#so theres this sort of mutual agreement

[asahicore]

bad news first - sjy (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact pairing. jake x fem!reader synopsis. From the moment you'd met at eight to the day he moved to South Korea at fourteen, you and Jake were inseparable. But after years of being apart, you've come to terms with the fact that at twenty, you and Jake just aren't what you used to be. That is until you get a text from him, and all of a sudden, he's back by your side, doing his year abroad at the university you study at, and all your feelings for him float back up to the surface. genre. college au, childhood friends to ???? to lovers, painful mutual pining, one bed trope..... a sprinkle of angst (my hand slipped) but mostly fluff i promise and smut (mdni!!!), also i made sunghoon really weird in this and idkw, this is set in scotland.. edinburgh uni rep!! word count. 23k author's note. everybody say happy belated birthday to @zreamy.. happy belated birthday zo!!! being 22 years and 6 days old is cooler than just 22 years old anyway.. hope you like it bestie... if you dont... well theres a building on campus thats 17 stories high sooo.. enjoy! i hope everyone else enjoys too, since this is a bday fic for zo she couldnt beta read so i had to raw dog this so if its terrible.. not my fault! lmk what u think!! i also made a playlist for this, do listen along!!

“Alright kids, good news or bad news first?”

You looked at your teacher, then at the boy next to you, then back at your teacher. “Bad news first,” you said in unison.

You were only eight, but you were both wise enough to know that hearing good news second would assuage the blow of whatever these bad news were. Miss Dawson sighed as she crouched in front of you. “The bad news is your bus driver is on strike and won’t be coming. The good news is that your parents have been informed and are coming to pick you up soon.”

Following her instructions, you headed to the gymnasium and sat there silently among the other kids. Not many kids in your class rode the bus home, and the ones who did seemed to have drivers not on strike, so it was just the two of you. You were used to that, though - over January and February, you had made a sort of silent pact to stand and wait for the bus together. You sometimes shared snacks, but you never spoke. For some reason, you felt at ease with this boy, even though you didn’t know much about him. You had heard he had moved to Brisbane just at the start of this year, all the way from South Korea. You were pretty sure his name was Jake.

You handed him one of your Twix bars. Then he spoke. “I thought a strike was when you did really well in bowling.”

“Same,” you replied, mouth full of chocolate and caramel. “I’m not sure why that would keep the bus driver from picking us up.”

Jake looked at you with wide eyes, distress clear in them. “Do you think he went bowling instead of picking us up?”

This made you frown. “That’d be really rude.”

“It would. I always make sure to go bowling on the weekends, ‘cause if I missed school that’d be rude to Miss Dawson.”

You nodded your head in fervent agreement. “For sure.”

That weekend, his mum called your mum to ask if you wanted to go to the bowling alley with them. From then on, for the next six years, you were stuck together by glue. 

--

Twelve years later, Jake’s name appearing on your phone screen has become such a rare sight, you don’t believe it right away. It takes you a few seconds of intense squinting at the letters to actually realise your eyes aren’t deceiving you.

jake.sim15 hey y/n!! you go to edinburgh uni right?

You type and delete three different responses before settling for a simple yeah, I am! what’s up?, hoping you sounded nonchalant even though you very much felt chalant. You thought that whatever you sent wouldn’t be as weird as taking forever to answer such a straightforward question. 

As you wait for Jake’s reply, you scroll through your previous shared messages, noting with sadness that for three years in a row, the only instances you’d texted were to wish each other a happy birthday or when he reacted with a fire emoji to Stories of your dog, Milo. Before that, your last conversation was to congratulate each other about getting into your top choice universities and to discuss plans for your respective futures.

Futures that used to include each other, you think. His reply appears at the bottom of your screen before melancholy can fill your heart.

jake.sim15 i applied to go there for my year abroad next year annnnd i got in !! heh

You shoot up straight from your seat on the lounge chaise you’d been sunbathing on, a loud “Oh my God!” involuntarily escaping your mouth. 

“What? What happened? Is everything okay?” Chaewon asks frantically, rushing over to your side. “Oh,” she says when she sees your phone. “It’s a text… from a boy?” 

This makes Yunjin, previously unbothered by your panic, rise from her seat and take off her sunglasses. “A boy? Show me,” she demands, snatching your phone from your hands before you can protest. Upon seeing the texts on your screen, she lets out a loud gasp. “It’s not just any boy! It’s the one and only Jake Sim himself.”

“Give that back!” you plead, hand reaching for your phone, but Yunjin is already walking away.

“And he’s coming to Edi this September, apparently. He says he’s sorry for not saying anything earlier, but he was waiting for an answer up until now.” She scoffs. “Leave it to our uni to tell someone they’re in less than two months before term starts. Oh, you’re the first person he’s told, Y/N! After his parents. How cute,” she coos, protesting when you snatch your phone back from her. “Hey! I was reading that.”

“Those are my texts, Yunjin. I’m the one who’s meant to read them.”

She shrugs. “You would’ve told us anyway.”

“What are you going to reply?” Chaewon asks. With the both of them hovering over your shoulders and watching as you type a response, a sort of stage fright comes over you, making you send what might be the most unoriginal reply known to man.

“Awesome? Seriously, Y/N?” Yunjin reads, disproportionately disgusted with you.

“That’s a lot of exclamation marks. It almost makes it look like you don’t mean it,” Chaewon says.

“I do mean it!”

“Well, he seems to like it. A smiling-with-teeth emoji is a good sign, right?” she asks in an attempt to make you feel better.

“He has automatic caps off. That man is run-through,” Yunjin says, shaking her head as she walks back to her sunbed.

“You were excited about him texting me just a second ago,” you reproach.

“Yeah, before I found out he was a whore.”

“Yunjin, you know we don't slut-shame here!” Chaewon exclaims. Before Yunjin can say anything even worse in response, your phone starts ringing, and Jake’s name appears on your screen. “He’s calling you?” Chaewon gasps, making Yunjin sit up with a start for the second time in less than five minutes.

“This man is insane,” she remarks with all the seriousness in the world.

You run away from your friends, finding refuge in the outside kitchen area out of earshot. They don’t need to hear your conversation with Jake. You love them, but they can be weirdly unsupportive in moments like these.

“Hey, Jake,” you greet, hoping he doesn’t notice the breathlessness in your voice. It was because you had just ran, of course - you didn’t want him to think you were so nervous about talking to him after such a long time, you could barely breathe. Because you weren’t. At all.

“Hey, Y/N!” he replies, and the excitement in his voice makes your heart melt. “I hope it’s not weird that I called, I just thought it’d be nicer than texting, is that okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine, it’s nice to hear your voice,” you say before you can really think about it, and cringe at your own words. Years without talking and the world’s worst line is the first thing you say to Jake. Thankfully, before you start excruciating yourself, a chuckle pours out of Jake’s throat and blesses your ears.

“It’s nice to hear your voice, too. What are you up to?” 

“Oh, I’m on vacation with my friends. One of them has a rich aunt who owns a villa in southern Italy, so we’re just chilling by the pool right now.” 

“You always wanted to go to Italy! That sounds so nice,” he says. Your breath catches gently in your throat - he remembers, you note.

“Yeah, it really is. What about you, how are you spending the summer?”

Jake tells you about the local bookstore owned by a grandpa that’s always had a soft spot for him and that gave him a part-time job for the summer. “I’m trying to save up as much money as I can before I leave. If I treat you to a meal, will you show me around the city?” he asks, and you can hear the grin in his voice. It makes you realise how much you’ve actually missed him.

“You don’t need to treat me to a meal, I’ll show you around anyway.” 

Still, he insists, and you find yourself giving in quickly - because it’s Jake or because free food is on the table, you’re not sure. Probably both. 

You and Jake get to talking, but fitting years and years of catching up into one conversation is an impossible task, and before you know it, when you check your phone, you’ve been talking for over an hour. Yunjin is angrily waving at you, pointing at her stomach to indicate hunger like a caveman who’s just learned how to communicate. You apologise to Jake, telling him you have to go, and plan to meet during fresher’s week before you hang up.

A few hours later, you get a text from him saying it was nice talking to you and jokingly asking whether Yunjin was satisfied with lunch. It’s innocuous, but it opens a gate for more texting, which leads to long, rambling voice messages, which leads to late-night phone calls that remind you of when you were fifteen and still kept in touch. When August fades into September, you feel like you’ve got your best friend back. 

You remember why you were so in love with him at fourteen.

--

You see Jake before he sees you.  

Among the throngs of people, you manage to spot the dark, messy flop of hair on his head weighed down by a nice pair of wireless headphones. After a thirteen-hour flight from Seoul, a four-hour layover in Frankfurt and a final, two-hour flight to Edinburgh, he looks rightfully exhausted, using what looks like the last of his energy to spot the exit and the airport bus stop. Even wearing a simple denim jacket, white tee and grey sweatpants, he’s so gorgeous you forget what you came here for, until he almost walks right past you without seeing you. You put yourself in his path and hold your hand-written banner up, making yourself as obvious as you can as you call out his name. 

When he sees you, he stops dead in his tracks for a second, someone almost running into him before he remembers the crowd behind him. His tired features break out into a bright smile that has your heartbeat speeding up so much, you think it might run out of your chest. 

He had told you not to come, that it would be late for you and he didn’t want to bother you, but you had managed to get the information of his arrival before he forbade you from picking him up so you did it anyway, wanting to surprise him. After years of being apart, rather than waiting another day, you wanted to see him as soon as possible.

Jake briskly makes his way to you, dropping his bags next to him on the floor as he engulfs you in a hug, warm and tight as if he’s trying to make up for all those years. You hug him back as if someone would appear out of thin air and take him away from you again.

“This was the longest day of my life, I’m so happy to see you,” he says when he pulls away, and you’re so happy you can’t even say anything back, resorting to giggling and lightly swatting non-existent dust off of his shoulders. 

As you wait for the bus, he tells you about every trivial thing that happened to him on his trip, from how expensive a sandwich is at the airport to the German kid sitting in front of him that kept turning around to stare at him on his second flight.

“How did you know he was German?” you ask, amused.

Jake pauses. “Just vibes.”

Conversation on the bus is slightly disjointed as you jump from topic to topic with random pauses here and there before one of you finds something to talk about - but it’s okay, you hadn’t expected for the two of you to be as easy as before. It’s more awe at seeing each other after such a long time than awkwardness. Even though you’d caught up over summer, there was a world of difference between speaking on the phone and actually sitting next to him. You notice things like the shine of his hair, the creases that form on the sides of his lips when he smiles, or, unfortunately for you, the veins that run along his forearms and hands - things you hadn’t noticed previously thanks to the sometimes questionable quality of the front camera of his phone. Once in a while, your thigh brushes against his, and it reminds you that he’s really here. Even that he’s real, at all. 

In a tragic turn of events, Jake lives in the student accommodation you used to live in in first year, and coming back to it two years later is slightly traumatising. His three-person flat is in a different building as your old one, and you marvel at how it somehow still smells the same - like dusty, decade-old carpeting and the permanent stench of students’ dubitable cooking. He’s the first one to move in, which makes the place slightly eerie, but it means that you’re not bothering anyone by unpacking Jake’s stuff and cooking Shin Ramyun the previous tenants had left behind at 11pm. 

Your late dinner was meant for you to take a small break, watch a couple episodes of Friends which Jake had been shocked to learn you’d never watched, and you had been shocked to learn he was a die-hard fan of (since one year ago), then get back to unpacking. But the ramen sends an already exhausted Jake into a food coma so intense, he falls asleep on your shoulder five minutes into the second episode. 

You let him sleep as long as he needs, turning the volume down on his laptop and stifling your chuckles as much as you can. You feel like a cat has fallen asleep in your lap - you are now obliged by law to stay still until Jake wakes up. It’s not until an hour later that Jake’s uncomfortable sleeping position forces him awake, lifting his head off of your shoulder with a grunt. He looks around himself, at his room that’s not quite familiar to him yet, then at you, eyes still scrunched with sleepiness as a grin blooms onto his lips.

“Sorry,” clearing his throat of its grogginess. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost one a.m,” you reply, and his eyes go wide.

“You should’ve woken me up! Does your shoulder hurt?” he asks, much more alarmed than he should be, and it makes you laugh.

“It’s all good. But now that you’re awake, I should probably head home.” 

“I’ll get you an Uber,” he says, already pulling out his phone. 

“It’s fine, Jake, my place is a ten-minute walk from here. I live just up the road.”

Jake’s fingers on his phone pause as he looks up at you. “Then I’ll walk you home.” He lifts a finger in warning when he sees you start to protest. “And don’t fight me on this. You did so much today, it’s the least I can do.”

As much as you love the idea of spending more time with Jake, even if it’s just ten minutes, you still don’t want to bother him when you know how tired he is. “It’s really safe around here. I can just text you when I’m home, if you’re worried about me getting kidnapped or something,” you say, taking his jacket from his hands and placing it back on his desk chair.

He grabs it back, putting it on before you can take it from him again, and rummages through one of his suitcases for a black, woolly scarf. Neither of you speaks as he wraps it tight around your neck, even though the early September weather isn’t cold enough to warrant it. His hands stop briefly on the scarf and a small smile spreads on his lips. You hope he doesn’t hear your sharp intake of breath when your eyes meet. “It’s not about that,” he says simply, voice low and unlike you’ve ever heard it before. You don’t think his voice had quite finished cracking when he’d moved away back then. 

Suddenly, he steps away, grabs his keys, and heads for the door. “Let’s go!” he says, voice back to its usual cheery tone. You don’t find it in you to question him, so you just follow him out, welcoming the night breeze that cools down your burning cheeks with open arms. 

The walk to your place is mostly done in comfortable silence, but it still goes by too quickly for your liking. You keep your hands in your pockets to prevent yourself from doing something stupid, like reaching out for Jake’s hand that swishes back-and-forth as he walks. Instead, you bury your nose in his scarf and relish in the unfamiliar but comforting smell that his cologne has left behind on the fabric. You hug goodbye when you reach your flat, and you have to remind yourself to let go. He insists on you keeping the scarf. “My mum packed me, like, three, so you can have that one.” 

“Your mum still pack your things for you, does she?” you ask, tone playful.

“No-” he says, voice slightly whiny, before he realises you’re just teasing him. “Whatever,” he chuckles, ruffling your hair. You hope the streetlights aren’t bright enough for him to notice the flustered look on your face. The both of you stand there awkwardly for a second, before he lets out another chuckle. “Right. See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” you beam.

“Okay,” he says, but still doesn’t make a move to leave. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll be off then.” He gives you one last smile then turns around, burying his hands in his pockets, and you watch as he walks away.

“Get home safe,” you call out after a few seconds. 

He pivots on his heels, and, with a wave of his hand, says, “I will! Go inside.”

“Good night!”

“Night, Y/N!”

When you walk into your living room, Yunjin is sitting on the couch, arms crossed over her chest, gaze trained on the wall opposite her, one lamp lighting the otherwise completely dark room. She looks like a detective in one of those bad cop shows.

“Gosh, what’s all this for?”

“You’re back awfully late,” she says, neither looking at you nor answering your question.

“Yeah, I was with Jake,” you shrug, heading into the kitchen for a glass of water. She abruptly gets up from her seat, following you into the other room and staying close behind you.

“And?” she demands, mouth way too close to your ear and making you start.

“And what?” you ask. 

“What do you mean and what?!” she says, clearly agitated. “I want to know everything!”

“There’s nothing to say, really. He seemed happy I picked him up from the airport, then I helped him unpack. He lives in Riego, by the way.”

“Ew.”

“I know, it was awful going back there.”

The two of you stare at each other as you drink your water. “Well?” she asks.

“What?”

“Is that it?”

You fill your glass again to take it into your bedroom. “I don’t know, we just ate and watched Friends.”

“You hate shows with laughing tracks,” she states like it’s an accusation.

“It wasn’t actually that bad,” you reply, shrugging.

She tuts. “Love will do ugly, ugly things to a person.”

“You’ve been in a loving relationship for the past two years.”

“This isn’t about me. Can we talk about how you’re still in love with the same loser from when you were ten?”

“I was fourteen, and don’t call Jake a loser when you haven’t even met him.” You ignore the roll of her eyes. “And I’m not. Not anymore. I’m just happy to have my friend back.” Yunjin gives you a look. “Okay, maybe I’m still a little bit in love with him. But it’s so little, it’s barely there.” Her expression is unchangingly unimpressed and you can’t help but throw in the towel. “Alright, fine. I still love him, what about it?”

“You’re pathetic.”

“I know that, no need to remind me.”

“Are you gonna do something about it?”

“My patheticness? I’ve tried, didn’t really work.”

“No, idiot, about Jake. You should go and get him! It’d be so sexy if you got together as 20-somethings after knowing each other since you were babies.”

“We were eight when we met. And I don’t know if sexy is the word I’d use here.”

“Anything is sexy if you try hard enough,” she says, and you have to laugh. “Anyways, you should confess your undying love and tell him you’ve felt that way since you met.”

“I wasn’t-”

“Guys might not show it, but they probably get all hot for stuff like that. Boosts their ego and shit.”

“Yunjin, I just got my friend back, I’m not gonna risk it. Plus, who knows, I might not actually be in love with him. It might just be my emotions acting up, like, seeing someone I used to like after a while. We’ve both changed so much, once I get to know him more now, I might not even feel the way I used to.”

“Notice how you’ve used the word might twice in ten seconds? You’re just trying to find excuses.”

You groan. “This is why I hate English Lit people.”

“You do English Lit.”

“I know, and I’m the only nice person that does it.” In your head, you add and Jake, but saying it out loud would only make this conversation worse for you.

“What’s that scarf, by the way? Did he give you that?”

You look down at the scarf like it’s a piece of incriminating evidence. “Can you stop grilling me, please? It’s late.”

“You’re not answering my question.”

You sighed deeply. “Fine. Yes, he gave me-”

“It’s not even that cold outside!” she exclaimed in an outrage. “Don’t tell me he also walked you home?”

You pause. “He did.”

She gasped. “He walked you home because he’s in love with you.”

“He walked me home because he’s a good friend that looks after me.”

“He walked you home because he realised how hot you’ve gotten and he wants some of that.”

All you can do is sigh. “Whatever. I’m going to bed.”

“If you weren’t such a coward, you wouldn’t be going to bed alone.”

“Whatever!” you say, shutting the door behind you, shaking that preposterous conversation out of your head. When you get into bed, it takes you at least half-an-hour before you can settle down, but you know your constant tossing and turning isn’t due to your inability to find a comfortable enough position to sleep in. Between your evening with Jake and Yunjin’s pestering, thoughts run wild and incoherent through your head. 

You want to tell her every little thing that happened with Jake tonight, but you’re afraid it might do you more harm than good. She is most definitely the type of friend who will take the smallest action a guy did for you or the most meaningless thing he might have said and turn it into a sign that he has the hots for you, which usually does wonders for your confidence, but right now, you don’t need that kind of delusion. Did seeing your childhood best friend you used to secretly harbour feelings for make you feel some type of way? Of course, but that doesn’t mean you still love him after all this time, after six years of being apart, the majority of those years spent with no contact. It wasn’t like you parted ways with resentment, or anything of that sort, far from it; rather, you drifted apart naturally, as two teenagers with over 7000 kilometres between them would. At first, you’d call frequently and even write each other letters - but as you became more preoccupied with school, friends, and extracurriculars, your phones gradually rang less and your mailboxes became gradually emptier. You don’t even remember who sent the last, unanswered letter. 

Tonight isn’t the first time you replay the moment Jake announced that he would go away, but it’s the first time it’s a bittersweet memory. It used to only be bitter - but now that you’ve reconnected, you can look back at it with fondness, wishing you could tell fourteen-year-old you the hurt would only last so long. 

It hadn’t started unusually.

“So, bad news first, right?”

In your six years of friendship with Jake, this had been the first time you’d really been wary of what he would say next. The look on his face told you that this bad news wouldn’t be as easy to shake off as usual. Your definition of bad news was things like I got grounded so I can’t hang out, I forgot we had a test tomorrow so I can’t hang out, my allergies are acting up again so I can’t hang out.

“I’m moving to Korea next month.”

I’m on another continent, so I can’t hang out.

You remember the words not quite making sense at the time. “Oh? How long are you staying there?” you said, taking a bite of your strawberry ice cream which Jake had insisted on paying for, even though you knew he didn’t get much allowance.

“Forever.”

You stopped chewing, and the ice cream melted uncomfortably in your mouth. You don’t know how long you stayed there, frozen as you stared at your best friend in disbelief. It wasn’t until he lightly shoved your shoulder, only meeting your eyes for a split second, that you remembered to swallow and to say something.

“Forever as in… You won’t live here anymore? At all?”

Jake shook his head. He kept his eyes trained on the vanilla-chocolate ice cream sandwich he’d left in its wrapper. In the blazing hot Brisbane summer, it had probably fully melted two minutes ago. “At all.”

“Oh,” was all you found yourself able to say. For some reason, you hoped that continuing to eat your ice cream would stop you from crying, but to no avail. Hot, salty tears quickly started raining down your cheeks, mixing with the sweetness of your ice cream when they reached your lips. 

“It’s my dad’s work. Same reason why I moved here when we were kids in the first place. They wanted him here then, they want him back there now. We just have to follow,” Jake explained, sounding just as upset as you felt.

“Right.”

“Are you mad at me?” Jake asked, worry clear in his voice, and finally turned to face you. At the sight of you crying, he let out a small oh, tears of his own pooling in his eyes.

You frowned. “Of course not. I’m never mad at you, you know that. I just… You’re my best friend, Jakey. It’s gonna be so lame around here without you.”

“It’ll be lame there without you, too.”

You attempted a smile. “Well, of course. But at least you’ll get to make new friends, see new places. You’ll be in a whole other country, I’m sure you’ll have fun there. I’m gonna be stuck in boring old Brisbane for the foreseeable future.”

“Do you know how offended our friends would be if they heard you speaking right now?” he asked, nudging your shoulder with his.

You sniffled and let out a chuckle. “They’re all great, but… I don’t like them nearly as much as I like you,” you said, staring down at your hands, hoping he wouldn’t realise exactly what you meant by that statement.

A weight was lifted off of your shoulders when Jake answered. “I like you the most too, Y/N.” You tried not to think too much about whether he’d meant it platonically or romantically - none of that mattered anymore. All that mattered was the feeling of his arms around you, his warmth enveloping your whole body, his familiar scent that you already missed. 

You felt him take a deep breath against you before he pulled away. He sniffled and did his best to put on a smile. “Right, enough of that. I’m not leaving until next month, so don’t think you’re rid of me just yet,” he joked, and it helped alleviate the weight on your heart, even if just a little. “You said you had something to tell me? Good news after bad news, and all that.”

“Oh. Right. I forgot about that.”

You thought for a second. Today was the day you had planned to confess your feelings to Jake - you’d only told him you had good news to share. But what was the point now that he was leaving? If he felt the same way, it would only make his departure that much harder, and if he didn’t, it would ruin your last moments together. It just wasn’t worth it.

Jake tilted his head, waiting for you to speak. In a split second, you made yourself forget your disappointment over having built the courage to tell him how you felt only for it all to fall through, and resolved to make the most of Jake’s last month here. You wiped your tears and mirrored his small smile as best you could. “Um, it wasn’t anything much. My mum made those cowboy cookies you like.”

Jake’s head fell back as he groaned in anticipation. “If she wasn’t happily married with three kids, I’d marry your mum. Let’s go right now.”

You laughed. “There’d be a bit of an age gap there.”

“We’d make it work,” Jake joked, throwing his arm around your shoulders as you walked towards your house. He beamed down at you, his bright, boyish smile that you loved to bits, and you beamed up at him as you grabbed the hand that hung off your shoulder in your own.

You walked as happily as you could. “Do you even speak Korean?” you suddenly asked.

Jake halted abruptly in his steps, a gravely offended look on his face. When you looked back at him in confusion, he rolled his eyes and started walking again, pulling you with him. “It’s literally my mother tongue, Y/N. I speak it every day at home.”

“Oh, right.”

At the time, you thought nothing could come between you and Jake. Not anyone, not anything, neither distance nor time. But they did. A week after he’d left, a boy from your class you’d talked to maybe once or twice asked you out on a date. You weren’t sure why, but you said yes. Then you said yes to being his girlfriend, even though you didn’t like him all that much, and you even said yes to reducing your texting with Jake because it made him jealous. When you’d broken up with him and wanted to catch up with Jake and apologise for your absence, you’d found that his new school in Seoul was a lot more demanding than yours in Brisbane, and he had to spend most of his evenings in academies if he wanted to get into a nice university. It’s when you learned that he’d be staying in South Korea for college that you decided to leave Australia too. Brisbane was a lot less fun without him there - why bother staying? You couldn’t go to him because of the language barrier and the cost of university there. If you were to essentially uproot your life, might as well go somewhere you could get a scholarship and understand the people around you. 

It seemed insane that someone you had thought would be by your side for the rest of your life, someone that was part of your most cherished memories, had been reduced to someone you casually texted once in a while. It seems even more insane that now that you’re finally done essentially grieving your friendship with Jake, he stands in front of you again, six inches taller but still donning those puppy-like eyes and smile of his.

For your sake, you just hoped you wouldn’t be as in love with him at twenty as you were at fourteen.

--

The next day, you show Jake around campus, which wouldn’t normally take more than ten minutes, but takes double that time because of the sheer amount of people there. Between the Societies Fair taking up most of the square, the tour guides leading freshers, walking slowly and taking in their new campus, and the pizza and drinks stands, freshers’ week always turns campus into what feels like the busiest place on Earth. You try not to let it hit a nerve for Jake’s sake, who’s clearly ecstatic at all the activity, but you like this place a lot more when it’s quieter. You walk through the Fair, laughing as Jake marvels at all the different clubs and societies at the Uni. 

“Gardening Society? Dungeons & Dragons Society? Wine society?” he exclaims, astonishment growing with every passing stand.

“And this is only the first day. They also have a Taylor Swift Society.” He grabs a flyer from about every society, even though you know he’ll join between two to zero of them. 

When you walk out, there’s a girl handing out samples of shampoo and conditioner, and you let her give you one, more out of politeness than anything. 

“These are so useless,” you start, and Jake chuckles, unaware of the incoming rant. “I had that job of distributing them last year, and we would get a tip if we gave them all out. So naturally I put a bunch in my bag, but then I had to use them for like two weeks.” You sigh. “First of all, my hair did not like it. And second, the ratio is so off. There’s way more conditioner than shampoo when it should be the other way around, so you have to condition your hair even though it’s not properly clean. So stupid.”

“Sounds terrible,” Jake says, laughing. “Is that why you’re not doing it this year?”

“Oh… Not really. I dated the guy that takes care of this promo stuff, so it would’ve been kinda awkward…” you trail, immediately wishing you could backtrack on conversation. Talking about your ex with Jake wasn’t on your to-do list for today. Or ever.

“You dated your boss?”

“The manager, yeah, I guess. He was only 24, though, don’t worry.”

“I’m more worried about the power imbalance than the age gap there.”

You shrug, looking down at your shoes. “It’s not like he was that high up.”

“So, what happened? Why did you break up?”

“Well, he acted like our four-year age difference meant he could treat me like a little kid. It was nice being taken care of at first but then I realised how condescending he was and dumped him.”

“How long were you together?”

You pause. “Two weeks,” you admit abashedly, making Jake chuckle. “At least he didn’t waste my time and showed his red flags early on.”

“Any boyfriends since?” he asks, and you wonder whether you’re making up the unsure tone of his voice. As if he’s curious, but doesn’t want to show it too much. You hope you’re not making it up.

“A few, but they never last very long with me,” you say, a meek smile on your lips. “Furthest I got was three months.”

“And why didn’t it work out with three-months-guy?”

“He started comparing me to his mum a bit too often.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, I ran out of there without looking back.”

“Well, it’s nice to see you’ve got high standards. I would hate to see you date just any loser.”

You want to say, High standards or issues?, but you don’t want to make it weird, so you play it cool instead. “I would never. I have a mental checklist with everything a guy needs to have for me to date him.”

“A checklist? I have to hear about this.”

You sigh, debating whether you should tell him about it. Would he notice it’s based on him? Would he notice the only person that could tick practically every box was none other than him? Jake gently elbows your side, goading you on. When you look at him, he’s got a shit-eating grin playing on his lips, and you give in. You look off into the distance as you start listing your requirements. “Well, there’s all your basics like funny, taller than me but not too much, ‘cause I don’t want neck cramps, smart, takes uni seriously, has plans for his future, easy to talk to, not emotionally stunted and can actually have a vulnerable conversation. It’s also a bonus if he has a nice face.”

“How much of a bonus?”

You think for a second. “It’s more a dealbreaker than a bonus, actually. Nice smile is a must, definitely.”

“Okay. Got any more specifics?”

“I do have some particular ones. It’s nice if he’s a reader, but it’s terrible if it makes him think he’s better than everyone or if he tries to sound smarter than me. I like it if he has experience, I don’t want to have to teach him everything. But obviously I don’t want him to still be in love with his ex. Guys and their first loves, I swear… I also don’t really like picky eaters.” You look over at Jake and take a double-take. He’s typing away on his phone, but because of his privacy screen protector, you can’t see anything. You huff. “I also don’t like it if he has those protective screens on his phone. What’s on there that’s so important that I can’t take a peek? What are you even doing?”

The sweet sound of Jake’s giggles erases any trace of annoyance that you felt seconds ago. He turns his screen towards you, showing the list of mostly ticked boxes that he’s written up. “See? I check most of these,” he says with a proud smile. “Guess your standards aren’t that high.” You don’t tell him that your standards are high, he’s just that amazing. 

You do your best to look only amused at this even though inside, you’re all but freaking out. “Which are you missing?”

“Well, I clearly own a privacy screen. And I don’t have much experience. Not nearly as much as you, by the sounds of it,” he admits, somewhat sheepish. “But other than that, I’m practically the perfect man for you.” He looks down at you with a smile so bright, it makes you wish you had brought sunglasses. It takes everything in you not to scream right then and there. Yes, Jake, you are the perfect man for me, but I wish you wouldn’t say it like it was a joke.

You let out a stiff chuckle, and, rather than saying something stupid and possibly damaging, shift the conversation to him. “What do you mean by not much experience? Have you not dated anyone?”

Jake sighs. “Nope, not anyone. I went on a few dates, you know, went through a few talking stages and all that, but it never went much further. There was always something…” He glances at you then. “Missing.”

“I know that feeling,” you say with a chuckle, and he laughs too, a breathy sound.

“I don’t have a checklist to pinpoint what it is, though.”

You smile. “You should try, it might help.”

“I just… I guess I’m like you in that I also have high standards. But it made me not even want to give anyone a chance, especially since I knew it wouldn’t end up anywhere.”

“Don’t tell me no one has ever managed to reach the great Jake Sim’s standards?” you ask, trying to keep your tone light.

Jake smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Of course someone has. She’s the whole reason I have standards in the first place. It’s not my standards I compare people to, it’s her.”

Jealousy has never made you feel as sad as it is right now. “And… it didn’t work out between you?”

Jake looks at you, eyes searching for something in yours but seemingly not finding it, and so he turns his gaze away. You don’t know why you feel so disappointed. “Nope,” he says, popping the ‘p’. “She didn’t feel the same way.”

Whoever this girl is, you can’t believe how stupid she is for passing up the opportunity to have Jake Sim. “That’s… It sucks, I’m sorry,” you say. You don’t think spitting on this girl would make him feel any better, so you keep those thoughts to yourself.

“It’s okay,” he says with a small smile. “It was a while ago already.”

“Doesn’t sound like you’re quite over it, though,” you say, and you’re surprised but glad to see his smile widen.

“That’s true.” His eyes meet yours again. “I don’t think I’ll be over her anytime soon, either.” You have to look away to shield the pain that flashes through your eyes from him.

Pretending you don’t have feelings for your best friend and that you’re okay with him being in love with someone else is like riding a bike: even after years of not doing it, it only takes a few minutes for you to be able to do it perfectly again. Muscle memory, if you will. So you sigh dramatically and throw your arm around Jake’s shoulder, slightly pulling him down to your level. “Don’t worry. We’re going to have so much fun this year, you’ll completely forget about her. Promise. She doesn’t know what she’s missing. Yeah?” 

He smiles down at you. You want nothing more but that glint of melancholy in his eyes to be gone. “Yeah.”

--

Jake is only half-glad to see you haven’t changed much from your childhood and early teenage years. You’re still just as pretty, just as warm; it’s still as comfortable to be around you. You’re also still as dense.

Then and now, he did everything he could to make his feelings for you very, very obvious. Either you’re completely oblivious, or the idea of dating him is so horrifying to you, you understand but pretend you don’t. He really hopes it’s the former. 

He arrived in Edinburgh just a bit over a week ago, and you’ve seen each other almost every day. Out of those times, there isn’t a single one where he hasn’t tried to send something your way - something that says, hey, what if we stopped being friends and dated instead? Wouldn’t that be cool? Can’t you see how desperately I love you?, but you never latch on. The ball’s in your court, and he wants you to throw it back, but it’s been feeling more like a boomerang that always hits him right in the face when it circles back than a game of catch.

But he’s reminding himself not to be too greedy. Even if it’s just as friends, at least he has you back, so he’s satisfied with that. For now.

His first class of the year is on the following Tuesday morning, a ninety-minute seminar specifically made for exchange students called Discover Scotland. (He has Mondays free, resulting in a three-day weekend, which you and your 9am Monday tutorial are very envious of.) As interesting as the English Lit courses he’s taking seem, it’s this one he’s most looking forward to - except for the one class he shares with you, of course. Not even because of the seminars themselves, which will be about all sorts of topics on Scottish culture and history, but because of the coursework, as crazy as that sounds. It consists of a singular project, not due until the very last day of the semester, in which he has to travel to at least three different places in the country, research its background and provide a detailed account of his experience there. It can take any form: a written report, an in-class presentation, a podcast, anything. He could even film a TikTok if he wanted. Jake knew that being part of the Arts & Crafts club for two years in a row back in Seoul wasn’t for nothing - his scrapbooking skills would finally have their time to shine. 

That afternoon, he practically snatches you as you come out of your lecture, giving you little time to say bye to your friends, and makes you take him to the biggest stationary store you know in the city. If he wants to ace this project, he will need supplies. Many, many supplies. And it’s more fun shopping if you’re with him. You seem happy following him around the store, and when he asks you if you want to come on his trips with him, he can pretend it’s because you seem so excited about his project and not because he had thought of you accompanying him as soon as he heard about it.

As you stand in line at the till, you tell him that if he wants to start his project now, you could go to the beach together. You raise your eyebrows at him when he snaps your head towards you. “There’s a beach here?!”

“Did you not look at a map before coming here?” you ask, amused.

“I guess I didn’t…” he says, distraught at the new information. It only lasts a second, though. “Okay, let’s go now.”

“Now?” you echo, and he nods. “But-” you start, but are interrupted by your thoughts. “I guess there’s no reason not to. The weather’s nice and it’s not like I have any uni work yet. Let’s go,” you agree, looking up at him with a smile. You’re so pretty he almost forgets to look away, until the employee calls Next in a bored drawl. 

An hour later, you’re at the beach, barefoot on the sand and ice cream in hand. Strawberry for you and vanilla for him, he notes with a smile. Really not much has changed, he thinks. From the sand, to the water, to the promenade along the beach, Portobello is worlds away from the beaches back home in Australia, or those of Jeju Island. But it’s still nice, and because you’re with him, it’s even better. You’ve been walking around for an hour, splashing each other with water and mercilessly ruining sandcastles left behind before he realises you technically came here for his project. He writes down things he doesn’t want to forget on his phone and snaps a few pictures, sneaking a few of you when you’re not looking. He wants to tell you how beautiful you are with your hair blowing in the wind and the way the chill bites at your cheeks, but he keeps it a secret between him and his Notes app. 

Even though he lives two stops further down, he gets off from the bus with you, containing his excitement as best he can when you invite him up for a cup of tea. “Depends. What tea do you have?” he asks, trying and failing to play it cool. He’s just grateful he doesn’t have to come up with an excuse to spend more time with you.

You roll your eyes playfully as you unlock the front door to your building. “I can make you hot chocolate, Mister Tea-Is-For-Old-People.”

He chuckles. “Actually, I’ll have you know I started drinking tea at uni.” When you turn around to look at him, a surprised look on your face, he nods proudly. “Mh-hm. I got addicted to caffeine very quickly into first year so I started drinking black tea for the sake of my heart,” he explains.

“God,” you say breathily, sounding mildly horrified. “A caffeine addiction sounds intense.”

“It was, yeah,” he says, laughing as he follows you into your flat. 

Yunjin and Chaewon are sitting at the living room table, watching an episode of what he thinks is Gossip Girl, and they greet him as normally as these two can, but he wonders what the knowing look they exchange is all about. He’d met them the previous weekend when you had all gone for drinks together, along with Jay, Yunjin’s boyfriend, and they had all but grilled him on his relationship with you. He hadn’t thought much of it, chalking it up to your friends feeling protective of you, and truthfully, he was just happy to get to talk about you. But now, he was wondering if you had told them anything about him that made them so curious about him. If you did, he hoped it was something positive.

He stands awkwardly in the kitchen, chatting with you as you boil the water and get cups out, but he can feel their gazes burning the back of his head. Clearly, whatever conversation he’s having with you, he’s also having it with them. “How do you take your tea?” you ask.

“Um, three sugars and lots of milk, please,” he says, smiling innocently when you slowly turn to look at him, a mix of disapproval, disgust, and offence on your face. 

You sigh deeply. “I mean, I’ll do it, but I’m not sure that’s even tea anymore.”

“You’re one to talk, Miss Caramel Frappuccino,” he says, recycling your bad joke from earlier.

“At least I don’t claim to be drinking coffee when I order a frap,” you argue. “And this is how you battled your coffee addiction? You’ll be getting another kind of heart problem, Jakey.” He doesn’t know if you even notice your use of his old nickname - the first time you’ve used it since he’s been here - but you don’t make a big deal of it, so he doesn’t either. Not outwardly, at least. Mentally, he’s running laps around your small kitchen.

Jake laughs it off. “I thought I came here for tea, not a health check-up,” he says, smile growing wider at the sight of yours. 

“Right, sorry,” you say, giggling. “I’ll make your tea just how you like it,” you add in a sweet voice. Jake knows you’re just doing it as a joke, but it still manages to make butterflies erupt in his stomach. 

His tea tastes even sweeter that day.

--

A few days after your impromptu trip to the beach, you’re waiting for Jake outside of his class. He heard of this donut shop he “absolutely needs to visit” and is dragging you along with him - well, “dragging” is a big word considering you’d follow him anywhere. You got here a few minutes early, not needing much of a reason to leave the library, so you scroll through your feed until Jake calls out your name. You’re only mildly surprised to see Jay leaving the classroom behind him.

“Y/N! Can you believe that Jay and I are in the same class?” he says excitedly as the two boys walk toward you. You feel like a dog owner being greeted by their over-enthusiastic dog after a long day (about three hours) of being apart.

“I can believe it, actually. You two do the same degree.”

You exchange quick greetings with Jay before the three of you start heading out. As you walk, Jake throws his arm around your shoulders so casually, it almost throws you off balance. Physical contact always came easy to him, but there’s something about him doing it next to someone else that catches you off guard. It reminds you of walking somewhere with Jay and Yunjin as they discretely held hands. It makes you feel like it’s not the three of you, but Jay with the two of you. Like you and Jake come as a pair rather than as two individuals. 

All of that from a simple arm around your shoulders.

Jake asking you in a very unsubtle whisper whether Jay can come with brings you out of your head and back into the conversation. “Yeah, of course,” you say, smiling. It’s not a bad idea to have Jay along: hanging out with someone else might snap you out of your delusion.

Most of the walk to the shop is done in laughter as Jake and Jay realise how much random stuff they have in common, from their peanut allergies to the embarrassing Harry Potter phase they had as fifteen-year-olds. Grassmarket is really busy on Friday afternoons, and there’s a bit of a queue of other donut-enjoyers in front of the boutique, but you don’t mind. The sun is shining down gently on the square and it gives you time to choose your donut out of the ten or so flavours available. In the end, you go for white chocolate and raspberry, while Jake chooses Biscoff and Jay, tiramisu. 

“My friend Sunghoon would love this,” he says after taking a hearty bite. “He goes crazy over tiramisu. Like a cat with catnip.”

Jake chuckles, mouth full of Biscoff. “That’s funny, I also have a friend named Sunghoon who loves tiramisu back in Seoul.”

Jay punches Jake’s shoulder, eyes wide in amusement and shock. “Bro, that’s crazy. You have to be lying at this point,” he says, but Jake shakes his head fervently. 

“I promise I’m not. I’ve even saved his number with the tiramisu emoji.”

“There’s a tiramisu emoji?” Jay asks, already over questioning the existence of Jake’s Sunghoon.

The conversation circles back to the courses you’re all taking this semester, and Jake tells Jay about Discover Scotland and the trips he’s planned so far. “Well, if you really want to discover Scotland as a student, you need to go on a night out in Glasgow,” Jay says. Going by the look on Jake’s face, Jay’s idea seems to have struck a chord in him.

“Y/N?”

You nod, finishing your mouthful of donut before speaking. “Yeah, Glasgow’s really fun. We should go,” you say, laughing when the two boys high-five in victory. Between the train, the drinks and the club entry, going out isn’t a cheap ordeal, and getting to and fro also takes a while - even so, the smile on Jake’s face makes it worth it. 

He wipes some raspberry jam from the corner of your mouth, shooting you a wink, and you want to disintegrate right then and there, become one with the bench you’re sitting on and never have to face him again. The conversation resumes as Jay tells Jake about all the best places to go out in Glasgow, but you don’t hear a word - the feeling of Jake’s thumb so close to your lips takes away your ability for coherent thought.

“It’s decided, then. We’re going out tomorrow night,” Jay loudly announces. “Let me gather the troops.”

That’s how you find yourself in line for the club the next day, already tipsy from pre-drinking on the train and at the pub. It’s still warm enough for you and the girls to wear as little clothing as you want, but Jake insisted on giving you his flannel jacket anyway. If not for the warmth it brings, you’re glad to have his scent enveloping you.

The five of you work exceptionally well together. You, Chaewon and Yunjin have been a given since you met in first year, and Jay and Yunjin went so well together that he was but a natural addition to your little group. Jake’s only been here for over a week, but it’s like he’s always been around, and you couldn’t be happier about it. Him and Jay hit it off immediately, and although the girls needed some time to warm up to him (it’s not everyday that you meet your friend’s ex-best-friend she’s practically always been in love with; you understand why they might’ve been wary at first), they now tease him just as relentlessly as they do Jay. He takes it like a champ.

For a little while, you watch your friends speaking over each other, bickering over nothing, a smile on your face. Two pints of cider and some of Jay’s fancy vodka have made you more grateful than ever for them - if you drink too much in the club, you’ll be hugging them and crying about how much you love them. You’re not sure what that might look like around Jake, so you decide to keep yourself in check for the night. 

It takes about thirty minutes before you manage to get into the club. It’s not coat check season yet, so you head straight to the bar. “Sunghoon said he’d meet us here,” Jay says, lifting his head to spot his friend in the sea of drunk students. “Oh yeah, there he is! Hoon, hey!” 

You hear a loud “Jongseong!” being shouted from somewhere in the crowd, but you’re not sure who Jay is waving at until a boy whose face is mostly eyebrows is standing - well, standing as best as he can, with the copious amount of alcohol he’s obviously already consumed - in front of you. He gives Jay a hug and the three of you a nod of his head, a lopsided smile on his face. When he turns to Jake, his eyebrows lift first, then his face breaks into a wide grin.

“Jake, my man!” he shouts, taking a stunned Jake’s hand and bringing him into a hug. 

“Sunghoon? What the hell are you doing here?” he asks, chuckling and frowning in confusion. 

“I’m just partying, man! Same as you!”

“No, I mean here in Scotland, you dumbass!”

“You two know each other?” Jay asks, looking back and forth between his two friends.

“Jake’s my man!” Sunghoon exclaims, unhelpful and stumbling as he throws an arm around his man’s shoulders. Jake shoots you a distressed look but you just laugh at him.

“This is Tiramisu Sunghoon I told you about,” Jake says, helping Sunghoon stand up straight.

“God, what I would do for a tiramisu right now,” Sunghoon says, looking at Yunjin like she might relate. She chuckles awkwardly.

“I have no idea what he’s doing in Scotland, though. Hoon, I thought you were going to NYU for your exchange?”

Sunghoon pauses to think for a second, looking like he’s never heard of NYU in his life. “Oh, that! Yeah, I did an online orientation thing and… it did not go well. Let’s just say there’s someone in New York City who wants me dead,” he says conspiratorially. You all stare at him but he gives no further explanation. On your right, you hear Yunjin whisper what the fuck under her breath. “So I transferred here instead!”

“I didn’t know you were an exchange student,” Jay says, still looking just as confused.

“Yeah, man! But anyways, let’s not talk about uni right now. I’m on a bender, day three, baby! Do not talk to me tomorrow,” he says, chuckling until the smile suddenly drops from his face. “I mean that.” You look around yourself, glad to find everyone is just as baffled as you. “Let’s party!” Sunghoon cheers, intoxicated grin back on his lips. Jake and Jay follow, but you and the girls stay back for a second, taking in everything that has just happened.

“That. Is the most beautiful man I have ever seen,” Chaewon blurts, staring blankly at the spot Sunghoon stood in a second ago.

“Yeah, he also seems to be a raging alcoholic. And he’s what, twenty-one?” Yunjin says, a scowl on her face. 

“I could fix him.”

“Okay, let’s go,” you say, grabbing your friends by their wrists before either of them can say something worse.

Feeling generous, Sunghoon buys shots for all six of you, and you quickly down them before heading to the dancefloor. On your way there, a group of sober-looking girls hand Chaewon a giant, still almost full jug of red liquid, something that costs at least twelve pounds here. They say they’re leaving and don’t need it anymore, smiling as you profusely and astonishedly thank them. You look at your friends, mentally weighing the risk and drugging possibility this might present, but shrug and pass the jug around after taking hearty sips anyway. It tastes so much like fizzy cherries that you wonder if it even contains any alcohol, but sure enough, twenty minutes later, the three of you are spinning around on the dancefloor, screaming the lyrics to your favourite pop songs at the top of your lungs. Jake at a club is a completely foreign sight to you, and you can’t stop laughing at all the silly moves he pulls. 

You’re shaking your whole body to a Nicki song from the early 2010s when you suddenly feel a hand on your hip. Before you can turn around and slap whoever this random man is that thinks he can touch you, a familiar voice whispers it’s just me in your ear, and you simultaneously relax and tense up knowing that Jake is standing right behind you. “There’s a creep staring at you,” he explains, lips and breath gently tickling your ear as he speaks. You look around the room and quickly notice a man standing in a corner, drink in one hand and the other in his pocket, unmoving as he eyes you with a smirk so slimy it makes your stomach turn. To avoid his gaze, you turn around, but you’re not sure the sight you’re met with is much better for you.

Jake peers down at you, eyes slightly glossed over and cheeks flushed from the alcohol, jaw locked in annoyance. He glances at the guy in the corner, who you assume is still staring when you feel Jake’s hands brush along your sides until they reach your waist. His gaze returns to your face as he brings you a step closer to him. Reflexively, you wrap your arms around his neck. 

“Is this okay?” he mouths. All you can do is meekly nod. You watch as his eyes deliberately scan your face, going down and down. Time stills when they reach your lips and stay there. It’s like someone has put the booming music of the club on mute, and the only thing you can hear is your heart loudly beating in your ears. You suddenly feel very sober.

You swear Jake’s face is slowly inching its way towards yours when you’re abruptly taken away. Yunjin has grabbed you by the forearm, leading you and Chaewon to the bathroom as she chants “Bathroom break! Bathroom break!”, clearly unaware of the moment she’s just interrupted.

Because of the queue for the girls’ bathroom and Chaewon’s decision to console this random girl who was in the middle of a breakdown, it’s not until half-an-hour later that you emerge back into the crowd. You spot the boys at a table, two empty shots each in front of them and all three with a beer in hand. They will not be happy checking their bank accounts tomorrow morning. 

“Y/N! You’re back!” Jake calls out happily when he spots you, and you can tell right away that he’s much drunker than when you left him. His whole face is flush, his eyes don’t open quite all the way, and a lopsided smile won’t leave his lips - even like this, he’s so pretty that you want to grab his hand and take him somewhere it’s just the two of you. 

Chaewon gets drinks for the three of you and then you’re dancing again. It’s already one am at this point, and the remaining two hours until the club closes, fueled with alcohol and good music, go by in a flash. Before you know it, the DJ is playing All of Me by John Legend and the lights have been turned on, clear signs that you’re overstaying your welcome. The few people that have made it to closing time stumble out of the club and into the street, heading for either the nearest subway stop or the next party of the night. Since there are no trains at this time, your group walks to the close-by bus station, listening to Jake and Sunghoon grumble about how the clubs in Seoul don’t close until at least five or six and how trains run all night there. 

The bus is already at the station when you get there, and the driver doesn’t seem too pleased about having six mildly drunk kids get on his bus, but he’s probably used to questionable people taking public transport at this time of the day anyway. Physically, Sunghoon is sitting across from you, but mentally, he’s off somewhere far, far from this bus. With his head against the window and mouth wide open, saliva pooling at the corner of his lips, he looks like he’s any second away from obnoxiously snoring. Jay and Yunjin are sitting somewhere you can’t see them, probably eating each other’s faces; she once told you they had their “most mind-blowing sex” when both a little drunk, and much to your dismay, you haven’t been able to get that piece of information out of your head since. Chaewon is on the phone to her long-distance bestie Sakura, for whom it’s a nice eleven in the morning right now. 

This means that you and Jake are left alone, both of you still tipsy and not tired enough to fall asleep. You drop your head on Jake’s shoulder, and not only does he let you, he also takes your hand in his, interlacing your fingers and placing them atop his thigh. Clumsily, because he now has to use his left hand, Jake slips his phone out of his back pocket and shows you the photos he took all evening. As the night progresses, they get blurrier and blurrier, so much so that towards the end, you can’t tell what he was even trying to capture, and you laugh at how inappropriate some of these would be to submit in a university project. 

When he softly says your name, you don’t raise your head, simply humming to let him know you’re listening. You close your eyes, cherishing the way your name sounds on his lips. It’s his tone, tentative and vulnerable as he tells you there’s something he’s been wanting to ask you, that makes you look up at him. He, however, won’t meet your eyes, and settles his gaze on the window, even though it’s so dark outside you can’t make out a thing.

“How come you never replied to my letter? I know it’s been ages, but… I still find myself wondering about it.” The question is softly asked and you know he by no means wants to hurt you, but it still feels like a punch to the throat. You hadn’t remembered who it was that had sent the last letter, while he’d been wondering all these years why his words had been left unanswered. 

He seems set on not looking at you, so you rest your head back on his shoulder. Your hand is still in his. “I’m not sure, Jakey. I’m sorry,” you say, aware it’s not a satisfying answer. You’ve thought about why you and Jake had stopped talking for hours on end; you’ve discussed it with your friends and your mum, looked at it from all sorts of angles, tried to come up with real reasons other than time pulling you apart. But now that Jake himself is asking you about it, the words don’t come easy. You’ve theorised that you were afraid putting effort into sustaining your friendship would only hurt you in the end, because it was just that - a friendship. You could fool yourself into thinking you were okay only being friends with him when he was with you, that putting your feelings aside was worth it since you could at least spend time with him. But now that he was away, you didn’t have that anymore - it just hurt. So what was the point? And how could you phrase all this without betraying your feelings for him?

“Our letters were so sparse anyway back then, even our texts and calls were getting less and less frequent… And whenever I had a new boyfriend, I’d get into the same argument about being too close to you over and over again, even though you were literally on another continent.” 

“You know, I always felt sorry about that.”

“About what?”

“Those boyfriends of yours. I felt like you waited for me to leave before you started dating-”

“It wasn’t like that!” you exclaim, lifting your head again. Finally, he meets your eyes, gaze softening upon seeing your affronted expression. “It wasn’t like that,” you repeat, relaxing your tone. “If anything, they were the ones that waited for you to be gone. I'm sorry I let their jealousy get to me.”

Jake smiles, the tenderness in his gaze making your whole body turn to jelly. He squeezes your hands. “It’s okay. I just… I felt like I was always in the way of your relationships, even after I left.”

“You don’t have to feel sorry about that. They should’ve had more trust in me.”

He pauses, gaze dropping down to your intertwined hands. “I would’ve been jealous.” When his eyes find yours again, there’s something in them that you quite can’t place. It creates a ball of nerves that pull at your stomach. “If I were dating you, and you had a guy friend you were as close with as we were back then, I’d be jealous. You know, I’d assume he had feelings for you. And that you might have feelings for him, too.”

Because I did, you think. I did, and I still do. You try to communicate that thought to Jake, but telepathy works especially bad when one has as much alcohol coursing through their veins as you do right now. So instead, you say the opposite of what you’re thinking, turning away from Jake to avoid his gaze. You watch the dribble of saliva trickle from Sunghoon’s lips. “That’s not a great view of male-female friendship.” 

Jake’s retort comes immediately. “But we were different, right?”

His words echo through your head until they make even less sense than they did initially. Different from what? From who? You’re not sure - but you like the idea of you and Jake being different, special. You especially like the idea of Jake thinking so. So you look at him and smile. “Right.” 

Slowly, his grin fades and turns into a worried expression. “Y/N?”

“Mm?”

“We’re still different now, aren’t we?”

You want to wrap him in your arms so tightly neither of you can breathe. You settle for running a hand through his hair and pinching his cheek. “Course we are.” Your whole being relaxes when his face breaks into a smile again. 

--

The next morning, you wake up to Yunjin plopping down on your bed unceremoniously, shaking you awake, and asking you if you want anything from Snax Café. On one hand, you’re grateful that she thought of you and that in thirty minutes’ time, you’ll have the greasiest sausage wrap and hash browns known to man in your hand; on the other, you’d like to think that she knows you well enough to know to order your regular from there without asking. But that’s probably the hangover talking.

You stumble out of bed, thanking last night’s you for having remembered to take headache medicine before crashing. Even if your stomach is very upset with the copious amount of alcohol it needs to rid your body of, and your throat is begging for water, at least your head doesn’t feel like it’s been split into two. As Yunjin barges into Chaewon’s room just as she had done yours, you head for the kitchen to get yourself a tall glass of revitalising tap water. You’re only mildly surprised to find Sunghoon passed out on your living room couch - it takes you a few seconds to remember that the three of you took pity on him when you learned he lived over an hour’s walk from the station, so you let him spend the night on your uncomfortable, cold leather sofa. While you down your glass in three gulps, you hear Yunjin shaking Sunghoon awake and asking him loudly if he wanted something from Snax.

“Fuck, I’d kill for a Snax right now,” he groggily says before he’s even opened his eyes. When he does, they dart around the room until they land on Yunjin, who's crouching in front of him. He looks like he thought her question was asked in a dream and not in real life. He also looks like he's not quite sure where he is, or who Yunjin is. It isn’t until Jay comes wobbling out of Yunjin’s bed to the couch opposite Sunghoon that the memories seem to piece back together in his head. The three of you watch him like he’s an unstable mental patient and you’re his doctors. 

“No need for that, I’m ordering it on Deliveroo.” He nods his head and goes back to sleep for the time being. 

Just as you’re about to text Jake, your phone rings with a call from him. His raspy morning voice as he asks you whether you slept well makes you want to put your head in an oven heated at 200 degrees Celsius. However, you resist the urge, and answer him with a smile, then ask him the same question.

“I slept pretty well too. I’d have slept in longer but one of my flatmates decided to have a Sunday fucking brunch and his friends are so loud. Can I come over?”

You’re very aware of the other people in the room, especially of Chaewon who has just walked in and is eyeing you suspiciously as if to say, Why are you smiling so hard at ten in the morning? You know the girls would jump at any opportunity to tease you about Jake, and with the added presence of Sunghoon in the room, you can’t have that. So you stifle the giggles bubbling in your throat and answer as nonchalantly as you can. It also gives you the chance to reflect on why Jake Sim asking you whether he can come over makes you want to giggle like a giddy schoolgirl so much.

(Maybe it’s because when it comes to him, you’re still the giddy schoolgirl you used to be.)

“Yeah, of course. I was going to ask you if you wanted anything from Snax, actually.”

“Snax? What’s that?”

“Oh my God, Jake, am I about to introduce you to Snax right now?”

Twenty minutes later, the six of you are sitting around your small living room table, all varying amounts of tired, dehydrated and famished as you dig into your breakfast. Given your current levels of energy, it’s fairly quiet; plus, the food hits such a spot that it’s hard to talk and eat at the same time. Jake eats like he’s never had a breakfast wrap and hash brown in his life. It’s an endearing sight if you’ve ever seen one. 

You spend the afternoon together, watching movies curled up in your bed, and you try desperately not to think about the implications of that - except that’s hard to do when Jake is right next to you, legs and arms ever-so-slightly brushing against yours, his warmth so close yet so out of reach. You purposefully let him pick movies you’ve already seen so that you don’t have to focus on anything but your own thoughts and the faint but dizzying scent of his body wash. The both of you had an innumerable amount of sleepovers as kids, so this shouldn’t feel weird, but it decidedly does, probably because you’re much more aware of him now in a way you weren’t before.  

As hard as you try to figure out what exactly he meant by “different,” you draw a blank. The only way you’ll understand is if you ask him, and you’re far too scared to do that. You don’t want to seem so hung upon a singular word he used when he was tipsy. It might be slightly dramatic, but you felt like some sort of balance had been restored since Jake was back in your life - the problem was it made you scared to do anything that might threaten this newfound equilibrium. It at least seems like different means a good thing to him, and that’s enough for you. 

You look over to him when the second movie comes to an end. He’s sleeping peacefully, lashes caressing the skin under his eyes and cheeks looking rounder than usual. It’d be so easy to reach a finger out and trace the line descending from the top of his forehead to his chin, gliding along the bump of his nose and feeling the plumpness of his rosy lips, but you settle for drawing that line with your eyes instead.  

You don’t think you’ll be able to fall asleep with him next to you and your heart beating so loudly in your ears, but you find yourself waking up a few hours later, the sun already starting to set. Jake is already awake, scrolling on his phone, one arm casually behind his head as if being in your bed is as comfortable to him as being in his own. When he sees you’ve woken up, his honey-coated smile washes warmly over you, and he makes a joke about how he keeps on falling asleep when he’s with you. “I feel that at ease, I guess,” he says, and you hope you’re not making up the small blush that spreads over his cheeks. 

--

Semesters are always a short and intense affair, but this one passes by even quicker with Jake by your side. Before you know it, it’s midterms already, and you and Jake have travelled enough for him to complete his project and make another one just for the hell of it. He had scoured the internet for the cheapest train tickets and most noteworthy sites, planning trips that lasted anywhere between three hours and a day for the two of you. All you needed to do was follow and trust him, which was the easiest thing anyone could’ve asked of you. 

You’ve gone back to Glasgow, during the day, this time, as well as St. Andrews and Aberdeen. You’ve practically visited every loch and castle in a one-hour train ride radius of Edinburgh, and Jake has more lined up for the second part of the semester. He’s even said that your trips should continue being a thing next term, and you couldn’t have agreed faster. With every new destination, every train ride spent looking out a window or laughing about everything and anything, any odd Scottish food you try for the first time, you somehow fall for him a bit deeper. You didn’t know your love for him could bloom any more than it already had - but Jake is the gift that keeps on giving, and, unwillingly or not, he always finds new ways to make your heart speed that much faster.

Attentionate, affectionate, sweet Jake who always makes sure you’re comfortable wherever you go, always gives you his jacket or tucks your hair behind your ear to prevent it from falling in your face. Who, as time passed, grew more touchy, would hold your hand, ruffle your hair, pinch your cheek, which was simultaneously devastating and elating. Who, you could tell, started to linger more, both in his touch and in his gaze. Questions of does he love me back or am I seeing what I want to see? nearly drove you mad. 

--

“I feel like at this point the only way she’ll understand that I like her is if I kill myself and write in my suicide note that it’s her fault for not loving me back.”

Jake has been pacing back and forth in Jay’s living room for approximately twenty minutes, with no end in sight. At least he’ll have gotten most of his ten thousand steps of the day in.

Jay sighs heavily. “Okay, I really don’t think you need to go that far.”

“Sounds romantic to me,” Sunghoon says, mouth full of salted caramel popcorn.

“I hope you never get a girlfriend,” Jay retorts, looking at his deranged friend with a scowl. He turns back to his (slightly more) normal friend and gives him a sympathetic smile. 

“I mean, I told her we were different. Different. That we weren’t like regular friends. I tell her she’s pretty every chance I get. I give her my jacket all the time, even though this country is fucking cold. I’ve even given her a t-shirt of mine, sprayed with my perfume and everything. And don’t get me wrong, I do it ‘cause I love doing that for her-”

“Simp,” Sunghoon snickers.

“But what the hell else can I do? Like, she has to be ignoring it on purpose at this point.” 

“You could always, you know… tell her?”

Jake scoffs, fixing his friend with a derisive look. “Wow. What a great idea, Jay, I never thought of that one before!”

A popcorn lands right on Jay’s cheek. “You’re so clueless, man,” Sunghoon says, a shit-eating smirk on his lips. As if he knows any better.

Jay looks back-and-forth between his friends, an expression on his face like he’s been disparaged. “Sorry, I didn’t know being straightforward and honest was such a bad thing. It would just make things a lot clearer for the both of you.”

“But… I’m scared,” Jake says. 

“Man up!” Sunghoon suddenly yells, punching the sofa next to him, making his friends jump. “How can she ever figure it out if you don’t tell her?”

“You were on my side just a second ago, man, what are you doing?” Jake asks, confusion written all over his face. Sunghoon’s eyes dart back and forth between the two boys, retreating into silence as he stuffs his mouth with another handful of popcorn.

“Just ignore him,” Jay says. “But for once, he did say something that makes a modicum of sense. You think you’re being really obvious, but you might not actually be. Which could be a good sign, you know. I heard girls were super aware of a guy liking them if they weren’t into him, but being totally oblivious if they did like him.”

“Where did you hear that?” Jake asks, an eyebrow raised in suspicion.

“...Instagram Reels,” Jay reluctantly admits, frowning at Sunghoon who bursts into laughter. 

Jake holds the bridge of his nose between two fingers like his head aches. “You’re both so useless, I’m never coming to you with my problems ever again.”

“I’ll pretend I’m not offended by that.”

“I’d rather you didn’t, anyway,” Sunghoon says. He’s smiling but Jake genuinely can’t tell if he’s joking or not.

“But seriously, if you think you’ve done everything, then just do one last thing that’s so obvious she can’t misinterpret it,” Jay says.

“Like what?”

“Like kissing her, or some-”

“Kissing her?!” Jake echoes.

“That’s wild, man,” Sunghoon uselessly butts in.

“It’s just an example, calm yourselves,” Jay says. “Or, again, just straight up tell her how you feel. It’s what I did with Yunjin, and it worked.”

“You and Yunjin are dating?” Sunghoon asks, bewildered.

Jay shakes his head at him. “Where the hell have you been, bro? We were literally cuddling on the couch the other day.”

“I just thought you were really good friends, or something.”

Jake groans, holding his head in his hands. Sunghoon was of no help whatsoever, and Jay was so on point that it annoyed him. Confessing was the only solution - but Jake was so afraid of being rejected and losing your friendship that he had barely entertained the thought. But he had found the courage to do it once, and even though his planned confession had fallen through back then, he could get himself together and do it again. 

It was the day he had told you he was moving to Korea, which he himself had learned that morning. Originally, he’d texted you because he had news to share - good news. Or at least, he hoped they were good. He hoped the soft, lingering looks you gave him weren’t a figment of his imagination but rather the confirmation he needed that you liked him back. He hoped that like him, you cared too much about your friendship to make the first move into something else; that by confessing first, you’d be relieved of that responsibility; that his wish to hold your hand and kiss your forehead wasn’t one-sided. 

He decided not to prepare anything - just a couple sentences that he’d rehearsed over and over in his head. Declarations of love, bouquets of flowers, chocolate and couple keychains, all that could wait until after you’d said yes to being his girlfriend. He didn’t want to win you over just once, he wanted to show you every day how much he loved you. Fourteen-year-old Jake was absolutely head over heels for you; so imagine his disappointment when, as he was getting ready to meet with you, his parents called him downstairs, a tone to their voice Jake wasn’t familiar with, but that couldn’t mean anything good. 

“Your dad’s job is sending us back to Seoul next month,” his mom announced, not beating around the bush. He felt everything quite literally crumbling down around him. His friends in Brisbane, his school, his hobbies, but above all, you. He’d lose it all. And what was the point now in telling you how he felt? If you felt the same way, it would only make his departure that much harder, and if you didn’t, it would ruin your last moments together. It just wasn’t worth it.

What he had planned to be good news turned into the most awful ones. The thought of it happening all over again makes twenty-year-old Jake shudder. But he wouldn’t let himself be trapped by time again - sure, in seven months, the academic year would be over, and he would go back to Korea. But that didn’t mean that those seven months should be spent in agony, or the following ones either, for that matter. You would make it work. What was long-distance to someone who loved someone else as much as Jake loved you?

But he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself. He has to start by really resolving to do this, and in the off-chance that it actually goes in his favour, he’d start worrying about long distance then.

First, he has a trip to plan.

--

You should’ve known that a trip to the Scottish Highlands in the middle of November was a risky choice in terms of weather. The day started off nicely enough - no sign of rain when you woke up or as you watched the sunrise through the train window. Clouds turned the sky a bright white at first, then increasingly greyer and greyer. You feel the first drops of rain after lunch as you walk around a small village. By four pm, it’s pitch black and storming like you’ve rarely seen before. You head into a pub to grab a drink as you wait for the rain to subside, but subside it does not. You end up ordering fish and chips, one each, although one serving is enough to feed three. Even after taking your time eating, the bad weather does not let up. The last train, which is meant to be at eight pm, has been cancelled. Luckily, there’s an inn right across the road from the pub; you have no choice but to spend the night. 

The inn receptionist is sitting so low on her chair, you can barely see her over the desk until you’re standing right over it. Her face is hidden by a book and it’s only when you say hiya that she seems to realise you’re there. You had never heard of the book or of its author, but you recognized the cover design as that of those romance novels with repetitive plots and weirdly misogynistic love interests your mum and every other middle-aged woman was obsessed with.

Her smile widens as she looks between you and Jake. “Hi there. One room for the lovely couple?”

“Oh, we’re not-”

“Yes, please,” Jake interrupts, smiling down at her, then at you. “It’ll be cheaper if we share a room.”

“Our only room with two single beds is already taken, I’m afraid. One double bed okay for you two?”

You feel like you’re about to faint, so you’re glad Jake is there to answer. “Yeah, of course.” How the idea of sharing one bed with you is so okay to him, you’re not sure - granted, you’ve done it before, but this feels different. For all intents and purposes, this is a hotel room you’re staying in. And you’re staying in it with Jake. 

You try to calm your breathing as the receptionist guides you to your room, chatting casually with Jake on the way there. As she unlocks the door for you, she informs you that check-out must be done before eleven in the morning tomorrow, then bids you good night and leaves you to it, still wearing that smile you swear has mischievousness to it. The door clicks shut behind you, and it’s just Jake and you again, together in this small room until tomorrow morning. Your chances of survival are very, very low. 

Your room is a humble one, consisting of a desk, a cupboard, two armchairs, a small, separate bathroom and the infamous bed. Every surface seems to be covered with wood, from the ceiling, to the walls, to the old-fashioned furniture. Only the floor is a soft, beige carpet. Especially with the darkness outside, it makes for a gloomy room until you turn on the lamp by the entrance; it casts a warm, golden light in the room, one that would make you feel at ease if it wasn’t for Jake’s presence next to you. The implications of being essentially trapped in a barely-lit room with him are heavy on your mind, especially when he looks this gorgeous with his hair still damp from the rain and the soft lights playing on his face. 

His voice brings you out of your thoughts. “Right. Do you, um, do you wanna shower first?” he asks, setting his bag on one of the armchairs.

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” There has never been such an awkward tension between the two of you, but you know you’re not doing anything to ease it. You hope a shower will help you get out of your head and make you relax.

You feel the tension leave your muscles under the hot water, but your stomach is still in knots. You’ve never been this nervous around Jake before; back when you were fourteen and again in these past few months, you’d gotten so used to dealing with your unspoken feelings for him that you could almost forget about them when you were with him. They’d come back to you when you were alone and dwelling on the moments you’d spent together, on his words and actions you desperately tried not to read too much into but always ended up doing anyway. But right now, they’ve floated to the surface, becoming as obvious to you as a stain on your skin you can’t rub away. You’re scared Jake will notice it, and, in the worst case scenario you often thought about, would run away and never speak to you again. 

At least the raging storm outside would make that a bit harder.

When you step out of the shower, you curse yourself for not having worn more comfortable clothes on this trip. You definitely can’t wear these jeans and button-up sweater to lounge around. Thankfully, the inn provides two long bathrobes that you could wear over underwear and your tank top, but you wonder where on the scale of inappropriate this would be to wear with Jake in the room. He’s seen you in short pyjama shorts before, but this, like everything else that would usually be normal between the two of you, feels weird today. 

You wrap the bathrobe around yourself, tying it in place around your waist, and decide that it’d only be weird if you made it weird. And if Jake found the sight of your bare legs weird, then he was the weird one.

The scene you’re met with as you walk into the room makes you want to retreat into the bathroom immediately. Jake is lying on the bed with his upper half against the headboard, one leg extended and the other one bent, resting his head against one palm, using his free hand to scroll through his phone. His t-shirt has ridden up slightly, putting the waistband of his Calvin Kleins into view. Worst of all, when he sees you, his face breaks into a grin. 

Your stomach twists when he gives you a once-over, letting his gaze linger on your legs. “Did you bring a bathrobe with you or was it included?” he asks with an annoyingly handsome smirk.

You roll your eyes. “Yes, I bring a bathrobe with me wherever I go,” you say sarcastically. “Now shut up and go shower, you stink.” Reverting to insults is always the solution when you’re internally freaking out.

“Yes, ma’am.” 

He takes so long in the shower that by the time he comes out, you’ve dozed off in bed. As if you were a child, he wakes you up with a boop to the nose, crouching next to the bed and smiling at you. His wet hair falls on his head like that of a movie star in a shower scene, which you find extremely unfair, and his cheeks are red from the warmth of the water. 

“It’s still early. Do you wanna go grab another drink?”

“In our bathrobes?” you say, laughing. “Nah, I don’t really feel like drinking anyway.” Read: I’m not sure what I’ll do with alcohol in me.

“Okay, no worries. Um, I think I saw they had board games in the lobby?”

Your ears perk up at this. “Ooh, what kind of board games?”

Putting jeans on underneath his bathrobe, Jake slips away for a minute and comes back with Monopoly, Uno, and a deck of cards. “They didn’t have much for two players,” he says, dumping everything on the bed. 

You already knew that anything would become fun if you did it with Jake, but you definitely didn’t expect to spend almost five hours just playing Monopoly and card games with him. Neither of you stays put for very long, always switching from sitting criss-cross to laying on your stomach, making fun of the other’s bathrobe even though you’re wearing the exact same thing. You make each other laugh as you make up your own nonsense rules and disregard the laws of your games, attacking the other ruthlessly for a couple extra points or coins. Jake even makes you go get snacks from a corner store that’s miraculously still open because you lose the first round of Uno. 

After some time, Jake lets out a loud yawn, which in turn makes you yawn too. He checks his phone to find that it’s close to midnight already. “Time for bed?” he asks, and your nervousness that had finally dissipated as you played came rushing back. 

You nod. “Yeah, sounds good.”

The two of you clean up before brushing your teeth. Even that, with Jake by your side, becomes a silly affair as he pulls faces in the mirror and nudges your hip with his. You stay behind to use the toilet, and when you come back out, Jake’s already in bed, bathrobe tossed on one of the armchairs. This means that Jake is just casually in a t-shirt and boxers, waiting for you to join him in bed. Luckily, his back is turned to you, so you quickly take off your own bathrobe and slide under the sheets, careful to keep your distance from him. The sheets are cold underneath you, and you know it’ll take a while before your body heat warms them up - although you feel very hot and bothered because of the man lying next to you. 

“Gosh, I’m really sleepy all of a sudden,” he says, words distorted by a yawn. You only hum in response, and he reaches for the lamp to turn it off. Just like that, you’re in complete darkness, and Jake’s body is mere inches from your own. 

It’s eerily quiet for a while, and when you’ve managed to slow your heartbeat and regularise your breathing, you start trying to fall asleep. You toss and turn, unable to find a comfortable position until Jake’s low, sleepy voice breaks the silence. “Can’t sleep?” he asks, and you freeze.

You sigh. “No. I’m sorry for keeping you up,” you say guiltily.

“It’s okay. I can’t really sleep either. It’s a bit cold in here.”

You pause. “Right. Yeah, it is,” you say, even though you feel like you’re sweating buckets. 

The room plunges into silence again, long enough for you to think Jake has fallen asleep. You feel something cold against your foot, only realising as it slides up your calf that it’s his foot. “Jake!” you whisper-yell, withdrawing your leg as he bursts into giggles that warm your heart. “Your feet are so cold,” you say in-between chuckles.

“I’m cold all over,” he whines. “Have they not turned the heating on yet? It’s already mid-November.”

“People are used to the cold here.”

“Well I’m not. Can we cuddle?” he suddenly asks, and he must somehow feel the way you freeze in place because he stammers out a justification straight away. “For, I mean, just for warmth, you know. I don’t think I’ll sleep otherwise.”

His foot finds yours again and you can’t help but laugh. “Sure, fine,” you say with a sigh as if you were doing only half-heartedly for his sake. As if this was some big sacrifice you were making, and not something you’d daydreamed about one too many times before. 

Your heart is beating a thousand miles a second when you scooch closer to Jake, his hands finding your waist as easily as if they’d been there a hundred times before. He pulls you in much closer than you had expected, holding you tightly against his chest, one arm for you to use as a pillow and one hand resting on your lower back. You try to calm your respiration so that he can’t hear how short of breath you are, but based on his own breathing, he seems to be out in five minutes. It takes you longer to fall asleep, every shift of his body sending shivers down your spine, but you manage to relax after some time, letting his warmth envelop you as you drift off to sleep.

--

The feeling of waking up with you in his arms is so unreal, Jake thinks he might still be dreaming.

He looks down at your peaceful sleeping face and can’t stop the smile that spreads on his lips. Jake always thinks you’re pretty, but this is a sight he particularly wants to commit to memory. He watches fondly as the bright sun rays of the early morning hit your face, making you scrunch your eyebrows and bury your face deeper against him. You grunt softly, and when he feels you shifting and stretching your legs, he pretends to fall asleep so you don’t catch him staring. It seems like you’ve raised your head, chin tilted towards him - if he’s lucky, you’re watching him “sleep” just like he did seconds ago.

He contains a smile at the joke that forms itself in his brain before shooting his eyes open, catching you off guard during what you thought was a private, secret moment. 

“Shit!” you yelp, practically jumping off of him and rolling onto the other side of the bed. He bursts into laughter, proud that his little prank was effective. Before you can scold him, he makes his way to you, wrapping an arm around your waist and bringing your back against his chest. He thinks he feels your body tense; but then you bring your hand over his, swiping your thumb back and forth against his skin, and you relax in his hold. “You’re so annoying,” you complain, but your voice is tender, almost weak.

He buries his face in your hair, trying not to be too loud when he inhales there. “Sorry,” he says, the smile evident in his voice. “The opportunity was right there. Caught you staring, huh?”

“You’re such an idiot.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” It’s quiet for a few minutes, and Jake is more than happy to enjoy this moment in silence, but there’s something burning the tip of his tongue. It’s been there for a while now, but he thinks he’s finally found the right moment. “Y/N?”

“Mm?”

“There’s something I couldn’t tell you last night, but I feel oddly okay saying it right now. Are you listening?” 

“I am, yeah,” you say gently, voice so soft it caresses his skin and draws goosebumps from it.

His chest expands and falls with a deep, shaky breath. With your back right against it, he’s scared you’ll hear that his heart is beating faster than it should. “Bad news first?” he says with a nervous chuckle.

“Uh-oh.”

“There’s no roundabout way to say this, so here goes, I guess.” He takes another breath. “I’m in love with you, Y/N.” You tense in his embrace, and he waits for you to say something, anything before he continues.

“Oh,” is all you say. He hopes it’s a good oh - even if it isn’t, he doesn’t let it deter him.

“Yeah. I really debated telling you this… I know you might not feel the same way. But I also know that if I don’t say anything and make the same mistake twice, I’ll beat myself up over it for the rest of my life.”

“The same mistake?” you ask, looking at him over your shoulder.

He gazes down at you tenderly, pushing hair away from your face with a gentle hand. “I already felt that way back when we lived in Australia. I was about to tell you but when I learned that I was moving, I didn’t wanna risk ruining the little time we had left together.”

The look on your face both breaks his heart and patches it up again. “Jakey…” you say, voice just a whisper. You turn around to face him and bury your face in the crook of his neck. The fact that you’re not saying much is making his stomach twist in agonising stress, but he takes it as a good sign that you’re still holding him tight and not running away.

“I think I’d be the luckiest guy on Earth if you felt the same way,” he says, hopefulness clear in his voice. 

And then he finally hears the words he’s been dying to hear all these years. “Of course, I feel the same way, Jake,” you say, eyes meeting his. “This isn’t bad news at all, it’s like, the best possible news ever.”

It takes him a few seconds, but when your words sink in, a bright smile graces his features. He feels tears coming up - tears of relief that you feel the same way, of sadness that it took the both of you so long to get here, of happiness that something new might start - he’s not sure. Perhaps everything at once.

“Of course?” he echoes, smiling wildly. “It wasn’t obvious to me.”

“Oh, gosh,” you murmur, burying yourself into him once more. “I can’t believe this is actually happening.”

He tightened his hold around you, bringing you to him as close as physically possible. “Me neither.”

The feeling of you tangling your bare legs with his and bunching up the fabric of his t-shirt in your fist awakens something in him - he had been in his head, thanking the heavens that you loved him back, reeling from his belated confession, but he was now very aware of his body. And of yours. He was reminded of Jay telling him to kiss you - although he hadn’t needed to go there to reveal his feelings to you, it was still a possibility. It was even more so now that he knew you felt the same way. 

He tries to be subtle as he brushes a hand up your back to the nape of your neck, gently grazing his fingernails against the skin there. He has to suppress a self-satisfied smirk when he feels you squirm under his touch, lifting your head to fix him with a scolding look. Your stern expression fades as soon as his eyes fall on your lips, however, and you quickly mirror his gaze. His lips part, and he feels his whole body shake as he takes a deep breath in. Who knew that you’d share your first kiss on a random Sunday morning in the fuckass middle of nowhere in Scotland?

Maybe you take pity on him, or you recognise the effort put into being the one to make the first move, or, as he’d like to think, you just really want to kiss him - either way, you’re the one who closes the gap and presses your lips to his.

Your lips. So soft, so delicate against his, absolutely perfect. It’s a simple, tentative touch, but he’s craved it for so long that it makes his head spin. He frowns, despite himself instantly needing more than this feather-like feeling of your lips brushing against each other. His mind tells him to calm down and take it slow, but his body takes over, urging him to grab the nape of your neck a little harder, to hold you a little closer to him, to kiss you a little stronger. Thankfully, you let him do all of this and more, hands finding purchase in his hair and returning his intensity tenfold. 

He doesn’t know what’s better - the fact that you’re kissing him or the kiss itself. The way your lips move against his is intoxicating; it wraps itself around its mind and leaves no room for thoughts that aren’t of you. You seem to want him as desperately as he wants you, to have waited for him as long as he did for you, and this is what drives him crazy. You press your body against his and he sees stars; you let out a moan against his lips and he kisses you deeper, ready to do anything to hear that melody again. 

Unfortunately, the only melody he gets to hear is that of his phone alarm, informing you that it’s quarter to eleven and that you have fifteen minutes to leave. Check-out at eleven am had sounded nice yesterday; now, he would stay in this dingy inn his whole life if it meant he got to keep kissing you. 

The both of you reluctantly break apart, bursting into giddy laughter when your eyes meet. As said before, Jake always thinks you’re pretty, but with your pupils blown and your lips plump from kissing, this might just be the prettiest he’s ever seen you. 

“You know, I like you a lot, but I’d like you even more if you could stop time,” you say.

He looks down at you with a smile, pushing away the strands of hair that had fallen on your face. “Sure, I’ll learn how to control time for you.”

“Thanks, Jakey.” You peck his lips, lingering, and he closes his eyes to savour your sweetness. 

“Anything for you, baby.” His eyes widen at the nickname slip, but you erupt into giggles.

“Baby?”

“Would you look at the time, we really got to go,” he says, detangling his limbs from yours. He pauses for a second. “Baby,” he repeats, pressing a quick kiss to your forehead before bouncing from the bed.

You get ready together, and the mundane tasks of stripping sheets from a bed and packing bags become the funnest things he’s ever done. You’re all over each other, attacking the other with kisses and hugs; Jake doesn’t think he’s ever felt quite this happy. 

And this is only the beginning.

--

There’s a glint in the receptionist’s eyes when you check out of your room, as if she knew something you and Jake had been oblivious to all along. It’s the only one in town, so you go back to the little pub for a full breakfast with eggs, hash browns, haggis, and sausages. You get coffee so strong you think you might not sleep for the next four days, while Jake drinks tea that is equal parts sugar, milk, and actual tea.

From the moment you leave the pub to the moment you arrive at your doorstep, Jake’s hands barely leave yours. When they have to, like when you’re searching for the perfect seat on the train or when the controller checks your tickets, they’re back together within a minute, like two magnets that can’t stay apart for too long. The rain has long subsided, leaving place to a bright blue sky and wet blades of grass that shine in the sun. 

Now that your mutual feelings don’t need to be kept secret, you tell each other about everything you had to go through, like you pretending your good news was your mum having baked the cookies Jake liked and him seeing your new boyfriends every two months on your close friends story. He tells you about all the hints he’s dropped, causing you to facepalm over and over again. It feels like two friends catching each other to speed on all the latest gossip, except the topic of that gossip is you.

The juxtaposition of your familiarity with Jake with the novelty of behaving like a couple, of not having to hold back with your touches or gazes or words, is nothing if not jarring. But you have a feeling you’ll get used to it in no time. 

As you unlock the front door to your building, you don’t ask him if he’s coming up - to you, it’s a given that you’ll be spending the rest of today and every day after that together. So when he doesn’t follow you, staying still on the threshold, you turn around with a questioning look on your face. 

“There’s something I need to do this afternoon,” he says, taking both of your hands in his.

“Can’t I come with?” you say. Jake wavers for a second, but sadly, he stays firm in his decision.

“Sorry, baby, it’s a surprise. I’ll be back at seven with takeout?”

You can’t possibly be mad at him when he calls you baby and offers food in the same breath. “Only if you bring takeout.”

“You only love me because I feed you, don’t you?” he asks, a smile on his face.

“Yup,” you reply. You’re standing on a step, so you bend down to kiss him - you intend for it to be a peck, but when your lips touch, you’re unable to pull away. You let yourself get lost in the feeling of his lips on yours, in the warmth that takes over your body and makes your brain all fuzzy. 

A loud, affronted gasp from behind you makes you jump from Jake, and when you turn around, Chaewon and Yunjin are standing in the stairwell, staring at you with wide eyes and gaping mouths. 

“So this was a sexcapade?” is, much to your horror, the first thing Yunjin says.

Thanks to Chaewon, neither you nor Jake have the time to dwell on this sentence as she comes running down the stairs and pounces on you. You don’t know how a woman so small can have such force, but her hug is so tight you can barely breathe, let alone hug her back properly. “I knew you could do it!” she exclaims. When she pulls away, she seems so moved, it looks like she’s about to cry. “You finally popped your Jake cherry,” she whispers, but it’s loud enough for Jake to hear. A bark of laughter escapes his throat.

“Okay, thanks, guys,” you say, escaping this awkward situation and going up the stairs. “I’ll see you later, Jake!” you yell over your shoulder. The girls seem to be on their way out, and you’re more than happy leaving him to deal with them on his own. God knows you’ll get the worst of it when they come back. 

As soon as you get to your flat, you make a beeline for your bedroom, plopping on the bed. You’re the same person, and this is the same room. But something within you feels entirely different, like a scar that you had been carrying around had, without you even noticing, healed so well you could barely see it anymore. You lifted your hands in the air, looked at the back of them, then at your palms. They were the same old hands that had been with you your whole life, and you were almost shocked that there wasn’t something utterly different about them after having held Jake’s hand for so long. Just to be sure, you sniffed your right hand, but it didn’t smell any different, either. But you still felt Jake’s hand on yours, like headphones you’d been wearing for hours and still felt on your ears after taking them off.

Yunjin and Chaewon are back from their shopping half-an-hour later; they got you a chocolate fudge cake from Tesco to congratulate you. “You guys are acting like this is my birthday…” you say, eyeing the cake greedily as Chaewon cuts it into three equal parts (even though it says serves eight on the packaging). 

“This is more important than your birthday, Y/N,” Yunjin states as she pours oat milk into three cups of Earl Grey tea. “This is, like, the moment of a lifetime.”

“Are you saying a girl’s importance depends on her having a boyfriend?”

“Yes, Y/N, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Especially when said boyfriend is the guy she’s been pining after for all of her teenage and adult life.”

You sigh. “Well, he hasn’t exactly popped the boyfriend and girlfriend question yet.” They both turn to look at you, an annoyed look on their faces. You stand up straight, uncomfortable under their gazes. “What?”

“Usually, I’m all for clarity on this issue,” Chaewon starts. “But isn’t it pretty obvious here?”

“You’re still gonna have to tell us everything in minute detail, but Jake’s already told us what happened. He had no qualms referring to you as his girlfriend, so I really don’t think this is something you need to worry about. What you should worry about is when and where you’re going to hop on that dick.”

Chaewon bursts into laughter, and you can’t help but follow suit. “Gosh, Yunjin, you really do have a way with words.”

“I know. This is what having a Jane Austen hyperfixation at fifteen will do to you.”

Following Yunjin’s orders, you tell them about the events of the previous day and this morning over tea and cake. They ooh and ah and gasp in all the right places, ask you very specific questions and even make you draw a picture of the room you stayed in. You’ve talked to them about Jake so many times that there’s only so much to say now - but still, you talk for hours on end, deviating off-topic so often you end up talking about something else entirely. 

You’re in bed reading for your Middle English Literature class when the doorbell rings. It’s seven on the dot, so it can be no one else other than Jake. It’s been mere hours, but you’ve missed him enough to last you for weeks. 

He brought takeaway from the Indian place you’d raved about a hundred times but hadn’t brought him to yet. Somehow, your heart grows even fonder as you watch his reaction to the food, the raise of his eyebrows, the widening of his eyes, the excited shimmy of his shoulders. When you ask him about his afternoon, a wide smile breaks out onto his face, like a lightbulb illuminating a room. Without a word, he scurries to your room, bringing back some sort of book with him. He hands it to you  with a shy smile and curious eyes, eagerly anticipating your reaction. The cover reads Y/N and Jake in his clumsy but endearing handwriting, with the date of his arrival in Edinburgh and an em-dash scribbled underneath. “I haven’t booked my flight home yet, so I’ll add the second date later,” he explains. 

When you flick through it, you’re met with photographs of you and Jake on all of the trips you’ve done so far, as well as the various adventures you got up to in the city. There’s even one of you sleeping in the library at two am during midterms when you had forgotten about one of your essays, due at midday. Jake had come with coffee and words of encouragement, and now he could brag that the high mark you got was thanks to him. It’s not only photos - it’s also ticket stubs, receipts, stickers, and even a dried flower you had found pretty on your trip to St. Andrews. He’s also written quite a lot, from diary-like entries about what you got up to that day or songs that reminded him of you. 

“You misspelt right here,” you say, pointing to a sentence that reads This is the café write next to the hotel where the last Harry Potter book is said to have been written!!! under a photo of you drinking a massive cup of hot chocolate. The more you look at the typo, the more it makes you laugh, until you have tears brimming in your eyes.

Thanks to Yunjin’s messiness, pens and pencils are strewn over your coffee table. Jake, flushed red in embarrassment at the small mistake, snatches a pencil and aggressively erases write, spelling it correctly the second time around. “This is the level of today’s English Lit undergrads,” he murmurs under his breath. His frown disappears when he looks at you and he laughs along.

You continue looking through the album until you land on a page titled Why I love Y/N. From top to bottom, left to right, it’s filled with Jake’s tiny handwriting. You can tell he put effort into making it neat. There’s a singular photograph of you, one that dates from the first days after Jake’s arrival when you were walking around in the Meadows, the park right next to campus. The sun shone down on you and you smiled brightly at Jake behind the camera.  

You’re not a quarter through reading when tears swell in your eyes, rendering your vision blurry. You wipe them away before they can fall and stain the page. Jake has detailed every last thing he loves about you. It can hardly get cornier than this, but the fact that he wrote this about you makes your heart so full, you’re afraid it might explode in your chest. It ranges from basic things like the way she makes me laugh or her pretty face when she falls asleep in the train (or anywhere, for that matter) to more you-specific things like the strict pastel colour-coding she uses for her notes and her perseverance when eating spicy food even though she can’t take it. He mentions things about you that you didn’t even know, and that feeling of being known in-and-out, of being really seen by someone else only brings more tears to your eyes. Your favourite line comes at the end - the way she makes any place feel like home. A proper sob pushes past your lips at this, and Jake, who had been watching you with an anxious smile, rests a palm on your knee and inches closer to you.

“Why are you crying, is- Did I write something bad?”

You shake your head fervently. “No, no, Jakey, this is… It’s perfect. I’m just…” you trail, letting out a half-sob, half-chuckle. You look at him with a smile before pulling him into a tight hug. “I love it so much. I love you so much.”

You can feel Jake relax against you. “I love you too, baby. I’m glad you like it.”

You pull away after a small while, and turn the next page over. It’s a picture of you over breakfast this morning, with words WE’RE DATING!!!! written underneath it, and those simple words make you so happy, your cheeks ache from smiling. But every page after that is empty. Jake scratches the back of his neck. “I, um, I thought we could fill the rest out together. I debated just doing it myself and giving it to you at the end of the year, but I thought it’d be more fun doing it together.”

“It would. This is such an amazing idea,” you say, flicking back through the pages.

“I thought of it because of that project I had. When I started working on it, all the photos I wanted to include were of you, but I wasn’t sure how much my professor would appreciate that… So I decided to make one more personal. One for us,” he says shyly, shrugging like it’s no big deal.

“Thank you so much, Jakey.”

He smiles. “It’s no worries.”

“Did you do it all this afternoon?”

“I had started it before, but I added it most of today, yeah. Which, by the way, awful timing. I wanted nothing more than to spend today with you.”

Your heart leaps. You’re not sure you’ll ever get used to hearing such words from Jake’s mouth.

Sometime later, you’re laying in bed with Jake between your legs, watching the most recent animated Spiderman movie. With the tips of your fingers, you draw random patterns on his forearm, and if it wasn’t for his occasional chuckles, you’d think he had fallen asleep. You chat for a bit after the movie, but you find that after such an emotionally-packed day, you’re ready to call it a night fairly early. But when the lights are off and it’s just you lying against Jake’s chest, his fingernails grazing your scalp and his familiar, comforting scent clouding your judgement, all thoughts of an early night are thrown out of the window.

You shouldn’t feel so nervous - you had fallen asleep in his arms last night, and it had gone well. Really well. 

“This is different from yesterday, isn’t it?” Jake suddenly says, breaking the heavy silence with a low voice. It’s like he read your mind.

“Yeah,” you whisper against his skin.

No other words are needed. You brush the tip of your nose along his neck until you reach his jawline, pressing soft kisses there and delighting in the increasing shakiness of his breath. The feeling of your lips meeting is so intense, so all-encompassing, that you don’t know if you’ll be able to handle anything more.

This is still new territory, but you’re both so eager to discover it that it makes for a messy kiss, lips moving against each other ravenously, tongues beckoning moans from the other. It’s a kiss that somehow leaves you breathless and breathes oxygen back into your lungs at once. 

In a matter of seconds, Jake has flipped you on your back and is hovering over you, one hand holding him up and one hand free to roam your body. He slips it underneath your t-shirt, brushes it along the side of your waist, his touch leaving behind a trail of fire blazing on your skin. It’s so distracting, you can’t even kiss him back properly anymore. Jake doesn’t seem to mind. At first, when he starts pressing hot kisses to your jawline and your neck, you think he’s giving you a respite - but when he gently sinks his teeth into the skin there, leaving marks that will later remind you tonight wasn’t a dream, chuckling as you squirm and whine under him, you understand that this is anything but a respite. 

You curse your earlier decision of not wearing a bra, because it gives you no preparation whatsoever to the sensation of Jake brushing his thumb against one of your nipples. With a loud gasp, your back arches off of the bed, which only aids Jake in raising your t-shirt up over your breasts. 

He takes a minute to admire the sight of you panting and half-naked underneath him. It makes you feel shy, and you want to do something so that he stops looking and starts doing, but his gaze holds you in place. His pupils are blown with lust, eyes raking over your body and taking everything in. You have a hard time wrapping your head around the fact that it’s you he’s looking at with those eyes. 

His soft lips attach themselves to your nipple while his fingers continue their work on the other one. You’ve never felt this sensitive, never felt this on edge, like you might fall apart at any second even with so little simulation. Your core throbs, impatiently waiting to be tended to, but you’re already trembling so hard from Jake’s attention to your breasts that you don’t know what will happen to you once he actually touches you down there.

“You doing okay, baby?” he asks, the rasp in his voice making you want him impossibly more. You grip his hair and he looks up at you, a tender smile on his lips. You nod your head yes and he laughs. “Yeah? You want more?” You pause at his question. You do want more, but is it worth your sanity?

It takes you a second to decide that it’s worth that and more. You nod again. 

Jake seems to have sensed your hesitation. He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I am. It’s just a lot.”

His expression of worry softens into a smile. “I’ll take it slow for you, love. It’s a lot for me, too.” He leans in to press soft kisses to your cheek, and some of the tension in your body diffuses. Whatever happens, Jake will be there to take care of you. “But it feels good, right?” he asks, lips moving against your ear, sending shivers down your spine.

“So good, Jakey,” you reply shakily.

“Good.”

You can tell that Jake really does want to take it slow - his movements are more deliberate, gentler. But eagerness, both yours and his, soon takes over, and a minute later, he’s trailing kisses down your body until he reaches your lower stomach. Your breath quickens as he hooks fingers underneath your leggings and underwear, sliding both garments down your legs and leaving you bare to him. You think the feeling of his lips on the fleshy parts of your inner thighs is what might actually do you in, make you lose your sense of reality forever - but then his tongue darts out against your clit, a barely-there touch, and your whole body flatlines. 

Your reaction eggs Jake on, who, more confident now, takes the sensitive bud in his lips and alternates between sucking and licking motions. A knot ties itself embarrassingly quickly in your stomach, a knot that tightens and tightens as Jake flattens his tongue against you, licking up your juices from your entrance to your clit; a knot that threatens to come loose when he slides a long finger inside of you. You can’t take more than thirty seconds of this.

“Jakey,” you say, voice practically a moan. Your brain is fuzzy and it takes a distressing amount of time to form a simple sentence. “Can you come here?”

“Is something wrong, baby?” he asks breathily, sliding his finger out of you and coming back up so that his face is right above yours. 

“No, just… I want you.”

Any trace of worry on Jake’s features dissipates as he cocks an eyebrow, one corner of his lips tugging up into a smirk. “Is that so?”

This kind of boldness would usually have you rolling your eyes, but here, it only makes your core throb more violently. It’s almost humiliating how much you want this man. It’s definitely humiliating, how easy it is to swallow your pride and play into his game. “Yes, please,” you say, eyes pleading with him.

He smiles almost giddily before burying his face against the side of yours. “My baby’s so polite,” he says, pressing a kiss to your cheek. “I’ll give you whatever you want.”

“Take this off, then,” you say, grabbing the bottom hem of his t-shirt. 

“So she says please and gives orders,” he jokes, quickly obliging anyway. 

Not once in your time apart had Jake posted any sort of beach trip or pool photos, so this was the first time you saw his bare chest. God, was it one for the history books. You trace the defined lines of his muscles with a finger and wonder how he had managed to get even more perfect. He lets you marvel at him for it, clearly proud that you’re gawking so shamelessly, but your mind drifts back to more urgent matters when he presses himself into you, his clothed cock, hard and hot, brushing against your folds. “Fuck,” you sigh, bucking your hips into his to feel him over and over again.

It’s so much, but it’s not enough; Jake instantly gets your message when you hook your fingers under the waistband of his boxers, pulling him to you and kissing him feverishly. Your lips don’t part as he slides his boxers off, and you drink up the nectar that are his moans as you take him in your hand, pumping him a few times.

“Condom?” he asks, but you shake your head.

“I’m on the pill. And even so… I usually always use a condom, but I don’t want to now. Not with you.”

Jake closes his eyes as he takes a deep, stabilising breath. “I feel totally normal about that. Not crazy at all.”

You giggle, and he opens his eyes, a wide smile gracing his lips before he bends down to kiss you. “You ready for the night of your life?” he asks against your lips. “It’s gonna last five minutes, tops,” he says, making you laugh again. “I’m sorry, baby, I can’t do anything about it. I think I could’ve cum just from eating you out.”

“That would’ve been hot.”

“Really? We’ll make it a challenge for next time, then.”

When Jake plunges into you, it’s unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. He fills you up, slow inch by slow inch, until he’s buried to the hilt inside you. You both need some time getting used to the feeling - Jake drops his head in the crook of your neck and lets out a sound between a grunt and a moan, something you’ve never heard from him before. You grab onto his shoulders, fingernails digging into his skin as you try to tether yourself to him. You hold him so tight that he has no choice but to let his body rest on top of yours, his arms coming to circle your waist and bring you even closer. 

His movements start out halting, the pleasure so overwhelming that it makes it hard for him to move steadily. In time, he falls into a torturously slow rhythm, but it’s the perfect kind of torture, the kind that has tears brimming in your eyes. It’s so hard to take, and yet you want more. You’re brought closer to the edge with every thrust of his dick into you, especially as he picks up the pace and lifts your hips to meet his. The new angle has his tip brushing against that spot deep inside you that makes it hard to breathe. 

You can tell he’s just as close as you when he loses that steady rhythm he had found, his motions growing more desperate, harsher, quicker. Conscious of your roommates, you slap a hand over your mouth to muffle your moans as your orgasm washes over you, your whole body on fire, so sensitive that the few more seconds Jake needs to come undone himself drive both your body and your mind into overstimulation. Even the feeling of him pulling out, drops of hot liquid dripping out of your entrance, is too much and makes you let out a small, tired whine. 

Jake peppers your face with kisses as he holds your waist tightly, brushing his thumb back-and-forth on your warm skin, sticky with sweat. “You did so well, baby. So good for me.” You think you might be ready for a second round if he keeps talking to you like that. “I love you so much.”

You sigh deeply, as if you were just told disconcerting news. “Okay.”

“Okay?!” he echoes, looking up at you with an outraged expression on his face.

“I’m sorry, I love you too, I just- I’m not used to this yet! You can’t just tell me you love and expect me to be normal. You have to warn me first.”

“Can I just warn you now that I’m going to tell you I love you every time I get the chance?”

You sigh. “I guess.” 

“Can I tell you now?” he asks, and you hum. “I love you.”

“I love you more.”

Jake tuts. “I highly doubt it, but whatever makes you happy.”

You hold Jake close to you, one arm around his shoulders and the other hand playing with his hair as you come down from your high. You think he might’ve fallen asleep, and you’re close to drifting off yourself when he speaks. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this. Not just the sex, although that has been on my mind for a while now,” he says, making you laugh, “but all of this. Being together, getting to be in your arms like this, kissing you whenever I want. Calling you my girlfriend.”

“Me too, Jakey. I waited so long I didn’t think it would ever happen.”

Jake chuckles. “How stupid were we not to have noticed we felt the same way?”

“Very stupid. I think we felt so sorry for ourselves that we were stuck in one-sided love, that we didn’t even realise the other was going through the exact same thing. But at least we’re now.”

“At least we’re here now.” You and Jake yawn at the exact same time, making you burst into giggles, giddy with sleep and love.

“Let’s sleep, baby,” you say.

Jake hums, burying himself deeper against your body. “Sleep well, my love. I’ll be here.”

--

After years of pining after each other, you and Jake find it a bit hard to keep your relationship to yourselves, or your hands off of each other.

At the beginning, all of your friends had been happy for you, but that quickly went away when your and Jake’s honeymoon phase never died down and the PDA just kept on going. If the glue you were stuck with previously was metaphorical, this one was pretty close to being real. Superglue kept you together, your moments together rarely spent without some sort of physical touch. Yunjin fake-gagged so often, you were afraid she might actually vomit one of these days. It took Sunghoon two weeks longer than everyone else to clock you and Jake had started dating.

This meant that in private, there was truly no holding back. Jake back-hugged you any chance he got, to the point you started to think he was more koala than human - although that’d imply he saw you as a tree. Make-out sessions were a particular favourite of yours - how could they not be when your boyfriend’s lips seemed to have been carved by God himself, soft and plump to the heavens, like they were made to be kissed. Really, you were just honouring God’s will when you kissed Jake.  

The goodbye that comes at the end of the year is not an easy one, and the month spent at home before you fly to Korea seems to never end. But you get there eventually, and as nice as it is to catch up with Jake’s parents after so long, you feign sleepiness after lunch as an excuse to get some time alone with your boyfriend. Ironically, this “time alone” is spent so intensely that you do end up falling asleep afterwards. 

You have to admit, you really did a number on your boyfriend this time - what can a girl do when she missed her boyfriend this much? Jake is still passed out when you wake up from your nap, so you slip out as discreetly as you can from his embrace and get out of bed. You head for the closet first and swipe the comfiest looking sweater of his that you find there so you can stay warm as you look around his room. A pang of melancholia hits your chest - most of the pictures and objects on his walls and shelves are parts of his life you weren’t around to witness. Friends you don’t recognize, places you’ve never heard of, phases you’d never known he’d gone through. But then you see the frame on his desk, a faded photo of the two of you at ten years of age, eating ice cream on the bench outside of your house. Milo is sitting at your feet. Jake’s family hadn’t adopted Layla yet. You realise that even if there’s whole parts of your life you didn’t get to share with each other, nothing could touch your memories, or your future.

You want to go back in time and tell fourteen-year-old you that no matter how painful it might seem at the moment, it will all be worth it for the sight of Jake Sim slowly drifting into wakefulness, patting the bed next to him, and noticing you’re missing with furrowed eyebrows. When he opens his eyes and they settle on you, a sleepy smile will grace his dazzling features, and he’ll say, “Come back to bed.”

You’ll be even more in love at twenty than at fourteen.

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[lazaruspiss]

Begging for jaydick headcanons because I'm also a Jaydick hoe 🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️

where do i begin. horny? horny probably.

Dick bottoms like 90% of the time but as far as any dom/sub things go those two are the switches to end all switches. both need to be told they're a Good Boy while getting the soul fucked out of em and both need to dote on the other and remind them how much they like (love) them.

i think they'd also both have a bit of a sadistic streak, but Dick is the only masochistic one. i don't think Jason would be too big on being roughed up in a sexual context, i just can't picture it. no physical roughness, no particularly intense degradation, but that just means Dick has to get creative lol. though on the subject Dick also wouldn't /like/ feeding his own sadism.

i have a fair few sadist Dick thoughts based of off the times in canon where he hurts someone, recognizes that he enjoys it, and express at least some level of disapproval towards himself for feeling that way. no one really talks about how Dick does seem to, yknow, like fighting. not bc he's some angry violent asshole or bc it's violence for the greater good, but just bc it scratches the ever persistent adrenaline need in his brain.

hmmmm. Dick getting fed up with Jason being too thoughtful. we're gonna tread a tiny bit into projection territory but stick with me. when someone spends too much time being used by people or constantly shaping themselves around what others want it can kinda fuck up their head. when someone approaches without wanting that, without wanting them to shape themself around what they want, it can be a shock. Jason so aggressively wants Dick to be independent and true to himself that it's something they fight over, bc Dick's entire life has revolved around serving others and Jason can't just uproot all that by telling him his entire life is a lie and that he should reevaluate everything about himself and everyone around him. ok yeah im having flashbacks to the jaydick thing i wrote forever ago. (x)

they can both cook and take turns planning meals, with one making sure to call/message the other if they get busy with something so that they can adjust their plans around whatevers happening. i can also see cooking being a bit personal and intimate to them. Jason sticks to eating shitty fast food most of the time and never really cared about proper meals when he was on his own, but now he has someone to come home to. someone to eat with. he cares a lot about cooking well because he wants to show without words just how much it means to him to have Dick around. Dick has been shown to cook for people when they come over, so i think it'd just feel like basic courtesy to him. some sort of standard politeness to feed and welcome his guests if he can. he wears himself thin a lot of the time and doesn't tend to make an effort to cook when it's just him, but when he does cook he enjoys it. repetitive motions, straightforward instructions, relaxing sounds and smells, cooking is fun. seeing Jason gorge himself is also very heartwarming, and more filling than any meal.

theyd have a mutual agreement to, /if/ they have kids, raise them non-religious. between Jason "possibly catholic but also died and so it's complicated" Todd and Dick "my religion is Batman" Grayson, they really don't wanna pass on any of that to any theoretical kids.

on the subject of child rearing still: i think Dick would be against sending them to any kind of private school. he had a very not good time there and thinks that if theres gonna be a chance for their kid to be picked on either way than he'd rather not waste the money. if anything he thinks private school would be worse, because all those shitty rich kids know each other and each others parents and he'd really prefer his kid not being beat up and called slurs bc of who their parents are. he'd rather homeschool if their schedules allowed it but he recognizes that would be too impractical. Jason would have more mixed feelings, bc there can be a bit of an advantage in the long run from having gone to a reputable and recognizable school, but he also isn't sure it's worth having an argument about when chances are the kids gonna learn all the important stuff from them anyways. there is a very tense conversation to be had before enrolling their baby in kindergarten.

they have a few too many conversations about theoretically having kids for guys who don't have the guts to just go for it. waiting for an orphan to drop in their laps like theyre fuckin batman. idiots.

they're a bit worried about the Titans' reaction but the worst that happens is Wally giving an exaggerated sigh as he gives Donna her well earned 50 bucks. everyone saw it coming, and you two are hopeless. Wally is excited to be Dick's best man for realsies this time, and Jason is on the receiving end of a few too many shovel talks. by the time Roy gets to him it's turned into

Roy: yeah i dont need to say it do i. blah blah hurt him and ill kill you and all that. congrats on the boyfriend.

Jason: oh cmon, i thought you would at least have some faith in me.

Roy: bros before hoes, sorry man.

Jason: ... excuse me?

Gar's version of a shovel talk is just turning into a grizzly bear and doing the "ive got my eyes on you" gesture. anyways Bruce is invited to the wedding on the condition that his assigned seat is next to the Riddler and he has to pretend that Brucie has gotten real into riddles lately. he has to laugh at Eddie's jokes under the threat of never being allowed to contact Dick or Jason again. Jason suggested it bc he thought it would be funny, Dick rolled his eyes but agreed bc it means Bruce can't corner him to berate him about his life choices.

[roseworth]

Cassrose being the precursor to Cassierose for those with minds open enough to see the vision

youre so right i think cass is extremely instrumental in rose's coming out journey even if they never actually date. join me in my rich inner world 🫴

first of all i think her very first gay experience was with toni (argent from titans 1999). they would be hanging out and toni suggests that they "practice kissing" with each other. and that becomes rose's first homoerotic traumatizing friendship <3 toni is straight (or at least mostly straight) and was actually just trying to practice kissing bc she thought it didnt count if it was with a girl. meanwhile rose is having her gay awakening and desperately trying to convince herself that it doesnt count but it does not work. because shes gay

anyways then later after that rose gets kidnapped and drugged by slade so she doesnt get the chance to evaluate her sexuality at all. until cass! bc even though shes being drugged and shes obsessed with slade's attention, she still recognizes how she feels connected to cass during bg #64. because yeah theyre fighting but also shes been training with slade for a while so shes gotten a lot better, and even before slade she was a pretty good fighter just from using her powers along with the little bit of fighting she learned from her mom. so shes very much not used to meeting someone who is equal in ability to her like cass is. and part of her wants to connect with cass but that part of her is mostly being suppressed by the drug </3

so then when they reconnect in batgirl 2008 shes realizing that that connection is still there and now its not being suppressed !! and theyre fighting on the same side, so they realize that they can get along and those feelings are coming back. and now rose is realizing that those feelings that she pretended werent real back when she was hanging out with toni were, in fact, real. and now shes feeling something very similar about cass. which sort of makes her freak out but also shes still focused on killing slade and cant get caught up in what she may or may not feel about cass because it would distract her from her plan. so she left partially because she was getting hung up on her lesbian awakening when her real goal was patricide

but if they were to reconnect during the times when rose was separated from the titans the lesbian awakening is back on! they havent gotten a chance to truly connect with each other because theres always something else in the way, and honestly with them there always will be something else in the way because theyre always going to be focused on the mission rather than each other. but that doesnt stop them from making out sometimes 👍 once they have a moment to actual feel what they feel about each other, they get to be in a long situationship where neither of them are looking for a relationship but they still care a lot about each other and they fuck sometimes because theyre also a little bit obsessed with each other. its like friends with benefits if they werent friends and there were very few benefits

anyways eventually rose rejoins the titans again with her newfound lesbianism (she wouldnt call herself a lesbian (at least not yet) but now she knows shes into girls) and she and cass may still see each other sometimes but theyre in mutual agreement that its not going to become anything more than that (not that they wouldve ever talked about it but they just understand each other and know that its not something either of them would do). but also that means rose has started deconstructing her feelings and also she knows what her type is and knows what it feels like to be attracted to a woman. so thats when she realizes that she was also into cassie that whole time. or maybe not the whole time but at the very least she is into cassie Now. and that scares her a little bit because it means that she actually cares about what cassie thinks about her so now she cant convince herself that it doesnt matter to her anymore. and thats how we get to them getting together

[arcadekitten]

okay so I get that twyla not reciprocating the feelings is a key part of the twynova dynamic but like: would it upset you if people made content where it's not nessecarily like, recipricated, but theres some degree of mutual agreement that they are in some sort of relaitonship even if it's not a traditional one. like stuff where twlya is like 'we can't be in a relationship because I can't love you back' and nova is like 'i know this i am okay with this can i kiss you now' and they sorta have their own unconventional sorta dating thing

like are you okay with fancontent that explores the dyanmic in a way that isn't completely canon compliant or do you dislike fancontent that isn't canon compliant?

Trying to figure out the best way to articulate this !

If I disregarded all fancontent that wasn't completely canon compliant, then I wouldn't let people ship things that weren't canon! And I'm totally fine with people who want to ship things even if they aren't canon! (as long as they fall in my boundaries of things like no incest, no pedophilia, etc)

When it comes to canon compliancy within shipping I think I care more about how the characters behave rather than if the ship could ever be canon.

While I don't think Twyla would ever consider herself in a relationship with anyone that wasn't some sort of fake-dating scenario, I'm not bothered if someone wants to imagine her being in a relationship even with her lack-of-a-heart. As long Twyla is still behaving like herself I'm fine with that. Especially when it comes to characters like Twyla and Nova I'm sure Nova sees their relationship as blurring the lines a bit anyways

[sonicasura]

Thank you. Heres what I got.

First lets start with how one manage to make a contract with a kaiju in this world. I've told you already that its either done by either agreement or approval. As well as there being a temporary one as well.

The temporary one is used very often by most types of kaijus, regardless if they are weak or strong ones. It has the least rules and restrictions to follow on both parties and doesn't have as harsh punsihments as the other two have should the contract be breached by either party. And being temporary often means theres only so long it will last or allow.

Soshiro would often use this contract when picking out a new human among the Hoshina clan. It was the best way for him to turely find out wether or not he could actually form a proper contract when his current one started to end. Either by mutual agreement or becaue his human simple was near death due to natural reasons (which was rarely the cause of the ends of the contracts he had until the 1950s).

Kafka also use temporary contracts often as well. Mina isn't the first human he'd given a contract to. It is also the only type of contract Kafka can say with certainty that will not cause instant death to whomever he contracts with. The limits a temporary contract has makes it possible for Kafka to help out humans that needs it without having to worry about what will happen afterwards. As such, you can say he has mastered this type of contract the most and many kaijus found in the Defense Force actually ask him for advice in this matter when needed. Despite the deep seeded fear he causes them each time they see or is near him.

The agreement contract its kinda like a business partnership in some ways. In the fact that both parties has to often exchange resources, time and many other things to will mutually benefit each other. This contract is most often given by kaijus that are over the 4.0 fortitude level but still under the 8.0 mark, as this contract as the most benefits and allows a kaiju to really see if it is worth their time to change into one of approval or not.

It has far stricter rules and restrictions to follow, and any sort of breach on either side often leads to harsh punishments on both parties. Unless theres only one side that needs to be punsihed. Much like with the temporary contracts, theres a time limit but it can be extended or renewed if needed. As well as change some of the agreements found should that be a need as well.

The approval one is the rarest one used and one that is taken with outmost seriousness on both the human and kaiju side. Kaijus only of a certain strenght will grant this type of contract, with some expections. It has the harshes rules, restrictions and punishments around. And unlike the last two has conditions that most be followed to be made and signed between a human and kaiju.

One of these conditions are compatibility with ones very soul, as all contracts are soul bound no matter which type is used. And if the compatibility is poor well lest just say a quick death is one of the best options for you or the kaiju involved. I'm still working out some of the other conditions as well, since some kaijus are going to be very specialized or need very specific conditions meet to form a contract of any type with a human.

That honestly makes sense. I imagine the contracts in general sort of evolved over time into these three types. One thing that can't be avoided when it comes to any supernatural bond is incompatibility.

I also imagine some kaiju put potential contractors under a sort of trial first no matter the contract type. Test their salt before trying to form any commitment that could bite them back in the future.

[alphaketoglutaricacid]

still think its extremely clever (despite my qualms bc im a professional hater) the ways the interactions the elves have w the rest of the world mirror the dynamics in the nakamoto household. Theres this fantasy element of the elves being more in touch w nature (and the plant motif the nakamotos got going on) long lived magical beings w spider armor who think they know better than everyone else so they treat others like children. N with the nakamoto house, everyones considered part of this family. W the idealization of the lord vassal relationship being one of informal mutual agreement (tho ofc the idea of it being entirely voluntary cannot be like. Materially true. But theres ways the relationship of a knight n his king, the king n his subjects r romanticized n theres elements of this in dm for sure so who knows where dm falls on this ) Which makes the head of the house a father of sort to everyone in the house (tho i imagine the exact distinction to like paternalism of a household and like being someones father in the modern sense is not completely translatable). Like the plot w the canaries is so long reaching, of this army sailing to the other side of the world to conquer this dungeon but their parallels w the nakamotos and the close, familial violence that is happening just in this snapshot of this rando house (tho part of its focus on just them is probs bc the japanese audience is more familiar w what ideas its drawing from. ) really shows like. The banal shittiness of it. The elves arent even exceptional in their brutality this is just what ppl w outsized power over others do.

+ in feudal japan everything is viewed as being collectively owned by the house itself rather than individuals + the individuals having to act for the good of the house rather than for themselves vis a vis how both nobles and prisoners are conscripted into the canaries for what is seen as for da good of the world. The connection of family n how degals father adopted thistle as his own son even tho he was taken from his home to be a servant (and at this point i can feel ms kui going dont think too hard abt the ethics of this. The love was real #feudalism). + the connection w the toudens (closest we get to like a “nuclear family “) and how their father could send falin away against the shock of every other member of the family (tho falin eventually understood i think..?) in the ways his flaws as a human being become bigger bc of the outsized amt of power he had in his own family. that his relatively banal flaw of not explaining himself could break the family apart. As an aside, do u think maybe laios was able to understand the actions of his father just a little more when seeing chilchucks relationship w his family? Probably not enough to forgive his own father. But maybe a first step to understanding it and also himself.

Just like how the entire fall of the golden kingdom rests upon the interpersonal failures between the melinis and the ways they viewed each other as family and held each other to it even as their roles changed. W the complications of falin n marcilles relationship as falin started to outrun her. Kabru n milsirils relationship as a smaller version of whats happening w the elves and the rest of the world.

Like the relationship of a parent and child n all it reflects w ppl w power and those who do not in dungeon meshis really interesting. That having power is a difficult thing interpersonally, which is why holding it requires extra sensitivity to others bc all ur flaws will get magnified in the harms it causes. Like i respect how the internal logic of it. checks out. i think dm has sufficiently justified its ending even tho im personally like after all that… u still think there should be a king…? Like i respect the scope of the work n what its trying to convey. tho more than that i respect the most how it conveys it (bc i dont think a lot of the themes themselves are particularly groundbreaking)

[bambi-lesbian-posts]

It suddenly got very cold in the office why is this happening make it stop

[mvshortcut]

via @kneeslapworthy

Which is your favourite dynamic between the og society and the kids? milligan and kate are always a power duo but nothing beats reynie and mr benedicts dynamic imo

ohhhh i love reynie and mr benedict, but i think. constance and mr benedict. ohhhh. (kate and mr benedict is also underrated but also mostly in my imagination since they don't actually interact that much in canon i don't think.)

but like there's just something about like. how he understands her and loves her as she is, is always sure to treat her like a child without condescending to her. like he's gentle with her, understanding of her quirks and problems and patient with her, but he doesn't treat her like she's stupid or helpless, either. and he genuinely delights in her wit, sincerely thinks she's funny and doesn't take offense at her poetry or snippy comments. and she's just this angry little ball of probably traumatized rudeness but she loves him too, so much

like i love the reversal of the classic "broody rude edgy man becomes single dad to pure sunshine child who helps him to be softer/more open" trope into "soft sunshine man becomes single dad to broody rude edgy little girl and he helps her to be softer/more open"

[blueiight]

Now why does Daniel still have what seems to be a scar from Louis attacking him and tearing his flesh? I say seems because we only have the recording which sounds like an attack but we truly do not know what happened. By then Louis should know how to cover his tracks by using his blood to heal the wound. Or if Armand was there, he could also heal it.

And in the same thread side eyeing Lestat for leaving Antoinette with fang marks

Also does it not work on vampires because Louis left fang marks on Lestat as we can see on episode 6

I personally think that's one of the things Louis doesn't remember properly or is lying about (selling a narrative about hate sex and violent behaviour on his part to show us he didn't just jump on Lestat's dick) because Lestat is 150+

How does he have fang marks and all those bruises? Shouldn't they heal immediately? Did Louis drain him?

well im pretty sure the end of the first 1973 interview followed the original iwtv novel where daniel asks louis to turn him & louis gets furious at daniel for ‘missing the point’ & drains him near to death. if u listen to the tapes u hear some of these lines word for word in the show.

[insert a “this, after all i told u, is what u ask for, boy?!” screenshot cuz i love louis accent in that moment]

as for why louis never healed daniel’s bite mark i took it as him also wanting to leave daniel with a marker of the horror he encountered, the creature that is The Vampire™️ is. how much recollection could a seriously intoxicated 20 year old possess otherwise, but u cant forget when a reminder of the vampire was embedded into daniel’s flesh. it is undeniable physical proof. but i feel armand too would be much in agreement with that, seeing no reason to heal daniel’s bitemark. bc part of what makes daniel appealing to armand is the fact that he is so painfully mortal. turning daniel had serious repercussions for the dynamic of their relationship [& in showverse, could very well be a taboo to the vampire g code as i jokingly dub it. ur not supposed to give the dark gift to ppl who r ‘crippled’ & someone who ‘cannot survive on their own’ n i wonder if daniel dying of a neurodegenerative disease would be included in any of these qualifiers to vampires? certainly adds to why armand was appalled here. we already outcasts in vampiredom bae, chill—]

& do recall lestat bit louis when he was human, and the bite mark lingered bc lestat wanted louis to remember him and vampires do drink off eachother [even in showverse u have louis drinking from armand]. i think leaving the mark does suggest a sort of purpose/flair to a vampire’s art. & idt theres anything too transparently contradictory to how louis remembers the hatesex scene in ep6? do recall lestat was badgering louis for 6 years, trying to reenter his life after beating him, and lestat put antoinette on their song bc he knew that it would rile louis up. its hilarious that hes like 6 years & u think a songs gone get a rise out of me? tryna sell it that hes not unaffected but he is extremely affected. he hated lestat and yet still loved him enough to go wade thru a filthy body of water & ride his dck. one of my mutuals said 2022 iwtv sells like a vaudeville act but lestat is the ‘straight man’ in louis narrrative and this is definitely one of those moments where that shows. i think lestat left the marks louis left on his body [& the fact that claudia is there to see them attests to their viability?] so he could re enter louis & claudia’s lives by selling his vulnerability, alluding to the violation that was his turning. see, i was at least nice enough to make an honest woman out of u, back in my day, vampires would lock u in shitholes w ur dying lookalikes& make u—

[wizkiddx]

hiii could you do one of tom asking your dad to marry you?? thankuuuuu

okay so I don't believe in boys having to ask the dads, because we are strong independent QUEENS and no man owns me ever, but I hope this is still okay <33

not proof read and written super quick so sorry!

summary: Tom's terrified to ask your dad a very particular question question

///////////////////////////////////////////////

“Mr Y/l/n” Tom called your dads attention from the dishwasher he was loading up. The holidays spent at your parents meant a lot of good things- but mainly food. So much so the dishwasher was almost continually on, just so you didn’t run out of crockery.

“Its Y/d/n Tom, we’ve been through this.” He was joking but with your Dad - Tom could never really tell. At heart your dad was an absolute softie, except no one really saw that except your mum and you. Always a daddies girl, Tom knew how much your dad had meant to you. He had guessed before he’d met you parents , that he would be protective.

And that he was, never frontally rude or cruel. It was more subtle - though to Tom it was very damn clear, he had his doubts. As a people pleaser, Tom didn’t like the fact he didn’t like him. Time and time again, he’d tried to prove just how much you meant to him and yet it seemed to fall on deaf ears. So three years down the line, it was safe to say he was bloody terrified. Heart-in-mouth sort of event. Tom did a lot of ‘terrifying things’: talking to massive studio heads; going on stage with thousands of people screaming; jumping out a plane even.

But no, a single conversation with your dad had his adrenaline going like nobodies business. Asking to marry you.

“You going to just stand their gawking? I hope the moviestar doesn’t make my Y/n do all the housework?”

“No sir I-of course I don’t” Stammering his way through with wide eyes, Tom practically leapt across the kitchen to the opposite side of the dishwasher to your dad. Secretly your Dad was chuckling away to himself, taking absolute delight in how terrified the ‘movie star’ was of him, but managed to keep a steely outershell. In silence, the two uunloaded the dishwasher, Tom desperately racking his brains for conversation starters.

This is what he did for a living, learnt the speech he’d spent hours preparing, then retell it. Why then, was Tom having such an issue with the script he’d arguable practiced the most? Deciding he needed a buffer, Tom went to the safe space of small talk.

“So how was the pub? Y/n said you were meeting some old friends?”

“Watched the match, bloody awful game and Wilks was crap, I don’t know why he even started.” Now this football talk was something Tom felt safe in. He had learnt as much as he could about your dads team - just so there was some mutual conversation.

“Yeh tell me about it, I caught the last half. Though the ref made so bad decisions too, that penalty never really was VAR or not.”

“Thats the most respectable thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

The next couple of minutes were spent with both men raving fanatically, letting all their anger out on the pretty subpar game this afternoon. In fact, Tom swore your dad actually laughed along with him at one point. Admittedly he’d caught himself almost immediately- but for two seconds, he had cracked it.

With the last mug placed in the cabinet, Tom was quite frankly shocked at what your dad said next. He had presumed that since it was late and everyone else was in bed, Y/d/n wouldn’t want quality time with his daughters boyfriend.

“You fancy a nightcap son?”

He’d never called Tom that either. Frankly, you dad preferred the nickname ‘moviestar’ because he knew it infuriated Tom. Made the tips of his ears flush bright red, that was Toms tell - one that your dad had noticed too early on.

Jerkily Tom nodded, swallowing down the lump in his throat as he followed the elder man to the sitting room - where he kept the scotch glasses and bottle. No sooner had the drinks been poured, that Tom practically exploded with his thoughts.

“Mr Y/l/n-sorry I mean Y/d/n I-I um I needed to ask you something.” All he got was a long sigh and a nod, encouraging him to continue. “I-uhm….”Tom scoffed, clearing his throat because all of a sudden it felt like he hadnt had a drink in 10 hours, mouth completely dry.

“Well first off-and all respect. I know I don’t have to ask you. Y/n is the most independent and strong woman and we aren’t living in the 1950s. But, well but she loves you alot.” Tom stressed that last point especially, looking up to your dads poker face. It put him off for moment.

It was just how grumpy he looked, it was bloody terrifying. Taking a big gulp of the malty liquid, Tom steeled himself once again. “ And she respects you, your opinion always matters and I’d never come between that. And Y/n, she likes her traditions right? Like the stupid hat game you all play at Christmas dinner which makes no sense to me? Or the puzzle that you don’t start till everyone’s pretty drunk and tired at 3 o’clock in the morning on christmas? So that is… uhm thats why I’m asking you.”

Again all Tom was met with was a stern gaze, once again taking another generous sip of the scotch.

“Look I know you have your doubts about me- “ That got a response, a snort of agreement from your dad as if saying ‘you think’.

“But-but I really love your daughter. She’s my whole world and I can’t imagine being without her. And I know my lifestyle probably doesn’t fit with how you imagined your daughter to have. I mean-I’m not always at home and I’m away for months but- but…. look.” Tom sighed, shifting awkwardly on the sofa to directly face your dads armchair. “When I’m homesick and tired and grouchy from filming and I get back to the hotel I facetime Y/n. Everyday. And just seeing her smile, you-you know, the really soft small one that makes her dimples pop out? One look at that smile and everythings fine. Because all I’m thinking about is seeing that smile for the rest of my life. When she finds out she’s pregnant with our kid, when we’re taking them to college. I mean even when we’re 80 and probably sick of each other- she’ll still have that little smile that puts me into this sort of stupor. I just- I love her. And I’d do anything for her, I always will, I promise you that. So-so” With a shaky breath, Tom delivered his hitline.

“This is me just letting you know that I’m going to ask her to marry me and- I really hope she says yes.”

Tom was almost out of breath, and the breath he did have was shaky, looking up desperately at the older man across from him. He watched with wide eyes as your Dad placed his glass back on the drinks table with a clink, before leaning forward and standing up from the chair. He groaned slitghtly at the movement (his knees werent what they used to be) and took the two steps forward to be stood right infront of Tom’s seat. In that moment, Tom honestly thought he was getting a punch to the jaw at the very least. Afterall, he had just pretty much demanded that he were to propose to you.

As he braced for impact, tensing all his muscles, instead what he felt was a light pat to his right shoulder. Tom trailed his eyes up your dads figure to see what he thought was a gentle smile on his face too. Though he hadn’t ever seen your Dad smile at him before, so couldn’t say for certainty.

“You’re a good kid Tom, and you make Y/n very happy. Just pull yourself together when you ask her alright son? Didn’t think moviestars got stage fright.” And with that, your dad turned his back, heading toward the doorway that lead to the stairs to the bedrooms. Stunned, it took a moment or two before Tom processed - long enough that he had to leap up and call your dads name to get him to halt in the hallway.

“So is that a yes? You’re giving me permssion?”

“Oh Tom….” Your dad sighed in the lowlight of the hallway, in a more muted voice - now they were closer to the bedrooms where both you and your mum were sleeping peacefully. “ You already said, Y/n is strong and fiercely independent. I don’t control her, heck I don’t think she’s ever listened to me and never will. But…. for the record, I hope she says yes too and… I know she will.”

Scoffing in excitement, Tom combed a hand through his scalp, feeling such a wave of relief it was almost indescribable as your dad turned and trudged up the stairs. Once he heard the door of your parents bedroom close, he couldn’t help himself. He ran back into the kitchen, where he preceded to do an excited jumpy dance thing.

Because it meant a lot. To have your dads approval, to have your dads support. That meant the world. Not only for the sake of proposing but also, everything Tom said was true. He wanted to build a family with you - which meant that man was going to be the grandparents to your kids one day. That man had helped to craft you into the person you were today - his ‘person’. His perfect angelic, sweet woman.

Whenever he felt this excited, this happy, this elated - theres only one person he wants to be with. So, after turning all the lights off and checking the doors were locked (with a very obvious spring in his step) he then hopped up the stairs. Tiptoeing around, he got ready for bed in no time, before getting to the highlight of each evening.

Delicately he crawled into bed, sliding under the covers, so as to not disturb you. Naturally though, feeling the bed dip made you turnover- hooking your legs round his and resting your head on his chest. Tom chuckled quietly at your cuteness, stroking your cheek lightly with his thumb. It was enough to rouse you awake, enough to make you acutely aware of the thundering sound from his chest. With tired eyes, you propped your chin on his breastbone looking up at him with concern.

“You alright T? Hearts really racing.” He only replied with this loopy lovesick grin, his right hand coming to cup your cheek.

“Go back to sleep darling, I’m okay.” He did look okay, but he was almost too smiley and even with a foggy sleepy brain, you were still suspicious.

“Whats going on, you’re being weird?”

“Nothing…. your dad and me just had a chat… He called me son.” That shocked you too - clearly the conversation you’d had with him about being nicer to Tom had rubbed off.

“He did?”

“He did…. you are beautiful you know?” Now he was definitely being weird. You furrowed your eyebrows, as if trying to read his mind because something odd was going on in there.

“Now you’re just being creepy. What’s up?”

Tom just leant forward to kiss your forehead, then pulled you down onto his chest.

“I just love your family and I love you, you know that?”

“Are you trying to get into my pants? Because my parents are literally in the next room.”

“Oh shut up and kiss me.”

[sleepyboisinc]

soo,,, the secret au huh?

its a band au. its a fucking band au. im posting this super impulsively, and it has no editing i think so if there are any mistakes,,,, fuck it idc

also this ends in a sort of cliffhanger i was gonan write more but i got tired of writing and never got the motivation to again im sorry lul

this au isnt just by me, theres other ppl involved in it too!! mainly bad timezone gang in technohive but others also helped :)

anywaysyysyshdhsh yea read if u want to ig

wilbur soot was discovered by a record label when he was 15 after he wrote the squid song. they didn't care that the lyrics were objectively bad, it was wilbur’s voice that grabbed their attention. they interviewed him and decided that they were gonna give him a chance. wilbur, who had always dreamed of being a singer, jumped at the opportunity. the interview went very well. they even asked him to sing a few songs and he nailed it. however, he wasn’t perfect. he still needed some vocal training. they spent an entire day discussing and signing paperwork. the label ended up arranging for wilbur to attend music classes to enhance his voice and get better at the guitar.

time-skip about 3 years. wilbur is 18 and is phenomenal at singing and the guitar. he starts going to uni and meets his roommate, an american student named technoblade who plays the violin. wilbur and techno quickly become friends, bonding over music and other mutual interests like video games. techno plays mini gigs on the street and at bars close to campus to make some money for himself. particularly at a little bar called “the harpy’s nest”

one day, wilbur gets bored sitting at home alone, so he goes to watch techno’s gig. he arrives halfway through the set and watches for about 5 minutes. after the gig is over, he watches as techno interacts with the bartender, a young man only slightly older looking than the two of them. techno notices wilbur and calls him over, introducing him to the bartender, philza. the two immediately hit it off and by the end of the night, they’ve exchanged numbers and a promise to meet up phil’s next shift.

-

over the next few months, the trio became best friends. wilbur learns that phil plays the drums and has several eps. one ep in particular, “hardcore2” blew up a bit in their general area and phil gained a bit of traction as a musician. the three boys spend most of their time hanging out at wilbur and techno’s dorm, or at phil’s bar. they stay up till ungodly hours playing video games and talking. their other friends dub them the sleepy boys, because of how tired they all are the next day. 

however, as the months fly by, the date wilbur is supposed to finish training and write his first songs draws closer. he worries he’s bitten more than he can chew and he wonders if he’s even ready for fame. a month later he is assigned a manager, pete. pete says that his training contract has expired, meaning that he's ready to start writing his album. wilbur says that he needs to think a bit before he starts. pete was about to tell him he can’t have extra time to think because he signed a contract, but seeing the look of stress on wilbur’s face, he allows him 2 days before he starts. wilbur goes on a walk to think. he curses himself for second-guessing himself now. he realizes he doesn’t wanna do this alone. then he thinks of techno and phil. 

what if they formed a band? that way he wouldn’t have to do this alone. he’s sure that they'd love to make a band together as well. he goes to them and… they agree. he goes to pete and asks him if they can be a three-piece band. pete says he needs to ask his higher-ups first. wilbur doesn’t hear from pete for 4 days and starts to worry. what if they won’t allow it? it wasn't part of the agreement so they have every right to turn him down. at the end of the fourth day, pete calls him and says that the higher-ups have agreed. they had to choose a group name by the end of 2 days. the trio was over the moon.

this was the start of sleepy bois inc.

-

their record label wasn’t massive, so the boys took to playing on the streets and in bars to gain some traction. they slowly started gaining recognition and grew faster when they made a youtube channel. they released several eps and a few albums, and gained a following over the next few years.

their first big break came 3 years after the band was formed. they had a decent following, about 50k subs on youtube and slightly less on other platforms. one day, jschlatt from lunch club, a massive boy band, got their music recommended to him on youtube. he’s intrigued and listened to it, and was surprised at how much he liked it. he liked it so much, that he decided to shout them out on twitter. 

sleepybois inc’s popularity skyrocketed, and the members of both bands grew close. when lunch club announced their next tour, they revealed that sleepybois inc would open for them. the fans freak out, and many iconic moments and inside jokes form from this tour. 

-

tommy innit was 19 years old and was preparing to become a musician. he was almost done with the 4 years of vocal and keyboard training provided by a record label and had to make a decision: be a solo artist, or join a band. if he chose the band, he has another 2 options: be assigned into a band that already exists under this label or make a new one with people that he knows. 

tommy is also a massive fan of lunch club, and sees that jschlatt shouted out a band called sleepybois inc. he likes them a lot and becomes a fan of their stuff too. what tommy didn’t know is that they were at the same label he was training at and were open for a 4th member. 

back on the music, tommy ended up going with band. he debated between making a band or being assigned one. after a while, he ended up going with being assigned. he was nervous about this because he'd have to integrate himself into their dynamic and feared that fans won’t like him, but he figured it’d be easier than making his friends all learn instruments.

being assigned a band is a process, so tommy had a couple of months free. during this time, lunch club was on tour with sleepybois inc and tommy got vip tickets to a show. so he went to the meet and greet and gave his number to sleepybois inc saying ”hmu if u need a keyboardist lul” as a joke (this is a very important detail i will include it f u)

so come around the day of tommy getting assigned. he has to do auditions for the bands that the record label selected for him to join. management has narrowed it down to the youngest 2 bands at their label who are open for a member: one of which is sleepybois inc. 

-

it had been a month since tommy interviewed for sleepybois inc. he did pretty well at it, and had been talking to the boys a lot since then. he still hadn’t had news on whether he joined though. 

it was 3 am. tommy had been working on school work for hours and had only just managed to finish up for the night. he settled into bed and was about to fall asleep when his phone rang. not bothering to look at who was calling, tommy picked it up

“who the fuck is calling me at 3 in the morning i swear to god-” tommy whispered angrily. 

“tommy?” wilbur’s voice rang out “wait shit- this is probably a really bad time im sorry. but we have something important to tell you.”

tommy’s eyes widened. 

“we’ve decided that you can join the band”

-

the band and their label spent a few weeks discussing how they would go about this. they boys decided they would need a name change too, and ended up settling on the name ‘purple pandas’. however, a new member and a name change would practically transform the band completely, so they had to go about announcing this the right way.

they ended up settling on posting a youtube video titled ‘making some changes’. seeing the announcement for this sent fans into a frenzy, frantically tweeting about what it could be. many rumours spread fast and it even got into a few news articles. conspiracies started floating around about what changes could possibly be taking place.

-

i cant write this shit no more bye

[misterbitches]

Dude yong jie’s character is literally unbearable this is like how not to write a vharacter 101

Our first intro to him is stalking, then PUNCHING someone in the LIVER bc the person he “loves” was fucking drunk and he blames his best friend? Then his mom is like “lmao actually um hes psycho” so anything they try to do retroactively like how they peppered in HIS DAD DIED A BLOO BLOO but previously it was also his OWN MOM going “im afraid he’ll lose his humanity” so not only was there no breathing room then it’s bumrushing him into their lives as best friends and it doesnt work. This dude sucks and he isnt even fun to watch. You know how breaking bad has one of the most abysmal main characters of all time but all of us were fucking ENGROSSED but the show made it clear that every enemy he faces, even the DEA, we want THEM to win (it is also a class analysis but woreva) so i am like wtf they show us literally nothing here. He’s just there. Wasting space and being awful. What is the purpose of his character in ssu’s life? Once you rape someone it is fucking over full stop but he didnt even fucking manage to start off in any compelling fucking way. Absolutely bonkers dude Esp bc theres at least a base moral code ie DONT HARRASS GIRLS UR “INTO” and thats why mei fang the absolute mad lad beaut was like “lmao nah i hate u”

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo?????????????????????????????????? WHERE IS THE WRITING HERE? WHAT IS THE SCRIPT? awhat is the PROGRESSION? This is such an insanely fucking dumb plo5 point i rly cannnnjnnntoeiwijshsgsgsgsgsgsgeggwiwowiw GORL

Lets talk abt the good things in the characters (theres none for yong jie hes just there being a little bitch)

Li cheng - himbo dumbass “manly” cutie and the manly stuff is fun cos it gets heaped on and yet every bit of him can be extremely “feminine” and jubilant. Great.

Muren - seems >:O but i rly like that hes actually pretty open in his own way. Side note: he is so thin and willow-y i rly loke tall pretty boys (and all women lmao) and he doesnt do it for me but He suits the character like his body and the way his character is. Also u gotta be weird and he is

Hsinng ssu (girl im never gonna learn how to spell their names it’s too much work cos the eng alphabet andnromanization is terrible) - mild mannered, good son, a homosexual confirmed confirmed g”(awesome!) great friend, good brother (and i guess his reward is being raped, great message!) and someone ppl like

The establishment of the three of them and their distinct personalities happens within minutes and then we meet

Yongjie - what about him? He may have an MI, okay, but we dont know for sure and oh gee that doesnt matter actually bc u have to get urself treated and also not be terrible. Not even psychopaths do the shit he does BC THEY HAVE TO GET HELP. Why the parents didnt get him help and are just realizing their son is terrible? Who knows . His purpose seems yo be “boy obsessed with brother like his actual brother” i dont care id they arent related in that way bc that’s not the fucking crux of incest and it is so insanely Fucked every thing to do with incest is almost always a disgusting powe r issue. WHAT PURPOSE DOES HE SERVE? WHAT DO WE ONOW ABOUT HIM OTHER THAN HE IS A FUCKING JERK AND AN IDIOT AND SUCKS AND I HATE HIM AND THAT HE WANTS TO STALK AND ATTACK THIS REALLY AWESOME FUCKING DUDE OK

There’s no returning point deom rhe line they croased byt theyb set him up for failure. Even in the fight hes a fucking cheater hes a goddamn immature rat they know he fucking sucks but he just sits there and waits for everyone else to move around him. A fucking selfish prick with nor edeeming qualities snd hes also a violent rapist stalker. Really great that thry have no clue how to make this dude actually have any humanity or likeability. Hes the man from 365 days basically except not even that hot and at least he kidnapped her but “WAITED” for “CONSENT” but in that movie’s world nothing mattered and it was bad and the point was to have a horny movie. But this show is for younger ppl and also IT HAS RULES AND IT KNOWS WHAT BAD ACTIONS ARE???? Soooooooooooooo in all these other dumb salacious books there seems to be just a mutual agreement that it’s fucked up but totally normal i their movie’s universee (it isnt and it is still just bad filmmaking)

Also it is up to yong jie to figure put how to get over it and understand that his brother is concerned for him. Bc it is. His brother. There’s a reason that incest is never advisable and thays bc there is no way in that situation that people aren’t somehow being coerced. There has to be a sort of split in the pursuer and the person being pursued bc one person is not thinking that way. (This is why people who find out they are related after the fact and havent grown up together is something thatms really unfortunate. They had no idea and they have to grapple with that but that is another scenario and it happens bc THEY DIDNT GROW UP TOGETHER.) i have experienced this from a (not immediate) fam member and i was the vulnerable one, had less powr, that is how it must go.

Thats why the power imbalance is scary and none of this is acceptable but it begs the question how did they get to this point? But the show doesnt even address that bc they cant bc theyre not original. And power imbalance does not mean automatic absolutely not territory. Theres things we dont like (in my casee i hate age gaps a lot) but i will avoid that.

I havemt seen “right or wrong” and i have no desire but from what ive garnered from ppl i like who liked that episode, the show outlined the moral issues with it. Idk if they did it in a way i would have preferred (again no desire) but at lesst from what ive heard it...tries? Idk i dont see the need for these if they dont give us a reason why these ppl should be together and there’s several lines that cannot be crossed that were. Basically it’s like stockholm syndrome now and there’s no choice for him, it goes beyond power imbalance and “legality” so to speak and now it’s just entrapment.

Theres not even avoiding or enjoying. Even for MODC as stupid as i found the secondary rship and negligent even like ok. Fine. Whatever. His boyfriend is 100 but at least it was semi agreed upon. It is what it is, go forth. I will criticize it but at least it was the story and as stupid and gross as i think it is and they will probs break up (idc what the show says) at least there are set ups that can make us see “why” it works and oh, gee, their whole rship relies on a different fucked up but at least at some point it could possibly be transcended. The foundation of youngjie is “rape entrapment and aw now they are in lvoe” BITCH NOOOO???? Where is the REASON? And why should we root for them? (There is none and when the Thing happens it is now impossible for that not to be absolutely foundational to their rship lmao and that is never something that goes away.)

I would like to say theres nothing romantic int he flashbacks i know thats what theyre trying to twll us but the actor is 30 and that child is like 8.

Im not missing the point bc i see it with my eyes and it sucks. If you cant even write the character well then how do you interest something heavy and work out the links? The only solution is yongjie dying i mean fucking off forever and hsing ssu not letting him into his lifeXni doubt we will get that but at the very least they cannot end up together and that will be their crowning fucking achievement over the waste of time bullshit plot this was. Imagine actual conflict that wasnt so deeply fucking traumatic and, oh, again WHERE ARE THE PARENTS? They fucked up SO FUCKING BADLY. This gives people the wrong idea about how these things work. God he is truly a shitty character and his ass isnt even fat so wtf bitch why am i here!

[taelme]

absolutely fell in love with demigod!hyunjin enemies to lovers, i like the way the story flowed. the pacing was great, the characters are all very likeable too! thank you for sharing that with us. i'd like to know if you have any prompts in mind for more of their story? or at least what would happen to them after camp~

hello!!~ thank you for the lovely message,, i'm really happy you enjoyed it :D

believe it or not i have actually thought abt this...

first and foremost i feel like because of the fact that when you're at the end of the camp thats the point where you and Hyunjin's relationship is starting to grow

and although theres that mutual attraction the both of you kind of know that the summer camp is ending soon and you'll have to go back to your 'regular' lives in a sense

but u guys dont want to like rush into a relationship but theres that kind of unspoken agreement that the both of you would want to get to know each other more first

so hyunjin would kind of u know be playing it cool and you guys exchange numbers and all but theres that sort of agreement at the end of the camp

and its your last day and Hyunjin walks with you till you guys reach the trains and thats when you have to go your separate ways and you're like

'i guess this is it then'

n hyunjin will not be having it he'll definitely make you promise then and there that you'll keep in contact

and you do (of course)

but let's say you're not that different out of camp in terms of you taking on a lot of responsibilities and when you guys do call its kind of like a breath of fresh air at the end of the day because Hyunjin is so!! encouraging!!

and he lowkey wishes he could charmspeak you into getting more rest but 1) his charmspeak wouldn't work on you anyway and 2) he doubts it'd work over facetime

but yes anyway you guys are kind of Awkward moreso because you guys are learning more about your lives outside of camp and hyunjin is realising that you have friends that are guys that are not sons of Ares....

but yes. and you know time passes too slow for your liking and you guys do get to know each other a lot more but you realise that summer is coming again and you're excited to see Hyunjin but at the same time you are definitely not mentally prepared

but when u see each other again at the next summer camp.... something about your dynamic has definitely Shifted.

if anything, the first time you face him feels so universally-driven that you can't help but think Aphrodite is behind this

bc when the game of capture the flag is at its peak and you run into hyunjin while hes fighting off a few children of Hermes there's no time to think abt how he looks even more well-built or how his skin is practically glowing under the harsh afternoon sun because you're too busy helping him fight the Hermes kids

but when everything does calm down and u guys are facing each other for the first time since the last summer... theres too much tension to ignore

and i wont go too in depth

but lets just say....hyunjin makes it more known that he doesnt care if youre a daughter of Ares and probably (definitely) stronger than him bc hes going to protect you and care for you as if his life depended on it!

Ten is the first to realise after he makes an offhanded comment about you and Jaehyun having a rumoured thing and Hyunjin refuses to entertain it

but yeah. its safe to say after they have a talk abt it in the aphrodite cabin you realise from then on everytime you meet eyes with Ten while you're with Hyunjin or if he catches you staring at Hyunjin in the mess hall he'll just give you the most pointed, smug look.

this would actually kind of be fitting for a part 2 bc im starting to feel almost like i dont want to go too in depth... but yes... maybe when school gets off my back and i have time to write....

[tslasvegas]

Episode 2: “I am typically regarded as a joke” - Livingston

Anyways... rip Colin, no idea who that was.. obviously Okay well I think we are out of the first impressions stage of this game and I think I've done an okay job of not making a strong impression one way or another, except to DeNara who I've been talking to most consistently since the start of this game. Except for today lmfao I was NOT active on purpose but I'll try to get to that in this confessional. I saw that the tribe went on a call so I decided to join and chit-chat with the girlies of this tribe and I've gotta say.. I'm lowkey disappointed to learn that despite being a returning player, everybody else on the tribe is friends with each other. Aside from Mo it sounds like they all know each other one way or another and I'm kinda left out of that connection. Even though they might not all be friends, it is a bit uncomfortable to be in a call with people where you know NOTHING they're talking about and you're not catching any of the jokes or references to other games. Also, I noticed that the personalities kinda blended together and these aren't people that I'd get along with in other orgs I play, so.. oops. One highlight of the call was that Nik was talking about Rachael and they were saying that Rachael got rid of them, I believe. Basically just talking about how they view Rachael differently because of that I guess? I was kind of in and out during that. But then DeNara posted IN THE TRIBE CHAT when it was just us three plus Kailyn on the call that Nik was spilling tea... and it was just. so. cringe. Idk if Nik or Kailyn noticed and the fact that everyone else was acting so nonchalant makes me think I missed something but either way I was on mute howling bc of second-hand embarrassment. As far as my current position, I do feel a bit comfortable with where I'm at because although I AM uncomfortable being left out of the friend group, normally I thrive early game when I get underestimated. I'm trying to just not make waves and stick to whatever plans come my way and hopefully people don't view me as a threat. Every time I'd leave and rejoin the call everybody was talking about totally normal IRL stuff so it doesn't seem like people are playing the game yet, but last round I did make a bit of an alliance with DeNara for the time being. Despite feeling like an outsider, I'm going to just continue to look at the positives of every situation because as a pessimistic person by nature, I'm inclined to feel doomed in any scenario. But this is my redemption season. I'm not here to get tenth place, I'm here to win and this season will prove itself to be an uphill battle and I'm just getting started. Tumblr Survivor has always felt like the story of Sisyphus and the Boulder to me. Look into the deeper meaning of the story and I promise a lot of the details do kind of relate to me and my character throughout my run in this community, but the general idea is that I've been tasked with a chore of having to push this heavy boulder up a neverending mountain in Hell. As a returning player, I've faced a lot of hardship when I could've just gotten the outcome I want the first time, and each return to Tumblr Survivor, I've pretty much done worse and worse since then. I'm ready to finally push that fucking boulder out of the underworld and bring myself back to the playing field I deserve to be on. For now, I'm just going to keep pushing.

So glad we won that first immunity. Why am I not surprise to see a unanimous vote for the first tribal. Even a self vote.... hopefully we win again today 

I’m already over this tribe. Keegan and Liv are the only fun ones to talk to, Joey I think tries but also doesn’t. Also low key hoping people don’t know too much about Svalbard cause if people know about Rachael and I being close that could be a problem. I’m not letting my work schedule get in the way of my activity, but it’s a bad sign to me when I’m of the most active people on the tribe. I should be the baseline, not the gold standard

I think our Tribe is a bit laid back. Not much interaction, not really that engaging. I hope Jake and Kevin did a good job at the challenge, I don't want to go to Tribal again. The typhoon here passed, I hope Tribal passes too!

Woo we got out the main inactive person. Although really my entire tribe is quiet and lowkey inactive, but Jake and I talk a lot in PMs which is good. Also Stephen is doing his best with timezones so I know he wants to play bc he's always on when he is able to be on. The next biggest inactive person on the tribe is Kevin, but he instantly volunteered to do the challenge so yay I guess. If we lose though, he is still an option to go in my mind. I'm not trying to make too much of a plan because we could win this challenge and then I'm going to try to open the vault because if we come in first I will have 10 chips. But I still need to figure out if it costs 10 chips to open the vault or if you're just not allowed to look at it until you have 10 chips.

You want a confessional, well here it is. Nothing has happened. To be honest, I’ve barely even spoken to anyone today. Or yesterday for that matter. It’s also been quiet in tribe chat.

I finally got my tribe on a call. Most of them joined in, at least for a little bit so that was nice. The only person that wasn't on call was Ben, which kind of paints him as the outsider of the tribe right now. 

...five seconds later

I want to get to know Mo better and maybe set up some sort of alliance with them, but they are so spotty with when they are on, it is difficult to keep a conversation going. I am not chill enough for this game yet lol.

ok. so like that's annoying. that challenge was supposed to be fun but jake is making a big stink. and like yeah i'm mad too but like it's over and it's just a game it's not like actual money lol. also, i don't really care if we go to tribal. makes you stronger. whatever. i'm sure he's a nice person but like i think he's just mad he lost. whatevs. 

Nik and Rachael did our challenge and won. Thank goodness it wasn't me! What my tribe will soon come to realize is I am basically useless at challenges. Rip me.

...five seconds later

Yay! Mo finally asked if I wanted to work together! Took them long enough ;-) jkjk I am excited to finally start playing this game

So after a heated and undeserved loss - sorry Dan I know we talked about it but I'm sticking to my guns - I start packing my bags. All of a sudden Stephen wants to target John, John wants to target Timmy; and nobody is throwing my name out there... Like... Hello? I just got into a public fight with production, shouldn't I be target number one? And now, Xavier and I are the swing votes... How the hell did the worst Tumblr Survivor Player and a 45 Year old man end up stuck in the middle? What the hell even is this season?

WE LOST AGAIN. So now which alliance to choose?! 

I can't believe this round. I should be the target, why - why am I not the target? I lost the challenge. I yelled at production. I am the easiest vote, but nobody is voting me! What is happening?? Timmy and Stephen made an alliance chat with Xavier and I to vote John. John and Kevin are working together to vote Timmy. Xavier says - "Jake tell me what to do!" Timmy and John are both telling me everything the other one is saying to each other, and it's amazing. I have no idea how Xavier and I are voting tonight. On one hand, you have Stephen and Timmy who seem like a really strong duo. But Stephen trusts me a lot, and if I vote out his closest ally than I'll go down that list - which could be trouble in case of the inevitable swap. John is MY closest ally, but if we vote him out the team is much more united. Do I play for ME or do I play for WE? I'm 95% sure the vote is going to be 4-2, and people are going to be blindsided.

“Theres three tribes! Means we’re less likely to have back to back tribals” -_- sure jan. So we lost again, blergh, looked like an annoying challenge. The tribe is still pretty muted, who knows whether they’re voting for me or not. I made a 4-man alliance with Timmy Jake and Xavier, which i do want, but we’ll have to see if everyone is legit. The two bad possibilities are if everyone is actually voting me for various reasons (timezone, round one oopsie, etc.) or if the real vote is jake for arguing with dan. idk, time will tell. From my POV the vote is John, pretty randomly just based on the fact of who competed in the challenge.

Hiiiiiii So I am very excited to be back in the game again. I very much enjoy my original tribe especially Andrew. We already have a Pennsylvania alliance with Stephanie and I think that that is good groundwork to have moving forward should we ever lose a challenge we already have three that are tight in at seven so if we hear anything about any of them targeting us we can do something about it. I like Livingston a lot and Joey but I can’t tell if Joey is 14 years old or not and that kind of bothers me. I am v excited to get with Kevin and see where me him and Andrew can go 

Winning is great, but we need to lose the next one or it’s gonna be a weird spot if the first swap is at 18, although it is very possible that it’s at 16. I don’t want to go into a swap with all the agency being with Luxor, or us having the most players because in both cases we get painted as the targets. Bad news all around

I have yet to confess but here goes! I feel very good on my tribe. We seem to be doing fairly well at comps so far and I would love to continue to miss Tribal as much as humanly possible. I have talked to everyone on my tribe in some capacity but I am not trying to be the one to initiate like alliances and shit before we even have to attend tribal. I just wanna be chill and lay low while also being a good member of the tribe whom people like. Keegan and I have a mutual agreement to make sure each other gets far. I got first boot in my last game and he has never made single digits here in Tumblr Survivor so let's change that. One fear with working with Keegan is that he knows how I play. I played his game, Forest of Horrors, and got rocked out at the Final 7. Keegan has since told me that I was runner up for Player of the Season. I am typically regarded as a joke in this community but Keegan is someone who knows how I play and respects how I play. This game is an entirely different scenario so I am going to likely try to keep my connection up with him.

So the vote seems like it's going to be John Coffey. I'm quite sad about it for a few reasons. He is really nice and I know we work well together in games and he is a very loyal player. Also, Jake had an entire temper tantrum last night after results and that was just extremely annoying. But, Jake is more active and talks to me more while John is a rare sighting. Tbh I would rather it be Kevin but I think they're getting a pass since they participated in the challenge...always next tribal because knowing this tribe it's a strong possibility. I swear if the next challenge is a music video though I will punch a wall since that will be my death sentence since I do not participate in those. I never feel comfortable so I just don't. If we go to tribal as a tribe of 5, that might not be that good, so just really hoping that that is not the next challenge.

ok here's the tea guys. i am pretty solid in my tribe right now. after this vote tonight there 5 of us, and 4 of us are in an alliance, which is good. HOWEVER, i'm solid with the 3 people separately. that's put me in a good spot for a tribe swap/merge. obviously we're like years away from a merge. but we could tribe swap soon. we shall see! 

[21ate]

everyman0

alright guys, i got some things to lay down about the fate of @everyman0. don’t worry: the story is NOT cancelled/going to be left unfinished, but the current hiatus stemming from the past few months may lengthen. i wanna make that clear from the start and also say that this will be a very long post, sorry! with that out of the way, lets talk:

due to recent events that ive spoken about in the past couple of days, and for my own personal reasons as well which ill talk about later down, i will be going through and scrubbing/rewriting certain sections of phase1 of everyman0. this is due in part to my agreement with the author of the callout post/blog that we have worked out in private. the individual has since rescinded their callout, as ive previously acknowledged with my last reblog, so theres no need to get up in arms about that part anymore. my focus now is to take responsibility and do what i can to make up for my past mistakes and thoughtlessness, not only as it pertains to the importance of the individual’s comfort, but also as it pertains to my own integrity as a creator

this isnt about whether or not it was fair for the individual to call me out, whether they were right or wrong, whether i am right or wrong, or anything of that sort - apologies have been issued, mutual understanding as been made, and we are moving on being better for it. what this IS about is me doing the right thing NOW, which i will do and continue doing as i have done over my lifetime without hesitation. and now as it always has been and will be, the right thing is to listen, be understanding, continue to learn and grow, and let my actions be the evidence that i am doing all of these things to the best of my ability. the me of around two years ago is vastly different than who i am today, edgier and very bad at planning things and communicating those plans just to name a few shortcomings, but we all have to start from a worse off place before we can reach a better one and is what ive always tried my best to work towards. thus, as the me of today wants to be the BEST of the best until forever, that will come with a bit of sacrifice and lots of work. that is why im deciding it would be in mine, the individual involved, and the fans of the story′s best interest to retcon everyman0 to something else - something better

honestly the initial retconning wont be a dramatic a change as this post may make it out to be thus far. i can only do so much to physically retcon what already exists in the post order without screwing everything up on down the line, so the plan for right now is simply to scrub the relevant section pertaining to the individual - removing images, posts, and so on. and, because this particular section was a set up for an in-story puzzle, i think it will be possible to rewrite, redraw, and restructure this section without too much of a hassle. this will be done over the next couple of days when i have the time

BUT, the long term plan is to not only retcon this specific section, but also rewrite ALL of the first chapter. i dont know how im going to do this yet or when, and i dont know if this may extend beyond just phase1, but phase1 will be where i start with this potentially massive overhaul. will it end up as a universal reboot of the entire blog? im unsure, but its not off the table in terms of my options

im very unhappy with how ive executed certain aspects about this story, and i have been for quite a while now actually. there have been many times where ive thought about doing things over somehow, even before this situation occurred, but i always laid those thoughts aside because i felt like it would be an impossible task and it would nullify and erase the growth that can be seen in my art and in my writing from over the blog’s run time. however, i see now that while yes this will still be a lot of work on my end, it will be worth it if it means putting out something i can be near totally satisfied with. i want to do this story i have in my head the justice i feel it deserves

i care about this situation, i care about this blog, i care about improving myself as a person towards others, i care about improving my abilities as an artist and a writer, i care about all of you who have supported me and enjoy the content i put out - and everyman0 encompasses all of these things in my eyes. whatever it is i have to do to make it awesome for myself and all of you, ill do my best to do exactly that and then some. 

thank you to all the people who have supported me, i wouldnt be where i am or who i am without you, and sincerely i say thank you to the individual who was willing and able to work things out between us in a manner that allows us both peace of mind and closure; it really means a lot. now that thats all said, i hope u all have a great day! ~ REN

[stillthewordgirl]

LOT/CC fic: Somewhere On Your Road Tonight (ch. 12 of 16)

Sara and Leonard made a life for themselves, together in 1958, after the Waverider left them, Ray and Kendra behind. But now they're back on the ship, Mick has been twisted into Chronos, Kendra is pregnant, and Savage is still out there. They'll deal--together. (Sequel to "Chances Are.")

The second of the "River of Time" chapters! Turns out Leonard couldn't completely avoid everything that happened to him in the original(?) timeline.

Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta! This can also be read here at AO3 or here at FF.net.

Leonard’s wanted Savage defeated since he first saw Rip’s image of his city in flames, over the rooftops of Central City that fateful day.

He’s wanted Savage dead since the day the warlord threatened to kill Mick, not so long into their mission.

The way he feels now combines both those feelings and still makes them pale in comparison.

He pauses outside the brig and takes a few deep, steadying breaths, recalling every lesson learned though decades of being Lewis Snart’s son. He has a certain scary conviction that Lewis and Savage are more similar than anyone else might consider.

But he considers. He considers for a long few moments.

And then he saunters into the brig, head held high.

Savage isn’t facing him. The warlord is leaning against the wall, facing away. “Dr. Stein,” he starts in his oozing voice, starting to turn, “I told you, I…”

He stops when he sees his visitor, though, and Leonard thinks there’s actually a flicker of surprise there. Interesting. Leonard halts, folding his arms and regarding Savage with a mildly interested but unenthused expression. He doesn’t speak.

Savage doesn’t let on to anything past that second of surprise, though. He finishes turning, studying the thief intently, and then smiles.

“Ah,” he says, folding his hands in front of himself. “Mr. Snart. I will confess, I was not expecting a visit from you.”

Leonard tilts his head and lifts an eyebrow. It’s an invitation to continue, and Savage takes it.

“The others, certainly.” The warlord takes a deliberate step closer, then another. “They have questions, or they simply want to gawk.” The smile grows. “You, however, do not seem the sort to fall prey to such…prosaic concerns.”

Leonard smirks at him. He knows an attempt to flatter when he hears it. He wants no part of that from Vandal Savage, but he knows how to play the game.

“What can I say?” he drawls with a shrug. “I do tend to be curious.”

Savage inclines his head, keeping his eyes on Leonard.

“Well, I’m glad,” he says. “I think, perhaps, that we have more in common than the rest of this…” he waves a hand, “…motley collection Captain Hunter has assembled.”

Leonard’s eyes narrow before he can stop himself. “We’re nothing alike,” he says a bit sharply, then, cursing his reaction, smooths it out a bit. “For one thing, I’m out here.” Another tilt of his head toward Savage, locked in the brig. “And you…well.”

Oh, the other man doesn’t like that. His eyes narrow, too, before he also attempts to hide it. “But you have to know that none of this group of so-called heroes would hesitate to put you in here as well, in any other circumstance,” he said smoothly. “For simply being what you are. Something far more pragmatic and far less holier-than-thou than they are.” He spreads his hands out. “A survivor.”

He’s good. There’s just enough truth in there that once, it might have even hit a nerve. But Leonard’s been through more than he thinks Savage knows, with this team and particularly three other members of it, and he’s not the person he used to be either. Still, it seems best to play along, a little. He gives Savage a thin smile, one that could be read as agreement or simply understanding.

“Indeed,” he drawls, studying his nails. “And you’re good at that, too, aren’t you? In a manner of speaking.” He looks up, suddenly. “Too good to get trapped here so easily, I’d think.”

Savage stares, then smiles back, a similar expression, thin and considering. He waits.

And Leonard continues. “So, I’m thinking,” he says casually, starting to pace in an equally insouciant manner, “that you might just want to be here.” He turns, ambling slowly back to the left, not looking at Savage. “And I’ll admit, I’m wondering why.”

Stop. Turn. He finally looks back at the man in the brig.

Savage’s expression isn’t quite what he’d expected. He’d expected anger, or maybe surprise. Consternation, maybe. A combination of all three.

But, no. No, Savage looks thrilled. Like he’s found himself someone who gets it.

“Well. Well. Well,” the other man says. “I think we need to have a talk, Mr. Snart. I think maybe we can come to…a mutually beneficial agreement.” A pause. “Let me out, and we’ll talk. I think the Time Masters could use a clever and pragmatic man like yourself.”

And then he smiles. A big smile. A commiserating one.

It turns Leonard’s stomach, actually. He resists the wave of nausea, though, and keeps his expression steely, watching Savage, trying to decide how to play this. In some ways, Savage just confirmed something, but he needs more information. And letting Savage out won’t be good for anyone.

But neither would allowing things to continue as they are.

Leonard makes himself take one step closer to the door of the brig, the warlord’s eyes on him avidly. Then he pauses, as if considering something.

“Tell me first,” he says casually, looking at Savage. “Confirm that I’m right. That you’re working with the Time Masters.” He pauses again. “I need to hear that. Before I commit.” He lets his eyes drift to the lock. “Because if I do this…I’m committed.”

Savage studies him, his face giving nothing away. Then he starts to speak…

Raymond almost skids into the brig, like he’s been running, coming to a halt a few feet from Leonard and pulling himself up, like he’s been entrusted with a very important task. He doesn’t even look at Savage, but he grins at Leonard as if the other man has given him a very surprising gift.

“I have your back,” he tells Leonard staunchly. “I’m sorry; it took Sara a few more minutes to find me. I was…”

Leonard holds up a hand, and Raymond stops. He’d actually just about forgotten he’d asked Sara to send the other man for backup, a measure of how uneasy he was about Savage, so this is his fault, really, he thinks. There’s not even any point in blaming Raymond. More’s the pity.

For a moment, both he and Savage stare at the scientist, whose grin flags just a little.

Then Savage sighs, just a bit dramatically, and shakes his head.

“Oh, Dr. Palmer,” he says almost pityingly. “Incredibly bad timing as usual.”

Leonard can’t disagree, but Raymond’s chin goes up and he looks at his teammate as if expecting a defense. When Leonard shrugs, he rolls his eyes and looks back at Savage.

“Well,” he retorts, “could be worse. I’m out here and you’re in there, after all.”

Leonard closes his eyes with a sigh, bidding farewell to any hopes of getting more out of Savage. The warlord is focused on Raymond now, a sly smile on his face…and, oh crap, this probably isn’t good at all.

“You…now, you, I’ve been expecting for a while now,” he says a bit mockingly to the scientist. “I’m surprised it’s taken you so long, to be honest.”

Raymond starts to speak again, but Savage talks right over the top of him. “Here to ask how to free your rival’s mind, are you?” He smirks as Leonard and Raymond stare at him. “The moment I release him, you know, you will lose her forever. We're actually quite alike, you and I.”

He leers at them both…but as the silence continues and Leonard and Raymond keep staring at him, that expression flags a little. Then it vanishes, and Savage’s eyes narrow in ire.

It occurs to Leonard that they could use this. Things are clearly different than Savage—just like Chronos—had been led to believe they would be. He whips his head around to look at his teammate, his own eyes narrowed.

“Raym…” he starts to say warningly.

But it’s too late. Raymond finds his voice—and laughs at Savage, an amused sound that also manages an edge of scorn.

“Wow,” he tells the captive. “You’re really behind the times. And what makes you think Carter’s even on this ship?”

Savage takes a step closer to the clear barrier. Leonard sees something flash through his eyes—dismay, rage, consternation. A plan pops into his head, then. Probably not a good idea—OK, definitely not a good idea—but sometimes you gotta roll the dice.

“Chay-Ara would never…” Savage starts.

“First, she’s not Chay-Ara now. She’s Kendra. Second, that wasn’t even Carter, or the version of Khufu she knew,” Raymond informs him. “Third…”

Leonard steps in before the altogether-too-forthcoming scientist can spill even more beans than he has. “I think,” he says smoothly, “that we need…more information.” He gives Raymond a look. The other man’s eyes widen, and he gives Leonard a solemn look in return, but Leonard’s already studying Savage again.

“Raymond,” he says quietly. “Go away.”

“Yeah…what?” But then Raymond nods, jerkily, and takes a step back as Leonard glances over. “Oh. Um. OK.” He looks at Savage. And then smirks. Widely. “OK.”

Leonard’s almost proud at the sheer un-Raymond-like attitude. But he waits another long moment for the other man to leave before looking back at Savage. The warlord is staring after the scientist with an expression that looks part baffled and part enraged.

“So,” Leonard drawls, dragging Savage’s attention back to him, “where were we?”

Savage stares at him a moment, then steps closer to the glass. “The man named Carter Hall,” he says. “He isn’t on this ship?”

Leonard considers lying, just for a moment. “Nope,” he drawls, though, folding his arms. “I mean, he was, at best, a reincarnation of Carter Hall. And he was a real asshat.” Savage actually snorts, and Leonard smirks. But he doesn’t say anything more about that.

Instead, he redirects the conversation again. “We were talking,” he says casually, stepping closer. “And…?”

Savage regards him. “Let me out,” he says finally. “I need a gesture too. Before I give you anything.”

Leonard regards him in return. Then he pulls his cold gun out of his holster and primes it, pushing it to the highest setting.

This is a bad idea. This is a very bad idea. But every instinct in him says they’re on their way to disaster at the Vanishing Point. And the need to stand between that and Sara…and frankly, all the others…is strong indeed. If he can get anything, anything at all, out of Savage…well, he’ll do it.

He hesitates a moment…and then slaps the lock to the brig, opening the door.

Savage steps out, face solemn, eyes bright and altogether too pleased. Leonard points the cold gun at him, grimly, watching him intently for any sign of the trouble he’s sure is coming.

“OK,” he grits out. “You’re out. Tell me. What are the Time Masters up to?”

Savage smiles, holding his hands out to either side. “I’ll admit, I’m still wondering,” he says smoothly. “You were…not a visitor I expected. I thought, at first, that perhaps it was just that native pragmatism, that you saw how the wind was blowing and came to make a deal.” He takes a step toward Leonard. “But. I wonder.”

Leonard’s eyes narrow. He raises his gun a little, aiming it right at the warlord, the blue light reflected in Savage’s eyes. “This wasn’t the deal. I want to know about the Time Masters.”

Savage continues as if he hadn’t spoken. “From everything I know of you, Mr. Snart, you’re not one to care about anyone other than yourself. Not much, anyway. Your partner the arsonist, perhaps, to some extent.” He tilts his head. “But. Something has changed. Hasn’t it? Well, well. And how did that happen?” His smile grows even slyer. “You care for someone on this crew of losers.”

Leonard steps forward before he can stop himself, hand tightening on the cold gun’s trigger. “Talk or get back in the goddamned brig,” he hisses. “I just want to know the truth.”

“It’s not Chay-Ara. Or the scientist,” Savage muses, continuing his thought. “Certainly not the captain.” A light appears in his eyes. “Ah. The assassin. Oooh, Mr. Snart. She is lovely. Is that what you want, then? You want the Time Masters to give her to you. In exchange for…”

The very idea is both absurd and stomach-churching, and Leonard can’t keep this up any longer. “Don’t you even say her name,” he snaps, unable to keep the fury from his tone. “You…

But he’s distracted now, angry and disgusted, and it’s enough. Savage takes the chance, lunging like a striking snake and grabbing the cold gun, wrenching it around. Leonard catches himself quickly enough to fight him for it, but while they’re grappling for the gun, Savage gets a hand on the trigger and a spray of blue-white energy emits from it, freezing an icy path across the ceiling, the wall, and…

And, as Savage gives the weapon another jerk, across Leonard’s right hand.

He yells, but it’s not like it hurts. Not at first. It’s too much of a shock, a jarring sensation of extreme cold and then numbness. More than numbness, really, though that’s how his brain processes it. Because at that setting, the hand isn’t even living flesh anymore; it’s already shreds of dead, frozen tissue encased in ice. There’s no saving it, and he can’t think about that right now, he can’t, he’s still fighting Savage as best he can.

But the blast was a shock to his system, and no matter how he tries to hang onto the gun with his other hand, his body and his brain have other ideas, like shutting down and curling up to figuratively lick his wounds. Savage yanks the gun away, laughing triumphantly, and…

Raymond crashes back into the brig, in his Atom suit, hand out and energy beam blasting forward to strike the surprised Savage full on, smashing the warlord across the room and into the wall. He drops like a stone, unconscious, the cold gun skittering across the floor in a way that would irritate Leonard if he wasn’t trying desperately to stay conscious despite the shock. It still doesn’t quite hurt; he’s pretty sure that will come later as things start… thawing…

Raymond studies Savage for a second, then apparently decides the man is truly down for the count and looks at Leonard instead. Leonard, glancing upward as a cold sweat breaks out on his forehead, sees Raymond’s eyes widen as he steps forward.

“Oh,” he breathes. “Oh, crap. Snart…”

Leonard knows he probably owes the scientist his life, but he’s not up for admitting that just yet. “You…coulda…busted in here…sooner,” he pants, curled protectively around the hand that is no longer really a hand.

“I went and got my suit, just in case; I’ve only been back a moment and I didn’t realize you were in trouble at first.” There’s distress in the scientist’s eyes as Leonard peers up at him. “Let’s get you to the medbay.”

“We need…to get Savage…back in the cell first.”

“You can’t…”

That’s when Rip runs into the room, his gun in his hand, although he puts on the brakes immediately to take in the scene in front of him. Relief at the sight of Savage out of commission resolves into dismay at the sight of Leonard and his hand…and faint irritation that seems to be directed at Raymond.

“Bloody hell,” he says with an explosive sigh. “Gideon said Vandal Savage was free. Dr. Palmer, do you realize…”

“I didn’t let him out!” the other man protests. “It was…ah…”

The room’s starting to swim in front of Leonard’s eyes, and the line where living flesh meets frozen is starting to, it seems, register what’s happened. He puts his shoulder against the wall, closing his eyes and fighting nausea and a rising tide of pain, then forces them open again.

“Don’t blame him, Rip,” he mutters. “It was me.”

The look of consternation on Rip’s face would be amusing if he was in a little better condition. Leonard shakes his head roughly, trying to clear his head. He can’t even manage his usual smirk.

“I’m going to presume that you weren’t trying to set him loose on all of us, but then what…” The captain stops himself and sighs. “But not now. Let’s get you to the medbay and get you fixed up.”

There’s only so much fixing that’s going to be possible, and Leonard doesn’t want to think about it. “Who’s flying the ship?” he mutters, watching as Rip and Raymond drag the still-senseless Savage into the brig and close the door securely. “Thought there was enough damage you needed someone on the bridge.”

“Ms. Lance, actually,” the captain tells him, dusting his hands off and scowling at Savage’s prone figure through the clear barrier. “With Gideon’s assistance.”

“Huh.” Leonard closes his eyes again. He’s starting to gray out…and he’s pretty sure he’s going to lose the battle against it soon.

“Good,” he slurs. “Good. Most competent person on this…bucket…”

And that’s when he passes out.

When Leonard wakes up again, there’s no more pain. Except for some residual grogginess, his head is clear, though there’s the sort of distance he associates with good painkillers, the kind he rarely allows himself to take.

And he doesn’t have a right hand.

Leonard tilts his head and studies the stump clinically, glad for the distance granted by drugs, for once. While he was out, someone must have melted what remained of the hand and trimmed the dead flesh away, which wouldn’t have been a pleasant process. The line of amputation otherwise seems to be clean. Odd.

He’s in a medbay-type chair, slightly reclined, and his right arm is resting, lightly strapped down, on a low table next to it. Above the stump, there’s a suspended, thin cylinder that’s glowing glue and pointed downward. He’s only started studying it, though, when Rip bustles into the room, Mick right behind him.

“Ah, you are awake!” The captain nods to him, then starts tapping at a screen nearby. “This will just be a moment, Mr. Snart. We’ve slowed our approach just for you, I’ll have you know. Thought you’d want to go through this first, given your trepidation about the Vanishing Point.”

Leonard frowns at him, but he’s also distracted by Mick, who’s standing there at the foot of the chair, glaring at him in a way in which Leonard’s pretty sure he’s glared at Mick after any number of particularly foolish moves over the years.

“You’re an idiot,” Mick tells his friend, tone harsh in a way that Leonard knows perfectly well hides other feelings.

Well, things may be different now, but Leonard’s not really up for having that talk at the moment. “No argument,” he says, resting his head back against the chair. “Ship OK? I mean, we’re apparently not dead.”

Rip ignores him. Mick scowls. “Not for lack of trying,” he mutters, then repeats: “Idiot.”

Leonard gives him a long-suffering look, then blinks, remembering the state of other things before his own debacle with Savage. “Wait. How’s the kid?”

“Jax? Gone.” Mick waves a hand as Leonard’s eyes widen. “Not like that. Me an’ the professor sent him back to 2016 to save his life. Should work.”

“Good.” Well, at least one of them might get out of this alive.

“Well, not for the professor.” However, Mick continues before Leonard can ask about that. “You’re a lucky bastard, Snart. But you still gotta face the music for being a dumbass.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a stupid move. I…”

“No. I meant Blondie. She’s gonna be in here next.” Mick grins evilly as Leonard closes his eyes. “Have fun. I suggest groveling.”

“I don’t grovel.” He hates the whine in his own voice, but frankly, it’s been a rough day. Mick just chuckles, shakes his head, and leaves.

“Oh, given Ms. Lance’s ire, I think you might want to consider it.” Rip claps his hands together. “Especially since you’re going to be a captive audience for the next little while. Gideon, start the regeneration process.”

The pen thing starts to glow more. Leonard eyes it, and Rip, with uncertainty. “What do you mean by ‘regeneration?’” He’d make a Doctor Who joke if he was in a better mood. As it is, he’s feeling a quiver of hope he didn’t suspect was possible.

“I took genetic samples from each of you at the start of our voyage,” the captain tells him almost cheerfully, “for this exact eventuality.”

It’s a little disconcerting, that Rip thought it was that possible this would be necessary. A spray of blue light is now emitting from the pen thing, spilling onto the stump of Leonard’s right arm. He stares at it, feeling his skin prickle.

“Why am I only hearing about this now?” he drawls, glancing at the captain.

Rip actually smiles. “Because none of you had lost a limb yet.”

Good point. Leonard watches in fascination as the light grows stronger, and then: “Ow.”

It’s like it’s a 3-D printer, but for flesh and bone. And it seems like it should actually be hurting far more than it is, considering that there’s now a skeletal hand protruding from the blunt termination of his wrist. And the sight’s both creepy and incredible, but it’s not like that for long—next is a network of nerves and blood vessels, muscles, and then skin, over the top of it all like a blank slate, scars he’s had for decades gone as it they’d never been there.

The entire process takes seconds. Leonard’s new fingers twitch involuntarily as he stares at them. He’d forced himself not to think about what life would hold for a thief without his dominant hand, and this…this is a miracle unlooked for. He’s not sure what to do with it.

Rip chuckles, the sound full of pleasure in the tricks his beloved ship has up her metaphorical sleeve. In a smooth motion, he tosses something toward Leonard, and the other man catches it involuntarily—a stress ball, the sort used to exercise injured or weak hands or wrists.

“Stay here until you’re sure you’re steady,” the captain instructs. “You’ve had a great many shocks to your system.” The smile goes a little sly. “And, as Mr. Rory said, you have to face the music.”

Leonard stares after him as he tries to tell his hand to contract its fingers around the ball. He’s still watching the door when Sara stalks in.

He’s already mentally rehearsing what he’s going to say to her, but that all flies out the window when he gets a good look. He’d expected anger and irritation for doing such a dumb thing—and those emotions are there, in spades. He deserves them, and he knows that.

But as she steps closer, he can see Sara’s eyes are red-rimmed, the bright blue even brighter in contrast with her skin. She’s been crying. About him? Or is something else…

“What’s wrong?” he blurts out uncharacteristically.

Sara’s eyes narrow. Oops.

“You’re an idiot,” she tells him, voice matter-of-fact.

“Mick has informed me of that fact.” Leonard pauses, searching for the right thing to say. “I’m sorry?”

Sara rolls her eyes at him, pulling up a chair and taking a seat. “You better be,” she mutters, inspecting his hand, which is resting again on the table. “That’s incredible.”

Leonard tries to get his fingers to flex again and is pleased when they respond, mostly. “Yeah. I’ll admit that. I owe ol’ Rip.”

Sara eyes him again. She’s all too obviously not going to let herself be distracted. “ ‘What’s wrong,’” she repeats carefully. “Did you really mean that?”

Leonard blinks at her. “Yes? Mick said Stein found a way to save Jax. Is there something…”

He lets his voice trail off. Given the look Sara’s giving him, it seems the best thing to do.

She sits back in her chair a moment and studies him, then shakes her head. “Do you have any idea,” she says carefully. “what you looked like when Mick carried you into the medbay earlier?”

“No?”

“You were unconscious, pale as…as ice. And your hand…” Sara takes a deep breath. “It was melting. And there were…rags…of dead skin, blackened flesh, hanging off your arm. It was…I’ve seen some rough things, Leonard. This was…it was bad. And what was there was rough, jagged, and…” She let her voice trail off then. “Gideon sedated you so you wouldn’t wake up in the middle of it, and Stein helped walk me through…cleaning things up.”

Leonard swallows hard. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that.” Sara glares at him. “What on earth possessed you to let Savage out? You kept saying he was a danger to all of us. What…”

“I thought I could get him to tell me what he was up to. ‘Cause it turned out he thought I was there to throw my lot in with his.” He gives her a thin smile as she swears. “I’m a villain, after all.”

“You’re more than that, and everyone on this ship but Vandal Savage knows it.” Sara studies him. “Still a stupid thing to do.”

“Indubitably.”

“You tried to play him.” She shakes her head. “And he used me against you. Yeah, Gideon gave us access to the video records. I heard it. He distracted you.”

The last thing—one of the last things—Leonard wants is for her to blame herself in any shape or form. “If it wasn’t you, it would have been something else,” he admits. “The minute I let him out of the brig. But…”

“But Savage worries you that much.”

“Yeah.” He hesitates. “He came pretty close to confirming that he’s working with the Time Masters, even if I didn’t get him to say it point blank. Did Rip see that?”

Sara sighs. “After the fact, yes. But it didn’t change anything. He thinks this is our only option.” She stands, then, and holds a hand out to him, and Leonard knows he’s (mostly) forgiven. He slips his left hand into hers, levering himself upward with a grunt, and has to pause to fight back vertigo. After a moment, they start back into the hallway, though Sara steers him in the direction of the bridge instead of their room.

“We’re almost to the Vanishing Point,” she says quietly. “I think we both probably want to see what happens.”

Leonard would really like to lie down, which seems silly given that he’s apparently spent a good deal of time unconscious recently. But Sara’s right about that.

“Hear you flew the ship,” he says, trying to make his tone light, glancing over at her.

“Yeah.” Sara’s lips curve. “Not a thing I’d ever thought I’d want to do. But I enjoyed it.”

“Told our captain you were the most competent person on this ship.” He chuckles a little as she lifts an eyebrow at him. “And then I passed out. That’s one way to get the last word around here.”

“Yeah, well, don’t you ever try it on me.”

All of the others are on the bridge, all watching the viewscreen, when they enter. Leonard ignores Raymond’s enthusiastic greeting and requests to see his new hand and nods in acknowledgement of Stein and Kendra’s pleased welcome—and Mick’s still-irritated grunt. He sits with alacrity in one of the jump seats, trying not to look like he’s exhausted from walking just the distance from the medbay to the bridge.

“Is that…” Sara starts, stepping closer to where Rip is sitting, staring out the viewscreen. Leonard looks, too. The odd, complicated jumble of black structures there at the supposed edge of the timeline is like nothing he’s ever seen before, but…

He shakes his head roughly as a shiver runs down his spine.

“Welcome to the Vanishing Point,” Rip tells them.

And Leonard feels…

The closest thing he can think of is the start of a panic attack. The breathless feeling of something-not-right-something-horribly-wrong, the way his heart starts racing, the chill that overtakes him. He drags in a deep breath, trying to regain control. None of the others seem to notice…well, except for Mick, who’s watching him with narrowed eyes.

“I can't believe we made it,” Stein is saying.

Sara hums in agreement, then pauses. There’s a slight hitch in the ship’s motion, and Leonard feels it too, but he’s focusing too much on regulating his breathing to say anything.

“Did you just lose control of the ship?” she asks.

“Yeah, that might have something to do with us being the most wanted time criminals in all of history.” Rip hops up from the captain’s chair, smiling as if he hadn’t just said something rather alarming.

As he does so, a man’s face appears on their viewscreen, stern and unfamiliar.

“Timeship Waverider, we've taken control of your guidance systems,” he announces. “Disable your weapons and prepare to be boarded.”

Rip chuckles. “Oh, it's good to be home.”

The other Time Master pauses. “Captain Hunter,” he says. “This is…unexpected.”

“Well, I have a reputation to maintain, don't I?” Rip smiles at him. “And I hereby request an immediate assembly of the Time Council in accordance with General Order 52.”

“So you've returned to answer for your crimes?”

“No. I'm here to justify them.”

They’re at the Vanishing Point now. There’s only so much they can do, even if Leonard’s right and this is all going to go downhill fast.

Sara makes sure she has an array of knives tucked around her person—but then, she always does. She doesn’t miss that Leonard immediately goes to the armory to find his cold gun, double-checking it before holstering it securely at his side.

But then they both return to their room. If everything does all to hell, they want to be together.

The others had disappeared to their own various pursuits when Rip had left the ship. Sara sighs as she looks around the room, trying to figure out if there’s anything more they can do. She hates waiting.

Leonard, who’s still edgy in a way that’s clearly nerves, scoops their deck of cards up from the desk and waves it at her. And it seems like there would be worse things.

It’s not a good game, though. He’s jumpy and unhappy, and he keeps flexing the fingers of his right hand like he can’t believe they’re there. For her part, Sara keeps seeing, in her mind’s eye, what Leonard had looked like when she’d entered the brig only…what, a few hours ago? They’re both distracted, and they’re not playing well, and…

Leonard’s head jerks up again, the third time in maybe a minute.

“Did you hear that?” he asks, eyes darting around.

She hadn’t, actually. “Don't try to distract me.”

Another moment passes. Leonard suddenly gets to his feet, crossing to the door, listening intently. “We need to find somewhere to hide.”

Sara sits down her cards and cautiously joins him. “Could we fight our way out?” she asks carefully. She can’t hear whatever he seems to be hearing. Which is odd, actually.

But Leonard shakes his head emphatically. “No,” he says, then reaches out to take her hand. “C’mon.”

Sara lets him take it but raises her voice. “Gideon, warn the others!”

Only silence greets her words.