#not every post i write needs to be written

[celestiamour]

‧₊˚✧ ❛[ me & my husband ]❜

ft. the salesman (gong ji-cheol) x f! reader — squid game

╰₊✧ you don’t need your husband to be perfect, you just want him to be honest┊3.3k words

contains: written before s2 came out!! probably ooc or inaccurate, angst with spots of fluff & a bittersweet ending? reader’s pov mostly, suspicions of cheating, lack of communication, mentioned age gap, random inaccurate lore for the salesman

➤ author's note: yeah, i saw the sudden uptick in notes on that gong yoo post i made and realized season 2 came out which i completely forgot about. i intend to watch it soon as possible and write fics for it as well as (probably) add new characters to my writing list, but for now, please be content with this!!

₊˚ʚ 💌₊˚✧ this fic was heavily inspired by “emotionally intoxicated” by aurasaurora!

gong ji-cheol is the poster image for the ideal husband. he’s always been like that from the moment you met him, and you can’t help but feel like you’re the luckiest woman in the world when he calls himself yours. he’s tall and handsome, someone who catches everyone’s eye despite his only being focused on you. he’s wealthy and hard-working, able to call a luxurious mansion your home, and willing to buy you anything your heart desires as long as you ask for it. he spoils you rotten with that money, gifting you expensive things even if you didn’t ask if it reminded him of you. he’s doting, always sure to smother you in affection with kisses and cuddles whenever together to make it known how much he adores you. the sex is great too, he makes you feel wanted and desirable without ever leaving you unsatisfied. 

most importantly though, you love him, and he loves you. the last two years of marriage have been so blissful, and there isn’t a single thing you would change.

at least that’s what you believe most of the time.

you like to think you know a lot about him, and in a way, you do. you know his favorite color, how he likes his coffee, what he usually orders at restaurants, the type of wine he prefers over beer, the exaggerated shocked fasces he likes to make, how his favorite chore is folding the laundry, how his least favorite is doing the dishes because he doesn’t like getting his hands dirty, the name of his childhood pet, what positions he likes to cuddle or fuck in, the names he’s thinking of giving to your child when they are finally born— there are so many little details you know about him, yet at times you feel like you don't know anything at all.

you don’t really know much about his childhood aside from a few random stories, he claims there’s nothing really notable and that it was as standard as can be. you don’t know who his parents were or what they were like because he said they died when he was young, but surely that’s an important loss which must have impacted him and made youth difficult in some way? you don’t know about his past partners if he even had any, but you doubt you were his first as he was yours with a face like his. you don’t know any of his secrets, like an embarrassing moment or something sinful he might have committed in the past. 

he knew all of these things about you and the little details of your life, so why don’t you know any of the most basic things regarding your own husband?

these periods of uncertainty are few and far, but once the icy tendrils of doubt creep in, it’s difficult to shake them off when you realize you only know these things through observations and not him actually telling you. it’s a miracle your stupidity allowed you to make it this far in falling head over heels for him, getting married, and carrying his child (not that you completely regret it, you still love him, but you wish you had given it more time).

they say there are no such things as stupid questions, yet the main question you have is exactly that as it’s something every wife should know even before the marriage. it would be impressive how long you’ve been clueless about this matter if it weren’t for how often and how skilled he is in managing to evade your curiosity and steer the conversation elsewhere. you didn’t want to press on it since he seems to shut it down every time the topic is brought up and you don’t want to fight over something you technically didn’t need to know, but it weighs on you and presses into your chest with the knowledge you were being kept in the dark. 

what did your husband do for a living, exactly?

his schedule is always unpredictably changing with little rhyme or reason and it confuses you. sometimes you’ll go an entire few days without seeing him, sensing him wake up in the morning before the sun is even up, feeling him kiss you on the cheek before getting ready, and not coming back until long after you fall asleep with no communication aside from a note on the table telling you he’ll be gone for the day along with a wad of cash for you to treat yourself while he’s gone. other times he’ll be chilling at home for an entire week, waking you up with aggressive cuddles (or morning sex), making you breakfast with the morning news on in the background, and taking you out to wherever you want to go on his card in his rare casual clothing and messy wavy hair rather than the typical fancy suits and hair styled with gel. 

as far as you’re concerned, he’s a businessman of sorts, although you don’t know what company he works for or what position he has in terms of hierarchy or how an occupation of that type allows such flexibility in hours or anything at all. 

“what if he’s having an affair?”

you paused for a second before continuing the motion of slicing the cheesecake with a fork and savoring the taste in your mouth. “that’s ridiculous,” you stated simply after swallowing. “he loves me very much, and it doesn’t explain his weird schedule either.”

today was spent with some friends you met back in high school, but honestly, you were only attending out of politeness and tradition since you honestly feel like you’ve disconnected from these girls long before the current. still, you treasure the memories shared in your more formative years and wouldn’t ever say no to them if they wanted to hang out like old times. ji-cheol doesn’t bother to hide his distaste for them, calling them a miserable lot who try to drag you down at every opportunity out of jealousy for your happiness. you laugh it off, but you know deep down he’s right and yet you’re still sitting here at the cafe with them with bright smiles like their words don’t cut deep. 

“maybe he’s dating the boss— a sexy office siren type— she gives him plenty of days off and he stays with her at her beach house at jeju island or something to keep her company, and then she gives him lots of money in exchange.”

“oh my god, could you imagine?”

“can you be realistic? it sounds like you’re just writing a plot for a new drama,” you giggled, not allowing the feeling of a twisting blade in your abdomen to show on your face or the venom to drip from your words at the mere thought of the man you loved being stolen away a faceless woman who was everything you wished you were more of: more beautiful, more wealthy, more experienced, more intelligent—

“you don’t know because he’s your first love or whatever— and you’re so lucky to have been able to marry him— but men are dogs, and i don’t see why he would be the exception.”

“but he treats me so well—”

“maybe he only treats you well because you’re pregnant— he probably just feels guilty. i mean, when i was pregnant and had my first, my husband wasn’t attracted to me anymore and demanded a divorce unless i lost the baby weight.” she shrugged like it was so simple, so common, like the notion of marriage wasn’t something so deeply important and could be thrown away so easily.

“we aren’t suggesting you get a divorce, but we’re just saying you should keep an eye on him— you know? a handsome guy like him was always bound to get a lot of attention…” her laugh was shrill and high-pitched, making goosebumps erupt on your skin.

“right… thanks guys…”

that night, you couldn’t stop twisting and turning on the large sectional couch with thoughts rushing through your head of your husband with some other woman. the jealousy from these fictional scenarios without evidence of existence plagued you. it made you want to vomit up the negative feelings and go back to the person you were a few hours ago without the images of him cheating planted in your mind, which didn’t go unnoticed by him and caused him to ask what was bothering you as it wouldn't be good for the baby.

you hesitated for a moment, “could you tell me about your exes?”

“why are you suddenly curious about that?” he chuckled, knowing damn well that it was because of those stupid snakes masquerading as people (it truly takes one to know one) running their mouths again, but still feigning obliviousness for your sake. 

“just wondering,” you muttered. “i mean, you’re the first person i’ve fallen in love with, but you’re a bit older than me so…”

“and i hope to be the only one too,” he smirked confidently, making you laugh as he plopped down on the ground and rested his head on the cushion next to yours. 

it was such a casual setting in such a vast space, bringing you back to the days in your little apartment inviting him over for chicken and beer before you knew about your immense wealth and got embarrassed over your cheap dates when he was so used to expensive restaurants. he found it very endearing though, knowing you liked him for him and not his money.

“well, if you’re so curious…” he trailed off, but you weren’t quite sure if it was because of hesitation or because he simply didn’t know where to start. you can’t remember the last time a conversation like this was held to learn more about him since it was usually about you, maybe back when you first started dating and briefly discussed his late parents.

he started with his crush when he was in middle school since that was his earliest recollection of feeling love, who didn’t really count as a girlfriend or love because nothing was established and because of their age, but she was his first kiss that he ran away from right after because of how nervous he was, and it was never addressed again. apparently it was his second girlfriend who taught him everything he knew before he met you, saying she basically “trained him like a dog” to create a gentleman out of an inexperienced boy who still wasn’t quite sure how to treat a woman like a queen. she was a bit mean though, and he didn’t realize he dodged a bullet until later after realizing she was unnecessarily cruel to him for no reason multiple times if he didn’t do things exactly her way.

you suppose you always knew your husband wasn’t always the suave charmer you know him to be, but the image of younger him being clueless on matters of romance made you burst out laughing because of how you could hardly picture it.

he reached over to pinch your cheek affectionately, “are you of all people really making fun of me when you were too scared to hold my hand for me to escort you out of my car?”

“oh my god, that was on our first date, i can’t be blamed! i was shaking like crazy on that day— you had to tell me that you didn’t bite.”

“i was actually thinking about calling off our date last minute because of an emergency at work,” he confessed, “but i’m glad i didn’t and met the love of my life instead.”

“aw, you flirt.” the memory made you smile and feel all giggly inside, all the fears you had about him possibly having an affair falling away, yet there were still some lingering at the back of your mind with the mention of his job. “what happened at work?”

“nothing that important,” he said instantly like clockwork. “just some boring business things.”

you didn’t push it, not wanting to ruin the mood, but once again, your curiosity was just itching to ask more questions about his work life even if it was truly as boring as he says. you wanted to know every mundane detail whether it was what his office looked like or what the annoying co-worker did on a daily basis, anything to satiate your need to know more about this mysterious man you had made life-long vows with.

it all came to a head one night while you were cooking dinner, you heard the doorbell ring a dozen times in quick succession and answered it to find an older man with fiery red hair that seemed to match his temper. when he addressed your husband by name and verified your relationship with him, he began spewing all kinds of insults about the blood he had on his hands by luring innocent people to their deaths and you felt your heart drop. you tried to reason with him that there must have been some sort of mistake, barely able to get your words out in a fit of confusion and surprise at the absurd accusation, but he wouldn’t hear you out and pointed a finger in your face, asking if you had any idea what gong ji-cheol was doing behind your back. 

at that very moment, he was suddenly seized by two anonymous men in all black, causing him to yell out in panic as they dragged him away and stuffed him in the back of a car before quickly driving off into the night without a trace. it all happened so fast, you just stood there with your mouth open in shock, wondering if you should call the police on what looked like an abduction. 

then your husband comes running up the steps with his locked briefcase in hand, shouting out your name, asking you if you’re okay, pulling you back inside the comfort of your shared home, and checking you all over to make sure you aren’t harmed in any way. when you ask about who that man was and what he was talking about, he simply told you he was some crazy customer who was dissatisfied with the company, was looking for someone to blame, and promised to tell you the details later. 

you didn’t tell him that you didn’t believe him, just pursed your lips and furrowed your brow for a second then let go of the topic like you always do, taking his coat off his shoulders with a peck on the lips asking how his day was. he reciprocated the kiss, said it was fine without anything special, and that he would shower before having dinner, something he didn’t really need to say since you already knew but stated anyway as per evening routine. 

as he headed up the stairs and disappeared from sight, you stared at the locked briefcase resting crookedly on the little entryway table and paused for a moment. if you did this, it would be a breach of privacy and a sign of growing distrust in your husband, but it could also answer all of the questions that never cease. 

your hands wouldn’t stop shaking involuntarily as you felt the cold black metal underneath your fingertips, marveling at the smooth material clean of any scratches or dents. fidgeting with the built-in combination lock, six number sequences started rushing through your mind as you started to hastily run through your options with a focus on dates. you were determined to only do this three times since you had no idea if an alarm would be set off or if it would close off permanently.

his birthday?

an electronic beep went off indicating you were incorrect, making you nervous.

your birthday?

wrong again, you only had one attempt left. you swallowed, shaking the accumulating sweat off your hands.

the date of your wedding?

you gasped as the locks suddenly flipped open and lightly knocked against the briefcase. it was undone, you could open it at any moment now and see it all.

and yet you still hesitated during this golden opportunity. was it the fact that the passcode to his most secret possession was the day you got married? was it guilt for going behind your husband’s back for answers instead of directly asking him? was it because you were afraid of what you would find if you discovered the red-haired man was telling the truth?

whatever it was, you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding and locked it again, leaving it looking untouched and went back to playing dinner.

there was a heavy tension present at the dinner table that night, the only conversation present being him interrogating you about what the red-haired man talked about word-for-word. not really interrogating since his tone of voice was still calm and gentle as he asked questions, but you could see him fidgeting with his fork and not leaving much room for any other topic until he was sure you told him everything. he then sighed and claimed the man was insane, a gambling addict who was too deep in debt to afford treatment and was trying to drag him into his misery after meeting at the subway station. 

“ji-cheol?”

he froze for a second, not used to hearing you use his real name rather than a pet name. “yes?”

“what do you do for a living, exactly?”

a pause, you watched him fidget with his chopsticks and shift the grains of rice around. “you know, business stuff— nothing you need to concern yourself about—“

“but i don’t know! that’s the thing!” you felt tears starting to well up behind your eyes, letting two years of frustration trickle through. “i know it doesn’t seem that important for me to know, but is it really so important that you leave me in the dark about it for the three years we’ve been lovers? and now some guy comes to our doorstep and tells me about how your job is playing games with people at the subway station to make them participate in death games?!” you took a deep breath, calming yourself down, “please, be honest with me, that’s all i want…”

“i-i…” that was the first time you’ve ever heard him stutter, and if the situation wasn’t so tense, you would be proud you finally got one-up on him. “i can’t say… it’s for your own safety and mine.”

“so he was right?”

he remained silent, trying to think of some way to counter what seong gi-hun had told you, but if you didn’t believe the elaborate lie he already told you and wanted to learn more, then he knew this was the end of the road. 

“i-i need some time to think…” you looked defeated and it broke his heart. “i’m going to my mom’s house tonight, i’ll be back tomorrow—“ you got up, not bothering to pack anything aside from your phone and your wallet.

he had prepared for you to start screaming and crying (not that he would blame you, i mean, who would willingly stay with a man who was complicit in mass murder), demanding a divorce and packing your things to shut the door for him never to be seen again with your unborn child. the strangely calm reaction was both a relief and extremely unsettling to him.

“i won’t be mad if you decide not to come back” he stated plainly, defeated in a state you’ve never seen him in before. “whatever choice you make, i’ll support you, just know i love you— more than anything else in this world.”

you stared at him blankly through the open doorway. perhaps your husband isn’t the perfect man you believed him to be, but he was as honest as he possibly could have been with you regarding the matter, and that’s enough. 

“i love you too, i’ll be back in the morning.” that’s how you feel at the moment, but you don’t know if you’ll feel the same way tomorrow morning when it sinks in.

[suad-khaled]

Currently at $43,090—just $410 away from the $43.5k goal!

Every single day is a battle I can’t win alone. My baby, Khaled, is only 6 months old, and he needs formula, diapers, and warmth to survive. Food suitable for him doesn’t even exist in the market.

💔 Share our campaign. Write a post. Amplify our plea. Your voice could be the one that saves his life.

Follow me for updates and help us reach the finish line. To you, it’s small. To us, it’s everything. 🙏

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Before the New Year Begins… Give Khaled a Chance at Life

As the world counts down to new beginnings, I’m counting the hours, desperately fighting to keep my baby, Khaled, alive.

Khaled is only 6 months old, a tiny soul who knows nothing of w@r. He doesn’t understand why he cries from hunger or why it’s so hard for him to breathe. But I do. And it breaks me that I can’t give him the simplest of rights: food, medicine, and safety.

Every child deserves a chance to smile, to breathe, and to live without fear. Khaled deserves that chance

💔 Before the new year begins, will you help Khaled start his life with hope? Here's how you can make an impact:

Share Khaled’s story. One post could connect us to someone who can save him.

Donate today. Even the cost of your coffee can mean another day of life for Khaled.

Write a personal post. Your words can amplify his cry for help.

💡 Give Khaled the gift of life: click here to help.

Let’s come together to give my innocent baby a chance. Let’s end this year with an act of kindness that could change everything. Don’t let Khaled’s cry go unheard.

Please, I need you now more than ever. Khaled needs you. Let’s make sure this story doesn’t end here. Let’s write a story of hope together, Help me save him before it’s too late. 🤲

Please, don’t let us fade away in silence.

I’ve been verified by Nabulsi, El-Shab Hussien, and NorthGazaUpdate, 90-ghost, and I’m listed on the vetted list on 279 line.

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[nondelphic]

creatives, please use alt text

one of the first things i learned in journalism school was how to write alt image descriptions.

at first, it felt tedious. every single photo or graphic required a description, and if we skipped it—or wrote a lazy one—our professors didn’t hesitate to fail us. at the time, i didn’t fully understand why it mattered. but now, i’m so grateful they drilled it into us. if i’d never gone to journalism school, i might have never known how vital alt text is.

for those unfamiliar, alt text (short for “alternative text”) is a written description of an image. it allows people who use screen readers to know what’s in an image, making content accessible to those who are blind, visually impaired, or have other disabilities that prevent them from viewing images. you're basically translating visual content into words.

as creatives, whether we’re writers, artists, photographers, or meme page admins, we have a responsibility to make our work accessible. after all, what’s the point of creating something if a huge portion of your audience can’t engage with it?

why alt text matters

it ensures accessibility - a visually impaired person using a screen reader should be able to understand the context of an image just as easily as a sighted person.

it’s inclusive - adding alt text isn’t just for people with disabilities. sometimes, images don’t load due to bad internet, and alt text helps everyone understand what’s missing.

it’s good practice - if your work exists online, you want it to be as widely understood as possible. accessibility makes your content stronger.

okay, but how do i write alt text?

writing alt text isn’t as hard as it might seem! here are some tips:

be concise but descriptive - describe the essential elements of the image. what would someone need to know to get the gist of it?

include context - if the image is part of a larger story, explain its relevance. for example, “a black cat sitting on a pumpkin, used to illustrate a halloween-themed story.”

don’t overthink it - you don’t need to describe every pixel. just focus on the most important details.

alt text and ai tools

in the era of chatgpt and microsoft copilot, we’ve got a major advantage: ai tools can now generate alt text for you!

while these tools aren’t perfect and often need a bit of tweaking, they’re a great starting point. platforms like adobe, microsoft, and even some social media apps have built-in options for generating descriptions. if you’re overwhelmed by the idea of writing alt text from scratch, let ai do the heavy lifting, and then refine it.

a creative responsibility

alt text isn’t just for journalists or big companies, it’s for all of us.

as creatives, we have the power to make the internet a more inclusive place. whether you’re posting a masterpiece, a meme, or a picture of your cat, take a moment to add alt text.

adding alt image description is SO EASY and quick and we all need to get better at adding it to our posts. i, myself, am not perfect. on here, for example, i've been really bad about writing alt image descriptions, and it's something i'm very disappointed in myself for. (i hereby pledge to do better, and please call me out for lacking in the future!)

writing alt text is not only about respecting your audience, but it's also about recognizing disabled people's right to engage with your work.

accessibility isn’t optional !!

[pinkaditty]

Holidays with Ghouls (Sho Haizono x Reader; Tokyo Debunker)

please read:

okay. big news + life update: i got into a major car accident a little while ago. my first one ever! i am in a lot of pain so things may be slow-going for a while and ill be unable to commit as much time to writing due to the tangled mess that is dealing with modern insurance companies and recovering from my injuries. thankfully its not so bad to be hospitalized, but its bad enough to limit my activity for the time being. i am somewhat ashamed to ask, but if you like my writing, please consider donating to my cashapp: $cindyfromstarbucks! my car was 100% totaled, and im gonna need to save up for a new one, and my job doesn’t pay very much. thank you for your consideration! please enjoy, regardless! (this paragraph will be on my posts indefinitely, probably until i fully recover)

a/n: LET ME START THIS OFF BY SAYING IT’S ENTIRELY SELF-INDULGENT… i have a green thumb and i’ve been growing a small garden lately (limited space. i hate captialism.) and i just thought “hm. what if we grew fresh ingredients for sho’s food truck?” and the idea stuck and didn’t leave no matter how much i tried 2 shake it off. mc is basically written as me im not gonna hold y’all, but i kept it 2 a minimum so it could still be an ‘x reader’. 

summary: self-indulgent reader x sho. in which you do something nice for him and he struggles to return the favor. 

no cw! enjoy!

big fan of the “woman that is so wound up all the time and extremely professional and tries to keep everyone at arm’s length distance” x “guy that is only a few years younger than the woman but loves calling her by age-appropriate honorifics (i.e. noona, ojou, jiejie, madame, etc) and goes out of his way to teach her how to fucking relax every once in a while” trope and essentially if i were with sho that is how the relationship would go LMFAOOOOOOO

You used to have a bit of a garden before becoming a student at Darkwick. A part of you often wondered if there were people tending to your garden now so you could return to it, well kept and exactly as you remember it, when you were cured of this curse and got this anomalous ring off of you. You'd never really had the idea to plant anything here; you were much too focused on missions and other incessant errands the ghouls saw fit to send you on. You didn't like it, but held your tongue regardless. If all went well, you wouldn't have to deal with this after less than a year. 

You were fond of a few ghouls, though. Some of them were a nice reprieve from the other harsher and more selfish ghouls. Haku was a great example of that, and so was Subaru, his dorm's captain. You'd grown fond on the Jabberwock ghouls, as they were always kind and polite. You didn't really mind the Obscuary ghouls, either. Even if odd, they were good natured, and never turned you away. You appreciated that Rui had a bit of a green thumb too, and would often stop by to assist him with plant care. 

The one ghoul you were the most fond of, despite his less than agreeable best friend, was Haizono, or Sho, as he insisted on being called. Sho, despite his friend Leo, was actually pretty friendly. You enjoyed the time you spent around him, whether that was collecting supplies from the diner, or training with him, or even helping him meal prep for the following day for his food truck. It was fun, spending time with Sho. You're almost angry the idea didn't dawn on you sooner.

Said idea is why you carefully sift through the dirt in your compost container, careful not to split any of the worms with your nails. The potatoes should be done growing by now. The idea had dawned on you one day when Sho mentioned not having enough potatoes to serve fries the following day. Potatoes were an easy crop. And they took three months, at most, to grow. Sure, if worse came to worst, you'd die, but growing potatoes was a good distraction and encouraged you to plan for the future, as though you wouldn't die. After a few favors from Benji and some begging towards the chancellor, you had a small garden behind the chapel. Granted, you'd just started it three months ago, so it wasn't as full as your garden back home, but it was good enough. It was hidden from the rest of campus by the surrounding trees, ensuring no one would find the garden unless they had reason to cut around the chapel, which wasn't necessary considering the path out front. Not only did it serve as your little place of respite, it allowed you to do nice things for others. You were just growing potatoes for now, but it felt like enough of a starter, at least. You’d just planted some tomato seeds that you’d hoped Sho would also find a use for. 

Once done harvesting a substantial batch of potatoes, you wrap them up in plastic bags to look like you bought them. It would save you the embarrassment of having to explain that you’d grown them yourself. 

It’s pleasantly chilly outside, the still afternoon air heavy with promises of cold weather and a white winter holiday. Dirt remained underneath your fingernails from all that harvesting, but it was a small price to pay. Your heart pounded with anticipation and exertion as you made the trek to Vagastrom, heading for the nearby food truck. As expected, you find Sho sitting on one of his supply boxes, far underdressed for the cold weather. You can’t tell if he’s resistant to it or rebelling against it, but you can tell he’s cold. His cheeks and nose are tinged red and his eyes are squinted against the cold wind. You can even tell he’s sniffling with how often he inhales. You exhale both fondly and exasperatedly. The stubbornness of these ghouls was simultaneously attractive and irritating. 

You make it no secret you’re approaching, the bag of potatoes crinkling with your upbeat steps and your own runny nose sniffling in response to the cold wind. You place the bag of potatoes beside him with a heavy ‘thud’, to which he finally looks up, appearing jolted out of his thoughts. 

“Here,” you start, taking your scarf from around your neck and tying it around his without waiting for a reaction. “You must be an idiot to sit out in the cold with just your uniform on.”

“Senpai.” He greets you with wide eyes, watching but not protesting as you tie your scarf around his neck. He appears confused at first, his lips pursing at your actions, but seems to relent as he buries his face into the scarf. You watch as he settles into it, his eyes sliding shut against the cold wind, his nose and lips finding warm solace in the comfort of your scarf. Before long, he pulls it away, revealing himself back to the chilly air with a slight wince. “...No need. Thank you, though.” He glances up at you with a smile before rising to his feet and dusting off his knees. “Whatcha got here?” He gestures to the plastic bag before picking it up, far more effortlessly than you, and inspecting it. 

“Potatoes.” Your breath puffs out in a white cloud. “They’re for your food truck. I remembered you mentioned you were running low, so… I decided to help and buy you some.” At some point, you’d shifted your attention to the ground, toeing at a rock as you realized how ridiculous that sounded. Surely Sho could handle himself. He might even find your help embarrassing, when you really think about it. 

You sneak a glance at him and are relieved to see a small smile on his face as he observes the potatoes. He huffs out a light breath, his face visibly softening. “You didn’t have to do that.” He slings the bag over his shoulder, using his other hand to ruffle your hair and return the scarf. “Come on,” he turns around, headed for the door of the food truck. “You can help me prep.”

‘That’s only helpful if you’ll have any customers in this cold,’ you think to yourself, but decide not to say aloud. Instead, you watch the slow smile on his face as he nods towards you, and continues towards the truck. Crazy, how a simple glance of his could make your heart race. Something about the warmth of his smile, the feel of his fingers carding through your hair, and the leftover scent of his cologne lingering on your scarf tugged at your heart, just a little bit. 

You briskly follow after him, throwing the scarf back over his neck. “Keep it,” you say sternly, watching as he turns to you quizzically. “Have you seen the state of yourself in this cold?” The phrase ‘I want you to have it,’ lingers on your tongue, but you decide not to voice that, instead letting a small amused smile rest on your face. You vaguely gesture to him, your gaze flicking to his red cheeks and nose. He rolls his eyes, noting your point, and keeps the scarf around his neck, opening the side door to his food truck.

“Alright, fine. I’ll wash it and return it.”

As he steps inside the food truck, even from standing behind him you feel a wave of warmth. You follow, stepping inside, feeling the sweet relief of pleasant warm air and smelling the scent of roast chicken. The environment is warm and cozy, wrapping around you like a cushy blanket or a hug from a loved one. Sho closes the door behind you and you note your scarf is still around his neck. Something clicks.

“Wait a minute. You won’t need that.” You point to his scarf, your nose crinkling in mock displeasure. He instinctively flinches away, looking at you with a raised brow. He was seemingly already protective of your scarf, even though he’d only just received it. “Hand it over.”

“That’s hardly fair.” A crooked smile forms on Sho’s face and his brow raises higher. “Why do you assume I won’t need it?”

Indignantly, you gesture to the warm space surrounding you. Sizzling meat, a warm oven, and heaters in a corner, adjusting the temperature of the truck. “Vagastrom is literally right next to here. What do you need that for?”

He doesn’t answer directly, instead tilting his head at you. “I seem to remember a certain someone insisting I keep this scarf. Are you going to go back on your word?”

You clamp your mouth shut, remembering what you’d said and did earlier. He was right, you had insisted, even if only a little. You huff out a frustrated breath, crossing your arms and furrowing your brows. He laughs at your display, pulling the scarf off of him and tossing it on a high shelf of boxes you couldn’t reach. “Like I said, I’ll wash it and return it.”

You decide to swallow this loss. You had other scarves at the chapel anyway, and if he was going to use it, at least it wasn’t going to waste. 

You look around the space again before taking off your coat and hanging it on one of the hooks on the door. “Any plans for winter break? Will you be going anywhere?” 

“Nah.” Sho shook his head, checking on the chicken in the small oven before continuing to stir fry a vegetable medley on the stove, jutting his shoulder out towards the cutting board, covered in various vegetables. You wash your hands before heading over, carefully scraping at the dirt built up under your fingernails from digging. “Unless my… brother… goes, I’m not going. He’ll beat my ass if I don’t and he does.” A look of displeasure crosses Sho’s face, and you have to hold back a laugh at the thought of Professor Hyde chastising Sho for not seeing his family over break. 

You head over to the vegetables laid out on the cutting board, and start with the garlic, peeling it out of its husk. “Sounds like a struggle.”

He scoffs, pouring soy sauce over the vegetables and tossing them before scraping them off on a nearby to-go container. “Holidays are always a struggle with pushy family.” Despite his outward scowl, amusement lights up his eyes for a moment. 

You chuckle, having finished chopping up the garlic and moving to a green bell pepper. You slice it open, its seeds spilling onto the cutting board. “Your family’s pushy?”

“Yes, too pushy sometimes.” Sho shakes his head, shooing you to the side as he grabs potholders to pull the chicken out of the oven. “My brother’s more like my parents than I am.” He carefully places the roast chicken down on a short counter. It’s golden brown, stuffed with rosemary sprigs, lemon slices, and garlic cloves. 

He places it to the side, readying the frying pain and reaching for the peppers you’d chopped, tossing them into the oil. You finish a pepper and reach for a leek next, slicing it into thick chunks. Your eyes flicker back over to the chicken momentarily, rosemary stems sticking out of it like a tail. “The rosemary stems look like a chicken tail.” You voice the thought absentmindedly, smiling to yourself. 

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Sho glance over at the chicken himself. You hear a huffed laugh as he returns his attention to the peppers, sizzling in the oil. “Yeah, it does.” He’s silent for a moment before speaking up again. “Speaking of, it was hard to find fresh rosemary this time around.”

You look up, having finished cutting the leek. A confused expression crosses your face. “Where in the world would you find fresh rosemary in the dead of winter?” You look away, reaching for a carrot, slicing it thinly.

“Rosemary’s an evergreen,” Sho states flatly, reaching for the leek and garlic you cut earlier, mixing it in with the batch of peppers on the stove and stirring them. “You can find that fresh anytime. What’s harder to find, however…” Sho trails off, leaving the stove for a split second, reaching for the bag of your potatoes he’d placed on the ground earlier. He opens the bag and pulls one out, some dirt still stuck in the indents of its skin. “...Is fresh potatoes. They’re typically harvested in the fall.” He smiles at you, before turning away to rinse it off.

Realizing you’d been caught in a lie, you turn away from him, putting all of your focus on the carrot in front of you. You hear his footsteps slowly approaching before he places a freshly washed potato right in front of you, his hand shaking with mirth. 

“Come on, MC. Don’t think I didn’t notice the dirt under your fingernails.” He chuckles before turning back to the stove, stirring the vegetables again. You drop the knife with a clatter and hide your hands behind your back, too nervous to check if you’d missed any spots. 

You sneak a glance up at him, mistakenly making eye contact with him. His eyes gleam with amusement and his smile is soft and fond. “...It can’t have been that obvious.” You decide to admit to it, realizing the heat in your cheeks probably gave it away. 

“It wasn’t.” Sho nods to you, pouring soy sauce over the stir-fried mixture and tossing it before scraping that off in a different to-go container. “I just happened to notice the dirt when you handed the scarf to me, and your potatoes smelled extra earthy.” He takes the pan off the heat, moving over to the chicken and carefully cutting out the breast. 

It’s silent for a few moments, you staring at that freshly cleaned potato and Sho slicing through the chicken, placing the breast in one to-go container and the wings in the other. Sho finally speaks up, though his voice is low. “...You didn’t have to do that, you know.” You look up again, just to find him turned away from you, his ears turning red. Silence falls again as you watch him check off the to-go containers he’s finished. You assume he’s trying to distract himself from the obvious blush on his face, but you can’t say for sure. Something about it makes you feel similar, your heart rate picking up and your face reddening more. It wasn’t due to your embarrassment anymore. “I dunno, I’m bad at thanking people. Just, well…” Sho trails off, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck, hiding his face from you. His voice lowers significantly, and contrastingly, the blush on his ears brightens more. “Thank you. I know potatoes take a while to grow. And…” He trails off again and swallows thickly. You don’t bother asking him to finish his sentence. The implications of his words grow somewhat heavy in your heart, and you wring your fingers nervously. Of course it was profound, growing potatoes for someone when you’re doomed to die, now in nine months. The thought of dedicating your time to anything that wasn’t curing your curse was odd, but this distraction had done you well nonetheless. You didn’t want Sho to feel bad about it at all. You were certain that, if anything, the gravity of being recognized by a girl doomed to die was dawning on him. 

The words spill out before you can really stop them. “Don’t worry about it, Sho. I did that because I wanted to.” Confessing this was almost as raw as confessing your feelings, and your chest tightens at that thought, but you continue despite that. “You’ve been kind to me since after our first mission. And I’ve enjoyed spending time with you, including things as mundane as meal prep!” You gesture vaguely to the setting before you, hoping to get your point across. “I just randomly had the idea, and figured it couldn’t be so bad to act on it. It’s been a good distraction anyway, and what with all that happens here, a distraction does me some good.” Silence falls once more, and Sho finally turns to look at you, face flushed. He wipes his palms on his apron and worries his lip between his teeth, his gaze flickering between you and the floor. “...So what if I used up three months to grow potatoes? The time will pass anyways.” You turn away from him, looking at the washed potato. You reach for it and pick up the knife, beginning to cut it into cube chunks. 

“...I guess you’re right.” You can hear a gentle smile in Sho’s voice, and it warms you up internally, feeling thankful he’s accepted the gift. You glance towards him, giving him a smile, and catch him staring. There’s an odd glimpse of admiration in his eyes, which makes your cheeks warm.

“Go on and finish cutting the chicken.” You wave off his stare and jerk your gaze away from him, hiding your blush and focusing on the cubed potato. 

He scoffs and turns away, picking up his knife. “Giving me orders in my own kitchen, huh?” 

You don’t respond. You don’t need to. The warmth of the heaters settles into your skin and the warmth of the previous pleasant conversation settles into your heart. You glance down at the bag of potatoes that started it all. The eyes of the potatoes seem to stare up at you knowingly.

You’re carrying a short stack of to-go containers outside to Sho’s bike, Bonnie, your boots crunching the frosty path beneath you. Snow would surely be coming soon. You gently place the stack in the box on the back of Bonnie, careful to make sure none of them tip over. You hear more crunching footsteps and turn around to see Sho, carrying the rest of the boxes. He places them in the box as well and organizes them before securing the box with a few straps. He steps back and exhales, smiling to himself. You can’t help but smile at his pride.

“Now, to deliver these…” Sho approaches Bonnie and gets on, patting her twice affectionately. The gentle thrum of the engine comes to life in response. He looks to you and smiles, and you notice he’s wearing your scarf. “Sure you don’t want a ride back to the chapel?”

You eye the box of food already on the back of Bonnie and shake your head. You wouldn’t test fate today. Your eyes find your scarf again, sitting snugly around Sho’s neck. “Well, at least you have a use for it.” You say, resigned. Part of you wonders if you’ll ever get it back. 

Sho smiles, reaching up to touch the scarf. “Again, I’ll wash and return it.” He looks up to the sky, and you follow suit, noting the pale white blanket of clouds blocking the sun. “That said…” He starts, lowering his gaze to you again. “It is cold out. I may need this for longer than I expected.” There’s a teasing lilt to his voice and his smile turns crooked, as though suppressing a smirk. 

“...I’m not getting that back, am I?”

Sho shrugs, revving up Bonnie. “Who knows?” He smiles fondly at you one last time before speeding off, the wheels of Bonnie leaving tire tracks on the frosty path. You watch him as he leaves, his hair lifting in the wind, the tendrils of your scarf billowing behind him. You watch until he turns a corner and you can only faintly hear the rumbling of Bonnie’s engine. ‘I guess he really did have customers, even in this cold…’ You think to yourself, a faint smile growing on your face. You inhale the crisp cool air, feeling a bit cooler around your neck now that you’re missing a scarf. You idly look back up at the sky again, wondering if it really would snow today. Despite you enjoying the stillness of the winter air on Darkwick campus, the cold eventually bites at you, urging you to return to the chapel. Your footsteps crunch along the frosted path, following Bonnie’s tracks.

It’s Christmas evening, and things are finally winding down for the day. You’d been to Frostheim and made snow angels with Luca and Kaito, had coffee and played chess with Tohma, and Jin, despite himself, hadn’t asked you to run any errands for him today. You’d been to Vagastrom and exchanged gifts with Alan, tolerated Leo’s selfies with you, and looked around for Sho, but hadn’t found him. You’d been to Jabberwock and fed the animals with Haru, watched a romance movie with Towa, and played a holiday-themed horror game with Ren. You’d been to Sinostra and done some gambling with Taiga while Ritsu tagged along to ensure Sinostra’s reputation wasn’t damaged further, and had a surprisingly pleasant conversation with Romeo despite him saying your large coat made you resemble a slug. You’d been to Hotarubi and had tea and holiday sweets with Haku, Subaru, Zenji, and Lyca, who was visiting Subaru. You’d been to Obscuary and had Rui’s new holiday-themed drinks with Ed, chattering time away at the bar. You’d been to Mortkranken and reluctantly exchanged gifts with Yuri, aware of the fit he’d throw if you hadn’t gotten him anything, and pleasantly exchanged gifts with Jiro, reminding him to take good care of himself. 

Finally, after a very long, exhausting, and eventful day, you were back at the chapel, counting the vines growing under your skin, glowing lavender like the flower on the back of your neck. Some small flowers broke your skin and bloomed here and there, leaving the exit wounds somewhat inflamed. Granted, you didn’t have much time left, and these vines made that clear, but this holiday had been much better than you’d expected it to be. You appreciated the effort most of the ghouls put forth to make this holiday at least somewhat enjoyable for you, especially considering it may be your last. 

You sit by the fireplace in your room, watching the snow fall from the sky through your window. You had a tiny pine tree near your bed, decorated with handmade tinsel from the three Hotarubi ghouls and some small ornaments from Jin. You wore new pajamas from Romeo, though you weren’t sure how in the world he knew your size. You had a new bracelet from Taiga, who had originally forgotten who he’d gotten it for. On your nightstand lay a dreidel from Kaito and a snow globe from Luca. The hot chocolate you sipped on was a gift from Tohma, and some wine awaited you in your fridge, a gift from the Obscuary ghouls. You had a few new ugly holiday sweaters from various ghouls, Yuri and Ren included, and some not-so-ugly ones, thanks to Haru and Towa. A thick, heavy book about the origins of the laws of Japan sat on a nearby table, a gift from Ritsu that you had no plans to read. You had lit a scented candle from Leo, which you thought was surprisingly thoughtful, and had set aside the wax melts from Alan, planning to use them after the candle ran out. The new watch from Jiro was wrapped around your wrist, displaying the increasingly late time. In all of this, you wondered where your gift from Sho was. You hadn’t been able to spot him today, and the thought made you feel a little down. You’d wanted to spend some time with him today, but guessed he was probably too busy preparing Christmas dinner for all of Vagastrom and Hotarubi that he simply hadn’t had the time. You set your hot chocolate down on top of the accursed thick book and sprawl out in your chair, turning to the window again. Regardless, this had been a surprisingly wonderful holiday. The ghouls had given you gifts and willingly spent time with you, doing various fun activities and filling you with holiday cheer. It was a nice escape from the reality of your situation, even if it was only for a little while. 

You check the vines under your skin again, resisting the urge to scratch at where a new white flower had bloomed near your elbow. You could feel that, soon after the holiday season mellowed down, it would be back to reality, and you’d have to face your own death once again. Part of you dreaded the eventual change in weather and in the length of days, knowing your predicted end was growing near. But a part of you was also resigned to it. Regardless of whether you were due to die soon or not, this had been a nice holiday. And you could stand to live in the now, just this once. 

You carefully pluck the flower from your skin, wincing at the sharp pain. You bleed for only a few moments before it clots up. At least you could stave off the growth of the curse for now. 

You hear a gentle knock at your door. Physically, you’re too exhausted to have much more fun at this point, but mentally, you could use a pick-me-up. You head down your stairs towards the door, opening it crack by crack, trying to prevent too much of the cold wind from slipping inside. You peer through the open doorway, jolting in surprise when a familiar pair of dark blue eyes meet yours. 

“Hey,” Sho starts, lifting two boxes in his hands. “Thought you could use a warm holiday dinner.”

Your heart swells and all at once, a wave of emotion hits you. Sure, you didn’t have much time left, but that didn’t stop these ghouls from caring, and that was evident in the gifts piled up in your room, the fun you’d had all throughout the day, and the ghoul now standing at your doorstep, seeking more time with you. There was a reason he was your favorite. 

You swing the door open wider, unable to hide the smile that breaks across your face all at once. “I was looking for you, you know.” You cross your arms and narrow your eyes in mock disappointment. “Where’ve you been all day?”

“Cooking.” Sho lifts a brow and shrugs, tilting his head at you. He smiles fondly at you, and you notice he’s finally dressed appropriately for the season; a hat covering most of his hair, a matching coat and gloves keeping him warm, and your scarf, tucked snugly against his neck inside his coat. Yet again, you realize you are probably never getting that scarf back. 

“That scarf is still mine.” You gesture at his scarf, and he laughs, reaching up to brush the built up snow off of it. 

“And I’m still using it.” He replies, smiling wider. “So… Gonna let me in or what? It’s cold out here.” His breath puffs into white clouds, and you notice his cheeks and nose are tinged red again thanks to the cold. You smile and step aside, letting him in. 

You close the door behind him and he shakes off the snow built up on his coat. When he looks at you, his smile holds the warmth of a thousand candles and his voice holds the joy of a thousand holiday carols. “So… got any mistletoe? If not, we can start with gifts. Either works for me.” A blush covers his face as he pushes the boxes towards you, his smile growing wider and fonder.

You figure, regardless of how much time you have left, it wouldn’t hurt to spend a holiday with your favorite ghoul.

Bonus:

The gift, wrapped surprisingly delicately inside one of the boxes, is a knitted scarf in your favorite colors. It’s not bad, but you can tell it was done by a beginner. Holding it in your hands, a small smile grows on your face, and you sigh, totally resigned. 

By god, you are never getting that scarf back. 

“Well, thank you for your collateral replacement, but I expect that scarf back one day.”

Sho shakes his head, smiling as he chews on your shared meal, packed in the other box he was carrying. “No can do. It’s still cold and I still need a scarf.”

“I’m withholding the mistletoe, then.”

Sho huffs, rolling his eyes and continuing the meal. At his lack of a reaction, you purse your lips, thinking of another thing to withhold that might gift you a victory. Sho speaks, having swallowed his mouthful, “I can find other reasons to kiss you-”

“I’m withholding the potatoes.”

Sho looks at you in shock, dropping his forkful back onto his plate. “...I’ll think about it.”

Maybe you would get that scarf back, after all.

----------

a/n: it's done. finally it is done. finally! i've been writing this romance fic 4 a long while so im glad it is finally done

thank you all so much for reading!! as usual, i love likes, but especially comments, reblogs, and asks detailing how much you enjoyed my work!!! please feel free 2 fill up my inbox with whatever, i love talking 2 u all! but be warned my responses will be slow... im still recovering!

happy holidays 2 you all! i hope, whether you're surrounded by family, friends, or by yourself, that it's a wonderful and fulfilling holiday season 4 u. merry christmas 2 those who celebrate, and happy kwanzaa 2 those who celebrate that as well!! not very well versed in other winter holidays, but may they be joyous and merry!

[dickgraysonsptsd]

a thing that does sincerely wild me out with jason fandom is that so many people straight up just disregard massive swathes of his post-crisis writing but clearly are... invested in his post-crisis portrayal as red hood...?? i get that it's hard to reconcile post-crisis jason with n52+ jason but i think you have to seriously consider that maybe this is because they are radically different characters with radically different narrative roles who were conceived of and written by radically different people during radically different eras of comics, not because every post-crisis writer "didn't GET jason" or "must have secretly HATED jason" etc. i've seen people say both winick and morrison need to be disregarded wrt red hood jason and like who is left then dude. bruce jones? bruce jones from brothers in blood???

[onlygarden]

[not so fast...] - yang jungwon

genre: smut

description: just as you're about to head out to grab a few things from the store, jungwon decides he wants you to stay. established relationship, dom jungwon, rough sex, unprotected sex, hair pulling/yanking, spitting in mouth, slapping, jungwon grips reader hard enough to bruise and draw blood, jungwon cums all over reader, oral sex (male receiving), facefucking, degradation (whore, bitch, etc.), bit of power play.

a/n: it's a few days after christmas, but i'm wishing the merriest of christmases and the happiest of new years to everyone : ) it's been a little while since i posted a fic but i've been aching to write this for about a week. this might be the nastiest fic i've ever written but this is the result of jungwon. the inspiration smacked me in the face out of nowhere while i was watching a jungwon edit. jungwon PLEASE LET ME HIT

the muted padding of your feet against the carpeted stairs compelled jungwon’s curiosity, along with his undivided attention. a gentle “where are you going, baby,” sailed gracefully to your ears, and a small smile stretched it’s way across your face. 

“just.. headed to the store,” you said casually, as you lept slightly from the last step. your body drifted closer to his, your arms reaching out to wrap snugly around his torso. it was almost instinctual, but you were far too aware of the way you constantly longed for his warmth for any of your actions to be brushed off as involuntary. 

his hands slowly roam your back as you hug him, their path descending to lower territory, and quickly ending their journey as they rest a taunting distance from your rear. 

“the store?” he echoes, his voice a faint, leisurely murmur against your ear. “but i was just thinking about you, baby…” he starts, his fingers tensing a bit against the small of your back. 

“...and… mmmh, you always smell so good, i just wanna…” as the words tumble from his smooth lips, his hands slither down to the flesh of your ass, his fingers digging in with unbridled greed. 

a breath escapes your lips, your inclination to shop suddenly fading, the items on your shopping list suddenly becoming less of an urgent need. 

“won, i need to…” you start, but the harsh squeeze of his hands as they sink into your plush behind, and the way his body began to show you just how hard of a time he was having quickly began to usher any rational thoughts from your mind. 

he leans closer to your face as your weak, unconvincing plea rings throughout the air, and his lips brush against yours with every syllable that his mouth forms. 

“need to what, baby? hm?” his hands leave your ass with reluctance, caressing the curved lines of your waist as his fingers tense with the pressure of reining himself in. 

he continues, his words just as tormenting as his actions, slowly replacing everything you thought you ‘needed’ to do with an insistent desire that mirrored his own. 

“wouldn’t you rather just let me…” your arms now drape delicately around his neck as his hands land upon the waistband of your sweatpants, and his fingers begin to dip beneath the material, tracing along the lace of your thong. 

“do what i want?” his lips now glide along your jaw, igniting each inch of skin with a heat that only his lips could bring, though he still wasn’t kissing you. 

“god… please, won,” the words jumped from your throat in a breathless sigh before you could even think about denying him. 

a soft chuckle floats from jungwon’s lips, causing more heat to burst in your stomach, and the thin material of your thong struggles to accommodate the arousal gushing so plentifully out of you. 

jungwon lifts your body with haste, allowing your legs to wrap around him before ascending the stairs impatiently. in this moment, they were nothing more than an inconvenient obstacle further delaying him from drenching his cock with your sweet warmth. 

he tosses your body onto the bed, watching as you bounce slightly, completely helpless upon impact. your helplessness only serves to provoke his ache to devour you even further.

he lays down on the bed, resting his head against the pillow, his eyes refusing to leave your form– the way the breath escaped from your plump, parted lips as you regained your bearings, the way your chest heaved slightly and your tank top dipped low enough to provide him with a glimpse of your breasts, the way you looked at him as you patiently waited for a command from him. you were so delicate, so flustered, so pliant, and every bit of you belonged to him. all his, just his to use, to take, to ravage. 

“wanna make you choke, come here,” he announced casually, as though the words themselves didn’t weaken every fiber of your body. 

he pushes his pants down as you approach him, and you finish pulling them down the course of his legs as his boxers follow in tandem. 

god, you could never grow tired of worshipping his cock. jungwon is fucking hung. so hung, you can barely stop yourself from calling him ‘hungwon’ whenever you refer to him. he leaked with the evidence of his desperation, fully sprung from his pure adoration for you. 

you spit onto his length, stroking him, lathering him with it, spreading such generous lubrication over every inch of him. as you open your mouth and lower your head onto him, jungwon’s fingers lace into your hair, snatching any false sense of control away from you. he was entirely heedless of any sputters that escaped you as he pushed your head down, forcing his length to the back of your throat. 

a breathy grunt tumbles past his lips as he holds your head in place, thrusting upwards at a leisurely pace, thoroughly enjoying the way your saliva sloshed and flowed around his length, surrounding him, engulfing him with deliciously moist heat. 

“fuck, such a good fucking girl… mmm… just like that baby, yea…” he cooed, his head tilting back and his eyebrows drawing together as the pleasure began to overwhelm him.

the sweet praises which left his lips stood in such bitter contrast to the way he tortured your throat, tears sliding down the bridge of your nose as short, desperate breaths escaped your nostrils. 

with no urgency, he lifts your head from his length, tugging on your hair to encourage you to crawl up his body. as you reach his lips, he forces your face towards his, his fingers remaining stubbornly laced in your hair. his velvety lips meld against yours, and his tongue quickly shoves past your lips to tangle with your own. 

you feel his weight pressing you into the mattress, along with his shoulders caging you in, as he rolls on top of you, his cock prodding so demandingly against your lower abdomen. 

he draws his lips from yours with difficulty, leaving a final, chaste kiss against your lips before his lips meet your neck, leaving an urgent trail of kisses along your heated skin. 

“you’re so beautiful, baby… so damn pretty…” the words hardly leave his lips before he’s yanking your tank top from your body, each piece of your clothing leaving your body with such haste, you barely register the sensations of the material against your skin. 

“open your legs,” he demands, and you oblige, without a single thought.

jungwon swiftly discards his shirt, before his hands latch themselves onto the pillowy flesh of your thighs, his nails leaving imprints from the force of his grip. 

“fuck, look at you…” he whispers, marveling the sight of your glossy arousal spilling onto the sheets beneath you.

a low moan dances to your ears as he plunges himself inside of you, reaching unimaginable depths, punishing you with the speed and pressure of his thrusts as soon as he enters. his eyes flutter as he relishes the sensation of your silky slick swallowing and sucking his cock in. 

“oh, fuuuck, i love this pussy… you’re so fucking good at taking my cock baby, the only thing you’re good for…” he mutters drunkenly, his hand coming up to land a gentle slap across your face as the volume of your moans blares throughout the room. the smack arose from the desire to punish you, unable to control the aggression coursing through his body over how fucking good you were. 

your mouth hangs open, slack and pitiful, a series of whines and moans falling from your lips. tears spring helplessly to your eyes, playing along the edge of your eyelashes, and jungwon’s hands bury themselves within the flesh of your thighs, the pressure promising bruises to your skin. 

jungwon’s hand clamps onto your jaw harshly, forcing your eyes to meet his gaze. his eyebrows were furrowed, aggression, ecstasy, and effort all working together to create his expression. 

“who do you belong to? who’s fucking you dumb, huh?” he demands, his voice low and gruff as the sensation of your pussy surrounds him. 

you answer him, a pathetic “you, won!” leaving your lips, laced in with your moans. 

“that’s right, baby… good girl…my good little whore…” 

his hand clamps harder, squeezing against your cheeks as he instructs you to “open your mouth, baby.”

his spit falls into your open mouth, sliding down your tongue and mingling with your own, before you eagerly every warm drop. jungwon moans lowly as your mouth widens in anticipation for more.

“more? god, you’re such a whore. you’re so fucked up…” with a low hum, jungwon gathers a larger amount of saliva onto his tongue, spitting into your open mouth for the second time. his spit slides down your throat even more deliciously than the first time.

his relentless pounding continues, his long cock stretching you, abusing you, driving himself into you with such violent ferocity that it’s hard to believe he thinks your pussy is precious. mutters of “fucking bitch… nasty fucking bitch” tickle your ear as jungwon hurtles further into a haze of pleasure he’d never even dreamed of before meeting you. 

“mmm… baby, you don’t have a choice, do you? you just let me do whatever i want to you, huh?” in an almost taunting jeer, he grasps onto your breast with a firm hand, squeezing until he earns himself a whimper from you. he solidifies his ownership as he jiggles your flesh around, before returning to his bruising grip on your thigh. 

the velvety, slippery, warm confines of your pussy began to control his every action, his thrusts quickened to a euphoric speed, his erratic movements coupled with desperate breaths leaving his lips. 

your tears stream pathetically down your face, the pleasure coursing through your body only intensifying as jungwon’s desperation and aggression became more evident in each of his movements and noises. 

“too much! can’t, won…” you cry in a puddle of pleasure, every fiber of your body working quickly to prepare for your approaching orgasm, jungwon’s thumb working your clit in quick circles, sending you into a spiral of pure ecstasy that you could never be equipped for.

“too much? but you’re gonna cum all over me, aren’t you baby?” he mocks, his ingenuine coos and his comforting tone only serving to tease you as he continues to tear through you relentlessly. 

your moans grow stuttered, your volume escalating as your pleasure escalates, your delirious moans of his name leaving your lips impulsively, almost as though he was snatching it from you. you cum on his cock, your trembling legs evolving into writhes of your entire body, jungwon punishing your senses with pure bliss as he pummels you through your orgasm, still shoving his way into you at an unfaltering rhythm. 

fuck, you’re gorgeous, he thinks. it’s the most beautifully breathtaking sight his eyes were ever graced with in this life, certainly a sight he’ll never grow weary of. the sight of you, floating in the peak of a pleasure only he can ever bestow onto you. 

if he wasn’t close before, he’s close beyond question, now. as he races closer to his high, he lets out a series of low moans near your ear, quickly rambling, “oh, fuuuck, my dumb little whore…” in such depraved measure. he's not sure how he ever manages to hold out this long with you.

he swiftly withdraws himself from your divine pussy, stroking his cock for a brief duration before spilling his lavish cum over your body abundantly, his low moans now entwined with a more gravelly tone, his other hand drawing blood against your thigh as his nails embed themselves into your skin. a soft, feeble whimper falls from your lips at the sensation. 

he reaches over to the bedside table, retrieving his phone, before snapping a photo of your vulnerable, beautifully cum-drenched form. with two fingers, he greedily scoops his cum from your body, shoveling each bit into your eager mouth. he feeds you until you’re sucking hungrily on his fingers, yearning for just a bit more. 

“that’s all, baby,” he breathes out, chuckling softly before climbing off of the bed to retrieve a warm towel for you. 

jungwon returns, gently running the wet towel over your delicate, battered body, sure to soak up the blood he pulled from your skin in his pleasured haze. 

he brings the soft cover over your body in a tranquil manner as he lay beside you, dragging your drained body close to his, a whisper of “you did well” caressing your ear. you always do so well, no matter the severity of his treatment, he thinks. 

“still need to go shopping, baby?” he teases, another soft chuckle vibrating in his chest as he feels you land a weak slap there, and he pats your bottom with a tender slap in retaliation.

[xf-cases-solved]

ayyyy, @numinousmysteries, guess who it is! it's me, your secret santa for the @poangpals gift exchange, here to gift you words that are kinda angsty, kinda hurt/comfort-y, and kinda (or more than kinda) horny. i've written a lot of cancer arc lately and was like "hmm, maybe i should branch out..." BUT, when i saw your ideal episode was "memento mori but they bang at the end," i was like, "okay, well, obviously this was meant to be." so that is what i have brought you! a post-memento mori fic where they bang at the end! thank you for everything you bring to this community. you're a baller and i hope you enjoy your gift <3 -diz Title: Memento Vivere Word count: ~6500 (bc i can't shut the fuck up to save my life) Rating: Explicit Here's the link to ao3, or save yourself a click and read below!

***

Memento Vivere

She is in the middle of grimacing at her own reflection in the small compact mirror she found at the bottom of her overnight bag when Mulder shows up at her hospital room, keys jangling in his hand as he hovers in the doorway, neither outside nor inside, like he's uncertain about what kind of proximity he's allowed this morning. Like she's a skittish cat he's trying to win over. And what grates at her isn't his tenuous disposition—it's that it's completely warranted, and it's so jarring to be known so well.

She knows that he knows that she bared her heart to him last night, and is now grappling with mortification. She's never been good with emotions. In college, she could do a walk of shame with her head held high, but when a lover would voice their affection for her she would suddenly become incapable of looking them in the eye. Her heart is in a lockbox and sometimes she goes so long without opening it she almost forgets the combination, and when she does manage to pop it open she gets frantic, wanting to immediately slam it shut.

"You about ready to go?" Mulder asks casually. Too casually. He's assessing her like he would a suspect, adjusting his tone to meet her mood and make himself more approachable, and she wants to snap at him for profiling her, but she won't. She can't. Not without confirming his analysis of her, and she doesn't need to open the spine of her book any wider when he can already read her with such clarity.

In her writings—the filled pages already torn from the notebook and shredded into pieces in the wire trash bin next to her bed—she had thought she was divulging the secrets of her heart to him. It occurs to her only now, as he watches her from across the room with a purposefully mild expression, that while he may not know her every thought, he is the only other person who knows the combination to the lockbox in her chest. He could open it at any time, but he doesn't. He could reach inside her and hold her beating heart in his cupped hands, learning every detail and committing it to memory, but he would never take from her anything that wasn't freely given. His respect is almost more overwhelming than anything, because it's a reminder that if he weren't an honorable man he could ruin her. He has access to her nuke, and she can do nothing but trust that he won't hit the button.

"Yeah, just a second," she replies—casual. 

She slips the compact mirror back inside her bag and gets to her feet. She tries to summon the woman inside her who walks down the hallways of the Hoover Building—confident, assertive, and unaffected by stares or assumptions—but it's difficult without her body armor. Even though she only had one infusion of the chemo, her body still feels frail and hungover, like the day after a bad twenty-four hour flu, and she's wearing flats with her yoga pants and sweater, highlighting the height disparity between the two of them in a way her heels usually help to mitigate. There wasn't a hair dryer to use after her shower, so the natural curls she usually irons out are taking over, absurdly making her feel disorderly and sloppy. And she's not wearing makeup, and it's not the dark circles around her eyes or even the mole above her lip that she's self-conscious about—it's the freckles that spatter across her cheeks and nose. Well put together women don't have freckles, and she's sure he's going to interpret her vulnerabilities on her sun-kissed skin like the soggy tea leaves at the bottom of a china cup. 

The worst part of dying, she's starting to think, is the discovery that her walls that felt sturdy like concrete are actually made of straw, and there's nothing like an illness to come sweeping through to blow your house down.

On the way out of the hospital they pass the room Penny died in. She looks away from the door, and Mulder looks at her. In a blink-and-you-miss-it moment he reaches over and squeezes her hand. 

They don't say anything. 

Scully thinks his choice of silence says more than words ever could.

*

When she wakes up on her couch she isn't sure if it was the nightmare that roused her, or the relentless throbbing in her head.

The ride back home from Allentown had been uncomfortable in every sense of the word. Mulder had rambled theories at her—about Dr. Scanlon and MUFON and government agendas—until her lack of engagement made the conversation eventually dissolve, first into him nervously chattering about the most ridiculous X-Files cases he could think of and, when that didn't work either, into nothing, a pall falling over them as she shifted restlessly in her seat, unable to find a position that didn't feel ill-fitting like a shirt that she couldn't untwist. They didn't once speak the word cancer.

She hadn't meant to fall asleep after he dropped her off, but ten minutes into some daytime talk show and she was suddenly dead to the world, and judging by the low light that surrounds her, she has slept all the way from early afternoon well into dusk. The TV still flickers at her, now playing the evening news, and she's sure that there aren't going to be any headlines about manufactured brain tumors and shady oncologists who betray their Hippocratic oath by purposefully poisoning women who look to them for salvation. The types of horrors she witnesses rarely make the news. Not with all the facts attached, at least.

She pushes herself up with a groan. Her head really hurts, and although her first instinct is to attribute it to the mass in her sinus cavity, when she reaches up to swipe under her nose there are no remnants of dried blood, and the dryness of her tongue and hollowness of her belly makes her think that the rhythmic throbbing in her skull is probably because she can't remember the last time she had a glass of water or a single bite of food. 

She goes about the motions of getting together what she supposes is technically dinner, even though she forgot to proceed it with breakfast or lunch, and when she gets it all together—a hearty meal of half a banana, a slice of buttered toast, three ibuprofen, and a tall glass of ice water—she settles back down on the couch and assesses the other ache she'd awoken with.

The nightmare is formless in her memory, lacking a cohesive plotline now that she's in the waking world, but nevertheless, the emotions it stirred up inside her are visceral. There is a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach, bottomless as the abyss. It's a type of fear that grips her from the inside, putting her adrenal gland into a chokehold and activating her fight or flight, except she can't fight her own mind anymore than she can flee it. 

This is how she knows, even without the details, that her dream was about dying.

These types of dreams have been coming to her more frequently nowadays, starting the night Leonard Betts spoke five chilling words to her in the back of an ambulance. She's had friends who have been pregnant, and they would often tell her about the constant dreams they would have on the subject throughout the entire nine months. In a way, she figures, it's a similar concept; she and her friends all have had dreams about what their body is growing inside them—the notable difference of course being that they grew something into life, and she's growing something that takes it away. 

Tomorrow she is going to have to start making phone calls. Make appointments and discuss treatment options and try not to get discouraged when the options are limited. When she first told Mulder about the cancer, he had been so insistent, saying, "There must be some people who receive treatment for this," and at the time she hadn't been able to bring herself to tell him that she wasn't sure she was going to be one of them. The odds were, and are, so heavily stacked against her, and as a medical doctor she is very aware that sometimes quality of life outweighs the quantity of it. Her experience in Allentown hasn't really endeared her toward the idea either, if she's being honest, and not because of Scanlon, or even because of Penny, but because she had not felt sick at all, up until she tried to treat the illness, and then suddenly she'd been in hell. 

But while she may be uncomfortable with how much of herself she bared to him last night, she knows that she made promises that she can't take back. She is loyal to a fault, and she gave both him and herself her word that she would continue to live as long as she could, and so she will. 

She's just not convinced much of her life in the upcoming days and weeks and months and maybe even years will feel much like living. In fact, she's pretty worried—down to the very depths of her subconscious, if her dreams are any indication—that she's going to feel like she's dying.

They say doctors make the worst patients. Sometimes that's because of stubbornness. Sometimes it's because they know exactly what to expect.

She finishes her meager meal and drinks down the last of her water. She slips an ice cube into her mouth and bites down on it, shattering it into pieces. The enamel of her teeth has always been sensitive to temperature, but instead of being off-put by the pain that spikes through to her jawbone when the ice touches her nerves, she revels in it. Her head, while somewhat improved, is still aching, and she finds herself appreciating that as well. She finds she is grateful for the signs her body is giving her to tell her it's still here, and maybe that's the trick. Maybe to get through this she has to go into it with a respect for the pain. This only hurts because I am alive, she'll have to train herself to think. 

She can do that. She's certainly stubborn enough. 

She wishes it didn't all have to be about pain, though. She doesn't want to forget that a body can feel good things too.

Ice crunches between her teeth, shocking her like a root canal, while she thinks about the signs of life that are enjoyable. Warmth. Comfort. Pleasure.

Pleasure.

On the TV, the news anchors are tying up their reports that are lacking things they don't even realize are missing. In her mouth her internal temperature warms the ice water, and the ebbing of the pain is a brief moment of gratification that acts as a sampling of what endorphins can do. 

Tomorrow she is going to have to make plans to put herself in a varying, yet indefinite state of pain, and she will have to learn to appreciate it in order to remember how to be alive. 

Tonight, however, she could remind herself in a different way.

It is a terrible idea.

It's an idea she has had a million times before and has stamped down just as often.

Ten minutes later and she's out her front door and getting into the driver's side of her car. Muscle memory guides her down the streets toward Alexandria, while she spends the whole drive telling herself to turn back.

She doesn't.

*

"Hey," Mulder says in surprise, eye widening slightly at the sight of her standing at his door. He's got on a white tank top and dark grey sweatpants, looking nothing like the federal agent he usually does. Instead of seeing a professional, albeit a tad bit crazy, government official, she sees her friend in the way that is much easier to ignore when he's wearing a suit and an ugly patterned tie. Like this, he exudes masculine energy, and her eyes are immediately drawn to the slopes and curves of his muscular shoulders and biceps. There is hair peeking out on his chest where the neckline of his shirt dips low. He hasn't shaved for at least a day, an even stubble shadowing his cheeks and jaw. She drops her gaze to the floor before he can catch her roaming eyes, and she sees his feet are bare. For some reason that's the most intimate part of it all, and the reality of what she's come here to do hits her like a freight train and she flushes with what must be a particularly spectacular shade of red.

In contrast, she's feeling a lot like she did this morning, like a soldier out of uniform. She's wearing the same pair of yoga pants, and under her coat she has on a faded souvenir t-shirt her parents gave her after an anniversary trip to the Outer Banks well over five years ago. It occurs to her only now that she'd left in such a rush that she hadn't even bothered with a bra, and she becomes instantly aware of the oversized shirt brushing directly against her breasts.

At least she wore boots with a heel this time, but in reality it's not doing much to level the playing field. Mulder's six-foot frame still dwarfs her completely, and while she normally feels like a peer in his presence—like a respected intellectual whose gender is totally irrelevant—tonight she is feeling a lot like she did the first time she entered a university science lecture and found herself surrounded almost entirely by men. The difference is that back then she had felt, ridiculously, embarrassed by her femininity, hyper-aware of every questioning stare, asking the same question: What is she doing here?

But like with most things, Mulder—simply by virtue of being Mulder—challenges her way of thinking. While she has long since stopped viewing her womanhood as a flaw, she is always viscerally aware when the people around her view it as one, and over time that has bred resentment. Standing here before him, though, she holds no animosity toward the difference in their sexes. Like the way her science complements his reckless belief, so too, in this moment, does her feminine ying balance his masculine yang. 

She doesn't even worry about the freckles on her makeupless face. 

"Scully?" He sounds concerned, and she realizes she's been standing here in silence after appearing at his apartment unannounced, and the last time they saw each other it had ended with her muttering a curt goodbye as she all but bolted from his car to escape the suffocation of her own self-imposed belief that emotional vulnerability was akin to disgrace.

But what Mulder isn't privy to yet is that the shame from this morning about being so transparent has been wholly replaced by the need of a dying woman to be reminded of the good parts of being alive. Scully is ready to be bare, by every definition, and she can only hope that he'll let her. 

Refusing to give in to cowardice, she forces herself to look up from the floor to meet his eye. 

"Can I come in?" she asks.

"Yeah, of course." He angles himself to place a hand on the small of her back, ushering her inside, and even through her coat and shirt the contact burns like the ice touching her enamel. She kicks off her boots, sinking back down to her natural five foot two—three, if the height gauge at the doctor's office chooses to be generous—and lets him take her coat and hang it up, before leading them both over to the couch. He plops down, leaving a purposeful vacancy beside him, and looks up at her expectantly, but she doesn't sit. Cocking his head, he asks, "Are you all right? Why are you here? If you needed something you know you could have called me and I would have come to you. I know you only went through one day of treatment, but I'm sure it had to have taken a toll on your—"

"I'm fine," she insists, cutting him off. She doesn't say it harshly, but she doesn't leave room for him to argue against it either, even though she can tell he desperately wants to. Instead, he chooses to heed her command, and presses his lips closed, waiting for her to tell him why she's standing here when earlier today they drove over three hours and she had barely said a word the entire time.

It's possible she didn't think this far ahead. More than that—it's possible she hasn't thought this through at all. 

But she's committed now, and she's starting to feel feral, her needs centered around primitive instincts. It is in every species' nature to fight for survival at any cost, but she is burdened with a human's intellect that can allow her to deny herself continued survival if doing so also means prolonged suffering. If she is to keep her promise—if she is to fight for her life with treatments that make her feel sicker than the disease they're targeting—then she has to go into it with a memory that reminds her why it's worth it to stay alive.

She walks over to his desk and leans against it, mindlessly thumbing through documents strewn carelessly across the top. There are pieces from casefiles, and pages photocopied from obscure books on phenomena she'd never believe. There are scratch pieces of paper with notes scribbled on them, written in a shorthand that she's sure only makes sense to him. There are newspaper clippings and articles torn from tabloid magazines he would call source material, and she would call a scam. She doesn't read any of it, but she keeps her eyes trained on them as she considers her next steps.

Gaze pinned on a faded picture of some kind of creature that has clearly come off a printer that was running low on ink, she finally says, "I want to ask you for a favor, but I should warn you that it's a bit unorthodox."

"Unorthodox, huh? I dunno, Scully, I'm a pretty conventional guy, I'm not sure I can handle anything out of the ordinary."

A smile tugs at the corner of her lips. How does he do that? she wonders. How does he know how to calm her when he doesn't even know that she's feeling frantic in the first place? 

That you should know my heart, look into it, finding there the memory and experience that belong to you. That are you. 

Those were words she had written only days before, placed inside a journal that was meant to be a confessional, but again, she should have known better. What use is there in inviting someone into your heart when they're already there?

She stops fiddling with the contents of his desk and looks over at him. He's regarding her with an expression of concern that on a different day she would construe as pity and detest, but right now she has the capacity to accept that he's looking at her like that, not because she's weak, but because he cares. Because he's worried. Because he wants her to live.

"Last night, when you said you read some of what I wrote... how much did you read exactly?"

Mulder rubs the nape of his neck and shrugs.

"A bit," he says, which she takes to mean "all of it." She can picture him, after confirming she was safe, sneaking into her hospital room and sitting on her bed, skimming each page, and then going back through a second time to take it in more fully. It should feel like an invasion of privacy, but instead her impulse is to huff a small laugh. She tries so hard to hide from him, and yet he finds her every time.

"So you know about the treatment. What it feels like." He nods slowly, like he's trying to piece together what she's getting at and hasn't quite formed a cohesive picture yet. She sighs.

"Tomorrow I'm going to set up a meeting with Skinner and take him up on his offer in getting into contact with an oncologist. We can still pursue the case—that is, if any new evidence presents itself to give us any new leads—but in the meantime, I need to figure out what treatment options are available to me. Time is of the essence in these sorts of situations." 

Mulder nods again, still waiting for the clarifying piece of the puzzle.

"Mulder, without talking it over with a specialist, I can't know for certain what treatment route they're going to have me take, but with my medical background I can make an educated enough guess to safely say that, whatever it is, it's not going to be pleasant."

"Any help you need, Scully, you know I'm just a phone call away. And don't worry about work. If you have to take leave that's fine. What matters most is that you get yourself health—"

"I know. I know that, but that's not what I came here to talk to you about."

"... Okay." He gives a small shake of his head. "What then? What's the favor?"

Scully draws her lower lip between her teeth. 

"I need your help," she says slowly, "in reminding myself that my body can do more than feel pain. That it's more than just a vessel to get me from one place to another... I need you to help me remember why it's worth saving."

"I don't..." he starts, but his sentence trails off as she makes her approach over to him with a purposeful gait. She goes to stand between his legs and he opens them wider to give her space like the action is automatic. He tilts his head back to look dumbly up at her, and the change in dynamic—her above and him below—makes her feel some type of way low in her belly. 

She reaches out and cups his face, tracing the line of his cheekbone with her thumb, and she sees his Adam's apple bob as he swallows. She thinks the picture may be becoming clear to him now.

"Scully—"

"You can tell me to leave," she cuts him off. "You can say no and I won't hold it against you. We don't ever have to talk about it again. But if you're willing..."

Mulder gives a breathy, disbelieving laugh.

"Scully, trust me, it's not a matter of whether or not I'm willing, but look at what all you've been through in the past couple days. I don't think you're thinking rationally, and I don't want to take advantage—"

"Not thinking rationally? Me?" She smiles a little as she pulls her hand back, making a point to drag her fingers slowly across his skin on the way, and she doesn't think she imagines him leaning into her touch. "Mulder, I appreciate your concern, but why don't you let me decide what I do and don't want to do."

"Scully..."

"Do you trust me?"

He lets out a frustrated sigh.

"Of course I do."

She takes hold of both of his wrists, and when she tugs his arms out to settle his hands on her hips she's met with slight resistance, but she knows it's just for show. She's not weak, but he's got plenty of strength to get away from her if he really wanted to. Instead, the pads of his fingers press into her pelvic bone, even after she's dropped her hold on his wrists.

"Then trust me when I say this is what I need from you," she says. She smirks and adds, "I told you it was unorthodox." 

"You weren't kidding," he mutters, and fuck, his eyes are boring into hers so intensely she nearly shudders. 

Sweatpants are not exactly ideal when it comes to maintaining modesty in sensitive situations, and Scully's effect on him does not go unnoticed. Her eyes dart down to the significant bulge between his thighs, and then back up to his face where he gives a bashful half-grin accompanied with a one-shouldered shrug, as if to say "can you blame me?"

"I won't hold it against you," she tells him again, "but I do want this."

"Fuck," Mulder breathes. He shuts his eyes for a beat, like he's trying to compose himself, and then blinks them back open, embers of an impending fire starting to glow behind his dilating pupils. "This is a bad idea," he tells her, stating it more like a fact than as a deterrent. 

"Maybe," she agrees.

"We have to work together tomorrow. And the day after that. And after that one, too. You don't think this will... change things?"

"Not if we don't let it." 

"You really think it's that simple?"

She considers the question. Considers whether or not she can learn what it's like to have him explore her body tonight, and then pretend like she didn't come morning.

"We're two consenting adults," she says, evading the question. "Has the thought of doing this really never crossed your mind?"

"That... That feels like a leading question."

"Would it make you feel better if I said that it has definitely crossed mine?"

"Jesus, Scully," he breathes, shifting in his seat and clutching her hips so tight that she won't be surprised if later she finds finger-shaped bruises on her skin, reminiscent of dusted prints at a crime scene.

"It's just sex, Mulder," but even as she says it, she knows it's a lie.

He knows it too, judging by the muscle twitching in his clenched jaw as he holds her eyes with a steady look.

"Is it?" he asks evenly, and they both know the answer is no.

No. Of course not. Sex could never be "just" anything between them, but the reason why is a topic they've come to an unspoken agreement to never acknowledge aloud. But Scully isn't stupid. She knows that the way electricity behaves between them—constantly thrumming and sparking, in tense situations as well as banal—isn't normal. Four years ago she dropped her robe in front of him in a candle lit hotel room, and she hasn't stopped feeling his gaze on her lower back since; the tender way his eyes roved over her delusive mosquito bites is as permanent a tattoo as the blood red ouroboros that has only recently lost its scabs.

The term "something more" is a vague and fanciful concept she would sooner dismiss as nothing but a perpetuation of commercialized romance, if she herself wasn't subjected to it on a near daily basis. Since day number one there has been an elusive "something more" surrounding them, fighting for their attention, even as they so ardently deny its existence.

So no, it isn't just sex, but Scully also didn't come here to give voice to the elephant that follows them from room to room. To put it plainly, she came here so he could fuck the will to live back into her body, and she refuses to lose sight of her mission.

So in lieu of a response—because she can't animate any elephants, but neither can she lie to a man who treats truth like the core tenet to his religion—she instead throws caution to the wind, swoops in, and kisses him. 

Ice touches enamel. She wants it to burn.

Whatever reservations or protests he may have been fighting against must not be too hard to cast aside, because his response to her is instant, tilting his head to slot their lips together and kissing back so forcefully their teeth clack together. But even that doesn't, or maybe can't slow them down.

Mulder's hands move from her hips to her ass, and in a single swift movement he lifts her onto his lap. He swallows her surprised gasp as she straddles his thighs, his hard cock brushing her center, the layers of their clothing teasing her relentlessly when right now she needs skin-on-skin more than she needs air.

Mulder seems to be of the same mind, because one second she's sitting astride him fully clothed, and in the next he has somehow stripped her of her shirt, tossing it carelessly onto the floor. Returning the favor, she peels his off too, feeling like a kid at Christmas unwrapping the box she knows contains the best present under the tree.

Scully tries to recapture his lips, but he stills her with a gentle hand on her shoulder. He then leans back to get a good, long look at her.

"God, Scully," he whispers reverently, eyes trained on her chest. He reaches out to touch her, and when he does her breasts fit perfectly in his hands. Tentatively, and with such profound focus you'd think he was attempting to split an atom, he pinches her left nipple and rolls it experimentally between his index finger and thumb. It's such a simple touch, but it goes straight to her leaking cunt, and when she moans Mulder's attention darts back up to her face, the embers behind his eyes now a full-fledged forest fire, blazing a warpath through the trees. He makes it a point not to break her gaze when he leans in and takes the same nipple into his mouth.

"Mmm," she hums, letting her head loll back. He sucks the nub of her nipple taut, and involuntarily she bucks her hips in response. 

Mulder mumbles something incoherent against her breast, and when she asks for clarification, he pulls away with an obscene pop and then nuzzles his face in the crook of her neck, saying, "You're everything."

Everything. Like he ran through the full gamut of adjectives and found himself wanting. Like she is so many things at once that there isn't a single word that encompasses the breadth of her worth to him. 

You're everything.

It's the most overwhelming compliment she has ever received, because she wants, more than anything, to live up to it, and yet she's not even sure if she is going to be able to simply live, period. She's not sure when her greatest fear became failing him. It might have been the first time he ever challenged her. When she stood in front of his projector, veiled by the illuminated slides he'd already prepared for her arrival, as he quizzed her on chemistry, and causes of death, and the supposed limits of science in a vast and complex universe. She had wanted to prove herself to him then, and then just never stopped. 

The truth of his influence over her is too much to handle right now, so she decides to kiss him again—an act that is quickly becoming her new favorite strategy for deflection—and then buries her fingers in his hair. She oscillates her hips in slow circles, taunting them both with light but consistent pressure on his cock. She feels him twitch in anticipation for her, and her pulse throbs in her cunt in turn.

"I want you," she whispers against his lips, but he shakes his head.

"No," he murmurs. "No, not yet."

Before she can ask him for clarification, he's lifting her up with a firm grip on the backs of her thighs, and then proceeds to lay her down lengthwise on the couch.

There's a manic energy wafting off of him in waves, and yet, in total contrast, the way he slides her leggings and panties down and off her legs is so purposeful and leisurely that she has the absurd thought that nobody has ever undressed her with such respect before.

When he kisses her soundly on the mouth and then begins making a trek down her body with his lips and tongue and an occasional nip of his teeth, she feels—for the first time since she stepped foot inside his apartment with this ludacris idea—a pang of apprehension.

For the most part, she isn't a self-conscious person. Once she got past the awkwardness of adolescence, she's had a fairly healthy relationship with her self-image. But that said, Mulder's intended destination is obvious, and she's had enough sexual partners turn their nose up at the suggestion that for a moment she worries he's only doing it because he thinks she expects it of him.

But then he settles himself in between her thighs and peers up at her with a hunger better fit for a man so far into starvation he's about to succumb to it, and she realizes then that while he may be able to read all the words on her every page, it is not a one-sided transparency. If ever there were to be a scholar on the topic of Fox William Mulder, she would be the one.

The apprehension, already fleeting in the first place, dissipates entirely, and she lets her legs fall open in invitation.

There is no hesitancy in his acceptance. He uses two fingers to part her labia, and then starts off by dragging the flat of his tongue from her soaking entrance up to her swollen clit in one long stroke, and that alone has her crying out, unconcerned about how she sounds or how thin the walls might be. 

Never a man to miss important details, it's unsurprising the speed at which he masters the intricacies of her body. She knows he's paying attention to every miniscule shift in her body language by the way he adjusts the pressure and speed and direction of his mouth and tongue. When he slips one finger inside her, quickly following it up with a second, and pulses a come hither motion as he sucks on her aching clit she wants to sob. He eats cunt with the devotion of a holy man, and he makes her feel deserving of being worshipped.

This is why it's worth it to live. Because for every twinge and ache and pain her body is capable of, it is equally capable of so much good feeling that it could constitute a religious experience. That while there are always going to be moments of suffering, there are also going to be moments of pleasure, and to truly live you have to accept the full spectrum of what it means to possess a human body.

When the coiling heat in her cunt finally boils over, and she arches her back and cries out Mulder's name while a rapturous climax works through her, suspending time and space, she thinks to herself, over and over like a mantra—like a promise: This is what I'm fighting for. This is what I'm fighting for. This. Is what. I am fighting for.

When she comes back to herself enough to spring into action, she is barely conscious of her own movements, acting more on primal instinct as she yanks Mulder up and kisses him sloppily, licking into his mouth and tasting herself on his tongue as she manages to flip them so that he's lying on his back, panting up at her with blown pupils and parted lips. 

She gets his sweatpants and boxers pulled down past his knees, and he kicks them the rest of the way off. He curses when she takes hold of him and guides him to her entrance, unable to wait to be filled by him any longer. 

He's so big, and even with the slickness from her orgasm she has to take him in slowly, letting her cunt adjust to the stretch of him. 

"There's so much of you," she groans, rocking her hips, slipping him in further inch by inch. He's holding onto her hips again, gripping her like she's a life preserver as he clenches his jaw, clearly trying his utmost not to thrust into her before she's ready for it.

"You feel... Jesus, Scully, there aren't words to describe how you feel," he says, strained between gritted teeth, and she's so thankful for him. For his patience. For his attention. For the "something more" between them that she doesn't dare give a name to, even in the privacy of her own mind.

When she finally takes him to the hilt, it feels like an accomplishment. Skewered between her legs on his massive cock, she has the same sense of satisfaction she gets when she pins him into a corner during a debate. Already he has infiltrated almost every aspect of her life, and now he's inside her body as well, and she understands what he meant before, because it's everything. He's everything.

She tells him so, and that's more than he can handle. After the words spill from her lips, he thrusts up into her, making her shout, but on the next thrust she meets him in a counter-rhythm, driving him impossibly deeper inside her. The apartment is full of the sounds and smells of sex as she begins to ride him in earnest. She plays with her own tits, and he watches her, rapt with attention, and when his breathing starts to hollow, he puts a hand between her legs and lets her rub her clit against him.

"Yes," she moans, riding him harder, shocked that he has her teetering on the edge again so soon. "God, yes. Mulder, I—I'm going to—" 

She completes her sentence nonverbally, falling over the edge once more, and this time Mulder follows her. He's chanting nonsense syllables that are probably supposed to be her name, as she clenches around him and milks his cock dry, letting him fill her fully and completely. She wants to feel his spend leaking out of her later. She wants to feel bruised when she walks. She wants to remember every last second of tonight—even if they never speak of it again—because she is going to need the memories in order to face what's waiting for her come tomorrow.

When they've both returned to Earth, they stay joined together in silence for just a little longer, searching each other's faces, possibly for signs of regret, or maybe just for the sake of looking. He pushes a strand of her hair behind her ear and she lets her eyes flutter shut, leaning into the touch. Between her legs he's starting to soften. Her unorthodox favor has been fulfilled, and reality is hurtling back to them at speed.

"Thank you," she says, not opening her eyes. 

He doesn't respond for a few beats, and then he says, "It's worth it, Scully. Remember it's worth it." 

She nods. 

It's so easy, she thinks, to be aware of her own mortality. To remember that she will die.

She vows now that, in the face of every upcoming obstacle, she will remind herself, often, that she can also live.

[captainsophiestark]

Not On The Guest List

Platonic!Percy Jackson x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written for my personal fic writing challenge for 2024, Sophie's Year of Fic! Featuring a new fic being posted every Friday, all year long :)

Fandom: Percy Jackson

Summary: An uninvited guest shows up to Percy and Annabeth's wedding. Luckily, Percy's mortal cousin is on the case.

Word Count: 1,456

Category: Fluff

A/N: One fic a week every Friday of 2024!! We freaking did it!!! Guys, I literally have no idea how I managed to pull this off. But I did! Woohoo!!! Also, this fic and this fic also feature Percy and his cousin having adventures, although you don't need to read either of them to enjoy this one.

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

"Hey! How's it going in here?" I called, knocking on the door as I slowly pushed it open. My cousin and favorite person in the universe, Percy Jackson, called back in response.

"It's going good."

I pushed the door the rest of the way open to find him standing in the center of the room in his tux, looking perfectly polished. I grinned, then made a show of wiping tears out of the corners of my eyes. Percy rolled his eyes, but he was grinning all the same.

"My baby cousin's all grown up," I cried, crossing the room to wrap him in a big hug. He hugged me back, tight, and when we finally pulled apart we were both beaming. "Annabeth's gonna faint."

Percy just laughed and shook his head.

"If anybody's going to faint at this wedding, it'll be me. Or maybe Grover."

"I don't think anybody'd blame either of you."

Percy and I shared a smile, but before we could do anything else, the satyr in question came bursting into the room, looking more than a little panicked. He stopped short when he noticed me and Percy, glancing between the two of us like he really didn't know what to do.

"Grover?" asked Percy, taking a few steps forward. "What's wrong?"

"Uh..." He glanced to me again, then back to Percy. "Nothing! Just... a small problem."

"What is it?" said Percy. I stepped forward, too, trying to give Grover a reassuring smile.

"I'm happy to help, whatever it is the bride and groom need. We'll figure it out."

Grover didn't look any less nervous as he wrung his hands and looked between us. He'd probably been hoping to find one of the magical members of Percy's side of the wedding party, but I'd have to make do.

"It's just... I just saw He- the goddess of marriage outside."

"Hera's here?" demanded Percy, nearly shouting the words without a care for whether she'd notice the use of her name. I scowled, even as Grover seemed to get more and more nervous.

"I guess, since this is a half-blood wedding, she decided..."

Percy practically growled, and I saw a look of pure rage on his face directed at the Queen of Olympus. Probably, if he had to, he'd go out there and start a fight himself to keep her away from his and Annabeth's wedding. Luckily, he had the best cousin in the world to help him out, instead.

"I've got this," I declared, stepping forward and putting a hand on Percy's shoulder. "Leave this to me."

"Hold on..." said Percy, stopping me short as I started to head for the door. "Are you sure? I mean... she can cause all kinds of problems..."

"I know. I've heard all about the shit she's stirred for you and for Annabeth. But I'm mortal, and almost definitely not on her radar. Don't worry about it, Perce. I've got this."

I shot him a wink, then turned and booked it out of the room before either he or Grover could second guess me.

Thankfully, despite being mortal, it didn't take me long to locate Hera once I made it outside the wedding venue. She was practically glowing, and she was the only person in range who had a scowl on her face. I cleared my throat, straightened my shoulders, and shifted into character. Then, I rushed forward and grabbed the nearest person to Hera by the arm. I didn't know her, but I didn't need to for this to work.

"Did you hear?" I asked in a very loud stage whisper. The woman looked at me in absolute confusion, but I continued, just hoping she wouldn't say anything to ruin my play. "I just heard them talking, and they're calling off the wedding."

The woman in front of me gasped, and although I didn't dare look, I could feel Hera's attention shifting to me.

"I know! But it's done. It's like a curse or something, I swear. Everything's been going wrong, and they've been fighting for, like, the past hour. We're working on putting an announcement together for the guests, but like... this is not happening. We all thought they were bulletproof. Apparently not..."

The woman I'd started speaking to looked horrified, but she stopped mattering to me as Hera walked past us, a smirk on her face. Before she reached the corner of the venue, she disappeared into thin air. I smiled.

"Are you... are you serious?" the woman before me asked, her hand flying to her heart. I straightened up and grinned, pausing for one last check that Hera was nowhere in sight before answering.

"Nope! Sorry, weird prank. I thought it'd be a hit, but... clearly not. Enjoy the ceremony!"

The woman scowled, shocked and furious, but I turned and headed inside before she could make a scene. As far as I was concerned, that was a complete mission success. It wouldn't be a forever fix, since Hera would figure out the wedding did actually go on at some point, but hopefully I'd done things well enought that none of us would get in trouble for it. I headed back towards the groom's room to let Percy know the good news, but somebody stopped me just before I rounded the corner to the right hallway.

I looked up to see someone I recognized from a few pictures Percy and Sally had around their houses. Poseidon himself, attending his son's wedding in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts. I narrowed my eyes.

"That was well done," he said, giving me a small smile and nod. I quickly schooled my expression to absolute neutrality.

"I don't know what you're talking about. On an unrelated note, any chance your magic powers would allow you to change into a suit for this wedding? Or at least pants with the Hawaiin shirt?"

Poseidon just stared at me for a long moment, then finally, he started laughing.

"I can see the family resemblance to Sally," he said, clapping a hand on my shoulder and giving me a good-natured smile. "And don't worry. I'm happy to cover for you if anyone starts asking questions."

I sighed. It wasn't an answer to my pants question, but it was a promise to lie to Hera for me, so... I guess I'd take it.

"Thanks. And thanks for coming. I know it'll mean a lot to Percy."

Poseidon gave another smile and nod, then headed off to join the rest of the wedding guests. I watched him go for a moment, then took a deep breath and turned to go find Percy like I'd been trying to do. Never a dull moment since I'd reconnected with this side of the family, but I'd also never regretted it for a second.

Percy was over the moon when I'd told him, and not long after, he and Annabeth finally walked down the isle and said their vows. The ceremony was absolutely beautiful, and by some miracle, we didn't get a reappearance from Hera. After so many pictures everyone in the wedding party was ready to drop, we moved on to an absolutely outstanding reception. With literal magical Olympians in attendance, the party got immediately into full swing, and continued long into the early hours of the next morning.

After whirling around the dancefloor for more songs in a row than I could count, I finally made my way to plop down at a table for just a few moments of breathing and taking the weight off my feet. At least half the guests had already called it a night, but a core of us were still going.

As I took a deep breath, Percy emerged from the dancefloor's crowd and made his way over to me, too. I grinned as I saw him coming, raising the glass of water I'd found in toast.

"Congratulations," I said as he sat down next to me, a massive, dopey smile on his face. "Again."

"Thanks. And thanks for the help today with... You Know Who. Don't know what we would've done without you."

I grinned. "Sure thing, Perce. I missed a lot of Olympian days when you were in the middle of the shit, and even if I hadn't, I know I probably wouldn't have been able to help much. So I'm glad I'm able to help now."

Percy smiled and leaned over to give my shoulder a squeeze, then slumped back in his chair. We sat for a few moments in comfortable silence, watching fondly as our friends and loved ones continued to destroy the dance floor.

In another moment or two, I knew we'd be dragged back into the middle of it, both with smiles on our faces. But it was nice to be able to take a quick breather with my favorite cousin amidst the festivities to just sit back and enjoy the moment.

****************

Everything Taglist: @rosecentury @kmc1989 @space-helen @misshale21

Riordanverse Taglist: @valkyriepirate

[darkurgetrash]

I find Rolan difficult to write and I need tips for my uhm...self-indulgent fanfic

Oooh!! Fun, I love a self-indulgent fanfic. You’ll have to be sure to post it in the rolan tag!

I’d say the best advice I could give is to just think about what Rolan’s character and personality actually is. The reason I find him so fun to write is because, unlike the companions, he has just enough character to be a well written character, but isn’t central enough to make it so you can’t write him in your own interpretation. Every Rolan fic I’ve ever read has a very different version of Rolan, including the two I’ve written—not everyone will agree, but such is the nature of fandom.

As for forming an idea of what he’s like, you can also look into other fics and especially headcanon posts to really inform your idea of him and also build out his character more. When writing characters in general, you want to have a good idea of small details—things that make a character feel like a person and not just a trope. For example, it would be easy to say “he’s grumpy and cocky” and interpret that as who he is. But then, looking more into his character, you can decide that that’s all for show and to hide insecurities, and focus on this trait to develop his character.

As for a more practical tip, look into how he actually speaks in the game (there’s a YouTube video with all his voice lines that I’ve watched to death) and what words he likes to use—e.g. ‘zurgan’ ‘wretched’ ‘damnation’—and also look into when he used those words. For example, when he’s drunk and grieving, he tells you to “sod off”, which is a very colloquial thing to say, especially from someone who seems like he thinks he’s intellectually above others. From that verbiage alone. you could draw hundreds of conclusions about his character.

Also, consult with the several hundreds of Rolan professionals across tumblr. 😂 We all have different ideas of who he is and how he talks. Tonnes of us still write about him, @lemonsrosesandlavender @redroomroaving @reverieblondie @sorceresssundries to name but a few.

I hope this all has helped. ☺️❤��� Good luck with the Rolan brain rot!

[itsbenedict]

Okay, but what would the roster of that game look like? I... actually need to know this now. Let's break it down.

First: who in the cast does and does not have a mom?

First- characters who definitively do not have mothers who make any visual appearance in any Nintendo media:

Princess Peach (knows not of her past; adopted by Toads)

Donkey Kong (Wrinkly is his grandma, and we never learn who his confusingly-named father Donkey Kong Jr. sired him with.)

Captain Falcon (international man of mystery)

Falco Lombardi (intergalactic bird of mystery)

the Ice Climbers (we know nothing about their relationships, even with each other. official sources are inconsistent on whether they're related, romantically involved, or just good friends.)

Kirby (shaped like a friend)

Princess Zelda from Ocarina of Time (though we'll get into other Zeldas)

Link (and his younger self) from Ocarina of Time

Mr. Game and Watch (?????????????)

And special mention to Mewtwo, who wins the prize for being the least mom-having character in the entire game, being the only one to canonically, definitely not have a mom of any sort, being a clone of Mew created in a lab.

Next up: the characters who are basically just animals.

Yoshi is sometimes treated like a specific character, but there are hordes of technicolor Yoshis all over the place, many of whom fall tragically into pits. They give birth to eggs all the time, so a Yoshi is technically Yoshi's mom, unless of course you want to count Mama Luigi.

Likewise, Pikachu and Jigglypuff are species of pokémon capable of breeding and producing more of themselves as offspring. Due to the way egg groups work, any pokémon in the Field or Fairy egg groups is capable of being Pikachu or Jigglypuff's mom, respectively. Who's to say Pikachu's mom is not a Dunsparce? No one, that's who.

Notably, Pichu is the only one of these who cannot just continue to be in the game as its own mom. Baby pokémon cannot breed- so Pichu's mom could be in the game, but not Pichu itself.

It is time for legit mom-havers.

First, the Mario Brothers. It's a bit of a tricky situation, but... yes, they have a mom. The only appearance she ever makes in the games is in SMW2, Yoshi's Island, as presumably one of two pairs of hands:

Mama Mario does technically make an appearance in the Illumination movie, but for the purposes of this exercise we are not going to acknowledge that thing. Instead, we can go by the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, wherein she makes several appearances, played by Captain Lou Albano:

So that's definitely fair game.

Again diving into the Super Show well, Bowser has a mother- and she even shows up in at least one game! It's Mario's Time Machine, but I'll count it.

I'm sure she's very proud of her son. Much like Mama Mario, her moveset is probably pretty similar to that of her progeny.

Ganondorf is a bit of an edge case- his biological mother is never mentioned by name, and may or may not appear in-game. He was given up to and adopted by a pair of surrogate mothers:

Now, these two could be a duo character like the Ice Climbers, but luckily these two diminutive women with fire and ice themed powers with gems embedded in their bodies can magically fuse into a single very tall person, named Garnet:

Uh- wait, no, sorry, my mistake- named Twinrova:

Fox McCloud does have a mother with a name and confirmed appearance, very technically:

Vixy Reinard (presumably later McCloud, unless the leader of Star Fox was scandalously born out of wedlock or if she kept her name after marriage) was killed by Andross with a freaking car bomb, but presumably if she hadn't taken her husband's car to work that day she'd be just as proficient with a blaster and/or Arwing as her son.

Ness has a mom! She makes steak! And screw you if you don't like it, Pokey. She knows her way around a tenderizer! She has no need for psychic powers- she is going to beat the absolute stuffing out of everyone. And you might think, well, technically she doesn't have a name--

--the whole dang game is named after her, you fools!

Samus's mom, Virginia Aran, does technically have a name and face and appears in the games! She doesn't do a whole lot besides getting murdered by Ridley, which her daughter demonstrably does not do very often, so an argument could be made that the Metroid franchise has better options for mother representation. Mother Brain actually kind of is a mother figure to Samus in the manga backstory- and if you're willing to go along with Team Ninja's character assassination in Other M, Samus herself is kind of already a mom.

Now, Princess Zelda from Ocarina of Time doesn't have a mom, and in fact the only other viable moms among all Zeldas are the unnamed and unseen Queen of Hyrule in Breath of the Wild, and...

...this portrait of a woman seen on Tetra's pirate ship in Wind Waker. It's a sort of obvious implication, but there's technically nothing confirming it and she's never given a name.

That said, most Zeldas do in fact have an in-game mother figure, whose exact relationship to her varies but is usually explicitly Zelda's guardian and caretaker. Impa is a strong candidate for this game's roster, and depending on how you define your terms you could say she's Sheik's mom, too.

Marth has a mom. Her name is Liza, she's the queen of Altea, and she has no particular traits and gets killed offscreen by the badguy for fridge motivation reasons. Probably the most perfunctory appearance on this roster, but she does technically meet the requirements.

Roy is an interesting case. We know he has a mom, and we technically know her name and appearance, but we don't know who specifically she is. Eliwood, his dad, has three A-rank supports with women in the prequel/sequel Blazing Sword- with Lyn, Ninian, and Fiora.

Eliwood likes blue hair, apparently. Can't knock him for that. Apparently all three of these moms are potentially canon, but by far the most likely option (being sort of the central romance and Eliwood's main motivation for the latter half of the game) is Ninian. That said, we do have to consider this is a fighting game- Ninian is a noncombat dancer unit, and while we could hypothetically teach her some kung fu or let her do some Corrin-style partial dragon transformation attacks she never exhibits in-game, the others might make a little more sense. Lyn is an assist trophy already, so maybe Fiora is the best choice? A pegasus knight would be fun to play, probably. I dunno. Make up your mind, Eliwood!

(The Super Smash Mothers Ultibrate roster is out of the scope of this post, but would likely run into numerous complications of this nature:

The Roy situation would of course repeat itself due to Lucina's Schrodinger's parentage situation.

Diddy Kong also presents issues, as he may or may not actually be the nephew of Donkey Kong, whose sister is never shown and might not exist.

Which Piranha Plant had bone in it?

Bernadette Hedgehog apparently only existed in something called the "Pre-Super Genesis Wave Timeline", which was erased from existence (presumably by some sort of Super Genesis Wave, judging by the name), and the less I know about that, the better.

Bowser Jr. is in Ultimate, and the academic debate over his parentage could fill more than triple the length of this post alone.

The only thing I think we can definitely agree on is that 5-Volt, despite not being Wario's mom, needs to be on the roster somehow.)

Super Smash Mothers Brelee

[justalittleguest]

Why is the spiciest, vilest, sinisterest take on Horror him being a cannibal. Girl that’s NOT his toxic trait. He’s so much worse.

[griem]

ijbol idk man releasing screenshots of very polarizing things said in a private discord server between friends in a public "callout" post is #the most #tumblrific thing ive ever seen LOL.

#opinion 😱 in tags

[captainkirkk]

When I started writing 'lessons in tea making', I set out to make it a longfic that following ATLA Book 2 and 3 in its entirety but now its been almost 5 years and I'm realising that I'm probably never going to get around to finishing this monster of a wip

HOWEVER, I do have around 15k of chapter 2 collecting dust in my google drive so.... what's everyone's opinion on authors uploading (signposted) unfinished chapters....

[johnslittlespoon]

all the actor/celebrity au posts lately combined with troye bringing ross on stage last night for one of your girls has got me thinking...

a musician x musician au where gale is a troye sivan–esque ultra–famous queer pop star, and john's the singer of a well known indie rock band, and he gets asked by gale's team to star in a music video similar to one of your girls...

to everyone who doesn't know him personally, gale feels like this untouchable pop star. he's been in the industry for years, one of those classic 'i used to make music in my bedroom in my small town' stories, working his ass off before finally a song of his blows up and gets traction and then it's such a fast rise to stardom that he doesn't have time to wrap his head around it.

he never gets used to it, but he doesn't get an ego from it; he still hangs out with the same group of friends he's had since high school, and his team does most of his social media posting for him, because it freaks him out having all that attention, as grateful as he is. he's not shy by any means, not like he was when he started out, but he's not the biggest fan of all the fanfare and interviews and being put on a pedestal and all that. he keeps himself pretty distant online, and that coupled with the diva/superstar energy in his music/projects gives him this air of being on another level– a rare type of star all around.

john has a similar story, the whole growing up on the internet thing, making music in his basement in high school with the friends he's now in a pretty popular indie rock band with, working tirelessly to make a name for him and his friends. but that's kinda where their similarities end.

because john is known for being an absolute shit–poster, a little fiend online, a running joke in his fandom that 'john doesn't know that he's famous', 'should someone remind him this isn't a finsta?' type of vibe. he feels so accessible and down to earth, and while he's just as level headed and humble about his celebrity status as gale is, he displays it by being more present and trying to show the human side of it all, vs gale trying to create distance between gale cleven and the gale persona the world knows.

the band is first and foremost john's thing, but as he's grown in popularity, he's of course gotten offers for other avenues here and there, and at the insistence of his manager he decides to agree to try out a modelling shoot one day. he's not naive; he's more than aware of all the comments going on about his looks, stumbles across more tiktok thirst trap edits of him sweaty and shirtless on stage than he can count, isn't all too sfw in some of his band's songs, either.

he finds it all funny, but he also is someone who will always jump on new opportunities/experiences, and he ends up having a good time modelling, and picks up more gigs as time goes on. this is how gale becomes aware of him, somewhat because gale does occasional modelling too, but mostly because he's worked with a lot of big fashion names for tours and videos, so his and john's circles occasionally crossover, though they never actually meet in person.

so then comes this music video shoot, one that gale's been agonizing over for months, planning every little detail and making sure everything is perfect. it's something that drives his manager (marge? <3 gotta include the angel in every au obvs) insane because gale's got so much on his plate as is, but he likes to be so hands on with his projects, and she knows by now there's no talking him out of that. and everything is going great, until the person who's meant to be starring opposite gale has to pull out last minute due to a scheduling conflict or personal emergency or something.

and the usually very collected and put together gale is freaking out. it's the day before the shoot, everyone involved has already travelled to be on location, choreography is set in stone– this is his nightmare scenario, never doing well in situations where he has a lack of control. it's half of what scares him so much about being as famous as he is, is that he doesn't have a lot of autonomy or control over his own image or how he's perceived in the public eye (and digging deeper into backstory, probably stems from wanting to take back control after a childhood filled with being controlled by family.)

but it's situations like these where he's reminded why marge is his manager and he isn't, because she leaps into action the moment they find out about the cancellation, calming gale down so they can put their heads together to find a replacement. they reach out to a few of the names they have connections to, but it's too short notice for all of them, so maybe marge even just resorts to going through the people gale follows on instagram, and stumbles across john's page. he's got a good rep in industry and has worked on less 'conventional' projects before, so marge shuts down gale's fretting over "would he be comfortable with something like this?" by telling him there's only one way to find out, and contacting john's manager.

john agrees before he even hears the full pitch, and he's just as keen afterwards (albeit a bit nervous because by no means is he a professional dancer), knowing it'll be good publicity, and curious to explore a more artsy/out there gig, but also curious about the illusive gale, who he'd been surprised to receive a follow from a few weeks back.

john is flown out that night to the city of the shoot location, barely having a few minutes to change and head to the rehearsal space, where he meets a very frazzled but very thankful gale for the first time.

maybe they both have some preconceived notions about each other, despite having mutual respect and no actual interactions; john probably expects gale to be a bit stand–offish or conceited given his high celebrity status, but finds gale's actually bashful and quiet and easygoing when the cameras are off (when they're on, it's like he flips a switch, slipping into this persona, exuding confidence and sexuality and it honestly blows john's mind to witness in person).

gale probably expects to john to be loud and abrasive based off his well known social media posts, maybe even a little uncomfortable around gale, who is openly queer, whereas john isn't– maybe john hasn't ever stated his sexuality, has never given much thought to it, it doesn't matter much to him. instead he finds john's actually a little shy, much less bravado than he'd anticipated, but very enthusiastic and eager to learn and get the choreo and everything else right, assuring gale repeatedly that he's down to do whatever is needed.

so the two of them rehearse till the early hours of the morning, john taking it as seriously as though it's his own project he's invested months into, and gale gains such admiration for his commitment and willingness to stick his neck out for a borderline stranger (even though he's obviously aware this is a big boost for john's career). john gains a newfound appreciation for gale's work ethic and how much effort goes into every little thing for a huge artist like him.

and inevitably... there is sexual tension during the rehearsals. they're both overtired and sweaty and it's such a strange situation to meet for like five minutes and then jump right into dancing together so intimately, having to shed any inhibitions and self consciousness, but it's a blessing in the sense that they have to get comfortable around each other so quickly. there's no room for modesty or shyness, and john is genuinely speechless at how gale puts business first, and after double checking that john isn't uncomfortable, how he has no qualms about physically directing john, moving him how he wants him.

it's hot to john, the way gale knows exactly what he wants and is so passionate about his vision, and he'd be lying if he said the combination of being starstruck and being lowkey manhandled isn't getting to his head a bit. which is a whole other thing to unpack, because aside from vague acknowledgement of some men being attractive/beautiful, he's never actually found himself flustered by one like this, and it catches him off guard. he stays professional, but he still can't help but let his naturally flirtatious/joking personality slip out as the night drags on; he's like that with everyone he works with or hangs out with, and he thinks it would be weirder if he wasn't like that with gale, like everyone else would somehow notice.

meanwhile gale is fighting his own demons because he's got a very sought–after, very hot, very straight man dropping everything for him and letting him puppeteer him, on top of being so stubborn that even though gale can tell he's exhausted, john's refusing to call it a night until gale does, and THEN as if all that's not enough, john's effortlessly witty and complimentary and flirty. and gale's not one to mix business and pleasure, so he's not even entertaining these emotions, but he can't help but feel flattered by it all, while also reminding himself that john probably doesn't swing that way.

basically they both are discovering they have competence kinks lmao, like objectively they both find the other attractive, but it's not like they aren't constantly surrounded by beautiful humans in their lines of work, so it's more so the emotional side/work ethic that gets them both flustered, coupled with the inherent sexuality of dancing with very little clothing, hands on sweaty skin and toned muscles. but neither of them act on it, too tired by the time they call it a night even if they'd wanted to, and then it's back to their respective hotels to get a few hours of sleep before the shoot.

john isn't called to be on location until mid afternoon, and when he wakes up to his phone ringing and glances at the time, he freaks out, thinking he's slept through the shoot or something because he'd expected to be called early in the morning. he's told that he didn't sleep through it, but he's disoriented until he shows up, when he's told that gale had moved things around, filming as many scenes as he could without him before john was needed for his part, so that john could get more rest. (john swoons. just a little.)

he gets swept up in the capable hands of hair and makeup and wardrobe in his own trailer, and he doesn't see gale until it's time to film, and when he does, he almost doesn't believe it's gale. the glam makeup, the long blonde wig, the form–fitting sheer black dress and heels– gale's pretty as is, but with his features accentuated like that, john doesn't even know what to do with himself, feels like he's going through a midlife crisis at the ripe age of 25. he'd known gale would be in some sort of getup for their choreo, but nothing could've prepared him for this.

it makes it even more endearing that gale seems so awkward about it when he greets john, clearly out of his comfort zone in the ensemble, but john knows there's no way gale doesn't know how stunning he is, it's not a lack of confidence that's making him awkward. john keeps it together, reminds himself to be professional. tells gale it was really sweet that he let him sleep in, that he didn't have to do that, to which gale waves him off like it's no big deal. and he compliments gale too as they walk onto set, tells him, "you look great, wow," tame as he can be, and gale tells him "could say the same for you," and john snorts, gesturing to his simple jeans and boots and lack of shirt, says "feeling a bit underdressed, actually," and it gets a laugh out of gale.

when the cameras are rolling, any of that visible discomfort or awkwardness in gale disappears like someone's snapped their fingers and rid him of it, movements fluid like water, not an ounce of anything other than confidence and power and sensuality seeping through as he commands the camera with his energy. despite his aching body, john's grateful they ran the routine into the ground last night to the point that it's nearly muscle memory, because it's hard to concentrate when gale's looking down at him through long faux–lashes and gloss–plumped lips, caressing his jaw, playing with his hair, the sway of his hips and roll of his waist beneath john's hands so mesmerizing, john's half convinced he's being serenaded by a siren.

the tension would be insane, but equally confusing because neither of them would be able to discern what's an act and what's not, or if it's all just an act, pushing and pulling at an invisible line but never quite stepping over it even once the shoot wraps, both for the sake of professionalism but also for fear of rejection.

maybe after it all, john's on his flight back home and realizes in the whirlwind of everything, he never got gale's number (has a moment of 'why would i need it? this was just a gig' lol okay yearner). john's not even sure at that point what/how he's feeling about gale, the conflicting emotions of feeling attraction to him while in borderline drag doing nothing to help the confusion, especially because he can't excuse the attraction as just that when he was feeling things during rehearsal in casual clothes too.

he knows he could easily ask his manager to reach out to gale's manager for his number, but then he gets in his head convincing himself that if gale had wanted to talk further, surely he would've asked for john's number, since gale has way more reason to be selective with his own with his status.

he doesn't realize that on the other end of things, gale's realizing he also never got john's number, only he's talking himself out of reaching out because he doesn't want to read into john's friendliness as something flirtatious when as far as he knows, john is straight, and this was likely just a job for john, as well as they seemed to get along.

cue miscommunication when one of them actually works up the courage to dm the other on instagram since they're mutuals– either john dms gale something simple, a 'thanks again for the opportunity', and because gale is never on his socials and gale's team doesn't check messages much, it's weeks before anyone clocks john's message, during which john becomes sure he's nothing more than a coworker to gale, which he understands but is sad about. or, gale dms john, but from a private account with an innocuous username that he has just for friends and family, and john never even opens it because the lack of profile picture and generic user blends in with all the other message requests he gets a day.

they only end up reconnecting when the music video actually drops, because obviously it breaks the internet, and john happens to be doing promo interviews and radio shows at the time for his band's new album and tour, so an interviewer of course asks him what the experience was like working on a set like that and working with gale. john gives a glowing review, goes out of his way to praise gale– "the nicest guy you'll ever meet, and the craziest work ethic i've ever witnessed firsthand in hollywood."

when the interviewer asks if john would ever consider working with him again, y'know, the classic question an interviewer has to ask so they can drum up clicks with a 'john egan hints at possible future project with gale cleven!' title, john lays it on thick the way he always does with a wink at the camera and a "he can call me up anytime," but then adds a serious "no, really, i would love to work with him again, he was great."

predictably, the people who are already losing their shit over the music video and making edits and fan theories about the two of them go even crazier, spam–tagging gale and his team in the comments of this interview post, which leads to it eventually making its way to gale, and gale then realizes that john hasn't been uninterested; he must've just not seen his message since surely he would've replied if he had (marge looks at him with so much disappointment when gale mentions his attempt to reach out– "gale, no one with that kind of following is going through dm requests from faceless, private instagram pages, you of all people should know this").

gale hasn't told marge about his possible feelings, but marge isn't dumb; she didn't stand on set for nearly 24 hours with her eagle–eyes and not notice the way gale had been looking at john. to anyone else, it might've just seemed like he was leaning into his persona, but marge has known gale for a long time, and she could tell it wasn't all him playing it up for the cameras.

so marge puts her manager–brain and best friend–brain together and decides that with all the hype surrounding the new song and video, the two of them being seen together in public and making a few posts together would be a great boost for both of them. but she knows gale will never go for it if she voices this to him, because he'd see it as using john for popularity; she reasons that if he doesn't know, it can't be using. so she reaches out to john's manager and figures out when they'll both be back in the same city, and relays her plan as if it's just business, asking for john's manager to let john know that gale will be in town the next week if he wants to set something up, and she gives the manager gale's number for john to contact.

when gale wakes up one morning to a 'hi, this is john! my manager passed on your number to me, hope that's okay. i was told you're in town next week? :)' and then 'egan. btw. lots of johns out there.' and then 'the music video guy.' (john, absolutely panicking on his end, worrying that gale might not even remember his name, not knowing gale's been stalking his socials and confusion–pining just as much as john has been doing the same.)

and then more miscommunication after they arrange to hang out, because john assumes this is just for publicity based on what his manager told him, and he understands, as much as he wishes they're hanging out properly. but gale assumes this is a genuine hangout, because john never says otherwise, until the end of the evening, when gale has to leave for a dinner event and john says "we better take those pics for the 'gram before we say goodbye, or the big guns'll have a fit."

and either gale masks his surprise and then disappointment and goes along with it, thinking maybe he missed a memo or misread things, and this conflict and miscommunication is dragged out even longer, or gale doesn't hide his confusion in time, and john is then equally confused, says "your manager didn't...?" and gale says "sorry, i didn't know; i guess i misread your texts," feeling stupid that he's been thinking the hangout is anything other than a pr stunt. and then there's the awkward "no! no– well, yeah, i was told that this was to promote the video, so i thought– i mean, i would've liked to hang anyway, i just didn't think you wanted to?" from john.

gale is slowly connecting the dots in his head and he's so embarrassed, but also relieved that he hasn't misread things and made a fool of himself. john looks on the verge jumping out of his skin as gale sits quietly, so gale puts him out of his misery, smiles and pushes his irritation about the incident down and says "i do want to, john. i think marge– it doesn't matter. it was a miscommunication, i guess." and all the tension evaporates out of john's body, and he lets out a laugh, and a "oh, thank god. fuck. i was about to walk into the street," and gale lets himself relax too, scoffing at john.

so they decide to have a redo the next week, since they both do feel obligated to take their stupid pictures now to please their teams (and the internet), and thus a tentative friendship is born, the two of them dancing around each other and around feelings because everything is confusing as is, let alone with the way their careers affect every aspect of their lives. so much slowburn, lots of john trying to figure his attraction out and gale keeping his walls up because the thought of literally becoming the person he's singing about in his music video is laughable, he doesn't wanna be strung around or used as an experiment for john.

and john respects this unspoken boundary and also appreciates that they can get to know each other as friends while he tries to stop freaking out every time he pictures him and gale doing less than platonic things. probably a whole lot of chaos on john's end with the absolute tornado that he is, ie: '4am 'am i gay' quizzes taken in the dark of his bunk on a tour bus, asking an openly queer friend from his band if his feelings toward gale are normal, rumours started by a fan that they saw john in a gay club after a show, etc.

because john doesn't do anything halfway– he's ready to literally go out and kiss men and explore his newfound feelings, not just to prove himself to gale, but to figure himself out, because he's terrified of hurting gale since john doesn't have the best track record with relationships. overthinks the shit out of everything and doesn't realize it's not that deep, that liking gale doesn't mean he's suddenly attracted to all men, that all gale wants is for john to be confident in himself and his feelings for him before pursuing anything.

there's a lot of back and forth and messiness and emotions stacked on top of their already crazy hectic schedules and lives, the theorizing and prying from fans and paparazzi, caution from management, but when they eventually have their point of no return moment and cross that line from friends to more, the chemistry is so intense that both of them feel stupid for dragging things out for so long.

when the initial new relationship shyness wears off, the sex is also insane, all the exploration and playfulness (and inevitability of the whole feminization thing coming back into play since that's what starts everything in the first place lol). they're barely able to keep their hands off each other, almost always spending the night at each other's places, stealing as much time as they can to make up for the time apart when there are tours or other events separating them.

they try to keep things private for a while, but with how active john is online, he slips up a good few times– tiktoks where a hat or something of gale's is accidentally left in the background, story posts where john's wearing one of gale's hoodies unthinkingly, mirror selfies where there's a mystery hand or leg in the background. the internet is torn, some convinced it's coincidence, some certain it's all a pr stunt to get people talking, some adamant that they're in a secret relationship. gale's never upset about it; they both just know how much things will change if they go public.

months are spent sneaking around, rarely going on public dates, the odd paparazzi shots still leaking out until it finally gets to the point that there's no point hiding things anymore, it's obvious that they're not just friends. they never actually announce it or make some relationship launch post; they just stop caring, and it's freeing and neither of them expect to be so affected by being able to publicly show affection for each other, but it's such a sweet thing and makes things feel so much more real.

john goes to gale's sold out arena shows and stares up at him in awe and can't believe that gale chooses him every day, and gale goes to john's band's high energy festival sets and watches his golden boy light up with joy every time he glances at him side stage and can't believe john chooses him too.

:-)

lol this post was meant to just be the two lines above the cut but then i got to thinking about origin stories and whoops new au drabble because i'm a master at getting carried away!!

[tojiscrack]

Guess who found your fic on ao3 at 11pm, not noticing the 108k words on the bottom and got so hooked even by the half quarter of the first chapter that resulted in her staying awake until 10 am, reading all 108k words in one sitting. Yes me. Me, who got so hooked she read it all in one sitting. Me, who’s now so emotionally attached to this fic that she’s anxious about your comments under the chapters, stating that THE MAIN PLOT hasn’t even STARTED YET. Me, who knows DAMN WELL the little caterpillars and butterflies and the moths story Megumi and y/n read out is for sure foreshadowing. Me, who’s noticed several butterfly symbolism used over the course of the story. Me, who screamed into her pillow when it was stated that y/n’a dress resembled a butterfly. Me, who’s seen your comment replying to someone, stating that there MIGHT be some kind of drifting apart. Me, who’s well ware of the Heavy Angst tag on the fic. Me, who knows that an author who’s this good at delivering humor and fluff is gonna DESTROY me when the angst is gonna be written. Me, who half regrets now that she’s discovered the story because she’s scared of all that’s about to come.

You seriously have a way with words, dialogue, symbolism, humor, the bond between every character. It’s not so simple to put more than 5 characters in a setting and deal with them all while trying to make it as natural as possible but you SOMEHOW do it SO WELL. I’m just. God. All the thoughts I have on this fic would maybe even rival the 108k words you’ve written up until now but I don’t have the capacity to put them into words as well as you do.

just know that this fic impacted me so much, so badly, years from now on after it's finished, I'll still think about it and re-read it.

so excited (and scared as hell ngl) to see where you'll be going with this story. I may havw joined late but I am sticking around till the end.

love you, great work <3

liar, liar masterlist here:

yayyy, another ao3 reader 😫 welcome to the tumblr crew, i’m so glad you’re hereeee ❤️‍🩹

i had to go back and check whether it really is 108k words and i found myself shocked bc damn, i really wrote that much? 😭 if i put half the effort i put into this story into my essays instead, maybe i’d be a better student but we live and we learn ig 😬

“emotionally attached” to the fic is mind blowing to me 🥹 i didn’t know it’d have this big of an impact on someone but i can’t say i’m displeased. that’s one of the nicest things i’ve heard on here (among other things ofc). ugh, you’re so nice for sending a message on that 🩷

and yes, you are absolutely right. the main plot does not start until next chapter (or more accurately — in terms of drama — somewhere down the line AFTER that) 👀 idk which comment i said that on but i trust ur judgement ‘cause i remember mentioning that somewhere 😭 DON’T BE SCARED, IT’LL BE FUN (and thrilling and scary) BUT STILL 😊

the butterfly thing you mentioned is interesting, actually 🫢 maybe i just really like butterflies (even tho they scare the ever living shit out of me and i nearly killed a few in the london zoo YEARS ago as a child cuz i was fidgeting since they just let them roam free in that greenhouse thingy and i was scared for my life and dying of heat with the humidity?).

YOU MUST HAVE BEEN STALKING MY PAGE BC I DO REMEMBER SAYING SMTH ALONF THOSE LINES I JUST CAN’T REMEMBER WHERE 😭 but i invite you to continue doing so bc i like watching my lovely little liars squirm and then send in their predictions and fear 😋 and this long, juicy message has me giggling to myself and REELING 🤭

yeah, but we’re not holding back on the heavy angst tag… er… buckle up? it’s gonna go downhill from here on out 😟

“you seriously have a way with words” — stop.

“it’s not so simple to put more than 5 characters in a setting and deal with them all while trying to make it as natural as possible but you somehow do it so well” — DOUBLE, TRIPLE, QUADRUPLE, INFINITY STOP OR I’LL CRY 🥹 no one has ever said that about my writing, and in fact, i hadn’t even noticed that myself 😭 i think i’m gonna levitate in glee ✨ to know it flows well enough for it to be commented on (out of ur own free will and not me pressing a gun to ur forehead), it’s just UGHHH so nice and sweet and i’m so glad you’ve joined the liar, liar community 😫 warmest welcome ml <3

gosh you’ve put this story on such a high pedestal, i’m almost scared i won’t be able to meet ur standards, even with everything planned beforehand 😟 but i’m willing to try. if you’re here for the super long ride (my updates are sporadic and will continue to be a such as the time goes on).

it was definitely not a LATE arrival per se — the liar, liar family is still pretty small. i’ve only got about 321 followers, so definitely not as much as the bigger jjk writers on here, and half of those are split between my megumi fic readers and levi fic readers. i now consider you an og just bc this analysis was so in depth and interesting, i found myself smiling so hard my cheeks hurt 🙂‍↔️

but i love you SO much for this. i’d love to see more comments and messages from you. don’t be afraid to spam me if you must (in fact, i encourage it!!!) 😁 i get so giddy and excited and motivated when ppl send me their predictions. it’s one of the greatest things about writing (and the best part imo).

have a lovely day! and i can’t wait for you to see the next chapter and what i have in store for you <3

[accirax]

New Evidence Regarding DRDT's Chapter 2 Killer?

Hello again, everybody! As I continue on my journey of rewatching DRDT via stream, I continue to pick up on more and different things than I noticed the first time. The subject of this theory post is the letter, signed by Eden (even if it wasn't necessarily written by her), that she, Rose, and Whit put together before the second Class Trial began-- I want to take another look at it.

(CW for Despair Time spoilers through 2-10 and mentions of suicide as described in Arturo's secret)

This note is a highly important piece of evidence, and I would expect that anyone invested in trying to solve the case is pretty familiar with its contents. However, I want to highlight exactly what the killer had to know in order to put this note together.

There is someone in the cast who has a motive secret that someone was "responsible for the death of [his/her] sister."

Eden was the recipient of this person's secret.

Eden didn't mean to tell this person, but it slipped out.

This person threatened to do something to Eden.

Arei promised to be Eden's friend.

Like I said, shouldn't be too much of a shock to any of you. However, what I really want to draw attention to is the first bullet point: someone is responsible for the death of his or her sister.

Why am I drawing attention to it? Because the last time Eden or Arturo says anything even close to a family member dying is here... (11:31)

...before Arei arrives. (12:44)

(The last time anyone actually says "sister" is Eden at 11:13.)

But, why is the time of Arei's arrival such an important distinction?

The thing is, most killer theories I've seen for anyone other than Eden or Arturo account for the killer being able to write this note by listening in to the conversation through the door. What I'm trying to say is that there's a contradiction there that I, at least, didn't notice until just now:

If the killer, listening in through the door had to know that the secret Eden received was about Arturo being responsible for the death of his sister, they had to be listening in before Arei arrived, because that is the only time in which Arturo's secret is discussed in enough detail to mention a family member dying. However, when Arei arrived, she had to walk right past and through the door.

This is what the door to the outside of the Infirmary looks like. There is no way in hell that Arei wouldn't have been able to see anyone who was walking by or listening in while she was doing the exact same.

So, what would this mean? Well, it would mean that only Arturo, Eden, and possibly Arei (depending on when she got into earshot of the door) knew enough about Arturo's motive secret before the murder to include all of those details in the note.

Or, at least, that's the boldest version of the claim. However, there are some counterarguments.

The first is that other people could have known if Arturo, Eden, or possibly Arei told somebody else about what happened and mentioned the detail about Arturo's secret. However, I don't believe that any of the three of them would have done that.

Arturo very clearly did not want his secret to get out, and seemingly didn't even want to believe that the death was his fault in the first place. Threatening Eden and making an enemy of Arei also make him look really bad. Both factors combined make it very unlikely that Arturo would want to tell anyone that this happened.

Eden also didn't want to tell anyone about what happened because she was afraid of Arturo finding out, as is clear in the Class Trial. Additionally, if she did want to tell someone so that they could help protect her from Arturo, it probably would have just been Arei. Thus, the information wouldn't have spread any farther than just Arei again.

Arei is definitely the iffiest option, but I still find it hard to believe that she would have told anyone about this occurrence. Firstly, it's already debatable whether Arei heard the specifics of Arturo's secret in the first place. Secondly, Arei probably would have had respect for her new friend and not wanted to share this traumatic event and put Eden in danger. I guess it's possible that Arei could have tried to tell someone about what happened to try to rally a larger movement against Arturo, and then that single person turned around and decided to kill Arei (thus leaving no innocent person who would want to bring up that Arei talked to them in the Class Trial). But, that's... a bit of a stretch. Plus, even if Arei did that, why include the specific details of what Arturo's secret was about?

The second option is that the killer could have planted some kind of bug or other listening device into the Infirmary so that they could overhear the conversation from afar. However, given that we have been given literally no advanced warning that a device like this can even be obtained within the set, much less that anyone actually used one in that location, I'm tossing this objection out, too.

And no, I don't think J's remote could have accomplished something like that, either. Not without an actual listening device already in the room.

The final possibility that I've thought of is that someone could have overheard the conversation from somewhere other than the doorway, which holds a lot more weight. Let's take a look at what's around the Infirmary.

Based on the map, I think the only places that are possibly close enough to the door of the Infirmary are the doors of the Cafeteria or Bathroom (Wash Closet; WC). Recall that, given the private nature of the conversation and that Arei is shown pushing the doors open in the CG, the doors were probably closed. Thus, anyone listening in would have needed to hear the conversation from behind at least one set of closed doors.

Let's start by quickly ruling out the Bathroom. I'm operating on the assumption that, if you can hear something going on in the Infirmary from where you are, people in the Infirmary could hear what's going on in that location, too. If people could hear what's going on in the Bathroom all the way from the Infirmary... Well, that's some pretty shitty architectural design, pun intended.

The Cafeteria is a viable location, though. In fact, we've already confirmed that you can overhear a conversation going on in the Cafeteria from the Infirmary.

So, using the same logic I described earlier, if Teruko could hear something in the Cafeteria from the Infirmary, it stands to reason that you could hear something in the Infirmary from the Cafeteria.

However, this argument still has its issues as well. The thing that Teruko (and Xander) overhear in this scene is, funnily enough, Arei arguing with Eden over not being invited to bake with her. It is described in multiple lines as a very loud event.

While I don't deny that a panicked Eden, a shaken Arturo, and an infuriated Arei could have been quite loud, all of those things, once again, happened after the last time that Eden or Arturo said anything about a dead family member. It's impossible to tell for sure given that the prior part of the conversation isn't fully voice acted, but it's implied that everything Eden says about Arturo's secret is in a regular, or possibly even hushed, tone of voice. If someone only started listening in after things got loud, they would not have heard about Arturo's secret in detail.

Additionally, there are the logistics of who would be sitting in the Cafeteria. Given that nobody else has stepped forward and shared that they overheard this conversation as well (even under potential penalty of death), it seems reasonable to assume that no innocent student overheard what happened in the Infirmary. Therefore, conversely, if any student(s) did overhear the conversation, they were probably involved in the murder somehow. I'm sure you could argue some fringe cases, but this is the general rule.

Unfortunately for this argument, though, the majority of scenes in the Cafeteria have many people present in them, whether due to partaking in a meal or a fight. Overall, that makes it unlikely that someone would be in the Cafeteria by themselves or with only one or two other people. That's not always the case, though, so we can't rule out only a few people being in the Cafeteria!

Can we try to further pin down the time period when this confrontation occurs to try to figure out who could or could not have been in the Cafeteria?

Eden tells us that this confrontation happened on "the day Nico tried to kill Ace" and "the day that Arei and [Eden] had a falling out," which, by my notes, is Day 6. Arturo never challenges this notion, and it also lines up with Eden being afraid that someone is following her on the night of Day 6, so I think that this is true. The canonical events that Teruko takes part in during Day 6 are:

Teruko plays with cacti and gets caught by Eden

J and Arturo, Nico and Ace, and Arei and MonoTV fight

Charles' secret is revealed

Eden tries to host a clock decorating event

Arei has her breakdown and David comforts her

Teruko confronts Rose about her secret

Nico threatens to kill Ace

Nico's secret is revealed and Hu and David comfort them

J drags Teruko into a closet to get away from Arturo

Teruko runs into Eden in the Dress Up Room

Ace is nearly murdered and tries to confront Nico afterward

The events highlighted in green are the only ones of the day that none of Arturo, Eden, or Arei are in. Given that all of them were present for the confrontation, it could not have happened simulataneously with any of the other events.

If the confrontation occurred while Teruko discussed Rose's secret with her (and Nico was there), the killer could really be anyone other than Teruko, Rose, or Nico. Anyone who we didn't have eyes on theoretically could have been in the Cafeteria at that time.

If the confrontation took place while Nico was threatening to kill Ace, however, I doubt that anyone would have been able to listen in on the Infirmary conversation over that cacophony. Therefore, for the sake of someone listening in, that option should also be eliminated. If it took place while Hu and David were comforting Nico, things would look bad for Levi and Rose, as they were both still in the Cafeteria after Teruko left. I know what I said about multiple students in the Cafeteria probably all needing to be collaborators in the murder, but if it was Levi and an asleep Rose, perhaps Levi could have gotten away with eavesdropping by himself?

Despite all of that, though, I think that Arturo's relatively calm and normal (for him) demeanor during the closet scene would speak to the notion that he hadn't just heard that Eden knew about his sister's suicide. Therefore, I believe that the confrontation likely occurred between Teruko's two trips to the Dress Up Room, when she "spent the rest of the day in her room resting." That would line up both with Arturo's claim that he was just "in the middle of something with Julia" (Teruko saw them together just beforehand), give Arei more time to cool down and reflect after her big afternoon, and put the time of the confrontation very close to when Eden is worried about someone following her. (Although, it does give Arturo less time to have "been following" her, assuming that comment was about him.)

That would also give pretty much anyone the chance to have been in the Cafeteria, because Teruko wasn't with anyone at that time. However, it may have been during a pretty dinner-y time, which decreases the odds that anyone would have been in the Cafeteria alone or nearly-alone.

If all that wasn't enough, here's one final wrinkle: whoever witnessed all of this happening would have overheard Arturo threatening Eden and decided not to get involved themselves. It's not a total nail in the coffin, given that I would assume most theories in which the killer overheard the conversation require them to have not attempted to help Eden for one reason or another. But, it is something to consider. Personally, I have a particularly hard time believing that J, #1 Arturo Hater, and Levi, adventurer on the quest of being a good person in the same vein as Eden, wouldn't have tried to stop what was going on if they'd heard.

So, in summary, if the person who wrote the note is not Arturo, Eden, Arei, or someone working very closely with them, they have to be someone who was in the Cafeteria probably alone at the time of the confrontation (assuming Eden's words were even loud enough to be overheard from across the hallway through probably closed metal doors), who decided not to step in to save Eden.

What does that mean? Well, I think that it means that it's very likely that Arturo or Eden is the killer, because having all of those dubiously possible clauses happen to fire off all at once seems implausible to me. But, I already thought that Eden was the killer, so it may just be confirmation bias. Otherwise, since we can't pin down the exact time of the confrontation, I don't think it actually helps us to fully eliminate anyone from the running-- other than, arguably, Teruko. I do urge everyone who thinks that someone other than Eden or Arturo is the culprit to consider this data when coming up with their theories, though.

However, I will end this on the note that all of this deductive reasoning is... incredibly nitpicky. At the end of the day, the crew behind DRDT is very small, and I would understand if the exact details of where and when what parts of Arturo's secret were said or what exactly the Infirmary door looked like were things that they didn't take into account when planning out the murder.

I've seen some critics say about recent YouTube indie animation shows that the long hiatuses between episodes give the shows an unfair disadvantage. That's because the long gaps allow fans to scrutinize every detail of the worldbuilding and characterization and find their holes for far longer than a network television show would between episodes. While DRDT is not exactly one of these indie animation pilots, it is a YouTube show created by a small team of independent creators. I can only imagine that they may be facing the same thing with having to take a break mid-trial. If that's the case, and what I've presented here contradicts what actually happened in Chapter 2, know that I don’t hold it against DRDTdev at all, and don’t think you should, either. I would apologize for pointing out this “mistake,” if you can even call something this minor that.

However, I also think that all of this might be possible, perhaps even on a coincidental/subconscious level, because Eden or Arturo is the killer, and DRDTdev didn't think too much about the logistics of how someone else would overhear the conversation. So for now, I'm considering all of this logic as reasonable theorywork.

If you have any rebuttals though, whether about a specific character or the premise in general, I'd love to hear them! Or, if I missed some detail in the story in general that blows this theory to smithereens entirely, I wouldn't love to hear that, but it would probably be good if I did.

Otherwise, thank you for reading, and have a lovely rest of your day! :D