#the last one is a bit of projection i love bugs

[robbyfloyd]

first of all, love the name calico creek 🤎

second of all, this entire exchange:

“Is this another one of those projects that she starts and you have to finish?” “What makes ya guess that?” The corner of his eye crinkles with his smile; now that you've got something to compare it to, the snow doesn't seem so bright anymore.

like? wake up, babes! new rhett abbott lore just dropped, courtesy of strawberry delly 🍓

also, again your atmosphere creating, scene setting writing ability is just so fucking beautiful to read, delly 🌻💓🧸

You've gotta think of something else before you start drooling and a damn icicle forms.

this line took me out 💀

“Layers 'n a dash of self-hatred.”

yeaaah, you just know that cecilia abbott made her sons do the bread bag + socks thing from the end of december to the beginning of march to trudge through all that wyoming snow…

Your lower belly twists, inexplicably filling with butterflies who have blades for wings. Or maybe they're moths, eating through you like old laundry.

i could say this about most of your prose, but you did not need to go this hard 🦋

ENDLESS 🍪 SNACKS 🫘

rhett “i wasn’t born during a blizzard, but i might as well have been with how well i do in the suffocating weight that is a western winter” abbott. he was actually born during a summer rain storm.

“Hey, caterpillars are cute,” says Rhett Abbott, the man who yelped when he saw a bright green caterpillar inching up his pant leg last summer.

oh, you know this man has found many a leggy friend climbing him or simply using him as a method of transportation in the springsummer. he doesn’t mind one bit because he loves to freak perry out, who is terrified of bugs—especially caterpillars. 

wait… Rhett Heaven Abbott has a ring to it 🪽

THAT SCENE OF RHETT EATING PUSSY ENDED ME 💕💖💓

“Were you planning on this, or do you just keep lube on you at all times?” You can't help but ask, can't really believe what you're looking at right now. “Believe it or not, I use it when that fuckin' barn door gets jammed,” he pauses, tearing at the corner of a packet with his teeth, “but I'd rather it be you than a rusty hinge.”

the scream that i scremt (also, the way this man will never learn to not rip lube packets open with his teeth)

at the end of the day, you write the idea of being in love with rhett abbott so accurately and so beautifully, and i'm grateful that we like the same characters at the same time 💐

the kind that money can't buy (calico creek) | rhett abbott x reader

Word Count: 12,200

Cross Posted on AO3

Warnings & Notes: 18+, AFAB!Reader, friends to lovers, size kink, general awkwardness due to a love confession gone wrong. Cunnilingus, creampies, multiple orgasms, hand jobs, grinding, usage of the 'snowed-in' trope, slightly implied inexperienced reader. Reader generally being overwhelmed at times. Notes are subject to be updated because I feel like I'm forgetting something...

My almost-late entry for @lewmagoo's holiday celebration!

Brief Summary: Sometimes, all love needs is a botched love confession, broken bridges, a tiny cabin out on Calico Creek, and an inconceivable amount of snow.

Inspired by the Stephen Wilson Jr. song, Calico Creek.

"And what's the plan if we die on this mission?" 

"There ain't one," Rhett chuckles, his eyes flickering between the bridge and the rearview mirror. Whatever he sees isn't enough, has to twist in his seat to look out the back window. "Might as well write your will and send it via carrier pigeon." 

He's gonna die with the left side of his neck, and the lower portions of his jaw smeared in cheap paint, and he doesn't even know it. Hell, there might be some in his hair now that you look at it.

You don't know how he can manage to do this. You can hardly look away from the window for more than a second, staring down at the edge of the bridge. Nothing but rushing waters and wood laid decades before you were born, no guardrail to prevent you from plummeting a hundred-something feet to your rocky, hypothermic demise. 

The turn onto this old-fashioned safety hazard is almost too tight for the trailer, one of the tires briefly hanging midair as it crawls onto the bridge. Something creaks below, low and grumpy, an ancient spirit disturbed from its eternal slumber. 

"I still think it's cracking beneath us." That sounds like wood cracking. Does he not hear it? Why is he not putting it in reverse yet? 

"Well, we don't seem to be fallin' yet." The idiot seems to have left his intelligence back at the rodeo. 

You must have forgotten yours, too, because you're the one who stupidly agreed to this whole venture, knowing full well you would have to cross this godforsaken bridge. This thing has been ready to collapse since the day you were born and has threatened to take you down the countless times you've ventured over it. But, like clockwork, the truck crawls out the other side, emerging onto safe, solid ground. 

"Oh, I forgot all about this," you don't mean to say it out loud, but it slips past your defenses, a breath that you can only hold back for so long. 

Snow-covered trees decorate the sides of the beaten gravel road, arching overhead, their baren branches seeming to kiss the silver sky itself. Icicles hang from some of them, twinkling in the light. Stunning in its own right, but nowhere near as gorgeous as Calico Creek herself, still just as wild and alive as she has always been. 

It's a wonder the Tillerson's haven't tried stealing this out from under the Abbotts, too. There's no way they haven't heard the stories about this place, and there's no way they have never wondered about where the water beneath the bridge on Warm Creek Road leads.

"The cabin is still standing?" It looks the same, too. Time itself must stop every time someone leaves this place.

"For some reason," Rhett's nails tap against the steering wheel. "Mom comes out here to pull weeds every other month in the summer."

"Still?"

"Old habits die hard."

And that...fuck, what do you say? Nothing? That was an invitation for a follow-up.

...no, maybe it wasn't. Why are you making it weird? Come on, think.What is it that you usually say when Cecelia comes up in conversation? Oh! You should ask about...no, he already said that she's spent all day cooking a roast. 

The tires slip beneath the truck. Rhett reaches for the gear shifter. His paint-mottled hand spins across the wheel, drawing the vehicle off the ice as quickly as it crawled onto it. Focused entirely on the road and nothing else.

Rodeo lights flicker through your mind. Old dirt flies through the air again, a neverending plume of dust that still makes your nose burn. Your stomach is twisting around, working itself into a knot it'll never get out of.

"Hello?" A gloved hand waves in front of your face. "Y' in there?"

"Huh?" 

The truck has long since stopped. Crudely parked in front of the cabin with no regard for how it may look to anyone else. It's been stopped for a while, too; you can already feel the cooler air creeping through the vents. How a cowboy like him can put up with a truck that only blows heat when it's moving is beyond you. You would have sold this thing years ago. 

"I was askin' if you're ready," Rhett's brow furrows, and for a moment, you're worried that he can see straight through you. "Are you sure you slept last night?" 

"Yeah." Lie. 

The corner of his mouth wobbles up and down, lips parting with the beginnings of a sentence. Then, flattening into a line. Your eyes meet. You don't know what to say. Neither does he. Your face feels hot all of a sudden. 

It's too damn quiet in this truck.

Your saving grace comes in the form of a squealing door hinge. Shrill. Screaming at the top of its lungs as Rhett shoves it open. Yeah. Okay. You'll get out, too, then.

If life were a comic, then the rush of frozen air would have steam rising from your heated cheeks. Fortunately, no such thing happens; it's just your burning skin and the vicious bite of single-digit temperatures eating away at what little moisture you have left, not satisfied until your skin has been left raw and chapped.

Snow crunches beneath your boots, soft at first but growing firm as it compacts under your weight. Every step feels just as unsteady as the last, and with each one, you're nearly certain that this time, you will find uneven ground and go tumbling head-first into this pristine, wintery hell that has encased the entire state of Wyoming. And yet, you continue to find solid footing.

"Remind me again why we're looking for a...?" Your words die in your throat, lost to the howling wind. Did he ever mention what you were looking for out here?

A moment passes. Rhett turns his head to you. Gives you a few more seconds to conjure up the words you're looking for. "Horse-drawn grain drill?" Finishing your thought. "Mom saw a post on Facebook and thinks she can turn it into decor."

You don't know what a horse-drawn grain drill is, but you've got a feeling that it's the old jumble of rusted metal that has been decaying against a cedar tree since you were in kindergarten. Somewhere behind the cabin, beyond the tree line. "Is this another one of those projects that she starts and you have to finish?"

"What makes ya guess that?" The corner of his eye crinkles with his smile; now that you've got something to compare it to, the snow doesn't seem so bright anymore.

"Well, last I checked, she was the one repainting the walls downstairs," the ground shifts beneath your foot. Sends you stumbling. "But half of your jaw is a nice shade of Beacon Gray."

"Shit." His hands rise, blindly pawing at his face with the backs of his gloved hands, digging at it the best that he can manage. "Why didn't ya tell me I had this shit all over my face?" Flecks of gray rain down like snowflakes, scattering across the front of his jacket. 

He pauses, those expectant blue eyes landing on your shivering frame. Hopeful, even. Poor thing hasn't the slightest clue that his neck is stained with the imprint of his own hand right now. 

You shake your head. "I think you're gonna have to shave to get it all off." 

His whine echoes through the empty trees. "But I just got it to the right length again!"

As if it would get to last past the weekend, you can already hear Cecelia fussing at him to shave and tidy himself up for Christmas Service. She'll probably try squeezing him into that old suit she had tailored for him after he graduated high school, too. So tiny and narrow that the fabric visibly struggles to contain those broad shoulders...

You've gotta think of something else before you start drooling and a damn icicle forms. 

"What, you don't think it adds character?" Rhett leans over, knocking his arm against yours. If he hears your heart lurch in your chest, he doesn't comment on it. 

Looking at him is the worst thing you could possibly do. He's just so close, and he's waited until this very moment to tilt his head down and ease that old cowboy hat on, the felt one with the chipped brim. Rugged, just like his four-day-old scruff and the unruly hair that curls behind his ear and hasn't been cut since spring began. 

"It adds...something," you don't know what your conclusion is supposed to mean. Fortunately, he doesn't ask any further; just rolls his eyes and keeps walking. 

Against all odds, that old bench Royal built for you is still sitting and facing the creek. The piles of snow almost entirely obscure its frame, but it's the bench nonetheless. Two wooden pallets crudely cut and nailed together, Abbott engineering at its finest. 

"Do you remember the tire swings?" You vaguely remember them, hung from trees that once occupied the space the bench now occupies. But they weren't ordinary tire swings. No, they were fashioned to look like horses, with old recycled bridles and name tags. Isabela and Flash. 

Rhett shakes his head, chuckling at a memory. "I remember jumpin' off of 'em a lot."

"And breaking your arm because you overshot and landed in the creek?" You can still hear Cecelia screaming at the top of her lungs. "No wonder why you turned out to be a bull rider. You're still chasing the high of nearly breaking your neck in Calico Creek." 

All he can do is laugh; there's no defending himself from this one. 

Fortunately for him, the conversation dies at the sight of that old hunk of metal. It still lies in the same spot it's always been, somewhat sunken into the soil and leaving behind an indent in the tree it rests against. The thing has all the right in the world to stubbornly cling to its resting place, but Rhett doesn't even seem to struggle when he pulls on it.

It's reasonably light, all things considered. 

...or maybe it just feels light because Rhett is doing most of the pulling. 

But the metal is frozen in a thin sheet of ice, and by the time you get it within distance of the trailer, it's melted and seeped into your gloves. Frozen water gnawing at your already cold fingers, eating through flesh and straight down into the bone. Solidifying in your joints for extra measure.

You've got no choice but to drag it along for no reason other than you can't let go. Trudging through the snow, audibly crunching with every step, every inch of your exposed skin burning in a frozen fire. And it must freeze your memory, too, because the next thing you remember is the rear trailer gate falling open, clattering against the ground. It creates a ramp of sorts. 

"I can pull it up from here," Rhett, ever the gentleman.

You'd love to let him take it, but...well, you're trying, but your fingers are hardly budging. Frozen in place, another piece of the machine. You don't remember when they went numb, but you can hardly feel them anymore; they may have even detached from your body entirely. But, slowly, they pry themselves open, stiff muscles fighting against your effort to pull your hand back to your chest.

Rhett tilts his head. "'s your hand frozen?" 

"My glove got soaked," pausing to blow air onto it. The heat of your breath is nice...until it fades and leaves you even more aware of the difference in temperature. "It's fine, just a little cold."

"'Cold' my ass," muttering under his breath. He reaches out, his big hand practically engulfing yours as he pulls it toward him, plucking the soaked glove off before you've even realized what he's doing. "I ain't havin' ya get frostbit."

His other hand dives into his pocket, pulling out a handkerchief that's been wrapped around something. You can feel the heat radiating off of it before he's even placed it in your frozen palm. A hand warmer.

The wind nips at your frosty skin, but the handkerchief is big enough that you can wrap the fabric around your hand entirely. A thin shield to block off at least some of the cold. 

Truly, you don't think Rhett even needed you to come along in the first place because he gets the old piece of equipment onto the trailer without the slightest hint of a struggle. It's so easy that you almost catch yourself looking back to see if there's a bigger piece to haul up. Why did he ask you to help with something so simple?

And why did you agree to it?

It's something you're still wondering when you heave yourself back up into the truck, squeezing into the corner of the old cloth seat like it'll somehow save you from the burst of frigid air that races out of the vents. God, why were you wishing for snow last week? This is hell.

"How do you put up with this every winter?" You're fighting to keep your teeth from chattering, not even going to make an attempt at straightening yourself out to put the seat belt on. Curling into a ball sounds like a much better option than that; safety be damned. 

"Layers 'n a dash of self-hatred." The truck rumbles as Rhett's foot presses on the gas pedal, the beaten tires frantically searching for traction on the slick ground. They find it. Lurching forward. "I shoulda become an accountant or somethin'."

"You as an accountant?" Snickering. 

Somewhere, in the effort to almost entirely spin the truck around, Rhett finds the chance to lean over and knock his elbow against yours. "Hey, y' don't see none of them office folk freezin' for a livin', now do ya?" 

"I'd love to see you crammed in a little cubicle," you laugh, and all he can do is roll his eyes, shaking his head all the while. 

A beam of light bounces off the creek waters. You know it's merely the change in angle that caused it, but the little voice in your head quietly wonders if old Calico Creek is laughing with you. She keeps doing it, too. Light-reflecting in little sparks, bouncing off chunks of broken ice and the rushing silver water itself, following you all the way up to the bridge.

You don't remember the bridge groaning like this last time. Maybe more towards the middle, but certainly not this early. Though, even as you untwist from your huddle and peer out the window, you can't see anything crumbling. 

"Rhett?" 

"I hear it."

Still, he eases the truck forward, but you can hear the whir of the window as he rolls it down. You would do the same and stick your head out, too, if you weren't just now regaining sensation in your nose. 

It sounds like popcorn beneath you. Soft little popping noises that you can feel when you press your feet against the floorboard. 

Rhett jumps for the shifter. 

Wood snaps.

The truck dips forward.

Something roars. You're going backward. The earth spins. White and silver and brown blurs into one big mess. Metal and tires scream. Your head bounces against the back of the seat.

And everything is still.

You're facing the river. The cabin is on your right, and the bridge is...the bridge is...

"Did it...?"

"Yeah..." Rhett whispers, his eyes as equally glued to the sight as yours are. "it did." 

The bridge is gone. 

"I have good news and bad news." Rhett's voice bounces off every wall in the cabin, almost makes it hard for you to figure out which of the two rooms he's walking out of. As if you didn't watch him disappear into one the moment that his phone started ringing.

"What's the good news?" You ask, squeezing the hand warmer just a little tighter. But there's no longer any heat radiating from it, reduced to nothing but a dull, rapidly fading warmth. 

"The bad news is," it seems he's completely ignoring what you just said. "The roads are shit 'n Perry doesn't think he can plow out the upper path 'till at least tomorrow afternoon." 

And then he's gone. Vanishing back into the room he just moseyed out of. 

"The good news?" You know he can hear you, but you don't get a reply. Nothing but a load of underwhelming silence. "Rhett?" 

Something thunks against the floor. Heavy. Solid. 

"Remember that time we snuck out and went over to Idaho for that rodeo mom didn't want me goin' to?" The echo is so bad that it takes a moment to catch up to what he's just said.

A memory stirs to mind. "I remember you getting drunk and busting your lip falling out of the truck."

Rhett's head pokes around the corner, his pale nose wrinkled with what you can only identify as disgust. Maybe a hint of embarrassment. Not his favorite memory, you suppose. 

"I don't know if y' remember it, but Dad was so furious that he made me come out here 'n chop every downed tree he could find for weeks." He disappears for another moment. Then, steps back into the room, lifting a chunk of split wood into the air. "Come to find out, all of it's still here." 

"Suddenly, I'm considering forgiving you for the grilling your mom gave us after that." You can't resist your smile. For once, your teenage antics pay off, even if it was all his idea. 

"It's inappropriate for you two to be alone together like that!" Mocking in the shrillest voice he can manage as he steps over to the fireplace, bending down to load the wood inside. "Don't know why she always thought that we..." His Adam's apple bobs. Glancing at you.

You look away. 

...yeah. 

Your lower belly twists, inexplicably filling with butterflies who have blades for wings. Or maybe they're moths, eating through you like old laundry. Whatever they are, they worsen when you peek at him through the corner of your eye, the momentary flicker of a memory nearly making you nauseous.

"Do you need help?" You don't know why you're asking when you're already reaching out, ready to take the next chunk of wood from him. It'll be easier for you to put it in; you're already down here on the floor.

"No, it's—it's fine," he freezes mid-crouch. Your fingers brush against the back of his hand. "I've got it. You should..." 

Life...stops.

For a split second, you fear that your fingertips have melted and become one with him, stuck together for the rest of eternity. But the blaze of the fire burns before you can reach melting point, jerking away as if burned. Rhett looks away. You do, too. 

You're right back at the rodeo again. 

Dusty Sunday night air spirals around you. A dry earthy scent burns at your nose, disguising the already vague tinge of sweat and what you can only describe as animal that clings to him. Dirt clings to his glistening jaw, smeared all the way down his neck and the left side of his jeans. 

If you didn't know any better, you would think they replaced Rhett with that of a wild-eyed mustang, icy blues damn near about to swallow you whole. It hardly matches his stuttered whispers, so damn shy in comparison to what lurks at the surface. 

"I...I uhm..." his boot kicks at the ground, stirring up another plume of dirt. "I know ain't good at this sort of thing, but I—" His tongue hitches, lips still moving, but not a damn thing comes out. 

Broad shoulders shiver. Caving in on themselves. And he drops his head, the brim of his hat concealing everything but his mouth from view. Hiding in plain sight. This doesn't nearly match the excitement that the shiny new championship buckle in his hand should warrant, but now it's been reduced to nothing but a toy for him to fidget with. Twisting it round and round in his wavering palm. 

"Rhett...?" Hooking your finger under the very edge of his hat, lifting it until you catch sight of red cheeks and impossibly wide baby blues. A deer caught in the headlights. 

"I love you."

It's there and gone with the breeze. So swift that if not for the sight of his lips shaping around those three little words, you would think you made it up entirely. 

But it was there, still clear as day in your memory; if you try hard enough, you can almost convince yourself that you can step through time. Re-enter your starstruck body and kiss him before the sheriff can cut in and shoo you away to ask questions about another spat between his family and the Tillersons.

But time travel doesn't exist, and that confession still hangs in the air, its rusty hinges squealing every time you think you've finally forgotten about it. What do you even say now? 'Hey, I'm sorry that in the span of a few weeks, I couldn't conjure up a better way to revive the topic, but I love you too. Hope you haven't taken my silence as rejection and moved on already!' What if he didn't even mean it as a love confession? 

Rhett hasn't said anything about it.

Neither have you.

The crackle of the fire is the only thing present to fill the silence. Occasionally broken apart by the pops of Rhett's joints every time he goes to fetch another piece of wood, ancient floorboards groaning in tandem with the thump of his boots. Even his jingling spurs are a welcome sound, shrill as they might be.

Nightfall is either your greatest blessing or the biggest curse known to mankind. The darkest corners of the cabin are lost to the shadows in a matter of hours. God knows if anything is lurking in there, ready to pounce at any given moment, but with it, Rhett's solemn face disappears, too. Reduced to glistening eyes and flashes of skin in the firelight. 

"Do you remember when we used to beg your mom to let us spend the night up here?" The sound of your voice is borderline shocking. A smidge too loud for the heavy silence that covers the room like a thick winter blanket. 

Rhett's hum dissolves into a chuckle. "Guess we really should have listened when she told us to watch what we wish for." 

He peeks at you through the corner of his eye, a strand of brown hair falling out from behind his ear and into his face. You catch his gaze, locking for a lingering moment. His mouth rises into a weary smile.

"We should have wished for endless snacks and a million-dollar lottery ticket while we were at it," you can only imagine what other things you two have begged poor Cecelia for. "And maybe a spare blanket."

Rhett blinks. Staring into the fire. His eyes widen, lighting up with a realization. "I got some in the truck."

"Lottery tickets?"

"Blankets," he's trying his best to sound annoyed, but his own grin betrays him. 

Something in his knee pops as he stands up, audibly protesting, but he's already on his feet. There go those spurs again, chiming away with every step, glinting in the light, and...

"What is that?" You ask, with a tilt of your head. It doesn't help you see any better, but the effort is there. 

Rhett freezes. "Huh?"

"Come here," beckoning him closer. "You've got something on the back of your boot."

"Those are called spurs, sweetheart," but Rhett comes back to you anyway.

He...meant that as a joke. Yeah. That's what it was. 

...right?

"No, it's..." There's something silver just above the spur on his left heel, so sharp that it pierces straight through the leather. Something long and gray hangs from it. Feels like plastic. It looks like...a rubber fish?

"'s that a damn Rapala?" Rhett's voice rises in pitch. Confused. 

"I didn't know fishing lures could catch cowboys," giggling, you pinch the hook, tugging it from the hole it's created in his shoe. The thing is ancient. Its once brilliant silver scales now a muted yellow, the singular remaining hook mangled and warped into an unrecognizable mess. 

He reaches down, opening that big hand of his. The little lure practically shrinks when you place it in his palm, suddenly nothing but a minuscule hunk of plastic and metal. "I knew they were in the creek but I didn't expect them to be all the way up here, too." 

You think that you can still hear Cecelia calling out, warning you two to watch where you step and to be careful in the shallow creek waters. It's a wonder how neither of you ever got a hook in your foot. You've lost track of how many summer Sunday afternoons you've spent in Calico Creek. You don't think you even liked visiting their church; you only ever tagged along because of what came after the service ended. 

Thump_

"What was that?" You're pretty sure it came from outside, but you're not about to dismiss the potential of someone lurking in the shadows of the room. 

"Dunno," but he's about to find out, slinking toward the door like a stray cat. You don't know how he does it, but his boots are suddenly quiet. The spurs on his heels don't even sing. All holding their breath as he opens the door. 

It's snowing so hard that you can see the shape of the wind when it bursts through the gap, cloaked like a ghost in a white sheet. Swirling around the room, all too eager to eat away at the warmth of the fire. Circling closer and closer with all the ferocity of a pack of hungry wolves. A shiver races up your spine.

"Hang on."

The door slams shut, and—

"Rhett?" You squeak. Where did he...did he go outside? He must have. You only looked away for a moment, and you would have heard it if he had rushed into the backroom. 

In his place lingers, what you can only describe as a sentient winter wind, rushing through the thick fabric of your clothes as you stand and make your way to the door. It doesn't matter how long you've been huddled by the fire. By the time your hand finds the ice-cold door knob, you're shivering again. 

Snow bursts through the gap once more, splattering across your face. Clinging to your eyelashes, wiggling down through the collar of your jacket. 

"Rhett?" But the midnight air swallows your voice like a sponge. It doesn't even echo. You can't see a thing. Not the truck, not Calico Creek, not a damn thing. "Rhett!"

No such reply. It's as if he was never even here in the first place, but you can vaguely see his footprints in the snow. They don't go far. 

Or rather, you can't see them go very far out. You could be floating through space right now, and you would be none the wiser about it. It's all just...black. Even as you step through the door, your unsteady frame slammed by a bigger, angrier gust of wind.

"Rhett!" Your voice should be able to get louder than this, but no such thing happens. Maxed out. "Rhett!"

You still don't see him. What the hell did he go looking for? Shit, what if it was someone lurking outside that grabbed him? And now you've just made it known to the whole forest that you're out here by yourself! 

A shape moves in the distance. 

You jump back, snow-caked boots sliding across the floor. Your grip on the door handle is the only reason you don't fall.

It's getting closer. You think you can see two legs. Walking closer and closer, and—

"Rhett!" Your voice breaks this time.

But it's him. Shoulders coated in a dusting of snow. Hair blowing into his windburnt face. Some kind of thick fabric bundled up into his arms. Blankets, you think. The wind blows harder, and he disappears into the sea of white once again, the waves trying to suck him back into the abyss.

Snow tumbles into the front door as he steps inside. He's carried half of tonight's snowfall into the damn cabin. But you can't think about that right now.

"Blankets?" You don't know if your voice is shaking from the cold or if you're just mad. "You run out into a blizzard and scare me half to death for fucking blankets?" 

Rhett Abbott has had his soul replaced with that of a newborn deer because he looks like one caught in the headlights. Wide blue eyes staring back at you, can't possibly fathom what has got you so mad. As if he's not the one who just inexplicably ran off into the night with no regard for his own safety. 

Those snow-dusted eyelashes flutter. "You said you wanted one." Innocent as can be. 

And you...you did ask for those, but. "You could have said something before you just up and walked out." 

"Were you worried about me?" His head tilts to the side. 

"Maybe I was," muttering, you turn back to the fire. There's a chair sitting in the back corner. Wooden. Didn't look all that inviting until just now, swallowed up by one of the many shadows cast by the fire. The chilly air has collected over here, clustering into its own little storm, but you can't feel it. Not with how hot your face has gotten all of a sudden. 

The chair creaks beneath your weight. It breaking is the last thing you need right now, but fortunately, it seems to hold. You lean forward, face falling into your hands. Of course. Of course, he went to get the blankets that you asked for. And here you are yelling at him like a damsel in distress as if he wasn't born and raised in conditions worse than this. 

Something drapes across your shoulders. Fuzzy. Smells like the bonfire the Abbott's had a few weeks back, burning away the brush collected from the most recent storm. Another one wedges itself into your lap, Rhett stubbornly pushing it onto you as if you're the one covered in snow and not him. 

"What are you doing?" Peeking through the gaps in your fingers.

"Buildin' you a cocoon and hangin' ya from the ceilin'," he hums, and if you didn't know him any better, you might have thought he was dead serious. "Wanna see if you'll come out with wings like one of them butterflies."

You're putting on your best frown. 

Or at least, you think you are. You can't really feel your face. "This implies that I look like a caterpillar." 

"Hey, caterpillars are cute," says Rhett Abbott, the man who yelped when he saw a bright green caterpillar inching up his pant leg last summer."Y' remember that book we used to have where the little dude kept eatin' everything?"

"The one you took a bite out of?" Yeah, you remember that. 

"The caterpillar did that." Still just as defensive as he was when Cecelia started asking questions about what happened to the book. "Not me."

"Uhuh." Sure.

The last of the snowflakes scatter from his eyelashes, cascading down onto his bright red cheeks and melting into minuscule little droplets of water that seem to dance in the firelight. A tiny galaxy that is wiped out by a singular stroke of your thumb. 

...you're touching his face.

You don't recall when your hand left your side, but it's resting against his jaw, your thumb still damp with the evidence of your crime. He's noticed it. There's no way he hasn't noticed it, but he's not telling you to stop. And...well...you're already here. 

Properly curling your hand around his cheek is the easiest thing you've done in a lifetime, his soft scruff tickling your palm. Rhett still doesn't say anything. Hell, it's so quiet that you can hear the minuscule sound of him breathing through his nose. His lashes flutter again. Thinking about something.

He tilts his head, leaning into your touch. 

"You're frozen." You noticed that a long time ago, but if you don't break the silence, you're gonna combust.

"Yeah, that kinda..." his mouth hangs open, tongue visibly faltering for a good moment or three, "happens when...you snow."

Your giggle is so loud that it echoes, but you hardly notice it. "When you snow, huh?" 

He's running from you. 

You can't believe it. He's squirming up to his feet and turning around, his hands rising to cover his face in a fashion identical to what you did mere minutes ago. Mutters something, but it's so muffled that you can't understand a word he's said. You don't necessarily care to figure it out, either. A little bit distracted by the sound of puzzle pieces clicking into place. 

You think you get it now. 

The floorboard squeals as you stand, the sharp sound eating away every bit of the certainty that you just built up, but your momentum still carries you forward. Feet falling one after the other as if caught in a trance. 

Rhett turns to look at you, then back to the door. 

He tries to, at least. 

It happens on reflex. You grabbing ahold of his jacket collar, pulling so hard that you both stumble. He gasps. So do you. Chest to chest in this tiny old cabin, nothing but the flickering fire to guide your eyes as you drink in his face. The same old, big blue eyes you've always known. Pouty lips wobbling, torn between a lopsided smile and trying to come up with something to say. 

If this were a dream, it would be perfect. Seamlessly falling into place like trained actors.

But this is real, and you're both moving at the same time, and your noses clash at the same time your mouths do. You stumble. His arm cinches around you. Pulls you closer. Teeth clatter. It's everything that a Hallmark first-kiss scene isn't, and it's incredible. All those movies, and they still��couldn't quite capture the dream of kissing your best friend in—

Best friend.

"Shit, I..." Jerking away. Eyes wide. Breath caught in your throat. "I shouldn't have..." Shouldn't have what? Kissed him without asking? 

Oh, but he's grinning at you like a damn fool. Wobbly smile and sparkling gaze, flickering back and forth between your lips and eyes. You don't feel the hand resting on the small of your back until it's pulling you back in, lips crashing once more. 

A faint twinge of mint and chocolate still lingers on his lips, the only remaining evidence for his crime of raiding his momma's jar of Christmas chocolates. Or maybe cowboys just taste like that. Rough as stone, carved and broken into jagged edges by the test of time, but sweet as can be on your lips. 

He steps forward at the same time you do, already can't stand the minuscule gap between your bodies. But your foot slips between his, and the side of his spur catches on the toe of your shoe, and you're falling. 

Your elbow slams into the wooden floor. Chin bouncing off his too-firm chest. It's a damn miracle that he's the one who fell backward. You may not have survived if your positions were reversed, solid as he is. 

"Guess I fell for you," Rhett wheezes, groaning low in his throat. 

"Idiot," giggling.

Figuring out where your legs have landed is a task of its own, your frozen joints protesting any further movement for fear of another catastrophic fall. Rhett doesn't make much of an attempt to move. Content to part his legs and let your body fit between them, knees resting against your hips. 

His palm finds your cheek, calloused fingertips stroking the soft skin there. You're melting into it before you can realize what you're doing, drowning in the sensation of how big his hand is. You think it could cover half of your face without even trying.

"'n here I thought I'd fucked this all up," his hum vibrates through his chest and right into yours; kind of feels like distant thunder. 

"I didn't know how to bring it back up after Joy left." It's easy again. Talking to him, confessing exactly what's on your mind without fear of further fracturing things. "Then you didn't say anything either, and I...figured I'd read into it the wrong way." 

His thumb finds the corner of your mouth, gently tugging it up into a squished smile. "Oops." 

You can't help but reach for him, too, your hand finding his cheek once more, just for the hell of it. In the shadows of the fire, you can see the small chunk of skin permanently missing from his nose. An old scar from a kitchen fight with Perry a while back, courtesy of Perry's wedding ring and an argument that you don't remember the context of. Something about a remark Perry made on an already tense night. 

Should you?

Rhett blinks.

Yeah, you should.

"Watcha doin'?" He asks, scrunching his nose as you lean in, pressing your lips to that little scar. 

"Something I've thought about doing ever since you barged through my front door with blood pouring down your face," pressing another to the tip of his nose. 

"Funny, I recall y' wantin' to hit me at first." 

"Because you scared the hell out of me." 

"'s that why y' tripped me just now?" There's that light tone in his voice. Taunting. "Revenge?"

"Shut up." You know where this is going.

So does he. "Make me—" 

Kissing him quiet. Another thing off your bucket list. Maybe it was on his, too, because he laughs into your mouth like he's been waiting on this his whole damn life. Hell, you know you have. 

Your skin prickles beneath your layers of clothing, burning from head to toe, and you can only peel your winter coat off so fast. Pulling away from him might be the hardest thing you've ever done, but in the time it takes you to shrug it off, Rhett has gotten his off, too. That old black undershirt hugs his frame a little bit too well; you almost stop and stare.

Almost. 

Rhett's arm loops over your shoulders as you come back to him, hand curling around your bicep, lazily hanging on. Those jackets must have been a mile-thick because you don't recall being this close last time, his chest against yours, heart beating so heavy that you can feel it. 

But you're a little bit too far down, an ache blooming in the back of your neck at the strain to reach him. You don't want to move, but now that you've noticed it, the pain is the only thing that you can think about. Gives you no real choice but to dig your knees into the hard floor and scoot up—

"Mmh—!" 

You don't remember breaking away from Rhett, but you must have because you're blinking down at him, and he's found time to clamp a hand over his mouth. Eyes the size of dinner plates. Red in the ears.

"Did I...?" Suddenly aware of where your thigh is resting right now. 

"Just a little bit," he doesn't seem to have any interest in making you move, either, using the arm around your shoulders to pull you back down once more. 

You don't know how you've survived so long without this. 

The pressure of his lips, the stubble on his jaw, the awkward bump of noses that haven't learned where to go quite yet. It's all so new, and yet you can already feel the embers of an addiction burning to life, roaring as hot as the fire, and you might need him more than you need to breathe. Heaven is a place on earth, and its name is Rhett Abbott. 

Your forearms brace themselves on either side of his head, steadying yourself before you can become inconceivably lost. And again, your thigh unintentionally presses into him, and he's groaning low in his throat, lithe hips bucking up into it. You can't help yourself this time, intentionally grinding into the growing tent in his jeans, feeling his knees flutter around you. 

"I'm sorry, I..." clarity strikes like lightning.  "I'm rushing things, aren't I?"

"Naw, I'm..." he looks off to the side. Sheepish. "Kind of into it." 

Even now, he's still Rhett. Bold one moment and shy the next, his impulses always a moment quicker than everything else. You don't need to ask if he's mortified about saying that out loud; the big dummy is already showing it. Gulping so hard that you can see the muscles in his neck flex with the effort, his cheeks three shades redder. 

You throw one of your legs over his, straddling it, the silence broken by the sound of your knee hitting the floor a little too hard. And again, he covers his mouth when your thigh grinds into him, but he fails to conceal the slight roll of his eyes. Breathing hard through his nose, impulsively twitching up into your touch.

"You're something else, cowboy," you can't help but find your way to his jaw, pressing kisses into the soft outline of bone. His legs flutter around your thigh, clinging onto it as you work it against him. The arm around your shoulders tightens; you fear you might be anchored here. 

It's on the side of his neck that you can feel the faint rumble of a moan, so quiet that it fails to make its way past his hand, but it's there. You suppose you shouldn't be surprised about it, but your daydreams never involved getting around this obstacle. There's no way you're prying his hand away, not with how he uses the same damn hand to cling onto the back of a thousand-pound bull every Sunday night. 

Your lips make their way to the space below his ear, sucking lightly at an old scar that lingers there. He jumps. Hand coming off his mouth just long enough to audibly suck in a breath, cutting off the beginnings of a whine. His back rises off the ground, grinding into you the best he can. But it's not enough. He's still chasing you like he wants more, and you still can't hear him.

You're so quick to replace your thigh with your hand that you can almost deceive yourself into believing you've done this before. Palm pressing firm against his bulge, gently massaging the heel of it into him, and he jerks again. Impulsively reaching for your wrist, head tipping back, lips parted. 

"That...you...I..." he can't talk. Words broken apart by surprisingly ragged breaths. Worked up over so fucking little. It has no right to make you clench around his thigh; desperation is a hellishly contagious virus. 

You might be drooling. 

Lazy, you fall into the space next to him, your leg splayed over his, hyper-aware of the way you've just tucked yourself under his arm and how perfectly you fit. That rodeo buckle falls open at the slightest pressure, button popping open just as eagerly. He shouldn't get anything out of the sensation of you tugging on his zipper, but his hips rise as if he can feel every bit of it. 

The moment your hand wraps around his cock, his head thunks against yours. Not hard enough for it to hurt, but the impact still makes you wince.

"Ow."

"I'm sorr—" his teeth sink into his bottom lip. Biting back a noise as your thumb blindly traces the underside of his tip. "Sorry. Shit." 

If only you could go back in time and tell yourself to do this sooner. You don't know how you can ever expect to go back from this. Lying with your head propped on the side of his chest, gingerly drawing him through the opening of his jeans, the head of his cock so wet that it glistens in the firelight, a bead of precum spilling over, barely caught by your thumb. 

Rhett's scruffy cheek presses against your forehead, blindly nuzzling into you as your hand wanders, gradually working down his length. It's such a simple motion, but his hips rise to chase you on your way back up, a stifled noise rumbling out of his chest. The tip of your index finger glides over his tip, rubbing past his slit and—

"Mmh!" Jumping like a live wire. Still muffled, but louder than last time. 

You can't help but repeat it, using your thumb to draw loose circles against his weeping tip. Those hips jump again, slipping from your grasp. But it doesn't take more than a second to get ahold of him again, a sharp little sound slipping out of him as you pick up right where you left off. Swirling around and around and around. 

"Who taught you how to..." He sucks in a breath. "Who taught..." But he can't finish that thought, trailing off into nothingness once more. 

You haven't the slightest clue where your voice has gone. Lost somewhere in your throat, stolen by the same thing that took Rhett's ability to speak. 

All of a sudden, he's moving. Rolling onto his side, blindly guiding himself with his nose until he can properly find your lips, stealing them away before you can find a way to talk. You don't know if you could have come up with words even if you wanted to. Not when he whines into your mouth like that.

Whatever you were trying to do before this is lost to the abyss. Too wrapped up in the feeling of his lips melting against yours and the tiny noises he's making to realize that you're properly stroking him now. Working up and down his cock as if you're already familiar with it, wrist lazily twisting on every upward glide.

"Shit, I'm—" His voice is raspy all of a sudden. "I..."

He doesn't finish that thought, either. Mouth hanging open with a silent moan, his hand reaching to cling to the side of your shoulder. Something to hang onto. He might crumble into a million tiny pieces if he doesn't. And he's panting into your mouth like a dog in the blistering heat; it's hardly even a kiss anymore, but neither of you is making any move to pull away. 

His breath audibly catches in his throat. Cock twitching, cumming with a whine. Painting your still-moving hand white, spreading over his length, makes this sickeningly loud squelching sound that ought to make your head swim. Fuck there's so much of it, rope after rope of white, making a damn mess that you haven't the slightest hope of cleaning up. 

"Sens—ah!" His big hand dwarfs your wrist as he grabs it. Forcing it still. 

"Too much?" 

"Too much." 

It's quiet. 

At least, it is for a moment or two. The wind squeals outside the fragile window, ripping around the edges of the cabin, frantically searching for a crack in the foundation to squeeze through, desperate to steal the heat of the fire out from under you. But the flames still dance, the wood crackling as it burns. 

The squeal of the wooden floor is your only indication that Rhett is moving, rolling over top of you in the blink of an eye. His mouth finds the side of your neck, the scruff clinging to his chin brushing against the skin there, as if the heat of his lips alone wasn't enough to make you gasp.

"I thought..." Words. Where the hell are your words? What were you even about to ask him?

"Never said I was done," his voice vibrates up your spine, rattling the thoughts swirling around your head. 

His body slips between your knees like it's something you've been doing for your entire lives. And maybe he did wind up there once a few months ago when you snatched the hat off his head and tried to flee the scene, but you don't remember it feeling quite like this. 

You don't get to linger on that thought for too long. Not when he's pepering kisses across your sensitive neck, his tongue boldly darting out to trace the outline of a vein. Heat flushes across your body. The tiny, invisible embers of a fire sparking to life, the smoke already beginning to cloud your head.

"Rhett," gasping. Now it's your turn to squeeze your legs around him, vaguely aware of how you can feel his hip bones pressing against you. Firm, nothing but muscle trained from a lifetime of ranch work, rippling under your touch. You can't help yourself, grabbing hold of a bicep with your only clean hand. 

And you can just barely catch how he pauses, peering up at you through thick lashes, like something has just occurred to him. Doesn't make any move to voice it, but his smile is enough of a hint. 

"Is this," smooching at the collar of your shirt, the flimsiest barrier that you wish wasn't there, "alright?"

On their own, your legs squeeze around him, forcing him closer. "More than alright." Because telling him that you never want him to stop might be a little too much too soon.

Big hands dip beneath your shirt, tracing with his nails as they glide up your sides. Your back arches up off the ground. Not sure if you're chasing the sensation or running away from it. The bottom of your shirt catches on his wrists, sliding up until he's pushed the fabric over your chest. 

"So fuckin' pretty," downright marveling at you, his eyes shimmering like he's just found a pot of gold. There's a whole night ahead of you, but he doesn't give himself time to linger. There's a whole lifetime of kisses to catch up on, and he's already getting started, peppering his way down your chest. 

You've waited all this time, only to have one available hand to use, forced to let go of his bicep and curl into his hair instead, fingers twirling in the loose curls that rest at his nape. Can't do both. Not without making a bigger mess out of your cum stained hand, and it might just be the worst thing that's ever happened to you. 

Because here he is. Real and warm and alive and kissing at the underside of your breast, those big blue eyes flickering up to drink in your expression, and you can't touch him how you want to. You feel like you're gonna float away. One more kiss, and you're gone. Out the window. Never to be seen or heard from again. One with the snow. 

Rhett laughs against your belly, almost sends you straight through the roof instead. "'m I takin' too long?"

"Huh?" Blinking.

"You're squintin' at me like you're mad 'bout somethin'," and now that he says that, you can feel your face begin to relax. 

"I'm not mad." Have your internal thoughts always been that obvious?

"Your little nose is scrunched up," kissing closer to the start of your sweats, poking his tongue out to lick his way down. "You're mad."

"I'm not mad," holding up your sticky palm, "I'm just frustrated that I can't use my hand." 

He was just in the process of curling his fingers beneath your waistband, but he pauses, fishing for something in his back pocket. That red handkerchief again. Passes it off to you before returning to the task at hand, but you're already one step ahead, lifting your hips until he's gotten the fabric over the swell of your ass. 

You don't realize he's stolen your underwear until the breeze hits you, thighs shyly squeezing together. Don't really know what for; it's not as if you weren't anticipating this, but now that you're in the moment...

Rhett tilts his head, looks kind of like a confused puppy sitting at your heels, those gears visibly twisting and turning in his head. His eyes widen with a thought, and before you know it, he's reaching for his own waistband, shoving them past his legs and over his ankles. 

Now you're both naked from the waist down. 

He reaches for your ankle, delicately lifting your leg until he can kiss at the inside of it. Not satisfied until he's marked every square inch of you. But your knees still remain defiantly glued together. Timid, as if you haven't thought about this more times than you'd like to admit. 

His hands dip beneath your naked thighs. Raking his nails down the sensitive skin there. And for a fleeting moment, the concept of worry has flown straight out the window, your legs falling open with a shiver. 

Fuck just the feeling of him kissing your inner thigh is enough to make you whine. A little spark of heat darting up your core is the tiniest thing, and yet it's the most overwhelming thing you've felt in your life. Because it's Rhett. It's Rhett fucking Abbott sucking a mark into your skin, right where it'll poke out from beneath your pajama shorts and tell everyone who sees it what you've been up to. 

"'s this too much?" He hums. He fucking hums. Sends you jumping.

"Yes." That's not what you wanted to say. "Maybe? No? I don't know." Your head thunks against the floor, can't give a damn about if it hurts or not.

Rhett pauses. "Want me to stop?"

"No!" Too loud. You said that way too loud. "No... I—I want you to keep going. It's just...new?" 

There go those hands again, massaging the fat of your thighs, stealing away whatever tension was lingering there. His mouth burns against them, working another mark into your skin, just in case the first one disappears too quickly. 

"You just tell me when it's too much, a'ight?" He murmurs, peering up at you, and it's all you can do to nod and utter a fragile 'yes.' 

There's a rising chance that he'll be bringing you home in a sack and spend the next week gluing you back together because you might fall apart at any given moment. Nerves alight with a newfound anxiousness. You don't know what for. This is Rhett you're talking about here. Same old cowboy that you've known for as long as you can remember. 

Lips find the thin skin where your thigh joins with the rest of your body. Jumping out of your skin is suddenly a very possible task. 

"Y've no idea how long I've been wantin' to do this." And that's the last thing you hear before his mouth is on you.

You might pass away on the spot. Off to heaven, hell, or whatever the fuck is out there. 

But all that comes of it is a hitched breath, a shudder racing through your body as his burning hot tongue licks a long strip up your cunt. Experimental. Does it again when your hips rise up off the floor; he's just started, and you're already impatiently chasing him. 

"Hang on, hang on. 'm takin' care of ya," you can hear the smile in his voice as he forces you back onto the floor. "Don't gotta chase me for it." 

It's a promise he's already making good on. 

Lazily mouthing at your clit, nothing but fleeting barely-there touches that have you squirming and biting into your fist. Oh, shit shit shit, he's twirling his tongue around it now, directly targeting that poor little bud for nothing but a few seconds.

Your whine is too damn loud for this little cabin; his folks probably heard you from ten miles up the road. But all Rhett does is curl his arms around your thighs, dragging you closer. One of your legs wind up over his shoulder, and you don't know when you started reaching down, but you're pawing at his forehead. Helpless as he prods his tongue at your entrance, pushing inside if only to feel you clench around him for a moment or two.

"Rhett," you don't know what you're babbling about. Didn't know you were talking until your ears catch the familiar tone of your own voice.

The bastard fucking hums, vibrating up your lower belly and through your spine, and again you're jumping. But you're not getting anywhere. Not with those arms around your thighs, holding you perfectly still as his tongue glides up through your folds, drawing a little figure eight around your clit. 

His lips wrap around it again, gently sucking on it as he flicks the tip of his tongue over it and—

"Too much!" Your hands are in his hair. Yanking him away. "Too much."

You don't know what the hell you'll do with the sight of Rhett's chin glistening in the light, thin lips stretched around a big ol' grin as he climbs back up your body. 

"Cute thing," he chuckles; you pretend you don't feel how wet his mouth is when he kisses your cheek.

He's already hard again. Cock so heavy that it can't even stand, resting against a pale, freckled thigh. It's so damn close to where you want him. Can only imagine what it would be like to feel him push into you for the first time, but there's an item critically missing here. 

Rhett's nose bumps against yours. "Y' look mad again."

"Because I just realized that we don't have lube," you grumble. 

...or maybe you do because he's on the move all of a sudden. Grabbing the pant leg of his discarded jeans and dragging them over, rustling through the pockets until he finds what he's looking for. 

Lube packets.

"Were you planning on this, or do you just keep lube on you at all times?" You can't help but ask, can't really believe what you're looking at right now.

"Believe it or not, I use it when that fuckin' barn door gets jammed," he pauses, tearing at the corner of a packet with his teeth, "but I'd rather it be you than a rusty hinge."

Eyeroll. "How romantic."

Even his oversized hand isn't enough to make his cock look any less intimidating; you thought it would dwarf in comparison, but it's almost as if the complete opposite has happened. Daunting, even as he strokes a generous amount of lube over himself. The voice in your head suggests that you might have bitten off more than you can chew, but there's only one way to find out for sure.

The calloused tip of his middle finger glides between your folds. Has you jumping a little bit. A slight pressure blooms, slowly pushing into you, his gaze fixated on the sight. It certainly feels bigger than it looked, if that is even remotely possible, blindly feeling around for a particular little spot.

The asshole knows he's found it before you even do. Pushing a second, dripping finger into you, deliberately crooking them to rub up into it. Heat sparks between your thighs. Pretty sure that's just the lube, but you're convinced that you can feel yourself getting wetter, already hopelessly desperate. 

"Rhett," mewling in a tone so unlike you that it's almost insulting. 

"What?" Tilting his head.

You didn't really think that far. Aren't particularly sure of what it is you want or why you're saying his name, but your arms lift themselves into the air, hands opening and closing in a vague grabbing motion. You still don't know what you initially wanted, but you sure would like to have him closer.

And he gives it to you. 

Carefully settles into your waiting arms without a fuss, his lips wrangled up into another one of those wild grins that you can never seem to get enough of. A strand of hair falls out from behind his ear, just long enough for the ends of it to tickle your cheek, drawing a giggle out of you. And for reasons unbeknownst to you, he giggles, too. 

His length rudely bumps against your thigh, demanding attention from both of you. Damn thing is so heavy that he has no choice but to reach down and guide himself, dragging the fat tip through your folds just for the hell of it. A slight pressure appears at your entrance. Then, disappears. Slipping upward and gliding past your clit instead. 

But then the pressure appears again, and this time he's not intentionally screwing up to mess with you. Air jams in your throat. 

"Gonna have to relax for me, sweetheart," he whispers; there's that pet name again. God, you might legally change your name to sweetheart just so he'll call you that every day for the rest of your life. Something in your lower belly unwinds. "There y' go." 

The fat tip slips into you without any further warning, simultaneously puts a shiver in your bones, and steals away the little bit of clarity that you had left. You don't even know what you're shaking for. The fire is still crackling next to you, albeit dimmer than it was before. The room is far from cold, but you can't seem to keep still, quivering like an autumn leaf in the breeze.

Rhett appears like a fucking daydream. Cradling your face in his hands, a sudden presence that you've somehow managed to forget about, murmuring something against your lips that sounds like your name. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. You don't care to find out, too eager to steal him away in a kiss instead. 

Your arms wind around his shoulders, nails biting into the muscle that you find there, clinging to him for dear life as his cock gradually pushes into you. Inch after devastating inch, your chest progressively becoming tighter and tighter, as if you're running out of space to give. 

This can't be right. There's no way that you're really doing this. Lying here in the deserted cabin out on Calico Creek, nothing but a fire and Rhett's burning body to keep you warm, thighs squeezing his sharp hips as he sinks into you. It's a scene plucked right out of your own wild imagination. You should be waking up right now. Alone, in bed, like you have every other time this has happened.

But the scruffy chin that your hand has found its way to feels so real. The kiss breaks. Rhett leans back just far enough for you to catch sight of that stupid old grin, and holy shit, you've got Rhett fucking Abbott's cock in you right now. 

"Just a little more," he's murmuring so nonchalantly, and you really, truly, have no idea if that 'little more' is gonna fit or not. 

It either fits, or you pass away in the process of trying. The jury is still out for that one. One way or another, though, he's bottoming out, body flush with yours, not a centimeter left to take, and you think you've stopped breathing. Rhett has, too, for that matter. Completely and utterly quiet as he leans back, lashes fluttering at what he finds. 

"'m almost too big for your poor little pussy, shit." He's not staring; he's marveling at you.  "You're sure I ain't hurtin' ya?" The pad of his thumb traces where you're stretched around him, hopelessly bound together with no hope of ever untangling from each other.

Experimental, his hips roll, drawing a little noise past your lips. It's so much. So, so much. Helplessly curling your legs around his waist, heels digging into the swell of his ass, as if that can possibly save you. 

Rhett's not doing much better. Dropping his head into the crook of your neck, timidly drawing back by an inch before pushing back in just as slowly as he did the first time. His labored breath burns through your skin, grumbling something incoherent below his breath. But he's doing it again, and now, now...

"Fuck, Rhett,"  whimpering, clinging to his shoulders. 

The fire could go out at this very moment, and you would never feel even a wisp of the cold, not with how he's already finding a lazy rhythm. Hardly pulling out, rocking your body beneath him. His weight is the only thing keeping you from scooting up the floor, little puffs of air knocked out of you with every thrust. 

He's got it just as bad as you do. Panting into your mouth like a dog, the softest noises resting in the back of his mouth. Still sensitive from already cumming once. 

All of a sudden, he draws back, and for a fleeting moment, you're horrified that he's already pulling out of you. But he's pushing back into you a little quicker now and, and, and...

"'s that feel good?" He's grunting, already peeling back to do that again. The length of his cock grazes against a familiar bundle of nerves. Stars sparkle behind your vision.

"Uhuh," all that you can come up with.

Now that he's found it, he's not letting up. Moving a little quicker now. A wet little noise punctuating the snap of his hips, your poor pussy helplessly fluttering around him, so fucking full of him that it almost aches. Writhing beneath him, torn between wriggling away from the sensation and pushing into it, as if you have any choice when you're pinned beneath him like this.

"Can feel ya clenchin' round my cock, sweetheart," he's grinning as he says it, cocky in the worst way imaginable. 

Your face is so hot that you're gonna catch on fire. "Please quit talking."

To his credit, he does exactly as you ask, but that does nothing to wipe the stupid fucking grin off his face. You can't escape it. Not when he's leaning back onto his haunches, just far enough to gaze down at where his thick cock disappears into you, and suddenly you can see it. Such a wide fucking stretch that you feel bite-sized beneath him.

The weeping head of his cock strikes those little nerves. Knocks a cry right out of you. And it's the worst possible thing you could have done because he's doing it again. Tilting his hips, working just a little quicker now, drilling into that same fucking spot. 

"'s that the spot?" He coos, breathless, his hands finding your hips, dragging you into. Every. Single. Thrust. "Fuck, I don't know how I even fit in ya."

You don't even know how to talk anymore, never mind put up with his senseless mutterings. Voice caught in your throat, your cries completely and utterly silent. Blindly pawing at his forearms. Squeezing. Clawing. You manage to get ahold of one, dragging it up to your chest like you're trying to hug the damn thing. 

"Rhett," your voice wavers, "Rhett, I want—" Closer. You want him closer. But all you can manage to do is pull on his arm.

Those pretty eyes widen. The next thing you know, he's coming back to you. Using his only forearm to brace his weight beside your head, his chest snug against yours once again. You only let go of his arm in exchange for his shoulders, practically pulling him into a hug. 

Rhett nuzzles his nose into the side of your cheek, his hot breath tickling your ear. "Don't want me too far away?"

"No," grumbling. 

You've got just enough leverage to crane your neck up, mouthing at the sweaty underside of his neck. You're not trying to leave marks. Not when you know that you'll have no choice but to face his family after this; it's only a matter of time before Perry puts two and two together, but you can't help yourself. Lips finding a space just beneath his ear, mindlessly sucking on the skin there, uncaring of what evidence you leave behind.

Rhett whines. Loud in your ear, sends your lower belly twisting with something inexplicably warm, pussy clamping down around him, drawing a second sound out of him. His arms shiver. Fighting to keep his weight up. Hardly has the strength to pull away from your mouth, his hips stuttering.

"Look how well you're takin' me," he's peeled back just far enough for you to get a glimpse, mouth hanging open, can't seem to shut himself up.

"It's mortifying." 

"It's hot." 

You'd argue. You want to argue, but fuck, you can't. Not when he's got you pinned to the floor like this, fat cock bullying into your poor pussy, panting into each other's mouths like it's the only thing you're good for. A lewd smack of skin on skin defiling every innocent memory you've ever had here. 

There's a familiar coil in your lower belly, your cunt clenching down around him, legs locking around him. Your vision blurs. Chest tight. "I'm..." 

"Yeah," he's agreeing before you've even finished your thought. 

It's the mistake of looking down that does you in. The obscene sight of his wet cock disappearing into you, those strong hips stuttering as you clench around him again, punctuated by that stupid breathy moan that falls off his tongue. 

Your back arches off the floor, burying your face into the crook of his neck as it hits you. Heart hammering against your chest. Ears ringing. Cumming around his cock with nothing but a choked wail. Helplessly clinging to him, squeezing him so tight that your arms ache from it.

The fire might as well jump out and engulf you in flames; everything is burning. Distantly aware of how your legs have begun to tremble again, locked so tight around him that you can feel him try and fail to pull away from you. Babbling something about how you need to let him go, one of his hands pawing at your thigh. Pushing, trying his best to peel you away.

But it's too late. His hips are seizing up, and your eyes are opening to the sound of his strangled whine, collapsing back into you. The muscles in his back twitch beneath your fingertips as his orgasm washes over him, cock spasming so hard that you can almost convince yourself that you feel his cum flooding you.

Oh.

Oh shit, he's cumming in you. 

You should be more worried about it than you actually are, lazily letting your legs unwind from around him, uncaring about the kind of problems that this is going to cause in a few minutes. Worry is beyond you, on a completely different plane of existence. The only thing your mind has the ability to comprehend is the warmth of Rhett's face nuzzling into the crook of your neck, a final shiver racing up his spine before he becomes dead weight on top of you.

"You..." he tries, breathless. "Was that...too much?"

You don't even know where your voice has gone, wordlessly laughing into his shoulder. "It was perfect," is what you try to say, but your poor tongue can hardly shape around the letters, nothing but a senseless warble leaving you instead. And maybe Rhett's got the same condition because whatever he says next makes no sense, either.

It takes a minute for him to roll off of you, and when he does, you wind up rolling with him, your naked back facing the fire. You don't really mean to, just mindlessly following, can't look away from him for more than a second. The fire isn't nearly as bright as it was when all of this first started, but certainly not any cooler. Heat licking up your sensitive back. Pleasant at first, but the longer it goes on...

"This fire is hot on my ass," your sentence makes sense this time. 

His hand drifts down onto your ass cheek. Your eyes roll. Rhett's face lights up with a giggle, lips twisting up into a smile that you need to kiss off of him. Even if you can't really lift your head, noses crashing, kisses reduced to fleeting pecks. 

"If I woulda known this was gonna happen, I promise I would've brought somethin' to clean you up with," he murmurs, reaching to brush something off of your jaw. You don't want to know what it is.

"If I had known this was going to happen," your momentum is interrupted by a yawn, "we wouldn't have made it out of my bedroom." 

He winks at you. "We can still make that happen."

"Oh my god." Eyeroll. You're gonna walk home. 

Or, you would if he didn't curl an arm around your waist and pull you into him like a teddy bear that he's suddenly decided he wants to snuggle. And you just fit into the space below his chin so perfectly that you can't possibly bring yourself to move. 

The wind wails outside, and the fire desperately needs tending to, but neither of you are moving. If anything, you're making it worse, tangling your legs together, wedging an arm around his torso, and for a moment, you can convince yourself that you can stay like this forever. Wrapped up in your favorite person, out here on Calico Creek, never to be seen or heard from again. Lost to the magic of winter. 

Your stomach growls. 

So does his.

Laughter spins through the air. 

Maybe forever out on this creek would only work if you had electricity and a snack. But you don't mind losing out on forever, so long as Rhett's with you. Just like he always has been, snowstorm or not. 

[morismentos]

Aaaahhh I love Life and Death’s relationship! Any thoughts on them? Like, their favorite hobbies, things they agreed or disagreed on, etc? (Sorry if these asks are overwhelming, I just really like your headcanons 😭)

i have soo many thoughts, and don’t worry at all i really appreciate these asks :D

here’s a bunch of little things, in no particular order

- i think they would have mostly just enjoyed each others company, despite whatever activity it was. or at the very least they tried doing something at least once (she played his mmos for a bit but it just wasn’t her thing) 

- i think they would at the start of the company trade ideas in their respective talents. it was a nice relief from what they were used to but also contributed to the over load of production

-a tad unrelated but their designs are the perfect opposite of each other. i mean besides color, life is more top heavy (her hair) and death is more bottom heavy(his cloak)

- i think they would have disagree on silly things, small things, stuff that they either weren’t serious about, or easily forgave each other in like 5-10 minutes, business was another story

(addendum for my own personal sanity: while it would be a nice reprieve from business, ‘arguing’ about things that don’t really matter or are not that important i think after a certain point for how stubborn both of them are, it would have gotten under their skin, and along with many other things continued to spiral)

this only started becoming an issue with the joint project. Life is very particular with how things are run, death is as well to an extent. but Life wants things to go Perfectly(it’s ironic) it would bleed into their personal life, death couldn’t handle the stress and little things would set her off

(she wants things to be good, per say, a show of what she can do that she has the talent ect)

(or at the very least this is what i thiiiink went down, i am still workin through the game) 

- they’d go to restaurants as like a friday evening thing, to then fall into the routine of just one or two of their favorites places

- Life, i think, would have always been more adept to the social side of the business, not that he’s terrible at it, it’s just not something he prefers. he has an old account laying around from when she pestered him to make one. (he does use it to check on every1s posts, he does this more then he will admit) i have no clue what his user name would be.  yet (or if he has on for that matter but on the factor of funniness, i would like to think it matches hers not the exact same but like same spacing mori-blank-blaaank)

- i’ve already mentioned the snake thing but i think she would also enjoy mushrooms, and the cultivation of them. her favorite being the violet webcap (it’s one of her favorite department as well, and also one of the largest)

- this one’s more self indulgent but they’re bug enjoyers, death in the more bee side of things, and life on the more arachnid side of things (and bees as in specifically carpenter bees)

[vivacia-18]

After many years, guess who decided to try their hand at bookbinding again?

That's right, me! And of course I chose I giant of a fic, because I am nothing if not ambitious XD. I think it's 3 inches or more thick, and came to a whopping 1088 pages! The fic is Count Your Blessings by @madmothmadame , a Founders Era Tobirama centric fic and I cannot recommend it enough <3 <3 <3

My cover fabric and end paper are pretty simple, one part because I thought it suited the story, one part because I had them on hand, and one part because I'm a raw beginner and that's about as good as I could manage XD

It took a lot of waffling on my part (graphic design is NOT a great skill of mine) but overall I ended up really happy with how the title page came out - if I had the artistic skill to paint/draw it or the supplies to transfer it, this would have gone on the cover as well. Alas, for now it shall remain inside only.

A little detail that gave me some grief, as I waffled on font style and size a bit, but ultimately I'm really pleased with it - I used a plum blossom branch as the scene break throughout the book. If you've read the fic, you probably know why I picked that particular image for this and the title page ;)

I realized after printing that some of my paper had gotten a bit aged, even though it was stored in the printer. I wasn't about to waste the paper, ink and time for a reprint though, so I left it. Since the book is for me, little things like that are no bother. I was just glad I didn't fuck up in the printing or signature sewing order X'D

I included the authors notes from the end of each chapter as a bonus section at the end, so they'd be preserved with the story but not breaking up the flow of reading the book ^_^

Final view, this time from the spine - think I left the gap a little to wide between the cover boards and spine but eh, again this is just for me and only my third binding ever (and certainly the largest! XD) so I'm still really pleased overall.

A very fun experience, and I'm looking forward to my next re-read of the story, where I'll be doing it with my very own chonky boi version held in my hands :3

[lilybug-02]

The Chara Timeline Continues...

Woah!!! Where'd all the color go?? >:(

Part 29 || First || Previous || Next

--Full Series--

I KNOW IT'S BEEN 8 MONTHS SINCE THE LAST UPDATE I WILL EXPLAIN!!!

Hello!

SO. It's a bit hard to describe the feeling of posting only one page to a comic series I've been neglecting for 8 months (which was for a good reason!). I have been intentionally distancing myself from the Undertale and Deltarune communities. Not out of malice or annoyance!!!, more just because I've grown out of it (took me 8 years lol). I wasn't feeling as excited for news updates or gameplay and I realized... I didn't enjoy constantly thinking about the series like I used to. (plus I had little time for other art, comic projects, and real life.)

So I decided to take a loooong hiatus. That was one hell of a smart decision (good job past me). I was able to THINK about other games and shows and interests. I rekindled my love of bugs and nature and SOIL and then I made a full on Hollow Knight comic. And I got to educate people on BUGS (it's been amazing).

But... Today I was reading over the comic for the first time in a long time... and I could see and feel my passion for art literally seep through the page.I remembered how much I tried to breath life into these characters and it inspired me to continue ((literally TODAY)). Because passion pushes me to do what I love :')

COMIC UPDATE:

*cough* Anyways- I wanted to let readers of this comic know that I am still unsure what the future looks like for the series. I have 5 pages scripted and essentially finished. And I do have an end game in mind (even though that may be an extra 30 pages lmao). But drawing this comic takes TIME and A LOT of ENERGY. If you guys know me,,, haha,, I'm really bad at guesstimating times. And I'm even worse at being prepared and on top of things...

I want to submit single pages from now on. AND do minimal coloring. Having multiple COLORED pages was actually wild and I do not know how I did that for so long. I am unsure when the next page will come out (because I am also STILL MAKING MY OTHER COMIC <3), but it will not be out anytime this week.

Thank you guys... From the bottom of my heart. ❤️

[gyuuberryy]

ni-ki's guide to survival: how getting lost led to love

pairing: enemy!niki x reader

synopsis: you would’ve never agreed to go on this camping trip with your friends if you had known you would get paired up with your arch nemesis. and getting lost on top of that? with the said bane of your existence? that was definitely not on your agenda.

genre: enemies to lovers, camping au, humour, comfort, little bit of angst

warnings: mentions of panic attack, bugs, kissing

note: they’re all college students btw! i had a really bad riki brainrot and i love e2l so this fic was birthed hehe

word count: 5.3k

if you liked it please reblog or comment to give me your feedback! <3

the campfire crackled merrily, casting flickering shadows on the faces of your friends huddled around it. laughter danced in the air, punctuated by the occasional chirp of a cricket. 

everyone except you and the boy sprawled on a log opposite you, a scowl permanently etched on his face. nishimura ni-ki. 

camping trips with your friends were supposed to be fun, a chance to unwind, but with your nemesis by your side, it felt more like a forced march into enemy territory.

the animosity has started innocently enough. you and ni-ki, along with your friends, had embarked on a beach trip determined to build the most epic sandcastle the world had ever seen. hours were poured into sculpting elaborate moats, towering turrets, and intricate sand sculptures. victory was within reach, your masterpiece nearing completion, when disaster struck. a rogue wave, rolled in, obliterating your creation in a single, foamy swipe.

grief turned to rage, and you, fueled by a sugar crash from a previously consumed ice cream cone, pointed the finger of blame at ni-ki. you claimed he'd jinxed the project with his "terrible sandcastle feng shui." ni-ki, ever the provocateur, countered that your "overly ambitious moat design" was structurally unsound. the blame game escalated, escalating into a full-blown sand throwing fight that left everyone covered in a gritty mix of sand and saltwater.

two years later, the incident remained a running joke within your friend group. the mere mention of "sandcastle feng shui" could send you both into a fit of giggles (or, depending on the day, simmering resentment which happened to be today). 

a mischievous grin spread across sunoo's face, the self-proclaimed "king of fun." "alright everyone, time for the foraging challenge!" he announced, pulling a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. "i've paired you all up to go gather ingredients for our stew!"

a collective groan arose, except from sunoo and heeseung, who were already whispering excitedly about wild herbs. the paper crackled in sunoo's hands as he unfolded it dramatically.

you perked up, eager to escape the suffocating tension between you and ni-ki. maybe a solo scavenging mission wouldn't be so bad. but as sunoo started assigning pairs, your stomach lurched.

"since we have an even number, the last team will be..." sunoo scanned the group, his eyes landing on you and ni-ki. a mischievous glint sparked in them. "...together."

a collective gasp arose from your friends, a mix of amusement and pity for your predicament. ni-ki, however, didn't miss a beat. he shot you a smug smirk, his eyes gleaming with a challenge.

"great," you muttered, sarcasm dripping from your voice. "just what i always wanted, a foraging partner with the survival instincts of a goldfish."

ni-ki scoffed. "says the one who gets lost in a grocery store."

memories of that disastrous shopping trip with your mom flooded your mind. you gritted your teeth.

"at least i won't accidentally set the forest on fire trying to light a campfire," you retorted, referencing a camping trip gone slightly wrong from a year back.

ni-ki's smirk faltered for a split second, a flicker of annoyance crossing his features before returning full force. "unlike you, i actually know how to tell an edible plant from a poisonous one."

"oh please, spare me the mr. nature act," you shot back, standing up and grabbing your backpack. "let's just get this over with. before you scare away all the edible plants with your bad attitude."

ni-ki rose from his log with a mocking bow. "after you, princess."

you rolled your eyes, the familiar bickering a bitter comfort in this unwelcome alliance. as you walked past your friends, you heard sunghoon mutter under his breath, "may the odds be ever in your favour." you shot him a glare, wishing for nothing more than to prove him wrong. 

the forest stretched out before you, promising a foraging adventure filled with snarky remarks, petty competition, and maybe, just maybe, a grudging respect for your unlikely partner.

the trail wound deeper into the woods, dappled sunlight filtering through the leaves overhead. the air grew thick with unspoken words, the silence punctuated only by the crunch of twigs underfoot and the occasional chirp of a bird.

"shouldn't you be skipping ahead, searching for your precious berries?" you finally snapped, unable to bear the awkward tension any longer.

"only if you promise not to poison yourself with the first wild mushroom you find, pipsqueak," ni-ki retorted, a playful glint in his eyes.

you scoffed, rolling your eyes. "at least i can tell the difference between food and foliage."

just then, you skidded to a halt, hand flying up to point. "look!"

ni-ki nearly bumped into you, surprised by your sudden stop. he followed your gaze and spotted a fawn grazing a few metres off the trail. its large, innocent eyes looked back at them curiously.

a genuine smile, devoid of their usual antagonism, softened ni-ki’s features. "aww, isn't that cute?"

"hold that thought," you whispered, excitement bubbling in your chest. you fumbled with your phone, eager to capture the adorable creature on camera.

ni-ki chuckled, a hint of amusement in his voice. "don't take all day. we're not exactly bffs on a nature walk here."

you stuck your tongue out at him playfully, focusing on getting the perfect shot. suddenly, a bloodcurdling shriek tore from your throat.

ni-ki whipped around, heart hammering in his chest. he saw you flailing your arms wildly, phone clattering to the ground. without a second thought, he sprinted towards you, fear momentarily overriding his usual animosity.

"what happened?" he gasped, skidding to a halt beside you.

"b-bug!" you stammered, pointing at a nearby leaf. "giant, horrible bug!"

ni-ki followed your shaky finger and let out a snort of laughter. perched on the leaf was a large beetle, no doubt intimidating to someone with a bug phobia, but far from the monstrous nightmare you'd made it out to be.

"seriously, that's it?" he doubled over, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. "you screamed like a banshee over a little beetle?"

you glared at him, cheeks burning with a mixture of embarrassment and lingering fear. "it was huge! and it tried to bite me!"

ignoring your protests, ni-ki sauntered over to the leaf, his amusement evident. he poked the beetle with a stick, earning a disgruntled hiss in response.

suddenly, his laughter died in his throat. the seemingly harmless beetle, disturbed by his prodding, lunged at him with surprising speed. he yelped, leaping back with a comical yelp, tripping spectacularly over a protruding root in the process.

the force of his fall sent him tumbling backwards, straight into you. with a startled cry, you lost your footing and the two of you went careening down a steep slope, a tangled mess of limbs and flying leaves.

the world became a blur of green and brown before you landed with a thud in a small clearing at the bottom. you groaned, blinking away spots as you sat up, taking stock of your surroundings. ni-ki lay sprawled a few feet away, groaning dramatically.

"well, this is just great," you muttered, brushing dirt off your clothes. you glanced at ni-ki, a flicker of amusement tugging at the corners of your lips despite the throbbing pain in your arm.

he sat up slowly, sheepish grin replacing his earlier smirk. "looks like we both owe that little beetle an apology, huh?"

the amusement in your eyes quickly morphed into pure exasperation as reality settled into you. you had no clue where you were. 

"are you kidding me, nishimura?!" you suddenly yelled, throwing your hands up in the air. "you tripped us both over a bug! how clumsy can you possibly get?"

said boy winced at your outburst, the playful glint in his eyes fading. "hey, it wasn't exactly graceful," he mumbled, dusting himself off. "but at least we're not hurt, right?"

"not hurt? we just tumbled down a freaking hill! and for what? because you couldn't resist poking a bug with a stick?"

"alright, alright," he placatingly raised his hands. "let's just calm down. the good news is, i can recognise this part of the woods. we should be able to find our way back to the trail pretty easily."

you eyed him sceptically. "how can you possibly be sure? this whole forest looks the same!"

he puffed out his chest, a hint of his usual arrogance returning. "trust me, pipsqueak. i have a good sense of direction. just follow me."

you gritted your teeth, the anger simmering just beneath the surface. given the choice, you wouldn't have trusted a lost puppy to lead you back, let alone your nemesis with a questionable sense of direction. however, with no other options, you reluctantly trailed behind him.

minutes turned into what felt like hours. the scenery seemed to repeat itself endlessly, a maze of identical trees and sun-dappled paths. panic started to gnaw at your insides.

"nishimura," you said through gritted teeth, "are we sure we're not going in circles?"

he stopped abruptly, a frown etching his face. he pulled out his phone, his expression darkening as he stared at the screen. "damn it. no signal."

your blood ran cold. "what do you mean no signal?"

"there's no cell reception out here," he admitted sheepishly. "i guess i was wrong about knowing the way back."

you stared at him, incredulous. "you got us lost, and now we can't even call for help? you are the most irresponsible person i've ever met!"

he held up his hands defensively. "whoa, hey! it was an accident! we'll figure something out, okay? just calm down."

but calm was the last thing you felt. lost, angry, and scared, you glared at ni-ki, a fierce determination replacing the fear. "we will figure this out," you declared, voice shaking with repressed anger. "but for now, shut up and follow me. maybe i have a better sense of direction than you think."

the forest floor crunched under your feet as you marched ahead, a newfound resolve hardening your features. gone was the bickering banter, replaced by a tense silence punctuated only by the occasional rustle of leaves in the breeze. ni-ki followed close behind, a sheepish silence replacing his usual bravado.

you scanned the surroundings, searching for any landmark, any sign that might lead you back to the familiar trail. the dense foliage seemed to mock your efforts, the towering trees offering no clues in their uniformity. doubt gnawed at the edges of your determination, but the thought of relying on ni-ki was far worse.

"we need to find higher ground," you finally muttered, remembering a survival tip you'd once read. "maybe we can get a better view from up there."

ni-ki nodded curtly, his earlier arrogance replaced by a hint of worry. together, you pushed through the undergrowth, searching for any sign of an incline. after what felt like an eternity, you stumbled upon a rocky outcrop, its jagged surface a stark contrast to the smooth earth around it.

scrambling up the rocks, you emerged onto a small, uneven plateau. taking a deep breath, you scanned the horizon, hoping for a glimpse of the familiar smoke plume rising from the campsite. but all you saw was a seemingly endless expanse of green, the trees blurring together in a dizzying kaleidoscope.

disappointment crashed over you, heavy and suffocating. you slumped down onto a smooth rock, the anger slowly draining away, leaving behind a cold dread. lost, with no way to contact anyone, a shiver ran down your spine despite the warm afternoon sun.

"great," you muttered, voice devoid of its earlier fire. "just brilliant."

a moment of heavy silence passed before ni-ki spoke, his voice uncharacteristically subdued. "look, i messed up, okay? i should have paid more attention, and i shouldn't have been so cocky."

you didn't respond, staring blankly at the endless sea of trees.

he continued, his voice softer now. "but freaking out isn't going to help us. we need to work together on this."

he was right, of course. but the idea of trusting him after his colossal blunder left a bitter taste in your mouth. yet, there were no other options.

with a sigh, you finally met his gaze. "fine," you conceded grudgingly. "but if we ever get out of this, i'm never letting you live this down."

a flicker of a smile played on his lips, a hint of his usual defiance returning. "deal. now, how about we put our survival skills to the test, pipsqueak? together."

the animosity was still there, simmering just beneath the surface. but in the face of you predicament, a fragile truce had been formed. you weren't friends, not by a long shot. but for now, you were stuck with each other, and survival depended on a begrudging cooperation.

as the golden light of the afternoon began to fade, long shadows stretched across the forest floor, deepening the gloom beneath the dense canopy. the chirping of birds had been replaced by the eerie calls of nocturnal creatures, sending shivers down your spine.

the initial anger you felt towards ni-ki had morphed into a gnawing fear. the realisation that you were truly lost, with no way to contact anyone, settled in your stomach like a lead weight.

your breaths came in ragged gasps, the realisation of your situation finally hitting you with full force.

tears welled up in your eyes, blurring your vision. a choked sob escaped your lips, quickly escalating into a full-blown panic attack. hyperventilating, you clutched your chest, the world seeming to shrink around you.

suddenly, a hand landed gently on your shoulder. you flinched, expecting another snarky remark from ni-ki. but instead, his voice was soft, laced with concern.

"hey, hey," he soothed, his hand moving to wipe away a stray tear that traced its way down your cheek. "it's okay. we'll be alright."

his touch, surprisingly gentle, sent a jolt through you. you were so used to your constant sparring that this sudden tenderness was completely disarming.

"we just need to calm down," he continued, his voice low and calming. "we can't think clearly if you're panicking. look at me."

hesitantly, you met his gaze. his eyes, usually sparkling with mischief, were now filled with a genuine concern you hadn't seen before.

"we'll find our way back," he promised, his voice firm but reassuring. "the sun will rise again in the morning, and with daylight, everything will seem clearer. we'll figure out a plan then."

his words, surprisingly, had a calming effect. you took a deep, shaky breath, forcing yourself to focus on the rhythm of your inhalations and exhalations. slowly, the panic began to recede, leaving you drained but a little hopeful.

together, you searched for a suitable spot. you found it nestled under the sprawling branches of an ancient oak, its thick trunk offering a sense of security. the ground beneath it was clear of debris, providing a relatively comfortable place to sit.

ni-ki helped you gather fallen leaves and twigs, creating a makeshift cushion. you settled onto it, your body trembling slightly despite the warmth of the setting sun.

he sat down beside you, a respectful distance separating your bodies. the air crackled with an awkward silence, a stark contrast to your earlier bickering.

"thank you," you finally whispered, surprised by the words leaving your lips.

he offered a small smile. "for what?"

"for...not being a jerk," you mumbled, embarrassed.

he chuckled softly, a sound devoid of mockery. "seems like we both have to learn to cooperate sometimes, pipsqueak."

you couldn't help but let out a weak smile, a small flicker of warmth returning to your chest. maybe, just maybe, there was a sliver of humanity beneath ni-ki's cocky exterior. as the last rays of sunlight dipped below the horizon, plunging the forest into darkness, you leaned back against the rough bark of the oak, a strange sense of calm washing over you. 

you weren't friends, not by a long shot. but for now, in the face of the unknown, you had each other. and perhaps, just perhaps, this forced cooperation might lead to something more, something you weren't quite ready to name.

the forest floor was a tapestry of inky black shadows under the cloak of night. the initial panic had subsided, replaced by a gnawing hunger that rumbled in your stomach. you glanced at the pile of foraged mushrooms and roots nestled beside you, a meagre dinner at best.

"so," ni-ki drawled, his voice barely a whisper in the stillness. "any idea how to build a fire with those twigs?"

you scoffed. "as if you could tell a pinecone from a pile of leaves."

he shot you a mock glare. "says the one who screamed at a beetle."

you swatted his arm playfully, surprised at the almost friendly gesture. "alright, alright. i may have overreacted a bit."

a flicker of amusement danced in his eyes. "a bit? pip squeak, you practically launched yourself into orbit."

despite the teasing, a small smile tugged at the corner of your lips. you fumbled with the meagre tinder you'd gathered, frustration building. just as you were about to give up, a gentle hand reached for yours.

"here," he murmured, taking the twigs from your grasp. "let me show you."

with surprising dexterity, he built a small, precarious structure of leaves and twigs. you watched in fascination as he coaxed a spark from a flint and steel you hadn't even noticed him carrying. soon, a tiny flame flickered to life, growing steadily into a small but comforting fire.

a sense of peace, however fragile, settled between you as you roasted the meagre mushrooms and roots over the flames. the silence wasn't antagonistic anymore, filled instead with the crackling fire and the occasional chirping of crickets.

"so," you started hesitantly, "what made you decide to learn survival skills?"

he shrugged, poking a particularly stubborn mushroom with a stick. "always good to be prepared, you know? never know when you might end up stranded in the middle of nowhere with a drama queen for company."

you threw a playful punch at his arm, the sting of your earlier animosity fading. "hey, at least i don't trip over bugs."

he chuckled, the sound surprisingly warm. "touché, pipsqueak."

as you ate your dinner, you found yourself stealing glances at him. in the flickering firelight, his face seemed softer, less arrogant. you realised with a jolt that his presence, although unexpected, wasn't actually that bad. maybe this forced cooperation was revealing a side of ni-ki you hadn't seen before.

the night wore on, the stars twinkling coldly above. the fire had long since died, leaving behind a fading warmth that couldn't compete with the growing chill. you shifted uncomfortably, the hard ground digging into your back. a shiver wracked your body, the thin jacket doing little to ward off the creeping cold.

out of the corner of your eye, you saw ni-ki shift too, his shoulders slumped against the tree. he let out a barely audible sigh, his breath misting in the cool air.

neither of you spoke, but a silent understanding hung in the air. you were both miserable, the bitter taste of rivalry a distant memory compared to the immediate need for warmth.

with a hesitant movement, you inched closer to the tree trunk, hoping to find a slightly more comfortable position. almost imperceptibly, ni-ki did the same. your shoulders brushed, a jolt of surprise shooting through you. he didn't move away, and after a moment, you leaned in slightly, seeking a sliver of shared warmth.

his arm was close now, separated by only the thin layer of your jacket. you stole a glance at him, expecting a sarcastic remark or a playful jab. but his eyes were closed, his face etched with fatigue.

hesitantly, you reached out, stopping just before your hand touched his arm. he stirred slightly, a low murmur escaping his lips. taking a deep breath, you rested your hand lightly against the worn fabric of his jacket, just below his elbow.

he didn't flinch. instead, he seemed to relax a fraction more, his arm moving ever so slightly to brush against yours.

in the silence broken only by the rustle of leaves and the occasional hoot of an owl, you found a strange comfort. maybe it was the shared misery of the situation, maybe it was the unexpected friendly(?) atmosphere that had sprung up between you. whatever it was, the tension had melted away, replaced by a fragile sense of trust.

sleep claimed you slowly, the warmth of your shared body heat a welcome haven against the encroaching chill. you didn't fall asleep with the intention of being close, but in the quiet intimacy of the night, you found a solace you hadn't expected. as you drifted off, a single thought flickered through your mind: maybe this forced adventure wouldn't be so bad after all.

the first sliver of sunlight, faint and tentative, peeked through the dense canopy, painting delicate stripes across ni-ki's eyelids. he stirred, a low groan escaping his lips as the ache in his back made itself known. he cracked one eye open, then the other, blinking against the sudden brightness.

his breath hitched. you were nestled against him, your head resting on his chest. your arms were wrapped tightly around him, one hand burrowed into the thin fabric of his shirt. his chin rested on the crown of your head, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.

he had absolutely no memory of this happening. had you gotten cold in the night and sought his warmth instinctively? the thought sent a warmth of its own blooming in his chest, a warmth at odds with the chill of the morning air. he was utterly captivated. you looked peaceful, your normally sharp features softened in sleep, a light dusting of pink staining your cheeks.

just as he was about to lose himself in the unexpected sight, your eyes fluttered open. they met his gaze, and a slow, mischievous smile spread across your face.

"good morning, sleepyhead," you murmured, your voice thick with sleep.

ni-ki's cheeks flushed crimson. "m-morning," he stammered, his voice rough from disuse. he tried to disentangle himself from your hold, feeling ridiculously flustered by your closeness.

"nope," you declared playfully, tightening your grip. "this is actually really comfortable. don't move."

he froze, his cheeks burning hotter than ever. his mind raced, torn between wanting to maintain this unexpected closeness and wanting to bolt. a small chuckle escaped your lips, the sound vibrating against his chest.

"relax, drama king," you said, your voice soft. "we're not exactly cuddling in a meadow filled with daisies."

he couldn't help but let out a small laugh himself. the tension started to ease, replaced by a warmth that had nothing to do with the rising sun. slowly, he re-wrapped his arm around you, drawing you closer.

"fine," he conceded, feigning annoyance. "but don't think this changes anything, pipsqueak."

you threw your head back and laughed, a bright, genuine sound that echoed through the silent forest. "of course not, ni-ki," you replied, your voice playful. "we're still enemies, remember?"

"enemies who share a surprisingly comfortable tree," he countered, his gaze flickering to the way your hand instinctively rested on his arm.

"so," you said after a moment of comfortable silence, "how do you propose we get ourselves out of this mess?"

the playful mood evaporated as the reality of their situation came flooding back. he cleared his throat, forcing himself to focus. "we need to find a landmark, something we remember from the trail. maybe a creek, or a distinctive rock formation. then we can work our way back from there."

you hummed in agreement, your head nuzzling deeper into his chest. "alright, well, let's not get up just yet. it's still pretty cold out here."

a small smile tugged at ni-ki's lips. this unexpected closeness, born out of necessity, felt strangely…nice. he wasn't sure what the future held, or if this forced truce would last beyond getting back to camp, but for now, in the quiet intimacy of the morning, he wouldn't trade this for anything. "yeah," he agreed, feeling a warmth spread through him that had nothing to do with the rising sun. "let's stay here just a little while longer."

the forest around you both remained cloaked in a pre-dawn twilight, but the horizon was ablaze with the promise of a new day. streaks of fiery orange and vibrant pink bled into the inky blue sky, painting a breathtaking canvas above the silent trees. you couldn't help but let out a soft gasp of awe, the discomfort of the hard ground momentarily forgotten.

ni-ki glanced down at you, his gaze lingering on the way your eyes sparkled in the soft light. "beautiful, isn't it?" he murmured, his voice barely a whisper.

you nodded, mesmerised by the vibrant display of colours. "it's incredible," you breathed.

a comfortable silence settled between you, the only sounds the gentle rustle of leaves and the chirping of a few early birds. despite the awkwardness of your situation, a strange sense of peace washed over you. ni-ki, with his arm still loosely wrapped around you, seemed less arrogant in the morning light, a hint of vulnerability softening his features.

as the sun climbed higher, painting the leaves in a warm golden glow, you tore your gaze away from the sky. "alright," you announced, a newfound determination in your voice. "let's get serious about finding our way back."

ni-ki mirrored your seriousness. "right. we need to focus." he sat up straight, his gaze scanning the surrounding area. "do you remember anything about the trail? a specific tree, maybe, or a turn-off?"

you wracked your brain, a memory flickering to life. "there was a large, twisted oak tree on the right side of the trail, just before a steep downhill slope. maybe if we can find that..."

"bingo!" ni-ki exclaimed, a grin splitting his face. "i remember that tree too! it was kind of gnarled and had these weird, knobbly branches."

relief flooded your chest. "okay, so let's head east. the sun should be rising in the east, right?"

ni-ki nodded, pulling out the compass he'd managed to find tucked away in a pocket of his backpack. "yeah, the sun should be roughly in the east at this time." he consulted the compass for a moment, then pointed in a direction. "alright, this way."

together, you rose to your feet, your muscles protesting slightly after a night spent on the cold ground. but the prospect of finding your way back to your friends fuelled your movements. you followed the direction ni-ki indicated, carefully navigating the trees, your eyes peeled for any sign of the twisted oak.

the forest seemed less menacing in the bright morning light. you pointed out landmarks – a fallen log, a clump of brightly coloured mushrooms – hoping they might jog ni-ki's memory. he, in turn, shared his knowledge of edible plants and tracking techniques, a surprising wellspring of information hidden beneath his usual cocky exterior.

after what felt like an eternity, your heart leaped into your throat. there, standing defiant against the backdrop of younger trees, was the twisted oak you remembered. you let out a whoop of joy, a sound that echoed through the silent trees.

ni-ki's face mirrored your elation, a genuine smile gracing his features.

relief and a strange sense of accomplishment washed over you. you had faced your fear, survived the night, and most importantly, worked together. maybe, just maybe, this experience would change your dynamic with ni-ki, adding a layer of respect and perhaps a touch of something more.

the familiar path leading back to the campsite emerged from the trees, a beacon of hope and relief. a surge of exhilaration coursed through you. you had made it! without thinking, you spun towards ni-ki, a wide grin splitting your face.

"we did it!" you exclaimed, reaching out impulsively. your fingers grazed his cheek, sending a jolt through you. fuelled by the adrenaline of the moment, and perhaps the lingering intimacy of the night, you leaned in further, your lips brushing against his in a sudden, unexpected kiss.

the world seemed to shrink to just the two of you. time slowed, the sound of the forest fading away. but the kiss was short-lived. ni-ki froze, his eyes widening in surprise. he gently pushed you away, his breath hitching.

"whoa," he stammered, his voice laced with confusion. "what was that?"

you stumbled back, cheeks burning with embarrassment. your mind raced, replaying the past few seconds in a humiliating loop. what had you just done? the audacity of your own actions left you speechless.

"i-i..." you stammered, searching for an explanation that wouldn't sound completely insane. "i'm just...so relieved we're back. thank you for helping me, ni-ki." the words sounded lame even to your own ears.

but before you could retreat any further, ni-ki surprised you again. his hand shot out, grabbing you firmly by the waist and pulling you back towards him. this time, there was no hesitation in his eyes. he leaned in, his lips meeting yours in a kiss that was anything but hesitant.

you melted against him, all thoughts of embarrassment melting away in the heat of the moment. you responded instinctively, your arms wrapping around his neck as you deepened the kiss. the forest around you faded away, the only sound the frantic thudding of your own heart.

finally, ni-ki pulled away, his breath ragged. his eyes, usually so sharp and playful, were now a warm brown, flecked with gold in the morning sunlight. a slow smile spread across his face, a genuine, unguarded smile that sent a flutter to your stomach.

"wow," he breathed, his voice husky. "that was..." he trailed off, searching for the right words.

you swallowed, your own voice barely a whisper. "unexpected?"

he chuckled, a low rumble that sent shivers down your spine. "unexpected is definitely one word for it." he paused, his gaze holding yours. "but not unwelcome."

the sound of distant shouts jolted you both back to reality. a chorus of voices, laced with worry and relief, echoed through the trees. you pulled away from ni-ki, suddenly acutely aware of your dishevelled state and the way his lips tingled where yours had been.

"there you two are!" heeseung's voice cut through the trees as he emerged from the path, followed by your other friends. relief washed over their faces, quickly replaced by a flurry of questions and concerned chatter.

"we were starting to think you got eaten by a bear!" sunoo exclaimed, his eyes wide.

you launched into a rapid-fire explanation of your ordeal, leaving out the very recent, and frankly, earth-shattering development with ni-ki. your friends listened intently, bombarding you with questions about the night and how you managed to find your way back.

through it all, you were hyper aware of ni-ki standing beside you. he chimed in occasionally, his voice oddly subdued, and you could steal glances at him, catching the hint of a smile playing on his lips.

then, as you finished your story, jake nudged you playfully. "wow, you guys must have been really scared out there all night. scared enough to, i don't know, eat each other's faces off?"

a collective gasp went up from your friends, their eyes darting between you and ni-ki. your cheeks burned crimson. "what? no!" you sputtered, flustered.

ni-ki chuckled, a low sound that sent shivers down your spine. "yeah, jake," he drawled, his voice teasing. "luckily for us, bears were the only thing on the menu last night."

his playful jab sent another wave of heat flooding your face. you stole a glance at him, and your breath caught in your throat. he was looking at you, a hint of amusement dancing in his eyes, but there was something else there too, something warm and unguarded that made your heart skip a beat.

you looked away quickly, a shy smile tugging at your lips. maybe this unexpected turn of events wasn't so bad after all.

𝗰𝗼𝗽𝘆𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 ©𝗴𝘆𝘂𝘂𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗿𝘆𝘆 on Tumblr

˚ · .𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗱

[monzabee]

lean on you – cl16

masterlist

Summary: The one where you learn to lean on Charles more than you thought you ever could.

Pairing: charles leclerc x medstudent!reader

Word Count: 3.9k

Warnings: it’s been a while since i went to an actual hospital, so that, and also worried charles, mentions of sickness and vomiting, also mentions of food poisoning

Request: “Hiiii! I don’t know if you still accept request😅 but I have something in my mind if you are open to it, like the reader is quite sick before Charles’ race, he wanted to stay to take care of her but she insisted that he go on with the race and that she’ll be fine. But during the race, Charles’ got a call that she have been taken to the hospital by Lorenzo since she almost passed out. Charles went straight to the hospital and bit mad and angry at her being so stubborn. I just think Charles can be over protective and can be so upset or angry when he get very worried. Like how Charles will emphasise that she have him instead of being so independent all the time. 🤍🤍🤍 thank you if you will do it, but if not, it’s alright too! I just love and enjoy reading all your works!🤩 ”+ “Can you write a fic where the reader is a med!student with Charles? (definitely not projecting🫣)”

Author’s Note: hi, hey, hello!! i loved both of these concepts and i though they’d go well together, because most of my friends who are also med students love diagnosing themselves?? i kind of wanted to based the reader off of bow from black-ish if you guys ever watched it, it’s my current watch and i love her so much!! it was very fun for me to write, and thank you to both of the anons for their requests! Feedback is always appreciated, and i hope you guys enjoy! good morning, noon or night wherever you are, xoxobee

Please also note that all of my works are protected under copyright, and not available for reposting on other platforms. 

“Are you sure you’re fine, mignon? You look worse than you did last night.” Charles lets his eyes look over your fatigued figure in your bed, worry etched into his eyebrows.

Giving him a weak smile, you do your best to reassure his worries by reaching for his hand resting on the side of his body. “I’m fine, love, I feel better than I did yesterday.” Charles sighs softly, his worry not entirely dissipating. He moves closer to the bed, his hand tightening around yours, and you squeeze his hand gently, relaying the message that you appreciate his concern. “I really am, you don’t have to worry about me, okay?”

“You say as if that’s an easy thing, love.” He emphasises, giving you a small smile that still allows you to see the dimples on his cheeks. “I just don’t want to leave you alone, you seem worse than you did last night.”

Your expression softens as you recall the way he doted on you the previous evening, no matter how much you told him that you were doing fine. “I promise I’m feeling much better, it’s nothing but a stomach bug – and I promise I’ll rest today, too.”

Charles leans down and places a gentle kiss on your forehead. “You better keep that promise and rest, it’s doctor’s orders," he says with a hint of playfulness in his voice. "I'll hold you to it.”

You chuckle weakly, appreciating his attempt to lighten the mood. “I promise, Charles. I'll stay in bed, take my medicine, and rest. I have some lecture stuff I have to go over, anyway." You pause, looking up at him with sincere eyes. "And you need to focus on your race. I don't want you to worry about me, be careful out there please.”

His lips form a mock pout, making your facial muscles to pull in an involuntary smile, “But my favourite part is the part where my doctor takes care of me,” his thumb draws a comforting circle on your hand, “your kisses help immensely.”

You blush at his playful comment, grateful for his affectionate nature even in times of worry. “I promise I’ll give you kisses when you come back, but only if you promise you’ll be careful.” You sigh deeply at the boyish grin he sends your way, “I’m serious, Charles.”

Charles's expression softens, and he reaches out to cup your face in his hands, his touch gentle yet firm. "I promise, my love. I'll be careful. Do you need me to bring you anything before I leave?”

Your nod is sluggish and doesn’t go unnoticed by Charles, but he chooses to remain silent as he gives you a moment to think about your answer. “Can you just give me my computer and anatomy book, please?” You watch as Charles nods in understanding. He leans down to give you a tender kiss on the lips before making his way to the desk where your belongings are kept. Retrieving the items you requested, he returns to your bedside, placing them gently on the bed beside you.

"Here you go, mignon," he says softly, his voice filled with genuine concern. He notices the way you keep fiddling with the collar of his your sweatshirt – a habit you usually display when you’re sick because the clothing usually causes overstimulation in your mind. “Do you want me to bring you some water? Or maybe order room service?”

You shake your head to the either side this time, giving him a sleepy smile as you start talking, “I’m good, but thank you, darling.” You let out a small giggle at the unapproving glance he sends your way, “I promise I’ll order some food when I get hungry, Charles.”

Charles chuckles softly, his eyes filled with a mix of amusement and concern at the way you emphasise the word. "Alright, love. Just make sure you take care of yourself and eat something nutritious. I don't want you skipping meals, even if you're not feeling well."

You nod, appreciating his reminder. "I promise, Charles. I'll make sure to eat when I need to. But for now, I think I'll focus on studying and getting some rest."

He leans in to press a gentle kiss to your temple, his warm breath brushing against your skin. "That sounds like a good plan. I'll leave you to it then, but remember to reach out if you need anything, okay?"

"I will," you reply softly, your eyes growing heavy with fatigue. "Thank you for taking care of me, Charles. I love you."

He smiles warmly, his eyes filled with affection. "I love you too, mignon. Rest well and take all the time you need. I'll see you soon." With that, Charles gives your hand a final squeeze and presses his lips to your forehead in a parting kiss before reluctantly pulling away and leaving the room. Taking a deep breath, you focus on the task at hand, determined to make the most of your day even if you’re feeling a bit down.

It’s not easy for Charles to focus on his driving that day, not easy at all. He can’t seem to focus on the track when you seem to occupy his mind and linger in his thoughts. The people around him notices the way he seems almost detached at the garage that day, and also noticing your absence, thankfully they accommodate him and his aloofness the best they can. He keeps an eye on his phone the entire time before he gets in the car – something he usually never does before a race just in case you call him in need of assistance. Charles takes a deep breath, trying to clear his mind as he prepares for the race. He knows he needs to focus, but his thoughts keep drifting back to you. Concern and worry gnaw at him, making it difficult to fully immerse himself in the adrenaline of the race.

Before climbing into his car, he approaches his brother, who is thankfully standing nearby. He looks into Lorenzo's eyes and speaks in a hushed tone, “Hey, can you do me a favour?”

Lorenzo, sensing the urgency in Charles' voice, gives him a nod, his own concern mirrored in his eyes. “Of course, Charles. What do you need? Is everything alright?”

Charles takes a moment to gather his thoughts before responding. “I need you to keep an eye on my phone, Y/N wasn’t feeling too good this morning, and i have a bad feeling about it.” He hands Lorenzo his phone, making sure to check one for one last time to see whether you’ve texted or called him, you haven’t.

Lorenzo's brows furrow with worry as he listens to Charles, but he understands the gravity of the situation and the significance of Charles' request. "Don't worry, Charles, I'll take care of it – and I'll let you know if anything happens. You focus on the race, and I'll make sure everything is handled."

With that assurance, Charles turns his attention back to the race ahead and quickly puts on his balaclava and helmet. He climbs into his car, adjusting his helmet and securing himself in the cockpit. The anticipation and excitement of the race surround him, but his mind remains consumed with worry for you as he tries to assure himself that you are fine and resting back at the hotel. The race begins, and Charles pushes the limits of his car, manoeuvring through the twists and turns of the track. But no matter how hard he tries, he can't fully immerse himself in the competitive spirit. Thoughts of you and your well-being linger, distracting him from the task at hand. His racing instincts seem dull, his reaction time slightly delayed, and he struggles to find his usual pace.

As the laps pass by, Charles notices that he's slipping further and further behind, unable to keep up with the leading pack. Frustration mounts within him, battling against his worry for you. The race that should have been a chance for him to shine becomes an arduous struggle to maintain his composure, as he struggles to keep up with the cars infront, the ones behind him seemingly passing him with ease and causing him to drop out of points. So despite his best efforts, Charles finishes the race with a disappointing result, far from his usual position on the podium. He steps out of the car, feeling a mix of exhaustion and disappointment washing over him. The familiar cheers from the crowd seem distant, overshadowed by his concern for you. His mind is occupied by imagining the worst as he gets out of his car, takes off his helmet and stumbles towards the team's garage. The once vibrant atmosphere now feels muted, as if the world around him has lost its importance. He can sense the curious glances and sympathetic looks from his fellow team members, but he can't bring himself to socialise with any of them.

His eyes hastily search for his brother, but Lorenzo is the one who finds him before he can spot him. Lorenzo's concerned gaze locks with Charles’, and he quickly makes his way toward him, his steps mirroring Charles’ urgency. Understanding the look in his brother’s eyes instantly, Charles asks, “What’s wrong? Is it Y/N? Is everything alright?”

Charles watches his brother expectantly as he places a comforting hand on his shoulder, making him want to slap his hand away, but the next words that come out of his mouth is enough to takes his breath away, “Carlos is on the phone with the hospital–”

“Hospital?” Charles interrupts Lorenzo, “Qu'est-ce que tu veux dire par l'hôpital qui t'a appelé?” What do you mean the hospital called you?

“Calm down, Charles, laisse-moi t'expliquer.” Lorenzo gives him a pointed look, and gently steer him towards his teammate’s cousin, “Y/N called me from the taxi, she said she was going to the hospital because she wasn’t feeling well,” he raises a hand to stop Charles from interrupting again, “she also told me that she’d call me once she got to the hospital but she didn’t, I’m guessing her phone died and the hospital called me instead. But my Spanish is non-existent and Carlos is talking to them, so for the love of God, calme-toi un peu.”

Charles's mind races with a mix of relief and anxiety upon hearing Lorenzo's explanation. He takes a deep breath, trying to regain his composure as he listens to his brother's words. The realization that Y/N is at the hospital sinks in, bringing a wave of concern to the forefront of his thoughts. Nodding in acknowledgment, Charles tries to calm his racing heartbeat and focus on the information at hand. “My girlfriend is at a hospital in a country she’s not familiar with, how do you expect me to calm down?”

“Just wait for a moment, we’ll have more information when Carlos is done talking to the hospital-people.” Lorenzo reassures him, and it helps Charles to focus on the current issue at hand – learning the name of the hospital and finding his way there as fast as possible.

Taking Lorenzo's advice to heart, Charles tries to steady his racing thoughts and focus on the present. He takes another deep breath, reminding himself to stay calm and composed. The minutes feel like an eternity as they wait for Carlos to conclude the call. Finally, Carlos hangs up the phone and approaches Charles and Lorenzo, his expression grave but determined. "The hospital confirmed that Y/N arrived safely," Carlos begins, his voice steady. "They're currently conducting some tests to determine the cause of her discomfort. The initial assessment suggests it may be a severe case of food poisoning."

A certain degree of understanding and relief washes over Charles as he lets Carlos’ words sink in. He offers his teammate’s cousin a grateful look, “Thank you for your help, Carlos,” he nods his head in appreciation, “do you have the name of the hospital?”

Carlos returns Charles's grateful look with a reassuring smile and a nod, “It’s the Hospital Quirónsalud Barcelona, she’s a smart girl, Charles, it’s an international hospital so she shouldn’t have any problems communicating with the doctors.” He pats Charles’ shoulder when the latter gives him a confused look, “You weren’t exactly quiet, mate.”

Charles lets out a small chuckle, realizing that his worries may have been more apparent than he thought. He appreciates Carlos' attempt to lighten the mood and offers a grateful smile. "You're right, I probably wasn't the most composed person just now," he admits, "but I'm glad Y/N is in good hands at hospital and thank you for your help, I appreciate it."

“No need to thank me, I hope she’s doing okay.” The older man smiles and gives him a final nod as he makes his way towards his cousin.

“Charles,” one of the PR people starts as they make their way towards the duo, “you still have media–”

The look Charles gives the poor intern in return can only be described as a mix of exhaustion and frustration. He interrupts the PR person before they can finish their sentence. “Bill me.” He, then, turns to his brother as he shoots him an expectant look, “Can we go?”

“Come on, I’ll drive,” Charles hears his brother’s voice, which causes him to raise his eyebrows and receive in return, “you’re obviously too high on adrenaline right now, let me drive.”

Charles, recognizing his own state of mind, doesn't argue. He nods in agreement and takes a seat in the passenger side, grateful for his brother's support, but because he is Charles, he mumbles, “You better drive fast,” under his breath as he follows his brother out of the garage.

As the car navigates through the busy streets of Barcelona, Charles finds himself lost in his thoughts – he glances out the window, his eyes darting from building to building, as if searching for answers that lie beyond the glass. The tension in the air is palpable, the silence between the brothers punctuated only by the hum of the engine and the occasional sound of horns from other impatient drivers. He tries contacting the hospital once again, but it seems like luck is not on his side as the operator speaks to him solely in Spanish, which makes him reconsider what Carlos told him earlier. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, the Hospital Quirónsalud Barcelona comes into view. Charles feels a surge of hope mixed with anxiety as Lorenzo skilfully manoeuvres the car into a parking spot. Charles is out of the car before Lorenzo even turns off the engine, which earns him a scolding from his brother, but he’s almost halfway through the walk to the entrance as he waves Lorenzo off.

As Charles approaches the entrance of the hospital, his pace quickens with a mix of urgency and concern. The automatic doors slide open, welcoming him into the bustling lobby. The sterile smell of disinfectant fills his nostrils, and the sound of footsteps echoes through the halls.

He makes his way to the reception desk, where a receptionist greets him with a warm smile, and (thankfully) speaks in English, “Good evening, how can I help you?”

Breathing heavily, Charles tries to gather his thoughts and speak clearly. “My girlfriend was admitted through ER earlier today, Y/N Y/LN. Can you please tell me her room number and how she’s doing?”

The receptionist nods sympathetically. “I understand your concern, let me check the system for you.” She begins typing on her computer, her fingers dancing across the keyboard. After a few moments, she looks up at Charles. “I do see her in our system, but I don't have access to that information. You'll need to speak with someone from the emergency department.”

Frustration wells up within Charles, but he takes a deep breath and reminds himself to stay calm. "Can you at least direct me to the emergency department?"

The receptionist offers an understanding smile. "Of course. Head down this corridor and take the first right. You'll find the emergency department entrance on your left."

Thanking the receptionist, Charles follows her directions, his heart pounding with a mix of anticipation and worry. He walks briskly, determined to reach Y/N's side as quickly as possible. As he enters the emergency department, the sense of urgency intensifies – he watches the hustle and bustle of the hospital; how the medical staff rush by, attending to patients in need and people who are waiting to see their loved ones just like him. His legs aimlessly takes him to the nearest a nurse station and approaches a nurse who seems available. “Excuse me, Miss” he calls out, trying to catch her attention. The nurse turns to him with a professional yet compassionate gaze. “I'm looking for my girlfriend, Y/N Y/LN. Can you please tell me where I can find her?”

“Let me check her records,” the nurse smiles at him, an attempt to calm him and goes through the papers on the chart in her hands. “Here she is, it seems that she was recently moved – she’s supposed be in room 376, it’s on the third level, at the end of the main hallway.”

Relief floods over Charles as he receives the information from the nurse. He manages a grateful smile and nods in appreciation. "Thank you so much. I'll head there right away."

After thanking the nurse, Charles makes his way towards the elevators, following the signs that lead him to the third level. As he steps into the elevator, he can feel his heart pounding in his chest, a mixture of nervousness and anticipation. He makes sure he sends Lorenzo a text message to let him know where’s he’s headed, the ride to the third floor feels agonizingly slow, each passing floor adding to his impatience. When the elevator doors finally open, Charles steps out and finds himself in a long, well-lit hallway. He scans the room numbers, his eyes quickly landing on the sign indicating the direction of room 376. With determined strides, he makes his way down the hallway, passing by other patients' rooms and medical staff going about their duties.

Finally, he reaches room 376, and his breath catches in his throat. Taking a moment to steady himself, he gently pushes the door open, revealing a small but comforting space. Inside, he finds you lying in the hospital bed, an IV connected to your arm and one of your textbooks open on the bed beside you. He realises you’re asleep, however, as he watches you from afar. Seeing you lying there, Charles feels a mix of emotions overwhelm him—relief that you’re safe and being cared for, concern for your well-being, and a deep longing to be by your side. He approaches the bed with cautious steps, taking in your pale complexion and the weary lines etched on your face.

Gently, Charles pulls up a chair beside your bed and sits down, not wanting to disturb your much-needed rest. He reaches out and lightly brushes a strand of hair away from your face, a tender smile gracing his lips as he watches you sleep. Gently, he reaches out and takes your hand in his, offering her a tender squeeze. "Hey," he whispers softly, not wanting to startle you. "I'm here. You're going to be okay."

You stir slightly, your eyes fluttering open. A weak smile graces your lips as you recognise Charles. "Charles," she murmurs, her voice hoarse but filled with warmth. "You came."

Charles feels a surge relief wash over him, he leans in closer, his voice filled with genuine concern. "Of course, I came, I'll always be here for you, chérie. What happened? How are you feeling?"

“I’m better now,” your voice comes off hoarse, and it makes Charles cringe inwardly, “I just wanted to come to the hospital because i kept throwing up and thought I had all the signs of food poisoning – but, honey, what are you wearing?”

Charles glances down at his attire, realizing he's still in his racing gear. “I didn’t have time to change,” he explains, his head tilted to the side as he gives you a strict look, “I should have just stayed with you.”

“You had a race, Charles,” your eyes widen in recognition as you remember the race. “Oh my god, how was it? Did you–”

“The race doesn’t matter, Y/N.” Charles interrupts, eyebrows furrowed in frustration. “I wish you wouldn’t try to be so independent all the time.”

He watches as your lips form a pout, your voice coming off more vulnerable than before as you ask, “What?”

"Y/N," he says softly, his voice filled with emotion. "What were you thinking? Why didn't you tell me you were feeling this sick? I could have been here for you."

You give him a guilty look, the pout on your lips becoming deeper. "I didn't want to worry you, Charles. I thought I could handle it on my own."

His frustration melts away as he takes in your weakened state. He moves closer, his hand gently cupping your cheek. "You don't have to handle everything on your own, love. I'm here for you, always. I would have been by your side if you had just let me. I should have been there with you today, not at some race when you were puking your guts out.” He pauses, his thumb caressing the back of your cheek soothingly. “I know you value your independence, and I admire that about you. But sometimes, it's okay to lean on others, especially when you're going through tough times. You don't have to carry everything on your own.”

You listen to Charles's words, and a mixture of emotions swirl within you. His concern and care touch your heart, but you also understand the frustration he expresses. With a soft sigh, you squeeze his hand gently. You shift slightly in the bed, wincing at the discomfort. "Being independent has been a part of me for so long, and it's hard to let go of that mindset completely. But I'm learning, slowly, to find a balance, and I'm learning to lean on you when I need to and to share my burdens with you." You give him the softest smile you can muster, “I promise I’ll try to be better, darling.”

His thumb brushes away a tear from your cheek, his touch gentle and comforting. "You don't have to apologize, mignon. I understand why you wanted me to race, but your health and well-being will always be my priority. I don't want you to ever feel like you have to face things alone. We're a team, remember?"

You nod, your voice barely above a whisper. "I know we are, and I’m sorry for worrying you, darling." You lean into his touch, feeling the warmth of his hand against your skin, and with a soft sigh, you begin speaking again. "I promise that I’ll lean on you more and remember that we’re a team.”

Charles leans down, pressing a tender kiss to your forehead. "That's all I ask, love. Just remember that you have me, and I'll always be here for you, okay? I love you."

As you feel his lips on your forehead, a sense of comfort and love washes over you. You gaze into his eyes, filled with gratitude and affection. "I love you too, Charles," you whisper, your voice filled with sincerity. "Thank you for always being there for me, even when I push you away. I'm so grateful to have you by my side."

[hexfloog]

i am sooo thematically consistent actually lmfao

My final contribution to Repostober 2024 :) Loose "redraw" of this sketch that I posted last year. Scan and words below the break.

I know the phrase "rewired my brain" gets thrown around a lot in fandom but I honest-to-God think Ghost Channel really did it. If it's not THE formative thing in my taste for horror, it imprinted pretty damn hard on my little babby brain. To this day, the memory of watching it for the first time stands out as my earliest experience where I've needed to pick my jaw off the floor and then marinate for a bit.

For those not in the know, Ghost Channel is an episode late into season one of Code: Lyoko. It is freely available to watch online, but if you're even a little interested in watching it, I highly recommend watching it in sequence, despite the episodic nature of S1.

Original scan, from 2009ish:

I'm sure I've mentioned it, but before I realized the importance of archiving my art I threw away virtually everything I had relating to CL >___< Later, I thought it might be fun to redraw some pillars from my childhood fandoms and this sketch happened. I've posted a few things for Repostober so far that were products of this same effort.

Reinterpreting this in 2024 was a challenge. My taste in horror hasn't changed much over the years, but the way I enjoy it definitely has. The 2009 scan reads as an in-your-face tribute to the episode (to me, at least), but these days I'm a much, MUCH bigger fan of subtlety and the power of implication. Redrawing it 1:1 bugged me a little since I didn't feel it'd meet my current standards or do the episode justice. I'm a firm believer in "less is more" so I spent a loootttt of time grappling with a good 'redraw' that 2024 me would accept while still passing as... well... a redraw xD I suppose it is still conceptually the same.

Jeremie is easily my favorite in the CL gang which definitely has nothing to do with the fact that I seem to have a proven history of latching onto the prodigal child with glasses and I've always found it crazy poetic that one of the only (or maybe the only?) big bad's true manifestations in the show is in his image. Something something thematic parallels, you love to see it >:) CL already has this habit of depicting shit that I would normally attribute to the modus operandi of a supernatural, demonic force so of COURSE I was gonna get in on this LMAO

Unfortunately, unless I find a hidden stash of old CL fanart somewhere... or enough time passes for me to draw this again... this is probably my last CL art for a while </3

On a more technical note for as much time as I gave myself for this I really popped off, especially on the background o___o Code Lyoko BG art goes super hard in general though, I don't think I would have settled for anything less. Had tons of fun with the VHS effects, learned lots of new little tricks to distort images for future projects.

Also this piece is called "ENDKAMPF" in my files lol

[the-colourful-witch]

The All the Young Dudes book covers project

I've been working on this fun project in my time off from social media. It consists of three illustrations to use as book covers for All the Young Dudes by MsKingBean89 on Ao3. This book has been the foundation of my involvement in the fandom. It's the first fic I read about the Marauders and I loved it so much! I laughed, and I cried, it was a real rollercoaster. After making the cover for A Brief History of Dragons by Eyra, I caught the bug and started thinking of more covers to illustrate. I loved working on the first cover, but I didn't love doing it on my tablet. At heart, I am a traditional illustrator and for this kind of illustration, I felt paper might work better. So I got to work. I knew I wanted to make three covers. From what I've seen online most people bind their own copies of All the Young Dudes in three parts: Year 1-4, Year 5-7 and Until the End. Therefore, I made three covers. I have not yet digitalized these illustrations, but I'll turn them into downloadable covers for binders to use for their book projects. I am working on binding my own physical copies of AtYD too :) It's fun! Right, to the covers. There's so much to say!

Book One

This is the start of Remus' life at Hogwarts and his friendship with the other Marauders. I wanted it to feel a bit like reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for the first time. It's the realisation that magic is real, it's that first spark you get when picking up a book you instantly connect with. That was the feeling I wanted to incorporate in this first cover. There are a bunch of little easter eggs for the story and I hope you'll pick them all out. Let me know in the comments what you think they are. Also, for this project, I studied the language of flowers. I am not sure if all my information is correct, but in this one, I put dandelions in the top corners. Dandelions represent new beginnings :)

Book Two

The second half of the Marauders' time at Hogwarts. This part is all about love and loyalty; something I liked a lot! It's also the time when the Marauders complete their animagus transformations. The animals had to be on the cover! That, I knew for sure. I went for a forest theme for this second cover, because of all the mischief the Marauders got up to in the Forbidden Forest during full moons. I used flower language here as well. For every Marauder I picked a flower I felt represented who they are. For Peter, at the top, I chose Bleeding Heart and Belladonna. Both of them represent betrayal and death. Nice and cheery :) For Sirius, on the Right, I chose Bluebell, which represents loyalty. For Remus, on the Left, I chose Acacia, which represents secret love or forbidden love, because he's hiding his sexuality for most of the book. But it's a love flower and in his core Remus is caring and loving, despite his rough edges. For James, on the bottom, I chose violets. And violets represent love at first sight. I know we all know why <3 I like this cover a lot. The picture is a bit grainy, but like I said, I'm still working on digitalising.

Book Three

Last but certainly not least. This book is about war, love and loss. It was definitely the most challenging piece out of the three, but worth the trouble. On this cover, I put Hogwarts at the top, because that's where it all started and where it ends. On the bottom, there's a prophecy, which is about Harry and Voldemort. There are a few gravestones at the bottom. Very cheerful, I know, but if you pay attention, you see a Deathly Hallows on one of them. On the sides are my favourite parts. I like the lily flower in the arms of death, because it's obvious, but also beautiful. I like the Death Eater on the other side because it's spooky. The snakes represent rebirth and Slytherin House, which is important to the story of the Second Wizarding War, connecting good and evil. Once again I put all the flowers in this piece, scattering them around because they're all interwoven in each other's stories. Finally, I want to say something about the three central images. In the first we see Remus as a child. He's alone and scared of the big scary wolf. The three images are a timeline. It represents Remus' relationship with the wolf in him. At first, he despises it and is scared of it. And finally, he stands with it, not quite embracing it, but he's not scared anymore. In the middle, I wanted to show Remus with his friends, because they banished his fear whenever they were together. With his friends, the wolf didn't control Remus and he could control the wolf. I hope it's all clear. I loved working on these pieces and I hope you like them too!

[agendergorgon]

I started out in the Worm fandom (superhero webnovel, very long) by writing a stupid fic about Worm's protagonist, bullied teen Taylor Hebert who is most famous for taking the often mocked power of insect control to such ludicrous extents that any other bug controlling villain looks positively , getting the powers of a big dumb monster from Evolve and going rawr and smash. I think it was cos it was the done thing at the time, cos I'd not written any fic before, and cos I liked Evolve. I've gone back and forth over the years but I think just smooshing Worm and another powerset you like or think might be fun to write is an over saturated market but its a market that exists. A bit after that and a few embarassing rewrites or other attempts at the same sort of thing, and one hit that I kinda just kept making after people seemed to like it, and I ended up making DADA, a parody of Worm fics in the style of the usual kind of crack fic where nonsense is substituted for plot and its more about jokes than saying much. There were a couple of jokes about trends in the wider Worm fandom but the main selling point is that Taylor's power is ill defined and never elaborated upon much, and that her costume is a papier mache version of her own face.

Like so. I fuckin love this pic, credit to Pericardium who drew this after I'd sorta given up after one arc, leaving all the notes for future chapters and where to take the story as one ugly ill put together mess of a final chapter. For the longest while, this picture was the last thing left of DADA if you clicked past that ending. And it still sorta is. This is the face of DADA. Most common thing anyone said was "Why does it look like that" or talking about how it startled them scrolling across the banner on r/wormfanfic. Peri got this down perfectly, a portrait not of Taylor Hebert but of the lumpy doll fanfic likes to make of her. I made a stupid mistake a few years down the line. I decided to keep writing DADA. Like a zombie limping back to life, or a Rob Zombie limping a franchise back to life, DADA returned with plans and aspirations and ideas for a new ending and went from a brief read it over a cup of tea fic to something that had to commit to its jokey bits, something trying to be more meta than it ought to have been and barely communicating itself well. So it died again with a new ending written out same way as it was last time, in crumbs and snippets and morsels. DADA is a curse of mine that limps back to life whenever I have a new silly idea for it. Its a world that runs on wordplay and Amelia Bodelia logic and entertains cartoonish misconceptions of how people's superpowers work. (Where notorious villain Jack Slash can project the cuts of his knives to strike from extended distances, the Jack Slash of DADA makes his knives shrink and grow to physically extend as far as he is reaching with them) Its a world where villains from my other fanfics have invaded it as a superfluous additional set of antagonists. So yeah, here's DADA, its a bit impermeable without exposure to fandom memes and it changes its mind on what it is constantly throughout, but my fiance likes it so I'm gonna keep updating it as long as I have ideas on where to take it. Taylor is dead, wormfic above all.

[monarch-moon]

No harm in submitting this!

For the past few months, I've been working on and off on a new project called World Cell, which is more of an adventure story featuring a caravan of characters going on a world-wide journey! To put it lightly, at least lol. This is the height chart and a collection of refs for the major cast!

Bits of info of each of them under the cut!

We of course have Asher as our main character! This royal prince is ready to do what he's been training to do, but the only other thing he likes aside from swords and weapons is eating bugs!

Returning is our grumpy lady, Evo! Now sporting 20% more side boob, 40% scales, and 100% foul language.

Third is our gentle giant, Haoyu, who is the party's medic. It doesn't take long to get him to freak out, especially since he's in a gang full of reckless troublemakers.

Fourth up is our resident living armor, Alyster! Don't mind him, he may be the largest, but he's pretty chill.

You know her, I love her, it's none other than our resident potato, Aki! Now with more dogy love, especially to her angry lizard girlfriend~.

The party needs someone competent to cook for them, so meet Eirwen! When things get gloomy, you can trust his friendly face c:

But if you need someone who can bring a lot of sunshine in the group, meet Natsu! Our lovely transgirl here has a smile so powerful, the only other thing that can rival it is her punch.

The group needs someone sensible to lead them, so meet Haku, Natsu's older brother! This man may be short, but he is prepared for any situation. We stan a short king.

Next up, we have our lovely lady Sarya! She may not participate much in the action, but she contributes in a different way: driving everyone around in a sizeable carriage!

Following close to Asher is the first princess of Vaalum herself, Naiotah! This is her first time doing this, but she's ready to go either way!

Never without his box of artifacts and rocks, we have Hayden! Rumor has it he can tell exactly what era something is from just by licking it...except it's not a rumor, that's true.

Can't have Asher without Odix!! He may have more feathers than before, but he's still full of heart~

Last but certainly not least is our pearl from the sea, Xouya! Don't let her elegant demeanor fool you, this one's got p l a n s cooking in her brain, and you might not like em.

To be quite honest with you guys, this has been the most well put together main cast I've made in any story I've created (though credit where credit is due, I made all the refs, but @snowprismdragon , @hawker-the-gary , and @solannecontinuum contributed characters...namely Alyster and Eirwen from Snow....Aki, Hayden, Sarya, and Odix from Hawk, and Xouya from Solanne. Asher, Haoyu, Haku, Natsu, Naiotah and Evo are mine.)

Anyway, if you've read all this, thank you guys for your time c: I will probably be drawing these guys a lot when I can!

[lace-coffin]

Can I has soft Moonie and Monty gator fic, where reader is perpetually exhausted and the animatronics drag em off when they’re meant to be working to help them get some sleep in the pizzaplex? (Totally not projecting here)

How would Moondrop and Montgomery gator react to an exhausted reader on their shift?

Thank u for the moon and Monty rq I want to eat it up so bad😌

Requests are open!

Reader is gn! No trigger warnings required

Working for the pizzaplex was definitely an experience. A good one? Thats up for debate. No you loved your job, the actual security aspect of it was pretty univentful, flicking through the camera’s of the empty pizza plex. It’s not like any intruders would get far anyway with the security bots at every turn and moon slinking around in security mode. You did however get to see the dumb stuff the animatronics got up to after hours though so that was a plus. If she doesn’t tell that you’re watching YouTube on your shift then you won’t tell how you regularly see chica rummaging the kitchens like a racoon over the cams.

It was a pretty cushy job overall but the hours were vile, working from 12-6 am isn’t great for anyone and essentially becoming nocturnal because of it meant you were either sleeping or exhausted in your free time.

Today was one of the days that you’d turned up essentially half alive, isotonic drink held in a death grip and a pack of pain meds at your disposal. You clock in and slump on the chair In front of the security camera’s, groaning as the pain is taken off your joints.

Moondrop

Naturally moon has been following you to your work station since you clocked in, floating through the shadows of the pizzaplex in a totally normal and not creepy way. No matter how many times you tell him he can just greet you normally and walk you over he still refuses and watches you from afar, you know he cares but emotional vulnerability is difficult for him.

A few hours into your shift you can’t take it anymore, energy drink only doing so much for you. Your head starts to loll in your chair, finally getting a blissful second of rest-

“Morning glowbug!” Moon swings down from the ceiling in the upside down Spider-Man pose, intending and succeeding in scaring the shit out of you just as you were drifting off.

You jump in your seat and land in a pile on the floor on your ass. Once moon stops laughing at your misfortune and you realised it was just him and you weren’t about to get bite of 87’nd you huff at him from your spot on the floor.

“Very funny moon man, hilarious in fact, you do know the door is an option right? Now help me up you nerd” you say in fake irritation, tugging his trouser leg and giving him your hand.

“Everyone’s a critic, bug. I found it fairly amusing”he lends you his spindly hands and pulls you up with a bit more force than necessary, making you stumble. He snickers into the long end of his hat and you shoot him a glare. “Not the day dude”

Moons faceplate rotates at this, non verbally questioning what’s causing your sour mood, you usually love playing with him and whatever is ruining your mood needs to stop immediately because it’s ruining his fun (and maybe because he cares about you but he’ll never admit that)

“I’m fine moon, I’m just sleeping bad again, I’ll survive” you say nonchalantly, dangling your energy drink in your hand and chugging the last of it.

Moons grimaces as he watches you do this, you know he hates those stupid drinks, you feel better for an hour or two and then immediately crash worse than before, usually leaving moon to scrape you off the desk and take over the cameras.

You realise what you’ve done before moon can even get a word out, squeaking and throwing the can back on the desk. “It’s uh, not actually that bad! I’ll be fine, you know me haha, just a little behind on sleep” you stutter over your words trying to back track. You know it’s pointless and moon being the way he is you’re not going to get out of this.

“Oh no, go ahead starlight, drink your sludge. I can’t wait to peel you off the desk later” he drawls out, if his eyes could roll any further back into his head then they would have.

You rise from your chair, hiding behind it like a shield as if it’s going to save you from the inevitable. “You know the drill bug, either you get over here or I’m dragging your sorry ass over here” Moons voicebox fizzles out over the inappropriate word, stupid filters.

“Moon, you know I can’t, I have to finish my shift, I promise as soon as I get home I’ll go straight to bed, no messing” despite trying to placate him moon remains unimpressed, arms folded over his chest. You should probably run.

“Starlight they pay you peanuts, you can take one nap, they’ll survive”

The jester moves down slowly and sits on his haunches like a cat. Moon launches himself at you full speed. You scream and run to the other side of the security office, not much room to run to considering how confined it is in the first place. You yell and giggle as this continues, moon drinking in the way your eyes crinkle when you smile. Over a few minuets you start to get worn out, having no energy in the first place. This gives moon the perfect opening to land a pounce on you and snatch you into his arms, throwing you over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. You playfully kick and complain but you don’t have it in you to actually be upset.

Unsurprisingly you make it to the daycare attendants room in record time, moons huge strides cutting down on time. “You know the drill” moon says as he throws a pair of daycare themed pyjamas from the gift shop at you, hitting you square in the face. You laugh and crawl into the other room through the tunnel to change.

By the time you’ve changed and come back moon has his bed all made and fluffed up and is looking at you expectantly. “Your chariot, my lord” he says dumbly, pulling back the covers and gesturing to the bed. You snort and climb in, snuggling down into the plush bedding. You make a happy noise and look back at moon, taking his big metallic hand in your smaller warm one.

“Thankyou, for this I mean, I really appreciate you caring about me like this, it means a lot”

Moon makes a fake gagging noise but his faceplate tinges a darker blue, telling his real feelings. “Always so mushy starlight” he laughs, but you know he loves the attention.

“Can you stay until I fall asleep?”

“Bold of you to assume I was leaving in the first place”

Moon scooches into the bed and rearranges his limbs into a comfy position, pulling your head against his chest and starting up his music box. He traces little shapes into your palm until you fall asleep for the night.

Montgomery gator

A horrid crash feeds through the security cam speakers. Excellent. You sigh and flip over to gator golf, already knowing who’s most likely to be causing the noise. Sure enough faint mechanical grunting and roaring can be heard. You can’t seem to find Monty on screen though, so it looks like you’ll be taking a trip down to the golf course.

You groan and pull yourself up from your chair, you really don’t have the energy for this tonight.

Not having to look very far you catch Monty red handed a few steps into the golf course. Golf club jammed into the mouth of one of the mechanical gators below the bridge. You pause and just look at him, unamused, waiting for him to explain.

“Uh, howdy twerp, I’m having some…difficulties?” He try’s, almost framing it as a question. You rub your hand over your face in exhaustion and ask him to expand on his problem.

“I uh worked up a rage after screwing up a note in tonight’s show, wouldn’t have happened if stupid fazzass hadn’t bumped into me” he grumbles, getting side tracked complaining about Freddy. “Anyway, I may have taken a swing at one of those gators…it’s turns out once the club is in it’s hard to get it back out” he laughs and rubs at the back of his head awkwardly, hoping your not going to explode on him.

“I love you but you’re a nightmare, green guy”

Monty snorts at the nickname but realises you look a little worn down, your usual bite not as prominent in your banter.

“Are you ok cher? Like you looking after yourself ok? Not to be an ass but you don’t look as with it as usual” he says in a softer tone, a look of genuine concern washing over his face.

“You want the polite answer or the real one?” Monty laughs and asks for the real one. “I’m tired as all hell and I’m essentially a zombie right now, these night shifts are killing me”

Monty frowns at this, he knows the company can be hardasses when it comes to shift patterns, not caring if their employees work themselves to death as long as the schedule is covered.

“So what you’re saying is we’re going to wrestle this stupid club out of that gator and then you’re going to the nest without causing a fuss?” Monty says, phrasing it as an order and not a question.

“I don’t even have the energy to be stubborn, ask moon man to cover for me please”

Monty gives a toothy grin at this and nods his head. You both work on releasing the golf club from its grizzly demise. Combining both your effort and Monty’s unnatural strength you pull the club free! And send it through the window of gator golf…it can wait for the day crew, technically you only came down to remove it from the gator and you’re beyond caring.

Monty throws his arms in the air in celebration. “Nice shot, cher!” You both cackle at the absurdity of the situation until you let out a yawn.

“Ok squirt, let’s get you to bed” he says softly, rosey eyes roaming over your sleepy face. Monty collects you in his arms and makes his way back to his green room, lending you an oversized gator golf shirt to change into. Monty lets out a little huff out of his nose when he sees you in the baggy shirt, adorable.

“Time to hit the hay kid” he pats on the nest he’s made on the floor out of blankets and various plushies/pillows waiting for you to climb in. Once you settle down Monty curls up around you like a big puppy, placing his snoot on your chest. (He’s totally not hoping for some pets before you sleep..)

“I don’t want to hear a peep out of you unless it’s snoring kiddo” Monty grumbles. “Love you to big guy” you hum and pat his nose

You fall asleep wrapped up in the gators tail, your chest rising and falling in time to the gentle bellows rumbling from the now calm and cuddly animatronic.

[kitkatt0430]

So big shout out to SquidgeWorld for the news update acknowledging and encouraging the use of the tilde relationship identifier for queerplatonic ships!!!

I actually had a bit of a hand in how this one came about, which is pretty fun. (Story time!)

So a few years ago the Character A ~ Character B format was introduced over here on tumblr to represent QPRs. There is a post I know I rebloged a few times buried on my main somewhere about this and I'll have to try to remember to dig that up later. And there was bit of a push to try and get Ao3 to officially acknowledge the tilde or at least for those of us who write fic there start using it in tagging regardless of official acknowledgement and see what happened. And, well, what largely seems to have happened is that the tag wranglers have let us use the tilde, but there's been no official acknowledgement as the Tag Wrangling page for relationships on Ao3 still only discusses the '&' and '/' identifiers. (If there was anything official said about it elsewhere, sadly I must have missed it.)

I started using the tilde... two years ago? I think? And went back to update some of my existing fics to add in ship tags with the tilde. I still made sure to keep the Queerplatonic Relationship tags because those are still the best way to find fics that have QPRs included in them. And I've seen a few others using the '~' out in the wild, but discussion about it kind of faded again. If you knew, you knew. And if you didn't... there was always that Queerplatonic Relationship tag.

Then, about a year ago, I signed up for SquidgeWorld. I'd never heard of it before (which is likely because I'm just not super active in fandom outside the niche I've carved for myself; I admit, I am a bit under a rock at times...) but Squidge been around in one form or another since 1994. One of the fanfic authors I followed was moving their works there and so I followed and did what I always do on new sites I'm curious about - I lurked.

Fast forward to more recently. Fanfiction.net that I've been loyally using as my backup fic location for years after leaving it as my main fanfic archive... it's getting buggier and more unstable by the year. I don't intend to pull my fanfiction off it - I will leave what's on there up until the site collapses in on itself - but the day is coming ever nearer that the bugs and lack of tagging updates will finally make cross-posting there entirely too much of a hassle. And much as I love Ao3, I don't like the idea of only having all my fanfic in one place. I've seen enough archives big and small get destroyed over the years that no matter how stable or permanent Ao3 feels... I'm more comfortable knowing my fic can be found in multiple places. (Of course, the biggest hurdle for getting my fics cross-posted in multiple places is... executive dysfunction.)

I started finally cross-posting to SquidgeWorld recently and honestly just didn't really think too much about it when bringing over fics tagged with the QPR identifier. I just copied over the Character A ~ Character B tags and hit post. :D

But admin-squidgie over there - who I believe is found here on tumblr using @squidgiepdx (hi! Thanks a bunch for the news post!) - asked me about the tilde usage and what that was being used to represent. So I responded with an explanation about how it was a relatively new identifier used because queerplatonic relationships aren't really well represented by romantic or platonic identifiers. And then admin-squidgie got back to me to let me know there'd be a news post soon about this new identifier type. Which was so awesome.

While the wrangling guidelines haven't been updated on SquidgeWorld to note the use of the tilde yet (and could take a while, I know official docs always wind up being the last thing updated), the news post really is a very big deal for those of us who like to write and read queerplatonic ships.

For those of you interested in cross-posting or moving your fanfic to SquidgeWorld, I do recommend the archive. I've lurked long enough to see that the community there is pretty friendly, the interface is a clone of Ao3's so it should be familiar to a lot of you and is easily customized to make it more accessible (or covered in rainbows if you prefer ^_^ ), and (as seen here) the admin over there is open to helping make the archive an inclusive place for all of us.

And with at least one fanfic archive both acknowledging and encouraging the use of the queerplatonic relationship identifier, it'd be nice to see information on that making the rounds here on tumblr again. I bet there are a lot of aspecs who don't know about the identifier but who would be glad to know it exists and start using it themselves.

[suusoh]

(repost because the og was bugging out ToT)

girlie are you are one of the top mommy johan fans rn and i am HERE for it!. Anyways have 13-ish paragraphs of me rambling why calling a man "mommy" is revolutionary and hot actually.

(tw: mommy kink, forced mother-daughter dynamics, infantilization-ish?)

the obvious ones of course being he does everything. I mean everything for you. Bathes you, brushes your hair, dresses you up by himself, hand-feeds you, etc. Will not let you do anything for yourself if he can help it. Even recreational activities, like watching TV or reading, he is finding a way to make it with his intervention such as holding the remote and he reading the book for you.

not an exact point where this stems from, but I have a small vision of Johan curiously played with one of his sister's baby dolls one time, or growing up with a mother and a sister (in some alternate universe where miss vera cerna got to raise the twins by herself), so maybe some of those things have passed onto him without him knowing.

You are his baby. that goes without saying. He'll call you baby from time to time, but not in a cutesy-couple petname way that one would imagine your average boyfriend would say it. He'd recite it like a healthcare nurse would. Won't be used as a common petname, it would come out when he feels especially a bit more motherly. other examples:

- clinical mutterings to himself ("baby needs to rest, they've been crying all day.") - maternal reflex and musings ("hm? no it's alright. baby doesn't need to worry about that, okay?") ("and why is my baby feeling sad today, hm? tell me.") - accidentally being condescending ("baby, you know that's not good for you.") - the last one is so weird to hear from him because the way he says baby isn't lighthearted or lover-y at all. it's so blank and emotionless. 💀

I think the tendencies are gradual. I love to headcanon that it starts out as your friend johan being a bit too doting at times. you even joke about it, groaning and calling him "mom" when he's being a bit too overbearing. Over time he becomes your boyfriend, one that coddles you a lot to an almost concerning degree (that's... normal right? people always fuss over their loved ones...). Next thing you know he's lulling you to sleep, conditioning you to to associate your sleepy time with his lullaby.

I don't think he's being fully delusional about it? He knows damn well that he's a grown man and you're a grown adult as well, unrelated with each other, and you guys are nowhere near any semblance of a mother-daughter. But that doesn't mean he won't impose the dynamic on you anyway. Thinks it's beneficial enough for both of you: he gets to care for you and you get to be taken care of. It works so well that it might as well be your permanent dynamic. (Or so he says. You crying and feeling yourself slowly lose a major part of yourself tied with your autonomy is just a natural part of sudden "changes".).

So he won't infantilize you to the point of actually getting baby stuff for you lol. he just wants to be your mother <3 and mothering also includes maybe discussing some topics over tea to see what your beloved daughter has learned today and seeing what you made today; a new painting? a new crochet project? making another science diorama? tell him. tell mom what you're proud of these days <3

WOULLDDDD wear the blonde wig maybe at times. Not that he associates long hair with motherhood. but it's just a thing he tries from time to time. maybe he's trying to emulate his mom to get more in-tuned with motherhood? Norman bates style? hot.

has a set schedule for you. reading time, feeding time, daylight time, etc. Though he can be flexible, your bedtime and eating time is a non-negotiable. you need your sleep and your food. Though I think he'd love it if you can't think for yourself and depend on him for everything, I think he'd still try to enrich your brain. So there's a time of day for mind exercise and studying: Reading together, watching documentaries, little games and puzzles to bond over like a good mother-daughter <3

speaking of food: endless spoiling duh. I think he'll even love it when you gain a few pounds from how well he's feeding you. it's another sign that he's taking care of you well. From takeout, to cooking for you, to filling he pantry full and giving you a snack every hour or so; he is stuffing you until you're full and sleepy. Will never let you go hungry. ever.

nsfw:

maybe.... maybe makes u latch onto his nips. breastfeeding and all that. hehe. will train you to start sucking on his nipples as a habit for you to calm down. Lets you suckle on his tongue as well if it'll help you go calm down <33 it's his substitute to a baby bottle. it's mortifying to you when you're sad and upset then you suddenly get the tingling on your tongue to just... orally fixate on something. it means it's working.

WOULD absolutely research how to induce lactation in men lol <3

loves loves loves using making you cum over and over again to leave you dazed, soft, and unable to be feisty. I think sex will definitely become a means to fix you whenever you become a bit too... "fussy" for his liking. Makes you cum over and over again until you're crying and pleading for no more, until you're passing out and unable to move your legs. He decides how many orgasms is enough already or if you need another round. And from what he sees? baby needs another leg-shaking orgasm from how cranky they were this morning.

overstimulation his beloved <3 thoroughly believes that sex is a form of taking care of you and making you feel good. and why wouldn't he want his baby to feel anything but good?

WILL fuck to sleep every night. sees it as the best way to get you to have the best sleep over (aka: you passing out to the point you might even wake up in the late afternoon). Vibrators are his best friend.

cockwarming. cockwarming. cockwarming. aaaaaaand- cockwarming. all while he's cradling you into his neck. will playfully rock his hips into you from time to time to enjoy the feeling of you squeezing around him for more. further proving you're always craving for his care.

~ that's all i got so far hehehehheeh hope u enjoy!

[probsnothawkeye]

My birthday is tomorrow which means its time for me to share my favorite podcasts from my 24th year of life

There will be repeats from last year. Because those podcasts continued to kick ass and I'm not gonna remove them

Starting off with @doyoucopypod which ripped my heart out with its story but also made me become friends with some of my favorite people in this whole world (ily dels ily kit). Do You Copy? hurts in the best of ways and is a show everyone should listen to

@ethicstownpod continues to be on this list because of course it does it has to I love it so much it's my emotional support podcast that breaks my brain with ethical conundrums. CL Hendry is one of the most talented creators out there and I'm lucky to know them

@souloperatorpod started this year and immediately blew me away everything Tot does is fantastic but Soul Operator is especially fantastic you can see every bit of talent they've got in this show and even though it hurts me it's still on of my favorites I adore it (and Tot)

@grottopod was another addition in my 24th year and it mean the world to me. Not only is it chock full of my friends (and also me on occasion) it also is just a brilliant story with incredible music that I love. I got a tattoo about The Grotto yall knew it'd be on here

@woebegonepod fully took over my brain in the best way within the past year. Every episode is a turn I didn't expect and everything Dylan does with the show is marvelous. Getting to be in some episodes this year was an honor given how much I've fallen in love with this story

Its not a podcast post by me if I don't mention The Technomancy Project which fills me with all of the emotions. Season 2 did *so much* to me I'm so excited to see what comes from season 3 as I continue to love my technomancy trio and hope they figure themselves out

@audistorium has horrified me, made me laugh, made me cry, and introduced me to one of the most remarkable creators out there it's truly the quadruple threat of the audiodrama world. Landon Lemon Whisnant does incredible work on this show and is also just. An amazing person

Speaking of Lemon, him and the wonderful amazing incredible Maddie Girouard made @thefinderskeeperpod this year and while only 1 ep is out so far I'm already so in love with it and can't wait to hear more Landon and Maddie are two of my favorite people in this space they're amazing

@camlannpod arrived this year and tore me to shreds (positive) it is the most beautiful and hopeful post apocalyptic story I've ever experienced with a beautiful blending of fantasy/mythology everything about it oozes talent and care and I'm so happy to exist in a world with it

I caught up on the @thecellarletters mere days before this post went up and gods I'm so glad I got to add this to my list of favorite podcasts of 24 it's got mystery it's got suspense it's got a bug and a dog and excellent voice acting I'm so excited to see what comes next!

Its time for the EELS!!! @eelerschoice was a maritime horror highlight of my year it also made me cry which is the best compliment I can give i loved this story and hope to see more from it soon

@tellnotalespod has also made me cry. So much. It's a stunning show with incredible writing and voice acting and it makes me not afraid of what comes after death I love Tell No Tales with my whole heart Leanne is so kind and so talented and so lovely they deserve all the praise

@kingmakerpod will always hold a special place in my heart for it's excellent world building and incredible characters so of course they're on this list again too they had to be the show is so good I love it so much season 2 was incredible I can't wait for season 3

I got into @thesiltverses in it's final season and that a beautiful incredible and awe-inspiring show it was. Between the world building and the way it played with religion to how *real* the characters felt, it was an honor to listen this year

The Tiny Terrors 31 days of Halloween made my entire October better last year I loved hearing all of the stories and getting to hear from my beloved Shed Gang again it was definitely a highlight to being 24

I got to do so much with @thefringespod this past year all of season 2 came out while I was 24 and it's a huge accomplishment for me I love this show with my whole heart and all of the wonderful people it's allowed me to work with

And of course I'd be remiss if I didn't mention @forgedbondspod which was written, cast, and partially recorded all in my 24th year of life. I'm so excited about this show and getting to share it with yall. My cast is absolutely phenomenal and I'm so proud of this story

These are just some of my favorite shows from being 24! My to listen list grows ever longer as more and more people make incredible shows. I feel so fortunate to get to work in this space and to have spent 24 working on and listening to so many things I love

[sentientgolfball]

DUDE WHAT THE FUCK (re: phantom/aether ficlet) YOU CANT JUST THROW A BUNCH OF MY FAVE KINKS INTO ONE FICLET THEN SAY THIS

AND END IT THERE OH MY GOD ELABORATE??? PLEAS MAKE PART TWO AND ELABORATE IM LITERALLY BEGGING YOU ON MY KNEES RN

mwehehehehehee

That's it that's all I have to saw about that

Tags: mean Aeth, irresponsible use of quintessence, knot mention

Aether shoved his knot passed their lips, gripping the back of their head while he came down their throat. Phantom would’ve came when the taste hit his tongue, but Aeth made sure that was impossible. He dick was so hard and he’s sure he would’ve came at least three times by now if it wasn’t for the amount of quint Aether was pouring into him. His scars hadn’t stopped glowing for the last ten minutes. 

“Once this goes down we’re gonna see if you can take my whole hand, how does that sound love bug?” 

Phantom projected his affirmation into Aether’s mind. The older quint smiled, petting at his cheek to feel his knot inside. Phantom would have to thank Cirrus and Cumulus later for teaching him the tricks. 

When his knot finally deflates, Aether pulls out of his mouth and gives him a moment to breathe. There’s still not a single part of his body Phantom can move except for his eyes. He feels floaty, like he’s watching everything Aether is doing to his body through a window. He can’t even moan when Aeth flips him over and prodes a finger into his ass, vocal chords completely paralyzed. Aether gets the idea though, the connection between their quintessence making every thought and feeling as clear as day. 

When Aether slides a second finger in Phantom’s dick twitches. He wishes more than anything Aether would let him cum. They’ve been at this for what feels like hours now. But Aether’s not done yet. And if Aether isn’t done then Phantom isn’t done. 

“You’ve been so good for me. Taking everything I’ve given you” Aether curls his fingers. 

Phantom’s eyes flutter and he instinctively tries to buck back against him, but his hips don’t even twitch. 

“It’s amazing what the body can do with a little bit of help isn’t it? I could teach you so much” Aether slides his fingers out of his ass only to shove a third one in. 

Phantom practically begs over their connection. What for he has no idea anymore. His whole world right now is Aether. He can feel him in every crevice in his mind, can feel his touch lighting up every nerve in his body. He thinks he’d like that, knowing the tricks Aether does. Phantom knows the pack sure as hell would love it. The idea of Rain or Dew or Mountain begging him to fuck them like this sends a wave of pleasure through him. Aether laughs low when he feels it shudder through him. 

“Yea love bug is that what you want? Maybe some other night. This one’s for me.” 

Aether slips a fourth finger into them and they swear they can feel a dribble of pre leak from their cock through Aether’s control. Though when the feeling only grows he knows exactly what it is. It’s Aether’s cum trickling out of his ass, sliding down his dick and coating his thighs. 

“Don’t worry about that, I’ll fill you again when I’m finished with this.”

Ever so slowly Aether works his fifth finger into Phantom, giving a satisfied hiss when he finally gets his whole hand inside of him. He doesn’t move, giving Phantom a moment to recuperate as he focuses his quintessence on the straining muscles. He urges him to relax and Phantom is helpless to it. It doesn’t help that everything Aether feels is being echoed back through him. He wants it just as desperately as him, maybe even more given the suggestion he projects across the bond. 

“You sure you want me to do that love bug?” Aether asks, but they both know he’s already made up his mind. 

Phantom blinks at him. It’s the closest thing to a nod he can physically do. 

Aether laughs “You’re worse than Mountain.” 

He slowly uncurls one of his fingers, quickly followed by the second. He carefully scissors his fingers inside of him. He grunts when he hears Phantom whine in his mind, cock kicking in his lap and spitting a thick glob of pre. He takes his time uncurling the rest of his fingers, savoring every little noise that rattles in his head. He flexes his all five fingers and Phantom swears he saw the Hells again for a moment. Aether stays like that for a minute or an hour, Phantom’s brain too full of honey to notice anything until he feels the pressure of him carefully slipping his fist out of him. 

“Oh Hells Phantom, love bug, look at you you’re fucking gaping” Aether traces his rim with a feather light touch. 

“You’re going to be ruined for anyone else. Fuck I don’t even think my knot will catch” he pauses and hums thoughtfully “I guess there’s only one way to find out though.”

[flowerui]

♫ three little words (dedicate them to me), cyj

fluff, 4.8k words ୨୧ oh my god they were roommates :0 sorry to any academic weapons reading, im projecting a bit as an academic failure lol

wherein it only takes you about twenty-nine years to realize you're in love with your best friend... at least you got there!

꒰ requested. gender neutral reader (no pronouns or gendered terms used), reader is younger, unspecified age difference (but its implied that theyre very close in age), childhood friends to lovers, nonidol au, roommates, idiots in love, time skips, aging up, alcohol/drinking, a bit dialogue heavy, vomit is mentioned a few times, friend group ot4 ꒱

It’s hard to recall a time without Yeonjun; he appeared one day and stuck to you, almost as if he were a stubborn thorn in your side (said endearingly, of course).

It must’ve been when you were still in kindergarten—right, Yeonjun and his parents had moved in next door, and your moms both became friends and arranged a play date. Yeonjun had brought his PlayStation over and let you play it with him, so, obviously, to five-year-old you, that made the two of you best friends right away.

“Are you almost done?” Yeonjun bemoans from your bedroom floor, urging you to look up from your piles of textbooks and worksheets finally.

“No, I told you I needed to study and that you should go to your own house, you bum. Just ‘cause you don’t give a shit about your education doesn't mean I don’t.”

“You almost flunked last year. And you’re only studying because your mom saw you got a three out of a hundred on your algebra test,” Yeonjun deadpans, “how do you even score that bad?” Ugh, lucky, naturally academically gifted asshole. You roll your eyes and toss a pencil at his stupid face.

“Whatever,” you grumble, it’s not your fault you can’t be an academic weapon, and that school is whooping your ass instead with academics as a weapon. “I feel like my brain is about to start leaking out of my ears anyway, wanna go to yours?”

Yeonjun grins, sitting up from your floor with a start, finally regaining some of his earlier excitement before he had to wait nearly four hours (all of which were spent pestering you) while you attempted to study. “I ditched school yesterday to get a copy of Resident Evil 4 from GameStop.”

“What the hell—and you didn’t invite me?” you whine, “That’s cold, you better let me try it first.”

It’s hours later into the evening when you’re watching Yeonjun attempt to get through the wretched cabin section that you died approximately… thirteen times trying to get through, that he says, “You remember that guy, Taehyun, right? In my AP History class.”

“Mhm,” you hum, blinking your bleary eyes at Yeonjun’s TV screen from your very comfortable spot on his couch.

“He doesn’t usually talk a whole lot to me, but today, I couldn’t get him to shut up,” Yeonjun huffs a laugh as he maneuvers the character, Leon, up the stairs on screen, seemingly making it farther than you could. “He was complaining though, ‘cause he was partnered with this person who was into me. He couldn’t get any work done, they were just bugging him about me.”

You tear your focus from the TV to look at the side of Yeonjun’s face, you can see part of his furrowed brow and pursed lips. “Oh.”

It doesn’t surprise you that a lot of people seem to be interested in Yeonjun at school. In middle school, people started coming up to you, asking if you’d put in a good word for them with Yeonjun, because they ‘like-liked’ him, and you were his best friend. Then, it was at the end of eighth grade that you started telling those people to grow a pair and talk to him themselves.

You suppose you kind of understand. Yeonjun’s nice when he’s not being a little shit… and he’s not horrible to look at, one might even say he’s good-looking.

“Are you into them?” The question seems to roll off your tongue easily, but you’re not even sure why you asked, you don’t think you want to know. For some reason, thinking about it churns your stomach a bit.

“...No, I mean, they’re pretty, but,” Yeonjun sighs, tossing his controller to the side as he dies a second time. “they seem kinda… much. I dunno, Taehyun said they literally wouldn’t talk to him about anything besides me the entire class. It kinda weirded me out.”

“Hm, yeah.” You hum, a weird feeling of… relief washing over you. Yeonjun’s mom comes in to ask if you’re staying for dinner before you can think about it too hard.

Later that night, when you’re stuck staring blankly at your ceiling, you decide you were just relieved that Yeonjun wasn’t going to end up with some overly possessive weirdo. It’d suck to lose your best friend that way.

“Please do not throw up, because if you throw up, then I’m gonna throw up.”

“I’m not gonna throw up,” Yeonjun insists, but it doesn’t sound all too credible with the way he slurs his words, maybe you’ve also had too much to drink, but you swear he looks a little green. “I… am perfectly fine, thank you very much.”

“Uhuh.”

“Don’t ‘uhuh’ me,” Yeonjun grumbles with an attempted glare, you find that you can’t take him all too seriously, though; the flush on his cheeks, his inability to keep his eyes open for more than five seconds, and his perpetual pout make it all too difficult. “Oh, I—I think I’m gonna hurl.” He braces himself against the bar, eyes suddenly more awake.

That would be the reason you end up in a grimy bathroom on your twenty-first, making sure your best friend’s hair is out of the way as he empties the contents of his stomach into a toilet bowl.

“Why’d you drink so much, you know you’re a lightweight.” You ask when Yeonjun seems to be done, frowning as you wipe off his mouth with a paper towel.

“Am not,” he protests petulantly. “I was just—I just felt like it ‘cause I thought it’d make me feel better ‘nd I could stop thinking about other shit.”

“Did something happen?”

“...I stopped seeing that person I told you about.”

“Why? I thought it was going well?” ‘Well’ might be a bit of an overstatement. Like most of Yeonjun’s partners, you didn’t hear a whole lot about this new one, met them once for a brief moment, then didn’t hear of them again. It seems to be a common theme in Yeonjun’s relationships—his fleeting interest, you haven’t figured out if you should say anything about it.

“It was just, um. ‘M not over someone…. I didn’t feel right staying in a relationship knowing I’m still not over someone else.”

Oddly enough, that felt rather sobering to hear. You hum, stomach feeling a little off—you hope you aren’t going to throw up next… “You haven’t told me about that, wanna talk about it? It might feel better than drinking too much and throwing up in a disgusting bathroom. Don’t quote me on that, though.”

Yeonjun blinks slowly, then chuckles, “I’ll tell you about it some other time, I just really want to be in bed right now.”

Instead of getting an Uber or something, you trudge down the sidewalk with a clingier-than-usual Yeonjun, who barely manages to walk in a straight line. You internally celebrate when your apartment building comes into view; one of you seriously needs to get a car.

You have to convince Yeonjun to shower before you, almost like a petulant child. 

And apparently, wanting to be in bed means taking up most of your mattress and hogging your blankets for the night, because when you finish showering, you return to your room to find your bed occupied. You could just steal Yeonjun’s bed for the night… but you end up just crawling into bed beside him, listlessly trying to reclaim your covers.

He never ended up telling you about this mystery person he’s not over.

“I just don’t think it’s going to work out.” You sigh.

“But why? I thought things between us were going great, I—”

“I’m sorry, I just don’t see this relationship progressing any further.”

“But, I—I told my mom about you! You can’t leave me, I love you!”

“Ugh, you asshole,” you cry out as Yeonjun pretends to cry hysterically and shakes you by your shoulders, “You’re supposed to be taking this seriously and helping me!”

Yeonjun cackles as you shove him away, “I mean he could react like that, couldn’t he?” Then, he sighs and places his hands on your shoulders—not shaking you this time. “Okay, seriously, it’s going to be fine, you’ll be in a public space, so worst case scenario, he embarrasses himself.”

“You’re right… ugh, I’m gonna be late.”

“You’re the one who wanted to rehearse the conversation again.”

Before sending you off, Yeonjun smushes your face, cooing, “Okay, go dump your boyfriend, my duckling, I’ll be waiting here with takeout and beer.”

“You are a grown-ass man.” You deadpan before you’re finally off.

It’s been a good few months since you started seeing this new guy—his name’s Mark, you realized you liked him enough to make things more official after several good dates. But, you’ve already been considering breaking things off with him for a while now; you seem to have this recurring issue when it comes to relationships… You just can’t seem to envision a future that includes your partner, even when it’s going well you ultimately lose interest.

Mark seems like a good guy, too, which makes you feel worse, but it’d be even worse to just lead him on, right? That’s what you continue reminding yourself as you trudge into a nice café that will be tainted by the memory of you dumping a nice guy for the rest of your life. You’ll never be able to enjoy the sweet treats of ‘Arcadia’ ever again.

“Hey, there you are,” Mark smiles as you take the seat across from him.

“Yeah, uh, sorry, I had to help my roommate out.” A fib, even though your mother tells you honesty is the best policy. Well, she lied about Santa and the tooth fairy; besides, your fib sounds nicer than ‘I was rehearsing how to break up with you with my best friend’.

“No worries.”

“Um,” it’s better to just get it over with, you remind yourself, just rip the bandaid off, “so, I wanted to talk to you.”

“Uh oh, that doesn’t sound too good,” Mark chuckles, then clears his throat and continues when you don’t laugh, “What’s up?”

With a deep breath, you let it spill out all at once, “I don’t think this is going to work out, I just don’t see us—this relationship going any further. I’m sorry and I hope you can understand.” Okay, that wasn’t too scary, if you’re ignoring your shaky, clammy palms against your knees.

Mark nods, then looks down at his lap, then back at you, “I guess I should’ve seen it coming, I mean, I’ve seen the way you and your roommate look at each other.”

“Uh… you what?”

“You don’t have to play dumb about it, it’s obvious the both of you are in love. Guess I just liked you so much I hoped I could change your mind.” Mark sighs, “I think I’m gonna… go, sorry.” He says, then leaves you to spiral.

‘Obvious the both of you are in love’? You and Yeonjun? That’s ridiculous, right?

Leaving what was once your favorite café in a daze, you’re suddenly glad that you’d decided to walk instead of drive; you barely register entering your apartment complex, and unlocking your door.

“Hey,” Yeonjun is on the couch, takeout and a pack of beer spread on the coffee table as promised, “how’d it go?”

“It went fine,” you say with a smile that doesn’t quite make its way to your eyes, “he took it as well as he could have.” It’s weird, that you don’t just word vomit out every small detail, like you tend to with Yeonjun. But somehow, something about divulging everything feels weirder, so in a rare twist of events, you keep quiet.

Seemingly taking the hint that that’s going to be all you say for the time being, Yeonjun changes the topic, “Go change so we can eat, the new episode of The Vampire Diaries is literally about to start in like two seconds.”

“What the hell! I didn’t think I was gone for that long!” You shriek and make a run for it to your room to change out of your outside clothes.

Yeonjun snorts when you return, plopping onto the couch while trying to catch your breath. “I lied, there’s still like half an hour.”

“You’re such an asshole,” you hiss, and pummel him with the nearest throw pillow.

“I’m starting to think I’m gonna end up alone,” with a grunt, you tug your blanket up higher, “why’re we both so bad at relationships?”

“Rude,” Yeonjun flicks your forehead, and if you weren’t so cozy, full of food, and three cans of beer drunker, you might’ve sat up to take your revenge. But alas, moving even a mere inch feels like a herculean effort.

“You’re rude,” you stick your tongue out at him childishly. “Y’know I didn’t mean it like that, though, right?”

“I know.”

“Mm. Maybe…” You focus your bleary eyes on Yeonjun’s face above you. Even from this unfortunate angle, from where your head rests on his lap, he looks so… “If we’re not… If we’re still single by the time we’re thirty-four, I think we should just marry each other.”

Yeonjun laughs, “Okay, I think it’s bedtime, don’t you have work in the morning?”

If you hadn’t fallen asleep right then, you might’ve clapped back with a witty response, or you might’ve sat up, and looked at Yeonjun dead in the eyes and told him that you were serious.

“No, Mom, I am still not in a relationship,” you pause, then sigh, “Yes, I know I’m not getting any younger. And, no, I’m not gonna—wait, what?”

“You heard me, I asked when you’re going to give in and just marry Yeonjun. I like him, he’d be a nice son-in-law, he practically already is at this point!”

Only mothers would have the audacity. You have to pull your phone away from your ear to stare at the outgoing call screen in astonishment. “What… are you talking about?” You ask when you bring your phone back to your ear.

“Oh, c’mon. You’ve been living together since you were what, nineteen? Neither of you dates anymore, you spend all your free time together…You may as well get hitched at this point, instead of denying your poor mother the opportunity of watching her child get married any longer.”

You perk up at the call of your name, seeing two of your coworkers rush over, “Hey—random question—how early do you think is too early to get engaged? Lia’s only been with her partner for like three months, and they’re already engaged! You’ve been with your boyfriend for years, right? And neither of you has proposed?”

“Uh? My… boyfriend?”

“Yeah? Your boyfriend, his name’s Yeonjun, right?”

“Oh, he’s not my… He’s just my best friend.” You’re not sure what’s more embarrassing, the fact that all this time, it seemed like you and Yeonjun were dating, or having to tell two of your coworkers that you are actually painfully single. It doesn’t make it any better that the majority of your coworkers, while nice, are known for gossiping—all mostly harmless.

You expect your mother to make you feel bad about your relationship status (out of love), but not your coworkers.

“It’s weird, lately, I’ve realized that people think me and Yeonjun are together…? My mom even told me to just go and marry him, like?”

“Oh, you poor sweet summer child…”

“Have you still seriously not realized?” Taehyun pipes up beside Kai who regards you with a pitiful look. What’s up with everyone lately? You’re starting to feel like you’re the only one missing something.

“Realized what?”

“Oh, you’re hopeless.” Taehyun laments, looking as if he’s about ready to tear his hair out or reach across the dining table to knock some sense into you.

Ideally, you’d like to think you’re not at all oblivious. But, after many strange occurrences, you can’t help but consider: that you’ve never properly thought of Yeonjun that way—in a romantic sense. He’s always just been Yeonjun; the only person who you know for a fact you can trust with anything, and the only person who will stick with you despite all of your bullshit, like a stubborn thorn you can’t seem to be rid of (not that that’s an issue). He’s your everything, really.

When you imagine your future, you always see him fit in there somehow—but it occurs to you that as someone who’s never had a complete interest in marriage, or any romantic relationships for a long time for that matter, you could imagine walking down the aisle with Yeonjun, and more. Not only that, but you like imagining it.

Oh.

How dense can one be to fail to realize they’ve been in love with their best friend all this time? After nearly three decades of friendship, it’s seriously taken you this long to get to this conclusion? All those failed relationships you tried so hard to make work, it was all for nothing, because you couldn’t realize what you felt for what you already had! So much time wasted…

“Are you feeling okay?” Yeonjun apparates beside you, a palm carefully tracing circles over your upper back.

You feel bad for how you jolt away from him, seeing the surprise and mild hurt pass over his features in a split second. If you didn’t know Yeonjun like the back of your hand, you might’ve missed it. “...Sorry, I dunno—I’ve been kind of out of it lately, I think I just need to relax.”

“You haven’t been overworking yourself again, have you?”

“No…”

Yeonjun gives you a look as though he doesn’t quite believe you, but drops it. This time, you don’t jump away like frightened prey when he touches you—wraps around your side. “Let’s watch something tonight? I’ve been hearing about this new Kdrama called ‘My Demon’.”

“That sounds straight out of Wattpad… I’ll order the food.”

“Happy birthday,” Yeonjun sings as he saunters into your bedroom at… way too early in the morning. But all’s forgiven with the realization he comes bearing gifts—food. “What’s that, thirty-four punches I’m gonna have to give you, now? Fuck, you’re old,” he says as he sets down a delectable-looking plate of your favorite breakfast on your nightstand.

“Shut up, you’re older than me.” You narrow your eyes, sitting up to reach for your birthday breakfast.

“And if you punch me thirty-four times, you will not live to see another day, Choi.”

Getting older has meant that your birthdays have become a lot less eventful, but you haven’t quite minded it. They’re spent with your favorite person, anyway, so no complaints on your end.

Yet, somehow, you end up on a beach on the night of your birthday, sitting on a beach towel Yeonjun had neatly spread out and admiring the night sky. You’d had a simple plan to laze around at home all day, eat something good for dinner, drink a little more than you should, and then sleep like the dead. However, Yeonjun had other plans when he’d announced the night before that he was taking you on a day trip the next morning. ‘It’s only a six-hour drive’, he’d said, because he’s insane.

You suppose you had a little more to your original plan… you guess you also intended to profess your newly realized love for your best friend, and potentially ruin about twenty-nine years of friendship if things happened to go wayward. Well, you still intend on getting that over with.

“Happy birthday,” Yeonjun says once more, as he returns from the car with an unopened bottle of wine and two wine glasses. Huh, you guess that’s why he took so long to grab something to drink from the ‘cooler’, actually... do either of you even own a cooler? “Better appreciate this wine, it was pricey.”

“I distinctly recall telling you not to spend much on me this year,” you sigh, but you’re staring down the bottle, “and you already arranged this impromptu trip.”

“Well, I wanted to, it’s not every day you turn thirty-four.” Yeonjun doesn’t add anything else, as he hands you the bottle of wine; you decide not to call out how he can’t meet your eyes properly.

Cabernet Sauvignon 1999, the bottle reads. You don’t know much about wine—you’re not that old yet—just that it usually tastes good. “Is it good? I don’t think I’ve tried Cabernet Sauvignon, have I?”

“You haven’t, I think you’ll like it. It would’ve gone well with dinner.”

You hum, taking a corkscrew handed to you, as Yeonjun takes a seat beside you.

A couple of glasses later, you blurt, “Thanks. For this—the trip, dinner. And the wine. I like it a lot.” It’s not quite what you’d meant to say, in such a stilted manner. You guess you need a little more liquid courage, as you pour yourself another glass.

“I can tell, that’s like your third glass.”

“Shut up,” you grumble, as Yeonjun snorts into his glass. Cheeks warming, you start internally motivating yourself—if being alive for thirty-four years has taught you anything, it’s that everything’s worth a shot. You miss a hundred of the shots you don’t take… or whatever the saying is. “Do you remember that time I said we should just marry each other if we’re still single by thirty-four?”

After a pause, Yeonjun raises a brow, “Yes?”

“I’m surprised you remember that, considering you passed out right after… Are you saying we should get married, then?” Something passes over his features before he turns to you, and laughs something that isn’t exactly humorous, “I think that might be enough wine for you.”

“I’ve only had two glasses.”

“Two-and-a-half,” you correct after glancing down at your half-full glass. “I’m not drunk, maybe a teensy bit tipsy, but—fuck, that’s not the point.”

“What is the point you’re trying to make then? Yeonjun laughs, it almost looks like that familiar glint has returned to his eyes. You’d appreciate it if you weren’t about to implode.

“I, uh,” you clear your throat. Yeonjun continues to regard you with amusement; you vaguely wonder if he’ll still be amused once you manage to get the words—your confession out, or if you’ll go and ruin everything because of some stupid feelings. “Fuck, this is kinda difficult.”

“Okay, um,” maintaining eye contact is a test of your mental strength, which is why you avert your gaze even though you’ve turned to face Yeonjun, as you utter your next sentence, “So, it’s taken me an embarrassingly long time to realize that I’ve, uh, sort of, kind of been in love with you for probably forever. No, I—”

“I’m in love with you,” you rephrase more confidently, yet you end up shrinking in on yourself when the only response you receive is Yeonjun blinking blankly at you. “So, um, you could say something… right about now. Like, you hate me and are kicking me out? Well, ideally, you could say that you feel the same and—”

“Breathe,” Yeonjun reaches over to squeeze your clammy hand. Taking a breath as instructed, you realize you have not been breathing properly since you began speaking. “I was just—you’re being serious? You aren’t just drunk, and you aren’t fucking with me?”

“Two-and-a-half glasses, I’m tipsy at worst,” you reiterate, “and I’m not fucking with you either.”

“Oh.” Yeonjun breathes, which does nothing to assuage the anxiety that feels like it might have colored your face pallid, as it incessantly knocks against your ribcage.

“Oh? C’mon man, I just confessed my love to you, give me a little more than ‘Oh’, I’m nervous as shit right now.”

“Sorry, I was just…” Yeonjun laughs, the asshole laughs. “We really are best friends, huh? I spent all week trying to figure out how to make your birthday special, and confess my love to you at the end of the night. And here you are, beating me to it.”

“You… oh.”

“C’mon man, give me a little more than ‘Oh’, I just told you your love is reciprocated,” Yeonjun laughs as he repeats your previous words, teasing, “I’m nervous as shit, too.”

So, you down the rest of your glass before setting it aside and scooting too close for comfort, and ask, “Can I kiss you?” Because if thirty-four years of life has taught you anything, it’s to not waste any more time.

“Uh… yes.” Yeonjun’s widened eyes dart from both of your eyes, to your lips, and back.

And, so, you close the distance to kiss him. 

Maybe it’s not magical, maybe you don’t feel any supposed sparks or fireworks. But it feels right, like it’s meant to be as you cup Yeonjun’s cheek and shift to curl your hand around his nape. It feels like caressing the petals of a burgundy rose.

(“Have you just always known you loved me? Even when I threw up on you the first time we got drunk?” You ask, a few hours, and a couple more glasses of wine later.

“Ew, but yes, I knew I loved you even then.”

“...Huh. Would you still love me if a witch cursed me and I turned into a worm tomorrow?”

Yeonjun snorts, “A worm?” then he hums in thought, “I would buy the biggest terrarium, and the nicest dirt I can find, and take care of you. I’d find the witch and make her turn you back into a lovely human, too.”

“Good answer,” you smile, leaning over to kiss Yeonjun again, he tastes a little like remnants of Cabernet Sauvignon, deep and red, urging you to kiss him a little deeper. “I love you,” you whisper against his lips when you part.)

Upon thinking about it, not much changes between you and Yeonjun; apart from the kissing, consistently sharing a bed, sober I love you’s, and the other ‘unnecessary PDA’, as Taehyun so kindly put it, while Soobin had fixed the two of you with a disgusted look (you know that deep down somewhere, he’s happy for you both), and Beomgyu shot a thumbs up before going back to hogging the cookies Soobin baked—Kai was more focused on trying to steal some cookies, which he managed.

Your mother had practically wept out of joy when you told her the news, ‘I’m going to see my baby get married! I thought the day would never come!’ she’d cried out, and rushed to tell anyone that would listen to her. Overdramatic, and a little hurtful, by the way… You didn’t even say anything about marriage, either!

“Hm?” You reluctantly blink your eyes open at the call of your name, to see Yeonjun looking at you with a suspicious grin on his face.

“I love you.”

“...What did you do? I love you too, though, even if I have to become an accomplice.”

“I didn’t do anything bad, I just love you.”

“Mm, you loser. I love you more.”

“Hm, are you sure about that?” Yeonjun hums, your eyes follow him as he sits up and reaches for something from his nightstand, “‘Cause I think I love you more? So much that I’m asking if you’d do me the honor of marrying me.” He says so casually, contrasting how he carefully opens a small, velvety box. It gives a quiet creak as it pops open, revealing a simple silver band. A ring. An engagement ring.

After blinking the fatigue out of your eyes, and confirming that you’re not seeing or hearing things, you sit up with a start, “You—

“You dick, why would you propose to me while I’m half-asleep?!”

“Well, if you said no, I could’ve just written it off as you being tired and mishearing me… I’ll get you a nicer wedding ring, too, if you say yes, that is. Well, I already have one—”

Yeonjun grunts as you throw yourself onto him, “You’re such an idiot, I love you. Yes, I’ll marry you, there’s no question about it.”

You can’t recall the moment you started loving Yeonjun; maybe it was the day you met and he let you play his PlayStation. Maybe it was in middle school when more people started to see him, or maybe it was in high school…

Maybe you can’t pinpoint the exact moment, maybe you’ve just always loved Yeonjun. It’d be hard not to love him; he’s as beautiful as a white rose—inside and out—one that you’d pluck from the dirt with your bare hands, thorns and all, just to keep to yourself, even if for a little while. Maybe that’s selfish, but you think that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

You part from Yeonjun as your friends and family cheering fills your ears. Feeling like words can’t do your feelings in that moment justice, you kiss him once more, in hopes to convey them a little better.

“I know. I love you,” he says, because he knows you best.

Grinning so happily that your cheeks begin to ache, you properly part from Yeonjun this time, and walk hand-in-hand down the aisle.