#there's a little bit of the fallout of my breakup in here

[drowning-in-paragraphs]

(UN)FINISHED BUSINESS

PART 2: (UN)FINISHED CHEMISTRY

• jude bellingham x exgf!reader

• warnings: maybe a little bit toxic? nothing alarming. But English is still not my first language.

• summary: When forced to do an Adidas campaign together, Jude and his ex-girlfriend clash over unresolved tension and venomous words, igniting old wounds. However, their chemistry is undeniable beneath that professional facade.

The bright lights of the studio beat down with a harsh, sterile intensity. It was the kind of artificial brightness that made every flaw visible, every tense glance impossible to miss. The photographer called for adjustments to the set, the stylists hovered nearby, and the air conditioner hummed in the background―a soothing contrast to the palpable tension that dominated the room.

Jude Bellingham stood tall at one side, his body language exuding ease and confidence, though his eyes burned with an intensity that had nothing to do with the camera. He was dressed in head-to-toe Adidas gear, a sleeck black tracksuit that clung to his athletic frame, his hands casually in his pockets. His dark eyes, however, were fixed on the woman standing a few feet away―her.

His ex.

She´d tried so hard to appear unaffected when she walked in, her expression carefully schooled into professionalism. Dressed in a matching Adidas apparel, her perfectly combed hair that framed her lightly made up face minutes before, she looked the picture of calm. But the way her fingers tightened around the water bottle in her hand betrayed her. Jude had always known how to read her.

He forced himself to stop looking at her. Her hair fell in soft waves over her shoulders, the Adidas outfit hugging her in all the right places, accentuating her figure in ways that Jude was painfully aware of. His jaw clenched.

It had been months since they last saw each other. Months since the vicious breakup that left them both battered emotionally. The fallout had been public and brutal―spilled out into the tabloids, whispered about in interviews. Yet, here they were, forced to endure each other´s presence for the sake of their contract with Adidas. The irony wasn´t lost on any of them. They had signed for the brand long before their messy split. Neither of them had been smart enough to consider the long-term consequences. Now, they were stuck together, fake smiles plastered across their faces for the cameras and a product niether of them gave a damn about.

They used to be a power couple, that´s why they were hired in the first place. Now they were just exes with unfinished business and buried resentment that resurfaced when they looked at each other for more than three seconds.

"Perfect, now, Jude can you step a little closer to her? We need chemistry to really come through in these shots," the photographer called out, adjusting his lens.

Chemistry. The word lingered in the air like smoke. Jude´s lips twitched into something that could´ve been a smirk if it wasn´t so bitter. Chemistry. Right. There was plenty of that, but not the kind Adidas was hoping for.

He stepped closer, catching a whiff of her perfume―the same one she used to wear when they were together. The same one he had gifted her once. It was ridiculous how something so small could throw him off balance. She glanced up, her eyes catching his for a split second before she looked away. But it was enough. Tension crackled between them, so sharp and undeniable that they both wondered how everyone in the room wasn't as overwhelmed as they were.

"Closer please," the photographer asked again.

This time, she swallowed hard and obeyed moving toward him. Jude stood there, hands in his pockets, still, his gaze intense, his presence infuriatingly cool. It took everything in her not to react to him.

Not to flinch when his scent, familiar and exasperatingly intoxicating, hit her. That same cologne that she used to love.

Professionalism. That was the only thing keeping her from walking out of this room.

"Close enough for you?" Jude asked, with his voice low, just for her to hear, laced with a mocking smile. She avoided rolling her eyes. That was his way of dealing with things, she knew it well. Acting as if nothing had happened, even upsetting her, when in reality, his anger was eating away at him.

"Perfect," the photographer chimed in, unaware of the undercurrent swirling between the two. "Now, you should put your arm around her, and you should lean into him a bit. Make it look natural, like you´re both having a good time."

She almost laughed at the absurdity of it. Good time? There was no such thing between them anymore. She tensed as Jude´s arm snaked around her waist, his fingers grazing her side. For a moment, they felt natural, as if his hand belonged there. The touch sent sparks flying across her skin―both the kind that burned an the kind that made her stomach twist in an old, familiar way.

He leaned closer when the photographer looked at the pictures, lips brushing her ear. "This used to be easy."

She didn’t even deign to look at him, a faint smile playing on her lips as the camera clicked. “Don’t talk to me,” she said, her voice dripping with impatience. “I just want this to be over as soon as possible. I have things to do.”

"Hmm." Jude gave a nonchalant shrug, his voice dripping with false understanding. "Got it. Wouldn’t want to keep that benchwarmer of a boyfriend of yours waiting too long, right?" He turned his gaze back to the camera, clearly unfazed by her possible reaction. "I thought it would take you a little bit more to move on..."

Her pulse quickened, heat rising to her cheeks. She knew exactly what he was referring to. The rumors. The whispers about her and another footballer of the Premier League. She hadn´t confirmed any of those rumors—not because they were true, which weren´t, but because she didn´t owe anyone an explanation. Least of all him.

She changed her posture slowly, and finally met his eyes. "You´re one to talk about moving on, Jude," she said, her voice icy as she could manage. "How many instagram models have you cycled through in the last six months?"

A flicker of something dark passed through Jude´s eyes, but it was gone just as quickly, replaced by that infuriating smirk. "Oh, we´re going there?."

"You started it," she said calmly, barely maintaining her pose as the photographer circled them, blissfully unaware of their venomous exchange. "You just can´t stand the thought of me moving on, can you? But the again, you never could handle competition."

He chuckled, a laugh that felt forced but also genuine. "It´s not competition if the guy is not even good enough to get on the pitch, love." The nickname sent shivers down both of them, and Jude felt his heart pounding. He leaned in slightly, lowering his voice as if sharing a secret. "But honestly? It’s just sad to watch you settle for less."

Her eyes flashed dangerously, and for a moment, Jude thought she might slap him. But instead, she took a slow, deliberate breath and stepped back, breaking the proximity between them.

“Screw you,” she snapped, her voice laced with frustration. “You´ve spent the last months parading around every influencer who bats her eyelashes at you. Don´t talk about my personal life," she let slip, even though her initial intention was to shut her mouth.

His jaw tightened, while his grip on her waist firmed. It wasn’t painful, but his hands made their presence known. She saw the flash of anger in his eyes. Good. Let him feel it.

The camera clicked again, capturing the tension that was almost palpable between them. The photographer murmured something about "great intensity" in their poses, but they barely heard him. He went to clean the lenses or something like that, again, they didn´t care.

The moment he left, they remained frozen in their poses, face to face, almost touching. The height difference between them became increasingly evident, adding a subtle weight to the tension in the air. He could almost smell the fresh mint on her breath, a crisp, invigorating scent that awakened his senses and made him acutely aware of their closeness.

"You think I moved on just to spite you? Grow up, Jude."

Their faces were inches apart, the fire in her eyes reflecting his own. "Then why him?" He didn’t even care who the guy was; he would have felt the same way whether it was some athlete or just a random man.

She didn´t flinch, her gaze holding his with a steely resolve. "Because he is not you."

The word hung in the air between them, heavy and loaded. Jude´s heart pounded in his chest, and for a split second, all the anger, all the bitterness, melted away, leaving only the raw, painful truth of it all.

He still wanted her. He still missed her. And he hated himself for it.

"Alright, everyone, sorry for the interruption—looks like the lens was a bit dirty! Let’s get back to it and capture some more friendly shots. Jude, why don’t you hug her from behind like you’re playing?"

They both appreciated the photographer's interruption and took a moment to reposition themselves with a bit of caution. As she closed her eyes, she felt the warmth of his arms resting on her shoulders and the closeness of their waists. Holy mother of God.

Jude´s breath was hot against her skin, and it took everything in her not to react, not to crumble under the weight of it. Because as much as she hated to admit it, he wasn´t wrong. She did miss him. The way he made her feel alive and on fire, even if it was chaotic and messy and sometimes unberable. She hadn´t felt anything close to that since him. And it scared her.

"You still flinch when I touch you," he smirked, now his thumb brushing over her hip just slightly. “And you miss me…”

"I don´t flinch, Jude. I recoil," she lied, smiling a little bit genuine. “And you wish.”

Jude leaned in, his perfect grin prepared for the camera but meant only for her eyes. With a playful glint, he whispered, "Liar." The word hung between them, teasing and electric, making her heart race.

She bit her lip, refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was right. But the way her heart pounded, the way her body still reacted to his touch—she hated it.

The final shots were even more intimate—his arm around her waist, her hand on his chest, their faces inches apart. Every touch felt like it was setting her on fire, but she wouldn’t let him win. She wouldn’t let him see how much he still affected her.

As they wrapped up, the photographer thanked them both, oblivious to the war that had been raging between them. The moment the cameras stopped, she stepped away from him, desperate for space, for air.

But Jude wasn’t done.

“Guess I’ll be seeing you around then,” he said, his voice casual, but there was an undercurrent of something more—something unresolved.

She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to hold herself together and half-joked. “God I hope not.”

Jude hesitated, his usual cocky demeanor slipping for just a moment. “For what it’s worth… I didn’t mean for things to end like they did.”

She glanced at him, surprised by the sincerity in his tone. But before she could respond, the mask was back—the teasing smirk, the cocky swagger.

“And for the record,” he added, his voice low as he passed by her, “you do miss me.”

She rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t deny the truth that lingered between them. Despite everything—the anger, the bitterness, the pain—she did miss him.

He did too.

As she watched him walk away, a small smile tugged at the corner of her lips, despite herself. They might have been a mess, but somewhere beneath all the fire and fury, there was still something there.

Something neither of them could quite let go.

[whereslynx]

Reader starts dating again for the first time after her relationship with Oscar. Things are a bit complicated. Seeing as she’s dating sad eyes behind Oscar’s back and while her relationship with Oscar was toxic Antonio treats her like a queen her and her daughter (spooky daughter too)

a/n: awwww my heart while writing this😭💕

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It had been a while since your relationship with Oscar ended—a relationship that had been everything but easy. From the outside, it looked like you had the perfect family. He was Spooky, leader of the Santos, a man with respect and power, someone who could walk into any room and have it bend to his will. But behind closed doors, the weight of his world had crushed you both.

It wasn’t always like that. In the beginning, Oscar had been sweet, even vulnerable, in his own way. He’d held you close, made promises of a future, of building something better for both of you and your daughter. But the pressures of gang life, the constant danger, and his need to always be in control bled into every aspect of your relationship. His temper flared, and while he’d never hurt you physically, the emotional toll became unbearable. Every fight was a battle of who could hurt the other more, every silence a cold war waiting to explode. You stayed because of your daughter, hoping that something might change, but when it didn’t, you realized you had to do better—for yourself and for her.

Your daughter, a bright-eyed, sweet little girl who had Oscar’s quiet intensity and your playful spirit, had been the glue that held you together for longer than it should have. She adored her dad, and despite everything, Oscar loved her fiercely, always wanting the best for her. But you knew she deserved to grow up in a home filled with love and peace, not constant tension.

When you finally walked away from Oscar, it wasn’t easy. You both shared a bond through your daughter, and that wasn’t something that could be severed overnight. Co-parenting had its challenges, especially with Oscar’s protective nature, but you made it work. Your daughter was the priority now.

After the breakup, dating again seemed like an impossible idea. The hurt from Oscar lingered, and you weren’t sure if you could trust someone again. But then came Antonio, or Sad Eyes, as everyone called him. He wasn’t like Oscar—at least not in the ways that mattered. There was a calmness about Antonio that you hadn’t known in your relationship with Oscar. Where Oscar had been intense, Antonio was soft. Where Oscar demanded, Antonio asked. You found yourself smiling more, feeling lighter, and for the first time in a long time, you felt like you were being treated like you mattered.

But the complications didn’t stop there. You and Antonio had been seeing each other in secret, knowing full well what the fallout could be if Oscar ever found out. Antonio had been one of Oscar’s closest boys, someone Oscar trusted to have his back in every situation. And now, here you were, secretly falling for him. It wasn’t just about your relationship with Oscar; it was about the unspoken rules of the streets, the code Antonio was breaking just by being with you. But the way he looked at you, the way he cared for you and your daughter, made the risk feel worth it.

Tonight, as you sat on the couch in your apartment, your daughter fast asleep in her room, Antonio sat beside you. He was different from Oscar in every way, and you saw it most in how he treated your little girl. Antonio didn’t just tolerate her or act like being a father figure was a burden. He loved her as if she were his own. The love and patience he showed your daughter melted you, and you couldn’t help but wonder how you got so lucky.

“You look like you’re thinkin’ hard,” Antonio’s voice broke through your thoughts, “What’s goin’ on in that pretty head of yours?” He was looking at you with that soft smile he always had when it was just the two of you.

You smiled back, leaning into him as his arm wrapped around your shoulders. “Just thinking about how different everything feels… with you.”

Antonio’s fingers gently stroked your arm, his touch comforting and warm. “Different good, I hope.”

You nodded, turning slightly to face him. “Yeah. Good.”

There was a pause, a quiet moment between you as you both let the weight of everything settle. Dating him behind Oscar’s back wasn’t easy, and you knew it was only a matter of time before you’d have to come clean. The longer you stayed with Antonio, the more you realized how serious it was getting. It wasn’t just some fling. He was becoming important to you—important to your daughter, too.

Antonio sighed, his eyes briefly flicking to the baby monitor before coming back to you. He knew. He had been around Oscar long enough to know exactly how complicated the situation was. Dating the ex-girlfriend of Spooky, the leader of the Santos, wasn’t something he had taken lightly. Antonio was loyal to the Santos—had been for years—but his loyalty to you was something else entirely.

“Hey,” Antonio said softly, bringing your attention back to him. His dark eyes were filled with a quiet understanding. “You don’t have to keep thinkin’ about the past, you know? What you had with Spooky… that’s over. I ain’t him.”

“I know,” you whispered, your hand resting on his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart under your palm. “I know you’re not.”

And you did know that. You could feel it every time Antonio held you, every time he kissed you, every time he made you and your daughter laugh. But it didn’t erase the fear of what Oscar would say, how he would react when he found out. You hadn’t told Antonio yet, but the thought kept nagging at you, and you knew you couldn’t keep it from him forever.

Antonio seemed to sense your worry, his thumb brushing against your jaw as he leaned closer. “You don’t gotta think too hard about it, you know. What we got, it’s real. It’s simple.” He assured you, his voice leading you out of the darkness that consumed you, “We’ll deal with Spooky when the time comes. Right now, it’s just you and me.”

You smiled, leaning in to kiss him, his lips soft and reassuring. For the first time in a long time, you felt safe in a relationship. Antonio treated you like a queen, making you feel loved and appreciated in ways Oscar never did. He wasn’t just filling a void left by your past—he was creating something new, something beautiful.

But the truth lingered in the back of your mind. Eventually, Oscar would find out, and when he did, there would be consequences.

But for now, in this moment, you pushed those fears aside. Antonio had been good to you—better than you could have ever imagined. He had been patient with you, waiting until you were ready to move on, ready to let someone else in. And he had been even better with your daughter. He treated her like she was his own, with a quiet kind of love that made your heart ache.

She adored him, too. It had been gradual, the way she warmed up to him, but now it was impossible to ignore. Antonio would come over with little gifts for her, books, or her favorite snacks. He would sit on the floor with her, reading bedtime stories or playing with her toys like it was the most natural thing in the world. You’d even caught him braiding her hair one night, both of them giggling as he tried to get it just right.

“She’s gonna be a badass, just like her mom,” Antonio had said that night, grinning as your daughter ran off with her crooked braid bouncing behind her. “You’re raising her right.”

Now, sitting next to him on the couch, you smiled at the memory, your fingers tracing patterns on his chest. “She really loves you, you know.”

Antonio’s face softened, his arm tightening around you. “Yeah, well… I love her too. And you.”

Your heart skipped a beat at his words, the honesty in his voice catching you off guard. It wasn’t the first time he’d said it, but it always hit you in a way that made you feel both safe and vulnerable.

“I love you too,” you whispered, feeling the weight of it between you.

The night was quiet around you, the soft glow of the lamp casting a warm light over the room. You knew that things were complicated, that Oscar’s shadow still loomed over you. But sitting here, wrapped in Antonio’s arms, you felt like maybe, just maybe, you had found something worth fighting for.

Antonio leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to your lips, and for a moment, all your worries melted away. It was just the two of you, together, figuring it out one day at a time. And no matter what came next, you knew you weren’t alone.

[rbr4c1ng]

Hii! I was wondering if you could maybe explain the bus bros fallout or p2p gate or pretty much all of the McLaughlin-Newgarden lore to me since I'm only getting in to IndyCar now and I want to be caught up before the 500. I understand this is a big ask but I've seen that youve posted about it and I just NEED to know. Any links to other pieces of lore would also be much apreciated. Completely understand if you don't want to write anything though so thank you so much I advance!! <3

YES ABSOLUTELY I WILL EXPLAIN! this is my special interest dw i could write an 18 page essay about their lore.

SO basically scott came into indycar from supercars in 2020-2021 ish and him a josef started getting along like super well, which is honestly a bit odd bc josef is known to not really let people get so close to him, so scotty is a bit of an outlier in that respect.

eventually! they make bus bros!!! wooooo everyone loves it etc etc they have fun making it…. until they don’t! leading up to their breakup there were QUITE a few clues that they knew it was gonna end in flames like scott talked about it on off track (see audio excerpt below) and on hot seats with hinch if i remember correctly?

there’s also a fair share of articles that mention it. they basically knew it was inevitable but i don’t think anyone thought it was gonna happen so quickly??

so then the winter break leading into the 2024 szn happened! this is about when i started getting really into bus bros and was honestly pretty present for some of this shit (i was at the daytona 24 and st pete so i’ve got some first hand evidence but we will get to that later)… anyways so the rumors start going around that bus bros is over around?? st pete time i think??? a little bit earlier. which is odd given that they seemed okay with each other at the daytona 24, even though i thought it was strange that they weren’t both on tower motorsports anymore cause josef switched to penske porsche but GENERALLY it seemed okay (although based on this pic idk their relationship seems a little charged atp but it’s all speculation really)

then after the rumors come out i think it was jenna fryer’s article that did it in? (idk it has a paywall on it for me right now and i don’t care enough to find it here but there’s definitely excerpts floating around) now i do recommend to take anything jenna fryer says with a grain of salt bc she is essentially a gossip columnist for all intents and purposes. but the article basically said that josef and scotty were done and scott wouldn’t answer any questions about it and was only saying that they’re fine or to ask josef about it (tea from todays 100 days to indy episode actually…). they promptly took down the bus bros merch site and have been relatively quiet since then. at st pete they talked on the podium and didn’t seem too bad but i’ve seen other clips where they won’t even sit next to each other or speak to each other so take that as you will. podiums are pretty much just publicity, cameras everywhere, you’d probably want to seem at least cordial with your teammate.

(pic 1 is mine, pic 2 is a pic of my tv from todays episode LMFAO)

so heres where most of the speculative stuff comes in. Josef dissolved his media company, unfollowed everyone, and cancelled bus bros leading into the 2024 season because he wanted to “get rid of distractions”, and really we could leave it at that, but i find it hard to believe that that’s the only thing that happened.

Josef is the dictionary definition of Penske Perfect, you won’t get any closer to it than him. he’s fucking OBSESSED with this idea of being perfect. perfect season, perfect body, perfect car, perfect team. obviously this isn’t feasible, but scotty seemed to have broken through that block in his little Penske Perfect brain and got him to LIGHTEN UP A BIT. and then the 2023 season happened. sure, josef won the indy 500 but it was one of his worst season finishes in a while and, to make matters worse, scott BEAT him. little scotty mac, supercars champion transplant from 2021 beat josef newgarden at his own fucking game after breaking down his walls and making him soft. i can see how that scared josef honestly. so he ended it. Scott doesn’t see things on a plane of winning/losing imo, everything is just experience for him. hell, he didn’t even know if he would end up in indycar and he sure as hell didn’t think he’d win races so soon AND beat his teammate. to josef, it’s JUST winning/losing. if he’s losing, he needs to be better. and he lost sight of that for the 2023 season. that’s why he had to come back and put an end to the shenanigans bc he knows scott makes him soft.

but that’s just my speculation!!!!! literally could just be nothing. maybe it is to josef, but i know for a FACT it isn’t to scott.

OH and with the p2pgate stuff! basically they had a component in their car that. was not supposed to be there! that prevented race control from turning off their push to pass like normal. (marshall pruitt has a rlly good article explaining it all here) and they were caught in long beach when race control forgot to turn on the push to pass during the sunday warm up and HMMMMM why do the penske cars still have it???? when has this happened before??? oh ok st pete! now they’re disqualified. josef used 9 seconds of p2p when it was not enabled and scotty only used 1.9 and will used none. so i’m led to believe that it was a josef-centered choice IF it was intentional to use the p2p when it was supposed to be inactive.

now josef really laid down the water works for that press conference at barber to the point that i was having a VERY hard time watching it. i felt bad for the guy. he seemed really fucking upset and i almost believe that it WASNT on purpose but. it’s just too good to be true right?

honestly i think this all could tie back to the downfall of bus bros in that scott maybe didn’t want to do the p2p thing but josef was willing to? and maybe that caused some sort of divide between them bc then again for josef it’s about Winning No Matter What, and yes scott wants to win but cheating isn’t the way for him. idk.

for more of their lore when they WERE friends, watch bus bros (duh), admit one, 100 days to indy, scott learns america: nashville, hot seats with hinch, and listen to scott’s episode on off track with hinch and rossi! also there are some very brief interactions between them on some older penske games videos before bus bros was even a thing but it’s not much. there are more but i can’t think of them rn…

sorry for rambling, if you have any more qs feel free to ask!!! i’m always available for brain picking :)

[sokuly419]

I have so many thoughts and feelings about act 1 of Arcane season 2. I don’t think I could even put them into coherent sentences right now. A few things that I can are:

— I’ve said this on a couple reblogs but I can’t shake the thoughts about it. When Cait finally lets herself break in front of Vi, I noticed Vi almost hesitate. It looks like she takes a small step back before leaning forward to catch Cait. Once she does, she doesn’t seem to hug back right away, hands closed into fists. Even when she does, her hands are still closed. When Cait slides her arms down Vi’s back is when Vi finally opens her hands. I have a feeling it means something (aside from the dropping of her guard) and we might get a parallel to it.

— Speaking of Vi dropping her guard, she does it a lot around Cait in act 1. After their kiss, the gauntlets come off. Before the uh… super heartbreaking breakup, the gauntlets come off. She completely lowered her guard before talking to Cait (who was still armed) which almost makes it worse.

— Vi already drinking a lot.

— Completely unrelated to the show itself… Maddie’s voice actress is the same one who voices the companion Cait in Fallout 4. Kinda found that funny but also a touch irritated with myself for not noticing seeing as Cait is my favorite companion (outside of Dogmeat, of course). Like I should have noticed from the lines “I have to ask…” and “… a heart like yours.” Like… she says it damn near the exact same way in the game. So that makes 2 people in Arcane related to Fallout in some way. Ella Purnell (Jinx) being the other. She plays Lucy in the show. Just a neat little bit of trivia for the Fallout fans.

— Cait, darling, I love you but you’re making it awfully hard to keep defending you. Knock it off and go get your girl back. You better have a damn good apology.

— Jinx was so unbothered for most of act 1 and I am so here for it. Especially with Sevika’s new arm.

— I see a lot of people going on about Maddie. Her vibe is all off to me. Not related to any of the leaks either (sigh). Just… nah. I dunno what it is.

— Can we also talk about the blue guy on the strike team? Come on. He’s cool and doesn’t even say a word. I want to know more about him. He has a good vibe about him… for now at least.

— Cait’s cape is cool looking.

— Heimerdinger was so unbothered. Absolutely love it. Funny lil guy.

— Viktor is Jesus?? Alrighty then.

— Mel got kidnapped?

— Ambessa needs to kindly fuck off and leave Cait alone.

—Jayce needs to not touch things sometimes. I swear. Had to go fuck around with magic at the worst time while our girls were in the middle of a fucking battle.

There’s so much more bouncing around my head but can’t quite put into words yet. I’m sure I’ll get there and have even more to say once act 2 destroys us further. Until then, let’s just focus on that kiss and not what happened after…

[secondchoice-ragdoll]

im so sorry i had an ask abt what my fav T&K moments are but i deleted the draft and the ask dissapeared too... soooooo... not doing that ever again! thats okay.

i am fond of all the eras (which in my head are 1. them being on DR, 2. right after DR, 3. the 2 ssns of AS they were on (or at least Ks ssn), 4. leading up to the breaking point, 5. the "fallout", 6. reconnecting, 7. up until covid, 8. beginning of the lockdown, 9. leading up to their tour, 10. during tour, 11. after tour until the breakup(?), 12. and now idk whats going on again but we will be smarter looking back on this time in the future) for their own special weird whatevers that they had going on. but here r my fav ones:

1.

- T picking K despite her not really contributing to her team doing well again.

- the one moment i made my header bc its very cutesy.

- K being sooo offended abt T being eliminated both on DR and after in her yt series.

2.

- those interview(?) bits where they both say they'd kaikai w each other from their season.

- besties for cash.

- also their twitter posts from this timeperiod thirsting over eachother!??!?! (+ T on reddit).

3.

- the Pandora Boxx interview w them from maybe 2016 (its still up on fb!) (atp K being on AS2 was already announced ig?)

4.

- K getting those dolls from Andrew for T (no matter how cursed they may or may not be).

- T&Ks HS reunion (them twirling around together☹)

6.

- the anecdote of them going on a hike where T says she forgives K and K's gratefulness for it.

8.

- honestly my all time fav comfort thing(s) they ever did were the pods that barely had video to them yet and were filmed at like Ts place or in hotelrooms on the floor. like. the vibes were immaculate and no matter what is going on that bunch of episodes just bring inner peace to me. forever grateful for them <33

9.

- anytime they talk abt eachother to random ppl basically unprompted (see: K's Pearl makeover, T on the latest PitStops, T on her own channel to guests) ((its just so casual and domestic)).

- i think timeperiod-vise Ks fakeout of a 40th bday party falls here. and the fact that T dressed up like that... and that pic of them and Orville in the bathroom...

10.

- all of the little moments of the live tour. there was so much going on, it was very intense and oh god i miss it soooo much. i esp loved their days in germany (or europe in general). the hugging the touching the bloopers the breeding jokes!!! insanity.

- THE VIDEO OF THEM THANKING THE SUBSTACK FUNDERS(?) AT THAT BUSSTOP.

- all the stories of them being on the tourbus or even the day they had an accident w one vechicle and they said they were worried abt each other (i only dare to list it here bc nobody got hurt as far as i know) ((did this actually happen? i think they only talked abt it like once and that would be weird and out of character for them so maybe i imagined it?))

11.

- the pod they say how they'd stop whatever they were doing just to go help the other and how they love each other the most!!

- THE TAMMIE POD.

- T saying "she is my bitch" abt K backstage (its really just that she isnt usually posessive over K so vocally. and then she was. and i was like okay wow!).

- SHE IS GOD TO ME!!!!!!!

- T straddling K on the netflick couch numerous times.

+ all of the "waterloo"s and "time after time"s.

(+ T writing Soldier and Ghost on the moon and singing You can come around if u want to right after musing abt whether we also "have a friend who we r just like 'well u could have been the loml but we met under circumstances that made us only friends so whatever!'".)

[drabbles-mc]

Second Time Around

Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Jake "Hangman" Seresin Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x OC Roman

Summary: With the way that everything ended, Jake knew that he had no right to start getting jealous now. The whole mess was on him in a way, anyway. That logic, however, didn't stop the jealousy from creeping into the back of his mind when he heard about Bradley moving onwards and upwards.And, just like everything else with the two of them, trying to figure out where to go from here wasn't nearly as easy as either of them wanted to be. They just had to hope that it was all going to work out in the end.

Warnings: 18+, language, alcohol, jealousy, angst (with a happy ending), breakups & makeups

Word Count: 9.9k

A/N: I wrote this for Fic in a Box 2023 and I absolutely became obsessed with the ride this fic took me on while writing it. I also fell in love with my OC so idk maybe I'll keep him around and put him in other fics lmao. Hope y'all enjoy!

Top Gun Taglist: @garbinge @proceduralpassion

Everyone was finally at a point where they could hang out together on a regular basis again. There was a hot minute there when everyone was being sent off in different directions. And if that wasn’t the problem, there was also the issue of the fallout between Bradley and Jake. It was the risk anyone ran when they decided to get involved with someone they worked with. Only thing was, it wasn’t as though they were all just stuck in some corporate office together. They were on-base, in the barracks, flying out on missions together. There was no time or space for hard feelings, but somehow the two of them still managed.

So it was hard fought and well earned time together at the end of the week, everyone at The Hard Deck together without it being an issue. It was easier now than it had been a few weeks prior, things getting incrementally less tense as the days ticked by. Some of that was because everyone was too busy training for the next mission, but also the farther the two of them got away from the less than amicable ending of their relationship, the easier it got to at least be civil with each other.

They hardly ever talked directly to each other if they weren’t on base and under explicit instruction to be working together in some capacity. When they were all together and out the way that they were, they always kept a little bit of distance. Everyone else was also merciful enough to run interference, even if they didn’t realize that they were doing it.

“Alright, alright,” Bradley threw his hands up in surrender as he stepped back from their crew who were all sitting gathered around the pool table, “I know, next round on me.”

“Don’t forget to get yourself one, too,” Natasha joked as Bradley pulled his wallet out of his pocket.

Before Bradley could get too far, Jake stepped in. “I got it.”

Bradley hated the way that he instantly felt his jaw clench, but he couldn’t stop himself. “It’s fine. I can—”

“You get the next one.” There was the same smug look on his face that he always had, like he wasn’t thinking about or worried about everything that had happened—like it didn’t faze him at all anymore. “Back up on your perch, Rooster,” he said as he clapped Bradley on the shoulder and passed by him.

Natasha saw the look on Bradley’s face, the tightness in his jaw and shoulders. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t do whatever it is you’re thinking about doing. Don’t take the bait.” She paused. “You know how he is.”

Bradley scoffed. “Yeah, I do.”

When Jake got up to the bar, Penny was already there waiting. “How many this time, Hangman?” Penny asked, leaning against her side of the bar.

He flashed her the same charming grin that he always did. The same one that she never bought into but still accepted without comment. “Another seven, if you don’t mind.”

She nodded as she grabbed the bottle opener and started plucking bottles to open for everyone, “You playing nice over there?”

He chuckled, holding his hands out like he couldn’t believe that she would suspect otherwise of him. “I’m always playing nice.”

“Mmm,” she hummed, smiling but letting him know that she wasn’t buying what he was trying to sell. “If you say so.” She set the bottles down on the bar-top. “Let’s keep it that way, alright?”

He nodded, flashing her a wink as he gathered the bottles in his hands. “Yes ma’am.”

Hangman made his way back to where the billiard table was. Bob was just starting to rack up for the next game when Jake started to pass out everyone’s beers. Bradley was second to last in the unofficial line. Jake held the bottle out to him.

“Little liquid courage before you lose another game to Bobby over here,” he said, nodding back over his shoulder at the man in question.

Bradley shook his head as he tucked his phone back into the pocket of his jeans. “I’m good. I gotta go, actually.”

Confusion went over Jake’s face, but before he could say anything Natasha beat him to the punch. “Really? That much of a sore loser?” she joked.

“No, no,” he shook his head with a laugh, “not this time.”

When Natasha saw the small grin starting to pull at the ends of Bradley’s mouth, she knew exactly why he was ditching the rest of them. “Oh,” she said with fake exaggeration, “I see. Ditching the rest of us for date night. Got it.”

Bradley was laughing and for a split second he forgot about the fact that Hangman was still standing right beside him. “Don’t—”

“Tell Rome we all said hello,” she remarked with a slick grin.

“Yeah,” Bradley carefully maneuvered himself so that there was a little more space between him and Jake while also putting himself slightly closer to the door, “because I know he’s dying to hear from you.” He turned and looked at Jake. “Keep the beer—guess I’ll just owe you one.”

Jake fought to keep his expression from faltering but he managed it. “Guess you will.” He paused, and everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Much to everyone’s, including Jake’s, surprise, he wrapped it up with a sarcastic but simple, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Bradley scoffed quietly. “Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.”

The tension in the air was thick enough to suffocate all of them as Rooster finally started to make his departure for real. It was going to be a make or break moment for the rest of them that were staying. If no one said anything, there was going to be a long stretch of silence until someone tried to awkwardly break through it. So Fanboy took it upon himself to stop it before it go that bad.

“Better be home before midnight, Rooster!” He motioned to Natasha, more for everyone else’s benefit than Rooster’s, “Or we’ll sic Mom on you!”

Everyone was laughing, and Bradley was shaking his head as he continued his way out. They couldn’t see the look on his face, but they all knew each other well enough by that point to know what he looked like anyway.

Once Rooster was out the door and they were all settling back down into what they had been doing before, Hangman found himself standing beside Natasha. She had an idea of where all of this was about to go, and she was desperately wishing that she had tagged in to play the game with Bob before Fanboy stole the opportunity.

“Rome?” he finally asked as the two of them watched Bob break for the start of the game.

Natasha shook her head, not even bothering to look Hangman in the eyes. “I’m not talking to you about this.”

“You announced it to the class,” he said as he shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant as he took a sip from the beer bottle in his hand. “I’m just following up.”

She wanted to make a comment about the fact that the rest of the class didn’t have any extra vested interest in Bradley’s love life, but she stopped herself from being that intentionally mean. “Follow up with Rooster. I’m sure he has more to say about it than I do.”

“How long—”

“Hangman. Stop.” They were both expecting her to sound angrier than she did. More than anything it almost sounded like she felt bad for him. Which was shocking for Natasha, and annoying for Jake. “You knew this was going to have to happen eventually. If you wanna talk about it,” she started to shift away from him, putting space to end the conversation as politely as she could manage, “you have his number.”

Rooster found himself practically bouncing on the balls of his feet outside the door of Roman’s apartment. He had the bag with their takeout in one hand as he reached forward and knocked with the other. It felt different, not bad, not strange, just different, to be starting the night off in the position instead of ending it there.

The first couple times it was just Rooster dropping him off. A kiss in the doorway, lingering and stretching out the goodbye to be longer than it necessary so that he wouldn’t turn and go back to his car, back to his own apartment. After a few more dates Bradley would go inside. They’d both use the guise of “Just one more drink before you go” but they both knew that Bradley wasn’t going to be going anywhere once he stepped in and toed off his shoes. He’d wake up early in the morning, jostle Roman’s shoulder just enough to be able to say goodbye so it didn’t seem like he was just taking off.

But now he was here at the start of it all. He didn’t know why he had the jitters—it wasn’t like it was their first date, it wasn’t even his first time inside the apartment. But it felt good. Exciting in a way that was refreshing after everything else that had happened. He shook his head to dispel the thoughts before they could carry him too far away. This was a good thing. He was going to let it be a good thing.

He heard the chain, the flip of the deadbolt, and then the door was being pulled open from the inside. Roman stood there, leaning against the door he’d just opened with the same beaming smile he always greeted Bradley with.

“Hey,” Roman greeted him sounding like he was already out of breath, like he was still a little surprised by it all.

Bradley gave him an easy smile. “Hey.” He held up the bag of takeout, laughing as he said, “Your Doordash order has been delivered.”

“Wow,” Roman laughed as he opened the door a little wider and motioned for Bradley to come inside, “Don’t remember when the drivers got so hot.”

Bradley rolled his eyes, trying and failing not to laugh as he pushed the bag of takeout lightly into Roman’s chest. “Alright. Easy.” He was shaking his head as he toed off his shoes. “Also, definitely hoping that you’re not just letting anyone delivering food here come inside your apartment.”

“Not anyone,” he said as he passed by Bradley, bringing the food to the kitchen. “Just the cute ones.”

The evening was easy in a way that Bradley needed, a way that things had been consistently with the two of them. They sat at the small counter in Roman’s kitchen and ate their takeout while they each caught each other up on the day they’d been having. Bradley left a few key details out about what had transpired right before he showed up—there was no need to drag those skeletons out of the closet in that moment.

“You’d like Natasha, though,” he said with a nod as he reached over and stole a forkful of noodles from the takeout box in front of Roman.

All he could do was laugh and let him. “That’s Phoenix, right?”

He couldn’t hide the impressed look on his face. “Yeah.”

Roman gestured with his chopsticks as he spoke. “And she flies with Bob.” He chuckled. “Who is just Bob.”

“You got a corkboard with red string here that I should know about?” he asked jokingly.

Roman laughed and shook his head. “No. But, you know, you talk about them a lot—I try to remember.”

There was something so innocent about the admission that gave Bradley pause. He lightly tapped his fork against the flimsy cardboard that held his rice. Roman was already moving along to the next thing, unaware of the fact that the man sitting at the counter with him was trying his best to store that statement into his memory bank, the look on his face, the way he said it. It’d been a long time since someone had been so genuine, almost soft in a way—Bradley had sort of forgotten what it was like to be on the receiving end of that after so many months of highs and lows.

“Bradley?” Roman’s voice snapped him out of his trance.

“Hm?”

He chuckled. “I said next time we go out, you should invite them.”

Bradley laughed. “Natasha would lose her mind. She’s been about this close to tracking my phone and kicking down your door.”

The laugh that Roman let out made it seem like he was completely unfazed. “Should I get another lock, then?”

He shook his head. “Won’t matter.” He paused, finally getting himself to respond to what Roman’s initial suggestion had been. “But yeah, that’d be good—you meeting them, I mean.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have been letting himself get swept up in all of it. This was just supposed to be casual, fun. And while meeting Rooster’s friends didn’t inherently change that, it certainly could shift the trajectory just enough. It was too soon for something serious. Bradley knew that about himself at least. But Roman seemed so earnest, it seemed like more of a crime to not let it play out. Besides, in the back of Bradley’s mind he knew that the only way to really start moving on, was to let himself start moving on.

“My brother called today,” Roman said, forever just plugging right along to the next thing.

“Oh, yeah?” Bradley tucked back into his dinner now that it was his turn to listen instead of talk. “How’d that go?”

Bradley was more than content to sit there and listen to Roman ramble on about his brother. It was a nice change of pace, listening to someone talk about people and things that had nothing to do with the Navy, nothing to do with Top Gun. Roman talked about his work, about his brother and the girl that his brother was dating, who apparently neither of them liked very much. Bradley couldn’t help but to laugh at some of the things that he was saying, the way that he’d point and click his chopsticks together when he got really into a story. Roman was funny, his humor less harsh than the people Bradley spent most of his time around. Another nice change of pace.

Dinner was long since done and over with. Their silverware was discarded into Roman’s sink, the takeout containers all tossed into the garbage. Roman had made a joking comment about he was a fan of the whole, “No dishes,” thing even when they were staying in.

They were halfway through a movie, comfortably tangled up together on Roman’s couch. Bradley had one arm around his shoulders, Roman’s head resting against his chest, their legs layered up in a way that would probably take actual effort to unravel. Bradley’s other hand was tucked behind his head as he leaned comfortably back into the couch cushions. It was an easy night, a mid-budget movie, both he and Roman spending just as much time trying to figure out where they knew all the actors from as they spent actually paying attention to the plot of the film.

Another ten minutes went by and they gave up on focusing completely, Roman’s lips pressing against Bradley’s jaw putting the final nail in the coffin. Neither of them would have even known the movie wrapped up if it hadn’t been for the drastic change in volume as Netflix started playing the trailers of other movies that they could watch next. All they could manage to do was laugh quietly about it.

“I gotta head out,” Bradley mumbled, not sounding overly committed to it even though it was the truth.

Roman heard the lack of commitment in his voice and didn’t waste a second capitalizing on it. “Doesn’t really sound like you do.”

Bradley chuckled. “I know, I know. But I do. I told you,” he let Roman steal a kiss in an attempt to distract him since it had worked so well before, but he continued on anyway, “We got that training exercise tomorrow.”

“It’s not that far from here,” he tried to rationalize.

With the way that his fingers were creeping up underneath the fabric of Bradley’s shirt, he almost found himself giving into it. Shaking his head, Bradley forced himself to take a hold of Roman’s wrist before he got too carried away. “Soon,” he tried to compromise, albeit vaguely. He could see it on Roman’s face that he wasn’t convinced. “Next time,” he haggled.

It was enough, getting Roman to drop his feigned questioning expression as he smiled and nodded. “Yeah, alright. That’s fair.”

“Just, you know,” Bradley gave him a brief kiss before starting the work of untangling himself, “place another Doordash order.”

Roman laughed as he finally let him up from the couch. “That won’t take long then.”

It wasn’t until Bradley finally got home and flopped into bed at the end of the night that he checked his phone. Most of the notifications he just swiped away. Some he knew he would ignore for now and get to in the morning, others he knew he would still be ignoring in the morning as well. He was hardly paying attention to what any of them said until he saw the text from Hangman come in. Why Jake was texting him at nearly one in the morning, Bradley didn’t know. But he knew that it probably wasn’t anything good. Still, he opened it.

“Hope the date went well”

Bradley didn’t even realize he was letting out a sigh until he was out of breath to exhale. He stared at the phone as he propped it up against his chest. It was the first text either of them had sent in a long time. It’d been an even longer time since one of them had said something to the other that didn’t have to do with work. If Bradley knew that he wasn’t going to have to see Jake in a few hours, he would block his number like he did with every other ex and be done with him. But it wasn’t that simple with the two of them. It never had been, and apparently never would be.

He was tempted to reply. He could reply and be honest, rub salt in the wound and say how great the date had gone. He wondered if Jake would have anything to say to that. Maybe he’d come back with something cutting and sarcastic. Maybe something sincere enough to try and get Bradley to feel bad. The thought also crossed his mind to reply with something cruel. They were past that for the most part but if someone had asked Bradley on any given day, he’d say that he still deserved a few more good jabs as emotional compensation about it all.

He could have said any number of things and he would’ve been well within his rights on all of them. Instead, though, he said nothing. He reread the message a few more times, scrolled back and reread some of their older texts because apparently he was still a glutton for emotional punishment, and then he locked his phone screen for the night. As he forced his eyes to shut, he couldn’t help but to wonder why Hangman texted him, or why he waited so long to text him. Was he thinking about it ever since Bradley left The Hard Deck? If he was trying to ruin the date he could’ve called in the middle of it, thrown a wrench into the plan. But he didn’t. Instead he just sent a short text in the middle of the night, leaving Bradley to spin out about it until he fell asleep. Which, he thought to himself as he was finally about to pass out, might’ve been Jake’s goal all along.

When he woke to the sound of his absurdly early alarm that morning, all he could do was groan and blindly reach around for his phone to try and turn it off. He held it in his hand, draping his arm over his face to cover his eyes, like that would block out the light coming in from the cracks in his blinds, block out all of his responsibilities for the day that he was already thinking about. He was still laying in the exact same position when his second alarm went off and earned yet another groan from him. But this time he at least got out of bed.

Bradley was in the middle of putting his things into his locker when he heard someone else walk into the room. He kept a look out in his peripheral. From the lack of a greeting alone he had a fairly good idea of who it was. He was fully planning on not saying anything to him about any of it—it wasn’t anyone else’s business anyway. But when he swung the door of his locker shut, Hangman was posted up right on the other side.

The smirk that Jake had on his face had Bradley wondering if he even remembered sending the text. Then again, shame hadn’t ever really been in Hangman’s repertoire. “Bradshaw,” he said and nodded in greeting.

He didn’t even want to entertain the conversation. “Later, Hangman.”

Bradley was halfway out the door when Jake spoke up again. “Didn’t hear back from you last night—was starting to think you didn’t wanna cop to bad news.”

He stopped in his tracks, resting one hand on the doorframe. His head dropped, chin tucking towards his chest as he let out a sigh of defeat. He knew that he wasn’t going to get out of this without having to say something.

Forcing himself to turn back around and face Jake, he said, “Not bad news. Just not news I want to talk to you about.” He shook his head. “Don’t know why you’d want to hear it anyway. Why you’d even care.”

“Just wondering who was dragging you out of the little slump you found yourself in for a few weeks there.”

“Slump?” he repeated the word back, anger already shining through his tone.

“Something else you want me to call it?”

Bradley shook his head, trying to figure out where he even wanted to try and start with everything that had happened within the last twelve hours with the two of them. He was originally just upset about the text. But within the span of twenty seconds Jake had given him a whole slew of new things to also be angry about. He didn’t have it in him to get into what the immediate fallout of their relationship had been like for him.

“You,” he shook his head, “you don’t get to text me about my dates. You don’t get to tell me that you hope it went well, you don’t get to ask me how it went. All of that stuff? Officially none of your fucking business.”

Jake’s eyebrows shot up, surprised that Bradley was so quick to anger even though it shouldn’t have been surprising at all. “Whoa, whoa,” he held his hands up in fake surrender, “I was just—”

“I don’t get why you care at all about how I’m doing. Or why you care about who I’m going on dates with or not. That’s not your business, not your problem anymore. You,” he scoffed, “made real sure of that.”

For a split second Jake’s façade faltered. He recovered quickly, and he couldn’t tell if Bradley didn’t pounce on the opportunity because he simply didn’t notice, or if it was because he really was just that desperate to be done with and out of the conversation. Either way, it took Jake longer than he wanted to admit to come up with something to say in response to that.

That hesitation was something that Bradley didn’t have any issue preying on. He continued on. “If I remember right, Jake, half the reason you ended things was because you didn’t want to care that much about dating me. You wanted to care so little, actually, that you didn’t even want to bother doing it at all anymore. So you left.”

“That’s not—”

“You walked out. Don’t get mad at me because the door got locked behind you.” There was a pause, both waiting for the other to speak. Finally Bradley did. “Don’t text me.”

It was the first time that Jake had looked anything close to defeated. He wanted to have a pithy remark, something to grant him the upper hand at the end of it all, but he came up dry. Instead he just nodded and let Bradley finally walk out of the room to go and join everyone else.

It was impossible to miss the anger that was written all over Rooster’s face. No one wanted to ask him about it, though—no one was feeling quite brave enough for that. All of the things they had to do were typically stressful enough without anything else adding to it, and yet someone was always finding a way to make it even more stressful. That someone was usually Hangman, and everyone could tell by the look on Rooster’s face that that was probably the case this time around too.

By the time that Hangman walked back into the mock classroom area where everyone else was sitting, he looked as unbothered as he ever had. The cocky smirk was right back on his face, which served multiple purposes but most importantly it made Bradley seem like he was being the dramatic one. It always seemed to end up going that way.

“Was it something I said?” he asked the room with a chuckle as he took his seat on the opposite half of the classroom from Rooster.

Once the day got underway, everyone’s personal feelings about each other fell to the wayside for the most part. They were all being pressed too hard about things that had much higher stakes than exes and dates gone wrong. It served its purpose for getting everyone to tolerate each other for the day. But then, when the lessons were done and the exercises all wrapped up, all the same old tensions came back. To make matters worse, the same tensions came back and now on top of that everyone was exhausted and frustrated about training on top of being frustrated about everything else that was going on.

And, all things being equal, it wasn’t really everyone this time around. It was just Rooster and Hangman. It almost always was.

“What happened?” Natasha asked when it was just the two of them walking inside from the tarmac, bringing up the back of the pack.

Bradley shrugged and shook his head, the expression on his face showing that he was trying to be unbothered about it all but the tension in his jaw was working against him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t do that,” she said, fighting the urge to cuff him on the back of the head. “What the hell happened last night? You were practically skipping out of The Hard Deck.”

He scoffed. The image she painted was an amusing one but it wasn’t enough to undo his frustration. “Hangman say anything to you after I left?”

“Hangman is always saying things to me. Haven’t figured out how to get him to stop.”

“Trace.”

“He asked about Roman.”

Rooster shook his head. “Of course he did.” He paused, looking over at her as they walked. “What’d you say?”

She stopped a few steps from the doorway, not wanting to bring this conversation inside the echo chamber that all the buildings on base seemed to be. “I didn’t say anything. Told him that if he had questions, he should be asking you instead of me.” She waited for him to tell her what happened, and when he didn’t, she pressed him one more time. “Bradshaw, what did he say to you?”

He nodded towards the building. “Texted me at like one in the morning saying that he hoped the date went well.”

Natasha shook her head, knowing that even though it sounded perfectly harmless, it was the exact kind of thing Hangman would do to get inside Rooster’s head. “Bagman.”

“And then this morning—" Bradley started, but the more he thought about it, the more he didn’t want to replay the entire thing. Sighing, he asked, “What the fuck am I supposed to be doing about that?”

“Same thing the rest of us do when he’s being a dick—ignore him.”

“Yeah, but—”

“He does it because he knows that it gets to you. Don’t…don’t let it get to you.” She started walking towards the building again. “Did the date go well, though?” she shifted gears, a small smile starting to appear on her face as she attempted to lighten the mood.

It worked. Bradley fell back into stride with her again as they reached the door. He pulled it open for her as he responded, “It did, yeah.”

“When do I get to—”

“He asked the same thing,” he cut her off, chuckling because he already knew where the question was going.

“He did, huh? Wants to meet your friends?”

Bradley rolled his eyes despite the warmth rising in his face. “Don’t say it like that. Besides, I think he just wants to put faces to all the weird texts he’s seen pop up in the group chat.”

Natasha laughed. “Guess that means he’s gotta meet Fanboy too.” They shared a laugh about it as they got closer to the hall where their glorified locker rooms were. “When this starts to settle,” she said as they both paused in between the doors, “it’d be nice. We can go, you know, somewhere that’s not The Hard Deck.”

Bradley couldn’t help but to laugh as he shook his head at her. The suggestion was as genuine as it was sarcastic. “Probably smart, yeah.”

He was walking out to his car, toying with the keys in his hands. The last twenty-four hours playing on repeat in his head. He’d had a few precious weeks of status quo, and then suddenly all of this. He hoped that there wasn’t going to be anything that he had to do to get it all to quiet down again. Maybe Natasha was right, the way that she usually was, and all he had to do was ignore Hangman and he’d give up. Hangman wasn’t known for being a quitter, but Bradley also remembered the look on Jake’s face when they spoke in the morning. He hadn’t looked that hurt since the night they ended things and Bradley kicked him out of his apartment, and even then, Hangman had been the one causing most of the pain.

The shower Bradley had taken when he got back to his place was much longer than what was really necessary, but he felt a little better afterwards. It didn’t fix anything, but it didn’t hurt, either. He had his shorts on, was dragging the towel over his head to wick some of the water off his hair when he grabbed his phone off the charger on his nightstand.

He saw that he had one missed call from Jake. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that calling him back would be a bad idea, but his impulsiveness won out before he could try to rationalize himself out of it.

It rang twice before he picked up. “Was starting to think you blocked my number.”

“I might if you don’t stop—”

“Don’t lie to me like that, Bradshaw,” he replied, smug as ever. “You’re not good at it.”

He sighed, sitting down on the edge of the mattress. “What do you want?”

“About earlier—”

“Don’t lie and say you’re sorry,” Bradley tried to save them both the breath of that argument. “We both know you’re not.”

“Wasn’t gonna apologize,” he replied honestly.

“Then, what?”

There was a beat of a pause. “You like him?”

Bradley let out a sigh that turned into an exasperated laugh. “You called to ask me if—”

“Yeah, I did.” It was the most earnest he’d sounded in a long time.

He carefully considered his answer. “I do, yeah.”

It was a small-scale blessing for both of them that they couldn’t see each other’s faces. Jake couldn’t hide the way Bradley’s admission gave him pause, and he didn’t think that he would’ve been able to play it off even if they’d actually been face to face.

“Okay,” he finally said.

Bradley dropped his face into the hand that wasn’t holding onto his phone. “Were you thinking I was going to say no? That this was all just some big show I’m putting on for you?”

Jake chuckled but even he couldn’t hide the sadness in the sound. “Wouldn’t put it past you.”

“This wasn’t what I wanted, you know,” Bradley said. His voice grew heavier the more he spoke. “I didn’t want it to be like this. You did. You left. I don’t,” he huffed, “I don’t even think you really miss me.”

“Hey—”

“I think you’re just upset I’m not sitting around for you while you get your shit together. You expected me to just wait.”

“You always do.”

“Not always.” There was a long pause before Bradley spoke up again. “You lost this one. You always leave everyone behind.”

“I know,” he admitted, as much to his own surprise as it was to Bradley’s.

Bradley wanted to end the call. He wanted to hang up, block Jake’s number, and then put his phone through the garbage disposal regardless of how ridiculous of a notion it was. He shouldn’t have called back. He shouldn’t be listening to anything that Hangman had to say. He definitely shouldn’t have been letting the apparent sincerity in Jake’s voice put a knot in his stomach and a lump in his throat. But there he was anyway, doing all of those things.

He cleared his throat hoping that it would make him sound more in-control of his emotions than he really was. “Why’d you even bother, then?” Bradley finally asked.

“With what?”

He scoffed, pinching the bridge of his nose. This felt like it was a conversation that they should’ve had months ago. Neither of them were all that great with time management. “Any of it. If you didn’t want to—” he cut himself off, trying to find the right way to say what he wanted to say, “If that wasn’t what you wanted I don’t get why you even bothered with me.” He heard Jake take a breath as he got ready to answer so he said one more thing before he lost the chance, “And I don’t get why you’re bothering with calling me now if nothing’s changed.”

“I didn’t want it to be like this either.” He could picture the indignant and hurt look on Bradley’s face even though there were miles and countless walls separating them in the moment. “I know this is on me but it doesn’t mean that I wanted it to go like that.”

Bradley had the gnawing feeling that he was just setting himself up for more heartache, but he still asked, “How did you want it to go?”

“I wanted to give you what you wanted!” Jake said, the most desperate and honest he’d ever sounded. He took a breath, getting control back over himself again. “But…I couldn’t.”

Bradley felt the tears stinging in his eyes and he tried to ignore them. He didn’t know what he wanted to say to that, what he should say to that. “Why are you digging all of this up, Jake?”

“This guy—”

“Roman,” Bradley cut him off.

“Roman.” Jake corrected himself. Clearing his throat, he continued, “Does he…does he give you what you want?”

Bradley didn’t even have to think about the answer. “He could.”

Jake paused, not expecting the answer to be so quick and easy. Maybe he waited too long. Maybe the second he let Bradley oust him from his apartment all that time ago he’d lost him for good. It crossed his mind that he should probably quit before he landed himself even farther behind than he already was. But then again, he also reasoned with himself, Bradley called him back. Bradley hadn’t hung up the phone, even as the silence between them stretched on far longer than what was comfortable for either of them.

“Do you want it from him?” Jake finally asked.

Bradley scoffed, trying to cover up the fact that he felt like he’d just been punched in the gut. “Jake.”

“I’m serious.”

The problem was that Bradley knew Jake was serious. This conversation would’ve been so much easier to get through, or to end abruptly, if he thought that Jake was still just trying to get a rise out of him like he had been before. They were both past that now. Honesty was so much harder—this was why they hadn’t had any real conversations in weeks.

“You made it clear,” Bradley chose each word carefully and it showed, “that I wasn’t going to get it from you. And just, just because you’re jealous now, just because you don’t want me to want someone else, doesn’t mean that you’d…” he trailed off, brain suddenly swinging on the pendulum between what had happened between them before, what might happen if they tried it all again.

“Didn’t answer my question.”

“He’s good,” Bradley said as he shut his eyes tight. “He’s, fuck, he’s nice. And it’s easy and we don’t always end up fucking arguing every time something—”

“But?” Jake cut him off, knowing that the discussion was hurtling towards that point anyway.

“But he’s not you!” he snapped before he could stop himself. He sucked in a short, unsteady breath. “And that’s,” he let out a sad laugh, “that’s why he’s so nice and why we don’t argue. It’s why…it’s why he isn’t trying to make me give him less.”

“I didn’t want less from you.”

“You didn’t want more.”

“That’s not the same,” Jake argued. “I’m not used to being the one who’s trying to keep up.”

“And I’m not used to you being the one who quits.”

It hung heavily on the phoneline between them. Neither of them said anything, but they didn’t make any move to hang up either. All the things that they’d said and yet they still felt like they were stuck in the same spot they had been. It felt like all of that should’ve changed something. Bradley wiped at the corners of his eyes, glad that he was the only one who knew about the tears.

“I’m sorry that—”

Bradley cut him off. “You don’t get to keep doing this to me. You don’t get to walk out on me and then try to claw your way back in because you’re jealous that I’m trying to move on. Putting me through this again. Especially if…”

“I know.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“Because...I wish it was different.”

“Well,” Bradley said, “it’s not. I don’t know if it ever could be.”

“Ever?”

He laughed but there wasn’t any humor in it. “Ball’s in your court on that one.”

It was Jake’s turn to laugh. The sound was a little less sad than Bradley’s. There was no good rebuttal. He could keep dragging the two of them around and around but it was still going to come back to the same conclusion. It was always going to be Hangman’s doing that they were in the scenario that they were, and it was always going to be on him to deal with however the cards fell because of that. He wished that he could tell Bradley that he was wrong, that he wasn’t jealous, that that wasn’t what sparked all of this. And maybe it wasn’t the only reason he was doing all of this, but it was definitely the final reason, the one that pushed him over the edge.

“Can I ask you something?” Jake asked.

Bradley chuckled, sounding a little more like his old self. “Would it matter if I said no?”

Jake gave a short hum of amusement before moving right into asking, “You think we could ever go a second round?”

He found himself letting slip a small smile at the casual way Jake phrased the question, like they hadn’t just dragged each other through the emotional wringer for the last stint of it all. “Doesn’t really matter, does it? I’m seeing—”

“If you weren’t.” He could spot the deflection coming from a mile away.

Bradley sighed. “Maybe. If things could be different, then yeah, maybe a second round wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.” A beat passed. “But things would have to be different.”

“Right.”

He waited to see if Jake had more to say than that. When he didn’t, Bradley finally said, “I’m going to bed.”

“And tomorrow?”

He fought the urge to sigh again—his lungs could only take so much. “Next training exercise.”

“Bradley—”

“Night, Hangman.”

He didn’t give Jake the chance to return the courtesy before hanging up the phone. Once he hung up, he stared down at the now-blank screen staring back at him. Pulling the towel off from around his shoulders, he tossed it aside and finally finished getting ready for bed.

When Bradley woke up the next morning, he expected to be exhausted, angry even, but he wasn’t. He felt a little rattled after his conversation with Jake the night before, but he wasn’t as spun-out as he thought he was going to be. As he got ready in the morning, he started to think to himself that perhaps he was dealing with everything better than he thought he was—not just their conversation, but everything else about the two of them as well. There wasn’t a knot in his gut the way there had been before. For a second, he thought that maybe even after all the heartbreak and the second-guessing there was the possibility that things were playing out how they were supposed to. There was the possibility that he was moving through things, or past them, in a way that he hadn’t been able to before.

Then, as he was walking out to his car, his phone buzzed with a text from Roman. That was all it took for the pit in his stomach to start growing again. Guilt started clawing at the back of his mind as he tried to think about what to say in response. It was a simple text—that wasn’t the issue. Up until now, Bradley had played coy about everything that had happened with Hangman. There hadn’t been much of a need to get into the details of the breakup, or who his ex was, not when it was just a casual thing. Now, though, they were slowly wandering out of casual territory. Not only that, but up until now it wasn’t as though he’d had any heart-to-hearts with Jake since he and Roman had started to see each other. It was easy to avoid talking about things when they were things that happened in the past. This was brutally, disgustingly present. He avoided it for now while he could, opting to slide his phone into his pocket and get into his car.

Despite the intensity of their conversation the night before, both Bradley and Jake were able to keep it civil, almost friendly throughout the day. It was the most normal that things had been in a long time. Everyone around noticed, caught between wanting to be thankful for a break from the antagonism and bickering, but also wanting to know what happened and how long this ceasefire was going to last.

“You did something stupid, didn’t you?” Natasha called after Bradley at the end of the day when he was walking to his car.

He stopped, head tilting back so he was looking up at the sky. He could dodge and avoid a lot of people, but never Natasha. She wouldn’t allow it. “What?” he asked, even though he’d heard her perfectly fine the first time.

“No, I know you did something stupid. I just don’t know the specifics.” She strode so that she was standing in front of him. “What stupid thing did you do?”

“I didn’t—”

“Tell me.”

He huffed, like a teenager on the brink of throwing a tantrum. “Hangman called.”

“And you definitely didn’t pick up, right?”

“I missed the call.” He saw the way that Natasha refused to let herself be relieved by that piece of information. “So I called him back.”

“Bradley.”

“Natasha,” he mocked. She didn’t say anything, just giving a wordless nod to prompt him to explain himself, so he tried. “Something told me to call him back.”

“Yeah, the under-developed part of your brain.”

He rolled his eyes and forged onward. “It wasn’t…bad.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Was it good?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Last time we talked, we decided that you needed to not speak to him anymore. How did it go from that to having late-night—”

“I miss him,” he said plainly.

She sighed, not completely unsympathetic to his plight. “I get it.” She pulled a face, remembering who it was that they were talking about. “Kind of, I guess.”

It got them both to laugh as Bradley said, “Shut up.”

“But it ended. Then it was hell for you and just about everyone else. And now you,” she gestured broadly at nothing, “you have Roman. And he wants to meet your friends. And twenty-four hours ago you wanted him to meet everyone. That’s good, Bradshaw. Why…just, why?”

“You think he could be different?” he asked.

She scoffed. “It clearly doesn’t matter to you what I think.”

He smiled. “Humor me.”

“People can change,” she finally said. “But it’s not usually that easy. Plus this is Hangman that we’re talking about. He is…exactly who he is.”

“You think he’s just dicking me around?”

“Not necessarily. He probably does miss you. Probably wants a second chance and wants to be better. Doesn’t mean he can pull it off.”

She wasn’t saying anything that he didn’t already know, hadn’t already thought about even long before his phone call the night before. It was different hearing it from someone other than himself—it sunk in a little more.

“Was hoping for something a little more positive,” he said, half-joking.

She shrugged. “Wanna hear something positive about Hangman? I’ll give you Machado’s number.” There was a beat before she asked, “What are you gonna do, Bradley?”

“I don’t know.”

She fought the urge to groan. As much as she didn’t want to say what she was about to, she couldn’t stand there and lie. “The fact that you’re even weighing the pros and cons of this…” She shook her head. “You gotta talk to Roman.”

“And tell him what?”

“That’s on you. But he likes you. And I know you like him. But if you’re really thinking about going back into all of that with Hangman…there is definitely a conversation that needs to be had there.”

“You think it’s a dumb idea?”

She offered a smile. “I think that something being a dumb idea hasn’t ever stopped you before.”

“Real nice way of saying yes.”

She laughed. “Look, you know who you’re dealing with here. If you think that it’s gonna be different, that it could actually work out and not drive you completely insane in the process, then okay. If it’ll make you happy, then okay. I would just think about it first. Don’t do this just because one conversation threw you off—even you aren’t that stupid.”

Bradley was smiling as he shook his head. “Right. Thanks.”

“Either way, though, you gotta talk to—”

“I know,” he said with a nod. “I will.”

Bradley said that he would, and he did. He sat with himself for another day, weighing over his options and the likeliness of different outcomes. He tried to be logical enough to weigh what he wanted to happen against what was most likely going to happen. He thought about Roman, and how fun and easy it all was. Then he thought about how new it all still was, too, comparatively. It was always fun and easy at the beginning, or at least it should be. And if he was at the point where things were still that new and enjoyable with Roman, but he was still finding himself contemplating if he could make things work with Jake, it felt like that was all the answer that he needed. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them, really, for Bradley to try and drag it all out for the sake of hoping the feelings would go away. It would’ve been a much easier conclusion to come to if Roman hadn’t been so kind, and funny, and accepting. It would have been so much easier to follow through on what Bradley had to do next if he hadn’t enjoyed the company so much.

When Bradley turned up to his apartment a couple days later to have the conversation and deliver the verdict, he didn’t know what he expected to happen. He wasn’t expecting a fight, a screaming match—that didn’t seem like Roman’s style. He was hoping that things were still new enough, and that they were both mature enough, that it would be a disappointing but not a spiteful conversation. And it wasn’t—Bradley was fairly certain that Roman didn’t have a single ounce of spite in his body.

“I’m really sorry,” Bradley said as he sat back at Roman’s counter once more, forcing himself to look him in the eye even though he just wanted to stare at the floor instead.

The smile on Roman’s face was weak, but there was a genuine air about it too. “It’s okay—I get it.”

Bradley wasn’t used to things going so well with situations like that. Roman being so understanding about it all ironically made him feel worse about the entire fallout of it. He knew it was too soon to say that he wanted to stay in touch, to even try to be friends if it could all play out like that, but he also didn’t want to get up and leave without at least trying to get that point across. It wasn’t something that was going to happen immediately, but it’d been nice if it could happen eventually.

“I’m sorry. And I know you probably don’t—I just—I really do like you and if at some point—”

“Thank you,” Roman put him out of his misery as gently as he could.

Bradley sucked in a breath and nodded. “Yeah. Right. O-okay.”

It took a little bit for the weight to drop off his shoulders after that conversation. But he knew it was the right thing, which was why he was able to keep moving on from it without beating himself up too much over it. As the days went by it crossed his mind once or twice to reach out, but he knew that it wasn’t his place to do that, and that was okay. Maybe it would happen and maybe it wouldn’t. As it stood, he had plenty of other things to keep himself busy and occupied with.

He told Hangman what had happened a few days after the fact, once he’d had some time to sit with everything on his own. There was a moment when he wondered if he was going to say something about it directly, or if he was just going to let it come about naturally in conversation at some point. He knew that whenever, however, it came up, Jake was going to have some follow-up questions about it—that was what made him hesitate on breaking the news. Bradley didn’t know if he wanted to get into the reasons behind it all, if he was ready to open that door again.

But he ended up telling him. Of course he ended up telling him. In the back of Bradley’s mind, whatever Jake’s knee-jerk reaction to the news was, was going to give him an idea of where he was really at. It was easy to say and promise all sorts of things over the phone late at night when he was under no obligation to actually follow through on any of it. But now Jake was going to have to put his money where his mouth is, and Bradley was hoping that it would all work out, that Jake wouldn’t instantly fire back with something crass or sarcastic.

“Why’d that happen?” was all Jake said, face pensive, when Bradley told him that he decided to break things off with Roman.

The surprise on Bradley’s face was momentary before his expression grew serious again. He leaned against the closed door of his locker, also wondering for a split second why so many of their conversations had to happen there. “Because I think that, maybe, things could be different.”

Now it was Jake’s turn to look surprised. He even looked hopeful, which was a new look for someone who was so known for just looking cocky. “Yeah?”

Bradley nodded. “Yeah.”

It wasn’t just as simple as that, and neither of them thought that it would be. They took things slow, much slower than they had the first time around. Bradley thought that Hangman was just going to try and dive right back into things and hope for the best, but he didn’t. They were both still a little gun-shy about the entire thing, and rightfully so.

It was a lot of talking, having conversations that probably would have saved them the first time through if Jake had been ready to have them then. But he hadn’t. Then again, he was ready to have them now, or he was at least trying to be ready. It wasn’t all perfect, because it was still the two of them after all, but there was more effort being put in than there had been, and realistically that was all Bradley had been wanting the entire time.

Even with all of the late-night phone calls, the drop-in visits as they tried to navigate and rebuild a foundation that had been so shaken before, they still kept a small shred of distance. For once neither one of them had been brave enough, cocky enough, to try and cross that final threshold. There were opportunities, too, like when they were standing in the doorway of Bradley’s apartment and Jake was saying goodbye, or when they were the last two of their group still lingering at The Hard Deck even though they’d stopped drinking a while before.

They both knew they’d let it be a substitute, a band-aid, before, and they didn’t want to let it happen again. Once or twice Jake had been so tempted to make a snarky remark when he would see Bradley’s eyes drift to his lips, but he always stopped himself. It wasn’t like he had to say anything anyway for Bradley to know—he could tell by the cocky little smirk on Hangman’s face after the fact that he’d been caught. He didn’t say anything about that either.

Everyone was getting ready to leave The Hard Deck. It wasn’t exceptionally late, but they all knew that they were in for an early morning so they decided to quit while they were ahead. They all started saying their various goodbye’s and see you tomorrow’s as they split off in the parking lot. Natasha went to say goodbye to Rooster, noticing immediately that if she was going to do that, she was going to have to say goodbye to Hangman too considering how close they were standing to each other while they were talking by Rooster’s car. Part of her wanted to shake her head and roll her eyes at the sheer ridiculousness of the two of them, but even she couldn’t deny how different things had seemed between them, how much better. They seemed happier, even in the moments when they bickered during training. There was no real malice the way that there used to be.

“Bradshaw,” she said with a smile and a nod before turning to Jake and letting her expression get a little more serious, “Bagman.” They all chuckled for a moment before she stepped in and gave Bradley a brief hug. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See ya,” Bradley replied with a nod.

Jake let her get a few steps away before calling after her, “Sweet dreams, Phoenix!” He and Bradley both fell back into laughter when she responded to that with a middle finger as she continued walking away.

When the two of them quieted back down again, Jake turned and looked at Bradley, who was so casually leaning back against his car and toying with his keys. “You still gotta be home before midnight, Bradshaw?”

He laughed as he shrugged. “Only if you don’t want Phoenix hunting you down.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Right.”

There was a pause, both of them trying and failing to ignore the tension that had been thickening between them. It was a wonder either of them could breathe at this point. Clearing his throat, Bradley tried to sound as normal as possible as he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I’ll be there.”

Bradley nodded. “Goodnight.”

“Night.” Jake watched as Bradley went to unlock the front door of his car. After a quick second of contemplation, he decided, fuck it, now was as good of a time as any. Reaching forward, he rested his hand on Bradley’s shoulder. “Hey.”

Bradley turned around, eyebrows raised like he was waiting for Hangman to ask him a question. What he was met with instead, however, was the feeling of Jake’s lips crashing into his. The shock of it all only lasted a moment before Bradley was giving right into him, keys clattering to the ground as he opted to grab onto Jake instead. He had one hand still on Bradley’s shoulder, the other cupping the side of his face.

It felt new and familiar all at once. Bradley was fairly certain that if Jake’s body wasn’t pinning him so effectively to the car, that he would’ve melted into a puddle in the middle of the parking lot. He wouldn’t have been upset about that either.

When they finally pulled apart, each of them catching their breath, Jake let his forehead drop to rest against Bradley’s. They each had a grin on their face, chests rising and falling from not just the kiss but the excitement, the relief of it all that there were some things that were still the same as they ever were and that it was a good thing.

“Now I’ll see you tomorrow,” Jake said with a smile, quieter than he usually was.

Bradley chuckled, wanting to part ways for the night even less now than he had before. “You could come over still.”

Jake chuckled and stepped away, stealing another quick kiss as he went. “I gotta be home before midnight too.”

“Liar,” Bradley said with a laugh.

“Yeah,” Jake agreed, grin growing wider by the second. “It’s just good to leave you wanting more.”

[alwayslovingharry]

So Long, London

A/N: IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME COMING, BUT!

HELLO, I'M BACK! I know it's been a long time since I've written (although I'm active on Tumblr from time to time), but I'm back. I've had a lot of ideas in my head for the last few months, fuelled by…well, ever since Taylor Swift's last album came out I've had a lot of Haylor theories and since then I've been a bit obsessed with the What If's and theories that some of Taylor's current songs are for Harry.

So out of all those What If's comes this Haylor One Shot which, from what I have in my head, could have more parts. I need your opinions on this and on the idea of publishing more of these two stories (I have several I've started to write).

PAIRING: Harry Styles x Taylor Swift

WORD COUNT: 2K

WARNING: Not an english native speaker.

SUMMARY: Two old lovers reunite during challenging time

——————————————————————————

End of August 2016

The summer sun shone brightly over the London park, casting dappled shadows through the lush green canopy. I adjusted my sunglasses as I strolled along the winding path, savoring the warmth and tranquility. This park had become my sanctuary, a peaceful retreat from the chaos that had enveloped my life in recent months.

The social media fallout of these last months had left me reeling. Once celebrated as America's sweetheart, I now found myself at the center of a relentless storm of criticism. My recent breakup with Calvin and the brief, highly-publicized affair with Tom after the Met Gala had only added fuel to the fire. But most of the media do not take into account the fact that my little whirlwind romance with Tom had ended almost as quickly as it had begun, leaving me feeling more alone than ever.

I took a deep breath, letting the fresh air fill my lungs. The park was nearly empty, the serenity broken only by the occasional chirping of birds and the rustling of leaves underfoot. As I turned into another path, a familiar figure caught my eye in the distance. My heart skipped a beat. It couldn’t be... could it?

I squinted against the sunlight, my mind racing as I tried to confirm what my eyes were seeing. Sure enough, it was him. His unmistakable silhouette, casual in a T-shirt and jeans, strolling towards me. But something clearly was different. The last time I saw him in person, he had a mane full of brunette curls. Now, from a distance I could see his hair was short, even shorter than when I met him years ago, framing his face in a way that was both new and strangely familiar. His presence here, in this park, seemed almost surreal, meeting your old flame in a London park.

“Taylor?” he called out, his voice tinged with disbelief as he recognized me.

“Harry!” I responded, my eyes lighting up.

We closed the distance between us, stopping a few feet apart. For a moment, we simply stood there, taking in the sight of each other. The years seemed to melt away, and I was transported back to simpler times.

“It’s been a while,” Harry said, his voice warm and friendly.

“Yeah, it has,” I replied, smiling. “What brings you here?”

“Just needed some peace and quiet,” he shrugged. “How about you?”

“Same,” I admitted. “It’s been a tough year.”

Harry nodded, his expression softening with understanding. “I heard. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“Thanks,” I said softly. “It’s getting better, though. Slowly.”

We began to walk together, falling into an easy rhythm. The conversation flowed naturally, our shared history creating a comfortable familiarity. The sun filtered through the trees, casting playful patterns on the ground as we walked. The scent of blooming flowers mixed with the earthy aroma of the park, creating a soothing atmosphere.

“Do you want to talk about all…that?” Harry asked gently after I explained that I was living in London indefinitely for the time being, in a kind of self-imposed exile forced by the drama of the last few months. "I don't want to force you to tell me anything, but if you need to... I'm here."

I hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “I suppose it might help. It's just... everything happened so fast. One minute, I was at the top of my career winning all these awards and accolades for my work and the next, it was over and all the snakes fell on me. And I was alone, I’ve never felt so lonely. The whole thing with Kanye destroyed everything I have worked for since I was a child and everyone supported him in my demonization, no one stood up for me.”

Harry's eyes widened slightly. “I saw that. It must have been awful.”

“It was,” I admitted. “It felt like the whole world turned against me overnight. My social media was flooded with snake emojis, people calling me a liar, and saying even worse things. It was like I was trapped in a storyline full of lies that I never asked to be part of, ever since 2009.”

Harry nodded, his expression thoughtful. “I can’t imagine how tough that must have been. I’ve had my share of public scrutiny, but it sounds like you’ve been through the wringer.”

“It’s been rough,” I admitted. “But I’m trying to focus on the positive, I have decided to put some distance from the eye of the hurricane to lick my wounds and try not to end up going crazy. My music has been a lifeline, as always. It’s the one thing that’s kept me grounded through all this. But now, I’m not even sure if I can release new music again without my reputation being ruined all over.”

Harry turned to me, his expression serious. “You’re stronger than you realize, Taylor. What you’ve been through... it’s not easy, but you’ve handled it with grace. Your music has always been your strength. People love your music.”

“Thanks, Harry. That means a lot coming from you,” I said, my eyes softening. “You’ve always been good at lifting people up. But it's hard to think about putting myself out there again. What if it just brings more negativity?”

Harry smiled, his eyes full of warmth. “I get that. But think about all the people your music has touched, all the lives you've changed with your songs. You've always been true to yourself, and that's what matters.”

We found a bench and sat down, the golden afternoon sun casting a gentle glow around us. We sat in companionable silence for a few moments, watching the leaves sway in the gentle breeze. I felt a warmth spread through my chest, a sense of peace I hadn’t felt in a long time. The park seemed to cocoon us in its embrace, offering a momentary escape from the world outside.

“What about you?” I asked, breaking the silence. “How’s life been treating you?”

Harry shrugged. “It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster. I just finished filming 'Dunkirk' with Christopher Nolan, which was incredible but intense.”

"That sounds amazing, I never imagined you as a Nolan guy."

"Yeah, it's amazing that the long-haired guy from One Direction ended up in a Nolan movie," he replied with a sad smile.

"Well, I think it suits you, whatever the public or the press thinks. You always had a lot of hidden sides in you... I just thought you'd be more of a Spielberg guy."

"You think you're so funny, Miss Swift," he replied mockingly. “I’m also starting to write songs for my first solo album.”

"Oh, that's great, that's what I know best. How was it?"

“It’s exciting, but sometimes I miss the old days with the band. Things were simpler then.”

"Sometimes change is difficult."

"I just… miss not having four other guys around to make decisions... everything I decide is going to be on me if something goes wrong and... I feel like I have a responsibility now to reach a standard, to reach expectations, if I go through with this."

“I can relate to that,” I said. “Sometimes I miss the early days of my career, before everything got so complicated.”

Harry nodded, his eyes distant for a moment. “Yeah, fame can be a double-edged sword. But I guess we just have to focus on the things that matter.”

“Exactly,” I agreed. “That’s why I’ve been pouring my heart into my music. It’s been therapeutic, in a way.”

“I’m glad you have that,” Harry said, his voice sincere. “It’s important to have something that keeps you grounded.”

We walked in comfortable silence for a while, the sounds of the park providing a soothing backdrop to our thoughts.

“Do you ever miss it?” Harry asked, his voice quiet as we continued our stroll.

“Miss what?” I replied, glancing over at him.

“Having someone to share all of this with,” he said, his gaze distant. “A partner you can tell all your uncertainties and fears to.”

I paused, considering his question. “Sometimes,” I admitted. “But it’s difficult to find someone who understands everything about my life – the fame, the reputation. It’s a lot for anyone to take on.”

Harry nodded, his expression thoughtful. “Our way of life is something that is hard to understand for anyone who has been away from this kind of life. You want to believe in that connection, but it’s scary to open yourself up to that vulnerability again.”

“Exactly,” I said, feeling a weight lift off my chest as he put my feelings into words.

We walked in silence for a few moments, lost in our own thoughts. The park was bathed in golden light, the air filled with the sounds of nature around us.

“But,” Harry said softly, breaking the silence, “I think love is always worth taking the risk. Maybe finding someone to share your love with is worth fighting for, despite the pain of them not understanding what this life is about.”

I looked at him, a glimmer of hope stirring in my chest. “Maybe you’re right.”

We walked in silence for a few moments, lost in our own thoughts. The park was bathed in golden light, the air filled with the sounds of nature around us.

“But, I don’t know if I can risk it again,” I said finally, my voice barely above a whisper. “It’s so hard to find someone who understands this life, the constant scrutiny, the expectations. It’s exhausting. And when that person also lives under scrutiny and understands what it's like, it's even worse, because it's not only my reputation that's at stake, but also theirs.”

Harry nodded slowly. “As I see it, in a relationship where there are two previous big reputations, when you are together, it becomes one. You have to forget about the past and focus on a shared reputation, of course without forgetting that you both have separate projects, but keeping in mind that there is another person on whom, at least your public image depends. Then, maybe it’s not about finding someone who gets it all. Maybe it’s about finding someone who’s willing to try, who’s willing to be there for you despite not having all the answers.”

I considered his words, a thoughtful silence enveloping us. The park seemed to cocoon us

 in its embrace, offering a momentary escape from the world outside.

“But what if it just leads to more heartache?” I asked, my voice tinged with vulnerability.

Harry looked at me, his gaze steady. “Life is full of risks, Taylor. But sometimes, the greatest rewards come from the biggest risks. You deserve to find someone who makes you happy, who supports you through the highs and lows.”

I sighed, feeling the weight of his words. “I want to believe that. I really do.”

Harry gave me a small, encouraging smile. “You will. It just takes time.”

We continued our walk, the sun beginning its descent, casting a warm, golden glow over the park. As we walked, I felt a sense of peace settle over me, a sense of hope for the future.

“Thank you, Harry,” I said softly. “For being here, for listening. It means a lot.”

“Anytime,” he replied. “You’re not alone in this. Remember that. If you need to talk or anything else, I'm just a phone call away.”

As we walked, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of optimism for the future. Maybe, just maybe, there was hope waiting just around the corner.

——————————————————————————

Thanks for reading and I hope you liked it, please leave any comments or leave a like it if you enjoyed it.

See you soon :)

[wolfstrong]

Buffy season 3 reflection and quiet contemplation:

Of course in general I very much enjoyed this season, but I do feel like compared to the past two seasons episodes varied more in quality and my enjoyment of them. The epic highs and lows of season three if you will. There was definitely more episodes that I really loved or just thought were pretty good as compared to episodes I felt were a little weak and the good very much outweighs the bad. But anyway, here is what I did like:

I could tell they had a budget increase for this season and for the most part I think they really used it to their advantage. We got a lot more fights where Buffy and friends had to take on a biggggg gang of baddies and it usually involved bigger sets where they could jump all around and have some awesome fight choreography. I felt like almost every other episode we were getting a big warehouse battle with complicated exciting fight choreography. I think it’s epic and I’ll never get tired of seeing Buffy beat the tar out of demons.

I think they were a little more artistic with their directing too this season, like Zeppo definitely comes to mind where they didn’t just stick with straightforward storytelling and instead gave you a different perspective. Just in general I felt like the directing was more fast-paced and engaging in a lot of episodes.

Now I have to preface this by saying I did not enjoy all the character conflicts that were introduced, however, one thing I really enjoy about Buffy is the way it deals with interpersonal relationships. The show is not afraid to have its characters make mistakes and also have other characters react realistically to them. I really liked dead mans party because of this, where we get to see the fallout of Buffy running away over the summer. At first everyone is very glad to see her, but there is this uncomfortable awkwardness between them all that needs to be addressed, and it all comes to a head with a yelling match between our main characters. I like that they couldn't just talk it out at first because that's really never how it works. Also I thought Buffy and Angels breakup was pretty well done too. We all know that relationship was very much doomed and wrong in a lot of ways so I'm glad the show was able to have them acknowledge that and split up for that reason.

Some of my favorite episodes (besides the Zeppo and Dead mans party as mentioned above) were Homecoming (for the cordelia and buffy forced bonding) Band Candy (for the campy fun) Gingerbread (idk this one was just very fun) and Doppelganger (i loveeee the willow focus:)

And honestly, I only had one big issue with this season and that was the overarching plot with the mayor. For one I just didn't like the mayor that much as a big baddie villain of the season. His bit where he like acts like a very normal nice guy but is actually psycho was very one note and not super interesting to me. I liked The Master and Spike (and eventually evil Angel) as the season big bads a lot more. I did find the plot a lot more exciting when Faith joined him. It was all a bit uninteresting but all together fine, it was just the season finale that really sucked. It felt like a lot of build-up to very much nothing and I can get into a lot of nitpicky shit (like.. what was up with then Buffy was like "Xander, you are the KEY to this whole plan" and then Xander ended up doing nothing at all? i could go on) but yeah just overall very anti-climatic. Also Buffy came up with a plan to defeat the mayor by just like exploding him and killing him, and then her plan went EXACTLY as predicted with no bumps in the road at all to add excitement. They were just like "we are going to kill the mayor now" and then they did. Very lame.

My other big gripe was the Willow and Xander cheating arc which I can literally write a whole paper on but I won't do that to you. I guess to sum it up I really wish we would have had a resolution to that conflict that was satisfying, and maybe explored a little more why Xander and Willow suddenly cheated on their respective partners with each other. And I really don't like what it did to Cordy, who was pretty much not in the group anymore after that. My guess is that maybe the writers wanted her out of the scooby gang so that she could go over to the Angel show, and that was their way of getting her to break up with Xander and kind of hate all his friends. It just makes me upset because Cordelia was really starting to find her place in the group and also have a genuine affection for Xander. I liked that in the prom episode Xander buys Cordy her dress and doesn't tell anyone her family lost all their money, HOWEVER I needed more resolution. I wanted MORE!!

My least favorite episodes were Amends (probably the overall worst episode of Buffy i have ever seen... like literally what was the point of that) Choices (this episode kinda just felt like boring filler and that scene where the mayor lectors Angel and Buffy about their relationship for 5 minutes uninterrupted was so weird and out of place) and then Graduation part 2 (just for being a very anti-climatic mess.)

In my season 1 review I talked about my feelings on the characters that appeared in that season, and I think I pretty much feel similarly about them all now, but here are my thoughts about the new people!

Oz: I think oz is the biggest addition since season one and really what is there to say! he's a man of few words, he brings a calm level headed energy to the cast that I think really helps to balance everything out. I like that he's a werewolf of course, I think that's awesome and we even got to see him flex his werewolf powers in season three and attack another beast. I hope we get more of that. I am curious about whats gonna happen with his and Willows relationship because well. well. but ANYWAY for the time being I think they are good for each other

Faith: I found her to be kind of annoying... but I just don't really like girlbosses who don't give a fuck type characters, sorry just not for me. I did think she was a lot more interesting once she went bad and overall the concept of a slayer going bad cool so I'm glad they explored that

Wesely: I think hes donefore and doesnt appear in season 4 (tho i know he's in Angel) But idk. he was like so bad that he was good. Like i don't like him as a person but his presence on the show was so camp. just some sniveling loser that everyone's hates. i love it.

Alright, I belive thats mostly all I have to say! talk to me about Buffy anytime, literally any time.

[delightfullyatomicfest]

I <3 Monkberry Moon Delight and am also a ~deeper meaning~ truther so I’m gonna go through it line by line.

Paul wrote it in late-ish 1970 and I go with the idea that it’s about the breakup and Paul feeling hurt /angry and also thinking the other Beatles should realise he’s right about Klein.

I'm too lazy to do this all in one go, so verse 1 which, if my little interpretations are correct, could be sub-titled 'Self Pity':

So I sat in the attic, a piano up my nose

Writing music in the attic, draped over the piano (could be a coke ref with the up the nose bit but I doubt it, that's so 3 years ago. I think he’s talking about how close he was to the piano - possibly relating to the idea of it being his confidante / only friend at this time (I know he had Linda, don't @ me)).

And the wind played a dreadful cantata (cantata, cantata)

Howling wind (classic angsty backdrop)

Sore was I from a crack of an enemy's hose

An enemy whipping him (hose = whip, crack of a whip) - I’m guessing Klein. Idk whether this relates to a specific action by Klein e.g. The Long and Winding Road thing or a particular piece of money handling or just the general relationship.

I don’t think he's means the other Beatles here because I don't think he’d ever have actually thought of (or called) them enemies (but this might be a line that annoyed them thinking he’s being melodramatic and self-pitying).

And the horrible sound of tomato (tomato, tomato)

This is where I'm going start going ott because the inclusion of the word 'sound' means the line doesn't really work here without reaching to find a meaning but:

I think he is saying tomato. If you replace 'sound' with 'feel' it could refer to the idea of people throwing tomatoes at you. So maybe he's talking about that but by replacing it with 'sound' he means the sound of people jeering. The two lines together could mean he's sore from being fucked over by Allen Klein and from people jeering at him. It could relate to the fallout from everyone hating the McCartney album (i.e. where you get tomatoes thrown at you for a rubbish performance) or just generally feeling like he's getting hit from all sides.

I went down a little rabbit hole of what if he's saying "tamata", which in Sanskrit and Kannada (spoken in the South West region of India) means "longing for / desiring / wishing". In which case it would mean the horrible sound of longing for something. That could be refer to Paul begging them to let him off Apple, so horrible sound of tomat(a) = pathetic sound of begging. It feels like a real stretch though, partly because the horrible sound seems more external and also they went to northern India so it's less likely he'd know the word, but otoh it would rhyme with cantata and I guess he would be sore from it.

Alright tbc probably

[electricbluebutterflies]

“context doesn’t help” fic prompts, round 7

It’s apparently been over a year since I last turned the out-of-context situation comedy of my life into a prompt list, so... here are some gems for whatever situations you want to use ‘em. Feel free to change pronouns / tense as needed, and reblog and write for whatever babes you see fit.

“Your hand wasn’t broken yesterday.”

“He keeps putting his mouth on things he shouldn’t.”

“I can’t be blamed for being lured in by pretty blondes.”

“This is why we don’t homewreck.”

“I’m not sure how to put a bow on karma.”

“It’s the off-season for dead bodies.”

“I look like a vampire queen.”

“You’ve watched too much Tiger King.”

“Y’all are gonna find a body.”

“You made him insecure!”

“Let me first establish that I’m not a cougar…”

“I have never seen such beautiful profanity.”

“It’s like Satan is a dog and they’re a stuffed chicken.”

“He’s a boy, not a jellyfish!”

“My mother is dead, so I called you.”

“You’d fight anything for me.”

“That’s how you get mutants.”

“Have you ever seen a moose?”

“She could walk right past a beach umbrella and not even see it.”

“I could do worse but I’m trying to be respectful.”

“Have I seen your dick before?”

“You are not an apex predator!”

“I’ve been in that position and I almost passed out.”

[hawkins-losers]

I loved you, without the ‘D’ | Robin Buckley x Harrington!Reader

Summary: Robin brings her new girl to movie night and you’re upset

Word count: 1.3k

Request: Can I get 35 for Robin (“You were my everything.”)

Warning: Cheating (kiss)

-

Vickie. 

You felt vomit coming up your throat at the name of Robin’s new girl. 

You didn’t think she would move on so fast, but according to Steve, they were dating. She and Robin met through band. She had ginger hair, a freckle-y face and clear blue eyes, and that’s all you knew. 

At school, you tried to ignore them, avoid them. Watching your ex-girlfriend love someone else is always hard. The things you used to do together, she did them with her now.

You were sitting in the living room, watching reruns of Charlie’s Angels on tv when your brother came home from work, a stack of tape under his arm. You would’ve been happier to see a bag of takeout, but movies could be nice too.  

‘’I invited Robin for a movie night,’’ Steve announced, kicking off his shoes on the carpet.  ‘’I hope that’s alright with you.’’

Steve had been at the front row of the breakup, wiping your tears and holding you when you cried, eating pots of ice cream and watching sad rom-coms with you until your stomachs hurt. He even played mailman between you and Robin when it was time to return each other's stuff. 

He could be the biggest dick sometimes, but he was a great brother - the best brother.

The breakup had been difficult for him too considering Robin was his best friend and co-worker. Their friendship took a toll during your and Robin’t fallout, but they were back to being good friends now which was why movie nights were back on. 

‘’You know, you don’t have to ask me if you can invite her over. You’re allowed to make plans with her. I appreciate the warning though.’’

‘’I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable, it’s all.’’ Steve shrugged, putting down the movies on the coffee table and taking off his green work vest. ‘’I know it’s difficult for you to see her moving on-’’ 

Too far. 

‘’Steve.’’ You shook your head, not wanting to dive into the Vickie subject. You were alright talking about Robin, but not Vickie. It was too soon. ‘’I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about her.’’

He nodded in understanding, then sat down. ‘’Okay. Eh, do you want to watch the movies with us? Robin is bringing the snacks.’’

You missed movie nights. You used to have them every Saturday after Steve and Robin’s shift at Family Video. She would come over - and sleep over when your parents weren't there - and you’d watch movies all night in the living room. Steve always fell asleep first and you would toss popcorn at his sleeping face, laughing every time he’d try to swat it off in his sleep.

It's gonna be strange not to hold her hand during scary parts or quote all of your favorite scenes. Even simply just fall asleep together on the couch after the uptenth movie. 

Movie nights will never be the same. 

‘’Okay. Which movies did you bring?’’ You took the movie stack and flipped through them. ‘’Risky Business, Back to the Future, Footloose- Why didn’t you take Jaws? We always watch Jaws. It’s a classic. ‘You're gonna need a bigger boat’,’’ you quoted, giggling.

‘’We’re not going to be watching it for a long time, I’m afraid. Some idiot got it stuck in his VCR. He returned it to us with the tape fully out. We’re waiting for Keith to get a replacement.’’ 

‘’Oh no, that’s sad!’’ You brought a hand to your chest dramatically. ‘’Rest in peace, Jaws.’’ 

Quickly enough, the doorbell rang, meaning Robin had arrived. You smoothed your shirt and fixed your hair, feeling a little nervous, while Steve got the door. 

‘’Oh. Vickie. Hi. I didn't know you’d be joining us.’’ 

At the mention of her name, you swiftly turned your head. What is she doing here?

‘’Is it okay? I don’t want to intrude,’’ you heard Vickie say in her chirpy voice. 

Steve shook his head, smiling politely. A part of him wanted to tell her she wasn’t welcomed here, but that would make him pass for a complete ass so he bit his tongue. ‘’No, no, it’s okay. Come in.’’ He closed the door behind them, mouthing ‘sorry, I didn’t know’ to you. 

Half way through the second movie, Vickie was all cuddled up against Robin. She was giggling with her and feeding each other M&Ms, the exact way you used to. 

You felt a lump in your throat, a feeling of déjà vu mixed with pain. 

From the lazy boy, Steve watched, imagining how you must be feeling. He wanted to tell them to tone it down, but you stood abruptly, causing your blanket to fall to the ground. 

‘’I can’t do this. I’m sorry.’’ 

You felt your eyes brim with tears as you climbed the stairs up to your room, ignoring Steve’s calls of your name. 

Hugging your pillow to your chest, you allowed a few tears to fall. Why does it have to hurt like this? 

A gentle knock on your door interrupted your crying.

''Leave me alone, Steve!'' you called, assuming he was checking on you.

‘’It’s me. Can I come in?’’ 

Robin’s voice sent a chill down your back. You wiped your tears angrily as she opened the door and stepped in. 

‘’What the fuck was that?’’ 

The blonde was taken aback by your tone, expecting to find you sad and upset, not angry. ‘’What do you mean? Why do you sound so pissed?’’

‘’Bringing Vickie here,’’ you pointed out, her name like venom on your tongue. ‘’Why did you- Do you think it's easy for me to see you with somebody else? To watch you do all the things we used to do? I see enough of this at school, I didn't want to see it - to see her - in my house too.’’

‘’What are you talking about-’’

‘’Watching movies on this couch and feeding each other M&Ms. Don't act like we didn’t do that shit too. You’re giggling with her like we used to do.’’ A tear fell down your face and you wiped it immediately. ‘’Are you gonna tell her we did that too? Does she even know we used to date? Because that would make this ten times more awkward.’’

‘’Why are you telling me all this? Am I not allowed to be happy again? To see other people?’’

‘’No, that’s not-’’

‘’Then what is it, Y/N?’’ she asked, copying your snappy tone. ‘’You're the one who ended it. Remember?’’ 

How could you forget? The night replayed over and over, reminding you you made the biggest mistake in your life by breaking up with Robin. You wanted to tell her that, but she had moved on already. She was dating another girl.

‘’You ended it for something so fucking stupid,’’ Robin said, a few octaves down. Sadness laced her voice, making your heart clench. 

‘’Rob-’’ 

She shook her head, blocking you out. ‘’You hurt me. You were my everything, Y/N. When you broke up with me, I-’’ 

‘’I didn’t want to break up with you,’’ you dropped. ‘’I broke up with you in the heat of the fight. I was mad at you, I didn’t stop loving you. When I left, all I wanted was you to chase after me. But you didn't. You stopped calling and...and you gave Steve my things back.’’

‘’Because I thought that's what you wanted.’’

‘’Well, you thought wrong. I never wanted to break up with you. God, Robin, why would I want that?’’ 

‘’Wait- You still love me?’’

‘’Robin…’’

‘’Fuck, Y/N…’’ She pushed her face in her hands and groaned. ‘’If only we communicate better, we wouldn’t be in this situation right now.’’

It was in fact a strange situation. An ex showing up with her new girl unexpectedly, then the same ex going after her old girl and confessing their still-going feelings while the other girl is laughing at the tv downstairs, unaware she was losing her girl to her old flame.

‘‘What are we gonna do?’‘ 

‘‘I know this is very wrong, but right now I really want to kiss you.’‘

‘‘I really want you to kiss me too. I miss kissing you.’‘ 

Your last words were the last push for Robin to close the space between your lips. 

-

Taglist: @broadway-or-noway @violetsleftfist @thelaststraw3  @cursedandromedablack  @Slashersimpfor  @savagejane1   @wh0reforbucknasty   @eddiemunson-slut   @slvdsjjk  @hehehehannahthings  @dreamdancers-world  @grace-loux  @iamharrystyleslover  @matildavol6  @Original_babababoo  @eddiemunsonbby  @notbeforelong  @lexi-2004 @violetrainbow412-blog  @tatespillows  @alwayslexii  @lilygreennn   @milkiane​  @imahomeslice  @bunnygrl16 @cwritesforfun

Robin Buckley taglist: @uhidklol-26 @prettyplant0   @ran-rap   @eddiemvunsongf    @batorchids222  @scarlet-kazuha  @saphmoth  @uhidklol-26  @you-makeme-crazier-blog  @spongebob-in-the-upsidedown  @swiftbyul  @xenon54xe  @tribute-101  @starstruckspring  @whyamihere2673  @moonlight-imagines  @p40l44 @moonlight-imagines

[97-liners]

manager!jeonghan x fem!celebrity!reader

genres & themes: fake dating but subverted, celebrity au, fluff, rom com, romance

words: 9.5k

warnings: nothing really explicitly described or overly angsty, but mc is a celebrity and was a child star, and several other characters are also celebrities. because of that, there’s mentions of media pressure, paparazzi stalking, questionable managers/parents while she was a child star, body image concerns, dieting, and a generally unhealthy hollywood lifestyle. but i keep everything relatively light! this is definitely not angst!

in which your manager, jeonghan, thinks it’ll be good publicity for you to date hollywood actor and notable heartthrob, joshua hong. of course, everything would be nice and easy if you ended up falling in love with your fake boyfriend joshua, but life is complicated, and your heart ends up pulling you in another direction completely.

feat: hot actor with a heart of gold joshua, eccentric soundcloud rapper vernon, long-suffering personal trainer seungcheol, and angry producer jihoon

title and soundtrack: down to earth - umi 

————————

“We have got to find you a boyfriend,” Jeonghan tells you, just as you take your first sip of your americano. 

Predictably, you narrowly avoid doing a spit take all over the inside of the van. Jeonghan doesn’t even spare you a second glance as he hands you a fistful of napkins for the coffee that dribbles down your chin and onto your brand new white balenciaga sweatpants. 

“We’ll take those to the dry cleaners after recording,” he throws in casually as he shifts the car out of park and into reverse. 

We have got to find you a boyfriend? “I can’t tell if you just insulted me, or gave me professional advice,” you tell him, half heartedly dabbing at the stain on your right thigh. 

Jeonghan makes a sharp merge into traffic, and a little bit of coffee escapes your cup through the hole meant for the straw, again dripping onto your pants. “It’s both,” he tells you. “I’ve been thinking. I don’t think it’s very marketable for you to be single right now, especially since that person just announced his engagement.”

Ah, yes, that person. The one who shall not be mentioned by name. You-know-who. Your ex, who you dated for two years before he got caught by TMZ making out with his co-star at a party and then got so drunk, he fought a bouncer and spent a night in jail. Your ex, who humiliated you so badly, you were the butt of tabloid jokes for months. Your ex, who is now engaged to that very same co-star he had been cheating on you with.

“And, since the songs on your album are all love songs, I think it would be good for you to get a public boyfriend,” Jeonghan continues. “I’ve got an actor who would be good for the job. I managed him a few years ago, before I moved over to the music industry.” 

“I don’t think I’m ready to date someone else in entertainment,” you sigh, slouching back in your seat and pulling your hood up over your head. Your catastrophic breakup had happened a year and a half ago, and had stressed your old manager out so much, he quit and moved to the Florida Keys to become a golf course designer. That’s when your label hired Jeonghan as your new manager. 

Maybe that’s why he’s asking you to date a celebrity. Maybe he just didn’t know how terrible the fallout had been because he wasn’t here for it. You can’t imagine your old manager would have suggested dating publicly after spending a month calling and threatening to sue every tabloid that printed salacious rumors about you. 

Jeonghan glances at you from the corner of his eye. “I’ll make sure it’s someone we can trust not to go off the rails.” Then, he looks back forward and honks aggressively at someone who’s trying to merge into the middle of a stalled left-turn-only lane. “Oh, come on,” he throws up his hands in frustration as the car goes into reverse and inches backward.

“Shouldn’t I date based on my feelings, and not based on what would be a good publicity move?”

“Motherfucker,” Jeonghan hisses under his breath as he’s forced to put the van in reverse to let the car in front try to turn back into his lane. 

“I think it’s a valid question,” you protest, but Jeonghan interrupts by honking again. It’s two more minutes of uttered profanities and inching back and forth before the two of you are once again en route to the studio and Jeonghan remembers your conversation. 

“Oh, you don’t have to actually date him,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You don’t even have to talk to him outside of work if you don’t want to.”

You blink at him, the realization dawning. “You want me to fake date someone?!”

“Yeah, if that’s what you want to call it.”

“No,” you tell him flatly. “This is stupid.”

“It’s genius,” he counters. “It’ll be good to get you on the entertainment rags again before your album is released. More exposure, and it’ll be your first dating news since the incident.”

“Think about it, alright?” He says it in a tone of voice that takes the fight out of you almost immediately. It’s a tone that says I’ve considered the pros and cons and I’ve consulted other industry strategists, and I need you to trust me to help you grow your career, and if you say no, I’ll be seriously bummed out and I’ll hold it over your head every time you complain about the paparazzi yelling questions about your ex at you. 

You watch out the window as Jeonghan makes a turn into a tunnel to underground parking and rolls down the window to scan his security badge at the gate. Your iced americano is down to its last dregs now, a diluted mix of melted ice water and coffee.

“I’ll drop you off at the elevator,” Jeonghan says as he drives through the concrete maze of the underground garage. “Call me when you’re done recording and I’ll pick you up. Try not to go past midnight.”

“Fine, fine,” you put your sunglasses on over your face to hide your dark circles and bare eyebrows. “And also, yes.”

“Hm?” Jeonghan looks up from his phone, where he’s presumably fending off a barrage of texts from Jihoon asking why you’re not at the studio yet.

“The fake dating thing. I’ll do it.”

“Atta girl,” Jeonghan grins. “I knew you’d say yes.”

.

.

.

A few hours later, when it’s 3am and Jeonghan is sitting at the studio with you, sharing a bag of chips and watching reruns of Say Yes To The Dress while Jihoon snores from his couch curled up in a small heap, that’s when a small voice in your head starts to question the plan. 

(Jeonghan didn’t even have to be here. He had dropped off some dinner for you around midnight after guessing correctly that you had skipped the meal, and had just stayed, making unhelpful suggestions and quips to add to Jihoon’s ever-growing chagrin and providing you with moral support just by merit of being there.)

See, the problem about fake dating isn’t just your disastrous history. There’s also the complication of your weird relationship with your manager. With Jeonghan, the lines between professional, personal, and friendly become blurred. 

Jeonghan negotiates your contracts with every ounce of cunning he possesses, he knows everybody who’s anybody in the industry, he gives you advice on your career, he dots your i’s and crosses your t’s. If you were any more sentimental, you’d call him your guardian angel. 

But there’s also the way he laughs at your jokes even when they’re not funny, and when he texts you at 3am complaining about the plot twist in the drama you’re both watching, and the comfortable way the two of you settle into each other’s sides after a long day of work and complain together about all the terrible people you’ve been forced to deal with. 

He’s only been your manager for a year, but you think you could have been friends your whole life, because being with Jeonghan is easy. Comfortable. He’s your closest friend, the person who’s always on the top of your mind. You’re not quite sure why, but dating someone else, even if it’s fake, just feels wrong for some reason. 

“Jihoon said he’d be asleep for fifteen minutes,” Jeonghan glances at the sleeping figure in the corner of the room, “but he’s been napping for almost an hour now. Don’t you think we should just end recording for today and continue another time?”

“Don’t wanna wake him,” you mumble as the girl on the screen tries on a truly hideous dress made up of mesh and crystals, “I think he’d bite my hand off.”

“Let’s just leave him here.” Jeonghan has that glint in his eye, the one that shows up when he decides to be evil. “Vernon is supposed to be here at 9 to work on final mixing for his new track. Jihoon will definitely still be passed out by then.”

You had promised to wake Jihoon up after his fifteen minute power nap so the two of you could finish recording this song, the last track on your upcoming album, but something about the way Jeonghan grins makes you giggle and nod. You take his hand and, laughing in hushed whispers, the two of you sneak out of the studio. In the back of your mind, you wonder if this is what it would have felt like to have friends.

.

.

.

Your first meeting with your new boyfriend is also effectively your public announcement, which is strange and disorienting, and you’ll undoubtedly complain to Jeonghan about it later. 

Joshua Hong is attractive, almost unrealistically so, a respectable actor with a leading role in the latest chain of generic superhero movies, painfully polite, and completely bland, to no fault of his own. Perhaps this is what Jeonghan meant when he said he’d find you someone he trusts not to go off the rails.

“I can’t have any carbs,” Joshua says, rather dejectedly, as he picks at the boxed chicken salad in his lap. “I’m supposed to be shirtless on the cover of Men’s Health next month and all I’ve eaten this week is chicken breast and arugula.”

The two of you are seated in his convertible with the top down, parked on the side of a street of a random neighborhood in Calabasas. It’s out of the way enough for the act to be convincing, but you also know that Jeonghan had called a few contacts to tip off the press to your location. 

“What, no dressing, no other salad accoutrement?” The ice in your coffee clinks noisily as you swirl the cup. 

“Seungcheol would kill me if he saw me eating carbs,” Joshua responds sadly. 

“Oh, he’s my trainer too! I wonder why I haven’t seen you around at the gym,” you say, more to make conversation than anything. (You know why you don’t see him around at the gym— you don’t ever work out when you’re supposed to.)

“Seungcheol is insane,” Joshua complains, “I had half a charcuterie board last week and he somehow knew. I can’t help myself, I haven’t had cheese in weeks.”

“Cheese is the spice of life,” you nod. Glancing over at his well-muscled body threatening to bust out of his thin cotton tee, you shrug. “Looks like it’s paying off, though.” 

“Thanks,” Joshua beams. “No offense, but you’re not what I was expecting.”

“Yeah,” you sigh, putting down your coffee in the cup holder, “it’s what I get for having terrible taste in men, their reputation rubs off.”

The actor nods sympathetically. “Jeonghan used to be my manager, before he moved over to the music business, but he roped me into this because he said I needed to change my image. Apparently I’m too boring.”

“What, and is dating me supposed to make you into a bad boy?” You scoff.

“I guess,” he shrugs. “I don’t really care what the media thinks of me, but Jeonghan’s convinced that he can turn me into an international sex symbol if I roughen up my image a bit. He’s not even my manager anymore.”

“Yeah, but he’s probably right,” you respond as you check your makeup in the side mirror of Joshua’s convertible. After all, you’re on camera. “He’s way too smart. At first, I didn’t think he’d make a good manager, because the industry is insane, but he really surprised me. He’s so sweet and caring, and just so nice, that I didn’t expect him to be so clever too.”

“Hmm, I guess you can call it that.” Joshua gives you a strange look that you can’t quite decipher. 

“What are you talking about? He’s like, the smartest person I know.” 

“Right,” the actor beside you says slowly, “and you think he’s nice?”

“Of course!” You sit up straight and look at him with wide eyes. “I mean, I get that people think he wouldn’t be, because he’s so good at what he does. But he’s genuinely one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. He might be the best friend I’ve ever had since I started working.”

Joshua frowns. “Weren’t you a child star?”

You wave your hand. “Yeah, yeah, I know singing on Disney Channel as a kid might have influenced my perception of what having real friends is like, but I promise, I’m a lot more well adjusted now that my name’s been dragged through the mud and I’ve spent the past year as a recluse. And Jeonghan really is a good friend.”

“Hmm,” Joshua hums again, looking like he’s itching to say something but holding it back. “Alright,” he says with an expression that he clearly thinks doesn’t look suspicious (isn’t he an actor?), “whatever you say.”

It’s unsettling, but you’re not about to get into it. “Whatever,” you sigh, “TMZ is hiding around that corner in the gray Toyota, and they think they’re being sneaky. Should we just start making out so we can call it a good day of work?”

“Oh, sure,” Joshua says, putting down his chicken salad and taking a big swig of water to wash it all down. You curl your fingers around the back of his neck and ruffle his hair affectionately to make the act more convincing. “I’ve been told I’m a pretty good kisser, so I hope I don’t disappoint.”

“Shut up,” you grin, leaning forward and connecting your lips with his.

(True to his word, he is a good kisser, and doesn’t taste at all like chicken salad.)

.

.

.

“Joshua Hong and Y/N L/N caught having a steamy makeout session in Calabasas,” Jeonghan reads off his phone screen the next day. “Wow, it took a bit longer than I expected, but it’s finally up.”

You groan, leaning forward to brace your hands on your knees while you gulp lungfuls of air. Your personal trainer, Seungcheol, looks up from his phone. “Don’t you have two more sets? And,” he points at Jeonghan’s phone, “is this real?”

“No, it’s for publicity,” Jeonghan replies, still scrolling. “I convinced them to fake a relationship. It’ll be good for their careers.”

“Huh,” Seungcheol shoots Jeonghan a suspicious frown full of thinly veiled worry. You have half a mind to demand an explanation for that look, but then again, Seungcheol and Jeonghan are always giving each other suspicious looks.

“Seungcheol, If I do another lunge, I’ll die and then it’ll all be for nothing,” you pant.

“I thought you said you wanted thighs strong enough to crush a watermelon,” Seungcheol raises his eyebrows at you.

“Keep it up, kiddo,” Jeonghan says distractedly as he scrolls through his twitter feed, brows knotted. The two men are seated comfortably on the floor, leaning against a mirrored wall while you rapidly approach death. “You’re the one who signed up for this, remember?”

“No,” you collapse to the ground dejectedly, spreading your arms and legs out. The ceiling looks so pretty. “I don’t remember.”

“Didn’t J—that person,” Seungcheol cuts himself off before he can say the name, “didn’t his new fiancé crush a watermelon between her thighs on TV and become a trending topic for a whole week?”

You blink at the ceiling. Suddenly, you’re not on the edge of death anymore. “Fine,” you huff, pulling yourself up, “two more sets, Seungcheol, and then I’m collapsing and dying.”

“Can’t die,” Jeonghan says as you start your lunges again, “because the buzz around you and Joshua is huge. ‘So glad she’s finally found love again’,” he reads out loud, “‘biggest plot twist of the decade’, ‘omg what an upgrade’, ‘I’m losing my mind at the video’, ‘I’d sell my kidneys for Joshua Hong to kiss me like that’. Huh? There’s a video?”

Jeonghan squints at his phone screen. From beside him, Seungcheol reaches out and flicks a few times before clicking on something. “There,” Seungcheol says. “I guess there’s a video.”

You immediately abandon your workout again (ignoring the look that Seungcheol gives you) and rush over to Jeonghan’s other side to peer over his shoulder at his phone screen. There, you see footage watermarked with the tabloid logo, taken from a good distance away, of you and Joshua sitting in his convertible. 

The cameraman zooms intensely and after a few seconds of shakiness, you see yourself in HD, chatting with Joshua and laughing at something he says. The two of you chat some more, and then you see yourself casually putting your hand on the back of his head and pulling him in for a kiss, which progresses quicker and more than you remember.

You feel your cheeks heat up. “Oh,” you say dumbly. “I forgot we literally made out in public.”

“How do you forget something like that,” Seungcheol says in mild disbelief. He reaches over and taps the replay button. “You were practically on his lap.”

Shrugging half heartedly, you wipe away a few beads of sweat from your forehead, motivation to work out now completely gone. “In my defense, he’s a good kisser. And he has huge muscles that I enjoyed touching.”

“You could have huge muscles too,” Seungcheol says, “if you worked out more.”

“No thanks,” you respond quickly. 

“Alright, fine,” he concedes finally, “come on. I’ll help you stretch and we can finish up.”

“Oh thank god,” you breathe a sigh of relief. “Jeonghan, do I have any more schedules today, or can I just go home and watch TV for the rest of the day?”

Your manager stares at his phone screen blankly, not responding.

“Jeonghan? Hello?” You wave your hand in front of his face and he jumps, hitting the power button on his phone so he’s just staring at a dark screen. 

“O-oh, right, sorry,” he puts his phone in his pocket and rubs the back of his head sheepishly, “I zoned out there for a moment. Um. What was your question?”

You stare at him. “Do I have any other schedules today?”

“Oh. No, you’re free to do whatever you want,” he replies.

“Great, do you want to get ice cream with me after this?” You grin brightly, ignoring Seungcheol’s long-suffering sigh. 

“Yeah, sure,” Jeonghan replies, still sounding distracted. “Whatever you want.”

.

.

.

Casting Joshua as your co-star in your music video was a no-brainer, a move that doesn’t take a genius to figure out. And you don’t object, because as you discover, Joshua is an easy-going person and enjoyable to be around. You enjoy hanging out with him so much, the two of you start texting and talking outside of just the staged “dates” for the public eye. 

You’re texting him from your chair while you get your hair and makeup done, despite the fact that he’s doing the same in the next room over, when Jeonghan arrives with your iced coffee.

“Thank god,” you put your phone in your lap and reach out for your drink. “You’re the best, Jeonghan.”

“I know,” he says as he automatically holds a hand over the top of your drink while your hairstylist sprays your entire head with hairspray. “You’re going to do great today,” he adds. “You look perfect.”

“Thanks,” you beam. Somehow, compliments from Jeonghan always feel real. Yes, he’s a good liar, manipulative and cunning, but he’s kind, and when it matters, he’s sincere in an industry where nearly nobody else is. 

“And, I heard back from NBC,” he adds on, patting your shoulder, “you’re confirmed to be the musical guest on the first episode of the next season of SNL. Perfect timing, if I may say so myself because you’ll be in New York right after the album drops. I’m going to try to get you some good talk show interviews booked also.”

“You’re amazing,” you tell him between sips of coffee. “Just, please—“

“Not Fallon,” Jeonghan finishes your sentence, reading your mind. “You got it.”

Your hairstylist gives you one final spray down before unclipping your cape and ushering you out of your chair. She grabs her bag and spray bottle and hurries out of the dressing room, telling you that she needs to do your co-star’s hair and that you can head over to the set now, before leaving you and Jeonghan alone. 

Taking one last sip of coffee, you inspect yourself in the mirror. You’re dressed in what’s essentially lingerie, wrapped in a gauzy robe trimmed with enormous feather boas. It’s head-to-toe ostentatious glamor, save for the bunny slippers you have on your feet.

“Jeonghan, can you help me put on my boots? I don’t think I can bend over without passing out in this outfit,” you admit. 

“Yeah, sure thing,” he says, taking your cup from your hand and setting it on the vanity next to him. “Sit,” he orders.

You do, kicking off your comfortable slippers and grimacing at the shoes in front of you, a pair of high heeled leather boots that go all the way to your thighs. “Can you make sure I never have to perform in those?”

Jeonghan lowers himself to a squat in front of you and raises his eyebrows while he helps you slip your foot into the first boot. “You’ve danced in worse.”

“Yeah, and I’m not a teenager anymore. I don’t have anything to prove, or a Disney Channel image to lose.” You shove your foot into the second boot, already feeling strain in your ankles. 

“Stand,” Jeonghan orders, and you do, turning around so he can fasten the laces that run up the back of the boots. He works quickly, tightening the shiny leather around your legs. “And you’re right about not needing to prove anything, but I know you’re going to like how you look in these and insist on wearing them on tour.”

Already admiring how they complement the shape of your legs, you burst into laughter. “You know me too well,” you grin. 

“Of course I do, I’m your friend, not just your manager,” he says, hands moving to the back of your left thigh. His warm skin brushes against yours as he ties the laces and tucks them away inside the boot so the ends stay hidden, and you suppress a shiver.

Jeonghan moves on to your other leg, methodically tugging and adjusting the laces until he makes his way up to the very top. Once again, his fingers are warm against your skin, brushing against your inner thigh as he tucks the laces away inside the boot. “You’re done,” he says, standing up behind you. 

“Thanks,” you say, turning around, coming face to face with him, and suddenly you can’t breathe.

You’re standing really close to him— so close, you could count each individual eyelash framing his dark eyes. He’s so beautiful, bare faced with dark circles under his eyes and hyperpigmentation on his cheek and redness under his nose, so beautiful with his delicately curved lips and large eyes that droop at the ends. You want to kiss him, you realize. 

Instead, you brush away a few strands of blond hair from his eyes and tuck them behind his ear. 

“Thanks,” he murmurs, his pink lips parting around the words as he leans into your touch.

“W-we should go,” you step backwards, suddenly panicking. Where did that come from? You can’t kiss him, he’s your manager. And, you already have a boyfriend, even if it’s fake. You can’t be caught kissing someone else, especially not Jeonghan.

Turning, you furiously try to calm your racing pulse as you walk down the hallway, heels clicking on the linoleum flooring. 

As soon as you step onto the set, you squawk at the sight of your co-star. 

“Joshua! Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?!”

Joshua turns away from the makeup artist doing some last minute touch ups and as soon as he sees you, his face brightens to a smile. “Oh, hi! The stylist told me to just not bother with the jacket,” he gestures towards a leather jacket hanging on a rack to the side. “Hope you’re okay with it.”

“You’re not wearing a shirt,” you say incredulously, staring at his defined abs and oiled pecs in morbid fascination. How is a body like that even real? How long has it been since he last had a drink of water? Anything to eat other than chicken breast and lettuce? 

“And you’re not wearing pants,” he points out, “but you don’t see me complaining.”

“I’m not complaining,” your voice raises into a squeak. You’re still frazzled from your earlier experience with Jeonghan, every muscle in your body tense, and you can’t help the slightly hysterical tone your voice takes. “It’s fine,” you huff, stepping into the powder pink bedroom set. “Where do you want me, director?”

The director responds into the mic, the sound echoing in the large lot, “you’ll be on the bed, straddling Joshua Hong, singing at him. We’ll start at the second pre-chorus.”

You exhale through your nose, remembering the racy lyrics. Something about falling into bed and giving it to you all night long. It’s bad enough that the internet is definitely going to dig into the music video and lyrics and come out with the conclusion that the song is about banging your fake boyfriend (when in fact the song was written in your pajamas while solving a jigsaw puzzle on Jihoon’s desk), but now you have to rub up against Joshua, half naked, immediately after nearly having a breakdown over how much you want to kiss Jeonghan.

How are you going to pull off a scene with Joshua when all you can think about is the curve of Jeonghan’s lips? “Did you bring my coffee—“ you turn in search of your manager, but before you can finish your sentence, you’re being ushered into position by a PA. 

When you glance back again, Jeonghan is already gone. His absence immediately puts you on edge. He usually always stays to monitor your music video shoots, but now that he’s not here, despite the flurry of activity and chatter all around you, you’re suddenly feeling very alone.

.

.

.

(When the music video drops and the internet collectively loses its mind over his body, Joshua takes you out to a celebratory dinner. “My treat,” he says, lifting a champagne flute in the air and tilting his head in your direction, “as thanks for having me in that music video and apparently turning me into a sex symbol overnight.”

Jeonghan was right, you think. But then again, he usually is.)

.

.

.

It’s been a while since the last time you wrote a love song. A real love song, not just a bubbly poppy chart-topper.

You’re alone in your hotel suite in New York when it comes to you, at 4 am, tipsy after the SNL taping and associated after parties. Jeonghan had been with you all night, backstage at Studio 8H, in the wings while you performed the top songs off your new album, at your side through the afterparty and the significantly rowdier after-afterparty.

The first time you performed on SNL, you had been the host and musical guest. Fresh out of your Disney Channel days, your manager at the time had pressured you to adopt a more mature image as soon as you had turned eighteen. You don’t remember most of the night, and sometimes the question of what had happened at the drug-fueled afterparty still keeps you up at night. The following year, you had spent your nineteenth birthday in rehab, and as soon as you got out, you had fired your old manager, cut ties with your mother, and switched to Vernon’s record label.

But tonight, the whole time, you felt safe with Jeonghan at your side, invited at your insistence. He didn’t even have to do anything. Just knowing his presence was near was enough for you. In fact, you weren’t even sure where he was for most of the party, undoubtedly off mingling and networking. But, the second you caught a glimpse of the lines of cocaine on the surface of a mirror, Jeonghan had appeared at your side like a physical reminder to you that you’ve already done your time, paid your dues to the entertainment gods, filled the cup with your blood and tears and managed to claw your way out of the pit in the end. You wonder how much Jeonghan knows about your past, the person you used to be. He undoubtedly knows enough, considering the fact that most of your teen years were on camera, whether it was the sanitized teen idol on Disney or the classic Hollywood tragedy on TMZ.

(“Loving you makes me human again.”)

There’s a pad of hotel stationary on your bed and a cheap pen stolen from the NBC studios in your hand. The sheet of paper in front of you is covered in a barely legible scrawl, a mess of underlines and circles and arrows that’s too incomprehensible for your sober self to decipher, but just right for your drunk self.

Your guitar is in your lap and you pick through the chords clumsily, but you know it’s a good song. Jihoon will have thoughts later, notes on the lyrics and a pending rearrangement, but right now, drunk, head full of thoughts of Jeonghan, you just know that it’s a good song. 

(“I love you, you, you, it’s you, it’s you.”)

Where did the song come from? How much did you drink tonight? Will you remember this in the morning? You just know that you can’t forget this song when daylight comes and wipes the memories of the night from your drunken mind. 

You prop your phone up on the nightstand and sit, cross-legged on the hotel bed as you open Instagram and start a live.

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.

.

Y/N L/N surprises fans on Instagram Live after SNL taping, you read the headline blearily, trying to remember exactly what you did the night before. The star went on Instagram Live at 5am this morning and played a 20-second snippet of a never-before-heard heartfelt love song before ending the live with no other commentary. Fans are gushing over the romantic lyrics and speculating about the release of an upcoming album. Either way, one thing’s for sure— Y/N and Joshua Hong are going strong and better than ever!

“Oh my god,” you groan, collapsing backward in your hotel bed. “What did I do?”

What you did: 1. Write a love song. (1A. Write a love song while thinking about Jeonghan) 2. Go on Instagram Live while still drunk. 3. Sing the aforementioned song for the whole world to hear. 

And, of course, everything continues to go according to Jeonghan’s plan, and the world is now even more convinced that you’re head over heels (tits over ass) in love with Joshua Hong.

.

.

.

The thing about being a child star is that, now as an adult, you have a very tenuous grasp of normal human relationships. When you were fourteen and a teen star, your mother had told you that if you were caught drinking coffee with milk and sugar, you'd be banned from appearing on TV forever. Years later, you realized it was because she didn't want you gaining weight as you drudged through the toxic wasteland of puberty, but to this day, you've never had a latte.

Maybe child stars all grow into either fucked up trainwrecks or incomprehensibly strange but well-adjusted recluses. You certainly hope you're growing into the latter, despite a few years veering dangerously towards the former.

Sometimes, you're surprised by how well-adjusted and normal Vernon Chwe is, despite his eccentricity. After all, he started in the entertainment industry even younger than you did, appearing in advertisements and children's programming before he even knew how to read his scripts. He had also been a Disney Channel star, and had played your opposite lead in a ridiculously successful teen musical movie (and its two sequels and made for TV holiday spinoff). The two of you had dated back then, too, because you were young and easily carried away, and Vernon was also young and just wanted to go with the flow. In retrospect, that breakup had, at the tender age of seventeen, been the one to kick off your series of disastrous and extremely public breakups.

(Vernon still sends you flowers every year with an apology for accidentally dumping you on stage and then leaving for Australia for a year the very next day.)

These days, Vernon spends most of his days with his four cats in his massive LA mansion tending to the organic garden plot he has in the backyard. Every once in a while, he'll drop a mixtape on Soundcloud. On even rarer occasions, he'll appear in a random nightclub wearing the ugliest outfit you've ever seen and invariably wearing sunglasses indoors at night, and he'll absolutely destroy a set, practically lighting the place on fire in all senses except literal. Pitchfork named him one of the best rappers of the generation, if only he weren't such a staunch anti-celebrity.

Today, you're spending an afternoon with Vernon in hopes that his normal and well-adjusted brain function will rub off on you a little bit and maybe help sort out your feelings.

It's bee day, and Vernon is suited up like the world's chillest astronaut, blowing hazy white smoke at the large wooden box that holds the beehive. You're also suited up in protective gear, but you're cowering significantly further away.

"I'm inspecting the hive for parasites and diseases," he explains calmly, moving slowly and deliberately as he sets the smoker down and takes the lid off the hive. "The smoke chills them out so they don't react aggressively. Don't worry, they won't sting you."

"Sure," you nod, not budging from your spot behind a trellis heavy with squash flowers. You can practically feel the inside of your suit filling with sweat as the hot California sun beats down on you, but Vernon insisted on having this conversation while tending to the bees. "So, about that question I had."

"Hmm?" Vernon lifts one of the wooden frames from the box to peer at the honeycomb contained within.

"You know, what we were talking about. What I should do if I think I really like someone."

"I don't think you need my advice for that," he responds drily as he replaces the frame and lifts out the next one.

"What are you talking about?"

"Um." Vernon holds the wooden frame in his hands and turns to look at you. "Joshua Hong?"

"Oh, that," you wave your hand, "he's not really my boyfriend. We're just fake dating for clout."

"What?!" Even from behind his veil, you can see his eyes widening. You nod emphatically, and Vernon shakes his head in disbelief as he turns back towards the hive to replace the honey comb in his hand. “That’s wild, dude.”

"The problem is, I don't know if I've ever had real feelings. Or, like, a normal relationship with anybody. No offense to you, Vernon."

He bobs his head in a way that silently communicates none taken, not bothering to turn around while he continues to inspect the hive.

You continue. “And I don’t think I know how to tell if someone likes me. Like, you know how it is, Vernon, better than anybody else. What if I make a move and then it’s all just… fake? Or if it ends up like all the other times? Or if he doesn’t care about me? I’m worried that my meter for human relationships and sincerity is just broken, and there’s no amount of therapy that can fix it. I’m trying to think of a strategic next step but it’s like I’m flying blind.”

"So," he says, "is your problem that you're in love with Joshua Hong, but the entire relationship is fake, and now you want to make it real?"

"What? No," you snort, furrowing your brows. "Josh is nice, but I'm not into him like that. It’s… someone else.”

"The plot thickens," Vernon says under his breath, voice heavy with irony and quietly enough that you think that maybe you weren't supposed to hear.

You bite back a snippy remark. “Vernon, please, I’m in distress. This is a person I can’t lose. He’s special, really.”

“Hmm,” he responds helpfully. Vernon seemingly finishes inspecting his hives and, after rubbing the wooden lid like you would a puppy’s head, he turns and starts heading back toward the house. 

“Do you have ice cream?” You trudge through the thick summer air after him, feeling like you’re caught in one of those dreams where you’re running through molasses. “I think I’m approaching death.”

“No,” Vernon replies. He slides open the large glass door leading back into the house, waiting for you to enter before closing it behind him with a quiet click. 

As soon as you get indoors, safe from the bees (that you love and support in their pollination efforts but only from a distance), you almost rip the beekeeper’s hat off your head, nearly moaning when you feel the air conditioning hit your sticky skin. “What, no ice cream?” You hurriedly shed yourself of the white cotton jumpsuit and toss it in a pile on the floor next to where Vernon has left his hat. 

The slick marble tiles are deliciously cold against your skin. You spread yourself out on the floor, trying to make as much contact with the tile beneath you as possible. 

“No ice cream,” Vernon says, confirming your fears. “We can order some if you want, though.”

“How do you survive this?” The ceiling looks lovely right now. 

Vernon shrugs. He’s still removing his gear, evidently in no hurry. “Sometimes you just gotta deal with stuff to be happy. Like, not that you should suffer just for suffering’s sake, but you know. If you don’t do anything, nothing will ever happen, right?” 

Vernon joins you on the floor, sitting cross-legged beside you, his head looming over you. 

Tilting your face to the side, you make eye contact with the underside of Vernon’s chin and the bottom of his nostrils. “If you don’t do anything, nothing will ever happen,” you repeat, shifting your glance back up at the ceiling.

“Yeah. Like the bees, they give me honey and pollinate my garden and the surrounding plants and stuff, right? And that makes me happy. But they make me happy because I take care of them, even when it’s terrible outside. There’s wild bees out there but they don’t make me as happy. Same with those giant zucchinis.” He suddenly pauses and peers down at you. “Did I tell you that I got rid of my staff? I only have cleaners once a week now. I’m downsizing. Kinda wanna sell this house and move to Seattle, but I’ve invested too much emotionally on the garden and I don’t want some B-list TV actor ripping it up after I move out.”

“The zucchinis,” you prompt.

“Ah, right. So yeah, I got rid of my chef. But before I did that, I could just go and ask him to buy me the biggest, fattest, thickest zucchini. Two c’s, both in the thicc-ness and the zucchini. But anyways, it wouldn’t make me as happy as a medium sized zucchini that I grew. And sometimes the zucchinis are small or get eaten by squirrels, but that’s just how things go. Either you do stuff, and risk getting disappointing zucchinis but maybe also huge zucchinis, or you don’t do stuff, and you don’t get zucchinis at all.”

“Hmm,” you tell him in response as you absorb his words. This is probably the most you’ve ever heard him speak. “Um. Thanks, Vernon. I’m glad you’re living your best life now.”

“Do you want some strawberries?” Your friend is unshakeable. 

“It’s Jeonghan, by the way,” you tell him, still staring upward at the ceiling.

Vernon’s jaw drops and his eyes grow comically wide. “Oh,” he brings his fist up to his mouth in a caricature of surprise, “dang!”

.

.

.

“Woo! Way to go, Josh,” you shout half heartedly over your canned sparkling wine from the beach, a towel over your head and shoulders and comically large sunglasses shielding your face, as Joshua tumbles off his surfboard and into the salty waves.

The two of you are spending a weekend in La Jolla. Ever the optimistic LA born and bred SoCal boy, Joshua had attempted to teach you how to surf. The lesson had lasted about an hour, before you got tired of falling off and getting saltwater up your nose, and by then, your thighs and abs were way too sore for any other physical activity, so you had to plead him off your case lest you die of an exercise-induced heart attack. 

Joshua emerges from the waves two minutes later, shaking water from his hair and carrying his surfboard under a well-muscled arm, jogging up the beach like a character on Baywatch. You’d have to be stupid to throw away a boy who’s practically the Poseidon of the southern California coast, but perhaps you are just that. 

He runs his hand through his wet hair, pushing it back like he’s modeling for a perfume commercial, as he falls to his butt beside you, sending a spray of sand your way. 

“Man, I’m beat,” he pants, grabbing a bottle of water from your bag and uncapping it. “It’s been a while since I last hit the waves.”

“You looked cool doing it,” you tell him while he gulps down the entire contents of the water bottle in one go. “Like David Hasselhoff himself. You’re a walking talking SoCal stereotype.”

“Yeah, I know,” he shrugs nonchalantly.

The beach is relatively secluded, backing into rocky cliffs that are dotted with sagebrush, but it’s not completely private. There are two or three other surfers further out in the water, riding out the raw ocean swells, tiny spots of black against endless gray-blue. You can count the number of beach goers on the white coral sand on one hand. 

Half out of obligation, you settle a hand on Joshua’s shoulder and lean over him, pushing him over onto the sand to kiss him. You feel his grip on your arms as he settles the two of you into a more comfortable position for cuddling. Joshua tastes like the sea, like endless summer, like sunlight. Kissing Joshua is comfortable— he’s sweet and considerate and never moves too quickly. 

Joshua Hong is the perfect boyfriend. He’d be the perfect boyfriend to someone else, someone who deserves it more.

His warm, sand-roughened hands move up your arms slowly as the two of you kiss. Despite yourself, you can’t help but to let your mind wander. What do you deserve? Do you deserve a to-go cup of iced coffee every morning, just the way you like it? Do you deserve late nights and late mornings, quiet humming in the car, the most sincere compliments you’ve heard in your entire life? That intense, quiet, unwavering loyalty? What do you have to do to deserve Jeonghan?

And then it hits you, and then in an instant, you know what you need to do, according to Vernon Chwe’s Zucchini Theory of Personal Fulfillment.

“Oh my god,” you push away from Joshua, staring wide-eyed as recognition washes over you. “I get it now.”

“Huh?” He looks confused, but otherwise unbothered.

“The zucchinis, I get it,” you pull yourself up into a seated position.

Joshua squints at you. “Zucchinis?”

“I thought Vernon had just been high that day, but it makes sense now.” You turn and stare directly into Joshua’s eyes, voice bordering on frantic as the cogs and wheels in your brain spin. “We need to break up, Josh. Right now.”

“What are you talking about?” If he furrows his brows and squints any harder, he’ll turn into a caricature of the Grinch who stole Coachella.

“We need to break up, because if you never do anything, nothing will happen,” you tell him. “You gotta do things, even if there’s a possibility that your zucchinis will end up being small and gross.”

Joshua waves his hand in front of your face, but you push his arm away, undeterred.

“We need to break up, because I need to tell Jeonghan that I’m in love with him!”

He stares at you for a second. “Oh my god, he doesn’t know?!”

This time, it’s your turn to squint at Joshua. “What are you talking about?”

The actor throws his hands up in exasperation. “I thought he knew— I thought something had happened between the two of you, and that’s why he reached out about this. I mean, fake dating for publicity? How does that make sense at all?”

“Knew what?” 

“It’s obvious that the two of you are crazy for each other,” Joshua sighs. “I mean, most people don’t sleep over at their manager’s house when they’re feeling lonely, or insist that their managers are invited to every party, or even really text their manager outside of work. Your relationship is clearly more than just a manger-artist relationship.”

You blink at him, still trying to absorb the first sentence. “We’re crazy for each other?”

Joshua nods emphatically. “You don’t see the way Jeonghan looks at you?”

And then, another thought comes to you. You remember the way he disappeared at your music video shoot and the way he looks to the side whenever Joshua puts his hand around your waist and his lips on your cheek at a red carpet event. You remember the way he always seems distracted whenever your relationship with Joshua ends up on the headlines. Have you been unintentionally making him jealous this whole time?

“I have to go,” you scramble to your feet in a panic.

“I’m your ride,” Joshua reminds you, “and we need to hike back up the cliffs.” He points at the face of dark stone that’s now blazing with fiery light from the setting sun. You remember the grueling steep path down the cliffs, and you feel the dull ache in your muscles from your failed attempt at surfing.

“God,” you put your face in your hands, “can I have a single week without any physical exertion?“

.

.

.

When Joshua drops you off back in LA, the first thing you do is stop by the Starbucks around the corner from Jeonghan’s apartment building.

Your clothes are stiff from the salty spray of the Pacific Ocean and your hair bears the marks of a failed battle with the waves, and you’re definitely being recognized left and right, if the stares and decidedly non-sneaky phone pictures are any indication, but you can’t bring yourself to care. You order two lattes, one for yourself and one for Jeonghan.

At the toppings station, you add a reasonable amount of sugar to Jeonghan’s latte. Then, to yours, you add a healthy portion of sugar, and then some cinnamon and cocoa powder for some good measure. You stir with one of the wooden stirring sticks until you can’t feel any grit at the bottom of the cup anymore, then you replace the lid and walk out of the Starbucks, down the street, around the corner, and into Jeonghan’s apartment complex.

When you get up to his floor, you have the courtesy to at least knock a few times first, and then after hearing some rustling and a quiet irritated groan from inside the apartment, you bring out your spare key and unlock the door anyway. 

Jeonghan stares at you with an unamused deadpan on his face. He’s sitting on the floor in front of his coffee table, which holds a half-finished massive Lego model of a NASA space shuttle. “Aren’t you supposed to be spending the weekend with Joshua?”

You don’t answer your question as you step into the apartment and kick off your shoes, scattering a few grains of sand on his entryway mat. “Here,” you take a seat opposite to him, crossing your legs under the coffee table as you hand him his latte. “I got coffee.”

This time, Jeonghan actually does look surprised. “I thought you didn’t like milk and sugar with your coffee.”

“I’ve never tried it before,” you respond.

Jeonghan blinks at you. “What?”

“When I was fourteen,” you tell him, setting your tan-colored latte on the table in front of you, “my mom told me that if I had milk and sugar in my coffee, I’d get fat and I’d never get casted again. I believed her, of course, because I was fourteen and was afraid I’d lose my dream, just like that. I was still on the Disney Channel, appearing on TV every week, and had been on a strict diet since I was ten.”

“Oh.”  Your manager’s face shifts completely, and suddenly he’s not your manager anymore, but just Jeonghan, your friend. “You didn’t deserve that.”

“I’ve been thinking about my fucked up childhood a lot,” you tell him. “I don’t think anybody really deserves what I went through, inherently, just based on their existence. So I’m trying this new thing where I do things that’ll make me happy, not because it’s expected of me, or because it’s what I should be doing.”

Jeonghan nods, smiling encouragingly. 

“So that’s why I’m here with lattes,” you tell him. You raise your cup and lift the opening of the straw to your lips, and take a single tentative sip. 

“Good?”

It’s way too sweet. You know you went overboard with the sugar and toppings, and the cocoa powder isn’t completely dissolved and leaves a film of grit on your tongue, but it’s still good. The acidity of the coffee is mellowed by the milk fat and the final product is smooth, delicious even.

Just the fact that milk and coffee combined is delicious is, strangely, the final push you need. After all, just a few minutes ago, the simple act of putting milk in your coffee had been paramount to a sin, an indulgence that you didn’t deserve, but the latte in your hands is good and you enjoy it. There’s a lot more that you didn’t think you deserved, that you had been too afraid to chase, that might also be good, that you might also enjoy.

“Josh and I broke up,” you blurt out.

Jeonghan’s eyes widen in alarm, and he reaches for his phone, undoubtedly to look up whatever headlines there may be. You stop him with a quick hand on his arm. “In private. I mean, we agreed to stop dating. Or fake dating,” you amend. 

There’s a pause as Jeonghan stops and thinks, undoubtedly planning the media hailstorm that’s about to come when Hollywood’s darling it-couple announces its dissolution. 

“Stop thinking, I don’t care about the media, or my reputation. It didn’t feel right. To be fake dating when I have real feelings.”

The thing about Jeonghan is that he’s good at navigating Hollywood and dealing with celebrities and record labels and media. He wears a placid expression that’s near-indecipherable, a poker face that he never drops. You know it’s a poker face, and you know he’s guarding himself, but you don’t know what emotion he’s guarding so closely.

“I’m so sorry,” he says quietly. His expression is unreadable, but his words feel sincere. “I wish it could have worked out between you and Joshua. When did you tell him about your feelings?”

You blink at him, surprised by the sudden sympathetic turn to his voice. “Um. Today?”

The corners of Jeonghan’s lips tighten for a split second, pulling into a frown that passes so briefly, you nearly miss it. Then, in a very quiet and very kind voice, he tells you, “the version of you that the world thinks you are is very different from the version of you that I know. You’re brave, the strongest person I know, passionate about your art, and despite everything you’ve been through, you still have so much trust— in me, in Jihoon, in everybody on your team— even though you have no reason to trust us that much. And that says a lot. So, if Joshua can’t see who you really are, behind the persona and celebrity, then he doesn’t deserve your love.”

There it is again, that pull in your chest, your ribs so tight you think you’ll burst. Before Jeonghan, you had just been your name, the headlines and concerts and interviews, a one-time child star turned Hollywood tragedy. But Jeonghan had seen parts of you that you didn’t recognize. Loving him, being loved by him, made you into a whole person. A human, not just a name. 

“You’ll make a really good girlfriend to someone someday. I’m just sorry it couldn’t be Joshua, today.”

And then, like a bubble bursting, you realize what he’s saying. “What?! Jeonghan, it’s you,” you blurt, scrambling up from your cross-legged seated position to lean over the coffee table on your knees. “I love you. I’m in love with you, Jeonghan. It’s you. It’s you,” you say, breathless.

Jeonghan looks at you in disbelief. “But Joshua,” he starts to say.

“You’re the one who said it would have to be fake,” you shake your head in disbelief. “It was your idea.”

“I know,” he says, frowning, “but I had ulterior motives, too.”

“Of course.” You’re still in disbelief. 

“He’s a good match for you. Or so I thought. And it seemed like you were in love with him, genuinely. He made you happy.”

“Because being with friends makes me happy! What are you talking about? Again,” you shake your head again, “may I remind you that it was your idea to fake date Joshua Hong?”

“The song,” Jonghan reminds you. “You wrote an entire song in the middle of the night about how much you love him.”

“The song was for you.” It’s you, it’s you, it’s you. “Every word of it was for you.” Loving you makes me human again. 

Jeonghan is quiet. You know he’s thinking again, that brilliant mind of his working behind his eyes, so you can’t help yourself as you keep on talking.

“I was scared, of rejection, of what would happen if I lost you, the most important person in my life. And I don’t deserve you. At least, that’s what I felt, because I’m a mess, a human disaster, and you know I’m still trying to be better, and you deserve so much more. But then I spoke to Vernon about my feelings, and realized that it’s not up to me to decide what you deserve. And that I don’t have to keep on doing the easy thing, which is to just continue to be the version of me that everybody else expects me to be. You know, perfect Hollywood Barbie doll with her perfect movie star boyfriend, when none of that is true. And, Jeonghan, I love you. I want to be happy. I think I deserve it, and you deserve to know how I feel. And even if you say no, I think it’s still worth telling you.”

You exhale.

Jeonghan reaches toward you and pushes a stray strand of hair from your face. “Can I kiss you,” he whispers.

You nod, your heart in your throat. Nobody’s ever asked you that before, and it’s been years since you’ve last been nervous before a kiss, but right now, you feel like you’re about to jump out of your skin. 

Jeonghan’s hand curls around the side of your neck, impossibly gently, as he leans forward and presses his lips to yours. 

It’s a soft, chaste kiss, none of the passion and heat that you’re used to. It’s a first kiss. It’s tentative and unsure. It’s milk and coffee and sugar, quiet smiles, a watchful eye, unconditional respect.

“I love you,” he says quietly in that sincere way that he does. “You have no idea how much I love you.”

And you think you can begin to understand.

There will be lattes. Sugary drinks and desserts. Acoustic songs dropped with no promotions, declined party invites, awards shows spent at home in bed. And Jeonghan will be by your side, and that’s all you could really ever wish for. 

[angeli-marco-writes]

Peter Parker - drivers licence

A/N & WC - I am not trying to pretend I am Olivia Rodrigo at all: total credit for all songs and lyrics used here goes to her and her team. No disrespect is meant towards her. I do not own the songs, I also do not own the characters I’m writing these blurbs for. Please read the preface. 1.1k.

Warnings - swearing in the lyrics, minor crying, breakup angst, driving, Peter is 18+.

I got a box of tissues out ready for this one. Peter’s due back from patrol any minute, so I open the window once my dad has left, and wave out to him. He spots me and swings straight over, clambering through. His feet thud as he lands skilfully. His agility is astounding.

“What’s up?” he asks.

“I wanted to play you a song I wrote.”

“Oh!” His cute, joyful face lights up. “What’s it about?”

“The part of the breakup you helped me through. Is that ok?”

“Of course,” he says, shrugging off his suit beneath the clothes he's tugged on that I bought through for him to save time.

He takes a seat on the sofa, and looks up at me expectantly as I ready myself by the piano, gently curving my fingers over the introductory notes, breathing deeply. I’m not scared for this one, not in the least, because Peter is such a darling that I have nothing to be worried about around him.

“I like this bit,” he says.

My light chuckle leads me perfectly into my first line, perhaps a little more jovially than is intended for the sombre tone of the song.

‘I got my driver's license last week…’

Pete did, actually. I helped teach him, and that’s what inspired this. It was the best distraction I could have wished for. I’m better at teaching than doing, as Steve frequently told me with a shake of his head.

‘But today I drove through the suburbs

Crying 'cause you weren't around.’

Yet Peter was, and he was the one to lace his fingers with my own as my heart stuttered at the thought of my misspent youth, my heart broken from our stupid drives. It’s a reclamation.

‘And you're probably with that blonde girl

Who always made me doubt

She's so much older than me,’

The spies caught them together before any paper could. I can’t say I’m surprised, he always did favour the leggy blondes with tiny waists and no scars, the malleable ones who would bend to his will so easily, the way you had to force yourself to.

‘She's everything I'm insecure about

'Cause how could I ever love someone else?’

There’s shuffling over on the sofa, and glancing over my shoulder I see that Peter, in typical Peter Parker fashion, can’t keep still. Since it’s a reprieve from the melody, a change of chords to shift into the chorus, I smile over at him, catching his pleading, molten chocolate eyes.

“Okay?” I ask him,

He nods briefly and clears his throat, “Yeah.”

I pick back up with a changed focus, ‘And I know we weren't perfect but I've never felt this way for no one,’

The incorrect grammar makes us both wince, but I move on.

‘And I just can't imagine how you could be so okay now that I'm gone.

Guess you didn't mean what you wrote in that song about me

'Cause you said forever, now I drive alone past your street.’

Only in the early hours.

The rustle of cushions and thud of feet rouses me before recommencing with the second verse, only to shift my chair away and find that he’s now sitting on the arm of the couch, his legs dangling, his head tilted to the side with a certain intensity, intent on hearing every word I have to sing. My gently curved fingers find the keys with ease, and the lyrics pour effortlessly from within me.

‘And all my friends are tired

Of hearing how much I miss you,’

My only friends are the Avengers, and I must concede that by now they’re sick of it. Even Peter, probably. In his own little way, he was trying to get us to break up for a while, and he was willing to be there for the fallout.

‘But I kinda feel sorry for them

'Cause they'll never know you the way that I do.’

I leap back into the chorus, allowing every emotion from love to hate, from wistfulness to a stinging bittersweet melancholy, to seep into my words, climbing a repeated quaver idea to the high end of my range. While I’m singing, I feel his presence sidle up beside me, not touching me, but just his abnormal body warmth emanating from beside me. I chance a smile at Peter, turning briefly to brush a peck to his forehead. He nuzzles into my shoulder at this.

I mimic a drumbeat with my hands on my thighs, honouring the N.C markings on my sheet music. Then I’m all in, with the most power from my diaphragm that’s been needed thus far in the song. My entire posture shifts.

‘Red lights, stop signs

I still see your face in the white cars, front yards

Can't drive past the places we used to go to

'Cause I still fuckin' love you, babe,’

I vocalise between these lines almost ethereally, shifting to my head voice in a vertiginous shift, only to switch straight back, but Peter’s presence is unfaltering.

‘Sidewalks we crossed

I still hear your voice in the traffic, we're laughing

Over all the noise

God, I'm so blue, know we're through

But I still fuckin' love you, babe…’

I almost can’t help the break in my voice, the timely fall off, and the only thing to ground me from the sobs about to wrench from my chest, Peter’s arms wrap around my waist, joining around my stomach. I’m calm enough, just from this, to begin the final chorus.

I know we weren't perfect but I've never felt this way for no one

And I just can't imagine how you could be so okay, now that I'm gone,’

I implement a riff here that I was unsure of when first writing, but feels right, especially judging my Pete’s surprised gasp.

'Cause you didn't mean what you wrote in that song about me

Yeah, you said forever, now I drive alone past your street.’

At last, I end on an unfinished chord, and let my hands fall away from the piano, nuzzling into Peter’s grip. He made good use of the tissues, it seems, currently dabbing one around his tearful eyes, pushing his mussed brunet locks off his forehead. I don’t even have to ask what he thinks, he’s that intuitive.

“I loved it. You’re so talented!” he exclaims. “Thank you for teaching me how to drive.”

I laugh, almost in spite of myself, “Thanks. And you’re welcome.”

“Where should I go now? Can I download that track?”

He steps away and stands his gangly form up, giving me space to do the same, and we make our way to the door, “Soon.”

[kwonzoshi]

Opnions

Whatever kp had in the beginning died in this ep so they gotta resuscitate before the tiny part of the fandom stops caring

Somehow Thankhun is consistently written

That scene of Porche confirming he loves kinn made Chan suspect or trust Porche less like he literally pulled out his gun

Korn is plotting smthg but if it's another breakup then it will be dissappointing tho i think they won't take this route make it more of an internal conflict for kp fallout otherwise it will be redundant

Porche character fizzled out in the 2nd half of the season like the blast in ep10 wanted it to be wow but too small for it to be considered an inconvenience. Like get some good rigs boc

I loved porche too much but it became a 1d at end . I mean i get it they're in love u already showed, did i want more? yes .. but show it in a way that advances plot like u got all the talent u need: the actors the music, the cinematography, why be held back for a helicopter bj? Don't address the power imbalance like make an internal conflict for them to split make it meaningful. Like the series will show in the later eps (hopefully) of how imp trust is to kp but if they don't show tiny glimpses of wt porche feels whenever kinn says he's always right or when he doesn't address their Problems and just makes out or when porchay's in danger becoz of kinn I want Porche to react how he did earlier in the show how they established him it's good that he's changed when in love just make him ask questions like him a protagonist rather than hailing kinn being above evryone else

If the above Doesn't occur in the prior eps it could be redundant.

Bigg my beloved always in the fandom's heart.

Kinn was sus abt Pete dissappearence I'm excited to see their trust break after he knows of Vegas and how the show will handle with such tonal inconsistencies

Vegaspete wow. That was good . Only if they had more screentime it was tiny bit rushed at vegas having an oh shit moment and giggling at him in a day but lt was well acted that i forgot how unnerving it is irl. They drew me into their world. Like they didn't need to be physically intimate to have my undivided attention. And when they do my brain cells would burn to survive the heat.

Mafia kids having daddy issues and dead moms is a parallel i loved but little explored thanks to Vegaspete i have seen it here.

Also what did Macau ever do u little shit gun

Vegas lonely. Cute hedgehog. Kim being mature than all 3 bros and learning from his mistakes. Korn sus. Chay needs hugs and kisses. KP the best potrayal of siblings dynamic. No duestche bank this week, it be the 2nd to only thing I look forward for kp.

Rip bigg Kate bush up the hill.

[practicalmagicintuitions]

Reading on HC

DISCLAIMER: If you will send me an Anon, I will answer in the same tone as your ask, opinion is written.

All information and statements made in this reading or any other post of mine are all alleged until proven to be fact and for entertainment purposes & usage only. All information stated is based on my intuition and my tarot cards. Opinion only. The readings have no intention to cause any harm to the individuals, people featured in it.

Disclaimer 2 : seems extra long reading to me, sorry for that. If there any typo sorry for that too, I wanted to post this today, so I typed like a mofo. 

Cards pulled on 15/07

What is happening now?

Devil rx Eight of Wands. 

On The Devil card, you can see the couple from the Lovers card chained together while The Devil is watching them. Those two cards are numerological counterparts ( The Lovers 6 The Devil is 15 = 1+5=6) so they have a connection but this is not limited to some romantic relationship. This card also deals with addiction, obsession, influences, control, illusion, materialism. And when the card is upright the pentagram is in the “wrong” position, it’s upside down. So when the card is reversed, the pentagram returns its correct position and becomes the protective symbol again. 

So The Devil rx means the chain falls off, it’s an opportunity to free yourself from those obsessive, addictive things which affect you. It's realising you have the power to change. But before you came to this realisation and urge to be free, you have to hit the rock bottom. I feel it’s important to say that in this question I haven’t asked about his romantic relationship, so it could mean changing a circle of friends or situations too. 

8 of wands is often called the cupid’s arrow or the falling in love card while it is more about infatuation and adrenalin rush. It’s also a fast-moving card. This card is also called the holiday love card.

So I see two possible options. One of them is he is ready to free himself from some bounding situation fast. And this freeing attempt makes him enthusiastic, cause some adrenalin rush and in this case, it means he is trying to free himself from infatuation. He wants rapid results.  The second option is that he is trying to free himself because there is another person, a third one if you like. 

HC+NV relationship now. 

Eight of Swords rx, Five of cups, The Sun rx. 

It’s very interesting to see those 3 cards together, I had to meditate on them a little bit longer.

With the 8ofSwrx I think he has a more realistic, clearer view on this relationship. I think this clarity cause great sadness and regret. (5ofC) Sun rx means the relationship is cooled down. 5ofC is a traditional bad relationship card. Not necessarily a breakup but definitely arguments and disharmony. Because this is about the relationship and because 8ofSWrx is about to break free, release, escape freedom (like the Devil rx) and the 5ofC has a breakup meaning, I think the relationship itself lost its warmth, burnt out. Maybe because the past events were too much or one of the parties is still crying over a “spilt milk” aka cannot let the past go, a past relationship perhaps. If this is about letting go of this current relationship with NV, it won’t be a lucky “escape”. It will bring sorrow, probably thinking about why this didn’t work? 

HC feelings, emotions

Judgement rx on top of it 7ofSwords

Judgment rx is about a difficult transition you are resisting or need time to adjust. It’s the refusal to hear the call. Delays, confusion, broken family units. etc. But because we have the 7ofSw on top of it ( and I mentioned before how I pay attention to the cards that fall on the others. This is only my method, maybe others don’t care but I do) I think he is seeking a way out about this situation he seemingly cannot let it go. But this card is an unsettling, shady, sneaky one. It brings dishonesty. Walking on eggshells, getting away with something, preparing for some action. Discomfort is the foundation of this card, it’s almost like you want to be truthful but cannot get what you want with honesty. This is the white lies, diplomatic approach to a situation. You know how he was compared to a politician, this is it basically. I feel this is the I cannot let go, but somehow I want to but my methods and ways won’t be honest and nice. For example when your partner is cheating you but too coward to admit it and accusing you of cheating. You fed up, break up with them, so they got what they want without being hones. That was just an example to describe the card, not the exact situation I saw here. 7ofSw is also means planning, mind games, tactics, being undercover etc. 

9ofWands, Page of Cups, Star rx, 2of Cups rx

He was defensive, he protected a young feeling which was a teen love type of emotion ( I remember I got this card ones how this relationship felt at the beginning and I think this was his card back then too) and probably this is why he feels he is stuck, he cannot let go because he was protective over this. And just left this doesn’t seem an option, not with a clear exit. (again, not whit honesty)

With the Judgment rx this again means, hard time to let it go. He feels he was committed to fight for and guard that young feeling (as we saw with his FO post ) but now he is hopeless (Star rx). He also feels he is constantly battling and this wears him out. Maybe that’s why a relationship seems to burn out. 

Pages are not just the youngest but they are the news bringers in tarot. This cup could mean gossip, being overly dramatic. To be honest I think this perfectly fits for his FO post and maybe he feels it was too much, too dramatic. On the card, the Page is offering his cups to someone and it could mean he feels he made those offers. He offered his emotions to her but the situation is hopeless. Or more likely it was a false hope. I said once in my previous reading that the most intense feeling I get from him for NV is this Page of cups, teenage love thing, which is more like the first few weeks, head over heels emotion, but this is without any real substance. 

There is no love here. 2 of cups if it’s upright is still not the love we saw on the Lovers card. It’s more like the early touchy-feely phase of a relationship which could grow to something more but it could die down too. Reversed 2ofC means trouble in a relationship even the end of it. Two people realise they are not meant to be together. 2ofC not only represents romantic relationships but friendships too. In that case, it could mean a fallout between friends.��

What I found interesting is that this could mean a codependent relationship between two people to the extent they cannot leave each other. This resonates with the Judgment rx. 2ofCrx can be a sign of a third person in the relationship or that one of the parties feels attraction outside of the relationship. 

His relationship with his family

Wheel of fortune, 2 of wands

Wheel of Fortune could be a fate, a karmic card. As I understand here that it means they as a family have a strong relationship even if the wheel is turning to negative. I don’t see this bond be destroyed by a woman (like MM did with Harry and the BRF). Rifts, arguments yes, but I don’t see this as a permanent situation. 

The 2ofW is often described as planning the future because the figure on the card is looking at a globe he is holding in his hands. Here I almost feel he is looking into the wheel. 

2 of W is decision making. Seems like a passive card without moving but you are thinking, making plans, so it’s not passive really. He knows the decision he makes will affect many. But as a relationship nor the Wheel neither the 2ofW are good cards. So I definitely sense some trouble now ( at that time of the reading) but he is in the position to change things. 

9 of Pentacles, Strength.

The imagery of those cards are very similar. Both have a very bright yellow background, on both, we have a female figure alone with an animal. 

9ofP could represent an older woman, but first I want to talk about the Strength card. This is about your inner strength, calm the beast inside you. It means your inner strength is put up on a test. 9ofP could mean that you are sacrificed many things for success. I think he temporarily sacrificed some part of his family and this is what put his strength to the test. This card also correlates with material wealth and success. I used the RSW deck for all of my HC readings but I cannot let go the feeling I have when I am using my own, personal deck which is the Druid Craft Tarot. On that card, the woman has everything financially, but still, there is boredom on her face. She is not happy, she is missing someone or something from her life. And I feel as an emotion this is very much present. He has a good status financially, seems everything is good, but still he is not happy. And this is something that could put his inner strength for a test. 

2 of pentacles rx

If this card is upright it means we are successfully juggling between 2 things. Because it’s a pentacle many times this is about 2 jobs, but as I said pentacles are about resources. 

If this card is rx it means you cannot do that anymore. You know that you have to choose between the two things. It could mean his family vs NV, or NV and another one, but could mean a poor financial decision for example with his FL house, maybe he overspent. (Tbh I think I mentioned this before somewhere that maybe he will have problems with his house)

This card also could mean a breakup. I don’t see this means a breakup from his family, I think their relationship is tested. Since this is a rx 2 it speaks about imbalance. 

This very much describes the whole reading. I felt imbalanced. I had a hard time reading certain combinations, first, this whole didn’t make sense. I am not sure how clear I was, this is definitely not my most polished reading. But then I thought I think I am picking up their imbalance. Because this whole has the “ I want to be free” feeling, but at the same time the “I cannot let it go” too. Like I want to go but there is an anchor which is holding me back. 

If we check the cards I get, we have 4 twos ( 2 of cups, wands, pentacles, Judgement), 3 of them is reversed. It means losing harmony, trying to do 2 things at the same time unsuccessfully. The illusion of companionship. You don’t have equilibrium. etc. It’s about decision making, serious ones. Two sides of a story. It also means because those are reversed that he is afraid of making a decision, he rather wants to other make those on his behalf. 

We also have 4 eights ( 8of wands, swords, The Star, The Strength). 2 of them upright, 2 of them reversed. Eight is strength. His inner strength is tested, his life gets busier. Reversed one means bondage, lack of courage.

If you want to imagine his situation, imagine a swing. Back and forth, up and down. He needs to make a decision to slow down or stop, or he will lose control and fall off. This is what he is now and this is what I picked up, while I had a hard time understanding the cards.

I hope you enjoyed it. :)

[theyarebothgunshot]

i loved m and j's short convo yesterday but i'm convinced now more then ever they're not together anymore

i know this is a copy pasta and i usually ignore this, but tea anon came into my inbox this morning with some delicious tea that i think fits quite nicely with this ask

So here's my take on Cockles after Supernatural finale that nobody asked for but I think I recently calmed Gunshots down a little so maybe it'll work out too.

So I think they're either still a couple, it's just more difficult during pandemic, OR they had a break but are back together. But even if they're not I think they are still so fond of each other and will always somehow be.

But I also think that if they are together, they want to keep it low for now or balance on a thin line. They've been here for us for more than 10 years and they always played along with us but I think they deserve and would like some rest, out of public eye. They have always kept things from us, like trips and meetings we were never supposed to find out about. We suspect the way they acted recently wasn't really honest - I think they want to keep that impression on that there's nothing really out there, I think they need some privacy for now.

Also I think I've talked about it before but at some point I got so naturally convinced that Misha is regularly lurking around here (again, why would he do that if there was nothing real) and I suspect (warning: major tinhatting ahead) they see what things we notice about them and at some points become more careful with their behaviour recently, even with social media activity.

Back to what I said in one of the recent asks: I think they're fine. I don't think they would celebrate their 11th anniversary feeling they will have a fallout soon and it's already been far into pandemic. I don't think they would make those posts (Jensen's birthday one, "Mish. Dee.") if they stopped what they have had and yes I know none of those posts got notice from the other one but I also started to think of it differently. I don't think they would behave this way last weekend and I saw somebody say that even if they broke up they would still have love for each other and flirt and yes I agree they would still have that but I don't think it would be that easy to behave normally after breaking off years long relationship, even if the breakup happened on positive terms. I don't think they're that easy to break. And I think they're still a team. I think they're still very much in contact.

And I think they are too important for each other to call it off like that.

But it's only... my thoughts on that. You could disagree.

Rose we've talked about things they talked about at opening ceremony but maybe you could tell us what general vibes did you get from them?

Also sorry if I don't make sense, it's... messy here - tea anon, serving tea

i basically agree with all of this, as you know, and i think especially the 'mish. dee.' and birthday posts are evidence that they are still going strong. even if they aren't officially together or anything in this moment in time, i believe that their bond is not going to be broken.

the general vibes that i got is that they are so incredibily fond of each other and they light each other up just by seeing the other on screen. they make each other laugh with no effort at all, which is a sign that you really like someone. we are all used to jensen 'heart eyes' ackles, but misha really looked like he wanted to burst into song just from seeing jackles. he was positively glowing and it was just wonderful to see. 'hello my dear friend' 'love you, my friend' 'jensen i missed you so much, man', 'i got incredibily stressed out from not seeing you and turned grey' just...... he loves and adores jensen to bits and it warms my heart.

at the end of the day, no one can know what kind of relationship they have, how they would define it, and what the arrangement is when it comes to them. it's not a "traditional" relationship to begin with, so who knows what they have agreed upon during the time that they can't physically see each other. i sure don't. but i do think they are very much still in contact, very much still in love, and that they will very much pick up where they left off as soon as they see each other. and what they do in the meantime? well. fill in the blanks. video calls are very convenient.