#not taking Your feelings into account…. what you want for yourself

[syoddeye]

sliding scale

You're in need of a handyman. He has needs of his own. cw: discussion of kids/pregnancy, john price inserting himself into your life, heavily implied breeding kink, unsettling and smutless (my brand)

You win the jackpot. Okay. Not the jackpot, but you're hit by a respectable windfall. It's like a cheesy movie you'd watch around the holidays: A distant relative dies, you receive a very serious letter, and suddenly, your account isn't as sad as it once was.

So, you do the impossible. The unthinkable. You buy a house.

An old, well-loved house from an elderly couple.

The day you close, they tell you about raising their kids in the house and mention the names etched on the door frame. When you arrive home that evening, the empty house feels grand and hollow, but there they are, just where they said. Names climbing upward in uneven increments, faded with time, but legible. You trace your finger along the marks, imagining small hands and the measuring tape, the years slipping by. It makes you smile, despite yourself.

You've never wanted kids, not really, but the thought of this, people leaving bits of themselves behind—it makes you mushy. You figure, once the dust settles, you'll let rooms to friends, maybe friends of friends. Start a fun little commune of sorts, a collective of people coming and going.

The first night, you drink nonalcoholic wine straight from the bottle and lie on your mattress on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. There's no furniture yet, just your overnight bag and the smell of fresh paint from a patch you tested on the living room wall. You fall asleep smiling. The house needs a lot of work, but you're not worried. Some TLC and elbow grease can go a long way.

Over the next few weeks, you move in and start working. Anything is possible with the power of YouTube tutorials and the local tool library.

You start in the primary bedroom and bathroom, learning to tile, install flooring, and connect plumbing for the perfect vanity and sink you found at a thrift store. It feels good to learn how things fit together and see the fruits of your labor. At night, you sleep in one of the old kid's rooms. The wallpaper is covered in rockets and planets. A couple of glow-in-the-dark stars cling to the ceiling.

The bathroom comes together wonderfully, and you feel invincible.

But then you get to the kitchen.

After an outlet zaps you, you decide you may be in over your head. That there really is a limit to what one person can do on their own. You start looking up local contractors, but everything is out of your budget. You've been doing all the work yourself for a reason. Then, after digging for ages, you find a promising lead: John Price - Handyman - Sliding Scale.

On the phone, John seems normal. Charming. Funny. He tells you he's impressed you bought a house on your own. (You've heard that a lot lately, and while it feels patronizing, you let it go. You did jump up a band upon inheriting your chunk of Great Uncle Leroy's money.) He agrees to come by and see what he can do.

You have to admit he makes a good impression when he shows up. He's punctual, polite, and looks the part. Broad chest, thick arms, big hands resting on his hips as he surveys the kitchen. After only a few minutes, he says he'll take the job. No hesitation.

You explain your tight budget and that you'll work alongside him when you're not at your day job. You show him the money you've set aside, expecting him to back out, but he just shakes his head and nudges the folder back across the table.

"Said I'd do it. Don't you fret, darl."

You vet him afterward, just to be sure. His references check out. The reviews are solid. He appears to know a little about everything. You text him to confirm, formally offering the job, and he accepts.

On the first day, you let him in and immediately have to avert your eyes. You didn't realize a toolbelt could look like that on someone. His sleeves are rolled up, exposing his forearms, and the way he moves—confident, purposeful—makes you grateful you're heading out to work. You tell him when you'll be back and leave quickly, gripping the steering wheel tighter than usual thinking about the hunk of man in your house.

When you return, the kitchen looks different, unfinished, but vastly improved. John's already fixed things you didn't think could be fixed. Over lunch, he even scoped out other problems around the house: a crack in the basement wall, a loose board on the stairs, and spots where the flooring must be replaced. He gushes about the house, praising its character, the way it's held up over time.

John's face grows serious, and stares down his nose when he finally asks, "You're not gonna ask me to paint over the wood or rip out the built-in hutch, are ya?"

His relief over your answer is palpable: No. That's why you bought the house in the first place. You describe what you love about it: the glass doorknobs, the dining room archway, and transom windows above the doors. He nods. He knows exactly what you mean.

Before he leaves for the day, he stops at the doorframe and points to the tallest name etched into the wood. You explain it belonged to the previous owners, a family with seven kids.

"Seven," he repeats, eyebrows raised.

"Right? Can you believe that? Seven!" You laugh. Frankly, anything more than two sounds insane. 

But John doesn't laugh. He stares at the names for a moment, his jaw tight. "Yeah. Difficult to imagine."

After he leaves, you scold yourself. You don't really know John. You've known him for all of a day. What if he came from a big family? Or what if he doesn't speak to his family anymore, if things are complicated with his parents? You feel awful, and the guilt channels itself into stress-baking.

The next morning, when he shows up, there's a platter of breakfast pasties waiting on the counter. He hesitates, looks almost bashful, until you insist. He takes a bite, then another, and looks at you with genuine astonishment. He says if you leave food like this every morning, he'll knock his rate down even further.

It makes sense, financially speaking, so you agree. You start making breakfast for two, and in return, he keeps the repairs affordable. The ritual becomes routine: John shows up every weekday morning, you eat together, he gets to work, and you leave. You look forward to seeing him. Hearing his voice rumble out good mornings and goodnights.

For two weeks, you come home to find steady progress on the kitchen. You help him out for an hour or two in the evenings, and by the time it's nearly finished, you've started discussing other parts of the house.

You mention the two smallest children's rooms aren't really usable for tenants. You show him your plans to knock down the wall between them and create a library or office space.

But this time, John doesn't agree.

"First I'm hearing of this," He leans back in his chair at your table. His arms cross over his chest, legs spreading wide. Even sitting, you see what he's doing. Trying to take a posture that carries authority, to cow you. "Tenants? What about a family?"

You try to steer the conversation back to your plans, to the picture you've sketched. "I'm not planning on having one. So, like I was saying—"

"Why buy a house this big, then? Why spend all this time fixin' it up if you're not planning to honor its legacy?"

The tone of his voice shifts completely, with no trace of the easy, flirty banter that's been your norm for weeks. His words drip with disdain. His brow knits together. Nostrils flaring. He looks genuinely upset. Mystified that you're not going to fill the house with your…your brood.

It's as if your refusal to have children is an affront to him personally. 

It sends a chill down your spine. Instantly, your image of him—this dependable, good-humored man—cracks apart. You glance past him, searching for the right words, and focus on the kitchen instead. The cabinets, the fixtures, the paint. All of it bears his mark now, and it leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

The realization settles like a stone in your stomach. You can't keep working with him. Not if your plans for the house, your house, are going to be a problem.

You tell him as much, as gently as possible.

His anger bleeds out of him quickly, melting into embarrassment and shame. His shoulders drop, and he folds into himself in a way that seems almost impossible for someone his size. "Don't know what came over me, darl."

He packs up his tools while apologizing again, both for his outburst and for the unfinished work, and gives you the spare key you lent to him for emergencies. Before he leaves, he asks you not to write a review, not even a positive one, and you agree. Things had been good until now. You don't want to ruin him over this. People have bad days.

With the kitchen functional and nothing too big left on your plate, you cut your losses and decide to finish the work alone.

Progress is slow on your own, of course. One pair of hands, only so many hours after work to chip away at the list after work. Still, time moves faster than you expect. You push through exhaustion, head often swimming, and work late into the evenings. One night, you finish patching the floor and tackle the basement's cracked wall. Only when you get down there, it's already done. Smoothed over perfectly.

You tell yourself John must've fixed it before everything went south. But then you notice other things. Several odd jobs from your list are already complete.

Squeaky door hinges turn silent. The dings and nail holes in the walls, spackled over. The second toilet that kept running starts working correctly. It's partly a relief, like the house is taking care of itself, but also deeply unsettling. You don't remember doing it, you've never sleepwalked or slept-repair in your life, even in your overtired state, and you're still too sore over your falling out to text John and ask if he did it all.

Instead, you decide to take a break. A few days off work, a proper rest. Let the house settle, let yourself breathe. Nothing happens. No floating tools. No ghosts. It's like the house is waiting for you to look away.

Paranoia sets in. You order cameras—indoor and outdoor, enough to cover every angle.

The day they arrive, you barely make it through the door before tearing open the box. But something stops you. Your eyes catch on a strange wooden box sitting on the dining table. It's a shadowbox.

Inside the box is the slat from the front doorframe, the one with the heights and names of the seven kids who grew up here. It's been cut out, perfectly, and framed like an artifact.

Your stomach drops. You scramble to the doorframe and run your hands over it, frantic. The patchwork is seamless, so clean it's like the names never existed.

Then you notice the boots. Tucked in and lined up next to your own pairs. The extra jacket hanging on the hooks.

A shadow falls over you.

You freeze, heart in your throat, and slowly turn with eyes the size of dinner plates. Towering above you, sleeves rolled to his elbows, fists planted on his hips, is John. Grinning.

"Work alright today?" He bends down and pulls you to your feet by your wrist, wrapping you up in an embrace and welcoming you home. He sways slightly with you, like you're dancing, his chest rising and falling against yours. He looks at you with a clear fondness and affection, but there's something off, like a splintering foundation. Stable until you look too close.

You try to push yourself away, palms flat against his chest, but he doesn't let go. "What are—What are you doing here? What are—Why did you do that?" You glance again toward where the measurements used to be.

He chuckles, soft and unbothered, a wistfulness threaded in his words. "Well, we're gonna need the room for our little ones, yeah? Oh, we'll have seven or more, dependin' on what takes. Sliding scale and all that."

At your stunned, horrified silence, he slots a hand into the back pocket of your jeans. He gives your cheek a little squeeze and starts steering you toward the kitchen. The one he built for you.

"C'mon. Lemme tell you all about my plans for us."

[heavyhitterheaux]

Mo' Money Mo' Problems

See Me Through You Blurb

Synopsis: Asking for help has always been hard for you, but when you aren't left with another option, your recently drafted NFL boyfriend comes to your rescue

Pairing: Boyfriend!Joe Burrow x Girlfriend!Reader

Requested: by a gorgeous anon 😍

Series Masterlist

Please Do Not Repost My Content Anywhere

Erin looked at you as you sat down across from her and sighed. This had been going on for the past week and you had now given yourself a headache trying to figure out what you were going to do.

“Call your boyfriend.” Erin told you as she threw your phone for you to catch it, but you quickly shook your head no as you caught it before it hit the floor.

“I am not calling him.”

“And why NOT?” She exclaimed and looked at you as if you were crazy.

“Because this is my problem and I'm going to deal with it. I don't have to run to him for every little thing.”

“YOUR BOYFRIEND PLAYS IN THE NFL! AS A QUARTERBACK! Or did you suddenly forget?”

“Just because he plays in the NFL doesn't mean I’m going to take advantage of that.” You said as you crossed your arms.

“Bestie, I love you but you fucking annoy me so much sometimes. So let me ask you this, Joe doesn't have a problem asking you for sex correct?”

“What in the world are you getting at?”

“Answer my question.”

“No, he doesn't.”

“And he fucks you raw simply because you had a fucking pregnancy scare two semesters ago when he won the Heisman.”

“Erin, get to the point already. I was scared out of my damn mind.” You replied as you rolled your eyes.

“My point is that you shouldn't have a problem asking your boyfriend who fucks you raw for money. At the very LEAST like bare minimum he can give you a little cash.”

“I get it but..”

“Uh no you obviously don't. And you know how he is. First thing out of his mouth is going to be why didn't you tell him. I'm convinced that man would drink your bath water if you let him.”

“I swear you get on my nerves.”

“Welp been doing that since we were three and that's not changing any time soon.”

“I don't know. I feel kind of weird asking people for anything. Like not just him and I’ve always been like that.” You said as you got up to go into your kitchen with Erin following close behind.

“It's not like he's going to want you to pay him back. I guarantee you that he'll give it to you without a second thought. You never know unless you try. Surprised he hasn't put your name on the bank account yet.”

“Something is wrong with you.”

“Bitch, don't act like he's not going to put a ring on your finger. Surprised he didn't do it our first semester.” Erin told you as you turned to look in the freezer for ground turkey to make homemade burgers for the two of you.

“Yes, obviously but not yet.”

“He is literally just waiting for you to graduate to do it.”

“And how do you know all this?” You asked as you began to cut up red onion along with some green bell peppers.

“I just do and like I said, he would drink your bath water.”

“Ew, Erin that's nasty.”

“Just calling it like I see it. But if you don't fix this in 48 hours when your rent is due, I'm calling Joe.”

Twenty four hours later you were finally lying down in your bed after a long and exhausting day, your phone rang indicating a facetime call coming through and you rolled over onto the other side to answer it. When your boyfriend's face came into view, you instantly smiled.

“Hi my love.” You quietly said and wrapped yourself tighter in the blankets that were covering you while propping up your phone.

“Hey baby doll. How was your day?” He asked while it looked like he was sitting up against the headboard.

“Hmm, long. I've been up since 4 in the morning. But you know I never pass up an opportunity to talk to you. I miss you.”

“I miss you too and Erin called me.”

“What? Why?”

She literally only gave you 24 hours and not 48 like she promised.

“You tell me. Something going on that I should know about?” Joe asked and you continued to look at him confused.

“Uh, not that I can think of.”

“Let me ask you this then. Have you paid your rent this month for your condo?”

“No and I have no idea why she called you. I told her I would take care of it.”

“Because you miscalculated your bills for this month and they added a whole bunch of fees and you decided to suffer instead of calling your boyfriend for help.”

“I…”

“Is that it?”

“I didn't want to bother you.” You quietly said and Joe just looked at you.

“Seriously? When are you ever bothering me? I have another question for you.”

“Yes?”

“You plan on being with me for a long time, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you know that I'm going to take care of you right? Especially when you graduate and move up here.”

“Yes.”

“So, why wouldn't I take care of you now?”

“I know you will, but if I can do it on my own, I'm going to try to.”

“But I'm here and you don't have to. Aren't you a WAG now?” Joe asked as he smiled at you.

“I want to be the W and not the G.” You replied without skipping a beat.

“Who’s to say that I don't already have your ring?”

“Well, my finger is still bare so? What does that do for me?” You told him as you held it up so he could see your hand.

“Touché, princess.” Joe told you as he smirked.

“Mm hmm, that's what I thought.”

“But next time you come up here we're picking out a house.”

“I…”

“Me and my future wife along with my future kids need a place to live so we can start looking. Or we can have it built, your choice."

“And a new car, mine is on its last leg.”

“Name it and it's yours. That goes for whatever else you want to.”

“NO! I'm going to get it! You are not going bankrupt buying someone who is not even your wife expensive things.”

“You ARE my wife; it's just not on paper yet.” He told you as he shrugged while your cheeks began to heat up.

“Babeeeee.”

“What? I'm not saying anything that isn't true. And besides, I'm not spending any money from my contract. Just my endorsement deals. But back to our original problem, you're good for the rest of the year.”

“I… JOEY! That was like 4,000 dollars!”

“Money is not a factor when it comes to you. If you need it, I'm getting it. So can we move on?”

"Fine, while I have you in a giving mood, I want an elephant." You replied and Joe simply gave you a blank stare.

"Best I can do is the Cincinatti Zoo, you gotta work with me here."

"Well, you said 'name it and it's yours'."

"Baby, I meant within reason and an elephant is not within reason."

[violue]

God, I cannot overstate how much I DON'T want to hear what someone thinks I did wrong with a fic I posted in 2016, unless there is something genuinely harmful (no, having a m/m pairing with the "wrong" character topping does not count) that needs to be addressed.

What are people expecting? An apology? A draft of a rewrite?

An enthusiastic, kind ao3 comment can brighten a day. A nitpicky negative comment can RUIN a day, especially for someone like me that struggles with rejection sensitive dysphoria.

The ONLY benefit of criticizing a work that did not ask for critique is to make you feel better by announcing how the story failed to meet your standards. You're not helping the writer "become a better writer", you're not leaving criticism you're "entitled to" because you paid for the story, since it's free. You're making yourself feel good at the expense of the writer who spent hours on their story.

A couple years ago I got into an argument with someone who had left a multi-paragraph comment on a friend's (VERY POPULAR BTW) fic from several years ago, about how they felt the story had the characterizations all wrong, they didn't like the direction the plot went, etc. Then they were offended that they were being told their opinion wasn't welcome. So they dished it out and couldn't take it I guess. When the author blocked them, they came to MY account to comment on a fic to continue the argument. They complained that the author was a fragile snowflake and not recognizing that THEY were the fragile on if they were this defensive about their opinion that they "make no apologies for". (There's also a large time gap in the argument where they for some reason came back to continue bitching after nearly a YEAR??)

That's fan entitlement. That's having so much fic to choose from that you think it needs to be an author's problem when they don't meet your standards. That's you being so self centered that you think people owe it to you to know your opinion.

I'm an incredibly picky reader. I'll drop a story three paragraphs in because I don't like the "voice", or the characterization, etc... but that doesn't need to be the author's problem. They didn't do something wrong, their story just didn't gel with me.

Internalize this: SHARING YOUR OPINION IS NOT VITAL.

That was a phrase that helped me become (somewhat)less of an asshole on social media. Take a second to consider the benefit of the comment you're leaving. A kind word, an acknowledgement, an enthusiastic joyful rant about your favorite parts... that all benefits you and the author that put time and effort and sometimes even tears into their story. A list of things you think the author failed at? That benefits ONLY you. It makes YOU feel a little better for two seconds at the expense of someone else. There is no value to that unless you think you're the only person that matters.

So, you don't like a fic you just read? Vaguepost a rant on your social media. Jot your feelings down and then throw the page in the trash. Or... WRITE YOUR OWN FUCKING STORY AND POST IT.

I wanna know where people have lately gotten the audacity to leave comments on fanfics talking about how much the fanfic sucked and negatively critiquing an author's fic like it's a published book review.

It pisses me off cause I've seen authors abandoned or delete their fics because of this.

You're getting fanfics for FREE! No one asked for your opinion.

I hope y'all know as authors we get email notifications when you comment so we see EVERY comment that's been left.

We also can see the negative reviews you leave when you bookmark our fics

[yutarot]

ride or die. l.jn smau

018 — for her, i am.

(a/n: u might wanna grab some popcorn for this one.)

JENO POV

“i know who leaked my secret.”

he had said it so quickly that he forgot the words had even come from his mouth.

jaemin stares at him, eyes wide in a mix of shock and weirdly, sadness.

but then jeno realises why. he had let jaemin be bullied, staying silent as all of his friends attacked him. he had done nothing.

jaemin didn’t care that jeno knew who it was, he didn’t care who had ruined jeno’s life, because jeno had ruined his. he thought that jeno thought it was him, he had assumed that’s why jeno did nothing, out of hatred, out of anger. but now, now it made no sense. jeno was meant to be his bestfriend.

jeno became angry at the thought. not at jaemin, but at himself. and he hadn’t even explained to him the whole story yet, he hadn’t even told him who it was.

jaemin spoke first after their silence.

“you better start explaining.” jaemin says, and rightfully so. jeno feels as if he should had done the explaining a while ago, he wanted to. but it all happened too quick. he never got the chance.

he doesn’t know why, but he feels like jaemin and him aren’t going to be the same after this. not after what he’s about to tell him.

jaemin grows inpatient, angry even.

“come on, jeno, im not gonna sit here and wait for the fucking grass to grow!!”

jeno says nothing still, and this only makes jaemin’s anger worsen. but he just doesn’t know what to say, how to word the sentence that will ruin their friendship.

“WHO WAS IT JENO?” jaemins grabbing his shirt at this point, and there’s nothing he can do but close his eyes and take it. “WHO WAS IT YOU HAD TO PROTECT SO MUCH TO THE POINT WHERE YOU HAD TO LET ME GET PUSHED AROUND, HUH? WHO SPILLED YOUR FUCKING SECRET, WHO DID YOU FEEL WAS SO SPECIAL TO YOU THAT YOU COULDNT SAY ANYTHING TO ANYONE?!! WHO WAS IT, JENO?! WHO W-“

jeno’s heart races. his fists clench. his arms tense.

he snaps.

“IT WAS ME!”

jaemin stills.

he lets go of jeno’s shirt.

his eyes never divert from his, his last breath never leaving. they both stand in the apartment lobby, the cold air of outside, breezing through the window, half cracked open, the distant buzz of the vending machine whirring in the corner and the deep hue of the midnight sky absorbing the light from around them.

they’re silent, they’re still.

neither of them dare to speak.

until jeno notices jaemins face.

it’s not anger, it’s not sadness. it’s pity.

“it was me.” jeno’s voice is lower now. “i leaked my own identity.” he looks at the floor, in both solemnity and shame.

“why?” jaemin asks. “why would you do that to yourself?”

“i didn’t know it would spread so fast. i posted it on an anonymous account before my race. i wasn’t expecting it to be spread so quick, let alone on national news. i thought it would be slow, i was going to tell you, i was going to tell everyone. i had decided i didn’t want to be samo anymore. but the speed of it all… i wasn’t ready yet, i hadn’t prepared yet, i hadn’t told her.”

jaemin stills at the mention of you.

“so that’s why.”

jeno nods.

“you’re an idiot.” jaemin says, throwing jeno’s words back at him.

but jeno isn’t laughing.

“for her, i am.”

that’s where he realises the gravity of it all. that both of their deception had all come down to the route of one thing, of one person.

you.

jeno continues. “do you know what she told me when we first got into that fake relationship?”

jaemin shakes his head.

“she told me that she didn’t understand why i liked living as samo more than jeno. and usually, i did. i loved living as samo, it was the only time that i was able to really be myself. but when she came along, i realised something. i realised that i didn’t want to be samo anymore, i wanted to be the person that she knew. technically, she knew samo, yes. but it was me, as jeno, that she truly knew. and when she told me that i should just live as jeno, avoid all the public attention and just go outside without a mask, i realised that she was right, that that’s who i wanted to be. i wanted to be me, because of her. so when she told chenle who i was, i should have been mad, i should have been pissed. but, truly? i was relieved. she had done the first step of my journey herself, i could break off the deal. i could explain that i didn’t care about it anymore. i could explain that i wanted to date her for real. but i didn’t do any of that. i was still angry, i was angry at the reason why she had told chenle. he ruined it all. i couldn’t explain it to her, what i really wanted. because she liked him. and it only confirmed my suspicions when i found that stupid fuckers hoodi-“

jeno realised he had be talking for too long when jaemin began to smile.

“oh man i’ve been waiting for you to say that for the longest time, that you want to be yourself.” he pulls him into a brief hug as he speaks, as if he hadn’t even heard the second half of jeno’s rant.

after a second, jaemin pulls away before stating the obvious truth of what’s staring them both in the face, “if only it wasn’t because of her.”

reality dawns on him, pushing on him like an incoming storm. “im sorry jaemin, but ive made up my mind.”

jaemin nods, expecting jeno to say more. but he doesn’t, he just walks to the elevator, clicking the floor to their dorm. jeno hopes that jaemin forgets all about you, that he puts his feelings for you aside. but he knows jaemin too well, he knows no matter how much he tries, jaemin will never forget you.

“you getting in?” jeno says, a smile plastered on his face.

jaemin grins back before running to the elevator to join him.

jeno was going back home.

well, he will be once he fixes things with you.

jaemin lets out a sigh, seeming deep in thought. “you sacrificed everything for her.”

jeno looks at him, an understanding of what he means by this.

“jaemin-“

“i’ll take the fall for it.” he says, a smile on his face that doesn’t reach his eyes. “you don’t have to tell them it was you yet, if you’re not ready.”

jeno panics, “i can’t let you do that. not anymore.”

“please let me.” he fidgets, watching the numbers on the elevator screen climb up, and up, and up. “it’s the most i can do.”

jeno doesn’t know what to say, just like before. so he does the easiest thing. even though he knows he shouldn’t, he does what he knows he’s going to regret.

the elevator dings to a halt.

he lets him.

a sacrifice for a sacrifice.

previous : mlist : next

notes; it’s been so hard tryna keep this secret guys u have NO idea

taglist — open! @jenohyun @jirsungs @do-you-remember-summer-127 @ddolbyong @stqrgr7 @thatsatricky1 @sunghoonsgfreal @nattan127 @ssweetreveries @flamingi @chenlesfavorite @peterm4rker @snoopyjimin @akunoeyebrows @junviadinho @slayhaechan @f6llsun @multifandomania @cookiehaos @catecita @mrsjohnnysuh @luv4jeno @hyuckies18 @dreamiestay @tangerinelovelees @jjaegyeom @https-yeonjun @nanaxwi @yukisroom97 @nosungluv @mrkleelvr @neocrashed @jaedgemental @apolloxxivmin @kyubing @catdonut657 @dudekiss3r @juyeonshour @hamjwis @antifrggile @mmjhh1998 @thegracerammy @jenocity23 @honeynanamin @bluedbliss @lampcults @yyangj3lly

[citrusipop]

Pagtingin! . hyun-ju

" When I reveal my feelings I hope your opinion of me won't change When I confess my secrets I hope your opinion of me won't change " - patingin by ben&ben

in which . in which Hyun-ju comes back after the events of the game and she happens to bump into her partner who she left without an explanation.

cho hyun-ju x reader (fem) . angst/fluff

based off . ♡

Strolling through the busy streets, you stumbled upon your favorite café. As you stepped inside, you were greeted by the comforting aroma of coffee and vanilla, wrapping around you like a warm embrace. Sweet bossa nova music played softly in the background, blending with the gentle hum of conversations. It was the perfect day to settle down and work in the cozy atmosphere of the café. After ordering your usual coffee and sweet treats, you made your way to a nearby table by the window.

Taking your seat, you gazed out at the bustling street. Sure, it might seem cliché to some—a solitary figure at a window seat in a café—but to you, it was a small joy. The window wasn’t just a pane of glass; it was a lens into the endless stories unfolding outside. Watching strangers go about their lives, you found yourself imagining their worlds. Two girls walked past in school uniforms—you guessed they were high schoolers, maybe around fourteen or fifteen. Your eyes followed a middle-aged man pedaling his bike, his neatly pressed office attire suggesting he worked in accounting or something similar.

It fascinated you how everyone’s lives were so different from your own. Each person outside that window carried a story you’d never fully know, lives that were nothing like yours—boring, miserable, yet oddly peaceful and happy in their own way. And for a moment, watching them, you felt connected to something bigger, as though their differences somehow brought you closer to understanding your own quiet existence.

Your thoughts suddenly come to an end when you hear a group of people laughing next to you. You wish you had your earbuds with you to drown out the sounds but the gods were against you and made you forget to bring it. Wallowing in your sadness, you heard a familiar laugh coming from the table next to you and it made your mind race, turning to the table next to you…

It was her. For a moment, you froze, your breath hitching in your chest. Oh, how you wished this was a dream—because it certainly felt like one. A dream so vivid, so achingly beautiful, that the thought of waking up filled you with dread. But it wasn’t a dream. The world around you blurred and faded, leaving only her, like the central figure in a watercolor painting.

And then you heard it, her laughter. That soft, melodic sound you thought you’d forgotten but never truly could. It was like a gentle breeze carrying fragments of your past, filling you with a bittersweet ache. That laughter brought you back to a time when everything felt lighter, simpler, and whole. Nostalgia crashed into you, raw and unrelenting, pulling at the corners of your heart.

You wanted to move, to say something, but all you could do was sit there, drinking in the moment. That sound, that sight of her—it was a warmth you hadn’t felt in what seemed like forever. And for just an instant, you allowed yourself to believe that this wasn’t just a fleeting memory or a trick of your longing mind but something real, something you could hold onto, even if only for a little while.

You hadn’t realized how long your gaze had been fixed on her until you noticed she was looking back at you. Her almond-shaped brown eyes met yours, locking you in place. She gave you a smile like before, but your mind drifted to how beautiful and ethereal she looked as the sun from the window embraced her figure. Her hair was tied neatly into a ponytail, the soft simple makeup making her look beautiful. You felt like you were seeing an angel for the first time, you felt like you were seeing her for the first time. And it made her heart skip a beat. You noticed how she excused herself to her friends and she was now making her way towards your table, quickly you moved your laptop and notepad away, your fingers running through your hair as you fixed it and made it look more presentable. 

“Hi…” Hyun-ju said shyly, looking right at you with a soft smile, you looked up from your notepad and gave her a tight smile. Awkward silence filled the air as the tall woman stood still in front of your table, you took notice and felt bad. You motioned your hand to the empty chair in front of you indicating that she can take that seat. Another set of awkward silence filled the coffee shop, the tension was so thick you felt as if coming to this cafe was a mistake. 

“You look beautiful today.”

The words hung in the air, soft but sincere, making Hyun-ju pause. Her eyes flickered to you, but you avoided her gaze, focusing instead on the cup in your hands. Still, the familiar warmth spread through her chest. Hearing you call her beautiful always meant the world to her. It was a reminder that you saw her, loved her, just as she was. Yet, the pang of guilt was unavoidable. She had walked away without a word, leaving behind questions that she still couldn’t answer.

“Thank you,” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. Her eyes caught the faint smile tugging at your lips, and something shifted. A flicker of hope sparked within her, a fragile belief that maybe, just maybe, there was still a chance to mend what had been broken.

As if on cue, both of you started speaking at the same time, your voices overlapping awkwardly. You exchanged startled glances before bursting into quiet laughter, the sound breaking the tension between you. It was a silly, fleeting moment, but it carried a strange weight. For a second, it felt like you were teenagers again, stumbling through the nerves of a first date. Or perhaps it was just the awkwardness of two people who once knew each other so well, trying to find their footing again.

You stole another glance at Hyun-ju, and the sight of her hit you harder than you expected. The ache in your chest flared up, a sharp reminder of the emptiness her absence had left behind. No matter how much you had tried to fill that void, it had never worked. And now, sitting here with her, you couldn’t help but wonder if that missing piece had always been her.

But words refused to come. Your throat tightened, the lump there stubbornly blocking every thought, every feeling you wanted to voice. The two of you sat in silence, the weight of everything unspoken pressing down. Yet, in the quiet, there was something unbreakable—a connection that time and distance hadn’t erased.

You hear Hyun-ju clear her throat, you glance at her as she says, “I…I miss you, it’s been a while.” It made you smile a bit despite the hurt you were feeling inside, “I miss you too.” You said softly, as your thumb caresses the warm cup of coffee. You never felt this wave of emotions before, something so bittersweet. Sadness and hurt was evident on your face and Hyun-ju can clearly see it. 

Your teary eyes locked with hers. “Funny, isn’t it? It’s been five weeks. Five weeks since I last heard from you.” Your voice wavered, though you tried to mask it with a frown. “And now, here you are, showing up as if nothing happened.” The words came out colder than you intended, laced with the bitterness that had been festering in the void her absence left behind.

Hyun-ju stood frozen, her lips parting slightly as if to speak, but no words came. What could she even say? Would you believe her if she told you the truth? That she had been kidnapped, thrust into a series of deadly games because of her debts and her desperation to complete her transition? That she had watched countless lives end in horrifying ways, the weight of survival pressing down on her with every passing second?

You noticed the flicker of conflict in her expression, and it only fueled your frustration. “Look,” you said sharply, “if you don’t want to deal with this—us—it’s fine. Just say it.” Your voice cracked, but before you could say more, Hyun-ju cut you off.

“Y/N.” Her voice was firm, but there was a tremor in it. “I never said I didn’t want this. Or that I wanted it to be over. You mean too much to me.” Her gaze dropped, her voice softening. “You… you wouldn’t understand. That’s the problem.”

“Understand what, Hyun-ju?” you snapped, your frustration boiling over. “You can’t just show up and expect me to be okay after you disappeared without a word. No call, no text, nothing. Five weeks, Hyun-ju. Five.” Your hands trembled as you clenched them into fists, your voice growing harsher. “Do you know how hard I tried to find you? How much I worried? Don’t tell me I don’t understand when you’re not even telling me what I’m supposed to understand.”

Your words hung heavy in the air, cutting through the fragile tension like a blade. You didn’t want to sound this harsh, but the hurt, confusion, and stress had built up too much to hold back. It wasn’t just the absence that hurt—it was the silence, the unanswered questions, the sense that she had left you in the dark without a second thought.

The tone of your voice cut through Hyun-ju’s heart more deeply than you could ever know. Her chest ached with guilt, the weight of her choices pressing down on her. She had thought leaving without a word was the right thing to do—a way to protect you from the chaos of her life. But now, facing the consequences, she realized how wrong she had been. Immature. Thoughtless.

“I just…” Her voice faltered, barely above a whisper. “I thought you wouldn’t love me anymore… that I’d be a disgrace to you, the way I am to everyone else.” Her words were soft, almost as if she was afraid of saying them out loud, afraid of the weight they carried.

Hearing her broke something in you. You had been so consumed by your own pain, your own confusion, that you hadn’t stopped to see hers. In that moment, you realized it wasn’t just you who had been hurting. She had been carrying her own burden of fear and self-doubt, silently tearing herself apart. And now, her vulnerability was laid bare, raw and trembling in front of you.

“You deserve someone better than me, Y/N,” Hyun-ju whispered, her voice trembling. “You can’t be in a relationship with someone like me—”

Before she could finish, you reached out, gently taking her soft, larger hand in yours. “Stop,” you said firmly, your voice steady but full of emotion. “I don’t care, Hyun-ju. I don’t care about any of that.”

Your thumb gently traced small circles over her hand, grounding both of you in the moment. “I love you for who you are. Every part of you. To me, you’re perfect—the most beautiful woman in the world. And honestly, it amazes me every single day that you chose someone like me to be with you.”

A tear slipped down your cheek as you gave her a soft, heartfelt smile. It wasn’t just your words that spoke—it was the way you looked at her, as if she was the only person in the world who mattered. 

Hyun-ju let out a choked sob, gripping your hand tightly as if you might disappear. “I just… I thought that one day you’d wake up and realize you deserve someone better. That—That you’d see I’m not enough for you because I’m not perfect.” Her voice cracked as tears spilled freely down her cheeks. “This body… this body that I’ve fought so hard for, it’s still not enough. People look at me and see a lie, a joke. I thought maybe one day you’d see me the same way, and it would break me, Y/N. It would destroy me.”

Her words came in waves, each one laced with years of pain and fear. “You deserve someone who doesn’t have to fight to exist. Someone who doesn’t carry the kind of baggage I do. I’ve seen the way people stare at us when we’re together. The way they judge you just for loving me. And I thought… maybe you’d get tired of it. Of me. Of always having to defend me, to fight for me. I thought you’d leave, and I didn’t think I’d survive it.”

Her voice grew softer, trembling as she continued. “You have no idea what it’s like… to constantly wonder if the people who love you will stop when they finally see you for who you really are.”

The raw vulnerability in her words cut through you like a knife. God, it pained you to see her like this. Without hesitation, you rose from your seat and moved to her side. Kneeling down, you gently placed your fingers under her chin, lifting her face so she could meet your gaze.

“Oh, love,” you murmured, your voice soft yet steady. “I will never, ever leave you. Not now, not ever. Do you hear me?” You brushed away the tears streaming down her face, your touch gentle and reassuring. “You are enough, Hyun-ju. You’re more than enough. You’re the bravest woman I know. You’ve fought battles most people couldn’t even imagine, and you’ve come out stronger every time.”

You gave her a soft smile, hoping it could reach the cracks in her heart. “You’re my Hyun-ju. The one who fills my life with warmth and love. The one who makes those incredible meals so I don’t have to spend a dime eating out. And the one who makes me laugh when I don’t even think I can smile.”

Your thumb stroked her cheek as you looked into her tear-filled eyes. “I don’t care what the world thinks, or what anyone says. I see you, Hyun-ju. I love you. Every single part of you. And nothing, nothing will ever change that.”

In that moment, you weren’t just offering her words—you were offering her a piece of your soul, a promise that no matter what storms came your way, you would face them together.

“I love you, Hyun-ju. All of you. Your body, your personality—everything. I love you,” you whispered, your voice steady and filled with sincerity.

You leaned in slowly, giving her a moment to meet you halfway. As your lips met hers, the kiss was tender, a gentle melding of emotions rather than just a physical gesture. It was soft but full of meaning, as if you were pouring all the love, reassurance, and devotion you felt into that single moment.

Her lips trembled against yours, and you could feel the faint taste of salt from her tears, but neither of you pulled away. Instead, you cupped her face with both hands, your thumbs brushing away the wet trails on her cheeks. She responded hesitantly at first, as though afraid to believe this was real, but then her hands found their way to your arms, holding onto you as though grounding herself in your presence.

When you finally pulled back, your foreheads pressed together, her breath mingling with yours. “You’re my everything, Hyun-ju,” you said softly, gazing into her tearful eyes. “Always.”

“I love you too.”

You smiled softly, leaning in to press a gentle kiss to her cheek. “How about I buy you that favorite dessert of yours?” you offered, your voice light and filled with affection.

Taking her hand in yours, you gave it a reassuring squeeze before flashing her a smile—one of those rare, genuine smiles that you saved just for her. It was the kind of smile that spoke volumes, one that told her she was cherished, loved, and safe with you.

As you walked out of the café, your gaze lingered on Hyun-ju, unable to help but admire her once more. You silently thanked the gods for blessing you with such a wonderful partner, vowing to do anything for her.

a/n . i told myself I was going to make a part two of mesmerized but I honestly got kind of lazy...and this prompt I could not stop thinking about it. This is my first time writing angst since i'm more of a writer who loves writing tooth rottening fluff....LOL

[withleeknow]

wishful thinking. (08)

chapter eight: ships in the night

summary: the instruction was plain and simple: no strings attached. but you should’ve known from the beginning that it could never apply to you and him.

pairing: minho x f!reader rating: 18+ (minors dni) genres/warnings: friends to lovers, friends with benefits au, college au; fluff, angst, smut; i’ve been told this is the angstiest chapter yet saur yk you’ve been warned, mentions of past seggsy times, oc is self-deprecating self-sabotaging, oc has an anxiety attack in this one, erhm just Big Sad overall methinks, also could've been more edited but i am a godless monster word count: 7.2k note: wt is backkkkkk!! and it's the penultimate chapter omg :( lowkey nervous about how this is gonna be perceived bc i feel like my brand is Sad™️ and i haven't properly written anything Sad™️ in a WHILE. but yeah, wt8 is yours now have funnn. also ty chessica @matchannie for proofreading!!

as always, i’d appreciate any thoughts or comments you may have, and please drop a like and/or reblog if you enjoy reading ♡

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Sorry, I know that comment wasn’t funny Just wanted you to love me, but I didn’t go about it right Sometimes the best advice that I can give Is to bite my lip and listen with my big fat mouth shut tight

big fat mouth - Arlie

You don’t think you can ever forget the look on his face, the hurt in his eyes when the words had tumbled out of your mouth in a panicked frenzy. The regret was immediate, but so was the damage.

Saying things you didn’t mean, watching Minho so utterly defeated that it kills you, and the deafening silence after he had walked away from you on heavy footsteps – you can’t describe how it all felt that night. It’s just… sinking, and sinking, and sinking; endlessly spiraling in an ocean of your own guilt and despair. It’s true what they say – misery loves company.

Distractions don’t work, because whenever that overwhelming dread eases by even a fraction, you’re once again reminded by the bracelet that’s wrapped around your wrist with the tiny dove charm hanging on the side. Neither of you paid it any mind the other night, that much is clear.

You know you should return it to him eventually; it’s never belonged to you and it never will. But every time you go to take it off, you can’t bring yourself to simply undo the clasp and hide the bracelet somewhere you can’t see. It lets you delude yourself into thinking that you haven’t lost him even after what you said, even after you stomped on his heart and left it bleeding where you stood. 

You’d been upset, thinking that you were the only one falling, terrified that you’d crash headfirst into the cold, hard ground because there’d be nobody to catch you. And yet, when Minho told you he loved you, it provided you no relief at all. The fear magnified tenfold, taking over you until you couldn’t see straight, until it consumed you whole.

Home is something you find, and you’ve found it in him. Your sun and your spring and your home, and everything good that you can ever name.

All your life, something is always missing, an empty space that you never learned how to fill. Like when you exit a room and there’s a nagging feeling in your gut telling you that you’ve forgotten something even though all of your belongings are accounted for. Like when you lose your favorite ring, one that’s a little too loose but beloved anyway, slipping over your knuckle without your permission and disappearing forever, and you keep running your fingers over where the golden band used to be until you come to terms with the fact that it’s never coming back and you’ll spend the rest of your life mourning the loss of that familiarity.

You’ve always looked for things you lost in places you’ve never been.

You just want to go home, but you know you’ll only ruin it in the end.

The problem has never been Minho or anybody else. It’s you, and how there’s something intrinsically wrong with you. You paint the ending before there’s even a beginning. You’d rather run and hide than let yourself feel anything, because if there’s happiness then there’s going to be hurt inevitably.

You don’t want him to wake up one day and look at you like you’re a stranger, to realize that he’s wasted his time and effort, that you just weren’t worth it after all. 

It’s funny how, when you’re a child, time seems to move so quickly. One minute, you’re four, maybe five years old, and your mother is refusing to speak to you because she thinks you ruined one of her bags, a large scratch running along the otherwise smooth leather surface like it’s been met with a pair of scissors or simply accumulated on her way to work and she hadn’t noticed until she got home and you happened to be in the vicinity of her anger; the next, she’s letting you relish in all your favorite desserts, cavities be damned.

One minute, you’re being rushed to the hospital with a bad case of food poisoning, your parents staring down at you as if you’re actually about to die; the next, you’re already at home, watching cartoons that you couldn’t understand but you like anyway because they’re full of pretty colors and princesses and fairies.

You don’t remember how your mother came to forgive you for the bag even though it wasn’t your fault, or what the hospital felt like or if what the doctors and nurses did to make you feel better even hurt. You only know that you wish to return to a smaller version of yourself whose memories you can’t even recall, return to a time in which you once so desperately wanted to escape from.

Now, when you’re hurt, time doesn’t pass in a blink of an eye like it used to. It stands still, sucks you down a vortex and makes you feel everything. 

No one ever really warns you about growing pains, that they’re unavoidable no matter how hard you try to avoid them, that they can last a lifetime because you never really stop growing, and it never really seems to ache any less.

Hyunjin: Attachment: 1 Image. Hyunjin: i sent this one in  Hyunjin: u??

You’d almost forgotten about the exhibition until Hyunjin had sent you those texts. Even though you’re not one to neglect deadlines, you suppose it’s fairly reasonable that this one in particular had slipped your mind. You haven’t really been able to wrap your head around that many things after all.

Every semester, yours and Hyunjin’s department rents out a gallery near campus for a whole week to showcase students’ works. It’s nothing exclusive, nothing like a competition where they pit a couple hundred kids against each other just for a spot at a fancy art gallery. Almost anyone in the Faculty of Arts can register before the submission deadline, and you suppose that’s another reason why you’d overlooked it so easily – because you didn’t earn it. It didn’t feel special. It was just another meaningless event to attend.

Regardless, you spent a chunk of an afternoon pondering your selection though it didn’t matter that much, almost two hours dedicated to picking out paintings you realized you didn’t love. Some you even turned out to hate, even though you could remember the pride radiating from you the moments the canvas had felt the last brush stroke. Maybe the glamor eventually wore off, the momentary high that coursed through you when you’d shown your finished works to your professors and peers, and received showers of praise in return.

The piece you chose in the end wasn’t your favorite by any means, but it was one of the only pieces you could still bear to look at without nitpicking too much. It was a painting of the waters, and you’ve always loved the waters.

You could recall the day you went to the promenade by yourself with a need to be away from everyone and everything, and an overshirt that was too light to combat the September evening chill as summer transitioned into fall. You watched the sky slowly darken after the sun had disappeared from view, watched as the buildings on the other side of the river lit up one by one until they made up for the light that retired for the day.

The thin layers made you shiver – the consequence of your poor choice in clothing that night – but there was something about sitting by the waterfront after dark, kicking pebbles around underneath your feet, and the gentle caress of the wind on your face and your hair that made the cold feel welcoming. You always thought the city was more beautiful at night, more calming amidst all of its perpetual chaos. It made you feel like you were inside a dream long forgotten, took you back to a north star that you left to gather dust on an abandoned shelf.

You could recall wanting to dive into that dream again, a dream in which you could chase a perfect version of you that would never exist and find light at the end of the tunnel, instead of returning to the reality where you always wound up suffocating in darkness. You wanted to be free, free from the noise and free from your own life despite one simple truth that you knew all too well – that you could run but never from yourself.

When you were young, it’s the moon that used to follow you everywhere. As you get older, it’s all of the things that keep you up at night.

You could recall your phone buzzing to life in your bag with Minho’s name on the screen, like a sign from the universe saying “Hey, this one’s for you. Don’t drown. You have a lighthouse.” and it was as though he could sense that you were falling, like someone had tied your heart to a rock and threw it into the very river in front of you to sink to the bottom. Your friends often said he had some sort of sixth sense when it came to you. Maybe there was some truth in that.

His voice pulled you out of it, even though he only called to ask if you wanted to come over and eat the boatload of food his mom had sent. He made you want to disappear a little less and in that moment, it was enough.

You left your hiding place to go to him, to lose yourself in stupid jokes and not-too-sweet desserts even if it was only for a couple hours. And when you returned home that night, everything spilled onto the canvas just from memory alone, from the feeling that you were desperately clinging onto with your shaking hands.

You always thought you could only run away to places. You didn’t know people could be escapes too, and somewhere along the way, that was what Minho became to you — your treasured escape, your new hiding place.

You manage to avoid everyone – with the exception of Hyunjin; you do have to see him in class after all – over the two and a half weeks leading up to the exhibition, drumming up excuse after excuse to bail whenever any of them asks to grab a bite together or just to simply hang out. If they saw you, they’d notice your puffy eyes and ask if you’ve been crying. They would ask why, and you can’t find in yourself to make up a lie believable enough for that kind of question.

You think Hyunjin has noticed. He’s a bit of an idiot sometimes, but he’s not stupid and he’s still blessed with the gift of sight. He doesn’t mention anything though, despite you showing up to almost every class with puffy eyelids. You suppose you’re grateful for that.

Minho hasn’t talked to you at all since that night. Doesn’t ask you how your project’s going, doesn’t ask you about the exhibition, barely even speaks in the group chat, not even a boring comment about the weather. What were you expecting anyway? You get it, you do.

But despite the silence, you never doubted that he would show up to the exhibition. If not for you, then he would be there to support Hyunjin.

The only person who really has an inkling that something is wrong is Jess, when you were getting ready together earlier tonight and she helped you conceal your puffy eyes. She’d tiptoed around the question before settling on  asking “Everything okay?” — simple, easy, quickly dismissible if you didn’t feel like sharing.

You didn’t, and she dropped the subject because there was no point in badgering you for answers anyway. 

Chan picked the both of you up afterward, and Jess didn’t have to explain anything to him when she slipped into the backseat with you instead of riding next to her boyfriend.

Now here you are, standing in a room full of your friends and peers, wearing a black dress that Jess helped you choose, and Minho is nowhere to be found. You’d spent all day pacing around, anxious at the mere thought of seeing him and even talking to him. What you hadn’t anticipated was the disappointment, the unbearable feeling in the pit of your stomach in response to his absence. You can’t tell which is worse; maybe every moment without him all sucks the same.

When Hyunjin starts whining and takes out his phone to spam Minho’s messages demanding his location (you’re thankful that it didn’t have to come to you), all he receives in return is a measly “Running late.”

And that’s it. A mere text is enough to satiate everyone’s curiosity. Well, everyone but Hyunjin, because he’s still a nagging drama queen.

Minho is running late, and to anyone else, it’s the most normal thing in the world.

But to you… it means something beyond that. Because this was him. This was your Minho. Your Minho who’s never been known for his tardiness, who’s never once broken a promise, who’s always there for you no matter what.

All you know right now is his absence, and it makes you sink.

You sink, and then you wait. Not a lot to be done about it.

You slip away to a quiet spot, a vacant hallway, to be by yourself while everyone is out there wandering around and gorging themselves on the free food and drinks. You shouldn’t be with them anyway. All you need is to wallow in peace and not be the black cloud hanging over everybody’s heads.

There’s something so incredibly lonely in the act of waiting. Waiting to board a plane, waiting in line at the grocery store. Waiting for a phone call or text message that you know won’t come, waiting for a person whom you can only hope would show up. At the end of the day, that’s what waiting is, isn’t it? It’s wanting. It’s hoping, and if there’s one thing you know about hope, it’s that it’s dangerous.

You wonder if this is how Minho felt all this time, waiting on a girl who’s always prepared to leave. You wonder if, that night, he had expected you to reciprocate his feelings. You did. You do, and a part of you wanted to tell him that you loved him too. The words were there, and yet…

It’s true that you love him, and it’s true that you don’t want to. If hope is dangerous then love is fucking terrifying. 

He’d been so patient with you, so awfully gentle and quiet in the chasm of his waiting that you mistook the tenderness for everything except for what it actually was – love. Or perhaps you did know. Maybe deep down, you knew that you would’ve loved him back with everything you had, with every fiber of your being. That you would’ve let him be the only one to ever really know you, and it felt like a fear greater than you could bear. 

In the end, did you lose him? Can you lose something you never had? It wasn’t a love that you let slip away; it was a what if.

You’re in a room with people who love you and yet, all you can think about is Minho. You miss him so much that it feels like someone has spliced you in two, that it physically makes you ache every second that he isn’t with you. As selfish as it sounds, you want him to walk through the door and you want everything to be okay again. You want to be back in a bubble with just the two of you and a locked box filled with words unsaid. You thought you could stay in that bubble forever, where it was safe and you could pretend that you were happy, and maybe you really were happy with him. But all things — good or bad — must come to an end. The bubble burst, and this was the real world.

You want to undo your cruelty, want him to take back his sincerity. You want an ocean of distance between you and him, you want to pull him as close as humanly possible. All your wants are contradictions. You’re a paradox of puzzle pieces that never seem to fit together.

You want to tell him that it hurts. Want him to make it better because he’s the only one who can make it better.

But miracles rarely happen and there are no shooting stars in sight. Minho was the closest thing you got to a shooting star, burning across your night sky for just a brief moment. Blink and you could miss it. Blink and you did miss him.

Your fingers find his contact in your phone before you could stop yourself, and soon enough, you’re pressing the call button. It’s like drunk dialling, only you aren’t intoxicated. Or maybe you are; maybe you’re under the influence of his absence and how much it stings.

You don’t know why you’re calling him, don’t know what to even say when he picks up.

Thankfully, you don’t have to wonder for long.

“Your call has been forwarded to voicemail. Please leave your message after the tone,” comes the automated voice on the other end.

For some reason, you don’t hang up. You wait for the beep, then you wait some more. It’s not until ten seconds later that you find your voice, the only thing to come out of your mouth is a quiet Hey.

You clear your throat, rub the sweaty palm of your free hand on your dress. “Hey,” you try again. “It’s… me. I’m at the gallery with everyone. Uhm, they’re all waiting for you. Are you on your way? Are you stuck in traffic? Or did you forget it was today? Hyunjin is trying really hard not to blow up your phone–” You pause to chuckle dryly. “But you know it would mean a lot to him to have you here. It… it’d mean a lot to me too if you were here. I don’t know, I assumed you’d come. I’m sorry, that was stupid of me. I just…” Another pause. This time, it’s so that you could take a breath. “Listen, Minho, I didn’t mean what I said to you. I’m sorry I was an asshole. I’m sorry that I hurt you, I don’t have any excuse for that. You deserve better than me. It’s going to pass, you know? I’m sorry if you’ve wasted your time on me, but… you’re going to find someone else, and you’re going to get over it. I’m sorry I fucked everything up. It’s fine if you never want to talk to me again, just please don’t let it get between you and our fr–”

The line beeps again. “To replay the message, press 1. To save the message, press 2. To delete the message, press 3.”

You purse your lips together. There’s still a lump in your throat and no peace to be made. It’s like drunk dialling, only you pull yourself together at the very last second. Your thumb hovers over the dial pad on your phone until you eventually end up on 3, because your cowardice will always triumph in the end. Back to square one. Everything’s still the same as it was five minutes ago.

You force your legs to move, like how you'd force yourself to get up and eat and drink water and shower and be a person these days. When you round the corner, you bump against something solid. A person. The collision isn’t hard enough to knock you backward; they weren’t moving, they’d only been standing still.

You look up at Seungmin, who merely blinks at you. You don’t know how long he’s been here, if he heard anything at all. You swallow once, considering whether you should just play dumb and gauge his reaction or ask point blank if you’ve been caught. He beats you to the decision though.

“You and Minho,” Seungmin says, a bit hesitant, like the topic is weird to bring up. “You’re the girl.”

A deer in headlights, you are. A pathetic one at that, too.

But even then, you’re not panicked, not really. You’re just sad, and the truth was bound to come out eventually. 

“Please don’t tell anyone,” you say.

The discarded voicemail that he overheard, the dejection written all over your face, the silence from both you and Minho recently — it’s obvious to pretty much everyone, and Seungmin is smarter than most.

He opens his mouth and shuts it again like he’s choosing his words. The Seungmin-esque blank stare melting away to make space for some pity, then a question, “Is there anything left to tell?”

You escape to the empty garden in the back where there were a few lonely chairs set up, so you could have some privacy to talk. Despite everything, it feels like you’ve got a little breathing space, just being able to share this with someone. To not have to carry it all on your own. You’re glad that it was Seungmin who found out first. You have a feeling that he would understand, at least to some degree. You’re relieved, even when the first question that he asks is, “So, how did you fuck it up?”

“Why do you just automatically assume it was me?” You’re mildly offended, even though he’s right.

“Between you and Minho, I’d bet on you.” Seungmin shrugs. “You spook easily.”

“I deeply resent that notion.”

He turns to look at you, no trace of any teasing. “Can you prove me wrong?”

But you can’t, and it tells him as much when you avert his eyes in favor of the ground, where you kick at a lonesome pebble sitting among the grass. It lands somewhere between the green blades, lost in the shadows that cast over parts of the garden that are poorly lit.

“So what happened?” he asks, turning away again to stare out at the empty space. You like to think of it as him giving you some elbow room, to ease the pressure of being scrutinized. And as much as you appreciate it, it still takes you another brief moment before you can formulate a coherent sentence, another minute of twiddling your fingers in your lap.

You tell Seungmin about your first night with Minho – not the details, of course; that would be weird and it’s none of his business. Just that it happened, how you both let it keep happening over the past few months while nobody suspected a thing.

Seungmin nods solemnly, like he’s putting together the missing pieces.

“Did you ever notice anything?” you ask.

“I mean… not about you hooking up, but we thought you’d end up together eventually.” He shrugs. “We always kinda assumed that you two would become those people who make a pact to get married if you’re still single by 40 or 50, if you didn’t get together before then. It makes sense. You and Minho just sort of make sense.”

“Oh,” you say. Your heart swoops. Hearing it from Seungmin makes you sad. Not the same brand of sadness that you’ve been wearing lately though. A different kind, the kind of sadness that’s a little numbing and makes it difficult to breathe. “Well, sorry to disappoint everyone but I don’t think any of it is gonna happen anymore.”

“So… how did it happen?” Seungmin asks again, mimicking explosions with his hands.

You let him off easy without a punch in the shoulder, because you just really don’t have the energy for it right now. “Minho wanted something more,” you tell your friend, fiddling with the rings on your fingers, then with the necklace charm resting on your collarbone. “And I just… I don’t know. I guess I freaked. I… said some awful stuff to him.”

Seungmin hums a sound of acknowledgement. He looks like he’s thinking about it, about you and Minho and what it means. “Classic,” he chuckles after a brief moment, mostly to himself. Maybe he’s thinking about what it means beyond just the pair of you too.

You side-eye him. “You’d know all about it, wouldn’t you?”

He shoots the glance back at you. “What are you trying to say here?”

You remember her, the only girl that Seungmin has ever hinted at liking. He never admitted it out loud to any of you, but you could all see it.

You only used to see her in passing at house parties, and even then, it wasn’t Seungmin nor her who brought the other one around. They would show up separately with their own group, mingle for a while, find each other after a couple of drinks before they disappeared to god-knows-where for the rest of the night. Sometimes, Changbin or Hyunjin would catch them before they could sneak off and insist that Seungmin let everyone get to know his friend.

These brief interactions are all you have with her, meaningless small talk for a few minutes before Seungmin’s patience ran thin and he whisked her away like they’d both intended. You liked her; she was nice, and she was really pretty. You liked her even though you didn’t know her, because she was the one person who Seungmin cared about enough to keep away from prying eyes. A secret shared only between the two of them, a bubble in which only they existed.

The last time you saw her with him must’ve been at least three months ago, maybe even longer. No one really knows what happened, just that she stopped showing up to parties, and Seungmin never brought it up again. You all assumed whatever he had going on with her had run its course, though it doesn’t really stop Hyunjin and Jisung from mentioning her every now and again just to tease him.

“I seem to recall a Halloween party last year and a certain someone was in a bee costume and–”

“Fine,” Seungmin interjects, rolling his eyes. “Fine, we can form our own dumbass club. Happy?”

You laugh a little, even though the whole thing isn’t very funny. Your shared experience is nothing to take pride in.

“So how did you blow it up?” you ask.

He gives you a sour glare before his eyes soften. He doesn’t say anything for a while, and in his silence you find that you and him are more similar in ways that you’ve never cared enough to admit before. This sadness that you carry, you have a feeling that he knows it all too well.

“Like I said, classic,” Seungmin tells you. “She wanted something more. I freaked. I ghosted her.”

A mirror. Two sides of the same stupid coin.

You lean back against your seat. “Did you like her?”

It takes a beat, but his answer comes out as an honest, “Yeah, I liked her. Liked her too much.”

“Why did you do that to her then?”

“Why did you do that to Minho?” Seungmin deadpans, but he doesn’t seem to want a response from you. He just sighs, wistfully adding, “I’ve thought about it a lot. It’s scary to be wanted because it means someone’s putting you on a pedestal, and when you’re on a pedestal, the more it’ll hurt if you fall off. The more they’re counting on you to not let them down, the easier it is to fuck it all up. People like us, we’re flight risks. We can’t help it. We think it’s better to just leave before we can do any real damage. When you said whatever terrible shit you said to Minho, that was the first thing you thought about, right? To be cruel? That’s what I did too. Such a fucking stupid knee-jerk reaction.”

You don’t know how to respond, so you just sit there, completely still. 

Then Seungmin turns to you, and for the first time in all the years that you’ve known him, he’s looking at you, really looking at you. No snarky side-eye, no playful faux glare. Just a strange and unfamiliar sincerity, like he’s asking you to fix what he couldn’t, undo the cruelty that he never bothered apologizing for.

“Minho would understand, you know? If you’d just talk to him,” Seungmin says. “You made a mistake in the heat of the moment. But you want to have something real with him, don’t you? Otherwise you wouldn’t be here talking to me about this and beating yourself up over it.”

“I told you. That ship sailed.” And you’re standing up for no apparent reason other than the fact that you’re suddenly restless, your stomach twisting in knots out of nowhere. “He’s not even here. He didn’t even show up tonight. I think that’s saying enough.”

Your friend rises to his feet too, probably because he thinks it’s weird to be the only one sitting now while you’re upset and pacing about. It’s not until Seungmin takes a step closer that you realize you’re shaking a little.

“Hey, you good?” He puts a hand on your shoulder. “I talked to Minho yesterday. He said he’d come. Maybe something came up or he just–”

Hyunjin’s voice interrupts Seungmin in the middle of his sentence, the excited squeal carrying itself from all the way inside the gallery to the back garden through the door left ajar. Speak of the devil and he shall appear, maybe there’s a reason why people say it. It’s laughable, really.

You and Seungmin both turn your attention to the brief commotion indoors, where you see Hyunjin smiling so big that his eyes have crinkled into crescent moons, where he’s standing with his arm thrown around Minho and shaking him by the shoulders.

These days, it’s easy to pretend that time is standing still. You don’t even know if time is even passing at all; you’re just looking at him, dressed in a black blazer and some dress pants. Casual but he looks good. He always does.

You watch as he says something to Hyunjin that seems to calm the latter down a bit, at least enough for Minho to quickly scan the room, searching. You watch as his eyes sweep through all the people gathered inside, not stopping until they land on you, finding you on the other side of the glass door. Even in this terrible lighting, not entirely visible you assume, he sees you.

There was a conversation you had with Minho some time ago, when you two were sprawled out on your couch munching on strawberry Peperos and not paying attention to the movie that was playing on your TV, when he asked how you wanted your life to be at 40.

You knew what the boring answer was – you wanted your life to be stable, and you told him as much. Isn’t stability always the goal? Maybe a lame corporate job if the whole starving-artist-who-makes-it-big-overnight dream didn’t pan out. A cat and a dog named Mochi and Mocha, if you could afford two pets at once. An apartment that you owned, with framed pictures of everything you loved scattered all over the place, and stupidly cute fairy lights that you often see on Pinterest, and an unfathomable amount of plushies that your inner child was never indulged in. A peaceful and quiet life, at least to some extent. 

The honest answer, the one that you didn’t tell him, was you wanted to not live with regret.

But as you lock eyes with him, for a split second there, you know that you will.

About twenty years down the line, when you look back on your life and think of this chapter, you’ll think about a boy who loved you and whom you loved. How you broke both of your hearts trying to protect your own. You’ll wonder if he’s married, if he has kids, if he still reminisces about the girl he used to love when he was young. If he’s happy and if his dreams came true. If the sadness you caused yourself was worth it, if the pain meant anything at all. If you could go back in time and undo everything, would you?

You’ll get over it eventually – surely you will; heartbreak isn’t the end of the world – but you’ll live with the grief of what could’ve been if you weren’t afraid. You’ll be left to mourn the road not taken, your almost but never was. 

You’re the one who moves first, when it starts to become a struggle just to breathe. You stumble away from Minho’s line of sight, until you find a wall that you can rest against.

Seungmin is quick to follow. “Hey, woah, are you okay?”

Your hands alternate between balling themselves into tight fists and attempting in vain to grab at the flat surface of the concrete. There are no words that you can form to answer him. Only your ragged breathing and your pathetic effort to take in some air through your mouth.

“Okay, shit, uhm,” Seungmin sputters. “Hang on.”

Then he’s taking off. You don’t know how long he’s gone for, where he’s gone off to, and frankly, you can’t really bring yourself to care. Your hands abandon the wall in favor of your dress, something that you can actually hold onto. Your trembling fingers clutch the hem of your dress like they’re pretending it’s a lifeline, bunching and twisting the fabric in your sweaty palms. Hoping it’ll help, but it doesn’t at all.

Even over the sound of your heartbeat ringing in your ears, you could hear new footsteps coming out into the empty garden. Rushed at first, then they stop for a brief moment. You know who it is before he even approaches you.

Damn that Kim Seungmin.

The familiar scent of his cologne greets you before his voice. You spent hours and hours enveloped in this scent until it was dulled by sweat from the activities you were engaged in, if it wasn’t already softened by the kisses you would leave all over his skin.

When he calls your name, it comes out so soft, like you never broke his heart in the first place and that night was only a figment of your twisted imagination. He sounds so gentle, yet it sends you further down the crippling spiral. You don’t deserve him; maybe you never did, despite what Seungmin tried to put through your head earlier.

“I’m fine.” But you know your appearance has already betrayed your words. The first thing you say to him in weeks, and it’s a lie. You’re still leaning against the wall with your arms wrapped tightly around your trembling frame and your eyes squeezed shut. It’s a pitiful sight. Even more so when it registers in your brain that it’s Minho of all people who’s witnessing it. 

He doesn’t say anything else, only lets out a sigh, and then his hand is on your body, a warm palm touching the small of your back out of habit before he moves it upward to rub between your shoulder blades. “Can you breathe?”

His question makes you all too aware that there’s something gnawing inside of your chest, makes you think for a second there that you’re going to die though you know that you won’t. You shake your head with your eyes still closed, your breathing coming out more ragged by the second. You can’t even bear to look at him and absorb the worry in his eyes; you’re sure you’ll only cry if you do, and it’s the last thing you need right now.

But it turns out that seeing Minho’s face isn’t the only thing that can bring you to tears. When you feel him tug at your arms, his warmth on your bare skin, you start crying anyway and that makes it even harder to breathe. There’s not a single ounce of resistance in your body, your limbs obeying him easily when they untangle themselves around your waist to fall by your sides as he pulls you into his chest, with one hand over your sternum and his thumb rubbing back and forth. He’s careful about it too, like he’s handling broken pieces of something that used to be beautiful.

“You’re okay,” he says, but you’ve got your face pressed into the crook of his neck and your tears are staining the collar of his shirt. “You’re gonna be fine. Just… listen to me.”

You stay quiet, waiting for him to speak next.

“Name three things you can see,” he says. “You don’t have to say it out loud. Just think about it.”

You open your eyes finally, angling your head until most of your vision isn’t obstructed by the proximity of his body. Minho tightens his arm around you, and you blink away some of the tears.

Your black heels that your mom got you for your birthday a while ago.

The grass, darkened green and damp.

Him. 

“Three things you can hear.”

Light chatter coming from inside the gallery.

Cars passing by on the adjacent street.

Him, the sound of his breathing.

“Three things you can touch.”

The soft material of your dress against your skin.

The bracelet, hugging your wrist, weighing you down like an anchor.

And… him.

Him, him, him.

You don’t know what reason Minho makes up to excuse you for the rest of night, but you don’t bother asking. There’s really no space left in your head to think about it twice, to care about leaving your friends or feel guilty about Hyunjin because he was so excited about today. It’s too much; all you want is to go home, get away from here.

Minho calls you both an Uber back to your place. During the entire ride, he doesn’t say a word and neither do you. And even though you mostly opt for looking out the window at the other cars and houses and people passing by, every now and then you could feel his eyes on you from the other side of the backseat.

When you arrive, he keeps a hand on the small of your back as you make your way up the stairs. When you unlock the door, you leave it open so he could follow you inside. You suppose that one is a force of habit. You’re not used to shutting the door in his face. At least, not in the literal sense anyway.

Then it returns, that gnawing feeling. A feeling far too colossal for your body to house. It sits somewhere inside your ribcage, sharp and desperate, with claws trying to dig its way out. And for the first time in maybe ever, you understand what it truly means to want something this badly. You love him, and it hurts. You love him even though it hurts.

Minho moves around the place while you remain frozen in the middle of your own apartment, as if he’s the one who lives here and you’re just visiting for the night. You let him take off your makeup (with a wipe; you’re going to hate yourself in the morning), let him help you change into clothes that you can sleep in, even let him tuck you into bed like you’re a helpless child. If he notices the bracelet on you, he doesn’t say anything. Everything is done in silence.

You don’t look him in the eye. You don’t think you can handle what you’ll find there.

But you do reach for his hand when he tries to leave now that there’s nothing left for him to do here. There’s not a single thought behind your action, just a need to have him near.

“Can you…?” 

You aren’t brave enough to finish the question, your voice trailing off and the words dissipating like smoke after a lonely cigarette drag. You’re being selfish right now, you’re awfully aware of this.

Minho doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even let out a single sigh. For a second there, you think he’s about to leave you here, cold and alone, just like you had done to him. It would be nothing less than what you deserve.

But then he’s shrugging off his blazer and your heart is in your throat. When he slips into bed beside you, something hurts, the kind of ache that spreads all across your chest and makes your lungs burn.

Earlier tonight, he could’ve walked away and let you be somebody else’s burden. Your friends were all there, it’s not like they would’ve left you stranded.

You’re not really sure what to think. It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t hate you, but maybe it’s just enough confirmation that he doesn’t hate you more than he loves you.

You break the deafening stretch of silence with a whisper, “I’m sorry.” You don’t know what the apology is for. Are you sorry for that night, for the things you said to him? Are you sorry that you’re only yourself, that he just had to go ahead and fall for you of all people? Sorry that you’re too much of a coward and a lost cause to love him right? You don’t know, but it feels appropriate to apologize. You owe him that much.

“Don’t…” Minho says after a while. “You don’t have to do that.”

The familiar sensation returns – the one that stings the back of your eyes, burns your nostrils and makes you all choked up. You try to hold your breath and will it away, but the first tear spills without your permission, and you can’t help the shaky inhale – close to a gasp and followed by a sniffle – that punctuates your lungs when they start protesting against the sudden lack of oxygen. 

You grip the sheets so hard you think you could rip through the fabric and dig into your own palm. It’s a pathetic feeling, like a strange kind of embarrassment that you can’t quite describe. The room is deadly quiet; you know there’s no way he didn’t catch the noise.

You hear Minho shift from where he lays behind you, some rustling when he moves against the duvet and the mattress. “Don’t cry,” he sighs. And it’s still so gentle. You’ve never known him to be anything but gentle.

You bite the inside of your cheek, blinking some of the tears away. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Just… don’t cry.” It sounds like he’s holding something back but you aren’t sure. “Don’t cry. Go to sleep. We can talk in the morning, if you want.”

You sniffle some more, and maybe that makes Minho think he still needs to appease you even further. He reaches out finally, to brush a comforting hand against your arm. “Go to sleep. Promise I’ll be here when you wake up.”

You don’t know if you want to talk in the morning, because there’s nothing for you to say. All you really have is what he’s already heard – I’m sorry, like an utterly broken record. But you want him to stay even if it’s only for the morning. Even if all he’ll get is silence at best and choked up breaths at worst. Your last-ditch attempt at grasping straws, a futile effort to chase running water.

“Okay,” you tell him, and neither of you says anything afterward. The tears keep falling for a while, and at some point it tires you out enough to slip into a dreamless sleep.

When you open your eyes hours later, the sun is already up. The clock on your phone reads 7:06AM and the first thing you register is an uncomfortable dryness in your throat. Behind you, the bed is still warm. You can actually feel it underneath your fingertips when you reach out, the warmth dwindling from the side of the bed that’s been left vacant. Minho has never broken a promise to you before.

He’s gone, and you sink again.

all rights reserved © withleeknow. reposting, translating and/or modifying is not permitted by any means. [posted 08.01.2025]

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

And once again, you are now acknowledging that there is at least a sliding scale from 'lacking legal protections' to 'actively being exploited', but you did not do that initially - you went straight to "definitely being exploited, so I get to be condescending and judgemental."

I STILL know more about this place than you. I am deliberately not giving details for privacy reasons - theirs and mine - but I know so, so much more than you do about this. I also did research before I went for the first time about what signs to look out for in case of a modern day slavery situation, and not only have I never seen even a hint, I have seen plentiful pieces of evidence to the contrary, including the fact that every time I go I pay the workers directly into their own bank accounts, they all have their own phones that they can use whenever they like (a little too much, in the case of one who once kept stopping my massage to text a friend), and that plenty of them have left and gone into other fields. I literally still have Chris' number. What do you have? A handful of incredibly small talking points that you reckon might mean something.

On top of that, I don't know where you're writing from in the world, but brothels cannot officially operate here. That does not automatically equate to Definite Exploitation, as you immediately decided.

Honestly? I think you can interrogate for yourself why you have identical instincts to a SWERF with white saviour desires. But the bigger issue here, frankly, is that ultimately your motivation with that response was that you just wanted to feel self-righteous and get to be a dick to someone. If you actually gave a shit about the hypothetically exploited people you invented in your head, your response would have been "Hey, I am concerned about possible exploitation. Have you noticed any signs?" And, you know, a list of signs. Not the prissy, sanctimonious comment you went for that did nothing except try to broadcast to the world how Enlightened you are.

Rapidly losing patience in this conversation. I strongly suggest you just take the hit and walk away rather than trying to dig your heels in while subtly trying to walk it back with each new response and pretend you weren't being as black-and-white pseudo-authoritarian as you actually were.

Search is turning up nothing, but that's Tumblr even if there is something, so:

Have I told you guys about my many adventures with the brothel massage parlour around the corner from my house yet?

[strwberri-milk]

How would the lads boys react to a reader that is touch starved but is to shy to initiate physical contact (at the beginning) cuz she’s afraid of making them uncomfortable ?

Zayne doesn't initiate physical contact often either on account of just being a little too busy to be cuddly. He will hold your hand your or put his arm around your waist - showing you affection in socially acceptable ways because that's just how he shows affection. He isn't one to pull you into an intense kiss in the middle of the street - that's reserved for dark alleyways or the car on your way home.

He just thinks you're the same, not realising that it's a need you have. You'd have to communicate it with him or else he won't understand that you want him to initiate more contact. He doesn't mind holding you whenever he feels the need to or kissing your cheek and would assume that you'd do the same as he's never expressed not liking your attention.

Once you confide in him, telling him that you're just worried about making him uncomfortable he won't understand it at all. He reassures you that you'd never bother him, wanting you to reach out to him whenever you feel like you need him. It makes him feel needed by you as well, something he definitely appreciates because he wants you to find comfort in him.

Xavier can sense your unease because he sees how you always seem to hesitate whenever you touch him. He doesn't understand why you're acting like that but decides to continue observing just for now. When he determines it's a habit you have he'll ask you why you don't just touch him or hold him or kiss him whenever you want without seeming so nervous. He's worried he's somehow scared you off, made you feel like you shouldn't reach out to him for comfort.

You have to vehemently deny that statement, now feeling a little bad that you made Xavier think that he did something wrong. Thankfully, he's not going to dwell on it too long, telling you that he wants you to reach out and initiate physical contact whenever you feel the need to. He likes it when you're affectionate with him and wants you to do it more often, egging you on by responding with a little more enthusiasm than normal to reinforce the positive behaviour. You laugh a little at how obvious he's trying to make it, knowing he's doing it for your benefit, especially when he normally isn't this emotive in day to day things.

Rafayel is incredibly affectionate so for the most part, you don't find yourself needing too much of his attention since he usually gives all of it to you unprompted. The times you need to seek him out would be when he's deep into an art piece since he tends to forget everything. He'll still greet you with a kiss if you enter the room and hug you tightly to recharge his batteries but it's not nearly as much as he normally subjects you to, making you miss him a little bit more.

He notices you hanging around in the studio a little aimlessly, raising a brow at you. He decides to see what you're doing while he waits for his layers to dry, seeing you just sort of wandering until he calls you over. You practically bound over, looking at him expectantly. He doesn't get it quite yet, looking at you with mild confusion but also loving how adorably you're looking up at him.

It'll take him a second to realise you're waiting for him to shower you in attention the way he normally would, pulling you into his lap and letting you bury your face into his neck. He realises how much he's been neglecting you now, apologising and telling you that you can always make him give you attention. He loves you and would do anything for you, reinforcing the fact that he wants you to shower him in attention too whenever you feel like it. It makes him feel loved too and when you finally start doing it he'll overreact a little, practically melting at your touch because of his adoration for you.

Sylus can tell you have an aversion to initiating physical touch so he decides to make his cues for you more obvious. He'll look at you a little longer, opening an arm for you to crawl into his lap or come to his side to have a kiss pressed to your cheek. He doesn't mind initiating the physical contact this way because it clearly makes you more comfortable.

Over time with his patience you'll start to pick up on the fact that he's trying to acclimate you to initiating more physical contact. It works though, which you're glad about as you realise your nervousness around giving him physical affection is beginning to become far more manageable. He always leans into your touch whenever you initiate no matter where or what you're doing, thanking you in that smooth voice of his as he presses a kiss to your lips.

[0silver0dreams0]

"Whispers of Devotion"

Yandere House of the dragon x ModernReborn!Reader Pt. 3

Summarized: Gradually, as time passes, the girl she once was begins to transform into a woman. Those around her take notice, and the actions of those in her life start to bear consequences. As tensions rise, rivalries deepen, and complex feelings begin to intertwine.

Warning: hatred, love macking, mutual masturbation, clues of incest, forbidden love and stalking.

<< Pt. 2 — masterlist — Pt. 4 >> (Coming Soon)

When will they finally leave you alone? Letter after letter after letter. They just don’t understand—you don’t want them anymore. Jacaerys, Rhaenyra, Daemon, even that insufferable boy Lucerys. You burned their letters in the fireplace without hesitation. You don’t care about them; you only wish for their suffering and demise, imagining it vividly before see them with your eyes. But you force yourself to set those thoughts aside. They are a distraction, and distractions displease your mother. Every minute of your day is accounted for, each task meticulously planned to maintain the illusion of perfection. If you falter—if you make a single misstep—Alicent will not forgive you. She will punish you, lock you in your chambers for hours, sometimes days, leaving you isolated with nothing but your thoughts.

You live to please her. To earn her approval. To become the daughter she expects you to be.

8:00 - Etiquette lessons 9:00 - Dance lessons 10:00 - Bath 11:00 - History lessons 12:00 - Go to the Great Sept with Alicent 13:00 - Have tea with Alicent 14:00 - Valyrian lessons 15:00 - Lunch with your family 16:00 - Watch Aemond train and encourage him 17:00 - Talk to Alicent about everything that happened during the day 18:00 - Sneak into the kitchen to eat something 19:00 - Pray Alicent doesn’t notice you ate something 20:00 - Read 21:00 - Prepare for bed 22:00 - Sleep

It’s almost noon, which means it’s time to accompany Alicent to the Great Sept. Yet, as the clock ticks closer to the hour, temptation claws at you. There’s a small gap in your schedule, just enough time for a stolen moment. You glance around to ensure no one is watching before slipping away to the gardens.

He’s waiting for you, leaning casually against a stone column, his armour glinting faintly in the sunlight, he was there, with his brown eyes, his blonde hair, Ser Alaric. The sight of him brings a rush of warmth to your chest.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says softly, though the smile on his face betrays his words. “I could say the same to you,” you tease, stepping closer. “But I’m glad you are.” He reaches out, brushing his fingers against yours—a touch so fleeting it almost feels like a dream. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Princess. If your brother finds out…”

You tense at the mention of Aemond. He must never know about this, about you and Alaric. Aemond’s protectiveness would turn violent in an instant, and you dread to think what he might do.

“He won’t find out,” you assure him, though your voice is quieter than you intended. “I won’t let him.” Alaric studies you for a moment, his expression unreadable, before he nods. “Just be careful. For both our sakes.”

Before you can respond, the sound of footsteps makes you both freeze. Your heart leaps into your throat as you whip around to see Aemond standing at the edge of the garden, his sharp gaze fixed on you.

“(your name),” he calls out, his tone neutral but his eye narrowing slightly. “What are you doing here?” You force a smile, stepping away from Alaric as casually as you can. “I had a bit of free time before prayer. I thought I’d take a walk.”

“And you, Ser Alaric?” Aemond’s voice hardens as he shifts his attention to the knight. “I was ensuring the Princess’s safety,” Alaric replies smoothly, bowing his head. Aemond’s gaze lingers on him for a moment before turning back to you. “Mother is waiting. You should go.”

You nod quickly, glancing at Alaric one last time before following Aemond.

When you arrive at the Sept, Alicent is already there, her gaze darkening the moment it lands on you.

"You’re late," she says, her tone sharp and clipped. “I apologize, Mother. I—” “I’ve no interest in your excuses.” She steps closer, her expression cold and unyielding. “You’ve been acting irresponsibly of late—sneaking off like a petulant child. I won’t allow it any longer.” Her voice is calm but cuts through you with the precision of a blade.

“After prayers, you will return to your chambers,” she continues, each word deliberate. “And you will remain there until I decide otherwise. Perhaps solitude will instil the discipline you so clearly lack.”

You open your mouth to object, but her piercing glare stops you mid-breath. Any protest dies on your lips.

The prayers are long and stifling, each moment stretching painfully under the weight of her disapproval. When they finally conclude, Alicent herself escorts you back to your chambers, her grip firm as though she fears you might slip away.

The heavy door shuts behind you with a finality that sends a shiver down your spine, followed by the unmistakable sound of the lock turning.

Left alone, you search your bed, hoping the books you’d hidden earlier might still be there. They aren’t. In fact, none of your hidden belongings remain. Realisation dawns—she must have discovered them. That’s why she was so angry.

With no distractions to occupy your mind, you lie on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Maybe sleep will offer a reprieve. But the hours drag on, the silence pressing against you like an iron weight. Just as the last light of day fades, a soft knock breaks the stillness, startling you.

“Aemond?” you call out hesitantly.

The door creaks open, and your brother steps inside, a tray of food in hand and a book tucked under his arm.

“You shouldn’t be here,” you whisper, though relief rushes through you.

“And leave you to starve?” he replies simply. He sets the tray down on your desk before sitting beside you on the bed. “Mother can be harsh, but she forgets—you're human, not an extension of her will.”

“Thank you,” you murmur, taking a tentative bite of the bread he brought. “But if she finds out, she’ll punish me even more.”

“I’ll speak with Father,” he says, his voice calm but resolute. “Perhaps he’ll see that Mother has gone too far.”

Your fingers graze the book he hands you, and for the first time in hours, a faint smile graces your lips. “You’re always looking out for me,” you say softly.

Aemond’s gaze lingers, his voice low but steady. “They don’t see you for who you are. To Mother, you’re a pawn; to them, a symbol. But I see you.”

Your breath hitches, his words stirring something deep within you. Before you can reply, he gently brushes a strand of hair from your face.

“I know how she treats you,” he continues, his tone measured but intense. “Always demanding, always expecting. But you don’t have to bear it alone. I’ll always be here.”

“Aemond…” you begin, unsure of what to say, but he interrupts with a faint smile. “Rest. If she troubles you again tomorrow, come to me—or Father. I’ll handle it.”

Without waiting for a response, he rises, his movements deliberate. At the door, he pauses, glancing back with a rare softness in his eyes.

“Remember, I’m always here.”

The door clicks shut behind him, and you’re left with a strange mixture of comfort and unease. Aemond’s presence was your refuge, but his intensity… it left a lingering weight in the air.

It was already dark when you decided to take a bath. Perhaps it would help ease the tension gripping your body. Surely Mother wouldn’t mind—not if it was just a few minutes to the bathing chambers nearby.

The corridor was silent as you slipped out, your footsteps a soft echo in the stillness. You moved swiftly, heart racing with the thrill of disobedience. Reaching the bathing chamber, you let out a quiet sigh of relief, pushing the heavy door shut behind you.

But before it could close, a hand shot out, stopping it. Panic flared as another arm wrapped around your waist, pulling you back, and a hand covered your mouth before you could scream. Your heart pounded, every nerve on edge, until the faint scent of leather and cedarwood registered.

“Relax,” came a low, familiar voice, its velvety tone tinged with amusement. “It’s just me.” You pull his hand away and whirl around, your expression a mix of relief and exasperation. “You scared me half to death!” you whisper fiercely, mindful of the echoing corridors outside.—”

“Forgive me, my lady. I couldn’t resist.”

“This isn’t funny,” you muttered, crossing your arms. “If Mother knew you were here—”

“She’d lock you away again?” he finished, his smile fading as his brown eyes softened. “I know. That’s why I had to see you. I couldn’t bear the thought of you trapped in that room, alone, while she wields her control over you.”

His words sent a rebellious spark through you, a flicker of validation in the face of your mother’s suffocating expectations. But just as quickly, the reality of your situation weighed it down. “Alaric, you shouldn’t be here,” you whispered, glancing nervously at the door. “If Aemond finds out…”

At the mention of your brother, Alaric’s expression hardened, his jaw tightening. “Aemond won’t find out. And even if he did, I’m not afraid of him.”

“You should be,” you murmured, your voice barely audible. “He’d kill you if he thought—”

“That I cared for you?” Alaric said quietly, his gaze piercing.

Your breath caught, and you looked away, heat rising to your cheeks. “You shouldn’t care for me,” you muttered. “It’s not safe—for either of us.”

“And yet, here I am,” he said softly, his hand reaching out to tilt your chin up, his touch gentle but insistent. “I don’t care about the risk, (your name). I’d rather face Aemond’s sword and your mother’s wrath than stay away from you.”

The weight of his words struck you, before you can stop yourself, you close the distance between you. Grabbing his arm, you pull him back, your heart pounding. His eyes widen in surprise, but he doesn’t hesitate. His hands find your waist as you lean in, and his lips meet yours in a kiss that drowns out every rule, every fear, and every consequence.

It wasn’t just a kiss—it was desperation and lust, a silent scream against the forces trying to pull you apart. For a fleeting moment, the world dissolved. No Mother. No Aemond. No suffocating expectations. Just Alaric and the reckless hope he represented.

When you finally pulled away, your breaths came fast, and your cheeks burned. Alaric’s eyes locked onto yours with an intensity that made your knees weak, his thumb brushing the curve of your jaw.

“I…” you started, but your words faltered.

His lips curved into a faint smile, tender yet resolute. “Say the word, and I’ll stay. No matter what.”

You shook your head, your voice barely above a whisper. “No. Not tonight. But… tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” he echoed, one brow lifting in curiosity.

“Here,” you said firmly. “The same time, the same place. I’ll find a way.”

He studied you for a moment, as if weighing the risk against the determination in your eyes. Then, he nodded. “Tomorrow, then.”

With a final lingering kiss to your forehead, he stepped back toward the window. “Don't let her break you. Be careful, (your name).”

“You too,” you whispered, watching him slip into the night, his silhouette vanishing into the shadows.

As the quiet of the chamber settled around you, your fingers brushed your lips, the memory of his kiss still vivid. The enormity of what had happened began to sink in, but instead of fear, a strange exhilaration coursed through you.

The following day dawns with an air of tension you can’t quite shake. As you dress for your morning lessons, the memory of last night lingers like a forbidden dream. You replay every word, every touch, every moment with Alaric, but reality presses in too soon.

When you enter the dining hall for breakfast, Alicent’s gaze immediately locks onto you. Her expression is stiff, and her tone, when she speaks, carries a sharp edge.

“Sit,” she says curtly, her eyes flicking toward the chair opposite her.

You do as instructed, lowering yourself into the seat. Aemond is already there, silent but watchful as always, and Viserys occupies his usual place at the head of the table. His expression, however, is uncharacteristically lively this morning, his gaze softening when it lands on you.

“Good morning, my dear,” Viserys says warmly, his voice cutting through the tension.

“Good morning, Father,” you reply, a cautious smile tugging at your lips.

He waves a hand dismissively toward the plate before you. “Eat well. And don’t worry about that ridiculous punishment. You’re free to go about your day as you please.”

You blink in surprise, your fork pausing mid-air. Alicent stiffens visibly, her lips pressing into a thin line.

“Viserys—” she begins, her voice tightly controlled, but he raises a hand to silence her.

“She’s done nothing to warrant being locked away, Alicent,” he says firmly, though his tone remains even. “Our daughter is a credit to this family. She carries herself with grace and dignity, and I won’t have her treated like some wayward child.”

Alicent’s hands clench in her lap, her composure barely holding. “It’s not about grace or dignity. It’s about discipline. She’s been sneaking off—”

“And you dealt with it, as you always do,” Viserys interrupts, his tone softening but leaving no room for argument. “But she’s learned her lesson, hasn’t she?” He glances at you with a fatherly smile.

“Yes, Father,” you reply quietly, your gaze lowering to avoid Alicent’s piercing stare.

“Good, then it’s settled.” Viserys returns to his meal, clearly considering the matter closed.

The tension at the table is palpable as Alicent pointedly cuts her food, the sound of her knife scraping against the plate unnervingly loud. Aemond exchanges a glance with you, a subtle flicker of support in his eye, but says nothing.

After breakfast, Alicent corners you just outside the hall, her voice low and sharp.

“Your father may see you as flawless, but perfection comes with a cost,” she hisses, her gaze cold. “You will not jeopardise what we’ve worked so hard to build with your recklessness.”

You swallow hard, nodding quickly. “Yes, Mother.”

Her glare intensifies, her tone biting. “You are the model of what a princess should be, and you will act accordingly. The court looks to you for inspiration, and I will not have them see weakness. Your lessons will continue, every one of them, and I will ensure your Septa does not coddle you.”

“Yes, Mother,” you reply, your voice steady but soft.

She studies you for a moment longer before sweeping away, her skirts rustling angrily behind her. The encounter leaves you standing tall, not because of fear, but because you know the weight of perfection that has been placed upon you—a weight you have always borne with grace.

The day stretches on, a never-ending cycle of lessons and expectations. Each moment is meticulously scheduled, a testament to your role as the perfect princess. Etiquette lessons are followed by hours spent discussing history, with each lecture becoming more and more of a blur. Valyrian is mastered with grace, the elegant words flowing from your lips as if they were second nature. The pressure to be flawless weighs heavily on you, but you bear it with an air of calm, never allowing it to show.

Throughout it all, Alicent remains a constant presence. She watches your every move, her sharp gaze never leaving you. You know she is pleased with your progress, but there is always a lingering sense of expectation in the air, as if the tiniest misstep would undo everything.

Even as you move from one task to another, the thought of Alaric flickers at the edges of your mind. The stolen kiss, the promise made—these moments linger in your thoughts like a secret thread woven through the fabric of your day. You push the thoughts aside, knowing you must focus on your duties. There is no room for distractions, not when you must remain perfect in every way.

Lunch comes and goes, a quiet affair with your family. You speak with your mother and Aegon, though your words are carefully measured. They don’t know—none of them do—but you catch Aegon’s eyes occasionally, a silent understanding passing between you. Afterward, you attend more lessons, this time under your mother’s watchful eye. Her gaze is always on you, sharp and piercing, but there’s also an unspoken encouragement there. She expects greatness, and you deliver it.

As the afternoon wanes, you move to your final task of the day: another meeting with Alicent. She inspects your progress with a critical eye, praising the things you’ve done well and reminding you of the things that still need perfecting. Her voice is firm, but there’s a gentleness there, too, the kind that only a mother can convey.

The hours pass like this, one after another, each duty completed to the highest standard. Finally, the evening arrives, and with it, the promise of a brief respite. Dinner with the family is a quiet affair, the room filled with the soft clinking of utensils and murmured conversation. You eat in silence, your mind elsewhere.

Afterward, you retire to your chambers. You change into your nightgown, the fabric cool against your skin. You look in the mirror for a moment, seeing the poised princess staring back at you. No mistakes. No cracks in the façade. Everything has been handled with perfect care.

You make your way to the bath chambers, the solitude of the corridors a small comfort. As you approach the door, you hear a voice from behind.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Alicent’s voice is sharp, and you freeze mid-step.

Turning slowly, you face her, the tension building in the air. “I’m going to take a bath, Mother,” you answer calmly, offering her a small, composed smile.

Alicent looks you over, her gaze lingering on your attire. “In that? Why are you dressed like that? You know it’s improper to go without the servants’ help.” Her tone is questioning, but not unkind.

“I didn’t want to trouble them, Mother,” you reply smoothly. “I thought I would go on my own this time, just to... clear my thoughts.”

Alicent studies you for a moment, her expression unreadable. “Very well,” she says, her voice softening slightly. “But you must remember to call for help if you need it. Don’t forget your place, (your name).”

You nod quickly. “Of course, Mother. I won’t be long.”

She gives you one last scrutinising look before nodding, satisfied for the moment. “See that you don’t. You’ve done well today, but there’s always more to be done. I’ll be watching.”

With that, she turns and walks away, leaving you alone in the quiet of the corridor. You exhale slowly, the tension in your body relaxing. Without another word, you slip into the bath chambers, and then you hear a sound outside the window. It’s him.

You approach the window, heart racing, and peek through the gap in the curtains. Alaric stands there, his presence unmistakable even in the dim light. His gaze meets yours, and the weight of the promise you made to each other the night before hangs in the air. The excitement builds in you as you move away from the window, quickly securing the door.

Moments later, the door creaks open just enough to reveal Alaric slipping inside, his eyes scanning the room before settling on you. His gaze lingers on your nightgown, the soft fabric clinging to your form in the dim light. You feel his eyes on you, heat rising in your chest. Neither of you speaks immediately—words are unnecessary now. The anticipation crackles between you, and it’s clear that tonight will be different.

He steps closer, the air thick with tension, and the space between you is filled with a promise of more. You meet his gaze, your heart pounding with the realization of everything you’re about to risk. But you don't care, and you know that neither does he. Without a word, you begin to unlace the ties of your nightgown, letting it fall to the floor at your feet, leaving yourself exposed completely to him. He watches you, his gaze intense, and then, without hesitation, he closes the distance between you. His lips crash against yours in a kiss that’s both hungry and desperate, a mix of desire and an unspoken understanding of the consequences. The kiss deepens, pulling you both into the moment, where nothing else matters but the heat between you, a connection neither of you can deny.

“Wait, I don’t want to be impure, even if I love you too much, and I need you so much that even words can’t describe it,” you say, voice trembling with a mix of desire and guilt. “I don’t want to disappoint my family by being impure before the wedding.”

Alaric watches you, his eyes dark with an intensity that both comforts and unsettles you. Even though you know he’s hungry, his gaze softens with concern, a frown tugging at his features. “Then don’t do it,” he says, his voice low and steady, almost like a promise. “We can always do other things.”

His words are a balm to your anxious heart, yet there’s something deeper in his tone, an unspoken suggestion that he’s willing to go to great lengths to keep you safe, to protect you—his obsession so deeply rooted in his care for you, and yet, there's a hint of something darker behind his gaze.

You hesitate, your hands shaking slightly as you look away, unsure if his care for you is truly all it seems. "But what if... what if I'm not enough for you?"

Alaric steps closer, his presence overwhelming as he lifts your chin gently with one hand. "You are more than enough," he says, his voice softer now, almost a whisper. "And no matter what happens, I'll make sure you're never alone."

His lips brush your forehead in a tender gesture, but the warmth doesn't quite reach your heart. You can feel the weight of his gaze, the unspoken promise of his love—and perhaps something more—pressing on you.

"You don't need to worry," he adds, his words both comforting and possessive. "I'll take care of everything. You just need to trust me."

And before you can say anything, he runs his hand down your body, touching your tits, your belly, all the way down to your private parts. You feel his fingers on your clitoris, circling, you want to moan, but before you do, his other hand goes to your mouth. As his head moves down your neck, kissing and sucking, but not leaving any marks. You were feeling so good, you don't know what he is doing down there and then he move away his hand of your mouth, and grabs yours, and guide to his dick and star to make moves.

"Just let me make you feel good too, all right, my lady?" Alaric’s voice is soft yet commanding, a tone that leaves no room for doubt.

You nod silently, your mind hazy and overwhelmed. You don’t fully understand what you’re doing; all you know is that you feel so good, so utterly consumed by the moment, that everything else fades into the background.

You barely notice what he’s doing with your hand or how quickly he’s guiding it. His touch is deliberate, firm, yet somehow gentle enough to keep you entranced.

You don’t have any idea what’s happening; the world around you blurs into pleasure and nothingness. All you know is the sensation—the warmth spreading through you, the dizzying rush of emotions—and the way he looks at you, as if you’re the only thing that matters in his entire world.

Pt. 4 >> (Coming Soon)

Author’s note: My apologies for the delay, I’ve had a busy few months, but I’m here now, and I hope to release part 4 very soon. Tomorrow, I’ll be posting some headcanons that I hope you’ll enjoy.

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[letstrip13]

୨୧ - picnic date

summary: 🍓🧺💐

warnings: none!

word count: 750

author's note: idea from the amazing @mattscoquette she's the absolute sweetest ever and i'm so glad we became friends !! <3 sorry for the wait btw

author's note 2: click here! and click here! i have little announcements about my account

author's note 3: also i just started a thing i'm calling 'mae's sturniolo catch up' so check that out too!! :)

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matt walks next to you, your fingers interlaced together as his thumb rubs the back of your hand gently in back and forth motions. in his other hand is the picnic basket you two packed together.

“where's the spot you talked about?” you smile and swing your arms a little, feeling like a giddy teenager for this date. “we're almost there.”

after some more steps, you both approach a clearing amongst the field of wildflowers you've been walking through. the summer sun beats down on you and you fan yourself with your free hand. after what feels like an eternity, you finally get to your spot and he places the picnic basket on the ground.

𐙚 ࣪ ˖

after setting up the picnic blanket and the food you brought, you and matt sit close and start eating the little heart-shaped sandwiches he helped you make just that morning. well, ‘help’ is a strong word. he just stood there with his arms wrapped around your waist, occasionally taking a topping to eat when he thought you weren't looking, while you did all the work.

the mini sandwiches quickly disappear from the plate one by one and all that's left are crumbs as matt pulls a bottle of champagne and two glasses from the basket.

he opens the bottle with that satisfying pop and pours some out for you then himself. “happy three months, matt,” you say as you clink your glass against his. “happy three months,” he replies with a smile before kissing you.

sure it may not be a ‘normal’ couple thing to be celebrating an anniversary this early on, but the past three months with him have been some of the best of your life. and he felt the exact same way about you. some may even bring up the three month rule; after that you can be sure if you want to continue the relationship or not, and you're more than certain you want to be serious with matt.

you slowly sip on your glasses of champagne and share some strawberries as you savour the moment of just being together right now. the summer's early evening breeze floats past you as the sun casts a golden glow on everything, getting ready to start coming down.

you're both sipping on your second glass, the last of the champagne since you only got a small bottle, when matt downs the rest of his and stands up suddenly, walking away from the clearing. “where are you going?” you call out to him.

he was walking quickly so he made it far in a short amount of time. “i’m getting you flowers,” he shouts back. you can't help but smile at the sweet gesture. he's always doing stuff like this, always paying attention to the little things, part of what makes him such a wonderful boyfriend.

a few minutes later he comes back over and stands in front of you, holding a big, over-the-top bouquet of wildflowers. “for you,” he mumbles shyly. you gratefully accept and kiss him when he sits down. “they're beautiful, thank you.” you take a flower out and put it in your hair.

seeing this stirs an idea in matt and he moves to position himself so he's kneeling behind you. “can i braid your hair?” “yeah, i'd like that. are you putting flowers in it too?” he hums a yes in response as he moves all your hair back and divides it into three uneven sections.

after a little while of him figuring things out, with the occasional small tug and mumbled apology, the braid is finished. he starts plucking random flowers from the bouquet and puts them through the braid. he takes a picture on your phone and shows it to you, looking very proud of himself - like a small child showing off a finger painting.

you look at the screen and you can't deny, it's a messy braid and it's very uneven, almost lopsided. but it's the prettiest braid you've ever seen, all because matt did it. “you did amazing, i love it.”

he sits next to you again and you rest your head on his shoulder. his fingers interlace with yours once more as you look up. the sunset paints the sky beautiful pinks and oranges. there's a few small clouds that if you stare at hard enough, could almost look like hearts.

he gives your hand a gentle squeeze, a loving gesture as you sit in comfortable silence, wishing this day would go on forever.

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𐙚 ࣪ ˖ tags: @chrissturniolosbitch @christhopersturniolo @mattscurlygirly @fratbrochrisgf @d3axplr @junnniiieee07 @rubyjaneaxx @remussbitch @sturnpooks @ribread03 @mattsfavbitchhh @blahbel668 @asherrisrandom @55sturn @joeblzy @ivysturnss @certifiedstarrr @stvrnzwrld @strnlslut @edwardscoldhands @emely9274 @strangelife122 @loveparqdise @meatballlover10 @lovevxle @conspiracy-ash

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[poeticblissme]

I will be as honest as possible when I answer this because I truly know and understand your struggle, and I want to be as transparent with my thoughts and feelings on this to properly try my best to help you see a different perspective so bare with me it may be a bit wordy.

I have spent a good amount of my life wishing I could do things in the entertainment industry. I have memorized countless movies since I was 8, even before that really. My whole heart is into doing things like acting, it’s been a Dream of mine to be on movies and stages. However, it has been countless dead ends for me. I would fall off because I felt like it was never going anywhere, that and I am constantly stuck doing jobs and things I absolutely detest, knowing where my heart is at. But I also felt unworthy, I felt like there are others who are clearly better than me, that I had no real space to even try it because of everything else never worked out for me? Why would something I actually enjoy and want to do for the rest of my life work out.

Over the years, I feel into deep stages of sadness and bitterness because I saw others succeed, I have seen people who have done less receive more and I had a fear that if I try, it was just bound to fail. My family have talents, and the one I love I don’t even feel I’m fully good at because I’ve seen how others do so much better. I can’t do much, I don’t and can’t do what I see everyone else can. I looked at myself as ordinary and unimportant. So I stopped trying. I stopped looking. I wanted to give up entirely because feeling empty was better than facing this crippling mindset that made it hard to breathe.

However, around 2020, when the pandemic came around, I got more into spirituality. And through those months of me finding myself again, I started taken small intricate steps to try and change this mindset. It was so hard, the amount of self accountability I had to learn for what I love and what I let my mind control in terms of outward action was difficult, but I can tell you what I have learned and I hope this gives you a piece of hope or motivation to take these steps even with your fear.

As a human being, it is natural to be afraid to do something you feel in your heart is good for you. Be it a passion, a relationship, or anything that forces you to step out of your comfort zone to do something you never imaged for yourself before. You will not know what you are doing sometimes but that is apart of the journey, you don’t know what your doing until you have done it enough times that you finally do know what to do and integrate that into your life slowly but surely. The point is to put in the effort anyway because you have that feeling that it is something that will make you happy. Trying is the reassurance to your soul.

The feeling of being stuck is your survival and comfort mindset trying to keep you where you think you are safe. If this is something you feel you want to pursue, then you have to force yourself to propel yourself forward, you have to work with that fear, make mistakes, ask the questions, do the research, experience the experience of the unknown fully, otherwise you will live with the regret of what could have been.

I have done so much since I started this little journey of mine. I have done things I never imaged myself doing, and now I am in a place where I do still yearn for more, but I am also in a state of gratitude because I have gone so much father than I thought I would when I had stopped trying completely. I am not fully in the place I want to be, but the places I have been are motivation for me to keep trying because I know that it is indeed possible somehow someway. The things I didn’t know, now I do. The things I still don’t know scare me, but I am doing my best to open to the unknown and let it make me better and stronger so that when (Yes not if, when) the next pieces of my dream come to me, I will be even more ready than I was the day before.

All of this to say, Please. Please chase that dream of publishing your book. Even if you feel afraid, take your hand and slowly guide your feet toward the shore line. Dip your toes in slowly and learn how the water feels, step on a shell every now and again, take the pain and confusion and learn from it so when you step on it again it does not hurt as much, and then you will learn how to avoid the shell completely. Before you know it, you will have completely submerged yourself in the waters you were afraid to go into, and your life will fill that much more full because you took those steps you were once afraid to take. 🤍🖤

I’m gonna confess something here, gonna get real raw with it.

But I think, no I know, I am terrified of trying.

I so desperately want to publish a novel, multiple even. I have them in the bag. But I am so scared of moving forward even an inch.

I have been writing since I was ten, I have been doing these monster stories since 2017.

And I have gone nowhere.

I am so frightened of the next steps. I believe if I don’t know what I’m doing I can’t do anything.

I’ve been working this out in therapy but like…I do feel stuck. I’ve imbedded myself so much here and in comfort I don’t know what to do.

What do I do? How do I publish? Who do I ask?

Is it me? Do I have to do this now?

I wanted to say this, in hopes putting it out there I can pull myself out of the complacent pit I’ve made and move along. But yeah, I’m terrified and I really have no clue what to do. Everyone else who is publishing seems so far ahead and they know everything. But, maybe that’s also an excuse for myself I need to face.

[velvetvexations]

Whenever people bring up egg discourse they're often like, "you are acting like we're harassing the poor defenseless men by suggesting they could be a trans woman... Why are you so defensive, it's not bad to be a trans woman, even if the person is really a man they can handle being called an egg" and like, sure... But I feel like they never take into account that it's actually not that unlikely to be a trans guy trying to be stealth (or just minding you own business and not wanting to come out to everyone around you) and have trans-friendly people in your circle look at you, assume they clocked a transfem egg, and decide to comment on it. What happens then when they start making little comments or jokes about how you must secretly be a woman because they "noticed" your alleged feminine vibes, or how you seem to be "suspiciously" interested or knowledgeable about trans topics ? You're put in a shitty position, and if they insist, you might even be forced to out yourself to make them stop because they're convinced they're being soooo woke and helpful. Even if you managed to shut them down early on, you still have to deal with the fact that they really implied they could confidently sense some sort of inner female essence or whatever in you and actually brought it up out loud (even worse if they straight up mention the "signs" they see in you)... Not dysphoria inducing at all ! And it's not some sort of "what if" hypothetical scenario that could never realistically happen (while I haven't witnessed it IRL or anything, I've heard some people mention like, queer acquaintances in a new friend group doing that). Granted it shouldn't be extremely common either but like... The fact that it's a possible scenario should be enough to make people more mindful of their words. Sometimes the "cis" guy with "trans vibes" is indeed trans. In the other direction. That's where you got the trans vibes come from. You can't always tell. It's not about "protecting the poor little cis guys from the mean egg jokes"... Some of y'all are just convinced that someone you assumed was a cis guy could never be a trans guy.

It is also not great to ignore that cis people can also experience gender dysphoria and it's generally not great to hurl around "you must a girl because you're such a girly guy with girly interests" shit for multiple reasons, but unsurprisingly these people also completely forget trans men exist.

[fr0mthefires]

haunted. - vampire!shigaraki x f!reader / part 1

In which you’re down on your luck, taking the first job that will have you after being laid off from Endeavor Dynamics. There, you cross paths with a certain mysterious, red-eyed individual who seems to be harboring a secret, and (un)fortunately find yourself tangled in a web of obsession and danger you’re not sure you can handle. Or stay away from.

cw: implied/referenced child abuse, implied/referenced drug and alcohol use, death, loss, not beta read

~5.9k words

Christ. What day is it?

You're barely awake, a lingering dream still blurring the edges between sleep and awareness.

You weren’t privy to keeping up with time much these days. It all seemed to bleed and blend into a blur now, minutes feeling like seconds, days feeling like hours or sometimes vice versa, the sunlight too hidden behind the thick black curtains you’d hung weeks ago to truly know whether it was day or night. You simply go through the motions, sleeping or gaming or watching whatever mindless content you click on and stare at absently to fill the overwhelming silence in your apartment.

Some would call it heaven to be holed up like this with no real responsibilities; you, however, have taken to calling it the Void. That’s what it feels like, anyway. A black hole of nothingness, chewing up time and spitting it out whatever which way it chooses.

You’d been laid off of your computer tech job a few weeks ago, Endeavor Dynamics having suddenly decided to do away with your particular position in the company in favor of funneling that money into lining their own pockets and beefing up their marketing, all in hopes of bringing in more poor, unsuspecting unpaid interns who were fresh out of college and hoping to make a name for themselves in the world of corporate greed.

You had enjoyed the newfound freedom at first after the initial shock and despair wore off. You could sleep in past 6am for the first time in ages, could spend all day grinding in your favorite games for legendary cosmetics and leveling up your stats, got to catch up on your anime watchlist and eat shitty takeout whenever you wanted. It truly felt like the life, until it didn’t anymore.

Your savings account had begun to noticeably dwindle after the first three weeks. No big deal, you’d told yourself. A new opportunity would come soon. You’d spent all that time and money grinding for that fancy college degree, after all. You had a decent resumé with slightly-more-than-decent references. But after your sixth application to various companies in the city returned no results, you began to worry.

As it turned out, employers didn’t really care all that much about degrees in Computer Science and Game Development. Not when they had to narrow down their options in the shit job economy to other candidates with flashier degrees like Business and Accounting. And now, nearly five weeks into unemployment, the pickings are slim. The amount left in your savings will likely only cover rent and necessities for this month if you’re frugal, and after that, you’ll have to make your way to the nearest dumpster and pick out a nice cardboard box to call home.

Unfortunately, you're not one of the privileged souls out there with family to rely on when you’re down and out. Life had sobered you up to reality at a young age. Your mom never did live up to her title as such; she never put in any effort to connecting with you, caring for you, or loving you beyond what was necessary to keep up appearances.

It was clear even at such a young age that she wanted nothing to do with you. You were a blight on her life, a responsibility she never really wanted, and she made it known in as many passive aggressive ways as she could get away with without your dad noticing.

Your dad, on the other hand, was the polar opposite of your mom. He loved you in a way that was loud and all-encompassing, and he made it known to you in any way your little mind could understand. Trips to the park, countless stuffed animals and toys, more books read at bedtime than you could count on your little fingers, bear hugs and kisses on your forehead as he tucked you in for the night. He made up for all the love you lacked from your mom ten-fold.

He was your safety blanket, the first and only best friend you'd ever had. But life was cruel, and it made sure you knew that. You'd never forget when your dad collapsed that first time during your sixth birthday party. The second of silence that followed that seemed to stretch for hours before the panic ensued. The sound of the sirens blaring as the ambulance screeched to a stop in front of your house.

He was always so tired after that day. The trips to the park went from three times a week, to one every other week, to none at all. The animated way he would read your favorite bedtime stories was replaced by your own little voice while he laid next to you, his eyes closed as he nodded his encouragement.

"The a- animals saw the tree and knew that Fox was still a part of them. Owl raised his gran- his gran-"

"Grandchicks, darling." His voice was barely there when he'd help you pronounce the words you struggled with.

"Owl raised his grand... chicks on the br- branches. The tree gave love to everyone who loved Fox."

"And so, Fox lived on in their hearts forever," he mouthed along with you, a shiny bead trailing down the side of his face. You traced it with your little finger, and he gave you one of his most tired smiles.

He was gone by the time you'd turned seven. His body was too riddled with cancer for him to withstand it anymore. He left the world with one final, unsteady caress on your cheek and a barely whispered "I'm sorry, pumpkin." Your mom left the room, left you as you cried and cried and cried. She made one of the nurses drag you out to the car.

It didn't take long for your mom to pick up habits after that. The kind of habits that made the house smell like chemicals and made her sleep for hours and hours, or the kinds that made her breath smell gross and sour when she'd yell at you for leaving your room. If she wasn't passed out on the couch she was gone for hours at a time, late and long enough that you learned how to tuck yourself into bed. You didn't really like bedtime stories anymore, anyway.

She met your stepdad around the time you turned eight, a wanna-be drug lord with a serious heroine addiction. You figured maybe him and your mom were meant to be in that regard. She needed someone to rely on, after all. The addiction made it impossible for her to function on her own, let alone raise you. A couple months after that, the neglect evolved into abuse.

Your mom was often too out of it to realize or care what she was doing, but on the rare days she was lucid, she made it a point to let you know it was all your fault. You’ll never forget the way she’d look at you, her eyes distant and slightly unfocused as they trailed over your cuts and bruises.

"He always loved you more than me," she'd murmur, almost sounding sad, before her eyes would refocus, sharp with anger and loathing. “This is your fault, you know. If you’d never been born, I could have been happy. Your dad could still be here. We would have been happy without you." Young, impressionable you believed it more and more each time she’d spit those words at you, right before her hand cracked against your cheek, your step-dad laughing as he watched. 

You learned how to disassociate by the time you were nine. It was a skill you valued a lot as you got older, made it easier to drift through your life however you pleased before you decided to get your shit together.

Now, freshly 24, you’re able to recognize that your mom likely just projected her own feelings towards herself and life in general onto you. You were an outlet far more than you ever were a daughter to her. But no matter what you know now, the facts don't always make reality easier to cope with, and they don't erase the memories. You didn’t go to her funeral when she finally died of an overdose a few days after your nineteenth birthday, and word on the street was your step-dad didn’t either.

Her death was what spurred you out of the life you'd been living up to that point, a glaring reminder that you were on a path to becoming just like her. It was maybe the one good thing she'd ever done for you.

Your fault. All your fault.

Your eyes fully blink open as the echoing remnants of those words die with your unconscious mind, quickly shoved in the box you keep locked away in the back of your mind with all the other shit you never really tried nor wanted to unpack and face.

***

Thursday. It's Thursday.

You notice the date displayed in the bottom right corner of the screen, absently taking note that it’s already the middle of October. You think that should be more impactful than it actually feels. Sighing, you shift your attention back to the task at hand, scrolling through the first page of job listings you’d filtered as “Sort New to Old” and unfortunately seeing nothing fucking new at all that you haven’t already applied for. You dig the heels of your hands into your eyes out of irritation, tiny little bursts of colors appearing behind your eyelids from the force.

“Fuck this,” you mutter to nobody but yourself and stand abruptly, a newfound determination born from nothing but the dejection and exasperation flaring up inside you. If you haven’t had any luck online, maybe you’re looking in the wrong places. Maybe good, old-fashioned face to face interaction is what you’re missing. Companies still did that in this decade, right? The possibility is better than nothing, you guess.

You peel off the sweatpants and baggy shirt you’d been wearing for a few too many days, take a much needed shower, and dress in something you feel is appropriate and fitting enough for a depressed and desperate individual searching for a job who is trying to look put together and not at all depressed or desperate. Whether or not you convey that, you aren’t sure, but you’re out the door without a second glance.

The sunlight feels like it’s cooking your retinas the moment you step outside, and for the first time in awhile, you wonder how long it’s really been since you’ve left your cave. The street you live on is right outside the main heart of the city, but it’s still alive and busy with people hustling back to their 9-5s after their lunch breaks, coming and going from the few cafes and restaurants, or just out for walks in the mid-October chill.

You take a moment to observe, let your eyes adjust, realize the world has in fact still been turning around you since you’ve been holed up, and then set off down the sidewalk in the direction of the busier part of the city. You start simple. Modest. Coffee shops, ramen houses, small stalls and tourist traps. You even try the lone fucking GameStop that’s somehow still in business.

You’ve resorted to the barest of minimums, all of which telling you they’re not hiring or you’re “over-qualified” for the job, whatever the fuck that means. Each bell chiming over your head when you exit leaves you feeling more dejected than the last. It’s not until you’re at a crosswalk waiting for the little green stick figure to pop up on your way back home, fully intent on spending another night buried in despair and self-loathing, that you see it.

A lone flyer haphazardly stapled onto the pole below the crosswalk indicator, the red color of the paper so faded and the words so hardly legible you’re sure it’s been out there awhile.

Now Hiring

Nine Lives Nightclub

Apply in Person Only

It doesn’t give you much to go by, like, at all, but you’re so desperate for any type of income at this point that you’ll try anything. You realize the word “anything” maybe shouldn’t literally mean anything though after you pull out your phone and google Nine Lives.

It’s located on the shadier side of the city, the area you wouldn’t dare be caught in alone without at least a can of pepper spray and your keys wedged between your fingers, even during the day.

You shift your weight from foot to foot, assessing your options, but it’s not long before you’re turning around and walking back the way you came, passing through the vibrant part of the city and eventually into the emptier, more industrial side. Your pace becomes more cautious, your attention more focused on your surroundings and the people inhabiting them as the welcoming, well lit ambiance is replaced by cracked brick walls and long, dark alleyways the deeper you go.

It’d be hard to miss it. Nine Lives is nestled in the corner of a dead end, the vibrant neon sign boasting the name flashing in a dark red the same color as the flyer. It’s almost blinding in the setting sun and sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the gray, dingy spaces surrounding it.

You can tell right away, all the other many red flags aside, that this place is seedy. Somewhere the people shunned from the main city go to do things that are heavily frowned upon a few blocks up the sidewalk. The type of place where everyone turns a blind eye to anything and everything because they’ve all committed sins of their own.

If you were smart, like you think yourself to be, you’d turn the fuck around and-

“Um, hello,” you murmur to what you assume is the bouncer at the front door with all the confidence you can muster. It admittedly isn’t much. His gaze is faintly disinterested as he tilts his head forward to stare down his nose at you, his eyes beady and black. His head seems too small for his ridiculously muscular frame, obnoxiously on display in the red tank top he’s wearing that seems to qualify more as a sports bra than a shirt. His blonde hair is short and chopped haphazardly, and the cold smirk he’s now leveling you with seems to say he knows you’re intimidated by him.

“What’s a little mouse like you doing in a place like this?” he asks in a tone that makes you want to shiver, his gaze unabashedly roaming over you from top to bottom. It makes your skin crawl, and you have to hone every bit of confidence you have left to answer him evenly.

“I saw a flyer about a job opening here. I wanted to see if it was still open.” He crosses his arms over his hulking chest and seemingly assesses you for what is longer than strictly necessary, his gaze hard and unrelenting before it shifts into something like amusement. It just serves to set you more on edge. “Still open, alright. Think the boss’ll love to meet ya.” He says it in a way that sets a faint alarm bell off in the back of your mind, but before you can dwell on it much, he’s shifting his huge frame out of the way of the entrance.

“Just go in and straight to the right, to the bar in the corner. Ask for Kurogiri.” You nod once and duck your head, unable to hold eye contact with him any longer. “Good luck, little mouse,” he chuckles as you hastily pass by, a harsh sound that grates your ears. “Hope they don’t eat ya alive.”

***

The first thing you notice, oddly, is there are no windows, and the next, more obvious thing is how busy it is even on a Thursday. The bass of whatever dark house mix they’re playing is loud and reverberates through your entire being, the ground subtly shaking beneath your feet. It’s completely dark, save for the red and white neon lights flashing in random strobing intervals over the surprisingly large space, and there’s a fog drifting through the room that adds to the already unsettling atmosphere.

It smells like a mix of weed, liquor, and smoke, not as unpleasant as you expected but not necessarily good either. It’s an onslaught on all your senses, unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before. You'd had your fair share of experience with nightclubs back when you weren’t a complete recluse and admittedly fairly self-destructive, but never anywhere like this. Only the types of clubs more upper-class people frequented, the kinds in the more upscale parts of the city. The safer parts that the men you once used for empty entertainment preferred to stick to.

This… This is fucking overwhelming, to say the least. Dangerous, if the people packed in like sardines are anything to go by. You’re pretty sure you’ve seen a couple of these faces on news broadcasts for various crimes of varying intensity.

You push through the crowd towards the bar after the initial stun wears off, ignoring the looks you get; some of annoyance, some of less than admirable interest, all of which set you even more on edge. Fuck, have you really stooped so low? Goddamn Endeavor Dynamics, goddamn Enji, you'd make him curse the day he ever decided to-

“What can I get you?” the overly cheery blonde girl behind the bar asks you, looking just old enough to even be in a place like this, let alone working in it. Her wide smile gleams as the strobes pass over her face, and you swear for a second her eyes glow yellow. “I- Um, I’m looking for Kurogiri?” It comes out more like a question, as uncertain and lost as you feel. “I’m here about a job opening.”

The girl perks up even more if possible, the messy buns on top of her head bobbing in time with the excited nod she gives you. “Ooo, yay! There’s way too much testosterone floating around in here!” She wastes no time maneuvering around the bar, abandoning the other poor bastard to man the bar by himself. He throws a disbelievingly panicked look her way, but she’s far too busy grabbing your hand and yanking you away from the crowd to notice or care, leading you towards a staircase in the far corner of the club.

“I’m Himiko Toga! Oh, you’re so pretty! I already know we’re going to be great friends!” You’re bewildered by her enthusiasm and seemingly immediate like of you but give her your name anyway, offering her an unsteady smile as she unclasps a red rope and then swiftly replaces it after you pass through.

She tugs you up the stairs faster than you think someone of her stature should reasonably be able to move, and as you hit the landing, you realize she’s brought you to what you think is some sort of VIP area. It’s far less crowded than downstairs, but there’s still a few shifty looking people lingering around. It’s quieter, which you’re grateful for, but still just as dark; the strobing lights below don’t quite reach up here, and the only real source of light is a couple of dim sconces on the walls that may as well not be lit at all.

There’s a balcony lining the entire top floor providing a view of the swaying crowd below and a few dark red leather couches scattered around the space. Black velvet curtains line the back wall, matching the surprisingly clean black marble floor. There’s a small bar on the right wall with a few stools in front of it and a lone door in the far left corner that leads… somewhere.

Toga pulls you along too fast for you to really get a look at anyone, but you can tell the people milling around know her well based on the various hellos and nods thrown her way. You do manage to get a look at one person as you pass by, a tall guy about your age with jet black hair and the most shocking blue eyes you’ve ever seen. More shocking than that, however, are the angry scars covering the skin you can see. Burn scars, you think. You realize you’re staring when you notice he’s smirking at you, a gleam in his eyes that both unsettles and intrigues you as he raises his glass to you. You look away quickly, stumbling after Toga.

She doesn’t stop until she reaches the bar, only one man behind it. He’s wearing a white button down with a green vest over top and a black tie, something that strikes you as odd compared to everyone else in this place. Dated almost, like he came from a different era. “Kurogiri, my friend here is interested in our job posting!” Toga beams at him, her teeth surprisingly sharp.

Her volume has caught the attention of the few people lingering around, all of whom seemingly more interested in this budding conversation than you think they should be. You ignore them despite the eyes burning a hole in your back. You swallow dryly, offering Kurogiri your name and what you hope is a confident smile, but you can tell it doesn't quite hit the mark.

“I see,” he says almost robotically, his voice void of any emotion. The full force of his gaze turns to you, his dark purple eyes scrutinizing you in a way that makes you want to squirm. The color is so unnatural that you wonder absently if he wears colored contacts. You remain still with effort and meet his gaze head on despite the instinct to do precisely the opposite, your drive to not be homeless the only thing keeping your feet firmly planted on the floor.

“Do you have any experience working in a place like this?” Your already fragile smile falters slightly. You hadn't expected that question, but you push to keep your voice confident as you opt for honesty. “I don’t, but I’m a fast learner. I pick things up very quickly. And I have open availability.” You tack the last part on hastily to hopefully sweeten your chances. After a moment of hesitation, you continue. “I- Um, I really need the job. I promise you won't regret it.” It pains you to say, makes you feel as weak and vulnerable as you sound, a spiral already coming on and ready to suck you in. Failure, failure, failure.

Kurogiri stares at you for what feels like ages, and you can feel the spiral start to take hold before Toga speaks up again. “Come on, Kurogiri! She’s my friend, and we need another girl in our group! There’s too many of you guys skulking around, it’s depressing.” She almost sounds petulant, making you again question if she’s even old enough to be here. She nods her head toward the dark corner on her left and gives him a meaningful look, but you can’t make out what she’s looking at.

Kurogiri glances towards said corner and then returns to stare at you a moment longer, his blank expression giving nothing away, before he finally puts you out of your misery. “Very well. You’ll start tomorrow night. Be here at 8pm, and do not be late. You do not want to displease him.” He doesn’t clarify on who exactly he’s referring to, instead picking up a glass you’re sure is already clean and beginning to polish it, effectively ending the conversation.

Toga squeals, bouncing up and down in excitement. It baffles you that she's seemingly more excited about this than you are. “Yay! Oh, I’m so happy! You’ll love it here!” She grabs your hands and grins up at you, and you’d be lying if you said her enthusiasm wasn’t rubbing off on you a little bit. Maybe it won’t be so bad. You offer her a tentative smile of your own, letting her lead you over to one of the couches as she dives into everything she claims you need to know.

She rambles on about the basics; what you’ll be doing (a server, basically), who you’ll be reporting to (Kurogiri, who is apparently not the actual boss but the infamous He who is yet unnamed), and the people you should make it a point to get to know (her friends, who apparently are here every night. You ask how they don't get tired of it, and she just laughs like you'd told a very funny joke.) “Oh! And make sure you wear… well, not that.” She gestures vaguely at your current outfit of choice, the one you’d chosen with the expectation you’d be applying to places not like this. “Just take a look at some of the clientele if you need inspiration!”

You try not to grimace, having already seen what some of the “clientele” down there were wearing. You guess you should have expected as much, if her own outfit was anything to go by. She wraps up her rambling and offers to walk you back down but you decline, thanking her for all her help. She pulls you up into a hug, all but yells when she tells you how excited she is for tomorrow, and you think you’re already kind of getting used to her overt friendliness. Maybe you’ll even make a friend out of this gig.

You wind your way back the way you came, pointedly not making eye contact with anyone, and descend the stairs, your heart in your throat. You’d finally fucking done it. It certainly wasn’t your first pick by any means, but at least it was a job. A source of income. And it was only temporary, right?

You’re too caught up in your own mind, trying to ignore the fact that your mom would have frequented a place like this and hoping you’re not on a path back to your own self-destructive tendencies to notice the pair of eyes trailing after you from the balcony above.

***

He’d been watching you from his place in the corner since he’d heard Toga’s grating voice babbling about yet another incompetent fool interested in the opening. Kurogiri had put those flyers up weeks ago, and it had been a constant revolving door of rejected idiots ever since.

None of the ones that had been interested so far had been good enough. None of them had been special. They were all too excited, too bubbly or too loud. Too fucking irritating in every sense of the word. They all had one underlying thing in common - too much life left in them, an annoyingly glaring light in their eyes that told him immediately they had no place here, no place in his presence.

None of them would have been up to the job anyway, the true job behind the facade they were putting on. He's fine with that, if he's being honest. He still doesn't understand why Master insists on doing things differently now. They'd been just fine the way they had been for years. Sure, they've had to indulge a little more lately to keep up with the number they now have in their circle. And sure, maybe it's been a little more difficult to cover their tracks. And fine, he's mature enough to admit that the amount of missing persons cases in the area have increased enough as of late to maybe cause some problems for them if they aren't more careful.

But things were fine. Are fine. He doesn't want some nobody at his beck and call every time he needs a pick-me-up. He prefers sticking to the randoms below, the ones he can swoop in on in the midst of their drug and alcohol induced hazes and drag them away into the shadows before they can realize what's happening. Fast, easy, efficient, no brainless coercion involved. One and done and he's set for another week.

But Master says it would be safer to have a constant source, for now. A drip he can leave alive and take a little from each day instead of adding more numbers to the growing missing persons list in the area. Long enough for the news to die down a little bit, and then things can go back to normal. The others could travel to other cities if they needed to. He preferred to stay local.

He figures Master has been around long enough to know what's best, if he's to be rational. It's why he's blindly followed him for so long, not to mention he owes him everything. He wouldn't have what he does now if not for Master finding him when he did. Nine Lives had been built for the sole purpose of enshrouding him in the shadows while he adjusted to his new life and doubled as a base of sorts for Master’s hobbies, as he so elegantly puts it.

An easy way to get what he needed while he learned and grew into himself, somewhere he could easily prey on a few lives at a time that likely had no one at home to notice they'd gone missing. It just happened to be a plus when it ended up attracting certain individuals that he and Master could benefit from keeping around. 

The ones currently in his circle were handpicked by him alone before he'd brought them to Master for final judgement. He'd seen something in all five of them, something that told him they were just as ruined as he had once been. Desolate and empty, but still longing for a taste of the divine. An insatiable desire for something more than mere humanity could offer, an escape from the world that had wronged and abandoned them.

That was something he could understand more than anyone, and he'd given them what they’d wanted, in time. Only after they'd proven they'd stick by him, offer their servitude in exchange for the opportunity to have something grand.

But he'd somehow miscalculated somewhere along the way, and now five on top of himself, Master, and Kurogiri had become too many to remain as inconspicuous as they were before Shuichi joined. And now, here you are as consequence, a reminder of that rare failure, another worthless human he'd never see again once you're turned away like the last. It makes him itch just thinking about it, makes him want to claw at his own fucking skin at the sight of you knowing you'll be no different than the rest.

And then you speak, your voice so timid and quiet he would've missed it if not for hearing like his. "I- Um, I really need the job." The way you say it gives the impression that you're down to your last resort. Like nobody else out there wants you. Already, you're different than the others based on that sentiment alone.

He looks at you a little closer then, daring to shift partially out of the shadows, his head tilting to the side slightly as he eyes you. You look like you're trying to come across as confident, but he's been around long enough to know when someone's pretending. The slight tremor in your hands, the waver in your voice, that look of uncertainty in your eyes as you speak, it all gives you away. More importantly, you likely have nothing left to lose if you've willingly stepped foot in here when you look like you want nothing more than to be anywhere else.

You look like you're one more bad thing away from crumbling, like this is the last opportunity you have before there's nothing left. There's no light in your eyes no matter how long he stares. He starts to consider then that maybe he was wrong about you.

So far, you've ticked none of the boxes that would have him wanting to throw you out the door himself. It helps that you're also not bad to look at. Unassuming, but not plain by any means. He'd maybe even call you beautiful if he wasn't so disturbed by that word manifesting in his mind. But that's what you are regardless of what he does or doesn't want to call it, the only word that fits the quiet way you carry yourself, the sadness that seems to cling to your soft, fragile features.

He shifts his gaze to Kurogiri, who has now glanced to him thanks to Toga's irritating ability to read anyone like a book. The exchange lasts a mere millisecond, just a simple nod of his head that would be imperceptible to anyone else, but Kurogiri understands. He always does.

You perk up a little at the good news, but it's overshadowed by Toga's incessant enthusiasm. He can tell you don't understand her yourself. If only you knew how long they'd all been waiting for him to come around and choose someone, then maybe you'd understand. He watches as she drags you away out of his current line of sight, surprised at the way his body twitches like it's primed to follow. He doesn't like that, the way his subconscious doesn't want to let you out of his sight. But you were his now, weren't you? Whether you knew that yet or not. And he's always taken care of his things.

It's not until you've disappeared down the stairs that he allows himself to leave his corner, scowling at Toga before she has the chance to make any comments. She just gives him a pointed, saccharine smile before she fucks off, mercifully sparing him from whatever bullshit she'd had primed to say.

He watches you from his spot on the balcony, observes you as closely as the distance and strobing lights allow. It’s not that difficult with sight like his, really. He again notes that wariness about you, more obvious now that you think nobody's looking, like the world has wronged you somehow. He banks on that, hopes for it. Maybe even preys on it, just a little.

There’s a slight downturn to your lips, a little v between your creased eyebrows. Your eyes are clouded over and your shoulders are slumped slightly as you move through the crowd, surprisingly graceful despite your absentmindedness.

He finds himself wondering what you’re thinking about so intently, what could possibly be bothering you, and then promptly wonders why the fuck he cares. Already, you’re making him notice you, and that’s not an easy feat to accomplish. Maybe Master was on to something after all.

Yes, he confirms, there’s something special about you. He can’t put his finger on it yet, but he knows something’s there, hiding beneath that demure air of yours. You’re like him somehow, the old him. Lost and forgotten, the weight of the world on your shoulders that he hopes you’d do anything to alleviate. His gaze tracks you all the way until you disappear out the door, and even then, it remains lingering on the spot you’d just been.

He feels something then that he hasn’t felt in a long time - anticipation.

***

The music continues to blare behind you even as you make it past the exit, the massive bouncer throwing a knowing smirk your way before he focuses back on the line queuing to get in. It’s a particularly haunting beat, one you could see yourself getting lost in if you were more like who you used to be and less like who you are now.

The lyrics echo in your mind and your bones long after you’d made it back home.

If I were you, I’d find a place to hide.

If I were you, I’d stay inside.

If I were you, I’d run for your life.

***

note: well, hello if you've made it this far, and thank you for sticking around to the end of this first part. this is the first major work I've ever posted, and I have high hopes for it. I have a lot of ideas swimming in my head for this story, so there's a lot to come for dear reader and our enigmatic red-eyed man.

I currently have the next part in the works as I post this. unfortunately, it is not beta read, so I apologize if there are any errors.

the song at the end is run. by arya x, if anyone is interested.

see you in part two.

[tokidokitokyo]

明けましておめでとうございます。今年も宜しくお願いします。

Happy New Year! Thank you for your continued support this year.

This is the traditional New Year's greeting in Japan (formal). If you'd like to be less formal, you can just say

明けましておめでとう！今年もよろしく！

And with your close friends, to be even less formal (because Japanese people love to say things in shortened format):

あけおめ！ことよろ！

The year is new and I think we're all motivated to study Japanese more than ever. Have you set your goals for the new year already? I haven't yet (that's what this post is for) but I like to wait until the year has turned and then come up with my goals. Usually because I'm continually running around up until the New Year, so I don't have time to sit down and put my goals into writing until the new year has already come.

This year I'd like to set out some general goals, as well as small goals I'd like to make into daily habits (along with the daily habits I already have). This will be a long post, so read as much or as little as you like! 2025 Goals below the cut!

Past Goals from: 2020 | 2021 (no post) | 2022 | 2023 | 2024

Tips for Setting Goals

Some things I've learned from the past 4+ years of setting Japanese language study goals that might help you too:

Be realistic: It's great to say you will memorize 10 kanji a day every day for 365 days, but is it realistic? Will you do it every day for a year? What if you get burned out in February? Will you be able to come back to it in March? I know the extent of my free time and my own ability to be consistent, and I try to be realistic for my own sake. If I make a goal more flexible, like memorize 10 kanji a week instead of daily, it gives me more leeway to take a day off here and there, and to recover from burn out when it happens.

The goals you set are flexible: Rigidly adhering to your goals doesn't help you and it really doesn't make a difference to anyone else but you (I speak from experience). Set goals you think you can accomplish, then change them if they aren't what you need. They aren't set in stone, and they can be changed as often as you want. No one will think anything of you for changing them, and being kind to yourself is a good thing.

Be broad when setting long term goals, but remember why you want to set those goals: "I want to be fluent in Japanese" is a good many-year long-term goal, but how you get there is something that can be made into short-term goals. Do you want to improve the number of vocabulary words you know? Kanji recognition ability? Listening in conversation or anime? Maybe a better long-term goal might be "I want to improve my conversational listening ability in Japanese," and then you can create attainable short-term goals from there.

Goals aren't for everyone: Maybe you don't need goals for 2025? Or to post them publicly? I set goals because I am that kind of person who likes to look back and to track my progress. And I feel like posting publicly holds me accountable (before I go ahead and meet none of my goals). But maybe goal setting isn't for you! If you want to study for the JLPT because of work-related needs or bragging rights, maybe just setting up a study schedule using one or more of the study textbooks for the JLPT is enough. Or if you are just learning Japanese to learn Japanese, maybe just continually watching anime or chatting with people on HelloTalk is enough for you. Do you need goals to motivate you? Keep your goals super realistic. Do you just want to track your progress? Make a spreadsheet or get one of the many tracking apps. Goals aren't for everyone, and in the end they really only matter to you.

Without further ado, my goals...

Daily Goals 2025

In 2024 I had a set of daily habits that I did a very good job of keeping up. Some days it was harder to fit in everything than others, but having a set of daily goals and a small minimum time commitment (10 minutes) helped me to maintain my study momentum, even if sometimes I had less motivation. After all, the key to progress in Japanese is using it every day.

Daily Habits from 2024 (that I'd like to continue)

Study Japanese for at least 10 minutes a day

Read something in Japanese every day

Speak Japanese daily

Listen to/watch something in Japanese every day

New Daily Habits for 2025 (that I'd like to add)

Learn 1 vocabulary word daily

Learn 1 kanji daily

Write one sentence daily

Weekly Goals 2025

I didn't consciously follow a lot of weekly habits in 2024, but I'd like to be more mindful of incorporating certain aspects of study on a weekly basis.

New Weekly Habits for 2025

Study one N3/N2 grammar point weekly

Listen to one podcast weekly

Watch one TV show episode/movie/YouTube video weekly

Write on HelloTalk once a week

2025 Goals

These are my more general goals for the entire year and what I want to accomplish by the end of 2025.

Finish 総まとめ N2 (Sou-matome N2) workbooks: I started these workbooks last year but never got into a routine with them. This year I'd like to complete them.

Read 3 Japanese novels level N3 or N2: I will use Natively to help me to find books that sound interesting and match the level at which I'd like to read.

Work through the 漢字検定ステップ6 (Kanji Kentei level 6) book: I have had this book forever but stopped using it seriously a few years ago.

Read 3 Japanese textbooks from the Libby Japan Foundation LA Library: I found some Japanese textbook study type books for Japanese learners and some for Japanese elementary school students on the Libby Japanese Library (needs a US phone number), and I'd like to read at least three of these.

Consistently watch one Japanese drama: In 2024, I watched the NHK Taiga Drama Hikaru Kimi e (光る君へ) every week, and although they used old Japanese, poetic Japanese, and lots of ancient government-related vocabulary that took me time to pick up, the consistency of watching the drama every week (and knowledge of Murasaki Shikibu's life) helped me to understand the drama without subtitles (JP or EN). I'd like to pick a new drama for 2025 (even if it's not year-long) and keep up with it.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope your studies in 2025 will be productive and fun! If any of this helped you, great! And if it didn't, that's ok too. Whether you set goals or not, remember to be kind to yourself this year. And if you have set goals, let me know your number 1 goal (I'm actually really interested to see what everyone's goals are!).

素敵な一年になりますように！

Wishing you a wonderful year ahead!

[burdsandwurds]

so, i want to preface this with a disclaimer by saying i’m not a financial advisor of any type. certified, uncertified, hobbyist, or anything of the sort. i’m just a scrub who barely knows his left hand from his right. if you’re thinking about getting your retirement accounts set up, do your research, talk to a financial advisor or two, talk to your hr rep, get some help in this area.

that all said, i’m seeing a couple of comments to this post such as ‘i don’t have a job that has retirement accounts options’ or ‘money is really tight these days.’ i can’t stress enough that that’s totally understandable. i get that and i personally feel that. i want to say you’re not completely stuck though. if your employer doesn’t offer a 401k or a pension or something similar, you can always get an ira set up. they work a little bit different from a 401k, but they let you save up for retirement in similar ways. there’s a ton of businesses that offer them too, from banks and credit unions to brokerage firms. once again, do your research before getting one.

but let’s look at some math now. ask yourself, can you find a way to save $3 a day? i can. all i have to do is kick a habit like a daily red bull and i’m already there. chances are almost everyone reading this can find a way to save three bucks a day. that’s $20 a week right there in our pockets. if we saved that each week, at the end of the year, we’d have $1,040 leftover.

now let’s take a look at some math. if we save that $20 a week for 15 years, we’ll have $15,600 to show for it. if every five years though, we find a way to add an additional $10 to what we save every week, we’ll have $23,400.

here’s how the math plays out so far . . .

that’s not a ::ton:: of money, but for a few bucks a day, that’s not bad.

now, let’s see what happens if, instead of parking that money in a savings account, we open up a retirement account and park it there instead. for the sake of simplicity in illustrating my point, i’m just going to pretend that our money grows steadily at 8% every year. that’s not how things work in reality, as some months it’ll grow faster and some months it’ll grow slower and during periods of corrections, the value of our retirement accounts will actually drop. our retirement accounts purchase stocks and bonds, so they’re at the whims of the stock market, global economic sentiment, bank behaviors, and the sort. as a result, during rough economic times, we’re gonna take a hit. in general though, we’re assuming the markets are gonna continue their trends of long term growth. if they don’t though, the economy will be in such hot water that our retirement funds won’t matter anyway.

but let’s take a look at what happens to our money every year, over the course of fifteen years, assuming a steady 8% growth.

that $23k and change? it becomes almost $42k. it almost doubled.

to make it more dramatic, i added five more years saving $50 a week.

my point is, this stuff adds up over time and the anonymous commenter behind this post is right. the earlier you start saving, the more power your money has to grow.

now, are you gonna be able to retire on $78k? no. but that’s certainly gonna come in handy in later years. and of course, the more you save and the sooner you save it, the more your account will grow (hopefully).

once again, to end this, this is ::not:: professional advice. if you want to set up a retirement account and have questions, definitely talk to a professional who can help you. i’m just a faceless man on the internet and we all know, you have to take what we say we skepticism and caution.

edit: and because i couldn’t leave well enough alone, i added one more decade of saving.

This isn’t a fuck managers or customers or anything of the sort, but I view you as a labor rights kind of blog so I was hoping you could share two things with your readers for me?

First of all, tell anyone and everyone who is willing to listen to take retirement seriously as early as possible. I’m entering into my 40s with less than $30,000 in my retirement funds because I just never cared. I did some rough math and figured that if I had started contributing to my 401ks when they were offered to me in my early twenties, depending on how much I put away I’d have anywhere from $300-750,000 by now. I fucked myself sooo hard not taking this shit seriously and now I’m playing catch up. 401k, 457b, IRA, what the fuck ever. Tell people to get then and get them early and fucking slam money into it whenever they can.

Second, those employee feedback surveys? They can make a difference. A bunch of people in our company complained that our competitor’s starting pay was $2 an hour more than what we got paid. A few months after the survey we all got notified by HR and our store managers that there was a “mistake” in how payroll was calculated. Across the board everyone got a raise with two months back pay. We didn’t get $2 an hour more, but depending on numbers of years worked it averaged from $.50-1.50.

So yeah. I don’t know. Fucking tell people.

Posted by admin Rodney

[karinadele]

Budget Walmart Medic

Ratchet x reader

ch7.

Prev (AO3)

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Warnings: Graphic descriptions of incorrect medical procedures, Character on the verge of death, Bad writing, Drugs, Mentions of suicidal ideation, PTSD, its 4am and im not proofreading of reformating, saving that for when i post on ao3

“Fuck this shit.” You utter to yourself as you slam the door of your apartment closed. Sliding your back down the door to fall to the ground as you clutch your hair. Is it really too much to ask people to respect your decisions? Besides, it was just a metaphor for what you were feeling. Everyone says ‘Oh I’m gonna fucking kill myself!’ but most don’t mean it. Are all Cybertronians this stubborn? Sighing as you push yourself off the door and tossing your keys to the kitchen counter. Fine, sure, you’re a little suicidal, but just passively. It’s been years since you’ve visited grippy sock jail anyways.

But you’re just so mad. Respect is always something to be valued. You didn’t choose to be in this world, and you’d be damned if others don’t respect the choices you do. Even if it means death. Slamming your head against the fridge as you reach to the cupboard and grab a pill bottle. You haven’t been this pissed since your ex. The little white bar with the letters XANAX engraved twirls in your finger before you decide to pop it down. Not even bothering with a glass of water as you just dip your head into the sink and drink it straight from the tap.

Why are you so pissed? It’s just a passing comment that you’ve heard a million times before, yet something boils in you. Is it because your past few days have been nothing but chaos? Have you even had a chance to take a breather and process it? –And no, a cigarette break does not count.

No. There’s something more to it. Is it because Ratchet said it?

Giving up, you decide to end this shit before it gets even more complicated. Classic too scared and scarred to be involved in anything, so you cut off everyone before anything happens. But in this situation, it’s completely acceptable. Alien robots telling you want to do?! If you weren’t being locked up for trying to hurt yourself, you’d be locked up for psychosis at this rate.

One more all-nighter. You tell yourself. Contact Raf and ship the damn guy off and be done with your problems. Poor Raf. Being such a young age and already wrapped in otherworldly business. Either he has a will of steel or just doesn’t know any better. Or maybe it’s not actually that bad. Refusing to admit that thought, you slide your computer chair back and flop into it.

A child wouldn’t be awake at this time anyways. Typing away as you let your thoughts wander. He’s on the run too right? You feel a pang in your chest as you realize a child can’t even enjoy a good night’s sleep. Probably with that sleek muscle car napping in the back. How you wish you could offer him a hug and a good night’s rest.

Wait.

So why don’t you?

You’re not affiliated with any governments, the Decepticons don’t know you, and you have a spare bed. Besides, you were already on your way to contact him.

Hastily typing out a message as you feel the effects of the Xanax kicking in. Another day saved by drugs. Lord have mercy you probably need rehab after all this. Locating Raf’s number wasn’t that hard, everyone has a social media account these days. Even kids. The real kicker is getting it through without detection. Opening up Scapy as you slog away encrypting each packet.

By the time you’ve hit send, It was already dawn. Another successful all nighter. You take a moment to lean back and relax, knowing it’s now done. Sluggishly dragging yourself over to the fridge as you nibble on a block of cheese –hey protein right? And flop back into your chair, pulling up your music to relax.

You were so engrossed in your music and just catching up with your breath that you didn’t even notice there was a little figure outside your window. Being on the ground floor meant not only bugs, but apparently also creeps.

What the fuck.

Carefully, you pulled back the curtains. If it was any other day, you would have ran into the bathroom and locked yourself up. But viva la drugs! What you find… Is Raf. Along with the black muscle car fully transformed standing on the lawn. Your landlord is gonna be pissed. She spends hours planting those flowers and now..? Yikes.

Hurriedly, you grab your keys and head on out to meet Raf. They sure got here quick? How even? Has it been that long since you sent the message, or can that car just drive insane speeds? Under the dark, you don’t notice much, but the moment you let Raf in, –and told the autobot to lay low and get off the lawn, you realized a surprising problem. Raf is hurt. Barely holding it together.

Scrambling as you pick him up and lay him on your bed, you check for his vitals, the ABCs. Airway seems to be intact, breathing is there, if a little bit shallow. And circulation.. well you don't know. but he’s bleeding with wounds everywhere and you feel your blood boiling. He’s only 10! (he’s 12) how can anyone do this to a child?! You wanted to offer him solace and a good night of rest, not like this!

Flying out your door once you made sure Raf is breathing, as you head to his car companion to find some answers. Only to be replies with bleeps and bloops. Great. An autistic boy with an autistic car. And Raf is in no shape to translate, so the next best is… ah shit. Ratchet. The same one that’s got you all stressed out. Shoving your emotions aside for the nth time of the day, as a life is more important, adrenaline pumping through you, you bolt downstairs into the garage.

“RATCHET! WE HAVE A PROBLEM!” You yell out at him, huffing and panting from running.

Ratchet, still in his little world, under stasis, does not budge. You don’t have time for this! For fuck’s sake! Not another near death’s door! Completely pumped on adrenaline, you smack him, kicking his wheels, banging on his windows and eventually climbing into his hood to smack the windshield. Gosh you wish you brought a crowbar.

Just as you were about to pick his lock and just drive him out, when the medic stirs.

“WHAT IN PRIMUS’ NAME ARE YOU DOING?!” He shouts back. Clearly not liking being forcibly woken from stasis, or appreciating some human crawling all over him causing damage to him.

“We have a situation, Ratchet.” You try to explain to him as calmly as you can. But underneath that, there’s a tinge of stress and panic. “Raf’s not doing good. He’s here.”

For the second time of the night, Ratchet nearly forgot he’s underground and smacks the ceiling trying to transform. Pieces of concrete fall down between the two of you.

“IS HE INJURED??” Optics widened, half transformed, half kneeling down. Raf. He’s been through so much. Dark Energon, and now this! FRAG! And he can’t even contact June or anyone without endangering everyone. He feels so helpless again. Panic also waves through him. realizing just how useless he is again. Again.

Your voice snapped him out of it. “He’s in my apartment right now. His breathing is shallow, airways are clear, he’s losing blood as we speak… ah! But that Camero is here too. I can’t make out left or right about what he’s saying though! Ratchet! Lets go!”

Still grounded in fear, his processors disconnecting as he’s reliving his trauma of how he couldn't do anything for Raf the first time, and how Bumblebee is here too –Another reminder of how he’s failed everyone. Optics widened as he shakes in place.

“RATCHET! FUCK! PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER!”

You call out again, as you kick his leg.

“OW! YOU FRAGGING-”

He caught himself before he did anything, realizing you just snapped him out of it. Transforming fully back into his vehicle mode, as you scramble in and direct him over to the main streets, where the other Autobot is.

You let the boys figure out what happened, as much as you’d like to stay back and have a full recount on what happened, Raf is your priority. Running fast as you can back into your building, with how stressed and uncoordinated you are, slamming into the door before you even turned the doorknob like an idiot. When you finally make it in, you’re greeted with a child that’s half your side barely hanging on a thread.

You want to just break down and cry. You don’t know him, but this is not it. Everyone deserves to enjoy life. With the last of the Xanax countering you adrenaline, you get to work. “Sorry Raf. Sis is gonna have to take a look at you. Or try anyways.”

Ratchet and Bee are busy arguing about what happened. That a decepticon managed to trace his alt mode– even with the new paint job. Particular because they noticed Raf. Gunning for the child, relentlessly firing one after another to him. Bumblebee did everything he could to protect Raf, but it was not enough. Both of them sustained severe damage. Ratchet nearly wanted to scream and shout at Bee for being so reckless to have gotten Raf into this situation, but Bee interjected that after they managed to get into hiding, Raf’s phone got a notification. With whatever strength the kid had, he relayed that contact with you was established. And instantly they peeled off, going way above traffic limits, speeding off on the highway in the night to meet you. After all, Ratchet is with you.

Ratchet’s energon lines were nearly boiling. He snapped at Bee. He can’t do anything for humans! And he can’t even contact June! He couldn’t even fix Bumblebee’s voice box! He feels like a failure! And Raf! The one child he’s gotten close to, is now utterly helpless!

As the two boys argue outside, you’ve already started to work on Raf. Context to what happened would be nice, but a critical situation does not afford time for it. Raf is drifting in and out of consciousness, but with whatever words he can explain, he’s pointed out he’s gotten shot, as well as several metal shrapnel had embedded into him.

You’re full of rage. But thankfully for you, stress fuels you. Instantly snapping into work mode, you bring out your medkit. A kit that’s more of a duffel bag littered with supplies that’s probably half expired. Regardless, it’s the best we can work with. You don’t even noticed the two autobots staring outside your window as you work away on Raf.

Do they send him to a human hospital? They certainly can, but will human doctors know what to do when these are energon infused weapons? Would Raf’s family be contacted? Will that endanger the whole hiding in secrecy more? Ratchet is losing it, kicking away plants and punching trees, while Bee is desperately trying to calm him down, despite being hurt himself.

You hear the commotions outside, but are completely tunnel focused, locked into working on Raf. Raf explains he’s struggling to breath, and you noticed one of his lungs is working over time, and the other is very shallow, rather than breathing together, they’re alternating. Considering he was hit with a chest, its not uncommon for it to have developed into tension pneumothorax. You really hope it isn’t, as that’s not a procedure that should be performed in some drug addict’s apartment, but shortly after, his breathing stops. This is not good. There wouldn't be enough time to call for emergency services. Technically you have an emergency vehicle already, but said vehicle is not versed in human medicine. The good Samaritan law right? Either you do something now and hope it brings him back, or he’ll die. or die trying. There’s only one logical option.

Hurriedly cutting his clothes off, as you feel around on his collapsed lung. A child should be two ribs down. Digging on your bottom shelf for vinyl gloves, shoving it on and praying Raf isn’t allergic to anything, you grab your box cutter and quickly swap out the current blade with a new blade. Snatching the vodka on the coffee table and pour it all over your hands, the blade, and a plastic tube you’ve managed to fish out.

Following along the collapsed lung, tracing along his ribs till you’ve counted two, as you press the tip of the blade into the skin, slowly with accuracy, cutting in inches deep before making the cut horizontal across his ribs. If you had more supplies and time, you would have done this with a needle for safety, but fuck! You're convinced you've used up the last of the needles shooting up morphine! Coming back to reality as you work swiftly inserting the tube into his lung, and instant 'pppssshh' hisses out from it.

Ratchet and Bee at this point, have basically glued their faceplate and optics by your window, zooming in into what’s going on. Ratchet recalled that you said you were not a medic, but yet you’re performing with accurate precision. This may be illegal in both Earth and Cybertronian terms, but he can't help but be in awe with how steady your hands and focus on Raf is. Bumblebee however, noticed that you’re completely stressed. Vibrating like a leaf as he points it out to Ratchet. He takes notice as he pulls his optics away from your work, to realize just how scared you are. Clenching your teeth until it’s sore, then swapping to biting your lips until the blood is cut off, moving back to gritting your teeth. He can sense your breathing is all over the place, mostly forgetting to breath as you hold your breath until tears are welling up.

With a gasp, Rafael manages to suck in a breath.

“Easy there Raf. don’t breath too hard. You have a collapsed lung. It probably hurts right now." You tell him.

Subconsciously, Ratch runs a scan on both you and Rafael. You were correct. He did in fact, had tension pneumothorax. And he now is breathing. Still gravely wounded with blood leaking, but able to breath. You on the other hand, physically are safe, but the amount of adrenaline is sky high, and he can see your blood pressure and heart rate reaching the unhealthy range. Powerless to help you two, he wanted to beat himself up. Thankfully, Bumblebee bleeps a few beeps reassuring that you know what you’re doing, and Raf is in safe hands. (Little did Bee know, you in fact, do not know what you’re doing.)

The poor barely conscious boy gives you a nod and you can feel your adrenaline wearing off. Not yet. We still have things to do. He still has bleeding wounds to stop before he’s stabilized. Poor kid is bleeding all over your bed. Fishing in the first aid kit as you grab an EpiPen (totally expired) and stab it into yourself, followed by popping a few pills of Ativan to help sedate the effects.

Ratchet does not understand what is going on, but detected the adrenaline wearing off, cortisol levels rising, only to instantly be replaced with another wave of adrenaline. Is that what you injected?! Why would you purposefully do that?! He was caught in these thoughts when suddenly, a flashback came to him. When he was so desperate to figure out the Synthetic Energon that he tried it on himself… You weren’t testing drugs on yourself… you were desperately doing it to make sure you can continue to save Raf’s life…

Last push you tell yourself. Stop the bleeding and you can have a break. Fueled with too much adrenaline, you instantly start working. Raf will be in such pain you thought. Digging your hands back down the bag for the last vial of morphine you have, -graciously stole from the hospital during your last visit. You mentally calculate how much you need, for a boy this age. You have his age and estimate of height… but his weight? You’re terrible at guessing weights. With no time to think, you suddenly realized something. If Ratchet was able to scan out that you had energon in you, can he scan Raf’s weight? Last thing you want to do is accidentally overdose the poor boy into death. Spinning your head back as you nearly get jumpscared by two bots glued to the window, you slide open the glass.

“Quick Ratchet. What’s Raf’s weight?”

Caught off guard as he was completely focused on your wellbeing, he quickly resets his vocalizer and take a look at Raf’s weight, Giving you an estimate.

Wanting to be on the safe side, you decide 1mg should be enough, not enough to knock him out, but at least subdude the pain. Not like you have local anesthesia or have time for lidocaine creams to work. Realizing you in fact, did have one last sterile needle that you saved from safe needles exchange clinics. Never did you think this was what it was going to be used for. Drawing out what you feel is about 1mg as you tie a tourniquet around Raf’s arms, slapping it a couple times until you can see the vein. Children have small veins, and you’ve opted for a butterfly needle. Thankfully he seems to have better veins than you, and you push the morphine into him. Telling him he’s okay, he’ll feel better soon.

In a moment’s time, Raf is peaceful sleeping, no doubt from the stress and his body finally giving up. But also a symptom that the drug has kicked in. It’s showtime. Making an effort to clean his open wounds with rubbing alcohol as that vodka is totally gone. You work as swiftly as you can, with nothing but a fucking sewing needle and nylon fishing wire, you zone in and start his sutures. It’s been a while since you’ve ever sewn up anything, but once you got into the groove, it was surprisingly relaxing.

Half an hour later, you find yourself done with the major bleeds, finishing off the smaller cuts with a mix of butterfly bandaids and normal one, you proceed to apply medicated gauze over the larger more likely to be infected wounds. Mentally drifting off to how expensive these were, but instantly pulling back to the problem at hand. Finishing up as you bandage him up with rolls of gauze and securing it with medical tape.

Ratchet at this point, could not believe what he was seeing. You, who claimed to not have been a medic, just went through with a complicated surgery, as well as sutures. He wondered if the day he met you was also a life saved by you.

By now, the adrenaline has started to subsided. The parasympathetic nervous system is now starting to take over. Making your way over to the bots as you tell them, Raf is out of critical condition, but he still needs to be in a hospital.

Ratchet is in a turmoil, he know Raf needs to be seen by a proper medic, yet he also know they not only need to lay low, but humans would not know how to even begin diagnosing Raf with energon blasts. “If only we could contact June…” He mumbled.

“June? Who’s that?”

“Jack’s mother, a nurse. Someone who’s aware of our presence.” He curtly replied.

Who is even Jack??

“So– We just need to contact her right?” You already know where this is going, seems like the day is far from over.

“Without detection of course.” Ratchet tagged on. “I have her number if you need it.”

That’s all you needed to hear. Giving him a nod as you flop back into your computer chair and once again, send an sos signal –fully encrypted to this said “June”. You’re fighting your body to stay awake now. The cortisol and benzodiazepines are practically taking over. With the message sent, you slice a little of your windscreen open, and shove the spare keys into Ratchet’s servos.

“I sent her a message. You let her in when she gets here, okay?” As you look out the window. Ah shit. They’ve ruined the whole front yard now. Is that a broken tree?

Ratchet, still having a hard time processing what in Primus’s aft just happened, and Bee just as lost. Without a second thought, you pass out right at your computer desk. You could just hope the bots don’t get in any trouble until June arrives…