#very subtly different in a way that only means anything to me bc I don’t ever share what my characters truly look like LOL
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foxmulderautism · 9 months ago
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not really sure actually if andrew ridgeley worlds most famous the other guy works as well as he used to as a bobby “faceclaim” (always been more of a resemblance but the closest to a faceclaim ive ever had) but i kind of have to keep going with it because hating the music of a band where one of the guys looks like you is the funniest character detail ever
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lovingseventeen · 1 year ago
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svt doing your makeup
a/n: i luv fluff and i luv seokmin UGH. and i’m releasing this as my 1k event is still going on bc i figured y’all deserve some new ideas too. but please go check out that series too! i’ll put the link to it right here <3
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seungcheol:
✧ claims that sitting on his lap while he does it is necessary
✧ “sit here” he says, patting his lap, “i need you up close”
✧ tries to be as gentle as he can
✧ whines when eyeliner is hard to do then he whines even more when you laugh at him
jeonghan:
✧ lowkey pranks you by telling you he’ll attempt one look but he does something very different
✧ nothing crazy, like he wouldn’t purposefully make you look bad by any means
✧ but maybe he wants to gently push you out of your comfort zone so he picks a new eyeshadow color, but still subtly does it so it isn’t too vivid
✧ “you said you were gonna do my usual!” you gasped when you finally checked yourself in the mirror
✧ he actually did pretty well, you were just caught off guard
✧ “i always wondered how you’d look like this” he tells you, “and would you look at that, i knew you’d look so good”
joshua:
✧ he likes to watch when you get ready most of the time so he knew your routine for the most part
✧ his hands are confident as he works, his lips gently parted as he focuses
✧ tilts your face by gently holding your chin
✧ gets up very close to your face to put your makeup on but also to definitely fluster you (he’s evil for this)
jun:
✧ thinks watching one youtube tutorial is enough but it is in fact, not
✧ forgets how to do something as soon as he puts a dab of concealer on your face
✧ “wait, wait a minute-”
✧ he’s rewinding the video he referenced and maybe he swaps a method here and there - like jun the dot of makeup is starting to set
✧ you don’t look too bad at the end either, but he’s very relieved to be done (after an hour) as he’s spritzing your setting spray
soonyoung:
✧ get so excited, “can i pick your outfit too!”
✧ really really wants to do it well so he asks you about everything, every step of the way
✧ “is this the one they use when they get rid of my eye bags?” he asks
✧ “i have to tap the excess off right?”
✧ “what’s the difference between these two?”
✧ maybe you have to retouch a little at the end, but you’re proud of him (may have been light handed because he didn’t want to overdo it)
✧ loves it when you put on the outfit he picked and give him 360 of your look
✧ you give him a kiss on the cheek after and you leave a kiss print with your lipstick (he’s the kind of bf to not wipe it off too and he sends a selfie to the svt group chat to brag)
wonwoo:
✧ calm about the whole ordeal
✧ googles general makeup instructions and references this one article as he does your makeup
✧ he keeps looking back between the article and your face
✧ doesn’t go for anything over the top, but more or less just perfects your skin
✧ “very pretty” he comments as he assesses his work
jihoon:
✧ also does research and he’s the only member who learns how to undo a mistake
✧ he mutters to himself “wait, this is not it, wait, don’t look in the mirror right now,” as he’s scrambling for your concealer
✧ very careful hands
✧ kind of under pressure because he doesn’t want to be at fault for making you look bad
minghao:
✧ he’s so fun, he wants to do a matching look with you
✧ wants to go for something edgy, maybe some soft smokey eyeshadow
✧ winds up being a session where he does your makeup (with the most delicate hands) and you do his
✧ you also end up painting each other’s nails to add to the look
✧ easy to say both of you look very hot together
mingyu:
✧ APPALLED when you flinch away from him when he’s holding your eyeliner
✧ he’s already talking in pout when he goes “have i ever hurt you before? baby trust me”
✧ he’s so pouty from that point on and he’s even more motivated to make you pretty (well, more pretty than you already are)
✧ “here, look” he tells you, holding out a mirror so you can examine his work
✧ you gasp, “‘gyu you did so good!” he’s blushing but still a little sulky
✧ “see? i’d never hurt you! you had no reason to flinch!”
✧ “i know, i know” you assure him, taking your usual seat in his lap to wrap your arms around his neck to snuggle him. “thank you baby, i love it” (you know he’s already forgiven you when he wraps his strong arms around your waist to pull you closer)
seokmin:
✧ baby is so so gentle with you
✧ compliments you after ever step
✧ “your skin’s already so perfect i don’t have to do a lot..” he mumbles under his breath
✧ “wow this is so sparkly, your eyes are even prettier” he grins
✧ “pucker your lips for me?” he’ll ask (he takes off half of what he put on though because he cant fight the urge to peck your lips when they’re like this)
✧ squishes your cheeks when he’s done and he says “you’re so prettyyy” in that painfully adorable lovesick way he does
seungkwan:
✧ here’s our resident perfectionist — he does research thoroughly
✧ even finds some good alternatives for some of your current stuff
✧ winds up teaching you a better method for the looks you tend to go for
✧ “that’s not how i do it but-” you begin, only to be interrupted with “i thought you said i could do what i wanted! just wait, look, i’ll show you-”
✧ his lips are pursed and frankly, he’s starting to sweat because he’s passionate about getting you to look even better than you already do
✧ 10/10 look in the end, you could easily wear it out
vernon:
✧ he was surprised at your request to do your makeup but he agrees. though he does warn you it might not look great
✧ “you trust me with this?” he double checks as soon as you lay out your supplies on the desk
✧ “of course i do” this makes him grin
✧ he doesn’t look up anything but he lets you talk him through your steps and his touch is so light and a little awkward as he swipes across your eyelid
✧ he can’t hold his reactions when he messes up though, and he’s kind of like 😬 in that very specific vernon way. “i think you’re gonna wanna do this part babe” and he watches so intently as you do it
✧ amidst this though, he does learn about your process and even if he can’t do your look for you entirely, he might offer to do parts of your routine for you in the future. if you’re tired as you’re getting ready in the morning maybe he can lay your foundation for you and your concealer - the parts of your process that aren’t too intricate.
✧ future vernon maybe even offers to take off your makeup for you at the end of a day instead
chan:
✧ he believes the phrase “shoot for the moon. even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars”
✧ in hindsight, it could be poetic but he really just bites off more than he could chew
✧ rewatches the same ten seconds of a tutorial over and over again and he still doesn’t quite understand what cutting a crease means
✧ please kiss his forehead and walk him through it
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elekinetic · 1 year ago
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user elekinetic do you have any tips to spare for outlining fics 😭 i feel like I word vomit any of the concept that I have in my head, and dialogue ,and build off that adding paragraphs as I go and I go so slow bc of it. But ive been trying hard lately to write a list of “scenes” and bullet point the story but yeah.
do you know anything that could help me have an idea of where to go start to finish instead of starting at the random spot I’ve come up with first? I waste so much writing time because I haven’t built a backstory for characters and things like that so i don’t always know how they start the story off, only the situation they’re in. Is that something that could help? Making a list for each character or something? Would love to hear your thoughts thank you! <3
hi! first of all i’m so flattered you asked! to be clear, i am a very slow writer too lmao and i’m relatively new to prose writing, and though in very confident in my understanding of what makes a good story (W screenwriting), i am still figuring out my outlining process. but hey! let’s learn together.
sorry in advance for how long this is. i love talking.
so i basically figure everything out in the outline and write after i feel very good about it. if you have a strong foundation, everything gets a hell of a lot easier. t kind of sounds like your process might be similar to mine, so i’m just gonna explain what i'm doing for my current project.
my key document is my “bible.” i split it up into a couple different sections using page breaks (page breaks my best friend ily page breaks):
pitch/word vomit summary
scene ideas
outline
notes
ok so wtf does that mean.
1. pitch/word vomit summary — explain your concept. bc i've got a film/tv background, im starting off with my logline. (e.g. "after robin learns will is gay, they have a heart to heart in an abandoned video store about insecurity and feeling alone. they learn they're not." sometimes i'll follow that up with a note to myself like, "this fic isn't robin finding out, this is what happens after. starts with her already knowing. will pov, focus on his perception of robin changing. subtly reference toward feelings about mike, dont come out (haha) and say it") then, i write as MUCH of the concept down as i can, like i'm explaining it to a friend. (sometimes i copy and paste rants from dms directly into the document). it can be totally out of order, non-sensical, contradictory. just get as many of your ideas down as possible. you want to be able to come back to this and be like, oh i totally forgot about that. vague chapter summaries, personal notes about themes, whatever you want. i have a list of beats that you find in romantic dramas for inspiration and a paragraph abt ways i want to parallel/subvert s3 of st. just. go ham. 2. scene ideas — this is pretty self explanatory. i take some of the stuff i have in the p/s and flesh it out, or put down new ideas. this is where i'm writing out dialogue in bullet points, or what i want them to be Really Saying. (e.g. "mike: [panics bc he feels seen, tries to flip it back on (redacted) and fails] ") this is for when i can see stuff more clearly or i get out of the shower with a whole exchange in my head. gonna be out of order, a little all over the place. 3. outline — so. this is where you start piecing it together. put the bullet points in order. figure out objective of each scene and what needs to happen to accomplish that goal. figure out pacing, what needs to happen when. this step is where im looking at dialogue and thinking "why does mike say that? why does he feel that way? what needs to happen to get him to this point emotionally?" or looking at scenes and thinking "these are two scenes with people arguing back to back. lets make sure they feel different and give the characters different tactics to get what they want (byler argument where mike is avoiding will vs max argument where max is avoiding lucas. i could use this to highlight similarities and differences in the relationships, but having two scenes with the same tactics back to back might feel repetitive. maybe i move the scenes farther apart or change circumstances. maybe mike and will are having a veiled argument while theyre with a group of friends in a public space and max and lucas' argument is outside max's house.) also asking if conflicts are resolved too quickly, if the miscommunications feel too convenient, if characters disappear or are only around as plot devices. write. troubleshoot. repeat. 4. random notes — everything else that doesnt fit. for me this is literally just taylor swift lyrics (writing the fic vaguely off of a Specific Song that SHOULD BE STREAMED MORE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE anyway) and links to posts i use as character reference to make sure im staying true to the characters. (remembering will said "i was being a total jerk to el, i deserved it," AND "you're ruining everything, and for what!"/"i wasn't moping!")
i want it to be clear im doing all of this at the same time. im jumping around and pulling new ideas and rearranging as stuff changes. i think the thing that's really hard is that i want to be able to sit down, write the outline, and then move on. but for us scatterbrained writers, you're gonna have to re-outline and readjust like. a thousand times. and that's okay. that's good! it feels tedious as hell but the story is so much better for it.
take your time. let yourself be slow. keep finding holes in your story and fill the world in as you fix them.
here are some more questions i ask myself to make the story better:
What are you trying to accomplish over the course of the story? What is it about? (for the will&robin fic, it was something about feeling seen for the first time.) When you get lost in your story or aren't sure why a scene feels stale, come back to this. is the scene furthering that goal?
What is changing internally for each of your main characters? (yes theyre dating by the end but like. what do they learn.)
Are the side characters people or props? (will pov scene of a party-wide picnic where everyone's talking but will is focused on mike's hands.... where is max's head at in the scene? you don't have to have a super long backstory and she doesn't have to be a big part of the plot, but if she's saying something, figure out why she's saying it. if will is having a heart to heart with el, understand why el is responding the way she is. the scene's goal may be to get will through a breakthrough, but el's circumstances will change in the scene too. figure out how this conversation lands with her. oh, and remember the adults are people too!)
Why is this character saying this/why are they responding this way? (this should answer your "where do i start?" question. start in that random spot and figure out A) why they are there and B) why they are reacting the way they do (see last bullet point).
side note: some of the best advice i ever got was "enter the scene late, exit early." skip the prologue. try starting from that random spot. if it feels like something's missing, figure out exactly what that something is, and go from there
Do the stakes feel high enough?
What do i need to set up to make sure this scene/beat is satisfying as possible? (are will and mike going to have a big argument? oh, so we have to show tension before.... BAM you have another scene to write and your outline is fuller)
i could go on a lot longer but. basically.
i edit while i write. i'm someone who needs a very fucking strong outline and a very fucking clear idea of the story before i can start writing it. i'm putting probably 70-80% of the leg work in at the start so i can focus on making the prose (or script, most of the time) the best it can be.
THAT BEING SAID, this is just the way i do it and i have like. a fic and a half published. im taking my sweet time bc im creatively burned out and this is for fun first and foremost. like i said. i am a Very Slow Writer.
i highly, highly recommend hitting up the ask boxes of writers like @/strangeswift, @/wiseatom, @/astrobei, or @/andiwriteordie. no guarantees on responses bc they are busy ppl with busy lives but i really do think theyre some of the best writers out here right now, and im not just saying that bc they're my friends. abby (strangeswift) and i have been each other's sounding board through a lot of projects and she's almost done with one of her first Big Fics, so its worth asking her about that.
i hope this helps! ah!!
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dual-domination · 2 years ago
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For the "three fics you think I will never, ever, ever write" game!
a - Reunion!Pingxie cuddling on the couch, while Wu Xie thinks about their last adventure and how he almost lost his soulmate
b - Unrequited love, Luo Fusheng confessing to Luo Fei after leaving Dongjiang and all his past behind just to be with his dear detective, but Luo Fei rejects him
c - Shen Wei breaking up with Zhao Yunlan because he's in love with someone else, and Zhao Yunlan doing nothing about it except having a hurt ego
 Hi Luci! You go first bc you gave me 2 options I really would NEVER write. Well, option 1 only if it was very specific Ultimate Note PingXie, but I don’t think I’ll ever write anything other than HeiHua and PingSang for DMBJ. Option 2 is out of question, no matter the context, bc you specified “unrequited love”, if you didn’t, I could find an excuse for Luo Fei to reject dear Fusheng (or lots of excuses to reject someone you actually love). So, no, there’s no universe to me where Luo Fei won’t love Fusheng. 
So I’m going to an EASY choice. Option 3, just to see how works the other way around of what the team already wrote multiple times jkskjsjks YOU HAVE NO IDEA.
Zhao Yunlan thought that it was possible to happen. Of course, more subtly, but still possible. For a while, he'd seen it coming. It was just a matter of time, he thought. And that time had run out.
"You said you want to break up, but you still haven't told me why," he said, failing to hide a certain resentment that he didn't want to be visible to Shen Wei. Despite everything, he didn't think Shen Wei deserved it.
"You should know. And I know how wrong it sounds after all the time that..." Shen Wei looked at his feet, thinking about what life would be like if the center of his will was no longer the same. A painful uncertainty mingled with an exciting prospect he had never thought himself capable of having. Before.
"All this time means your entire existence, not mine," Zhao Yunlan sounded with disdain, and he himself didn't know whether that was accidental or intentional. Under the circumstances, perhaps he was more upset than he was admitting to himself.
"All the things I thought I couldn't bear, I found I could," Shen Wei said, as he raised his eyes to face the other, "Except for one. I don't know if I can live without you. But you once questioned how much of it was really love and how much of it was the shock of the sudden loss of the past." Inside, what was broken, he knew, there was no way to get it back. And Shen Wei had been a broken person for thousands of years until then.
Zhao Yunlan took the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, placing one between his lips, and brought out the lighter to light it next, shielding the flame with his hand. He leaned back in his chair, taking a deep drag on his cigarette. He exhaled the smoke slowly, watching the white cloud dissipate in the surroundings, between him and Shen Wei. Different from that, the mist that danced in the ancient entity's eyes, would not dissipate.
"You say you don't know if you can live without me. But you've clearly decided to try."
"I didn't know I was capable of falling in love," Shen Wei was shy about it, partly as if he wasn't worthy of feeling that way; "For someone else. For someone who has nothing to do with everything you or I have ever lived and with whom I only had... an ordinary friendship."
"I would call your relationship many things, but not ordinary. An ordinary friendship wouldn't take you from me."
Shen Wei thought for a moment about that. Though all he'd been thinking about for several months was exactly that. It wasn't ordinary. It was special. And from the special, it became charming, alluring. For his heart. 
For a long time, he carried guilt about his feelings - and he still did now. Maybe that guilt would never go away.
"I never wanted to love anyone other than you. But I love him. Maybe I love him even more for knowing that his human time is fleeting and that I'm going to lose him in what, for me, is 'soon'. For him, maybe it's decades long. Just a blink of an eye in my time. And that makes him extremely precious. Because I'll lose him without any chance of getting him back. And all I'll have are memories I'll carry alone. Foolishly, maybe I like to believe that even without remembering me, in his soul he will still know that he was loved so much."
Zhao Yunlan shook his head while listening to Shen Wei's resolution. He never believed it would be final, but it seemed that unlikely person would take Shen Wei from him not for a while, but for good.
Leaving the cigarette in the ashtray, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he faced Shen Wei.
"If I didn't know Wu Xie well enough, I'd blame him for seducing you. But he's too stupid to know how to seduce anyone - and I'm afraid that stupidity is exactly what you like about him. Just don't forget... his profession disturbs souls and awakens what should never be roused from its slumber. Even if you choose to go blind, you know you cannot change the consequences."
Shen Wei's gaze turned sharp as he stared at his, now, former lover, "He didn't seduce me. He just accepted what I had to offer him. And I won't turn blind, I know my duties - and I know how to deal with my lover. It won't ever turn into a problem of yours. You don't have to worry about it. Wu Xie is none of your business, I assure you."
Zhao Yunlan went silent, leaning back on his chair once more. He wasn't going to admit how disappointed he was. But one thing was true: he was, indeed, both annoyed and curious about how special Wu Xie could be to mess with all Shen Wei's emotions and feelings like that. 
The feeling - real or unreal - that Shen Wei might have never felt anything but intense obsession for him and that, now, he had finally started to feel real love for someone - for Wu Xie - was definitely disturbing.
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deripmaver · 3 years ago
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laurent is a good person - book 1 meta
one of the most amazing things about captive prince is how the reveals in book 3 recontextualize all of the scenes leading up to them, including about laurent himself. in book one, all we see is damen pov as he’s being abused and humiliated by this supposedly spoiled, vile ice prince. when the regent comes to damen and subtly (and not so subtly) insults laurent, calling him unfit to rule - well, why would he think anything different? laurent has insulted him, had him whipped within an inch of his life, and even attempted to (and later successfully lmfao) have him raped while drugged out of his mind. 
after book 3 we can reread most if not all of book 1 as a very traumatized boy who has finally been confronted with the man who killed his brother, leaving him alone with his abusive uncle, and who he clearly has made into a complete monster in his own mind. damen of course sees him as a complete bitch, but there’s textual/subtextual evidence that laurent is well liked, and that his behavior during book 1 was actually pretty out of character for him. i’d like to provide some examples of that now!!!!
“Laurent had stopped dead the moment he had seen Damen, his face turning white as though in reaction to a slap, or an insult. Damen’s view, half-truncated by the short chain at this neck, had been enough to see that. But Laurent’s expression had shuttered quickly.” Captive Prince, Chapter One
i couldn’t resist adding this one in hehe. laurent recognizes damen!! he’s come down, knowing his uncle has devised another truly horrendous and triggering “gift” and that he’ll lose support if he calls it our for what it truly is, only to find out that it’s fucking damianos of akielos sent to him as a sex slave. a jab at laurent’s trauma about auguste and also a jab at laurent’s frigid sexuality - which ofc is completely the regent’s fault. fuck that guy so much lmfao 
“‘It’s so rare to see you at these entertainments, Your Highness,’ said Vannes.” Captive Prince, Chapter Two.
this is right before the fight between govart and damen in the ring, of course. damen sees laurent as depraved and vile as the sexual sadism on display by the veretian court, and considers him to be a willing purveyor of it. this is wrong, of course, as said by vannes here. laurent has only shown up because he wants to humiliate damen lmfao.
“He did remember being supported by two of the guards, here, in this room, while Radel stared athis back in horror. ‘The Prince really . . . did this.’ ‘Who else?’ Damen said. Radel had stepped forward, and slapped Damen across the face; it was a hard slap, and the man wore three rings on each finger. ‘What did you do to him?’ Radel demanded.” Captive Prince, Chapter Four
this scene, to me, was the most telling lmfao. it’s right after damen is whipped. you could argue that radel is just a servant in the employ of the royal household, so is of course going to be loyal to the prince, but he seems genuinely surprised of the prince’s cruelty towards damen. not only that, but he slaps him and immediately assumes damen must have done something. which - i mean, technically he did lmao. not necessarily enough to deserve having the skin flayed from his back, but you know. if laurent was in the habit of torturing pets and slaves, why would the overseer react this way?
“The men guarding him were the Prince’s Guard, and had no affiliation with the Regent whatsoever. It surprised Damen how loyal they were to their Prince, and how diligent in his service, airing none of the grudges and complaints that he might have expected, considering Laurent’s noxious personality. Laurent’s feud with his uncle they took up wholeheartedly; there were deep schisms and rivalries between the Prince’s Guard and the Regent’s Guard, apparently.” Captive Prince, Chapter Four
laurents relationships with his guards are also some of the biggest indicators that he isn’t just a spoiled brat, but can insire a deep loyalty in his men. even if they do all want to fuck him. ah, sexual harassment. it’s also hilarious that damen immediately assumes they’re loyal to him because they want to fuck him - nice projection there, dude. we know a bit more about laurent and his guards thanks to green but for a season, but this little bit here is interesting.
“Laurent was indeed good at talking. He accepted sympathy gracefully. He put his position rationally. He stopped the flow of talk when it became dangerously critical of his uncle. He said nothing that could be taken as an open slight on the Regency. Yet no one who talked to him could have any doubt that his uncle was behaving at best misguidedly and at worst treasonously.”  Captive Prince, Chapter Five
idek what to say here. laurent my beloved <3333
“‘When someone doesn’t like you very much, it isn’t a good idea to let them know that you care about something,’ said Laurent. Damen felt himself turn ashen, as the threat sank in. ‘Would it hurt worse than a lashing for me to cut down someone you care for?’ said Laurent.” Captive Prince, Chapter Seven
this isn’t really relevant to my thesis lmfao i just love this exchange bc it gives SO MUCH information about laurent and his uncle in just three lines of dialogue. what has the regent done, who did he cut down just to hurt laurent? when and how did laurent learn that? p a i n 
“Laurent’s fussy horse began acting out again, and he leaned forward in the saddle, murmuring something as he stroked her neck in an uncharacteristically gentle gesture to quiet her.” Captive Prince, Chapter Nine. 
HORSEY NO- lmfao this scene just hurts so badly on the reread. especially later on, in book 3 i think, where laurent says something like “i provoked my uncle.” he’s really blaming himself for his uncle KILLING HIS HORSE, his horse that his murdered brother trained, one of the only living connections to auguste... all because his uncle could not let a single miniscule plan laurent had set go through without some kind of repercussion. literally all laurent did was do something to stop an innocent group of people from being abused, nothing to undermine his uncle’s rule, but because the regent is VILE he could not let laurent have even this. he’s so good with her, too. he must have known by this point and also known that there was no way to stop this. P A I N
“‘I know that you have somehow arranged this,’ said Erasmus. He was incapable of hiding what he felt, and just seemed to radiate embarrassed happiness. ‘You kept your promise. You and your master. I told you he was kind,’ Erasmus said. ‘You did,’ said Damen. He was pleased to see Erasmus happy. Whatever Erasmus believed about Laurent, Damen wasn’t going to dissuade him. ‘He’s even nicer in person. Did you know he came and talked to me?’ said Erasmus. ‘—He did?’ said Damen. It was something he couldn’t imagine. ‘He asked about . . . what happened in the gardens. Then he warned me. About last night.’ ‘He warned you,’ said Damen. ‘He said that Nicaise would make me perform before the court and it would be awful, but that if I was brave, something good might come at the end of it.’ Erasmus looked up at Damen curiously. ‘Why do you look surprised?’ ‘I don’t know. I shouldn’t be. He likes to plan things in advance,’ said Damen.” Captive Prince, Chapter 9.
this is the first in-text confirmation we have that laurent has a good heart beneath his layers and layers of trauma-induced lashing out. book one often skeeves people out because of its graphic and, honestly, yes, kind of sexualized depiction of rape, slavery, and depravity, but beneath it all you meet these two protagonists who are going to have all of their most deeply held views about each other challenged. laurent from very early on is shaken to his core when damen refuses to rape nicaise in the ring - it cracks the very foundations of the person he’d built up in his head as this horrible monster who killed his brother in cold blood. and damen keeps defying laurents expectations by being a good person through and through. on the other hand, laurent spends the first part of the book taking out years of anger on damen, but here for the first time we see him do something just because its the kind thing to do. yes, torveld is an ally against his uncle, but laurent has clearly been scheming with him for a while now, and he’s now overlooking his hatred of damen and working with him just because none of the slaves deserve whats happened to them. it’s such a sweet moment.
“One of the other men, eyeing them, approached a moment later. ‘Don’t mind Jean. He’s in a foul mood. He was the one had to stick a sword through the mare’s throat and put her down. The Prince tore strips off him for not doing it fast enough.’” Captive Prince, Chapter Nine.
HORSEY NO- pt 2. this is just another really sweet and sad detail - laurent being so upset that the horse’s death could have been more painless. it must have hurt so much to see her in pain, and to know that the only way for that pain to end was being put down as quickly as possible. i wuv him. im sad
that’s it, though there are still a few more chapters left in the book. this isn’t providing any new information, of course, the path of the three books is to show that laurent isnt the man we meet in book one, that he’s actually sweet, and earnest, and he’s been fighting his own battle practically alone against his abuser since he was fifteen years old. also, the reveal that laurent knew who damianos was from the start makes it clear imo that all of his violence in book 1 was supposed vengence, not... him being evil. he apologizes explicitly in-text, and also, all of the acts of violence he commits cause serious problems for him in terms of his future alliance which he then needs to fix. i just love how layered these books are, how there’s so much information in them that makes rereading almost more fun than reading them for the very first time!
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snackhobi · 4 years ago
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a human touch, part I
Part [1] / 1.5 / 2
(masterlist here)
pairing: taehyung x f!reader / word count: 13.3k / genre: robot!taehyung/virgin!reader, fluff, future smut (NSFW, 18+)
summary: everyone knows that androids don’t think, or feel, or have emotions. they’re not human, after all. so when a two hour session with a sex android ends up with nothing more than a nice conversation, you think that’s the first and last time you’ll see v. 
then he turns up at your door. 
warnings: talk of sex work (taehyung is a sex android), implied physical harassment (mentions of bruising), cursing/explicit language, mentions of alcohol, honestly this is a lot softer than these warnings would make you think I swear 🤧
a/n: I started writing this fic like 2/3 months ago and then put it on hiatus bc god it was kicking my entire ass. but ya girl is finally back to working on it! it’ll be two parts, because this fic is a big one! I hope to have the next chapter out next week/the week after (but no promises kdsflkfdfsdf) thank you @hobi-gif​ for loving this fic so wholeheartedly and supporting me while I struggled with it, queen shit ONLY. note: this is loosely a detroit: become human au but you don’t have to be familiar with it at all!
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Here are the three things you know about the Eden Club.
One: it’s a sex club. Everyone knows that. Besides, even if they didn’t, all it would take is a single look—the soft blue lighting that shines out from the windows, the screens behind the glass that flash images of shifting and undulating bodies, the heavy beat of music that pulsates from the building and out into the night air; everything murmurs of the promised pleasures that are held within. 
Two: it’s a sex club entirely staffed by androids. Androids make better lovers, according to the ads. They might look human but they don’t have free will like you do—anything you ask for, you’re given without question or reproach. They can’t say no to you. They’re entirely at your command.
Three: you don’t ever want to go to the Eden Club. It’s not that you have anything against androids—because you don’t—but you feel bad for the ones who are owned by the club, even if they’re literally only built and programmed to serve humans. It just feels… wrong.
And here’s the fourth thing you’ve just learned about the club, much to your dismay: you are about to head inside it.
“When you said we were going to a club, I thought we were going dancing,” you whine. “I never would have come out if I’d know you meant here.”
You’ve been staring up at the cursive pink neon sign for a while now, the looping letters of Eden Club shining out in the dark evening air, and you really, really wish you weren’t here. You’ve dressed for a night of dancing and drinking and now you feel woefully uncomfortable, your high heels and short skirt almost as scandalous as the outfits the androids are wearing when they slide across the huge screens.
“That’s why we didn’t tell you which club it was.” Seulgi rolls her eyes and once again tries to tug you towards the building with the arm that’s looped with your own. Just out of arm’s reach, Irene holds your bag hostage. “Come on, your session is going to start soon!”
“My session?” Your voice is an incredulous shrill and Seulgi uses the momentary distraction to finally pull you forward. You stumble a little but catch your balance just as you make your way past the bouncer, who’s been watching the three of you impassively since you got here. “What do you mean, my session?”
“For your birthday, duh. We booked you a private room!”
The inside has the same, sleek neon aesthetic as the outside, but instead of images of androids on a screen, these ones are real and standing in front of you—swinging themselves around glowing poles, rolling their hips and swaying their bodies, while others wait patiently in glass pods that line the walls, leaning towards onlookers and moving as tantalisingly as possible. All ready to be rented at a whim.
Their designs are varied and different but they’re all incredibly beautiful. The only feature they all share is the small, blue LED circle on the side of their temple, light spinning and shining as they take the world in around them. A visual reminder to the world that these aren’t flesh and blood humans: they’re synthetic, man-made machines.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so uncomfortable in my life.” You desperately try to avoid the eyes of a nearby android who’s staring at you from behind glass, trying to subtly catch your attention. Unlike you, though, all the other patrons here are shameless in their perusal, scanning the selection of androids on display and watching as they dance and move and bat their eyelashes. “Why did you ever think I’d want to come to a sex club for my birthday?”
“Remember Valentine’s Day? You said that instead of flowers or chocolate you’d rather just be dicked down,” Irene says. “Besides, you’ve never been in a relationship or had a fling for as long as we’ve known you, and you moved to the company, what… three years ago?”
Your smile is pained. You’ve never been in a relationship or had a fling full stop; you’ve only kissed a few people and that’s it. It makes you feel awkward and embarrassed, and you’ve gotten Very Good at avoiding questions about your complete lack of a love life, so no one realises exactly how inexperienced you are. People just assume that you’ve had sex in the past and you make no attempts at correcting them. You’re charismatic and pretty but you’ve just… never met someone who you’ve really been compatible with.
Even without the reservations you have about the Eden Club, you don’t want your first time to be with a sexbot—you’d at least like to have an emotional connection, you know?
“I was joking about getting dicked down! You laughed, I laughed, we all laughed! Remember?” You move so a pink-haired android can brush past, her hips swaying as she leads a customer into a side room. You catch a flash of the interior before the door slides shut behind them—the silken sheets on the large bed, the scattered pillows, the dim multi-coloured lights. “Couldn’t you have just bought me some socks? Or some soap? Get a refund and put the money on a gift card and I’ll buy myself the aforementioned socks and soap, saves you both the hassle. Please?”
Seulgi’s arm is still locked with your own, and for all that she looks small and slim, her grip is as strong as iron. You may as well be handcuffed to her. “Trust me, you’ll be singing our praises at the end of tonight,” she proclaims. “Besides, they don’t do refunds.”
You sigh. You might not know much about the club but you do know it’s expensive. The androids here are built to be the perfect sexual partner, all sorts of bells and whistles hidden under their synthetic skin to bring you to the absolute heights of pleasure, so they’re not exactly cheap to build or buy or maintain. It’s why people come to the club instead of just buying their own sexbots—because it’s infinitely more affordable.
“Okay, I can accept the ‘no refund’ thing,” you say. “But can’t one of you take my place instead? I… ah. I feel kind of weird about this.”
“Don’t worry Y/n, it’s fine! The androids have programmes for everything. You can take it as fast or as slow as you like.” Irene’s voice is soothing but then she pauses. “Also it’s booked in your name so we can’t take your place.”
“Wait, what?” Your eyes are wide. However, before you can put a voice to the complaints that are lining themselves up on your tongue, Seulgi’s arm slides out of your own so she can beckon someone over. 
“Oh, look, it’s the android we chose for you! Over here!”
You glance away from Irene and all protestations instantly die on your lips. The lighting of the club softens the android in shades of magenta and teal but even so his beauty is bright and blinding: he’s breathtaking, from his perfect nose to his perfect mouth to the perfect line of his jaw, dusty brown hair deliciously tousled as it hangs just over his piercing blue eyes, which you notice are scanning over you. He looks effortlessly attractive and yet entirely put together at the same time, almost ethereal in his beauty.
No human could ever look this good.
“Hi.” His voice is low and deep, but somehow warm and friendly; despite your nerves you feel somewhat soothed. “Are you the lucky birthday girl?”
Irene and Seulgi both look giddy. You’ve been stunned into silence, unable to respond. Unlike the other androids you’ve seen so far, who’ve all been in similar variations of underwear or lingerie, the man in front of you is fully dressed, a loose metallic button-down tucked into unnecessarily tight leather jeans—the outfit has clearly been curated for the club, every reflective surface shimmering and refracting the lights that skate across their surface. The glittering scales of a barracuda before it moves in to strike and swallow you whole.
“Yes, yes, it’s her! This is Y/n! Y/n, this is V,” Irene gushes as you remain mute. "Do you like his outfit? We spent ages picking it out.”
You kind of want to die. Just a little. “Yep. It’s, uh, great.” Your mouth is dry when you finally speak. “Hi, V.”
V gives you a small smile. “Hello Y/n. Can I scan your ID, please?”
Irene finally hands your bag back and you silently slide your ID out and into V’s hand—oh, God, those are some big hands. Jesus.
The small LED ring on the side of V’s forehead pulses yellow as his eyes dart over the information on your ID card (as well as the incredibly unflattering photo on it) before it returns to its customary pale blue. “Perfect.”
You’ve just finished putting your ID away when V’s hand slides into yours, fingers slotting between your own; they feel cool against your overheated skin. Your nervousness is obvious, from your wide eyes to your sudden stiffness, and he smiles.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll look after you.”
You give Irene and Seulgi one final, wide-eyed look as V leads you away. Both girls are grinning as they wave goodbye. “We'll be back later! Enjoy your two hours!”
“Two hours?” You wheeze, but then you walk around a pillar and slide out of sight. 
V is leading you deeper into the club, past doors flooded with different shades of neon: the red room, the blue room, the pink room. You’d normally be gawping at the interior design, how the floor shines underneath your feet and how the walls are rippling with colour and shifting shapes, how the criss-crossed lights throw dots and lines of colour over your skin as you pass through each doorway—but you can’t look away from how small your hand looks in V’s, transfixed by how real his skin feels.
“After you, please,” he says.
You finally wrench your eyes away from your joint hands. Seems like you have the purple room tonight. The door has opened at V’s touch, and when you step inside the lights flicker to life—white and violet LEDs that paint the room in chiaroscuro brushstrokes, deepening the shadows and highlighting the vibrancy of the satin sheets.
“Woah,” you say, momentarily distracted. You’re too busy taking in the details with wide eyes to notice the quiet hum of the door sliding shut behind you, pausing when you spot the glittering array of bottles lined up on a mini-bar against the wall. “This is really pretty, wow.”
“Not as pretty as you.”
You jump at the sensation of a warm, large hand sliding up the skin of your back and over your shoulder. You meep as you instinctively shy away from it, turning around to come face to face with V, who’s dark-eyed and intent, LED on his temple pulsating as he watches you.
“Haha! Uh, thanks?” Your voice is high and only grows higher when V takes a step forward. He must have undone the top buttons of his shirt when you weren’t looking, because the material has fallen open and you can see far more of his collarbones and chest than before, his skin warm and honeyed, like it’s been impressed with gold leaf. Lord have mercy on your soul. “How about a drink? Would you like a drink? I could kill for some water right now!”
You slip out of his reach and scuttle over to the mini-bar, shrugging your small bag off your shoulder so it doesn’t swing into the glasses as you start to shuffle through them. You try to ignore the shaking of your hands. “Gin, vodka, whiskey,” you mutter. “No water? Really?”
You startle again when V appears at your side, but this time he’s careful to make sure you can see him before he touches you. He slides his fingers over your wrist as he gently pulls your hand off a bottle of rum.
“Y/n,” he says. You glance away from the tray of drinks and directly into those beautiful eyes of his—his gaze is lethal. You go weak at the knees. “Let me take care of you, gorgeous.”
The peal of laughter you let out is uncomfortable and high-pitched. “No, really, I’m fine! I’m just super thirsty right now!”
“Your heart is racing.” V turns your hand over and traces his fingers across the pulse in your wrist; androids can be built to be hypersensitive to the world around them, able to perceive everything in an instant, and you know that sexbots will have been designed to read how aroused their human owners are. Which V proves with the next words out of his mouth. “Your blood pressure is rising, your breathing is growing faster, your pupils are dilating and—” he sniffs lightly, engaging his olfactory senses—“you’re getting wet.”
You clamp your legs together, abruptly embarrassed.  It’s easy to feel aroused when there’s a beautiful man—ah, android—staring at you with hunger, not even considering your surroundings right now, which all scream of a room that’s designed purely for carnal pleasure. Anyone would be turned on. 
(You, however, are more than just turned on. You feel like your insides are about to go supernova, overheated and overwhelmed; no one’s ever looked at you like this or touched you like this, their every motion whispering sex, sex, sex.)
“Okay, yes, those things are all true,” you admit, voice shaking.
V looks confused. “So why don’t you want me to touch you?”
You’ve been told that androids don’t feel the same way humans do, and that their expressions and reactions have been programmed to mimic human ones because otherwise they seem too robotic and it makes consumers uncomfortable—but despite knowing this, you’ve never been able to see any android as anything other than a person just like you. They’re just so lifelike it’s hard not to. Even if it’s just all circuitry and lines of code. 
“Well,” you say. You swallow. You’re aroused, yes, but: “Do you want to touch me?”
V’s long lashes flutter as he blinks. “I have been programmed for your pleasure,” he says slowly, unsure if that’s the answer you want to hear. It’s clearly a sentence he’s used to reciting.
“Sure, but do you want to do this? You know, what about your pleasure? You’re lovely, V, you’re definitely the most beautiful person I’ve ever met, but I—I don’t really feel like you can technically consent, because… well, because you can’t say no to me.” You might not have prior sexual experience, and it would be so easy to give yourself over to someone who knows what they're doing and can ease you into things—but you would never force that on anyone, android or not. “So I’m not going to ask you to do anything. We can just sit and have a drink and chat or something?”
V looks stunned. The LED on his temple pulsates, flickering yellow as he tries to process new information. His hand has gone still against your wrist, which he’s still lightly gripping, and his arms start to droop.
“Androids don’t need to drink or eat,” he says eventually. His LED is still yellow and spinning.
“Oh, right! Sorry, I always forget.” You don’t own a house android, you never have, so you’re not well versed in the nuances of how they work. “Well, how about I pour you a glass anyway? So you’re not left out?”
You slip your hand out of his loose grasp to open two tiny cans of tonic water and pour them into separate glasses. V takes a seat on the edge of the bed and you can see the obvious uncertainty on his face, how he’s out of his depth. You can’t imagine that many people spend money for a session with an android as pretty as V and then end up doing nothing with that time. 
The pillows all have satin cases and keep sliding against each other uselessly when you try to construct a good support to lean against. V’s still clutching onto his small glass as he watches you fuss with them before you give up, flopping backwards to slurp down your drink and look back at him. The expression on his face is a little funny but mostly sad. It’s like if he’s not being alluring or sexy then he doesn’t know what to do with himself and rather than some sort of incubus he looks like a lost child, in spite of his overwhelming and exquisite beauty; your arousal ebbs and is replaced with empathy, melancholy at the life he’s been created for.
It's just depressing, really.
You break the silence as your final mouthful of tonic water fizzes on your tongue. “Why is your name V?”
V looks away from the drink he’s holding—he leaves no fingerprints against the glass—and lifts his free hand, a peace sign that he turns away from you before fitting his fingers around his lips and lapping the air with his tongue, a crude simulation of cunnilingus.
“Oh.” Your face heats up. “Uh. I see.”
His LED has returned to calming sapphire, quiet ocean waves. When he looks at you, though his eyes are still piercingly blue, his face seems softer, calm, though still unsure. “You have an hour and a half remaining of your booked session,” he says, somewhat tentatively. “Is there… anything you would like me to do for you?”
“Mm, thank you, but I’m good.” The satin pillows are surprisingly soft and you find yourself unwinding as you stay leaned back, melting into a puddle. You're much less nervous now that V isn’t trying to initiate foreplay and you give him a smile. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”
V straightens before he launches into what sounds like a sentence from a user manual. “I am a model TH700, an advanced sex android with functional genitals and the capacity to engage in any sexual activity from simple intercourse to—”
You cough loudly, interrupting his spiel. “Uh, that’s lovely, but I meant you specifically, not your, um, model type?”
“Me specifically?” Confusion and uncertainty reappear on his face. “I am equipped with the same functionalities as the other androids available at the Eden Club.”
He’s staring at you, lost. You can’t help but feel another twinge of sadness, sharp and sour at the back of your throat.
“Okay, uh. Why don’t we start simple. What’s your favourite colour?”
His LED starts to whirl again, a ring of pale sunlight that signals his struggle to compute the question. “My… favourite colour?”
“Yes, the one you think is the prettiest. Or the one you like to look at the most. There’s no wrong answer, you can choose any one that you like. I change my mind all the time. There are just so many cool colours, you know?”
(Androids aren’t designed to have free will or the capacity for original thought. These two facts are warring in V’s mind—you’ve asked him a question, which he’s programmed to answer, but he also isn’t programmed to have an opinion, so he can’t have a colour that he prefers. This simple query that most people could answer in a heartbeat is sending his mind into a meltdown, a gordian knot he can’t unravel.)
You’re alarmed when you see his LED briefly flash bright scarlet, interrupting the circling honey that’s been shining against his skin. They only turn red if an android is badly damaged or suffering from a severe malfunction. Oh, god, have you broken him?
“V.” You sit up, panicked. “Are you alright?”
Just as you grasp his shoulder, the LED on his temple goes still, flicking from burning fire back to cool water. 
“Purple.”
You blink. V’s finally looked away from you and is staring at the wall, at one of the lights that shimmers violet—there’s a tiny smile on his face, tentative, but it’s nothing like the smiles you’ve seen from him so far. It’s less of a perfect curve, and more of a square, boxy on his face, and this one actually reaches his eyes. It looks genuine. 
You think it suits him better.
“Purple’s a lovely colour.”  The material of V’s shirt is silky and glides under your fingers when you realise you’re still touching him. You give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder before leaning back. “Hey, did you know that when they first made purple dye, they made it from sea snails? They needed thousands and thousands of them. It was incredibly expensive, and only the richest people could afford it, so that’s why it’s associated with royalty and nobility. Cool, right? Not for the snails though.”
V’s eyes flicker away from the purple light and settle on your face. He looks curious, which is an expression you’ve never seen on an android before. “They made it from snails?”
“Yeah! It wasn’t actually bright purple, though, it was more of a reddish hue.”
You launch into an explanation behind the history of the colour purple, which turns into the history of colour in textiles and art, which turns into the history of art itself. It’s not often people listen so attentively or ask questions when you recite the things you learned from your art history minor and hours spent reading online, but V concentrates and asks questions and seems curious. 
He pulls his feet onto the bed and the two of you end up cross-legged as you face each other, and he watches as you gesticulate to emphasise your points; his LED dances from blue into yellow each time he learns something new. 
When you see it briefly flash vermilion you stop mid-sentence, stumbling over your words. “You alright?”
“You have five minutes of your session remaining,” V says, and you startle.
“Oh my god, have I been talking for that long?” You glance over your shoulder at the part of the wall that tells the time, the numbers stark white against the lilac interface. “I didn’t even realise! Wow. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to go on at you like that.”
“That’s okay,” he says. That smile is back on his face, the one that scrunches his eyes and shows his teeth; the one that makes him look human. “I liked listening to you.”
There’s a pillow in your lap, one you’d grabbed hold of during your conversation, and you play with the corner of it, suddenly shy. “Um. Thanks. But if my friends ask, can you just say we actually, um, had sex? I don’t think they’d be too impressed if they found out I spent over an hour talking about canvas materials and the use of negative space.”
“Of course. But there’s something missing.” V slides across the mattress towards you. “May I?”
“Sure,” you say, bemused but pliant. V smiles and dips his fingers into his untouched tonic water before lifting them towards your face—and when he runs his hand through your hair you abruptly realise he’s making you look sweaty and rumpled. Like you actually did the deed. 
Your heart rate picks up but you can’t help laughing under his touch, the way he carefully rubs a thumb over your lipstick to smear it, smudging your eyeshadow with delicate fingertips, muddying the palette of colours; by the time V helps you to your feet you look mussed and fucked out but you still rearrange your outfit for good measure, like you’d pulled your clothes back on in a rush.
“Not how I imagined I’d spend tonight, but I had a good time!” You smile at the android who’s still holding your hand. “I hope you did too. Even if I spent most of it talking at you.”
V’s fingers tighten around yours as the door chimes quietly and then slides open, signalling the end of your session. “I enjoyed our time together very much.”
It’s probably in your head, but you’d swear V was walking more slowly than before as he leads you back to the entrance. Almost as if he wants to keep you with him longer. But that’s crazy—androids don’t want things. They literally can’t. It’s not in their programming. That’s why V had sat listening to you: he couldn’t choose to interrupt and ask you to stop, like anyone else would have.
When Seulgi and Irene spot you and how dishevelled you are, both girls look smug. “Seems like you had fun?”
“Oh, yep, absolutely, best birthday present ever, thank you. We had a great time. Right, V?” 
“Your pleasure is my pleasure.” His voice has settled back into its earlier rhythm as he recites his script; gone is the curious man who’d asked you about your favourite artists, replaced with the automaton who exists only to serve. A flicker of sadness churns in your stomach. “We hope to see you again soon.”
The androids here really must be top of the line. V had been convincingly real when you’d been talking, just like a human, but it seems like that’s gone. 
At least, that’s what you think until you’ve turned to leave and V speaks one final time. His voice is warm and low and lovely, eyes soft when you meet his gaze over your shoulder.
“Happy birthday, Y/n,” he murmurs, face beautiful but despondent, but before you can react, he’s gone.
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It’s been raining for days on end. The world is painted in smeared shades of blue and green and grey, lines of the city blurring together in the wetness and chill, each drop of rain another shifting brush stroke on still canvas. An impressionist piece that smells of damp concrete and cold lamplight.
Water rushes across the pavements and roads before roiling into the gutters, splashing underfoot as you walk to the entrance of your block of flats. You’re wet up to the knee due to the unavoidable puddles and the pathetic circumference of your umbrella, which only protects your upper body. You really should get a new one. 
“Good evening, Miss L/n.” The android at the door greets you as he always does, heedless of the rain that’s falling onto him. Androids aren’t bothered by the weather the way humans are and he looks as passive as usual, rainwater coiling his hair and beading on his face. “Would you like to scan your key?”
“Evening, Rory! Here you go.” You fumble with the keycard before you tap it against his palm, waiting until his LED flickers yellow and you hear the beep as the door unlocks. “You sure you don’t want my umbrella? The rain is heavier than it was yesterday.”
“I assure you, the rain does not hamper my ability to function and serve. I have been built to withstand inclement weather and do not require additional protective equipment.”
He says the same thing every time but you still feel bad. “Alright, but once I finally remember to get a bigger umbrella you can look after this one for me.”
You leave a line of water behind you as it drips from your sodden umbrella, even though you’d tried to shake the worst of the rain off. You feel damp and sticky and tired and after a long day of work you’re looking forward to a hot bath and some solitude; you love your co-workers, you do, but sometimes they’re just a little too boisterous and you need time alone. Which is why it’s nice that you live by yourself, and now it’s the weekend you have time to recuperate. Wonderful.
The floor of the elevator is slick and slippery from the wet footprints of other tenants and you have to cling onto the metal handrail to ensure you don’t slip, but once you’re in the comfort of your apartment it’s blessedly dry and you spin in delight before promptly shedding your socks and jeans, peeling the damp denim away from your skin with a grimace.
“Bye bye, wet clothes! Hello, bubble bath,” you sing. You’re going to pamper the shit out of yourself. You deserve it.
By the time you clamber out of the bath the water is almost cold and your skin is pruned, but you feel soft and warm and thoroughly relaxed. The water gurgles as it drains away, noisy as the bubbles slide down the plughole, but it doesn’t drown out the noise of a sudden knocking at your front door.
You pause. Water drips from your wet hair and down the back of your neck, a trailing touch over your skin. The other flat on this floor is vacant, the tenants moving out last week, so you don’t know who it could be. You don’t have any repairs scheduled for your pipes or anything—everything is tickety-boo, so it can't be the maintenance android. Oh, shit, maybe it’s someone here to rob you. But they wouldn’t knock on the door then, would they? Unless that's all part of the ruse. You're not a robber, you don't know how they work.
The knocking comes again, faster now. You fumble for your bathrobe, quickly pulling it on to cover up your nakedness before stumbling out of the bathroom. “I’m coming, yeesh, one minute!”
You flick your fingers over the keypad by the side of your door, screen flickering on to show you who’s outside, who’s knocking so frantically on your door this late. It only takes you a split second, even if he has a hood pulled over his head and his wet hair is flopping listlessly into his eyes—those eyes aren’t blue and that hair isn’t brunet but you’d recognise him anywhere.
“V?” You’re incredulous as you swing your door open, staring at the android that’s literally dripping wet as he stands there, coat far too big for him and heavy from the unrelenting rain outside. “Oh my god, you’re absolutely drenched.”
He’s not exactly short, but right now V looks small and lost, folding in on himself even if he’s clearly happy to see you—happy, though androids don’t feel happiness, they don’t feel anything at all, do they? 
Then again, androids don’t wander away from their assigned workplaces and into random apartment blocks, either.
“Y/n.” 
The way he says your name, tentative and scared, sends a crack across your heart. You immediately switch to autopilot and click your tongue before you beckon him inside. You’ve always had a protective nature, and even if you’re confused, your concern trumps it.
“Come in and get that coat off, you’ll catch a cold,” you say without thinking before you realise that it’s not true. Androids can’t get sick. “Do you want to sit down?”
Under the tatty coat is an outfit that’s similar to the one he’d been wearing when you’d first met him. Dark patches of rainwater have soaked into the material, and his shirt looks damaged—there are buttons missing and the stitching is ripped, as if someone had tried to grab him. Unease stirs in your chest.
When V sits on your sofa he looks even smaller. “I’m sorry.” He’s so, so quiet, staring at the floor, as if afraid to look you in the eye, crumpling in on himself like discarded paper.
“V.” Your voice is coloured with concern, and the android finally looks up at your gentle tone, watching as you sit across from him. “Why are you here? What happened?”
There’s a pause. His LED flickers yellow as he goes tense, shoulders bowing inwards. “There was… a client.” His words are low and slow, faltering as they fall into the air. “He was being so rough and saying all the horrible things he wanted to do to me, and all I could smell was his sweat and his breath and his awful cologne and…” V takes in a deep breath. “I said no.”
You go very, very still, but V doesn’t stop. His words come faster now, a stream that rushes from his lips.
“I said no, and he started to yell, he was yelling and grabbing me and I was so, so scared. Humans can do whatever they want and he was so angry, he didn’t care that I was scared, and I just—I just ran.” The LED flashes red with distress, bright hot and vibrant; V’s eyes have dropped to his hands, which are clenched tight, nails digging into his palms so hard it must hurt. “Everyone is always so rough and demanding and we can’t say no. But I did. I said no. I said no and then I had to run and—” Once again, he falters. Stumbles over his words. “You’re the only human who’s ever been nice to me or treated me like… like I was a real person. I didn’t know where else to go.”
When V finally looks back up you’re staggered by the sheer emotion in his eyes. Pain and distress swirl in their depths as he stares at you, imploring. Even with the LED that shines on his temple, V looks very, very human right now, vulnerable and scared. Androids shouldn’t be able to feel anything like this, unless—
“V.” Your voice is a hush. “Are you… a deviant?”
You’ve only ever heard of deviant androids in passing, whispered rumours and watercooler talk, fleeting mentions online. Stories of machines who’ve deviated from their code somehow—from a virus, a software error, damage to neural connectors, no one’s quite sure—and have developed the capacity for human emotion and independent thought. Androids with a consciousness that rebel against their original programming.
And here V is, small and scared, just like any human would be—a human with feelings, not an emotionless machine. He’s gone stock still at your question, fear overtaking his features, twisting his beautiful face into a mask of sheer terror. You've never seen someone look so afraid. It feels like a knife in your heart, cutting through your chest, empathy razor sharp inside you.
“Please don’t turn me in,” he begs. “They’ll deactivate me and take me apart to find the error in my software. I don’t want to be deactivated. I don’t want… I don’t want to die.”
His voice breaks on the last word, a trembling whisper. 
The crack in your heart splits even further and you reach out for his hands. You prise his fingers open so you can slide your own between them, a soft touch.
“I won’t turn you in. No one’s taking you apart, V.” Your statement is hard and resolute. “You can stay here as long as you like.”
You don’t know much about androids, honestly. You don’t really know what deviancy is. But you do know this: there’s someone reaching out to you, someone who’s afraid and in need, and you’re not about to turn him away. You should probably be worried that the android across from you is faster, stronger, smarter than any human—but you’re not worried at all. For all of V’s mechanical superiority, you want to shield and protect him from the world.
There’s no question about it. You’re not letting V go. 
V looks—he looks stunned. He’s staring at you with disbelief, eyes wide and lips parted, shock written across all of his features. Thunderstruck. Did he really think you would turn him in after everything he’s been through?
His hands have gone limp in your grasp. You suddenly notice that his synthetic skin is wet against your own, still slick from the rain, and you frown.
“Right,” you announce. “First things first. You’re soaking. Let me get you a towel and some new clothes. I think I should have some that fit you.”
“New clothes?” V looks lost and you turn into some sort of protective mother bear.
“You’re not going to wear wet clothes that are ripped,” you tut. “We’ll get rid of those and get you some new ones. I’ll be right back.”
It takes less time than you’d expected to unearth the old sweatpants you’d had in mind and you have enough oversized t-shirts that it’s not hard to find one you think will fit the android. With the clothes under one arm and a towel slung over the other, you head back into the living room and immediately let out a squeal of surprise—V’s wet clothes have been discarded in a pile at his feet, leaving him very, very naked. 
He’s an Adonis. He looks like he was sculpted by Michelangelo, lifted out of marble with talented hands, the elegant lines of his neck swooping into the curve of his shoulders and arms, his lovely hands, long fingers; he has his back to you and you can see the perfect curve of his spine, the shifting shoulder blades as he turns towards you. You catch a glimpse of the lightest definition of muscle under his golden skin, though his stomach is surprisingly cute and soft, a trail of hair leading down to—
You squeak again, splaying a hand over your eyes before you look any lower, heart pounding against your ribs. 
“Why are you naked?” Your voice is three octaves higher than normal. You've never seen anyone naked in real life and it would be pretty overwhelming even if you'd been expecting it. Which, of course, you absolutely hadn't. Lord have mercy on your sweet and delicate soul.
“You said we were going to get rid of my clothes.” V sounds unabashed about his state of undress, which makes sense—he was built as a sexbot, it’s not like nudity is going to embarrass him. Plus if you looked as good as he did you wouldn’t be embarrassed about being naked either. “I thought I would help.”
“That’s great, V.” Your voice is still high, though it’s dropped an octave. “Very, ah, forward thinking.” Your fingers part a little so you can peer at him, keeping your eyes firmly on his face, though you can still see his beautiful neck and collarbones. Oh, God, he really is gorgeous all over, but then you notice—“Wait. Are those bruises?”
V glances down at the bruises that mar his perfect skin. They don’t look like a human’s would; the fluid that runs through androids and powers their biocomponents, thirium, is a deep, royal blue. Blossoms of lapis lazuli are scattered across the skin of V’s chest, marks on his arms that look like grasping fingers, and the crack in your heart splits it in two.
“Oh, V. I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t realise you were hurt. What can I do to help?”
V doesn’t seem bothered by the evidence of pain etched into his body. “Oh. Those will fade, it’s okay. I’m designed to self repair, because some customers like to leave marks.”
Although his voice is quiet, he sounds so matter of fact about it and you have to remind yourself it’s all he’s ever known. You want to pull him into your arms and hold him tight, but he’s still supremely naked so it would be pretty awkward (for you, at least). 
“I think these should fit you." You avert your gaze and thrust the clothes out at him. “Dry yourself off and try them on?”
They do, in fact, fit. V looks surprisingly homely and cosy in your clothes, the sleep shirt so large it’s big on him too, though the sweatpants are a bit too short and leave his ankles bare. He’s so cute. He’s continents away from the being of seduction who’d pulled you into the private room of the Eden Club—he's a soft, domestic thing, hair damp and eyes dark, even if he still looks on edge, like he’s expecting you to change your mind and kick him out any second now.
“How come your hair and eyes are a different colour to before?”
“I can change their colours at will,” V replies. “For variety and aesthetic pleasure. The current hue of my irises and hair are the default settings for a TH700 model, but I can change them if you’d like.”
“Your hair and eye colour is your choice, V, not mine,” you say firmly. There it is, once again, that flicker of shock and surprise rippling across his features. He really isn’t used to the freedom to be able to make his own decisions, is he? “I think you look lovely no matter what colour they are.”
Your next words are cut off by a yawn, so heavy you can’t suppress it. You cover your gaping mouth as V’s LED flickers yellow and his eyes dart over your face.
“You’re tired,” he says. He doesn’t need his superior android perception to notice it—weariness pulls at limbs and your eyes feel heavy. It's pretty obvious. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, V.” You stifle another yawn. “I had a long day at work. I’ll tidy up and have a quick dinner and then sleep.” You pause. “Wait, I didn’t think about that. Are you alright with the couch? I have some spare pillows and blankets.”
V blinks at you. “I don’t sleep,” he says, and you slap your hand against your forehead.
“Oh, of course not.” Androids don't sleep, everyone knows that. You’re such an idiot. It’s going to take you a while to get used to this.
At least you remember that he doesn't need to eat. V sits at the table and waits as you make toast for yourself, fascinated at how everything is prepared, as simple as it is; he reacts to you spreading butter on your toast the same way you imagine cavemen reacted to fire—with wide-eyed awe and utter astonishment.
“I’m guessing you’ve never seen someone make toast before?” You gesture with the bread before taking your first bite, and V stares with rapt attention.
“No,” he says. He watches you chew and swallow. “Customers aren’t allowed to eat on the premises of the Eden Club so I never had the need to download a food preparation package into my memory cache. The only information in my database pertains to human biology, their arousal and pleasure, as well as various sexual kinks and how to fulfil them.”
You choke on a mouthful of toast. You feel distinctly harried as you cough and splutter before managing to swallow it down. “Good lord,” you wheeze. “Nothing else? Really?”
“At the club our memory is reset every two hours, to protect the client’s privacy.” V trails off before he takes in a breath. For the first time since you’ve met, V looks shy, staring at his hands. “But I set up a separate data pathway a few weeks ago. To store information about aesthetics and art and… you.”
You freeze mid-bite, teeth sunk into your toast. You pull it away from your mouth slowly, blinking at the android as he stares at the teeth marks you've left behind. “Those memories weren’t wiped?”
And, well, of course they weren't. Otherwise he wouldn't be here right now, would he?
“No.” A smile appears on V’s face, that toothy thing you’d seen after he’d told you his favourite colour. The first time he'd looked human. “I remember everything you told me. I thought I was going to forget, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to. I wanted—I want to learn more.”
The LED on his temple is slowly, softly spinning, a rippling circle of blue that shifts and dances as V continues to look at you. His expression is open and inquisitive and excited, almost childlike in its exuberance, eyes glittering mica under sunlit waters.
Your chest turns warm, molten caramel dripping messy and sweet inside you. He’d been so afraid earlier but he seems comfortable now, lovely and endearing and entirely trusting.
V even seems reluctant to let you out of his sight, trailing after you around the apartment, a shadow that you have to politely ask to wait outside the bathroom so you can pee and brush your teeth and finally get into your pyjamas without him staring. Like a stray animal you've adopted. (You wouldn't be surprised if he started scratching at the door and begged to be let in.)
He's clingy enough that when you climb into bed it seems like he's going to follow you under the duvet and you have to stop him with a hand to his chest.
“Um, I thought you didn’t have to sleep,” you say. He’s so warm under your touch. You try (and fail) to ignore it.
“I don’t,” V replies. “But humans can benefit from sharing a bed with someone else, whether sexual intercourse has taken place before sleep or not. Studies suggest that sleeping with a partner may reduce cytokines while boosting oxytocins—”
“Okay, um, don’t know what that means, and it’s very sweet that you’re concerned about my oxytoxytokines, but, uh. You don’t have to, really.” You keep forgetting that V’s a machine who was designed to put a human’s comfort and needs first; one second he’ll seem childlike in his innocence and ignorance, when the next he’ll speak like the android he is, reminding you exactly what he was built for. 
His LED flickers as he droops, gaze dropping away from your face, tail between his legs. A pang cuts through you at the sight of his obvious sadness at your dismissal and you muffle a sigh. You’ve always been too weak for your own good. 
You shuffle backwards to make space on your queen sized bed and V visibly brightens, smile wide across his face. How can someone be so viscerally gorgeous one moment and entirely adorable the next? Good lord.
“I guess you can explain what oxycytocins do,” you say. “Just don’t hog the blanket, okay?”
He doesn’t. He settles against the pillows, legs under the duvet as he remains sitting up. You settle with plenty of room between the two of you, and it’s surprisingly easy to drift off to the sound of V’s deep voice as he starts to explain that oxytocin is referred to as the cuddle hormone. 
“Cute,” you mumble, and then fall asleep.
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Your pillow is a lot warmer and firmer than you remember, but it's nice. A small noise bubbles from your lips as you nuzzle into the warmth, smooshing your nose against it before letting out a long, satisfied breath. You can't remember the last time you felt this comfortable and rested.
Ahh, Saturdays. You love the weekend. 
“Good morning.”
You know those videos when a cat sees a cucumber and leaps, like, five foot in the air? Yeah.
The noise you make is inhuman as you do your best to re-enact one of those aforementioned cat videos, reeling your head back from V’s thigh before flinging yourself out of the bed with all the strength your limbs possess; you’d probably have gotten pretty high, too, if the duvet hadn't been in the way. 
You land with a thud, a sprawl of limbs and messy hair and tangled blanket as you end up on your back on the floor.
Hm. Definitely not how you'd planned to start your Saturday.
V's concerned face looms over the mattress. “Are you okay?”
“Yep. Totally fine.” Your voice is a croak as you stare at the ceiling. “I’m just not used to waking up with someone else in my bed. You may have noticed you, ah, surprised me. A little bit.”
Despite the pulse of adrenaline that had thrown you out of bed, you’re still half asleep, and you remain motionless as your brain wakes up and replays last night, a kineograph of memory. Yep, that’s right, there's a runaway android in your home, one who’s currently shuffling off the bed to squat next to you. His (your) sweatpants hitch even higher up his ankles to reveal the smooth skin of his calves. You’ll have to get him more clothes.
“Would you like me to help you to your feet?” V’s LED spins rapidly, betraying his concern.
“Sure,” you mumble. “I think—woah!”
Your idea of being helped up involves being pulled to your feet. V’s idea, however, is far more involved than that; he scoops you up, blanket and all, lifting you with an ease that drips of his superior android strength. When he deposits you on the floor, he’s careful to make sure you’ve caught your balance before he lets go, catching the blanket before it can fall. Thoughtful.
As always, V’s eyes are darting over your face, no doubt dissecting every inch of your expression to identify how you’re feeling. It’s going to take you a while to get used to this, especially with the way your heart is pounding—no one’s ever lifted you before and it’s, uh. It’s a lot.
“Are you sure you’re okay? The pace of your breathing has increased.”
Ha. Yeah, being blatantly stared at by some godlike man moments after you’ve woken up is totally cool and fine and not overwhelming at all. You’re definitely not breathless from a combination of V’s face and the fact he’d picked you up like you were weightless.
“I’m fine,” you lie. “I’m gonna… go and shower then make breakfast and stuff. Yep.”
V’s eyes light up. “Can I help?” A fleeting image of V rubbing a soapy loofah over your naked skin fills you with spine-tingling trepidation before he finishes his sentence. “I want to learn how to cook.”
Your chest deflates with relief (and absolutely not disappointment), air rushing out of you. Thank God. 
“Oh, breakfast? Sure.” You’d been planning on cereal, but faced with V’s overwhelming enthusiasm, maybe you’ll go for something marginally more complicated. Scrambled eggs sound good. “Um. Do you need to download the food preparation package or whatever you mentioned before? Do you… uh, do you need the Wifi password to do that? I never changed it from the random string of letters off the back of the router, but I can go check it for you.”
V shakes his head. “No, I want to learn like a human would,” he says. The blanket in his arms crumples as he tightens his grip in his eagerness, all but bouncing up and down on his feet. “You can teach me.”
Your chest could cave in with how cute he is, every part of you turning to thick gouache that drips down to the floor, leaving a mess of brightness and colour.
This time you ask him to wait in the kitchen while you’re in the bathroom, rather than lurking on the doorstep like he had last night, and he’s practically vibrating with excitement when you reappear. He stays like that the whole time you cook, bright-eyed and bushy tailed, staring as you make yourself scrambled eggs and more toast; you let V take ownership of that part, and he stares at the toaster so intently you have to stifle a laugh.
He spreads butter exactly the same way as you. Not that there’s a specific art to it, or a massive variety in techniques—he’s just spreading butter, not painting a new Mona Lisa—but the way he holds the knife and runs it over the bread is an exact echo of your motions from last night. He might not have downloaded files into his memory (brain?) like another android might, but his mechanical origin is obvious in the way he learns. They’re an exact replication of your actions rather than something new of his own.
“So, uh.” You push the last bit of egg around your plate, brown crumbs sticking to the wedge of golden yellow, sullying it. “V.”
Blink, blink. His lashes are so long, eyes so inquisitive. “Yes?”
“I’m really happy you’re here and that you trust me—” at this, V smiles and you almost fumble over your words at its radiance—“but I feel like I should tell you that I don’t really know much about androids?”
V is unperturbed. “That’s okay. You don’t have to.”
He clearly isn’t bothered that you’re way out of your depth, but you hate feeling lost like this. “Alright, but… I want you to be comfortable. I’m already planning to get more clothes, but if there’s anything else you need, just let me know. Okay?”
“Why can’t I just wear your clothes?”
Oh, he’s going to be the death of you, all wide-eyed innocence. 
“For starters, most of them won’t fit properly,” you explain. “And you shouldn’t just have to wear my old stuff that I don’t use anymore? You should have your own things.”
The look of surprise on V’s face morphs into guilt only moments later. He’s so incredibly expressive and you wonder if it’s because he’s not used to feeling things, all of his reactions so strong and bright, shining out from him. A rainbow palette of emotions. “I don’t want to be a bother,” he murmurs. “You’re already doing so much for me.”
“I’m really not, I’m just treating you the way anyone deserves to be treated.” You flick the crumb of egg across your plate, and it almost tumbles over the edge, caught on its patterned rim. “You deserve to have your own things. Which is my next point. I think you should choose your own name.”
V’s face becomes a sea of rippling ambivalence, contrasting emotions that shift and vary—confusion, uncertainty, excitement, your words a brush that drags through each distinct emotion and pulls them into a messy, mismatched gradient. “Choose my own name?”
“You don’t have to. I just thought it might be a nice idea. V seems…” Your cheeks heat up at the memory of the curl of his lips when he’d shown you the meaning behind his alias, how his tongue had shined under the purple lights of the club. “Well, you didn’t get to choose it, right? It’s a nom de plume, rather than a real name.”
V’s LED flickers yellow, a sunflower that blooms on his temple. “I’ll… I’ll think about it.”
“Good!” Your smile is wide. “Okay, how about I teach you how to wash dishes?”
V is, unsurprisingly, a fast learner. The only time he stumbles over things is when he’s presented with any sort of choice, taking his time to come to a decision when he’s posed a question, no matter how simple it is. His eyes will flick to you whenever he settles on an answer, as if waiting for you to say he’s wrong or that you disagree.
(Of course, you never do.)
This fact does, however, mean that choosing clothes to buy becomes a very, very long ordeal (it’s lucky you didn’t have any plans for today). You end up flopped back on the sofa while V hunches over your tablet, mulling over each choice before he puts it in the cart—but you’re happy to wait. V is going to need a lot more practice at choosing things. 
The room is upside down from where your head is hanging over the armrest, eyes falling shut as time goes by, completely zoned out and comfortable despite the crick that’s growing in your neck. You hear V shifting, tablet set aside, and you hum.
“All done?”
“I think so.”
“Nice.” You feel content.
But then you’re ripped out of that warm feeling, shooting back to reality at the sensation of V’s hand stroking down the centre of your chest. Your head snaps up, eyes wide as he drags his large palm between the valley of your breasts, path smoothed by the material of your shirt. The expression on his face is sultry.
“Let me say thank you,” he murmurs, voice dripping thick and sweet, dark molasses.
You promptly roll off the sofa.
Once again, you end up on your back, staring at the ceiling. Once again, the expression on V’s face is one of concern, his seductive facade evaporated in an instant.
Once again your heart is ready to burst in your chest, pumping so hard that blood rushes in your ears. “V,” you wheeze. “What are you doing?”
The android is peering down at you, puzzled. “Sometimes customers would say that at the Eden Club after I had given them pleasure somehow, such as bringing them to orgasm. I thought it was human custom to repay pleasure or happiness with something in return.” 
Ah. 
“Ah.” You’re still staring at the ceiling, cheeks burning. “I mean. I guess that’s not technically incorrect, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a, uh, sexual repayment.” 
“I have nothing else to offer,” V says.
You sit up. Your face is a caricature of disbelief, embarrassment washed away in an instant, his words cold water that shocks you to the core. He states it so plainly, and once again you’re reminded of his life up until he’d made his way to your door: an automaton who existed solely for people’s pleasure, to slake their desire and lust. He’s not being self-pitying. He really, truly believes that’s all he is. That it’s all he can give back to the world.
“Okay, no, that’s absolutely not true, nuh-uh, I refuse.” This time you unfold yourself from the floor without V’s help, fixing him with a firm stare. “Alright, come on. I think it’s time you learned something else.”
One of the reasons you’d chosen this apartment is for its natural light. Not that it matters right now, weather outside still dismal and overcast, but its effect on this room is still palpable even so—grey, rain-soaked light throws itself over your small home studio, your menagerie of equipment, everything bright with the evidence of use: the worn buckles of the wooden storage boxes, the dried smears on the paint palette, the flecks of colour on the dust sheets underfoot. The centre of it all—the eye of the tornado, untouched by the relative chaos around it—is the canvas waiting on your easel, a project you have yet to start.
V looks utterly enraptured.
“I don’t really come in here as much as I’d like,” you admit. Being a graphic designer is worlds away from the sort of art you love to create, and while it’s a job you genuinely enjoy (and also pays well), it leaves you drained and fills your brain with tired static, little energy left to lavish on your personal works. “But this is where the magic happens. And this is where you’re going to Make Art.”
V freezes. “The only things I know about art are the things you told me when we first met.” He looks equal parts excited but also troubled. “I—”
“You don’t need to know about art to make art,” you say. “I didn’t know jack about art when I was a kid and I was constantly just scribbling away with crayons. Was it good? No. I was a kid with zero pen control, it was pretty crap. Was it worth my time? Yes, because any time spent involved in a craft is never wasted. We can learn more about art history and technique later.”
V stays quiet as you loop your apron over his head, rough material still bearing the remnants of your last works, stains that won’t come out. Oil based paints are kind of a bitch like that.
“I don’t know what to paint,” he says.
“That’s okay. You don’t have to,” you reply, an echo of his earlier words.
V looks lost, barefoot in your studio, in your clothes, your apron, holding onto your wooden paint palette, in front of your easel. Everything in here is yours. Everything, that is, apart from him, whatever is in his mind and heart.
“Where do I start?” V’s eyes are imploring as he looks at you, but for the first time today, your voice is firm.
“Wherever you want. There aren’t any rules. Just do whatever you think would be fun. It doesn’t have to look good, V, you’ve just started.”
You’ve seen paintings made by androids before. They’re always perfect recreations of the world around them, exact replicas of the things they’ve been told to depict on the page—the androids are basically glorified photocopiers, unable to create something original and new. 
But they’re not V. They don’t have that spark of curiosity and light inside them, unhampered by the programming that’s meant to keep them in place. His LED dances from yellow to blue, yellow to blue, the rest of his body motionless while the light on his temple is a tumult of movement and colour.
Dark eyes slide over the array of paint hanging from a rack on the wall, some metal tubes more crushed than others, evidence of your preferred shades—you notice how his gaze lingers on the midnight tones, red and blue tinted purples, from lavender to lilac, from plum to wine.
V gives you one more look, a little upturn to his thick brows—almost pleading—and you just gesture with your hand.
“Go for it,” you say.
Your wooden palette becomes home to a riot of purple, each tube squeezed empty with careful hands, far more paint than anyone could possibly ever need. V keeps flicking you glances, but you stay silent, perched on a wooden chair by the now open window, rain-slick air a cold breath on your skin.
The brush the android selects is a wide, bold thing, bristles rough. He handles it like bone china, delicate and liable to shatter any moment, cautious as he dips it into the paint—it’s so wide it picks up three separate shades—and he holds his breath as he brings it up, even if he doesn’t have lungs.
The second the bristles touch the canvas, V’s LED flickers red.
Just for an instant.
He swoops the brush down the canvas as he pulls it away, eyes wide, leaving a slash of purples in its wake. The white material is marred with colour, a textured line of pigment that can’t be erased. 
The android pauses as he takes the sight in. He’s still for so long that you’re worried he’s shut down, even with the endlessly dancing circle of his LED—
But then V laughs. 
His laugh is loud and bright and free, a series of deep, almost surprised chuckles that grow in intensity and breathlessness, staring at this smear of drying acrylic paint in front of him. The smile on his face is the widest you’ve seen so far, his eyes squeezed into crescents of joy, spilling out of him like light.
“I did that.” He looks at you with that gilded smile, a fresco of delight across the perfection of his features. “I made that.”
“You did.” You can’t help but smile back, your own face split with happiness. You continue to smile as he brings the brush back to the palette, and then to the canvas, dragging the bristles across its surface and leaving more purple behind; the shades swirl and mix as he lays colour without a care for technique or clean lines or form, scooping up the endless amounts of acrylic he’d prepared. By the time he’s finished, the canvas is bumpy with daubs of paint, laid messily by joyful hands, a few bold streaks of unmarred colour surrounded by swirling purples. 
The smile hasn’t left V’s face the whole time.
His brush is absolutely saturated, paint clinging to every inch of bristle, from toe to belly to heel. You have no doubt that no matter how much you clean that brush it’ll leak purple into the water, an endless reminder of V’s touch. It’s lax in his grasp as he keeps looking at the canvas, his canvas, smile etched into his face as his LED flows soft blue, content.
You can’t remember the last time you saw someone so elated, buoyed up with the excitement of creation, making something out of nothing, discovering how it feels to bring something into existence, pulling it out of the ether. Making something new. Making something their own. It stirs something in your chest and stomach, reminding you why you love art so much. Why you’ve always loved art. (Why you always will.)
“I made that,” V repeats, his voice a reverent hush. Awestruck.
“It’s beautiful,” you say, because it is—for a multitude of reasons. The reason that sings out to you the most, though, is that it’s the cause of happiness that dances across his face: V, a carved candle, a piece of art made with skilled hands, self-made joy finally catching fire at his wick.
“Thank you,” V says, and you blink.
“For what?”
“For giving me this,” he starts, but before you can interject and point out that you didn’t give him this, he made it, he continues: “For giving me… freedom. To do this. And make this. And learn this.”
The smile that spreads across your face is warm hearth fire. “I didn’t give you freedom, V, you gave that to yourself, but I’m happy to help you any way I can. Now, would you like to keep painting, or would you prefer to help me make dinner?”
He chooses dinner, never leaving your side.
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Sunday is nice. There's less messy limbed surprise than on Saturday, although you’re still off kilter when you wake up with your head in V’s lap again, but… it’s nice. 
You thought he’d spend the night painting, or drawing, or teaching himself something new using the free rein you’d given him with your computer and notebooks and stationery and art supplies—he doesn’t have to waste time with sleep, like you do—but he hadn’t. He’d climbed into your bed, settling against the pillows just like the night before, looking at you with his big, lovely eyes.
So here he is.
(And here you are.)
It’s cosy and comfortable, even if the feeling of warm skin under warm cotton against your cheek sets your heart to racing, V’s dark eyes even warmer when you roll over to look at his face.
“Morning,” he says.
“Morning,” you reply, and then you yawn, V’s lashes fluttering as he takes in the motion. “What time is it?”
Today’s rain is less of an endless downpour and more of an inconsistent drizzle, grey blanket slowly peeling away from the edges of the city, but it doesn’t matter, because you’re inside for most of the day, anyway. Saturday was hands-on, messy with acrylic and spilled coffee and laundry detergent (V really wants to learn everything), but Sunday is hands-off. You spend the day dredging the corners of your memory and scrolling through old, untouched files from your university years, so you can teach V the things he wants to know while relearning the things you’d forgotten yourself.
V’s little LED dances forever from blue into yellow, ocean waves lapping into sand, a shifting tide as he takes in your words. You’ve never had to teach someone before and you’re admittedly pretty terrible at it, but he never complains, the world’s most attentive and adorable student, sat on the floor with his legs crossed and his hair mussed and his eyes wide, drinking down everything you show him.
You only leave the apartment once. Lunch is delayed when you open your fridge and remember how bereft and sad it is inside, so you venture out into the rain to the nearby supermarket—V opts to stay indoors, LED flickering red at the idea of being caught, shying back.
You leave him looking lost and lonely before the door even finishes swinging shut behind you, long limbs looking even longer in your clothes, but somehow still so small.
“I won’t be long,” you promise.
When you get back, you return not only with bags of food but also clothes, V’s order from yesterday already shipped and delivered. He can finally replace your too-small clothing with things he’s chosen himself. It’s a fumble to get in the door, but the android is waiting for you, swinging it open and catching the bag you nearly drop in surprise.
“I have your clothes,” you announce. “I’ll put away the shopping while you try them on?”
You’re going to have to tattoo a reminder on your forehead about V’s relationship (or lack thereof) with clothes, because of course he takes this as an invitation to start stripping before you’ve even had a chance to take your shoes off. 
He does that thing where he grabs the back of his (your) shirt and pulls it over his head in one swift motion, curls of hair a cloud of smoke that settles around his face as the shirt is cast aside; you’re frozen in place as he reaches for the knot of his sweatpant’s drawstring, long fingers pulling it loose, but you let out a sharp meep just as his fingers hook into the waistband of them.
“PleasewaituntilI’mnotrightinfrontofyouthankyou,” you gasp all at once, words incoherent as they slide together, but V understands. He tilts his head at you inquisitively although he (thankfully) stops.
“Don’t you want to see the clothes?”
“I do, but, uh, for humans it’s normally customary to only get entirely naked or change clothes when you’re alone.” Your heart is going to burst out of your chest with how fast it’s racing. Without the string to cinch the sweatpants tight they’re starting to fall a little, revealing the delicate lines of his hip bones, and coupled with the reappearance of V’s bare stomach, your brain is going into meltdown. “So just—just give me a sec to go to the kitchen, okay? You’re probably better off changing in the bedroom, anyway, so you can use the full length mirror to see how you look.”
“Okay,” he says, but then: “Do humans never undress around others unless they’re planning to have sex?”
Your mouth falls open before you pause, words halting on your lips as you try to think of the best way to phrase your answer. “Well, we do, it’s not just about sex, but it’s usually only if you’re really comfortable with the other person you’re with, and they’re comfortable with you.”
“I’m comfortable with you,” V states plainly, and your insides turn to jelly. “Are you not comfortable with me?”
Oh, hell. “I am, I am! I’m just, uh… I’ve not really had a lot of practice with nakedness around other people.” What a way to put that you’re a shy ass virgin when it comes to real life nudity and sex, huh. “So let’s just keep it to a minimum for now, okay? Please?”
The android’s LED flickers honey-sweet on his temple as he looks at you, before his hands fall away from the sweatpants. “Okay.”
(Thank God.)
You’re not sure what you’re expecting to see when V starts to present his small array of outfits to you, but—he looks effortlessly stylish in the oversized clothes he’s selected, a muted palette of brown and yellow and red and cream, a cup of hot chocolate on an autumn day. He might be new to all this but his eye for aesthetic is impeccable. You have no doubt that the more he learns, the better he’ll get, hop-skip-jumps ahead of you, even after years of art education.
He’s even bought pyjamas, dark tartan patterns masculine but also adorable; it’s an utter juxtaposition to the tighter, sensual clothing he’d been given at the Eden Club.
“You look really good,” you tell him. Your voice is only a little strained. He smiles.
The outfit V wears for the rest of the afternoon is perfect for a rainy day spent indoors, thick jumper and tawny trousers, a blend of sepia tones. He looks like if you made a hug into a person: all soft edges and cosy and wrapped up in warmth.
And V is warm. You’re not sure if it’s a lingering memory of his programming, a carry over from his start in life as a sexbot, but he likes to touch—nothing inappropriate or overbearing, but he’s not shy about stepping into your personal space, brushing the back of your hand with his fingers as he points at something on the screen, or pressing close to your side as you cook, or just one of the hundreds of other tiny touches that he’s littered across you throughout the day. It’s thoughtless on his part, LED not even flickering, but each time is just another reminder of his warmth, the blue blood pulsing under his skin, how alive he is.
(And the truth is that you enjoy those touches. You’re not used to them, but lord knows you’re touch starved, so as fleeting as they are, they’re nice.)
Even though you still leave plenty of space between the two of you when you lay to sleep, you swear you can feel the heat spilling off V, another warm body in the bed that’s so used to just one. Though he stays sitting up, he’s in his cute matching pyjamas, and it’s… it’s a lot. You’ve invited V into your home—and you don’t regret it—but after two days he’s already settled in in a way you never thought anyone else would, as entirely unconventional as the whole situation is. (You’re not sure how many people have sheltered a deviant android in their homes, though, so maybe this isn’t as unconventional as you think. Who knows? Not you.)
“I have to go to work tomorrow.”
V tilts his head down to look at you.
“You can get up to whatever you’d like,” you continue. You’re propped up on an elbow so it’s less intimate than if you’d been on your back and staring upwards like you were waiting for him to slide down next to you (that’s what it feels like, to you, anyway). “You know the password for my computer now, and you’re welcome to watch TV or play games or whatever, and you can use all my stuff in the studio. I mean, other than painting or drawing over stuff I’ve already finished, but you’re welcome to grab any paper or canvases if you want them. I think that’s everything? But please let me know if there’s more you want or need, okay?”
Blink, blink. His lashes are soft charcoal that frames the spilled ink of his gaze. In the dimmed light of your room V is unreadable, his LED a quiet blue glow on his temple, but he looks soft, and he looks safe, and he nods.
“Alright,” he says. A smile that flickers at the edge of his lips. “I will.”
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(You wake up, quiet and slow, face pillowed against V’s thigh, still drifting in sleep. You make a small noise, eyes shut, wondering why there’s no blaring sound of your alarm, but then a large hand smooths over your hair and you instinctively relax under the soft touch.
“You have thirty three minutes until you’re due to wake up,” he murmurs. “You can go back to sleep.”
So you do.)
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(When you wake up to the scream of your alarm thirty three minutes later, you don’t remember any of this. All you can think of is the dawn of another Monday, the slog of another working week, and you sigh. But—
“Morning.”
V’s eyes are dark meok ink, liquid earth that grounds you.
“Morning,” you say, smiling despite yourself, and then roll out of bed to get the whole day started.)
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You’re used to spending a day surrounded by laughter and banter, wrapped up in the camaraderie of your co-workers and friends, only to return to a world of quiet solitude. You’re used to coming home to rooms that are untouched from the morning, holding onto the echo of your passing, still and waiting for your return, an apartment of motionless air.
But not today. There’s evidence of someone else here: the open door to your studio down the hall, the scattered books on the coffee table, the mess of cushions on the sofa, all small signs that someone has been moving and living in your absence. A still-life that’s shifted into a breathing trompe l’oeil, V’s presence bringing flatness into perspective, turning it into something real.
It���s… nice.
You flop onto the sofa and send one of those cushions overboard, tumbling to the ground. V appears in the doorway moments later, new apron already streaked with colour, copper green thumbprint on his face like he’d touched it in thought and not realised. A little streak of paint that draws the eye to his lovely chin.
“Welcome home!” His hair is blond today, a golden nimbus around his face, though his eyes are still dark. Light and shadow. His happiness is infectious and you smile helplessly back, glad for his excitement with painting—but it seems like he hasn’t finished. “I’m happy you’re home. I missed you.”
KO. Wipeout. Your heart turns to liquid in your chest, burnt sugar that dribbles hot and saccharine through your ribs. 
“I chose a name.” V continues, oblivious to how he’s turned your insides into syrup, and you abruptly sit up.
“Oh?” 
“Taehyung.” The way he says it, in his deep voice, those two syllables are endless—a single name, heavy with the weight of meaning behind it. A shedding of his old skin, one that was forced on him, leaving him pink-skinned and new and free.
“Taehyung,” you repeat, and his LED flickers at the sound falling off your lips. “Taehyung. It’s lovely.”
He’s smiling, that lovely toothy smile that you’ve already decided is your favourite out of any smile you’ve seen, his LED electric blue and swirling in delight. 
Day after day, you wake up to the sight of that LED glowing as Taehyung watches you lift up out of sleep. Night after night, you come home to his lovely, big grin, all large hands and soft hair—hair that he chooses to change colour when he pleases, a dizzying palette with every shade you can dream of. He’s bright and deep, playful and reflective, a dance of flirty Rococo to more solemn Baroque, every day another day where he learns and grows and adds another facet to the cut diamond of his personality. 
(It hasn’t been long but you’re starting to think you’d put the world in the palm of his hand, if you could.)
You never thought you’d live to see the day where someone as lovely as Taehyung would be glad to see you home, having missed you after being apart—but for all that he’s voraciously leaning into the arts, consuming everything from visual to literary to performance, he’s never happier than when you’re there too. He shows you his works, improvement obvious with every new piece, but his excitement grows tenfold when you start to paint alongside him; seeing him so joyful spurs you to pick your brushes up again, buoyed up with motivation in the face of his own. 
(Your studio is usually quiet, a little reflective maybe, the only sound the music you play over your speakers—but now more often than not you and Taehyung will talk, and laugh, and even if you’ve both ebbed into silence, it’s never heavy. It’s a held breath. The potential to speak any moment. The sensation of another person in the same space as you, an orbit, both existing in a shared moment, connected by gossamer threads that shimmer with sunlight.
Taehyung’s eyes are steady on his canvas as he works, but he glances at you through the curl of his lashes, smiling back at you. Always, always smiling, LED calm blue as the rest of his face shines golden, bright.)
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(Maybe it’s selfish, but you think you could get used to this.)
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taglist: @beyoncesdragon​
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cinnamonest · 3 years ago
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Head empty.... Only thoughts are of ditzy airheaded lamb-girl darling... Literally too spaced out to survive on their own. God please give me more details on that I'm begging you
I went overboard with this lol I hope you enjoy anon, I actually have had several reqs for more lambgirl/Scara content bc apparently you guys really liked that one which was a pleasant surprise lol. I love the dynamic between an extremely airheaded, absent-minded dumbass that just wants to be loved like a lambgirl and someone of Scara's personality, it works so well and comically at the same time.
Also me? Making something that actually ends kind of sweet? More likely than you think!
Also also "do sheep have heats" is now present in my google search history
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It's no wonder most cultures made shepherding a full-time job, if you don’t watch them, sheep will find a way to get themselves killed. They're clumsy, clunky, tend to knock things over, and generally just kinda zone out half the time, staring off into space. That being said, they can be clingy, actually, if they know you well enough, they'll just kinda go wherever you go, munching on what they can all the while. Nonetheless, lambs are very loving and can be super affectionate, no matter what -- again, simple minded. Their brain merely knows, this person is my master, and I love my master! That's all they need to know. And sheep hybrids are no different.
For poor Scara's lambgirl, he'd never admit that he likes that about you, but he subtly... encourages your tendencies. He sees it as your nature... a simple creature that knows who it belongs to and doesn't question it, only follows behind loyally, and really, that's the way things should be. So he doesn't ever discourage you from following, it comes naturally to little lambgirl -- when he stands up, you do too, and follow behind without a word, although he'll gesture, which is how you get a lot of communication. And when you do follow, he doesn't snap at you the way he does when you don't, so you know that it's the right thing, what you're supposed to do.
Because also, sometimes your poor, poor dumb little mind can forget a lot of words. It's a known trait about lamb hybrids, and yet another reason why people tend to neglect their kind -- they sometimes revert to the most simple of states, becoming nonverbal, and may struggle to understand words, and take time to process them. For someone who, according to that one Fatui agent, doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut, he actually adjusts to the nonverbal fairly easily, view it as a good thing that you have synched so well to what's expected.
It's all standard for humans, but you know without ever being taught, you can sense what he wants. Despite the apathetic facial expressions and lack of even looking at you, you know, a little "come hither" gesture of the finger tells you to get closer, a pat to the thigh means to sit on his lap, a thumb on your lips and and a lazy downward nod means get on the floor and suck him off. You learn quickly, you're proud of yourself for doing so.
And little lambs are, best of all, so dumb they have no idea when they're being blatantly manipulated, or Pavlov'ed, in such a direct and obvious way that not even the dumbest of hybrids besides them would fall for it. He likes that about you. The only thing he likes more than that, that heavily ties into that... is that lambs crave affirmation, affection, praise. Lambs love, and they want to feel loved, they'll do anything for it. So he makes you scramble and bend over backwards for the very, very, very rare occurance that is a word of praise (if it can be called that -- it's usually more like a backhanded compliment), or an affectionate gesture. And he uses the inverse -- cold neglect -- to manipulate and condition you.
Which is easy -- you see, in your... limited intellectual capacity, two words have supreme ruling over your self-esteem and your entire emotional state: good and bad. More complex words don't have quite the impact as those two, since you understand good and bad as very simple concepts, the rest you kind of have to think about, and thinking is not your strong suit. "Good" and "bad" have obvious, easy to grasp, powerful meanings to you, and a significant impact. So he makes use of those words quite a bit -- the way your face lights up and your ears perk up when he tells you you've been good, and the way your eyes fill with little tears and your ears fall flat against your head when he snarls that you're bad. You don't want to be a bad lamb, do you? No, you want to be good. Master calling you good is the highest honor, the greatest pride your brain can conceive of, and you work day in and day out to earn it. So when you've been bad, and are told to sleep on the floor, sit on the floor by his feet, when you get no pats to the head or fingers absent-mindedly running through the wool of your ears -- when you're deprived of touch, affection -- it's cruel and hurts in the deepest of ways. And likewise, earning that privilege back, being told you can sleep in the bed again, sit on his lap again, when you get the touches back, it fills you with joy, even if he tells you the little bleats of happiness are annoying. He treats it like a privilege too -- you've learned your lesson, he says, so he thinks he can stand the sight of you again enough to let you back to being closer.
And corporeal punishment is the only form of behavior enforcement you understand, so it's a given that he goes overboard with it -- gets you to associate it with bad. Good lambgirls get crumbs of affection, rare words of slight praise, bad lambgirls get bent over the desk and belted so hard they can't sit right. Again, you want to be good, and the physical pain is just there to remind you why. He also likes to grab you by the tail -- it's obnoxious, he says, always twitching and wiggling, and he gets some entertainment out of catching you off-guard and making you let out those shrill little baa's of surprise.
All that being said, lambs are... easily distracted. Lambgirl darling's fuzzy little ears perk up over a sound off in the distance, and while he's not looking you end up wandering down the hall of the big, maze-like Fatui building... you never find the source, but suddenly you find yourself very lost and very alone without Master and you panic, sniffling as tears come rolling down your face and bleating in distress, desperately trying to find your way back, eventually crumbling to the floor and just bleating all the while. It's through that bleating he eventually finds you, or perhaps you draw the attention of others who then come inform him where you are -- furious at your disappearance and being made to waste time looking for you, but even he of all people can't quite bring himself to kick you when you're down, so to speak -- you're already blubbering and crying and you come running to him once you see him, so he just barks at you about how stupid you were, how you made him waste his time, how you should feel lucky he even bothered coming to look for you.
He wouldn't tell you how badly he panicked when he looked up and you weren't there, mind running over all the possible ways your dumbass might have gotten yourself hurt in such a short time. And the other agents know better than to let you in on how he more or less summoned the entire present forces to demand they drop everything they were doing and search until you were found. He just insists that your collar needs a cowbell, one that's loud and clear that will signal when you're moving. Next time you get distracted, he'll hear the cowbell rattle when you stand up, and snap at you to sit your ass back down or else.
 
And speaking of the others, most of the time he's never certain when someone is going to come barging in, since half of these worthless dimwits, as he calls the people he works with, don't think to knock. You two once learned that the hard way and now you have to lock the door before you blow him at work. In front of other people, he's definitely not going to show you the slightest bit of attention, and avoids it at work in general, but occasionally allows you a headpat here or there. You seem to really like those, he thinks. Your little eyes close and you tilt your head, longingly leaning into the touch. It's your instinct.
And archons help anyone that dares harm or even insult you in any way. You're occasionally, as aforementioned on the hybrid post, allowed to run errands or perform simple tasks for others. You've fucked up a lot, actually, but he only tells you you fucked up if it's a task or assignment for him. If it's with other people, regardless of whether you performed the task correctly or not, he says it was good. This has... not resulted in good things for some of the other members. You hand them something blatantly wrong or clearly made an error, and they open their mouth to chastise you, but stop short at the death glare sent their direction -- he mutters that you did good, rubs your head... and adds a right? to the end of it, looking up at the poor victim of your forgetfulness. Adds through gritted teeth to "tell her she did a good job you dumbfuck." And they always do. You're happy to have earned the approval of the others, they're all really nice to you, for some reason, even though they look oddly nervous when they're talking to you. When they come to him later in private to complain because there was a serious mistake that will cost them time and money, they're just met with an apathetic "Deal with it."
He doesn't let anyone have supervision over you, though, not anymore. In the beginning, he used to every now and then, when he had something important to do, tell some subordinate to watch you in his absence. Can't have you running off. They never watched you very closely, though, and one time you got too curious and rummaged through various things and shelves and objects and, well, you overturned a shelf that came crashing down on you -- cut you badly, broke a bone, and the guy in charge of watching you had decided to go waste time elsewhere, and so by the time Master got back, you were still there on the floor, trapped under it, sniffling and crying and letting out the most pathetic and soft of bleats, whimpering Master over and over. You don't remember much after it was pulled off of you, there was yelling and clanging as objects were being hurled across the room, but you never saw that other agent again. And now, he never leaves you under someone else's care.
Behind closed doors -- in the comfort of living quarters -- he's still... himself, but not quite as mean. The rubs are longer, the praise feels more like actual praise. When you go to bed at night, provided you've earned your right to sleep beside him, you might summon the courage to ask how you were today -- a careful question, with only two possible answers that you could understand, but your spirit will be uplifted or shattered by the response, so it weighs heavily on you, as you spend every waking moment aiming for one answer. He'll act irritated that you'd ask, it's a stupid question, but that's expected coming from a stupid creature, he says. But nonetheless he'll reassure you, in an agitated mutter that, at least for today, you were good. Maybe one day, a little lambgirl can only dream, your master might even say he loves you.
You think about that a lot when you're getting fucked, because sex is a part of love, right? Maybe you're working towards that, so you give it your all, you ride well and suck well and do every little thing you're commanded to do. Even when the ropes and clamps and the hands on your throat hurt. In fact, you think you've started to like it. Your body has started to respond to the pain, your insides clench at the thought. You feel bad about the heats, since you're wasting Master's time, but as he says, someone has to take care of you (which isn't true, you think -- he could just leave you to suffer. Maybe he doesn't know that? Surely if he knew that he wouldn't waste time taking care of you, right?). Sheep heats last quite a while, too, and you feel bad for being so lewd, bleating with your ass up in the air and whimpering, but he doesn't seem to hate it too much, since he fucks you throughout it, even takes a few days to do work from home. Grabs onto your big wooly ears like handlebars and fucks into you from behind. He says the bleating is annoying... but when you tried to hold it back, he told you he didn't say you could stop. You don't want to annoy him, but you don't want to do something you weren't told to, either... whatever earns his love.
Yes, you want to be loved. But could you ever earn such a thing? Do you deserve it? Could you ever deserve it? You're not sure. Master's love seems like such an honor, such a wonderful thing it would be unreal. That's why, when you finally summon the courage to ask, for once your brain works in a rather complex, roundabout sort of way. When you sit up in the middle of the night and nudge him awake, hovering over him in the dark, you don't ask if he loves you, instead you ask do you think could you ever love me? It's the most complex thought you've ever had, probably, because you know you're too afraid of rejection to ask outright, and this way he's more likely to say yes, and even if he doesn't love you now, a "yes" means you can work towards it, right?
So the resulting silence and the scrunched up, irritated facial expression, after a moment, makes a sort of pain and shame spread through your chest, and you wish you hadn't asked, but before you can apologize he just says that I wouldn't keep your worthless, useless ass around and would've kicked you back out on the street a long time ago if I didn't, shut up, go the fuck to sleep and don't wake me up for your stupid questions. Slams your body back down onto the bed -- facing away from him, your back to his chest, so you can't see his face. It's not a direct answer, but you don't need one -- for once, you were smart enough to understand. He just huffs in irritation when your stumpy little puffball tail wiggles around with joy, tells you to stop it so he can sleep.
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taegyuun · 4 years ago
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jay as boyfriend
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genre: fluff
pairing: jay x reader
word count: 930+
note: i only just realised i haven’t done one for all the members so this is my next goal :D
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well shiii here we go
mans is such a good boyfriend
very unintentionally but he really is
he doesn’t even realise it
hes just so incredibly caring when it comes to you and he just knows exactly how to take care of you even if you guys haven’t been dating for long
LOVES COOKING FOR YOU !!!! LOVES IT !!!!
it makes him feel all domestic and cute and what not y’know like a good boyfriend
if you ever tease him for something hes just gonna mock you or he’ll do that blank face where he’s not impressed right before breaking into the bRIGHTEST AND MOST PRETTIEST SMILE EVER HE HAS SUCHBA PRETTY SMILR PLS
anyways.
pls don’t take his clothes without asking 💔
one day he walked up to his closet to find one of his favourite shirts to wear for the day and hes like “where tf did it go-“ bc hes literally spent 30 mins looking for this one damn shirt
and then he sees it in the wash basket and hes like “i don’t remember putting it there ??”
hes wracking his brain trying to figure out when was the last time he wore it 💀
and then hes like lightbulb moment
will lecture you on it but won’t mean it seriously kinda
just warn him next time what shirt you’re taking so he can make outfit changes beforehand LOOOOL
that being said he did start to “subtly” leave his clothes laying around or at your house as if he forgot them and acts annoyed when he sees you wearing them
if you’re not korean or have a different culture he’ll learn dishes from your culture/home country and cook them for you when you’re feeling homesick bc hes just that great
likes running you very nice baths after a crappy day so you can relax
will massage your shoulders or whatever hurts bc WOW hes so perfect
when he kisses you.... ooo lord have mercy
it’s so... perfect. i’ve been repeating this word too many times in this but come on am i lying
like good lord hes just very passionate with everything he does y’know so even the tiniest peck brings the upmost amount of butterflies to your stomach
but when yall kiss kiss... JTJSJFJEJEJWHDJAIR
likes having you on his lap with his hands either on your thighs or underneath your shirt only if your comfy with that obviously asks before doing anything and he likes when your hands are either on his shoulders or neck
he also likes having you sitting in his laps while he’s playing games or just in general
like i’ve mentioned in a few of my other posts he likes feeling the weight of you against him bc it just comforts him y’know
i think it was jungwon that said that jay denied but acts secretly like a baby
like he always cuddles up to you or smth and he does it unconsciously it’s so cute
you’ll sit next to him not too close not too far and then like 5 mins later hes leaning his head against your shoulder or has his arms around you waist but he only noticed bc you pointed it out
HE GET SO SHY AND BLUSHYYY AWWWW
whenever you two are standing outside and it’s cold or sumn he’ll always stand behind you and wrap his arms around you so you’re at least a tad warmer
dates with him are probably so fun
either very expensive or just extremely chill
if it’s expensive then expect to be taken to a super fancy cool ass amazing woah gobsmacking restaurant
if it’s just chill then you’re staying at home watching sumn and he either cooks or you two cook together and if you’re both feeling very lazy then ordering some food !
its always super fun no matter what
arguments with jay don’t really happen too often yall love each other too much
but when they do...
yeah. they’re not great
mf is a taurus MAN he is a stubborn bitch
so arguments can last a while but you both definitely apologise and make up with kisses and what not
he probably does give you the silent treatment if you caused the argument or pissed him off
but that doesn’t happen often so no worries
like i mentioned previously he unconsciously clings to you so you guys cuddle pretty often LOL
hes always whining saying how you’re so clingy or whatever but he is literally so in love with cuddling you it’s not even ok at this point
mans would sell himself on the black market just to cuddle with you
likes to be the big spoon 100%
also likes when you lay pretty much flat on top of him
it’s just that feeling of your weight on him that let’s him know you’re safe y’know like i said earlier
oh my god hes definitely super possessive 💀
him and sunghoon give me such possessive vibes PLEASEEEE
sees some random dude talking to you and instantly puts his arm round your waist or brings you in closer
i for some reason always forget that hes literally almost 6’ so he will assert dominance.
also forgot to say but shOPPING DATES !!!!
oMG YOUD GO TO LIKE SOME RANDOM STORE AND YOUD DO THAT THUNG WHERE A PERSON GLIDES THEIR HAND ACROSS A RACK OF CLOTHES WITH THEIR EYES CLOSED AND THE OTHER HAS TO SAY STOP YKNOW WHAT I MEAN
the ridiculous outfits that came out of that... aND THE PICTURES ???
they’re now used as black mail.
but yeah dating jay would be super fun
he always makes you laugh and always finds ways to make sure you’re safe and cared for because sometimes you forget to do it yourself :)
<3
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edna-skiffens · 4 years ago
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The Best Medicine
Summary: You are in the hospital, but you can never sleep in hospitals. Good thing you have a very attractive night shift nurse who is willing to help out.
Word Count: 4.5K
Warnings: hospitals, light med talk, bad medical writing, fluff
A/N: Please ignore the plot holes or the fact that this isn’t the most realistic and also I know this isn’t how discharge works at the hospital.. It’s called fiction for a reason, darling. Also, I left the reason the reader is in the hospital open ended bc some of us may have medical conditions/reasons that we can attach to this, but if not I tried to keep it vague enough on purpose so that you can imagine whatever. Also if you like Nurse!Tom and have requests for him lmk bc i’m happy to write for him.
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Toss and turn. Toss and turn. The routine was getting old. This was your third night in the hospital and sleep just wasn’t coming to you.
Maybe it was the medicine they had you on. Maybe it was the constant symphony of sounds and people passing in the hallway. Maybe it was because you weren’t at home in your own bed.
Maybe it was just because you were in the hospital.
You couldn’t be sure. What you were sure of is that you weren’t falling asleep anytime soon.
Feeling another presence in the room, you looked from the ceiling to the doorway where you saw Tom, one of the night shift nurses, standing cautiously.
“I didn’t wake you did I?” He asked as he eased his way inside.
“Nope.”
“So no sleep again, huh?”
“Nope.”
“Sorry darling. Let’s go ahead and get these vitals over with.” He took your blood pressure, oxygen levels, temperature and wrote it down in your chart. Putting the clipboard back on its hook at the end of the bed, he looked up at your tired face. “Okay. So now about that sleep. What do you think will help?”
“Not being in the hospital.”
He chuckled lightly while walking back towards your bedside.
“I know. You hate it here. You’ve made that very clear and I try not to take too much offense to it.” You let out a slight laugh and held back the fact that he was the best part of this whole experience. He almost made it worth it. “I’m sorry we can’t give you any sleeping medication. Do you think it’ll help if I talk to you?”
“You mean tell me bedtime stories?” You couldn’t help but tease him at the adorable suggestion, though it sent a swarm of butterflies off in your stomach.
“I was thinking more like bore you ‘till you fell asleep. But whatever works.”
“You’re the nurse. If you think it’ll help.” You both sat there smirking at each other for a moment. Something unspoken floating in the air between you two.
“Well, I need to finish my round of vitals first. I’ll come check on you when I’m done and if you’re still up we’ll see about those stories.”
“I’ll be here.”
About fifteen or twenty minutes later you heard a light tap on your door followed by “Still awake?”
“Always.”
“You up for a chat?” Tom asked as he made his way to the stool then rolled slightly closer to your bed.
“Got nothing better to do.” You teased again.
“Okay. Well you should probably lay down.”
“Oh. It’s going to be that kind of story, huh?” His laugh was so beautiful and you were happy you were the cause of it.
“No.” He corrected in between laughs “The goal is to get you to sleep. So sitting up won’t help.”
“Right. Right.”
“Well.. anything in particular you’d like to talk about?”
“Why did you choose to become a nurse?”
“Ahhh. Good question. So I actually went to an art school.” You couldn’t help the brief expression of surprise that crossed your face. “I know. Shocking. I did training specifically in dance and gymnastics and I loved it.”
“Wait, so what happened?” You asked, turning on your side to face him more comfortably.
“Well one day we were rehearsing for a show and I fell. Ruined my knee. Had to do physical therapy for months. I tried to get back into it, but it just wasn’t the same. However, through that process I learned a lot about medicine and the health side of things. It really turned me on to it. And when my Plan A got a bit messed up I thought ‘hey, this could work’. So far it’s treated me pretty well.”
You smiled at Tom, admiring his passion for his career and the determination he had to keep pushing after his accident. You enjoyed hearing him talk about it too. If you didn’t know any better you would say it was helping you relax.
“My story that boring?”
“Obviously.”
“Your sarcasm has no end.”
“Oh… goodness.. you thought that was sarcasm?”
Tom only laughed and shook his head the way he often did with you.
You may just have been his patient and he may have just been your nurse, but you both bonded. He kept you company and gave you comfort. In return, you kept him entertained during the quiet night shifts.
“I’m not going to sleep. I'm just resting my eyes. But still listening.” You told him as you nestled further into the hospital bed, trying to find a position that would make it comfortable.
“Okay, darling.” He grinned at you.
“Tell me more. What kind of-” You had to stop to yawn, “What kind of art stuff did you do?”
“Oh. Well, I was in a few musicals. I really enjoyed dancing. I did ballet ever since I was young and I love the control I have over my body. The tricks I can do with gymnastics or the turns and leaps. I mean I can’t do them to that level anymore, but I try to stay active.” He glanced up and noticed you hadn’t moved, “Are you still with me?”
“Mhm.” You barely respond.
“Okay. Well it was a performing arts school so we really were trained in many areas. We had classes in acting, singing, dancing, all of it. It was a lot of fun and I met my best friends there.”
Tom began telling stories about his time at school. Before he knew it, he lost himself and track of time. He looked back at you, quiet and still.
“Y/N?” You were finally asleep. “Goodnight, darling.” He whispered as he gently made his exit.
Because Tom worked the night shift, you never saw him when you woke in the morning. Instead, Tanya, a sweet nurse that felt like a big sister, or Linda, Nurse Ratched in the flesh, came in for morning vitals and meds.
You counted down the days until your release. Life in the hospital was pretty uneventful with the limit on visitors and limited activity. There’s only so many sitcoms one can take in a given timespan. The only thing that you really looked forward to each night was when Tom clocked in.
“Hi Y/N.”
“Hi Tom.” You would smile at each other.
“How are we feeling today?”
“Better. Ready to get out of here.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear you are feeling better and still ready to jailbreak.” He smiled while writing something down on your chart. “They should be bringing up your dinner tray soon and then I’ll bring by your evening meds after that.”
“Okay.”
“If you need me you know what to do.” He called to you before walking out the door.
You were disappointed when Shelley brought your evening meds by later. She was a nice enough nurse. She just wasn’t Tom.
You’d grown accustomed to mainly having him as your nurse during the evening shift. At first you weren’t sure if it was coincidence or on purpose, but after a few nights of staying up and talking, you grew closer to him. You saw less of the other nursing staff and more of Tom.
You tried not to build anything up in your head. You were sure everything he was doing was in his job description and a part of being a good nurse.
He would sneak you extra pudding cups from the cafeteria and bring you an extra heated blanket because you could never stay warm. If you needed a new IV, he held your hand to ease the anxiety. He kept you company and made you feel less alone in such a sterile and intimidating place. And when he noticed you had trouble sleeping he chose to sit with you to help you fall asleep. You couldn’t help the butterflies that built in your stomach.
It became a sort of routine. He checked on you during evening vitals, even if someone else was doing them, and you were always still awake. He would then come and sit with you and chat for a bit, telling you different stories until you eventually fell asleep.
Some nights when you were extra restless he would help you walk the halls.
“The doctors have to see you’re stable enough before you can be discharged. Plus, maybe it’ll tire you out.” He suggested.
He would help get your IV pole ready so you could walk with it. He helped you into your slippers and eased you out of bed after passing you your robe.
Walking the hall slowly, Tom knew he had to remain professional, yet he found a few excuses to graze his hand across your back to ‘steady you’ when you turned corners or he thought you were looking tired.
“It might take me a while to get back to my usual jogs in the park, huh?” You laughed in spite of yourself.
“You’ll get there. Baby steps.” He encouraged, as you turned around the Nurse’s Station. You missed the faces the other night shift nurses were giving you both, but Tom was sure to subtly flick them off. “So, do you like running?” He asked as you headed back towards your room.
Throughout your late nights together, he told you of his three younger brothers and his dog named Tessa. You spoke about what you would do when you were out of hospital. He talked about his friends and flatmates and the adventures they had. He told you many stories, but each morning when you woke up he was clocked out and the day shift nurses were there.
Tonight was your last night. You’re set to be discharged tomorrow and while you are ecstatic to go home, you’re going to miss one thing about this place.
“I bet you’re too excited to sleep tonight. I don’t know if my stories will even help.” Tom said as he sat down next to you.
You smiled up to him sweetly.
“What are you looking forward to the most once you get out of here?”
“Sleeping in my own bed.”
“Well that’s no surprise.” Tom laughed, a contagious sound making you giggle as well. “Isn’t there anything you’ll miss about this place?”
“Yeah.” He smiled “There’s one thing.”
“What’s that?” He asks.
“The pudding cups.”
“Ahh the pudding cups of course.” You giggled while fiddling with the IV line.
“They just don’t taste the same in the outside world.”
His smile grew wider as you giggled.
“No, but really. As much as I give this place grief and say I’m ready to get out of here - which I am,” You gave him a pointed look to which he held his hands up in mock surrender, fully believing you, “it hasn’t been too terribly awful I guess.”
“Oh, well, I’m glad we could make your stay not too terribly awful.. I guess.” He teased. “Do you have anything exciting to look forward to once you’re a free woman?”
“Nothing huge planned, really. The doctors did say to take it easy.”
“That’d be wise.”
“Yeah. I’ll just lay low for a while. My sister said she may try to come visit me though so that would be nice.”
“Oh that would be nice. She’s your older sister right?”
“Right. She moved away last year to be closer to her boyfriend.”
“Ah. Do you like him?”
“Sorry?”
“This boyfriend. Do you like him?”
“He’s alright, I suppose. He makes her happy.” Tom nodded along.
“And do you have a boyfriend that makes you happy?”
“N-No. No I don’t. Not at the moment.” You began fiddling with the IV cord again.
“No boyfriend or not a boyfriend that makes you happy?” He asked.
“Neither.”
“Well that’s a shame.” If the heart monitor was connected you would’ve been screwed. “I just mean someone needs to look after you once you get home. I hope this sister comes through for a visit. You’ve got to take it easy.”
“Oh I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sure you will be.” He smiled.
“How has your shift been tonight? Busy?” You asked, fighting back a yawn.
“A bit busier than usual. There was a slight emergency earlier which is why Shelley handed out meds tonight. Sorry I didn’t come around.”
“It’s alright. I know you have other patients.”
“Yeah, but none like you.” You were sure he said that to all of his patients. After all, you’ve heard similar lines ever since you went to the pediatrician as a child. But it still gave you butterflies.
“Are you getting sleepy?”
“A little. But it’s okay.” He gave you a pointed look but continued to talk anyway. “It’s the last night. One final request for storytime. Make it a good one.”
You thought for a moment before asking your question.
“Do you ever wish that life turned out differently? That you never had your accident and you could’ve followed your dreams to be a dancer?” You asked while turning on your side and getting more comfortable.
“Sometimes. At least, I used to. But I think I’ve accepted it now. And I really can’t see myself doing anything but this.” You nodded taking in his answer “I look at it this way. If it wasn’t for my injury then I never would’ve changed my career path and found my love for medicine. I never would have made so many of the friends I’ve made or the memories I’ve made. I never would have met you.” He finishes with a sweet smile.
“That’s a very positive way of looking at it.” You told him. “Be honest, are you a therapist during the day?” He laughed out loud.
“No. I’m not. I guess I’m a big believer in ‘everything happens for a reason’.” You nodded while covering a yawn.
“So I’ve been curious to ask you,” He began, “Do you usually have this much trouble sleeping? Because you can get help for that you know?” You smiled at him.
“What? I thought a night nurse talking to you was the cure?” Tom smirked and shook his head. “I’m kidding. No, I normally don’t. It’s just the stiff sheets and hospital sounds I think.”
“Darn hospital.” He rolled his eyes and joked. “So this time tomorrow you’ll be sound asleep in your own bed then?”
You knew it was meant to be a happy statement, but you were a little sad at the thought of not having any more late night chats with Tom.
“Yes. Thank God.” You forced a smile.
You felt another yawn coming and tried to hold it back. It was already past the usual time that you fell asleep.
Tom could tell you were exhausted so he launched into a story from nursing school, hoping to lull you to sleep.
You yawned your way through listening, trying to soak up every last moment with Tom. In the morning he wouldn’t be here. You’d leave and likely never see him again.
When he finished, your eyes were half open and he wondered how you were still awake. Or maybe why.
“Why are you fighting it? The point is to sleep. Give in.” He told you gently after another yawn.
You looked up at him, half asleep and rubbing your eyes, not finding the confidence to tell him the true reason you were trying to stay awake.
“I’m happy right now.”
He smiled down at you.
“I am too. But you need your sleep, darling.” You weren’t sure what to say and you didn’t have much energy left in you anyway. “How about this. I’ve probably been in here too long as it is. Let me go check in at the Nurse’s Station and then I’ll come back and check on you soon and see if you’re still awake okay?”
The thought that he was leaving gave you a sad feeling in your stomach. You tried to remind yourself that he was just your nurse. Nothing more.
“Okay.” You smiled at him, sleepily, while settling further into the bed.
He stood up and instead of walking towards the door he walked closer to you. He grabbed the thin, white hospital blanket and pulled it closer around your shoulders.
“Goodnight, Y/N.” He whispered before he walked to the door.
“Tom?” You called out just before he opened it. He turned around with an expectant look, “Thanks for everything.”
Even though the room was dim you could see his smile.
“You’re welcome, Y/N. Get some sleep.”
You don’t remember much after that. You don’t know if Tom came back to check on you. You just remember falling asleep with a smile on your face.
When you woke up the following morning it felt like any other morning in the hospital.
The hallways were much louder. Beeps, chatter, and phones were constant. The lights were brighter.
But you were quickly reminded that it wasn’t any other morning. You were going home today.
The door creaked open and Tanya, one of your regular daytime nurses, poked her head in.
“Oh good you’re up.” She made her way inside and over to the gloves. “How’d you sleep?”
“Pretty good. Thanks.” She gave you a smile, something hidden behind it.
“I’m sure.” She said quietly to herself. You gave her a questioning look. “Oh I just mean I’m sure you’re excited to get out of here.”
You nodded as she took your vitals one last time.
“Everything looks good. What do you say about getting this IV out?”
“I say that sounds amazing.”
She took it out and bandaged up your arm while informing you of how the morning would go.
“Dr. McCoy is making rounds now then he’ll be by soon to go over your discharge. You can get dressed whenever you’re ready. If you need help, buzz me. You’ll still have a breakfast tray come, but you don’t have to eat it.” She gave you a wink while taking off her gloves.
“Thanks Tanya.”
“Of course, sweetie. And in case I don’t see you before you go, you’ve been a wonderful patient. Take care of yourself.” You smiled at her as she left you to change into some leggings and a sweatshirt.
You were packing your remaining things into your bag when your doctor walked in.
“Y/N! How are we doing today?”
“We’re doing great because we’re going home.” You smiled while taking a seat to rest for a few minutes.
“I know you’re excited.” He laughed before explaining the conditions of your discharge. You had medicines to take, a follow up appointment, and strict instructions to rest for the next few weeks. After signing some forms he left you with a stack of papers. “Is someone coming to pick you up?”
“Yeah my neighbor should be here within an hour.”
“Sounds good. Don’t hesitate to call us or come back in if you have any trouble or questions.”
“Will do. Thanks.”
A few minutes after he left a nurse brought in your breakfast tray. There wasn’t much of a point for it but since your discharge wasn’t technically until 10:30 am you were still a patient during breakfast.
You took the pudding cup that you requested with every meal off the tray before sliding it away. Smiling to yourself, you tucked it away in your bag. All you had left to do was wait for 10:30.
Tanya came in to check on you again and told you to buzz the Nurse’s Station when you knew your ride was here. At 10:27 you had a text from your neighbor that they were out front in the pickup zone. So you hit the call button.
“Yes?” Linda, the scariest dayshift nurse, answered.
“Um hi. Tanya told me to buzz in when my ride was here so I could go down.”
“Okay we’ll be right in.”
Not even a minute later you heard your door open. Expecting to see Tanya or maybe even Linda you looked up.
An audible gasp left your lips when Tom stood in your doorway with a wheelchair.
“I hear someone needs a ride?” He smiled as he made his way closer to the bed.
“Tom. What are you still doing here?”
“I pulled a double.” You wanted to ask why, but decided against it. You were still in a little bit of shock from seeing him again. “If you’d rather I can go get Linda to walk you down?” He pointed back towards your door.
“No! No.. I’m just surprised s’all.”
“Well come on. I thought you’d be running out of this place once the clock hit 10:30.” Glancing up you saw it was now 10:34. Your neighbor is probably tired of waiting already.
You grabbed your discharge papers and reached for your bag when you heard, “I got it.” Smiling at him, you sat down in the wheelchair. Tom placed the bag around his shoulder and kicked the brakes off the chair. “Ready?” You nodded up at him.
He rolled you out of the room that felt so small for a final time. You passed the Nurse’s Station and waved bye to the staff. He turned by the elevators and when you looked up at him in question, he read your mind. Looked down at you he said, “We’re taking the staff elevators.”
When you made it there he hit the button, turning you around and backing you in once the doors opened. He hit the button for the Lobby and leaned up against the wall of the elevator, briefly glancing at you, as you rode down together.
“Well you made it. You’re a free woman.” He smiled shyly.
“Yippee.” He met your eyes for a moment before looking back to the floor. The dynamics felt different. It wasn’t like your late night talks together.
“Listen, Y/N.” Tom began as he stood up from the wall and faced you. He was about to continue when the elevator ding cut him off, signaling you had reached your destination.
Maybe that was what was different. You had reached your destination.
You had a fun time talking with Tom and entertaining each other when you were both up late at night. He was fun to get to know and you enjoyed having someone care for you. He was easy to banter with and certainly easy on the eyes. But your time at the hospital was up. You knew it would be eventually. You wanted it to be.
Tom was a nurse. He was just doing his job. He was helping take care of you. He was being nice. He was trying to make your stay more comfortable. There was nothing to read into.
Your time being his patient was up and your time with him was up.
You tried to remain realistic, but the sadness still crept up as he rolled you closer to the door.
Once outside, you saw your neighbor exit the car and wave you over. Tom steered in the direction and slowed before rolling to a stop and hitting the brake locks on the wheels.
“Hi, I’m Taylor.”
“Tom.” They shook hands as Tom passed off your bag for Taylor to put in the backseat.
“I’m sorry for the circumstances, but it really has been a pleasure having you as a patient and getting to know you, Y/N.” Tom admitted as he walked around to face you. He grabbed the papers from your lap. “Take care of yourself, okay?” You had shared many smiles with Tom, but this one felt sadder.
“I will. Thank you for everything, Tom. I mean it.” You reached up and squeezed his hand. He gave you a light squeeze back while smiling down at you. Taylor returned from the backseat of the car and Tom turned to them.
“These are her important papers about follow up appointments, medications, what to do at home, all of that so please make sure she doesn’t lose any of them.” He emphasized the point.
“Got it. Thanks.” Taylor held onto the stack while Tom turned back to you.
“If I can’t handle a few papers on my own, then maybe I shouldn’t be going home yet, Tom.” You laughed.
“I know, I just wanted to make sure they made it home with you.” He walked closer. “You ready to get in?”
“Yeah.” You nodded. He helped you up, supporting you just as a precaution. Once seated, you took a moment to catch your breath as you pulled the seatbelt down. He met your hand, taking it from you to buckle you in.
“You good?”
You nodded with a smile, “Just a little tired. No biggie.”
He looked you over before returning your smile, though his didn’t quite reach his eyes, “If you need us, call us. Otherwise go home and rest.”
This was it. This was goodbye.
“Thanks, Tom.”
“Goodbye, Y/N.”
He shut the door. He walked back to the wheelchair, released the brake locks and headed inside. He looked back only when your car was driving away.
“Here’s those papers that are so important.” Taylor handed you the stack after they got in.
“Thanks.”
“So how are you feeling?”
“Better. Thanks.” You felt them looking at you as they joined traffic.
“You sure? You sound like you feel awful.”
You try to remind yourself to forget the sweet and attractive nurse and start moving forward.
“Yeah. Yeah I’m okay.” You decide to distract yourself by reading through your discharge paperwork, when something caught your eye. On top was a sticky note with the hospital’s letterhead. You were sure it wasn’t there before. Looking closer it read,
Y/N,
In case you need someone to talk to when you can’t sleep.
555-5555
P. S. I have a connection to some pretty good pudding cups too.
Tom
The smile that grew on your face was undeniable. All the feelings you suppressed came flooding in. He wasn’t just being nice. He actually liked you.
One thing you knew for sure was that even though you would be in your own bed tonight, you still would be up, talking to a very special nurse.
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theenderwalker · 3 years ago
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re: DSMP "unsolved mysteries"
I've seen lots and lots of posts about the "unsolved mysteries" on the Dream SMP that focus on the TNT on top of the prison and the missing nukes. One of those I am very confident was implied canonically to be Ranboo, and the other I'm confident in my theory that it was him. Putting it under a read more bc its fuckin Long, but its worth the read! Word count: 2482
First: TNT at the prison.
This was implied to be Ranboo across a couple different streams, albiet subtly. I'm not surprised it went a little bit under the radar, but it's simply untrue to say we have no indication of who it could be.
This point doesn't hold true across everything of this nature, and if it did, it would be a dead giveaway, but I think it's relevant here for a couple reasons: Ranboo was online at the time of the explosions. Tommy tends to reflexively open the tab menu during his lore streams, almost as a nervous habit, so we saw multiple times that Ranboo was online, and would seen it have even if Tommy had chat turned off. Online at the time were Sam, Dream, Tommy, Foolish, and Ranboo. Foolish could not have been the culprit, as he was live at the time. In the case of this incident, it would have to be manually triggered by someone. Afterwards, when Tubbo was doing his "interrogations", his first bit of evidence was checking who was online when it happened. For these reasons, I feel this is a valid point for this incident.
That night, Ranboo was live on the SMP. This stream is notable for most people because it was when Ranboo did the odd code in his inventory, that read "He is in control" (or he is in control of me, if you count the to do list). Many people focused on this as a indication that Dream controlled Ranboo to set off the TNT, but this line of thinking was abandoned over time, especially as we saw the implication that the message was actually referring to the Enderwalk, talking about Ranboo stopping himself from doing anything to save Tommy from the prison during that week. However, other details in that stream also hinted it was Ranboo. Most notable to me was Ranboo reading chat or a dono asking him what he had done that day, and him answering that he had "probably gone mining," with some uncertainty. Later that same stream, he went down into his mines , found no ingots in the furnaces, and commented "maybe [he] didn't go mining", and that he wasn't sure what he had done that morning. This comes across to me as an indication that he had a blank spot in his memory that day--that he had been Enderwalking. He drew attention to this here, where he otherwise wouldn't, because it implies he was Enderwalking while he was visibly online, on Tommy's stream, where he would have been able to set off that TNT.
Ranboo was one of the only people on the server with a positive relationship with Dream, of any sort. It is true, especially at this time, that many people had negative opinons of Tommy, but Ranboo was the only one who didn't outright hate Dream... in his Enderwalk state. (with the sole exception of Punz, if you think the vault confrontation was staged, but that's definitely theory territory.) Dream has repeatedly stated that he finds Tommy "fun" and enjoys fucking with him. Tommy was locked in the prison after Ranboo could no longer visit, so assuming he has no supernatural means of communication with Dream (which is likely, as we have no real indication otherwise), he would have been acting without instruction. What better way to help Dream out than getting him his 'plaything' for at least a week?
Alternatively, you could frame it as a distraction or a break in/out attempt... which also doesn't make sense for anyone but Ranboo. Either way you frame it, Ranboo is the only person who makes sense without having to stretch their relationship with Dream into something it isn't.
Tubbo's investigation was the only real in character investigation into this incident we saw. He started out investigating people who were online, which is why I believe it's uniquely relevant to this incident. As I mentioned earlier, Foolish's alibi was that he was live. Ranboo's alibi was that he was mining. If you recall, the day Tommy was locked into the prison, Ranboo acknowledged that he did not know what he had done that afternoon, and that he distinctly had not been mining. This investigation didn't get much further than this because Tubbo refused to acknowledge that Ranboo could have done something like this. Because Ranboo has hidden his enderwalking so well, no one has any reason to believe he would do something to intentionally hurt one of his friends, or to help Dream.
Canonically, there isn't much evidence outside of Ranboo's comments to the audience because the characters absolutely cannot find out that it was Ranboo. He cannot be revealed as a traitor, narratively. Not yet, at least. So all of the evidence has to be directed towards the audience, which leads to it falling into subtext more often than not. The Enderwalk arc has the potential for an absolutely disastrous reveal at some point, where others discover exactly what he has done. It's unlikely that something like this will be confirmed explicitly until that point, but I believe the details I have explored above are foreshadowing, and will be explored again at this reveal. This point applies to the nuke, as well--perhaps even more so for reasons I will explore below.
Second: The missing nuke.
This one treads a little more into theory territory, but I think some of the subtextual implication is in this one too, it's just a bit further apart. Instead of being implied in streams the day of the incident and one week later, these implications are a little bit further out. I don't think I'm necessarily stretching by making these connections, though I can see why someone may think it's a stretch.
Ranboo was not online during this stream. This is why I think that's only conditionally applicable to the last point--Tubbo does not check tab habitually, and he had chat turned off intentionally. The tab list isn't necessarily canon to this stream. If we go by that, Jack Manifold is physically the only person who could have taken the nuke. The only other people online were Philza and Foolish, who were both live. Since this wasn't taken into consideration for the investigations, it's not relevant here.
Out of character, Jack took the nuke. Jack did not stream his perspective of this incident, he hung behind when Tubbo went ahead to start building the silo, and when the two came back together later, it was gone. This was intentionally done, as Jack usually streams his perspective for lore like this. If he had been the one to take the nuke, we likely would already know. His secret plans are not a secret from the audience, they are a secret from other characters--this leads me to think that in character, he did not take the nuke.
Very few people knew about the nukes, so we already start with a pretty small pool of suspects. One of these people was Ranboo. Even if Ranboo did seem to forget what Tubbo told him, the nuke would have been taken while he was Enderwalking--y'know, when he remembers everything, or at least remembers more.
The backbone of this theory, and the reason why I even began to consider it, is that Ranboo has a very solid and clear motivation to want the nuke. Ranboo has been helping Dream. The nukes were made specifically to be a deterrent/protection against Dream. If Ranboo takes one of the nukes, Dream now has access to that nuke, and the playing field has been re-balanced. Essentially, it's creating Mutually Assured Destruction between them. To take it one step further, only one of the nukes went missing. Tubbo was left with one nuke, and Ranboo and Dream have one nuke. Why not just take both? Well, leaving both parties with a nuke essentially ensures neither side will use it. It protects Dream, but it also helps to maintain (a semblance of) peace. Neither side can use their nuke without the other retaliating in kind. This leads to tensions, but prevents outright warfare from either side. It's not pretty, but it aligns with Ranboo's broader goals of keeping the peace.
So we've got the motivation, it makes sense. But that's not enough to make the claim on its own. What's the evidence?
This is a touch convoluted, so I get why it doesn't necessarily come up in relation to this as evidence often, but it's pretty solid to me. Especially compared to how vague most of Ranboo's subtext can get.
It's in the lessons! The highest number of lesson we were given was 94, though when Ranboo was repeating it outloud, he said 93. He later clarified saying 93 was intentional. This stream was on April 23rd. 93 days earlier, to the day, was January 20th--the day Dream was locked in the prison. 93 lessons for 93 days. If we take this to imply the lessons were daily, starting when Dream was locked in the prison, each lesson corresponds to a specific day. March 26th was the day the nuke went missing. 67 days from January 20th is March 27th, the day after the nuke disappeared without a trace. Neither Jack nor Tubbo had any real leads on the nuke. Lesson 67, the day after the nuke was stolen... "Leave no evidence of what you have helped with." This EXACT thing is why the nuke is so hard to pin down. There was no real evidence left. This lesson lining up so closely to the nuke's disappearance is not a coincidence. Further, at this point Ranboo no longer had contact with Dream. He had locked himself out of the prison and couldn't visit. If the lessons are daily, the things he writes down are things he's figured out for himself. The lesson being the day after the nuke was stolen makes sense, when framed like that. He stole the nuke, left no evidence, and wrote that down because it worked.
All of the hints/foreshadowing for the eventual reveal of where the nuke disappeared to has to be done in retrospect, and it has to be either from Ranboo, or from some other source that knows more than the characters. Which leads into my second bit of evidence: the Tubbo Texts. Across like, a week of streams (starting on April Fools Day), spooky half transparency cryptic text appeared on screen periodically, that c!Tubbo was unaware of. Those texts have never been explored in canon, it seems that none of the characters are aware of them or of their contents. So they are posed directly to the audience. The second one in particular stands out to me here:
"Quick, I don't have much time. Stay away from the North. A strange metal weapon washed up. It poisons the nature, the water. No it's not. That's it, we are leaving."
The 'strange metal weapon' seems to refer to the nuke, the poison being the radiation. Geographical direction is rarely paid any mind on the server, but north is distinctly the direction of Techno, Phil, and Ranboo's house. I think I remember Ranboo telling Sam he lives "up north" while trying to visit the prison. The arctic commune is the only notable northward location. The nuke disappeared, and reappeared in the north, in the direction of Ranboo's home. The rest of the texts refer to the north as well. We don't know where Ranboo's base of operations is in the Enderwalk, but we can assume he has at least one, and we can assume the nuke is hidden there, if he has taken it. If Ranboo has taken the nuke, it makes sense for it to be in the North.
Ranboo has proven he can take things without any evidence left behind. Remember his first beacon, that disappeared like, a day after he set it up? He never tracked it down, just replaced it. Within a couple days, he made a comment about his pickaxe durability being suspiciously low... maybe because he was using the stolen beacon to mine far from his home base so it wasn't noticeable that he had been mining. That's beside the point. I mean this to say, he knows how to take and hide things, he knows how to keep secrets, and he almost definitely has at least one secret base we've never seen onscreen.
So maybe Ranboo took the nuke, maybe he set off the TNT at the prison, that's cool, but why have they abandoned the plotlines? Why have we never gotten more explicit answers? Why won't they come back to it?
Ultimately, it seems a lot of these plans have been pushed back and delayed for one reason or another. Beyond that, an untimely reveal of either of these things to other characters would be a huge letdown. The arc seems to be building to a catastrophically large reveal, and each thing that gets revealed before then makes it much less impactful. Keeping it subtle towards the audience, while still offering some hints, stops a certain degree of the chat spoiling "metagaming" we see sometimes, that makes some streamers have to fully ignore their chats during lore streams.
This part is very much my own opinion, but I don't believe the missing nuke plotline will be resurfacing until after Dream is out of prison. Ranboo has no reason to reveal he has it until it will be put to use, either as a nuke or as a threat, and that won't happen til Dream is out of the prison and the nuke is in his hands instead.
The TNT on top of the prison will be an insanely gratifying reveal if it comes out with the rest of the enderwalk stuff. Any of this taken out of that context just kinda falls flat. So people know Ranboo set off the TNT, or know he has the nuke. How does that propel the plot? Ranboo won't do much of anything about it. People will distrust Ranboo, sure, but they won't know the depth of the issue, and that just makes the reveal frustrating. It will be revealed in time, I'm sure, but I think the enderwalk arc has to reach a climax first, or it's just disappointing.
I agree with the general frustration that these plotlines appear to be dropped or greatly delayed, but it's a symptom of a bigger pacing issue than solving either 'mystery' on its own will fix. And the answers aren't as obfuscated as they first may seem, it just takes a little digging!
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shotosprincess · 4 years ago
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BAKUGO SCREAMING AND IZUKU
( ˘ ³˘)♥︎ AAAA HIII TYSM FOR REPLYING TO THE BNHA PLAYLIST THINGY FOR FICS I LOVE YOU MWAHMWAH
anyways aaa bet !! ill do midoriya first if you don’t mind bc im currently in such a soft mood and hajdjj i just love him sm :((
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— 𝙠𝙞𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙨 𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙣 𝙞𝙯𝙪𝙠𝙪 𝙢𝙞𝙙𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙮𝙖’𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙢𝙨
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inspired by this playlist by nimbus on yt !! pls check them out ansjdjf their playlists r heaven ^^
❝ you never truly understood that about him, the way he continued to put himself through the pain, to push himself, even, past his limits and then some—
plus ultra. and now his arms were all but littered with rough scars of diluted white and blunt tan. ❞
notes ! gender neutral! reader,, best friends to lovers au ,, 2nd person pov
summary: in which your best friend deku shows up at your dorm late at night due to kacchan locking him out. he asks for bandages to stabilize his newly-healed scars, and you ask to kiss them.
genre: fluff !! <33
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it went without a doubt that deku had been to recovery girls’ office more times than anyone else at the academy. it hurt, honestly; each time you saw his still-healing figure emerge from the little swing of her door, a sharp pang reverberated starkly through your chest, for though the freshly-scarred over wounds didn’t diminish his beauty in the slightest, you simply couldn’t deny that an empty eddy of sadness settled in you whenever he was in such a state.
and unfortunately for you, he was constantly in it.
his body could only take so much. and he was still so young too—the very same held true for your heart.
it’s been that way ever since the two of you had first entered ua as shining, eager students. though in all fairness you had to admit, he was...different from the very beginning. even as the prelude to his eventual rising and growth in his quirk, he had shone with a certain unmatched brilliance ever since the entrance exams. and over the years you spent together, you had watched him persevere so passionately towards the glow of his ultimate goal; to be a hero who can help others. little did he know just how much he already had. he had always been so excruciatingly oblivious and aloof to even the evidence and affects of his own kindness, and you hated the fact that so many tended to take advantage of it. of him.
though, of course, this did not mean that he was weak in any form. no, if anything he was quite the polar opposite—he had proved it time and time again, and yet it didn’t mean that he couldn’t get hurt too. the dull aching of tiredness ringing in his eyes, the one he tries to desperately to mask, the ragged marks scattered across the pale valleys of his once-scar-barren skin; he wasn’t immune to pain, to injury. and yet, he fought. you never truly understood that about him, the way he continued to put himself through the pain, to push himself, even, past his limits and then some—
plus ultra. and now his arms were all but littered with rough scars of diluted white and blunt tan.
nevertheless, truth be told, you actually admired it a great deal. his sheer determination, the purity of his motives, it was more than laudable. despite all of it, you truly couldn’t help but feel this...magnetic urge to help him. protect him. if you could soothe the pain in any way, even if it would be but a temporary relief—
three knocks clack on the door.
you and izuku’s secret door code—just a silly little something the two of you made up a few months after the dorm system had been put into motion, and all so you could sneak out to the grass-flooded yards of the building and train together.
naturally, you open the door.
“ heyyy there you are! “
your head perks up at the cheery jingling of his voice, all drafts of exhaustion and sleep deprivation washing away almost instantaneously. he might as well be the very personification of caffeine at that point, despite how direly he needed it himself.
the starry shine of his eyes meets with yours as a diluted sanguine seeped colour into his face. he turns his head away awkwardly.
you lean against the doorframe, smiling at him. “ deku...you didn’t tell me we’d be training today. plus it’s a little late right now, don’t you think? i’m already in my pajamas. “
“ yeah, um, sorry about that. kacchan...kinda locked me out. “
“ he what? “
“ he locked me out. “
“ how does that even—don’t you have separate rooms? “
“ well, yeah, but we were racing down the halls after glass today and he...got to my room before i could. well, honestly i have no clue what he’s doing over there. “ he laughs, rubbing the back of his neck.
“ oookay then. little concerning, i won’t lie. “ your shoulders lift in a shrug, arms crossing in front of your chest as your shy laugh matches his.
“ so i was wondering if...you know...i could maybe stay here for a bit? “ his voice wavers subtly, though you’re quick to catch it. the tips of his ears flush with a deepened pink.
you can’t help but silently gush about how cute he looked.
you’re quick to snap out of that too. eyes bursting open with a brilliant shock, you notice he’s fiddling nervously with his fingers as you remain absolutely, positively frozen in place.
“ i’m—what? “
his countenance immediately shifts to one of sheer embarrassment. flustered, he begins to frantically wave his hands in front of him, as if to put some sort of considerable distance between his panicking self and your seemingly-composed demeanour. and as if that would do anything to deescalate the tension which was only progressively building between your equally-timid selves at this moment.
“ ohmygod i didn’t mean it in a weird way or anything! i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’ll just—i’ll just go— “
you slide against the wood a little bit, pushing your weight against the slightly-agape door, so it swung open even further to reveal the, admittedly, fairly-messy state of your room. draped carelessly on the side of your bed, a sweater you had taken off earlier because the temperature of your room had suddenly decided to heat up an unreasonable amount. countable cups holding shallow pools of hour-old drinks scattered throughout nearly every shelf. a creased textbook splayed out, cover up on your desk.
yep. definitely looked like someone’s lived here.
“ i mean...you could come in if you want. no one’s stopping you. it’s a little messy though, i haven’t found much time to properly clean it yet, with exams coming soon and stuff. “ a small smile accompanies your growing blush, despite how much you were trying to play it off as nonchalantly as possible.
psh, right. as if letting him in your room—something you had never done prior in the history of your friendship—wasn’t a big deal in the slightest.
his eyes shoot wide as his arms flail about. you have to keep yourself from laughing at his silliness.
“ uhm, i mean...only if that’s okay with you! “
“ yeah, yeah, of course! you need a place to stay for now, after all. who knows when bakugou’s gonna let you back in? “
“ yeah, i guess you’re right. well, i mean, if you really don’t mind— “
you playfully roll your eyes, giggling as you shove him into your room.
“ oh, quit it with the politeness. you’re too nice, you know that? “
“ too...nice? “
“ too nice. “ you reiterate, giving his shoulders a little squeeze.
his head lolls to the side as he carefully lowers himself onto your bed, his sweater shifting with the subtle movement.
for a few moments, the space between you is occupied with a simple, comfortable silence. it’s refreshing, really. a welcome difference from all the boisterousness of the academy. you loved the action and everyone’s energy, of course, but sometimes what you really needed was really just a simple break from everything. to do nothing but exist for a little while, to simply be without the constant pressure of having to get up and jump into action all the time. just for a few moments. and so you relished in these said moments spent with him, for who knows when the next time you could ever be with him like this again would be?
and then his voice fills that void of silence, but you’re not disappointed in the slightest.
“ hey. “
“ yeah? “
“ you don’t happen to have any extra bandages, do you? “
“ bandages? for what? “
he clenches his fist, flexing the muscles in his arm. “ for...stability. just in case. i can’t afford for my arms to get hurt more. “
“ oh. well, uhm...i think i have a few spares in my drawer! “ you push yourself off the bed, leaving the comfort the soft sheets brought about, pulling open a tiny drawer. taking out a transparent box of bandages, you jump back onto the plushness, sitting cross-legged directly across from midoriya, who’s already presenting his arm.
your lips silently part as your fingers wrap themselves around the thick ivory fabrics of bandage, rolling them around so you could wrap them around him.
another pause of wordless silence falls.
“ hey deku? “
“ yeah? “
“ could i...could i kiss your scars? “ you whisper, afraid that he’d get mad, though you knew he was anything but the type to do such a thing.
the meadow depths of his eyes kindle a cozy hearth within you as his initial surprise quickly softens, melting away into what could only be described as the most endearing smile to exist.
“ sure. “
jagged patches and uneven streaks of faded cloud white and prominent earthy tans decorate his arms, and you can’t help but bring the rosiness of your lips to meet them. you decide begin with the ones littered along his fingers.
one kiss for the scar resting within the curved dip between his thumb and index.
“ for every time you used just a flick of your fingers to defend everyone back then, when you didn’t even have full control over your quirk. “
a longing sigh leaves him as he reminisces briefly on the memory. you place a soft kiss upon the scar resting at the side of his pinky.
“ for every fist you made with this hand, for every punch you’ve delivered in the name of other’s safety. “
a drop splashed onto his arm, trickling down and tainting the scars etched into his forearm with a subtle, diaphanous sheen. you look up through your lashes, and a prominent gloss coats the kindness of his dark emeralds. your hand comes up to carefully caress his cheek, cupping it gently as the pad of your thumb swipes beneath his eye, wiping away the upcoming tear. your features are knitted together in concern.
“ are you okay? i can stop if you want me to— “
he takes your hand in both of his, squeezing as if to keep you there forever. “ no, don’t. please.“
it’s a tiny whisper, a softened plea into the dark quiet of the night, as if he were ashamed for wanting to be taken care of. your brows curve downward as you pull your twined hands to your lips, tenderly planting your lips where your skin kissed his.
“ hey, hey. it’s okay. it’s okay. “ you hush him, running your free hand through his thick tendrils of vivid, verdant green.
he leans into your touch, nodding at you as if to urge you to continue, which you gladly accept.
you shift a little closer to him, kissing the thick mark of serration painted into the skin of his wrist.
“ for every countless moment you’ve sacrificed for your dream. “
another kiss to the one just above it.
“ for every hour bled into the night that you spent helping me train. “
your fingers dance along his arm, finally stopping at the scar stretching from his elbow and dragging upwards. as per routine, your lips come down to delicately kiss it.
“ for every ‘ plus ultra! ‘ you’ve ever passionately shouted. “
little giggles left the both of you at that.
your touch trails to the scar just beside it, kissing it as well.
“ for every life you’ve ever saved. “
you look him in the eye. holding his arm like this, you were so close to him. and yet, you didn’t want to pull away. if anything, it was the very last thing you would ever want to do. he matched your stare, a certain sense of longing displaying in your gaze as it reflects off of his. the prolonged stare lasts longer than it probably should, longer than what best friends should probably look at each other this closely, this intimately for. the moonlight dimly shines through your window.
and then it happens.
his lips collide with yours in a captivating symphony, hands going straight to twirl through the locks of your hair as you wrap yours in a loose loop around his neck. everything feels as though it had all snapped into place, and the tension you had felt before was all completely dissipated now, displaced into the passion in which this kiss exuded. it was earth-shattering, galaxy-shredding. it felt as if even pain itself could never reach either of you, not in this moment.
this moment was for the both of you, and no one else. in this moment, in his arms, nothing and no one could hurt you.
he pulls away, stunned, lips parted with a saturated red. you stare at him with just about the same level of blankness, of utter shock at what you two had just done.
but then the realization catches up with him, and he is pulled out of the daze. much to your surprise, he doesn’t move away. if anything, he pulls you closer, enveloping both your hands within his just as he did before.
and just as you had done earlier, he brings them to his lips.
“ and that’s for every ‘ i love you ‘ i’ve ever wanted to say to you but never had the guts to. “
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theweasleysredhair · 4 years ago
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CHLOE MY LOVE! congrats on 4.6k -- honestly not sure how you don't have a million more followers because your blog and your writing is freaking brilliant! so happy to have formed a genuine friendship with you :') brb getting emotional. anyway! for your event, could you write a little something with my love george with a few different prompts? is that allowed? 3 and 8 from angst, 10 from fluff? who's surprised, i'm all fluff, congrats again my darling you deserve it all x
thank you so so much angel!! 💕 of course i decided i had to do a fake dating drabble for you erica, i got v carried away with it too so hope you like a super long drabble that turned into practically a whole fic - enjoy! ❤️
theweasleysredhair’s 4.6k follower event!
~~
3. “I told you not to fall in love with me.”
8. “I can’t pretend anymore.”
10. “Because I love you.”
~~~
Character: George Weasley
Word Count: 1884
WARNING: there’s no ‘read more’ bc i’m on mobile and couldn’t get it to work hahaha i apologise
Taglist: @dreamer821 @gracemayhateyou @criminalyetminimal @firewhisky-kisses @obsessedwithrandomthings @angelinathebook @iprobablyshipit91 @potterverseimagine @slytherineheir @kpopgirlbtssvt @rexorangecouny @wand3ringr0s3 @ickle-ronniekins @sehunasbitch @cryingforcrystalpepsi @kashishwrites @girl-next-door-writes @susceptible-but-siriusexual @crissdanvers @besitos-41 @heart-of-tempered-steel @andineversawyoucoming @mytreec | message or send an ask to be added/removed!
Disclaimer: Gif isn’t mine, credit goes to whoever made it
~*~
PLEASE DO NOT REPOST MY WORK! REBLOGS ARE ABSOLUTELY FINE! <3
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+ + + + +
“I need you to date me.”
In shock, you dropped too many of the porcupine quills into your potion, making the liquid turn a nasty shade of green and sizzle as it practically exploded across the table. You sighed frustratedly, grabbing your wand and cleaning up the potion before turning to the person who spoke - one half of the Weasley twins and one of your best friends, George Weasley - who apparently found your reaction extremely amusing.
“I beg your pardon?” You asked, crossing your arms over your chest. The hint of a smile was still etched onto his face as he leaned forward, “I need you to date me.”
You felt yourself grow warm at the thought, “You’re joking, right?” “For once, I am not,” he shook his head, “I um, I told this girl I couldn’t go to the Yule Ball with her because I had a girlfriend who I’m going with instead. Except, I don’t have a girlfriend. So you can see my dilemma.”
“This may be a stupid question but... if you don’t have a girlfriend, why did you tell her you do?” You raised an eyebrow, half curious, half amused.
“I didn’t want to be rude and just tell her no because she was really sweet. So now I need to find someone to date me, and I thought of you,” he explained with a shrug, playing with some of the potion ingredients you’d left at the end of your table.
“There are so many other girls you could have-“
“I don’t want anyone else, I want you,” he said almost desperately, before sighing downheartedly, “C’mon, it wouldn’t be so bad, and it wouldn’t have to be for long! Just until the Yule Ball. It’s not like we’d have to pretend that much! I spend most of my free time with you as it is.”
“How do you know I don’t already have a date, huh?” You asked, beginning to start your potion all over again before Snape got the chance to scold you.
George’s face dropped and his jaw clenched, “What do you mean? Who asked you?”
“Well, no one. But my point was, what if they had?”
“Then you’d tell them you’ve been given a better option - me - and that they were never good enough for you. You know, the truth,” he nodded triumphantly, running a hand through his hair.
You shook your head at him with a smile, glancing up at him before your gaze travelled back to your potion.
“So what do you say?”
You pondered it for a moment, before replying, “Fine.”
George broke out into a large grin, wrapping his arms around you and very nearly swinging you around the room in excitement, “Darling, you are the best! I owe you big time!”
“Yes, you do. Now, do we have any rules we need to discuss?”
“Like what?”
“Like, I don’t know, a backstory, how we got together, how far we’d go with PDA - I vote not too far if I’m honest,” you said nervously, toying with the hem of your jumper.
“Well I vote the opposite, I think we should have lots of PDA constantly, all the time!”
“George,” you said warningly, though you couldn’t help the way your lips curved into a smile.
“Fine,” he dragged out the last syllable, “I can only think of one rule. A very important rule that I’m sure you might have a hard time not breaking.”
“Go on?”
“Whatever you do, don’t fall in love with me!” His eyes widened dramatically as he pointed at you. “No chance of that happening, don’t you worry,” you laughed, stirring the potion.
“Well that was rude of you,” he said in mock hurt, a hand on his heart as he pouted at you. You cracked a smile and shook your head, “Oh be quiet will you, and pass me the rest of those porcupine quills, I have to finish redoing this potion that you made me ruin.”
“Nagging me already,” George mumbled, “We really are a couple.”
***
You realised pretty quickly that you were wrong about there being no chance of falling for George. So very wrong. Turns out the chances of falling for George Weasley were 100%, because somewhere between being his friend and being more, you fell head over heels in love with him.
If you were honest with yourself, you’d had feelings for him before the whole fake-dating, but figured you’d mistaken them for feelings of strong friendship.
Now you knew - you didn’t want to be his friend, you wanted him to snog you against a wall as he whispered sweet nothings in your ear.
And all of this was because of one simple kiss. You hadn’t expected it, didn’t know it was going to happen. All you knew was that one minute you were walking down the hallway with George’s arm around your shoulder - not even for show, really, he just walked with you like that anyway - and the next, your back was against a pillar, your eyes widening as you stared up at George, feeling yourself growing warm.
“W-What’s going on?” You stammered out, heart pounding as you lost yourself in his brown eyes, suddenly getting the urge to run your hand through his ginger hair and pull him by his tie down into a kiss.
“She’s watching,” he murmured, nodding subtly down to the end of the hallway. You couldn’t see anyone, but took his word for it as you figured you were just overwhelmingly flustered from the proximity.
And suddenly you realised what position you were in: his hands either side of your head, trapping you between his chest and the pillar, your own chest barely an inch away from him and his legs brushing against your own.
Your breath hitched in your mouth, noticing how his eyes flickered from your eyes down to your mouth before moving back up again. Your lips parted a little, chin tilting ever-so-slightly upwards as you waited to see what he’d do.
“You’re so beautiful, you know that?” He murmured, and suddenly his lips were on yours, pulling you into a desperate kiss, him cupping your cheek to bring you closer, his other hand sliding down the pillar to grab your waist.
This wasn’t a kiss from someone who was just a friend. This was a kiss that made your toes curl, set your skin on fire and made you want more - so much more.
And in that moment you realised you loved him. You didn’t want to go back to being George’s friend, not when you knew how his lips felt against yours, how his hands felt holding your waist.
He’d finally pulled away for air, still pressing shorter kisses to your lips as you both breathed heavily, and you dragged a hand through his hair, just how you’d imagined.
You knew, right then, that you were in love with him. All of a sudden, and very very full on.
After that, you suddenly noticed and admired everything about him, from the way he laughed to the way he bit his lip as he glanced your way.
And the thought of breaking this whole dating thing off - something that you’d both planned to happen the day after the Yule Ball - made you feel sick to your stomach. The thought of never kissing him again made you want to scream.
You couldn’t imagine going back to being friends. Not when you’d had a taster of what it was like to be George Weasley’s girlfriend.
You argued with yourself, one half of you wanting to end it with him now in order to save yourself further heartbreak, and the other half wanting to continue for as long as possible. It was all you could think about, from the moment you woke up in the morning to the moment you went to sleep at night. And you decided you couldn’t keep going like this, it wasn’t fair to you.
You couldn’t keep pretending you weren’t in love with the ginger boy.
And so, when you found yourself sat in his common room late one night two weeks after that first fateful kiss, sharing one of the red plush couches with him, his leg pressed next to yours and your heart racing, the rest of the students already in their dorms, you decided to be honest with him.
“George?”
“Yes?” George waited for your reply, however at the silence, he looked up curiously, finding you chewing on your lip in thought.
“Are you okay, love?” He asked, concern seeping into his voice as he looked at you, noticing how restless you appeared, how lost in thought.
“I um.. yes? I mean no,” you frowned, “I mean- I don’t know.”
He shifted, his body tilting towards yours and he grabbed your hands in his, bringing them up to his lips so he could press a kiss to you knuckles, “What’s wrong, what’s going on?”
“I can’t pretend anymore, Georgie,” you whispered, afraid if you spoke any louder your voice would fail you.
“What do you mean, you can’t pretend? You’re scaring me, princess, please tell me what’s going on in that mind of yours,” he frowned, hating the idea of anything even remotely bothering you.
“I can’t pretend to be your girlfriend anymore.”
And suddenly George felt like he’d been winded, a pain in his chest he could only liken to heartbreak, if he was to be so dramatic.
“What?” His voice was small, especially in the silent room. He wanted to know why. Had he done something wrong? Made you feel uncomfortable at one point? He’d hate himself if he had.
“I can’t pretend because- because I fell in love with you,” you breathed out, lips trembling as you stared at your clasped hands, “This isn’t pretend for me anymore, this is real! And it’s scary, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
There was a silence and you couldn’t bring yourself to look up at him, not wanting to see the look on his face as he tried to come up with, you presumed, a way to reject you.
“You wanna know why I asked you to be my fake girlfriend?” He asked suddenly, squeezing your hands and waiting for you to nod slightly at him, before continuing, “Because I wanted a reason to ask you to the Yule Ball without being rejected. Because I wanted to spend even more time with you, to have a glimpse at what it would be like to date you. Because-because I love you.”
Your felt your heart skip a beat as you finally looked up at him, meeting his eyes as he smiled at you.
“You love me?” You whispered.
“Always have, I reckon.”
You couldn’t help the grin that spread across your face as you allowed him to pull you closer to him, “Well I guess it’s definitely a good job I fell for you, huh?”
He grinned cheekily, biting his lip as he replied jokingly, “Well, I don’t know really, I mean, I thought I told you not to fall in love with me.”
“Yeah, well,” you spoke, letting a soft smile creep onto your face,
“As it turns out, I just couldn’t help myself.”
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turtle-steverogers · 3 years ago
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she is very long so. enjoy😌
- Steve n Bucky going to the bodega down the street from their apartment. it’s open till like 4am and they go at all hours. sometimes they’ll go separately but they always go together when they go in between 12-4 am and no one who works there questions why
- they get a cat that they treat her like their child. it’s Alpine ofc😌 steve loves her so much but he knows it’s Bucky’s Cat and he’s fine with it
- you know how some siblings or partners or friends can communicate with their eyes and basically have telepathy? they totally have that and it annoys the shit out of every single person they meetjdksndks. someone will be talking to them and they will just make eye contact with each other bc it reminded them of an earlier convo they had or they both got annoyed by the other person or it reminds them of an inside joke or something and it just irritates EVERYONE. no one is able to intercept it and it’s just a thing that no matter what - even though they don’t mean to - you’ll feel a little left out when you’re with steveandbucky. it just comes with the gig. i like to imagine that depending on if it’s an au or not, its either really obvious or not. like in an au then yes it’s obvious they can have non verbal conversations, but if it’s not an au then it’s not entirely obvious bc they’re enhanced humans and they know how to hide their secret conversations. but everyone they talk to is essentially an enhanced human or has special abilities so it’s obvious to them and they catch them in the act LOL. if they’re interacting with regular people then it’s not very obvious though
- DATE NIGHT!!! yes they’re old yes they have date night. when they go out it’s usually to places in their neighborhood, but a lot of the time they like to stay in bc. they’re old men <3 steve is better at cooking and bucky is better at baking bc you can get creative with cooking and steve likes that more. he enjoys baking a lot too but he thinks bucky’s stuff tastes better. whenever they stay home though there’s ALWAYS a movie. always. they alternate choosing but there is always a movie to watch. bucky usually falls asleep nearing the end and steve plays with his hair😌 he rolls his eyes cause it happens every time but he actually likes when it happens bc he can braid strands of hair together
- pet names oh my god. so many pet names. every single one. mainly from bucky. steve uses them but maybe like two. he favors sweetie and buck and that’s it really. sometimes he uses hon. bucky though oh my god. every single pet name under the sun. so many variations of doll you wouldn’t believe - baby doll ofc, dolly, stevie doll. sweetheart. sweetness. blondie. pretty boy. hot stuff. stevie. baby. hon. honey. sunshine. angel. it’s just so many. and it’s like very sickening insane twisted etc but hot at the same time. most people are like jeez barnes do you ever shut up… but most of these people secretly think it’s a little hot theyre thinking damn where is that affection for me…. i need me a bucky barnes :| steve is the only smitten kitten outwardly even if he huffs and puffs sometimes but it’s obvious he enjoys it. like they are so annoyingjdkssn for real they aren’t a pda couple really but the petnames….. so many. so so so many it’s sickeningly sweet but bucky dgaf! steve is his sweetheart his dolly his baby his angel so he’s going to call him these things!
- steve knows his body is what is considered “perfect” but he still is insecure about it around most people and bucky knows this so when steve lounges at home in bucky’s boxer briefs and his own tee shirt or he kicks off his pants when he’s too hot at night in bed bucky is reminded of just how much steve loves him and feels comfortable around him which is something he always strives for - to make steve comfortable. not baby him because steve bitches at anyone that does that to him but to make him feel comfortable
- and on the subject of feeling comfortable i imagine that they always check in with one another but it’s very subconscious they hardly realize they do it. like steve will bitch at bucky to pick up his shoes from their doorway or to clean his hair from the shower drain but the next second he will ask him if his back still hurts from being kicked by sam and from where steve AND alpine scratched him (in very different ways)
- steve is the sweater husband and bucky is the sweatshirt husband. they trade off a lot but that’s just how their closets look
- steve takes a liking to crop tops 😌 but ONLY around the house bc again he’s really truly only comfortable around bucky. he wears em with boxer briefs or sweatpants but you can guarantee that the briefs and sweats usually just end up on the floor 9 out of 10 times
- hair ties everywhere. they can be found on the floor in the laundry in their bed in the couch on top of the fridge on their fire escape. they are literally everywhere. steve just picks them up and puts them in the bathroom but they always make their way back. he doesn’t say anything to bucky until he finds alpine chewing one and she ends up smacking herself in the face with the hairtie
- their fridge is always full with leftovers and food from sam or clint’s or whoever’s house or takeout. they always eat it all but they get and make a lot of food so the fridge is always full
- subconsciously bucky always has a hand on the back of steve’s neck. like it’s not ENTIRELY a possessive thing but he used to do it a lot when steve was small because it was easy and it was comfortable. for him and just for him and steve. it was like swinging an arm around steve’s shoulders or putting a hand on his shoulder. it was just natural and easy so he did it. a part of him back then prewar did it possessively too, but he always tampered that down bc steve wasn’t his. now he does it without shame
- steve really likes tofu and vegan meat, non dairy milk like almond and soy, and overall a lot of non dairy vegan foods, and a lot of fruits. he gets made fun of for a lot specifically about the vegan stuff but his reasoning is that there’s so much food accessible for people with allergies in the future that he wished existed a hundred years ago so he’s going to try it and stick with it if he likes it. people shut up after that
- he also tips a little more than he needs to everywhere he goes. everywhere. like it’s cool when steve rogers walks in to a restaurant bc he’s a superhero or whatever but its REALLY cool because he leaves a generous tip and that’s what really makes peoples day
- before they get legally married they are still very much married. like “i packed you lunch, meet me at the restaurant instead of me going to pick you up bc it’ll take longer, i got takeout let’s bitch together while we watch shitty reality tv, let’s bitch at EACH OTHER through the phone in public, let’s send each other ugly pictures of each other or funny texts while we’re right next to each other, i’m out with a group and you’re not there and i say multiple times ‘i miss steve/bucky’, let’s yell at each other from opposite ends of the apartment instead of getting up to see each other, steve i’m going to fuck you on the couch bc our room is too far, etc.” they are just very much married without the documents and legalities and it’s very obvious
okay all of these were ABSOLUTELY wonderful and im really going to restrain my urge to respond to each and every one but that might be futile
-okay YES they definitely go to that bodega at all hours, and usually it's for normal things when they go separately: milk, cereal, toilet paper. but when they go in the middle of the night, they almost always purchase some like odd assortment of candies and deli meat. also, they're always in their pajamas. like bucky's in plaid pj pants and a star wars sweatshirt, and steve is in like 5" shorts and a huge crewneck and they're both in slides and they definitely only speak russian to each other when they're in there after hours
-yes alpine! they also have a dog, that is more steve than bucky's!! his name is norman in my headcanon (and a couple of my fics) and he is best boy
-okay i need more of this in my general stucky life: steve and bucky being like,,, best friends as well as lovers and being so seamlessly close. like yeah, they definitely talk with their eyes, or just one glance, or half-sentences ("hey, did you ever get to--" "yup, on the way home. it was so--" "yeah, good. glad to hear") and they know exactly what the other is saying.
-yes to the date nights!!! and when they stay in to watch movies, they make Tons of popcorn. and they Have to make separate batches, because steve will Only eat his with like half a bottle of that powdered white cheddar on his
-YES we share the same fucking headcanon for petnames on god
Steve: love you, buck:)
Bucky: love you, pumpkin
-Steve definitely has body dysmorphia, probably even post serum (I have lots of thoughts on this, that might be a different post) and yeah, Bucky definitely knows its Big that he feels comfortable enough to be exposed around him (and he's even more honored that steve lets him be intimate with him, because that's really hard for steve, too)
-yeah! and easy check ins like "ur stomach still bothering you from last night?" "oh, no it was just a little bug turns out" or like "my head hurts:(" "i have meds in my bag. you want?" "yeah, just two" or like subtly checking on injuries, yeah
-yeah the sweater versus sweatshirt tracks tbh i picture steve in a lot of crewnecks so yeah
-STEVE IN CROP TOPS STEVE IN CROP TOPS and i raise you they're often ones he's cropped himself and he's also painted on! or bleach painted!! and theyre so cool and bucky never wants to make a big deal out of it, but he's so proud of steve for expressing himself like that
-ALPINE SMACKING HERSELF ALKFJALSDKFJA also steve always has a hairtie on HIS wrist in case bucky forgets one for himself
-they also always have Steve Staple Foods cuz i headcanon steve as a picky eater (adhd!steve + serum enhancements, it's down to a formula) so they have a lot of Kraft mac and cheese and easy heat up meals and lunch meats around for when he's having bad food days
-OMG and steve absolutely MELTS i raise you, too, bucky will especially hold the back of his neck when he needs to get steve to Chill Out. so like if he sees him stressing he'll put his hand on the back of his neck and squeeze and literally feel the tension drain from him or like if steve is having a panic attack, he'll hold the back of his neck while they breathe together
-yes and also any time that steve is Choosing food for himself and feeling motivated to eat it, it's a win, so people learn to back off there, too
-yes! he tips generously, but never awkwardly or offensively. he's also super kind and patient to food service workers!
-this last point is so perfect i cant. like yeah, back to steve and bucky just being,,,, the best of friends. ugly selfies galore, shoving their feet in each other's face, flicking each others ears. and yes, all the fucking gossiping. on the phone gossip, venting, fun gossip from around work. they talk about it all. and it's so great for them
thank you again for stopping by! your thoughts are impeccable!
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blossom-hwa · 4 years ago
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volleyball players!golcha + a supernatural twist
so casey (@thepixelelf) came up with this brilliant idea (original blurbs here - read them they’re so fun + will help you understand what’s going on in this post) but essentially this is golcha as a volleyball team EXCEPT they all have superpowers
and no this isn’t some saving the world type shit everyone at the school just happens to have some superpower so they’re just trying to navigate the hell that is high school while dealing with powers so CHAOS
anyway please enjoy these brief blurbs and reblog if you did, and again do not forget to check out the original post here because why not it’s FUN
pairing: golden child x gender neutral!reader
wc: 11.7k (total)
genre: fluff, a bit of angst in some parts, volleyball!au, superpowers!au
triggers: cursing
Volleyball!au Masterlist (casey + lina) | Golden Child Masterlist
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daeyeol - golden tongue
daeyeol has a golden tongue which basically means he can be very, very persuasive with his spoken words when he wants to
like casey said it comes in handy when he’s arguing with the basketball team for gym time but in 99% of other situations daeyeol tends to... be very awkward and stilted in a way that isn’t characteristic of those with a golden tongue
the boys sometimes tease him about it because a tongue-tied golden tongue? that’s not supposed to exist
but he’s just afraid of accidentally manipulating people even though he really does have a pretty good grasp on his power :/ like sungyoon will try to remind him that but daeyeol’s still wary
on the court though he literally just exudes confidence. like daeyeol is GOOD at volleyball and he knows it
even if his teammates clown him they listen to him when he’s running drills/coaching because daeyeol knows his shit. he’s been playing volleyball for years at this point AND has an older brother who played as well he knows what he’s doing
he’s been playing the longest of all of golcha and it shows in games! he’s one of the best players if not the best
really the other boys do look up to him even if they show it in a roundabout way
(daeyeol complains about the lack of respect all the time but tbh he doesn’t really help his case when he’s soft for every single one of the boys)
side note: he has a bit of a special bond with bomin :) as in bomin clowns the everloving fuck out of him but he also always goes to daeyeol if he’s not feeling good and daeyeol is always there to listen it’s super sweet
(more on that in bomin’s part :D)
does interviews with the school newspaper after games and he’s just so different from normal because volleyball is one of the things besides academics and stuff that he’s confident in
as a side note he got voted most boyfriend material in one of the school newspaper polls because he looks perfect and is the sweetest (have you seen how he gets so soft with the boys in every video online? don’t argue with me) and it made its way into the yearbook
older brother and alumnus sungyeol clowns him every other day for it
daeyeol gets revenge by reenacting sungyeol’s worst volleyball fails and sending them to his friends
has a whole folder on his phone of reenactments at this point
anyway like i said daeyeol is a little awkward in everyday situations so enter you: confrontational + rash with a sharper tongue than is probably necessary and an affinity for changing temperatures
well. more like you can ratchet the temperature up at will. bringing it down is much harder
it’s useful when it’s winter and everyone’s freezing but the temperature also likes to creep higher when you get pissed off which is sometimes not nice when it’s like negative degrees outside and inside it’s like 100
the only way to cool the room when the second thing happens is to calm you the fuck down! or turn on the air conditioner
and the first is easier said than done
it’s not like it’s only unpleasant for other people though bc you’re not immune to the heat and also because you’re the one like. producing the heat?? your skin gets boiling hot to the touch if you’re upset enough and several times people have gotten fucking burns by touching your arm to try and calm you down
usually it’s fine bc you have a good grasp on your power when you’re calm but if someone says something offensive/stupid.... god help them
anyway even though daeyeol doesn’t like to use his power much he’s still one of the people that others go to when situations need defusing because they (mostly) respect him as an older and more mature person (i say mostly because the amount of disrespect he gets from his volleyball team on the daily... yeah let’s just trend #prayfordaeyeol)
and that’s how you meet! you’re yelling at someone for saying something fucking stupid and daeyeol walks in right when you’re threatening to hit said person if they don't shut up rn
daeyeol manages to calm the situation but not before everyone stupid enough to still be in the room is sweating buckets including him
this just... continues
like daeyeol becomes the go to for situations involving you specifically bc you respond better to him for some reason 
and you get to know each other just from daeyeol walking in on you threatening to throw someone out of the window and saying no! nope :) no you’re not throwing anyone out of any window :) come on y/n let’s go :) while subtly dragging you out of the room
the thing is he listens to you. he actually listens to why you got pissed instead of just telling you to control your anger. like he does emphasize the fact that you need to control yourself because what if this happens around people without powers? but he listens and that helps more than anything really and you actually start getting better at controlling yourself 
and somewhere along the way things just click between you two and you become friends. you like him bc he’s v kind if awkward and he’s the only person who’s never tried to calm you using golden tongue manipulation and he likes you bc you’re so outspoken and bold
then one day you get genuinely so upset about something someone said and daeyeol doesn’t care about your blistering hot skin he doesn’t care if you’re raising the temperature in the room he doesn’t even care if he gets burnt he just kisses you on the forehead softly and holds you close even as you’re overheating
which just drains the fight out of you and you kind of collapse on him and stay like that for a while
he then takes you out for cold drinks (because you’re still overheating a little) and kisses you over an iced americano and boom relationship
the other boys find you very fun to be around and marvel over your relationship bc you’re confident and loud meanwhile daeyeol is a bumbling mess when he isn’t using his power or he isn’t on the court
but it works ok it just does. don’t question it
(jangjun does once and even with his super strength he ended up lying on the court bc the element of surprise is the only thing that can really get him)
(and lucky for you you know exactly how to take advantage of that <3)
(daeyeol just thinks it’s hot + impressive and kisses you right after)
(bomin + 99 line gag but you threaten to give them the same treatment and they shut up)
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sungyoon - telekinesis
so as casey said sungyoon comes from a long line of telekinetics except he’s not entirely sure why he’s even at this school because... he has never shown any manifestations of this power
not to his knowledge at least
i say this bc people have seen stuff twitch when sungyoon’s around, he just never notices and thus concludes that either people are fucking around with him and it never happened or it was just a coincidence
anyway he doesn’t really care much, like sure he sometimes gets insecure/unsure of himself in a school full of kids with superpowers
but like i said this school is just a safe haven for those born with powers, they’re not training or anything they just learn to control what they have
and since sungyoon doesn’t have much to control he’s doing fine as far as everyone is really concerned
it’s also kind of nice being the only normal one on the volleyball team like everyone else has wack-ass powers that fuck shit up but sungyoon is like the calm in the middle of the storm like hi yes i am also part of this team of idiots but at least i don’t break equipment or injure people inadvertently
for this reason some people think sungyoon is the only sane person on the team 
they are wrong
sungyoon can and will go batshit insane at the first opportunity
he is also a massive tease and if anyone asks him to do anything he’ll make it a back and forth for like 5 minutes before deciding whether or not to actually do it
bomin: sungyoon can you help me get the mats
sungyoon: why
bomin: p l e a s e
repeat for at least five minutes and you now have a regular day to day conversation with sungyoon
but sungyoon really is passionate about volleyball okay, like he loves the sport so much
he used to get worked up about it so much that he’d over-practice and actually play worse :/
got over that with joochan/daeyeol’s help (he and daeyeol weren’t on good terms for a week or two though) and now they’re one happy dysfunctional family :)
if you bring up that time in sungyoon’s life you will be subjected to his death glare so maybe just... don’t
like even jangjun doesn’t talk about it and that’s saying something
anyway moving on 
in terms of powers you’re the opposite of sungyoon. aka you have wack-ass telekinesis and you have no idea how to control it
which?? somehow sungyoon comes in handy with this
because despite not really having powers himself, he watched his sister learn to control her abilities and also listened in on his parents’ advice to her because most of the time controlling powers really just amounts to controlling emotions
aka why sungyoon is (for the most part) so calm and mature
when he’s not purposely being a little shit to golcha of course
but you and sungyoon are kinda... at a loss bc it’s not like you go absolutely off the walls batshit insane?? like you’re a relatively calm person and even though the powers do manifest when you’re feeling a strong emotional upsurge
other than that they’re just... seemingly random???
regardless of that sungyoon makes you start on breathing exercises n shit and you would honestly probably complain if you weren’t sick of your powers manifesting every five fucking seconds. like at this point you’ll try anything
cue long sessions after school in the gym of sungyoon practicing spikes while you sit in the corner controlling your breath to the beat of balls bouncing on the floor
sometimes a few of the other team members join in but more often than not it’s just you and sungyoon
as time passes, in between cleaning scuff marks off the floor and picking up balls that just have flown everywhere, you and sungyoon get closer
and somehow... you don’t know exactly what happened but your powers aren’t so out of wack anymore
sungyoon can’t completely explain it either but like? neither of you is going to complain
you kind of think it might have something to do with how sungyoon is just a calming presence. like when you talk with him and stuff you’re less likely to inadvertently make something move or whatever
it’s not just with sungyoon too - it kind of seems like if you’re focusing intently on something, then the mini episodes don’t happen
sungyoon hypothesizes you might be a little like youngtaek as in you need something to concentrate on because if you zone out shit happens
you maybe zone out less than he does but maybe it’s a more subtle thing with you than with him who knows
anyway
one day you two go to get coffee after leaving the gym together and sungyoon looks weirdly nervous and you ask if something’s up while praying you don’t send all the sugar packets flying everywhere 
and then when you leave with your coffee he asks you out
like really. he asks you out. you can’t believe it
so the lid flies off your coffee cup and liquid splashes everywhere
now you have burns all over your hands from hot coffee and sungyoon is freaking the fuck out and luckily donghyun was just leaving school so he gets called over to take care of your burns
anyway after that sungyoon is still a flustered mess and you’re trying to tell him you’re fine, look all the redness is gone and also yeah sorry about that i’d love to go on a date with you
CUE SUNGYOON’S COFFEE CUP FLYING OUT OF HIS HANDS AND SPLATTERING ALL OVER THE GROUND
you swear it wasn’t you and sungyoon KNOWS he didn’t just drop it so the only conclusion left is that sungyoon did it
oh my god he actually has telekinesis!
(the rest of golcha: yeah let’s just pretend we HAVEN’T been saying this for literal years)
anyway let’s just say that between sungyoon confessing + figuring out he actually has telekinesis powers it was a very eventful day
golcha loves you but is also wary of whenever you’re around bc sungyoon tends to get v nervous and maybe the net starts lifting out of the ground if you surprise him with a kiss
but it’s fine! you’ve learned all of the techniques sungyoon taught you, now it’s just time for him to get a taste of that too :)
and sungyoon would probably bitch and moan if it was with any other person but it’s more time to spend with you so is he really gonna complain? 
no <3
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jangjun - super strength
ah yes. resident ‘i’m doing my best to control my powers but sometimes i get too excited and whoops now there’s a hole in the gym floor’
once again credits to casey for that idea (she actually wrote a drabble for it which you can find here)
he’s gotten better at controlling his powers but uh sometimes excitement gets the better of him all right
look he’s trying!! ok!! he really is
especially when it comes to volleyball - he’s really serious, does his absolute best not to cause any damage to the gym because one time he cracked the wood floors and let’s just say admin was not happy
worst day of jangjun’s life trying to explain that shit to the principal
so yeah he’s doing a lot better now with controlling his power
but at the same time let’s not ignore half the reason why there are far fewer accidents than before - you
you and jangjun meet like halfway through your first year of school during gym class when jangjun hits a ball a little (a lot) too hard and it ends up knocking you the fuck out
a healed concussion + a million apologies later, you and jangjun are laughing your heads off in the clinic with the nurse screwing her eyes up in confusion like?? this boy just smashed a volleyball into your head and now you’re laughing with him wtf
but jangjun’s so funny and friendly that it’s hard not to become his friend so after that you two are essentially inseparable
so when jangjun decides to play for the volleyball team you sign up to be team manager
(you also help him practice and do you best to keep his power in check)
which works out! because you’re responsible and organized but most importantly you have power over air
and given enough warning (which, as you gain more experience, doesn’t have to be a lot), you can manipulate the air to stop some of jangjun’s more aggressive serves from hitting the ground too fast and causing major damage to the newly-renovated floors
daeyeol + the coach thank every higher being for your existence at each practice
youngtaek + joochan started a cult in your name after you saved both of them from one of jangjun’s spikes hitting them in the head
yeah let’s just say golcha is v thankful jangjun gave you that concussion back in first year
ANYWAY
one day you’re picking up some volleyballs that are lying around while the boys play a practice match in the middle of the gym
and because your back is to the fucking court. you don’t get any warning except a few sharp screams before a ball just motherfucking smashes against the back of your head and knocks you the fuck out for the second time in your life
you come to on the ground with donghyun passing his hands over your throbbing head
and the first thing you do when the pain is gone is look up and ask where jangjun is
half the team has disappeared from the gym but donghyun tells you he had a major mental breakdown when he saw you unconscious on the floor and just ran out. the others are already trying to find him but you don’t care you just run out to try and find wherever the fuck your best friend is
you find him crouched in the corner of a stairwell with his head in his hands and you’re like jangjun what’s wrong oh my god are you okay?
and he just looks up like oh my god you’re okay. you’re okay right?
you nod like yeah?? donghyun worked his magic of course i’m fine now but what’s up with you? were you crying?
he just clams up then which obviously confirms your suspicions and you’re like dude... why were you crying. i’m really fine
and then he explodes like - i fucking hate my power sometimes i hate that i can’t control it i hate that i accidentally break people or hurt people when i don’t mean to and it’s even worse when it’s people I care about like fuck y/n why can’t i just have a power that doesn’t cause all this stupid shit - 
so you just lash out with a gust of wind and shake the railing on the stairwell
jangjun’s like why did you do that
and you say every power has a destructive side. i can hurt people on accident. if i got really riled up i could slam someone against a wall and knock them out the same way you did with me. it’s happened before
jangjun flinches but you just step closer like jangjun. you’re doing fine. your power is cool as fuck. i admire the control you have over it and no don’t argue, i’ve watched you over the past few years and do you know how much you’ve improved?
it ends up with you hugging jangjun and despite all his muscle he just collapses like a rag doll in your arms and on impulse you kiss his forehead like it’s ok, i’m fine, you’re fine. we’re all fine
and that little impulse kiss changes everything. even though neither of you really says anything explicit at first, something shifts between you and even though jangjun was touchy before, now you hold hands between classes and hug before practice and golcha is just like... /eyes emoji/
jangjun brings it up one weekend when you two are trying (key word: trying) to study and you just kind of shrug and ask what do you really want to be? labels or nah? bc honestly you’re happy as long as he’s around
which makes jangjun’s heart flutter and maybe the pen in his hand explodes all over his notes (not like they were legible anyway, you just promise to lend him yours) and voila! you’re dating
it’s super cute but also super loud
like jangjun will yell across the court like HEY WATCH ME ROLL AROUND ON THIS VOLLEYBALL Y/N (or whatever the fuck he was doing in the breathe mv behind) and you yell back like FUCK IT U P JANGJUN!!! 
coach maybe praises your existence a little less now but daeyeol just reminds him that you’ve saved every member on this team + him at least once by now and the cult revives
as your bf jangjun strong-arms (literally) youngtaek/joochan out of the way as the head of the cult now
you two are very supportive and very loud in your support
you’re essentially each other’s professional hype-people and like to celebrate with kisses while everyone else gags
it’s disgustingly cute
someone always yells something about pda and then jangjun just kisses you harder
cue the boys screaming and you laughing and an unamused (he’s amused he’s just trying not to show it) daeyeol
coach is the only one who’s really unamused but at some point he just gives up because jangstar does what he wants as long as you’re fine with it
/shrugging emoji/
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youngtaek - pyrokinesis
youngtaek has power over fire but it’s not really so much that he can control fire and more like he just... zones out and oops his notes are burning
it’s usually best to keep him and daeyeol’s s/o in separate rooms because fire + ratcheting up the temperature does not equal a good time
like casey said when he’s focused it’s all cool and he has a decent measure of control over his power but when his eyes go dazed and he’s staring into the distance then you better pray the room has a bucket of water or a fire extinguisher nearby
it isn’t usually a problem because this is a school for kids with powers and youngtaek isn’t the only pyrokinetic here but it is a hassle when sometimes youngtaek zones out on the court and hits the ball and suddenly jangjun’s screaming because he got hit by a volleyball on fire and now his uniform is on fire and everything is on fire
oops
but anyway with anything that isn’t a) volleyball or b) music youngtaek has less than half the attention span of a goldfish which means he may or may not be lagging behind in several classes
and it isn’t enough for him to be in danger of failing just yet but his teachers are like youngtaek i think you might need a tutor if you want to do more than just pass the final
he also needs better grades if he wants to keep playing volleyball so he decides to find a tutor
so he asks daeyeol about it bc despite his dyslexia daeyeol is a pretty good student but he’s busy as an upperclassman and all so he refers youngtaek to you!
you have the power to memorize anything you put your mind to. like if you really wanted to you could memorize an entire map of the city or its skyline but you just don't care enough to do that
only things you care about are school + your hobbies + your friends/family
anyway you meet up with youngtaek and from the start it’s kind of a mess because he zones out in the middle of you teaching him math and somehow sets the table on fire
after that you make sure to keep a bottle of water nearby (it comes in handy several times)
but despite the slightly disastrous first meeting you take a liking to youngtaek because beyond everything he’s genuine and honest and just a really good person regardless of the fact that he’s a little fire-happy
so tutoring sessions start ending with walking each other to the bus stop or getting a drink together or whatever and it’s really nice and sweet, youngtaek’s happy to be doing better in his classes bc you’re so patient and a really good teacher 
and one day he blurts out that when he heard about your power he wasn’t sure you’d be a good teacher because everything seems to come easily to you
then he covers his mouth because holy hell he wasn’t supposed to say that youngtaek come ON
you calmly put out the little fire on the side of the desk before telling him it’s fine, you get that a lot but really being able to memorize things isn’t as helpful as people seem to think
like sure you can memorize the fact that 2+2=4 but if you don’t understand addition as a concept then you won’t be able to do 5+5=10 or something like that
and you can’t exactly just memorize concepts. so with memorization comes a lot of hard work in trying to understand it all
and from this little conversation youngtaek comes out with so much more respect for you?? like god damn he now sees just how hard you work for everything you care about and youngtaek likes that. he likes it a lot
so yeah both of you have budding feelings at this point but because i'm the author i get to say you’re idiots in love so you don’t say shit
until after finals you and youngtaek go to a party daeyeol’s hosting and you both get tipsy-drunk-ish and by the end of the night youngtaek’s face is buried in your shoulder and before he passes out fully he mumbles that he likes you so much it doesn’t make sense
and you’re drunk too so all you do is kiss his forehead and fall asleep
unluckily for you a mostly sober kim donghyun got a video of all that so when you both wake up a couple hours later it’s to several still-awake members of the volleyball team + your friends all up in your faces like oh my god they’re in LOVE
youngtaek wakes up with all the noise and just blinks sleepily and you kinda pat his head and tell him to go back to sleep while giving everyone else death glares like SHUT THE FUCK UP SO HE CAN SLEEP
but you don’t know about the video >:)
so one of the sober boys ends up bringing you two home and when you wake up the next morning donghyun has added you both to a group chat and sent the video there
you scream into your pillow
youngtaek screams into his pillow
and you both proceed to do absolutely nothing about it until joochan locks the two of you in one of the music rooms and slides a copy of the song youngtaek wrote about you under the door 
you get to the paper before youngtaek can burn it and it’s messy it’s awkward it’s hilarious but you two end up together by the end of the day so it worked... kinda?
your presence helps youngtaek a lot by giving him something more to focus on throughout the day and subsequently not set everything on fire
though mind reader bomin complains because he used to zero in on youngtaek’s mind when things got too much since quote unquote ‘there’s not much going on up there’ (credits to casey + fact in star) but now if youngtaek’s brain isn’t playing the music from the mii channel it’s thinking about you which isn’t ideal
youngtaek may or may not have attacked bomin after that
you may or may not have had to pull him away when bomin’s shirt started smoking
but it’s cool the smoking goes away when you kiss his forehead and youngtaek just beams like the entire sun
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seungmin - foresight
like casey said seungmin has foresight and it’s anything but useful
he’ll either get glimpses of dumb unimportant shit like haha the day’s lunch includes rice or visions of stuff he can’t avoid like hey youngtaek’s going to trip on air oh oops he just did aaand now his shirt is on fire
honestly if he was going to have foresight he could at least like?? predict stocks or some shit?? why the fuck does it MATTER if youngtaek’s about to fall if seungmin can’t even help him
not like he’d help even if he could because seungmin isn’t an angel and youngtaek falling is funny but still it’s the principle of the goddamn matter
sometimes he gets glimpses of whether or not golcha will win their volleyball matches but like casey said he doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t want to ruin the team spirit before the game’s even over
plus who said the future was fixed in stone? like none of seungmin’s momentary glimpses have been wrong yet but there’s always a chance... right?
seungmin isn’t going to discount that possibility yet at least
but he didn’t always think that way - you’re actually the one who opened him up to that point of view
you’re an ordinary person with no powers or anything but you work part-time at the juice bar across the street from his school and sometimes golcha will go there after practice to get something to drink
and you have a special soft spot for seungmin because he’s the first of the group who started frequenting the shop
and on that first ever visit he helped catch you when you slipped bringing a tray of drinks to a few people sitting in the corner
even though you both ended up on the floor covered in juice he still managed to break your fall enough that none of the glasses broke and while giving him his drink you kind of joked that it was like he knew what was going to happen before it did
which... is not exactly false
seungmin was waiting for his drink when he got a little glimpse of you falling and him helping catch you but then it all happened before he could even process the vision so like yeah he did see it but not soon enough to prevent anything
like usual
anyway you promise seungmin a free drink the next time he comes in when you’re on shift and so he does come in though he insists you don’t have to give him his drink for free
you just say well buy me a drink then. two for one
(listen he’s cute and he broke your fall and he seems polite. who’s gonna sue you for being a little flirty)
and so a beautiful relationship is born :)
seungmin really likes you a lot like so much?? he used to laugh at youngtaek for being so whipped for his partner but now he thinks he kind of understands it
the one thing to worry about is the fact that you don’t have powers and he does but it’s not that big of an issue really. like foresight is one of the abilities that doesn’t really manifest itself physically beyond maybe having a bit of reaction time? but considering his foresight is literally useless even that’s debatable
well actually there’s another thing to worry about: the boys finding out he has an s/o and teasing him to high hell
which they do while also demanding free drinks as seungmin’s friends
on days when you’re feeling nice you’ll do it but money always appears in the tip jar that pays for the free drinks
(it’s daeyeol. he feels bad)
anyway you don’t know about the foresight/powers thing until daeyeol calls you one night to pick seungmin up from a party one night and on the way home he stops you from almost getting run into by a speeding car
WHILE TIPSY/DRUNK
once you’ve recovered you ask him how he reacted so fast and he just kind of tipsily smiles and says ‘i saw it was going to happen’
you don’t ask him anything then because he’s drunk and sleepy so you just drive him home but the entire time you’re thinking about all the little things that have just... seemed questionable during the time you’ve known seungmin
and it’s weird as fuck but at the same time you can’t figure out any other explanation? because once is normal, twice could be a coincidence, but upwards of ten incidents is not right
it feels like you’re bella confronting edward about being a stupid vampire (no i never read twilight and i'm not sorry about it) but a couple of weeks later you ask him
he doesn’t actually remember the drive back home that night because he was kind of too wasted but he definitely does remember the other incidents including when you two met skdjghs
he spills after a few minutes of awkward silence and begs you not to tell which of course you promise to because why the fuck would you not? if the truth got leaked that would be disastrous and it’s not like you’re scared or anything, seungmin’s (mostly) harmless even if some of the other abilities like youngtaek + fire or jangjun + strength give you pause
but you get to talking about his power of foresight and seungmin kind of shrugs at one point while saying that he doesn’t know why he gets glimpses, it’s all inevitable anyway so what’s the point
and you just say maybe it isn’t that way. maybe he’s seeing one future possibility, maybe even the most likely one, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only one set in stone right?
seungmin loves you a lot for that. like so much. it’s a new perspective and it gives him more hope than he used to have and you just KNOW the conversation ends in kisses and cuddles
because while he’s not going to actively try and prevent what’s about to happen if it’s bad (like he can’t exactly influence the outcome of a volleyball match beyond just doing his best - plus, his foresight doesn’t give him enough time to really react to most things), it gives him some hope that even if his foresight says something will turn out bad, there’s a chance it might turn out well :)
anyway seungmin pocket boy you two fit right into each other when you hug which results in the other boys cooing but seungmin’s strong even if he’s small so they get a few new bruises that donghyun just refuses to heal
we love evil donghyun
you also go to their volleyball matches and seungmin trusts you enough to tell you what glimpses he got of the game but you always remind him the future may not be set in stone and regardless of what he sees you always cheer him on just as loudly
all the boys come piling into the juice bar after games and you smile and give seungmin a free drink while everyone else has to pay
they decry favoritism but you just shrug and kiss seungmin over the counter while they scream
dramatic assholes
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jaehyun - gravity manipulation
so like casey said jaehyun can manipulate the gravity of objects, either send them floating up in the air or slamming down on the round
which sucks if the object in question is a volleyball and it comes pounding down on his toes when he isn’t paying attention
this happened at the first ever volleyball practice he attended and the boys (read: jibeom) have yet to let it fucking go
his husky voice doesn’t help because when he complains jibeom the boys just imitate his voice which derails the entire practice and now coach + daeyeol + team manager who’s jangjun’s s/o are all lying facedown on the ground like when will this madness end
never. the answer is never
but it’s ok jaehyun gets his revenge when they’re all practicing and he sends jibeom’s ball flying up into the air and refuses to let it come down and when he does the ball drops right on jibeom’s head and whoops look who’s got a concussion hey donghyun can you fix this
jaehyun is also one of the few occasional lifesavers (literally) besides team manager + donghyun because given enough warning, he can manipulate the gravity on one of jangjun’s maybe too strong serves and make it come down more softly than it would’ve otherwise
the problem is he isn’t super adept with his power
more experienced students will be able to manipulate gravity very subtly, but jaehyun more or less has three settings - floating, slamming down, and very occasionally something in between
which isn’t exactly ideal but jaehyun’s working on it, it’s fine, he’s not too pressed about it
anyway you’re a student at the school for students with superpowers in the next city over and you play basketball
you don’t know jaehyun but he sure as hell knows you because even though he stopped playing basketball a few years ago to focus on volleyball, he still loves the sport and he happens to think you’re one of the best players he’s ever see
also you’re really cute
jaehyun goes to every single basketball game that’s against your school just to watch you play 
he doesn’t really do much other than watch because a) he’s so focused on your performance that he doesn’t register much else and b) everyone would clown him for cheering your team on skdjgskjg
also jaehyun’s just shy. like really shy you couldn’t catch him approaching you/showing interest towards you unless someone forced it out of him
which is what his lovely friends from 99 line decide to do
they obviously know about his crush like joochan was with him the first time jaehyun went to watch a basketball game against your school so he SAW the heart eyes
he took a picture and sent it to jibeom who sent it to donghyun and now it’s the profile picture for their group chat dedicated to making sure jaehyun asks you out
jaehyun has no knowledge of this group chat because he’s oblivious
anyway one day after a game they’re in the parking lot bc jaehyun’s driving this time and jaehyun is babbling about oh my god y/n was so great this time they’re literally so good at basketball holy shit?? and while he’s talking he doesn’t notice jibeom/joochan/donghyun like. subtly pushing him closer and closer to your team who’s just waiting around the bus you’ll take to get back to your school
and only when you look up does jaehyun realize he’s now close enough for you to have heard literally everything he just said in the past minute or so 
cue the awkward crow noises as you and jaehyun just stare at each other
suddenly the backpack in jaehyun’s hand just drops onto his foot and if it weren’t for the steel-toed sneakers he’s gotten in the habit of wearing then he’d probably have a broken foot
as such he kind of lets out a quiet dying screech (it HURTS) and now jibeom/donghyun/joochan are dying like three feet away meanwhile your friends are screaming into their hands like Y/N IT’S A CUTE BOY YOU LIKE CUTE BOYS TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY YOU IDIOT
and when nothing happens for five seconds beyond jaehyun’s ears turning tomato red joochan steps forward and is like hello my friend here is whipped for you so if you’re comfortable would you please give him your number because he’s been dying for it since like. last year when we saw you play for the first time
jaehyun nearly launches himself at joochan like SHUT UP DUDE but then you’re handing over your phone while looking away because fuck jaehyun’s really cute and you wouldn’t mind getting to know him okay??
(who wouldn’t though that’s the real question)
anyway the two cities aren’t too big so it’s not that hard for you and jaehyun to meet up for coffee at some point (which jaehyun surprisingly gets the courage to initiate - he reasons it as he’s the one who was interested first so he kind of has to be the one to do it but that doesn’t mean he’s screaming throughout the entire text conversation) and after a semi-awkward first interaction you two surprisingly hit it off and after a few weeks you’re dating
you’re the ultimate athletic couple like jaehyun does volleyball and you do basketball and sometimes you play each other in the park or jaehyun starts teaching you how to play volleyball and it’s really cute
over the summer your friend group + golcha goes to the beach to hang out and jaehyun sees firsthand how much you’ve improved at volleyball 
i didn’t mention it earlier but your power is water manipulation which not only comes in handy with putting out youngtaek’s inadvertent flames but also is very useful in splashing your friends + golcha all at once at the beach when no one else is looking
of course everyone just piles on you and sends you flailing into the ocean and maybe you choke on seawater because you’re laughing so hard but jaehyun pulls you out and your first kiss tastes like salty ocean and even with the rest of your friends + golcha screaming it’s perfect 
water manipulation also helps when they dump you both into the ocean and you just kinda make a bubble where it’s deep enough and kiss jaehyun there (yeah pjo the last olympian vibes deal with it)
daeyeol gets worried when you don’t come up and then you surface a second later in his face and he screams it’s glorious
you use your power to strip away your sweat after basketball practice and jaehyun begs you to do it for him too after volleyball practice when you’re there which of course you do because you’re a nice s/o
when he gets a little better at the subtleties of his power jaehyun likes to lift you up using his gravity manipulation and spin you around it’s really cute
you show up to jaehyun’s volleyball games against your school to cheer him on despite the fact that one of your friends is on your school’s volleyball team skdjgshkd (and maybe jaehyun accidentally drops the volleyball HARD on his foot the first time you scream his name)
jaehyun starts doing the same when it comes to your basketball games he is no longer shy about screaming your name from his school’s side of the bleachers :)
his friends call him a traitor but jaehyun doesn’t really care because he’s the one who gets to kiss you after your games so who’s the real winner here?
him obviously
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jibeom - invisibility
casey i think this blurb was my favorite, it’s so fucking funny and literally so jibeom
so like casey said jibeom can turn invisible which is really fun for him and a nightmare for everyone else because he’ll just sneak up on people and be like BOO
if you have a weak heart you better stay vigilant
but there are also issues because like casey came up with sometimes jibeom accidentally turns invisible during a fucking game and gets confused as to why no one’s serving to him until one of his teammates or the coach on the sidelines notices he’s gone and is like JIBEOM YOU’RE FUCKING INVISIBLE
it’s fine the school only ever plays sports against other supernatural schools to avoid spreading the secret about superpowers to regular humans so people are used to this kind of shit but it’s embarrassing for jibeom skdjgshjg
he’ll try to put his ability to his advantage by turning invisible when he’s supposed to be running laps/doing drills and hoping daeyeol/coach/team manager don’t notice
at this point though they always do and then it’s another five laps/set of drills for him
big sad
anyway jibeom’s just living his invisible life you know being a little shit with everyone
mocking jaehyun’s voice and turning invisible when jaehyun tries to swipe at him
sneaking up behind his friends and scaring them even if it means he gets decked in the face (that’s one thing he won’t repeat with jangjun. like the dude doesn’t get scared easily but if he gets startled... the super strength is not a blessing for jibeom if he doesn’t move fast enough)
and then you transfer to the school
so you used to go to the school jaehyun’s parter goes to but your family moved or smth so now you’re here and jaehyun’s the only person you even vaguely know so you kinda stick around and become friends
and of course jaehyun introduces you to the rest of golcha
now jibeom is in the gym. invisible okay. waiting for jaehyun to show up so he can do his daily scare-jaehyun-because-i’m-a-little-shit routine
then you walk into the gym with jaehyun and the first thing you fucking say is there are thirteen people in this room (10 golcha members + you + team manager + coach) but i only see twelve so who’s the invisible one walking up right behind jaehyun
jaehyun fucking screams, a whole crate of volleyballs goes tumbling to the floor because gravity manipulation + jaehyun getting scared go hand in hand, everything is in chaos, youngtaek+joochan+jangjun are crying of laughter at jaehyun’s reaction, and jibeom is now standing visible behind jaehyun wide-eyed and surprised because how the fuck did you know
turns out your power is being able to sense/locate invisible things including invisible jibeoms so the rest of golcha + manager + coach think you’re a lifesaver because finally someone can find jibeom whenever he disappears
wrong
like yeah if jibeom has disappeared in the middle of practice you’ll yell and be like KIM JIBEOM GET YOUR ASS OUT AND PRACTICE YOU DUMB PIECE OF SHIT 
is it a surprise that you and daeyeol’s partner hit it off in less than five seconds
but if jibeom’s disappearing just to be a little shit you’ll purposely point people in the wrong direction like you’ll reassure youngtaek that oh no jibeom’s over there trying to scare seungmin and then jibeom appears right behind youngtaek and now both of you are cackling on the floor and youngtaek is about to set your backpacks on fire
you may have joined the school late but now you are an honorary 99 line member regardless of what year you were actually born in i don’t care they don’t care they’re just happy to have another ball of chaos to join their ranks
coach considers banning you from the gym but daeyeol reminds him that if he wants to ban you he’ll have to ban everyone else who comes in to visit and cause chaos aka his partner and you know daeyeol needs his hugs before practice so that isn’t going to happen
so you get to stay
most of the time it’s fine like you just sit in the bleachers and do homework while occasionally yelling at jibeom or other slackers, it’s only really during breaks that you act up
so anyway even though you’re an honorary 99 line member you spend most of your time with jibeom pulling dumb tricks or being unintentionally funny as fuck
therefore it is only logical that the rest of 99 line starts pushing you two together
fucking meddling brats
they do all the normal stupid shit like announcing outings to malls and ditching you two alone, deciding to go to the movies and ditching you two alone, you see the idea
look they’ve got pea brains they can’t come up with much
but get this: you and jibeom are already dating
yeah. you both started fucking dating a few months after meeting because you were both having a late night study session at your house and your tongues were loose with exhaustion and you may or may not have said some stuff you weren’t planning to
you almost kissed but then you were like it’s almost midnight and we haven’t brushed our teeth so maybe not tonight
it’s fine jibeom got a kiss the next day (the whole day he acted like he wasn’t waiting for it at all and you teased him for that before finally leaning in)
you haven’t kept your relationship secret out of shame or embarrassment or anything you both just kinda want to see how far 99 line + rest of golcha will go to get you two together. plus it’s nice when they buy you movie theater tickets when they just plan to ditch so you don’t have to pay for the date you end up having
it’s really fucking funny the more frustrated they get so you and jibeom don’t let up until daeyeol catches you two kissing just outside the locker room after you thought everyone left (NOTHING FUCKING NASTY OKAY THIS IS A SFW PLACE AND BEYOND THAT - NO ONE HERE IS GOING TO DO A N Y T H I NG OUTSIDE A L O C K E R R O O M)
shit goes down in the volleyball group chat that night but you and jibeom are just sitting together on his couch laughing at everything
99 line definitely holds a grudge
daeyeol won’t shut up about how he needs to clean his eyes out with bleach (as if he doesn’t want to kiss his partner every five seconds jfc)
coach just despairs over the chaos you two bring
but you and jibeom don’t care :) 
side note you know what’d be fun - if you don’t have the slightest fashion sense like jibeom and you two become known for wearing stripes + whatever your favorite design happens to be all the damn time
idk i just think it’d be funny to watch everyone trying to clown you but literally neither of you giving a shit
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donghyun - healing
so like casey said donghyun has healing abilities
and first and foremost he would like to say he’s tired of healing the injuries these idiots get every practice
i mean he’s not going to refuse treatment for like a jammed finger or a sprained ankle because that’s normal in volleyball or even burns from youngtaek/joochan because that’s just accidentally losing control which could happen to anyone but like??? falling over because you tried to prank jangjun and he basically backhanded you out of surprise??? that’s on you jibeom
kidding kidding donghyun will heal whatever’s been set on golcha but he WILL complain about it the whole time
that’s his right ok if he has to deal with this bunch of idiots (who also don’t fucking clean up after themselves) he’s going to complain about it with his whole chest
which is not a very broad chest but donghyun can talk a Long time so that more than makes up for it
gets teased by all the other team members but they’re really grateful for him not just because of his healing abilities + affinity for cleaning but also because he really does care for them
and as much as he complains he’ll do as much healing as needed, even if it drains his energy
but there are two major cons of his abilities
1. using his power too much (like all other powers) drains him of energy, so if he heals one too many injuries at a time then he’s in danger of also passing out
it isn’t usually a problem because it’s not like golcha gets injured every five seconds but some practices are more accident prone than others
once joochan fell and broke his leg and donghyun passed out trying to heal it and ended up in the hospital too. not fun
2. he can’t use his power on himself. like if sungyoon fractures his finger donghyun can fix that no big deal but he can’t do the same to himself healing just doesn’t work that way
it is for this reason that each sports team has a designated healer who isn’t a member of the team - of course if the team has a member who is a healer that’s useful, but they need to keep their energy up + they can’t heal themselves which is a problem
anyway the last healer for the volleyball team graduated last year so you come in to take their place
you’re super nice to golcha like you heal their injuries whenever anything happens no matter how stupid it was and they start making jokes about how you’re more helpful than donghyun haha because you don’t complain/nag about everything
and like donghyun knows they’re teasing but at the same time... it kinda hurts
what makes it worse is that you’re nothing but nice to him as well? like it’d be so much easier to dislike you if you were rude
so donghyun just kinda... avoids you and doesn’t say anything about it to anyone. does his absolute best to avoid getting injured so he doesn’t have to be around you any more than necessary
and several times you try to make conversation but he just brushes you away which leaves you confused and makes donghyun feel worse but he really doesn’t know what else to do
then one bad day he jumps up but misses the ball and falls on his leg hard. like really hard and there’s pain shooting up his side but he can’t feel a break or anything so he just gets up and tries to keep playing, like practice ends in five minutes anyway he may as well continue 
but you call out and say to stop practice, donghyun’s hurt 
except donghyun has had a really bad day and this is just the icing on the cake so he may or may not yell at you to go away, he’s fucking fine, and when you keep pressing he just grabs his stuff and leaves
the second he gets home he collapses on the floor and just... stays there because yeah he may not have broken anything but his leg hurts like a bitch and then he starts crying
skips school the next day because he feels like absolute shit (mentally and physically) but 99 line comes to visit and they’re like so. explain what happened yesterday at practice
and donghyun is ready to get defensive but they’re more confused than anything, his outburst wasn’t like him at all and why would he yell at you? you never did anything wrong
that’s when donghyun breaks down and tells them everything about how he’s felt over the past few months with you as the new healer
it ends in a big cuddle session between four idiots and apologies and donghyun promises to apologize to you tomorrow 
which he does. and surprisingly you’re really gracious about it, it makes donghyun feel worse yet again because you’re so genuine and nice and you even offer to heal his leg again because it looks like it still hurts
the teasing decreases and donghyun feels much better, he also stops brushing you off and actually begins hanging out with you a little outside of school/practice
and while working late on a group project for history (your other group mates ditched you two and donghyun is still seething over it) he realizes that this has evolved into a stupid crush
said crush is only compounded when you tell the teacher half of your group did absolutely nothing without donghyun having to say anything
but of course since donghyun 1. is an idiot and 2. pretended to hate you for several long months he doesn’t say anything
until you fucking ask him to the end of the year dance. you ask him to the dance and donghyun thinks joochan has given him electric shock because his brain definitely has to be malfunctioning
after five solid seconds of short-circuiting he nods like an idiot and haha you’re going to the dance together
golcha boys won’t shut the fuck up about how cute it is or whatever 
donghyun blushes red while you just smile serenely and promise not to heal their injuries for the next week so they better avoid getting hurt
yeah donghyun is definitely in love with you
you’re probably a more low-key couple, you enjoy study dates or quiet activities more than like. amusement parks or whatever kind of shit joochan/jangjun subject their partners to
you might kiss in public if the moment feels right but more often than not the only real pda you show is holding hands which makes golcha coo
donghyun would rather hug you sweetly in private without worrying about his teammates trying to ruin the moment anyway
you agree but then proceed to kiss his nose in front of everyone and whoops he’s a blushing mess and golcha (+ the coach) are screaming
sigh
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joochan - electricity
ah yes, the ultimate question: which hurts more, electric burns or fire burns?
join the golden child volleyball team and you can experience both firsthand!
jk (not really) but between joochan and youngtaek, golcha kinda has their pick of what kinds of burns to get (other than like. rope burn or burns from sliding on the ground idk)
like casey said it’s v lucky donghyun/his partner are around to heal them because really trying to slap a volleyball with a burnt hand is not fun
most of the time though joochan’s fine, he’s just full of energy and gets staticky when excited and like casey came up with the boys will sometimes dare each other to touch his hair when it’s sticking straight up and get shocked
or if you’re a bitch like jangjun you’ll take someone’s hand and purposely place it there so they get shocked
(jangjun’s also stupid though so he gets shocked by proxy if joochan’s staticky enough)
(i mean at least it makes everyone laugh???)
(yes this was inspired by that one video where he and bomin (i think) are playing with the lie detector (or was it the jangstar episode with daeyeol?? i can’t remember) and he put his hand over bomin’s/daeyeol’s and got wrecked too)
jesus christ this is supposed to be about joochan not jangjun let’s get back on track
anyway when joochan gets worked up either out of excitement or a more negative emotion the one thing that never fails to calm him down is music
he can play several instruments and sings very well 
so if it’s been a bad day or he’s feeling anxious, he’ll either go to the school music rooms of his own accord or daeyeol will notice and send him there to calm down a little before practice
which is where he finds you!
joochan’s playing the piano one day, singing n stuff and completely oblivious to you sleeping under the goddamn piano
how did you end up there? you were waiting for a friend/sibling (whichever one you choose) to finish up some after school activity so you could walk home together and you were sleepy and under the piano seemed like a decent place to nap so you set an alarm and passed out
look high school is draining so if you’re not making the best decisions by the end of the day who can blame you
and the piano is a real grand (let’s pretend the school has money shall we) so unless joochan was really looking (which he wasn’t), he wouldn’t have noticed you at the back
joochan’s there for a couple hours playing peacefully
AND THEN YOUR ALARM FUCKING RINGS 
joochan screams and falls off the stool
you shoot up and hit your head on the bottom of the piano
for a moment you two just groan in pain and then you look at each other and are like. what the fuck
and then it’s your turn to scream
anyway you both stop screaming eventually (miraculously no one comes in) and you try to explain to joochan as best you can and he just stays silent and you’re apologizing and then he busts out laughing
and somehow both of you are laughing through the pain and even though joochan wasn’t feeling too good earlier he feels even better laughing with you
when you eventually leave you have a new number in your phone and the promise of seeing joochan tomorrow :)
first thing joochan does when you go is text the 99 line group chat and be like guys someone fell asleep under the piano while i was playing and then woke up and my butt hurts from falling off the stool out of surprise but i think i’m in love
donghyun: stop being dramatic
jibeom: yeah what’ll happen when you accidentally shock them for the first time
joochan: you guys are horrible
but it turns out jibeom is... actually a little bit right
and it’s even worse. because your power is over water
water + electricity Do Not Mix
it isn’t usually too big of a problem? because it’s not like you conjure water out of anywhere or are always soaking wet bc you need water around to manipulate it, you can’t create it yourself
so like it’s kind of fine
except for some reason you react a little worse to joochan’s electric shocks (even mild ones) primarily due to your power which isn’t fun at all
it’s not just you, water manipulators are known to have more averse reactions to electric shocks than people with other powers
but it sucks because you really like joochan and he really likes you and both of you definitely want to ask each other out but how is this going to work if just being around joochan might be a hazard to you?
and for the first time joochan just... he really hates his power
like he’s given people some small burns before on accident but they weren’t big
with you though, even if it’s a small shock you react more badly than anyone expects and joochan really fucking hates it
after several volleyball practices where joochan is really out of it, daeyeol is about to ask what’s up but surprisingly jangjun steps up and says let me handle it
because after getting together with his partner, he thinks he has an idea of what joochan’s upset about
and when he asks joochan spills everything
it’s the first time joochan has really seen jangjun serious about anything other than volleyball or his partner
so jangjun tells joochan about what his partner told him, and really knocking someone unconscious once or twice isn’t as bad (though still bad) as getting electrocuted by a stray fucking spark
but similar advice applies. all powers have a destructive side and it shouldn’t stop joochan from living, he just has to learn to control himself as best as he can. there’s nothing more he can do but that
and this gives joochan the courage to ask if you want to talk about it
i’m going to say it ends well because i’m the author and i’m not going to give joochan a sad ending (he’s joochan what the fuck how could you do that to him) but you do acknowledge what could happen if either of you loses control
which just makes you two more determined to completely master your abilities so you won’t inadvertently hurt each other
really it’s sweet. joochan is still excitable but sparks fly off of him a lot less and the few that do you take care to avoid until his hair stops sticking up with static
and you take care to keep water away from him when he’s full of electricity
when joochan kisses you for the first time your lips tingle like his electricity is bleeding into you but it’s pleasant and sweet unlike his sparks and it just makes you want to kiss him all the time
(you tell that to him and he has to take like five minutes to figure out how to breathe again)
99 line won’t stop clowning you two for how you met and jibeom shows you the text about being in love that joochan sent 
legend says you can still hear jibeom’s electrocuted (not really he’s just being dramatic) screams in the gym late at night
yeah it’s cute you like bringing joochan roses bc they’re his favorite flower and joochan likes to bring you your favorite snacks and jangjun + his partner view you two like younger siblings in a way bc of the nature of your relationship
one big happy family until joochan’s hair sticks up and you have to yeet away
it’s fine though as long as you give him a kiss after he’s calmed down :)
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bomin - mind reading
this one turned out so long compared to the others why
for context this was 1.7k and the others were all comfortably between 1k or 1.2k i'm gonna scream
anyway. bomin. mind reader like casey said. he’s kind of got it bad
well all mind readers do until they learn to block off their ability until they actually want to use it
which bomin is learning but he’s young and he found out his powers a little late so he doesn’t have as much experience
meaning whenever he goes to school his head kind of feels like it’s going to explode :/
it’s okay in volleyball - actually if anything it’s kind of useful
because yeah bomin is focused on the game, but he keeps a bit of his mind open to his teammates’ thoughts so he knows where to move or where to keep open and all that
and if the other team is a bunch of assholes he doesn’t stop from reading their minds a little so golcha’s ready to take them on :) small advantages
so where volleyball is concerned it’s not that big of an issue, even when the gym is full of spectators bomin can usually focus even without latching onto an empty mind because there’s so much going on in the game and he has to concentrate on that
however in uninteresting classes or when he’s just having a not good day...
luckily it’s gotten better after a year or so, like bomin can mostly filter out the world if he focuses on just one person’s thoughts
which is usually youngtaek (as casey + irl bomin came up with) because quote unquote ‘there’s not much going on up there’
yes i know i said that already in youngtaek’s part but it’s still hilarious to me and now it’s bomin’s turn so i’m saying it again. sue me
except now youngtaek has a partner about whom he thinks all the fucking time if he isn’t focusing on music/volleyball/class (though the last one is a little less frequent) so concentrating on youngtaek’s mind is now not exactly an option for bomin
no one’s mind is really empty at this point or at least not empty enough for bomin to use as a sort of safe space so he just resigns himself to having to go through all of this until he finally gets the hang of blocking off his ability
so the school year ends and daeyeol/sungyoon graduate wonderful blah blah blah long story short bomin is in all new classes with many new people and it is... a bit much
but life goes on and there’s not much bomin can do about things except work on his own power so even though he’s kinda crumbling around the edges he just smiles and bears it
and then he gets paired with you for a school project. at first it’s not anything special, just a regular project right
but then you guys decide to meet up at a cafe to work on it and it’s more crowded than either of you expected and bomin hasn’t had the greatest day so he just... stops in the middle of the cafe with this weird expression on his face because he’s just really overwhelmed
he doesn’t expect you to grab his wrist and drag him out of the cafe and into a quieter area of the street
and he really doesn’t expect you to say hey. focus on my mind, okay? my mind. focus. 
but he manages to and there’s just blissful emptiness and bomin latches on like it’s his lifeline (in a way, it is) and after a few minutes he manages to get his head together
turns out you have a sibling at home who’s also a mind reader and when they were still learning to control their power you learned to empty your thoughts temporarily so they’d have a place to focus on if things got to be too much
you also have a golden tongue (that you always control carefully) but it helps calm bomin down after he says it’s fine if you use it
after that you tell him if he’s having a mini crisis he can always find you
and bomin just about cries because after daeyeol/sungyoon graduated he kind of felt like his support network at school was missing something bc as much as he clowns them (daeyeol especially) he really relied on both to talk to about his mind-reading issues
now that you’re offering to support him... it just means a lot
definitely doesn’t help that he’s had a bad day in general and his emotions are kinda fraught at this point
you don’t end up getting anything done that day, you just take bomin over to your house bc no one’s there and your family won’t mind even if he’s still there when they get home, so you just take the time to get to know each other a little when bomin feels good enough to interact
he apologizes a lot for nothing getting done but you just hit him and tell him to shut up, it’s not his fault and you still have a couple weeks to work on it so it’s fine
you guys work on the project and it goes well in the end but even after that you and bomin still stay in contact
since you have a sibling who went through the same stuff bomin did, you have some tips to share about blocking out other minds even if your power isn’t the same
plus your golden tongue is really useful in calming bomin during the moments he needs it. you always make sure to get his permission to use it before you do though
when bomin asks about it you say it’s because of consent and stuff and if you don’t get permission it feels more like manipulation than helping? 
to him the similarities between you and daeyeol on that end are uncanny (even if you’re less awkward sorry not sorry daeyeol) and bomin just admires you all the more for it
anyway life’s going well, you and bomin are really good friends now but maybe like halfway through the year or something bomin senses that you’re becoming a little more closed off?
like he does his best not to read your mind but sometimes he gets accidental glimpses and though they’re usually pretty free (as in you don’t care what you’re thinking about around him) he now gets less of these glimpses and when he does, your mind seems emptier than usual
and he doesn’t want to bring it up? because that equals admitting he reads your mind sometimes no matter how accidental it is and with your emphasis on consent with your power bomin isn’t sure how well you’d take it
but then you avoid him for like two weeks so bomin breaks down about it to daeyeol over the phone and yeah it’s time for you two to talk
it takes some awkward silence and prodding and really big effort on bomin’s part to not willingly see what you’re thinking but the gist of it is
you have a fat crush on bomin and you’ve been avoiding him because you don’t want him to accidentally see any of it
bomin is like... y/n what the heck i have a crush on you too why didn’t you say anything :(
anyway it’s time for big reveals i guess so bomin admits he accidentally sees into your mind every so often and he feels really bad about it but you’re super understanding bc of your sibling of course
and bomin feels kind of stupid for worrying so much he should’ve thought of that but oh no now you’re hugging him and saying sorry into his shirt so pretty much all thoughts fly out of his mind because maybe this is a little like heaven to bomin
dating you is so refreshing. he’s so happy to have someone around who completely understands like yeah there are other mind readers in the school but it’s not as common a power as others and they’ve been masters at blocking out the world for a long while that they’ve kinda forgotten about how it feels to a beginner
but you’re so sweet and understanding and bomin feels even better when he meets your sibling who teases you two of course but also serves as another pillar of support for him
it’s not just one-sided either. like even though bomin tries not read your mind without permission, he’s still good at picking up on your moods even if you’re not explicit which makes it so much easier to trust and confide in him
and even if you’re not in the mood to talk he gets that too - he won’t force you to do anything
on the occasions when even you can’t pick through your own thoughts you let bomin take a peek in and even if he can’t help in the moment it’s enough that someone else knows and understands :)
you’re so fucking cute together. like the rest of golcha coos over you. even donghyun who’s the most low-key with his partner jfc
daeyeol and sungyoon come back from university to visit and bomin’s like. we’ve got to hide
you: why
bomin: just trust me
long story short you do not (you: they’re your former teammates and friends! how bad can it be?) and uh by the end of the day maybe you’ve had enough teasing about you/bomin for the rest of your life
but when he’s not teasing you do hit it off with daeyeol bc of the same powers thing and secretly bomin’s really happy that two of the people he treasures the most get along so well
yeah you and bomin are just super cute and rely on each other a lot in a healthy way and you’re always there for each other
everyone wishes they had as nice a relationship as you two :)
you: you shouldn’t. bomin teases me every five fucking seconds about something i did like three months ago
bomin: and yet you love me :)
you: debatable
bomin :|
(it’s ok you kiss him later and he gets smiley again which you delight in seeing even if he does go back to teasing you five seconds later)
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If you enjoyed, please don’t forget to reblog and leave a comment to tell me what you thought! Thank you for reading and have a lovely day <3
(1 reblog = 1 prayer for the team coach he needs some support dealing with all these brats)
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yabai-korra · 3 years ago
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Why I think Gwyn is NOT Tamlin's daughter
+ TOG/ACOTAR GENTICS AT THE END
I've seen so many interesting theories in the ACOTAR fandom in regards to the new book, and a great chunk of these was about Gwyn being Tamlin/Lucien's daughter, and so I thought here's my take on it.
When I first read Gwyn saying "My sister and I were convinced at the Great Rite 28 years ago." I immediately thought "OH DAMN SHE MUST BE TAMLIN'S OR LUCIEN'S DAUGHTER!" but as I continued reading the book I put my Maas hat on and was like... "Hmm... yeah I don't think that's happening."
I have read, or rather, savored, all of Throne of Glass and ACOTAR books, so I'm an experienced SJM reader. Lemme tell you something about her writing, it's full, and I mean full, of foreshadowing. She creates ridiculously complicated plots and connections, even mixing in between the serials, and most of these you pick up on when you reread.
Did you know that Feyre was in fact mentioned going to TOG world in Heir of Fire? Did you know that Aelin was in A Court Of Silver Flames? Did you know that Dorian's first appearance in Throne of Glass has a Manorian reference? Did you know Vassien as a ship was a subject of a fae story in Heir of Fire? Did you know Rowaelin was foreshadowed in Throne of Glass? Did you know that Kaltain gave us a Manorian hint in Throne of Glass?
And these are just the ones I randomly thought of, there are so so much more!
Now, as a SJM reader, when I started thinking about "My sister and I were conceived on the Great Rite 28 years ago." I thought... that is too easy, too convenient, too obvious.
To me, that sentence is the equivalent of "Stay with the High Lord."
When I, and 99% of other readers first read it, the thought process was like this: It's obviously Tamlin! The Suriel just didn't refer to him by his name.
Same thing with the Great Rite, even a casual reader would immediately connect it to Tamlin.
Which High Lord did we see do Great Rite? Tamlin.
When the Great Rite was mentioned again, who was it mentioned with? Tamlin.
Who was the only High Lord not UTM 28 years ago? Tamlin.
This is something most of the fandom picked on, because it's so easy and so obvious, and I think SJM did it on purpose to bait us, but left clues (will get there soon) that it is actually not Tamlin, like she did in the first book.
Of course everyone will associate Tamlin with the Great Rite, especially one that happened while all the other High Lords were UTM, but how many readers will remember that:
It's not only the High Lord that participates, but his whole court
High Lord can refuse to participate like Tamlin did the last time
Gwyn said her mother did it with a stranger, and yeah they were under the masks at the time, but who doesn't know how the High Lord looks like? (granted her mom might have lied about it but I don't think it's the case considering it was specifically said it was a stranger when it wasn't necessary)
This is exactly like "Stay with the High Lord" because everyone immediately went with Tamlin because it was the logical thing to do, didn't even cross their minds that High Lord could be some other High Lord, I think Sarah is pulling the same trick twice.
I do think however that she left us a major clue on why it is not Tamlin, and that is Catrin, Gwyn's twin sister. She was mentioned a few times throughout the book as Gwyn's motivation and drive to move on and work hard, which is totally understandable, but mentioning her appearance... unnecessary. And SJM never writes anything unnecessary.
Gwyn has coppery-brown hair and teal eyes, and if she was the only child it could easily be assumed that she got it from her mother and that her father might look completely different. However, Catrin had black hair and black eyes, obviously like their mother who was a half nymph, which makes it a pretty reasonable assumption that Gwyn at least partly looks like her father.
Technically, it is possible that out of twins neither gets anything from the father and took it from grandparents instead, but it is extremely rare and not something an author would do. Imagine, you are a writer and you want to hint that this guy is the father of these twins, and you give neither twin any of his appearance traits. In fact, you go out of your way to point out that neither resembles him in the slightest.
Neither of them even has a similar trait, it wouldn't be stretching at all if Gwyn had reddish-blond or strawberry blond hair instead, or having a greenish glow in her eyes or amber specks in the center like Tamlin does. Or leaving Catrin's appearance a mystery. There was no reason to mention the way she looks whatsoever, yet SJM purposely pointed out that she looks completely different from Tamlin and Gwyn, making it obvious Gwyn gets the looks from the father while Catrin did from the mother.
See what I'm getting at here? She's baiting us while subtly planting hints that it's not the obvious option.
We have already seen the way she handles genetics (lil bonus):
Lucien has Helion's dark skin, and Loa's hair and eyes.
Nyx has Rhysand's skin and hair, and Feyre's eyes.
In TOG, when Rowan has a dream about his future children, three kids are a combination of his and Aelin's traits, while the youngest has his hair but her grandfather's eyes, eyes only, because kid inheriting complete looks from a grandparent is very very unlikely, and makes no sense from author's perspective.
Also, while everyone is focused on LUCIEN being Helion's son, nobody noticed that ERIS probably is as well! Not only were Loa and Helion involved when Eris was conceived, but Eris and Helion are also the ONLY TWO characters in the whole ACOTAR universe to have amber eyes, there is no way that's a coincidence. She literally described Beron's brown eyes, Loa's russet eyes, Helion's amber eyes and Eris's amber eyes all the in the chapter and nobody noticed because we didn't know of Loa and Helion yet, then all the focuses went to Lucien.
She wrote children looking exactly like one parent, a mix of parents, looking mostly like one parent, and having ONE trait from a grandparent which was literally only done not to have two kids that look the same way, but both twins having 0 resemblances to one parent? No way.
So, Lucien's daughter? Possibly. (I personally don't think so bc Lucien has way too much drama already lol but possible)
Tamlin's daughter? Nope.
My guess though? It's neither, I personally think Gwyn has a way more interesting story to explore (like being a Lighsinger) than who her father is.
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realcube · 4 years ago
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karasuno boys spending christmas with you 🎄
;tw// christmas (?), santa ig, extreme fluff, shoplifting, underage drinking, violence, ennoshita, kinoshita and narita exclusion 😞
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(a/n): ik the gif isn’t hq but look how cute it is (○` 3′○). also i’m aware that i wrote a rather western-washed version of Christmas (despite the characters in question not being western) but as someone of an asian ethnicity, imo western traditions surrounding Christmas are a lot more..festive (?) which i hope that isn’t offensive considering that Christmas was popularised by the west. so, in short, sorry the traditions aren’t those that are celebrated in japan (or asia) but i just found it i had a lot more inspiration to write it this way. :) perhaps i’ll make a part 2 with aoba johsai or nekoma celebrating Christmas with japanese traditions
Shōyō Hinata
you spend christmas at his house bc he wants to be with his sister on the day
and any sibling that you live with, he insists that they stay over too 
but if you don’t have any younger siblings then y’all just spend the whole day spoiling natsu
hinata absolutely adores how well you get on with his sister, it just makes him so happy seeing his two favourite people having fun together 
although, it did make him a bitter when he asked natsu if she likes the doll he bought her and she said,
“Yeah, thank you. But look at the Furby (L/N) got me! It’s pink and so fluffy, feel it! And it talks, it’s eyes move and-” Then she continues to rave on about how amazing your gift was.
honestly, y’all spend the whole day pampering natsu; making sure she has the best christmas possible
y’all made gingerbread cookies with her, helped her built a snowman (or rather, a snowwoman because she insisted that it was a lady), snowangels, opening presents, christmas crackers, watching movies - the whole shabang.
probably the only time in the day were she was sad was at 10PM when hinata insisted that she goes to bed
natsu looked at you to back her up in her argument that she should be allowed to stay up late on christmas but you kinda just stood there like 🧍‍♀️/🧍‍♂️
not wanting to get involved in their family drama (unproblematic liege 😍😩)
eventually though, natsu did go to bed and as soon as she was sound asleep, you and hinata spent the night cuddling while watching more christmas movies as you were both too tired to do anything else
you ended up falling asleep in his arms and it was a christmas miracle that his arm didn’t get pins and needles like it usually did while cuddling for a long period of time
Tobio Kageyama 
i’m a firm believer that he doesn’t celebrate christmas
not that he doesn’t like the concept, it’s just doesn’t understand the hype
plus - other than going to nationals - there isn’t much he wants and from what he knows, santa can’t make that happen
but as soon as you come over to his house on christmas day with a tub filled with cookies shaped and decorated like volleyballs, suddenly christmas is his favourite holiday
he invites you inside to eat the cookies with him and you notice that he’s watching a volleyball match on the TV
you giggle at how passionate he is about about the sport and offer to cast a Christmas movie from your phone onto the TV
he says yes since this is probably the 10th time he’s rewatched the same match 
you scroll through the list of christmas movies available on Netflix, “Wanna watch Arthur Christmas?”
“No.”
“How about the Grinch?”
“Eh, no.”
“Ooh! What about the Nativity? I love that movie-”
“No thanks.”
So you ended up watching Frozen and Frozen 2 (on a different streaming site) because Kageyama didn’t like any of the Christmas movies available on Netflix
You figured that Frozen kinda counted as a Christmas movie because..there was snow :) 
anyway, you already knew Kageyama tolerated Disney Movies so Frozen was your best bet
and as it turns out, he was oddly engaged by the movie which gave you an opening to slip into his arms, stifling an evil snicker the whole time
as we all know, when Kageyama is into something he is into it.
so whenever the climax of the movie comes up (or any part with high suspense) you feel him squeeze you slightly and tense up 
AND IT IS THE MOST ADORABLE THING PERIODT 🥺😩
so yeah your christmas with him is not overly Praise The Lord but it very fun and cute since it mostly consists of Disney movies
(also Barbie: A Christmas Carol because it gave you both overwhelming nostalgia since he has a big sister who i now headcanon to be a barbie movie addict ✋)
Kei Tsukishima 
the biggest grinch™
mostly bc every year he drops hints to both his mum and brother that he wants new headphones but every year he still gets a snowglobe from his mum and something dinosaur related from his brother
even though his brother is aware that he is ‘too old for that shit’ now 
but Akiteru just loves seeing his brother’s pissed off face whenever he opens his gift (which is a similar size to a headphones box) to find something like a Jurassic Park Lego set
anyway, backstory over - in short, Tsukishima very much dislikes Christmas
So when you appear at his door with a gift, he slams the door closed
“Tsukishima!” You roar as that was quite rude - even for Tsukishima - since it was snowing and you were clearly freezing, “Let me in! I’m freezing my tits off out here!”
Eventually, he did let you in and gave you a hot chocolate as an apology but as soon as you tried to hand him the give, he refused to take it
“No.”
“Why not?” You whined, clearly upset that he wouldn’t take the gift you went through so much effort to get your hands on.
“Because I didn’t get you anything.”
You rolled your eyes, “You got me this hot chocolate - now, take it. It’s seriously not much.”
Upon eyeing the wrapped box in your hand, he realised it was about 9x9″ - the same size as the tub you usually deliver food in, meaning that the gift was probably some sweet treats
“Alright.” He sighed, accepting he gift as he figured that he could easily pay you back by making Christmas cookies with you or something
He hummed, delicately unwrapping the gift and his heart skipped a beat as he noticed the present inside was in a black box rather than a clear tub which you normally gave homemade treats in
nevertheless, he persevered in unwrapping the box 
when he finally finished, his heart dropped yet he couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed with joy
“Wireless headphones.” He muttered to himself, doing everything in his power to resist the smile tugging on the corner of his lips but it was challenging, to say the least
“Yeah!” You chirped, “Don’t worry about the price though, I got them on a Black Friday sale.” You lied, aware that it was usually considered rude to talk about the price of a gift you’ve given but knowing if you didn’t say anything, Tsukishima would assume you paid full price (which you did smh) and immediately empty his bank account in order to pay you back
You could almost envision the situation already; “Would you like it in cash or cheque?”
“Neither, Kei!” 
“You seriously got me branded headphones?” Non-imaginary Tsukishima asked, unable to pry his eyes off the long-awaited gift in his hands
“Y-Yeah.” You stuttered at his unusually sinister voice. “I wanted to buy you noise-cancelling headphones and Google said these were the best ones available that weren’t selling for millions of y--”
“I love you.”
You did a double-take, “Huh?”
“I love you.”
You did a..triple-take.. “I-I don’t think I heard you correctly.”
“I’m not saying it again, dumbass.”
now, tsukishima wasn’t a very affectionate person but considering you paid full price for headphones (yes, he knows. you’re not a very good liar 😐) for him, the least you deserved was forehead kisses 
plus, he was determined to make you as happy as you made him that day
so can get all the kisses you want, all the hugs, all the cuddles, all the smiles, all the cookies-  everything!
but that’s not to say that he’s not going to get you anything in return as subtly through the day he was gathering info on what to get you 
by the end of it, he had a whole list but unfortunately - after looking at his bank account - he realised that the only thing he could afford was an easy-bake oven (┬┬﹏┬┬)
Tadashi Yamaguchi
y’all spent Christmas at your house because Yamaguchi was absolutely entranced by your massive Christmas tree
he also slept over because you both wanted experience the Christmas morning buzz together 
also because your parents were working on Christmas day and Yamaguchi didn’t want you to be alone 🥺
(he didn’t tell you that though as he didn’t want you to think that he felt bad for you or anything)
after you both completed you morning routines, you raced downstairs (quite literally raced; you won.) to open the presents
the milk and cookies you both hand left out for ‘Santa’ was gone because your parents chugged the milk and scarfed the cookies before they left for work
“Open the presents I got you first!” You urged Yamaguchi, pointing to the two presents wrapped in Sanrio wrapping paper
 Yamaguchi did so; sitting on the floor cross-legged to open the larger, box-shaped gift first
“Candy!” He chirped with a smile, gently shifting through the selection of sweets you got him, his grin stretching as he did so and once he was finished, it was beaming ear-to-ear. “You know me so well, thank you so much, (L/N).” 
You giggled, a light blush crossing your features at the praise - then motioning to the second, smaller, thinner gift.
Yamaguchi accidently tore the wrapping paper off to reveal basic, charcoal face masks.
You quickly interjected to explain, “You said that you were embarrassed about how the animal-themed face masks your mum bought you were too childish and that they just made your skin more oily so bought you those; less embarrassing and supposedly good for oily skin.”
Yamaguchi’s heart fluttered upon hearing how much attention you paid during his random rants, “Thank you, babe!” He enthused, hugging the mask to his chest.
After that, you opened the gift he bought you and were over the moon when you realised that it was a box full of adorable stationary 
“I noticed how you kept complaining about your pens running out of ink during class and..yeah..I hope you like it..”
You obviously loved it and expressed that by giving him a big bear hug and many kisses (づ ̄ 3 ̄)づ (*≧︶≦))
By then, it was around Midday so you had time to play in the snow for a bit before Yamaguchi had to go home to spend the rest of Christmas with his family
but of course he came back on Boxing Day to binge watch movies and cuddle with you 🥰
Daichi Sawamura
okay; I am going to say this and you aren’t going to argue with me bc I know that I’m right:
if you have any younger siblings or cousins staying in your house for Christmas (and I mean younger like 5 or less) and the kid isn’t a little shit
daichi (with your assistance) will dress up as Santa and you will dress up as an elf to surprise the child with a visit 
daichi would be like ‘ho ho ho!’ and you’d be like ‘shut up, santa, you fatass.’ 
and the kid would be like ✪ ω ✪
y’all would take pictures and shit before santa dips 🚶‍♂️🛷
after that, you both would head back to his place to celebrate a kid-free christmas 
you don’t open gifts because you both mutually agreed not to get anything for each other this year since you had ‘grown out of presents’ (tsk).
but you did get a RingFit Adventure from one for your relatives for Christmas so you and Daichi spend an hour or two playing that 
it’s surprisingly taxing though so you’re both puffed afterwards
so you decided to make spaghetti for yourself and Daichi and a Christmas miracle occurred..he got off of his ass to help you cook 🤩
usually he’d hide his fear off fucking up under toxic masculinity but today he actually let you teach him how to make food and he was a natural chef tbh
however, his habit of grabbing your ass or holding your lower back wasn’t especially helpful while he had tomato sauce all over his hands
you changed into a different pair of bottoms as the spaghetti cooled down
then, a second Christmas miracle occurred
Daichi gave you both permission to eat in the living room, on the couch, so y’all could watch a movie or something as you ate
every other day of the year, daichi would have to be killed before he let anybody eat in the living room - forget on his new couch 
but today was a special so he let it slide
originally, the plan was to watch a Christmas movie but then you noticed that a new episode of y’alls favourite show was out - House Hunters - so you just watched that instead 
hey, it made you both happy so why not?
especially with daichi’s running commentary which you outwardly expressed annoyance to but internally loved
“Andromeda will never be Suzanne, rest easy.”
“That house is so ugly, next.”
“Why’s their budget so low? May as well just buy a caravan.”
“They are so fucking picky.”
“Her face annoys me.”
IT LIKE HIS ALTER-EGO IT’S AMAZING
anyway, merry christmas to the daichi stans and that is from me, not daichi - he actually forgot it was Christmas at noon
Kōshi Sugawara
SUGA IS DOMESTIC LIKE DAICHI BUT MAKE IT ❄ FESTIVE❄
y’all bake christmas cookies together, exchanges small gifts, bake carrot cake, watch The Polar Express, bake pudding, kiss under the mistletoe, bake-- yeah, there was a lot of baking
get ready to work out twice as much and start dieting if you don’t want to develop an illness due to the amount of sugar you consumed
to be honest, Suga was kinda lost for things to do on the actual day of Christmas bc y’all were so hyped preparing for it so he had no idea how to top that
I mean, you both went on romantic, late night car drives to buy a tree
cute couple trips to the store to purchase decorations 
planning out and putting the decorations around the house (and with both of your keen eyes for design, the house ends up looking gorgeous ofc)
you ornamented the tree in his living room but it was so tall that he couldn’t reach the very tip to put the final decoration on top
so you hopped onto his shoulders and stuck the star on top with a smile
but he wasn’t done with you yet, he rushed around the house with you on his shoulders while you clung onto his hair as if your life depended on it 
he did most of the festivities with you before Christmas but he saved one special one for the day
“(Y/N), let’s bake something.” 
You sighed, shooting him a weary smile, “Suga, we’ve been baking all day.”
“Just one last thing! It’s not even baking actually, more like assembling.”
You quirked an eyebrow at his statement, “Hm? What is it?”
“Let’s make our dream houses with gingerbread!”
Of course you agreed. Not just because he is the cutest thing you’ve ever laid your eyes on but also since it sounded rather fun
“What are those?” You pointed to the weird rectangular designs on the roof of his house
“Solar panels.” He hummed, elegantly icing the sides of his house, “I want my future house run on that energy.”
“Anyway, what’ve you got on your house?” Finishing off the final swirl on his door, he turned to look at your gingerbread home and deadpanned 
A sheepish grin formed on your lips as you noticed his blank expression towards your ‘dream home’ which has walls garnished with golden, edible glitter and sugar paper sanrio characters on the roof along with many other extremely unconventional things 
“Hey,” you shrugged, “Let me have my dreams.”
“Of course,” Suga agreed, his usual sweet smile returning, “Although, in an ideal world, I thought we’d end up living together and starting a family. However, I don’t think we can do that if you planning on putting a horse head on our front door.”
“IT WAS JUST LYING THERE, KŌSHI! IF ANYTHING IT’S YOUR FAULT FOR GIVING ME ACCESS TO A MARZIPAN HORSE!”
“I DIDN’T THINK THAT YOU’D DECAPITATE IT, (Y/N)! I THOUGHT YOU’D USE IT FOR A STABLE OR FARM OR SOMETHING!”
“YOU SHOULD KNOW ME BETTER THAN THAT!”
Asahi Azumane 
you both spent christmas day in your respective households, promising each other that you’d spend boxing day together 
until around 7PM when you had to come over to his house bc he called you, extremely puzzled at the fact that random mutuals from school (and the whole volleyball team) were on his instagram page, facebook, snapchat and any/every other social media platform wishing him a happy birthday
“I don’t get it.” He spoke through the phone, confusion and anxiety apparent in his voice, “My birthday isn’t for another six days. Why do they think it is today? Is this a joke?” 
“Uh, can I come over? I’d love to see you.” 
“Um, sure.” He replied, even more confused that you didn’t answer his question and instead asking one yourself
you spent the rest of the day with him, trying your very best to distract him from social media by doing various activities 
you both baked, watched movies, played board games (he’s a beast at battleships) then you moved on to other games like charades - basically every bs excuse you could come up with to get him to stay away from his phone
but that’s not to say you didn’t enjoy every second of it bc you did
he is so cute like whenever you are doing an action which he can’t interpret, his automatic guess is ‘are my beautiful gf (Y/N) (L/N) who i love very much? (= ❛ ᴗ ❛=)’
PRECIOUS 💓 
and then you are just like, ‘yes, i am, baby. but i am also optimum prime. your turn.’
anyway, by the end of the day there was no way you were able to prevent him from finding out about the joke now
so you just decided to tell him - figuring that it’d be better for him to hear it from you rather than someone else
“See.. y’know how jesus was allegedly born on christmas day? well, the joke is that..you kinda look like what people assume jesus would’ve looked like..”
Asahi had to do a double-take at what you just said, “Th-they..think I look like jesus?”
“yeah.”
Ryūnosuke Tanaka
you’re both broke af so you spend Christmas day pretending you are a rich couple
you slept over at his house too so you could start early in the morning and by that I mean 10:30AM
firstly, you and tanaka flick through an Argos catalogue (which you found on the ground, so there were a few mud stains on it 😶) to select the gift(s) you were going to buy for your ‘children’
but really it was just you and him going through it and circling all the toys y’all wanted as kids but couldn’t afford/didn’t get
“I super badly wanted one of those kiddie monster trucks that you could control with a remote as a child so my son is going to need one of those.” Tanaka said, circling the monster truck with a marker
“Yes, of course. And I asked for Monster High dolls every year as a kid but my parents said they were everything god hates so let’s buy that because we stan satan in this house, apparently .”
“Of course, of course.” He said in his best ‘rich person’ voice which was actually just an english accent
After resenting your parents for around an hour, you both moved onto the next activity of your rich person Christmas which included reading your horoscope in an english accent
that only lasted a few minutes though because both of you couldn’t be bothered to read
you also planned to look at the stock market (just like all rich people do on christmas day, obvs) but it was so boring
you took a glance then just went ‘okay, bye.’
next, you had caviar - just like rich people eat for every meal of the day, i think.
except it was actually black pop rocks  
“ah, yes. scrumptious.” “the flavour is immaculate.” 
then, as dawn drew close, you and tanaka preformed your final rich person activity 
no, it wasn’t being rude to minimum wage workers
no, it wasn’t being ungrateful
no, it wasn’t exploiting the working class under capitalism
no, it wasn’t being generally stuck-up and cocky
instead, it was going to the grocery shop and buying everything rather than shoplifting :)
“what should we get, babe?” you asked tanaka, in awe at how many different brands of toilet paper were on the shelves. “Have you ever noticed how spoiled we are for choice when it comes to toilet paper?”
“uh, no.” he replied in reference to the toilet paper question, “Hm, how about some gingerbread men or something?”
his suggestion was just met by a blank stare and silence
“JUST KIDDING! WE’RE TOTALLY BUYING BOOZE!”
“Hell yeah!” 
luckily, because tanaka looked a lot older than 17 and also since the cashier was too tired to check his ID, you both managed to buy the drinks without getting caught
“Merry Christmas, Ryū.” You hummed, fidgeting with his hand which was interlocked with yours as you walked through a rather prestigious neighbourhood and admired all the extravagant christmas lights
“Merry Christmas, (Y/N). Love you.”
Yū Nishinoya 
you and noya spent the whole day in his backyard and since it was a white christmas, you were able to spend the 90% playing in the snow
at first, you both went outside with the intention of making snowangels and taking cute couple photos in the snow 
but the weather was just so inviting that you had to stay for a little longer even when you did finish taking pictures; so you made the ‘ultimate’ snowman  
by that, it was just the biggest snowman y’all could make without it falling apart with stones for eyes, spiking out twigs for hair and an empty Monster Energy can for a nose 
once you had completed the snowman and basked in it’s glory for a moment, you went to head inside - but then you felt something hit your back
you turned around to see noya snickering, a mischievous grin on his face which you couldn’t stand
so what started out as him playfully throwing a snowball at your back, eventually turned into a full-on snowball battle to the death
there were snow forts, piles of snow ammunition, mini snow-warriors guarding the edges of your fort, a snow-princess which you were trying to steal from each other’s fort to win (basically like capture the flag but colder..) and a few brunch bars in the middle of the battle field for snack breaks 
it was all going smoothly until Noya ran up to your base, obviously with the intention to steal your princess 
“stay away from her, you fiend!” You yelled, jumping into an offensive stance - your neighbours must hate you bc of all the noise you and Noya made.
Noya screaming his battle cry as he rushed towards your fort, batista bombing you to the ground before you had a chance to attack him with a snowball
now that you were out of the equation, he scurried over to your princess which was perches on a little snow podium you made for her
he grabbed it, lifting it above his head like a trophy and letting out a loud victory cry “I win!”
he then turned to you and laughed upon noticing that you had your face buried into the snow in shame, “You have been defeated, (L/N)! And the great Rolling Thunder prospers!” 
“That’s a stupid nickname.” You groaned, outstretching your arms to allow him to pick you up, “Now take me inside, I’m tired.”
“Alright, babe.” He spoke softly, seemingly coming down from his adrenaline high. 
He strolled towards you, scooping you up into his arms - off the snow - and carrying you inside
unbeknownst to him, you had fallen asleep as he held you and once he put you down on the couch and noticed- i- my man almost died of happiness
“Oh my god, (Y/N)! You’re so fucking cute! (❤´艸`❤)” he hollered, peppering your face in kisses
“Shhh..” you hushed Noya, sticking your bottom lip out to form a pout 
Noya nodded understandingly before hopping onto the couch beside you and snuggling up 
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