#the way I wanted to delete this ask because you keep annoying me

[alcoholfreenayeon]

yow what abt twice mtls? confess first, fall in love, get jealous, fall out of love. great jeongyeon hc btw

Twice most to least likely: Get jealous

A/N: I feel some of these ended up sounding more yandere than jealous🙂‍↕️ but hopefully that’s just me😭hope you guys like it

Sana

She’s a huge flirt, she likes the way she can get people to be infatuated with her plus she likes to play hard to get.

Because of this she’s not used to people seeing her as a second choice so when she sees her partner having a good time with someone else when she’s available or even when she isn’t, it makes her feel strange.

It’s uncharted territory for her and she feels possessive immediately. After all what does the other person possess that Sana doesn’t. Why isn’t her partner yearning for her every moment instead of having a good time without her…

Nayeon

You’ll find Nayeon staring daggers at you with or without a polite smile. It’s really not a fun sight to witness because you just know you are in so much trouble later.

Nayeon feels very possessive of you. She’s someone who needs a lot of reassurance so you being clingy with anyone other than her doesn’t bode well with her.

Though she ends up feeling a bit silly after some time thinking for being so possessive she can’t help it, she wants you for herself and only herself.

Mina

Mina is a big introvert and she likes to stay indoors alot and keep to herself. But she knows she can’t really force you to do the same.

Nevertheless, she secretly wishes you would be that way. She’d prefer if she could have you all to herself. If it’s only you and her, all day everyday,

She feels sometimes she’s not good enough and that might make you drawn to others and hence gets her guard up immediately when she sees you being close with someone she doesn’t know.

Momo

You were happily chatting with your friend while waiting for Momo. You had known her for a long time, you didn’t take much notice of it when while laughing at a joke, she put her hand on your arm.

Soon enough, her instincts began to scream for danger and upon looking around, she spotted Momo a few meters away, glaring at both of you. “Is that your girlfriend?”…..

The journey back home was quiet. You realized how that might have looked out of context and were fearing Momo saw it differently. She was quiet though. “Everything ok baby?”, you ask her.

“Yes. But you need to sleep early and rest well”, she replies. “Huh? Why do I need extra rest?”, you question. “Well the couch isn’t very comfortable to sleep on is it”, she answers, unbothered, as she looks into the rearview mirror and applies her lipstick.

Chaeyoung

Chaeyoung and you were surprised to run into your ex at the mall. It was a bit awkward for the three of you but luckily there was no violence.

She hated how you and your ex became awkward because for her that meant you both saw each other and intentionally or unintentionally reflected back on the time you both were together.

She hated when while leaving, you both shared an inside joke which she didn’t know. Chaeyoung knew it’s just how these things go but that didn’t make her blood boil any less.

Tzuyu

Tzuyu is observant, she doesn’t always speak out, never mind her speaking her mind.

So when she was looking at your Instagram and spotted old posts of you and your ex, it just made her quite upset.

But she also knew it was the past yet she also thought you could have deleted it. After all wasn’t the ex was no longer part of your life.

Dahyun

Dahyun was watching you talk with the party’s host. It was normal. The two of you seemed to be getting along well.

She was standing a few feet away, getting something to drink when she suddenly heard the host make a suggestive flirty comment towards you. You didn’t realize it and just laughed along,

Dahyun though, gritted her teeth, it’s annoying that you always are so oblivious to these things. She’s gonna scold you for that later, as for the host…well, it’s a good thing her nails felt sharp right now.

Jihyo

Jihyo knows her worth and she knows you know it too. So she’s never really worried about someone else stealing you away.

But after watching some dramas, she got a bit influenced by them and began to worry that she didn’t like you as much as she thought or wanted because why wouldn’t she ever feel jealous. It was normal for couples to feel jealous at some point right?

And when she asked you to try and flirt with a cashier because she wanted to test something, you definitely felt it was a test. It took a lot of convincing from her and a promise that you wouldn’t get in trouble. Reluctantly you did it but when the cashier actually ended up giving you her number. Jihyo took your hand and dragged you out of the store without even buying anything. You were in big trouble.

Jeongyeon

Jeongyeon never has any real reason to doubt you. She knows you both love each other very much.

Of course, it’s inevitable that at some point either of you would get approached by someone else. It won’t be your or her fault if that happens.

But that’s easier to think when it hasn’t happened. When a fellow idol told Jeongyeon that she was lucky to have you and she should be careful you could get stolen. Though Jeongyeon was polite, her glare she ended up shooting at them later would have scared them silly.

[whydoiwrite]

I've got two shiny quarters on my desk that say FSU will beat NC's ass tonight.

I accept cash, card, and Cashapp. Alternative payments can be negotiated thanks in advance

Nothing Finer!

[elisedonut]

sudden itch to write a rare pair fic thats not Percy related

but like

the last time I did that it ended up becoming my top fic and lead to me deciding that you know... actually I hate that ship just out of spite so i'm not sure how good of an idea it is

maybe if i try like femslash or something super super rare with side characters or something

[rachiller]

Listen my friend painted pretty designs on my nails while we drank cocktails and watched law and order I cannot be harmed by any psychic attacks right now

[veritasangel]

if we're being honest

⋆ ˚｡⋆ any pov ୨୧˚ warnings: none ↣ just soft simon {wc: 1.5k}

There was a dating app on Simon’s phone, he hated the thing but hadn’t uninstalled it yet.

It usually all went the exact same with everyone who messaged him. They’d ask Simon some shallow questions and then instantly begin flirting. Sure, maybe that was what it was for, but it felt so forced to Simon and he never had an urge to flirt back.

He’d keep the conversation steady and at least try to get to know them. But then the sexual remarks would begin almost instantaneously. Maybe others would be okay with that, but not Simon.

He could hardly stand such topics with people he knew, let alone sexting a stranger, he never got the appeal. It was very clear that most of the ones talking to him had focused on the ‘soldier’ part in his bio and ignored everything else. 

He had actually been meaning to delete his profile because it clearly wasn’t working, but as he opened the app to do so, your profile popped up.

You looked pretty, a sweet smile too. He couldn't help himself and clicked on one of the other photos available, one of you smiling with a cat. He tilted his head as he looked at the giant fluffy cat.

'Hmm, might be a slight problem one day' Simon thought to himself as he glanced at his dog beside him. He was already getting ahead of himself at that smile of yours, alone.

He sighed, trying to shake away the thought of messaging you. He had opened the app to delete it, but there was something about you that had his brain, or maybe his heart, screaming at him to just go for it one more time.

Simon contemplated for a good few seconds but who was he kidding? He knew he would end up messaging you.

The first conversation with you was a breeze, you were throwing all sorts of jokes his way and honestly for a moment he thought Soap was pranking him because your humour was almost the same.

He’d later learned that you were nervous so the jokes felt like a better icebreaker and honestly it made him feel better to know you were nervous as well. The messages between the two of you were more like two friends getting to know one another, there wasn’t a hint of anything romantic even after you guys had been talking for a little while.

And maybe that’s what Simon wanted.

Falling for a friend felt much more real to him and if that friend was you, well he liked the idea even more. You were caring, funny, intelligent and honestly everything about you was what he wanted in a partner. You made him feel comfortable, even asking at the start what topics were out of bounds and as a man with a lot of trauma, that was a huge sigh of relief.

Eventually he got the courage to ask if you would want to go on a date with him, and thankfully you said yes.

Simon picked a nice restaurant a good distance between the both of you so neither one had to travel far. Everything leading up to it was perfect, but right as he was about to leave, he had a slight panic.

He had to call Johnny and try not to let it turn into a full blown panic attack. Soap kept him calm, talked him through it, even suggested that it'd be best if Simon probably cancelled the date. That last part wasn't really what he wanted to hear though, Simon didn’t want to cancel, he wanted to see you so badly. Needed to.

Eventually, after a long conversation, he reluctantly agreed with Soap, getting off the phone to send you the dreaded text.

Sorry, but I’m gonna have to cancel or maybe reschedule tonight's date. I think it’s the going out to the restaurant part that's setting me off and I just can't do it right now :/ Again, really sorry.

He puts his phone down and he already knows how this is going to go. You’ll think he’s a dick, send an annoyed response back and block him before he can explain...but instead his phone starts ringing.

"Si, you alright?"

He just takes in the soft sound of your voice as he takes a deep breath and collects his thoughts.

"Uh yeah-" he mumbles, "I'm really so sorry if I've wasted your time, you probably got ready and everything and I-"

You cut him off mid ramble before he can overthink anymore, "It's okay. "Talk to me, are you okay? Do you need anything?"

"I'm fine, feeling a little better, I just-" Simon begins, "Just had a little panic, it’s not you, don’t worry. I just haven’t done anything out and about in a while, I think the restaurant was a little daunting. I really apologise."

"You really don't need to apologise Si. I'm sorry you're feeling that way." you say softly, worrying about him over the phone and Simon knows it, can hear it in your tone.

"I'll be fine, love, really. Just wanted you to know it’s not a cop out. Swear I really wanted to finally meet you. Properly."

"Well I don’t want to push any boundaries so feel free to say no. But maybe I could still come over?" you say tentatively, "We don't need to go out to some expensive restaurant, could just be comfortable at your place...If you want of course, no pressure."

“Really?” Simon asks, hope emanating as he listened to your words.

“Yeah, I mean, honestly home stuff is cosier anyway.”

“I don’t have anything in the fridge.” he says, almost as if he’s trying to dissuade you. He doesn't want to of course, but he just thinks for a moment that maybe he's imagining you.

“Didn’t you say there’s a nice Vietnamese place near yours that delivers? I’m down for that.” you suggest.

“Really?” Simon repeats, an actual grin on his face now and he's thankful you can't see him.

“Yeah, why not?”

And that was that, Simon was already smiling to himself, thankful to everything that he hadn't deleted that stupid app when he was going to. Even his dog gave him a look of sorts and he just laughed,

She might be the one, little guy.

When you turned up, Simon absolutely forgot how to speak, all nerves and blushes as you hugged him. But it was good nerves, and ones that died down relatively quickly once he'd shown you around and spoken to you a little.

Honestly he found himself staring a little too often and had to keep reminding himself to not look too much like an obsessed weirdo. The evening flew by pretty quickly, you guys ordered your food, eating it in front of the tv. It was a real casual setting but he liked it and you did too.

The conversation was just as relaxed in person and even his dog liked you, snuggling up against your leg during the evening, not even sparing Simon a glance.

Damn traitor

“I’m glad you called.” Simon begins nervously, as he looks over at you, “You know, as in, instead of thinking I was an ass.”

“An ass for what?” you ask, confused. One of your hands absentmindedly rests on his arm and it's a feeling Simon could get used to, one that felt natural.

“Well...for potentially cancelling.” 

“Simon, you were anxious. If anyone has been mad at you for cancelling for that reason before, then they’re the asshole, not you.”

And he feels so lucky to have met you, grateful he went through with messaging you that day. The warmth of your presence, the natural ease of your conversation, and the genuine concern you showed meant so much to him.

This wasn’t just a random fleeting encounter. It felt like the beginning of something real, which is exactly what he wanted.

As the night grew late, you both found yourselves laughing at a silly movie, hands wandering slightly, but not too much. Honestly the two of you were so comfortable, anyone would think you were already 5 years deep into a relationship.

Your laughter was infectious, and for the first time in a long while, Simon felt a sense of peace wash over him. The worries that usually plagued his mind seemed distant, almost insignificant. Eventually, you both fell into a comfortable silence, just enjoying each other's company. His dog, fast asleep at your feet and a sure sign of approval if there ever was one.

“Tonight was really nice,” you said softly, breaking the silence.

“Yeah, it was,” Simon agreed, his voice equally soft. He glanced over at you, your eyes reflecting the soft glow of the TV. “Thank you for being so understanding.”

You smiled, a warm, genuine smile that almost made him blush again. “Anytime, Si. I mean it.”

“Can we do this again?” he asked, a hint of vulnerability in his voice.

“I’d like that,” you replied, your smile reassuring him.

And as the night eventually came to an end, Simon was laying in bed, a content smile on his face as he finally deleted that damned app, but this time for a good reason.

༄ cod m.list

© veritasangel ↣ 𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘴

[munsonsfairy]

only have eyes for you 💍

author's note: request by @urantisocialgay <3. i accidentally deleted your ask when i finished the fic. thank goodness that it was saved somewhere else too!! anyways, thank you for your request!! i love weddings and proposals!! you can never annoy me with writing this au. 🥹🥹

content: so so much love.

word count: 1.5k

song: i only have eyes for you by the flamingos

wedding au. | fic inspiration. | proofread by: @katemartinis <3

The ring was perfect. It was a vintage style emerald cut signature solitaire with double claw and details on a 14k yellow gold band. All Paige could do was imagine your ring finger wearing it. She knew it was the one when she saw you admire it at the jewelry store.

Paige needed to take her chains and earrings to get cleaned. Your favorite thing to do was imagine what your engagement or wedding ring would look like. You always thought engagements, weddings, and all the planning involved were magical. Plus, wedding cake is always so yum.

One thing you made sure to always tell Paige is that you don't want to suspect you were getting engaged. You wanted to be completely surprised. Planning the proposal was not a breeze for her. Paige knew you better than anyone. She knew your favorite sunset was in San Diego. She remembers how you danced around in the sand and water that night.

To keep you oblivious, Paige surprised you with weekend getaway trip with your closest friends. Your friends were told to let you have all the fun you wanted. The day of the proposal was the last night of your trip, so all of you get ready for a nice dinner by the water. Well, at least that is what was supposed to be happening.

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪

Azzi called Paige panicking because you noticed your girlfriend's location was off which never happened before, and as an overthinker everything you could think of ran through your mind. You would call Paige, and her phone would go straight to voicemail. The thought of going out was the last thing you wanted to do.

"She's not budging! You need to call her if you want to be engaged by tonight." Azzi whispered loudly over the phone.

Paige sighs, "Okay, okay let me call her. Hopefully she can't figure out that I'm lying to her." She knew you were smart enough to piece everything together.

After so much convincing from Kayla, you were finally getting ready when she Facetimed. “Heard someone missed me,” she smiled teasing you.

You sigh starting to feel silly for worrying, “Mhmm. Did you forget to charge your phone again?”

While you were putting the finishing touches of your makeup, Paige was admiring you. She couldn’t stop staring and thinking about spending forever with you. A part of her couldn’t believe an angel like you could love her.

You look from your mirror back to your phone when you didn’t hear an answer from her. “You’re staring.”

“You’re so gorgeous.” You rolled your eyes playfully.

“Look who’s talking. Such a pretty girl with her bun and braids.”

Now it was your turn to make Paige shy making her cover her red face. "Yooo, I'm talking about you right now." She says with her face in her hands.

“Ughhhh, get a room!” You heard KK and Ice yelling from the phone.

Paige rolls her eyes and hears Kayla ask you if you’re ready. “Call me before bed, princess?”

The way she’s looking at you right now makes you want to melt. Your favorite feature of Paige was always her eyes.

“Now look who’s staring,” she laughed.

“Shh, I’ll call you before bed. Keep your phone charged!”

She laughed again, “Alright, alright. I love you, *kiss kiss*. Bye.”

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪

You and your friends were all going to wear white to dinner. They thought it was a good idea to match to keep you from questioning anything. Before you left the room, you stood in front of the mirror to make sure everything was okay. For some reason you had a feeling you couldn’t describe. All day felt magical and dreamy.

The ride to the “restaurant” was filled with whispering and giggles. Kayla was documenting the whole trip with her camera, so it was no surprise to you when she leaned forward to the passenger seat and took a video with you.

Paige’s proposing went through your head just for a second. You don’t know why but your intuition is never wrong. All the pieces started coming together; the random planned trip, dress, & her being MIA all day? You started to feel a mix of excitement, happiness, & sadness. You always dreamed of this moment, but this meant a chapter of your life is closing. The last time you’ll be a girlfriend. The last time it’s just you. You closed your eyes and quietly said goodbye to this chapter of your life and to the little girl in you.

You took a deep breath and processed how surreal this is. The possibility of becoming a fiancé gives you goosebumps and butterflies. The girl you love with your whole heart could be waiting for you with a ring reading to give you, her heart.

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪

"Kayla just texted me letting us know they are about five minutes away." KK came running out of the house full of excitement as she should be since her and Nika introduced her to you, but that is a story for another time.

"Okay," Paige deeply sighed trying to release any worry and anxiety. She knows you love her and vice versa.

"She loves you, Paige. Everyone knows and sees it," Nika reassured and hugged her twin.

Tears welled up in Paige's eyes as she was hugging Nika. She laid her head on Nika’s shoulder squeezing her tight.

“Nah, you aren’t going to cry yet!” Paige laughed and finally felt all her nerves leave.

KK heard car doors slamming coming from the front of the house, "Okay, they're hear. Are you ready?" She asked Paige.

Paige nodded letting the two girls run back to the house to watch from inside. She took a deep breath and prayed a small prayer to release any doubt she felt.

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪

Instead of arriving to a restaurant as you thought, you were standing in front of a beautiful baby blue house. The front of the house was decorated with tickseeds, cosmos, and sunflowers. There was a white porch swing with pillows covered in seashells.

Your friends started walking through a garden gate that was to the right of the house. You gasped at the beautiful garden in front of you. For a moment, you thought you were in a fairytale storybook.

The further you walked you started seeing the beach. When you finally reached the middle of the garden, you saw Paige standing there surrounded by white roses. She was wearing a lace short sleeve shirt and shorts with blue adonis flowers. Her hair was in a bun with her two signature braids.

Kayla took all of your things and let you walk to your girlfriend while everyone else went inside. You felt like you were floating those 30 seconds you ran towards Paige. All the moments you thought this only happens in movies vanished. You pinched your finger to make sure you weren't dreaming. Nope this is real and ouch.

All the nerves and doubt were gone when Paige saw you standing in the garden. You looked like an angel in white surrounded with flowers. She swears she saw you glowing. Both of you were giggling and crying so much Paige almost forgot to ask you.

You ran into Paige’s arms, and she lifted you spinning you in a circle. The both of you couldn’t stop smiling and laughing. The love you had for each other radiated off you.

Paige put you down and grabbed both of your hands. She brought them to her lips and kissed both of your knuckles.

She squeezed your hands three times silently saying I love you. “They say when you know, you know, and I’m so glad I know. I can’t possibly describe how much I love you in a short time. You’re the light of my world and the stars of my universe. Every day I am so blessed to be loved someone as precious as you. I can’t imagine my life without you and your love. You’ve shown me how beautiful love is. I admire you and how strong and intelligent you are. I love the love we share and want to do it forever.”

Tears were rolling down your face as you looked into each other’s eyes. You and her laugh at how much of mess you both are. “Thank you for always showing me a love that is so magical. I never want to find it anywhere else. You show me a genuine adoration that I will forever cherish.”

Everything felt like a fairytale. You couldn’t believe how lucky you were to be hearing such beautiful words coming from someone who loves you. You felt so many emotions all at once. Your heart was full of love and happiness.

“I love you so much and I promise to always for all of my days.” Paige took a breath before getting on one knee. Although you knew she was going to propose, it still felt surreal seeing it happen in front of you. You aren’t dreaming.

You cover your mouth from shock when you saw the ring. THE ring!! The one you tried on weeks ago. You vividly remember how right everything felt when you wore it for those few seconds. The same feeling you feel right now with Paige.

“I want to share every moment with you. The good and the bad. I want to laugh and cry with you. You’re my sweetheart, best friend, and soulmate. You’re my person. Will you marry me?”

[dawndelion-winery]

Thanks for the Flowers

You send them a little prank thank you text with flowers they never sent

Ft: Alhaitham, Arlechinno, Childe, Scaramouche, Wriothesley

Alhaitham:

You thought it would be a funny prank to send him a stock image of flowers and a small thank you

"Glad you like them."

He smiles to himself, but then immediately deleted his message when he sees the attached image

That wasn't the bouquet he sent

His smile drops so fast because who exactly is sending you flowers apart from him?

"Throw those out, they aren't from me. Don't you like the one I sent more? I got your favourites, my love."

He gives the house a cursory scan the moment he steps in through the front door

It's only after you've given him his welcome home kiss and a hug that he starts looking for the bouquet for some trace of who the sender might be

At first he doesn't believe you when you say it's a prank because he wouldn't put it past you to just want to allay his worries

He'll come around though, and then he's annoyed

"That's childish and you know it, you can have my attention if you just ask for it."

Arlechinno:

This is her sign to publicly announce that you're with her because this sort of idiocy wouldn't be an issue if people knew you were spoken for

Initially chuckles to herself as she glares at the offending image

"Do you like them?"

Of course she's not telling you the weren't from her if you like them

The poor sucker who sent them to you deserves no credit anyway

If anything, they deserve her personal thanks for helping her gift you something!

Of course she needs to know their name and face to express her gratitude in person <33

In a totally genuine and non-threatening way (lie)

She ends up coming home late that day, having scared off any of your potential suitors just to be safe

"Had some unsavoury business come up, dearest, sorry to keep you waiting. Have you had dinner yet? No? Shall we dine together?"

She never brings it up though, so you sorta forget to ever tell her it was a joke

Childe:

At first he doesn't process that he didn't send you the flowers

It's not like he doesn't pay attention, but he has his subordinates send you so much stuff as he comes across it that it's really hard to keep track

For all he knows it might have been something he came across and spontaneously thought of you liking it

And your likes were pretty much needs to him

"Love you, my pookie <33"

And then he stows his phone away

Only to remember he hasn't gotten you any flowers that day

"My honey drumlet darling-kins, there doesn't happen to be a note attached to the flowers, is there?"

When you insist that no, there isn't, and you've checked thoroughly, he makes a mental note to look into anyone who's ever had a crush on you

For a friendly spar, of course!

He just needs to make sure his competition is even worth noting (they aren't)

He comes home, thoroughly disappointed that none of them could even hold their own against him - few even dared to try, scared shitless by the sudden appearance of a harbinger demanding they fight

Sweaty and tired, he's all over you, whining about his day and how everyone wants you and can't take a hint that you're so happy with him ("You are, aren't you? I'm your favourite.")

Of course you cave and tell him it was only a prank

He scowls at first, but then breaks out giggling as he buried his face in the crook of your neck

"It doesn't really matter because I think they're all scared of me anyway. Some of them took one look at me and blanched. Unlike you, of course; the sight of me excites you, doesn't it?"

Ah. There's your bastard ginger.

Scaramouche:

"Wrong number, I think you meant to text your side hoe."

Sends you the most unbothered replies

Is actually overthinking

He knows logically this is most likely a joke because he swears he has seen that bouquet somewhere on the internet when looking for flower arrangement inspiration

But what if it's just a really similar layout and someone actually did send it to you?

Horrible. He doesn't want to think about it

But of course he does anyway

Brings you flowers because he planned to sneakily replace the stranger's bouquet

Wriothesley:

"Honey, please tell me this is a joke."

Seething inside

Who in their right mind dared to covet you while you were happily dating him??

Don't even try evade his interrogation, he needs to know every detail

From the exact time the flowers were sent to the arrangement and paper quality

Don't mind him, it's just a small investigation he'll carry out in his free time

The sooner you come clean the better

Not that you'll go unpunished...but hey, confessing to your crimes must at least lighten the sentence, yeah?

Taglist: @ryuryuryuyurboat @yinyinggie @mx-kamisato @chaosinanutshell @haliyarobin @irethepotato @boundedbyfate @favonius-captain @aqui-soba @tiredsleep @sadlonelybagel @mastering-procrastinating @lemeowade

[lowkeyremi]

this is so cute AHHHHHHHHH its even cuter when u dont even know and it's the first time he does it!! @nctzenyuta here u go babes

nanami drabble !!

(implied fem reader)

cw: fluff

---------

Your man hopped in the shower about ten minutes ago and someone has been blowing up his phone in the meantime. You decided to ignore it because it's wrong to pry and be nosy. Even though you really wanted to scratch that itch of curiosity.

At some point you get really annoyed with the constant buzzing of his phone, so you pick it up to check who's messaging. It's Gojo of course. That's not what catches your eye though.

You're stuck up on the fact that his lock screen is you drooling on his chest in your sleep. What the hell!!!!!! You told him to delete that because you looked terrible. On top of that there's a mascara mustache on your face.

Your blond husband got the idea to use your mascara that was sitting on the night stand to give you a mustache. How did you not even notice the feeling of the mascara on your face??

"Kento!!" You yell from the bedroom as soon as he turns off the shower.

"Yeah, my love??" He asks, slowly trying to remember if he had done anything to upset you this week.

"Why is this picture your lock screen? I look so bad in it." You complain to him. You expected him to agree and change it but instead he said, "I think you look cute with a mustache. Maybe you should grow one."

You glare at him, "Kento." He snickers softly, "Okay, okay. I'll change it to my home screen so not everyone will see it." You sigh in relief and hand him his phone.

"In place of that picture will be this one." He taps something on his phone and flips it around for you to see...

It's you. Wearing the colorful "bob" wig your little sister cut for you. It was way too short and disproportional for it's original purpose of completing the look of your favorite tv show character.

When Kento saw you wearing the wig he couldn't keep the laughter from coming out. He laughed so hard his stomach began to ache.

"NO! Not that one either!!!" You watch as he makes adjustments to change the picture.

"My little dora the explorer, wifey." He comments with a smirk.

"Ughhhhh, why did I marry you??" You ask yourself and of course he decides to provide you an answer, "because i'm the premium husband material package."

"I think I need to get some replacement parts because this experience sure ain't premium." He hears the joke in your tone but still uses it as an excuse to tickle attack you.

"AHHHH GET- OFF OF ME AND... AND GO PUT- STOPPP- PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!!!" You scream between fits of laughter and torture people call "tickling."

He gets up off the bed and flashes you his dick.

"Kento." You gasp loudly.

"Nothing you haven't seen before. You seemed pretty happy to see it last night." He shrugs while making his way to the walk-in closet.

"The past was in the past. I'm a changed woman." He doesn't believe that at all but responds with, "okayyyyy... whatever you say, sweetie."

[seireitonin]

Dating: Eyeless Jack

Have to talk about someone besides LJ and Toby so here’s some EJ as requested! Sorry I lost your OG question whoever sent it :( Ik EJ has no “canon” backstory but the one I grew up with and the one that the fandom uses the most is the college/ cult one so that’s the one I’m using :3 also I hc EJ a bit different so yeah :3 I had to rewrite this 4 times bc the progress kept getting deleted 😭

After multiple years of living off human organs in the forest, EJ has lost most of his social skills

So he doesn’t really try

He just sneaks into peoples homes, takes what he needs and leaves

He set his sights on you. You were perfect.

Your house is close to the forest, you live alone, you seem to sleep pretty heavy

He’ll be in and out no problem

So he sneaks into your home, quietly. Not waking you

And he stands over you, looking down at you

It’s ironic because he has no eyes, yet the demon inside him lets him see through the dark clearly

He watches you sleep peacefully

Your chest rising and falling rhythmically, your perfectly placed features, your soft breathing

He definitely would’ve had a crush on you in college

College….the fact that you made him think of college, his old life at all in any way at all, he knew you were more than just a quick meal

So he left

What was his next step? Stalking you of course!

He watched you go about your normal days. Talk to your friends, eat your food and watch tv. Normal.

He fantasized about living normally alongside you

He didn’t ask for the life he had now after all, it was thrust upon him

Part of him almost hated you for being so carefree but he knew that wasn’t fair to you

Since he can’t be part of your normal life, you’ll have to be part of his weird one

He took you from your home in your sleep, only using the smallest injection of drugs to keep you unconscious

And you woke up screaming in his cabin in the forest

He hated you screaming at the sight of him

Not only because it annoyed him, but you’re supposed to be making him feel normal. You’re just reminding him that he’s a monster

“I’m not going to hurt you”

You stay silent for days you stayed silent and frozen in fear

Jack understands at first but after multiple days of your silence he gets angry

Part of him loved that he was able to take someone else’s normal life away like his was

After an unsuccessful hunt for food, he talks to you, upset

“What’s the point of you being here if all you’re going to do is stare at me?!”

You look at him silently still

“Say something to me! Anything! Just….talk to me like I’m….”

“Like you’re what?”

The first words you’ve said to him…

“Human”

You two start to talk. Not like you have much else to do

And after days of talking you start to weirdly get along with him. And you don’t even know what he looks like

He always covered head to toe, black clothes, black gloves, blue mask with his black hoodie covering his head. You were barely able to figure out he had brown hair because you saw one tuff

You don’t want to upset your literal captor so you don’t push it

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

“I…just don’t know what you look like”

“You don’t have to”

Jack is terrified of showing you what he looks like. How could he even explain his appearance. Talking with you has been the most normal he’s felt in years. If he shows you what he looks like…that feeling is over

“Please….”

He hears you ask softly

“No…you don’t need to see what I look like”

“You kidnapped me it’s literally the least you can do”

“……”

“I won’t judge”

“There’s so much about me I can’t explain. I… talking with you has made me forget about what I am. So please….let me savor this feeling”

You nod and respect his wishes

Then days turn into weeks and into months

And you ask again

“Jack, please let me see your face”

“No”

“It’s my birthday! This is all I want for a present!”

He legs out a sigh

“Is this really what you want?”

You nod

“Only if you take it off” he was fully ready for your look of disgust and screams of terror

And so you do and you smile at him as you take him in, his grey skin, soft brown hair that falls into his face a bit and sharp teeth oh and no eyes

“Why aren’t you screaming?”

“I don’t know”

Jacks been sleeping by your side since that night

You guys don’t call yourself a couple, but it’s basically what you are

But being with him isn’t all fun

When he had to hunt he comes back angry, not at you, but the fact that he has to do it at all

So he’s snappy, irritable and barely talks and he’s just not pleasant to be around when he’s like that

He hates hunting and feeding and won’t do it for days and only does it when absolutely necessary

When that happens the demon he’s hosting takes over and it’s terrifying

He gets much taller, he barely talks, becomes more animalistic and at night he just stares at you, like he’s trying to hold himself back from attacking you

He hates that you have to see him like that but he also hates hunting and feeding

When he feeds he will never do it around you

He’ll always go in another room but you can hear everything

You can hear the noises of him eating because he eats like a ravenous animal

You can hear his growling and panting and fleshy ripping noises as he tears into the meat of the organs with his teeth

He’ll come back to your bedroom blood, around his mouth, hands and the rest of him and you have to pretend everything is normal or he’ll get mad

“You think because I don’t have eyes I can see the way you look at me?! Stop looking at me like that!”

You can only look away

He can’t take you out like a normal boyfriend can because of the way he looks and it makes him upset

So when he sees you wanting to do normal couple things it hits a nerve

“You know damn well I can’t do that”

He’s upset that he can’t be normal alongside you and give you what you deserve

He tries to take you on walks around the forest but he knows you deserve more

He’s super possessive of you and keeps you by his side at all times. You’re the only thing that makes him feel normal

Even though he trusts you he always is watching you to make sure you don’t try to escape

Try to escape and there WILL be consequences

But hopefully it’ll never come to that

Jack sometimes gets really depressed about how his life turned out so sometimes if that happens he’ll just cry

Well, he’ll try to

The tar burned his tear ducts and he has no eyes so he’ll just make these heaving noises and they’re so sad to listen to

It’s so heartbreaking that he can’t do a human thing like cry

So you just hold him as he makes those noises, comforting him as best you can

“I wish I could look into your eyes, Jack”

“Me too”

He hasn’t had a romantic connection like this in years

His last romantic interest was Jenny the girl who made him this monster in the first place so sometimes he’s scared you’re going to somehow you’re gonna betray him

He knows he’s being paranoid though or so he hopes

On top of that he’s not good at communicating / being social at all since he’s spent so much time alone

So when he’s upset or angry or has a problem with you he won’t talk it out with you he just leaves or is quiet. Worst case scenario, just mean

“Did I do something wrong?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ll get over it so just drop it.”

“But-“

“Drop it. Now.”

He gets better with communication as time goes on

Although he still really struggles with it

He’s also not very affectionate so it’ll feel like you’re alone even when he’s with you

He doesn’t do it on purpose, hes just so used to not receiving affection and he hasn’t given anyone affection in years

After some talks he’ll get better with it

He really does love you he just doesn’t exactly know how to show it

But he tries

He knows you can’t leave the house with him so when he’s out, he’ll get you your favorite food, a trinket or something else you like

“Here. I know you like this”

He sleeps much better now that you’re next to him

He’s grateful for you

He really is. You didn’t have to open up to him and accept him but you did and he’ll forever love you for that

Since your actual house is close to the forest you actually take him back to your house and live with him normally

You watch TV together, lounge around and get takeout that he can’t consume so he watches you eat it and just laugh and talk

When he’s with you, he’s normal. You’re his normal. His home. He finally found what he wanted in you

Although it’s not perfect, you’re together and that’s all he needs

[flwrkisses]

boyfriend! heeseung.

doing these at random and actually having lots of fun writing them! — remember that leaving a like or a reblog shows me you're enjoying the content!

genre: fluff, established relationship. idol! heeseung x reader.

warnings: mentions of arguments, skinship and affections such as kissing.

❀˖° heeseung jay jake sunghoon sunoo jungwon ni-ki ..

- if heeseung likes someone he might be a little shy at first but once he gets to truly know you and get comfortable he grows so much more bold. so he starts taking his chances and shooting his shot, not really hiding that he likes you, hell he wants everyone to know he likes you.

- your first date was probably to a gotcha arcade where he could win you different things and show off a little. he thought it was the perfect first date because you could go home with plushies and other fun prizes and remember not only him but the fun time you had together. he was always thinking 3 steps ahead.

- because that date went so well, he ended up asking you out fairly quickly. which was kinda expected considering how many times he had begged you to go out with him before.

- personal space is nonexistent in this relationship, heeseung loves to be all over you all the time.

- he memories your favorite perfumes, soaps, creams, shampoo and conditioner because he had just fallen in love with your soft scent so much so that he continues buying you the same scents once he realizes you're running low.

- late night ramyeon dates, where you wear one of his extremely oversized hoodies and walk with him to the convenience store, sit and eat your ramyeon and gimbap and talk the night away.

- literally always flirting, heeseung lives to make you blush and all flustered. he can't help but chuckle each time you get shy when he flirts with you shamelessly.

- mornings are always lazy, especially when both of you can sleep in. there is not waking that man up.

- he's so jealous and possessive, like another man looks at you the wrong way it would get him off. his anger is never directed towards you though. he keeps telling you that you can wear whatever you want because he can fight.

- additionally with not caring how you dress or go out, he will protect you buy standing behind you if you're wearing shorts or a short skirt and you need to bend down, just so he can cover you with his body from anyone walking past.

- the above also goes for when you're sitting down, he would use his arm to cover your legs a bit, or he'd throw a blanket over your legs to make sure you're comfortable.

- kissing is always passionate, usually with giggles in between and smiles. it can never be just one peck, he always asks for more. he just can't get enough of you.

- expect his phone to be full of your pictures, so many of you off guard, candid, and just the selfies you've spammed onto his phone that he can't bring himself to delete.

- get ready for long gaming dates that could start off with you guys playing simple games like mario kart or mario party only to end up switching to much harder co-op games like overwatch or valorant.

- he loves to pull you onto his lap while he plays games, and press kisses onto your skin as you scroll through your phone. sometimes he even mutes his mic to talk to you for a while.

- one thing he will do is tease you if you're bad at the game, but he would also use the excuse of having to "teach" you how to play so he can pull you close.

- believe it or not, as much as he loves his games he loves you more. so the second he notices you getting a teeny bit annoyed over him focusing more on his game rather than you, he ends the match and turns off the game for you.

- when you guys play games together and win he says that he wins because he has the best duo partner in the world. you.

- he is always shamelessly checking you out. no matter what you're wearing or what you're doing.

- heeseung also finds so much comfort in you so when he's nervous, shy, anxious, scared he looks for you. if you're shorter than him he'd bend and curl into your body so you can hold him when he's feeling this way.

- when he calls you, he wants to talk for hours and when you finally tell him you have to go and hang up, he would beg you to stay 5 more minutes.

- in heeseung's eyes arguments and disagreements are natural and unavoidable at times. he listens to your side usually with his head hung low regardless of whos at fault or what the argument is about and would need some time to collect his thoughts and voice them.

- he hates going to bed angry or upset so he would probably stay up resolving the issue until you both are okay again and wrapped in each other's arms.

- your hair will always be played with regardless of length or texture. his hands are always in your hair, he mindlessly plays with it when you cuddle. its just his thing.

- on his phone he probably has your name as "mine ❤️" or something like that. but he would get so embarrassed when you see the contact name he has for you. it's cheesy but sweet.

- sometimes when you ask him too, he'll sing softly while you guys are about to drift off to sleep.

- he would even let you wash his face some nights after work when he's like super tired but most times he can't help himself from trying to steal a kiss from you with a soapy face.

- no matter what it is you want to do he's there supporting you 100 percent. he's your biggest support no matter what and he lets you know all the time that he's there for you.

- if you ever reject one of his kisses he would literally chase you around until you gave him a kiss. mans would not let you go free until he got what he wanted.

- sometimes he gets cocky and sits you down after he noticed you had a long day and tells you that you never have to work if you don't want to because he would work on supporting you. yeah, he's THAT in love.

- he loves singing your favorite songs to you at all times, especially when you're laying your head on his lap and he's playing with your hair.

-over all heeseung's just an overall he's a sweet, sometimes cocky and annoying boyfriend who loves getting a rise out of you.

©flwrkisses ; please do not copy, translate, repost and/or reuse my work without my permission. (2023)

₊˚♡ don't forget to like/reblog to let me know you enjoy this kind of content!

masterlist. — requests are open !

[midnightsnyx]

girl at home | mat barzal | part 1

pairing: mat barzal x fem!reader summary: you're eighteen when you find yourself pregnant after Mat leaves for hockey. nearly eight years later, Mat finds out about your daughter and you have to deal with the consequences of not telling him about her.

warnings: mentions of pregnancy & not really edited word count: 1.3k authors note p1: don't mind me starting a new series when i have four other wips on the go :):) i love kid fics and this idea was stuck in my head so i wrote & decided to give it a go and post it. if this does well and you guys are interested, i'll do more. authors note p2: so notes about the series: i gave the readers daughter a name because i hate writing y/d/n lol of course you can change it in your head to something else if you want :) also the last name johnson is just there so i could have a full name but we all know she'll be a barzal also thank u @multifandombabes for giving me the push to post this!! happy reading & let me know what you guys think!

masterpost

In hindsight, you should have realized that it was bound to happen sooner rather than later. You did your best to avoid places you knew he would be when he was home, going to visit your grandparents or other family. Anywhere that would give you the opportunity to not be seen by him, because then you’d have to explain your brown haired, green eyed, seven year old. 

You weren’t proud of your choice to keep Nora a secret from Mat but you did what you thought was right when you were eighteen, sitting on the floor of your best friend’s bathroom four weeks after you had said goodbye to Mat and staring at three positive pregnancy tests. He had just left for hockey and you didn’t want to be what held him back and as time went on, it got harder to pick up the phone so a few months after Nora was born, you erased Mathew Barzal from your life. You deleted the photos, phone numbers, social media, with the only reminder being the little girl.

And it worked fine. Until now.

Nora usually didn’t come grocery shopping with you because you always ended up taking three times as long as you normally would. Except, your sitter fell through and your mom couldn’t watch her so you had to bring her along. Which is totally fine until you run into Mat. Who has a girl with him. 

So yeah, everything was fine until now.

It’s kind of comical the way his panicked eyes dart between the three of the girls standing around him. A quick glance at Nora confirms that she’s two seconds away from saying something to Mat which will not go well since the kid has zero filter.

“Hey, you’re that hockey player mama and grandma watch on TV!” she exclaims and you want to melt straight through the floor when Mat looks at you with one eyebrow raised. 

“Yeah?” he asks, kneeling down so he’s at her level.

“Yeah,” she confirms, and then loudly whispers: “I’m not supposed to watch ‘cause some games are past my bedtime but sometimes I’ll sneak out.” 

He offers his hand and smiles. “Well, it’s nice to meet you…” he trails off, clearly hoping she’ll offer her name. You hope she just says her first name instead of announcing her full name which she tends to do lately.

“Nora,” she tells him, shaking his hand and then to your unsurprised horror, she proudly tells him her full name. “Nora Nadia Johnson.” 

He keeps the smile on his face but stiffens and gently drops her hand. 

“Cool name,” he says, still smiling but you can see the tension in his shoulders. 

“Thanks! My first name means light and my middle name-”

She doesn’t get a chance to finish her sentence because you grab her hand, abandon your shopping cart and high tail it out of the store. She grumbles while trying to keep up with your pace and eventually you just pick her up and carry her to the car.

“What did we say about talking to strangers?” you ask while buckling her seatbelt, ignoring her annoyed sighs. 

“He wasn’t a stranger, you watch him on the TV all the time.”

“Have you ever met him?” you ask, raising an eyebrow and she mumbles something under her breath.

“What was that?”

“No,” she mumbles, crossing her arms over her chest and giving you a look that is so Mathew that you could laugh.

“Well then, he’s a stranger.” 

You leave it at that because she starts talking about the summer camp she’s starting next week. You’re only half listening, trying to get over the shock of seeing Mat and knowing he realizes that he probably has a kid you never told him about. If you were in his shoes, you would be angry so you are expecting him to show up on your doorstep later that evening but he doesn’t. Part of you wonders if the reason he doesn’t come is because of that girl he had with him but you figure if he really wanted answers, he would come regardless. 

What you’re not expecting, is a text from his sister Liana. You still see his family from time to time out in public but after you essentially ghosted Mat, they didn’t really want anything to do with you. When everybody found out you were pregnant, you lied and said it wasn’t Mat’s which nobody really believed but they couldn’t prove it and you’d used your mothers maiden name as Nora’s last name so there were no ties. You were surprised that his family didn’t tell him anyways, but you thought that perhaps they didn’t for the same reason you didn’t.

To give Mat no reason to stay here and instead, pursue his dreams and go play in the NHL. 

So a text from his sister is unexpected. 

Liana: hey, are you free for lunch tmw?

You almost delete it at first and pretend she never messaged you, but you know that there’s no going back now that Mat saw Nora. He’s not stupid. He probably went home and asked his parents about her. So you text her back a reluctant yes and agree on a spot to meet up the next day.

Nora goes to your moms house because you’re unsure if it will just be Liana who shows up, or if anyone else does. You meet up at a Starbucks and aside from the initial tension, it melts almost immediately and the two of you go back to the big sister/little sister relationship you had when you and Mat were dating. Except now, she’s all grown up.

After some catching up, the conversation turns to the reason she asked to see you. She hesitates, picking at her nails - a nervous tick you know she does - before sighing. 

“Look, everybody kind of turned their head with ‘The Nora Situation’ because it was clearly what you wanted, and it was probably what was best for Mat,” she says. “But he knows now, and he’s got questions that we can’t and won’t answer. Dad had to talk him down last night and his girlfriend went back to New York this morning.”

You wince at that, not liking that the reason his girlfriend left is because of Nora but Liana must notice because she shrugs, taking a sip of her drink.

“Honestly, she wasn’t very nice. I’m not broken up over it and Mat didn’t seem to be either.” 

Okay, that is interesting. 

“Anyway,” she continues, “this is Mat’s new number.” She slides a small piece of paper across the table and you gingerly take it. “I know you didn’t want to tell him, and I understand but he knows. So give him a chance, okay?”

You manage a nod and let her leave with the final word. All you want to do is take Nora and leave, to get as far away as you can but something inside you stops you from doing it because maybe Liana is right, and you should give Mat a choice. After all, you were the one who decided to take it away from him in the beginning. 

So later that night, after Nora is asleep, you curl up on your couch with the piece of paper and stare at it for a good fifteen minutes. Regardless of whether or not you text him, you will have to deal with this and you’d rather it be on your terms. You reluctantly type his new number in your phone and hesitate, trying to think of what to even say. This isn’t a conversation you were expecting to have with him. You type and delete a dozen messages before deciding on something simple.

To Mathew: Hey, I guess we should talk.

You take a deep breath, and hit send.

[hyhkai]

these photos are such a contribution to me for my agenda of yeonjun as alex volkov from the twisted series and that's because it's radiating — model yeonjun. (I loved the photography scene what can I say)

the concurrence of your very sexual & romantic relationships with him all while him being one of your clients at your studio, you purposefully making sure no one was there to interfere or nudge in his session there — you struggling to even find a single bad photo of him because he's just the perfect amount of symmetry and wholly beautiful. sexy.

photos clicked, photos selected. with you at the edge of the table of hair and make-up, surely you won't be deleting any of the photos that didn't make it through either. perusing through each photo, looking at the intricate details of his body — why even look at the photos when now he's in front of you, hands beside you on the table, catching you practically drooling at his photos? you immediately shut the camera down, — but it's not like you and him haven't seen it all.

"why, are those photos bad?" he asked, with the intent of purposefully annoying you. you shook your head no, "they're great."

and soon behind the locked doors of the photoshoot room, the high bar chair that was only supposed to be for him to sit in for some magazine cover, was now being used for him to basically fall into — knees buckling back as he sat down, almost irritated your mouth wasn't already put to use.

you always did, you always always did end up on your knees in your own studio, your panties sticking to your core when your head would get pushed down onto his dick. yeonjun's eyes shut, head tilted back — biting his lips as he heard your gargles and noises you make just to make him shiver.

"h-hah. just like that.. just, — just like that." he would mumble under his breath, your eyes shut close and thanking your own self for not wearing any eyeliner, because god of you did — none of it would be able to handle the strain of your tears.

holding your hair up for you, gently, while you licked the underside of his tip — making him let out a shut-off whimper. rubbing his dick on your lips, looking up at him with big doe eyes as he stared right back, chuckling as he brushed the hair off your forehead, gently.

swallowing it, inch by inch, him desperately wanting to push your head down and use you but no. no, he can't do that. he just breathed out small fucks and holy shits when you'd taken him whole. he wished to keep you there, in place, for a minute.

a soft pop audible when you disengage your lips from his dick, leaning in to lick the base of his dick and place a series of pecks. a smile on your face when he mumbled "baby, please." like you weren't already giving him what he truly craved from your photoshoots.

getting your head pushed down after he finally gave in to what he craved — your eyes widening a bit but also moaning, approvingly. the way he was biting into his own, plump lips could draw blood.

pulling your head away, hands pumping his dick as it twisted at the cockhead, — you'd stare up at him, admiring his each and every detail because he's too hot too beautiful for his own good. and when he cums, it's going to end up on your face, and he'd soil his own pants.

"we have another session, next week, friday, I hope I'll be getting a good payback for this" you said, getting up as he just stared at the lines of white on your cheekbones. the perfect highlighter.

[miraclewoozi]

HIGH FIDELITY, PT 2. -c.hs

getting back on the horse is hard, and failing to hit it off with the cute gamer guy you went for a drink with last night has the potential to be your love life’s last straw. but when up and coming rockstar VERNON unexpectedly canters into your life, you find yourself asking one very important question: do you have it in you to saddle up, one more time?

( PART ONE )

pair ; vernon x fem!reader.  content ; strangers to lovers.  up-and-coming musician!vernon x record store owner!reader.   fluff, angst, smut. (MINORS DNI). warnings ; drinking + alcohol is a big theme pretty much throughout. mentions of past relationship breakdowns. reader experiences a lot of stress, anxiety and feelings of doubt, reflected in self sabotage. mentions of sickness (acute). wc ; 12.2k ( ~38k total. ) disclaimer ; this fic was inspired by rob + liam in the series high fidelity and is therefore pretty influenced by the show. if you’ve watched it, you’ll probably see a lot of similarities! i just felt so drawn to vernon in this kind of role that i really wanted to try and put a spin on it. i do not claim that every idea behind this is original. notes ; been working on this one for a while. hope you enjoy it.<3

smut tags : making out. some groping. some 'first time together' shenanigans. oral (m rec) & ball sucking hehe. he has a big cock because i have an agenda to push. implied f rec oral. implied multiple rounds. PLEASE let me know if i’ve forgotten anything.

The clock on your bedside table reads somewhere between 4:00 and 5:00 in the morning when you resign from trying to fall asleep and force yourself to sit upright, fed up of tossing and turning between your now too-creased sheets, brain stuck in a foggy, hellish limbo. Your mind won’t shut down. Your body won’t rest. Birds are starting to chirp outside and you can hear them clear as whistles through the cheap window that doesn’t quite seal shut to your left. Your eyes squint in preparation as you reach for your lamp and flood the room in yellowish light, drawing your knees up to your chest. 

You’ve spent so much time in your own thoughts that you’ve begun to feel systemically unwell. Your stomach twists and aches, your eyes are so dry it hurts to even blink and there’s an ache behind them that started as an annoying throb, but has grown over the hours into a roaring flame. From the hairs on your head all the way down to your toes, you feel like you could burst. 

You wish you had it in you to cry. To let it out. Keeping this pent up is no doubt making you feel a hundred times worse, and you think it would be nice to feel something other than the endless swooping of the spiral you’re well and truly making your way down. Your alarms are going to go off in a few hours. I can’t let anyone see me like this, you think. I can’t work in this state. 

You throw ideas around in your head for a little while, thumbs tweaking over your phone as messages get typed, edited, deleted, and repeat. Part of you thinks maybe you could manage. Just tough it out and put on a brave face, because actually, what right do you have to be hiding away when you’re the one who ran out one of the nicest guys you’ve ever met? But you just know something will go wrong, even if you tell the boys that you need to camp out in the office for the day. When you need peace and quiet, you can never find it behind that creaky old door. When was the last time you got a full admin day without being called through to help with a problem or deal with a drama? And truly, the idea of facing the world right now makes you feel like you could be sick. 

Sick…

Could you—?

You’ve never enjoyed taking sick days, even on occasions where you’ve really needed them, when you’ve woken up feeling like you’re knocking at death’s door. Sometimes, you swear the guilt that it brings ends up making you feel ten times worse than whatever your ailment is doing to you in the first place. But your exhaustion lets impulse take hold and you’re already sending a message into your group chat with the boys before you can talk yourself out of it, biting the inside of your cheek as the little indicator pops up on your screen. Delivered. 

Well. You’re committed now, whether you like it or not. 

Not feeling so hot. I won’t be in today. Take it easy, I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Sorry. 

You pick your comforter up off the bed and wrap it around your shoulders like an extravagant, well-padded cape, trudging your way through the apartment until you’re stood, barefoot and cold, staring into the bright light of your refrigerator. Somehow in the seconds between pulling the handle and now, you’ve managed to forget what is what that you were hoping to find. More out of spite for how the bulbs are currently bleaching your retinas than because you want it, you pull the milk from its home in the cradle of the door and fix yourself a glass to take with you and put it on the coffee table back in your living room.

Without an ounce of grace, you throw yourself onto your couch: your head rests against the arm of the seat like you’re in the apartment of a sketchy therapist, and you’re wrapped up in your duvet as if it’s a sleeping bag, treating yourself to the luxury of a slightly different ceiling pattern to stare up at. And it could be the change of the room that finally manages to drag you under, or it could be the total fatigue of the emotional rollercoaster that has been your last twenty four hours…

But your glass of milk goes completely untouched as you eventually drift off, either way. 

Of course, it’s not for nearly long enough. Barely an hour after finally managing to fall asleep, your phone starts to vibrate harshly against your chest. You tap at the screen blindly, hoping to shut off what you assume is your alarm; when it’s still buzzing a few seconds later, you reluctantly open your eyes, fighting back a sob. It’s not your alarm – it’s an incoming call. Why would it be anything else?

“Hello?” You grumble, putting the phone on speaker and resting it on the couch cushion next to your head. The energy expenditure of holding the device up to your ear feels mammoth.

“Ohh, you sound terrible.” Seungkwan’s voice sounds more taunting than it does concerned, but you pin that down to a symptom of his over-familiarity. “You’re sick?”

“Yeah,” you sigh. “I’m sorry.”

“I heard there was something going around,” Seungkwan tells you. Great, you think. Good to know. Now go away. “Yeah – one of my cousins… ah, what did she say…”

“Hey, man, I really-...”

“That’s it. She said she was love sick.”

You sigh so hard you think it’s a miracle you don’t pass out.  

“Don’t–”

“You better make sure Vernon gives you plenty of Vitamin D, today,” he harps on. “It’s quite the disease. I heard it can really–”

“Seungkwan!” You snap, finally, grabbing your phone and barking straight into the microphone. He doesn’t need to know that you’re stretching the truth to its absolute limit, but you certainly won’t let him keep believing that you’re calling out just to get laid. “Knock it off, okay? I’ve been awake all night.” 

(You suppose you should be glad that that much really is true.)

He falls silent, and you don’t know if he totally believes you, but a few breaths later, you hear his voice through the speaker again. He’s softer, this time. Quieter.

“I’m sorry,” he starts, hesitating a moment before he goes on. “Try to get some rest, all right? I’ll swing by after work and check in with some food, and… if you need anything, just text me?”

You’re immediately overcome with guilt at the sharp change in his demeanour, and it does nothing to settle the way your insides are writhing inside you. You clear your throat and pull your duvet up to cover your face, squeezing your eyes tightly shut. 

“I will,” you mumble. “I’m sorry – thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” he says. You can hear the front door to his own apartment slam shut and his breaths pick up as he starts to rush down the stairwell of his building. “I’ll see you later.”

“Okay.”

“Hey–” he rushes, before you can hang up the call. “Rest up. Run a bath, drink plenty. Love you.”

You cringe a little, but not enough to stop you from saying it back. Sort of. 

“Yeah. You too.”

Nobody could ever accuse Seungkwan of not being a man of his word. As irritating as he can sometimes be, as determined as he is to get on your every last nerve, you’ve never known him fail to come through on a promise. 

Not long after 6:30pm, you hear a series of knocks at the front door of your apartment. You’ve managed to squeeze in odd shifts of sleep throughout the day and though your head is still in a mess, you feel significantly less irritable than you were this morning. Cleaner, as well. One of your (several) naps took place in the bath, where you laid there and let the hot water draw some of the anxieties clean out of you to float towards the ceiling amongst the lavender-scented steam. 

In the knowledge that Seungkwan’s expectations of you are quite literally zero, you don’t bother to fix the one leg of your sweatpants that’s rolled up before you heave yourself off the couch and go to let him inside. He stands in the doorway with a bag of takeout food in each hand, all wind-flushed cheeks and that brilliant smile, and you feel like your stomach settles almost straight away when you see him.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, toeing off his shoes as he comes inside and lets the door close behind him. He sets the bags down on top of the small table by your front door and cups your face in both of his hands, squeezing your cheeks and frowning down at you. “You look awful.”

“Wow, thanks,” you huff, squirming to get out of his grip. “I was going to say I feel a little better, but…”

“You look exhausted,” Seungkwan clarifies, picking up the bags once more and following you through to your living room as you start to walk away from him. “I’m sorry about earlier, I didn’t realise you were actually… this bad…”

“This is doing wonders for my ego,” you grumble. “Keep it coming. Really.”

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

“No, no. By all means, continue to kick a girl while she’s down. Super classy.”

Your best friend flops down onto your couch with an exaggerated huff at your petulance. You curl up in the armchair instead, bringing your knees up beneath you. 

“Do you think it was something you ate?” He asks, refusing to give into your bickering and changing the subject matter instead. 

You shrug your shoulders at him. “I don’t-... I mean, it was more of a head… thing?” 

He sucks his front teeth. “What, like a migraine?”

“Sort of?” 

“What do you mean, ‘sort of’?” He asks. “You’ve had a migraine before. Was it that or not?”

“Well, it’s difficult to-... It wasn’t exactly…”

“Okay.” 

Seungkwan interrupts you as you hesitate again, swinging his legs off the couch and resting his elbows on his thighs, leaning as far towards you as he can while still remaining seated. He wrings his hands, plays with his fingers, lips drawn forward in a stern-looking pout. 

“I thought something was up this morning on the phone, but I didn’t wanna push it because you sounded mad. Now I know something’s wrong with you. What’s going on?”

You swallow hard and cross your arms over your chest, dropping your gaze away from Seungkwan’s very intense one. 

“Nothing,” you lie. 

“Bullshit.”

“Seungkwan!” 

“I’m sorry,” he sighs, tipping his head forward and running his hands through his hair. He’s never been a coddler, always one to prefer the tough-love approach: it’s no surprise that he doesn’t appear any softer when he looks back at you. “But we both know that’s crap.”

You can feel your pulse starting to quicken the longer he stares you down. It’s as if he’s burning two great big holes into your head, laser-beams where his pupils ought to be. He’s the master of the hard stare, and you know he won’t move until he hears the truth. 

Maybe I should just tell him. Maybe it’ll help…

“Look, I don’t care how famous he thinks he’s gonna be, if Vernon upset you last night, I’ll kick his ass myself.”

And there are the alarm bells. In hindsight, maybe you should’ve seen this coming; it’s not that far of a reach, and given the few facts that he actually knows, you can’t blame Seungkwan for jumping to this conclusion. It’s quite effective in triggering you to speak up, too. (You think that maybe, this was on purpose. Attack where you’re likely to defend. He knows you like the back of his hand.) In an instant you’re sitting upright with your feet firmly on the floor and you’re shaking your head at him like a dog trying to get itself dry. 

“No, no, no, back it up,” you rush. “It’s nothing like that. He hasn’t done anyth-... God, it’s not him.”

“It better not be,” Seungkwan tells you. His voice still has that dark edge to it, and you’re not sure how exactly to stamp it out. “I’m serious. If he’s done anything-...”

“He hasn’t,” you say more firmly. After a couple slow breaths, you clasp your hands together, swallowing your pride. “The food’s gonna go cold. Go grab a couple glasses and-... whatever else from the kitchen—”

“Only if you tell me what’s happening,” he says, slowly pushing himself up to stand. 

You don’t assent with words, but you don’t have to. You look up at him and nod a couple of times and that’s all he needs. Seungkwan strides off through the doorway, leaving you to shakily exhale away the stress that is once again squeezing at your lungs.

Once the containers are laid out on the table, food is divided up, utensils are handed over and he’s poured you each out a glass of soda, Seungkwan sits back on the couch. He doesn’t prod you, or ask you again – he doesn’t need to. You know what he’s waiting for. Even so, he allows you a few mouthfuls of your dinner first: seeing as this is the first substantial thing you’ve eaten all day, you silently thank him for the generosity.

“All right,” you say, gulping down a few mouthfuls of your drink to re-lubricate your throat. “Okay. Fuck – you’re gonna wanna make yourself comfy for this.”

The only way he moves is to pick up one of the food cartons and settle it on his thigh. Oh, how you wish you were joking. But if he really doesn’t want to heed your warning…

“You know I went on that date the other week?” You ask, biting the inside of your cheek. Seungkwan nods at you, lifting a helping of noodles out of the carton.

“With the hitter and quitter,” he confirms. “I remember.”

“Right,” you say. “Well – okay, wait, no. That’s a bad start. He didn’t do anything either.”

“I mean…”

“Not the time.”

He lifts his free hand up in surrender and gestures for you to continue as he slurps his food into his mouth. You clear your throat, bouncing one leg so rapidly that the decorative candle holder on your mantelpiece starts to rattle. 

“So… it was before the date. I was on my way to the bar, walking down past-... that convenient store. You know the one Chan keeps going into ‘cause he’s got the hots for the person who works there on a Friday night? Yeah, I was walking down that way. Actually running on time for once, and-...” 

You falter, sucking a breath deep into your lungs. It causes your next words to come out more strained than they ought to. 

“I ran into Jaehyun...”

Seungkwan swallows just in time to prevent himself from choking on his mouthful of food, but his eyes still shoot wide and you think his chest convulses a little bit anyway. His is a name you haven’t mentioned in a while, but he clearly hasn’t forgotten who it belongs to.

Because, well… how could he ever forget? 

Your ex-partner. Jaehyun.

The ex-love-of-your-life, Jaehyun.

The man who asked you to marry him after three and a half years of dating only to leave you, heartbroken and alone, six months later because he wanted to travel the world and there was too much that you couldn’t bring yourself to leave behind, Jaehyun. 

How could Seungkwan forget when he had been one of the people who helped drag you through what was not only the worst break-up, but one of the worst times of your entire life? 

Aside from the other week, it’s been… nearly eighteen months since you saw him last. Almost a year since you let yourself talk about him. Even sitting in your own apartment with a box full of your favourite food in your hands, a sense of dread chills you from head to toe just going so far as to say his name. But you’ve started, now, so you might as well finish.

“…right outside that stupid fucking store.”

Your voice cracks when you say it and you hurry to set your dinner down on the floor to free up your shaking hands. You cup them over your mouth, closing your eyes and taking a couple of deep breaths. It helps enough for you to be able to continue, even if you still feel a bit like you’re drowning.

“I thought he…” Seungkwan starts, putting his own food down and slipping off the couch. He comes to sit on the arm of your chair and puts a hand around your shoulders, pulling you into his side. “When did-...?”

“Yeah, uh… apparently he moved back a couple weeks ago,” you swallow, leaning into your friend’s embrace. 

Seungkwan looks down at you and you look up at him, all misty-eyed and drained. There’s more. He knows there is, but now he waits for you patiently, giving you all the time in the world to get through this and to let it out and to lean on him. He doesn’t butt in. The quiet feels worse than the talking. 

“He’s with someone now. They, uh— they met in Paris. Just over a year ago.”

Seungkwan finally dares to make a noise and breathes out heavily, so loud that it’s almost a groan. 

“Y/n,” he sighs, tightening his hold around you. “Shit – I’m so sorry,”

You shrug, staring across the room to where your record player sits on top of a low cabinet, lid open, table collecting dust. 

“For months, I sat here feeling… fucking, sorry for myself,” you say, barely above a whisper. You swallow around the lump in your throat and shake your head. “This whole time, refusing to get back on the horse ‘cause I thought maybe-... but he was-…”

The room goes quiet again as you lose the words you want to say and Seungkwan just rubs small circles against your arm. The problem is that you know this doesn’t explain why you called out of work today. It doesn’t explain what happened last night, and you’re not sure where to begin with that either. Especially seeing as the last time your best friends saw you and Vernon, the sparks flying between you were nigh-on visible. 

“I thought I was handling it, you know?” You sigh, leaning harder into Seungkwan’s soft sweatshirt. “Like… yeah — it hurt… but I was okay? I guess. And then Vernon fucking… kissed me last night—“

“He— what?”

“Hang on — no, he… I wanted him to.” You fumble with a thread hanging off the sleeve of your t-shirt as you talk. Why is this all so difficult? At the same time, why does it feel so juvenile to say out loud? “I just… I don’t know…”

Your wall clock tick, tick, ticks away in yet another painful fall of silence. 

“How bad was he?” Seungkwan asks when you struggle to elaborate. 

You assume this is an attempt to shatter the gloomy atmosphere and lighten your mood a tiny bit; it works, you suppose, because despite yourself, you laugh drily. Not without nudging your shoulder into his ribs, though. He deserves it, and you won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that it does make you feel a little better.

“He wasn’t,” you groan. “Don’t—… you’re such an ass.” 

He pulls himself away from you at the sound of your laughter and moves to sit on the edge of your coffee table instead, careful not to disrupt any of your food while keeping himself close enough to you that he can hold both of your hands in his and soothe his thumbs over your palms.

“You freaked out on him, didn’t you?” 

He sees straight through you and truthfully, no part of you is surprised. No part of you tries to fight it, or reject his assumption, or even question why that’s the first explanation he leapt to. You just nod, looking to where your best friend’s fingers are currently the only things holding you together. 

“Ran out his apartment like the building was gonna burn down,” you sigh, still laughing but harshly now. He squeezes your hands gently, urging you to look up at him. You do, slowly. “It’s ruined everything.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Seungkwan tries, narrowing his eyes at you when you scoff your obvious disagreement. “No, seriously. Anyone can see the poor guy’s got it bad for you.”

“Even if that’s right, you didn’t see his face,” you say. “God, he isn’t gonna wanna look at me ever again.”

“Have you spoken to him today?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Maybe if you explain what happened–”

“Oh, sure,” you snort. “‘Hey, Vernon. Sorry for running out on you like a lunatic yesterday. I ran into my ex recently and when you kissed me, it reminded me of being with him and I got freaked out and had to dash. Hope you don’t mind.’ God.” 

You try to draw your hands back but Seungkwan just holds onto you tighter. “We’ll workshop it,” he says firmly. “Do you like him, or not?”

“Seungkwan–”

“That wasn’t an option.”

You scowl at him. “It’s not that easy.”

“It’s a yes or no question.”

“Yes,” you stress finally, groaning through it. “Yes – I do.”

Seungkwan’s face lights up for a second, his eyes sparkling, lips lifting. You’re half expecting him to say ‘I knew it’. Half expecting him to try and be all deep and philosophical and a little bit motherly, as he sometimes does, especially when you’re upset. He’s always been a sucker for a happy ending. But this isn’t a happy ending, you remind yourself, squaring your jaw. It’s past that, already. It isn’t going to happen, you just know it. 

“Stop being so fucking hard on yourself,” he tells you, squeezing your hands one last time before he lets go and moves back over to the couch so he can finish eating before his food goes cold. “If anyone can pull this off, it’s you.”

You’re not sure what’s in the air right now, but this has been one of the busiest weekends that you can remember. Both yesterday and today, almost as soon as the store opened, your first handful of customers came through. Apart from about an hour around lunchtime, you don’t think there have been any periods of time where you’ve not had someone milling around the shelves. It makes a nice change, really, from some of your weekend shifts – hours at a time where the dust starts to settle and hardly anyone disturbs the bell above the front door. But this means you’ve been in full customer-service mode basically all day, and you’re starting to feel exhausted from keeping up the persona.

Still. There’s only an hour or so left — you can push through, and when you get home, there’ll be a nice, hot bubble bath with your name written all over it.

The bell chimes again just as you finish serving a group of teenage girls. You watch them scurry away, excitedly giggling about their new albums and you look towards the door with a smile already plastered on, all ready to greet the new customer until your eyes lock with theirs.

A ‘hey, how’s it going?’ stops somewhere midway up your throat, a pathetic little ‘huh?’ sound escaping you in its place. You’re frozen all of a sudden; you and the man who just came in both stand perfectly still, staring at each other like a pair of bunnies in headlights. It takes you forever to register the strap wrapped around his fist, the purse that hangs just below his grip. My bag, you think to yourself, but the voice that narrates your thoughts is hushed for the first time ever, too. Everything in your head gets sucked away into a little vacuum. The only thing left is him.

“I-… thought you might want this back.” Vernon breaks the quiet first. Your throat runs dry. In a flash, the noise in your brain is as loud as it’s ever been and in amongst all the chaos of thoughts and questions and apologies, you can’t pick out the words you actually want to say. 

He slowly unravels the strap from around his hand and takes a few steps closer to you, inching towards the counter. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” he hurries to assure you. Your heart aches for how reserved and nervous he looks. It doesn’t suit him. You hate it. “It’s okay. I’m… really sorry, about the other night. I didn’t mean to—” A deep breath. “I’ll see you around.”

Vernon lays your bag so delicately on the wooden surface that you could be forgiven for thinking he was handling an explosive. Then, he takes one, two, three steps back, before turning and heading to the exit.  

“Wait—” you call out to him, finding your voice at the most critical time, right as his fingers curl around the door handle. “Wait—, please.”

He spins back around to face you as you slip out from behind the desk. His left brow lifts higher than the right but otherwise, he gives nothing away. He doesn’t even say anything as he stands there, pushing his hands deep into his pockets. 

You swallow around the golf ball sized lump taking residence in your throat and clasp your hands together in front of you, wringing and twisting and accidentally popping one of your knuckles in the process. “I shouldn’t have run out on you like that. It wasn’t fair.”

Vernon chews this over in his mind but ultimately just shrugs his shoulders at you. What is there to say? He surely agrees, but he seems so adamant to ensure you don’t feel bad about it happening that he just… says nothing. Again. It’s kind of maddening, even if you fully get why. 

“No, I mean it,” you try again. “It wasn’t you. It’s nothing you did.”

“We really don’t have to do the whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ thing,” Vernon offers, his cardboard-like posture softening. There’s even a little bit of a smile on his face, you think — but it’s not the kind of smile you’ve grown used to seeing on him. It doesn’t reach his eyes; he looks kind of like someone who has read their cards and accepted their fate. “Seriously. It’s okay.” 

“It’s not,” you stress, stepping closer to him again. You sigh deeply. There’s something almost relieving about the position you find yourself in. You suppose this really is crunch time; it’s now or never. “Can we… talk? About everything?”

“What? Here?” Vernon asks. 

You glance around the store, at the few people doing a very poor job of pretending to be minding their own business, and frown. He’s right. This isn’t the time, or the place. The problem is, you have a feeling that if you send him away, he may not decide to come back and listen to you. In his defence, why should he? He’s already done more than the decent thing and brought you back that which you abandoned in his apartment; several of your previous conquests would have shoved the bag and its contents either in the trash or the back of a closet somewhere. This is more than you could have hoped for. 

You hold a finger up to him and ask him to stay where he is, and though he looks a little bewildered at the gesture, he ultimately doesn’t move. You rush off out the back to the storeroom where you banished Chan an hour ago, on account of his raging hangover and your low tolerance for his whining about it; you’re genuinely surprised to find him working, and actually alphabetising the records you got in a few days ago like you asked him to.

“Hey. Can you do me a huge favour?” You ask, not announcing your arrival and subsequently scaring Chan out of his skin. He jolts as he hears your voice and claps a hand to his chest, exhaling hard. You don’t entertain his dramatics, though. There’s no time. “I need you to close today.”

“Huh?” He asks, still acting as if he’s trying to catch his breath. “I thought–”

“Please.” You wave him off, knowing he’s about to ask about the task you gave him. “We can look at this together tomorrow. You did great. It’s just an hour – is that okay?”

He chews the inside of his lip, almost looking disappointed. To be fair to him, he did look like he was in a groove when you appeared, but he doesn’t argue with you as he puts down the record in his hand and picks his phone up off the table to his right, silencing the catchy tune that was playing while he organised. 

“Of course it is,” he says, holding his hand out for your keys and starting to walk towards you. “Everything okay?”

“It-...” you start, faltering as you place the store keys in his waiting palm. Your default response was about to be ‘it’s fine’, but you’re trying harder these days to stop pretending, especially around him. So you swallow, nodding your head, flashing him a tight lipped smile. “I’m about to find out.”

“Oh? Is it…?”

A brief pause later, not before cringing at how predictable you’ve apparently become, you say, “yeah.”

Chan claps you on the shoulder as he skirts his way around you, leaning in to give you a sort of side-along hug on his way. You stretch your arm across his waist and pull him closer for a moment, trying to drive home how much you appreciate this. He doesn’t comment on the uncharacteristic display of affection, and you want to find out why, but Vernon isn’t going to wait around for you forever. 

“Go get him, tiger,” Chan whispers.

“I owe you, big time,” you promise. 

He winks at you before he disappears through the door and you follow him briefly, but as he does a round of checking in with your customers and making sure they don’t need any help, you hurry off to grab your jacket from the office.

Vernon is exactly where you left him when you come back out into the storefront, hands unmoved from where he stuffed them into his pockets earlier, rocking back and forth on his toes and looking around from wall to wall. You think perhaps he took your request slightly too literally and the fact that even his feet are in the same position as before you left is reminiscent of a puppy commanded to stay, but if anyone here is at liberty to start poking fun, you think that it certainly isn’t you. Instead of trying your luck, you lock the office door and walk up to him, returning his polite, yet slightly awkward smile.

“You’re not, like, super busy right now or anything, are you?” You ask him. 

His brows crease and his eyes shift side-to-side before they land back at you. He shakes his head.

“Did you maybe wanna… take a walk?” 

Vernon nods this time, still not moving or even pulling his hands out of his jeans. His elbows are locked out and the length of his arms means his shoulders are raised quite some way. He could not be more uncomfortable looking if he tried, but he doesn’t say no and nothing on his face gives away that he wants to reject your proposition, either, so you’re the one to take that tentative first step towards the door. When you do, he follows. 

You left the store at least ninety seconds ago and still, neither of you have said anything yet. Honestly, it’s taking all you’ve got not to just burst and let it all out; it’s building and building and your stomach feels tight, but it’s less of a knot and more like a tightly-coiled spring. His eyes are dipped to the ground, incredibly aware of every step he takes, in what you realise now are a gorgeous pair of platform boots tucked up beneath his baggy jeans. He’s at least an inch and a half taller than the last time you saw him. 

“Your friend,” Vernon starts finally, pausing before he continues.  “Is he always so… you know?”

“What did he say?” You ask, peeking over to him. Trust Chan to start getting —

He hurries to shake his head. “Nothing. He just… kept looking at me. In a weird way, like…”

“Like he knows something you don’t, and he’s not gonna tell you, but he wants you to know that he knows it anyway?” You supply.

“Yeah— exactly like that.”

“Mm. That’s just… Chan.”

“Huh.”

“It’s worse when they’re together,” you say. He breathes out a chuckle and you feel his elbow bump into your upper arm. The distance he put between you when you fell into step outside the store has reduced, you realise now; you’re not sure when, or if it was on purpose. Did he move closer once you started speaking? Was it just so he could hear you better? Or…

Either way, despite being side-by-side, he still feels a hundred miles away from you. This isn’t enough.

“You get used to them, though,” you add, trying to stay on track. “I swear.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Jokes aside, he still won’t look at you for longer than a few seconds, which tugs at something deep in your chest. Discomfort clings to you, and even if it does seem like you’re making some progress, you can still feel unease radiating off him. A cheap laugh at the expense of your friends who aren’t here to defend themselves won’t fix that which you took a wrecking ball to a few nights ago. This needs to be heartfelt and genuine, and more importantly it needs to come out right. 

But when you open your mouth to speak, still searching your brain for the right way to explain why you acted the way you did, there’s nothing. 

How wonderful would it be for the perfect explanation to just tumble from your lips calmly and evenly, and for it to make everything okay? But the reality is that your throat runs dry as petrol fumes make their way through your parted lips. You hold your tongue again just a second later, sighing quietly. 

You’re starting to feel like a lost cause when Vernon breaks the silence for you, again. He slows his steps to a halt when he eventually says, “so.”

“So,” you repeat, freezing mid-stride as you go completely tense. It’s like you’re staring into oblivion’s wide open mouth. “I-… don’t really know where to start. I’m sorry.”

“The beginning’s usually pretty good?” He offers.

You nod. “How much did you want to know?”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with telling me.”

If anyone on this Earth deserves a medal for their patience, it’s Vernon. You still haven’t turned to face him yet, your eyes fixated on the traffic signal some fifty yards away from you and you’re pretty sure if someone poked you too hard, you’d shatter into a million tiny pieces. But, as impossible as it seems all the while you try to get your thoughts in a reasonable order, you manage to swallow your nerves. 

It’s crunch time. It’s now or never.

The explanation you give him is messy. Disjointed. But once you start, it becomes difficult to stop: you end up sparing very little detail and circle back on yourself no less than three times. You tell him about how you were engaged and about the breakup, the run-in, your shitty date, gesturing with your hands to emphasise the most important parts. When you start to move again, Vernon makes his steps bigger until he’s walking alongside you. He never interrupts you. He acknowledges every sentence when you pause for breath. Encourages you to keep going when you fall over your words. 

“… and—... I guess I just lost my head. But it wasn’t your fault.” You swallow hard before you continue, “I’m… really sorry.”

He nods slowly, taking his time to digest everything.

“Don’t be,” he says, lightly bumping into your side. It’s a very small reassurance that he’s not going to walk away, but it means much more to you than you’re sure he meant it to. “I get it.”

“I—”

“No, like. I get it.” 

“Yeah?” You ask, only understanding when you catch the very pointed look in his eyes. 

“For sure.”

Of course, it makes sense. Vernon’s young. Attractive. Nice. Talented. He must have been with people before. Hell, you think he surely leaves a trail of broken hearts everywhere he goes. He gets it. 

“We dated for like… five? Years. Her name was Nari,” he tells you. 

A few seconds later, you watch him start to shrug off his jacket on one side and expose one of his toned arms to you. You’re about to tell him he doesn’t need to air his dirty laundry out if he doesn’t want to when he twists at his elbow; you catch sight of a tattoo you remember having seen the night he wore that black singlet on stage. Two lily flowers blooming up the inside of his bicep. 

It’s so pretty. Intricate. The line work is beautiful, the petals shaded with hundreds of little dots. You wanted to ask about it that night, but you never found the right chance, and now—

Lily?

It takes you longer than you’re willing to admit to join the dots, but when the penny finally drops, so does your jaw. Vernon slides back into his sleeve with a big, entertained smile and a little shrug. 

“Mhm.”

“Oh my God?”

“I know.”

It’s not that you’re laughing, per se. This isn’t your baggage to laugh at, no matter how unbothered Vernon seems to be by what he’s just revealed. But you do rub your hand over your face and cover your lips, shaking your head in disbelief as a breath that contains the edges of a bemused chuckle escapes you. Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to mind; if anything, it appears to give him a boost to keep talking.

“I got that on our third anniversary,” he goes on to explain. “A couple years later… She called it quits. Turns out there was another guy. I thought about lasering it, but… apparently that hurts worse than getting the tattoo in the first place, so…”

“That’s…”

“It’s whatever,” Vernon says, shaking his head. “They’re my mom’s favourite flowers too. That’s what almost everyone else thinks it’s for.”

You haven’t looked back up at his face since the unveiling, not until now. When your eyes meet again, Vernon tilts his head in the direction you’re walking and continues down the street, spinning now so he’s walking backwards but still facing you. “I just mean... It’s okay. I get it.”

The moment you’ve caught up to him and you’re back by his side, he turns to face front, just in time to avoid a collision with a streetlamp. The lingering awkwardness starts to fade to nothing; you can see it in the way he holds himself, and you can feel it in the way you do, too. Everything relaxes. Your neck, your shoulders, your fists. It all ebbs away. 

“It really wasn’t anything you did,” you clarify once more. 

“So you keep telling me,” Vernon quips, tips of his ears turning pinker by the moment. “It’s okay, I swear. Do you want me to walk you home?”

You accept his offer and lead him down a side-street, picking up a completely unrelated conversation now to purify the air. Before you really know it (what was that everyone always said about time flying?), you come to a stop outside your building. Vernon’s sentence fades away when you stop moving; instead he stills, glancing sideways, and you nod confirmation at him with a lopsided smile. 

“This is me,” you say, reaching into your back pocket for your keys. “So…”

“So,” Vernon echoes, glancing around again. “Can I like, lay my cards out, real quick?”

You nod. 

“I like you.” He shrugs, now toying with the leather bracelet around his wrist. “Like, a lot. But…”

But. You feel like you should have seen this coming. But. But. Of course there’s a— 

“I’ve got some shows coming up out of town and I need to see some family, I’m not gonna be here from tomorrow for like, three weeks...”

Oh. 

Well. On one hand, it’s not what you thought. It’s not a flat-out rejection. It’s not a shut down. On the other? You bite the inside of your cheek and look at your hands, playing with your keys to keep them busy. Under any other lens, three weeks isn’t really a very long time at all. You’re pretty sure that the milk you bought yesterday is going to last longer than that. But three weeks… this early into things? 

That’s longer than you’ve even known him.  

“… and I thought, if you wanted — I could… take you out. When I get back. For real. Maybe.”

Oh.

“Like…?”

“Like… on a date,” he confirms, rubbing the back of his neck. “One where I’m not like… fresh off stage and all gross and shit.”

Relief replaces anxiety on both his face and yours when you let out a quiet laugh. 

“I’d really like that,” you say, twitching fingers suddenly still. “Yeah.”

“I’m not asking you to like, wait around, or anything,” he says as he pulls his phone out of his pocket, fumbles with it, and just barely manages to soften the fall with the toe of his boot before it lands screen-up on the concrete. “We’ll just see how it goes. And it gives you some time to… deal with things. Whatever you’ve gotta do.”

You nod, crossing your arms over your chest as he bends low to pick his phone back up, smoothing his thumb over the small scuff on the protective case. It seems remarkably undamaged otherwise. 

“And if you’re still interested, then…”

“Interested?” You ask with a small grin. 

“Aren’t you?” Vernon asks.

“I—...” You think about playing coy, but when he’s been so open with you about where his head’s at, it feels so silly and childish to bother pretending. That playful ‘I might be’ gets swallowed back. Instead – “Yeah. I am.”

“Cool. Then we’ll figure it out. At your pace, okay?” 

“Okay.”

He grabs his earphones out of his other pocket, slides one in, and is about to step back away from you when you do something you don’t really expect yourself to. Something you’ve never done to a man you can barely even say you’re ‘seeing’. You close the space between you and, as if to lock in your words, push forward onto your toes to press a kiss to his cheek. 

“Thank you,” you say when you fall back down to your heels. If he wasn’t so dumbstruck, you feel like he’d be about to ask what you were thanking him for; as it stands though, he’s frozen, blushing, and the only reason you can tell he’s still alive is because he can’t stop blinking at you. “For… giving me another chance.”

He still can’t quite find his voice, so Vernon just shakes his head, clearing his throat. (No need, he wants to say.) Alas, his lips just open and close soundlessly.

“I’ll see you in a few weeks,” you supply for him. He takes in a deep, mind-clearing breath and nods his head.

“I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

You see the apples of his cheeks lift as he presses his thumb against his phone screen and restarts whatever song he was listening to when he walked into your store. A brilliant smile consumes his face. It only grows as he turns away from you and walks off down the street. 

For a second, you think it’s all very smooth. Movie-like, even.

Then, he stumbles over a crack in the pavement. When he glances back to pray you didn’t watch it happen, he catches you snickering into your fist. He shakes his head and continues on, leaving you to fumble with your key in the lock before you finally let yourself inside.

You overslept. 

Sort of. You heard your alarm go off straight away but you might have snoozed it, and when you heard it sound for a second time, you turned it off completely, telling yourself that you just needed one more minute. You just wanted to rest your eyes for a few more seconds. There wasn’t any danger of you going back to sleep.

Twenty minutes later, you practically fell off your mattress in a panic when you realised that there had, in fact, been a big fucking danger. 

You were still able to wash up well and make it to work on time, but you had to sacrifice your morning coffee stop after seeing that the queue at the register was going to take too long. For years, you’ve refused to consider yourself to be the kind of person who relies heavily on a caffeine kick first thing in the morning, but today? It’s barely ten thirty and you’re seriously flagging: like you’ve never known what energy is, like you’ll never feel it again. 

(You blame the fact that when you first looked at your phone today before rolling back over, there was no ‘good morning :)’ text to entice you out of bed. But you’re trying really hard not to think about why that is, nor why it was such a deciding factor.)

So, when the bell above your shop door jingles and you’re forced to stand upright (a change your back doesn’t thank you for when it has to readjust from the previous hunched position you had adopted over the countertop), you groan quietly. Nonetheless, your tired eyes crease at the corners as you smile at whoever it is that’s come across the threshold.

After a second, your eyes refocus; when you can finally make out their features, it’s as if someone gives you a shot of adrenaline.

“Oh my God,” You say breathlessly, brushing your hair back and moving to stand up fully unsupported. “I thought you weren’t back until Friday?”

“Change of plans,” Vernon grins, scratching the back of his neck. “We drove through the night. I got home like… an hour ago.”

This is the first time you’ve ever seen him dressed down, and hell, does he look incredible. Gone are the ripped jeans, scuffed boots, the leather jackets and chunky rings. Grey sweatpants and an oversized white hoodie (alternatively: the brightest outfit you’ve witnessed him in thus far) drown him, blurring out his usually so distinct frame. You pin both of these things as the reasons you hardly recognised him when your eyes were refusing to cooperate. Paired with what Seungkwan would call ‘dad-sneakers’ and completed by messy hair and tired, soft eyes?

If you could jump his bones right here, right now… God, you would. 

“But hey, it’s nice to see you, too,” he adds facetiously.

“Quiet down,” you groan, fighting the urge to run over and envelop him in a hug. You’re not sure that he’d mind if you did, but you also don’t quite know if you’re ‘there’, yet. “Obviously it’s good to-...”

His arms, both of which have been stuck behind his back since he arrived, now move around to the front, revealing to you a takeout cup and a little brown box from the coffee shop down the street. 

“Oh, shit. It is so good to see you.”

Vernon laughs, coming closer until he can set them both down on the counter. “If it’s wrong, Seungkwan gave me your order, so.”

You start to wonder how on Earth your employee and your… Vernon managed to have this conversation without you knowing. Does Seungkwan have his number? Did they happen across each other on one of their socials? Did Vernon call into the store while you were out in the bathroom a little while ago and ask? But whatever happened, you quickly stop caring to find out: popping the lid off your cup, the aroma of your favourite coffee immediately fills your senses. It’s so overwhelming that you think you might start to cry.

“Oh my God. You’re the best,” you sigh, wrapping your fingers around the cup and taking a long sip, eyes rolling back into your head. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Vernon laughs, rolling up his sleeves before folding his toned forearms over his chest. “I got you a-... okay, they only had those gluten free brownies in, and I’ll be honest, I don’t know if they taste the same as the normal ones but… like, he said you hadn’t eaten today and I know you said you liked brownies before, — if you don’t like those ones, it’s okay! I can go back, it’s–”

He trails off, cheeks turning pink when you tilt your head to one side and feel your brow go soft. He asks, “why… are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re so cute,” you say, putting the cup down gently so as not to splash your drink all over the counter. 

“Huh?”

“You really didn’t have to…”

“I wanted to,” Vernon says, shaking his head. 

You almost definitely hear a floorboard creak and quiet shushing sound from just around the corner towards the back room. You don’t call out your eavesdropping friends for trying to listen in on your conversation, though: it barely even crosses your mind. Besides... you can’t take your eyes off Vernon, even if you wanted to. He looks so soft. Like he needs to sleep for a whole twenty four hours, and he must feel like it too, but he came here first. 

“So,” he starts, tapping his right thumb against the inside of his left elbow. (The reason why he came so quickly starts to become evident. He just couldn’t wait to ask.) “You don’t have to commit to anything right now…” The silver of one of his rings glints with every tiny movement. “…but, I was just wondering–”

Smiling at him over the top of your coffee cup, it feels like your heart could burst.

“I was just… wondering… if you’d thought any more about letting me take you out?”

You’ve been texting him almost every day since he left. He’s sent you a hundred and one pictures of statues and cool buildings and nice looking food and the sky, and far more animals than you think you’ve ever actually seen in real life. You’ve spoken to him about your strange customers. What’s going on with your friends. Sent him recommendations for songs that you discovered on obscure albums that you pulled out to play over the speakers. 

One night after one of his shows, he called you. He was a little bit drunk at the time, chilling in his hotel room with a pizza as he informed you that he’d snuck out of an after-party super early but couldn’t get to sleep. With an audible pout, he went on to confess that he was feeling kind of lonely, that he just wanted to hear your voice: one thing led to another and you stayed up talking to him until he passed out at nearly 4 o’clock in the morning.

To put it simply… 

“I’d still really like that,” you say. It’s incredible to you that you can see every one of his features brighten up. 

“Okay,” he breathes, unwinding his arms and pushing his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants now instead. “Okay, cool. I’ll… text you later? We’ll figure something out?”

“All right,” you agree. “Now go rest up, okay?”

He laughs as he swears that he’ll go back home and get some sleep, and with that, Vernon takes his leave. You’re once again alone, but this time you have a drink that could only hope to make you feel as energised as he does, and a treat nowhere near as sweet as him. 

You aren’t complaining, though, and neither are the two men that miraculously reappear the moment the door closes again. 

The smile Vernon leaves on your face doesn’t falter for the rest of your day.

You suppose a big part of the reason you haven’t dated anyone in a while is because you can’t stand the ‘talking stage’. That weird little limbo where you’re never sure if it’s too early to make certain jokes, where you’re checking and second-guessing all your texts, where you can’t figure out if someone’s really into you or if they’re just blowing up your phone to pass the time. The awkward small talk. The ‘getting to know each other’ part. The ‘why haven’t they replied yet — was it something I said?’ anxiety. 

Thankfully, with Vernon, that’s not really something you have to worry about. 

While he was away, you learned that he’s the kind of guy who just spews random facts at you in the middle of his day and then forgets to check his messages for three hours. Sometimes those facts are interesting things about himself. Other times, you’ve known him to shoot you a text just to announce [ just found out tigers have striped skin as well as fur. wild ].

(On one such occasion, Chan caught you giggling at your phone in the middle of a quiet Thursday afternoon, zooming in on a picture of Vernon’s heart shaped birthmark. This put a swift end to checking your messages while you’re at work.)

[ btw, im allergic to peanuts ], he told you one evening. Completely unprompted, just after dinner time. You spilled half of your glass of juice down your front in panic when you put two and two together and scrambled to ask him if he was okay. [ near miss, dw about it! just felt important haha ], he replied, and your response was just a picture of your newly stained t-shirt and a request for him to never do that to you again. 

He can drive — at least, he has his licence — but he doesn’t have a car. He chooses public transport, and he tells you that it’s because he likes not having to worry about fuel prices and it’s ‘healing’ to zone out of reality on the train until he reaches his stop. He tells you that he came up with the melody and two verses of one of his favourite original songs on the bus to his parents house, and one time, he dropped a giant cockroach on a class field trip to the zoo because it tickled when it crawled over his palm and he didn’t like it. 

(You later discovered that this piece of information was triggered by the appearance of a large bug in his shower.)

Last night, as you settled into bed after a whole evening of back and forth, he told you that he has all five of the top scores at the piano game in the arcade downtown, and that he has an approximate 75% success rate on claw machines. When you replied saying you hadn’t been to an arcade in about two years, he was horrified. Enough to send 7 broken heart emojis back to back, as individual messages. [ shakespeare himself couldnt write a tragedy that sad ], he said. 

But, harrowed as he was by your admission, it did give him an idea. 

That idea is exactly how you end up standing side-by-side at a basketball shootout game on Friday night. It’s how he ends up winning one of those cute reversible octopuses — true enough, on a claw machine — which he gives to you immediately. It’s how you watch him hunch over a pinball machine for twenty five minutes before he loses his ball, how you end up tied after four games of air hockey, at which point he calls it quits while citing a ‘cramping hand’.

It’s also how you deliver his ass to him in not one, but two rounds of bowling.

“All right — all right,” Vernon laughs, holding both his hands up in defeat as your final ball takes out all ten pins at the end of the alley. “You made your point. Damn.”

You shrug your shoulders as you walk back in his direction, picking up your glass from the table and sipping your soda through your straw. 

(Though the arcade has an entire menu of cocktails, some of which you’ve never even heard of, the thought of navigating an evening alone with him under the influence of alcohol was totally unappealing after last time. Thankfully, Vernon agreed. You quietly think that being stone cold sober has made tonight even more enjoyable.)

“I told you,” you say when you finally sit down. He puts an arm around your shoulders straight away. Naturally, like it’s instinct. Like it’s a position he’s adopted a few hundred times before. “I’m undefeated.”

“We’ll see,” he says, tapping out a rhythm on the ball of your shoulder. “I still think you just got lucky.”

“So,” Vernon says once your leisurely stroll back lands you outside his place, kicking the toe of his left sneaker into the concrete. “What… are the chances that I get a do-over?”

You blink at him a few times, tilting your head. “What do you mean, a do-over?” 

Does he not think this went well? Gods, it’s probably the best first date you’ve ever had, but what on Earth else could he mean by that? Did you say something earlier, and not realise? Has he not had fun? What does he m–

“I got these new coffee beans,” he says. “While I was away — and I figured something out with the-… the machine? So— ”

Ah. There he is.

You smirk at him, patting the outside of his bicep and rolling your eyes. When you glance down, Vernon is pulling out his key, thumbing over the ridges down the one side. He reaches for the door, happy to take your teasing as confirmation that yes, you’ll come up. Yes, he gets his ‘do-over’...

…but leave it to you to fall for the world’s dorkiest rockstar. 

As he slips the key into his apartment door, there’s a steady pressure against the small of your back: the same one that’s been there ever since he gestured for you to step out of the elevator before him. One of his palms rests over the fabric of your t-shirt and you feel weirdly tingly because of it. He gently guides you inside once the door falls open and doesn’t move away when it’s locked again behind him. 

With an anticipatory shiver, you turn around to face him. You make a point to leave just a matter of inches between your chests. To have your eyes soft, patiently waiting.

Vernon’s hands are - for the first time ever - cold when his fingers hesitantly come up to either side of your face, tilting your head up so that he can see you better, unobstructed by any shadows. You gasp at the contrast between them and your flushed, warm cheeks. He swallows thickly at the sound.

“Is this… okay?” he asks, gaze darting between the space separating your eyes from your lips. “We can slow it down, if you want. I just—...”

Your own hands find home against his chest in response, fingers curling into the muscle beneath them. Not harshly, definitely not so much that it could hurt — just enough that it makes him puff himself up a little bigger. Enough to make him square his shoulders as he drags a thumb over the corner of your mouth. 

“Vernon,” you say quietly, pressing him backwards. Balling his t-shirt into your fists, you send him stumbling over his own feet before his shoulders find the wood of the front door. A quiet grunt escapes him on impact, but he just holds you closer. “Shut up ‘n’ kiss me. Please.”

Clumsiness aside, the moment he obediently ducks his head and presses his smiling mouth to yours, you feel weightless. Even when you tilt forward onto your toes to meet him halfway, it’s as if you’re not even touching the ground anymore: clouds beneath your feet have you floating. Everything about it is so very different from the last time.

It’s so much easier. Not just for you, either – you can feel it from him as well. Your collective baggage has been left out in the hall, barricading the door, shutting out the hesitation and nervousness and leaving you together, wholly alone, to just… be.

Vernon gets increasingly more brave as the seconds tick by. When you separate for air, his head tilts the other way, lips a little parted, hot breaths fanning over your skin as he meets you again, and again, and again. It’s the perfect give and take. Firm one second, waiting for you to chase him the next. The soft sounds he starts to make are amplified as his tongue presses against your bottom lip: he tests the waters, groaning into the heat of your mouth when you so happily invite him into it. He drinks you up for all you’re worth. 

One of your hands uncurls from his chest and moves up to his head instead, threading into his hair at the top of his neck. It feels just as soft as it’s always looked, sliding through your fingers. A gentle pull makes him whine. He draws away from you. His lips are pink and shine with the gloss you touched up in the elevator’s mirror, his lids are heavy, his pupils blown, and looking up at him feels like staring into the sun; you physically can’t keep your eyes open, but it’s so hard to look away. 

You tuck yourself into his neck as a compromise, laying gentle pecks everywhere you can reach. His aftershave leaves a bitter taste on your tongue as you touch the tip to a stretch of skin just beneath the harsh cut of his jawline, but the way he shudders and drops his hold down to your waist makes the sting in the back of your mouth all worth it. You only stop when one of his hands sinks lower still and he squeezes at your ass, making your eyes roll back.

He mistakes your surprise for hesitation, though.

“Is this… okay?” he asks, tipping his head back and pressing his crown into the door. Though he doesn’t withdraw his palm from your backside, he also doesn’t pinch at you again. You press your hips backwards, pushing into his touch to encourage him, with this green light he starts to knead at your cheek over the top of your skirt.

“You have no idea how hard it is to keep my hands to myself around you, do you?” You say, slipping one up the hem of his t-shirt as if to prove your point, splaying your fingers out over his stomach. 

He takes a shallow breath, hovering with it in his lungs, holding back from saying something. You get there before he can.

“I want you,” you say certainly, pulling back from where you’ve been nestled into his shoulder so that you can look him in the eyes again. He releases that breath and his face flushes when his eyes find yours, moving both of his hands back up to your waist, tightly gripping at you as if his life depends on it as he nods. 

“I just… I really don’t wanna mess this up,” he adds quietly. “I—”

When you kiss him again, hoping to further assure that you’re just as into this as he is, he reciprocates, sure. You can tell straight away that there’s a little less bite though — a stiffness to him. He doesn’t relax into you the same way he did a few minutes ago. 

“What’s wrong?” you ask, falling back onto your heels. Is this because of the way things went last time, or are you going too fast for him? Selfishly, you hadn’t considered that could be a barrier. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want, you know that right? It’s okay.”

You make to step away from Vernon, unwinding your arms from around him to give him some space but he refuses to let you go too far. His hold on you is just as firm as ever.

“Trust me, I want to,” he says. “It’s just–...”

You stay silent, waiting for him to finish. He chews at his bottom lip, his blush deepening right in front of your eyes. To try and steady him, you lay one of your palms over each of his biceps, saying, “Whatever it is – it’s all right.”

“I just… haven’t been with anyone since…”

And when you laugh, it’s not at him (at least, not for the reason a fly on the wall might initially assume). You drop your forehead down onto the muscle of his chest, feeling his heart’s erratic rhythm underneath his clothes as you loop one arm back up around his neck.

“I thought you were about to tell me something awful,” you chide him through your giggles, lightly swatting at his shoulder. He starts to loosen up beneath you, his own body beginning to shake with laughter too. Those strong arms pull you flush against him, the gentle shift of his weight from one foot to another rocking you both side-to-side. “Like– like you were secretly married or you realised you didn’t actually like me, or something. Jesus.”

He stays quiet for another few seconds, but even without speaking, you can feel how he shakes his head above you. You look back up at his face and brush his hair out of his eyes, fingers lingering on his brow when you’re done.

“It’s okay,” you tell him for the third time. The last wisps of anxiety start to fade from his eyes, replaced with the same look he’s been wearing since he showed up at your apartment door earlier this evening. “I don’t care — I promise, I’ll go easy on you.”

The kiss that follows lands hard and with it, Vernon succeeds in wiping your brain empty. You can barely remember what you were even giggling about a few seconds later. 

“Don’t want you to go easy,” he insists against your lips. Then, he’s wallowing up your breathy sighs as he licks into your mouth again, pressing your tongue with his own, reminding you that he’s absolutely not incompetent, just rusty. 

When you make it into his bedroom, confessions and various articles of your clothing forgotten out in the hallway, you separate from each other long enough for you to be able to to lay one hand on his bare chest and push him down onto the mattress. He bounces on the foam and pushes up on one elbow, watching as you sink down to your knees and press kisses down his stomach while your hands deftly take care of the button on his jeans. 

“Tell me if you want me to stop, okay?” You say to him as he lifts his hips up and lets you pull both his jeans and his boxers down in one sharp movement. 

“M’not gonna want you to,” he laughs breathlessly, pushing a hand through his hair as he kicks the remainder of his clothes all the way off and nudges them away to the side. “But yeah. Okay.”

He looks so pretty like this and you can’t help but think he’s even prettier when the first time you curl your fingers around his length, his jaw falls slack and his fingers curl into the bedding underneath him. You drink him in and he watches you do it; your mouth is watering, desperate to feel him press down on your tongue, and you feel a pull towards him that you’ve never felt towards anyone before. 

“God,” you whisper, shuffling on your knees to get a little closer. 

“Okay?” Vernon asks. He tilts his head to the side and you nod up at him.

“Just… had a feeling you’d be…” you trail off, tugging a few times to feel its thickness in your fingers. Why are you mesmerised by it, a little? What the hell has gotten into you? “But it’s actually bigger, and—”

He laughs quietly and falls back onto the bed, crossing an arm over his eyes. “Shut up,” he groans. 

“Yes, sir.”

You lean towards him and gather saliva on your tongue, dragging it from base to tip before closing your lips around the head. He gasps softly and holds onto his next breath, angling his head back further; you give a satisfied hum and slide a little further down. 

The glide is made smoother by the spit your tongue left behind and that which mixes with his pre-cum in your mouth. As you start to bob up and down, some dribbles out past your lips so you start to move your hand, too, smearing the mess all over his cock. When it bumps the back of your throat — and on assessment, you realise there’s daylight between your lips and your fist — you squeeze your eyes closed and whimper softly, holding him in place while you adjust before you can take him deeper. 

“Fuck— just like that,” he gasps out in a shattered groan when you start to move a little more fluidly, no longer too intimidated by your gag reflex preventing him from slipping down your throat. Your hand and your mouth work in tandem to get him riled. Every sound he makes feels like someone injects lust straight into your veins. When you look up at him from between your dewy lashes, you ponder that you’d watch him fall apart from this angle a hundred times a night forever and still not get bored. 

Your jaw starts to ache from the thickness of having him in your mouth and the way he’s restraining himself from fucking his hips up to meet you tells you that he’s too polite to ask you for more. You suck harshly one last time before pulling away with a ‘pop’, using only your hand to pump his length as you shift down to gently suck one of his balls into your mouth. 

The sound he makes is so fucking melodic. You think he’s made a similar one before when he lifts into a falsetto, and you’ve never felt more powerful than you do right now. Knowing you have someone with such a commanding presence eating out of your palm could really do something dangerous to your ego. It’s a bit of a miracle, therefore, that you recognise his desperate tapping at your shoulder, but the second you feel it you settle back from him, looking up at his impossibly tense abs and his blissed-out face.

You catch on quickly and feel your features split into a grin at the realisation. When it takes him a second, you know it’s because he’s still trying to remember the mechanisms it takes to breathe. Bless his heart. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, pushing himself to sit upright and running a hand through his hair. “It-… fuck, that was so…”

“What happened to ‘I don’t want you to go easy’ huh?” you tease, resting your chin on the top of his left thigh, grinning up at him. 

“I’m gonna come if you keep going like that,” he chuckles, shaking his head in disbelief at himself. “And trust me — I want to, but…” He swallows hard. “Not yet.”

You nod slowly up at him, starting to get up off the floor. You stop in your tracks when he says, “I’ve gotta taste you first. Please.”

Maybe it speaks too much to the quality of some of your previous lovers, but his desperation takes you a bit by surprise. You blink at him, ignoring how your thighs burn with the position you’ve frozen in. 

“If— that’s okay?” He adds. “I’ve… been thinking about it? A lot. Especially since-”

“Shut up,” you breathe, finally standing all the way up. He shuffles back further onto the bed and you quickly move to straddle across his hips, one hand coming up to hold his jaw in place when you’re in place. “Of course it’s okay.”

You lean in for an impossibly needy kiss, only breaking away when you physically can’t breathe anymore. Vernon’s eyes flutter open at the same time as yours do and as you reach behind yourself with one hand to unclasp your bra, he looks at you like you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to him.  

(He tells you that you are no fewer than three times before you fall asleep a few hours later.)

thank u so much for reading, i hope you enjoyed it! as always, likes, reblogs, comments & feedback are so so appreciated. there's approx a scene and a half left for part 3 and then we're all done with this baby! stay tuned for that, coming soon.<3 p.s. no i will not apologise to jaehyun, this is what he gets for making me feel insane. thanks !

[literary-motif]

Midas

Andrew Marston x Reader

You have a fight with Andrew. It does not end well.

“I hate this so much!” you exclaimed, throwing up your hands in exasperation. The words would not come, and you needed to type up this in-depth review tonight. “I just want to read these lovely little manuscripts and write some silly little notes on the margin, not do this!”

Andrew chuckled tiredly at your theatrics, continuing to chop the carrots for dinner. Today had been particularly challenging at the museum. He had been looking forward to spending the evening with you for the whole day, cooking you dinner and cuddling on the couch until you fell asleep in each other's arms. It was a fail-proof remedy to improve his mood, and he desperately longed to be trapped in your soothing embrace until all his worries melted away like wax under a flame.

“I wouldn’t call the blocks of paper you go through ‘little,’ exactly,” he said, raising an eyebrow at you from the kitchen aisle, “Nor are your comments ‘silly.’ You do your work well and thoroughly, Darling.” Perhaps a little too much of the latter, he reasoned, the sight of your frown as you continued staring daggers at the words in front of you both amused and annoyed him.

You had promised to reduce your working hours. You had promised to call it a day when he got home, no matter the unfinished work. Yet here you were, going back on your word to him.

“Yeah yeah,” you mumbled, waving dismissively as you continued working on the report. “I’m not sure why I’m struggling so much with this, honestly. I know what I want to say, but the words get jumbled when I try to express myself coherently” — you paused, reading over the absolute garbage you had just typed out and deleting it again with a groan, trying again — ”And I don’t see why I should be the one running the numbers here either. What do I have to do with mathematics? Why do they want me to do it?”

“You should really take a break,” he said, trying to drain the impatience from his tone as much as possible. 

It was obvious you were tired, and no matter how much you hated leaving your work unfinished before you allowed yourself to rest, he knew that what still needed doing would get done in at most half the time tomorrow, when your body and mind were rested, than it would take you to do today.

Doing a half-spin, Andrew raised the lid of the cooking pot, adjusting the heat to keep the water from boiling over. “If you can’t finish it, I can always do it for you,” he added absentmindedly, pulling out another pot to cook the carrots. 

His words made you pause, stilling the sound of your typing as they fully registered. An odd feeling of inadequacy washed over you as you looked up at Andrew. Surely, he had not meant to sound condescending. But the wording, the way he phrased it, the careless tone in which he told you that whatever you were struggling with, he could complete with barely any effort at all—

If you failed, he was sure to do it right.

“What,” you began, trying to keep the hurt out of your voice as you dropped your gaze to your half-finished review, “do you think I’m incompetent?”

Your tone must have been flatter than you had meant it to be because Andrew’s head snapped up immediately. “What?” he asked bewildered, confusion evident on his face, “No! Why would you— what are you talking about?”

You scoffed, the hurt his words caused you only now fully settling in. Why had he offered to do it for you instead of simply offering his help? Was that what Andrew thought of you? That you were inefficient, slow, and dragging him down, failing at doing useless little things he wouldn’t even bat an eye at doing?

“Do you think I’m unable to do my own work? Is that it?” you asked, the ache in your heart quickly bleeding into annoyance. You frowned, resuming your work. There was no way you could concentrate and finish this review now that the air between you and Andrew was filled with tension. 

The thought of him being right — that you truly could not finish this on your own right now while he could probably do it in less than twenty minutes — made your jaw clench, further fueling your anger at the situation.

“I never said that!” Andrew exclaimed. His shock at your initial reaction quickly fading into exasperation. This was not the way he had hoped this evening would progress, and the last thing he wanted to do right now — or ever, actually — was fight with you. Especially when he figured that it was your exhaustion making you snap and jump to conclusions. Turning off the stove to give you his full attention, he began with a calmer tone. “Darling, what—?”

“You sure implied it,” you muttered pettily, not looking up even as his footsteps drew closer.

“I did not imply anything,” he said, placing his hands on the kitchen table and looking at you closely. 

You still refused to meet his gaze, keeping your eyes fixed on the screen. He was growing tired of it, his fried nerves from a long day at work adding to his own irritability. So knowing all your files were saved automatically, he pushed your laptop shut. 

“Look at me when you accuse me of things at least. Frankly, I don’t know what you’re getting so worked up over, so how about you explain it to me instead of acting out dramatics.”

“Oh, ‘acting dramatic,’ am I?” you scoffed, annoyance turning into outright anger as you rose to your feet as well. “At least I don’t waltz it everywhere and declare that I can do everything perfectly and with no effort at all unlike some people, just because I’m a few years older and held a damn professorship!”

Andrew’s expression darkened, his mood souring further as he listened to your opinion of him. “I don’t know how I did not fail you in literature,” he said, his tone of voice reverting to his flat academic monotone, “evidently you are abhorrent at reading between the lines.”

The angry reply died on your tongue as his words sunk in, and you blinked at him Once. Twice. 

Silence hung heavy between you two as you looked at him speechless. His words reminded you of the power imbalance that had hung over your heads and, while it never truly felt that way, it was undeniably there all the same. 

Although you had been the one to bring it up, it still knocked the breath out of you to hear Andrew wield his power over you.

“Wait, Darling, no. That was—” he stuttered, running a hand through his hair nervously. He was frustrated. This was the opposite of what he wanted. The argument was bleeding into a fight, and he feared that he had escalated it now even though he had set out to do the opposite. “I didn’t mean to—”

You only shook your head once, expression blank as you straightened and walked away towards the entrance hall. He watched you, the gears in his head turning for a moment until he heard the rustling of your coat. He dashed to the door. 

“Where are you going?” he asked around the lump in his throat, hands balled into fists to stop them from shaking as an argument that happened years ago flashed before his eyes. 

The last part he saw of his brother was his back, disappearing behind the slam of the front door as he walked away from him. The last thing Andrew said to him was a tearful ‘I’m sorry,’ nearly drowned out by the church bells tolling for mass. It was not enough neither to keep him from leaving nor for him to stay in Andrew’s life.

His brother disappeared entirely when he stepped through that door, and perhaps he would have managed to slip from Andrew’s mind as well if he didn’t stare back every time he looked at himself in the mirror.

“Out,” you answered briskly, putting on your shoes.

“What do you mean ‘out’?” he asked, his voice shaking slightly. 

He could not bear the thought of you leaving, could not face the possibility that this could be it — you could walk away from him just like that, shattering his heart and leaving a mess of broken shambles in your wake that he would never have the energy to place together again.

“When will you be back?” Andrew asked, heart racing as he wracked his brain for a way to get you to stay when he saw you pick up your keys. ”Where—”

“Just out, Andrew!” you said with more force than necessary. “I need to clear my head.”

Andrew panicked, the image of his brother disappearing behind a slammed door making him tremble. 

“Running away from conflict, are you?” he said shakily, his tone as daunting as he could manage. If you continued your argument, that meant you would stay. He could turn this around and keep you from leaving. If you were screaming at him, at least you were still here. “How mature of you.”

The anger flashing in your eyes at his words felt like a newly ignited fire. “Immature, am I?” you spat, stepping towards him. “How rich coming from you,” you said, pointing an accusing finger at him, “Your favorite movie is a child’s movie!”

Andrew clenched his jaw. Bringing up his childhood, one of the most vulnerable sides of him and one that had taken him a lot of courage to trust you with, felt like a stab in the heart. It hurt hearing you use it to make a point. 

It hurt hearing you use the trust he put in you against him. Rationally, he knew you didn’t mean it; the words were spoken in anger. Still, it was hard not to take them to heart, especially with how closely connected this part of himself was to his brother. 

Andrew stiffened, his back straightening as if the walls he was rebuilding around himself drew him up as well. “I have achieved more in my career than you ever will!” he retaliated, panic overshadowed by hurt and anger.

You let out a huff of laughter, looking at him incredulously. “You’re so arrogant. I can’t believe I’ve never seen it before. What, you think academic validation is everything?” you scoffed, shaking your head. “At least I managed to make friends during my time in university because I’m not an insufferable, uptight, perfectionist asshole so full of himself because—”

You cut yourself off, biting back the insult. 

“Because what?” Andrew asked challengingly. “Go on. Or are you too much of a coward to speak your mind?”

Your expression darkened. The irony of being called a coward when you were the reason this relationship developed in the first place left a bitter taste on your tongue. 

“Because mommy and daddy never taught you how to make a mistake,” you finished flatly, relishing the expression of hurt flashing across Andrew’s face and wiping away the self-satisfied smirk. 

He felt like he’d been slapped. 

All the trust he had put into you, opening up about his difficult family relations — his parents, his brother — ultimately leading him to be alone in the world, was now thrown carelessly at his feet. You stomped on his heart, taking all his secrets and insecurities, and laughed in his face.

Blinking away tears, he clenched his fists. “At least I don’t struggle with basic mathematics and English,” he retaliated, raising his voice to hide how it shook, “because I actually spent my time studying instead of ogling my professor!”

“Are you calling me stupid you prodigy?” you screamed. 

“What if I am?” Andrew screamed back, holding your gaze. “Do try to keep up with me, but oh” — he chuckled condescendingly — “I forget. You’re too slow. How I put up with you daily is a mystery even I haven’t figured out yet.”

His words made your heart sink. Was this what he thought of you? You still hadn’t fully forgiven yourself for being the reason he quit his job at the university. Having the confirmation of your deepest fears — that you were a burden to him, that you were too stupid, too slow for his excellent mind — tore you apart. 

You averted your gaze, turning from him to hide the tears in your eyes. He did not say anything as you dashed to the door with a choked-off sob, letting it fall shut behind you without sparing him another glance. 

It made you miss the immediate regret appearing on his face, his wide eyes as he processed his words and their implications. He stood frozen in the hallway, staring at the shut door as if willing you to walk back over the threshold. 

Andrew was alone again. 

[nburkhardt]

Be Your Alibi

This was supposed to be a small thing, it ended up not being small. My bad. Btw, the narrative is all over the place sorry about that. Couldn’t stick to one person this time around. Special shout out to @mentallyundone for all help with parts of this means a lot!! 🩷 (this definitely should’ve been like a three parter, also no read more because the app doesn’t have it and it deletes my stuff when I do use it)

ENJOY~~

The whole group is in the hospital, half of them needing to be looked at and the other half not quite threatening anyone but definitely trigger ready. It’s not long until the police come in, immediately handcuffing Eddie to his bed and having someone stand there to stop anyone from entering. Nancy manages to convince Dustin that he’ll be fine, they’ll figure out how to get the handcuffs off and keep him out of jail, but for now the handcuffs and police officer stays.

“What else could we tell them to let him go?” Dustin demands. It’s been officially two weeks since they defeated Vecna/Henry/One and Hawkins is slowly putting things back together. The Party is all together again and the actual adults are back with a very alive Hopper. The only ones not with them is Max, who’s still in an induced coma, Lucas is with her and Eddie, he’s still in the hospital with a hand in handcuffs but overall recovering and most likely annoying the hospital staff (and the police guard).

“Powell told me that unless he has a solid alibi that isn’t a kid, there’s nothing until Owens releases the cover story” Hopper explains, a glare directed at Dustin who had his mouth open again, “no, your little club doesn’t work either. Half of it is kids under eighteen.”

Dustin huffs and crosses his arms, “well! What else could work?”

Standing next to him is Steve, who bites his lip as he thinks to himself. It’s not the plan, it could end up horribly for him and Eddie, but they do have enough information on each other and all their past dates to be a very reliable alibi. He’s also not a child, turning twenty very soon actually and Wayne could back him up. It could, technically work.

Looking around at the lost and frustrated faces, it makes up his mind. He pushes himself off the wall and clears his throat, getting the attention on him. “I can be his alibi”

It’s uncomfortably silent now, he feels his skin crawl as everyone in the room stares at him. Nearly all of them look doubtful, Dustin’s snorting like it’s a joke, “oh yeah? And what were you doing? You don’t even like Eddie”

Steve blinks at him and holds back a laugh, because him not liking Eddie? Not possible. If anything, he likes Eddie too much. Way too much actually. Wayne told him once that he and Eddie can be insufferable actually. Not that anyone in this room knows that.

“I can be his alibi,” he repeats louder, ignoring Dustin completely and staring straight at Hopper, “He had hellfire and I went to the basketball game, but he came home with me. We had pizza from DomiNick’s, I have leftovers and we watched Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. We didn’t finish it, got too caught up into each other.” He glances away, face flushed as he thinks of their last date night, “We took a shower then crashed in my room”

No one says anything, all just staring at him and he’s even more uncomfortable. If Eddie was next to him, he’d make some sort of joke to get the attention off him. But he’s not here and Steve just wants someone, anyone to say that the alibi will work.

“Are you, are you really suggesting that you and Eddie were hanging out?”

He shakes his head, “We weren’t just hanging out, we were on a date. If you want more, proof or someone to back me up, we can ask Wayne. Eddie’s uncle, he’ll back me up”

Hopper shakes his head, rubbing a hand down his face before looking back at him. “Harrington, you do understand what you’re saying, correct? You’re willing to say you’re dating another guy.”

“You don’t even know if Eddie will be willing to do that!” Dustin nearly shouts out, “you think someone will believe that? The story has a lot of details and you’re saying that you like men, but there’s no way anyone would believe that!”

Steve crosses his arms, determined and annoyed that they don’t know how much thought he’s actually put into this. How he knows Eddie will eventually agree and repeat the story with even more details, like how they decided making out on the couch was more fun than watching Luke Skywalker try to get Darth Vader away from the dark side or that they ended up in the shower together before falling asleep in bed wrapped around each other. “I know what I’m saying Hop. I’m completely fine with admitting it now, and Eddie will be fine with it”

Hopper nods and grabs his shoulder to pull himself up, “come on then, let’s go now while you have that story fresh. We’ll talk it over with Munson, you sure about his uncle?”

“yeah Wayne will be fine with it” he nods and looks back at his friends, all of them staring at him with varying looks of disbelief and confusion, no disgust or anger. Well, Mike looks annoyed and maybe there might be disgust. Honestly, that just might be Mike’s default for Steve. Hopefully there isn’t disgust or anger later on when it comes to light how true his ‘story’ is. He doesn’t think that matters right now though, “Eddie won’t need us to get the story straight- um, that really did happen. Just not that day” He finally admits once he and Hopper are outside and getting into his car.

Hopper’s in the passenger seat, he still looks exhausted over what had happened. The man didn’t even bother with demanding he drove, “The hell you mean?”

He grips the wheel, pulls out of the driveway and takes a deep breath before admitting, “I’m actually dating Eddie. We’ve been together before Starcourt was burned down, he kept bugging me at Scoops. Didn’t think anything of it until his friend Jeff explained to me that Eddie was actually flirting with me, told me to either tell Eddie I don’t like guys or to give him a chance.” He glanced over out of the corner of his eye to see Hopper rubbing a hand up and down his face, “That was nearly nine months ago, I’m practically living with him and his uncle”

The drive is even more silent after, Hopper’s mumbling something and Steve can’t hear him. But he’s at least not cursing him for dating another guy, so it’s not all terrible. They make it to the hospital in no time, parking close enough to the front for Hopper. Steve spotted Wayne’s truck while parking, thankfully they wouldn’t have to make multiple stops.

“So, you, uh you’re gay then?” Hopper’s gruff voice cuts into Steve’s thoughts, “That’s what you’re saying?”

He shakes his head, not answering him yet. Flashing a smile at the receptionist “Here to see Munson, please”

It’s only once they’re in the elevator and alone that he answers, “I’m not gay- I still like girls. I just, just like Eddie too. I think he called it bisexual?” Shaking his head he looked back at Hopper, “doesn’t matter right now. Wayne knows, it’s hard to keep things from him, he probably already knows all of what really happened, Eddie doesn’t keep many secrets from him”

He shakes his head and smiles, thinking it’ll be nice to have another actual adult around that knows what hell they’ve been through. Hopper doesn’t bother saying anything else and Steve’s a little thankful for it. This was a lot even if he offered it, once he’s outside of Eddie’s room he ignores the police officer in favor of just opening the door (also ignoring the “hey!” From said officer) and walking inside with Hopper following him.

“Stevie-baby!”

He doesn’t bother hiding how hearing Eddie’s voice makes the tension go away, he’s smiling and there’s Eddie sitting up in bed with his yellow sweater pulled over the hospital gown, a notebook sitting in his lap. Wayne’s sitting down in the chair next to him.

“Hey Eds” he moves closer and sits next to him on the bed, “Got some bad news and uh, good news I guess?”

Eddie squints his eyes at him before glancing at Hopper, his body goes a little stiff and Steve notices Wayne sit up straighter in his chair. “bad news?”

Steve reaches for his free hand and squeezes, “You’re stuck with handcuffs still since the police want a solid alibi. Since the cover story still isn’t out yet”

Eddie closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, trying not to get too upset. “And the good news? Is it good or just, not bad?”

“Well, it’s news?” Steve doesn’t know how exactly to describe the fact that he’s willing to out himself and Eddie and their whole relationship, it’s a lot, something he didn’t think they would need to do at all. At least not of people not in their inner circle, “I…offered to be your alibi. That we were together when everything happened, pizza with Star Wars. My house, and uh,” he glances up at Wayne, “Also said Wayne could also back us. That he knows about us”

The room isn’t quiet, the beeping from the medical equipment is still going and there’s the bit of noise from outside but everyone in the room is quiet. Eddie’s eyes are wide and Wayne looks concerned, and Steve is gripping Eddie’s hand like a lifeline still. Hopper has moved enough to lean against the sink and he hasn’t spoken yet, he doesn’t have a reaction.

“Stevie, you- are you sure?”

He nods and moves to sit on the bed, facing Eddie, “Yeah, Eds. I’m not, like excited but there’s nothing else anyone could come up with. They don’t want to take the kids words and everyone else in town believes Hellfire is a cult. We know each other, been together so often and Wayne has seen us, the boys too. We have a number of dates behind us that we wouldn’t need to study a fake story”

“But, baby- I can’t ask you to put yourself out there like that, I don’t want you to-“

Steve shakes his head and ignores the eyes on him and Eddie as he leans forward to rest his forehead against Eddie’s, “You don’t have to, I’m offering. I love you, honey. I don’t want you in jail, you’re innocent. I’ve thought about it, they’ll figure out why we didn’t come forward. Or we explain how dangerous it is for us, either way, I’m doing this for you”

Eddie’s eyes are watery, he nods and slumps against Steve.

It doesn’t surprise Wayne to see the boys like this or to hear those words of love either. He’s been hearing it for the last few months now, even before the official three words were said from his boys. Eddie is and always will be a sap and Wayne has found out that Steve is right there with him. He doesn’t make it obvious that he’s still on edge with the idea of them outing themselves to get the police off their backs. For now he looks over at Hopper, raising an eyebrow, “Ain’t you supposed be dead?”

Hopper shakes his head, rubbing a hand down the back of his head, “Didn’t stick. Harrington wasn’t lying?”

“He wasn’t, these two are lovesick fools. That should be enough right?” Wayne glances at the boys and finds Steve rocking Eddie slightly, he can barely catch him telling his nephew about what he missed, “need a straight answer, will this work?”

“Christ, it should. Powell’s good, reasonable. The whole- thing should work” He looks a little off center as he looks at the two on the bed before looking back at Wayne, “He said your nephew doesn’t keep secrets from you, what’d he say?”

Wayne crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair, “Apparently he’s been to hell and that Steve’s been dealin’ with it with y’all since eighty three. Things make a whole lot more sense now”

“Yeah, that sums it up” Hopper nods along before sighing, “I don’t want to say it because the last time, I ended up locked away in an Russian prison. But, this could be it. Hopefully we’re done”

~~

The plan is simple, bring physical proof and statements and Wayne to the police station. Steve’s got pictures, the boys statements along with Wayne and a determination to get his boyfriend out of handcuffs. Nothing was gonna stop him, even if Dustin still didn’t believe it would work.

Powell looks permanently tired and unamused, “Sit down, Mr. Harrington and Mr. Munson. What can I do for you?”

Steve sat up straight and placed his box on the desk, “I’m here to tell you, Eddie’s innocent and he wasn’t with Chrissy when she died, he was with me”

“Why was she at his trailer then?”

Steve made sure to keep his face natural, and not annoyed so quickly. “I’m not sure about that, maybe she broke in and thought he was there? We’ll never know but what I can tell you, Eddie was at my house with me when she died. We had pizza from DomiNick’s and watched a movie, then crashed in my bed.”

It’s quiet then, Steve and Wayne both on high alert waiting for Powell’s response. This is where it’ll be either a death sentence for both Eddie and Steve or a realization that there’s at least one more person in this small minded town that isn’t close-minded.

Powell sighs and runs a head down his head and just looks at Steve, then slumps just a bit, “Look, if you’re saying what I think you’re saying. I’m not going to do anything to you for even implying it for your friend. I don’t think you’ll want that to be your official statement to the public, correct?”

“Well, I mean, no. But Eddie really is innocent, there’s no way he did any of it.” Steve answers back and slumps in his seat, “Could- is there any way it doesn’t have to be released officially? Like- like-“ he’s grasping at straws trying to figure out something, anything to say.

“Look, kid. I’ll take your statement and visit Munson to see if it matches-“

“it will!”

He sighs, “I’m sure it will. Since the town decided to do a witch-hunt against him while I’m chief of police, and I don’t want another one happening. I’ll get take the cuffs off and start paper work to get him under a house arrest instead, then i’ll help you figure out a different way to stop a mob”

Wayne eyed him, crossing his arms, “you’re willing to help now?”

“Truthfully, I didn’t think your nephew did any of this. I only caught him selling once but besides that? His hands are technically clean. I saw what happened to all those victims, I don’t see how he would’ve done any of that by himself.” Powell explained and leaned forward looking between the two, “So, we’ll have your statement, take Mr. Munson’s and seal it. The town won’t hear the real one, I’ll give them something else entirely”

Steve nodded while his brain raced with thoughts. “So, you’re uh, okay with what I was saying?” He needs to know if his and Eddie’s secret is safe. Needs it said aloud and not just implied, before he can feel even remotely okay with what might be happening, it needs to be said.

“Harrington, I’m not sure what exactly you want from me right now. Just know that what you’re telling me will be between us and will stay sealed once this is all over, as long as I don’t catch either you or Munson doing anything illegal, all is fine with me.” Powell explained and pulled out a drawer, “Now, we’ll start that paperwork and then I’ll visit the hospital later, I assume both of you will be there?”

Paperwork doesn’t take long and before Steve can really process what just happened, he’s back instead the comfort of Wayne’s truck and they’re driving back to the hospital. It’s been two days since he told his friends and coming up with this fake alibi at least until Owens and the government comes in with their own cover-up. He’s hoping that happens before any official statement comes out from Powell.

~~

The excitement of Eddie being released under house arrest is dimmed just a little by them getting ambushed by their friends.

Steve is too busy being an overbearing boyfriend and watching Eddie’s every move as they walk into his house to notice the group in the living room. Eddie’s too busy whining about being fine, “Stevie, I’m fine. The doctors said to just take it easy. You don’t have to be this paranoid, just- gimme your hand” he quickly grabs Steve’s hand and stopped them from moving, “All I need right now is this, okay? Well, maybe a bed and you as my pillow-“

“Ew!”

Both of them don’t jump necessarily, they do flinch and Steve pulls Eddie closer to himself. That’s when they notice Dustin and the rest of them, Dustin’s the one they focus on since he’s the one who spoke up. He looks more annoyed than anything, there’s not a hint of anger or disgust.

The rest of the group looks curious, Steve can see Robin’s face and she looks happy and pissed off. He knows it’s because they’re soulmates and he never told her about his boyfriend. The other one that stands out to him is, Will. He’s wide eyed and look’s grateful for some reason.

Steve sighs and says, “Look, maybe we can talk about our relationship another day? Eddie just got out of the hospital and I just outed our relationship just to save him from being thrown in jail.” He doesn’t tell them that he’d also just like to be in bed with Eddie and know that he’s alive and safe with him.

There’s grumbles from most of the group, everyone walking out and the only ones left with them is Robin and Dustin. They’re not surprised, especially Steve. These two are stubborn. “We’ll leave after you explain why you never told us about you, thought we were best friends?”

“You are my best friends,” Steve starts off and flicks his gaze between both of them, before settling his eyes on just Robin, “We meant to, even when the relationship was still new and before the Russians appeared. But then the upside down was back and then school was back.”

“Eventually we just sorta, gave up trying to figure out a good time” Eddie took over, squeezing his hand before looking at the other two, “we still had plans to tell you. My friends, they’ve known since the beginning and Stevie wasn’t out to either of you so- plans happened but so did life”

Robin and Dustin are quiet and Steve doesn’t know what to do with that, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, really.”

“Dingus- you don’t have to say sorry” Robin says then pulls both of them in a hug, “I’m sorry for making you feel like you had to say that. I’m happy for you, really! Maybe a little annoyed you managed to get a boyfriend before I got girlfriend” she whispers the last part in his ear and he laughs and squeezes her, “I do want all the details of how you became a couple!”

She smacks a kiss to both of their cheeks before walking out and then it’s just them and Dustin.

“I’m- still so confused, but I guess I get it. I’m sorry for exploding on you, Steve.” Dustin admits, shaking his head, “Just, why would you hide even a friendship between the two of you from me? I’ve been trying to get you two to meet and you’ve known each other the whole time?”

Steve sighed and moved away from Eddie to pat Dustin’s shoulder before pulling his cap down, “Look, Eddie and I’ve known each other for years. We did go to school together- yes we didn’t run in the same circle- and it took me getting a lame job-“

“And a hot sailor outfit!”

He rolled his eyes and Dustin pulled a face, mumbling out “ew” before looking back at Steve, “anyway, it took a lot for us to even get together and then after, I just- I just wanted something for myself for a bit but his friends already knew then his uncle, so we did planned to tell you guys especially after you joined hellfire. But you have to know how scary it is for us”

It takes Dustin a second for it to process, because that’s one thing Steve knows about him. He’s a genius but sometimes things just don’t process the same way. Especially things like this.

Dustin nods, “yeah, yeah I’m sorry for getting upset again. So you were going to tell us- tell me?”

“Of course, dude. You’re our annoying little brother, would’ve told you guys. We did have a plan, the upside down ruined it” Steve grins and moved back to Eddie.

Eddie grins too but doesn’t move closer, instead he wraps his arms around Steve to lean his weight slightly against him, “now scram, I wanna cuddle my boyfriend.” That gets his desired reaction, Dustin scrunches his nose In annoyance and walks rolls his eyes before walking out the door. Leaving the couple alone officially.

Instead of moving, Steve turns Eddie around so they’re facing each other and leans his forehead against Eddie’s. Eyes closed, arms wrapped around each other. Only a simple kiss is enough for them right now, just enjoying being each others arms is enough. They’ll eventually go to Steve’s bedroom, undress to their boxers and climb into bed. Steve on his back and Eddie not necessarily curled into his side, since his bites are still healing and hurts, but still he gets his wish for his boyfriend-shaped pillow.

Tomorrow they’ll officially tell their friends about their relationship and explain what happened with Powell. For now, they’re just happy to sleep in the same bed with each other and not have to worry about the upside down or monsters. All that matters is them.

_______

Wellllllllll, I didn’t mean for this to get this long. Like, I was just wanting the alibi thing but with an actual secret relationship 🫣 I went a little outta hand and honestly I probably could’ve wrote out them telling their relationship to everyone but decided nah. Maybe I’ll write that out another time. Tagging those who made comments on my original post & those I talked to about this!

@i-less-than-three-you @artiststarme @stevesoli @grandwretch @val-from-lawrence @mentalcyborg @boop-ba-doop @lwhoscribbles @itsfreakingbats @annoyinglyfanon @counting-dollars-counting-stars @moonshadows-13

[starhvney]

my first time w this but can I rq zenix x short fem reader? one shot or hc or anything atp i can survive off crumbs alone

(mystreet and maybe they have a playful banter dynamic? (dying i am so shy)(if no then thats okay u can delet this :3))

𝐏𝐈𝐏𝐒𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐀𝐊

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: zenix x short!fem!reader

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘: he won’t let you exist without giving you the daily reminder that you’re short

𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐒: fluff, slice of life, zenix and reader playfully argue and banter, zenix doesn't know how to admit his feelings ever

𝐂𝐖: none? 

𝐀/𝐍: yes, i can! this is so cute, anon! i went ahead and added headcanons and a small drabble to this. it’s not super long, but i hope i was able to write what you wanted. you’re my first request so thank you, i hope you enjoy! (i might make a one shot going more in depth on this dynamic but i wanted to get this out asap for you :))

𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

☆ it doesn’t matter what age you two met, he’s always going to tease you for your height

☆ in high school, before he could ever admit his feelings for you (because that would be so lame and not hardcore), he would use teasing as a way to talk and flirt with you while still keeping his composure and pride.

it was so close, yet so far out of reach. you strained your calves as your fingers barely brushed the top shelf.

“c’mon!” you quietly groan to yourself, hopping and once again missing the book above you.

a quiet snort can be heard from behind you, causing you to narrow your eyes and turn to the noise. zenix leans on the bookshelf, his hand covering his nose and mouth as looks up through dark lashes at you with a poorly concealed grin. his eyes crinkled and lifted up, and the tenseness in his shoulders gave away that he was really trying not to laugh.

“what? aren’t you gonna help me?” you accuse, pointing a finger in his direction.

he drops his hand, the amused smirk on his lips annoyingly prominent as he crosses his arms and lifts his chin up, another annoying laugh leaving his lips.

“no, i think i’ll just watch from here.”

your eyebrows pinch together and your nose scrunches up in annoyance. with narrowed eyes you look him up and down. what was he even doing in the library?

“whatever, you probably can’t read the title anyways.”

“…what?!” his voice raised in confusion. his little smirk is gone as his jaw drops and his eyebrows furrow.

“besides, i may be short, but that doesn’t make you tall. you’re probably also too short to reach this book.” you continue to taunt, satisfied at the annoyed red hue growing on his cheeks.

“WHAT?!” he exclaims, this time much too loud for the library.

“you two, out of my library now! you’re being way too loud. you’re old enough to know basic manners in a library.” the librarian appears from the end of the aisle, an annoyed look on her tense face as one hand rests sternly on her hip and the other points at the door.

“but, i wasn’t-“

“now!”

you two silently walk out of the library doors, before you turn to zenix with narrowed eyes.

“that’s your fault.”

“huh? no it’s not, you started it!”

“no, you did!”

“no-“ he cuts himself off with an annoyed groan, shoving something in your face rather abruptly.

grabbing on to it, you move it away to see what it was. it was the book you were trying to reach. you look back up at him with a raised eyebrow.

“what?! you said i couldn’t reach it, but i could, easily!”

“but it’s still not checked out, so you stole it.”

“borrowed without asking.”

“well, you still did what i asked you. for someone so much taller and cooler than me you’re pretty gullible, huh?”

his face turns red again, mouth stuttering open before snapping back shut. he narrows his eyes at you before quickly snatching the book up and taking off down the hallway.

“hey! zenix, what the hell!” you take off after him.

“see if your short legs can keep up!”

he landed you two in more trouble soon after for running and yelling in the halls.

☆ sometimes he’d slip up, showing how he really felt about you… in his own, zenix way. 

“your hands are tiny.” he suddenly notes. burnt, red-brown eyes narrow down at your hands.

“huh?” you stretch your hand out in the air. 

zenix’s larger, warmer hand meets yours, palm to palm as he compares the difference. it’s enough for the tips of his fingers to curl a bit over yours, you glance back at him with raised eyebrows. his messy brown hair hangs in his face, but doesn’t hide his softened expression as he concentrated on your hands touching.

he makes eye contact with you, cheeks bursting into flames as he fumbles for an excuse.

“it must be because you’re so short.” he blurts out.

“feeling bold today, zenix?” gene’s voice startles the both of you, your hands both shooting back down to your laps.

“what- i don’t know what you’re talking about!”

☆ as you two get older, it eventually evolves into much more playful banter, and everybody is used to this just being your dynamic.

☆ you don’t get as irritated about it, but zenix still loves making use out of your height difference. 

you two stand in line in the coffee shop, eyes squinting as you read the menu, when you feel the weight of zenix’s arm on top of your head. rolling your eyes, you glance up at zenix with a half-assed glare as he leans on you.

“really?”

he barely spares you a glance from the menu, raising an eyebrow as if he was confused what your problem was.

“what?”

you roll your eyes before looking back up at the menu.

"you're not even that tall."

"i'm taller than you, pipsqueak."

a huff leaves your lips. you stiffen your hand straight, before ramming it quickly into his side. he grunts as he hunches over, his arm leaving your head to clutch his side. he finally shoots a half-assed glare back to you, before moving his arm back up to rest on your shoulder instead. this time you don't complain.

“what are you getting?”

“…caramel macchiato.”

“…yeah, same.”

©starhvney, 2024. please do not steal or repost my works as your own.