?" I don't know what's next for me. I don't know if I spend a lot of time on television sets after this or not. I'm trying to do some soul searching and figure out what I really want to be when I grow up. But that's, in a nutshell, my path.

EL: It's an amazing path, and you accomplished much more as an actor than almost any actor I know. To be a working actor and to have made some money doing it is actually an incredible accomplishment, and maybe it's to the resilience you discovered you had in your childhood.

MC: Yeah, I think possibly. I think obviously there's a lot of dumb luck that comes into play. It's not my fault that the show that I'm on has been on for 15 seasons or has the devoted fan base that it has.

EL: There are conventions for Supernatural. I notice this-

MC: We have conventions. There are tattoos with face on them. I mean, it's hard not to be full of yourself in this context. But yeah, we have a really, really devoted fan base, and it's quite remarkable to be a part of.

What was it? I think it was Freakonomics at one point. Maybe it was in the book Freakonomics, but they said that pursuing a career in acting is like pursuing a career as a drug dealer. It's very, very difficult to be one of the kingpins, to be successful in the field.

EL: Right.

MC: The odds are so bad that it takes a certain personality that's defective that wants to even pursue that in the first place, because 99 out of 100 people are going to fail at that and then you're just going to be a low level street corner drug dealer, or barely getting food on your table as a background actor.

EL: Yeah. Well Misha, we have to leave it right here for this episode of Special Sauce, but you're going to stick around and tell us all about your two terrific kids, West and Maison.

MC: We just say Mason.

EL: West and Mason.

MC: Yes, we anglicize the French spelling.

EL: And your wife Vicki, and your family collaboration on The Adventurous Eaters Club. Thank you for spending so much time with us on Special Sauce.

MC: Thank you so much for having me, and I can't wait to talk about the book.

Listen to the podcast here

[cherry-ber]

Too drunk to fuck pt.9

Previous | Part one

Whatever that text was supposed to mean, you didn't care. You purposely ignored and avoided Mark the whole week, and after a few ignored messages, he gave up, and seemed to understand what you were probably thinking, every day Jaemin walked you home -because then you'd spend more time together than if he drove, he said- after a day in school with your new friends, and every day promised to be better than the last one. Friday came sooner than expected, and you got up earlier to dress extra special, tonight's dinner with Jaemin and your parents, although excited, made you incredibly anxious. So many things could go wrong.

When the classes were over, Jaemin was waiting for you outside of your classroom, holding your hand and giving you a sweet kiss as soon as he saw you. He carried your bag as you walked to his car, before you were home for dinner, he figured it would be nice to have a real first date, not a risky late night trip or an awkward meeting with your parents. He'd never done that, dating had never been important for him, he was too busy, and too invested with his deals and his friends, no time for girls and feelings at all, but he did a great job at planning, though. He took you to a museum, fair enough, you had to go as an assignment from Art class, but when you asked him to be your museum date, he was absolutely into it, then he took you to an ice cream parlor, a cute one, with the prettiest walls and decorations, and the best ice cream you've ever had. He took you flower picking, and to a park with lots of dogs being walked, and finally back home, just in time for you to be earlier than your parents. He greeted them politely, and your father was happy to see him again. Jaemin looked as handsome as he always did, but putting on his good boy persona, he looked softer and nicer than he usually did. His hair was pushed back, and he was wearing a light, baby blue sweater, that matched your baby blue, princess dress, your mom wasted no time mentioning how cute it was that you wore matching outfits, although it was actually a big casualty you did.

They had many, too many, questions for him. How you two met, how long you'd been friends, what classes you had together, what did the rest of your friends do, what did he want to do for a leaving, what were his plans after school. Jaemin handled every single question and gave an answer to every question that astonished your parents.

Jaemin's phone received a bunch of calls, he never picked up, arguing that if it were truly important, no one would really call him, but when your parents stood up the table for a couple minutes, and he finally had time to check his phone, all the calls were Mark's, but he left no message, and your date assumed it was, probably, not important at all. Usually, at least some months ago, on Fridays they'd be going to the abandoned warehouse, get drunk and have a race, or maybe they'd be shoplifting, attending their clients and playing dumb when they got caught, and although Jaemin, and the rest of his friends, knew it was bad, a tiny particle in his mind is telling him that he should be doing that right know. There's a part of them that has accepted the path they started walking so long ago, and it's a shame that they did, since the could be doing so much better.

After the food, and the awkward, intrusive, questions were out of the table, Jaemin suggested you went to Jeno's place again, and because you had no interest in staying home, you agreed, asked your parents permission to be home, and reluctantly they said yes, although you knew they agreed basically because Jaemin is too convincing, and too likeable.

He drove with the windows down, which made the chilly air play with his hair, giving him this absolutely attractive, messy hairstyle, and then all you wanted to do was to make him stop and kiss him while you ran your fingers through his hair. The annoying ringtone of your phone got your mind back to where you were sitting, and looking at the notification bar, you notice how many texts from Mark you got all day long, last one being received in thus exact moment.

“Friday, 7:15 a.m, Mark ♡:

hey”

“can we meet today?”

“Friday, 8:30 a.m, Mark ♡:

are you free after this period?”

“Friday, 9:48 a.m, Mark♡:

are you okay?”

“Y/N”

“???”

“Friday, 2:45 p.m, Mark♡:

are you at home”

“did I do something wrong?”

“Friday, 4:04 p.m, Mark ♡:

I think you hate me?”

“wait”

“you're with jaemin right?”

“Friday, 6:36 p.m, Mark ♡:

So i saw jaemin driving”

“And i was about to get close”

“and then i see you on the passenger side”

“you couldve replied, yk”

“Friday, 7:19 p.m, Mark ♡:

Ans know im fucking drunkk”

“fuck yOu”

“actually no”

“Friday, 8:58 p.m, Mark ♡:

hu sorry im liken really rly drunk”

“im at jenooossssss'”

“ypu should comeb too”

By the time you finished reading, it was too late, Jaemin had already parked, and when the men inside noticed, all of them, except Mark, came out to greet him, and when they saw you, they couldn't look happier. They urged you inside, but before you could get to the living room with them, Jeno stopped you and Jaemin.

“So, look, Mark is... Kinda sensitive right now” he looks into his direction, Mark sitting on the floor, with his head head resting on Renjun's lap, he's laughing and smiling and rubbing his hands on the carpet “I don't know what he had, he's drunk but, I think he might be high too”

Jaemin makes an effort to keep his annoyance unseen, remembering that every time Mark drinks, it's a mistake, a mistake that he's gonna have to solve.

“Just” Jeno knows, Jeno can read Jaemin like a book, and although he agrees that they shouldn't be the ones caring after his oldest friend, he can't let him alone whenever he needs them “don't mind him, he's saying weird shit, he's harmless”

Jeno sits in the couch next to Renjun, trying to block Mark's view of you, but when you walk in, holding Jaemin's hand, he loses it. His laugh is insanely loud, and it's almost scary, making Jaemin squeeze your hand harder between his, and he grabs someone's drink and takes it in a single sip, you can tell it was strong, because of the face he's making. Suddenly, everyone in the room is uncomfortable, waiting for someone to make the next move.

After minutes of staring at the wall in front of him, Mark stands up, tumbling when he does, and walks closer to you, stopping when you are just a few centimeters away from him. Jaemin reacts immediately, pushing Mark away from you, and putting himself between you two. Mark giggles, he looks innocent, and when you're about to apologize to him, that sweet look disappears.

“Are you really gonna let her get between us?” he asks jaemin, arrogance in his tone, and absolutely spiteful when he looks at you.

“You're drunk, go home” all eyes are on them both, but no one really dares to interfere.

“Is that all you're going to say?” he walks closer to Jaemin, and although he wishes that Mark doesn't do anything else, he's ready for whatever he tries “is that it, huh? I give you a home when you need it, a job, money, my time” he grabs Jaemin by the collar of his shirt “I let you into my life” Renjun rushes to you, dragging you out of the room, meanwhile Jeno and Donghyuck try to get Mark and Jaemin away from each other.

Everything happened too fast, and you can't even complain when Renjun walks you upstairs to Jeno's room and locks the door. You can hear the screaming from downstairs and there's nothing you can do to help. Your mom couldn't have possibly chosen a worst time to call, lying, you tell her that as soon as the movie you're watching is over, Jaemin will drive you back home.

Jisung and Chenle are leaving, after Renjun insisted that they shouldn't be there, although they are worried, they know there's not much they can do, and promise to be ready if something else happens, they say you goodbye from the porch, and offer to walk you home, but you know you can't leave just yet.

Jeno was successful in calming Jaemin down, but Mark wasn't going to stop until he got what he wanted, Donghyuck and Renjun getting tired of dealing with him, but doing it anyway because the idea of what could come next was too scary. Jaemin unlocks the door, and brings you back down, with Jeno and himself protecting you from whatever Mark could try, going outside and into his car. Jeno apologizes to the both of you, and runs back inside.

Jaemin doesn't speak in the whole way back home, when he stops, he opens the door for you, walks you to the door, and says sorry when you open the door. You can only shake your head and give him a kind smile, hoping that he understands what you are trying to say. He drives away, but instead of going home, as you wished he did, he takes the way back to the mess, you watch him drive off, and you can only hope that things don't end up too bad.

“Saturday, 1:26 a.m, unknown number:

Don't panic, but Mark's in the hospital”

next♡

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

A.N: well that escalated quickly 😳

HeyyYYYyYy I'm finally bringing this back, after, well, i got notes from the whole series again. I hope you're having a good time guys, be healthy, be safe.