#tumblr YOU NEVER LET ME TAG MY OWN COUSIN WHY

[lalal-99]

If You Don't Know {h.h.} | Afterglow Series

©July 2023 by lalal-99 Part of the Afterglow Series Taglist for series

Hyunjin x afab!reader | trope: break up sex, lovers to exes | smut, angst | wordcount: 6k

Synopsis: “You know, if it weren’t for my job, I wouldn’t go. Right? I would never leave you like this voluntarily.” Hyunjin understood. Obviously, he did. Your job came first. It had always come first and would always come first in the future. Just as it did for him. It was the one thing he respected most about you. “And you know if it weren’t for mine, I would leave everything behind and come with you, right?”

Warnings: explicit content | dni if your under 18

Smut Tags: Angsty Porn with Plot | Sex with the Ex | Break-up Sex | Vaginal Sex | Oral Sex (f. receiving) | Semi-Public Sex | Toys | Overstimulation | Edgeplay | Mild Painplay | Crying during Sex | Emotional Sex

Note: I'm very emotional. Don't talk to me (comment though). Just listen to the playlist, it's self-explanatory. Also read the other stories in this series. I'm going back to crying now.

Taglist: @skzho @bubblelixie @flakywig @itsallaboutkey @avyskai @mekuiikore @joonghands @changbiddies0325 @knowleeknow @sensitiveandhungry @shincode @svintsandghosts @snoozeagustd @tinyarsonist @fxckedupbitch @rachabreathing @haneuljisung @goblinracha @maknaeswrld @michbang02

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There it was again. The heart-wrenching, soul-shaking pain that made it so very harder for Hyunjin to breathe. To live. To look at you.

He had never imagined ever being this hurt by you, unable to look at you longer than a few seconds while at the same time respecting every decision that had led you here. Not you. Not the person he had planned his whole future and spent the majority of his adulthood with.

The two of you were meant to be together; had decided so after only months together. Because no one could ever get you as much as Hyunjin did, and vice versa. You were the perfect match of similarities and differences. For everything you had in common, there was something you could teach the other about. For every fight you had – bickering over something unimportant – you agreed on a much more intense matter. The perfect back and forth, even after years together.

He still remembered the first time he saw you at that rooftop party one of his friends had held a few years back. He noticed you while talking to a guy he so desperately hoped was your brother or cousin. Or best friend. Anyone, as long as he wasn’t your boyfriend. He recalled the first time you made him laugh, just seconds later, when you let out an unintended snort while laughing at something your brother/cousin/best friend had said. And his own hearty giggle in response to your amusement ultimately induced the first time you noticed his existence. The world had stopped around Hyunjin as you caught his gaze – embarrassed redness warming your cheeks as you realised he had witnessed your weird laugh.

It had taken him about 20 more minutes before he couldn’t take it anymore and approached you. He knew he would never forgive himself for not hearing the sweet sound of your voice or seeing the mesmerising spark in your eyes up close at least once.

Hyunjin also remembered the exact moment he fell in love with you. Staring at you with heart eyes when you told him you were an artist, too. A painter, just like himself. Why ever this was what did it for him, Hyunjin had never questioned. Although he knew, as he laid in bed that night, eyes painting pictures against the white ceiling, that he needed to see you again. If only to talk about your favourite artists and art museums for another 3 hours.

Hyunjin recognised – and had done so way before – that he’d never forget any of those precious moments.

Like when you went to the fair on your first date and won him a stuffed dumpling, already aware they were his favourite food. Or how you were forced to cut your date short moments later when you noticed the first person wearing Stray Kids merch. And obviously, he would always hold that day dear in his heart. Despite the unfortunate ending of your date, you had called him minutes after he had dropped you off at your apartment to tell him that you already couldn’t wait to see him again. He had turned around, sprinting back and ringing your doorbell, overwhelming you with a kiss once you opened the door for him.

Or the time you went to the beach, chatting endlessly with your feet dangling over the water. The moment Hyunjin pulled away from your lips, moonlight sparkled in your irises, catching them in the perfect lightning. He blurted ‘Please be my girlfriend’ quicker than his brain could process, heart only settling once you caught his lips again, whispering a content ‘Yes’ against him.

The first time you told him you loved him was engraved in his brain, never to be forgotten. You exclaimed it (just as unintentionally as he did when he asked you to be his girlfriend) while cuddling in bed, laptop playing your favourite Disney movie. It was merely background noise as his heart skipped multiple beats, lips curving into a shit-eating grin as he repeated your words back to you before kissing you, his body soon hovering over you as he worshipped every possible edge of your figure.

All these moments, everything he had hoped to one day tell his children and grandchildren about. Every memory that came back to him made him so unbelievably content he could cry. And still, as his eyes focused on your back, he was hurt. He understood, but he was also in unbearable pain.

“When did you get back?” Hyunjin had watched you for a minute before finally speaking up, stepping onto his balcony to join you. With the shrinking distance, so shrunk his pain. Even if just slightly.

“A while ago.”

After storming off about two hours ago, you took time to walk it off. While unable to reach you, Hyunjin had taken the same time to talk about what had happened to the one person he never imagined having such deep talks with within his household. He had been searching for Chan or Changbin, knowing how busy his hyungs usually were, and unsurprisingly found neither. He was about to call either of them, crying his heart out over the phone, hoping they would take pity and come home to comfort him when he bumped into Jisung.

Although their conversations never reached beyond the unserious topics of food, hobbies, or embarrassing memories, Jisung turned out to be the one person Hyunjin needed right now. Listening was his strong suit, allowing Hyunjin to spurt out all the thoughts in his head without judgement or advice. Jisung’s incapability to lead Hyunjin the way left him no choice but to do the thinking and solving himself. Just talking about the situation and rambling about how unfair life was turned out to be exactly what he needed.

“We should probably talk about it, right?”

“Yeah, probably,” you agreed with a sigh. Hyunjin came to your side, his hand hugging yours on the railing as he gazed into the distance. “The things you said- that really hurt me. Like... I know I’m the bad guy here, but still.”

“You’re not the bad guy. We always knew this day could come.”

You love me? Well, you have a shitty way of showing it!

“And I’m sorry. I keep replaying it in my head, and I didn’t mean it. I just- needed to react.”

His words kept ringing in his memory as much as he tried drowning them out. It had taken saying them out loud to Jisung a gazillion times to finally realise how wrong he was. How unfair he had treated you.

Go ahead, then! Rip my heart out! Show me what the love you claim to have is all about!

He had said them to your face. Like an absolute asshole.

“I- fuck. This just really sucks. Like, so much.”

“It does. And I’m sorry.”

He knew you were. You had said so, so many times he had lost count. And he knew he’d be sorry too, had it been him leaving. He had left you in the past, multiple times, for that matter, and he had felt so guilty every time. But it wasn’t him this time. It was you. And it wasn’t just weeks either. You were looking at a year, maybe more. That didn’t compare to all the times he had to leave for tour – two weeks, four, sometimes six.

“You know, if it weren’t for my job, I wouldn’t go. Right? I would never leave you like this voluntarily.”

Hyunjin understood. Obviously, he did. Your job came first. It had always come first and would always come first in the future. Just as it did for him. It was the one thing he respected most about you.

“And you know if it weren’t for mine, I would leave everything behind and come with you, right?”

A tiny smile appeared on your face, although it was just as much a loving one as a hurting one.

“So, what now? Are we just supposed to end things?”

Is this what love is all about? Loving and letting go? Finding someone and losing them? An endless cycle?

You shifted your weight to lay your head onto his shoulder like you had done all those times before. Though this time, your head felt much heavier.

“I think so, yes.”

Hyunjin laid his spinning head onto yours, kissing your temple before focusing on the horizon again.

“What if-” It was a spontaneous outburst, his mouth betraying his brain like it did when he had asked you to be his all these years ago. Hyunjin didn’t know where he was going with it anyways, but you interrupted him before he could find out.

“Don’t do this,” you warned, pulling away to find his eyes. The sadness in his was heartbreaking, tears forming at the edges. He hated the realisation that despite the moonlight catching your irises, they didn’t sparkle. It was more like a glimmer caused by the liquid drowning them. “Don’t try to save this. Let’s enjoy the time we have left instead of clinging to the future we imagined for ourselves.”

Hyunjin was in the same parts frustrated with and respectful of the rationality you handled this situation with. Especially knowing this must break you as much as it did him. That’s what your face told him, brows furrowed and eyes dimming, to prevent the overflowing pain from spilling over.

As much as he wished to find a solution, he knew better than to waste whatever hours the two of you had left together. He wanted to spend every second of it loving you, touching you. The faster he accepted the inevitable, the sooner he’d get to just live.

Hyunjin held your face in his hands, your cheeks pushed between his palms so adorably squishy as he tried memorising every pore. That distinct mole on the bridge of your nose, those beautiful eyes he had spent weeks staring into, the pout of your lips as you looked up at him. He used to love all of those features that had become the muse of his work, drawings and every day. Now, looking at you, wiping a stray whiplash off your cheekbone, filled him with unease.

“I know we just broke up,” a tear escaped your eye at his words, running down your jaw and caught by his thumb. Saying it out loud made it so much more real. “But I really want to kiss you right now.”

Your chuckle was met with a lip bite as you leaned up to catch his mouth in a heavy kiss.

The sensuality of the kiss almost made him forget what had just happened, tongues soon finding each other.

“I’ll so miss those lips.”

Hyunjin smirked at your words, drawing away but keeping his hands on your cheeks. “Not just the lips, I hope.”

“No. I’ll also miss braiding your hair. And painting your nails.” Tilting his head, your heart almost combusted at how adorable he looked. “Fine. I’ll also miss the man behind all those things.”

“But most of all, my lips?”

“Exactly.”

“What will you miss most about them?” His lower lip wandered between his teeth as he watched the blush creep up your neck.

“I’ll miss kissing them. Tasting you-”

“Just kissing them? Nothing else?“

“I’ll miss their plumpness and how they feel against my- my- neck.” As on cue, he tipped your head back with the push of a finger against your chin, mouth meeting your main artery. His kisses were hot against your flushed skin, tracing the veins until he reached under your ear. His wet tongue darted out to lick over the sensitive part of your neck.

“Your neck, huh? Anywhere else?”

You weren’t stupid. You knew what Hyunjin was doing. And you would have been lying had you claimed you weren’t entirely on board with it.

“My chest,” you answered breathlessly as his hands followed his lips, eventually circling your neck to keep you in position. You reached for his long locks, entangling and pulling at their blonde roots as he kissed your cleavage. Hyunjin moaned against your skin but didn’t let go. He was entirely caught up in the moment, tranced by the smell of your perfume and your body’s reactions. His kisses always made your senses blur and your brain fog. “My stomach.” Hyunjin’s hands graced your arms, down your sides, until his fingers grasped your shirt. Pulling it up, he exposed the skin. Soon enough, you felt his lips against your navel.

“Go on.” His words were almost silent, moaned against your flesh.

“My- my-”

“I’m listening.”

“My thighs,” you ended your thought, breath hitching when Hyunjin sank to his knees. Hadn’t your hands been in his hair, you wouldn’t have noticed. Not until you felt his lips exactly there. On your thighs. Kissing every fibre of them. Licking over the skin. Closing in on your centre.

What a day to wear a skirt.

That you were still on the balcony of his apartment had completely slipped your mind. How couldn’t it with how utterly overwhelming his kisses were?

Small bites led his way all over your flesh, tongue darting out every few kisses to capture your taste. That’s everything he could think of at that moment. To capture your essence, fill his head with all those details about your smell, touch, and body.

Pushing your skirt up, he slowly unveiled you for him. Not like he didn’t exactly know just how you looked under it. He had spent hours, days – weeks, probably – getting to know your body and every one of its details. Your beauty marks, your stretch marks – which he found just as beautiful – your erogenous zones. Hyunjin knew how sensitive you were on your thighs, playing with that knowledge to his and your hearts’ content.

“Baby…” His heart jumped at your pet name, the next bite extra deep, making you groan.

“I love it when you call me that.”

His fingers wandered around your body to your ass, nails pushing into your skin as he kneaded it. Mouth wandering even further up, he soon reached your panties, tongue dancing along the hem.

As much as he wanted to take his time, he let himself be urged by your quickening breath and fingers pulling his hair. Wrapping his teeth around the elastic, he dragged it down your thighs, exposing your heat to his longing gaze. He intended to worship you, devour you, until all you could say – or scream – was his name. And there was no doubt that he knew how to achieve his goal.

“Hyunjin…”

“Say it again,” Hyunjin pleaded, tongue tiptoeing centimetres over your core. “Call me ‘baby’.”

“Fuck, baby. Please. I’m begging you.”

The absence of a verbal answer was forgotten as Hyunjin dove in, muscle pushing between your folds to softly run over your flesh. A dark moan escaped your lips, head falling back against your neck as you threatened to suffocate.

One thing to know about Hyunjin was that he was a Soft Boy™. Everything about him was gentle and calm – midnight pillow talks, painting beside each other, making love. He never went full force right at the get-go; or in the further stages, for that matter.

His tongue was precise, the sharp tip toying with every nerve ending between your tiniest crevices. As though he was worshipping every fibre, taking his sweet, sweet time.

Despite being surrounded by fresh air, you got ridiculously hot, moans tumbling out of you loosely. Had the balcony not been shielded from the neighbours on either side, they would have easily spotted you. Although, you doubted they wouldn’t have figured out your evening shenanigans if they were to overhear. The sloppy noises from Hyunjin’s mouth on you mixed with your sounds of pleasure were more than self-explanatory.

His tongue leisurely roamed around your core, dipping into your hole before passionately prodding against your clit.

You grew even hotter, fingers running through Hyunjin’s hair while your head lolled from side to side.

You could already tell you wouldn’t last as long as usual, only reinforcing that feeling when he pulled one of your legs over his shoulders. With your back pressed against the railing, one of your hands came to the metal bar to stabilise your body. Hyunjin was rocking your body in the most literal sense, lips wrapping around your nub as the new angle allowed him to devour you even more reverently.

Looking down at him was possibly the worst decision you could have made, the sight of him between your thighs heavenly. He looked like an angel as he made out with your heat, eyes closed in concentration and desire.

You were so in love with the man that the pure vision of him eating you out, gaining as much pleasure from it as you did, was leading you closer to your impending high.

“Fuck. Hyunjin.” Your whimper was met with a squeeze of your plush thigh, a smile spreading on your face as you instantly understood the indication of his action. You quickly corrected yourself to please him, “Baby. I’m so close.”

Spreading your folds with two of his fingers, Hyunjin focused the movement of his tongue on your clit, gently stroking it back and forth. He opened his eyes to note your reaction as you had long gone back to gazing at the night sky, sight blurring as you savoured the moments before your inevitable orgasm.

Your breath quickened with every single one of his movements. You could almost taste the sweet release as your ab muscles mildly contracted. Hyunjin must have noticed a particular reaction in your figure, a grin appearing on his face as he pulled at your nub one last time before withdrawing.

It took you a couple of seconds to gather that he wasn’t resuming his actions, a sigh leaving your lips.

“Don’t be mad.” Joining you at eye level, Hyunjin pushed his lips against yours, letting you taste yourself. “We have all night. You’ll get to come. Eventually.”

After spending many years with each other, you knew Hyunjin liked to tease and edge you. For some reason – be it overpowering you or his sadomasochistic tendencies – he had always loved making you go crazy for him. Since your first time together, the process of making love solely lengthened. Rarely did your shared time last for less than a couple of hours at a time; your record standing at an all-nighter on your anniversary a couple of months ago.

Despite the situation being sadder than the celebration of your relationship, you could already tell that this wouldn’t be a quick goodbye. Frankly, you didn’t expect to get any sleep tonight. Hyunjin’s intentions were transparent as he took your hand and guided you into his room. All it took was a sharp twist of his wrist, and you were situated on his bed, body pulled all the way to the edge as he glided into place.

Thus began the most excruciating hours of your life, Hyunjin locking his mouth to your body and tossing the key.

Somewhere between the 10th and the 15th maddening edge, you believed you had lost consciousness for a while. You still remembered Hyunjin pulling out your rabbit, placing it between your thighs to offer you something to clench around as he concentrated on your clit. Nibbling. Sucking. Craving.

When you came to, Hyunjin had repositioned you at the headboard. His mouth was on one of your nipples, teeth gently sinking into it as a sea of whimpers washed over your tongue. Had you still had any sort of power to talk, you’d have told him to finally fuck you. That all you needed was to be around him, clenching around him instead of the vibrating silicone.

At last, after around another 30 minutes of Hyunjin slowly travelling up your trembling shape, he finally landed in eyesight. His lips around your neck sucked at your bruised skin, breath shallow as you swore you started seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

“Please.”

Even your voice had become so frail it barely reached above a whisper. Hyunjin arrived at your eye level, body held carefully above yours to not crush you. His lips were swollen red, blood pumping through them as though they were his most vital organ. When you noticed the blurriness in his eyes – from either being in a trance or crying, you couldn’t tell – another whimper left your lips.

“Please, what, baby?”

His voice also broke, though still a lot less fragile than yours.

“Please…” Words. What even were words? You could barely put together multiple letters, let alone syllables. “Baby, please…” Focusing your eyes on the ceiling, you felt your abs weakly contracting as the vibrator still pumped away inside you. So steadily inside you. Inside you. Inside. Inside. “Inside. Please. Baby.”

You knew you couldn’t get closer to what you were trying to ask him to do. Tears of relief rolled down your cheeks when finally, after possibly the most prolonged foreplay you had ever received, he pulled the toy out of you with a smile.

“Anything for my baby.”

“Baby,” you repeated his words, your head rolling forward to watch him enter you.

And enter you he did. With an agonisingly slow-paced movement, Hyunjin slid his length into you, rubbing the numbly swollen walls until he couldn’t go any further.

Feeling you instantly clenching around him, core so delicate from hours of teasing, Hyunjin waited a while – possibly minutes. For what felt like an eternity, he merely kissed you, lips still not surrendering. You had no mind questioning how he wasn’t entirely spent like you.

“Can I move?”

You nodded, eyes immediately closing in pleasure as he retracted. With how tender you had become, it felt as though every single one of his movements was lighting your nerves on fire. Hyunjin kept unwinding inside you, but you had already reentered that wonderful place between serenity and desire.

“Baby, you’re so tight.” Yeah, no shit. You wanted to yell at him and tell him that’s what comes from hours of stimulation without release. Too bad you still couldn’t talk. Or move. Or think.

Everything felt so good. Like Hyunjin was stimulating every part of your body simultaneously. You couldn’t remember another time you had felt this close to him, physically; bodies morphing into one as he panted above you. You breathed the same boiling air, let out the same delicious sounds, and looked at each other with the same amount of pure, unwavering love.

“I love you so much. All of you. Forever.”

The words Hyunjin had repeated so many times to you throughout your relationship were what broke you.

The tears that had previously signalled your relief – eventually able to have all of him – turned to ones of sadness and despair. It took around 10 seconds for Hyunjin to realise you were crying, movements haltering abruptly.

Remaining still inside you, Hyunjin brought his fingers to your face to brush away the salty liquid.

“Baby? What’s wrong?” he questioned compassionately, irises boring into your own through the veil of sorrow. “Did I hurt you?”

“No. M-” Your voice broke away, hands coming up to shield your face from his view. Here you were crying during sex, having Hyunjin so worried he had hurt you. “Me. I- I hurt you.”

It all came to you now. Yes, you had been feeling guilty for the past few weeks. Ever since you found out you would be leaving. Leaving your home. Leaving him. But now, it finally hit you. You wouldn’t just be exiting his life. You would be leaving him in pieces. He loved you so much. All of you. Forever. And you loved him just as much. Maybe even more.

You never meant for it to end this way. You had been in denial about your departure since it was decided. And now that it had moved so very closely, you doubted every decision you had made.

“I hurt you. But I love you. So much.”

“I know.” Hyunjin seemed calm, as though he was trying to stay strong for the two of you. Like you hadn’t shattered his heart by revealing you had chosen your career over him. “It’s alright, baby. I’m okay.”

He brought your trembling hand to his mouth, kissing every knuckle before brushing your fingers over his face. His skin was soft, courtesy of the dozen skin products he used every day. Oh, how’d you miss putting sheet masks over his smooth, handsome features and massaging the cream deeply into his pores. He always smelled so much like flowers afterwards that, at some point, your subconscious had saved it under ‘home’ in the databank of your mind.

“See? I’m just like always. I’m okay.”

Even if he was right now, you knew he wouldn’t be. No matter when it would happen – tomorrow, next week or once you were gone. Eventually, he would realise the pain you had caused him and how he couldn’t act nonchalant forever. And then he’d break. Because of your actions. Because of what you did. To him. The love of your life.

“Okay.” You echoed his words, hoping he would eventually be just that. Okay. Get over you and be okay.

There was no way of knowing.

“Okay.”

Meeting your lips, Hyunjin gave you a soothing kiss. As though you would break under too much pressure – like porcelain.

He resumed his previous movement; sliding out of you before sinking himself entirely back in. After the sudden change in atmosphere – a more bittersweet taste coating your tongue – Hyunjin sped up. It didn’t take much of you to figure out that he was trying to distract you from your pain.

And it probably would have worked just fine. Hadn’t it been for that one tear slipping from the corner of his eye. Rolling down his pink cheek and falling onto yours, joining your own as they rolled down your neck.

That’s when you realised. He wouldn’t be okay.

The sun kissed Hyunjin awake in the morning, rays tickling his bare skin as he opened his eyes. He brought his hands to his face, rubbing his eyelids with the back of them. A tired yawn left his mouth as he stretched his arms over his messy hair.

He couldn’t remember when he had fallen asleep. That he had felt calm enough to rest even slightly was a miracle in itself, his mind wide awake most of the night as he tried to get used to the idea of you leaving. Definitely not a nice thought, but he couldn’t let it get to him just yet. After seeing you breaking down mid-intercourse yesterday, he needed to stay strong for you. So you wouldn’t feel as guilty for leaving.

Hyunjin looked to his side as reality slowly caught up with him, finding the rest of the bed deprived of your presence. He figured you had already gotten up, the shower in the next room hitting the tiled wall softly.

Deciding to get a headstart for the day Hyunjin had planned, he left his bed, pulling a pair of sweatpants over his thighs as he looked for the shirt he had worn. It took him a couple of seconds to realise that you must have taken it, grabbing a new shirt out of his dresser with a satisfied smile playing on his face.

Waltzing into the dorm kitchen, Hyunjin discovered Changbin and Jisung’s rooms empty, their doors wide open. They must have gone to the gym already, and knowing Chan, he probably was at the studio. Either already or still – Hyunjin could never be quite sure.

Even though the dorm was empty most days, he never complained about having all this extra space. Especially not today, as he had already painted a mental picture of the last few days with you by his side. Staying in and spending time with each other was at the top of his list, so having the whole living space to yourselves was more than perfect.

After retrieving two fresh cups from the dishwasher, he left them to fill under the coffee machine while searching the fridge. He barely remembered the last meal he ate, so he was positively starving. Some leftover dinner from either of his roommates was stored in containers, and since he knew they wouldn’t be back in the near future, he decided to take it and place it in a clean pan to heat up.

“Baby? I’m making breakfast. You want something?” When there was no answer, Hyunjin repeated his question, approaching the bathroom until he could knock softly on the door. The shower had stopped, but maybe you couldn’t hear him over the sound of your own thoughts. It wouldn’t have been the first time, anyways. “Baby?”

The door opened a second later, his smile fading as he realised it wasn’t you in the bathroom but rather a slightly shorter, definitely broader member of his band. Droplets of water landed on Hyunjin’s face when Chan ruffled his hair under his towel, another sitting low on his hips.

“No baby. Just me.”

Hyunjin could tell so much.

“You know where she is?”

“I haven’t seen her,” Chan replied, leaning against the door frame as Hyunjin hurried to the other bathroom. He knew you preferred the one he shared with Chan as it was bigger and, most importantly, cleaner. Perhaps you had moved to the other one as this one was occupied. “I did hear the front door earlier, though. But that could have been the kids.”

When Hyunjin found the other bathroom as well as the remaining two bedrooms empty, he sped back into his own.

“Jisung told me what happened. Did you make up yesterday?”

“We did. At least, I think we did.” Once out of his room with his phone in hand, Hyunjin found his friend’s eyes. “She’s still leaving, and we broke up. But we talked about it. I thought we were spending the last few days together.”

Hyunjin unlocked his phone and turned off aeroplane mode, his thumb hovering over the call button next to your name. He was about to press it when he noticed a red icon at the bottom of the display, hinting at a new voicemail. Weird, seeing he hadn’t gotten a voicemail in what felt like at least 5 years.

Playing the voicemail instead, he brought his phone to his ear, listening to what he interpreted as your footsteps and a door closing. Finally, your voice appeared. It wasn’t until he heard a sniffle that his heart sank into the pits of his stomach.

“Hi-” your voice broke as you were crying. “I’m so- sorry. I know I said I was okay, but I’m really not. I miss you so much already… I can- can’t.” Whatever you meant, it couldn’t have been good, or else you wouldn’t be so obviously losing control over your emotions. Hyunjin checked the time stamp, realising you had recorded it about 15 minutes earlier. “Fuck. I should have definitely thought about what to say…” A small, sad chuckle followed. “I know we talked about this, and I told you I would leave in two weeks… But I can’t stay. Not when I know how much I hurt you…”

Looking into Chan’s eyes as his heart broke, Hyunjin realised the meaning of your words. You were leaving. Not in two weeks, not tomorrow. Now. He couldn’t let this be the end without getting to at least say goodbye properly, so he sprinted back into his room. He grabbed a pair of sneakers and a jacket, pulling them over his body as he kept your voice right by his ear.

“I’m staying with a friend for the next few days before catching an early flight. All my stuff’s gone anyways, so there’s nothing holding me in my apartment… You’re probably on your way out already, and I obviously can’t dictate what you do. But I’m asking you anyway. Please don’t come after me…” Hyunjin stopped dead in his tracks, Chan’s eyebrows furrowing. “Please don’t make it harder for me or you. This is already breaking us. I don’t think I can handle seeing you again… Not when I know that it will be the last time.”

A single tear escaped Hyunjin’s eyes as he fell onto the couch, eyes focused on a random spot on the blank wall. Chan immediately came to his side, strong arms wrapping around his shoulder.

Hyunjin didn’t react. Couldn’t possibly react when his whole mind was on you.

“I don’t even know why I called you. I just… You deserve a proper goodbye, I think. Even if over the phone… God, I’m such a bitch doing this over the phone, aren’t I? Maybe I should turn around.” You stopped for a few silent seconds, peaking Hyunjin’s hope. But all was for nothing when you picked your pace up. “But I won’t. I’m really sorry. I know this is egoistical of me, and believe me. I hate myself for this.”

Why would you hate yourself when Hyunjin loved you so much. Despite you leaving him. Despite you choosing your career over him. It had always been a possibility; both of you were well aware things could end, given the opportunity. Now that it had, why would you blame yourself?

“I’m…” Again, silence fell over the line, giving Hyunjin a chance to breathe. He hadn’t even realised he had held his breath until the oxygen finally filled his head again. “I love you so much. All of you. Forever. I hope you know this. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to love someone like this again. Not in this lifetime.”

Why didn’t he run after you? Because you had told him not to? No. Perhaps it was the awareness that nothing he said, and nothing he did, could change reality. You were leaving, one way or another. So, why would he ruin what was basically the perfect goodbye? Not this call, obviously. But the last night. Being with you. Loving you. It couldn’t become more perfect than this.

“I will never forget any of the memories we made. I don’t think I can, even if I tried. I won’t forget the way we could talk about art all night. About anything, really. I will forever remember listening to all those songs, singing along, and crying to them. I won’t forget how you always looked at me with so much love. Much more than anyone’s ever given me. The smell of hugging you. The taste of kissing you. All of it is imprinted in my brain. Never to be forgotten. This sounds so sappy, I am very aware of that….”

The laugh escaping your lips – your perfect lips that Hyunjin could never quite stop kissing – made him smile. Even if just for a second, it somewhat healed a piece of his heart and left about 999 others for later reassembling.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is… You are my person. That won’t change. Ever… I love you.”

By now, his whole face was red, swollen from the tears streaming down his cheeks. The only thing holding him together was Chan’s physical support. And your voice. He would listen to your voicemail countless times throughout the next few weeks, though he didn’t know it yet.

You pulled the phone away from your ear just to bring it back once more.

“Oh. And I took your shirt. You know, the one I always borrowed. I hope you’re not too attached to it.” Another smile on his face that healed another broken piece of his heart. No, he wasn’t attached to the shirt. He was attached to the person wearing it. “Okay, that’s it. Bye.”

And just like that, the voicemail ended.

Check out all the other stories in this series here!

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[kmomof4]

A Mistress to No One Part 1 Ch3

We are back with the final chapter of Pt1!!! Killian certainly has his work cut out for him, trying to find his lady! Will he succeed? Well... eventually he will... I am so glad y’all are enjoying this fic so much and hope you continue to do so!

All the love and hugs to the ladies who had something to do with the creating of this fic, @hollyethecurious for the inspiration of adapting her favorite Bridgerton sibling, Benedict, to a CS fic, @jrob64 and @zaharadessert for their betaing expertise, @motherkatereloyshipper​ for her manips of Emma, Killian, and Cora in the artwork, and finally to @kymbersmith-90​ for answering all my questions about titles and royalty! Love you all, ladies!

Summary: Bastard Emma Swan enjoys one night of pure magic and romance in the midst of a life of drudgery and abuse- attending a masquerade ball and meeting aristocrat Killian Jones. 

Two years later, the same man she met on the best night of her life reappears, saving her from a dire fate in the process. Now, she must keep herself from falling in love with a man she can never have. But when that proves impossible, is there any hope for a happy ending between two people from such vastly different worlds?

Rating: M (smut in a later ch)

Words: 4100 words of approx 61,6K

Tags: Birthday Fic, Inspired by Benedict’s Story in Bridgerton, Smut

On ao3 from the beginning/ current ch

On Tumblr Prologue Ch1 Ch2

New Tag List! Let me know if you’d like to be added or removed.

@jrob64 @teamhook @winterbaby89 @hollyethecurious @xarandomdreamx @undercaffinatednightmare @the-darkdragonfly @stahlop @superchocovian @pirateprincessofpizza @tiganasummertree @anmylica @cosette141 @motherkatereloyshipper @zaharadessert @jonesfandomfanatic @ultraluckycatnd @jennjenn615 @allons-y-to-hogwarts-713 @kymbersmith-90 @booksteaandtoomuchtv @wistfulcynic @mie779 @snowbellewells @lfh1226-linda @aprilqueen84 @whimsicallyenchantedrose @pirateherokillian @elfiola @ilovemesomekillianjones @justanother-unluckysoul @poptart-cat-78 @myfearless-love @goforlaunchcee @searchingwardrobes @gingerpolyglot @gingerchangeling @djlbg @cocohook38 @cs-rylie @thisonesatellite @donteattheappleshook @deckerstarblanche @veryverynotgoodwrites @wefoundloveunderthelight

Under the cut, unless Tumblr ate it.

More than one masquerade attendee has reported to This Author that Killian Jones was seen in the company of an unknown lady dressed in a blue gown.

Try as she might, This Author has been unable to ascertain the lady’s identity. And if that is the case, you can be sure, it is a closely guarded secret, indeed.

Lady Whistledown’s Society Papers

May 31

~*~*~

“Do you recognize this crest?” Killian asked his mother, before he even sat down in the pale green and soft pink drawing room where she received visitors.

She took it from him and only glanced at it before she nodded definitively. “Glowerhaven.”

“As in ‘Earl of’?” he asked, eyebrow raised in inquiry.

Alice nodded. “And the S would be for Spencer. The title passed out of the family some time ago, I believe,” she added. “The Earl passed without issue, but he had no close blood relative, so the title went to some distant cousin. And don’t think I didn’t notice that you failed to dance with Mary Margaret last night,” she scolded. “You were lucky your brother was there to dance in your stead.”

Killian rolled his eyes and tried to bring her back to the issue at hand. “Who, then, is SLS?”

Alice’s green eyes narrowed. Killian couldn’t meet her perceptive gaze. It reminded him too much of another pair of green eyes. “And why are you so interested?”

He tried to turn his brilliant and disarming smile on his mother, the one that he could usually rely on to get him out of trouble, but her countenance remained unmoved, her eyes narrowing further. Killian sighed.

“I don’t suppose you might just answer my question without posing one of your own,” he asked.

Alice snorted, lifting a delicate hand to her face. “You know me far better than that,” she countered. Her gaze sharpened and her eyes narrowed even further. “Who does the glove belong to, Killian?”

It was obvious she was already putting the pieces together in her head and he knew it’d work out far better for him if he just told her everything. He dreaded sharing these details with his mother. She tended to latch onto anything that even hinted at matrimony and cling to it with the tenacity of a barnacle on a ship. But he had no choice. Not if he wanted to find her.

“I met someone at the ball last night,” he finally said.

Alice all but bounced in her seat and clapped her hands in delight. “Really?”

“She’s the reason I forgot to dance with Mary Margaret.”

“You’re forgiven.” Alice looked like she might die of rapture. “Who? One of Glowerhaven’s daughters?” Her brow furrowed. “No, wait. He didn’t have any daughters. He had two step-daughters. Although…”

“What, Mother?”

“Oh, nothing really,” she replied, waving aside his question. “Having met the girls, I wouldn’t have thought you’d…” she trailed away, uncertain. “But, of course, if you are, I will invite the dowager countess over for tea. It’s the very least I can do.”

Killian started to speak then stopped when he realized his mother was frowning again. “What now?” he asked.

“Oh, well…” she took a deep breath and cut her eyes over toward him. Killian tried to rein in his impatience, raising his eyebrow in question.

“Spit it out, Mother.”

She smiled weakly. “It’s just that I don’t particularly like the dowager countess. I’ve always found her to be a bit pretentious, mean-spirited, and ambitious.”

Killian tried to smother his amused smile. “One might consider you ambitious, Mother,” he pointed out.

Alice looked affronted. “Of course I have great ambition that my children marry well and happily, but I am not the sort to marry my daughter off to a 70 year old man simply because he was a duke!”

Killian wracked his brain for a moment. He couldn’t recall a 70 year old duke making a trip to the altar lately. “Did the dowager countess do that?”

“No,” Alice admitted. “But she would.”

Killian bit back another amused smile as Alice continued, pointing to herself with great flourish. “While I, on the other hand, would allow my children to marry paupers if it would make them happy.” Killian raised an eyebrow at her. “They would be well principled and hard working paupers, make no mistake,” she explained. “No gamblers need apply.”

Killian didn’t want to laugh outright at his mother, so he coughed discreetly into his handkerchief instead.

“But I will put aside my feelings for the dowager countess if you care for one of her daughters.” She paused and looked at him intently. “Do you care for one of her daughters?”

“I’ve no idea,” he shrugged. “I never got her name. Just her glove.”

Alice gave him a stern look. “I’m not even going to ask how you obtained the lady’s glove.”

It was all Killian could do to keep from scratching behind his ear. She’d latch onto that tell before he could even blink. “It was all completely innocent, I assure you.”

Her expression was extremely dubious. “I have far too many sons to believe that.”

“The initials?” he reminded her.

She held the glove up, examining it closely. “It seems quite old.”

Killian nodded. “I thought the same. And I thought it smelled rather musty, as if it had been packed away in an attic.”

“And the stitches show wear,” she continued. “I don’t know what the L is for, but the S could very well be for Sarah, the late Earl’s mother, who has also passed on. Which would make sense given the age of the glove.”

“As I’m quite certain I wasn’t speaking to a ghost last night, who do you think it might have belonged to?”

Alice shook her head. “I have no idea. Someone in the Spencer family, I suppose.”

“Do you know where they live?”

“Of course. They live in Spencer House, just a few blocks away. The new earl hasn’t given them the boot yet. No idea why.” She gave him directions and such was his haste that Killian was already on his feet and halfway to the door before she finished.

“Oh, Killian,” she called as he reached for the door. He turned back around.

“Yes, Mother?”

“The daughters are Zelena and Regina. Just in case you’re interested.”

Killian’s brow furrowed slightly. Neither seemed to really fit. But what did he know? He reached for the door again.

“Killian.” This time his name was drawn out a bit and Killian turned to his mother again with a beleaguered sigh. Her smile was quite amused.

“You will tell me what happens, won’t you?”

“Of course, Mother.”

“You’re lying to me.” She waved at him dismissively. “But I forgive you. It’s so nice to see you in love.”

“I’m not…”

“Whatever you say, dear,” she interrupted.

Killian decided there was little point in replying, so he finally left his mother’s drawing room and hurried out of the house.

~*~*~

“Emmmmmmaaaaaaaaaaa!” Cora screeched.

Emma’s head snapped up from where she was polishing a silver spoon. As ladies maid to Cora, Zelena, and Regina, polishing silver shouldn’t have been on the list of Emma’s chores, but Cora delighted in never giving her a moment’s rest and working her fingers to the bone. She set the spoon down and moved to the door of the room, looking this way and that for her mistress.

“Emmmmmmmmaaaaaaaaaa!” Cora screeched again. Emma couldn’t imagine what had her in such a tizzy, but it was hardly infrequent behavior. Cora was always angry about something.

“I’m here,” Emma called, still unable to ascertain where Cora was.

She finally came around the corner holding something in her hands. “What is the meaning of this?”

She held it up and all but thrust it in her face. Emma gasped in shock when she recognized the slippers she’d worn to the ball the night before. “These are brand new! Brand new! I have never worn them! And they have a scuff mark. How could this have happened?”

Emma’s eyes widened as she thought frantically for some lie Cora might believe.

“I have no idea, my lady.” Cora’s eyes narrowed at her. “Perhaps you accidentally scuffed them yourself as you passed them in your closet?”

“Someone has worn my shoes and I want to know who.” Her voice was low and deadly calm and Emma’s mouth went dry.

“I can ask one of the maids,” she tried to placate her. “See if they know anything.”

“The maids are a bunch of idiots.” Emma waited for Cora to say Present company excluded, but of course, she did not.

“I can try to get the scuff mark out,” Emma offered. “I’m sure I can figure something out.”

“You do that,” Cora huffed. “And while you’re at it, you might as well polish all my shoes.”

“My lady?” The butler entered and Cora spun around to face him. “There’s a gentleman to see you.” He handed her a crisp white card. Emma watched as Cora’s face turned from stunned surprise to pure delight.

She turned to the butler barking out orders. “Tea, and biscuits! The best silver! At once!” The butler hurried out leaving Emma with Cora.

“May I be of any help?” Emma ventured.

“What?” Cora looked a bit confused at Emma’s words, almost as if she’d forgotten she was even there. “No, of course not. I have no time for the likes of you. Go. See to my shoes.” Emma curtsied and hurried to the door. “Oh, be sure that Zelena and Regina are properly dressed. And then you may instruct Zelena to lock you in my closet.”

Emma’s mouth dropped open in shock.

“Do you understand me?”

Emma couldn’t even bring herself to nod. Some things were just too demeaning.

Cora stalked over to her until their faces were only an inch apart. “You didn’t answer. Do you understand me?” Emma nodded, but just barely. Every day there was some new evidence of just how deeply Cora’s hatred for her ran.

“Why do you keep me here?” Emma whispered before she could think better of it.

“Because I find you useful,” was Cora’s dismissive reply. She spun away, leaving Emma pale and trembling in her humiliation and fear.

She climbed the stairs and found Zelena and Regina in the parlor. Both of them looked quite acceptable to her, and so she sighed and approached Regina.

“Lock me in your mother’s closet, if you will, please,” Emma asked quietly.

Regina gasped. “I beg your pardon?”

Emma sighed. “I was told to ask Zelena, but I can’t quite bring myself to do it.”

Regina’s face was pale with dismay. “And what are you supposed to do there?” she asked.

“I’m to polish all of your mother’s shoes.”

“I’m sorry,” Regina said, sincerely.

“I am, too.”

~*~*~

Killian had been waiting in Lady Glowerhaven’s parlor for fifteen minutes now. He huffed with impatience, absently patting his pocket to confirm that the mystery lady’s glove was still inside. Why others didn’t value punctuality the way he did, he’d never know.

His gaze wandered around the room, taking in the fussy and ostentatious furnishings. From what he’d heard from his mother this morning, he wasn’t terribly surprised. Appearances seemed to be overly important to the countess.

He finally heard footsteps coming down the stairs and rose to greet his hostess. A woman in her forties swept into the room. Her emerald green dress complimented her auburn colored hair nicely, but as she held out her hand to him in greeting, he noticed the deep lines around her lips, eyes and across her forehead that her makeup just couldn’t hide. There was a gleam in her eyes that told him she was delighted with his presence, but there was a cunning, grasping, desperate quality to it as well. It was a bit unnerving. He decided his mother’s summation of the dowager countess was spot on.

“Mr. Jones,” she gushed, “How lovely for you to honor our home with a call.”

“Lady Glowerhaven,” he greeted her, taking her outstretched hand in his and bowing slightly over it. “It is very nice to meet you.”

Her smile was wide and made him think of a barracuda. “I’ve informed my daughters of your presence and they should be down shortly.”

Killian nodded. He hadn’t expected anything different. Why else would an eligible bachelor be visiting the home of unmarried young ladies? “I’m looking forward to meeting them.”

The countess’s brow furrowed. “You haven’t met either of them yet?” she asked.

Killian cursed himself. Now she’d be wondering why he was here. It wasn’t exactly common practice to call on someone to whom one had not yet been introduced.

“I’ve heard so much about them, I thought it was high time I met them in person.” He may have scrambled for an explanation, but he was rather proud of how smoothly the words flowed off his tongue.

“Of course,” she agreed. “My Zelena is considered one of the beauties of the season.”

Killian nodded his head in acknowledgment of her words. “And what about Regina?”

The lines around the countess’s mouth tightened and she hesitated a moment before speaking. “Regina… is lovely, of course.” She sent him a smile that told him she thought the exact opposite of her words in relation to her other daughter. Killian felt his distaste for the countess grow by the second. A mother who clearly favored one daughter over another, shouldn’t be a mother.

“I’m very much looking forward to meeting Regina,” he said, curious as to what her response would be. She sent him another tight smile as a servant came in with an elaborate tea service.

Cora huffed indignantly as she looked at the service and hissed at the maid. “I believe I asked for the best silver to be used.” She shot him another smile, but this one seemed more embarrassed than annoyed. Killian could barely keep himself from rolling his eyes.

The poor maid’s face lost all color and she stammered as she spoke. “Em- Emma was polishing the spoons when you sent her upstairs, milady.”

“Silence,” the countess hissed again. “I’m sure Mr. Jones isn’t too high and mighty to be concerned with the monogrammed spoons.”

“Of course not,” he assured her, with a smile at the maid. Her smile in return was shy, but a bit relieved. His attention returned to the countess, whom he thought must be a bit too high and mighty to even consider using monogrammed spoons.

“Begone,” she said to the poor girl. The maid bobbed a curtsy and left quickly. The countess leaned in conspiratorially. “Our better silver has the Glowerhaven crest on it, but the infernal girl can do nothing right, so it’s unlikely to be in any condition to be seen by guests.” She sighed dramatically. “It is so hard to find good help these days. I’m sure your mother says the same thing all the time.”

Killian hummed in response. His mother had never said anything of the sort. Because the Jones servants were treated very well and were utterly devoted to the family.

“One of these days, I’m just going to have to get rid of Emma,” the countess huffed. Killian found himself feeling sorry for the unknown Emma, and couldn’t help feeling like she could do much better than working in the Glowerhaven household. But he wasn’t going to get drawn into a discussion of servants.

“I imagine the tea is well steeped by now,” he observed.

“Oh, yes,” the countess agreed. “How do you take yours?”

“Milk, no sugar, please.”

As she prepared his tea, he heard the countess’s daughters finally descend the stairs. As soon as they entered the room, he knew neither was his mystery lady. The taller one had flaming red hair and had a rather affected manner, much like her mother, and the other had black hair. He tried to not let his disappointment show as their tea was prepared.

“I very much enjoyed your ball last night, Mr. Jones,” Zelena offered once she’d settled on the couch with her tea.

Killian nodded in response. “Well, it was more my mother’s ball, I had nothing to do with the planning of it, but I shall convey your compliments.”

“Please do,” she replied. “I noticed you spent some time with a particular lady. She wore a blue gown.”

The countess’s head snapped toward her daughter so hard and so quickly, Killian was amazed her neck didn’t crack. Zelena’s eyes were intense as she stared him down.

Killian tilted his head in question. “Did you, now?”

“Yes,” she persisted. “What was her name?”

“I never got it,” he admitted. “She left the ball before the unmasking.”

“Did she?” the countess asked, her eyes narrowing.

Killian rose before anything else could be said. There was no point in prolonging the visit. The countess had no other eligible daughters and there were almost certainly no Spencer cousins that the glove might have belonged to, since the title had passed out of the family and gone to a distant cousin.

“I’m afraid I must be going,” he said, with a small bow.

“Oh, so soon?” the countess asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “My mother is expecting me. It was lovely to meet you all,” he lied smoothly. He lightly shook the countess’s hand, then did the same with Zelena, before bowing over Regina’s and bringing her hand to his lips, just for the pleasure of seeing the countess’s face redden with indignation.

As soon as the door shut behind their guest, Cora turned to her daughters.

“What do you suppose that was all about?” she asked, her face a mask of contemplative confusion.

“I suppose…” Regina began.

“I didn’t ask you,” Cora snapped.

“Well then, who did you ask?” Regina asked, showing uncharacteristic fortitude in talking back to her mother.

“Perhaps he saw me from afar…” Zelena offered.

“Don’t be a fool, Zelena,” she bit out. “He didn’t see you from afar.” Zelena gasped. Her mother never spoke harshly to her. “You said he spent time with another lady last night.”

“Well, yes, but…”

“No buts. He was here for a reason.” Cora pulled back the sheer curtains near the door to see Killian standing on the sidewalk holding something in his hand. “What is he holding?”

“It looks like a glove.”

“It’s not a glove,” Cora replied without thinking, too used to contradicting anything Regina had to say. “Why, it is a glove.”

“I should think I know a glove when I see one,” Regina muttered.

“What is he looking at?” Zelena asked.

“Perhaps a bit of embroidery?” Regina speculated. “We have gloves with the Glowerhaven crest on them. Perhaps this is the same?”

Cora went white.

“Mother, are you alright?” Zelena asked. “You’ve gone very pale.”

“He came here looking for her,” Cora whispered.

“Looking for who?” Zelena asked.

Cora’s patience was nearly at an end and she rounded on Zelena. “The woman in the blue gown he was with last night, you clot!” she screeched.

Zelena’s shock at her mother’s treatment was complete and she could think of nothing to say.

“Well, she obviously isn’t here as none of us were wearing a blue gown last night,” Regina commented.

Cora remained contemplative, her brow furrowed as she connected the pieces. “My shoes. My brand new shoes were scuffed. Someone wore them. It had to be her. How did she do it? It had to be her,” she repeated. She pushed past her surprised and confused daughters and rushed from the room.

~*~*~

Emma was on her knees in the closet when the door flew open and crashed against the wall. She screamed, placing her hand over her heart, hammering in her chest with fright.

“Pack your things,” Cora growled.

Emma’s eyes widened in alarm. “My lady?” she asked, her words and the tremor in her voice betraying her confusion. “Why?”

“Do I really need a reason?” she barked. “It is enough that I want you out of my house.”

“Where will I go?” Emma asked, confusion giving way to fear beginning to creep into her words.

“That’s not really my concern now, is it?”

“But…”

“You’re twenty-one years old,” Cora interrupted. “More than old enough to make your way in the world. There will be no more coddling from me.”

“You never coddled me,” Emma muttered under her breath.

“How dare you speak to me like that!” Cora exclaimed.

“And why shouldn’t I?” Emma shouted. “You’re kicking me out of the house anyway. Why have you kept me here anyway?”

The haughtiness on Cora’s face made Emma physically ill. “You’re cheaper than a regular ladies maid, and I do enjoy ordering you about.” Cora’s smile was cruel and Emma swallowed hard. She was serious and Emma looked around, trying to swallow down her sudden fear and nausea. She may have hated Cora and her life, but at least she had a bed to sleep in and food to eat. Granny was a friend, and Regina was nearly so. Where would she go? What would she do? How would she support herself?

“You were there, weren’t you?” Cora asked, suddenly. “You were at the masquerade last night. You were the lady in blue.”

Emma’s heart stopped. How did she know? How could she have possibly found out? Emma shook her head in denial. “No,” she lied.

“I don’t know how you did it, but I know you did.” Cora continued speaking as if she didn’t even hear Emma. She kicked the shoes from last night toward Emma. “Put them on,” she demanded.

Emma stood, with as much dignity as she could muster and put the slippers on. They were, of course, a perfect fit.

“How dare you!” Cora seethed, marching closer until only inches separated them. “I told you to never even think that you were one of us. That you were nothing but a bastard and not fit for polite society. And yet you dared to defy me and attend the masquerade ball last night.”

Emma had had enough. Her fury at all the mistreatment and abuse she’d endured for so many years bubbled to the surface and Emma let it loose, not caring at all anymore.

“Yes, I dared,” she seethed. “And I had every right to. I am the earl’s blood, so I am just as good as you and my heart is far kinder…”

Emma was suddenly on the ground, her cheek stinging where Cora had slapped her.

“Don’t ever compare yourself to me,” Cora raged. “You are to be gone by morning.” And with that, Cora turned on her heel and walked out of the closet, locking her in again.

Emma looked around at the rest of the shoes in the closet. There was no way in hell she was going to continue polishing all these shoes. She’d simply wait here until someone came looking for her and released her from the closet. She thought about her next steps and her chin trembled as she tried to hold back her tears.

In all the years she’d worked for Cora since the earl’s death, she’d never seen a single pound in wages. She’d received a bit from her father while he was still alive, that she’d never spent, always knowing in the back of her mind this day might come. But that money wouldn’t last long. It might not even be enough to get her out of London, and there was no way she could remain here. She wouldn’t be able to find work without references and Cora would never give her one. Plus, there was the fact that Killian Jones was in London. And as unlikely as it was she’d ever see him again, she couldn’t take the chance that if she did, he might recognize her. And if that were to happen…

She couldn’t take the chance. Her eyes landed on a pair of shoes she’d already polished. On the toes were a pair of jeweled clips that could detach from the shoes. Cora never wore anything that wasn’t real jewels, even shoe ornaments, so there was no doubt these clips could fetch a decent amount. Enough to get her out of London.

Emma thought of all the money Cora had at her disposal and how she’d never paid her a single wage in all these years. And then she thought about her conscience. Could she possibly? Emma stuffed that voice down. This was about survival. In circumstances like these, she had no use for that voice.

She took the clips and slipped them into her pocket.

Many hours later, when Regina came and opened the closet, Emma packed her few belongings, bid Granny and Regina goodbye, and left Spencer House forever.

To her surprise, Emma didn’t look back.

~*~*~

Thank you for reading and sharing! Part 2 will begin on Sunday and I’ll be updating weekly thereafter!

[atomicpen]

Self-Rec Challenge

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you’ve written, then pass on to at least five other writers.

tagged by: @faejilly

tagging: @tarysande, @ladyarrowhead, @shadoedseptmbr, @probablylostrightnow, @indigorally and ANYONE else who wants to do this

Nameless Thing: Respects This is the final installation in a three-part story, but it stands alone and is arguably the best of them. Set many years after the events of DA2, Sebastian reflects on Hawke and is surprised by an unexpected visitor. (minor AU regarding death rites) -- Looking beyond the very non-Andrastian burials, this is one of my very favorite fics I have written to this day. 

In Light of Day, In Dark of Night An epistolary fic co-written by @felspar-blog. Igraine Cousland and Sebastian Vael have been cursed by one jealous of them and their love, and with the help of tenuous friends, seek to break it. (Ladyhawke AU) (unfinished) -- Completely unplanned, originally written via tumblr reblogs, I love love love this pairing and this AU to death. One day Fel and I will figure out the best way to end this, but it also still kind of works as a cliffhanger (if you know the movie and how that ends, I suppose).

Lie Through your Wolfteeth All Marcus wanted was to find the cure for his brother-in-arms and keep things simple. But nothing ever turns out the way it’s supposed to, does it? (FFIX by way of a minor character with brief interludes into other POVs) (in-progress) -- Most of my current favorite writings are all WIPs (because work is a stressful and consuming thing), but if that doesn’t daunt you, this is 100% a story I am in love with for so many reasons--being able to explore Marcus more in-depth, “adultifying” the dialogue and motivations more than they were in-game, and the fact that I singlehandedly created a rarepair ship, just to name a few.

Clemency Spawned by a larger A:tLA fic, this is a short one-shot look into the confrontation in the episode The Southern Raiders (s3e16) from Yon Rha’s POV. Completely unplanned, but I had some thoughts that came out from his perspective, and they immediately spooled out into this one-shot.

I’ll also steal what Jilly did and make an honorable mention to my series Wings Straight and Swift Will Bring Us Home, particularly parts 1-5, which are the more or less a chronological organizing of my 100 Days of Sebastian Vael writing challenge. Some are directly connected to others, but the majority of them are loosely connected standalones. 

[marias-wonderland]

💜 Welcome to Maria's Wonderland! Where your worries drift away and auspiciousness fills up your heart 💜

please read until the end

As you may have guessed, I'm Maria and this is my tumblr account! ~<3

10 Facts about me!

I'm 20 years old from Greece 🇬🇷

I'm studying English language and literature but, that doesn't mean i dont make mistakes in both languages :')

I'm Christian Orthodox ☦

Ever since i remember myself i loved books and movies. Imagination was a shelter for me.

I'm very quiet and easy-going most of the time

I enjoy wine a bit too much for my own good (not my fault if combined with well done supper)

I love flowers and flowery patterned clothes! My favourite ones are: roses, gardenias and water lilies

I enjoy nature even though i never come outside of my room (but don't take me to the sea. I can't stand the sea)

I love dogs and birds

My youtube playlists might contain 80's heavy metal, classical music and Britney Spears all mixed up :')

In here you will find:

(Mostly) Reshares of my 3 favourite couples (Alutegra, Clannibal & Dragatha)

Posts that i relate to / find funny / informative / aesthetically pleasing and everything in between

Me complaining in the tags about how Clannibal should have gotten more attention, how the nbc show was flaming garbage and how hann*gram is awful (always with love, obviously. . . )

My love-hate relationship with the hellsing fandom on tumblr (for real, what's up with those people?)

My love and appreciation for the dracula 2020 fandom 💜 💖 (love ya girls ~<3)

Posts from other fandoms too! Like Naoki urasawa's monster, IWTV & WWDINS!

Basically posts with weird tags. Tags arent supposed to be taken seriously. They mostly are for me cuz i laugh while writing them

Me talking with my cousin in greek in some posts (Γεια σου ξαδέρφη!!! ~<3)

Did you know I'm a fanfic writer? No? Don't worry, neither do most people! But that's why this link is here!

Go and enjoy (?) The many (not) stories I've written!^^

I accept prompts and fanfic ideas for the already mentioned couples I love! So pleaseeeeeee, don't be shy 💝💝💝 share your ideas and love about those silly lil blorbos with me!! 💖💖💖💖 let our love for our blorbos unite us and make more friendships 💖💖💖

(One last thing before we finish: as much as i complain about certain stuff/ blorbos/ ideas etc, in the end we are all people with much more important stuff to do. So relax, enjoy some stuff, act like an old lady sometimes and *always* be respectful of others ~<3)

Ta-ta. MF.

[heresathreebee]

@yespolkadotkitty it was YOUR ASK that tumblr ate I FINALLY FUCKING GOT MOTIVATION TO DO IT AND THE DAMN WEBSITE ATE YOUR ASK IM PISSED

Anyways mi amor Polkakitty asked me to do a Rick Flag fic with the prompt :"Think you can handle that much?" And I did it! 🧡

This fic is a neutral female reader insert but exists within the Ruby Moon Sunflower Seeds canon. Tags for explicit language and sexual content (18+), pre-wedding stress, controlling in-law behavior vs casual male flippancy, and Rick in baseball streetwear.

You're sitting at a grimy fold out table surrounded by stacks of paper and ready to call the entire wedding off when Rick casually– and without knocking just like all of his family members– walks into the room. 

"What the fuck are you wearing?," you growl at him as you peer between your fingers. 

Rick looks confused. His eyes sweep over his own attire– dry mud on his worn jeans and a baseball jersey. His face returns to you, nonplussed. "Why? What'sa matter?" 

He meant with his clothes but you're not actually mad about those at all. "What's wrong is that while you've been kicking it with your cousins playing games, I've been trapped in this godforsaken room to hand write these godforsaken wedding invitations for people I have either never met or are already here!" 

Rick nodded minutely, tossing his baseball glove aside on the nice furniture in the nice room– something you had been explicitly told not to do hence why you were writing letters on the shitty fold out. "I see… did aunt Eunice give you that fountain pen?" 

You would have snapped the damn antique pen if your writing hand didn't hurt so much. "No. Your aunt Bess did and she's been fucking terrorizing me ever since this whole thing started!" 

He had to have noticed. The wedding theme was not your or his colors– it was the colors aunt Bess regretted not doing for her second wedding. Your maid of honor was her reluctant daughter and the rest of the bridesmaids? Rick's single aunt and a few 'eligible' cousins. He has his friends as groomsmen save one uncle and brotherly cousin. Rick got to choose. You had never been given a choice for anything in this wedding and you say as much to him now. 

"-- the cake is raspberry chocolate. I don't even like raspberry chocolate!," you dump your head in your hands and try not to cry. 

You are surprised to feel something slip over your head– it's Rick's baseball cap– and gasp as he hoists you into his arms to carry you to the piano bench before plopping down with you in his lap. With your lip quivering, you wipe a stray tear from your cheek and mutter pathetically, "m not supposed to touch anything in here…" 

Rick gives you a scowl. "You are an amazing woman. You're strong… you're tough… I've seen you disarm three dudes with a scarf and come away unharmed. So darlin'..." 

"Why are you letting aunt Bess walk all over you?" 

Your hands rest on his chest where the buttons are down and his undershirt shows. You work your jaw until you're sore, racking your brain for a succinct answer. He's right, you would never let anyone treat you like this before now, yet with aunt Bess you have endured nearly three months of it. Why? 

You sigh and your voice quivers slightly. "Because it's not just her. It's everyone. I-I'm trying so hard not to be the Angry Bitch that everyone seems to be waiting for me to be. But now everything is completely out of my control and I haven't even had a chance to tell them that their won't be a bride's side of the family!" 

Rick winces sympathetically. Where the Flag clan is purebred and a thousand strong (hence the mountains of invitations), your family is miniscule, an acquired group of misfits and not all of them are the type to bring to weddings. The only thing you are certain of is your mother will not come if she is invited and your father will probably come uninvited with malicious intent. 

And as he seems to do more and more lately, Rick slips his hand beneath the length of your shirtdress and rubs his thumb in soothing circles on the bare skin of your thighs. 

"I'm sorry darlin. To tell you the truth I was enjoying watching you squirm, waiting for you to stand up for yourself, but I never thought it would get this… complicated." 

Your eyebrows pinch together. "Stand up for myself? These are not enemies on a metaphorical battlefield, Rick. This is your family– this is about to be our family! The last thing I want is to alienate either of us before we're even married!" 

"Ok, I see that now." Rick sniffs and looks around, forming a plan in his head. "Look, tell me this: who do you want as your bridesmaids?" 

You drum your fingers weakly against his chest. "Well, your cousin Maggie's a good kid–" 

"Nonono," he interjects, "-- fuck what my family wants. Who do you want as your bridesmaids?" 

He presses your foreheads together and waits patiently for your answer. It feels like forever has gone by since someone genuinely cared about what you want. You think through your tiny roster of friends and found family to find someone suitable for a wedding. 

"...the Gotham City Sirens. Harley. Fuck it– mama Mbowe and Deadshot if he wants." 

Rick laughs. "I didn't know you were buddy buddy with the Gotham City Sirens. And Harley? She's a total wedding crasher!" 

"Harley would be so honored to be chosen, she would behave… until the after party." 

Rick concedes with a nod. "I don't think Deadshot's gonna wear a dress, though. Harkness would be all over it, though." 

Harkness is going to try and fuck your cousins, your aunts and your uncles, you grandmother, your dad–" 

"Stop stopstopstop– " Rick shivers, "I get it! He's banned."

"... I want to call it off." 

For a moment, the easy happiness on Rick's face melts into hurt before you continue– 

"Just for now! I… I know everybody is obsessed with a summer wedding and venues are hard to book but… I want our wedding to be our wedding, not your family's wedding." 

"You mean you wanna… postpone it?" 

"Yes!" You wrap your arms around his shoulders and bury your face in his neck where his strong scent envelopes you. "That's what I meant, I'm so so sorry, my brain is fried and my nerves…" 

Rick nods and blinks away the threat of tears. You almost had him there, his heart dropped into his stomach thinking you were really calling everything off...

You're starting to drift off as Rick rubs your back. It feels like he has single handedly yanked the weight of the world off of your shoulders. You know his family is going to be furious but you feel confident now in it being the right thing to do, especially knowing he'll be by your side on this decision. 

That is until you hear a door somewhere slam open and a flurry of voices rise above the din of peaceful quiet. You look at Rick, climb off of his lap and trot to the door. You recognize some of them and they sound angry. 

"What did you do?" 

Rick shrugs– with his messaging app on his phone in his hand. 

"Did you text them that the wedding is off??" Well this isn't going to help the situation. You cross the room again and stand above him. "You're an idiot." 

"Well, I'm your idiot. Come here–" 

He reaches up your skirt– your too busy cringing as you hear your name from somewhere outside– and pulls your underwear down your legs. "Rick!" 

"Ssshhh!!" He gets a leg of yours free and deposits you back into his lap where you can feel the roughness of dirty denim on your bare butt. "You want 'em to hear you?" 

"What the hell are you doing??," you whisper yell even as you feel your muscles clench and slick gathering from the inside. 

Your fiancée gives you a wicked smile. "Trynna help you relax." 

He hooks an arm around your waist to anchor you and stuffs you with two large fingers with his other hand. It burns so good it almost makes you scream but you bite down on your lip and accidentally slam your hand onto a few piano keys. 

You feel Rick's hot tongue lavish your clavicle and up your neck to your ear before he whispers the filthiest thing.  

"They're looking for you," he says, "but it's a big house and if we're quiet, they'll give up and regroup in one of the kitchens. We have maybe an hour before someone checks this room, and in that time, I'm going to fuck you nice and slow, until your bones are jelly and your body is satisfied." 

You whimper as his fingers massage deeper than you could ever reach yourself and grip his jersey so tight the seams squeal. 

"You been runnin' around doing everything everybody tells you to do. I know you've been sleeping like shit and you carry your stress on your shoulders. It's my turn to boss you around, but Imma make you feel good. So you're just gonna sit on this cock and let me guide you." 

"I want you to relax and enjoy us." He pulls back to press his forehead to yours which is now perspiring lightly. "Think you can handle that much?" 

You hum. "Yes sir…" 

[my-jokes-are-my-armour]

My fan's journey to Joey Batey

Important: I didn't tag other artists I'm listing here because I don’t feel comfortable in any other fandom. I don't think this will be read or shared a lot but yet I make this announcement as I hope this post will stay in this corner.

Well this is personal stuff I wanted to share. Tumblr is actually the only platform I find myself OK to share my fan experience. So here I am sharing those memories. I'm sure no-one will be interested in it but, as I said, it's ok 😊.

Did you ever ask yourself why you like certain things, certain artists? I do sometimes. And I like to search in my own history who made a difference and what opened my mind to new things. Because when I am a fan of something I have a tendency to tunnel in it for long periods of time. And suddenly something new makes its way in my heart and soul, and I take another tunnel. I never quite leave the former one, this is just another section, leading to another etc.

I like a lot of stuff, really eclectic stuff, but I rarely define myself as a fan of something or someone. I need a strong emotional connection and at some point of my life they become anchors. There are strangely more artists that I'm fan of now than in my teenage years. Maybe that's because I need more anchors now and that I'm somehow more vulnerable. Maybe it's simply easier now with Internet too. The biggest difference I notice is that it's easier to find people who like the same artists as I do nowadays. When I was young, I was pretty much out of my timezone and none of my friends understood my tastes. I had to wait till high school and uni to find 1 person that shared some of them.

The starting point

While I was rewinding my fan's journey to Joey, I was trying to find what those people have in common. Well, they are white men, and that's pretty much it 😅. In reality, I like a lot of female artists (even within the groups I will speak about) and artists with different skin color. They could have been my anchors at some point. Yet things went differently.

Why? My guess is because my parents' tastes were the starting point. My father is black from the West Indies from a very religious house but by accident the first music album he ever possessed was vinyl of Dire Straits found buried in the sand. And he felt in love with rock while his sisters and brothers never did. And funnily enough, it all translated to the next generation as all of my cousins seem to dig more in our West Indies roots than I am. On my mother side, it is almost a cliché of strong text driven french singers. But put this together and you already have a good idea of what will be my path. And here is another thing to explore : how much of our tastes are really ours? Well I told you, I like to ask myself a lot of questions...

Let's start my fangirl journey then.

On the picture bellow are the main points of my journey, but I'll speak of some others in between because they shaped the evolution of my tastes in music mostly.

I'll explain to a certain extend how they slowly led me to Joey Batey who checks all the boxes of what I love in an artist today.

>> 1991 🇬🇧 - I discovered Queen literally the day Freddie Mercury died. I was a bit young but after I saw the band on TV and heard their music, I asked my parent to buy me a K7. I liked it and listened to it a lot for a few months, and then forgot it for about 4 years. But, young teenage me found this K7 again and, after that, went YEARS of almost nothing but Queen's music for me. I was a fan of Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor in particular. Well... Freddie, what can I say? Of course... That voice, that presence! Freddie was the first artist I found attractive.

And Roger Taylor is such an under radar performer. You would never imagine that his broken voice could go that high, and that he could double Freddie while drumming like a beast. He impressed me so much...

At the time, I was strongly deviating from what was popular to hear and at school nobody understood my "old" person tastes. I couldn't care less. They had their idiols, I had mine.

Note : I'm ace, but back then I didn't know. I took me a long time (almost 30 years) to understand that what I called attraction was merely fascination for others. I am now aware that the people I'm fan of are not all handsome by the canons, and maybe in my younger years that's why my friends never understood my tastes.

After I dug all I could about Queen, I plunged into all kind of rock music from the 70's and 80's (thanx dady I guess 😅) and then jump to metal, through operatic and symphonic metal.

The metal path

Those are the singer/musician from my 00's that I can say they made a strong impression on me, and that are little steps forward in my journey toward Joey even if they don't seem to.

- 🇫🇷 Patrice Guers joined the group Rhapsody as a bassist. The group was doing like a Lord of The Rings metal saga with a lot of baroque and romantic era music influences. When the guy came, that was the first time I heard such difficult lines at the bass in a metal band. And the more incredible thing was that he never used any pick to play, like it was common in this style of music. What he does cannot be played with a pick anyway. It was all fingers, baby ! He was shy in the back and suddenly he made that bass sing like a crazy jazz player lost in epic fantasy tales. He made me go feral about fusion of genres in music.

- 🇫🇮 Marco Hietala from Nightwish. A viking that that could sing like an angel or a demon while playing. As a bassist he was always a bit in the back because he often did back vocals with only parts as lead. But anytime he sang his very powerful voice sent shivers down my spine, even though the group has strong and powerful lead female vocalists. I loved them but always waited to hear that viking step in and crush it. In the end, he had more and more parts to sing as a lead. Unfortunately he stepped away from music due to mental health issus.

- 🇫🇮 Snowy Shaw. I discovered him when he joined Therion. Both are maybe the most unstettling/shady artists I've been fan of. This is one of the rare group from that period I could see live and Snowy Shaw made the show another level by his on stage presence - he had so much energy and stamina - and his insane vocals. He could twist his voice and jump from a style to another in a blink of a eye. Therion has a complex music written as pieces of symphony with choirs and orchestra. They rarely went with full orchestra, so on stage was just the core band. They had 4 singers : 2 males and 2 females. Snowy literally filled all the gaps in the vocals when needed. From the bass to crazy high notes. And he made me appreciate growls because of the way he combined it with everything else.

But he is just a small step to a bigger one later 😉.

On the same period of time, I was into french rock/folk music also. And this is a very different hook that got me there: the storytelling.

The storytellers

- 🇫🇷 Christian Descamp aka "Le Père" (the father). A strange guy with a powerfully baritone voice that wrote psychedelic songs for the band Ange (angel), which the oldest rock band still active in France. He is a powerhouse of interpretation and can be magnetic when he goes feral. In the first albums, stories were between the fantasy and fantastic genre. Then it goes for a more realistic root but with terrific metaphors that made my brain boil.

- 🇫🇷 Jean Louis Jossic : one of the three "Yann" of the folk rock band Tri Yann. This is french celtic root music (yes we have celts in France and also a local celtic language). Jean Louis hasn't the most beautiful voice from the three, but he has the power of storytelling and he creates modern legends. The band modernised french celtic folk music, making it rock and progressive and those stories the man told prouved that fantasy could be also modern tales.

If you begin to find any relation with Joey, well... I told you they all shaped the way I enjoy things 😊.

Well, let's get back to the mains.

Strange connections

>> 2000's 🇬🇧 - Alan Rickman is the first actor I became fan of and that I watched almost all the films in was in. He played mostly villains or shady characters but there was something magnetic to his performances. And he had that voice! Oh boy! I have a thing for voices 😅. My female friends were telling me he was ugly and old. And I was like : does it matter ? As I said at that time, I didn't know I was ace and I couldn't find any logical attraction in pretty boys. For me it was always something else that made the difference.

And as for actors, this something else often resided in emotions. Not the plain sight ones, but the little things with subtext and layers that dig deep in you...

>> 2005 🇦🇹 - Robert Rother aka Bertl and Leonhard Paul aka Professor. They are members of the austrian comedic brass band Mnozil Brass who arranged all type of music for brass and were very inventive on the scenery. Each of the 7 musicians is exceptional in his way but Berlt and Leonhard were my top favourites.

They are literally opposed physically and within their role in the band. Bertl is husky and bold and plays trumpet (high register). He is a soloist but more often second voice. Leonhard is slim with long hair and plays the trombone and the bugle (low register). He is leader of his section. Even in their comedic role they are opposed. Bertl plays on the contrast of his strong figure and the absolute cuteness he can display whereas Leonhard plays on the unsettling presence he can have.

Those two musicians are like the least connected to Joey, but again are a little step that leads to another like Snowy Shaw. The step is that around those years I was fond of comical music groups that could play extremely well and make classical music extra fun. Maybe you can guess by now...

>> 2014 🇬🇧 - Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor. I watched the series back with Eccleston and Tenant and I was already fan, but Peter Capaldi changed it all. He made my feelings taking a rollercoaster. He had a very nuanced way of playing emotions and some scenes are now iconic too me. I think I cried the most during his Doctor period. And even if I cried before for the end of each Doctor, his was the most difficult to overcome. It was the first time I had such a connection with a fictional character through acting.

Where the dots connects

>> 2017 🇺🇸 ‐ Jack Black : It doesn't seem like it but yes, Jack Black is the step that connects all so far. Rock lover. Comedic music group. Crazy voice and energy... And he makes another connexion as he joins acting and singing. But he is not just the junction. He is a big change in the way I was fan before that...

I am very aware Jack Black can't be for everyone because he is over the top. But he has this part of him where he gives everything he has to light the day. And he used humour as shield and sword to make his way through dark times.

Well, maybe you begin to see why I choose this specific line of TAD for my blog's name hmmm 🙂.

I knew Jack Black already because he is part of Hollywood's landscape, but it's in 2017 that I really discovered him and became a fan. I was at a very low time in my life. I had an accident that left me paralysed from one arm for months and it took me a year and a half to regain enough mobility to make it seems I am ok. I was a musician amateur but passionate and that put that part of my life to the trash bin brutally. During my rehabilitation, I couldn't watch any musician play without feeling angry, even those I loved. I stopped listening to music after a while, because I couldn't bear the frustration. Until... I found Tenacious D and Jack Black.

That guy's manic energy pierced through my depression and he was the only one, for a long time, that could fill my always deflating batteries. He was combining the crazy voice of Snowy Shaw with the comedic music I always enjoyed but for rock instead of classical music. And very much, in a way, he saved me.

He is connected to Joey, because he was my very first safe place when I was alone and depressed. It's thanks to him that I'm listening to music again and more importantly able to enjoy it again.

A matter of personality

>> 2020 🇫🇷 - Amixem. He is not an actor or a musician, even if he can play the piano quite well. He is a youtuber who makes mostly feat and fun videos. I could speak about him for hours so I'll try to make it short!

A lot of people classify him as trash content creator, and I was in this side of the barrier once, but during the pandemic I fell in his trash bin and discovered one of the most inspiring human been.

I learned to analyse movies and pictures at school in my uni years, and used it often while watching movies and series. I never thought I would do it on trash youtube content.

If you watch what Amixem does passively, I agreed this is trash. And over all, except some special video, it is not an intellectual content by any means. BUT if you analyse a bit, you'll see that all is not what it seems. This guy is a genius in disguise. He plays with marketing, deconstruct tropes while using them as a joke and still making money out of it, plays with meta narratives in a place that shouldn't have narratives. And this is almost transparent because everything flows. He has built an audiovisual realm, the american way, and he's highly inspired by some of the biggest youtubers, yet the result is nothing alike. It's still very french vibe and he is not afraid to propose 40min to 1h+ long episodes. Like "if it has to be that long to breath, make it that long".

He has like 25-30 persons working with him for the videos and his brand nowadays, but he includes them. And almost from the very beginning. Which youtuber you can say : I know almost every cameramen by their name and recognise them, has well as the set designers, technicians or production organisers.

Well, this is the case with him. As a influencer, he is the product and the brand of is channel, but he lifts the curtain to let us appreciate those who usually are in the shadows and make them part of the show, not only in makings of. The show itself holds its backstage as a part of what makes it fun : people, even special effect, montage comedy etc.

Apart from that, he is a crazy investor passionate about space and wants to go there to see the Earth from above. Even if the odds are little for him to succeed I believe he may have a chance and I want to witness it ☺️.

The link with Joey seems again very small but... this time it's about the guy himself. Even if Amixem is big with his work and has ambitions, he stays an introvert that extroverts himself in front of the camera. He doesn't like celebrity as it pushes too much in his comfort zone and he has a tendency to hide in reaction to that. He also uses humour as a shield (and he needs a very strong one because people are polarised about him and the hate side can be very violent...).

During the pandemic and isolation, his videos helped me to control my angst levels. He helped me to find escapism and made me laugh on a daily basis. Today he is one of my safe place.

Here we are

2021 🇬🇧 - Finally, Joey Batey. The man, the legend 😏

I watched The Witcher in the middle of 2021. I felt in love with Jaskier almost immediately but I consummated the show quite brainlessly. And then when I watched the second season, in early 2022, I was blown away by Joey. The layers of narrative he holds alone within his way of interpreting things in a so short among of screen presence sent me to outter space. I was like : what the hell! What did I miss in the first season? I rewatched all from the start and I was hooked to my core. Like Capaldi's interpretation change the Doctor Who show for me, Joey's Jaskier did the same for The Witcher. And I found him incredibly magnetic. He shines through the screen everytime.

Then, I felt for his personality with the interviews I saw or read. I noticed he had a way with words that I enjoyed a lot. And then I found The Amazing Devil. And every stars aligned.

I found in his poetry everything I loved about my crazy french narrators from the old time, linked with highly metaphorical modern tales, within a way to explore deep feelings which seems easy, but on the surface only.

He literally changed my way of perceiving words! I call him the Van Gogh of words. Because he can hold beauty within torments. In this, his words touched my soul and my inner wounds in a cathartic way. And I remembered that I still need to heal. His songs are a good medicine, patching me up sometimes or deconstructing me. Never brutally. I feel safe to cry when needed.

I find the layers of narrative in his storytelling so compelling. His songs are like the sky's reflection on water but for my feelings. As the weather changes the way I perceive the water, my emotional state makes me understand every song differently, as it emphasises some layers of narratives over others.

How can I tell myself different stories with the exact same words? How can I experience those simultaneously and understand things without knowing the real meaning? He makes me day dream, and turns my brain into jelly sometimes. He is young but writes as he had lived many lives.

I can't praise him enough, as I find myself quite limited with my own words, especially in English. I need metaphors I lack to express everything.

Conclusion

I'm in this tunnel for now and I expect for a long time. I can't wait to discover more of his works as an actor and a musician. What aspect of me would I find while listening to his words?

I don't know yet which step he will be linked to in the future of my fan's journey to whatever, but he is definitely one of the highlights that shines bright.

Now, I can say that my passion for what Joey does is linked to a vinyl disk buried in the sand, old actors and musicians, metal bands and music clowns. What is your story?

See you soon 😈

Credits photo:

Well most of them are google image without references 😑, especially the oldest one. Jack Black, Amixem, Snowy Shaw are from youtube video screenshot.

Alan Rickmam : Jimmy Fallon Talk Show. Christian Descamp : France Info. Patrice Guers : Bassiste Pro. Marco Hietala : .Peter Capaldi : Wales Online. Robert Rother : Prague Proms Festival . Leonhard Paul : Schagerl endorsing page. Joey Batey : TAD website (edited by @erualthewild - thx for putting that amazing photo of him, that I was ignoring the existence for no reason, in my thread 😊)

[the-girl-who-sold-the-wxrld]

J'ai publié 1 761 fois en 2022

C'est 1 761 billets de plus qu'en 2021 !

147 billets créés (8%)

1 614 billets reblogués (92%)

Les blogs que j'ai le plus reblogués :

@bushs-world

@littlethingsmakebigchanges

@queen-of-meows

@bellamonde

@the-girl-who-sold-the-wxrld

J'ai étiqueté 745 billets en 2022

#sylki - 203 billets

#loki series - 152 billets

#lovie - 150 billets

#sylvie - 132 billets

#loki show - 116 billets

#loki - 108 billets

#mcu sylvie - 104 billets

#mcu loki - 101 billets

#pro sylki - 96 billets

#loki and sylvie - 87 billets

Tag le plus long : 140 caractères

#the fact she looks like a normally proportioned woman and the hulk transformation makes her look like a supermodel that hasn't eaten in 3 da

Mes billets vedette en 2022 :

n°5

i have terrifying statistics for 2021.

in 2021, 0 cishet people have been kicked out of their home by their parents for being cishet.

0 straight people in the world couldn't marry each other because they were straight.

0 cishet people have been seen as criminals by they countries for being cishet.

0 cishet people have been killed or ashaulted because they were cishet.

0 cishet people have been bullied and harrassed for being cishet.

It is so terrible. We need a Heterosexual and Cisgender Pride.

744 notes - publié le 26 août 2022

n°4

Stop fanfictions and posts where Achilles calls Patroclus "Pat". Achilles would never call Patroclus "Pat". Achilles is the only person in the world to pronounce the name Patroclus well, to detach the syllables well, not to say it at full speed until it is just an almost inaudible word. He pronounces it with love and care, and Patroclus loves it. So Achilles would go on forever, pronouncing his name as if it was his favourite word - and it probably is. No diminutive. Just Patroclus.

847 notes - publié le 25 octobre 2022

n°3

I was on Tumblr's Heartstopper tag and my six-year-old cousin came and sat next to me. she started looking at my phone ("Marion, je veux regarder avec toiiiiiiii !") and inevitably, there were pictures and gifs of Charlie and Nick (💙) kissing, and the same for Tara and Darcy (🧡).

after five minutes, after several gifs of Nick and Charlie, she asks me "are they two boys?". I tell her yes. she answers "but they kiss?" and I say yes, because they are in love. "boys in love with each other?". "yes, there are plenty of boys in love with each other in the world". "Oh, I didn't know". several minutes passed in silence. then, after a gif of Tara and Darcy, she says to me "and there, these are two girls in love with each other?" and I answer yes. she told me that she believed that girls were necessarily in love with boys and vice versa. I explained to her that there were also boys who liked boys, girls who liked girls and people who liked both. she said "oh okay" then spent the rest of the hour, until lunchtime, cheering and smiling at every Heartstopper post we saw. she let out "ohh so cute!" and insisted on putting likes under the photos and gifs of Tara and Darcy and Nick and Charlie herself.

there is nothing complicated in explaining homosexuality and bisexuality to children.

857 notes - publié le 24 juillet 2022

n°2

if you think forcing an 18yo to come out before he is ready is activism, then just go fuck yourself. you're not helping the community, you're not helping anyone. you're just a bully.

3 483 notes - publié le 2 novembre 2022

Mon billet n°1 en 2022

Istanbul, Turkey, September 21, 2022 • Beirut, Lebanon, September 21, 2022

Paris, France, September 25, 2022 • Berlin, Germany, September 23, 2022

Voir l'intégralité du billet

4 586 notes - publié le 26 septembre 2022

Obtenez votre année 2022 en revue sur Tumblr →

I am sorry for the post in french haha, I'm french so that's why it wrote it in french

It makes me laugh that my own blog is in my most reblogged blog because I often reblog my own posts lol (to add something, reply to reblogs or just because it took me time to write and actually want more people to see it)

Billets = post in french, étiqueté = pinned, billets vedettes = most popular posts, créé/reblogué = created/reblogged, publié = posted.

I am proud of the blogs I reblogged the most, because they all are amazing ^-^

And I am also proud that Sylki related tags are the tags I used the most hehe ! (I expected queer tags to be in the list but I think it's because I reblog queer posts very often without tagging them). Proud of my most popular posts too ;)

[romioneficfest]

Mine

Title: Mine Prompt/Day: Day 5 - Baby Rose or Hugo does not sleep Tumblr name:  Rating: G Brief summary: A newborn Hugo refuses to sleep. Can Rose be the answer to the young parents finally getting some sleep? Any possible triggering/warning tags: None.

Ever since the day she was born, Rose Weasley-Granger was a blessing to her young parents. Quiet, undemanding and easy to please, life was bloody brilliant with her around, or so her Dad thought.

As she grew, Rose showed great curiosity about the world around her. Even as a toddler, she absorbed every book and every story. When she came across bridges, cranes, or muggle vehicles — she always asked how or why.

Ron was more than happy to indulge her, taking her out for walks, and trips to the museums, places his wife teased him about as he’d always claimed he hated them before Rosie. And when Hermione discovered that she was pregnant again, he braced himself for the incoming questions the now three-year-old might have.

But none came.

Rose accepted that her baby brother was growing inside her mother, her curiosity replaced by the excitement of finally getting a sibling, just like the rest of her cousins. And that was that.

As Hermione’s stomach began to grow, Rose was obsessed and developed an instant love for the life inside. During family cuddles, Ron would often find himself elbowed out of the way so that Rose could get access to the baby bump.

“My baby,” Rose would say to anyone who would listen, splaying her hands across her mother’s belly and giggling as it rewarded her with a kick in response. “My baby. In there.”

⁂

As soon as Ron and Hermione brought Hugo home from St. Mungo’s, Rose claimed him as her own.

But Hugo was unlike his sister.

Restless from his first day in the world, the baby refused to settle, and the parents soon found themselves struggling to sleep or cope with two small people with very different demands to look after.

Ron found himself calling on his mother more than ever, pleading with her to take Rose, something he and Hermione agreed never to do.

Bereft every time they parted the siblings, sending Rose away came with its own problems. She would kick and scream as they forced her into the Floo network, tears marking her face and a look that told her Dad she’d never forgive him for this.

⁂

“I don’t know what to do,” Hermione fretted on their fifth morning with baby Hugo. It had been another night of not sleeping. She bounced him in her arms; his face bawled up. He wanted to be latched to her all the time, yet he rarely fed, meaning she was not getting a break.

Ron looked on desperately. They were out of their depth. Noticing that Hermione was about to give up completely, he held his arms out.

“Let me take him, love. I know I don’t have boobs, but he’ll just have to cope for a bit. You’re so frazzled. Why don’t you go and get a shower, and I’ll try and calm him down. Then when you’re ready, we can try feeding the terror again.”

“Okay,” Hermione whimpered, her entire body sagging against the pressure of not being able to calm her baby.

Taking the bundle of blankets from his weeping wife, Ron pressed a kiss to the top of her head and pushed her towards the bathroom. As soon as she was gone, he started to pace the bedroom floor, following in Hermione’s footsteps. With a million nieces and nephews, Ron had an arsenal of tools to try and help soothe his son, and he was willing to try them all. Hugo must be exhausted with all this crying; maybe he just needed a decent amount of kip.

The roar of the Floo activating distracted Ron from his mission, and he shifted the aggravated baby into one arm before heading down to greet their visitors. He arrived in the living room just in time to see his mum and daughter tumble from the green flames.

“Daddy!” A bundle of bouncy red curls threw herself at his legs, almost knocking him off balance. Her grip was vice-like but comforting. At least one of his children liked him, despite her regular protests at him ‘sending her away’.

“Hugo still not settling down, love?” His mother clucked, peering at the red ball of anger in Ron’s arms.

“Nah, I reckon he’s pissed off that we took him away from Hermione’s womb. He was so comfy in there, getting fat and sleeping. He’s just trying to punish us for it.”

Scooping up her granddaughter, Molly settled on the sofa. “Well, he was over two weeks late; it was about time he came out. Not like his sister, hey Rosie? Perfectly on time and lovely ever since, weren’t you? Where’s Hermione?”

“I’m letting her take a shower. She’s probably trying to drown herself in there, just for a breather.”

“Want me to take Hugo for a bit?” Molly glanced up, a hopeful look on her face. It didn’t matter how many grandchildren the Weasley’s popped out; each and every one was special and exciting.

“Su—” he started, eager for a break from the annoyed newborn, but he was rudely interrupted by his daughter.

“No. Mine.” Rosie’s arms were up in the air, demanding a cuddle from her brother.

“Oh, I don’t know, Rose.” Ron frowned. “Your brother still isn’t a happy bunny, and he’s very noisy. Why don’t you help Nanny cuddle him instead?”

“No, Daddy. My baby.”

Ron was surprised that Rosie hadn’t used accidental magic to summon her brother to her. The adamant look on his daughter’s face, with furrowed brows and curls that crackled with electricity, reminded him of Hermione, and he chuckled. He knew his daughter wouldn’t give up until she got what she wanted.

Glancing at his mum, Ron shrugged and, with her help, placed the baby into Rosie’s arms.

“Aww baby,” Rose cooed, the hand not supporting the baby’s head reaching across to stroke Hugo’s cheek. “My baby. Poor ‘oo-go.”

To Ron’s amazement, the baby calmed down almost instantly. Two bright but unfocused eyes searched the room for the source of his comfort. Something must have assured him that it was close by because Hugo closed his eyes and finally settled down to sleep.

A clammer on the stairs broke the silence, and Hermione burst into the room, a towel wrapped around her body and hair, her eyes wild with fear.

“He stopped crying — what happened? Is everything okay?”

“Rose sorted him out,” Ron stated before collapsing into the armchair and closing his eyes. “Now shhhhhh before you wake the beast up.”

Forcing his eyes open, his heart almost stopped as Rose continued to coo over the baby. He thought he couldn’t love anyone as much as he loved Hermione until these two tiny people were thrust into his life. He just wished they would always be this quiet.

The silence wouldn’t last long. Rosie’s arms were small, so she wouldn’t be able to support Hugo for the rest of the day. And he guessed it wasn’t ethical to allow their three-year-old to look after her brother forever. As parents, they’d need to step in eventually.

Sensing his thoughts, Molly smiled over at him. “Time for your shower, I think, Ronnie. And then maybe the two of you can take advantage of the quiet to have a nap. Rosie and I have things under control. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

“Yes, Nanny. Mummy, Daddy. Go!” Rosie beamed up at her grandmother.

“You heard her. Off you go.”

Shaking his head and marveling at the way his daughter already had him under her thumb, Ron got to his feet. He was desperate for a shower and a decent sleep. Placing a hand on the small of his wife’s back, he steered her towards the stairs.

“You heard the child. It’s time for us to have a break."

[siriusmuggle]

Deceive Me Not My Heart

Pairing: Tony Stark/Reader

Warnings: None, this is all fluffy goodness (which is weird for me)

Tags: Mutual Pining, Jealousy, Insecure Reader, sweet Tony, happy ending!

WC: 3,128

I wanted to post a my one shot from Archiveofourown.org over here to Tumblr because I love Tony Stark and I know a lot of people like reading on Tumblr rather than any other site. However, If you like this story you can find my others on AO3😊😊 My pseudonym over there is AmberSnapeBlack. ❤

How were you not aware that Mr. Stark possessed/owned an Olympic size swimming pool? The Tower had every other accommodation one could possibly dream of. Peter had asked for McDonald’s once, Mr. Stark had scoffed, stating quite clearly, “We're pro Burger King here, kid. Seventy-fifth floor.”

So, the question still stood, why were you surprised that you never knew he had a massive pool deep in the bowels of the Tower?

You stood with your arms crossed tightly about your chest. Your oversized tye-dye shirt was long enough to hit just above your knees yet you still felt exposed in the worst way. Peter and MJ were talking a mile a minute, Ned trying valiantly to get a word in edgewise as they marveled at their surroundings.

The air was balmy, carrying the scent of pool chemicals. Loud laughter, followed by the splashing of water flowed over the group huddled by the entrance. Despite the fact that the pool was large, it was still half occupied. Every member of the Avengers were in some form of swim wear, some in, some out of the water. ‘Secondary’ Avengers were there as well. Along with members of shield and a few upper level agents.

It was intimidating to say the least.

Yet, all of that paled in comparison to Mr. Stark lifting himself out of the pool by the sheer power of his arms. His muscles bunching in a way that made it hard for you to breathe let alone tear your eyes away. Water ran in tantalizing rivulets across the dips and planes of his torso. Droplets catching on the raised scars across his chest. The image was far from off putting. You wanted to trace each ridge with your tongue. Soothe the ego you knew was bruised by what he perceived as imperfections.

Yet, that didn’t stop him from slicking his hair back, bicep flexing as he moved towards her group of people still crowded around the door. He stopped by a lounge chair, reaching down to grab a towel. Before you could lament the loss of his skin on display, you internally cheered as he merely wrapped the cloth around the back of his neck, using the ends that now draped over his chest to wipe the water from his face.

“Parker and Co. Welcome. Mi piscina es tu piscina.” He stretched his arms out in a hospitable manner. His grin wide and sweet. You looked away before you embarrassed yourself by swooning.

“Holy smokes, Mr. Stark. When you said pool party...you meant pool party. This is...awesome!” Peter’s enthusiastic response had Mr. Stark’s smile turning a little smug.

“Why are you standing here like frightened goats then? Go. Run. Jump. Skip. Play.” Peter, MJ and Ned wasted no time doing exactly that.

At a much more sedate pace, you worked your way around Mr. Stark as he watched the others walk away. Hoping to make it to the other side of the pool where you could stick your feet in and hope to fly under the radar.

“Hey.” Mr. Stark’s soft greeting had you halting in place, spinning back slowly to see him rubbing at the back of his neck. Again his physique bunched and pulled in a way that was all too alluring, Your heart seized, wondering why he called out to you, “I finished the specs for the new anti-gravity gun. I used your suggestion of electrostatic repulsion. You should swing by the lab next week, planning on running some trials.”

Of course. Science.

You had met Mr. Stark over six months ago. Your cousin Peter interned for the man as he finished his last year of High School. When he wasn’t swinging from rooftop to rooftop dressed in a garish blue and red spider suit.

To say you were surprised when you moved in with Peter and your Aunt May would be an understatement. You had packed up your life back in your home state to move to New York and attend your final year of college at Columbia University. The school offered a more accelerated engineering program than the previous institution were attending. Luckily, your mother’s sister May lived in Queens, just a forty minute ride to the campus, on a good day. Eliminating your need to pay for housing or food. Yet, you still contributed to the Parker household in any way you could. Not wanting and unwilling to be a free-loader.

Merely a month into your stay and you discovered Peter crawling in through his window at two in the morning. You had had a paper due and were up for cramming in last minute adjustments. He had jumped and squealed at seeing your dark silhouette standing in his doorway. At the same time you had screamed, grabbing his lamp and tossing it in his general direction. Believing wholeheartedly that you were being robbed by a crazed masked man.

Amidst the shouting, Aunt May had stumbled from her bed. Robe wrapped tight around her body as she flipped on the lights. You and Peter had been in a standoff. He, with his arms extended, webs prepped to shoot. And you, leg bent awkwardly ready to kick, hands held in front of your face as pathetic shields.

Aunt May had sighed, “Well Pete. Time to let another one in on your little, spidey secret.”

It had been a whirlwind from there. Peter insisted he was fine, though you were still worried. He was your baby cousin, fighting crime on the down low. Who wouldn’t be worried? He also begged you to visit Avengers Tower. And that...had been your downfall.

Peter had dragged you to the labs. Tempting you with promises of groundbreaking tech and almost science fiction levels of machinery. He had delivered. That and more.

Tony Stark had strolled into the lab halfway through Peter explaining his latest upgrades to his web-slingers. Mr. Stark had introduced himself and the rest as they say, was history.

You were instantly attracted to his good looks and charm. But, the more you visited, the more you hung out with the enigmatic man, the more you were drawn to him for different reasons. Sure, he was deliciously attractive. But, that was surface level. His intelligence drew you in like a moth to a flame. His subtle, kind gestures were too adorable for words. Any time a member of the team even hinted at a need for something new, something improved, he was on it. Devoting time and energy to keeping those around him safe and happy. His snark and wit entertained you endlessly. And when he smiled, you couldn’t help but reciprocate. He listened to you. Though you were just a struggling engineering student, he took the time to hear out your ideas and thoughts. Bouncing different concepts for new inventions off each other.

But...that was it. That was as far as it went. Your only interactions with him were limited to the lab. Anytime Peter invited you to the Tower for movie nights or pizza dinners, Mr. Stark barely talked to you. A nod of the head in greeting. A ‘how are you?’ in passing. A soft goodbye at the end of the night. Nothing more.

And that was why this was a crush. He stood before you, dripping wet and looking like every fantasy you’d ever had come to life. Talking strictly about Science, you felt your insides slowly becoming pulverized.

Of course he wouldn’t feel the same. Why would he? His exes were supermodels, playboy bunnies...Pepper freakin’ Potts. What were you? A poor college student with thighs too thick, a waist a little too wide, short and awkward.

Yeah. A real catch.

Swallowing down the lump labeled misery rising in your throat, you responded as light hearted as possible, “Sure, Mr. Stark. I’ll check out my schedule, let you know.”

And with that. You turned and walked away. Steps stilted. Wishing you could sway your hips seductively or even manage a halfway graceful strut.

You reached the opposite end of the pool, throwing your towel down and sitting on it to cushion your bottom. As you promised yourself, you stuck your feet and calves into the water. The temperature was perfect. As expected. Listlessly, you kicked your feet back and forth watching as Peter continuously picked up MJ and gently tossed her a few feet away. Smiling when she would screech in offense only to climb on him a moment later and demand he do it again.

It was too cute for words and you wished your outlook on them wasn’t tainted by your envy. You were four years older than Peter, shouldn’t you already have what he and MJ did?

A gusty sigh escaped your lips as you let yourself glance down at the other end of the pool. At first you didn’t spot who you were looking for. Relief and disappointment flip flopped in your chest. Only to have it freeze again as Mr. Stark popped out of the water only a few feet away.

You snapped your head in the other direction. Realizing only too late that you went too far and were now simply staring at the wall like a simpleton.

Holding in a cringe, you felt the water shift around your legs.

“Will you turn into a mermaid if you enter the water, accidentally giving away a long held, deep dark secret?”

You pursed your lips. Reluctantly amused by Mr. Stark’s silly question, “My feet are already in the water. If that was true, I’d have a fin by now.”

Unable to resist, you turned to face him. He had his arms crossed over the ledge of the pool. His chin resting on his forearm as he stared up at you through wet lashes.

Jesus.

He tsked, “You and your logic. Boring.”

You breathed a light laugh, shaking your head as you looked away. Sometimes, it physically hurt to stare at him for too long. Your stomach knotted, apparently this was one of those times. Wet, shirtless and close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body.

Yeah, it was one of those times.

“So, if not a mythical aquatic creature...what’s keeping you on dry ground?”

Hm. How do you say ‘I’m embarrassed to take this shirt off. You’ve seen so many perfectly shaped bodies, I’m terrified for you to see mine. I want you to like me. Lust after me. I’m afraid my body will prevent that from happening.’ Without seeming like you're coming on too strong?

While that debate went on internally, outwardly you merely jerked a shrug. Fingers playing with the hem of your shirt, wanting to pull it down and cover more of your legs.

You heard more than saw him draw breath to speak again, only to be interrupted by another voice.

A female voice.

“Tony! You and me, against Steve and Sharon in a game of chicken. Someone has to show those two up.”

The woman who spoke was a petite, tight bodied blonde. Her bright blue eyes sparkled with mischief while her flawlessly shaped mouth pouted in a way that came off seductive when it should have been irritating.

You instantly felt smaller, lesser.

Tony blew out a raspberry, “They’ve won two games. Hardly a title worth crowing about.”

She swam closer and Mr. Stark turned toward her, shoulders leaning against the side of the pool. You were promptly ignored. Dismissed.

“Come on, Tony! I tried to take them down with Brian, but he doesn’t have the fortitude to withstand the Captain.”

Mr. Stark scoffed, “Well he works in accounting. What did you expect?”

Swimmer Barbie was mere inches from Mr. Stark now. You watched the scene play out from the corner of your eye. Like a train wreck, you couldn’t look away, regardless of how devastating it was.

The blonde’s finger reached out, skimming over Mr. Stark’s shoulder. You felt his bicep bump your thigh as he slid a little closer. Your heart warmed only to ice over as the blue-eyed demon simpered, “You know we can have some fun with your head between my thighs.”

You gasped in a sharp breath, hands clenching in the fabric of your shirt.

Mr. Stark coughed and sputtered but ultimately conceded to being dragged away, the claws of the grasping succubus dug deep into his arms as he treaded water, trying to keep up with her pace.

Stabbing jealousy and burning rage took turns taking bites out of your trembling heart.

You couldn’t watch. Squeezing your eyes shut, contemplating picking up your towel and marching away from the Tower. Away from Manhattan, out of New York. Anywhere but here.

“Hey, you okay?” Peter’s concerned voice brought you back from the depression precipice you were about to tumble over.

With a slightly stuttered inhale you answered, “Sure thing, spiderling.” Your teasing smile was just a little wobbly. Yet, if Peter noticed, he didn’t call you out on it.

“We are gonna have a race, I promised not to use my enhancements. Wanna join?”

He looked so young, so hopeful. Those damn puppy eyes.

With a sigh, you quickly shucked off your shirt. Sliding into the water as fast as possible. Your suit wasn’t overly revealing. A simple, black one piece though there were cutouts on the side. A strip of skin revealed from beneath the side of your breasts down to your hips. Strips of fabric criss crossed over the areas, helping you to feel more confident in wearing this particular piece of swim wear.

Though, after seeing the blonde runway model in her skimpy two piece, you felt frumpy and pudgy. MJ, however, complimented your suit, raving on about how it flattered your figure. Lamenting that she wished she had the breasts and hips to pull off the daring cut.

Flattered, you had blushed and stammered your way through a thank you. To which she merely shrugged like her words were simply factual before jumping onto Peter’s head, violently dunking him.

With your new found, fragile confidence your eyes slid to the other side of the pool. You quickly spotted the pale haired bimbo, though it wasn’t Mr. Stark’s shoulders she was perched on. If you weren’t mistaken, her thighs were astride none other than Thor, God of Thunder.

Your eyes bounced from person to person until they finally landed on him.

You sucked in a sharp breath as your eyes locked with Mr. Stark. He was now outside of the pool, sitting on the edge in much the same way as you had been. The contestants of the chicken match were shouting at him to call fouls, claim a winner yet, his attention was on you. And you alone.

You shivered, despite the blissful temperature of the water. His facial expression was hard to read from a distance, but his gaze was steady, unyielding.

Sucking in a lung full of much needed air, you turned away. Unable to hold his stare, not wanting to read too much into it.

“Okay, since the other side of the pool is so crowded, we’ll just swim the width. Everyone, grab the side.” You, Ned, MJ and Peter all lined up against the wall, hands firmly touching the side, “No cheating, first to reach the other side wins. On the count of three.”

He rattled off the countdown and you pushed off the side. Legs and arms pumping, you gave it all you had. Gasping breaths each time your face broke the surface. You were nearing the side, in a firm second place, just barely behind MJ when a body appeared in your path.

Too late to stop, you crashed into a solid wall of muscle. Swallowing at least a cup full of pool water, you broke the surface, sputtering. Legs and arms flailing as you tried to find your balance.

Hands grasped your hips as you shoved your hair out of your face, “Woah there, sweetheart. You okay?”

Tony Stark.

Coughing into your palm, eyes watering, you nodded.

“Yeah. You look totally fine.” His smirk was mocking.

Through a raw throat and indignant emotion you poked his chest, “Hey, you got in my path. Not vice versa.”

He caught your hand before you could pull it back. Stunned, you could do nothing but stare as he brought your palm to his mouth, laying a gentle kiss against the skin, “You’re right madam. I apologize. From now on I will look both ways before crossing the pool.”

You must have drowned and this was heaven. That could be the only explanation as to why Tony Stark was showing this type of attention, this level of affection in front of this many people.

“What...Mr. Stark...um…?”

He drew his lower lip between his teeth as he took a step toward you. You stepped back. For every bit of forward progress you matched it by countering his steps until your back hit concrete.

“First off…” The tone of his voice was low, intimate. Goosebumps broke out across your flesh, your nipples tightened, “my name is Tony. Secondly, I’d like to make one thing clear…” he pressed closer, “your thighs are the only ones I want around my head.”

Yep. Your body was floating somewhere along the surface of the pool. Possibly, Peter may have pulled you from the depths and was currently giving you CPR. How else could this be explained?

His forehead touched yours and your body automatically molded to his. He released a soft groan, his hands smoothing up your sides, “Don’t think I didn’t notice that pouty face of yours as the Brandi from human resources tried her best to seduce me.”

Face flushing hot, you countered, “Well...she’s...pretty...and perky and…”

He finished, “And makes a whole lot of noise for someone who says nothing.”

One of his hands came out of the water to cradle your cheek, “I’ve been trying to get your attention for the last five months. It was a real gut punch to my ego.” His lips tilted up but you could see the vulnerability behind his eyes.

Still, confusion warred with elation, “But...you ignored me! It was like I didn’t exist outside of the lab…”

“Baby,” Your heart rolled over in your chest at the nickname, “You make me nervous.” Your eyes widened, he huffed a light laugh and continued, “Like a damn teenager, all I wanted to do was impress you. It was easy in the lab. In the common areas,” he sucked his teeth, tilting his head from side to side, “I fumbled over myself trying to figure out a way to connect.”

Your mouth moved before you thought about your words, “You could have just kissed me.”

His smile broadened, “Knew you were smart.”

His lips met yours and the room exploded in applause.

@patheticallysentimental @misspoisonouslove @nxjknxj @lust-discipline @serrabloodsong @fordloveofstark @creationcitystreet-em @starksbabie @amanda-wilkie @im-so-madd @lonnie234557829858

[lord-of-christmas-lights]

I could post regular Narnia headcanons...

Or I could post the continuation of this post and go into depth about how Eustace and Caspian are affected by deity Narnia. Welcome back to Inhuman Narnia 101 and it turned out just as long as the first one so buckle up.

Check out this post by @dorianviolet for another awesome version of Inhuman AU Caspian

Warnings for slight body horror mentions including blood magic stuff, slight religious themes and theological discussion towards the end.

Before anything: This AU directly contradicts canon a lot. I don't care, that's why it's called an AU. Some of it is deliberate, some of it is accidental. I haven't read the books in a number of years, so this is all based on the movies and general information I've picked up from fanfic and tumblr. Discussion on this post is welcomed, criticism and arguments are not. Thank you.

First off, here is the link to an exploration of Dragoning, the Eustace-centric fic I wrote about this. I refer to it repeatedly in this post so if you want the full thing, there it is.

Second, let's get into this. So in my last post, I talked a lot about Narnia, her general existence in this AU, and her motivations as a character. She wants the people in her world to be a part of her, and no one else. Some of this is a conscious choice, and some of it isn't. Eustace's changes throughout his time in VOTDT are definitely not purposeful. It was his greed that drove him to the treasure, it was his own "curse" in becoming a dragon. That was not Narnia reaching out to him and purposefully trying to mold him to her world. As such, he takes on more of an observing role.

Eustace doesn't ever actually directly address his cousins on the subject of their inhumanity, in this fic or in any other I write. He simply sees it, notes it happening, and moves on. Even in the sections in my fics where the subject of inhumanity in general is brought up between Eustace and one of his cousins, it's always about Caspian, the greater Narnian world, or himself.

"Eustace asks why, and Lucy answers. Narnia changes people, she says. It happens to everyone, but the closer you are to her Heart, the greater it is. I don't know where Dragons are. Perhaps closer than we realized. It's exhilarating, isn't it? Aslan will return us to normal though, at the end of our journey." - AEOD

I don't know why, but I don't like the idea of Eustace trying to directly address the Pevensie brand of inhumanity. That line above takes place after his UnDragoning, after the way he sees things has changed, and I see it as him asking what exactly has changed, you know, why are Dragons different than boys?

That brings me to how Eustace himself changes. Now, if he hadn't gone and turned into a Dragon, I imagine Narnia wouldn't have taken much note of him. He's a random human, stuck-up, not at all in line for ruling her lands, and just kind of exists without much else going on. She still would have affected him a little, as she does to all humans in her world but it would have been almost entirely spiritual with no physical changes. And then we got the greatest fuck around and find out scene ever. He becomes a Dragon.

I love dragons, always have, I have a very deep spiritual connection to these creatures, and as such, I have gone all out on worldbuilding for Narnian Dragons. Again, the quote from AEOD, "...the closer you are to her Heart, the greater it is. I don't know where Dragons are. Perhaps closer than we realized." In the Inhuman AU, Dragons were the first creatures Narnia (the deity) and Aslan made when they created Narnia (the world). They just really liked the dragon shape from other worlds and thought, "Hey wouldn't it be cool if our world was populated by these big fire-breathing lizards?" Now I don't actually remember how often Dragons are mentioned and/or featured in the books so I'm going with my idea that Dragons are a somewhat rare but not extinct species. They have to be created through magical means, often through physical transformation of people or objects, though there are a few known cases of natural-born Narnian Dragons. Eustace's creation was the curse on the treasure, though I don't see his Dragoning as a curse itself. As in, the curse isn't in the being a Dragon, it's in how the Dragon was created. So, Eustace experiences this accidental change into a creature that's closer to Narnia's Heart than pretty much any other being in Narnia. They were her first creations, forged from the fire in the Stars, and they are the closest to her magic. And that gets her attention.

Now, if you went and read AEOD, you'll have noticed that one of Eustace's biggest changes (aside from the obvious physical ones) is his vision. This is just a natural thing for Dragons, they are far more in tune with magic and the earth and everything than everyone else, but Narnia's special interest in him definitely amplifies the hell out of his magic sense.

"The people here say dragons see the oddest of things, and he has to assume it's a hallucination....He refuses to give into its whims, reminds himself it's just his imagination. Until Reepicheep comments on it." - AEOD. Following this quote, Reepicheep mentions to Lucy that her inhumanity is returning faster than Edmund's and Eustace has a total panic attack at the idea that what he's seeing is real. He sees what everyone else does, Lucy's stained fingers and Edmund's ability to manipulate words, but he also notices stuff no one else does like the stars in Edmund's throat and the echoes that follow Lucy's words. This is further cemented after his UnDragoning, where the extra stuff he perceived has vanished. Now the general idea in this AU is that the closer to Narnia's Heart you are, the more you know and perceive. Everyone can see some of the more obvious inhuman aspects of the Pevensies, but there are things that only Dragons, druids, Stars, and some other magic folk really close to Narnia's Heart see. I'm not going to get into an exact chart of what certain characters can and cannot see because that can change over time and such and I'd rather leave it mostly up to personal interpretation on what other characters do and do not perceive about the Pevensies and other such inhuman characters.

(Side note—I had to pause in the writing of this post here to go to my second meeting for an autism assessment and I think if I just showed the doctor my notes app and the inhuman/dark fantasy narnia tag on my blog, I'd get the diagnosis instantly lol) So anyways, Narnia senses Eustace becoming a Dragon and is like "Ooohoo what's this?" and starts sort of digging into him in the same way she does to her Kings and Queens. This triggers his already enhanced perception of Narnia (the world) to get even stronger, and this is when he starts seeing stuff like people's souls, Caspian's second heart (more on that soon), and looking at Lucy/Edmund/Lilliandil becomes almost painful because Narnia's magic is so bright in them. Aslan then UnDragons him, which Narnia really doesn't like btw, and Eustace is back to being a fairly average human.

This is where stuff established in AEOD ends.

Now I have so many ideas and half finished fanfics written out in my notes app about Eustace, UnDragoning, and inhumanity and it would be impossible to cover them all here, so I'm just going to go with the highlights. One of my favorite ones is the idea that after Eustace's UnDragoning, he still feels very connected to being a dragon. He's had this taste of pure inhumanity, and something like that doesn't just leave a person. There's a fic I read once long before I was fully invested in this fandom about Eustace and draconity that I will never stop thinking about and was actually the reason I started considering Eustace and Narnian Dragons in this AU. One of the really important things to note is that once a Dragon is created, they can never be uncreated. They can be UnDragoned, where their physical form is returned to whatever it was before their Dragoning (a rock, a talisman, a faun, etc) but their soul has changed on a fundamental level to that of a Dragon. Now for Eustace in my Inhuman AU, this manifests spiritually as a deep longing to return to being a Dragon. Physically, he experiences fun side effects like increased heat tolerance, nails that grow faster than normal, and because Narnia likes to meddle, a single ridge of scales along his spine. In some versions of my drafts, he stays at the end of VOTDT and experiences a slow Dragoning because Narnia's influence on him is that strong, other versions he stays but never quite returns to the Dragon he was before, and in yet other versions, he returns to England and loses that connection enough that physically, he will never be a Dragon again. As I said, Narnia is fascinated by him, she's never really had a human Dragon before, but he is still just a random guy who happens to be related to the Pevensies and as such, she doesn't invest as much time or magic into his inhumanity.

So that's Eustace. This is already such a long post but I promised to talk about both him and Caspian so here we go.

Now, in my last post I talked a bit about how Narnia (the deity) affects the other humans in Narnia (the world) to an extent, but it's nowhere near the amount she does to her Kings and Queens, and also this diminishes more and more the farther you get from Narnia (the country). Telmar is fairly close to Narnia (the country) but as we see in PC, a lot of Narnia's magic and spirit has been diminished by the time Caspian is born. Up until the awakening of the land during the battle, Caspian is essentially 100% human. However, this changes very quickly.

It's hard to pinpoint the exact moment Caspian becomes a King of Narnia. Is it when he refuses to kill Miraz? Is it when Aslan tells him he's one? Is it during his actual coronation? Yes, yes, and yes. I try not to pin it down to an exact moment. By the end of PC though, he's definitely noticing some changes in himself. I have an unpublished part 2 to an exploration of Inhumanity (my only other actually posted fic on this stuff) that I swear I will clean up and get posted soon that goes into further detail on the changes he's noticing at the end of AEOI. Some of the big ones include a second golden heart, seeing some of the life magic in the world around him, and a golden glow on his palms. He also slowly develops the ability to heal, though it's not always consistent. Magic takes practice, lots and lots of practice. In pt 2, the glow on his palms has gotten so bright and also spread around his head like a halo, and Lucy shows him how to conceal it so he's not impossible to look at, but because of Magic™ there's still a dusting of golden powdery stuff across his skin. His blood turns golden because Ben Barnes + golden blood is such pretty imagery, and like the others, it gets sucked down and absorbed into Narnia's Heart when he bleeds in battle. Also when I say he's got a second heart I mean he's got a second fucking heart. Ribcage shift and all. (His appearance doesn't actually change, it's more like a pocket dimension thing going on inside him, but he sure as hell can feel it happening). Having Narnia as a patron goddess just means you have to put up with a second puberty sometimes lol.

Anyways, there's a line in AEOI that I feel explains this stuff really well. "He cannot truly protect the land without becoming a part of it himself." Narnia changes her Kings and Queens because she wants them to be a part of her. Aslan doesn't really see these changes as necessary (in canon, a world without deity Narnia, they don't happen), and if the storyline we pick is the one that's the constant cycle of humanity and inhumanity, it's sort of a push and pull between them. Aslan wants the Pevensies, and by proxy anyone else who rules Narnia or experiences these changes, to keep their humanity, to stay as they were Created by him. Narnia, however, wants them to be as much a part of her as she is of them. It's very clear in both the books and the movies that Narnia (the world) is where these characters belong. In the end, they all come home to her (yes, Susan too because fuck Mr. Clive Staples Lewis). Caspian being anything less than fully inhuman is something she cannot handle. She is constantly having to recreate the Pevensies, reestablish her hold on them, only to have them return to England and become mostly human again. Caspian cannot be taken away from her, he is in this world by birth and she is going to do everything she can to shape him into the ruler he needs to be.

Once again, I would like to state that Aslan and Narnia are not opposing sides of good and evil. Gods cannot be defined by human standards, and to think either Narnia or Aslan completely in the right or wrong in this AU would be, well, an interesting standpoint, but really not the one I'm going for here. I'm not going to say it's a misinterpretation, I am very open to hearing people's thoughts on this AU, and everyone's going to see things differently. Just, please reread what I've written about them before you start making that argument.

Anyways, that wraps this post up because I have spent the better part of the past 6 hours writing this. I spent way more time on Eustace than I intended but it's just so fascinating to think about inhumanity from his perspective considering he's the only one in canon that actually was (briefly) inhuman. Again, if you got this far, congratulations! If you use any of my ideas mentioned here, please tag me, I am so starved for inhuman Narnia content lol.

[deepdonutkid]

Please headcanon it! I agree with lit everything you've said, especially the arguing with Tommy and John being soft and supportive

John with a communist girl- head canon

author's note:

This is my first x reader thing, I guess. This is also the first request, sorts of. So thank you anon, whoever you are, for my first writing request on Tumblr.

Requests are still open btw

Okay, this was a little longer than I expected! And yes, John's kids are mentioned! I just love them and I could write another headcanon about them as well! With fan art, because I have clear pictures of them in my head.

I typed this on my phone, because rn I'm at my parents house with my crappy laptop and it's too slow for me. Usually I type so much faster.

I'm a communist myself so this was very funny to write, because I know my 'linke macker' or just 'mennes' and how to avoid them.

Warning: drinking, violence and bar fights

John always had a thing for strong women. He just doesn't like women who doesn't know what they want and are too shy to talk to men.

He thinks he women shouldn't be scared of talking to him, because he would never hurt a woman. That's why, he can handle shy girls. He doesn't want to carry the whole conversation and he doesn't like silence.

John wants someone he can talk to and also with. Full length conversation about everything. Which cigarettes are the best, if he should wear his cap or the other, what to have for dinner, which card game is the best game... Stuff like that

Since his first marriage he knows that in a good marriage it's you two against the problem and not you two against each other. That is the reason he is looking for a partner, someone he can rely on.

When he first heard your name, he laughed it off. A woman leading protests... He just couldn't believe other men would listen to a woman and follow her command, because he knows men too well and how they treat their wives.

Then he saw you on a pedestal giving a speech about women's rights and he was quite impressed by your volume and your powerful voice. Actually he was just passing by, but he had to stop and listen for a while. You made some fair points. Women did a lot of unpaid work, men could or would never do. But he had to go after all, because he had something to do.

He thought about you once or twice, but after seeing you in the Garrison for the first time, it was something he would never forget. You argued with a man, who confronted you about your speeches and told you to keep your mouth shut.

John was already on the edge of his seat, to help you out, when the man graped you. Faster than he could process it, the man went down. With unbelieving look on his face he stared at you. Never ever he had seen a woman like you. A woman a strong left hook like his.

Finally he stood up and made his way up to you. He grinned, completely smitten, and asked if everything was okay. You brushed it off. Of course, you didn't need help. No damsel in distress here!

Then he had to try something different, because he wanted to talk to you, more now than ever. But he seemed to get a clue, why so many others listened to your speeches and why so many man respected you. Just while standing there you claimed, what was rightfully yours, respect. Everything about you, your whole presence, was so powerful, even a little intimating, but that just turned him on even more. So he asked you about your political opinion on police violence and now it was your turned to be stunned.

Nobody outside of your party wanted to get in a discussion with you, but there he was right in front of you and the smile on his face was honest. He didn't tried to make fun of you. The Shelby was different than all men you had met before. So you went with him back to his table and just talked, talked all night and about all sorts of things.

You just couldn't believe you met a man like this, so charming, so respectful like this in the Garrison. All about him was interested. You felt for his voice and the glance in his eyes when you explained something to him.

Both of you didn't recognize it at first, but while talking you moved closer and closer to each other. Suddenly his hand went on your lap. He moved it away quickly and apologized with a smile. Then you took his hand back, while looking deep into his eyes. It was the moment you knew you passed the point of no-return.

Everything went pretty fast from there. He kissed you, you kissed him, his hands were all over you, despite being in public, and the casual night out ended in his bed.

When you woke up first, you wanted to get away just as fast as you arrived, but he stopped you. Right before you could leave the bed, John hold your hand.

"leaving already?" He asked: "let me make you a cup of tea first"

The way he said with his sleepy voice was all it took to make you stay after all

Then you heard something that made you nervous. The sound of small feet making their way up to this room, mixed with squeaking voice of a little girl

"you got kids?" You croaked

John nodded. "Didn't you know?" Because everybody in Small Heath seemed to know. Kids aren't a secret anyway.

No, you didn't and you shook head. You knew his name, his reputation, but otherwise you didn't bother to listen after the Shelby's name was dropped

Everything the Peaky blinders did was not really legal or nice, so you wanted to stay away from them and further troubles.

Now you slept with one of the Shelby brothers and wondered, if you made a mistake last night by walking home with him.

John saw the concern on your face. "You have a problem with that?"

You eyes widened and you shook your head again. "No. No! I love kids." After taking care of your younger siblings and the kids of of your older siblings and probably a dozen cousins, you knew you loved kids.

And you had a plan to get some children of your own, but you were to busy to work for women's rights and worker's rights and the revolution.

And as you got older you realized that most men took their women for granted, while they did so much for their husbands everyday. You didn't want that for yourself. And you did pretty well on your own. Why would you need a husband anyway?

But something in your heart melted while you looked at him with his kids. You just couldn't deny that and soon you became his girl.

Everybody seemed to know and they treated you different now. You disliked it, but there was nothing you could do about, so you just made your peace with that.

One evening John and you laid in his bed. The kids were already asleep. When John whispered: "I want you to meet my family."

Of course you saw them passing by and they greeted you. Once you sat with Arthur in the Garrison, while waiting for John. But you hadn't talked with them more than a few words.

Then again, you weren't so sure, if you would like to. You knew Tommy from before the war, while he was still in your party and a communist. But that was before the war changed everything. Tommy- you heard from others- became a cold-hearted asshole, who didn't even smile since he came back from france.

While being with him in the party, Tommy and you wouldn't stop "discussing things". Actually you two fought everytime and about every little political issue. One time he threw something at you. This was how much you liked each other and you still had the scar and your forehead from book he threw at you.

John stroked you head and said: "everything is going to be alright. You'll see." You nodded in agreement. If it was his wish, you just couldn't say no. And maybe you could get along with Tommy after all.

But no, it wasn't that easy. Polly, Arthur, Ada and Finn liked you so much, but with Tommy everything was still the same. So not exactly everything had changed after all.

The both of you couldn't stop bickering at the dinner table. It ended with you storming of and leaving. Or at least you thought this was the end.

Right after you slammed the door, you heard John yelling: "I was about to ask her, if she would marry me! Don't ruin this for me! This is my life."

Then you really had to leave. You were scared John would come after you and ask you right away, because you didn’t know what to say.

You ran straight to your parents home and hid there. When the panic vanished you knew your answer.

That night you sneaked to his house and knocked. John seemed so relieved to see you. “I looked for you everywhere, y/n!”

“The answer is yes.”, you sputtered with gleaming joy

It came out of nowhere and John just kept starring at you with the same confused expression

Then you added: “I want to be your wife”

You could see his brain processing this infromation. John still looked baffled.

A grin appeared on his face as he realized what you just had said. Just secounds later he pulled you closer for a kiss

tagging: @bonniesgoldengirl

[author-a-holmes]

Considering reading your series :) probably will but just for fun and to give you another chance to ramble about it, as an author i know how fun it can be, tell me about it, get me hooked!!

Hello! Thank you for the follow, and the chance to ramble!

Although, now you've put me on the spot and I'm not sure what to say :D I could talk about Fey Touched forever. I could introduce the characters. Tell you about the vampires, the fey, the kavians, and the history of how the kavians emerged and the fey created their own realm, Arbaon, in response...

But I'll try and keep this concise ^_^

Let's start with the blurb for book one;

Fey go missing in the mortal realm. Everyone knows that.

When Lizzy's mother is the next to vanish she is expected to grieve and move on. Instead Lizzy wants to find out what happened, but the answers she seeks can't be found in the fey realm of Arbaon. With the help of her best friend, Booker Reed, Lizzy is determined to retrace her mother's final steps, straight through an illegal portal and into the mortal realm.

Whatever leads she expected to find, it wasn't an academy of vampires, and a world stalked by their rabid cousins, the kavians. Forced to rely on the vampires for protection, and secluded away behind the high walls of Speculo School, it quickly becomes clear that not everyone is pleased with Lizzy and Booker's investigation.

With danger building the further they dig, the two fey need to decide if the answers they seek are worth risking their lives for. The longer they remain with the vampires, the more Lizzy begins to suspect that her answers instead lie amongst the deadly kavians.

So, the Fey Touched trilogy is a world filled with Fey, and Vampires, and Kavians, oh my!

Lizzy Hail is a fey, but she is a fey who lacks the distinctive bee-like wings that all fey should have.

This has left her growing up in Arbaon as a bit of an outcast, but she doesn't care. She has her mum and her best friend, Booker. Until her mum goes to the mortal realm and doesn't come back.

Lizzy doesn't know why her mum chose to leave, but the laws of the fey court say that anyone who goes to the mortal realm, accepts the risk that they may not return and so Madeline Hail is declared missing, presumed dead.

Lizzy won't stand for that, and hatches a plan to leave on her own and track down exactly what happened to her mum.

Lizzy's best friend, Booker Reed, isn't about to let her wander off to the mortal realm alone though.

So together they manage to sneak their way through a portal tree.

But the two fey don't know what they don't know. They find themselves in a world that's centuries removed from the textbooks of Arbaon. Cars have replaced carriages, and trade is no longer an accepted form of purchase. Something called 'money' is needed, and they are very much out of their depth.

When they are discovered, and aided, by a kavian hunter named Andric Roche, Lizzy and Booker's plans are derailed entirely, and they find themselves amongst a community of vampires.

Cara Evelyn, left. Mia Harris, right.

They make friends with some, but also enemies, and all the while the trail for Lizzy's mum gets colder and colder.

Eventually, Lizzy and Booker will have to make a decision. Leave the mortal realm for Arbaon, abandoning their new friends and their search for answers. Remain with the vampires, and resign themselves to never knowing what happened to Madeline Hail. Or strike out on their own, face the rabid kavians that stalk the mortal realm alone, and maybe, just maybe, find some answers.

Fey Touched also has a dedicated Side Blog where I post updates and information. I usually crosspost to here, but I figured a side blog for people who were interested to follow directly, and have notifications for, would be easier.

It's also easier for me to find content I've shared previously when Tumblr's tagging system decides not to work.

[multi-fandom-freak0221]

If Your Done With Embarrassing Me On Your Own Won't You Go Ahead and Tell Them

Oh my god y'all have just blown me away. I was not expect so much positive feed back. I was screaming so much I could not Believe how much you guys liked that. And so many people are asking to be tagged in the next part thank you guys so much. Also can I just say moving from Google Docs to Tumblr was a bitch to do and I hated it. But y'all inspired me so much that I decided to just go ahead and type it up on tumblr and move it to Google Docs afterwards.

This part's title is from "Impossible" by Shontelle. The song in this part is "Young Volcanoes" by Fall Out Boy

This is Part 2 of my fic based on @misashabunbun 's Love of Three.

Part 1

Tagging List (I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE I NEED ONE.):

@thestressmademedoit @colorfulmongerpsychicranch @lizziejay @indecisive-mess-named-me @captainmac6 @luveverything12 @kris-pines04 @brokenwordsarehard2

To say Marinette was busy would be an understatement. Between working with Luka and Uncle Jagged producing her album as Neon Titanium and her friends insisting that they help heal her brokenheart she felt like she was caught in a whirl wind. But it was nice she had fun. Luka and Uncle Jagged knew how to turn the hard work of producing music into a fun experience while still being efficient. And her friends they had her laughing harder than she laughed in while and smiling brighter than their resident sunshine child. They did everything they could think off.

She went shopping with Chloe and Kagami. She watched horror movies with Alix, Nathaniel, and Adrien. Marc and Luka let her rant to them which turned into a crying session which then turned into a meditation session. And on top of that her and Peter hung out as well. Whether they just worked in silence together on their respective projects or they were pranking Uncle Tony, kwami did she have fun renaming the protocols on the Iron Man suit. Soon Peter easily fit his way into her group of friends abd he fit in perfectly. Everyone got along with him.

But he wasn't the last to join their ragtag group. Everyone was shocked when Felix Graham De Vanily came to their group offering Marinette condolences on her lost engagement. He was sincere and courteous so of course no one was surprised when Marinette invited him to join in the currently planned game of dodgeball, except maybe Felix himself. But nonetheless he joined in the competition and found himself hanging out with the rest of the group as well. Soon his cold off-standish demeanor was traded for sly smirks and slick humor that nobody caught at first except Marinette and Peter who would laugh openly at his responses.

Soon enough Felix was a part of the group and felt comfortable letting his guard down. It help that they didn't treat him as the Graham De Vanily heir or Adrien's asshole cousin. They treat him like Felix, the boy who while very proper cried watching Big Hero 6. Also the boy who slam dunked on Adrien without breaking a sweat. Yet he still is the master of backhanded compliments and insulting people with a smile and having them thank him. He could truly be himself and he was thankful.

And while he easily was getting along with everyone, anyone with easy could see he had a soft spot for Peter and Marinette in general. It was in the way his face would soften when looking at them. Or the way he would smile when Marinette would get excited over something. Or the way he always paid attention to Peter when he was geeking out. It was the way he softly teased them over their height, Marinette being the shortest of the group and Peter only being taller than Marinette and Alix. And everyone knew Marinette's heart was still healing, so it came no surprise when Felix and Peter started dating. And while everyone was happy for them no one, but Marinette herself missed the looks of longing both boys would send towards her.

Believe it or not Felix was not the most surprising addition to their friend group. No the last addition came soon after Marinette formally did an interview after too much press took notice of Damian Wayne's fiancee being seen for the first time in almost a year, in New York of all places.

She remembered Uncle Tony setting up the interview with someone he trusted. She was glad that this was only an interview as Damian Wayne's (ex) fiancee and not MDC or Neon Titanium. She can only imagine how big a deal it will be when she reveals. But that was future Marinette's problem. Present Marinette had to focus on what to say without giving too much details because no matter how much he deserved it, she didn't want to throw Damian to wolves like that. She settled on saying that she was going through some things and no longer was content in Gotham. She claimed that she decided it was in her best interest to leave, but she didn't want to make a big deal about which is why nothing had been said until now.

The interview went well and everyone accepted her answers. It was released about a month after she left Damian and two weeks since Peter and Felix started dating. She still got news alerts for Gotham so she was waiting with baited breath for her interview to reach the Gotham, but it never seemed to. No announcements from WE or the Wayne family in general. She couldn't say it didn't hurt that no one even realized she was gone yet. But what hurt more was when 2 weeks after her interview she got an alert from Gotham Gazette saying the Damian claimed they set a date for their wedding. She cried that day. How could he not even notice she was gone? Was he so used to lying about her and their relationship that he didn't even give a second thought to what he was saying any more? And while she despaired, she relished in the fact that her friends did not let her be alone. Her face was buried in Peter's neck, she was sat on Felix's lap, Chole was threading her fingers through her hair, her feet laid over Peter legs and settled on Marc's, Adrien sat on the floor in front of Felix a hand rest on her back and everyone gathered around as close as possible trying to physically reassure her. Luka was even humming softly. She appreciated all the love amd support she had and soon she was feeling much better. Eventually it turned into a puppy pile napping session and if she ended up curled up between Peter and Felix? Eh, nobody said anything.

It was these series of events that led to their newest and by far strangest addition to their friend group. Here it was, two days after Damian's announcement and here in front of her stands no other than Jonathan Kent, Damian's best friend.

"Hey, Mari. It's been a while, huh?" She could admit Jon looked nervous. The way he wouldn't meet her eyes and how his hand was rubbing his neck. But him bring nervous did nothing to calm her nerves about why he was even here.

Marinette took a deep breath and drew as much of her inner Ladybug as she could. "Why are you here, Jonathan?"

Jon flinched at how she used his full name. "I'm so sorry, Nette. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. I'm sorry I didn't push harder. You were my friend too. I should have checked on you. Damian was such a good liar, I never knew. I should have known but I didn't and that doesn't excuse the fact that I wasn't there for you." Jon took a deep breath and finally met her eyes before speaking again. "But I'm going to do better, Nette. Whatever you need just say the word. Even if it means leaving. When we saw your interview Dad told Uncle Bruce to make sure his family was in order especially his youngest. He didn't give any details and Uncle Bruce got offended. I guess he did end up talking to Damian, but Damian doubled down on his lies and his family is believing him. But I know better because I saw what you said and I know even that wasn't the whole truth. So I want you to know I'm on your side."

Marinette was silent for a minute she study him and his words. The way she was looking at him made Jon feel like his whole soul was being judged, but he didn't dare look away. He needed her to know he meant it and that he was truly sorry for not being for. After a minute that felt like hours Marinette smiled softly at him. "I could always appreciate a hug from a friend." She held her arm open and Jon surged forward and hugged her tightly lifting her off the ground.

Marinette giggled a bit before he set her down. "Thanks, Jon for being here for me. I know Damian is you best friend-"

"He lost that right when he decided to lie to me repeatedly for his own benefit." Jon looked uncharacteristically upset at the fact.

"Well if you're in need of some more good friends, I know a group you should meet. Come on, we're about to have a pool day. I'm sure I have some swim trunks I've designed that you could probably fit. "

After they changed intl their respective swimwear, Mari led Jon to her Uncle Tony's pool where the rest of her friends were already waiting. "Hey guys! I'd like you to meet my friend Jon. He's in need of some good company."

Those who recognized Jon looked up surprised before see his nervous fidgeting and hearing Marinette's last sentence before nodding in understand. It was Peter who spoke up first. "Well any friend of Mari's is welcome with us. Come on we were about to play chicken fight!" And just like that their pool party was in swing. The played a couple pool games and had some snacks before Marinette decided to play some music. Soon a familiar tune was playing over the speakers.

When Rome's in ruins

It was Chole who started singing along first sitting laying on one of the pool chairs. In between Alix and Kagami.

We are the lions

Free of the colosseum.

In fields of poison

We're anitvenom

We're the beginning of the end.

Soon Alix was singing the next part as Chloe finished the first part.

Tonight, the foxes hunt the hounds

It's all over now

Before it has begun

We've already won

Luka was quick to pick up the chorus while trying to get everyone to join in with him.

We are wild

We are like young volcanoes

While everyone was distracted with singing Luka had Adrien and Jon sneak with him behind the girls in the pool chair. Each of them grabbed one and threw them in the water. Luka grabbed Kagami, Adrien grabbed Chloe and Jon grabbed Alix.

We are wild

Americana, exotica

Do you wanna feel a little beautiful, baby?

As everyone else's singing tapered off into laughing, Marinette picked up the next part solo as she walked to the diving board and climbed up.

Come on, make it easy, say I never mattered

Run it up the flag pole,

She ended her singing with a cannonball into the pool. Peter picked it up from his place in Felix's arms.

We will teach you how to make boys next door out of assholes

He sung his verse looking at Felix the whole time, who scoffed jokingly when Peter winked at him, but gave a him a kiss after he was done singing. Marc and Nathaniel picked up where he left off dueting together.

Tonight, the foxes hunt the hounds

And it's all over now

Before it has begun

We've already won

Soon everyone was singing along again to the chorus playing around splashing each other.

We are wild

We are like young volcanoes

We are wild

Americana, exotica

Do you wanna feel a little beautiful, baby?

Soon everybody had calmed down slightly singing a little quieter. Marinette her self was floating on her back towards the center of the pool. Smiling at all her support around her.

We are wild

We are like young volcanoes

We are wild

Americana, exotica

Do you wanna feel a little beautiful, baby?

As the song ended Jon was the first to speak. "What the fuck is in the water in Paris that makes y'all so talented?"

Peter laughed as he easily agreed, "That's what I said!"

Adrien chuckled at the Americans in their group antics. "To be fair, Felix is from London and Kagami is from Japan."

"Still! That is crazy. And Marinette I never knew you could sing like that!" Jon looked over towards the bluenette, his eyes softening at her.

Marinette giggled. "Neither did the rest of the world until Neon Titanium featured in Luka's last single."

"What?!" Jon exclaimed. "You're Neon Titanium?! I loved that song! Nette you're even more amazing than I thought."

Luka threw his hand up saying "Here, here." Making Marinette blush as all her friends joined in on complimenting her.

About a 3 weeks later, Marinette found herself working on a dress for her debut as Neon Titanium which uncle Tony insisted she do at a gala he's throwing. Which she suspects he's throwing just for her to debut because there was absolutely no gala planned before.

That was what she was doing when Jon, Felix, and Peter found her. It didn't take long for Jon to fit in with group. And with how often he stayed with them in New York instead of going back to Metropolis, no one was surprised when he started dating Peter and Felix. Marinette was happy for them even though it seemed like everyone was in happy relationships but her. But she knew she still had some things to work out before returning to the dating scene.

As they approached Marinette paused her sketching to look at her friends. "What's up guys? You needed something?"

The 3 boys looked at each other before Peter spoke up. "Yeah, actually. We wanted to tell you something." He rubbed the back of his neck before letting out a sigh. "We like you Marinette. A lot. And we would love for you to date us."

Marinette could feel the rejection on her tongue, but before she could say a word Jon cut her off.

"Let us finish first Nette. Please. After we're done you can tell us to never bother you again, but just let us get this out." Jon pleaded at her. Marinette just nodded and let them continue.

"We all like you a lot," Felix started his words very sincere. "But we all know that your still healing. We only told you because we thought it would be fair for you to know."

It almost seemed as they had planned and rehearsed for this because Peter effortlessly picked up after Felix. "We're not trying to guilt you into dating us because at the end of the day it is still you decision. And we know it may be some time before your ready to even consider dating us, but we're willing to wait."

Jon grabbed her hands as he prepared to finish them out. "We just want you to know how amazing we think you are. We'll be beyond lucky if you decide to date us when you're ready to make that choice. And until you are we're still your friends and we'll continue helping you heal and be better how ever you want us to. And if you decide you don't see us that way we'll still be some of your closest friends because having you in our lives is a blessing Nette."

Soon they all seemed to be holding one of her hands as they finished what they had to say. Marinette had silent tears streaming down her face, but the big smile she had eased away their worries. She pulled them into a tight hug for a moment before pulling back.

"You guys are the absolute best friends a girl can have." She smiled at them gratefully. "You're right that I'm not ready yet, but when I am, you guys will be the first people I consider dating. Promise. Now do you guys wanna see the designs I'm considering for my reveal?"

As the boys gathered around Marinette for her to show them her sketchbook she thought to herself with a smile.

I might not be quite okay yet, but with all the great people I have on my side, I know I will be soon.

[imaginesbymk]

PINK + WHITE.

— chapter ten ; stained glass window.

summary: teresa’s permanent resignation from the peaky blinders leads her to a whole new chapter of working in an art museum. but little did she know her best life would be butchered some time later when her former lover tommy shelby gives her no choice but to return to the peaky blinders after they make new enemies, with the leader, of all people, being the man teresa fell in love with one night after a wedding reception back in post world war; luca changretta.

pairing: luca changretta x OC x tommy shelby

tags in this chapter: swearing + smoking

[ chapter index ]

A/N: I am sooooo sorry for the long hiatus! </3

This story is getting more views on Wattpad than here on Tumblr. I still love the show and Luca's my favourite villain, but as much as I want to discontinue this story, I want to get it out of the way because I have drafted a timeline of this story, including Teresa's and Luca's closure on their relationship. So I'm stuck in the middle on what to do???

BTW, I've come up with a headcanon for Luca's full name as Luca LaPaglia Changretta! His middle name is never revealed in the show, I just did this for the fic.

RIP Helen McCrory. You were one of my favourite stars of the show. Fly high <3. The Peaky fandom will miss you so much.

///

TERESA wasn't as religious as the next person, but she kept her respect as her heels echoed down the aisle, immediately spotting the tall man kneeling on one of the pues. His hands were folded in prayer, and he murmured what the Welsh could make out to be Italian tongue.

"Do you want to be alone?" she asks.

Luca pauses, his eyes still shut and hands still in folds. "No. I want you here."

Teresa slides over and sits next to her lover, staring at the giant crucifix behind the front podium. "How often do you pray, amore?"

Luca pauses his prayer again. "Almost every day. God and I keep in touch, y'know."

"What does he say to you?"

"He tells me to tell you to quit interrupting until I'm done talking to Him." Teresa chuckles, prompting her to let him finish. As it took another good minute for Luca to conclude his prayer, Teresa gazed at the stained glass windows on each side, casting a good light from the clouds that allowed a bit of sun for England, some of it casted its light onto Luca, like an angel on an opera stage.

Luca makes a sign of the cross, sitting back on the pue and grunting a bit from kneeling for a while. "How was lunch with Mamma?"

Teresa nodded. "It was lovely."

"Just lovely?"

"Mhm." She holds his hand. "She says your middle name is LaPaglia."

Luca hums, kissing her hand that curled with his. "C'mon, I wanna take you out with me for wine."

"Hmm... Luca LaPaglia Changretta," She said out loud, admiring the beauty of his full name slipping from her lips. "And I had wine with your mother."

"I meant wine shopping. I'm doing most of the taste tests, it's my cousin's birthday soon."

"Then shouldn't he be the one shopping for wine?" she asks.

The Italian pulls the heavy door, escorting Teresa out of the church and into the chauffeur. "He counts on me, I'm better at choosing wine and gin these days."

"ARTHUR, quit pacing. You'll burn your legs out."

"Where the fuck is she?" Arthur grunts. "Eh? Tom, you're really in it for this one. The fuckin' Welsh is not gonna live up to a fuckin' promise."

"You stop that, she's on her way," Tommy takes a sip of his drink.

A split-second passes as the maid knocks on the heavy office door. "Mr. Shelby?" the feminine voice calls softly. "Miss Griffith is here to see you."

Tommy gives a smug look to Arthur and Polly. "Yes. Send her in," he says. They waited for the woman to walk in, kind of wishing for Tommy to immediately scold her once she stepped foot into his office, but Tommy wasn't up to waste that much energy.

Arthur was the one to step in and do so, otherwise. "What? Did you stroll around Manchester or something?"

"Sorry," Teresa frowns, her face reading she wasn't holding any joy from her day so far. "I was with Luca."

"We're all ears," Polly walked around Tommy's desk. "What's happened? Did he fuck you until you forgot how to tell time?"

"I'm assuming Finn told you?" she asks.

"That's Finn for you, Teresa," Arthur points out.

Teresa rolls her eyes. No point of getting back at him this time. Rat or not, he would never hold back a word from the family. She remembered seeing him appear at the gallery, and he wasn't going to keep a secret from Tommy.

"I invited him for a meeting at a bar...then he took me to the theatre..." Teresa trails off.

Tommy opens his cigarette pack. "Go on."

"That's all, Mr. Shelby."

"You slept with Luca Changretta, just say it."

Teresa folded her arms. "Actually, yes. But earlier events prove what I'm about to propose; I'm in."

The members of the Peaky Blinders all raised a brow, mostly Tommy's.

"You slept with Luca Changretta, I didn't expect you to actually follow up with that, I don't recall telling you to do so, either."

"I wanted to discuss his plans on taking the Penarth gallery. It's not for his dirty hands to touch."

"You wish to join because your heart was too broken to hold back?" Polly says. "Is that where we're getting at, Teresa?" The Welsh woman stared at her. This was probably the first time they had seen each other after all those years that followed from her resignation. Since the last time they spoke, Polly didn't have anything held against her, and here she is, quite disappointed that Teresa shared her heart with a man like Luca. She did quite enjoy her company and her contribution to the Peaky Blinders, even when she chose to depart from Tommy and their relationship, then came Grace Burgess. Polly just didn't want to deal with another afterwards unless it was Lizzie.

"You're doing this just to get even? Luca could care less about your feelings now."

"Teresa," Tommy sighs, nodding at his old friend. "Come back here tomorrow."

Teresa nodded and made her exit out the foot of her door.

"And come on time, please." Teresa wished she could slam the door on him, but Arthur shut it as soon as Teresa's foot took a centimeter away. She presses her ear against the wood to hear them muffling.

"Tom?" She hears Arthur speak. "We can't trust her."

Tommy clears his throat, setting down a scrap of an article he read on his desk. "She'll go back to Penarth, but we can't let her stay there. I know what's going to happen."

"What do you know?"

"Italian men will show up to the gallery."

"It's certain Teresa Griffith keeps a firearm in her drawers," Polly says.

"No," Tommy shook his head. "Not enough to take down at least five men. Luca keeps count of who he orders - who he sends. We're more careful of that, we know of that."

"We're not morons, Tommy. Now we hear from Finn that Luca and Teresa were together?"

"Teresa should give us what we need to know from Luca Changretta. She knows too much about him."

"And Luca knows too much about us," Polly slowly walks over to Tommy. "If Teresa forms an alliance, what will she do? She's already slept with him, but I doubt she got anything out of it. She's not here for the sake of helping. She wants in because she's a woman with a broken heart."

Teresa detaches herself from the door, having heard enough. One of the maids returns, noticing the guest hadn't left yet and was suspiciously eavesdropping their boss. Teresa was pulled back by the shoulder like a child, escorting her out of the foyer.

SEVERAL HOURS EARLIER, Teresa woke from the blinding sun. The silky bed sheets that covered hers and Luca's nude bodies were unmade - ruffled around. If you left the curtains open, you're more alerted. Luca never intended on waking Teresa up that way. In fact, he wasn't even lying next to her in the bed.

Luca's white dress shirt casted more brightness but his trousers were half done. He stared outside, holding his China cup of tea in one hand before looking back down at the papers sprawled across his desk.

Teresa sat up to clip on her brassiere, her accent thinned to greet in basic Italian. "Buongiorno."

He didn't respond.

She slides out of bed and approaches the desk. "Do you need me to leave soon? Though, you don't look like you're in a rush for an important meeting."

Still nothing.

"What, Luca?" This wasn't new for Luca to strangely switch up his mood. He wasn't an easy man, it's hard to impress him or to even study his emotions at times. Teresa had the feeling that Luca didn't enjoy what they had done. "Was this a mistake?"

"This was unprofessional." Luca sets his cup and coaster on his desk. "If you think something will come from this, then think again. I never should have taken you to the theatre. You were trying to let my guard down, were you?"

"No," Teresa shook her head. "I wasn't surprised that this was going to happen."

"Such a mind you carry in that blonde head of yours."

"Seeing you again felt good, Luca. I seized the opportunity to share another moment with you. I was thinking you were going to plan on coming back to Penarth indefinitely."

"Miss Griffith, did it ever occur to you that I wasn't supposed to stay here?" Luca frowns. "I'm no citizen here. America is where my heart belongs, if not America; Sicily."

"You fled to America. That was your last ditch effort to get away from the police," Teresa murmured. She folds her arms. "I understand why you had to do it."

"Then why do you hold it against me?" he asks, exhausted.

"Because I never heard from you ever since."

"I was fairly active in New York, you know?"

"I didn't know."

Luca stared at her. "That's your own problem, Miss Griffith."

"Christ, Luca. Enough with the formalities!" Teresa snaps. "I'm standing at your desk, half nude. We fucked in that bed right there!"

"Which was something we shouldn't have done," Luca began rubbing his temples. "I didn't come back here for you, all right? Porca miseria-" he cuts himself off to heave in a deep sigh. "I have to ask. All this time... you're still hung up on me?"

"Yes," Teresa says, her face paling. "Because I missed you, you bloody bastard. I couldn't reach out to you or your mother, not even the American press, to see how you were doing, or if you were kissing another woman's lips."

Luca slid his hand over to pick up the dress and shawl he placed on the side of the desk. "You need to leave now."

There was no point of convincing him anymore. All was said. Teresa knew not to vex a mafioso unarmed. If she had her handgun with her, she would have tried to pull something in a spite of anger. Would that do her a favour? Probably not. The rest of whoever's left of the Changretta family would go after her without question.

There was Tommy, though, and he's still waiting for her response back in Small Heath.

Grabbing her clothes, Teresa marches back to the bed, gets dressed and leaves the hotel room without saying a word to her former lover. Not even a curse.

[rhosyn-du]

Never make a mess when a total catastrophe will do - Chapter Six

Pairings: Jimon, past Clace, background Clizzy, a bunch of other minor background pairings Rating: Explicit Art: @cor321​ Beta: @all-thestories-aretrue​ Tags:  Alternate Universe - College/University, fake dating, oh my god they were roommates, friends with benefits, idiots to lovers, pining, miscommunication, holidays, drinking games, mistletoe, symbolically significant Oreos, domestic fluff, brief mention of past character death, Jace’s self-worth issues deserve their own tag Summary: What do you do when you find out your sister is not only dating your ex and love-of-your-high-school-life but is also bringing her home for Christmas? Bring your annoying, hot, annoyingly-hot roommate as your fake boyfriend to show them you're totally fine with it, obviously! There's no possible way this could backfire. Link: AO3 , Tumblr Master Post

Chapter Six

The irritation had been building all day, like sand rubbing under his skin, and it was especially irritating because Jace knew he didn’t have a good reason for it. Nothing was actually wrong, just a string of little frustrations that hadn’t let up all day, from the ancient coffee maker in their kitchen that didn’t start brewing when it was set to, meaning he had to go to his morning classes without any caffeine, to discovering he’d left his history textbook at home when his professor announced a surprise open-book quiz, right on through to missing his bus home and having to wait forty minutes for the next one, meaning he walked in the door with less than fifteen minutes before his friends were supposed to show up at his place for a group study session.

“Oh, hey,” Simon said when he walked through the door. “You’re home. I was starting to wonder if I got the day wrong and we weren’t having people over tonight, but then Bat texted asking if he should bring Spicy Ranch Doritos—which, obviously—so I figured you were probably just running late, which it turns out you were.”

“Excellent observational skills.” Jace tossed his bag onto the couch, not looking at Simon, and headed for the kitchen, intending to grab a beer from the fridge. Except when he opened it, there weren’t any left, and he realized he’d completely forgotten to go to the store the day before, because of course he had.

He slammed the refrigerator door shut, taking out his frustration on the appliance. It wasn’t as satisfying as he’d hoped.

“Everything okay?”

Jace spun around to find Simon in the doorway, watching him with an expression that held both wariness and concern.

“Everything’s peachy.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” Simon said mildly. “You definitely use the word ‘peachy’ in casual conversation when things are going great.”

Jace took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Look, I’ve had a shitty day, all right? I’ve had a shitty day, and we’re out of beer, and I don’t need you trying to get me to talk out my feelings or whatever it is you’re trying to do right now.”

“Okay,” Simon agreed. “What do you need?”

Jace blinked. “What?”

“You don’t need to talk about your shitty day,” Simon said, moving into the kitchen to lean on the counter next to him. “So what do you need? Lily’s bringing beer, so that’s already taken care of.”

It should have been a simple question to answer, but Jace wasn’t used to people asking what he needed. Jace wasn’t used to considering what he needed.

“I don’t know.”

“What about a distraction?” Simon offered.

“A distraction,” Jace repeated, skeptical.

“Yeah.” Simon was grinning as he hooked his fingers through Jace’s belt loops and pulled their bodies together. “A distraction.”

Jace licked his lips, dropped his eyes to Simon’s mouth. “People are going to be here in eight minutes.” He didn’t have any objections to spending those eight minutes making out with Simon.

Simon’s grin widened. “Guess I’d better work fast, then.”

And then he dropped to his knees.

Jace sucked in a sharp breath as Simon popped the button on his jeans. “What are you doing?”

“I know you’ve had a shitty day,” Simon said, pulling down Jace’s fly, “but you can’t be that out of it.”

Jace let out a soft laugh and let himself slump back against the refrigerator door as Simon took out his rapidly-plumping cock and worked him to full hardness with his hands and mouth.

He was used to Simon teasing, giving him almost enough and then pulling back until he was desperate with it. This was the opposite, with every touch, every lick and swallow driving him relentlessly toward the edge, the frustration of his day bleeding away as Simon blew him with expert efficiency.

In almost no time at all, Jace was struggling to keep his legs under him as he felt his balls start to draw up, and he was so close—

And that was when Simon, the absolute fucker, pulled off his dick to remark with far more casualness than the situation called for, “Did you lock the door when you got home? Because people are going to be here, like, any second.”

Then his mouth was back on Jace’s dick, swallowing him down like it was his job, and Jace was cursing because no, he hadn’t locked the door and any second their friends could walk in and see—Jace, desperate and falling apart; Simon, swollen red lips wrapped around Jace’s cock taking him apart—and that was—it was—

There was a sharp knock on the door, and Jace came with a strangled shout.

Simon worked him through it, pulling back only when a second knock sounded at the door. “Be there in just a minute,” he called, sounding far too composed for someone who’d just given fucking fantastic blowjob.

Simon stood, pressing a quick kiss to Jace’s lips before saying, “Somehow, I just knew you’d have a bit of an exhibitionism kink,” and heading for the door, leaving Jace to fumble his pants closed and try look like he hadn’t just had his brain sucked out through his dick.

“You all right, man?” Bat greeted him as he entered the kitchen, arms loaded with far too many bags of Doritos for six people.

“Uh,” Jace said intelligently.

“Heard you shouting and I figured you must’ve hurt yourself. You were pretty loud.”

“I heard you down the hall,” Maureen added from the living room.

“Yeah, just stubbed my toe,” Jace lied, heading out to the living room. “Somebody left his stats book on the floor, and I tripped.”

Simon flashed him a shit-eating grin. Jace had a hard time not staring at his lips, still red and slightly puffy. “You should really be more careful.”

“Going to go help Maia bring stuff up from her car,” Maureen announced, holding up her phone. “Be right back.”

“You do know,” Jace told Simon in a low voice, “that I’m going to get payback for that, right?”

Simon’s smile grew smug. “Yeah. I do.”

After an hour of going over his notes and rehashing the earlier quiz with Lily, Jace was feeling much better about his history class, and even had some ideas for his end-of-term paper. They all took a break when the pizza they’d ordered arrived, and Jace found himself squeezed between Lily and Simon on the couch.

“So,” Lily said around a mouthful of pepperoni and cheese, “you two ready for your big wedding performance this weekend? Please say no, because I’ve still got fifty bucks riding on you not making it through this without panicking.”

“Your concern is so touching,” Jace said. “I really don’t know what I’d do without such supportive friends.”

“Based on what I saw the night we met, you’d spend a lot more time getting drinks thrown in your face by girls whose names you forgot,” Maia said.

“I did not forget her name,” Jace protested. “I hit on her girlfriend.”

“Not actually better,” Maureen observed.

“Okay, one, I had no idea they were dating, and two, not my fault she flirted back.”

“Just try not to get any drinks thrown in your face at cousin Rachel’s wedding,” Simon said, patting his knee condescendingly. And then left it there, like it was totally normal for him to touch Jace casually like this in front of their friends.

“Would it be cheating if I bribed Simon’s sister to take someone Jace hooked up with as her plus one?” Lily asked.

Jace thought she really didn’t need to. He was already panicking.

“Yes,” said Maia and Bat at the same time Simon said, “Oh god, please don’t.”

“You guys are no fun,” Lilly pouted, reaching for another slice of pizza.

“Speaking of Becky,” Maia said with affected casualness, “I was wondering if you could tell her—”

“Give me your phone,” Simon interrupted, holding out his hand. This had the effect of removing his hand from Jace’s knee, and Jace tried not to miss it.

“Sure,” Maia said slowly, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “Why do you need my phone?”

Simon took the phone and pulled up Maia’s contacts. “So you just text my sister instead of asking me to be your messenger pigeon.” He passed the phone back. “Or call her. I’m not picky as long as I don’t have to be involved.”

Maia stared at the phone for a few seconds, then shrugged and put it back in her pocket with a sigh. “Yeah, okay. Fair. I guess I can, like, be an adult about this or something.”

“Good,” Simon said, his hand making its way back to Jace’s knee. No one else seemed to notice, and Jace tried not to react. “Please do it before Sunday so I don’t have to listen to Becky failing to be subtle about asking about you.”

Maia bit back a grin. “She asks about me?”

“Who wants to place bets on how long it takes Maia to actually call this girl?” Lily asked.

~~~

“Okay, you need to turn down the charm a little bit or I think Bubbe Helen is actually going to try to adopt you,” Simon said as Jace returned from his sixth dance with Simon’s grandmother. Jace didn’t think Simon needed to know that she’d used every one of those to grill him on his family, his plans for the future, his intentions toward her grandson.

“Just tell her you’re not into incest,” Jace told him, eliciting a gagging noise from Becky, the only one of Simon’s relatives still sitting at the table with them.

“Your boyfriend is gross,” Becky informed Simon, stabbing a spear of asparagus from her plate.

Jace grinned at her. “Simon wanted me to turn down the charm. I’m just trying to be accommodating.” He grabbed Simon’s hand and lifted it to his lips to kiss his knuckles. It was something they’d been doing all day, exchanging little gestures of affection like they couldn’t quite keep their hands off each other. Which was actually kind of true in Jace’s case.

It had started during the ceremony, Jace bumping Simon’s shoulder when he noticed him start to tear up during the vows. He’d meant it to be lightly teasing, but Simon had simply flashed him a watery smile and taken his hand, lacing their fingers together. Jace’s stomach had made an odd little flip and he’d squeezed Simon’s hand, and they just...hadn’t stopped touching each other. All through the rest of the ceremony and reception, it was a stream of constant little touches that made Jace wish for things he couldn’t have, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to stop touching either.

It didn’t help that Simon looked really good in a suit.

“That’s playing dirty,” Becky huffed. “I can’t hate you when you make my brother smile like that.”

“It’s all part of my devious plan.” He threw a sideways glance at Simon, hoping to catch the smile only to find him glaring daggers at his sister.

“Aww,” Becky cackled, “are you embarrassed? That’s adorable.”

“Embarrassed that you’re my sister? Yes.”

“Consider it payback for your presence throughout my entire adolescence.”

Jace leaned in. “Is there a story here? It sounds like there’s a story.”

“Dude, don’t encourage her.”

Becky leaned back in her chair, a predatory gleam in her eyes. “I have so many stories.”

“Oh, look.” Simon said, standing suddenly and pulling Jace along with him. “There’s Aunt Ruth. We should really go say hi.”

“I’ll still have stories to tell your boyfriend when you get back,” Becky called after them. “Jace, ask him about the llamas!”

Jace followed Simon, barely holding in his laughter as they ducked through the crowd of wedding guests, and then through an unobtrusive door that led out into an empty hallway.

“I’m so sorry about her,” Simon said, finally turning to face him and looking genuinely apologetic.

Jace shook his head. “Don’t be. I was having fun. I can see why Becky and Maia get along so well.”

“Because they’re both more than happy to tell embarrassing stories about me?” Simon joked.

“Can you blame them? It is pretty fun to watch you get all worked up.”

“You do seem to enjoy getting me worked up,” Simon agreed with a quirk of his eyebrows. “But my cousin’s wedding really isn’t the place for that.”

Jace glanced around the empty hallway. This was a bad idea. A really, really bad idea.

He turned back to Simon, a suggestive smile playing across his lips. “You sure about that?”

“Jace.” Simon’s voice was warning even as his eyes flicked to Jace’s lips and back up again.

Jace curled a hand around the back of Simon’s neck. “Because I’m not sure there’s any such thing as a bad place to get you worked up.”

“Literally everyone I’m related to is in the next room,” Simon protested. But he didn’t pull away.

“Fair point,” Jace conceded. He glanced around the hallway, then tried the nearest door. It opened into a room just large enough to not qualify as a closet. Jace raised a questioning eyebrow at Simon.

Simon looked dubiously at the stacks of office supplies that lined one wall, then back at Jace. “How are you so good at convincing me to make bad decisions?” Simon asked before grabbing him by the tie and dragging him into a kiss.

Jace grinned against his mouth as they stumbled into the room. “It’s my superpower. I got bitten by a radioactive advertising executive as a teenager.”

“Fuck,” Simon muttered, kicking the door closed behind them. “You can’t make Spider-Man references when I’m kissing you; that’s cheating.”

“Yeah?” Jace asked, pushing him against the wall that wasn’t occupied by reams of printer paper. “Does it get you hot when I talk nerdy to you?” He tugged at Simon’s shirt, pulling it free from his pants. “Or does everything I do get you hot?”

“Definitely not everything.” Simon nipped along his jaw. “Your ego, for example? Very unattractive.”

“Now you’re just making things up.” He slid a hand down to cup Simon through his pants, and Simon bucked into the touch. “My ego definitely gets you hot.”

“I know—fuck.” He rocked into Jace’s hand again. “I know some guys have trouble separating their egos from their dicks, but I never thought you’d be one of them.”

“Any association between my ego and my dick is well-deserved.” He tugged at Simon’s belt. “Don’t bother trying to argue. We both know it’d be a lie.”

“Yeah, that’s not actually how arguments wo—oh.” Simon cut off, eyes wide, as Jace dropped to his knees.

Jace smirked up at him. “I figure the best way to avoid staining your suit is if you come in my mouth. Unless you’ve got objections.”

“I have exactly zero objections to having your mouth on me.” Simon curled a hand around Jace’s jaw, drawing his thumb along Jace’s bottom lip. “Like, ever.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Jace flicked his tongue out to catch the tip of Simon’s thumb and reached to finish unbuckling his belt.

He froze at the unmistakable sound of the door opening behind him.

Jace’s eyes were trained on Simon’s face, so he saw the emotions play out across it in real time: surprise, then panic, then a slowly dawning horror.

“Bubbe Helen!” Simon’s voice just barely managed to avoid being a squeak. “Hi! We were, uh, we were just—” He looked down at Jace helplessly.

The thing was, Jace had always been good in a crisis. No, that wasn’t exactly right. He’d always been calm in a crisis. Probably as a result of having endured so many starting at such a young age.

So, his gaze and voice were completely steady as he took Simon’s hand in both his own and asked, “Will you marry me?”

He heard a voice behind him that sounded suspiciously like Becky mutter, “Oh my god.”

Simon stared. “Wha—uh. Yes?” His eyes flickered up toward the doorway, then back to Jace. “Yes,” he said more firmly. “I will definitely marry you, which is of course why you’re on your knees right now, and…”

His voice trailed off as Jace pulled his ring—his father’s ring, the only ring he ever wore—off his own finger and slid it onto Simon’s. It was a little loose, but not enough to slide off.

Simon flexed his hand, the fluorescent light above glinting off the brushed platinum. And then he was pulling Jace to his feet and into a kiss that held a decidedly hysterical edge.

The kiss was short-lived, interrupted by a very deliberate throat clearing. Jace kept Simon’s hand clasped firmly in his as he turned around, the metal of the ring pressing into his skin a reminder of what he’d just done.

Bubbe Helen was watching him with a decidedly unimpressed look. Behind her, Becky had a hand clapped over her mouth, smothering what could have been either an overflow of emotion or laughter.

“Young man, did you just propose marriage to my grandson in a storage closet?”

Jace pasted on his best facsimile of a sheepish smile and prepared to lie his ass off.

~~~

“Look, I panicked, okay?”

Outside, rain poured down in heavy sheets, obscuring the passing scenery and dampening any other sounds. It made the inside of the van feel cut off from the rest of the world, like they were alone in their own tiny, bubble universe.

A muscle in Simon’s jaw twitched. “You said that already.” He kept his eyes on the road.

Jace’s eyes fell to the steering wheel, where the soft platinum of his father’s ring still rested on Simon’s finger. “You didn’t have to say yes.”

Simon didn’t respond to that, and Jace wished he could see his eyes, could find even the tiniest clue to what he was thinking. He’d barely said anything since they made their hasty exit from the reception. At least Becky and Bubbe Helen had agreed not to mention Simon’s supposed engagement to his mom until he could tell her himself.

The silence stretched between them as Jace stared out into the blurry downpour. The one saving grace to all of this was that at least no one else knew about it. Their friends would never let them hear the end of it if they found out. And Jace’s family, god, that would be a disaster. Izzy would probably try to plan the whole thing and they’d somehow end up actually married before Jace could even explain the situation to her.

“You know,” Simon said into the silence, “I hated you before I even met you.”

Jace didn’t know what to say to that, didn’t know if there was anything to say to that. That was okay, though, because Simon kept talking.

“Clary’s been my best friend since we were kids. My mom likes to tell the story of how we met on the playground and spent the whole day trying to build a moat around the swing set so no one else could play on it, but I don’t actually remember it. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t friends with Clary. She’s just always been a part of my life. The best part, sometimes.”

He took a deep breath, threw a quick glance at Jace before continuing. “So, of course I fell in love with her.”

The words hit Jace like a punch to the gut, and he was very, very glad Simon’s eyes were back on the road and he couldn’t see the jumble of emotions that Jace was sure were written all over his face.

“We were in sixth grade when I realized,” Simon continued. “I think I’d probably been in love with her for a while, but it just sort of hit me one day that I was just completely and totally gone for her. And it only took me like ten minutes after that to figure out that she didn’t feel the same way about me, but that was okay. I mean, it wasn’t. That kind of thing never is when you’re twelve.” He let out a mirthless laugh. “Or when you’re an adult either, I guess. But it was as okay as it could be because I figured I just had to wait. Clary was the most important person in the world to me, and even though she didn’t love me like I loved her, I knew I was the most important person in her life, too, so I just figured.” He shrugged. “I figured that eventually she’d realize that we could be, you know, more.”

His voice got soft as he continued, “And then she met you.”

Jace sucked in a sharp breath. “Simon, I—”

“I’m glad she did,” Simon interrupted, and he sounded like he meant it. “Even though it sucked at the time. Every time she mentioned you, I just wanted to punch you in the face. Which is why I always made an excuse not to meet you, by the way. I thought if I did and you really were as perfect as she described you, I would actually hit you.”

“I did always wonder about the mysterious best friend who was never around,” Jace said around the odd lump in his throat he couldn’t seem to swallow down. “She talked about you all the time.”

“Yeah?” Simon sounded genuinely surprised. “That’s actually really good to hear. And it makes me even more glad she met you, because her falling for you, even spending so much time with you, it gave me time to get over her.”

The knot in Jace’s throat loosened an inch.

“By the time you guys broke up, I’d actually dated a couple of people who weren’t Clary, and even though I didn’t feel as strongly for any of them as I did for her, I realized that part of what makes our friendship so special is that it is friendship. And I think we might have really fucked that up if we tried to be anything else, so I’m glad we never did, because my friendship with Clary is still one of the best things in my life, and I’m pretty sure it always will be.”

“Is that what you wrote Random Afternoon about? About you and Clary?” It wasn’t what Jace meant to say at all, but he opened his mouth and the words just came tumbling out.

Simon’s let out a soft huff of laughter. “No.” He shook his head. “It’s, uh. It’s not about Clary.”

Jace didn’t understand what was so funny, but he wasn’t going to ask. Just like he wasn’t going to ask who the song was about. Wasn’t going to think about why he cared so much.

“She was my first love, too,” he said instead.

Simon nodded slowly, digesting this information. “I wondered. I mean, when Clary used to talk about you, it sure sounded like you loved her, but once I found out you were, you know, you, I wasn’t so sure anymore.” He was fiddling with the ring, now, twisting it slowly around his finger with his thumb. Jace wondered if he knew he was doing it. “I didn’t think you were a relationship kind of guy.”

“I’m not.” That wasn’t what anyone wanted from him. Even Clary, who really had loved him once upon a time, hadn’t wanted him to stay. And even if someone did want that from him, he was pretty sure now that he wouldn’t know how to give it to them.

“And there hasn’t been anyone since Clary who’s made you reconsider?” Simon’s hands were still on the steering wheel now, his face impassive in the flickering light of passing cars.

Jace thought back to that night weeks ago, when Simon told him that maybe they wouldn’t be a mistake, and just for a second he’d thought—he’d hoped—but of course that wasn’t what Simon had meant.

“No.”

“Of course not. Stupid question.” Simon flashed him a smile, but there was a worried crease between his brows.

The last thing Jace wanted from him was pity, especially over this. “So, tell me about the llamas,” he said, desperate to change the subject.

Simon winced. “Can we just pretend Becky never mentioned llamas?”

“Nope.” Jace grinned. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll get Maia to ask Becky. I’m sure your sister would be happy to share.”

“You’re seriously the worst,” Simon said before launching into a long, involved story about his and Clary’s third grade trip to a llama farm and how Becky had thought it was hilarious to tell them that llamas were venomous.

“So, there I was, just covered in llama spit,” Simon finished as he unlocked their apartment door, “crying my eyes out because I thought was going to die, with Clary shouting at the poor farmhand that her dad was cop and he was going to go to jail for murder. And of course Becky didn’t even get in trouble or apologize. She just started getting me llama-themed birthday gifts.”

“Just so we’re absolutely clear,” Jace snickered, following him inside, “I’m laughing at you, not with you.”

“Which is one of many reasons I should have known better than to let you meet my sister. Speaking of which,” he pulled Jace’s ring off his finger and held it out, “I wouldn’t want to forget to give this back.”

Jace looked at the ring, then back up at Simon, swallowing hard. “You should keep it. Until we break up.” Something flashed in Simon’s eyes, and Jace hurried to correct himself. “Until we tell our families we broke up, I mean. In case you need to, I don’t know, sell the story.”

“Jace, I know what this ring means to you. I can’t just—”

“You can.” He reached out and closed Simon’s fingers over the ring, holding them there. “I trust you to keep it safe.”

Simon stared at him for a long moment, eyes searching. “Okay,” he agreed. “Until we break up.”

Something in Jace’s chest loosened, and he stepped back, letting Simon’s hand drop from his. “Cool. I’m gonna heat up some pizza rolls. You want me to make enough for you?”

“Sure,” Simon said. “Yeah, pizza rolls sound great. Cheeseburger flavor, not triple cheese, though.”

“Obviously,” Jace said, heading to the kitchen. He didn’t think about the ring, or how naked his hand felt without it. Or why it mattered so much to him that Simon agreed to keep it, if only for a little while.

[sparklingchan]

Dancing with a Stranger || Lee Minho (Stray Kids)

Pairing :  Reader (fem.) x Lee Know

Word count: 6k+

Warnings: Cuss words, mentions of alcohol, mentions of a break up, slight violence and blood (its nothing intense, I swear) ,suggestive towards the end, not proof read.

Genre: Angst , fluff, boyfriend AU , break up - make up AU.

Description : Lee Minho is the best boyfriend you could have ever asked for but when you end up doing the only thing he had begged you not to do, things start going downhill.

Author’s Note: I KNOW I SAID I’LL POST THIS ON MY BIRTHDAY but I am an impatient person and I really wanted everyone to read this asap :( This imagine is one of my personal favorites and like Boyfriend!Minho really hits different, won’t you agree? (Reposting because tumblr decided to be a bitch and not show up my fic in the tags? It’s 2 AM and I’m legit crying?? I was so excited about this) Yeh le @chogiwow​ !

Please do reblog, like and send in your views about this fic. I’m always happy to receive DMs and asks!

Enjoy!

It is really funny how a crowded, happening place like your college corridor turns into a cold ,eerie location of some prospective gruesome crimes by sun down. But then again , if you really think about it , maybe it’s not much of a ‘prospect’ at all.

Your knuckles start stinging first ,spreading then to your palm and the rest of your arm.

And the horrifying yet unavoidable realization finally dawns on you - you shouldn’t have punched your professor’s daughter.

“Y-you! You bitch! How dare you touch me?” She has this annoyingly loud voice that pierces through the tense air like a bullet. The prettiest girl on campus , the nicest of them all, the most desirable , but anyone who sees her right now, would be convinced she is neither of those things. Excluding you , of course , because you always knew how double faced and rude she was behind the mask of a pure princess.

“You should have kept your mouth shut then, Anya.” You say , hoping that the girl in front of you doesn’t notice the sudden fear in your voice that has replaced your authoritative tone from before.

But you can’t back off now.

Anya stumbles back with her mouth wide open , clutching her jaw as she curses under her breath , “My mother will hear about this ! I will get you expelled !”

“Oh yeah? Try me and the only thing your mother will hear about is what you and our lovely class president John do in the basement when she isn’t home.” You shoot back. You mentally want to slap yourself for that sharp tongue of yours that refuses to stop any time sooner. You had always wished that you’d gotten your father’s gentleness but sadly , you were the fateful heir of your mother’s roughness.

Anya doesn’t reply , instead , she throws herself at you , pushing you harshly against the lockers .And it is not long before her balled fists find a way to your nose , punching so hard that you literally feel the blood dripping down your face. You are so glad that all the students and staff have already gone home , you’d have hated for anyone to witness this.

“You will never lay your filthy hands on me again, y/l/n. ” she wraps her left hand around your throat while the other one pulls your hair with the strength of a bull. You scream in pain. Your body goes limp for a second - not from pain but from fear , but you realise it’s too late now. You should have thought about your fears before punching Anya.

Now all you can do is save yourself and escape.

The numbing pain from your scalp spreads through your head , going down your face and then attacking your throat. It gets harder to breathe.

“I’ll tell you what , Anya , you deserved it. You deserved all of it. ” you croak , “I told you to stop spreading filthy rumours about my cousin but you didn’t stop , I told you to stop bothering me but you didn’t listen. And now you’ve gone as far as spreading bullshit about my boyfriend who you’ve never even met ! I hate to break this to you but all of this is not going to make your trash personality any cooler. ”

Anya yelps with anger , increasing the grip on your throat and hair as you kick your legs helplessly, coughing .

“Shut up, y/l/n .” She growls , “ and as a matter of fact, Your boyfriend is just a mere dancer , how funny. An A-grade college student dating a poor street dancer. What happened , y/n, ran out of good guys for yourself?”

You want to yell at her and tell her that Minho is anything but a mere street dancer . He’s an amazingly talented artist who loves expressing himself through dancing , he’s a hardworking and honest person who is part of the country’s biggest dancing crew , and he’s your safe place , your home , your everything and god save anyone who dare hurt him.

But you bite your tongue this time.

“What now? Afraid ?” Anya raises her eyebrow, her lips curving into an ugly, sadistic smile.

You hate that smile.

You use one of your free hands to grab her hair while the other one slams hard against her jaw.

“Shit.” She mutters , falling back into the hallway.

But you’re not done yet.

You walk toward her with furious eyes and balled fists , and it isn’t long before she lands on the floor on her butt with a bloody nose and a black eye.

“Keep your mouth shut or you’ll end up on a hospital bed next time. In a coma. ” you spit out those words while she holds her tears back, face caked with humiliation.

Then you turn on your heels and walk out of the stupid college campus which would yet again be filled with more bullies by tomorrow morning, just like it has for centuries.

The dorm in which Minho lives almost always smells like freshly baked cookies ( courtesy: Lee Felix) and on rare occasions, it smells like burnt pancakes ( also courtesy: Lee Felix). Today , it smells like the former and you sigh in relief.

“Oh , my god ,y/n. What happened?” Changbin opens the door after you knock thrice , “Minho, dude, Come out , y/n is here!”

You shuffle into their big living room , head hanging low and eyes avoiding all sorts of confrontation , afraid of having to explain your stupid behavior.

“Y/n?” Minho sucks in a deep breath at your sorry sight , his eyes glazed with dread and fear as he walks toward you, ”Oh god, what happened?”

He swiftly takes out a handkerchief from his pockets , pressing it against your bleeding nose. His eyes are glossy with fear.

“I-it’s nothing. I fell down the stairs.” You lie. Can he please shut up and hug you already? You hate his questions so much , especially when you just can’t answer him.

“Y/n , that is not what a fall looks like. I’m not stupid. Whom did you beat up this time?” He asks , crossing his arms across his chest. And you really do almost blurt out the truth because it’s that easy for you to open up to him and because he knows you like no one else does. You’ve dated him long enough for him to know you like the back of his own hand. And that sometimes gets you in so much trouble. Lying to him is a near impossible task.

“Y/n, look at me!” He says , slightly annoyed now. He touches your chin gently, coaxing you to look at him but you’re too afraid to face him right now. Too guilty. So you shrug him off and walk into his shared room with Hyunjin, a homely feeling enveloping you almost instantly.

“Y/n, don’t you dare ignore me.”

Ugh. He can be so nosy at times.

“I came here for comfort , not for an interrogation. ” you pout , plopping down on the bed.

Minho scoffs , closing the door behind him. He wears a loose black t-shirt with a pair of shorts , and he smells like the expensive shampoo you had bought for him a few months ago ,which he initially refused to take but now loves it. He looks so good and smells so good and suddenly all you want to do is cuddle him and talk about his day, with his Winnie The Pooh blanket draped around your bodies.

“You aren’t getting any comfort till you tell me what happened.” He says . He stands with his back against the door , and stares at you as if you were a criminal. Maybe you were one ,but that doesn’t mean he’ll hate you or something ,right?

“Did you hit the professor’s daughter?” He asks when you don’t answer even after two whole minutes. Your stomach does a somersault, adrenaline coursing through your veins. You regret telling him about Anya a few weeks ago and you specifically saying that you’d one day ’ punch her brains out ’. You wish you’d shut up sometimes.

You play with your fingers, staring at your feet. You can’t look him in the eye anymore , not when you did the exact (and only) thing he had asked you not to do. You feel horribly guilty.

“Well in my defense, she was being a bitch ,okay? She was calling you a good for nothing dancer and ugly and underqualified and - ” you sigh , “ My point is, I couldn’t bear listening to all that, okay?” You admit , cheeks burning with embarrassment.

Minho doesn’t answer, very unusual of him by the way, and you snap your head to look at him.

The eyes that had once held concern and fear for your well being now are clouded with disappointment . He’s mad at you.

“She’s not wrong though. I am a good for nothing dancer, I go to a stupid cyber college. Nothing worth fighting over. Why the fuck did you put yourself in danger like that!” And he’s yelling now , his relaxed posture from before now replaced with a tensed one. You notice his clenched fists and teeth ,and you shudder with fear. He is furious. But at what? You don’t really know.

“Are you seriously justifying her actions? Minho, she can’t talk shit about you. I will not let her do that! ” You yell back ,getting up from the bed , “She doesn’t even know you!”

“Which is exactly why her opinions on my lifestyle do not matter ! And you don’t have to just go around acting like my bodyguard all the time!” He says.

Your heart drops, brows furrowed in confusion at his words that feel like a dagger is plunged into your heart.

You walk up to him, trying to take his hand in yours but he extracts it right back. “I’m sorry, okay? I wasn’t thinking. You know how crazy I get when I’m angry.”

“A ’ sorry ’ doesn’t suffice it. The damage is already done. And if tomorrow, you are thrown out of the university, who’s fault would it be? ” he presses his hand to his face, trying to calm himself down , “I can’t believe I am dating such an immature woman ,y /n. Grow the fuck up, will you?” He says , his anger filled eyes staring right into your soul . Your heart breaks into millions of small pieces , as your breath hitches in your throat. He had never said something so harsh to you in the many years that you’ve dated him and you really wish he hadn’t done it today either because you realise you’re not very good at handling hurtful words, especially from Minho. At all.

“Minho , I know you’re angry - ”

“Leave.” The world stops spinning for a second , your eyes widening with shock, “Go home. Don’t come back again.”

You want to cry but tears seemed to have given up on you too , his words striking you harder than any of Anya’s punches ever did. All your feelings seem to have converted into a much worse state of numbness when those words leave his mouth.

“Y-you are not breaking up with me, right?” Your usually loud voice comes out as a whisper.

“I am. Go, please. I don’t want to see you right now.” He opens the room door for you to exit, his eyes never meeting yours. His lower lip is caught between his teeth, a sign that he’s about to tear up yet you don’t know if he wants too be comforted by you right now, or ever. So picking up the remaining pieces of your damaged heart , you walk out of the room , stopping only to glance over at him one last time , in hopes that he’d change his mind. But no, his angry demeanor is still there , strong and tough and unbreakable.

And when you finally leave , Minho is grateful that Hyunjin wasn’t home - for he would have hated to cry in front of his roommate.

The bright neon sign with ’ Kim’s Restaurant ’ written on it shines in the distance , blurred only by the tears in your eyes and not by the tiny droplets of water slowly falling from the sky.

You feel a soft blanket of comfort draping over you when you walk toward the familiar building.

Your aunt and uncle have worked hard to build a proper business from a small shop that had once just sold fried chicken and cold drinks ; and it makes you so happy to see their new restaurant still packed with people this late in the evening.

“Oh , y/n. I was just about to call you. Did you not go to your dorm yet? ” your aunt asks from the reception desk , chewing her favorite gum and typing aggressively into the computer.

“I stayed back today. Project work.” You lie. Your aunt lifts up her head , her eyebrows knitted together and a suspicious scowl gracing her face , almost mimicking your mother. Your mom and your aunt are twin sisters , born just three minutes apart , and since then it has become your mom’s life mission to remind your aunt of the whooping three minute gap every chance she gets. It’s hilarious, really.

“Don’t make that face at me. You look exactly like mom.” You mutter , leaning against the wooden desk.

“I do look exactly like your mom , y/n. ” she replies with a chuckle, “Anyway, what’s going on? You look tired.”

Honestly, you’d love to talk about Minho and the impulsive breakup and the aching in your heart with your aunt because there’s no better person to seek advice from, but you don’t feel it right to burden her when she’s working plus a part of you doesn’t really trust your aunt to keep all the secrets to herself.

“No, I’m okay. Just mid college crisis.” you say.

Your aunt hums in response, probably not buying it but you’re happy she doesn’t push it anymore, “ Are you hungry? Want something to eat?”

A bag of fries with a bucket full of chicken wings sounds terribly tempting right now but you’ve lost all your appetite for the day the moment Minho closed the door behind you. Now all you feel is drained, tired, sad. Moreover, that is not what you were here for, “Nah, I’m good. Is Yugyeom home though?”

The door to your aunt’s house opens only after you ring the stupid bell at least three times , as you stand on the porch, judging the loud music that blasts from within the walls. “Wow , you look like shit.” Yugyeom always has some snarky comments up his sleeve but you are in no mood to be playing word games with him right now. You barge into the house , pushing past your cousin who you smells like donuts and Axe.

“Shut up.” You say, plopping down on his bed . You really want to cry right now but Yugyeom has never been big on consoling so you try to hold it in .

“What’s wrong? I’m not joking.” He sits beside you, putting down his gaming console on the table by the bed.

You play with your fingers , breathing in and out to calm your nerves. Yugyeom, out of all the people in the world , is the easiest to talk to but today , you find yourself on the edge , trying to be very careful with your choice of words. Maybe you were afraid of angering him as well.

“I..I kind of beat Anya up.” You confess ,swallowing the lump in your throat.

Yugyeom becomes still for a moment , staring at you with his mouth gaping and then his face breaks into the widest grin in the world.

“You really beat that bitch up? Like for real?” He asks , excitedly bro fisting the air like an athlete after winning an important match.

You nod , “And then I went to see Minho. He obviously didn’t react the way you did. He was very angry and then he broke up with me. ”

Yugyeom’s celebrations are short lived as you continue to tell him the details of what had happened earlier, his smile slowly dissolving into a frown.

“Y/n, first of all you really need to learn how to break news to other people. It’s always the bad one first and then the good one. Noob.” Yugyeom bumps his shoulder softly to yours. You would otherwise have argued with him and told him why the happy news should always be first and why the bad news should be last but you feel too exhausted to speak anymore. Your shoulders slump as you put your hands on either side of your head.

“How could he just break up with me like that? He had no logical reason to! He’s so selfish.” You mutter , tears gathering up in your eyes. You try to blink them away before your cousin notices them.

“I don’t think he did it for himself , y/n. You told him that you hit Anya because she was speaking trash about him. Of course he’d distance himself from you so you wouldn’t want to fight his fights for him.” Yugyeom says.

“I wasn’t fighting his fights! She trash talks about you and me and him and everyone else. It was the last straw for me. I didn’t do anything wrong. ” you explain , your heart hammering against your chest.

“I didn’t say what you did was wrong ,y/n. You have a right to be angry with her. But what we’re talking about is Minho. Think about this from his point of view,” Yugyeom replies, his hands on your shoulders , “You beat Anya up , got hurt and possibly put yourself in trouble with her mother all because of him. He feels guilty.” Yugyeom is speaking to you like he’s speaking in one of those debates that he does at college. You love seeing him speak, mostly because he is so manipulative yet subtle , smart yet observant and he can convince you so easily. He could easily pass as the best debater in your college - too bad you’d already taken that place.

“Or it could be because he doesn’t want more trouble in his account. Maybe he’s ashamed of me. ” you whisper, “ And I told you, I didn’t do it just for him. I did it for me and you too and all those people she bullies and makes fun of. Why is he the only one reacting like this? ”

Yugyeom sighs, “Yes , I appreciate your concern for my well being, y/n. But he might not be thinking the same way as I am. I was happy that you beat Anya up , but he was worried about you. He obviously doesn’t want you to get badly hurt.”

You rub the tears that flow down your face with the heel of your hand then place your head on Yugyeom ’s shoulder.

“He might have fallen out of love with me. Maybe he just needed an excuse to call it off.” You mutter.

“You know Minho’s better than that, y/n.”

He’s right . Minho really is better than that.

Break ups suck. In the truest sense. But what you now realize is that break ups don’t hurt that much immediately, but slowly , as the days go by and the memories start flashing in front of your eyes every waking moment , you feel like nothing more than a sack of meat and bones, drained of all emotions.

“For this unit of organic chemistry, I need all of you to memorise the reaction mechanisms over the weekend.” Your professor’s voice feels distant to you , as if there were a wall in between the two of you , even though he stands just a few steps away.

Your classmates start murmuring among themselves, fixing study dates that almost always are unsuccessful and gathering notes they hadn’t bothered to complete until now. But you remain seated in your chair , staring out the window, not bothering to talk to anyone.

It is a bright sunny afternoon and you see all the happy faces out on the field - couples, friends , classmates. You feel jealous. You clearly remember planning a weekend trip with Minho a few days ago and If you hadn’t decided to mess things up so bad, he’d have already been at your college gate by now , waiting in his father’s old car. You clearly remember how excited he was about the trip.

The dismissal bell rings not long after and as you walk out of the college gate, surrounded by thousands of students, you feel lonelier as ever. And your mind imagines his car below the tall banyan tree , his lean frame leaning against the door with a silly grin. You could almost see him there. Even though its just in your mind.

You miss him so much that it gets hard for you to even breathe properly.

“Okay , how long are we going to stay here? I have better things to do than stalk your girlfriend, Lee.” Changbin’s whiny voice breaks the silence in Minho’s car, much to his annoyance.

“Just a few more minutes. Till she reaches the dorm.” Minho replies , his hand limp on the steering wheel and his lips pressed in a tense line.

His eyes are focused on you , your slump shoulders and your unusually slow walk and the dark circles under your eyes. It is obvious that Minho wasn’t the only one having sleepless nights .

“Dude , why don’t you just talk to her? I’m sure she would listen.” Hyunjin says from the backseat , munching on peanuts, “ Plus I think she saw us.”

Minho watches as you turn around a corner and walk toward your dorm building , away from him. He almost wishes you’d seen him.

“It’s not that easy.” Minho mutters, turning the engine on.

At least he knows you’re okay, and safe. That’s enough reassurance for him to try and move on but he somehow always ends up driving to your college gates during dismissal,  the brief view of your face still making the worst of his days better.

“It’s not that easy.” He repeats to reassure himself .

“Guess what.” Yugyeom chimes in early one morning, leaning against the locker door beside yours.

“What?” You ask , not sparing him a glance. Your hands busy themselves in flipping over the pages of your notebook ; last minute revisions before tests are more important than the actual studying.

“I saw Anya this morning. She was running late , I think, and she bumped into a junior near the gate. I was sure all hell was about to break loose but she just apologized and left!” Yugyeom says , laughing.

You turn to look at him, a look of surprise plastered on your face. Anya actually did that? Instead of being her usual, defensive, violent self she actually chose to apologize? It’s hard to digest but you’re sure Yugyeom wouldn’t be making all that up. He’s not that creative.

“The sun must have risen from West today.” You reply with a chuckle.

The morning bell rings throughout the corridor, indicating the commencement of your classes. Throwing in your notebook ,you close your locker and heave a sigh. Its just a small quiz but you find yourself stressing over every single thing these days.

“Oh and by the way , it’s Jackson Wang’s birthday party tomorrow.” Yugyeom adds as the two of you start making your way towards the chemistry lab , coats hanging by your arms.

“And we’re going?” You question ,cocking your eyebrow.

Yugyeom is not really into parties , especially the over-the-top , spectacular , rich-kid parties that Jackson Wang often finds himself throwing, yet Yugyeom always goes because a) Jackson is his best friend and b) Who doesn’t like to feel like a rich man even if it’s just for one night?

“Yes. Both of us.” He says. You shrug your shoulders. You have always liked going to Jackson ’s parties and fawning over his huge mansion and the various cuisines placed in front of you that you can’t even name properly and watching other rich kids like himself play golf in the living room. It was pretty entertaining . Even with your post break up gloominess, you wouldn’t want to miss all of that.

“Okay.”

“And one more thing,” he starts ,“I saw Lee Minho outside our college gate yesterday. You might want to do something about that.”

No, unlike what was expected of you, you didn’t really do anything about it but Yugyeom’s words stick to you like a piece of gum throughout the whole day ,consuming every thought and pulling out all those thoughts that you’d stacked up and thrown away into the top most drawers of your mind. You were convinced that the day he broke up with you , he was done. He didn’t want to look back or reconsider. He wasn’t coming back to you. And you’ve been trying to move on as best as you could ,keeping your mind occupied and busy all the time. Yet you had to accept that in the wee hours of the night , staring at the ceiling ,you would often find yourself reminiscing him and whatever you two had. The gentle touches , the late night walks, shy smiles and endless talks ; you missed them.

But his presence outside the college changes the whole game, doesn’t it?

Later that day, you kind of regret agreeing to go to Jackson’s party because you soon realised that both Minho and Jackson went to the same dancing school at one point of time , and Minho probably (like a 99.9% probability because Jackson Wang never leaves anyone uninvited) was invited too.

You dread every second in Yugyeom’s stupid car that brings you one more step closer to seeing Lee Minho again. And although you would never dare say it out loud , a part of you was a little excited too.

“Dude , y/n , I have never felt so underdressed in my entire life.” Yugyeom breathes in as the car stops in front of the huge metal gates of Jackson’s mansion.

“Me neither.” You agree, your eyes glued to the people walking in and out of the doors, wearing tuxedos and dresses and sparkly jewelry. You feel horribly out of place all of a sudden, like a fish flying in the sky and a bird swimming deep under the water- you feel like you don’t belong here.

You look down at your black converse , tightly laced and washed for this very party and your loose ,dark green tshirt and ripped jeans .

“Why didn’t you tell me this was a fucking masquerade ball or soemthing?"you hiss at your cousin.

"Shut up, y/n , you’re not the only one feeling odd. ” Yugyeom shoots back

But all of that discomfort is gone the moment you see Jackson Wang sitting on the huge sofa in the living room , wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and a white tank top , drunk and wasted and blabbering.

“Let’s go before he sees us.” Yugyeom says , pushing you through the crowds of people clad in silks and pure cotton , “Drunk Jackson is difficult to handle.”

“Oh , I beg to differ , All Jacksons are difficult to handle.”

The garden behind the mansion is filled with even more people than your brain was accustomed to seeing while the DJ stands at the top of a platform , headphones on and screaming into the mic every once in a while to hype up the crowd in front of him , but you realise it’s hardly needed. People are already way too hyped up in here.

“Y/n?” You hear a voice say and you immediately turn around to face Hwang Hyunjin standing under the wonderful night sky, looking as gorgeous as ever. But then again ,when does he not look pretty?

“Hey, Hyunjin. How have you been?” You ask with a smile. Your awkward hand movements do not go unnoticed by him but he thankfully doesn’t comment on it.

“I’ve been good. How have you been ?” He replies , inching closer to you. From the corner of your eye, you see Yugyeom slowing disappearing into the crowds, leaving you all alone to deal with your ex boyfriend’s best friend. You make a mental note to never lend your Netflix account to him again.

“I’m okay, too.” You say.

Hyunjin nods, his eyes staring at you curiously, “Tell me , y/n , how have you really been? I know what happened between you and Minho.”

You gulp , heat creeping up to your cheeks.

“I’m fine, really. Don’t worry about it.” You say, biting the inside of your cheeks nervously.

“If you say so.” he grins , putting an arm around you , “But I’ll be real honest with you , Minho - ”

The words are cut off when the DJ suddenly blasts a new song through the speakers , simultaneously yelling into the mic. The sweaty, wasted , hopeless crowd around you yell a few ’ Let’s GO! ’s and ’ Fuck It Up ’s in response.

“What were you saying?” You yell over the music , pinching Hyunjin’s t-shirt to get his attention. He glances at back you then points toward his left , “That.”

You turn your head in that direction , your heart skipping a beat the moment your eyes meet Minho’s nervous ones. You see him walk towards you in long strides ,his handsome features painted with anxiousness and worry and a foreign sense of guilt. You were angry at him ,yes ,but as he makes his way to you , his silky hair bouncing softly ,his pink lips slightly parted, his starry eyes locked on you ,he looks…Brilliant? Breathtaking? Gorgeous? Stunning? All of these?

He wears a blue tshirt with black pants and has a jacket tied around his waist. He looks beautiful- even though you are mad at him. He looks way too beautiful to not acknowledge it.

And just a few seconds before he reaches you , you break away from Hyunjin’s hold and run away into the crowd.

“Y/n, wait!” You hear the both of them yell at the same time. But only one of them follows behind you and you don’t even have to look back to know who it is.

Fear and anger creep into your body , slow but painful like poison. You remember the last few days and how horrible it had been for you , all because of Minho and his lack of understanding in a moment when it was needed the most. Over the past few weeks, your ex boyfriend had made no attempts to contact you whatsoever and if he thinks he could just pop out of nowhere and start talking to you again, then he’s gravely mistaken. You might still love him and want nothing more than to hold him close , but that doesn’t mean you aren’t angry anymore . You are not ready to face him. At all.

Your feet burn as you run further away from Minho, jogging up the stairs inside the mansion with your hand tightly gripping the cold metal railing.

“Y/n, please, just listen to me once.” He yells, still not giving up.

You scoff , “Why should I? You didn’t listen to me that day either!”

You find a door at the end of the staircase, your hands pushing it to reach the empty terrace that you’d heard Jackson bragging about during your English classes when everyone was too bored to listen to the professor. The terrace really was beautiful, with all kinds of flowers blooming and a fountain with lights , you would have almost been breath taken if not for the man closing up behind you.

“Y/n, damnit, ” Minho huffs, reaching his hand out toward you, panting, “Stop, okay? Just listen to me , please.”

Not like you have an option anyway. You sigh in defeat , walking toward the fountain, the carpet grass rustling under your feet. “What?” You demand, your voice bitter with anger.

Minho stands in front of you , his brown unkempt hair and firey eyes reminding you of the night you guys had kissed for the first time. He stands at an arm’s distance, giving you enough space to think things through. He would never want to force you to do something you wouldn’t want to. And even if everything turned out to be not in his favor tonight, he’d gladly accept it because he deserved it after treating you so badly.

“I’m sorry.” He whispers after a few seconds.

You roll your eyes, “For what? What did you do? As far as I know, THE Lee Minho never makes mistakes!”

He hangs his head low with shame ; he didn’t mean a single word he’d said that night. He was worried, yes, he was very worried about your bashful attitude but he was also very grateful to you for always having his back. It physically hurt him to see you bleeding and completely worn out that day.

“Well, I did make a mistake this time. I said some words that I didn’t mean at all and I’m afraid the girl I intended those words at hates me.” He says , pressing his lips in a line.

“Damn right , she does.” You can’t even look into his eyes anymore because you’re too afraid of laying your true feelings bare in front of him.

“I’m really, really sorry, baby. I know I’m an asshole and I hurt you. I have no excuses to offer but I just want you to know that a single second more away from you will drive me crazy. ”

You process his sentences slowly - letter by letter, inking those words permanently into your memories. “Why?” You ask. What a silly question ,y/n, do you really want to torment this man so much ?

Minho gulps, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the movement, “Because you’re quite literally my everything.”

Minho only dares to grin a little when you no longer throw virtual daggers from your eyes at him. “I hate you , you know?” You say.

“I know ,y/n. I don’t even blame you. I shouldn’t have said all that. I was just so, so mad. But that really wasn’t an excuse to be so rude to you or break up. I should have talked it out instead . I deserve the hate.” He admits.

The frown on your lips dissipates slowly ,making way for a sad, small smile.

“It was so hard, Minho. You don’t even know. I had never felt so lonely in my entire life.” You say.

“Believe me, y/n, I know.” He whispers as your hands find their way to his cheeks, rubbing them ever so gently.

You scan his face, absorbing in the fact that he was actually in front of you and this wasn’t one of your unrealistic imaginations.

Minho takes not more than a half step towards you and you automatically wrap your arms around his neck , like the millions of times you’d already done before. Everything about him is so familiar yet so new. Like layers and layers to discover and only one goddamn lifetime.

He nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck , mumbling soft apologies against your skin, his arms tightening around your waist with every passing second.

“I missed you so much.” You admit, playing with his beautiful brown locks, taking in the smell of his (your) favorite body wash.

“I missed you too.” He replies , “So goddamn much. I almost wanted to cuddle Hwang Hyunjin at night.”

You laugh ,as he admires the way your noes scrunches up when you giggle and the way your eyes bend into crescent moons. In that moment, Minho realises how much he loves seeing you laugh ,especially when he’s the reason behind it. It fills him up with so much pride.

You hear the DJ change the song into a slow , romantic one as his voice booms through the speakers once again , “Ladies and gentlemen, grab the person next to you, with consent of course, and hold them close for this one because tonight is all about dancing with strangers!”

The crowd goes feral.

Minho raises an eyebrow at the DJ’s words , a sly smile playing on his lips , “Shall we?”

He pulls away from the embrace, gently bowing toward you and offering you his hand like some gentleman right out of a fairytale.

“He said dancing with a stranger, not girlfriend.” You deadpan but you take his hand anyway.

He chuckles, leaning closer to rest his forehead on yours, “Technically, we’re still broken up. That makes us strangers.”

You have to give in - not because of his weird reasoning but because of how terribly cute he looks when he smiles like that at you. He holds you close, swaying slowly to the music and grinning like there’s no tomorrow.

“What’s so funny, Lee Minho?” You ask , raising your eyebrow.

He shakes his head, still grinning, “I just realised how rare it is to find a woman who would quite literally declare war for you.”

“Now, you’re exaggerating a little bit with the war thing but yes, that’s the essence of it.” You reply with a proud smile.

He laughs, as you put your hand on his cheek once again and press your lips softly to his. You’d missed this so much - not just kissing him but also this feeling of intimacy you share with him everytime you’re in a closed space, sharing the same air. You missed his teasing, his stupidly sweet laughter, the warmth of his embrace. You missed Lee Minho - your safe place, your best friend, your world.

And even after everything, you both know for sure that you would fight the world for Minho if need be, and he’d do the exact same thing for you. Every single time.