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vendettaparker · 4 years ago

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Reckless [T.H]

Summary: In a fit of jealousy, Tom embarrasses you in front of your new friend and the entire pub, leaving you heartbroken at his reckless actions.

Word Count: 4.1k

Warnings: Swearing, angst, slut-shaming��

a/n: hi! sorry this took so so so long for me to get out! i got super busy with other works, but i’m super happy with how this turned out :) i hope you enjoy this, and don’t worry, i know how scary those warnings look ^ but this ends happy, i promise! as always, comments and reblogs are appreciated <3

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Tom was an idiot. He was an actual fucking idiot. He now realizes that as he watches you run out of the pub with hot tears streaming down your face. He watches as Harry runs after you, your bag in his hand, probably to make sure you make it back home safe since there was no way you’d return to the crowded bar, where Harrison and Sam were giving Tom death glares, the same little pub where Tom had made a complete fool out of you.

The few months Tom came home to London were always the setting of your most cherished memories. Sometimes it seemed like when he left so did the whole group of friends you surround yourself with.

There was no doubt in your mind that Tom was the life of the party. He had a certain aura about him that caused some of the most fucked up, but amazing situations to occur. That was probably one of the reasons you loved him so much.

When he was in town, his brothers, Harrison, and Tuwaine all joined together to make the next few months memorable before he had to leave again, and you were always included, but when he was gone, Harry usually went with him, Harrison focused on work for himself, and Sam focused on his restaurant. The world slowed down after Tom left, and so many times, you were left to wait for his return; alone.

Tom hated leaving you behind every time he went back to the states, but you had such deep roots in London, he didn’t want to pry you from your family for months on end. He loved you too much to constantly subject you to his hectic lifestyle. He spent as much time with you as he could when he saw you, but the second he had to go, it was all tearful goodbyes in a crowded airport.

You and Tom had been best friends for decades at this point. You supported him no matter what it was that he wanted to accomplish. He’s even said in interviews that he credits a huge bulk of his success to his friend back home, then he’d give a wink to the camera, and you always knew it was for you.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

When Tom came home after filming Spider-Man: No Way Home, you practically tackled him to the ground in a hug.

“You div,” You mumbled into his neck, “you forgot to let me FaceTime with Zendaya.”

“Oh, shit!” Tom gasped, finally remembering your request to talk to your favorite actress, “my bad.”

You looked at Tom incredulously, “I don’t think I can be friends with you anymore.” You feigned hurt, clutching your hand to your chest, “it just hurts too much.”

“That’s a damn shame,” Tom frowned, “I mean, I could just FaceTime Zendaya now, but if that’s how you—”

“I changed my mind,” You smiled sweetly, cutting him off, “love you, bestie.”

Tom rolled his eyes and pulled you into another hug, “Missed you, bestie.”

“Um,” Sam, Paddy, and Harrison stood behind you, clearing their throats.

“Missed you guys too,” Tom sighed, and he rushed over and gave his brothers and friend a hug.

You gave Harry a hug while Tom chatted with his brothers, quickly catching up with him.

“What’s the plan for tonight, guys?” You spoke up.

Every night after Tom got back, he’d go back to his flat and take a nap before a night out on the town. Usually, you’d bar hop a bit before going to a club, so tonight wasn’t likely to be any different.

“I was thinking we could get dinner at Lorenzo’s,” Harry said, “then maybe hit the pub on Ashford?”

You and the others nodded in agreement as you made your way out of the airport.

“Can I invite my friend Avery?” You asked.

Tom nodded, “Sure, I didn’t even know you had any other friends, (Y/N),” he joked.

“Haha,” You laughed sarcastically, “gee that was a good one, Tom. You really got me.”

“What can I say?” He smirked, “I’m a comedian.”

“Is that the guy you met in your philosophy lecture?” Harrison butt in.

“Yeah,” You nodded, “he’s really sweet, so be on your best behavior guys, and maybe don’t be yourselves, just this once?” you suggested with a slightly teasing tone.

“Are you trying to impress him or something?” Tom inquired.

“No,” You scoffed, “I’m just trying to not throw him to the wolves.”

Tom laughed along, but it was strained. He wasn’t too keen on the idea of adding a new member to your friend group, and the little glint in your eye when you talked about Avery made his heart tighten.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

“Okay,” You smiled as you set the last of Tom’s luggage in his living room, “I’ll let you get some sleep then.”

You gave him one last hug and a kiss on the cheek, “see you later.”

Tom reciprocated and inhaled the sweet smell of lavender in your locks of hair, “mhm,” he sighed, “see ya.”

Harrison was about to walk out after you when Tom grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him back, “Mate, what the fuck.” he grumbled as he stumbled over his feet, “I thought you wanted to take a nap?”

“I slept on the plane,” Tom explained quickly, “you’ve been here the whole time, right?” Harrison nodded, “so you know this Avery guy, yeah?”

Harrison shook his head, “I haven’t talked to (Y/N) much this past month, but he’s probably on her Instagram.”

Harrison pulled out his phone and looked at posts you’d been tagged in, “Ah, here.” He handed the phone to Tom and pointed to the tall blonde guy in a group photo with you and some other friends, ��He’s the tall blonde.”

Tom studied the picture with a small frown, “They’re not dating though, right?”

“She said he was her friend,” Harrison shrugged.

“You know what I mean,” Tom rolled his eyes, “do they look really chummy to you?”

“His hand’s kind of close to her butt, but other than that I don’t know.” Harrison pointed it out, causing Tom’s heart to momentarily stop.

“Ok, new plan,” Tom announced, “I’m going to ask (Y/N) out tonight.”

Harrison scoffed and rolled his eyes. “What?” Tom wondered.

“You’ve said that almost every single time you’ve been home and you always chicken out.”

“No, I don’t!” Tom gasped in offense, “It’s just hard to find the right time.”

“You’ve literally had hundreds of opportunities to tell her how you feel, Mate.”

“It has to be perfect.” Tom insisted, “I can’t just ask her out of the blue, I have to butter her up first.”

“That’s dumb.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Tom groaned, “get out, I changed my mind, I’m going to sleep.”

Harrison rolled his eyes and chuckled before giving Tom a pat on the back and leaving. Tom waved goodbye as Harrison drove away, and then rushed to his phone.

“FaceTime Zendaya,” he instructed Siri. The call went through and soon Tom was met with Zendaya's tired eyes in a dark room.

“Hey, Z!” Tom said cheerfully, “best friend, bestest pal in the world. The person that never wants to see me fail ever, my greatest companion—“

“Tom,” Zendaya groggily cut him off, “what the fuck do you want, I’m sleeping.”

“How do you ask a girl out?”

Zendaya sat up a little more and turned on her bedside lamp, “What? You don’t know how to ask a girl out?”

“Well I do,” Tom backtracked, “but I want it to be special. I’ve been in love with this girl for nearly two years now and every time I go to ask her out, I chicken out.”

“I don’t know, what does she like?”

“Well one time she told me her favorite animal was a sea otter, should I get her one?” Tom pondered, hand resting in his chin in thought.

“Um, no, what the fuck?” Zendaya squinted her eyes at Tom, “have you gotten any sleep yet?”

Tom shook his head, “This is important, Z, now help me!”

Zendaya rolled her eyes, “I’ll text you some ideas, but for now just go get some sleep. With how tired you are now you’d probably call her the wrong name or something.”

Tom rolled his eyes, but the action caused his eyelids to droop even more, “Fine, fine,” he conceded, “I’ll let you know how it goes.”

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

“Okay,” Tom announced at the restaurant before you arrived, “I’m going to ask (Y/N) out tonight so I need you all to shut up and not distract me or make me nervous.”

Harrison, Harry, and Sam just stared at Tom. Tuwaine, for some unknown reason, started clapping.

“Tom,” Harrison began, “no offense, but—“

“Ah ah ah,” Tom stopped him, “is what you’re about to say going to bruise my ego?” Harrison thought about it for a moment before slowly nodding, “okay, then shut the fuck up, respectfully. I don’t need any bad juju tonight.”

“Well, I’m happy for you, Mate,” Tuwaine nodded. He was the closest to you after Tom and he knew all about your crush on the brown-haired Brit. You might’ve let it slip once when you were drunk, and since you didn’t willingly tell Tuwaine, he was sworn to secrecy. “I’m positive she’ll say yes.”

“Thank you,” Tom smiled at him, sending a slight glare to the others for their lack of faith in him. “As for the rest of you, I can’t wait to prove you wrong.”

You walked into the restaurant with Avery hunched over from laughing so hard. Tom smiled in your direction and waved you over, “Hey, (Y/N/N)! Over here!”

“Wow,” You chuckled, “must’ve been a good nap. Little energetic there, huh?”

Tom went in to give you a tight hug, holding you close, “Just missed you,” he mumbled into your hair.

“I just saw you a few hours ago?”

Avery stood by you awkwardly, waiting for Tom to release you. Tom reluctantly let you go and pulled a chair out for you, next to him.

“Thanks,” you smiled at him, motioning for Avery to sit next to you, “hey, everyone,” you smiled at the group of boys that were properly about to piss themselves at Tom’s over-the-top behavior, “this is Avery.”

“Hi,” He waved at the group as a small chorus of ‘hellos’ rang across the table. He turned to Tom to shake his hand, “I’m a big fan, Mate. Love your work.”

Tom smiled and patted him on the shoulder, “Thanks, it means a lot.” smiled politely, shaking Avery's hand.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Dinner went off without a hitch, at least in your opinion. Avery was melding well with your friends and he was cracking jokes like he’d know the group for years.

The boys seemed to enjoy his sense of humor and what he added to the conversation. Sam and him even found that they shared an interest in cooking, which led to them having a slightly heated discussion about how real Gordon Ramsey’s cooking skills are; which ended in laughs.

However, Tom was probably having one of the worst nights of his life. Every time Avery playfully shoved you while you two laughed he wanted to wring his neck. It also didn’t help that he couldn’t find the perfect time to ask you out. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to ask you out with all of his mates around.

Tom smiled and laughed along with the jokes, but once you looked away he was back to frowning.

“Tom,” Harry nudged his brother, “wipe that scowl off your face.”

“I’m not scowling,” Tom grumbled, “this is my normal face.”

Harry rolled his eyes and kicked his older brother under the table, “You need to ask her soon. I think Avery is trying to make some moves on her.” Harry noticed, seeing how Avery casually had his arm around your chair.

Tom rolled his eyes, “As if I can't see that for myself,” he scoffed. “I don’t want to ask her with all of you watching. What if she says no?”

“We can leave you alone for a bit when we go to the pub, but I’m not sure if Avery will go with us.” Harry shrugged, “you could always ask her out tomorrow.” Harry suggested.

“No!” Tom exclaimed, causing everyone to look at him and Harry, “Sorry, I—um, I just don’t really like that shirt on you Harry; it makes my eyes hurt.”

Harry looked down at his shirt for a moment and then frowned, sending a light smack to Tom, “You bought me this shirt you div.”

Everyone went back to their own conversations so Tom leaned in to talk to Harry some more, “I can’t wait for tomorrow. What if I chicken out again?”

“Then you’re an idiot.” Harry deadpanned with a shrug.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

The pub was way more packed than anyone expected. The new addition of live music to the outside patio definitely livened up the place and more customers went to see what local band would be playing next.

The pub had a classic English pub feel, with the wood flooring and the yellow-tinted walls, but it also had a modern twist with a back patio and outdoor seating with fairy lights, and the lights that illuminate under the bar itself.

“I’m gonna go check out the band,” Harry announced after he came back with your drinks, “you guys should all come with me.” He said with a slight side-eye to Sam, Tuwaine, and Harrison.

“Eh, I’m not really into—” Sam began, but Harry sent him a quick kick under the table. “Ow! I mean, I love music.” Sam smiled enthusiastically.

“I’m gonna stay back and finish this beer,” Tom said, holding up the large pint of beer he was already a quarter of the way through, “(Y/N), wanna race to see who can finish first?” He suggested trying to get you to stay behind.

“Oh you’re totally on,” You smirked, “but I am going to take a quick peek at the band. We can race after I get back.” You got up from your seat and began walking away with Harry and the boys. Tom pouted at how horribly that plan worked. Harry looked back at Tom apologetically as he held the door open for you.

“Wow,” Avery smiled beside Tom, scaring him, “she really is something.”

“Holy shit, Mate,” Tom held a hand to his heart, “you almost gave me a heart attack. I thought you went with them?”

“Nah,” Avery shook his head, “I’m not really into music,” he shrugged.

“Oh, okay,” Tom nodded. “What were you just saying?”

“(Y/N),” Avery looked towards the back patio exit dreamily, “she’s amazing. I mean I would definitely ask her out, but probably not at a pub surrounded by her mates, y’know?”

“Mhm, yeah,” Tom said quietly, his heart already beginning to shatter into millions of inconsolable pieces. “I mean, she’s alright.” He said with a forced laugh, trying to fend Avery away from you, “she definitely isn’t really your type, though.”

“What do you mean?” Avery asked, taking a sip from his beer, “she’s perfect, mate.”

“I mean,” Tom racked his brain for an excuse big enough to make Avery not want you, “you don’t think it’s a little weird she’s in a friend group with all boys?”

“No,” Avery said slowly, skeptically looking back at the exit, “she just clicks with boys, I guess. Girls and guys can just be friends.”

“Not her,” Tom scoffed, “I mean, it’s just a little obvious, y’know?”

You and the rest of the boys were heading back in, seeing as the back patio was completely overcrowded with patrons.

“What’s obvious?” Avery asked, raising his voice slightly due to the volume in the bar.

“(Y/N)’s only friends are guys!” Tom nearly yelled over the volume of chatter, not realizing that the surrounding customers could hear him, “makes me wonder how many she’s slept with! I mean, that’s not a coincidence to me!”

The surrounding customers halted their conversations, leaving only Tom’s voice filtering through the air and into your ears.

“That’s crazy,” Avery chuckled awkwardly, “I don’t think she’s like that.” He shook his head, annoying Tom. In a final last-ditch effort to get Avery off your back, he said the worst thing he could, loudly, into a quieting pub.

“Well, she hits on me all the time,” Tom shrugged, “she’s just a bit whorish, I guess.”

“Tom,” Tuwaine cleared his throat, interrupting their conversation, “what the fuck, mate?”

Tom looked at all the boys next to Tuwaine, and behind them was you, teary-eyed with harsh sobs racking through your body.

You whispered something to Harry, and then all but ran out the front door. Harry walked over to where Tom was sitting and picked up your purse.

“Harry I—” Tom tried.

“Shut the fuck up, Tom.” Harry snapped, “You're an idiot and an asshole, just leave things be.”

Harry ran out the pub entrance, following you to give you a ride home.

Tuwaine, Sam, and Harrison shook their heads once the shock ebbed away. One by one they all left Tom sitting in shock and agony at the bar. Avery, not knowing any of the group, barely knew what was going on or if Tom’s accusations were correct, left the pub and went home without another word.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

“Harry,” Tom whined into the phone, “please tell me how to fix this, please I’m begging you.”

Harry sighed, now properly regretting lifting his silent treatment from Tom, “Tom, there is absolutely nothing I can do to help you, and even if there was, I wouldn’t. You called her a whore in front of a crowded pub—”

“I know!” Tom yelled, “And I’ve been living with that guilt for three weeks now! Please, Harry. I-I messed up so bad.” Tom’s voice cracked, “I tried calling and texting, a-and my texts started turning green. She blocked me,” Tom sobbed, “I’m in love with her, and I never got to tell her. I ruined our relationship before it even began.”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, “you did.”

“Harry, I just want to apologize properly, please.” Tom begged, “I tried going to her house, but her roommate threw a drink at me and told me she went out of town. Where is she?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Harry,” Tom sighed, “I’m trying so hard here, I don’t care where she is, I’ll go anywhere for her. Please, I just can’t keep waiting in the dark for her to talk to me.”

Harry sighed, rubbing his forehead, “Okay, fine, but don’t tell her I told you where she was. And if you get your face clawed off, just know that you deserve it.”

“Okay, okay, now tell me.”

“She’s been staying with Tuwaine and his girlfriend.”

“Okay, thanks, love you, bye!” Tom said through the phone, already grabbing his keys.

Harry sighed and began texting Tuwaine,

Harry: Tom’s coming over, don’t snap him in half, he just wants to talk to her.

Tuwaine: I’m not home right now, but I'd be more worried about her snapping him in half…

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Tom pulled up the Tuwaine’s flat and pounded at the door. He didn’t see Tuwaine’s car in the driveway but he saw yours parked on the street so he knew you were in there.

“(Y/N)!” He desperately called, “Come on, I know you’re in there!”, his pleas were met with silence and he rang the doorbell on repeat, “(Y/N), please! I just want to talk!”

The door opened to show you standing there with your messy hair and stained sweats, still looking overwhelmingly perfect in Tom’s eyes. He noticed the dark circles and the dried tears and his heart broke, even more, knowing he caused this. He loved you so much and he caused you some of the worst pain imaginable. All he wanted to do was hold you and kiss your puffy cheeks, desperately whispering praises into your ear. You were perfect in every sense of the word, and he let you believe you were anything less. He was an idiot—the biggest idiot in the world—for making you cry.

“What do you want?” You snapped with a sniffle, pulling him back to reality as you rubbed your red eyes.

“I just want to talk,” Tom gave you a small smile, “please.”

“I don’t have anything to say to you.” You scowled, “You need to leave.”

“No, (Y/N), please.” Tom begged, “I’m sorry. I’m so so so fucking sorry. I was being an idiot and—please, (Y/N), you’re my best friend. I don’t wanna lose you.” Tom’s voice cracked, but you remained stoic in the doorway.

“I’m your best friend? Really?” You scoffed, “I thought I was just some whore you let hang around you?”

Tom winced at his words being thrown back into his face, “I didn’t mean it, I swear,” he promised, tears glistening in his eyes, “I don’t even know why I said that. I was being so fucking stupid—”

“No,” You interrupted his rambling, “you don’t get to say that. You don’t get to say that it was just you “being stupid”. Who the hell says that about their supposed best friend? Why would you even think that? You don’t just get to call me those things in public, and then say that you don’t know why you did it. You can’t even give me a reason—”

“I’m in love with you,” Tom blurted out, blowing out a puff of air in stress, “I’ve been in love with you for the longest time, (Y/N). And Avery was saying how he wanted to ask you out, and I couldn’t lose you. I didn’t want to lose you. I had so many plans for us, and I wanted to be with you—to be yours—more than anything, and I let my jealousy get in the way. I’m sorry because if I deserved you I wouldn’t have done that.”

You stood in the doorway of the flat, arms crossed over your chest. “I can’t believe you’d be so reckless.” You said after a moment of silence, “I would’ve been yours if you had just asked me.”

“I’m sorry,” Tom cried, reaching out to hold your hand, but you backed away ever so slightly, “please, I would do anything to fix it if I could.”

“You don’t understand anything, Tom.” You frowned.

“Help me understand.” He begged.

You pondered it for a moment and then released a sigh, coupled with a few tears, “I loved you,” you admitted. Tom’s heart did a leap, but then he realized that you were talking past tense as if his chance with you was gone.

“And I would spend months and months just waiting for you to come home so I could spend time with you. I was so lonely when you and Harry left; I always am. Avery offered to spend some time with me after class one day and I agreed because I don’t have anybody else when you leave. And it was fun, but he wasn’t you. He’ll never compare to the place you had in my heart, but at least I wasn’t alone anymore.” You sighed and began closing the door again, “Now, because of you, I have no one again.”

The door was about to slam back in Tom’s face, but he shoved his foot in the threshold, “(Y/N), wait,” he pleaded, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize how important Avery was to you. I can never undo what I did, but please let me make it up to you. I just need you to understand how sorry I am.”

You opened the door again and looked at Tom’s sad eyes, boring into you, “I do understand how sorry you are, but I don’t know how I can trust you again. You said awful things about me without even batting an eye or taking a breath—”

“I know,” Tom sighed, “I know and I’d give anything to take it back. I just want you back (Y/N). Even if you don’t want to be my girlfriend, I can’t leave knowing I’ve lost my best friend.”

“As much as it hurts,” You caved, moving from the doorway to let Tom in, “I still love you, and I don’t want to lose you either.”

Tom smiled and walked into the flat, immediately pulling you into a hug, “I’m so sorry, (Y/N),” You hugged back and sniffled into his hoodie, before pulling away with a sigh.

“I know,” You nodded, “I forgive you. But next time, just be honest with me and tell me how you’re feeling. I’d give you the world if you asked for it.”

Tom smiled and stroked your tear-stained cheek, “I’ll just settle on your heart for now, if that’s okay?”

“That’s so fucking cheesy.” You giggled, wiping the tears from your eyes, “I love it.”

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

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missymurphy1985 · 3 years ago

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The Extra (part 2)

Warning - smut (eventually....)

Taglist @queenshelby @margoo0 @being-worthy @peakyscillian @peakyciills @janelongxox @elenavampire21 @noctvrnalmoth @ysmmsy @cloudofdisney @lauren-raines-x @namelesslosers @misscarolineshelby @screemqueen @cilleveryone @peaky-cillian @misselsbells06 @datewithgianni @heidimoreton

You were finishing up your coffee, grateful that Cillian didn't hang around after grabbing his. Suddenly you heard Anto shouting in the yard outside. You told Liane you'd find her later, and headed out to him. He was pacing the grounds on his phone, the anger evident in his face. With an abrupt "Fuck you!" down the line, he hung up, kicking a rock across the courtyard in frustration.

"Anto? What's wrong?" You approached nervously.

"We start filming in three hours, and one of the cast had dropped out!!"

"What? Who?"

"Rachel Foster. She was supposed to play Tommy Shelby's girl."

"Oh shit.."

"Oh shit in-fucking-deed. What the fuck am I supposed to do now?! I can't call someone in at this short notice!"

"I don't know anyone who's even available.." he suddenly looked at you, you squirmed a little, you recognised that look.

"You know, it's not too late to reconsider my offer y/n."

"Anto we talked about this, I'm not an actress."

"But you used to be! And you were the best I knew!"

"When you offered me a role in this I was flattered beyond belief, I truly was, but my role is as a professor now, not an actress. I gave that all up nearly a decade ago!"

"Think about it - you're here anyway! She was only meant to film this week, it's a few scenes with Tommy, nothing major.. she's not even lasting the whole series it's just a few scenes I swear it. At least let me do a casting call with you? I'll pay you for your time, even if you don't want to do it? It's win-win! I'm desperate here y/n..."

You thought about it. You enjoyed the theatre shows you used to be involved in years ago so much, but then you were offered the job at Birmingham University and it was too good an opportunity to miss - a steady wage, guaranteed income.. the thought of going back to being a struggling actress made you very nervous.

"One casting call. If it doesn't work, I'm out and you'll have to find someone else Anto."

"Oh you fucking legend... You BEAUTIFUL legend!!!" He scooped you up and spun you round in a circle, before dragging you over to costume and makeup.

An hour later, you were in costume, hair done, makeup on, ready for the camera. You stood in the set for the Garrison, Anto giving you the once over for the short scene he'd got planned for the casting call.

"Anto you didn't say anything about kissing Tommy!" You groaned, reading the paper he handed you.

"It's one kiss - we need to make sure you have chemistry. You know these scenes are always filmed first y/n."

"You fucking owe me Byrne." He grinned his cheesiest grin yet, allowing you time to get to know your lines and the scene. You were lost in it, focussing on getting yourself into a character for the first time in years.

"Y/n?" An Irish brogue suddenly dragged you out of your prep, and you nearly dropped the whiskey glass you were holding as you were practising a scene.

"Holy fuck..."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you - " he held out his hand, chuckling at your outburst. "I'm Cillian. I'll be playing Thomas Shelby."

"I, uh, I know who you are, I'm Y/n..."

"I know, Anto tells me you're Rachel's replacement? Really appreciate you stepping in like this, I know it's all a bit weird. Just take your time, okay? There's no rush, and no pressure to get it perfect, just relax. I know how intense these things can be."

"Thank you. I'm sorry if I'm shit..." You laughed, your stomach in knots.

"You won't be! You wanna stop at any point, tell me. No pressure, remember that. I'm looking forward to it."

"To what? Me throwing a whiskey glass at you?"

"No, not that bit," he smiled, his blue eyes glittering in the stage lights behind you.

"Right then you two, are you ready?" Anto called, and you pulled yourself together. Taking a deep breath, the scene began.

"You promised me Thomas. You said you were going legit!! Now I find out you have guns hidden away from the fucking IRA??"

"Clara, you have to trust me! I AM going legit but I need money behind me to do it - this is our way out of here!"

"You're a fucking liar Shelby. Four years I waited for you. Four fucking years you wrote to me promising me a life of safety, no more having to watch our backs, no more Peaky fucking Blinders, and you lied through your fucking teeth!" You threw the glass, missing his face by a mere inch.

He ducked, and approached you carefully, hands out to catch your arms as they flailed around. A sudden flick of your wrist in the wrong direction caught him off guard and you hit him. Full force on the side of his cheek.

"Oh fuck!! Shit I'm so sorry!!"

"Quite the left hook you've got there!!" He laughed, regaining his composure, rubbing his face. A decent shade of red now blossoming across his cheek. Anto was in stitches the other side of the camera and you shot him a glare.

"I can't believe you've just smacked the star of the fucking show!" He laughed.

"You're certainly feisty enough for Clara's character, I'll give you that!" Cillian smirked. You were mortified.

"I really am sorry..."

"No harm done, I'm fine. I've had worse. Come on, let's finish this yeah?" You were convinced you'd screwed it up, but Anto calling Action brought you back into the scene.

Cillian cleared his throat and approached you again, you could see him trying not to laugh though and you couldn't help but giggle a little, which set him off too.

"I'm sorry, really I am!" You panicked.

"That was my fault, I was too busy watching her arms!" Cillian smiled.

"Guys I really like what I'm seeing here. There's definitely chemistry on screen. Why don't you two go rehearse a little more together and come back in 30 minutes?" Cillian nodded and turned to you.

"Fancy a coffee?" He asked. You nodded and he led you over to the trailers behind the set.

"Are we not going to the cafeteria?"

"Not unless you want to rehearse in front of your Uni class?" He smirked. You shook your head and followed him into a decent sized trailer at the back. He flicked the kettle on, telling you to take a seat while he made the coffee.

"So why did you give up the theatre? You're clearly very good, else Anto wouldn't have requested you?"

"It wasn't going anywhere. I was in the West End, Broadway, Galway.. just seemed to be bouncing around with no real direction. I wanted to get into film or TV work but the roles were in high demand. And it became very clear very quickly that I wasn't the right kind of actress the movie makers wanted as a leading lady."

"Really? Why?"

"I wasn't prepared to get my tits out at every audition like the others I guess?" You shrugged. "I auditioned for a horror movie once in Hollywood. Some big budget thing that never ended up happening anyway, but the director wanted me to audition in this skimpy little dress - barely covered my ass never mind my thighs. Wouldn't audition me unless I wore it, so I threw it at him and walked out. Kinda blacklisted from then on."

"That's horrendous? Which director?"

"Cant even remember his name now it was so long ago. It doesn't matter anyway, the movie was scrapped before production and I landed the job at the university. Secure, stable, good money - couldn't ask for more really. And the kids are so great, Cillian, full of passion and enthusiasm! They're so inspiring they really are!"

"I'm meeting some of them later, I'm looking forward to it. My youngest wants to get into the industry. Been trying to put him off for years but he's such a little showman. Exactly like I was at his age."

"Is that Jack?" You asked.

"Yeah. His mam is keen on him getting into it but she hated me going off for months on end filming. One of the reasons she divorced me last year."

"I heard about that. I'm sorry.."

"No don't be! We get on better now than we ever have. Only stayed together for the kids you know? Milk and sugar?" You nodded, and he handed you the cup.

"This scene is awkward, I've never done a scene like this before," you confessed, taking a sip.

"Like what?"

"A kiss? How do you kiss someone without actually kissing them?"

"You just do it, I guess. Once you're in character it just happens. I won't use tongues I promise - nothing personal, it's just one of my rules."

"That makes it less awkward I suppose!"

"Exactly. Although didn't stop Scarlett Johansson that one time... Nearly got me shot by the wife that one did!" You remembered that scene in Girl with a Pearl Earring and laughed.

"You know, I've learned over the years that if you do those scenes first it makes all the others much easier," he said, putting his coffee down and taking yours from you, placing it on the table next to his. He took your hands and stood you up in front of him.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to kiss you."

"What?"

"Not like that, I'm going to 'movie-kiss' you. Show you how it's done. Trust me - you won't feel awkward after this."

"I beg to differ..."

"Come on y/n, what have you got to lose?" My senses? You thought. My mind, maybe? You were hesitant, massively hesitant. You weren't even sure you were even going to go through with this. He glanced at his watch.

"We have five minutes, close your eyes and trust me." He nodded at you, and you took a deep breath, closing your eyes.

His fingers back on your cheek, this was just a reenactment of the scene but those fingers felt like lightening bolts. You could sense him moving closer, and his lips brushing yours. You were almost frozen to the spot until he whispered for you to relax.

"Okay, okay... I'm relaxed.. try again.." he leaned in again, your lips meeting properly. His hand in the back of your hair pulling you a little closer. You fell into it, your hands reaching round his back. As promised, he didn't use his tongue, which felt really strange at first but you quickly got used to it. Your mouths meshed together perfectly as you found your rhythm. A few minutes of this, before he pulled away, another gentle kiss against your lips as he did.

"Wow..." You gasped, opening your eyes. If someone had told you this morning you'd be kissing Cillian Murphy by lunchtime you'd have had them commited to the local loony bin, yet here you were. He didn't speak, and his hand was still on your cheek, brushing it lightly.

"Didn't plan on making you blush so much."

"Didn't plan on kissing Cillian Murphy when I woke up this morning," you laughed.

"Ready to do that again?"

"Again?"

"Just to make sure we got it right, of course."

"Yes.. of course.." he moved in quickly, but it felt different this time. His lips crashed against yours, and you definitely felt his tongue brush your lips a couple of times but you didn't reciprocate. You both moved backwards, your thighs hitting the table behind you, coffee nearly spilling over.

"Fuck, you okay? I'm sorry.." he pulled away to make sure none had spilled on you.

"I'm fine, it didn't fall, I'm fine... I uh, I think we've got the kiss nailed down though..." You brushed your hair out of your face and looked to the floor.

"Yeah, I think you're right.." your eyes met again and you both smiled. Before he could speak though, Anto was at the door knocking.

"Ready for round 2 guys?" He called. Cillian nodded at you, and you nodded back, both of you heading out to try the scene again.

#cillian murphy #cillian smut #cillian x fem!reader #cillian fanfic #cillian x smut #cillian murphy x smut

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blackch-rry · 4 years ago

Text

“His side of the bed”

p. sunghoon x female reader (1.2k)

warnings: angst? shitty writing. this is from months ago and idk why i’m posting it in the first place. it’s supposed to be multiple parts but i don’t think i’ll be doing that :)

***

She always appreciated having the night shifts. Maybe there's something in the air when its long passed sunset that makes it so calming; addicting. If it was safe enough she would take nightly walks all by her lonesome. Walks that would last hours while her mind went off running.

Her deepest wish in life is to let the free spirit that resides in her body float up into the sky and find a home on the clouds. There's something holding her back of course. There always is. It could be the pile of late assignments she has no interest in completing. Or it could be the obvious.

A broken heart that was shoved into the darkest, deepest, place in her. She doesn't like to admit when she's hurt or hurting. She guesses it's because her pain is something only she wants to feel. It's nobody else's business besides the person who put her in this state. There is a part of her that wants this pain to escape and travel somewhere far away. Possibly to him. Him. She would like him to feel this way too, because she thinks he has no idea at all.

The store's interior is new and freshly renovated, but the outside is a work of art only decades on earth could do. Green vines crawling every which direction. Cracks and broken chucks missing from numerous bricks. Personally, she prefers the run down, old, look. But she won't disagree that the inside looks much sharper and modern.

Her co-worker just stepped down from the ladder on the farthest left wall.

"It's time for me to head out. Hopefully since it's a thursday," He pushes his sleeve up to check his wristwatch, "and almost eleven there won't be a lot of late night shoppers."

She always thought Jungwon had a nice smile since her first day on the job. He's a nice guy from what she knew. Apparently, they attended the same high school three years ago. She was a senior when he was a junior. "Don't forget to turn off the backroom light before you lock up, okay? You left it on last time and, ironically, Joy wasn't too happy about that."

Jungwon placed the last few books from his hands into their respectful places before heading back and grabbing his belongings. She halted him by placing a hand on his shoulder before he left for the night. "Thank you by the way. For saving my ass with Joy." She quickly put her hands behind her back and put on a smile of gratitude.

Jungwon would be lying if he said he hadn't noticed anything different with her the past couple of weeks. He noticed everything of course, how she lessened conversations with customers and shortened her responses to everyone. It's just the two of them working the later shifts of the day. Jungwon thinks she could be a great actress.

"It's no problem at all. Have a good night, okay?"

She did a slight nod of her head. She walked back behind the counter and continued where she left off. It was quicker than usual how fast she got distracted and rummaged through her bag for a certain notebook. She pulled out a dark blue pen and got to work. Draw a flower. A rose. Then, draw a butterfly. Write a phrase. I miss you on your side of the bed. No... cross that out...please.

She straightened her back when her phone chimed. Glancing at the time, it had been a little over thirty minutes since Jungwon left.

I won't be home when you get back. Probably be back around tomorrow night.

A text message from her roommate. As she typed out a couple words the bell above the door alerted her of someone's presence but she didn't lift her head from her phone; assuming it was probably some middle aged customer. She replied some minutes ago but got distracted, once again, by her Instagram feed. Definitely not employee of the month. All previous sounds were blocked out, but there was a sudden clearing of a throat less than four feet away from her.

She never thought movies made sense when a character would say 'It happened in slow motion', but she could say she felt her chest burn the second she saw him and the way his eyes met hers was painfully slow.

"Sunghoon..."

She hated how she said his name instinctively, no thought or hesitance at all. Her eyes shifted to his hands. A book. No, two.

"Wow, it's...been so long hasn't it?"

"A year isn't that long."

She guesses she made him uncomfortable because of the way he laughed off what she said. She can't seem to take her eyes off the books. Especially not when he puts them onto the space between them.

"Just these two?" Her voice is stable but low and quiet. She gets nothing but a nod in return.

"I didn't know you were back."

"How could you have? I didn't tell anyone besides, well, h-"

"Her? I figured."

She supposes there has been something eating inside of her since the very beginning of their end. It's not done yet, but it's made some sort of breakthrough that day. She holds in her scoff as best as possible.

"Two of the same book?"

"She wanted me to read it at the same time as her."

That made whatever was there eat faster. She hadn't even rung up the second book yet. He clearly noticed how slow she was going and sighed out of irritation.

"Does she make you do everything with her?"

"What's with all the questions?"

"I just find it funny. You always told me to stop wasting my time on books and letting my head get stuck somewhere non-existent. You never picked up a novel. It's-"

"Yeah, I know. I'm a hypocrite." He ran a hand through his hair. Something he did when he was running low on patience. She decided to state the painfully obvious.

"You're doing it because you love her. I mean, you're in love with her."

"Can you just tell me what the total is?" His card is sitting pretty in between his fingers. She knows his hands are ice cold. No... she probably makes them warm.

"$29.98."

He makes sure they don't touch when he hands over his card. She notices.

When midnight arrives, she double checks the backroom light is off and the door is locked. The short walk back to her apartment is relatively quiet if you don't count her inner thoughts.

She's got a free spirit somewhere in there, no doubt about it. But the reason why she's not letting herself get a taste of the wind has just moved back to town. The pain she hasn't let go of for more than a year is ready to see the sky, touch the stars. It's been ready, but she's grown so used to it she wouldn't know what to do, how to live on, if it escaped.

She's come to the realization that it's not fair how people could be so okay with leaving behind their other half. It doesn't matter if she's still in love. It never does.

No matter how many times she sleeps on her side of the bed, how warm it can get, his will always be cold and it eventually spreads to her as well.

#sunghoon x reader #sunghoon imagines #enhypen imagines #enhypen angst #sunghoon angst #enhypen x reader #enhypen #park sunghoon #park sunghoon x reader #enhypen fics #jungwon #enhypen scenarios

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tcm · 4 years ago

Text

A Conversation with Patty McCormack on Growing Up on Screen By Kim Luperi

Not many child stars go on to enjoy long, successful careers in show business – and fewer still have earned a prestigious Academy Award nomination before they turned 18. Patty McCormack has achieved both. The actress, who made her first film appearance in 1951 and went on to star in THE BAD SEED (’56, for which she received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress as the murderous Rhoda at age 11); THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN (’60) and THE YOUNG RUNAWAYS (’68), continues to work in Hollywood and shows no indication of slowing down.

I had the pleasure of speaking with McCormack recently about some of these titles and more, including the delightful film KATHY O’ ('58) in which she plays a famous child star – an apt springboard for a discussion about growing up on screen and transitioning into more mature roles over her incredibly long, accomplished career.

(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

I was watching KATHY O’ last night, and I really enjoyed it. In that movie they talk about your blonde pigtail braids as a trademark, and I realized it kind of was; you had that hairstyle in THE BAD SEED and ALL MINE TO GIVE (’57), too. Do you know how that style came about, or was it something you did that caught on?

Patty McCormack: It seems to be! I believe I even had them early on in Mama, which was an old live TV show that was a weekly event. I don't know how that [trademark] happened. I think it just happened because of THE BAD SEED – I think it was the hairdo that I went in with or they just decided on. When you see the original artwork on William March’s book, there’s a very long face drawing of Rhoda, his Rhoda, and there were braids in it. I don't know if they were looped or what, but that could have been it – or I honestly don't remember if it was chosen by my mom because it was easy, but it stuck!

I loved KATHY O’ because I got to live the dream. I loved the notion of them cutting my hair off – except it was a wig that they cut. After a while it felt like I didn't want to look like an older person with braids – you have to get rid of them eventually. As soon as I could, I wanted hair that was like, in that era, a page boy or something like that, where it landed on your shoulder. But I carried that long hair for a long time. And then you know how you revert back to certain hairdos years later?

They come back in style.

PM: Yes, they come back, but now I have shortish hair, and I'm growing it one length. So I got over the braids – just in the nick of time!

Circling back to Rhoda, you originated the role on Broadway before the film version, so you obviously had a lot of practice and familiarity with the part before you took it to the screen. Since she's such a chilling character, how did you get into that mindset at age nine, especially when you had to play the part multiple times a week?

PM: I always go back to the source, and the source was the director, Reginald Denham. He was so good with directing me. He made it fun, because I learned when I'd get an audience reaction on a face I’d make or something, I'd look forward to doing that again – you know, that kind of joy.

He made it so clear and simple, and his point of view was that Rhoda was always right. I know I've said this before, but it's the truth. No matter what anybody says, Rhoda is correct, and anything she wants, she feels entitled to – not using that word ‘entitled’ – but I really wasn't thinking of myself as a bad person, or especially not a murderer. I just thought it was their fault, which is classic, I guess. I had to kill him [the little boy] because he was so mean. So I think that was how I learned to be that character. I was aware of the murders – people were dead because of me, that I knew – but somehow it wasn't disturbing to my mind. If you take a look at it knowing that, you see it. I'm not coming from some sort of evil place, I don't think.

You were nominated for an Oscar for THE BAD SEED, which is amazing; it's a true testament to your talents, of course, but it’s also such a big accolade to have at such a young age. Do you remember there being any pressure on you for your next role?

PM: Well, the role was so odd for a kid to be so noticed, in that era anyway. I can't think of any jobs I didn't get after that that somebody else got, you know? What happened, though, was that each year I grew, and so I just experienced the typical kid actor dilemma which is going from category to category and establishing yourself in that category and learning how to be in that category. I did do something on Playhouse 90 – I did a few PLAYHOUSE 90s back then – and I did a lot of television –

You played Helen Keller [in the original 1957 Playhouse 90 teleplay “The Miracle Worker”].

PM: That's what I was going to say! That was after THE BAD SEED. But mostly, as far as movies went, there was KATHY O’ and a few here and there and at different levels of development. I was always aware that it had been a while since I worked, that I felt, but I didn't think business, like “What will I follow up that with?” I didn't have that kind of mentality, and I really don't think my mother did either, so it just sort of went the way it went.

As you mentioned too, you were still growing up. So, you’re a child, then a teenager, then young adult. You probably wouldn’t be thinking about the business part of it.

PM: No, it's so strange. It's not an easy transition, and as you know famous people go through really hard things. You don't get to sit and relax in a certain mode for too long because before you know it you're in the next one. And then you go through your ‘ugly period’ in front of everybody, which is horrible.

The movie that you mentioned TCM is going to air, THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, when I see the headshots from that I just think, “Aw, I looked uncomfortable!” I could see it even in my body. I felt like I was at the awkward time – you know, part of me was getting bigger, developing – and that hairdo they gave me didn't help; it was still the braids but wrapped up.

I want to ask you about that transition. Did you find anything difficult or surprising about navigating Hollywood and growing up on screen?

PM: The most difficult part, honestly, as a person growing up – I think at the time I always say Sandra Dee was the person we all looked to. She was just so beautiful, and no one else looked like that – maybe Carol Lynley a little bit – but the bar was set very high. With that, you’re insecure anyways because you’re at that age, and more than anything you don't want to be different. I think that's true for a lot of kids. So the maturing, that part of development, was difficult when I look back. You don't have the confidence that you had as a little kid when you don't think about anything. You become all self-conscious about how you look, if you're thin enough, if you’re pretty enough, if your hair looks nice. It's a little bit of an adjustment to get through all that and go back to what you like to do, which is to pretend, and take the focus off what you look like or who you look like or any of that stuff. I don't know if other kid actors had the same experience, but usually people grow out of a look that made them known – most of us anyway, not all of us.

I know when you left Hollywood you went back to Brooklyn and finished high school there. What was that experience like for you?

PM: Well, I took my real name back, and I was going to the high school that my mother and older sister went to, so I was really excited. This is going to sound so weird, but it was almost like playing a part – I was playing the part of a high school student. My real name is Russo, so I was Patty Russo. The experience was really kind of shocking, because I think they expected me to be very conceited, and so I had to hide in the cafeteria in the early days, because it was Brooklyn and they were pretty tough – they were on me! But I made a best friend who helped me navigate through it, and it turned into a nice experience finally. I was glad to have had that.

Then I came back out here [Los Angeles], and I stayed with a friend of my mother's family for a while. I wound up leaving Utrecht [her Brooklyn high school] – it’s a long story – but I did a soap opera in between while I was going to Utrecht, and that was kind of tricky because they weren't flexible like California was. In California they were used to kid actors, and in New York at that time, they really weren't. Then when I came out here, I went back to finish high school at Hollywood Professional and got my diploma that way. But I'm so glad I got to go back to Brooklyn. I'm pleased about that.

It sounds like you had a pretty grounded childhood, especially in attending a regular high school. Do you think that helped how you adjusted when you returned to the film industry?

PM: It was a little bit too grounded, I think! I came from a really good family. I never thought that I was a big deal, and they [her mom and dad] made sure of that. So, coming back to the industry after, I really didn't know the ropes. People handled all that before – the only thing I knew was what I did, and so some things maybe didn't get handled so well, but I learned on my feet when I came back out here. Then I married my childhood boyfriend and we had our children, and I kept working.

Yes, you’ve worked steadily since then.

PM: I did work a lot! It’s true. Nothing on the level of nominations, but I was a journeyman, I like to say.

You've spent six decades in the industry, which is really astounding, especially since you started as a child. I read an interview from 1974 that featured a humorous quote from you that I’d like to share. You said that you lamented that you never got the guy in movies and just once you wanted to “kiss the guys instead of kill them.”

PM: That is funny!

But throughout your career, you played Helen Keller, you played a career woman in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING (’70), you played Pat Nixon more recently in FROST/NIXON (’08), so you've had a lot of experience with different characters. Was there any genre or any type of character that you wish you could explore further?

PM: Well, I'll tell you the truth, it's actually seven decades from when I started, although if you want to make me younger, I don't mind! At this point in time, I'm so grateful when I work, because there could be nothing now, you know? I do enjoy what comes along. The only thing I never got to do, which I would have loved, was to have been in a habit – I would have loved to have played a nun in a habit.

That’s interesting.

PM: Isn’t it? It’s the Catholic school thing.

We’ll have to find you a role like that!

PM: I know, wouldn't that be fun? And it would be a nice way, in your later years, to go from a killer to a nun, you know? I think it would be a good idea.

Going in the right direction!

PM: Yes! But anyways, little things change here and there, and I sometimes do voiceovers, and I did something recently that I had never done, which was so much fun. Did you notice on Netflix a show called ARSENE LUPIN [working title for LUPIN]?

I haven’t heard of it, but I know there’s an old movie with the same name.

PM: Yes, this is a remake. It's in French, and I dubbed a French woman into English, and it was so much fun to do, to have someone else's face up there. I know some people watch foreign movies and they say, “Oh it's so unfair to dub the other actors,” and I probably wouldn't love it if somebody dubbed me either, but I had such a ball doing it. So, if you catch that show, you'll see somewhere in there I'm speaking English for a French woman.

I wanted to talk about two of your more recent roles. I know you starred in MOMMY in the 1990s, kind of a grown-up Rhoda, and you played a psychiatrist in the Lifetime remake of THE BAD SEED in 2018. This story has been filmed a few times; what do you think resonates with people, and how did it feel going back to that character and story but from different perspectives?

PM: Right. Well, to be honest, the Rob Lowe production [for Lifetime] was really a totally different story. There was no mom – he was the mom character – so the writing was really different.

There were two MOMMY movies: MOMMY (’95) and MOMMY’S DAY (’97). Those were written by a writer who lives in Muscatine, Iowa: Max Allan Collins. This is a long time ago now, but it was fun to grow her up, you know, physically. I talked to you about how that is the strange thing about transitioning, and it was so enjoyable to do that. It really was a journey for me internally.

There was also something about shaking hands with that, because in my day, it was never a good thing to have something so long ago be talked about all the time. I got that impression by other people's opinions, not my own, and as time went on, the world changed and people started knowing actors’ work from 20 years ago. So, the appreciation for that old work came back, and I learned to feel good about it through other people's feelings about it. I do have such a different perspective on it now, and it's a character that was so special. That really changed my ability as to how I could hold it [the role].

It’s nice to be able to do that.

PM: Yes, it is.

I have one more question for you. I know we’re in a pandemic and many productions are halted, but do you have any upcoming appearances that I can share with fans to look out for?

PM: Aw, I wish! It's funny, I did some Hallmark Christmas movies. Well, I did one, and then last year I was supposed to do another one, and they cut our parts because of COVID. So, I'm rooting for [the next one], and I have a good feeling, you know, when we have our vaccinations. Also, a downside was that they shoot in Canada, and they have to bring you up there, and at that time you had to stay in 14 days.

A lot of rules!

PM: Yes, a lot of rules. So hopefully there will be a new one. I can't honestly say, but there's no reason there shouldn't be!

My dad loves the Hallmark Christmas movies, and I watch a lot of them because of him, so I'll be rooting for you and looking out for you!

PM: I know, there's so many. People have blankets and all these things! There are real hard-core fans – it's amazing.

#patty mccormack #child actors #TCM #Turner Classic Movies #The bad seed #kim luperi #growing up on screen #acting #actor

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jeongyunhoed · 4 years ago

Photo

A year after the events of Past-Present-Future, Lee Mirae, Choi San, and Jeong Yunho receive a mysterious envelope containing photos and notes about the deaths of several individuals. The deeper they go into the case, they find that the entertainment industry hides a very dark secret.

Group: ATEEZ Pairing: Yunho/OC Genres: It’s a little bit of: adventure, romance, mystery, crime, fantasy, action. Things to note: It also features mentions of other idols/artists: Junhong (Zelo), Dean, Chanyeol, Enhypen etc.

Superpowers AU if it wasn’t obvious as well.

T/W: Themes of death, violence, demons, cults, blood, use of weapons and/or firearms, use of drugs (both recreational and medical), implied/referenced assault, implied/referenced suicide, cussing

A/N: Sorry for taking so long in updating this, but here we go, the penultimate chapter.

Masterlist

Chapter 7

The seven of them were gathered around Yeosang in his living room, giving him looks as if prompting the vampiric-looking male to explain everything. Yunho was growing impatient, thinking of Mirae and what may have happened to her, what was happening to her at that moment. Mingi was playing with his lighter while Seonghwa was fiddling with his bow and Hongjoong had the blade from his sleeve out.

“Madame Seo has been around for years, and when I say years, I mean decades, you could say she’s almost a century old even if she looks the way she looks,” Yeosang began. “I met her at the time of the Gwangju uprising. She was an adviser to Chun Doohwan, you could say she whispered things in his ear that led to that coup that killed so many people,” He looked down as he recalled that day.

“She always believed in that kind of purge. It was her philosophy as much as it was Ose’s, the demon in hell she worships. Anyway, she came to my office to discuss investments in some businesses she planned on starting, the brothel, the fashion label, those things. She knew who I was, Ose granted her the gift of reading minds, she figured out I was a mutant, who lived much, much longer than she did,”

“She still can’t read Mirae’s mind even if she tried,” San muttered, shaking his head.

Yeosang glanced at him. “It didn’t take me long before I realized...Madame Seo was developing affections for me. Of course, she wasn’t my type. I was...shall we say, married at the time, to the woman who was the mother of my children, who turned you all into what you are right now. When my wife died, she made her moves on me, and each time I rebuffed her…”

“Smooth,” Yunho gave him a look.

“Yes, yes she was. Years later, I find out that she came between Na Youngji and Ji Myungsoo, became Myungsoo’s mistress and later on wife, and then that actress died. It was easy for me to find out because she told me. She told me Ose had granted her seven children, seven demon children, to do her bidding, so she could become his queen,”

Hongjoong raised a hand, looking puzzled. “Hang on, you’re telling me that Madame Seo, that woman we’ve been looking for, is the queen or wife or whoever of this Ose demon?” He said.

“Yes. Yes, she is. But of course she needed a human husband, enter that basketball player. Madame Seo had Youngji killed, of course, just to get to him, but when he figured out who she really was, she had her children kill him too. Fast forward to today, where she has everyone, including those in government, wrapped around her finger. Madame Seo’s ultimate plan was to get everyone to bend to the will of Ose, while she prepares for his ascent,”

“And the reason why she’s got people under her control is because of those girls she sends their way?” Wooyoung asked, and he nodded. “She’ll expose them if they rat her out,” and Yeosang nodded again.

“So, a bunch of middle-aged men going this far to get laid? They’d actually sell their souls for this?” San looked disgusted.

“Sex, power, and influence. Madame Seo can give it to them too. Protection from the media and from the press. There’s a reason why there are dating scandals getting exposed just when someone in their circle is being looked into by the authorities, ever wonder why Yang Tan gets those tips of celebrities supposedly dating each other?” Yeosang glanced at Yunho and San.

“...Mirae did say Hyuk would tell her most of those were publicity stunts,” San muttered.

“There you have it, gentlemen, I’ve explained all I need to explain.”

“What does she hold over you?” Yunho asked before Yeosang could walk off.

“She knows I killed that Park Enterprises CEO,” Yeosang replied. “Among other things.”

“Those other things are?” Yunho pressed again. “You might as well say it. If you’re going to help us, better come clean with what she’s holding over you.”

Yeosang gave him a look. “She also knows I killed the rest of the people in my bloodline, including my wife. And now, she’s also jealous of Mirae.”

“Why?” Jongho questioned.

Yeosang pursed his lips. “Why do you think she’s jealous? Think about it.”

“Because you like her,” Wooyoung figured it out, scenes flashing in his head the more he looked at the vampiric-looking male. “But she doesn’t like you the same way.”

“I am fully aware of that, but that is no one’s business but mine,” Yeosang stood up straight. “If you’ll excuse me, I would like to retire for a bit,” and he walked off.

Yunho caught Yeosang in his study later that day. He was sitting by the window, drinking a glass of milk from a champagne flute. “For someone like you, I would’ve thought you took a liking to alcohol,” Yunho spoke as he stepped inside the room.

“I’ve been there, drank everything that was ever invented. Eventually it gets nauseating to drink even a drop of it,” Yeosang mumbled without looking at him. “But I do have a supply. Would you like some absinthe? It’s not as strong as you might think, as long as you put in some water over a cube of sugar.”

The vampiric-looking male gestured to the table nearby that had a tall, green bottle that was labeled in its name, the yellowing sign made Yunho realize that the liquor was likely older than him. “I guess I could have some,” He said.

Yeosang stood up and went over to the table, pouring some of the green liquid into a small glass. He placed a flat piece of metal over the glass, and a sugar cube. Yeosang carefully poured water over the sugar cube, letting it melt through the piece of metal until it reached the drink itself. From green, the drink became a cloudy yellow and Yeosang handed it over to him. “It’s best that way.”

“Thanks,” Yunho took a sip, his nose wrinkling at how strong the flavor was. He wasn’t a very experienced drinker even if he could hold his own.

“Has...Mirae told you about how we met?” Yeosang asked all of a sudden, gazing out the window.

“She met you when she found out you killed that CEO of Park Enterprises,” Yunho replied. “What about it?”

A smile crept up on the vampiric mutant’s face. “Nothing, I just keep thinking about that day. She came to the house of Park senior, inspected the body, argued with her brother, but if you’ll forgive me for saying, I was more entranced by her than I was with Park senior’s daughter,” He said.

Yunho raised a brow, curious as to what he meant. “And?”

“While she put up quite a front around me, I knew how she really felt,” Yeosang muttered. “Like many women before her, I could feel her shudder every time I was near, I could see her staring at my lips whenever we talked, as if she was begging me to kiss her, to ruin her like those women before her.”

Yunho stared at him, unable to speak, but Yeosang went on. “I had her cornered in my room one of those days she was doing a search for evidence. I could say I could cut the sexual tension between us with a knife. You’re probably wondering why the fuck am I telling you this,” a satisfied smile crept up on Yeosang’s lips, a giggle escaping him.

“Now you’re asking me that?” Yunho could feel his blood boil.

“I’m telling you this for the simple fact that Mirae needs someone who would take care of her. Treat her like the queen that she is. She deserves that much, you know? I can, can you?” Yeosang looked over at him. “You don’t deserve her, Jeong Yunho.”

“But you do?” Yunho put his drink down on the table with a thud.

Yeosang smirked. “You already died in Morocco, you had your chance with her. It’s over, Yunho.”

“No, no it isn’t,” Yunho got up. “She’s with me and she always will be.”

“Are you sure about that?” Yeosang chuckled. “She’s been playing you the entire time, in fact, I could still hear her moans whenever I remember her under me-” He stopped when he saw the prongs of Yunho’s sai pierce through his heart.

“You’re not picturing anything,” Yunho was glowering at him, watching the vampiric male fall to the floor, turning into a pile of dust. “Anymore.”

Yunho’s eyes shot open and he sat up. He had been sleeping on the large couch in Yeosang’s living room. Seonghwa and San were sleeping on the other sides of the couch, Jongho was dozing off on the lounge chair near the window, while Mingi, Hongjoong, and Wooyoung were sharing the mound of couch cushions on the floor, including the cushions from Yeosang’s study.

He couldn’t believe what he dreamt. He knew it wasn’t true. Yunho reminded himself that it was probably the dust he inhaled from those documents talking again, but he still couldn’t help but think that maybe the feelings he felt in that were genuine. Mirae had already told him, reminding him that she never felt anything for Yeosang except for the fact that she respected him.

Yunho knew he didn’t have a reason to be jealous, but those things the shorter male was taunting him in his dream struck a nerve. Maybe he had some resentment towards Yeosang, maybe he was jealous. It was making him miss Mirae and wonder what was happening to her, he couldn’t hear anything from her even at this hour.

“Good morning- or should I say, good afternoon to you,” Yeosang said quietly upon stepping in, looking a little disapprovingly at the rest of his groupmates on the floor. “Well, better here than in the guest room, I’ve got Egyptian cotton sheets that should not and will not be ruined.”

“Afternoon? What time is it?” Yunho asked.

“It’s five p.m., one hour until the television special of that idol group,” Yeosang replied.

That made Yunho almost jump out of his seat. “Then we don’t have time to waste,” He took one of the cushions to hit San and Seonghwa awake. “Get up, get up, it’s time.”

Yeosang stared at them. “By all means, move at a glacial pace, the sense of urgency is astounding,” He rolled his eyes.

“What have you been doing then?” Yunho shot him a look.

“For your information, I was attending meetings. I own this building. I have a business to run, two and two makes four,” Yeosang replied. “...And I saw Mirae.”

Yunho’s expression fell. “...And?”

“As unconscious as the last time I saw her. Madame Seo has been trying to keep the idol group from feeding on her, they already tried last time, remember?” Yeosang said. “She only showed me a video of her.”

“Okay then, we’re back to where we started. Where are they keeping her?” San asked this time.

“I-I don’t know,” Yeosang shook his head. “The background is somewhere I can’t figure out.”

Yunho raised a brow at his answer. “Oh really?”

“Yes, really,” Yeosang glanced at him.

The rest of their groupmates were already at their feet. “Did Madame Seo give you the video?” Wooyoung suddenly spoke. Yeosang shook his head. “Are you sure?” He asked, but froze as he began to see flashes of what the vampiric male was talking about.

Mirae was strapped to a metal chair unconscious, with bits of dried blood on her nose and lip. Wooyoung kept blinking as if he could see everything twice as fast. There were slabs of bodies and thick metal doors. He turned to the rest of them. “I think I know where she is,” He said.

The van had pulled up in front of an old hospital building that afternoon. “Alright, we’re here where Wooyoung said it was,” Yunho looked over at the back. Yeosang stood out from the rest of them with his striped suit and walking stick. “This is the place, right?”

Wooyoung looked out the window. “Yeah it is.”

“The morgue?” Hongjoong asked.

“Yep, that’s where I have a feeling they’re keeping her,” Wooyoung muttered. “I can’t be sure, but it’s worth looking.”

“Then what are we waiting for? We have to get in there,” Jongho took his nunchaku out while Mingi opened the door.

All of them got down from the van, Yeosang looking especially conscious and walking behind them as they opened the doors to enter the morgue. The cold air hit them as they stepped inside, noticing that no one was around, not even a security guard. “Strange how there isn’t anyone watching,” San said.

“It’s a morgue, I don’t think anyone would think of coming in here unless it’s to identify a body or turn in one,” Hongjoong shrugged as they scattered to look around. “Well, we’re here now, where would she be?” He turned to Wooyoung.

Wooyoung felt around the doors, partly realizing how he had quickly taken to this ability of his to sense memories and events. Yeosang observed them, the rest of them pausing when he approached the column of three doors on the left. He ran his walking stick on the side until he tapped the doors. “If I remember correctly, yes,” He turned the handle of the middle door clockwise, the entire column of doors opening to reveal a secret passage lit with torches.

The air coming from behind the doors felt damp and there was a faint whistling of the wind in the darkness that was ahead of them despite the torches illuminating part of the way. “Funny how there’s so much more to this place than we thought,” Mingi mumbled, keeping his lighter on as the eight of them approached the passage.

“This is the way?” Yunho said.

“Yes, at least from what I remember, I haven’t been here in decades, well, she invited me down here,” Yeosang replied simply, immediately taking a step inside when San pointed the arrow of his harpoon gun at him.

“Alright then,” Yunho nodded, making the rest of them follow him down the dark path. The door closed behind them. “Who is she trying to have her children summon from above?” He suddenly remembered what Yeosang told them before they had fallen asleep.

“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me anything about who she plans on having summoned here, other than Ose’s ascent,” Yeosang said over his shoulder. “Probably sore at me even more now,” He muttered under his breath as they walked down the slightly rocky path.

The further they walked, the more torches began to light up. They realized that they were walking down a spiral path, and as they were approaching the bottom, they found a crowd of people whose appearances and identities were obscured by the crimson red robes and hoods they were wearing. In front of them was a woman whose face was obscured with a shawl but was cloaked in the same crimson red robe.

“...It’s a good time to come up with a plan now,” Mingi muttered to them as they stepped back, hiding themselves behind the pillars.

Yunho stared at the formation of the hooded figures. “Where is Mirae?” He asked, glancing over at Wooyoung, who was watching the figures move.

“Is she not here?” Wooyoung mouthed, and Yunho shook his head, having a better view of the area. “...Oh no.”

“She’s in N Tower, damnit!” Yunho realized, frowning in frustration.

“We don’t have much time, some of you go with Yunho to N Tower, the rest of us will try and tear these guys apart,” Hongjoong suggested. “For Mirae, and the world.”

“For Mirae, and the world,” They nodded.

“Leave Madame Seo to me,” Yeosang removed the concealed dagger from his walking stick again. “You and San better go. Tell Mirae I said hello.”

The spikes were protruding from Jongho’s arms and legs again, and he stifled his cries of pain as it pierced through the fabric of his clothes.

“Ose, Ose, Ose, Ose,” The crowd began to chant as they bowed several times in front of the woman.

“Try not to kill anyone, try,” Yunho said to them.

“You and I both know that cannot be guaranteed,” Yeosang gave him a look. “Death is sometimes the answer.”

“That’s why I said try,” Yunho muttered.

“Something tells me we have visitors in our midst,” They heard Madame Seo say, stopping the bowing that was happening in front of her. “Yeosang? My love? Is that you? You seem to have brought friends with you, why don’t you come out?” She asked in a honeyed voice.

Yeosang stepped out, sheathing his knife in his walking stick again and looking calm. “I couldn’t resist coming back here, you showed me this place once before, I seem to vividly remember us having a good time here for 24 hours, was it?”

“Oh I remember that very well, you showed me how strong you’ve gotten, and the many other moves you’ve learned from where was it? The Kama Sutra?” He could tell she was grinning. Madame Seo looked over his shoulder. “Come out, come out, I love me some strapping young men with weapons. Don’t bother teleporting though, you’ll find that it can be quite useless in here,” She looked at Yunho rather pointedly.

Yunho stepped out from the shadows, making the rest of them follow suit while several suited men appeared to take each of them, bringing them to the middle of the room. “Where is Mirae?” He asked.

“Oh my, you’re- Why you’re Mirae’s love, aren’t you? I’m not surprised, a handsome young man like you and-” Madame Seo paused upon giving him a once-over. “An immortal, no less.”

“Again, where is Mirae?”

“She’s somewhere safe, depending on how you look at it,” Madame Seo chuckled. “So, at last, here in front of me we’ve got the ones who have been looking for us, after quite a few warnings not to. By now, knowing what you know, there is a place for you in our circle, Ose would be pleased to have warriors like yourselves leading the charge in what would be the biggest purge on Earth.”

Madame Seo snapped her fingers, and a few hooded figures entered carrying small bowls of the gold powder towards her. “I’m sure you know what this is, right? It can either release your inhibitions, or release your worst instincts, depending on who you are,” She felt the powder between her fingers.

“I’m going to ask you one more time,” Yunho was glowering at her. “Where is Mirae?”

“Impatient, are we? Well, contrary to your thinking that she may be at N Tower, she isn’t,” Madame Seo shook her head and removed her shawl.

The hooded figures bowed and the rest of them stared at her. Madame Seo’s face was feline-like. “You missed me going down on you, didn’t you?” She glanced at Yeosang, who remained calm. She clapped her hands, and the figures carrying the bowls of powder backed away. “Reveal to them the future,” She said to them, and they pulled down on a lever.

The ground underneath them began to turn, the surroundings changing into what looked like an old operating room used by doctors to perform demonstrations of procedures. There was a space at the back that was lined with several stones that had markings. Yunho felt like collapsing upon seeing Mirae.

She was strapped to a kind of chair that had needles pointing at her nape, her wrists, and her spine. Mirae was wearing the familiar electric collar, and she was beginning to regain consciousness. “Remove the collar,” Madame Seo instructed, and the two hooded figures followed, taking the collar off of Mirae’s neck with a few clicks.

A few more hooded figures began to appear, pushing a television monitor that featured the special of the idol group. “This handy dandy machine that your Mirae is strapped to, can extract the essence of who she is, her mutant essence.”

“If you plan on killing her, fat chance,” San spoke.

“Oh I know that. Mirae’s just going to go through a lot of pain, spinal injections are painful after all,” Madame Seo smiled. She took out a small vial full of murky, red liquid from her pocket. “We’ve tested out the initial extraction from her by the way,” She held it up in front of them. “Painful, very, very, painful. But unfortunately more is needed.”

Madame Seo put the vial in a compartment of another machine that resembled a laser that was pointing at the marked stones. A loud whirring sound was coming from the machine. Before they could take a step further, they were suddenly held back by the hooded figures behind them, while the rest that were watching began to chant again.

Mirae’s eyes were opening and she gaped upon seeing Yunho. “Yunho- Yunho!” She yelled, struggling to get out, only to be overpowered, feeling her strength wane even further than the first time.

“Mirae!” Yunho struggled as well but to no avail. He was soon caught in a headlock, with his hands behind his back. “Mirae!”

An evil smile played across Madame Seo’s features and she turned on the machine that Mirae was strapped to. Tears were falling down the sides of Mirae’s face as the needles began to pierce through her wrists and then her nape. Mirae let out a scream, her eyes beginning to glow red but fading just as quickly.

The television special was beginning and they could hear the music playing. The idol group had begun to perform their first two songs. “Mirae!” Yunho kept yelling, trying his hardest to break free. “Mirae!!”

“It’s so easy to get the best of people when they care about each other,” Madame Seo watched them with an amused expression on her face. “Increase the pressure,” She instructed the figures, who turned up the speed level of the needles drilling into Mirae.

She turned to San and blew the gold powder at his face. San’s eyes were turning red and he collapsed, squirming in his place at what he was beginning to see. She blew the gold powder onto the rest of their faces. Madame Seo began to chant the familiar Latin phrase they had heard. The beginning is the end is the beginning. Yunho tried to maneuver himself to break free, taking a deep breath when the gold powder was blown into the air.

“Mirae dead, Mirae dead, and it’s all my fault, all my fault,” San looked shaken, eyes still red. “Mirae dead, Mirae dead, it’s all my fault…”

“San! Mirae’s not dead!” Yunho managed to finally overpower the figure that was restraining him, only to be thrown to the other side of the room due to the figure’s strength. “San! You’ve got to help me!” He called out, trying to wrestle with the figure who had grown larger. “All of you! Help!”

Wooyoung quickly unsheathed his katanas, keeping his nose covered as he attempted to slice through the figure that restrained him, who brought in a sledgehammer. “Shit,” He collapsed, squirming as the dust had gotten to him as well.

The music played louder, and Yunho could see a beam of light coming from the background of the idol group that was dancing. Mirae’s screams were dying down, her strength declining, the more the needles penetrated her body. “Mirae!” He rushed forward only to be knocked away by Madame Seo herself.

“I think not, Yunho,” She said, getting into a stance.

“Oh I think so,” Yunho charged at her.

18 notes · View notes

smoochkooks · 5 years ago

Text

—the (un)holy cock-up (m.)

⟶ pairing: park jimin/reader

⟶ genre: smut, angst

⟶ word count: 14.5k

⟶ warnings: explicit sexual content, oral sex (m receiving), dirty talk, profanity, unnecessary amount of biblical puns, some critic on catholic church, this is a heavy read be aware

⟶ summary: there is a quite long list of circumstances, with student loan and rent on the very top of it, that led you to work in the sunday’s spirit editorial department, a newspaper overally known among fellow catholic community of busan, with park jimin as your boss.

when your small cock-up goes unnoticeably out of your hand, you find yourself in a situation painted in all shades of wrong.

or, alternatively: when it’s forbidden, it tastes bittersweet.

a/n: please, before you read this: take the warnings seriously. this is not a light read, it touches some heavy and quite controversial topics. tit also involves a scene where a person in charge exhibits inappropriate behavior towards their subordinate which I do not condone, however it’s all done with consent.

ps. im really proud of this work so give me some love please:(

Fingertips typing furiously on the keyboards, sights focused on the computers’ screens, brows furrowed, minds utterly concentrated and all of this accompanied by angelic voices of various religious songs playing in the background.

This is how a typical day at Sunday’s Spirit editorial department goes by.

The newspaper is a local source of information for the catholic community not only in the city of Busan, but in the whole country. Its history starts in 70s, when Park Min-Sung with his wife started publishing the very first version of the Sunday’s Spirit, selling copies in front of churches. Young activists definitely hadn’t anticipated such a big success, especially due to hard times of the military dictatorship in Korea, but two decades later they have become one of the most affluent families in Busan. The newspaper remains the Park’s legacy till these days, being owned by Min-Sung’s son, with the original founder’s grandson Jimin as an editor-in-chief.

Sometimes you ponder how did you end up in this kind of situation. Sitting at your desk with eyes glued to the screen, working for the catholic newspaper with Mary did you know and other holy songs playing from the Spotify’s Blessed Hits playlist.

First of all, you aren’t quite a Jesus stan yourself. Not a regular churchgoer, Bible reader or a person who lives according to God’s will with Ten Commandments written on your heart and soul.

Someone may wonder, what a young, aspiring journalist like you is doing here? Yes, that’s right.

Money is the reason.

The perspectives of wealthy life as a presenter in the national television or a host in the radio were just a mirage, because after receiving your master degree in journalism you realised that, unfortunately, a bright future was bright only in your unreal dreams.

The case was simple. You needed money. Your bank account was literally screaming at you to get your shit together and figure something out before you end up under the bridge. So you started searching for a job, looking over various offers on the Internet for two weeks straight. A waitress? Nah, too clumsy for that. Jewelry seller? Definitely not, since you are a happy owner of a few pairs of earrings from etsy-like online shop that certainly have nothing to do with real gold. You were almost convinced you’re destined to be a sexworker but then you stumbled upon an offer from the Sunday’s Spirit.

It was your chance. A God himself decided to take pity on you.

In that exact moment the genre of the newspaper wasn’t important. The vision of bankruptcy was enough for you to wear knee-length black skirt, white button-up shirt and a pair of high heels you’ve never worn before and go on a job interview with plastered smile on your face, looking delightful like you have just given birth to Jesus Christ in Bethlehem.

All the Hollywood actresses could be put into shame after your Oscar-winning performance you acted out on the interview in front of middle-aged woman in checked jacket that no one wears since 90s. Your enthusiasm and assurance you live good, catholic woman’s life, along with your master degree and motivational letter (you added a quote from The Letter to Philipians at the end of it to spice it up) was enough to be accepted for the position of Ask and you shall find column creator.

The job itself wasn’t complex or tough. The newspaper on its online site has a page where people can create an account and send asks to the author of the column who responds to them. You did something wrong and you aren’t sure it should be considered a sin? Having problems with regular praying on mornings and evenings? Write to us and we will solemnly help you with the God’s blessing, it says.

This is basically how it works. Each week, the said journalist chooses the most interesting questions and answers to make an article to the Sunday’s Spirit’s next publication. Of course, you can’t answer those questions the way you would like. You must do it according to the catholic laws and God’s plan (the True God’s plan, not Drake’s). A woman who interviewed you even gave you a notebook full of already made-up responses and a list of things you definetely mustn’t write if you still want to be employed.

To be completely frank, you don’t hate your job that much. You actually feel kind of nice, helping other people with their problems. You’ve been doing this for six months now and during this period of time you got used to some things.

A ‘Jesus, I trust you’ framed picture you swore your mother gave you on your 16th birthday standing on your desk. Holy beats blasting through the speakers until you leave the office at 5pm. A big-ass cross hanging right in front of the entrance to the editorial. Lee Chin-sun, the Weekly News column author, rushing to Park Jimin’s bureau every day at different hours in her pencil skirts and high heels knocking on the floor.

There’s only the Pentecost in the middle of the office that could actually surprise you.

“Looks like our Mary Magdalene is going to Jesus cave again,” mutters Kim Taehyung, the newspaper’s main photographer, friend from your desk and, actually, the only friend you have here. Very much gay and just like you, in desperate need for money. “It’s her third visit today. I wonder what it is this time. New prayer to Pope Francis she found?” he whispers and you chuckle at that quietly, looking around if anyone pays attention to your conversation, but everyone seems busy doing their own stuff. “Maybe she’s sucking his dick right now and we all think they are playing Who said it? Bible edition,” he adds in a hushed tone.

You start thinking about it for a while. Is that really possible for someone like Park Jimin, the editor-in-chief of the Sunday’s Spirit to have a sexual relationship with his coworker? The man who has a smaller version of Pietà in his office?

“I mean look at him. I would smash that ass too.”

You roll your eyes at Taehyung words, going back to your previous task but every time you try to concentrate, the face of your boss appears in front of your eyes uncontrollably.

Truth to be told, Park Jimin was a sight.

Blond hair, always perfectly styled and simply parted in the middle, revealing his forehead. Dark, sharp eyes that seem to pierce right through your soul and full, plump lips which could only be described as kissable.

He wears only high fashion brands, wandering through the office in Prada and Tom Ford suits that hugs his sculpted body just right. You think that as for a person who never misses Sunday’s mass, Park Jimin has also nice thighs. And a fine piece of ass, as Taehyung would describe it.

Newest Rolex that costs probably more than you will ever earn in your entire life on his wrist, Mercedes who just got brought out to the international market standing on his parking spot in front of the building, an apartment in the most luxurious area in Busan.

Park Jimin inhales God’s mercy and exhales money.

You spoke to him more explicitly only once, on your first day at work. He greeted you and wished good luck, saying that everything will be fine because you know, God’s good. Since that day, Park Jimin seems out of your reach. You contact him only through email, sending articles for him to check and approve, occasionally receiving some short message from him to improve this and that. He rarely leaves his office during working hours but when he does, it’s either for business meetings outside the editorial or for a lunch at nearby restaurant.

There’s also one, special occasion, every Friday, that’s a sacred time for all the employees. The clock hits 12am and so it begins. The angelic voices stop singing and everybody shifts on their sits.

“Oh, Holy Judas. I almost forgot about my favourite part of the week,” Taehyung sighs, standing up from his desk. And by that, he means-

“Friday’s Bible contemplation lunch break, everyone please gather up at the cafeteria.” Park Jimin’s sweet as honey voice says through the speakers.

You stand up from your chair with reluctance. Taking food with you, you go to the cafeteria, following Taehyung.

That’s actually the next thing you got used to while working at Sunday’s Spirit. Bible contemplation meetings are, as you found out from Taehyung, Jimin’s idea after he became an editor-in-chief almost one year ago. Every Friday all the workers sit together, eat their lunches and listen to Jimin as he reads a certain chapter from the book with true admiration written on their faces. After that, he usually asks some questions holding a discussion among the participants who, unlike you, happily takes part in.

The cafeteria looks rather normal, like any other lunchrooms you see in offices. Painted in bright yellow colors, with a few tables and a typical kitchen set in the back. Except for one thing.

A replica of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper hanging on the wall.

You decided a long time ago that you don’t want to know how much money it cost Jimin to have something like that here.

The newspaper’s workers, almost like the twelve Apostles, sit together by the tables. Lee Chin-sun at the very front, looking completely mesmerized by today’s Park Jimin’s appearance. He’s wearing navy blue suit that Taehyung swears it’s from Hugo Boss. The place next to Chin-sun is always occupied by tall, black-haired guy named Choi Eunwoo, main graphic designer, hopelessly in love with her since his first days at work. Behind them there’s a group from emendation department, with their leader Min Yoongi and other journalists. You always sit with Taehyung at the back, near the kitchen, not necessarily paying attention to what’s happening in the front.

Jimin, as on every Friday, walks to the small podium, designed to look like a pulpit in the church and opens the Bible. But one thing is odd: Jimin ain’t no priest or altar boy himself and he certainly dosen’t look like one, flipping through the pages of what you think it’s New Testament this time.

From your point of view, you could practically see how Chin-sun sighs with content expression on her face, lacing her fingers together on the lap and straightening her back. Eunwoo, on the other hand, shifts uncomfortably on his seat, sending Chin-sun quick glances full of unspoken longing she never acknowledges, to his dismay.

Then, Park Jimin clears his throat and the whole cafeteria goes quiet.

Truth to be told, you never really listen to what he’s reading. This time is no different. You just chew on your avocado sandwich, occasionally taking a sip of coffee. Your boss’ smooth voice reaches your ears faintly but you don’t pay attention to it, focusing on eating and Taehyung’s hushed rumbling instead.

“Look at our Mary Magdalene, she looks like she might burst a nut just by listening to CEO Jesus,” he says, making you peek at the girl.

Mary Magdalene is a nickname that Taehyung made up for Chin-sun when he started working at Sunday’s Spirit, mainly because of her attitude and relationship with Jimin. It’s rather platonic, at least for now. She looks at him with pure admiration on her face and she literally melts everytime he smiles at her. But Chin-sun’s ‘stalking’ isn’t unreasonable. Her father is a well-known philanthropist in Busan. He donates catholic charities, churches and, what’s the most interesting – he has some connections with Jimin’s father, the owner of Sunday’s Spirit.

And here’s the thing: Chin-sun’s hare and hounds definitely have some hidden reason. Maybe the whole marriage thing that has become a gossip in the office is true. Which makes poor Eunwoo’s situation even worse.

“Sometimes I wonder why has he fallen in love with her in first place,” you whisper, pointing at the graphic designer. “He knows he stands no chance against Jimin.”

“What can I say, you can’t help who you fall in love with.” Taehyung muses almost poetically, shrugging his shoulders.

You hum at that, placing your coffee cup on the table and looking around the cafeteria. It seems like Jimin has ended his reading session for today and now he invites everyone to join the discussion about the topic. He flashes Chin-sun a gentle smile and you could swear the girl is biting her lip.

On the corner of your eye you see Taehyung smirking.

“What?” you ask.

Taehyung takes a sip of his coffee lazily (it’s always caramel macchiato), peering at Jimin. “Oh, nothing. I was just wondering if our boss really wants to settle not only with Chin-sun, but anyone in general,” he says languidly.

You furrow your brows. “What makes you think that? I mean, look at him. He probably waits with sex till marriage.” you snort.

Taehyung chuckles at your words. “Ah, sweetheart, you really know nothing about Park Jimin.”

“What do you mean?”

He moves closer to you, leaning towards your ear. “What I mean,” he whispers, “is that Park Jimin isn’t such a prude everyone thinks he is. At least he didn’t use to be.”

You raise your eyebrows at him with disbelief. “What? He’s secretly gay?” you mock.

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “I wish, but no, he isn’t,” he answers with a sigh. “Do you know Min Yoongi from emendation team?” he then asks, pointing at grey-haired man with feline eyes sitting behind Chin-sun.

You nodd your head. Min Yoongi is a hard to read guy. Always suspiciously silent, practically never leaves his office. Something makes you wonder how did Taehyung end up befriending him enough to casually gossip about the boss. You will ask him about this on another occasion.

“So here’s the thing,” Taehyung begins, lowering the volume of his voice. “He used to study at the same university in Seoul with Jimin. They even had been together in the fraternity. Yoongi-hyung told me some juicy details about our boss’ life back then.”

You frown at his words. “And you are telling me this now?!” you hiss.

“I found out literally two days ago!” Taehyung exclaims, maybe a little too loud, so you quickly place your index finger on your lips, shushing him.

“Fine. Continue.” you whisper, looking around to see if anyone pays attention to you.

“Well, Park Jimin used to be a trouble back then. A golden boy of his family in Busan, but a campus fuckboy and obnoxious heartbreaker in Seoul. He smoked cigarettes, drank enormous amounts of alcohol, got wasted on every weekend, missed classes and changed hair colors as often as his girlfriends. By the way, don’t you think he would slay pink hair?”

“Taehyung can you please–”

“Okay, okay. Enough thirsting over Jimesus. So, as you can see, there was no place for Sunday’s mass and Bible contemplation meetings in his life. And here’s the awaited plotwist. His parents somehow found out his son wasn’t living good catholic life on his studies and got extremely pissed off. They simply gave him an ultimatum: if he doesn’t stop his shenanigans, they will cut him off their money and they won’t make him Sunday’s Spirit heir.” Taehyung stops his rumbling for a while, letting you proceed all the bewildering informations about your dear boss he has just revealed.

Your eyes simply widen at the revelations.

Park Jimin, the man who organises Bible contemplation lunch breaks, a regular churchgoer, someone who you always thought has a cross tattooed on his back, was a playboy who slept with a half of the female community in the university?

Interesting.

“Rest of the story is simple. He changed his behavior, got a master degree in journalism and came back to Busan to work here. What is funny, his first position was the same as yours now,” Taehyung ends his story with a light chuckle. “Now you understand why it’s hard for me to believe he really thinks about getting married and having at least three kids.”

You look up at Park Jimin, who’s standing now in the centre of the cafeteria, with his arms crossed over his chest, nodding at one of the journalists words. His gaze is so intense and filled with such an authority that makes you understand why Chin-sun literally squirms when he looks at her that way.

It’s not hard for you to imagine him in much different surroundings.

Him, standing with a cup of beer in his hand in the middle of the crowd of drunken people at some frat party. There’s a leather jacket on his shoulders and he’s wearing tight-fitting pants that hugs his gorgeous thighs much better than his usual slacks he puts on every day before he sets off to work. He scans the room with a mishevious smirk dancing on his features, biting and licking his lips as he looks for his prey for tonight.

He then spots her, his pick for the night. He runs his fingers through his silky locks and approaches the girl, whispering dirty promises to her ear as he sways their bodies to the rhythm of loud music blasting through the speakers. Later that night he has her underneath him, begging him to touch her. He fucks her hard, leaving bruises all over her limp, exhausted body. There will be soreness between her thighs in the morning and a few violet love bites on her neck, a gentle reminder that all of this wasn’t just a dream.

But there’s no warm body next to her she could wake up to, no ‘good morning, baby’ or a second round of love making between the sheets. Because Park Jimin isn’t like that. He waited until her breath slowed down and eyelids fluttered shut, drifting her off to sleep. He left in the middle of the night, a cigarette caught between his swollen from kisses lips. He fumed the poison and smiled to himself, wondering what his parents would think when they found out. A golden boy of his family, future heir of the Park’s legacy, coming back from one of his sexcapeds with girl which name he didn’t even remember.

The Lord himself must have already cursed him and he��s currently planning the punishments for him in depths of Hell. But does Park Jimin look like he really care?

You stare blankly ahead, imagining those scenes in your head. You can’t help but squeeze your thighs because God, yes, Park Jimin is hot, even if he reads Breviary before he goes to sleep. What a shame he has changed.

A smooth like honey voice pulls you out from your airy-fairy slumber.

“Miss Y/N?”

You jolt in panic after hearing your name, glancing around and praying that wasn’t the person you think it was. But this silky, melodious voice you would recognize everywhere.

God hates you though, he knows what kind of scandalous things you were daydreaming about and now it’s his time to punish you.

Looking up, your gaze settles on no one other than Park Jimin, who stares at you with his left eyebrow raised, pursing his lips. He extinguishes the aura of pure dominance around him and you involuntarily blush, squirming under his intense glare. You’re royally screwed.

You clear your throat, trying to calm down rapidly beating heart. Without success.

“Yes, sir?” you manage to answer innocently. Certainly not like you weren’t thinking about being fucked by him minutes ago. You don’t even have time to be surprised he remembers your name.

Park Jimin looks unamazed by your sweet tone; he almost seems bored, but definitely irritated. “I asked you a question and I’m waiting for your response.” he says lowly.

Fuckfuckfuck. God have mercy on you. What was the question? Shit, you don’t even know what fragment he had read before.

In act of complete desperation you elbow Taehyung for help but this little shit pretends he has no idea what’s going on, looking at The Last Supper with sudden interest.

You are purely, loyally, utterly fucked.

You adopt the most charming smile you could muster, knowing that it will have zero affect on Park Jimin and ask, “Could you repeat the question one more time, sir? I’m afraid I didn’t hear you correctly.” Jesus, when has your voice become so high-pitched?

A cruel smirks forms on Park Jimin’s lips. He shakes his head, tsking. Taehyung mutters something under his breath that sounds dangerously close to “It was nice meeting you, sweetheart.” You gulp, waiting for your sentence and hoping Pontius Pilate will be gracious to you.

“My, my,” Jimin muses. It makes you feel like a little girl being scolded by the teacher due to her outrageous behavior. You bite your lip so hard you might draw blood, waiting for your boss’ next words. “Of course you didn’t hear my question, because you weren’t paying attention to our discussion.”

In the corner of your eye you see Chin-sun shaking her head with detestation. What a bitch, you think to yourself.

You take a deep breath then, nails digging crescent moons on the skin of your palms. You don’t like being in the spotlight, you never did, but now you have no choice but face the consequences. “My deepest apologies, sir. The behavior I exhibited was highly inappropriate,” you say, bowing your head. Jimin eyes your figure from head to toe and you might actually feel his burning gaze on your skin. Your cheeks flush in crimson even more.

The editor-in-chief seems to deliberate with himself for a while, turning his head slightly to the side, not breaking the eye contact with you. Finally, after a moment that seems to last an hour, he speaks.

“I think you need a lesson that will teach you to pay attention to our weekly discussions, miss Y/N. That’s why I want you to write a 4000 words long paper about the role of Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ’s life which we had discussed today but you, unfortunately, didn’t acknowledge it.”

You freeze. Like a scene in the movie, everything stops. The embarassement you felt earlier is quickly replaced by pure anger and irritation. He wants you to write a fucking paper? What is this? University lectures?

Never before in your entire life have you felt so humiliated. All eyes are on you; you could practically sense how they are trying not to laugh out loud. Eunwoo and Taehyung look at you with apologetic faces while Chin-sun smirks, whispering something to Jimin’s ear.

“I apologize once again, sir,” you grit through your teeth with a forced smile. Jimin nods then, not even bothering to look at you again. You’re dismissed, that’s what his behavior is saying.

“Our meeting is over, you can go back to your work.” Jimin announces and walks away from the cafeteria with Chin-sun by his side.

You wait for everyone to leave and the you let out a groan of annoyance, burring your head in your hands.

“Hey, it could have been worse. He didn’t fire you after all.” Taehyung laughs but he quickly shuts up as soon as he sees your glare. You stand up from your chair with a scowl written all over your face, and storm out of the lunchroom.

And may the God help you.

Later that unfortunate day, you sit by your desk again, scrolling through the Ask and you shall find page absentmindedly and waiting for the new asks to come. Everyone has returned to their work like nothing has happened but it doesn’t stop you from feeling all those eyes constantly on your back. Maybe you weren’t fired but the humiliation and embarrassment of being told off by your boss publicly makes you want to disappear and never show up at the editorial again.

“Y/N,” Taehyung’s deep voice pulls you out of your thoughts. You look up at him and find the man smiling at you lightly. He’s wearing a long, camel coat and a big scarf around his neck with ridiculous patterns that reminds you of Persian diwans. He places his black camera bag on the desk, which means he’s leaving the office. “I’m free of office work for today so I just wanted to say goodbye.” he explains and you just nod.

“Bye, Taehyung. See you on Monday.” you say maybe a little bit to wryly and he feels that, letting out a long sigh.

Taehyung seems to deliberate with himself for a moment before he decides to speak again. He clears his throat audibly. “And I, uhm, I’m sorry. It’s my fault that you are in this situation. I started this conversation and I should be the one writing this stupid paper for Mister Prude.”

You can’t help but chuckle at the new nickname Taehyung gave Jimin. The anger you felt before drifts away from you slowly, and you smile at your friend apologetically. “Oh, God, Tae. I’m such a bitch sometimes, sorry,” you blurt out.”I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at him. Besides, maybe that’s good I’ve got homework. I don’t remember when was the last time I wrote some-”

Your words are interrupted by a loud laugh that resonates through the office. You look in the direction of the voice just to see Chin-sun with her manicured hand on Jimin’s chest, throwing her head back from the laughter, too dramatically for your taste. She seems to have changed her clothes, a black pencil skirt long forgotten and replaced by a red, bodycon dress. Her dark hair is also styled differently, curled and loose. She looks beautiful, matching Jimin’s appearance perfectly.

“Where are they going?” Taehyung whispers to you, furrowing his brows. You shrug your shoulders, tearing your eyes of Chin-sun and Jimin. “Maybe our Mary Magdalene’s plan to win Jesus’ heart is working. Poor Eunwoo,” he sighs, looking at his watch to check the time. “Anyway, I gotta go. I have to drive all the way to some shithole near the city to take photos of an old lady who swears she saw saint Francis or other dude with halo speaking to her,” he grumbles and you giggle at his words. “Good luck with your paper, sweetheart.” he leans and places a small peck on your cheek.

“Bye, Tae.” you say, watching him leave the office right after Jimin and Chin-sun.

You let out a long, tired sigh, counting the time to leave the office and finally be back home, with a bottle of red wine and new season of Game of Thrones that are waiting for you to watch the whole week. Then, when you’re about to stand up and make yourself another coffee, a new ask pops up in your inbox with the title ‘Sex S.O.S’.

You raise your eyebrows because honestly, what kind of title is this? Curiosity wins the battle with a hot cup of an americano and you click the show more button. You put on your prescription glasses and start reading.

Dear Sunday’s Spirit editorial,

My name is Kang Seoyeon. I study medicine at the University of Seoul, I’ve got an amazing group of friends and a loving boyfriend. And here’s where the actual problem begins. I’m from the catholic family with long traditions, and as you can guess, he isn’t.

We’ve been together for almost 2 years now and since my parents don’t want me to live with him before the marriage, there’s also no sexual life between us. I was actually surprised they agreed I can date a non-religious person in first place, so the rules weren’t that horrible at the beginning.

My boyfriend always seemed to be understanding about the fact that I’m catholic and he has never had issues against it because I stated this on the start of our relationship, but lately… he’s been distant. We meet up less often and I feel like simple kissing after 2 years isn’t enough for him. I even thought about initiating something that wouldn’t necessarily involve the real intercourse but I’m too inexperienced and shy for that. We are slowly drifting apart.

I don’t know what to do. I love him so much and I don’t want to lose him just because of some stupid rules I need to follow. I’m scared he will leave me for some other beautiful girl who wouldn’t have anything against sleeping with him, especially after considering the fact that he isn’t virgin unlike me and he experienced this kind of pleasure before.

I hope you will help me.

Yours faithfully,

Kang Seoyeon.

You blink once, twice. Read the message again and then, something snaps in you.

To Hell with these stupid, old-fashioned rules straight from the Middle Ages. To Hell with celibacy till marriage, masturbation prohibition and living according to God’s will. To Hell with Park Jimin and his ridiculous moral code (and his Bible contemplation lunchbreaks).

Unofficial eleventh commandment: If a girl wants a dick, she deserves to have it.

And that’s exactly what your response to the girl is in a nutshell.

Your blood boils in your veins with anger as you’re typing furiously on the keyboard, not even bothering to check if your sudden outburst makes any sense.

Dear Seoyeon,

It’s Y/N here, the journalist who you wrote this message to.

I don’t know what kind of response are you expecting from me but honestly? If you think I’m going to recommend you some praying to Saint Rita then you’re wrong. I’m done with this shit.

Let me make this straight: if you want to fuck your boyfriend, do it. Maybe God wouldn’t approve that but don’t worry, he won’t send you to hell because of some dick in your pussy.

They are plenty of worse things in this world than having sex with the person you love. Look at me. I’m literally writing to catholic newspaper while using words like ‘God’ and ‘Fuck’ in the same sentence. And that’s not even a small piece of what I’ve done in my life.

So you go girl, suck your boyfriend off. Make him beg. He will never leave you after this. You have my blessings and Jesus is giving you metaphysical thumbs up from above. Sex is amazing thing and you don’t have to wait for it until you say ‘yes’ in front of some guy in black cassock. Just go with the flow.

May the God help you!

Love, Y/N.

P.S. Watch out that guy. He seems suspicious. If he’s been really sex deprived for two years he will die after you give him a head.

Sent.

You exhale loudly, staring at the screen. You did that. Six months into working in Sunday’s Spirit and the time when you lost your temper has finally come. You should probably feel ashamed or have some type of conscience pangs but actually you aren’t even near this state.

Grinning to yourself, you delete the message you had sent to the girl from your inbox and check the time. It’s almost 5pm and it looks like you haven’t even realised you’re the only person at the office right now. Since it’s Friday and Jimin has already left, seems like everyone has decided to set off earlier too.

You turn off your computer, packing your things to the bag. Wrapping a scarf around your neck tightly, you leave the building, welcoming the coolness of the early Spring evening in Busan.

When you’re about to cross the street, your phone buzzes in the pocket of your coat. You stop for a moment, smiling to yourself when you read the message.

[04:23pm] from Tae: hey

[04:23pm] from Tae: i know you are probably planning an evening with mary magdalene n jesus but

[04:23pm] from Tae: wouldnt u want to go for drinks with me tonight?

[04:23pm] from Tae: same place as usual

[04:24pm] from Tae: as a wise man once said: nothing helps better for the writer’s block than vodka

[04:24pm] from Tae: so what do u say?

You don’t need to think twice when you quickly type a response. Game of Thrones and wine can wait till another time.

[04:26pm] from me: how could i say no to kim taehyung and vodka?

[04:26pm] from me: see u there

Kim’s is a place like no one other in Busan.

You wouldn’t even know about its existence if it wasn’t Taehyung who took you there first when you started working at Sunday’s Spirit, solemnly promising free drinks. Who would you be if you didn’t agree to that?

When you arrived at the bar, it eventually turned out the alcohol was costless hence it’s his family business since over thirty years and his brother Namjoon is a bartender, not because Taehyung willingly decided to pay for you.

Kim’s is located in rather industrial part of the city, sandwiched between factories and huge housing estates, not looking really inviting at first glance, but the place has its own, unique charm. There are some stories, shrouding the building’s history in mystery. Some people say it used to be headquarters of the most dangerous mafia in Busan, some even believe it served as the secret arsenal during the Korean War.

But what’s definitely true, it’s the fact that Taehyung’s parents bought this place in swinging times of 80s for a small amount of money and turned the place into disco bar which had become a must-go spot for young people in Busan.

Kim’s on the outside, with its large red neon sign hanging above the entrance, looks more like a night club than a bar, but on the inside the magic of kitschy 80s still remains the same (Taehyung swears retro is in fashion these days and that’s why he didn’t let his parents redecorate when they wanted to).

You always feel like you’re traveling back in time when you visist Kim’s.

The place is quite big, with a large dancefloor in the middle and red leather sofas strewn around the place along with the tables. Walls are made of brick and colorful, vibrant neon lights are shimmering on them. Oh, not to mention the huge disco ball on the ceiling. Everything accompanied with the quality music provided by Namjoon.

There are few billiard and foosball tables in the corner of the bar, always occupied by the same group of middle-aged men on weekdays and university students on weekends. But the thing that attract attention of the customers the most, is the bar with Namjoon behind it.

When you enter the place, you spot Taehyung and his blond mop of hair immediately. He sits on one of the bar stools, talking to his older brother. He’s wearing beige pants and floral button-up shirt that seems to match colors with his pinkish-looking drink he holds. You notice a new pair of sapphire earrings and a huge ring from the same collection on his forefinger. Classy, as always.

Taehyung grins broadly when he sees you. He puts his drink on the counter and stands up to greet you. His breath smells like strawberries and vodka when he leans to place his usual, small peck on your cheek. “Hi, sweetheart,” he says with his signature smirk plastered on his face, scanning your figure. “You look gorgeous. Last time you did this kind of make-up you wanted to get laid.”

You rolls your eyes at his words, sitting on a stool next to him. “Hi, Taehyung. Thank you for appreciating my efforts to look like a decent human being but no, I’m not planning on getting laid tonight.” you answer, waving to Namjoon who makes drinks for a group of girls a few meters from you. He smiles bashfully at you, showing his dimples.

“I’m not saying you want a fuck, calm down. I just assumed since it’s not everyday that you put eyeliner on,” Taehyung explains himself. “So let me do that again,” He takes a deep breath, placing a hand on his chest in a dramatic manner. “Y/N, you look absolutely breathtaking. I could stare at you for hours and I wouldn’t mind that even a bit. My homosexuality is at risk right now.”

You ignore his exeggarated outburst, rolling your eyes. “I’m not using eyeliner everyday because there’s something called dresscode in our work, you know?” you say. “Besides, my mum says you should look good on every occasion because you don’t know when you will meet the love of your life.”

Taehyung puts a hand on his heart and sighs with relief. “Thank God I always look good.”

You chuckle and then your eyes wander for a moment to Namjoon, who seems busy listening to whatever the pink-haired girl is telling him with polite smile on his face.

“Here,” Taehyung nudges your side, bringing your attention back to him. He hands you the same pinkish drink as he was drinking when you arrived. “Hyung told me it’s their new specialty or something. It’s called Flamingo’s Beach,” he says and you take the glass in your hand. “I have no idea what Namjoonie-hyung put here but as long as it looks good, it’s good. Cheers!” Taehyung sips his one and watches you with raised eyebrows as you’re taking a generous gulp of the drink. “And…?” he asks.

You lick your lips, humming to yourself. “Not bad. Tastes like strawberries.”

Taehyung opens his mouth to say something but he gets interrupted by his brother. “Y/N, hi. How are you?” Namjoon approaches you with two beer mugs in his hands.

His hair is back to his natural brown color now, purple strands long forgotten since the last time you saw him. It looks like he’s been working out lately, his posture more bulky and it makes his black shirt stick to his body tightly. Namjoon’s good-looking, you always knew that, but he seems to be even more handsome now.

“Hey, I’ve been good, thank you,” you greet him with maybe too much enthusiasm for your liking. You always had a weak spot for him. “How’s the bar going?” you ask.

“Busy, as you can see,” he replies, chuckling to himself. “I would love to talk to you more but I have some work to do in back room, so…” Namjoon trails off sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head with his hand.

“Oh, it’s okay. We can catch up another time.” You smile at him and you could swear his cheeks flushed.

“I’ll be going. See you.” Namjoon stammers out, not even waiting for your response before he disappears from your sight.

The pregnant silence sets in between you and Taehyung, something heavy hangs in the air and you feel it, tapping your fingers on the counter to the rhythm of one of the ABBA songs, waiting impatiently.

Taehyung looks like he’s debating with himself in his head. You narrow your eyes. He’s adopted a face you know pretty well, too well even. He looks everywhere but keep avoiding your gaze. He wants to ask you something, you’re sure of it, but he doesn’t know how.

Finally, after a moment of awkward quietness, Taehyung finally opens his mouth. “So, here’s the thing,” he starts and you wait for the bomb to drop.

Last time when he approached you like that, he asked you if you would be down for a threesome with him and some guy he met on Tinder. Your eyes almost popped out of your head when you heard his blunt proposition. You were eating lunch at cafeteria and the words casually slipped from between his lips as he chewed on his egg sandwich, like he didn’t just propose you having sex with him and instead asked for a lift to home after work.

Taehyung begged you for a whole week, pleading and convincing it’ll be fun. When you eventually agreed (sex draught make people do stupid things), the other guy didn’t show up. You ended up drinking tequila shots with Taehyung that night in his apartment, and you can’t quite recall how it happened, but somehow you found yourself unzipping your friend’s pants and the rest is history. He passed out right after he came. Now when you think about it, you feel a sudden urge to ask him if he remembers that.

You will do it next time, you promise yourself.

Taehyung though doesn’t ask you about having a threesome or robbing Park Jimin’s house this time. His intentions are pretty much different.

“See, Namjoon split up with his girlfriend few weeks ago,” he says and you prick your ears. “He’s not in good condition right now, as you can see. It was a nasty break up, he found out she’s been cheating on him,” He lets out a long sigh. You bite your lip, imagining Namjoon’s disappointed face when he discovered the truth. What a bitch cheats on someone like him? “So, I thought maybe you could… cheer him up a little bit?” Taehyung ends hesitantly, with a glint of hope in his eyes.

You frown. Cheer him up? Did he just imply what you think about?

“Look, I get it, he’s sad and angry, but what the fuck, Taehyung? What do you want me to do? Do you want me to be his rebound? Make him forget?” you exclaim. Taehyung quickly shakes his head but you don’t let him say anything. “I feel sorry for Namjoon but I’m not going to take advantage of him when he’s literally still hurt.”

“No, it’s not like that!” Taehyung rushes to explain. “Well, maybe it sounded like that but I swear, I didn’t mean that!”

“Then what should I do? Wipe his tears? Tell him a joke? Or maybe-”

“Of course he wants you to suck his brother’s heartbroken dick, doll.”

A sudden, low voice interrupts your conversation. Your eyes follow the direction when it comes from, looking to Taehyung’s left where not even a meter away a very familiar grey-haired man with feline eyes sits.

“Min Yoongi,” you say matter-of-factly.

The leader of emendation team from Sunday’s Spirit editorial raises his hand in which he holds whiskey, greeting you and Taehyung. “Hello, doll. Hello, Taehyung,” he says, not even bothering to look at you.

You elbow Taehyung searching for explanation but he shrugs his shoulders, turning to face the man as well.

“First of all, since when do you call me ‘doll’? We have never spoken a word to each other. Secondly, how long have you been sitting here and listening?” you ask Yoongi.

He snorts, smirking. “Long enough to know how Taehyung comforts his brother after break up.” he simply answers and Taehyung’s cheeks blush in crimson at his words.

“You come here often? I’ve never seen you here before,” you continue, crossing your arms over chest.

Next to you Taehyung lets out a sigh. “Yes, he does. Albeit I haven’t seen him for a while here,” You look at him in confusion. “Yoongi-hyung is Namjoonie-hyung close friend from university days.” he clarifies.

You raise your eyebrows at that. “So Namjoon went to the same school as Park Jimin?”

“Not the same. We met under different circumstances.” Yoongi cuts in.

“They’ve been together in underground rap group, or some shit. Didn’t like each other at first but eventually stuck together till the end of studies.” Taehyung ends and grey-haired man nods.

You can’t help but chuckle at that.

“What’s funny in that?” Yoongi scowls.

“Nothing. I just imagined you and Namjoon in snapbacks, rapping about the unfairness of social hierarchy,” you say, grinning at him.

“Well, you may believe me or not, but we even made a mixtape.” Yoongi reveals proudly, taking a sip of his whiskey.

Your eyes widen in curiosity. “Then what happened? Why aren’t you in Seoul now, still producing music? Why do you work in this stupid newspaper and Namjoon’s a bartender?” you ask interrogatively.

“Life happened, doll. We didn’t have enough money to publish our works so we decided to quit it.”

“Oh,” you breathe out.

You could see the nostalgia written across Yoongi’s face. You feel sorry for him, for Namjoon. Everything is always about the money. That’s why you’re working in Sunday’s Spirit even though it was never your dream in first place. Even though you have much higher ambitions than being Ask and you shall find column author.

Ever since you were little, you loved writing. You never complained, not even once, when your teachers in school assigned you to write something. They kept saying you have an extraordinary talent and it would be a shame if you didn’t do anything with that.

During your high school years, you were the leader of school newspaper’s team, still writing your own works every time you didn’t have something different to do. After that, you got to the university in Seoul, your another dream came true. You got a master degree, an apprenticeship in the Korean version of highly popular, world-widely known magazine. And then, nothing. No job applications available. No newspapers or publishing companies wanting you, dismissing you right away because they didn’t have any vacant places.

This is how Sunday’s Spirit, even if that’s not your dream job, happened. And quite literally saved your ass.

“I’m sorry.” you say after a while.

Yoongi smiles but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Don’t be. What’s in past, stays in past.” he ends the conversation, drinking the rest of his whiskey.

You find this as a perfect possibility to do what you’ve come here for: get wasted, forget about this prick Park Jimin and his stupid assignment. You turn around on your stool to face the bar again, calling for the red-haired bartender named Hoseok who’s substituting Namjoon right now. You order a round of tequilla shots and quickly pours two of them in one go.

“Easy, tiger,” Taehyung teases, still sipping his pink drink as you wipe your chin with the back of your hand. Taehyung has stated a long time ago that he enjoys only casual drinking, which makes you and you lightweightness snort at him.

“Loser,” you mumble under your breath, deep down knowing you’re oh so much going to regret this after.

You focus your attention on the dancefloor now; technicolor lights glittering as the crowd of sweaty people bounce to old Madonna hits. You feel like your spirit might actually experience new kind of awakening during the chorus in Like a Virgin. You mouth the lyrics, the vodka already half-way to your bopping head. Your drunken self almost asks Taehyung and Yoongi if they would agree to be your backup dancers.

You eyes scan the room carefully and then, you spot him. He’s sitting in the corner, his arms splayed over the backrest of the red couch. A devil himself. A black horseman of the Apocalypse. A man who looks like every girl’s next mistake. Taylor Swift’s ‘we are never ever getting back together’.

A true sin.

Jet-black hair parted in the middle, onyx eyes and lucious smirk written across his lips as he bites them purposefully. He’s wearing a leather jacket and you wonder for a while if you would find inked tattoos on his body. He cocks his head to the side, his eyes glued to the same spot as he waits for something, or rather someone.

“Who’s that?” you ask, not even hiding your curiosity at this point.

Taehyung turns around as well, his eyes glancing to the dark-haired man briefly. “Ah, this, sweetheart, is Jeon Jungkook, Park Jimin’s best friend.” he says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

You raise your eyebrows, watching as Jungkook’s face expression immediately changes when waitress approaches him. He says something to her that makes her roll her eyes. She tightens her grip around the tray she’s holding, asking him for his order.

“Don’t worry. You are not the only one thirsting over him. I would let him top me too,” Taehyung whispers to your ear and you flinch.

“I’m not thirsting over him! I came her for drinks, not to get laid, I told you.”

“Okay, okay, loosen up a little. Tequilla makes you aggressive. Besides, it looks like he’s got his pick for tonight.”

Jungkook stretches out his hand and fixes the waitress’ glasses that seem to rode down her nose a little. The girl frozes in place because of his action and he grins, calling her cute.

“He’s trying to ask her out for two months,” Yoongi interrupts suddenly, again. It looks like he has nothing better to do tonight. “I’m serious. He’s here every Friday. Normally, he would have given up after the second time she had rejected him but there’s might be something in this girl that makes his dick hard and his heart soft.”

Jungkook’s eyes girl’s body as she bends to pick up the glasses from other tables and maybe that’s the alcohol swimming in your veins but you could swear his face lights up when she sends him another irritated glare when he calls her name.

“Does Park Jimin comes here often as well?” you ask before you could stop yourself.

Both Taehyung and Yoongi shake their heads.

“I don’t think so. Jeon comes here because he lives nearby in this huge ass apartment complex. His father runs a chemical factory and he works there.” Taehyung explains.

Jeon? Chemical factory? Something clicks in your brain. Right, you know who his father is. The King of Washing Powder. Another rich as fuck Busan’s snob.

“God, I hate him. I fucking hate him. What a prick. Douchebag. Asshole of the century,” The string of profanities leaves poor waitress’ mouth as she walks to the counter with tray in her hands. “How’s your day, love? You look beautiful today, love. Fucking leave me alone, love!” she mutters to herself, taking the beer mugs from Hoseok abruptly which makes the bartender raise his eyebrows in confusion.

“How’s your assignment about Mary Magdalene going on, doll?” Yoongi asks then, startling you.

You roll your eyes at him. “I literally got it today, Yoongi. I haven’t started yet.” you answer, gulping another shot.

On the corner of your eye you see Yoongi’s smirking. “I’m surprised, to be honest. You aren’t the only one who doesn’t pay attention to shit Jimin’s says,” he trails off. “I work for him from the moment he started this ridiculous Bible lunch breaks and I swear, he’s never called out someone like that before.”

“What do you mean he’s never called out someone before?” Taehyung joins in curiously.

“Look, I slept through the majority of these sessions and Jimin knows it, but he has never lecture me about it,” Yoongi remarks. “Maybe you’re an exception. Or he’s become more strict because of this bitch Chin-sun.”

You furrow your eyebrows, confused. You know Chin-sun has been making heart eyes for Jimin for a long time but what why it might have an influence on his behavior?

“Lee Chin-sun? What the office’s Mary Magdalene has to do with that? Besides the fact that she’s drooling for his dick every time she sees him,” Taehyung snorts.

Yoongi chuckles lowly. “Oh, so you two really know nothing about what’s going on between them right now,”

“What’s going on right now? Spill.” Taehyung says abruptly. You sigh when you see the way his eyes flicker with mischeviousness. One thing Taehyung loves more than photography and fashion is gossiping (and dicks).

“First of all, Chin-sun is a fucking bigot. And well… she might be closer to being miss Park than we thought.” Yoongi muses.

Taehyung eyebrows practically disappear in his hairline. You’re sure you mirror his expression right now.

Yoongi asks Hoseok for another glass of whiskey and continues. “My friend Seokjin’s wife is Jimin’s personal assistant and secretary. She heard this and that, quite juicy things I must say,” he says in a lower tone, like he’s revealing government secrets to them. You lean closer into his direction along with Taehyung. “Chin-sun’s father recently bought the claims to the most popular, conservative TV station in whole South Korea. But, what is more interesting, it looks like Park senior has some shares in it as well.”

You’re astonished. You knew there’s something looming in the air but you didn’t expect this. A TV station? Even your slightly drunken brain can calculate it’s very interesting.

“So the marriage between Chin-sun and Jimin would be pretty convenient for their families, especially after considering the fact that Jimin is the heir.” Yoongi adds, gulping the first sip of his new whiskey.

“Poor Eunwoo,” you whisper to yourself.

“But why so soon? Why do they want to legalize their relationship so suddenly?” Taehyung asks.

Yoongi lets out a heavy sigh. “There’s a rumour going around that Jimin’s father isn’t in good condition right now. Seokjin-hyung mentioned something about the heart disease. So, if that’s really true, you have the answer why he wants his eldest son to settle down already. Everything’s about the money, I told you.”

Taehyung whistles. “Woah, so Mary Magdalene is really about to be CEO Jesus’ wife soon!” he exclaims, clapping his hands. “Brilliant. Finally something spicy is happening in this boring editorial.”

“I wouldn’t be so enthusiastic if I were you, Taehyung. This kind of business never ends well,” Yoongi says coldly, placing his glass on the counter and standing up from the stool. He glances at his watch and throws a few bills next to his empty glass. “I’ll get going. It was nice talking to you, doll.”

“What about me?”

“Shut up, Taehyung, you’re not pretty lady.”

“I feel offended.”

“And I don’t care,” Yoongi mutters. Maybe that was alcohol swimming in her veins but you saw Taehyung lifting the corners of his lips in amusement. Weird. “Good luck on your assignment, doll. See you all on Monday.” Yoongi glances to your way one last time, adjusting his jacket.

“Bye, Yoongi.” you wave to him and a small, even sincere smile appears on his face when he as well raises his hand lazily and leaves. “Why didn’t you tell me he’s actually nice, Tae? I was always too scared to start a conversation with him because I felt intimidated.” you say after a while.

“I’m sorry, should have I set you up for a date with him?” Taehyung mocks.

A groan escapes your lips. “Could you please stop insinuating things?”

“You need to get laid, seriously. Like soon-soon. You get easily irritated recently. You need a d i c k,”

“I don’t need a dick!”

“A cock, Y/N,” Taehyung emphasizes. “A penis in your precious vagina.”

“Shut up!”

Several shots and a few drunken dances to Cindi Lauper and Bon Jovi, you’re pretty much wasted. And maybe, just maybe, you need a dick. And Taehyung, like a dipshit he always is, thinks that’s actually funny.

“Don’t wanna homff,” you slur, supporting your weight on Taehyung’s arm that shakes with laughter at your drunken antics, as well as his whole body. “I wanna danfce witfh somebodyyy,”

“Holy Mother of Jesus, you must be really drunk if you started referring to Whitney Houston’s songs. And you smell like booze,” Taehyung mutters under his breath and you whine, tugging on his arm.

“TaeTae, Taehyungie, pffleasee, can we go back?”

Taehyung ignores your grumbling completely. He exists the bar, walking (or rather dragging) you to the cab. As he tries to push your body to the car, he sees in the corner of his eye Jeon Jungkook, standing in front of his black SUV. The waitress from earlier accompanies him as well. It looks like he’s trying to convince her to let him give her a lift to home. The girl shakes her head at first but eventually gives up, stepping into the car. Jungkook grins to himself then, clenching his fists in gesture of pure triumph.

“I fuckin’ hate Park Jimin and his stfupid newspaper,” you mutter incoherently as you bury your head in the crook of Taehyung’s neck in the back of the cab. Old, korean songs are playing in the radio when you’re driving back home. Taehyung smiles to himself, hearing your light snores. But then, he falters.

Ah, yes, he almost forgot. It is going to be a long way to the third floor of your apartment building.

Next day, you wake up in the middle of noon with raging headache and an abrupt need to throw everything up. Frankly speaking, you had worse hangovers during you university days but it doesn’t change the fact that the state you’re currently in still sucks.

“Oh, good God, what have I thought?” you mutter to yourself while standing in the shower, letting the water cool you down.

Truth to be told, a drinking escapade when you have a whole ass paper to write in two days wasn’t the smartest idea you could come up with. You know that for sure, when you’re sitting down in front of your laptop with prescription glasses on your face and a cup of tea in your hand.

There’s a blank document opened on the screen, with only your name written in the corner and the title in the middle. You feel pathetic and useless, staring at it for 30 minutes straight. If you keep sitting like this, you might actually call Park Jimin right now and beg him not to fire you due to your incompetence.

“Get your shit together, Y/N.” you say to yourself, clenching your fists.

At first you fought about making some mind-map, outlining the most important parts of your essay, as you always used to do when you were studying. But there’s a huge difference between what you’re working on right now and what you usually did during academic days. Above all, at that time you were writing about things you had more knowledge about, not about Mary Magdalene and her role in Jesus Christ’s life.

“Ah, fuck it.”

You open an online Bible page and quickly type ‘Mary Magdalene’ in browser. All fragments when she’s mentioned shows up in front of your eyes. You fix your glasses and before you could stop yourself, you whisper, “Let’s get it.”

You don’t know how much time has passed since you started reading, but when you glance a the clock it’s nearly 7pm.

You went through every single page in the Bible when Mary Magdalene appears or when for some reason her name comes up in conversations. You read two thesis in which you found quite interesting facts about the heroine of your work. Also, you watched some conspiracy theories on YouTube about her, in which people claim that she was actually Jesus’ wife. You were bewildered, even in your post-hangover state.

And after all of this researching, you have settled a plan. You’re a journalist for God’s sake, you’ve been writing your entire life and none assignment will break you. So you start typing on the keyboard, filling the blank document pages with words, hoping that Park Jimin will approve your efforts.

On Sunday, you look like a ghost.

You’re a mess, cured from hangover but still in bad shape, especially after spending the whole night writing in front of your laptop. There are bangs under your eyes and you hair looks like you could cosplay a scarecrow. Your eyes are sore from staring to the screen for so long and you feel like you might collapse anytime if you won’t drink coffee in five minutes.

In between writing next paragraphs, you answer a call from Taehyung.

“How’s your assignment going, sweetheart?”

You let out a long, exhausted sigh. “It’s fine, I guess.” you respond to him.

“That’s lovely! I knew you would slay this, babe,” you hear him saying.

“I’m not done yet, Tae. I still have like a half to write,” you mumble and then let out a yawn, closing your eyes for a brief second before you speak again. “I would love to talk to you more but I really need to get this shit done as soon as I can, so I could have some decent sleep before Monday. I don’t want to look like an old witch when I hand in the paper to Park Jimin.”

“I know, I know. You got this, sweetheart. I’m sure you will make Mister Prude’s dick hard because of this.” Taehyung assures you.

You crack a tired smile even though you know he doesn’t see you. “Thank you, Tae.”

“Anything for you, sweetheart.” he says and hangs up.

You take another gulp of your coffee and start writing again.

It’s a little past midnight when you’re, with your last amounts of force you posses, typing the last words of the paper. As you look at your laptop screen, eyelids half-closed, you dream about nothing but going to sleep.

You did that. You really did. You wrote this stupid paper for Park Jimin and you’re actually proud of it. You carefully save the document three times (to be hundred percent sure) and as soon as you close your laptop, you pass out.

Little did you know what is waiting for you in editorial in a few hours.

You stare at your reflection in small mirror you hold, thanking God that he has enlightened the person who discovered make-up. You won’t say you look stunning but, after five hours of sleep you had in last two days, you would risk it all and say you appear much more than decent looking. You’re wearing your new black jumpsuit that makes your legs look longer and you even used a different shade of lipstick, painting your lips in crimson red.

And all of this for nothing, because when you stormed into the Sunday’s Spirit editorial to give the paper straight to Park Jimin’s hands, his secretary with polite smile said he’s coming to work later today.

You pursued your lips and handed the woman your blood, sweat and tears (you’re actually sure a few tears rolled down from your face on the keyboard while you were writing it), wishing you saw your boss’ face when you place the printed pages on his expensive desk.

“I changed a little bit the topic of my work while I was outlining it,” you tell Taehyung as you both sit together by your desks later that day. “I focused more on a role of Mary Magdalene character in world ruled only by men. I showed how a powerful woman she was, standing at Jesus’s side even though the church for the centuries referred her to whore,” you explain.

“Wow,” Taehyung muses. “You turned Mary Magdalene into feminism icon fighting against patriarchy.”

“It’s not like that!” You hit him in the arm. “You may laugh as much as you want but I actually got into her story.”

Taehyung smirks. “Looks like being scolded by Park Jimin wasn’t that bad.”

You roll your eyes. “Shut up. I got humiliated in the middle of fucking cafeteria. I still hate him. And also, I don’t know what he thinks about my essay.” you say with a sigh.

“Don’t worry. He’s probably having an epiphany right now while-”

A voice from the speakers that certainly doesn’t sound like gospel choir interrupts him.

“Miss Y/N, please report to the Park Jimin’s office immadietly.”

“-or he isn’t.” Taehyung ends.

Once again, you’re frozen in place. It’s okay, you tell yourself, maybe he just wants to talk about my essay. But what if he didn’t like it? What if your sudden feminism outburst about Mary Magdalene was too much?

“Holy fuck.” you blurt out quietly.

Taehyung gives you an encouraging smile but he doesn’t look much convinced in positive intentions of summoning you to their boss’ office, he just doesn’t say it aloud. “Well, maybe it won’t be that bad! Maybe he wants to congratulate you,” he tries to comfort you, without success. You look horribly pale and scared to death.

“I repeat: miss Y/N, please report to the Park Jimin’s office immadietly.” Jimin’s stone cold voice pierce through the silence again. You shiver. The journalists in the editorial send you impatient glares.

“Whatever happens, remember that I love you.” Taehyung whispers, squizzing your hand, which makes you even more nervous. He gives you thumbs-up and you take a deep breath, trying to calm your trembling body. A whole Sunday’s Spirit team follow your movements with their eyes.

You stands from your desk on wobbly legs and walk to the door with golden sign hanging on its surface.

Park Jimin

Editor-in-chief

You take the knob in your shaking palm and twist, stepping into the lion’s den.

The atmosphere seems to shift when you walk into the room. You could hear your heart rapidly beating through the dead silence that lingers in Park Jimin’s office. “You wanted to see me, sir?” you ask after closing the door, subconsciously cursing yourself for sounding so weak already.

“Yes, have a seat,” Jimin says. “Give me a second. I need to finish something.” he adds when you sit down, not even bothering to spare you a look.

Jimin sits behind his desk, eyes glued to the computer screen. His hair is pushed back from his forehead, his jaw clenched. Oh, great, he looks pissed, you think to yourself.

He isn’t wearing his suit jacket like usually, which surprises you. His white shirt’s sleeves are rolled up, revealing a glimpse of veiny hands and his Rolex. This is the first time you see him like this. He looks so… unlike him.

Strange.

You use the time you have to take in your surroundings. Jimin’s office is painted in fair tone of grey. The rumors were actually right, there’s a smaller version of Michelangelo’s Pietà standing proudly on of the drawers. Behind the desk, on the wall, hangs a wooden cross with gold-plated figurine of Jesus Christ, and just underneath it there’s a framed picture of Lady of Fatima, which he once proudly showed to the whole editorial team on one of the lunchbreaks, saying his grandmother brought him this from her pilgrimage.

You focus your attention now on the wall filled with numerous diplomas and certificates, all of them signed with Park Jimin’s name.

You had read some of his works before you started your job in Sunday’s Spirit and you must admit: Park Jimin is a talented, smart journalist you aspire to be one day. It’s actually sad, you think, that he can’t pursue his career, wasting his abilities by working in catholic newspaper owned by his father. And as you know from Yoongi, his situation isn’t going to change soon. Maybe he was right after all. Money really does rule this world.

After a few minutes that seems to last forever, Jimin breaks the silence. “Do you know why are you here?” he asks, finally averting his attention to you. He stares so deeply into your eyes that you feel you might faint from the intensity of his aura.

You clear your throat, and then respond. “I do believe it’s about my paper I handed in to you this morning.”

Jimin raises his eyebrow at that. “Your paper? No, everything’s fine about it. I read it and I must say, you did a great job,” he says and you furrow your eyebrows. So if nothing’s is wrong with your essay then what does he want?

“Then… why did you call me in, sir?” you hesitantly ponder.

Jimin laces his fingers together and leans closer over the desk. “Well,” he begins, “Maybe you forgot or you really didn’t know about it, but I used to run the same column as you do now,” You nod your head, recalling what Taehyung told you recently. Jimin continues, “I was actually the one who created it. That means I am still, for this day, its administrator. Which leads to another conclusion: every single ask that is send to our editorial and your responses to them can be monitored by me.” he explains, gauging your reaction. You still don’t have an idea why is he telling you that, so you just sit still and wait.

Then, Jimin reaches for the paper that lays on the left side of his desk and hands it to you. “Could you please tell me what is this?” he asks, pointing at the paper.

You glance at it briefly. “These are the questions I got last week and my responses to them.” you reply straightaway.

Park Jimin doesn’t seem much satisfied after hearing your words. He then takes another paper and gives it to you as well. “And this particular one, Y/N? Could you please read it and tell me what is this?”

Ignoring his forego of ‘miss’, you take it to your hands and start reading.

Dear Sunday’s Spirit editorial,

My name is Kang Seoyeon. I study medicine at the University of Seoul, I’ve got an amazing group of friends and a loving boyf-

You gasp and immadietly put a palm over your mouth. Under Seoyeon’s ask there’s also, clear as day, your much inappropriate response to her. In which you persuade the girl to suck her boyfriend off.

Holy fuck. Jesus Christ. Shitshitshit!

Jimin said he monitors everything that people send to the editorial along with the responds. Of course he had to read it. Why have you been so dumb? How could you believe that simple deleting from your inbox would be enough? Why can’t you do something properly for once?

You gulp, trying not to cry because good God, he’s going to fire you. He will kick you out and write a bunch of negative letters to your future employees, in which he will explain in details how disobiedent, reckless of a worker you are.

“Did you also forget how to speak?” Jimin asks. You almost cry out right away from the coldness of his voice.

You muster up a courage and look at him, and that’s a huge mistake because as soon as your eyes meet his, you’re lost for words.”I-I don’t know what to say, sir,” you stammer out. “I have nothing for my defence. I can only apologize for my irresponsible and inappropriate behavior I exhibited.” you say, bowing your head down.

Jimin pursues his lips. He stands from his chair and walks to you, leaning his body on the desk. He takes the paper from you to his hands and starts reading. “If you want to fuck your boyfriend, do it. Maybe God wouldn’t approve that but don’t worry, he won’t send you to hell because of some dick in your pussy,“ he quotes your response to the girl and your cheeks flush in red; you wish nothing more than to disappear and never see your boss again. But he’s relentless and continues reading, spilling the crude words, humiliating you even more. “So you go girl, suck your boyfriend off. Make him beg. He will never leave you after this.“ Jimin chuckles to himself darkly and you shut your eyes. “Look at me when you are spoken to,” he demands. You quickly oblige, lifting your chin a little to meet his intense gaze. “Is that really how a good, catholic girl should act?” he asks in a mocking tone.

You shake your head. “No, it isn’t.”

Jimin clicks his tongue. “Do you think he really won’t leave her after this?” he asks out of the blue.

You furrow your eyebrows. What kind of twisted game is he playing now? “I don’t know, sir.” you answer honestly.

Jimin smirks. Devilishly, sultry and completely illegal. He then licks his lips and leans closer to you. You could swear his eyes are darken than before. Something has shifted in his demeanor; he looks daring. “Why don’t you show me then, how this poor girl should suck her boyfriend off, Y/N?” he whispers lowly.

Your eyes widen. Did he just-?

He didn’t. He can’t. Maybe you misheard him, maybe you started imagining things that aren’t real. Oh, sweet Lord, the look of absolute seriousness written on his face tells you very much different.

Park Jimin, your boss, the man who goes regularly on masses and reads Bible, wants you to give him a head. In his office.

May the God help you.

You should probably slap him in the face for his immoral proposition. You should save your dignity, leave and never come back again. But then, you clear your mind from all those twisted thoughts running through it and you realise that you’re walking on a very thin line. Line which is called unemployment and bankruptcy.

You think about your landlord who praised you recently for keeping up with rent every month regularly. You think about your student loans that you still need to pay.

And fuck, you hate Yoongi because he was damn right. Money wouldn’t buy you happiness, but it can provide you that.

That’s why you put away the humiliation, the what ifs. You shut your mind screaming at you and listing the future consequences. Maybe Jimin just tests you, but the way he looks at you denies it. He wants to see you on your knees in front of him. Perhaps he only wants to play before he fires you but you put that thought aside.

You at least need to try.

Jimin searches for any kind of protest in your eyes and when he doesn’t find it, he’s back to his domineering self. “What are you waiting for?” he asks, his voice an octave lower. “Get on your knees.”

He has a calm expression on his face and you wonder for a moment how many times has he been in similar situation before. Having a woman on his mercy and using her the way he likes. And now you know. All those stories you heard about, are actually true. Park Jimin isn’t a prude. He’s dirty.

You fall to the floor with a light whimper. Maybe it’s the last chance for you to leave, but the confidence that emanates from Jimin doesn’t falter your movements. You hate yourself for that but God, you want to see this man being a mess for your touch. Even if that’s fucked up.

And it’s wrong, so, so wrong, when there’s a cross hanging behind you, when he’s your boss who claims to be a good catholic, when you do that because you’re too afraid to lose your job. But in that moment, the morality doesn’t exist.

Jimin stands up to take his belt off, looking at you from the above as he slowly, purposefully pulls it from the belt loops. He doesn’t encourage you or say anything, he just waits. You gulp when he yanks his black slacks down, along with his underwear.

For a few, solid seconds, you just stare.

You aren’t a connoisseur of dicks. Dick is a dick, but Park Jimin’s length is just as perfect as the rest of him, semi-hard against his lower stomach. Your hands move to his sculpted thighs, running up and down, tracing the prominent lines of his toned abdomen. The muscles tense underneath your touch.

You don’t remember when was the last time you’ve gone down on someone. Maybe it was Taehyung few months ago when you were both too drunk to care? You can’t quite recall. Every move of yours is uncertain, but Jimin doesn’t mind. Maybe your uncertainty turns him on even more.

He watches as you take him in your palm hesitantly, hot and already stiff, stroking him several times until he hardens in your hand. The sight is purely erotic, filthy, and you lick your lips before placing a light kiss on his tip. Jimin hisses. That’s a warning. No teasing.

You pump him, trailing a thumb over his slit, spreading precum all over his cock. Jimin doesn’t say anything but from the shuddering breath he lets out you assume he likes it. You take a deep breath, wrapping your lips around his dick and swirling your tongue around the head.

Jimin groans, a guttural sound resonating through his whole body and you take it as a sign to continue. You ease more of him into your mouth, hollowing your cheeks and bobbing your head up and down around his length obediently. Some twisted and fucked-up part of you wants him to praise you, call you good girl with your lips around his dick and throbbing core. He does none of that. His hands tangle in your hair as he withdraws, and you know exactly what’s coming next.

It’s an unspoken question on his lips and your jaw falls slacks on command.

A forceful push of his hips and he’s burried deep inside your mouth till he hits the back of your throat. Tears brim in your eyes and you gag, breathing heavily through your nose. It hurts a little, a dull ache but the content sigh and fucked-out expression on Jimin’s face is worth it. So you let him fuck your mouth the way he wants, let him pull your hair harder, wreck you a little more. It’s so easy to submit to him, to let him overwhelm you in every sense possible.

Your eyes fall shut and Jimin stops his movements, pulling from your mouth. Drool dribbles down your chin and you wipe it with the back of your hand. Jimin lets out a shaky breath, staring down at you so intensely it makes your insides tighten, even if you don’t see him yet.

“Look at me,” he rasps and you do, how could you not. The sight of your boss’ flushed cheeks and sweat forming on his forehead will be imprinted in your mind forever.

You curse yourself for wanting him to fuck you senseless right against his deck, with a hand around your throat muffling your screams, fuck you so hard you won’t remember your name anymore, no matter how wrong it is.

“Good girl. You’re so pretty like this, letting me fuck your mouth,” Jimin nothing but purrs, filling you to the brim again, until there are tears forming in your eyes and running down your cheeks, until he hits the base of your throat again and again and you fight back choked gags every time. “Just like that, fuck-” he moans, lowly and beautifully, head thrown back and mouth parted.

He’s close, you could feel that, so you take him deep once again and when your throat tightens around him one last time, he lets out a gutural groan and comes. You swallow every drop of his bitter release and when he pulls out from your mouth, you nearly fall forward.

Jimin catches you, placing his hands on your shoulders, balancing your exhausted body. You look at him through your half-lidded eyes. He looks so young now, so innocent, his cold demeanor’s gone and replaced by pure bliss written on his face. For Park Jimin, cheeks rosy, disheveled hair and loosen tie, you would do it all over again.

He then does something unexpected. He reaches for your face, brushing your tangled hair away and placing the strands behind your ears. This is a loving gesture, something exclusive he definitely shouldn’t be doing. You’re frozen, you can’t move a muscle while he wipes your cheeks from the reminiscences of your tears. He trails his thumb over your swollen lips absentmindedly, faltering there. For a moment he looks like he might say something, but he quickly shuts his mouth, regaining his previous posture.

You take this as a sign to leave. You get up from the floor, your knees sore from the uncomfortable position you’ve been in. You walk to the mirror that hangs on the wall of Jimin’s office. You sigh, seeing your current state. There’s no way someone would believe you that you haven’t just sucked a dick.

Your cheeks are flushed in pink, there are smudges of mascara under your eyes and your lipstick is smeared in the corners of your mouth. Not to mention your hair is still a mess.

You are painted in all shades of wrong.

In the reflection of the mirror you see Jimin buckling up his belt and straightening his tie. He runs a hand through his blond locks and looks up, catching you staring at him. You quickly look away.

“Don’t worry. No one will notice anything. Everyone should be off for their lunchbreaks by now.” he says. He sounds so pathetically normal, yet there’s still a slight rasp in his voice.

You glance at the watch on your hand and check the time. It’s a little past 12. You brush your hair with your fingers quickly and proceed to leave, but you stop, remembering you have to ask about one last thing. You turn around to face him.

“Are you going to write a bad opinion about me to my future employees?” you ask, flinching at the hoarseness of your voice.

Jimin raises his eyebrows. “Bad opinion? No, absolutely not,” he answers, shaking his head. “I was never going to fire you in first place.”

You fight back the shocked expression that threatens to appear on your face. You quickly rush to leave this damn office and never look in his eyes ever again. What were you even thinking?

“And Y/N,” Jimin’s voice makes you stop with your hand hovering over the door knob. Single tear rolls down your cheek and you gulp. “I’m sorry.” it’s all he says.

You don’t ask him what he meant by that. You don’t deliberate if he was sincere or not. You leave the office as soon as you can, running to the nearest bathroom, closing the door behind you and leaning on it.

He wasn’t going to fire you. He just wanted to use you, demand to get down on your knees and please him the way he wants. It was all a game for him, and you became his plaything.

“I’m so stupid,” you mutter to yourself, burying your head in your hands. “God, I’m so stupid.”

You feel sick, used, but at the same time you can’t get away with creeping feeling that you enjoyed it, wishing he wanted you just as much as you wanted him in that moment.

You sigh, closing your eyes. You’re probably foolish for thinking it won’t have any consequences. You’re just about to face them.

The coldness of early Spring hits you when you exit Sunday’s Spirit editorial. You hug your body tighter with your coat, standing in front of the building awkwardly. You take a few deep breaths, trying to clear your mind, but nothing really works. There’s a vacant space inside your body, like your soul has drifted away and left nothing but emptiness.

You feel hollow.

You don’t know how long have you been standing there, inhaling fresh air and waiting for your blood to start circulating properly in your veins again. When you’re about to head to the underground station, on the corner of your eye you see Jimin’s black Mercedes. You probably shouldn’t stare but you helplessly do.

Probably if you didn’t, it would hurt less.

He approaches the car, looking perfectly fine as always, which you couldn’t say about yourself. And he isn’t alone.

You recognize dark curls of Chins-sun’s hair, contrasting her beige coat beautifully. The corners of Jimin’s lips lift when he sees her. You don’t know if it’s a honest smile or a forced one. You wonder for a while how does he look like when he’s truly happy. Maybe he’s happy now, when Chin-sun is by his side.

What you are really sure about Park Jimin, is that he’s a man of many maybes.

Something which definitely doesn’t look forced are his palms, cupping the cheeks of Chin-sun’s flushed face. He starts tracing circles on her skin in intimate gesture and murmurs something. Maybe he asks her how was her day. Your lips still tingle where he trailed his thumb over it bitten, swollen surface. Maybe he still remembers how they felt around his cock when he was relentlessly bringing tears to your eyes and stabs to your heart.

The way he leans and kisses Chin-sun’s cherry colored lips is purposeful, perfectly measured. Maybe he sighs into her mouth with content, a beautiful sound you have witnessed with your own ears, as you were working him to his climax. Jimin’s hands grip Chin-sun’s dark locks but it isn’t the similar manner he did to you earlier, as he laced his fingers through the strands, when you wished him to do nothing more than pull harder and harder, until the pain in you scalp was replaced by dull ache, until a whimper fell from your lips and eyes squeezed shut. He kisses Chin-sun lovingly and there’s no roughness in that. It’s gentle caresses and soft murmurs.

After a moment he breaks off, soothing his palms over Chin-sun’s shoulders. She sends him a smile and opens the passenger’s door, getting into the car. And then, when you swallow a lump in your throat, when you decide to turn around and go, run as fast as you possibly can, when you dream about nothing more but never seeing him again, you catch eyes with him.

Jimin looks pathetically apologetic. There’s something in his dark brown orbs you can’t read. Maybe it’s guilt, maybe regret. Park Jimin is a man of many maybes, yet he stares at you with expression you could only mistaken for sadness.

You wonder if he sees the way your eyes stare at him blankly. You wonder if he knows how he nearly wrecked your body and made you feel things you shouldn’t. If he hurts the same way as you do now. However, Jimin quickly diverts his head away from you, closing the door to his car behind him as well. You laugh quietly at the ridiculousness of this situation. A bitter laugh that escapes your mouth and deepen the hollowness inside you.

A hand touches your arm and you don’t even flinch, knowing already who it is.

“So you know the news,” Taehyung says, looking at Jimin’s car leaving the parking lot. How long has he been standing behind you?

“What news?” you ask, turning your head to look at him.

“Chin-sun is really going to be miss Park officially,” he replies. “Jimin proposed to her this weekend. The wedding is in may. But that’s not important right now. How’s your conversation with him, sweetheart?”

You feel sick. You excuse yourself, mentioning something about needing to catch earlier train and texting him later. Taehyung calls after you but you don’t listen. You start running.

You run until you couldn’t breathe, until there’s a soreness in your throat from the coldness of air. You run until you reach your apartment, stumbling into it on wobbly legs. Your back touches the wall and you slide off, sitting on the floor.

You don’t cry. The tears don’t strain your eyes. It’s only this damned, dull hollowness.

There’s written in the Bible that a guilty person is the one who broke God’s law, who committed a sin. The said person will be judged by their actions after their death. Because every human being has a conscience, the thing that sets the line between good and bad, so when we did something wrong, we should feel remorse.

When you sit on the floor and stare blankly in front of yourself, you know you have sinned.You both did. You wonder if he, trailing patterns of tender touches on his fiancee’s skin, feels the same as you. You wonder if guilt eats him up as much as devours you. Maybe there’s hollow ache in his chest, just like in yours. Maybe he doesn’t feel anything.

And may the God help you both find your redemption.

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horansqueen · 5 years ago

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You & Me : chapter 34

A Niall Horan fanfiction ; rated MA

Sequel to AM CONVERSATIONS

CHAPTER 1 || CHAPTER 2 || CHAPTER 3 || CHAPTER 4 || CHAPTER 5 || CHAPTER 6 || CHAPTER 7 || CHAPTER 8 || CHAPTER 9 || CHAPTER 10 || CHAPTER 11 || CHAPTER 12 || CHAPTER 13 || CHAPTER 14 || CHAPTER 15 || CHAPTER 16 || CHAPTER 17 || CHAPTER 18 || CHAPTER 19 || CHAPTER 20 || CHAPTER 21 || CHAPTER 22 || CHAPTER 23 || CHAPTER 24 || CHAPTER 25 || CHAPTER 26 || CHAPTER 27 || CHAPTER 28 || CHAPTER 29 || CHAPTER 30 || CHAPTER 31 || CHAPTER 32 || CHAPTER 33

NOTES:

-one chapter is her pov, the next is his. -4.1k -im sorry, i never proofread, i hate it. -there WILL be smut. but not only smut. -this is a romance, comedy, smut story. -for the summary, check my MASTERLIST.

- notes: okay sooo idk how i feel about the chapter BUT! i added a link with pictures of the characters and it took me over 2 hours to do that so if you could comment or at least look at it, it would mean a lot to me! (scroll down for the link, you cant miss it)

if you want to be on the list of blogs i notify when this is updated, just message me :)

requests! : two but its pretty much the same thing :) i mean he doesnt get ‘angry’ tho but i hope its still what you wanted :)

TAKE A LOOK AT THE CHARACTERS HERE

Chapter 34 : Her chapter

OLIVIA

March 30th, 2018

I had no idea who Niall had invited but before we walked in the bar, I moved closer to him and got up on my tiptoe to look in his eyes, both of us now hidden by his cap. His lips curled as his eyes roamed on my face and I pressed my lips together. I was a bit stressed to meet some people from school after so long but if I wanted to be honest, being away from the crowds and the paps seemed like amazing time off to me and I was pretty sure Niall felt the same.

"No kissing, no hold hands, no cuddles." I pointed out with a grimace. "It's gonna be a long evening."

"Okay, first off, you can cuddle me, they're used to it. Second of, can I remind you that it's your rule? If you want, we can definitely tell them we're together but keeping low profile." he pointed out, raising his eyebrows as he waited for my answer.

I wanted to. I really fucking wanted to, and I could feel my heartbeats accelerate the longer we looked at each other. I licked my lips and smiled before shaking my head. I couldn't make a decision and it was driving me insane.

"We'll just... see how it goes." I finally let out before sighing and getting back down on my feet.

"I'll follow your lead, petal."

His words made my lips curl and I nodded slowly before he turned around and walked in. It felt amazing to know I had my say in all of this. A lot of times, when we were dating and even before, I felt like Niall lead me the way he thought was right and I just followed without a word. Perhaps, he had matured, or maybe he was always like that but he just took the lead because I didn't. Either way, it was refreshing and it made me feel important.

I followed him inside and a familiar face seemed to illuminate in the back of the bar. The smell reminded me of my teenage years and somehow, I suddenly relaxed despite the people I had just noticed.

"Zara?" I let out with a frown before Niall bent closer to me.

"I called her, thought you may want to see her." he whispered before walking closer to the table.

"Olivia!"

Zara jumped out of her chair and ran to me, wrapping her arms around my neck so tight I could barely breathe anymore. She started jumping quickly up and down, bringing me in her wave and I laughed as I hugged her back. Despite everything that had happened to me in my childhood and teenage years, Zara was the only one I trusted completely besides Niall. I had a few friends and we all hung out together but Zara was the one I was the closest to, the one I told almost everything to, except maybe the fact that I had always been in love with Niall. That, I hadn't told anyone and even now, I wondered how the hell I succeeded to keep that secret to myself for two decades.

"I haven't seen you in so long!" she added, hugging me even tighter before her embrace loosened and she pulled away to look in my eyes. "Still can't believe you followed that eejit to London. Why?"

She was very expressive and the facial expression she was sending me made me laugh.

"You know me, can't be away from his dumb face for too long."

Her lips curled into an amused smile and she pulled me to the bar, ordering beers before tilting her head and staring at me some more. I frowned and waited, knowing that a question was coming.

"You two dated a few years ago yea?" she raised her eyebrows as I nodded. "Okay now let's talk about the real shit. How does he fuck?"

My eyes got bigger and I chuckled, shaking my head. "Z!"

"No no, hear me out!" she continued, bending down closer to me. "Remember when Michelle, Lisa, Megan and I would get mad at you for ditching us for him?" she let out with a chin movement towards Niall.

I couldn't help but glance at him. He was sitting with a few people I recognized but I just licked my lips and turned back to my friend, shaking my head. "I didn't dit-"

"Oh you did. All the time." she cut me, making me raise my nose up in a grimace. "Well we always spent at least half an hour talking about you two and with the years, the conversations became... you know. I mean he grew up and," she paused and leaned back to take a look at him before looking back at me. "He's... he's hot."

I started laughing, shaking my head slightly at her enthusiasm.

"Niall was always hot." I pointed out, making her roll her eyes.

"You... it's different. I mean, I know you always said you didn't have feelings for him but girl, I know you better than that." she explained, making my heart literally stop beating. "Anyway, that's beside the point. So we did talk about the size of his cock and the way he fucked and we all had theories. I think it's time you reveal the truth."

"Forget it." I laughed, shaking my head.

"Why does it matter, you two broke up a million years ago!" her face suddenly changed and her lips parted as she moved closer. "You whore, you’re still dating him?"

"Zara!"

She raised both of her hands up and closed her eyes. "Alright alright, none of my business." she chuckled, opening her eyes again, her smile turning into a fond one. "I really hope for you, though. I know how much you love him. I can see it in your eyes."

I held my breath as she grabbed two beers, letting me take the two others and we walked slowly to the table.

"Don't be surprised okay? Ava is here. I know she's not your fave person but just pretend she's funny. Or interesting. Or ignore her, that's what I do."

I laughed again but my heart dropped in my chest when I noticed Ava, leaning against Niall as they were both laughing. I started thinking about that time I caught him masturbating in his room when he was 13, and how a few years later, he had admitted he was jerking off thinking about her. The whole thing made me swallow hard and I held the mugs tighter in my hands before placing them on the table. Most people looked up and when I noticed Rian, my eyes got bigger and I chuckled low.

"Wow, hey! What are you doing here?"

He got up and kissed my cheeks gently as I did the same before shaking my head. The last time I had seen Rian was when Niall and I went ice skating together when we were dating. Niall had shown a bit of jealousy back then and even if I knew I shouldn't, i really liked it. Of course, I had dated Rian for a few months and he was the first guy I ever slept with, but Niall seemed to forget that the reason I gave in to Rian after so many years was because he had lost his virginity to someone who wasn't me. It had hurt me so much that just thinking about it made it impossible not to swallow the lump in my throat.

"He's coming to visit me." Ava said, her hand on Niall's thigh to hold herself as she moved closer to me. "We have a thing going on."

Rian rolled his eyes with a smile and shook his head slightly before shrugging. "Just trying to see if it could work." he explained before talking lower. "I'm not moving back here though, there's no way."

I let out a louder laugh and nodded. "Yea, I'm not moving back here either."

The truth was, I didn't want to move back here mostly because I didn't really know anyone anymore. My parents were back in France, many of my friends had moved away and Niall... well, Niall was the person I wanted to follow. Or more, Niall was the person I wanted to be with. I didn't have to follow him, like he said. We could just take decisions together.

"Come on, petal, sit down."

Niall's voice reached my ear and I smiled, sitting next to him as he squirmed a bit on his chair to move forward, leaning his arms on the table and getting away from Ava's touch. I felt suddenly relieved and he sent me a smile. I felt his knee hit gently against mine under the table and my lips curled more.

"So what's up between you two?" Rian asked after sitting next to me. "Last time I saw you, you were together, then we all read in extremely reliable online articles that you two split and Niall was dating that actress or singer? What's her face? And Liv was getting married to an hollywood actor. This is some crazy shit, mates."

"I'm... not dating Heidi anymore." Niall pointed out, pressing his lips together in an awkward smile.

"And I called the wedding off and broke up with Dylan."

Everyone stared at us and Zara chuckled slightly after half a minute, shaking her head. "Wow. You guys need more drinks."

We started drinking and talking and after a few hours, I was starting to be tipsy. I walked to the bar to get more pints and while waiting, I leaned on the counter to stare at Niall. He was laughing with our old friends and I was suddenly thrown back to when we were younger and would hang out all together. I could pretend life was easy back then but it would be a lie. I had to admit, though, that everything changed when Niall left, and I do mean everything.

My lips curled on the left when I watched him throw his head back. I could hear his laughter even from where I was and something jumped inside me at the sight. I already knew, but once again, it hit me how much I loved him and how i'd never be over him. I didn't want to be over him anyway. I wanted to be with him.

"Having a good time?"

I raised my eyebrows in surprise before turning to the voice with a smile before looking at Niall again and finally putting my attention back on Rian.

"Mmhm, and you?"

I was getting so tipsy that I had a hard time hiding my attraction for Niall. I knew my eyes were probably betraying me but I was at that point where I didn't give a fuck anymore. A few more people we knew had joined us and we were all getting a bit drunk but when I turned around and smiled to Rian again, I noticed he was way past that stage. He sent me a small smirk and bent down closer, making me move back instinctively.

"You know you were my first fuck." he pointed out, making me chuckle low.

"Yea you were my first fuck too."

"You ever wonder what it would feel like more than a decade later?" he whispered after bending down more.

My lips parted and I glanced at him, standing up and shaking my head. "Honestly, no."

"Come on." he slurred as I pressed my lips together. "Just one time. I never really understood why you broke up with me, y'know?"

I looked up at him, feeling uneasy, and swallowed hard. I didn't want to cause a scene and I knew he was drunk but at the same time, I had no fucking idea what he was thinking at that exact moment. I knew he thought I was single, which I was... sort of, but I had the feeling he would insist even if I was officially taken.

"I just didn't have those feelings for you, that's why." I pointed out.

It was true and at the same time, it was also because I couldn't take Niall out of my mind. I felt his arm slither around my waist and pushed him away gently but firmly, raising my eyebrows at him.

"Two things. One, you're drunk and two, I'm not interested. It's been years, Rian, we both moved on." I pointed out. "Besides, aren't you with Ava now?"

"Ava and I have an agreement. Until we're official, we can fuck whoever we want. That's why she's all over your ex boyfriend."

My lips parted again and my heartbeats accelerated. I turned to look at Niall but for some reason, he had switched seat with me, leaving a free chair between him and Ava and I sighed of relief without thinking.

"That's why you said no to me for so long before agreeing to date me, right? That's also why you broke up with me isn't it?"

I turned back to him, noticing he had moved closer again. "What?"

"Him. Him and his fucking stupid angel face. You've always wanted him and he never fucking wanted you. The only time he dated you he fucking left you to be a famous little shit and now you're still looking at him like he's some sort of god."

"Shut up, you're pissed." I said low enough, getting suddenly angry.

"Still. You know i'm right." he added, sending me a small smile. "Come on, I'll make you cum so hard."

I felt Rian's hand on my breasts and this time, I pushed him harder as my heart seemed to stop.

"I said no!"

I felt my whole body on fire as I stared at him but he moved closer and grabbed the back of my head, pulling me against him to kiss me. This time, I started hitting his chest hard to push him away and I heard a chair scratch against the wood floor before falling down. It took about half a second for Niall to be between Rian and I, pushing him hard enough to make him back away a few feet.

"She said no."

"Oh yea, mister perfect is there again to save the day!" Rian let out a bit too loud in a sarcastic tone. "Same as you were back then. Always there to be the perfect 'best friend'." he laughed, doing quotation marks with his fingers on the last two words.

"Rian, don't go too far." Niall only replied, shaking his head slightly.

"She's not yours, anymore, Horan! So let it go!"

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

I took a step back, surprised by how well Niall could keep calm and glanced at our table to see all of our friends watching the show. It was not really how I imagined my night.

"You're a fuckin' asshole and I've always hated you, ya know that?"

"I'm very aware." Niall sighed. "But she said she was not interested, so keep your feckin' hands in your pockets."

"Or what?" Rian yelled, this time. "Or WHAT?"

"Rian, stop!"

We all turned to Ava who was frowning and Rian scoffed, shaking his head. "You stay out of this." he turned to Niall. "And you!" he grabbed him by his shirt and my heart sank in my chest as I moved closer, grabbing Rian's arm and trying to push him back.

"Please, stop!" I let out, suddenly panicked.

Niall didn't send me a glance and kept looking at Rian, "Liv, move back. Please Liv."

It took me a few seconds and I did as he asked just when Rian started talking again.

"She's not your girlfriend." he repeated. "So mind your own fuckin' business!"

"But I still love her." Niall admitted louder, making my lips part and my whole body throb. "I'm still in love with her. And I'm not gonna let you touch her, not without her consent."

Everything happened a bit too fast for me to react and I barely saw Rian let go of Niall to throw his fist at him. Gladly, he was totally hammered and Niall easily dodged his hit before throwing his own first on Rian's jaw. My eyes got bigger as Rian fell on the floor and I finally closed them, bringing both my hands on my face.

"MATES!"

I remained motionless, eyes closed and silent, until I felt someone pull me out and I only opened my eyes again when I felt the fresh air hit the skin of my face. It was a bit cold and I shivered, bringing my arms around myself before I felt someone wrap theirs around me from behind.

"Hey, you okay?" I didn't have to hear his voice, I immediately recognized Niall from the way he was touching me, and the way he smelled. God he smelled amazing. "I'm sorry about all this."

I shook my head and sighed. "Let's leave, okay?"

I noticed Ava and two other guys try to put Rian on the backseat of a car and Zara quickly ran to me, raising her nose up and placing her hand on my arm.

"Are you okay?" she asked softly, tilting her head, before I nodded. "I'll message you, okay? And if you invite me to Cali, I'd love to visit!"

I chuckled and nodded. "We can definitely plan that."

She glanced up at Niall and tried to stop a smirk from gracing her face without much success.

"Have fun you two." she just chuckled. "I'm rooting for you."

I laughed and closed my eyes again, a bit embarrassed but quickly, Niall moved away and reached for my fingers. I let him take my hand in his and we walked in silence. I knew where he was taking me but I didn't mention it and when we sat in the grass, I moved my legs over his thighs and felt his hand on mine, warming me. It was cold and I knew we wouldn't last too long outside but I enjoyed being close to him in silence. It took at least 20 minutes for Niall to talk again and hearing his voice made something stir in my stomach.

"I'm sorry." he said in a low tone, looking down at his hand on my thigh as he gently brushed his fingertips on my pants. "I don't know why I did that. But he had his hand on your breasts and I suddenly wanted to kill him."

I stared at him for a few seconds without talking and waiting for him to look up but he didn't. I pressed my lips together and placed my hand over his, grabbing his fingers and squeezing them.

"Thank you for defending me." I just replied, making him nod slightly. "You were so laid-back, I didn't expect you to throw your fist at him. You don't need to apologize."

He looked up at me and sent me a fond smile as I bit my bottom lip. Slowly, I moved closer and kissed him gently. I could feel my head spinning from all the alcohol in my body and when he deepened the kiss, I felt my eyes flutter behind my eyelids.

"I'm sorry." I whispered against his mouth. "I should have told our friends we were together. It would have spared a few problems."

"Not your fault. It's entirely his fault. He shouldn't have touched you after you said no, whether you were taken or not. He's an asshole and he deserved a good punch. I'm just happy I'm the one who gave him." he confessed, making me chuckle. "I can't believe he did that."

"Well he was seeing the way I was looking at you apparently. And he probably saw how Ava was all over you, too. Must have been hard for him to be rejected twice in the same night. I've rejected him a lot, too."

"Still not an excuse." Niall whispered, kissing my lips very gently.

"I know."

"Don't defend him, he's an arsehole."

"I know."

We remained silent again as we kissed some more. I felt his hand move up on me and slip between my thighs, the side of one of his fingers pressing on my pussy. I whimpered very low and chuckled.

"It's way too cold to fuck here."

"I know." he groaned. "I just can't believe we have to sleep at my mom's. Every single time we come visit you don't want to let me fuck you."

The way he pouted and his childish tone made a laugh boom out of me and I finally leaned my forehead against his and brought my hand to his cheek.

"I'll let you tomorrow morning, but only if you agree to do something tonight that I've always wanted to do."

He frowned and pulled away to stare at me suspiciously. "I want to ask if I'll regret it but if you let me cum inside you tomorrow then I'm ready for anything."

I laughed again and kissed him with a smile. It felt so great to be wanted even if most of the time, It also felt surreal. We walked back to his mom's and it was extremely late when he tried to find the right keys to walk inside before realizing the door was not locked. We both laughed as we walked inside, and it made me realize we were both still quite tipsy. We walked slowly, trying to remain silent without much success and when he bumped into the table, we both laughed. He pulled me closer and started kissing me hard, sticking his tongue on my mouth only to turn me on, I suspected. His normal taste was altered with the taste of beer but I loved it and I moaned low in his mouth. I couldn't remember how we ended up on the roof but I stared up at the sky, tilting my head with a smile.

"That's really all you wanted?" he asked after a while. "Watch the stars like we used to do on the roof of your house?"

I kept looking up at the indigo sky and pressed my lips together before licking them.

"We used to do that all the time, just you and I, and I remember wishing you would kiss me every single time. That's why we're here. I want to kiss you while we watch the stars together."

Niall chuckled low. "You're so cheesy. I blame you for my romantic side."

I turned to send him a big smile. "You're welcome."

His lips curled into a fond and loving grin and I bit my bottom lip.

"I will kiss you anywhere you want. Any time you want. For any reason you can think of, or for no reason at all except that I love you."

I felt my heart melt in my chest and breathed in, trying to keep my tears in. He was leaning on his side to look at me, holding himself with one of his elbows and arms, and suddenly, I could see the adorable 14 year old he used to be, with his blonde hair and his crooked teeth. I felt my heart swell and my eyes watered, letting a tear fall on one of my cheeks as I sniffed. Was I really going to push away this man out of fear? Was that a good way to live life anyway? To stop myself from being happy in fear of being hurt again? It was ridiculous.

"We will be together, Niall."

He frowned slightly and moved his upper body closer. "What?"

"If you still want of me..." I repeated before breathing in deeply. "if you still want to be with me.. really be with me. Officially. It will happen."

"I'll always want that Olivia." he simply replied but I could hear surprise and happiness in his voice and when I looked up at him, his eyes seemed to sparkle. They shined even more than they did at the bar when he was drunk and it made my heart jump in my chest. Perhaps, it was only the reflection of the lights of the streets, or maybe I was hallucinating it... but I didn't think so. He seemed genuinely excited by my words.

"I just need more time. But it will happen." I explained more. "I'll never be able to live without you anyway. And I don't want to. I don't want to live without you, Niall."

His lips curled into the biggest smile and he chuckled, moving closer and sliding his hand behind my head. I could feel his fingers sink in my hair as he pulled me closer.

"Best news of the day. It beats everything else." he let out low. "Now, I'm going to kiss you beneath the stars until you're too tired to keep your eyes open."

#niall horan #niall horan smut #niall horan fluff #niall horan story #niall horan writing #niall horan fanfic #niall horan fan fic #niall horan fanfiction #niall horan fan fiction #my fanfics #yam

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purpleblackmask · 5 years ago

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GO theory: Crowley suffers from depression

Making clear that I'm not a psychologist and that all of this is just a theory of mine and/or a character's study from a wanna-be-actress' pov, I'd like to expose this thought that followed me since it first came to my mind.

Let's begin from the start.

Crowley is a demon. But actually he wasn't born this way. Like every other demon, he was something else. Something considered better, pure, flawless.

He was an angel.

Most of all, he was one of God's children. If we consider the Raphael!Theory, which I support, he was one of God's most beloved children. An archangel.

Now let's consider what angels are supposed to be. Soldiers. Or, in a tenderest way, the perfect sons who obey their father's will. No matter what.

Even when He (or She, in this case) creates mankind.

"And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, 'And let all the angels of God worship Him,'" (Hebrews 1:6).

But then Lucifer rebelled and we all know how the story goes on.

Crowley? He fell too.

In the show he actually refers to his fall four times.

But not in a way a demon would do.

If we take John Milton's Paradise Lost, what made Lucifer leave Paradise forever was his pride. Now he is content with his horrors, for he is a king, a ruler. He can do what he wants. He achieves freedom. And all the other demons are free to persevere in their evilness. This gives them a sort of satisfaction.

But when Crowley refers to his fall, he is not satisfied at all.

On the contrary, you can perceive a deep sense of regret.

"I never meant to fall. I just hung around the wrong people."

In.

"I didn't really fall. I just, you know... sauntered vaguely downwards."

Every.

"I only ever asked questions. That's all it took to be a demon in the old days."

Word.

"I never asked to be a demon. I was just minding my own business one day and then... oh, lookie here, it's Lucifer and the guys."

Are you going to tell me that is absolutely normal to refer to something four times in a TV show that's only got 6 episodes? I mean, It's almost one per episode, come on.

These aren't the words of a demon.

These are the words of someone who belonged to somewhere and was forced to leave because different.

Because he asked questions.

Because he was a disappointment.

He is a son whose father decided he was just not good enough, not perfect enough, simply not enough, and so threw him away.

He never wanted to cause a war, or to be greater than God or anything like that. He just wanted to be a good son.

A good angel.

But failed.

That's how Crowley feels every second of his eternity.

A failure.

First great cause of a depressed temperament.

And this leads us to the plants.

I personally think that the plants bits are seriously phenomenal. They tell us so much about Crowley just in a few words.

If we analyse him as a human, Crowley is a man with a trauma, the one we underlined before. And, as in the majority of probabilities, it is common to reproduce a trauma on something or someone else.

"What he did was put the fear of God into them. More precisely, the fear of Crowley. In addition to which, every couple of months Crowley would pick out a plant that was growing too slowly, or succumbing to leaf-wilt or browning, or just didn't look quite as good as the others, and he would carry it around to all the other plants. "Say goodbye to your friend" he'd say to them. "He just couldn't cut it...""

The plants scene is terrific in this way. He threatens the plants to grow better, to grow perfect, or they will die.

I think the echoes in his head whispering "Be perfect or you'll fall" murmured by his fellow angels while he was still in Heaven still haunts him when he takes "care" of his plants.

Is he finally satisfied?

No.

He's just being cruel because something cruel happened to him. But he can't erase the past. He can't change what he is.

And he knows that.

That's the worst part.

"I won't be forgiven. Not ever. That's part of a demon job's description. Unforgivable. That's what I am."

He permanentely struggles between a constant denial and the acknowledge of his self being.

He is not what he wanted to be.

That's why he decided to go away.

He couldn't bare the dark, gloomy, crowded halls of hell. Something that reminded him of his condition. That's why he went up on earth. Because it's the closest thing to heaven he could still approach to.

And there he found Aziraphale.

Aziraphale, who is not like other angels.

Who is not afraid to talk to a demon.

Who is kind and soft and naive.

Who gives Crowley a kind of hope.

Maybe Crowley was convinced that he would have spent all his eternity alone (because, sooner or later, he would have realised that he couldn't fit anywhere, not in hell, not in heaven, not on earth), and sincerely, I think he would have committed suicide very soon.

But Aziraphale gives him a reason to live.

He gives him a friend.

He gives him someone who, deep down, doesn't quite fit well on his side, too.

And that is enough for Crowley.

Enough to stay alive.

And so he starts to find himself little things to distract himself, temptations, demonic works to keep himself occupied. He even starts to have fun with them.

But then something happens.

Aziraphale risking his own life.

For a silly reason of course, but then Crowley starts to think.

Ok, I saved him because I was around, but what if he's risking his life again and I'm not there to save him? What if I'm not able to see him again?

Or what if this happens to me? What if my side finds out I saved an angel? What would they do to him? Or to me?

And that's why he decides to have assurances.

That's when his depression strikes back.

He asks Aziraphale for holy water.

Because after all they did together, after all the relief he had felt all those decades on earth, he can't bare to watch it shatter away.

He can't allow it.

And if that means ending his own life, so be it.

I will not pause on Aziraphale's fear of Crowley committing suicide for it is a parenthetis of the analysing of Aziraphale that would add more pain to this post, forgive me please.

Once achieved the pill of suicide, Crowley comes back to his daily routine, which involves, by the way, hours of sleeping.

This is another sign of depression.

As a demon, he shouldn't need to rest at all. But if we return to analyse Crowley as a human, this is perfectly normal.

The lack of energy and anxiety cause the body to being forced to bed. Crowley sleeping for a whole century because "he hated it" could be equal to a person sleeping all day to avoid the problems of life.

Furthermore, the end is nigh.

The Apocalypse is bringing Crowley's (and Aziraphale's) biggest fear. The disappearing of that life they built together on earth. The distruction of their peace.

And who is the one who first proposes to stop it?

Crowley.

And he fights in every way to avoid Armageddon. Even if he doesn't manage, he's still with his angel. They could go away together. Alfa Centauri or wherever they want. But together.

Because he can't let it happen. He can't leave it all and fight on his side which has never been and never will be his side. He can't go back down there. He can't let his depression overthrow him again.

But suddenly "together" becomes "alone".

Suddenly, there's no more a demon and an angel. There's just one demon, who is terrified of what happens next, of what he's going to go through on his own, who is living the nightmare of a lifetime.

He tries to reach Aziraphale one more time, but fails.

The nightmare is much closer.

It swallows him definetely in a burning bookshop.

This is it.

This is where all his world breaks apart in front of his eyes.

He lost.

He lost the chance of a new start. He lost hope. He lost his best friend.

He lost his fight against depression.

Don't try to convince me that if he hadn't already shed it on Ligur, he wouldn't have used holy water in this exact moment to end his own life.

Because nothing had sense now.

But here he is. Without Aziraphale. Without holy water. Trapped in a glass full of alcohol reminding himself for the fourth time that he never wanted to be a demon.

When Aziraphale comes back it all changes.

Life comes back to his body.

It's not over.

And then they manage. They stop the Apocalypse. They stop each other's death. They're finally free.

Crowley and Aziraphale are alone. On their own side.

But that is enough for Crowley.

Depression can wait.

NOT MY GIFS.

#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #ineffable husbands #go #go theory #go headcanons #depression #this took much more than i thought #i'm sorry for all the pain #my post

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assembledherethevolunteers · 5 years ago

Text

Future Management Chapter 1

A/N: WOW! Um…hi all you new people that follow me now. Thank you all SO much for your love and support of the prologue! I hope you enjoy ‘Part One’!

Pairing: Ben Hardy x fem!Reader

Summary: You and Ben Hardy had been together for the better part of a decade. After hitting a rough patch, the two of you decide to end things. However, one small surprise keeps you two connected more than you thought.

Warnings: Angst, alcohol consumption (not a lot, but it’s there)

Catch Up: Prologue (https://assembledherethevolunteers.tumblr.com/post/188795655663/future-management)

Tag list (Because that’s a thing now!): @lovebirdy93 @jonesyaddiction @im-an-adult-ish @taylorroger-s @amy-brooklyn99 @springholland @stassaurus @hahaboop @tcnystqrks If I missed you I’m sorry! Please let me know if you want to be added.

FOUR YEARS LATER

You closed your eyes and sighed, waiting.

“My first guest is in the up and coming film ‘See You Around’, a thriller that lives up to the book in every way, which comes out Friday. Please welcome, Y/N L/N!” Stephen Colbert announced.

The audience erupted and you walked out. You waved at the audience and walked to Stephen’s desk. You gave him a hug and an air kiss to the cheek before sitting down.

“Hi, Stephen,” you gave him a dazzling smile.

“Hi, Y/N, always lovely to have you here,” Stephen gave you a smile back. “How have you been since you were last here?”

“Great! Great! Working and mommy life is always hard to balance, but I’ve got the best people around me in both aspects, so it makes it a little easier for me.”

“Speaking of mommy life,” Stephen reached for something under his desk and held up a picture printed off your Instagram. It was of your daughter, Ben, and you, all three of you smiling up at the camera. You each had a hand on her arm. “This picture. Isn’t she the cutest?”

The audience ‘Aww’ed like they usually did when Eliza was brought up. You beamed at the picture and then them.

“Now where was this taken? Her name is Eliza, right?”

“Yes! That was taken at Eliza’s third birthday party here in New York a few months ago. She’s definitely got her daddy’s eyes, huh?” Your smile softened.

“And so the co-parenting with your ex-husband is going well?”

“Yes, you know it’s easy…well, easy isn’t the right word at all. Being a parent is always difficult, you know how it is!” You swatted at Stephen with a chuckle. Stephen gave an exaggerated nod to one of the cameras, and the audience laughed. “But, with Eliza not being in school yet, she spends six months with me here in the states and then six months with Ben in England. So that makes things easier on us. We just want what’s best for her, ya know? And having a great relationship with her family here and her family there is important.”

“Of course, and it seems like you two are doing a great job.”

“Thank you, she is just the sweetest little thing. We love her so much.”

“As you should, as you should. Now, this film!”

The rest of the interview focused on your film coming out. Stephen had told you he’d read the book and seen an advanced screening and he had loved it. That made you feel good. You loved your work, but sometimes you would put your heart and soul into a project and nobody liked it. Or saw it.

You spoke about your co-stars, how it was having the author of the book so involved in the process, and how the director had made the atmosphere light and easy outside of actual filming since you were dealing with such difficult material.

“So do you have any other things on your horizons?” Stephen asked after you explained a clip from the film, signaling the near close of the interview.

“No, not right now. I’m hoping to take Eliza on a vacation before I get too busy again.”

“Well that sounds great, I’m sure you two ladies would enjoy just some mommy/daughter time. Y/N, thank you so much for joining me tonight,” Stephen smiled, shook your hand, and then looked at one the cameras. “’See You Around’ hits theaters this Friday! We’ll be right back!”

“I really did enjoy the film,” Stephen said to you, the audience applause drowning out your conversation.

“Thank you so much, Stephen. We worked so hard on it.”

“I can tell!”

“Y/N,” one of assistants came up to you with your phone. It was a FaceTime with Ben. “I’m sorry, this is the third time they called in the last few minutes so I think it’s important.”

You quickly answered and saw Eliza’s face fill up your screen.

“Mummy!”

You grinned wide. It was always funny when she was staying with Ben because she tended to pickup some of his pronunciations and words.

“Hi, Lovebug!”

“Who’s dat?” Eliza pointed behind you.

You moved so that Stephen was more in frame. He looked a little nervous, but Eliza gave him a huge smile.

“This is my friend Stephen, we just talked about Mommy’s movie, but I have to go because he’s going to talk to somebody else now. Can you say goodbye?”

“Bye, Mr. Stepen!”

“Bye, Eliza!” He waved and you gave him a quick hug before you walked back to your dressing room.

“Are you having fun with Daddy?”

“Yeah! He and Unkie Gil took me to da park!”

“Oh did they? Did you go on the swings?”

Eliza nodded enthusiastically.

“Unkie Gil pushed me high! And den Daddy took me on ALL da slides!”

“Whoa! All of them?”

“Yeah! And den we went to da…um…Daddy?” Eliza looked up as if Ben was holding the phone for her.

You heard Ben just off the camera.

“We went to the deli and had lunch and then we saw Gran for dinner.”

You hated the way his voice still made your heart beat a little erratically. That stupid deep voice shouldn’t still make you feel like that.

“Yeah! And den Daddy gave me a baf and now it’s almost bedtime, but I wanted to talk to you!”

“Aw, baby, Mommy misses you.”

“I miss you too! Daddy says I can see you soon!”

“That’s right! Mommy’s going to be coming to see you at Daddy’s soon!”

Your movie was going to do a premiere in London in about two weeks. Everything was actually going to work. You and Ben had agreed it would just be easier for you to stay in his guestroom. It had taken a long time discussing the arrangements, but you both decided, for Eliza, it would be easier if you stayed with Ben while you were there.

“Yay! And you can meet Frankie! I love her, Mummy!”

Your heart thudded painfully. Who was Frankie? The new nanny? You couldn’t remember the name of the London nanny for the life of you and you chastised yourself for not remembering the name of the woman taking care of your child when Ben had to work. A new friend of hers from the park? Or…did Ben have a girlfriend? No, there was no way. You two had made a deal that the other had to at least know about a new significant other before Eliza could meet them.

You were going to ask about her, but Eliza switched gears so fast, it was hard to get her back to one topic after she already blew past one.

Eliza was telling you about a bug that she had found on one of the slides when she yawned loudly.

“Alright, Birdie, let’s get you to bed,” Ben appeared, picking Eliza up and they both looked at you through the screen and your breath caught for a moment. It was striking how much Eliza looked like him when they were right next to each other like that. “Tell Mummy goodnight.”

“Night, Mummy! Love you!”

“I love you too, Liza. I’ll call you tomorrow, alright?”

Eliza laid her head down on Ben’s shoulder and nodded.

“Bye, Y/N,” Ben gave you a smile and you did your best to return it. Then they were gone.

You set your phone down and looked at yourself in the mirror. The image of Ben holding a sleepy Eliza was something that you couldn’t shake.

It had been nearly four years since your divorce, but you missed him every day.

The two of you were supposed to be doing this together. You should’ve come off set and had Eliza run into your arms, picking her up and giving Ben a kiss. Him telling you that you did a great job, or giving you crap for talking about how handsome and talented your co-star had been.

But no, you both had screwed that up. Now, instead of coming off the interview to your husband and daughter, you were alone in your dressing room. Having to pretend you were just happy with Facetime.

Your phone started ringing again and you looked at it. It was your co-star, Jackson Moore. You answered.

“Hey, Jack,” you hoped your voice didn’t betray any of your disappointment that it wasn’t Ben.

“Hey, Y/N, how was the Colbert taping?”

“Great! Gave you all the compliments I could. Not sure everybody bought them though.”

Jack laughed. You liked his laugh.

“Some of us are going to 54 Below for some drinks, want to come?”

“Oh hell yeah! Who’s preforming?”

Jackson said some name that you didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. You needed a drink.

“There she is!” Jackson waved you down when you walked into the bar. You grinned at the group of your coworkers.

“Hi, everybody!” You waved around the table. There were five people that you had worked with. Jackson gave you a shy smile and pushed a drink towards you. It looked like your favorite.

“Thanks, Jack,” you gave him a kiss on the cheek.

You saw him look embarrassed. The two of you had been flirty through filming. It was easy to blame it on the proximity and that you were playing each other’s love interests. You liked Jackson, but you just weren’t looking for something. You just wanted to focus on Eliza and your work (and maybe still being in love with your ex-husband didn’t help things).

You enjoyed yourself. Maybe a little too much. You also couldn’t help but hear Eliza saying the name “Frankie” over and over.

You pulled your phone out of your purse and stared at it, trying to decide if it was a bad idea or not.

“Shots!” Molly, one of the other actresses brought over shot glasses for all of you. You all groaned.

“No! Molly we’ve got more interviews tomorrow morning!” Jackson cried, but Molly ignored him, passing out the shots.

You all brought them together in a cheer and took the shot. That made up your mind.

You unlocked your phone and sent off a quick text.

Y/N: Who’s Frankie?

You put your phone face up on the table so that you could read it as soon as Ben replied. You pretended to be interested in something that Ginger, the woman that played your best friend in the film, was talking about when your phone lit up.

BEN: Don’t get mad…

You hated when Ben did that. There weren’t even those gray dots that showed that he was typing. Your inhibitions were lowered, and you almost sent a follow up when a picture came through.

There was a gorgeous woman holding a brand-new looking puppy out to Eliza. Eliza was grinning at the puppy, one hand extended to pet the dog’s ears.

Your heart sunk. Just like you thought. Ben had a new girlfriend. Why did you care? You and Ben hadn’t been together for four years! You had no more claim to him!

BEN: I swear I was going to run it by you 1st but Gwil accidently mentioned her and Eliza was so excited to meet her. I hope that’s OK.

You put your phone down and wiped a tear out of your eye.

“What’s the matter, Y/N?” Jackson asked you.

You glanced at him. He was handsome. His dark straight hair and dark eyes were so different from Ben. You also forgot that he had a southern accent, it coming out after some alcohol.

“I um…” you gave a watery chuckle. “Nothing, just miss Eliza. Her dad sent me a picture of her.”

“Can I see?”

You pulled the picture up again and he cooed at the screen. You looked over Jackson’s face. He was good looking. And he was sweet. He’d met Eliza and was adorable with her. Why couldn’t you give him a chance? If Ben had a new girlfriend, why couldn’t you have a boyfriend? You’d basically been single since the divorce. Ben pretty much had been too, now that you thought about it.

Until now.

“Hey,” you whispered in Jackson’s ear.

He looked at you, realizing how close the two of you were sitting. He met your eyes and you saw them widen for a moment.

“Do you wanna get out of here?”

Jackson swallowed and nodded.

You sent another text to Ben.

Y/N: Sure. It’s fine.

#ben hardy #ben hardy x reader #ben hardy x you #fan fic writing #queen #gwilym lee #joe mazzello #rami malek #lucy boynton #krissys writings #future management

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holylulusworld · 5 years ago

Text

Watching for comets – Part 1 – Awkward Reunion

Request: I was wondering if you could write a Jared x reader series. They used to be a couple, but their careers took them on different paths. Eventually they end up meeting again on SPN. They haven’t seen each other in years and now they forced to play love interest that could be the angst part. Smut, fluff, happy end, some drama

Pairing: Jared x Reader, Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins, OFC’s

Warnings: angst, mentions of break-up, insecure reader, awkward situations

Watching for Comets Masterlist

You burn so bright, I see stars

The way that you laugh, it's like a heavenly choir

You made me feel invincible

When you're with me, I can take on the world

You were a comet and I lost it

Watching for comets, will I see you again?

Your foot taps on the floor, body following the rhythm of the song, your favorite song you glance at the contract once again.

It’s been almost ten years since you last heard of him, even longer since you last saw him – Jared. Maybe even the love of your life – at least you never met someone like him again.

You were both young, hungry to make it in the business you love. After your show ended, the show bringing you together you drifted apart. Jared worked in Vancouver to film at the first season of Supernatural, you filmed in Europe. One thing led to another and one day…you were over.

No hard feelings, you just drifted apart every day more. After months of trying you decided to end things. It was the hardest decision of your life, but you were so young and Jared too.

You loved and lost the day you let him go. Years - no a decade later you are sitting in your living room in your New Yorker apartment and ask yourself ‘can I work with Jared’?

Fingers trembling you want to call your agent to cancel the contract, to cancel your chance to be a part of Supernatural.

How shall you fit in there?

----

“Do you know anything about the actress playing the new huntress?” Jensen asks his friend.

“Got no clue, Jay. I heard she played in some series and movies. Worked in Europe with Chris Evans and filmed with this British guy…uh…Cumberbatch…” Jared rumbles.

“Sounds like she’s a pro.” Misha throws in. “We should welcome her to the team. I heard she signed for two seasons. Record for a female role.”

“We need a strong woman in the show,” Jensen mutters. “They tend to kill our girls off…”

“I know.” Jared sighs glancing at the vacant trailer. “Maybe we should wait at her trailer?”

“Dude, we can’t just pounce on her. We need to wait for her to get the script, take the tour and then we can talk to her like gentlemen, not like a pack of wolves.” Jensen chuckles.

“I was not planning on running her over, Jensen. I only tried to welcome her to the SPN family, we did the same with Misha.” Jared retorts.

“You pranked him, dude.” Jensen deadpans. “Misha was not amused at all. Didn’t speak to us for a week or more.”

“It was funny – right Mish?” Jared asks and Misha rolls his eyes. “Jared, my hair was blue for three days. I couldn’t film any scene thanks to your glorious prank. It wasn’t funny at all.”

“The payback was better. Jared with a penis painted to his forehead…priceless. I still got the pictures.” Jensen cackles. “One day I’ll make a poster out of it.”

“You better not!” The tall actor mutters towering over his best friend, poking one finger into Jensen’s chest.

“What a pity.” Misha sighs.

“Dude! Is that her?” Elbowing his friend Jensen looks into your direction as you walk around the set with your agent and the director by your side.

Listening to the friendly guy explaining your first scenes, which you will have to film next week you turn pale.

“Wait! I thought I shall play Dean’s love interest. I agreed to sign the contract as you said I will not have to film intimate scenes with Jared.” You look at your agent, furiously.

“They assured me your role will be Dean’s girlfriend, I swear.” Melinda gasps checking the script you hand her. “I didn’t know they changed the concept, Y/N. I’m so sorry.”

“Is there a problem?”

“Why am I suddenly Sam Winchesters love interest and not Dean’s?” Your voice raises and suddenly Jared’s head snaps into your direction, meeting your eyes. “Way to go, Y/N…” You whisper now.

“I’m sorry for changing the script but we let the fans vote and they decided Sam deserves a new love in his life. We send you an email with the changed script. Your lines are the same, except for Dean you say, Sam.” The director explains but you barely listening to him.

Your eyes follow Jared, walking toward you. His eyes are wide, lips parted he almost runs toward you as Jensen and Misha try to keep up with his long legs.

“Y/N.” Jared gasps standing right in front of you as an odd noise leaves your lips. Your hands are trembling as you dare not to look at your former boyfriend. “Never thought it’s you taking the role…It thought after…” Jared stammers, stopping his words as your face falls.

“Jared…hi…” You choke out holding out your hand, but Jared shakes his head before he’s on you. Pressing you to his chest, cuddling you with a bear hug. Was he always that strong?

“How have you been?” Jared asks still not letting go of you.

You burn so bright, you burn me up tonight

Say my name, I'll be there

I didn't know, you should've said that you cared

It's not too late for broken hearts

“You know…life.” You stammer, hating the stupid words leaving your lips. “I mean I filmed and traveled. I finished the last Sherlock episode and then I got the offer to work for Supernatural. I wasn’t sure…”

“Because of me?” Jared rumbles looking at you in his arms. “Don’t you want to work with me?”

“No, no…Jared. I was just not sure I can fit into the concept, ya know. You all know each other for a decade, well at least you and Jensen. I’m the rookie…newbie…” Babbling you gulp hard as Jared hugs you once again before someone clears his throat behind him.

“Can we greet her too or will you occupy the lady for a few more hours, Jared?” Jensen teases and Jared awkwardly looks down at you. “Sure…wait…”

Jared let go of you give Jensen and Misha the chance to greet you too. Both men smirk at Jared, enjoying the nervous state of their friend.

“Welcome to the family. I hope you like to cuddle tall guys, ‘cause Jared is well known for his bear hugs.” Jensen teases as you look at Jared who is trying to avoid staring at you.

“Don’t shy her away, Jensen. These two are known for their pranks, be careful.” Misha whispers shaking your hand. “If they try to prank you, tell me and we will strike back.”

“What a pity they changed the script last minute. I was so happy for Dean to get lucky…” Jensen sighs glancing at his friend, clenching his jaw. “I mean having a hot sex scene with you…”

“Dude! Right away?” Jared grunts glaring at his friend, but Jensen is in the mood to tease his friend some more.

“Why not? We do not have pretty girls on set that often. Most of the time the writers seem to kill them off right away. Let’s enjoy having someone in our team who doesn’t smell like a wet dog.” Jensen grins, looking up at his tall friend.

“Speak for yourself. Now let’s show Y/N the set and stop talking about nonsense.” Jared retorts and Jensen’s face lits up.

“Damn, you are Y/N? This guy never stops talking about you and the time you were filming Gilmore Girls together.” Jensen blurs out and Jared flushes red.

“Jensen,” Jared warns through gritted teeth. “Can we show her everything now…”

Take my hand, make a wish on a star

You were a comet and I lost it

Watching for comets, will I see you again?

“I think you should show her around as her ex-boyfriend and all…” Misha chuckles dragging Jensen away who wanted to tease his friend some more.

“Right…” Jared coughs.

Everybody needs someone but they can't feel like this

How can I breathe with this burning in my chest?

SPN Forever Tags

@donnaintx, @screechingartisancashbailiff, @fallen-wolf22, @sister-winchesters99, @mogaruke, @the-is13, @helloitsmeamie203, @strayrosesbloom, @thewinchesterco, @hobby27, @kittycatlover18, @gh0stgurl, @marvelfansworld , @sandlee44, @hawaiianohana31, @unlikelysamwinchesteronahunt, @katpatrova17, @notyourtypicalrose , @heyitscam99, @onethingthatkeepsmealive, @natura1phenomenon, @flamencodiva, @echoesofpassion, @cocklesbelli, @voltage-my2dlove, @fandom-princess-forevermore, @thenamelesschibi, @lauravic, @fandomsrourlives, @wittysunflower, @drakelover78, @lemondropirwin, @lonewolf471, @wronglanemendes, @spnhollis, @void-imaginations, @jay-and-dean, @shatteredabby, @juniorhuntersam, @helpmeluci, @neii3n, @goodgodimaweirdperson, @alltimesamantha, @chonisberonica, @supernaturalonice @stuckys-whore, @shadowkat-83, @officialmarvelwhore, @certaindeanwinchesterforcastiel, @wecantgiggleitsafandom, @meganywinchester, @shikshinkwon, @miraclesoflove, @yolobloggers, @guardian-tn, @lu-sullivan, @maniacproffesor, @hollymac79, @straycuties9, @kayla-2000, @ilovefanfic86, @gracefultrenchcoat494, @babygirls-fav, @sadn0va, @spnwoman @amiquette, @linki-locks11, @geekofmanyforms, @eggingamazinglove, @jessica-marsh09, @spnficgirl, @shut-themoonscone

If your name is crossed out Tumblr won’t let me tag you for some reason. Sorry.

#spn #spn fanfiction #angst #Jensen Ackles #Misha Collins #Jared Padalecki #watching for comets masterlist #request fill #jared padalecki fanfiction #jared padalecki x reader #jared padalecki x you #jared x reader #jared x you

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poeticandvaguelysweet · 5 years ago

Text

it comes and goes in waves (and carries us away) –– #3 Slip of the Tongue

@paulsenmagic + @darveyxoxo were talking about a fic where ‘Donna pranks Harvey with a pregnancy announcement and he genuinely gets upset when he finds out it’s not true’ and I honestly couldn’t help myself. So, here I am.

It’s not 100% how I wanted it but it’s taken me so long to write it I’ve just had enough (which is not a very good writer thing for me to do but ya know).

SLIP OF THE TONGUE

AO3 - ff.net

Since getting married and moving to Seattle, Harvey made a vow about his work hours. In a new home, new stage of their relationship and new city it was vital now, more than ever, that he come home at a reasonable hour. They needed routine and ritual as well as a divide between home life and work life.

Some nights it couldn’t be helped. Trials needed to be prepped for, clients were difficult, and things simply had to be done then and there, in the moment. Donna usually stayed back a little later, simply to have dinner with her husband before heading home to let him have his space to work. Nights like that found her curled up on the couch, a throw blanket over her lap, a glass of wine in hand and Netflix rolling across the TV screen. She waited up for Harvey, either in the living room or in bed, on occasion, when he got back earlier than usual, he found her in the shower.

That night the TV was paused, Donna’s phone pressed to her ear as her friend chattered down the line. She had thought about inviting Rachel over when Harvey said it was going to be another late night but had eventually decided against it. When Rachel called and upheld conversation for well over an hour, Donna regretted her earlier decision to not make it a girl’s night.

‘Promise you won’t tell him,’ Rachel bargained, whispering secrets down the line. They were whispering like little girls on a sleepover despite the fact that Donna was sitting in an empty house, her only company the fictional characters currently paused on her screen.

Donna sighed, a smile pulling at her cheeks. She would never dream of spilling a secret Rachel asked her to keep. Unless it was for her own good. ‘Don’t worry, Rachel. I’m not––’ She heard the front door click shut, body jumping at the unexpected sound. ‘––Harvey’s home, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’ Her heart picked up a flutter in her chest, finger pressing end call on her phone screen as she listened to the sound of Harvey’s footsteps in the hall.

He looked tired when he appeared from around the corner, exhausted by the long day he miraculously managed to slog through. ‘Hey,’ Harvey grinned, eyes lighting up once he saw her. He moved for the couch, hands bracing himself against the top of the structure before he leaned in to drop a kiss to her lips in greeting.

‘Hey,’ Donna echoed back, voice soft. It baffled her to find how easily he could render her to nothing stronger than jelly. Even after a year, he still took her breath away with a simple kiss. ‘How’d you go tonight?’ She asked, hand wrapped around his wrist, limb following his movement as Harvey stepped around the couch to sit beside her. His hand landed on her knee, squeezing as Donna shifted closer to his body, legs almost in his lap.

Harvey sighed, ‘good enough’. It was Donna’s turn to lean in and kiss him, her lips a little more persistent than his had been as her body pressed itself closer. He was home, a whole hour earlier than she expected. There would be no questioning that. ‘Who were you talking to?’ He asked, faces still close as she pulled away from their kiss.

‘Rachel.’ The name didn’t concern him anymore, not now that the two women had more personal contact since the move. Before that, he had poked her about the secrets she was sharing with her best friend as soon as they had happened. Harvey had caught Donna a time too many detailing her sex life to her quasi sister, sure these details used to be shared in person before she moved to Seattle. ‘Just talking about stuff.’ She shrugged, offering an answer before he could ask a question.

‘Oh yeah,’ Harvey hummed. ‘What kind of stuff?’ His hand was heavy on her knee, thick fingers squeezing as he stole her wine glass right out of her hand and took a sip.

Donna shrugged, ‘just stuff’.

He frowned, lip twisting and brow curling as he looked at her. Donna wasn’t usually so hesitant to be forthcoming. ‘Okay …’ He drew out the word, watching her with intrigue as he finished off what was left in her glass. ‘It doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that it’s Mike’s birthday in a few weeks, does it?’

Donna shook her head, red hair bouncing around her face. ‘Nope.’

‘Rachel must be planning something big.’ He chuckled, sitting forward to place the wine glass on the coffee table, out of his hands and out of the way. From the corner of his eye he could see Donna squirm, for an actress she had a lot of tells when she was lying.

‘I’ll have you know,’ Donna started as Harvey sat back, his fingers sliding around her calf and pulling her legs into his lap. ‘We weren’t even talking about Mike. We were talking about me.’ Harvey raised a brow that only made Donna sit up straighter, hips wiggling as she did so, determination climbing up her spine and setting itself across her face. She bit her bottom lip, rolling the tissue into her mouth to hide the tell-tale sign that he had her. Donna was stubborn and she wouldn’t let him read her that easily. ‘Because I’m pregnant.’ The words were out, tumbling from her lips in a desperate attempt to be one step ahead of his cocky, all-knowing grin.

The air around them seemed to stop. Nothing moved, Harvey’s breath caught in his chest as Donna stared at him, shell-shocked that she even said those words. Slow, like the Cheshire Cat he could be, Harvey’s grin grew. It tugged at the corners of his lips, sliding up his face and spread deep into his cheeks. There was a light in his eyes that made Donna’s heart stop.

‘Oh my god,’ she breathed, forcing the words out around a tight throat. ‘I don’t know why I just said that.’ Her hand covered her mouth. ‘I’m not pregnant, Harvey.’ It was there that she caught it, staring at him from beneath her disbelief, the split moment––barely noticeable––where his face fell into the depth of upset and her stomach plummeted in response. ‘We were talking about Mike’s birthday. It’s just that Rachel asked me not to tell.’

His hands were still on her leg, the pressure light as if he wanted to pull away but had nowhere else to place them. ‘You could have just said that.’

Shit. ‘I’m sorry. I just––I panicked.’ Her hands reached for his arm, fingers squeezing. ‘I didn’t even think … it just came out.’ She was looking for a way to get him off her back, their playful banter reaching a corner where she knew she would spill the beans Rachel asked her not to spill. But Donna hadn’t even thought of that before the words slipped past her tongue and sucker punched her husband. ‘Wait.’ She stopped, fingers loosening their grip on his forearm, eyes flicking back to his hurt ones. ‘You were happy?’ His face lit up like New York City on the last second of the year when she had said those words.

‘Of course, I was happy!’ He sounded defensive, hurt that he had been caught in a moment of weakness. ‘Why wouldn’t I be, Donna?’

She felt her heart sink a little further, her eyes watching his shimmer with nothing but honesty. Donna shrugged, teeth gnawing at the inside of her cheek. ‘We’ve never really talked about it, I guess. I just didn’t know.’ She knew enough to understand that her husband wouldn’t force a decision on her if the time came. She knew that he wouldn’t hate the idea of a child, especially now they’re married. Donna just wasn’t sure about the level of his excitement. He had a rough childhood, a somewhat absent father, a mother who made him hold adult secrets, maybe he just didn’t want to have kids. They had been too busy settling into hurriedly married life, moving to Seattle, getting married a second time, honeymoon and finding their place in a new city with new jobs. Babies had been the very last on a long list of things they had to shuffle through.

‘I know time is kind of running out and all that, but I love you and raising a family with you would make me the happiest man in the world.’

‘Really?’ She felt breathless, tears burning in her eyes. Harvey Specter wasn’t known for his emotional confessions and there he was, sitting right there with her legs in his lap, telling her he would be happy to have babies with her. ‘Do you want to try?’ She asked hesitantly despite everything he just said.

Harvey looked at her, head tilted to the side as if he was taking a moment to think. His face split into a wide grin. ‘Yeah. Do you?’ Donna wasn’t sure if they would have walked this path in New York, but then again, she hadn’t been a married woman while they lived there. It was just cosy Seattle had left her with a lot of downtime that suddenly felt empty.

Donna bit her lip, a habit-forming inside this conversation. ‘We’ll be in our sixties when she’s graduating from high school, nearing seventy when she finishes college.’ Her eyes dropped away from his.

‘We won’t be the only ones.’ He gave her thigh a squeeze.

‘I don’t know if I want my kids to worry about my health.’ She took a deep breath, her chest stuttering as she did so, tears building up once again. Harvey opened his mouth and Donna knew exactly what he was going to say. It could happen no matter her age. She could have had kids a decade ago and ended up sick, had an accident, been hurt. His mom wasn’t all that old and yet a heart attack took her. One day she will have to look at putting her parents into an assisted living facility, or a retirement village where they would continue to wither and age. It just happens.

‘Do you know the success rate of getting pregnant after forty-five is only around three per cent?’ Donna felt her throat contract around her words and a second later Harvey was giving her a supportive squeeze. ‘Fertility treatment can take years. I just––I’m scared of wasting our time in going down that road, Harvey. What if I can’t get pregnant? What if I can but my body can’t support it. I don’t want to get our hopes up for us to only have nothing at the end of it.’ A tear fell, sliding down her cheek before stopping at the corner of her mouth. ‘I would have liked to have a baby. Why did we waste so much time, Harvey?’

When a whimper wobbled past her lips, Harvey moved. He pulled his wife into his lap, arms wrapping around her as he kissed the side of her head. It felt like he could only say sorry so many times before the whole thing became redundant. They weren’t ready, they hadn’t been ready and he hated himself for not fixing it sooner, especially now as she cried in his lap.

‘Hey,’ he brushed her hair back from her face. ‘It’s not too late. What if we spend the rest of the year trying, but not actively trying? We’ll throw the contraceptives out, eat better, limit the alcohol, take our vitamins and if it doesn’t happen by January, we call it off and wait for Mike and Rachel to have kids.’ He knew they would have a better chance with fertility specialists, but that was another layer of hope Donna clearly didn’t want to have stacked on top of her deck.

‘I’ll be devastated if something goes wrong.’ She whispered the sound part whimper and Harvey felt his chest crack open for her.

He kissed her cheek, hands still moving through her hair. ‘I know.’ If he could turn back the clock, knowing what he knew now, he would have come to his senses sooner. ‘We don’t have to. I just, if it’s what you want, I don’t want to miss our shot.’ He also didn’t want his wife hurt.

Donna nodded; lips pressed to the curve where his shoulder meets his neck. ‘Fuck it.’ She said, kiss trailing up his throat, nipping at his skin as her touch climbed.

Harvey steadied himself with his hands on her hips. ‘Are you sure?’ Donna nodded before capturing his lips in a searing kiss, her touch tasting of the tears she had shed. ‘Because we really don’t have to.’ He managed to breathe when she broke the kiss.

‘Harvey,’ Donna paused her hands on his shoulders, body centred in his lap. ‘Shut up and get me pregnant.’

#darvey #suits usa #darvey fic #donna paulsen #harvey specter #suits #donna x harvey #harvey x donna #it comes and goes in waves (and carries us away)

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lassieposting · 6 years ago

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quite a while ago someone else @bubblemoon66 put her dead men backstory headcanons in the tag and it was a great idea so here are mine

GHASTLY

- ghastly is an only child, which is a tragedy because his mom had an overabundance of motherly love and not nearly enough children to pour it into

- when he was born his parents were living in a big, mostly-mortal city in kerry, where his dad had a successful tailoring business. he didn’t have a particularly fun time there, and he was a very lonely child, but his mom taught him how to fight so he could see off the local kids who picked on him

- shortly before ghastly hit his teens, his parents saved enough money to move to a mage community outside dublin. his father still had the tailoring business, but it was smaller with a far more select clientele. they moved into a small freehold on the outskirts of the community where they were primarily self-sufficient - they had a vegetable garden and an old carthorse and a cow, maybe some chickens - so the money from the family business was able to boost them from “working class” to “comfortable”.

- ghastly’s mom pretty much immediately picked up a job as a barmaid in the local tavern; she was highly sociable, knew everyone, and was well known for knocking rowdy or aggressive patrons on their asses

- ghastly was homeschooled by his father, who taught him how to manage the family business as well as all his tailoring skills. he can read and write and is good at maths. his education didn’t really go much further than that, though, so when it comes to things like philosophy or science he’s a bit lost and he didn’t start learning languages other than irish and english until he joined the war effort

ERSKINE

- erskine is the oldest child and only boy of a very wealthy family from galway, a port city.

- his family’s money is very new - erskine’s father was a street rat who started working the merchant ships as soon as he was old enough for them to take him, just to get food in his belly and somewhere to sleep. he spent several mortal lifetimes scrimping and saving to buy his first ship, and gradually built up a thriving import/export business.

- erskine’s mother came from a family of lesser landed gentry with too many daughters and not enough funds to make good matches for all of them. erskine’s father gave financial aid to the family, and in exchange his bride gave him new social connections.

- he has three younger sisters. they’re all within 20 years of one another, so they grew up fairly close and he was taught from a young age to look after and protect them

- unfortunately the upper classes didn’t think much of erskine’s family, and they got a bit of a reputation as overambitious social climbers. erskine was sent to prestigious schools and then to university, but he never quite fit in with boys who came from a background like saracen’s or skulduggery’s. he remained very touchy about this into adulthood

- he didn’t actually intend on joining up to fight - he was highly academic, excelled at his studies and wanted to go into politics, a profession that would’ve been completely closed off to his father. he originally signed up as a junior aide to then-lieutenant colonel corrival deuce. but it turned out he was good at soldiering and enjoyed it, and hopeless introduced him to ghastly and skulduggery, and he ended up wanting to fight more than write reports and attend meetings.

SARACEN

- saracen is his parents’ only child and a spoiled aristocrat

- like skug, he was basically raised by an army of wetnurses and nannies and tutors. unlike skug, his family didn’t have a military history and his parents were vehemently opposed to him joining the sanctuary’s army, since he was their only son and heir.

- saracen’s power is innate. as a child his parents were able to secure the best possible tutors in elemental and various branches of adept magic, but he didn’t take to any of them. but he always had a talent for knowing things to unnerve the servants.

- he had the best education money could buy, but he was never a very good student. he was bright enough, but inclined to be lazy and more interested in socialising than studying. his writing is horrendous. he spent most of his time at an expensive french university partying and sleeping around

DEXTER

- dexter is one of many middle children of a very poor family and grew up in poverty in south dublin.

- his mom was a washerwoman and earned pittance, and his father was more often than not shitfaced on the floor of the local tavern, and they had something like twelve children, of which dexter was maybe #7 or #8. a fair few of his siblings did not live past childhood.

- he started working very young; his mother would kick them all out of the house for the day after they’d eaten breakfast, so he would spend his days roaming the nearby streets and would carry letters for a penny or distract the police for any of a number of dodgy locals.

- his family were sorcerers, but of the “squib” sort - his mom only lived to about 200 and his father less than that. dexter was an unusually powerful anomaly, and also the only energy thrower in the family. one of his older brothers was an elemental and one of dexter’s earliest memories is watching his mother cook dinner over a fire his brother held in his hand, because they had no money for firewood.

- he once pickpocketed a shiny trinket from a wealthy young gentleman in the street to give to his mother. when he joined up to fight, she gave it back to him and made him promise to return it when he came home. saracen did recognise the trinket on a mission several years later, but he let dexter (and dexter’s mother) keep it.

- he hadn’t even had his surge when he signed up to fight. he joined with two of his brothers, both older than him, and he was the only one who always came home. a few younger brothers also followed him into the army some years later.

- on missions, when he got to That Age, his squad would give him extra food from their rations to make sure he was strong enough to live through the surge when it happened.

- in 2019, he has two sisters and a younger brother still living, though all three of them have moved out of the dublin area and he only sees them a few times a decade.

ANTON

- at some point shortly after his birth, some eldritch monstrosity attempted to possess him and use him as a conduit into this world, somewhat like the jitter girls. he has no idea why it failed to come through entirely, but it ended up trapped inside him as the gist.

- anton has no idea who his parents were; they left him on the doorstep of a foundling home as a very young baby after the attempted possession, so he has no memories of them. he assumes they were god-fearing mortals, terrified of the devil inside their child.

- he grew up in a religious home for orphans, and once the gist began showing itself regularly they started trying to exorcise the demon from him. the gist wasn’t all that fond of this experience, which just made the mortals more afraid of him

- he was a very quiet, almost silent child, very shy and withdrawn, and didn’t make friends easily with the other boys. he was very bright, though, so he was educated with the plan that he’d go into the clergy.

- in his teens, though, he had a crisis of faith and decided to leave the church and the orphan home, and wound up working a sequence of dead end jobs, whatever he could get his hands on. during this time, he happened to cross paths with a mage, who recognised magic in him and introduced him to the sorcerers’ world.

- he’s never met anyone with the magic he has, so his control over the gist is practically all self-taught.

- he ended up signing up for the war in the hope that he would finally fit in somewhere; his gist is good at killing, and maybe if he made himself useful he’d finally get to be around people who didn’t look at him like he was a monster

LARRIKIN

- larrikin was raised by a group of travelling players who migrated around the country, so he has a real mess of an accent. they were a very close unit - so much so that larrikin was not actually sure which actress he belonged to and called almost all of them some variation of “mother”, as did all the other kids in the group

- as an adult he’s a consummate actor and can put on accents and mannerisms very convincingly, and tends to blend in easily to any group of people

- even as a very small child, he was very gregarious and outgoing and loved being the centre of attention.

- larrikin would thrash literally everyone at the game of faces - he regularly changes his backstory and will put on different accents and shit when he meets new people, purely for the fun of it

- he was an accomplished petty criminal; pickpocket, poacher, fence, shamelessly cheats at cards. he’s been to prison multiple times but never seems to stay there long and always evades a hanging. he eventually signed up to fight after being “politely invited” to do so by a magistrate

#larrikin #ghastly bespoke #saracen rue #dexter vex #anton shudder #dead men #sp headcanons #skulduggery pleasant

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cinema-tv-etc · 5 years ago

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Leading Men Age, But Their Love Interests Don’t

Yesterday, Kristen Stewart fell out of the con-artist comedy Focus after Will Smith replaced Ben Affleck as the male lead; according to Variety, she was nagged by "the feeling that the age difference between the two would be too large a gap." For the record, Smith is a mere four years older than the 40-year-old Affleck, and if it seems a little odd that either of them would be considered a romantic partner for the 23-year-old Stewart in the first place … well, welcome to Hollywood. It seems like time and time again, male movie stars are allowed to age into their forties, fifties, and even sixties while the ages of their female love interests remain firmly on one side of the big 4-0, but is this a perception borne out of reality? To find out for sure, Vulture has analyzed the data of ten middle-aged leading men and the ages of the women they've wooed onscreen; you'll see the results in the charts below.

How'd we arrive at our conclusions? For each of our leading men, we tried to pick a representative sample of films — usually ten — where that A-lister had a notable love interest or wife, then we plotted the age gaps on our charts over the course of that star's career. (Because production dates for older movies can be hard to come by, we measured the stars' ages on the day the film in question was released.) The results confirmed our suspicions: As leading men age, their love interests stay the same, and even the oldest men on our list have had few romantic pairings with a woman their own age (or even one out of her mid-thirties). If our actor was sharing the screen with an A-lister of commensurate star power like Julia Roberts or Angelina Jolie, the age difference would drop somewhat, but in movies that relied solely on our guy's big name, the lesser-known love interests would nearly always be decades younger.

Scroll down to check out our findings in-depth.

DENZEL WASHINGTON Denzel Washington's pushing 60, but you wouldn't know it from his love interests, who tend to stay 35 and under. Perhaps that's because Washington rarely gets to romance an actress as formidable as he is (a fact of life that may owe more to Hollywood's racial prejudices than gender inequality), because when he went toe-to-toe with Angela Bassett for Malcolm X and Whitney Houston in The Preacher's Wife, the age differences weren't quite as egregious. (He did pair with Julia Roberts and Angelina Jolie when they were newbie superstars, but those films — The Pelican Brief and The Bone Collector — were cautious and chaste when it came to suggesting a love connection). The older Washington gets, the less it seems to matter to his love interests, as the last three notable ones — Paula Patton, Lymari Nadal, and Kelly Reilly — were all more than twenty years younger than he was.

HARRISON FORD Ford rose to stardom in his late thirties, but the first time he had a notable love interest in her late thirties, it was in 1999's Random Hearts … when Ford was an age 57 to Kristin Scott Thomas's 39. The vast majority of Ford's love interests have been at least fifteen years younger than him, and some were far younger than that: When Six Days Seven Nights came out in 1998, pundits debated whether the sexuality of Ford's co-star Anne Heche might prove a distraction, paying little mind to the fact that Ford was 26 years older than the woman he was supposed to woo.

JOHNNY DEPP Johnny Depp likes 'em young: Nearly all of his notable love interests have been 25 or under, and a few of them — including Winona Ryder, Juliette Lewis, Christina Ricci, and Keira Knightley (who shared a kiss with Depp in the second Pirates film) — would have been carded at the time they swapped spit with the star. In fact, the cradle-robbing Depp has only had two notable love interests in their mid-thirties, and all Juliette Binoche and Angelina Jolie had to do to make that cut is win an Oscar beforehand. Easy!

TOM CRUISE Tom Cruise has had an interesting romantic trajectory onscreen: At the start of his career, almost all of his love interests were older than him. Shelley Long in Losin' It, Rebecca De Mornay in Risky Business, Kelly McGillis in Top Gun … time and time again, an older woman would seduce the sexually inexperienced Cruise onscreen. It's no wonder women used to love him! In the nineties, though, Cruise began squiring the five-years-younger Nicole Kidman, and he's remained the older man in all of his romantic encounters since. From Vanilla Sky on, the closest Cruise will let a woman get to his age is ten years; in the new Oblivion, he's a full seventeen years older than his female lead, Olga Kurylenko.

GEORGE CLOONEY Compared to Cruise, the women that George Clooney screen-dates are a smidge more age-appropriate (most of them are only eight or nine years his junior), and twice he even wooed actresses who were three older than him: Michelle Pfeiffer in One Fine Day and Holly Hunter in O Brother, Where Art Thou? When it comes to co-stars, Clooney tends to have his pick of classy actresses in their mid-thirties, though as he gets older — Clooney will turn 52 in May — the age of his love interests still seems to have plateaued.

RICHARD GERE Former Sexiest Man Alive winner Richard Gere is a good-looking 63, but his love interests haven't aged much in the three decades he's been a star: From Pretty Woman on, Gere's female co-stars have been 10 to 30 years younger than him, a trend that shows no signs of abating now that he's in his seventh decade. To be fair, he's played husband to the three-years-older Susan Sarandon in both Shall We Dance and Arbitrage … but in the former, he spends far more screen time with the much younger Jennifer Lopez, and in the latter, he's stepping out on Sarandon with supermodel-turned-actress Laetitia Casta, who's separated in age from Gere by a solid 29 years. At least Gere had the tables turned on him somewhat in Unfaithful, where his fifteen-years-younger screen-wife Diane Lane had an affair with a younger man, Olivier Martinez. How much younger than Lane was Martinez? Well … one measly year, actually.

STEVE CARELL When your breakout film is called The 40 Year Old Virgin, it ensures that audiences will forever be aware of your age … even if you were actually 43 when it came out, as Steve Carell was. In that movie, he fell in love with the three-years-older Catherine Keener, and ever since, Carell has looked most at home with romantic partners nearer to his age, like Lauren Graham, Tina Fey, and Julianne Moore. Every so often, though, Hollywood will insist at throwing a twentysomething starlet at Carell, and it's just awkward: Movies like Get Smart, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone had more than a few problems, but the main issue in all three is how ill at ease Carell seems when romantically paired with an actress who's twenty years younger. Let's hope Carell got the memo and will continue to be the rare male star who mostly sticks to love interests in their forties (as his new screen paramour Kristen Wiig will be when Anchorman 2 comes out this winter).

BRAD PITT Brad Pitt began his career as a romantic idol by taking a page straight out of the Tom Cruise playbook: After his roll in the hay with the eight-years-older Geena Davis in Thelma & Louise, he then began screen-dating the much younger women he was seeing in real life, Juliette Lewis and Gwyneth Paltrow, who were both around a decade Pitt's junior. (That's apparently his sweet spot, as Angelina Jolie would later be able to attest.) The rest of his romantic history runs the gamut, though Pitt did once take a screen-wife his own age: Mary-Louise Parker, who only got a handful of lines in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

LIAM NEESON Remember how Depp only allowed a love interest within striking distance of his own age if she was an Oscar-winning actress? The same more than holds true for Liam Neeson, who was partnered with older Oscar winners Jessica Lange and Meryl Streep in the mid-nineties. Aside from that brief moment in time, Neeson usually robs the cradle by wooing actresses around fifteen years younger than him, and ever since Taken reestablished his box-office virility, the age of his love interests has dropped precipitously: More than two and a half decades separated Neeson from his screen-wife January Jones in Unknown, and in Paul Haggis's next film, Third Person, the 61-year-old Neeson will bed 29-year-old Olivia Wilde.

TOM HANKS Well, here's something novel: an A-lister whose leading ladies actually age alongside him (though they still tend, on the whole, to be a bit younger). There aren't any egregiously age-inappropriate pairings in Tom Hanks's portfolio, since Hanks keeps his love interests within at least ten years of him at all times. He also aims high: Most of his female co-stars are Oscar winners or nominees, from Helen Hunt to Halle Berry, and he'll co-star with two-time nominee Catherine Keener (who's only three years younger) in this year's fact-based drama Captain Phillips. Then again, maybe it shouldn't surprise us that Hanks is an A-list aberration in this group: For 25 years, he's been married to the same woman, actress Rita Wilson … and both Hanks and Wilson are 56.

* The charts for Steve Carell and Tom Hanks have been updated.

By Kyle Buchanan

http://www.vulture.com/2013/04/leading-men-age-but-their-love-interests-dont.html?mid=twitter_vulture

This is neither perfectly accurate nor complete, but here is a rough comparison with Susan Sarandon and Meryl Streep: Susan Sarandon OLDER THAN HER LEADING MAN 2009- The Greatest: Susan, 63 / Pierce Brosnan, 56 2007- In the Valley of Elah: Susan, 61 / Tommy Lee Jones, 61 2007- Mr. Woodcock: Susan, 61 / Billy Bob Thornton, 52 2004- Shall We Dance: Susan, 58 / Richard Gere, 55 1998- Stepmom: Susan, 52 / Ed Harris, 48 1988- Bull Durham: Susan, 42 / Kevin Costner, 33 YOUNGER THAN HER LEADING MAN 2009- Solitary Man: Susan, 63 / Michael Douglas, 65 2002- Moonlight Mile: Susan, 56 / Dustin Hoffman, 65 1992- Lorenzos Oil: Susan, 46 / Nick Nolte, 51 1987-Witches of Eastwick: Susan, 41 / Jack Nicholson, 50 In Summary: in 10 movies spanning 22 years, Susan Sarandon has been OLDER than 6 of her leading men (including Tommy Lee Jones, who is 1 month younger than she), and YOUNGER than 4. In the films where she is OLDER than the actors, the biggest age difference was 9 years (Bull Durham). In the films where she is YOUNGER than the actors, the biggest age difference was also 9 years (Witches of Eastwick & Moonlight Mile). Meryl Streep OLDER THAN HER LEADING MAN 2009: Its Complicated: Meryl, 60 / Alec Baldwin, 51 2009: Julie & Julia: Meryl, 60 / Stanley Tucci, 49 2002: Adaptation: Meryl, 53 / Chris Cooper, 51 1998: One True Thing: Meryl, 49 / William Hurt, 48 1996: Before and After: Meryl, 47 / Liam Neeson, 44 1990: Postcards from the Edge: Meryl, 41 / Dennis Quaid, 36 YOUNGER THAN HER LEADING MAN 2012: Hope Springs: Meryl, 63 / Tommy Lee Jones, 66 2009: Its Complicated: Meryl, 60 / Steve Martin, 64 1995: The Bridges of Madison County: Meryl, 46 / Clint Eastwood, 65 1994: The River Wild: Meryl, 45 / David Strathairn, 45 1991: Defending Your Life: Meryl, 42 / Albert Brooks, 44 1986: Heartburn: Meryl, 37 / Jack Nicholson, 49 1985: Out of Africa: Meryl, 36 / Robert Redford, 49 1982: Sophies Choice: Meryl, 33 / Kevin Kline, 35 1981: French Lieutenants Woman: Meryl, 32 / Jeremy Irons, 33 1979: Kramer v. Kramer: Meryl, 30 / Dustin Hoffman, 42 In Summary: in 15 movies spanning 22 years, Meryl Streep has been OLDER than 6 of her leading men, and YOUNGER than 10. In the films where she is OLDER than the actors, the biggest age difference was 11 years (Julie and Julia). In the films where she is YOUNGER than the actors, the biggest age difference was 19 years (Bridges of Madison County).

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katrou1894-blog · 5 years ago

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Frozen 2 Movie Review (No Spoilers Until Partly Through)

*All rights to this photo belong to Walt Disney Studios Hi Everyone!

Welcome back to Katie’s Messy Little Blog! I want to do something different (again) for this blog post. A movie review!

I, like many others, flocked to the movie theater the weekend before Thanksgiving to see the greatly anticipated Frozen II. (Sorry it took me so long to get this review out btw. The end of November and beginning of December has been super busy! 😅 )

[FYI the first half of this blog will be spoiler-free, so it is safe to read the first half of my blog if you haven’t seen the movie yet and you don’t want spoilers. It will be super obvious when we hit the spoiler part of the blog 😉]

I’m going to start by sharing, I LOVED this movie! I think it is one of the best films that Disney has produced this decade! (Not quite the best because I actually think that spot belongs to Coco, but this would be a close second!) Although Frozen II is a sequel, it really didn’t feel like one to me. Frozen II, of course, has the same cast of characters (with a couple of great additions like Lieutenant Mattias and Bruni), but this film also had almost an entirely different feel to it than its predecessor. Everything from the high fantasy elements of the film to the (at least in my opinion) much more mature soundtrack felt very different, but “good different.”

Frozen II also did an excellent job of tying the two films together. There are quite a few specific call back to the first film, both serious and humorous, which makes the jump from the first to the second film much smoother than it might have been without these specific references. Plus the storyline of Frozen II really is just a continuation of the first film, full of plausible and likely next steps for each of the characters.

Other then plotline, I also really loved some deeper Nordic cultural references and influences that Frozen II includes, the absolutely gorgeous animation (seriously one of the visually prettiest movies I have ever seen!) and the incredible, heartfelt and meaningful music. I could go on about all of these topics for a bit, but I strongly encourage you to go out and see the film and see what I mean for yourself!

SPOILER WARNING!!!!

(If you read past this section and you haven’t seen the film yet it is your own fault that you got Frozen II spoilers 😉 You have been warned.) For those of you who have seen Frozen II or to those of you who don’t care about reading about spoilers, welcome to the spoiler section of this blog! I am going to start my spoiler section by sharing my only real complaint about the film.

Frozen II leaves some VERY IMPORTANT sections of the film unclear. They chose to vaguely tell/hint at major reveals, leaving (I believe) many moviegoers somewhat confused until they later explain what happened in the film. There are two key moments, in particular, in which this happens.

The first being when Elsa awakens the spirits of the forest. This supposedly occurs at the very end of Elsa’s song, “Into the Unknown,” when she reaches out to the phantom voice that has been calling to her and she conjures the weird floating, ice-diamond, element symbols throughout Arendelle. Although this scene was showcased in promotional materials for the film, I was still very confused by this moment until Elsa tells Anna a few minutes later (after the entire population of Arendelle is evacuated to the nearby cliffs) that she had summoned the spirits of the forest (okay…). Admittedly, upon the second viewing of this film (Yes, I have seen it twice already. Judge all you want, I am content with my life choices. 😂) this series of events made much more sense because through the course of “Into the Unknown” Elsa actually dances/interacts with each of the elemental spirits which (at best) hints at Elsa potentially awakening the spirits. (I guess…) I think this really didn’t make sense the first time around because the film hadn’t yet explained what the water horse, hopping flame, the rock giants and the gust of wind were (it had only implied). So (I believe) between the overall vagueness of the scene and the lack of prior explanation of what the spirits are that’s why at least I was (perhaps many others were too) scratching my head at this point.

The other key moment that was unclear was when Elsa discovers that she is the fifth spirit. This occurs during Elsa’s other show stopper tune, “Show Yourself.” I really just don’t think this scene is very clear because one moment Elsa is in the large ice room surrounded by images of her memories, then she is singing with one of her mother’s images. (Who turns out to be the voice calling her?? Also unclear about this, however, the actress who voices Queen Iduna for Frozen II, Evan Rachel Wood, is credited for singing this song so I guess so??) Then suddenly the elemental shape appears (which not so discreetly is in the shape of a snowflake (We all see what you did there Disney)), Elsa steps into the center of this shape, and then she gets, yet another, dramatic makeover while she is singing an epic song. Don’t get me wrong, this is a stunning sequence and a super cool moment, but other then the makeover, a giddy face by Elsa, and a glowing snowflake, but there is no direct explanation on what is happening in this scene until about 20 minutes later when Elsa explains it to Anna. When I first saw this scene I guessed that they were trying to imply that Elsa is the fifth spirit, but it just wasn’t clear.

Now, in defense of this scene, I really am not sure how they could have made it more clear other than maybe Elsa saying to herself, “Of course, it was me all along!” However, I understand why the filmmakers may not have wanted to do this since it would seem quite narcissistic if Elsa had stated this, especially at this exact moment. Nonetheless, this scene did lose some of its power because of the lack of clarity.

I will also say that the overall spirit plotline/origin story is very vague and it leaves me with quite a few questions, specifically about the spirits. I am willing to, for the most part, overlook most of this vagueness because I did overall enjoy the film that much and I think that Disney is really striving for a different kind of storyline with this film because of the spirits and high fantasy elements. [However, if Disney actually answers my questions about the spirits (especially more on why Elsa is a spirit) I would not be opposed to a Frozen III. Assuming, of course, that they stay true to their commitment to high-quality storytelling. Seriously Disney, please don’t just make Frozen III for the money. If you do it well then you can both make great art and make a ton of money.]

Okay, now that I have shared my only real frustration with Frozen II, I want to get back to sharing about the film’s strengths.

The character development in this film is truly amazing! The majority of the film’s focus was, of course, on Elsa and Anna, but there was some really great character development for the beloved side characters in the Frozen gang. Both Olaf and Kristoff really grew in this film and took some maybe slightly unexpected, but interesting and crucial roles within the film.

Olaf in this film is “growing up” and “maturing” which leads him to ask a bunch of questions, to research, and to essentially become a walking and talking fun fact machine. Olaf represents children that have endless questions about the world and how everything works. I love that this is the direction that the filmmakers chose to progress Olaf’s character. Plus they use Olaf’s curiosity of life as an important vessel of key information that the film needs to explain in order for other parts of the film to make sense. This primarily being the concept that “water has memory” which Olaf shares with the group and keeps insisting on throughout the film. (And which he turns out to be right about, at least according to the film.)

[Also I really love Olaf’s silly line, “Samantha?” Towards the beginning of his song “When I Am Older.” It has been reported that Josh Gad, the actor who voices Olaf, did, in fact, improvise this line and the filmmakers loved it so much that it stayed in the film. However, I am burning with the question of Who is Samantha??? For now, I choose to believe that it must be the name of the promised, but not delivered upon, girlfriend of Olaf which was suggested during early discussions of the film who clearly was cut from the end result. ‍💁 ] Kristoff also has some truly incredible character development himself! Kristoff has always had an interesting role within the world of Frozen. He starts off as the brutish, but lovably dorky companion of Anna in her original search for her sister, then through the course of their journey he turns into the true love interest for Anna (leaving Hans already not looking super great before he reveals he is evil). Essentially, this is his entire arch for the first film. Naturally, Frozen II deals with Kristoff’s next character steps. It was absolutely no surprise to me that Kristoff spends the majority of the new film attempting to propose to Anna, however, what is so revolutionary about Kristoff in this film is both his open expression of emotion (since society has for generations and generations told men the bull crap that it “it isn’t manly to have emotions”), the fact that he doesn’t actually journey with Anna through the entirety of her journey and that Kristoff is also extremely supportive of Anna and he really doesn’t try to “save her.”

Kristoff has this amazing love ballad, “Lost in the Woods“ about halfway through the film. I love this scene for two reasons. Firstly, because this is a scene where Kristoff is free to express his emotions and frustrations. Secondly, because this scene is ridiculously funny! Kristoff sings in the woods with the help of his reindeer friends (especially Sven). This song pokes fun at pretty much every boy band ever and every weird and overly dramatic music video ever. Plus, I love the subtle hint at Queen’s famous “Bohemian Rhapsody” music video where Kristoff and his reindeer friend’s heads are highlighted on a black background.

I also love the fact that Kristoff very much has his own journey in this film. He is left behind by Anna, Elsa, and Olaf for the majority of the primary adventure of the film. Now, to be fair, the group (or at least Anna) didn’t want to leave Kristoff behind and the only reason why he was left behind was his own fault because of his weird proposal scheme with a bunch of reindeer. Yet, Kristoff’s alone time allows for his dramatic, but powerful emotional expression. This separation from the rest of the group also allows for Kristoff’s key positioning towards the end of the film in which he is able to help Anna in her mission to destroy the damn.

Kristoff’s unique positioning in the film not only allows him to help Anna destroy things, but it also allows for a subtle, but powerful moment in film history. It is not very often that a female lead is “allowed” by a male lead to go off and just be able to do what she needs to do without the male questioning her. Kristoff in this epic battle sequence does not question Anna at all. He allows her to take control of the situation and supports her in her efforts. This is HUGE! Now, don’t get me wrong, there are other films that have allowed for this before, but not many.

Kristoff also gets huge kudos for delivering (at least in my opinion) the best line in the film. After Anna apologizes for leaving him behind on their journey, Kristoff states, “My love is not fragile.” I love that Disney chose, in this moment of potential conflict, to show the strength of love and a solid relationship, rather than show a potentially distracting fight. I hope this moment will sink into young children’s heads and hopefully help them understand what a healthy and strong relationship could look like.

Anna also has a powerful and interesting journey in this film. Anna is incredibly protective of Elsa throughout the majority of the film. It is clear that Anna is struggling with a massive amount of change that she is facing in the film and she desperately wants to cling to her strong bonds (which she finally got at the end of the first film). Anna is this sort of overprotective, semi-controlling mess throughout the majority of the movie and it isn’t until she loses a couple of these dear bonds that she starts to face and accept her new reality of change. This leads me into possibly my favorite part of the movie, Anna’s song “The Next Right Thing.” This song is directly after Anna loses both Elsa and Olaf, two of the people (I guess I and counting a snowman as a person in this…) that she is most close to. I LOVE the fact that Disney actually dared to create a song about grief and the realities of loss. This is such a powerful and honest song about grief and the grief process. Anna mourns and struggles to find motivation to go on, yet still keeps stepping forward (both metaphorically and physically). This song acknowledges so many of the thoughts and struggles of losing loved ones, but also the active choice to keep pressing on, to do “the next right thing.” This scene is so full of meaning! Everything from the fact that Anna is trying to find her way through a cold wet cave through the course of this scene (stumbling towards the light at the end of the tunnel), to the fact that her costume changes slightly at this point, she loses her purple cape which she wears through the majority of the film and is now left in her black dress (a morning dress perhaps?), to the deeply meaningful lyrics. This is, by far, one of the most powerful scenes in the film and I so deeply value that Disney included this scene about such a difficult topic in such a high profile film. This scene (at least for me) made an already good movie, into a great one. A movie full of meaning and one that genuinely reflects life in many ways. Another favorite aspect of Frozen II that I really love is that each of the major characters in this film goes on their own paths of discovery. I have already discussed most of them. Olaf deals with “growing up” and how to process the world around him. Kristoff struggles with his emotions and feelings of rejection (although he is not actually being rejected, but sometimes we can feel like that even when it is not true). Anna struggles through her co-dependent nature and loss of control. Actually, looking at all of these major themes in the film really makes it quite clear to me that Frozen II is not only an enjoyable film but is also a very mature one.

Now, I’m sure most of you have noticed by now that I haven’t yet discussed Elsa’s journey in this film. I have saved this one for last primarily because Elsa’s journey is, of course, the primary journey of the film, but also because this is the journey that resonated the most with me personally. Elsa experiences this call, one that in the film is literal, but in real life can be a concept that might deeply resonates with some people as this kind of internal call. At the heart of Elsa’s call is the call for deeper meaning and a greater purpose in life. A call “Into the Unknown” of our lives. A craving to go out there and do what we are meant to do. I love that a children’s film brings up this “call.” I know (although I don’t have voices in my head) I personally have experienced a similar kind of craving to go out and do what I am “meant to do.” I believe that this very much can and does exists, although maybe not everyone has it or listens to it. I love that Disney also chose to include this kind of call in a children’s film. Perhaps this will help people to better understand this concept and help to motivate those who hear it, to pursue it. (Such as a young writer working on pursuing her dreams 😉 )

Before I conclude this blog post, I would love to just bring up a few short notable mentions of various other things that I really loved about Frozen II.

1. First off, I deeply appreciate that Disney did NOT take the “long thought to be dead parents are suddenly alive” approach in this film. This is done just a little too often in children’s film and I don’t like it (although some do it better than others, How to Train Your Dragon 2 for example I believe did an excellent job with bringing the long lost mom back, but I digress...). If Disney had taken this approach then it would have totally ruined the blow of the parent’s death in the first film. Plus it would have personally really pissed me off. Primarily because why would parents (especially ones that really needed to be there for their children (particularly a child with special needs) and their kingdom) just not come back? Or at least fight and work their butts off in order to get back to their loved ones? It just wouldn’t have made sense and I am really glad that Disney did not take this root. If anything they confirmed that Anna and Elsa’s parents did, in fact, die at sea. This is tragic, yes, but necessary. (I’m also a firm believer in the concept that the mentor has to die in order for the protagonist to grow to the point they need to be. Frankly, Anna and Elsa’s parents had to die in order for both of them to grow.)

2. I also love the fact that Anna and Elsa don’t actually stay together at the end of the film. They both have larger responsibilities/calling that they have to tend to. Although they, of course, love each other, sometimes physically staying in the same place as your loved ones hold you back from what you are capable of. The end of the film also shows a good example of how to stay connected even when you don’t live together anymore.

3. Okay, this one isn’t directly connected to the film actually because it is about one of the songs that got cut from the final product. So if you listen to the full Frozen II Deluxe Edition of the album (Available on Spotify if you are wondering) then you will come across the song “I Seek the Truth.” I have found this song quite delightful and I highly encourage people to go check it out! This song has intriguing lyrics and gorgeous music. It doesn’t quite have the powerhouse quality that “Into the Unknown” and “Show Yourself” have (which I am guessing is the main reason why this song was cut), but it does have a clever tune, plus it is very enjoyable and meaningful (at least in my opinion).

Overall I LOVED Frozen II and I am super excited for it to join the Disney library. The film is both highly enjoyable and deeply meaningful. Kudos to Disney for yet another masterpiece!

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