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anyoneseenadam · 3 years ago

Note

You write fenrys so well 🥺

Can I request something for him falling in love with a lady who works in a library and is friends with aelin and he keeps finding excuses to visit the library and one day they realize they’re mates ? Can you plz include alot of longing looks & touched and his friends noticing ?

pairing: Fenrys x reader (throne of glass)

warnings: drinking, small argument, mainly fluff

a/n: kay so it's been a hot MINUTE since I've posted and I am sorry my loves, also I comepletely modified this but I hope you still like it, comment and shiz pls it really helps with writers block lol <33

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You had met Aelin sometime after the war. She had been wandering around town a couple days after the coronation, smiling at children and waving at the elderly, observing the way the town was slowly filling again, people returning home now it was safe. There weren’t many people about however, it just being seven in the morning.

She had walked past a shop then. It was small and rickety, the door barely on its hinges as a girl fought with it, swearing like a sailor.

“Do you need some help?” she asked, moving to stand beside the girl. You screamed instantly, jumping out of your skin at her sudden appearance, having not heard anyone coming due to how absorbed you were in your job. Aelin screamed when you screamed, and it left the two of you staring at each other with wide eyes before you fell apart in fits of laughter.

You stood from where you had bent to clutch your stomach, wiping tears from your eyes as you calmed down.

“Jeez you fucking gave me a heart attack,” you laughed as she apologised, still giggling behind her hand. You then turned, hands on your hips as you glared at the door of your shop.

“Rude men should be put down,” you muttered and Aelin was laughing again.

“That I can get behind,” she said as you opened it, giving up on fixing it completely, Aelin gasping when she saw the inside.

“You have a bookshop!” she exclaimed, and you laughed.

“Had, now I just have dusty books and a broken door. It was my mother’s before…” you trailed off and Aelin put a hand on your shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and you shrugged.

“It’s fine, it was ages ago anyway,” you stepped further into the shop, going to the large window up front and tugging of the white sheet that obscured it from light. “However, this shop isn’t dead yet so might as well get it done.”

Aelin looked around the shop, the paper on the walls was peeling, the paint on the shelves cracked and the books covered in a fine layer of dust. “Damn, where do we start?” she asked, rolling up her sleeves and grinning at you when you whirled around, frowning at her.

“Doesn’t the queen have better things to do?” you asked, and she shrugged, laughing at your bewildered expression.

“I’m sure my husband will cope.” You gave her an unsure look at that, and she laughed, “He’s competent.”

“If you say so.”

“If you knew I was queen you really have no fear of authority do you?” she asked as you started pulling books down and pilling them onto the sheet you just pulled off the window.

“Respect is earned, plus you’re the one who made me shit myself.” She laughed again, smiling widely, and helping you take down more books as she realised this was the most she had laughed since the war ended.

The worked all day. First removing the books and putting them upstairs in the rundown apartment you lived in, filled with plants, blankets, and somehow even more books. Next the repainted the shelves, setting them outside to dry while they re-wallpapered the walls and cleaned the floor until it was shining.

When the sky got darker you swore as you realised neither of you had eaten all day, going up to your new friend and asking her what she wanted for dinner.

“I make really good pasta,” you had suggested, and she had nodded enthusiastically as you went upstairs to your apartment, drinking wine as you cooked together. As you ate on the floor, drinking yet another bottle of wine, this time straight from the bottle Aelin asked about your past.

You assured her it was relatively normal, asides from the whole ‘evil tyrant thing’ as you put it. You talked together for hours, going back downstairs, and bringing the now dry, sage green shelves back in and putting all the books away, setting them in categories.

Hours later Aelin decided to go home, not wanting to worry so much and she opened the still broken door, the both of you laughing as you realised you had forgotten a pretty integral part.

“Hey, you could just name the shop, ‘the broken door’,” she suggested, and you smiled.

“That would work.”

When Aelin got home she was met with a concerned Rowan, asking where she had been all day.

She smiled at him, pausing before answering, “I think I have a new best friend.”

Rowan frowned at that, “And what brings you to that conclusion?”

“Today was the first time I’ve laughed since…” she trailed off as silence fell at the thought of their past few months, Rowan then bringing her in for a hug.

“You know this means I have to meet her too then,”

“Nope my best friend get your own.” She shoved him playfully, falling asleep next to him that night with a smile on her face.

They went to see you the next morning and Aelin laughed when she saw your dishevelled state.

“Did you sleep?” she asked when she walked into the shop and found signs put up and plants dotted around the room as you sat on the floor, drinking a coffee that smelt so strong she almost gagged, much preferring sweeter tastes.

“Sleep is for the weak!” you said, half-heartedly raising your hand.

“And what’s with all the plants?” Rowan asked, frowning as he almost walked into another and you sat up straighter, glaring at him.

“What you too good for plants?” you asked your hands moving over-exaggeratedly as you got to your feet. “Don’t listen to him, he’s just a stinky man,” you whispered to the plants and Aelin laughed at her husbands offended face.

You stood and started walking upstairs, your feet dragging as you went to get breakfast. You heard them follow you and you pushed open the door to your flat.

You had even more plants up here and Rowan rolled his eyes as you moved to open the large windows, letting in fresh air, you then moved about making pancakes, mixing enough for the three of you and adding blueberries when you were finished.

You cooked them up while chatting idly with Aelin and Rowan, only receiving a small amount of judgement when Aelin discovered you didn’t actually have a bed and instead just a mattress on the floor with a sheet for warmth and some soft pillows. Your house was newly decorated, art hung on the walls, plants and candles decorating every surface.

“Tea, coffee, water, vodka?” you offered them drinks and Aelin whined.

“No vodka, we had too much wine last night,” you laughed at that as you served up coffee and pancakes.

“Yeah we’ll have to go properly drinking some night,” you muttered, Rowan chuckling under his breath and nodding in agreement.

The three of you ate the rest of your food, laughing and joking together and Rowan really noticed the difference in Aelin’s manner. She hadn’t been truly comfortable or at ease in months, always looking over her shoulder, but now she sat laughing with her friend and Rowan wanted to thank you a million times over for bringing her back out of her shell.

Since you first met Aelin you were meeting up almost every day, discussing books over tea and hanging out at your shop, or drinking from expensive glasses in her castle while trying on elaborate dresses. Soon you were practically apart of the family, but that didn’t stop the confusion Fenrys felt when he walked into the castle and found a young girl sleeping on Aelins’ bed, a book opened but abandoned on her chest.

He tentatively walked forward so he could see her more clearly and felt his heart clench when his eyes fall upon her peaceful face, her eyes closed, and hair spread around her head like a halo. He was about to reach a hand out to brush a strand of hair from her soft hair when he heard the door open, turning to see Aelin run in, wrapping her arms tightly around him.

“Fenrys I didn’t know you were back,” she said when she pulled back, bouncing on the soles of her feet excitedly and he laughed.

“Are you going to explain why there’s a girl in your bed, or do I need to break some news to Rowan,” he joked and she shoved his shoulder before moving to the bed and shaking the girl awake.

“It’s just (y/n),” she explained as the girl huffed and rolled away from Aelin.

“Ah of course this person who I definitely knew existed,” Aelin stuck her finger up at him as he laughed, unable to stop his eyes from trailing back to her.

He watched as she breathed in deeply, her eyes opening slowly as she took him in, before she pulled her covers up to over her chin and frowned at him and Aelin with a small pout.

“I was having the best dream every asshole,” she complained and Fenrys smiled as she sat up on her elbows and reached a hand out to him to shake, introducing herself. He brushed the shake of and instead brought her hand to his mouth pressing a kiss to the back of it as sparks show through her skin at the sensation.

“I’m Fenrys, ambassador of Terrasen,” he smiled cheekily as she shrunk away slightly, nerves taking over her, “hope to see you around more.”

He left, pressing a quick kiss to Aelin’s temple, and winking at you as Aelin moved over to you with wide eyes.

“Aelin…” you started as she squealed.

“He was totally flirting with you! You would be such a cute couple, please, please ask him out I need you two to get married and have to worlds prettiest babies!” she was bouncing in hr seat as you moved to shut her up.

“Okay ONE, I just met him. And TWO, he was far too pretty for me,” you said and Aelin frowned.

“Nope, nope you are incorrect, and he is going to fall in love with you,” she demanded, and you laughed, kicking her with your foot.

“Mhm sure.”

The next few days, Fenrys was coming to your shop every day. He would bring chocolates and flowers some days, or coffee and pastries other days. Always dropping them off with a smile, before lounging in the plush, green chair in the corner of the shop and talking to you for hours. He has also started coming to your and Aelin’s weekly cocktail night, wrapping his arm around your shoulder’s and laughing drunkenly into your neck as you told stories.

However, through all this you remained ‘friends’. He would press kisses to your cheek and hands, keep an arm slung around your waist when men came to speak at you at bars and primarily referred to you using pet names and rarely ever your actual name. And it was getting frustrating.

You were having to start putting genuine effort to not kiss him every time you had a drink and he sat extra close to you. Or when you were invited to parties, and he moved smoothly through the countless questions asking if you were dating.

And while you revelled in the attention it was tearing at your heart slightly as insecurities told you that he would never actually be interested in you. You wanted to scream at him every time he kissed you but wanted to melt into him every time he hugged you, your brain constantly at battle with itself when he was near.

You knew you were due to explode any time soon. So when you were out one night and he was holding you extra close, you pulled away, muttering an excuse about getting another drink.

Standing at the bar as you waited you rested you head in your hands for a second before you saw a man begin to approach you. He was attractive, not like Fenrys, but honestly you would take anything to get your mind of him at the moment, so you smiled at him, tilting your head.

“What’s a doll like you doing all alone?” he asked, his voice rough and gravelly, unlike the smooth, deep timbre you were used to, but you just laughed.

“Waiting for a man to not dehumanise me,” you bit back, and he raised his hands sheepishly.

“Sorry about that, what would you prefer?” he flirted, sidling up closer to you as you turned to face him.

“Can’t go wrong with ma’am,” you joked, and he laughed, looking down and shaking his head, only to look back up, his eyes going wide. You felt a familiar hand wrap around your waist and looked up to see Fenrys, resisting the urge to roll your eyes as he glared at the man in front of you.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, his voice deep and full of authority, the man in front of you shrinking under his gaze.

“Shit sorry man, didn’t realise she had a boyfriend,” he apologised and this time you did roll your eyes.

“He’s not my-“ you began but Fenrys cut you off.

“Yeah she does, so back the fuck off.” You looked down as he spoke, shaking your head as tears of frustration built in your eyes. You harshly pulled out of his grip, leaving the bar as quickly as you could, wiping away the escaped tears as you heard Fenrys follow after you, shouting your name.

You whirled around when you got outside, your glare murderous.

“You do not get to do that!” you shouted as he moved closer to you.

“Sweetheart I’m sorry,” he began but you cut him off.

“NO! I am not your girlfriend! You have never once asked me to be so you don’t get to try scare away any guy that might have genuine interest in me!” his shoulders slumped as you spoke. Truthfully, he has been working up the courage to ask you out for months, and while he knew it was unfair how he treated you, he couldn’t help himself. He was addicted. He thought of you constantly, the texture of your skin, the smell of your hair, the way your eyes lit up and the way you moved your hands as you spoke. So when he saw you engage with the man that had the audacity to talk to you, his grip tightened on his glass so much it shattered, ignoring the worried looks from Aelin and Rowan as he stomped over to you.

“(y/n) listen, I’ve been an asshole I know,” he raised his hands, tentatively stepping towards you, “But I really care about you, and I want to be yours.”

You laughed bitterly, “You’re just saying that.”

He shook his head vehemently, stepping closer to you again and wrapping his arms around your shoulders so gently, one would think you were made of glass.

“I love you darling, please be mine,” he said into your hair, and you pulled back, looking up at him through glassy eyes before nodding slightly.

“I love you Fenrys,” he smiled down at you before leaning down and pressing a gentle kiss against your mouth, pouring his heart into the action. You gasped slightly as your lips met and he smiled widely against your mouth as the bond clicked into place.

“You know this means I now have an excuse to break the nose of any man that talks to you,” he whispered against your lips, and you giggled, shoving at his shoulder gently.

“I’m still annoyed at you,” you muttered, and his eyes darkened.

“Well I’m sure I can make it up to you.”

#fenrys moonbeam x reader #fenrys moonbeam #fenrys x reader #throne of glass

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cinnaminsvga · 5 years ago

Text

A Boy Like You | Yoongi

→ summary: for whenever you are feeling low, always remember that there is a boy you know who would lift the sky for you.

{or alternatively: Min Yoongi loves you, though he never says it. He’s always been a firm believer in that actions speak louder than any words ever could.}

→ genre: coworker!au, f2l, fluff → warnings: an overabundance of shy!yoongi to the point where you’ll want to squish his cheeks; kinda ooc but it is what it is → words: 11.5K → a/n: whaddup kids it’s ya girl... back from the dead after months of not writing shit, and what’s this owo... it’s a fluff fic?? miracles do happen... anyway i wrote this bc i just thot “man, wouldn’t it be super epic if i wrote a super self-indulgent fic where yoongi fulfills every single one of my deepest desires?” well... here is THIS!! pls feel free to scream into a pillow bc i certainly did!! enjoy!!

There is a boy you know who likes to show his kindness quietly. It would go something like this:

The air is thick with static; your hair stands up on end: a warning. The scent of raindrops hitting hot pavement graces your nostrils as a waterfall drops from the sky. You see the sea of heads begin to disappear under a canopy of multi-colored umbrellas. You, the lone ranger, rush back into the building from whence you came, dragging puddles and annoyance with you.

You should have anticipated it, should have thought to check the weather app before scrolling through dull social media posts when you left your house that morning. Instead, your fingers are left cold and umbrella-less.

You tilt your head upwards, watching as gallon upon gallon fell from the sky in an endless cycle. The watch on your wrist reads 5 PM, but the sky says it is 9 PM. The dark, swirling mass of clouds above you will continue on its thunderous parade, pausing for no one, especially not for you.

Your work bag is practically weightless, devoid of anything that might protect you from the onslaught of rain. The only thing inside is a small wallet that holds nothing more than dust and a loose promise of a paycheck. There is no way you can call a taxi like this, and the nearest bus stop is at least two blocks away. You are starting to think that your childhood dreams of becoming a mermaid hadn’t been so ridiculous after all.

Then comes the hand of God. It touches your shoulder gently, hesitantly. You turn around to face a stranger, a boy with shaggy black hair and pale moonlight skin. It is not God, but he comes close.

In his other hand is your salvation wrapped in Kumamon print nylon. It is proffered to you with a silent nod, his gaze fixed somewhere behind you as he waits for you to take it. The tips of his ears begin to redden the longer it takes for you to respond. Eventually, your brain connects with your muscles as you robotically pluck the umbrella from his grasp, a stuttered “thanks” leaving your lips.

He nods stiffly once more, removing his palm from your shoulder as though he had been burned. He shuffles for a moment, mouth opening and closing as he struggles to find the words to say. You wait, patience never waning for the strange boy that you have come to know as your salvation.

He doesn’t find the words after all. You aren’t too offended by his silence, but he appears to be mortified. And so, he leaves just as quickly as he had appeared, like a whirlwind dressed in an oversized blazer flapping behind him like wings. He runs through the rain without another thought, an arm raised above his head in a futile attempt to avoid getting wet.

You try calling out to him, wanting to thank him once more and maybe to ask how you can return his umbrella, but he is long gone. A speck of black dashing through the gray.

You clutch the umbrella closer to you, a feeling of something new growing inside of you. It is too small to call anything, but it is warm.

x x x x x

Umbrella boy has a name, and he happens to work on the same floor as you. You know this because he is standing right in front of you in all his bespectacled glory.

He ducks out of view the moment your eyes meet his. There is a stack of folders in his arms, and he bows his head until his nose touches manila. It’s too late––he knows you caught him staring. He scurries behind walls of filing cabinets and desk cubicles, desperate to get back to his desk where he hopes you’ll never find him.

The office floor is large, but it is not large enough to hide in. It takes only a few minutes until you find him hunched over his desk, every inch of space taken by enough towers of paper to cover a forest. It is no wonder that you never encountered your mysterious umbrella boy; he does a wonderful job of blending in.

Your eyes trail his form, not out of any perverse intent, but just out of curiosity. You never would have guessed from his unassuming and meek nature, but the boy is devastatingly beautiful. The devil is in the details: you admire the soft slope of his nose to the adorable pout of his lips. His eyelids are charmingly mismatched and his cheeks are begging to be pinched. It takes a year’s worth of self-restraint to keep your hands at your sides, if only so you don’t scare him away before you can even introduce yourself.

(You can already imagine your HR department contacting you about nonconsensual manhandling… You admit that you tend to get overzealous with your affection, especially when confronted with cute things. This boy would definitely need to watch out for you if he knows what’s best for him.)

((Also note to self: Stop having these psychopathic conversations with yourself. Being stuck inside the cage which is your brain is torture enough, so let’s not encourage it to get worse.))

There is a lanyard laced around his neck, the gaudy orange color of your company’s logo emblazoned across the thin material. And just out of your line of sight, you catch a glimpse of his ID. His name is––

“Y-Y/N?” He stutters out–no–he squeaks. Ah, so he’s noticed you. The folder in his hand slips out of his grasp, an avalanche of white tumbling all over his lap. He curses loudly, frantically sweeping away the mess under his desk, as if he could somehow magically make them disappear if he just kicked them hard enough. Unfortunately, the papers stay stubbornly tangible, and he is left with a halo of accounting reports around his workspace as a result.

“Are you… umm…” You hesitate with your words, fearing that any sudden movement on your part might cause umbrella boy to combust on the spot. “Do you need help… picking those up?”

“I–Well, no–Yes, but–” His sentences are stilted, his brain struggling to catch up with his tongue. He clamps his mouth shut, then shakes his head like he’s trying to reboot himself. Finally, after a few more deep breaths, he goes, “No. I’m fine. Thank you for offering.” He says that, but he appears awfully content with staring holes into the keyboard of his laptop when he is speaking to you though.

“Still… I’m terribly sorry for startling you,” you say, lips tugging downwards into a frown. You should have guessed he was skittish from how he had acted yesterday, but it’s quite a surprise to see one man so… disastrous, for lack of a better term. It’s awfully cute. “I just wanted to properly introduce myself and thank you for lending me your umbrella yesterday, but it seems like you already knew who I was.”

His face does a weird thing then and there. It almost appears like he was caught in a time loop, like someone was manually reversing and replaying his facial expressions like a video. It takes a few minutes for his little stroke to settle down, but even then, his cheeks remain a rosy pink. “I–I just… remembered your name during the company retreat the other month. I’m not weird or anything, I swear!”

“Well luckily, I was never going to accuse you of being weird anyway!” You laugh, trying to ease the perpetual look of anxiety on his face. However, it only seems to worsen his nerves with how quickly his skin starts to redden. “In fact, I should be apologizing for not remembering your name, Mister..?”

“Min Yoongi,” he replies, pausing for a second too long. He must have realized his delay because he coughs awkwardly into his forearm, averting his gaze away from you in a futile attempt to become nothing more than an abstract thought.

He must be equipped with some sort of superpower, because you’re starting to feel his secondhand embarrassment flood through you like a tsunami. Are you that difficult to converse with? Does he want to be left alone so badly that he’s trying to subtlely tell you to fuck off?

You’re about to start apologizing and scurry off back to your desk in barely concealed mortification when Yoongi clears his throat, his gaze fixed somewhere to your right. Whatever caught his attention must have been revolutionary with how large his eyes are, although last you remember is that the wall behind you is the same dull jailcell gray that you have come to know and hate.

“I just… I’m sorry if I’m acting odd right now. I just wasn’t expecting you to come to my cubicle and I would’ve… I don’t know, tidied up? If I knew you were coming,” he mutters, propping his glasses back up when they start sliding down his nose. They make their slow descent back down immediately after, forever on an endless cycle of up and down his face.

“You don’t have to clean up just for me! I’m not your manager or anything,” you say, surveying the absolute disaster zone that is his workspace. For his benefit, you sure hope that he has a map of his desk and filing cabinets, as it would have been a miracle otherwise if he memorized where anything was located in his personal office sty. “Though, it would be nice if you could see the bottom of your desk every once in a while.”

To your immense surprise, Yoongi lets out a resounding laugh at your quip. Though Yoongi isn’t a mute by any means, it isn’t like he spoke with much volume either. You hadn’t even thought your joke was funny enough to deserve a strained Caucasian™️ smile, so you appreciate that he had considered that you were even slightly funny. You love the pleasant tinkling of his laughter, so genuinely joyous that you can’t help but want to make a fool of yourself just so you can hear it again and again.

When Yoongi stops, the familiar reddish hue that has made a home on his cheeks resurfaces, though it’s less from embarrassment now. His shoulders are more relaxed, and he doesn’t look like he wants to crawl out of his skin as much. He still has eyes averted away from you, however. “Sorry. I don’t know why I laughed too hard at that. I’m normally not this weird… I think it’s just the nerves.”

You cock your head to the side. “Nerves? From what?”

Yoongi freezes, mouth gaping open slightly. “I, umm…” He coughs into his white button-up sleeve, pupils shaking as he formulates a response. “Just from… work. Yeah, I just have a lot of paperwork to do this week and I’ve been, er, having difficulty relaxing.”

Yoongi visibly breathes a sigh of relief when you accept his flimsy excuse, not really lingering on the validity of his statement. “Oh, sure! Don’t overwork yourself too much, okay?” you say, smiling sweetly back at him. He stares, wide-eyed, not really sure how to go on with his life after he’d been blasted by the full force of your grin.

God, you hope you remembered to use a toothpick during lunch. Was there spinach in your teeth? Oh fuck.

“Gah,” he intones, his brain not fully cooperating with his mouth just yet. If you were any more socially inept, you’d probably be doing the same. Eventually, he clears his throat and tries again. “Uh. Yes. I’ll try to do better next time.”

Feeling like you’ve overstayed your visit, you decide that it might be best for you to leave him be before either of you do or say anything more awkward and stupid. Before you turn to leave however, you decide to extend your hand forward, hoping to erase all the previous awkwardness between the both of you and hopefully start afresh. Even though you’ve only just met, you can’t help but feel drawn to him, wanting to see him again and somehow gain his friendship. “Hey, no sweat. It was really nice meeting you, Yoongi-ssi.”

“Just Yoongi is fine,” he says, almost like an afterthought. He’s so busy staring at your proffered hand that you are afraid that you might have offended him unknowingly or something. Does he think you don’t wash your hands? Given by the fact that your office’s manager refuses to restock the soap dispensers at the washrooms, that isn’t that much of a stretch. Or maybe he was weirded out by your random handshake? Have handshakes become antiquated these days? Are the kids no longer doing it? Are you supposed to do those awful brohugs like the fresh-out-of-college interns do in the breakroom? Oh God, does Yoongi think you’re old?!

While you were in the midst of your mental breakdown, you soon begin to realize why Yoongi had contemplated returning your handshake for so long. Instead of taking your hand immediately, Yoongi rubs his own two palms together first, much like how one would when warming their hands in front of a fire. He takes care to blow on them slightly before grasping your hand firmly in his, finally bestowing you with your much awaited handshake.

“Umm..?” You stare at your intertwined hands, a little confused about the previous series of events that just happened five seconds ago. Yoongi, in all his adorable and flustered glory, releases your hand much too quickly like he’s been shocked, most likely realizing (belatedly) that what he had done might not be as clear to an observer as it is to himself.

“Oh, I – I’m so sorry about that, again.” Yoongi stutters, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. “It’s just – my hands are really cold so I was trying to warm them up before I held your hands. I’m – I only just realized how odd that must have looked. Sorry.”

A rush of endearment and warmth surges through you as you behold this high strung boy, your heart flooded with a mix of emotions that make you feel gooey and blissful in one perfect package. No, this boy is the perfect package, all soft edges and blushy cheeks. It’s going to take a mountain and a room of vengeful deities to stop you from walking past his desk to catch a glimpse of him at this rate.

Oh God, you’re whipped already and it’s only been a few minutes since you said hello. He warmed his hand for you for heaven’s sake! Surely your enthusiasm can be excused in this one instance.

“That’s, uhh…” Now it seems that it is your turn to be at a loss of words, your throat clogged with a clump of newly discovered feelings that you don’t have enough time to sort through at the moment. The hamster running circles inside your brain has long since ground to a halt, and if Yoongi is going to keep staring at you with those charming cat eyes for any longer, you aren’t sure you’ll be able to convince the little vermin inside your skull to puppet your body again. “That’s… really sweet. Thank you.”

Thank you? Really, Y/N?

“It’s, uh, no problem. Really.” And with that, Yoongi presents to you his most deadly smile to date: blinding whites coupled his prominent pink gums, with his cheeks stretched like proofed dough that make his dark eyes disappear. Is there a pencil wedged inside your chest cavity, or were you just spontaneously having a heart attack? It’s hard to say; all you know is that your organs have turned to slush, and you make a mental note to send the imminent hospital bill to a certain Min Yoongi.

Cause of hemorrhage: being too fucking cute.

With your daily dose of embarrassment fulfilled, you turn to leave with short stilted steps, as if you have to force yourself away from him like those stubborn souvenir shop magnets that never come off the fridge. “I guess I’ll see you around?” you say more like a question, unsure if he’ll even want to ever see you after that disaster of an interaction. Kim Namjoon from Accounting would be entirely too delighted if he ever found out that he wasn’t the most awkward human being in the office.

“Sure? I’ll just be here. As always,” Yoongi replies kindly, same gummy grin on his face, albeit a little more hesitant. “It was nice speaking to you, Y/N.”

When he returns his attention to his workspace, it serves as a signal to you that you really should be going. Before you leave, you take note of the subtle red tint of his ears that reaches the back of his neck, the gentle tremor of his hands as he reorganizes the files that he had previously dropped. It makes you feel odd for relishing in the fact that you hadn’t been the only one feeling the tension between the two of you, though that doesn’t help lessen the confusion that soon follows anyway.

Why are you so drawn to him? You have never felt so strongly for someone this quickly, and frankly it sort of frightened you. You’re too afraid to confront that blossoming curiosity inside of you. No, it’s much too soon for that. For now, however…

“Oh shit. I totally forgot to give him back his umbrella,” you curse yourself once you return to your desk. The smiling face of Kumamon looks at you knowingly, as if this had been planned all along.

Well. Now you have an excuse to see him again tomorrow, at least.

x x x x x

There is a boy you know who likes to show his tenderness quietly. It would go something like this:

Company dinners shouldn’t feel like as much as a punishment as it does, but that’s just how social gatherings with semi-professional coworkers are like. No one here really wants to be there, but the carefully worded e-mail sent to the entire company clearly suggests that this was more of a “go to the party or risk getting fired” type of deal than anything remotely enjoyable. As much as free food and booze are often harbingers of a good time, it hardly makes any difference when your inebriated boss spends the entire time chatting you up in front of the presence of a dozen or so indifferent associates.

“Oh, Y/N! Good job securing that deal with Mister Park the other day. It’s all thanks to my valuable tutelage, is it not?” your manager guffaws, slapping your back with misplaced camaraderie. He leaves his warm, sweaty palm there, feeling it slide an inch lower than you were comfortable with anyone being. The smell of cheap wine on his breath is making you feel nauseous, and the tacky black and white tiled flooring isn’t doing anything to lessen the incoming migraine.

“Right,” you say with a tight-lipped smile, unable to say anything else lest you lose your job over something silly like establishing boundaries. It’s no wonder that the number of female employees on your floor has significantly dropped over the years, especially with rumors attaching themselves like maggots all over your stupid manager’s name. You wouldn’t be surprised if his stomach exploded ala Alien (1979) style with how much bullshit resides in his body and soul.

You’ve long since given up on anyone saving you, not when everyone was either too busy taking advantage of the free food or too scared to confront your shitty boss. You resign to your fate, ready to scrub yourself clean with a brick once you get home in a futile attempt to rid yourself of the feeling of his hands on you.

That is, until someone clears their throat from behind you.

Salvation comes to you wrapped in a crisp white button-up, thick-rimmed glasses, and cat-like eyes. You almost want to start breaking into Gregorian chant just then to fully express your gratitude to the deities of above for sending an angel in your time of tribulation.

“Excuse me,” the (welcome) intruder says, voice quiet but clear even amidst the cacophonous music and chatter. Min Yoongi steps forward until he is to your right, and you don’t miss the way his shoulder “accidentally” bumps your manager hard enough for him to drop his hand from your back. When Yoongi smiles at your manager, it is all teeth and no mirth, his eyes carefully blank.

Thankfully, your manager isn’t quite as fortunate in his brains department as he is in his stomach. “Oh, Yoongi! It is so nice to finally see you attend one of our social functions. You are enjoying yourself, I hope?” your manager asks, guffawing loudly despite no joke being said. You never did quite understand how some men think they are the most hilarious thing to ever exist since clowns, though you suppose your manager was only missing the red nose to complete the look.

“Thrilled, Mister Lee. Absolutely thrilled,” Yoongi says in a dead monotone voice. You can’t help but giggle at his sarcasm, and Yoongi points a wicked grin back at you before returning to his neutral and passive “work” face.

The sarcasm flies over your managers head like you expected, though you can hardly blame the alcohol for his lack of cognizance. You wouldn’t be half surprised if you knocked lightly on his head, only to hear a resounding echo following thereafter.

“I have never seen you at any of our parties before, Yoongi. What’s with the sudden change of heart?” your manager asks.

“Sir, I’ve attended every single social gathering since I was hired,” Yoongi says plainly, his composure never faltering. He must have better control than you, because you’re sure you would’ve barely held yourself back from smacking your manager had it been you. Though in fairness, you aren’t sure if you’ve ever noticed Yoongi at any of the other parties before this one either.

“Oh really? Well then, you mustn’t have said hello before then!” your manager laughs, patting Yoongi on the shoulder. “Always so enigmatic, our dear Yoongi! Well, keep up the good work.” When your manager turns his attention to speak to another one of your poor coworkers, Yoongi visibly gags from behind your manager’s back, grimacing as he pats away all traces of that foul man’s hand germs away from his dress shirt.

“Gross. Now my sleeve is damp,” he mutters, just audible enough so that only you could hear. You laugh out loud at that, nodding in understanding.

“Same here. There’s probably a gross sweaty handprint on my back now,” you say, wincing when you do feel a noticeable damp spot near the small of your back. “Ugh, what a pig.”

“Tell me about it,” Yoongi shakes his head, making a move to get away from your awful manager. He gestures for you to follow him, and you are more than happy to oblige.

“Thanks for saving me, by the way,” you add, keeping in step with him. He leads you out of the disorienting ballroom, though he doesn’t head towards the exit like you had expected. He appears to know the building much more than you do, given by how assuredly he walks. Either that, or he could be leading you to a deadend, but confidently.

“No problem. You honestly looked like you were about to punt him across the room, though I doubt anyone would be opposed to that magnificent spectacle,” Yoongi jokes, same mischievous grin from before decorating his face. He is so different from the taciturn man you had met two weeks ago, back when he had half-hidden behind his desk like an animal being cornered. Though, that might not be the best analogy to think of, as it only painted you as some sort of predator who came after meek and soft-looking men. Which you aren’t. Hopefully.

“Oh, I would’ve done more than just that, so really he should be thanking you for saving him,” you snort, and Yoongi chuckles lightly in response. Like before, his laughter is just as pleasant as you remember. Your greedy heart yearns to elicit the same sound from him once more, for as many times as you can muster before the night ends.

You had been so immersed in trying to keep up with his quick strides that you don’t notice where exactly he has taken you. The two of you haven’t gone too far away from the ballroom before he stops right in front of a metal double door, the neon green exit sign about it glowing conspicuously in the otherwise dimly lit corridor. He pushes it open, allowing the cool evening air to blow across you and your hand-me-down dress.

“Are we… at the balcony?” you ask, though the view that greets you is answer enough. How Yoongi could have known where the balcony is, you can’t say for certain. But any sort of question dies on your lips when you see how beautiful the skyline is: the stars and city lights twinkling indiscriminately, the sound of nightlife and traffic sounding loud despite the streets being so far away, the smell of ozone signalling an oncoming storm.

This, of course, is what you imagine the view to be like. You know, if the ever reliable Seoul smog wasn’t there to obstruct any sort of magical, romantic view that you should have been privy to.

“Oh damn. I forgot the smog forecast today was especially bad,” Yoongi groans from beside you, quickly shuffling through his pant pockets for a face mask. He procurs two black masks, still in their plastic packaging, and hands one of them to you. “Jesus. Sorry about this. Didn’t expect the smog to be so bad… We can just go back inside, if you want?”

Then, you are reminded of your manager, who is basically pollution incarnate with how terrible his breath is. So, you accept Yoongi’s proffered mask and promptly put it on. “Yeah, no thanks,” you say, voice muffled slightly by the fabric. The implication of your acceptance makes Yoongi grin cheekily back at you (or so you think, guessing by how his eyes crinkle cutely above his mask.)

Now properly equipped to not inhale disgusting air matter into your lungs, you step out farther across the balcony, enjoying the way the cool night breeze feels against your alcohol flushed face. (Though, if you were being honest, the heat on your cheeks has less to do with the meager flute of champagne you had earlier and more to do with the company you currently find yourself with.)

“I fucking hate these company dinners,” you whine a little bit too petulantly, complete with the jutted lip of a child who has been forced to wait as her mother engages in an eternity long conversation with an acquaintance. You lean against the railings near the edge of the building, watching idly as Yoongi does the same. “Don’t you think that if they wanted us to get ‘closer’ with one another, they’d first want to address the fact that some of our coworkers happen to be pigs dressed in white collared shirts?”

Yoongi snorts at that, his right hand immediately coming up to his mouth to silence the unflattering sound. Not that it wasn’t completely charming to you, but you do enjoy the slight abashment that blooms across his face shortly thereafter. “Sorry, didn’t mean to laugh like that. But, I do agree with you… I can’t say that anyone in our department is especially fond of that Habsburg motherfucker.”

Maybe it was the little bit of alcohol in your system, or perhaps it was the sudden rush of realizing that Yoongi is strangely attractive when he swears, but the laugh that exits your mouth sounds a touch too crazed for your liking. Either that, or perhaps you’re finally dying from the pollution.

Luckily for the both of you, it seems that Yoongi likes your weird laugh just as much as you like his. He tries to hide a smile before continuing, “Like, come on! I’m sorry for saying that because attacks on physical appearance is always a low blow, but why the fuck does that dude look like he’s been compressed and flattened on Photoshop? He’s got perpetual flat-face syndrome. You could - you could land a damn plane on his face or some shit.”

The cork inside of your bursts, and you let out the most ungodly guffaw in your life. You don’t even have the time to be embarrassed by how loud your howls are, not when every word he says hits the mark a little bit too close to home. There’s nothing quite as pleasing than sharing mutual dislike for the same person, and it fills you with the utmost glee that Yoongi is no exception to that rule.

“Oh god… You’re right. You are absolutely right. I seriously can’t believe anyone can put up with him. I mean, the damned bastard couldn’t even remember my name until two weeks ago,” you say, shaking your head in disgust. The first few times he had forgotten, you had been gracious enough to laugh away his mistakes as little more than that: mistakes. But when five years pass and peanuts-for-a-brain still hasn’t deemed that remembering your name to be as important as when the “next big Game™” is, then it’s easy to understand the depth of your resentment towards your manager.

“Are you for real?” Yoongi asks, brows raised in shock. “How could anyone ever forget you – I mean, shit, uh,” Yoongi coughs suddenly, red-faced. You tilt your head in confusion, waiting for him to finish. He’s still kind of spluttering when he continues, “What I meant to say is… H-how could anyone forget their employees name after working here for so long?”

You shrug your shoulders. “I have no idea. Honestly, I think he’s trying to purposefully forget everything I tell him. One time, he had asked me what plans I had for Christmas, and I mentioned to him how I was going to be visiting my parents back home, and he has the gall to ask what country I’m from. Like???” Your face contorts as if you had eaten an entire lemon, so wracked with disbelief that Yoongi can see the hypothetical question marks floating above your head. “Bitch, do I look foreign to that bastard? I’ve lived here all my life!”

Yoongi hums, thoughtful. “Your parents live just an hour away from here, right?”

“I… Yeah, they do,” you reply. You eye Yoongi curiously, watching his all-too familiar flush resurfacing on his neck once more. “Wait… How do you know that?”

“You… You were talking about them, once. To Seulgi? Yea, you were, um…” Yoongi coughs unassuredly, rubbing the back of his neck. A nervous tick of his, you suppose. “It was a year ago? Something about visiting them during the weekend… Not that I was eavesdropping on purpose! I would never, er, do that…”

You don’t even register his embarrassment as you are mostly shell shocked that he had even remembered that little tidbit from over a year ago. Hell, you didn’t even remember going to your parent’s house until he mentioned it. “No it’s fine, I get it. I’m just surprised that you even bothered to remember that.”

Now it’s his turn to look at you strangely. “Of course I remember. Why wouldn’t I?”

You stare at him in disbelief. Fluttering of wings begin to erupt in your stomach, but you hardly have the peace of mind to fully grasp why you were even feeling so flustered in the first place. It was just that he had said it so… matter-of-fact, like there was no possible way he could’ve forgotten even if he tried. It was kind of disconcerting, but flattering all the same. But more importantly--

“Wait, you’ve been working at the company since last year? How have I never seen you before this month?!”

“Oh,” Yoongi coughs out a laugh, scratching the end of his nose. He turns his gaze away, looking anywhere but you. “I was just, umm… Really quiet? I don’t really talk to anyone unless I need to. I’m more of a listener.”

“Oh my God, now I feel even more terrible for not knowing your name! I must look like an egotistic bitch to you,” you despair lowly, cupping your face into your hands in shame. You feel another pair of cold hands clasp your wrists, and you watch in shock as he pulls your palms away with a determined expression.

“What? Of course not. You are definitely not an egotistic bitch, Y/N. In fact, you’re the complete opposite,” Yoongi whispers, so quiet that you might have imagined it. He grasps your hands tightly, like he’s desperate for you to believe him.

You stammer in embarrassment, staring wide-eyed at Yoongi as you try to regrasp your comprehension skills. It’s especially hard to concentrate with how close Yoongi is to you, the latter unaware of his own proximity. He had stepped closer towards you to hold your hand, and normally you hated it when people touched you without permission, but somehow… This was alright.

(Unbeknownst to you, this will not be the first time that Yoongi becomes your secret little exception. It’s only the first of many.)

“I-I don’t really know what to say?” Your gaze is locked on his firm grip on your hands, the only thing flitting through your mind: damn, this dude’s hands really are fucking freezing!

It takes another few seconds for Yoongi to calm down, and you know when it happens because the realization of what he had said makes itself apparent on his expression. He turns beet red in a second, stepping away from you with his arms flying off of you like those inflatable tube men outside car dealerships.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he says, taking two steps away from you. You almost take two steps forward to keep the distance closer, but you have a feeling that he would keep walking away from you until you both inevitably fall off the balcony, so you smartly choose to stay away (even if it pains you to do so). You wait for his breathing to settle, all the while still reeling from his blatant confession just moments ago.

Could you even consider it a confession? Were you being delulu, or is there some sort of connection that you and Yoongi were both feeling?

“Yoongi, it’s fine! Really,” you smile wryly, raising your hands towards him open-faced, much like how you would do when approaching an agitated animal. Like a nervous kitty, you think privately to yourself. “I’m really flattered that you feel so… strongly?”

“I’m… I’m really not like this normally. Honest,” Yoongi says, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “I… I never… do that. Whatever that was. Umm.”

Because you’re a freak of nature and enjoy exacerbating awkward social interactions, you decide to respond to him like this: “No worries, I’m flattered, honest! But hey, maybe next time you try to give me a compliment, you could look me in the eye?” You know, like an asshole. Who points out people’s social anxieties like that? You bitch!

On cue, Yoongi’s cheeks bloom into cherry blossoms once more. “I––I, I didn’t mean to––uh!” he stammers.

“No, no, I’m sorry for even saying that!” You apologize profusely, bowing so low that he could probably see the top of your spine. “I didn’t mean to tease you like that! I’m sorry! That was seriously out of line!”

What a pair the two of you were… Like two trains crashing into each other at mach speed, continuously and eternally. A constant and ongoing catastrophe!

(The little gremlin living inside your brain is knocking at your empty skull, whispering deviously, “But doesn’t that make the two of you the perfect pair?”)

When he doesn’t respond back immediately, you have to wrack up enough courage to look back at him. You gasp audibly when you do, and you have to forcibly grip the insides of your bicep to keep yourself from squealing in pure anguish.

Because there, right before your very eyes, is a blushing Min Yoongi looking you straight in the eye with his face squished between his hands, as if he’s forcibly keeping his head locked in place. His pupils are noticeably shaking and his brows are furrowed in concentration, but he’s looking at you. Like you asked.

He’s… He’s too…

“Okay, let me try this again.” Yoongi takes a deep breath, steeling himself for what may be the most embarrassing thing he has ever done in his life. “Y… You’re a great person, Y/N. I hope you know that,” he whispers, voice trailing off by the end of his sentence.

He’s dry heaving like he’s just finished a marathon, but he hasn’t taken his eyes off of you. You’re worried if he even remembers how to blink with how intensely he’s staring you down, but you can’t bring yourself to ask him when your heart is quite literally beating out of your chest like a cartoon character from the 80’s.

“I…” You’re at a loss of words. If Min Yoongi can capture you like this with just a look, then think of how much more powerful he would be if he just learned how to use it. You’re slipping into real dangerous waters, and you don’t know if you’re just a frog in boiling water or if this is where you were meant to be all along.

“Yoongi, I didn’t mean for you to… force yourself like that, really…”

The moment breaks, finally, when Yoongi begins to cry.

“Shit!” you both exclaim, but for two different reasons. “Are you okay? Oh my god!” you reach out for him, not even thinking when you cup his cheeks in your hands. He gently pushes you away with one hand, while the other goes to scrub at his tears.

“Yes, I’m fine! A piece of dust got caught in my eye and I was too slow to blink it away,” he explains, still wiping at his cheeks. He pulls his mask down to his chin, pouting cutely at you. “Sorry. I’m not used to looking people in the eye yet. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

Oh my god. At this point, you’d be surprised if your heart was located anywhere near your body. You were running purely on autopilot, so enamored by the boy in front of you that you could almost faint. He was entirely too unreal, unbelievably so. Perhaps, if you tried hard enough, you’d be able to find your heart again, and you know the first place where you’d look.

“Give it back,” you mumble, and Yoongi tilts his head at you in confusion.

“Sorry? Did you say something?”

“Nothing,” you reply, reaching over him and snapping his mask back on his face. You laugh as he splutters in surprise, floundering about overdramatically as if the elastic on the mask had done any damage to him at all. “Oh, stop it. You’re just being silly now.”

“Hey, I have delicate skin! You never know,” he jokes, but stops when you give him an unimpressed look.

“Sorry,” he laughs again. “And well, since I keep saying sorry today, and you look like you could use a little warming up, do you wanna leave this place and get some coffee? My treat.”

And really, who were you to say no to that?

And really, who were you to say no to Min Yoongi?

x x x x x

There is a boy you know who likes to show his thoughtfulness quietly. It would go something like this:

A steaming hot coffee cup from the nearby cafe manifests itself on your desk one Monday morning. In your sleep-deprived haze, you had originally failed to realize that there was a hand connected to that cup and that it hadn’t actually just materialized from thin air like you had thought. After much blinking and staring, you crane your head up to see Jesus standing in front of you, his glasses still fogged from the outside chill.

“I got you a drink. I hope I remembered your order right,” Yoongi says in lieu of a greeting, a small smile gracing his lips as he watches you lethargically reach over for the cup to lift the lid open. His grin widens when he sees your eyes light up at the sight of little marshmallows bobbing up and down in your hot chocolate, bits of whipped cream already melting away from the heat. When you take a sip, you breathe a content sigh, your eyelids fluttering shut.

“Yoongi, I’m going to kiss your feet right now and you can’t stop me,” you say, upper lip lined with cream and sugar. Yoongi’s hand twitches by his side, but he doesn’t move.

“Even if I have toe fungus?”

“Especially if you have toe fungus,” you say, downing as much hot chocolate down your throat without choking and barfing all over him.

From the rim of your cup, you can see that Yoongi still has his parka on, his signature black mask pulled down his chin indicating that he’s only just arrived at the office. It makes your heart jump a little, knowing that he went straight to you first before anyone else that day.

“I still don’t understand how you hate coffee. Like, I don’t think I’d be able to be conversing with you right now if I didn’t have caffeine running through my veins,” he says, staring at you(r lips) as you chew a marshmallow thoughtfully.

You want to tell him that Yoongi doesn’t talk a lot anyway in the first place, though you have begun to notice that he’s becoming more talkative the more you hang out with him. However, you aren’t quite sure if you’re imagining it, but it seems like Yoongi’s change in personality doesn’t really apply when he’s with anyone else. On the days where you’d pass by his cubicle on the way to the water coolers, he’d still have his usual stoic expression on his face as he goes through his paperwork with the grace of a robot. When he’s with you, however…

“Says the guy who’s started drinking frappes after I suggested them to you. Don’t lie to me, Min Yoongi.” You’re giggling softly, and you can tell Yoongi’s seams are already breaking. Pink gums and straight teeth are seconds away from peaking through. You wink cheekily at him. “You’re just as sweet as your personality is.”

“Stop, that’s so embarrassing!” he exclaims, hiding behind his hands. He’s already smiling. “I’m not as sweet as you think! I’m a mean guy!”

“Yoongi, you literally just bought me hot chocolate with marshmallows because you remembered what I like. I don’t think there’s a mean bone in your body,” you retort, rolling your eyes at the prominent pout on his face.

“Not true! I stole an extra coupon booklet when I was at the grocery store the other day.”

“Ooooh, I do love a bad boy,” you say, but the two of you are already laughing hysterically. “Seriously, thanks. I really needed this today.”

“Dang, bad morning already?” he winces, having noticed the purple moons under your eyes when he had approached you. He didn’t want to mention it without you bringing it up first, but he had been worried about you since last Friday when you had left the workplace with a slammed door.

“Try bad weekend. Mr. Lee has been pushing my buttons for months now, but I seriously didn’t think he thought it was a challenge. He’s been giving me shitty filing jobs to complete like I’m some overworked intern!”

Yoongi cocks his head, confused. “Aren’t you, like… In the advertising department? Why would he make you file things?”

“Exactly!” You’re all but roaring now, but Yoongi can’t help smirking at the stray dollop of whipped cream that had somehow found its way on your nose. He pulls his sleeve over his wrist, swiping it away with the fabric as nonchalantly as possible (which is to say, he’s as red as a spanked ass when he does it.)

You don’t even notice his actions, still deep in the abyss of your rage. “And also! My shitty phone ran out of storage space the other day so I’ve had to delete all the songs on my library and I can’t find any good playlists on Spotify to help me dissociate on the train!”

“Wow, that’s a mood,” Yoongi says, chuckling. He clears his throat, an idea popping into his head. He turns bashful all of a sudden, gaze diverting upwards as he musters the courage to say, “I-I mean, I think I can help you with that last problem, if you want…”

You stop huffing and puffing long enough to appear intrigued. “Oh? Are you gonna send me a playlist?”

Yoongi splutters. “I mean! If you want it, I do have some songs that I like listening to.”

Yoongi squeaks when you smile at that, radiant and all-encompassing. He wonders how he’s not dead right now.

“Oh god, that would be great actually! Text me the link, would you?” you say, already making grabby hands for his phone. “Here, lemme put my phone number in your phone.”

Yoongi almost drops his phone as he takes it out of his pocket, staring in awe as he watches you type in your number into his phone. He has to keep himself from outright howling when he sees you place a sunflower emoji beside your name. How fitting, he thinks to himself.

When you return the phone back to him, he immediately texts you the link to his playlist. You have to keep yourself from screaming to the heavens when you see the very Yoongi-esque title, “Songs for the Sleepless,” complete with the grainy-noir-film-type playlist art to complete the look. It was just so… personal, so Yoongi, and it’s making you clench organs that you didn’t know were clenchable.

You whistle at the sheer number of songs on the playlist, with the first song being—“Didn’t peg you as a Lana Del Rey fan,” you pipe up, scrolling through his playlist with acute interest. “Kendrick Lamar and Epik High, I understand. But Lana?”

To his credit, the playlist did seem like it had a narrative of sorts, despite the eclectic range of artists and genres. You only recognize maybe ten of the songs from his five hundred song playlist, and you’re very curious to see what type of songs he connects to.

“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it,” he shrugs his shoulders, though a little bit embarrassed. “Lana Del Rey could sing my obituary and I’d jump out of my grave in an instant.”

“Bit morbid but okay,” you laugh, finger ready to close your music player app when you catch sight of a song with an artist you didn’t expect to see. You reach over to tug on his sleeve, your sly smile already causing Yoongi to break out in hives. “Hey… I didn’t know you shared your name with a singer, unless, of course…”

Yoongi doesn’t even let you finish your sentence when he yelps in surprise, snatching your phone out of your grip as his eyes bug out of his sockets. His ears redden, words tumbling out of his mouth like a waterfall as he tries to explain himself despite your raucous giggling.

“I––You weren’t supposed to––I forgot about! That was––I was just––Ugh,” he groans despairingly, smacking himself in the forehead with your phone. You’re still giggling madly, enjoying the spectacle before you as Yoongi’s ears are practically shooting out steam.

“You’re so cute.” It slips out of your mouth with such ease that you almost don’t notice saying it at all; you’re still smiling dreamily at Yoongi as he stares at you in shock, mouth still agape from his earlier rambling. You gasp loudly when your brain cells finally catch up, but by then it’s already too late. Now, the two of you were a matching pair, with your fire engine red ears standing at attention.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe I just said that,” you mutter into your hands. You wish the earth would swallow you whole right now.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you just said that,” Yoongi wails beside you, but you don’t notice the small satisfied smile he’s sporting on his reddened face. “Y-You can’t just say things and not expect me to…”

You look up, wondering why he’d suddenly trailed off at the end. “Expect you to what?”

Yoongi, once again, defies the laws of the universe by somehow turning even redder than humanly possible. “N-nothing. Ignore me. Let’s just admit we’re both embarrassing and carry on, can we?”

“Sure,” you agree, nodding enthusiastically. “But, does that mean I can listen to your songs, Mister Min ‘I’m-a-superstar-singer-in-my-spare-time’ Yoongi?”

“I’m not a superstar! I just record songs in my free time, that’s all,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Says the guy who apparently raps as a hobby! Seriously, I can tell I’m gonna love it already.”

His gaze is turned upwards, cheeks puffed up in embarrassment. He looks like he wants to say something else, however, and you wait for him as he tries to gather the courage to say what else is on his mind. “S-say, I was wondering… Since I’m already here and all, do you want to maybe go out wi—”

“Yo! Hyung!”

A deep voice from across the office floor snaps the two of you out of your little bubble in an instant. It doesn’t take a genius to tell who it is, not when there’s only one person in the entire company who would dare wear a sushi-print tie to work at one of the most lucrative companies in the country.

Kim Namjoon hobbles over to your little cubicle space in all his sushi-print tie glory, knocking over a coworker’s potted plant in the process. Between you and Yoongi, you had been more surprised by Namjoon’s sudden exclamation, mostly because you’d never been particularly close with the eccentric man. Yoongi probably can’t say the same since he had briefly mentioned that he and Namjoon go way back, though you’re starting to have some doubts about that due to the dirty glare Yoongi was currently pointing at the sentient noodles-for-legs.

Namjoon waves cheerily at you before cutting to the chase as he envelops Yoongi in a not-too-gentle hug. “Hyung! I’ve been looking for you. You weren’t at your desk this morning so I was wondering where you’d wandered off, but of course I’d find you here at Y/N’s de––”

Yoongi promptly stomps on Namjoon’s feet, causing the younger to yelp out in pain. “Namjoon. I told you I’d talk to you later.” Yoongi smiles sweetly, but you can see the aura of danger radiating off of him in waves. “Emphasis on later.”

Namjoon pouts petulantly, but he doesn’t look all that offended. “I was just gonna remind you to ask Y/N if she wanted to join us for lunch la––OUCH! WILL YOU STOP STEPPING ON MY FEET!”

Yoongi appears unbothered, not even looking back at Namjoon’s shouts of betrayal. All the while, he still has his gaze trained on you, never wavering for one second.

“Please ignore my colleague. He can a bit… Unnecessarily loud,” Yoongi says, accompanied by Namjoon’s splutters of indignation.

“Umm?? I’m right here?? Your actual best friend?? Geez!” Namjoon huffs, looking at the both of you incredulously. You just shrug your shoulders, completely dumbfounded by the last five minutes of human interaction.

“As Namjoon was saying before we were so rudely interrupted… I was going to ask if you wanted to have lunch with me? Namjoon can join too, but only if he behaves,” Yoongi jokes, smirking at Namjoon’s ireful glares.

You giggle quietly at the unlikely pair, amused beyond belief at this new side of Yoongi that you hadn’t been aware of. So this is how he is with his friends… Cocky Yoongi is definitely someone you wouldn’t mind talking to occasionally, you admit.

“Sure, I’d love to. Just let me finish all this filing crap for Mr. Lee, then I’ll head over to your desk at around 12?” If you work at a breakneck pace, then you could probably finish sooner if you didn’t let anything else distract you. “Oh! And I should probably return your umbrella before you leave. I keep forgetting to give it back to you.”

“No worries,” Yoongi says. “You should keep the umbrella. I’ve got a spare anyway.”

Namjoon’s head whips toward Yoongi at that, staring at him skeptically. “Dude. Ain’t that your favorite Kumamon umbrella though? Didn’t you almost murder me that one time I forgot it at the McDonald’s last mo––WILL YOU STOP STEPPING ON MY FEET! I’M GONNA GET FLATFOOT SYNDROME!”

“Not my problem,” Yoongi replies, pinching Namjoon’s nose for good measure. He turns to you, waving goodbye. “See you in a few?”

You stretch your back, psyching yourself up to get back to work. “Right. I’ll text you when I’m done okay? See you at 12-ish!”

The boys make their leave, bickering all the while. You catch wind of a bit of their conversation as they turn the corner, their voices echoing down the hall.

“Hey, I noticed that you were looking Y/N in the eye when you were speaking. Why don’t you ever look me in the eye when we talk!”

Yoongi snorts, flipping him off. “It’s because you’re not as nice to look at. Simple as that.”

In your seat, you smile secretly to yourself, butterflies erupting in your chest. Filled with newly found fervor, you chip away at the pile of work on your desk until it starts to vanish from view.

Before you know it, you’re off to see Yoongi once more.

x x x x x

There is a boy you know who likes to show his vulnerability quietly. It would go something like this:

x x x x x

There is a boy you know who likes to show his love quietly. It would go something like this:

Your day begins with a phone call: a warning. Your boss tells you to come into work as soon as possible, not a note of enthusiasm or friendliness in his tone. He ends the call just as abruptly as it had come, the silence following soon after deafening your ears. Your heart races marathons in your chest, and your brain goes to the worst place it can go.

Your hands are sweating gallons upon gallons as you shrug your coat on, fumbling with your keys as you struggle to place them in your pocket. For a brief moment, you think about calling Yoongi for moral support, but think better of it. You don’t want to bother anyone, especially not him.

You, the lone ranger, walk out of your apartment and into the murky urban outdoors, the first pitter-patters of rain making their descent the moment your foot meets the pavement. You don’t have quite the energy to go back inside to grab your umbrella, not when you’re unsure if you’ll be courageous enough to leave your bedroom once more if you did.

You’d always been a coward, a soft-hearted fool. Content with shouldering the consequences of your actions without another word: a sufferer in silence. For the past few weeks, you thought you might have changed. You’d been smiling a lot more, laughing a lot more. Your cheeks were often more red than any other color these days, and it was all thanks to a boy you know.

He was shy, but brave. Quiet, but talkative. Mysterious, but vulnerable.

He made you realize that there was no need to settle for one side of a coin, not when you could have both. The longer you stuck around him, the stronger your desire was to become… more.

You wanted to be open; you wanted to be known. You wanted to be able to ask for what you want, and never feel the crushing sense of guilt that usually came afterwards. You wanted to be unapologetic, wanted to keep your hands open, waiting for good things to come your way. To never cower in the face of a gift being handed to you. You wanted to have all that life has to offer––

(Him. Him. Him.)

But there is something pitiful about being unable to keep your own promises. The embarrassment of returning to the state where you once were, of turning meek at the first sign of adversity. The dreams of a happier life drifts away from you like mist under the morning sun, and the pressing weight of the world once again makes its home on your shoulders.

And so, you do not cry when your boss tells you to pack up your things within the hour.

You do not cry when you cut your finger on the corner of your desk that had never been replaced during your five-year stay at this company.

You do not cry when one of your potted plants smash to the floor when you try to carry too many things at once.

You do not cry when co-workers you’d only barely spoken to come over to your desk with showers of condolences, as if you’d already died.

You do not cry when Kim Namjoon walks over to you, quietly bending down to help you carry your boxes down to the lobby.

And when all is said and done, you most especially do not cry when Min Yoongi runs to you with his lungs burning in his chest, glasses still fogged up from the morning cold outside. His hair is in disarray and his shirt is on backwards, as if he’d jumped out of bed the moment he knew something was wrong. When he skids to a halt right in front of you, the pain etched on his face is as plain as day.

Wordlessly, he takes the last box out of your hands, placing his car keys on top when he can’t hold onto them both. His eyes flit towards your clenched fists for a second, but looks away the moment you notice. Instead, he walks out to the elevator, and you follow soon after.

You do not cry when Min Yoongi helps you load his car with your things. You do not cry when he takes a first-aid kit out of his glovebox and puts a band-aid on your finger. You do not cry when he offers to pass by the local home depot to pick up a new plant when he notices yours is gone. You do not cry when he doesn’t treat you like your life has ended.

(But you feel it. Pricking along your eyes like a dam about to break. He is doing this to you. He’s making you feel again, and it fucking hurts.)

And so, he drives you home.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Yoongi starts after a while, tapping a rhythm away on his steering wheel as he waits for the morning rush traffic to subside. He glances at you from the corner of his eye, worried when you don’t respond. You keep your head pressed against the cool car window, staring blankly at the gray skyline.

“I… I hope you don’t mind if I play you something. Just… Just listen to it, okay?”

You don’t see him, but you hear his fingers switch their tapping to his phone as he unlocks it, searching for the song he wants you to hear. It takes a moment or two for him to find it, soft curses tumbling from his lips as he goes through his Google Drive for the unfinished draft that he hadn’t meant to show you until it was complete, but well––

You were always an exception to him, weren’t you?

The first notes come creeping up from behind you, and it reminds you of the way Yoongi would speak to you. All soft whispers and gummy smiles, like he’s restraining himself. Slowly but surely, the music grows louder, more confident with its sound. You can picture Yoongi standing upright, hand outstretched towards you as he asks you to follow him.

The song is unfamiliar, but there’s something about it that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand at attention. You’re trying to go through your memories, sorting through the hundreds of songs that Yoongi has made you listen to but none of them seem to ring a bell. You’re still trying to figure out if you’d heard this before when the lyrics finally start.

“Lost in the sea of my regrets, you became my polaris.”

Yoongi’s voice comes from the radio speaker, jolting you from your seat. Your spine straightens, and you stare bullets at Yoongi’s phone as the song continues to play. When you look towards him, Yoongi’s face is a statue; the only thing giving away the fact that he was with you at all was the steady rise and fall of his chest.

“The shadows, which had been my haven, no longer feel as good as they once did. You, my light, have changed all of that.”

You gasp, and Yoongi’s grip on the steering wheel tightens. It seems like the two of you stop moving at that moment, neither of you daring to breathe. Even the outside traffic sounds muted compared to the sound of your hearts hammering inside your chests.

“I’ve long since forgotten to pray, but I will remember for you. I only dream of happiness for you, my morning light, my northern star. And I’d give it all up for you.”

Yoongi notices your tears fall before you even do; he’s quick to fluster, scrambling through his car side door for a tissue to hand to you, but he stops the moment he feels your hand fist the elbow of his sleeve. He turns to look at you, all blotchy and tear-stained, but beautiful all the same. And even through your tears, you smile just as radiantly as when he had first seen you.

“Thank you,” you mouth, fingers trembling as you fight to keep more tears from falling, but nothing can stop a dam from breaking. Not when you’re sitting beside the hurricane who broke it in the first place; it was the boy with feelings that never did quite fit in his body the way other people’s did.

Luckily, they fit right in with you.

When the song comes to the end, you’re sniffling up a storm, but you still haven’t let go of him. When you’re only a few minutes away from your apartment, Yoongi parks a little bit far off from your doorstep, so you have to walk the rest of the way home. But you’re still unwilling to let go, not yet.

Gently, Yoongi pries your hand away from his sleeve and you’re about to protest, but the words die on your lips the moment they form when Yoongi rubs his hands along the side of his slacks before placing them in yours. His hands are still cold, but comforting all the same.

“Let me walk you home?” he whispers.

You nod. Of course, you want to say. But he knows what you mean, anyway.

When he goes to unpack your things from the trunk, you shake your head, stopping him from moving any further. “I… I don’t feel like sorting through those things right now. Is it fine with you if I just… Go home for now? Please?” Your brain feels like lead in your skull after all the bottled up tears had finally escaped from years of constant pressure, and you don’t think you’re quite ready to go through all those emotions again. You feel deflated, but better. He always makes you feel better.

Yoongi closes the trunk, locking his car before stretching out his hands for you. You stare at the proffered hand for a moment.

“Oh, right.” Yoongi goes to rub his hands to warm them, but you stop him once more in his ministrations. He looks at you, confused, as you grab his hand from him. You rub circles into his palm, staring at the ground in embarrassment.

“You’re always warming your hands for me… So this time, I’ll warm them for you, okay?”

Yoongi doesn’t say anything in response to that. Instead, he tugs you along towards the sidewalk and keeps you close to him. As he walks with you, you notice the way he leans slightly to the left, like he’s drawn to you––like he can’t help be more than an inch further from you.

You keep glancing back down at your linked hands; he’s shaking, but then again, that could also be you.

You arrive at the gate of your apartment quicker than you would have liked. Neither of you move to separate; when you look back at Yoongi, you see that his eyes are trained on you. He doesn’t even flinch away like he used to. His lips are pursed, like he wants to say something but he’s still too afraid to.

So you say it for him instead.

“Do you have… somewhere to be?” Unlike you, he still has a job. He still has commitments. He still has a life outside of you. You’re hit with fear, once again, at the sudden change in your circumstances.

You might never get to see him again. Is this where your paths cross, never to intersect again? Your stomach drops at the thought, leaving a bitter taste in your mouth.

“No, I don’t. I could…” Yoongi trails off, glancing at your apartment with soft hesitance. “If… If you want me to…”

Yes. Please. I’d love it. I love yo–– ”Yes. Stay with me?” you mumble.

“Always,” he promises.

The pair of you trudge up to your apartment, passing by the prying eyes of housewives with your heads bowed in embarrassment. They don’t miss your pinkies linked behind your backs, nor the subtle blushes on the apples of your cheeks. Thankfully, they don’t comment when Yoongi enters your apartment after you, but they do giggle when his coat gets caught on the door handle in his rush.

When the two of you are finally alone, the air isn’t as awkward as you had feared. You work like two cogs in a machine; he readies your TV and scrolls through your Netflix for a movie, while you go to your kitchen and have a small mental breakdown (while also microwaving some popcorn). Soon, the two of you are snuggled into your small couch, elbows barely brushing against each other.

You’re only half paying attention to the generic action movie that Yoongi had put on; you were still deep in your thoughts. You’re picking away at your hangnail, worrying your lip as you try to enjoy what might be the last time you’ll ever get to hang out with Yoongi again. You’re so deep in your musings that you don’t immediately feel when Yoongi wraps his arms around your shoulder, nestling your head into his chest.

“W… What?” You crane your head and stare at Yoongi in shock, but he’s already returned his attention back to the movie. His cheeks are burning.

You’re still stiff with tension despite his comforting caresses against your hair, so he changes tactics and brings your hand up to his.

You think he’s just going to hold your hand, but he keeps bringing your hand up until it gently caresses his face. Just as you’re about to ask him what he’s doing, he curls your fingers until only your pointer is left unfurled, and casually uses it to poke himself in the cheek.

He leaves it there for a second or two, and when you finally turn to face him, he’s smiling so sweetly at you that you almost feel compelled to cry again. His eyes and nose are all scrunched up, rose petal gums on full display. Your finger is still pressed gently into his soft cheeks.

“You said you liked to dream about poking my bread cheeks. Well, here’s your chance,” he says, like it’s nothing at all. As if what he has done was as simple as breathing.

Yoongi’s smile brightens when he feels your form relax against him, giggling softly when you go to pinch his cheek for good measure.

“Bread cheekies,” you say, like you’re in a trance.

Yoongi nods. “Bread cheekies,” he repeats. “And it’s all yours.”

There’s a promise in there, you know. Somehow, he had sensed your worry and had thought of the perfect way to calm you. Like always, he never has to say it. He’s never needed words, anyway.

The two of you stay like that for hours. The sun sets as surely as the moon rises, and Min Yoongi stays with you through the night. When your mind drifts off and only your steady breathing fills the room, Min Yoongi brushes a small kiss against your forehead.

“Dream of happiness, my love,” he whispers into your skin, just when he thinks you’re asleep, “I’ll dream of you, too.”

It’s a promise that he keeps.

There is a boy you know who never learned how to say he loves you, but it never mattered all that much to you––not when he’s willing to show you over and over again. It goes something like this––

6K notes · View notes

beelspillowpet · 4 years ago

Text

Master list~!! + Rules~!

REQUESTS ARE CLOSED FOR THE TIME BEING.

The complete master list for all of my own content of Obey Me. I write GN!MC unless requested otherwise. NSFW IS allowed. I generally try to get one thing out per day, but will be taking breaks when needed. I specifically struggle with doing the side characters but, don’t fret! I will likely still try to do it, but don’t expect great results!

There are very few things that offend or upset me on this website. With that in mind, do know there ARE things I will not be writing. Those things include: Demoncest, Vore/Cannibalism, Shota/Loli, Non-consensual sex, Scat/water sports, oviposition and more as I discover them. If any of your asks touch on these topics, do not send them to me. I’m going to start blocking people who interact with any of my posts regarding te above mentioned things either. Nothing personal, but I want to be as comfortable on my own blog as I possibly can. I hope you understand.

Thank you for reading!!

Key:

HCs:

MC is Bipolar 💞☀️🌧️

MC has Trichotillomania 💞☀️🌧️

MC has ADHD 💞☀️🌸

MC has an ED 💞☀️🌧️🌸

MC is an Empath 💞☀️🌸

MC has a Panic Disorder 💞☀️🌧️🌸

MC Has Epilepsy 💞☀️🌧️🌸

MC has Heterochromia Iridium 💞☀️🌸

MC is FtM Trans 💞💘☀️🌸

MC Has A Pet Snake! 💞☀️🌸

MC Has Pet Dogs! 💞☀️🌸

MC Has A Pet Bird! 💞☀️🌸

MC Tells Bigoted Stranger Off! 💞☀️🌧️

MC is Touch Starved 💞☀️

Fem MC is Bisexual Disaster 💕☀️

Fem MC is a Lesbian 💞☀️🌸

Fem MC dating Liza <3 💞☀️🌧️🌸

MC is a Werewolf 💞 💘☀️

MC Sings “Dead Girl in the Water” 💞🌧️

MC Cannot Forgive Belphegor 💞🌧️

MC Dancing/Singing on Cooking Duty! 💞💘☀️🌸

Surprise Massage! 💞☀️

Walking in on Naked MC 💞🔞

Asmodeus is Genderfluid 💞💘☀️🌸

The Bunny Event 💘☀️

“Choke me to death, Belphie” 💞🔞🌧️

Reading Bed Time Stories 💞☀️🌧️

Reacting to Body Worship/Praise 💞💘🔞

How the Brothers Smell 💞☀️🌸

The Boys Decompressing 💞☀️

Going for a Walk 💞💘☀️

Brothers Killing a Bug 💞☀️🌸

Coping with Losing Lilith 💞☀️🌧️🌸

Brothers with Depression 💞☀️🌧️🌸

Writings:

Naga!Leviathan 💞☀️

A Lesson in Love 💞🌸

Loving Asmodeus 💞☀️🌸

Greedy and Full 💞🔞🌸

Filthy Otaku 💞🔞🌸

Admiral Otaku 💞🔞🌸

A Family 💞🔞🌸

Sorry, Mammon. 💞🌧️🌸

Beelzebub Comforts You 💞☀️🌧️🌸

Camping 💞☀️🌸

What Am I to You? 💞☀️🌧️🌸

Series:

Demon-Styled Pick Me Up! Intro 💞☀️🌸

Lucifer 💞☀️🌸

Memes:

Dangerous Snake 💞☀️🌸

Slap Satan 💞☀️🌸

Asmo’s Highkick 💞☀️

Orc x Pixie ☀️🌸

Belphie’s Gun 💞🌸

Barbatos vs. Rat 💘☀️🌸

Satan and His Kitty 💞☀️🌸

Something about Cats 💞☀️🌸

Travel Sized Cat 💞☀️🌸

The S P O O N 💞☀️🌸

Sad Beel 💞☀️🌸

Boxing Baby Satan 💞☀️🌸

La Chancla Lucifer 💞☀️🌸

Art:

The MCs with the Twins/Brothers! 💞☀️🌸

Demon Jinx ☀️🌸

Glitched Jin ☀️🌸

Welcome to the Bunny Show ☀️🌸

Waiting for the Stars ☀️🌸

Beel in a suit 💞☀️🌸

Fem! MC Loves Girls! ☀️

Naga! Leviathan 💞☀️🌸

Fem! Mammon 💞☀️🌸

Early Morning Jog 💞☀️🌸

First Kiss 💞☀️🌸

Back Home ☀️🌸

Tan Lines Beel 💞☀️🌸

The Manipulator 💞☀️🌸

WtRAD doodles 💞☀️🌸

F for Mammon 💞☀️🌸

Hitting Beel 💞☀️🌸

Teasing Bee 🔞🌸

Lulu x Lou 💞🔞🌸

[C] Sharpie 1 ☀️🌸

Commssions!: 1 ☀️🌸

Work in PROGRESS ☀️🌸

Ask the Twins!

358 notes · View notes

wenellyb · 3 years ago

Note

hey! every now and then i've seen random posts about sebastian's comment/s on colin kap kneeling among other things, but i've never seen any source material or hard facts. do you have any posts about this or deconstruction of your own? i'd be very interested, ty!

Hey yourself😉!

So I've found the screenshot of the post (at the bottom) and just so you know he also posted an apolology but that one I couldn't find a screenshot of.

There are plenty of posts talking about this but I think most of them are old so it would take some time for me to find them.

If you want my opinion. The whole thing was f*cked up and I remember being extremely surprised and unfollowing him after that post.

And he did apologize, which is good and I do think he understands that that post was not great, but it wasn't my main issue.

When the whole story with Kaepernick happened it was a real eye opener and exposed a lot of racists even among celebrities. I'm looking at you Christopher Meloni. But not only him.

So Colin Kaepernick was to kneeling to protest against police violence and racism.

And a lot of people reacted like a lot of White people react when the topic of racism arise: deny everything and get defensive "How dare he protest blablabala" "He's so rich and he's saying White people are priviledged..." "How dare he say there is racism in this country". You know the usual.

But the thing is to me, the way he protested was the most respectful, and most peaceful way to protest and also so impactful. And some people had still a problem with it...I don't understand how ANYBODY could have a problem with it ... unless they were racist in one way or the other. That was the bar for me... I could not have respect ANYBODY who had a problem with him kneeling, because their message was clear “just sh*t up and play football”.

To me, anybody who had a problem with Colin Kaepernick taking a knee... was automatically problematic and the worst.

For other forms of protests there can always be arguments against it, lousy arguments, but arguements nevertheless: "They're blocking the streets" "There was violence during the protest",... etc... But what is your argument with having a man kneel during the National Anthem, to call out something as serious as police brutality.

To me it was clear that they just wanted Black Americans to shut up, and stay in their lane. "Sports have nothing to do with politics blablabla"

And unfortunately history proved Colin Kaepernick right, and I don't think anybody could voice bad opinions about him today, but at the time, a lot of people were criticizing him, calling him names, insulting him, and even some celebrities were talking about how disrespectful he was.

They cared more about the way he was voicing his protest, than the fact that racism was a real issue.

And because of the protests last year, I think a lot of people tend to forget about that time, but Kaepernick faced A LOT of backlash, A LOT and for what....??? Absolutely no justification. With the way some people reacted you would have thought he burned the American flag on a daily basis, or used it as toilet paper.

So having that in mind, it was really disheartening to see an actor you respect take part in that...

And just to be clear, this is my personal opinion, but I don't think Sebastian had any bad intention with that post (not like other celebrities who were outright criticizing Kaepernick, for some reason I only remember Chris Meloni lol). But the timing, and the content, even as a joke, even as a promotion tool for his movie was extremely bad. You also have to understand the context, and how there were a lot of people rooting against Kap.

Worst case scenerio Seb’s post was racist and best case scenario it was tone deaf.

I can only assume Sebastian watches the news in the US, so he must have known what the caption "take a knee" meant and still decided to post it... So maybe he wasn't ill-intentioned, but to him the topic was light enough that he could post it on his social media...

My main problem isn't even with Seb's post, it was a weird way to promote his movie, or a joke I don’t know. Artists do problematic stuff all the time, and it's up to the fans who support them to decide if they keep doing supporting him or not.

My main problem was and still is the reaction of the fandom, where White Seb stans think they know and understand racism better than anyone else. And honestly this is not me saying that Seb is racist, this is me saying that we should be allowed to voiced our opinions without being silenced or accused of trying to villainize him or cancel him blablabla .

But the Seb stans don't understand that and prefer to turn a blind eye.

I make difference between stans and fans. The Seb fans are the ones who are willing to listen, understand why some people might be offended and admit that their fav f*cked up. The stans are the annoying ones who yould rather keep their head in the sand.

And nobody is even asking to stop supporting Seb... If I cancel an actor, I will stop consuming his content, supporting him, paying to see his movies etc... But I'm not forcing anybody else to do it... But I would like to be free to voice my dislikes especially if that actor was being problematic... without the stans complaining about how "I don't know their fave"

I haven't cancelled Seb btw, I just don't feel like finding him excuses and glossing over the words and if I think that something he did was racist, I will say that it was racist, not "problematic" or "tactless" or "clumsy"...

I think that a lot of people are confused about what racism is, and think it is only White Supremacists who want to harm all non White people.

But it's not only that and in my opinion, there are many layers to racism. If you have "nothing against Blacl people" but there is a part of you that believes you or White people are better than Black people, well you are racist... If not hiw would you describe it? I have already told this story, but I have a friend who swore she wasn't racist and we even had a big debate about racism, and a few weeks later, her boyfriend told me that during a family dinner, she had talked about a common Black friend of theirs saying "She is pretty for a Black girl"... But if you ask my friend, she will say she isn't racist.

If you try to silence people calling out racism, you are contributing to it instead of fighting it.

Another example, I received a lot of "problematic" comments at work from coworkers on my hair, my origins etc, but when I talked about it to my friends and said those comments were racists.. they said that I was "overeacting" that those comments were harmless or just my colleagues being "ignorant". But one time, I was done with it and I wrote to HR about it losting all the comments I had received and the HR director called me and told me that those comments were racist full stop, he didn't try to minimize it or act like I was exagerrating.

And that's how I see the reactions of Seb stans whenever something from him re-sufaces, like my friends who just act like it is nothing.

Just so you know you are not helping when you do that.

They act as if we're suppoosed to accept that because "it's not that big of a deal". Who told you that? How do you determine what is a big deal or not? Especially when you have never dealt with racism?

Fandom behaves as if people who were hurt or offended by that post were overracting. "It was a joke" "It was a long time ago" "He would never do somthing racist"

How hard is it to say " I can see that my fave did something problematic, or that what he did was racist, and I would still like to support him but I understand that people were hirt"??? How hard is it to continue to stan your fave WITHOUT trying to silence people who call out the behavior.

And also the way they refuse to use the words is annoying... it's always "I'm sorry if anybody was offended", never "What I did/wrote was racist and I know better now". If no one wants to admit it when they do racist stuff... nobody will never get anywhere... Like my friend who is convinced that she isn't racist but goes around thinking that White Women are more beautiful than Black Women, and even says it when surrounded by her family.

And people act like the people who were hurt have no reason to be hurt because he apologized, but I hope those people realize that it doesn’t work that way. An apology is great of course, but it doesn’t take out the hurt, or the feeling that if he was comfortable enough sharing this on social media, what is he comfortable doing in the safety of his close circle?, or remove the idea that maybe an actor you adored, and respected doesn’t view Black people struggles as a serious matter.

I personally don't hate Seb, far from it. And the reason why I have so many posts about him, calling him out or not, is that he is one of the very few White actors I'm interested in. I don't know him personally, but I enjoy his interviews with Anthony and enjoy his movies. But I'm not about to act like he is perfect like some of his stan do and also I have absolutely no issue with people who have "cancelled" him because of his past behavior, because I understand them and it's their choice, it's what works best for them... I don't want to force them to root for someone who maybe wouldn't root for us.

Last point, that I won't elaborate because I have already written way to much. There's a difference between people actively trying to be racist, and people who are racist and maybe don't realize it, or people who have prejudice but are working on it...

I hate it when White people act like the worst thing in the world is being accused of racism when the actual worst thing in the world is being racist. Because it shifts the conversation from... "Oh how can I improve myself and stop this racist thing I'm doing, or how can I work on this prejudice I have?" to "How dare you call me racist!!! I would never" all the while they continue doing the racist thing they do.

TL:DR: His Instagram post was f*cked up, and he apologized. And it's up to each person to decide if they still want to support him or not, but it would be great if thise who still support him stopped pretending that those whose don't are overreacting or had no reason of being offended.

#sebastian stan #asks #anti christopher meloni #I wrote too much ... I'll finish later lol #long post #I need to stop making long posts #at some point #I just have to stop wrtining #Also a lot of people think that I hate Seb because I call him out a lot.... But he's actually one of the few White actors I consider....#All of the other ones mean literally nothing to me #.... They don't even exist outside of the movies they play in

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alias-b · 4 years ago

Text

The Shape.

Summary: It's Halloween, everyone's entitled to one good scare. Being blind, Marnie McClane considers herself scared of very little. Few things worse than the polite pity she gets from the neighborhood. A misunderstanding leads to a conversation she’ll never forget while she recalls an old friend.

A/N: I’m not back, I might return Monday but idk I guess when I’m down, I write things for slashers that interest very few in my circle. Posting anyways :( I made this in 2 hrs lol

Hope this is enjoyed either way, just trying to get my drive back. Thanks all!! ((TW: Shockingly none!!! Light threats of danger maybe?? No smut sorry)) Let me know what you think and I promise to reply when I return to tumblr for good. xoxo

Halloween, 1963

“Trick-or-treat!”

Always followed with shy giggles and little, outstretched hands.

“Take as many as you like.” A bowl was pushed forward with a colorful selection. Marnie McClane tilted her head to hear the rustling. Parents chided so ‘thank yous’ followed.

“You’re all very welcome.”

“Richie, don’t take that many!” A voice sparked.

“Ah, mom, she said to take a bunch. She can’t see me!”

“Richie!”

“It’s alright, we bought too much this year.” Marnie listened to footsteps across cobblestone.

“Richie, don’t run too far, young man!”

“I won’t!”

“Sorry about him. Just at that age. You know?” Mrs. Castle approached the porch Marnie had seated herself on.

“Kids.” A light shrug followed.

“Who did your decorating?”

“Dad and I before they left for my Aunt’s.” Eerie blue eyes shifted a few directions. No focused on any impossible blur in the black.

“And...you’re alright here by yourself?”

Marnie tried not to sour. The nosy neighbors meant well.

“Yes. Get around fine same as always.” She plucked up a cane next to her and tapped the ground.

“Oh, well, that’s good. Pretty costume.”

“Mom said Red Riding Hood was in this year so I let her dress me. Honestly, I think she just wanted me to stand out in the bright red cape if I decided to wander.” Marnie paused to greet another small round of kids. Smiling to offer the packed bowl.

“My, ah, nephew is visiting. He’s smart. So handsome. Studying to be a lawyer. You’ll like him. I’ll send him by. Just some good company.”

Marnie twitched a smile. Story of her life. Everyone trying to set her up with nice, young men. Pity dates for the blind girl.

“Great.” She replied flatter. “So nice.”

“You two will hit it off, I just know it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an impatient boy gesturing- I’m coming, Richie! ...Enjoy your Halloween dear.”

“You too, Mrs. Castle.” Marnie heard the wind rustling.

Chatter and footsteps. Distantly, birds flapped overhead. It was easier to greet trick-or-treaters from the porch steps. Cold didn’t bug her during long autumn days. Always nice to feel wind on her face.

Not like she could watch much on television.

The night lingered and candy ran low.

Marnie picked up her thin cane and tapped around. Heard some animal rustle violently in the bushes. Probably a raccoon, they loved to eat the pumpkins. She moved back up the steps so she could put the bowl inside and shut the porch light off after feeling for the switch. When her parents weren’t home, she kept the house pitch black.

She didn’t need the lights.

Shifting back to the porch stairs, Marnie crouched down and reached about for the pumpkin sitting there. Lifting it poised to blow out the candle. The flicker of warmth touched her expression

A ragged breath cut into the space. Near the open gate. Made her perk. Dark hair fell over her shoulders and she exhaled. Leaving the candle on to bathe her face.

“Hello?” Feet shifted over concrete, making a slow scrape. She pressed her lips together. “I suppose you’re here to tell me it’s against the rules to snuff the lights in a pumpkin before Halloween ends.”

No reply.

“Well, I suppose I can leave them on just this once. Can’t upset the Halloween spirits.”

Nothingness.

“Are you Mrs. Castle’s lawyer nephew? Forgive me, she didn’t tell me your name.” Marnie sat there on the porch. Heard the steps get closer. “Silent type.”

The Shape stood over her in darkness. Figured the nephew was the man he’d left in the bushes a few moments ago. The street around them hushed as more houses turned off their porch lights. Marnie stood with the pumpkin under one arm. Face glowing.

“Name’s Margaret. McClane. Marnie for short. How do you do?” She extended one hand out into the wind. Felt the cool breeze kiss it. A broad palm lifted, decided against it, and dropped.

All she heard was the tapered breathing. Even like a heartbeat.

“Shy sort.” She tucked hair away and sat down to put the carved face aside. “Well, you walked all this way. I didn’t hear a car. You can sit if you like.” Bright eyes stared ahead into nothingness. The Shape moved finally. Sat upon the creaking porch steps. “Studying to be a lawyer. I thought you’d talk my ear off. It’s okay, I can talk enough for both of us. Like a guessing game, I like those. Probably my condition. Most of my life is a guessing game.”

She tilted her head to laugh softer. A too sweet sound.

“It’s alright to laugh with me.” She clutched her cane in one hand and placed the other on her knee. “Good sense of humor makes the day a little easier.”

He might of grunted but she couldn’t quite tell.

“You’re already thinking I talk too much. I get it a lot.” Marnie swallowed. Sounded a little harder. “We can get one thing straight. I’m blind. I’m not shy. Not helpless. If I need help, I have a perfectly good voice and I use it. I know it annoys people, but they’re too polite. So, if you’re the polite, pitying type, I think it’s best you continue on elsewhere.”

He didn’t move. She inhaled the air. Metal. Grass. Dirt. Earthy-like.

“Very well.” Marnie’s lips lifted again. They sat there together. A dark fall night with a glow from the moon and stars twinkling.

Marnie could imagine them. Although she figured the stars were multi-colored like Christmas lights and the moon was a blob of a shape. Moving as a lava lamp would.

“I lost it when I was young. My eyesight. I have these memories like maybe I saw what a cat looked like or my mother’s face. But, it’s probably all wrong now.” She leaned back like she was admiring the moon. Basking in its light. Thoughtfully, she recalled something else. “You remind me of a friend I had. He was quiet too. We fit together. He spoke very little and I too much. He didn’t seem to mind. Like you.”

A head turned finally to study her behind a rubber mask.

“You know, that old stereotype, that all blind people wanna do is touch faces...it’s all wrong. Everyone thinks I want to, I hate it when they force my hand up without asking.”

He puffed.

“Exactly, it’s so rude. I don’t often touch faces. I don’t like to.” She placed her cane’s handle under her chin to hum. “But, this boy I knew...I asked to touch his face. Everyone used to call him angelic-like. Said he had the face of an angel. I wanted to know what an angel’s face felt like.”

Marnie laughed again like it was silly.

“Though, I suppose I had nothing to compare it to.” She paused and he felt for a moment that she was looking through him. Burning into the chill of stone and black. Slowly, Marnie scooted closer. Not enough to touch him, but enough to feel body heat vibrate. Her chest shuddered.

He didn’t move. Hard and rigid like marble.

“Can I touch your face?” She lifted one hand. “I just want to know if you’re smiling or frowning. Trying to figure out if I should shut my damn mouth.” Extending as steady as she could. A slash cut through the air.

Marnie gasped out.

Fingers curled firm around her wrist. Another shaky breath. One they shared.

“Sorry, if I offended you.” Softening, she stayed there. Heard his lungs vibrate.

A rustle followed. Knuckles twitched as he closed the distance. Let her draw lines up his jaw that was smooth and angled carefully. Face sculpture just so. Maybe by angels.

When he couldn’t handle more. He pushed up from Marnie. Pulled his mask down. Felt the warmth of her touch trapped under it.

“Leaving?” She jumped up, dropping her cane aside. A hand went out and missed it. The footsteps stopped at her gate. Returned before her cane was pushed aimlessly at her palms. She paused. “Thank you.”

A glint of a blade met the moonlight. He pointed it at her heart while she stood oblivious. One plunge, it would have eased into her like butter. A stray, dark lock shifted over her eye.

“Maybe you’ll tell me your name next time we meet. I hope.” Marnie hushed. Unaware. Unafraid. One finger awkwardly shifted the hair from her face, tracing the line of her cheekbone in the process. She leaned into it and remembered something else. “Michael.”

He froze. Blade still poised. Tremoring, he pulled back from her face.

“That was my friend’s name.” She sounded out the syllables mournfully. “He changed. Went away. That’s what they told me. I always wished he grew comfortable enough to speak his thoughts. That’s why I’m not shy. No use hiding behind masks. Except on Halloween, I suppose. I’ve never touched an angel before, but maybe you’re close. It can be another guessing game.”

Marnie smiled kindly down the blade, chest sinking.

“If not, that’s fine too.” She said, catching his hand when it came down. Both their palms were chilled. He thought to slash forward. To crush her. Whatever was left of the boy with a face of an angel turned him back to marble. Delicately, Marnie placed one careful kiss upon his knuckles. Burned it there for the rest of his life.

There was a pause while he slipped away.

Before she heard the steps retreating.

“Will I see you again?” She chuckled at herself. Touching her lips. “Sorry, the phrase always makes me laugh.” Marnie went up her porch, cane clicking as she felt for the doorknob. Michael Myers stopped at the gate. Saw her shifting in shadows to open the door. “Will you come back?

Lips opened to sound out a single word against the cool, night air. Neither of them heard what is was. Just the breath that cast with it. Marnie’s lips pressed simply.

She bid The Shape a lovely goodnight and went inside. Left him there. Taking what lingered of the past with her. Leaving him the burn of a kiss he would never forget.

#Michael Myers #Michael Myers x OC #Halloween #Halloween 1978 #Michael Myers Imagine #Tony Moran is a babe #that's the moral here #mine #writing #Marnie McClane #Michael x marnie

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svtxsoju · 4 years ago

Text

01. crush that hangover! | dear miss soju

ღ Synopsis: College is hard. Love is even harder. Good thing the students of Mansae University can write in to Miss Soju, the campus’ very own romance advice columnist! The only problem is she’s never been in a relationship. Ever. There’s no telling what kind of chaos she may cause in the love lives of several of MU’s most eligible bachelors. Too bad no one knows who she really is! ღ Characters/Pairings: college AU! Seventeen & OC’s, Pairings TBA! ღ Genre: Romantic Comedy, Slice of Life ღ Warning(s): Mentions of alcohol, underage drinking, mentions of sex, language, bad jokes ღ Word Count: 5.0k words ღ Binu’s Note: ever stare at a selfie so long that it looks weird? ya that’s this chapter for me. there were just so many elements that i wanted to get right, but i kept changing things and now i can’t look at it anymore :c i’ll properly proofread it later, but for now enjoy!! i have some other content ima post later so i’m p excited for that hehehe anyway ya happy friday!!!

《 ⊛ Author’s Note & Credits ⊛ Disclaimer ⊛ Masterlist ⊛ 》

《 Previous ⊛ Next 》

Monday, September 2, 2019 9:05AM

This was not how Joohyun had imagined her first day at The Front. Whenever she described this moment to Jihoon, she was very clear about the way she would walk in so confidently that the senior writers would wonder why they forgot to email her an invite to their 8:30 meeting. Jihoon, who relished in raining on her parade, predicted that they wouldn’t even know her name. But she had no time for his blunt realism, because she had been living as a made-up person since June and her corporate daydreams were the only things keeping her sane. She knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but she figured that once they saw her talent, everything would be just fine.

So it’s not difficult to imagine Joohyun’s distress when she just barely stumbled into the office this morning, nursing a mind-melting hangover.

She should have known she would be a goner when the sports section interns had challenged her to a drinking game at last night’s welcome party. Her drinking partner, a small girl interning at HR, had only made it two shots in before falling asleep on her lap. For the record, she had still made sure that she was the last intern standing (although she definitely wasn’t the same bright-eyed freshman that could chug a pitcher of soju and beer just to spite Jihoon). Looking around the office, she felt a little relieved to find that the other interns were suffering just as much as her, if their slumped positions and pained groans told her anything. So much for giving a good first impression.

Joohyun was trying her best not to look like she was two steps from an early grave when she was approached by a big woman with a laptop in her arms. She awkwardly bowed her head to greet her, but the woman’s gaze never left the screen of her Macbook. “Miss… Joonyoung?”

“Oh, that’s not--”

“You’re the new advice column intern, correct?”

“Oh. Yes, that’s me, but that’s not my--”

“I’ll show you to your desk.” Without so much as a glance, the woman turned on her heel, now typing furiously on her laptop. Joohyun followed behind glumly.

This was all Jihoon’s fault.

“So, how’s your first day going?” Jihoon asked over his bowl of ramen. He flagged down the tall waiter and ordered a bowl of rice.

“Fine,” was Joohyun’s curt answer. In truth, it was far from ideal. She had watched longingly as all the other interns were assigned with their first projects, while she was left with an empty inbox. How was she supposed to write an advice column when there was no one asking her for advice? She spent most of the morning familiarizing herself with the previous entries of The Front’s dating advice column, the most recent of which dated to the newspaper’s May issue… from 1997.

When her supervisor told her to take a lunch break, she had made a beeline to meet Jihoon at the restaurant near the cafe he worked at. Now that she was sitting in front of him though, she wasn’t quite ready to confess that her dream job was much more mundane than she expected. “Hey, wasn’t this a fried chicken shop last semester?”

“That bad, huh?” Jihoon clicked his tongue. Joohyun sighed - she didn’t know why she even tried to hide anything from him when he’s known her for 12 years. He probably knew some parts of her better than she did. “Come on Joo, don’t give up on Miss Soju so easily. It’s just because you’re a little hungover. We watched The Notebook like five times this summer! What more do you need to know about true love? Do you want me to set you up on another date with that freakishly tall dude for more hands-on experience? Ah, speak of the devil!”

“Thanks, Mingyu.” Joohyun took the bowl of rice and gave the server a sweet smile, which greatly contrasted with the glare she shot at Jihoon soon after. The server, a stunning boy with jet-black hair and tanned skin, stuck his tongue out at Jihoon. She waited until Mingyu went to the other side of the restaurant to serve a rowdy group of boys to whisper-shout at Jihoon. “Can you try not to expose my identity to the whole campus before I even get the chance to write my first ever entry?”

“Ohhh, that’s why you’re sulking. No one’s sent you a letter yet so you didn’t get to do anything today,” Jihoon said. It sometimes got annoying how he could read her like she was his worn-out copy of his favorite sports manga. She had to admit though, he did find ways to make it worth it. Like when he said, “I might actually be able to help you with that one, if you want. I can make a little shout out for Miss Soju on my stream tonight. For a small price, of course.”

“You’re streaming tonight?” The girl perked up from poking at her noodles. Over the past three years, Jihoon had built up a cult following through Woozi’s Universe, a Twitch stream where he shared music made by the underground artists on campus (including him). He only ever released new music on Mondays, so tonight would definitely have a large viewership. Joohyun immediately went into her business pose lest she show how eager she really was. “Well, what would you like in exchange, Mr. Lee?”

“I merely request that you pay for my lunch today, Ms. So,” he replied. Joohyun looked in horror at Jihoon, a petite man who ate like he was three boys going through puberty; today alone he had had an extra-large bowl of ramen, three orders of rice, and two cans of Coke.

Then, she imagined facing an empty inbox for the rest of the week. Yup, this was definitely worth it. That didn’t stop her from making a show of taking out her wallet, taking care to sigh extra loudly. She had to give Jihoon his moment to revel in his triumphs, otherwise he would get grumpy.

Jihoon cackled giddily. “Pleasure doing business with you as always, Ms. So.”

“Pretty sure my hangover is coming back.”

“Oh shit, shut up!” Jihoon suddenly yelped and ducked underneath the table.

“What the hell, Jih--”

“No, don’t say my name! He might hear you and then I’ll have to talk to him,” Jihoon whispered, jerking his head towards a bright yellow blur skipping to the back of the restaurant. “He’s one of my fans. He found out I worked at the cafe and now he keeps coming in to talk to about how sad his sex life is.”

Joohyun pursed her lips and peeked a glance over. He had joined the table of rowdy boys. “Hmm, maybe I should say hi... he seems like a potential Miss Soju reader.”

“Just pay the check already, woman!”

The new interns at The Front were not the only students sporting hangovers that day. This can only be expected of the second week back at MU. Sunday night had been the explosive finale of a full week of department welcome parties, happy reunions, and lots and lots of alcohol. Some of the incoming freshmen were convinced that Mansae University was not actually a school, but a training ground for surviving as many shots of soju as physically possible. That is until they woke up on Monday morning and still had to drag themselves to their 9AM’s, suddenly faced with the reality of what college really was: an endless cycle of perpetual hangovers and school work that’s due way too soon.

This was all good news for the new ramen shop on campus, which had been serving the hoards of hungover zombies since 10AM. Vernon, who was in great pain from the night before, had been ambushed by his roommate after his morning class. He was brought to the restaurant under the pretense of curing his woes with a bowl of warm soup and noodles. When he caught sight of a man in red waiting for them at a back table though, he immediately knew what was actually coming.

“Hello Vernonnie,” Seungcheol greeted him with a sly smile. “Care to take a seat next to me?”

“Uh, not really,” Vernon mumbled, but he sat down anyway. He scrunched his nose at his roommate as the boy slumped into the seat in front of him. “Traitor.”

“Sorry babe, Seungcheol hyung promised me free lunch. Also, you’re one to talk, after you abandoned me to fend for myself last night--! Ugh,” his roommate, Seungkwan, clutched at his head, where a rusty hammer persistently tapped away at his temple. “Hyung, why did you do this to me? My face is gonna be bloated for the rest of the week. I have an audition in two days, you know!”

“Hey, I did ask you if you were sure you wanted-- what was that you ordered? Oh yeah-- ‘the strongest drink that is legal to serve in South Korea’!” Seungcheol said, his eyes wide. As he got more defensive, he began to point his finger excessively at Seungkwan. “And what was it all for? To impress your new crush?”

“I am way too hungover to get lectured by a couple of hypocrites,” Seungkwan grumbled. “I was trying to get some inspiration, you know, a drunken spark of genius! How else am I supposed to figure out how to confess to them?”

“Okay, I wasn’t actually asking,” Seungcheol ignored Seungkwan’s offended gasp in favor of turning his attention to a fidgeting Vernon. His cherry red lips now returned to its wide grin. “I am here to discuss where our dearest Vernon went off to last night.”

“Um.” Vernon answered with a nervous smile. “I just went home early--”

“Bullshit!” Seungkwan looked absolutely scandalized. “It wasn’t enough to abandon me, so now you’re lying too? I don’t know if I can take much more of this!”

Vernon had only officially known Seungkwan for two whole weeks, but with the way the two had been inseparable since move-in day, everyone at the freshmen dorms had assumed that they had known each other for years and years. He knew that someone like Boo Seungkwan was a rare find as far as random dorm assignments went, and that not everyone was so lucky to have a roommate that reminds them to eat real food once in a while or a friend who’s willing to take care of them when they get their first real hangover. Just for that day alone, Vernon knew that Seungkwan deserved to know where he went. Plus he shared a room with him, so it’s not like he could hide anything anyway.

Seungcheol shook his head and slung an arm around Vernon’s shoulder. His grip wasn’t tight but firm enough that Vernon knew he was trapped there until he confessed the truth. “Look, I don’t need any details! I just wanted to make sure that you’re staying safe and all that junk. Also, I would like to know what base you got to.” He erupted into a fit of giggles, but soon cleared his throat to return to his investigation. “Really though, tell us what happened.”

It wasn’t like Vernon didn’t want to tell Seungcheol either. Vernon’s and Seungcheol’s families had known each other since the two boys were in middle and high school, and when he found out that Seungcheol would be a senior at Mansae University that year, he felt some of his nerves ease up about moving out. Seungcheol had always been like an older brother to him, and was always there when he needed his help in high school. He trusted him!

That’s probably why he subconsciously blamed Seungcheol for the pain he was going through at the moment. When the upperclassman had offered to sneak Vernon and Seungkwan into a party at the karaoke bar that he bartended at, the two freshmen all too eagerly accepted without thinking of any consequences. They had received no pointers, no words of caution. How were they supposed to know that bar parties were completely different from welcome dinners? And how was Seungkwan supposed to know that downing so many cocktails within the hour wasn’t a good idea? Most importantly, how was Vernon supposed to know that he would meet someone like her there? Vernon groaned into his hands as he could no longer resist the flood of memories from the night before, and leaned into Seungcheol’s shoulder as he tried to recoil from his past self. “Hyung, it hurts too much to say out loud.”

“It’s okay buddy, take your time,” Seungcheol patted his head gently and called the tall server over. Vernon continued to let out unintelligible noises of regret while the senior ordered bowls for all three of them. “How are you even hungover right now? I only remember giving you one drink last night before you went off with--”

“I’m not hungover.”

“Oh. Then what are you?”

“An idiot,” Vernon mumbled through his fingers. “A big, cringy idiot.”

Seungkwan raised his hand, looking frantically between the two boys. “Excuse me? Did I miss the reading homework? Went off with who? Last night? What? How drunk was I?!”

“Very drunk, but that’s not why you didn’t notice Vernon’s new friend. You were a little occupied with your own conquest,” Seungcheol stage-whispered from across the table. “Honestly, you two are wild. It’s only two weeks into fall semester and you’re already out here simping.”

“Um, and? I saw you making googly eyes at several ladies last night!” The higher Seungkwan’s voice rose, the harder the rusty hammer banged inside his head. “Ow.”

“Those were just my friends who happened to be ladies! Sorry that my eyes are just naturally soft and alluring,” Seungcheol said, batting his long, dark lashes at the boy. “What were her eyes like, Vernon? I only noticed that she had a nose ring. Couldn’t really see her properly while you two were ‘talking’ in the corner...”

“The corner! A nose ring!” Seungkwan repeated and clutched at his chest. “Tell me more.”

“We were just talking!” Vernon finally spoke, his face stuck in an embarrassed grimace. “There’s not really much more to tell. I just know that she’s the coolest girl I’ve ever met and I’ll never meet anyone like her again.”

“What! You two were talking for like two hours! And I saw you leaving with her!” Seungcheol said a little too loudly for Vernon’s liking. The server gingerly approached their table with their orders, setting the bowls down as quickly as possible before rushing away. Vernon noted to give him a big tip when they left. “Don’t tell us that’s all.”

“I just dropped her off at her apartment and went back to the dorms,” Vernon confirmed to Seungcheol’s horror. “I really didn’t want it to be just last night.”

“So... you asked her out?”

“No.”

“You got her number?”

“No.”

“Her Instagram? Her Twitter? Her student ID number? Do you even know her name?”

“I already said I was an idiot,” Vernon whined. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to talk about it. But yes, I did at least get her name.”

It was the only thing he could think of since he woke up. She was the only thing he could think of since he woke up. The way her eyes had lit up while they talked about her major. The way her lips had curved into a clever smile when she told a joke. The way her small hand had fit in his as they walked to her apartment. Then, he would remember how he completely fucked it all up before he started, and his headache would return full-force.

“Dude.” Seungcheol fixed him with a stern stare, but it was kind of hard to take him seriously when his mouth was full of noodles. “Have you never asked a girl out before?”

“You know I have! I don’t know what happened either, okay? I guess I just froze up when she looked at me… then I just went home after telling her good night.”

Seungcheol feigned a gag. “Gross. I was joking earlier, but you’re an actual simp. Hate to break it to you like this.”

“I think it’s sweet,” Seungkwan piped up from where he comfortably rested his head on the table.

“That’s nice, Seungkwan, but ‘sweet’ isn’t gonna get either of you laid,” Seungcheol chuckled. “Vernon, your girl was clearly waiting for you to make the next move. Trust me, girls don’t just ask anyone to walk them home.”

“I didn’t want to look like a creep!” Vernon sullenly stared down at his untouched bowl of noodles. “What am I supposed to do now, hyung?”

“Yeah, lend us your wisdom, O Alluring One,” Seungkwan chanted. “You clearly have plenty of experience from the past three years.

“Like I said, I just have a lot of friends,” Seungcheol shrugged, then suddenly checked the time on his phone. “Oh shit-- speaking of friends, I have to meet one for a study session at her apartment in 15 minutes.”

“Sounds nasty.”

“Your mom’s nasty,” Seungcheol retorted with a provocative smile. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Boo! Then maybe you’d be able to think of how to confess.”

“Uncalled for!”

He placed several bills on the table and checked his phone again. “This should be enough to cover lunch, kiddos. I wish I could help you two, but I’m booked for the rest of the day. And the week.”

“But what if I meet her again?” Vernon asked desperately.

“Then text me! I might not reply right away though. I’ve got two classes later and then I have dinner plans--”

“Another girl I presume--”

“Shut up! I also have to go to the gym before doing… uh, doing a thing. And then I have a shift at 24H.” Seungcheol stood up and looked at the distressed boys before him, his soft eyes more affectionate than alluring. Was he like this as a freshman? He reached over to ruffle the freshmans' heads. “You two should probably leave soon, too. I’ll see y’all later!”

And just like that, Seungcheol was gone, and Vernon was once again left without any advice from the senior. Vernon was never one for dramatics, but his personal failures felt like a gray cloud of shame hanging over him. He began to worry that he was just gonna have to live like this forever, because nothing in the world was bright enough to break through his doom and gloom (well, her smile probably could, but Vernon was never going to see that again). The fact that Seungkwan seemed like he was about to Train to Busan his ass any minute now didn’t really lift his spirits either.

Lucky for him, the universe was not going to let him give up so easily. At that moment, a boy with glaringly yellow hair and a heavy camera on his shoulder bursted through the entrance. His smile brightened when he spotted the two boys in the back and he didn’t hesitate to bound towards them, skipping right past the server welcoming him in. “Seungkwan! I knew I’d find you here.”

“Dearest Vernon, it seems we have been joined by the lovely Soonyoung hyung. Perhaps he might know the medicine we require to ease our ailments in love,” Seungkwan suddenly stood up, all signs of his hangover expertly hidden. He smiled directly into the camera lens. “Hyung, would you kindly share your wisdom with us lowly freshmen? Pray tell, how does one woo the object of their affection?”

Vernon, who was well-acquainted with Seungkwan’s antics by then, watched on in silent amusement. If anything could distract him from his internal turmoil for a moment, it was Seungkwan; even if he was just spewing nonsense. What really made him crack up though, was the way Soonyoung (that was his name, right?) was clearly trying very hard to suppress his giggles. “Um,” Soonyoung managed to cut in breathlessly. “You know I’m not rolling, right? Also, I didn’t understand any of the words that just left your mouth, but it definitely felt like you were putting some sort of ancient curse on me. Hi, I’m Soonyoung by the way!”

Vernon introduced himself and shook Soonyoung’s hand. Seungkwan could only sigh in exasperation at Soonyoung’s lack of culture (not that he was surprised of course). The boy apparently thought it was a good fashion choice to leave his apartment wearing a tiger print button-up. “I was asking if you could help us out with confessing to our crushes,” Seungkwan said with a roll of his eyes.

“Ohh, that’s what you said!” Soonyoung laughed until he was keeled over, clutching his stomach. Vernon and Seungkwan could only watch him with great expectation. When the boy finally caught his breath and wiped the sweat from his brow, he gave the boys a very serious look. “Yeah, I haven’t gotten any since January. So you should probably ask someone else.”

This also did not surprise Seungkwan.

“Excuse me?” The tall server approached them again, clearly giving them his best ‘I hate working in retail’ smile. “If y’all are done eating, could you please leave? You’re disturbing the other customers.”

“I’m eating, I’m eating!” Soonyoung smiled until his cheeks reached his eyes, a power move that he saves for occasions where he found himself in trouble, which happened more often than he’d care to admit. Once the server let them be, muttering something about not getting paid enough, Soonyoung turned his killing smile onto the two boys. “Can I have some of this? I can Venmo y’all later, I’m pretty broke right now.”

Vernon pushed his uneaten ramen towards Soonyoung, who looked at him as if he was the sun itself. The boy carefully set down his film camera and immediately began slurping away. Vernon nodded his head towards the contraption and asked why he was carrying it around.

“Oh, I rented it before coming to find Seungkwan. I’m thinking about making him the subject of my film project this semester, since the theater program is pretty buzzed that he’s joining this year!” Soonyoung patted the camera affectionately.

“‘Thinking about?’ I thought I was your final choice!” Seungkwan blurted. The ramen he had for lunch seemed to have finally restored some of his strength, because he no longer clutched at his temple when his voice rose.

“I said ‘most likely’ choice! I just want to keep my options open,” Soonyoung responded with great care. He didn’t want to hurt Seungkwan’s feelings, but he was definitely re-evaluating alternate subjects at the moment. “It’s only the second week!”

“This is why you’re single,” the theater major said in a huff. “Lack of commitment!”

“Hey! I am perfectly capable of commitment. It’s the girls that don’t want to commit, ” Soonyoung said in a small voice, and looked off into the distance wistfully. “I really hope Woozi does put out a new song tonight. Maybe he’ll tweet something soon.”

“Woozi? Who’s that?” Vernon asked. At this point, he was just looking for anything that would fend off his memories, which lingered at the edges of his mind and waited for moments of silence to bring him another fresh glass of cringe. He was pretty sure that he had experienced well above the recommended daily serving.

“Oh, he’s a Twitch streamer from MU! I was actually gonna say if you two are really struggling in the love department, you should definitely check out his stream tonight.” Soonyoung nearly wiggled with enthusiasm. “He usually promotes songs from artists around the area, but his self-composed songs are my personal favorites. They’ve been what’s getting me through this dry spell, honestly.”

“Oh, that sounds pretty cool.” It sounded like it was right up Vernon’s alley, actually.

Soonyoung nodded. “You listen to them and you just feel hopeful to find the kind of love he sings about. I’ll send you the link later!”

“Underground artists? No thanks, I think I’ll stick to Eva Noblezada,” Seungkwan scoffed. “I don’t really think a stranger can help me with my problems. They don’t even know me.”

“Oh come on, Kwan. Let’s just give it a shot!”

Even after all his grumbling, Seungkwan still sat beside Vernon at one of the desks in their dorm later that night. They had opened the link Soonyoung had sent them, and munched on some snacks while they waited for the stream to start up. Vernon waited with baited breath for his distraction to begin; he had spent most of the day attempting to wall off any thoughts of her or last night, but it was kind of difficult to think of anything else when all of his professors only droned on and on about quizzes and homework.

When a boy with fair skin and burgundy hair came into frame, he nearly sighed in relief. The streamer appeared to be sitting in a small, dark office only illuminated by his computer screen and several pink neon signs that hung on the walls. Vernon could recognize the faint outlines of several guitars and a keyboard behind him. The boy clicked around for a while as more people joined the stream before finally waving into the camera.

“Hi guys, welcome in! Thanks for joining Woozi’s Universe. If you’re new here, I’m Woozi and I like to write songs sometimes. If you’re an old subscriber, I’m really sorry for the long wait. I’ve been working on a lot of projects, doing some collabs - I’ll actually be releasing one of those collabs tonight and I’m really excited for you guys to hear it. If you have any new songs you want to listen to together, go ahead and leave them in the chat!”

As soon as the stream started flowing, Vernon immediately knew why Soonyoung gave Woozi such rave reviews. The guy just had good vibes and he definitely knew his music. Vernon was hooked. Even Seungkwan, try as he might to look disinterested, couldn’t help bopping his head occasionally.

“Thanks for the subscription @chweinggum! You just helped me reach my tenth new sub for tonight, and you guys know what that means. Time for the new song! It was really fun to write this with my collaborator, so we really hope you like it!”

After spending the past hour just vibing in Woozi’s Universe, discovering new songs and artists, Vernon had really hyped himself up to hear the streamer’s personal work. If Soonyoung’s words were true, this would be the song that would truly heal his heartache, the song that would push him to forget about the whole ordeal. He listened in anticipation as pleasant harmonies played through his laptop speakers. But as the song progressed, Vernon did not quite feel the reprieve he was hoping for. In fact, he was kind of taken aback. The lyrics… felt like they told his story. Maybe not word for word, but enough to make Vernon stare at the laptop screen with his mouth open. What kind of hocus pocus, That’s So Raven, mind reading shit was this? The song broke down the walls he had tried to build throughout the day and left him vulnerable to its strangely upbeat and energetic tune.

He had to admit that he didn’t hate it. The cringe from his own actions did not disappear, but the song helped him focus more on the moments that made his heart flutter, the moments that incited those pesky butterflies in his stomach. They were the moments that made him so hard on himself in the first place and the reasons why it hurt so much that he messed up. She had made him feel seen. She had done everything right. And all he wanted to do was to show her that he saw her too. He just had to figure out how.

Woozi clapped his hands loudly when the song came to an end, bringing Vernon out of his deep reverie. “And that was Pretty U by yours truly! I collaborated on it with an artist who doesn’t want to be named as of now, so I’ll just say it was great to work with such a talented person and I hope to work with them again soon! Anyway, we know the lyrics are pretty cheesy, but let’s just say it’s based on a juvenile romance! I tried capturing that giddy feeling of liking someone and wanting to tell them pretty words but losing confidence at the last second. I’m sure we’ve all been there before.”

Vernon sat up, nodding his head as if Woozi could see him. After his song scanned his soul like that, Vernon figured it wasn’t impossible.

“I know that some of my subscribers listen to me because they go through these kinds of hardships. But I wanted to say that my songs can’t fix everything. Even I go through it sometimes and I need someone to lean on. There’s actually a new thing I just found out about from a friend - ‘Dear Miss Soju’. It’s a column that they’re gonna start publishing on The Front’s website, and you can anonymously write in all your burning questions about love, relationships, or sex. So if you’re having a hard time confessing like in this song, just know that there’s someone out there to help you out!

“Since you’ll be anonymous, you can write about your heart’s deepest desires, even if it’s a little freaky. Yes, I’m talking to you, user @callmesoon, please stop trying to tell me about your sex life. Anyway, I’ll put the email in the description for anyone that’s interested!” Woozi paused to laugh at several of the comments. “No guys, The Front does not sponsor me. But I can tell you about a company that does sponsor me. Hello Fresh--”

Seungkwan closed the laptop and sighed. “Well, that didn’t help me at all. Soonyoung hyung said this Woozi guy was gonna make me feel better, but now he’s just telling us to spilll all our secrets to some other stranger. What a scam! Right, Vernon? Vernon?”

By the time Seungkwan turned to look at his friend, Vernon was already writing his second draft for his email. The boy sighed again. Maybe he could give it a shot.

The next morning, Joohyun opened up her laptop to find thirteen emails in her inbox. She smiled.

Now she could get to work.

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neakco · 4 years ago

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TNA - Ch. 3

Ch. 2

This is the last chapter I will be posting online unless there is any interest in it. I love constructive criticism. I probably should have mentioned this earlier but my computer is broken and everything was typed up on my phone.

Chapter 3

Briar and Azalea entered the Godfrey Enterprises Lobby fifteen minutes before their meeting with Theodore and looked around.

"This place sure has a lot of gold and marble." Briar muttered quietly in Russian.

"You would think this was some cash grab of a casino or hotel." Azalea responded in Urdu.

Approaching the reception Azalea continued to speak in Urdu. "We would like to rent a suite please."

Briar had to turn away so he wouldn't laugh and the poor receptionist's expression.

"I am sorry, but would you be able to repeat that in English?"

Azalea kept her face remarkably straight. "Apologies. We have a meeting with the COO."

The man sighed in relief that she spoke English, "May I please get your names?"

Azalea answered since Briar had barely managed to stop silently laughing. "Briar and Azalea Willowbirch."

The man typed their names into the system before his face paled and his hands began to shake. He slowly looked up at them with false cheerfulness, "I am terribly sorry but you are both banned from the building and I must ask you to leave."

"No worries. Do you mind if we stay just inside the doors as I call our ride?" Azalea smiled brightly but Briar caught the glint of steel in her eyes.

The receptionist visibly relaxed, "Please go ahead."

Briar switched into combining multiple languages once they were close enough to the door, "You would think we were the worst of murderers. So what is our plan?"

"I am going to call our ride." She answered as she pulled out her phone. She then switched over to English for the conversation. "No, I promise we are not running late. In the lobby actually. Apparently we are banned entrance."

Briar heard the sigh.

"We were graciously allowed to stay here while calling for a ride. Though we are now being glanced at suspiciously."

Briar heard a ding and looked towards the opening elevator doors. He grinned as he watched Theo step out and hang up his phone.

"Ms. Willowbirch, I am happy to see you made it. Please grant me a moment to resolve this issue before we head up to my office." He then walked up behind reception and looked over the screen.

Azalea just grinned as she put away her own phone.

"Some ride you called us." Briar smirked.

"I think an elevator ride is still technically a ride, no?" She laughed as the strolled towards the desk.

They were close enough now to hear Theo's quiet conversation with the receptionist.

"You are new so please don't worry about it. Just now you know to check next time."

"Yes sir. Sorry sir."

Theo joined them near the elevator and swiped his badge to call it.

Once the door closed Theo relaxed,

"Apparently you two are highly dangerous and top security is to be called at any sign of you being uncooperative."

"Your father?" Briar asked.

"Just be thankful for the board ruling that he isn't allowed to make any company decisions after an event." The elevator began to slow and Theo again stood straighter, "Follow me and try not to stop."

The twins shared a look but followed silently. They quickly understood as various strong perfumes assailed their senses. A fast look around showed them multiple women wearing heavy masks of makeup and all positioning themselves within Theo's sights. Some seemed enthusiastic in their attempts to garner attention while others seemed like they would rather be doing anything else.

They were almost at their apparent destination when a women physically blocked their path to the door.

"Coffee for your meeting." She fluttered her very long and clearly false lashes.

Azalea blinked slowly, while others wore masks of makeup this women's face appeared to be sculpted of it. She switched to a mix of French and Spanish, "Brother, did we enter a horror cinematic?"

Theo accepted the tray of drinks and ushered them through the door before closing it hastily. "Sadly not a horror, just my life." He then stopped Briar from grabbing one of the drinks. "That women likes to lace things with aphrodisiacs."

Rob laughed from his seat on a side couch near the desk. "Is that the one that tried to feed you bright blue Viagra cookies and claimed they were blueberry?"

Theo sighed wearily as he collapsed in his chair, "That is the one. She just needs one more instance of time fraud and I can finally fire her."

The twins shared a look of concern before taking seats in front of the desk.

"Why can't you just fire her for harassment?" Briar asked with a suppressed shudder.

Rob answered from the couch, "Father's policy, Theo can't fire anyone that father directly hired unless they have 3 non-HR infractions of the same type."

"That isn't fair!" Azalea looked furious and was slipping into an unrecognizable accent, "How did the board allow that?"

"Father has the same restrictions on anyone I hire." Theo passed over a folder, "But you are here to talk business, not hear my problems. I managed to locate your parents arrival to Lattuck after I received your message last night with the date and time your parents initially boarded their train."

Azalea and Briar carefully studied the images as Rob stood up and pointed one out.

"Cameras lost 'em there at Bismark St. Tried to get the cab transcripts but they only uselessly keep those for two months."

"This is more than enough, thank you both greatly." Briar stated as he pulled up a map on his phone and started to marking locations.

Azalea looked at the brothers with a little suspicion, "How did you get this all done in one night?"

Rob grinned, "I stayed up a little late but Theo here came to work at 3 am."

Briar stopped what he was doing and both twins glared slightly at the brothers.

"Trust me you two, it was work on this or spend more time at Godfrey Mansion. We both jumped on the excuse to leave."

"The more I learn about Mr. Godfrey the more I contemplate trace less poisons." Azalea muttered into Briar's shoulder.

"Wait until we locate our own parents before you cause other people's to disappear. I refuse to finish this without you."

Theo chose to ignore the comments, "I am sorry we couldn't find anything more."

Briar laughed, "Are you kidding? We are used to following tattered wisps of month old gossip. This is a great lead."

Rob sat back on the couch, "So why didn't you two just hire a detective? Surely you can afford it."

"There are more than a few reasons but two main ones." Azalea started.

"The first is that our grandfather taught us it is wrong to spend our money for purely selfish reasons. For everything we spend we match it with a doubled donation to charities when we can. It is surprising a lot cheaper to travel and accommodate ourselves compared to hiring a detective." Briar stated.

"And the second is that there were no detectives that took our 16 year old selves seriously enough. Those that did try to humour us were very untrustworthy." Azalea finished.

Rob nodded but before he could respond there was a knock on the door and Roisin entered.

"I know I came in early today Mr. Sapphirus, but I gathered the employee pay statements for you."

"Thank you Ms. Ballantyne. If you wish you can compare them to the time statements online and look for inconsistencies, or you can choose to help the admin staff with their tasks."

Her eyes widened in fright, "I shall work on the comparisons." She smiled briefly at Briar before leaving to return to her tasks.

Rob looked at the door confused, "Shouldn't she be in here working with you?"

"Yes but that requires a desk, and even though I have the space for it I was informed that I am not allowed to move the secretary's desk she is now using in here." Theo let out a growl of frustration, "She apparently has her own desk arriving later today and under no instance shall I bring that one in because it will soon be in use again."

"I may not be an expert, but why does the news of help make you look like you would welcome death?" Azalea asked as Briar began packing away the photos in a small bag.

"Because Father is just going to hire another useless secretary." He sighed.

Rob chose to elaborate for her, "Father got the stupid idea in his head that if he hires enough women that eventually one will seduce Theo here."

Briar looked up rapidly, "What? Why?"

"A few reasons; he wants Theo to work less and figures if he is distracted then he can probably slip some more selfish policies in. He also wants Theo to provide an heir to our family legacy. I don't like women so I am useless to him."

"But adoption is a thing. He adopted both of you." Azalea looked offended.

"True, but he can't have kids. Plus i am sure he adopted Theo because I was such a disappointment. He would probably disown me if the media wouldn't have a field day."

Theo was face down on the desk and mumbled out, "I just wish father could understand that the restrictions he has placed on those women in their contracts causes me more work instead of less. I spend hours after everyone else has left just doing their jobs." Theo lifted his head to look at Rob, "and I don't care what Father says, you are the best older brother I could ask for."

Rob started to jokingly tear up, "Awww, you are adorable little bro, I love you too."

Azalea looked thoughtful and spoke without thinking, "Why do you not just hire your own secretary?"

She jumped as Theo suddenly leapt up and grabbed her hands, "Please say you want a job!"

Azalea looked towards her giggling twin then back towards Theo's hope-filled eyes. "I wasn't, but I have never been a secretary before. What would the job entail?"

Theo let go of her hands and sat back down to start typing, "You are the perfect fit. I saw first hand that you are skilled at data entry, You have told me before that you helped with your family’s own company when you could, you can be polite to the point that you could probably insult someone and they would thank you. Plus I feel I can trust you not to gossip about company secrets." He grinned as he handed her the contract he just printed off. "And the best part is that hiring you would annoy my father and he can't do anything about it."

Azalea looked up from the paperwork, "Administrative Assistant / Bodyguard?"

"Brilliant right?" Theo grinned, "You would be in charge of the entire Administrations Department, thus granting you access to the whole company’s files. Then by doubling as my bodyguard I get to take you to all my off-site meetings with high-end clients and contacts."

"You are granting me opportunities to find my parents while assisting you?" She looked a little stunned.

"Yes and if you look here," Theo came to her side of the desk to point some things out.

Rob took the opportunity to tap Briar on the shoulder, "While Petal is getting an offer I have one for you."

Briar looked at Rob curiously, "What kind?"

He pulled out a business card, "I own and run Umbra Security. I am need of an eye in the sky. Someone I can trust to run cameras and comms for me and my crew."

"I feel special, but you only met me last night. Why trust me?"

Rob pulled Briar over to the couch and sat him down. "I didn't last night, thought you were pulling a long game. So I did a bit of digging and found your family over in Germany. Your story checked out. The main reason though is that the job will give you access to all the public cams in town and some private ones when we got a special job. A handful of cash won't be enough to bribe you to look away and potentially lose that access."

Briar looked carefully at Rob's face, "Do you seriously not have anyone on cameras already? I refuse to put anyone out of a job just for a golden egg."

Rob took a moment to puzzle out Briar's meaning. "Just another reason you are trustworthy. Now normally I run 'em but sometimes I need to watch my crew around higher paying jobs. Last night could 'ave been avoided if I had an eye. Sometimes I get my man on cams but he is a twig and couldn't win a fight with a kitten." Rob's look grew more serious. "It is rare but sometimes thugs go after the cams. I know that I won't have to worry about anyone getting the drop on you."

"I will take the job on two conditions." Briar held up a finger, "I refuse to use a gun." He held up a second, "I am allowed to upgrade or change the room's security and equipment to suit me."

"What kind of changes?"

"Currently I am only thinking adding a pin pad and hand scanner combo that only looks like it will unlock the door." Briar grinned, "I will probably think of more things once I see the space."

"A red herring." Rob muttered before exclaiming, "I approve." He then held out his hand to shake, "All I ask is that you don't install anything deadly."

Briar shook, "You have a deal Mr. Umbra."

"Excellent, I can start you with Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Tonight can be the first shift if you want."

"Sounds good to me, where am I going?"

"It's a little hard to find, so tell me your address and I will swing by before 1900 to lead ya."

"Tranquil Estate." Briar laughed as Rob's eyes widened, "I know I know, my grandfather has the good taste not to name his properties after himself."

Rob laughed with him, "At least one business tycoon in the world does."

Briar looked over to see Azalea trying to fit a large bundle of papers into her bag.

Theo spotted his questioning look and explained, "Welcome package. It has everything she needs in order to annoy my father by following all the rules to a tee. It also includes her own badge so she doesn't need me to call the elevator."

Azalea stood up after succeeding in making everything fit. "If that is everything then I believe I shall go prepare for the battle to make your tower more bearable princess."

"Just don't stab any of the guards, they are prisoners too." Theo spoke through barely restrained laughter.

"No promises." Azalea waved, "See you tomorrow Theo."

Rob left first followed by Azalea and Briar. The latter leaned on his twin and whispered in Italian, " Grandfather would approve."

She chose not to respond verbally and instead shoved him off and went to wait for the elevator with Rob.

Briar chose that brief moment to greet Roisin and see if she would be free that Thursday.

Azalea waved him over when the doors opened and he rushed over with a large grin.

Azalea shook her head, "Come on Romeo, straighten your head back on, we have work to do."

And that is it. This honestly started as a maribat fanfic with Briar as Adrien and Azalea as Marinette. Rob was Jason and Theodore was Tim. Since I made it into an original I changed a lot of personalities and background characters. All because I wanted to twist the fake dating idea completely. Somehow it turned into a commentary on stereotypes and how it is okay to just be how you are. This covers gender stereotypes and relationship stereotypes. My favourite chapters I have written so far are chapter 7 because I have never written anything like it before and chapters 11 to 14 because they are the serious ones that made me decide to turn this into an original. So again, if you want to see more let me know, if I don’t hear anything you will just have to wait the ten plus years it takes me to get this published.

#Truths of the New Atypical #TNA #Briar Willowbirch #Azalea Willowbirch #original story #original writing #chapter 3

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potato-an0n · 6 years ago

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What we all need to realize and learn about BTS

I’m not a blogger, or anything like that, but i feel like i want to share some thoughts about BTS’ speech for MAMA 2018. It might be long and disorganized, so bare with me here ok?

For those who aren’t caught up, BTS won almost every category they’re in (congratulations, again), but wen receiving the artist of the year award, they broke down and told us something.....kind of personal and shocking. Jin said in speech (while having an emotional breakdown) that they were thinking about disbanding earlier this year bc of personal reasons we may not know about. now......

Disclaimer: I obviously don’t know anything about them personally, and this isn’t a theory either, think of it as a speculation/ rant of what I think is what bts is going through. I’m using some stuff that we know about bts and what they’ve shared with us and combining it with common knowledge on celebrity life in general and fan culture, international and in Korea. So no hate in the comments, have a problem, talk to me reasonably and we’ll sort things out calmly. Ok, let the chaos begin!!!!!!

We saw bts have a meltdown right in front of us and though they didn’t go into full detail on why they wanted to disband, despite having a successful 2017, I feel that it gave me a glimpse of how they felt about having all this success. It’s pressuring and overwhelming. Imagine being on top of the world, winning awards left to right, selling out stadiums, breaking records for most views in 24 hrs (Youtube stop deleting views plz), made it on top charts in every music streaming platform, rich af, and having the whole planet wrapped around your fingers. Bts got everything they dreamed of and accomplished so many goals, but do you ever consider the price for their success? I’ve watched this anime called My (boku no for the weebs) hero academia (watch it, highly recommend it) one of the characters mentioned a very interesting line:

“Once you’re at the top, others will try to bring you down.” as accurate as I can get.

Just, let that sink in a little. I mean, they’ve made a lot of distracks to the haters and that includes mic drop and burned them, but that won’t stop them from tearing bts into shreds. For example, raise your hand if you’ve heard somebody say this once in your life

“You listen to kpop? They look like girls? Do they wear make up? Why do you listen to this crap? They’re so overrated. You can’t even understand what they’re saying.” Kpop this, kpop that.

First of all, there’s this thing called English sub titles, use it. and you seem to enjoy despacito, even tho you probably don’t speak español. If you do, then kudos to you, use the fuckin subs! And those boys are more beautiful (in and out) than you’ll ever be, so don’t even try dissing on their looks wen you can’t manage to make yourself look nice for once. (Sorry off topic lmao.)

Anyways, next topic

Keep in mind, this is going to address the fan base, and know that not everyone is a bad fan, some of you guys are chill and total crackheads. just know, if you’re not a crazy fan, you’re not a crazy fan, so don’t feel the need to defend yourself when someone is actually telling the truth about the fan base bc you guys know damn well that the fan base is very aggressive.

I read a post that a research student made on the army, and some people were offended and this person made some good points and means no harm. What stood out the most was when they said, “We’ll be each others downfall.” It sounds over dramatic, but it’s actually very accurate. I mean, you guys seen the fan base, though I hang around the chill and funny armys, I don’t really see or hear the toxicity of the fan base, however, I still see people post about the toxicity and it’s insane.

Maybe that’s why bts almost disbanded, bc they couldn’t take it anymore. The pressure of remaining on top of the world, toxic fans stalking them, shoving cameras in their faces, crowding them in airports, not being able to anything without a fan spotting them (side note: some fans were respectful and gave them space, but some also stalked them and even caused an accident (look it up, it happened twice this year), cameras filming them every second of the day, and can’t really be friends with a girl bc dating scandals, let alone fall in love with someone, whether it’s a girl or a boy. This is mostly Korean fans, but this also implies international fans, but Korean fans are the ones who mostly get affected when an idol is dating someone and jealous af. Like seriously, THEY ARE NOT YOURS! Yes, you buy their albums, and merch, but that doesn’t mean you own them!!!!!! Get out of your weird, shitty fantasy mind palace and wake the fuck up!!! Same goes for shippers (mostly taekookers). You can still support them, but frikin, let them be people!!!! GOSH!!!!

Sadly, it’s the cost of being worldwide celebrities. We’ve seen their vlives, bomb/ run episodes, interviews, and burn the stage. All those combined barely scratched the surface on what they’re going through as celebrities. The hardships they dealt with getting here and now the hardships of being on top and maintaining that position, it’s exhausting, mentally and physically. And on top of that, their freedom is technically stripped away. Honestly, even if you say “I support them no matter what,” that’s good for you, but what about the rest of the fan base? If bts decides to come out and lay everything out there for us to see, what now? If they have a girlfriend or a boyfriend would these people still support them? Would you stay by their side? Bc that’s I think they fear the most, us leaving them if they show who they are. There are so many things we don’t about bts and we’ll probably never know, and that’s totally fine. We may be each other’s comfort, but we’re also the downfall of each other. We can’t have a perfect fan base, and there’s always toxic people out there, and are going to probably read this. If you are, look yourself in the mirror, is this who you want to be? If you’ve done some crazy shit and are in denial, then gtfo and get help. PLEASE!!!!!

And that’s all folks. Sorry if it’s messy, my writing is trash. But please, give the boys love, they really need it, and please respect them and each other. And to bts, please, think of yourselves. We appreciate the hard work you’ve done, we stan hardworking men, but you guys already have a lot on your shoulders and it sucks to put on a smile for us when you’re having a bad day. Just know, you guys are human and you’re allowed to feel things. I’m happy you guys are able to pull through, and I’m glad you guys even talked it out. If things get too hard, or pressuring, talk it out with one another or if you want, maybe talk to us about, it probably won’t really help, but we can try, if you’re comfortable with it.

OK I’M DONE AND EXHAUSTED and I’m fixing some spelling and grammar errors

Also read some of the comments bc i missed some stuff and I’m too lazy to add in more and they point out really good stuff (for now at least).

#thankyoubts #bts #bangtansoyeondan #jikook #sope #vhope #vkook #namjin #tags majority of the fan base goes to #army #yeah #lord help me

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branlovestowrite · 6 years ago

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Reunited: A Stucky Story

I recently fell down the Stucky wormhole after @dracosollicitus started posting her Stucky WIP What’s Left of Kisses (side note, go read that when you’re done here). I’ve read a lot of Stucky stories in the past two months, but I couldn’t find one that had them reuniting in a modern-day, non superhero setting. After a while I decided I should write it myself. I added in Shuri/Bucky BroTP because I LOVE them as besties, as well as a little Jessica Jones/Bucky Barnes friendship because I love JJ and want her in all the Marvel stories. And of course, the women of Marvel ship Stucky and take measures to throw them together. This is my first Stucky story, and, if it’s a ship you’re into, I hope you’ll like what I’ve come up with.

Title: Reunited

Rating: T for mild language and brief mentions of sex

Summary: Bucky Barnes never thought he’d see his childhood best friend, and source of his first heartbreak, Steve Rogers ever again. He is thrown for a loop when Steve ends up working for one of his new clients. What happens now that these boys are together again? Can Bucky finally overcome his nerves and confess his true feelings to Steve?

Also on AO3

On a typical Wednesday morning, Bucky Barnes walked into work, completely unaware that by the end of the day, his life would change forever. That morning had seemed like a normal day in the office. The coffee was stale, the old donuts sat untouched and unmoved, and Shuri was teasing him just like she did every day. “Hey Bucky!” she yelled from across the room. “Yes?” He asked, the corners of his mouth twitching with amusement as he approached their shared workspace. Shuri’s brown eyes sparkled with mirth. “Peter and I are in an argument-” “More like a disagreement,” Peter interrupted, his head poking above the cube wall. “An argument,” Shuri continued “about what dating was like before cell phones. I figured you could help me settle it.” “Really?” Bucky raised his eyebrows in response. “I’m not that much older than you guys. I got my first cell phone in high school.” “But that was old tech,” Shuri clarified. “No dating apps; limited texting. What did you do when you had to… call… people?” She said the word ‘call’ as if it offended her. “I don’t know,” Bucky replied, “I just called them.” He dropped his messenger bag to the floor and sank into his desk chair. “What even is this argument about?” “I say people didn’t… have sex,” Peter explained, a flush rising up over his cheeks and ears. “I mean, that is, they didn’t have sex as soon. They waited longer. Since, you know, they weren’t sexting or sending-” he cut himself off as the remainder of his face turned the same shade as a tomato. Shuri gave an exasperated sigh. “Dick pics, Peter. The phrase is dick pics.”

Bucky groaned and hung his head, his chin length hair falling around his face. “You know, we are working…” “Anyway! I say that even if they couldn’t send dick pics, people still found ways to get nasty because people have always found ways to get nasty.” “What did I just walk in on?” Shuri’s brother, their boss and owner of the company, T’Challa walked up with a concerned look on his face. “Do I need to call Okoye?” “No, please, sir,” Peter fumbled. “Ha!” Shuri laughed. “Peter’s scared of HR!” “I’m not scared of HR; just Okoye. She can be so tough!” “Please make them stop,” Bucky pleaded, turning to T’Challa. Their boss only laughed in return. “If you find a way to make my sister stop, Barnes, you come let me know. I haven’t found one yet.” He walked on, continuing his morning lap of the office. After a minute, as Bucky was bringing up his email, Shuri pushed her chair over to his desk. “So, old man, what did you guys do?” Bucky stopped his perusal to reminisce. He remembered rushing home to get to his computer and see if Steve was online. They would chat for hours via AIM, unless one of them had to get off the computer so a parent could use the phone line. When they each got cell phones they would call each other at 9:00pm sharp, when minutes were unlimited, and talk until one or both of their phone batteries died. A flush grew on his cheeks as he remembered the not-so-innocent turn their conversations sometimes took. While he never did anything explicit with Steve, he thoroughly remembered some of the thoughts he’d had during those conversations; thoughts he’d been too afraid to express. And the things he did with other people, in an attempt to get Steve out of his head. “Shuri’s right.” He said, looking at Peter. Shuri smirked conspiratorially. “Oooo… Bucky got nasty!” “That’s all I’m saying,” Bucky replied, turning back to his screen. Bucky worked for Wakanda Tech, or WT as the employees called it, a startup taking the corporate communications world by storm. T’Challa inherited the company from his father, but most of their recent products came directly from Shuri’s designs. She was a wunderkind, with an innate understanding of technology that put people twice her age to shame. And somehow she managed to combine her technical ability with a personality that was warm and engaging. It was impossible not to like Shuri. Bucky considered himself lucky to have landed a position at WT. Most of the employees were in their early 20’s. He was a random outlier, having met Okoye, their director of HR, at a job fair for veterans. Okoye was not your typical HR rep. She had a strict no-bullshit policy and had no issue with calling out her employees when she felt they were in violation of that. But she was also fiercely loyal and dedicated to the success of WT, having grown up alongside T’Challa. Okoye had an eye for talent, and she saw something in Bucky, even if he didn’t really see it himself. He worked as a implementation manager, helping get new clients on the platform once they’d purchased a license. Bucky had an eye for organization, a direct result of his military training. His personal life might be a mess, but he knew how to get other people in order. Once Shuri and Peter settled their dispute, the office became quiet, although a hum of anticipation still hung in the air. Today was a very important day for WT. T’Challa had been in discussions with Tony Stark about bringing their product to Stark Inc. If they landed this contract, there would be a huge bonus for everyone. Negotiations were almost complete; Stark was coming by later to hopefully sign the final documents. Bucky couldn’t calm the anxiety that crept up his spine. He never liked brash, overcompensating men like Stark- or at least the way Stark was portrayed in the media. When he was younger, he’d stopped more than a few of those types from beating Steve to a pulp. He’d learned to live with them in the Army, being surrounded by meatheads who preened like peacocks to hide their insecurities. He’d had his fill of guys like that during his time in the service, and did his best to avoid them now. Unfortunately, there was only one other Implementation Manager at WT, Peter, and he was too green to take on the Stark job. Like it or not, Bucky would have to be in the room with Stark later that day, and he’d most likely also have to suck up to the man. His stomach roiled and he skipped lunch, hiding out at his desk while he nibbled on a few crackers.

The day kept moving like a freight train, and, before long, it was time. The quiet, efficient atmosphere of WT was turned on its ear when Tony Stark walked in. Bucky watched from the safety of his desk as Stark was greeted by T’Challa. “Mr. Stark,” the always professional entrepreneur began as he shook Stark’s hand. “No no,” his guest interrupted, “if we’re gonna work together, you gotta call me Tony.” The man spoke his words in a rapid clip, as if he didn’t have time to breathe properly between syllables. “Very well, Tony: welcome to Wakanda Tech.” T’Challa gestured proudly around the office. “Small operation you got here, huh?” “We believe in a flat organization structure, to maximize efficiency.” “Great use of buzzwords there, pal,” Stark replied, placing his hand on T’Challa’s shoulder. Shuri chose that moment to stand from her desk and extend her own hand to Bucky. “Shall we go in?” “Do I have to?” Bucky whined petulantly. “Yes!” she scolded, looking much older than her 22 years. “Get off your ass and come with me.” Bucky straightened up and grabbed his tablet, standing to follow the younger woman. They headed to the conference room and made it inside just before Stark and his entourage entered. “This must be Shuri!” Stark exclaimed, greeting the lady on question with a hug. Shuri halfheartedly returned the gesture before pulling away with a smile. “It is good to meet you, Mr. Stark.” “I already had this conversation with your brother. Call me Tony.” Shuri smiled politely in response and then turned to Bucky. “This is James Barnes. He is the Implementation Manager that will be working on your account.” “Jamie!” Tony said, patting the other man on the shoulder. “Tony,” Bucky returned with a bemused smirk. “Finally someone who gets it,” Tony said with a smile. He turned to the people surrounding him. “Allow me to introduce Pepper Potts, my right hand and the only reason I have any success in this world.” A tall, willowy redhead nodded her head toward Bucky and Shuri. “And this is Rhodey, my other right hand and best friend in the world.” The man in question smiled tensely at the group. “And finally, this is-” “Steve,” Bucky said in awe, looking up at the last member of Stark’s party. “Steve Rogers, from my legal team,” Tony filled in, a little deflated. “I’m sorry,” he said, pointing between them, “do you two know each other?”

“Bucky and I go way back,” Steve said, his smile still as devastating as ever. He flashed his blue eyes at Bucky, and the other man felt himself get weak in the knees. “Bucky?” Tony asked with a smirk. Bucky grimaced. “My full name is James Buchanan Barnes… but my friends call me Bucky.” “Splendid!” Tony said. “You didn’t tell me you knew someone who worked here, Rogers.” “I didn’t know I had a connection,” Steve replied warmly, still looking at Bucky. “It’s been a while since we talked.” Bucky gave Steve a shy smile. “A lot has happened since we last saw each other.” They stood like that, staring awkwardly at one another while butterflies danced in Bucky’s stomach. Finally, T’Challa intervened. “Shall we get started?” he asked as he gestured toward the table. Bucky wasn’t sure how he made it through that meeting in one piece, but, in spite of the awkwardness he felt, the meeting was a success. Stark seemed keener to sign the contract knowing there was a personal relationship between a member of his staff and someone at WT. As soon as the meeting adjourned Steve pulled Bucky aside.

“You look good, Buck.” “Thanks,” Bucky said, refusing to meet the other man’s eyes. Steve had changed so much since he’d last seen him, He was at least a good foot taller, with much broader shoulders. Bucky had to actively try not to drool. “You do too, but… I thought you were smaller.” Steve chuckled and scratched the back of his neck. “I had a growth spurt right after I moved away.” “You look… really good,” Bucky said. He took in Steve’s chest and thick arms that filled out his jacket just right. His mind wandered to the last time those arms had been wrapped around him in a hug, when Steve was thinner and shorter. He couldn’t help but wonder how it would feel now to have them wrap around his body; to get lost in that strong embrace. “Bucky?” Steve asked, meeting the other man’s eye. “Huh? Yeah?” Bucky came back to himself with a jolt, cursing his train of thought. “You wanna get a drink later? Catch up?” “Yeah,” Bucky replied as a brilliant smile bloomed across Steve’s face. “Yeah, I’d like that.” Steve gave Bucky his card, adding his personal cell number and making Bucky promise to call him. Then he had to go, and Bucky was left standing there, feeling dumbstruck. He heaved a sigh the moment the room was clear. He was so, so screwed. ~/~ “What the hell was that?” Shuri asked the moment he got back to desk. “What are you talking about?” “Um… how about the way you eye-fucked Stark’s lawyer the entire time? Although it seems to have worked in our favor. We should pimp you out more.”

“I did not ‘eye-fuck’ anyone,” Bucky protested. “Steve’s just an old friend.” “Right… ‘friend.’ You know, it’s 2019. You don’t have to use euphemisms anymore.” “I’m not covering anything! I’ve never tried to hide my sexuality. But Steve was never like that. We grew up together.” “From the way you were looking at him, it seems like homeboy ‘glowed up.’ You gonna go for it?” “Nah. Steve’s not into guys. He’s a heterosexual, all-American boy,” Bucky replied, unable to hide the tinge of sadness in his voice. “You might want to reconsider that opinion,” Shuri replied. “What makes you say that?” “Because he spent the entire meeting looking at you the same way you were looking at him.”

This new information distracted Bucky for the rest of the day, and he had trouble focusing on even the most basic of tasks. Finally, at 4:55, he decided he couldn’t do anything else, and began to pack up. As he flipped through his portfolio, the business card Steve had pressed into his hand fluttered to the ground. Before he could retrieve it, Shuri scooped it up.

“Steve Rogers gave you his card, did he? And he wrote his personal number on there?”

“Yeah… he mentioned going to get a drink.”

“So call him!”

“Yeah… I will. Just… I need some time. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Steve. A lot’s changed. I’m not the same kid I was in high school.”

Shuri’s gaze softened and she placed a gentle hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “I think the issue is actually that you’re a lot more like that kid than you realized, and seeing an old friend brought it all back.”

Bucky huffed a sigh and gave her a wry smile. “As usual, you prove how much smarter you are than me.”

“You heading out. Bucky?” Peter asked, poking his head over the cube wall once more.

“Yeah Pete. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Actually, would you be free to head over to Nick’s with me? I wanted to ask your advice about something.” His gaze shifted to Shuri and he gave a scowl “ Away from interfering parties.”

Bucky laughed. “Alright Pete, yeah. Let’s do it.”

~/~

Steve Rogers was an adult. He’d graduated early from Harvard Law and landed a lucrative position at Stark Inc. before he’d turned 25. So influential was he in that role that he’s ended up becoming one of the principal members of the legal team at the company 18 months later. Steve was on lists like “30 under 30” and he didn’t like to brag, but he was considered in some circles to be a ‘big deal’. So why did he currently feel like a nervous teenager waiting by the phone?

He’d tried to play it off, but seeing Bucky earlier that day had thrown him. Bucky had been his best friend for the majority of his young life. He brought school work when Steve was sick and sat by his bed, helping to keep him entertained. As they got older, he’d helped protect Steve when he got into fights he couldn’t finish. He’d been there in good and bad times. Losing Bucky in his life was a blow Steve had never really recovered from.

After the meeting, he’d wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of the day catching up with his friend, but there was too much to do. He cursed himself for not getting a commitment to meet the other man somewhere later on. Leaving the planning up to Bucky filled him with anxiety. Steve did not like to wait. He was not a waiter. He was a doer.

At five-o'clock his phone finally rang, the caller an unknown number. He felt his heart pounding in his chest as he pressed the ‘accept’ button.

“Bucky?”

The voice on the other end of the line gave a dry laugh. It was definitely female, so not Bucky. “No, this is Shuri.”

It took a moment for his brain to catch up with the name. “Oh, yes, from WT, right?” It was a bit strange that she was calling his personal line, but he wasn’t going to be rude. “How can I help you?”

“This isn’t business related, Mr. Rogers.”

“Please, call me Steve.”

“Yes, Steve,” she replied. “I thought you might want to know where Bucky Barnes is heading for an after work drink.”

“Oh, well if he wants me to join him, I’m sure he’ll call me and give me the place.” He pulled his phone away from his head to look at the screen, silently hoping there would be another incoming call.

“No, Steve, I don’t believe he will. I have worked with Sergeant Barnes for two years, and I know when he is vacillating. This is one of those times. He needs a nudge in the right direction.”

“I don’t know if that’s really-”

“Trust me Mr. Rogers, he would not call you of his own accord.”

This felt wrong to Steve, a violation of his old friend’s privacy. “I mean, if he doesn’t want to call me, he doesn’t have to. I’m not going to force him if he doesn’t want to.”

“No, he wants to. Of that I am sure.”

“What’s your aim here?” Steve asked, his tone changing as his suspicion rose. He didn’t want to insult the young woman, but he was starting to wonder why she was so invested in telling him where Bucky was going to be.

“I don’t mean any harm. I only wish to see my friend Bucky happy, and I know he’ll talk himself out of calling you if left to his own devices.”

Steve sighed as he took in her words. He wanted to believe that Bucky was more confident than that, but the last time he’d been in contact with his friend, he’d had the same impression. “Tell me.”

She gave him the name and address of the bar where Bucky was heading.

“Are you sure he’s gonna be there? Maybe he’s just going home?”

“He’ll be there. Our coworker Peter is going with him to make sure.”

“Is everyone at WT in on this?”

He could practically hear her smile on the other end of the line. “Just get there, Mr. Rogers. As soon as you can.”

~/~

Seeing Steve earlier in the day brought back a flood of memories for Bucky. Steve had been his best friend for his entire childhood, all the way through to the summer before their junior year of high school. He and Steve did everything together. They grew up alongside one another and had been closer in many ways than Bucky was to his own flesh-and-blood sibling.

But Steve was more than just a brother. He’d been Bucky’s first love. At the same time that he was just starting to realize his sexuality, he simultaneously realized that he was head-over-heels for Steven Grant Rogers.

When they were younger, Steve had been overlooked by nearly everyone. He was the smallest kid in class and had a slew of health problems that were the likely culprit for his stunted growth. Most prominent was his asthma, followed closely by a spinal curvature that led to him wearing a back brace for a few years. He had poor eyesight with color blindedness, which he wore thick glasses to help correct. And he had a weak immune system that caused him to get sick, and therefore miss school, all the time.

None of the other kids wanted to play with Steve. They were irritated with his inability to keep up when they ran. Or how he would break into a coughing fit in the middle of a dare, freaking everyone out with the fear that one of their cohorts might actually die from one of their stupid stunts.

Bucky was the opposite of Steve. Rambunctious and outgoing, he’d been friends with nearly everyone. He always had kids asking him to play. But Bucky only ever wanted to hang out with Steve.

He couldn’t remember the exact moment he’d first felt drawn to Steve. Bucky had known the other boy since the first grade, but they weren’t in the same class until the third grade. Because they lived in the same building, Bucky would often bring homework for Steve to do when he was out sick. At first, Steve’s mom had just expected Bucky to leave the work and run off, as other children must have done, but Bucky was precocious little fuck.

“How’s Stevie doin’ Mrs. Rogers?”

“Oh,” she’d replied, genuinely surprised at his question. “He’s getting better. He’s in his room, but he’s up and reading.”

“Can I go say hi to him?”

“Sure. Let me just poke my head in and let him know you’re here.”

Steve had seemed just as surprised at Bucky’s appearance as his mother, but welcomed the company.

“Whatcha readin’?” Bucky asked, pointing to the comic book in Steve’s lap.

“Oh, um… X-Men.”

“Killer! I like X-Men too! Who’s your favorite? I like Wolverine.”

Steve smiled at Bucky then, a real, genuine smile, and launched into a diatribe about how his favorite was Professor Xavier because even though he was in a wheelchair, he was one of the most powerful of the X-Men, but he still used his power for good, taking in young mutants and helping to guide them.

From that day forward, Steve and Bucky spent almost every afternoon together, talking about comics, movies (they once had a very heated debate about which trilogy had the superior Harrison Ford performance: Star Wars or Indiana Jones), and, when they were older, girls.

One afternoon, when they were 12 and sitting in Steve’s room, the blond turned to his friend and very innocently asked “You ever kissed a girl, Buck?”

“Yep,” Bucky replied nonchalantly, only half listening while he flipped through a comic book.

“What?! No way! When did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Bucky looked up at his friend and cringed. “It’s not my proudest moment.”

“When was it?”

“At Sharon Carter’s last birthday party. She wanted to play ‘spin-the-bottle.’”

Steve got a dreamy look at the mention of Sharon’s name. It was hardly a secret that he had a thing for the girl. She was kind to Steve, but had no inclination toward him. Steve had actually been invited to that party, but hadn’t been able to go because he was recovering from a wicked bout of bronchitis.

He looked back to Bucky with a goofy smile. “Who’d you kiss?”

Bucky’s face went red at that.

“Who was it?”

Bucky bit his lip for a moment, deliberating what to say, before finally deciding on the truth. He never usually kept secrets from Steve, and this one had been eating him alive. “I kissed Sharon.” He watched in horror as his friend’s face fell. “I’m sorry man!” Bucky continued. “I know you like her, and I didn’t want to, but the bottle landed on me when she spun it, and it was her birthday party, and I didn’t want to reject her in front of everyone.” He huffed a breath as he paused.

Steve, being Steve, gave him a gentle smile. “It’s okay, I get it.” His smile broadened into a grin. “How was it?”

“Kind of embarrassing,” Bucky admitted with a groan. “We went into a closet, and I was so nervous that I just barely gave her a peck. I couldn’t touch her because my hands were so sweaty. I didn’t want to gross her out.”

“Well maybe there’s hope for me yet.”

“As long as you can kiss better than I did.”

“Doubtful,” Steve snorted. “At least you’ve kissed someone once. I’ve never kissed anyone.”

Bucky got a wild idea then, and didn’t have the good sense to censor himself before blurting it out. “Wanna practice on me?”

“What?” Steve’s face was a mixture of shock and confusion.

“I mean, we’re buds, right? Let’s just practice with each other. Make us more ready when the next time comes.”

“Um… okay.”

Although his first kiss was technically with Sharon, Bucky always considered his kiss with Steve to be his first true kiss. It ignited feelings in him that he didn’t quite understand. He had a hard time looking at Steve the same, once he knew how soft the other boy’s lips were.

Steve eventually did get to kiss Sharon. Despite her initial reluctance, she decided to give Steve a chance and they even went steady for a few weeks in the eighth grade. But beyond that, Steve never had much luck with girls.

He remained smaller than all the other guys in their class, and ended up being the target of more than a few bullies. But Steve was scrappy. Although he was small, he could take a hit, and refused to run or stand down when confronted. Bucky always teetered on the fine line between when to let Steve stand up for himself and when to intervene to make sure Steve didn’t get seriously injured.

Bucky continued to hang out with Steve, even as he was taunted for it by the more popular kids in high school. He didn’t really care what anyone else said. Steve was his best friend.

One night during freshman year, when they were talking on the phone, Steve was whining to Bucky about how he would never have a shot with another girl in his life.

“You’re great, Stevie,” Bucky’d said, more than a little annoyed with the situation. “The right girl will come along eventually. She’ll see all the good in you and not worry about the other stuff.”

“I wish I could find a girl just like you, Bucky.”

That caused a lump to stick in Bucky’s throat. He’d decided to never tell Steve how he felt, knowing that Steve didn’t reciprocate his feelings. Bucky was terrified of destroying their friendship. He swallowed thickly before replying. “You do?”

“Yeah. You’re my best friend, Buck, and you always see the best in me. I’m so glad I have you.”

“I’m glad to have you too,” Bucky choked out in response. He’d almost decided to confess his feelings then, but Steve sighed and changed the subject before he had a chance.

“What about you, huh? I heard Lori’s got a thing for ya’.”

“Well, um… I think I might be gay,” Bucky replied, in lieu of confessing. He had been deliberating for some time on how to share this with Steve. He knew Steve, and knew his friend would never reject him, but, nevertheless, he braced himself for a bad response.

“Oh yeah?” Steve simply replied, and Bucky was immensely relieved to hear the smile in his friend’s voice.

“Yeah,” he sighed in relief.

“Okay man, cool. You got your eye on anyone, or just been thinking this for a bit?”

“Just been thinkin’ it,” Bucky admitted, not quite ready to tell Steve that he only had eyes for his best friend.

That had been the extent of Bucky’s coming out for another year, before he finally confessed to his parents and friends. He ended up going on a couple dates, had a few kisses, but never dated anyone seriously until after Steve moved.

The summer before their junior year, just after Steve turned sixteen, a bomb dropped in his world. His father, who had left his mother heartbroken when he was just a baby, suddenly died. Steve was shocked to learn that his dad had left him a house and a sizable amount of money. The house was in Indiana, and he was contacted by the grandfather he never knew he had to come out for a visit.

That summer ended up being a turning point for Steve. He got into a medical trial that ended up helping him overcome several of his physical ailments. Sarah went out several times to visit her son, and ended up really liking the area. When the summer ended, Steve’s grandpa asked if they would consider moving there. The house was nice, and Sarah would be able to make more money as a nurse if she wasn’t paying rent. And Steve wanted to get to know his family. His only concern was leaving Bucky.

“Come on, man,” Bucky’d assured him. “We got lots of ways to stay in touch. You ain’t getting rid of me.”

So Steve had gone, and although he never said anything, Bucky’s heart broke that day.

At first, they’d stayed in touch much the same way they had during the summer, through email, phone calls, and instant messaging, but, as the school year progressed, they began to drift apart. Steve had new friends. Since he wasn’t sick all the time and missing out on everything, he had an easier time meeting people. It was a fresh start for Steve, and Bucky didn’t want to keep his friend from his new social circle.

So, instead, Bucky dealt with his heartbreak in self-destructive ways: drinking heavily, experimenting with drugs, and losing his virginity to a random encounter at a party. He had lots of sex during his last two years of high school, with boys and girls. The further Bucky fell down the rabbit hole, the less he would talk to Steve. In the end, he screwed his grades up so bad that he barely graduated and didn’t have any college offers or scholarships to speak of. Directionless, he’d opted to enlist in the Army.

Enlistment had been the final thing to sever his connection to Steve. They had separate lives, and Bucky just assumed there was no chance he’d ever run into the other man again.

~/~

Bucky sat in the bar, trying not to lose his shit on Peter. He really did like the younger man, but he could be a bit over eager at times, like a puppy. Today seemed to be one of those days.

Peter got up to head to the bathroom, and Bucky decided to approach the bartender and order something harder than the beer he’d been nursing. As he stood there, waiting for his drink, he heard a surly voice speak from behind him.

“Barnes.”

“Jones,” he replied, turning to face the newcomer. Bucky liked Jessica Jones, even if she was an acquired taste. She was a PI that he’d met in this very bar, when she’d caught him on a date with a cheating husband. Jessica didn’t want to blow her cover, but after she had the pictures, she pulled Bucky aside and clued him in. Bucky had no idea his date was married, and thanked God that he hadn’t slept with the man.

“What are you doing here?” Jessica asked, the hint of a smile playing across her face. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Yeah, I haven’t been going out much. It’s cheaper to drink at home and don’t have to wear pants.”

“Can’t argue with that logic.”

Bucky considered her for a moment. Her dark hair hung down past her shoulders, and she was dressed in her usual armor of a t-shirt, jeans, boots, and a leather jacket. But something was different. It could have been a trick of the light, but she seemed to have taken a little more care with her makeup. Her brown eyes looked bigger than usual thanks to her artful eyeliner. And she wore a dark lipstick that set off her creamy skin beautifully. “Something’s changed about you, Jones. What’s going on?”

She schooled her features and gave him a stern look before breaking out into a full-on grin. Bucky couldn’t stop his small gasp when she smiled. She was truly beautiful, but her usually sour disposition tended to put people off.

“Okay, who are you and what have you done with my friend Jessica?”

“Shut up,” she replied, shoving his shoulder. “I’m on a date.” She nodded her head to the table behind her, where a gorgeous man with tan skin, jet black hair, and a neatly trimmed beard sat, watching them with interest.

“Damn girl,” Bucky replied, looping her arm with his own. “Does he swing both ways? Cause if so, send him my way when you’re done with him.”

“Oh fuck off, Barnes,” she laughed, freeing her arm.

Bucky relaxed for the first time all day, forgetting his nerves about Steve in his excitement for his friend. “You look good, Jess. Happy.”

“Thanks.” She glanced at something just over Bucky’s shoulder. “Well, I just wanted to come say hi since I haven’t seen you in a while. I’m gonna go back to my date and let you get back to yours.”

“Oh, no, I’m not on a date, just here with Pete from work.”

“Yeah?” She leaned in close and whispered as quietly as she could in the din of the bar. “Then who’s the blond beefcake two stools down who keeps staring at you?”

Bucky turned his head suddenly to see Steve sitting there, wearing a smirk and looking positively delicious. He’d removed his jacket and unbuttoned the top three buttons of his shirt, exposing the hollow of his throat. Bucky bit back the sudden urge to trace the other man’s adam’s apple with his tongue. “Oh my God… that’s Steve. I didn’t call him. How’d he know I was here?”

“That’s Steve?” Jessica asked, and Bucky automatically hissed at her to keep her voice down. He had shared the story with her one night over drinks, and she knew all about the torch he carried. “Well, Mazel Tov and all that,” she said with a wink. “Let’s get coffee sometime and you can tell me how good he fucks. And um…” she leaned to the left slightly, presumedly to check Steve out, “maybe we could arrange a trade.”

“Fuck you Jones.”

Jessica had already turned away when she called over her shoulder “We tried that, remember?”

Despite his annoyance, Bucky managed one last smile while he flipped her the bird, before gathering his courage to turn around and face Steve.

~/~

Steve watched Bucky with interest as he turned away from the stunning brunette he’d been talking to. He couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of the ease between them. It was obvious they weren’t lovers, but they were friends, and Steve missed having Bucky as his friend.

Bucky downed the shot he’d ordered and left the glass on the bar as he sauntered over to Steve. That was really the only way Steve could describe his walk. He didn’t seem as confident as the Bucky Barnes of their childhood, but he sure as hell knew how to fake it.

“Either you’re stalking me or Peter slipped something in my beer and I blacked out, because I don’t remember calling you.” Steve felt his cheeks warm as Bucky spoke. He took a minute to process the words, realizing they were harsher than the tone Bucky used to convey them.

“Um, right… well, Shuri called me and let me know you’d be here, so I thought I’d stop by after work and see if you’d be up for that drink.” He hadn’t looked Bucky in the eyes yet. “I can go, if it’s making you uncomfortable.” He moved to grab his wallet and pay for his beer.

“No, Steve, wait,” Bucky said, with a chuckle. “I was fuckin’ with you. Don’t go. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Yeah?” Steve’s lips spread wide in a grin and he finally looked up to meet Bucky’s gaze. What he saw there was heart-stopping. Bucky always had the most beautiful eyes, their color a cool gray-blue that changed from icy to steel depending on his mood. Right now they were brilliant, even in the dim light of the bar. And they were complimented by an amazing smile.

“Yeah,” Bucky replied, not breaking eye contact.

They stood there for a few seconds, just drinking one another in, before the spell was broken by the approach of Bucky’s coworker.

“Hey Buck-” Peter began.

“Shit! Pete! I’m sorry man,” Bucky replied before Peter could finish his sentence. “I abandoned you. I just ran into a couple people, and-”

“Yeah, man, no problem,” Peter replied. “I was actually gonna say I gotta split. My buddy Ned called and he needs me to come over.” Bucky raised his eyebrows at that, but before he could say anything, Peter sputtered on. “I mean… not ‘needs me’ like that, needs me. Ned’s just a friend. I mean… not that I have any problem with dudes, but Ned’s got a girlfriend and I’m kind of into this girl we went to high school together, and-”

Bucky interrupted the younger man’s diatribe. “Pete, it’s okay. You didn’t say anything to offend me.”

“Phew, that’s a relief,” Peter said, literally wiping his hand across his brow as he said the word ‘phew.’ Steve’s nerdy heart went out to the younger man. He could definitely remember being just as awkward in his own youth.

Peter swiftly made his exit, and Bucky ordered a fresh beer, abandoning the one he’d had at the table he was sitting at with Peter. He settled onto the stool next to Steve.

“So, bigwig legal guy at Stark Inc. at 28, huh? How’d you manage that?

Steve blushed again and looked down at the bar top. “I met Tony in college, and he took over his Dad’s company just as I was finishing law school. He contacted me and asked me to interview for a job on their legal team. I wasn’t about to turn down an opportunity like that. After I got the job, Tony told me he needed to clean house and that he wanted someone with his ear to the ground in legal. I helped him catch some bad actors, and when their positions were vacated, Tony asked if I wanted to take one.”

“Damn, that’s quite the story.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of unbelievable, right? Little guy from Brooklyn like me ending up here.”

“Yeah…” Bucky trailed off as he took a swig of his beer. “I always believed that little guy would go places.”

“That means a lot coming from you, Buck.” Steve looked over at the other man, his eyes soft.

“I never stopped believing in you, Stevie,” he replied, his voice soft.

“So…” Steve said after a pause. “What about you? How’d you’d end up at WT?”

“I met Okoye, the head of their HR, at a VA job fair.”

“Yeah? I remembered you enlisted after graduation. How long did you serve?”

“Six years, three tours. I was planning to retire, but I got injured on my last tour and was medically discharged.”

“Shit… What happened?”

“IED. Not a very big one, but enough to do some serious damage to my left arm. I was a sniper, and I couldn’t keep doing that job if I couldn’t hold the gun steady.”

“Oh damn… I’m sorry to hear that man.”

Bucky looked at Steve for a second, his eyes watering and his upper lip quivering. Steve felt his heart speed up at the thought of his friend’s pain. He started to stand up to give the other man a hug when Bucky’s face broke into a huge grin.

“You always were so gullible Stevie.”

“You jerk!” Steve replied with a laugh as he settled back on his stool.

Bucky pretended to look hurt. “What? Me? I’m not the one laughing at a wounded veteran, ya’ punk!”

“Yeah. yeah, asshole.” Steve tilted his beer to take a swig, his eyes never leaving Bucky’s. When he placed the bottle back down on the bartop, his smile faded a little, becoming wistful. “I’ve missed you, Buck. What happened to us?”

“I’m an asshole who doesn’t deserve nice things, that’s what,” Bucky said, suddenly looking anywhere but at Steve.

~/~

“What the hell does that mean?” Steve asked, and Bucky felt his heart constrict a little more. Sweet Stevie, always caring so much about everyone else.

“Look… it was a long time ago. Let’s forget I said anything. Tell me more about you.”

“No, Buck. I don’t want to forget it. What did you mean? If anything, I’m the asshole in the situation since I left.”

“No, Steve, no.” Bucky suddenly felt panicked at the thought that Steve would ever blame himself. Without thinking, he grabbed Steve’s hand in his own. “You could never be an asshole. You have always been the kindest, most selfless person I know. You going to Indiana was a good thing, wasn’t it? Without that, you might never have gotten healthy, and I doubt you could have afforded law school if you and your mom stayed in Brooklyn.”

“Then why? Why did we lose touch? We were always so close. Even when I had nothing, I had you.”

Bucky cringed. Even after all these years, it physically pained him to keep anything from Steve. “It was all my fault. I became a mess those last two years of high school. I was a drugged out loser. I barely graduated. You didn’t need someone like me dragging you down.”

Steve’s face softened and he squeezed Bucky’s hand with his own. “You would never have dragged me down. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to help you. It sounds like you were really hurting back then.”

“I was trying to find something.”

“What was that?”

Bucky looked up at Steve then, his eyes a bright cornflower blue, expressing his earnestness. “You,” Bucky replied, unable to tear his gaze away. “I was trying to find you.”

“You knew where I was, Bucky. If you needed me, I would have come back in a heartbeat.”

“I didn’t want to tear you away from your new life. You finally had everything you ever wanted. How selfish would it have been if I’d asked you to come back because I was working through a little bit of depression?”

“But, other than my ma, no one has ever been more important to me that you. I would have done anything to help you.”

“Naw… you had a new life. I remember those pictures on Facebook. You had that cute little girlfriend. The blonde one, kinda looked like Sharon. What was her name?”

“Kate,” Steve said with a small grin. “I think the main reason I first talked to her was because she reminded me of Sharon.” Bucky made to pull his hand free, but Steve kept his grip strong. “But what did you mean when you said you were trying to find me?”

“I…” Bucky sighed deeply and looked at the floor. “I wanted to find someone to take your place in my life. So I wouldn’t feel so empty.”

“Did it work?”

“No. Every person I hooked up with just made me feel more alone, but I kept trying. I must have slept my way through half of the teenage population of Brooklyn, but no one could hold a candle to you.”

Steve suddenly got very still. “What do you mean, Bucky? We never hooked up.”

Shit , Bucky thought, there goes my big fuckin’ mouth gettin’ me in trouble again. He looked up to meet Steve’s eyes once more, his mouth gaping like a fish out of water..

“Bucky… did you… did you want to be with me?”

“I… uh…” fuckfuckfuck “Um… I mean…” He felt his face flushing crimson red. “Shit. I never meant to tell you that Stevie. I’m sorry. Fuck… Let me just.” He grabbed his wallet out of his pocket and threw down whatever cash he had on hand, praying it was enough to cover his drinks. He’d just humiliated himself in front of Steve. The last thing he needed was to also stick him with the bill.

Steve stared open-mouthed as Bucky turned and walked as fast as he could out of the bar, heading for the parking lot. He was unlocking his car door when he heard Steve calling out his name.

“I’m sorry Stevie. Please… let me go home and hide for a while. I can’t deal with this right now.” He realized he was babbling, but it was like a dam broke and he couldn’t stop. “We were just reconnecting and then I went and fucked it up. Damnit… I am so sorry Steve. Please can we just forget I said anything? It was a long time ago and-”

He was cut off abruptly when Steve surged forward and captured Bucky’s mouth with his own. Bucky was shocked momentarily before his reflexes kicked in and he kissed back, Steve’s lips just as soft as he remembered them. He moaned softly as Steve’s hand grazed up his neck and over his jawline. The kiss seemed to drag on forever, a heavenly meeting of plush lips and velvety tongues and light nips of teeth. Bucky felt himself swoon a little inside.

When they finally broke apart, their chests panting, Steve brought his other hand up to cup Bucky’s cheeks. “You still talk too fuckin’ much,” he growled, and Bucky laughed before leaning back in for another kiss.

“I didn’t think you liked guys,” Bucky said in awe when they separated once more.

“Bucky… I have been gone for you from the moment you kissed me when we were kids. I was just so afraid to tell you then and lose you as a friend.”

“You punk… we could have had so much more time together if you’d have just said something!” Bucky chuckled as he pulled Steve’s body closer to his own.

“If I’d have said something? You’re the chatterbox you jerk! You should have told me how you felt.”

“I didn’t want to lose your friendship either.”

“Shit… we gotta get better at communicating with each other if we’re gonna make things work this time around.”

“Why don’t we start practicing on Friday? Will you go out on a date with me, Stevie?”

“Yes,” Steve whispered before closing in on Bucky for another mind-blowing kiss.

~/~

The next morning, when Bucky walked into work, Shuri was standing in the middle of their shared workspace wearing a self-satisfied smirk. “Did you have a good night, Bucky?”

Bucky tried to look offended, he really did, but he’d spent the night having pleasant dreams of kissing Steve at an outside table of a restaurant by the waterside. He smiled at his coworker. “I did.” He shrugged off his backpack and sat at his computer.

“How is Steve?” She asked as she followed him. “Will you be seeing him again?”

“You really don’t do subtle, do you?”

“I don’t have time for such things. Do you have a date or not?”

“Yes,” he replied, unable to hide his grin.

Shuri squealed with delight and danced in place. “Bucky’s gonna get nasty!”

“Just don’t send him any dick pics,” Peter mumbled from the other side of the cube wall.

Bucky blushed in response and Shuri cackled. “It’s too late for that, Peter!” she called back. “Did he send you one back?”

“I’m not saying anything about that, Shuri.”

She chuckled and took her seat at her desk. “As a sign of your gratitude, I fully expect your first daughter to be named after me.”

“Well, I was planning to do that anyway,” Bucky said with a grin.

“Damn right you were.”

Bucky looked up at his monitor and began to peruse his email. A minute later a notification popped up on his phone with a text from Steve.

Can’t wait for tomorrow night.

Bucky was unable to hide his grin as he picked up his phone to send a response.

If you enjoyed this, I’d really love a like, reblog, or comment (or all three!). Thanks for reading!

#stucky #stucky fanfiction #stucky fanfic #Bucky Barnes #Steve Rogers #shuri #Shuri is awesome #Jessica Jones #Bumbling Peter Parker #Women of Marvel ship Stucky #branwrites

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creek-cryptid-deluxe · 3 years ago

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My severe over stimulation continues. We are on... day 4.

So let me explain a thing for those who don't know.

When you have constant, fairly high levels of pain your brain, to some degree, filters it as 'background noise' (unless it's a particularly bad day, then it's an intrusive noise or an all consuming noise) meaning your brain is getting constant active input. It also means that you don't get proper sleep that is required to heal your body & give your brain a break from input, because it's still getting that pain input (at least if you're me). In my case, it interferes with my sleep so significantly that I developed a type of narcolepsy & only get an accumulated hour or two of deep/rem sleep, and that accumulated amount is broken into VERY small increments throughout the night, rather than is large chunks.

So the combination of constant input & shite sleep means my brain doesn't get properly rested which impacts various ways it functions. Like loss of short term memory, my ability to picture an object in my head & see where I saw it last is almost entirely gone.

However one of the most noticeable things from the outside is that I can no longer multi-task or handle a lot of even mild stress. This feature is why on days I have an appointment, I do nothing else of importance. I space out any phone calls I need to make. If The Spawn or I are sick or have some big event type thing, I do nothing else. So let's look at how my week has been.

Monday: I called & left a message requesting info about a post H.S. cosmetology school's programs. The Spawn spent the morning moaning about being sTaRvInG because she wasn't allowed to eat before the procedure. She also went in circles about if she wants to do online charter school or risk going in person this year (because our district decided to oBeY gOvEnOr AbBoTt'S mAnDaTe regarding schools not making masks mandatory. She also spent time fretting about anything that could possibly go wrong with the procedure. (She plays 'what if' and goes into a negative tailspin quite often.)

Took her up to get teeth removed. Waited in a parking lot for 2 hrs & during that time convinced Dad to go fill the prescriptions for me because less driving for me.

Then she was wheeled out & I did that whole thing.

Tuesday: I manage to speak to a person at the post H.S. program. Get some information but schedule a meeting via phone for additional. The Spawn starts her new habit of coming downstairs every 20 minutes to do one of the following: moan about liquid diet & hunger; fret about swelling; fret about how it feels when she moves her jaw; fret about something being in her wounds and making me check them; just moan about shit in general.

I call the charter school for info. Get info but find out that the enrollment/document submission deadline is Wednesday. Find out what docs I need.

Confirm with The Spawn that she wants this path for senior year. Get enrollment forms and all associated documents submitted while The Spawn interrupts for some b.s. every few minutes.

The thing I spent birthday money from Grandma on arrives! It is an industrial pipe style pole that hooks to the wall to hang clothes. I begin enacting my plan to hang it above an unusable window as a replacement closet for the one improvised from a pole & some ropes that hang from the ceiling & limit what I can do with bedroom arrangement. This process requires a stool & power tools. I am starting to get over stimulated, so I tell The Spawn that I am unavailable for awhile as I do this. She agrees & I put on headphones to begin.

My 'unavailability' was respected for maybe 5 minutes before she called me on the phone from upstairs about some random nonsense, then came downstairs to just constantly chatter. *sigh*

Bitching about inability to eat solid food continues. She orders Smoothie King from Favor. Dad & I leave for our nightly park jaunt, joined by Lou who just started playing Pokemon Go to help occupy time & needed a tutorial. The Spawn almost immediately begins texting me about how hungry she is. She asks if I can stop by a local restaurant 'on the way home' for queso that has refried beans in it, which she plans to eat with a spoon, as she has done with guac all day. I tell her that it's entirely out of the way but I will have some delivered. After it arrives, she is quiet until I get home.

Wednesday: just near constant moaning from The Spawn while I attempt to rearrange my bedroom. I'm so over stimulated at this point that any notification sound or the sound of The Spawn's ringtone (she calls me A LOT from upstairs throughout the day) makes me immediately pre-Endgame Hulk level enraged.

Lou comes by later to get further tutoring on Pokemon Go & talk a little while.

And today is Thursday. The Spawn hasn't arisen yet so we will see how that shakes out.

So when I start to get over stimulated, I can feel my brain start to 'short out'. I have a harder time thinking, keeping a train of thought, or remembering words. I can feel myself starting to get agitated.

So I mute my phone's notifications & ringtones, put on headphones & focus on a project. Any project. Gardening, rearranging, cleaning, sculpting... literally anything to give my brain a break.

However, because of The Spawn's procedure that has not been respected. So I'm incredibly irritable & my brain glitching makes me more irritable. I have a snappy, short tone without meaning to & under no circumstances want to be touched by anyone, dogs included. It's a problem.

And in addition, any time I'm trying to rest & get my brain to chill, The Spawn comes down & starts talking, then says in a snippy tone "What's your problem?" or "What's wrong with you?" If I try to explain, the drama queen supreme gets personally offended & says "Fine! I just won't ever talk to you again!" or "Oh I'm sorry my procedure is so inconvenient for you!" She has also taken to getting personally offended by every sarcastic joke I make, so apparently dry wit is no longer allowed, and takes anything I say, twists the context, and the take away for her is whatever the worst possible meaning could be.

(Example: she said she wished her friends had gotten this procedure so they could understand what she's going through. I said -while laughing & using an overly light tone- "You'd really want your friends to suffer through what you're suffering through so they understand?" Her response was "Wow you really think I'm just a horrible fucking monster, huh? That I'd want my friends to suffer? That's fucked up." Um... not AT ALL what was said or even remotely implied. So I sighed a deep sigh & said "My apologies, I forgot you've somehow lost the sense of humor you've had your entire life & no longer recognize the sense of humor I've had your entire life. So sorry. No I don't think you are a monster in any way but I do think you purposefully look for the worst possible meaning or implications within things I've said, so communicating with you is SUPER fun. Look! I made your dog a rope!")

So... that's how my life is going currently. I will, however, post old 'closet' & new 'closet' photos & dragon progress momentarily.

Fucking don't. I hate having to do this. Stealing people's shit for your buzzfeed article or click bait bullshit isn't journalism, it plagiarizing AT BEST. Fuck off.

#The Spawn #jesus christ I'm so fucking done

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cinnaminsvga · 5 years ago

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A Boy Like You Preview | Yoongi

→ summary: for whenever you are feeling low, always remember that there is a boy you know who would lift the sky for you.

{or alternatively: Min Yoongi loves you, though he never says it. He’s always been a firm believer that actions speak louder than any words ever could.}

→ genre: coworker!au, f2l, fluff → warnings: an overabundance of shy!yoongi to the point where you’ll want to squish his cheeks; kinda ooc but it is what it is don’t murder me!!! → words: anticipated 15k (?) → a/n: it’s like so fucking late rn and i have a midterm to study for but you know what....... you know what....... sometimes you gotta write blushy yoongi to make yourself forget that you are a poor college student whose boss just cut your work hours in half, so yea!!!!!! here’s whatever this is

There is a boy you know who likes to show his kindness quietly. It would go something like this:

Then comes the hand of God. It touches your shoulder gently, hesitantly. You turn around to face a stranger, a boy with shaggy black hair and pale moonlight skin. It is not God, but he comes close.

He doesn't find the words, after all. You aren't too offended by his silence, but he appears to be mortified. And so, he leaves just as quickly as he had appeared, like a whirlwind dressed in an oversized blazer flapping behind him like wings. He runs through the rain without another thought, an arm raised above his head in a futile attempt to avoid the rain.

You try calling out to him, wanting to thank him once more and maybe to ask how you could return his umbrella, but he is long gone. A speck of black dashing through the gray.

You clutch the umbrella closer to you, a feeling of something new growing inside of you. It is too small to call anything, but it is warm.

———

Umbrella boy has a name, and he happens to work on the same floor as you. You know this because he is standing right in front of you in all his bespectacled glory.

He ducks out of view the moment your eyes meet his. There is a stack of folders in his arms, and he bows his head until his nose touches manila. It's too late––he knows you caught him staring. He scurries behind walls of filing cabinets and desk cubicles, desperate to get back to his desk where he hopes you'll never find him.

(You can already imagine your HR department contacting you about nonconsensual manhandling... You admit that you tend to get overzealous with your affection, especially when confronted with cute things. This boy would definitely need to watch out for you if he knows what’s best for him.)

((Also note to self: Stop having these psychopathic conversations with yourself. Being stuck inside the cage which is your brain is torture enough, so let’s not encourage it to get worse.))

“Are you… umm…” You hesitate with your words, fearing that any sudden movement on your part might cause umbrella boy to combust on the spot. “Do you need help… picking those up?”

“Min Yoongi,” he replies, pausing for a second too long. He must have realized his delay because he coughs awkwardly into his forearm, averting his face away from you in a futile attempt to become nothing more than an abstract thought.

“I just… I’m sorry if I’m acting odd right now. I just wasn’t expecting you to come to my cubicle and I would’ve... I don’t know, tidied up? If I knew you were coming,” he mutters, propping his glasses back up when they start sliding down his nose. They make their slow descent back down immediately after, forever on an endless cycle of up and down his face.

You cock your head to the side. “Nerves? From what?”

Yoongi visibly relaxes when you accept his flimsy excuse, not really lingering on the validity of his statement. “Oh, sure! Don’t overwork yourself too much, okay?” you say, smiling sweetly back at him. He stares, wide-eyed, not really sure how to go on with his life after he’d been blasted by the full force of your grin.

God, you hope you remembered to use a toothpick during lunch. Was there spinach in your teeth? Oh fuck.

#my wips #bts scenarios #bts fanfiction #bts imagines #bts reader insert #yoongi scenarios #yoongi fanfiction #yoongi imagines #LISTEN I KNOW I SAID I'D POST FOX RAIN 4.5 AND I WILL #I JUST..... OVERESTIMATED MYSELF AND I THOT I'D FINISH EARLIER THAN EXPECTED #WELL!!!!!!! JUST ANOTHER DAY OF ZEE FUCKING UP AND WRITING SOME OTHER BULLSHIT INSTEAD LOL

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got7-texts · 7 years ago

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Safe - Mark (99/100)

You can find my post explaining the 100 Day Drabble Challenge here

To view the masterlist of drabbles for the challenge, click here

Prompt: Safe Member: Mark x Reader AU: Superhero!AU

Word Count: 1,434

Low-key imagined Mark as Dick Grayson the entire time I was writing this cause Dick is so great and so is Mark??

Being a superhero wasn’t easy.

Not when you had homework and chores and studies to also think about. But, somehow, Mark made do. He reckoned that it was definitely worth saving a lot of people at night, even if that meant being a little bit exhausted in the morning.

Tonight, was pretty much the same as every other night. He had already stopped a small drug trade that had happened in the far east side of town and now he was patrolling the area. Being able to fly and having super strength made it quite easy to take down regular, every day trouble makers. He was only hoping that he wouldn’t run into any other villains with superpowers.

Or maybe he ought to. That way he could take them down.

He was almost lost in his thoughts when he heard a shout from far off and the sound of men chuckling. In a flash, Mark flew across the buildings to peer down from above. In one of the alleyways, he saw three men cornering someone. One of them had a knife and, although it was dark and the shadows were deep, Mark thought he was holding it up to the person’s throat.

When he floated down to the ground, he was about to announce his presence when he suddenly saw the person’s face in the lamp light.

It was you.

You. Y/N L/N.

Mark had met you when you were both ten and you had just moved to the city. Your parents weren’t around much so you would often times run around the local park which was where you began your friendship with Mark. You spent years meeting up at the park, talking about your respective schools, lives, and problems. The two of you considered each other friends, but unbeknownst to you, Mark thought of you as something much more.

“Who the hell are you?” a voice called out, but Mark barely heard it. His eyes were locked onto yours and seeing the fear in them made him inexplicably angry. Mark shook away his thoughts, realizing that the men were now turning towards him.

“I’m the guy who’s gonna kick your ass,” Mark said, angrily. He wasn’t usually like this. When he was at school, he was always laid back and he thought he was pretty chill. But whenever he put on the mask and the superhero outfit, it was as though he was becoming a different person.

“Yea, we’ll see about that,” one of the thugs said. “Pretty boy in tights? Let me kick your ass,” the guy finished, rushing towards Mark with his fist pulled back. Mark easily evaded the punch and then pulled the thug’s arm, throwing him against the wall. With a roar, one of the other men pulled out a knife and attempted to stab Mark, but Mark evaded once more, flying over the man and landing his feet into the chest of the third. Unfortunately, the first man was now getting back up and grabbed a metal bar that was lying on the ground.

“Behind you!” you shouted, pointing to the masked man that was currently saving your life. The man quickly spun around and ducked before, using what looked like super human strength to slam the man against the second. Once all three men were lying unconscious, you heard the masked man sigh.

You were leaning against the wall and breathing heavily, not believing what just occurred. You tried to formulate a sentence but just stuttered as you stared down at the three bodies on the ground and the masked man in front of you.

You had seen him before multiple times on the news. There were always reports about how he stopped robberies, caught thieves, and was an overall superhero, but you had never thought that you would ever get to meet him.

Especially not under these circumstances.

Mark was currently having the same predicament. He didn’t know whether he should make a quick escape or not. He wanted to ask if you were okay and yell at you for being out so late, but he didn’t want to reveal his identity. He wanted you to like him for who he was, not a mask he wore.

“Uh…good evening,” Mark said. He was obviously putting on a fake voice, making it sound deeper than it probably was and you would have raised your eyes knowingly if you weren’t so emotionally exhausted.

“I…thank you…” you stuttered, nodding at him and then looking back at the men. “Are…are they…dead?” you asked, slowly. The masked men bent down to check the men and then shook his head.

“No, just unconscious,” he said, forgetting to use his fake voice. You were about to move forward when your legs betrayed you. You hadn’t realized just how much shock the situation had but you in and your legs almost melted, causing you to fall forward.

“Woah,” the masked man exclaimed, grabbing you in his arms before you hit the ground. “Oh my god, are you okay?” he asked, his voice frantic with concern. You nodded slowly and were about to respond when you froze.

“Whoa, wait, what?” you said, straightening yourself out. “I know you,” you stated, pointing at him.

“Uh…you must be confused,” the man said in a whisper to attempt to hide his voice, but you weren’t going to let him off that easily.

“No, stop that, speak in your normal voice cause I definitely know you,” you said, poking his chest with your finger as you sized him up, trying to place his voice.

“No you don’t,” he said, as quickly as he could. It was when he said this that it finally clicked. Your eyes grew tenfold and your jaw dropped.

“OH MY GOD. MARK?” you shouted, loudly. Mark immediately looked around and hushed you, bringing his finger to your lips. You felt your heartbeat race as you realized that your best friend and long time crush was in fact, a superhero.

“Shhhh, nobody’s supposed to know,” he said, frantically. You reached up to him and immediately felt the texture of the mask, feeling his neck for the line where the face mask split from the rest of the suit. Mark groaned and swatted your hand away, reaching up and pulling off the face mask.

His hair was slightly damp with sweat from running and fighting all night and you felt your heart skip a beat. His lips were a slight shade darker and his eyes were looking at you with nervousness. You took a step back into the wall and took him all in. The suit was skin tight and defined every muscle that he had, making you feel red in the cheeks just thinking about it.

“Oh my god, this is actually real. You’re actually a superhero,” you stated, breathlessly as you stared at him in shock. It was now the second time that night that you were frozen in place.

“Yes, but you have to promise you – ”

“Wait, you can fly!” you exclaimed, cutting Mark off with a grin on your face. “You can actually fly! Can you take me? Can you fly with me?” you asked, eagerly. Mark looked at you with a confused expression.

“Yea I guess but Y/N, you have to realize that this is extremely dangerous. If anyone – ”

“Woah, wait. This is why you’ve been sleeping during classes!” you stated, snapping your fingers as it all began to piece together in your mind. The more realizations you came to, the more excited you became.

“Y/N, I can’t – ”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this. I’m honestly super offended, Mark. I mean if I had superpowers I would totally tell you about them!” you ranted, shaking your head and crossing your arms. Mark gave you an exhausted look and then sighed.

“Can I please speak?” he asked, tiredly. You paused for a moment before motioning for him to proceed. “Okay, listen. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about any of this but it was…complicated. I want to explain it to you so just…just go home while I take these goons to the county jail and then I’ll meet you later tonight, okay?” he explained. You pondered his offer and then relented.

“Alright. Since you saved my life, I’ll grant you clemency…but only this time,” you said, smiling lightly. There was a small moment of silence before you threw your arms around him and squeezed him, your cheeks turning pink in the process.

“Thank you,” you said before turning and grabbing your bag as you headed home.

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superheroabc · 7 years ago

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meddling kids

Barry Allen x reader

Request: Can you do a female reader and barry where they have feelings for each other but are afraid to tell each other. And one day their children somehow end in the past and they decide to bring them together.

I’m so sorry this took so long to write. I also apologize for not posting at all this week. I’m planning on posting a Tom Holland imagine on Saturday and a Bucky Barnes fic on Sunday or Monday, so stay tuned for those.

2034

“Bet you can’t run faster than me Harry.”

“Bet I can Nora.” Yup That’s us. Harry and Nora Allen. Son and daughter of Y/N and Barry Allen, both graced with the gift of super speed. We were both making our usual bet of the week and I’m pretty sure I’m going to win. Nora claims that Uncle Cisco has been giving her extra training because she’s his “favorite” but Uncle Wally has been giving me extra training and he’s an actual speedster.

We both quickly suit up in the hopes of no one seeing us (because we aren’t allowed to race unsupervised) and sneak off to the particle accelerator (we aren’t allowed in there either).

“On your mark.” Nora says before crouching down.

“Get set.” I crouch down next to her

“Go!” We yell and we’re off. Ten times around is the rule. By the ninth lap I’m in the lead, but something weird happens. It’s like I can’t stop. Neither can Nora until we both see a bright blue light and were outside.

2017

“I so won that one.” I say dusting myself off the ground.

“Whatever,” She says rolling her eyes. “ Come on. Let’s go home and change real quick, we shouldn’t be out in the open like this.” We both sped home. When we got there the spare key wasn’t where it normally is so it took awhile to find it. Once we finally got inside I ran upstairs while Nora went to the kitchen. I opened the door to my room and I’m so confused.

“Nora! Come here!” She didn’t respond but I could hear her feet padding up the stairs. When she gets to my room she bust out in laughter.

“Dude where’s your stuff?” She asked still laughing.

“I don’t know. What should I do?”

“Nothing. Mom and dad are probably kicking you out.” She said before taking a bite of her stupid apple.

“They can’t do that, I’m only ten. Let’s go check your room out.” We both walk across the hall to her room. Once we got there we saw that hr room was in the same condition as mine. Nora gasped and dropped her apple as she started to look through the room.

“Harry this isn’t funny!” She says, still looking through the room

“I didn’t do anything!” I yell, offended that she thought I would do something like this (Although I would).

“Ugh! I’m gonna look through the rest of the house.” She says before stomping away. We both looked around the house and almost everything is different. Mom and dad’s bed is smaller, only mom’s stuff is there and most of the furniture is different. I plopped into the chair by the desk and sighed, planting my hands on my face. When I open my eyes I see Nora’s widened in shock.

“What?” She simply just pointed at the computer that was behind me. It read January 8, 2017. I back away from the computer as if it was going to attack me. “How did we get here?”

“We must’ve opened a breach when we raced. How are we going to get home?!” She says before pacing back and forth. I sat on the couch as I watched her mumble and pace across the floor. “Okay so I think that if we sneak back into the accelerator and run the opposite way we did and just as fast, then we can go back home. What do you think?”

“Sure. Let’s get out of here. Everything is so old.” We started to run out of the house and through the park until I gabbed Nora’s arm and pulled her behind a tree.

“What is your problem?” She asked furiously.

“Just look.” I say pointing at dad and Uncle Cisco.

“Dude just ask her out! She likes you, it’s obvious!” Yells Uncle Cisco.

“No she doesn’t like me. Y/N is way out of my league and would never agree to go on a date anyways.” Dad says looking depressed.

“Did you hear that? Mom and dad aren’t together yet. We should do something.” I said excitedly.

“Oh no we aren’t. We are going home. What if we mess things up and get erased from time or what if-”

“Nora that’s not possible. In case you haven’t noticed yet, are parents are a living rom-com. They love each other way too much to not come together eventually. What’s the harm in bringing them together sooner?” Her face changed in many ways thinking about what I just said. She then sighed, finally giving in.

Once we devised the perfect plan we went our separate ways. Nora sped off to the flower shop while I sped back home and somehow figured out how to type and print out two notes. We met back in the star labs parking lot and snuck inside. When we got there everyone was in the med bay or somewhere else.

I crept closer to dad’s suit and placed a note on it that read

Meet me at Jitters at 8

Love, Y/N

While I did that Nora went to mom’s office and placed the flowers and the note on her desk. The note said

Hey I was thinking we could go on a date tonight? Meet me at Jitters at 8

Love, Barry

Since it was 6:00 pm already we wouldn’t have to wait long to see our plan unfold. Once everything was in place we ran outside and waited.

Mean while at star labs

Barry, Joe and Cisco went to the cortex while Y/N and Caitlin went to Y/N’s office. When the boys went to the cortex they immediately saw the white piece of paper on the red suit.

Barry opened it and his eyes went wide in shock as he read it.

“You good Barr?” Asked Joe.

“Yeah... I think Y/N just asked me out on a date.”

When the girls went inside they instantly saw the flowers. Y/N shuffled over to the desk and saw a note peaking through it. After she read it she showed it to Caitlin.

“Finally. I thought neither of you were never gonna have the guts to do this.” Said Caitlin as Y/N rolled her eyes at her.

“Whatever Cait. I’m leaving, gotta go get ready for my date.”

8:00

Once it was time dad got there surprisingly first. He was wearing a blazer and had a giant bouquet of flowers. About fifteen minuets later and we were all getting nervous. Dad was shaking his leg up and down, staring at he door until mom walked in. She was wearing a f/c dress. It was simple but it fit well and went right above her knees.

“Hey.” Dad said handing mom her flowers.

“Barr how many flowers are you going to get me today? As much as I appreciate these, the ones you got me earlier were enough.” Dad’s eyebrows knitted in confusion while Nora and I quietly laughed at them.

“I didn’t get you any flowers earlier.”

“Yeah you did. It had this note in it.” Mom fished through her purse, looking for the small piece of paper. Once she found it she uncrumpled it and gave it to dad. He read over the note a few times before grabbing the note that was in his pocket.

“I didn’t ask you out. You asked me out.” Dad handed her the note and she was just as confused as dad.

“Looks like someone set us up I guess.”

“Yeah, but I’m glad they did. I like you a lot Y/N. I was just too afraid to tell you.” He said grabbing her hand.

“I like you too Barr.”

Nora and I look at each other with bright smiles. We did it. We brought our parents together.

“They look so happy.” Says Nora still staring at them.

“Yeah they are. Ready to go?” I asked. She simply just nodded as she hopped off of her stool. We then run off, sneak into the particle accelerator and run home. Happy with the fact that we are the reasons are parents are together. The reason they’re in love.

#barry allen #barry allen x reader #barry x reader #cisco ramon #joe west #caitlin snow #future barry #the flash #vibe #grant gustin x reader #grant gustin #grant #gustin #barry #allen

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ablubluh · 7 years ago

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i’m so fucking angry

so, my coworker, lets call her A. she works in the office, has done for yonks. does most of the rostering and phone work and time sheets. she’s mostly a pretty decent person. her main negative qualities are: a. an immunity to criticism that comes from being a longtime valuable employee and also friends with the boss b. a shocking lack of self awareness, apparently

last week, thursday, i came into work to find a display about work safety in the secondary break room (the one that residents’ families can use to make a cuppa, not just staff). ok, that’s not quite right - i find out from another coworker that there’s a display up, and there’s also a memo in the memo book about it. it’s a very effective display. the concept is the whole “there’s someone waiting for you at home” thing, so there’s a bunch of pictures of employees with, like, their families and pets and stuff. it’s a good display!

the thing is, A hasn’t asked anyone for the use of their pictures. she’s just grabbed them off facebook without asking anyone. i’m not facebook friends with her, but i had my privacy settings as public because there’s not, like, anything i’m ashamed of on there.

(i’ve since changed my settings to private)

so, the pictures she’s used of me: -one of me on the beach with my brother’s friend’s dog (doesn’t really give the whole ‘think who you’re coming home to’ message, does it?) -one of me (not wearing a bra), my boyfriend, and our other friend (what the fuck? she doesn’t even know him. he could be an ex for all she knows)

i’m furious enough about this that i fill in a corrective action request form stating how inappropriate i find this and how i would’ve been fine if she’d just asked, but she didn’t. i post on facebook:

i then spend the rest of the afternoon studying for, and undertaking, an exam. during this period i miss a call from her saying ‘call me at work’ and then hanging up in the voicemail. then there’s a text from her (through the work text system) that says, “if anyone doesn’t want their picture up in the break room, feel free to take it down and take it home! it’s yours to keep :)” which just. stunningly misses the point of the complaint. and then also she messages me (again through the work text system) “i’m disappointed you couldn’t talk to me directly first”.

so, like, by the time i see the missed call and the message it’s post office hours and too late to call, so i don’t. she doesn’t work again until monday. in the interim, i talk to other coworkers and get such feedback as “she put a picture of me and my young family on the way to a funeral without asking”, and “she took a picture off not my, but my kid’s profile, of my grandkid who is currently being custody battled over” and like. what the fuck, you know? because she didn’t ask about the context of the photos she used, she has directly offended/angered/dismayed multiple people.

anyway it’s monday today. i’ve been up at the beach over the weekend and dropped into work on the way home to talk to her. face to face, y’know? bc she was so put out about me not talking to her directly. and guess what!

-she doesn’t apologise -doesn’t even do that “i’m sorry you feel that way” fake apology -she doesn’t give a shit that she’s had this negative effect on someone -”you shouldn’t have your facebook settings public” well i sure as shit don’t any more! -”i didn’t like finding out about you being unhappy second hand” well i didn’t like finding out about you using my fucking photos second hand -i make sure to mention that the display is good and that it’s not being asked beforehand that i’m angry about, and she shrugs and tells me she wanted to surprise people -i tell her it failed to have that effect with me because my initial response was unhappiness at my privacy being violated. she says the thing about fb privacy settings -oh! and she told me i’d said “some nasty things” about her on fb. untrue. screenshots below:

yeah, fun fact: apparently saying someone “wasn’t malicious” is being “nasty”

so. that’s where i’m at! legitimately don’t know if i should take it to, like, HR? the facility manager isn’t going to do shit about the complaint i put in because she’s mates with A. i might just be being spiteful internally here but i’m not totally convinced A will even pass the complaint on to her. literally the only thing i want out of this is for A to accept the fact that she did something kinda fucked up, and apologise. i don’t want the display taken down or like, disciplinary action or any of that bullshit. i just want her to be aware that she did the wrong thing and why i’m so fuckin upset about it.

#lizzy rants #work shit

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jerepars · 7 years ago

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The Con Extended Chapter Notes

Hyperlinks appear in blue (underlined on mobile). The story is posted here. Direct link to this chapter is here.

> Archie settled over me, his hips square to mine as we kissed. He’d stayed on his elbows when I wouldn’t let go of him. As our tongues collided, I ran my fingers through his short ginger locks, massaging his scalp and undoing the style set in place by the gel. All I could taste was champagne. When he moved a hand and pressed on one of my hipbones through the fabric of my borrowed shirt, he sent a jolt of electricity through my body. In no time I decided that I wanted him closer and that he was wearing too many clothes.

One more shout out to Sugarcult's "Champagne", the theme song from the previous chapter. Almost every verse in the song begins with all I can taste is champagne...

So fitting.

> Archie let go of me completely and created some space between us in the bed. I was suddenly furious. Drunken intimacy didn’t rattle me. The interruption of it did. Damn him for not getting wasted with me. I cursed his conscience for kicking in, for not wanting to take advantage of my drunken stupor. Despite his reputation that preceded him, I knew him as more than a jock or a fuckboy, because he’d never treated me like he was just that. Archie Andrews was a certified heartthrob. So I was pretty sure there wasn’t anyone else I’d rather give in to temptation with.

Since this story is called The Con and the title is inspired by both the song and album by Tegan and Sara, I'm not shying away from sneaking as many subtle references into the story as possible. The first line in this paragraph is an indirect reference to the first line in "Back in Your Head": Build a wall of books between us in our bed.

> “I’m not the one you want,” Archie spoke gently, the warm timbre of his voice filling the air. “Jughead is.”

This is carry over from Shell Games. It's one of my favorite pieces of dialogue, in both stories now, because it cuts through all the bullshit and snaps Betty out of her drunken haze, making her remember everything. It is, of course, a song reference to "The One You Want" by The Get Up Kids. It's a beautiful song with lyrics that have nothing to do with the context I've used it in. For as long as I've been listening to the song, I just always wanted to have a character say that, and have it be jarring.

> He drew me into his arms once I scooted my way back toward him. I settled in against his chest and took one long shaky breath. I was done crying but I needed some time to settle down. My hysterics were all over the place and Archie had talked me down from the ledge again. Jughead had been the reason I felt deranged and desperate again.

Okay, last song reference of the chapter. "Deranged and Desperate" by Saves the Day. I debated with myself for a long time if it was okay to have Betty describe herself as feeling 'deranged' here. I looked up several definitions of the word. I read several parts of the story again, when she's describing her feelings toward Jughead and how Jughead makes her feel. And, yeah, I think it's a description that works for her describing her own feelings in this instance. If you're reading this and I've offended you in any way, I'm very sorry.

> I didn’t want to play out the con anymore. I was over it. As I’d learned from my night of drunkenness, winning and losing didn’t feel very different. If Jughead wasn’t into me, then he could kiss my ass and go to hell or heaven—it didn’t matter to me which one (it was most likely heaven though, since I’d always thought he had so much grace). As for me, I was lucky enough to have a soloist’s role in the Joffrey Ballet’s first cast for Giselle and lucky to have a friend like Archie who didn’t want my lows to be too low.

There's a call back to chapter 3 ("The Fireworks") here. In that chapter, in Betty's inner monologue, she talks about the perfection that dancers are always chasing after. She goes on to say that maybe it isn't actually perfection they're after, but rather, grace. Then she talks about the grace she sees in Jughead.

> Truly, I was blessed to be in the first cast on opening night. There were ten performances of Giselle over twelve days. The show distribution was different for principals, not adhering strictly to first and second cast designation, but being part of the first cast as soloists meant that Trev and I got to do our pas de deux together for three of the performances: opening night, the first Saturday night (the show my parents went to), and closing night, which was actually a Sunday matinée. The bright spot for the two other pairs, splitting the duties of the second cast, was that they got to perform in the Friday night shows and the four other weekend shows. The cast scheduling turned out to be to my advantage because it meant that my drunkenness after the season opening party had no repercussions on my professional life. I didn’t have a class, a rehearsal, or a performance on the day that I woke up with a hangover. I just got to think about the stupid con I was pulling.

For this season's run of Giselle, the Joffrey Ballet posted the casting sheets for each performance. I clicked on the one for opening night and pretty much squealed when I saw a listing of two dancers for "Peasant Pas" (the Peasant pas de deux), because it meant that they decided to put that interpolation piece in their staging of Giselle and what I've had Betty rattling on and on and on and on and on about is real in...reality. So then what I did was open every single casting sheet and then selected the ones that had the same dancers for the Peasant Pas in the opening night sheet. That was three performances: opening fight, the first Saturday night, and closing night. Just what Betty describes.

> Straight from my audition and a quick shower, I changed into dark blue jeans, a royal blue collared-shirt, and a pastel blue sweater over top of that. It was a bit of a monochrome look. I put on my grey fall jacket that was good against wind and rain, and took the red line from the Loop to River North. My hair was still wet as I combed it as neatly and as quickly as I could into a tight ponytail, looking down at my lap into a tiny compact mirror that served as a makeshift vanity until I had to get off, only two stops away. I met Jughead outside the Water Tower.

> He had a morning shift at work, and he was dressed as such—suspenders dangling from dark jeans, gray Henley and green flannel under a slate-colored Sherpa jacket, and hair crushed under his beanie. The Papyrus he worked at was inside Water Tower Place, which wasn’t far from the Hancock Center. We walked over to the Hancock Center and once in front of it, we stood there with feet firmly planted, with Jughead looking up. He wasn’t looking up at the sky. He wasn’t daydreaming and he wasn’t making animals of the clouds. He was looking up at the exterior of the building, at how high up it went, at how high up we would go.

> His eyes that mirrored the sky never left the building’s façade as he made one of his typical remarks, “Ready to enter the belly of the beast?”

I thought it'd be kind of cool to pair Jughead's pre-memorial dialogue from 1x05 (2:10 to 2:25) with the wardrobe from 1x06, when Betty and Jughead are standing in front of the bus shelter, looking up at the façade of The Sisters of Quiet Mercy, since Jughead is described as looking up at the building here. It's also a bit of role reversal because in that scene in 1x06, Jughead is comforting Betty, whereas in this part of the chapter, she's asking him if he's going to be okay.

You can even see the clothes in video form in the 'deleted' scene here. They didn't cut any of this from the Netflix version though. Their boots are described later in the chapter, once they've gotten off the elevator at the observatory.

I wrote 'Water Tower' as a proper name because it is. The shopping center that's named after it, therefore, is called Water Tower Place. Both Papyrus and Water Tower Place are mentioned in chapter 4 ("The Robots") when Betty talks about the part-time job Jughead got even if he hates it.

> “Are you sure this is gonna be okay?” I asked Jughead when we were inside the admission hall at street level. We both showed our driver’s licenses at the reception desk and were granted 50% off admission for having addresses within Chicago city limits. We were just waiting for the next elevator up. “You don’t like heights and that’s fine. It’s not too late to back out.”

I took the 50% off admission thing right off the 360 Chicago website. Locals get 50% off admission (because let's be real here, locals are the least likely to do tourist shit in their own city) with valid government-issued ID.

> I smirked. “I seem to recall someone throwing items from his backpack at me from the top of the monkey bars until I went to get an adult.”

> “Come on, Betts, that was like a million years ago.” Jughead clicked his tongue. “I’m a big boy now.”

> It felt kind of nice to have something to tease Jughead about. I’d spent so much of my time around him praying that I wouldn’t look foolish, feeling pathetic, and trying to get him to see me in a different light. Sometimes I forgot to think about him as just another human, one that I knew details about from childhood. He’d been as much a constant in my life as my brother from seven to fourteen. I didn’t think I’d learned much more about him in the last two months, but I did still know little things about him.

> I knew his favorite color and his favorite meal. I knew how much he valued his friendship with Chic. I knew what reminded him of home. But I also knew—and I’d been reminded when Jellybean was in town when he moved in—that he wasn’t fond of heights as a kid, and that it still held true. The anecdote of him as a 10-year-old boy climbing to the top of the monkey bars and being too scared to get down on his own once he saw the distance to the ground was one example. He could deny it and reason that he was an adult, a writer who sought to observe the human condition, but I knew it was still true. Besides, if he didn’t have a problem with heights, he wouldn’t have prefaced the favor of asking me to go with him using that sentiment. If he wasn’t scared, he would have paid for admission that included the Tilt surcharge, and he didn’t.

I always say that I don't include anything in the story without a reason. In the first chapter ("The Neighborhood"), Jellybean quips that Jughead only had her come out to Chicago so he wouldn't have to fly alone, afraid of heights. Betty then tells a story in her inner monologue about Jughead being stuck up on the monkey bars, too afraid to get down.

Now here we are, in the 7th chapter, with a good portion of the second half of the chapter dedicated to Jughead being confronted with that fear (the chapter previous to this one also saw it brought up because he asked Betty to go with him).

Back to the monkey bars story, the part mentioned here in Betty's dialogue could be thought of as the continuation of that story. Turns out she's the one who found him, who went to get an adult for him.

Ugh, they're so adorable.

> “Views…from the 6?” I followed up with the first thing the came to mind.

> The cover of Drake’s last proper album, Views, was a Photoshopped picture of him sitting on the edge of the CN Tower in his own hometown, Toronto. I remembered that Kevin had taken to coming up with choreography for one of the pre-release leaked tracks from the album, back when it was being referred to as Views from the 6. And Jughead’s grad program was at an art school, so I could totally see there being a class named after that.

> “Well, we’re in Chicago so technically it would be Views from the 3, right? But the professor for the class is like in his mid-fifties, so I doubt he’s taking cues from Drizzy. He writes about this city the way Joan Didion writes about Los Angeles though.” Jughead went on, “Anyway, at the beginning of the semester we got a list of places around the city to take in views from and then write about. This is one of my last ones on the list.”

So if you never knew why Drake referred to Toronto as "the 6" (or perhaps you never even know he called it that), it's because of the phone area codes for the city: 416 and 647. Before the album known as Views was shortened to that title, it had previously been referred to as Views from the 6 (article is from 2014; album wasn't released until 2016).

In Chicago, the phone area codes are 312 and 773. That's why Jughead points out that if Views was about Chicago, it would have been Views from the 3.

This was a really strange reference to make. Like I mentioned at the end of the chapter notes for chapter 3, I don't know I ended up with multiple Drake references in my story. This stuff just kind of sneaks up on me and won't let go.

Also, how about the fact that I have Jughead saying "Drizzy" and then talking about Joan Didion in the next sentence?

I don't know, man. I'm weird. I'm a weirdo.

> The big attraction of the observatory was called Tilt, a row of the building windows that had been modified to allow patrons to step onto the window ledge and tilt a fully enclosed sliding component to a 30-degree angle. It was a more accurate bird’s eye view of the city.

Again, all of my information about the Tilt attraction was taken from the 360 Chicago website and videos I looked at of it in action.

> “I mean I don’t know her know her.” Jughead used simple language to clarify. “I met her a few times back in Michigan, at the lit mag office.”

> “That’s impossible,” I countered. “Cheryl didn’t go to Michigan. Cheryl didn’t go to college. She came up through the ranks at Joffrey with me – she’s always been two years ahead.”

> “No, I never said she was a student there,” Jughead pointed out. “She dated the senior editor, Dilton, for a while.”

Jughead being on staff at his college's literary magazine was mentioned way back in the prologue. Dilton Doiley's been getting a lot of screentime in season 2, so I thought he deserved a shout out in the story. The Cheryl/Dilton pairing is an ode to the Archie Comics, where there are storylines about them dating. And if you think that the pairing is out of the realm of possibility for Riverdale, think back to the "Saints and Sinners" scene in 1x10. It seems to me that he was specifically sought out to be the party-crashing DJ because he shot the gun on July 4th and what he knows about Archie/Grundy. Dilton is at the helm of the questioning with Cheryl and Chuck. Who made sure he was there for that? I certainly don't think it was Chuck.

> My heart stopped. And then it raced. Maybe it just made him feel better, having a hand to hold when he was afraid to look down—I’d been the one to suggest Sabrina for that exact purpose on his birthday, after all. And all I could think was that Jughead was holding my hand instead. He wasn’t doing it as part of any formality or tradition, like when we’d danced together (to a Drake song from Views, no less) on the yacht that Hiram Lodge rented for Veronica’s end of summer party. Jughead was holding my hand in public, by choice, at one of the city’s tourist destinations. There were other people holding hands in the observatory. They were couples and they were doing it affectionately.

If you were to go back to chapter 3, to the part where Betty and Jughead are dancing, it is in fact a mid-tempo Drake song that they're dancing to. If you read the story notes for that chapter, I mentioned exactly what song from Views I had in mind. Yes, it is intentional that in the chapter called "The Views", they go up to see panoramic views of the city, and talk about Views from the 6, and Betty remembers dancing to something from Views. Views on views on views.

I hope to never reference Drake ever again.

#je repars notes #i did it #i managed to keep the chapter under 8k words with 30 words to spare #yes THIRTY #lol

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