#there is an easter egg in this :3 if u find it you get a gold star

[doodle-dragons]

comm for @riceprezpip!

harper lookbook... 2!!!

[neil-gaiman]

This may very well get lost in the flood, but if you see this, I just wanted to say that there were a lot of things I thought I wanted for good omens 2 (a happy ending for one, of course!)

But my favourite thing that a writer can do to my experience of a story is to make me go "okay forget EVERYTHING I said before, this is the outcome I didn't know I needed." This show took my hopes and said "no u don't actually :) i got something better" and it had the audacity to be SO RIGHT.

The finale I *thought* I wanted would have probably had me giggling and kicking my feet and then moving on with my day while in a bright mood for a bit.

The finale I got had me absolutely devastated, inconsolable for maybe an hour, and then just...immediately rewatching. And talking about it behind a fortress of spoiler tags. And writing, and drawing, and being invested in theories and trying to find all the easter eggs and just...falling in love with the story and the characters all over again. And I can tell that feeling will stay with me for a whole lot longer than a couple days.

I'm bad at brevity, I apologize! This is just a very long-winded way to say thank you (and thank you to everyone else on the team) for giving us these idiots (affectionately) to have Way Too Many Feelings about!! Thank you for sharing them with us.

I'm running GO in the background, crossing my fingers and looking forward to a season 3—whether or not it'll be what I'm *hoping* for, I am just beyond excited for whatever story it is that you want to tell us, and I trust that whatever it is, it will be wonderfully told! ��🩶

(But also, please, for your consideration...I am in fact soft and innocent, I can only take so much damage before I cry myself to critical dehydration—do with that what you must, I shall leave my electrolyte balance in your hands and hope for mercy. You did say everything would be okay, and thankfully we all know a writer would never lie!)

I wouldn't lie about that, anyway.

[bratbarzal]

Let It Happen (LH43) 3/3

Pairing: Luke Hughes x Fem!Reader

WC: 17k

>PART ONE< / >PART TWO<

I'll spare you from everything, if you would still have me, I'll be waiting all my life

General Warnings: pining and longing and fluff galore!!! I think maybe sexual references but who remembers atp. angst (slut shaming, mentions of past relationships and I can't think of a better way to say daddy issues we've all been there)

A/N: we did it, Joe!!!! desktop tumblr really didn't want this to happen!!! I can't believe I finished this!! thank you guys so much for reading, and liking, and messaging me and reblogging and all the commentary, and all the love!!! I appreciate it so much!!

if there is a crossover of readers of on your side and readers of this fic (first of all ily) there is a little oys easter egg in here!! did I think through the logistics of this being set in the same universe? no. did I have fun anyway? yes. I fell in love with writing Luke in that fic so it was only right for me to add it in here!!

Happy New Year to everyone, thank you for reading my work!! 2024 was the year I finally plucked up the courage to write all my random thoughts down and the fact that it spiralled into this blows my mind a bit, but I'm grateful to be here!!

You can distinctly remember the first time you had properly taken notice of Luke Hughes, and it wasn’t back in the restaurant at the club like he probably thinks.

It had been early November, in your freshman year.

Ellie had finally convinced you to join her at one of the games at Yost, and you were bundled up in a coat two sizes too big, the only thing you had remotely close to team colours, and the only thing likely to keep you warm enough to tolerate a whole game and warm-ups.

You were watching the boys skate around, and he had caught your eye in an instant. 

“Who’s that one?” You had asked, pointing down to where number 43 was reaching out awkwardly to sweep up pucks with his stick. You could see the soft brown curls peaking out the back of his helmet from all the way in the stands, and his height made it unmistakable to realise that you recognised him.

He had come up to you at a Halloween party the week before, and if you hadn’t been so preoccupied by the fact that your only-just-ex boyfriend at the time was in the same room, his tongue down another girl’s throat, you might have been endeared by the boy in the dog costume. 

Friendly smile, boyishly handsome features and warm eyes that under any other circumstances might have made your heart skip a beat. It wasn’t the first time you had seen him - you vaguely remembered the gift basket, and you knew he was in a couple of your classes, but you had never really spared him more than a fleeting glance before that party. 

As soon as he had noticed your teary eyes upon approach, his demeanour had changed in an instant, and where anyone else might have backed off, might have been uncomfortable or deterred, done a u-turn and given up on his mission to approach, his expression had softened - worried and caring in a way that made your throat go dry, and you had to dash off to the nearest bathroom to splash your tears away.

“That’s Luke,” Ellie had told you, “Luke Hughes, Jack’s brother.”

“Oh,” You had pouted, disappointed. Jack had made it painfully obvious that he wasn’t your biggest fan the first time you had met him, and if you’re honest, you were hardly a great admirer of his, either. 

Ellie had noticed your expression, had nudged you with her elbow until you took your eyes off of the figure on the ice, and had narrowed her eyes right at you. “Why?”

“He’s in a couple of my classes, is all,” you shrugged, eyes travelling back and finding him in an instant.

“Luke’s cool. You’d eat him alive, though, probably get bored within a week.”

“I wasn’t thinking about him like that,” you frowned, watching him skate around the ice with the grace and enthusiasm of a clumsy puppy dog. Cute. “Just curious.”

“He’s waaaay too nice for you,” she scoffed, and you had tried to swallow down the pang of offence you had felt, knowing she had very little of your past to compare him to. The two of you had only been roommates for a couple of months at that point, and she had only ever seen you interested in your ex. “He’s also kind of a like a little brother to me. Dorky and annoying, but I’m very protective of him.”

You had bit your tongue at how patronising that had sounded, knowing Ellie was one of the youngest people of your freshman class - a July baby - and Luke might even have been older than her. 

“Like I said, just curious.”

You had noticed Luke a lot more after that, though.

A quiet, recurring presence.

A seat behind you in business comms, a figure against the wall in the corner of the room at different parties, on posters that lined the walls and the perimeter of Yost Arena, in articles you edited for extra credit in the Michigan Daily. 

You had even made small efforts to get him to talk to you - never being the type to make the first move, yourself - started talking to his friends, some of the guys on the hockey team, had made sure his name was on the list for your sorority parties, you’d even dropped your pen once in class, and he’d just handed it back over with a soft smile, never uttering a word.

You wouldn’t call it a crush, but it was somewhere around the borderline of that - especially looking back after the summer you shared with him.

And you think, in retrospect, that if he’d have ever made a move, would have spoken to you even just once after the incident at the Halloween party, you probably would have developed one.

You hate to admit it, now, but he had been right all those weeks ago in the restaurant. 

He’s kind of inevitable like that.

By the time he disappeared in your sophomore year that little spark of something had mostly fizzled out, but it didn’t entirely stop you unintentionally keeping tabs. Stats that cropped up on the sports channels, articles in the paper, posts on your instagram feed.

And you don’t know what you would call it, the way he kind of stuck with you, but when you’d seen him in that booth in the beginning of summer - when he’d spoken to you in full sentences, had met your eye and held contact in a way that sucked you in like a vacuum - you kind of felt that spark reignite.

The boy you almost, kind of, could have known, once upon a time, finally making the effort to get to know you.

And Luke Hughes is persistent. You have a detached admiration for just how much. He pushes, and he presses, and he perseveres until all your resolve is gone - resolve you’ve spent years mastering, with quick wit and snark protecting your heart from anyone who dares to take aim for it.

But that detachment is waining. 

Especially as you lay on your front on your childhood bed, the NHL awards playing on the TV in your room back at your mom’s house, and you try to busy your hands with the crotchet kit you had picked up from the mall before you came home for a couple of days. 

Your admiration is blooming and blossoming in the depths of your stomach into something intricate and uncontrollable. 

And it has nothing to do with his name, his career, the award he is nominated for.

It’s just him. 

Larger than life on your TV screen, but it still doesn’t capture him in his entirety, and you think for the first time that you miss him. You miss movies in his bed, you miss watching him from the passenger seat of his BMW, the sun shining from the window beside him, illuminating his profile until you burn from the glare. You miss his stupid jokes and his teasing smiles, and you miss the warmth in your cheeks when he looks your way.   

And it’s only been like 2 days.

You miss Luke Hughes.

You kind of think you missed him before he even left.

You might have even missed him before you knew him, but that would be crazy, right?

Maybe he makes you crazy.

Maybe you need this week to recuperate, to attempt to build those walls back up before they’re damaged beyond repair. 

Luke hadn’t given much thought to missing you before he and his brothers left for Vegas. He’d been so caught up, internally, about his and Quinn’s nominations, that he had thought it would continue to distract him the whole time they had been out there, but boy was he wrong.

All he remembers about his trip is thinking of you, and when the boys got back, and you had been visiting your mom for the weekend, all he could do was think of you more.

He thought of you when they sat at the table for dinner, and your place across from his was empty. He thought of you when he watched movies alone, thought of texting you some sort of commentary as he worked his way through the list of rom-coms you had given him, but you hadn’t texted him yet, so he gave up quickly on that idea.

He thought of you in bed, thought of the last time the two of you had been in there, together, and if he’s honest, he thinks of that almost all the time. Of messy kisses, wandering hands, and connection so deep he doesn’t think it will ever fizzle out. 

And when he finally sees you again, he thinks he might have to get Quinn to source some sort of defibrillator for the house, because he swears his heart stops beating.

You poke your head into his bedroom, a shy smile on your face, and your bag is still on your shoulder, which means he had been your first stop, before you’d even gone to drop your things in yours and Ellie’s room. 

He sees you in the reflection of his mirror, and turns immediately, clumsy fingers releasing the tie he’s been struggling to get right for a couple minutes, and steps toward you before he can even begin to tell himself not to seem so eager.

“You’re back!” He grins, and when your face lights up in return, he can hardly find it in himself to care anymore how down bad he comes across.

“Yeah,” you breathe, stepping into the room, discarding your bag by the door and shuffling toward him. “You didn’t have get all dolled up for my return.”

You reach to take both sides of the tie into your hands, and he feels himself go warm all over at the mere proximity of you after so long apart. 

“It’s my cousin’s wedding,” he tells you as you start to knot the tie, knuckles brushing slightly across his chest until he’s holding his breath, lungs expanding so that he feels your touch a little more. “They’re having their reception at the club, later, you should come down.”

“You’re asking me to your cousin’s wedding?”

“Not like that,” he chuckles nervously as he looks down at you, eyes focused on the task at hand. “Just, haven’t seen you in a week, wouldn’t want to leave you here alone, it could be fun.”

Not to mention the fact he’s been watching the door for the past two days while he’s been home, waiting for you to get back and hoping it would be before the event, and he could figure out some way to ask you.

“You can’t just invite a random person to your cousin’s wedding reception, Luke.”

“She said I could!” He reasons, frowning when you raise a brow at him. “Not a random person, she said I could bring a friend.” He grasps gently at your hands as they straighten the fabric, halting your movements. “We’re friends, right?”

“If you say so.”

That wasn’t a no, he thinks, courage building within him in such a way that he starts to buzz with it. That would definitely have been a flat out no, before.

“You’d be doing me a favour.” He bargains, still holding your hands against his chest. “Quinn and Jack are bringing Josh and Turcs, I’d be like a fifth wheel,”

“So what you’re telling me is that you have no other friends?”

“Sure, if that’s what tugs at your heartstrings.” He has plenty of friends he could ask. Eddy, Duker, Luca - they’re all in town. None of them would look as pretty in a dress as you would, though. He wants to say there’s no chance of any of them kissing him after a few cocktails, but that would probably be a lie. “C’mon, they’re not gonna be checking IDs at the bar,” he wiggles his eyebrows in an attempt to convince you, “The free bar.”

“I don’t have anything to wear to a wedding,”

“What about that blue dress you wore to the formal last year?”

He remembers his throat going dry at just a picture - frosty baby blue silk against glowing skin, hair falling past your shoulders, the prettiest smile he’s ever seen in every photo.

And that is where misplaced courage gets him, he thinks. Letting slip that he has been creeping on your Instagram like some deranged stalker, because where else would he have seen you in that dress? He’d been in Jersey, by then. Scrolling down his timeline and swiping at every photo dump in what he didn’t even realise at the time was an obvious attempt to catch a glimpse of you.

Idiot.

“That was Ellie’s dress. I think she gave it to the Goodwill or something.” You frown, barely even picking up on his slip - unaware to the point that his heart rate can level back out to normalcy.

“You’ve got time to go shopping, you could get another,” he shrugs, reaching into the pocket of his pants. “Here, take my card.”

“Gee, thanks, Daddy Warbucks,” you push at his hand when he attempts to give it to you.

“I’m not adopting you. I’m more like Richard Gere in Pretty Woman.”

“Are you implying I’m a prostitute?”

“No,” he scoffs, only because, unintentionally, he totally was, and now he can’t get the picture out of his head - you in thigh high boots, legs for days stood out of the blue skirt, and the white top with the cutouts, soft summer skin he’s been missing the touch of peaking through - and he starts to wonder if that would be too much too soon to ask of you; to dress up for him like that. Maybe for halloween, if the two of you have progressed past whatever this is, by then. Keep dreaming, Hughes, he can already hear you saying. “More like a sugar baby.”

“I don’t need your money.”

“I’m trying to do something nice for you.”

“You don’t have to buy me things for me to like you.” You pout, and his own lips curl up at your defensiveness - so eager to prove yourself to him over something he isn’t even actually pressing. 

“Because you like me already?” He can’t help himself, a small voice in the back of his mind telling him to push, push, push at your buttons until you practically malfunction - craving you in whatever disoriented state it was that he had seen you in last, pliant and willing and crumbling so nicely for him to scoop up and piece back together. “Because you missed me?”

He shouldn’t want that - want to have to hold you in place, that is, not really - but he does. He wants to be the one that gets you like that. The only one. 

“What time’s the reception?”

That should also have been a flat out no.

Interesting.

You give in so easily, then, to the point where Luke gets giddy, letting you know when and where he wants you - always and anywhere, if he’s honest - and you roll your eyes as you agree, but you stay right in front of him long after you’ve finished with his tie, and he’s so tempted to kiss you that he’s buzzing with excitement. 

He sneaks a kiss to the corner of your mouth - quick enough that you don’t push him away, or make any sort of comment about it, and darts down the stairs at Quinn’s calls for him, leaving you to figure out whatever it is you need to do to be ready for later.

And he thanks his lucky stars that later comes before he has the chance to really dwell on it. His day passes in a blur, the ceremony over in a flash, family photos taken before he even realises he doesn’t need to force a cheesy smile, and only brief moments spared over the course of the early afternoon to think about the things he’s lacking.

As he sits in the church between his brothers, he realises that he wants to be sitting with an arm slung around you and a hand in your lap - your fingers swirling absentminded shapes into his palm as the two of you watch the ceremony side by side. Wants to look down at you staring up the aisle in bewilderment, a soft flush to your cheeks, a dopey grin on your face and a far-off look in your eyes. Wants to mutter stupid jokes in your ear and watch you twist your lips to bite back a giveaway smile. 

As he rides over to the club in the back of Quinn’s car, sandwiched between Alex and Josh with his brothers up front, he thinks he’d kill to have you in his lap - as illegal as that may be, but it’s only 5 minutes, and he’d make sure you were safe with an arm curled around your waist.

And when he’s waiting in the reception hall at the club, the late afternoon ticking into early evening, hearing speeches about falling in love and finding your person, he wants you in the seat beside him. Wants to rest his arm on the back of your chair, play with loose strands of your hair or stroke soft fingertips against your warm skin, and press gentle kisses into your temple.

It’s alarming how quick these thoughts consume him - his college years spent pining, his summer spent basking in whatever attention you choose to give him - and he can’t help but let himself be carried away with the hope of it all, that maybe he is wearing you down enough to give in to such thoughts.

Especially when he sees you walking in, and he swears the world has started moving in slow motion like a scene fresh out of one of those rom-coms you keep trying to subject him to.

His legs stretch without any instruction from his brain, pushing himself up onto his feet until he can make his way over and meet you halfway.

Your eyes light up and your hand lifts in a nervous wave as you start heading straight for him, the action causing the thin spaghetti strap of your dress to fall down your shoulder. 

“Hey,” he breathes out, in what feels like relief, mouth breaking out into a dreamy grin until you’re right in front of him.

“Sorry I’m a little late, it took me forever to find a dress, and then my hair wouldn’t go right, and then the Uber took every back road known to man despite me literally telling him,” Luke reaches to readjust the fallen strap as you talk, fingers trailing ever so slightly against the soft skin of your shoulder, “That I knew a quicker way, and then we ended up at those lights over on Palmer for like 10 minutes, I think I was in that car so long I’m all crinkly.”

His eyes drop slowly down your figure, the silky fabric clinging to your curves in all the right spots, the soft yellow a perfect match to the tie around his neck. “You’re beautiful,” he reassures you with ease, cheeks flushing ever so slightly when your eyes meet his - but he’s used to that, by now, the way his head goes hot when you look at him. “I was gonna get a drink, do you want one?”

He extends his hand out to you in invitation before you even nod in response, and when your fingers slide between his, the heat that is swirling around his head and face starts to spread down, past his neck, into his chest, settling there as the two of you make your way over to the bar. 

This last week without you has been hell.

Sat in his hotel room in Vegas, checking his phone for any sort of update - a text, an instagram post, a story - and wondering if that night before he had left had been playing on your mind the same way it had on his. 

Soft, slow kisses pressed into reciprocated lips, hands memorising every inch of each other’s bodies, desperate but intentional movements into one another. It was hardly his first time, but God, had it felt like it. It was definitely the first time he had ever felt anything that deep for another person - felt so connected, so attached.

And, despite the lingering insecurity that he thinks he might always feel when it comes to you, he knew you felt the same.

You had told him in the simplest terms - you wanted him - but you had shown him so much more. Eyes stuck on his as he moved against you, foreheads pressed together, lips seeking his at every given opportunity, nails scratching at the broad expanse of his shoulders when he had taken the lead and flipped the two of you over. 

Gasps and moans, pleading and pining, begging and singing for him as you came undone for the first, second and third time. 

He doesn’t know how you can possibly even try to carry on pretending you don’t feel even an ounce of the infatuation he does.

Not when you look at him the way you do, eyes sparkling and wanting. Not when he had spent the past week pressing his fingertips into the bruises you had kissed again into the lowest part his stomach like that had become your spot, hoping he could aggravate them enough to linger until you could make some more. 

Not when, even though the two of you have been stood at the bar now for a good few minutes, you haven’t made any efforts to take your fingers from where his are playing with them between the two of you.

“You never answered my question, earlier,” he hums as the two of you wait for your drinks.

“You talk so much, Hughes, you’re gonna have to remind me which question that was.” 

“Did you miss me?” His head tilts with curiosity as he watches the hesitation cross your features, lashes fluttering as you look up at him with your lips pressed together to keep them from spluttering out the truth. “I missed you.” He admits, in the hopes that expressing his candour might elicit the same in you.

“I’m surprised you found the time, you looked very occupied on your brothers’ stories.” Bingo.

“You been keeping tabs on me?” The smirk that accompanies the question is instinctual, and he manages to catch the slight shift in your demeanour before you can retreat, closing his fingers around your hand before you can pull it away. 

“No,” you scoff, and when you pull insistently for him to release your hand, the strap of your dress falls loose down your arm again, Luke’s eyes following before he fixes it for you once more. “Just stumbled across some pictures, I guess,”

“Yeah, you just tripped and fell into stalking me?”

“Don’t act like you weren’t doing the same, I saw those little 3 dots come up so often I was starting to think you were typing up the entirety of War and Peace.”

Which means you’d been lingering in your message thread with him, too. Gotcha.

“You know, the world won’t end if you just admit you missed me.”

“Fine.” It slips out before you know what you’re saying, eyes widening like a deer in the headlights as you realise you’ve already given in. “I missed you.”

He smiles, but doesn’t press, and it’s a smile that lingers as the two of you just look at each other, his eyes drifting down to watch your lips twist and press together, biting back whatever insult or chirp you’re just dying to throw his way to cover up. He waits for it to come, but loves that it doesn’t, and loves even more that you’re holding onto the moment as much as he is. 

“Do you wanna dance?” Luke asks a while later, once the two of you have gulped down a couple of drinks, have sat with the others for a little, and he’s watched you watch the dance floor with a yearning gaze.

Your eyes meet his after he poses the question, a confidence in his demeanour that has you crumbling immediately.

You nod, allowing him to guide you over to where a few other couples are swaying on the dance floor, and you let him guide you into his arms, one hand in his and the other resting on his shoulder. 

It should be awkward, you think, remembering back on all the times you’ve tried this before. School dances and proms, clumsily shuffling and trying to avoid being stomped on by your partner’s feet - but the two of you move with ease, and you’d like to think it’s because his body knows yours by now.

“This is so weird,” you mutter, eyes cast down to watch his feet move in his fancy Oxford shoes, a soft flush to your cheeks.

“What do you mean?” He asks, nerves heightening as he stiffens like he’s waiting for you to let him go - to step away and cut this short like it doesn’t make you feel the same way. 

“Slow dancing is for old folk like war veterans and millennials.” Your lips twist as your eyes meet his, and his lips turn up into a slow smile, a deep, melodic chuckle following closely behind.

“If you’d rather bump’n'grind on me, I get it,” he smirks.

“You’re such an idiot,” you scoff back, twitching to shake the hair from your shoulder, assuming that’s what is causing the shivers currently shooting down your spine, and not the large, possessive hand resting in the dip of your waist. 

“Y’know, I’ve realised something about you lately,” he starts, voice low as he leans in, angling into your exposed neck and stopping his lips within mere inches of your ear, “You have a tell.”

“A tell?” You turn, brow raised as your gaze meets his, faces close enough that you can feel the soft pants of his breath on your skin.

“For when you’re enjoying yourself more than you think you should be,” he hums, his eyes fluttering a little as they drop to watch your mouth, the swipe of your tongue wetting your lower lip. “You call me an idiot,” his hand on your waist squeezes ever so slightly, your back arching a little into his touch, “Or stupid,” he uses his other hand, the one clutching at yours, to pull you closer, “Or dumb, or a dork.”

You can feel your heart thudding at the call-out, beating in time to the music, in time to the way your bodies sway together, creating it’s own rhythm for the two of you to dance to. 

“Maybe you’re just a stupid, dumb, dorky idiot.” You squeak out, immediately hating the way the words taste in your mouth, your face souring and eyes narrowing in deliberation. There’s no way that was at all convincing, and the smirk that tugs up his lips is all you need to know he sees right through you.

“Maybe,” he humours you, anyway. “And yet, you can’t get enough of me.”

“A smug dorky idiot.” You correct yourself, cutting out stupid and dumb, the sharpness of those words cutting at your tongue like a knife. 

The pointlessness of such discussion almost waters down the exhilaration you feel at being this close to him, in public, nonetheless, where literally anyone else could call you out on your growing tolerance of Luke, could connect the dots regarding all the time the two of you have been spending together and wave the evidence of your growing affection like a chequered flag for all to see.

This definitely feels like you’re crossing the finish line.

And, of course, it’s Jack who does the honours, primed all night to find some way to get between you and Luke upon your arrival, stumbling up to the two of you at the end of the song you’re swaying to and laying a heavy palm on your shoulder.

“Isn’t this cosy?” 

“Fuck off, Jack,” Luke scowls before you get the chance, a pointed glare directed towards his brother, the palming grip at your waist growing faint as you try to wedge a little distance between the two of you, fighting a losing battle with your instinct to run and hide. 

“I need to talk to your girlfriend.”

“I’m not his-,”

“She’s not my-,”

The two of you speak simultaneously, and despite the fact that you were saying the exact same thing, him saying it kind of dampens your mood, putting a good couple of steps between you and Luke with your arms crossing over your chest as you look toward his brother. 

“Whatever. Can I borrow her for a couple minutes?”

“I’m not property, Jack, you can ask me directly.”

“Please can we talk? Alone?”

“Let’s go outside,” you huff, storming off before he has the chance to say anything else and making it all the way outside before he speaks again. 

“Sorry for interrupting, you and Luke looked kind of cute-,”

“What do you want?”

“I’m sorry I said you were messing him around, and that you were toxic.” 

You frown at him, watching as he diverts his gaze to the ground, nervously shuffling on his feet and fingers fidgeting with the cuffs on his shirt. 

“I’m sorry for all the things I said and did at that party, I didn’t mean them, I was just drunk and upset. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

You chew nervously on the inside of your cheeks as he talks, arms wrapped around yourself to shield from the brisk night air, and you watch as Jack starts to unravel before your very eyes.

For as long as you’ve known Ellie, for as long as you’ve known him, you’ve never seen him as anything less than cool, calm and collected - it’s kind of the main thing that grinds your gears about him if your honest, the fact that he never seems real. Like he’s putting on some sort of persona to seem like he has all his shit together, when you know he doesn’t.

“I really like Ellie, you know,” he sighs, and you scoff, because of course you know that. “And I was blaming you for putting this wedge between us when it’s really me that’s been fucking up.” You know that, too. “I’ve been thinking about her this past week, and I really wanna pull myself together and finally do something about it. Stop being such an idiot.”

You bite your tongue from questioning the reality of that. He’ll always be an idiot, you think, but that’s best left unspoken. It’s not even personal to him, that’s just part of being a man.

“She likes you too,” You tell him instead, despite the fact that it goes against all sorts of girl code to do so. You’re doing them both a favour, and the universe should really just let you off, you feel. “I don’t know why either of you have wasted so much time when you’ve both felt the same way all along.”

“You really think she’d say yes if I asked her out?”

“I do,” you shrug, “And it doesn’t need to be done on some romantic boat trip or some crazy elaborate scheme, you should just ask her when she gets back next week. Like as soon as she comes through the door, it will save us all a headache.”

“You sound like Luke.”

“Yeah, well, he’s rubbing off on me, I guess.”

“I don’t need to hear what the two of you get up to when you’re alone, that’s my little brother.”

You reach over and shove at his arm, and for the first time ever, when your eyes meet his, neither of them are narrowed. He’s smiling, and you’re smiling too, and it feels a little like a weight has been lifted from your chest, fresh air filling your lungs.

“Let’s go back inside, Luke’s probably thinking we’ve killed each other.”

“I’m just gonna take a second, it’s kinda stuffy in there.”

Jack nods, before making his way back to the reception, and you make your way over to the fountain, heels working through the gravel until you take a seat on the side. 

It’s a couple of minutes before you hear footsteps, and before you see the fancy oxfords come into your view, eyes roaming up the long, lean body of the boy who has your brain running marathons.   

When your eyes meet, his gaze is warm, and it feels like he can see right through you. Like he’s looking into the depths of your mind, holding a big cheesy sign as he waits at the finish line for your thoughts to come to an end.

He sits wordlessly beside you, his knees knocking against yours, and waits for you to speak - although the silence doesn’t feel awkward, or forced. He waits, patiently and understandingly, and you feel like he’s giving you the time to figure out what you want to say. 

It feels monumental, this moment, like you’re teetering on the edge of something real and honest for the first time in a while.

“The other week, when we,” your voice feels heavy, thick at the back of your throat, “You know,”

“I was strictly advised to forget about it, so no, I don’t know,” he teases, and you’re kind of thankful that he’s trying to ease the tension you’re building for yourself. “But if you wanna jog my memory.” You shove lightly at his shoulder. “I’m kidding. What about it?”

“I’ve never really done that before?”

“What, snuck a guy up to his room in the middle of a house party and rocked his world?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” You scoff, smiling to yourself, despite the weight of all that you’re about to admit to him. “I’ve only ever slept with one other guy, and he wasn’t very nice about it after, so I just,” you frown, “Don’t really do it.”

“You don’t-,” he frowns too, you can see it from your peripheral, eyes till on the hands fidgeting in your lap, “But I thought-,” You look over and meet his eyes, brows furrowed and lips parted in confusion. “What?”

“The first guy, Jamie,” you start, twisting to face him, knees knocking once more. “We started talking in the summer before my freshman year, got to know each other ‘cause he lived one town over from me and he’d come into work all the time, and then when I started college he was a sophomore, and he was the first guy to ever take, like, a serious interest in me. And we had a lot in common, he was on the soccer team, we grew up in the same area, we got on really well, it was the first time I ever really felt connected to anyone like that. But I’d never done anything before, so I wanted to take things slow,”

Jamie Reeves. Captain of the University of Michigan Soccer Team until he tore his ACL at the end of his last year, ruining all dreams of playing in the MLS, like it was entirely achievable for a player of his caliber anyway. You had been infatuated by him, though. The kind of infatuation that a younger you might have doodled little hearts around his name in all your notebooks.

And then he turned out to be a complete leech.

“Please don’t tell me he rushed you into it.” Luke straightens his posture, reaching to place his hand over yours in your lap, the touch immediately comforting, and his concern even more so.

“No. Not exactly.” You sigh, hating how dramatic you feel about the whole thing. “We went on dates, and things were going really well, so I figured I trusted him enough to be my first, then after we had sex he just went really off. He wouldn’t take me out anymore, wasn’t putting any effort in. And then people started asking me all these questions about him, and what we did, and I realised he was going around telling everyone all the details, like I was just some conquest he could tick off to the boys on the team.” You remember how ashamed you had felt, eyes on you in every corridor, whispers about you in every class. You couldn’t leave your dorm without someone muttering some obscene comment about you, and you just felt awful. “Every time one of them saw me they’d make all these dumb comments, and I just felt dirty all the time, like I’d done something wrong. Then I went to a party at Pike, the one at Halloween,” The party that Luke had approached you for the first time since you met, and you had stormed off in tears - not due to him at all, but due to the fact you had just seen Jamie sticking his tongue down someone else’s throat, mere days after you had seen him last. “And he was all over one of the girls on the field hockey team, didn’t even look my way again after that, not that I really wanted him to.”

“You haven’t been with anyone since?”

You shake your head. “Doesn’t stop people saying I have, though. I tried dating a couple times, but it always ended up the same way, rumours being spread about me sleeping around and being easy. And it’s so dumb, ‘cause it’s like I trusted one guy, and somehow it keeps backfiring on me.” You pay no mind, for the first time in a long time, to the crack in your voice as you say it, no longer afraid of showing any hint of vulnerability. Not to Luke. You need to get this out - get it out of the way, once and for all, so you can move past it. Move on, even, with someone you hope won’t treat you the same.

“Does that mean you trusted me?” 

You try not to think too hard about all the times the two of you have shared any level of intimacy - the physical touch mostly initiated by you, and it’s hardly ever on a whim. You think a lot about Luke, if you’re honest. About how he’s honest, and he sticks by his word when he promises not to tell anyone anything. How he always tries to make you laugh or smile, even if it’s something stupid. He isn’t afraid to embarrass himself with you, isn’t afraid to give you power, to let you take the lead. And even though sometimes he jokes otherwise, the times you hang out, he has no ulterior motives. He likes talking to you, likes watching movies with you, likes meeting your eye in a crowded room and giving you one of those smiles that have started to make your heart stutter with something unidentifiable.

“I guess so.” Your shoulder lifts in a nonchalant shrug, your words anything, but. “I don’t know, I’ve been thinking about it since and I can’t explain why it happened but I feel like you and me are-,” 

Connected? Compatible?

You know what he would say you are. You don’t know if you’re there, yet.There are so many things the two of you have become over the past few weeks, so many things you’ve wanted to be for longer than you even realised, so many things you’re afraid to say.

“I feel like out of everyone, you’d have no reason to lie to me. Or about me.”

“I wouldn’t. I didn’t know all that stuff,” he frowns, and it seems like his mind only just makes sense of all the times you threatened him after the fact, making sure he wouldn’t tell anyone that the two of you kissed, or hung out alone in an intimate space and maybe potentially enjoyed yourselves. He had thought you were ashamed of it - but all this time, you’ve been protective. Of yourself, of the trust you were building in him. “Why don’t you tell people, that those guys are all lying?”

“No one would believe me,” you shrug, eyes cast down to where his hand still rests on yours, and his touch prevents you from picking nervously at the skin around your nails.

“I do,” He assures you, “And I promise the next time I hear anyone say any of that stuff about you, I’ll beat their face in.”

“Yeah, you’d drop gloves for me?”

“Look at you with your hockey talk.” He coos, lifting a hand to caress your cheek, where you had barely noticed a tear trailing down until he wipes it away with his thumb, a proud smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah. I would. We’re partners, remember? I’ve got your back.” He extends his pinkie out to you, and you curl yours around it until he’s tugging it toward him, leaning down to press his lips to your knuckle, his kiss like a promise as his green eyes meet yours. 

It doesn’t gross you out, this time. If you’re honest with yourself, it hadn’t the first time he did it, either. It was cute, in an entirely dorky and childish and almost nostalgic way.

And you’re compelled to do the same, leaning and touching your pouted lips to his pinky, eyes fluttering closed as you kiss his skin, the rush of blood to your head somehow louder than the steady stream of the fountain beside you. 

“Listen,” he starts, lowering his hand but keeping your pinkies interlocked, resting them between you both on the stone. “If whatever this is that we’re doing makes you uncomfortable, or brings all that stuff back, I can back off a little.”

Something akin to disappointment floods through your system, your heart rate picking up in a panicked staccato, but you try to stay cool - still, for whatever reason, holding your cards close to your chest. 

“I can make sure my brothers don’t make any more stupid comments about us, they’re doing it to annoy me, not you. And I can,” he takes a deep breath, eyes flickering between yours as if to gauge your desires before he has to reluctantly pander to them. “I can stop, too.”

You nod, because it’s all you can do to shake away the tears threatening to flood your lash line at just the thought of him giving up on you. 

It’s the lump in your throat that blocks the words coming out to tell him as much, and your lips twist in discomfort as you take in the way he’s looking at you - gaze filled with dwindling patience and waining resilience. There’s only so far you can continue to push him, you can see that now, and if you’d have told the version of yourself that first sat down with him all those weeks ago - the version of yourself that refuted any chance of ever warming up to him, that saw him as nothing more than an annoyance, a disturbance to your tips for the day - that the thought of him stopping whatever you have would make you feel like this?

That cold-hearted bitch would have laughed in your face. 

“Hey, lovebirds!” There’s a shout from across the courtyard, and Quinn  appears in the distance with hands cupped around his mouth. The intrusion has you retracting your hand, and you can see the way Luke reacts in your peripheral, a resigned nod given instinctually before he looks over to his brother. “I’m driving home if you two want a ride!”

Luke doesn’t look back at you before pushing himself up, but he offers a hand to help you stand, and the two of you walk in silence to meet Quinn by the exit.

The car ride back to the house is silent, too, save for the soft hum of the radio that filters through the car. Josh sits up front with Quinn, head lulling against the window as he falls asleep worryingly quick, and you’re squished in the middle between Luke and Alex, Jack having stayed back with their parents. It’s hard not to press your legs against Luke’s - his are so gangly and long that they take up more than their fair share of room, and it’s much less awkward despite the circumstances to be touching him than touching Turcs. You feel a lot less tense when you’re touching, anyway. 

And when Quinn pulls up, Luke still helps you out of the car - ever the gentleman, even in the face of apparent rejection.

Quinn and Alex work at lugging an overly inebriated Josh up to his room, leaving Luke to guide you through the house, and the silence starts to become unbearable as he whispers a quick and quiet goodnight, leaving you at the door to yours and Ellie’s room as he makes his way down the hall.

“Hey, Luke,” you call out in a whisper toward him as he retreats, his tall frame turning, a gleam of what you interpret as hope flashing across his green eyes.

“Yeah?” He hums back, voice low as not to disturb anyone else, gaze meeting yours, locking in place with an almost audible click.

“I don’t want you to stop.”

You’re worried for a second you’ll have to expand, that maybe his slightly intoxicated memory doesn’t stretch as far back as to remember the conversation the two of you had had out by the fountain. 

Elaborating on it would be embarrassing to say the least - because what, exactly, are you supposed to say?

I don’t want you to stop flirting with me.

I don’t want you to stop kissing me when no one else is around.

I don’t want you to stop being the only person I can talk to.

I don’t want you to stop bulldozing into my very secure and sturdy walls, thank you very much. They’re starting to tumble down in what could be a very calamitous fashion.

Worried you might have to expose a little more of yourself than you had originally anticipated, you chew at the corner of your lip, waiting.

But then he smiles - in that easy way that makes your bones feel like jelly, your knees weakening to the point that you lean against the still-closed door of your room. In the way that has that loudmouth voice you’re trying too often to suppress within you screaming, God, he’s so cute!

“I know,” he smirks, the bastard, liquid courage running deep through his veins, “Inevitable, remember?”

You scoff, almost instinctively rolling your eyes despite the endeared warmth that floods your belly. “You’re an idiot.”

“I know,” he says again, “You coming?”

And all you can do is nod, biting back a fully-fledged smile before you’re rushing over and slotting yourself under his outstretched arm.

You definitely enjoy him more than you should.

Living with boys for the first time in your life has taught you a lot over the weeks you’ve been staying at the lake house.

The first is that they’re weirdly messy - in ways that shouldn’t bother you, but they do. It isn’t clothes left around, or dirty plates - but it’s hand soap crusted around the spout by the faucet, shoes kicked off and discarded at random points throughout the house, and they, for some bizarre reason, never put the lid back right on anything.

The second is that they’re loud - and that should have been anticipated. Guys are notoriously obnoxious. But it isn’t just their voices that carry. It’s footsteps up the stairs, stomping in the dead of the night when one of them needs a drink. It’s chewing their food, or slurping their coffee, or scraping the feet of their chairs against the floor when they’re sat at the dining table. It’s tapping their hands on their knees in haphazard rhythm whenever there might be an ounce of peace that they, without a doubt, misunderstand for awkward silence. 

And the third is that they probably couldn’t organise a fire in a match factory. And that goes for a lot of things - the kitchen cupboards, their laundry loads, and, most importantly, one of the many parties they love to throw.

It wouldn’t bother you so much - they usually work out in the end - but this time, it’s Ellie’s birthday, and the way they leave everything until the last minute is about to give you an aneurysm or something. 

There’s no food, no drinks, no cake, no decorations, and the party is tonight.

And Jack, who’s grand idea it had been to throw her a party in the first place, seems to have kidnapped her - disappearing and leaving you to try and figure out what’s going on.

Cole is the one who finds you in the kitchen, spiralling out, frantically trying to put together some kind of list so that one of the guys can go to the store and pick up the bare minimum to throw a party together - and he manages to calm you down - gathers the rest of the guys and helps come up with a plan, sharing out different categories. Quinn and Josh are down to get drinks, Cole and Alex are down to get food, and you and Luke are down for decorations. 

And then within the next five minutes, you’re back up in your room, transferring things from one of your bags into a tote, so you can carry more stuff back to the car without having to bring back a load of plastic, and Luke is sat on your bed, leaning back onto his hands as he watches you, green eyes still tickling your skin with their tangible watch. 

“I know we’re on a time crunch, but could we make another pit-stop at the mall? I still need to find a present for this baby shower.”

“Oh, actually, I made you something.”

“You made me something?” You can feel him watching you as you dig through the bag you’d brought back with you from being home.

“Yeah, I was bored, when you guys were gone, I forgot to give it to you when you got back, got kinda distracted by the whole wedding thing,” you tell him, reaching blindly to try and find the little figure. “I went by that art supply store and picked up one of those kits,” You finally find it, pulling out the little crotchet animal that may or may not have been your fourth attempt. The first had a stubby neck, the second had uneven legs, and you don’t think the third one’s face was anywhere near appropriate to be gifting to a child. This one isn’t perfect, but you’d honestly reached your limit with it. “Don’t make it a thing, it was like therapy while I was back home to be honest.”

“Oh that’s adorable.” He pouts, accepting it from you and immediately turning it back, bobbing it’s head as if to greet you. “Why a giraffe?”

“Long neck,” you smile, reaching out to pat it. “Reminded me of you.”

“Ha ha,” he rolls his eyes, but the laughter feels real enough. “She’ll love it.”

“She?” It slips out by instinct before you can check yourself, eyes widening as his meet yours again, his lips twitching in the corners. “Thought you said it was for your captain,”

“It is.” He smirks, “Men can’t carry babies last time I checked.” 

You nod, because of course men can’t carry babies. Of course the shower is for the mother of the baby - who you vaguely remember Jack and Luke talking about - someone who works with them back in Jersey. Someone they’re both close to, clearly, if Luke’s stressing this much about a gift.

“Wait, are you jealous?”

“No.” You scoff, frowning purposefully, lips turning down in forced denial.

“You’re jealous.”

“Am not.”

“You want to take this back now, huh?” He holds the giraffe in a way that it bends, adorably, like he’s trying to taunt you with it, and it’s wonky eyes do little to distract from the charm he gives it.

“Nope.” You shrug, “You can give it to whatever girl you want, doesn’t bother me at all.”

“Of course not,” he stands, stepping toward you slowly, “You couldn’t care less what I do away from this house, right?”

“Right.” You gulp, looking into soft green eyes, your legs starting to wobble at the knees, strength and integrity waining as the seconds pass. You really don’t know why you’re still keeping this game up. Ever since that night of the wedding, you’ve been sneaking off into Luke’s room as soon as Ellie falls asleep. You fall asleep by his side, and he wakes you when he gets up early, so you can sneak back without Ellie realising you’ve even gone.

You’ve kissed him every day, sometimes tender, sometimes torrid - over the centre console of his car when he drops you off at work, in his bed before you drift off to sleep, in the kitchen when you sneak off under the ruse of refilling your drink. He can tell the difference between the flavours of lip balms you wear, comments on it like he has a little ranking system filed away somewhere in the back of his mind. You both whisper your secrets in the dark of the night, and you had promised him that you would try to open yourself up more to him.

“I thought we were past this,” he hums, stepping closer, voice low in a way that buzzes through your bones. “Thought we were being honest with each other, now.”

“Honest?” You ask, voice weak, neck craning now to look up at him, eyes boring into your own as he advances on you. 

His hand reaches to cup your jaw, to tilt your head just that bit further, and presses his lips straight to yours instead of elaborating any further.  

He’s tentative, at first. Gentle, even. Fingertips ghosting along the side of your neck, pulling you closer, less with any physical force and more so with pure magnetic attraction, your skin humming - buzzing, even, to be touched by him in any which way. 

Your chin tilts as your mouths slot together in a soft, slow kiss, and when his lips touch yours, everything else fits perfectly into place. The fingers of his left hand press firmly into the flesh of your hip, now, using a slight force to manoeuvre you how it suits him - as close as he can physically get you - and those on his right reach around enough to slightly curve towards the back of your neck, applying just enough pressure so that your chin angles upward to deepen the kiss, his tongue pressing a pleading invitation into your bottom lip.

An invitation you immediately grant him, your hands finding their place on his body with ease, one flat against the warm expanse of his chest and the other matching his, soft fingertips grazing the skin of his neck until they tangle in the slight overgrowth of curls at the nape.

Everything feels so fluid, so effortless, and yet, so new - like this is the first time you have kissed, an eruption of fresh feelings bursting through you. There’s still a familiarity that lingers - one of ease, where it’s like your bodies have each other mapped out, already. You know every cell of him and he of you, and it’s evident in the way the moment escalates.

Your bodies naturally gravitate towards the nearest surface, his fingers reaching out behind your hip to soften the blow of him pushing you into the dresser, your back arching, feet moving in sync as not to tangle and trip, or stumble and break the kiss.

But there’s nothing else clumsy about it.

He lifts you with ease, the cold surface only a slight shock to the system, and it brings you to the perfect height where he can seamlessly move his kisses from your lips, past your jaw, down your neck and into the crevice of your collarbones, leaving a trail of the sticky residue of your lip balm. 

Strong hands cup your thighs, parting your legs until he can stand between them, and your fingers bury themselves into his curls, pushing into him however you can. 

When his fingers graze the inside of your thigh, his lips part from the hot skin of your clavicle, and his head tilts slightly until his darkened green eyes meet yours.

“Please,” you breathe out before he can even ask, beyond caring for whatever particles of pride you’ve been desperately trying to cling to when you watch his lips curve slowly into the most panty-dropping smirk you think you’ve ever seen.

“Please what?”

Your lips part as if by instinct, a biting remark fizzling out on the tip of your tongue as your mind works for some kind of comeback, for some semblance of resistance to whatever this version of him is, but there’s nothing. Just a frantic plea for him to do anything to you. Whatever he wants.

Your hips shuffle forward as if led by a mind of their own, trying to force his hand up, only for him to follow the movement of your thigh.

“Touch me,” you find yourself pouting, spikes of heat flashing through you at the way you can see the thoughts crossing his mind, of all the ways in which he can torture you - putty in the palm of what you thought were safe hands.

“Tell me you were jealous,” he prompts, leaning forward to press a teasing kiss to your lips, “Tell me that the thought of me even talking to another girl makes your skin crawl.”

Don’t let him get cocky, a voice prevails in the back of your mind, despite the accuracy of his words. Tell him he’d have to have an ounce of game for you to be remotely worried, tell him the only thing that makes your skin crawl is his incessant need to mouth off all the time. Tell him, tell him, tell him!

“I was jealous,” you breathe out instead, chasing the victorious smirk that stretches across his lips in the hopes you can kiss it away.

Jealous of a girl you’ve never met, in a relationship with another man, pregnant with his child, not remotely interested in Luke.

A girl who gets to see him all the time, who knows him probably in ways you might never, who he cares enough about to want to gift her something meaningful. Who he casually texts and smiles at his phone as he’s doing so, who he and Jack talk affectionately about in ways they’ll never talk about you.

You’ve officially lost it. 

“And if you don’t touch me in the next 3 seconds,” you carry on, scrambling to claw back one single iota of your dignity, your hands gripping at his broad shoulders, “I won’t let you touch me again.”

Luke laughs. Practically snorts at you, eyes crinkling in the corners in pure amusement. Your dignity is long gone.

“1,” you start, your voice shakier than you’d ever like it to be, and his hands move to either side of your hips, clutching at the edge of the dresser.

“2,” you didn’t think you could sound worse than before, definitely longer than a second ago, but you’re quickly proven wrong as you watch him leverage that grip to push himself upright, creating a distance between the two of you that drains all the heat from your body.

“3.” he finishes, taking a step back and watching you with unadulterated hunger in his eyes, daring you to follow through with your threat - and the smug idiot knows you won’t.

He knows it’s coming, even anticipates the way in which you pounce on him, arms ready to catch you when you throw yourself down onto the ground in front of him, landing with a quick thud that jolts you straight into him. Hands at either side of his face pull him down, and he does half of the work in bending his back so it isn’t as clumsy. 

You tangle yourself up in him, legs twisting between each other until you’re stumbling toward the bed, and it’s as soon as you get your fingers back into his hair, as soon as his hands are pushing your top up, grazing at the warm skin of your back, that you hear a call of your name.

You falter back from him just as the door swings open, managing to create a reasonable amount of distance as Ellie swaggers in, voice still raised as she asks, “Have you seen my-,” It’s Luke that she sees first, eyes zeroing in on his flushed face with pin-point accuracy, her brows furrowing as she takes him in, heaving chest and messy hair and all. “Lip gloss?”

Lip gloss? Is she joking? 

“You came all the way back up here for lip gloss?” You ask, still slightly breathless and brain fogged, and feeling very much like you’ve just put all your chips on the table and watched them get swept away in seconds. 

You watch as Ellie’s eyes dart to Luke’s mouth, watch him grow conscious of the balmy coating smeared across his lips, and you feel your heart stop in it’s place, your chest squeezing in anticipation of a thump thump thump that doesn’t come.

“No,” she mutters, diverting her attention back to you with a sobering shake of her head. “Balm,” she corrects, “The kind with SPF, I think I’m burning, I didn’t realise me and Jack were gonna be gone all morning.”

“Uhm, yeah,” you breathe, reaching up to tuck your hair behind your ears in the hopes it helps cool your head down, some. “I have some in my bag.”

Your tote is on the dresser you had just been placed on yourself, and you use the opportunity to dig through it to will the burning sensation in your ears away, levelling out your breathing as you root around for a tube of lip balm you know is in there somewhere.

“Could you check for my car keys, too? I was thinking we could drop by the mall for lunch. Catch up” She adds, with a forced wiggle of her brows, clearly what she had actually come up here for, and you fish those out too, throwing them across to her. “Quinn’s looking for you before you go, Luke, something about a list.”

“I should go check what he wants,” Luke mumbles, putting another few steps of distance between you before he offers an awkward wave, and departs the room with heavy feet that you hear stomp all the way down the hall, the last thing you see of him being a skinny, lopsided crochet giraffe poking out of his back pocket.

Apparently Jack’s plans of keeping some element of surprise for the party had gone out of the window as soon as he had got her alone - and you’re kind of grateful for the fact.

Keeping secrets from Ellie is stressful - you of all people would know, you’ve somehow managed to keep a pretty big one from her all summer - and she usually has a way of figuring things out on her own.

You probably would have folded to her - just the two of you out together, sipping smoothies in the food court at the mall - if he hadn’t already filled her in one the plans for the night. 

It makes up a little for his lack of effort, earlier - especially now that your hands are clear of it. You don’t know how much you trust the guys to put something together while you and Ellie are looking for an outfit for her, but you have no choice but to leave them to it. Jack had reassured you he had everything under control, and despite the absurdity of that statement, it’s nice for that panic you had been feeling earlier to have been flushed away.

“I think tonight’s the night,” Ellie sighs dreamily, elbow resting on the table and her chin in the palm of her hand, “We had this really deep conversation while we were out walking, and he pretty much told me he has feelings for me, he was really nervous, it was kind of cute.”

“I’ll take your word for the cute thing,” you chuckle, sipping at your smoothie and smiling at how happy she looks. It’s nice to hear, her having hope about the situation for once, instead of dread or fear. 

“He said you two spoke at his cousin’s wedding,”

“It was nothing,” you shrug, “He didn’t need any interference from me to realise he likes you, El, he just needed a nudge.”

“I can hardly call you out on interfering,” her lips twist, nervously, “I’ve kind of been doing the same.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you think I’ve been hanging out with Cole so much all summer?”

“Cole?” You frown, leaning back into your chair, “You’ve lost me.”

When you’d last spoken to Ellie about Cole, she had told you they just got along, and there was nothing more to it - and you had no reason to believe otherwise. When you and Luke had been in the midst of your own interference, and you had been playing third wheel to their hangouts, they had been getting along. Almost like siblings. Cole never flashed her those flirty winks or toothy grins that he gave everyone else. 

“He’s into you.” She says, finger swiping in the ring left behind from her smoothie cup on the table, “And I was kind of giving him advice on how to approach you. I figured you wouldn’t mind, ‘cause he’s like your normal type, and you seemed like you liked him-,”

“I’m sorry, you think I like Cole?” 

You’re taken aback. You don’t remember giving any sort of indication you were ever into Cole Caufield.

Maybe you could have been, before this summer - would have probably fallen victim to his cheeky smiles or his teasing banter. He’s probably closer to your usual type, if you even have one. Confident, with a presence that sort of demands attention. But you realise, now, your attention should be earned - in more than just a flash of cute teeth and boyish features.

In dumb jokes told just to bring you out of a bad mood, and a car with the AC dialled up waiting for you after a shift on a hot day. In hands that offer you help before you ever have to ask, and eyes that see so far beyond what version of yourself you try to put out there.

You could have liked Cole, in another world, or another life, if another boy wasn’t around. 

“I did until I walked in on you kissing Luke, earlier.”

You blink slowly at her, mouth agape as she stares blankly back. 

What the fuck?

“I wasn’t kissing Luke,” you scoff, denial making your face twist in funny ways that you can even feel look deranged. “We were talking.”

“Into each other’s open mouths?” She snickers, “Unless he’s been digging around in our stuff when we’re not around, I can’t think of any other reason he’d have left the room with Summer Fridays Vanilla Beige smeared all over his lips.”

“It was Brown Sugar, actually.” You correct her, guiltily, hoping the words you mutter next through pouted lips don’t quite make it to her ears. “He says it’s sweeter.”

“Oh my God.” She guffaws, mouth agape and eyes wide in realisation. “How long has this been going on?”

“Nothing’s going on,” you deny, although you can feel heat creeping up your neck, already. “We just get along-,”

“We get along, and you don’t welcome me home with an open mouth.”

“Ellie-,”

“Listen, he’s not just some guy that you can mess around with, he’s way deeper into you than you probably realise, and-,”

“I like him, okay?” you blurt out, voice just loud enough to be heard over her rambling but not enough to carry anywhere else, and the silence that follows is almost deafening - prolonged in a way that you can’t even remember if you said anything, or not.

But the way Ellie is looking at you tells you enough.

Why is everyone so caught up on you breaking his heart?

As if you aren’t putting the entirety of yours on the line.

“Luke?” She asks, like the two of you haven’t just been talking about him. “You like Luke Hughes?”

“Yeah,” you sigh, leaning onto your elbows and pressing the palms of your hands to your face, eyes scrunching tight to try clear up some mind space to make sense of what it is you’re admitting to.

It makes sense already, to you. Verbalising it is the problem.

He’s charming, he’s funny, he makes you laugh, most times unintentionally but that doesn’t make your feelings dwindle in the slightest. 

He’s weirdly passionate about that one horse movie and won’t shut up trying to get you to watch it with him, but it’s endearing in a way that you want to kiss him to shut him up. Or maybe even watch it, God forbid.

He literally never stops eating, but it’s like his body is in tune to yours now, and he always makes double if he feels like you might be hungry so you don’t ever have to ask, which is weirdly sweet.

When you lay beside him in the middle of the night, you don’t feel pressured to do anything other than talk.

And when you do, he listens to you - retains information and checks up in a way that makes you feel seen, makes you feel a way you haven’t in a really long time. He doesn’t talk over you, or dismiss your feelings, or try to change the topic when things go a little too deep or get a little heavy. He shares the load, asks questions that make you think and process things in a new way, and he isn’t patronising when he does so. He doesn’t say things that sound like they’re straight out of a Psych 101 textbook like your feelings are valid or what makes you think that?

And he compares your wildly different worlds in a way that doesn’t feel like a competition. His troubles aren’t worse than yours, his life isn’t harder.

You’re equals.

You’ve never felt like anyone’s equal, not even Ellie.

It’s like with all the other parts of your life that make you hurt, make you feel small and insignificant - they fade away when you’re with Luke.

His corner of your world is bright - despite the seemingly inexhaustible snark-meter constantly ticking between you two - it’s easy, doesn’t weigh down on you or make your chest feel tight, not in that way, at least.

You’ve been introduced to a whole new influx of feelings in your chest by Luke.

You can give in to the ugly side of yourself that wants to bite at him until there’s nothing left, to push whenever he gets a little too close, and you don’t have to worry that you’ll scare him off or push too far, ‘cause he’ll just pull you with him and bite back - only, it doesn’t hurt like when anyone else does it. Somehow, you think he savours the parts that other people might spit out - chews and swallows and rubs at his belly in satisfaction like you’re the best meal he’s ever had. 

Despite all the other things that have shattered your heart, Luke Hughes makes it feel whole, again.

And it should make you feel sick - lovey-dovey stuff like that usually does, your walls shooting straight up at the first sign of affection from anybody, metaphorical sneakers on and carrying your legs as far and as fast as they can run - but this doesn’t.

You don’t want to run from Luke, not really.

“I thought you said he was dorky and annoying.”

You’re pretty sure she had been the one to say that, at some point, but you don’t remember arguing the fact, so you don’t bring it up.

“He is.” You pout. He’s also apparently inevitable. “He kinda crept up on me, I guess.”

Ellie is quiet for a minute as she watches you, eyes narrowing as she takes you in - shoulders slumped, lips pouted, defeated.

“Why not just tell him, then? Why hide it?” She asks, leaning onto the table too until your faces are level when you peak up at her, “You know he likes you back, right? He’s got the biggest crush on you, it’s borderline problematic.”

“I don’t know, I don’t really understand why he likes me.”

“Does it matter?”

It does. You don’t want to keep running, but you can’t really help it. There’s something ingrained deep within you that is trying to shelter yourself from all the ways in which succumbing to these feelings will inevitably hurt you.

“Luke’s way smarter than me, and he’s way more successful, he’s kind and he’s generous, he comes from a great family, has this great house, we have literally nothing in common, and he doesn’t see that now because he just thinks he’s attracted to me, and he likes that I don’t just fold to him because he’s some superstar, but the second that’s gone,” you sigh, trying to swallow down the hurt in your voice, blink away the onslaught of tears, “He’ll just get bored of me like everybody else does, and then he’ll be gone. And I’ll just be some girl he broke up with and left behind, and that’s all I’ll ever be.”

Ellie frowns, a strained mutter of your name called as her hand falls to yours in an attempt to comfort you. “You’ll never know if you don’t try, babe.”

“No, I know.”

It’s all you’ve ever known.

Men who start off treating you like some prized possession - cherishing you, making you feel valued and loved - and the second the shine wears off, the second something even newer, even brighter, even sparklier, crosses their path, they’re gone.

And you’re left behind wondering what it is about you that keeps driving them to leave.

It happened with your dad, with his new wife and their perfect kids - the boys he always wanted, who he never had to force himself to like. The dream family he abandoned you to pursue. It happened with Jamie, with all the girls he saw after you, with the way he never even looked your way again, even after all the secrets you shared, and the promises he made. With all those other boys who never saw you as anything more than a fabricated story to spread for a few brownie points with their buddies in the locker room.

It will happen again.

These feelings you have for Luke - the comfort he gives, the contentment, the ease in conversation, the warmth he bathes you in until your skin prunes and he seeps in through the cracks - they’re better kept to yourself. It’s easier that way, to keep this whole heart under lock and key, not giving anyone a chance to break parts off and keep it for themselves.

It’s almost perfect the way it is.

Safe, even from the clutches of the boy who pieced it back together, brick by laborious brick.

“There isn’t long left of the summer, anyway,” you go for a nonchalant shrug, but your shoulders feel heavy, and it turns out more like an arduous huff. “I doubt he’s shy of female attention back in Jersey, he’ll forget I ever existed before he even knows it.”

“You should talk to him,” Ellie suggests, “At least let him know where you stand, even if it’s to tell him things can’t go further.” 

The thought of it is too daunting. Looking into those gleaming green eyes and laying your heart on the line.

You can pretend all you want to Ellie, to yourself, even, that you wouldn’t want more, but you don’t think you could keep up the show with him.

“He deserves at least that.”

And damn it, she’s right.

Maybe he even deserves a proper chance.

Luke never thought he’d regret kissing you for any reason, but he’s wishing he had practiced some restraint up in your room, earlier.

If he hadn’t advanced on you, had let you pack your bag and got you out of the house before Ellie and Jack got back, he could have followed through on his plan of action for the day.

A plan he’d been hyping himself up for, all week - getting you on your own, talking things out, maybe even asking you out. Properly. Not just dinner at the mall, but a real date. Planned, perfected. A fancy dinner, or a trip to the movies. A picnic blanket laid out somewhere with a nice view, and an abundance of your favourite snacks. 

He wants to kiss you without having to hide it, anymore.

He wants to walk with you tucked under his arm. Wants to have you in his lap when there’s too many people over at the house, and the group are struggling for space on the couches in the den. 

He also sort of wants peace of mind, but what’s that compared to not having to sneak around, anymore. 

He’d made his mind up in the morning, waking up beside you at 5am, rousing you from your sleep with soft mutterings of your name, and lips pressed to your cheek until he could feel you smile. 

“Hi,” your voice had been croaky, and your movements slow, shuffling against him as your skin became illuminated by the soft glow of the rising sun slipping through the gap in the curtains. Your legs had been tangled with his under the sheets, and you did little to untangle them, and he was tempted to lock his so that you couldn’t. 

“Hey,” he mumbled, lips still moving against your skin, nipping at your cheek, your jaw, your throat, and your fingers rose until they clutched at the back of his hair, curls wrapping around them as you held him in place. 

“What time is it?”

“Around five,” his own hands landed on your waist, slipping under the hem of your tank, and trying to savour the warmth of your skin, your body hot from being against his all night. “Figured you’d need to be a little earlier today with it being Ellie’s birthday and all.”

“Thank you,” you used your soft grip on his curls to tug, until his face left the crook of your neck, and you blinked softly, smiled sweetly, and he felt his heart beat at twice the normal speed. You leant up and kiss him, straight on the lips, and he smiled against you just as you pulled away. 

He felt cold all over as soon as you detached yourself, and he rolled onto his side to watch as you stood, arms raised to stretch and lifting the bottom of your tank top to rise up your belly.

He felt robbed. Like he deserved longer with you, and it had been as you crawled back over your side of his bed, and had kissed him once more before leaving, that he had decided he needed to do something about it.

His original plan had been to steal you away at some point in the night, everyone else too distracted by the party to notice or care, but being teamed up with you to go get decorations seemed like it would work too.

Until Jack came back and fucked his plans up.

Jack said that he would go get the food with Turcs, that he had already paid for a cake, and he had to show his ID when he picked it up. He said Ellie shouldn’t have to do anything, and that you would be the best person for her to do nothing with, which left Luke picking up decorations with Cole.

It wasn’t that he minded Cole’s company, but Cole isn’t you.

He probably could have tucked Cole under his arm as they walked side by side through target and picked up a bunch of of banners and streamers, given the logistics of their height difference, but it wouldn’t have been as cute.

He has managed to get a lot of unexpected information though. And of course, his only thought is that he can’t wait to share it with you. 

Cole tells Luke how he and Ellie have only been hanging out all summer to make Jack jealous.

He bites his tongue to refrain from telling him that sort of trick doesn’t work on his brother, but Cole seems too pleased with himself for Luke to rain on his parade, and he finds it kind of funny that everyone’s been working to get the two of them to wake up to their feelings, not just you and him.

Cole might have even ended up putting more effort into it than you and Luke did, acting as a go-between for Jack and Ellie, and raising the stakes for both of them to make a move.

“And what do you get out of any of that?” Luke chuckles as he works at taking the banners out of their plastic wrapping, Cole taking the plastic and putting it straight into the trash.

The smile drops as soon as Cole says your name, though, and Luke’s hands stop in place. “Ellie’s been giving me insider info. I’m primed and ready to make a move.”

“Wait, I’m sorry,” Luke frowns, “You like her? Since when?”

He tries not to let the panic stirring in his chest reflect on his features, but it’s hard. 

Cole and Ellie had been hanging out for a long time, now. He can’t have been into you that whole time, right? Not without saying anything to anyone else - Cole is kind of mouthy, like that. Word would have got back around to Luke if Cole’s liked you for months. 

“Since I met her. She’s a really cool girl, really funny.” Cole scoffs, hand reaching out for more trash. “And she’s, like, one of the hottest girls I’ve ever seen, you know?”

Of course Luke knows. He’s seen the most beautiful sides to you - soaked head to toe from a garden hose, eyes crinkled from laughter, or the aftermath, curled up on a couch with just-dry hair and heart opening up to him for the very first time. In an orange baseball cap and a Mets jersey, twirling as you exit one of the fitting rooms you had found in the mall, a big cute grin on your face as you allow yourself to dorky with Luke, and only with Luke. Sat out on the fountain at the club, skin bathed in the glistening moonlight and your heart thumping in the palm of his tender hands. Laid beside him in the early hours of the morning, soft snores falling from between your lips and hair splayed out against his pillow.

But he can’t exactly say that to Cole - who has apparently been working to pursue you this entire time without Luke ever catching on.

“Ellie says I’m her type, so I don’t know why I’m stressing about asking her out-,”

“Out like on a date? Like you want to date her?”

Luke knows he sounds like an idiot without Cole giving him the weirded-out look he gives, but he’s starting to lose out to the dread that is flooding the pit of his stomach. He stumbles to follow Cole out of the kitchen and into the living room, where they had set up a step ladder before to hang the decorations.

“You really think I’d be trying so hard if I didn’t?” Cole scoffs, “Catch up, Luke, I’m trying to end my summer with a girlfriend-,”

“She’s hardly girlfriend material.”

The words taste sour in the mouth that moves before his brain has time to think - sour enough that he has to try not to grimace, wishing he could suck them back in and swallow them back down like they never came out. 

“What do you mean?” Cole asks, his features dropping into a frown. “I thought you two were getting along.”

“We are,” he agrees, despite it seeming like an understatement, but words are starting to pour out before he can filter them, and he can already feel himself getting carried away. “And she’s a nice enough person, don’t get me wrong, but I just don’t think it would work out with her like that.”

“You think she’d be hard work?”

He knows you are. But he likes you that way. He doesn’t want anyone else to worm their way into your good graces like he has. 

“Yeah,” he huffs, “She’s always out, and always flirting with guys at the club, you’ve seen it.” He knows he’s pulled that out of his ass, but what else is he supposed to say?

“I think she’s just fishing for tips, Lukey,” Cole chuckles, and Luke’s cheeks flush with humiliation at the pet name. He feels small, like he’s just something that Caufield can steam roll straight over without much protest. “Can’t blame her, some of those guys have deep pockets.”

“I’ve just heard stuff, you know.”

“Like what?”

Jesus Christ, Cole, he thinks, wishing he’d just take his word for it and get over you, already. As if it would ever be that easy. He doesn’t particularly enjoy saying these things out loud - using the words you had so carefully confided in him against you - but there’s a panicked desperation creeping up within him, becoming possible to ignore, and it’s cancelling out all other rational thoughts in his brain. 

The second you find out Cole Caufield is interested, you’ll no longer have any need for Luke.

Luke, who your every conversation with starts or ends with some sort of bickering argument, who annoys you to no end, who riles you up like it’s what he was put on this very Earth to do.

Cole is charming, he’s always had an ease when it comes to talking to girls that Luke never quite found in himself, and he’ll win you over in no time - and that’s if you aren’t interested, already.

But Luke is building up to that.

He’s been building up to it all summer.

Even before then, without entirely knowing it. 

The two of you have something, even if you refuse to admit it. You wouldn’t have kissed him all those times, otherwise, wouldn’t have come to his bed in the middle of the storm those weeks ago, and almost every night since he came back from Vegas, wouldn’t have slept with him before he left, wouldn’t have begged him to give in to you - not if you weren’t interested in him.

You’ve shared parts of yourself he knows no one’s ever seen, and he can’t let that be for nothing. 

But now the rug is being pulled out from under him, and all he can do to cling on to the edges with an idiotic possessiveness that curls his upper lip and brings his heart to a screeching stop. 

“Like how she’s with a different guy every week at Michigan. Apparently she gets around.”

“Oh,” Cole frowns, and Luke watches as his face turns, his own fists clenching at the urge to take it all back, to defend her and call Cole out on his immediate shift despite it being his own fault. 

He’s made his bed, now. He has to lie in it.

“Ellie didn’t mention all that stuff.”

“She’s hardly gonna call her friend easy.” Luke scoffs, and he thinks the way the words are spat out of his mouth is some sort of reflection of the way his lips don’t want to say them. Like they’re disgusted that his brain would even conceptualise them enough to be spoken. “Especially when you were doing her a favour with the whole Jack thing.”

“I don’t know man, I think you’ve got the wrong idea of her.”

Luke rolls his eyes as Cole makes his way back toward the step ladder, banner in hand, jaw tensing as he scrambles to think of something to stop this.

“She’s not the kind of girl you date,” he manages to call out, despite the tremor in his voice, every fibre of his being fighting the words from being spoken. “And there’s like a month left before we all leave for camp, so if you were to start anything, it would just be for the summer, anyway.”

“Jack and Ellie have started something with just a month left.”

“That’s not the same thing, they’ve been into each other for years, they text and call all the time, nothing’s really changing for them except for a label, you really think you’re gonna keep that up after just a couple months of knowing her?”

He reaches out for the other end of the banner and holds it as Cole positions his side, lip tugged between his teeth and a frown on his face as he mulls Luke’s words over. 

“You’ll be in Montreal, and she’ll be here, and you’ll be focusing on hockey, and training, and you won’t have time to keep up something serious with a girl you barely know.”

He tries not to think about how it’s the same distance to Jersey - an almost 2 hour flight - and how he’d be doing the exact same thing, swept up into the season before he knows it and potentially doing nothing but letting you down. 

“And you know what she’s like, she’d find something to argue about with a monk, for God’s sake,” he scoffs, brows furrowed so hard he can feel the tension in his forehead, “All you’d get from her is an earache. She’s not worth it.”

Cole turns to narrow his eyes at Luke, but something else over the top of his head catches his attention, instead, and the surprised muttering of your name turns Luke’s blood to ice.

Frozen in place, eyes wide, heart thudding in his ears, he waits with bated breath for something to happen - for Cole to break into a shit-eating grin, and tell him he’s just fucking around. For the ground to swallow him up. For anyone - literally anybody else - to respond.

But your voice carries straight over to him. Travels through his ears, ricochets around the cavern of his skull, shoots down his spine and makes his legs go numb.

“We uhm,” your tone is shaky, and Luke, for the first time, maybe, ever, hates the way you sound. “We were just checking if you needed a hand with the decorations.”

He turns slowly, and it’s Ellie’s eyes he meets first. Pointed, narrowed, betrayed, even, she glares at him like he’s just kicked a wounded animal right in front of her. 

“You can’t decorate your own party,” Cole laughs from behind Luke, as Luke’s attention drifts slowly your way. 

His eyes meet yours, and he can see the watery glaze over them from across the room. Can see your throat working to gulp down your hurt as your lips twist.

Ellie says something in response, and he vaguely hears Cole speak too, but all that he can focus on is the blood rushing around his head, a whooshing and whirring that makes him feel like his ears are about to pop, or his brain is about to explode. His lips part to speak, to say something, anything, to explain what you had clearly overheard, but your gaze drops to the floor, and he sees your walls build back up right before his eyes, brick by brick, cementing themselves back in place.

He’s such an idiot.

He’s such a monumental asshole.

The last time he had seen tears in your eyes had been sat by the fountain at the club - he had wiped them away, and had promised you he had your back, and you had just caught him having anything but with Cole. And all that after you had told him why you had ever been hesitant to let anyone in the first place.

He doesn’t think he’s ever messed up like this.

He steps forward, unsteady on his feet, and you step back, still not able to look him in the eye again, before turning on your heel and making your way upstairs.

Luke hears the stomp of your feet as you go, watches Ellie go after you, wishing it could be him, and stands, motionless, until he feels a firm pat on his back.

“Don’t worry, man,” Cole says, “She’s cool, she’ll be over it after a couple of drinks.”

Luke doesn’t even think he says anything coherent when he responds, a grunt or a grumble - it can’t have been words, because he can’t even form them in his brain. 

“I’m gonna ask her out tonight, anyway,” Cole chuckles, “So what you said won’t even mean anything.”

Great.

He’s just fucked things up with one of the greatest people in his life, the girl of his dreams, and it doesn’t even mean anything.

Not the kind of girl you date. 

Not worth it.

All that from the boy who supposedly had your back not that long ago. The first guy in a long time, maybe even ever, to make you feel secure, and safe, and like you could trust someone again.

Luke thinks you’re an earache. 

He thinks you’re argumentative, and only worthy of a brief, summer fling - that keeping up anything with you when he goes home would be a waste of the time and energy he should be dedicating to hockey.

And he’s probably right, you think.

It’s only what you’ve been telling yourself in the back of your mind all summer. Self-deprecating thoughts about how he’s far too good for you, and you’re only interesting when he can’t have you, and he’ll get tired of you before you can even realise he’s already drifted off.

Ellie had told you all the way back in your freshman year that the two of you weren’t a good fit. Jack had been telling Luke the same all summer. And you had only just managed to convince yourself otherwise on the drive back to the lake house from the mall.

You can hardly blame him for being two steps ahead.

You think that’s why you can’t bring yourself to cry - the sting of tears prickling persistently but never pushing through, eyes watering so much you can’t even put on mascara without the fear of it trickling down your face and ruining the rest of your makeup.

You’d tried crying, before. Had ran up to your room and had sat on the other side of your bed, hidden from the door and knees pressed to your chest. Your breath had stuttered, and your lips had trembled, but the tears wouldn’t fall, try as you might to have made them.

And when Ellie had found you, had sat beside you with an arm stretched over your shoulders, you had tried, then, too.

And it would be your luck that as soon as you press the inky substance into your lashes that they would finally fall, so you’ve been sat trying to wish them away for the past ten minutes - the tube clutched in a death grip in your hands as you sit at the makeshift vanity you and Ellie had set up all those weeks ago when you had moved in, taking deep breaths and willing the hurt to go away.

It’s where Luke finds you after knocking with no response - you barely remember hearing it - shuffling wordlessly into the room and perching himself down behind you on the edge of the bed.

You see him in the mirror, your eyes darting away before his can meet them in the reflection, and you stiffen your shoulders, bracing yourself for the blow.

“I didn’t mean any of what you heard.”

You breathe out a humourless chuckle, bitterness settling into the pit of your stomach and your lips trembling with resistance. 

“I mean it, I don’t think those things about you, I promise, I-,”

“It doesn’t even matter,” you cut him off with a roll your eyes, pushing the mascara tube toward the mirror and figuring you’re just gonna go without. 

“I was panicking, and it just came out like word vomit, and I feel really sick about it, and really stupid, and I wish I could take it all back-,”

“I said it doesn’t matter.” You meet his eyes this time, trying not to fall for just how distraught he looks behind you in the mirror. 

“Of course it matters,” he frowns, and you look away as soon as he pushes himself up, knowing he’s coming for you. “I need you to know that I would never have said those things-,”

“You said them, Luke,” you scoff, “What do you mean you would never have said them, you literally did.”

“I know-,”

“It doesn’t matter-,”

“Can you stop saying that!” He frowns, appearing at the side of you, hands gripping your shoulders to get you to face him. “I’m trying to explain this to you, I’m trying to fix things, and you’re-,”

“What, giving you an earache?”

All those weeks ago, the backs of your legs sticking to the bench in the booth in the restaurant, leaning over the table and sparring back and forth with him, you had convinced yourself that he liked it.

That the glint in his eye was indication of as much, the twitch at the corner of his lips, the way he would bite back without a second to think about it, and had matched your every effort to get one over on him. 

You had thought the two of you had something real. Something you had never found with anyone else. Quick wit, and similar senses of humour, shared boundaries, a mutual level of respect. 

You had thought his persistence had been something that would stick.

And clearly, you thought wrong.

He whispers out an utterance of your name that hurts like fingers wrapped around your throat - clenching and squeezing until you go hot in the head.

“I keep saying it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t, Luke. You were right, we wouldn’t have been able to keep this up past the summer, anyway.”

Luke’s brows furrow your way, eyes darting between yours as his lips part to speak, but nothing comes out.

“You’re going back to Jersey soon, I’m going back to school, it was fun while it lasted but things have run their course.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“We both do.” You shrug, wearing your feigned indifference like armour, just like you know so well to do. “You don’t say the things you said on a whim, Luke, some part of you has to believe that they’re true.”

“I don’t-,”

“I’m giving you a chance to cut things off with no hard feelings-,”

“No hard feelings?” His disbelief cuts through you a little, the hurt in his eyes and the scrunch of his features, too, but if you give in, now, you’re setting yourself up for a world of hurt. 

You had barely just built up the courage to give your heart to him, in whatever shape he had scrunched and squeezed it into before, and he had already managed to bruise it. Giving in will only result in it breaking. 

“I have feelings. I have feelings for you. And I know you have feelings for me, too, you can’t pretend you don’t-,”

“It doesn’t-,”

“It matters.” You don’t think you’ve ever heard him sound like this - so sure, so serious, so raw - and when he takes a hold of your face, hands cupping your jaw, tender but firm, and forces you to look at him, you see the same in his features. “Cole is into you. And he said he was gonna ask you out, and I panicked trying to convince him not to. I should have had faith that you would have turned him down. And I should have been honest, and I should have told him that I’m into you. More than into you, I think I-,”

“I wouldn’t have turned him down.”

You lie with such ease that it makes your heart ache more than the truth, but it’s the only thing you can do to protect it.

If you let Luke carry on, you’ll let him back in.

You can’t let him back in.

Not with the tears that now well his eyes, or the way his face drops like you’ve just struck him in the gut - pained and powerless.

“What?”

Your hands shake in your lap so much you have to clench them shut, knuckles turning white as Luke’s touch slips from your skin. 

“If he asked me out, I would have said yes.”

Luke runs a hand through his hair, blinking repeatedly before he tears his gaze away from yours, and you feel like you can see his walls building - a sight that should flood you with relief, but doesn’t.

“So, what, everything we’ve been through together, all the things we’ve done, all the things we’ve said, you’re just gonna throw it all away like none of it matters?”

You can hear the hurt - can feel it even, clawing at your skin as if it’s trying to find a way to dig past the barriers you’ve put in place. 

But you have to do this.

“I guess not.”

Luke was always going to hurt you. Was going to burrow himself through whatever cracks you left bare to him, weasel his way into your heart and tear it from the inside out. And maybe you were always going to do the same to him.

“Alright then,” he mutters, robotic and distant, with his eyes stuck on the floor. 

He stands from where he had been crouched beside you, backing away before turning completely, and he walks away in long strides, the door to your bedroom closing with a soft click behind him. 

The tear that falls when he’s gone does so slowly. You feel it trail all the way down your cheek from the corner of your eye, until it drops, almost audibly, from your jaw and onto your lap. 

And then the rest follow, uncontrollable and unrelenting.

Inevitable, just like he had said.

A/N: so...... please don't hate me I wrote the ending first lmao!! I imagine this will cause riots in the streets tbh but please let me know what you think hahahah this whole story has become my baby!! she's problematic but she's mine!!!!

[maleyanderecafe]

i haven't seen any news here yet but have u seen the newest update for 14 days with you? ren in day 3 got me blushing and shiiiii 🤪 and his new hairstyles? gahdamn 😮‍💨

It's been a long time coming, but I played the update! I actually had to wait since at the time there was a 3.5 update coming out so I just waited until that came out before deciding to play the entire thing. Lots of new and changed things, the artwork is great as always.

Since in my original recommendation I already gave summary on the first day, I'm going to first note some changes for the first day before summarizing the second day.

In the first day, we can now change the length of Haruko's hair, which in turn changes Ren's hair as well. In addition, we get a conversation from our boss Conan who talks about repairing the library. Depending on options, we also meet up with two friends while walking home, Jay and Leon. As I'm aware, these are the major changes that happen in the first day.

During the second day, Ren accompanies Angel out on a date before the two run into Leon and Teo, Angel's ex (or fling). Teo and Ren get very bitter towards each other, showcasing that Teo is kind of a bad ex, still being rather possessive towards Angel while Leon tries to keep everyone's cool. Afterwards, Angel and Ren go eat out in a cafe (with an easter egg that Angel can actually like an goth look that they see a passerby with, a reference to Redacted's look). Angel and Ren decide to go to a store where a girl named Olivia starts flirting with Ren. Ren is clearly uncomfortable, but Angel sees this as a possibility that Ren might be interested in her, due to how they were treated by Teo in the past. As the two end their date, it starts to rain and Ren goes out to get an umbrella. After taking a long time, Angel starts to believe that Ren has ditched them and can choose to leave or stay. Either way, Ren comes back in the nick of time and offers them to either go to their place or Ren's (though in the end the two go to Ren's). Ren's place is very clean and modern, almost as if it was never really used, fitting considering Ren is a programmer. Ren insists on Angel staying (through glitchy text) and they can either decide to stay in their room or have a good time with Ren in his room.

The next day, Ren makes Angel some breakfast (and cute moments) before Angel heads out back to work. It seems that Elanor has some work to do and one of the shelves fell on her thus causing her to leave early (wonder who could have caused that). Elanor's sister, Kiara comes to visit and hang out as well. Teo comes in as well and immediately goes towards Elanor who gets smitten with him. Angel can decide to join in on Teo and Kiara's "date" to make sure nothing happens to her, but not before Conan pulls them aside to make sure they're safe (in general) because of the accident that Elanor had. If they do they end up all going to a bookstore where Angel finds Ren reading behind some shelves, but not before being interrupted by Moth who calls them and chats them up. Leon then also suggests having a double date at an aquarium the next day (this is also the same thing he asks if you decide to not join in on the date and instead go home). They briefly meet Olivia outside their apartment who asks what their relationship with Ren is before leaving. In the end they go home where they can invite someone over, go to their place or call them. With Elanor, Angel will air out their distaste for Teo and warns her to be careful, with Violet, the two discuss the date and Angel's feelings on it, with Conan, they chat a bit about the discussion, with Jae, they chat a bit before talking about the date, Angel talks to Leon about how worried they are about Teo and Elanor, Angel and Teo snidely talk about each other and Moth chat about the date as well, but all of them either send Angel home because of a phone call or the reception gets busted in some way or another. Ren also ends up coming over at the end of all of these, talking about the murder, the place that Angel is living at before watching a movie and possibly having more sexy times. There are also some easter eggs for certain people as well if you are so inclined.

First of all, I will say that the game really maintains the quality of visuals and coding as everything is as clean and as beautiful as when I first played it. Always something nice that's added. I like that you now have the option to change pronouns when you'd like and that you can change the message on your phone and see other character's messages as well. It's a good way to integrate the world inside of the game and it looks good. Each ending where Angel refuses to date Ren has of course Ren booting them back into the main menu and the addition of adding various glitchy effects that stack up as the game goes on depending on choice is a very nice thing as well. It makes me wonder about what consequences it may have in the future. Having to choose Ren's hair length via Haruka's hair length is fun too and changes the cgs as well which is kind of cool to see. There's more hints of Ren's interference, causing the bookshelf to fall on Elanor, causing any phone calls to be abruptly interrupted to to interference and causing any in person meetings to be interrupted by phone calls. One of the things that I didn't particularly like changed was the event that Olivia dies after her first encounter with Ren, while Angel is waiting for him to get the umbrella. It's shown only through the special screen with the character message stating that she's offline in a very eerie way, something that was a great way to show that Ren had done something to her without explicitly saying it. Of course, in this version, Olivia does not die and instead Angel seems her in the apartment. I can see why it was changed as Ren is shown to be more of a lighter yandere, but I really liked the way that it subtly showed Ren dealing with her in a previous version. Another thing that confused me was the call (video call?) that Angel has with Moth at the bookstore. After seeing Moth's sprite I legitimately thought that they were actually at the store for most of the conversation and I only was able to tell it was a call based on the text box itself. I think a better way to display this is if either Moth's sprite was a bit more transparent or it was changed to be placed in a box to indicate that it was call. The last thing is more of a bug, but if you have skipping on and you hold down the skip key while starting the game, you can actually play the entire game without seeing a single sprite, as you didn't answer the intro questions of name, streamer mode, etc. It also resets when you back to the do answer those questions. Probably can be fixed easily by preventing skipping at least until you actually get to the dialogue.

We get more backstory with Angel and their relationships, especially with Teo. We can see why they are a lot more reserved when it comes to their relationship with Ren, given that they were not treated well when it came to Teo and thus has lingering doubts on whether Angel actually loves them or not. It makes the Olivia and Ren interaction and going home early make more sense (though I am kind of surprised that Angel would want to even talk to Teo given that they probably aren't really on good terms. That and he's a jerk). Most of the conversations after the date talk about Teo as a person and how most of them want to believe that Teo is actually getting better as a person, which seems... weird, given that his behavior does not show otherwise. Personally, I think it's really weird that Angel would even approve Elanor and Teo going on dates in the first place, given that Teo seems to be a terrible person and is the kind that cheats very easily, where Elanor is the type that is more romantic. It is addressed after the various dates and you can actually tell Elanor in person, but I think it's very strange everyone wants these two to actually date given how very different their personalities are and Teo being kind of a huge jerk. I suppose its more like the fact that you can't control if they wanted to date, but I would have thought Angel would have warned Elenor about him considering what Angel and Teo's relationship was like.

Overall, I think the game is making good progression on where it is. Right now it's a little slow though, mostly focusing on dating lives and whatnot, but hopefully we can also get to the mysterious murders that are happening soon enough. Ren is still cute as always and it's fun that you can still tease him in his various scenes.

[daisyswift3]

Jumping in the Deep End 🐇🕳️💛

So there’s sth else I noticed related to the Gracie rabbit hole I’ve fallen down that I haven’t mentioned yet bc I feel crazy saying it but I’ve already said a lot of insane stuff lately so fuck it. But before u read this post I do recommend reading this other analysis I wrote as well as this post first bc it’ll make everything make more sense. Ok continuing….

Not long after The Secret of Us was released on June 21, I watched this interview that was uploaded the day the album was released where Gracie texts her fans. One of the first things I noticed was how Gracie suspiciously looks straight at the camera as she makes a typo which I mentioned in the analysis I just linked, but another thing that caught my attention was that one of the fans is named Aimee (3:06 mark in the vid). I thought this was a little strange bc Aimee isn’t really the typical spelling of that name, it’s usually spelled like this instead, Amy. But even more strange was that the day after this interview was uploaded, June 22, Taylor just so happened to play thanK you aIMee as one of the surprise songs in London. What an interesting coincidence!

June 22 was a big deal bc it was Midsummer Day which celebrates daylight. This is likely why Gracie made yellow 💛 the main color of the album and chose to release it on June 21, Midsummer Eve—bc this album is abt a coming out journey (see these posts for more on that: x, x, x, x, x, x, x). And if you look at the text “Aimee” sends, it sounds like sth an artist would ask another artist rather than a typical fan question. Aimee specifically asks abt her creative process which is a very artist thing to do. So basically all that to say I wouldn’t be surprised if Aimee was actually Taylor and this text was also an easter egg for us to find just like the intentional glitches and typos.

If this text was in fact from Taylor, I believe the purpose of it may have been to lead us down the Gracie rabbit hole where we could find endless cross references between Gracie’s music and Taylor’s music. If you watch the music videos for those 3 songs Aimee mentions and listen to the lyrics, they could easily be interpreted as being abt Taylor’s secret relationship w this korner of the internet that is almost like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon bc there’s no tangible proof it ever existed but there is a lot of folklore surrounding it and the story has been passed down and become a myth. “Wonder if you regret the secret of us.” I believe these 3 songs could be from Taylor’s perspective. And to go even further w it (fair warning, this is where we really go off the deep end), I think it’s very possible that not just these songs are abt this secret relationship, but most of Gracie’s songs bc all of them reference each other and have lyrical and visual parallels to each other much like Taylor’s songs (see this post).

Now I want to make it very clear: Gracie is her own person w her own talents outside of Taylor. I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea or think I’m trying to undermine Gracie’s artistry or give all the credit to Taylor. And I also don’t think this secret relationship was the only inspiration for these songs since it’s very clear Gracie uses her own personal experiences and feelings, and I believe she could be writing abt more than one muse or from more than one person’s perspective in each song, similar to how in hoax Taylor sings abt 3 different relationships simultaneously. I am simply trying to point out the insane amount of parallels between Gracie and Taylor’s music that I think are too abundant to simply chalk up to coincidence. And I’m not saying that my interpretations are for sure the right ones, I could definitely be wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. This is just a fun clown theory that I think is worth considering.

So going back to those 3 songs in the text—Mess It Up, I know it won’t work, The Bottom—I wanted to do an analysis on them and the mvs bc I think the reason why “Aimee” might’ve been pointing us to those specific songs and mvs is bc they are an important part of this coming out story. Plus the specific symbolism and imagery used in the songs can be cross referenced w pretty much every other song in Gracie’s discography (and w many Taylor songs) making them all connected.

For instance, the main themes in Mess It Up are:

Not growing up -> minor, tehe, Wishful Thinking, Older, Better, Augusta, Alright, Difficult // Peter, The Archer, cardigan, betty, peace

Groundhog Day (This is related to the next theme) -> Under/Over, Risk mv, I Love You, I’m Sorry, us // The Prophecy

Making the same mistake over and over/Bad habits -> Long Sleeves, Rockland, The Bottom, Best, Will you cry?, Difficult, This is what the drugs are for, Fault line, Block me out, Blowing Smoke, I Love You, I’m Sorry, us, Let It Happen // Anti-Hero, coney island, Florida!!!, Fresh Out The Slammer, The Black Dog

Not being able to sleep at night -> Rockland, Hard to Sleep, Camden, Painkillers, Difficult, This is what the drugs are for, The blue, 405, Risk, Blowing Smoke, Let It Happen, Tough Love // Midnights the stories of 13 sleepless nights, hoax

The birthday cakes -> 21, Stay mv, Mean It mv, Risk mv // All Too Well short film, coney island

“Let it happen” -> The song Let It Happen on TSOU, Better

Lying -> For Real This Time, Best, Full machine, Where do we go now?, Block me out, Blowing Smoke, Let It Happen // Getaway Car, illicit affairs, the lavender haze/bearding/red herrings

Phone calls -> 21, Rockland, Full machine, I should hate you, This is what the drugs are for, The blue, Block me out, us, Let It Happen // cowboy like me, Anti-Hero mv, Fortnight mv

Going onto a porch in order to apologize to someone -> Risk mv (technically not to apologize but it’s still related to coming out and making things right) // betty, cardigan, this is me trying, long story short, Fresh Out the Slammer

The main themes in I know it won’t work are:

Closets -> Peter, seven, cowboy like me, I Know Places

Drawing the line in the sand and putting up boundaries or crossing boundaries -> Mess It Up, Long Sleeves, For Real This Time, Best, Felt Good About You, Let It Happen, Gave You I Gave You I

Cutting ties w someone -> Friend, Blowing Smoke, Free Now

Being someone’s ghost/haunting someone -> I miss you, I’m sorry, us, Block me out // Basically all of TTPD and much of folkmore and Midnights (Anti-Hero mv)

The main themes in The Bottom are:

“I told you I was down bad, you hate to see me like that” -> Down Bad

Making the same mistake over and over/Bad habits -> Long Sleeves, Rockland, The Bottom, Best, Will you cry?, Difficult, This is what the drugs are for, Fault line, Block me out, Blowing Smoke, I Love You, I’m Sorry, us, Let It Happen // Anti-Hero, coney island, Florida!!!, Fresh Out The Slammer, The Black Dog

Opening up the door and letting someone into your house, closing the door, or going into someone’s house uninvited -> Mess It Up mv, Under/Over, tehe, I should hate you, us, Let It Happen, I Love You, I’m Sorry, Gave You I Gave You I // cardigan, hoax, Anti-Hero mv

Dragging someone down/Hitting rock bottom/Coming down after a high or being high (drug metaphor; becoming more famous=“getting higher”) -> Long Sleeves, Rockland, Wishful Thinking, Painkillers, Alright, This is what the drugs are for, Fault line, Right now, Block me out, Blowing Smoke, I Knew It, I Know You, Gave You I Gave You I, Free Now // Many songs on TTPD use the drug metaphor, gold rush, long story short, Anti-Hero mv (pushed from balcony), seven, this is me trying, illicit affairs

Being the problem -> 21, minor, Rockland, Wishful Thinking, Older, Painkillers, Best, Difficult, Block me out, Unsteady, I Love You, I’m Sorry mv // Anti-Hero

Mess It Up

So as I stated before this song is all abt making the same mistakes over and over and reliving the same day like it’s Groundhog Day. Gracie, the narrator, keeps trying to make things right and apologize to the person she’s hurt, but every time she tries she messes it up which is represented by her dropping the cake repeatedly. But finally at the end of the mv, she is able to get it right and properly apologize. She knocks on someone’s door and they open it which symbolizes this person opening their heart to Gracie and forgiving her. If you go to the 2:12 mark in the mv when the letters and numbers on the fridge fall, you’ll see that they spell out a secret message “Hi (13, 31) Peter Pan - T” (the “I” doubles as a 1, the “3” doubles as an E, and the “L” doubles as an R/r if flipped on its side). Taylor was 31 yrs old when the Mess It Up mv was released on May 6, 2021. Peter Pan is the boy who never grew up. This means that it’s likely the narrator’s inability to grow up that is causing issues in the relationship. This is why the song starts w “Opened two double doors, typical, pretty sure I could grow up.”

“Did I fall out of like when I called you” -> Did I cross a boundary and make things worse when I called you? Boundaries are one of the main themes in I know it won’t work. I believe that Gracie and Taylor could be using “phone calls/texts/letters” as a metaphor for the anon messages and riddles we’ve received over the years. As a result of trying to solve these messages and riddles, kaylors have gotten a ton of hate and many have had to leave the fandom bc the environment is so toxic. This song could be Taylor acknowledging these issues and apologizing for how we’ve been treated.

“'Cause every time I get too close, I just go mess it up” -> It’s possible Taylor has tried many times over the years to properly apologize to us by giving us more cryptic messages containing these apologies, but the problem is that these anon messages and riddles are the main reason why we get bullied so this only makes the issue worse in the end.

“Funny that (Funny that) didn't work (Didn't work), I could be anywhere, I'm on your block” -> I believe this could be related to I Love You, I’m Sorry. “The way life goes, Joyriding down our road, Lay on the horn to prove that it haunts me, (I'm wrong again, wrong again) I love you, I'm sorry.” This song also has the lyrics “I wanna speak in code” which makes me think of the anon messages and queer flagging.

“I keep thinking, maybe if you let me back in, we can make it better, breaking every habit” -> Taylor talks abt breaking bad habits in The Black Dog which I believe represents putting an end to the bearding/lavender haze/red herrings/smokescreen/blowing smoke/not growing up.

It’s very interesting that Gracie uses a birthday cake to apologize. Birthday cakes are a common symbol that shows up in Gracie’s music. They also appear in 21, another apology song, and the Risk mv which is likely abt the mass coming out (see this post). In the All Too Well mv, Sadie’s character receives a birthday cake at the same time that Taylor sings, “But then he watched me watch the front door all night, willin' you to come, And he said, ‘It's supposed to be fun turning 21.’” In both 21 and ATW 10 min version, the older person in the relationship misses their significant other’s 21st birthday which greatly hurts them. These songs could be 2 sides of the same coin from opposite perspectives like dorothea and TTDS. With how many connections there are between Gracie and Taylor’s music, I’m inclined to believe this isn’t a coincidence.

(From the Mean It mv. When the 21 candles are thrown in the box they almost look like a backward "t" and "s")

“If it doesn't go away by the time I turn 30, I made a mistake and I'll tell you I'm sorry, ‘Sorry.’” The narrator is saying once she turns 30 she’ll apologize to the 21 yr old if her feelings haven’t changed by then. This is immediately followed by a “sorry” meaning the narrator has actually already turned 30 yrs old which is another indicator that Gracie is in fact speaking from someone else’s perspective bc Gracie was only 20 at the time of this song’s release in 2020. Plus just a few tracks later in the same album, the narrator says "I miss you, I'm sorry" which she said she wouldn’t say until after she turned 30. Taylor was 30 yrs old when the album minor was released in July 2020 and when 21 was released as a single on Feb 20, 2020. If this song is from Taylor’s perspective at 30 yrs old, then the significant other/ex being 21 indicates it (along w all the other cross-referenceable songs) is likely not abt a literal romantic relationship; rather, the song is an allegory or metaphor. The 21 (acoustic) mv has "I miss you" on the piano and "I'm sorry" in the notebook which indicates that 21 is directly related to I miss you, I'm sorry. The emphasis on birthdays and age in 21 fits well w the Peter Pan metaphor that shows up in many of Gracie’s songs. Even though the narrator is getting physically older, she is not getting metaphorically older. To add even more credibility to this theory, the song minor has the line “Hit me 3-1-0” which could represent both Taylor turning 31 in 2020 and a backwards 13. 13s show up several times in Gracie’s mvs and songs. The Secret of Us is a 13-track album that was released on June 21. Additionally, the first 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 message was sent July 21 and the second to last message, which I’m now pretty certain is abt Gracie’s album TSOU, was sent May 21 (x).

Look at the numbers on the houses ⬇️ Going column-wise there’s 226(1), 226(3) which is a 13 and there’s also ✌️✌️ which Taylor has used a ton for TTPD (Taylor said in Nov 2021 she wanted to try to plan sth 3 yrs in advance); 2267 -> 6+7=13. Adding up 2+2+6+3 also gives u 13 while 2+2+6+1=11=K. And 6+6 from the 2261, 2263 (again going column-wise) is 12 which is 21 backwards. The 13 showing up in the Risk mv just confirms these choices in the Mess It Up mv were completely intentional.

Gracie and Taylor performed I miss you, I’m sorry together at eras which was Taylor’s suggestion since Gracie’s set was canceled that day (x)(x). I just think it’s very interesting that Taylor wore a yellow dress when they sang this song and then a yr later she just so happened to be featured on the title track of Gracie’s very yellow album 💛 which they (allegedly) didn’t start writing until Nov 13 a few months later (x). This indicates that this performance was likely planned ahead of time and not a last minute decision like they said. I think much of the timeline we’ve been given for Gracie and Taylor’s friendship might be a red herring to prevent ppl from figuring out what these songs are really abt. Gracie and Taylor (allegedly) wrote us together on Nov 13, 2023 spontaneously; but Taylor wearing yellow during IMYIS along w the pap walk w the Cassandra handbag, almost burning down the house 🕯️🧯, and and the fact that all this happened on Nov 13, the day Karlie and Taylor met, indicates that us was actually written much earlier and that the Nov 13 story was just a red herring.

I know it won’t work

This song is all abt boundaries. There are different types of boundaries that show up in the mv: A shoreline, a line in the sand, a fence. It’s clear the narrator doesn’t want to end this relationship and put up walls but she believes she has no other choice bc of her circumstances (not being able to grow up -> Peter, closets).

“I left you here, Heard you keep the extra closet empty, In case this year I come back and stay throughout my twenties” -> The narrator knows there’s no guarantee she’ll actually “grow up” and come out of the closet so her ex keeps the closet empty just in case she wants to move back in and stay in the closet.

“What if I won't? How am I supposed to put that gently? And down the road you will love me until you resent me” -> Since these lines directly follow the ones I just mentioned, you might be inclined to think that “What if I won’t?” is the narrator asking “What if I won’t move back in and rekindle our relationship?” BUT I believe the wording was intentionally ambiguous bc that way it could also mean “What if I won’t grow up and leave the closet? Will you eventually come to resent me if I can’t be the hero you want?”

“But it's a lot, All the shine of half a decade fadin', The whole facade seemed to fall apart, it's complicated” -> This perfectly parallels the 11/09/2019 ♠️ message. The narrator is saying her ex is asking a lot of her by wanting her to come out and destroy the facade. I believe decade might’ve been changed to half a decade so as to not make it obvious Gracie is singing from Taylor’s perspective. The “shine” symbolizes the love and support from fans that has come w being such a famous and successful artist. That’s not an easy thing to give up.

“Why won't you try movin' on for once? That might make it easy, I know we cut all the ties, but you're never really leavin'” -> Taylor knows that even if us kaylors walk away from her we will always eventually come back bc we can’t help but be invested and this puts a lot of pressure on Taylor that she doesn’t want.

“I'll open up, I'm thinkin' everythin' you wish I wasn't, The call was tough but you're better off, I'm bein' honest, So, won't you stop holdin' out for me when I don't want it? Just brush me off 'cause I'm your ghost right now, your house is haunted” -> This entire 3rd verse is extremely telling and fits perfectly w the 2019 failed coming out. The call to not come out was tough bc she was conflicted abt it but she thinks she ultimately made the right decision. Taylor is asking us to stop holding out for a coming out bc it’s not what she wants. Of course I don’t think this is how Taylor currently feels bc I think she’s getting ready to burn down the closet but I think this song shows how she felt at one point. I think the ghost imagery is supposed to connect this song w I miss you, I’m sorry and us as well as all the ghost imagery Taylor has used.

The Bottom

This song is abt hitting rock bottom and being worried that you will drag the ppl you love down w you. It’s kind of a more scathing version of Anti-Hero. I think this song could be directly related to the Mess It Up mv. Someone opens up the door to let Gracie in bc she wants to apologize by giving them a cake. But the narrator warns this person that they should keep their guard up bc she will always be doomed to repeat the same mistakes and drag ppl down w her. Since this song is kind of self explanatory, I’ll instead focus on the mv.

The first thing I noticed when watching this mv is the striking similarities to the Bejeweled mv. Both seem to be inspired by Disney movies/fairytales and even the bells during the title card parts sound similar. PLUS 🎃 anon told us to watch out for things that “ring a belle” -> there are bells in both mvs and one also shows up during the burning castle scene at the end and it is literally ringing; and Bejeweled should look and sound familiar if u have watched The Bottom mv; AND Belle is a Disney princess which is another indicator that 🎃 was referring to these mvs (Taylor wears a yellow dress just like Belle at the end of Bejeweled). Gracie said that The Bottom is supposed to be a satirical mv (see description of vid) and this parallels the Bejeweled mv being satire.

Another thing that’s interesting is that The Bottom mv is kind of the opposite of the Bejeweled mv. In The Bottom, Gracie is dragging a body down the stairs and burying it (descending) while in Bejeweled, Taylor is using an elevator to get higher and higher until she reaches the top floor (ascending). Ascending and descending are things that 🫚 emphasized in this message. Ascending and descending are also things a plane does when flying from one place to another -> “I thought the plane was going down how’d you turn it right around” and all the plane imagery lately. I think 🫚 could have been trying to get us to realize that the beginning stages of this coming out plan (the “ascent,” PR stunts w MH and 🏈, red herrings, 2023-early 2024 🛫) aren’t what we should focus on, it’s the end stages of the journey (the “descent,” cracks in the facade, getting louder w queer flagging, mid 2024-Dec 2024(?) 🛬) that are important.

Yellow shows up a few times in this mv, and I think it’s significant that the room in which the murder happens is a bright one w yellow chairs. Yellow is commonly used to symbolize happiness; Taylor and Gracie use this color in a very similar way to represent daylight/sunshine/summer/being out of the closet/not hiding your real self 💛🌼☀️🏝️ So putting these things together, this scene is symbolically similar to the yellow closet in the Lover house where Taylor has had to put away her sunshine and happiness bc she wasn’t able to come out during Lover era. What was supposed to be a joyous celebration ended w death and destruction.

It’s also interesting that throughout the mv, Gracie is dancing and performing (showmanship/PR) while in a literal spotlight. This ties in perfectly w the very last scene where Gracie is smoking a cigarette which represents bearding/red herrings/lavender haze/smokescreen/smoke and mirrors magic/Blowing Smoke/bad habits. In The Black Dog, Taylor uses smoking as an example of a bad habit/self-destructive behavior she is trying to quit.

Lastly, I wanted to leave you w a few things that I think are very interesting and that could tie in w this theory:

[pupkashi]

you and satoru are just parents of 3 children who love only you very very much <3

a/n: hi and happy easter friends !! thank you for the idea !! i hope u enjoy this much too long drabble of the trio and gojo + reader <3

wordcount: 968

masterlist

“okay guys in honor of Easter I’ve made an egg hunt for you all!” gojo stood proudly, his ego deflating as soon as the three student ignored him and went right back to talking to each other.

you walked up to the group with a smile, three baskets in hand as you called out to the group, “did he tell you guys about the egg hunt? i think i hid the eggs quite well” you boasted, handing the students their baskets.

“you helped with the egg hunt?” megumi asked, itadori and nobara looking at you expectantly. you nodded your head with a smile, “i thought it’d be fun! do you guys not like egg hunts? we don’t have you if you guys don’t wanna!” your excitement toning down, afraid you’d over stepped.

“what are we waiting for let’s fucking go!” nobara got up, a smile on her face, “y/n sensei do we get a prize if we find the most?!” yuji called out, already searching behind some bushes for the colorful eggs.

“did we decide on a prize?” you turned to satoru, his gaze was already on you, a smile on his face.

“you can hang out with y/n without me there” satoru called out, you stifled your laughter.

“satoru i think they’d want a better priz-” you were cut off by the way the three students snapped their heads up.

“are you serious? get out of my way fushiguro!” nobara ran past the raven haired sorcerer, pushing him as she passed, “i deserve this!”

yuji and megumi locked eyes, the two of them also breaking out into a sprint.

“told ya, they love you” satoru smiled, pressing a kiss atop your head. you smiled as you watched the three students check every crevice of the campus.

it only took them 30 minutes to find every last one of them, the three showing up with their baskets full and their eyes bright.

“got all of ‘em?” satoru asked, not bothering to detach himself from your side.

“okay nobara how many d’ya get?” you asked, the girl finished counting the eggs and looked at her friends with a smug look on her face.

“15” she stated proudly, you nodded your head.

“megumi?” the boy counted his eggs, then he recounted them. his brows furrowing and his lips turning into a barely noticeable pout.

“15” he grumbled, nobara’s mouth opening in shock. you smiled at their antics.

“yuji? how many eggs?” the boy smiled, counting his eggs beofre smiling proudly.

“16!” he beamed, the other two immediately tackling him.

“you dirty liar! there’s no way you got more than me!” “recount them you idiot you probably double counted!”

gojo laughed at the way they practically ripped the basket from the boys hands, recounting his eggs before staring at yuji with accusing looks.

“you have 15!” megumi stated, smacking the pink haired boy upside the head.

“oops,” he giggled, staring at you and gojo.

“three way tie? it’s almost like,” you gasped, staring at satoru, “we planned it!” satoru finished your sentence the two of you holding your hand over you mouths.

“so we don’t get anything?” yuji asked, satoru stood up from besides you, taking the three students into a tight hug.

“we got the best gift of all! time together” he smiled, the three students looking at you pleadingly. you stood up and put your hand on the small of your lovers back, causing him to let go of the students and almost immediately wrapping his arms around you.

“how does lunch on us sound?” you rolled your eyes, smiling as the three students nodded a smile on their faces as they stood up straighter.

“where are we going? can i decide this time?” yuji asked, nobara shoved him, “i get to decide this time!” their bickering caused a smile to form on both yours and satorus face.

the students walked ahead of you, satoru intertwining his fingers with yours, pulling you closer to his side and draping an arm over your shoulder.

“happy easter, sweetheart” he spoke, placing a gentle kiss to your forehead. your cheeks flushed as you pressed a kiss to his cheek, struggling a bit before he bent down a bit.

“happy easter, lover boy” you smiled, “great job hiding the eggs by the way, would’ve taken me forever to find them” you giggled.

gojo only smiled at you, “don’t tell the kids that or they’ll regret ever participating.”

you looked at you lover, pure adoration in the eyes, “you’re a great teacher, don’t forget that.”

it was satoru’s turn to blush, a smile on his face as he stopped in his tracks, pulling you into him and peppering your face with kisses.

“guys we’re hungry! can you save the lovey dovey for later?” megumi sighed, though he couldn’t help the twitch of his lips, he was happy gojo found someone perfect for him.

“they are cute together, you’ve gotta admit it” nobara sighed, yuji nodded in agreement, “think they’ll get married and have kids?” he asked.

megumi knew gojo has the ring hidden somewhere in your shared home, he’d shown it to him the he got it. “definitely,” was all he said before opening the car door.

“you won’t be the youngest anymore!” yuji teased, megumi just rolled his eyes.

satoru had finally let you go, only for you to shove him back before calling out a “last one to the car pays!” before bolting off in the direction of the car.

he could’ve caught up, he could’ve ran laps around you. but instead he ran after you, just seconds behind you and pouting when you touched the vehicle before him.

“guess I’ll just have to spoil you, huh sweets?” pressing a chaste kiss to your temple before opening the car door for you.

[nopanamaman]

hello! ppl in a discord server im in were looking at the mill and strike 3 and some discoveries were made!

1. nikitas bag shape is odd, we were naking some jokes abt it being an instrument case but is there any insight to what it actually is? is it just a normal bag?

2. theres this document in strike 3, we have no idea who this characyer is! are you able to shed some light on that or is it part of something revealed in the future? is there anyway we cpuld get a clearer version of this?

thank u :] really enjoy ur work and hope u have a nice day!

Hi!

1. Your friends are right it IS a violin case. You can see him with a kiddie one in this child drawing, too

2. Oh it's not a character lmao, I just added a drawing of a friend's sona as a little easter egg. Though I don't think I can find the original file anymore

[cobythinks]

I need to get inside your brain about your writing process. I’m new to this specific medium myself but I’m quickly falling in love with the pieces of it like pulling off a successful shock reveal (like what u were able to pull of in like every step of divided soul). Writing like yours and learning about every compounding element of Arcane or whatever else I get stuck on for a month is just so gripping, I need to learn how to emulate and embody it.

(Unrelated q but where can i get ur novel? I’m relatively new to both tumblr and ao3 lol)

For someone new to writing, I'm going to give you advice that a lot of people will give that will very quickly become annoying and repetitive: practice. I've been writing for 7+ years, and you damn better believe that my first works weren't anywhere CLOSE to Divided Soul and The Path of an Heir. So, write. Don't worry about being good, just write.

BEYOND THAT - Writing twists is somewhat of an art form, and it's one that I haven't fully perfected. Divided Soul is a great example of how I found a good way to do it, but even I'm not sure how I managed as much as I did! The biggest advice is for a first draft, if you're in a scene and you want a twist, just ask yourself "what would be the most surprising thing to happen here - without being completely out of character?" Then, once you decide your twist, GO BACK. Either after you finish the full draft, or right after you write the 'big reveal scene' and find other scenes where you can place the tiniest, smalllllest ever hints. That's what I did in Divided Soul, as well as The Path of an Heir!

Don't be obvious, but make it so that looking back a reader slaps their forehead and says 'I should have known' - even though they found out exactly when you wanted them to. (this is a hard balance to achieve, but SOOO satisfying as a writer and as a reader) give re-readers easter eggs, hints that on a first read are just one-off character moments that are secretly building toward the twist

And, something you're already doing: Read. Consume content. As I always say, you have to eat to shit.

you have to read to write. You read my works, you read other works (I assume) and you watch tv shows with cohesive plots and incredible character design. Take what you read, and use it like playdough until it's something that You Made. The more you change and tweak and adjust, the more You it'll be.

Forget the dream of an 'original idea'. The odds of 1 out of 8 billion people having an idea and being the ONLY person ever to have it? Impossible. But you're a different writer than everyone else, and tropes are beloved for a reason! Take well known tropes and put them in your own world, with your own characters, and you'll get a LONG LONG WAY.

Join writing comunities! Get other perspectives! Hop in the writers reddit, and don't even post or comment anything. Just read the advice that goes through. Find a group of friends in discord or in real life who love to write and read - these people will be your beta-readers someday, so pick good ones! lmao

Welcome to the writing medium! It's infuriating at times, but it's my biggest passion in life and I would never want to do anything else! Get some good playlists or podcasts, get a regular spot to write (I currently write while on my overnight job, but that's because I'm lucky to have a job where I can multitask!) <3

I'll repost my promo for the novel with the links, cuz ya boi was silly and forgot to add them! Enjoy this slab of advice! <3

[romirola]

Hi gorgeous! For your ask game, I wanted to ask about one of my fav fics of yours - First Feeding of Forever. I LOVE how how you write vince&lovely!!

6- What do you need to write? Is there anything special you need to do/have to help your creative flow?

19-Is this one of your personal favorite fics? Why or why not?

20-What is something you wish more people noticed about this fic? (you are always so good on details and Easter eggs, nothing is accidental, so I'm just curious!)

LOVE U ❤️

Thank you for this lovely ask about First Feeding of Forever, Floof! Love you, too! <3

Ask game here (Still open!)

6- What do you need to write? Is there anything special you need to do/have to help your creative flow?

I think the most important thing I need to write is time. I like knowing I have the time to think about the story and to figure out how to get that story onto the page. I need the story to play out in my head. I try to avoid needing certain circumstances or particular items to write because I feel like doing so invites superstitious obstacles to writing. That way, I'm not dependent on the time of day, my mood, or other sometimes-uncontrollable factors to interfere with writing.

19-Is this one of your personal favorite fics? Why or why not?

Every fic I ever write is my baby, First Feeding of Forever included. That sounds so cheesy, but it's true. Something I really like about this fic is that it sheds light on Vincent's insecurities about being a maker as much as it does let Lovely go bloodlust-feral like they deserve. The fact that we don't have bloodlust!Lovely is a crime, but at least I can help to fill that void with a fic!

20-What is something you wish more people noticed about this fic? (you are always so good on details and Easter eggs, nothing is accidental, so I'm just curious!)

Thank you! I admit, I spend way too much time embedding little details and connections between all my Redacted fics. Something I would draw attention to in this fic is the live-feeding process, where part of a vampire's magic actually guides their teeth to a vein so they can drink. Additionally, I think some of the description between blood bags and live feeds helps to rationalize why bags alone cannot sustain a vampire. It feeds (ah!! "feeds" get it?) into my headcanon of blood donors to support the vampiric community. Here's a bit of an excerpt from that passage:

“Excellent,” Vincent praised. “Now, when you get close to their skin, you’ll find that you’re magically drawn to a vein. That’ll be the best spot to puncture.”

Lovely followed Vincent’s instructions, leaning into the almost-magnetic pull they felt towards the human’s jugular. “Here,” they pointed, pulling down their collar a bit to expose the skin. “I feel it. Right here.”

“You’re doing really good, Lovely,” Vincent smiled. “Now, slowly and gently, you’re going to angle your top fangs to sink in right there.”

As Vincent spoke, Lovely bit down. The soft squish sound reverberated in their highly sensitive ears.

“There you go, there you go,” Vincent grinned encouragingly. “Now feed, Little One. Feed.”

Lovely eagerly did as Vincent told them, sucking every drop of blood from the unempowered human. They licked their lips gratefully, feeling the rush of energy and satisfaction fill their with every swallow. The blood was warm, much warmer than when the liquid came from a thawed blood bag. The flavor was thick, almost cloying, but Lovely lapped up every bit of it. They glanced up at the unempowered human, nervous they would see fear or disgust. They didn’t. The trance had kept the human blissfully unaware of what was happening. It didn’t take long for them to feel full. Because the blood was from a live donor and they were just starting to enter this phase of the bloodlust, their stomach was not yet adjusted to needing a full unit.

“Getting full,” they murmured through mouthfuls, suddenly afraid to let their lips leave the human’s skin for fear that they would bleed out. “What do I do now?”

[radiant-reid]

Do u have any other fics lined up?? Now after reading truth I want more! If you need ideas here are some I was thinking about (just for fun pls don’t feel pressured to use these or even read them if u think they r too boring)

1. Spencer with a reader whose incredibly cynical about love like he keeps proposing and she keeps saying no

2. What about dad Spencer with a daughter who is getting bullied?

3. Any sort of angst to fluff fic

so many !! and you gave me the most amazing idea, thank you !!

ugh i didn't realize i could only do ten !!!

more info below

3. Cat has Spencer's pregnant wife kidnapped and planned to be killed, exactly like he first requested she do when they met in 11x11

4. Spencer and Reader's daughter gets stood up, and she tells Spencer that he would have never done that to her mom. the problem is, he did, and he starts to wonder if they're right for each other

6. basically a she fell first, he fell harder situation

7. spencer goes to prison and takes reader off the visitor list, at a time when she needs him as much as he needs her. he gets out to find that she's gone... and that she was pregnant

8. spencer and reader have a bit of a crush on each other and when it finally looks like they're going to get together, there's an angst-causing miscommunication

10. this one is riddled with Noah Kahan easter eggs

[magical-girl-topic]

Possible most hated magical girl anime

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt is a magical girl anime which many people have had a problem with the past couple of years. I'm not really on either side of the argument about this anime, but I would like to talk about it on here. <3 Both sides have great points, and I would really like to share it with you guys. Thanks for the support recently :3 I'll get on w/ it now.

Ever since its come out, I've heard a lot of mixed opinions on PASWG, and I can see why. I watched this anime in early 2020, due to getting A TON of cosplays of these two angel sisters on my tiktok fyp. x3

To get it out of the way, personally I do really like this anime, I think its very funny, the character design is awesome! And overall, its just fun to watch. I understand why so many people have a problem with it though

The first problem I've noticed, was racism.

One of the biggest controversies paswg has had with the magical girl, and overall just anime community, has been their many racist character designs. While this was made in the early 2010's (2012 to be exact), and it is based off of popular adult animation at the time, like South Park, and Family Guy, which also has had some very offensive characters in it, it doesn't really change the fact that the designs we're racist, and very offensive to a lot of viewers.

In PASWG, they used a lot of racist stereotypes against POC for their designs, a lot of people have only recently spoke out about this, and the anime, and fandom, has gotten a lot of backlash.

(When I say recently, I don't mean too recent, I'm kinda late on this subject, but I do still see a lot of people talking about it to this day. When I mainly started seeing people speaking out about this, it was late 2020- early 2021)

While that is obviously a problem for the anime, it's not completely bad, I mean don't get me wrong, the anime isn't the greatest, but personally, I don't think it deserves too much hate.

I think the artwork is incredible, the animation style and just the way everything moves is insanely gorgeous, the colors chosen for every single scene is pure eye candy.

There's loads of references in every episode, it has me so focused on every little thing to find every little easter egg possible its insane. xD Their pet, chuck, himself is an entire reference to Gir from invader zim. I've found a list of every reference in each episode, which I'll link here if you wanna look.

You should check that out its pretty cool <333

I'm not going to go full in depth of every problem and every plus there is to this anime because loads of people have done that, and I'm just writing this for fun and because it's what I enjoy. There's loads of other blogs and articles on paswg, which if this was of any interest to you, I advise looking into it <333

PASWG is a super cool, but pretty strange anime, and if you've got the time and wanna check it out yourself, theres only 14 episodes, so you totally should and let me know your opinion on paswg! <3 (And I'd love to hear urs if you've already watched it!! :-))

Thank you for reading this blog, it means a lot. :33 I love u guys sm, thx 4 the support, be ready 4 some more blogs and I'll cya soon! xoxo bye bye!

[ultra-raging-ghost]

🌻 :D

YIPPEE omg ok so I'm using this opportunity to dump my OC STORYLINE!!!

So I HAVE a whole extended ocu but I decided to instead rebuff one of my old cheesy comics I made in 7th grade and now I'm gonna tell u about it

so the one on the left is Alice and the one on the right is Eric and they meet at uhhh a sort party?? a coven party?? whatever the femme version of a frat party is they meet there on Halloween and Alice is a human and Eric is like from the ~Underworld~ (currently unnamed its not really the underworld) but Eric doesn't know that, because it's Halloween and its the one night of the year when both places can mix and little did Alice know, she entered a REAL covens house party, and they left out the Wrong Door (oooo)!!!

Its at this point Alice is like "where are we???" and Erics like "Idk, the west end of the labyrinth? Sorry if you don't live around here, but I do, so do you wanna spend the night at my place?" and shes like "no where the FUCK are we, this place is NOT planet earth" and Eric's like oh.... goddamn that's crazy, ur a human person!!!

But Eric isn't allowed back inside the party (iirc it was a party dedicated to Diana? it was a girls only party) so the door closed and disappeared behind them, and they have to find a different way to get Alice back to earth, while exploring the labyrinth!!!

They meet a lot of people along the way so I'll go through them >:D

So these are mostly Background people - Honey and Eric are like self-adoptive siblings (Honey is older), shes absolutely horrified at Alice's presence <3

Amare and Burlesque are my ocu UNIVERSE HOPPERS (slash 4th wall breakers kind of, but not really)!! So they're just kind of everywhere!!! They're mostly just an Easter egg that would pop up in the bg of the comic for me and my irl who know who they are hehehehe

PETAL is SO NORMAL 🙂 bro guys petal is so fucking normal 🙂 guys no don't worry, please make a deal with petal 🙂 dude petals so trustworthy and totally doesn't look act and deal like Beetlejuice 🙂

and the bartenders just cute!! :D

so this is Ichi and Ni (aka 1 and 2 bc when I was making them I was just calling them little guy 1 and little guy 2)

Ni is a parasitic creature, who exchanges bodily fluids with humans in order to reproduce/continue on the species (This came to me in a dream, but his species exchanges blood/saliva/etc. with human beings, and the DNA exchanged starts growing inside the human incubator, first taking them over spiritually and then physically before emerging as a completely new being, shedding the human shell :D)

And Ichi is a human!! Woah, I know. Humans aren't supposed to be here! But upon encountering Ichi and Ni, Alice and Eric discover that there's like a fair amount of humans who find companionship in the inhabitants of the labyrinth and choose to stay here instead of returning back to earth! they live in ~disguise~ and are usually under the protection of someone who cares for them, usually a lover (in Ichi and Ni's case), but it doesn't always have to be!!

After discovering Ichi, Ni provided them with a mask and a faux tail, as well as an Omamori (protection talisman!!) and they started a very deep emotional relationship! Ni is hesitant to touch Ichi, as if they exchange any sort of fluids it would mean Ichi's complete ego and physical death, but they still try to be affectionate!!

They provide Alice with a different path! Instead of needing to return, she has the opportunity to join a coven or don a disguise and stay here if she truly wanted, or she could return home and nobody would be any the wiser!

I haven't decided how it ends yet, but that's it so far :D

[merakiui]

AAAAAAHH THE SCARA FIC!!! it was so good!! the part where he's mean to us for attempting to receive help from teyvatcord rather than the internet ( ; ω ; ) and the fact u call it teyvatcord instead of discord is so cute!! honestly I feel like that small detail made me enjoy it 10x more because I'm a sucker for little canon eastereggs—and!! the harbingers and knights of favonius mention (scaras right, that name is lame!! like, who names their team 'knights of favonius') T_T sobsob <33 scara being mad at his teammates was so adorably funny hehe — that whole little segment was so funny and domestic , him mocking us and the little bickering between us <33 AND!! THE ENDING (＠_＠) don't even get me started orz.. he was surprisingly cute and somewhat nice T_T and his little ego-boost and cocky demeanor after finding out it was our first time!! (>_<) and, and!! him crying at the end aaaaa my heart orz

AND I SEE U ALREADY UPDATED UR LUNAR LOVE HOTEL M-LIST (≧▽≦)!! it's cute how u give us a little snippet and idea of what the next work will be about and who will be featured (excited for the idia piece!!) :3 I'm not really sure what u plan working on next (I think u mentioned dru? :o) but either way I am so excited and ready for anything u post (๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ reading ur work always makes me happy; your blog is an addiction for me!! (>_<)

I hope u have a good rest of your weekend and make sure to rest up if you can!! :D u deserve any and all rest u can get after all the effort and work you put into feeding us so well ^_^

AHAHDHWHF (ᗒᗣᗕ)՞ I LITERALLY JUST SENT AN ASK IN BUT I FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH I LOVED SCARA COOKING FOR US (｡T ω T｡) he was so cute and such a little loser wanting to make sure we got three meals a day and keeping us comfortable (＞﹏＜) and the way we were teasing him about it aaaa!! the crumbs of scara's domesticity while being in his captivity LOLL

- - -

LOVELY, WONDERFUL, SWEET ANON, THANK YOU FOR SUCH A KIND MESSAGE OMG!!!!! ＊*♡( ⁎ᵕᴗᵕ⁎ ）

I'm very flattered you liked the little easter eggs I sprinkled throughout. I like the sound of Teyvatcord; it's really cute, so I'm happy you could enjoy it as well! And the Knights of Favonius versus Harbingers for the tournament Scaramouche was complaining about... I had fun mentioning it! Hopefully his team can win in the tournament!!! ᕙ( •̀ ᗜ •́ )ᕗ and subtly dropping Xiao into the story, too!! >:D aaaaa so many fun little allusions are packed in there!!

But I'm glad you liked the part where he's getting angry at his teammates (writing "can you stop spamming the chat for five seconds, Tartaglia? Damn!" had me cracking a silly smile because I could hear it in his voice so perfectly). I had so much fun writing that scene and his banter with Reader!! They have such a fun chemistry. >0< and his ego boost at learning you're a virgin!! He shouldn't let it feed his pride too much because he's also a virgin LOL. I had fun writing the sex scenes. Scara is so cute and lovable when he isn't being a bully. <3 originally, he was going to be very mean and it would be more so punishment sex than anything, but I liked the idea of Scara softening over the fact that it's your first time as well. Even he can be sentimental at times hehe!!

And cooking for you yes!!!! Beyond the death threats, he cares in very subtle ways and one of those is making sure you're always fed. It's perfect domestic malewife energy. Scara just wants you to be content when you're here as his kitten-captive-roommate???? All of those things... orz he's a loser, but he's a loser who cares and isn't that so sweet!!!! ^v^

I did indeed update the masterlist hehe!!! :D I'm happy to know you're looking forward to Idia's ficlet! As for what I am working on next, the upcoming chapter for DRU is halfway complete, so I might release it before finishing "The Most Dangerous Game" (a yan!Jade fic). After those fics, I'll either finish Dr. Riddle, the next Bittersweet Secret chapter, or begin writing yandere!Trey. I hope those fics can be something you can look forward to!!! (˚ᗜ˚*)

Thank you again for enjoying what I post!!! <3 I'm glad that it can make you happy!!!!! And I will be sure to get plenty of rest! Please also make sure to get enough rest and eat delicious foods and drink water and don't forget to take any medicines or vitamins you may need!!!

[b0rtney]

A spoilers summary u say??? Ohoho I can provide 🫡

SPOILERS FOR BIOSHOCK BELOW!!!!!

U r some guy named Jack. Ur name is the least important thing to this game tbh. An Easter egg more than anything lmao. Anyway ur on a plane lookin at a postcard and a present from ur parents. The present is a bomb and the post card says u should blow up the plane at particular coordinates. So u do!! Now the plane has crashed in the middle of the Atlantic and u r the only survivor, but there’s a lighthouse conveniently located 50 feet to the left— neato! So inside the lighthouse u go downstairs into a submarine takes u to an underwater city and u remember this part from my other summary— guy named atlas wants ur help finding his family, tenenbaum wants u to undrug the kids she drugged, Andrew ryan is pissed that ur in his city bc he thinks ur tryna steal stuff, etc— so heres where it gets good: u get atlas to the submarine where his wife and kid r waiting, and then Ryan blows up that sub before atlas can get on. Oh no!! U say, that poor man!!! Well then it turns into a revenge mission and atlas is like "bro we gotta kill andrew ryan he killed me wee boy patrick and me wife moira!!!! >:0" but the thing is that very much didn't happen because atlas is actually an unmarried and (probably) childless tech billionaire/scam artist/elon musk whose real name is frank fontaine-- which u recognize if u have been looking at the ads for both fontaine futuristics (where tenenbaum was hired to drug the kids) AND fontaine's orphanage and home for the poor. so yeah. the only kids that are "his" are the orphans he hired tenenbaum to turn into drugged up mitochondria. and once andrew ryan gives u the worst pep talk in the world where u beat him to death with a golf club bc he asked u to and he reveals ur a 3-yr-old test-tube baby genetically designed to be pavlov's sleeper cell, fontaine/atlas betrays u and is like ok i super dont need u anymore byeeee <3 but tenenbaum is like aww but who gonna undrug my kids now? so she and the kids save ur ass and tenenbaum is like alright baby step 1 fix ur pavlov response, step 2 kill fontaine, step 3 profit. so u do that! actually u do steps 1-2.5, but the kids deliver the killing blow to fontaine, potentially as a fuck-you for the years of being drugged up mitochondria constantly under threat of death? anyway, then there's a cutscene that changes depending on if u were nice or mean to the kids. i am a good noodle so the "good" cutscene is that u take the kids topside, raise them as ur own, and eventually die of old age after living long enough to see ur kids go to college, get married, have kids, and all the other stuff they wanna do. Its a beautiful end. u actually might cry. i cried fr. play bioshock. its fun!

[v-anrouge]

oooooh r u still doing the matchups 🥹🥹

Love Language: Words of Affirmation/Quality Time :3

Hobbies: Writing, Reading, Sleeping (?) Daydreaming, and Drawing

Personality: Irl I’m really quiet around people I don’t know and I get annoyed easily (😞) and I’m also really impatient with stoopid people who have no common sense BUT ALSO I like my friends a lot and I’m really loyal and I get like really talkative towards my friends and I like supporting them also I get really competitive with academics and I guess I’m hardworking (?)

I Like being alone more and more introverted and I also get tired and overstimulated when it comes to loud social gatherings :3

pairing you up with; malleus!

malleus and you are quite similar to eachother, both introverts that prefer to have their own little time instead of being out in a party with their friends and people that despite being very gentle and sweet can get annoyed quite easily.

he finds it really cute how much you change when you're around someone you know well and someone you don't, he really enjoys to see the way you open yourself up and gets so excited and talkative around him, especially if you two are talking about art which is something you're both interested in. im like pretty sure malleus says he's interested in books but if he isn't dating you will 100% turn him into a bookworm, he loves to read the things you write, and he's always asking questions about it, he wants to know the process you had while writing it, what pushed you to do it, what were your inspirations and much much more, he gets very determined to find out every little thing about your works and get even the tiniest easter eggs and references so he can talk about them with you and he just looks so proud when he manages to make you happy by the amount of attention he gave your work

malleus is also quite competitive, and he loves when you two enter a playful banter about who can do something better, it always ends up with the both of you laughing until your stomaches are hurting and both of you have tears in your eyes, this is something he'd never experience before, being so casual and careless with someone, being a prince he was always isolated from the rest of the world for his protection, he never got to the experience what everyone else did as a child, that's why getting to be like this with you makes him so happy, you mean so much to him and he'll never be quite be able to properly express how grateful he is for having you by his side

[kithtaehyung]

RYEN I MISS YOU 😭 been swamped with work as usual ☹ madame, even if you set a goal post like 1000 for 3tan BBQ pt2 (IT'S GONNA BE SPICY???), you already know we'll hit it in like 1-2 business days 💀 just prepare your inbox though 💀💀💀

anyway, I love your work as usual 🥰 I didn't get to answer your ask last time on why your writing is so special, but basically your work is so much fun to read and re-read because you:

- put in a lot of easter eggs omg

- are very inclusive, thoughtful, and so, so accommodating 🥺

- are so consistent with the characters and storyline. I asked you this before if you had it all plotted out and I think you said no, just the main storyline, which was a shock to me because of your consistency

- your way with words. one of my faves being the usage of moonlight, sunshine, the deep, blue, vast ocean (basically everything in Forfeit 💀). it's kinda like story, story, spiceeee, story, then suddenly, beautiful metaphors. you write simply, but very beautifully 🥰

this quickly turned into a Ryen lovefest bec I missed u 🥺 anyway, 3tan BBQ pt2 please I beg. I need more wet demon Yoongi and hot reader who doesn't back down with her gaddamn sundresses and lollipop 😍

- also, the back scratches yes omg hot, but hickeys???? MARKING RYEN??? YES

- them calling Yoongi out for being whipped and him not denying *melts*

- Shiv and Dom, I adore their dynamic omg 💀

- 3tan Bro, I missed him sm 😭

- Jimin and Tae, my sweet baby cupids 😍 I will assume this is after they heard all the 3tanW shenanigans 💀💀💀

This ask is a mess. I am a mess 💀

ANNE I MISS YOU TOOOO😭 looks like we've both been super busy lately.. hopefully you find some time to yourself to rest<3 and lmfaooo i dunno if we'd ever do a goal post of 1,000! i thought 500 was lofty enough💀 but you're too damn kind to think it could be done!

as for the fanfic writer specialty points: thank you! easter eggs are incredibly fun to incorporate in stories, and dear god i want everything to be as inclusive as possible bc i know what it's like to feel excluded from a story, if that makes sense? i hated that feeling when i was reading regularly, so that's why i try my absolute hardest to not let anyone feel left out while reading something i wrote. even though all my written readers are poc/bipoc to me, i still make an effort to keep the stories inclusive.

as for the consistency, thank you! that's something that i have to keep in mind bc of the organic nature of 3tan. if i plot too much, it messes with my flow lol but then i have to keep going back to see what happened and keep going from there.

AWHHHH thank you for the word play comment.. that makes me happy bc i've noticed it while writing sometimes. like "oh, i guess this is a running theme i like to use, huh?" lol then i try not to do it too too much. and writing simply helps me bc i'm already using enough brainpower as is, so to be able to let a lot of things be simple and short eases that workload.

AHAHAH lollipop is on the way!! you caught the hickey thing, huh.. that might come up again in the next part lmfaoooo and shiv and dom! loved them in this and there could be more in the future for sure. i missed all of these people, too<3 3tan bro is a sweetheart in this one and i'm glad we were able to see more of his true character! and we don't know where this is in the storyline (if it is at all!) so who knows what context vmin have here lmfao

thank you for reading and for all of the thoughtful words, wow.. i miss you so much so seeing this message made me scream!!