#twenty-seven fucking percent are you KIDDING me

[a-tiny-sloth]

HAHAHA i HATE this country

[sometimesraven]

Ian's Running Slow

Whumptober No. 12: “I haven't slept in days but who's counting?” Insomnia | “I’m up, I’m up.”

Fandom: Quantum Leap (2022) POV Character: Ian Wright Whumpee: Ian Wright

Ian needs to find Ben. Sleep is secondary.

AO3 Link

Eighty-seven percent. Thirteen percent. Twenty-nine percent. Every roll gave them a different number. Every answer gave them another question. Every new algorithm only had Ian tugging at their hair in frustration.

They tried again. 

Run: Find Ben. If: Janis equipment AND full team. Output: ...... ...... ..... Ninety-six percent.

Good. That was good, right? It had to be good. Unless their code was wrong. They should rewrite the code, just in case they missed a fault that was giving a false positive. That would be fine, right? Would only take a few hours. They glanced at the gap in their curtains, shrugging off the peeking light of morning and reaching for their coffee mug. Empty. Damn. Running a hand through their hair, they pushed themself upright to grab another.

"You're kidding." Ian froze halfway out of the bedroom door, realising with a stifled cuss that they'd entirely forgotten Jenn was here, sound asleep on the bed behind their setup. "This is like... night three."

Ian's fingers tapped anxiously on their mug as they turned around, knowing that without sleep there was no way they were succesfully masking the schoolkid guilt on their face. "It's fine. I'm fine. Go back to sleep."

"No, you-.." Jenn yawned and stretched, pushing herself upright to eye them with the judging gaze that somehow managed to still pierce right through them despite the groggy, half-unfocused haze in her eyes. "You gotta stop this. You can't live on coffee and algorithms, Ian. You need sleep."

"I'll sleep! I just need-.. I have to figure this out, Jenn. I-if I can just figure out how to get Ziggy reconnected with Ben then I'll be able to-"

"For the love of-.." Jenn shook her head, shoving to her feet just to pad over and point at Ian's screen. "This is not finding Ben. You think I didn't notice after day two you started asking it over and over if we'll find Ben? Looks to me like you're using all this as an excuse to avoid sitting down with your thoughts for five seconds. Trust me, I know what that looks like."

"I'm. Fine," Ian reiterated, trying to brush off the way their vision swam a little with the quick change of focus from the bed to the desk. Sure, their hands were a little tingly and the fog in their head was thicker than the one time they mixed pink gin with ketamine as a teenager, but with just a couple more hours they could fix everything. "I just need a little more time."

"In a couple more hours you'll be hallucinating, Ian." Jenn stared them down with more clarity this time, lifting a brow pointedly when the mug they were holding almost slipped out of their hand. "You can't do anything like this. The more you fuck yourself up trying to look for him, the longer Ben's going to be stuck out there."

"You don't-.. You dont understand." Ian laughed, the tiny huff of air making them dizzy. "You don't understand, Jenn. This is my fault. I have to get him back. I have to-.."

Were they hyperventilating? Jenn was across the room before they realised they were falling, catching them awkwardly and dragging them over to sit on the edge of the bed, cradling them gently like a sick child. "Ben knew the risks. He knew what he was getting into. This was always a possibility, Ian."

"Future me's code-.."

"Worked to do exactly what it was supposed to. There was never any guarantee Ben would leap back. And hey-- with the Quantum Leap program shut down there's also no guarantee the apocalypse future will happen." Jenn gently kissed the top of their head, their skin clammy and their hair unwashed. "You saved the world, Ian. It'll help everyone a whole lot more if you believe just for a second that you're capable of that."

Ian blinked, then sharply forced themself out of the daze of sleep trying to take them. "I'm awake! I'm up-.. Just-.. Ben-.. what if-.."

Another blink, and when they opened their eyes again they were laying down, undressed and covered with bedsheets. Their computer was shut down, and there was water by their bedside. Maybe just a little nap wouldn't hurt.

[the-firebird69]

and thhe beat goes on of ocourse and trump a isideshow and comedy now. tons say it him out. now. is afool. and theya re at it to make it happen

so back to reality we have several ppl here going to court over the little things they have left a small percentag of land and buldings and factories seven percent. and will lose and will fight and here. and now. and tons of the morlockw ill die. tons andthey will become more onry mean and angry and we will have to be here we do. none of these have hat it takes and it is proven here a lot. tons of times

-there are other folks here not doing well and per thier own statements are going to harrass our son and into their hiosptial and other and stan is one of them loses washingtonand oregon bases and other nearby, lost ten of the twenty mega bases and will lose more as he has a samattering with the others. tons of times you out no but he loses as they do he is a smallone an not prevelant elsewhere. now we say this he is young andis why and true.

-justin falls hard and with a noise and all over and tons of times he is found dead latelly. is weak small and absurd and a pain to our son.

-and ken, he is up for it no dies and sees it finally is usueless and they all sat on the macs and let them feter thought they could waltz in cnnnot and were sseen trying alot failed a lot. and now die. a lot his fatasses all go. and their counter parts too are there no. they pull out the turd kill it. and it is on they say f these idiots they d di this and sat. treu too they are fags. farts a nd low lifes users and losers and ken is a parasite.

-daneil is worse than ever hods on no is wreckess and tries to arrest our son...and he says it makes fun of me and over and over. short guy in the sherrif car. and must be trump goes asks and he says would ya beleive it and he hits him later for real. and it is on due to that. and treu is touchy

-mike tew and he was spent a while ago bases out they work and seek food shetler fuel and at the hoomos pace he means the morlokis shit was shit threatesn our son non stop and it means all threaten ours who threaten him yes

-mac daddy is out and says it cant handle it i have no place soon and that is not good for me no wont do it cant and he has to pay for it and will meaning make itw rok and it does nthign and he continue and court is a afailure back fire yes. and he says this we pour inthey do and we dont use it wont set precedent and it is notright your idiots you mron kids of mine and you helped this happen even he said it ships in the tunnels andthey fall block it so.and nope. are idiots. and says he is right advised us correctly we failed. and they say it cant but ok and we say it your nuts all thse ships laden yuornuts and losers and shit out. he is right youfaggots do the wrong thing by habbit. fn fags sitting inthere fuck you. he is right again a dumb i dea we were ging to die and lose anyways now we are trashas these are you faggots i get ridiculed allday and night by macs it is astupid thing and it is. they wanted it you assholes..die now go leave you suck anywaysall tehe time.

-so they are out and pretty much smoked and smoke now and have ships dont care are useless. these flow in. and wont stop. and if stopped hit. now theycannot do the job now. and are ruined. and stan is an ass and hits his own and more and we do himinshortly. need to.fully too. tons see it no. he does die. and it is on screen. bja is hit as vader yes. and beheaded. and pout back and stan takes over uses it as cover the same outfit. and you can see it and his understudy burns him. and stan loses to bja comes back and hits. and that is the story. and trump uses the characer after bg does. a mess yes.

-sooner not later. it is shortly. goes up and uses heavy. big death stars ruins morlock bases. they fight him. and biden and he is awonder

-biden falls too is small always small sees it we are out shortly and tons are atus and it is these idiots. he does the idea it works. the ohters see it. ad ok garth helps lol

-now that isworkhe is in pain neck pain. and pulled it abit. due to his condition. now we help but this sucks here.

they hit big. and face the morlck and fo once and for all. take them down. and cant. lose. are attacked. stan tries tofool ppl and is pout in the museum gets out hits bja. and becomes darth vader and dies after tossing biden intot he pwoer source. he survives. and is the senator palpatine. and says his grandson did it. no. stan did. and would not let him tried to get himinot that empire and biden said no. so disagreed. and biden heard it. ad ok true so....

-and tons of times watch out for them no me ok bye and true.

-morlock prep to hit the rest of the psuedo empire bunkers. tons of times. and until out and then they hit the macs. live here with thepsuedo empire. lose died too last night

forty went out. and are at 100. and ten more stayed. same cews lol no of course not. scott johnson no. it was peter mclaughlin no. he is here but slated to go by others here. yes his own too heard it too. we fight but aweful here. now we see it too no have.

a few he knew not well. a couple from st john and were not preveleant and abused him. and teh sametwo at wneteoth and not known. dead now. five trumpsters out. seven bja and four mnority morlock. seven misc. and five of them were clsose to cammila and a few more bja and trump. yes. but they died saying aweful things about ouor son were puore losers and fell for simple tricksin the field. died laughing we do this and are out. sped back this way in a frantic frenxy thier trucks hit trees crumpled and esploded each five trucks andyeh not tons of folkl noboard. and five more fled fast and one out fo those broe off and krept away andsouth was hit by air forces not held off due to bja yelling it and to suppor the ground forces. and he is an animal andstupid.

it is over for both morlock well all morlock and here soon. out. but only after the engage the empire which rots and tommy f who dwindles. now too. they start and in after psuedo empire to get them out of the way and call.

the south 1000 is smaller about 4.5 % shurnk and they sit and wait for the order to attakc the cavern will die doing it. build up. and to attack. the psuedo empire ships watch. in horror do nohting. are idiots. ok. the bunkers are under attack there too shortly. elsewhere huge forces built up and start shortly and in the eastern hemisphere yes. soon.

tons of bunkers and lots of annouucnements

we publish now

Thor Freya

Zues Hera

Olympus

[sourkive]

012 : MUSIC TO FUCK BOYS TO.

Starring: Jade Lim.

Featuring: Song Taejun, Kim Seungsoo.

Summary: The tower falls.

Word Count: 4k.

CW: Smut, investigation into sexual harassment, cheating, threats.

“Jade,” Seobin had said. “Do you promise you’re being honest with me?”

The country had fallen deep into the grasp of summer. Jade had grown up in sunshine, so a little bit of heat should be a cakewalk, but he supposes he’s acclimatized to south korea quite nicely by the sheen of sweat across his forehead, sticking strands of his bangs to his forehead as he messily pushes them out of the way. The large, mint green tinted sunglasses perched upon his nose do little to protect him from the sun, not least by the way he peers over their frames, but they’re fashionable and green, so he’ll wear them. 

They’re the only thing he’s wearing. 

He lays back on the expensive, pointlessly luxury sun-lounger, one hand behind his head, and looks down at Song Taejun between his legs. 

The good thing about Taejun’s too big house in his stuffy gated community was that it was miles until he stumbled upon a neighbor. Jade had taken a liking to summertime in Taejun’s expansive garden. he liked to have Taejun make him pitchers of cocktails as he sunbathed naked. He liked floating around in the pool and playing The Velvet Rope over the speakers as he tried not to ash his cigarettes on the inflatables. In the evenings, he liked to sit outside in his underwear and one of Taejun’s t-shirts, looking at the vogue runway app on his phone or scrolling seven months down Daichi’s instagram. Jade found himself thriving as he basked in the sun of his boyfriend’s gross decadence.

Taejun had joked that Jade liked his garden more than he liked him in the summer. Jade had responded ‘in the summer?’ and didn’t really know if he was kidding or not. 

They’d been annoying each other more than they’d been getting along, lately. Jade remembers the beginning, when they’d walk around Seoul and hold hands under the security of nighttime. He once thought that Taejun was a knight in shining armour, finally a man who loved him truly and wholly and had come to sweep him off of his feet to a lifetime by the pool. 

Jade had been with Taejun now long enough to see the bulk sum of his flaws. But he loved him. Even when Taejun was driving him up the wall, when he was getting jealous of men Jade barely even knew, when his mean streak cut out whenever Jade started being difficult, Jade loved Taejun - Jade loved Taejun even when he was twenty minutes into bragging about his stupid fucking sports car. Jade had always loved cars, been easily seduced by men with nice ones, even, but song Taejun had taken that interest and trampled it deep into the soil. 

But Jade had still listened to the story of some smooth turn Taejun had made around some road, or something, with an attentive spark in his eyes and he’d nodded at all the right moments, because he’s loyal. He’d sat for twenty three minutes, naked in the sun (save for his sunglasses,) still glistening with oil, and listened to Taejun talk about his fucking car and spare nary a glance at him in the process. It wasn’t exactly how he’d planned his day off. 

Jade had always been too pretty to bother with subtlety, so as soon as he scored a lull in the conversation, he’d simply said; “You should suck me off.” 

Jade loved Taejun and, when they were on each other's wavelength, he loved sex with him too. He was objectively the best Jade had ever had. Maybe it’s a natural talent or maybe it’s pure experience. Either way, Taejun, who Jade really did think was probably the most handsome man he’d ever seen in real life, looked one hundred percent hotter with his lips wrapped around Jade’s cock. 

Jade’s stomach twitches as Taejun slowly takes him in. He'd spent at least a minute lapping at Jade’s head, or dipping down to graze his tongue across Jade’s balls. Jade was beyond hard at this point, and he let out a low moan as his cock hit the back of Taejun’s throat, his lips tightening firmly around his width. 

Jade watches him as he hollows his cheeks, spluttering a little as he pushes Jade down still, until he is deep in his throat. Taejun’s eyes flutter up to meet Jade’s with a purposeful gleam in them, and Jade can take a hint, so his hands wrap in Taejun’s hair and grip onto him tightly as he begins to thrust his hips. 

Taejun chokes, his throat making filthy, wet noises each time Jade thrusts up into it. Jade knows that he’s pushing Taejun’s limits, but a fiery determination burns in Taejun’s eyes and he’s yet to hit Jade’s thigh, which is their signal to stop. 

Jade’s hands ball into fists, tugging Taejun’s hair harshly as he holds him steady in place. the angle is a little awkward, Taejun half-off the bottom of the lounger and Jade’s legs open at either side of it, but he can use the leeway of his feet on the ground to angle his hips, fucking deep into Taejun’s throat. Taejun gags around him, and his hand is only halfway to Jade’s thigh when Jade lets up, letting go of his hair and letting himself pull off to catch a breath. 

A thick chain of saliva comes with him, though, connected from the tip of Jade��s cock to Taejun’s bottom lip. It breaks as he pulls away, dripping down his chin, but Taejun doesn’t pull away for long. he opens his mouth, tongue spreading out as he tilts his head to the side and licks messily down Jade’s length, kissing loosely back up and taking his head back between his lips.

Jade groans again, leaning back and allowing his eyes to flutter closed as Taejun works him, bobbing his head and fucking him in and out of his throat. He moves quickly and intensely, and Jade is starting to feel his abdomen tightening when Taejun finally pulls off again with a slick pop. 

Jade peers down at him and he grins wickedly, pulling himself up onto the lounge properly to straddle Jade, leaning down to take him in a searing kiss. Jade kisses back eagerly, wrapping an arm along the span of his toned back to pull him closer. Taejun ruts his hips downward, and Jade shivers as he feels the weight of Taejun’s hard cock pushing against him through his swimming trunks. 

“Wanna go upstairs?” Taejun asks. Jade shakes his head. “No?”

“No.” Jade grins. 

He takes him once more in a kiss, his hand reaching down, pushing under the waistband of Taejun’s trunks and gripping one of his plump ass cheeks tightly. 

“I’m gonna fuck you right here.”

“Do you want to have kids?” Taejun asks. They’re sitting out by the pool still, but the sun has set. Jade kicks his feet slowly in the water, liking the resistance against his movements. 

It was a good day. They’d fucked a lot and then Taejun had made a caesar salad. They had been good. They hadn’t upset each other. It was the type of day that Jade stuck around for.

“Like, right now?” Jade asks. “I think it’s too late, they’re already leaking out of you.” 

Taejun snorts, knocking his shoulder against Jade’s. “I'm being serious.” 

Jade twists his mouth up. “I don't know,” he says. “I think so, but I'd be scared. I don't know how to be a dad, I never had one.”

“You'd be fine.” says Taejun. he looks up at the sky, but Jade just stares at him. “You had a mom. I don't think it’s that different.”

“I guess.” Jade sighs. He wouldn’t know. Sometimes he wonders what parts of him went missing in the lack of a father, but he has nothing to compare his life to. It had been levied against him, in the past, in cruel remarks; ‘maybe if there was a male presence in your life you wouldn’t be such a fucking fairy.’ Jade doesn’t tend to pay that any mind. He likes being a fucking fairy. 

“Do you want to get married?”

He hates when Taejun plays hypotheticals with him, because ultimately, he knows it’s only going to come true for one of them. He looks at the lump of Taejun’s Adam’s apple, the smooth but firm curve of his chest, his big arms. The big ears that endear him so much to Jade, the shaggy bangs falling below his brows and always getting into his big puppy dog eyes. Jade looks at him and his entire chest swells in fondness and pain because he loves him so much and in the rare, fleeting moments in which he’s honest with himself, he knows that this man is going to break him into a thousand pieces and move on. 

It’s all so painfully, embarrassingly obvious. Jade is just a quarter-life crisis and Taejun likes him because he’s young, hot, stupid and slutty. He'll expire in Taejun’s eyes by the time he’s twenty five, and then Taejun will find someone his own age. Someone respectable and sophisticated, who’s greatest accomplishment isn’t nailing a jump split on television. He’ll find someone worthy of the title husband. That's who he’ll have kids with, that’s who he’ll sell his stupid mansion and his baseball toys for and move to the suburbs with. Taejun is going to have a perfect life, one day, and he’s going to look back on these years, perhaps with a little guilt, and he’ll remember how good it felt to be fucked on his sun-lounger but he won’t quite be able to picture Jade’s face anymore. 

“I hope I get the right to.” Jade deflects. He watches the water ripple against his ankle, leaning his head on Taejun’s shoulder. 

“Positive thinking.” Taejun counters. “This is a future where you can. Do you want to marry me?” 

Jade is quiet for a second. and then he laughs, pulling his legs from the water and standing up. “This is the part where I sing ‘Somewhere That’s Green,’ right?”

Too much sarcasm drips from his tongue and he winces at himself as he kicks his feet back into his slides and makes his way over to the wooden table on which he’d left his cigarettes. He hears Taejun twist, and he keeps his back to him as he battles with his lighter to conjure enough of a spark to catch. 

“Well, you don’t have to be a dick about it.” 

“You’re not gonna marry me.” Jade says, finally lighting his cigarette. He takes a deep draw, finally turning to look at Taejun on his exhale and meeting a pair of sad, confused eyes. “You really imagine a future with me?”

“Of course I do.”

“And at our wedding,” Jade says, taking another draw of his cigarette. “Do I get to invite any guests, or will I still be keeping it all secret from my friends?” 

There's a long silence, and then Taejun says, “you can be really immature sometimes, Jade.” 

“Well,” Jade shrugs. “I'm seven years younger than you.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“I mean… ninety-nine minus ninety-two-”

“No, what do you actually mean, Jade?” 

Jade places his cigarette between his lips, never breaking eye contact with Taejun as he sucks in, something inside him bubbling to a boil. He doesn’t get angry, though, because unlike Taejun, he can control his anger. He speaks as casual as if he’s noting the weather. “I think you’re using me to feel good about yourself, because you’re going to be thirty next year and you have to enlist in a couple of months, and I'm twenty-two and not a citizen.” 

Taejun looks hurt. “Why would you think that?” 

Jade leans his hips against the table. He doesn’t know why he looks down, but he sees the Nike logo on his slides and he blurts it out before he can stop himself. 

“Did you fuck Tetsuo, hyung?” 

The silence probably only lasts a few seconds, but they drag on for hours. Taejun’s face looks offended, but Jade can see the guilt in his eyes and it tells him everything he needs to know. 

“What?” Taejun finally spits out. 

Jade tries to keep it together, tries to stop his hand from shaking as he flicks the ash from his cigarette into the ashtray. “You picked me up, like, two months ago and I walked past him. He'd obviously just had sex and he was wearing your Nike hoodie.” 

“I don’t know what you’re-”

“You fucked Tetsuo.” Jade says, in a factual tone. He betrays no emotion. “Fucked him, dropped him off at our building. Told me to come out. Let us pass each other. Picked me up. And then took me home and fucked me too. Right?” 

Taejun looks like a cornered animal, his big, pretty eyes begging for mercy, but Jade stares him down. When he realises that Taejun isn’t going to speak, he keeps going.

“I think the most insulting part of all of this is that, after all the time you’ve spent with me, you still fucking think I’m stupid.” 

It’s late enough now for the crickets to start their chorus. They don’t change their tone but the longer Taejun sits there, awkwardly twisted around, feet still dangling over the edge of the pool, Jade swears that they reach a crescendo. 

“I'm sorry.” Taejun says, eventually.

And the confirmation is the final bullet. Jade physically feels his heart break, splintering down to the ends of every last vein in his body. He chokes out a gasp, stubbing out his cigarette and roughly swallowing down the lump that immediately forms in his throat. It doesn’t stop his eyes from flooding, though. 

“Why?”

“I don’t-”

“No, tell me why.”

Taejun takes a deep breath. “I guess… because I could.”

Jade clasps a hand over his mouth as a sob pulls itself past his facade and rattles his body. A tear falls through his fringe of lashes, twinkling down his cheek and burning a path. “Oh,” is all he can bring himself to say. 

“Jade-” Taejun says, but Jade just splays his hand out, shaking his head. He just drags his feet back into the house, pulling his jade-coloured glasses off of his forehead and back over his eyes. 

“Hey, Jade!” Ikumi greeted him at the studio break room, making a beeline for the coffee machine. Jade had been sitting at the table for about fifteen minutes just to get out of the room; away from Harin in work mode and Minwoo’s perfectionism reaching drill sergeant status. “Has Seobin spoken to you guys yet?” 

“No?” That had gotten Jade’s attention. “What about?” 

Ikumi turned to lean in the corner of the counter, tucking her pink hair behind her ear. “It was odd.” she’d said. “He took us into his office one by one and asked us about, like, if any of the staff or producers have been inappropriate with us or if we’ve ever been made to feel unsafe or harassed at Valentine.” 

“Really?” Jade asked, feeling his mouth go dry. 

“He’ll probably get you guys in soon. Ahin said he’s already questioned Tarot. apparently Tetsuo cried.”

Another unexpected good thing about Taejun’s weird, stupid, Willy Wonka mansion is that it’s full of baseball paraphernalia. 

With each step, Jade feels his rationale falling away. He's gripped by a weird sort of numbness. He doesn’t care anymore. Doesn’t care about any of it. Doesn’t care about consequences, doesn’t care about whatever retribution may come his way, karmic or personal. And he certainly doesn’t care about Taejun’s feelings. Fuck Taejun. Fuck Taejun. The crickets were Jazmine Sullivan’s heralding violins, now. There was no saving Song Taejun.

It doesn’t take a minute to find a baseball bat. There's one hanging on the wall in the dining room. Jade pulls it from its display and grips the base tightly in his hand. It’s signed; though Jade has no idea who by, he thinks it probably adds a level of salt to the wound. It drags behind him, scraping against the expensive hardwood floors and he moves, past the kitchen and out into the foyer; to the front of the house. 

Jade doesn’t know anything about sports. He doesn’t know how to hold a baseball bat, doesn’t know anything about hand placement or proper form. But he must be doing something right, because as he swings the bat from overhead, both hands wrapped tightly around its base, it dents the hood of Taejun’s precious fucking car perfectly. 

The alarm shrieks, and so he only gets a few more strikes in before the front door wrenches open behind him. He hears footsteps rushing down the drive, and he deals a blow to the windshield. The bat bounces off of the reinforced glass and he stumbles. Taejun makes use of the misstep and grips him by the arm, yanking him away from the car. 

“What the fuck are you doing!?” He screams. “you fucking psychopath!” 

Jade tears himself from his grasp, putting enough space between them to point at him with the end of the bat. Tears stream from his eyes, and his entire body is shaking with adrenaline and anger and maybe panic. 

He knows that he must look insane, but he really doesn’t care. He's a monster of Taejun’s own making. 

“It was ‘cause of you.” He says, in blank comprehension. Taejun just seethes at him. “The investigation. It’s ‘cause of you.” 

“I know this must be uncomfortable.” Seobin had said, looking at Jade with a kindly expression that didn’t suit his normally stoic demeanor. “But you have to tell me if any misconduct has taken place.” 

Jade had been anxious all day, but when it came time to sit down and be questioned by Seobin, he couldn’t help but be gripped by anger. Jade could take care of himself. He wasn’t a victim. 

“I haven't noticed anything.”

“We received a really serious report last week.” Seobin had said. Jade had just looked at him in response, prompting him to continue with a frustrated little shake of his head. “Before we proceed, we need to know the true severity of the situation. I need to find out if this was an isolated incident. has any of the staff, be that management or producers, coaches, teachers- have any of them ever tried to initiate sexual contact with you?” 

Taejun had driven Jade out somewhere secluded and fucked him three days after he’d signed his contract. 

“No.” Jade had said.

“Have any of the staff ever tried to initiate an intimate or otherwise unprofessional relationship with you?”

Taejun had sat behind him in the bath, slowly massaging the conditioner into his hair, and said ‘you’re mine, right?’ before Jade had even debuted. 

“No.” Jade had said. 

“Has anyone at Valentine ever spoken to you in an inappropriate manner, even as a joke, that made you feel uncomfortable or unsafe?” 

Taejun had called him stupid, called him a slut, a whore, vapid, accused him of gold digging, accused him of fucking someone at the company to get casted, called him worthless, mocked him for agreeing to sleep with him so quickly, called him ugly, needled him about every pound gained or lost, told him that he was untalented, nothing but a pretty face, that he had nothing of value to say and the only reason god had given him a mouth was because his ability to suck a cock was his only redeeming quality. 

“No.” Jade had said. 

“Jade,” Seobin had said. “Do you promise you’re being honest with me?”

Jade had agreed to be Taejun’s because he meant it. He’d chosen to be in this relationship, and that meant taking the down with the up. he loves Taejun. (He loves Taejun, he loves Taejun.)

“Yes.” Jade had said. 

“Jade.” There’s a panic in Taejun’s eyes. “I don’t- You’re not-“ 

“What did you do?” Jade asks. 

“I didn’t-“ 

Jade bends his arm, making as if he’s going to swing the bat at Taejun. It’s an empty threat, but Taejun flinches and backs away from him. It makes Jade feel powerful, fills his brain with a weird drunken thump of masculinity. “What the fuck did you do!?” 

“I didn't mean to scare him!” Taejun yells. His eyes well with tears. “I just tried to kiss him-“

“Kiss who!?”

“Junjie!” Taejun shouts. His hand tears through his hair. “I thought he was- I only tried to kiss him but he fell over when he pulled away and he hurt himself-“

“You’re telling me that the reason my friend’s arm is in a cast right now is because he was trying to get away from you!?” 

Taejun keeps babbling, keeps making up excuses for himself but the blood pounding in Jade’s head is way too loud for him to hear. All he can register is the incessant yelping of the car alarm and his own pounding pulse. He's not trying to listen, regardless. The only thing he can think about is Junjie. 

Junjie with his twig limbs and his waist the width of a normal person’s neck; Junjie who Taejun completely towers over in stature. He thinks about how much bigger Taejun is than Junjie, he thinks about Junjie falling so hard he fractured a bone in his desperation to get away. He thinks about the man he loves scaring someone like that. 

And he thinks of the dark look in Taejun’s eye that night in the club, he thinks about the bruises he’d left on Jade’s hips. He thinks about the stranger who had greeted him with an innuendo, and Taejun’s dirty snicker, and the thousands of pictures of his faceless, naked body on Taejun’s phone. For some reason, he thinks about the nice upperclassman who’d comforted him through a panic attack in the bathroom at his first high school party, only to spread the rumor that Jade had tried to suck his dick and doom him to a lifetime of precedent reputation.

It takes every last drop of effort in his body not to swing the bat at Taejun’s head and keep swinging until he was nothing but unidentifiable mush.

He twists around, bringing the bat down against Taejun’s wing mirror and knocking it from the car in one fell swoop. Taejun lets out a yelp as if Jade has struck him himself, and when Jade turns to look at him, he doesn’t see a man. He sees a pathetic, vague impression of a person, trying his hardest to be a stereotype of a celebrity at the expense of at least three young men with actual fame, actual talent and actual futures. 

Jade tosses the bat on the ground. 

“Don’t talk to me ever again.” He says, setting off down the driveway, in nothing but his swimming trunks and his sunglasses. 

Taejun is too prideful to follow and beg Jade to stay. He's too proud to report the damages on his car, even. 

And Jade pities him for that. 

He fishes his phone out of his pocket and makes a call. 

“Hey, hyung,” he says. “I'm really sorry, but could you come get me?”

“Why were you at Taejun’s?” Seungsoo asks. Jade feels guilty, sitting in his car. He’d tried not to use Seungsoo like a personal chaperone the way that Minwoo did, but the only other person he knew who could drive was Hayana, and he definitely wasn’t close enough with her to ask her to drive to the edge of the city in the middle of the night to pick him up at Taejun’s gate. He’d given him his hoodie and left him alone for the duration of the drive, but Jade had known he would question him as soon as they pulled up outside of the dorm. 

He’d prepared for it, but it doesn’t stop his heart from missing a couple of beats as he finally gives his answer. 

“I came to have sex with him.” Jade says. Seungsoo blinks, turning to look at him with a shocked expression. Jade shrugs.

“What? Jade-”

“I’ve had sex with him, like, a thousand times. We did it the first time right after I joined the company. We’ve been dating.” 

A silence swells in the car, and Seungsoo buries his face in his hands, elbows resting on the steering wheel. “You boys are going to be the fucking death of me.” He says. 

“Don’t worry. I just dumped him.”

Seungsoo sighs, looking up from his hands at Jade. The look on his face is beyond exhaustion. “Jade,” he says. “Taejun is close to losing his job right now. He-”

“I know.” Jade says. “Junjie and Tetsuo. I know.” 

Seungsoo pauses, before pushing himself back up again, head thumping against the back of the headrest. 

“I'd like to tell Seobin.” Jade says. 

“Are you sure?” Seungsoo asks, eying him warily. Jade squirms under his gaze. Seungsoo was a great comfort to the other boys, but Jade had joined the company too old to see him as a weird father figure like they do. 

“I wanted to date him. I really had strong feelings for him, and I consented to everything we did sexually.” Jade plays with the idea of confessing to the way Taejun had grabbed him and hurt him. He even had Cairo as witness to that. But he can't. He can’t be looked at like that, can’t give them the opportunity to turn it all into something he’s not and force him to accept hard truths that he’s not even ready to process yet. “So, I don’t have anything super serious to report. But he still broke his contract, right?”

“He did.” Seungsoo says. 

“So I'll tell Seobin. If it means Junjie never has to come face to face with him again, I'll tell Seobin everything.” 

“I can pick you up tomorrow morning, then.” Seungsoo offers. “And take you to the building.” 

“Will you come into Seobin’s office with me?” 

“Of course I will.” 

Jade thanks Seungsoo, and automatically reaches for his pocket for his cigarettes, only to realize that he’d left them at Taejun’s. He feels it crack at him, but he holds it together long enough to drag himself up to the third floor, quietly sneak through the dorm to the bathroom, and peel himself from his clothes. 

It’s when the shower starts that he crumbles, loses grasp on all of his pieces and letting them clatter like shrapnel as he falls apart. He sits in the bottom of the tub, head tucked between his knees as the shower batters against his back, and he’s overcome by heaving sobs, tears and snot streaming down his face. He’d never cried like this before, but there’s no dignity to be had anymore, and so he lets himself choke up embarrassing noises and lets his face twist in emotional agony, he can look ugly here, where there’s nobody to see and no record of proof. 

Because it hits him, suddenly, that he’d have been presented an inescapable narrative if not for his one sided oath of secrecy regarding his and Taejun’s affair. His friends, the ones he’d love nothing more than to seek comfort in, had no idea that he’d ever been with Taejun, and he resolves to make sure that they never find out. He won’t play a broken doll for anyone. And after what Taejun has done, he knows they’ll make assumptions and he knows they won’t believe him no matter how much he insists everything was fine until it wasn’t. 

But he’ll give himself the night to mourn. Mourn the astroturf lawn and picket fence he was never going to get. Mourn the delusion of it all. It was a nice daydream. That’s all it had ever been. 

A thousand blind eyes turned, and a beautiful, perfect daydream.

[junkratsadstuck]

wwdits season 4 leak transcript under the cut (spoilers, obviously)

EDIT: this post is outdated!!! see more below cut

EDIT: kyrilu has located the sides for these scenes! i got a few things wrong when determining who was speaking so i encourage yall to check it out and download a copy in case it gets taken down: https://kyrilu.tumblr.com/post/682188753101553664/risking-another-takedown-notice-my-beloved

ORIGINAL POST:

encouraging you all to download the video / this transcript if you want em just in case it gets taken down for copyright!!! because i have seen stuff like this get taken down before!!!

anyways the video is here >>> https://vimeo.com/594373284

this is my best interpretation of what's going on - the only character onscreen is the Dijnn and the offscreen characters all have the same voice, so if it's not a line by the Dijnn I'm just making my best guess as to who's talking.

— Scene One — Nandor: So how does this work? How many wishes can you grant me? So is it three, or… Dijnn: Maybe more, maybe fewer. Do you wish to know? Nandor: Well yeah, or else I wouldn’t have asked, so…. Guillermo: Careful master, this is how they get you! Nandor: Shush! Yes, I wish to know how many wishes. Dijnn: Twenty-three. But you just used one, so you have twenty-two left. Nandor: I had thirty-seven wives, and one of them I specifically remember I really loved… I just can’t remember which one. Dijnn: Okay, what was her name? Nandor: Uh… I don’t remember her name, but I do remember that she had long dark hair, I think. Dijnn: Twenty-eight of them had long dark hair. Nandor: Huh. Was there a Becky? Dijnn: No. Nandor: How about a Delal? I think he had a fun handlebar mustache. Dijnn: There were three Dalals. Nandor: (To self: You kidding me?…) You know what? Just bring back all of them and we’ll figure it out. Dijnn: Is this your wish? Nandor: This is my wish. I wish for you to bring back all thirty-seven of my dead wives.

— Scene Two — Laszlo: So, are we clear on placement? Dijnn: Yes, noted, it should be in the usual place between the legs. Laszlo: Yes, and not in a separate container such as a jar or a briefcase, or on my chin. Dijnn: Writing Nor… On… Chin… . Done. Stipulated. Nadja: As far as size goes, it should not be so big as it crushes me. Dijnn: What about a mouse? Laszlo: For a penis? No, I don't think so, genie trickster. Nadja: I think he means, “Should the new member be large enough to crush a mouse?” Dijnn: That is exactly what I meant. Laszlo: Huh. A dick so big you could crush a mouse? Yes, don’t mind if I do. … Okay, read that back, please. Dijnn: No substitution of whale or other species penis. Party in possession of the new penis… Laszlo: That’s me. Dijnn: …should be able to comfortably perform physical activities such as walking, running, skipping, crossing legs, et cetera. Should not require purchase of new clothes… Are you sure about that one? Laszlo: Why do you ask? Dijnn: Ninety percent of my business is penis enlargements. Laszlo: That many? Really? Dijnn: Yup. And our clients do NOT mind buying new clothes. Laszlo: Alright. Fine, strike it out. Dijnn: Very well. It has been struck Nadja: Darling, I hate to interrupt your business, but I know that you wish to see Richie Suck at the club? Laszlo: Almost done, my morning star. Dijnn: Richie Suck the rap artist? My cousin granted him wishes to get five mics in the source. Huh, small world. Okay, you guys wanted to circle back about concerns about the balls?

— Scene Three — Dijnn: Okay master, your wish is… Guillermo: Hey, whoa, wait. You can’t give him the world’s largest penis by making everyone else’s penis smaller. Nandor: Oh wow. Very good catch, Guillermo. Dijnn: Shit. Well done, familiar. I was moments away from giving all the men in the world besides Nandor a micro-wang. Nandor: Why would you do such a thing? Dijnn: It’s part of the job, I guess. Y’know, I teach lessons in desire, greed, et cetera… by fucking with the wishes from these so-called masters, but you two bested me. Familiar’s got a shrewd and incisive mind for penis stuff. Nandor: Thank you, Guillermo. I appreciate your help and every time I use my new big dick I will think of all… and all you have done for me. Dijnn: Indeed. So is this your wish? Nandor: This is my wish. Dijnn: Wish granted. Magical hand gesture Nandor: Holy shit! That’ll do, pig! Guillermo, come look at this unit! Dijnn: It’s only about twenty percent bigger than what you already had. Guillermo?: No kidding. I’ll be damned. Dijnn: I’m surprised you wanted more, but yeah, it turned out really beautiful if I do say so myself.

[seriouslysam8]

Legerdemain Sneak Peek

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The One Where Lily Meets Beatrice

“Hey, Dad, can you take me to pick up Ko today from treatment?” Lily asked as she turned around on the stool to look at him.

Harry bent down and kissed her on the top of her head. “I’m sorry, Lils, I need to head into work early today."

“Well, Lily, how does it feel to have Dad finally say no to you?” Albus quipped, amusement clear in his voice.

“Harry…” Ginny said in a low tone as he walked past her to grab some coffee she had made for him. “Are you all right?”

Harry hummed before he made his way to stand next to Ginny with a steaming mug of coffee in his hand. “Fine. Just… we had a break in the case yesterday and everything is a mess and… I’m going to be swamped for the next few weeks while we figure some things out.”

“What happened with the case?” Albus asked. “Do you think my trial will get thrown out? I mean, we’re like a month away from it starting. I’d rather it never begins.”

“I’m trying, Albus,” Harry said with a sigh.

Ginny snaked an arm around his waist and rested her head against his arm. She wished the kids weren’t in the room so she could ask Harry exactly what the breakthrough was. Even then, there was only about a fifty percent chance that he’d actually tell her what it was. She never knew just how much he would be willing to talk about when it came to work. She’d hope that since it involved their son, he’d be a little more forthcoming.

“Scorpius, can you check Harry’s pressure?” Ginny asked.

“I’m fine,” Harry snapped as he took a step away from her.

“Did you take your potion this morning, Dad?” Lily asked.

Harry’s jaw tightened as he sat his coffee cup onto the island a little harder than necessary. “Yes, I took my bloody potion! You lot have got to stop the hovering!”

“We’re just concerned about you, Dad,” Albus replied. “You don’t look so well.”

“I didn’t get home until nearly three in the morning and only got four hours of sleep. Of course, I don’t look so well. I’m exhausted and I have even more work on my plate right now.”

“Harry, you’re spreading yourself too thin,” Ginny whispered.

“We’re all spreading ourselves thin!” Harry argued. “Ron, James, Hunter, Demelza, Sutton. All of us are spread thin right now! We don’t know who to trust, we don’t know who is with us and against us, we don’t know who is being bought and manipulated. My department is in shambles. Literal shambles right now and I’m just trying to piece it back together!”

“You need to trust more people!” Ginny argued. “You have an entire department and not every-”

“I trusted Reed!” Harry shouted, his chest heaving and eyes wide. “I trusted him, Ginny! Robards and I trusted him! Look what he did! He was corrupt the entire fucking time I knew him and I never saw it! What does that say about me?”

“It says you see the good in people,” Ginny responded in a soft tone. “It means that you trusted your fellow Aurors. You should be able to do that. You walk into danger with them day after day after day. You should be able to trust that they have your back. Reed violated that trust. It has nothing to do with you and it says absolutely nothing about you. It sure as hell says a lot about him though.”

[keanureevesisbae]

But professor… - c.8

Summary: Walter and Penny adapt to Maryland

Professor!Walter Marshall x Penny Townsend (Asian ofc)

Wordcount: 2.1k

Warnings: None

Masterlist // But professor… masterlist // Previous chapter //

Tomorrow Walter and I are going to move to Maryland and there is just one more thing I need to do: buy some snacks. My cravings have been all over the place recently, so a trip without snack is asking for trouble. Walter is packing the final things with my mom and dad and in a minute they are going to put everything in the truck and U-haul. Since I’m the only one that knows what I really want, I decided to go on a little grocery store trip.

I’m wearing an oversized sweater on top of my leggings and it’s almost the only piece of clothing that is able to hide the bump. I’m seventeen weeks pregnant now, meaning the bump is harder and harder to hide, however this sweater will do. The chances of me running into someone I actually know is next to zero, but better be safe than sorry.

I walk into the grocery store and grab a basket, slowly filling it with what I want. ‘There she is,’ I hear a voice say, one I haven’t heard in so long and certainly haven’t missed.

Fitzgerald.

Every hair in my neck stands up straight. I simply pull my lips into an awkward smile, before walking off to the register. As I’m scanning the products, he actually follows me and I hate how this guy never understands the message, spoken or unspoken.

‘So, you haven’t been coming to classes,’ he says.

‘I know,’ I say, ‘I quit. Been looking into some other things.’

That is already more than I actually wanted to share with him, but hopefully it’s enough to make him go away.

‘Oh really? What you been looking into?’

Just fuck off, Fitzgerald. ‘First of all moving back home,’ I say, packing everything in my bag. ‘New York never really was the place for me.’ After paying for my snacks, I walk out of the store, only to hear the footsteps of the guy who just won’t leave me alone following behind me.

‘Did you hear that professor Marshall is quitting?’

Yes, I actually helped him writing his resignation letter. ‘Oh,’ I say, ‘I didn’t.’

‘Apparently he got a job offer somewhere else.’

Yep, in Maryland. ‘Good for him,’ I say. ‘Well, I gotta go. Bye, Fitzgerald.’

He wants to say something, but then his eyes widen. ‘Yeah, bye,’ he says. He quickly turns around and is gone by the time I looked over my shoulder at him.

What was that about?

When I look up, I glare at Walter, who is standing on the other side of the road, leaning against a street light, his arms crossed. I walk up to him and without saying a word at first, we get mixed into the crowd. ‘What was that about?’ I ask him.

‘Nothing,’ he says, a little too nonchalant for my liking, ‘just wanted to make sure that you weren’t carrying anything too heavy.’ He pulls the bags from my hands and adds: ‘I hate that snotty kid.’

‘I had everything under control,’ I say, poking his side. ‘Did you see him scooting away?’

‘I wish I had it on video,’ Walter chuckles.

My parents are already in the U-haul they rented to make moving as quickly and easy as possible for us and I hand them some snacks.

‘Oh, honey, I’m so glad you’re moving back,’ mom says, after our final pee. Walter just handed over the key to the realtor of his loft and stands behind me, before he says: ‘I know I am happy to move to Maryland. I quite love the place already.’ He presses a kiss on my temple.

My parents get in the U-haul and I wave to them as they drive off. Walter helps me in the truck and when he sits next to me, he gives me a kiss. ‘I love you,’ he tells me.

‘I love you too, Walter.’ I take off my sweater, before strapping myself in the seatbelt. ‘It’s ridiculously hot in here,’ I say, leaning back against the seat.

‘Twenty bucks you are gonna be cold within half an hour.’

I glare at him. ‘That’s mean.’

‘Ah, princess, don’t pout. You know how that makes me weak.’ I continue to tut my bottom lip out and he chuckles. ‘Let’s just hope the baby doesn’t get your pout, because otherwise I can never say no.’

‘No matter what the baby looks like,’ I say, ‘you’re gonna be unable to say no anyway. You are such a push over with me, this baby will wrap you around their finger in no time.’

‘Ai, exposed.’ He holds my hand in his as he drives off and gives me a kiss on my knuckles.

‘You thought about the co sleeping thing I mentioned to you?’ I ask him.

He sighs. ‘Yes and I’m not sure about it. I mean, we could place a crib in our room, right?’

‘But that’s so sad for the baby. To be alone like that after living inside my stomach for so long. What if they don’t be to be alone? They are not gonna sleep in our bed forever, Walter.’

‘I know,’ he says, ‘but… what if I crush them? I mean, they would be in between us, so… That means no sleep for me.’

I start to laugh. ‘That was your worry? Oh, Walter.’ Since I’m already close to him, I wrap my arms around his neck to give him a kiss on his cheek. ‘Aren’t you absolutely darling?’

I actually spot a faint blush on his cheeks.

I decide not to push it any further, because I feel like this co sleep thing is something that needs to simmer for awhile. ‘Can I ask a question?’ I ask.

He nods. ‘Of course.’

‘What if something goes wrong,’ I start, but he is having none of it.

‘No, no, no, nothing is gonna go wrong.’

‘But what if?’ I say. ‘I mean, something could go wrong during birth.’

He clenches his jaw, not wanting to talk about it obviously. ‘I see,’ he mumbles.

‘What I wanted to say was that if I am unable to answer, that you should decide what happens, okay? I’m one hundred percent sure you are going to choose the right thing for us.’

He smiles. ‘That’s what you wanted to tell me?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Oh, princess, princess, don’t scare me like that, okay?’

I smile. ‘Sorry.’

✎ ✎ ✎

Walter and I bought a house and never in a million years did I expect to have this type of domestic life at only twenty one, however it’s exactly the life I have now and I wouldn’t change it for the world. The move from New York and Maryland went pretty swiftly, especially because my parents helped a lot, since it’s only twenty minutes from my parents’ place.

The place we chose was already pretty great, but Walter and I decided—okay, I decided—that some wallpaper should cheer it up. It was a lot of white and it made me feel like I was at a dentist. There’s lots of pastel going on now, mint green, baby blue, soft pink and some yellow.

However, Walter did all the work, because he doesn’t want me to do anything. Too much work can’t be good for the baby, princess.

He now works at the Maryland Police Department and he is actually enjoying it a lot. He now is on patrol duties, but it will only take a few months before he is back as a detective again.

Weeks have gone by and today marks me being twenty seven weeks pregnant. I won’t lie about it, but I’m very over this pregnancy already. Everything hurts. My head hurts, my stomach hurts, my boobs hurts and don’t get me started on my back. I’m mostly sitting on the couch, reading both informative books and novels if I’m not mindlessly watching Netflix shows.

I am a horrendous cook, but I continue to try some things for Walter, because I hate it that he has to both work and cook himself some dinner when he’s off.

Walter comes back from work and smiles when he sees me. ‘There is my beautiful woman,’ he says. ‘Princess, princess, aren’t you gorgeous.’

‘Stop,’ I chuckle, trying to get up from the couch, but fail miserably. ‘I’m sorry, but dinner got burned.’

He smiles. ‘That’s okay, princess. I’ll order some take out, don’t you worry.’

‘I’m really useless,’ I admit. ‘I’m so sorry.’

He scoffs. ‘Don’t say stuff like that. You’re never useless.’ He wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me against his side. ‘Tell me what did you do today?’

‘I went to that meeting,’ I say, ‘talked about being a first time mom. It’s just that…’ I place my head against his shoulder. ‘I’m scared.’

‘Why is that, princess?’

‘What if I’m a terrible mom?’

‘You’re not gonna be a terrible mom,’ he retorts. ‘The audacity to think you’re gonna be a terrible mom, when I know that you are nothing but sweet, kind, lovely and you will be a wonderful mom.’

‘Really?’ I ask.

‘Really, darling.’ He places his hand on my stomach and says: ‘It’s okay to be scared, however, you have nothing to worry about. Not when I am right here for the two of you.’

✎ ✎ ✎

The next day, while my mom and I are folding some baby clothes, we watch dad and Walter finish the crib. Mom has been sharing embarrassing baby stories about me and to make things even worse, my dad adds a few stories to it, some I didn’t even know.

Thankfully Walter really enjoys them, because he chuckles loudly. It took him awhile, but he is really liking it, having my parents around.

‘You really don’t want to know the gender?’ mom asks me.

‘No,’ I say, ‘I like to be surprised.’

‘Walter,’ my mom sighs, ‘can’t you talk some sense into her?’

‘Sorry, CC,’ he says, ‘but I kinda like the surprise too.’

She scoffs, before she lets out a chuckle. The baby already made the bond between my parents and I a lot tighter and for that I’m forever grateful.

I resit a little and Walter wouldn’t be Walter if he didn’t notice immediately I was slightly uncomfortable. ‘Princess, are you okay?’

‘Yeah, just my back hurts.’

‘How about you go to bed?’ Walter suggests. ‘Rest a little? You’ve been up pretty early on.’ When I don’t stand up immediately, he walks over to me and crouches down in front of me. ‘What’s wrong, princess?’

‘Nothing, just tired and in pain, that’s all.’

He nods, pulls me up and holds my hand tightly in his. I want to apologize to my parents, but my mom simply tells me not to worry. ‘Pregnancy can be rough, darling,’ she says, ‘so please don’t worry.’

I wonder if it’s hard for my mom to see me pregnant, when she couldn’t get pregnant herself. She never said it to me, but still I wonder from time to time. Even if she does have some hard feelings against it, she never shows it, as she is super supportive of the pregnancy. I give her a kiss, just like I give my dad a kiss and mom says: ‘Walter, did you even sleep last night?’

‘No, this one woke me up,’ he says with a smile.

‘You should sleep as well. You had a late shift the day before yesterday and you two should get a lot of sleep when you can. When the baby is here, she’ll keep you up.’

‘We really don’t know the gender, mom,’ I say with a chuckle. ‘I don’t know if they are gonna be a he or a she.’

‘Worth a shot, you gotta give me that. Okay, you go rest, we finish up in here and let ourselves out. We love you.’

‘Love you too,’ I say back, before Walter and I walk towards the bedroom. He helps me out of my sweatpants and into the bed. I hug the pregnancy pillow, and the bed dips down a bit when Walter gets underneath the thin blanket behind me. He places his hand on my stomach, before kissing my temple. ‘You comfortable, sweetheart?’

‘I am,’ I whisper. ‘I’m sorry I’m keeping you up.’

‘No, don’t do that.’

It only causes me to sniffle, but Walter knows exactly what to do when I have these slight emotional outbursts. He pulls my back closer against his chest, despite him being very warm, he tugs the blankets over our bodies and warms me up even more, giving me more kisses on the side of my face. ‘It can get pretty rough, princess,’ he says, ‘and that’s okay. Just let it all out, okay?’

‘Why are you so sweet?’ I hiccup.

He chuckles. ‘Well, you’re gonna be the mom of our kid and you’re my girlfriend. Of course I’m gonna be sweet to you. Forever and ever, princess. Forever and ever.’

[thisisawonderfulusername]

let's save the world

season two, episode eight

five hargreeves x reader

summary: you have one final idea to get back to twenty-nineteen: finding yourselves

warnings: cursing

word count: 2.6k

a/n: this took for fucking ever but i'm not even gonna apologize at this point because i'm ninety percent sure it will happen again. sorry in advanced. just be glad i did it, alright? anyways, please enjoy episode eight, i loved writing it, i don't know why i put it off for so long

“we were that close.” you whisper to yourself as you go up the stairs, “so close.”

the door to one of the rooms slams behind you as you quickly look through the cabinets, before finding a bottle of whiskey. the only thing you need right now.

you twist the cap off, tossing it to the side as you sit on the couch with a heavy sigh.

you can hear luther speaking as he presumably follows five up the steps, but you don’t focus too much on what he’s saying. something about making a new plan, which almost makes you laugh. no other plan would ever work, if this one didn’t. his family would never let that happen.

the door opens once again as five enters, slamming it shut and locking it before luther can come in behind him. “five!” the big man shouts outside of the door, knocking on it, “come to what?” a sigh follows shortly after, and you hear his steps recede, apparently giving up.

you look to five, holding the bottle out, “want some?”

when he takes it, you expect him to take a drink, not find the cap and twist it back on, “what are you doing?” he questions.

“what are you doing?” you shoot the question back, reaching for the bottle, “if you didn’t want any, you didn’t have to take it.”

he looks at you incredulously, holding it out of your reach, “we still have an apocalypse to stop! you can’t just be sitting in here drinking!”

at that, you let out a loud laugh, yet nothing about this is funny. “you’re kidding, right?” you raise an eyebrow, sinking into the cushions, “i’m done with that.”

setting the booze on the coffee table, his eyebrows furrow at you, “what do you mean? you can’t be done with it. we don’t have much time!”

“don’t you get it, five?” you lean forward as you look up at him, “we can’t stop this. no matter how hard we try, we’ll never be able to. there’s always something that gets in the way when we get seconds away from actually doing it. let’s face it, the world is against us, and this apocalypse is happening.” you sound defeated, and you hate hearing it. you never wanted to give up, to let the world get the best of you. it tried to before, and you persevered. but none of that matters anymore, because soon enough, you'll be nuked and your existence won't have mattered.

he’s shaking his head in disbelief, “no. no, it isn’t. you’re supposed to be the one helping me, y/n! we can still do it.”

“and what’s your plan this time? do you even have one?” you can feel the tears brimming your eyes, and you hate feeling this weak in front of him, but there was no stopping it now.

“i do.” he states, “but i need you to help me.”

sitting on the couch next to you, turned in your direction, he gently guides your eyes to his, his hand resting on your cheek. "i can't do this without you. i can't save the world if i don't have you to help me."

a tear escapes and you quickly wipe it away, sniffling as you gather yourself before you break down completely. "fine." you breathe.

-

you were currently in the kitchen, chugging down as much water as you could from a pitcher before passing it along to five. This plan was so, so stupid. he began to drink from it as well, and luther, who had been napping on the couch, entered.

“five, what…” he glances between the two of you, you putting baby powder anywhere on your body you deemed necessary, and to him, taking in a breath as he flipped the top closed on the pitcher. “are you guys okay?” he questions in confusion.

“we need to be hydrated.” he breathes out, and you hand him the baby powder once you were finished.

if it was possible, luther’s confusion grew, “what’s with the baby powder?”

“it’ll help with the itching.” you state, giving no further explanation.

“what itching? there’s itching? what the hell is going on here?” as five puts some of the powder in his pants, realization dawns on his face, “you do have a plan.”

grabbing his blazer, five sighs, “well, it’s a desperation move, but… since our brain-dead siblings are incapable of meeting a simple deadline, well- we have no choice.”

“no choice about what?” you follow him into the living room, flipping the watch you stole from the formerly sleeping man- since he no longer needed it- open.

“we have to find ourselves.”

luther is so stunned, trying to process it, that he doesn’t speak. “we just arrived in dallas fifteen minutes ago.” you state, closing the watch and sticking it back in your pocket.

“should i be worried about you guys?” luther finally asks, his eyebrows furrowing at the two of you.

“luther, if you recall,” five speaks as he begins to stretch, “we were sent to nineteen sixty-three on a job by the commission to make sure the president was assassinated.”

“oh!” luther starts to understand, “so, wait, your old self is out there.”

“precisely.”

“what, just walking around dallas?”

“walking around dallas with a briefcase that can get us home.” you tell him with a smile. now, if this plan didn’t work, you were truly screwed. of course, the older looking versions of yourselves won’t give up the briefcase so easily, but you know for a fact you can do it. and with that briefcase, there wouldn’t be a time limit. you could gather all of the siblings together and finally be rid of the apocalypse. maybe, just maybe, it will be the last that you have to deal with.

“oh, my god.” luther’s hands come together in front of him, “you are geniuses.”

“however, there are two significant problems with this plan.” five tells him, you nodding along, “problem number one: we are two trained assassins, arguably the most dangerous assassins in the space-time continuum. If we know ourselves, we’re not going to react kindly to bumping into us.”

you knew it sounded like you were giving yourselves a pat on the back, but he wouldn’t be saying it if it wasn’t true. and it definitely was.

“problem number two,” he paces, “this is the real fly in the ointment here: you’re not supposed to exist in close proximity to yourself in the same timeline. the side effects can be disastrous.”

luther seems as if he’s trying to process all of this, “side effects? what sort of side effects?”

“well, according to commission handbook chapter twenty-seven, subsection three-b, the seven stages in paradox psychosis are…”

“stage one: denial.” you begin counting off on your fingers,

“two: itching.” five looks to his brother,

“three: extreme thirst and urination,”

“four: excessive gas,”

“five: acute paranoia,”

“six: uncontrolled perspiration,”

“and seven:” you pause for a moment, dropping your hands, “homicidal rage.”

“homicidal rage?” luther questions, to which both of you confirm, “jeez, i don’t know. this maybe isn’t such a good idea.”

five begins to pace again, throwing his arms to the side, “it’s a hail mary. but what choice do we got, luther?”

leaning against the door frame, the large man shrugs, “i don’t know, you already seem a bit squirrely if i’m being honest.”

“listen luther, we’re gonna need you to help us get through this one, alright?” you stand in front of him, “we need… a spotter.”

“a spotter?”

“yeah,” you breathe out.

his eyebrows furrow, “what is that, like a wingman?”

“in case the paradox psychosis gets too severe,” five strides over, “we need you to help us stay on task, alright? so whatever happens, whatever we say, we need to get that briefcase. okay?”

“okay,” luther breathes.

“okay.” your shoulders relax.

both you and five turn and make your way to the steps, and you barely realize that luther is still at the doorway, staring in front of him. “luther, come on!”

“right.”

-

there’s an irish jig playing as you enter the bar, and chatter fills the air between the people inside, sitting at tables and at the stools along the bar countertop. you look around, skimming over all of the people, until you see them. or- you and five. it’s weird, seeing the older looking woman who sat next to the older looking five. you barely recognized them, since you had been looking at your thirteen year old selves for a while now.

“there we are.” five has spotted them as well. sitting at the bar, the briefcase on the raised wood that acted as a footrest between the two older versions of you.

“why don’t we just grab the briefcase and run?” luther asks.

“luther, we would never let that happen.” you tell him, looking up at him for a second, “we’re trained to guard those briefcases with our lives.”

“right.”

“plus, it’s the inherent paradox where this gets tricky.” five adds in. “we’re endangering our existence just being in the same room with ourselves.”

“huh? what do you mean?”

you roll your eyes, “luther, keep up. if our old selves don’t travel back to twenty-nineteen like we’re supposed to, the whole thing unravels itself. we cease to exist. got it?”

“i… got it.” he doesn’t seem to, but you decide not to try to explain further and confuse him even more.

“so our best chance is to talk with them, to reason with them.” five rolls his shoulders back, “they’ll understand. trust me. i know us better than… better than i know us.” the sentence is confusing, but the point gets across.

as five reaches up to scratch his neck, luther is quick to point it out, “that’s stage two of paradox psychosis.” he whispers urgently.

“no, i didn’t.” five states, “i didn’t itch my neck.”

“denial is stage one.” the large man points out.

“let’s stay on task, shall we?” you wave towards the two of you sitting at the bar, and as you’re about to step forward, luther reaches his hand out to stop you.

“wait!” you look at him in a mix of confusion and annoyance, “maybe i should go first.”

“why?” five asks him, also confused.

“well, you’ll freak them out.” he motions at the two of you, “bumping into your own tiny doppelganger? they’ll lose their shit.” he looks to the older versions of you, “just, let me break the ice.”

five glances around, sighing, “okay.”

“okay.” luther breathes out slowly, and you watch as he approaches the two older yous. you’re not sure if you can trust him one hundred percent.

as he begins to speak, the two of you very quickly get confused and on guard. meanwhile, you unconsciously grab hold of five’s hand to approach. “nope! don’t freak out. no freak-outs. alright.”

as the large man slowly steps to the side, you see yourself- your old self- tense up at the sight of younger looking you. “hey there, stranger.” your five speaks up, and the two older yous are almost shaking in their shoes from the shock and confusion.

you swear you see fear in your own eyes. it’s a look you remember seeing when you first landed back in twenty-nineteen and looked in the mirror at the you that had gotten stuck in the apocalypse. the you that was stuck alone for years until the commission brought you back to five. it was jarring to you as well, at first.

you remember staring into your own eyes. the little girl who had held five’s hand as he discovered the full extent of his powers, until it disappeared from her grasp and she was left in a smoldering, crumbling world.

-

the five of you had gotten a table, and you sat across from your older self, gaze unwavering. out of the corner of your eye, you could see the two fives glaring at each other.

“well, isn’t this nice?” luther breaks the silent tension, “the five of us, together like this.”

“no.” all four of you speak in unison, and luther is clearly uncomfortable, almost squirming in his seat.

the old five doesn’t look away from himself as he begins to speak, “somebody explain to me how it is i’m having a pint of guinness with my younger self.”

“older, actually.” the five sitting next to you states, “i’m you, just fourteen days older.”

“i have pubic hair smarter than you.” the other you says coldly, her fingers laced together on the table in front of her, “how’s that possible?”

“i can explain,” the younger seeming boy responds, “you see, one hour from now, on the grassy knoll, before the president is killed, you break your contract with the commission.” he leans forward slightly, “i already know you’re thinking about it. all those years in the apocalypse, we never stopped worrying about our family. well today, you’re going to do something about it.” he sits up straighter.

“today, you are going to attempt to time travel back to twenty-nineteen. however, you are going to screw up the jump, and end up in this twip of a body.” he points to himself with his two thumbs. “trapped forever, small, pubescent.”

“okay.” the older one finally breaks his stare, shaking in his seat, “even if i was to believe you, what am i supposed to do, not jump?”

“no, no.” you break away from the eyes of yourself, “we need you to jump. if you don’t jump, we cease to exist.” you motion between yourself and your five, “what we need is for you to jump correctly.”

“i’m listening.”

“the first time through, i got the calculation wrong. that’s how we ended up in these bodies.” five begins to explain, “but now, i know the correct calculation.”

the other is almost on the edge of his seat in anticipation, “what is it?”

“he’ll tell you.” you tell him, causing his gaze to turn to you instead, “in exchange for the briefcase you’re holding under the table.”

“yeah, yeah.” luther speaks up from where he’s sitting, “so now, you go back to twenty-nineteen, as planned, but this time with the right math, so you remain a full grown man. in exchange for that briefcase that you no longer need.” he points to the space between the older yous where it rests, a smile on his face.

“timeline restored, paradox resolved.” five speaks, “everyone goes on, existing happily ever after.”

the older you finally breaks her silence, “that’s quite a bit to take in.”

everyone’s heads turn towards her, “what do you think?” five asks, glancing between the two of them.

“i think,” older five says, “i need to piss.” he promptly states, standing from his seat and grabbing the briefcase, heading in the direction of the bathrooms. older you quickly looks between all of you, before also standing up and heading in that direction as well. you have a feeling that they’ll be discussing the situation at hand.

once they disappear down the hall where the bathrooms are, luther breaks the short silence that fell between the three of you. “well, besides the flop sweat, i think that went pretty well, right?” you had barely noticed, but there was, in fact, beads of sweat on your face, and you grabbed one of the napkins to wipe it away while luther patted one to five’s face.

“no, there’s something…” five fidgets in his seat, “something doesn’t feel right about this.”

luther is confused, which you’ve noticed happens a lot. “what… what do you mean?”

agreeing with five’s sentiment, you shake your head, “i don’t trust them.”

“but… they’re you.” he states in confusion.

“exactly.” the two of you speak in unison.

“well… i’m going to go to the bathroom too… maybe talk to him?” it’s more of a question as he stands up before quickly scurrying away.

“they’re planning something.” you state, leaning back in your seat as you scratch the back of your neck.

nodding, five takes a drink from his glass, “we have to be ready for whatever it is. we’re dangerous.”

“very.”

-

taglists

main: @horrorklaus @megasimpleplan4ever

tua: @rasberrymay @noodlextrash @atomicpillar @malfovs @andreasworlsboring101​ @lunylovelovegood

five taglist: @anapocalypseinmymind @five-hargreeves-official @insatiable-ivy @coffee-e-addict @xplrreylo @fandomfreakff @colie-babi @flowertoty @avovada @badwolf00593

let’s save the world: @aspiringwriter1 @thetrashypanda423 @lilacs-lavender @wow-lookit-all-the-fandoms @ohmyitsfaith @xplrreylo @fandomfreakff @onedollarduck @sleepygal124 @faith-quake @stripedchickens @youcandalekmyballs @pettyjayy @libidinexx @bts-chub @theoriginalkat @flowertoty @whenyouwantdeath @ot7purple @purblerain @megasimpleplan4ever @whenyouregrungeaff @dumdumsun @malfovs @hxney-lemcn @frnks-stuff @imwaytootires @avovada @badwolf00593 @dumdumsun @zero2461

[goldenraeofsun]

Good Ideas

1.5k of canon-divergence fluff, now on AO3!

Dean is almost finished with his standard gun cleaning (once a week whether they need it or not) when footsteps approach from outside his bedroom door. Heavier than Eileen but lighter than Sam - must be Cas. 

“What an awful day,” Cas sighs as he practically throws himself onto Dean’s prized memory foam mattress. He doesn’t even take his shoes off first, like an animal.

“Hello to you, babe,” Dean says, amused. He raises his head to fully look at Cas, now face planted into his pillow. Dean would like to say it’s unusual to see Cas this drained and frustrated after another shift at the Gas n Sip, but it’s become pretty much standard. And, because not-that-deep-down Dean’s a shitty person who lucked out and got a (fallen) angel to fall for him, he can’t entirely squash the pleased feeling in his gut that flares up every time Cas comes home to him, no matter the circumstances.

“Hello, Dean,” or that’s what Dean assumes Cas is saying, based on their past million and a half conversations over more than a decade.

Dean carefully sets down his colt and pads over to the bed. He takes a seat near Cas’s shins, the mattress slowly but surely dipping as it remembers Dean’s distinctive ass print. “What happened?”

“Humanity is stupid.”

Dean snorts. “Don’t have to tell me twice. What’d humanity do this time?”

Cas turns his head so he can glare balefully down at Dean with one brilliant blue eye. “Todd refilled the soda machine incorrectly. We had to reimburse ten customers who poured the wrong drinks despite the clear signs indicating the buttons were temporarily incorrect.”

“What a disaster,” Dean deadpans.

Cas groans a stream of indistinguishable words that might not even be English - knowing him, he’s probably insulting Todd’s mother ancient Aramaic or something - before he concludes, “It was a very uncomfortable situation. Todd is an imbecile.”

“Want me to kill him for you?” Dean asks casually.

Cas’s whole torso inflates with the depth of his sigh. “No,” he says, but the word is muffled and has zero conviction behind it.

“Come on,” Dean pokes Cas in the thigh. “You were the one who wanted this job in the first place. All the ‘human dignity’ you could choke down and all that crap.”

“I must’ve been mistaken.”

“Whatever you say, man,” Dean says, grinning as Cas rolls over so he’s lying normally on Dean’s bed. “Y’know, you could always do something else. Quit the Gas n Sip.”

“Like what?” Cas asks as he frowns up at the ceiling. “I don’t have much experience except in inventory management and customer service.”

“What about all your angel stuff?”

“I can hardly list ‘former Angel of the Lord’ on my resume,” Cas grumbles.

“You’ve got all those languages crammed in your brain, serious hand-to-hand skills - I could teach you all I know about cars, and you can add that.”

Cas gives a considering grunt.

“Look,” Dean says as he scoots further up the bed so he’s more aligned with Cas’s chest than his knees. “You were the one who was all gung-ho about getting a job to interact with normal people.”

“I needed a better baseline now I’m human because you and Sam are not ‘normal’ by any definition of the word,” Cas sniffs.

“Rude. Anyway, I told you to take things slow. So your first stab back at slumming it with regular folks isn’t going so great. Sometimes these things take a while to settle down,” Dean says, uncomfortably reminded of the time he had to comfort Sammy after three piano lessons didn’t turn him into the next Geoff Nicholls - or Elton John, as Dean had to amend after Sammy shot him a look of complete incomprehension.

“You don’t have to throw yourself into anything,” Dean adds gently to Cas. “We’ve got no big bad waiting out in the wings. It’s okay to take things one step at a time.”

“Because you provide such an excellent model of restraint and forethought,” Cas mutters.

Dean rolls his eyes. “Obviously. You don’t see me jumping back into Leave it to Beaver.”

“Because that’s not what you want,” Cas says, his eyes narrowing. “You said civilian life isn’t for you.”

Dean swallows. He pulls at a wrinkle in the sheets. “You so sure about that?”

Cas props himself up on his elbows, intrigued. “You’re truly considering retiring from hunting?”

Dean glances over at his guns, disassembled and gleaming on his desk. “I’ve been thinking about it. Sammy doesn’t go on many hunts anymore, says it’s more important to teach the next generation of fighters than handling everything by ourselves.”

“A wise thing to say, considering the limitations of the average human lifespan.”

“And you wonder why we never bring you to parties,” Dean says as Cas scowls in return, really only proving Dean’s point. “I’ve been looking into other stuff to do.”

“Like what?”

“Not sure,” he admits. “Sam’s got his Hunter Hogwarts thing going on - I could help Sam out, but the thought of reading and assignments makes me want to throw myself out a window.”

“You do like to be more hands-on,” Cas says diplomatically.

Dean sighs, wistful. “If the Roadhouse was still around, I would’ve kicked ass there. Talking with veterans in the business, passing along intel, throwing out the occasional brawler.”

Cas cocks his head. “Why don’t you rebuild one?”

“What?”

“Another Roadhouse,” Cas says like it’s obvious. “Those hunters Sam is teaching, they will need another meeting point once they’ve completed their training.”

Dean gapes at him, trying not to get his hopes up. He can picture it with alarming clarity, him behind the bar, Cas sitting off to the side, pouring over the books or a translation for one of Sam’s kids.

But this thing with Cas is so new - rescuing Cas from the Empty, telling him haltingly and not in so many words Cas could have what he wanted after all, doing their weird not-dating thing that works for them. Dean can’t be sure they’re on the same page about this.

Cas is technically human, but so many parts of him are still pretty out there in terms of fitting in with normal people stuff. Dean suggested they go on an honest to God date about two weeks after that went down - dinner at a fancy place in Salina. He even looked it up on Yelp. But, naturally, Cas had to ask ahead of time what usually happened on a date - a real date, Dean, because Metatron’s pop culture dump gave me many false impressions of what is normal or healthy for humans. 

When Dean embarrassingly couldn’t think of a single thing people did on dates except eat and have sex, Cas went to Sam because apparently there are zero boundaries when it comes to Team Free Will. And Sam, like a total Samantha, said most people talked about their feelings and life goals.

To which Cas turned back to Dean, said those big, I love you, words like they’re nothing and everything, and added his life goal was not dying before spending the rest of his human life with Dean.

The fucker even looked pleased Dean didn’t have to shell out the dough for a fancy steak.

“You have enough connections in the community to round up a decent clientele base,” Cas continues. “Not to mention your reputation, which would go a long way towards drawing hunters you personally haven’t met before.”

Dean clears his throat. “You really think I could do something like that?”

Cas narrows his eyes. “I think you could do anything you set your mind to,” he says with that patented-Cas sincerity that Dean would call bullshit with anyone else. Cas continues, “Twenty-seven percent of restaurants fail in their first year, but I have every confidence in you beating the odds.”

Dean snorts. Even Cas’s Beautiful Mind statistics aren’t enough to bring his mood down.

“And if you need help…” Cas drifts off sheepishly, “I do have requisite experience managing inventory. I cut down on unsellable food by fifteen percent two weeks ago.”

“You’re a goddamn genius,” Dean breathes as he bends over Cas.

Cas smiles up at him. “Would you want to?”

“Would I - ?” Dean breaks off incredulously to kiss him. “Of couse I fucking want to. But you really think it’s a good idea?”

Cas purses his lips. “It was my suggestion in the first place.”

“But maybe you were just spitballing,” Dean hedges. “So if you really think restarting the Roadhouse would be a bad idea, I can take it.”

Cas wraps a hand around the back of Dean’s neck, pulling him closer. “I don’t have bad ideas, Dean,” he murmurs.

That is so blatantly untrue, Dean almost bursts out laughing. But before he can make a sound, Cas’s other hand slides underneath his shirt, his fingers tapping lightly against the buckle of Dean’s belt. Dean raises his head to catch sight of Cas's face, and Cas’s eyes are dark with want.

Alright, so in times like these, Dean can admit Cas can have a good idea or two.

[darter-blue]

Read it here on ao3

Or part one, two, three, four , five , six and seven on tumblr

Bucky

It’s a little like whiplash, one minute Bucky is in Steve’s arms, pressed against the elevator wall, getting his mind blown by Steve’s giant hands on his bare skin and his giant dick rutting into Bucky’s, hips rocking into Bucky’s, and the next minute there’s a crash and Steve is gripping Bucky tight and shielding him with his body.

Bucky could be mistaken, he is a little hungover, but it looks like Iron Man has just landed on the roof of their elevator. Presumably to save them from the terror of being trapped at the very high height between the first and second floor.

Except Iron Man - Tony Stark, even Bucky knows who Tony Stark is - is looking at them both with a very pleased expression and seems to be leering in at them through the service cover.

'Well well well,' Stark says, shaking his head, 'I leave you alone for five minutes.'

Bucky may be having a hullicinatory episode.

‘Tony, I mean,’ Steve looks down at Bucky, at the pink ‘groom’ t-shirt and the ring on his finger - down at his own much smaller, matching blue ‘Elvis said we do!’ t-shirt - and then back up at the superhero peering in at them. He steps back and carefully lowers Bucky to a standing position, but keeps one giant hand on his waist. ‘I guess this is actually exactly what it looks like.’

‘Oh I know,’ Stark says, boosting himself up by his rockets (wowowow, Bucky is four feet from the most advanced piece of mechanical engineering in the United States right now) and hovering through the hole and into the elevator, ‘it’s all over twitter, genius.’

‘Oh shit,’ Bucky says, ripping the phone he had put on silent (because fucking Darcy would not stop texting him) and sees way too many missed calls from his sister. One from his mother.

The texts from Darcy are still rolling in.

‘Twitter? You flew all the way here because a bunch of people twittered about this?’ Steve’s voice had dropped to a tone that Bucky doesn’t recognise but oh, he likes it.

‘Tweeted,’ Stark says, shaking his head.

Steve narrows his eyes, and the sweet open face that Bucky has been staring at all morning suddenly morphs into something much more menacing.

If Bucky hadn’t just come in his pants he'd be in trouble - as it is he can feel his heart rate picking up again at the effortless authority Steve is exuding. Okay fuck, now that’s he’s thinking about it, his dick is perking up and no, no, no. This is not the time.

Please do not let this situation get any more weird than it already is.

‘Tony, what are you doing here?’

Iron Man - looming huge in his suit in the tiny elevator - takes a small step back from Steve, and doesn’t seem confident when he answers, ‘Rescuing you?’

‘From what?’ Steve asks, ice cold.

‘From being stuck in a broken elevator?’

‘Bullshit,’ Steve says, less cold, more heat this time.

‘Uh, okay, look, full disclosure, I flew here in the quinjet to make sure that Thor hadn’t addled your brain with his god juice and left you to get yourself vegas married to a gold digger,’ he looks over at Bucky, whom Steve tightens his grip on, moving his body further between Stark and Bucky with zero subtlety, ‘seems like I maybe underestimated how literally you would take my advice to do something crazy.’

Steve is shaking his head in a sharp, hard, definitive no.

Bucky is letting him do all the talking, having a… not a great memory of what had gone down the night before (flashes of images, feelings, sounds. An overwhelming sense of comfort and happiness. Contentment… but no real basis from which those emotions have stemmed) and also this is Tony Stark, Iron Man… and Bucky isn't really sure what to do with that.

Just staying out of it seems like the wisest course.

Steve, in lieu of using his words, chooses to reach past Bucky and depress the emergency button.

‘Woah, hey!’ Stark says, grabbing at the wall as the elevator starts to move.

‘Don’t you have something rich and important you should be doing, Tony.’

‘Okay, I’m getting the impression that you’re not that happy to see me.’

‘Gee, you have some real keen observational skills,’ Steve snaps.

‘Look-’

‘With all due respect, Mister Stark-’ Bucky starts.

‘Mister Stark was my father kid,’;

‘Mister Iron Man,’ Bucky says, heavy on the sarcasm, ‘This has nothing to do with you.’

‘Listen Kid,’

‘Bucky,’ Steve corrects him.

‘Bucky?’

Bucky doesn’t bother to nod, he lets Steve’s glare do his talking.

‘That’s a name?’ Stark’s lip is raised in a grimace.

‘It’s a great name,’ Steve has his shoulders squared and his Jaw lifted and he looks suddenly one hundred percent a man not to be questioned.

Bucky can’t help the smile spreading across his face. Doesn’t even want to.

‘Steve, you can’t be serious about this.’

The elevator comes to a stop on their floor and Steve’s grip on Bucky loosens as the doors open.

‘Excuse us, Tony.’

‘Steven Grant Rogers you are trending. There’s photos of you in this ridiculous T-Shirt all over the internet. We need to do damage control!’

‘What’s wrong with his T-shirt?’ Bucky asks, hands on his hips as he lets Steve lead him out of the elevator with a gently hand on his lower back. ‘Are you being self righteous about Elvis, or about the fact that Steve married a guy?’

‘Hey now,’ Stark says from the elevator, ‘I’m mad that he didn’t know you yesterday and today you’ve got matching rings on your fingers.’

‘And?’

‘And that's… Not normal!’

Both Steve and Bucky turn around at Stark’s words.

‘When, Tony, in your entire life, have you ever aspired to be normal?’ Steve asks, standing to Bucky’s right and crossing his lovely arms over his very large chest.

Tony Stark has his mouth halfway open, his eyebrows pinching into a ‘v’ over his narrowed eyes, standing in the doorway of the elevator as the doors move in and out like a concertina at the obstruction.

‘Am I a grown man, Tony?’ Steve asks.

Stark rolls his eyes at the question.

‘Have I ever once interrupted you or questioned your life choices in the middle of a romantic interlude.’

‘Interlude? Steve, come on.’

‘Have. I. Ever?’

‘Okay, no-’

Bucky’s phone rings for the thousandth time - his mother again - and, as fascinating as it is to watch Tony Stark get his ass handed to him by a man that might really actually be Bucky’s husband - his husband - they probably do need to take a step into reality for a second.

‘Steve?’ he says, interrupting the argument and drawing both sets of eyes his way, ‘I think maybe we need to, maybe have a quick chat and ah… make some decisions?’

Steve’s face freezes, then smoothes out to as close an approximation to expressionless as Bucky has seen it all morning.

It looks wrong. It looks… like a mask.

Steve nods his head slowly, his shoulders creeping up before he forces them back down, taking a deep breath.

Stark starts talking before Steve can say a word, ‘I think that’s wise, Kid, I have some questions-’

‘Not you,’ Bucky says, shaking his head at Stark, ‘If we need you, we’ll call you, Mister Iron Man.’

Stark lifts a finger to point it at Bucky, his suit suddenly receding like magic and shrinking into a cuff on his wrist, ‘Listen-’

‘Give us some time please, Tony.’

Stark looks between Steve and Bucky and back again. He narrows his eyes at Steve and then nods once. ‘Okay. You have ten minutes.’

Steve glares at Stark again but doesn't protest. He turns away and leads Bucky the few steps back to his room and opens the door for him.

‘Should we… did you want to sit? Or…?’

‘We can sit,’ Bucky says, sinking down into the couch in the lounge area of the suite.

‘Are you… can I…’ Steve looks so lost as he takes a seat next to Bucky, mirroring Bucky’s slight angle, their knees facing towards each other.

‘I want to ask you something,’ Bucky says, palms on his thighs, swallowing awkwardly. Wishing he had a clean pair of pants to change into.

Steve just nods, his mask slipping further and further away as his face pales and he shrinks into himself.

‘How much of this is real?’

Steve’s face cracks, he winces, something like pain, and it cuts into Bucky. Slices at him. He doesn't know this man - at least… he doesn’t remember why he knows him, or how he knows him, but the pain on Steve’s face reaches in and pulls at something in Bucky and it hurts.

‘For me?’ Steve asks.

Bucky isn’t sure that’s what he was asking, but he nods, because he wants to know the answer regardless.

‘All of it,’ Steve whispers.

Bucky has to take a deep breath. Has to steal himself.

‘I want… I want it to be real for me too.’

Steve’s eyes snap up to Bucky’s.

‘I mean, it feels real.’ Bucky twists at the ring in his finger. Feels the texture of the metal, solid against his skin.

Real.

‘It feels like… not a mistake,’ Bucky says.

He’s trying and maybe failing to explain this right. But whatever he’s doing, it might be working, because Steve is staring at him, not breathing, not moving, but there’s colour back in his cheeks, and he starts leaning slowly closer and closer as Bucky continues.

‘I woke up and thought, you know, maybe I’d just gotten lucky enough to spend a night with the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen in my life... and then,’ Bucky looks back down at his ring, ‘and then I saw this, and I thought… fuck. I thought I’d won the lottery maybe, or somehow dreamt my fantasies into reality. And you…’ Bucky looks back up at Steve and his eyes… His eyes are so cool and blue and limitless. Everything Bucky ever needed or wanted is reflected there back at him. ‘You feel like home to me.’

‘You feel like home to me too, Buck.’

‘And you… you want to stay married to me?’

Steve nods.

‘Even if it turns out I’m a complete disaster?’

‘Especially then’ Steve says, a smile spreading across his face, reaching his eyes, crinkling them at the corners.

‘No, I’m serious, I’m awful.’

Steve shakes his head and Bucky nods, emphatic.

‘No, listen, I’m a mess. My refrigerator is full of cheap beer and canned cheese, and one jar of twenty year old mayo.’

Steve is laughing but Bucky won’t have it, he needs Steve to understand the total dumpster fire that he has unwittingly attached himself to.

‘No, Steve, my bed is so covered in bike parts right now I’m sleeping on the floor.’

‘I sleep on the floor every night, Bucky.’ Steve has reached out and stopped Bucky’s hands flying through the air, is holding them, bringing them to rest against their knees between them.

‘You do?’

‘I do,’ Steve says, fond and sad all at once, ‘first time I’ve slept in a long time was here with you last night.’ He looks over at the rumpled sheets on the bed, the bed where Bucky and Steve woke up wrapped around each other.

It hits Bucky that, if they’re married, are they supposed to move in together? Where would they even live?

‘I live above my shop, Steve,’ Bucky says, panic making his voice squeak.

‘It’s not a problem, Bucky, we don’t have to work everything out all at once.’

‘But I… It’s like two rooms and a toilet.’

‘My apartment is just an empty space Shield gave me to live in because I had nowhere else to go.’

Bucky’s body is moving before his brain even realises. ‘Baby, no,’ he says, pulling one of his hands free and reaching up to cup Steve’s cheek, ‘your apartment is a shitty walk up over a bike mechanic with no space and the kitchen from hell.’ He runs his thumb over Steve’s perfect cheekbone. ‘We just need to move your stuff in.’

‘I’m a terrible cook anyway,’ Steve says, huffing a laugh.

‘See?’ Bucky says with an exaggerated sigh, leaning his head in to rest against Steve’s forehead, ‘it’s meant to be.’

‘I know you’re joking, but I honestly believe that.’

‘Who says I’m joking?’ Bucky smiles as Steve laughs. ‘So what do we need to do to get all this finalised? I’m gonna need to call my mother back at some stage.’

That snaps Steve into action, he sits up straight and pulls Bucky with him, so that Bucky is almost sitting in his lap.

‘We need to get the paperwork off Mavis, we need to get our stuff, and then I guess we need to figure out whether the license is even legal outside of the state of Nevada.’

‘Well,’ Bucky says, moving himself fully into Steve’s lap and swinging a leg over to straddle him, ‘I can think of one way to make it legal.’

‘You don’t have time for that!’ Stark yells from outside the door.

‘Goddamn it Tony!’ Steve yells back.

Bucky is laughing, he can’t help it. And Steve is laughing with him. Bucky’s head falls onto Steve’s shoulder and Steve rests his palm against the nape of Bucky’s neck. Safe and familiar and blanketing him in warmth. It feels like the kind of comfort that Bucky has spent his whole life searching for.

‘We better go.’

Bucky nods his head as much as the limited space will allow. They both pull away slowly, reluctantly. But they’re smiling now. The air around them is full of promise.

Happiness.

Even Tony Stark and his ugly tracksuit and his disapproving glare can’t dampen it.

‘Where now?’

‘To the chapel,’ Steve says, pulling Bucky along by the hand and smiling ridiculously wide.

‘To file for annulment?’

‘No Tony.’

‘To pick up the wedding album,’ Bucky says with a laugh. He’s not even sure where the thought came from, but it’s vivid, a hot pink vinyl album cover, Bucky can see it. It has to be a memory.

Steve is looking back at him and smiling, somehow, impossibly wider.

‘Jesus Christ on a cracker,’ Stark says, rolling his eyes, feet shuffling to keep up with them.

They all ride down the elevator together, Steve and Bucky practically glued at the hip and Stark shaking his head at them the entire way.

It’s objectively hilarious. Bucky is holding back his laughter, but the smirk is surely stuck fast to his face.

They make it to the Casino floor, wind their way through the mostly empty gaming rooms and dance floors to a familiar set of swinging doors under a garish ‘Wedding Chapel’ sign, where a strangely familiar man is leaning against the wall only to jump up and shout as he sees them approach.

'Cap!'

'Scott,' Steve replies, much more subdued.

'Hey, Bucky,' he says, looking Bucky's way, then doing a double take as he spots Tony Stark. 'Hey! Iron Man!'

'Who is this?' Stark asks, turning to Steve, 'Steven, who is this?'

'Hey, I'm Scott,' Scott says, reaching out a hand for Stark to shake, then pulling back with a shrug when Stark makes no move to accept it.

'Scott was our best man, Tony,' Steve says, smug and smiling.

Scott looks a little like he might faint at the title, but he pulls it together, nodding along like an excited puppy.

'Oh, Bucky, I sent you the video like you asked. And then I saw all the internet stuff this morning and I thought, well I just thought, you know… did you guys need anything? A getaway van? I don't know. I know a guy, you know?'

'We're okay,' Steve says, calm and relaxed in the face of Scott's exuberance. But Bucky’s too busy checking his phone to hear anymore.

A video.

Of the wedding.

He finds the text from Scott (whose contact info he must have entered as ‘Scott - Cap?’ last night). Opens the video file and watches it like a starving man staring through the windows of a restaurant as the images load and it starts to play.

He can feel Stark leaning over his shoulder but he doesn't care.

It's there. In colour.

Steve and Bucky, at the altar. Elvis between them, Scott filming from the side, a woman Bucky recognises - Mavis, his brain helpfully supplies - beautiful blonde beehive and rockabilly skirt and everyone is smiling. Laughing.

And Bucky remembers.

He remembers standing there next to Steve. Remembers reading his vows from a tiny scrap of pink paper, remembers Steve saying Bucky was his fate, sliding the ring onto his finger.

Bucky looks down at it now, touches it reverently. 'For we are but two halves,' he says, remembering the inscription, the way it had felt so perfect. He looks back up at Steve, who is watching Bucky, waiting for something, eyes shining. 'Together whole.'

And Steve crashes into him, clutches at Bucky, pulling him close and pressing their lips together.

'You remember,' he says between kisses, running his nose against Bucky’s nose, cupping his face in his hands, 'You remember.'

And Bucky just clutches him back. Kisses him back. Just as desperate, just as joyful. 'I remember everything, Steve-Steve Rogers.' He presses his hands against Steve’s chest. Against the beat of his heart. The most beautiful part of him. 'We danced together. We've been dancing together from the very beginning.'

'Always,' Steve says. Oblivious to their audience, to Scott's squeals and Stark's scoffs.

To the crowd gathering around them.

'Forever.' Bucky whispers it. Barely a word. But he knows Steve can hear it. Knows it will thrill him.

Means it, as crazy as that seems.

They both do.

And they have the rest of their lives to make it the truth.

[hellreads]

Hello, I just stumble on your blog. Seeing a comment from Wrienne which I also read on AO3, I wanted to ask if you also have AO3 recs..?

hi there darling, of course, I have some recs for you! since you didn’t ask for anything specific let me just share a few faves that you could only read/access on ao3 (I would also recommend you check my ficshelfs and use the ao3 filter to find stories exclusively posted there + i’ll still include wrienne’s works for other readers :3 ) | 🍒

OT7/MULTIPLE MEMBERS

❥ Right of Way by fringesofsanity ➴ Infidelity!AU | Jungkook x Reader x Jimin | Series ➴ In theory, things were simple: your best friend was Jungkook’s girlfriend while your boyfriend, Jimin, was Jungkook’s best friend. In reality, things weren’t always that simple. And mutually exclusive.

❥ The Hills by minlouvre ➴ Vacation/Exes!AU | Yoongi x Reader x Hoseok | Series ➴ A ski trip with old friends sounds like a fun time, right?

when your ex-boyfriend (who you hate but somehow always end up in bed with) and your stepbrother (who you are harboring not-so-secret feelings for) tag along at the last minute, you have a feeling it won’t be an uneventful weekend.

but fun? debatable. that remains to be seen. ❥ A Hundred Percent Human by Wrienne ➴ Hybrid!AU | OT7 x Reader | Series ➴ In which you (reader) are forced to take care of seven hybrids in a twist of fate.

After your estranged mother passes away, you're left with an unwanted will and the heavy burden of responsibility. Although you're desperate not to stray from the familiar path you thought was laid out in front of you with a fully human boyfriend who loves you more than anything, your life is thrown upside down once more after another unfortunate incident (that may or may not have to do with said boyfriend) occurs.

Drunk and down on life, you finally decide to deal with the house and the unsavory business your mother left behind. However, to your shock, you find that seven very different hybrids are included with both the house - and the business. Seven hybrids you never even met before - even less agreed to take care of.

❥ Dead Leaves by Wrienne ➴ Detective/Exes!AU | Yoongi x Reader x Jimin | Series ➴ In which you (reader) are a homicide detective about to face the biggest hurdle both of your career and life.

Married to probably the kindest but most boring man you’ve ever met and living in a town where nothing ever seems to happen means life for you is dull. Dull enough to drive you crazy with boredom and dissatisfaction. However, life changes abruptly when your old boss retires and a new man takes his place - a man you used to love (and sleep very regularly with) more than a decade ago. Especially when your husband comes home smelling of perfume, you’re unable to resist your more carnal urges and dead women start showing up across the city with unnerving frequency. ❥ See Both Sides Like Chanel by minlouvre ➴ FWB/Rich Kids!AU | Namjoon x Reader x Hoseok | One-Shot ➴ You, Namjoon, and Hoseok are inseparable. 

Three best friends that grew up together since you were all in diapers.But lately, Namjoon has been drifting away…

So on his birthday, you and Hoseok remind him just how inseparable the three of you really are.

⤷ or alternatively: a little less twenty-one candles, a little more “touch me”

❥ Love Is A Dog From Hell by yourlocalhoney ➴ FWB/Lovers!AU | Yoongi x Reader x Jungkook | Series ➴ You and Yoongi agreed on being good friends, co-workers, and friends who help each other out under the sheets. What you never agreed on was to catch feelings for each other.

Enter, accidental feelings.

Enter, Jeon Jungkook.

❥ The Uncanny by Sinsirella ➴ Arranged Marriage!AU | Jungkook x Reader x Seokjin x Jimin | Series ➴ (Y/N) is a young girl whose Life turns upside down. One day her mother surprises her with news of her arranged husband, forcing her into her new chaotic lifestyle. Join her journey and experience her new life through her eyes. Will she get along with her husband? Or someone else? What are they hiding? ❥ Seven Deadly Sins by mintedmango ➴ Hell!AU | OT7 x Reader | Series ➴ You stood suddenly, chair being pushed away by the backs of your legs, the rest of the sins standing with you as you looked around in panic. All except Sloth who was out cold in the corner.

“Oh, little pet, indeed, I am still hungry.”

❥ Walk Through The Fire by shellflower ➴ Supernatural!AU | Taehyung x Reader x Jungkook | Series ➴ In a world of supernatural beings, a normal human like yourself always found attraction and wonder towards these creatures. It was your kind heart that led you to become a doctor to treat such people. And it was your kind heart that led you into the arms of a young Alpha wolf who will accidentally force you down a path you were never meant to follow... ❥ Into Temptation by coconutty  ➴ Demon!AU | Taehyung x Reader x Jungkook | Two-Shot ➴ It was just a dare...

❥ Won’t Be Nice by coconutty ➴ Lovers/Poly!AU | Taehyung x Reader x Hoseok | One-Shot ➴ A night by the pool just got interesting...

KIM NAMJOON

❥ Covenant by fringesofsanity ➴ Arranged Marriage!AU | Namjoon x Reader | Series ➴ You are betrothed to Kim Namjoon, the heir of a real estate mogul. To say that it was a fairytale romance would be erroneous. You’re instead loped in the sad tale of the rich and melancholy.

❥ Read You Like A Book by coconutty ➴ University!AU | Namjoon x Reader | One-Shot ➴ Come get an attitude adjustment in the library, courtesy of Namjoon.

KIM SEOKJIN

❥ Éffleurer by @sugaurora / sugalights ➴ Office!AU | Seokjin x Reader | Series ➴ There were always whispers in your office about what secrets Seokjin hid behind his clean image. Now, you knew at least one of them. ❥ The City Comes Alive by minlouvre ➴ Musician/S2L!AU | Seokjin x Reader | Series ➴ Seokjin is a street performer who falls for a girl who is always passing him by. ❥ Seaside Sabbatical by dark_muse_iris ➴ Working Man!AU | Seokjin x Reader | One-Shot ➴ After an accountant in your firm is sent to prison, you are assigned to clean up the mess he left behind. Sorting out your clients’ disastrous business records proves beneficial when you meet the fisherman who teaches you the value of taking a break. ❥ Cake by yeyeniejjung ➴ Yandere/Killer!AU | Seokjin x Reader | Series ➴ "I was always hungry for your love. Just once, I wanted to know what is was like to get my fill of it. I wanted to be fed so much love that I couldn't take it anymore, just once." ❥ The Lord Taketh Away by dark_muse_iris ➴ Medieval/Werewolf!AU | Seokjin x Reader | One-Shot ➴ Every autumn, the dwindling harvest summons fears for the impending winter and its promise of scarcity. For Seokjin and his wife, faith lies in God and their local lord’s generosity to provide what their ailing son needs to survive another year. With each season, however, the lord grows cold-hearted and greedy, squeezing the young family to the brink of despair.

MIN YOONGI

❥ Zelus by SugaAconcept ➴ Lovers/Sugar Daddy!AU | Yoongi x Reader | One-Shot ➴ Yoongi becomes jealous when your close friend Jungkook puts his hands all over you right infront of his face. So, Yoongi decides to make sure you know who you really belong to. ❥ Carpe Diem by fringesofsanity ➴ Idol/Lovers!AU | Yoongi x Reader | Series ➴ Working for the UN, you are tasked to handle the poverty reduction campaign of a certain boy band. A certain rapper from the group however decides to mix business with pleasure.

JUNG HOSEOK

❥ Feel You From The Inside by coconutty  ➴ Idol/Staff!AU | Hoseok x Reader | One-Shot ➴ You've been watching him for months, little did you know, he's been watching you.

❥ As You Are by fringesofsanity ➴ Lovers!AU | Hoseok x Reader | One-Shot ➴ You're not the girl for Jung Hoseok. Him - who was sunshine and daisies and fireworks. You - who were back-alley darkness and used needles and burnt cigarettes. But he doesn't care. And you fucking hate yourself for it.

❥ The Thin Blue Line by bluesxde ➴ Pregnancy/E2L!AU | Hoseok x Reader | Series ➴ One badly-judged fling with Jung Hoseok, the son of a company-rival, leaves you with a little surprise.

PARK JIMIN

❥ His Throne by hseoks ➴ Royalty!AU | Jimin x Reader | Series ➴ You, a maid for the royal family, have sex with the irresistible Prince Park Jimin on his throne.

❥ Ineffable by fringesofsanity ➴ FWB!AU | Jimin x Reader | One-Shot ➴ You’ve only shared your body to Jimin, mostly silent after the act. The one time you decide to bare so much more, you find yourself baring your soul to him, far more than you bargained for.

❥ Blue Side by hoseokiehopie ➴ Ghost/Lovers!AU | Jimin x Reader | One-Shot ➴ You’re all too familiar with the legend that says the dead can walk freely on Halloween. It’s a secret you hold deeply within yourself. When a classmate starts to break down the walls you built so strongly after your boyfriend’s passing, you have to decide if you’re going to remain in the past with the dead, or live among the living.

KIM TAEHYUNG

❥ Effervescence by fringesofsanity ➴ Idol/Fling!AU | Taehyung x Reader | Series ➴ Just like the fizz of a cola on a hot summer’s day, your encounter with Taehyung is short but sparkly sweet.

OR Getting married in three months, you and your girls attend Ultra Miami to cap your single life, a final hurrah of some sort. What you didn’t expect is meeting a beguiling boy with a boxy smile who gives you a festival you’ll forever reminisce.

❥ Minutiae by coconutty ➴ Stalker!AU | Taehyung x Reader | Series ➴ Y/N meets a mysterious and alluring photographer and wants to interview him. Along the way things start getting a bit strange. What happens when you draw the attention of someone who always gets what they want?

❥ Flower Arrangements by iq_biased ➴ Pregnancy/Lovers!AU | Taehyung x Reader | One-Shot ➴ From the moment you met Taehyung, his flourish for life drew you in completely. It wasn’t long before you fell head over heals for the tattoo artist who was so wrong for you, it felt right. But your story hasn’t always been an easy one, and just recently it’s become a whole lot more complicated…

❥ Freaks Forever by yeyeniejjung ➴ Criminal/Psych!AU | Taehyung x Reader | Series ➴ "So tell me, Mister Kim, what's your ideal evening?"

"Ah..full moon, sex and drugs all night."

You are the psychologist to the world's most dangerous criminal, Kim Taehyung. Kim Taehyung is the man solely responsible for some of the most horrific crimes that the world has ever seen, from burglary, drug possession, sexual assaults, to brutal homicides of a total of 37 victims, though there are suspicions that there are more, that range from children to the elderly; both male and female. The two of you form an odd bond between your weekly sessions, causing you to somehow completely miss his blatant manipulation that soon controlled you in every aspect; resulting in his escape from prison and his bloodthirsty ways and eyes to be immediately turned onto you..but will he spare you in the end of the torturous time he keeps you or will your fate be the same as any other past victim of his?

❥ Slow Burn by fringesofsanity ➴ Idol/F2L!AU | Taehyung x Reader | Series  ➴ He was just supposed to be one of those clients. But then he gives you a night you’ll never forget. ❥ Noona by yuu14045 ➴ Neighbors/Lovers!AU | Taehyung x Reader | Series ➴ Taehyung, Jungkook, and Jimin lives in same apartment building. One day Taehyung received a mail for another Kim. She turned out to be Jimin's new neighbor.

❥ Snapped by Kpopyandere ➴ Yandere!AU | Taehyung x Reader | Series ➴ Your relationship with your boyfriend hasn't been going well lately. His twin, Kim Taehyung, decides to take advantage of this.

JEON JUNGKOOK

❥ If You’re Struggling Like I Am by @btssavedmylifeblr / bts_ruined_my_life ➴ Idol/Lovers!AU | Jungkook x Reader | Series ➴ You are hired as a makeup artist for BigHit working with BTS. You are older than all of them, yet, despite your best efforts, you find yourself slowing falling in love with the youngest member.

❥ My Cheating Amnesic Fiancé by Wrienne ➴ Idol/Arranged Marriage!AU | Jungkook x Reader | Series ➴ A series set in our world featuring Reader, the sole heiress of a multibillion-dollar company, and the Bangtan Boys' Golden Maknae - Jeon Jungkook. Mainly a romance, though doused with angst, drama and the twisted ways of fate. ❥ Return by Kpopyandere ➴ Yandere!AU | Jungkook x Reader | Series ➴ As Seokjin's girlfriend, you're off-limits, but Jungkook doesn't see it that way

[riahlynn101]

“When I’m Gone” (14).

Chapter Summary: Vanessa yearns for freedom.

Chapter Fourteen

“Vanessa, activate protocol 83.”

She groans. Two seconds to herself is all she needs. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so, because William never seems to shut the fuck up.

They sit, or really she sits, in one of the many security offices in the Pizza Plex. William still doesn’t have a functional body, but has moved on from holding her captive in her own mind. Instead, tormenting her with endless tasks that are either nearly impossible to complete with the resources she’s been given, or are just downright cruel.

He talks to her through an old radio. It comes out sounding garbled and strained through the near-ancient speakers, but Vanessa would rather die than tell him that. Only because she knows the alternative is having him read through each and every thought, deciding if it’s worthy of punishment or reward.

Not that him “leaving” her head means he can’t read her thoughts.

A fact that William likes to hang over her head, making her paranoid to the point that Vanessa has learned to recite basic math problems as she works. The tactic works a good ninety-percent of the time. The other ten-percent is a toss up of intrusive thoughts and William being a prick.

“I’ve told you it isn’t ready yet. The plan will be ready in a few more days. Have a little bit of patience for once in your life.”

He scoffs. “Let me tell you something about patience…”

Another thing she hates is the long-winded rants William likes to go on. She swivels in her seat, facing the cameras. Staring through the newly installed security cameras at, nearly, all the rooms in the Pizza Plex.

Despite being twenty-two, she can’t help but feel like a kid in a candy store. Of course being attached to William kind of puts a damper on that excitement,  but she’ll take anything she can get.

“Vanny, are you even listening to me?”

She shudders. That name. Why does he insist on calling her by that name?

She answers fine to Vanessa, though she has trouble remembering the personality and life that “Vanessa” had before him. On occasion she’ll even respond to the basic noun “girl”.

But Vanny...Vanny feels wrong coming from his mouth. Perhaps it was once a childhood nickname? She likes it. It’s familiar, comforting in a way that she’s not accustomed to. Hell, knows her boss could give less of a damn about comfort and even less about her feelings.

She finds sleeping is her only sanctuary away from reality, from William, corrupted programming, and the whole damn Pizza Plex that has become her prison.

Sometimes she has nightmares. Who wouldn’t? She’d be more scared if she didn’t. A mixture of paralysis, sitting behind a security desk, and vengeful animatronics. It’s probably for the best that she never dwells on what they represent.

But, surprisingly, most of the time her dreams are strangely pleasant. Blurry and formless and kind of hard to remember when she wakes up. She’s always left with a warmth in her chest and a smile on her face. A few remaining frames run idly through her head over and over again, only because they’re recurring.

There’s two people that appear the most in her most pleasant dreams.

A woman with long, blonde hair and big, green eyes. She has a noticeable accent. Not one that Vanessa can ever remember. Dressed in either a pencil skirt and matching suit jacket, or a flowy summer dress. No matter how she’s dressed, the woman always looks upon (or, rather, down at) Vanessa with such an odd fondness.

The other person, a boy no older than six or seven years, appears when the woman doesn’t. He’s snarky and a bit rude, but Vanessa finds it endearing. A personality only a mother could love, is a phrase that comes to mind when dealing with the dreamscape child.

Vanessa has no one.

Nothing.

Nada.

William made sure of that. Those dreams or illusions or memories of a forgotten past are all she has now. And the bastard can pry that from her cold, dead hands.

“Vanny,” he says again, annoyed, “are you even listening?”

When she remains silent. Indifferent to his tantrum or long rant - she’s already forgotten which is which - he huffs. Though, to be fair to herself, with William it’s hard to tell the difference. A digitalized man-child drunk with power.

“You’re just like your mother-” He cuts himself off.

“My mother…?” She opens her mouth but can't decide which question to ask.

How did he know her mother?

Did she know him before he became...well...him?

He laughs but it comes out sounding sad (almost bitter). “Just an assumption. I assume you got your listening skills from her.”

Vanessa leans forward in her chair, messing with the buttons on the console. She flips through the entirety of the Pizza Plex, avoiding answering.

When he sighs heavily (his signal for, I’m waiting, Vanessa), she relents.

“You erased my memories, boss. I-I don’t remember anyone from before…before…” Vanessa trails off. Her heart suddenly hurts.

How dare this absolute bastard take away her freedom, her memories, identity, and entire personality!

How dare he strip Vanessa of her entire being!

How dare he use her to further his own goals!

How dare he!

How dare he!

How dare-

“I know Vanessa. I am sorry.”

It’s not a genuine apology. She doubts he’s capable of one, but it’s the closest she’ll ever get to comfort from him.

She so badly wants to yell and scream at the voice over the radio, berate him. Tell him where he can stick his monotone sounding apology that will never be enough, but alas, here-stuck here with him-he makes the rules. So, she settles on a simple, “thank you.”

[goldencuffs]

the tape

tw: a sex tape is filmed and released without consent.

Damen didn’t expect to wake up on Wednesday morning to the headline: Famous Football Player Caught in Tantalising SEX SCANDAL, Scroll for Video — but, well. He sort of knew it was a possibility.

 Julius had been a sweet little thing at Ernesta, the club Damen and his teammates frequented after a game or a training session or anything, really. Damen had caught sight of Julius’ blonde hair under the strobe lights, and had made his way over, tipsy and light, and just horny enough that he could last a full conversation with minimal wandering hands.

 Julius had been a ‘huge fan’ and pretty enough that Damen neglected his one rule: which was to never hook up with fans. They’d made it to Damen’s penthouse within half an hour, and Julius must have set up his phone to record them when Damen went to the bathroom after the first round.

It had honestly been the most average sex of Damen’s life — which was the only reason why he had been upset that Julius had leaked the tape at all. Damen hadn’t even tried very hard to make Julius cum, and he’d still been mostly hard throughout it all, his own release unsatisfactory.

 When he tried to explain this to Laurent later that day, during lunch at their favourite brunch place, Laurent’s face twitched. He looked furious, and then upset, and then both those expressions slowly absolved, until his expression was a flat, distant thing that unsettled Damen.

 In fact, it unsettled Damen so much, he began talking, without quite meaning to, “I just wish he’d told me he was going to film a whole tape, you know? That way I could have busted better moves. Or, made suggestions with the lighting or something. Look here — my entire body is blurry, so it’s like, what’s the point? What the fuck are we supposed to be looking at?”

 From his phone, Julius’ breathless voice panted, “Yes, harder, oh you’re so good for me.”

 It wasn’t loud enough to be heard by the other patrons in the cafe, but Laurent put his knife and fork down and hissed, “Will. You. Put. That. Away.”

 Damen did, swallowing. For the first time since he had read the article, seen the tape, and responded to the dozen or so text messages from friends about the tape, he felt embarrassment.

 Laurent wasn’t looking at him anymore. His eyes slid away, to the busy road outside, his mouth turned.

 Damen turned back to his food. Neither of them said anything else for the rest of their meal.

 *

 Damen genuinely didn’t mind the release of the tape. Julius had wanted his fifteen minutes of fame; Damen had wanted a lay — it was a win-win situation.

 No one else cared too much about it either; his teammates made sly jokes about it in the locker room, Makedon slapped him on the back with a shake of his head, and even Kastor let it slide.

 But there was one thing that did bother Damen — and it was that the love of his life, the man of his dreams, his soulmate, Laurent, was ignoring him.

Laurent had been downright hostile any time someone mentioned it; he’d eviscerated Nikandros verbally during dinner when Nikandros had made a joke about it, and he refused to look Damen in the eye.

 That was the worst part, thought Damen. Laurent was now skittish around him, like the thought of being around Damen too much nauseated him.

 He’d always known Laurent was reserved when it came to sex. He made jokes about it, talked about it as much as a healthy, twenty-seven-year-old man did, but it was never on a personal scale. When it came to Laurent’s own sex life, he was always tight lipped, even though sometimes Damen wanted to know, purely on a masochistic level. It honestly killed Damen when Laurent came in last summer to review his legal contract, briefcase in hand, and a bright red hickey on the white spot beneath his ear. It was the first time Damen had thought he might kill someone — rather violently, too.

 So, that was one of the reasons Damen used to justify Laurent’s behaviour. He was probably embarrassed about seeing… so much of his best friend. Damen wouldn’t have minded seeing Laurent naked, but that was only because he had been in love with Laurent for the last four years now.

 The second reason was that Laurent was so disgusted by Damen he didn’t want to be friends anymore.

 Damen didn’t like thinking about the second reason — so he didn’t.

 *

 A week after the tape, Damen invited Laurent over to dinner, at his family home. Theomedes was obsessed with Laurent, which Damen understood wholeheartedly; he was constantly wondering why more people didn’t fall in love with Laurent three seconds into meeting him.

 At first, it had seemed like Laurent might refuse. He was doing that a lot lately: skipping plans, cancelling so last-minute Damen couldn’t cajole him to reconsider, or in most cases, just flat out saying no.

 It seemed like today, the latter would be the possibility, so Damen said, panicked, “Please. I’ll make your favourite dessert.”

 Laurent perked a little at that. “Really?”

 “Yes!” Damen said, perhaps a little too aggressively, but it had Laurent nodding, a quick, stilted movement.

 Damen ruined the first three batches of chocolate mousse, but the fourth was decent, and the fifth was a bit better than that, so he went with it.

 Laurent arrived at seven sharp, straight from work. He had his favourite suit on, the charcoal wool suit that made everyone realise that Laurent was about ninety percent leg, and he was wearing the bright, spotty tie Theomedes had gifted Laurent about three Christmases ago.

He was so beautiful, Damen’s chest hurt. “Hi,” he said breathlessly, unexpectedly shy.

 Laurent’s gaze was unimpressed. His mouth did something strange; it compressed in on itself, until it sat in a straight line, and his eyes hovered over Damen’s shoulder.

 “You have something on your face,” he said.

 Damen tried a smile. “Well, get it off for me then, sweetheart.”

 He leant forward, very desperate suddenly for Laurent's touch, which in the past, Laurent had been very generous about.

 Laurent shoved the wine bottle he was holding into Damen’s stomach. Damen stepped back with a surprised oof, fumbling to catch it, and Laurent made his way past him, into the kitchen to talk to Theomedes.

 Damen stared after him, at a complete loss.

 He sulked in the bathroom for a while, and only came out when he was sure he could no longer avoid his father’s calls anymore.

 Laurent wasn’t looking at him when Damen returned, but he didn’t shuffle away as Damen took his usual seat beside him.

 Dinner was so pleasant, Damen almost forgot about how strange Laurent had been acting. Even Laurent had loosened, and he gave his first proper smile to Damen in a whole week when he tasted the mousse. It was a small smile, but Damen was going to remember it for the rest of his life, since they were so rare now, apparently.

 Of course, just as Laurent had completely relaxed, Theomedes said, “Do you think we’d have a case if Damen were to sue the tabloids and the man in the tape?”

 Laurent stiffened so much it was like he’d been propped up by invisible string. His shoulders tensed and pulled back, and his back was so straight Damen was sure he could run a smooth line down it.

 Haltingly, Laurent said, “I — don’t. I’m not quite sure.”

 “Why not?” Theomedes said.

 Damen said, “Dad. I’m not going to sue. He was just a dumb kid.”

 Laurent seemed to stiffen further at that.

 Theomedes frowned. “But surely —”

 “I’ll ask someone at the firm for you, sir,” Laurent said, in a polite, contrite tone that wasn’t like him at all. “I only deal with sports law so I — I’d have to ask.”

 That settled Theomedes. Damen relaxed a little too, until Laurent pushed away his dessert, despite having more than half of it left.

 It was such a depressing thing to see, Damen couldn’t finish the rest of his either.

 *

 With how jumpy Laurent was, Damen expected him to leave straight after their plates were cleared, but Laurent lingered, drinking his wine, and talking to Theomedes about the Lions chances of winning this season.

 Damen barely listened. He was upset, and his stomach had been rolling tumultuously for the last hour.

 He excused himself to his bedroom and sat on his small, single bed for a few moments, feeling sorry for himself.

 When that didn’t make him feel better, Damen went to his desk and pulled out a well-read book. Book was perhaps an overstatement; it was a small collection of poetry Laurent had written for him a year after they met. He had handed it to Damen after his birthday party, when everyone had left, and they could have some privacy.

 “You don’t have to read it,” Laurent had said, bashful, when Damen had paused in stunned silence. That was when Damen knew — and over the years that feeling had only solidified.

 The binding hadn’t been the best, so Damen had rebound it himself. Along the way he’d marked a lot of the poems too. The love poems were a source of both serenity and torture, since Damen daydreamed that Laurent had written about making love in moonlit sheets about him, but.

 He was surprised when there was a hesitant knock on his door. Laurent peeked his head through, and then he was stepping inside, wine glass topped up and his tie loosened.

 Damen’s heart lurched.

 “What are you doing?” Laurent asked, and the wine must have made him forget that he was mad at Damen, because he sounded curious, joyful.

 Damen gestured to the curling cover of Laurent’s book. Laurent flushed heavily, the colour vining his cheeks and neck and ears.

 “You kept that?”

 “Of course I did,” Damen said, affronted.

 “They’re terrible,” Laurent said, shaking his head, still red. “I don’t think I’ve even read enough poetry to justify writing so many.”

 “They’re wonderful. See.” Damen flicked through the pages and showed Laurent all his markings, scribbling along the columns of Laurent’s poetry.

 Laurent watched with hungry eyes. But he said, “Oh, Damen,” with so much sadness, Damen went, instinctively, to touch his shoulder.

 “Hey,” he said, unsure.

 Laurent stepped away from his grip, but he sat on the edge of the bed, facing Damen.

 “What is it?” Damen asked, because Laurent’s face was pale, haunted.

 “Nothing,” Laurent said, attempting a small smile.

 Damen tried to return it but couldn’t.

 They sat in awkward silence for a while — which was foreign, between them. Damen talked enough for four people at a time, and Laurent, though he said otherwise, liked that.

 Eventually, Damen said, “You’re coming to Nikandros’ party on Saturday, yeah?”

 “Oh,” Laurent said, surprised. He blinked. “This Saturday?”

 “Yeah,” Damen said, his stomach knotting when he realised Laurent was most probably going to say no.

 It was worse than that. “Ah, shit, I’d completely forgotten…” Laurent trailed off. “I didn’t realise when I — I have plans.”

 “What plans?” Damen frowned, because Laurent had approximately three friends, including him, and they were all going to Nikandros’.

 Laurent flushed again, a finger tracing the rim of his glass. “Armand from work — do you remember? I mentioned him a few times at — anyway. He. He asked me on a date and I said yes.”

 “Oh,” Damen said, so flatly he didn’t think he had even made it sound like a word.

 “Yes,” Laurent said, flushing even more, not looking at Damen’s eyes. “We’re going to Charls. You’ve been there, haven’t you? Is it any good?”

 “Hmm,” said Damen.

 “Oh,” said Laurent, awkwardly. “That’s good.”

 He left ten minutes after that. Damen smashed a penholder.

 *

 The days leading up to Nikandros’ party were the worst of Damen’s life. It wasn’t as though Laurent hadn’t dated anyone for the last few years, but the fact that he was going on a date with Armand, rich, successful, handsome Armand, who cracked dry jokes and said things like, My supervisor would kill me if I said this but did you know… He was just so boring. Laurent could do way better.

 Nikandros’ party was, thankfully, a wonderful distraction. It was as raucous as ever, and the cacophony of noises prevented Damen from thinking too much. Damen drank, he danced, and he thought of flirting with Naos’ sister, but decided against it.

 He was on the alfresco, smoking, trying to ignore the couple in the corner who were three seconds away from having sex, when Laurent opened the sliding doors.

 Damen was so surprised, he almost dropped his cigarette. Then he tried not to get his hopes up. He was either so drunk he was hallucinating, even though it had never happened before, or Laurent had ditched Charls to bring himself and Armand here.

 Laurent was drunk, or at least getting there. When he saw Damen, he smiled wide, his teeth showing.

 Damen swallowed, eyes following Laurent as he made his way over. Laurent surprised him even more; he sat close to Damen, until their thighs touched and rested his head on Damen’s shoulder.

 “Hey,” said Damen, his heart racing, confused and hopeful all at once.

 Laurent propped his chin on Damen’s shoulder. “Hello,” he said softly.

 Damen’s mouth was dry. Laurent plucked Damen’s cigarette from his fingers and placed it in his own mouth.

 Damen asked, “Armand?”

 Laurent exhaled. “He was a dick. And not in the nice, sexy way.”

 “There’s a nice, sexy way?” Damen said, amused and relieved.

 “There can be,” Laurent said, handing the cigarette back to Damen.

 They shared Damen’s cigarette for a while, fingers brushing up against each other. Laurent was still on his shoulder, and this was so achingly familiar, Damen had been afraid he’d lost it forever.

 A few moments later, Damen asked, “Was he a jerk to you, Laurent?”

 “Not really,” Laurent said.

 “Good,” said Damen.

 Laurent propped his chin on Damen’s shoulder again. “What would you do if I said yes?”

 Damen said, too seriously, “I’d kill him.”

 Laurent’s breath caught. His eyes searched Damen’s face, and Damen tried valiantly to keep his expression as neutral as he could.

 Laurent pulled back. His eyes flickered to the ground, then to Damen, and then away. “I should probably go. I have a huge headache.”

 “Okay,” said Damen.

 Laurent squeezed his hand quickly, then dropped it. He made to leave the alfresco, his movements unhurried, a little disjointed.

 At the doors, he paused. Damen saw him hesitate, and then Laurent turned around and asked, “Are you free tomorrow?”

 “Yeah,” said Damen, even though he had promised Kastor they’d have lunch together.

 Laurent nodded. “Good. Come over for dinner. I’ll make lasagna.”

 “Sure,” said Damen, now smiling so wide his cheeks hurt.

 Laurent smiled too. “See you,” he said, before he stepped through the doors, into the crowd.

 Damen watched him go, his heart settled and his smile only widening.

[isthisthingeven0n]

not an ultimatum : d.d

REQUESTS ARE CLOSED UNTIL SEPTEMBER. Please do not send one in right now, as I can’t get to it sorry guys. (also double sorry for extending the delay in requests - i’ve been away and had an accident and had to get some things checked out) 

brief summary: everyone knows you as an actress alongside david’s girlfriend. but what they don’t know is that you’re pregnant, and neither does david .. 

word count: 1.5k requested: yess by the SWEETEST anon ily angel! warnings: mentions of abortions, angst (but fluffy ending!) 

* masterlistin’ / masterlistin’ 2.0

(everything on my blog is my own writing. if it is shared on another page or website know it hasn’t been approved me unless specified. all rights reserved. - i have to start doing this as I had some shit on my other blog with plagiarism)

DO NOT STEAL MY WORK - IT IS ALL MY OWN WRITING

“Fuck.” You can’t help but stare down at the stick in your fingertips as your phone begins to ring, yet you let it ring out. 

Dropping the stick, you bury your head in your hands as you stifle a cry. This can’t be happening, you were more careful than this, right? 

Obviously, you weren’t. One drunken evening after dinner on your anniversary, things got sloppy. A small groan escapes your lips as you begin to recall the events that took place, along with the words you muttered to David. ‘we don’t need it tonight, baby.’ 

Well, clearly you did. Congrats. 

Looking over to your phone, you watch as it lights up once more, another missed call from David and a text from your assistant. 

‘when are you coming out? they’re filming in twenty.’ 

A long sigh leaves your lips as you force yourself to your feet, throwing the stick into the trash as you exit the toilet in your trailer. As you walk over to grab your things, your hand instinctively rests on your stomach, on the non-existent baby bump. 

“There you are!” A small scoff sounds from Katy, your assistant as she leans against the door to your trailer. “Y/n, are you okay?” Her voice softens as you turn around to face her, paler than usual as you blink slowly. 

“I’m, I’ll be fine.” You stumble over your words as you try to walk past her, but Katy holds your upper arm lightly. “I’ll be fine, Kitty Kat.” You tease with a forced smile, one Katy doesn’t buy but allows it to slide. 

“Break a leg!” She calls out, something she’s done since she first began to assist you. 

Throwing her a thumbs up, you carry on towards the set for this afternoon. 

Today was the scene you were dreading; it was your fight scene. You insisted on doing your own stunts as a challenge to yourself. There was always your stunt double on stand by, but ninety percent of the time, it was you. 

“Okay, Y/n!” Mark, the director calls as you wave to him, taking your position on set as your hair and makeup is touched up. “So, scene twenty-seven, take five. And, action!” He yells, and suddenly you’re back into the world of the movie. 

“Listen, we can take this the easy way, or the bitch ass way.” You smirk to your costar, Jacob, who scoffs playfully. 

Besides you, the camera pans in on the sudden drop in your expression as you lunge yourself forward, tacking your costar to the ground as the coordinated fight between you fully commences. 

After the first few fake punches, things are going smoothly. “Okay, and cut there!” Mark calls out and you straighten up as your costar pats you on the shoulder. 

“Hey, Y/n, you feeling alright?” Jacob asks, his face beginning to blur into three as you fall backwards. “Can we get a medic on set?” You faintly hear as you lie on the ground, seeing faces surrounding you before you fully black out. 

*

Groaning lightly, you slowly open your eyes.  

“There she is,” Katy smiles brightly as you try to sit upright, only to have her hand lightly rest on your shoulder, guiding you back down on your couch. “I’d take it steady, medic instructed me to ensure you drink this and stay seated.” 

Accepting the bottle of water, you take a long sip whilst Katy keeps her eyes focused on you. “What is it, Kitty Kat?” You raise an eyebrow to your assistant. 

“I don’t wanna pry, Y/n,” She starts, quickly trailing off. “but, the medic asked me if anything was different about you, and I know you’ve been sick a lot lately, and, and you’ve been having these mood swings.” She explains, focusing on the floor instead of looking you in the eye. 

“Katy, it’s okay.” You force a small smile as you reach your hand out, snapping her from her own thoughts. “Does anyone else know this or just the medic?” You ask her quietly, glancing over to check the door to your trailer is closed. 

“Just the medic.” She ensures as you sigh in relief, taking another sip from the bottle that’s close to empty now. “Have you told David?” Katy questions hesitantly and watches as you shake your head. 

Tears build up in your eyes within seconds, and a small sob escapes your lips. “I don’t know what to do,” You blubber, wiping your eyes as Katy passes you some tissues. “I, I’m in the middle of shooting a movie! David’s career is skyrocketing, I,” You sigh in exhaustion as you collapse back down into your sofa whilst Katy daps your eyes lightly with more tissues. 

“I guess you won’t know until you talk to him, Y/n/n.” Katy forces a smile as your trailer door opens, and your co-star appears. 

“Oh, sorry,” Jacob nervously laughs. “I just came to check you’re alright as Mark wants to carry on shooting the stunt, but we can use your double?” 

Sniffing, you sit upright as Katy holds her arms out cautiously. “Tell Mark to carry on with the double, sorry ‘bout this Jacob.” You apologise to your co-star who shrugs it off and exits the trailer, leaving you alone with your assistant once more. “I’m going to have to tell David,” You bury your head in your hands as Katy rubs your back supportively. 

“It’ll be okay, Y/n.” Katy tells you, wondering deep down whether this is going to be a good thing or not. 

*

“Y/n?!” David yells as the front door closes, and he rushes from editing to the hallway, seeing you stood there with a tired smile on your face. “Katy texted me, you feeling any better?” 

Immediately you’re enveloped into a tight hug, one filled with so much love and concern, and you just break down. 

“I’m sorry,” You cry, pulling away from your boyfriend who furrows his eyebrows as you wipe your eyes forcefully. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” David hushes as he helps you toward the couch and sits beside you, lifting his hand up to wipe your tears away. “are you feeling any better? How was filming?” 

You simply shake your head as you fixate on the awards displayed from both your careers. So many achievements in a few years, how could you take potential opportunities away from him now? 

“I, it wasn’t so bad.” You shrug your shoulder. “But, there’s something I need to tell you,” Shifting on the couch, you face David and take his hands in yours. 

“Okay, what’s so serious?” He chortles but quickly cuts himself off as your lips turn down into a frown, and sadness coats your gaze. 

“You know I’ve been feeling kinda sick lately?” You slowly start, and David nods along. “Well, today I felt even worse, and I thought it might be my period, but it’s late.” You explain, looking up as David tenses up. 

“How late is late?” David questions quickly, holding your hands tightly as you hold back another cry. 

“Late enough to know it’s not coming, because I’m pregnant.” You quietly state, hearing it aloud for the first time as silence looms over both of you. “And I know, the timing couldn’t be any worse, but I did some research on my way home and there’s a clinic like a half-hour away, and-”

“Wait,” David cuts you off abruptly. “you, you don’t want it?” His voice softens to a whisper. 

“I, I don’t know.” You mutter, feeling David’s hands slip out of yours. “Are we even ready for a child, Dave?” You ask as he stands up and begins to pace around the living room. 

“We could be, but from the sounds of it you’ve made up your mind.” He scoffs, rubbing his eyes as you lean back, taking a cushion and covering your stomach. 

“I’ve not made my mind up, David.” You shoot back. “I’m just thinking of both of us here, what it’ll mean for our careers.” 

David pauses and sighs. “But we could make it work, others have!” He exclaims, but you shake your head. “Are you not ready for this? For a family?” David kneels down in front of you with those big doe eyes. 

“I’m scared, Dave.” You whimper, clutching the cushion closer to you. “You really think we could raise a kid in all of this,” You motion to the world around you, your world that you’re both consumed in. 

A small smile tugs at David’s lips as he pulls the cushion away from you, focusing on your stomach. “I think we can do this, but only if you’re ready to, Y/n.” David comforts you before sitting down beside you as you lean against him, resting your head on his shoulder. 

“Whatever I decide, you’ll be there for me?” You quietly ask, biting your lip as you glance up at David. 

“I’ll always be there for you, Y/n.” David kisses the top of your head as you snuggle closer into him. “Whatever you decide, I’m not going anywhere.” 

[delta-roseblr]

Lol, all the new info about the solangelo and delix kids made me want to have a fic just about them. So I was wondering if that would be possible? xD

Hello, Anon!

I know it has been forever since you sent this prompt, but it wasn't forgotten!

I hope this is worth the wait

_____________________________________________________

The Kids

· Because Solangelo and Delix both set down in California, Solangelo in New Rome and Delix stays in Northern California; they see each other a lot, as do their kids.

· The fact that Michael and Lee (Nico and Will's twins) and Mason (Felix and Dean's son) are a little more than a year apart just added to their drive to get together as a family. The kids could entertain each other, and they always got along well. The twins were challenging to entertain when they were little, so this is a big deal.

· Will and Dean always figured the three of them would always get along because, well, that was how they were, but Nico and Felix had their doubts. They figured that as the three got older and if (when) the twins started showing their demigod powers that they would drift.

· Nico and Felix turned out to be completely wrong, and the three just got closer as they got older.

· You would think, since Mason is the oldest of the three, he would take on the leadership role in the group, but that isn't how it works out. Mason is a pretty even-keeled kid. He definitely got Dean's tendency to want to put his head down and do his work. He can and does take the leadership role during team things like sports but not when the twins are involved.

· The twins are a damn handful from the moment they are born, and they never really change. Both of them are outgoing in their own ways. Lee is more competitive and will jump at the opportunity to take on a challenge, while Michael is more social- he can (and will) start a conversation with pretty much anyone he meets. The two are also a perfect storm of trouble because Michael will come up with an idea like they should buy fake ids and sneak into a club, and Lee will view it as a challenge, so he wants to do it, and they will absolutely find a way to talk Mason into joining them. Mason definitely tries his hardest to keep them out of trouble and manages to be at least somewhat successful sixty-five percent of the time.

· The twins love showing up at Mason's mortal school events, so even though they do not go there, most of Mason's classmates recognize them. They are also pretty much honorary members of Mason's lacrosse team. While Mason gives them shit for being menaces, he really likes when they show up, it definitely stops things from getting boring.

· Mason visits New Roman as well, even though not as much because going to New Roman can be a process as a mortal going to New Roman. Still, he has teamed up with the twins and a few of the other children of the seven around their age to case a little harmless trouble on the weekend.

· Btw, Dean has had several conversations with a teenage Mason about precisely what to do if he finds himself being hit on by a horny god (with very specific things to say to Apollo or Dionysus). Mason considers these the most embarrassing conversations he has ever had with his days. It's bad enough that his middle-aged dads still act like teenagers half the time and CAN'T keep their hands off each other. He doesn't want to hear about how Greek gods had tried to bone them back in the day. Grandpa Solace jumping in with "Just remember, Apollo isn't nearly as good in bed as he claims, and you can take my word for it" doesn't help with the awkwardness. He would rather have to go through the birds and bees talk a million times over.

· All three of these boys are NOT STRAIGHT. Michael is gay, while both Lee and Mason are bisexual. It's hard to say that Michael or Lee "came out" because it happened so organically. There was no sit everyone down and tell them moment. Instead, it was just "I LIKE like that boy" or "that boy is really cute" when they were like twelve. Mason takes FOREVER to admit this to himself and even longer to admit it to anyone else. Michael and Lee KNOW way before Mason admits to anything, and neither of them lets him hid from it. Lee tries the comforting approach hoping Mason will admit it while Michael goes more the exposure therapy route- he'll point out cute guys and ask what Mason thinks. He tricked Mason into going to a few gay events without Mason knowing until it was too late to back out.

· FYI, Mason comes out to Lee first, but only because they get into a fight because Lee is flirting with a boy; Mason secretly has a massive crush on (or at least he thinks it's a secret, but everyone can tell). Michael is solidly pissed about this for months, but that doesn't stop him from trying to play matchmaker.

Dribble:

The rain had stopped, and Mason supposed he should have been happy about that, but the lingering sense of tension and danger made it hard to appreciate. He, Michael, and Lee had already walked one block north of Gypsy Bar, and Mason was hoping as they put even more distance between themselves and the bar that sense of unease would dissipate at least a little.

They had been walking in silence for several minutes. That was a rare thing, and Mason hoped it meant that it was one of those rare occasions that his cousins were thinking about how horrible their idea had been, but Lee killed that hope the moment he opened his mouth.

"Well, we had to try," Lee declared.

Mason looked over and up because, of course, Lee was at least three inches taller than him. That would have been more annoying if Mason was at all insecure about his height, but at six foot he was comfortable. Also, he had a couple of inches on Michael, which helped.

Lee's hair looked practically white instead of its usual light blonde under the street lights' harsh glare, and his complexion seemed extra fair. Even his freckles were lost in the artificial light. Not surprisingly, there wasn't a single sign of worry on his face.

Maybe if Mason had Greek god powers, he would have been relaxed too, but he didn't. That call for adventure that Lee and Michael had just seemed like asking for trouble to Mason, the mere mortal. "Not with the worse fake IDs in history," Mason pointed out yet again.

"They were not that bad!" Michael was quick to defend.

This was not the first time Mason had heard that, and it didn't make it any less ridiculous. One of Michael and Lee's dads was literally a doctor that could heal people by touching them. There was no fucking excuse for their inability to see what was right in front of them. Why Michael had even bought the IDs, having seen them, Mason would never understand.

"They looked like they were hand-drawn by a preschool," Mason pointed out, "And the names were ridiculous."

"Pictures didn't look much like us," Lee agreed.

Michael let out a long, loud sigh, pushed a dark strand of hair that had fallen out of his ponytail and into his eye line, and tucked it behind his ear. While Lee looked like the stereotypical California surfer dude, Michael almost looked Mediterranean. He had light brown hair that he had grown out over the last year and now almost exclusively wore tied up, and he naturally had a more tan, almost olive complexion. Even with the differences, it was impossible not to recognize the two as twins immediately. They both had the same sharp facial features, lean and athletic builds, and light blue eyes.

Mason was the obvious odd man out in the group. His hair was somewhere between a light brown and a dark blonde, and his eyes were hazel rather than blue. His build was boxier, and he was definitely wider in the shoulders than his cousins, but that might have been because he had been playing lacrosse since he was eight. His facial features were also a little more square and angular. It might not have been a stretch to believe the three of them were related, but no one was going to mistake them for triplets.

"Okay, that is enough with the pouting," Michael declared with just a little bit of annoyance in his voice. Mason was a little surprised it had taken that long because usually, the more outrageous and destined to fail one of Michael's plans were, the more annoyed he got when it did, in fact, fail. "At least we got a fun story out of it," he stated.

Knowing Michael, he really did see that as a win which was crazy. Mason fucking loved his cousins. They were literally his best friends and really always had been, but sometimes they were crazy to be around. Mason put that on all the demigod stuff. After all, if you have literally trained to fight monsters since you were a little kid getting fake IDs and trying to sneak into a twenty-one and over club probably didn't sound all that crazy.

Mason wasn't exactly a fucking nun. Sneaking into a bar didn't sound completely crazy but trying to get into a bar known for checking IDs with comically bad fake IDs did.

"We are lucky they didn't call the police," Mason pointed out flatly. The bouncer had decided to take pity on them for some reason after giving them one hell of a fucking lecture, and Mason would forever be grateful. "Or worse, our parents," he added with a shutter.

"What are you worried about?" Lee asked with a laugh, "Uncle Dean and Uncle Felix would have been totally cool."

Mason gave Lee a serious look. "Nothing about my parents is cool," he stated firmly, "No matter how many people say otherwise."

"You really are a master of denial," Lee commented teasingly before patting his shoulder and adding, "It's kind of impressive."

The fact was Mason was well aware that his dads were pretty cool. If they had been called and told Mason had been caught with a fake ID trying to sneak into a bar, they probably wouldn't have even yelled at him. Neither of them were big yellers. Mason would have gotten one hell of a disapproving lecture which Mason was convinced was worse than yelling ever could be. He definitely would have lost a whole bunch of privileges for the foreseeable future.

Unfortunately, Mason had been hearing about how cool his dads were since he could remember. The fact that Felix getting early releases of video games all the time helped. Dean always bringing Mason and his friends for ice cream after practice when he was younger didn't hurt. As he got older, he just became the one with the cool parents in all his friend groups. It got old after a while, and that was before the term DILF started getting thrown around.

He would have been more annoyed if it was anyone besides Lee and Michael. They had it just as bad as he did, even if it was slightly different. Uncle Nico was practically a legion among Demigods for all the questing he did as a teenager, and even if he had just sat on his ass, he was still the son of Hades, which was a big thing. Uncle Will didn't have the history with all the questing, but he played an important role in some battle, which was enough to give him some fame. The twins had to deal with their fair share of people going full-on hero-worship over their dads, and then there was the fact that Uncle Nico had worked as a model for like five years.

Mason might not have been truly pissed off, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to flip Lee off for that comment. He did grin as he did it, at least so it was clear that it was all good.

They had walked about half a block as they had talked, and they made it about a block more in silence before Michael huffed. "So what are we going to do now?" he asked. Mason went to answer but barely got an opportunity to take a breath before Michael held up a finger to cut him off. "And the answer of going home is not allowed, so just don't even say it," he stated firmly.

Mason didn't get why going home, playing video games, ordering a pizza, and hanging out was such a bad idea. His dads were out on a date night, so they probably would have had the house to themselves, not that that mattered. According to Michael, that was just not an acceptable way for them to spend their evening, and in fairness, he had made that clear before then. That didn't mean that wasn't exactly what Mason had been prepared to suggest, but he wasn't really surprised that Michael warned him not to before he got a chance.

Mason stopped and looked around to get a feel for where they were. Since they were in West Berkeley, it was more his stomping ground rather than the twins. If it were New Rome, the twins would have a list of places they could go and things they could do, so he guessed it was on him to at least come up with one suggestion.

If he was honest, he only had a vague idea of where they were, and it wasn't a part of the city he visited often, so he didn't have the best idea of what was around. Ultimately, he went with the first thing that came to mind. "There is a really cool vintage bookstore like two blocks from here," he stated, pointing in the direction he thought it was.

It might have been the first thing he had thought of, but Mason didn't think it was a half-bad idea. He had been to the place a few times with Dean because Dean had a radar for little bookstores, and it didn't matter what they were doing or where they were supposed to be; he had to go in. It was such a well-known fact that Felix always looked up where bookstores were when they went on vacation so they could plan when they went. The little bookstore that Mason couldn't remember the name of had actually been pretty cool.

"You found an answer worse than go home," Michael commented flatly, "Why do you hurt me like this?"

Mason rolled his eyes because now Michael was just overdramatic. "They serve coffee and stuff," he informed.

"Coffee actually sounds pretty fucking good," Lee admitted, which was a good sign. Of the two, Michael always wanted to do something big and over-the-top. Lee could be like that sometimes, but he was more likely to see reason when Michael was just suggesting something crazy. Usually, if Mason could get Lee on his side, he had a chance. If Lee backed Michael's idea, then it was only a matter of time before Mason agreed to whatever insanity had been planned.

Michael stared between Mason and Lee with clear disapproval. "We can not go from trying to sneak into a 21 and over club to drinking coffee in a used bookstore," he stated with disgust before just shaking his head with disappointment, "Honestly, what is wrong with you two?"

"Okay," Lee declared, managing to sound just as unamused by Michael as Michael was with them. Lee was infinitely better at dealing with his brother when he was being dramatic than Mason was. "How about we go into that pizza place-" he pointed past Mason toward a small pizza place just across the street from where they were standing, "-and talk to the cute girls that are walking in."

"Well, that doesn't sound like fun for me!" Michael grumbled as he turned and assessed the option for a split second. "Oh, there is a couple of boys that could be cute! I don't hate that idea."

Mason gave in and turned to see what they were talking about and immediately wanted to crawl into a hole and die. "Oh my god, could you too stop staring," he hissed as he turned his back on the scene and hoped no one saw him.

They should have gone to New Rome.

Of course, both Michael and Lee were staring at him, and he knew they were going to ask. Neither of them was precisely known for letting things go either.

"What?" Mason shrugged, sounding more defensive than he meant to, "They are people from my school."

Michael and Lee exchanged a look that was never a good thing. It was one of those weird twin silent communication things they would do, and it usually meant they were about to tag team, Mason. It never worked out well.

"You know them?" Michael asked, although he managed to give the question far more weight than such a simple question should have had.

Lee was even less subtle as he stared at Mason with obvious suspicion, "How come we don't know them?"

Obviously, Michael and Lee didn't go to Mason's high school because they were in New Rome, but they hung around with Mason enough that they knew all of Mason's school friends and a fair number of his classmates. It wasn't necessarily weird that they didn't know someone that Mason knew from school, but it was a more rare occurrence. On this specific occasion, it actually made a lot of sense because they were people Mason only recently started getting to know.

"It looked like Theo and a few of the other kids from the theater club," Mason explained. Mason was not a theater kid. Even if he had wanted to be, he never would have had time with lacrosse and soccer. Since he was a junior and apparently would benefit from diversifying his afterschool activities (so saith his guidance counselor), he joined the AV club and somehow ended up helping with the school play, so he got to know some of the theater kids over the last few months. Not a big deal in the slightest. "And for the record, you two aren't entitled to know all my school friends," he pointed out just to prove a point.

Michael and Lee exchanged another look.

"Theo?" Lee questioned.

"Interesting," Michael commented.

Mason's heart jumped into his throat. Had he said that name? He hadn't meant to, but it must have just slipped out. He was absolutely fucked because the twins weren't going to let that go, and that was the last thing Mason needed. Theo was just a dude with great hair that made Mason feel weird sometimes, and he didn't want to talk about that.

Play it cool, Mason told himself through his internal panic. He shrugged, which felt like the most unnatural gesture ever. "He hangs out with a lot of the AV kids helping with the play," he explained. More accurately, he hung around many band kids helping with the play, and Mason had to adjust the audio equipment a fair amount. After talking a few times, Mason may have invited him to hang out with the AV kids, and the guy took him up on that. There was no fucking way he was telling Lee and Michael that story. "I've learned his name. It isn't a big deal," he stated. That at least was true, and no one would convince Mason otherwise.

Michael and Lee were silent for a long moment, just staring at him before Michael broke the silence. "You know what? Pizza sounds fantastic," He declared before turning on his heels and starting across the street. He was halfway across before he called over his shoulder, "And I love a good theater club. Always fun gays."

Lee patted Mason on the shoulder, which turned into him practically pushing Mason forward toward the pizza shop. "So, which one is Theo exactly," Lee asked in a mischievous tone.

Now Mason wished their wrong fake IDs had worked.

[snlhostharry]

to be determined / one

harry styles x reader friends with benefits au

soon after moving to new york, you meet harry styles at a party. you convince yourself that there’s nothing between the two of you until it becomes too intense to ignore. if you keep telling yourself that he doesn’t mean anything to you, does that make it true?

a/n: hi everyone! welcome to my first harry styles series. This originally started as a challenge for myself to try and write a harry fic inspired by taylor swift songs so that’s where the chapter titles come from, it’s kind of become something bigger than that but I figured I would keep the theme anyway 

chapter 1: welcome to new york

The story starts in New York City. 

A place written about in countless stories, about love, about heartbreak, about giving up, about standing tall, and about putting broken hearts into drawers and slamming them shut. It’s easy to say that writing another story about New York is beating a dead horse, throwing characters into the same tired old setting and letting them live out the writer's wildest daydream. But it’s never been about the city itself, it’s always been about the people. Something about the city always manages to be the perfect stomping ground for people, for characters to find each other in a  whirlwind of A list parties and harsh billboard lights. 

Speaking of which you are suddenly very sick of said harsh billboard lights in the middle of times square. As someone who has read (and written) countless articles describing times square as a flurry of activity but also with some kind of inherent magical appeal, the center of everything it’s own small utopia, you know that everyone who wrote that had to be aware of their own bullshit. It’s a nuanced way of tourist trapping, smart, albeit annoying on a variety of levels. A gimmick to get wide eyed little girls to stand in the middle of chaos and think that maybe they could carve out a place for themselves here. 

You’re not trying to carve out a place for yourself, you’re trying to get to a stupid party. That and manage to not get any mud or other stains on this very nice dress you’re wearing. After what seems like forever of looking around and then suddenly looking back down at your phone just in case anyone wanted to even try to make eye contact with you, familiar faces appear out of the sea of people. 

You greet them with a look of disappointment, “Two questions: why did you want to meet here-” a tourist elbows there way past you mid sentence, inadvertently proving your point, “-and why aren’t we just taking an uber?” 

Molly, a tall black woman with objectively perfect hair (which is somehow gorgeous at all times), smiles and pats your shoulder like a kindergarten teacher, “I thought you would want to see Times Square.”

“I’ve seen it,” You shoot back, squinting again at the bright light coming from directly behind her head, and adjusting your jacket over your shoulders. 

She squeezes your shoulder quickly, “And also to teach you that any time someone asks you to meet them in Times Square  they’re fucking with you.”

“I figured you were fucking with me,” You tell her, “But thank you, god forbid the midwestern girl gets lost in Times Square waiting for someone to meet her who is obviously not coming.” 

Molly laughs, and so do you. She looks down at her phone briefly, and then back at you, “To answer your question, why would anyone ever try to get an uber in the city at seven?” 

You shrug, “What kind of self respecting party starts at eight?” 

Fletcher, who’s name admittedly sounds like it should belong to anyone but him, finally stops staring at the large elmo mascot a few feet away and jumps into the conversation. “The kind with an age range, twenty somethings to late thirty somethings, who no longer have the energy to go from nine to six am.” 

You sigh, “So boring then or-?”

“It’s about networking,” Molly says, “And also drinking, but mostly networking.” 

“One of those unique business opportunities where you get free food, and possibly run into celebrities, singers mostly.” 

You roll your eyes, “Wow you had me at various singers.” 

“Says the woman who did an interview series with Tik Tok kids who all live in the same house,” Molly snips, half joking. 

You shiver, half from the memories of that objectively terrible experience and half from a sudden breeze. Needless to say a significant portion of the reason why you’d left LA, was because their entertainment section was suddenly drifting away from profiles on actors and towards compilations of one minute videos made by sun tanned twenty somethings that somehow made them millions a year. That and after you’d spent two weeks semi living with ten of said twenty somethings for a story that had gotten a lot of buzz you never wanted to see anyone connected to the app ever again. 

You give Molly your best ‘I’ll kill you’ smile, “You have to decide what you’re going to make fun of me for, is it the midwestern thing or is it the Tik Tok thing because one of those involves you admitting that I lived in Los Angeles for a year which means I’m perfectly capable of handling Times Square in all of it’s elmo public urinating glory.” 

Fletcher looks again at the mascot who is not in fact publicly urinating, but honestly if it did suddenly start none of you would be surprised. 

Molly looks at you for a second and says, “Both,” She looks at Fletcher. 

He looks at you then back and Molly and nods, “Yeah. Both.” 

You roll your eyes, “So can we get going now or-?” 

The ride to the location Molly had all but refused to tell you was filled with talks of the impending deadlines on Monday for pieces that were anywhere from fifty to seventy percent finished. (your’s is at the lower end of the spectrum because there is only so much one person can write about an art installation that you found less insightful and more literal in the sense that the sculpture was literally just large amounts of clay pressed together in something that shouldn’t even be considered a shape with no metaphor or meaning behind it). 

Soon enough you’re standing in what looks like mostly a residential neighborhood, with one precariously nice building in the middle of the block. You turn to Molly, “What the-?” 

“Don’t finish that, just be patient,“ She interrupts as a response. “You are very impatient, you know that?”

“I’m a journalist,” You say, “I need to know all of the facts, including what the-” You take a breath, “-heck we’re doing in the middle of a nice little neighborhood, I was expecting something more Gossip Girland Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” 

“You’re definition of journalist is a lot looser than mine,” Molly says.

“Have you ever watched Gossip Girl? And isn’t Brooklyn Nine-Nine set in a precinct?” Fletcher adds. 

“No, and Jake and Amy live in an apartment.” 

“Beyond the fact that you’re a TV writer who has never watched Gossip Girl-” Fletcher sighs, even though you know he hasn’t watched it either beyond random snippets for a hit piece he wrote on it a few months back (not received well by the way), “The top floor of that building-” He points to the precariously nice building, “isn’t apartments its a loft, the floor is huge and only one house.” 

You squint your eyes, “You’re kidding.”

“And the rest are offices?” 

“How did they get zoning for that?” 

They both shrug at the same time. 

“Guys I want to know that if the police bust up this party, speaking of loose terms, I’m going to say that you dragged me here against my will.” 

“I always knew you had good survival instincts.” 

Molly turns to you, “Look when you’re getting special press access to the inside of the met gala you will be saying thank you Molly for bringing me here to catapult my career.” 

“I have catapulted my own career thank you, the Tik Tok thing-” You shake your head, “Nevermind can we go in and stop loitering, then we’ll really get arrested.” 

Party is a loose term but you learn that's not necessarily a bad thing. It’s not a rager with strobe lights and pumping bass but there is music playing albeit classical. People mill around at tables talking to one another, both twenty somethings and thirty somethings, you recognize a few faces from the media mostly. Fletcher was right about the food, and Molly was right about the drinks. You talk to a few people just to introduce yourself, a couple of them have heard of you, if only because your sudden cross country move to newspapers that aren’t necessarily competitors but might have a bit of a rivalry was something that people talked about. You’d made a couple thirty under thirty lists (no not the Forbes one) while in LA, which meant nothing to you if you were being completely honest but apparently meant things to other people which is fine.

When you’re finally exhausted at putting on a smile and nodding like you’re actively engaged in conversation and not thinking about something completely you hang out by the bar, not even drinking, just watching the room and all of the people there. You never wanted to get a reputation for being the quiet girl in the corner who just watched and listened because those kinds of people are always seen as weird or doormats or both but if you’re being honest this is where you’re the most comfortable. Making small talk just to get some opportunity down the road has never quite been your style. 

You turn to go and find Molly when you suddenly come face to face with someone you recognise right away. 

In that moment you realize that Taylor Swift was in fact onto something when she said, “Didn’t you flash your green eyes at me?” As weird as it is, the first thing you think when you meet Harry Styles is how that song is definitely about him, because those green eyes are striking and they are staring right at you. 

“Hi,” He says, quick to the draw. 

You take a step back just because of how close you are and say, “Hello.” 

He looks at you like he’s thinking about something, and then holds out his hand, “Harry.” 

“y/n,” You shake his hand. You recover from your initial shock quickly, and plaster on that fake conversation smile again, ready for whatever it is he wants to say, if anything. You came here to ‘network’ and you’re not sure what kind of advantage talking to Harry Styles could possibly give you, but for some reason you want to talk to him. 

“What brings you here?” He asks you. 

“My co-workers,” You shrug, “I would much rather be at home watching Succession on HBO and listening to the Beatles on my record player, like true people of culture would.”

He looks at you for a second, as you try to keep a straight face. Then he laughs, “Seriously?”

“Fuck no,” You say, “That’s my impression of the girl who meets Harry Styles at a party and has to convince him that she is not like all the other girls, she is the one for him.” You smile, “Was that good? Or should I try again?” 

He thinks about it, “I think you should try again.” 

“Because you think it’s wrong or because you think I’m funny?”

“What do you think?”

“Well if you think I’m funny, then I’ve already won, I’ve tricked you into thinking that I’m not like all the other girls with reverse psychology .”

“Are you screwing with me?”

“Of course I’m screwing with you,” You take a sip of your drink. “If I were home right now I would be playing Lizzo on my record player, and drinking something with a medically unsafe level of caffeine.” You pause, “What brings you here?” 

“Honestly,” He looks out over the room, “I thought that this was going to be a much cooler party. Instead it’s just a bunch of reporters, and editors and media people.” 

“Who are inherent mood killers?” You ask. 

He narrows his eyes at you, “Am I allowed to say yes to that?” 

“You can do whatever you want,” You tease him, “You’re Harry Styles, who am I to tell you what to say?” 

“I feel like it was a trick question, which means that you are also a reporter.” 

You laugh again, “That was funny, I’m going to write that down for my story. ‘Harry is genuinely funny which he tries to use to make up for the lack of small talk abilities’.”

“You’re screwing with me again.” 

“Of course I am,” You say, “I work in the arts section of the Times, well not the actual art anymore but the movies and television.” 

“TV critic?” He says, “So you’re harsh.” 

“TV critics are just harsh for attention, I don’t need to be because no movie snob or well meaning director is going to go to the Times to see what we thought of any given movie. I write honestly, sometimes under the influence of caffeine and try to contain my excitement at narratively unnecessary plot twists.” You explain, “That and I get paid to watch TV, and usually private screenings of movies.” 

He leans against the bar a sign that he doesn’t plan on moving anytime soon. You’re not going to say that you’re so awestruck by a celebrity that you have no idea what to say, or that he’s intimidating you but your hand shakes just a little as you clutch your fingers around the glass because he’s objectively attractive. Objectively attractive in the way that if he were on a dating app you would swipe yes and then put a lot of pressure on yourself to be funny and relatable even though you know that you don’t need him. 

“What did you think of Dunkirk?” 

“Oh!” You forgot that he acted, “That was before my time. I was working at the LA Times doing the music section then I think.” You know what he’s going to say next, “And before you ask yes there is a piece still posted of me reviewing your debut album. I think I reached out to get an interview with you, but I was suspiciously declined.” He looks embarrassed, “I was like under five years out of college I would’ve declined me too. They only gave me the story because it was the time where people weren’t sure that ex boyband members could make objectively good albums that meant something.” 

He tilts his head to the side for a second, “And? Can they?”

“I’m in no place to make a generalization,” You say, “But I think you did. Admittedly that album was something, very intimate.” 

“I don’t know if I should be taking that as a compliment.”

“I don’t want to give you a compliment because some people have a hard time with them, and this will get very awkward very fast. No shame, personally I have no mechanism to take compliments on my writing.” 

He laughs, “I think I can take it.” 

“Hmm.. okay,” You take another step back, “Okay are you sure you're ready?” 

“Yes.” 

“I think the entire album was very good, very unexpectedly good or at least I didn’t expect it to be. It was very open in that way that songs are vulnerable but still leave enough mystery that your fans don’t think you're a shitty person and I really like meet me in the hallway,” You say quickly, “In fact I listened to it just yesterday when I was working.” 

He doesn’t say anything for a minute, and then fake sighs, “See I don’t think that counts because it was more of a backhanded compliment.” 

“What?”

“You said you didn’t expect it to be good, that’s not really a compliment then-”

“I was saying it pleasantly surprised me,” You say, throwing your hands in the air in mock annoyance. “You surprise me, Harry.” He doesn’t say anything, and for a minute neither do you, but you snap back to life just in time to say, “Is that compliment enough to embarrass you?” 

He shrugs, but you know he’s messing with you. “It’s something but I don’t know if it’s really doing it for me.” 

“You are impossible, just another out of touch celebrity, is nothing ever good enough for you people?” It’s by now that you realize that you inadvertently closed the gap between the two of you, and you’re standing very close. 

He seems to realize this at the same time as you, “I-”

“Are you going to ask me to have sex with you?” You deadpan. 

“What?” He looks offended for a second, “No.” 

“I had to ask,” You tell him, “It’s happened before.” 

“I was going to ask you for your number.”

“See usually when a guy asks me that they’re asking so-” 

“It’s not for that.” 

“Then what’s it for?” 

He looks at you with something in his eyes that you don’t know the meaning of, “In case you want to do an interview, so that they don’t reject you this time.” 

You know that’s not it, but you give it to him anyway because he’s Harry Styles (which yes is not a valid reason but this ‘party’ is very boring and this is the most interesting thing to happen to you in at least the past week). It takes you a minute to remember which one is your real number and which one is the fake number you give off if a guy is asking because he wants a booty call, but you eventually give it to him. Then you scurry off with a quick goodbye when you realize how late it is, and how you do have work to do. There’s a new episode of Big Little Lies out tomorrow and you don’t understand why but people are very into the show, and very into your episode recaps. 

You corner Molly away from some guy you think might have actually been able to get her press access to the Met Gala and remind her that she also has a deadline tomorrow. The two of you go off to look for Fletcher and find him very close to sealing the deal with an objectively pretty girl, but you politely remind him that he has work to do and is very busy. The girl looks sad but let’s him go without much whining. You would’ve understood if she tried to get him to stay with her, he’s a little bit shorter than Molly but to be fair Molly is above averagely tall, and is nice and fit and has brown curly hair which you know from personal experience is sometimes just kryptonite. (you’ve kissed Fletcher before, long story, and can also say he’s on your top list of good kissers as well right up there with a guy you hooked up with in LA only to realize later that he was Robert Pattinson). 

Somehow the three of you are only able to make it back to your apartment. So the night ends with Molly and Fletcher in the living room on the couch and in a sleeping bag respectively, and you are comfortably in your bed. Your phone sits on your nightstand, suspiciously silent. You’re not waiting for Harry Styles to call you, nope, definitely not.