#still not feeling particularly optimistic but hey what can I do but keep fucking trying

[rubenesque-as-fuck]

Last week's terrible Bumble date has convinced me to try OKCupid again. At least I can distract myself by answering way too many profile questions

[survivor-marieta-islands]

Episode 1: "Why do I hear Boss Music?"—Zee

Antigua

Steven

Hey y’all!!! I’m just your average line cook that is sweating his ass off in the summer heat. If I’m not working then I’m probably watching reality tv or playing something Pokémon related.

Ellie

HIIII have y'all missed me?? the original idol and immunity giving snake queen has returned to her throne of ninth place. I have missed this omg, I haven't been super active bc of college and shit but thankfully i am in an alliance (hate the feeling of not being in one) with my bestie baes Raffy and Colin called chaos CREw (see what we did there) I genuinely want to play with them and have us be f3 just bc i think it would be fucking hilarious!!! bye party people, ttyl

Jinx

AUGUST 10th, 2023 (2:22PM) CURRENTLY: Watching two GAY PEOPLE play Phasmophobia while queueing a playlist of 557 KPOP songs. BACKGROUND: This season Jinx wants to try to focus more on written confessionals as it’s what is most accessible for the majority of people and they did tell people in their intro that they’re a writer, afterall. In an effort to bring some humor, honesty and flair to their Survivor Stings ORG experience they are trying to adopt their detective persona from Raccoon City in the voice of Noir Spiderman from Spiderverse (with some Barbie energy tbh). It is very very likely that they’ll abandon or forget or just be completely against this persona fearing it is cringe beyond measure – but they may also keep it up as it’s kinda fun. Either way, they’re writing and that is a feat. A writer who doesn’t write is simply a flop.

LMAOO ANYWAYS I don’t know how to be serious in this type of way completely but I was feeling myself when writing the above so I will accept it and move on. If I’m not consistent with it, at least I tried! Which is really what this season is about on a personal level for me. It’s about meeting myself where I’m at. I expressed to Jay in my confessional that I’m frustrated at the current state of personal affairs even if it is temporary.

Coming into this season of Stings, I feel like I have a lot to give back and a lot left to express. Two seasons in a row, while I have nothing to regret about the games I have played – I have regrets about the personal relationships I have failed to maintain and the ones I failed to cultivate. I remember everyone from both seasons, I actually do care about them, I also know that these personal feelings may not align with others personal feelings about me. That it might not be what other people feel from me due to my absence. Due to my inability to have a good social game particularly last season. Saying yes to Stings this season, I was optimistic about the direction my life was heading and still am. More so, about the environments, the time I’d have, the attitude I’d come in with. It wouldn’t be burdened with the same struggle I have come into the last two seasons with and in a way – it isn’t.

In a way, I am simply sick of my own shit which may add to the judgment I am placing on myself. Not only judgment but the idea that my presence was really of THAT much importance to anyone in or out of game. I wanted to be much more confident and self assured that I would be different this time, not just disappear post season because of life circumstances as if not everyone has life get in the way. I know now I am still being kinder to myself than I have in the past – I do not write this with actual anger towards myself, striking disappointment, deep frustration but with a heavy sigh of here we go again. Though, with this awareness I know I can change my actions for the better. Even if I fail, I can try again. There’s an air of compassion that I’ve cultivated with and for myself. It’s definitely different than over a year ago when I first played Stings.

When I first played Stings – it was because Amy begged me to. Around six people had dropped out and she just needed a body, someone to play and be there. Paired with Raffy hosting – it was an easy sell. When falling down the rabbit hole of Survivor Stings, I didn’t expect to love an ORG or an environment or cast this much. I had just moved out, I was a mess on a level I knew of but never was allowed to investigate due to not being in a safe environment for so long until then. As I investigated, I was playing Survivor Stings. It’s weird to think that I am such a different person than I was even a year ago because as I’ve written this I don’t think I’ve given myself any faith, credit or hope that I am. I don’t even think I’ve expressed the changes and turns my life and myself have taken. I am so used to the disappointment that comes with failing that I forget how much I’ve succeeded and how far I’ve come. These are old narratives we sometimes tell ourselves when we don’t know how to write new ones. When we don’t know what the new ones will be. When it feels too scary to step into the greatness that we have earned because we are scared we are not worthy of it.

See me? I like knowing. To jump into the unknown always seems like a step back, even if I am of the risk taking variety, I like to take risks that are calculated. Moving cross country the way I have was the most uncalculated risk I have ever taken in my life and while it paid off – for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This oversight has caused me to feel a fear I haven’t since I moved out, I have seen as I have fallen into old patterns that are just really indicative of what my comfort zone is and why I need it currently. Even though I sometimes sit in doubt thinking I cannot break the cycle, I know I already have many times before. I know that I will, again and again. I wanted to come into Survivor Stings this time without thinking of all this. I guess that was my mistake, to think that playing an online Survivor game wouldn’t unearth something in me as it always does. This time though – I am the least certain of what it (the unearthed) will be than I ever have been. For once, I’m not really sure who I’ll be at the end of this game (because yes, I hope and plan to be at the end of this game) and it doesn’t completely scare me to not know. Maybe I’ll let myself down. Maybe I’ll surpass my expectations more than I could have ever imagined. Maybe I’ll be first boot. Either way, I don’t know and I am not trying to control it. That’s how I’m coming into this game.

I’ve only played one other ORG this entire calendar year – which is a feat for me. I go into ORGs with a lot more intentionality now, though it may seem so serious to me to be writing this all – it’s just how I am as a person. Hyper verbal, overly invested, able to detach quickly and grateful for the opportunity to be attached to an ORG I admire so much. I love these games, no matter how many bad experiences I have (which are plenty), no matter how many times ORGs have made me abuse my Xanax prescription, I will never say I will retire. They connect me to a part of myself that I felt was long gone, they connect me to so many people who have changed my life for the better. I think sometimes the point is to show up for yourself where you’re at when playing these games and not detach from it because we won’t take much from these games otherwise. For me, ORGs are a practice of being present with myself, learning other people, playing a game that is fun and brings out parts of me to overanalyze and understand. To win doesn’t mean getting first place to me – though that would be nice this time around – to win would be to at peace with myself. To know I played the best game I possibly could, that I am proud of the game I played, that I know I rose to the occasion and didn’t shy away from it.

During FTC last season, in my closing speech I quoted something along the lines of: Faith isn’t free – it costs us our cynicism and demands we spend a lifetime practicing it. I have been in constant practice of feeding my cynicism to the abyss, hoping that the faith I cultivate from letting go of it is no longer blind but earned. No matter what, this is what I aim to practice this season. Faith. In myself, my decisions, my intuition and my gameplay. I think it’s time for me to let go of the fears, the imposter syndrome, the trauma and move forward because this is a chance to practice. We don’t get enough chances to practice this delicate process in everyday life. This is what I am protecting, this is what drives me to get to the end of this game. In this current life transition, the knowledge that this isn't permanent and I have the honor of shaping my game, myself, my future in however way I want to. I want to lead with faith. As I write that, I cry. Because I am so scared to put this into practice but that’s exactly why I have to. I deserve to give myself the chance. XOXO, Gossip Jinx

eman

I know I say this every time but this time I really mean it.

It's vibes.

No plans.

I'm gonna let the game carry me.

What happens happens.

Promise.

🫡

Colin

WOOO GO GERIATRIC TRIBE

the game started last night and i'm LOVING this. so many old jokes to be made. and made they shall be. some of these people are so old that I don't even know them, and i've been around since the birth of christ.

pre season i said that if I didn't have a night one alliance then i would have failed. and unfortunately i failed. but i do have the groundwork for several partnerships. Ellie broke the ice by saying f2, so that's a thing. I love working with Ellie but sometimes they're too chaotic for their own good.

I had a great lil game talk with Steven last night. we agreed that we're gonna play this game naturally, and just accept that previous relationships are going to be a factor (i mean its a fucking all stars game). Usually we try to avoid each other because everyone just EXPECTS us to work together, but none of that this time. I'd love to work closely with Steven, I've never gotten the chance to before.

I spent like 45 mins on the call with jinx after everyone else left, we bonded over past org trauma and both of us living in missouri. it was a nice lil meeting. I think I can see myself wanting to work with them. they're very interesting.

and ofc I wanna work with Amy. Amy is an absolute treasure to the community. AND WE LIVE LIKE 30 MINS FROM EACH OTHER??! so we've already planned to attend some tribals together and meet up for some coffee. it'll be such a gag. i'm excited.

thats what I got for first impressions. gonna spend the rest of the day playing flash games and seeing what else I can learn about people and how they feel about the game.

bye bye

Amy

The Olds tribe is ICONIC and I literally do not want to go to tribal so I hope we win. I am also currently playing a two day mini right when this game started so I haven't been great with initial connections. Just banking on the fact that I know most people to get me through for now. This whole cast is iconic. Gonna be a fun one!

Jinx

oh i have GOT to rethink playing orgs and working full time. thinking i need to quit my job -- thoughts? bad idea, right?

Steven

There is a lot of people from T&T here which is kinda stressful since it literally just happened. Will there be drama from last season going to affect this one? Who knows but it’s definitely not what I was hoping for when signing up for this game. I will say that I am thankful to be old. The last few games I felt a need to hide my past in orgs and play down aspects of it but since everyone on the tribe has played them for years I don’t see a need to lie about it. Hopefully with being able to be more free to talk about my past I will be able to connect to everyone easier. Also there is a decent amount of stings winners on the tribe which is also a benefit and since I don’t think I need to hide that I have won in the past as a worry for putting a target on my back. My biggest worry right now is im busy today so im not as social as I want to be. The plan is once I finish work tomorrow is to put my social game into full gear and get everyone to love me. I just need to do it before results are posted so it doesn’t look sus and im just doing to not get booted. From the looks of it though we are up a point (thanks to me) and are on track for two more. Cross my fingers and wish me luck

Maddison

HI HELLO SLUTS (not derogatory) Let's seeee what's goin on. I'm doing a MID job at socializing with everyone tbh I have a total of zero (read: zero) alliances at this point which is ~ not awesome ~ but I've been a busy adult sooooo anywho. Lots of people on this tribe with pre-existing relationships which could play out in a multitude of ways. Raffy is hella consistent with reaching out and is defo social butterflying through this thing right now. Jinx is CUTIE absolutely love them. I'm currently pretending to semi-care about Taylor Swift (i do not) but I think I'm doing a decent job heheh. I've talked to several other people but honestly haven't gotten too far into any discussions and I've had not one single strategy conversation yet. :-) flop era activated. This is so chaotic but I've had three cups of coffee and am just pretending this is my journal. What else uuuuhmmmm one of my biggest mistakes during TDF was not talking to everyone on the tribe at the top. I need to rectify that this go around but haven't gotten there yet. Maybe this evening I can dedicated some time to networking lmfaooo. Okay that's all. Stay tuned folks happy Sunday <3

eman

Remember how I said on day one that it was no strategy only vibes and that I was only gonna see where the game took me.

And how swear to god this time I was serious.

I was a lying liar who lied.

Day two saw me up at the buttcrack of dawn to go to a National park and also trying to get a photo of an alpaca.

It still didn't do any good. We still lost the scavenger hunt.

Thank god we still won as a team for other reasons.

I'm all crankypants about losing the scavenger hunt though.

But at least we're still winning as a team.

And hopefully other team vibes will carry me through. I'm not willing to name names yet.

Yet.

Colin

WOOO WE WON THE CHALLENGE. i'm so glad because I feel like if this tribe of icons was going to tribal so soon, it'd be an absolute toss up. everyone is really formidable and I don't think anyone would be leaving without a fight.

i've been talking game a little bit here and there. i talked with raffy today and we came up with a little plan for securing our spots on the tribe.

we both LOVE amy and jinx, so we're gonna try to align with them. honestly I was wanting to make a missouri alliance with amy and jinx anyway, and i'm certainly not opposed to working with raffy.

i was talking to ellie yesterday and they mentioned the cursed idea of us + raffy + steven. except I dont think it's that cursed. I think i'd actually love to work with all of them. I really wanna make it work between Steven and I, we've never gotten a chance to work so closely before.

SO we're also gonna try to set up a side alliance with those four. I think the raffy + amy + jinx will be my main alliance, but covering all my possible bases is great. the tribe is still pretty big so working with a lot of people is smart, otherwise you'll get blindsided by the people you're not working with.

JG

Steven

Zoe

hi hello WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING BACK HERE IN SURVIVOR I really and truly am a chicken with my head cut off this round I forget how to play BUT I do feel that I'm building good social bonds with a few people which could make for me being an excellent göat xoxo Also thank heck we didn't have to go to the first tribal because I'm positive I would have been voted out lol

eman

Feelings and all . . . where would eman be without feelings. I dunno, man.

Idol hunt started and I found a backpack that had a metal detector and because I'm a Scorpio who can't keep a secret I went running. Why'd I go running to Amy, I don't even know, something told me to and that SOMETHING was right . . .

Cuz Amy had already been idol hunting and she got somewhere that said she needed a metal detector and whadaya know she's now let me in on her idol hunting.

So . . . maybe something's gonna happen . . .

We'll see.

It's weird that I'm pathologically incapable of carrying on a simple conversation IRL and yet incredibly good at the social game in Stings.

This tribe is nice.

Soup to nuts.

Raffy

This game is going to be intense from start to finish. I can feel it. I'm going to have to be extremely strategic to navigate through this mess. Here is my first impression of the cast:

1. Colin: We have never really gotten the chance to work together deep into a game. I feel like when we work together we always end up never going far together lol. Maybe that means I should not work with them, but I will try to feel them out. I can definitely see them being able to play more low-key and navigate easily through this tribe. Definitely not a name that can be thrown out easily.

2. Ellie: It is not a question of "if"; it is a question of "when" Ellie and I will work together. We always manage to get backed into the same corners in games so we also end up being forced to work together. I know if I need someone to flip or give me information, I can rely on them to give me what I need. What will be interesting is if we land on different sides. Though I can see Eman adopting Ellie and Ellie working with Maddison, Jinx, and Zo. Honestly I think Ellie has the most open game on my tribe so I think I want to get on their good side for the time being.

3. Eman: I don't know where I stand with Eman. I'm unsure if they will come for me for being amazing. I'll have to feel them out and get to know them more. However, currently, they are on my shortlist of people to get voted out of this tribe only because I am really unsure where I would stand.

4. Jinx: Jinx is going to be loyal to me 1000% if I am loyal to them back. However, I really don't know if I want to work with Jinx in this game because I like to shake things up and I don't know if our goals will align with who we want to work with. I wanna see who they get on with. I also worry that Jinx will be a late pre-merge boot if they get swap screwed. Though it is incredibly hard to turn down a guaranteed number and safety.

5. Maddison: A person I've never played with before! Her and Zo are the wildcards of the group. I just have a strong feeling they will work with Ellie and Zo. Those 3 kind of give off similar energy. But, I might want to be the fourth in that alliance. I really don't wanna vote her out, but she would be on my shortlist if it came down it.

6. JG: JG is a great guy. He's very loyal which is good. He hasn't been too online for the premiere which is always a worry since people might see you as inactive. But, he has a board game night with his friends so we'll see. I just don't know how JG will fit into any combination of alliances with people so I think he might already be on the outs? But that's just my worry since I do wanna work with him, I just don't see who would want to work with him with me. I'll put him on the shortlist of people too only because I feel like everyone would.

7. Steven: I love Steven so much. Do I want to work with Steven this game? Honestly I am not sure. I love talking to him so would love to get the chance to work with him again, but idk I get the vibe we might be on different sides. I think he'll definitely try to work with Colin and Amy. He might even bring in JG. Maybe that's the side that opposes the Ellie, Maddison, Zo (and maybe Eman) side that I've already conjured up in my head.

8. Zo: I want to work with her so bad. I've only talked with her for like 10 minutes, but I can already tell she's great and will be beneficial. Seems like an easy person to get along with and will be a way in for people I don't talk to. Very social butterfly. Very much how Ellie and I work together. I just hope she vibes with me. I would hate to be on opposite sides.

9. Amy: I fucking stan Amy so hard. I would love to work with Amy in this game. I kind of want to push Amy as my shield and cut her near the end so that I can win. A little bit of role reversal on my part. We'll have to see what her schedule is like though for this game as that kinda determines her activity lol.

Overall, I feel pretty good about this tribe. I think most people will see me as helpful rather than detrimental for the pre-merge phase. I think if I just chill and not game too hard that I'll be able to survive at least all of pre-swap. I'm too valuable during the pre-merge to let go at this point in time.

The other tribe definitely has some characters and threats. I do not trust Clefford, putting that out there. He's a devious little scamp. Trinica is an icon and would love to work with them, but I think we need to work together in pre-merge first because I wanna establish a rapport with them before I work with them in this game. AJ and Zee are definitely on my shortlist only because they are literally so chaotic that I think Ellie would be swayed into joining them. If they made it to merge, it's gonna be Ellie, Maddison, AJ, Zee, and Zo. Oh and Adeline is probably ALREADY working with AJ and Zee so add them onto that alliance too lol. Ellie is foaming at the mouth to work with Adeline again. I already know. Just watch. Love seeing Hairie and Brandi back. I feel like they are going to work together.

Sin Sazonar

Trinica

First impression: FUCK Second impression: DOUBLE FUCK

Basically, all the cool cats are on the oldies tribe, so my little babies tribe is screwed in this first challenge. Clefford wasn't around to pick a category so got put on pro gamers when he doesn't have a freaking computer and then immediately submitted super low scores instead of talking to his teammates about it, Shawn asked to do Popularity but seems to have only posted on social media instead of in VLs, Hairie was on trivia because he was quite literally the only one of us willing to do it who seemed to have seen a ton of Survivor but he lost because Steven is a superfan, and Tanner has now been moved to the scavenger hunt, a challenge he historically flopped on in Trinidad & Tobago. Like he only submitted 2 items and didn't do them correctly so didn't get any points for it. The ONLY section I think we have a chance at is 3-2-1.

It's honestly just hard to fight against the other tribe! They've been playing orgs longer than us, they're more familiar with Stings as a series, they likely have some challenge know-how/strategy that we don't. I have never played these flash games in my life. You know who probably has played them for hours and hours? Colin and Raffy. And maybe JG but I don't know them.

Not just that, this season is basically North Sea Reunion, which puts me at an immediate disadvantage. Maaaybe I'd have a shot if I was with Jinx and Raffy (or Colin and Steven since I've hosted them). But no, I'm stuck on a tribe with Zee who has seen me blindside AJ, AJ who has been blindsided by me, Hairie who has been blindsided by me, Clefford who has been blindsided by me, Arvin who has been blindsided by me, and Brandi who I never played with but who knows I won. Plus Tanner, who is tight with Hairie and AJ, and Del, who has connections to Clefford and Hairie. I just don't see a world in which A) we don't lose, and B) I'm not first boot.

Some may say I'm being defeatist (*cough* Jay *cough*) but I think I'm being realistic. This is a season I am simply not destined to go far in. My only hope is to convince people I'm good at challenges so should be kept until merge, and I'm a good meat shield.

Tanner

I’m feeling connected to Adeline others there isn’t game talk

Zee

Ok so right now I'm kind of feeling like a kid on their first day of school in a new school, I don’t know anyone and I want to make friends but it seems like everyone already knows each other and I’m just the new kid on the block. I am however taking this new game as a new leaf, since I want to play this game the way I should have played my last one, more trusting, giving, and openhearted. Imma slay the same though, the slay levels are remaining how they are now. Oh and I found that little clue in the rules for the idol hunt so I’m interested to see what that turns out to be :p

AJ

Starting this off with an early round one confessional bc why the hell not. Starting out I’m definitely not in a great position, if for the sole reason of I’m on Zee’s tribe. Which is not good. Yeah we say we don’t want to play with each other in the chats and everything, but I’m sure there’ll still be a general assumption/rumor that we’re gonna work together. Given, yk, the whole twin thing.

To be honest I’m not sure if I will be working with her, but we’ll see how alliance making plays out. I think the important thing for me is that she believes I’m playing with her. Given how chaotic she was last season and the somewhat generally negative perception she had, I really don’t think openly being an ally of hers is beneficial, but again, we’ll see what happens.

Also sidenote: I am scared about how many people I do not know on the other tribe.

I think this season I’ll start ranking people’s threat levels to my own game, because again, why not? At this starting point I’m going to just list people, my general vibe and thoughts about them at this point in the game, and also their threat level to my game right now and why I have put them there. (It’s a 1-5 scale - the higher the number the more dangerous)

General thoughts so far. I’m hesitant to work with Trinica bc she’s turned on me in two games now, we’ve got a hesitant thing going with working together for jury but idk if it’ll hold. Worried about Clefford since I didn’t speak to him for 10 months which is literally since we blindsided him. Hairie and Arvin I’m hopeful about. Hairie is a king and we stan. Arvin I kind of lied to constantly last game but he worked with us in the end. He’s probably closer to Trinica or Hairie than me at this point though. Shawn, Brandi, and Adeline I really don’t have any idea about - so I’m hoping to connect with them.

Tanner is the shining light in all of this, because I feel like with a little bit of work I can definitely have him on my side. He’s probably closer to me than anyone else in the game at this point, though I’m not sure who else he’s played with. But he seemed to be on good terms with me when we last spoke so. Fingers crossed we don’t lose and I don’t end up as first boot.

AJ

Talked with Trinica some more, I think maybe we can have a solid Jury pact, I hope so. Hairie I can’t quite trust I don’t think, he’s defs a villain esp given what Trinica is saying from watching his host chat. Him and arvin are an alliance to keep an eye on, and also him and Tanner who are apparently closer than I thought. Hopefully I can get a lot of people close to me. It would be really nice to win one of these things. Esp Stings, esp after last time lol.

Arvin

Hey Stings Fam. I'm back! I am so excited to play again, There's a lot of players from my original season and I wonder who's willing to work with me this time, since we all know how we played last time. I feel confident with our tribe that we can win the first immunity but I'm a bit worried that we haven't lock in our tasks yet. I also don't feel confident doing any of the challenges, so if I have to pick one it would be the TikTok got it challenge but it seems like the twins (AJ and Zee) won't let go of it because of the so called twin telepathy. My other choice would be the Stings classic first challenge, scavenger hunt. So I hope I end up doing it. I just hope for the best.

Clefford

My tribe is obviously The North Sea reunion. I was expecting this tribe to have unfamiliar faces, but I just got disappointed. Well, what can I do? Let's just face them.

CAST IMPRESSION

Good thing is that I have my co-Pinoy here, Arvin. I also know Hairie and Tanner in the ORG community. I'm actually shocked to learn that Zee is AJ's twin. They're both pretty and fun, so I'm putting extra effort to connect with them. I also had a chat with Trinica that I'd like to work with her this time. I'm happy to see Adeline, my Racoon City sister, and hopefully consider working again with me. I'll try to get into Shawn and Brandi's vibes, so hopefully they'll be around soon.

Seeing OLD TRIBE (yes, all caps) is pretty exciting. I would love to stay longer, so that I can interact with them. Unfortunately, Jinx is also playing this season. I don't know, but I'm kinda scared of her just the thought of she'll target me if we meet. I'm too kind to be treated that way *cries*. I wish that it's a clean slate between us.

CHALLENGE

Since I was late in the marooning, I got assigned to be in Pro-Gamers category where I had to play 3 challenges under that, and unfortunately, the challenges weren't designed to be played on mobile and I don't have a Laptop (Dear Santa, kidding) so I had to look an hour for a computer cafe to rent in my area. Premerge, I'm a tribe strong kind of player so challenges are really important for me to win to keep me and my tribe safe.

AJ

Day 2 and I’m already somewhat concerned. I thought I was doing alright, had some decent conversations with Hairie, Arvin, and surprisingly Clefford. However, I was informed by Zee that both today and yesterday all three of them had already been saying how Trinica and I are tight. I’m not sure how true that is/if that’s true - but it does leave me somewhat worried because I don’t want that to be a general perception out of the gate.

Also according to Hairie a lot of people are speculating about the twin thing, and I’ve straight up confirmed to Brandi that Zee and I live together. Which is another thing that concerns me because like, people are going to think we’re working together so much and I really don’t want that. When we’re together we’re always “the twins” and I really don’t want that to be a thing.

Now, despite my concerns, I’m in two alliance chats. One that Trinica created with Zee and I - jokingly titled the same thing Zee’s host chat was called last season. The second one is titled Timezone Hell, and it is just a trash fire (lovingly.) In it is me, Zee, Clefford (who we blindsided in North Sea), Hairie (who I lied to at team captain, and in amethyst, and at merge and then blindsided him), and Arvin (who I lied to throughout the entire swap and merge, up until I eliminated him.) I trust zero of these people.

Do I think I’m first boot if we go to tribal? I worry that that’ll be the case. I hope not, but it’s my fear. I think my only hope is a swap where I can reunite with Jinx (we stan, I miss them), or Raffy, or even Colin and Steven. Eman is also someone I really want to work with, esp with us having a good connection from DnD. But gah, I just don’t even know what to do or who I’m going to work with. It feels like we’re gonna go to tribal already so I’m trying to make a game plan but goddamn if I’m not struggling.

Zee

Why do I hear Boss Music? That’s what’s going through my head right now. Before we got into the challenge we were all like “oh cool Old School vs New School” no, not cool, mission abort. What we failed to realize was that this now means we are most likely going to get pagonged due to the sheer amount of experience in these games the Mega-Time Returneees over on Antigua have. I can feel it, The Pagonging is among us. As far as people go, AJ and Trinica are fun but it does kinda feel weird talking to them considering they DID host my last game. I’d love to talk to Shawn and Adeline more, hopefully we vibe when they’re both back from vacation. Brandi also seems really nice, and like always I’d love to try an all female alliance, but probably gonna hold off on that a bit.

Shawn

So far, the game has already begun and it's starting fast. Everyone is already getting to know each other or they already know each other. I feel like I missed a huge chapter and it hasn't even been 24 hours. I think I might vote Tanner as my least connect. He doesn't seem to put in the effort. But who knows, the game just started.

Brandi

There is no chance of us winning the games part of the challenge no matter who is playing on sin sazonar- if I remember anything Raffy is amazing at the games

Shawn

So I wake up this morning from a text from Hairie saying "you've been away awhile, home you're enjoying your vacation 💕" which maybe it's the passive aggressive in me that read that as passive aggressive. I respond everyday, I'm working on my part, I haven't really been away THAT much. Maybe I'm reading into it, maybe it's just a nice message, but those are my morning thoughts.

AJ

I may have turned something around?? I told Hairie what Zee said about him spreading shit about Trinica and I, I also told him about Clefford being weird this morning. It seems like he’s now super sus of them (hopefully) and may want to get one of them out if (being real probably when) we go to tribal. Which is very good for me. No I don’t have any reason to feel bad about potentially voting Zee out. This is an all star season and that means big moves and taking risks. If that means leaving your twin high and dry so be it.

One of two things is happening. Either she’s being truthful, I’m an idiot, and I go home first. Or she’s doing what was done to her by Kaleigh last season and making stuff up to purposefully keep me close to her. There’s a probability Hairie isn’t spreading Trinica and AJ are close propaganda, and even if he is, knowing Zee isn’t tight lipped about it will definitely make her a bigger threat than me. If I can get him to want to go against them, which he already proposed, I’m golden.

To seal the deal, add a little cherry on top some might say, I also let him know what Clefford said about Tanner as a potential vote, which I already knew Hairie wouldn’t like - since Trinica had already told me about his soft spot/soreness on the topic of Tanner being first boot. I also don’t want Tanner to go - he’s closer to me and Hairie than he’d be to other people, and he willingly tells me about his connections. I also let him know that Zee flat out said we need to eliminate Tanner, which again, had the desired outcome. Now if everything goes well with it - and assuming we attend tribal council, here’s what we could do.

Hairie, Arvin, and I, vote for Zee - we can figure out how to get Arvin on board somehow. Maybe just say she can’t be trusted? That’s a different bridge to cross.

We can tell Shawn that their name got thrown out by Clefford for being inactive despite them being on vacation. Shawn was second boot, and hasn’t played since - thus there’ll hopefully be some, ok well what do we do now. They’ll potentially vote for Clefford. Brandi might still be close enough to Hairie to vote for Zee or Clefford. Trinica will defs be on board to vote for Clefford, because at this point it seems like neither of us trust him. Tanner can get told that Zee and Clefford are both wanting to vote him, and Clefford thinks he can control Tanner.

Adeline knows and worked with Clefford in Racoon City, and knows a lot of people on the other side. That’s definitely something to look out for. We probably can’t tell her about the vote.

Tanner has stated he really dislikes being controlled, by Sam in particular, and will most likely want to eliminate the people spreading his name. We could probably get Clefford out using this method. That’s 4-3 (Clefford-Zee) and is majority either way, even if the other 3 votes are Tanner.

Now this is good because if Clefford manages to find an idol with his early idol hunting access, then he either uses it and Zee goes home in a revote, or he doesn’t use it and goes home. Will this probably change after I have other conversations with other people? Yes. Does this mean that I could potentially get out Zee/Clefford if we go to tribal if I need to? Also yes. So yeah. Feeling tentatively okay about the inevitability of us losing.

AJ

The more I think about it though, the more sense it makes for Clefford to be the one out of the two to go home. Adeline doesn’t want a femme/them to go out first, and I honestly agree, so new idea is finding a way for it not to be me, Zee, and potentially for it to be Clefford.

We’re almost definitely going to tribal so. Time to start scheming.

--

Well results are out. So much has happened since then. Our tribe heard tribal council and really said “bet.” So I guess we’ll go in chronological order of events.

First Zee created a chat for all the non-men without asking half of the people she placed in it. She seems close to Adeline who has mentioned she won’t vote a non-man out first. Which means I should be safe but also means she won’t go along with the plan that’s slowly slowly coming together. Anyway back to the order of events. So Zee has this chat. Shawn and Brandi both say they’re already thinking someone to vote. They say it on three. Brandi says Tanner (big surprise everyone knew he was a name going around) and Shawn says Hairie. HAIRIE. My boy. Anyway I obviously can’t have either of those things. So I’m like oh Shawn idk I’d be more wary of Clefford bc he mentioned your name. Shawn thinks I mean Hairie. And everything hits the fan.

So while I’m running interference of pushing Clefford’s name while trying to look like I’m not pushing Clefford’s name, and making sure Tanner isn’t the vote, and making sure Hairie isn’t the vote - I’m also trying to figure out on the fly how I’m supposed to deal with Hairie’s cryptic but definitely worrying messages in the tribe chat. Shawn seems to have decided to confront Hairie, and clear the air or something, and Hairie was like I’m sorry wtf is happening. Telling Hairie the tea and that his name is out there turns from a soon thing to an even sooner thing out of safety for my own game.

I make it seem like I only said Clefford because he was fine with it earlier and it was that or Arvin who no one would believe. And I made it seem like I wasn’t actively pushing for Clefford. Now, after thinking Clefford was a good choice and telling Tanner it might have been a better choice than voting for Zee, I thought to myself. What if I told Clefford his name was out there. Then I thought, well who would the target be? Zee. Hairie would be on board, I’ve since talked to him about it.

Trinica is allegedly on board. Tanner is on board. Brandi is on the fence but when Hairie wakes up and if he can convince her then that there is five. If we get Arvin that’s six, seven if we have Clefford on board. We may get Shawn - Hairie has mentioned speaking to them about it. If we pull this off it will be iconic and really improve my game in terms of not being seen as a set. Twins are a problem the longer they’re together seems to be the general consensus, if I can play without that being an issue that would be ideal.

And if I get screwed by this oh well. At least I’m attempting to make a big move. At least I’m playing the game. A femmes and thems alliance getting Clefford out is a repeat of North Sea, and I’m not looking to replay that. If this bites me I can’t really be mad though. Hopefully it doesn’t.

TL;DR - Am I the drama? Maybe.

Zee

So Hairie just caused some D R A M A in the tribe chat which is wild, and now apparently my name is out on the table coming from Tanner’s mouth. We’ve also got a Yellowjackets alliance which is very interesting. After the drama I got a pretty passive aggressive message from Hairie and that confused me because I thought we were on good terms, and I didn’t really do anything to him so that kind of made me a bit sad. I’ve really just been trying to be friendly with everyone so that’s kind of very interesting.

--

I have Alex as a guest in my VL! Very exciting, since I feel like his insight is going to be useful, and it’ll be nice to have an outside opinion on everything that’s going on. I think I’ll talk to him about the Hairie situation and see what insight he has.

--

Ok so Alex provided good insight, I was wondering if it seemed strange, how Hairie was acting and all, and apparently he thinks it’s out of pocket too so at least I’m not reading into things. Sadly I really like Hairie he seems like a fun person to work with so I hope I can get to the bottom of all this. :((

--

Wowie. So I just found some big news out from Hairie. I woke up to a message with an apology, but then the boston teaparty of teas happened. SO. Apparently he pushed my name due to some misinformation that was going around. I originally got the assumption that it was Trinica, as AJ suggested that too, and since Trinica did something similar to AJ in North Sea I believed it. HOWEVER my dearest Hairie has said that it was AJ, my own twin, who is spreading the rumor and has been spreading it for days that I’m telling people that hairie is spreading a twin thing and I’m not ok with that. Meanwhile me and Hairie haven’t talked any game, and I never heard a twin convo from anyone. So me and Hairie are now comparing notes, and it’s opened my eyes A LOT. We’re now discussing a vote after our comparison of notes.

AJ

I’m honestly kind of nervous about tribal. I feel like there could definitely be some pull for Zee going home. Hairie, who I do actually want to work with, doesn’t know who to trust. Which is honestly valid but also…man it’s just so tough. I don’t want to lead the charge, but I also feel like it may help me be more trusted? Also as always I’m worried I might go home. I learned last season that it’s so easy to get absolutely blindsided, so these may be my only confessionals of the season lmfao.

Current vibe is, Shawn, Brandi, Trinica and I could have a potential little alliance chat on the horizon. I’m not sure - but if we four work together and pull in Tanner we at least have 5 for a Zee vote. Hairie is allegedly down for that too, which would be an easy six. Seven if he pulls in Arvin. IF - and it’s a big if - I’m not being lied to. God I’m about to be OTT in edgic for SURE. I’m gonna be surprised if I’m not.

Crossing all my fingers and toes that I can pull this off and I’m not bit in the ass because of it.

Zee

So it would seem that the vote has shifted to Adeline. Hairie and I had a call after we compared notes, and we talked it out too, he said I seem very chill and fun, when before he couldn’t tell the tone. We added Clefford to the call and now and just like with Hairie I just decided to be like fully honest. I mentioned how I spoke with AJ about wanting an all non-men alliance, and how she was like “yeah lol create it” and how tbh it was actually my bad because I forgot that one step is actually ASKING everyone if they wanted to be in an alliance so that’s a whoopsie daisy on my part. I have also learned that AJ is HARD PUSHING my name, like girly calm down. I also learned that Trinica apparently asked Hairie to do the trivia since nobody else would step up, which was surprising because when Adeline said that he wasn’t putting effort and he was putting pressure, Trinica didn’t say anything in his defense, so she seems ok with that perception of him out in the gamesphere. Hairie, Clefford, and I all ended up comparing notes, and it seems like we’ve made an alliance, calling ourselves the Chopping Block. I spilled literally all the tea I have to them, so I hope that doesn’t bite me in the ass. I told Hairie that I 100% am voting with him, and for this, I told him to prove it that I’d write a specific phrase as my voting message. This is the one I told him “I just realized that, when it's dark out, the stars shining looks like little jellyfish populating the ocean of the night”. I think I’ll send that in the ChopBloc alliance chat. We need to convince the others to vote for Adeline too, otherwise it’s probably me, Hairie, or Clefford going home.

Brandi

THIS IS SO CHAOTIC

Shawn

Clearly everyone is popping off. Everyone is losing their shit and like I don't even know. This game definitely didn't go like last time. Zee is.. completely unreliable. Not trusting Clefford either. I feel like I've been a little messy too in my Dms and stuff. I'm not sure what to think of this but I know Brandi and Trinica are trustworthy. And my sweet jay, but they are the host. Honestly I'm just hoping my name don't get said, and that I can finish my work day in peace.

Trinica

i'mma do a tier list of most dramatic/chaos-inducing tribe members to least:

1. Zee (duh, who's surprised) 2. Hairie (i actually am surprised) 3. AJ (surprised about her causing chaos, not surprised at her already being a target, we love a predictable queen) 4. Adeline (instinct is to be chill but went to the tribe chat to bring things to the open when she found out zee was saying her name so that's why she's higher on the list) 5. Brandi (leaking everything to Hairie) 6. Clefford (being surprisingly chill for Clefford tbh but also made the first alliance chat i'm pretty sure and also saying lots of names to lots of people, zero loyalty) 7. Me (mostly telling jokes to help defuse tension, also a little bit stirring pots here and there as i get the whim but mostly trying not to say a lot because these people never listened when taylor swift said loose lips sink ships all the damn time) 8. Tanner (literally pre-voted yesterday despite the rule being we can't change our votes lmao, very much outside the drama but also telling a few lies) 9. Shawn (just doesn't want to be boot #1 or 2, staying out of things otherwise) 10. Arvin (calm king, literally sleeping)

Hairie

--

Zee

OK SO SHIT LITERALLY HIT THE FAN. While I didn’t want Adeline to go home, I was willing to vote her if that’s what it took. Ever since the alliance was created it was getting leaked, and I was told that Brandi, Shawn, and Trinica all complained to Hairie about it being made. But regardless, the chat got messy and I think things were being leaked from every alliance chat that existed, so, yeah. Due to this I think it’s highly unlikely that I’ll be kept in this game, but I’ve said that I do want to work to rebuild trust, because tbh I never really meant to break anyone’s trust, and I really did want to work with a majority of the people in those chats. I do think that I could use a good night’s rest though, so I’m going to prevote for Clefford since his messy behavior is what caused all this mess in the first place. I am very interested to know who was leaking information in the beginning-middle of the alliance though, but I guess I’ll see that when all these confessionals do get published in the end. I did end up leaking things when comparing notes, but it was after the alliance was already basically leaked through to entirety, yet still I’ve accepted and acknowledged my part in the alliance chat, so…Anyway this is probably my last confession but we’ll see.

[delicrieux]

—MAKE YOU SAY “OH” EXTRAS: TINDER

extra meaning non-canonical occurrence; can be placed anywhere in the “make you say oh” timeline after couple (cha. 14) and before the final “oh”. 

pairing—corpse husband x f!reader warnings—tinder profiles, tw: men, swearing.  word count—2.6k. format— written. ─── ❥ req by nonnie​:  y/n makes a youtube vid/live stream where she's just swiping through her tinder acc and corpse literally blocks her lmao

author’s note—akldsljfs this was such a funny idea i could not not write it lmao

ultimate masterlist. myso masterlist

You have pulled the biggest brain move by setting up both a facecam and a screen recorder on your phone. All is beautifully displayed and visible during the stream. Your fanbase is particularly intrigued on what exactly are you planning on doing today, seeing as your tweet of “strea” had been a bit vague, if not downright ominous. No emojis. No elaboration. You couldn’t even be bothered to finish the word. Truly, a mystery. Everyone tuned in and are currently waiting with bated breath.

A few of your fans must sense upcoming doom because the overall mood in the chat turns from optimistically intrigued to...evil. It’s an entity all on it’s own now, clawing at you through the screen with various renditions of laughter and devil emojis. A few eggplants thrown in there for good measure, accompanied, naturally, by the scandalous water drops. At first the common consensus is that you’re biting the bullet and going through your camera roll on stream. Definitely an idea worth considering, though you frankly don’t know what lies at the start of the 11k photograph journey, and you are afraid to check in public. Could be a harmless meme, could be a salacious pic you had saved of an OF star. It’s really a gamble. Either way, you would definitely get banned. You might still get banned. Why do you insist on doing shit like this?

Because it’s funny. Because you’re kinda stupid. Because it’s just so absolutely laughably easy to do.

A smile quirks your lips, and while it is not explicitly smug, the look in your eyes sure is, “Greetings,” You utter lowly, dimming the lights--the budget for this stream! Ugh, you went all out, “my children.”

mother i crave violence

sensing evil energy rn!!

i do not claim the energy in this video for myself or anyone else watching this 💖💖

^with peace and love shut the fuck up

“I know y’all lowkey hoes-” Upon your words the chat splits into two: one side eagerly agrees (even shares a few OF accounts! How helpful, supporting small businesses!), whilst the other feverishly insists on innocence. You make a face stuck somewhere between offended and bewildered, “Now c'mon now-I know you. I know you all. We’re the same, don’t-what was that?”

You try to scroll back to the comment but it’s loss in the sea of incoming messages, “I swear to God I just saw-”

Corpse_Husband: i love late night streams it’s not like i have anything better to do.

“COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORPSE!!!!” 

rip headphone users

i cant feel my face when im with you by the weeknd but instead of face its my fucking ears

yall think full vol on pc is better?my parents woke up 😭😭😭😭

To think he’s spending his last waking moments for today with watching you (he probably still would have anyway, because you do not posses an ounce of shame or self-control and pester him relentlessly)! It makes your heart sing, and suddenly, a traitorous, fun hating idea barges it’s way through the crowd of incoherent buzzing and states: don’t do this. For some reason it also has the voice of Rae. As if that would work in guilt-tripping you- Rae never succeed, and her fictitious rendition in mind won’t fare much better either.

Still, you thought about it. That must count for something. Corpse will understand, won’t he? Why don’t you want to upset it in the first place? Men look so funny when they lose their shit, like hello, don’t you have anything better to do? But the image of Corpse just sitting there, hurt, distraught, leaving you on seen because he’s in his sad boy hours leaves a sour taste in your mouth. 

queen rly went from  🥺😊 to 😕 u ok bbgirl?

Corpse_Husband: no pouts cutie

akjdjoeijdfse cUTIE??? deadass boutta r.i.p.

Well that succeeded in eliminating everything from mind, doubts included. If this was an anime, the scenery would shift into something roseate, with flowers and bubbles and sparkles all around you along with a halo or two. Alas, not an anime, rather reality. The led-lights, however, seemingly possessing a will of their own, slowly turn from deep violet to pink. You smile brightly, like the absolute dumbass you are, and you are met with a ray of heart and blushing emojis. You are just so cute, a real cutie! Still in your disguise adorable state, you swipe your finger on your phone screen, the grin never leaving your lips.

There, among the plethora of apps, nestled sits a red square with a white fire plastered on it. The delicate calligraphy on the bottom reads: TINDER.

The mood changes once again- you’re giving the roaches emotional instability by how quickly everything flips over- and the chat spams eggplants vigorously; some, of course, bravely fight against the thirst.

nooooooo i thought y/n is gonna stream in a god honoring way!!!

^pack it up girl defined

“So, Charlie and I-” You note a few awfully curious comments and squint, “-yes, we talk a lot. Charlie is a really good friend of mine. We’re best friends. Brothers. Sisters. Cousins. The whole fucking family tree-no, that sounds weird. Delete. Anyway, Charlie, being the absolute fucker he is, said, hey, you know what would be funny? And I was like, nooo, what would be funny, Charlie? And he says to me, he says, says, making fun of men on Tinder. And if y’all need any more proof that Charlie and I are platonic soulmates, then dunno, my children, my roaches, I dunno-I dunno what more to give you.”

You can’t be bothered reading the comments, there’s too damn many. You also need to save your reading comprehension for the actual bios. It has a time limit, that darn thing. 

“Okay, so I made a profile earlier, but I hadn’t swiped on anyone yet-” Despite the fact, Tinder helpfully informs you that already 99+ people have swiped right on you, “So, this is me,” You show the pictures you have of yourself, and damn, not to be a conceited narcissist, but you look really good. Like if you saw yourself on Tinder, you’d super like instantly. “Uhm, so, my bio-my bio says: let’s sauce in the tub together, ya dig? splishy splashy, giggle giggle.” 

i cant believe we are witnessing y/n trying to form a coherent sentence live 

shes trying give her time

ya dig??? y not capeesh

what scene from the godfather is this lol?

“My anthem, is,” You laugh, covering your lips with your hand, “Corpsie, this is form you-” Proudly, you show that indeed, Corpse’s E-GIRLS ARE RUINING MY FUCKING LIFE is listed as your anthem on Spotify, “Hehe.” Yes, you say that aloud.

Corpse_Husband: you’re killing me Corpse_Husband: thanks baby Corpse_Husband: now delete tinder ❤︎

You ignore his last quip, deciding it’s finally time to get this show on the road, “Right, let’s do this shit. I’m not actually going to swipe on any guys that look, uh, decent? Yuck, can’t believe I just said that, uhm, because I-because I feel like some actually deserve a chance with someone? I don’t wanna get anyone’s hopes up, as I am currently in a long distance relationship with Chrollo. So I’m just gonna swipe on, like, frat boy assholes. Because I don’t care if I hurt their feelings. Quite frankly I don’t think they possess them in the first place.”

The chat voices their agreements. With the ground rules set, you, giddy, click on the first profile.

Does Tinder know what you’re doing, your plan? The FBI agent watching you through your phone must be working overtime, bless his heart. They must, because the the first guy to meet you is named Jason, and there he is, blond hair and blue eyes, holding up a fish the size of his torso. Marginally adequate in looks, pretty good muscles. A solid 7 bordering on 8. He’s the same age as you, 15 miles away, and he studies at some college you don’t care enough to look up. Bio reads:

I like to drive fast. Fishing is my passion, but if you can’t catch me by the ocean, you’ll catch me catching waves, bro! Love a good gym date. You do squats, and I’ll keep a close eye to make sure you’re doing it correctly ;) You probably saw me at a party. Leader of the The Phi Kappa Psi. I’m a Gemini, if that matters lol.

You, of course, read it aloud, dramatically; provide some constructive criticism-he seems nice, but he’s a Gemini, so naturally, you can’t trust him at all! Also, that gym date session leaves little to be desired. With your rant done, you swipe right, and shocker! (not), it’s an instant match.

“Okie, I still wanna swipe of some profiles, so I’ll see what he’ll text later-” For a second you wonder the legalities of this stream, but you’re having too much fun to think of it further, “guys, I won't get sued, right?”

NOW she considers it

well....

if you do, we’ll kickstart your lawyer dw <3

Onto the next profile. Kevin, 25, is seen fixing his car- or, you assume he’s mid-fixing it, you don’t really know why else he’d hold a wrench and be covered in oil. He’s shirtless, and the caveman part of your brain echoes something closely resembling AWOOOGA!, but...but!...blonde hair, blue eyes. You pout again, “I don’t...I don’t really like blond boys, ya know? With the blue eyes and all, it’s just not my thing, uhm, unless it’s like-like...Armin from Attack on Titan. Else I don’t care.”

Onto the bio:

You have to treat a car like you treat a woman: go on long rides, take the lead, but most importantly, keep her oiled up 😜 

“What the fuck did I just read?”

The chat is equally confused. You swipe right anyway- another match. Too easy.

The stream continues without incident for a solid thirty minutes- all of your matches, expect a few that genuinely looked like normal dudes that really couldn’t write a decent bio to save their lives, had been blond hair blue eyed gym rats with ranging forms of misogyny. Some opened with asking for nudes out right, some asked about your day first before asking for nudes. You prefer the former. Straight to the point! You admire the gall. 

But then, down the forty-five minute mark a profile popped up that made you still by your phone, your smile dying as your eyes bulged. Dear God. Lord in heaven. Who is this demonspiit lookalike and why is he so fucking hot? The neck tats, the skateboard, the clothes- holy shit, you gotta close your mouth before some drool dribbles out.

No bio, just his name, Tyler, and that he’s 23.

“He boutta be 23 in me.” You mutter, swiping right with lightning speed.

WHAT DID SHE SAYYYYY?????????

tyler is y/ns karma for relentlessly mocking that one guy that had a whole ass list on what his “female” partner should be

^he deserved it and also tyler seems like a typical fuckboi y/n grow a braincell

look at mom 🥺 her eyes are sparkling

It wasn’t a match right away. You somehow expected as much, but it still upset you. Simp behavior, pathetic. The stream continued bravely, and when Tyler messaged you a simple “yo” you totally didn’t sequel. You didn’t manage to text him back on stream: texting all those guys that you didn’t really find all that attractive was easy, but this...You’re a sucker for a man who radiates red flag energy. His whole profile is a red flag. He might just be a red flag himself.

What can you do? Suddenly becoming color blind is not easy. Once the stream ends, you unmatch with everyone expect Tyler. He you chat with for a bit, but a sudden craving for different company makes you abandon him, too. You don’t feel too heartbroken for him- you’re certain there’s already too many girls in his dms. You wish them luck.

Happily, you delete Tinder. You go to Twitter, notice you’re trending again- look at you go! Queen shit- and as you compose a thank you tweet, something strange happens. You go to text Corpse, but when you click on his profile you grow cold.

YOU’RE BLOCKED. You can’t follow or see @/Corpse_Husband ‘s Tweets. 

...Pardon? You hop onto Instragram and-also blocked. Seriously? And you thought you’re one petty bitch. Corpse is seriously prissy about everything. Damn, if he didn’t like your stream, he could’ve just said so. Didn’t need to, like, block you from his internet existence. So not cool.

You try texting him but no text go through. Well how will you let him know you deleted Tinder just like he asked? You relieve your frustrations by punching your pillow a few times. Later, you apologize to her, you didn’t mean to hurt her, it’s not her, it’s you. Fuck, 5 minutes of exile and you’re already loosing your mind.

“Raeeeeeeeeeeee!” You whine loudly. It’s roughly 2am now, but you don’t care. You’re too heartbroken to care. There’s a thump from her room, but nothing else, “Raeeeeeeeee!!!” You wail, wallowing in self-pity on your bed. You hear a very loud, very annoyed sigh from her room, followed by angry marching. Your door is abruptly thrown open, and in the dim, colorful light you see her scowl.

“What?” She grits.

“Can you please tell Corpse to unblock me from everything?”

“What did you do now?”

“I made fun of men on Tinder.”

She pauses, “...That doesn’t sound so bad.” She surmises, voice laced with suspicion, “What else?”

“...There was one really hot guy that I kinda sorta talked to after--”

“Y/n.”

“-But I totally deleted Tinder and honestly he was pretty boring, so, like, uhm, please?”

She sighs, the servery of which implies she is holding the weight of the world on her shoulders, and instantly you know that you won. She taps away at her phone, “You owe me one.” She states, and before you can reply, she exits your room and slams the door behind her.

Grinning, you text his phone again. The message goes through, oh gosh, you’re so relieved you feel like crying. This has been, officially, the worst five minutes of your life.

You Y DID U BLOCK ME LOSER!!! MAJOR LOSER ALERT!! I DELETED EVERYTHING IT WAS A JOKE r u still mad at me? y u always mad at me i never do anything:(

my husband You’re my baby, how do you think I’ll react when I see you publicly simping for some asshole on Tinder?

Oh no, he used the words, he delivered the killing blow. You’re finished. Your heart can’t take such a workout. 

Not that you would ever admit it to him, though!

You hehe ur jellyyyy u always dis jealous hehe?

my husband Not jealous.

Yeah, you might not be the brightest tool in the shed, but even you know that’s a lie. You send him an array of kissy emojis that he doesn’t have the decency to reply to. Then, completely unprompted and dead serious, you send him a simple voice memo, saying: “You really have nothing to worry about, you know? You’re my favorite, Corpsie.”

He responds via text, reiterating that he’s not fucking jealous and that he just doesn’t like when you show such outward interest in anyone but it’s not like he cares or anything. It’s just really, like, weeeeird to see his baby simping for another man like that totally ruins the whole dynamic!!! It was only natural that he should block you on every social media platform, including his personal number (which, like, was completely necessary! Doesn’t matter that his viewers can’t see it, it’s gotta be super believable!), and inform his followers of that, because it’s all a joke, like, for the dynamic, that Youtube grind, you know? Ya dig? No personal feelings were involved at all. He totally wasn’t upset that you found someone else cute, no way!

my husband I’m not jealous. Lol.

You ik u repeated tht like 50 times  u trynna convince me or??? lmao

my husband No comment. ...You don’t actually talk to anyone else like we’re talking, right?

You no one else calls me their baby if thts wat ur wondering at least not to my knowledge lol im all urs

my husband That makes me very happy to hear:)

Yeah, it makes you very happy, too.

hope you liked it!! xx

[clatterbane]

Farewell, shitty Jason Voorhees cosplay!

And hello... particularly fucked up SFX sclera lens?

(Was actually putting off looking at it until after getting home. Already more than enough to process. They did warn me it was super bloodshot, but I still wasn't quite prepared for...that. It's basically bruised all to hell, as the nurse was saying today. She seemed half-surprised that I didn't have a shiner to go with it. Gruesome enough for the moment, as it is.)

Yeah, at that followup appointment this morning, basically the first thing the nurse did was take that thing off. And thankfully clean up around my eye safely!

Which I was definitely going to ask about, if they hadn't mentioned it straight off the bat. It was feeling really itchy and soggy under there, and finally getting the thing of my face was such a relief. Not to mention wiped off. I'm apparently good to go with a damp cotton pad as long as I don't press hard or, like, squirt shower water straight into Recovering Eyeball for a while. (And pretty obviously keep shampoo, etc. out of it.) Other than that, it should only need the extra-gentle treatment for about a week.

There is definitely more light getting in, for good or otherwise right now. I can make out larger shapes much better, and actually see if somebody is holding a hand up in front of me. The post-surgical blurriness is evidently from the gas, and should gradually start improving over the next few weeks as the gas gets absorbed. With some annoying visual effects developing from the bubble floating around as it shrinks. Doesn't sound like it could be worse to live with than what Haunted Eyeball has been pulling so far, but we'll see.

Don't want to get overly optimistic, but it did indeed sound like I should hopefully be able to get decent vision back in there. Again, we'll have to wait and...see? Pls?

That would be enough of a change with the lens implant and all, that I am definitely going to be needing new glasses ASAP regardless. Again, no idea how long that might take to stabilize enough. Will likely be going around severely lopsided (with the damned migraines! 💀) for at least a couple of months. Which also isn't really sounding like much change from the near-constant varying level migraine situation right now, but hey. Not looking forward to more of this shit--maybe especially after spending years like that for other reasons (celiac deficiencies screwing up my electrolytes), and finally getting that shit mostly stopped for nearly as many years before this started similar up again. 😬

(In other news, I finally got a brainstorm to try some hopefully appropriately tinted clip-on filters, and see if it helps. I know I do seem to be one of the migraine folks sensitive to cooler wavelengths. Rather than going around most of the time inside the house wearing the polarized likewise convertible shades to block some glare. May need to mess with ordering some from Brexit Island and risk Customs hangups, because I could find several suitable-looking FL-41 options there. Where those were apparently developed and the tinted lenses first used for migraine prevention. 🙄 Not much luck from Germany with clip-ons to use with existing glasses specifically, though that's frequently my first choice now. Much bigger country with more stuff available than here in Sweden, inside the Customs union--and, I can still get by well enough in German to even figure out what magic words might work for searches!)

Anyway, that eye was even more nearsighted, etc. going into this whole mess, and however it stabilizes with the new aftermarket lens? That is liable to make me pretty sick and headachy,cgoing around with a pretty strong absolutely wrong prescription in the meantime. Worst case, I guess I can pop that lens out of my existing glasses and see if uncorrected is less awful? But, we'll have to burn that particular bridge when we come to it.

I'm just pretty relieved to even be able to see someone waving their hand on that side now, tbqh.

The less good news: I get to go back tomorrow! 🙃 Not in the already planned like week and a half.

I also got two more kinds of eyedrops to use more temporarily! For a total of five (5)!

The guy who ended up prescribing the new additions actually scribbled down a full list for me to take home, with the dosing schedules laid out.

Yep, including one that's conveniently called for 5 times a day! 😬 The first horribly frequent one is a steroid with a tapering dosing schedule. Guessing that may be why he missed another one of the initial three prescribed yesterday. I'll figure it out from the labels, and alarms will no doubt be set up. Hadn't been needing to use that pill scheduling app since before we moved here, but I guess it's time to reinstall the sucker!

The issue? The pressure in that eye was registering at 32 mmHg, when it should apparently normally be 10-21. Not totally unexpected with the swelling and all--to the point that they wanted me back the next day after surgery mainly to check pressure. Doesn't sound like this is panic-level high, but enough to try and get it down ASAP to recheck tomorrow.

Thus the extra double header of glaucoma drops, to hopefully bring that shit down. And they had me take a couple of diuretic tablets before I even left the office. Which I then proceeded to MacGyver into a swallowable form, using one end of my pocketknife as a pill crusher and a handy Ziploc with some hypoglycemia backup candy hastily evicted to contain the shrapnel! It kinda worked, even if the doctor was looking on rather apologetically with nearly equal parts fascination and surprise. (After shuffling around to find some hopefully suitable bludgeon, not very successfully.)

The occasional benefits of hauling a bunch of miscellaneous shit around in inventory, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Pocket knives come in handy again. No wheels of cheese or bees required today, at least. Fresh out of those, sadly.

The pressure was less than alarming enough that this guy and the surgeon decided not to give me a longer term prescription of the Piss Yourself Potion. But, I did get sent home with another single-tablet dose in a little envelope, just in case. Not supposed to take it unless I start having some noticeable symptoms before I come back tomorrow. And instructions to urgently call 1177 if that doesn't fix any problems that might arise.

(Yeah, no symptoms at all so far, that I can tell. I think they got extra hyper over what does seem to be "just" the same-old migraine shit, though. Not lessened by the extra disruption and stress of that appointment. 😑)

Better to play it safe, and all that. And I was somewhat impressed again that they have been very specific about informing me what I should do if I do start experiencing any worrying complications or other symptoms. Especially as compared to experiences dealing with the NHS "Don't call us...no really, just don't" approach over the years.

(Very much including opthalmology, which actually dropped me off their list twice. Besides, erm, just not wanting to hear about the hemorrhages and deliberately choosing not to treat it the only time I did get summoned for an appointment almost a year into Plague Time. 😩)

But, at any rate, I also suspect that this difference in base expectations has been contributing to my worry levels. I am just still not used to anything getting treated as that urgent anymore, though when I think about it? This has been closer to what I would have expected back home. Especially when we had "good" insurance, but also later when I was on Medicaid. Not just with this eye garbage, either. Standards of care in general.

Just because they're willing to work me in ASAP to be safe, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's high time to start freaking out. Or, so I keep telling myself. 🙄

[bobohu4eva]

Pink Lace - Chapter 2

Characters: Baekhyun x Reader

Genre: College AU, stripper AU, fluff, smut, slow burn

Summary: Baekhyun, a philosophy professor with mysterious wealth, got himself completely fucked over a girl who can’t let him into her life.

Word count: 6.2k

Warnings: sex work, mentions of sexual assault, adult themes/situations, eventual smut

Tag list: @smolbeanmika @leave-me-in-the-summertime @totallynerdstuff @bbhmystar @nana-banan @kimyhappy @thegreatandi @geniusloey​ @deligxt​ 

Masterlist

“God I’m so fucking sick of this semester and it hasn’t even started yet.” You complained, lying on your roommates bed flipping through one of your textbooks for the upcoming semester.

“Relax, at least you have money and you’re smart y/n, you’ll be fine.”

“Easy for you to say, you’re an arts major, not an architecture student.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

“Nothing! It’s just different!”

“Mhm sure I’d love to see you paint a landscape or sculpt something.”

You gave your best friend a dirty look before focusing your attention back to the textbook.

Mia had been your best friend since 2nd grade and she had lived with you since you were 18. She had always been the more artistic one, doing dance from a young age and taking all sorts of art classes whenever she could. Her overall view on life was quite different from yours. She saw the world through the lens of an artist, and an optimist. 

Her views on relationships were very different from yours as well, with quite the laundry list of exes, each one more thrilling than the last. You honestly loved hearing all her stories and found it impressive how well she seemed to have the dating game figured out. You on the other hand, could count the men you’d slept with on one hand, and aren’t one for parties or anything like that, preferring to stay home and study or watch a drama.

With your dislike for parties and dating apps, you stayed pretty single. Not that you minded, being too swamped with schoolwork to make time for a real boyfriend anyway. Sometimes you thought about going out to parties and trying to find yourself a hookup but you never followed through, not wanting that kind of intimacy with a stranger.

“Did you see Baekhyun again last night?” She asked casually, knowing all about your work. Although for her, asking if he was there really meant ‘are you going to buy me my lunches again this week’.

“Yeah...” You contemplated for a second if you should tell her, but you quickly decided to just say it, not wanting to keep things from your best friend. “I told him my name. Like my real name.”

Her eyes went wide, definitely surprised by your confession. “Wait seriously? Why?”

“He asked and I just couldn’t tell him no.” You replied, much quieter now.

“Well it’s your choice but that really wasn’t a good idea, he’s already way too into you and now he’s just gonna think he actually has a shot with you.”

“Yeah I know I just.. I can’t explain it but it felt different.”

“He’s just another pervy dude who wants tits in his face! There’s a reason he pays you.” 

“He’s not a perv! He’s still a guy of course, but he’s sweet.” You felt a twinge of embarrassment at how quick you were to defend him. 

“All that matters about this guy is that he gives you nearly a thousand dollars every night he sees you, right?” You nodded. “You don’t want him thinking he doesn’t have to pay you anymore do you?”

You stayed quiet, because you knew she was right. This was the nature of your relationship with Baekhyun, and straying from what you had with him now just meant opening yourself up to the possibility of losing a lot of money, money you needed.

You were kind of surprised by how opposite you and Mia seemed to be in this situation. Usually it was you talking to her about boys, telling her not to make reckless decisions.

“Yeah you’re right. I’m gonna go to bed. I have classes starting pretty early tomorrow.” You told her as you left her room for yours.

You needed to sleep, but your conversation with her left you with the same uneasy feeling you’d had after last seeing Baekhyun. The longer you stared at your ceiling, the more you felt like you did the right thing telling him your name. He really liked you and it probably made his day, and you knew he wouldn’t use it against you in any way. He was too nice for that.  What’s the worst that could happen, right?

~

The first few classes of the day had gone okay. Your physics and statics professors didn’t seem like complete assholes, and you only had one class left for the day, philosophy. Part of you was annoyed you even needed to take the class, since you wouldn’t exactly consider yourself a very “deep” person, but you figured it would be easy enough.

Being the good student you are, you decided to get there early to get a seat close to the front to make a good impression on the professor. When you arrived the previous class hadn’t finished yet, so you sat down on a bench nearby and opened a book.

“Hey, are you waiting for philosophy class too?”

You looked up to see a rather cute boy, books in hand, looking down at you with a smile on his face.

“Yeah, do I know you?”

“I’m Lucas.” He sticks his hand out for you to shake, so you do and he sits down next to you. “Are you a philosophy major?”

“No, architecture. And I’m y/n.”

“Damn you must be really smart then! I’m a business major.”

“You also just have to take this for the humanities credit?”

“Yeah, but I’m excited, the professor seems cool I met him earlier today.”

“Really? What’s he like?”

“Super cool and smart, kind of young, but like a genius.”

“Yeah well hopefully he’s nice too. Especially with grading”

Lucas laughed and you noticed the previous class leaving the lecture hall so you got up and made your way in, sitting down in the second row, Lucas sitting down next to you. The professor hadn’t showed up yet so you turned to Lucas again, making small talk to pass the time. As you talked to him you realized he was actually fairly funny, although not the smartest. You had to admit though, he was pretty damn handsome. He had to be an entire foot taller than you, with beautifully tanned skin and a smile that would make any girl weak in the knees. 

“Are you going to any parties this weekend? I’m going to one at my buddies frat Friday night if you wanna be my date.”

You frowned “Sorry, I don’t really do parties.”

You could see the disappointment on his face. “Damn really? Well if ever change your mind you can text me.” He said as he scribbled something down and slid a piece of paper with his number on it across the table to you.

You internally cringed, but took the paper anyway and give him a small thank you. You weren’t lying when you said you didn’t do parties, but you still felt bad shooting him down, especially since he was actually pretty cute. That was the problem with you and dating in college. No matter how cute a guy was, what they wanted and what you wanted rarely added up well.

You’d bought your textbook already so you decide to get back to looking through it before class started. You also just wanted an excuse to stop talking to Lucas. You got lost in the book, finding yourself surprisingly interested in different moral theories and types of ethical arguments.

“Ahem.”

You heard who you assumed to be your professor and looked up, not expecting to see Baekhyun of all people smirking back at you. Fucking smirking.

You almost choked on air when you realized who you were looking at. Not only was it Baekhyun of all people standing in front of you, but he was wearing a fitted white button down and slacks with his hair styled out of his face, and glasses abandoned on his podium. He looked hot. You felt your face getting warmer and warmer.

“Hey you ok?” Lucas asked, having seen your reaction to Professor Byun.

“What? Yeah I’m totally fine why wouldn’t I be?” You responded, too loudly. Loudly enough that Baekhyun noticed. And laughed.

“Do you guys know each other or something?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” You told him while giving Baekhyun your best version of a death stare, but he didn’t seem to care.

“Hello everyone I’m Mr. Byun, I’ll be your philosophies of life professor.” He said, starting the lecture with a fairly neutral look on his face, although you noticed him looking in your direction often, and smiling.

You had to admit, he was smart. Not that you were particularly surprised, he seemed fairly intelligent from the conversations you’d had with him at work, but granted those weren’t always the most intellectual conversations either. The way he explained what you had read in the book was both interesting and informative, but you couldn’t focus on him talk about Socrates when just two days earlier you had been grinding on him, and had even let him touch you. Especially when he looked like that now. Your whole body felt hot and you knew you were probably as red as a tomato. 

You tried your best to focus on what he was saying for the sake of your grade, but he wasn’t making it easier by the way he kept looking in your direction with that smile on his face. Now, often looking you directly in the eyes with the same intensity from the club. Only this time, while sounding incredibly, frustratingly, smart.

As much as you tried, you couldn’t focus. Not when you had to process the fact that Baekhyun was now your college professor, and knew way more about you and your life than you ever wanted him to. You were hit with the realization that he now also knew you’d lied to him about nearly everything.

You became painfully aware of how you looked compared to him. While he looked exquisite in his business-casual attire, you had barely rolled out of bed in time to throw your hair up in a messy top knot and apply some mascara. Your hoodie and leggings combo wasn’t your best either, and you started feeling more and more embarrassed by the second.

Every other time Baekhyun had seen you, you had been dressed in expensive lingerie with your hair and makeup done perfectly. You had always been the one in control of the situation. Now, you only felt small and underdressed.

After what felt like hours he finally ended the lecture. But he wasn’t done yet, not with you at least. And you could tell by the way he was staring at you, smile now gone and replaced with a much more serious  expression. As soon as he dismissed everyone to leave, you frantically started shoving your things in your bag, trying to get out of the room as quickly as possible but your hands were shaking so badly that you ended up fumbling and dropping most of what you’d been holding.

“Shit, shit, shit” you whispered to yourself as you desperately reached for your belongings, feeling Baekhyun’s eyes on you, but it was too late and right after you saw the last student leave the lecture hall, you heard your name.

“Y/n come here.”

Not really having the option to say no, you walked up to him, trying to look as annoyed as possible.

“You look cute like this, without the heels and everything. I like it.” He said, now smiling down at you. Despite the mocking feeling of the statement, his face was soft now, the smug smirk from earlier gone.

Baekhyun was absolutely thrilled. The girl he usually looked forward to seeing all week long was right in front of him now, within reach. And he’d get to you see you much more now as well. He had to keep himself from looking too happy since he knew you weren’t in nearly as good a mood as him.  

You’d never wanted to disappear as badly as you did in that moment. Here, Baekhyun was the one with all the power, and you despised it. He was the one all dressed up and making all the rules. You felt small and embarrassed, having little choice but to listen to whatever it is was he had to say to you. You hated the feeling.

“What do you want?”

“You lied to me.” His face didn’t look angry at all, just blank, void of any emotion.

“Why are you making me do this can I please just leave?” You asked, hoping he’d have some sympathy but you have no such luck.

No answer

“Baekhyun, please. Just let me go home and switch into a different section.” You look at him with pleading eyes, wanting this nightmare to be over.

His face hardened, now slightly annoyed.

“Professor Byun, and I’m afraid you’re stuck with me y/n. I’m the only one teaching this class this semester.”

“Well, fuck” You muttered, looking down at the floor. 

“Is that how you speak to your professors?” 

Your head snapped back up, and you narrowed your eyes at him.

“You know, y/n, I’m not mad that you lied to me. I should’ve assumed as much. After you told me your name and I saw it on the attendance sheet I had been hoping you’d been lying.” He still looked annoyed, but his face had softened a bit. 

“Oh fuck off Baekhyun”

Immediately his expression went sour again, jaw clenched and brown furrowed.

“Here it’s Mr. Byun. And don’t use that language with me again, I’m serious.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“What do you mean? I didn’t know you’d be here. It was just yesterday that I even realized your name was on my roll sheet.” 

He had a point. He couldn’t have planned this, you’d signed up for the class months ago and he didn’t even know your name until two nights ago.

“Why aren’t you freaking out then? Shouldn’t you be worried about having me in your class?”

He only let out a chuckle.

“Why would I be worried? As far as I’m concerned this only means I get to see you more often, which I’m fine with. And you need to pass this class to graduate on time, so shouldn’t you be glad you’re already friends with your professor?”

You knew it wasn’t what he intended, but the smile on his face felt like it was mocking you.

“Yeah. Friends.” You scoffed. “Can I go home now?”

“So this is your last class of the day?”

You internally cursed yourself for giving up that bit of information.

“Yeah. Now can I leave?”

“Well you’re not in a hurry are you? Since you don’t have anywhere to be after this.”

“Baekhyuuun” you whined “please, this sucks, just let me go home.”

He smiled, seemingly amused by you begging him.

“Okay. I’m not gonna make you stay any longer since you obviously don’t want to. But let me make it clear, I’m not gonna go easy on you here just because I like you. You still have to try.”

“Okay, that’s fine.” You reply, picking your bag up to leave, wondering what exactly he meant by like you. 

“I’m really looking forward to reading your essays by the way.”

He flashed you a smile as you finally turned to leave, and you hated yourself for not doing a better job at looking mad. As much as you hated to admit it, he had a damn beautiful smile.

“See you on Wednesday!” He shouted after you as you left the room. You didn’t respond.

When you arrived back at your apartment your mind started to fill with panicked thoughts. He wouldn’t come to the club anymore now would he? That meant having to try to mingle with strangers again, something you hated about your work. It also meant less money. It’s not often that customers bought hour long dances.

And what if he did show up again? How would you even act around him? Part of you wanted him to for the easy money, but you just couldn’t imagine grinding on your professor. Your face heated up just at the thought, especially since you knew he could look that good now. Would you even be able to give him a lap dance without losing your own mind?

You had trouble processing the fact that this was even able to happen. You’d  never thought to ask Baekhyun for his last name, and since it had been summer break he didn’t mention his job. The whole situation seemed bizarre. 

And what about class? Will he make it more difficult if he doesn’t get what he wants? 

No. Baekhyun isn’t like that, you tell yourself. As much as you disliked having him in a position of power over you, you’d gotten to know him well enough to know that he wouldn’t abuse it.

The more you’d gotten to know him the more you liked spending time with him rather than other customers, regardless of the money. And for good reason. The longer you knew Baekhyun, the more you realized he wasn’t like the other guys who came to the club. You could tell he was good, decent guy.

He was always there to see you, and only you. You had several other regulars, but none of them had any qualms about talking to and getting dances from other girls. Not that you minded, but you’d never seen Baekhyun even speak to another dancer.

He’s also just nice. The kind of nice that you don’t see in people often anymore. He was always incredibly respectful and would never do anything you weren’t comfortable with. Very few of the guys you came in contact with cared at all if they made you uncomfortable. They’d just assume that’s a part of the job for you.

Baekhyun was actually interesting to talk to as well. Since you’d met him at the beginning of summer, he usually told you about adventures he went on with his friends, most of whom you knew from the night they’d dragged him into the club.

They were a genuinely cool group of people. The one he was closest with, Chanyeol, was a music producer, another named Kyungsoo was an up and coming actor, and the one who’d introduced himself as Jongin was a professional dancer. Chanyeol had been the one to come with the idea of taking Baekhyun to the club in the first place. 

Baekhyun would tell you anecdotes from nights out he’d had with them during college, as well as other wild stories and you’d often find yourself laughing and smiling so hard your face hurt. Ever since your first night with him, you noticed how good he was at making the people around him feel at ease. He always knew what to say and when to make people laugh. 

Baekhyun was different from the other men at work because you liked being around him. You’d be lying to yourself if you said you didn’t find him attractive either. If you’d met him anywhere else, and he wasn’t your professor, you’d probably be more than willing to go on a date with him. 

But unfortunately that wasn’t the case.

You tore yourself out of your thoughts and realized how late it had gotten. Although it was only the first day, you already had homework you needed to start on. You spent the rest of the evening trying to be productive, but you couldn’t stop thinking about Baekhyun. How good he had looked, how attractive he sounded giving the lecture, how he wouldn’t stop looking at you. 

He was going to be much more present in your life now, whether you liked it or not.

                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wednesday morning Baekhyun felt stupid for how excited he was to see you. He’d decided to get up early to work some exercise into his day, and hopefully clear his mind, but even as he took a shower and started getting ready to leave for work, he couldn’t get you out of his head. He’d decided to wear something a bit more casual and stylish, opting for a new pair of glasses, striped red t shirt, and cream slacks. He tried to make other excuses for why he wanted to look nice but in the back of his mind, he knew he wore it because he wanted to look good in front of you.

During the class before yours he noticed a female student in the first row chewing on the back of her pencil as she very intentionally leaned over her desk to grab a pen, putting her cleavage on display to him.

He only rolled his eyes, but he was pleased to see that his outfit was getting good reactions. He just hoped you’d like it.

When the class before yours left, Baekhyun felt his heart rate go up. What if you’d found a way to get out of his class? Would you even show up? Or if you did, would you just end up sitting as far from him as possible?

Usually he’d leave to go get a coffee during his break between giving lectures, but today he stayed in case you came early again. As the minutes went by students started to fill the lecture hall. Baekhyun couldn’t help but keep his eyes fixed on the door every time he heard it open, but he just kept seeing everyone but you. 

A minute before class started, you walked in and sat down in the second to last row.

Baekhyun felt his face light up as soon as saw you, only to immediately turn into a frown when he saw where you chose to sit down. It was as he’d suspected, you wanted to be as far away from his as possible. But at least you were there.

As Baekhyun started the lecture, he couldn’t help looking in your direction every few seconds. Even though you were in casual clothes without any fancy hairstyle or makeup, this was the version of you Baekhyun loved seeing the most. He was used to the perfected product you presented yourself as at your job, and he knew that wasn’t the real you. This was. You in leggings and a t shirt, your hair messily falling over your shoulders as you scribbled down notes. He could watch you like this all day. He noticed how your brows would furrow in confusion whenever he’d bring up a new concept, and how you chewed on your bottom lip when you were concentrating. Ever since he’d seen you like this on Monday, he couldn’t get enough. It was you, the real you.

He also noticed how you seemed to look everywhere in the room except for at him. You spent as much time as possible with your head down taking notes, even when there wasn’t much to write down. Other times your eyes would stay glued to the power point slides, or wander around the walls and ceilings. He understood why you weren’t exactly comfortable looking at him.

Despite being on the other side of the room, he was still able to pick up on little things. He noticed your leg bouncing, fingers tapping on the desk, and how much you would fidget when you weren’t writing notes.

He knew you were uncomfortable, and he hated it. He hated himself for being the reason. He wished there was something he could do or say that would make you enjoy being in his class more. Anything that would make you feel more at ease with him in this situation. If he wasn’t the only one teaching the class he wouldn’t have minded if you’d switched to a different professor, if it meant you were more comfortable. Of course he would’ve missed seeing you, but he also knew that was a selfish thought. He felt guilty that you had to be there and be uncomfortable because of him.

At the end of the lecture he gave the class their first proper assignment, a short essay analyzing Plato's “The Ring of Gyges”. It was an assignment he always gave at the very beginning of the semester, since it was a quite difficult read and gave him a good idea of how everyone would do in the class.

He was especially excited to see how you would do.

When class ended, you were the first one to leave and this time he didn’t stop you. He knew you wanted to leave and didn’t want to bother you again, still feeling slightly sorry for how late he’d kept you the first day. He’d only done it to try to reassure you about having him as your professor, but he hadn’t been expecting you to be as distressed about it as you were. In hindsight he realized he’d probably only made things more stressful for you.

Once the room was empty aside from him he packed up his things and left as well, hoping that you could become less anxious over time, and eventually, maybe even enjoy being in his class.

For now though, class had not been something for you to look forward to at all. You’d been dreading it ever since Monday afternoon.

That morning as you were getting ready, you tried to make yourself look a bit more presentable than you’d looked Monday, not wanting to live through the embarrassment of seeing Baekhyun look so nice while you were basically wearing pajamas again.

For the first half of your day you threw yourself into your other class work, successfully taking him off your mind for a while, but when your physics class ended and your next class was with him you felt yourself starting to panic.

You thought about skipping class, but you cared too much about your grade. You decided your best choice was to just get there as late as possible and sit as close to the door as you could so he wouldn’t be able to get you to stay after class again.

As you walked across campus you felt yourself get more and more nervous. Despite being there 20 minutes early and the room being open to sit down in, you sat down outside. As the minutes drew closer to class starting you felt your heart start to race and had trouble controlling your breathing. One minute before class was to start you got up, walked over to the door, and took a few deep breaths to calm yourself down a bit. You pushed open the door with shaky hands, and the second you could see into the room you notice Baekhyun's eyes on you, and his beautiful smile. You quickly looked down and hurried to the closest available seat in the back of the room, cringing at yourself.

As much as you wished you could, you couldn’t just ignore Baekhyun. He was the professor, you had to listen to him. But you had a hard time doing anything when he looked like he did. His shirt showed off his broad shoulders and he was wearing different glasses now too. He looked even better than he had on Monday. Had it not been for you already knowing him, you probably would’ve found him distracting for different reasons. You did everything you could not to look at him directly, knowing he’d catch you and see you blush. But who wouldn’t blush if he was staring at them while looking like that? You could tell some of the other girls in the class liked his outfit as well by the way they whispered to each other while shooting glances his way.

You wondered if maybe this was something he did often, if he liked starting things with students. If maybe his whole nice guy persona was fake and he really was just another scumbag.

But you soon realized that was just the bitterness speaking. You wouldn’t admit it to yourself but the thought of other girls trying to seduce him was bothering you. Baekhyun wasn’t a scumbag, not when he’d dedicated his life to teaching people about ethical issues and moral arguments.

As the class went on you couldn’t help but fidget and shift around in your seat. Even though you were avoiding looking at him, you knew his eyes were on you for much of the lecture. You’d figured it would be like this.

As it got closer and closer to the end of class you felt yourself get more and more panicked at the thought of him keeping you after again. You didn’t know what he could possibly keep you after for, but you didn’t want to stick around and find out, so as soon as he dismissed the class you nearly ran out without looking back.

“Hey, y/n!”

The sound of your name nearly gave you a heart attack, thinking it was Baekhyun who was going to force you to talk to him like this again but when you saw Lucas waving at you, you let out a relieved sigh.

“Hi Lucas.”

“I thought you’d come sit by me again today what happened?” He asked.

“Sorry about that, I was almost late today so I didn’t want to walk out there in front of the whole class” you said, hoping he wouldn’t see through your lie.

“Well I hope next time you’ll sit with me again.”

You managed to give him a small smile and nod, still a bit too frazzled over everything to want to talk to him.

“I have to get home, but I’ll se you Friday. Bye Lucas.” You waved at him as you went in the opposite direction.

You felt bad for not talking to him any longer, but you just weren’t in the right headspace.

On your walk home you felt weird. Had it really been that bad? Or were you just overreacting? Although he did look at you a lot Baekhyun seemed to teach the class as if everything was normal, more or less unaffected by your presence. He hadn’t seemed to mind your leaving either. Maybe he’d hadn’t planned to make you stay again. Maybe, it seemed, he was going to leave you be.

You knew Lucas would bother you about it if you didn’t sit with him again next time, but would you be okay to sit that close to the front again? Or even worse what if Lucas caught on that there was something going on between you and Baekhyun? He’d already seemed suspicious on the first day.

You decided your best course of action was to just do it and tough it out. All you needed to do was act like you did in all your other classes and everything would be fine right?

First however, you had to go home and face your roommate and tell her about this nightmare, having bottled it up until now. You weren’t exactly sure why you hadn’t told her right away. Maybe you felt strange about it since she had already told you you needed to keep him from getting any closer to you. Obviously that wasn’t going to be easy now.

As soon as you got home and put your things away you knocked on her door.

“YEAH?” You heard her yell through the door.

“Can I come in?”

“One second!”

A little while later the door opened.

“What’s up?”

“Can we have a girls night? I have some shit I need to tell you.”

You couldn’t remember the last time you saw Mia look so excited.

“You?? Have tea for ME??? Fuck yes!”

You thought about it, and this was pretty rare. 90% of the time she was the one unloading her boy problems on you, or any other kind of drama too for that matter. Not that you minded, that was just the dynamic you had gotten used to.

“Wanna order some food and put on a movie?” You asked.

“Sure.”

Your food eventually arrived and you put on a chick flick you’ve both seen a thousand times.

“So?? Are you gonna tell me what’s going on or what?” She asked turning to you, obviously looking forward to whatever you were about to fill her in on.

You sighed.

“So my philosophy professor this semester...” You swallowed, now having trouble getting yourself to say it.

“I know this sounds fucking insane but, Baekhyun’s my philosophy professor.”

The look on her face told you everything you need to know. The two of you had known each other for so long that words weren’t needed.

“I don’t know how it happened either. I signed up for the class forever ago anyway, before I even met him at the club. Just a bizarre coincidence. And he’s the only one teaching it and I need the credit to graduate so I'm stuck.”

“Shit dude.”

“Yeah I know. He kept me after class Monday and it was a fucking nightmare.”

“What did he say?”

“Basically just that I’m stuck with him. He also called me out for lying about what university I go to at work. And he said he liked me better ‘like this’ whatever the hell that means”

“He’s like obsessed with you isn’t he? He’s probably over the moon that he has a way into your personal life now which really fucking sucks for you.” She had a point. “Do you think he’ll still come see you at work?”

“I honestly really don’t wanna think about that right now.”

“Be careful, y/n. A customer having a crush on you is one thing but having him in charge of your grade is another. What if he starts trying to make moves on you and you shoot him down? He could fuck up your GPA just to get back at you or something.”

“No.” You responded, perhaps a bit too quickly. “No, Baekhyun isn’t like that. He’s not a bad guy, and I don’t think he’ll try anything anyway.”

“Really?”

“I’m not sure of course but he’s also a lot older than us and this is his job, I can’t see him risking his livelihood just for me.”

“He’s a college professor who’s giving you a thousand dollars a week, how does he even have that kind of money anyway? No way he gets paid enough as a professor to be giving you that much. He either has some other source of income or you’re already making him broke.”

You felt stupid for not having considered that yet. How the hell was he giving you so much? She was right, unless he was secretly rich or something there was no way he could afford to give you so much money every week without fucking himself over. Your stomach started to churn with the idea of him possibly even putting himself in debt just for your Saturday nights together. He couldn’t be that stupid right?

She could tell how much the conversation was stressing you out at that point.

“Listen,” she said, grabbing your hand “you just need to get through the semester. You can handle 16 weeks, class with him will get less awkward, and hopefully he’s at least smart enough not to come see you at work anymore now.”

The thought of him not coming anymore wasn’t a good one either though. You made much more money when he was there, and in under 2 hours. Staying at the club until 3am with school going on now, only to take home less money wasn’t really a good option either.

“I don’t wanna see him there but I need his money.”

“You’ll find some other guy who’s rich and in love with you soon enough, don’t worry, it’ll all be fine.” She said, pulling you in for a hug.

“Yeah..”

You knew she was just trying to make you feel better, but realistically you weren’t going to find another guy like Baekhyun at work, Even if someone came along who gave you as much money as he did, they wouldn’t be as fun to talk to, or as respectful as him. Guys like that just don’t come to strip clubs. You still didn’t even fully understand why he did.

“Just think of him as another one of your professors. It might be tough at first, but I think if you can do that you’ll be okay.” 

“You’re right, I just need to get my shit together and not let him distract me.” 

“See? Of course I’m right.” She grinned, and you couldn’t help but smile back. 

Eventually the movie ended, and by then it was late enough for the two of you to get ready for bed.

Talking to your best friend about it had made you feel slightly better. At least whatever happened, she would be there for you to talk it out with. Baekhyun wasn’t a bad person or anything either, it was just the situation that was stressing you out. As long as you could get ahold of yourself enough to focus on his lectures and do well in the class, you’d be fine. 

You kept reassuring yourself as you closed your eyes, and for the first night that week you didn’t stare at your ceiling for hours worrying, you went right to sleep.

Next Chapter

[mymoonagedaydream]

Only the Good Die Young (part 8)

Summary: Things finally seemed like they were falling into place

Pairing: Biker!Bucky x y/n

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: Language, anti-religious sentiment, harmful relationship with parents, smut references, the FLOOF of it all

Author's Note: It’s the finale, goddamn I’m gonna miss all this Billy Joel stuff. Thank you so much for all the love for this series. Who knows, maybe we’ll come back to these two eventually, but for now they’ve definitely been through enough. Bless ‘em.

---

The rest of the date was surprisingly nice.

You managed to coerce Bucky back to beer after the sewer water he’d ordered had all gone, and it turned out that the restaurant took their ‘bottomless breadsticks’ promise a little too seriously, doing everything but force-feeding you by hand to get them gone.

You just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was hanging over the two of you.

After what he said, you’d tried your best to dig a little deeper, but he changed the subject pretty quickly once he realised how upset you were- and it was almost impossible to get more information out of Bucky once he’d stonewalled.

Either way, you knew you’d have to talk to him more about it soon, even if you didn’t particularly want to.

It was his face as he said it. You never wanted to see that again.

Stuffed and a little tipsy, the two of you spilled out of the restaurant and started heading home. The evening air was a chilly, but Bucky had wrapped his jacket around your shoulders before you’d even begun to feel the cold.

After walking for a while, you came to a corner you recognised, and decided to take him on a little detour.

You tugged his arm towards the turning. ‘Shall we take the long way back? We can walk along the river.’

‘Sure, but if you fall in I’m not coming in after you.’ He gave you a wide smile and snaked his arm around your waist, letting you lead him down the side street.

A comfortable silence fell as you approached the water, both of you watching the ripples distort reflections from the harbourside restaurants and bars. Reaching the edge, Bucky turned to carry on walking along the path, but you stayed in place and pulled him back.  

He moved to stand opposite you, looking a little confused as you took both his hands in yours. 

'Buck, what you said earlier, I really think we should talk more about it.'

'Nah, it’s alright. It was in the past. Like you said, things are good now and that’s all that matters.'

‘No, I didn’t mean, uh-’ Christ he was slippery, using your own words against you like that. ‘Look, maybe I shouldn’t have said that. If it’s still affecting you, it matters, and it’s good to talk about it.’

He turned his head, staring at the water, deep in thought. You didn’t let up. You brought your hands up to his face and pulled it back towards you, raising your eyebrows at him expectantly. 

He took a deep, shaky breath.

'If I keep talking, I might say something that drives you away. I don't know if I could take that.'

‘Bucky, I don’t care about your past.’ His face changed suddenly, tensing a little. You rubbed your forehead and winced, realising that your tone had been much firmer than intended. ‘That came out wrong.’

He let out a small chuckle, pulling you closer and smirking. ‘First you want me to talk, now you tell me to shut up.’

‘No, what I meant was, nothing you’ve done in the past could change my opinion of you now.’ You wound your arms around his neck. ‘Unless you were a serial killer, but even then I might let you try to convince me that they deserved it.’

‘Oh they did.’

You laughed, moving to cup his face and stroke your thumbs across his cheeks. Feeling his hands pressed against your back and staring into his glowing blue eyes, something inside you burst or erupted or... Christ, you weren’t sure, but next thing you knew your mouth was writing a cheque that you weren’t sure Bucky would want to cash.

‘I love you, Buck.’ His face dropped slightly in shock. Fuck it, you were all in now, might as well carry on. ‘Properly. Get a dog together type love. Put up with you stealing the covers all night type love. I’d even go as far as to say-’

He cut you off, pressing his lips against yours and squeezing your waist tight. You relaxed completely in his arms, not sure that you’d be able to stay on your feet if he suddenly let go, but too caught up in the moment to care.

He pulled away an inch, just for just a second, to whisper ‘I love you too. Just stop talking.’

You weren’t sure how long the two of you were standing there by the river, it was becoming increasingly easy to lose time while you were tangled up with Bucky.

The rest of the walk home was a hazy, fragmented mess of staggering for a few minutes at a time before getting distracted and clumsily fumbling at each other. You found yourselves regretting taking the long way, both of you becoming more and more impatient to get back to the privacy of the apartment, and not making it past the floor on the inside of the door when you did.

But hey, at least neither of you ended up in the river.

---

You’d found it. The perfect apartment.

It was pretty small, but more than enough for just the two of you. The beach was a couple minutes walk away, but it was a fifth floor apartment, so the front window had a sea view. It even had underground parking, so Bucky wouldn’t have to rush to the window to check on his bike every ten minutes.

He was out at the store when you came across it and you couldn’t stop yourself pacing around excitedly until he got back. You practically jumped him as soon as he came through the door, dragging him over to your laptop.

After a quick flick through the pictures, he dug his phone from his pocket. ‘It’s ours. What’s the number?’

‘Oh, well, we should probably go see it first.’

‘Nah. How bad could it be?’

You nodded slowly and let your gaze wander around his flat, lingering on the carpet stains and the patch of mould in the corner.

Yep, things were starting to make a little more sense.

‘What’s the hold up?’

Your eyes flicked back to Bucky, looking at you excitedly, phone still ready in hand. A warm smile spread across your face. Maybe it was time to take a page out of his book.

Stop thinking so much, close your eyes and jump.

Bucky made the call, you sent over all the information they needed, and then you waited. 

And waited. 

All evening, checking Bucky’s phone every ten minutes. It was like torture. 

Nothing had come through by midnight, so the two of you gave up and slunk off to bed, trying to stay optimistic about finding somewhere else but inwardly completely gutted.

---

You woke up the next day to the smell of cooking bacon and the sound of Bucky humming to himself in the kitchen. Stretching yourself across the empty bed, you could easily have slept for another couple hours, but you were too curious to see what he was up to.

Your hand found your phone on the bedside table and you checked the time, your head darting away from the pillow in shock when you saw that it was creeping up to midday.

Pulling your pyjamas on, you trudged through to the front room, seeing Bucky stood over the stove.

‘What’re you doing?’ You walked up beside him, settling into his side as he snaked his arm around you, gazing at the pile of food he was pushing around the pan.  

‘A proper breakfast, I thought we’d celebrate.’

You nodded sleepily, a little confused. ‘Celebrate what?’

He looked down at you, sporting a wide smile. Your drowsiness slowly melted away as you realised what he was talking about.

‘We got it?’

‘We got it.’

Some kind of throaty yelp noise escaped your mouth, making Bucky burst out laughing. You threw your arms around his neck, squeezing him as hard as you could, feeling tears welling up in his eyes.

When you finally let go of him, he dug his phone out of his pocket and showed you the email from the landlord.

‘Wait, this says we move in at the start of next month?’ He nodded proudly. ‘Buck, that’s two days from now.’

‘Yup. Better get packing.’

Turns out he’d already hired a van to arrive the next day and nipped out while you were asleep to buy packing boxes. You had no idea who this guy was and what he’d done with Bucky, but you weren’t complaining.

Finally, it felt like things were falling into place.

---

The drive to your new home was about an hour. 

You’d hoped the ride would be relaxing and cathartic, but you spent almost the entire time white-knuckled, gripping onto the dashboard. Bucky drove the moving van in exactly the same way as he drove his motorbike, he didn’t even seem to notice the sound of all your possessions sliding around chaotically in the back.

He finally parked up outside the apartment block and you reverted back to religion for the first time in years, thanking god that both of you survived the drive.

The building wasn’t particularly attractive, sitting in an unremarkable side street opposite a seedy looking off-license, but you still felt the excitement bubbling in your stomach as you hopped out of the van and surveyed your surroundings.

Bucky gave you a wide smile and walked towards the door, approaching a man in a cheap suit who you hadn’t even noticed. The keys were exchanged, and suit gave you a polite nod before turning and walking down the street. 

That was, quite possibly, the only easy interaction you and Bucky had ever had with a third party since you’d been together. 

You knew life was going to be a whole lot easier after leaving that fucking town, but you certainly hadn’t expected such immediate results. This was incredible. 

You grabbed a box and followed Buck up the stairs, bursting through the door into your new home. 

The first thing you noticed was the view. It was even better in person. 

You unceremoniously dropped whatever you were carrying and walked towards the window, seeing the vast ocean spread out in both directions as you got closer.

Bucky came up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist and resting his head on your shoulder.

‘Whatta you think?’

‘I love it.’

‘It needs a bit of work.’ He briefly surveyed the walls and the ceiling. ‘I think the last people here had dogs, there’s still some-’

You swivelled round in his arms and placed your hand firmly over his mouth, feeling him smiling against your palm. ‘I don’t care. I love it.’

Bucky mumbled something into your hand. You rolled your eyes and moved it away from his face, prompting him to repeat himself.

‘Me too.’

It took a couple hours to get everything out of the van, and when you’d finished, the two of you found yourselves staring at a messy pile of boxes dumped in the middle of the living room. 

A unanimous decision was made that there was no point starting to unpack before having something to eat, even though you’d spent the entire drive shoving handfuls of doritos into each other's faces.  

---

So, for the first of many times, you and Bucky watched the sunset over the sea. 

Sitting on cardboard boxes in your cheap flat, eating pretty terrible Chinese food, with nothing in the world but a few dollars and each other. 

And it was perfect. 

---

@shawnie--jo @brilliantbellesoares @livingoffsavvyillusions @noiralei @bebeyeni @kingkassam @newyorkgoddess @sir-lili @im-squished @dancer3205 @thefallenbibliophilequote @supernaturalwintersoldier @adriannajackson @rhumphr4

---

[platypanthewriter]

First Kiss (In the Time Of COVID)

Harringrove April prompt 01 (because I missed it the first time): First Kiss!  Second to last!  Almost there!  Steve gets touch-hungry enough to consider the ridiculous health-organization suggestions about gloryholes, and has sex and then a whole relationship with a man he meets at a bar...before he ever gets to kiss him.

Steve was only at the bar because it was right next to the dry-cleaners with no public bathrooms, but he couldn’t help staring at the New York City Department Of Health Safer Sex Guidelines, posted right on the wall between the sinks as he washed his hands.  

Gloryholes were recommended, it said.  Somebody had highlighted it, and somebody else had smacked a big lipsticked kiss on it, which was definitely not within sanitary guidelines.  Steve stood there like a post, thinking about a hot mouth around his dick, instead of going home to his cold, gray apartment, and yelling weird greetings every morning at his neighbors between balconies, stuff like “You hallucinating yet?  I hear people have been hallucinating!” and “How’re you enjoying solitary?!” 

He thought about being touched by another human being.

He hadn’t really noticed the hole in the wall before, other than kind of wondering why, like, why not make out in the car, even—but COVID changed things.  He bit his lips together, and eased back around to look in the stall again.  It wasn’t that bad, even if the people doing graffiti couldn’t spell.  It was tidy, and there was plenty of toilet paper, so at least the staff were in here regularly, he thought.  The floor wasn’t sticky, or anything.  He leaned to look through the hole, and saw a flash of pink skin, as he heard a scrambling in the next stall.

After a second, the person knocked on the stall wall.  “You stick your cock through there and I’ll suck it,” he said, his voice a little wobbly, like he knew exactly how bizarre this was, and he was trying not to laugh.  

Steve bit back a laugh of his own, snorting into his hand.  “Jesus, I’m not even drunk,” he told the voice, who laughed outright.  

“It’s my fucking lunch hour.  You gonna feed me?”

Steve raised his eyebrows, patting the condom he always, optimistically, carried in his back pocket.  “Now I kinda don’t want to,” he said, and the other guy laughed harder.  “Okay,” Steve said, steeling himself.  “I’m going for it.  Gonna put my cock in this creepy hole.  Don’t bite it off.”  He heard a snort as he checked the expiration date on the condom—he hadn’t had sex in eons, it felt like, and he half-expected to see it had expired in 1492—but it wasn’t even gonna expire soon, so he took it as a positive omen.  

“The hell are you doing, hurry up,” said the other man, shuffling his feet, and Steve rolled his eyes, and the condom onto his dick.

“Sure hope nothing over there’s hungry,” he muttered, taking a deep breath before he stuck his dick in the hole in a bathroom stall, stone cold sober, before noon.  “Hungry for a dick meal.  Ready to bite.”

“I might,” the other guy breathed, laughing, but Steve could feel him brush his lips along the side.  “Mmm, polyisoprene,” he mumbled.

“Suck enough dick you recognize condoms?” Steve asked, snorting a laugh, and felt him laugh along.

“You want an expert, don’cha,” he shot back, taking Steve’s cock on his tongue, and Steve groaned, his body thudding hard against the wall.  It creaked, loud, and the guy pulled off again, laughing.  

“I do,” Steve told him.  “I do, I do, I want an expert, come back, dick-monster.”

“I’m not gonna bite off your dick,” said the guy, snickering again.  

“I don’t even care,” Steve said honestly, “—just lemme come first, jesus—”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, slipping Steve’s cock between his lips again, and in, deep down his throat where his muscles clenched around it.  Steve could hear him choking with gusto, and he just leaned against the wall, feeling the first human touch he’d had in months.  

He’d given the pizza guy a tip, ages ago, it seemed like, and the guy’s hand had brushed his, and they’d both stood there, staring at their hands, like maybe Steve oughtta propose marriage, and the guy like maybe he was gonna accept.  They’d said goodbye awkwardly, whipping the hand sanitizer out of their pockets as they turned away, and now Steve couldn’t order pizza without his neck feeling warm.  

The guy eating his dick for lunch was so much better, and Steve longed to touch him, and tip him back in a pile of pillows in the warm afternoon sun.  Take the man back to his bed, bury his hands in warm hair—pull him up the bed and kiss him, maybe—feel the weight of another person on his body.  He clenched his hands on the top of the stall wall, grunting as the hot tongue stroked the bottom of his dick, and the tip pushed against the spongy back of the guy’s throat.  

Steve wasn’t good at talking, really, particularly not when all his attention was on his dick, but he couldn’t grab the man, so he tried.  “God, you’re good at this,” he whispered, his mouth fumbling the words a little, but he thought the idea came through.  “Jesus, you’re amazing.  Christ.  God, your mouth.  I bet you’re beautiful, holy shit,” he rambled.  “Even if you’re not beautiful, you’re beautiful, holy crap, I wanna kiss you.”  

The guy pulled back a couple times, then all the way off, coughing and trying to breathe.  “Sorry,” he gasped, clearing his throat.  “Sorry—”

“Take your time, buddy,” Steve told him, feeling like his whole body was a bomb on a timer ticking down, but also like he wanted to draw it out, maybe, a little.  “Shit,” he panted, mumbling like a moron, now he’d started.  “You’re the best dick-eating monster ever, you’re like, better than the ones on Sesame Street,” he told the dude, sincerely, and heard him burst out laughing again.  

“You want a blow job or what,” he gasped, sounding like he was crying.  “Stop making me laugh, christ.  There aren’t dick-eating monsters on Sesame Street.”

“...oh, yeah, that makes sense,” Steve realized breathlessly, nodding.  The stall wall was cool against his sweaty skin.  “You’re smart, huh.”

“Jesus,” the guy breathed, and then Steve felt his mouth again, and his hips spasmed against the glory hole.  He made a guttural noise as he came, intending half a warning, half a compliment, but the guy just waited as he went still, and then pulled back, panting.  

“Fuck,” Steve whispered, coming down, his heart pounding half out of his chest.  “God, that was good.”

“I am an expert,” the dude said—hoarsely, probably because he’d let Steve fuck his throat for minutes on end.

“Yeah, you are,” Steve agreed, sitting down on the toilet edge.  “Damn.  Gimme a sec—wait, you got another condom?  I only had one.”

“...it’s fine,” the guy laughed.  “I’m a dick monster, remember, s’enough for me.”

“Next time,” Steve said, impulsively, and heard a thump on the other side of the wall.  

“...you, uh,” the guy said, and trailed off, as Steve checked his phone, and grimaced.  

“I gotta go,” he said, over the guy asking something kinda quietly on the other side.  “Wait, what?”

“Nothing, go ahead,” he laughed, and Steve frowned at the wall.

“...I have this Zoom meeting,” he said, grimacing.

“Same bat-time, same bat-channel?” the guy asked, and Steve laughed.

“This your usual break?”

“Yeah.  I’ll have you for lunch anytime,” the guys said, and Steve sighed, flattening his hand against the wall, and wishing he could touch.  

“Jesus, what’d I do right to get a day like today,” he said, and the dick-monster snickered.

“Better run, dude.”

“Yes, thanks,” Steve told him, yanking his zipper shut, and his mask back over his ears.  “Thanks, man, I haven’t touched anybody in like.  A year.  You’re a goddamn saint.”

“Saint monster,” he said, as Steve left.

 Steve had to pick up his dry-cleaning two days later, and it occurred to him he really should’ve gotten the guy’s number, or at least asked what days he had off.  He slid into the bathroom, touched his back pocket again, and felt the two condoms.  He cleared his throat, grimacing, because it seemed creepy as hell to drop and stare through the glory hole.  

After a couple minutes, he heard the door open and a flurry of footsteps, and then a thud at the stall wall as he dropped to his knees.  “I’m here,” his benefactor said, breathless.  

“Okay,” Steve said, pulling a condom out, and trying to find the spot to tear it open.

“Don’t sound all fucking excited to see me,” the guy said, his voice flat, suddenly.  “I know I’m just some—”

“No, no, hey,” Steve said, addressing the knees he could see under the wall of the stall.  “I was trying to get the damn condom open.  Your turn, right?”

“...you wanna suck me off?” the guy asked, slowly.  “You don’t gotta.  I’m an absolute whore for praise, seriously, just keep telling me how good I’m doing—”

“...I mean, I can do that,” Steve said, wishing he could see the dude’s face, instead of trying to gauge the meaning of every pause in his sentences.  “But I can suck you off, first.”

“...what a gentleman,” he said, laughing, and then Steve heard him unzip.  

 The sight of someone else’s skin, even through a glory hole, made Steve’s mouth water like he was a gotdamn cannibalistic psychopath.  He wished desperately that he could just touch, without the plastic barrier.  He pinched the end of the condom and held it against the end of the guy’s already-hard cock, pushing the ring up and over hot skin, and he knelt to try and breathe in the smell of another human.  

The guy smelled a little sweaty, and a bit like soap, and Steve’s hands actually shook as he resisted reaching through and scratching his nails through the bed of curls around the base of the cock in his hands.  Even through plastic, the dude’s dick was satisfyingly heavy, warm, and alive, and he kissed it as soon as he’d gotten enough of the condom on.  The guy grunted, thumping against the creaky stall wall like Steve had done, and they both laughed.

“You know the best part of bathroom sex,” the guy panted, the tip of the condom already filling as he leaked, “—it’s the acoustics, right, I sound like a whole-ass porno in here.”

“That’s not the best part,” Steve told him, swallowing, and then swallowing again, because he didn’t know touching someone, even through plastic, could make him want to crawl under the wall of a bathroom stall if it meant he could touch them more.  He never thought he’d be so happy to see a dick.  “God, you feel good.”  

“...I am good,” the guy whispered, barely audible in the weird, loud bathroom acoustics with the fan going, and Steve laughed, kissing his cock again.  It jerked in his hand.

“You are good,” he breathed against it, and the dude bit back a groan.  “You’re perfect,” Steve said, following a hunch, and felt the guy thump his hips against the wall between them again.  

Steve grinned, bending down to swirl his tongue around the tip, and he saw the dude’s hands grip the upper edge of the stall, his knuckles whitening.  The little hexagonal tiles dug into Steve’s knees, a bit, but he didn’t mind.  He felt himself getting hard, and unzipped his pants, absently freeing his dick with a sigh of relief.

 Steve had always liked sucking cock.  He’d wondered whether it would be any fun, though, without the feeling of hips under his hands, or fingers in his hair—but he could see the guy’s shoes shifting, and feel the soft thumps against the stall as he forgot everything except Steve’s mouth around him.  Steve could look up and see his grip straining on the stall wall, and smell him, the laundry and sweat and cologne smell of him—and hear him, louder than Steve, grunting streams of “Fuck, fuck, jesus, fuck,” and “God, don’t slow down, you asshole,” and “Oh shit, do that again, please, please, please…” trailing off into begging, panting gibberish.

When he came, he staggered back and thudded down onto the toilet seat with a clatter.  “Just—just gimme a minute,” he panted, as Steve grabbed toilet paper, and wiped the spit off his face and chin.  

“Take your time,” he said, and the toilet seat squeaked as the guy cleared his throat.  

“Yeah, yeah, shit, sorry, fuck.  Lemme just get down there, asshole—”

“No, I mean it,” Steve said, sitting down himself, and giving his dick a squeeze.  He let his eyes fall shut at the relief.  “Take as long as you want, I don’t have a meeting or anything.”

“...shit,” the guy breathed.  “Yeah.”

“...wanna give me your number?” Steve asked, trying to distract himself from the thought of the dude’s mouth, of pushing into the heat of another human being.

“Shit, yes,” the guy blurted.  “Yeah, yes, please.”  He recited it, and Steve put it in his phone, taking care his extreme horniness didn’t make his hand shake and drop his phone in the toilet.  

“I’m saving you as ‘beautiful dick guy’,” he said, and Beautiful Dick Guy laughed.  

“Text me, so I know you’ve got it,” he said, and Steve did, before tucking his phone safely away.

“What are you saving me as?” Steve asked.  “Best blowjob ever?  Nice Mouth Dude?”

“Surprised you didn’t save me as ‘Dick Monster’,” the guy muttered, and Steve snorted a laugh, as he slid the other condom on.

“Well, you haven’t bitten it off yet.”

“I’m not gonna bite it off!” he laughed.

“You might,” Steve told him, patting the wall, because he wanted to touch something.  “I mean—”

“Get your cock in my mouth, jesus,” the dude said, and Steve stood, and pressed his cock through the glory hole to the guy’s lips with a grunt of relief.  

“Jesus,” he whispered.  “Thank you, god.  Thank you.”

Beautiful Dick Guy pulled off, and Steve bit back a groan of protest.  “Stop making it sound like I’m donating to charity,” he growled, before sinking Steve’s cock between his lips again, and swallowing around it.

“Dunno what you wanna hear,” Steve muttered.  “God, you’re good at this.”  The mouth around his dick hummed approvingly, and Steve nearly came at the vibration, moaning.  “You’re perfect, you’re amazing,” he mumbled, on autopilot.  “Jesus, you’re a fucking gift, you’re the best thing that ever happened to my cock, I swear, you’re a goddamn miracle, you’re a natural disater on my dick—”

The dude started laughing again, choking and coughing, and Steve grabbed the top of the stall, wishing it wouldn’t be weird and unsafe to just climb on the toilet and lean over to kiss him like the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet—or better yet, open the door and walk into the other stall, and dip him like the end of a tango.  Steve mumbled some version of all that, and the guy cackled harder.  “Sorry,” he wheezed.  “Sorry, sorry.”

“No hurry, man,” Steve told him, taking a deep breath.  “Can’t...rush art, right.”

“Jesus,” the dude snorted, coughing again, and Steve cocked his head, trying to think around all the blood pounding in his dick.  

“...other people must tell you you’re good at this,” he said, “—like, all the time,” and everything was quiet for a long second.  

“...yeah,” the guy finally said, sounding a little bitter.  “Everybody’s super polite and respectful, when you suck them off in a toilet.”

“Oh,” Steve said, grimacing, and squirming, a little, at the memory of how the dude’s voice felt against his dick.  “Well.  Um.  Would it be weird if I texted you?  Like.  I can’t ask you out.”

“...you wanna ask me out?” the guy asked, laughing.

“I can’t, there’s—there’s nowhere we can go,” Steve said, wondering whether it’d be rude to pull his cock back through, and jerk off, if it was just gonna sit there untouched.  “We could, um, we could like...wave at each other in the park, but it’s cold.”

“You’d date me?” came his voice again.  “You haven’t even asked my name yet.”

“Steve,” Steve said quickly.  “And you are?”

“...Billy,” Billy said, and just as Steve was distracted, thinking about what kinda shitheel would fuck a guy’s mouth and not ask his name, the heat of Billy’s mouth sank over his cock again, and Steve just tried to keep his mouth moving, mumbling how fantastic Billy had to be.

 Billy left first, while Steve took stock of the brain cells he’d lost through his dick.  Thanks so much, he texted.  Sorry I can’t kiss you.  

what, arrived back, almost instantly.

I mean, Steve sent, and then stared at the screen, trying to figure out what he meant.  I love listening to you laugh

I want to kiss your face while you laugh 

wrap around you when you shiver

leave hickies all over your body

hold you when you’re all fucked out

wake you up with my mouth on your cock

my hands holding your thighs

 dont do this to me at work, Billy sent back, and Steve hunched his shoulders, grimacing, but then his phone buzzed again.  i’ll die i’m fucking dying holy shit god yes kiss me hold me down 

I can come back next week, Steve sent, grinning.

fuck you, Billy sent back.  you know how many actual hours that is 

why you gonna make me wait that long

asshole

Steve laughed, grinning at his screen.  

 When he left, he took a long look at the bar, and a dude with light brown curls, thick, dark brows, and amazing gray-blue eyes watched him.  It was hard to tell his expression through the mask, but Steve was pretty sure it was a grin.  

later, beautiful cock monster, he sent, and he heard the familiar snorted laugh.

fuck you, his phone told him.  

 The next morning, he sent g’morning, beautiful, and hope you’re having a lunch as amazing as you are, and kiss emoticons, and Billy sent back eggplants and staring eyes and suggested Steve come by the bar twice a day.

 He learned over the next few weeks that Billy could get nearly any conversation back around to sucking Steve’s cock, and it made it kinda...hard to talk to him, honestly, when Steve wanted to put him on speaker over lunch, or watch a movie.  He had more phone sex than he’d had in ever, but Billy kinda sounded like he was taking his cues from a phone sex hotline, and that...wasn’t quite what Steve had been...longing for.  

“I watched some Sesame Street clips with this kid I know on Zoom,” Steve told him.  “Looked for you.  You live near, like, Bert and Ernie?  Is that the queer community there?”

“Were you thinking about my dick?” Billy asked, snickering, and Steve hadn’t been, really, he’d been thinking about Billy’s laugh.  “My mouth misses you more, though,” Billy whispered, “—misses your heat, man, misses stretching around you—” and Steve was half-hard in his jeans, again, and too tired to do anything about it.  

“I gotta go,” he sighed, and Billy was silent at the other end.  It felt less like dating, and more like watching the same porn over and over.  

 When Billy called just as Steve was settling in with warm pajamas, popcorn, beer, and a good K-drama, about to find out who the mother-in-law’s secret son’s girlfriend actually was, Billy called, already panting.  Steve couldn’t help thinking I just got you off after lunch.  

“I’m kinda busy,” he said, pausing the show.

“Aren’t you off?” Billy asked, after a pause.  “You’re off, right?”

“...yeah, I just have...stuff,” Steve said, grimacing.  

Billy was quiet for long enough that Steve glared off into space, because his popcorn was getting cold.  “...maybe in an hour?” Billy offered.

“Maybe tomorrow,” Steve said, “—or later this week.”

“...yeah, okay, you call me,” Billy said, and hung up.  

Steve shook his head, sighing, and clicked his show back on, watching with big eyes as he tried to figure out the complicated relationships.  He didn’t remember to text Billy that night—and he didn’t hear anything back, either, so he didn’t worry about it, too much.  It was kinda nice, honestly, not getting a phone call at seven am from a guy Steve barely knew telling him what to do with his huge, meaty cock.  Somehow, formulaic sex hotline talk didn’t help him feel any less lonely.

 By the end of the week, he was kinda dreading calling Billy at all, so he called Robin instead.  

“He’s too horny,” she said slowly.  “Steve, everybody’s horny.  We’ve all been in solitary for a year.  I would probably eat out a fire hydrant to feel some juices on my face, okay, go easy on this guy.”

“It’s not...ugh,” Steve sighed, rubbing his face.  “It’s like talking to one of those viagra emails, okay?  Like, why even talk to a real person, if he’s just gonna…like, I get him off, but he won’t talk about anything else, I don’t know if he’s ever seen a movie—”

“...he’s boring, it sounds like,” she sighed.  “That sucks, man.”

“He is,” Steve groaned.  “I feel like I’m talking to a budget sex line operator.  He cuts me off whenever I even mention work, or like, anything—”

“...sounds like he might think you’re boring too, buddy,” she said, with her trademark blend of cynical sympathy.

“Yeah,” Steve sighed.

“Better wrap it up,” she said, and he nodded, grimacing.

 hey, he texted.  I don’t think this is gonna work out.

 Billy called an hour later, and Steve sighed, but swiped to answer, and said “Hello?”

“God,” Billy whispered.  “I thought you might’ve already blocked me.”

“Haven’t yet,” Steve said, drumming his fingers on his tabletop, and waiting.

“‘Yet’.  Okay,” Billy said, laughing.  It sounded a little—pissed, maybe, and Steve braced himself, listening to Billy’s soft breaths.  It sounded like he was walking somewhere.  “Is—is there anything—any way I could get another chance,” he panted, and then it went silent, like he was holding his breath.

Why, Steve wondered, frowning.  He bit his lips, thinking.

“If there’s anything you want from me, just tell me,” Billy said, sounding a little less steady.  “Or shit, if—if you don’t want something, just—just tell me what you want, I don’t—”

“It’s not you, it’s m—” Steve tried, making a face, and Billy cut him off, laughing, but sniffling.

“No.  No, don’t give me that, it’s definitely me, I can tell, okay.  You wanted me and then talking to me was a fucking chore, what—come on,” he whispered, his voice cracking.  “You said you wanted to hold me, don’t—”

I was lonely, Steve thought of saying, and winced.  I can’t make myself like you.  

“Don’t make me get a job on Sesame Street,” Billy said hoarsely, laughing.  “I don’t think they actually have openings for Dick Monsters,” and there he was, the guy Steve had listened to giggling, the man he had liked.  

He took a deep breath, thinking.  

“...okay, yeah,” Billy said, clearing his throat.  “Fuck,” he muttered.  “Fuck.”

At least, Steve thought, feeling his face heat, he could tell Billy hadn’t been bored.  “...you...wanna try again,” he said, cautiously, and Billy made a weird noise like he was slurping up nothing through a wet straw.

“Yes.  Yes,” he whispered.  “Yeah, is that—is that even—”

“Okay,” Steve told him, and felt indescribably guilty listening to his boyfriend burst into tears.  

“Fuck, okay, tell me—tell me what you want,” he gulped.  “I don’t wanna piss you off again, tell me—”

“You didn’t piss me off,” Steve told him, and Billy swallowed hard.  

“Okay,” he said again.  “What—why—”

“...you’re like talking to a SPAM email,” Steve finally said, brutally honest.  “Like, every time I try to talk to you—”

“What?!” Billy asked, laughing, a little bitterly.

“I try to tell you what I’m having for lunch or something, and all of a sudden you’re all ‘biggest HUGE cock, daddy’,” Steve groaned.  “Like...if I’m that boring, d’you even want to date me?”

“...should I just call less,” Billy asked.  “I know I was calling too much, I was trying to just—just wait for you to call me, just call sometimes—”

“You’re not listening,” Steve said, sighing.

“No, I am, I swear!” Billy yelped.  “I’m listening, you don’t want me trying to keep you on the line, I’ll stop.  I’ll—when you’re done I’ll just hang up, I swear, I’m listening, I am—”

“I’m not...trying to get you to hang up,” Steve said slowly.  “I’m—I’m just telling you stuff?  I just—I’ve got a life, y’know, I thought maybe—you’d wanna know me.”

“I thought you were fucking bored,” Billy yelled, then, fuzzier, “—no, sorry, sorry—” before the phone was back to his ear.  “Every time I’d get you on the phone you’re like ‘So anyway, lots to do today—’”

“Oh,” Steve said, grimacing.  

“You always sounded bored.  You’re always bored, with me,” Billy said, laughing.  “Shit, I knew this was coming, don’t—don’t date me just because I begged, christ.”

“It’s not even really dating,” Steve sighed, wondering if he’d have noticed Billy’s tension earlier, across a table from him.

“...yeah, not—not really,” Billy agreed, then, more quietly.  “We’re just talking, sometimes.”

“Want to go for a walk,” Steve asked, and Billy held his breath again, then blew it out with a soft sigh.

“...not if you’re dumping me,” he said, and Steve sat up straighter.  

“No!  No, just—I wanna see you.  I didn’t even wanna dump you, I thought you were fucking bored, man.”

“...okay,” Billy said, sounding like he might be smiling, finally, and when Steve arrived at the park, there he was, texting.

Steve’s phone buzzed as he approached—sure enough, it was the guy he’d seen at the bar, with dark eyebrows and pretty gray-blue eyes over his mask.

dont make me wait, dickhead, it said.

“I’m here,” Steve called, and Billy looked up, and grinned with his eyes.  “Shit,” Steve said, stuffing his hands in his pockets, and Billy’s smile dropped.  He searched Steve’s face.  “I just wanna hug you,” Steve admitted, staying six feet away.  “You look cute.”

Billy laughed, his eyes crinkling, and Steve wriggled his hands in his pockets, groaning melodramatically.  

“Tell me something about you,” Steve told him.  “Uh, not about your cock.”

“...um,” Billy said, kicking a pinecone along the path.  “Huh.  I got a little sister.  Max.  She’s home now, but she’ll head back to college.  When they reopen.”

“This is the kinda shit I should know when we’ve been dating for nearly a month, and we talk every goddamn day,” Steve growled, hunching his shoulders.  

“Well, truly fucking sorry,” Billy said, glancing over.  “The only part of me I knew you liked was my dick, so—”

“No, I’m not—I should’ve asked,” Steve said, swivelling, and waving his hands in the air as another horrifying thought occurred to him.  “What’s your last name, Billy?!”

“Hargrove,” Billy said, grinning at him.  

“Jesus,” Steve muttered, shaking his head, and walked on.  He grabbed his phone, and changed his boyfriend’s contact info to include his actual name, feeling like a dipshit.

 When they decided, shivering, to head home, Steve turned around to watch Billy walk away, and caught him doing the same thing.  

I really like you, Steve texted.  sorry you didn’t know.

Billy turned on his heel and blew Steve a kiss, and Steve jumped and pretended to catch it like a fly ball, before holding it cupped in his hands.  

nerd, Billy sent.

your nerd, Steve sent back, triumphantly, with two thumbs up across the park at Billy, who started laughing so hard again he had to lean on his knees.

 He found Billy Hargrove on Instagram, and Twitter, and scrolled through photos of a really unfairly hot man as he sat in his car, his eyebrows raised.  There were photos of Steve’s texts, with loads of comments and hearts, and Steve found himself grimly going through posts where he’d texted and Billy’d posted the screenshot, and then video of him screaming into a pillow, or things Steve had said with two pages of comments and analysis.  

‘I think you could do better than somebody who doesn’t like you very much’ caught his eye, and he bit his lips together.  

Good thing it’s not up to you, Billy had replied, and Steve nodded, glaring at the username, MadMax666.  

I like him a lot, Steve typed, but that didn’t seem like enough, so he deleted it.  ‘I like him more than anyone else does’ was worse, and he grimaced, deleting that one. I know he’s amazing, he put, finally, and got back a Who is this?? from Billy’s logon.

The dumb boyfriend, Steve told him, and then everything exploded with heart emoticons, and Steve just called him, grinning.  “Hey, Billy,” he said, and Billy laughed.  

“Hey, Steve,” he said back, softly, and Steve talked him off the way they had at first, in the bathroom at Billy’s work, telling Billy he was amazing and perfect and good.  

 The next time Steve went by the bar, he called first, and Billy laughed breathlessly when he said he was coming by.

“Advance notice,” he said.  “Almost like a date, huh?”

“I just wanted to hear your voice a little sooner,” Steve admitted, and got a short pause before a hissed “Oh my god.”  Steve laughed.

“Maybe something special, then,” Billy whispered, and when Steve got there, instead of seeing Billy’s knees as he dropped to the floor instantly, Billy’s hands were curled over the wall of the stall.  “...just shove on in,” he said, and Steve realized that, bizarrely, he was about to have actual penetrative sex with someone he’d never touched.  

He unzipped his pants, and rolled a condom on, as Billy said “I know this isn’t what you want.  From dating.  I—I thought maybe—”

Steve dropped his already-dripping dick to slide his fingers over Billy’s, on the wall of the stall, and hear his voice hitch and shudder.  “You’re perfect, babe.  You’re enough.”

“...love you,” Billy whispered, maybe.

“What?!” Steve asked, startled, and Billy said “Nothing, nothing.”

 Billy didn’t seem to know Steve had found his Twitter too, and all discussion of Steve floated over there, which would have made him feel creepy about reading it, except it was invariably something that just meant Steve needed to call and cheer him up, that he wouldn’t have known if he wasn’t eavesdropping.  

What are you gonna do in that huge apartment all by yourself, somebody asked Billy, in the spring, and Steve’s heartbeat a little faster scrolling back to see Billy’s boyfriend had moved out months before, and his little sister was going back to college.  

Want to move in with me? he typed, and reconsidered, staring at it instead of hitting send.  He counted the months he’d known Billy on his fingers, grimacing.  

Can’t pay the rent here with reduced hours, can’t get the deposit to move, popped up on Billy’s Twitter, and Steve glowered at it, then called.

“Move in with me,” he said, when Billy answered.

“...what?” Billy breathed.

“Move in with me,” Steve said again.  “You’re alone, right?  Come live with me.”

“...is there room?” Billy asked, sounding bewildered.  “For me?”

“There’s a little room I use as my office,” Steve said, making a face.  “I, uh, I kinda thought you wouldn’t be using it, though.”

“You want me to live with you?” Billy asked again, like his brain was skipping, and Steve laughed.  

“Yeah, dick-monster, I do.”

“...you’ve never even seen my face,” Billy muttered, and Steve laughed.

“Is it my fault you’re so fucking tired of Zoom?”

“That doesn’t count,” Billy huffed.

“I’m vaccinated,” Steve told him.  “I’ve been quarantining.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Billy said dourly.  “I’m crawling out of my skin over here.”

“It’s safe as it can be.  D’you want to?”

“Of course I—we’ve never even had the exclusive conversation,” Billy groaned.  “Are we?!”

“COVID makes shit weird,” Steve sighed.  “I figured you were it for me, yeah.”

“I have never touched your flesh,” Billy moaned, like a serial killer, and Steve snorted.

“Calm down, carnivore,” he said,  “—you want help moving?”

“Yes,” Billy sighed.  “Yeah.  Gimme a couple days—”

“Days?!” Steve asked, startled, and Billy was quiet on the other end.  “Days are fine!” Steve corrected.  “Days are good!”

“Okay,” Billy said, laughing softly.  “Days.”

 As soon as the furniture and boxes were piled in Steve’s front room, he sidled over to Billy, who was leaning against the counter panting, his eyes closed.  Billy’s jacket was open, from the heat of hauling boxes up the stairs, and Steve ran his fingers down Billy’s neck, and then yanked him close into a hug, feeling the warmth and bulk of him breathing.

“Oof,” Billy whispered, but he relaxed into it with a sigh, leaning his whole weight against Steve.

Steve breathed him in, realizing he felt weak, a little, with the need to squeeze Billy as hard as he could.  “Hi,” he whispered.

“Mmmn,” he said, contentedly.

 Steve hauled him back to the bed, stripping him down on the way.  He wouldn’t quit squirming, and Steve rubbed stubble all over his neck, making him yell.  They nearly tripped, because neither of them wanted to pull back enough to look down, but they made it to Steve’s bed.  Steve pushed him back, and then crouched over him.  

Steve unhooked the mask from his own ears, and ran his fingers up Billy’s arm to his head to untie his.  “Feel like I’m lifting your veil,” Steve told him.

Billy kept his eyes shut, smiling as Steve lifted his mask.  He was pretty, prettier than his pictures, square-jawed and mustached, and Steve ran his fingers over his boyfriend’s cheek for the first time, just exploring.  He tweaked the one dangling earring, and brushed his thumb over Billy’s lips, and Billy bit back a moan, turning his head in Steve’s hands to kiss his fingers.

“...y’know I’m never gonna stop touching you,” Steve whispered, and Billy laughed, his long lashes brushing his freckled cheeks.  “...you’re perfect.”

“Mmmn,” Billy said, raising his eyebrows doubtfully.

“You’d be perfect if you had a smashed nose like a cauliflower, and nine-hundred eyes like a fly,” Steve told him, honestly, and Billy burst out laughing.  

“Not much of a compliment, then,” he pointed out, opening his eyes and grinning at Steve, and Steve couldn’t help touching his grin, feeling where his cheeks bunched as he smiled.  

It felt so good to touch someone.  

“...god,” he whispered, leaning in to brush his lips over Billy’s smile.  "May I kiss the bride?" 

Billy laughed against his lips, hot and human.  

My other Harringrove April prompts are here!

[thalergetic]

I loved ur Spiderman au i was hoping if u could do another one. No pressure tho

ask..... and you shall receive

(link to part one)

Wind whipped by Adora as she swung her way through Manhattan. She was sure her grin would be visible even though the mask, and Catra’s voice crackling over the comms unit in her ear — which, at the moment, was a souped-up version of a Bluetooth headset — only made it widen.

“Alright, take a left here,” Catra said. There was a rustling in Adora’s ear as she flipped the pages of what sounded like a map. “And then a right two blocks down.”

“You know,” Adora started, sending a web across the street with a thwip, “if I end up at the wrong location again, it’s gonna be really embarrassing for me.”

Catra huffed, setting down the map. Adora could practically hear her rolling her eyes. “It’s not the wrong location. That was one time.”

It had been a few months of this new arrangement, and honestly, Adora had never been more comfortable in her superhero life.

Having Catra on the line was... new. It was nice, in a way— it meant Adora could worry less about finding the grocery store being robbed and more about taking care of the robbers.

The cops still didn’t like her, but that wasn’t a surprise. Catra was helping her with that, too. She’d been able to fix Adora’s suit, help her design a better one, and overlay a police scanner frequency.

In other words, she was the reason Adora had stayed alive for as long as she had.

Catra knew basic first aid, as she’d told Adora once after a particularly grueling hostage scenario that she’d taken a class after finding out her secret.

As soon as Adora made it to the site of the robbery, she got the feeling she’d probably need it.

There were many reasons for this. One, there were several of them and one of her, and she’d never been very optimistic. Two, she was still in recovery from three weeks of injuries, and between stopping crimes and studying for her finals, she was spread pretty thin.

Three, they had guns. Big guns.

Adora released the web she’d been swinging on with another thwip, and landed gracefully on a nearby lamppost. She dropped into an easy squat, eyes flicking around the scene ahead.

“Alright,” She said, squinting a little. “So I’m seeing four— no, five guys. Three are armed.”

“And the other two?” Catra asked. There was a thin vein of concern in her voice.

It almost made Adora smile. It was sweet: Catra always got nervous when she was about to fight people. “The other two aren’t gonna be a problem.”

“That’s what you said during the last robbery,” Catra said, trying very hard not to let her worry show. “I almost had to call an ambulance.”

It was an exaggeration, but... not by much. Adora hadn’t quite gotten out of the way of a knife, and was still healing a nasty scar on her lower abdomen.

Adora winced at the memory, pressing her fingertips to it. “Well, it won’t happen tonight.”

Catra was quiet for a second. “Cops are on their way already, Spidey. I... I dunno. I have a bad feeling about this one.” She sighed. “Look, don’t get yourself killed. Alright?”

“Who, me?” Adora asked, standing up. “Never.”

If Catra responded, Adora didn’t hear it as she leapt off the lamppost. In an almost graceful move she’d been practicing for years, she landed feet-first on the back of the nearest robber.

For obvious reasons, it took him by surprise. He was knocked flat under her. She fired two webs in quick succession, pinning both him and his gun to the concrete.

Adora couldn’t resist a little quip. It was kind of her thing, after all. “Oh, sorry,” She said, dusting gloved hands off. “Hate to break it to you, but Mom said it’s my turn with the gun.”

The action seemed to get the attention of the other two (unarmed) goons. Adora thought idly that they really should’ve known better by now. She’d been Spider-Man for almost five years now, after all.

“Guys, come on,” She said, dodging a poorly-timed punch easily and countering with one of her own. “Taking on a superhero unarmed? Really? I mean, you could’ve at least brought a knife. I’m—I’m hurt. Really, I am.”

She made short work of them, and had them lying flat and webbed to the ground moments later. When the click of a pistol sounded behind her, Adora let out a sigh. “Really? Already?”

She turned to see the remaining two men pointing their guns at her.

“Easy, fellas,” Adora said, eyes lingering on the barrel of the shotgun trained on her. “Put those down. We can talk this out—”

“You think we’re that stupid?” The one holding the shotgun interrupted. He shook his head. “No stalling. We know the cops are already on their way.”

They weren’t holding any jewelry, Adora realized. She put her hands up slowly, frowning under her mask. “You guys are pretty terrible robbers,” She said carefully. “Kind of counterintuitive to break into a jewelry store and not steal anything.”

“I’m sure it would be,” Pistol Guy said, lips curling into a sneer, “if that was the reason we did it.”

Adora swallowed. “Well, don’t leave me hanging,” She said, eyes flicking between the two of them. There was a gnawing ache of dread welling up in the pit of her stomach. “What was the reason?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Shotgun said. “Gettin’ rid of you.” He raised the barrel up again. “Kingpin sends his regards.”

Catra’s voice crackled suddenly over the comms unit. “Shit, fuck— Adora, get out of there—”

Whatever she said next was muffled by the sound of a gunshot.

Adora tried as best as she could to duck under it, but even she wasn’t quite fast enough to dodge.

The force of a bullet lodging firmly in her stomach sent her staggering back until she nearly tripped over the prone body of one of the other men she’d taken out.

Her blood was pounding in her ears, and even though Adora was faintly aware of Catra yelling high and terrified through her comms, all she could focus on was the blood.

For a second, she was just grateful the suit was red.

She didn’t wait for the second gunman to shoot before she sent up a web and tried her best to swing away.

Moments later, she found herself collapsing in the alleyway across from her apartment building.

Adora finally allowed herself to focus Catra desperately calling her name over the comms unit. “Adora? Adora, please come in, I—”

“I’m here,” Adora rasped. She coughed, feeling blood come up in her mouth, and lifted up to take off her mask before she spat it out onto the concrete. “Jus’ resting. I tried to get as close as I could to the apartment.”

“Are you hurt? A-Are you injured at all?”

Adora looked down at the tears in her suit. “Uh... yeah. I-I didn’t dodge that one.”

“Fuck,” Catra breathed. “I-I have your location. I’m on my way. Just— fuck, Adora, keep pressure on it. Don’t you dare leave me.”

“Ha,” Adora laughed weakly. She winced as she put a gentle pressure on her abdomen. “You care about me.”

She heard Catra let out a wet, half-sob of a laugh. “Idiot. Of course I do. You—” Catra cut herself off. “I’ll tell you when I get there.”

“That sounds nice,” Adora said, blinking away the sleep at the corners of her vision. “I like your voice.”

There was movement on Catra’s end, followed by the sound of wind rushing as she ran. Seconds later, she slid to a stop at one end of the alley, and nearly dropped her phone at the sight of Adora slumped against the wall.

“Hi,” Adora said. She lifted a trembling hand to wave.

Catra’s expression shifted between horror, fear, and nausea. “Stay still,” She said, voice trembling. “You’re gonna be okay. Glimmer is a med student, right? You told me once that she—she lives in the apartment across from you.”

Adora found it hard to speak through the blood in her mouth, and gave a weak nod.

“I’m calling her,” Catra said, already typing a number furiously into her phone. She could tell Adora was starting to lose consciousness.

Catra put a hand on her cheek, trying to shake her back awake. “Adora? Adora, listen to me,” She said frantically, shaking harder. “Hey. Stay with me until Glimmer gets here.”

“Hey, I really like you,” Adora slurred. “Jus’ saying. If I don’t get a chance to tell you later, I want you to know—”

“If you do tell me later, I’ll let you kiss me.” Catra’s eyes were red from crying, and she gave her best attempt at a watery smile. “Because I really like you too. So stay with me,” She pleaded, barely above a whisper. “Can you do that?”

“Yeah,” Adora said, wincing as she shifted to sit up straighter against the brick. “Yeah. I’ll stay.”

[amelialincoln]

So Sorry

Her head was pounding, aching maybe? Nope, more like throbbing. She shook her head in frustration as her sutures broke for the fourth time. She ignored a couple of the confused glances from around the OR. Her sutured were always perfect but today her hands wouldn't stop shaking. It was probably due to dehydration and couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten. It had been back to back traumas all day, every specialty was swamped but neuro had gotten it worst. Owen wasn’t working today which made matters worse. She’d heard the nurses gossiping about him getting a call about a possible lead on his sister. Her heart had swelled a bit at that. She wished she could be there for him but was reminded that being Owen’s therapist wasn’t her job anymore. It was Teddy’s now. Something she might feel jealous about if she wasn’t so happy with Link. They’d planned to get married a year ago but realized some fancy ceremony seemed dumb. They loved each other and that seemed to matter more than anything else.

"Everything okay, Doctor Shepherd?" Deluca asked from beside her. She missed Stephanie, Deluca’s polietness was starting to piss her off.

“Everything's perfect, why?" She squinted into the brain cavity, her eyesight was starting to blur ans she realized how badly she needed a nap.

"No reason." Deluca shook his head. "I can close if you want."

On a normal day Amelia might snap at her him for pointing out her incompetence of a simple skill she'd preformed hundreds of times, instead she just sighed. "Sure, page me when your finished, I'd like to follow up." She handed her instruments to the resident. "Watch the lep–"

"Leptin receptor, I know," He assured her. "Get out of here." Amelia nodded, thanking the scrub nurses beside her, she quickly fled the room. Dizzy didn't even begin to cover how she was feeling as she began to scrub out. Everything was spinning. She waited for a moment of relief, gripping to the edge of the sink.

"Amelia?" She didn't have to look up to recognize her boyfriend's voice.

She took a deep breath, splashing her face with cold water and turned to meet his gaze. "Hey. You all finished for the day?”

"You don't look well," he observed, ignoring her question.

Amelia shook her head as another wave of nausea rolled over her. Her hand flew to her mouth to prevent her from throwing up onto his scrub top. "I don't want to get you sick.” Link held out an arm for her to steady herself and watched the dizziness pass before pulling her into his chest. Normally his cologne would calm her but today she couldn’t help but wince at the strength of it.

"I'll take you home," he assured her, removing her scrub cap and running his hands through her hair to remove the tight braid.

"No," she paused, shutting her eyes tight, "you're busy, I'll be fine."

He took a minute to survey her before placing a hand on her sweaty brow. “You're hot, do you feel feverish?"

"Not particularly, just nauseous."

"You've been spending too much time with Zola at daycare. That place is covered in germs. You probably caught a flu bug." She nodded before suddenly pulling away from him. Her entire body heaved as she threw up in the scrub sink. “The nurses are gonna love that.”

“I just wanna go home,” she mumbled weakly.

"Okay," he promised, "let’s go get your things and I'll take you home."

"It's rush hour, we could be here for awhile," Link muttered, slowing the car down to a stop behind the car in front of them. Amelia peered over the dashboard, a large line of cars blocked her view.

“Ugh,” a groan escaped her mouth as she noticed the traffic blocking her view.

"We're almost home. Another twenty minutes with the traffic." Link tried to sound optimistic as he glanced over at his girlfriend, curled up in her seat with her head leaning on the car door. "Please don't throw up in the car."

"Thanks I'll keep it in mind," she snapped.

"I told you that daycare is full of germs. You're in there almost twice everyday,” he tried to dismiss her anger, knowing she’d been up all night.

"I like how you're making visiting my nieces and nephew seem like a bad thing."

"There's a flu bug going around, you can always visit them at home," Link argued.

"If I have a break I'd rather make use of it then talk to stupid interns for half an hour!" She yelled, pressing her index fingers to her temples.

"Why are you so stubborn?!" He finally huffed, slamming his hands on the wheel of the car.

"Why do you always have to act so freakin righteous? She cried. Link pressed his lips together, gritting his teeth. Traffic has always agitated him as it does Amelia. They weren’t the most patient people.

"All I'm saying is–"

"Can we just not fight right now?" She interrupted. "I'm just really tired."

"Alright,” he tried to soften his voice.

"Good," she answered, cupping her forehead in one hand and squeezing her eyes shut. He felt slightly guilty for adding to her headache. They’d been at a stall for ten minutes when Amelia began to squirm again. Her index fingers roughly massaged her temples and she jumped as Link placed a soft palm on her forehead.

"Hey, hey," he muttered as she relaxed. "Your forehead is still hot, are you sure you're ok?"

"I told you, I'm fine," she mumbled, staring out the window.

"Amelia..." hot red tears rolled down her face and she wiped them away with frustration.

"I said I was fine," she tried to sound irritated but it came out a lot weaker. What she looked like was frail and unhealthy. Something Link had been noticing more frequently about her appearance, always tired, always shaky. She'd lost weight for sure but she keeps telling him that she’s just been swamped with work. He went to caress her side but quickly pulled away in horror as she yelped in pain.

“Okay, what the fuck is going on,” he was surprised by the anger in his own voice. Their relationship was built on trust which was something Link was grateful for every day. Lately he couldn’t shake the fact that she was lying to him.

"Stop yelling at me!" She cried, tears streaming down her face.

"Tell me what's going–"

"I thought I was pregnant!" She blurted out finally. Link’s voice went silent.

"What?"

"We've been t-trying for months and n-nothing was happening," she stumbled over her words as he stares at her in shock. "I was getting nauseas, I-I had this terrible back pain and I was tired all the time." She looked to Link for any flicker of emotion but his face had gone stone cold. "I didn't have time to go get a test at the store and I was so excited," her voice was starting to break, "I went to see Carina and I asked her to run some tests."

Link drew in a shaky breath, trying to hold back any flicker of excitement that might be showing up on his easily readable face. "Okay..."

"But they all came back negative. Carina was as confused as I was. We didn't know what to do except run some more tests. I had an ultrasound done, still nothing. And then I started bleeding and everything started to make sense."

"Bleeding?" Did you have a miscarriage?” He reached for her hand as he forced his own feelings down. Why hadn’t she told him? That was something they should’ve gone through together.

"I went to the bathroom and there was blood," she replied, she took in shaky breaths.

"Okay," Link waited for her to tell him, his heart thumping in his chest. He was almost a father.

"Carina was worried about the same thing as me, considering my family history, so we got a couple scans. They were positive.”

"For..." Link urged her to finish.

"For ovarian cancer. I didn’t want to tell you because initially we thought it was okay. With your history and everything I didn’t want to scare you but it's spreading really quickly. Carina said it could be in my bladder by next week and then possibly my liver. The tumor is located right beside a major bloodstream so it's just shipping cancer cells all over the place." She smiled through her tears, the classic Shepherd appreciation for tumors was written all over her face. "it’s pretty perfect, it’s margins are–"

“Stop,” he suddenly felt like it was him who was going to throw up. The car jolted a little too hard as he pressed in the brakes and stared into her eyes in disbelief. “Are you kidding.” She shook her head, not able to read any of the million scenerios that were running through his mind.

"I had my first round of chemo today.”

"Why the hell are you working?"

"It’s a distraction, I just–”

"And you didn't think that my opinion, being practically your husband, would matter?" He had never been much of a crier but he found himself biting back a sob. “You don’t think that the one who is directly impacted by your wellbeing would want to have a say in any of this?”

“I didn’t want to worry you. I’m trying to figure things out. I didn’t want to drop a major bomb on you without being sure of my prognosis.”

"So your telling me that if I was your position you would've preferred me not to tell you if I was dying?" He glared at her through blurry eyes.

"I didn't say that!" She protested, curling her hands into fists.

“I trusted you to tell me everything. You’ve made me promise you to keep you updated on my cancer shit but you can bother to do the same yourself? This is a joke.” He knew he was projected his issues on her and he hated himself for it.

“I thought I was doing what was best for us,” she tried to explain, running her hands through her hair in frustration. Link stopped, staring into her palms. His hands began to shake on the wheel and his knuckles went white in an attempt to squeeze his hands hard enough to stop the shaking. Amelia glanced down at the hair caught between her fingers and let out a tiny whimper as the couple pulled into the driveway. He wanted to wrap her up in his arms, tell her it was all going to be okay. The idea of watching her go through what he had made him want to run in the other direction. The idea of her hurting was too much for him to bare. He looked at her pale expression, knowing exactly how she was feeling and recounting on all the times he’d prayed to god that her nor their children wouldn’t have too. Children were most likely out of the question at this point though he didn't care as long as she made it. Was this really their reality now? If she made it? He leant over to kiss her, hoping it would suppress his thoughts and prayed that he’d be able to kiss her for the rest of his life. 

an anon requested that Link and Amelia be together rather than Owen and Amelia during her cancer situation. sorry its sad but what were u expecting lol. 

[johannstutt413]

(requested by calligomiles; related to this but maybe not the same timeline)

“Hey, Nat, it’s Independence Day.” Sonya, sitting across the dining room table from the heiress, set down her book to address her. “We should go to the bar tonight.”

“Hmm...I agree. Rada’s unavailable, but Anna should be free.” She, likewise, closed her book and went to get her coat.

Zima shrugged. “Sure, she can come along. Things are still a bit messy, but it’s a holiday. She can find it in herself to forgive me for one night.”

“I hope you don’t mind sharing that pardon with me when you get it,” Rosa replied. “The day after you told her the news, I could feel her eyes boring into the back of my neck during our shift in the office together.”

“If he’s really that busy, the Doctor might want to stop rotating his assistants around. Can you go invite her?”

She smirked. “I never thought I’d see you scared of one of our own.”

“Between the two of us, and without Rada here, you’re the face she’d want to see more.” The General went back to their room to change. “Text me when you’re on your way back.”

“Yes, ‘General.’” Natalya tossed a bit of sarcasm in her parting shot as she left.

Istina responded to a knock on her door by looking through the peephole...and there was Rosa. Hmm. “Can I help you?”

“Tonight, not particularly.” The heiress mimed tossing back a shot. “The General and I are going to the bar to celebrate Independence Day. Will you join us?”

“You really want to celebrate our freedom while our brothers and sisters bleed to secure it? Rather optimistic, don’t you think? Nonetheless, I’ll come along; I finished my novel, and I can’t quite start the next one yet.” The advisor reached for her coat, hanging on the wall beside her door, before joining the homewrecker in the hallway as she texted her girlfriend…

To say the situation was ‘tense’ between Anna and the couple was a massive understatement; it’d be more accurate to say the relationship survived through the sheer weight of their shared history, which admittedly only made the betrayal that’d occurred cut closer to home. Zima and Istina had had what felt to the advisor like a strong bond, but shortly after Rosa re-emerged from her self-imposed exile in Logistics, the General threw that away to date the heiress. It stung, in both the past perfective and present adjectival sense, but it wasn’t as if she could disassociate with them. After all, Gummy and Leto were still friends with all of them, even if they were doing their own things for the most part these days, and on the occasions they were around, it was almost enough to make them feel like a group again.

Almost.

They walked back to Zima’s apartment, where the General was waiting by the door. “Ready to go?” She asked, hand on the handle in case Natalya needed to run in and get something.

“Yes, we should be good.” Rosa took Sonya’s hand as she passed their apartment, Istina walking on the other side and noticeably behind her. “If I’m honest, I don’t believe I’ve been to the bar with you before, Anna.”

“I don’t drink often.”

The General nodded. “That she doesn’t. The lightest-weight Ursan you’ve ever met.”

“Th-that’s not true!” She retorted. “I knew plenty of girls my age with lower tolerances.”

“None of which I or Nat have met, so my point still stands,” Zima retorted.

The heiress sighed. This might’ve been a mistake. “Let’s try to refrain from fighting too seriously until we can start a proper brawl, please.”

“Aye. No point in fighting her, anyway.” Sonya scoffed. “No challenge to it.”

“...” The advisor simply followed them to the bar without any further word.

For the first half of the night, things went as expected; Rosa sat in the middle, the General on one side and Istina on the other, acting as a half-Gummy in her attempts to keep things civil. Anna at most sipped her drink, but even that seemed to have an effect on her, making her protests more vivacious. Eventually, Zima got bored of squabbling and, seeing Beehunter and Leto at another table, left to talk to them, leaving Istina and Natalya alone.

“Shouldn’t you be going with her?” The advisor asked, officially finished with her first drink of the night and moving into her second. “You are her girlfriend, aren’t you?”

“I...have my doubts about that,” she admitted, watching the other table laugh, presumably at Anna’s expense.

Anna shrugged. “Don’t blame you. Wouldn’t be the first time, after all...Two-timing whore’s daughter...I still miss her, though.”

“Really?” Now that was a thread worth pursuing. “I thought you only had vitriol left for her.”

“I woulda tho’t the same, but I dunno. Hard to hate ‘er fe’real when she use-a be so warm, y’know?” Her words were sticking together on her tongue like honey; it was hard to scrape them off into the air without them running together.

Natalya smiled. This one really did have a low tolerance, didn’t she? “So is it possible you don’t miss her, just having someone there for you?”

“Mebbe...Do you?”

“I’m sorry?”

Istina swerved around on her stool to face the heiress. “D’ya miss ‘er at ‘er best?”

“Well, yes, I do.” Her eyes wandered back to the other table. “Or at least, I think so. But have I seen her at her best? You’ve known her longer than I ha- What’s so funny?”

“Knew ‘er? Knew ‘er?! Oh, that’sa good one, itn’t it? I knew ‘er, yeah, sure, just like we knew ‘bout the ‘ole ‘Pet’r’eim’s a Reyunyin plot’ or wh’ever they tryda tell us, or ‘at Sonya was thirstin’ fer ya more’n I do after a night at the bar...Yeah, sure, I knew ‘er like ‘at, a’ight...I knew ‘er like the shadows ‘hind my closet door...”

There was a moment of silence, punctuated by a laughing trio of Ursus, before Rosa continued the conversation. “‘Thirsting’ as in you need water after going out drinking, or-”

“Oh, c’mon now, Miz Perfek, don’cha tryn’ play innocent wi’ me...Ya know ya’ve got some’in the rest of us don’t...” Anna giggled a bit, her eyes drifting down Natalya’s neck and settling pointedly elsewhere. “Mmhmm...Woulda been e-zyer t’keep ‘er if I’d ‘ad ‘em, too...Must be nice, bein’ so mature...Damn noble breedin’...”

“You really do have a low tolerance.” In spite of what might be expected, part of the heiress was enjoying listening to her like this. Very few people at Rhodes Island had anything negative to say about her, so all she had to back her own self-loathing was more of her own inner voice. It was depressingly refreshing, or maybe refreshingly depressing? One of those.

That came to an end when Istina drifted a little closer. “Hey. Wanna know a secret?”

“A secret?” Rosa raised an eyebrow. “About who?”

“‘Bout me, konechno (obviously). C’mere.”

Natalya looked back over at the other table, frowned, and turned around to find the advisor even closer. “Yes?”

“‘Tween you and her? ‘snot even a choice.” A pair of very intoxicated lips continued talking. “Ye might be a homewrecker, but yer still better ‘an ‘er by a long shot.”

“I don’t-”

Anna leaned in further. “I say we oughta have a lil’ revenge, don’cha think?”

“How drunk are you to be thinking...like this?” How drunk was she, to find herself kind of agreeing? “I mean, she’s right there...She could see us if she turned around.”

“Ya really think she will, though?” Istina giggled a little. It was obvious what the answer was there, judging by the animated voices coming from that part of the bar.

Rosa rubbed her forehead, sighed, downed what was left in her cup, and shook her head. “You’re right, she won’t. She doesn’t care, she never did, and I...I’m sick of it. Sick of being second-fiddle to someone she won’t even confess to. Sick of being a bystander in my own life. Sick of-”

“Ah, shut up and kiss me already.” The advisor tugged on Natalya’s shirt and pulled her close enough to do just that.

“And so I said to Nat-” Sonya was saying to the others, turning to gesture to her at the bar...Only to see that unfold. “So I...Fuck.”

Leto cocked her head. “I think they’re just kissing right now. It’s not that bad yet.”

“I knew one of them was a lightweight, but both of them? You sure know how to pick ‘em, General.” Beehunter smiled to herself behind her glass.

“...Eh. They won’t remember it happened.” Zima turned back around. “So anyone, I said to Nat...”

But the truth was, Rosa was very cognizant of what was happening - cognizant enough that, when they broke it off, she was blushing bright red. “Anna, I...This is a bit much, I think.”

“What? Didn’t like it?”

“N-no, I...I did, but...” Wouldn’t this make her a double homewrecker at this point, then? “I mean, I don’t even have any proof that-”

Istina sighed, turning back to her glass. “‘Course you need proof. I knew ‘fore she said a word what’d happened ‘tween the two of ya…’Ell, I think I r’mber yer taste from my last kiss wi’ ‘er.”

“Oh. You know I never meant to hurt you, right?”

“Just lost yerself in ‘er smile? I know the feelin’. So rare t’see...” She slunk into the bar. “Still, ‘o, I wish I’da known what I missed out on fer ‘er the firz time.”

The blushing was only getting worse. “Oh, Anna...”

“That one ‘Arkaz girl sang it better ‘an I coulda...I’m sleepy...Need a pillow...” Despite that, Anna’s head fell to the bartop, and she seemed to fall asleep just fine.

“Hmm...Hey, Sonya?” Natalya called over to the other table. “I’m going to take Anna home. I’ll see you when you’re done here?”

Ignoring the snickers from the other two, the General turned around and gave her the thumbs-up. “Sounds good. See you there.”

“Heh. Well, looks like we know who’s getting some tonight, then.” Beehunter had dissolved into a quiet but body-wrenching giggle fit by this point.

“Maybe,” Zima admitted, watching Rosa pluck Istina from the bar and cradle her as she took them back to the advisor’s place. “Honestly? I’ll just sleep at Anna’s tonight. Save her a trip back to my room.”

The other two weren’t sure whether to keep laughing at how ridiculous that sounded, or admit that, as usual, the General was two steps ahead. The drink in their systems, eventually, got them to settle on the former.

[berri-hopefulspouse]

"Soren, would you like to go first?" Ren never really expected themselves to be before an officiant- let alone for this reason...But, for some reason, they weren't afraid. Not exactly, not in the way they thought they would be. Nodding, they look back to Makoto- after keeping in yet another internal little squeak- and give a soft sigh and a little smile...They were ready for this.

"When we first met...and I mean, truly, deeply first met... I felt almost drawn to you. You said it yourself; we had always had some kind of connection, one that goes beyond time, space...probably even ourselves as we are currently. I always felt drawn to you then, to be close to you- but I could never exactly pinpoint what it was...yet, here we are now. Years later, and we're both still here. Both still...okay. I'll be the first one to say it- shit isn't perfect-" That gets a bit of a chuckle from themselves, "-But we're here...and we're alive. And we have the groundwork for a new beginning."

With a little shaky, nervous sigh, they bite their lower lip and manage to maintain eye contact with Makoto, "...I know I can't always be there when you need me- and I know I can't promise things will be perfect. But I can promise- can vow to you- that I'll be doing my best, each and everyday. Doing my best to improve, to get better, to learn new things, and to love you. Each, and everyday. Always, and forever. You mean the world to me, and to whatever secrets that we may share in the future..." Theres a smirk, and already Makoto knows what's coming, "I'll never tell a single soul. That's a promise, and my vow to you...I'll always, always cherish you."

Despite their light joke, there were tears in their eyes, barely held together through their strict will alone. Makoto wasn't much better- in fact he had to let go of their hand once or twice to wipe at his own eyes, before letting out a soft laugh of surprise himself. Still, after looking to the officiant himself- and getting a small nod- he proceeded to speak himself.

"Ren, first of all, how dare you make me cry like that-" That got a laugh out of the two of them, as well as the small gathering of people who had decided to attend that day, "-Still, still...There's so many things I could say...So many things I want to say- and it wouldn't truly be enough. You're so many things- you've done so much for me and for those around you...and yet, you never stop pursuing to help everyone around you. Everyone except yourself." Despite himself, he rests a hand gently on their cheek to reassure them, to calm them down a bit.

"I thought I knew who I was- someone who didn't quite stick out in the crowd, who was just...well, average at everything I did. And I thought I was okay with that... But uh..." He chuckled nervously, "Turns out that's just self esteem issues, I suppose. You never stopped believing in me- back then and all the way up until now. No matter what we faced, you had full faith in me that it'd be alright. I've always had a more optimistic attitude...and you always struggled to maintain one, but you still were always there for me. You say you weren't- but I assure you, even if you couldn't physically help in some way...I knew you were there for me, in spirit."

He shakes his head a bit, "I guess this is a roundabout way of saying...I'm proud of you. You've taught me so much, and grown so much more than from when we first met. You stand tall- well, really short in your case-" A little joke that earned him a gentle subtle kick with their shoe- causing him to laugh, "-You stand tall in the face of everything you've been through. Each day you keep moving forward, despite what lingers over you...And for that reason alone, I'm so proud of you. You always tell me that I saved you, that I've done so much for you...and while I can't always believe that's true, I can promise you that I'll be there whenever I can. You deserve to have someone who can protect you, and well- if it's me...I guess I really can't argue with that. I love you, Soren...with everything I am. You're my hope, and my proof that my Ultimate Luck truly isn't just a throwaway Ultimate...It's proof that I really am lucky to have you in my life. I swear, I'll never leave you- if you'll allow me to stay in your life...and that I'll always do my best to protect you, and cherish what we have. Always. My love for you is no secret."

He was trying to keep his voice from shaking, truly he was- but while his tone held certainty, his nervousness was equally as palpable in his tone. It was also not much of a secret that, simply put- he had completely did that on the fly, rather than plan it out. All the same, it looked like his words got through to them- the tears they were trying to keep back having started to fall from their cheeks. Leaning into the palm of his hand that still rested on their cheek, they nuzzled into it for comfort before pulling back to let his hand free- a smile on their face the whole while. At least he knew he didn't royally screw that up.

Still, thereafter came the rings- the one thing Makoto knew for certain. Ren may have been the one to do most of the planning- Mostly in part due to Makoto knowing full and well they were better at all of this than he could ever really hope to be- but he was the one who picked what the wedding bands would be. He didn't let Ren see what they were, wanting to get their reaction above anything else. He did his own first, slipping the ring carefully onto their ring finger- trying to quell the slightly anxious tremble of his own hands. He couldn't help being nervous.

The ring itself was simple in nature, but it's meanings would show themselves to those two alone. Theirs particularly had an outer layer of silver- steel, particularly- with moonstone in the middle. Carved into it, were a few small things. A moon and some stars, a reminder of the promise ring they got the both of them and a light comparison to his own band. A small little heart, that had a little ruby heart gemstone in the middle, as it was their birthstone. Lastly, on the underside of the ring, was engraved a few simple words; 'You are my luck, and my hope.'

His was similar of course, rather instead a shade of gold rather than silver with sun and cloud engravings on his own, and an sapphire heart rather than a ruby one. On the underside of his, was something that he heard them say to him once or twice- something that stuck with him, something he observed as they, in turn, slipped the band onto his ring finger.

'You're the reason I believe in my empathy.'

He watched Ren's reaction, though, as their expression shifted from the soft counterance they had previously to curiosity. Then, to thought- likely tuning out the officiant in favor of observing the ring- and finally acknowledgement, gaze snapping back up to meet Makoto's as the tears that had started to slow down only picked right back up. He could faintly notice them mouth something along the lines of 'You fucking dork,' as the officiant had continued to speak, their facade of pride crumbling down with their tears.

The two had been so busy reveling in their own little world for a few moments, that neither had even noticed that the officiant had been asking a question. Makoto, naturally, snapped out of it first in time for him to recognize his name being said.

"S-sorry, what was that?" And, promptly, his question snapped Ren back out of their own stupor, blushing a bit in embarassment. Makoto wished he wasn't in the same flustered state. Thankfully it got a bit of chuckles out of everyone else, and the officiant repeated himself.

"Do you, Makoto Naegi, take Soren to be your spouse?"

"Oh!" Well, if he wasn't red before hand, he definitely was now, "I...I do." ...But he still wouldn't hesitate with his answer, not for a moment.

It got a bit of a giggle out of Ren. At least they were amused at how flustered he was- but he knew full well it was a double edged sword.

"Soren, do you take Makoto to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

Despite watching their cheeks turn a bright red- called it- and noticing their breath bitch a bit, their resolve didn't falter in the slightest.

"I do, now and forever."

Makoto couldn't help but smile at that, the nervous expression he adorned softening into adoration. He could be nervous, sure, but right then and there? With that smile they had on? He could feel nothing but pure, unadulterated love. He didn't notice when the officiant was asking if anyone had any objections- he didn't notice when no one had said anything, or that everyone was staring intently at the two, all he could really notice was them.

He only snapped out of it once more when he heard the Officiant speak once more.

"Then it is my great honor to pronounce you as husband and spouse!" The officiant look to the two with a little grin, "You may now kiss, if so desired."

About halfway through that sentence however, impatient as they were- Ren had quickly grabbed Makoto to yank the brunette into their shorter embrace. Yelping a bit in surprise- it instead dissolved into a little laugh as Ren mumbled a short and cheeky, 'Hey', to Makoto- only before pressing a shy kiss to him. He didn't hesitate to reciprocate, a hand gently combing past the flower crown veil to instead thread his fingers through their hair. Only then did they relax a bit, pressing back with a bit more decor for a few moments before drawing away a bit.

"Hello to you, too, Mx. Naegi," Makoto lightly teased, despite being out of breath. Watching their face equally flush a bright red, but light up with delight, he ignored the small uproar of his friends and family- instead laughing to himself before being ambushed in another kiss from his now-spouse. Despite it all, they made it to this point...New Years Eve- now New Years day...Now, officially, married. To the two, it was clear as day...

What a great way to start a new year.

[danetobelieve]

Escape Doom || Layla and Winston

When: 28/09/2020 Who: @laylacooke & @danetobelieve Where: Escape Doom Summary: Winston and Layla try to have some fun. They don’t succeed. Warnings: gore content warning

It had been a good two months since she had spent time with Winston, and for that, Layla felt bad. But today was their day. She was going to catch up and find out what had been going on in their life and maybe get the scoop on them and Rio. And what better way to bond than at an escape room aptly named Escape Doom. It was one adventure she had yet to experience and as she waited outside for Winston to arrive, she couldn’t help but google the place on her phone to see what it was all about. The reviews online had been mixed, but mostly on the good side, and it was an escape room. It’s not like they would be trapped forever, and the carnival had left town several nights ago, so she knew for a fact, it had nothing to do with that creepy place. Picking up on their scent, the teenage werewolf put her phone away and waited for them to arrive.

Winston was feeling cautiously optimistic, they weren’t sure if things were really going to keep running this smoothly. This was White Crest after all. To be perfectly honest it was pretty rare that anything really ran smoothly for more then a week here. But Winston was not one to complain about a good thing. As they arrived at Escape Doom, Winston had to admit that they weren’t sure if this place was the right thing for them, but they were all about trying new things and hopefully Layla would enjoy it too. Waving, they smiled as they strode over. “This place looks … great,” they raised their eyebrows wondering why they had suggested this place and not somewhere that was slightly less ominous. “Are you doing okay?” Winston asked as they made their way into the building. 

Layla waved as she saw Winston get closer. Escape rooms had been something she had wanted to try before, but had never got the chance. White Crest probably hadn’t been the ideal spot to try such an intense game, but then again, she couldn’t keep living her life in fear or regret. Giving the building a once over at Winston’s comment, she laughed, “It’s got character. I’ll give it that much. And nothing could be as bad as that nightmarish carnival that was just here, right?” She followed them inside, “I’m doing, okay.” She didn’t feel like mentioning she had been arrested. Of course this was a small town, so there was a good chance Winston already knew. “What about you? How are things with Rio?” She looked back to them with a smile.

Working in the WCPD didn’t mean that Winston knew everything or even anything about who had been arrested or not, so far they hadn’t heard of any run ins that Layla had had with the law. “Of course not, the fact that this is a staple part of White Crest isn’t terrifying either, nor is the fact that this place quite literally has Doom in the title.” Winston was doing their best to be glib, whether or not that was really the most sensible thing for them to be doing wasn’t something that they were particularly considering. “Rio?” Winston shrugged and smiled, “They’re good, we’re taking things real slow, but it’s good.” There was no rush. Winston stepped inside of the building and ordered them two tickets. “What sort of game do you want to play today?” the guy behind the counter asked curiously. “Shit, I hadn’t thought, you got a preference Layla?” 

Despite the fact that they were probably walking into another one of White Crest’s traps, Layla was going to try and be optimistic about the whole situation, “Slow is good. I’m glad to hear things are going well for the both of you. I suggested to Rio a while back about the possibility of a double date with you, him, Frankie, and me. I mean if you’re up for it.” She smiled. Moving to the counter, she stopped just behind Winston and looked up at the listed games on the wall. There were quite a few to choose from, “Uh, maybe 30’s Detective or Zombie Apocalypse? What level of difficulty were you thinking?” She had never done this before, so it was any guess as to how this day was going to go. She was just glad Winston would be by her side.

“Yeah, that would be really cute.” Winston and Frankie had talked a few times and it had always been fun, they would love to get to know all of them better and a double date wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world. “We’ll have to try and arrange something.” Winston wasn’t sure what they could do, but there was always time in White Crest. Sometimes you really had to face the music and sometimes you just had to do something to calm down and chill out. “Uh,” honestly Winston hadn’t considered difficulty, “I say lets do Zombie Apocalypse but lets do like a medium, because I really don’t know if I have the brain power to do anything above that.” Winston slipped the guy behind the booth some notes and he ushered them down a corridor and towards the escape room, giving a clearly well practiced speech. “Zombie Apocalypse escape rooms are … inventive,” Winston whispered to Layla. 

A smile came over Layla’s face at the idea of them all getting together. Double dates weren’t much, but it was a semblance that she was really starting to settle down and call White Crest home. “Perfect, because I don’t know if I have the actual brain cells to figure this out.” She leaned in towards Winston, “That they are. And this place surely has an exit door, if it gets to be too hard right?” There had to be a way out. The teenager wasn’t about to admit that she may or may not have been nervous, but as long as they could leave if they wanted to, she would be good, “So do you know anything about these places? I know you have to find clues to unlock doors and things right? But we both know this is one messed up town and nothing is ever as simple as it seems.” Would there, in fact, be real zombies lurking in the rooms? They were about to find out.

“Hopefully the two of us will be able to get enough brain cells to rub together, I’m not super super hopeful but I think we’ve got this.” Winston was of course joking. Layla was many things but stupid was not chief among them. “I feel like if anything goes wrong then we will be able to find a way out.” It might require them to blow some stuff up but Winston wasn’t really sure that they cared anymore. “They’re basically just meant to be a giant riddle I think?” Winston replied, “Like isn’t the point that there are a load of themed puzzles and stuff that you have to work through so that you can get to the end and escape the room?” Winston stepped inside of the room, which had bars across the room so that they could only get a third of the way across the room. There was a couple of boxes that looked like they should hold ammo and Winston was suddenly concerned that there might be something zombie like in here. “Although I’m starting to wish that we’d picked the 30s detective thing instead of the zombies, now that you make that point.” 

“You know, I think we just might. But I can’t guarantee that claws won’t come out if something scares me. I’m still learning how to control that part of myself.” Was this really a good idea, now that she had thought about it? Layla was thinking as a human, when she committed to joining Winston, not as a werewolf. Evil!Layla, if you wanted to call her that, had given her normal counterpart a little more control over her abilities, but the teenager could still be skittish. After all, look at all the bullshit that had happened within the few months she had been there, “Sounds about right, yeah. I know they had them back in Nashville, but not as intense. I’m making an assumption, by the way. I never actually made it inside one.” She stuck closely to Winston as they entered the room together, “My spidey senses may or may not be tingling right now. Is it too late to choose that 30s detective thing?” She looked to Winston with an uneasy smile. What were they getting themselves into?

“Hey, if you need to go a little bit … wolfy because something’s freaked you out then I won’t stop you.” Winston hadn’t told Layla everything about themselves yet. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust her or anything it was more that with Miriam involved they didn’t want her finding out about them being a magician and so keeping it from as many people as possible was the safest way to do that. “I mean, like I said this is my first time too, but it would make sense that there would be something fucked up if it was White Crest.” The usual anxious pit in Winston’s stomach was beginning to settle in and Winston wasn’t sure that they were all that keen to see where this really went. But they were already here and they were pretty sure that they had just heard the door lock behind them. “I think it might be too late yeah…” Winston looked at her and then at the room. There were doors on either side that looked remarkably flimsy. The sound of a bell rang through the room. “So does that mean that the game’s beg-” Winston’s sentence was cut off as a fist punched through one of the doors and a mottled zombie-fied hand reached through, “start looking for a way through these prison door things.” Winston scrambled over to one of the boxes and pried the lid off, looking for a key or anything. 

Wolfy. Considering going wolfy seemed to be on the fritz, Layla wasn’t too sure that either one of them should rely on her innate animal. But the circumstances with Miles had been different. He was a werewolf trying to attack her to bring out her inner wolf; a plan that hadn’t settled too well considering it took her back to the night she was bitten. But this was different. As long as werewolves didn’t pop out somewhere and yell ‘boo!’ she would hopefully be good to at least swat at a few things with her claws, if they were to make an appearance, “Wolfy. Got it.” With hesitation growing inside of her, she was just about to turn around and walk out, when she heard the click of the door. Even Winston couldn’t get out their sentence in time, which instantly filled Layla’s stomach with dread. But it was the fist coming through the door that solidified her regret, and with Winston’s instruction, she immediately began scanning the room for anything that would help them move on, as more fists and hands seemed to start coming through the door. “Winston, I think this was a bad idea.” No reason to worry yet. No reason to let Miss Wolfy out. Nope. Just stay calm, Layla. Stay calm.

“I’m not saying that you should or even that you have to, just do you.” Winston didn’t think that they were really the person who should be coaching anyone on their newly found or developed supernatural abilities. They were barely in control of their magic at the best of times and although they were getting more and more confident with it as time went on there was still a lot for them to learn. “You think this was a bad idea?” Winston wished that sarcasm wasn’t such an innate defense mechanism at times like this, “Of course it was a bad idea, there appear to be literal zombies punching through the door in an attempt to eat us and presumably our brains.” Winston wanted to tell the people who had made Escape Doom that this wasn’t fun and it also wasn’t accurate, but somehow writing a strongly worded yelp review at a time like this wasn’t something that Winston thought was particularly a priority. Scrambling over to the boxes of ammo, Winston began pulling them open. Unfortunately they weren’t filled with anything really. There was air but that was about it really. Swallowing, Winston looked around before pushing over a chair in their hurry to find literally anyway out of this, they spotted a key and grabbed it, throwing it to Layla who was by the door to the next part of the room as the door splintered open. “Try that!”

Layla side-eyed Winston as the sarcasm came off strong, but continued to hunt for anything that could free them from a room that would soon be full of zombies, “First, sarcasm isn’t going to get us out of here, and second, what the hell do you mean literal zombies?!” Were zombies actually a real thing here? She hadn’t seen one. At least she didn’t think she had. No one looked like the hands that were grabbing at her from the otherside of the door. But thank the moon, Winston had found some sort of key! Catching it, she pushed it into the lock and twisted, hearing the door unlock, and just in time too, as she felt the brush of zombie fleshing against her body, “It works!!!! Come on!!!!” Pushing the door open, she ran inside the next room, “Winston hurry!!!!!”

“It’s a defense mechanism, like humour in awkward situations, except when it’s a life threatening situation I get sarcastic and make very bad jokes.” Winston was already dashing towards the door as ‘zombies’ burst through into the escape room. “Zombies are real, yes, but they’re not zombies like in the walking dead, it’s complicated.” Suddenly the establishment's name of Escape Doom had a brand new meaning to it and Winston found themselves determined not to get caught between a proverbial rock and a hard place. Scarpering into the next room, Winston pushed against the jail door as zombies poured into the room. “Layla, can you help … me…. With this.” They grunted with exertion as they struggled to get the door to close with the veritable tidal wave of zombies pushing against them. 

She was halfway paying attention to them carrying on, just more so concerned with their well being of making it past the room filled with zombies. Layla did, however, catch the bit about zombies being real, but different? She would ask for an explanation later, but right now her attention was pulled to Winston’s request of getting the door closed. With her wolf strength, she forced back the horde with the heavy door and managed to get it secured just in time before they were the ones greeting guests when they entered one of Escape Doom’s many fucked up scenarios, “What do you mean real and not like the Walking Dead?” She was bent over trying to catch her breath, but she had let her head twist just enough in their direction to listen to the explanation that she was hoping they would give.

Winston was far from sure as to how they were going to really explain this to Layla. They were really starting to resent having to explain supernatural shit to everyone. It wasn’t exactly their job and they were pretty much as new to this as everyone else was. But somehow, Layla managed to shut the door and Winston was left panting for breath on the floor. Gulping down air, they wiped sweat from their brow. The hordes of zombies that had filled the room that they’d been previously held in were swarming the bars and grabbing at Layla and Winston. Their heart fluttered with fear and anxiety crept into their stomach as they tried to work out a way out of here, but so far they had nothing. “I mean, like, you know in the walking dead they look like shambling corpses that grind and gnash their teeth and try and eat your brains, well in real life they don’t look like that, they do eat brains but not just human brains I don’t think? I don’t really know, I’m not an expert but these … they’re something else.” Winston wasn’t sure what, and they weren’t sure that they wanted to know either. “We need to try and find a way out before they find a way through.”

Layla listened as Winston explained everything. This town really was something else, and now, the redhead had wondered if she had ever come across any of these so-called zombies. That’d be a mystery left for another day. Right now, they had the hordes of these scary fuckers to worry about. Straightening back up, she looked around the new room. The sounds of grunting and growling and hands grabbing and reaching forced Layla to take a few steps further into the room. The name of the game was escape, and she was already scanning the area, “You know, I would say maybe these are actors, but I don’t think that’s a very accurate description, so I’m just going to start looking for the next way out.” As she walked around the room, she noticed there wasn’t a door, except the one they had come through already, “I don’t want to panic you, Winston, but, um...there’s not a door. At least not one that I can see. Except that one.” She pointed back to the door they had both just successfully shut.

Winston heard something plop against the floor and saw a section of skin peeled off of one of the things on the other side of the bars and dripped onto the floor. “I don’t think that they’re actors, unless that is some of the most convincing stage makeup that I have ever seen.” Winston was sure that it wasn’t one of the most convincing pieces of stage makeup that they had ever seen. In White Crest -- so much of the time -- the most convincing answer was so often the most supernatural. Looking around the room, Winston’s brain ticked slowly, it was almost as if they could feel the cogs in their brain churning as they tried to work out the answer. “Ok, there’s no door but this is definitely an escape room. I know that it would be pretty White Crest to make something that there is literally no escape from but that doesn’t feel like this place's MO. If there is no traditional door then there has to be a different way out.” Looking up and around them, Winston chewed on their lip before spotting a small vent in the ceiling. “You see that? Do you think that could be our way out?” 

The young werewolf searched the area, but her eyes caught the same thing she was pretty sure Winston was seeing; skin falling off and landing with a splat on the floor. Layla almost wanted to gag, but was able to refrain. “You’re right, I don’t think they’re actors either, now that you mention it.” She quickly turned around, the smell of decaying flesh starting to get to her wolf senses now that she was actually letting it in. Her eyes scanned the area, until Winston told her to direct her attention towards the ceiling. Great. So not only did they have real life zombies trying to eat them, now they would have to play mission impossible and climb through a ceiling vent, “I don’t think it is. I know it is.” She glanced back to the creatures that seemed to be multiplying and pressing harder on the bars, “Need a boost?” She turned her sights back to Winston.

Gulping, Winston had to admit that they weren’t thrilled at the prospect of having to go through a terrifying vent but then again when wasn’t Winston terrified nowadays? They were sure that the ‘zombies’ were going to break through and eat them at any moment and if they did then Winston wouldn’t be able to do anything other then die. “Yes, I definitely need a boost.” Winston was ready to do whatever it took to get out of here alive and somehow they thought that might well be the point of this whole thing. As Layla boosted them up towards the vent they clawed the grate off of it and hauled themselves up awkwardly. Thank God Layla had given them a hand  with this because they did not have the upper body strength to do it on their own. Turning awkwardly in the cramped space, they dangled their hands for Layla. “Come on,” they said as they spotted the zombies clawing through the bars and starting to make their way through.

What had the two of them gotten into? Layla had just wanted to spend a fun day out with her friend and here they were facing zombies?! With all of her strength, she pushed Winston up into the vent. But not at the expense of having the walking dead on her heels. Her heart had been racing the entire time, but this had been the first time she had genuinely felt like she could get hurt, and as she jumped up and reached for Winston’s hands, the teenager felt one of the creatures grab onto her leg, “Winston!!!” Kicking with all her might while trying to pull herself up, she could feel the shift of the werewolf starting to come on. Tears flooded her eyes as her teeth began to change into fangs, “Hurry!!! I’m starting to shift!!!” If her claws came out, it was over. She would surely lose their grip and be a McZombie Meal minus the fries and drink. 

Winston was panicking. Of course this shit was happening. It only ever happened whenever they just wanted to have a nice day out. Hauling her up with all of their strength, Winston knew that this was life or death and honestly in the last month or so they had lost more then enough to not have to keep dealing with this bullshit. Roland had died and they weren’t going to let Layla be a victim too. “Ughhhghhh” they grunted a relatively unintelligible noise and pulled with all their might, managing to haul Layla up into the vent and panting from the effort. “Fuck this shit man,” Winston panted as they lay on their back gasping for air and wiping sweat from their brow, “why does this always happen? I swear to god I’m giving these motherfuckers like a 0 on yelp or something. This is the worst.” 

Trying to assist them all she could, Layla used what strength her body would allow to get up into the air vent. Today wasn’t going to be the day she died at the hands of some ugly ass zombies trying to make her lunch. And when she was laying right next to Winston, panting and trying to calm her racing heart, she knew she was officially ready to go home. Looking over at them, she winced as her teeth shifted back to normal, “I don’t know, but can we go? I don’t like this place. Anything that scares me enough to shift is bad news.” She remained on her back. The sounds and smells of the animated corpses below left her cringing, “There’s gotta be an emergency exit somewhere.” Layla slowly pushed herself up to a seated position, “And I’ll join you on that 0. This place fucking sucks.”

Nodding, Winston sighed. “Of course we can get going, I don’t think that I want to spend anymore time in here then I have to.” It was weird. Winston had seen a million and one movies where the protagonist climbs and clambers through a vent but actually doing it in real time was not what they had expected and by the time that Winston was out they were covered in sweat. There was an envelope waiting for them from Escape Doom as they pulled themselves out into the dirt outside the back of the Escape Doom building, it said something about congratulations on finishing your first escape room. Which did not make Winston feel better. “I need to shower and probably like drink a bottle of something that will make me forget this.” 

Layla followed Winston out and to the end of the air vent, where she also laid eyes on the envelope. Her reaction to the message? A strong eye roll. She had always wanted to try an escape room, but had never expected anything like this, “I would ask if I could join you, but I’m only 19, so…” She dusted herself off and looked back towards where they had just come. She could still hear groaning coming from the hollow vent, “Hey, uh, you don’t think they’ll get out do you?” Her concern from the community was great, considering they had just escaped death themselves. But her fears were calmed when she heard the groaning fade out and eventually disappear completely. She wasn’t sure how it had been done, but the living dead were gone. Looking to Winston, she sighed with relief, “They’re gone.” Moving forward, she looked towards her friend, “Next time, maybe we should just go see a movie.”

[joelmillerthirstqz]

marlene, ma’am, i am trying to look respectfully and you are making it difficult. 

Ideal

Extrinsic from all my Joel content but hey, the other Miller is just a different type of pretty and could respectfully get it. Canon leaves Firefly-Tommy pretty open, so I'm electing to believe his idealism saw Marlene's idealism and they mutually went oh, no, they're hot.

-----

Tommy hisses as he lies back against the heap of clothing, cradling a sleeve stiff with the dried blood injured arm beneath.

Marlene paces, hands on her hips in her particular way, the way that said she would be more at ease with her hand on her gun.

Tommy laughs, initially a low chuckle that blooms into a lopsided grin.

“Fucking what, Tommy?” Marlene snaps, irritable and on edge from the night they’d had so far.

Tommy gestures infuriatingly at her whole person, like it explains it, smile not fading. Marlene narrows her eyes to a squint, sizing him up like she’s going to shiv him if he so much as giggles.

“This is a bad situation. We are in a bad situation, because it is snowing, this place is fucking freezing, and you’re laughing,” Marlene lists, gesturing to his splayed legs like they’d particularly offended her.

He adopts a serious face.

“Yes ma’am.”

Marlene gives him an inscrutable look, seeming to take each of his features in one at a time before registering his whole expression.

“C’mon. We’ll be able to get out in the morning. Sure as shit no infected busying themselves with all this,” Tommy encourages, always optimistic. Always a calm different than the edge of control Joel seemed to hold. When Tommy wanted to be at ease, he could still summon it in little bursts. Marlene has been noticing this quality, and how readily he shared it, and biting her own lip to stop noticing it.

Suddenly though, his face darkens.

“Jesus, fine,” he grouses, moving his hands like he’s swatting away a fly.

“Okay, listen,” Marlene gets his attention back.

Tommy looks around as if to indicate his lack of choice.

Marlene pinches the bridge of her nose and looks up at the ceiling like she’s stemming a nosebleed.

“I’m ‘bein’ weird’ because I’m remarkably attracted to you and it is distracting me,” she grits out, like she’s reading off a list. Earlier, he’d thought he murmured the “bein’ weird” comment to himself.

Tommy looks blankly at her and scoffs.

“Fuck, no need to go to that kind of fuss, you can just say it’s a Firefly secret without the theater,” he rumbles.

Yeah, Joel caught him looking and gave him a good-humored nudge earlier in the week. Maybe a few times that week. He didn’t want to fuck this up, so he sat on his hands and overcorrected when he’d slip into flirting with her. He’d gotten intense looks in return, but never the laugh he was hoping to elicit, so he shrugged and assumed she wasn’t noticing or wasn’t interested.

“Hey,” Marlene says, soft offense in her voice. “I’d tell you, if it was that. It’s yours to know, too.” She toys with her pendant, the room incredibly tiny to her now.

Tommy’s eyes widen and he gets to his feet, taking the time afforded by the motion to figure out what to say.

He gestures to himself again, lingering on the blood stains on his shirt, poking the small bun his hair was in, the multiple holsters on his legs. He furrows his brows and raises one as if to ask “you sure?”

Marlene fidgets with her coat, rolling her eyes and trying very hard to look at his eyes.

When her sightline clearly goes to his mouth, Tommy closes the distance and kisses her. He’s gentle, seeming to consider the right way to approach it, but his hand on the back of her neck is firm and makes her shiver. Marlene’s hands fly up to his hair, working her fingers in and dismantling the tie carefully holding his shaggy winter-long hair back.

Tommy advances until Marlene is pinned against the table behind her, each drawing back to catch their breath in the wake of their bodies aligning fully.

“The balls on you to start the night stuck in a storm like that, if you were wrong,” Tommy mumbles against her mouth, getting swatted in the chest for it.

“Texas? Shut up,” Marlene says frankly, nipping his lower lip and going for his coat purposefully.

“Yes ma’am,” he replies, shrugging out of it willingly and kissing her with both hands on either side of her face. She’s nearly a foot shorter than him but all animated, electric force, and he wants to rise to meet her.

Marlene presses her tongue into his mouth and he outright moans. Whether it’s just been too long or his crush being consummated was really that good wasn’t something he could say in the moment.

Tommy’s hands traipse over her body, tugging at layers as he goes to get closer as she does the same. He gets enough of a hold on her tongue to suck it, hard, at the same time he gets one hand under her shirt.

A little gasp and a quiet fuck, Tommy and Marlene pulls back, breathing hard and meeting his eyes.

“This isn’t stupid, right?” she asks with sincerity. Tommy looks at her dumbly, flushed across his high cheekbones, spectacularly hard and now very confused.

“I’d uh, prefer it bein’ weird tomorrow over you stayin’ quiet any longer,” he echoes her earlier words and shifts, hands not fully off of her. His pupils are huge, but he clears his throat and steps back respectfully.

“Not gonna go tellin’ anyone, if that’s it,” he adds, hearing himself near-whine.

“I haven’t had a lot of normal, I’m sorry. I really like you,” Marlene is the most open he’s ever seen her, voice low. He could listen to the woman talk for hours, might honestly be enough after a few minutes the way his heart hammered now.

“I really like you. Dunno ‘bout normal, but I’d like to kiss you now and continue doin’ so later,” he replies quietly, pulling closer to her again and palming her jaw.

Marlene fists a hand in his shirt and crushes their mouths together. Tommy lets her lead him a moment before pulling back again. Marlene grunts in frustration at him, thinking they’d gotten everything out of the way.

“Just don’t want to shoot you,” he explains, disarming and laying out weapons on the shelf in what he was realizing now was a stand-alone guest house. Marlene’s quick tension melts into a laugh as he smiles at her, pretty blue eyes sparkling.

Fuck, that’s going to be hard to ignore around the others, she thinks. Then again, he’d passed the difficult to ignore threshold weeks ago when Luce had shoulder-checked her for incautiously staring at all of him as he walked away. Marlene spent the rest of the day thinking about the breadth of his shoulders every time she’d had a moment to collect her thoughts between issuing orders and keeping a frequently hobbled organization alive, to her extreme chagrin.

Tommy eyes her impatiently as she does the same, unclasping a holster replete with a row of shivs and tossing it aside. He quirks a smile, familiar with her usual arms, but still finding it endearing as hell in this new context. Endearing for a woman orchestrating an insurgent group; endearing for a woman whose proud thrust of the chin made his spine stiffen before he realized the full extent of why. He’d not noticed she was a full head shorter than him before, never felt relevant. Until, tonight, he was relieved of the burden to avoid thinking of ways to please them both.

She barely has time to toss it aside before his hands reach her thighs and haul her up onto the table. Marlene smiles bigger than he’s seen, and it’s almost a shame to cover her mouth with his until he feels her.

Marlene strokes the roof of his mouth pointedly and he leans his weight into her to avoid his knees buckling. Tommy kisses her back with just as much need, yanking her sweatshirt’s metal zipper down so hastily it’s slightly warmed as it goes.

Meanwhile, Marlene gets through his shirt’s buttons with no problem, finding him cooperative in shrugging one shoulder and arm free. She pauses carefully when she gets to his injured arm, looking up at him for permission to finish removing it, irrespective of her ankles locked behind his hips already.

Tommy burrows his forehead into her opposite shoulder, kissing along her clavicle and tugging her shirt to expose the top of her back. Marlene efficiently removes the fabric, avoiding too much contact.

“Tommy, I need to wrap this,” she murmurs into his hair.

“Hmm?” he looks up at her like he hadn’t torn himself open while prone on a broken patch of floor enough to need stitches.

���Let me,” she untwines her legs, Tommy almost pouting, shifting his belt to accommodate the loss of friction.

“Here,” she identifies a packaged sponge from a shelf nearby—close enough to sterile—and tears the bloodied end off of Tommy’s shirt. He watches her with consuming focus, eyes on her neat eyebrows, gorgeous lips…not wincing as she tugs the makeshift bandage tight. Without taking his eyes off of hers, this woman that made him think hope was even conceptually in his grasp, he thinks it might hold through the night.

Marlene looks back up at him when she’s done, and Tommy doesn’t bother to inspect her work, kissing her and pushing her right back where they were on the table. She likes watching him move, and more now, loves the feel of it. His stomach is all wonderful cords of muscle between her thighs, and his callused hands stretch and flex over her abdomen, begging their way higher.

He catches both nipples in his index and thumbs and she bites his lower lip in instant reciprocation, fingers at his belt. Tommy pulls her shirt off without patience, bra following once he accepts that there’s no clasp and it has to go over her head. He runs his fingertips down the length of one leg appreciatively. Marlene adores his complete lack of focus—he’s fully with her, taking the chance to feel everything he can as its presented. She wants to do the same to him.

Tommy grunts in irritation when his fingers find the top of her hiking boots, realizing they both still have boots on and they’d have to pull apart again. He kneels and sits back on his heels, pants open, and pulls one boot into his lap, tearing at the laces. Marlene watches him appreciatively, something remarkably sweet about and absolutely unnecessary—he can absolutely just bend her over the table, now—but he finishes quickly.

“C’mere,” she reaches out to him, intending to be polite. She tugs off her boots with practiced ease, dropping them to the floor.

Tommy steps towards her, jerking one boot off with one hand in a practiced separating of his laces, toeing it with his other foot. He repeats it and doesn’t return to her waist, instead snatching at both ankles and pulling her jeans away in one motion before moving between her knees. Marlene inches close to him, first knuckles hooked greedily in his pants and tugging him closer.

He takes to one knee, urging her leg over his shoulder and kissing her thigh before resting his head on it and giving her a pointed look. Marlene nods, sighing into the warm oscillation of his fingers outside her underwear. He sucks her through them, pulling her lips into his mouth and causing her to jump.

“Fuck!” she hisses, tilting her hips and wriggling closer to the sensation. Tommy hooks his thumb inside and draws them to one side, tongue following closely along his path.

He works slowly, appreciatively, pretty blue eyes watching her face as he slips his tongue just past her entrance. Marlene sighs and shakes, dropping her knee over his shoulder. He huffs a laugh through his ministrations and laps at her openly, bringing his fingers up to stroke her, trying just one at first.

“Tommy—” Marlene starts, temporarily distracted by his fingers finding the right spot to press on all of her nerves, “please, please,” she finishes weakly, losing her train of thought.

Tommy rises suddenly, fingers still playing at her, curling inward once he worked them in fully.

“I’m not planning on stoppin’ tonight,” Tommy starts, cut off by Marlene kissing him again, voracious. He was starting to notice how determined she looked before she’d lunge in at him, and it turned up the corners of his mouth to be the target of it.

Fuck it, Tommy thinks, getting his cock free and lining up to her, reciprocating her kisses all the while. He tries to pull back, ever careful and more mindful this far into the apocalypse to not compromise anyone’s ability to dead-sprint. Marlene scratches the nape of his neck as she tugs his hair, anchoring him back and gripping his shaft to guide him in. They moan together, open-mouthed and adjusting to the angle and each other.

Tommy grips her hips and thrusts a little erratically, hilariously close. Marlene holds onto him, the sensation and stretch of him making her mouth fall open with soft sounds in his ear.

“Get on your back, Miller,” Marlene hisses, nipping his ear.

Barely slowing his pace, Tommy looks amused, then comprehending, then stirred up. He pulls out, breathing hard, and does what he’s told. Marlene strips off her remaining layers before making her way over to him, a nest of their clothing slowly accumulating where he leaned back on his hands.

Tommy’s throat goes dry—she’s scarred from things he witnessed. Composure and strength radiates off of her. He sits forward involuntarily, getting kicked gently in the chest for it. Unlike the relatively well-behaved Southern girls in his past, Marlene wasn’t looking to him to lead the whole time. That, and the intensity of trust between them made him like an animal showing its neck to a superior. His back flattens to the ground as Marlene straddles him, wasting no time to tease him.

Tommy arcs until the top of his skull almost touches the floor behind him, the way she rolls her hips and rides him sincerely unprecedented.

“Marlene—” he groans, reaching for her face, wanting her closer, as good as being fucked into the ground feels.

She gives him a warm conspiratorial smile, hands that should be bracing against him actually just taking the opportunity to feel up what she’d suspected was so nice for months. She rolls her head back, chin tipped up and long neck before him. Tommy fans his fingers over her throat, down her sternum, over her abdomen, mouth open with rapt attention.

Marlene cries out, freezing and shivering above him, hips pounding against him every few seconds like it was beyond her control. The way she clenches down on him and rolls her hips combined with her moving above him, sweat beginning to bead—Tommy surges up and captures her mouth.

Once she begins to slacken with the rush of bliss, Tommy slams her down onto him with his hands digging into her ass, hard enough to bruise. It’s less strokes than he’d admit before he urges her of off him and comes with a shout onto his own chest, Marlene’s hand joining his through it. She kisses him through his peak, lamenting that they can’t just come for each other completely tangled up. Tommy leans into her even as she pulls back for a breath, full of need for her.

The chill of their surroundings takes back over as they come down together over minutes, mouths sliding over each others’ lazily, Tommy holding them up, Marlene’s hands in his hair. He trails one hand down to graze her ass, sucking the tip of her tongue as he does. Marlene makes a small surprised sound.

Against her mouth, Tommy murmurs, “I’m completely ready to see what this is about,” smiling up at her with his eyes sparkling as he gives her a lewd squeeze. Marlene silently reaches for his tossed shirt, pulling it around herself to fend off the cold.

She piques an eyebrow with intent, still breathing deeply and reaching to finish getting him undressed as he leans up to her again.

[severetimetravelnerd]

Change (ft.G Dragon and Yoo Yeon-Seok)

Part 9

You’re about to go out on your first date with Jiyong, but things just don’t work out that way.

(I don’t own any of the images used. All credit goes to the original owners.)

@unabashedturkeytreeslime​ @starlighttaek8​ Again, thanks for all the help you guys!:)

Please reblog if you can! thanks :)))

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You and Jiyong both stayed like that, frozen. You out of shock. Him out of just wanting to be near you. You felt a shiver run down your spine. You were looking forward to what was coming. You subconsciously turned your face to the side, allowing his lips to come closer to yours, but suddenly, a phone call snapped you out of that trance and you jumped back. This time Jiyong stayed there, frozen in shock. No one had ever moved away from him when things were going the way they were. He stared at you, shocked out of his mind. You also stared back at him, equally shocked, both at yourself and him. Slowly, the shock wore off for you and your cheeks started growing redder. Suddenly, you got up. Gone was the embarrassed look on your face. Instead, it was replaced a determination. You walked over to him. Jiyong saw you walking over, and felt a sense of familiarity and relief. He was blissfully thinking, 

“She must be coming back”

 when you interrupted him by punching his shoulder. He turned to look at you, in complete and utter disbelief, punching his shoulder playfully. You kept on muttering something, refusing to look at him. 

“You said that to embarrass me, didn’t you? Hmphhhh! I’m embarrassed enough as it is. You don’t need to make it worse!” 

You continued mock punching him. He stared at you for a good minute, and then he burst out laughing. You looked at him, and you also burst out laughing. As the two of you stood there laughing, Yeon-Seok, who was standing by the door, put the phone away from his ear, turned and walked away, feeling his heart sink.

Yeon-Seok knew. He knew that you were further away from him that before. You would still go and spend as much time as usual with him, but any confusion you had about your feelings for Yeon-Seok left after you started talking to Jiyong online. That night, you had messaged him, annoyed at having to stay, so he thought he’d cheer you up by dropping in with some cheesecake. Before knocking, he peeped through the glass door, and he was glad be did, because he saw you looking down, and Jiyong looking at you worriedly. He saw Jiyong’s worry turn into a devilish smirk and he saw him whisper something to you. He saw you almost kiss him. Something inside him broke when he saw that. He knew that he shouldn’t be petty, and he should try and help you find happiness, but he couldn’t handle seeing that. He knew he liked you and wanted to date you, but also, he also thought you deserved better than Jiyong. He didn’t hate Jiyong. He just didn’t think that Jiyong was the right guy for you, especially with his playboy track record. Yeon-Seok didn’t want you to get hurt. Unable to bear it anymore, he blinked away the beginning of tears of frustration, and called you. He watched you snap back to your senses and left after that, mentally preparing himself to have to see more of Jiyong with you, because no matter how much pain it caused him, he would never let you out of his life.

 From that day on, things were noticeably different between you and Jiyong. The two of you were in the flirty phase. Every conversation, every movement, each had an element of flirtation to it. And Jiyong was over the moon. It never occurred to him that he didn’t do lengthy periods of ‘courtship’, if you will. He was on a buzz from having you around him and being able be with you. To him, everything felt special now. Now, even the slightest touch from you felt like so much more. All those head massages hit different now. He loved seeing your face after he teased you or said something suggestive. The way your cheeks turned cherry red and how you downplayed it by trying to mock fight. You made him smile so much that even his manager noticed and asked him about that. As for you, you were overjoyed. You loved spending time with him. You loved to see the creative genius at work. You loved seeing the small, stupid mistakes he would make all the time. You loved the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled. You loved the subconscious pout he had whenever he was concentrating. You loved the way his smirk could make your toes curl and turn your knees wobbly. You liked him with your whole. You loved the fact that he liked you back.

The two of you were so obnoxiously flirty that people had enough of it. One night, when Mino was at the studio with GD, Mino finally lost it. Jiyong had been reading all your fanfictions about him again. Especially the smuts. And was offering a running commentary, constantly looking up at you, who was giving him a head massage, smirking and making you blush. When Jiyong finished reading one, he looked up, wiggled his eyebrows and said,

 “Ooooo. Kinky.”

 And made you blush. You were getting ready with a smart retort when Mino interrupted you by slamming his pen down on the table and exploding.

 “Oh for fuck’s sake, will the two of you just go out together already?!” 

He turned to Jiyong.

 “Hyung, please just ask her out on a date already! Watching the two of you makes me want to gag.” 

And glowering, he turned back and got back to work.

Still smirking, because he knew Mino wasn’t really mad, Jiyong looked over at you, 

“Well, you heard him. Y/N L/N, would you like to go out on a date with me?”

 You didn’t hear him over your laughter. He grabbed your hand and pulled you to closer to him, making you lean into him. Smirking at the flushed, surprised look you gave him, he leaned in close to your face, until your noses were almost touching, he said,

 “Are you free tomorrow at 9?”

 The smile on your face never died, and you turned away, mumbling, 

“I thought you’d never ask.”

 The smile never did leave your face, because you were so excited for your date. It had been ages since you’d last dressed up and gone out, and you were full of that nervous giddiness that made dates fun. It was also your first date after ages, and you were so glad it was with Jiyong. You had dated before, but never anything too serious. The way you enjoyed spending time with Jiyong was something special. You don’t usually forgive people who betray your trust, but you melted for him in an instance, because there was just something about those earnest words that resonated with you. Of course, you were still scared. You were terrified he’d ditch you for someone else. Someone more like him. You knew you weren’t his type, and of course you were scared, but you had promised yourself that you’d trust him, stay positive and hope for the best.

You were always someone who loved dressing up, and still do, because you like looking your best, but the past couple of months of work had given you no such opportunity, so you really relished the opportunity to dress up. Jiyong let you off work early, so you decided to go all out. You had a long relaxing bath and spent ages moisturising. You liked taking time for stuff like that. It made you feel good, no matter how upset you were. After that, you laid out a couple of dresses on the bed. 

“Ahhhhh! Why did he refuse to tell me where we’re going? I have no idea what to wear.”

 You starting pacing up and down, muttering to yourself.

 “Do I want to keep it casual? Do I want to dress down? Should I go for seductive? Should I go for cute? Ahh fuck it! I don’t know what I’m going to do about this.” 

You were so torn about what to wear that you even considered texting Jiyong for advice, but then you decided against it. The nerves and the element of surprise are what make a date special. You flopped down on the bed, feeling dejected and confused. You stared at the ceiling blankly, annoyed because none of the dresses felt right. They just didn’t. you were about to try them on again when you remembered the dress you bought just before you started work. You bought it then because you were feeling optimistic and were hoping to find someone to date at work. Two months down the line, after a particularly gruelling day at work, you took the dress and stuffed it at the back of your closet out of frustration. You jumped up from the bed, suddenly full of determination, and dove headfirst into your closet. After digging through it for a good five minutes, you finally found it. A spaghetti strapped wrap dress, black with small white polka dots on it. It was perfect. It was just the right amount of cute and flirty. Finally satisfied, you applied some light lip makeup, and found some nice gold hoops. You had just finished putting the finishing touches on your low bun and were finally leaning back, happy, content and getting ready to leave, when your phone started buzzing. Seeing that it was your mom, you smiled and answered. 

“Hey Mum. I was just getting ready to go out. What’s up?”

 and as you heard your mom sobbing, you froze, halfway through slipping on your heels, and your hand went slack. The smile vanished from your face, and your face turned frantic. 

“Which hospital? Okay. I’ll be there in 10.”

 With your nails digging into your palm, you grabbed your phone and wallet and ran to hail a cab. The only thought in your mind was your sister.

 After dismissing you early, Jiyong also slowly made his way home and started to get ready. He had made a reservation at his favourite rooftop bar and lounge, with his favourite view of Seoul. He wanted to share the joy he got from looking at that beautiful skyline with you. Plus, they had great live music, which he knew you loved. He went from and stewed over what to wear, and after ages of confusion, decided on a loose black silk shirt, unbuttoned till the third button, and slacks, with a few delicate pieces of gold jewellery. He found himself humming songs throughout, and for the life of him, he could not wipe that one stupid grin off his face. He was incredibly excited for the date. It was the first date he was that excited for.

The two of you were supposed to meet up at the address he texted you, so he went ahead to the lounge a little early. Kwon Jiyong does not arrive early for dates. He never waits for people. They always wait for him. Regardless, he found himself sitting there, nervously fidgeting with his rings and shaking his legs, with a small grin on his face he just could not shake off. After waiting half an hour, nothing changed. He just thought you were running a little late. After waiting for an hour, the smile was replaced by a concerned frown. 

“Is she okay?”

 He sent you a text.

 “All okay?”

 After waiting for an hour and a half, his eyes started to lose their spark and he began to feel waves of disappointment wash over him. He called you. You didn’t pick up. After waiting for two hours, he had lost all hope. He couldn’t even begin to explain the disappointment he was feeling. But then slowly, anger set it. Anger at himself for liking you so much that he actually put in effort, and anger at you for rejecting them. Jiyong had never been so happy for a date, and it was at this point that he started to realise that it might have been because he cared about you a lot more than he originally thought. And he didn’t like it. He felt oddly vulnerable and oddly betrayed. Confused, he angrily shook those thoughts from his head, threw the flowers he bought for you into the nearest trash can and headed straight over to the bar.

No matter how much he drank, he couldn’t get you out of his head, and with every thought of you, he only got angrier. Not wanting to be seen as vulnerable, he just couldn’t accept the intensity of the feelings he felt for you. Although most of that anger was at himself, he started directing it towards you. The more he thought about it, the surer he was that he wanted to make you feel the pain he was feeling. Not once did he stop to think that seeing you in pain would hurt him too. He was racking his brains for an idea, when he felt a long-nailed hand run across his chest and a deeply seductive voice say,

 “What’re you doing here alone Jiyong?” 

Suddenly smirking because he had just found out how he was going to hurt you, he turned and smiled at his ex.

 At the same time, you finally stepped out of your sister’s hospital room, waiting for the doctors to tell you the time of the surgery. You sat down on one of the chairs outside, leaned back and let out a sigh. All your make up was smudged from the tears. Exhausted, you took out your phone and looked at the time. You thought of Jiyong and how he must have waited. Your heart broke a little. You dialled his number and raised the phone to your ear, to try and explain what happened. He didn’t answer. He didn’t answer for the three calls that followed either.

[yandere-daydreams]

Hi can I request a Katsuki with a darling who is so powerful that she can and will break out of every single cage he tries to put her in. Till he eventually has to resort to using honey rather than vinegar.

To be fair, you never clarified what *kind* of powerful the reader-insert would be. And everyone loves an occasional dose of chaotic energy.

Sometimes, Bakugo began to feel like you were trying to hurt him. Then, he told himself to be less optimistic and realized you were absolutely doing this with the sole intention of causing him pain.

Your quirk, Numb, dulled your ability to feel pain almost completely, upon the initial injury. Broken limbs felt like cracking your joints, burns were written off like pin-pricks, hell, he'd seen you stab yourself and hardly bat an eye, after you’d decided you were didn’t want to be part of the argument you two had been having. He’d never been particularly fond of your ability, but Bakugo was content to ensure you never had to use it. Or, he tried to make sure you wouldn't hurt yourself, taking every safety precaution he was capable of and baby-proofing every part of the house you were allowed in. And yet, here you were, ankle twisted and hanging limply, the useless chain lying at Bakugo's side as he kneeled in front of your bed, wrapping bandage after bandage around the offending sight.

"Hey, Kacchan?" You called, your voice mockingly sweet, more of a tease than a question. He glanced up at you, glared up at you, but you only smiled, flashing a grin back in his direction. "I'm bored. Can we do something else? Maybe you can put a collar on me this time, and I'll see how close I can get to decapitating myself before you-"

"No," Bakugo grunted, his voice more cold than angry. He wasn't mad at you, not really. He was mad that you hated him enough to do this, that the first thing he had to deal with after coming home from a long, long day was his loved one hurting themself. He was angry that he couldn't do more when you were right here. He wasn't afraid that you would actually escape, no, not even he could get through the re-enforced, double-plated door to your bedroom, but having to worry every other minute wasn’t much better. "We're not going to do... that, and you're going to stop doing stupid shit whenever I leave the room," Bakugo started, taking a breath. "I know your quirk is-"

"Boring," You sang, swinging your good leg and kicking him lightly. You were smart enough not to move the appendage only vaguely attached to the rest of your leg, but Bakugo still felt the irritation welling the back of his mind, forming a tight, scratchy ball in his throat. Still, you only smiled, leaning down to pet through his hair. "It's such a shame, isn't it? I guess you'll just have to stop being so fucking crazy," You paused, your tone dropping into something more serious. Deadly serious. "-and see how insane this is. See a therapist. Get over this weird, creepy fixation you have and let me go."

Wordlessly, Bakugo stood, fists balled at his sides and teeth bared. He was angry, annoyed, fucking enraged, and the last thing he was going to put up with was some ungrateful, lazy, suicidal brat-

Then, he saw you.

Not just your broken ankle, but the gauze that fell below your sleeve, too. The bruising around your right eye, the cuts and scrapes that stretched from your wrists to your thighs. Your busted lip, the broken handcuffs still hanging from your headboard, the collection of knives you’d accumulated on the bedstand. Each and every piece of evidence that proved, whatever he was doing, it wasn't working.

So, Bakugo shook his head, forcing himself to inhale. To calm down, to gather himself, to smile.

"You're right, baby, you're so right," He sighed, taking a step towards you. Instantly, your determination turned to confusion, a nervous chuckle working its way out of your lips. When Bakugo didn't relent, only bending at the waist to cup your cheek, all you could do was freeze. "I've been going about this all wrong."

"...yeah?" You weren't scared, not yet, but you weren't far-off either. Bakugo nearly purred, using his free hand to comb back your hair. Another nervous chuckle, another affectionate, soft touch. "Wait, what are you-"

"I'll take some time off," He interrupted, using the smoothest, most sugary voice he was capable of. You shifted uncomfortably, and he leaned forward to kiss the tip of your nose. "We can get rid of all those ugly chains and buy you something pretty, and I'll get to spend some time with my precious little baby."

You only shook your head this time, moving to back onto the bed, to get away from him, but Bakugo was already set. He kept his grip firm, holding you close and wrapping an arm around your shoulders to better keep you in place. He cooed, hushing and kissing away your protests. When you jerked back, bringing up a hand to force him off of you, but Bakugo only caught your injured foot under his. He didn't put pressure on the wound, but you stilled nonetheless. Your quirk only dulled initial pain, after all.

"No wonder you act up so often, my baby must need more attention!" His smirk was genuine, by this point, Bakugo laughing as you tried to keep yourself from struggling. "Isn't that right? You just wanted some quality time with your one and only, didn’t you?”

You denied it, but that didn’t matter now. He’d tried being fair, trying things his way, but if you weren’t going follow the rules, he’d just have to make it very clear that he could do worse things then tie you down. 

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Bonus 3.2 - Dangan Salmon Team (Still Kaito Edition)

This is postgame content, so people shouldn’t be reading this without having already finished the main game anyway. But just to be safe: while this is non-canon character stuff, I will sometimes be mentioning events that happened in the main story, so there will be spoilers for the main game.

[If you’ve found yourself here on this post because I linked to it elsewhere while talking about Kaito and friendship, the stuff I was most likely referring to is discussed in the “Hangout invitations” section.]

Last time on Love Across the Universe: Dangan Salmon Team (did you know that SPACE), we covered all of what the game calls “dates” – but that I insistently called “hangouts” because fuck the romantic undertones of this mode – with Kaito. Yes, all forty-five of them. Yes, I had something of at least some substance to say about close enough to all of them that it didn’t feel right leaving out only the tiny few for which I kind of didn’t. Kaito is the best and is almost always being at least an adorable dork but also so often a fascinating and complex character even in silly bonus fluff like this – especially when it involves him hanging out with Shuichi, who is after all the focal point of most of his issues.

This time, we still have plenty more Kaito content from this mode to cover, including the best part!

Let’s warm up with some opening acts before we get to the main event, though. Aside from the actual hangouts we did last time, there’s some other little snippets of dialogue in this mode that may seem straightforward and inconsequential but that I still have stuff to say about. When I said I’d be covering practically everything Kaito says in this mode, I wasn’t kidding.

FTE invitations

So obviously I’ve already done Kaito’s FTEs, and the game remembers that and won’t have them happen again for me in this mode (which is just as well, really, because his final one definitely belongs in its canon context of chapter 4!). But there are still unique lines that Kaito has in this mode for if Shuichi chooses to hang out with him for what would be an FTE.

Kaito:  “You came to invite me, right? Well of course! You’re my sidekick!”

-      Spend time with Kaito

Kaito:  “Today I’m going to tell you about the best places in the universe for adventures. I guarantee it’ll light a fire in your heart for the universe!”

Shuichi:  (We discussed the most adventurous places in the universe…)

Look at Kaito excitedly telling Shuichi about SPACE. But it’s also very him that he’s not telling Shuichi facts about space or anything more scientific – this is apparently about the best places in space to have adventures. Which is to say, tiny Kaito who had all his totally-true heroic adventures on sea and on land definitely also thought a lot about what kinds of heroic adventures he would be having when he got into space, and he’s telling Shuichi all about those now. What a dork.

Kaito:  “Oh, this is perfect! I wanted to talk to you!”

-      Spend time with Kaito

Kaito:  “Just what I’d expect from my sidekick! Let’s talk it out, man-to-man! You understand? Don’t tell this stuff to the others.”

Shuichi:  (Kaito and I had a heart-to-heart between men…)

This one is really curious. It sounds on the surface like Kaito is referring to something like talking about what girls they like, or some other gendered, stereotypically masculine thing. But since that was never what Kaito’s concept of manliness was ever about, that cannot possibly be what’s happening here.

Based on Kaito’s actual concept of manliness having a focus on being true to yourself and open about your intentions, I’d want to think that his idea of a “man-to-man” talk would involve something along the lines of him and Shuichi being open with each other, and therefore talking to each other about… their emotions and issues and problems? That does fit as something that he’d hypothetically not want Shuichi to tell anyone else about, but, that is definitely not what happened either for obvious reasons.

I honestly don’t think that Kaito ever sees himself hiding his weakness as him compromising his idea of being a “man”, though. The “being true to yourself” concept is less about how you feel and more about who you are, or at least who you want to be. And of course Kaito doesn’t want to be weak and struggling, so the fact that he maybe is is totally irrelevant and definitely not something that a “man” would need to actually open up about, not when he should be focusing on being the inspiring hero he wants to be. It’s kind of like how him denouncing Kokichi for putting a mask over his true face in trial 4 really wasn’t actually that hypocritical – because Kaito may have been hiding his weakness, but he was never hiding his intentions, which were to help everyone around him as much as he could.

So ultimately I’m not entirely sure what Kaito would actually think of as a “man-to-man talk”, especially one that he doesn’t want Shuichi telling anyone else about. Which leaves me very confused as to what kind of conversation he and Shuichi did have here.

Kaito:  “Hey, I was looking for you, man! We’re gonna hang out today, right?”

-      Spend time with Kaito

Kaito:  “A sidekick wouldn’t pick anyone besides the hero. That’s just crazy! Well, now that I’m thinking about it, sidekicks…”

Shuichi:  (I listened to Kaito’s thoughts about sidekicks…)

Dammit, don’t fade to black there, game, I am itching to hear Kaito’s thoughts about sidekicks! Obviously I’m already perfectly aware of exactly what he thinks about them, but it’s still not something that Kaito himself has ever explicitly talked about. It’d be really interesting to hear him describe his idea of a “sidekick” in his own words! Why would you tease us by telling us a conversation about this happened but then not show it to us.

Kaito:  “Why the long face? You wanna talk about something?

-      Spend time with Kaito

Kaito:  “My sidekick’s worries are mine. My worries are my sidekick’s! Talk to me about anything, man! Don’t keep any secrets from me!”

Shuichi:  (I spent the whole time asking Kaito for advice…)

Of course this is here. Of course there’s at least one instance of Kaito immediately assuming Shuichi needs something and offering support before Shuichi’s even said anything yet.

Given that there’s nothing in the general context of this situation that would make Kaito be super desperate for Shuichi to need his help like in chapter 4, and that Shuichi does end up asking him for advice here apparently without any resistance, I’m going to assume Kaito’s judgement this time was correct and he picked up that Shuichi genuinely was feeling down and needed a boost. But the reminder of Kaito’s tendency to do this before even being asked for help is fun. The line between him being selflessly supportive and him being dysfunctionally co-dependent is a thin line, but both sides of it are excellent.

Also here’s another reprise of “Your worry is my worry; my worry is your worry”, or close enough anyway, which is still every bit as delightfully false and hypocritical as it was before. (Except Kaito is actually just saying “your worry is my worry” twice over, so there’s nothing false or hypocritical about it at all, right?)

Gift dialogues

While I’m here pretending to do FTEs with Kaito, it also means I get to give him presents and it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t like them. His responses for gifts he likes are fairly straightforward enthusiastic gratitude, but it is interesting to see how he reacts when he’s given something he doesn’t particularly care for.

(These bits of dialogue for FTE gifts aren’t unique to this mode, of course, but it wouldn’t have been very canon to bring the negative ones up during the main story.)

Kaito:  “Huh? What’s this? Where’d you get it? Well, if it’s a gift from you, then I’ll totally accept it.”

This is a pretty cute response – he doesn’t care about the thing at all, but Shuichi gave it to him out of thinking he’d like it, so he’ll keep it anyway just as a token of the fact that his sidekick wanted to give him something nice. (Or, these lines also apply to Kaede giving him gifts, but he respects her a lot, so it’d be the same sentiment with her, too.)

On the other hand, sometimes you can catch him with a less optimistic outlook about this…

Kaito:  “You’ve got a bunch of stuff, huh? You’re not just trying to unload some garbage on me, right?”

It’s really interesting – and kind of sad – that Kaito thinks Shuichi might actually be doing that. Surely he’d believe in how much his sidekick cares about him and that Shuichi would have carefully thought about each gift, even if sometimes he’s mistaken in what Kaito would like? But apparently it can at least cross Kaito’s mind that Shuichi really might callously unload random stuff on him without caring.

Kaito:  “Are you kidding me? What am I supposed to do with this? What’s up with you? This isn’t like you, man!”

This kind of reaction, even though it’s a more negative response to the gift, is Kaito being more reasonable. He expected his sidekick (or Kaede) to know better than to give him something he obviously wouldn’t like, but he’s just putting it down to them having a lapse of judgement while meaning well.

Kaito:  “Did you really think I’d like something like this? C’mon, man… Are you making fun of me? Nah, you wouldn’t, but…”

But again, sometimes… apparently it’s possible for Kaito to think that Shuichi could just be making fun of him. He brushes the thought off as not like Shuichi, but then he lingers on the “but”, suggesting it’s still what he’s thinking even if he doesn’t want to admit it to himself.

The fact that he’s capable of thinking that really brings to mind his “Aren’t you my sidekick? Was that… just a lie?” from trial 4 that implied a tiny part of him has always been afraid that Shuichi was only ever playing along with the whole sidekick thing while secretly mocking him. Which is a mindset that doesn’t really apply in this bonus mode in which Shuichi hasn’t been effortlessly saving everyone in trials and so Kaito has no obvious reason to feel inferior… but keep in mind that these gift dialogues were originally written for the main game.

(Kaito, if you’re worried about this, just talk to Shuichi about it, he would immediately be more than happy to reassure you that he’d never do that to you. But no, of course Kaito cannot possibly be worried about anything, and so he’d just not say a word and let that worry build up and eat away at him and goddammit Kaito.)

This idea that Kaito would briefly think the gift-giver might be making fun of him also works well enough for Kaede, who is basically as dismissive of his overblown Kaito-ness as anyone else is in chapter 1, and whom Kaito also looks up to and probably secretly feels a little inferior to thanks to her being a better leader than him.

During this bad-gift-giving session, I learned something about the emotional support robot orca which makes me Very Disappointed (see the linked post if you haven’t already for context about this). Turns out it’s not actually a hated gift for Kaito after all; it’s just a neutral one. The third comment of Kaito’s that I just quoted can in fact apply to a neutral or a hated gift, and I guess the chart that I was using for reference got that comment when they gave him the orca and assumed it was hated. I spent a very long time throwing orcas at Kaito to confirm this.

(And yes, you’re welcome for the mental image of Shuichi doing literally that. Maybe he’s trying to not-so-subtly imply that he wants to help and support Kaito with his problems, too. Not that Shuichi would ever realise Kaito has problems without some kind of outside spurring, so this wouldn’t actually happen (yet), but.)

…I am even more sad about the orca not being a hated gift after a reader went and drew actual fanart about this because of me, for what has turned out to be just a totally mistaken assumption on my part. Can we just pretend Kaito hates getting one anyway? It makes so much in-character sense for him to do so, and apparently I was not the only one who really liked being able to think of it as a thing. And it would fit perfectly in particular for Kaito to respond with the fourth and most negative of the above quotes when being given one by Shuichi – because that’s Shuichi implying he realises Kaito needs support, meaning, surely, that Shuichi really was just lying about being his sidekick and actually was secretly looking down on him and making fun of him this whole time? Damn it, writers, why did you not realise this should be a thing when deciding on Kaito’s gift preferences. I’m at least glad that the chart I used hit the one-in-three chance of mistakenly labelling this gift as hated so that I could accidentally make this a thing.

During some other testing I did to confirm this, I also discovered that a gift called the Death Flag gives most characters a reaction even worse than the regular bad gift dialogues. This is more than just something they dislike and don’t want; the act of giving it seems to be taken as an insult. It is, after all, basically as if the giver is callously telling them they’re going to die.

Kaito:  “Hey… we can still pretend it was just a joke, so put that away.”

Seeing Kaito’s line for this when I wasn’t expecting it kind of punched me in the gut. It’s more subtly hostile than he ever usually is. He really does not want to get angry at Shuichi, but he’s probably worried he’s about to if they don’t immediately pretend this never happened.

(And, uh, remember this line was originally written for the canon storyline, for half of which Kaito knew he was dying. …Not that Shuichi would ever actually genuinely try to imply that he thinks Kaito is going to die, what the hell, I feel kind of terrible for making him do this.)

Anyway let’s stop being unkind to Kaito in a way that’s obviously out of character for Shuichi just to see how he reacts, and move on.

Hangout invitations

There’s also some more little snippets of dialogue I discovered in this mode – turns out there’s a mechanic in which characters whose FTEs you’ve maxed will occasionally show up at Shuichi’s door on their own to ask him for a hangout. (Unfortunately, the character just appears in Shuichi’s room without there being any kind of doorbell-ringing first, meaning you sadly don’t get to learn that it’s Kaito who’s about to invite you out before you even see him based on how enthusiastically the doorbell just rang.)

Kaito:  “You free right now, man? I just really feel like talking to you.”

Kaito was the first character this happened with while I was playing, and it really made me smile. Obviously I knew that this was just a mechanic which could apply to any character, but still. This is Kaito being the one to initiate spending time with Shuichi – but in a way that’s not in the hero-and-sidekick context of Kaito wanting to help Shuichi with his problems. He doesn’t mention that here at all, even though you know the writers totally could have made this bit of dialogue about that, too. Kaito’s realised that he also enjoys just spending time with Shuichi as a friend and wanted to do that! That’s actually a really big deal coming from him.

On the other hand, alternatively (there’s two randomly-picked lines he can have if this happens):

Kaito:  “Alright, Shuichi! Let’s hang out! Well, you don’t really have a choice but to spend time with me, right?”

…this one is quite a bit more pushy. (Remember, he has shown up at Shuichi’s door uninvited to ask to hang out here.) It almost seems like Kaito is worried Shuichi might not want to hang out with him as his friend rather than his sidekick and is covering that up by insisting that obviously Shuichi couldn’t possibly want to do anything else.

-      Accept

Kaito:  “Yeah! No way my sidekick would hang out with anyone but me!”

His response if you accept (which seems to always be this regardless of which initial line of dialogue you got) comes across as kind of needy, too. As does his “A sidekick wouldn’t pick anyone besides the hero” back in the FTE invitations, for that matter. It’s like he’s telling himself that as the hero to Shuichi’s sidekick, he gets automatic Hero Privileges above all of Shuichi’s friends. Which he sort of does, but that’s because them being hero and sidekick already means that they’re particularly close friends. It’s not because it’s a separate thing from a friendship.

But… Kaito seems to kind of think it is. Even though he wants to hang out as friends, Kaito assumes that the only reason Shuichi accepts is because he’s his sidekick. As though, if Shuichi weren’t his sidekick, he’d have no reason to want to spend time with Kaito at all.

-      Politely decline

Kaito:  “If you’re busy, then it's fine… No big deal… I mean, it happens.”

Also quite needy is Kaito’s response if you turn him down. The first sentence alone would have sounded natural, but the more he adds, the more awkward it gets. This might sound like Kaito being passive-aggressive at Shuichi about being turned down, but he wouldn’t do that. So what it must be is Kaito trying to reassure himself that it really is just because Shuichi’s busy and these things happen and it doesn’t mean that Shuichi doesn’t want to spend any time with him at all.

If this were in the context of chapter 4, I’d be saying something very different about what’s going on here, but this isn’t chapter 4. What I’m getting from this instead is that it’s Kaito being kind of awkward and unsure when it comes to doing regular friendship. He’s fine when Shuichi’s the sidekick who’s having struggles and needing Kaito’s advice and support (so long as this isn’t the main story in which Shuichi has been the real hero in the trials and maybe doesn’t really need him after all). But when it’s not about their hero-and-sidekick thing and Kaito just wants to hang out with Shuichi anyway for reasons unrelated to supporting him? He’s subtly insecure as to whether Shuichi would even want to.

This is a concept that didn’t really come up much in the main story, but that’s because there was mortal peril and Shuichi was having a lot more issues and struggles and so Kaito was very firmly in hero-and-sidekick mode the whole time. It’s only in a context like this where there’s less to worry about and they’re supposed to be hanging out as friends (shush, Monokuma totally mentioned platonic friendship) that this becomes more noticeable.

If you think about it, it does actually make some level of sense that Kaito might not be very experienced in having regular friends. He’s always been kind of an awkward goof whenever we’ve seen him trying to interact with people on a down-to-earth level. His personality is naturally very larger-than-life, and he’d refuse to ever try and mask that because then it wouldn’t be him. That’s fine when he’s having sidekicks and him being this way helps to inspire them, but for regular everyday interactions, he probably comes off as a bit… Much, perhaps to the point that it’s a little offputting for some people.

Kaito’s behaviour towards Shuichi in his earlier FTEs, the ones that almost certainly happened before he started considering Shuichi his sidekick, showed that his idea of how to try and make someone his friend (rather than his sidekick) was to force them to listen to completely ridiculous stories about his own “heroics”. That was not, in fact, a very ideal way to make friends at all – Shuichi mostly seemed bewildered and perhaps just a little bit annoyed by the whole thing – but Kaito didn’t appear to have any better ideas. And his idea of how to make friends with Kaede, upon being excited by how similar they were and wanting her to share his enthusiasm about that, was to ask her for a hug out of nowhere, which definitely was not the right way to go about things.

Plus, that story he told in his second FTE hinted that Kaito might have had a falling out with his at-the-time best friend when he was young, one that never got resolved and that he then wrapped up in his ridiculous heroic fiction rather than think about what actually happened. If that is the case, then maybe Kaito being too offputtingly over-the-top for his former friend’s liking was the reason why. There was also that one bit in a hangout last post where Kaito seemed worried by the idea of being different from Shuichi, like he was afraid this’d make Shuichi less inclined to be his friend – almost as if he’d had this problem in the past. (That’s probably why he was so excited at seeing that Kaede was so similar to him, leading him to be so inappropriately forward in his awkward attempt to befriend her.)

[This kind of thing also incidentally happens to be Kaito being extremely neurodivergent-coded, and I love him for it.]

This could in fact be a large part of why Kaito got so big on the whole sidekick thing. If someone needs his support, then him being ridiculous and over-the-top, like he can’t help but be, is inspiring and helpful rather than weird and offputting, and so he can be more sure they’ll stick around – but also more convinced that him supporting them is the only reason they’re sticking around. Of those former sidekicks he mentioned in his FTEs, several of them were significantly older than him, so it would be very easy for Kaito to assume that they probably didn’t consider him an actual friend beyond their sidekick arrangement and would only be there for as long as they needed his support and advice. Kaito may well have already been a little bit co-dependent even before the killing game in canon made it worse.

(That doesn’t change the fact that he genuinely cares and wants to help those people, of course. The unhealthy part is the part where this may have become Kaito’s only way of forming and maintaining bonds with others.)

It’s a good thing Kaito has Shuichi, then! They started properly bonding over Shuichi needing help and being a sidekick, but he’s more than just a sidekick. Shuichi realised after he started training that he enjoys Kaito’s company not so much because Kaito’s a strong invincible hero, but rather just because he’s a ridiculous impulsive carefree goof, and Shuichi finds that kind of outlook refreshing and helpful to be around. Shuichi has always seen Kaito as not just a hero but a friend. So if anyone could break Kaito out of this cycle, could help him realise that he’s already better at friendship than he thought he was and doesn’t need to cling to the sidekick thing as his only way of keeping people by his side, it’s Shuichi.

Harmonious Heart

And on that note, it’s time for the main event for this mode! The piece de resistance, the reason we’re all here, this game’s single best piece of non-main-story Kaito content that I consider basically Required Reading for anyone who cares about understanding what makes Kaito tick, is his Harmonious Heart event.

…Okay, so I have already talked about this at quite some length in my big general ramble about Kaito’s character arc which I reblogged here. But this commentary gives me the excuse to talk about it in line-by-line detail, as well as to talk about it more as a story in its own right rather than just as a delightful source of vital information about the core of Kaito’s issues. So you can be damn sure I’m going to take the chance to do that.

Honestly, I call this my favourite piece of non-main-story Kaito content, but it might also be one of my favourite pieces of Kaito content in general. Obviously the canon story has just so many moments that are positively dripping with Kaito’s delightful issues, but… this is still pretty up there with the best of them.

I should mention that actually seeing all of this event is even more inconvenient than the hangouts were. It has a small, completely random chance of popping up instead of the regular options whenever you do a hangout somewhere, and then there are four different outcomes, only one of which can be got per playthrough. So I actually had to do four playthroughs of this mode to see all of this. I am very grateful for the people who bothered to record/transcribe all the outcomes of Harmonious Heart events onto Youtube/the wiki, making it quite easy for people to see all of these if they’re interested, because otherwise I imagine far fewer people ever would. And as I have already mentioned, this event is so important for understanding Kaito’s character; everybody who cares about Kaito should see all four of these outcomes and it makes me sad to think there are probably still a large fraction of such people who haven’t.

I managed to happen across this event basically by chance only a month or so after seeing the main game, and I’m so glad it didn’t take me longer than that, because it significantly influenced and improved my understanding of Kaito’s issues and why he so stubbornly hid everything he was going through in canon. This then led to me thinking about Kaito in even more depth than I already had and wanting to put some content out there that really talks about all this stuff, and… long story short, there’s a chance this very commentary wouldn’t be here if this event didn’t exist.

Kaito:  “…”

Shuichi:  (I wonder what’s wrong? Kaito looks deep in thought…)

Kaito:  (Damn it…)

Shuichi:  (Huh? That voice just now. Is that…?  Is that Kaito’s inner thoughts…?)

Featuring Shuichi’s inexplicable mindreading powers that he spontaneously developed because of the strength of his bond with Kaito, I guess?

Not that I mind how inexplicable this is, because it is vital. The thing that’s so excruciating about Kaito’s problems in canon is how easily Shuichi could help him with them if only he knew about them. But he has no idea, because he idolises Kaito too much to assume there could be anything wrong with him, and because Kaito never talks about any of it. So it is practically necessary for some kind of inexplicable supernatural intervention to bring Kaito’s issues to light in order for Shuichi to help him, and that’s what’s happening here.

(Also, man it makes an interesting change to be using brackets and not speech marks for Kaito. It would have been so, so fun if we’d been able to see inside his head for the whole game.)

Kaito:  (What if we really gotta stay here forever…?)

Even though Kaito should know that he’s actively working towards their escape by befriending Shuichi like this, he’s still finding himself having brief pessimistic thoughts about whether things would really be this easy and Monokuma would really let them go just like that.

(And if he can’t help but worry like this about the relatively minor concerns in this AU, then please take a moment to imagine the far worse thoughts he’d have been plagued with in canon, where people have died and he is dying and there is no apparent means of escape for all of them together.)

Kaito:  (No, what am I saying…? I won’t accept this! No way!)

Of course, this is Kaito, who utterly refuses to acknowledge negative or painful thoughts, so he immediately shoots it down and pushes himself to stay determined.

It’s very important to note, though, that he’s still having that negative thought and needing to shoot it down consciously. Again, here’s proof that Kaito cannot completely lie to himself about things that are worrying him, even if he still hates dwelling on them and tries to stay as positive as he can.

Which he should! Maybe it’s somewhat less of a good idea for him to shoot down his worries in canon about the whole dying thing when that’s a problem he should really be addressing and not forcing himself to ignore. But most of the time, for most of Kaito’s problems, including this one here, he’s already doing his best to do something about it. And in that case, worrying about something you’re already doing your best to fix isn’t going to help; it’s just going to make you feel bad unnecessarily. Don’t wallow in your bad feelings when you could be doing something to make it better! This is Kaito instinctively following the advice he always gives to others!

Kaito:  (Damn it… For me to be this weak… It’s not like me…)

But… Kaito doesn’t realise that.

Really, this part could work if the weak spot was on the word “weak”, because I would very much like to contest the idea that the thought he was having was even weakness in the first place. Everyone has negative and pessimistic thoughts sometimes! That’s human! What should matter is how you deal with them, and clearly Kaito just dealt with his in a way that he ought to consider strong.

Yet the fact that he just did what he believes people should always do and overcame his worry means nothing next to the fact that he had that worry in the first place. Other people are allowed to be “weak” so long as they’re fighting to overcome their weakness, but not him. He’s not allowed to be anything less than invincible.

And suddenly, this has become the thing he’s worrying about – not the fleeting thought that they might not escape, but the thought that he’s being weak and he’s not supposed to be this way.

Kaito:  (I can’t let Shuichi see me like this… I can’t show weakness in front of my sidekick…)

Which is especially bad because right now he happens to be in the same room as Shuichi. The reason he isn’t allowed to be weak is because his sidekicks need him to be strong. As a hero, he has to be the perfect invincible pillar of support for his sidekicks, and if he isn’t, if his sidekicks see that he isn’t, then how could he ever do anything for them any more?

Way back before I ever saw this event, I was trying to understand exactly why Kaito was so hypocritically determined to hide his weakness from his sidekicks. The most obvious idea was that it was out of selflessness, but simply in the sense that he didn’t want to cause his sidekicks more distress by worrying them. Another option that occurred to me was that it was more selfish than that, in terms of his pride, because he’d hate to shatter the heroic image he likes to give off.

Of course, the worry thing is very much part of it – but it’s not the main point. This event taught me the real answer: it is about his heroic image, but that image exists much less for himself and more for his sidekicks, to make them feel as if they can rely on him and to inspire them to be stronger. He hides his weakness in order to preserve his image out of selflessness, because he is so determined to support people who need it and so genuinely convinced those people would lose all the support they’ve been getting from him if they ever realised he was weak.

So not only would Kaito rather deal with his burdens alone, but he is adding to his burdens by making himself so afraid of letting his sidekicks down and depriving them of the support they need if he lets them see even the tiniest hint of weakness from him. Kaito acts casual and carefree on the surface when he’s with Shuichi and Maki – of course he does, he has to – but beneath that, this fear of showing weakness specifically to his sidekicks means that he is so often terrified just by being around the people he cares about most. And that’s heartbreaking?

And, again, this is an AU in which even just a very minor “weakness” is something that Kaito is afraid of showing to Shuichi. Just imagine how much more terrified he’d have been in canon when the weakness that he was at risk of showing to Shuichi and Maki was so much worse.

Shuichi:  (He seems deeply troubled by something…)

This is a stock line that Shuichi has in every Harmonious Heart event, but man is it incredibly appropriate in Kaito’s case here. A lot of the other characters’ thoughts in these events are about much more superficial things, or just more specific things that are only relevant to a particular event in their past, such that “deeply troubled” seems like a bit of an overstatement. But Kaito’s thoughts right here are the problem that’s at the root of everything that goes wrong between him and Shuichi in the main storyline and literally the reason he dies. We know just how badly Kaito wants to live, but this is worse than his fear of dying. He is so deeply troubled by the thought of showing weakness to his sidekicks that he would rather suffer a slow and painful death entirely alone. Damn right that deserves to be described like this.

I’m going to be going through the four outcomes from worst to best. So, time to fuck everything up and make things almost as bad as they were after trial 4.

Deny “It’s not like me…”

Shuichi:  “I don’t know about that, Kaito… It’s okay to be afraid sometimes…”

I love how, despite that this leads to the worst outcome, Shuichi is clearly still trying to help. None of the bad outcomes to this are caused by Shuichi having any kind of inexplicable bad intent; they’re just caused by him saying something with genuine good intentions that happened to set off Kaito’s issues and make things worse.

Shuichi is probably saying this specifically because it’s essentially something that Kaito has taught him. Kaito’s pep talks have never once tried to make Shuichi feel like he should be ashamed of being afraid, just so long as he’s trying to face those fears and become stronger. Really, Kaito should already understand this concept perfectly well himself! But… that’s for his sidekicks. He’s the hero, so clearly things are Different for him.

Kaito:  “It’s not like me to make others worry…”

Of course it isn’t. Causing other people emotional pain? Nope, that’s the complete opposite of what Kaito is always trying to do. How dare he ever do that, even if he never meant to and even if his own emotional pain is far worse than the worry he’s causing others by letting them see it.

Shuichi:  “I-I’m not trying to ‘worry’ about you or anything…”

But that really isn’t what Shuichi was doing, and even if it was, that’s not the point. This isn’t about how Shuichi feels bad because something’s up with Kaito; this is Shuichi trying to focus on how Kaito feels and find a way to help him feel better.

Kaito:  “It’s fine…”

Of course Kaito doesn’t see it that way, though, because Kaito always makes things about everyone except himself. It’s definitely nothing and Shuichi should stop worrying.

Kaito:  “What have I done? I’m so embarrassed. I’ve failed my sidekick…”

But despite insisting that it’s fine, Kaito is clearly not fine. He can’t even see Shuichi’s assurance that it’s okay to be afraid as the attempt to help him that it clearly was. All he can see is confirmation that, despite how desperately he was just telling himself he needs to hide it, Shuichi has seen his weakness.

Which is The Worst Thing he could possibly have allowed to happen. How could he have been such a terrible hero? This was exactly what he was so terrified of, and now it’s come true: he’s failed his sidekick. Shuichi is obviously never going to look up to him or be helped by him ever again now that he’s seen how weak Kaito is. All of that support and encouragement he’d been giving Shuichi has been dashed to pieces. Everything is ruined.

Kaito:  “Sorry, but can you leave me alone for a bit?”

So he asks to be left alone (while apologising for it, because of course this is completely his fault and something he deserves to feel bad about, right?).

And I really feel like he’s doing this because he’s about to have a rather more minor but basically analogous version of the breakdown he had at the end of chapter 4 after having so obviously (so he believed) shown himself to be weaker than Shuichi in the trial. He Will Not break down in front of Shuichi no matter what, but keeping up that mental barrier while in his presence, blocking out everything screaming at him about how badly he’s failed, has to be mentally exhausting. He probably wants the opportunity to be able to drop that and just let himself fall apart a little bit where nobody will see, just like when he wanted to get back to his room as quickly as possible after coughing up blood at the end of trial 4.

Honestly, it’s a little hard to imagine that Kaito would be able to just casually continue hanging out with Shuichi after this, even though the game mechanics don’t care and allow that to happen anyway. I can very much picture this causing Kaito to do the equivalent of early chapter 5 in which he just awkwardly avoids Shuichi, because surely Shuichi wouldn’t want to hang out with him any more after having seen how pathetic he is?

And a relevant thing to note is that you can’t get the Harmonious Heart event again on the same playthrough after having had it once. I was kind of frustrated to learn that the game doesn’t let you try again to fix how much you screwed it up the first time, but then I thought about it and realised that actually, at least in Kaito’s case, that makes perfect sense. Given what just happened, Kaito is going to be clamming up even more in front of Shuichi, probably even to the point of completely avoiding him. He’d be even more determined not to let Shuichi get even the tiniest glimpse of weakness out of utter terror of making things even worse. There’s no way Shuichi would ever be able to get as far as seeing into his thoughts again in the first place.

At least in this context, Shuichi has a lot less reason to believe Kaito is angry at him – although maybe he’d feel guilty for unintentionally intruding on Kaito’s thoughts, especially ones as deeply personal as this, and might assume Kaito could be angry at him and therefore avoiding him for that reason. That is, however, something that Shuichi actually should apologise for, so he’d probably be able to get himself to do that. I doubt that would help that much, though, because that’s still not Kaito’s actual problem; regardless of whether Shuichi was wrong to intrude on Kaito’s thoughts, that doesn’t change what he heard  when he did so. Kaito knows that Shuichi’s never going to be able to unhear how weak he is, so how can he just pretend it never happened just because Shuichi didn’t mean to hear it?

(…Maybe upon realising that he’s not going to get anywhere with Kaito by just talking to him about it, this would be the point at which Shuichi would actually start repeatedly gifting him emotional support robot orcas, in a desperate attempt to communicate that I just want to help you, it’s okay to need support, please stop shutting me out.)

But now let’s move to a universe where Shuichi didn’t mess things up quite so badly. (I say “mess it up” like it was Shuichi’s fault, but it wasn’t. It was really on Kaito’s end for completely missing the point of his genuine desire to help.)

Affirm “I can’t show weakness in front of my sidekick…”

Shuichi:  “You never show me your weakness, Kaito.”

First, let’s stop and consider the fact that Shuichi has always looked up to Kaito and assumed he’s basically invincible – if he even did so in the killing game, where it’s way less reasonable to imagine anyone truly being invincible, then he’s definitely also doing so in this AU. Which means that this sudden insight into Kaito’s thoughts would be the very first time Shuichi ever properly realises that Kaito does have weaknesses in the first place. So maybe part of what’s going through Shuichi’s head as he says this is him reeling from the fact that, wait, Kaito has been having worries of his own this whole time and he never told me any of them, despite everything he keeps saying about sharing our worries?

Yet even though he’s probably saying this due to being taken aback by this realisation, Shuichi’s exasperated-but-worried expression as he says this also reads to me like he intends to follow it up with “but I wish you would, it’s okay, you don’t have to be afraid of that”. He is still saying this with an intent to help.

Kaito:  “Yeah! No way I’d do that. It’s as absurd as saying you’re an alien.”

But before Shuichi can get that far, Kaito just jumps on Shuichi’s first sentence and insists that yes, of course he’d never do that, that’s utterly absurd, why would Shuichi ever possibly think he would. Showing weakness to his sidekick is The Worst Possible Thing that would ruin everything and obviously he’d never be so terrible as to fail his sidekick that completely, what kind of hero does Shuichi even think he is!?

Shuichi:  “It’s not *that* absurd…”

Meanwhile, Shuichi, being on planet Earth and not Planet Kaito, is rather confused by this logic. Showing weakness to someone you trust isn’t absurd, it’s just human. (Does Kaito trust Shuichi? Not in this way, evidently. He doesn’t trust that Shuichi would still look up to him even if he knew about this, despite how obvious that is to anyone else who knows Shuichi even a little bit.)

Kaito:  “No, to me it’s a really big deal.”

It really is. Especially since this is why he fell apart at the end of chapter 4 and why he never told anyone he was dying until it was far too late to save him. It’s honestly a little surprising that we actually get Kaito somewhat acknowledging what a big deal this is to him here… but I suppose so long as he does so without actually showing any weakness, then it’s fine; he’s just explaining an important principle of his that he’s definitely never going to break.

Kaito:  “But I can’t really shake this mood just yet…”

Of course he can’t. His worried mood started off just being about escaping, but then it quickly turned into him being even more worried about showing weakness to Shuichi, which is exactly the topic that the conversation is still on and that he’s just asserted would be absolutely unthinkable for him to ever do. That worry is not going to go away like that, and it’s also the exact kind of thing he can’t let Shuichi see. This is a positive-feedback loop of his fear of showing weakness being the very weakness that he’s afraid to show. He is still terrified of failing Shuichi as they speak.

Kaito:  “Sorry, but could you leave me alone for now?”

So he’s… running away from the situation, as the only way to ensure he won’t fail. He would rather pass up on a chance to hang out with Shuichi than keep risking that. (Also, apologising, because of course. To be fair, maybe an apology for not hanging out with his friend for such an irrational reason is warranted, but that’s definitely not what Kaito thinks he’s apologising for, is it.)

This one isn’t quite as bad an outcome as last time because at least Kaito doesn’t end up believing that he’s already failed. (It doesn’t seem like Kaito realises that Shuichi saw his thoughts this time, or at least he has some plausible deniability to himself about it – Shuichi would totally just make a comment like “You never show me your weakness” out of the blue because that’s just a definitely true statement, right?) But even so, this brought Kaito face-to-face with his fear of letting Shuichi down and made him really think about what he believes it’d mean if he did do that and how terrified he is of that happening. He’s probably not going to start actively avoiding Shuichi from here, because he’s obviously fine and obviously isn’t going to show any weakness to him, but all his interactions with Shuichi from this point on are likely to be undercut even more than they usually would with that constant fear of what if he *does*? What if he *fails*? Again, though he still emphatically did not mean to, Shuichi accidentally made things worse than they were before he said anything.

Before we move onto the better two outcomes, I noticed something regarding these two worst options here. Shuichi telling him “hey, no, it’s okay to be afraid” and Shuichi going “whoa, yeah, you really never do show me your weakness, do you” would probably both come about by Shuichi being very immediately reactionary and saying what first comes to mind when he hears Kaito’s thoughts. And it’s neat that those are the ones that unintentionally mess things up and make Kaito feel worse. This is a very delicate situation that needs to be approached in exactly the right way to get through to Kaito and not make him just shut Shuichi out even more, and to do that, Shuichi would need to stop and think more carefully about exactly how Kaito’s going to respond to his words and how best to get him to see sense.

Affirm “It’s not like me…”

Shuichi:  “…That’s true. You never back down from a challenge, do you, Kaito?”

It seems that this time, Shuichi’s decided to try and affirm Kaito’s stubbornness and determination and reassure him that he’s not weak. This still isn’t addressing the real core of the problem, but it seems likely to help on the surface.

This sentiment would perhaps work a little better if it really could be directed at the “For me to be this weak” statement, though. It would be more helpful to specifically tell Kaito that thinking something negative and then shooting it down isn’t actually weakness at all, reassuring him that what he thinks of as weakness in himself really isn’t. As it is, Kaito is liable to think that the only reason Shuichi called him strong is because he overlooked the part of Kaito that’s so weak in the first place. Which leaves exactly the same problem of making Kaito so afraid of showing that weakness after all and ruining that supposed illusion.

That said, Shuichi is still doing better than just a blanket affirmation that Kaito is strong. He’s saying that Kaito won’t back down from a challenge, which is a completely accurate assessment of what Kaito is like! He may struggle with things from time to time, but he refuses to give up and let that stop him!

But Kaito thinks in a far too black-and-white way about strength and weakness, at least when it comes to heroes like himself, so he’s not going to take it that way.

Kaito:  “Right!? No way a man who’s gonna explore the universe should freak out about this!”

It’s not that he was freaking out but then didn’t back down and refused to let it stop him – it’s that he definitely didn’t freak out at all in the first place, that’s definitely what Shuichi is saying and definitely what happened and he’s completely fine. Someone like him shouldn’t freak out about anything, because he’s a hero and that is not what heroes do – but at least Shuichi seems to be agreeing with him about that, right!?

Kaito:  “Especially to you.”

Kaito is implying here that, if he absolutely had to show weakness at all, he’d actually kind of prefer to do so not to a sidekick of his like Shuichi, but to a stranger, someone who doesn’t have any expectations of him and that he doesn’t have a responsibility towards.

Shuichi:  “…To me?”

Shuichi seems bewildered by this part in particular. Which does make sense – surely it’d be easier for Kaito to show weakness to someone he’s close to, like Shuichi, than to a complete stranger? That’s usually the case with most people, after all. Understanding why it’s the exact opposite of that for Kaito is the root of the problem, and Shuichi failed to figure that out in this version of events.

Kaito:  “I can’t show weakness in front of my sidekick.”

Just in case you weren’t sure how important this was, Kaito is reiterating it. It’s actually kind of surprising he’s even willing to say this out loud to Shuichi, since it implies that he might potentially have some kind of weakness that he’s choosing not to show. But, again, I suppose that so long as he doesn’t show any, then he can tell himself that all he’s doing by saying this is affirming his Heroic Responsibilities that he would obviously never let his sidekick down by breaking.

Kaito:  “Just forget about whatever it was you heard before.”

However, this is interesting, because it implies that Kaito is, to some extent, aware of the fact that Shuichi just heard his thoughts? Which you’d think would send him into the same kind of spiral of “oh god I’ve failed him” as the worst outcome, but apparently not quite. It seems that Shuichi responding by affirming Kaito’s strength is allowing Kaito to convince himself that it’s not that bad, Shuichi can’t possibly have noticed how weak he is from whatever he heard, because if he had then surely he’d have said so.

But Kaito’s still insisting Shuichi forgets about it, probably mostly so that he can forget about it and not have to worry about what might happen if Shuichi thinks too hard about the thoughts he heard. He’s basically just desperately trying to paper over the problem and ignore what just happened, convincing himself that so long as Shuichi didn’t mention seeing any weakness then he obviously mustn’t have seen any at all, and so it’s totally not a big deal that he might have just read Kaito’s thoughts while they were being so weak and negative and everything is fine, right!? Right!!!

Kaito:  “I was unsure for a sec, but now I’m overflowing with motivation!”

See, those negative thoughts he might have been maybe having for a second are totally gone now, so they might as well both pretend they never existed! He’s fine! Shuichi needn’t worry about a thing! Everything is fine.

Shuichi:  (He sounds like he’s hiding something…)

…But even Shuichi can tell now that he is not fine. Which is either because his glimpse into Kaito’s thoughts just now is letting him realise that these displays from Kaito aren’t as truthful as he once thought they were, or just because this particular display is especially strained and transparent.

The event doesn’t go any further than this, other than awkwardly mood-whiplashing us with Shuichi’s standard “I think this conversation went well” comment that he has for every good-but-not-great hangout outcome. It clearly did not go well! Shuichi managed to notice that! This is nominally a good outcome by the game’s metric, and admittedly it seems to be that way on the surface because look, Kaito is Totally Fine, nothing is wrong at all, and at least he didn’t end up asking Shuichi to leave him alone this time. But this has not remotely fixed Kaito’s problem either and is just perpetuating his desperate defence mechanisms.

In fact, if anything, the possibility that Shuichi might have got a glimpse of what’s beneath them is only going to make Kaito’s façade even more desperate and strained. Since Shuichi affirmed that he’s fine, Kaito can’t make an excuse to leave like in the other ones, because that’d be like admitting that Shuichi’s wrong and he’s not actually fine at all. So he has no choice but to keep hanging out with him and keep desperately pretending to be fine despite how badly he must be freaking out over the possibility of showing Shuichi that he isn’t. Things are yet again just a little bit worse despite Shuichi’s genuine attempt to help.

Shuichi would probably notice that Kaito seems kind of awkwardly distracted and distant during their continued hangouts and figure it has something to do with what happened here. After trying to prod Kaito about it verbally and getting a predictable complete lack of acknowledgement of a problem, Shuichi might become desperate enough to fix this awkwardness and figure out how to help Kaito that, against his better judgement, he decides to deliberately tap into his mindreading powers again. So he looks into Kaito’s thoughts during one of his distant moments to try and figure out what’s really bothering him about this…

…only to find Kaito THINKING VERY LOUDLY ABOUT SPACE, he can’t wait to go to SPACE, here are all the PLANETS HE CAN NAME.

Because Kaito knows now that somehow, inexplicably, Shuichi can hear his thoughts. Even if Shuichi totally didn’t hear anything bad last time it happened, that notion that he can hear them at all is terrifying to Kaito. He can’t even afford to think about the things that are worrying him while in Shuichi’s presence in case Shuichi hears it and becomes convinced that he really is weak. But of course, that very fear of doing that would then become the topic of his thoughts and make him worry even more and make everything even worse and make him even more likely to fail Shuichi and—

…And so, long story short, to avoid spontaneously combusting, Kaito hastily cobbled together a desperate coping mechanism of running mental interference by consciously forcing himself to think about something unrelated whenever he’s in Shuichi’s company. As a result, all of his interactions (SPACE) with Shuichi are awkwardly (BLACK HOLES) stilted, because he’s constantly focusing on (NEBULAS) trying to keep an inner monologue that (JUPITER) isn’t thinking about anything else (THE BIG DIPPER. THE BIG DIPPER!) except space. (While, of course, feeling utterly terrified beneath it of letting it slip for even a second, not that SPACE no he’s not scared of anytHING HE JUST REALLY LIKES SPACE)

…I’m not sure where this story ends. I mostly just wanted to get to the part with Kaito thinking loudly about space to drown out his other thoughts, because that’s a concept I’ve had in my head for ages that I wanted to share.

So anyway, let’s rewind things one last time and actually help Kaito at last.

Deny “I can’t show weakness in front of my sidekick…”

In this one, Shuichi has realised that this is the core of the problem. And that’s all he ever needed to do to fix this.

Shuichi:  “I’m your sidekick… but I’m also your friend, Kaito.”

Shuichi’s way of approaching this is adorable. Instead of telling Kaito how heroes are allowed to be weak sometimes and that doesn’t mean they’ve failed their sidekicks or make them any less heroic at all, he just throws all of that out of the window to focus on the fact that they’re friends.

Earlier in this post I got talking about how Kaito is so hung up on the idea that Shuichi is his sidekick that he isn’t even sure if he’s actually a regular friend beneath that. I’m really happy that happened to come up from those bits of bonus dialogue and deliberately went into it so much when it did because it’s a very important point that’s been contributing to his issues here.

The hero-and-sidekick thing is a useful way to frame their relationship in terms of how Kaito is helping Shuichi, but it inherently comes with all kinds of expectations, almost all of them on Kaito to continue to be that perfect and invincible hero, or else… or else Shuichi won’t have any reason to care about him any more? But friendship is so much simpler and with so many fewer expectations. Friends care about each other regardless of how strong or weak they are. Until now, Kaito wasn’t sure if Shuichi even was his friend outside of the whole sidekick deal, but… of course he is, you big moron.

Shuichi:  “Maybe you don’t show weakness to your sidekick. But you can to your friend.”

…I’m not sure I like how Shuichi is still saying it’s okay that Kaito insists he mustn’t show any weakness while he’s playing the hero role and Shuichi is being the sidekick. That’s still a totally misguided premise. (And Shuichi should be perfectly aware that heroes don’t need to be invincible to be inspiring, you’d think, based on his comments about fiction in trial 6.) But regardless, so long as what Shuichi’s saying about their friendship gets Kaito to realise that it’s okay for him to show weakness to Shuichi, that’s what really matters.

Kaito:  “…”

For once, Kaito isn’t responding immediately with some kind of fervent insistence that him showing weakness would be inconceivable. He’s actually listening to what Shuichi’s saying with a thoughtful expression.

Shuichi:  “If you don’t want to open up to your sidekick… maybe you’ll open up to your best friend. How about it, Kaito?”

Heroes and sidekicks may not, at least not in Kaito’s definition, but friends open up to each other and support each other with their problems, mutually, in both directions. That’s just how friendship works. Even Kaito with his possible lack of experience in the subject ought to understand that much.

It’s also incredibly adorable how Shuichi’s not saying “you’re my best friend”, which is the part he’d be able to say with authority. Rather, he’s saying “I’m your best friend”, even though Kaito has never actually said as much (because he’s barely even called Shuichi his friend in the first place). Shuichi is technically making an assumption here to even say that – but of course he’s right about it. Kaito hadn’t even properly realised that himself, but Shuichi could see it anyway. And it was definitely his Shuichi Saihara side and not his detective side that made him so sure about this particular truth.

(they are FRIENDS, I may have mentioned this a few times)

Kaito:  “Shuichi…”

Kaito is still pausing, thoughtful. He’s saying Shuichi’s name like he’s impressed or taken aback, as if Shuichi just said something groundbreaking that Kaito would never have thought of himself, but that actually… makes sense?

(Of course it makes sense, Kaito. You were just always being a gigantic idiot about this.)

Kaito:  “Thanks. I’m alright now.”

He genuinely means this. This is so much more subdued than all of his over-the-top insistence that he’s Totally Fine, so this isn’t a façade. Shuichi’s words actually got through to him and made him realise that he doesn’t need to be afraid of this. And thanking someone is something Kaito does quite rarely because he usually doesn’t like to acknowledge that he needed help – but he’s doing so here! Shuichi really did help him and he really is grateful, and it’s okay for him to admit that!

Shuichi:  “What? Are you sure?”

Shuichi seems surprised that Kaito would suddenly be so okay so quickly, which could seem to hint that he actually isn’t. But it’s not that – it’s just that Shuichi didn’t realise that the fix would be this simple.

Kaito:  “Now that I know you think of me like that… All my doubts are gone!”

Shuichi was perhaps still thinking that the main problem was Kaito’s initial worry about not getting out of here and was expecting him to open up about that. But that was insignificant next to the real problem, which was Kaito’s fear of what would happen if he showed any kind of weakness to Shuichi. Now that Kaito realises that Shuichi sees him as a friend and accepts and supports him regardless of his weaknesses, and that this doesn’t mean they can’t also do the hero-and-sidekick thing alongside that… the entire problem has literally just vanished into thin air.

Kaito:  “Alright! Let’s escape this screwed up academy together!”

And those initial doubts he had about escaping? Even though he didn’t have Shuichi help him address those doubts, they were already something Kaito was capable of shooting down and overcoming by himself! Damn right he’s not just going to accept being stuck here, not when he’s got a friend as amazing as Shuichi that he wants to escape with!

These outcomes to a Harmonious Heart event have a very limited length – really there should be so much more being said here than the handful of lines we get. Shuichi should still want to discuss the fact that Kaito did feel so afraid of showing him weakness, so that they can explore that and be sure that Kaito really will be comfortable opening up to him in future if he needs to. Despite knowing now in his head that it’s okay, Kaito’s still going to be instinctively inclined to hide his worries, and it’ll probably take him a while to fully unlearn that.

But regardless, I really like that even in this short space, the writing makes sure to carefully show that this does work on Kaito and genuinely gets through to him. It would be very easy for things to still come across like Kaito’s lying about being okay, but his reaction here contains enough clues that he actually means it and that he really thought about Shuichi’s words and took them to heart.

Helping Kaito begin to fix his issues was always going to be this simple. Shuichi only needed to know what the problem was in the first place, and that was the hardest part.

Graduation scene

And now, let’s imagine this brings us onto the final bit of content in this bonus mode, which is the scene you get with Kaito after the ten days are over and they’re going to get out of here because they became appropriately epic friends. (shush, Monokuma DEFINITELY MENTIONED FRIENDSHIP)

It’s a little unclear as to whether everyone else is also going to escape just because two people achieved this, or whether they’re the only ones escaping – I’m pretty sure all the graduation scenes kinda just skim over that topic. But let’s assume that everyone gets to leave, because neither Kaito nor Shuichi would stand for it and be able to have this happy reflection about their time here if that wasn’t the case.

The wiki mentions at one point that successfully getting the best outcome for the Harmonious Heart event is necessary to unlock the graduation scene. Unfortunately, the wiki is wrong. You can very definitely fuck up the Harmonious Heart and still get this scene – heck, you can probably not even happen to trigger it at all. All you need to do is max a character’s FTEs to get five hearts of affection and then do enough successful hangouts to get another five hearts. It would, after all, be kind of unfair for the game to expect you to get the Harmonious Heart right, because you can only attempt it once per playthrough and so getting it wrong would screw you out of that character’s ending on that playthrough.

…I say “unfortunately” because, at least in Kaito’s case, it’d narratively be a lot more fun if you really did have to succeed in his Harmonious Heart event to get this ending. It would be really neat if the kind of close friendship that Shuichi and Kaito needed to achieve in order to be able to leave is a more equal, healthy friendship than they ever had in canon, in which Kaito is also able to open up to Shuichi about his own issues and be supported in return. That’s very much the kind of friendship I like to imagine them having in this AU once they leave and continue to live happily ever after as adorable best friends on the outside. Or in any AU in which they both get to live, for that matter. They deserve it.

(Because, you know, Monokuma and the audience definitely care about emotionally healthy and nuanced relationships showing these complex characters helping each other overcome their issues, since such a thing is a more meaningful and compelling part of a relationship than simply whether or not the feelings involved are romantic and is equally possible when they aren’t. That’s totally what the audience is watching for and not just ARGLFLARGL ROMANCE, right.)

There’s also the fact that in all of the Harmonious Heart outcomes that aren’t the successful one, things would likely become at best subtly awkward between Kaito and Shuichi, and at worst Kaito probably starts outright avoiding him. That wouldn’t be the best environment for this ending to happen in.

Kaito:  “I thought I’d be happy about it, but I don’t want it to end… I’m a little sad.”

Shuichi:  “It was just for a short while, but we did go through a lot. I’m a little sad too.”

Yeah, all those things they went through that totally, uh, you know, happened. Shuichi’s wording implies he’s talking about things that aren’t just hanging out with Kaito and becoming friends with him, as if there were some actual overarching plot events to this mode, which, ha ha.

Shuichi:  “Are you going to go back to astronaut training when you get out of here?”

Kaito:  “Of course! No way I’d give up on my dream of becoming an astronaut!”

Obviously! Kaito is going to live happily ever after as an astronaut who goes to SPACE lots of times under normal circumstances and comes back alive each time!

Kaito:  “I’m gonna make up all my lost time as fast as I can!”

Shuichi:  “That’s true, while we were in here, the other trainees were training every day.”

Haha, yes, those other trainees. Kaito’s going to hit something of a roadblock upon learning that he was never an astronaut trainee in the first place… but like hell that’s going to stop him. It’s still going to be him making up for lost time, just the lost time of never having actually trained in the first place. (His fake memories of training will help a bit, though.)

Kaito:  “But, y’know, coming here… I think it was good for me. One reason was because I got to meet you…”

Aww. He’s about to talk about how being here helped with his astronaut training, but he still wanted to mention meeting Shuichi first, because that’s very much the best thing he gained from being here. They are friends.

(Coming here was also good for him because without it he wouldn’t exist. Existing is good.)

Shuichi:  (The most important thing for an astronaut…) “Good communication, right?”

Every character’s ending scene asks you to remember something they mentioned during one of their FTEs, and this is the one for Kaito. Of course communication skills are relevant to the time they spent here! Or… at least they would have been if this AU had had any semblance of a story to it.

Kaito:  “No matter how great you are, you can’t be an astronaut if you can’t communicate. A fight in a spaceship because of bad communication could be fatal, right?”

You know what else could be fatal on a spaceship because of bad communication? One of the astronauts not telling everybody else when he’s feeling sick, which could potentially endanger not just the astronaut himself but also the rest of the crew. So thaaaat’s a thing they’ll have to train out of him – though maybe the help Shuichi’s given him in this AU has already started to do that.

Kaito:  “Being shut away and told to live together… Living together here was probably even harder than living on a spaceship.”

It actually is kind of analogous! Astronauts are stuck with the same handful of people all day every day for months on end while up in space, which is why they need to be able to get along so well. That’s also basically what happened at this academy. Too bad this place contained a few people who are so horrendously bad at communication and teamwork that they’d never have been allowed to become astronauts even if they tried. I guess that’s why Kaito says it was even harder than being on a spaceship.

Shuichi:  “Well, you learned a lot about communication here. Living here must have been good training for you.”

Yeah, with all of the communicating among each other that everybody definitely did, it’s not like they just stood unmoving in the same spot in the courtyard for ten days or anything. Gah, this mode’s lack of a story.

The actual canon story would also have helped Kaito learn a thing or two about communication, in theory, at least if he’d lived and had been able to continue to use what he’d learned. If he’d lived, then presumably, during whatever change to the canon events caused him to actually get his illness treated before it was too late, the main lesson he’d learn would be an emphatic tell people when something’s wrong with you, dammit. Important lessons about communication there.

Kaito:  “Just how living here helped me in my astronaut training… I think it helped you with your detective work, too. Maybe the time you spent here will be useful for your future, y’know?”

A nice sentiment, but one that definitely only really makes sense for the main story. In this AU, apparently all Shuichi did was hang out with people all day, with no attempt to unravel the mystery of what’s going on here.

Kaito:  “Isn’t there something you gained here?”

It’s marred by the lack of any semblance of a story backing this up, but it’s still very Kaito that he’s trying to encourage Shuichi to think about what he’s learned and how he’s grown.

Shuichi:  (And above all else… I was so lucky to make a friend like Kaito.)

That’s definitely a thing that we can all agree he gained here, though! And that’s what’s most important – for Kaito as well.

Shuichi:  “Thank you for everything. I’m really glad I met you, Kaito.”

Awwww. It’s so lovely to hear Shuichi fully expressing how much he’s grateful to Kaito, while Kaito is there to hear it. Shuichi never quite said anything to this extent in canon while Kaito was alive, which I may have mentioned a few times was kind of heartbreaking.

Kaito:  “What are you talking about!? That’s my line! I’m glad I got to meet you, Shuichi!”

So… since this is this AU and not the canon story, I’m going to assume that Kaito brushing off Shuichi’s heartfelt thanks isn’t because he doesn’t feel like he deserves it. Rather, it’s just that, despite that he constantly presents the fiction of himself as this awesome hero who does this for people, he’s kind of awkward and unsure about how to respond to such earnest gratitude acknowledging that awesomeness as the genuine truth. So instead, he does what he always does and turns it around to use it to help Shuichi feel good about himself, too.

Kaito really does mean this, though. He’s just as grateful to Shuichi as Shuichi is to him – especially if we assume that the Harmonious Heart’s best outcome really did happen in this story. They are friends! Not just hero and sidekick, friends, which is such a big deal to Kaito. Shuichi is already the closest friend he’s ever had, and that means the world to him.

(I definitely hadn’t forgotten about this line when I wrote my own thing about Kaito getting heartfelt thanks from his sidekicks and responding with “that’s my line”, so this… probably somewhat influenced that, yes.)

Kaito:  “You’ll always be my sidekick, alright!?”

Again, since this is a happier AU with much less messed-up co-dependency going on (especially with the Harmonious Heart having helped to fix that), I’m going to assume Kaito means this in a good way. Not as “I need you to always depend on me”, but just as “whenever you do need me, I’ll always be there for you”. Everyone needs someone else from time to time. You can’t just graduate from being a “sidekick” who relies on someone else’s support into a “hero” who doesn’t need anyone at all. Heroes and sidekicks aren’t that black-and-white. Kaito considered the sidekicks from his backstory only former sidekicks by now, but that isn’t how things should actually work at all.

Once Kaito’s sidekick, always Kaito’s sidekick, because no matter how strong those people are now thanks to him, they’re still going to need help sometimes, and because Kaito is always going to want to be there for his friends.

Shuichi:  “Yes, of course!”

Look at Shuichi not even being slightly awkward or put-off at the idea of being Kaito’s “sidekick”! He understands exactly what Kaito means by that here, and it was never about Shuichi being lesser than him.

Shuichi:  (Kaito and I beamed at one another and shook hands. We both put all our strength into the handshake.)

They are friends! I love the implication that they both want to get across the strength of their friendship in that handshake, communicating without words.

Shuichi:  (I’m really glad I met Kaito. So in at least *one* way, I’m thankful to Monokuma. I’m sure Kaito feels the same way. But we don’t have to tell each other that. We don’t need words. I know exactly how Kaito feels, without them.)

Communication without words! Shuichi and Kaito also kind of did some of this, during trial 5, so it’s especially appropriate for them that this is one of the things the writers put into their scene here. Friends who know each other so well that they can do this is one of my favourite friendship tropes and melts my heart.

I suppose we can assume that Shuichi’s inexplicable mindreading powers have reverted to something less supernaturally intrusive and more realistically just him being able to intuit how Kaito’s feeling because of how well he knows him. Maybe this means he’ll be able to take a leaf out of Kaito’s book and pick up on when Kaito’s feeling down and needs to talk to him about something, even when he’d have hesitated to mention it otherwise? I hope so. They are friends and equals who can support each other, like they always should have been.