#it still works‚ doesn't it? if you already had it installed‚ at least

[anakinstwinklebunny]

STALKER!NERD!ANAKIN HEADCANONS

TW: at some point it contains sexual content, so if you're sensitive to that or don't feel comfortable with it, please do not read it for your own safety and comfort. Death, murderer, swearing, weird behavior, psycho behavior

Author's note: got inspired by amazing @xzaddyzanakinx, check her sutff out, it's wayyy better!!!

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who at the beginning seemed like a normal cute nerd

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who would write down every small detail he learned about you in his special notebook

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who would get nervous whenever the math class was about to begin (just because you're in it too). He doesn't have a problem with math, hell, he loves this subject but not as much as he loves you. His eyes would time to time move towards to where you're sitting, his cheeks heating up as he tries to pretend he's actually paying attention to what teacher says

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin whose one of the main wishes was to finally catch your attention. To make you notice him; his love for you, his unconditional commitment, his deep interest in everything you do - from your voice to your every small part on your body. It was something he wished and prayed for, to finally catch your gaze longer than one mere second

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who began fantasizing about you late at night to make himself fall asleep sometimes

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who, when you once struggled with your laptop in class, Anakin, the tech whiz, offered to help you out. He found it as a perfect opportunity to finally have his first real interaction with you. Although nervousness creeped all over his body, stopping right at his cheeks to make them rosy. His hands were gentle as they glided over the keyboard, but you had no idea that while he was fixing your issue, he was also installing a program that gives him remote access to your laptop. He smiled at you after, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose, and you thanked him—unaware that he had just gained access to every aspect of your life.

Later that night, as you were working, you noticed your laptop screen flickering for a moment. Although you brushed it off, not realizing Anakin is on the other end, watching you through your webcam. His breath catched in his throat as he watched you. The heat he couldn't just ingore rising inside him whenever he imagined what it would be like to have you by his side..every.single.day

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who's always in the library, studying furiously or working on some coding project. Yet one day, you left a book behind on accident, and of course, he’s the one who finds it. Instead of returning it to you, Anakin uses it as an excuse to hold onto something of yours—your scent lingering on the pages (at least he thinks it lingers, that it's still there), your small scribbled notes on the margins. And the way his heartbeat quickened whenever he held something you did just second ago - it was so thrilling

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who after the laptop 'help', brought himself the courage to talk to you. At first, he made sure to make it time to time and a small talks - about lessons you've just had, sometimes he tried to gossip (for the first time) about teachers he actually liked (but knew you hated) in jokey way to make you smile and agree at what he's saying - so he did baby steps that hopefully would let him get closer.

He was always obssesing over these talks, always came up to you with flushed cheeks, trying to ignore your sceptical-looking friends. Although he cursed himself after every interaction with you just because he stuttered a lot, and he wanted to make the best impression on you as possible (but who would have known that you finded it cute)

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who gave himself time (but with his often excitement it was hard) to gain your trust, to 'know' you even better than what he knew already (so you wouldn't be suspicious about him knowing certain stuff)

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who was thrilled to help you with subjects you sucked at. Often staying just for you long hours in the library after lessons;

"Hi, Annie."

That soft, sugar-sweet voice pulled Anakin out of his thoughts, snapping him back to reality. He looked up, and there you were—his Aphrodite, his goddess—smiling at him, your eyes bright as you took a seat next to him, your math books gently landing on the library's wooden table.

Anakin froze for a moment, his mind swirling. How was it that you could always leave him feeling like this—flustered, vulnerable? His usual composure disappeared every time you came near. He was used to watching you from afar, secretly lingering in the shadows, but now as you were right next to him, close enough that he could smell your perfume, his mind went dizzy

He swallowed hard, trying to control the quickened beat of his heart. “Hi, y/n he said softly, forcing a gentle smile. “So, what do you need help with today?”

You sighed, flipping open your math book, brows furrowing in that adorable way you always did when you were concentrating. “sequences... I don’t get it.”

Anakin's heart lifted slightly at the request. This was his chance—his moment to shine before you. “Don’t worry, I'll help you"

"That’s so stupid," you muttered, grimacing at the another math problem in front of you. You've been doing this shit for what felt like hours and you could feel your brain slowly release more and more smoke

Anakin only chuckled, the sound warm and genuine. “It’s not stupid. You’re just learning it. Trust me, math can save your life.”

The phrase almost made you vomit “That’s a bold statement.”

He grinned, watching your pencil scratch against the paper, marveling at how even something so mundane looked graceful in your hands. “Bold but true,” he teased. “If you were stranded on a deserted island without a signal, you'd need math to find your way back home.” he folded his hands between his legs, offering you this small smile

you huffed “I’d need a map, not math.”

“And how do you think they make maps?” he shot back with a smug smirk on his face. He was nothing like this shy, stuttering guy you knew just time ago. It was more endearing, in a way “Math. Without it, you wouldn’t have a map in the first place.”

You bit your lip in thought, a small furrow appearing on your brows as you glanced back at the task in front of you. The way your lips pouted slightly as you tried to focus made Anakin’s heart skip a beat. “Math is a haunting beast,” you sighed, writing the example down. “It doesn’t help you; it ruins you.”

Anakin chuckled again, shaking his head. “That’s just a matter of perspective.” His voice softened, dropping a little lower “You just haven’t seen it the right way. I can change that, you know.”

“Can you?” your tone teasing but laced with curiosity.

“If you let me, absolutely.” His eyes sparkled while watching you, drinking in every detail of your face. He had never been this close to you ever before. And oh God, he loved it so much. He could smell the faint scent of your vanilla perfumes, every inch of your skin seemed so touchable..so soft..so-- “But you’ve got to take it seriously. Otherwise, how can I help you?”

“I am taking it seriously, Anakin. You know I’m thankful for all the time and effort you put into this.”

The word time echoed in Anakin’s mind, sending a rush of emotion through him. Time—that precious thing he spent obsessing over you, watching your every move, memorizing every little detail about you.. If only you knew how deep his admiration went, how he lived for these moments alone with you..maybe you would understand that you deserve better than some jerk you've been dating. That you deserved someone who would want to know you, who would fall to his knees and beg to know you..who would do it all just for a small glimpse of your face in the sunglight

“Don’t mention it,” he murmured, his smirk returning. “I’m always happy to help you, y/n.”

He kept the conversation light and playful, teasing you just enough to make you smile, to keep your attention on him. Just as he always dreamed. He wanted this moment to last forever—to bask in your presence, in the warmth of your voice, in the sweetness of your laughter. He wanted you to feel how much he cared, even if he couldn’t tell you the whole truth yet

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who hated your boyfriend;

“Y/n!” Jack’s sharp voice sliced through Anakin’s thoughts like a knife. “Pack your things, we’re leaving. Now.” The coldness in Jack’s tone made Anakin’s blood boil. How could anyone speak to you like that? Anakin would never dream of using such a harsh tone with you. Never.

“But I’m doing math ri—"

“Don’t care,” Jack snapped, cutting you off. “Pack your damn things. We’re leaving.”

The cruelty in Jack’s voice made Anakin seethe. The way he talked to you—like you were nothing—made his hands curl into fists under the table. Red-hot anger coursed through him, almost blinding him. Jack had no right. No right to speak to youlike that, to treat you like you were disposable. His heart pounded in his chest, the familiar obsessive urge to protect you, to be the one who cherished you, rising uncontrollably. He couldn’t stand the thought of you being hurt or disrespected by anyone, least of all by someone like Jack.

Jack caught Anakin’s stare, eyes narrowing with disdain. “What are you looking at, nerd?” His voice was full of arrogance and venom

Anakin’s eyes flashed with rage as he turned to meet Jack’s gaze, nails digging into his skin. He wanted to punch that smug look right off his face. Oh, how satisfying it would be to watch him fall. But Jack was taller, broader, physically stronger..yet..biology confirmed that people under different emotions are able to do impossible..so could it possibly mean..

“Jack, calm down,” you interjected softly, your voice shaking just a little as you tried to smooth things over without another cut skin and running blood. “Anakin was just helping me with math.”

Yet, Jack barely glanced at you, keeping his gaze locked on Anakin's face. Both of them looked as if they were about to throw their fists on themselves. Yet, Anakin wasn't the type of guy to hurt someone..right? “Whatever. If you’re not outside in five minutes, I’m leaving without you.”

Anakin’s blood ran cold as Jack stormed out of the library. The familiar feeling of being a failure, of possibly dissapointing you because he haven't done anything, didn't stand up and react at your boyfriend's behaviour corrupted his mind. What had he just done? He was supposted to protect you, and yet, here he was sitting like a failure. This tense, uncomfortable silence did not help him. Especially when your face flushed with embarrassment, your once-bright smile long gone. What had he just done? You looked down, fiddling nervously with your pencil before turning to Anakin.

“I’m so sorry about him,” you whispered “He’s just… having a bad day, I guess. Please don’t take it personally.”

Anakin wanted to scream. Bad day? That was your excuse? You were too kind, too forgiving. Jack didn’t deserve your apologies or your understanding. Anakin’s anger roared inside him like a beast, barely contained beneath his calm exterior. Jack wasn’t just having a bad day—he was a bully, plain and simple. And Anakin hated him for it. He wanted to protect you from this, from Jack’s cruel words and rough edges. Because you deserved to be treated like a queen, not like some accessory Jack could toss around whenever he felt like it.

So there was this question ringing in his ears again - what had he just done?

“It’s okay,” he replied softly, though his voice was tight with the effort it took to hold back his anger.

You offered him a nervous smile, the light that usually brightened your face now dimmed by Jack’s harshness. “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t keep you any longer… but maybe we can catch up another time?”

Before Anakin could respond, you took his pen and started scribbling something in his notebook. Your soft hand moved gracefully over the page, your pretty handwriting was what captured his attention completely. He loved how even the smallest, most mundane actions were captivating when it came to you. Because for him, you could make something as simple as writing your name feel like magic.

When you finished, you handed the notebook back to him, a soft smile playing on your lips. “It’s my number,” you said, drawing a small smiley face beside it. “We can plan another time for tutoring.”

Your number. Your phone number. Anakin stared at the page in disbelief, his heart hammering in his chest. You had just given him a direct line to you. To you. His obsession surged, almost overwhelming him. He could barely keep his hands from trembling when he took in the sight on the paper. This was it—his way into your life.

“Sure. W-we can,” he said, trying to suppress the massive grin that threatened to take over his face. “Anytime.”

you smiled again, but it was smaller now, hesitant. Your eyes flickered toward the door, where Jack had disappeared moments earlier. “Thanks again, Anakin. I’m really sorry about Jack…i-I should get going before he leaves me stranded.”

Anakin watched you pack your things, his pulse quickening with each movement you made. God, you were so perfect, so sweet, even in the face of Jack’s cruelty. And you deserved better—better than Jack, better than anyone. He even knew he doeasn't deserve you, because for him, you were more than a human. His eyes each time saw you in angelic, heavenly way. As if God alone had sent you on earth to torment him for his sins, to make him suffer. You were so pure, and he so sinful.. so..dirty in all kind of sins. He didn't feel worthy enough to even be in your presence, yet he wanted it more than anything in the world

But if you'd give him only a chance, he'd be yours. Completely. Body and soul. Without exception

“I’ll see you later, Annie,” you mumbled softly, flashing him one last smile before heading towards the door.

The sound of his nickname on your lips made his whole body tingle. He barely registered you leaving, too caught up in the way you'd looked at him, the way you'd spoken to him. The way you had given him your number. It was like a dream come true. His obsession had reached a fever pitch—his heart ached for you - to have you, hold you, not let you go..

you were his, right?

at least had to be someday..

But then there was Jack. Jack, who, again, didn’t deserve you. Jack, who treated you like dirt, who took you for granted. Jack, who yelled at you , who made your smile disappear. Jack, who Anakin hated more than anyone in the world.

Anakin’s grip tightened around his notebook, his knuckles white with the pressure. He couldn’t let Jack get away with this. He couldn’t let Jack continue to be a part of your life. It was his place in your life he took, it was his destiny and fate to be someone more than just 'a nerd who helped you out'.

But again, he hadn't done anything to stop him from treating you like this. When he could, when he really had a chance to make a difference. He simply didn't

what had he just done?

Today was the day it had to change So he had decided. He would follow you, keep his distance, and watch - like he always does. He would make sure Jack never had the chance to hurt you ever again.

With his mind set, Anakin quickly packed his things, his heart pounding with anticipation.

Today Jack Scottland would meet God.

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who killed your boyfriend;

Anakin took a deep breath as he started his car, his hands trembling with barely controlled rage. Every thought, every emotion, was singular—focused on Jack. Jack had to go. He gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles whitened, his breath coming out in shallow bursts. This was it. No turning back. Jack was the obstacle, the barrier between him and you. His mind wouldn’t let him rest until Jack was out of the picture—forever.

As he followed Jack’s car down the quiet road, he could feel his heartbeat quickening, pulsing in his ears. Jack, once more, didn’t deserve you. He didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as you. Anakin’s blood boiled as he replayed Jack’s words in his head—the way he had spoken to you in the most controlling, cruel, disgusting way possible. He couldn’t stand it any longer. If he didn’t do something now, he’d explode.

When Jack pulled into an empty pullout far from your house, Anakin’s pulse raced from adrenaline. This was it. His moment. Now or never.

Anakin slowed his car and parked a few meters behind, eyes locked on Jack’s vehicle. His hands still shook as he opened the trunk, pulling out his baseball bat. The weight of it felt right, felt powerful. This wasn’t a game anymore—this was war. War that he promised himself to win, to never loose, because his thropy is more than anything he could have in his life. it was you Adrenaline pumping through his blood system, perfectly mixing with the uncontrollable rage he’d been bottling up for too long.

Jack was sitting in his car, lazily scrolling through his phone, completely unaware. Anakin’s stomach twisted in disgust. He didn’t care, didn’t even realize how much of a monster he was. The sight of Jack sitting there, nonchalant, as if he hadn’t just torn you apart with his words, made Anakin sick. He had to do this. He had to protect you.

Anakin approached, bat gripped tightly in his hand, tapping it lightly against the car window. The sharp sound snapped Jack’s attention.

“Get out,” Anakin hissed, his voice low and dangerous as if he was a completely diffrent person

Emotions, especially at a high intensity, impact our ability to make rational decisions - nature echoed amongst the pure hatred

“What?” Jack’s expression shifted from confusion to irritation as he slowly lowered the window.

“I said get the fuck out of the car.”

Jack sighed, clearly annoyed as he pushed open the car door, stepping out with a condescending sneer. “Listen, man, I don’t know what your prob—”

The moment Jack’s foot hit the ground, Anakin swung. The bat connected with a sickening crunch against Jack’s side, sending him sprawling to the ground with a grunt of pain. Blood sprayed from his mouth as he gasped for air, clutching his ribs. Yet, Anakin didn’t hesitate; he stepped closer, the fury burning brighter with each moment.

“You think you can treat her like that and just get away with it?” Anakin’s voice was harsh, gritted through clenched teeth as he stood over Jack, eyes wild with fury.

Jack groaned, rolling onto his back, blood dribbling from his lips."What the hell are you talking about?"

anakin's jaw clenched "pathetic excuse of a man"

Before Jack could add anything, Anakin brought the bat down hard, aiming for his head. Jack rolled out of the way just in time, the bat slamming into the dirt beside him. The impact sent a jolt through Anakin’s arms, but he didn’t stop. He swung again, but Jack was quicker this time, scrambling to his feet and grabbing hold of the bat, yanking it toward him.

For a brief moment, they struggled, locked in a vicious tug of war with the bat. Jack, stronger and bigger, managed to kick Anakin hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Anakin gasped, stumbling backward, but the rage inside him only intensified.

Jack seized the opportunity, landing a brutal punch to Anakin’s face, sending blood spraying from his nose. The taste of iron filled his mouth, but it didn’t matter. He barely felt the pain. All he could think about was Jack—the smug look on his face, the way he had spoken to you, belittled you.

Anakin roared, using the force of his rage to swing the bat hard against Jack’s face, smashing into his cheekbone with a sickening crack. Blood splattered across the side of the car as Jack crumpled to the ground, his face a mangled mess of blood and broken skin.

But Jack wasn’t done yet. He spat blood from his busted lips, managing a weak chuckle “So this is about her, huh? You’re fucking pathetic, man. You think beating me up will make her love you? You’re fucking psycho. She’ll hate you more than she ever hated me.”

Anakin’s vision blurred with anger, anger, nothing but anger, everything going red. He swung the bat again, this time aiming for Jack’s chest. Jack barely managed to roll out of the way, but not fast enough—Anakin’s bat clipped his shoulder with enough force to make the bones crack. Jack screamed, the sound piercing the night air, but Anakin didn’t care.

Jack lunged at Anakin, tackling him to the ground, fists flying. The two of them grappled in the dirt, blood mixing with sweat as they traded blows. Jack landed a solid punch to Anakin’s jaw, sending him reeling. Blood dripped from both their faces, coating their clothes in crimson colour.

"fucking--" another hit to anakin's face "psycho--" he panted, but before he could aim another hit, anakin grabbed his wrist, rolling them over

After mucch hits, anakin twisted his body, managing to grab the bat again, using it as leverage to slam Jack’s head to the ground. Blood slipped everywhere, yet it wasn't enough. With shaky legs, Anakin stood up and grabbed a handful of jack's hair only to smack his face into the side of his own car. The crack of Jack’s skull against the car's doors made Anakin feel an intense surge of power, almost a twisted satisfaction. Jack groaned, as if it was the only sound that could leave his already shattered face

yet it wasn't enough

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who, with great care, made sure to get rid off any tools of the crime - he was awfully smart for that. It was almost weird..how a man who was his parent's contentment, now just killed a guy for a girl he was obsessed about..

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who had a special folder for the videos from the camera on your laptop, special folder for your photos he was obsessing about even after such a long time, he still collected new things

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who was nervous (but tried to hide it) when police found Jack's body.

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who was for you when you grieved over the death of your toxic ex and months later, his wildest dreams came true - he was dating you. Was free to worship you, admire you.

He was addicted to you even more after the first date. Because this time, it was him who made you smile so much your cheeks hurt. It was him who made you laugh till your stomach hurt. It was the only type of pain he let himself give you

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who felt extremely free in your presence. All his fantasies, all his dreams came true. He almost felt like on a cloud nine - so perfect, so light, so happy (despite of what he had done);

“Gonna keep teasing me like this all the time?” he asked with a lazy grin, propped up on one elbow on the bed.

“I’m not teasing you,” you replied with playfulness “Just showing off my new dress.”

The dress, a deep shade of red, highlighted your curves and drew attention to your most elegant lines. It clung to your form in all the right places, making you look absolutely stunning.

His eyes wandered over you, taking in every detail. The way the dress accentuated your body left him breathless. You were beautiful in everything you wore, but this dress—this was something extraordinary. “So, you put this on just to make me feral? Because you’re definitely succeeding.” he chuckled, leaning up on his elbow.

“I just wanted to know if you like it,” your smirk deepening as you gracefully crawled onto his lap, like a cat curling up to its favorite spot.

“Oh, I definitely like it,” his voice filled with admiration and a hint of playfulness. “But it’s not just the color that’s catching my attention.” His eyes roamed over your curves with unabashed appreciation once more.

“Oh really?” you giggled, your laughter a sweet melody that seemed to enchant him further. Your smile was radiant, and the way you looked at him made his heart swell.

“Mhm,” he responded, his own smile widening as he pulled you closer. His eyes continued their admiring journey “You’re so, so gorgeous. Did you really think I wouldn’t like it?” his fingers gently grazing the hem of your dress.

“I hoped you’d drool all over it, to be honest” your smile playful and tender as you delicately removed his glasses and put them on yourself.

Anakin’s smile grew even wider. The sight of you wearing his glasses, combined with the way you sat on his lap, made him feel like the luckiest man alive. His joy was almost overwhelming. He could barely contain his excitement. “I’d drool over you in anything, you know that,” his voice filled with adoration and a hint of humor. His heart was soaring, knowing that this perfect moment, with you, was his reality. "Even in a potato sack"

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who had a deep need to observe you 24/7, at least in most of his free time. Because what if someone will hurt you? Or you'll hurt yourself and he'd not know, appear too late to help. So, he felt obligated to watch you

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who stole some of your panties when you weren't looking and kept them in his apartment, not daring himself to even think about putting them into a washing machine

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who was horribly obsessed with leaving marks all over your body;

“You’re leaving me hickeys,” you whined, glancing at the mirror to see the fresh, juicy marks on your neck to collection

“Can’t help it,” he replied with a smirk, wrapping his arms around your waist to connect his lips with your (this time) exposed shoulder, leaving a trail of kisses and gentle bites. The hickeys were more than just marks—they were declarations of his love, signs that you were his and his alone. He wanted everyone to see that you belonged to him. And if people wouldn't see your marks, he wanted to make sure you would knew who you belong to. His lips moved to your ear, whispering the phrase that made you shiver “Though I’d say my favorite is still the one on your ass.”

“You’re such an asshole,” you flushed and headed back to the bed

He chuckled, settling beside you and immediately pulling you close. His arms wrapped around your frame and he nuzzled into your neck, planting more kisses, and adding to the huge collection of hickeys. “I think you should get it tattooed,” he suggested playfully, his lips brushing against your skin

TAG LIST: @kingdomhate @divineani @haydensprettyprincess @skyguys-princess @catnipaddictt @heartscone @haydensbbg @inneedsoffanfics @jediavengers @literally-izzy @anisluvrgirl @slutforfinnickodair @xhunnybeeex @fuckmyskywalker @gallerygourmet @deceptiive @anakinskwkler @bimbo-baggins17 @cookybananas @emotionallybruisedx @diorvalentina @sevinax @throughparisallthroughrome @aniiuv @ritosparty @ninastyless

(if you want to be removed or added then don't be shy and let me know 💋)

[front-facing-pokemon]

[vnti-vntiety-recs]

The Harder I Fall (M)

★  PAIRING: Toxic Ex! Haechan x Toxic?Reader

☆ WORD COUNT: 9.5K

★ GENRE(S): Smut, Angst, Drama, Ex2Lover

☆ SUMMARY: You find it hard to return to your normal day-to-day life after you break up with your ex, Haechan. He makes it his duty to make your life a living hell in order to see you. You're not sure why you thought it would be a good idea to date your cute punk rock neighbor, but you are soon to regret it.

★ ☆ WARNINGS: Swearing. Various acts of sexual intercourse. Unprotected sex. Unwanted creampie. Dubcon. Spit. Light choking, Brief mention of drinking. Kinda manipulation on hyuck’s part to get readers attention? Reader got commitment issues. Probably a bad description of punk rock band idk brah. MDNI

☆★ NOTES: this is the final installment of THE POISON ARCHIVES, this one is not as toxic as the other ones but still has toxic elements so beware 

:･ﾟ✧:･.☽˚｡･ﾟ✧:･.::･ﾟ✧:･.☽˚｡･ﾟ✧:･.::･ﾟ✧:･.☽˚｡･ﾟ✧:･.::･ﾟ✧

♫₊˚."Rehashing these feelings Swallowing the pain"♫₊˚.

You don't know why you thought it was a good idea to date someone who lives in the same apartment complex as you. You wish you would have thought this through when you said yes to your next-door neighbor's proposal when he suggested that you two start dating. Because now that you two have broken up, you are stuck seeing him every day.

When you return from work, you can never seem to avoid him, always catching him on the way up to your apartment. If that wasn't awkward enough, you have to listen to him bring girls home every other night. You don't think your relationship ended on bad terms, but he thinks differently. You know he does because on the nights when he doesn't have someone screaming his name, a constant reminder of the person you want to forget, he is blasting music at frequencies you can't drown out. Ever since you two broke up, your ex-boyfriend Haechan has been a pain in the ass. He makes it his duty to make your life a living hell. He knows your schedule, so he knows exactly when to bother you. Tonight is one of those nights. You had come from work late as usual, and all you wanted to do was lay in bed and sleep.

Not on Haechan’s watch

Haechan is blasting old 90s rock music when you're walking up the stairs to your apartment. You internally groan as you fish out your keys from your pocket, unlocking your door, and you try to stay positive. Today has been a good day for you so far, and you wanted to keep it that way.

"At Least he doesn't have someone over," you think in return. You would much rather listen to old rock music than some random girl's high-pitched moaning and the repeated banging of the headboard against the wall. Sometimes you wonder if that's what your other neighbors had to go through when you and Haechan were together. You head for the shower and pray that by the time you get out, he's getting ready for bed. It's already 12 a.m.; he should be tired by now.

The reason you and Haechan were able to get close in the first place was because you both were night owls. You both worked late and always returned home at the same time. You would catch him in the parking lot as you two made your way home. Sometimes he would invite you over, and you two would talk about work and whatever else crossed your mind at 1 a.m. Through these late-night convos You found out that Haechan was just his nickname; your handsome neighbor's name was actually Donghyuk. You also learned that he was in a band that primarily made its income through gigs at bars and other small venues, and that Haechan was the name he used on stage. Although everyone called him Haechan, you thought his real name was cute and couldn't help but give him a nickname based on it. When you first started calling him Hyuck, he hated it, but it grew on him. You enjoyed your late-night chats with Haechan, and you wanted to see more of him, so when one night he asked you out on a date, you couldn't say no. After that, you two started to see each other more often and began to date.

You were in a relationship with Haechan for five months before you broke up with him. You were having to work a lot more overtime to pay the bills, and you just didn't have time for a relationship anymore. You thought Haechan would understand and that things would be cool between you two, but obviously not.

After you exited the shower, his music was still blasting, and you could practically feel the bass rattling your bones. How has he not been evicted by now? Did your other neighbors just not have ears, or maybe yours were just too sensitive? You wrap yourself securely in your robe and march over to his doorstep. You bang on his door repeatedly for at least a minute before he answers. Haechan swings the door open, meeting your gaze with one that matches your level of annoyance. How dare he act like you're inconveniencing him when he's the one keeping the entire neighborhood awake!

"I know you're a struggling artist and all, but you at least own a clock, right?" You deadpan with a quirk of your eyebrow.

"Of course I do. How else would I know what time to piss you off?" He smiles sarcastically.

You absolutely hate this little back-and-forth that you have going on with him. You know he does this to get your attention so that you come charging over here and bang down his door. He just wants to see you, and you hate to give him what he wants, but you know it's the only way to get him to turn down the music.

"Pls Hyuck I have work tomorrow, and it's late. I just want to sleep," you plead with him exasperatedly.

"What do I get in return?" He asks, looking down at you through his bangs. He must have just finished a show because his eyes were still smothered in smokey black liner.

"I won't file a noise complaint; It's my third one this week. Didn't the landlord say they would kick you out if I complained again?" He knows they're empty threats, but he's gotten what he wanted, so he lets them go.

"Since you asked so nicely. I'll do it just this once," he says, shutting the door in your face, and in the next few seconds, the music is lowered to a bearable hum through the walls. Once you play his little game, he's always kind enough to reward you, as he always has. When you return home and find it quiet enough to sleep.

Haechan knew the first thing you would do when the two of you broke up was try to avoid him at all costs, but he wasn't going to let that happen. He's always making excuses to have to see you. Sometimes, when he's not at home and he knows you will be, he asks you to grab a package for him or groceries that he ordered so that you can bring them to him later. Other times he will knock on your door, asking to borrow a few eggs or your hammer—anything he can think of that he knows you have. You have already come to accept the fact that you can't get rid of him, but that doesn't stop you from trying.

It's been a few days since the music incident, and miraculously, you haven't seen him around. Lately, you can hear him getting home just a few minutes ahead of you. He must have been too tired to bother you lately; either that or he's matured past his little pranks. You think tonight is another night that you're in the clear. When you arrive home, you don't see Haechan’s car in the parking lot. You don't want to run into him, so you rush up the stairs to your apartment. You giddyly look for your house keys, thinking you finally got one over on him, when you realize they are missing from your keyring. The keyring is old and bent out of shape, so the key must have slipped off during the day. You were horrified; you were beyond tired and in desperate need of a nice warm shower. You let out a huff of annoyance. You could stay at your friend's house for the night, but she lives 30 minutes away, and you don't think you can get behind the wheel of a car without immediately driving off the nearest cliff.

You were already having a rough day, and this was the icing on the cake. Before you can wrack your brain for a solution, an even bigger problem presents itself. Haechan returns home with his bass strapped to his back and his hair a wild mess. He must have returned from band practice, probably getting into another fight with one of his members. He meets your eyes with a tired smile.

"You look like shit," you comment before you can stop yourself.

"I think you meant hello; how was your day?" He rolls his eyes as he reaches his door. He begins fishing his keys out of his jacket pocket when he turns to you again. "Why are you sitting here?" he questions with a quirk of a brow.

"I think the air is fresher during this time," you say mockingly.

 "Oh really? Well, have fun with that princess," he smirks as he finally unlocks his door, letting himself inside.

He leaves you outside. Curse you and your big mouth. Would it kill you to be nice? You really didn't want to ask, but you really had no choice. You worked a double shift today, and your body was on the brink of collapse. You knew what he wanted; he wanted you to come crawling to him for a favor so he could hold it over your head, and you really didn't want to give into his games, but just like always, you had no choice. After 10 minutes of contemplation, you knock on his door softly. A few seconds pass before he opens the door.

"What? Is the air not fresh enough?" He mocks, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed.

"Look, I'm sorry for earlier, but I'm locked out, and today has not been my day. Can I stay over?" You plead. 

Hmm, maybe you should ask a little nicer, and I'll consider it. '' That bastard was definitely getting a kick out of this. What was his redeeming quality again?

"Please, hyuck, just do me this one favor; I promise I'll pay you back." You gritted your teeth.

"You better keep your promise," he says as he opens the door wider for you to come in. "You already know where everything is to make yourself comfortable; I'm gonna hop in the shower." He leaves you to go grab what he needs as you take off your shoes to follow him to his room.

You sat your things down on the nightstand by his bed. "I don't mind sharing a bed with you; just stay on your side, get it?" You look at him with an accusatory glare.

Haechan raises his hands in defense with a smile as he walks backwards into the bathroom. He doesn't say anything more and shuts the door behind him. You busy yourself and go through his drawers to find a comfy shirt and a pair of his boxers. You grab a towel from the towel closet and wait your turn for the shower. You scroll on your phone as you wait. When Haechan finally exits, he's wearing a plain white shirt and his boxers. Even in the simplest of clothes, he looks so good. You distract yourself with your phone again, hoping he doesn't catch you staring at him as he dries his hair in the mirror.

"Did you leave me some hot water?" you question, knowing that he probably used it all just to get on your nerves. He always liked it when you got angry at him.

"Of course, what kind of host would I be if I didn't?" he says as he plops down next to you on the bed. "I also thought of a way you can repay me," he says, looking up at you with a smug look on his face.

"If it's something perverted, absolutely not," you say as you stand to get in the shower.

"It's innocent, I promise," he laughs.

You don't hear him as you shut yourself inside his bathroom, turning on the water. You knew Haechan’s definition of innocence was definitely far from normal. This wasn't good. Sleeping in the same bed as your ex? Especially one that loves tormenting you, was not a smart move. You knew he was up to no good the moment you saw him come up the stairs. He looked tired, but as soon as he laid eyes on you, you could see a fire ignite behind them.

You finish freshening up and sport the clothes you stole from his drawer. When you join him on the bed, he's scrolling on his phone. When he lowers his phone and stares at you with a quirked eyebrow, you finally take notice of how close you were to him. It was a force of habit. Your body was just naturally drawn to him like a magnet. You scoot back a bit with a sheepish smile and a nervous laugh. He sets his phone down and shakes his head. He reaches over, looping an arm around your waist and pulling you into his chest.

"You know better than to run from me, love," he smirks.

Him and that stupid smirk! It was like it was permanently etched onto his stupidly smug face. The stupidly smug face that you fell in love with—the stupidly smug face you're trying so hard not to kiss

"Don't call me that," you hesitantly whisper.

"But you get to call me Hyuk?" He retaliated. He rests his forehead against yours while you hold eye contact.

He had a point; it wasn't fair that you got to call him your favorite nickname when you two were together, but he couldn't. It just felt too intimate to you, though.

"Should I call you Haechan?" You start, but he cuts you off.

"Can we just stay like this? Just for tonight, can you let me pretend that you're mine again?" he whispers, a breath away from your face. He didn't mind you calling him Hyuck; it was the only proof he had left that you still loved him. If you called him Haechan, he had nothing else to hold onto.

"I don't think that's a good idea." You hesitate.

"Please, you owe me, remember? Let me just hold you like this just for tonight." Haechan is often one to make jokes, but at this moment he is as serious as ever.

You sigh in defeat. Owing Haechan a favor is never good, but this was a pretty tame request for him. You just didn't know the effect it might have on your heart later. As usual, you ignore the possible consequences and agree. He leans in and pecks the corner of your mouth, holding his lips there for a second longer than necessary.

"Hey, you said we would only cuddle!" You reprimanded him.

"Let me have just a little more, ok? I promise I'll be good to you from now on. No more loud music," he bargains.

You should have known he would have been content with just cuddling. Haechan was always an affectionate lover, and he always needed to feel all of you to be satisfied. His pecks trail from your cheek to your jaw, and when they reach your neck, they blossom into kisses. At this point, you're breathless and squirming. His arm that was around your waist unwraps itself, so he can use his hand to massage your lower back. His slow, passionate kisses turn wet and sloppy when he grabs your ass. He can't help the groan that escapes his mouth at the feeling. At this point, you wanted to feel more of him. You knew he wouldn't touch you like you wanted, though, Not until you asked. Even when he was the one who started it, he couldn't help but have you begging for him.

He pushes your shirt up past your chest as His kisses move lower, leaving hickeys in his wake. You try to hold on; you really do, but when he ventures even lower to leave kisses near your navel and then to the tops of your thighs, you crack.

"Hyuck… just a little more."

"Just a little more?" He repeats your words back to you. You bite your lip and nod your head. "You want me to touch you more, pretty? I thought we were only going to cuddle?" He questions spreading your legs so he can lay between them.

"Just a little farther; it's ok if we go just a little bit farther," you relent.

"If that's what my princess wants," Haechan pulls your shorts swiftly from your core and settles back down. He looks into your eyes once more to make sure it was really okay, and when you let out a moan and buck your hips into his face, he knows you can't bear to wait any longer. Haechan licks a fat stripe from the heat of your core to your clit and showers it in gentle kisses.

"Please... more," you cry.

"So greedy!" Haechan tsks at you and finally sucks your clit into his mouth.

He can't hold himself back anymore and begins to eat you out like he really means it, wrapping his arms around your thighs to hold you down. He's making a mess as he spits onto your pussy, adding to the slickness. Before you know it, he's fucking his tongue deep into you, moaning at the taste. Your chest is heaving at this point, and you can't help but grab his hair and try to fuck his face. You roll your hips deep into his mouth, practically riding his nose as it bumps against you, clit at your movements.

He pulls away, and before you can even moan out a complaint, he's bringing two fingers to your entrance and slowly penetrates you with them, holding eye contact as he hums a sound of approval at how well you take his fingers. He licks his lips clean as he fucks his fingers into you faster. You pull his hair again, but this time you're pulling him up so you can kiss him. It's the first real kiss you've shared since the breakup, and it's all teeth and tongue as he's knuckle-deep in your pussy. You moan into his mouth as he sucks on your tongue. He pulls away to look at you with heavy lids; a single string of saliva connects you and breaks when he licks his lips.

"You gonna let me fuck you, baby?"

"Hyuck, we really shouldn't be doing this," you slur.

"Just the tip, I promise."

"You also promised just cuddles."

"We are cuddling, extreme cuddling, '' he jests. You've already crossed the line with him, so what's the harm in indulging a little more?

"Just the tip," you say with a nod, pulling him into another messy kiss.

You pull off his shirt and push his boxers down past his hips, and he takes them off the rest of the way. His length slaps against his stomach in all of its glory, and you know you're fucked. There's no way you'll be satisfied with just the tip. You haven't had him in so long, and he's so long. He always made sure to fuck you so that you’d never forget the feeling. He filled you up just right and knew how to make sure you felt every inch of him. He guides his tip to your entrance and coats it in your slick, letting it trail up and down your slit, prodding your entrance. He lazily thrusts forward, making his length slip up and nudging you clit. He did this a few more times, knowing it would drive you up a wall. You wrap your legs around his waist, threatening to pull him closer.

"Just the tip, baby, remember?" He reminds you that you're the one who suggested this stupid idea in the first place.

You shoot him a glare, and before you can choose the right words to verbally abuse him, he's sliding in. He keeps his work and just fucks his tip into you, using his hand to act as a barrier so he couldn't slip father into you. He pushes in, and when he pulls out, he smacks the head of his cock against your pussy creating a wet sound from how drenched you are. He repeats it a couple of times before fucking his tip back into you.

You notice that the longer he fucks you, the lower his hand slides down his cock as he sneakily fucks more into you with each thrust. You don't even think he notices because, when you look up at him, his lip is caught between his teeth. He looks like he's concentrating so hard to not slip more. After a few more thrusts, his hand is gone completely, and he's fucking deep into you.

"You liar," you smile. You knew he couldn't do it from the beginning, but you admire his perseverance. You reward him by clamping your walls down on him. He lets out a shaky whine and takes a deep breath.

"I'm sorry," and the look he gives you genuinely reflects remorse, but not because of what he did but because of what he's about to do.

He roughly unhooks your legs from around his waist and manhandles you onto your arms and knees just to shove you down onto your chest so that your ass is the only thing stuck in the air. He reenters swiftly and fucks you from behind. He's snapping his hips deep into you; it's almost too much. You reach your hand back to rest on his hips, and he grabs onto it and pins it to your lower back.

"Come on love, I know you can take it; fuck me like you mean it," he groans.

He's almost as fucked out as you are; no one else can ever make him feel like you do. He struggles to keep his eyes from rolling to the back of his head when you fuck back into him with a vengeance. He told you to fuck him, so you do. You throw your hips back into him so hard that he stops moving. He's trying his hardest to pull himself together, but all he can do is take it. Mouth agape as he moans at the feeling. You think you might have gotten the upper hand on him, but then he pulls out of you and flips you back onto your back, throwing a leg over his shoulder as he starts hitting deep again. At this point, he's gone. He's completely pussy drunk, and you can't see a thought behind his eyes as he drills into you.

 "Hyuck.. Don't forget to pull out," you moan, barely able to catch your breath.

If he can hear you, he sure doesn't show it; his pace doesn't let up, and he's pressing a hand against your lower stomach. He can feel himself inside of you and can only moan. Any previous worries you had are completely wiped from your mind as you tighten around him and release all over his cock. He fucks you through it, and when you meet his eyes again, you know he's about to cum. His brows are furrowed, and he's biting his lip so hard that you're surprised he hasn't drawn blood.

"Hyuck. Pull. out," you try to say sternly, but it comes out as more of a whine as the overstimulation sets in. Haechan shakes his head as his grip on your waist tightens. He can't think straight when you feel this good. At this point, he can't even control his moans as they spill out. He's close, and you do the only thing you can think of to snap him out of it.

You slapped him across the face.

You think you may have brought him back down to earth, but when he lets out a high-pitched moan, you know you're screwed, and not in a fun way. His hips stutter, and he's releasing deep inside you, hiding his face in the crock of your neck as he tries to ride out his high. Every weak thrust is accompanied by a pained moan from him as he continues to fuck you.

"No more hyuck!" You scold him and push on his shoulders. You pull his head back by his hair so he can meet your eyes. "Pull out," you glare.

He knows he messed up and finally pulls out. When he rolls over next to you, you slap and pinch his arms and chest.

"You're unbelievable! Just the tip, my ass!" You yell at him, and he's trying to roll away from you on the bed, but you follow him, continuing your assault.

"I'm sorry I got too carried away; I couldn't resist. Don't worry, I'll buy you a plan B first thing in the morning," he says with a flinch each time you attack him. You finally settle down with a huff and lay facing away from him.

"I know your memory sucks, but remember this was a one-time thing; after tonight we go back to normal," you mumble.

Haechan scoots closer to you and lays a soft kiss on your shoulder. Well, then let me savor this moment," he says in a whisper that you almost don't catch. He pulls you back into his chest and warps you up in his body, and you let him. As much as you want to be mad at him, Haechan is like a giant teddy bear; you always feel safe in his arms, and soon you're fast asleep.

:･ﾟ✧:･.☽˚｡･ﾟ✧:･.::･ﾟ✧:･.☽˚｡･

The next morning, Haechan stays true to his word and goes to grab you a plan B as you wait for your landlord to give you a new key. When he returns, he finds his apartment empty. He assumes you were able to get into yours. He knocks on your door, and when you answer, he hands you the pills. You don't spare him a look or even a thank-you as you shut the door in his face again. Haechan may suck at keeping his word, but you don’t.

You were set on making sure you didn't cross the line with him ever again. During the week, he begins to notice your colder than usual behavior, so he goes back on his word about the loud music as well. You don't want to see him, so you try texting him instead. When you ask for him to turn the music down, this time he ignores you and leaves you on read. 

It's like you two are back at square one. You should be happy, but a part of you kind of hates the fact that you two have become bickering neighbors once again, this time worse than the last. You know Haechan is only acting like this because he's hurt. You confirm this when you sometimes catch him in the breezeway returning home from work, but he doesn't try to make small talk anymore; he looks more tired as the days progress. One day, you can't ignore the bags under his eyes any longer. You know you're the one who made him like this.

He returned home at the same time as you; you were always scheduled on the closing shift again, so when you arrive, Haechan is unlocking his door. You find the courage to speak.

"Hey, are you okay?" you ask, concern filling your voice.

"I'm fine," he sneers, pushing his door open. Before he can enter, grab his arm.

I'm worried about you. Have you been getting enough sleep?" You ask, trying to meet his eyes, but he's avoiding eye contact. He snatches his arm away from you.

"Since when do you care what happens to me?! I thought you wanted me to stay away. Fuck. off," he snaps and slams his door in your face.

You know to let him cool off when he gets like this, so you decide to leave him be. Maybe you can catch him in a better mood tomorrow and ask. Before you can enter your apartment, you hear a loud thud from Haechan's apartment. You think maybe he dropped something, but the absolute silence that follows has you worried. You don't hear any footsteps or movement coming from the apartment, so you go to knock.

Hyuck, I'm sorry I upset you, but is everything okay in there?" You wait for a response, but nothing comes.

"Hyuck?.....if you're ok, please answer me." You twist the doorknob to his apartment and notice he left it unlocked.

When you open the door, you find him lying on the floor. His eyes were shut tight, and his chest was heaving. You rush over to his side to check on him. When you touch his skin, he's sweating heavily and burning up. He clearly has a fever.

Hyuck, I know you don't feel good, but we've got to get you to a hospital," you say, trying to help him to his feet.

"No, I'll be fine; I just need to lay down," he says, stumbling as he stands.

You help him to his room and lay him down. You help take off his shoes and change him into something more comfortable to sleep in other than his usual ripped skinny jeans and leather jacket. Once you get him settled in bed, you grab a towel and chill it in cool water so you can help cool him down. He's been up for half the night, tossing and turning from the uncomfortable heat of the fever. Eventually, he's able to cool down and enter a deep sleep. You stay by his side all night and call into work once morning comes. When Haechan wakes up the next morning, he finds you asleep by his side and feels terrible. He knows how much you hate missing work and feels bad that he was the reason why. He gently shakes you awake. Once you're up, you immediately reach for his forehead. He's still a bit too warm for your liking, so you hop out of bed.

"Where are you going?" he asks.

"I'm gonna grab you some soup, and you're still running hot, so I'm going to grab you some ice." Before you can get too far, he grabs your arm.

"Thank you for staying with me, but I promise I can take care of myself."

"I've already called out of work today; you might as well let me take care of you," you counter.

He lets your arm go and falls back into the sheets. In truth, he still felt terrible; he was having a hard time even trying to sit up. He's been feeling a little under the weather for a few days now, but he's been able to persevere through it. His body must have just given up on him at this point. When you return, you have an ice pack and some chicken soup. You helped him sit up and fed him since he still seemed really weak. After you made sure he ate, you tucked him back into bed and set the towel on his head. You turned on his TV and put it at a low volume so as not to give him a headache, and you binge-watched a few shows as he fell back asleep.

It's around 9 p.m., and he's still heavily sleeping when you're bored of the shows you've been watching on Netflix. You decide to straighten up around the house a bit. Haechan isn't particularly dirty, but he hasn't had the time to properly clean up in a while due to his schedule. He has band rehearsals during the day and is booked for gigs at night. When he's not with the band, he's out partying. He only ever returns in the dead of night.

When you two were together, though, Haechan made an effort to make more time for you. He showed up late to rehearsals, stopped partying, and even turned down a few well-paying gigs to spend more time with you. You, on the other hand, refused to call off work. You were constantly working overtime, and you made no effort to make time for him. He tried really hard to be understanding; he was happy with the time he got to spend with you; he knew you had a lot of bills to pay, and he did too. At one point, he realized it wasn't enough; if you truly loved him, you would want to make time for him and make an effort. All he wanted was to know that you loved him, so he asked you to take more time off so you guys could go on more dates. When you agreed, he was content. You were finally making time for him; you must love him. He thought everything was going well until you broke up with him. You told him he was a distraction from work and that you didn't have the time for a relationship at the moment. He was heartbroken. He tries to take it back; he tells you that it's ok that you don't see each other, but you insist that he should be with someone who has more time for him. You said it wasn't fair to him. That's how your relationship became what it was.

You think you let him go out of love; he thinks you gave up on him.

You finish cleaning around 11 p.m. and go next door to your place to grab some more of your stuff. You grab your skin care essentials, body wash, and a new pair of clothes. You set up your things in his bathroom as you shower. It was bringing back memories of when you used to be together. You were always at his place and kept a lot of your stuff there. You shower, and when you get out, you start your skin care routine. While looking in the mirror, you can't help but reminisce about the old memories.

You finish up and return to his side. You checked his temperature again with the thermometer you got from your apartment. He was able to kill his fever. You figure his body is just catching up on all the missed sleep from the past couple of days. You don't want to disturb him, so you exit the room and lay on his couch. You stare at the ceiling.

How did it become like this? Since the last time you saw him, feelings that you previously thought had died have come back full force. That's why you were so bent on avoiding him at all costs. You were already confused, and being near him would only muddle your feelings more. You didn’t want to listen to your heart; you wanted to listen to logic. No matter how much you missed him, it would not work out. You couldn't afford to think with your heart; you didn't want to hurt him again, but it seemed the more you pushed him away, the harder he fell for you.

What was that saying? Absence makes the heart fonder. Well, whatever it was, it had you running laps in your mind, trying to escape thoughts of him. All you could think about was Haechan. If you're being honest, your job wasn't the only reason you pushed Haechan away. You were a little scared; you had never cared for someone as much as you did for Haechan. Your other relationships always ended before things got too serious, and you were afraid that this one would end up like the others. You were afraid of being hurt by him. You didn't want him to leave you, so you left first. You hurt him before he could get the chance to hurt you. You were a coward, and it seemed like you would stay that way forever.

You don't know when you fell asleep, but you wake up to the smell of coffee and breakfast. You sit up and feel the weight of a cover as it pools around your waist at your sudden movements. You don't remember grabbing one last night.

"Hyuck?" You call out, half asleep.

"Sorry for all the trouble I caused you, but I'm feeling better now," he reassures you as he sets a plate of food down on the coffee table in front of you.

You smile at him gently and reach for the food. "I'm glad to hear that." Silence falls between the two of you as you both eat. Once you're done, you clean up the mess you left behind and turn to him once again. "Well, I should get going," you say awkwardly.

"You can stay if you want," He says hopefully.

"No, I think I've already overstayed my welcome."

"You're always welcome."

"Hyuck…please" 

He runs his hand across his face, trying to collect his emotions, and says, "You know what? Do whatever you want; I don't care anymore." Even though this is what you wanted, it still hurts to hear him say it. You quietly leave and return home.

:･ﾟ✧:･.☽˚｡･ﾟ✧:･.::･ﾟ✧:･.☽˚｡･

Tonight, you're going out for the first time in a long time. Your friend Jungwoo was finally able to convince you to take a night off. He even offers to pay you for any hours that you miss. You reject his offer to pay you, but you do join him for a night out. After all this time, you deserve to relax a little. You can't just work until you die.

You and Jungwoo go clubbing, and you're having a great time. Haechan was right; you have to stop working so much and live a little. If you have to budget a little harder or even move into a smaller apartment, you think it's worth it if you get to spend less time at work and more time around the people you actually care about. You're sitting at the bar with Jungwoo when you hear a commotion behind you. At the back of the club was a stage. The club had strippers that put on shows some nights; tonight must have been one of those nights. That's what you think when you see people crowding around the stage, but when you see a band set up on the stage, you think that's highly unlikely.

"Oh god, please no," you silently pray.

Jungwoo turns once he realizes you're not paying attention to the story he's telling you. He follows your line of sight to the stage. "A band must be playing tonight," he says, taking a sip from his drink. Hey, didn't your ex used to... oh my god," he says as he finally catches up to speed with the situation. "You don't think..." he asks, turning to you again.

You pray and pray that it's not who you think it is when you see five silhouettes walk onto the dark stage. The band finally finishes setting up in the dark, and when the lights illuminate them in all their glory, you can't help but curse every god in existence.

Of course, it was The Neos.

"It's fucking him," you say, turning to Jungwoo with wide eyes.

Look, don't worry about him tonight; we came here to have fun, and seeing your hot ex isn't going to change that."

"Jungwoo!" 

"I'm sorry, look at him!"

look at him? You could barely take your eyes off of him! His messy hair is a little longer than the last time you saw him. His eyes were adorned with his signature black eyeliner, and he was wearing simple black ripped skinny jeans and a baggy t-shirt. His fingers were littered with rings, and he was wearing his favorite bracelet. When you looked closely, you spotted a silver lip piercing sitting pretty against his plump, heart-shaped lips.

"Wanna get closer?" Jungwoo suggests you can only nod your head, still distracted by your ex’s new look.

You get closer to the stage, and he looks even more delectable up close. You're so terrible. You pushed him away all those times just to imagine pulling him closer to you under different circumstances. This was your first time ever hearing him play with his band. He’s played you a few songs before at home, but you never made time to actually see him play at a gig. He was amazing; he was truly born to be on stage.

As the band played, the crowd got bigger and more lively, jumping to the music. You almost forgot you were at a club and not a concert. Reality comes crashing back down on you when you lock eyes with Haechan. You immediately stop dancing, and it's like the entire world slows down. The flashing strobe lights and the bodies around you all move in slow motion as you're locked into this moment with Haechan. You can't hear anything; all you can see is Haechan. His eyes don't leave you for a few more moments, but when they finally do, it's like the spell is broken.

Everything begins to move again, and you can hear the music blaring, but you're still rooted to your spot on the floor. Jungwoo turns to look at you to ask if you're okay, and that's when you notice the band has wrapped up their last song. The crowd is starting to thin out when you see him jump down from the stage with the bass still hanging from his shoulders. When Jungwoo doesn't get a response from you, he turns to see where your eyes are looking.

"Oh shit he's coming this way." Jungwoo tries to be a good friend and pull you away, but it's too late.

"Hey, can I talk to you for a bit?" Haechan says it loud enough to be heard over the music of the club that resumed playing after their set.

"I don't think..." Jungwoo starts before looking at you for reassurance.

"It's ok, Woo, I'll just be a minute, ok?" You say this as you finally manage to pull yourself together.

"Are you sure?" he hesitates.

"Positive, I'll text you when I'm ready, ok?" You say this before following Haechan to the back of the club. He's guiding you through the back halls of the club when you two finally reach the spare room the band was using to store their extra equipment. Everyone was already packing up.

"Hey, we're heading out—oh, who's this?" the one with the pink hair says.

"This is my ex," Haechan somewhat introduces you.

‘Hello ex. I’m Jaemin," he flirts with a smile.

"Cut it out Jaem, before he punches you again," said a smaller male with messy brown hair.

"I'm just messing around Renjun. We all know he still loves his ex; he won't shut up about her." Jaemin laughs,adjusting a gig bag over his shoulder.

"Im going to fucking kill you." Before Haechan can make a move forward, another male finally speaks up; this one was probably the buffest next to Jaemin. He grabs a hold of Haechan's arm.

Guys, cut it out. Mark is already waiting for us in the van. Come on before he leaves us again."

"Jen's right, let's go. They obviously want to be alone," the one they called Renjun said.

The boys clear out the room supplies in tow, leaving the room almost as barren as when they arrived, save for you two still occupying the space. Haechin heaves a big sigh, his cheeks still tinted pink with embarrassment. "I'm sorry about them; they just like to tease me," he tries to cover up.

You nod, trying to help him change the subject. "You guys were amazing tonight. I knew you were good at playing, but hearing you with a band was incredible," you gush.

Haechan can't fight the huge smile that takes over his face. "That means a lot." An awkward silence falls between you two as you run out of things to say.

"So you wanted to talk to me?" You rock back and forth on your heels nervously.

"Honestly, I didn't really have anything to say; I just wanted to see you again."

It's been a hot minute since the last time you saw Haechan. Lately, you have been completely missing him in the parking lot and in the breezeway. He stopped playing loud music completely, and if he was bringing home girls, you couldn't hear them anymore. It's almost like the apartment next to you is empty.

Well, here I am," you say with an awkward smile.

A few beats pass, and he finally speaks again. "I see you came out with Jungwoo. What? Are you two together now?" He says it a bit bitterly.

"Oh god, Hyuck, don't start; you know I don't do relationships."

"So you're fucking him?"

"I didn't say that!"

Well, what is it then? He can convince you to take off work for a night out, but I couldn't even get you to spare me a few hours of your time?"

"Hyuck, you know that's not true! Look, I didn't come here to argue, ok?" You yell exasperatedly.

"Come home with me," he states. It's not really a question.

"I'm out with someone right now." You look away from him.

He stands in front of you now, "still too busy to fit me into your schedule?"

You remain silent.

"Too busy for me, but never too busy to take my cock like a fucking slut," he sneers.

"Go to hell," you say, pushing him away from you.

"What. Am I wrong? The only time you spent with me was when we were fucking. Let's be real." The usual warmth isn't behind his eyes anymore; they are almost as cold and steely as the lip ring that adorns his lip.

You're such a fucking jerk; I broke up with you because I knew I couldn't provide you with the attention you so desperately crave all the time. I kept it real with you from the beginning! I could have strung you along, but I ended it before it got too serious." At this point, you're fuming.

Oh, yeah, right! I'm sick of hearing your excuses; you knew your schedule from the moment you said yes. You knew what you were signing up for. Just admit it. You're scared of commitment; you were scared of it getting too serious."

You feel called out because he was 100% right. "Fuck you, Haechan."

"I bet you would love to, princess," he spits back.

You both stare at each other, chests heaving from anger. "Tell him you're not going back with him."

"You can't seriously still be on tha-" Before you can finish your sentence, his lips are locked on yours.

One moment you're screaming at each other; the next you're ripping each other's clothes off. There was no way this was healthy, but you didn't care because Haechan was your favorite drug. He's pushing you back into the vanity in the corner of the room and lifting you onto the tabletop. You spread your legs, allowing him room in between. You can feel his hard length through the tight fabric of his pants. You feel The cool metal of his lip piercing when you kiss him, and you can't help but imagine how it would feel on other, more intimate parts of your body. You grind against the front of his pants, trying to feel more of him as you breathe him in like he's the only air you need, until your lungs are screaming at you for air.

"You're no good for me, but I can't get enough," he mumbles between breaths.

Your fingers find purchase in his already messy hair as you use it to pull him towards you once again. You two continue to make out when your phone starts ringing in your back pocket. You try to ignore it, but Haechan can’t. He knows who's probably calling. He pulls away from you, biting into your bottom lip and tugging it with him until he lets go.

"Answer it," he demands. You try to pull him back into you, but he shrugs you off. "Answer it or I will," he threatens.

You want to test him, but the way he's looking at you makes you want to give him everything he's ever wished for. You decide to be his good girl tonight. You slip your phone from your back pocket and answer it.

"You good? It's getting late; we need to leave soon," Jungwoo voices through the phone speaker.

You hesitate with your response, trying to find your voice.

"Hellooo… Don't make me come find you." Jungwoo says you can hear him readjust his phone against his ear as he whispers sorry to someone, probably pushing through bodies looking around for you.

"Im good, Woo; go ahead and head home without me; I'm going to catch a ride with Hyuck.'' As you speak to Jungwoo on the other line, Haechan is peppering kisses up and down your neck, and you can't help but let out a few quiet, breathless moans.

"oh-OHH!" Jungwoo exclaims. "You're nasty; have fun and stay safe, bye!" Jungwoo hands up the phone upon realization of what's going on.

You drop your phone on the counter and continue where you left off. See, I can be good for you," you say.

"Only when you want something," he punctuates as he uses his teeth to snip at your neck.

Haechan knows you guys only have so much time before security comes around and makes sure they have vacated the room. They only have it for the duration of the time they booked the gig. He pulls you off the vanity and turns you around to face it. He flips up your skirt and pulls the neckline of your shirt down past your boobs, keeping you partially covered in case you have to cover up quickly. You met the eyes of your reflection, and you were able to see for the first time how fucked out you already looked. He hasn't even properly touched you, and you're already dripping down your thighs.

"Look at how pretty you are, angel. I want you to look at yourself as you take my cock. Don't you dare look away." Haechan lays a sweet kiss on the top of your head, and you know that's his promise to you that he's going to absolutely ruin you.

He makes quick work of his studded belt and pushes his jeans down past his waist. He pulls your panties to the side and quickly works in a finger. He stretches you until you seem ready enough to take him, so he frees himself completely and spits down onto his tip. He mixes his saliva with your juices as he strokes his tip through your wet folds. He doesn't hold back any longer and thrusts into you. You keep your promise and don't take your eyes off of your reflection. You can see the way your mouth drops at the way he fucks you deep, and you watch as your brows furrow up when he hits a particular spot inside you.

"Right there! Please don't stop!" You cry.

Haechan leans over your back and rests his chin on your shoulder, looking at you through the mirror. His movements slow as he uses precision to repeatedly bully the spot inside you that's making you see stars.

"Do you feel that love? No one else knows you like I know you; who else is gonna make you feel like this, huh, baby? Tell me." His eyes don't leave your face, and when you don't respond, he lands a harsh smack against one of your ass cheeks. "You can't fucking hear me? I said answer me!" he yells as he picks up his pace. He wraps his hand around your neck, and you can feel the cool metal of his rings against your skin.

 "No one! Only you can make me feel this good. Only you can fuck me like this. Fuck me until I can't remember my name," you rasp.

"That's my good girl," he whispers in your ear.

He tugs you back into him with the hold he has on your neck. Your back meets his chest as he fucks into you at a new angle. You can't hold on any longer, so you let go. You come all over his cock, and when he doesn't slow down for even a second, you feel your second high quickly approaching.

Hyuck, please, I can't take another one; I'll make a mess," you plead. You know this next one is going to be messy. You can feel the pressure building up in your stomach.

That's ok, baby; I want to drown in you; let go for me." And for the second time that night, you come again, but this time you're squirting, and it's dripping all onto the ground below you. "You're so fucking nasty," he says to you as he pushes you to your knees on the wet ground. A hand goes to your hair, and you can feel the sting as Haechan tugs your head back so that you can meet his eyes.

"Open your mouth, slut."

You do as you're told and stick your tongue out for him. He moans at the visual and slowly lets a trail of spit fall from his mouth into your awaiting one. When you swallow his spit, he can't help but be proud: "That's my good girl."

He guides his length into your mouth, and you choke on him before you know it. Mascara running down your face, spit covering your lips This is what Haechan wanted you to see: you made him a mess on the inside, but he was always going to ruin you on the outside. It's a shame you couldn't see it. He fucks your face, and you take it like a champ. You look up at him, and all you can see is infatuation. That's when you realize it. He was never going to let you go. He was going to keep forcing himself into your life, whether you liked it or not, because he was disgustingly in love with you. Even as you kneel on the floor of a dingy club, covered in your own release, choking on his dick, his eyes are filled with love. His brows furrowed, and he let out a long moan as he released down your throat. He's still feeling a little mean, so he pinches your nose and makes you gag. He holds your head down and fucks deep into your throat a few more times before letting you go.

Did he love you? Yes.

Was he above making you suffer a little bit? No.

You catch your breath as you look up at him. Before a word can be spoken between the two of you,a knock comes at the door. Security announces themselves and tries to open the door but finds it locked. You and Hyuck look at each other in fear as you scramble to dress yourselves properly.

"One second, we were still cleaning up," He calls to the door.

"You guys were supposed to be gone 20 minutes ago." The security guards' annoyed voice can be heard through the door.

"Sorry, dude, we will be right out."

"You guys have 5 minutes!" security yells before walking away.

You fix your hair in the mirror, and Haechan tries his best to clean up the mess on the floor with whatever he can find. "Come on, let's go home," he says as he grabs your hand as he guides you through the back halls of the club on to the main floor and to his car.

In a matter of 15 minutes, you're back at your shared apartment complex. You're making your way up the stairs when Haechan offers to properly clean you up. You had left some of your skin care products over at his place a while ago anyway, so you agree. He runs a bath for the two of you, and afterwards, while you remove your makeup, you also help him remove his eyeliner. He's sitting on the counter when you gently wipe his eye makeup away. The silence between you is no longer awkward but a comforting one. You decide to break the silence first.

"I thought about what you said before, and you're right; I was making excuses. I was afraid you would break my heart, so I decided to hurt you first." You switch to taking off the makeup on his other eye. "I'm sorry for that, but I realize now that you would never hurt me; no matter how hard I push you away, you will never leave me alone."

"You make me sound like a nuisance," he said, glaring playfully at you.

"Because you are," you peck him softly on the lips, "but I've decided I don't want to live hurting the people I love anymore. I want to try again with you. Will you accept me?"

Haechan has been waiting forever to hear those words again. "You love me?"

Yes, I love you, idiot. Is that all you heard?" you joke.

"I love you too," he responds with a kiss. "Do you promise not to run from me again?" He looks at you, and you can see the vulnerability in his eyes.

"I promise, I'll never leave your side again". 

You finish removing his makeup, and you two set off to bed. This time, when you go to sleep in his arms, you don't dread the morning after; you know this is not a mistake. When the morning comes, you're going to be a new person and not the one that gives up on Haechan again and again; this time, you will love to the fullest.

[brotherconstant]

GIFMAKING TUTORIAL: PHOTOPEA (for Windows)

Screencapping

Gif Width/Size Limit/Ezgif

Loading Frames

Cropping and Resizing

Rasterize/Make Frames

Sharpening

Coloring (not detailed. Links to other tutorials included)

Exporting

Obligatory Mentions: @photopeablr ; @miwtual ; @benoitblanc ; @ashleysolsen Definitely check out these blogs for tips, tutorials and resources, they're a gold mine. Finally I recommend browsing the PHOTOPEA TUTORIAL / PHOTOPEA TUTORIAL GIF tags. DISCLAIMER: English is not my first language and I'm not an expert on what I'm going to discuss, so if anything's unclear feel free to drop another ask.

1. SCREENCAPPING -> PotPlayer (the one I use) or MVP or KMPlayer

INSTALL PotPlayer (tutorial)

Play your movie/episode and press Ctrl + G. The Consecutive Image Capturer window will pop up. Click Start to capture consecutive frames, Stop when you got what you needed.

Where it says "Image Type -> Format" I recommend picking PNG, for higher quality screencaps.

To access the folder where the screencaps are stored, type %appdata% in windows search, open the PotPlayerMini64 folder (or 32, depending on your system) and then the Capture folder. That's where you'll find your screencaps.

Admittedly MVP is a lot faster but I prefer Potplayer because it generates (at least in my case) higher quality screencaps. MVP kind of alters the hue and it made it harder for me to color my gifs. Still, if you're interested in how to use it, I recommend this tutorial.

As for KMPlayer, every tutorial out there is outdated and I couldn't figure out the new version of the software.

2. GIF WIDTH/HEIGHT, SIZE LIMIT, EZGIF OPTMIZER

At this point you should already know how big your gifs are going to be. Remember the ideal gif width(s) on tumblr are 540 px / 268 px / 177 px. These specific numbers take into account the 4 px space between the gifs. No restrictions on height. Here are some examples:

You can play around with the height (177x400, 177x540, 268x200, 268x268, 268x350, 268x400, 540x440, 540x500, 540x540 etc) but if you go over the 10 MB limit you'll either have to make your gifs smaller/delete some frames.

OR you can go on ezgif and optimize your gif, which is usually what I do. The quality might suffer a little, but I'm not really (that) obsessed with how crispy my gifs look, or I'd download photoshop.

Depending on the gif size, you can decrease the compression level. I've never had to go over 35. It's better to start at 5 (minimum) and then go from there until you reach your desired ( <10mb) gif size. Now that I think about it I should have included this passage at the end of the tutorial, I guess I'll just mention it again.

3. LOAD YOUR FRAMES

File -> Open... -> Pick one of your screencaps. The first one, the last one, a random one. Doesn't matter. That's your Background.

File -> Open & Place -> Select all the frames (including the one you already loaded in the previous passage) you need for your gif and load them.

(I recommend creating a specific folder for the screencaps of each gif you're going to make.)

WARNING: When you Place your screencaps make sure the Crop tool is NOT selected, especially if you've already used it and the width/height values have been entered. It will mess things up - I don't know why, could be a bug.

You can either select them all with Ctrl+A or with the method I explained in the ask: "when you want to select more than one frame or all frames at once select the first one, then scroll to the bottom and, while pressing Shift, select the last one. this way ALL your frames will be selected".

WARNING: Depending on how fast your computer is / on your RAM, this process may take a while. My old computer was old and slow af, while my new one can load even a 100 frames relatively fast, all things considered. Even so, I recommend ALWAYS saving your work before loading new frames for a new gif, because photopea might crash unexpectedly. Just save your work as often as you can, even while coloring or before exporting. Trust me, I speak from experience.

Now you can go ahead and delete the Background at the bottom, you won't need it anymore.

4. CROPPING AND RESIZING

Right now your screencaps are still smart objects. Before rasterizing and converting to frames, you need to crop your gif.

Technically you can rasterize/convert to frames and then crop, BUT if you do it in that order photopea will automatically delete the cropped pixels, even if you don't select the "Delete Cropped Pixels" Option. Might be another bug, unclear. Basically, if you crop your gif and then realize you cropped a little too much to the left or the right, you can go ahead, select the Move Tool (shortcut: V) and, after selecting ALL YOUR FRAMES, move them around on your canvas until you are satisfied. You won't be able to do this if you rasterize first and then crop, the excess pixels will be deleted. I don't know why, I found out by accident lol.

CROPPING

(Cropped pixels: the gray/opaque area outside of the selected area. That area disappears once you press enter and crop, but the pixels are retained, so you can move the frames around and reposition them as you like. In this case I could move the frames to the left and include Silver's figure [curly guy in the foreground] in the crop)

After deleting the Background, you will need to select all your frames (using the Shift key), use the C shortcut on your keyboard to choose the Crop tool. Or you can click on it, whatever's more convenient. Once you do that, a dropdown menu is going to appear. You need to select the "FIXED SIZE" option, as shown in the following screencap.

Once you do that, you can type in your desired width and height. Do not immediately press enter.

Your work area should now look like this. Now you can click on one of the white squares and enlarge the selected area until the edges are lined up. You can then move it around until it covers the area you wish to gif.

WARNING: to move the big rectangle around, you're gonna have to click on a random point of the work area, PREFERABLY not to close to the rectangle itself, or you might accidentally rotate it.

See? When your cursor is close to the selected area it turns into this rotating tool. Move it away until it reverts to your usual cursor, then you can start moving the rectangle. Press Enter when you're satisfied with the area you selected.

RESIZE

This isn't always necessary (pretty much never in my case) - and it's a passage I often forget myself - but it's mentioned in most of the tutorials I came across over the years, so I'd be remiss if I didn't include it in mine. After cropping, you'll want to resize your image.

IMAGE -> Image Size...

This window will pop up. Now, should the values in the Width and Height space be anything other than 540 and 400 (or the values you entered yourself, whatever they might be) you need to correct that. They've always been correct in my case, but again. Had to mention it.

5. RASTERIZE & MAKE FRAMES

Now that your screencaps are cropped, you can go ahead and convert them.

LAYER -> Rasterize (if you skip this passage you won't be able to Sharpen (or use any filter) on your frames at once. You'll have to Sharpen your frames one by one.

Photopea doesn't feature a timeline and it's not a video editor, which makes this passage crucial. When you select all your smart objects and try to apply a filter, the filter will only by applied to ONE frame. Once you rasterize your smart objects and make them into frames, you can select them all and sharpen them at once. Unfortunately this also means that you won't be able to - I don't know how to explain this properly so bear with me - use all smart filters/use them in the same way a photoshop user can. For example, you can sharpen / remove noise / add noise / unsharp mask... but you can't act on those filters in the same way a photoshop user can. When you work on smart objects you can change the blend mode - which is critical if you decide to use a filter like High Pass. If you simply apply a high pass filter on photopea you won't be able to change the blend mode and your gif will look like this (following screencaps). Or rather, you will be able to change the blend mode by clicking on the little wheel next to "High pass" (circled in green in the 2nd screencap), but you'll have to apply the filter to each frame manually, one by one.

Then you can rasterize/make into frames, but it's extremely time consuming. I did it once or twice when I first started making gifs and it got old pretty soon haha.

Layer -> Animation -> Make frames. This passage will add "_a_" at the beginning of all your frames and it's what allows you to make a (moving) gif. As I said in the ask, if you skip this passage your gif will not move.

6. SHARPENING

Some people prefer to color first and sharpen later, but I found that sharpening filters (more or less) dramatically alter the aspect of your gif and already brighten it a bit (depending on your settings) and you may end up with an excessively bright gif.

Now, sharpening settings are not necessarily set in stone. The most popular ones are 500/0.4 + 10/10, which I use sometimes. But you may also need to take into account the quality of the files you're working with + the specific tv show you're giffing. I've been using different settings for pretty much every tv show I gif, especially in the last couple months. Some examples:

followed by

OR

AMOUNT: 500% RADIUS 0.3px followed by AMOUNT: 20% (or 10%) RADIUS 10px

You'll just need to experiment and see what works best for your gifs.

Some gifmakers use the UNSHARP MASK filter as well (I think it's pretty popular among photopea users?) but it makes my gifs look extra grainy, makes the borders look super bright and it clashes with my coloring method(s), so I use it rarely and with very moderate settings. Something like this:

Again, depends on the gif and on what you like. I've seen it used with great results by other gifmakers!

REDUCE NOISE

Sometimes - and this is especially the case for dark scenes - your gif may look excessively grainy, depending on how bright you want to make it. Reducing noise can help. Keep it mind, it can also make it worse and mess up the quality. BUT it also reduces the size of your gif. Obviously, the higher the settings, the more quality will suffer.

These are my standard settings (either 2/70% or 2/80%). It's almost imperceptible, but it helps with some of the trickier scenes.

ADDING NOISE

Adding noise (1% or 2% max) can sometimes help with quality (or make it worse, just like reduce noise) but it will make your gif so so so much bigger, and occasionally damage the frames, which means you won't be able to load your gif on tumblr, so I rarely use it.

You'll also want to create ACTIONS which will allow you to sharpen your gifs much faster.

HOW TO CREATE AN ACTION ON PHOTOPEA

The Action Button (shaped like a Play button as you can see in the following screencaps) may not be there if you're using photopea for the first time. If that's the case click on the magnifiying glass next to "Account" (in red) and type "actions". Press Enter and the button should immediately show up.

Once you do that, click on the Folder (circled in yellow)

and rename it however you like.

now click on New Action (circled in red). now you can press the Recording button (circled in green)

Now

FILTERS -> Smart Sharpen

and you can enter your values. Then you repeat this passage (WITHOUT pressing rec, WITHOUT pressing new action or anything else, you just open the smart shapen window again) and, if you want, you can sharpen your gif some more (10%, 10px, or anything you want.)

Maybe, before creating an action, experiment with the settings first and see what works best.

When you're satisfied, you can PRESS STOP (it's the rec button, which is now a square) and you can DOWNLOAD your action (downwards facing arrow, the last button next to the bin. Sorry, forgot to circle it) .

You need to download your action and then upload it on your photopea. When you do, a window will pop up and photopea will ask you whether you wish to load the action every time you open the program. You choose "Okay" and the action will be loaded in the storage.

When you want to sharpen your gif, you select all your frames, then you click on the Play button, and select the Action, NOT the folder, or it won't work.

Actions can also be created to more rapidly crop and convert your frames, but it doesn't always work on photopea (for me at least). The process is exactly the same, except once you start recording you 1) crop your gif as explained in step 4, 2) convert into frames. Then you stop the recording and download the action and upload it. This won't work for the Rasterize step by the way. Just the Animation -> Make Frame step.

7. COLORING

Now you can color your gif. I won't include a coloring tutorial simply because I use a different method for every tv show I gif for. You normally want to begin with a brightness or a curve layer, but sometimes I start with a Channel Mixer layer to immediately get rid of yellow/green filters (there's a tutorial for this particular tool which you will find in the list I mention in the link below)

[Plus I'm not really an authority on this matter as my method is generally... fuck around and find out. Two years of coloring and I still have no idea what I'm doing. 70% of the time.]

Simple Gif Coloring for Beginners -> very detailed + it includes a pretty handy list of tutorials at the bottom.

8. EXPORTING

Now you can export your gif. Some gifmakers export their (sharpened) gifs BEFORE coloring and then load the gifs on photopea to color them. I'm not sure it makes any difference.

FILE -> EXPORT AS -> GIF

(not colored, just sharpened)

As you can see, unlike photoshop the exporting settings are pretty thread bare. The only option available is dither - it sometimes help with color banding - which, and I'm quoting from google for maximum clarity:

"refers to the method of simulating colors not available in the color display system of your computer. A higher dithering percentage creates the appearance of more colors and more detail in an image, but can also increase the file size."

SPEED

When you export your gif, it will play at a very decreased speed (100%). I usually set it at 180/190%, but as for every other tool, you might want to play around a little bit.

GIF SIZE/EZGIF OPTIMIZER (See Step 2)

And that's it.

P.S.: worth repeating

Save your work as often as you can, even while coloring or before exporting.

[idyllic-ghost]

heyyyy

i've been thinking THOUGHTS about uji since nana tour and i just- imagine him coming back home and you're thinking "oh he's gonna be relaxed and pay attention to me now yay!" but he just goes back to work immediately

meanwhile you've seen all the pictures he's sent you from the trip (ALLLL the pictures wink-wonk) and you've been WAITING to finally get to be with him again

basically just, jihoon in his home office late at night and you come in and wait for him to go to bed- when he doesn't you start giving him "come to bed kisses" (wrapping your arms around his shoulders, giving kisses to his cheek and down his neck to whisper "come to bed" against his skin- you know the deal)🫣

title: finally~ pairing: woozi x fem!reader genre: smut, fluff warnings: smut MDNI, sub!jihoon, oral (m receiving), cowgirl, kind of big cock!jihoon, cream pie wordcount: 2.4k taglist: @enhacolor, @shuabby1994, @junhui-recs, @dkakapizzaboy, @just-here-to-read-01, @loviehan, @userjunhuii, @novalpha, @bubblymoon, @aaniag, @d0nghyuck, @fantasy2wonderland, @seunghancore, @woozixo, @niktwazny303, @lllucere, @uniq-tastic, @wonwoospartyhat, @stariightjoyy, @hyneyedfiz, @cali-snow, @pearlygraysky, @crazywittysassy, @yeosayang

a/n: thank you for your request! sorry it took so long to get done, but i hope you enjoy!! (took creative liberties with what you had written, it had to be done)

join my taglist

masterlists

send a request in my inbox!

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Jihoon was still sitting in front of the screen. Headphones were on, pushing his long locks out of his face, but you could hear a muffled memory over the clicking of his keyboard. You managed to make him stay home, but you should have known he'd isolate himself in his home office. Ever since you installed it, you knew it was a bad idea. He couldn't separate his personal life from his work life, which didn't make it easier.

Even though he had only recently come back from his trip to Italy, you hadn't seen much of him. From all the pictures he had sent, you could tell he was relaxing and having a good time - but instead of bringing that with him, he had left his calm in Tuscany. Which was torture for you, seeing as he had been teasing you all this time; sending pictures of him by the pool or working out - calling you late at night whenever he could find some alone time. Despite his cold exterior, Jihoon wasn't a fan of distance.

You were on the couch in the corner of the room, watching him. You weren't just watching him - you were staring, but Jihoon didn't notice. He was sitting slightly hunched over, his elbow on his desk and his head resting in his hand. His other hand was softly drumming against the table, his head nodding along with the rhythm that his fingers were making. The clock on the wall said 11:34 PM, meaning bedtime - or at least, lying in bed and not necessarily sleeping.

When he started humming, you were done. Jihoon's humming was quiet and smooth, but you were already annoyed. Your shoulders tensed up and you tried to take a deep breath to let it go. The sudden sound got your boyfriend's attention. He looked over at you and moved one of the ear cups of headphones to sit behind his ear.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine."

Jihoon narrowed his eyes at you. He had been in this situation before and made the mistake of accepting "I'm fine" as a fact. After taking off his headphones, he turned his chair toward you. You looked away from him, trying to escape his steady gaze.

"Are you sure?" he questioned. "You know I can't help if you don't tell me what's wrong, baby."

"I just want to go to bed," you admitted and quickly added, "With you."

"Go," he said, "I'll be there soon. I promise."

You were sure that he wasn't lying - but soon for him could mean another few hours. Jihoon lost track of time when he was working. So, you only nodded and stood up. He put his headphones back on and turned back to his computer. You looked toward the door with aversion, your feet naturally walking toward Jihoon's chair instead. Even like this, hunched over and pulling weird faces whenever he didn't like something, he made your knees weak. Maybe it was the black shirt that clung to his arms and over his chest, or the way his hair hung delicately over his features. Either way, you needed him now.

"Jihoon," you murmured as you wrapped your arms around his shoulders. "Please."

You pressed a kiss to his cheek, feeling them move as he started smiling. Then you pressed another kiss to his jaw, following the sharp line until you got down to his neck. The hair on his neck stood up as you found the sensitive spot there.

"Come to bed," you mumbled against his skin.

"I'm almost done," he answered, but still turned his head to give you more access.

"You said that thirty minutes ago," you reminded him. "Jihoon, I've barely gotten to be with you since you came back."

Jihoon grumbled something unintelligible before pulling off his headphones and putting them on the table. You let go of his shoulders, letting him stand up from his chair. As soon as he was standing, he went to wrap his arms around you - putting his hand on the back of your head and guiding it to rest in the crook of his neck. His other hand made its way to your back, stroking slow and comforting circles.

"I'm sorry," he muttered. "I've been trying to catch up on work... I thought I could finish it up quickly to give you more attention later."

"What kind of plan is that?" You snorted.

"... I thought it was smart."

You pushed away slightly from him, allowing you to take a good look at him. His ears were a bit red, but you could tell that it wasn't just from his headphones by the flustered look on his face.

"Please come to bed?" you asked, bringing your hands up to cup his face.

"Okay."

Jihoon kissed one of your palms before letting you go, only long enough to grab your hand to lead you to the bedroom. Anticipation grew from your stomach up to your chest, spreading through the rest of your body. Finally, you'd get him for yourself. He opened the door to the bedroom, guiding you inside before closing the door behind him. You hadn't slept with him since the first night he got back, and it didn't take long for you to fall onto the mattress from exhaustion - Jihoon falling asleep almost immediately from the jet lag. Long story short, it hadn't been as satisfying as it usually was.

Now, as Jihoon is taking his time kissing your bare skin that he is slowly revealing, you could already feel that you'd be much more satisfied tonight. Your fingers ran through his hair, pulling at his locks when his lips found a sensitive spot on your chest. Jihoon groaned against your soft skin, his arms desperately pulling you closer. His lips trailed up your neck and jaw, quickly finding your lips. He left a chaste and sweet kiss on your lips, unfitting from the rest of his actions. When he pulled away, his eyes stayed shut for a moment - as if he had to savor the feeling of your lips, even though he knew very well that he could kiss you whenever he wanted.

"I've missed you," he admitted.

"I've been right here this entire time," you argued.

"I know, I know." He sighed. "I'm stupid."

"No, you're not," you corrected him. "You just have an interesting way of getting work done."

"I have to admit, you're great motivation." He took your hand in his, backing up until the back of his legs hit the side of the bed and he sat down. "But you're distracting too."

You straddled his lap, connecting your lips to his again and wrapping your arms around his neck. His hands instinctively made their way to your ass, groping it and ushering you to grind over his crotch. With only your panties on, you could feel everything against his sweatpants. You moaned into his mouth, days of neglecting your growing lust finally getting an outlet. Hungry hands went to the hem of his shirt and you tried to pull it over his head.

"Eager, are we?" he murmured against your lips before pulling his shirt over his head and throwing it to the side.

"Don't tease me," you whined.

You finally got to feel his bare skin under your fingertips, electricity shooting through your hands to your core. His fingers did work on your bra, unclasping it and tossing it to the side. As soon as he got rid of the material, his lips were on your uncovered tits - sucking bruises on the sensitive skin.

"I need you," you muttered.

In a swift move, Jihoon laid you down on the bed under him. He leaned over you, arms on either side of your head. His hair fell over his face and you reached up to brush it back with your fingers.

"I have to cut my hair." He sighed.

"No, I love it," you said and pulled your fingers through his hair again, it was soft but unruly. "It's pretty."

"It keeps getting in the way..." he argued, deciding to ignore your compliment to save himself from becoming a flustered mess.

"Hair ties exist," you countered.

"I don't have one right now."

"You're going to make me walk around with hair ties on my wrist, aren't you?" You let go of his hair and, with your legs around his waist, managed to flip him over on his back. "No hair tie just means that I get to be on top."

His hair spread out around his head like a dark halo, contrasting well with the white pillow underneath him - his eyes were wide, his pupils were blown out, and his lips were parted slightly. You could study his face for hours. Deciding to put on a show for him, you started grinding over his clothed crotch; you were desperate to take off his pants already. Jihoon's hands found their place on your hips, trying to take control of your movements. You grabbed his hands, moving them to lie over his head.

"Let me do the work, baby," you murmured.

You moved down his body and, to your surprise, his hands stayed where you left them. Carefully, you removed his sweatpants - leaving kisses along his hipbone and right by his happy trail. Goosebumps trailed along his skin as Jihoon shivered. Now that only his underwear was between you and his cock, you could see how hard he had gotten. You pressed a kiss over the fabric before rubbing his clothed cock with your palm. Jihoon went to grab your hair, but you slapped his hands away.

"Keep them above your head," you demanded.

"Okay..." Jihoon's voice was barely above a whisper, weak and shaky.

Your ministrations had already taken a toll on him. You pulled down his underwear, letting his cock slap against his abdomen. Grabbing his shaft, you put the pink tip in your mouth - peering up at him through your lashes. His eyes were shut tight, his mouth in a tight line to hide any noises. One of your hands was still wrapped around his cock, but with the other, you grazed his lower stomach and side.

"I want to hear you, Jihoonie," you chirped. "Please?"

He opened his mouth with a soft gasp as you took him deeper into your mouth. You began bobbing your head up and down his shaft, stroking the part that you couldn't take with your hand. Jihoon squirmed under you, desperately wanting to touch you but not wanting to disappoint you.

"I've missed your mouth..." he soughed.

Your mouth came off his cock with a pop, and you spit on it to keep stroking with your hand. He opened his eyes and looked at you with furrowed brows.

"You should've thought about that before you decided to lock yourself in your office for days," you teased.

"I'm sorry-" He groaned. "I won't do it again..."

"You will," you hummed. "That's okay, though... you always get so sensitive when you've gone a few days without pussy. It's cute."

You let go of him, positioning yourself to straddle his lap again. You watched him, as he struggled to keep his hands above his head. To put him out of his misery, you grabbed his hands again and pushed them against your tits. While he was groping your breasts and pinching your nipples, you grabbed his dick and directed it to your cunt - letting it drag over your dripping slit before finally pushing him inside. It had been a few days since you last took him like this, and without prep, the stretch stung ever so slightly. You moaned as you inched down on his cock, looking on as Jihoon's face contorted in pleasure.

"See?" You let out a breathy laugh. "Already so fucked out."

"... so warm." Jihoon moaned and put his hands on your hips again. "Baby, please..."

"Please what?"

"Move."

You put your hands on his chest, slowly moving your hips up and down while you teased his nipples. His milky skin grew pink under your touch - and you adored the way he squirmed under you. Short gasps mixed with moans came bubbling out of his throat, and he only got louder the faster you moved. His hips started moving against yours, and soon enough he was holding up your hips and fucking up into you.

"Gonna cum..." he whined.

You weren't close, but an idea popped into your mind. You let him keep fucking you, not even trying to stop him as he came inside of you. But, as his movements died down, you didn't let him pull out. Once his limbs were slack, you grabbed his hands pinned them against the bed, and started moving your hips again.

"Too much-"

"You can take it, pretty boy," you hummed. "You want to make me cum, right?"

"Yes, yes..." He groaned.

"Then you'll let me use you... you're already getting hard again, I can feel it," you moaned. "Won't you help me, Jihoonie?"

He nodded furiously, and you let go of his hands. One of his, now free, hands went to rub your clit, while the other rested on your hip. A knot started building up in your stomach. Your breathing grew heavier as you desperately worked towards your high. Jihoon was already sensitive, and your contracting walls didn't help - he was getting close too.

"Cum inside me again, baby," you murmured. "I want you to cum with me."

Your movements grew sloppy, your hips stuttering over his crotch, but Jihoon never stopped rubbing circles on your clit. As the fire pooling in your lower stomach bloomed throughout the rest of your body, you dissolved into pleasure and slumped against your boyfriend's body. You could feel his second load leaking out of your spent hole. The two of you lay there, the only thing that could be heard in the room was your heavy breathing. However, soon enough Jihoon's hands made their way to your back. His palms rubbed slow circles over your skin, making you whine and bury your head deeper into the crook of his neck.

"We should go to the bathroom..." he muttered.

"Do your legs work?"

"... no."

"Neither do mine."

The two of you chuckled, and you managed to move around enough to lie down beside him. You felt so empty without his cock inside you, but you didn't have the energy to do anything about it.

"Thank you for taking me out of work," he hummed.

"Thank you for finally coming to bed."

Jihoon wrapped his strong arms around you, getting to feel his bare skin against yours. The two of you lay there, trying your best not to fall asleep - you'd only regret it when you woke up. However, for just a moment, you let yourself relax in his arms and savor every second of his embrace.

[fiveht]

Proof of life (Adore pt 3)

Hello my sweet angel babies ♥️

I'm not going to be able to adequately express my gratitude for the steady stream of love (and concern, sorry) I've been receiving over the past couple of months. I'm so sorry I've been AWOL, it will definitely happen again. Because see, for me, I usually have to make a choice between social and creative fandom participation. My battery is small, and takes a long time to charge.

Thank you to everyone who's left comments and asks and DMs since I've been gone. I don't think I can respond to all of it, but rest assured those messages ping my cold, dead heart every time I see them.

So I'm gonna go out on a limb here. I did this same thing months and months ago, when I was working on Head Over Feet, and let me be clear: posting even a single word of a WIP goes against my every instinct and principle as an author. I am someone who likes to finish an entire story before I post any of it, and on top of that, I am NOT a fast writer, so the expectations that I'm setting up here might not be advisable. But I did it before and managed to finish the thing, and I want to give you guys something in exchange for being so unbelievably awesome, so here I am again.

This will probably be the only time I mention this story in public until it's finished and posted, and inquiries about my progress are unlikely to help with the writing process, I'm just saying. I reserve the right to change every last word of this before the final draft, and I also reserve the right to fall off the face of the planet and simply never finish it, as much as I will strive to prevent that from happening. Please be patient with me.

Anyway, here is my paltry offering to say thanks for the love: the (VERY rough) first ~1300 words of the third instalment of The Adventures of Soft Daddy and Danger Twink.

Sirius secures his handheld shower head to its holder at the edge of his clawfoot tub, and steps out carefully onto the bathmat. He shivers in the cool air outside the shower curtain; it's about twenty degrees below zero outside, so even if he could afford to run his ancient radiator at full blast, it probably wouldn't help much.

He dries himself off and checks his reflection in the mirror, turning his face this way and that as he tugs his hair out of the bun he'd piled it into to keep it dry during his shower. There's no need for makeup tonight, not when he's not even planning to put on clothes.

It's incrementally warmer when he steps out into the main room of his apartment. He gathers an array of splayed text books and notes from his bed and dumps them carelessly onto the couch, then closes his new laptop and places it delicately on the coffee table. It's the most expensive thing he owns, save for the Gucci backpack currently sitting in his wardrobe with a three-inch berth around it like his shoes and other bags might somehow contaminate it. It's weird owning rich-people stuff when you are still, objectively, broke as fuck.

He perches on the edge of his bed and sets his phone to charge, because his battery doesn't even last a day anymore, and he's going to need it this evening. He tucks it in next to his pillow and picks up his new toy.

The plug isn't much larger than the one he already has. A little longer, which is appealing, but no wider, so it shouldn't be a challenge to get it in comfortably. He disconnects it from its charger and hefts it in his hand, feeling the added weight from the electronics inside.

He picks up his phone, and hesitates when he sees the notification waiting for him.

Rieka: let's go out tomorrow

Rieka: the fact that we haven't been drunk since the term started is criminal

Rieka: we've had two chem labs and zero drinks

Sirius purses his lips, thumbs hovering over the keyboard. There's a fine line here, and he hasn't quite found it yet.

Me: got plans

Me: raincheck?

So complete avoidance is the best strategy, right?

Rieka: booooo 👎

He sighs, but at least she's not asking for an explanation. He opens a different conversation then, pushing all thoughts of Rieka Lupin into a tidy, sealed compartment, not to be opened during certain activities with a certain relative of hers.

Me: i'm ready

Me: are you in your office?

Daddy: Yup, I've got a few minutes

Daddy: Want me to call?

Instead of answering, Sirius hits the call button himself.

"Hey baby," Remus answers. His voice is already smooth and honey-sweet, and just from that, Sirius knows he's planning to lay it on thick tonight.

"Hi daddy," Sirius says with a smile. "Should I put it in now?"

There's a low chuckle over the line. "Are we feeling eager?"

"Always," Sirius says, laying back on his bed.

"Use the good lube I got you, it's gonna be in there a while."

He switches the call to speaker, and snags the bottle from his nightstand. "I threw out the old stuff, you've got me ruined for cheap lube."

"Only the best for that ass," Remus says, and Sirius can hear his smirk.

He gives the plug a liberal coating, running his fingers along its shape, his dick twitching just at the feel of the silky-smooth silicone, at the anticipation of what's about to happen. He spreads his legs wide, drawing one knee up to give himself easier access.

"Take it slow," Remus says, succinctly heading off Sirius' impulse to just shove the thing inside himself in one go. "Rub the tip against yourself, so you're nice and wet."

Sirius shuts his eyes as he obeys, sliding the slick end of the toy over his entrance. "Okay."

"Are you going to be a good boy for daddy tonight?"

"Uh-huh," Sirius says, teasing the very tip of the plug in and out of his hole.

"Tell me how."

"I'm not gonna touch."

"You're not gonna touch, and you're not gonna come."

"Yeah," Sirius says. His cock is starting to harden as his body tries to draw the plug inside. "Can I put it in, daddy?"

"Slow," Remus reminds him, "Slide it in nice and slow for me, baby."

Sirius catches his lip between his teeth and tries to push the plug in slowly, the way he knows Remus would do if he was here. 

The shower has left him relaxed and more than ready, and it's hard not to take advantage, just press the toy in to its limit because he can. But he's working on his patience -- under Remus' careful tutelage -- so he shuts his eyes and tries to savour it, the tease of the plug's rubber tip at his entrance, the slow stretch as he eases it past the slight resistance before he sighs, and his body eagerly accepts the intrusion.

"Mmmm," Sirius sighs as he settles the base of the plug flush against his entrance, shifting his hips and feeling the constant, dull pressure against his prostate.

"How's it feel?" 

"Good," Sirius says, splaying his legs out and just enjoying the pleasant fullness. It's been almost a week since Remus last fucked him, and that's just way too long. Christmas really spoiled him. He tugs the blankets up around him, because it's going to take some time before his body temperature is high enough to fight against the chill in his apartment.

"Have you tried out the settings at all?" Remus asks him, and Sirius picks up the phone, switching off speaker and holding it to his ear.

"No," he says, grinding his ass down against the bed to test the plug's reach inside him. "I thought you'd rather do the honours."

Remus hums, and Sirius hears the phone shifting in his grip. "I'm gonna turn it on, okay? Lowest setting."

"O--" Sirius stutters as the plug buzzes to life inside him, nestled snug against his prostate and sending little zings of pleasure down his legs. "Fuck that feels good. That's the lowest setting?"

"It is," Remus confirms. "Want to run through them all, see how high it goes? Or would you rather be surprised?"

"Mmmm, surprise me."

"Surprise it is," Remus says, and Sirius hears shuffling papers in the background as he prepares for his night class. Psychology 1001, Thursdays, 7-9:30PM. Two and a half hours of a lecture that Remus swears he's given so many times he could recite it in his sleep, so why not give himself something fun to focus on while he goes through the motions? 

Being privy to all of this brilliant, upstanding man's secret perversions is a privilege Sirius does not take lightly.

"You can turn it off from the app if you need to," Remus is saying, "Or you can call me and I'll switch it off. My phone's on vibrate, so I'll see it right away."

Sirius smiles to himself. "Got it," he says, though this is a rehashing of the rules that Remus had laid out when he'd brought the plug over last weekend. He'd called it a "late Christmas gift", as if he hadn't already given Sirius several thousand dollars worth of presents on Christmas morning.

There's more rustling over the line, the squeak of a chair. 

"Tell me again how you're going to be good tonight."

"I'm not gonna touch myself, and I'm not gonna come." The toy is still buzzing away inside him, making everything a little fuzzy at the edges. 

"Tell me why."

"'Cause daddy's in charge, even when he's not here."

"Good boy."

Sirius squirms with pleasure, his cock smearing a little drop of fluid on his belly as the toy hums insistently at his prostate.

"I have to head out," Remus says. "How do you feel?"

"Good," Sirius says, his abs tensing as he shifts his legs and the angle of the toy changes. "Excited."

"Me too," Remus says softly. "I'll talk to you soon, beautiful. Send me some pictures." With a low beep, the call disconnects.

[gatitties]

The truth

—Yandere!Bonten x motherly!reader (platonic)

—Summary: an accident makes you more aware of reality even though you already knew it, but what can someone like you do?

—Warnings: blood, kidnapping, obsession, toxic behaviors, harassment

I never thought this would go so far as to have five parts but... here we are! 🫣 (maybe this part is a bit long, srry)

@boycigs there you go!! 🫶🏻

Part one / Part two / Part three / Part four

You fumbled with the wall for the light switch, your tired eyes playing with you and making you almost trip over a blanket that had been thrown on the floor.

You yawned stretching your back, you had been working on some files that Kokonoi asked you to correct, you fell asleep without dinner and your stomach decided to wake you up at this time of night.

Luckily you had some leftovers from today's lunch, everyone had come to eat despite it being your 'day off', but since they had been busy with work more than usual lately, they couldn't spend as much time with you as they would like, although that didn't stop them from hiding cameras in your apartment to check that everything was okay from time to time.

A knock at the door made you frown, remembering the first time you met Sanzu. You walked slowly, expecting to run into him, or even one of the Haitani brothers who ran brothels near the area, it wouldn't be the first time they've come home drunk after a good night.

When you opened it, confusion flooded your face, there was no one there, not a note, nothing, you thought that maybe you were still too sleepy and you had hallucinated, or maybe it was some late-night teenager making a joke. You shrugged shutting to go back to your dinner, but before you knew it or could make a move something hit you in the back of the neck, knocking you unconscious, the last thing you saw was a few blurry faces, but none you knew in the slightest.

Panic, panic was the first thing Mochizuki experienced when he saw the recordings from the cameras installed in your house. He had to do a checkup the next morning and just seeing how careless they had been to let that trash kidnap you made his thoughts turn to disgust and guilt.

Not even five minutes after seeing that, all the executives were gathered in their meeting room, no matter where they were, they all got there instantly upon answering Mochi's call.

"And if I pause right here..." Mochi stopped the video just as two men lifted your unconscious body "this guy here, on his neck, his tattoo is from another band."

"Those bastards have been giving us so much trouble lately, I'm looking forward to seeing blood drain from their brains."

Sanzu slammed both hands on the table, completely irritated and concerned for your well-being, he was controlling his urge to go looking for you only because Mikey had remained silent with a blank stare throughout the entire meeting.

The Haitani brothers were already warming up to fight, Takeomi was mobilizing some men to search your apartment for clues while Koko and Kakucho were trying to find where your chip signal was. Yes, although unknown to you, they decided to insert a tracking chip into you a while ago just to know where you were when they couldn't be around.

The signal was bad, either because you were too far away from their location or because you were somewhere underground, which didn't help much. They were all probably on the verge of hysteria, the search wasn't going fast enough as they'd like and it only made their mood worse.

It took at least five days for them to come up with any solid leads to your whereabouts, the worst five days of their existence, the poor people or employees who will come across any of them probably aren't alive anymore. Mikey locked himself in and refused to come out unless they heard from you, he barely ate and his sleep schedule got even worse.

"Are you sure it's there?"

"Yes, several of our men have seen these guys with the same tattoo come and go, it doesn't appear to be their central base but it's hidden enough to carry out kidnappings."

Takeomi pointed to a warehouse on the outskirts of the city, everyone mobilized to go there immediately, even Mikey and Kokonoi, who didn't usually get their hands dirty with this kind of work, decided to go.

As for you... it was confusing the first day you woke up, the feeling of a gun pointed at your head became familiar as did the ropes on your wrists and ankles. Your reaction upon seeing the criminals was to release an inaudible sigh, without fear or surprise, your state was neutral.

You knew it, you knew that sooner or later this was going to happen, as much as your guys will try to hide you from problems with other mafias, there are always some leaks, and playing with loved ones from enemy gangs is the easiest card to play to threaten. Although in this case they didn't even have time to issue a threat to Bonten when they had already been threatened by your kidnapping.

The following days were threats to your people to try to get information that could put Bonten in trouble, as well as planning to move to another of their hideouts, however you were unaware of most of the things that Bonten did, although you were their secretary, you were only in charge of planning schedules and correcting some superficial reports from Kokonoi, you were not much help to these scoundrels.

"Damn! I don't understand how they could have protected you so much if you're just a useless old woman, you're useless! Why the hell do those guys hold you in such high esteem...?"

In the outburst of anger as he took it out on you, the sound of his hand slamming into your cheek sounded as the door above fell off its hinges.

"Boss, we have a prob-!"

The eye of the man who was coming down the stairs was blown out thanks to a bullet, landing right between your feet, you closed your eyes and, no matter if you don't believe in any god or anything, you prayed, not for you, but for what all these people did not suffer such a painful death.

You knew what Bonten men were capable of, at first you thought you were exaggerating, but that was the truth and at times, it terrified you. You were terrified to think of all the lives that left this world just because of you, your boys were more than gangsters, more than just criminals, they were monsters looking for any excuse to kill, and you were that excuse.

You knew that there was nothing in this world that would make you reverse time to the point of not having helped that drunk guy at the door of your house, you knew that nothing would make all those men leave your side because of showing your kindness, you knew that no kind of therapy could help such rotten minds at this point, so you could only swallow, as scared as you were, as much as your legs trembled, you had chosen this path yourself and you had to accept it.

"Mom..."

Your breath quickened slightly as you felt Sanzu's cold hand resting on your cheek, you slowly opened your eyes to see pure relief reflected in his, ignoring the bloodstains on his clothes and face, and even ignoring the blood he was leaving on your face, you smiled at him.

"I'm fine guys, I'm… fine."

You had to swallow and avoid getting dizzy from the smell of oxide in the place, your memories are blurry when you try to remember when you left there, you remember seeing many practically mutilated bodies, a river of blood and many arms holding your body as if you were going to disintegrate at that precise moment.

After you were rescued, you spent at least two days in a hospital at Kokonoi's request to see that you didn't have any injuries, everyone turned to you with questions about how you were doing, especially mentally.

It became suffocating, the amount of attention you received after that event, made you understand that, from now on, you could not have a single moment for yourself, no matter the job, the time or the place, you will always have one of them on top of you to keep an eye on you.

It doesn't matter if you complain, the truth, which you had to accept once again, is that nothing but death could separate you from these men, because they were not willing to let you go, ever. But the worst of all is that you accepted it, you accepted your fate, a fate that was sealed a long time ago, you accepted that you lived with monsters, that you helped and treated horrible people like completely sane people, but, an ordinary person like you, no could change anything.

"How long until the cake is ready?"

"Don't be impatient Rin, it's only been in the oven for five minutes."

"That's already a long time..."

"Shut up, you're always so impatient!"

"Are you looking for a fight!?"

"Kakucho, could you...?"

A nod from him made you sigh in relief, breaking up the Haitani brothers' fight as you sat at the table with the others who were talking about random topics. You stared into your teacup, your blank stare imagining imaginary scenes of another lifestyle in the steaming liquid.

"Are you ok? You seem distracted."

You looked at Kokonoi, keeping your gaze off without focusing on his face, you nodded with a slight smile when you saw that everyone had shut up to look at you.

"Yeah, I just didn't sleep well today."

"We'll buy a new bed then."

"I did not mean that..."

And like many things in your current life, your opinion was thrown away just to bring you more 'comfort'. You had no power and that was the absolute truth, nothing could change at this point.

[silentglassbreak]

Oh babe I hope I can make it!!😂💗

How about Noah dating firefighter? I love women in those fields, they are queens!

Maybe some angst like Noah being away on tour and reader having hard days at work, trying to hold it in cause she doesn't want to worry Noah when he's away, but she's avoiding daily facetime calls lately and Noah gets worried?

Doesn't have to be angst, I'll leave it up to you!

Thank you💗

Wow! We’ve finally made it to your ask, love! I’m sorry for how long it’s taken, but I promise to give this one some extra love - just for you! 😘

After Writing Notes: don't hate me

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Uhm...all of'em. No smut this time. Stressful situations. Angst. Mentions of death. Injury. Hospital setting. Burns.

All You Wanted

Noah was having a really bad day.

Not just shitty, or annoying, or rough.

Bad. Plain and simple.

First, his car wouldn’t start. He tried to turn it over so many times he killed what little juice was left in the battery. No one else was home to give him a ride to the auto parts store, so he had to call an Uber - heavy battery with him - to pick up a fresh one. After the new one was installed, and his car was back in commission, he realized that had taken up two hours.

Next, due to the car issues, he was late to the movie he planned to go see. By the time he was able to make his way to the theater, it was already half over. Rather than wait for another showtime, he elected to not even bother. He was too irritated to enjoy a movie.

Then, as he tried to relax at home and let the frustration of the day pass, he managed to spill his bowl of cereal all over his carpet.

“Did I break glass, or something?” He wondered too himself as his shop vac sucked up the milk and soggy Cinnamon Toast Crunch off of the floor.

However, his day was due to get worse, much to his dismay. He didn’t realize it, but when he set his bowl on his nightstand next to the bed, he slid the candle he kept there over as well. That would’ve been no issue, normally. However, in his haste to grab the vacuum before the milk set in to the carpet, he flung his duvet over the nightstand…

The smell of smoke wafted through his room, and he was almost too angry to notice it. Once he did, he turned to see the corner of his blanket on fire, spreading slowly to the rest of his bed.

Jumping back, he yelped in horror.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” He screamed, grabbing the water bottle he kept on his computer desk and spraying the half-empty contents onto the blaze.

It did virtually nothing, and he groaned, darting downstairs. Faster than he thought he could, he ran to the kitchen and grabbed the extinguisher from under the bathroom sink.

By the time he made it back to his bedroom, his entire bed was ablaze, pillows smoking heavily, and bed frame catching.

“Fuck!” He pulled the pin on the extinguisher, releasing the fog desperately, losing his breath as the mixture of fire retardant and smoke filled his lungs.

“Dude!” A voice came behind him, and he turned to see Jolly staring at him, grocery bag still in hand, a look of shock on his face.

Noah was coughing harshly now as Jolly’s hands came to wrap around the extinguisher.

“Go! Go outside and call 911! You need to breathe!”

Noah just nodded, backing out of the room and swiping his phone off of the desk. As he made his way down, his fingers dialed.

“911, what is your emergency?”

Noah and Jolly sat on the tailgate of Jolly’s pickup, staring at the house. Smoke still billowed out of the upstairs window of Noah’s room, and firefighters moved in and out of the house periodically.

The fire was out, but they still wouldn’t allow the men inside as they cleared it.

Noah’s room was about 50% burned, as he was told by the fire Captain. Luckily, the burn was contained to the bedroom, and nowhere else in the house sustained more than smoke damage. It was a relief, but also devastating. He didn’t know how much he lost of his belongings, but - at the very least - he’d be sleeping on the couch for a while.

“Guys?” Both of their heads looked up, seeing you stood in front of them. Your face still had soot coating your cheeks, and your hair was disheveled from the helmet you wore. “We’ve got the house secured and stabilized, so I’ll be able to take you in soon. The room will be off limits until the Fire Marshall can come through and confirm no structural damage to the walls or ceiling. We’ll seal it.”

Noah’s eyes fixed on you, wondering how, despite the gray cast on your skin and obvious sweat sheen on your forehead, you could manage to be so cute. You weren’t petite, per se, but you were small. Smaller than what he’d expected in a fire fighter. You stood with your shoulders square and tall, all business. The frayed, frizzy hair on your head was pulled back in a low ponytail.

“Have you both been checked out by EMS?” You pointed to both Noah and Jolly, and the two of them nodded in response. “Good. You want to take a look?”

Jolly clapped a hand to Noah’s shoulder, and hopped off of the truck. Following suit, Noah paced slowly behind both yourself and his brother, the guilt creeping in.

He had set his house on fire…

His home. His sanctuary. His haven. He lit it on fucking fire.

This was some kind of cosmic metaphor for his luck, right? That’s how his entire day had been…a dumpster fire.

Following you into the house, and trekking up the stairs, the guys stopped at the doorway to Noah’s room. Two additional firemen were poking around, checking for any embers.

First thing Noah noticed was that his bed was gone. Not burnt…gone. Reduced to ash on what used to be the carpet beneath it. The raw wood flooring was below, blackened. His nightstand was charred pretty badly, but one side of it was still the red oak color it was previously. His computer desk seemed virtually untouched, and he breathed relief from his lungs.

“Whose room is it?” You looked between the two boys, and Jolly looked at Noah from the side of his eyes. With a heavy sigh, Noah raised his hand begrudgingly. “Okay. If you need anything out of here, now is the time. We’ve taped off the areas you cannot walk in at all, so don’t step over the tape. Other than that, go ahead and grab your stuff.”

Noah nodded, taking a careful step into the room, the floor creaking with his weight. He clenched his jaw, and walked over to his laptop, pulling it from the desk and unplugging the charger. He gathered several other things he assumed he’d need for the next day or so, and stepped back out.

“The Marshall will be able to come by in the morning to inspect. After that, you can begin getting the repairs done.”

“Thank you.” He spoke to you directly, but didn’t look at you. Jolly had retreated to his own room, shutting the door behind him.

“Hey?” He looked up at you, eyes saddened. “You going to be okay?”

He nodded, moving past you down the hall. You followed him. “Yeah. Just kind of jarring. I’ve never had a fire before.”

You both padded down the stairs. “I get that.”

His shoulders bounced as he walked, and even three to four steps ahead, he was taller than you. You took note in your head of how large he was, and it made you smirk.

“You sure you're going to be alright?”

He didn’t answer verbally, rather just shrugged his shoulders and dropped his items on the couch. You began making your way toward the door, but turned around to look at him.

“Just out of curiosity,” His eyes flashed to look at yours, and you couldn’t help but notice that, like the rest of him, they were so big. “What started the fire? We couldn’t find the ignition source. We just knew it started on the bed.”

He scratched the back of his head, his lips turning up in a nervous smile.

“A candle.”

You raised your eyebrows. “A candle? On the bed?”

He shook his head. “No, it was on the nightstand. I dropped my blanket over it on accident, I think.”

Teeth biting into your lower lip, you suppressed the laugh that was bubbling in your chest. What an interesting way to start a fire? You had heard a lot of candle-related incidents, but this was a first.

"Well, probably best to not have candles in the room anymore?"

His eyes widened, and he stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Never burning another candle again, actually."

You couldn't help it, the giggle escaped without being able to catch it. "Alright, well be careful in that room, okay?"

He acknowledged you silently, and you wanted to turn to leave, but you were distracted by the walls, decorated with framed vinyl, guitars, and magazine covers blown up to poster-size. You noticed in some of the photographs, him and the other man were posed with two other guys.

You pointed a finger to the poster directly in front of you. "You in a band or something?"

He smirked, leaning back on his heels. "Something like that?"

Nodding, you heard Ramos, your Captain, calling for you from outside.

"Well, what's it called? I'll listen to it."

"Bad Omens."

Turning your body toward the door, you probed a little further. "Right on. Rock, I assume?"

He nodded. "Metal."

Your teeth flashed, and you saw his eyes light up just a little. "Nice." Your name was called from outside again. "I didn't catch your name?"

You held your hand out for him to shake, and he took it gracefully.

"Noah."

His hand gave yours a firm shake. "Y/N. Nice to meet you, Noah."

With that, you began heading for the door.

"Uh," His voice chimed behind you, and you turned your neck back to him. "Could I, maybe, get your number?"

Your chest warmed, and the grin that spread across your face threatened to break your jaw bone. You thought about it for a moment, pulling your brows together. That was a bit forward, so you responded as appropriately as you could.

"125." And you began walking away.

"Wait, what?"

Still walking through the door, you turned around, and waved. "You'll figure it out."

It took three days. Three long, annoying days for him to figure it out.

But he did.

You were sat in the dorm, shaking off the two hours of sleep you had achieved before the alarm woke you up. It wasn't your turn to head out, but there was no sleeping through that noise. The last twenty-six hours had been grueling, and you couldn't wait to get through the next ten, and go home for your two days off.

You stalked into the kitchen, waiving at Gillman and Reed in the training room. The coffee was heavenly, warming your insides enough to fully wake.

"Y/L/N?" Your head cocked to the bay door, Ramos standing on the other side. You had your hips leaned against the counter, and you were too tired to stand at full attention. "There's someone here asking for you."

Cocking an eyebrow, you huffed away from the countertop, setting your coffee down, and walked to the door. Who the hell was going to come see you at work?

You pushed the heavy door open, and behind it, stood right next to engine #14, was a tall, brown-eyed boy, smiling at you. It had been such a long few days, you had honestly forgotten about your encounter with him back at his house. After you finished up the paperwork, it had been jammed into the back of your head.

"Hey?" You asked, crossing your arms in front of you. "I see you figured it out?"

He nodded, pursing his lips. "Station 125. Yep, took me a while."

Shaking your head, you laughed. "Well, what can I do for you?"

In his hand, he held a small brown paper bag, and presented it in front of him. "For you."

"What's this?"

Smirking, he handed you the gift. "Just a token of my gratitude."

Unfolding the top, you scoffed when you saw what was inside.

"A candle?"

He snorted. "Not just any candle." He took it from your hands, showing the label. "This is a WoodWick Sagewood scented candle." He placed it back in your hands. "It's exactly the same as the one that burned my bedroom down."

You laughed at this, gawking at the glass in your hand. "And why did you want me to have one?"

Suddenly, he looked unsure. "I had a really cool, witty reason, when I picked it up at the store. I can't seem to remember now, though." He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "To be honest, it's my favorite scented candle."

You nodded, recognizing the sweet gesture. "Thank you."

It fell quiet between you both, and you put the candle back in the bag.

"So." You set the bag down on the step of the engine, and recrossed your arms.

"So." He repeated. His eyes darted around the bay, taking all of it in. "You're a fire fighter, huh?"

This made you outright cackle. "Yeah? What gave me away?"

He sighed out a defeated chuckle. "Yeah, that was a dumb question."

"Why did you come here, Noah? Just to give me a candle?"

He shook his head, hands buried in his pockets once again. "No, I uh," He took a deep breath and looked at you. "I came to ask you on a date."

Your eyebrows shot up. "A date?"

"Mhm." Noah chewed on the inside of his cheek.

"Noah, you know nothing about me."

He leaned forward for emphasis. "Right, usually what people do on dates - " He put a hand up to gesture between you. "get to know each other."

Well, hard to argue that.

"I mean, you don't know if I'm married or have a boyfriend."

"Do you?" He didn't seem bothered by your statement, his question sounding more like a formality.

"Well, no."

"You're allowed to say no." He smiled, then. It was genuine, and it made one of your own creep onto your face.

"I wasn't going to."

6 Months Later

"Noah, it's not that big of a deal." You trudged through the airport toward the Delta desk, and stood behind at least twelve people, your phone pressed firmly to your cheek.

"It's a huge deal, babe!" He sounded so exasperated. "I haven't seen you in two weeks, and I miss you!"

You giggled, leaning your head back. "I miss you too, honey, but shit happens. I'll catch the next available flight, and I'll be there before you know it."

"Think they'll have another one today?" You glanced around the airport, seeing the groups of displaced, disgruntled passengers.

"With this storm? It's doubtful. I overheard one of the workers saying winds were as strong as one hundred miles per hour."

"Okay, but once you're up at altitude, none of that matters."

You rolled you eyes. "Can't get up to altitude if the plane blows out of the sky, babe."

"I know, I know. I'm just pissed off."

The line was crawling, but you were slowly getting closer to the desk.

"It's alright. I'll make something happen, okay? As soon as I have news, I'll call you?"

"Okay, babe. I love you."

Your face blushed. You still weren't used to that. "Love you too."

You disconnected the call and took a deep breath.

The woman working for Delta Airlines looked as stressed as a person could be without physically combusting.

"Hello, are you here about the cancelled flight?" You just nodded, showing your boarding pass on your phone. "Okay. Well, all of our flights have been cancelled until further notice. We have no way of knowing when the storm will die down, so right now, we're not rescheduling any flights. We're only offering a credit."

You squeezed your eyes shut, trying not to get too upset. "Do you know if any other airlines are still booking flights?"

She shook her head. "We've all been grounded until the wind dies down."

Shrugging hard, you gave her your information so she could put in for the credit, and walked away from the desk. You decided not to call Noah back right away, needing to deal with the irritation and disappointment yourself first.

You called an Uber outside the airport, and made your way the short distance back to the apartment. After you had huffed your bag down onto the couch, you sat on the edge of your bed, allowing yourself a moment to sulk.

The last six months had been a dream. After your first date with Noah, which included a dinner at a beachside restaurant in Santa Monica and arcade games at the pier, you and him were absolutely intertwined together. The clicking noise you made was loud and strong, keeping you both in a stranglehold over each other.

As different of people as you were, you learned that Noah was not nearly as different from you as you had assumed. He grew up in West Virginia, a rough life, dropped out of high school, joined a band young, and ended up a successful rockstar after twelve years of hard, rigorous work.

Your life had been quite the opposite. You had lived in Los Angeles your entire life, namely Orange County. You lived with both parents, who were mostly well-off with high powered careers. They wanted a lot for you, growing up. Education. Career. Family. Marriage.

You wanted none of it. You wanted to be free. You wanted to get tattoos and go to festivals in the desert. You wanted to know who you were spiritually. You wanted to paint and sketch. You wanted to find out who you were.

Somewhere along the way, in your twenties, you learned more about yourself than you ever wanted. You learned that you trusted too easy. You were easily persuaded and pressured. You weren't prepared for the life you thought you wanted.

So, like a lot of young, naive women do in the city of angels, you got run down, stepped on, and burned out. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, that's what it was all about right?

It wasn't until your last relationship ended - badly - that you decided you were done. You wanted chaos, but the kind you could stop. The kind you could help. You found firefighting. It was a big adjustment, but you took to it well. You did the courses, you took the classes. In less than a year, you were out in the field with all the men, running into the blaze and extinguishing the flames.

It was incredible.

So, where did that leave you and Noah? You worked thirty-six hour shifts with eight hours in between until your mandatory two days off every ten days. It was grueling, but he stuck it out. He'd visit you on your overnights when it had been quiet, bringing food and promising not to get in the way. When you had your days off, he typically kidnapped you, holding you hostage in his bed for the duration.

Noah's life was busy as well, constantly touring, it felt like. Currently, he was in Philadelphia, a show later that evening. You had taken your seven vacation days and had planned to fly out to Pennsylvania, travel with him to his next two shows, and fly home with him from New York City. He had four weeks off before he had to head over to Europe, and he claimed to spend as much of that time with you as humanly possible.

Imagine how much of a kink this storm put in his plans.

The phone rang on the other end while you waited for him to pick up. You laid flat on your back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

"Hey! I go on stage in ten minutes. Did you rebook the flight?"

You sighed hard. "No."

"No? Why not?"

"Noah, all of the flights are grounded because of the storm. They don't know when they'll be back up, so they wouldn't rebook me."

You could hear the agitation leaking out of his voice. "God damn it!"

"Don't get too worked up before the show. I'll be out there as soon as I can, okay?"

"Has there been any news of how long this shit's supposed to go on for?"

You threw an arm over your eyes. "The weather report I read says it could last through Monday."

"Monday?! We're supposed to be on our way home by then!"

Pinching the bridge of your nose, you kept your voice even. "Noah, please don't yell at me."

"Doesn't this bother you?" He was frustrated, and you knew that it wasn't your fault. You knew that he knew that, but it didn't help the feeling that he was angry with you for something completely out of your control.

"Of course it does, babe, but there's nothing I can do." You sat up, crossing your legs in front of you.

He scoffed on the other end. "Yeah, alright, whatever."

You rolled your eyes. "Baby," He didn't say anything. "I get you're mad, but please don't take it out on me?"

"I got to go."

Your heart sunk a little, a stinging in your eyes emerging. "Okay. Have a great show okay?" Again, he didn't respond. "I love you, Noah."

"Yep. Bye." And the line went dead.

The night had drug on. You waited as patiently as you could for the concert to end, and to give Noah enough time to relax before you tried reaching out. After three hours, you decided enough time had passed, and you dialed him.

But he didn’t answer.

Instead of blowing up his phone like your internal anxiety was trying to convince you to, rather, you decided to send him a simple text.

You: Hey, I know you’re upset, baby. I’m sorry this didn’t work out the way we wanted, but just know that I love you, and I will see you as soon as I possibly can. Call me when you get a chance. ❤️

You dropped your phone on the bed and sighed loudly, walking over to the couch to begin unpacking your bag.

By the end of the night, you hadn’t had a single text or call from Noah, so you had tried to accept that he just wasn’t going to reach out anymore tonight. You’d try again tomorrow. You loved Noah, more than you could’ve ever expected, but the speed at which he threw a tantrum like a child was a turn off, and you were combatting the urge to cringe at the thought.

You had only been together six months. You had no baggage together. You lived apart. You had no pets or plants together. You didn’t have any financial ties. If things didn’t work out, it was as simple as goodbye.

And as much as you loved Noah, you couldn’t help but feel the tug inside, reminding you that this wasn’t the first fit Noah had thrown over not getting his way.

He wanted to take you out for your birthday six weeks ago. You didn’t know where, it was a surprise. But you ended up called in to work, and it was an all hands on deck. Forest fire. They were everywhere lately, and when you were called, it was non-negotiable.

Noah hadn’t taken that too well. He begged you not to go, asked you to fake sick or pretend to be out of town. That was not happening. You had a job - an important job. It wasn’t as if you didn’t go in, the work would be there tomorrow. This wasn’t cancelling a concert. There were lives on the line.

He didn’t comprehend that in the moment, and stormed out of your apartment. He didn’t call you until the following day, after you had been out for sixteen hours and had finally fallen into your pillows to sleep for five hours before going back out. He was apologizing frantically, and begging you to forgive him.

And truly? You were too tired not to. You let him come over and snuggle you a while before you had to leave again.

Then there was the time you were too sick to come over. That was earlier on in the relationship, so his reaction was slightly less dramatic, but it was still frustrating nonetheless.

You had been fevering and vomiting the entire day. It was one of your off-days, and he wanted to you to go to his place to watch movies and whatever else came with that. In the state you were in, it was entirely out of the question. Besides the fact that you were likely contagious, you were disgusting. Your hair was greasy from sweat, your skin was a sickening pale, and you spent 80% of the day hugging the toilet and emptying your stomach violently.

Rather than throwing an all out fit, he just resorted to texting you here and there to check in, but kept his messages cold. He showed up the following day with supplies, mask on, and claimed he really didn’t care if he got sick or not.

You overlooked it.

There were small things that happened here and there, but it never was enough to stick out in your mind.

But tonight, this just felt off-putting. More so than before.

You tossed and turned on the mattress, your heart begging for your phone to chime, proving your assumptions were wrong…but it never did.

As your mind drifted closer to sleep, the memories began rolling into your brain.

“Noah, I don’t understand why you can’t just tell me where we’re going!”

His lips were plucked up into a playful smirk. “Wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you!”

He guided your hand, trailing you behind him, and trekking through the trees around you.

“Are you bringing me out here to murder me?”

He turned, stopping, look of absolute horror on his face. “Who told you?!”

You lowered your lids and shifted your weight one one leg, rolling your eyes. He giggled in response.

“Babe, just trust me, okay?”

You continued to follow him deeper into the forest, losing your way from the path further and further.

“We’re lost, aren’t we?”

Before you could get a response, you hit a break in the treeline, and a large clearing laid out before you. It was beautiful and picturesque, looking to span about a square quarter mile. So out of place among the expanse of greenery, you gazed around, taking it in.

“Oh wow.” The air in the clearing was sweeter than the woods, and you could see white butterflies catching the light pooling on the grass.

“Come on.” He was still pulling you toward the far side of the clearing.

At the edge, he stopped abrupt, and gestured with a hand toward some large stones near the trees. Taking a step closer, you could see more clearly that the moss-covered fixtures weren’t any stones.

They were headstones.

Stepping forward carefully, you pulled a large arm of vines off of one that was cross-shaped, revealing the crumbling rock, engraving nearly illegible. You took a step back, and noticed rows and rows of them along the trees. They blended in naturally, overtaken by the Earth.

“Noah,” You turned to look at him. “whose graves are these?”

He shrugged his shoulders, walking up to one that was broken in half.

“I found this clearing about a year ago while hiking. There’s twenty-two graves here. Most of the etchings are illegible or worn off now, but the couple I found date back to the early 1900s.” He approached one in particular, smaller than the ones around it.

Squatting down, he brushed the moss off of the plaque and read it aloud.

“Emily Wheatley. Born 1913. Died 1918.”

The thought made your heart hurt. “She was five…”

Your voice was somber.

“Yeah, from what I gather, these are all people who died during the Spanish Flu pandemic.” He patted the tiny stone with care, and stood back up. “Back in that time, so many people were dying so fast, a lot of folks just ended up buried on their own properties or in their communities. Maybe that’s what happened here?”

You nodded, bending down to another grave, running your hand over the decaying concrete. “These tombstones look handmade.”

He nodded. “I bet they were.”

Your fingers touched the cracks of the stones, feeling the lives that were laid to rest here. Such a beautiful place to spend eternity.

“These are incredible, Noah.”

Looking up at him, he smiled down at you. “I’d hoped you’d like it.”

Your eyes danced from each grave. “Like it? It’s so serene. So stunning. I could stay here for hours. I love it.”

“I love you.”

If you had been any more entranced with your surroundings, you would’ve missed it. It was so quiet and uncertain.

Your eyes peered up to Noah, who looked wrecked with nerves.

“What?” You stood, looking directly at him.

“I love you, Y/N.”

Your bottom lip twitched, a heavy tingling sensation covering your face.

“I love you too.”

His eyes lit up, but he didn’t smile yet.

“Really?”

All you had to do was kiss him. That’s all you could manage, overwhelmed with emotion. His lips pressed against yours, hands wrapping around you and lifting your feet off the ground.

His admission was so raw, in this beautiful, wonderful place of death and rest. You had never felt more sure about anything other than the fact that you loved Noah, and you would never stop.

The ringtone sounded like a shrill scream, waking you from the memory that was laid softly in your brain, buzzing you in your sleep and helping you forget your worries or concerns.

For a split second, your heart leapt, thinking only one person could be calling you at whatever hour this is, right? The clock on your nightstand told you it was four-thirty in the morning.

Your hand scrambled to your bedside table to answer the call, failing to even check the screen for who was calling. You were so sure of who it was…

“Hello?”

“Y/L/N?” Ramos’ gruff voice rang through the receiver. You flopped your body back onto the bed, internally groaning.

“Yes sir?” 

“Did you make it out of town before the flights were grounded?”

You scrubbed a hand over your eyes. “No, sir. I was going to try and get another today.”

“No dice, unfortunately. The storm’s gotten worse.”

This time, your displeasure came out audibly. “Lovely.”

“Sorry about that, kid. But, listen, we have an all hands situation.”

You sat up now, already swinging your legs off of the mattress.

“Yeah? Where?”

“The Cajon Pass. LA Fire’s called in hands in six additional counties. They’ve so far had over a hundred acres burnt and the wind is causing a rapid spread.”

You stood in front of the bathroom mirror, and put your phone down on the counter, now on speaker.

“Any aerial attempts yet?”

“Mhm. They’ve dropped 4,000 gallons so far.”

Sucking your teeth, you let your head fall back. “Damn.” You began running a brush through your hair. “Alright, when do we head out?”

“Thirty minutes.”

You picked up your phone, staring at the screen. “I’ll be there.”

You ended the call, and quickly swiped to your home screen. 

No missed calls. No missed texts.

Despite the volume of people riding in the engine, the air was silent. It always was when you headed to the site of a wildfire. No matter how much you thought you knew about it, it was always worse than you were expecting, so you never found any lightheartedness in the atmosphere.

You sat next to Ramos as he tightened the boots on his feet. Your back was leaned heavy against the side of the rig, the bench bouncing beneath you as you headed toward the approaching disaster.

Your mind should’ve been running through the brief again, or reciting your safety protocols. But you were too focused elsewhere.

You couldn’t stop thinking about Noah. 

Fingers hooked onto the gold chain you wore around your neck, the small glass stone smooth as you twirled it back and forth. The necklace was newer to you, only haven been gifted it two months ago before Noah left on tour, but even then - you hadn’t removed it once.

It was a custom piece. The glass was hand-blown and a beautiful shade of amber. It was clouded with ash - specifically from burnt sage. Noah had told you it was a representative of the both of you, and it signified that although you had met under such unfortunate circumstances, you had managed to find something so stunning in the process - much like the stone.

While thinking of this, you felt conflicted. Emotions over your relationship with Noah were so back and forth, frustrating you. 

The look on your face must have been telling, because a hand dropped on your knee, and you looked up to Ramos.

“You alright there, kid?”

Nodding, you gave him a half-smile. “Yeah. Just a lot on my mind.”

“Bummed about having to change your plans?”

Shrugging your shoulders, you ran your palms over the tops of your thighs.

“Yeah.”

“That’s not too convincing. Weren’t you going to see Noah back East?”

“Right.”

He leaned back, turning his head to look directly at you. “Was he upset?”

Lifting your eyebrows, you breathed heavily. “Oh, yeah.”

“Well, hopefully once this fucking wind dies down, you can head out there.”

You let your eyes fall to the window on the opposing side of the engine, letting your vision unfocus.

“Or not.”

This caught him, his eyebrow raising suspiciously.

“Oh?”

Over the years, you’d come to learn that Ramos was more than just your Captain at times. He also had become one of the few people in your life that you could consider a friend. He was a staggering twelve years older than you, so he gave an older-sibling, protective type persona. It made life easier when you had a safe place to come to with your personal problems.

You sighed heavily, rubbing your temples. “I can’t say for sure if I I’ll be joining Noah.”

“Because of the transportation issues?”

Shaking your head, you fiddled with you fingers in your lap. “Not just that. He hasn’t even texted me back since last night.”

He grunted. “Why? Was he mad at you?”

“I don’t know if he was mad at me, but I know he felt like I didn’t care that our plans were cancelled. Which is ridiculous, you know that.” You looked up at him, and he nodded in return.

“Right.” He gave a short response so he could leave space for you to continue.

“So I don’t fucking get why he catches such a fucking attitude with me!” You slapped a hand down on your leg in irritation. “Like, who does he think he is? I didn’t cause the God damn storm! I didn’t force the planes down on the ground! I wanted to see him just as badly! I’m just an adult who understands that throwing a tantrum gets us nowhere, so fuck me, right?”

Letting out a hard breath you had been holding, you let the words vibrate off of you, lifting a weight off of your spine you didn’t notice before.

He chuckled low, staring down at you. “How’d that feel?”

You had your eyes closed, enjoying the lighter feeling. “Good. I had been holding it in.”

“As usual.” He bumped your shoulder, making you look up at him. “Give him a little time, Y/N. He’ll come around. He always does.”

You shrugged. “I know he does. But how many times is he going to do this? It’s stupid, and it makes me anxious for literally no reason every time. Sure, he says he’s sorry after, but that’s doesn’t erase the feeling.”

Considering this, Ramos nodded his head. “That’s valid. You know better than I do that maturity doesn’t exactly come naturally to us men. He’s, what, twenty-nine?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Right, so he’s practically a teenager, still. I’m not saying that excuses his behavior. Not at all. But I’m just saying, I was very similar at that age. I get it.”

You shrugged. “How long did it take you to quit acting like a child?”

He laughed again. “Ask my wife, and she’ll tell you I never did.”

You smirked, your hand finding your necklace again, twirling it around in your fingers. His words permeated you.

Maybe he was right. Maybe you just needed to give Noah some time to navigate his own emotions. At some point, preferably soon, you’d need to talk to him so you both could work out the behavior. Maybe there was something you were doing that could be improved as well as him? 

Maybe the consideration of ending things was a bit premature.

Pulling out your phone, you checked and saw your messages had still been unread. Shaking off the sinking feeling, you typed out a quick message.

You: Hey babe. I got called out to a wildfire in the Cajon Pass. Flights are still grounded. I’m so sorry this didn’t go the way we wanted, but when I get home, I need to hear your voice. I know you’re upset, but I really think we should talk. I’ll call you as soon as I’m headed home. I love you, Noah. I hope you had a great show, and slept well. Talk to you soon.

Noah stared out of the window, rain pelting the glass, creating designs in the cityscape below. 

“You going sit there and brood, or are you going to come eat?" Folio's voice bounced off of the glass he stared into. He wanted nothing more than to tell him to fuck right off and not bother responding, but he knew that wasn't going to get him anywhere he wanted to be.

With a huff, he stood up out of the chair, and stalked over to the table the rest of the guys sat at. Nick was shoveling bacon into his mouth while Jolly sipped coffee from his mug. Folio was finishing off the last of his pancakes with urgent bites.

Noah stared down at his breakfast, grimacing at the plate. He wasn't hungry, but if he didn't eat now, he couldn't even guess when he would be willing to try again. Reluctantly, he picked up his fork and dug into the scrambled eggs.

"Dude, if you're so bent out of shape over it, why don't you just call her?" Jolly set his cup down and leaned back in his chair.

"If she wanted to talk, she would've called. She's probably pissed at me." Noah rolled the bland food around in his mouth, setting his fork down and groaning. "She should be. I was such a dick."

"Or," Nick spoke up from across the table, looking up at Noah with deep seated, irritated eyes. "she's waiting for your tantrum to be over, and for you to call her. You are the one who hung up on her, remember?" His best friend was the least patient with Noah's temper.

"Alright, I get it, okay? I already said I was a dick." Noah threw himself back in the chair, snarling back at Nick.

Nick, however, wasn't having it. Instead, he set his cup down and crossed his arms over his chest. "Do you get it? Or are you just saying that until the next time you act like a baby?"

The words came off Noah's lips like venom. "The fuck did you just say to me?"

"Let's keep it calm, guys." Jolly's Dad voice started emerging. Folio eye's flashed between his two brothers anxiously.

"You fucking heard me, dude. I'm so sick of your mood swings every time you decide to be an ass to her. That girl isn't going to put up with you forever, you know that?" Nick was nonchalant in his tone, but his words were just as sharp as his counterpart's.

Noah stood, catching the edge of his plate and making a sharp clattering on the table.

"Fuck you, dude!" He tossed a stray apple from the fruit bowl in the center of the table at Nick. "You don't know shit!"

Nick caught the apple, standing nearly in sync with Noah.

"No? I haven't known you longer than everyone else here? I haven't watched you drive away girl after girl after girl?" He gestured with his hands in a circular motion.

Noah scoffed. "What difference does it make to you? It's not your relationship." His hands were balled into fists at his sides.

Nick snorted, incredulous. "Well, for starters, every time this happens, we all have to deal with your bullshit attitude!" His eyebrows raised, and the other two men at the table looked away.

"On top of that," Nick kept speaking before Noah could rebut his argument. "this one actually fucking loves you, you jackass." These words came out just a touch softer, and Noah deflated like a punctured balloon. His shoulders fell in, signaling his instant defeat.

Nick continued. "Y/N is a rad fucking girl, man. We all like her." Jolly and Folio nodded in agreement. "We don't want you to fuck this one up. She deserves better than you throwing a fit like a toddler when you don't get your way."

That stung.

Noah didn't enjoy being this way. He never tried to hurt you. If there was one thing that came with a lack of upbringing and a tumultuous adolescence, it was a complete and total absence of understanding emotion.

He didn't know how to deal with it. Anger? Sadness? Happiness? Those were - for lack of a better term - big fucking emotions, and he never knew where to put them. Reigning them in was not something he was fluent in at all, and he hated that about himself.

Every time this happened, and he found himself lashing out or turning cold toward you, he told himself that was the last time. He wouldn't keep doing this. It wasn't fair to you that he didn't know a better way to express himself than to take it out on you. To Nick's credit, he was right. It was surprising you had stayed.

"I don't-" Noah cut himself off, biting his own tongue before another excuse rolled off of it. He instead opted for the far more bitter option. "I know."

He shrugged back down into his chair, face falling into his hands. "I can't keep doing this. I'm going to lose her if I do." His words came out muffled, but they had heard him.

"Just call her, man." Nick's voice was relaxed, now. Back to it's normal cadence.

"I'm going to." He stood again, heading for the other side of the room where his phone sat on the bedside table. He picked it up, noting still no notifications on the screen. His insides clenched.

"What do I even say?" He chewed his bottom lip.

"Tell her you forgot to take your phone off Do Not Disturb after the show." Folio said around the food in his mouth.

Noah rolled his eyes. "I don't think lying to her is the right choice, bro."

Folio just lifted his shoulders, smirking.

Swiping open the phone, it opened to his banking app, which was the last thing he had used before he fell asleep the night before. But before he could close it, against the dark background of the screen, he saw it. Upper left corner of the screen.

The tiny white moon.

"Oh fuck!"

Nick's face fell. "You fucking didn't."

"I always turn it off! I never forget!"

Jolly spoke up. "You were worked up last night..."

Noah swiped to the home screen, seeing the 2 icon on top of the message app. He also saw the signal of missed calls. His fingers ripped through his hair, and he stood up.

"At least you're not lying to her!" Folio added as Noah pressed the phone to his face, immediately calling you back.

Your phone rang, but he was eventually met with your voicemail.

"Fuck! What time is it in California?"

"Seven." Jolly responded.

"She's probably sleeping." Noah maneuvered to the messages, seeing the message from last night first, his heart sinking.

He felt like a combination of dirt and that residue that gum leaves on the bottom of your shoe.

He then saw the message from this morning, and sank down onto the end of the bed, staring blankly.

"What's wrong, dude?" Nick nodded to Noah, trying to get his attention.

"There's uh," He tried to calm his racing thoughts. "there's a fire in the Cajon Pass. She got called down to help."

"How long ago did she text you?"

Noah sighed heavily. "Two hours ago. She's probably just getting started out there."

His fingers began frantically typing a response to you.

Noah: Hey baby. I'm so fucking sorry. My phone was on DND overnight, and I'm such an idiot and didn't turn it off. I'm an idiot for more than just that. I'm sorry for how I acted. I know that wasn't okay, and I can't even begin to tell you how awful I feel. I promise I will make it up to you as soon as humanly possible. Please call me as soon as you can. Please be safe. I love you, more than you could ever know.

"How long does she usually stay out?"

Folio and Jolly stared at Noah, the sounds of all of the people moving around the room blurring together as he stared at the unread message he had sent over twelve hours prior.

"It really varies. Sometimes hours? Days? Depends on the fire."

Folio was staring down at his phone now, eyes fixed on something on the screen. His elbow tapped Jolly, handing him the device. Jolly's eyes scanned the text on the phone, and sighed hard. This all went unseen to Noah, who was just spacing out at his own text.

"Why don't you try calling again?" Folio chimed.

"I've tried to call six times." His voice was solemn.

"Have you called the station?" Noah's eyes flicked up to Nick, who was now staring down at him from where he stood directly in front of his legs.

Noah hadn't considered it, but what could it hurt?

The line rang twice before Reed answered. "Station 125. Is this an emergency?"

"It's not. I don't think. Reed, is that you?"

"Who's calling?"

Noah tried to keep his patience. "It's Noah."

"Oh." The man on the other line paused. "Hey Noah, hang on, okay?"

For a split second, he felt bad. He was calling her job. They had more important things to worry about than him and his paranoia.

This only lasted that split second, when the line picked back up.

"Noah?" The deep, raspy voice was unmistakable.

"Ramos?" Why was he talking to your boss, and not you? "Hey, is Y/N around?"

"She, uh" He cleared his throat. "she's not right now."

"Did she go home already?"

The line was silent. Eerily blank, white noise buzzing through the receiver.

"Are you in town, Noah? Can you come to the station?"

Something in Noah's stomach twisted hard, the little food he had eaten that day threatening to make a reappearance.

His words. His tone.

"I'm in New York." Was all Noah could get out without retching.

Ramos sighed. "If it's possible, I think it's best you get here soon."

"Ramos..." Noah was standing, back stiff as drywall. "Where is she?"

"Listen, I'm going to tell you this, but I need you to stay calm, alright?"

Noah didn't audibly respond, praying he would just continue.

"We don't know exactly where she is."

The ground fell out under his feet. Noah was free-falling through space and time, only the words swirling around him.

"What?" The word came out as a breath, or what was supposed to be one.

"The fire had spread to several neighborhoods. She went out with a unit lead by LA Fire. There were some collapses, and they're still trying to get everyone evacuated and located."

English was no longer Noah's first language. It was panic.

"What?!" His voice topped out, cracking hard at the end. "What do you mean?! Was she in a building when it collapsed?! Is she hurt?!"

"Noah, calm down."

"Calm down?!" Hands were on his shoulders, trying to physically restrain his arms flailing. "Why are you in Calabasas?! Why aren't you out there?!"

"Noah, I had to come back and get some food and rest. I'm headed back out in five minutes to rejoin search and rescue. We're going to find her."

The water flowing down Noah's cheeks went entirely unnoticed. He couldn't form any more words.

"Like I said before, it's best if you get here soon."

East to West Coast flights are already long. However, they tend to be much longer when you're working hard to not go into full panic attack mode.

Noah hated flying. Despite Nick being sat next to him, soothing small circles into the back of his hand every time he would begin to tremble, he was a semi-catatonic mess the entirety of the plane ride.

It wasn't until they were pulling up off of the highway, right to the barricades set up by the fire engines, did he feel himself come back to life. Ramos met them at the edge of the blockade, waving them through. He then took them on a short drive in his Jeep through the hills. What started as plush greenery, soon turned to charred, blackened, ashy mess. The sky grayed over them, the rising sun not having a prayer of breaking through the deep hue of sobering truth in front of them.

The small, hillside town hidden within the Pass was completely leveled. Buildings barely stood, crumbling horrifically around them.

"Now listen, you two will do as I say, when I say it, is that understood?" His voice was stern, all business.

Nick answered audibly, but Noah just shook his head as he watched the destroyed town around him. Civilians sat in ambulances, wrapped in blankets. Firemen in all different uniform colors roamed the streets around them. It resembled a warzone.

"How did this happen?" Noah spoke against the glass.

"We haven't determined the cause yet, but our best guess is a series of bonfires. Add the high winds?"

Noah's spine tingled at the thought.

"Now, listen, you two are here on a volunteer basis. There will be waivers to sign, and we'll get you some gear. I'm going to take you to the neighborhood where Y/N was last seen. We're looking for any and all civilians. Alive, or otherwise."

Noah's neck snapped to his left, staring at the large man next to him.

"Otherwise?" He swallowed hard. "People died?"

"Seventeen confirmed deaths so far. Eighty-six injured."

Noah's heart rate sped up to an alarming pace. "God."

A hand clapped over his shoulder. "We'll find her." Nick's voice rang in his ear.

Noah walked through the strip mall, poker in hand, and overturning debris. So far, he had found a lot of nothing. A few burnt rats, a lot of smoldering wood from building rafters. No sign of life in any of the shops he had wandered into, Nick on his heels.

"I don't think anyone's in here." His brother's voice rang behind him. He sucked his teeth.

"I don't think so either."

The radio on the heavy coat he wore began blaring, startling him.

"We've got six survivors, four are critical." The voice rattled off the location, which was less than a quarter mile from where they were currently searching. Their eyes stared at each other, before they made a dash for the exit, headed for the street toward the area where the people were found.

Noah ran toward the ambulances, a heavy hand catching him in the chest. Peering down at him was Ramos, a serious scowl crossing his face.

"Wait here." He let out a breath. "We've got her."

His breathing picked up, and he removed his respirator. "She's alive?"

"She's hanging on. EMTs said she's got full thickness burns to her legs, face, and back. She didn't have her helmet on."

His eyes caught the ambulance leaving, sirens screaming. "Where are they taking her?"

"UCI. She'll be taken to the remote area where she can be airlifted."

Noah began ripping the gear off. "I've got to go with her."

Noah didn't like airplanes. He really didn't like helicopters.

In all fairness, this had been his first time on one, but given the circumstances? He hated them. They were terrifying, but it didn't matter.

He stared at the stretcher, your body covered in heat-protecting blankets. What little of your face he could see under the bandages was charred, blistering and bleeding. It made his heart invert, his entire being hurting at the sight. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have had the audacity to hang up on you, give you attitude, and then not return your calls? It was unforgivable. He deserved for you to hate him. Leave him. Never want to see him again.

But all he could do was watch you. Listen to the heart monitor beep to remind him you were still here.

How could this have happened? You were so smart. You had taken so many courses. Why would you take off your helmet and respirator, exposing your face to the flames? Your jacket was found with you, and was one of the only ways they were able to identify you.

Aside from your hair, build, and general appearance, you were unrecognizable. Your body was mauled so badly by the flames.

The hospital staff frenzied around you, ripping your hand out of his without question, and whisked you to the ICU. He was told he had to wait, and if that wasn't the most devastating thing he had heard...

Nick, Ramos, and Reed all joined him at the hospital an hour later, as quickly as they could. They received updates every few hours. You had stabilized quickly, and they were keeping you under observation, treating the smoke inhalation and infection risk before moving you to the burn unit.

Jolly and Folio showed up six hours later, having caught a later flight than Noah and Nick. All of the men sat, deathly silent, until a nurse called Noah's name.

He walked over to her too quickly, but she was unbothered.

"Mr. Sebastian," She held a clipboard in her small hands. "Y/N will be moved to the burn unit as soon as a room becomes available."

"When can I see her?" His words were shaky, his hands knotting in the hair on top of his head.

"The doctor has advised she can have up to two visitors." Her eyes glanced back at the group sat behind Noah. "You have to change into sterile clothing that we can provide. The risk of infection is extreme."

Noah nodded. He looked back at Ramos, who was now standing behind him. "Okay, we'll go in."

She smiled sweetly. "Follow me."

The nurse led Noah and Ramos to a small locker room, sealed packages of lime green scrubs laid on the bench.

"Once you're done, come to the nurse's station."

Noah changed as quickly as possible, sitting on the bench while he waited for the other man to finish. He was annoyed at how long it was taking, but he used this moment to take a deep breath, leaning his head against the lockers behind him.

"It's good that you came, man." The voice that came out was so tired. It sounded the same way Noah felt.

"Of course I did. How could I not?"

Ramos chuckled at Noah's humorless tone. "I just mean, I know it'll mean a lot to her, that's all."

"I love her." His words weren't spoken to convince or persuade. They were just fact. They hung in the air on an invisible thread.

Ramos stood, staring at him, a blank expression on his face. "She loves you too. Don't forget that."

With that, they both made their way back to the nurse. Gloved and masks on, they were allowed behind the large glass door. A heavy white blanket pulled up over you to your shoulders. Bandages now covered the entirety of your face, small amount of hair sticking out in random places. Your body was propped up slightly on the side, likely due to the burns covering your back. Small spots of blood were etched into the pillow and sheets beneath you. Your eyes were closed, and a large tube was jutting from your lips.

Both men had been instructed not to touch you. Noah felt the physical ache in his fingers to not reach out and touch what little unmarred skin was left, signaling somehow that he was there. He was never leaving.

Ramos took a heavy seat in the chair next to your bed, staring down at you, disbelief painting his features.

"I've been at this job for twenty-one years, Noah."

The deep brown eyes flashed over to him, now wet with tears.

"I'll tell you, this never gets easier."

Noah tears fell freely, his hand bracing on the rail on the side of the bed.

Hours passed, Noah and Ramos unmoving except for when the nurse came in to check your vitals. He had been told you would not be allowed visitors in the burn unit, so he was getting as much time as he could with you.

He was, however, worn down.

After a while, Ramos stood, stretching his arms over his head. "Noah?"

He tore his eyes off of you, staring up at your friend. "Take a minute. You look like you're about ready to fall over."

Shaking his head, Noah breathed for the first time in what felt like days. "I'm fine."

"At least see if they've got a pillow. You can recline this chair and try to relax."

His stare challenged Ramos, but was met with an even more intimidating glare.

"I'm not asking."

After a moment, and an unwavering stare, Noah finally receded, backing slowly from the room. Once the door slid shut behind him, he let his shoulders sink, ripping the gloves from his sweaty palms, chucking them in the bin.

He stepped over to the nurse's desk, smiling as genuinely as he could.

"You wouldn't by chance have a pillow?"

Her grin was warm, her small frame standing. "Of course, honey. Give me a second."

She disappeared from her chair, pacing to a small room next to the desk.

Noah's eyes wandered as he waited, his teeth ripping at the dried skin on his bottom lip. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a shiny plastic on the desk under the counter. His tall stance leaned over, hand reaching down to run his fingers over the smooth bag. It was clear, and he could see the shredded remains of a navy blue t-shirt, yellow pants, and...

A stone?

His palm gripped the bag, lifting it over the counter and up closer to his face. Inside the sealed plastic, he could see it shining back at him, small amount of soot coating it.

Your necklace.

The nurse returned, two pillows and a folded blanket under her arm, pulling him from his focus.

"Hey, uh," He set the bag down on the counter. "these are her belongings. Can I open this?" He pressed a finger into the bag.

She adjusted the glasses on her face, and pulled the bag away from him, looking down at the label. Her lips puckered, eyes reading the words.

"I'm sorry, honey. This is someone else's."

Noah's brain blanked out.

"No. No, this is her stuff. That's her necklace."

She shook her head. "No, dear. This came in with someone else."

His hand slammed down on the counter with a sharp thud, making the nurse visibly jump.

"No, no! This is hers. I gave her that necklace!"

Her eyes deadpanned at him.

"Sweetheart, I think you're confused. This came in hours before she did, with another person."

Noah's eyes stared deep at her, working to make sense of her words.

"What do you mean? Who had her necklace?"

She sighed hard. "I can't tell you anything about other patients."

His voice snapped. "No one else could have that necklace! It was made for her!"

"Mr. Sebastian, I need you to calm down."

"Who had the necklace, damn it! Those are her clothes! That's her stuff!"

The nurse squeezed her eyes for a moment. "You're certain?"

"Where is the person who came in with these?!" His hand snatched the bag from her hand.

"No, you have to be mistaken, Mr. Sebastian. You identified her."

He stopped, heart seizing.

"Where are they?"

"You identified her, right?"

"Where are they?!"

His fingers squeezed the bag until his fingers nearly ripped into it. The nurse, fully stunned, spoke quietly.

"Mr. Sebastian, your girlfriend is in that room. These can't be hers, because these bags," She patted the stack of plastic on the desk. "are on their way to the morgue."

His chest imploded, his knees shaking.

"That's not..." His brain sparked and sizzled at her words.

"That's not hers." The nurse repeated back to him, but he couldn't hear.

He dropped the plastic, and his body turned. His fingers plucked the mask up over his mouth, his eyes wide as saucers as he slid the door open. He could hear the footsteps behind him.

"Ramos?"

A deadly calm fell over Noah, his head quirking to the side.

The man's head picked up from where he was staring down at the bed. "What's going on?"

The nurse behind Noah looked panicked.

"How did you identify her?" Her voice was shaky.

"Her, uh" Ramos stood, his words uncertain. "her coat. Her name is on it."

"And?" Noah was monotone.

"Well," Ramos looked down at the bed, gesturing to it. "look at her."

"Does she have any identifying marks? Scars? Birthmarks? Tattoos?"

"What is going on?" Ramos' voice raised an octave.

"She has a tattoo."

They both turned their heads to look at Noah.

"It's on the back of her right bicep. It's new. We got them together six weeks ago." He felt a tear sliding down his face, absorbing in his mask. "It's a headstone."

The nurse just nodded, padding to the bed, and reaching a gloved hand to pull the blanket down, exposing some of the only untouched skin. Back of the right bicep.

And there it was. Clear as day.

Nothing.

It was instantaneous. No one could have prevented it. Nothing could have stopped it.

Noah collapsed.

One Year Later

Fingertips ran over the stone, smooth and unharmed. Gold chain holding it together. Only one single micro fracture in the glass. It was perfect. It always would be.

His fingers twirled it, knees bouncing up and down, eyes closed and lips moving silently.

'I love you, more than you could ever know.'

"Noah?"

His eyes opened, catching Nick's easy smile looking back at him.

"Ready?" His bass hung comfortably over his chest, ski mask in hand.

Noah's lips lifted, returning his grin.

"Yeah, let's go."

[1-ker0sene-1]

God your blog is fucking SCRUMPTIOUS. If you’re willing could you do something with a reader who has POTS? Much love ❤️

{Thank you so much ♥️ Apologies this took so long! Requests are starting to come out again! I lost all my drafts due to my laptop breaking and had to rewrite 🥹}

Gaz

Honest to god. This man would probably be the absolute best partner for someone with POTS. Whether he was there for your diagnosis or you already had it when you started dating, he wants to help and accommodate the best he can. Kyle would hate for you to feel isolated, trying to match and normalize your routine so you're not alone.

Definitely got you both massive water bottles, the ones that have at the very least sixty ounces. So you can keep drinking and sipping all day and stay hydrated. If you don't feel comfortable going out to a physical therapist? Kyle is researching ALL night how to do gentle therapy at home with you.

Taking care of you is second nature to him. He's constantly thinking about you. When he leaves for deployment he has small meals already prepped in the fridge for you, cleaned the whole house.. leaves sweet notes all over the place reminding you to drink water, get some electrolytes, cool off and get plenty of rest.

"I'll be home soon baby ~K"

"Don't forget to drink your water! Love you pretty girl ~K"

"Rest for me lovie, we'll be doing plenty of 'exercise' when I get back ;) ~K"

Price

Prepared. That is what John is. He wants to be ready if you have a bad day, so he can pamper you as much as he physically can if he cannot immediately whisk away your pain. John definitely moves fast in a relationship, especially if he feels an immediate connection. You're telling him he can take care of you? Of course it's not that he likes that you struggle with the condition, but his love language is definitely acts of service.

" 's no trouble love, house feels empty when you aren't in it anyways. Might as well just stay full time."

You're moving in. He's installing a nice and sturdy shower bench, he's got snacks all around the house for you, he's mixing electrolyte powder in your water. John wants you to thrive more than anything, you're his girl, going to be his wife one day. He still wants you to feel and be independent, if you need he'll go with you to get a mobility aid so you can comfortably go out more.

He's set in his military ways so.. He's somewhat blunt with scheduling. Little reminders all day to drink your water with a kiss to your forehead. When you go out together, he's stashed some instant cold packs and little salt packets in your bag. John often lifts your hand to check your BPM tracker, once he's done he'll kiss your knuckles.

"Look at that darlin' .. Takin' care of yourself so well for me."

Soap

Johnny had quite the habit of being a bit lazy when home from deployment. But then you wandered into his life, he didn't know about your POTS at first. Just figured you also had a busy life and preferred nights in for dates. Then you got more serious in your relationship and opened up to him about your condition. It was an immediate flip of a switch, Johnny became your Johnny.

He wants you to be able to spend your energy doing the things you love, not the simple tasks, especially when he can take care of it. You practically gained a Scottish housewife. He'll shoo you softly away from the dishes, insisting you enjoy your hobbies or rest up so you two can have a nice day out. Laundry, cleaning, making the bed. Bathing you even though you're perfectly capable, definitely not to touch you and get a little handsy-

"I can take care of ye bonnie.. believe me tha more I do the more I fall for ye."

Would say the only somewhat struggle, is overheating at night. Cause you cannot tell me this man doesn't run hot like a heater. And he loves to love you, hold you, touch and feel you. But there's work arounds, a nice AC, and cooling blankets. Besides he sleeps like a rock so once he's out, if you get too hot you can give him a little push off you. Rarely he'll wake up and drawl out whines.

"..miss ye lass.. my arms are useless without ye in them.."

Ghost

Simon never thought of himself as a worrier. He's been through hell and back and not much phases him. But the first time he saw you faint nearly sent him to an early grave, threw whatever was in his hands to dart over to catch you. This was definitely before he really started to understand the seriousness of POTS. Now it's constantly on his mind, especially the moments in the day when he's not right there with you.

He doesn't want you to feel guilty about his panic, so he's pretty stoic and calm when face to face with you. Definitely goes in with you to every doctor's appointment now, asks questions, how he can help, what to do during your flare ups. You best believe he is taking everything your doctor suggests to heart. Buying you a BPM monitor, knowing Simon he'll probably figure a way to connect it to his phone. So even when he's not with you he knows a little about how you're doing. Statistically it's his most used app now. Once in a while you get a blunt-

"Go rest."

-text from Simon as soon as it gets too high for his liking.

Simon is very adamant that you take plenty of breaks throughout the day, if you're overexerting yourself he's right there with you. An arm winding around you, kissing the nape of your neck after gently brushing your hair aside.

"How you feelin' doll? Let's get you some water and we'll take a break for a while yeah? Put on that show you like and I'll take care of this.."

[sweetwolfcupcake]

An Introduction

Secret Garden

Warning: Controlling behaviour, toxic possessiveness and protectiveness, manipulation, stalking and power-imbalance

An introduction to Yandere Neo Anderson

Unedited.

Also, the GIF is NOT mine, I got it from Google Images. The credit for this creation goes to its rightful owner.

Another complex character.

Before taking the pill, his life was very different. There was nothing noticeable, or extraordinary about him, he did not seem to have any real connection or relationship with people around him and he was like every other average person, the people he passed by on his way to work.

But that was the trick.

Thomas Anderson led a double life even before taking the pill. Being a master hacker showed his extraordinary intelligence and creativity. Neo was the man who wreaked havoc in the matrix despite being still bound to the matrix. Thomas never liked authority, but begrudgingly followed through because he had not yet found the cause to rebel. Neo, on the other hand, showed authority a virtual middle finger to it's face. This was shown in the interrogation scene of 'The Matrix' as well, where Thomas showed the agents a middle finger literally after his identity as Neo was revealed.

Thomas understood that there was something very wrong with the world, but could never put a pin on it. But he was actively searching, seeking, as Neo.

After he woke up, he adopted the name Neo as his real name. Neo, while being the anagram for 'One', also indicated 'new'. After taking the pill, not only was Neo freed, but went through a rebirth. Tearing through his pod. Thomas died with the intake of Redpill. Neo's search had (for the first part), ended. He had the answer to his 'Why'.

Why did he feel off, why did he feel different? Why was he so disturbed and isolated, searching through the net?

And that gave him the key to unlock the powers lying dormant within him. He became 'The One', once he started to believe in himself. And it was portrayed in the fight scene between him and Smith when he declared that his name was 'Neo'. At that moment, he began to believe in himself, his mind and its possibilities.

In the two instalments that followed, Neo grew increasingly confident and self-aware, gaining more powers. He developed this aura of an enlightened detachment around him. Power came from knowledge and Neo embodied that.

However, despite everything, he was not completely selfless. In the second movie, Neo showed his most humane side by defying the 'expected' behaviour from 'the one', and choosing to save his love over humanity. Beneath the layers, after all, Neo was a passionate and dedicated lover who saw his love as the most real out of everything he had seen and faced.

So...A yandere Neo

There are plenty of theories and video essays that actually point out that Neo is more selfish and villainous than he is portrayed. A least in the Matrix Trilogy. So, add some darker shades to this and you have someone who doesn't really care if he saves the world or not if it comes to choosing between love and altruism.

You see, it is hinted in the second movie already that Neo defies everything that is expected of him, his choices are different and while it is possible that choice itself is an illusion, he manages to see through that illusion and shows a metaphorical middle finger to the creator of it all, possibly The Architect.

He does care about humans, he is no Agent Smith. But in the first movie, it is during their fight that Smith says 'You are empty' to Neo, and Neo responds with 'So are you'. This can be a clue that Neo is not completely human. He and Smith are more similar than different. But while Smith is driven by hatred and greed, Neo by love and awareness.

As a yandere, Neo can be a bit delusional, since he is already hero-worshipped, there is a bit of a saviour complex in him and a sense of superiority. But as mentioned before, he is incredibly aware. So, do not take him as a fool, he is extremely difficult to trick. He can see through you, even if not instantly, eventually, he will.

Moreover, his powers grow incredibly as time passes. He has power in the matrix as well as in the real world. While he is wise enough to use the powers responsibly, he is not afraid to use them to show you your place. Beside him, nowhere else.

He will never physically hurt you, no. It even aches him to see tears in your eyes. However, when it comes to manipulating you, be it your perception, using his powers and influence to bend and mould it like he wants you to see...Neo will do that without a second thought.

He sees you as his better half, someone without whom, he can never be 'The One'.

Other than that, he does have the tendency to stalk you. Not always physically but through the matrix and other systems. He loves to watch you. All the time. It's like he is constantly trying to study you, to measure you. He is fascinated, yes, but like it's never enough. You can be doing the most mundane task like brushing your teeth and he is content to watch you do that for hours.

Neo as a lover, is actually a sweetheart. He always takes your comfort into consideration, even when you defy him. He does not like that, sure, but that's simply because he knows more than you, he knows better. If your defiance, though, threatens to break the structure of 'truth' he has built, or directly challenge the foundation of his beliefs or his perception (if you see through him and confront him), he will not hesitate to show you how he is your best bet in the world.

Take that however you like.

His love can be suffocating though. He is paranoid about his protectiveness, and territoriality. His possessiveness does not show because he is rarely challenged. And even if he is, it is seldom over you.

So, he is always keeping an eye on you and loves to hold influence over your decisions. Because in his mind, he is doing this for your own good.

****

Honestly, I find Neo to be an extremely complex character and an even more complex yandere. I might add or omit things here in future, but until then, this is all I have been able to come up with after analysing and discussing with some of my mutuals

[tia-amorosa]

Sunset Died - The younger ones

learning and reminiscing (longer Part)

It's Thursday morning, around 9 o'clock. And school has been back in session for a few days now. Well, a little sparsely, but it was important that the children get a little structure back into their everyday lives. Just hanging around at home or in the neighborhood all day should be stopped for at least a few hours.

Although Detlef has no teacher training, he agreed to do a little teaching with the children. And the kids like him. He found a few textbooks to read to them. And again it was a morning when he was a little annoyed… “Actually, it's called homework, you should do it at home and not here"/ ‘we didn't get it done, it's not that bad, is it?’.

Detlef took a few steps forward, because the comment came from VJ. “So you don't think it's so bad, huh? It makes sense to do your homework straight after school. Your mind is still working then. You can have your free time afterwards"/ ‘I've managed quite well so far without all the school stuff’/ ”That may be. But do you want to be left without a school-leaving certificate?”

“Who cares here whether I have a school-leaving certificate? You can't even get a real job here anymore. Or do you get paid for throwing poo over the fence?"/ ‘VJ…’/ ‘Yeah, what?’. Detlef knew that VJ was a difficult person from time to time. But he kept his composure and spoke to him calmly. “Just try to join in as best you can, okay?”. Some of the young people simply don't see any prospects in this city anymore. Hunting is fun, but it's not everything.

Detlef went to the back again. Because as long as the children were doing their homework, he had little to do. “So… I wouldn't sit there"/ ”Why not? The chair isn't broken, I sat on it yesterday too, so…"/ ‘ehehe, at your own risk…’. Just as he sat down on the chair, the typical sound of a whoopee cushion was heard. This caused laughter throughout the classroom.

Detlef made a serious face until the laughter died down again. “O.K., who was that?”. There was already so little to laugh about in these difficult times. But the children know how to bring out the fun for a moment. “You can guess for a long time, hahaha"/ ‘A prankster doesn't give himself away’. Detlef had to admit defeat. But he didn't want to let the tingling feeling you get before you have to laugh show. So he just smiled a little to himself.

Even some of the younger pupils are not necessarily thrilled that school has started again. They had become accustomed to being outside for long periods of time, playing in the wilderness. It was a big adventure playground. But it was important to get back into a certain routine. “Is it true that a heating stove is being installed here?”.

„Yeah, so that no icicles grow on our asses in winter"/ ‘tihihi, oh God, VJ!’/ „hehe…“/ ”Please, concentrate. When you've finished your homework, we'll talk about this map here”. The students noticed as soon as they entered the classroom that a map of their city was hanging on the wall. “Don't you think that's a bit cheeky? It's just depressing, Mister Teacher”.

Detlef breathed in and out deeply, a little agonized… “I know it's not easy for you … it's not easy for any of us. But we mustn't forget where we come from and that we had good times. I'm sure it will be like that again one day"/ „but definitely not here, it will never look this green again, Mr. Landgraf“/ „I know… let's just go through a few places and talk about it".

Of course, Detlef didn't want to force any of the children to do anything they didn't want to do. So everyone was allowed to decide for themselves whether they wanted to come to the front or stay seated. But Arlo wanted to look at the map. And he recognized some places. “Dad sometimes took me to the little park with the chess tables or we went fishing at the big lake. He always took time for me when he came home”.

After Arlo dared to start, the other children gradually joined in. They looked at the map and a few memories they had of their families gradually emerged. “Mum used to read me stories and I used to help her in the garden…"/ ‘And I sometimes went to the cemetery behind our house at night…’ said Mortimer with a mischievous grin on his face.

Katharina also searched her memories for something she liked doing. “I liked going to the movies… And the swimming pool"/ ‘that still exists’. Katharina wrinkled her nose “yes, but there are all these disgusting plants swimming around now, I don't go in there anymore”. Malcolm looked at the map and saw the large villa where he lived. “I always thought our house was far too big. I like our new one better”.

(Peter) “I was always in the park after school, didn't feel like going home at all…”/ “I felt the same way, but I was always looking forward to mum's lunch, so I always skipped lunch at school”/ “it wasn't always tasty either, haha”

Ethan was quite thoughtful as he looked at the map. “I'm still wondering how it was that our house got practically nothing…"/ (Peter) ”I'm sure it was just a lucky coincidence. Our house was completely swept away. And then we discovered our mini bunker, we didn't know anything about it beforehand”.

And VJ also took another look at the map. “Everything was still in order. I remember… My dad had just gotten a promotion and wanted to renovate our house with the extra money. The fucking things destroyed everything."/ ‘Yes, I remember how proud he was when he came to you and you were so mean to him again’/ ‘I know… it can't be helped, I wish my brother was still here’.

Detlef looked over at Holly for a moment. She was also very thoughtful. “I… I have a little brother now. And to be honest, I don't want him to grow up in this destroyed environment here. Do you think… we'll get help here at some point?”. Detlef took a deep breath. “I hope so, as long as someone out there finally manages to get their ass here"/ ‘You said ass…’/ ‘hahaha’ . Detlef also had to laugh a little, sometimes he just couldn't hold back.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

End of this Part

@greenplumbboblover 🙂

poses by: @poses-by-bee & others💓

homework replacement mod by @mspoodle1 😊

[noroi1000]

December 31 at 11:59 p.m

One shot for happy new year

Warnings: Sexual subtext (perverted Gojo)

A/n: Happy New Year Everyone!

"Satoru?"

You looked around the house for your lover. Your everything. Boyfriend, friend, lover—everything possible. But he will never be your enemy.

You reached for your phone to check the time. Perhaps he went on a mission? He's not home, and you also slept late in the morning. And it's all because of him... He didn't let you sleep earlier. Maybe he left early because he was called? Perhaps it was so. It was already 1 p.m.He certainly went on a mission. But you didn't expect that his teacher would be working after the holidays. So it was definitely a mission.

Basically, you went to sleep when the sun was already rising. It was sunrise, and only then could you fall asleep.

Your apartment has remained as it was. You saw his shirt lying in the corner of the room. It was certain that he didn't want to clean up after himself sometimes. Even after he runs to the bed, undressing along the way, he attacks you as quickly as possible. When he started living with you, you thought he would destroy your house. You both pay the bills, but you're surprised that he lives with you and not in his house. Since he certainly had a house of the same standard as you. You wanted to live modestly, but with all these conveniences.

You had a beautiful apartment overlooking the city. No noise disturbed you, thanks to the soundproofing. You could relax in the bathtub in jacuzzi mode. I earn money to live like a princess. At least in your own home. Sometimes you can't stop yourself from buying something you want. It doesn't matter how much it costs.

At first, you thought Satoru would be like a parasite on your credit card. But later, you found out that the money he earns is enough to buy even more. And you're not as wasteful as he is. You're not the one who imports snacks and sweets from abroad to see how they taste. He buys the most food. And in addition, sometimes he goes into a shopping frenzy where he doesn't buy anything cheap because he wants to be a model at home for you.

White shirts for ¥600,000? That's exactly him. However, it doesn't bother you. Why should it bother you that he spends his money on something like this? Since it doesn't even threaten the amount of his salary. And so a prince was added to your life as a princess, who made you live like a true queen.

Your two-meter-tall parasite with white hair disappeared from the house in the morning without waking you up, and the only thing he told you was:

„If you're reading this, I left home (⁠｢⁠'⁠･⁠ω⁠･⁠)⁠｢” “I'll be back before evening. I still have to plan our New Year's Eve.”

Oh yes. It's today. December 31st. In a few hours, it will be another year... This is the first New Year's Eve with him. If he lasted one year with you, maybe the next one will be even better? Anyway, you need to focus more on surviving December 31st to enter January 1st. If his plans for tonight are the same as yours and his birthday, you need to save your energy.

On your birthday, it was you who was playing with him, not him playing with you.

"The last day of the year, the next year, huh..."

With that in mind, grabbing your favorite cookies and drink, you undressed and went to the bathtub. Soothe your body, gain energy, and enjoy relaxation. You don't have anything to do today anyway.

Scented candles created a pleasant atmosphere. The blinds in the house are closed. And this is called life. The light you set for pleasure.

"Oi Oi Oi!"

You suddenly jumped out of the bathtub, sat up straight, and spun around.

Is Satoru back?

"Satoru?"

"It's me, honey! But I'm not here!"

"Huh?"

"I installed a speaker at home! When I'm away from home, I can speak, and you'll hear me even without a phone! Well, it's kind of like a loud telephone that can be heard throughout the apartment."

"Why?"

"We'll see each other in person only in the evening! It won't be long, actually! You fell asleep in the bathtub!"

What's wrong with him at this point?

"I know you had a nice sleep, honey~! But seriously, tell me, do you have any toys under that foam in the water~? Are you playing in the bath without me?"

"I have nothing, you pervert!" you held your hands up. "Wait, how do you know I'm in the bathtub?"

"You have cameras at home! In case of a break-in! You told me about it once! It was inactive, but I made use of it. I have the app on my phone, and I can see you right now."

Why is the camera in the bathroom, and why is it pointed at the bathtub? He must have set it up! You were sure there were cameras in the hallway, near the entrance, and in the living room!

"Don't be shy now~. I sent you a message. Location. Wipe your sweet ass, and please go there. Ijichi can come pick you up."

"What is there?"

You wanted to call him a white-haired pervert, but he always says that... Must there be some sexual undertones in all the jokes he tells you?

When you met him, he wasn't like that. Sure, he was constantly flirting with you. But now his flirtations always have sexual undertones, or he talks like a professional seducer.

You're the only one he loves, and he said if he cheats on you, you can beat him up.

Was this an attempt to make fun of you? Or maybe it was to show that he will never cheat on you because he doesn't want to be beaten by you?

Well, never mind.

Since he sent you the address of a clothes shop where you walked in and got a bag with the dress he chose for you. But since he bought you a dress, you're going out today, right? So a little extra never hurts. Besides, Satoru likes it when you look beautiful. And if you wear the necklace, he won't get around your neck.

Judging by the color of the dress, you chose something that fits perfectly.

The dress was dark but had shiny details. You will feel like a mafia wife. But Satoru kills, so it's similar.

You don't even worry about the fact that he had blood on his hands so many times.

The important thing is that it's him.

„11. 59. Roof." he sent you this message.

"Oh, at 11:59 pm on the roof?"

Excitement was building within you with each passing minute.

Until finally, 10 minutes before the scheduled time, you arrived on the roof, seeing your boyfriend running around hanging small gold lights on the railing.

"Toru."

When he heard your voice, he turned around quickly and smiled, scanning you with his eyes.

"I knew you would look beautiful."

Your welcome was long. He hugged you, kissed you and complimented you. He showed you what he had prepared for you.

Suddenly, he pushed you against the railing until your back touched the metal.

"Whatever the last minutes of this year will be, that's what next year will be like, right?"

"Huh?"

He glanced at his watch and suddenly parted your lips, kissing you continuously. A passionate kiss shook your body.

Fireworks were lit in various places, and people shot them off, celebrating the new year that has now arrived.

A minute later, he removed his lips from yours, licking his lips. Smearing the slight color left on his lips from your lipstick.

"If you start kissing at 11:59 on New Year's Eve, stop at 12:01 am. 1st of January. When the new year comes. Then the whole year will be as sweet as this moment."

You smiled, hugging him.

"You saw it on the internet, right?"

"Yup. But I thought it was so sweet. Happy New Year ❤️"

[callsign-dexter]

Light of His Life

Request: Hi I just wanted to say that you are an amazing writer!!!

I recently read the one with Mav and his sleepy toddler at a navy ball and it sparked a new idea.

It said in the fic that the reader was a product of a one night stand so can we have a story on Mav's first time meeting her/ first night she stays with him/his reaction to the mother leaving/ him deciding he is going to keep the reader.thank you for considering and this is 100% your choice!!!!!! :)

Pairings: Maverick x Daughter!Reader

Warnings: angst, fluff

A/N: I wanna say happy birthday to one my dearest friends @maverick-wingman! I hope you have a good one! Love you so much! 💗

A/N Pt. 2: I did everything except the mother leaving. I hope that's ok.

Masterlist

First Installment: Light of His Life

Second Installment: Maverick is a dad?

Third Installment: Crossing Paths

Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell became a father on August 3, 1987. He wasn't planning on having kids at least not yet but when you go around having fun with every lady you see then consequences will catch up. His thoughts of not having kids were changed when there was a knock on the door bright and early Monday morning. He was already awake due to his internal alarm clock waking him up, he didn't have to go to work since it was raining and all jets were grounded until further notice. He walked to the door and opened it to be greeted by a woman in business casual clothing and a car seat in her hand, files in the other, and a diaper bag on her shoulder. She had her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail and very light makeup on.

"Are you Pete Mitchell? I'm Avery Timber with CPS." The lady whose name he learned was Avery Timber.

"Yes I'm Pete Mitchell but please call me Maverick. Please come in." He replied and she smiled and stepped through the door.

"Of course. Callsign right?" She asked him.

"Yes that's right. Navy?" Maverick asked her and she shook her head no.

"I'm not in the Navy but my dad is a Naval Aviator." Avery said and that sparked Maverick's attention.

"Oh, what's his name?" He asked curiously trying to be friendly and nosy at the same time.

"Tom Jardian. Callsign Stinger." She replied and Maverick paled but quickly recovered before she notice since she was busy getting everything situated and putting the bag on the ground.

"Oh he was my higher commanding officer. You don't have the same last name?" He asked her she smiled and looked at him and shook her head.

"I got married, and my last name changed to Timber. Don't worry he hasn't said anything about you that will change this outcome." Avery said, and Maverick nodded glad about the part of him not saying anything. "Anyways I'm here because of this little girl." She said and stroked the sleeping baby's head.

Maverick finally got over his shock and nervousness when he looked over at the sleeping baby girl. "Right. Who is this cutie?" He asked now curious of her. He has a feeling of what the answer was going to be since some CPS agent was bringing her to him.

"She doesn't have a name yet. The hospital was just calling her Jane Doe. Her mother, Layla Kyler, gave up parenting rights as soon as she was born. She's a well-behaved and quiet baby." She said and watched Maverick's face fall. "I assume you know her." She continued.

"Yes. I had slept with her one night and left the next morning. We never contacted each other after that." Maverick said looking at the baby and he could now see that she looked exactly like him already, especially with having thick dark locks.

"Well, this makes it a little bit easier. Maverick meet your daughter. She's a week old. She stayed in the hospital so that they could monitor her while we tracked you down, which was somewhat hard to do." Avery told him with a giggle and a smile. Maverick smiled back still looking at the little girl that was now his. "If you don't believe this we can get a DNA test done but that is totally up to you." She finished and Maverick shook his head.

"No, I believe it. She has the Mitchell looks." He said and stroked the little girl's cheek which she leaned into.

"Right. Ok. I'm assuming you don't have any baby stuff." Avery said and Maverick nodded. "Do you need someone to go with you?" She asked and Maverick shook his head.

"No I have a friend that should have some extra stuff available. I'll have them stop by and bring it when we're done here." Maverick said and Avery nodded accepting it.

"Sounds perfect. Here are the copies of when Layla gave up parental rights," she laid a stack of papers in front of her "here is her birth certificate you will need to name her and I'll take it to the courthouse and have them send you a copy" she laid it on top of the stack "and finally papers for you to sign so you have full custody." She finished and handed him a pen which he gladly signed then got to the birth certificate and immediately knew what to name her 'Y/N Grace Mitchell'. After he signed the papers she got up collected the papers she needed and held out a hand for him to shake and they shook hands. "If you have any problems or questions or advice, give me a call." Avery said and handed him a business card.

"Thank you, Avery. Tell your dad I said hi." He chuckled showing her the door and opening it for her. She turned to him.

"You are very welcome, Maverick. I will certainly tell him that. Goodbye, and good luck." She said with a smile and walked out the door, he closed it and turned to the baby who was now awake and looking at him.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Alright, now time to call Carole and Goose and pray they have Bradley's old baby stuff. He took out his phone and hesitated to call but had to get it over with. He dialed her number and she picked up on the second ring.

"Maverick what's up?" Carole asked him when she answered the phone.

"Hey, Carole. Do you happen to have Bradley's old baby stuff by any chance?" Maverick asked. There was a heavy pause.

"We do. Why?" She asked curiously, again another pause.

"I have someone that you all need to meet. But bring Bradley's old stuff. I'll see you when you get here." Maverick said.

"We'll see you soon." She said and hung up.

30 minutes later they showed up and like promised they had Bradley's old stuff including a crib. They knocked on the door and Maverick picked Y/N up and walked to the door and opened it. Everyone was silent.

"Maverick did you steal a baby?" Goose said and Maverick scoffed.

"No Goose she's mine." He replied, "This is why I wanted to see if you had Bradley's old stuff." Maverick said and Carole made grabby hands towards her and Maverick happily gave her over. They walked into the house and went and sat down at the table.

"Well, she's adorable! What's her story?" Carole said while Y/N looked at her through Bradshaw family in curiously.

"Goose do you remember a Layla Kyler?" He asked him and Goose stood there and thought.

"Yea she's the girl you took home 9 months ago and left in the morning...." and when he saw Maverick's face he knew. "No this is her and your kid?" Goose exclaimed.

"Yes and she gave up parental rights at the hospital. They kept her for a week there making sure she was healthy and to track me down." Maverick said.

"So are you going to keep her?" Bradley asked they looked at him and Maverick smiled and nodded.

"I wasn't at first but then I stroked her cheek and she leaned into me I knew right then and there she was staying." Maverick said turning his attention onto his daughter. It was true he already loved that little with his heart. They ate lunch, talked more, held Y/N more, and then Maverick and Goose decided to put her nursery together.

They talked more and Y/N was passed around and even Bradley got to hold her, which she immediately took to. Bradley and Carole stayed with Y/N while Goose and Maverick set up her nursery which should've taken a few minutes but with them two it took several hours.

Finally, after 6 hours, everything was set up. While they were doing that Carole and Bradley put away the baby food and refrigerator baby food as well as fed Y/N. Goose and Maverick came downstairs.

"Took you boys long enough." Carole said in a sarcastic tone and handed Maverick his daughter.

"Well, we had some difference of opinions." Goose said to them.

"Well, it's getting late. We should get going. Maverick you can call me anytime. Everything is put away." Carole said ushering the Bradshaw boys out the door to give father and daughter time to bond. Maverick wanted to protest and started to when she spoke back up "You'll be fine. We're only two doors down." She finished off.

They left and it was just Maverick and Y/N who was looking at him and smiling. Maverick looked at her and smiled back. He truly did love this girl.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

When it was bedtime, Maverick was a nervous wreck. He had called Carole and she walked him through changing a diaper, fixing a bottle, and putting her down. Now when people say some babies are easy, Y/N is the definition of an easy baby. OK.

"Ok Y/N. We're going to have a goodnight and I'll be here the entire time." Maverick said and she just looked at him. He sat in the rocking chair and rocked her she fussed a little bit but fell asleep pretty quickly. While she was asleep he confessed a lot of things. "Listen I know you're asleep right now and you not going to remember or understand this. I love you, baby. At first, I didn't know if wanted to keep you but then you leaned into my touch and I knew right then and there I was keeping you. Alright, I'm gonna put you down and hope you don't wake up. I love you, Sunshine." Maverick poured out his heart. He put her in her crib gently.

Maverick did not get any sleep that night and he slept on the floor so he could check on her throughout the night. She was the perfect angel.

The next morning he was up early and called Viper and Jester and explained the situation and they gave him as much time as he needed. Y/N woke up and Maverick picked her up "Hello there, Sunshine." She giggled back at him and they headed into the kitchen. They each got something to eat and went about their day.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

They got a routine down that they could follow. They had a good first week together. It also helped that he had Carole just two doors down. When he had to go back to work Y/N stayed with Carole and Bradley during the day. Y/N really loves Bradley even if they were 3 years apart.

Maverick was definitely keeping her. No doubt about that. Avery called in to check on both of them.

Maverick finally had sunshine in his life. He was finally whole. Y/N is the light of his life.

Tag List:

@kmc1989

@els-marvelvsp

@atarmychick007

[artificial-transmutations]

Transformation Letter: Noah

Hello. My name is Noah and I would love transforming into anything or anyone. I'm an single 20 years old bisexual, who is annoyed by long work days as a german nurse. I would most likely describe me as the boring white boy with brown hair, brown eyes and nothing special. Would love to get out of germany.

It is way after ten in the evening after a long day of work. You are sitting in Ilkan's flat and enjoy a beer with your Turkish friend when he suddenly announces that he will have to return to Turkey soon because of family matters and there's a good chance he won't be able to get back for at least a few years.

For the last years, Ilkan has been a close friend to you, and a welcome opportunity to complain about work - the news is devastating. You even have a bit of a crush on the burly Turk, but since he is straight you kept that a secret. Of course, you can hardly say anything against him leaving, so, you just say "Tja."

You continue to sit there, sipping beer when suddenly, Ilkan appears to remember something.

"Oh, I almost forgot. I got this really strange letter today, do you know what's up with that?"

He fetches a letter from a company named "Artificial Transmutations" and shows it to you. It's just a QR code and a single line of text below it: "If you want to accept Noah's request, please install the app above."

Of course, you recognize the company - there had been an online ad and you decided to write a letter to them. Apparently, there was some kind of a raffle for a cruise or something, you didn't have a closer look at the ad back then.

"I think it's some kind of competition or draw or something where you can win a trip." You reply.

Ilkan nods and just as you are about to go on about data privacy, he has already scanned the code and started the download. Ilkan is refreshingly carefree with all of that.

The app installs quickly, and you are both looking at Ilkan's phone. Besides the logo, there is just a single green button labelled "Claim".

"So, does this mean you have won?" Ilkan asks.

"I don't know. Go on and press the button!" You answer, wondering why Ilkan has gotten the reply letter and not you. You are pretty sure you didn't mention your friend in your letter.

As soon as Ilkan taps the button, you feel very strange all of a sudden. Your dick grows stiff and strains against your jeans, flooding your system with arousal. You absolutely cannot think straight as you look at Ilkan, who is sitting next to you on the couch, legs spread slightly as usual.

Without further comment, you reach over and undo Ilkan's fly and greedily pull down his boxer shorts to expose his ample, but soft cock.

Ilkan is way too surprised of your sudden action to react and just starts to say: "Noah, what ahhhh..."

You interrupt him by closing your mouth around his soft cock, breathing in the sweaty groin and tasting the flavor of his unwashed dick, with all the traces of piss, sweat and dirt that have gathered during the day.

Almost immediately, you feel his hand at the back of your head, but to your big surprise, Ilkan doesn't pull you from his groin. Instead, he pushes you further in, with quite some force actually. Your nose is being pressed into his untrimmed bush of pubic hair, intensifying the manly smell even more as his hairs tickle your face. You cannot see anything since your face is in Ilkan’s groin, but you feel two things: First, Ilkan's cock is slowly raising and second, Ilkan stands up while still having his hand on the back of your head and positions himself right in front of you.

Your arms explore his big hairy legs that are spread widely in front of you, and you pull down his jeans and boxers for good. There is a slight movement as Ilkan steps out of them, all the while your tongue is busy teasing his cock.

Ilkan increases the pressure once more, and for a moment, your nose almost hurts since it is pressed into his groin with so much force. That passes quickly however, and you feel your face jumping forward a few centimeters more. It is like your nose has been flattened against his groin, but you didn't feel pain or hear a noise that would indicate it being broken.

Your mouth is full with Ilkan's increasingly erect cock now and he is bucking his hips lightly into your mouth. You hug his hips with your arm in order to press yourself even further to Ilkan, who now uses the hand on your head to face-fuck you, slamming your face into his sweaty privates with more and more force.

You don't even use your tongue even more - Your mouth is more like a pouch now, a place for his dick to be in, as your head becomes thinner and thinner - and more fabric like with every thrust. Your hands have fused behind his back and turned to an elastic rubber band, fixing yourself to his waist.

Suddenly, Ilkan closes his hand and warps your face - or what's left of it, around his erection. He grips his cock through your fabric face and begins to jerk himself off, warping your pouch that seems to be almost all that is left of you in the shape of his ample erection.

Finally, he cums a thick load of cum into you, which you absorb quietly as the jockstrap that you are now.

"Phew. I didn't know that was what you wanted Noah...". He pauses for a moment before continuing. "Although I suppose I shouldn't call you that any longer. You're just a jockstrap after all, and I'm gonna treat you like the thing you are, my possession."

You feel a warm feeling of agreement as your owner acknowledges your inferiority. Soon you're going to leave Germany wrapped around your best friends junk. You don't have to worry about your job anymore and you couldn't be happier.

Don't forget: If you, too want to send a transformation letter and want to be transformed, consider joining my riot page today!

[destinygoldenstar]

The Amazing Digital Circus Episode 3 - "As Iron Sharpens Iron-"

To say I was excited for this Episode to come out is an UNDERSTATEMENT.

Ever since Episode 2 PROVED it to me that this show was going to be something very special to me, I've been very invested and eagerly waiting the next installment.

This also marks the FIRST Digital Circus Episode where I CAUGHT THE PREMIERE.

I didn't see the Pilot until a month after it came out because I didn't know about the show. And Episode 2 I was at work at the same time of the release. I had a nerve-wrecking day.

But this time I CAUGHT IT, AND I COULDN'T BE HAPPIER TO.

So I was excited, especially when it was hyped up as the best episode so far!!!

...

IT WASN'T, BUT I STILL REALLY LOVED IT.

Yeah... I said it. I will be the first to say this:

As of right now, this is my least favorite episode.

NOW HOLD ON, THAT IN NO WAY MEANS I DISLIKED IT. THIS EPISODE IS GREAT.

Which should really tell you the quality of this show.

This IS a review based off a first viewing, so be aware of that. Y'all know I'm gonna rewatch this multiple times. So maybe my problems will become less problems.

I also CANNOT WAIT to see all the Angry Karens raging on the Internet about the show! "THIS CARTOON IS TOO DARK AND SCARY FOR MY CHILDREN!! I OUGHTA SUE YA GLITCH!!"

To that I'll say "F%#K YOUR KIDS, CARTOONS ARE FOR EVERYONE!!" (No I won't, but you get the message)

You want a kid friendly haunted mansion episode, NINJAGO SEASON 5 GOT YOU COVERED. (One of the best episodes in that show btw)

I would argue the circus tent is a lot scarier than a haunted mansion, but whatever.

But I do need to explain WHY I find this episode the weakest, and also gush over the good stuff cause there IS good stuff.

So I need to get into spoilers:

I've complained before in the previous two episodes that the B Plots were my least favorite thing about this show. They weren't bad, they just didn't grasp me like the A Plots did (AKA whichever plot Pomni has going on).

But I was really looking forward to them fixing this issue with this episode, especially to aid the characterization of Zooble. A character that has been very neglected. I was expecting this therapy session with Caine to be both chaotic (Because it's Caine) and inciting.

Did it deliver with that??

Yes AND No.

Technically, YES, it was inciting and we learned more about Zooble. They're not straight. They have dysphoria. They're very uncomfortable with their body which is why they're constantly changing parts. And because of that they don't feel like they fit in with the people around them.

LGBT+ Symbolism. Trans Symbolism. Zooble has dysphoria. CALLED IT.

(I mean, Jax even SAYS Zooble isn't straight in the episode)

And hey, just because I guessed what it was and saw it coming, doesn't mean I'm not very appreciative they brought it up. It helps with Zooble's character, and I'm sure the trans audience enjoyed it. I'm cis though, so I don't find it personal. That can't be helped.

We also learned about CAINE's mentality. The A.I was only programmed to create adventures. So he relishes in that because it's the only thing he knows how to do and knows how to help. And Zooble snarking at the very thing Caine was designed to do... BREAKS HIM.

And I am already theorizing, because Caine mentally breaking like that CAUSES A GLITCH IN THE ENTIRE CIRCUS.

So... CAINE'S mental state is what's keeping the circus afloat. THAT SAYS A LOT.

Yeah I definitely think he's getting redeemed, AND this is gonna come up later.

But other than those two scenes, I was a bit disappointed with this plotline. I feel like it could've been longer and we could've learned more. Or, let me rephrase that, at least ONE more cutaway to them.

As it stands, while this is TECHNICALLY the best B Plot of this show's episodes, it is still a B Plot that suffers from being much less interesting.

Idk, maybe this is a 'first viewing' issue, and when I watch the episode again, I'll understand it better.

Oh yeah, speaking of B Plots, we BARELY get ANYTHING regarding the pacifist route.

Once Pomni and Kinger fall into the hellhole, we don't hear from Ragatha Gangle and Jax FOR AWHILE.

And then the next time we see them, they're having tea and being friendly with the hunter's ghost wife, who DID NOT get an in person introduction. And they tied up Jax off screen. WHAT?!?! HOW DID Y'ALL GET HERE?!?!

It wasn't their episode, I understand why the episode wouldn't focus on them, but I DID want an explanation as to how we went from THIS, to THIS.

AND NO ONE BOTHERED TO SHOW CONCERN FOR POMNI AND KINGER THE WHOLE TIME?!

I also feel like it could have, at the very least, benefited Ragatha. But because we don't get anything, her little moment with Pomni at the end felt quite out of nowhere. Because... they didn't have any exchange this episode. I mean good for Pomni for finally expressing she likes her I guess.

Also... that whole exchange was really platonic...

(I don't ship them)

Overall, I really think this is a pacing issue. The pitch black scene with just their eyes is VISUALLY GREAT, love that they're experimenting with different art styles, BUT OH MY GOD THAT SEQUENCE DRAGS. It could have been HALF as long and the point would've still come across.

I also am just not a big fan of haunted mansion stories. And I know that MIGHT be just a me problem.

But in my defense, Ninjago Season 5 had a haunted mansion episode, and that was one of their best episodes that really SAID SOMETHING and taught the main characters something valuable.

THIS haunted mansion feels more like an obstacle more than anything else. Unless there's some deeper meaning behind the mansion's lore in the future, but I doubt it because it's designed to be a one time thing.

I'm MUCH more invested in the PSYCHOLOGICAL horror of the show instead of the PHYSICAL horror. And I think that's why The Pilot and Episode 2 felt a lot more scarier to me than this.

Don't get me wrong, the dismantled heads and the corpse monster ARE scary. The lit up severed head MADE MY SKIN CRAWL when I first saw it. So did Possessed Pomni.... is it bad that I'm kinda obsessed with Possessed Pomni though? But the scary imagery doesn't do much for me unless there's a deeper meaning behind it. Because after my skin crawl I was able to say "Yep. That's the severed head alive and glowing." "That's it's headless body."

When Pomni got possessed by running through the hall of souls, I remember saying aloud "NO DON'T DO IT".

And the thing that ACTUALLY scared me was when they said "How's your wife, Kinger?"

THAT'S the scary part of that for me.

They also OUTRIGHT TELL you the message of the episode this time.

Now I DON'T hate that they did that, it's meant to be a nice moment between Kinger and Pomni. But I MUCH prefer the approaches the previous episode had with showing its message and letting us pick it up for ourselves.

I don't think that's too much of 'dumbing down' though. Episode 2's incident is different. And this episode it IS meant to be a nice moment between Kinger and Pomni and that's why it had to be told.

So yeah, that's what's keeping this episode back for me.

Okay let me talk about the great stuff now. Aside from what I already mentioned.

ANIMATION.

I LOVE that they're experimenting with different styles, like I said. The 2D eyes look really good, and the little hand drawings at the beginning? Love them. They're so cute. PLEASE keep experimenting with animation techniques.

I was also REALLY WORRIED that the Episode's lighting would be too dark for me to see anything that was going on.

This is a BRIGHT show, especially in the previous two. So it's kinda offputting to see these cartoonish characters in a realistic setting. (That's probably on purpose)

But no, it ended up NOT being an issue for me. I followed everything that was happening perfectly.

Also POMNI AND KINGER.

They were EASILY the BEST thing about this episode. Hands down.

EVERY scene with them and their interactions is GOLDEN.

I SERIOUSLY thought Pomni was gonna take a backseat for a couple of episodes to make way for everyone else. But she IS the main character, so I should've suspected that wouldn't be the case.

The story LETS her BE the protagonist, WITHOUT taking anything away from the other character's development. Every scene aids BOTH HER & THEM.

She's such an incredibly written protagonist AND WE STAN IN THIS HOUSE.

But enough about her.

I KNEW this episode was going to make me understand the Kinger hype and love him, AND I WAS EXACTLY RIGHT.

I was wrong about it being schizophrenia. Instead his issue is dementia, which is memory loss/problems. But I'm not mad at all that I got that wrong.

I'm not someone who has dementia, so I can't speak if it's accurate or not, but I LOVE how it was handled here.

Kinger's brain works much differently from everyone else due to his past experiences, and there are certain triggers to his sanity. SO THAT'S WHY HE STAYS IN A PILLOW FORT. I GET IT NOW.

Also HIS WIFE.

Okay yeah so I was wrong about what the relationship was. But I don't care. I LOVED THIS BACKSTORY.

(Abstractions can be tamed?)

Kinger DEFINATELY went up my list for me thanks to this episode, and I KNOW he's gonna be a key player in the future. If his "seven years of computer science" line is anything to go off of.

I love him so much. Your honor, I love him. I wanna protect him.

These two make such great friends and I'm completely here for it.

And the episode STILL maintains all of Digital Circus's great qualities. Thrilling action, sharp comedy, great character interactions, excellent characterizations. And also much more theorizing material that will rot all our brains.

Great Episode. 8/10.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to be welcoming this beauty in my nightmares.

[the-s1lly-corner]

Flufftober prompt 24: Game night (Ben Drowned)

list here god i missed listening to nightcore, playing some songs while i write this ueueueu take me back to middle school plsplsplspls i want to go back to being whimsical and making edgy ocs plot: you and ben play some games together and try to have fun! notes: platonic post, heavy on the hcs for the admin, ben is physically inside the console for most of the fic, reader is gn, you guys are playing minecraft because the admin doesnt have much gaming experience LMAO word count: 752 cws: none

"Did you raid my house?" You asked out loud as you looked through the chests in your house. They were all empty, picked through clean. Not a single item was left. You'd be less annoyed if some dirt or cobblestone were left behind, but Ben was thorough. A static cackle pulls itself from your computer speakers.

You don't respond. This was one of the more tame things he's done in the world, at least it didn't destroy anything. You were wise to start a new world instead of opening one of your older ones, you were sure if you had your work would be left in ruins. You were tempted to join a server with him to play games...

What all would he have been capable of there?

In a single player world he's already proven to be able to build anything he wanted- and destroy anything. Large craters and random block placements from him trying to spawn and contain something, or to try to bug you as you tried to run away.

You've sworn off playing alone with him when it's dark due to him playing a well placed noise while you were focused on exploring a cave. Something Ben still holds over your head, and pouts over when you refuse to play with him in the middle of the night.

A finger taps on the keyboard as you think over your options, you could go mine for the materials again if Ben doesn't give them back. Which he probably won't, he may have full access to the creative menu- something you had tried to prevent so the both of you could work together in survival, but trying to prevent a ghost hacking your game was virtually impossible.

You couldn't kick him, either, the game didn't register him as a second player. He was simply there.

Leaning back in your chair you look up at the ceiling.

"You make playing games with you difficult, man... you know that, right?" You glance at the screen as it flickers. The graphics warp and glitch, before flickering into a solid color as a pair of hands reach forward. They feel blindly in the air in front of you, before coming down to the edge of the desk and settling, soon a head peers out.

Ben doesn't pull himself entirely out of your computer, instead remaining in the current position he was in. One that did not look at all comfortable.

Static and crackling filled the air as he remained, his eyes narrowed.

Not angry, more so annoyed.

"It's not my fault you're boring, it's a sandbox game- you can do anything and you just follow building tutorials and mine," He frowns, sticking out his tongue at you.

"It's a sandbox game meaning I'm allowed to do whatever I want," You shoot back. He hisses in response.

"We can try to find something that's more your taste, there's got to be something..." You tap your foot on the ground. You'd have to wait until he retreats back into the computer or exits it. Assuming he would let you run it properly if he returns into it.

"Minecraft's nice, maybe you could put in some mods? Like the ones the people you watch have,"

You ponder for a moment.

"Like the horror ones?"

"Yeah like the horror ones, those ones!" He grins, fingers curling tighter around your desk.

You purse your lips, and stare at him. "Only if you play survival with me, no cheating. It's not fun if I'm the only one getting chased."

"For you, but I think it's funny."

You glare at him, and reach for your mouse. "Whatever... can you move out of the way so I can look for a couple to install?"

He nods, before backing into the screen. Suddenly, he pauses and looks at you intensely, red pupils staring right into your own eyes.

"Don't add too many dweller mods, I can't stand most of those." He hisses.

You nod, knowing full well that he would take control of the computer if he saw you installing a mod he didn't like the looks of... You make a vague mental note to get a better protections on your computer, Ben clicks on just about anything that catches his eye.

He finally fully returns to the screen, leaving you in silence in a now empty world. The sound of your player picking up multiple stacks of items at the same time makes you jolt.

Ben had given you back your things.