#u go from a thousand notes and zero asks to one note and four asks. v different experience

[batsplat]

introducing a new system where i take an evening where i'm not gonna do useful shit anyway and pick like... 5-10 asks that Do Not Need an essay response and answer them without an essay response. because the inbox has gotten truly worrying and the time i take to respond feels kinda rude at this point. so. sorry u get a bunch of posts in a row... i'm just posting these in relative quick succession

[hyunsracha]

six — lee felix

word count: 6.6k

summary: six months in which you realize you’re afraid of growing up.

warnings: uhhh reader is sad? not depressed but just like. sad. so if u don’t feel comfortable reading that!! also blood mention and like one or two suggestive lines hehe

august.

You fondly remember the moment you realized you had feelings for one of your best friends, Lee Felix. You were in 8th grade, and Felix was walking you home from school. Your dad had been out of town for the past 2 weeks, and Felix felt bad about you walking home alone. He stopped on the sidewalk in front of your house, “Well, here you are.” You had pouted, really enjoying the conversation you were having with your best friend. Your dad would be coming home tonight, so this would be the last of your little walks. 

“Wait right here!” You had squeaked before running into the house. You had a cute little orange tree in your backyard, and whenever Felix came over he would pick one or two and snack on them. There was a bowl in the kitchen full of them, so you plucked one from the top and ran back outside.

“To thank you for walking me home.” He smiled at you then, quickly knocking all of the air out of your poor adolescent lungs. When did he get so...radiant?

He’s radiant even now, leaning towards the front seat of Hyunjin’s car and honking the horn outside your house. You huff, yelling, “Shut up!” out the window as you hurriedly push a comb through your messy hair. It’s not like you’re going to be late. It only takes twenty minutes to get to the edge of your pathetic little town.

Hyunjin’s been driving the five of you to school ever since he got his license. You and Seungmin can also drive, but Hyunjin insists. He’s obsessed with the beat up little car he got with his own money; money that he got from working as a lifeguard one summer. Jisung sits in the passenger’s seat, claiming it’s his assigned seat since he’s Hyunjin’s boyfriend. Felix sits in the middle of the backseat, with Seungmin on the right and you on the left. You’re hyper aware of how nice Felix looks today. His hair is parted down the middle and wavy, a little dry from the many bleaches you did to it over the summer. He’s sporting a leather jacket with a Nirvana shirt underneath, and you suddenly feel like rolling down the window to get some air. That itself is a struggle, because Hyunjin’s car has manual windows that you have to roll down with a crank. The warm August breeze flows through your hair, but it’s not unpleasant. You’ve always liked summer; no school, spending all of your free time with the boys in the car, driving to surrounding cities and wreaking havoc all over the county. 

You all make small talk on the drive to school, mostly chattering about your senior year. Your last year in this hellhole of a place. You’ve been going to this school since 7th grade, since there aren't enough people to separate the middle schoolers from the high schoolers. You could maneuver these hallways with your eyes closed, and you hate it. In fact, you hate everything about this town. Almost every building is the same color beige, and almost every person sports the same blank, lifeless look. The people in this car are the only things keeping you grounded; if it wasn’t for them, you would have fled for the hills the second you got your license.

Another thing you hate about this town: everybody knows who you are. There’s no escaping yourself. You’re reminded of this during your lunch period, when the five of you walked into the one diner in town that hasn’t been renovated since the 1950s. When you enter, the waitress greets you all by name, a name that tastes like poison on your tongue. Everyone you know was born and raised here, leaving absolutely zero room for freedom. You itch to get out of here, to turn into someone you don’t even recognize. You long to walk into a restaurant in clothes that aren’t your style, and speak in a voice that isn’t yours, and even give anyone who asks a fake name. It’s not that you hate yourself, really. You just want the choice to be whoever you want to be. Here, you’re the same old (Name), the kid whose mom walked out when they were just a toddler. That’s all anyone around here really knows you for. 

Except for them. They’re sitting around you now, happily chatting away. You grew up with them, just like you grew up with every other kid around here, but they’re different. You were never the kid without a mom to them; you were just (Name), their best friend who just so happened to have a mom.

That’s another reason you like Felix, you think. He’s never mentioned your mother. Not once in the entire 17 years you’ve known each other. He understands you better than you even understand yourself. He’s always been the most caring person you know, refusing to step over boundaries you didn’t even know existed. He always does what’s best for other people, and never expects anything in return for his kindness. 

He’s too good for you, you think. He’s all sunshine and happiness, and you’re thunderstorms and eternal dread. It sounds cheesy, you’re aware, but it’s the truth. No matter how badly you want to be with him, you know it would never work out. It doesn’t matter how often you think about holding his hand in a more than friendly way or giving him quick kisses as rewards during study sessions. The two of you just wouldn’t work out, and it would certainly put a dent in your friend group. You convinced yourself all of this many moons ago. It’s just a silly crush, you tell yourself. A silly crush that’s been going on for four years. You could never be with Felix; it would ruin everything.

It’s better this way. You get to preserve this perfect image of this perfect boy, and you never have to see what he looks like once you’ve accidentally broken all of his ribs to stomp on his heart.

october.

Crying in the middle of the diner really wasn’t your plan on this Thursday afternoon. But you can’t help it. You took a big math test on Tuesday and got an 89% on it. Jisung scoffs when you first complain about it, whining that he would be crying tears of joy if he got an 89% in your level math class. And that is when you start to cry. Hyunjin immediately takes you into his arms, running long fingers through your hair gingerly. He rolls his eyes at the other boys as he tries to calm you down. 

Truth be told, you’re not just crying over a math test. You’re crying over everything. You would rather have had this session in your room late at night but you can’t always get what you want. Applying for university has been stressing you out so much. It’s so expensive to apply and you don’t even know if you’re going to get in? Sounds like a scam. You applied to 7 different schools, all in big cities that are your ticket to leaving this shithole forever. And that’s exciting to you, but then you lay in bed at night and realize that you’ll be thousands of miles away from the only people who have ever looked at you, a fucked up mass of cigarette burns and bruises, and decided that they love you because of it. That terrifies you. You’ve cried about it almost every night since you started your applications, and you change the subject whenever your friends notice the puffy redness surrounding your sad eyes. 

In the midst of your mini meltdown in the middle of the diner, you don’t notice Jisung ordering your favorite thing off the menu, adding a strawberry milkshake because he feels bad. He pays for you, too, before pulling you out of Hyunjin’s hold and dragging you to a booth in the corner. He sits you down, plucking a napkin from its holder to pat under your eyes. He’s mumbling sweet words and apologies through you, but you’re not listening. You’ve completely zoned out at this point. You only come to when Seungmin slides a plate of food and a glass in front of you. Hyunjin nearly coos at the widening of your eyes, a fond smile growing on his face as you gratefully sip on the milkshake. 

The rest of your lunch period is normal; filled with jokes that make your sides hurt and throwing food at one another when they say something unsavory (Jisung is a fan of yo momma jokes). You find yourself mindlessly gazing at the boys around you as they talk to each other. They really are your whole world, huh? They’ve been by your side pretty much since you could walk, and you can’t imagine getting this far without them. Tears sting the back of your eyes and your vision starts to blur. You can’t cry again, (Name), not like this. 

You shake your head, “Do you guys wanna hang out tonight?”

“Why? Do you miss us?”

“Yes, Jisung. I miss beating you at Uno and making you cry.”

“We agreed not to talk about that - !”

You all laugh, and you hear echoes of them saying that they’ll come to your house later. They’ll figure out something to do. They’re the most exciting people you know. Definitely the most exciting people in this town.

And you were definitely right. You hear a knock on your door at about one in the morning. You were in the living room, scribbling French notes in an old notebook. You open the door, coming face to face with your four best friends wearing t-shirts and swim shorts.

“Why are you wearing swim shorts?” You ask in a monotone voice. They quickly hush you, aware of your father sleeping in the next room, and they tell you to go get changed. You oblige with a huff. 

You can easily figure out where the boys are taking you. It’s a short walk, but everything in this town is a short walk. There’s only one pool in town, next to the middle/high school. It’s obviously closed now, but that’s never stopped you guys before. Felix uses the stick of one of his earrings to unlock the gate, ushering you all in. Hyunjin and Jisung waste no time peeling off their shirts and jumping right in, screeching at the feeling of cold water against skin. Seungmin rolls his eyes before following suit, choosing instead to take the stairs into the water. You and Felix are last. You glance at him out of the corner of your eye after removing your cover-up, “I bet I could push you in before you push me in.”

You see him narrow his eyes in your direction, “Bet.” And you’re immediately at each other’s throats, palms pushing against each other’s bare skin. The boys in the pool have their eyes trained on you, a mix between wanting to make sure you don’t fall and kind of hoping one of you does fall.

Felix ultimately wins your little fight. He grips your biceps, walking you backwards before practically dropping you in the water. It’s definitely cold, but not cold enough to scream over. You think it’s actually kinda nice. 

You take a deep breath as you emerge, glaring daggers at the boy still standing on the concrete. He’s cackling, and you kind of want to kill him. The next best thing you can do is grab his ankle and pull him in yourself.

The five of you splash around for a while, screaming and splashing at each other. Seungmin chases you around, grabbing at your feet to pull you under. Hyunjin, Jisung, and Felix are playing Marco Polo. Jisung is a cheater, slowly climbing out of the pool before calling out, “Polo!”

A little while later, you and Felix are sitting next to each other at the top of the stairs, your chest heaving as you pant. Your hair smells like chlorine, but it’s the first time you’ve felt true bliss since the school year started. “Let’s play Truth or Dare.” Hyunjin suggests from the deep end.

You roll your eyes, “What are you, twelve?”

“Twelve inches deep in your mo-”

“Jisung.”

But you decide to play anyway. It starts out small, with Seungmin daring Jisung to steal a candy bar from the convenience store down the street, and Hyunjin asking Felix the weirdest thing he’s ever gotten off to. Definitely not the weirdest thing to come from the five of you playing this game. 

But then, Jisung turns to you, “(Name), truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

A wicked smile covers his thin lips, and you immediately regret speaking, “I dare you to kiss Felix.” Your face immediately turns a bright red. Fuck you, Han Jisung, your mind is screaming. You sit up a little bit straighter, observing Felix out of the corner of your eye. He doesn’t even react to Jisung’s dare; he just turns his body to face you and gives you a lazy smile.

“You know you’re gonna have to shave your head if you don’t.”

“I know that.” You mumble before leaning in, stopping a mere few centimeters before his lips. You can feel everyone’s eyes on you. You want to just disappear. Felix, always the sweetest person you’ve ever known, does the work for you, closing that centimeter gap. He’s gentle; oh, he’s so gentle. He kisses you like he’s afraid of hurting you, like you’ll evaporate if he applies any real pressure to your mouth. Suddenly, all of your veins are filled to the brim with Felix and you want more, more, more. But you can’t get more, because your other three friends are right there. And once he pulls away, you can see it in his eyes. He will only ever see you as his best friend made of paper cuts and despair.

december.

Felix has been looking at you differently since that night. You don’t understand it at all. At first, you would ask things like, “Do I have something on my face?” and he would just shake his head and look away, leaving you more confused than before. It’s the same look every time, like you’ve grown two extra heads or a tail or something. It’s so analytical; so different than how Felix used to look at you. It makes you feel like a stranger in your own body.

“Guys…” Hyunjin whines as he pulls up to your house after school, just having finished the last day of the first semester. Midterms have kicked your ass, and you’re not really in the mood for Hyunjin’s pouting. You always get dropped off first, because your dad is hardly ever around, so sometimes you all just hang out there. “It’s our last Christmas Eve before college!” 

You glare at him from the backseat. Must he always remind you that you won’t be able to spend every day together in six months time? You push open the door, “See you guys then. 10, right?” When you get a nod from Seungmin, you shut the door before hurrying into your house, your thin jacket hardly protecting you from the December air. 

The next three days pass terribly slowly. You watch TV and scroll through TikTok and take many naps before it’s the night of Christmas Eve and you head to the park.

The five of you have done this every year. When you were little kids, you would spend the day of Christmas Eve together, running through the streets and playing games. As you got older, your hangouts got later and later until they were eventually an evening affair. Like now, it’s 9:45pm and you’re walking in between streets to get to the one park in town. It’s a small park, with a plastic playground full of primary colors, a swingset in the mulch, and an open grassy plain. 

As you approach, you see that Hyunjin and Jisung are already there. That doesn’t surprise you at all; those two are always attached at the hip. They’re chasing each other around the field, and you can hear their giggles from across the street. You wish you were more like them sometimes. Happy and in love and free. You zip up your coat and make your way to the swingset. The swings have always been your favorite. You get to kick your legs and go high in the air, nearly free. But you never go all the way. Your ice-cold hands grip at the chains tightly, afraid to just let go and fall. You’ve always been afraid to fall, haven’t you?

Seungmin and Felix are last, and they came together. They’re neighbors, after all. Only two streets away from you. Hyunjin and Jisung are one street away in the opposite direction. Seungmin joins you on the swings, but he doesn’t go as high as you do. He doesn’t really swing at all, actually; he just kinda sways, the tips of his sneakers brushing away any mulch in their way. Felix is everywhere. He runs around with the others, climbs to the top of the playground and yells nonsense, and pushes Seungmin on the swing. There’s never really a plan with the five of you. You could do nothing together and still have a good time. 

Your phone isn’t on you, so you don’t know how long it’s been before Felix calls your name. He’s halfway hidden behind the slide, one hand ushering you towards him. Confused, follow his gesture.

“What do you want? And why are we hiding back here?”

“Look, I know it’s tradition for us to not give each other any gifts, but…” He pulls a small box out from behind his back. You click your tongue disapprovingly, “Lix! I don’t have anything for you.”

“You don’t need to get me anything, (Name). Just...accepting this will be enough.” He hands you the box, and you open it slowly, afraid of its contents for some reason. You cannot stop the gasp that pushes through your lips as you look inside. There’s a small, delicate ring sitting inside the box, looking like it would fit perfectly on your pinky. 

“Felix…” You begin, but no other words come out. A hand meets your chin and ever so gently tilts your head to meet Felix’s eyes. Right now, he’s the shyest you’ve ever seen him, the tips of his ears red from the cold as his eyes still manage to sparkle in the almost dark. 

“It’s a promise ring. So, I have to promise you something, right?” He chuckles then, a deep sound that spreads warmth throughout your chest, “I know that, in a few months, we’ll probably be far away from each other. So, (Name), I want to promise you that I will always be with you. No matter how far away I am physically, I am always right with you, in your heart.”

You think his words are stupidly cheesy, but you can’t help but feel giddy at them anyway. You smile at him, taking the ring out of the box and slipping it onto your left pinky.

Felix thinks the smile you grace him with in that moment is the most genuine smile he’s ever seen on your pretty lips. So genuine, in fact, that he can’t help but to immediately kiss you. This kiss is different from the last; confident and playful as opposed to the shyness of the one before. Felix feels as though he’s finally clicked in the last piece of a puzzle and his mind can finally be at ease. He’s been wondering why he’s been feeling so weird since that night in the pool. Why he feels butterflies in his stomach whenever he looks at you. Why Seungmin insisted he was in love with you when they went to buy your Christmas present. It all makes sense now. Seungmin was right.

Felix is definitely in love with you.

february.

Lee Felix is not your boyfriend. You are not Lee Felix’s partner. And oh, God, does it burn. Sure, the two of you have kissed a few times since that night at the playground, and every kiss makes you feel like he’s trying to steal all of the oxygen in your lungs. Like he wants to steal your very essence; the very core of who you are.

A few days ago, he came to your house to study. The two of you sat on the boring grey carpet in your living room, on opposite sides of your boring grey coffee table. History books sat in front of you, and a plate of orange slices were being borderline inhaled by the blond. Midway through reading a passage about the War of 1812, he fell asleep, leaving you to finish reading on your own. In his slumber, you heard him mumble under his breath. This doesn’t surprise you at all; Felix has always been a sleep talker. What does surprise you, however, is when you hear him mumble something akin to your name. Your breath gets caught in your throat as you lean closer to Felix, hoping to hear him say it again. And he does. Your cramped living room suddenly feels very hot. He was dreaming about you. It’s like he wants you to fall in love with him.

It’s definitely working. You’re definitely in love with Felix. Ironically, you realize this on Valentine’s Day, when you wake up and immediately check your phone, your face turning bright red at his stupid good morning text filled with emojis. It wasn’t any different than the text sent the day prior, or the month prior, or the year prior, considering that he’s been sending you texts like these almost every morning since you both got phones. But this one made you feel different, like you were just some poor lovesick kid, hearts practically shooting out of your eyes at everything you did. 

You cry about this situation to Seungmin that night, tangled up in his arms as your tears wet his pale blue sweater. He’s always treated you like a baby for reasons you don’t know. You hated it when you were younger, but now you want nothing more than for him to rock you back and forth and mumble gentle words of care. He did this a lot when the two of you were kids; he was always more mature than he needed to be. Specifically, when Jisung would push little (Name) off of the swings. Seungmin has been the glue that holds your group together since you were in elementary school. He’s staring at the wall in front of him now, trying his best not to roll his eyes at your blubbering. He loves you, he really does, but you were reading this situation all wrong.

“(Name)...” he sighs, “You’re running out of time.”

You pull out of his grasp, watery eyes showing clear confusion. He can read you like a book, so he continues, “If you want to be with Felix, you have to go for it now.” You stare down at your lap, furrowing your brow. Your mind feels scattered. There’s no way that Felix loves you back. You’re his best friend. The person who brings him oranges from the single tree in your backyard every once in a while, just because you know he likes them. The person who he walked home for 2 weeks straight in 8th grade because your dad was out of town. All you would ever be is Felix’s best friend, and you’re okay with that. It just hurts sometimes, knowing that you could never happen. He’s too good for you; too bright and too good and too perfect. You would crush him, you think. 

Seungmin huffs from across from you, “Get out of your head. He loves you.”

You scoff, “Yeah, I know. He loves me like I love you.”

“No,” Seungmin pushes himself off of the bed, hurrying over to the other side of the room. He rummages through his desk, a somehow organized clutter of pens and crumpled up sticky notes. He retrieves a small receipt, a victorious smile on his face. He hands it to you, urging you with his eyes to read it.

“This is a receipt from a jewelry store. The one in the mall in the town next store, right?” He nods, “Why do you have this?”

“It’s Felix’s. I was the one who took him to the store to buy that ring for you.” Your hand comes up to your chest, fingers wrapping themselves around the ring you wore on a thin chain around your neck.

“Hearing the things he said about you would be gross coming from any other guy in love, but I think it was worse from him. And he was talking about you! It’s like Jisung and Hyunjin all over again!” You know he’s being dramatic to lighten the mood, and it definitely works. You sniff away any remaining tears and giggle while he sits next to you once again, “Look. It’s obvious that he likes you. He thinks you’re some sort of angel.” He drapes an arm around your shoulder and pulls you into his chest, “That ring was his move. It’s your turn now.”

It’s your turn now.

When you’re walking home that night and you get a text from the one and only Felix, Seungmin’s words cross your mind. It’s a simple text, really, just him asking when you want to study together next. You tell him to just come home with you after school on Monday, and you think about Seungmin again. It’s your turn now.

But you know you won’t be able to. You know you’ll look at his bright, warm eyes filled to the brim with pure love for everyone around him, and your confident facade will crack. You’ll melt under his sunshine gaze, crumbling into nothing but lovesick ash. 

You’ll give up your turn. It’s for the best, right?

april.

You’re going to Seattle. A shocked chuckle bubbles from your throat as the acceptance letter shakes between your fingers. Seattle. Somewhere much bigger than here. Half of your heart swells; you’re getting out. But the other half sinks.

Because Seungmin is going to Washington, D.C.

Because Hyunjin and Jisung are going to New York City.

Because Felix is going to Los Angeles. Of course he is. Lee Felix is the sun, and he could only survive in a place covered by his rays. 

It’s only 1,000 miles, you tell yourself. And you know he’s telling you, too. You can see it in the way he keeps stealing glances at you; you can practically hear him yelling, “It’s only 1,000 miles! That’s like...ten 100 mile trips!” Not like you have any idea what it feels like to be even 100 miles away from the blond. You all met up behind your house earlier, under your orange tree, to open letters together. The five of you have never felt tension like that before, when you all sat in a circle, the realization that you wouldn’t be five minutes away forever sitting in the middle. 

You feel like screaming. Your fingernail is caught between your top and bottom teeth to keep the sound inside in the backseat of Hyunjin’s car that night. Felix’s hand is wrapped around your free one, sending warmth throughout your otherwise cold body. It’s a short ride, and nobody is talking. It makes fifteen minutes maximum to get to your destination. As soon as he parks, you’re pushing against the door, desperate for air.

There is an open field on the outskirts of town, unkempt wildflowers poking out of the grass. There’s an abandoned farmhouse smack dab in the middle, once a vibrant red, now dull against the black sky full of stars. You’ve heard many rumors about that house. It was a pretty common party house in town, and almost every year, some poor girl gets pregnant after a party there. 

You have to turn on your phone’s flashlight to see once you’re in the house, nose turned up at the mess. There are empty beer bottles and trash everywhere, and your light can pick up the dust particles floating in the air. No doubt nobody has cleaned this place in years. You pick up one of the bottles, twisting it around in your hand as if it were a foreign object. Then, without warning, you throw it against the wall. Hard. The glass shatters everywhere, and you don’t even flinch as small shards cover your face and hands. The boys don’t react. They’re not paying enough attention to react.

Hyunjin, always on your side, follows your lead. He lets out a small yelp as his bottle hits the floor, and even more miniscule pieces of glass pierce your skin. In less than a minute, all of you are smashing bottles, not a word behind shared. All you can hear is the sounds of glass crashing against wood, and the occasional shaky sigh from your own lips. You thank whatever god is up there for generations of slobby high school students, for you have never felt so relieved. You’re bleeding quite a bit, but it feels good. You swipe your hand over your face, staring down at the red liquid smeared across your palm. It makes you grin. You feel sick.

Some time later, you’re all outside. It’s mid-spring, and it’s warm. The five of you are standing in a line, facing the tree line that seems miles away. You step forward, and you start to scream. Scream about how you hate this town, and how you hate every blank faced person in it. Every person who woke up one day and decided that this empty shithole was the place to live forever, to go to college and start a family and die. You hate your father. You hate your mother. How dare they be born here, spend 18 years here and decide they want to stay? Even worse, how dare they bring you into this hell when you never asked for it. You think you hate your father more. Your mother had the good sense to leave when you were a toddler. Sound rips from your throat at the thought of her packing her bags, looking her only child in the eyes and deciding to leave them behind. You could’ve been in some big city somewhere, a vibrant red or blue as opposed to the grey you feel. But then you never would have had them. 

They start to scream with you, similar cries about how miserable they are and how badly they want to be free. You scream until your throats are raw and you picture it bleeding. You’ve all started crying without noticing, the salty tears making the small cuts on your face sting. You think you like it. 

You’ve never been angrier. You don’t even know why you’re angry, and that makes it worse. You pull Felix by the front of his shirt, nearly smashing your lips together. It’s all teeth and tongue, sending shockwaves through your body. You can hardly hear the cackles and cheers of your best friends over the sound of your heartbeat. You’re not angry at Felix. You’ve never been angry at Felix. Your chest aches at the thought of leaving him before you’ve even really had him. Because Lee Felix still is not your boyfriend. And now, you know he never will be. You never really had a chance, you tell yourself. He is the sun, bright and warm. You know people need him to live. You don’t want to dim him with the grey that spills from every word you speak.

“It’s not that far,” he whispers into your lungs, but you know it is. He will forget you in a sea of new faces; you feel far too plain to be remembered. He will meet people with rainbow veins, and he will forget you and all of the greyness that surrounds you. You only kiss him harder; you will never forget his face full of stars, no matter how many people made of moon dust you meet.

june.

This is it.

This is it, you think, watching Seungmin bite down on his lip, hard. You know he’s doing it to keep the tears from spilling. He’s standing across from the four of you, hand twisted around the handle of his suitcase. 

This is it. He’s leaving. He’s going to get on that plane and fly a million miles away, leaving a cracked foundation behind. He’s practically staring through you guys at this point. He can almost see the thoughts of fear swirling around in your minds. He promised himself he wouldn’t cry until he was safe on the plane, but he nearly cracks looking at all of you. His favorite people in the whole world, looking at him like he’s their lifeline. His heart is aching in his chest, but he clears his throat and pushes the pain away, putting on the stoic expression he used to deal with fights between the group.

“Take care of each other,” He says, his voice wavering more than he would like it to. You notice, but you can’t speak through the lump in your throat. Tears are slipping from your eyes, but you can’t be bothered to wipe them away, “I’ll see you on Christmas Eve.” And he turns, dragging his suitcase behind him as he walks. You give him about 15 seconds before your demeanor snaps. You chase after him, the other boys quickly following after you. Seungmin turns back around at the sound of rapid footsteps, a short oof coming from his chest as you collide. Your arms are squeezing around his middle, and you’re sure you’ve stained yet another one of his sweaters.

“You have to promise.” You mumble into the fabric. There are three more sets of arms encompassing you two, “Promise what?”

“Promise you’ll come back. That you’ll always come back.”

He chuckles, a stray tear dropping onto the top of your head, “I promise I’ll come back. And I promise that Felix will come back, and Hyunjin and Jisung will. And that you will.” You release your hold on him, looking up at him with bleary eyes. He gives you a smile, one that says all of the words you know he’s too shy to say out loud. 

You let him leave this time. The remaining four make their way to the wall of windows, watching his plane soar through the sky. That’s when all of your tears start to get loud, as you all collapse into each other, gripping onto fabric like it’s the last time you’ll be able to feel each other. You won’t say it out loud, but you’re terrified. You’re terrified that once you get on the plane to Seattle, things will never be the same. That you’ll get too caught up in studying and new faces to make it home. That you’ll be too busy with exams and work to even send a text to the only people who matter to you. That you’ll end up losing them.

You jolt when you feel a soft hand on your wrist. It’s Felix, turning your hand palm up to see your tattoo. He places his wrist next to yours, looking down at the skin with a watery smile. You match his grin, thinking back to when you got it done.

It was the night of your high school graduation. You were at home, having just returned from a miserable celebration dinner with your father. The two of you didn’t exactly get along, seeing as he didn’t even know you that well, and he seemed to despise the parts of you he did know. You were exhausted, and you just wanted to call Felix and fall asleep together.

What you got was better than that.

What you got was a text from Jisung that simply said, “outside.” He waved at you from the passenger seat of Hyunjin’s car, Seungmin and Felix in the backseat.

“What are we doing?”

Hyunjin gasped, “You don’t remember the promise we made in freshman year?” You stared at his reflection in the rearview mirror blankly, blinking a few times as you tried to recall what this promise was. The five of you had made too many promises; you couldn’t keep up.

Felix grabbed your hand, tracing letters into the skin with his pointer finger. He knew Hyunjin wouldn’t drive until you remembered. Your eyes fluttered shut as you focused on what he was writing.

“T...Ta....oh! Tattoo! Oh- oh?”

And he was off. The nearest tattoo parlor was in the next town over, as was any actually cool place. The five of you stumbled inside, in a fit of giggles from some stupid joke Jisung had told. You all paid and played rock, paper, scissors to decide the order. You were last.

“Fuck-” You had nearly shouted, suddenly stressed. Hyunjin laughed at you, a high pitched cackle that made you want to throttle him. Felix’s hand found yours again, with a promise of, “I’ll hold your hand the whole time, okay?” coming from his lips. 

You were able to ignore your anxiousness while watching the boys get their tattoos done. You recorded all of their reactions, from their yelps of fear to their hisses of pain. Seungmin handled it the best, gritting his teeth as he made conversation with the artist. Felix was true to his word, a tight grip on your free hand the entire time you were getting your tattoo done. It hurt more than you thought it would. You squeezed his hand tightly, trying not to show too many reactions, fully aware of the camera in your face. 

Once you were done, Hyunjin took a picture of all of your wrists in a circle, blue “5”s on each and every one. It wasn’t a very big tattoo; only about the size of a quarter. But it meant a lot to you. You would be a piece of them forever. Whenever they shook someone’s hand, or held hands with a future lover, or even wrote on a post-it, you would be there.

“What are you thinking about?” the Felix of the present whispers, his breath fanning over your ear. You snap out of your daze, tears all dried up.

“Graduation night.” You answer, looking up at him. He nods, tongue poking out slightly. You can tell by his expression that he thinks you mean later in the night, when he walked you up to your door and kissed you soft and slow, mumbling i love yous into your mouth. When he asked to be your boyfriend and said no, telling him that you had missed your chance. That if he still wanted you after college, you’d be all his, but you were too scared to have your heart broken by your best friend.

He leans forward a bit, lifting up the chain that held his ring, “After college, we’re gonna come back here and hide behind the slide again...and I’m gonna put another ring on this necklace. Okay?” Your eyes go wide as you realize the weight of his words, stuttering an okay in response. How is he so confident? Is he not afraid of losing you, of losing all of this? He just assumes that nothing is going to change. That come Christmas Eve, you’ll all come back. Seungmin will still be the glue of your group. Hyunjin and Jisung will still be stupid and in love and filled with youthful glee. You’ll still be melancholy and grey, and Felix will still be in love with you. 

Maybe he’s got the right idea. Always the optimist, always hoping for the best and seeing the best in people. Maybe things won’t be so bad. After all, they’ll always be a piece of you. When you shake someone’s hand or hold hands with a lover or write on a post-it, they’re always with you. No matter how far.

[wovenstarlight]

YWBK update: chapter 25 + liner notes

yesterday will be kinder has updated! you can read chapter 25 here, or start from the beginning here

okay, on to notes and commentary! first time i’m doing these, let’s hope this works out. commentary under the cut to save people’s dashes

Hamin laughs. “Given how bad you are at not being suspicious, that’s understandable.” “Oh, come on, I’m not that bad.” Hamin screws up his whole face in a squint. “Okay, so maybe I’m a little bad.”

this part was really funny to me when i wrote it because i was like “hmm reasons for DHM to understand why HHJ wouldn’t work in the guild” and then i was like Wait. Their Whole First Meeting, Dude. DHM was lowkey convinced for the longest time that HHJ was like, on the run from the KR version of the mafia, and got plastic surgery to look like his little brothers, and is possibly in some sort of witness protection program??? or something??? how else does he not have cops on his ass this man is so suspicious all the time

“I don’t think… They said the dungeons were, like, different worlds? Did they find people there?”

mafia theory second place. dungeon theory first place

“Like, humans? Um. No, no humans.” “So then you can’t be from there. Okay.”

dungeon theory shot down. mafia theory back in the running

“Hey,” he says cautiously. “I’m— I’m gonna go get us some water, okay? Why don’t you… take a minute.” “Okay.” “The bathroom is over there, if you need it.” “Okay. Thank you.”

after four years working alongside a guy you start to notice when he’s feeling a little out of it and needs a bit of a break... but as JHW mentions later you also learn to be a little subtle about giving him one

jung heewon What’s with your typing? It reads like Jihye’s [HYJ]’s fine. Very energetic Too energetic? He’s going to burn out. How do I make him calm down

Epic Burnout Man makes a reappearance! when translating sclass one of the things that makes me want to shake HYJ most is his habit of constantly adding things to his to-do list while he already has 1 billion things on his plate. and all the time he’s whining about “UGH there’s SO MUCH WORK to do” No One Asked You To Do It

Anyway. the point is. HYJ isn’t about to be beat by HHJ at Developing Issues 😔

jung heewon I haven’t spoken to him directly about this because if he’s anything like you he’ll take it as an insult You wtf whts tht supposed 2 mean quit typing jung heewon Better not say shit, mr “No, I can’t take days off and cater to my interests or go out with friends or on a date, I’m too busy taking care of the kids and making sure their needs are met, no I don’t care that there are thousands of people out there balancing personal enjoyment and romance and work AND kids at the same time, are you suggesting I be a BAD GUARDIAN to MY KIDS?”

see above re: not being too direct with pointing out when HHJ’s having Issues because he doesn’t react well

You wht but our eyes r fine jung heewon Even if having glasses doesn’t run in the family, you should still get him checked, just in case

top 10 funny time travel moments: referring to you and your past self as “us” (our = my eyes are fine), but other people think you mean “our family” (our eyes are fine = no family history of long/shortsightedness)

Also. Sooyoung-ie says hi [Attachment: 20XX1213_144516.jpg] 

ok no lie this was one of the parts that pissed me off the most, even though it’s Literally One Line, because. i love chat exchanges. i really do. when done right they’re a lot of fun to read. But Do You Know How Long It Took Me To Figure Out A Calendar For The Events In This Fic. now everything’s TIMED i have to count HOW MANY DAYS IT’S BEEN since XY event so i can CORRECTLY NUMBER the FILE ATTACHMENTS!!! this sucks!!! it took me fucking forever to pin down a timeline just so i could write this chapter plus the few before and after it!!!!

anyway i gave up when i reached year. i just put 20XX. fuck it. we are running on fairy tail time now. (actually i think that’s XXnumber number? XX76? or was it X796. something like that. Who cares i stopped watching fairy tail forever ago)

Fuck it! Hamin will understand!! “If you Awaken you should come work with me,” Han Hyunjae says all in a rush. 

“HAMIN WILL UNDERSTAND” => he literally was cool with me giving zero context for half a dozen absolute balls to the wall nonsense bullshit things i’ve done before. he’ll be fine with this too. dog_in_burning_house_this_is_fine.png

“You already know about the guilds, those are going to be for dungeon Hunters, but I was thinking of forming something like an independent group of contractors. Awakened people with skills that aren’t useful for combat, but that might… that will be generally useful. It’d be you and me, and maybe one other guy I met recently. Probably more in the future.”

given that HHJ has no idea currently that peace exists (i’m so sorry baby i’ll find a way to shoehorn you in soon i miss you so much) he’s got no intentions to start a kiseungsu business yet! he mostly wants to live quietly while just acting as a manager for other Awakening-related services, like YMW’s forge and DHM’s tracking service, along with the information exchange/lowkey spy ring that he’s planning on setting up with JHW and the bar. since HYH is fine associating with him in this timeline, HHJ’s thinking he can get a foot in the door that way, then eventually spread out into dealings with most major guild leaders

RIP to this plan. you were well-made but you will not last long.

“Please, I can’t tell you how I know that, I really can’t, it’d put me and my brothers in danger if it got out. But—” “No need.” Hamin looks slightly alarmed, and Han Hyunjae feels himself settle at the obvious concern in his eyes.

MAFIA THEORY RAPIDLY RISING TO PROMINENCE??? THIS IS NOT HOW DO HAMIN WANTED HIS GUESS CONFIRMED

“I spoke to the Task Force Head and she said that there’s been discussion about hosting a meeting for the nearby high-rankers, where they’ll announce the guild proposal and see who else is interested in trying it out.”

“they’ll announce” i’m sorry king 💔 you deserved a nap

(OH ALSO FUN FACT choi eunyoung is a canon character, not an OC of mine! she appears in uhhh i think late 140s? 150s? something like that)

“I think there’s… probably only one other S-rank who’s Awakened right now?”

Hehehehehehehehehehehehehhehe

Hamin beams. “No, they’re doing great! Spookie’s taken really well to the new housing situation, but I think Spots might miss the store…”

shoutout to @daemonic-dawn​ for letting me borrow a pet name, love u king. i had a much longer ramble about pet names here but i finished typing and realized it was all entirely off topic so i removed it for convenience

Hyunjae makes an annoyed noise in the back of his throat. “Don’t— I mean.” He huffs, visibly taking a deep breath, and Yoojin frowns reflexively. [...] “Is everything alright?” Yoojin kind of wants to be annoyed at his tone on principle, but he forces his shoulders to relax, matching Hyunjae’s posture. Though he can’t stop himself from being a little short when he answers.

things the brothers have learned in four years living together: getting confrontational often leads to arguments that just fizzle out anyway, so it’s way fucking easier to consciously tone down their combativeness in advance when talking to each other about things they have problems with, instead of screaming their heads off and then having to calm yoohyun down afterwards to boot

“I guess. Whatever.” Yoojin slumps. “Can I…” “Hm?” Hyunjae blinks at Yoojin as he gestures to the spot on the bed beside him, then jolts. “Oh! Yeah, sure, c’mere.” He opens his arms, and Yoojin goes over and flumps on the bed, head in Hyunjae’s lap. Almost immediately, Hyunjae starts stroking fingers through his hair, and Yoojin relaxes into the touch, listening as Hyunjae continues speaking.

cuddles 🥺🥺🥺 sorry i don’t have any other commentary here just. cuddles. extremely and overwhelmingly comforting for a man who spent the better part of 8 years(?) with no major positive relationships, and a kid who spent 12 years of early life basically abandoned by his parents. you had best bet they gave up on not hugging each other 1 year into this whole mess

Yoojin hums in acknowledgement. It’s not like he’d ever let himself get hurt; he has too many responsibilities to his family and friends. If he wants to be good enough to keep up, he can’t afford to fuck up like that. But… hyung will worry if he keeps working so hard. He can slow down a little for him. 

Problems disorder man when will you stop. the way he sees “getting hurt” as an inconvenience and an obstacle to his duties rather than a danger to himself. the way he doesn’t really care if he himself gets hurt, but if it’ll worry his family, then it’s a no-no. it’s just. wow. i know i wrote this but i hate him

“Not really. I talk to Myeongwoo about it sometimes.” “Ah, right, Myeongwoo.”

haha gays

“Don’t be weird about him,” Yoojin warns[...]. “I won’t, promise.”

if the “i won’t” line had a dialogue tag it’d be “Han Hyunjae lied”

“Is Eunwoo still in his relationship?” “Mhm, happy as ever. Apparently they’re trying long-distance, now that Eunwoo’s gone off to university abroad.”

three guesses for who eunwoo’s dating and you won’t need the first two

Hyunjae raises his hands like he’s going to deny the accusations levelled against him, so Yoojin seizes him by the collar and shakes him until he cries for mercy

oh my o/rv ass struggled so bad with not writing “shakes him like a man betrayed” here. it killed me not to. but in the end i prevailed (against, uh, myself. don’t think about it too hard.)

“Jeez, okay, he’s an F-rank!” “Eh?! Then why—” “He’s also got an SS-rank potential skill,” Hyunjae admits[...].

play-by-play of this scene because god if i draw any scene in this fic it would be this one just for the sheer hysterical nature of HYJ’s reaction:

YOOJIN: I HATE YOU WHAT THE FUCK WHY. TELL ME HIS RANK

HYUNJAE: HE’S AN F

YOOJIN: WHAT? WHAT THE FUCK?

HYUNJAE: he’s also got an SS-rank skill,

YOOJIN:

[gryphonablaze]

hello and welcome to gryphon’s crackshit crossover corner

I’ve already talked about my theory that httyd is set in the very distant, post-apocalyptic future. that theory was originally inspired by ‘what if httyd and horizon zero dawn crossover?’ My brain said things and for some fuckforsaken reason I listened. 

TL:DR I can smash together a crossover of so many different fandoms and media. It’s stupid. I’m crazy. I love it. This is what ADHD makes me think about when I zone out 

Anyway, first thing; the portal games could cross over with virtually anything. Portal-lands (borderlands). Portal age of wonderbeasts. How to Portal Your Dragon. Portal and the Princesses of Power. Portal: Zero Dawn. Portalverwatch. Portales of Arcadia. Fuck, if I really wanted, I could make the portal series crossover with Star Wars. This is because the time gap between portal one and two is spectacularly, deliciously difficult to pinpoint. If I shuffle it around, I could align the times during which action and dramatic events occur to line up with Chell finally escaping the facility. She walks through the wheat field and immediately encounters a megabunny, or a herd of grazers and striders. Or she trips on a rusted null sector carcass. Or her first night on the surface she’s staring at the moon and the star-filled sky, until she hears a slowly mounting screech and a flash of lightning. Or after a couple days she encounters a migration of creatures with stone skin, because they’re going to New Jersey and wanted to stop in Michigan to visit the great lakes, I guess. Or a couple weeks in to her new life, there’s a bright flash in the sky, and now she’s glowing? And has weird glowing tattoos on her arm? And can set things on fire? Or a year or two after she escapes, a spaceship? touches down? and out comes a catgirl, a lady with prehensile hair, a weird tall white guy, but not, like, a typical white guy, his skin is literally snow white, and someone who appears to be (???) normally human????? With portal, anything is possible. Bonus points that technically any and all fanfiction, AUs, the like etc. of portal are canon, thanks to cave literally reaching through the multiverse, thereby making all of those alternative realities possible. 

So if I wanted, I could stick portal in anything. Like how salt can be used in virtually every cuisine. 

But oh, my dear brain did not stop there. This is a crackshit crossover corner, after all.  If I fuck around enough, I could frankenstein together almost all of these. The events in HZD take place approximately one thousand years after the apocalypse, which occurred mid-2000s. As in 2050s-60s, not 2005. Kipo Age of Wonderbeasts takes place about 200 years after their mutepocalypse (also it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that ‘mute’ was shortened from ‘mutants’ and has nothing to do with their ability to speak), and we’re not sure when that happened. We could hazard a guess that Gaia was able to rebuild the world and some of humanity after Faro’s fuckup, but maybe went a liiiiiiiittle too far with the Artemis sub-probgram, and the mutepocalypse happens almost immediately. Oopsies. World goes on for 200 years post mutepocalypse, events of the series of Kipo Age of Wonderbeasts occur. Anknown amount of years later Hades decide’s that’s enough and wipes Gaia’s slate clean for her to start over again. She gives it another shot, but this time limits the amount of historical information that she gave to the humans that she released. Might’ve been a bit inaccurate, because do you know just how much human media insisted that vikings had horned helmets? (Could also explain why somehow Tuffnut knows some spanish). Whatever. This time she tries dragons. Things are actually going pretty well for a couple hundred years, Gaia always thought the ancient mythological tales of winged fire-breathers were cool, why not try it out? Until--are you kidding? The dragons disappear to hide underground? From the humans? Seriously? Wow. Wooooow. All that effort, wasted. Hades decides it’s time to try again. This time? Screw it. Robot megafauna. Hades can’t eat that. Around half a millenia later, Hades gains sentience, goes about trying to commit genocide, events of the HZD game occur. For fanfic funsies, Chell could wake up literally any time in there, because why not add another layer? These all coexist in the same space-time. Same universe, same timeline, but unfortunately not at the same time. Oof. -----> This crackshit combines Horizon Zero Dawn, Kipo Age of Wonderbeasts, and How to Train Your Dragon. (*portal optional)

Or how about somehow, some way, the whole prehistoric ‘peopling of the earth’ (deadass the name of a textbook chapter) was more like accidental colonization of the earth? The rest of the six galaxies moved on and kind of forgot about them, so Borderlands doesn’t necessarily have to be in the distant future of earth’s timeline. Some millenia ago, the Destroyer was going around, doing its thing. The Eridians didn’t like that, so they found a planet with natural capabilities they could take advantage of, asked some sirens for help, and turned it into a superweapon. After all, as typhon says, most Eridian things run on crystals. And sirens’ powers are often elemental--who’s to say the runestones on Etheria aren’t their collaborative work? Along the way they probably make an enemy because of course they do, so why not give the Heart a test run @ Horde Prime? Until Mara rebels, and yeets Etheria and its moons (and presumably star) into Despondos. Well, fuck. Horde Prime mentions ‘one thousand years’ of waiting, but when traveling through space, time can get fucky. Anyway, Now they have to come up with an alternative way to eliminate the Destroyer. It might take a few millenia of hopping around, leaving their mark on various planets, but eventually they come up with the idea of creating a cage, creating pandora... After all, the architecture of the First One’s ruins in SPOP and the various Eridian Ruins in the borderlands series aren’t super different. It’s reasonably possible that their stylistic design choices changed over time--whose hasn’t? Gothic architecture wasn’t hanging around from the dawn of human time. Anyway, we know that since they began building Pandora, the Eridians knew what it would entail. So when Nyriad killed them to power the Machine in the Pyre of the Stars, it’s not like they hadn’t prepared to die. The guardians, their own creations, have heath bars made entirely of shields, implying that they are beings not of flesh but of energy. And who wouldn’t want to at least attempt to preserve their culture, at least a shred of it? Many statues that are presumably in the Eridian’s likeness have only two arms, but some have more. And what energy-based lifeforms (from tales of arcadia) have a majority population with two arms, but a select special few with four? What is their planet called? AkiRIDIAN 5. It is implied that not even Nekrotafeyo, the Eridian’s home planet, is technically the place of their origination, so it’s not all that out of the question for them to make (and possibly fail at) a couple of planets they could put their extra-sentient lifeforms on. ‘Alright, We are called Eridians. This is the fifth planet we made for you. Have fun, we have to go die.’ How often is history not warped by time? Particularly the pronunciation of things? And of course if they’re starting over with a completely new place and no template to work off of, the architecture they come up with is not at al likely to resemble that of their progenitors. Also note that Luug and other Akiridian creatures seen, like those weird ass energy bugs, look fucking weird. You know what else looks fucking weird? The fauna of Nekrotafeyo. In this version, Mara’s story in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is the very distant early history of the Eridians, before even Nyriad, who is presumed to be very long-lived. The ancient history that the Eridians themselves left behind is in turn the prehistory of the people of Akiridian 5. And again, if u want, portal. That said, the end of SPOP S5, the end of BL3 (currently the latest borderlands game), and the end of the Tales of Arcadia series could not only exist in the same spacetime, but also at the same time. ---->This crackshit combines She ra, Borderlands, and Tales of Arcadia. (*portal optional)

[clansayeed]

Bound by Circumstance ― Chapter 1: The Middle of the Beginning

PAIRING: Nik Ryder x trans*M!MC (Taylor Hunter) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Circumstance ⥽

Taylor Hunter (MC) has made it good for himself in New Orleans; turns out moving to a new city fresh out of college to reinvent yourself isn’t as hard as people make it out to be. Things only start to get confusing when he finds himself the target of a malevolent wraith. Good thing someone’s looking out for him though — because without Nighthunter Nik Ryder as his bodyguard he definitely won’t survive long in the twisting darkness of the supernatural underworld he's tripped into.

Bound by Circumstance and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the book Nightbound and the rest of the Bloodbound series. Find out more [HERE].

Note: Circumstance only loosely follows the events and plotline of Nightbound, and features a separate antagonist, different character motivations, and further worldbuilding.

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Circumstance/series tag list!

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

Four years after graduation Taylor catches up with his old college roommate, Kristin, and her work friend Vera for Mardi Gras. But a lot changes over time and Taylor isn't the same person he was back then.

[READ IT ON AO3]

The speckled pinks and oranges of rapidly-approaching sunset mirror the tourist’s neon shirts; plastered to their backs with patches of damp sweat.

He can’t imagine what it must be like to lead the pungent masses day in and day out. To mark them as prey with bright triangle flags flying high; leading them along like children with tethers of long camera straps and beaded trinkets from this shop and that stall.

It was hard enough to be an outsider when he first arrived. For his coworkers to see his born-and-bred habits like the traditions of a long dead civilization. To always be the other and to always be othered in a way he wasn’t used to.

Oh he’s used to being the other. Just for things that aren’t where he’s from and why he can’t handle the spice-coated flavors others were just born with.

It’s taken a year and some weeks but he’s finally close enough to being one of the rest that he’d never do something to damage his carefully cultivated reputation with something as tarnishing as a cemetery ghost tour.

So long as he keeps his distance he’s just another onlooker maybe digging for scraps of a heritage long-forgotten. No way is he one of them.

“All right-y y’all, let’s head on back to the carriages. They’ll take ya back to the Square and from there y’all’re free to enjoy the col-a-ful Quarter nightlife on ya own terms!”

The tour guide’s accent is thick and rich with generations of Cajun history. Taylor’s seen her run this route a dozen times in one day — she may not have a theatre to call home but he’d definitely consider her to be as much of a performer as he is.

No one could be that excited to spout out the same facts and deal with the constant barrage of insensitive Civil War-obsessed family dads every day. Not without being a little dizzy in the head.

Lo’ and behold one raises his sunburned arm. “Can we stay if we want?”

The guide almost slips — almost rolls her eyes.

“Ya paid for a ride back but that’s your dollar. You just gotta high-tail it with everyone else when the gates are closin���.”

“Why,” comes the petulant response, “don’t tell me they lock this place up because of the ghosts.”

Taylor watches the perpetrator; a young man wearing the Hartfield University logo like he’s getting a thousand bucks for each separate instance, wiggle his fingers at a woman beside him. She playfully shrieks, swats him away with a “ohmygod stop it Jake!” and no matter the answer the guide is going to give they could care less.

And the guide’s noticed it, too. Squares her chest and brushes her braid over her shoulder with a nonchalant frown.

“Not so much them as the muggers and drunks who take advantage of scrawny lil’ white boys like you who hang around like dumb shit. But by all means — stay if you think you can handle it.”

‘Jake’ must decide he can’t handle it because no one but the guide is left behind when the masses start back to the carriages. Taylor can’t help himself when he laughs.

“You need a ride too, straggler?”

She’s looking right at him. There’s a coy smile on her lips and something about her that seems a bit hazy — Taylor chocks it up to the humidity playing tricks on his tired eyes.

“Yeah, you,” she says without being prompted; throws a look back to her charges before crossing the cobblestone path to the crypt Taylor’s been using as good vantage point. “Don’t think I ain’t seen you creepin’ on my path. Next time you pay; got it?”

“Oh, I wasn’t —”

“Yeah yeah, I’ve heard it all before so save it.”

He didn’t ask for a ride back — would appreciate it but he’s fully capable of using his two feet and turning them in the direction of the Quarter. So he tries not to bristle at her defensive tone; tries to think back to all the things he was pushed into learning growing up.

Being defensive is sometimes the only way to get through the day.

“You got kin in here, cher?”

She has to snap to bring him back to reality.

“Huh?”

But at least she’s smiling now. Even if her smile changes in the shadows that grow and stretch over the evening. He tries not to linger on it too much.

“Just I’s seen you around here a couple times, is all.”

“Oh, no,” —then when he realizes he’s just given the implication that he likes hanging around crypts— “It’s a nice place to think. Away from the crowds.”

As if the world exists to prove him wrong there’s a whoop of laughter behind them. Taylor and the woman look to see a pair of children trying to climb on a stone ledge while their parents argue several feet away.

The guide groans. “Will you think less’a me if I’m too tired to deal with that right now?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Then get that cute butt up in that there carriage. Now I just plain owe ya.”

Taylor shakes his head. “No, you don’t —”

“Hush. Book it.”

He’s flustered and she knows it. Flustered in the heat and with the visible light slowly dimming — that’s what’s tricking his eyes. What’s making her ears look a little too pointy and her eyes a little too bright and wide.

After all — what’s he gonna say? ‘You’re looking a bit Lord of the Rings today, miss?’ Probably not.

“Anyway the gates is closin’ soon — so this ride’s on me.”

They probably exchange words (or in Taylor’s case flustered nods and smiles) but hell if he can remember them. Not when he finds himself in the same carriage as Jake and his friend with the friendly guide — “call me Tilly” — beside him.

He must be awfully flustered the whole ride back to the city.

One thing to know about New Orleans is Mardi Gras isn’t just a party or a festival that comes around once a year. It’s a way of life.

Adopted by the tourists who travel from all across the country in search of a place to forget all but the celebration for the short time they’re here but first birthed by deep blood running in red rivers and streams through the Bayou and down into the sewers on Bourbon Street.

Ask anyone who calls the Big Easy home and they’ll tell you; it’s in the earth and the sea and the sky. It clings to the hull of every boat on the Mississippi and catches on the breeze that carries fallen leaves through the streets. More than just the open booze and cheap plastic beads — it’s the collective time to share the heady atmosphere of do everything but more and bridge the divides that settle in the city’s oldest bricks.

For Taylor it’s an excuse to undo the top button on his shirt and lose himself in the sweet swell of jazz down every block.

For Taylor’s old college roommate Kristin it’s an excuse to take a week off work and invite herself onto his tiny (tiny) couch for a full week nowhere near sober.

Tilly was — is — cute but if Taylor’s being honest with himself he’ll probably forget the ripped brochure panel with her number on it. Only to remember it come laundry day with the regret of the single-but-okay-with-it crowd.

As he shuffles off with elbows pulled in tight to maneuver his way through the crowds he’s given a stark reminder of why he went to the cemetery to clear his head in the first place.

Ping.

[TEXT]: I C U!!!

Taylor’s well within his rights to be terrified of a text like that, especially when the ping that follows it is met with a blurry picture wherein the flash practically whites out his hair.

But this is Kristin and Kristin has absolutely zero boundaries. Even going so far as to send at least three more photos of him looking down at his phone before he can even try to pinpoint the rooftop she’s hanging off of.

Luckily he catches sight of her (hard not to with her bright and glittery costume and long arms flailing like willows in the wind) before he stalls the entire street. Awkwardly shuffles into the bar and gestures at the back staircase to the hostess who literally couldn’t care less.

The rooftop seating isn’t as crowded as the floor below — for that he’s grateful. Less so for the sudden onslaught of glittery, liquor-tinted kisses pressed to every visible inch of his face, though.

“You ma~ade it, you ma~ade it!” Kristin sing-songs; almost spills her half-drunk hurricane but is apparently still sober enough to keep from spilling such a valuable item.

“And you started the party without me, I see.”

She giggles and brushes her hair away from her shoulders with a flourish. Wiggles her half dozen plastic beaded necklaces in his face with triumph. “Indeed I did!”

“Just be glad I managed to get her down to something she needs to sip out of a straw.”

Taylor looks up at the unfamiliar voice — finds himself dragged towards it by Kristin’s eager hand.

When she mentioned a ‘friend from work’ would be coming with her on vacation Taylor hadn’t known what to think or say. After four years their lives had gone in completely different directions — as was expected to happen when a theatre major and an accounting major ended up sharing an apartment on pure chance.

Frankly, though he’d taken the pushover high road and not said a word about it, when he thought Kristin had invited both herself and her coworker to stay with him he hadn’t been pleased in the fucking slightest.

But Vera — “amazing Vera,” “perfect Vera,” “I don’t know what I’d do without her Vera” — hadn’t wanted to impose on a stranger and gotten a hotel room for the week.

How is it that Kristin always attracts the kind of people who take care of her?

The humid breeze rustles Vera’s curls; not out of place but just enough to make her seem like even the wind is staged to highlight her best features. She looks like she came to the roof straight from the airport in a lax business suit with sleeves rolled up and collar button undone.

Not that the sleeves make much of a difference — Taylor chocked up Kristin’s insistence that Vera “always wears long silk gloves — like always” to her penchant for hyperbole but nope, there they were. And judging by the humidity and the way she holds her sweating cocktail glass by the tips of her fingers they aren’t very comfortable.

“Keep sippin’ sugar,” coaxes Vera, her smile fond as she directs Kristin’s neon-green crazy straw back between her lips, “don’t want you to crash and burn just yet.”

She hums in compliance, smacks her lips when she’s done and only then realizes she needs to make introductions.

“Whoops! Tay — this is Vera! Vera — Tay —”

“The infamous Taylor, oh I know.” She extends a gloved hand that he shakes — tries to hide his confusion but apparently not very well.

“I’ve seen enough pictures of you to feel like we went to college together.” Knowing Kristin as well as he does that’s a perfectly valid answer.

“I just wish I could say the same.” He admits almost sheepishly.

But Vera waves it off like it’s nothing. “Nah, you’re good. Baby girl knows how much I value my privacy.”

Before he can answer Kristin’s calling out to one of the waitresses making her rounds and snatching a drink off her tray to head directly for Taylor. With mortification he takes it and hands it back to the now irritated waitress — hands her a solid twenty for her troubles, too.

When Kristin and drinks are involved he knows to always come prepared to placate wait staff.

“Does your friend need to be cut off?” the woman asks with a leer. It’s the second time he’s flustered that evening because there’s no way her eyes go from hazel to yellow. Obviously.

“No no, she’s good. We’ll take good care of her.”

“Oh really?”

“I’m the, uh, D-D.” Thank god his smile works because the last thing he needs is her to get him banned from every bar on Rue Bourbon in a single week.

There’s a reason they don’t go back to their college homecoming week.

“I’ll get you a pop then.”

“Thanks.”

When he turns around Vera already has their girl back in her seat gabbing; a few steps closer and he catches the end of what was undoubtedly a riot of a story about something that happened on her flight over.

Vera flashes him a sympathetic look and a nod. Oh yeah, he likes her already. They’re gonna get along swimmingly.

“Do you have to be so loud?!”

“You’re the one screaming.”

“No ‘m not…”

“Yes you are~”

“Am not!”

“Are too~”

Taylor’s never had the best reflexes; doesn’t have enough of a sixth sense for oncoming violence to duck before his sofa pillow smacks him in the head.

“Your aim’s gotten better.” He drawls. Rounds the kitchen island and throws the pillow right back at the hungover mess squished on the cushions.

Kristin looks at him through a ratty ginger mess. He can feel the hatred from the distance.

“I was aiming for your butt.”

“Oh, then I take it back.”

“Dunno how I missed such a wide load!”

Despite her general anger at the world Taylor continues making her the barest excuse of a hangover breakfast; fried rice and scrambled eggs slathered in the ketchup that might as well run in her veins.

He leaves breakfast in a little display at the island — plated with a side of orange juice and coffee brewing in the pot.

“I gotta head to rehearsal — please get up if only to turn off the coffee maker?”

He scratches her hair like a pet — smiles fondly at the memories it brings back. Memories of them in this exact position four years younger. He missed the company.

Now that her dramatic episode is over Kristin yawns and gives him a pitiful frown. “I don’t need coffee,” she whines, “I need vodka.”

“Well you’re fresh outta luck there.” She knows any space he calls home is a dry one.

She watches him grab his keys and head out. Calls out “love you!” just like they used to.

“Love you back!”

The door closes behind him.

New Orleans wasn’t exactly the place for young, fresh-out-of-college performing hopefuls to go searching for roles. Not unless they were returning to their roots. Truthfully if anyone bothered asking him why he’d chosen the Big Easy he wouldn’t be able to give an immediate answer; he certainly struggled finding a company to latch onto when he first came down. Struggled (and continues to struggle) between temp jobs and deciding whether to pay rent or treat himself to something other than grilled chicken — again.

Most of his struggles he could blame on the glamorous life of an actor; big struggles early in life surely meant big rewards in the future.

Yes; he’s well aware he’d have at least a few less struggles had he picked up his entire life and moved, say, to Los Angeles.

But Taylor’s never been a fan of the easy way out. New Orleans called (probably a wrong number, but who was he to fight fate) and he answered.

There’s a laugh off to his left while he scrubs the sweat from his face. The bottom cotton of his tee itches like hell — but it’s better than not being able to see.

“Trying your hand at stripping, Hunter?”

The thud of a body sitting beside him on the edge of the stage. He drops the thoroughly soaked hem — still has to rub his thumbs into his eyes — before catching a glance at the lead he’s under-studying.

“I mean I thought about it,” admits Taylor—only half-joking, “but I like beignets too much.”

Antoni rolls his eyes and leans back with all the casual freedom of a man who has played five starring roles of the seven productions the company’s put on. Once you have your spot secured like that you can pretty much get away with anything. Especially making fun of the newbie.

The only thing Antoni and Taylor have in common are the lines and blocking they’re leaning. Where Antoni is brunette, Taylor is blond. Where Antoni is lithe and wiry — perfect for dancing though the company refuses to put on any musicals until their tenth year — Taylor is a little broader in the shoulders, a little curvy on the hips in comparison to the almost ethereal way Antoni’s body shoots downward.

Sure, like anyone with a pulse, Taylor had walked into his audition with a slight crush on Antoni’s heartbreaking smile and bright eyes. Then the star opened his mouth and Taylor couldn’t remember one thing he found attractive about the New Orleans-born performer. He didn’t know whether being a pompous jackass was in the man’s contract but he sure carried himself like it was.

Antoni looks Taylor up and down; his lips pursed in an all-too-familiar judgy frown.

“Sure, that’s why you couldn’t pull it off.”

The words send violent little stings all over his body. Make Taylor turn away from the way his coworker suddenly zones in on his chest. Everyone in the scene was sweating their asses off but two layers of spandex compressed on his chest didn’t make it any easier on Taylor. Still, no complaints as he endures the exercise in stifling Louisiana heat.

Fucking Antoni.

The rest of the scene’s performers join them on the edge of the stage. Water bottles are passed around and Taylor takes one gratefully from the girl beside him. Antoni declines his offer like plastic bottles are for peasants and snaps at one of the non-speaking roles to grab his metal water jug from the greenroom. He’s Antoni so… the kid scrambles to do his bidding.

When everyone is gathered the director smacks his palm against his clipboard — every single time, without fail, it makes Taylor feel like he’s back in a class being wrangled by a teacher — until everyone’s focus it on him.

“Alrighty, y’all, that was a real good run! I just have a few things I wanna go over…”

He pays attention like a good little soldier, but even though the director is a seasoned pro and his feedback is good, some people can be way too chatty. Makes Taylor zone out and think about how badly he’d now like to shove his face full of fluffy hot donut to simultaneously prove Antoni right and give him the middle finger. It’s not like he’s going up on stage anyway.

Being the understudy is fun. Being the understudy to a guy with enough ego to fill the bayou and a spotless attendance is less fun. Just means he knows he’ll only ever play the lead if Antoni gets eaten by gators… and even then it’s a little up in the air.

Tangential threads of thought have him thinking of the last time he bought a bottle of Gatorade when there’s motion around him and everyone is getting up and saying their goodbyes for the evening. “Hey, Antoni, stay back a sec,” says the director — Taylor tries not to roll his eyes as he heads to the back to change.

The reason he’d picked this company out of the dozens of amateur theatre gigs in New Orleans was simple — if not a little shameful. He should have wanted to go where the talent was, where the stories were, where the audience was. But Comerlan & Company was the only group that boasted (like, boasted) their inclusivity. Like, made-sure-to-include-their-nonbinary-green-room boasting.

He’d been slightly confused upon entering to find a faulty light switch and storage supplies — but at least it wasn’t being used for the wrong reasons. A couple of the crew members even welcomed him with a personalized sign:

TAYLOR’S GREEN ROOM LEAVE YOUR SHOES & BINARY THOUGHTS AT THE DOOR!!

Antoni may be a stuck-up prick but Taylor has his own green room. If anyone was keeping score that was at least ten, maybe even eleven points in his favor.

He’s bag-slung-over-shoulder and nearly out the back door when one of the crew rounds the tight corner with a stack of boxes obscuring his sight. If Taylor hadn’t been scrolling through Kristin’s five literal million texts about plans for the evening that he has no say in he might’ve stopped just in time to avoid a crash.

Yeah, he doesn’t.

They both go tumbling down with boxes between them. It takes Taylor longer than normal to blink the daze out of his system — judging by the costumes spilling out of the boxes they shouldn’t have been that heavy yet he can’t shake the distinct feeling of running into a brick wall. Or a mountain.

“Oh jeez — not again —” comes a gruff voice off to his side; followed by a hand outstretched in offering.

“— are you okay kid?” —the hand switches to a set of three fingers— “How many fingers am I holding up? Have you ever had a concussion before? You know what — stay there. I’ll call an ambulance.”

The man towers so high over him — really towers even at Taylor’s ground-level view — that a chunk of the overhead lights is obscured by his frantic head. You’d think a man so high in the sky wouldn’t take a fall so seriously but he’s acting like he just tried to stab Taylor on accident or something.

“H-Hey — hey, HEY!”

He shakes off the cartoon canaries flying overhead and rubs the back of his head; sore but there’s no blood on the linoleum; not that he suspected there might be.

Then the lights shine in Taylor’s eyes as the large crewman crouches down; reveals a worried face cut in serious angles. Like a-jawline-made-out-of-stone angles.

And there’s no way a guy that hot should be looking so worried, so… almost innocent.

“Hold still — and if you feel the need to vomit —”

“I’m fine, man, fine,” the more he says it the more he starts to mean it, too, “I’ve taken worse falls than this.”

“Are you sure? I’m… a bit hard to run into.”

“Like a mountain.”

“Er — sure.” A strange look comes over the man’s face before he offers up his hand again. Taylor uses it to pull himself up, hold steady. Could swear the man’s face shifts and grows darker (literally several shades darker) out of the corner of his eye but this time, flustered or not, he’s pinning it down on the unexpected head trauma.

Before he can look around for it the man seems to conjure Taylor’s phone out of thin air — he checks the intact screen with relief.

“Thanks.”

The crewman is already bent down, though; putting costumes back in boxes haphazardly. “It’s my fault. I should have been watching where I was going.”

“Dunno how you could have,” Taylor chuckles as he begins to help, “those things were stacked taller than you are. And that’s pretty impressive, no offense.”

The man’s face goes a slight pink — Taylor’s glad for once he’s not the embarrassed one.

“None taken.”

When everything is cleaned up and the boxes are re-stacked (which, doesn’t that just ask for trouble, but Taylor doesn’t say it) he turns to leave without a word. Only stops when the other clears his throat at Taylor’s back.

“I’m Krum, by the way. I’ve seen you around… you’re the King Oberon understudy aren’t you?”

The understudy. Yeah… that’s all he’s known for — all he’ll ever be known for. But still he tries to take it as the compliment it is; forces on a smile and turns back on his heel.

God, he wishes he hadn’t. Because maybe he hit his head harder than he thought. Maybe he did need an ambulance. Judging by the sudden garish, almost monstrous appearance of Krum the Crewman’s face.

He compared the man to a mountain before but not like this. Not with his jaw suddenly cut from what looks like granite and the veins in his literally rocky muscles now black and glittering with sediment.

With the air whisked from his lungs Taylor squeezes his eyes shut. Grits his teeth so hard his jaw begins to ache and the fading headache from his fall comes back full-force.

It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s. not. real.

“Hey… you okay?”

The way ‘Krum’ asks isn’t like before. It’s startled — unsure. But why wouldn’t he be? It’s all in Taylor’s head — he’s just flustered again.

He snaps his eyes open; steals back what little oxygen is left in the suddenly too-crowded empty hallway, and nods.

“Yeah. Gotta go. Bye.”

Not that the jarring switch from air-conditioning to the muggy humidity of the New Orleans sunset does him any good. But he’ll take anything over hallucinating again. Anything.

Kristin accepts that Taylor won’t join her in her pregame, but she’s not a fan of him trying to delay the start of her very-good night.

“Tay, hon, I’ve accepted that you’re not gonna pregame with me but I don’t see why that means I have to start late because you wanna talk.”

And at first he’s okay with it — knows she can be a little self-centered at times but when it counts she’s always there for him — until she’s too busy texting Vera about the secret club she’s been raving about ever since he got back from rehearsal to notice that this would be those times where it counts.

“If you’d stop trying to relive your college glory days for one fucking second, Kristin, I could use a friend and not a human vodka bottle.”

It’s gets her attention because it’s not Taylor — not the passive, takes-everything-silently Taylor she knew.

But he needs her right now. Not just because he doesn’t really have anyone else.

Only when they’re sitting on the couch together with newly-brewed mugs of tea in hand, though, does the silence break.

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

Kristin sips her tea for something to do. “I shouldn’t have been, uh…”

“College-Kristin?”

“Yeah.”

Their hands meet where the cushions do and they squeeze. Things really have changed.

Only now he has the space to talk and in classic Taylor-fashion he’s unsure of what to say.

“Whenever you’re ready, okay?” While some might not consider Kristin taking her phone and turning it screen-down as a big deal, he knows better. Knows it means she’s living in the moment with him.

It takes him a whole twenty minutes to be ready — and she doesn’t look at her phone once.

“I never told you why I stopped drinking just before senior year.”

“No, you didn’t.” Not for my lack of asking she doesn’t say; doesn’t have to.

“I know it’s a bit late, but…”

“But better now than never.”

Better now than never. The same words Taylor said to her seconds before his first injection. Her hand gripping his shoulder tightly the whole time. It’s the only throwback so far that hasn’t made his stomach queasy.

“Right,” he nods, “better now than never.”

No one meeting them now would believe that it was Taylor with the drinking problem and Kristin worrying one step behind. As it was only a few people in their shared and close-knit social circle of queer outcasts and image-reinventors knew there was a time when sobriety was a fickle joke to him. He made sure it stayed that way, too.

Even back then he’d been good at hiding; hiding his drinking, hiding his therapy, hiding his doubts about who he really was. And maybe no one would have ever known had their group plans to visit Europe for their last summer not fallen through.

Because going back home to stay with his mother — not that he blamed her; he could never blame her — had been the tipping point. All those old familiar faces who kept calling him the wrong name, kept using the wrong words. The whispers behind cupped hands that would stop the moment he walked into a space. The once-friends who were suddenly ‘too busy’ to get to know the man he’d become instead of the woman they thought he was.

Each drink made the whispers and rumors easier to suffer. He could laugh them off and, on really bad days, joke around with them — turn himself into a joke at his own expense. But it was a double-edged sword and he knew it.

“Remember that trip my mom and I took to the city to see Wicked?”

Kristin nods. She’s been silent the whole time — through every admission of guilt, every notable time they had fallen out or he’d been caught up in something stupid that had only happened because of the drink — and Taylor wouldn’t be surprised if she decided to stay with Vera for the rest of her vacation.

Taylor exhales; this isn’t something he’s ever admitted beyond the safety of a private office, beyond a patient confidentiality clause. “She was never much of a drinker, you remember. So she didn’t know what I was ordering was way stronger than hers. And when we were done she went out to call a cab to the theatre and… and I remembered I hadn’t taken my meds that morning.”

“Shit, Tay…”

He shakes his head to stop her. If that’s what’s got her worried she won’t be able to handle the rest of the story. “Yeah, it was dumb. But to be fair I was pretty dumb back then.”

Kristin just shrugs. Brushes her thumb over his knuckles.

“That’s when I, uhm, you know I was a week late moving back to the apartment?”

“Yeah, you said…” No matter what he’d said it wasn’t the truth so she doesn’t finish.

But Taylor remembers. Remembers laying in the hospital bed trying not to panic himself into a heart attack. Remembers his mother crying over his bedside some nights and trying her best not to shout at him during others. Please don’t tell anyone, he begged her with bleary eyes and a fresh IV in his arm, I’ll get help, I’ll get help. Just don’t tell anyone.

“Well what really happened was… it was bad,” even with all his extensive vocabulary it’s the only word he can think of, “it was really bad. The doctors said it was the combo — that I probably took more of my meds than I needed on accident.

“I was looking at people but — but I wasn’t seeing them. They looked strange or inhuman or… or both. I’d hallucinated like that before but never… never that bad.”

Her nose scrunches up — she’s holding her thoughts back but right now that’s okay.

“You’d hallucinated before? And did the same shit knowing what would happen?”

There’s an accusation in her voice that makes him look away in shame. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Too bad — try.”

So he tries — doesn’t know how well he succeeds. Explains in broken sentences and half-started half-finished examples of when the hallucinations first started and how happy he’d been when drinking made them go away. Well… until that last time.

“So lemme get this straight;” Kristin pinches the bridge of her nose, “you were seeing shit, and started drinking to not see shit, but you still kept seeing shit so you kept drinking until you didn’t see shit anymore?”

“Pretty much.”

“Taylor that’s the stupidest fucking logic I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Like, it doesn’t even make sense.”

“It did at the time.”

“Bullshit — but continue.”

Only by that point there isn’t much left to say. He got help — missed the first week of senior year because it overlapped with his rehab. “Explains why you never answered my calls,” she mutters. “Mom passed along every single message, though,” he offers as consolation.

“Rehab was the easiest month of my life. I didn’t want to drink again — especially if it meant seeing… seeing stuff. And I wasn’t even tempted when I went back to school. I had my meds, and I had that terrifying last time to scare me straight.”

He tries not to let Kristin’s silence get to him — tries not to shift under the weight of imagined scrutiny. It’s not like this thing ruined their friendship and only now, four years after the fact, is he coming clean about it. It’s more like he’s… filling in the blanks. Giving the story more context.

So very meta of him.

“So why are you telling me this now?”

Man, he hoped she wouldn’t ask that. But why else would he bring it up if he wasn’t prepared for it?

“Because,” he says on a shaky inhale, “I know you’ll believe me when I say I haven’t had a drink in years. You’ve seen my place, you’ve seen how I am out on the town; I’m not even tempted. My mom… she loves me — and that’s why she’d probably think I’m lying if I told her.”

“‘Told her’ what?”

“That I think… I think I’m starting to see things again. And I’m scared, Krissy, I’m really really scared.”

He falls into her open arms without hesitation. Knows when things are less serious that she’ll get on his case for leaving wet spots in one of her favorite shirts later but she knows when to put the persona aside and just be there for him.

Others may not get the full story between them — and, really, now she knows the full story too — but god is he glad to have someone like her in his life.

Every time the full and unopened bottles clink in the bag between them, Kristin looks over his way. He gets it, really he does, but it’s starting to get annoying.

“No way are we going out tonight.”

“Seriously — it’s okay.”

“Dude you just had a full-on mental breakdown in my lap.”

“And that’s new?”

“I can’t enjoy myself knowing you’re miserable!”

“I’m not miserable, Krissy. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you for legit ever.”

“Ugh, well… you’ve got me there. But we’re gonna change things up a bit, okay?”

So she called Vera while Taylor showered the tears from his conscience. Gathered up all the bottles she bought while he was gone that day into one eco-friendly tote bag and made a second call to a rideshare with the destination set at Vera’s hotel in the Business District.

“I don’t want you guys to change your plans because of me.”

“Shuuuuut up, Tay. My liver will probably thank you in the long run.”

“But what about your friend?”

“Vee — oh she’s fine with it. Apparently she found a club or two we can get to instead!”

Not that there’s much difference between a bar and a club in any other town but here in the Big Easy (and especially during Mardi Gras) near-every bar is a club on certain avenues, but that doesn’t mean every club has a bar.

Kristin beckons him close and cups her hand over her mouth to whisper in his ear. “And if you start to, well, you know, then we’ll leave and go check out the sights. Cool?”

The driver probably gets the wrong impression of them when Taylor kisses her temple lovingly. That’s okay though. He wouldn’t be the first.

“Cool.”

[6-v-6]

Title: ??? idk Five Drunk Idiots

WC: 2k

Pairing: OT5

Rating: none, there’s some dirty humor that’s it

anyways this is a short dumb thing I wrote for @flower-taemin since it’s her birthday today (go wish her happy birthday!!!!!) I love you bells I’m not creative or talented so this is all I could do for now but I hope u still like it even if it sucks <3 This is basically based on ot5 getting drunk together and ending up at kibum’s house idk

None of them had planned on getting drunk.

By the time their concert ended, all five of them dripping sweat and grinning breathlessly at each other as they changed, the last thing on Kibum’s mind was getting wasted. It’s not that he was against the idea, per se, but he had already started to fantasize about soft beds and warm showers when Jinki brought up the idea.

“Is anyone hungry?”

The change in atmosphere was immediate, morphing from lazy contentment to muted excitement as the two youngest members perked up at the mention of food. Kibum felt a twinge in his own stomach, but he was in the middle of a diet and hesitant to break it. The company wasn’t as strict with him anymore when it came to such things, but with an upcoming comeback Kibum had felt a sudden cloying need to slim up for their fans.

“I want ramen,” Taemin said, pulling his shirt over his head as their stylists expertly side-stepped his flailing arms. Day four, Kibum noted as he watched, mildly disgusted. Taemin was apparently set on making a record out of how long a person could wear the same shirt and get away with it. Again. The longest he’d ever gone was two weeks, and by then no one in the dorm could stand to be within six feet of him.

As his gaze zeroed in on a mysterious stain at the hem of Taemin’s collar, he was suddenly, painfully glad that he had his own apartment now.

“No way, we just had that for lunch. Let’s get barbeque,” Minho, predictably, began to argue.

Kibum silently cursed his life as the two started bickering in earnest, looking ridiculous as they hopped around in various states of undress.

“We always have barbeque though.”

“Yeah, well not everyone likes to eat the same thing for an entire day straight.”

“But there’s like, sixty different kinds of ramen!”

“Pouring ranch dressing into noodles doesn’t count as ramen, Taemin.”

“I don’t expect you to understand my refined taste in cuisine. And besides, I didn’t force you to eat ramen during my solo stage, you did this to yourself.”

Jinki was starting to look like he regretted asking.

“Actually, I want ramen too--” the words had barely left Jonghyun’s lips when Kibum had decided he’d had enough.

“We’re getting barbeque.”

Everyone fell silent at that, Taemin giving him an offended look from where he stood, pants pulled halfway up his thighs. Minho gave a loud whoop of victory and nearly tripped over in his attempt to latch himself onto Kibum. He managed to get his arms around Kibum’s shoulders, nose buried against his neck, happy smile pressed into his skin.

Jonghyun’s lower lip was wobbling and he quickly moved to hide behind Taemin, wrapping his arms around his waist and hooking his chin over his shoulder.

“I always liked Taemin better anyways,” he pouted.

Kibum just rolled his eyes and finished getting dressed, albeit hindered by the oversized teddy bear currently smothering him in affection. Jinki was sending him a quiet look of thanks from where he stood against the wall, the corners of his lips turned up in amusement. They all knew by now that Kibum was the judge, jury, and executioner when it came to decisions over dinner. No one dared to argue with him anymore, at least, not after the Great Incident of 2014.

“Jonghyun, get off of me I can’t move--” Taemin gave a short, aborted yell as they both went tumbling to the ground in a heap of limbs.

✧✧✧

The restaurant they ended up at was a hole-in-the-wall kind of place, tucked away down a sidestreet and out of sight from the main road. Gentle music drifted through the tiny room, and the quiet atmosphere always served to put Kibum at ease.

They ordered nearly everything on the menu, but enough experience told Kibum that they’d have no problem finishing it all.

It was when the beers were placed in front of them that things started to go downhill. A simple cheers for another successful concert steadily turned into a drinking competition among all five of them.

“It’s to celebrate,” Jonghyun explained as he downed his fifth--or was it sixth?--glass of alcohol.

No one had complained, and beer steadily turned into soju and soju turned into very, very bad ideas. Sober Kibum would be so disappointed in him, but drunk Kibum was quite literally at the wheel right now, and his inhibitions had taken a well-deserved vacation.

“We’re going to karaoke!” He shouted, not really sure why he yelled when the car was silent, but it felt good to hear his voice boom loudly from his throat so he didn’t stop. Damn, my voice is so nice. The thought buzzed around in his head for a moment and, gripped by sudden motivation, Kibum broke out into a slurred rendition of Judas.

“Kibum!” Jonghyun’s high-pitched yelp of terror had his eyes focusing back on the road in front of him, voice stuttering to a halt. Oh man, had that car always been that close? His feet slammed on the break, sending Jinki’s skull bouncing off the dashboard as the other three gripped onto each other for dear life.

“Dramatic,” Kibum muttered, successfully avoiding another accident as he barrelled down the road. He was a fantastic driver.

Jinki groaned faintly from the passenger’s seat, cradling his head in his hands, and Kibum felt bad for all of three seconds before the karaoke bar was finally in view and he was yelling at everyone to “Get ready, dick twitches, I’m about to blow you all away.”

He didn’t remember how he managed to park in his inebriated state, but when they all tumbled out of the car he couldn’t see any visible damages so he considered it a success and shuffled them all inside.

The second mistake of the night (more like the fiftieth) was ordering more alcohol when they booked a room.

They alternated between singing and drinking as the night wore on. Whenever Jinki was up, he picked rap tracks and made the rest of them burst out in laughter as he tried to follow along, getting increasingly worse the more drunk he got. Much to Kibum’s chagrin, no matter how drunk Jonghyun seemed to get he always nailed his notes. It was a small comfort that he never managed to get a perfect score, meaning that Kibum still had a chance to beat him.

Truthfully though, after the second hour all that Kibum remembered were random snatches of sound and flashing lights. At one point he’s sure that he hauled himself up to belt along to Ke$ha, though he couldn’t seem to recall all the lyrics and resorted to dancing in place instead, randomly yelling out snippets of phrases that he remembered. He scored a 23 but didn’t let it get him down.

Taemin scored a 0 when he selected what he thought was Rain’s “Rainism”, but was actually Big Bang’s “Loser”. He didn’t seem to notice, singing and dancing to Rainism as Loser played on the screen. When his score popped up he gasped in shock, hand flying to his heart.

“I scored a thousand…” he muttered, swaying in place. “I’m amazing.”

Jonghyun loudly congratulated him, slapping him on the back probably a little too harshly, but neither seemed to notice Minho snickering from his seat.

Surprisingly, it was Minho himself who scored 100, singing along to SHINee’s own song View and pulling off everyone’s parts flawlessly. When he was done he turned to Kibum in a flourish, nearly overbalancing himself before he caught the edge of the couch.

“Didn’t…” he stopped to wet his lips. “Didn’t you say you’d… show us your dick twitch tonight?”

Kibum nearly died on the spot.

“What?!”

He hadn’t said that, had he? God, he couldn’t even remember. He didn’t even know what that meant.

“Nooo,” Jinki slurred. He was slouched against the couch. Kibum had honestly thought he’d passed out hours ago. “I think he said he’d blow us all. But he didn’t win, so…”

“Oh,” Minho looked contemplative, eyes unfocused but trained in Kibum’s direction. Taemin and Jonghyun were too busy howling in laughter to say anything productive. “Does that mean I have to blow you all?”

“No! God, no, I didn’t say that!” Kibum was at least 62% sure that he hadn’t said that.

“I won’t stop you,” Taemin piped up, apparently finding the most inopportune moment to calm his laughter.

“I won’t either,” Jonghyun said. His head was pillowed on Taemin’s lap but his eyes were swimming in drunken mirth.

“No, Minho, you’re not blowing anyone. This is a public place.” Kibum shot off the couch and yanked Minho down beside him when he turned to head over towards the two demons across from them. “Jinki, say something.”

A light snore was his only response. Kibum was way too drunk for this.

✧✧✧

The next morning he woke with a groan, pain lancing through his skull and starting up a steady drum behind his eyes. When he managed to pry them open, he realized he was lying on the couch in his own apartment. A pizza box lie open on the table in front of him, and as he pulled himself up he caught sight of two bodies sprawled out across the floor.

Taemin was lying on his back, pizza crumbs littered across his chest, with Minho’s head on his stomach and his arms snaked around his waist. They were breathing softly, and despite the throbbing of his skull Kibum found himself smiling at the sight of them.

If they were here, it meant Jinki and Jonghyun were too, though Kibum couldn’t see them anywhere in the room. Just the knowledge that they were all safe and together was enough to have his mind slowing down, eyes drooping. He’d barely laid down when he was falling asleep again.

The second time he woke, it was to the soft press of lips against his forehead.

“I made breakfast.”

Kibum pulled his eyes open, blinking sluggishly as the blurry figure above him slowly came into focus. Jonghyun was grinning down at him, practically nose-to-nose with Kibum, looking annoyingly awake and alert for someone that should be sporting one hell of a hangover.

As he processed the older boy’s words, he registered the smell of something cooking in his kitchen.

“You cooked in my kitchen?” He asked, words slurred with sleep this time rather than alcohol.

Jonghyun laughed, a light, airy sound that always seemed to make Kibum feel better.

“Sort of,” he admitted. With another laugh, he pressed a second kiss to the tip of Kibum’s nose and pulled away. “Come eat when you’re ready.”

As awake as he was likely going to get today, Kibum hauled himself into a sitting position and let his tired body relax into the cushions. He noted the absence of the two youngest members, as well as the absence of the pizza box and any remaining crumbs. A happy, affectionate warmth spread through his chest at the realization that they had cleaned up for him.

He didn’t even realize he was smiling until he was in the kitchen, watching the four boys he loved shovel noodles into their mouths. Well, three of them were. Jinki was lying with his face down on the counter, drool pooling on the tile and a bowl of noodles set out to wait for him.

“Ramen for breakfast?” Kibum asked as he joined them at the table. Jonghyun beamed at him and handed him a bowl of his own. “How can you even stomach this after last night?”

“We were deprived,” Taemin said, slurping loudly. He had chopsticks in one hand while his other rubbed against Jinki’s back.

“Hangovers won’t stop us,” Jonghyun added.

Minho just looked happy to be eating again, nodding along like he couldn’t care less that he had fought over ramen just the previous night.

Kibum sighed, shaking his head fondly. They were all idiots, but he never stopped loving them.

He was in the middle of chewing through his third bite of noodles when a thought hit him.

“You didn’t actually suck anyone’s dick last night, did you?”

Minho immediately grinned, eyeing him across the table though an embarrassed flush had started to color his cheeks red. “Not yours, sadly. Why, did you want to fix that?”

Kibum promptly choked and sprayed noodles all over Jinki’s sleeping form.

[kayakingcrazy]

Florida rep’s blackface problem — Trump’s $64m vacay tab — Gaetz v. Parkland dad — Face-licker quits

Good Thursday morning. Well, blackface has come to Florida….or, well, it has been here for a while.

INTO THE BARREL — As Virginia, the new capital of political blackface, dominates the news cycle, one of the Florida-based byproducts has been once again putting focus on the high school blackface photo of state Rep. Anthony Sabatini, a Republican from just outside of Orlando. The 30-year-old said he does not think the high school picture is racist because he took it as part of a joke with a close high school friend who was black. The high school friend, Brandon Evans, backed Sabatini’s description, telling the Orlando Sentinel “I don’t know how it got to be seen as racial.”

THE POLITICS — Despite that explanation, the Florida Democratic Party pounced on the photo, which initially surfaced during the campaign. FDP Chair Terrie Rizzo called on Sabatini to resign, while Florida House Speaker Jose Oliva, a Republican, said blackface is “unacceptable.” He did, though, note that once the “facts were known” and Sabatini’s friend vouched for him, it became clear there was “no racial animus.” Despite that explanation, the story has caught media fire across the country.

—“State Rep. Anthony Sabatini dismisses Florida Democratic chair call for his resignation over high school ‘blackface’ photo,” by Orlando Sentinel’s Steven Lemongello: Read more

—“Florida pol rejects calls to resign over high school blackface photo,” by New York Post’s Joshua Rhett Miller: Read more

—“Florida politician says he won’t resign over blackface photo that surfaced during his campaign,” by Splinter’s Samantha Grasso: Read more

—“Florida state representative rejects calls for his resignation over high school blackace photo,” by Newsweek’s Christina Zhao: Read more

WELCOME TO THE PLAYBOOK FAMILY — Annabelle Dickson, POLITICO Europe’s London-based politics and technology correspondent, starting this Friday, will officially write the Friday edition of the London Playbook. Jack Blanchard will continue to oversee the newsletter and will write the other 4 editions. Subscribe

PERVERSION OF JUSTICE — “Justice Department opens probe into Jeffrey Epstein plea deal,” by Miami Herald’s Julie K. Brown: “The Department of Justice has opened an investigation into Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta’s role in negotiating a controversial plea deal with a wealthy New York investor accused of molesting more than 100 underage girls in Palm Beach. The probe is in response to a request by Sen. Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who was critical of the case following a series of stories in the Miami Herald. The Herald articles detailed how Acosta, then the U.S. attorney for Southern Florida, and other DOJ attorneys worked hand-in-hand with defense lawyers to cut a lenient plea deal with multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein in 2008.” Read more

‘POINT OF PRIDE?’ — via press release: “Allied Progress, which worked to raise public awareness about Acosta’s kid-gloves treatment of Jeffrey Epstein’s child sexual exploitation case during his Labor Secretary nomination process, is urging the more than 130,000 activists on its email list to share a new video, `Point of Pride,‘ on social media networks. Activists are also asked to sign a petition demanding the Senate hold Acosta accountable by moving forward H.R. 202, the bipartisan Inspector General Access Act, which cleared the U.S. House on January 15th and would allow a long overdue investigation to go forward. The video and petition are backed by paid ads on Twitter and Facebook.”

KA-CHING — “Eric Trump to hold fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago Thursday,” by Palm Beach Post’s Alexandra Clough: “President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address included a sweet spotlight on Grace Eline, a 10-year old girl who, at an early age, asked for donations to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital instead of presents, only to wind up battling cancer herself at age 9. Now 10, Grace Eline was seated next to First Lady Melania Trump during the speech and beamed with a broad smile when the president spoke about her story. The plug for St. Jude on national television came two days before Trump’s son, Eric, and his his wife Lara are set to co-chair a $750 per ticket dinner dance gala at Mar-a-Lago, the former Eric Trump Foundation benefiting St. Jude.” Read more

BAD LOOK — “Florida congressman Matt Gaetz clashes with Parkland dad at hearing on gun violence,” by Sun Sentinel’s Skyler Swisher: “A Florida congressman clashed Wednesday with a father who lost his son in the Parkland school shooting, inquiring at one point during a Congressional hearing on gun violence why the chair wasn’t enforcing decorum and having him removed. U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Pensacola, drew shouts from Parkland dad Manuel Oliver when he said expanding background checks for gun sales would do nothing to stop murders committed by people who are in the country illegally.” Read more

AIDS EPICENTER — “Trump vowed to ‘defeat AIDS’ in his State of the Union. Florida is ground zero,” by Tampa Bay Times’ Steve Contorno: “President Donald Trump on Tuesday vowed to `eliminate the HIV epidemic in the United States within 10 years‘ during his State of the Union address. ‘Scientific breakthroughs have brought a once-distant dream within reach,’ Trump said. ‘Together, we will defeat AIDS in America.’ It’s a surprising declaration for a president who has proposed cutting tens of millions of dollars from federal HIV and AIDS programs in his previous budget.” Read more

NOT AGAIN — “Second federal shutdown would put hurricane recovery at risk,” by POLITICO Florida’s Matt Dixon: A second federal government shutdown could hamper Florida’s hurricane recovery efforts by depriving the state of rebuilding funds for Hurricane Michael, the state’s emergency management director warned. Department of Emergency Management Director Jared Moskowitz said a second shutdown this month could prevent Congress from passing spending bills crucial to Florida. Read more

CHANGES COMING — “School safety changes proposed as Parkland anniversary nears,” News Service of Florida’s Ana Ceballos: “A week before the Parkland school-shooting anniversary, top Republican leaders in the Florida Senate have proposed plans to overhaul school-safety measures and expand a controversial program that allows school personnel to carry guns, a proposal that has overshadowed Democrats’ efforts to move away from arming school staff.“ Read more

SCHOOLS V. HOSPITALS — “The Sunshine Economy: The State Budget,” by WLRN’s Tom Hudson: “Familiar battlelines are being drawn over the biggest pieces Florida’s state budget — healthcare and education. Republicans plan on going after healthcare regulations they contend drive up the cost of care. Democrats say, after three failed attempts, Medicaid expansion returns as their priority." Read more

FOR WHOM THE TOLLS TOLL — “Lawmakers want tough stance on SunPass toll problems,” by News Service of Florida: “State lawmakers called Tuesday for transportation officials to maintain a hard financial line against a contractor blamed for a troubled project last summer to upgrade the SunPass system, as final toll invoices from a backlog go out to motorists this week.” Read more

CC. BROWARD COUNTY — “School board term limits proposal advances in Florida House,” by Tampa Bay Times’ Jeffrey S. Solochek: “Citing the importance of eliminating the ‘incumbency advantage’ and the need to generate fresh ideas, members of the Florida House PreK-12 Quality subcommittee unanimously backed a resolution (HJR 229) Wednesday to ask voters to approve term limits for school board members. Even with their support, several committee members signaled a desire to see some changes to the proposal for two four-year terms.” Read more

HISTORY UNEARTHED — “Hurricane Michael exposes WWII gun turret in St. Andrews State Park,” by News Herald’s Patti Blake: “A small piece of history was recently exposed by heavy wind and surge from Hurricane Michael and recent storms at St. Andrews State Park. A WWII gun turret is now visible on the Gulf side of the beach at the state park. According to Park Services Specialist David Morris, the turret is one of two built in 1943 to defend commercial vessels against attacking U-boats.” Read more

DEBRIS DOLLARS — “After Hurricane Michael’s blow, lawmaker pursues money for storm-ravaged Bay County,” by News Service of Florida’s Jim Turner: Read more

HANG ‘EM — “Roofing scammers stole nearly $500,000 from Volusia-Flagler residents after hurricanes, officials say,” by News-Journal’s Frank Fernandez: Read more

SHOCKED — “Maduro regime blocks international bridge to prevent aid from getting into Venezuela,” by Miami Herald’s Jim Wyss: “Venezuela’s determination to stop humanitarian aid from entering the country was on full display Wednesday, after the military dumped shipping containers and a tanker truck on a bridge that was supposed to be a thoroughfare for food and medicine pouring into the country.” Read more

THE OTHER HALF — “Report: Half of Marion households struggle to make ends meet,” by Star Banner’s Joe Callahan: “Half of Marion County’s households do not earn enough money to pay for basic necessities such as food, housing and child care, according to a study released today by the United Way of Florida. Even though Marion County’s unemployment rate is dropping and wages are rising, local United Way officials say many area residents are still struggling to make ends meet.” Read more

CC. MCCLATCHY’S CEO — “Booming economy? For South Florida residents, barely getting by is increasingly the norm,” by Miami Herald’s Rob Wile: “Miami-Dade’s unemployment rate sits at about 3.6 percent—the lowest in a decade. An all-time high of more than 1.2 million county residents have jobs. But for hundreds of thousands of Miami-Dade families, survival in the past decade has remained a struggle, according to the United Way’s latest ALICE report, a bi-annual study examining household finances by state and county.” Read more

ACCESSORY TO SUICIDE — “High court upholds manslaughter conviction of Michelle Carter, woman who sent texts urging boyfriend’s suicide,” by AP’s Alanna Durkin Richer: “A young woman who as a teenager encouraged her boyfriend through dozens of text messages to kill himself is responsible for his suicide, Massachusetts’ highest court ruled Wednesday in upholding her involuntary manslaughter conviction.” Read more

S.S. SLIME HUNTER — “FAU’s Self-Driving Sailboat Will Monitor Algal Blooms In Lake Okeechobee,” by WLRN’s Andrew Quintana: “With clear skies and breezy winds, Florida Atlantic University (FAU) revealed its newest invention Tuesday at Pahokee Marina, in the southern half of Lake Okeechobee: a solar powered sailboat that will monitor and test for harmful algal blooms. The Nav2 is the first autonomous vessel to be used for in-land algae monitoring.” Read more

— “Crestview chooses first city manager,” by Daily News’ Wendy Victora: Read more

— “Developers make their pitch for new JEA headquarters,” by Times-Union’s Christopher Hong: Read more

— “To avoid potential conflict, Duval School Board member stepping down from education nonprofit," by Times-Union’s Teresa Stepzinski: Read more

— “Commissioner seeks to rescind $10 million in funding for proposed aquarium at Port Canaveral,” by Florida Today’s Dave Berman: Read more

TRULY SORRY — “How Tampa’s James Cordier went from high roller to YouTube apology after losing $150 million,” by Tampa Bay Times’ Susan Taylor Martin: “The collapse of Cordier’s OptionSellers.com was perhaps not as surprising as it appeared. The company nearly ‘blew up‘ once before, as former employee Michael Gross put it, because of its connection to a brokerage whose CEO landed in prison for embezzling more than $200 million from clients’ accounts.” Read more

FACE LICKER — “Madeira Beach commissioner accused of face-licking, groping city manager resigns,” by Tampa Bay Times’ Sheila Mullane Estrada: “City Commissioner Nancy Oakley resigned Tuesday, days after being fined by the state ethics commission for sexually harassing a former city manager by licking his face and groping him.” Read more

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