#it could be worse but the blinking during lectures makes it kinda hard to take notes

[nonamelifeisboring]

brain: so our life is kinda good right now. you got into school routine, you dont stress much

me: yup, i feel pretty stable

brain: sooooooo maybe i could shake something up?

me: no.

brain: what about a New Tic?

me: no. Please. No.

brain: ;-)

me: ;-)

me: FUCK!

[wild-jackalope]

Satoru Gojo, your scarily perceptive teacher, takes it upon himself to help his horny student, you, with your over-abundance of cursed energy.

paring :: Teacher!Satoru x Student!Reader, Student!Megumi x Student!Reader (undertones).

warning :: age gap, teacher-student relationship, public sex, virgin reader, corruption kink (kinda), straight penetration, no foreplay, cherry popping, Gojo is cocky, reader is horny af.

note :: reader is 18 and a third year with the other students (Yuji, Megumi, Nobara).

“That much cursed energy isn’t good for you.” Megumi eyed you, a weary frown resting on his face.

“I’m fine.” You grunted. The vast aura of cursed energy angrily whipping around you only seemed to surge more when he continued his lecture.

“You’ll get sick.” He added, a noticeable warning in his tone.

“I’m fine.” You sharply returned.

You had not been fine, in fact, you were tensed beyond belief. Being a Jujustu sorcerer was hard, anyone with a brain could tell you that, but the past weeks had taxed you physically and emotionally to an extent you had never experienced. Mission after mission had lead you to lacking personal and intimate time. Each night you'd black out the moment your head hit your pillow, sometimes still in your sweaty uniform.

Each morning you'd wake up with a noticeable wet spot between your legs, but before you could set your barking pussy to rest, you'd be called up and sent on another mission. The only way you could release the building tension was by taking it out on curse spirits, leading to relatively swift victories. The higher ups seemed to consider your constant wins as a challenge because they continued to throw cursed spirits your way.

This had been going on for a whole month, and now it came to the point in your womanly cycle where you yearned to be fucked the most; Ovulation.

"What's up with you?" Yuji questioned.

"Frustrated?" Nobara grinned. You'd made the mistake of venting to her about your situation during a paired mission. Your body tightened with searing regret.

"Don't pester her. You'll make it worse." Megumi cut, keeping his narrow eyes targeted at your surrounding classmates.

Maybe if Megumi liked you enough to defend you, you could test the waters and see if you could get him under the sheets. Idiot. You palmed your forehead, attempting to smack away the thoughts. Megumi was your friend. You'd just embarrass yourself.

"Woah, look at that aura." Satoru had finally slipped into the classroom, about twenty minutes late to the class. Twenty minutes you could've spent getting yourself off. Stop thinking about it. "Someone's seeming a little moody." He jested, lifting the side of his blindfold to eye your irritated cursed energy.

You huffed a depressing sigh, Satoru's harassing would just frustrated you more, especially considering he was so hot. God you would do anything to be dicked down. Especially by him.

The majority of the class time was spent with your head resting in your folded arms. Each low syllable pronounced by your teacher would make you fantasies about what his moans would sound like and whenever you felt his eyes gaze over you, a tingling shiver meddled with your legs. You were too far gone. Even if you had time to masturbate, would it be enough?

Even after the class had finished, you delayed leaving your chair, hoping to grind your thighs together just a little longer to the thoughts of your teacher.

"Coming?" Megumi asked. You wished.

"She should stay back." Satoru stated, casual smile on his face.

You lifted your head, blinking.

"Bye." Megumi waved, you returned the gesture.

"So you going to tell me the deal with all your cursed energy, or should I just take an educated guess?" His hand landed on the base of your desk, slender pointer finger tapping it.

Unintentionally, your voice left you in the form of a meek whimper. "I'll deal with it, you don't have to worry."

"Educated guess then," He shrugged, finding no satisfaction in your answer. "I know you've been shoved a heavy work load, being asked to defeat cursed spirits every day for.. how many weeks now? Four?" You nodded. "Rough. I dealt with a similar thing back in my youth, the strongest is always busy. Never any time to be alone."

You swallowed the saliva pooling in your mouth. "Uhm, yeah."

"So that's it then? You're just a bit pent up." You flushed at his casual discovery.

"I-I said I'll deal with it. We don't need to be talking—"

"Want me to help?"

That’s what landed you on Satoru’s desk, papers scattered over the floor, with your bottoms hanging off your leg and his pants resting just above his hips. You’d moved from your desk to his with a frazzled fanaticism, not caring to question Satoru’s sexual intentions as he lead you, merely chasing the end of your drowning lust. In that moment, your teacher seemed like the solution to all your problems, so you let in.

His thumb dipped beneath his boxers, leisurely pulling them down to expose the lines of his hips and the beginning of his shaft.

He’d pulled your bottoms off with an intense haste, unfairly compared to how slowly he teased you with the sight of his dick. He watched your wide, glossy eyes gape like a virgin at him.

“Wet dream come true?” He asked, chuckling behind his words.

Your response was a breathy hiccup, filled with astonishment and embarrassment. Did he know you had the hots for him? Well, he must’ve had some clue, because you were currently naked from the waist down on his desk.

“Cute.” He added, finally allowing his cock to spring free and give you the sight you longed for. Your fingers began to ache with how hard you gripped the table, skin blanching and nails digging into the wood with stressed intensity.

The size of him was larger than what you’d imagined, thicker too. His pale skin, littered with blue-ish veins, perfectly blended into a lip-pink tip, already damp with his own pre. The reality that his was the first dick you’d seen in person, and were about to feel inside the chasm of your pussy made your stomach pile with anxious butterflies.

The sudden heat of the moment dampened in your mind, as your virgin inexperience hit you like whiplash. You pressed your lips inwards, biting them. You couldn’t tell him, not now, not while he was slipping between your legs and his hands were rising underneath your uniform.

“So tense.” He murmured, towering posture leaning into your figure as his fingers skimmed the lining of your ribs, then reached the fabric of your bra. “Relax babe, no one’s gonna disturb this.” He kissed your clothed shoulder, then your neck. The softness made you burn and melt into him.

“Gojo—” Your tone was weary, and Satoru cut you off before you could utter any confused regret.

“I’m your teacher, I know what’s best for you. I’ll take care of your problem, yeah? You just sit there and enjoy it.” His lips latched onto yours, sucking away any words you were thinking of speaking from your lips.

One hand returned to his base, taking his cock whilst the other held your body, his thumb rolling over your supported boob in a needy motion.

His cock dipped between your folds, gathering the pooling slick that dripped from your cunt. The connection made you jolt and grab the arm he used to grope you.

“Forgot how quickly younger girls get wet.” He muttered aloud. Your face must’ve churned at the words, because he immediately backtracked. “I don’t go searching to fuck young women, I’ve just had plenty of experience over the years.”

Your face eased, but still you squinted in distrust. He laughed.

“I mean, c’mon, you’re gushing just at the sight of me.” Embarrassed, you averted your eyes and uttered a unintelligible disagreement. Satoru took your flushed face into his hand and brought your attention back to his grin. “Don’t worry, pretty girl, you’re the youngest I’ve had.” Unable to move yourself from his grip, Satoru leaned down and planted a wet kiss to your lips.

He licked over your bottom lip, retreating when you moaned in his mouth. He’d become impatient, needing to feel your wet warmth hugging his dick. He thrusted his cock into your clit, once, twice before planting his tip in the crook of your weeping hole.

“Fuck, Megumi is gonna hate me.” He drawled, a contradictory excitement lacing his tone.

You hadn’t time to question his statement as his cock dived between your folds, slipping into your chasm and stretching the thin skin of your cherry.

“Ah! Fuck.” You huffed, the stretching ache rumbling through your abdomen causing your legs to restrict around him. Your hands shot to his chest, weakly and frantically grabbing at the loose fabric of his uniform. “Gojo—”

“Oh, I know, baby. I know.” A certain weak pity jesting his words. “Fuck, you’re tight. Don’t tell me, am I your first?” His smirk grew at the concept, as did his cock.

You hadn’t given him an answer, only spurs of moaning huffs as you concentrated on dealing with ache of being split open by his lean dick. He retracted his hips sharply, you gasped and hit his chest.

“Tell me, c’mon. Am I your first? Am I?” He sunk in again, then retracted with an agonising speed.

“Gah! Yes, yes— fuck, you are.” You huffed, hitting his abdomen again.

“Fuuuck. Lucky me.” Satoru slowed his hips, returning to sliding inside you with an uninterrupted slowness. “I’ve been so selfish, jus’ wanting to fuck you right away, next time it’ll be all about you. Promise.”

“N-Next time?” You heaved, clawing at his chest.

With a deep drawl, he responded. “You ain’t the only one who has needs, baby.” You could feel the words puff into your neck.

The realisation hit you. Satoru was just as pent up as you were, having no time to hookup or masturbate. His situation was just as bad as yours, likelier worse. As much as he might’ve wanted to seem like a teacher just helping his student get off to alleviate their cursed energy, he craved sex twice as much as you did.

He continued to sink in, sliding against the pleasurable nerves decorating your gummy walls. You whined and Satoru hushed you, halting once his hips pressed into yours. “There you go, perfect fit.” He praised.

“God.” You choked, gasping at the air. You felt him, felt his hot cock press into the parts of you nobody else had, parts your own fingers had barely reached.

“I know. Big, huh? You can take it, I know you can.” His slender hand cupping your breast squeezed in feeble reassurance.

Your teeth clenched and your chest fell with fast puffs. “Perv.” You breathed.

His cock twitched, tapping the roof of your sticky canal. “So rude. Don’t you know you need to respect your elders?” He drew his hips out and you winced.

“Just wait, hmpf, God—” You ripped at his shirt. He’d been pushing you this entire time, eager to fuck you silly.

Satoru brought his hands to his mouth and licked his finger, pressing it to your clit and rubbing the saliva into the nub. The pleasure it brought you fought against the aching and you rested your head against his chest, allowing the sweet feeling to soften your body.

“Good girl. Loosen up for me.” He murmured kindly. The words alone added another wet layer of slick around his cock.

His thrusts started off slow and long, pulling his cock so out that your entrance ring danced around his tip, then sweetly sliding back in until your pubes met. Each time he’d penetrate your deepest part, tip dangerously close to tapping your cervix, you’d whine and moan, making him chant mindless remixes of the phrase ‘I know baby, just take it. It’s okay.’

Even at his slowest pace, your mind went hazy with the intensity of sex. Hot, wet, wrong sex. Each time you revisited the reality of your own teacher fucking you, it made your pussy clench around him.

He grunted, taking a calming breath. “‘M gonna pick up the pace, okay?” He was hardly asking for permission, practically tripling his speed before he finished his warning.

You moaned into his chest, hands dragging around his body, wanting to feel him and begging to hold onto something. Satoru placed them on his shoulder, squeezing your wrists in an attempt at comfort, though you could hardly feel anything other than the overwhelming sensation of your gooey insides being massaged.

The curves of his cock flittering past your cloying walls began to feel impossibly familiar, like you were born to be filled with Satoru’s cock. Each drawl made his cock head slide against the spongy part of your g-spot, building you up and up into ecstasy.

The buildup from inside your chasm was intense and ticklish, otherworldly compared to the orgasms you’d rub out alone in bed. You only wished Satoru had perused you sooner.

“I’m gonna cum— oh fuck.”

“I know, baby. I know. Keep taking it.” His nose dipped into your hair, rubbing your side like a cat.

Your climax hit hard and fast, turning your legs to jelly and releasing muscles you hadn’t known were clenched. Your pussy walls cramped and fluttered around Gojo’s cock sucking him in and prompting him to cum inside you. He whined at the intensity.

Satoru Gojo, your teacher, the strongest Jujustu sorcerer, whining as you clenched around his cock. The power trip collided with your electric orgasm, forcing a weak smile to your lips that made your cheeks burn and welled searing tears in your eyes.

He moaned desperately loud, enough to make your heart sink at the idea of it being heard. However the fear was short lived as hot liquid seed pooled in the deep parts of your pussy, thickly coating your walls. You shivered, unable to recongise the foreign feeling of being cummed in. Slower now, he rode the spurts of his orgasm.

“You came inside?” You lazily questioned, unable to reprimand Satoru besides an unsteady slap to his shoulder.

“Don’t worry about that baby, I’ll handle it.” He murmured, upper body now resting against you while his hips slowed to a halt. “Well done.” He cooed, nibbling at your neck.

“You say that like I just defeated a cursed spirit.” You sighed. His lips curl into a smile against your skin and you cringed.

“But you deserve it, pretty girl.”

Peering down at where his cock stilled inside you, you could see the drips of cum froth around his base, dots of pinkish blood swirling with your juices too.

He left you with another curt cheek-kiss, removing himself from your bullied cunt. The feeling of loosing his warm thickness was a discomfort comparable to when he first entered you.

You cursed, the words catching in your throat. Finally able to relax your legs, they attempted to shut however Satoru’s hands grappled the plush of your thigh and pried them open.

“Don’t close your legs, I’ve got to clean you up.”

Akin to a guardian placing a Band-Aid over a sulking child’s scraped knee, Satoru dabbed a tissue to your sloppy cunt, gathering up the mix of blood, cum and slick until you were semi-dry. He pressed a kiss to your clit and you gasped. The sugar-sweet noise begged him to dive between your lips and suck up the mess he made inside you. Next time, he thought, next time he’d leave you ruined.

“The others are still waiting for you, go meet up with them.” He looped your underwear and bottoms through your legs, allowing you to stand and pull them up all the way.

Standing added another pressure to your core and you wobbled. “It hurts.” You uttered into your chest.

“You’ll be fine, a little pain never bothered you out on the field, one of the reason you’re my favourite.” His words tasted like butter and you pressed a frustrated palm to his chest.

“Don’t say stuff like that.” Your reserve was questionable, considering how you two just fucked.

He took your wrist and kissed it. “It’s true.”

A weak scoff left you, and you turned on your heel penguin-walking outside the classroom, Satoru sending you off with a tap to your ass.

“You seem a lot better.” Megumi mused, a quick shine of surprised relief on his face.

“You’re glowing.” Nobara added, an upturn brow and narrow eyes taking in your afterglow.

Strategically, you avoided Nobara’s comment and directed yourself towards Megumi. “Yeah, Gojo managed to actually help for once.” You let out an uneasy chucke, adjusting your blazer.

Just as you were about to suggest grabbing some food, likely sushi, to your classmates, Satoru’s voice called out to you.

Crap, had you forgotten something? You put your underwear on, right?

“This is for you.” He extended a hand, holding a plastic sheet containing one singular pill. Your face and ears immediately flushed, turning a bright pink. You snatched the plan B off him, placing it deep into the crevice of your pocket and turning your back to him.

“Thanks.” You hissed.

“Bye then.” He flirted, giving his other students a wave before backing away.

“What was that?” Yuji asked.

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

[folkloreguk]

French Class [7]

A/N: AAAH I apologize in advance for this part bc I feel like it's kinda messy :/ I hope you still like it though?? Lmk what you think! x

genre: optional bias (m) x reader (f), fwb, f2l?, college!au, fuckboy!bias, nerd!reader, angst, H/N is a jealous and drunk fool :/

words: ~ 3.7 k

✽series masterlist✽

taglist (lmk if u wanna be added!): @lovely-ateez, @runaway-fics, @mainexiii, @awfullytiredbuthealing, @erikyoong, @etherealuv, @yeostars, @staysuki, @justcuz-ican, @hyuckthangs, @teenloves, @mexious18-blog, @sunghoonied, @mailobjaeyoon, @tr-wemoon, @prismwon

couldn’t tag: @chorizoek, @r-eadings

H/N’s POV:

Maybe I’ll come ‘round, your text had said. How did you expect him to enjoy the party if you wouldn’t be there? H/N used to make fun of guys who ran after girls like lap dogs. And yet, over time he had become one of them, if not worse. Every text, every possibility of seeing you had him on the edge of his seat in excitement. There was nothing he cared about more than spending time with you. When at first it had been sexual attraction – an obsession with your body and the way you turned him on with the most subtle words and touches – it had changed into something entirely different. The relentless hunger was now occasional, ever so often interrupted by a dire wish to see you smile. A wish to hold you, and to kiss you out of the blue – something he wasn’t allowed to do if it wasn’t for the two of you hooking up. The stupid agreement you had made was starting to feel like torture instead of heaven. He was lucky his poker face was professional, and he had years of practice in flirting and sounding casual even if his heart was beating up to his neck. There was no other way he could have concealed how infatuated he was with you, otherwise.

“H/N, come help me set up the snacks!” Korain shouted from the kitchen. H/N’s friends were throwing a party at their place, and he had shown up early to assist them in preparing everything. With you on his mind – as always – he trotted into the kitchen where a row of bowls was standing out on the counter.

“Just open and pour the bags into the bowls, will you? I still need to get ready,” Korain said. “Chohee said she might be here a bit earlier, and I don’t want to look like this when she’s going to look amazing.”

Korain gestured to his bed hair he probably hadn’t brushed once since getting up and then tweaked the fabric of his sweatpants and his old, baggy tee. H/N wanted to argue that if Chohee really liked Korain, she wouldn’t mind seeing him this way. H/N, for one, couldn’t care less what you wore tonight. As long as you showed up at all, he would be beaming. Strictly speaking, at times when he got to see you wake up, sleep in your eyes and your clothes in a disarray, it spun his head in ways no little black dress could ever do. When he saw you make breakfast in his kitchen, in his shirt, he could barely contain himself.

His daydreams of you were once naughty and gave him boners at random times of the day – and don’t get me wrong, they still were, sometimes – but it was when the domestic dreams had begun, that he realized he was screwed. He didn’t need anybody to tell him how he felt, nor did he have some crazy moment of clarity. There came a point in his days where he didn’t just notice his non-sexual daydreams of you, he invited them. His brain was imagining things like setting up a shared table for dinner or kissing the back of your hand in the dark of a movie theater or playing you a cheesy song that reminded him of you. He wanted to hold your hands from across the library table and have his arm around your shoulders to show you off to the entire campus. But none of it could be real. It all went against the rules.

“Will Y/N be here too?” Korain asked and pulled H/N out of his daydreams. God, I hope so, he thought.

“She said she might be here,” H/N answered.

“Chohee’s always talking about her. And you. About how she thinks Y/N has a crush on you, but she always denies it, saying you’re just friends. Maybe you could try and bring that up tonight?” Korain said, as if discussing your feelings for someone was as easy at conversing about the weather. “Alright, I really have to go get ready now.”

“I’ve been thinking, I might- “ said H/N, but Korain only pat his shoulder.

“Let’s talk later, at the party, okay?” he said, and walked out the kitchen. I might like her, H/N had been meaning to say. I might like Y/N. No. I’m in love with her. No maybes. He could bet all his money on it, that’s how sure he was. But his friend had disappeared and now it was on him to wait until the party began. Left alone with his thoughts.

Of course, you would deny having a crush on him. Because you probably didn’t, he thought. Wouldn’t you search for a smart guy, someone your mother would approve of, and someone who understood your endless talks of nerdy topics? Although sometimes he had no idea what you were on about, H/N was captivated whenever you gave him a lecture about something you had learned. And when he asked you to explain something one more time, you never hesitated, or judged him for it. Your kindness made his heart swell, and only when the first crowd of party guests arrived did he realize he had spent half an hour daydreaming about you. Again.

With the way he kept the front door in his sight at all times, one could have wondered if he was a highly wanted criminal on the run, afraid the cops could barge in at any moment. Some of the girls who tried to flirt with him even asked him about it, but he wasn’t going to confess he was waiting for the love of his life to walk through that very door. With little conviction he returned their flirting. He hated himself for the thoughts he had. Thinking that should you not arrive, he could console himself by taking one of the other girls home instead. They didn’t deserve to be used like that, but he was bitter and so, so in love with you. It was hard to pay any attention to the other girls at all, no matter how sweet they were being.

Flirting back at them, however, came to him as easily as the words to his favorite songs. It posed no challenge, like it did with you. When he had to try hard to make your cheeks heat up, or to lure out a shy smile instead of your genius, quick-witted remarks. There was nothing more exciting to him than to invent new ways in which he could make you flustered.

Right now, it was his turn to be flustered. Because his ex had approached him and was reciting some of her favorite memories she had of their relationship. “Remember our third date…the one that ended with us squished in that tiny dressing room at Victoria’s Secret?” she asked and blinked at him expectantly. He went along with her words and replied something not too direct, but still enough to make her giggle like a little girl.

It was his own fault she was so intent on talking to him. While you had been on your date with the economy-major-guy, H/N had tried to contact his ex again. In hindsight, he thought it pathetic and extremely stupid at that. Nothing would have come of it, anyway. Not while he felt the way he did about you. So it was only lucky his ex hadn’t been free that night. Then he had gotten dangerously close to drowning his feelings in the vodka in his kitchen. Thankfully he had refrained from this, too, because you had shown up afterwards and you had ended up having mind-blowing sex, and he knew for a fact that had he been drunk, he would have blurted out some crazy sentiments he would have regretted saying in the morning.

Sometimes he tried to signal you his emotions, ever so subtly. Waving off your claims when you called him the campus fuckboy or telling you he wasn’t really hooking up with anyone else besides you, it all was an attempt at making you see what he felt for you. He would tell you that you looked pretty, not just so you would understand he liked you, but simply because it had to be said. When he regarded you fixing your hair in the mirror with a frown, he could barely believe you didn’t know how beautiful you were. And he had gotten closer to you during sex. Whether it was voluntary or an instinct that came with being in love, he wasn’t certain. There was nothing like kissing away your moans while he fucked you into a mattress.

He was about to text you – the urge to see you getting unbearable – but didn’t want to sound clingy when you strut through the door. No slow motion or fan blowing your hair around dramatically would have made you look more perfect. The ridiculous pang he felt in his heart when he saw you hug another guy only reminded him of how whipped he was. He reminded himself that he had no right to be jealous. You weren’t his girlfriend, after all. When you then made eye contact with him and made a beeline for him, he was worried he’d be short of words. He needed to pull himself together.

“Hi,” you said, and your smile was magical enough to stir up the butterflies in H/N’s stomach. You pointed at the empty spot on the sofa between H/N and another guy you didn’t know. “Is this seat taken?”

“No,” the guy said, before H/N had time to speak, and the stranger smiled at you in a way that could only mean he wanted to get to know you. But H/N caught your attention by swiftly putting his arm around your shoulder, making the stranger back up and divert his eyes the other way. He had never meant to be the jealous type. It was just that you were finally here, and he was so happy to see you, he couldn’t bare the thought of you running off again. Only when you gave him a funny look H/N realized he needed to calm down if he didn’t want you to get annoyed.

“So, what did I miss?” you asked.

His ex was approaching from across the room again, and before he could have stopped his mouth, he said the stupidest thing. “Kiss me.”

You furrowed your eyebrows, but he was intent on it. “Please. Kiss me. Quick.”

There was a strange emotion that crept over your face, and you seemed to have no clue why he was so set on it. Nevertheless, you did as he asked. Your mouth tasted of watermelon bubblegum, so sweet, so perfect, and he was flying on cloud nine for the short while it lasted. It wasn’t real, though. The thought stabbed his brain like a dagger. When you pulled apart you were grinning, and his ex wasn’t in the room anymore.

“Care to explain why we just did that?” you asked. “You’re diminishing your chances with the ladies in the room.”

He rolled his eyes. “My ex has been trying to get with me again, and I hoped she’d let off if she saw us kiss. And she did.” Then his eyebrows raised. “What do you mean by my chances with the ladies? I was hoping we could go home together.”

“I can’t tonight,” you said, and he had to fight to keep his face straight. “I’ve got to get back to studying first thing tomorrow morning. I just came here to hang out, for a while.”

“Oh,” was all he could muster without sounding like you were ripping out his heart. It wasn’t even your fault. He would never try and get between you and your studies. But what if he could be there? What if he could be the one staying in bed, watching as you climbed up early to bury your head in books? He’d watch you through tired eyelashes, and you’d ridicule him for being so starry-eyed when looking at you. Later he’d bring you tea or coffee and remind you to take a break to eat. Was it ludicrous to obsess over something so domestic? He didn’t feel guilty for it.

All at once, your laugh pulled him out of his daydream, and into a funny story you told him. Over-consciously, he noted how your arm went around his shoulder lazily. And for a while you sat and talked. Occasionally a flirty remark slipped over your lips, and he would always return it. It was idiotic, but he was already worrying about how much he would miss you once you went home. Perhaps his plan of consoling himself with another girl hadn’t been so bad, after all. Just as he had finished the thought, a familiar face walked by and noticed him. The alcohol in his veins made her seem perfectly inviting as a distraction, for later.

“Oh, hey. Y/N, this is Minji,” he said, pointing at the girl. “Minji, this is Y/N. She’s…just a friend.”

Instantly, you removed your arm from his shoulder. There was hidden pain in your gesture, or was it merely wishful thinking on his side? Minji nodded and greeted you, but you only waved her off with a polite smile.

“I’m going to get a drink from the kitchen,” you announced, and before he could have stopped you, you had walked off. For a while he chatted with Minji, because he had no good reason to run after you that wouldn’t create awkwardness. His patience lasted approximately ten minutes. Luckily, a friend waved at Minji from across the room and she excused herself. Although he would never wish her ill, he was glad she was leaving.

Quickly, he made his way to the kitchen, where he found you talking to a guy. Without thinking, H/N smiled at you as he came up to you and wrapped his arm around your waist. He hadn’t meant to look so intimidating, and he hadn’t meant to be an asshole either. Yet, the guy across from you appeared scared and when you turned your attention to H/N, the guy slowly retracted into another circle of chatting people. Guilt crept in on H/N. He was tipsy, and although he knew his drunkenness wasn’t an excuse, it made him want you so much more. Perhaps it was also insecurity making him act crazy. There was always a glimmer of hope in the back of his mind, that you might just like him back. So long as you hadn’t confirmed the opposite, he would live in constant terror that someone else could steal your attention and make you theirs before he could.

“Come with me,” you muttered in his ear. Your hand was around his wrist, and he had no choice but to trot after you like a child. At first, he thought you were going to take him out the front door, but then you made a turn for the stairs. He didn’t need to be a fuckboy to know what it meant when a girl walked him up the stairs. From one second to the other, his mood changed into gleefulness. Had you changed your mind? The mere thoughts of what could happen upstairs could have given him a boner, had he pondered on them for longer. You said nothing, only driving him more insane by the second. The first open door was good enough for you, so you pulled him inside and closed it behind you. Smirking, he reached for your waist, ready to pull you into a kiss.

“Don’t,” you hissed, and he flinched at your angry tone. He kept his hands to himself, kneading them nervously. Shit. This was the clear opposite of what he had anticipated. The two of you had never fought, and hearing your voice, sounding so deeply upset, scared him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” you asked.

“I’m sorry, I thought you wanted to make out- “ he said.

“I don’t mean just now. I mean…what is it you’re trying to achieve by acting all possessive over me in front of random guys? Pretending I belong to you? But the second a pretty girl is in front of you I’m just a friend, aren’t I? What’s that about?”

There was no explaining this, and he knew it. Yet, he would try, pathetically. “I just thought you didn’t want those guys bothering you.”

“I can handle a guy by myself, thank you,” you snapped. “If I needed help, I’d ask. Like you did. Apparently, I’m good enough to be used as an escape from your ex, but when hot Minji came around you wouldn’t even blink when I got up and left.”

“Usedas an escape?” he asked in disbelief. “You didn’t have to kiss me, but you did anyway.”

“That’s because I was trying to be a good fucking friend!” you yelled now, sounding over the music from the party.

“You used me too, don’t you remember?” he countered. “Or did you not show up on my doorstep after your terrible date so I would fuck you and make you feel better?”

You looked taken aback for a moment, knowing he was right, in a way.

“It’s like you’re always trying to get away from me, but you can’t,” he said.

“Oh, fuck you!” you said, every trace of guilt washed away. “Get off your high horse! Isn’t that the whole point of us? That we’re using each other for sex? Nothing more than that, right? If I walked out now, you could go and find the next girl in line to take over instead of me. Didn’t you try to see someone while I was chatting to the guy I went on a date with? It’s all about using people, isn’t it? If things with the guy had gotten more serious for me, you’d have her, ready for you. Don’t you think that’s a little messed up? Leading someone on like that?”

There was truth to your words. He had tried to find someone to date, should you have found someone too and your friends-with-benefits relationship had been over. But he hadn’t led her on. He had been honest in letting the girl know he wasn’t sure if he wanted anything serious. His chest was hurting, and the pain was only making him more furious.

“Yeah, I could have switched you for her,” he said coldly. Was he only trying to hurt you now? Perhaps, but you had hurt him first.

“Right, because that’s all I am to you,” you said, quieter than before.

“That was our plan! You’re my fuck buddy, nothing more!” he raised his voice now, tired of your empty words and signs. “You have no right to accuse me of anything when I’m playing by the rules. The rules you made. Maybe we should go back to the beginning. Start the game over. I don’t even know what we’re arguing about right now.”

“Start over?”

“Go back to when we were just horny for each other and nothing else,” he said, as if that would be possible. As if he could ignore the way your eyes shined, even in the dim light coming from the streetlamps outside. Like he could pretend he didn’t want to hold you and make you forget all about this terrible fight.

“Fine, let’s try,” you said, and he watched in astonishment, as you closed the gap between the two of you. When you tilted your head, he gave you permission by doing the same. When you kissed, with teeth clashing and exhausted sighs mixing up, he swore there were bombs going off somewhere in his head. Alarm bells, too. This was by no means a great idea. But what could have stopped him and his hungry mouth? He backed you against the wall and pressed you into it, hard. Before he had registered it, his hands were pushing up the fabric of your dress and you moaned, sounding so beautiful he could barely believe it. One of his thighs forced its way between your legs while he gripped your waist like his life depended on it.

But then, just as rapidly you had begun to kiss him, you pushed him away. His lungs felt tight when he noticed the affliction and confusion on your face. He wished he could make it go away. But he had caused it, so now his presence only made things worse.

“No- no, I change my mind. This is fucking stupid,” you said. “I can’t do this right now.”

“Y/N,” he said in a gentle tone. Somehow, it seemed that his careful voice hurt you most of all.

“I think we should stop. All of this,” you said. He was beginning to shake his head in disbelief, but you cut him off. “We said there wouldn’t be jealousy, but there obviously is. We should have stopped long ago.”

“But what about starting the game again, from the beginning?” he asked, too afraid of what you would say to even look at you. If you were going to rip out his heart you should have done so quickly, when he wasn’t paying too close attention.

“The game’s over. This is going over both of our heads,” you said. “I- I’m going to go home now.”

So this was heartbreak. H/N had never considered that it could be meant so literally. But he could swear that the muscle inside his chest was convulsing and shriveling as if you had stolen the blood that kept him alive right from his arteries. The pain was sharp like a thousand cuts had been inflicted on his skin, and he struggled for words like your words had taken every of his most elemental abilities.

“I’ll walk you home,” he said.

“No,” you said. “You’re drunk. You’re the one who could need someone to walk you home. And I don’t want you around me right now. Get home safely.”

That was it. No hug. No last, longing look. Just your words stabbing like knives and your ethereal beauty as you turned on your heel and walked from the room, leaving him behind, bleeding out by himself. What had he done?

[vityuuwrites]

Know we didnt talk in a while and I hope u okk now... also wondering if u wanna do a vicuuri x never let me down?

Chose a random nr from my playlist and it was kinda lucky :)

ahhh i’m good now yeah, ty for worrying!! hope you are too <333 i’m sorry this is so late ASKSKS i hope you like it!! i might or might not have written most of it during a lecture whoops,,, also ty for the request! 

-

Victor is used to hiding everything behind a smile.

He never talks about his feelings – there's no space for them in skating. Maybe there was years ago, when he was still bright-eyed and hopeful, when love coloured his every move, his every jump and he was filled with indescribable joy after every performance. When skating was something he did because he loved it and not only because it was the only thing he was good at.

But now, Victor is Victor Nikiforov. He's Victor Nikiforov, the living legend, an untouchable god in skating no one could come close to, who was naturally good at it. Someone who never made mistakes, never faltered – he was the one person everyone wanted to catch up to, to push out of the top.

If they knew how lonely it was there, maybe they wouldn't want it because Victor is alone and he has to be alone. He has to be alone because he can't show any weakness to anyone.

Yuuri Katsuki is not like that.

It is almost like every single one of his emotions is etched onto his face, in the furrow between his eyebrows whenever he's anxious, or the shy turn of his lips whenever he's happy. His eyes sparkle when he's excited, his arms moving with the speed of his words. Victor feels warm whenever he looks at him.

He never thought that the man who swept him off his feet – quite literally – at that banquet so long ago would one day be moving in with him. He never thought that this level of happiness was possible. Not for him.

It made him want to be more open with himself. He wanted to share the parts of himself he kept hidden for so long – the lonely, broken parts of him that he never let anyone see – with the world.

Or just with Yuuri. There wasn't much difference to him, after all.

It was hard, though. His mind was, is and forever will be a dark, dark place that he sometimes sunk into. It was never as bad as Yuuri had it, he didn't think, but his thoughts were still hard to escape.

Victor Nikiforov is 28 years old. He is 28 years old which means his body is a ticking bomb just ready to go off at any seconds.

He knows he only has maybe one or two good seasons left. He can feel it in the hollow ache of his muscles all the way down to his bones, in the way his knees buckle when he lands a jump and his stamina is starting to get worse.

He only has one or two good seasons left in him and he doesn't want them to go to waste.

Maybe deciding to get back to skating was a bad idea. Maybe Victor should have let himself be blown out like a candle while he was still at his peak, suddenly and without a warning before people around him started noticing his weakness.

But he wanted to skate with Yuuri.

Him returning to the ice made Yuuri happy.

Victor lives for making Yuuri happy.

“Victor?” Yuuri says, breaking Victor out of his thoughts. Yuuri turns from the pan he is hunched over. His eyebrows crease with worry. “Are you ok?”

Victor forces a smile as he taps his fingers against the marble island stretching out over the middle of the kitchen. “Of course I am, Yuuri. Why’d you ask?”

Yuuri fully turns to him. “You’ve been awfully quiet since we’ve returned from practice.”

Victor hesitates for a second too long and he knows that Yuuri sees right through him. Still, he glances away as to not face his gaze. “I’m fine.”

Yuuri frowns but he does not pry, just turns back to the omelette he’s making.

Victor is grateful for that.

-

Victor is laying in the dark with the soft buzz of snowflakes hitting his window a backdrop to his thoughts. His hand is curled around Yuuri’s waist, rubbing the warm skin while Yuuri’s hair tickles at his chest and his breath strokes across his collarbones. He watches the cracks across his ceiling, like cracks under skates that split the smooth surface of the ice.

His eyes glance at his hand that spreads out across the sheet. The golden ring glints in the sliver of moonlight. His lips curl into a smile.

It is the only gold he ever won that does not feel like a shackle around his neck.

“Yuuri?” he whispers into the peaceful room. “Are you awake?”

“Mmm,” Yuuri murmurs and shifts in his hold. Bleary eyes turn to face him. Victor’s hand tightens on his waist. “I am now.”

Victor huffs out a laugh as his eyes turn back towards the ceiling. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispers. “I was just checking.”

Yuuri’s hair tickles him through his silk pajama top as he shakes his hand. “It’s ok, I don’t mind. We don’t have practice tomorrow morning, anyway.”

“True.” He keeps his gaze on the ceiling. “I’m still sorry.”

Yuuri’s hand moves from the sheet to hold Victor’s. He gives it a squeeze.

“Yuuri?” he says again after a minute of silence that presses heavy against his chest. “Can I…” He bites his bottom lip as he struggles to say something. Anything. He knows Yuuri will not judge him if he does.

The words still get stuck in the back of his throat.

Yuuri lifts his head from Victor’s chest and shifts higher to tilt his head so their gazes meet. “Victor?” he says softly.

Victor loosens a shaky breath and searches his eyes. He squeezes his hand tighter. “I’m scared,” he finally manages to choke out and sighs as tears gather at the corners of his eyes. He roughly wipes them away with the back of his hand.

Yuuri blinks. His hand grips Victor’s and gently pushes it away in favour of wiping the wetness away himself. “Of what?” he whispers, hand lingering against his cheek.

Victor nuzzles into it like a kitten and gives another shaky sigh. “I don’t know,” he says, gritting his teeth together. He looks back up towards the ceiling so he does not have to face him. “Nothing. Everything.”

“Is this why you’ve been awfully quiet today?” Yuuri asks. His voice is soft and caring and Victor wants to weep. He does not know why; it is just pressing heavily against very being.

“Maybe? I’ve just been too stuck in my mind.” He presses an arm over his eyes to hide the tear that slides down his cheek. It feels freezing cold. “I hate it. I hate it so much.”

Yuuri’s hand squeezes the hand he’s holding. “Victor…” he leans in to wrap his arms around him, pulling his head against his chest. Victor’s shoulders shake and he burrows his face into his chest as he gives a silent sob.

“Is there anything I can do?” Yuuri’s warm hand strokes circles into his scalp. Victor releases another shaky breath.

“I’m scared,” he says again, voice tight as he attempts to gather his thoughts. “I’m scared, Yuuri.”

Yuuri presses a soft kiss against the crown of his hair. “It’s ok, let it all out, it’s ok,” he whispers and Victor feels something inside of him break. His tears flow out freely, and he hiccups as he clutches at him like a lifeline.

“ It’s just,” he starts and scowls, his tears staining Yuuri’s sleeping shirt. “It’s just… I’m scared this is my last good season. I’m scared because I’m 28 and skating is the only thing I’ve done for more than 20 years. I don’t know how to do anything else, I don’t want to retire but I also know I need to because I – I can feel it. I wobble on jumps, I get tired too easily, I’m one knee injury away from retiring anyway. But I also don’t want to retire yet because – because you taught me to love skating again and I’ve just started to enjoy it again and – and ---”

Victor grits his teeth together. Yuuri just silently holds him.

“And I don’t want to let you down,” Victor adds in a near whisper as he grasps at him tighter and curls up into himself. “I know you want to skate with me and I want to skate with you and even saying that I want to skate is amazing because I was going to retire this season but I really, really want to but I’m scared that if I return I’ll just let everyone down. Everyone expects me to be so amazing all the time but I can’t be and I know I need to retire before I’m forced to by an injury.”

Victor takes a deep breath and slumps against himself. He squeezes his eyes shut.

Yuuri’s hand moves to rub his back. “How long have you been sitting on that?” he asks, voice feather-light and gentle. Victor gives a little laugh.

“A while,” he admits. “I’m… not used to talking about my feelings. I didn’t think anyone would care as long as I skated alright.”

Yuuri’s lips find the crown of his head again. “Thank you for telling me,” he says and when Victor looks up at his face, bathed in pearly moonlight, he sees he is smiling. Victor closes his eyes when Yuuri brushes his bangs out of them.

“I hope I didn’t pressure you into returning to the ice,” Yuuri continues and cups his cheek. His hand is warm against his freezing cheek. Victor sobs and nuzzles into it again, trying to control his breathing.

“You didn’t, I did it because I wanted to skate alongside you.”

“Good, because I never want to pressure you into anything.” His lips find his forehead. “You’d never let me down, Vitya. Never. You can flub as many jumps you want, you can retire, hell, you can move to Antarctica and stay there to, I don’t know, study the penguins alone, I would always be in awe of you. I would always love you.” He hesitates. “You know that, don’t you?”

Victor sobs louder and presses his hand against his mouth. “I-I’m trying,” he admits. “I’m…Not used to that.”

Love always felt conditional to him. If he skated well, the audience loved him. If he behaved (though he rarely did), Yakov loved him. If he scored well, Russia loved him.

If he stays untouchable, if he overworks himself into exhaustion, if he stays the living legend, the world loves him.

“Oh, Vitya,” Yuuri breathes and squeezes him closer. His hands fist at the back of his shirt. “You don’t have to do anything special for me to love you. I won’t love you less if you fuck up, if you’re not always the best. You can never let me down. You saw me at my worst and you never ran away. Why would I?”

“I—I don’t know,” he says, voice shaking. He bites back another sob and takes a deep breath. “It felt like you would.”

“Never.” Yuuri starts stroking his hair again, hand shaking the tiniest bit. “You’re stuck with me, Vitya. I can’t promise you that you won’t fall and injure yourself tomorrow. I can’t promise you that your body won’t catch up with you.”

Victor glances up at Yuuri’s face when Yuuri’s hand urges him to look him in the eyes. He sniffles, another tear leaking down his warm cheek.

“But what I can promise you,” Yuuri continues and gives him a watery smile as he wipes it away. “Is that if those do happen, I’ll be here. If you decide you want to retire, I’ll be here. I won’t leave you. I could never leave you. I love you too much.”

Victor throws his arms around him and sobs softly into his shoulder, shaking as Yuuri’s hand warms him down to his core when it draws nonsense shapes Victor’s too lost to recognise.

“I love you too,” he answers shakily when a few minutes pass and his breathing starts to slow, his shaking a mere tremor compared to how he began. He pulls away only slightly, so slight their chests still touch, to give Yuuri a watery smile just as the moon peeks out from behind a thick cloud and sheds a sliver of light over Yuuri’s porcelain-smooth face. “I love you so much.”

He buries his head into the crook of his neck again, pressing a soft kiss to the warm skin he finds there. “What have I ever done to deserve someone as amazing as you?” he breathes in deeply to ground himself.

“Existed,” Yuuri says and brushes his hair away from his face before their hands twine again.

Victor starts softly weeping anew.

[nightashes]

And We Were Roommates

A/N: A gift for @who-said-i-was-asleep for the @sanderssidesgiftxchange. I hope you enjoy!!

Summary: Virgil is tired. So very tired. Luckily, he has the best roommate in the world. Who also might have a crush on him?

Warnings: food mention, creepy face mention

writing masterlist - ao3 version

***

The wood of the bunk was kinda weird. Virgil thought to himself as he laid in bed, staring at the grain of the frame above him. If he squinted and tilted his head just right, he could make out the image of a face. It was kinda unsettling, the way it stared back at him with it’s eyeless visage. It caused a shiver to pass through his bone-weary body. Virgil knew his exhausted mind was making it seem worse than it actually was. But his eyes were heavy and his brain was foggy. And the last thing Virgil wanted to see, as he struggled to calm his mind enough to rest, was the image of a haunted face made up of the sketchy lines of wood grain. 

Virgil rolled his head to the side to escape the stare. The clock greeted him, blinking unforgivingly back at him. Six o’clock. Virgil slapped his hand against his forehead and let out a curse in frustration. Great. Another sleepless night. And another day of fighting to stay awake during class. Just perfect.

Above him, he could hear the beginnings of movement. His roommate climbed down from the top bunk. Virgil watched him attentively, what must it be like to be able to just sleep when you were supposed to? Logan stared back, no doubt noticing the growing bags beneath his eyes. 

“You know, Virgil, your curses in the morning work better than any alarm clock I’ve ever had.”

“I hate you.” Virgil only half joked.

“Another sleepless night?”

His answer was a groan of pain and exhaustion. He pulled his comforter up and over his face, hoping to hide from a world that could be so cruel as to deny him rest.

“Do you want to skip our morning class again? Try and get at least a couple hours of sleep?”

“I can’t miss any more, I’ll fail.” He mumbled from beneath the blanket. 

“I’ll grab you something to eat.” Logan shuffled off to dress for class. 

Virgil laid there listening to the sounds of his roommate. Silently, in his mind, Virgil conversed with his body. It’s time to get up, he whispered to his legs that refused to move. Leaving the safety and comfort of his bed seemed to be impossible at this moment. Perhaps a compromise could be reached?

He rolled out of bed, taking his comforter with him, and flopped onto the floor into a messy pile. He laid there, breathing in the stench of old carpet. This is fine, he thought, he could live here happily, on the floor.

“I’ll be back with food.” His roommate called. The door clicked shut and Virgil was left alone with the floor.

Coffee. He needed coffee. Virgil departed his friend, the carpet, with a reassuring pat to the polyester fibers. The room tilted as he stood. His head whirling from the movement. He steadied himself against the wall and breathed in deeply until his vision cleared. He slipped on a sweatshirt as the chill began to seep into his bones. His hands buzzed from exhaustion as he shuffled over to their busted second-hand coffee maker. It did not glitter but it sure did produce the finest gold, a hot cup of coffee.

He sipped at the steaming hot liquid, as he stared out the window, slowly forcing his mind to clear. It did not work.

Today was going to suck.

He took another sip.

Virgil slipped on a pair of shoes and groggily tied up the laces. His fingers fumbled as his hands buzzed, jittery and fatigued. Logan returned with a white paper bag of fast food. He passed Virgil a steaming breakfast burrito.  Yummy.  The idea of food was not a welcome one at this moment. Not that he wasn’t hungry. He was. But it just felt like too much. Still he forced himself to take several small bites. The taste was better than what his mind had expected. And once he got into the rhythm of eating, it became a little easier. He could do this.

They departed their dorm together and walked across campus in silence. Virgil hummed along to the tunes blasting through his earbuds, desperately clinging to the energy that the noise provided. Lost in his own little world, he tried to imagine a different one. A world without morning classes or sleepless nights or deadlines. A world full of pillowy clouds to drift to sleep on. He thought that would be quite a nice place to live. 

Logan was attempting to read as he walked. His gaze flicking furiously from the page to the sidewalk and back again. Virgil wasn’t sure how much Logan could retain anything reading like that. But then again, it was Logan. If anyone could manage it, he could.

The TA greeted them as they entered the lecture hall. Virgil led the way to a seat in the back. No way was he sitting up close while this tired. He plopped down into a chair and allowed all the tension to drop away. He was here now. All he had to do was make it through this class and then he could try and sleep after.

The hush of chattering voices began to die down as the professor took command of the room. Her voice was soft and monotonous. The sounds of her chalk scratched against the blackboard. Virgil could feel his eyes begin to droop. He shook his head, forcing himself back to attention. He fiddled with his pen. Trying to move enough to keep his body awake, while also making sure to not draw the attention of his fellow classmates. 

In the back of the class, he fought against his own mind. The fog that filled his head and softened the voices of rationality. He struggled to keep his eyes wide and open. He pinched at his skin, as if this were a bad dream that he could force himself to awaken from. But the room was warm from the packed bodies. It was warm and it was quiet. The lecture was a lullaby, a meditative chant that softened his gaze. As the hour ticked on, Virgil lost himself to the fog of sleep. He could feel his head bobbing. And then he lost his sense of presence.

Virgil drifted in consciousness. He knew a little about where he was and what he should be doing. But his body and mind were out of his control. He floated through the haze of thought. And in that classroom he slept.

The sounds of chatter jerked him back to awareness. Class. He was in class. He frantically swiveled his head, taking in as much as he could. What had he missed? Had anyone noticed him sleeping?

People were packing up their books. They were getting ready to leave. Class… he had missed the entire class. Virgil thumped his head against his textbook.

“You mustn't be too hard on yourself, Virgil. You were here, you were marked present. That’s all that matters right now.” Logan reassures him, closing up his own two notebooks. Wait, why did he have two notebooks?

Logan passed one of them to Virgil as he finished collecting his things. “Ready to go?”

Virgil stared down at the notebook in his hand. He flipped it open. It was full of lecture notes. Not just from today. The dates… they were from everyday that he had skipped so far and then today as well! 

“What is this?” Virgil asked dumbfounded.

“You expressed displeasure at the idea of failing. This will help. It is everything that you have missed so far.”

“You copied your notes into a separate notebook?”

“Well, no. I formatted these slightly differently and included certain contexts that you would need after having missed the lectures… It should help.”

“Logan, this is incredible.”

A blush of pink dusted the cheeks of his roommate. “It’s no big deal. I just thought it would help.” He cleared his throat and cast his eyes about, “No one should miss out on the chance to learn, afterall.”

Virgil smiled at his roommate. “I was going to take a nap before my next class. But later on, maybe we could study together? If you want that is. I mean it’d probably be easier to just study on your own and I know I’m really behind-”

“Yes.” Logan interrupted the torrent of thoughts spilling from Virgil’s mouth. “I would love to go over the notes with you.” 

He paused as if just realizing he had used the word love. Logan quickly tacked on: “I have a passion for teaching is all.”

“Of course,” Virgil rolled his eyes at the awkwardness. Logan was such a dork when he was flustered. Wait? He was flustered! Did this mean that… Logan liked him? Virgil cheeks flushed at the thought. “Uhhh… I’ll see you later?”

“Later then.” Logan stiffly departed the hall, leaving Virgil alone with a whirlwind of thoughts. His roommate had a crush on him? His roommate had a crush on him! 

After passing out in their dorm for his afternoon nap, Virgil spent his next class with one thought and one thought only running through his mind. Logan had a crush on him. Logan: who had gone out of his way to take notes for him. Logan: who was one of the smartest people he had ever met. Logan: who had blushed! 

Virgil wasn’t really sure what to make of it. All he knew was that with every passing minute, he was getting closer to their study date. Well, not a study  date, more like a study session. Wait, was it a date? Could it be a date? Did Logan think of it that way? No. Certainly not. He had been flustered by even the insinuation of romance! But maybe… Maybe it could become one… eventually?

And that is how Virgil found himself, pacing their dorm clutching the gifted notebook to his chest, and worrying his lip, as the time for the study session drew ever near. Logan arrived only a minute late. He was weighed down with books from the library and he smiled tiredly at his roommate. Despite this a soft blush was present on his face.

“Hello, Virgil. Are you ready? I got some extra books that might help.” He plopped himself down at his desk, swiveling the chair to face outwards. Virgil followed suit, still clutching his notebook to him.

“Yeah. Yeah. Let’s do this. Ummm… how was your day?”

“Adequate. A small mishap in labs, but nothing I couldn’t handle.” Logan rubbed at the bridge of his nose. 

“If you're tired. We can do this later. You know I would understand.”

Logan’s gaze locked onto him. “I want to do this.”

The heat in Virgil’s cheek was like a warning bell. He was in dangerous territory now. His heart was being stolen by a nerd in glasses. What a way to go!

“Alright, let’s do this!” Virgil smiled brightly.

They worked their way through the gifted notebook. Going over all the notes that were provided there. They stopped whenever Virgil found himself confused. Logan assured Virgil that no question was too small. And then he would beam at Virgil whenever he finally understood it. It made Virgil feel like he could accomplish anything. Virgil’s favorite part was when Logan would pick up a book to rant in depth about his favorite parts. His passion for academics was like a blazing fire. It flooded Virgil’s stomach with butterflies and made his heart race with the knowledge that he was falling hard. Eventually, they began to lapse into silence as they slowly got further into their own readings. 

Virgil was going over today’s lecture notes again. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the person beside him. The notes were written in a tight script. It was precise and easy to read. A sharp contrast to Virgil’s own chicken scratch. He traced his fingers over the blue ink. Virgil didn’t think Logan would be one to write with colored ink, but Logan enjoyed the color blue. The thought drifted into his head again. Logan liked him, right? 

Virgil flipped a page.

Virgil liked Logan. 

He really really did.

He should say something right?

Virgil looked up, the words forming on his lips, only to find Logan slumped over his desk. His face pressed into his arms, his glasses askew and digging into his skin. There was the smallest trail of drool beginning to form at the corner of his lips.

Virgil chuckled.

Now Logan was the bone-tired one.

Virgil stood from his seat. He carefully and gently removed the glasses from his roommate’s face. Pulling the blanket down from Logan’s bunk, Virgil draped it across his shoulders. And with a flick of the switch, the room is darkened.

Virgil readies himself for bed quickly and quietly. As he lays down in his bunk, he watches Logan at the desk. It couldn’t be comfortable to sleep at a desk. But selfishly, Virgil enjoyed seeing his crush asleep beside him. 

He whispered into their darkened room, “Goodnight, Logan.” And promptly fell asleep.

taglist: @stop-it-anxiety @hexatrash @ollyollyoxinfree @battlebunnyteardropsinthesun @leiasolo77 @arya-skywalker @alexxadontplaydespasito

[twoidiotwriters1]

Déjà Vu (Or are we losing our minds?) II -Modern!Shirbert

A/N: Italics always mean it’s a dream. The dreams are my way to write every possible Au!Shirbert bc I can’t get enough of them bumping into each other and falling in love each time, hope it’s not too confusing! -Danny

Words: 1,326

Series’ Masterlist

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

Chapter Two: Can I please get a coffee? (And your heart) 

"Oh, god..." Gilbert woke up abruptly, hearing Bash's chuckles above his head after throwing a cushion at him. "Please, just hit me unconscious already..."

"You had a great time last night," The man said gleefully, walking over to the living room's curtains and dragging them open.

Gilbert groaned louder, hiding his face completely under the cushion.

"Please..."

"So you stumbled through the house and gave up on the living room," He continued just as loudly. "Look at you, still wearing last night's clothes!"

"Are you here to mock me or are you going to make me a goddamn cup of coffee?"

He felt a sharp slap at the top of his head.

"Hey!" He sat up, feeling his brain yelling at him for making all those movements.

"Watch your damn mouth! There's two perfectly decent ladies in this house!"

"Sorry," He complained, head falling back and closing his eyes tightly. "Don't ever let me drink like this again."

Bash laughed again, ruffling his disheveled hair.

"I don't know, haven't met drunk Gilly yet, might like him more than sober Gilbert!"

Gilbert scoffed, slapping his hand away.

"Very funny."

"Tell ya what, Blythe," Bash rounded the couch. "Just this once– Because the Orchard's going great, and you've worked hard these months, I'll be a good brother and make you breakfast."

"I don't deserve you," He said sarcastically.

"You don't," Bash agreed. "Don't get used to it, I feel sorry for you and your poor liver, that's all."

Gilbert sighed, his body sinking and drifting back to sleep.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

"Oh my god, look at what Josie sent!"

Anne's eyes opened and looked at Diana with a disoriented expression.

"Wha– Who?" She looked down at the phone in front of her, blinking rapidly.

"Oh, sorry Anne," Diana grimaced. "I'm the worst, I don't allow you to sleep at all!"

"It's okay, I'll sleep once we're home," Anne smiled lazily.

"Home sweet home," Cole said sarcastically. "I can almost hear all the screams..."

"Yeah, yeah, we get it," Diana rolled her eyes. "Your siblings are young and loud– and you hate kids."

"I don't hate kids."

"You kinda do," Anne grinned. "I don't understand, your siblings are so adorable!"

"They're beasts!" Cole groaned. "Running around with their sticky fingers and squeaky voices..."

"They have their own charm, though," Diana smiled. "I remember how Minnie May used to run around the house in diapers, she was a doll!"

"If you guys love my siblings so much I'll pay you to babysit them throughout the holidays. I mean it."

The girls laughed.

"How about I invite you two to a sleepover next week?" Anne offered with a mischievous smile. "You get the snaks, Diana can get the wine and I'll put place and playlist."

"Yes!" Both friends replied.

"Christmas is sounding way better," Cole smirked.

"You're welcome," Anne grinned, leaning her head on his shoulder and yawning almost right away.

***

Gilbert was late for school.

His alarm had failed and now he was frantically running up the street in order to get to his class in time.

However, he stopped short in front of a establishment.

A coffee shop.

His stomach rumbled on queue, he tried to remember if he'd had breakfast before leaving the house, but his frantic preparations seemed to have distracted him from getting a proper meal. He walked into the shop to get a simple coffee and perhaps one of those big cookies these places usually had.

With zero time to waste, Gilbert stood up in front of the counter and started to ask for his order while looking for the exact change.

"One black coffee –no sugar, no milk– and one of those chocolate chip cookies, ple... please."

His voice faltered at the end, finding a pair of striking grey -or were they blue?- bright eyes.

The girl stood there, mirroring his expression until she realized he was now staring at her.

"Right!" She shook her head and turned away so fast Gilbert couldn't catch a glimpse of the name written on the tag of her apron. "One black coffee– and a cookie right away!"

She had astonishing red hair carefully braided, she was about a feet smaller than Gilbert.

"Ahem," Someone cleared their throat behind him and he jumped out of the line, clumsily sliding over to a corner. His eyes moved from the man to the girl who was pouring his coffe into a paper cup.

"Here," She left the cup in front of him with an easy smile.

Gilbert tried to read the tag again, but she was too fast, the girl turned away to grab a cookie and put it inside a small paper bag.

"I don't know how you drink that," She pointed over the shoulder to the drink on his hand. "It's too much caffeine for me– And bitter, which makes it worse."

Gilbert let out a shy laugh.

"Well, I need it if I want to focus during my lecture."

"Oh, student life, huh?" He heard her chuckle. "Yeah, can relate."

"You go to school near here?" He asked as casual as possible, desperately trying to find an excuse to know more about her.

"I..." She turned, her eyes losing focus for the briefest second. "I don't know, actually."

"That's okay," He replied, grabbing the paper bag she was holding out for him and thanking her with a small nod. "When I moved here for the first time all the streets were confusing, but you'll get used to it."

"You got to school here?"

Gilbert frowned. Where was he exactly?

He looked out the window, feeling oddly out of place, like he'd never seen those streets before.

"I'm studying to become a doctor," He knew it was a weird way to answer, but it was the clearest answer he could give.

"Oh, that's quite a big deal," The girl raised her eyebrows. "You're sure you don't want an extra coffee? I feel that you'll need it."

Gilbert laughed. The redhead took the next costumer's order and quickly put it on the counter for her coworker to see.

"No," He replied. "But there's something I'd love to have, if you're truly feeling generous, that is..." Gilbert said, careful with his words.

Her smiled grew.

My god, she was a goddess.

She opened her mouth to reply, but the girl working beside her interrupted their conversation.

"We don't have all day," The brunette hissed. "Get to work!"

Gilbert smiled apologetically.

"To be continued?" He offered.

"Maybe," She shrugged, showing the briefest smile.

Gilbert paid for his food and she put it in the register, taking the receipt and handing it to him.

"Enjoy your meal," She said.

He walked out of the shop feeling defeated, he didn't even know her name!

Just as he was reaching for his cookie, he looked down at the napkin next to it.

There was a phone number written with black pen. Next to it, a little message was messily scribbled.

'I'm free on Fridays ;) -A.'

***

"Breakfast is ready!"

He jumped out of the couch, landing on sideways on the rug.

"Ouch!" He hissed, head still pounding. "Can't you wake me up like a decent person?!"

"No!" He heard Bash yelling back. "You better hurry or I'll eat both plates!"

"Don't you dare touch my breakfast! And please tell me you have the kettle on!" He shouted, grumpily standing up and rubbing the tension out of his neck. "I having the weirdest craving for coffee..."

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

"We're here!" Diana squirmed excitedly, waking Anne up for the thrid time that day. "We're home!"

"Avonlea," Cole sighed. "In all its glory."

They left the bus holding their suitcases and each other tightly, the cold winter wind mercilessly ruining their hair.

"I swear that if I catch a cold..." Cole started.

"Let's just walk to a warmer place," Diana suggested.

"You guys mind if we make a quick stop?" Anned asked, pulling them closer to the sidewalk. "I'm dying for a coffee."

Taglist.

@ninizkd @http-itsrebecca��​

[sasuhinasno1fan]

Looking after a peacock- MariChat May Day 12

So when I looked at the prompt list for @marichatmay, all I could think about was peacock!Adrien. I could imagine him finding it before Master Fu could get him the Cat Miraculous in time and even though it’s hurting him, he’d still use it to help Ladybug and just escape his father. @officialladynoirette peacock!Adrien was a huge inspiration, though I really wonder if I did this prompt justice. I was almost done with another version of this where it ends with Adrien going to Master Fu to get help fixing the Miraculous, but I realised the story didn’t have much MariChat interaction. This one didn’t either in my opinion but I feel like this worked better. I hope you all think so. I’d like to actually do a much deeper fic at some point about this. One day, enjoy. Kwami Swap

His head hurt. Headaches were a new thing to add to the list of symptoms when using a damaged Miraculous, but this felt worse than usual. Kinda like…

“I think he hit his head.”

He knew that voice. It was one he heard behind him at school or when he somehow convinced his father to hang out with his friends.

“Do you think what had happened during the fight today made him worse?”

that voice he didn’t recognise. It was high pitched but a pleasant type. Actually, he might of heard it once, the one time he and Ladybug had to detransform near each other. But he couldn’t be sure. Duusu had started talking a mile a minute and he had to shove a seed heavy watermelon into his mouth.

“It’s possible. He fainted in the middle of jumping between buildings. Plume Bleue is a bird, he shouldn’t just crash land without any explanation.

that’s right. There was an Akuma and he and Ladybug were chasing after it. He’d plucked a feather from his fan, ready to summon an Amok to attach to the Akuma, hoping to use the Sentimonster it created to calm them down long enough to grab their item. He jumped, the gap between the buildings large and no doubt stomach clenching, but he’d been doing this long enough to not feel scared anymore. But just then, right when he was halfway and about to throw the feather like a dart, the world went wonky. He felt light headed and his vision was starting to go black. Things started to go back to normal when he felt Ladybug’s yoyo wrap around him. He barely remembered the rest of the fight, his heady was spinning and he felt weak on his legs. He must of taken off right when Ladybug cast her Miraculous Ladybug. He’d have to apologize for that later, he usually stayed if he had the time to talk to the victem and help them back to safety.

He let out a groan as he tried to open his eyes, not sure if the tinkling swooshing sound was in his head or not. Marinette’s ceiling looked fuzzy but it thankfully started to clear up. He looked over at Marinette, who’s blue eyes were filled with worry.

“Why the long face princess?”

She narrowed her eyes like he was an idiot for asking such a question. Probably, Ladybug would give him the same look when he felt light headed during a fight and not say anything.

“It’s kinda hard to not to be worried when you crash landed onto my balcony. Everyone saw the video Alya went to go get. You passed out in the middle of the fight, in between jumping between buildings. Now I find you passed out on my balcony. I’m allowed to have a long face.”

he felt bad. “Sorry.”

She frowned at him again, less angry and more like she didn’t understand his thinking. He knew that Marinette had interacted with Ladybug a bit, but he was starting to see she was a lot like her. Maybe that’s why he liked visiting her after patrol or whenever he was jumping around. Well, it was one way to talk to her without watching her struggle through words like she would be at school.

“I’m going to ignore that pointless apology. Are you hungry?”

“I could eat, if it’s ok.”

“Don’t move.” she ordered, getting up and leaving the room.

He pushed himself up and after making sure she was gone, uttered, “Duusu, feathers in.”

“I told it was a bad idea to transform. You passed out while jumping between buildings and when going down stairs!” Duusu started up, like he usually did. Adrien knew he cared, but he also liked being as far away from his father too. He didn’t know the whole story, only that Duusu agreed to stay with Adrien as long as he didn’t give him back to his father. He didn’t question it. He wouldn’t wish his father on anyone.

“Might a remind you, the only reason I fainted is because you keep telling me you don’t trust this supposed guardian Ladybug always mentions, so we can’t get your Miraculous fixed.” Adrien said, pulling out a container of watermelon from his pocket and opening it, letting Duusu devour it.

“He did something that put the whole Temple in danger, of course I don’t trust him! I’m just saying you need to be careful. Would it really be so bad to not wear it?”

Adrien gave the kwami a look to remind him of the last time he did that.

“Ok, fine.” he said, downing one last piece, before tears took to his eyes, “But I’d just die if something happened to you!”

Duusu’s ever changing emotions would never fail to astound him as he pet the weeping kwami with his knuckle.

“I’ll be fine. I promise.” hearing movement from downstairs, he called to Duusu to transform him. The blue light had died down just as Marinette climbed the steps again with a steaming bowl in her hands.

“Mom made egg drop soup. Are you allergic to anything?” she asked, climbing up the stairs to her loft bed.

“Feathers.” he answered without thinking.

Marinette blinked at him and he knew that answer confused her. There were feathers hanging off the small cape he wore, the feathers on his tailcoat and not to mention his weapon was literally a fan of feathers.

“And it’s a wonder you fainted.” she sat down next to him and placed the bowl on his lap. “Do you need anything else? What were you even doing out?”

Adrien stirred the soup a little, trying to come up with an excuse. Truth was, after he’d fainted at school and was picked up by Nathalie, his father went on another lecture on how it was dangerous for him to go to school. In turn, it lead to another one of their arguments, with him begging to go to school, just so he could be normal, which a mistimed dizzy spell didn’t help. His father had all but called the school at that point and he just needed to get out of there.

“I felt...like I couldn’t breath at home, so I needed to get away.” he confessed. He didn’t know why he told the truth. When it came to Marinette, he always felt like he could tell her anything and she wouldn’t judge him for it.

“Even with how you were feeling?”

“If I stayed in that...prison any longer, it would have been worse.”

Marinette nodded. “Alright. Is that why you come over all the time? Not that I mind, I just worry that I’d be keeping you.”

“I like hanging out with you, it doesn’t feel like I have to pretend with you.”

Marinette’s cheeks glowed red and she turned her head as she ordered him to eat his food. When he was almost done, she asked, “Did you want to stay a bit longer?”

“If it’s ok?”

“Well, I like it when you come over and this way I can make sure your feeling better before you go. Just, can you promise me something? If you’re not feeling ok, come here ok? My skylight is always open and I’d rather you crash in a comfortable place instead of the ground next time.”

Adrien gave Marinette a nod, a small smile on his lips. “I’ll try my best. Thank you Marinette, you really are a good person.”

“Well, let’s see if you still say that after I kick your butt on Max’s new video game he’s letting me beta test.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

[huphilpuffs]

between the lines

summary: Dan’s failing his English class, so Phil is enlisted to tutor him. University AU. word count: 3350 rating: g warnings: none a/n: Written for @phanfictionhoe for @phandomficfests holiday exchange! I hope you like it! And big thanks to @insectbah for beta’ing.

ao3 link

“Hey Dan?”

He looks up, hands hovering halfway to his backpack. The only good part about English class so far is that he doesn’t have a textbook to carry around with him.

“Yes, sir?”

His tutor smiles, kind.

All the staff here seem too kind. Dan kind of wishes they were scary. That would make it easier to hate them.

“Do you have a class now?”

Dan swallows. “No, sir.”

“Can we talk for a moment, then?”

He lifts his hands from his bag. Walking into his tutorial today had already been dreadful. The heavy feeling he’d been carrying in his chest since a few days ago comes back. He settles back into his seat, listening to every other student leave the room with rustling papers and loud footsteps.

The doors at the uni are too heavy. They always fall closed with a loud thud.

His tutor comes towards him only after the last student’s left. Nathan, he told them to call him during the first tutorial. Calling people with actual PhDs by their first name still feels foreign on Dan’s tongue, though.

He sits down across from Dan, still smiling.

“I’m sure you saw your grade on the first essay,” he says.

Dan swallows. The pressure in his chest is worse. “Uh, yeah.”

Nathan nods. “As you know, a 36% is a failing grade.”

“I know,” says Dan. “Am I–”

He cuts himself off. Asking if he’s in trouble sounds stupid. He’s supposed to be an adult now.

Supposedly.

Nathan shakes his head. “No, you’re okay. There’ll be opportunities to bring your grade up,” he says. “Actually, the professor is working with the university to help students who are struggling. We’re trying to match students up with student tutors. Are you interested?”

He isn’t, not really. But Dan nods anyway.

Nathan smiles, again. “Okay. I’ll email you once I know the details, okay?”

Dan just nods dumbly, slumped back in his seat.

“You’re free to go,” says Nathan.

“Oh,” says Dan. He stumbles to his feet, slings his backpack over his shoulder, and rushes out the door.

He has almost an hour left before his metaphysics lecture.

And he really needs coffee.

---

He gets the email with the details on a Tuesday.

A few hours later, he gets another email from a guy called Phil that’s a little less formal, a little more nerdy. It’s almost enough to put Dan at ease.

He reads it sitting in his ethics tutorial, waiting for the class to start.

Hello,

My name’s Phil and I’m going to be your tutor for ENGL10021. I’m a third year student doing English Language and Linguistics, by the way. I’ll be on campus tonight if you want to meet up. Let me know!

Phil ^.^

---

His brain feels numb when he leaves the tutorial.

Ethics is confusing. His brain is all muddled. There’s an essay coming up and the thought of it has his breaths coming quicker, tighter, a little too desperate. Dan clutches the straps of his bag and rushes down the stairs, almost stumbling over his own feet.

He needs more coffee.

Not that it fixes anything.

Dan ends up at Starbucks, one near campus that’s always too full. Someone pulls the door open. Dan rushes in before it falls closed. He feels jittery. His heart’s beating too fast.

He takes two steps into the store before realizing he’s not paying attention.

“Fucking shit. ”

Dan blinks. He’s standing still, suddenly, and there’s a boy standing in front of him, staring with wide eyes. His shirt is stained, wet and sticking to his skin.

It takes Dan a moment to realize he’s drenched in the shit, too.

“Fuck,” he repeats. “Watch where you’re fucking going, why don’t you?”

“I–” says the boy. He looks almost defensive, but it fades into something softer. “Sorry, I will. You should, too, though.”

Bitterness flares, angry, in Dan’s chest, but he doesn’t argue. The boy lingers there for a moment. He has black hair, cutting across his forehead in a fringe that mirrors Dan’s, and his eyes are still just a little too wide.

“I, uh, have a lecture,” the boy blurts. His coffee — iced, thankfully — is half empty, the plastic lid hanging off the straw, but he doesn’t bother to fix it before leaving.

Dan leaves without getting coffee.

---

His leg is bouncing when he sits down at the library.

The floor, Green 2 because it’s the only social one in the main library, is full of people chatting with their friends and Dan feels stupid, sitting at a table by himself. He didn’t even have time to go back to his room to pick up his English books.

He should have gotten coffee before coming, he thinks. It’s the only thing keeping him going by this point.

“Dan?”

He jumps, swivels in his chair and–

“Fuck, please don’t say you’re Phil.”

The boy standing there offers half a smile. “Sorry to disappoint?”

Dan’s leg starts bouncing again. His chest feels too tight. He tries to remember the topics for his ethics essay to distract himself, but all that does is make his breaths come faster, his mind go a little more hazy around the edges. He doesn’t want to think about philosophy.

Uni’s making him not want to think about anything.

“Hey, you okay?” says Phil.

He forces his eyes open. Phil’s sitting across from him now, his bag on the table. There’s a coffee-coloured stain on his shirt.

Dan helped put it there.

“I can’t fail this fucking class,” he says. “You can’t let me fail.”

Phil frowns. “Why would I let you fail?”

Dan shrugs, motioning vaguely towards Phil’s chest. He’s still not breathing properly.

“Oh, this?” Phil’s smile quirks wider, happier, a little more crooked. “It’s nothing. I’ll get my mum to wash it tonight and it’ll be fine.���

He sounds so genuine that Dan manages to stop jittering for a moment.

“Now, tell me about yourself?” says Phil. “What are you studying?”

Dan manages half a smile back. “Philosophy,” he says. “Since English clearly isn’t my strong suit.”

Phil laughs, and the tightness in Dan’s chest starts to fade.

---

“Did you get a chance to meet your tutor?” asks Nathan after the next tutorial.

Dan’s hand is hovering on the doorknob. Everyone else has already left, and part of him wonders why he didn’t rush out of his seat to avoid this conversation. He turns around, smiling.

“Yes,” he says. “Thank you for arranging it.”

“Of course,” says Nathan. “Do you think he’ll be able to help you?”

His smile grows a little more genuine, then. He tries not to think of Phil telling him about the time he forgot to study for his first exam because he was too busy binge-watching Buffy for the too-manieth time. Dan had told him, in turn, about the time he forgot to study for A-levels because of Mortal Kombat.

“Yeah, I think so.”

Nathan just nods, and doesn’t say another word as Dan slips out the door.

---

“So I looked at your essay,” says Phil as he sits down at their next meeting.

He booked a room in the English department this time, one with big windows open into the hallway that make Dan want to squirm in his seat every time someone walks by. Not that it matters what the English profs think of him. He’s probably never going to come back after he’s done this course.

“And?”

Phil smiles. He drops Dan’s essay, annotated in red ink, onto the table between them and his backpack onto the floor. There’s a little Yoshi plushie hanging off the handle.

Seeing it eases just a bit of Dan’s anxiety.

“I think you overanalyze.”

“That’s what Nathan said, too,” says Dan. “I, uh, don’t really know what it means.”

Phil chuckles, but it doesn’t seem mocking. “It is kinda vague, huh?”

Dan nods. He reaches forward, grabbing the essay to read some of the notes Phil made, written in messier handwriting around Nathan’s.

“You’re a philosophy major, right?” says Phil.

He hums. “Yup.”

“That could explain it.”

“Oy!” Dan looks up. Phil’s leaning forward in his seat, grinning. “Is that a jab at my major?”

Phil lifts his hands, hitting himself in the forehead as he does, swiping his fringe away from his eyes. He laughs, and his tongue pokes out between his teeth, and something goes tight in Dan’s chest.

He tries not to think about it too much.

“Not at all,” says Phil. “Or maybe a little. I don’t know. You just seem like someone prone to overthinking things. But that’s not a bad thing.”

He seems sincere. Dan can’t bring himself to be upset about it.

His finger drifts along the edge of his essay as he looks back down.

“Fine, then tell me about this overanalyzing thing.”

---

By their fifth session, Dan knows more about Phil.

He knows about his schedule, which leaves his Tuesday afternoons free at the same time as Dan’s are and usually has them booking their meetings then. He knows he plays Mario games, like Dan does, and grew up playing something called Bubble Bobble that had Dan teasing him about being old.

Phil’s favourite type of book is horror, Dan had learned last week, after wondering if it was the type of story they were analyzing that made the class so hard.

“I couldn’t have done lit,” Phil had said. “All the character-driven plots would have driven me insane.”

Dan had bit at his lip, offered a grin. “I like them,” he’d said. “Even if I over-analyze them.”

Phil had nudged their feet together under the table, back at the library that time. “That’s why philosophy’s perfect for you,” he’d said, smiling.

He’s smiling again today, over the edge of his syntax textbook, as Dan highlights passages in a short story called The Yellow Wallpaper they were asked to read. Dan has to force himself to stare at the text instead of the way Phil’s eyes seem to shine in the too-bright light of the English Department.

Dan drops the highlighter when he’s finished reading. Phil’s textbook is already closed and resting on his lap when he looks up.

“You did well,” he says.

“You haven’t even looked over my work,” says Dan.

“I saw what you were doing.” There’s a hint of laughter in Phil’s eyes as he says it. He leans over the table, closer to Dan, and tugs the text towards him. “What’d you think of the ending?”

Dan groans, letting his body collapse onto the table. “Now you’re just asking me to overanalyze.”

Phil laughs, warm and happy, and knocks their knees together under the table. They’re sitting closer today.

That’s another thing that’s changed over the past few weeks.

“Unless you come up with a true conspiracy theory,” he says, “I really don’t think you can overanalyze this ending. It’s pretty abstract.”

“Pretty? It doesn’t even make sense.”

He glares at the story, groans, and presses his head into his elbow to ignore it, just for a moment.

Then Phil’s hand is settling on his shoulder, squeezing gently.

“You don’t have to write an essay on this one, remember?” he says. “You just have to understand it enough for a quiz.”

Dan smiles even though Phil can’t see it.

Phil’s hand stays on his shoulder until Dan lifts his head and gets back to work.

---

Their sixth meeting is back in the library.

Phil shows up with his backpack on his shoulders and two cups of coffee in his hands. He sets one, the one with Dan’s name scribbled across the side, in front of Dan, grinning.

“Do you like caramel macchiatos?”

Dan reaches for it. The cup is warm against his palm, the drink too hot when he takes a sip, but Dan smiles at the sweetness anyway. Of his drink, and, he realizes a moment after the feeling settles in his chest, of Phil, too.

“Yeah,” he says. “I like them.”

Phil’s smile only widens.

He takes the seat next to Dan, humming around a sip of his own drink as their knees brush together under the table.

“Good,” he says. “It’s getting chilly outside, you have to take care of yourself.”

Dan nods, presses his leg back against Phil’s. “You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to,” says Phil. “Besides, I have, uh, YouTube money to spend.”

His cheeks go a little pink, and Dan knows he should be taking out his essay outline to have Phil help him look it over, but he doesn’t want to. Not when Phil’s scratching at the black ink scribbled on the side of his cup with the tip of his fingernail, staring at the tabletop. Not when his leg is still pressed against Dan’s.

“You do YouTube?”

Phil’s chuckle is quiet, almost embarrassed. “Just a bit. It doesn’t actually make me enough money for Starbucks, but it’s fun,” he says.

“I do too,” says Dan, and Phil looks up, eyes wide. “Not enough to make any money, but it’s, uh fun. Yeah.”

“That’s awesome.” Phil’s smile has spread across his whole face again. “What kind of videos do you make? Would I like them?”

“Um, how do you feel about self deprecating humour and attempts at self-analysis?”

His gaze flits over Dan’s fringe, over his hoodie. “Let me guess, you went through an emo phase, too?”

“I’m not sure if I resent or appreciate your use of the past tense,” says Dan.

Phil laughs so much his tongue sticks out between his teeth and his shoulder presses against Dan’s.

Dan has to try very hard not to let warmth bubble up in his chest again, without coffee to blame this time.

---

They meet up at Starbucks the eighth time.

Dan has another caramel macchiato in his hands, his final essay laid out across the table between them. Phil has a croissant that has his fingers a little buttery, so he smudges oil on the paper whenever he points out an error. He picks it apart and pops bites into his mouth, grinning around them as Dan marks the recommendations in red pen.

“There’s not much to correct this time,” says Phil.

He still has a little bit of food in his mouth. Dan thinks he should probably be more disgusted than he is.

“I already corrected most of it,” he says, smiling to hide the warmth he feels in his cheeks.

Phil shrugs. “Still, you’re learning how to write for English instead of Philosophy,” he says. “It’s getting easier, isn’t it?”

The corner of his mouth is quirked up, his smile crooked. Dan doesn’t realize he’s drawn a slash of red ink across the page until Phil’s eyes crinkle with a quiet giggle.

“End of the semester getting to you?”

His foot nudges Dan’s. He blames how small the two-person Starbucks tables are, wedged into a corner like this with their long legs. It doesn’t keep his chest from going warm, though. He’s grown used to that, when Phil says something nice and he feels his whole body react to it.

“A bit,” says Dan. “It’s not even done yet. We’re just getting a break then it continues.”

“With exams,” says Phil. His nose crinkles, and Dan’s stomach goes tight. “It’s pretty much a study break.”

“I’m just gonna procrastinate studying until the last day, I already know it.”

Phil’s smile softens then. He takes another bite of his croissant, swallowing it with a sip of coffee, letting the silence linger. Dan takes a sip of his drink to fill it, to ignore the way his heart is suddenly pounding for no reason whatsoever.

“Maybe I could remind you to study?” says Phil. His cheeks have gone pink. He’s fidgeting over the table so much Dan’s fairly certain he’s going to tear his bread to shreds. “You know, if you give me your number.”

Dan wants to quip that they’d probably get too distracted talking to actually study, but his throat goes tight before he can. He hands over his phone, and tries not to let Phil see his smile.

Tries not to admit he’ll miss this, once his English class is over.

Phil texts him, and grins when Dan’s phone vibrates on the tabletop. He doesn’t go to grab it at first, but Phil keeps staring at him, all wide eyes and expectation.

Dan can’t help but smile when he reads the messages.

Hi it’s Phil ^.^ I was thinking we should meet up after your exam

if you want I mean

no pressure

He grins as he types back: ill text u when i get out

Phil clicks his tongue. “Grammar, Dan. You’ll never get your grade up like this.”

Dan’s laugh rumbles as they both set their phones down to finish their drinks, to look over the rest of Dan’s paper.

Their legs are still brushing under the table.

---

They text over winter break.

There’s a conversation on the train about whether all the snow is melting as he gets further south. And another where Phil asks about his childhood bedroom, for whatever reason. Dan sends him a picture of Bangy just so he can sit down on the sofa and imagine the way Phil’s eyes gleam when he’s happy.

He gets a message on Christmas morning that comes with a picture of Phil in his pyjamas, hugging a gift box to his chest.

Dan smiles so wide his mum asks who he’s texting in the lilted voice that makes his cheeks burn red. He hopes Phil can’t tell in the photo he sends back.

They do talk about schoolwork, sometimes, in timed study sessions. Dan’s pretty sure he’s too distracted to remember anything about Parfit or Kant or Plato, but he can’t bring himself to care. Not when he needs to catch up on studying, alone late at night, and not when Phil admits studying together is a little distracting, too.

One time, Phil makes a comment about how they’ll need to play their new games together sometime.

Another, Dan insinuates that Phil will see his room back at uni, and Phil doesn’t protest.

And there’s a text on New Years, at midnight, that makes Dan’s whole body go warm and giddy, just a little bit of alcohol in his stomach and a lot of thoughts he probably shouldn’t have in his head.

He’s dreading finals when break ends, but he smiles the whole train ride home.

---

They meet up outside Starbucks after the final.

Or, well, between Starbucks and the lecture hall when Dan wrote the test, because Phil’s walking towards him, bag slung over one shoulders, bobble hat on his head.

Dan’s steps are bouncy. His shoulders feel light, his bag filled with only his wallet and pencil case, a whole semester of work falling away. He doesn’t mean to when he reaches out, wraps an arm around Phil’s shoulders, but Phil’s arm curls at his waist and he’s pretty sure it’s okay.

Phil’s grinning. His cheeks are rosy, the tip of his nose red with winter cold. Dan smoothes a bare hand across his cheek. His heart is racing with the knowledge that he can, that Phil isn’t flinching away.

And he kisses him, soft and warm and grateful.

Phil kisses back.

His whole body feels warm when he pulls away, even as the wind sweeps under his jacket. His cheeks, he knows, are bright red. So are Phil’s, though.

“Shit,” says Dan.

“What?”

“Didn’t mean to do that.”

The corner of Phil’s mouth quirks, eyes falling to the ground between them. His blush blooms up his cheeks, pinkening the tips of his ears more than the cold already had. Dan’s not sure if it’s intentional or caused by nerves when Phil squeezes his hip.

“I’m glad you did,” says Phil. His voice is shaky. He draws away slowly, tucking his hands into his pockets and tilting his head so the bobble on his hat flops to the side. “Still want coffee?”

“As long as you’re not going to tutor me again.”

Phil laughs and leads the way to Starbucks.

[holycalum]

vice (c.h.) part 4!

summary- (y/n) returns home and things get kinda bad before they get good. 

word count- 4.5k+

a/n- ok WOW so vice is over this is the last part wowwowow. i’m so glad so many people enjoyed reading this because i loved writing it and im so happy with how it turned out. thanks so much for reading ALSO im so very sorry i have idea how college works im a high school student i dont know anything ok bye

part 1 part 2 part 3

the days leading up to my return to school were blurred together. but they day i did return was crystal clear. 

i swung the door to my dorm open, greeted by only samantha, but no sign of britt.

“hey,” i sighed, plopping down on my bed, i toyed with the ring on my finger nervously. 

“what is that?” samantha asked, noticing the diamond first, not bothering to greet me. she strided towards me, grabbing my hand, eyes blown wide at the sight of the diamond. “(y/n)...”

“i don’t wanna talk about it,” i mumbled, wiggling my hand out of her grip. it didn’t look right on my hand, it was too much. 

“you’re engaged.” she deadpanned, dropping her hands from mine. i bit my lip hard, trying not to scream, i wanted to keep it to myself so it didn’t have to be real. “have you told your toy?”

“what?” i cautioned, whipping my head towards her. my eyes turned to slits. “calum.” she stated, “can’t go around fucking around-well fucking him-with him anymore-you’re engaged.” i tensed up at the weight of the situation. 

“i don’t wanna-“

she cut me off, “hurt him?” she jabbed, eyebrows raised in a condescending manner. “you did that when you got involved with him, when you knew this could happen.” i clenched my jaw, eyes staring straight into her forehead. it felt like everyone was against me. 

i got up slowly, raking my fingers through my hairs. tears brimmed in my eyes at my swarming thoughts, it was all too much. 

“i need a minute...” i murmured, already halfway out of the door. the air was bitter and it nipped at my skin harshly. i pulled out my phone, dialing calum’s number. 

“hey, sunshine.” he beamed, and i could hear the smile in his voice, it almost made me forget about the weight on my ring finger. 

“when do you get home?” i asked, biting my thumb nail. 

“i’m home now,” he answered, relaxing my body further. “why, what’s up?”

“you promised you’d see me when i got back,” i reminded him, and i could hear him chuckle on the other line. 

“should i stop by your place to pick you up?” he asked, 

i smiled, “yeah, i’d like that.” i made my way back to my room, and i watched as my ring glinted in the sunlight and bounced off the snow on the ground. it was pretty, but it made me feel so ugly. i stepped into the bathroom, avoiding samantha, so i could freshen up before calum picked me up. 

i took longer than usual, and it wasn’t a problem until i heard the door open, and i floated towards the entry way, eager to see calum. i stopped dead in my track when i heard samantha begin to speak. 

“what are you doing here?” she spat, the words rolling off her tongue like they’d kill her if she held it in any longer. 

calum paused, “i’m here to pick up, (y/n)...” he answers hesitantly, and i felt frozen in my spot. 

“calum, honestly,” she snorted, “do you not get it?” every word she spoke sent nails into my feet, keeping me in one place. 

“i’m confused,” i pressed my ear up against the wall separating us. “i thought you were her friend.”

“i am, that’s why i think i should do this,” she began, “she’s not in this for the right reasons. none of us think it’s fair she has to marry david, but none of us can change that, and she’s using you.”

“what do you mean, using me?” he sneers,

“you’re a distraction, obviously.” she retorted, “look at her, look at yourself. you’re everything her parents would absolutely hate. this is her way of getting back at her parents without them ever knowing.”

“you don’t know the half of what we even do,” calum said, “how would you even know.”

“all i’m saying is,” she lowered her voice, “engaged girls don’t start real relationships because she cares about the other person, it’s because they’re unhappy, and they need a distraction.” i ripped the nails in my feet out to stand where the two were discussing, eyes watering. 

“samantha...” i croaked, my voice pleading her to stop. i looked at calum, his face dropping. 

“you’re engaged?” he muttered, and my arms felt heavy. his eyes trailed down to my hand, his face went pale. “you really are.”

“calum it’s-“

“it’s over then? right?” his voice was shaking, chest heaving, while mine tightened in fear. 

“no calum- wait.” i sputtered, trying to reach out to him. he pulled his shoulder back, as if touching me would set off a ticking time bomb. 

“there’s no ‘wait’, (y/n). this is the way it has to be. right?” he waited for my answer, but i had none. “right?” he repeated, louder that time, making me shrink into myself a bit. 

samantha stood there, arms crossed against her chest, green eyes piercing into mine. it felt like she was communicating finish him, with only a look. 

“this isn’t how i wanted this to go,” i said weakly, all feeling leaving my body. 

“yeah...” calum said bleakly, “too late.” with those words he left, slamming the door behind him. my stomach dropped as soon as the slam traveled through the room. my knees almost gave out, and my mouth hung open. 

“calum!” i squeaked, taking one long step towards the door, but samantha stopped me by my shoulders.

“you’re gonna make things worse.” i stared straight through her.

i made a b-line to my bed, falling into it, my body completely hollow. burying myself under my covers and surrounding myself with soft pillows i tried to dull the sharp edges of my thoughts. i laid staring at the wall, gripping a small pillow close to my chest, only movement being blinking, and the occasional sniffle. samantha left, and i didn’t notice until i let my tears fall freely, dripping onto the pillow, creating a growing wet spot, and that no one was there to ask if i was ok or not. 

“oh no...” britts voice followed the door opening, a while later, “(y/n).”

“it hurts to breath,” i mumbled, not looking at her, i felt the bed dip. 

“what happened,” her voice lulled quietly, a hand now splayed across my shoulder. 

“samantha spewed bullshit to calum and we fought and he left and i’m engaged and i’m never gonna be fucking happy.” i repeated, not once breaking my starting contest with the wall. i felt her hand stroke my hair, the feeling hardly penetrated through my numbness. “he won’t even listen to me, but why should he? what’s the point? there’s no point.”

“don’t say that, babe.” britt whispered, her soft voice hushed. 

“it’s ok, britt.” i assured her, “i got it now, i’m just meant to be with david. i hurt anyone else too much.”

i spent the next few days in bed, feeling too heavy to even get up. i couldn’t muster the strength to roll out of bed to even shower, or eat. i looked a mess, but i couldn’t care. the days and nights melded together, throwing me for a loop every time i woke up from another nap. my classes had been avoided, but it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t matter in the end. 

wednesday rolled around, the time i’d usually take to walk with calum to our morning lecture, was instead filled with the same thing i’d been doing, laying i bed. the thought made my body sink into my bed further. the whole time i was awake i was uncomfortable, too hot, too cold, not in the right position, so i slept as much as possible, trying to minimize the time in between. while i dreamt i didn’t have anything to do, just whatever my brain made up. 

i watched the time tick by during my scheduled lecture, imagining what calum could be doing, how we was, how he felt. 

i decided i wanted to go home, to just drop out and give in. there was nothing left for me here, my fate was sealed with the diamond on my finger. staying there was hurting far too much. it seemed like my mom was right all along. i simply wanted to forget about everything. 

my phone found itself in my hand, as soon as my wednesday lecture should’ve ended. i got ready to call my mom, to tell her i’d come home. as if it was on cue, calum’s contact popped up, accompanied by the once endearing, but now nearly anxiety inducing ringtone he’d chosen for himself. 

“hello?” i rasped, scrunching my eyebrows. holding the phone up to my ear was the most i’d done in days. 

“you weren’t in class today.” he stated,

“i thought you didn’t care,” i mumbled,

“you weren’t in class today,” he repeated and i wanted to bang my head against a wall. 

i sighed, “yes, i’m aware.”

“are you ok?”

“no.” i stated, “i thought you didn’t care.”

“obviously i still care, (y/n).” he spat coldly, and i could picture him standing outside our lecture hall, a frown on his face with his toned arms across his chest, he could be such a child sometimes. 

“ok so you called me, now what? if you’re just gonna be a dick about it-“

“shut up for a second,” he snapped, and i was too tired to argue back, “i’m not out to get you.”

“why’d you call?” i asked finally, flopping my opposite hand on my lap, examining my ring. 

“i was worried.” he answered, “can we talk?”

“i thought you didn’t want to talk,” i grit my teeth, a headache forming between my puffy eyes. 

“i don’t want to,” he breathed, “but i feel like maybe we should.”

“why?”

“it’s fucking hard to stay away from you, sunshine.” it was an out of body experience, being called sunshine after being deprived of the nickname for so long. i was almost giddy. 

i was convinced the only reason i dragged myself out of bed and to the shower was because of calum, and my incredible ability to not say no to him. it did feel good, to shower and feel things other than my bed sheets. 

i looked like hell as i trekked from my dorm to calum’s apartment. the freezing winter air nipped at my already raw nose. when i was finally buzzed into cal’s apartment, beads of sweat formed on my face from the sudden change in temperature and nerves coursing through my body. 

calum’s face appeared in front of me, daunting stature looming over mine. my breath hitched in my throat. 

“come in,” he murmured, stepping to the side awkwardly, the air surrounding us was unlike what it usually was when we were at calum’s apartment. “ash isn’t home.”

“since when have you lived with ashton?” my heart sped up, this was too much.  

“since forever,” he rolled his eyes, making his way to the kitchen, he was draped in a green sweatshirt, hood pulled over his curls. “why, do you secretly have a serious relationship with him too?”

“don’t start with me, calum.” i warned, already feeling my neck heat up in anger. “david was never a secret, you knew as well as i did.”

“whatever,” he grumbled, snatching a water bottle from his fridge, clutching it tightly. 

“calum,” i breathed, “don’t shut me out. you asked me to come over.” he gripped the bottle tighter. 

“give me one single fucking reason i shouldn’t.” he said through gritted teeth, finally making eye contact with me. 

my mouth fell open, “i-i don’t,” i stammered, not being able to find the words to tell him to just talk to me. “you asked me to come over.” he scoffed,

“this isn’t just my fault,” i started, “you got into this just as much as i did, you wanted to talk-here i am.”

“did i? because i feel like i’m a whole lot more involved than you are.” he laughed bitterly, ignoring my answer. 

“what? do you think i was faking it?” i raised my voice, my skin crawling underneath my jacket, i shrugged it off. 

“well i for one-“ he slammed his hands on the counter, the water bottle never leaving, “didn’t get engaged over winter break, so there’s that.” he was only adding fuel to the fire. 

“and you know it’s not real,” i whined, “not like this cal, you know that. you know i was scared it’d happen.”

he pulled his lips into a tight line, “so why am i to believe that this,” he gestured between the two of us, “isn’t as real as what you have with him.”

“so, you do think i lied to you,” i scoffed, sucking in my bottom lip, biting down harshly. 

“i don’t know what i think!” he yelled, fingers tugging at his hair. “i think i’m fucking mad at you! i’m fucking mad at myself.” the bottle in hand was dangerously squeezed between his fingers, it would burst at any moment. angry tears burned in my eyes.

“i trusted you,” he tensed, fingers white around the bottle. “i thought-“

“i’m not lying, i never was, i didn’t have anything to lie about.” i rambled. 

he chuckled, “you have no idea what you could’ve lied about.” 

“and i wasn’t,” i protested,

“why shouldn’t i believe i was just a time filler, someone to distract you while you have a whole life set up?”

“because you weren’t,-“

“i get it, sunshine,” the name didn’t sound sweet like honey anymore, it stung, “you wanna piss of your parents right? scare them a little bit, get out of this marriage and then move on? that’s what you wanted, that’s what you’ve always wanted,”

“you sound fucking insane right now,” i spat, not believing the words i was hearing. i could barely find any words to respond. 

“i can’t do this anymore, not with you.” he said, he wasn’t looking at me anymore, his eyes were focused on the wall behind me, “i can’t sit by and do nothing when you’re suffering so much. there’s nothing i can do...” his voice was wavering, but i could tell he tried to pretend it wasn’t. his eyes were glassed over, clearly overwhelmed. 

“was that the point of this? to yell at me?” i screamed in his face, a finger jabbing at my own chest. “you wanted to make me feel shittier than i already do?” the crushing sound of plastic filled my ears as calum’s eyes burned with fire. 

“are you even listening to me right now?” i shouted, “why are you doing this? you’re just rambling about nothing-“

“because i can’t do this,” he snapped, “are you listening to me? you’re hurting me, and every minute you stand here broken in front of me, it kills me. you hurt me, (y/n). i let you in, and it hurt me.” 

i let out a frustrated shout, “why are we talking right now then?” he swallowed hard, “if i’m just hurting you? why am i here? to yell at me? is that it?” my words were slow. i waited for a response and got none. “tell me calum! you’re not the only one hurting.”

“you’re yelling at me too, why’d you agree? to yell at me?” he mocked, and it made my skin crawl.

“you make me so angry,” i cried, rubbing my face harshly. “i’m trying to fucking move on. then you come back, every fucking time i don’t want to see you at all, and you make me rethink every damn thing. i wanna go home, calum. and i was ready to and now i’m standing here instead of packing my shit.” my thoughts were moving a million miles a minute, and i couldn’t slow down. 

“so you’re just gonna leave?” he growled, slamming the water bottle down onto the table hard, sending the cap flying across the room, and water down the sides of the counter. “i’m in fucking love with you, (y/n) and there’s nothing i can do about it, maybe that’s why i called you, to get some fucking closure, i couldn’t really tell you.”

next thing i knew, i was hurdling a plate at the wall behind calum, watching it shatter into a million pieces. 

“fuck,” i gasped, feeling my legs give out underneath me. my face landed in my palms, and tears ran down the sides of my hands as i collapsed into a chair. “fuck you,” i cried, 

“what the hell, (y/n)?” calum gritted, looking between me and the shattered ceramic on the floor behind him. 

“you didn’t have to say that,” i sobbed, my heart absolutely full in the worst way. i ran my hands through my hair, looking at calum with glassy eyes. 

he clenched his jaw, “say what? that i’m in love with you. i love you. i’m sorry, it’s what it fucking is, it doesn’t matter anyway. you always said that it doesn’t matter, this is how it is. you wanna fucking leave anyways,”

“what else am i supposed to do? one minute you’re telling me to leave you alone, and then you’re telling me to come over and now we’re fighting because we’re hurt.” i tried to piece everything together in my head, and i couldn’t find a single answer, “you keep saying we can’t do anything about this, but you keep talking and you keep dragging me along, calum. what do you want,”

“i want you to say it back,” his hands gripped the sides of his wet counter, “you say it back and i’m yours.” his voice was desperate and broken. 

“what?” i spit, “you were yelling at me ten seconds ago.” 

“say you love me too, and i’m yours.”

“calum what are you on?” a lump growing in my throat, “you know i can’t do that,” a tear rolled down my cheek. 

“you can leave if you really want to,” he bit down on his bottom lip, “but i know you don’t want to, what do you want, (y/n)? that’s what matters, you can control that.”

“calum,” i pleaded, “you’re making this so much harder.”

he kept his eyes glued to the table top, “you always say you wish it were different,” the silence between his words were filled with the sound of a steady drip of water onto the floor. “you don’t have to wish you can make it different-“

“it’s just how it is-“

“but it’s not,” he explodes, finally looking at me, “it’s not how it is, not right now, and we can figure something out, we can do whatever you want, this is your fucking life.” 

“i’m scared,” i admitted, and then was in front of me, standing over me as i sat on one of his chairs. it was a complete no-brainer, but my head was on high alert, using all of its willpower to get me to walk away. 

“yeah, i’m scared too,” calum breathed, “(y/n) i don’t think you get it, i don’t do this for people. i do this for you, and that’s not nothing. i want you, i want all of you.”

“are you sure,” i carefully stepped around my words, trying not to set him off again. 

“please just say it back,” he pleaded, making my stomach twist. i fiddled with the ring on my finger, swirling it around my finger nervously. “i’ve literally never been so sure about anything in my life, you almost took my head off with a plate and i’m standing here, begging you to say you love me back, sunshine.”

“i love you,” i gave up, letting the waves of calum consume me completely, my ring fell to the floor with a quiet thump. “i love you. i love you.”

his lips were on mine, pushing the dark cloud above my head far away from us. our bodies curved together, leaving as little space as possible in our position. he pulled away, 

“i love you,” he whispered against my lips, breath fanning over my face. i let my hands splay across his flushed cheeks, rubbing my thumb against his skin. i pulled him back into me by his jaw, wanting nothing more than to feel him love me. “i’m so sorry, i love you.” he gripped my arms tightly as if i’d slip like sand through his fingers. our exchange was a silent agreement to make it work, to find something in the darkness. 

calum’s presence enveloped me as we sat against his headboard, bodies intertwined. the ring was long forgotten about, not moving from its place on the floor of calum’s kitchen with the broken plate and dripping water. 

“i think we should talk,” he began slowly, “not scream at each other, talk.”

“yeah,” i sighed, fingers intertwining his, the warmth sending feeling throughout my whole body. “it wasn’t fake, cal. it never was, please know it was all real, realist i’ve ever had.”

his fingers were gentle as he ran a hand through my hair, “i know,” his movement stilled, “i was just scared, i don’t know. i don’t let people in like that, i just-“

“jump to conclusions,” i joked, and he grinned a bit.

“yeah,” he chuckled, wiping the corner of his eye, “i did.”

“it wasn’t just you- i was, i didn’t think it through. i should’ve told you,” i twirled a finger around his, tracing the dark words on his hands. “i didn’t know what to do, i mean shit- i still don’t. i’m still engaged.”

“i know,” he acknowledged, “it’s shitty, but if you don’t want it, i’ll help you. i’ll do whatever i can,” i smiled to myself, letting my eyes shut. 

“you make me feel like a person,” i whispered, glancing up at him. “it’s so much different, being with you. i feel like i’m growing, yanno?” being with calum made me realize i was more than a girl bound to a boy from a small town. i was me, and i could be whoever i wanted. 

i laughed, shaking my head, “that sounds kinda stupid.” he pulled me closer to his chest,

“it doesn’t,” he mumbled against my head, leaving a lingering kiss there. “you could sell the ring, you know?”

“what?” i scrunched my eyebrows, pulling away to look at him. 

“the ring,” he nodded, “it was a gift, technically. he proposed on christmas eve. legally, that ring is yours to do whatever you want.”

i giggled, “what, you wanna buy a pig with the money?” 

“i’m just saying,” he smiled, suddenly lighting up, “after we graduate, we can get a place and stuff and our own couch-“

“our own place?” i repeated, 

he brushed a piece of hair out of my face and smiled widely, “why not?”

“well,” i chewed my bottom lip, a smile playing on them, “i have an engagement to call off.” nothing in my life had felt more right than that, the weight lifting off my chest at those words were worth everything. 

“this is real,” calum bumped our foreheads together.

“i’m ok with it though,” calum connected our lips briefly, “i’m happy with it.” “i’m not happy with you,” my mother growled over the phone, later that night. i was stood in the middle of calum’s kitchen, it was late. calum had fallen asleep not long before i decided i couldn’t wait any longer. i held the ring between my fingers. 

“mom,” i shut my eyes, setting the ring down. “i can’t- i can’t pretend for the rest of my life.” 

“(y/n)...you don’t even know! you wouldn’t even know you’re pretending.” she tried to reason with me,

“are you hearing yourself? that’s so manipulative.” i fought, trying to keep my voice low. “come on mom,”

“are you really that unhappy?”

“no,” i smiled, “i’m not, because i-“

“you what?” she sounded worried, “don’t tell me you met someone.”

“i met someone, mom.” i finished, my heart full at the thought of calum sleeping peacefully only a room over. “and i’m so happy, and i can’t bear the thought of not feeling like that. even if it’s not with him forever,”

“you can’t feel that with david?”

“no,” i answered, “i love someone, and i love that this person wants me to be me and grow and live. i have more to offer than whatever i could give david.” “i just-“ she was speechless, 

“have you told david?” i breathed a sigh of relief at her words, 

“not yet,” i whispered, playing with the ring. “i wanted to talk to my mom first.”

“i think you should call him,” she paused, “i want you to call him.”

“ok,” i smiled, and hung up. allowing myself a moment to breath before i called david. 

“sounded heavy.” i almost screamed when i turned around and saw ashton leaning against the wall. 

“ashton,” i tried to recover smoothly, stretching my arms behind me, “hey.”

“you’re (y/n),” he held a hand out, “calum talks about you.” i shook his hand cautiously,

i smirked, “good things i hope?”

“most of the time,” he chuckled, 

“yeah...” i glanced to his bedroom door, “i don’t blame him, i can be a handful.” a friendly smile spread across ashton’s face. 

“nothing he can’t handle,” he shrugged, “seems to be smitten with you, i’m sure he’ll survive. happily, if i may add.” 

“i hope so,” a blush creeping onto my cheeks, at the thought of calum instead of ashton, surprisingly. “kinda breaking off an engagement for him, it’d be nice if he did his part.”

ashton raised his eyebrows, “shit,” he mumbled, “wasn’t filled in on that part, wondered why cal was so quiet.” i clicked my phone on and off,

“i messed up,” i huffed, “i’m gonna try and fix it thought, for calum.” 

“i’ll leave you to it then,” ashton waved and made his way to the opposite end of the apartment.

i called david, and set the phone on the counter leaving it on speaker. i got to work picking up the broken piece of the plate on the floor as i waited for him to answer the phone

“(y/n)?” david questioned, “you never call me, what’s up?”

“we need to talk,” i spoke, gathering the bigger pieces in my hand first, careful not to cut myself.

“about?”

“we’re not getting married.” i spoke, throwing the largest pieces away. david was silent on the other end. 

“why?” he spat, voice raising. i rolled my eyes at his volume, and held the phone to my ear, sandwiched between my shoulder and ear. 

“i don’t love you david, not like that.” i swept up the smaller shards, making sure the floor was clean. “i need to be my own person, and we just aren’t meant to work.”

“so what are you saying?”

“i’m saying,” i dropped the piece in the trash, “it’s over. we’re not engaged, we’re not getting married.”

“well,” he said, “ok.” and he hung up, leaving me with a ring and a clean floor. i quickly wiped up the water on the counter and floor, before creeping back into calum’s room. i slid back into bed as quietly as possible. 

calum rolled over to face me, “where’d you go?” he muttered sleepily, a yawn escaping his lips. 

“i had to clean up,” i whispered, brushing a curl back. he wrapped warm arms around me, 

“didn’t have to do that,” he said into my neck, leaving a sweet kiss. 

“don’t worry about it, sleepy boy.” i scratched his head lightly, “let’s go to bed.” 

i laid next to calum that night, and many after that as well. 

a/n- well now its really over wow that makes me emo thanks so much for reading means a lot i hope you liked it and i hope you don’t hate the ending (((: IF UR NOT DONE W ME !!! feel free to send requests or follow me to see other stuff i defo plan on writing (; ok love u bye thank you bye 

TAGS: @blxndeprincess @pancahke @tittymuncher69 @rexorangecouny

[askguyslikeus]

((thank you to guest writer @listentotheshityousay !!!))

The dorm kitchenette is quiet at three in the morning. There's just the sound of running water as Jeremy washes out the measuring spoons, humming to himself to drown out the drone of the microwave. It's peaceful.

Consuming baked goods at this hour won't be beneficial to anybody's health, a snide voice rings out in his head.

So much for peaceful.

“This is gonna be beneficial to Michael’s mental and emotional health, so shut up,” Jeremy responds, rolling his eyes. “And like, it can’t be worse than that time we ate fried chicken off our floor after we dropped it.”

That was truly disgusting, the Squip agrees.

“We’re college students. We eat a lot of gross shit.” He turns the faucet and shuts the water off, wiping his hands with the dishrag. “Stop judging.”

If only your eating habits were the only troubling part of your lifestyle…

Jeremy scowls. “Okay, you know what?” He isn’t in the mood to listen to another lecture about vegetables and hygiene and cholesterol. “I’m not doing this.”

He heads out of the kitchenette and walks four doors down, pushing the door to his dorm room open. Michael’s laying on the bottom bunk bed, Jeremy’s phone held above his face as he taps away intently at the screen.

“Jer? You done already?” Michael asks, tilting his head towards Jeremy’s direction. He drops the phone in his distraction and it smacks him in the face. “Ow!”

“I told you not to hold phones like that,” Jeremy says absent-mindedly. He knows Michael’s never going to learn his lesson on that anyway. He squats down to open the mini-fridge and dig out a new bottle of Mountain Dew Red. He cracks it open, ignoring the Squip’s aggrieved grumbling, and chugs half the bottle.

“Electronic Voldemort being an ass again?” Michael asks when Jeremy’s done. His tone is joking, but there’s that telltale hint of worry in his eyes, in the slight furrow of his brows, and Jeremy wants to chase it away. Michael’s already had a shitty day and he doesn’t need to be worried about the voice in Jeremy’s head right now.

So Jeremy shrugs and leans forward, folding his arms on the bed and resting his chin on them to give Michael an easy grin from up close. “More like trying to be my health coach. As if any college student ever cooks balanced meals or eats vegetables.”

“Hell no,” Michael scoffs, rolling closer to lay on his stomach, his face inches from Jeremy’s. “Not even Jake does that.” A beat. “Well, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t.” Another beat. “I mean, he eats plenty of junk food and vegetables—shit, does that make it a balanced meal?”

“Depends on the ratio, I guess?”

Michael scrunches his nose. “I saw him eat, like, three pieces of broccoli once.” An ominous pause. “Uncooked.”

“Gross.” Broccoli isn’t that bad, but uncooked? Jake must be a masochist.

“‘Average person eats three pieces of broccoli a year’ factoid actually just statistical error,” Michael deadpans. “Average person eats zero pieces of broccoli per year. Jacob Dillinger, who lives in a cave and eats over ten-thousand each day, is an outlier and should not have been counted.”

Jeremy starts laughing just before Michael starts to crack up, too. “A cave?” Jeremy wheezes, gasping for air. “He lives in the dorm across campus.”

“Tell me that cave is an inaccurate description of a college student’s dorm room,” Michael says between chortles.

Jeremy looks around their dorm room. “So this is our cave now?”

“Fuck yeah it is. Which reminds me.” Michael rolls away, settling onto his stomach and stuffing a pillow under his chin as he grabs Jeremy’s phone again. “I have a camp to attend to.”

Jeremy pushes himself up to sit on the side of the bed Michael just vacated and leans over to see Michael’s screen. “Did you get Kyle to come over?”

Michael scowls. “Not yet. Almost done building that fucking table, though, so his smug wolf ass is gonna be mine, soon.”

“What, my ass isn’t enough for you?” Jeremy pokes Michael in the ribs. “Plus, technically this is my phone, so his smug wolf ass would be mine.”

Michael bats Jeremy’s finger away. “Tone it down, you furry. Let me bask in my sweet, sweet upcoming victory.”

“You could’ve just downloaded Pocket Camp onto your phone,” Jeremy says, but he’s not really complaining. He’d been playing on and off for a while, but he hadn’t developed an obsession with the game the way Michael has over the past few days after trying it out on Jeremy’s phone during a fit of boredom. He doesn’t mind Michael stealing his phone for a while every day, and it’s worth it, to see the tension that’d been in Michael’s shoulders earlier all bled out, the smile on his face much more relaxed.

He watches Michael finally coax Kyle into their camp and almost gets smacked in the face when Michael flails his arms victoriously with a whoop. “Gotcha now, sucker,” Michael crows. He’s already tapping away, moving onto the next step, humming as he mutters, “Gotta catch em all.”

“That just gave me some really intense Pokemon Go flashbacks.” Jeremy blinks away the vivid memories of chasing down the whereabouts of a Dratini behind a 7-Eleven at two in the morning. Michael had announced he was disinheriting Jeremy when he found out Jeremy was Team Mystic (“Remember when I told you that you could have my Gameboy and my Magic The Gathering card collection if anything happened to me? I take it back. I’m taking you off my will, Jeremiah.”), and then promptly cancelled the disownment in favor of recruiting Jeremy into kicking some Team Instinct ass.

“Man, I walked so much for that Flareon.” Michael squints at the phone screen. “Fuck, I need more Bells. I should get somebody to buy my shit.”

Jeremy pulls out Michael’s phone from where it’s been stashed in his hoodie pocket to check the time. The screen flashes 3:14. “Michael, nobody’s going to be awake at this time on a Tuesday night.”

“Nuh-uh. PJ will sure as hell be awake,” Michael says.

Jeremy thinks about that for a sec. “You know what, that wouldn’t surprise me.”

There’s a minute of silence as Michael switches from the game to open Jeremy’s message app, tapping furiously at the phone screen, and then he’s grinning up at Jeremy with a smug slant to his mouth, the way he smiles whenever he’s having an I told you so moment. “She’s awake.”

“Why is she even awake?” Jeremy asks with a laugh. “It’s past three in the morning!”

“I don’t know, maybe she’s staying up to play Pocket Camp just like me,” Michael says with a fond snort.

Jeremy’s about to say that Michael’s up playing Pocket Camp to destress from a bad day when his brain tugs at that train of thought, derailing him from saying anything. Aren’t you forgetting something? echoes in his head, sounding eerily like the Squip’s voice.

He’s blankly staring at the wall, mystified, when Michael’s voice drags him back to the present. “Hey, weren’t you making Nutella cake?”

Jeremy blinks, then looks down at Michael, who’s giving him a curious look.

“Yeah,” Jeremy says, as his derailed train of thought is replaced back on the metaphorical traintracks, starting off slow and steady. “I was.”

Michael stares at him.

Jeremy stares back.

The thought train cranks up the speed from one to eleven, his thoughts all crashing into him at the speed of light. From the look of rapidly dawning horror on Michael’s face, he’s on the same track (ha fucking ha) of thought.

“Did you just,” Michael says very slowly, “leave the stuff in the kitchen?” Even more slowly: “In the microwave?”

“Oh fuck,” Jeremy blurts, and that’s the exact moment the fire alarm starts blaring.

-

See, the thing is, the microwave on their floor is a piece of shit that’s probably older Jeremy and Michael��s ages combined. It has many buttons but no settings work aside from Fires of Mordor, and its timer settings operates solely on thirty-minute intervals, for some reason. So it’s the duty of the poor dorm residents who use it to stop the microwave accordingly using their own timers.

It hasn’t been replaced because, for all it’s shitty, fire-hazard qualities, it still works and it hasn’t actually caused a fire yet.

But just because it hasn’t caused any real fires doesn’t mean it hasn’t set off any fire alarms. There’s been enough fire alarms this month that a few days ago, Rich--who had been spending the night on their top bunk--had literally clamped the pillow over his head and went back to sleep.

It’s a building full of hungry, easily distracted college students and the world’s most tyrannical microwave. It’s the worst combination possible.

So it’s absolutely normal for Jeremy and Michael to be standing outside their building in the middle of the night, surrounded by dozens of their cranky, sleep-deprived neighbors, waiting for all-clear to head back in.

A lot less normal for Jeremy to have been the cause of the fire alarm, though. Usually people set off the fire alarm trying to make popcorn. Jeremy set it off trying to make Nutella mug cake. Which is probably a scorched hell cake now.

“Holy shit,” Jeremy mumbles, still kinda in shock about the whole thing. “I almost burned down a building with a cake.”

“Good thing Rich isn’t sleeping over at our place today,” Michael says. “He’d either be really proud of you or really disappointed.”

Jeremy stares at the dorm windows, feeling indignant. “I used the last of my Nutella for that cake.”

Michael makes a choking noise from beside him, and Jeremy remembers that fuck, he’d been making that cake to cheer Michael up after a shitty day. And then he went and had the whole building evacuated instead.

“Oh my god,” Jeremy moans, dragging both hands down his face as the shame properly kicks in. “I was supposed to make you feel better, not get us kicked out of our room.” He turns to Michael to apologize. “I’m so s—Michael?”

Michael, he realizes, is doubled over and wheezing, laughing so hard that he’s nearly crying. He straightens up and hooks an arm over Jeremy’s shoulder, pulling him in, still giggling breathlessly as he leans against Jeremy, grinning as bright as the rising sun.

“Actually,” Michael says, sounding happier than any Nintendo game or baked good could make him, “this is just what I needed.”

[breeeliss]

[Miraculous Ladybug]: The Perks of Being a Rich Kid

short commission i did for @leoqueen082​ :) 

fun fact: people really forget that these two kids are filthy rich and probably run in the same circles all the time. which makes for some interesting convos :P

Link to Archive of Our Own: [AO3]

Title: The Perks of Being a Rich Kid Pairings/Characters: Gen fic, Chloe & Alix Summary: Chloe and Alix bond after getting sent to the principal’s office

The Perks of Being a Rich Kid

Useful bit of information that Chloé learned today: there was a limit to how much trouble her last name was capable of getting her out of.

Which, seriously, how ridiculous was that? What was the sense of being the daughter of the most powerful man in Paris if she wasn’t going to be totally immune to punishment? She tried to explain that to her teacher but he didn’t seem to appreciate it very much because here Chloé was, getting sent to the principal’s office with a bag full of extra credit homework that was going to take her hours to do.

Sabrina really picked a horrible day to be home sick with the flu. Chloé had been doing her nails during history class this entire quarter and now she had to write a whole paper by Thursday.

To be fair, Chloé kinda toed the line a little close today. Not that she’d ever admit that to anyone other than her father who was going to love an explanation for the mess she’d gotten herself into. That was going to be a fun conversation. She wasn’t sure if her justifiable hatred for Marinette Dupain-Cheng was going to be enough to let her off the hook, and that was the real travesty of the day. Because seriously, this was all Marinette’s fault.

But whatever. At least Chloé got her revenge. Definitely worth potentially losing her credit card privileges over.

M. Damocles was busy scolding a student in his office while another three sat right outside the door awaiting their own lectures. Chloé snorted when she realized that one of them was Alix who was crouched over her handheld and growling at the video game she was playing while she waited. Well, that explained why she wasn’t in class last period.

It was funny that people complained so much about Chloé (almost) never getting in trouble because of who her father was. Alix got sent to the principal’s office at least four times a week and only ever left with a slap on the wrist because of who her father was.

Figures. M. Kubdel gave a monster of a donation to the school last year.

Chloé laid her jacket down on the floor and sat down next to Alix. “You know he’s going to confiscate that when he comes back out here, right?”

“Eh, I’m already up shit creek as it is, can’t possibly get any worse.” She waited until she was finished passing the level she was on before she looked up. “The more interesting story is the fall from grace you must have suffered to be sitting out here with us.”

Chloé rolled her eyes. “Don’t rub it in.”

“I can’t believe that the one time Chloé Bourgeois gets sent to the principal’s office, I miss it. Talk about shit luck. What’d you do? Curse out Mme. Mendeleiev because the lab goggles messed up your foundation?”

“Would you let that go?” Chloé glared. “And no, that’s not why I’m here.”

“Yikes,” Alix laughed. “Who’d you kill?”

“No one. It was a brief altercation.”

“Brief my ass. You wouldn’t be here if it was brief. Spill.”

Chloé shifted. “I...may...have gotten into a fight with Marinette.”

“Yeah, dude, that happens like every five seconds.”

“No like an actual fight. Like I might have lunged over the desk and yanked at her pigtails.”

Alix’s head snapped back as she cackled loud enough for it to echo all the way down the hallway. “No you did not!! You catty maniac!!”

“She called me a soulless hag!” Chloé defended. “How was I not going to put my hands on her?”

“You need a therapist,” Alix suggested. “Like I’m talking thousands of euros in anger therapy. You’re a liability.”

“Screw you. What are you here for?”

Alix shrugged. “Rollerblading in the courtyard. Kim dared me. Couldn’t say no.”

“You mean you did it because you knew you wouldn’t get in trouble for it.”

Alix pointed in Chloé’s face. “Hey, Damocles is afraid of my father because he needs to keep the donations coming. You make him afraid of yours. Don’t lump me together with you.”

“Please, just admit it,” Chloé smirked. “You’re a rich kid with perks.”

“Of course I’m a rich kid with perks. You, on the other hand, are a rich, annoying, prissy, spoiled kid with perks. And guess who everyone hates?”

Chloé gasped. “No one hates me!”

Alix stared at her for a long moment. “Dude….do not start with me right now.”

“They don’t!” Chloé insisted. “They just….they’re jealous. Because I’m famous and Daddy gets me whatever I want.”

“God, I’m gonna vomit. Here, open your bag so that I don’t get it on the floor.”

“Gross!! Stop it!! You’re such a freak!!”

“You sat down and started talking to this freak so joke’s on you, my dude.”

Chloé pursed her lips. “Force of habit. Don’t read into it. Besides, what’s your excuse?”

Alix squinted her eyes and tilted her head. “It’s weird because you’re like ridiculously annoying and I kinda wanna run over your face about ninety percent of the time, but the other ten percent of the time you’re oddly entertaining. Like if I needed a good laugh, all I’d have to do is insult your contour.”

“My contour is immaculate!”

“See?”

“Shut up.”

Alix stuck out her tongue. “I will say: the level of shade you dish out during all those benefit parties we hate going to sustains me.”

Chloé smirked. Their fathers had been friends for years —  long before M. Bourgeois got into politics and M. Kubdel became an art curator. That meant that every art exhibition, campaign fundraiser, charity gala, and Christmas party that either man decided to hold, you could bet that Chloé and Alix were both going to be there suffering through the entire thing with no one but each other for company. Alix told her that the momentary truce was worth listening to Chloé roast all the pathetically dull boys that always asked Chloé to dance, and Chloé had to admit that watching Alix threaten to scoop out old men’s eyeballs with a melon baller was quite satisfying.

“Daddy forces me to go to those parties because he wants me to be nice to the sons of all the politicians he tries to cozy up to,” Chloé shrugged. “Not that I don’t want to see him reelected, but I only have so much patience.”

Alix shrugged. “I think my mom just wants to see me in a dress for once. Everytime I shop in the boy’s section she has an aneurism. It’s great.”

Chloé nudged her. “Remember that time you panicked and invited me over to your house because you had to get ready for our New Years’ party and you had no idea how to do your makeup?”

“Um,” Alix glared, “the whole point of that momentary lapse of judgement was that we were never supposed to talk about it. Like ever. To no one.”

“Who doesn’t know how to put on mascara? I learned that when I was ten.”

“Not everyone sleeps with a Lanc ô me palette under their pillow, Chloé . But anyway. I had a point I was arriving at before you distracted me.”

“The anticipation is killing me.”

Alix ignored her sarcasm and waved her in closer so that the other students in the hallway wouldn’t hear them. “I have to ask because sometimes I think your stupidity is genuine and not you pretending to avoid conversations that bother you. You... do know that no one in class likes you, right?”

Chloé straightened her shoulders. “That’s not true. Adrien and Sabrina like me.”

“Sabrina doesn’t count, she’ll shine your shoes if it meant getting on your good side. And Adrien likes you because that kid’s got too much faith in the world and thinks you’re gonna do a huge turn around any day now. Everyone else low key wants to smash your face through a window everytime you so much as open your mouth.”

“Gee. Thanks.”

Alix lifted her hands. “Listen, I’m being honest with you. And I’m only telling you this because I happen to know that you’re not a total brat.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, when we go to those parties? You’re like...not awful. You’re kinda tolerable to be around. I think it’s because there you’re not trying to impress anybody and here you’re forcing everyone to kiss the ground you walk on because you value your school reputation over all else. You try too hard and you come off as a total pain in the ass. It’s starting to seriously piss everyone off.”

Chloé blinked. That was a disturbingly thoughtful answer, especially coming from Alix. “Since when are people pissed off at me?”

Alix’s face fell. “Are you seriously that clueless?”

“If people were so mad about my behavior, they’d tell me,” Chloé reasoned. “Marinette’s the only one who hates me as far as I can tell.”

“That’s because Marinette’s a badass who isn’t afraid to say what everyone else is thinking,” Alix pointed out. “They just don’t want to say it themselves.”

“Why wouldn’t they want to say it?”

Alix rubbed her hands down her face and groaned, slapping her cheeks a little at the end. “Ahhh, okay, okay, you’re blonde so I guess I have to dumb this down for you.”

“Oh screw you!”

She snapped her fingers. “Okay. You know that Italian art collector that my dad invites to art exhibitions all the time? M. Fellini.”

Chloe pouted. “Not ringing a bell.”

“He’s the one that always sounds like he has a sinus infection.”

Chloe face lit up. “Oh my god, yes!”

The joke was fresh in their minds because they both pinched their noses, lifted their chins, and said “Ah, buonasera mademoiselles, don’t you just look lovely this evening!” before collapsing into laughter when they heard how ridiculous they sounded. Honestly, that never got old. Chloé was half tempted to tell her father to send him some cold medicine for Christmas.

Alix rubbed away the tears from her eyes. “Anyway. We can agree he’s a total asshole, right?”

“He’s an old, skeezy, misogynistic snob. Asshole is too tame an insult.”

“Everyone and their mother is on the same page as you,” Alix explained. “But no one ever says that to him. People either ignore him or keep being nice to him no matter how much they wanna punch his face in.”

“I’m assuming there’s a point in you bringing him up.”

“People don’t confront him about being a jerk because he’s one of the richest and most successful art curators in Italy. Insult him and you can say goodbye to doing any kind of meaningful work with him in. Which, in the art world, is social suicide. It’s the same with you.”

Chloé scowled. “You’re comparing me to that wrinkled old sack of broken dreams?”

“It’s a perfect comparison. You got Alya suspended for taking a picture and you tried to get Marinette arrested for supposedly stealing your bracelet. Like, come on dude. People are terrified of you.”

Chloé crossed her arms. “They both deserved that! Alya was invading my privacy and there’s still no proof that Marinette wasn’t involved in that whole bracelet nonsense.”

“And I’m assuming Marinette also deserved you attacking her in class today and that you sitting here is an injustice to humanity. Pretty sure Damocles and your dad are gonna totally side with you when they hear you put your hands on someone because she said something a little mean.”

Chloé looked down at her nails. “You’re being sarcastic…”

“Yeah no shit, queen bee,” Alix scolded. “Here’s a wild concept: if you want to make friends, you have to actually be nice to people. Crazy, I know! Life hack of the year!”

“I try to be nice to people!” Chloé said. “But you’ve got people like Marinette who — ”

“Nope,” Alix interrupted. “Stopping you right there. Marinette has never done anything to you. Marinette’s a freaking angel. She’s nice to everyone who’s nice to her back. The only reason you hate her is because she’s more popular than you are, so you overcompensate by trying to make yourself seem like you’re better than everyone else. Except that doesn’t make anyone want to be friends with you. That makes people wanna stay away from you.”

It was only because Alix lecturing Chloé was such a bizarre occurrence that Chloé stayed quiet and let her words sink in. She wanted to brush it off and assume that Alix was just over exaggerating the situation, but then Chloé remembered a conversation she had with Adrien during his first week of school. She warned him about how hard it was to make friends when you were as perfect, beautiful, and rich as they were because everyone was automatically jealous of your success. That was why it was so important for Chloé and Adrien to stick together because she thought he’d suffer the same fate she did. But Adrien was as quiet, polite, and soft hearted as he’d always been as a kid, and that seemed to have waltzed him straight into the hearts of everyone else in the class in a matter of days. Chloé hadn’t quite figured out how he did that or how she was supposed to follow in his footsteps.

Chloé had always been more abrasive than Adrien — louder, more sarcastic, and harder to get along with. Maybe that was the problem. Although, Alix seemed to do just fine on her end.

She flipped the questions around. “Well, how did you make friends?”

Alix shrugged. “It’s not like I tried. I don’t act different depending on the situation. I just am and people just come. Kim was my first friend because we loved competing with each other. Then Kim’s friends became my friends and it just kept going.”

“That’s what Adrien said…”

“That’s pretty much how everyone makes friends,” Alix said. “Putting people down to lift yourself up doesn’t make people starstruck by you. It just makes you seem like a bitch.”

Chloé sighed. “Daddy says that in politics, in order to win, you have to show how bad the other candidates are in order to make yourself seem better. That’s why people vote for you.”

“This isn’t politics. Making friends isn’t about crushing the competition. You just….act normal and find people that vibe with your flow. Like I said. You’re chill when you aren’t trying too hard.”

“Seriously?”

Alix grinned. “You’re surprisingly hilarious. You’re also an enabler and a bad influence, but that’s a check in my book. Gotta appreciate people who talk you into stealing a thousand euros worth of silverware just to see if you can get away with it.”

“Can’t believe you actually did that,” Chloé laughed.

“Hey, like I said. I can’t turn down a challenge.” She paused for a moment and nudged her foot against Chloé’s knee when she saw her growing quiet. “Hey. I’m not telling you this stuff to make you feel bad or anything. I’m just telling it to you straight. But I also think you can do a turn around and start being nicer to people and make more friends if you cared enough to. You’re stubborn enough to pull it off.”

Alix wasn’t the type of person to put in this much emotional labor into another person, and Chloé knew that the polite thing to do was to at least thank her. But the words felt awkward on her tongue and betrayed her inexperience, so she decided it was best to just not say anything for now. Instead, she followed up with a question that was bugging her. “Why are you telling me all of this now?”

“Dude,” Alix snickered. “You got sent to the principal's office . That’s like the turning point of the century. Might as well take advantage of the momentum and use it towards something productive.”

The door to M. Damocles’s office flung open before Chloé could say anything else, and the student he’d been speaking to slunk through the hall with his head down and a slip of paper crumpled up in his hands. Probably a letter for his parents to sign. “Mlle. Kubdel!” M. Damocles’s voice rang. “It’s your turn. Please come in.”

Alix winced as she collected her bag and stood on her feet. “Womp. Time to face the music. Wish me luck.”

“You know damn well you’re not going to get in any trouble.”

“Wow, fine, I’ll wish myself luck.” She held out her fist. “Hang in there, you frilly little nightmare. If you apologize and cry a lot he’ll probably go easy on you.”

Chloé gently tapped her fist against Alix’s and have her a crooked smile. “Alright.”

Alix gave her a short salute before throwing her arms wide and skipping into M. Damocles’s office as if she were greeting an old friend. Chloé shook her head fondly and tried to think of what excuse she was going to open up with before it was her turn to go inside and explain herself. If spontaneously bursting into tears was all it would take to walk away with nothing more than a stern warning, Chloé was fully prepared to polish off all those acting lessons she took when she was little.

She hummed to herself as she pulled out her phone and started typing out her script. “Turning point, huh?” she muttered. Chloé was pretty sure Alix didn’t mean for that to be a challenge, but for some reason Chloé wanted to treat it like one. Alix’s specialty was planting seeds in people’s heads and sitting back while she watched them try to pull off the impossible. Chloé could always resent the fact that Alix was trying to get in her head, but it would be much more satisfying to exceed the girl’s expectations just so she could shove it in her face.

If Chloe could convince Alix to sit still long enough to put eyeliner on her for a party, she could handle being nice for one day, right?

[iamwhelmed]

hey whelmed! i was wondering if you could write a pnat story with this prompt, for isaac in high school? "While sitting in class during a boring lecture you suddenly hear someone whispering in your ear. You turn around nervously and see that no one was there and none of the other students heard. But your teacher drops her notes and stares at you in shock." even if you don't, thank you anyway!

Interesting prompt, anon! I’ve actually never been sure what to do with it– but I will absolutely try ;D Blood warning!

It’d been weeks, maybe months, since he’d dealt with anything of the paranatural sort. In a way, Isaac was enjoying his time off. In another way, he was hating every second of it. Why did he think the club would go out of their way to contact him? Yeah, like that would have made any sense. His grip tightened around his pencil, and he consciously had to lessen the hold so that he wouldn’t snap it in half– again.

He was lonelier than ever, honestly. The world around him was quiet without their teasing or the need to raise his voice. The silence of normal every day life reminded him why he’d been so excited to be a spectral when he first started, as downhill as that might have gone. Isaac seethed and grinded his teeth together, trying to focus on the Geometry his teacher was scribbling across the board. Ridiculous. He was being… ridiculous.

It was at that moment that something soft brushed his ear, like lips caressing his lobe, warm air falling to his skin as smooth as velvet. There was a voice, but he couldn’t make it out– not a person, not a sound. But he could still hear each word as clear as they would have been had someone truly been so close to him, skin hot against his ear.

“He has no clue…”

Isaac sharply twisted his head to get a look at whatever spirit it probably was. If something tried to fight him in the middle of class, there was no telling what he’d have to do to-!

Nothing. There was nothing there, nothing but a few horrified looking peers, watching him with so much fear he couldn’t place a time he’d felt something like that– and he’d been scared often. Some watched him with caution, and others had furrowed their worried brows. Isaac frowned.

Something clattered against the ground, and Isaac shifted in his seat to find his teacher standing still as though frozen in a block of ice, face turning pale upon the sight of him. He blinked and glanced down to the textbook she’d dropped.

“Isaac,” she mumbled, fingers twitching, raising to her glasses. She pulled them from their perch and began to wipe at them furiously, in a panic he hadn’t imagined a woman like her would ever fall into. “Do you… need to go to the nurse’s office?”

He blinked. “Um, why?”

“Your head, dude.” The guy sitting next to him reached a trembling pointed finger out to his temple. “Your head is… is…”

“My head?” Isaac reached up to touch the spot. What was everyone so worried about? He swore, even though he’d lived in Mayview his whole life, some things just seemed out of the ordinary, too odd for even a Mayview-born kid to explain. Why would he need to go to the nurse’s office? Nobody was making any sense!

Then he felt it.

Wet, hot, sticky, sliding down the length of his face. He felt one drop slide down to his jawline, and then another on the opposite side of his head, then it felt like the liquid was gushing from nowhere, raining down the side of his face. Isaac pulled his hand to look at the tips of his fingers.

Blood.

His heart stopped, and he wasn’t sure it picked back up. It was falling from him in buckets, hitting his desk one drop, then two, then eight and twenty and hundreds. He coughed and reached a hand up to his throat, feeling the odd sensation of being choked.

“Isaac!”

He tried to look up from the desk, but something hard grabbed him by the back of the neck and slammed his head to the– the ground? How was he on the ground? Dirt was piling in his mouth, scraping against his bared teeth.

“Let him go!”

The voices sounded more familiar than the mysterious one had earlier.

“He’s turning blue! We’re losing him, what do we do?”

“Don’t panic! Just get that spirit away from him!”

The choking sensation didn’t stop, but his body still lifted from the ground, blood drying around his eyes, so crusted he couldn’t see what was happening. It was like he was a ragdoll, flying everywhere, around and around, hitting– trees? Walls? Where was he? Where’d the classroom gone?

“Unhand him!”

“He’s my snack!” The voice taunted, the one that left shivers down his spine. “He’s always dreaming, you know! I crave that imagination of his…”

“It’s not yours to take!”

“Oh, but he surrendered so easily to the nightmare! I’d say that’s consent enough!”

“To be eaten? Alive? You are once sick m-!”

“Max, language!”

“I’m not going to apologize for that! It’s true!”

Suddenly the grip around his throat lessened, and he could hear the voice in his head screaming, screeching, feel its claws scratching at his throat. His body went flying again, and Isaac shut his eyes, preparing to feel another wall.

Instead he felt hands– lots and lots of hands, grabbing him from midair and pulling him down into what felt like grass. He didn’t dare open his eyes again.

“He’s still sleeping! Can that thing keep him in dreamland from beyond the grave or something?”

“No, no, it’s not like that.” A smooth hand reached down and wiped the hair out of his eyes. “Isaac, everything’s all right. You can open your eyes now.”

He winced, and scrunched his nose, but the hands all over his chest and throat and legs were anything but rough– they were sweet, and gentle, almost cautious with him. He squinted one eye open, only to see shadows through the blur. He closed his eyes again and opened them slowly, blinking away the confusion.

The Activity Club sat above him, watching him with… relief? He blinked again.

“Guys?”

“See?” Max frowned and pinched Isaac’s nose. He yelped. “This is why we team up, dude. Because stuff like this happens now that the barrier’s down!”

“…What?” He brushed Max’s hand away from his nose, but it remained hovering above his own hand. “What happened?”

“What do ya think?” Isabel pulled away from his legs, crossing her arms. “It was a spirit with the power to… I don’t know, I guess put you in a deep sleep before it… ate you?”

Ed leaned forward, head hitting Isabel’s out of the way. She squeaked and hissed his name. “What did you dream about?”

“I’d imagine nothing good,” Spender mumbled. “It said it put you in a nightmare.”

“Well, I was bleeding buckets out of nowhere in the middle of class, which is probably a little worse than coming to school naked. I’d say it was a nightmare, yeah.”

“Have we learned our lesson, then?”

Isaac blinked again and sat up, reaching one hand to his head, unconsciously relived to find it completely dry, if not thick with dirt. “Huh?”

Spender frowned and raised one scolding finger. “Don’t go looking for trouble on your own, anymore. We’re a team for a reason, Isaac.”

He frowned and glanced around at all of them, finding Spender’s chiding expression mirrored on each face. “But… I’m not even in middle school anymore? You guys still want me tagging along?”

“Uh,” Max gestured to the whole of him. “If it means you live another day, then yeah! Kinda!”

“What kind of question is that, Isaac? Honestly!”

“I think I have corn stuck in my teeth from earlier.” Isabel reached over and put a hand over Ed’s mouth as he tried to stick a nail between his teeth.

The dread that’d been spiraling in his chest before died down, leaving only the butterflies circulating through his lifted heart. Isaac smiled and glanced down to his lap. Of course they still wanted him around. He wasn’t thirteen anymore– he knew better. They’d been through too much together, too many fights– with spirits and each other, too many movie nights, too many trips to go kayaking, too much for them to still want him to walk away, if they ever did. “Yeah, okay. I’ll keep that in mind. I promise, I’ll call you guys next time I feel inclined to traipse through the woods.”

[siren-dragon]

Overdue (Ardyn Izunia x Reader) Ch. 2

Hey everyone, I finally finished chapter 2! Sorry it’s taken so long, I’ve been really busy and I couldn't seem to write out this chapter. Then I didn’t like it and I had to re-write it and everything. -__- 

Anyway, hope you all like it and please enjoy!

‘Back again?’

Ardyn glanced up from his shelving of the new children’s books, watching as you drifted between the bookcases near the culinary section. For the past month you had been coming to the library, and while a fresh face was a nice change, it was also a surprise. It was obvious during your first meeting that you did not intend to enter the library; let alone borrow a book. He couldn’t help but smirk in amusement at the expression of horror you wore when the book you ended up choosing happened to be a dictionary. Yet you stuck to your resolve, refusing to let your embarrassment show even when he pressured you to borrow said book when he revealed himself to be the librarian.

And as you walked out the front entrance with your new book, Ardyn half-expected to never see you again. Though it seemed the gods enjoyed proofing him wrong, as you returned not three days later. He watched as you returned the dictionary and then proceeded to walk through the multiple bookcases, occasionally grabbing a book and flipping through the pages before replacing it. As he re-stocked the non-fiction books from the upstairs landing, he took the time to admire your appearance. (h/c) locks were clipped against your scalp, allowing him to observe the (s/c) flesh of your neck. He watched as you caressed the parchment of the book in your hands before flipping the page, wondering what it would feel like to have those fingers tangled in his hair as he kissed your neck.

‘Come now Ardyn, don’t be crude. You barely even know this woman to have such thoughts…’ He thought before proceeding back to the main desk.

It was not 10 minutes later that you appeared, holding a small stack of books. Ardyn offered you his most charming smile, causing you to answer with one of your own. He scanned each book before stamping it’s due date as he read each cover. Each book happened to be a book on different folktales from Lucis and Niflheim. “Quite the selection you have, my dear.”

“Well, I thought it was interesting.”

“Much like that dictionary I assume.” He teased.

You laughed, the sound music to his ears; “indeed!” He then watched you take the stack of books before nodding in farewell. “Have a nice day.”

“And you as well, my dear.”

And so the encounters continued, every week you would arrive at the library and borrow whatever book struck your fancy. From recipe books to folktales to biography’s to home repair, you’d race through the different genres of literature. Often Ardyn would entertain himself by guessing which genre you would choose for that specific week, and sometimes narrowing down the book itself. Though such games would often end quickly when such they devolved into daydreams of a more adult theme.

“You’re staring again,” Lunafreya stage-whispered teasingly as Ardyn and her tidied the computer lab.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you are talking about.” Ardyn sniffed in disdain, trying to hide the slight tinge of pink that colored his cheeks.

Lunafreya laughed, “come now Ardyn, there’s no need to be shy. I think it’s cute that you have a crush.”

“I beg your pardon, my dear Luna, but I do NOT have a crush.”

“Why don’t you go and ask her out on a date? It will make you feel better.”

Ardyn raised a skeptic eyebrow at his younger colleague, “and discover that she has a boyfriend or worse, a husband? I think not, it’s better this way.”

“Honestly, you and Noctis are so alike, it makes me concerned.” Lunafreya sighed, picking up abandoned books that needed to be re-shelved.

“Was that an insult for Noctis or myself?” Ardyn asked, following after the blonde.

As the two librarians returned to the lobby, Ardyn saw you standing once more in front of the main desk, a stack of books in your arms. Lunafreya glanced toward her boss, smiling cheekily before tapping him on the shoulder. “I’m sure you can handle this,” she said before disappearing into the backroom.

‘Devious little witch.’ He thought viciously before approaching you, the charming smile on his face hiding the storm of emotions within. “Hello to you again, (f/n)”

“Hello Mr. Izunia,” you replied.

“I’ve told you before (f/n), there is no need for such formalities. Please, call me Ardyn.”

“Alright then…Ardyn..” you spoke, testing the name on your tongue. Ardyn couldn’t help but wonder what his name would sound like from your lips if he had you pinned against the wall.

“There, is that not better.” He smirked, grabbing the stack of books. This time, each book contained themes of engineering and technology, a genre he had not seen you borrow yet. “I must say, from all the books you have borrowed, this may be the strangest collection so far.”

“Including the dictionary?”

He chuckled, scanning the books. “Well, perhaps not that on- wait a minute, what do we have here?...” Ardyn read the message which appeared on the monitor, a frown appearing on his face. “I’m afraid I can not check these books out for you (f/n), you have a book that is overdue.”

You groaned, “I’m sorry, my email has been glitching lately so I may not have gotten the notice for it being overdue. How late is it?...”

“Two weeks late, and unfortunately there will be a fine.” Ardyn answered.

“I can pay the fine now, but is there a way I can still borrow these books?”

“I could check these books out for you, but you will have to return your overdue book tonight…perhaps over dinner?”

It was a poor attempt at a dinner date, and Ardyn briefly wondered if he should have ignored Lunafreya’s advice and kept silent. (f/n) blinked in surprise before smiling brightly, “Alright then, it’s a date. I’ll bring back the book and meet you here. And Ardyn…thank you.”

He tipped his head in acknowledgement, “your most welcome, my dear.” You fished out the required amount for the fine before grabbing your new books and leaving the library, waving farewell at Ardyn. He watched you leave with a feeling of excitement bubbling in his stomach before a cold dread fell upon him. How was he to prepare for this date?

“Why did you plan it for tonight?!” Lunafreya exclaimed, rushing around Ardyn’s bedroom closet like a frenzied mad woman.

Ardyn sighed as he flipped through his clothing collection, “It was not exactly planned.”

“I can’t believe you have a date tonight…when was the last time that happened?” Noctis laughed, dodging a scarf that flew past his head.

“Respect your elders,” Ardyn huffed, smacking Noctis across the back of the head with a pillow. He dug through his clothes and pulled out a sweater-vest with a dress shirt. “How about this one?”

“No sweater vests.” Lunafreya said, still rifling through the multiple formal shirts within the closet.

“You’re going on a date, Uncle, not lecturing the girl about Shakespeare.” Noctis deadpanned.

“My apologizes, I was not aware some people lacked good taste.”

“Hey, what’s that suppose to mean-”

“Here, this is the one!” Lunafreya exclaimed joyfully.

Ardyn took the pre-offered attire and retreated to the bathroom, before emerging 5 minutes later in the selected suit. Lunafreya beamed happily while Noctis nodded in approval, offering a lazy thumbs-up. “Nicely done, Luna, I’m sure she’ll love it.”

“Indeed,” Ardyn added, smirking at his reflection in the mirror.

And there it is, the end of the chapter! Sorry it’s kinda short, I had a hard time with this one. Anyway, stay tuned for the third and final chapter: coming soon!

Also a big thank you to everyone who has read, liked, and reblogged this story. You guys are awesome and I appreciate it. :)

[eccacia]

wonderful you came by [part 12]

Summary: Caitlin’s a no-nonsense science major. Barry’s the quintessential charming star athlete. When they’re paired off and forced to interact in class, Caitlin’s determined to resist his charms, but Barry’s also pretty determined to get under her skin… It all boils down to a battle between head and heart, and Caitlin’s not one to give in to her heart so easily. [College AU]

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, or read on ff.net

Rating: T

Notes: Hi everyone! Well, this has been a long time coming. I wrote like four different versions of it until it finally turned out the way I wanted it to. Please bear with my erratic updates, and thank you so much for your response to the last chapter! I’m humbled by them. I really do hope you guys continue to enjoy this story.

“Hey Caitlin! Where are you?”

“I’m coming. Look to your right.”

“Oh, there! I can see you! Come on, hurry up!”

“What? Why?” Caitlin squinted at the entrance of the lecture hall. She saw a few people emerge from the doors before taking their seats in front of the long tables, where various folders were neatly laid out, and Barry was waving at her from beside the Special Topics in Immunology stand. “Barry, they’ve only started registration—”

“But the line’s so long—”

“—and there are just, what, five people in front of you—”

“—and I’m bored! At least when I’m late, I won’t have to get in line, and I won’t have to get bored. Why do you walk so slow?”

“Why’re you so restless?”

“I’m not restless,” he said, even as he slipped out of the line and made his way towards her, still clutching his phone.

She arched a brow at him.

“…Okay, so maybe I’m sort of restless,” he admitted sheepishly. “I just came from the forensic lab, and I can’t stand my lab partner. Seriously. Julian’s such a stickler for rules that it drives me crazy. Kinda like you, but like, a hundred times worse.”

“That was vaguely insulting.”

“Not at all. You know you’re my favorite lab partner. We’ve already established that. And I love it when you boss me around. It’s kind of annoying, but also kind of hot.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Still vaguely insulting, Barry.”

“Alright, fine. It’s really hot. Especially when you do that eyebrow thing and you have one hand on your hip and the other on the lab table—”

“I really do not need to know this.”

“See, this is why I have to be vaguely insulting. If I just complimented you straight out, you’d think I’m being insincere and brush it away—hey, look!” he said abruptly, face brightening. “We’re near each other!”

“Yes, Barry, that’s what walking to the same point does.”

“It’s weird. I can hear your real voice and your phone voice. Your phone voice is kind of delayed, though. Is my phone voice kind of delayed too?”

“Naturally. Sound travels faster through air than it does through a system. I’ll hang up now—”

“No, wait,” he said, coming to a stop, “wait, what sounds sexier, my phone voice or my real voice?”

Now Caitlin came to a stop. “What kind of question is that?”

“Please, Caitlin. I really need to know.”

“For what?”

“You know how all DJs sound sexy on air? I was thinking maybe it has something to do with how their voices travel through the transmitter. So since you can compare my real voice and phone voice at the same time, which sounds sexier?”

She stared at him. “I don’t understand,” she said slowly. “Are you jealous of your phone voice?”

“So my phone voice is sexier?”

“What—no—you sound the same either way, except when the signal’s terrible—”

“The same meaning my real voice and phone voice are equally sexy?”

She glared at him. “This isn’t really about the quality of voice over transmitters, is it?”

He grinned. “It depends on how you answer my question.”

“You’re a lot more appealing if you don’t open your mouth.”

“So I’m sexy if I don’t talk?”

“That’s not what I—”

“I’ll shut up now so you can ogle me in peace.”

She glared at him and clicked her phone off.

“Although I had a different kind of ogling in mind,” he said, grinning and pocketing his phone. “You know, the more adoring kind, not the death-threat kind.”

Sometimes Caitlin just wanted to strangle him. Granted, other times she liked him quite a bit, but still, those two didn’t have to be mutually exclusive.

She brushed past him and headed towards the lecture hall, and undeterred, he didn’t miss a beat falling in step beside her.

“By the way, you look really nice with your hair down,” he said lightly. “Not that you don’t look nice in a ponytail,” he quickly amended, “but, well, you know. It’s nice…r.”

“Nice…r,” she echoed. “Really, I was under the impression that you had a better vocabulary.”

“Whoa, did you just… fish for a compliment?”

She gaped at him. “Fish?”

“And to think that until a few seconds ago compliments flustered you,” he teased.

“I meant it to be vaguely insulting,” she huffed. “Besides, ‘nice’ in general is too bland a word for anything. I mean, old ladies are nice. Fleece socks are nice, especially in winter. Petri dishes of E. coli proliferating indefinitely would be nice, so I wouldn’t have to worry about whether or not I have back-up cultures for…”

She trailed off after recognizing how ridiculous she was sounding. It seemed that whenever she was in Barry’s vicinity she either had nothing to say or she was saying too much. Clearly she had deficient brain-mouth coordination where he was concerned.

Barry was looking at her with unconcealed amusement.

“I’m sorry if my adjective choice led you to think that I was comparing you to old ladies or fleece socks or proliferating E. coli,” he said, nudging her. “What I meant to say was, you look absolutely beguiling today. It’s fortunate for poor blokes like myself that you’ve decided to let your… luxuriant… tresses down—”

Caitlin winced at his wording. “Alright, just stop. You’ve proven that you have a sizeable vocabulary. Congratulations.”

“There’s this other sizeable thing I have—”

She glared at him.

“Sorry,” he said, grinning roguishly and not looking sorry in the least. And then, his features softening, he added, “But you’re right. Nice was a lame word to use. You look really pretty.”

Caitlin flushed. She suddenly found it very hard to swallow. In a fit of flustered desperation, she gestured to the lecture hall.

“Well,” she floundered, “the line’s really long now.”

“The line? Oh, that line. Right.” He surreptitiously cleared his throat. He seemed to have realized that he’d been smiling at her for longer than was usual. Oh, God, could he have noticed her blushing?

…Wait, was he blushing?

Caitlin gave him a sidelong glance, and her eyes widened fractionally in surprise.

She blinked again to make sure she wasn’t imagining it, and true enough, there was still a very light pink on his cheeks. He was blushing!

Wait, so if he was also blushing, could it mean that she affected him the same way he affected her? Come to think of it, there had been a few times when he seemed more flustered and inarticulate than usual—sometimes, even, when he was trying to fluster her. She’d registered those moments vaguely, but she just never thought of it in conjunction to her effect on him.

It was all speculation at this point—it was still too nebulous to disprove her null hypothesis—but she wondered how she could have missed it.

As he ambled over to one of the longer lines, she observed, “You don’t seem as bothered by the line as you were a few minutes ago.”

“I’m not,” he conceded. He glanced at her quizzical look over his shoulder and smiled. “I think the reason’s pretty obvious, Caitlin.”

There it was again—that slight hesitation in his tone, the tentativeness of his smile, the deeper shade of pink crawling up his neck.

Caitlin was still at a loss of what to do, but she bit her lip to suppress a smile. She had a feeling this insight would be very useful in the future.

———

Fifteen minutes later, they were still in line.

“They’re registering manually!” Barry scowled, running his hands through his hair in frustration. “This is going to take forever!”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Caitlin said. “Someone ran out to borrow ID scanners. It’ll take only a few minutes, and by then we’ll already be at the front of the line—”

He gave her a look of disbelief, as if she’d said “a few hours” instead of “a few minutes.” He seemed on the verge of complaining again, but then suddenly, his mouth lifted into a mischievous grin.

Oh, she did not like that look.

“Come on,” he said, tugging at her arm, “let’s go somewhere else.”

“No.”

“Come on, Caitlin. Live a little.”

“I’m already very much alive, thank you.”

“You’re alive, but you’re not truly living. Ooh, damn, that was a good line—”

“—speaking of lines, look, it’s moving—”

“They still don’t have ID scanners,” he said, tugging at her arm again. “Besides, I think you’ll like this place. It’s near the Observatory, and I always go there to think. It’s nice and quiet and I stumbled on it during one of my morning jogs—”

“Barry,” she said, tugging fiercely at his sleeve, but he was much stronger than she was, and it didn’t take much tugging for him to make her step out of the line. “You have to write a paper on this lecture—”

“—and it’s kinda chilly because of the wind but it’s pleasant chilly, plus you can see the whole campus from there—”

“—honestly, you have the attention span of a goldfish—”

“—a goldfish? Can’t I be a cooler animal, like a cheetah—”

“—see what I mean? A goldfish is perfectly apt—”

“—I bet cheetahs also hate waiting—”

“—and for the record, cheetahs are actually patient hunters—”

“—but I bet they wouldn’t be if they had to wait in line behind other cheetahs for the next gazelle—”

She tugged his arm more forcefully now. “Barry.”

They paused at one of the exits of the science complex, the one nearest to the small greenhouse of the botany students. He grinned at her, his hand still on her arm. “Yes, Caitlin?”

“The lecture’s probably starting already.”

“We can go to the one next week instead. And to the one after next week. When they have functional ID scanners. And shorter lines.”

She realized that this meant she got to go to the next two lectures with him, but she cautioned herself that it was too soon to hope. “But you said that this was the only lecture with extra credits in Anatomy.”

He waved a hand. “I think I’m already pretty good at Anatomy, anyway.”

She arched a brow at him.

“Oh, don’t give me that look,” he said. “Here, I’ll prove it to you.”

She narrowed her eyes, expecting him to say something lewd, but instead he lifted her left hand with his right hand, and held hers palm-up between them.

His gesture was so unexpected that she stilled.

Dimly, she figured that she should probably pull away, but the moment when it was appropriate to pull away had passed.

His fingers grazed the tips of hers before curling around them. They were warm on her skin.

He was touching her.

He was holding her hand.

Caitlin felt very aware of her own body, and how all sensation seemed to concentrate on the nerve endings in her hands. She was in the thrall of his touch.

His thumb ran over the tips of her fingers.

“Phalanges,” he said lightly.

Phalan—oh.

Oh.

His fingers moved down to trace the lines of bones at the back of her palm.

“Metacarpals.”

He was naming the bones on her hand.

Her cheeks flamed. She was painfully hyperaware of his exploring fingers. It was like he was leaving a trail of fire in the wake of his touch.

He turned her hand over again and moved to the base of her palm, and ran his thumb across the pale skin there.

“Hamate, capitate, trapezoid, trapezium.”

His thumb skimmed the top of her wrist.

“Triquetral, lunate, pisiform.”

He glanced up at her and gave her a half-smile. “See?” he said. Her hand was still resting on his palm. “Just learned that today in class, and I’ve already got it all down to pat.”

She blinked at him.

“Not quite,” she said, more out of reflex than out of a conscious decision to speak. She bit her lip, surprised that she could even produce sound, what with her airways so terribly constricted, but she supposed that she couldn’t resist correcting something. He was looking at her expectantly, so she took a much-needed breath to steel herself and moved to place her hand under his.

With her thumb, she touched the bone near his pulse point. She might have been imagining it, but the frantic thrumming under his skin seemed to match her own unsteady heartbeat.

“You forgot the scaphoid,” she said.

His eyebrows shot up, and that signature sheepish grin of his was spreading across his face. “Damn. Nine out of ten. By your standards that’s probably a failing mark.”

“True,” she conceded with a shrug. “But I can make an exception.”

He let out a snort of laughter, and then regarded her with his bright green eyes. He slowly brought up his left hand to trace the delicate skin under her eye—her contracting orbicularis oculi, she realized belatedly—and the pad of his thumb was rough against it.

She took a shaky breath. He was so warm, and she had the sudden urge to turn her face to his hand and close her eyes, but she resisted it valiantly and trained her gaze on him.

His smile softened. “I’m glad I’m the exception.”

It was even more difficult to breathe now. They were treading a minefield here—her hand was still resting on his, and he was still standing so close that if Caitlin looked up and stretched on her tiptoes, her lips would have touched his—and she didn’t even want to dwell on how she came to replace actual measurements for distance with how easily she could possibly come into contact with his lips.

She needed to stop this—whatever it was—before she inadvertently stepped on a mine.

Caitlin looked away from him. “Don’t let it get to your head.”

“Can I let it get to my heart instead?”

She pulled her hand away. “Barry,” she said, “we really should be going back.”

A flicker of bewilderment crossed his expression, and he slowly tucked his hand into his pocket. Oddly enough, the moment that he did, Caitlin felt like the whole incident—the whole naming her bones in the guise of holding her hand—had never happened, and that they were probably not going to talk about it.

“There’s really nothing I can do to convince you?”

“Well, the lecture’s already starting…”

He shook his head and gave her a half-hearted smile.

“Alright, if you say so.” He turned back to the direction they came from. “Let’s go back.”

“Really?”

He looked mildly puzzled. “Yeah?”

Caitlin blinked. She didn’t expect him to give up easily—or rather, she didn’t expect him to give up at all. Granted, he did usually give in to her, but he’d whine and complain and tease her while giving in. He never gave up sounding this resigned.

She pursed her lips in thought. What if he wanted to go somewhere else not because he was being annoying as usual, but because he was exhausted? If this place was a place he went to think, it was likely that it was also where he went to take a break, and right now he did sound like he needed one…

She sighed. The things she did around this boy.

She abruptly faced the direction opposite the lecture hall and tugged his arm. “Let’s go.”

“The lecture hall’s—”

“I’m not particularly interested in this lecture series anymore,” she clipped. “I prefer the one next week on Frontiers in Bioengineering.”

He gave her an incredulous look. “I don’t want you to feel like I’ve been dragging you around—”

“If you haven’t noticed, I’m doing the dragging now,” she said. From all her tugging—he was incredibly difficult to budge—her hand had slipped down to grasp his fingers. It was all well and good, since his skin possessed better traction than the slippery sleeve of his jacket (or so she told herself).

His incredulity melted into a smile, and he tugged her hand so she’d stop walking. “Well, in that case,” he said, “you’re dragging us in the wrong direction.”

She blinked. “Oh,” she said. “Fine. Lead the way, then.”

He was smiling again. “You’re awfully cute when you’re trying to be nice, you know,” he said, hand tightening around hers.

“Don’t call me cute. It’s condescending. And I wasn’t being nice.”

He grinned. “Don’t worry, Caitlin. Your secret’s safe with me.”

———

“Barry, where exactly are you taking me?” Caitlin said—or wheezed, much to her embarrassment. “And why does it already look like we’re miles away from civilization?”

Barry glanced back at her, and since he was a few meters higher up the slope than she was, the look he gave her seemed both amused and condescending. The nerve—she’d practically given in to all his whims out of the goodness of her heart and now here he was, gloating over her suffering. “A forest right behind the observatory is hardly miles away from civilization, Caitlin,” he smirked. “Don’t tell me you’ve never explored this place before.”

“No,” Caitlin said shortly. She leaned against a nearby tree to catch her breath, and Barry promptly paused to wait for her, adjusting the strap of her backpack on his shoulder and his hold on his varsity bag. She glared at him. How was he still breathing normally? Caitlin felt like her lungs were on fire, and she wasn’t even carrying anything. “Is there anything about my pasty complexion and conspicuous lack of muscle mass that suggest I enjoy hiking through forests?”

Barry laughed. “No need to be so snappy,” he said genially. He jogged back to where she was, still looking fresh and energized, while Caitlin felt like she’d run a marathon. Well, not really—she’d never ran a marathon before. Not unless it was a Friends marathon, which was a different kind of marathon altogether. “Come on, we’re almost there.”

“I can’t believe you dragged me into this,” she muttered.

He began walking alongside her now, matching her pace. He’d been doing a lot of that over their hike up the slope—wandering a few meters ahead of her and teasing her for being slow, and then rounding back to walk beside her. She would’ve been found it considerate if he weren’t also deliberately showing off. As if she needed to be reminded of how fit he was.

“If I remember correctly, you dragged me into this.”

“If I remember correctly, I was about to drag us in the direction of the library, where there’s an air-conditioner and an elevator and nice, un-rocky flooring.”

“Fair enough,” he said, his eyes still bright with laughter. “It’s not too late for us to turn around.”

“I’ll shove you down that incline if you dragged me all the way up here for nothing.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

She glared at him. “Oh, I will—”

But before she could get her hands on him, he’d swiveled out of her reach with an ease that she could only dream of having. He crossed his arms and grinned down at her. “Is that the best you can do?”

She glared at him. She was sweaty, and she felt grimy and clumsy and unattractive, and he was just so painfully graceful and athletic and so bleeding attractive in comparison that it was putting her in a terrible mood. “You should try staying still for five seconds.”

“No thanks.”

“Barry.”

His lips quirk up in amusement. “That tone won’t work on me, Caitlin.”

“What tone?”

He shrugged. “The one you use when you want me to shut up and give in to you. You always use it when you’re ma—oof!”

While he’d been talking, Caitlin had inched her way up the distance between them, and she’d given him a light push—but when she’d launched at him, she tripped and ended up hurling her entire weight on him.

She squeaked and shut her eyes and braced herself for the impact of the fall.

When it seemed like she didn’t hit the hard ground, Caitlin slowly reopened her eyes and propped herself on her arm, only to realize that she was leaning on a very warm, very muscular chest.

Oh Lord.

“Are you okay?” he said. She was still leaning on his chest, and he was looking at her so worriedly that one would’ve thought she’d taken the brunt of the fall. It irked her to no end that even Barry’s upper body was so perfectly toned when he only really needed his legs for running.

A fierce blush crept up her cheeks, and she tried to move but found that she couldn’t, not with her waist in the vice-grip of Barry’s arm.

“Don’t be ridiculous, I wasn’t—your arm!” Caitlin gasped, alarmed. She shoved his bag aside and lifted his arm up slowly to check for injury. “Does it hurt?”

“No, I’m fine,” he said. He stretched it gingerly. “It’s just a little sore, that’s all. My back is, too, but I’ve had worse. It’s all good.”

“Are you sure?” Caitlin stretched his arm, and when he didn’t make any sounds of protest, she rested it by his side again. “Wait, let me get up—I’ll need to check your back—”

“Oh, no you don’t,” he said, tightening his grip around her. “I can’t believe you really tried to push me down the slope.”

She tried to use his chest as leverage to pull herself free, but he was pretty strong, and his chest was proving to be more distracting than it was useful leverage, so she placed her hands on the grass instead and scowled.

“Up the slope,” she clarified. “I wasn’t trying to kill you, no matter how annoying you were being.”

“You still pushed me. We could’ve fallen onto a rock or something.”

“Yes, I know, and I’m sorry,” she said, attempting to wriggle free again. “Next time I’ll make sure that the terrain is suitable for shoving infuriating people down onto, without causing life-threatening injuries—”

“—wait, Caitlin, can you just—can you stop—stop moving—”

“—so I’d appreciate it if you let me go, because this is unsuitable terrain and you could’ve sustained life-threatening injuries, and I need to make sure I’m not guilty of involuntary manslaughter—”

Barry made an abrupt movement, and Caitlin let out an undignified squeak when she suddenly found herself on the ground and Barry on top of her. “See?” he said. He tried to sound smug, but he was extremely flushed, and he was breathing heavily. “I’m perfectly fine.”

She was about to say something snarky in return, but it died on her tongue when she saw the look he was giving her. His pupils were dilated, and his normally bright green eyes had turned a shade darker. She could feel the strong muscles of his arm around the small of her back, and his legs straddled her on either side of her hips.

She bit her bottom lip hard in an attempt to bring herself back to reality, but then Barry followed the movement of her lips with his eyes and let out a soft, strangled noise.

He only needed to move his head slightly for his lips to land on the shell of her ear. He whispered her name in a low growl that was nearly inaudible, and his breath was hot on her skin.

There was a coil of heat in her belly, wound tight and ready to combust. She fisted her hands in the grass in an attempt to control herself and she shut her eyes.

His nose skimmed the line of her jaw, a touch so light she might have imagined it.

It was so hot, and she couldn’t breathe. Or she didn’t dare to. She didn’t understand this feeling. She wasn’t even in control of her own body anymore. All she knew was that she wanted this nearness, this heat; she wanted to tilt her face to his and just—just…

Suddenly there was a loud rustling all around them.

Barry blinked, looking as if he’d come to his senses, and then abruptly scrambled away, startled.

Caitlin’s heart was still beating wildly against her ribcage, and she was sure that the redness in her cheeks hadn’t yet receded. She touched a hand to her temple, feeling flushed and disoriented and confused.

“So…” Barry said, awkwardly clearing his throat. He’d shuffled to his feet, pulled his shirt down quickly over the front of his jeans, and hefted their bags over his shoulder. When she glanced at him she saw a deep shade of red crawling up his neck. “Do you, uh, need help standing up?”

He held out his hand.

She blinked at it.

“No thanks,” she said slowly.

The wind rustled around them.

She thought about how ridiculous it was that something like the wind could startle them so easily.

But then again, had they not sprang apart like they had, what would have happened instead? For a moment there she was sure that Barry—Barry Allen—was about to kiss her, and she was about to let him. Either that, or all the suffocating heat she’d experienced just moments ago had gotten to her head, and she’d somehow conjured up a very elaborate hallucination.

But, alright, assuming it wasn’t an elaborate, heat-induced hallucination, how were they ever going to deal with the repercussions of something as unambiguously romantic as a kiss? Unless they both mutually agreed that Barry had slipped and landed on her lips, a confession would inevitably follow. And he would either say he liked her back, or he was just… what? Kissing girls in the woods for sport?

She frowned. That didn’t quite add up. She’d been so focused on receiving some form of confession from him that she never considered what, exactly, happened after the confession.

She could feel a headache coming on. She didn’t have enough functioning brain cells to think about this right now.

“Okay,” he said lamely, letting his hand fall back to his side. “Not that I’m implying you’re helpless or anything,” he added as an afterthought, as she stood and dusted the back of her jeans. “It was just, you know, kind of a gentlemanly reflex, and I, uh, wanted to make sure you didn’t injure your, uh, scaphoid or anything.”

“My scaphoid,” she echoed. “You were going to check an injury at my scaphoid by pulling me up by my wrist, which is essentially where my scaphoid is.”

“Um,” he said. “Maybe you injured it while shoving me… or… something.”

She arched a brow at him. “You’re still not bitter about me shoving you, are you?”

At her question, the tension seemed leave his shoulders, and he shook his head. “No, I’m not.” He flashed her a grin. “You were only probably finding an excuse to grope my chest.”

Caitlin spluttered. Damn it, how could he recover so quickly? This Barry wasn’t supposed to make an appearance!

“As if there’s anything remotely gropable about your chest—”

“Gropable? Tell me, Caitlin, how would I meet your standards of gropability?”

“If I did have standards for that, which I don’t, you’d be the standard for ungropability—”

“I’m wounded, I really am, right here in the center of my extremely gropable chest—quick, Caitlin, put your hand over it to stop the bleeding—”

“You’re being ridiculous—”

“Ah, another fatal wound! Now you have to put two hands on my extremely gropable chest—”

They bickered the rest of the way up the peak. Neither of them spoke about the Incident on the Slope for the rest of their time together that day, just as they did not speak about the bone-naming and dragging around campus as a shoddy guise for hand-holding. Everything was yet too new and too fragile, and they both felt that to speak about these small, new intimacies was to lose each other.

Caitlin, especially, couldn’t bring herself to obsessively rehash anything just yet, let alone talk about it. It would stay there in the back of her mind, niggling at her consciousness, never fully surfacing. But she did feel something else surface, as Barry continued to alternately tease her and help her up the slope with a hand on her arm or a grip on her hand: She felt… happy. It wasn’t the placid kind of happiness that ran throughout her body like a stream; it was a happiness that came in bursts, like a geyser—the kind of happiness that was difficult to contain, so that intermittently it shot tingles to her fingertips, crept into her smile, made her heart jump like it was going to fly out of her chest.

There would be another time for her overthinking. Maybe for once, she would just savor the feeling while it lasted.

———

The view they had when they reached the top lived up to the hype Barry made about it. It was breathtaking. Caitlin could see the entire campus from there, and she could see the lights from the stores and restaurants of the university town flickering to life. All around them they could hear the sounds that were audible only in still silence—the leaves rustling, different birds chirping, the wind whistling. Far off in the distance, they could see the sun inching down the horizon.

Barry was sprawled on his back on the dry grass, and she was seated down beside him, her back against a tree. For perhaps the first time in the past two weeks, she felt completely at ease being near him. Her body was more relaxed, and her mind wasn’t constantly abuzz with its usual self-conscious monologue. It was probably the effect of the place. It seemed like the stillness here had crept under her skin, seeped into her bones.

They watched the sun and the patterns of color in the sky in companionable silence.

After a few moments, Barry spoke. His tone was subdued, as if he understood that to raise his voice a decibel louder was to shatter the peace.

“Hey, Caitlin,” he said, “what’s your full name?”

It was another of his random questions. Normally it would’ve set her on edge, but right now she’d been lulled into such a peaceful state of mind that none of her usual fight-or-flight responses were triggered. She wasn’t even overthinking anymore. She was always overthinking, anyway, so skipping it this time wouldn’t hurt.

“Caitlin Tannhauser Snow,” she said.

“You don’t have a second name?”

“None.”

“Man, you’re lucky. Must’ve been a breeze to learn your name.”

She snorted. “Unlike Bartholomew, I imagine.”

“Bartholomew Henry. It was a nightmare,” he laughed. “Where did you grow up?”

“Keystone. You?”

“Here, in Central. Been here my whole life. Blood type?”

She arched a brow at him. “I should just give you my biodata.”

He grinned, unapologetic. “But it’s more fun this way. Blood type?”

She sighed. “AB positive.”

“Nice. I’m an O positive. Which means if you ever need a blood transfusion, I can donate blood to you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she replied dryly.

“And you can donate plasma to me,” he added. “Won’t you? Will you donate plasma to me if I really needed it?”

“I don’t think I would leave you to die.”

“Great. Henceforth, we shall be blood buddies. Isn’t that great? Say you’ll be my blood buddy.”

“What? No.”

“Please, Caitlin. Say it. Give me this one acknowledgement of our friendship.”

“We don’t need a blood pact to be friends.”

“It’s not a blood pact. Blood pacts are so stone age. Blood buddies are the way to go.”

“…You’re very strange, you know that?”

“And you’re very amused right now.”

“I am not.”

He gave her an incredulous look and sat up. She could see the playful challenge in his eyes. “Yes you are. You have these tells. You’ll roll your eyes a bit, and then you bite your bottom lip to keep yourself from smiling, and then you’ll put on this half-smile instead since you won’t let the full smile out. See, there’s that half-smile again. You’re way amused.”

“Do you always watch everyone this closely?”

“I—uh—well, you’re amused a lot around me, so. You know. I notice it. I mean, I’m pretty good at it, being a noticer.”

“…A noticer.”

“Yup,” he said, popping his p. He then turned away from her to lie back down on the ground. “So, what do your parents do?”

She was still mildly puzzled by the exchange, but again, she didn’t think much of it. “My mother’s a nematologist.”

“A nematologist?” he perked up. “As in, someone who studies parasitic worms for a living?”

“Yes.”

“Whoa. I don’t know if that’s gross or cool.”

“Mostly gross. Imagine growing up with preserved roundworms in jars lying around the kitchen.”

“You’re serious?”

“Mm-hmm. She was always a bit absent-minded around the house, but she’s absolutely brilliant at what she does. She’s practically the figurehead for worms. I mean, regardless if you were studying roundworms or earthworms, you couldn’t not know about her.”

Caitlin didn’t know what possessed her to say all these things—she’d always thought of herself as a private person—but there was something about the place, something about Barry at that moment, that made her feel like she could talk about anything.

“She likes the attention,” she added after a slight pause, “but she never stops working. She reads all these new articles on nematodes for breakfast, writes her lectures over lunch, and drafts her research papers from dinner to after midnight. She’s awfully dedicated to her career.”

“Wow. That’s insane. Now I know where you get your work ethic.”

Caitlin scoffed. “Not really. Sometimes she just works at mealtimes because she spends the rest of her time watching YouTube videos. It’s terribly inefficient. I made her timetables, but she never used them.”

He laughed. “So you got your work ethic from her lack of work ethic.”

“That’s one way to put it,” she said. She rested her head on the trunk of the tree. “I learned about real work ethic from my father, though. He was a lawyer. He was the one who gave me the timetables.” She paused. “I was around ten.”

“No way. I don’t think I was even aware of time at ten. All I knew was meal time, snack time, and bed time. And the time that Pokémon airs on TV.”

She smiled at the memory. “Me too. My father taught me to put those down in my timetable, even watching Pokémon and going to a friend’s house.”

He whistled. “That is ruthless.”

“Just strict,” she said. “And very efficient. I wouldn’t be surprised if he started the whole time management craze. He was the epitome of time management.”

Barry turned to look at her, a tentative question in his eyes. “Was?”

She stiffened imperceptibly and looked away. “He died years ago. Multiple sclerosis.”

“Oh my god.” He sat up, reaching to touch her arm. “I’m so sorry—”

“It’s alright. You didn’t know. There’s no need for apology.”

“Crap, the lecture series today had MS as a subtopic—”

“Barry, stop. No apologies. Please.” She squeezed the hand on her arm to emphasize her point. “I’ve read the outline for the lecture and there’s nothing new. MS is still chronic, and painful, and incurable.”

His eyes turned sad. “That must have been hard.”

A flurry of memories flitted into her mind’s eye. Her mother crying over the phone one day. Visiting her father in the hospital, seeing him for the first time since he remarried. Watching him struggle to stand and walk each time she visited, watching him prove to her—but more to himself—that he was still fine. Sitting through all his mood swings, trying to make herself small so he wouldn’t take it out on her. Bearing the moments when he’d forget little things, like the day of the week, or big things, like her name. Touching his hands, cold and stiffly folded across his body in the casket. Staring at the yawning furnace that would turn him into ash…

Caitlin looked at her hands. “It was terrible. But it’s been years, so… it doesn’t haunt anymore. Not as frequently, anyway. And not so painfully.”

He leaned back against the tree trunk, his shoulders touching hers. “I understand,” he said. “Uh, if you need someone to talk to, I’m just a call away. I mean, I know not everyone’s experience of losing someone is the same, but I guess there are things that’re universal, so…”

Caitlin glanced at him. “You lost someone, too.”

“Yeah. My Mom.” He closed his eyes. “She died a year and three months ago.” He paused. “The entire thing was so senseless. It was the start of summer break, so I was out celebrating with my track buddies, and Dad was working late. He was usually home before dinner, but he had some emergency to take care of, so Mom was home alone. She never locked the doors, because we’ve lived in that neighborhood our whole lives, you know, and it was a good neighborhood. No one locked their doors because nothing ever happened.”

He swallowed, and instinctively, Caitlin moved to touch his hand. He wrapped his fingers around hers like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“And then, there was this… college kid who came stumbling into our house. He was really high and out of his mind. He was having these… paranoid delusions. He thought my mom was conspiring with the people out to get him. When my mom reached for her phone, he lunged at her with a kitchen knife and stabbed her. Nine times.” He turned her hand over in his, tracing her fingers. “Nine times. Can you imagine?”

“That’s terrible,” she said, hating how hollow the words sounded. She didn’t know what else to say in the face of such naked anguish.

“She could’ve survived one, or maybe two or three, but not nine.” He pressed his lips together. “Joe heard all the commotion, and he was able to call an ambulance, but she was dead before she reached the hospital. And in the meantime, I was out partying. Couldn’t hear anything above the noise. I missed Joe’s call. I missed her call. Her last words to me went right to voicemail. Just, Barry, I love you. I love you so much.” He swallowed and closed his eyes. “Her voice was all cracked and desperate. Like she was crying.”

He was quiet for a few more moments, lost his grief, and Caitlin stayed beside him in silence, letting him hold her hand.

“I’m sorry,” he said suddenly, looking up at her. “I didn’t mean to dump all that on you. We were talking about your dad…”

“No, I really didn’t have anything more to say,” she said. “And I understand. It’s only been a year since your mom died. It’s still fresh.”

“Not fresh enough,” he murmured. “Sometimes I feel like I’m forgetting her already. I mean, I know it’s supposed to get better with time, but doesn’t it get better because you remember less?”

He paused, silent for a moment as he traced the jagged lines of her palm.

“Like right after… it all happened, everything hurt. All the time. When I remembered her, I felt surrounded by the memory. Like watching a movie I couldn’t get out of. Her smile. Her voice. Her favorite floral blouse. The way she called me Slugger on normal days, Barry when she wanted me to do something for her, and Bartholomew Henry when she was going to give me a real whipping. Verbally, of course.” He smiled briefly. “And then, eventually, the memories become fuzzier around the edges. Shorter. Not a movie anymore, just faded pictures. Like the ones in your wallet. You put a picture there so you’ll always see the people you love the most, but after a while you forget it’s even there. And when you look at it and really see it again, it’s already yellowed and faded, and there’s a crease over her eyes and her smile, and the color of her hair’s this dull brown instead of deep red, and the edges become this soft, brittle fuzz. Does that make sense?”

“It does,” she agreed. “It’s a very poetic way of describing it.” She saw his budding smile and added, “Don’t let it get to your head.”

His grin was a full one now. “I don’t get it. You’re insulting me but you’re making me feel better. How is that possible?”

“Maybe you’re a masochist. It’s the only plausible reason you’ve tolerated my company for this long.”

“Why I enjoy your company,” he corrected. “It’s not so bad. It’s like being with a cactus and holding on to the non-prickly parts.”

“Normally, people don’t hold onto cacti in the first place. And how am I a cactus while you still get to be a human being?”

“Well, you’re pretty cactus-y, and I’m pretty human-y.”

She arched a brow at him.

“Point is, I liked the idea. It doesn’t have to hold up to logical scrutiny.”

“What a cop-out answer. But fine. I’ll let you off the hook this time.”

“Thanks. I’ll make you the human being in my next metaphor.”

“I think I’ve had enough of your metaphors,” she said dryly. “Anyway, you were talking about memory?”

He gave her another smile before turning his face to the sun. Only a tiny sliver of it was left on the horizon. “Yeah. Uh, well, I think time heals all wounds because it makes us forget better. I mean, not all the time. Sometimes there are these moments when I remember my mom so sharply it hurts. And how… how those nine stab wounds looked like. But for the most part… I don’t think of her so much anymore.”

“And when you remember that you haven’t thought about her in a while, you feel guilty,” she said. “You feel like you’ve done something wrong.”

“Yeah, exactly,” he said. “Time heals by making you forget, but guilt’s there to make sure you never forget completely.”

“And to remind you that to be a good son or daughter, you must remember. It’s the last tie that binds us to our family, this obligation of remembering. Or maybe re-membering…”

“That makes sense. Since they’re not there anymore, physically, you try to put your memories of them together, over and over again…”

“…to approximate their presence,” she finished. “No matter how incompletely.”

“It’s not a bad obligation.”

“It’s neither good nor bad. It just is.”

“I watched this series recently called Westworld,” he said. “The characters who’ve lost someone, they always say that they don’t want to forget their pain, because pain is all they have left of the ones they’ve lost.”

“Part of remembering,” she mused. “Somehow, paradoxically, they’re physically present again if you feel the pain of their absence. So sometimes you want that pain. Memories are sharper when you’re in pain.”

“Yeah. That’s true.”

He gave her a look she couldn’t place, and then he turned back to the horizon and smiled.

“We’re totally blood buddies.”

She wrinkled her brow. “What does that even mean?”

“Doesn’t have to mean anything,” he said, grinning now. “It simply is. Hey, come on. Don’t shoot it down. It amuses you.”

“It does. Sounds awfully morbid though.”

“Really? I think it’s kind of cute. It could be a band name.”

“Doesn’t sound like a chart-topping name to me.”

“What! I’m offended. Charts are not topped by name alone, but by talent and hard work.”

“Unfortunately we have neither.”

“Pfff. We totally do. You’re hard work, and I’m talent.”

“You, talent?”

“Yuh. Excuse me, I have a quote pretty sexy baritone unquote, if I may say so myself.”

“You’re not saying so yourself, which is why you’re quoting someone in the first place. Who, exactly, are you quoting?”

“…Anonymous.”

“Which is basically code for nobody.”

“You wound me.”

“I’m always wounding you, being the quote cactus with some non-prickly parts unquote.”

He grinned. “You are so into my metaphors.”

“I am not.”

“You so are. We’ve already been through this. You have that half-smile on again.”

She pressed her lips together to vanish the half-smile and looked away. “Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Observing me. Being a noticer. Whatever it is you’re doing.”

“Why?” he said, crouching so that he could peer up at her. “Does it embarrass you? Hey, Caitlin, please look at me.”

“I clearly don’t want to, so don’t ask.”

“I can’t not notice,” he confessed, his tone subdued. “But if it makes you uncomfortable, I won’t point it out anymore. I swear.” He gently placed a finger under her chin. “Please look at me?”

Her face was burning. She couldn’t look at him now—she would give too much away. She was already giving too much away with her discomfort. “Let’s go back. It’s almost dark.”

“Hey,” he said, tugging on her hand, “are you mad?”

“No.”

“Can you smile to indicate you’re not mad?”

“I don’t smile on command.”

“How about on a request?”

She lifted her bag onto her shoulder.

“On plea? In supplication?”

“In supplication? Really?”

He beamed. “So the magic word is supplication.”

She let go of his hand to adjust the strap on her shoulder, but caught herself when she had nearly reached for it again. “You’re insufferable.”

“Not insufferable, just incredibly persistent,” he said, taking his bag and slinging it over his shoulder with ease. “Need help?”

“No.”

“I’m not offering because I’m making fun of you or anything. I mean, your backpack is made of brick, and it’s getting dark, and it’s not exactly easy to go downhill, and I have more experience, so…”

“Still no.”

“Caitlin.”

“Barry.”

“Now who’s being insufferable?”

“Not insufferable, just incredibly determined,” she returned.

“Touché. I see you’re learning from the best.”

“More like beating him at his own game.”

They went on like this on their way down the slope, and halfway through, after what seemed like the nth time that Caitlin had slipped on something, they decided to compromise—she would carry her own bag, but she had to accept his help if the terrain was steep or rocky. He stayed close to her, keeping a hand on the small of her back or on the crook of her arm, and from time to time he would take hold of her hand—nonchalantly, as if the gesture didn’t mean anything, or it meant too much for either of them to remark on aloud.

Caitlin didn’t comment, but she let him do it.

When they finally reached flat ground without any casualties, he assumed an appropriate distance from her and walked her to the dorms. He thanked her for the day and started walk away, but then, as if he’d forgotten something, he quickly looked back to flash her one last broad, silly smile. It was so utterly charming that she gave him a full smile back, too.

Caitlin watched his retreating figure from her dorm window. Her mind was buzzing again, but she couldn’t pay attention to any train of thought. Instead she curled her hand into a loose fist, trying to keep the lingering warmth of his hand in the small hollow of her palm.

[oyjyms]

Dugo, Pawis At Pera (Blood, Sweat, and Money) Part 2

I passed 1st sem! Then when 2nd semester came, it was the biggest challenge so far and I did not know it yet. Yes, still the same problems, money, laboratory, grades and etc. But now it was more complexed, we had to find 2 patients for our Removable Partial Dentures subject. And we were doing this for free. We will be spending for them.

RPD: You would think it would be easy since all the people have teeth? But no, it wasn’t. We had to find certain cases wherein the patient needs dentures where she/he has 4 missing posterior teeth bilaterally. At first we were all eager to start looking for patient. On the first day of class we went to this hospital and a lot of them wanted to volunteer but in the end only few were compliant to come to our school every week. Most of the people have jobs and although some may sacrifice there time, our CI would reject them because there case is far beyond out capabilities. So it was difficult to find one patient let alone 2. For example, the patient I found living nearby was really happy to have dentures but when we did Xray on him, it revealed that his teeth was a special case. I was sure to spend a lot. So the seniors advised me to look for another patient. Luckily, I had a partner! My Korean friend! Yes, the smart friend whom comforted me last sem. She has a senior friend whose maid’s friend was looking for dentures. Haha! Her mom was actually the one who wanted dentures but it turned out she needed complete dentures, so we chose the former. She only had part time job so she complied on going to school every week. Our patient was very compliant. Thanks to God! But that didn’t mean we didn’t have troubles handling her. I don’t want to say that she has a bad personality, she really doesn’t. But our CI told us that she might be a little spoiled. But that was all. For the next patient to look for, it was a group patient. But sadly all the patients that we brought to school were rejected. We did Xray na ha! It was expensive! Good thing there were 10 of us. It took us until last week of February to look for our patient. Yup. Deadly right. And she was just working in the canteen! Right under our noses! Hay! Sadly we didn’t know that the defense for the group patient was earlier than the individual/by pair patients deadline. So we rushed everything: cleaning, the design, restoration, rest seat, framework then we had the dentures. Let me just say it, we were not able to delegate the tasks properly. We didn’t fought but you could see some people were stressed out. We were really tired. We argued but in the end we managed.

CD: When Christmas vacation almost came, my patient had a stroke. She texted me that her face was distorted and she couldn’t come to school anymore. So as for me, I didn’t believe it. I thought she meant that her face was fatigued over the procedures we’ve done so when she finally showed up to school I was really surprised to see that her face was unable to move/feel and one of her eye can’t even blink! I was so shocked, I ran to the faculty room and looked for any Prostho CI and Doc A got her BP and told me it was high. We asked if she had a stroke and she said she didn’t. She told us that she woke up, ate and then her grandchildren were telling her that her face was distorted so she was checked by a doctor and got her prescriptions. According to her, it wasn’t stroke but it clearly was. She even told us that she got so angry the day before that, she had a fight with her son and it was very hot since she was working at there store. She was in denial. I was so worried I had done her wrong and that it was my fault somehow but to her kindness, she reassured me that it wasn’t. She even said that she wanted to continue making the dentures for me since I already started and spent my money.

“Nianhi lang pud ko kay luoy pud bya ang bata, pwede pa man gyapun ko mupadayun.”

Our CI told me that it would be hard for me to make the dentures, I had to repeat all over again because her face was distorted so they opted to let her rest and told me to change my patient. I said “Of course” since my guilt would really eat me up if she continued to become my patient and would suddenly have stroke again. I couldn’t afford it. And for the short span that nanay and I bonded, I really felt warm around her. Afterwards she went home and Doc Ar told me that it would be best to change patient because she might have stroke on my hands and it might get worse. He told me that it was going to be okay, they were going to help me look for another patient. That day, Doc told me to wait for the agent whom supplies us with patients. I went to the library since I was too overwhelmed to deal with everything, I just wanted some silence in the quiet room which I was alone since it was class time. Then, I cried. I forced myself to let it out. There I was alone in the quiet area, sobbing my eyes out. I did not see it coming. For all the chances that my patient would have stroke, who would have thought it would be me? During our first interview and case history she really sounded healthy to me. Me and my friend who was in the other section, we have the same patient, she also thought we got lucky with our patient since she was healthy and would even help us out. But tragedies happen and we hoped it doesn’t happen to us but it does and what happens next is what matters most, not what happened. When I remembered my friend whose going to change px also, I stopped crying, studied for the exam the next day and went back to the room. The agent told me that she was going to get another patient for me next week. My friend came to the classroom and asked me if it was true about the stroke and changing patients. And I told her that it was and it was going to be okay and that we were going to do it next week. Everything we’ve been doing the past 2 months, we were going to do it again in 2 weeks. Huh. Never thought of it that way. My friends were really sad for me and I felt touched by them. They said that why could it have been me of all people? For all the students, why can’t it be the arrogant smartass student? That’s what they kinda told me except they actually mentioned a name. They shared their sympathy for me but I told my friend “Don’t be sad for me, dli man ako nastroke. Ako mang patient. Sya man ang luoy.” And that was that. I realized that anything could really happen. I didn’t want to control and expect so much of my life afterwards but it didn’t stop me from catching up with my classmates. I was gonna start from scratch. Luckily, I had a new patient but my other friend didn’t because it there was somebody else assigned to my patient for their class. She reassured me that it was okay, since I did not wanna waste time because I had classes during that afternoon. And a week after that, I would only get one day. I sit in after my other subject and thank God the CIs allowed me! And I did not even fail to attend my other class so I finished it quick and get back to CD. The information about our patient spread to the faculty room. So Doc B, thank you so much for allowing me to get out of class early. I could see a lot of sympathies and help from everyone which helped me to get back up and try really hard. The Prostho CIs are all kind hearted! I admire them so much. When Christmas vacation came, I didn’t catch up yet. But when classes began with the new year, I think I was optimistic. I think January has its way of making it a month full of possibilities and after weeks of a compliant patient with a kind heart, we catched up to our classmates. When Feb came I was becoming late in our meetings and realized that 2 weeks later so I speed it up. And there I was, about to cook my dentures. My friends would ask me how I did it, I would simply tell them that the CIs really helped me out a lot. But my dentures was still not perfect although I am proud to have tried so hard for to be. And THE SATISFACTION of seeing my patient smile is absolutely breathtaking. Yes, when I saw him smile, I lit up. My patient had better teeth than I had! Haha! He was really glad I made it earlier. He said that his past dentures didn’t fit anymore. I was glad he liked it. I was so happy I think that’s why I fell in love with Dentistry. All the stress felt nothing compared to that smile! In all honesty, it really did. Resto: It was just filling the preps. Just filling the preps. Or so I thought. Again, I was behind schedule and this time I didn’t saw my midterm grade. I was trying so hard in Resto but it looked like I was slacking off. I tried but maybe it wasn’t my best. The lectures were really easy to understand. But when exams came, it was very difficult to comprehend. It was a challenging subject. All the other subjects brought a lot of drama too such as Anesthesiology. It was my first time to inject someone in the mouth. It was dramatic. I was so sad when my partner told me that she failed it. I had a good grade. It was really making me feel guilty even though she said it was okay. Oral Pathology and Orthodontics were fun for me. I had a lot of failures last sem. Specially in my lab finals and lec final exams. But, I passed second sem! Barely! Holy shit! I could tell you so much more stressful stories last sem but I want to end it here. Thanks for taking your time reading this long post! Next up, clinician years: J1, J2, S1, S2. Holy shit. Plus reevaluation before becoming one. I know I’ll fail resto a lot. So help me God.