#well just cried for an hour about how much it sucks to be sick/feel so bad over christmas

[whentherewerebicycles]

[gyuswhore]

Statistically Speaking...

part of the svt TA collab

kim mingyu x reader

word count: 21k

contains: TA! mingyu, fluff, smut [minors DNI], angst, statistics, ur honour they're stupid for one another, descriptions of stress exhaustion and burnout, academic burden, disagreements, mingyu is smart as hell, shitting on bad professors, smut but its a surprise [gyu gets his soul sucked while he's reciting statistical models I mean what]

words of conviction from @highvern: Kim Mingyu, total asshole , 1-800-HOT N DUMB , THEYRE IN LOVE MINGYU SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU LOSER , sick fucking freak , i know when you wrote this you put your head in your hands , OHHHM YW GOD

synopsis: In all your years of academic endurance, you’ve never failed. A 100% success rate, despite you cutting it close at times. However, the line graph that is your life starts tanking somewhere around the time you began taking this hellsent Statistics in Psychological Research class. With a professor that wouldn’t know his ass from his head, and an overworked, overenthusiastic, and overcaptivating TA, it couldn't possibly get any worse than this. However, statistically speaking,…it could.

[a/n]: this fic is set in the same universe as @highvern's wonu fic endpoint [read here!!!], some insight for wonu's pov is included here as is some of Mingyu's pov in cam's fic if you'd like to see more about what happens in the gaps!!

I want to start by thanking everyone who chose to be part of this collab fic and for being the reason cam and I were able to open up @camandemstudios in the first place. everyone's been so kind and cooperative and I still cant believe we managed to convince such amazing writers to join us on this collab journey 🥹 I love u guys

Thanking my wife camothy @highvern for brainstorming with me since day one and for betaing for me. @seokgyuu and @miabebe for also looking over the doc and reassuring me. I'm for sure forgetting someone and I'm really sorry about that, know that I appreciate you just as much 🤍

on that note, I hope you guys enjoy this fic, im HELLA nervous for some reason so plsplspls remember to reblog and send me feedback on how you liked it, I will love you forever <333

masterlist

Monday

A normal person would’ve cried. Perhaps even sued the entire institution for all it was worth. Burn down the world, if it came to it. 

But as you stare at the tiny 37/100 on your screen, you feel…nothing. 

You could’ve said you saw it coming, which you did, but something about blaming someone else for an exam you took was beginning to feel a little manipulative. 

Clicking off the student portal, you huff loudly, five in the morning too early for you to begin breaking down over a grade that was completely unreflective of what you were taught. 

Or maybe it was, because as you count one, two, three hours till your dreaded Statistics in Psychological Research class, you can only hope you’ll hold back from spitting in your professor’s coffee. But alas, you can only shut your laptop harder than necessary for what it costs and push the grade out of your mind.

You were tired enough to sleep for a couple more hours, and you take it as an opportunity to spite the entire course by giving just as many fucks as your professor did.  

Which was little to none. 

That was a lie—on your part anyway. Because you continue to show up, and probably will until you can put this course and all of its trauma behind you. Even now as you feel the inclining beat of your pulse sitting in the white lecture hall, you know this is all but you versus the universe. 

Dr. Cho might as well have wheeled himself into the room on a skateboard with the way he struts into the room. 

He’s wearing a denim jacket with the sleeves cut off and jeans of a matching finish that do not fit him properly. There’s pins in every last colour on this earth, littering the front of his jacket with sayings that toe the silver controversial lining. There was one that said Vote for John F. Kennedy, another plain black one with I Eat Kids, and of course, the blaring Cunt written in cursive, pink sparkly letters. 

This man that’s pushing into his 60s stands before his slightly wilted class in his crocs, hands on his hips as he heaves a long breath. 

“I have to say, not the turn out I was expecting on that last report.”

He’s talking about the report you coincidentally failed, the same one you were pushed into with little to no direction and a deadline tighter than any you’ve had to bully yourself through. 

“All I can say is to read through the feedback I’ve given and try a little harder next time.” His voice is somewhere bordering comical exasperation. Feedback that consisted of sparing ‘?’’s and ‘no’’s with zero further explanation. He could say more, but you’ve learned that he simply chooses to not. 

Besides the man that drones in the front of the room, there’s another person in the other corner of the lecture hall. He’s hunched over a giant pile of papers, sifting through each and every one with a pen in his other hand. 

The TA doing a mundane task is somehow more interesting than whatever seminars of disappointment your professor was giving. He’s crossing something out on every single leaf of paper that he flicks through, and you vaguely wonder if those were today’s worksheets. 

“...and post hoc tests last week, we can start on Bayesian today. Mingyu will be handing out the tutorial papers.”

The poor TA looks like he thought he’d have more time, snapping his head up to look at the professor with an expression of pure incredulousness. He staggers for a moment before he’s flicking past the pages even faster somehow, striking out what seems like the same instruction in the giant pile of papers meant for an entire lecture hall. There’s a rustle as about a hundred laptops are being pulled out and booted up, waiting for the worksheets to land on the desks. 

You hear the familiar warble of papers being passed out and you watch as the TA pulls chunks of sheets out of the giant stack in his arms to slam down onto the front tables. 

“Pass it down, please… pass it down, please…”

There’s a voice that calls from one of the front seats, “What formula is the sheet talking about?”

Mingyu looks startled as he snaps back to look at the blaring empty whiteboard. In the midst of passing papers, you watch him sprint to the rolling whiteboards, pulling one of the giant flats of white over to the other side, the mechanism slamming into place with a louder than comfortable slam. It reveals another whiteboard underneath with the detestably long formula already written (and the one you’d have to figure out yourself).

 The professor remains with his chin in his hands behind his laptop, unphased. 

By the time you’ve registered the foreign symbols on the board, one of the tutorial papers has made it into your hands.

Sure enough, there’s a quick line across one of the steps with a thick black marker. 

Blinking hard, you attempt to pull yourself into the zone, staring at the white sheet with words that are barely stringing themselves together. Nothing out of the ordinary, especially as you lift your head to find hunched shoulders and furrowed brows all around. 

There’s one person that’s zipping back and forth, just like there always is. 

You watch as Mingyu hunches over certain laptops and whispers in rapid explanation before moving on to the next, a looming sense of dizziness that trails behind him as he shoots up the stairs to the back rows to help someone else. 

There’s a brief consideration to raise your own hand to ask for help, but one look at his disoriented gaze and the amount of hands that shoot up by the second, you guess it wasn’t going to help.

Back you go, hunched over the same wretched paper as everyone else, and praying for some divine revelation. 

Tuesday

Divine revelation did not come to you, but the good sense to make use of office hours did. 

So here you are, a printed copy of your supposedly horrid assignment and a pack of multicolour pens in your tote, and determination in your stride, you make your way to the department building. 

You’ve double, triple, quadruple checked the times to ensure you don’t dip in at the wrong moment, swiping open your phone to re-check the room number yet again. 

Standing outside the door, you knock with mustered confidence, waiting for something akin to an affirmative from the other side of the door. 

Nothing. 

You knock again.

Silence. 

You glance around the empty hall before grasping onto the cool brass handle of the door, wrenching it open just a peep. Poking your head in, you find the room…empty.

The chairs and tables that usually buzz with discussing students lay barren as you step into the room. Moving to look at the front of the room, you inhale sharply as you realise the professor’s desk has been occupied this entire time. 

Except he’s asleep.

No, that’s not the professor. 

Moving closer, you watch the way his back rises and falls ever so slowly, head resting on his arm as his hand hangs limp off the table. Whipping your head around with more attention this time, you attempt to find an explanation written on the walls. But there’s none, even in the papers that litter the table he rests his head on.

You don’t need to see his face to know it’s the TA. But as you stand in the empty room, clutching the straps of your tote, you aren’t quite sure what to do. 

Another glance around the table and you realise his laptop remains on, the screen yet to sleep. Before the obvious issue of a blatant invasion of privacy can befall you, you take a step forward to take a peek. 

It’s his schedule, a million colours blaring on the screen in a colour coded regard with barely any white spaces. It doesn’t take long to find his time slot for right now, red with importance. 

Glancing down, the man remains fast asleep, pen still in hand as it inks a faint line on the page. You look around the room for the nth time, taking constant glances back at his laptop that tells you he’s actively missing something right now. Clearing your throat, you hunch over a tad bit. 

“Um, excuse me.” He hardly moves. So you try a little louder, hunching over his sleeping form even further. “Excuse me.”

You could’ve sworn you heard a snore. 

Out of instinct, you bring a hand forward to his shoulder, shaking ever so slightly as you call for him again. “Excuse me!”

There’s a sharp inhale and he shoots up quicker than you can back away, ensuring you get an entire back’s worth of force as he bumps into you, hard.

“Wh–ow!” The noise is collective, yelps and thuds as you both back away from each other. 

“W–what’re you doing here?” he asks, hair still ruffled and eyes barely open as he stands at the table. There’s a bright yellow sticky note on his right cheek, ink scribbled on in something you can’t decipher.

“Um, it’s office—”

His eyes land on the same screen you were peering into just before and it looks like his life flashes before his eyes, widening at the sight as he slams around the table looking for something. 

“I have to go,” he announces, gripping onto an unstrapped watch as he registers the time, his other hand shoving his laptop and a few papers into a dark messenger bag. 

“Wait, isn’t it still office hours?” you call out as he whizzes past you. 

He’s swinging his bag over his shoulder and half tripping to the door as he calls out, “Wednesdays and Thursdays.”

“But—”

“It’s on the portal.”

“No it’s not.”

“Yes it—” he pauses as he exhales loudly, closing his eyes and bringing a hand to rub across his tired face. “I’ll double check. But it’s Wednesdays and Thursdays from now on. You can wait till I get back if you really want help.”

“How—”

A loud slam! of the door. 

“—long…” 

You’re left draped in silence yet again, the echoes of the slammed door ringing in your startled ears. It all happened too fast for you to process, blinking rapidly as you registered that you were now alone in the room. 

He said he’d be back, but left you with no indication as to when. By the looks of his god awful schedule, it looked like he had something else to attend to right after whatever it was he buggered off to right now. 

Fingers clenched into a fist, you consider your options. You could wait, sit on one of the desks and try to get some work done until he gets back. 

The universe gives you your answer as the door opens with a loud creak in the empty lecture hall. It’s another professor who looks quite startled to find an overenthusiastic student already present for class. 

She stares before craning to look at the room number outside the door, “Am I in the right room?”

“Uh, yes! I was just leaving,” you buffer out, moving to shuffle out immediately. 

You’re halfway out the door when you hear another call of an “Excuse me!”

“Are these your papers?” The professor’s full arms are up as she gestures to the still littered table. 

The No is ready on your lips. Until it isn’t. 

Later on, you’d consider how you left that room with an armful of papers that did not belong to you. How you’d ducked under the table to ensure you’d gotten everything, down to the leather strap watch with the cracked clock face. 

But as you stare at the stack of files and sheets that lay on your desk at home, you only know of the decent act that you’d committed.

And nothing of the hourglass you’d just turned over. 

Wednesday

In your Sent box are three emails sent on three separate days, all asking the same recurring question, all responding with the same recurring reply.

I wanted to confirm the days and times for office hours. I’m aware it’s on the portal but I’d like to reconfirm. 

Regards, YN

Dear YN,

Wednesdays and Thursdays. 4 to 6 PM.

Kim Mingyu, T.A. 

So there you were on a Wednesday afternoon, 3:59 PM sharp, outside the lecture hall where office hours have always been. With the same tote hung on your shoulders, with the same printed assignment and pack of multicolour pens, and a separated stack of files and folders, you wrench the door open with bated breath. 

The blended murmur of the usual hustle and bustle of the appointment reassures you first, the sight of scattered students of familiar faces reassures you second. And most of all, a conscious TA that sits at the professor’s desk, speaking to another student over a laptop screen. 

The man does nothing to acknowledge your arrival, continuing above the babble of students that occupy the chairs and the discussion. It isn’t too full, but considerably busy nonetheless despite how early you’ve swooped in. 

There’s a brief consideration whether this was in the TA’s job description at all, craning your neck to take a full sweep of the room to find a sparing glimpse of the man who should be here. The professor and his loud fashion choices are nowhere to be found. 

The sigh you let out is heavy and full of an emotion you cannot possibly begin to unpack, taking a seat on one of the unoccupied chairs to slump against. Shoulders sagging, you feel every fibre of your being screaming against your better judgement to pull out some work and to be productive while you wait. Reading over your failed assignment for the nth time, the same one that seemed to be some sick form of rage bait. 

You pull a couple things out so as to not look awkward sitting and staring into nothing on an empty desk, uncapping your pen and pulling up your sleeves like there was business to be done. Which there was, but none of which you wished to entertain. 

People watching, you realise, is a lot easier when most of the room is preoccupied with whatever it is they’re doing, too busy to notice your blank stares. 

The faces are familiar, none of which are people you’ve interacted with before but classmates nonetheless. The room is full of shaking legs, spinning pens and hunched backs, not an un-scrunched brow in sight. There’s a particular gaggle of girls somewhere around the front, their tables suggesting a work environment but between the whispers, giggles and glances to the front of the room, you assume there’s one thing in common the both of you weren’t doing. 

Speaking of the front of the room, your matched glance finds you face to face with the student at the main table in the middle of pushing himself off his seat. Your reaction is immediate, hand coming over to slam against the flat of your bag to find the lost straps, moving out of your seat as you keep your eyes on the front of the room. 

Bad luck must be a lover, because you realise quickly that somebody’s already beat you to it. Before you even noticed the first’s intentions to. The student stands beside the chair ready to keep it warm as the previous occupant leaves. 

Slamming back down on your own seat, you realise very quickly that trying to get an audience with this TA was going to be harder than you anticipated. There’s multiple other sounds of frustration around the room, and you doubt the slowly increasing pool of students was going to help anyone’s time management. 

Realising you needed to be a little more tactical if you didn’t want to sit here for the next month and half, you find an empty spot near the gaggle of girls you’d noticed before. It was right up front, just enough for you to hear when the conversation would begin to conclude at the main table. 

Once again, the TA doesn’t seem to notice any of the hustle and bustle of the room as his mouth continues to move rapidly, eyes on the question as he invests himself in his explanation. 

It was unfortunate that the only remaining seat was right next to the louder than necessary group, but you take it as a blessing anyway. It’s then that the one right next to you turns to stage-whisper to you. 

“Are you here to see him?”

You don’t expect a conversation, ears straining to eavesdrop on the other conversation in front of you to find your cue. You snap to look at her in surprise. “Pardon?” 

“Are you here to see him? Mingyu?”

“Uh—” Wasn’t everybody? “Yeah, I had a couple things I wanted to clear out.”

The revelation makes her shoulders drop as she lets out a loud sigh, “God, I can never get anything this professor says. I've been here nearly every week trying to figure it all out.”

“Yeah he’s a bit…unorthodox.”

“He’s unorthodox too.” She looks over to the main table towards the TA, chin in her hands as she gazes. “A face like that is rare.”

It wasn’t that she was wrong, it didn’t take more than a glance to convince yourself that Mingyu was possibly one of the more attractive people you’d meet in your lifetime. But the appeal lasted for all of five minutes for you, flitting away when you noticed that he dragged along a very…overwrought… suggestion wherever he went. 

It was clear he was stressed seemingly all year round, nearly just as relaxed as your professor seemed to be. 

But Mingyu was attractive. And you realise how much of a fool you’d sound if you admitted to anything other than such. 

“It is. His willpower’s somehow even rarer,” you add. “Don’t know how he does it.”

“God, tell me about it. Forget getting his number, trying to have more than a three sentence exchange with him without some statistical nonsense involved is near impossible.” Her face has fallen, a tight little frown on her face as she irritates herself with some other memory. 

Taking a glance down at her notes, you find the printed sheet littered with glitter gel pen ink lining the edges, doodles of stars and hearts and small anime characters next to p values and z scores. 

There’s a distinct sound of a chair screeching, and it’s like a large GAME OVER sign is hanging above your head. 

You jerk in your seat, like you could jump over the table and land in the emptying seat with some god-given stroke of luck, like the person already standing next to the chair wouldn’t hold a lifelong grudge against the insane girl with an unnatural acclimation to statistics. 

Although, nothing was more unnatural than the way this TA seemed to know more than the professor. Or you were just really behind. 

Alas, you don’t tumble over the table or kick back your chair, merely making a forceful motion in your seat, palms itching terribly as you watch the girl with her open laptop balanced in her arms move to take a seat. 

You were preoccupied, hence you do not notice that the TA has also noticed you. 

Suddenly, the girl looks startled as she’s told to wait. 

“She’s been waiting nearly a week, I really hope you don’t mind,” you hear him say, voice strained as you turn to look at him. His hands are outstretched to motion towards you a few feet across from him. 

For whatever reason, you had no thought that he might’ve remembered you. Something about his half asleep state when he’d spoken to you, perhaps he might’ve thought he dreamt it. Or he’d just forgotten it altogether. 

The girl glances at you, and her shoulders sag a little as she nods in formality. 

“Thank you.”

It comes out of both of you, snapping to look at each other hardly a moment as you go back to smiling at the retreating student. 

“You can come right after her,” he reassures, his own upturned mouth tired and fading. 

Never have you felt more awkward trying to come around the elongated student tables. 

You pause at first, staring at the table in front of you like it was worth trying to climb over or even crawl under it to get to the desk. Another moment of eye contact as he stares at your unmoving form with a blank look, and the heat pools your skin. 

Staggering for a moment, you end up moving past your chair and walking the way round anyway, the screeching of the chairs only nurturing the existing budding humiliation for no apparent reason. 

It only gets worse when you sit across from him finally, backside barely touching the plastic before realising you’d forgotten your bag in your seat. 

Mid smile in a timid greeting when you make a sound resembling something of an “Oh!” as you spring back up immediately. It’s easier to reach for your bag over the table you were sitting on, reaching across to grab it off your vacated seat. 

The girl you were sitting next to just before makes a motion like she’s trying to help and you have to remind yourself to smile at her as you retreat. 

Mingyu has the very beginnings of an amused expression on his face once you’ve finally made yourself comfortable across from him, clearing your throat just for something to do. 

“Right. How can I help you?”

Pulling out your printed assignment, you bring out the sheets of stapled paper to the centre of the table, writing facing him. 

One look at the sparse format of the cover page, he blows a full mouth of air at the sight of recognition. Without you having to say a thing, he flicks to the very last page, finding the rubric printed on a separate page. 

“It’s a 37,” you inform him like he couldn’t see the bold 37/100 in the bottom Total cell. 

“Do you think you deserved a better grade?” he asks. It would have sounded direct, an accusation even. But he asks with an intonation of genuinity, like he actually wanted to know. 

It stumps you regardless.

“Well…I know I can do better, at least,” you decide to answer. 

“You’re here, which means you’re at least willing to try. That’s a start,” he murmurs. His eyes are laser focused on the sheet beneath him, holding it open as his eyes move faster across the page than you can keep up with. Somehow talking to you while taking in the words on the paper.

“I remember marking this,” he says, looking up to address you. “Your concepts are nearly there, but your structure and presentation was off.”

“You marked them?”

He raises his brow, “I hope that wasn’t an accusation. I need to stick to the rubric.”

“I thought the professor marked the lab reports.”

“He’s…supposed to.” There’s a forced reservedness in his voice. “I mark them and he puts in his comments if he has any. But I’m not sure you’d fare any better than this if it was him behind that pen either.”

Every question that floated in memorisation, from the form and structure, to the nitty gritties of the data presentation, all evaporate as you realise you’re at a loss for words. 

Even more embarrassingly, you feel tears prick the back of your eyes. You don’t have an explanation, but it’s somehow easier to feel helpless in front of the man that’s meant to help you. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“That’s alright,” he says as reassurance, though it sounds awfully rehearsed. Like he has to say it everyday. “We’ll work through it.”

He lets out a big sigh, adjusting in his chair and running a hand through his hair. The motion has you noticing the dishevelled nature of the mop on his head, un-uniformed and sticking out at certain places, yet still somehow cohesive with his look. His shoulders are straight and taut, fingers working as they fiddle and flick the pen in his hand. 

Despite it all, his shirt is ruffled and creased, unbuttoned at the first couple steps. The buttons are misaligned, one side of his collar higher on his neck than the other. It takes an effort to not reach over and fix it for him.

“Lab reports can be quite tricky if you aren’t sure what you’re doing. Did you refer to the tutorial?”

You mean the one that did nothing to help? “Yes.”

“You got those bits right, format and whatnot. But—”

“It was a lump of writing about subheadings and word counts,” you say plainly.

Mingyu lips are in a tight line. “Well, yes, but it helps—”

“I know the results are supposed to go in the results section. I don’t need a PDF to tell me that,” you cut him off. Your voice is reserved, and you hope it comes off as a point across and not a complaint. Although it was a complaint. “I want to know why the entire section was ruled off as incorrect when we were never properly taught how to write it in the first place.”

“Dr. Cho—”

“Is no help.”

“I understand—”

“He can’t even mark his own papers. I’m quite sure that’s not in your job description. It’s supposed to be him here. Not you.”

It’s silent. There was nothing in your voice that suggested you wished to pick a fight, on the contrary, quite calm and matter of fact. Mingyu’s fingernails are going white as his grip on his pen and paper grow stronger. 

“And yet, we continue to show up. Because we do what we must.” He raises his head in control, a small smile on his face, eyebrows unnaturally raised. “And, better that I’m here rather than no one at all. I can help you too.”

Help, he did. 

Mingyu had made it quite clear his time with you was limited, but by the end of the near 25 minute session, nearly every inch of your printed assignment was covered in a rainbow of notes and corrections, additional papers and post-it notes pasted on the back as you remain careful to not lose them as you slip the stack in your bag. 

You only remember when you spot the segregated file of papers in your bag.

“I almost forgot,” you say, slipping the files and tidbits out and in front of him. 

“Where did you find this?” he asks sharply, eyes widening as sees the familiar blue. 

“You left them at the desk of the lecture hall last week,” you say, before quickly adding, “There was a class right after you left. I took them off the professor’s hands before they got lost. Thought it might be important.”

“I’ve been looking all over for these,” he says as he goes through the pages and files. Random sticky tabs and highlighted regions across the pages. The leather strap watch with the broken clock face remains on top, and he picks it up. He looks up to you with wide, sparkling eyes and a smile that feels genuine. “Thank you.”

You flush for some reason, “O–of course, couldn’t just leave them there.”

Pausing, you wonder if you should make the next comment, the words tumbling out before you can make a decision. “Maybe don’t run out of rooms still half asleep.”

By the grace of God, he laughs, “No, you’re right. I should be careful.”

It isn’t till you’re pushing yourself out of your chair that he continues. “You can come in at 3:30 tomorrow.”

“Pardon?”

He’s stood up as well. “I have a free thirty minutes before office hours formally start. I can help you out a little more without the crowd.” 

Feet planted on the ground, there’s not much you can do but stare. “Um, sure. I can come in a little early.”

He nods casually, “Thanks again for the papers. And the watch.”

You smile, “No problem.”

Thursday

True to your punctual nature, you make yourself known at exactly 3:29 PM.

Mingyu is at the desk, conscious and on the phone, eyes closed as he rests his face on his fist.

“I don’t know if I can make time for that—no, I understand, sir,”

Another pause as the noise from his speakers fill his ears, his rubbing over his face a little harsher than you doubt he’s entirely comfortable with. 

“I’ll see what I can do.”

His phone hits the table with a heartbreaking thud, both hands covering his face as he presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. 

“Light on your feet or something? I can never tell when you come in,” he startles when he notices you. 

Sheepish smile on your face, you move to sit down. “Sorry.”

You know it’s invasive, and you also know you might be asking him to break some unknown university code of conduct, but curiosity takes charge as you ask a casual question. “Important call?”

“Uh, yeah, um, just work stuff,” he states, shaking his head swiftly like he’s trying to shake the thought out of his mind. 

There’s a pause while you're slipping your papers and laptop out of your bag, during which he seems to have decided to divulge a little more. 

“It was Dr. Cho. More stuff for me to do,” he says. “As always.” 

“Does he do anything other than show up to class?” you ask through a snort. 

“Of course he does. He cusses out every article he doesn’t agree with, is anything but objective and…the occasional relay of blatant misinformation.” 

For the record, you’d never really heard Mingyu speak at all for the months he’d been TA-ing for the semester. It was small whispers of choice words in a vague voice, the distant murmur as he exchanged with the professor too far for you to hear. 

The voice of the seemingly quiet and diligent TA was never known to you, not until yesterday as he explained statistical models and the flaws of your data presentation. 

Passionately too. Incredulous for a discipline so dry and unapproachable. 

That being said, something about the grit in his voice as he positively sneered through his teeth, badmouthing his professor—it was something you couldn’t quite believe he was capable of. 

“I’m sorry you have to put up with him.”

Once again, by whatever stone of tolerance the universe bestowed in his heart, you watch him sigh and smile, “Anything for that recommendation. And the pay too, I suppose. Besides, he’s done a lot for the area, can’t discredit him entirely.”

With your eyebrows raised, he seems to catch your expression. He pants out a laugh, and your stomach lurches as you watch it reach his eyes, teeth on display, a lurch in his chest; a true laugh. 

Raising his hands in surrender, he responds, “I’m stuck.”

There’s nothing you can do to stop the smile that reaches your own face, turning your laptop screen towards him with the JASP software display. “I am too. Help.”

Help, he does.

Monday

Mingyu ended up giving you an entire hour on that Thursday. 

The thirty minutes before office hours began soared by like they were nothing, and you were ready to take your leave the minute students began to scatter in as the clock hit a swift four. Except he kept going, another 30 minutes in deep concentration as he retaught you nearly everything from scratch. 

Perhaps his proven determination to ensure you don’t tragically fail is what prompted you to do this, standing at the till of your regular coffee shop as you ask, “Make that two, please.”

It might also be important to mention the 7:30 AM on the dial on a bright Monday morning as you walked into your slightly less dreaded Statistics in Psychological Research class, knowing there would only be one other person insane enough to get to the lecture hall this early. 

Something isn’t right. 

Mingyu is in a position all too familiar to you and everyone else who shares this class, hunched over something or the other in deep focus. The sun pours in through the lifted blinds, the lights of the class turned off as natural light does more than enough of the job. 

It also shows you a blaring hot pink post-it note on his face, all too familiar to a previous interaction you’ve had with him. 

He notices you before you need to announce yourself, brows separating as he recognises you in the doorway. “‘Morning!” 

“...Morning.”

“You’re early,” he comments, straightening his back with a hand behind him for support as you approach. 

“Figured we both needed this,” you hand him a tray with his cup of coffee, eyes still trained on his lower cheek with the paper stuck to it. “It’s a latte with no sugar, but I added a couple packets on the side anyway. Just in case.”

“O–oh, thank you. And you’re right I did need this.”

Now that you’re closer, the scrawled writing on the post-it note is clearer. 

To Do:

Call mom

Shoot myself

“You, um—” It’s alarmingly difficult for you to say it, despite the words being so simple. Hey! You got a lil’ something on your face.

But all you do is dumbly point to your own cheek, eyes trained on the loud piece of paper that tells more than he might like the world to know. 

There’s a loud slap of his hand on his own cheek as he crumples the paper in his hands, bringing it forward to see. “For fuck’s sake.”

“It’s okay! I wanna…shoot myself too sometimes.” 

What the fuck?

“I mean!” you correct louder than you anticipated, before covering with a laugh. “It’s okay, it happens. Good thing I caught it before someone else did.”

It’s all the more petrifying when your voice echoes across the blatantly empty lecture hall, reverberating like it was a punishment for you and your horrid lack of volume control. Meeting his eyes feels like a sin right now, so you keep them downcast and pray he doesn’t try to sabotage your education. 

“Good thing it was just you. Yeah.”

Just you.

“Anyways, I think I’m done with prepping for class. Do you wanna squeeze in twenty minutes of ANOVA?” 

“Have you seen the time?” 

“Not a morning person?”

“Nope!”

“And yet it’s 7:40 on a Monday morning and you’re absurdly early.” His brows are raised as he pulls around the professor's chair to bring it to you. 

“Do you want the coffee or not?” you ask, watching as he drags another chair for himself. 

The both of you sit away from the professors table, coffees in hand as you watch Mingyu run a hand through his hair. 

He gives you a crooked grin,“I apologise.”

“To be fair,” he continues. “I’m not much of a morning person either.”

You narrow your eyes the slightest bit as Mingyu takes a sip of his unsweetened coffee, “I’m starting to think no money’s worth this job.”

Mingyu snorts, coffee suspended in his full cheeks. He swallows with much difficulty before answering, “You’re right. Not sure why I’m still here either. I could get an offer from another professor.”

“And that isn’t happening because…?”

Elbows on his knees, Mingyu swirls his capless coffee cup, the beige liquid moving in a growing tornado. “I like Dr. Cho.”

“You—”

“I know,” he laughs loud, a deep, echoing sound that shakes in your ears. “I know. I sound like a lunatic.”

“I don’t know about lunacy, but insanity can have its reasons.”

“Another would argue that insanity was the very absence of reason.” 

“Don’t get smart with me.”

“Excuse me for doing my job.”

He takes another sip of his coffee, and you ask again, “No, but really. I can’t imagine this man having too many redeeming qualities as an educator.”

Mingyu lifts his chin as he presses his lips together. “When I was in my first year, there was this other class I had where we had to write a lab report for the first time.”

“PSYCH101?”

“That’s the one. I’d never written one before, but I liked statistics enough to do a little more digging than what the assignment called for. I ended up finding one of Dr. Cho’s studies, read the entire thing, word for word. I was up all night reading nearly everything he’d published, some of ‘em before any of us were even born.” 

“Oh. So you’re a fan.”

“Everyone tells you to never meet your idols,” he snickers. “He’s done amazing things, but I guess he pays for it with his flawed personality.”

“I’m sorry it had to be you,” you half joke. 

Mingyu looks at you sheepishly, “That might also be my own fault.” 

“Don’t tell me you offered.”

“I might as well have. All my assignments referenced his work the most. I was always talking to him about upcoming research after class, and it was like he was a different person. Forget differing opinions, some of what he was saying was just…plain incorrect. He welcomed the argument though, and I couldn’t—can’t—stand listening to someone spew nonsense when I know it’s not true. He was always emailing me extra resources which…I’m pretty sure he isn’t supposed to do. Only reason I did so well in his class was because I taught myself.” 

He sighs a loud sigh, straightening his back, “I guess he liked me more than I thought, because next thing I know I’m getting a call over the summer telling me I have a job.”

“Did he…have a TA when you were in his class?” 

“Four.”

“Four?!”

“Two at a time. All of ‘em quit at some point. Said they didn’t want the recommendation or the pay.”

“Would he…not give you a recommendation anyway? You said he liked you.”

Mingyu shakes his head solemnly, “He’s a tough cookie, everyone in the field knows that. If you’ve impressed him, you’ve impressed everyone.”

You take a moment to really absorb everything you’ve just learned. “That’s a sucky position you’re in.”

“Tell me about it. But it’s okay. Three—three and a half more months to go? This isn’t even the worst of it, I’m just dreading study week when I’m gonna have to handle all the crying.”

You wince as he mentions something even remotely close to exam season, still barely at a stage where you can accept you’d be alright with this class. 

“I know you’re not nearly as qualified or experienced as him, but I think you could take over his class.”

“Ever heard of barriers to entry? I’d be ruined if I wanted a career in this.”

You roll your eyes playfully, “All I’m saying is I’ve learned more from you in barely a couple hours combined than the last two months I’ve spent cursing this very lecture hall.”

If you weren’t lying to yourself, you could’ve sworn you saw a blush creep up his face, and paired with his shy laugh and hand at the back of his neck, you can’t help but bite back your own smile. 

“If I can help you then it’s worth losing myself.”

Your heart is in your fucking throat.

“I’m glad when students tell me that,” he continues, utterly oblivious to the landslide happening in your digestive tract. “Makes me feel like I’m doing something right.”

“You’re—” you swallow thickly because you sound like a toad. “You’re doing more than just something right. You’re saving us therapy and an extra semester.”

He laughs at that, and you wish he’d let you breathe. 

“Feels like I’m doing something wrong sometimes,” he huffs. “My friend’s a TA too and he’s got himself a girlfriend on top of everything else he’s got going on.” 

He goes on, “Do you know how many times I need to ask people to quit twirling their hair? To look at the page and not my face? Asking for my number, I have an email for a reason, for fuck’s sake—”

Mingyu is cut off because you’re laughing, hand to mouth as your shoulders shake through your sniggering. “W–what?”

“I’m sorry,” you hiccup. “It’s just…It sounds like you don’t know what you look like.”

“What’s wrong with how I look?” he frowns.

“Nothing!” you exclaim. “But that’s the problem isn’t it.”

Mingyu doesn’t seem to buy it, even through your coaxing as you attempt to explain to him that he is, in fact, desirable.

“Can’t possibly be enough to distract people,” he huffs in earnest, still hung up on the students he can’t get through to. 

“Majority of the class would beg to differ.”

There’s a pause as he registers what you imply. 

After a few moments, he drops his head, opening his mouth, “Would… you also—”

There’s a loud creak of the door as you hear the immediate noises of shuffling feet and chattering mouths, as low and tired as they sounded. Turning back to look at Mingyu, he’s already jumped out of his seat, wrist to face as he checks the time on the same leather strap watch you returned. 

“That’s our cue,” you breathe, pushing your chair back behind the professor’s desk as you manoeuvre around Mingyu who’s suddenly frantic. 

Of course you realise there’s people other than just the two of you in the room, heightened in seats that are designed to ensure they can absorb every detail that goes on right where you stand in the front of the room.

But you feel the soft of Mingyu’s shirt over his wrist as you give him a gentle squeeze despite it all, barely enough pressure. Half your index finger brushes the skin of his hand, just enough to register how cold your fingertips are and how warm his body is. 

“Relax,” you whisper. “You’ll be better off without all the panic.”

You don’t see his face as you brush past him and up to your seat, looking up to see him disappear somewhere in the corner hunched over another stack of papers. The next time you see Mingyu’s face is when the professor arrives and has begun his regularly scheduled tomfoolery, and realise all the age that can accumulate in the span of five minutes. 

Thursday

Midterm season is nothing you’ve ever really had to worry about. 

Something about the halfway point did make it obvious that the clock was ticking, but danger was far enough away to prevent the ultimate breakdowns reserved for the peak seasons. 

Except this class isn’t ordinary, and it’s all you’re able to worry about all semester. And as Dr. Cho in his Thrasher vest announces the date for the in class midterm, the glass once half empty, suddenly looks very half full. 

“I’m not ready.”

“You’re more ready than anyone else in class.”

“How do you know that?”

Mingyu stares at you blankly, “If I don’t know that, then who else does?”

You have tears in your eyes, which is embarrassing enough since this is the second time you’ve teared up in front of him, but also because you’re in a library following Mingyu around like a lost duck because he insists on putting the books he borrowed back onto the shelves himself after registering the return. 

“But I don’t feel like I’m ready,” you whine, turning the corner as he searches for the last spot to place his final book. 

“You’ll realise just how ready you are when all those hieroglyphs on the page start to make sense to you,” he grunts the last bit out as he reaches on his tippy toes to shove the book back up. 

Dusting his hands off, he adjusts his shirt before turning to you, “You only feel that way because I’ve been giving you harder problems to work on. You’re past the level you need to be at right now. Trust me, you’re more than prepared.”

“But—”

“Listen,” he waves to the librarian as you both leave the library, your eyes still glistening as you fiddle with your sleeves. “It’s only the midterm—”

“Only the—”

“If this goes wrong, I’m just gonna have to work you harder for the real thing. Even though I know it won’t go wrong because I said so.”

You fall into silence as he walks you towards the coffee shop across the courtyard. 

“I’m assuming…” you start. 

“Hm?” he looks over to you.

“I’m assuming you can’t hint at what’s on the paper.”

Mingyu barks out a laugh of disbelief, “You assume correct. I’m not going through hell with this job just to lose it because of a paper leak.”

“But it’s just the midterm,” you mumble, not even close to remotely audible. 

“What did you say?” Mingyu smirks. 

“Nothing,” you huff.

“You know, I’m a little offended you don’t trust me.”

“Who said I didn’t.”

“Well then, stop being such a worrywart.”

There must be something written on your face, because as you pass Mingyu standing at the door he keeps open for you, entering into the coffee shop with fallen shoulders, he seems to change his mind. 

He brings you a coffee, sits you down, and gives you something else you need. “I made the paper. Every question. And I taught you. Every concept. So I definitely know you’re gonna be fine.”

In that moment, with the large glass walls of the warm coffee shop, the afternoon sun comfortably resting on every last object of the room, you don’t see it illuminate anything other than the man before you. 

Perhaps you're being dramatic at the revelation, but you don’t take anything into account as you note Mingyu’s eyes and how they sparkle like they were gifted from the centre of a flaming volcano, brown and polished more than any jewel or stone you’d ever seen. Reaching out to touch him, you know you’d feel nothing but smooth stone, the indentations only possible by a being beyond what you could comprehend. 

He’d given you more than just reassurance, and at times, his timing makes it feel like he was sent from the heavens itself, just for you. 

You sniffle. 

His hands brush over yours as he hands you a napkin, and even more so, cover your own as he takes your freezing fingertips into his own palm, the contact burning you like hot coal. 

You know he’s real. And you don’t know why quite just yet, but that reassurance is enough to give you calm.

Monday

You were alright, but it seems that Mingyu seemed to disintegrate right after he was done reassuring you to the moon and Saturn and Jupiter and back.

It’s midterm day, and as always on every Monday morning, you enter the empty lecture hall with two warm coffees in your hand, ready for whatever shitshow you’d have to perform for today.

It seems Mingyu must defect from at least one regular string of behaviour to remain as Mingyu, who on this occasion, stands before you in a baby blue polo sweater. 

Except you only know that because you can see the unique collar, but it might also be important that his back is turned towards you. 

“Morning, champ,” he gruffs, nothing encouraging about his voice in the slightest. 

Your breath hitches when you finally see his face, eyes sunken in and face pale. His lips are chapped and peeling, eyes half closed. 

“Why’re you looking at me like that, why has everyone been looking at me like that?” he huffs in one long, rapid question. 

“Um, I mean,” you stare at his shirt that’s backwards. And inside out. “I can’t tell if that’s a choice or a mistake.”

Looking down at his front, he looks back up, “What?”

“Your collar is…not at your collar, Mingyu. And your shirt’s inside out.”

Hand at his nape, he reaches his fingers down and finds the unmistakable starched planes of his collar, eyes closing at the realisation. He’s immediately pulling his arms out of the shirt with his eyes still closed like it’d all disappear if he keeps them like that. 

“Wait!” you exclaim before he strips entirely, scrambling to put your coffees down to push him out of the room towards the restrooms. “Do you wanna strip for the CCTVs?”

You only hear him sigh as he moves out and into the hall, doors closed behind him. 

You’ve nearly forgotten about the midterm at this point, your concern now growing in a completely different direction. By the time Mingyu returns, he’s blabbing about wondering why everyone he ran into since he left home was giving him the strangest looks, and then something about you always swooping in to save him before the real bout of disaster strikes. 

It’s hard for you to listen to him when you’re more worried about him passing out, his face doing him no favours to reassure you that he wasn’t a breathing corpse. 

“Mingyu…did you sleep at all?”

“Hm?” His eyes are glazed over and unfocused. 

“Sleep? Rest?”

“Oh,” he frowns. “Not really. I had emails coming in all night.”

“And you were replying?”

“It's the midterm today,” he responds flatly, like it should’ve been enough explanation. 

You almost don’t believe him. “Doesn’t mean you stay up to answer something that should’ve been cleared out beforehand!”

“Couldn’t just leave them to fend for themselves,” he dramatises. 

“Yes, you could!” Your voice comes out louder than you expected, eyes wide as you realise what he’s doing to himself. “You barely look human and it’s only the midterm.”

“What’re you trying to say?”

“I don’t know if this job is really worth as much as you think it is.”

Mingyu’s jaw is clenched, fists tight as he releases them to grip paper weight on the desk, knuckles white. “I can’t get anywhere if I don’t—”

“Mingyu, please. This isn’t good for you.”

He says your name. Declarative, almost like a warning. “If you think this job isn’t worth it then you just don’t know.”

“Mingyu—”

“No, you don’t, because I’ve seen how good of a job I’ve been doing.”

“You have, you’ve been amazing but—”

Mingyu’s own voice is raised, a hard impenetrable floor to the words he spills. “Then what’s the problem?”

“Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? You look like a corpse!”

And then he’s getting out of his chair with so much force it almost knocks it backwards, “Why on earth do you care so much? So what if I look like a corpse, if I‘m doing my job?” 

It might’ve been better if he knocked the chair right into you, your breath dissipating in your chest like it never existed. His face is morphed in an expression of exasperation your anxieties fear the most, every line on his face committed to irritation and anger. 

Why on earth do you care so much?

Right. Why do you? 

“Are you asking me that?”

“What?”

“Are you asking me why I care?” 

Mingyu only sighs, shoulders dropping and eyes closed. Like so many times before, you watch run a hand through his hair, except this time he yanks on the strands harder than ever before. 

His eyes are bloodshot. 

“I have to get the exam pack.”

Marching out the door in front of your own eyes, you’re left with a feeling that’s right in the back of your throat, curling and whirling into something you wish you could hack and gag out. Gripping the corner of the professor’s desk, you feel the peeling wood cut into your skin. 

There’s a draft, the delayed slam of the door has only hit its wind now, a delayed reaction. It’s like it registers in your mind as you feel strands of your hair shift, the clarity that comes with it.

Delusive. Chimeric. Cruel.

Everything you’d subjected upon yourself. A whimsical fantasy between pages of logic and numbers, a story that simply didn’t fit where the laws wouldn’t allow it. 

The null hypothesis of your most elaborate nightmares.

Monday

Your favourite commonplace box, where your mother once placed all her most prized jewels, had a finicky latch. 

It wasn’t broken, simply worn in from years of opening and closing. It took a few tries to get it shut. Simply pressing down with pressure didn’t work; you had to open it again, press down on the individual elements of the latch and then try again. 

You were never satisfied until you heard the distinct click of the latch fixing itself, the box closed and ready for you to hook your lock through.

Earlier on in your undergraduate career, you remember a professor talking about the effects of external factors on the mind, how they can sometimes cause it to ‘shut down’ when overwhelmed or stressed. 

It’s happened to you on many a occasion; like when you stayed up too late on a school night to watch a documentary about the Stanford prison experiment, or when you’d neglect food or water on busier days, or when you’d stop paying attention in class because you were too preoccupied thinking about Taco Tuesday. 

Regardless, you’d found a way to recognise when your brain would fall into some strange kahoots with daydreams, or whatever was bothering you, and learned ways to give yourself a reset. 

Pressuring and forcing the attention wouldn’t work, just like how the latch wouldn’t fit when you’d do the same with your beloved old box. So you’d take a walk, drink something cold, spray yourself with a garden hose, or even take a nap altogether. Opening yourself up, so the latch can finally click. 

On the morning of your midterm, when you’d ensured your brain was in optimal condition for the exam you knew would be one of the worse ones you’ll have to take, you were sure the only external force that could ruin your vibe was from God himself. 

Having been so preoccupied with your mind and its functions, you’d seemed to have forgotten where your heart had wandered off to. 

Somebody else might consider it a minor disagreement; an anxious squabble if you will. But your breakfast in your throat was enough reason to deem what happened that morning much more than that. At least for you. 

“Pass it on, please…pass it on, please.”

The sound of his voice is tectonic. Rattling in your head like a superior force had slammed into your skull like a padded hammer to a gong. 

You hated it. You hated everything. You hated yourself. And as the midterm paper reaches you with your pen in your clawed fingers, the first three questions already making perfect sense, you realise you hated Kim Mingyu the most. 

That was a lie. You were lying to yourself, yet again. 

Because it was quite the opposite. You couldn’t hate him. 

As you drift past every question of conditional experiments and screenshots of data and tables on a software, you hardly remember what you circle and what you don’t. Hardly remember what words you picked for the short answers and labels. You hardly remember taking the steps down from your seat to the front of the room, where the professor sat scrolling through his Skateboarders [!MEN ONLY!] facebook group, placing your paper down and leaving the classroom. 

Throughout your years of living, you’d learned what you needed to get your brain out of its clouded muffle, to refocus when you needed it. 

Everything. You tried everything. 

But on that day, when it mattered most, your latch never clicked.

It’s Wednesday. 

You order lunch from the Italian place a few streets down. Ravioli; it’s safe and you know you’ll like it. 

Savouring it is easy in front of another true crime show. You pull a lone soft drink from your fridge, one that your friend left weeks ago. It tastes just as bad as the last time you tasted it from someone else’s cup, but you drink it anyway, the empty can now in your trash. 

It’s 3:30 PM, and you sit at your desk. It’s strange. It feels like you’re missing something, which in ways, you are. But as you pull your laptop from your nightstand instead of out of your bag, you slow your movements. 

The papers are the same. But you read them anyway. 

Parameter estimation: Make inferences on characteristics of the population, including distributions of the variables and the effect of one variable over another. 

It’s accursed the way the universe won’t let you live. 

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue, estimation cannot be perfect. 

Estimation cannot be perfect. 

[_]

It’s Thursday

Class. Eat. Drink. Work.

Hypothesis testing: Determine whether null hypothesis is rejected or not after data observation. 

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue, no null hypothesis in bayesian approach!!

[_]

It’s Friday

Eat. Drink. Work.

Latent means to have meaning but is yet to be manifested. The greek letters are placeholder values for values yet unknown. 

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue; values that you will find out

[_]

It’s Saturday

Eat. Drink. Work.

P(A|B) = [P(B|A)P(A)

              ——————

                     P(B)

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue;

 it gets less complicated

 promise :/ 

[_]

It’s Sunday.

Eat. Drink. Work.

The page is blurry. Your eyes hurt. 

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue;

you’ve got this!!! < 3

You give up.

It’s Monday.

8:14 AM. 

You barely glance at the front of the room; swift turn to the left and right up the steps. Dr. Cho’s outfit almost goes unnoticed by you, tamer than most. Bright Barbie pink with large polka dots, untucked into too tight white jeans. His crocs are sparkly, at least that’s what the twinkle from up here looks like. 

He’s insulting another author, the man’s ProQuest journal article open for the world to see like a mediaeval scandal. 

There’s another person next to the whiteboards, back to the wall, hands clasped in front of him. His hair is messy, shooting lasers into the carpet as he rocks the slightest bit, listening to the professor rip this author to shreds. 

An hour later, you’re staring into the JASP software like it was written in a different language. 

Glancing next to you, the boy in the spongebob hoodie is playing sharkboy and lavagirl by himself. On your other side, the girl has the same thing as you open on her laptop, her pen occupied with drawing about a hundred tiny gojos on a bright pink sticky note. 

Bright pink sticky note. 

You snap your gaze back to your screen quickly after that. 

9:58 AM. You start packing up, shoving everything into your bag. 

Dr. Cho doesn’t even notice you slip out of the room, hardly a minute to the end of the lecture.

In the hallway, you take your first real breath in two hours. 

It’s Tuesday.

You’ve come down with something, head heavy as you feel yourself burn up. Skipping class is easy when you sleep through your alarm and every phone call from a friend asking where you are. 

They drop by, armed with medicine and soup. You almost feel better. 

It’s silent after they leave, and you realise in that moment how much you hate it. 

Opening your laptop for the first time in over 24 hours, you turn on a random podcast to play in the background, needing something to fill the air before you lose it entirely. 

The screen lands right where you left on the incredulous data presentation, unsolved tutorial paper crumpled between the screen and keyboard like a wilted leaf. 

Hot, scalding tears sting your eyeballs when you realise there was nowhere to turn to.

It’s Wednesday.

After a long day of doing nothing, still sick from whatever plagued your body, you go to bed earlier than usual.

It’s Thursday. 

Walking out of class, your mind is empty. You’re still sniffling, still achey, but better than you were. The shawl wrapped around you is warm, and your hood covers the cold tips of your ears. 

This other class makes you feel better about yourself, especially when the content is digestible and so is the professor. The TA feels like a mere accessory in the room, something you’ve learned to appreciate. 

With your gaze lowered, you only see midriffs as you walk out the classroom into the busy hallway. 

It happens in an instant, the flash of a clenched hand as the owner walks by in quick stride. An unmistakable leather strap watch with a broken clock face on the wrist.

You freeze like you’ve been caught. 

The hard bump of someone coming out the room behind you is welcomed, the annoyed “Hey!” knocking you back to earth before you could even exit the dimension. 

You’re off centre. But it’s fine. 

It’s Monday.

“Midterm results are out Tuesday morning. If you have any questions I’ll be sitting at office hours on Wednesday and Thursday, four to six in the evening. Or you could send me an email, either’s fine.”

Dr. Cho isn’t here. Something you only found out when the pitt sank in your stomach as Mingyu cleared his throat at the full hour. 

You want to leave, not caring about how strange it’d look if you did. Not caring about how he would definitely notice if you did. You want him to shut up, to stop talking, for anything to halt the way his voice infiltrates your entire being, talking about things you don’t understand but more familiar than anything else. 

Mingyu’s voice is hoarse, and you loathe the way you can tell the difference. 

It’s Tuesday.

Midterm Results for Statistics in Psychological Research.

—  92/100

It’s Wednesday. 

4:10 PM. It’s almost too much for you. Almost. 

The screech of the door is loud, the slam of the handle’s rebound even more so. The room doesn’t so much as glance at you at the door, the half full seats preoccupied with more important things. 

The front desk perks up immediately, eyes shooting towards the door for the nth time that day, like he was expecting someone that never seemed to show up. 

It’s ironic, you think, how Mingyu never seemed to notice you walk into the room for the many months you’ve walked in just for him. And now, as you walk in fists clenched and jaw set, eyes wild and burning, he’s breaking away from a student to look at the door before you even come into view. 

“Did you feel bad?” you spit.

“What?” he whispers. He seems to come around, glancing back before continuing, “Can we talk? Please.”

“Answer the question, Mingyu,” you snap. You don’t care there’s a confused student sitting right across from the both of you, his slot interrupted by your barge. “Did you feel so bad you had to give me something I didn’t earn?”

He’s stood up now, half confused. “Is this about the midterm—”

“I did not get a ninety two, I know I didn’t,” you grit. “Whatever happened before that stupid paper made sure I wouldn’t.”

Mingyu says your name and the sound makes you want to vomit. “What makes you think I’d do something like that?”

“I don’t know, maybe because I fucked up because of you?” you announce, louder than before. 

The world disappeared, your tunnel vision pointed at Mingyu’s face that wears an expression you cannot even begin to read. The unbecoming tears in your eyes are of a type of unadulterated rage you’ve felt only a few times before. Your heart is going about a million miles a breath, everything else only triggering an added bout of infuriated tremble in the forefront of your emotions. Nothing makes sense. 

Mingyu pushes back his chair in silence, stalking over to a large cupboard in the corner of the room. He shuffles around for a minute before returning. 

There’s a packet being thrust into your fists when he reaches you. He does not meet your eyes. 

A bright red 92/100 marks the front page.

“Here. It was all you, if you can’t believe me.”

It’s a careful mark, unmistakable lines and curves of the nine and the two. 

Reality is slow to sink in, but for some reason it’s only making you angrier. The paper curls under the pressure of your fingertips. You don’t open the packet. You refuse to flick through the pages. 

Because you know you’ve lost.

It’s Thursday. And it’s full of regret. 

There’s a sickness in you, from that dreaded day, something beyond what affects your body temperature and your energy. It’s in your mind, flooding the nerves that swim through every crevice and cave of your brain, a physical venom that does the opposite of kill but also the opposite of letting you live. 

There’s a feeling in you, that even if you were to open your mouth, unhinge your jaw, try to scream as loud as your throat would allow, there would be no sound. Something like a horrible dream, that you need to screw your eyes tight shut to fall out of. Except you aren’t waking up from this one. 

In a coffee shop, where Mingyu held your hand in a reassurance you now bleed for, you were sure he was real. Real like some deiform image; too good to be true. 

In your bed, dry tears on your face, midterm packet sifted through that showed you absolutely everything that you did right, thanks to him. He feels too real. Real like a cloud of obsidian that follows you everywhere, like the sad that’s been sleeping with you every night. 

If there was a way to hate someone more than a human limit, you’ve crossed it with the resentment you’ve now fostered for yourself. 

Barging into office hours like that, accusing him on a basis of nothing but your own dangerously stewed thoughts. If there was a hope of salvaged parts, you took a hammer to it in disregard; tearing it to ribbons that lay at your feet. 

It’s Friday.

At least it was. It bled into Saturday before you realised the 3:23 AM on the dial. 

Two weeks of no help and you already feel lightyears behind. The hour is getting to you, and you feel the frustration pool into tears, that turn into full fledged sobs. You’re crying over Bayesian inference and it’s somehow more pressing than any other emotion you’ve ever felt. 

Impossible numbers on your data sheets taunt you, not a single reference to if it was a button you clicked wrong or if you were playing a fool’s game altogether. 

Ding! You pick up your phone, the weight of it is enough gravity to pull you back to earth. 

[Mingyu]: switch to bF10 

[Mingyu]: you’ve been pulling numbers from bF01

It’s immediate the way your eyes dart towards your lit screen, clicking off tables to get to the drop down menu you need. And there on the left, two tiny buttons, one clicked on bF01. 

With shaking fingers, you move your cursor to hover over the tiny bF10, anticipating. You click. It takes a moment for the numbers to change, but they do. The nominal values turn into something you can actually work with. 

Something akin to a tut leaves you, hidden in the breath of another sob. It’s stupid, unreasonable, absurd. Your fingers hover over your phone, shaking as tears drop onto the screen, faster than before. 

Do you not miss me?

Do you not want me around?

Talk to me

I miss you

Please talk to me

“I couldn’t—can’t—stand listening to someone spew nonsense when I know it’s not true.”

Mingyu is a product of his personality. You can only imagine he’s helped because he saw you struggling in class, heard from someone else, or perhaps, he just knew the very thing you’d make blunders out of. 

The reasons come to you, that Mingyu is a product of his personality. Then why does it hurt? Why does it feel like the knife’s twisted a full 360, that despite the way you accused him of the thing that would strip him of everything he’s bruised himself for, he helps you. The very thing that caused this rift in the first place. 

There’s a reason for that, and it is again, that Mingyu is a product of his personality. 

It’s Saturday. 

Perhaps you relied on your olfactory senses to remain calm, because you always knew you could count on a coffee shop to forever and always smell the same. 

The universe seems to want to ruin that for you too. 

“Latte, please,” you voice. “Iced.”

“We have a one plus one for the week! Would you like to receive another latte?” The lady taking your order looks no older than 17, a pep in her voice. 

“Um, no thank you. Just one, please.”

She looks taken aback, a reasonable reaction to anyone turning down a free drink. But you couldn’t bring yourself to walk home with two cups in hand. 

You’re plucking a napkin from the pickup counter when you hear his name. 

“...that he manipulated her grade because they were hooking up.” 

“He has time to hook up?”

“I remember hearing about that! She barged in during office hours and asked why he fixed her grade or something.” 

“A ninety two? In that class? Oh, they were definitely fooling around with each other.”

“Whatever, at least we know he’ll entertain you if he likes you enough. I’m just glad those two are over so I can swoop in.”

There’s an eruption of giggles. You press your head down further. 

“Unless he flirts in variables.”

“All is forgiven when you’re born with a face like that.” 

Another explosion of giddy laughter, through which your drink is slid across the counter towards you, like it was waiting for you to hear the damning evidence before you could leave. You grab it anyway, grip tighter than usual. 

Turning around, your eyes search, finding a group of people that sit in smiles and in various states of trust-falls. 

There she is, the girl you sat with on the first day you attended office hours, the one with the glitter gel pen doodles on her notes and her blatant fawns over the TA you slipped under just as easily. 

She locks eyes with you and her face falls, eyes widening the slightest bit in recognition. 

Pressing your lips into a smile, you hope it doesn’t look as menacing as you feel. You don’t wait for a response before you walk out the large glass doors.

It’s Sunday.

It seems every sip of water you’ve taken during the week has been used up in all the tears you’ve seemed to be shedding. By the bucketload.

Alas, even blurry and puffy eyed, you pour over statistical formulas anyway, running on no energy and all antagonism. It’s another tutorial sheet left incomplete, a single question taking a pour that lasts in at least an hour of struggle. 

Reading the same question for the nth time, your palms press into your temples as you stare lasers into the paper, like the revelation would come to you if you stared it down hard enough. It doesn’t make sense, the commands you’ve toggled on and off identical to the instructions on the page. 

Hence the question begs why the data was coming out like someone pressed the ultimate on a number generator. 

With a heat of unreasonable embarrassment, you find yourself checking your selection in one of the drop down menus, switching to bF01 and back just to see the difference. It does nothing to help, and you can’t help but feel a little relieved it wasn’t that particular snag. 

The library is as silent as it could possibly be on a Sunday morning, near empty as you occupy the mostly vacant seats. The librarian is having her own day off, as you could swear she’s playing computer games behind the counter instead of actual work. 

The only noise in the room is your own breathing, and that seems to be enough to mess with your concentration. You��re going cross eyed staring at the page for so long, the words doubling and  disappearing before going back to normal. 

Bayesian inference…z scores…null hypothesis…

Wait. 

It’s like you can see it in front of your eyes right now, the scribble of someone else’s dark blue on your notes.

no null hypothesis in bayesian approach

Bayesian approaches don’t use null hypotheses. And z scores are in…

“Oh my god, this is a t test,” you whisper to yourself in disbelief. Immediately, you’re scrambling to shake your laptop out of its sleep, switching over to a t test to redo everything, following the instructions on the same data set. 

And there it was…a clear 0.067 under the p value. 

In a moment of questioning, you laugh out a breathy sound, the absurdity of it all becoming too real. T tests were the first thing you learned, the foundation to all your statistical knowledge. Coming so far, and it took you days to realise the instructions under a Bayesian approach were for a different realm entirely. 

It was stupid of you. But in this difficult aftermath you can’t help but feel victorious. Laughing to yourself quietly in this empty library. 

When the initial adrenaline fades and you’ve double, triple checked to ensure you were right, you can only stare at the tiny mail button in your shortcuts on the screen. It was clearly an error, one that was given out to nearly a hundred students. 

The first step was clicking, your inbox coming to life as you drift towards the big blue button with the readily available NEW MAIL. So you click. 

There’s an attached file in the email you draft. 

The tutorial paper has titled t test instructions as a Bayesian approach. Just wanted to point it out and ask if I could receive a corrected version. 

Regards, YN

It’s almost like you’re trying to remember how it feels like when you type an experimental m in the To bar. His name pops up immediately, email address typed out in full, full name clear on top as a regular contact. 

You don’t need a suggestion to remember, his email came easier to you than your own. 

But you don’t email him, backspacing till it’s empty once again. 

Dr. Cho’s email sits in that place instead, a first for you. 

SEND.

You don’t expect him to reply on a Sunday, in fact, you aren’t sure if he’s going to respond at all. You’ve already shut your laptop, half out of your seat in an attempt to pack up. You’re forced to consider. 

Would it be terrible to go back and cc him as well? 

A spiteful part of you might find joy in correcting him for a change. The rational part of you wants to actually finish the tutorial before tomorrow’s class when you’d have to tackle another beast for the rest of the week. 

Sitting back down, you move without thinking. Your mind is still cooking up possibilities as you swing your screen open once again, still weighing as you click back into your inbox. 

There’s a new email in your sent box after you’re done, a copy of the one you sent your professor, the same attachment and the same question; word for word. The only difference, a more familiar name in the address bar. 

Before you can chicken out, you slam your laptop shut for the actual last time, shoving everything into your bag before the speeding thoughts can infiltrate your mind's barrier. You’re out the door before you know it, ready to be done with this. 

You’re afraid if you put a hand to your stomach it’d be met with kicks and punches, especially with the way you feel the aggressive cartwheels slashing away at your insides. The butterflies are making it to the end of your food pipe, and you briefly wonder if you need to break into a sprint to make it to a safe throwing up zone. Your entire being jolts as you feel a buzz in your hands, a loud click that signifies a new email in your inbox. 

Right there, in the middle of the sidewalk, you stop. 

The grip you have on your phone is unyielding, your fingers beginning to hurt from the pressure. There’s no way to tell if you’re shaking or not, but you bring your phone to your face anyway. The screen flips on, a lone notification on the screen. 

RE: Tutorial Error from Kim Mingyu

It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes since you sent that email, the library still in sight from where you stand. At the same time, it’s almost funny you expected any different from him. 

The kicks and punches in your stomach halt, the cartwheels have calmed, the butterflies have fallen asleep. The grip on your phone has loosened, and it’s like every nerve in your body went from on fire to serenity in a whiplash inducing shift. 

Clicking on the notification, the email opens. 

Noted. I have another tutorial sheet for you if you want it. I’ll be in the room where office hours are held for the rest of the morning.

Kim Mingyu, T.A.

There was no way he didn’t have a softcopy he could send you in less than a minute, and you’re sure he knew you’d realise that too. You should scoff, be upset, roll your eyes. 

But instead, you find your feet making a 180, turning around to go right back to where you came from. You walk, eyes still half trained on the email, reading and rereading as you walk back onto campus, towards the building you’d once considered a second home. 

You walk, and walk and walk, in through the doors, up the stairs and then another set of them, you take a left and look up. The hallway is empty, the door on the right coming into view as you slow your steps significantly. 

Closer and closer, you realise the light surrounding it is brighter than usual. The door is open, and you can see the empty rows of tables and chairs, set neatly against one another. It’s strange, you’ve never seen it wide open before. 

Walking even closer, you can see the beginnings of the professor’s desk come into view, and it only takes you one more step forward. 

Standing in the doorway now, you find yourself in the direct path of the sun that pours in through the open windows. It’s warm, but just enough to combat the cooling weather. 

The desk up front is occupied, as it always is. 

Mingyu is only in a t-shirt and trousers, glasses perched on his nose as he scrawls away on the paper in front of him. His laptop is turned on, screen facing the door where you stand, his inbox open and available even on the weekend. 

It wasn’t that you were waiting for him to notice, but you found yourself inadvertently taking your time looking at him. Every other situation, you’d done your absolute best to avoid your eyes grazing over him at all costs, hardly drifting over his form before flitting away. You never did it on purpose, but it was more like you were unconsciously protecting yourself.

 Like looking at him would only make the ache in your heart worse.

If that was the case, you would’ve been right. There’s a tug in your chest, and in that moment, it all comes flooding in like a gate destroyed. 

Mingyu looks up and sees you in the doorway, standing immobile. He sets his pen down, taking his glasses off. There’s the smallest hint of a smile on his face as he greets you, “‘Morning.”

You take it as your cue to move forward, stepping foot into the patch of sun slowly. “‘Morning.”

You reach the desk, standing in front of him, the only thing blocking you being the littered table with files, papers and stationary; the trench between you both. 

It’s so silent it tears at your insides, gripping the strap of your bag to have something to do. 

“I, uh, double checked when I saw the email. You were right, nobody noticed in class either.” There’s an airiness in his voice, like he might be struggling just as much as you are right now. 

He clears his throat when you don’t respond, looking back down at his workspace like he was looking for something. He finds a paper from some stack, handing it over to you. 

“Thanks,” you hoarse. It’s the same tutorial you had, except the instructions had been crossed out, replaced by a list of handwritten instructions instead, detailed in their annotation. You recognise it, because of course you’d recognise his handwriting. 

“I didn’t have time to print one out right now. I’ll probably send a corrected copy to everyone tonight,” he explains. 

“That’s alright.” You look up, lips pressed together, eyebrows forced into a regular position on your face. Nodding, you thank him once again. “Thanks again. I’ll…get going.” 

Every fibre in your body screams at you to turn back around, hollering profanities at your inability to deal with this. You’re already halfway to the door though, and your pride’s already deemed it too late. 

Please stop me, please stop me, please stop me, please just say something and stop me—

There it is. Your name, from his mouth, in his beautiful voice. 

Turning back around is the easiest thing you’ve ever done. 

Mingyu has stood up from his seat, out from behind the desk. He looks like he wasn’t expecting you to turn back. “Can we talk?” 

And then he’s pulling out the chair he was sitting on, presenting it like a piece offering. If you heard correctly, you could’ve sworn you heard his voice break the slightest bit when he pressed, “Please?”

So there you were, in a position all too familiar as you sit across from the man that’s haunted you for the past weeks, trying to keep your chest from falling in. 

“I guess I should start with an apology,” he’s fidgeting with his own fingers. “I don’t need to give you excuses about stress or exhaustion because…”

He closes his eyes, trying to find the words. “I didn’t mean to lash out at you. You were only trying to help and I was too preoccupied with myself to notice. I’m sorry I spoke to you like that when you didn’t deserve it.” 

For about the millionth time, you realise you’re tearing up again. He continues. “And then…right before the midterm too. You were right, I did feel horrible. But I swear that grade was all you, I didn’t touch those numbers.”

He really didn’t, because the papers he had thrust into your hands on that fateful day in this very room proved that you earned that mark. You wince regardless.

“I thought I could apologise before the exam started but I couldn’t find you, and then you were gone right after. I didn’t text or call because I was sure I’d fucked it all up.” 

“I’m sorry too. For barging in in front of everyone and basically accusing you. I wasn’t thinking straight.” You look up from your lap, wet lashes and all. “I really hope you didn’t get into any trouble.” 

“I–no, I didn’t.”

“Are you sure? Because—”

“I promise I didn’t.” He locked eyes with you when he said that, hoping you’d believe him. You nod slowly. 

“It wasn’t even that bad, what you said,” you sniffled. 

He scoffs at that, “I’d beg to differ.”

“I would’ve gotten over it,” you continue, bracing yourself to admit to something you’ve had trouble admitting to yourself. “I should’ve gotten over it. I don’t know why it hurt so much, why watching you walk out felt so horrible. But I haven’t been acting like normal ever since, and I’m sorry for stretching this whole fiasco out into something that didn’t need to turn into…this!”

“You were hurt because I hurt you.”

“People have said worse things to me. And you were practically a zombie, I should’ve just left it for another time. It was a little bit my fault too. But…yeah.”

There’s a silence as you try to remind yourself to breathe. You speak up again. “I just want us to go back to normal. I’ve missed you. Alot.”

“Me too. The go back to normal bit. And the…missed you bit.”

Mingyu’s half smiling when you look up, biting your lip hard as you try to keep a smile of your own at bay. “I’d thought if I gave up and admitted I was struggling that day, that’d be admitting defeat. That you’d think I…couldn’t do it.” 

Why on earth do you care so much? It rings in your ears. 

You sound light when you say it though, knowing now it wasn’t what he meant.“Since when are we on caring terms?” 

Mingyu cringes. "We are. I am, at least, if you aren't anymore, which is fine. I care about you. A lot."

It’s hard to not let out a laugh. He looks half constipated as he tries to navigate his words. 

“Oh well I’d hope you’d care, since you’re my TA and all.”

“Not in a TA way.”

“Tutor way.”

“Um.”

“Friend way? A human way?” 

“No.”

You both know you’re being obtuse on purpose, and you aren’t sure why. Maybe you just like to watch him squirm. 

“You know what?” he rasps. 

“What?”

Your answer comes in the form of Mingyu lurching to grab the legs of your chair, pulling the wheels to crash into him where he sits. You’re not expecting it, the clashing legs causing you to swerve forward, hands on Mingyu’s lap. 

And then his hand is on the back of your neck, and his lips placed on your own. 

You’re stiff as a board, brain computing the fact that Mingyu is kissing you in a classroom. 

It’s short, hardly a few moments before he pulls away. “Does that clear things up?”

There’s nothing you can do but blink at him, the reality of it all settles in. “Hm.”

He laughs at your half dazed state. It’s a purely instinctual part of you that speaks after this. “Maybe one more time. To make sure.”

Mingyu doesn’t even wait to laugh again as he wastes no time, putting his mouth on yours properly this time. There’s more of a drive in you this time, moving your mouth against his and he keeps your head close. 

The ecstasy is slow but sure to build in your stomach. Mingyu is kissing you. Mingyu is sitting with you and kissing you so good you’re already half faint. 

His mouth tastes like coffee and remnants of berry, a combination you can’t believe you could enjoy this much. Licking into his mouth, you let your tongue drag over his, like the tactile would convince you this wasn’t some too vivid fever dream. 

He pulls away for a moment, but hardly so as his lips remain pressed onto yours. 

“For the record,” he pants. “I love that you care. And I hope you’ll keep caring. Because I don’t think I can handle it if you walk away after this.”

Mouth back on his own, you decide there’s only one way to convince him you weren’t going anywhere without dragging him with you. 

MINGYU'S APARTMENT IS CLEANER than you expected. You aren’t sure what you were expecting, perhaps more mad scientist than anything else. But the most you find is a mug and plate in the sink, and a moderately crowded study desk, which is to be expected. 

Mingyu decided to abandon his work for the day to spend it with you, to which you contest that it was Sunday anyway. His response is making you change into something comfortable of his so you could laze on his couch. 

Like you would run away if he didn’t, Mingyu keeps his arms around you in a tight hold, fingers curling around your shoulders as you lay on top of him. Your head rests directly over his heart, his cheek and lips taking turns to occupy the top of your head.  

You fill him in on everything, and realise the most eventful weeks you’ve spent were actually quite uneventful in hindsight. He feels up your cheek and forehead when you tell him you got sick at one point, to which you have to reassure him it was either something going around or stress that you subjected on yourself. 

“I went to a frat party,” Mingyu mumbles into your forehead. “For Halloween.”

The information has you shifting to look up at him in bewilderment, “You went to a frat party?”

He snorts, “Dressed up for it too.”

“Oh my god,” you voice in mild horror. “Do I wanna know?” 

“Wonwoo and I matched,” he hums as he pulls out his phone, scrolling his gallery to look for pictures. “I was Mario, he was Luigi.”

“How adorable.”

He only gives you a look and shoves the phone in your face. By some grace of god they aren’t wearing moustaches, but the distinct red and green outfits are enough to give you enough recognition. 

“Thing 1 and Thing 2 were also possible contenders,” he informs. 

“That might’ve been a little better.”

“What’s wrong with Mario?” he asks sharply.

“Nothing. But I do hope you weren’t sporting an Italian accent throughout that.” 

“I was,” he pushes. “A horrible one too.”

You give him the satisfaction of an eye roll. 

“You could’ve gone as Peach. We could’ve matched.” 

“I don’t know if I’d wanna wear any available Peach costumes during Halloween time.” You crinkle your nose as you think of all the racy costumes that unearth every October. 

“Maybe in private,” he says with an insufferable smile on his face. 

Placing your hands flat on his chest, you rest your chin and look up at him. “I’m not sure I want to interrupt whatever you two have going on.” 

“Who?”

“You and Wonwoo, you’re practically married.”

Mingyu laughs out loud, and you can feel the rumble in his chest against your hands, his body moving against your own that’s stuck to him. “Not with whatever he has going on with his girl.”

“Oh right,” you frown in remembrance. “What happened to not understanding how he does it?” 

“Hm?”

“He’s a TA too. Probably just as busy as you. You said you didn’t know how he could juggle a relationship and his job at the same time.”

His eyes spark in remembrance, pausing for a moment. “I may owe him an apology.”

“Do you?”

Mingyu frowns, “Actually no I don’t. I don’t think he and his lady are doing too well right now. He’s been insufferable lately.”

“Is it because of the TA-ing?”

“I never know with those two,” he sighs.

There’s silence once again, in the midst of which Mingyu leans over to kiss you a few times, soft and lingering. Like he’s trying to familiarise himself with the shape of your mouth, the tactile feeling of kissing you. 

“Do you…know about us?” There’s hesitancy in the way you ask. But you can’t help but ask anyway.

Mingyu thinks for a moment, and it has your heart beating out of your chest. “I know that I want us to be concrete. That I wanna work around whatever life throws at us. You can decide what to call it, but I know I’m in it for the long run.”

“I’m glad you’re smarter than your husband,” you smile.

He only rolls his eyes, “He’s only good at one kind of chemistry.” 

“D’you think they’ll be okay?”

“Oh yeah,” he assures. “They’re just going through a…rough patch.”

“Like we did?”

“If you’re asking me, I’d say they’re being a little more stupid about it.”

The snort that leaves you is unanimous with his own. He continues, “They’ll be okay though.”

“I hope so. I’d like to go on double dates with my boyfriend’s husband’s girlfriend.” You start giggling in the middle of your sentence, too ridiculous even for you to voice. 

“This is getting weird,” Mingyu breathes. 

You only hum against his mouth, “Do I have to take your husband's blessing before we can move forward?”

“For fuck’s sake.” 

You’re both laughing again, a sound that comes from your stomachs, true and uncontrollable. For a moment, you can’t help but be conscious of how light you feel, how happy you feel with his scent infiltrating your nostrils, his presence known where his fingertips touch you. 

“I did the sticky note thing again too,” Mingyu says into the silence, and there’s nothing you can do to stop the fit of giggles that erupt all over again. 

“Said something worse this time,” he continues as you laugh into his chest. “Accept that you’ll die alone or some other shit like that.” 

There’s comfort in this moment. In your giggles and in your tears, in his voice and in his affection. His lips are another sanctuary you’ve found, and perhaps even another way to make your dreaded latch click. 

Nose nuzzled in his cheek, the feeling of his skin so soft against yours, fingers at his chin where a slight stubble grows, you relax in ways you cannot comprehend. 

MINGYU'S LIPS BECOME A feeling you’ve grown dangerously accustomed to. 

It isn’t that he has them on you too much, regardless of what an outsider might suggest; to you they simply aren’t on you enough. 

The following Monday went as usual, for you anyway. You weren’t avoiding Mingyu this time, and you were grateful for it. It was two hours of following him with your eyes as he darted around the room. You could hardly constitute it as not paying attention when Dr. Cho was preoccupied with explaining every reason he hates JASP over SPSS, but also ultimately, hates them both. 

You don’t even notice his loud outfit (overalls and a neon green sweater underneath), happy to watch Mingyu flit about and whisper incoherent explanations to students. 

The tutorial paper is barely looked at by you, because you know your boyfriend will be happy to help you out later at his place. 

You’re barely through the door that night when he gets a hold of you, tight grip across your waist as you’re catapulted into his arms, door slammed shut behind you. 

Bag still on your shoulders and your shoes still on, Mingyu’s slammed his mouth onto yours before you can take a proper breath. You stumble, squealing through the kiss as you realise you aren’t escaping the iron grip he’s got on your face. 

Somehow between it all, you manage to slip your bag off to let it drop to the floor of his doorway, shoes kicked off one after the other as he leads you inside, littering the way. 

“You aren’t actually paying attention in class anyway,” he breathes against your mouth before kissing you again. “So why don’t you sit in the back where you don’t distract me.”

“Who says I’m not paying attention.” You open your as your back lands on the couch, looking at him as he looms overhead. 

“You’re paying attention to me.”

“It was in my job description when I signed up for the girlfriend position.”

He’s all over you now, hands at your sides, mouth underneath your earlobes as he husks, “Was letting me take you in front of the entire class also a clause? Because if this goes on I might have to take up on that.”

If you didn’t know any better you would’ve assumed he’d been possessed, everything about his behaviour screaming the opposite of the well behaved, restrained man you’ve been accustomed to. The fact that he’s whispering directly into your ears isn’t helping either, a conspicuous shiver dragging across your spine. 

It lands with precision, right at your core. You’re too hot to tell, but there isn’t a doubt you’ve begun to pool. 

There’s a ding in the background. 

He’s suckling underneath your ear, his hands roaming in ways that would smear your reputation altogether. 

Another ding. 

He’s reached your mouth once again, groping your right breast lightly. Like he’s testing the waters.

Ding. 

Mingyu makes a noise of annoyance, the other hand trailing underneath your shirt. 

His ringtone blares throughout the room, whoever the caller was having reached wit’s end. 

“Gyu…” you whisper. 

“Ignore it,” he growls. The ringing has stopped. 

He ducks underneath to kiss at your stomach, lifting your shirt oh so slowly. He goes higher, and higher and higher, leaving a trail of kisses at the skin, taking deep breaths as he drags his mouth over your torso. 

His phone begins to ring again. 

Your head is spinning, your senses overcome. If you weren’t sure before, the air of wetness between your legs is definitely obvious now. 

He brings a hand to your centre, pushing inwards at your jean clad core. You exhale sharply yet shakily. 

The ringing stops. 

Mingyu makes a gumbled sound that you can’t quite make out, too preoccupied with the way your shirt is now up past your bra, at which Mingyu has taken to leaving open mouthed kisses to your cleavage. 

There’s a ding. 

“Mingyu, I really think—”

His phone begins to ring again. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he curses, rearing his head like an interrupted animal, wet mouthed and bleary eyed. He looks at his buzzing phone on the floor in an accusatory glare, like he wants to chuck it out the window and go right back to burrowing into your chest. 

“You should answer.” 

He looks irritated as he takes his phone in his hands, and you find a flash of Dr. Cho’s name on the screen. “It’s eleven O’clock.” 

“It might be important.”

“The last time he did this he asked where his peacock feather pen was,” he grunts as he silences his phone. 

You laugh, running a soothing hand through Mingyu’s hair, a tiny attempt to calm him down. Pulling your shirt down, you attempt to sit up. 

Mingyu makes a noise of denial, attempting to stick his face into your now clothed chest, knocking you back down, “Nooooo, I’m gonna ignore him.”

“He’s not going to leave you alone,” you sing quietly, running your nails across his scalp lightly, holding his head to your chest. You place your cheek on his head, playing with his ear. 

As if to prove your point, Mingyu’s phone begins to ring again, and he groans at the prospect. 

“Go on.”

He swipes to answer it. A loud sigh and then a tired, “Hello?”

His volume is bumped up enough for you to make out what’s being said on the other line. “Where have you been?”

“It’s nearly eleven, sir. I was in bed.”

“My flash drive won’t open up on my computer.”

You have to stifle a snort. 

“Is it…plugged in?”

“Of course it is, I’m not an idiot.”

“Is it showing up on your files?”

“Disk…is not…formatted.”

“Erm, it might be corrupted.”

“How did that happen?”

“Did you download something off the internet onto it?”

“Hardly matters, I need the attendance sheet on it!”

Your fingers are massaging Mingyu’s temples as you feel him tense on top of you. 

“Your attendance sheet is on the teacher’s portal,” Mingyu grits before adding, “sir.”

“...I have other things on there too.”

Mingyu exhales ever so quietly and you tighten your hold on him a smidge. “This sounds like something tech support could help with.”

“Why can’t you help?” he asks sharply. 

“I…I don’t know how, sir.”

There’s a noise of indignation from the other end, and you can’t help but keep from laughing. 

Mingyu sighs into the phone, this time doing nothing to hide it. “I’ll take it to tech support for you tomorrow. And I’ll send you a direct link for the attendance sheet for Monday and Tuesday’s classes.”

The line beeps shut. Mingyu brings the phone for you both to see the professor’s hung up as soon as the words left Mingyu’s mouth. 

“Wow,” you whisper into the silence, the weight of Mingyu’s head heavier on your chest. “Not even a thank you.”

“Absent father behaviour,” Mingyu grumbles as he moves his face to burrow into your shirt. 

It’s a bad joke, but you laugh anyway. 

“Will I be an asshole if I say I’m not in the mood anymore?” he murmurs. 

“Absolutely not. Everything sucked right back in the minute I heard his voice on the line.”

“Gross,” he comments, but he’s laughing too. 

“Should we call it a night?” he asks, rearing his head. 

Nodding, you rise with him. By the time you’ve reached the bedroom, you’ve already begun taking off your accessories, fiddling with your bracelet as you voice. 

“I need a shower.”

Mingyu throws you a towel and a t-shirt, which you catch and move towards the bathroom. Halfway through the door, you sneak a look at him fiddling with his belt. 

“Do you wanna come in too?” 

Mingyu looks at you peering through the door frame. You’ve never seen anyone leap across the room as quickly as in that moment. 

THE FOLLOWING DAYS WERE just as eventful as that phone call, Mingyu running around as the midterm low passed and the line creeped up towards finals season. 

Perhaps it was better that you stopped attending office hours, because the room seems to become increasingly packed as the days progressed. 

You only ever saw Mingyu in the wee hours of the night at his place, where he begged you to camp out till the end of the semester so he “doesn’t move to insanity”. It might even be better for you, going about your day as usual, without the usual added distraction of a partner.

Coming home to him was easier, where he could clear up your doubts while in ratty pyjamas and starfished across the bed, where you could find solace in Mingyu’s chest without prying eyes when the information became like filling an already stuffed junk drawer. 

It was a Friday night, you’re alone at Mingyu’s place sitting cross legged on the floor. The table in front of you is pouring over the final question of this week’s tutorial paper, everything seemingly whizzing right past the top of your head. 

Despite that, as Mingyu stumbles inside past eleven, you know you shouldn’t ask him for a thing. 

Tired was a look on Mingyu you’d gotten quite used to, so you’ve learned to not comment and simply let him fall into the couch cushions with all his weight. 

His face is parallel to yours as he closes his eyes with a light groan in greeting. Moving forward, you kiss the flutter of his eyelids softly, down to the apple of his cheeks, the tip of his nose, the corner of his mouth. 

Your fingers run through his tangled and distressed hair as he mumbles against your mouth. “Did you finish the tutorial paper?”

You huff in mild annoyance, that despite his state he still thinks about work. “Not yet. One last question and I’m done.”

He hums and waits a moment before reopening his eyes. With a loud groan he’s pushing himself off the couch, sliding off of it to sit with you on the uncomfortable floor. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”

“I can figure it out myself, Gyu.”

“You would’ve been done by now if you could,” he answers. It’s annoying that he says it but he’s also right. 

Mingyu holds the paper a mere inch from his eyes, the sight almost comical if he also didn’t look an inch from passing out. 

He mumbles the question as he reads, “It’s nothing, just worded weird. Toggle this off and move this to mixed factors and you’re done.”

The toggles are done for you, and Mingyu takes the liberty crossing he question off with a pen he finds on the table. 

“Did you get everything else?” he asks in earnest. 

“Hm? I think so.” 

“Good.” And then he’s throwing his head back to rest it on the couch cushions behind him, breathing slowly. 

He’s in a navy sweater, collar of his undershirt peeking through the top. Your gaze leads up further, to the exposed area of his throat—clean, tan and naked. You realise this might not be a good time, but it’s only natural your mind cooks up other ways to translate your helplessness as you watch your boyfriend push himself to the brink. Release is never a bad idea. 

Besides, it’s a Friday night. No reason to not. 

“Gyu,” you shuffle closer. 

Lolling his head to look over at you, he answers in a small voice, “Yeah?” 

You put on the guiltiest face you can muster, complete with darting eyes and fidgeting fingers. “D’you think…d’you think you can go over post hoc tests again?”

“Post hoc?” He furrowed his eyebrows. You bite the inside of your cheek, having blurted the first plausible model you could think of to ask him. It’s an older bit of the syllabus, something you should already be well versed in. 

Not that you care what he thinks right now, he’d figure out why you were asking anyway. 

“Post hoc, um,” he rubs a hand over his face as if to jog his memory. 

Shifting forward, you plaster you front onto his side. He thinks nothing of it. 

“Analysis tool after you’ve already run the data,” he begins. 

Placing your chin on his shoulder, you let your nose nuzzle against his cheek. Trailing up, your lips find the shell of his ear. 

“Results have to be…they have to be…” He falters when your hand reaches his front, running across the expanse of his clothes stomach, nails digging ever so slightly as you reach his abdomen. You continue to place open mouthed kisses at the space of neck you can reach. 

“Hm? Has to be what?”

“Statistically significant,” he breathes when your palms reach the tops of his thighs. “To run a post hoc test.”

His trousers are less barrier inducing than regular jeans, something you’re both grateful for as you begin to palm his clothed bulge. “Results of what, baby?”

“For the love of—”

“Go on,” you whisper in his ear. “Please.”

One flick and his trousers are unbutton, pulling them aside as the zipper pulls open. You're pushing down his boxers when he answers you. “ANOVA.” 

“What’s that again?”

“You little shit.”

You move your mouth forward to kiss him.

“Analysis of variance.” 

You hum against the column of his throat at that, his half hard member in your hands. Light touches, that’s all they are, running the pads of your fingers across the pulsing length, coaxing him into full length. 

“What’s it for though? We already got our results.” Bending forward, you stick your tongue to kitten lick at his tip. Mingyu hisses, hips shifting. Your tongue swirls around the tip, pushing into the skin on the head where he’s most sensitive. 

“Ugh, fuck, for um,” he falters as you begin to suck at his head, tongue running over each hollow of your cheeks. 

“For…for…” His chest is moving up and down in quick breathes, every sound from his mouth coming from a deep rumble in his stomach. 

Letting go of his cock, you continue to pump him with your hand as you gaze up at him from your position. “For? Keep talking, baby.”

“For…To identify groups,” he grunts out. He lets out a louder moan when you place your mouth back on him, going past his tip and taking as much as you can of him into your mouth. “Identify…the differences, shit, hmph.”

He takes a loud breath before speeding through it again, “Identify which groups actually differ, oh my god.”

The bit of him that you can’t fit on your mouth is being pumped by your hands, fingers pushing into him like you were trying to indent them on the base of his cock. A glance upwards and you find his head thrown back, hands coming to tangle in your hair. His thumb caresses the side of your cheek.

“How many groups?” you ask, before diving back in. 

“Three,” he chokes out. “Three or more, oh I’m gonna cum, fuck don’t stop, holy shit.”

Both of his hands are at your head, guiding you as you suck him harder, faster, more tongue digging into his slit. You hum against his dick on purpose, making sure it’s coarse enough to get the reaction you want. 

You succeed, because immediately after you hear Mingyu rip out the loudest moan you’ve ever heard, his grip on your strands harder than ever. He cums into your mouth, hips stuttering as you place your entire weight on him to keep him in place. 

You let some of it dribble out your mouth and back over his softening dick like a hot coating, sucking him through shooting spurts of cum that land on your tongue. 

When you emerge from underneath, Mingyu looks like he got the soul sucked out of him; eyes closed, stuttered breaths raking through his entire body, a light sheen of the beginnings of sweat that glisten in the low light of the room. 

Reaching for the tissue box and water bottle on the table, you soak the napkins and bring them to clean him up. He whines when the cold tissues touch him where he’s most sensitive right now, you want to kiss him but account for the cum that is actively stuck to the walls of your mouth. 

You leave for a few minutes, much to Mingyu’s hoarse protests. He’s almost on all fours, hands on the floors as you promise to be back. By the time you’ve hauled his tired ass into bed, you’re just as ready to knock out as the half asleep man beside you. 

Mingyu’s face is plastered into your neck, arms and legs thrown over your form as he hugs you close to him. 

“I might love you,” he says into the darkness. A secret, just for you and the walls to hear. 

You hide the way your heart absolutely leaps, conceal the way your hands tighten around his form into an affectionate caress, hold your breath to prevent the inevitable hitch. 

I might love you too. 

You hide that as well. For now. 

Smiling into the skin of his temples, you sigh.

“Feel free.”

[Mingyu]: class ended early 

[Mingyu]: be there in 5 

[You]: ???

[You]: wdym ended early

[You]: kim did u end class early to come home

Your response comes in the form of the front door lock jiggling loudly. You’d stayed the night at his place, knowing you didn’t have anything to do but study by yourself. Sickly as you were, you doubt you could sit through two hours of even more statistics. 

He’d left you in bed with a kiss, needing to be extra early since Dr. Cho decided to dump the last crucial few weeks leading up to finals season entirely on his TA. As much as there was on Mingyu’s already overflowing plate now, you couldn’t deny the elated feeling of your attendance being taken care of regardless of whether you show up to class or not. 

A very real violation, but no one truly notes one skipped student in the midst of hundreds. Besides, the bag under Mingyu’s pretty eyes might be enough for anyone to have mercy and let the supposed mistake slide.

As Mingyu walks into the room, shoes flying and back dumped on the floor, he finds you still half clothed with leftover sleep in your eyes, standing in the middle of the living space like you were lost. 

He drops his things to come and drown you in his arms, loud kisses all over your face as you talk. “You’re getting too comfortable with this job.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t possibly expect me to teach a bunch of half asleep idiots when my woman is all alone at home, sickly and cold without me.”

You grumble wordlessly as you feel him check your temperature with the back of his hand. “How’s the congestion?”

“Bad,” you respond nasally. “I can’t find my Afrin.”

“It’s on the bedside table, baby.”

“No, it’s not.”

Still wrapped in his hold, Mingyu begins to take steps forward that lead towards the bed, pushing you to walk backwards.

“I’m not awake enough to navigate,” you sniff.

“I’ve got you,” he lowtones, pushing backwards slowly. 

The back of your knees hit the bed and you let yourself fall back into the unmade sheets. You crawl back under the covers as Mingyu navigates between used tissues, water bottles and pills on the bedside table. But no sign of your nasal spray. 

You have to breathe through your mouth and you hate it, but you send a remark his way anyway. “Told you.”

Mingyu bends down and emerges with a familiar red capped bottle. He stares at you while you stare at it, choosing to simply snatch it from his presenting hands and be done with it. 

“Good thing I came back early, hm?” 

“Shut up.”

He leaps over your form to claim the spot in bed right next to you, still fully clothed as he burrows under the covers next to you.

There’s nothing flattering about the way you stick the nozzle up your nostrils and sniff hard, but the gleam in your boyfriend’s eyes might as well suggest you were trying to get him to look at you like that. 

“Are you gonna keep doing this till finals?” you ask throatily, shifting under the covers. 

“Teaching during class time is just extended office hours, I’m gonna go insane if I keep going like this. Probably just today. Or…once more if I feel it.”

“Didn’t you say you were gonna extend office hours to Fridays too?” 

Mingyu moulded himself against you, giving warmth to your shivering body even under thick blankets. 

It seems throughout the course of your relationship, your time with Mingyu is either spent laying down or in the process of doing so. Not that you mind, you’ve found that remaining horizontal was what worked best for someone like Mingyu who seemed to want to fuse with your very being whenever you were together.

“Ugh, not this week. Do not have the patience.”

“I’m proud of you,” you say, eyes closed, already on the highway to dreamland. 

“Thank you, I do think I’ve been very brave.” Even while slipping into dreamland, you find the good sense to find his nipple through his sweater and give it a hard pinch. He jerks away in a yelp, clutching his chest. 

“What’s that for?!”

You ignore him and simply run your hand over the area you just attacked. “You’ve gotten better at knowing when to slow down. I’m proud of you.”

You’re too far gone to make out what he answers you with, but with the hot breath against your already warm forehead, you decide it's more than enough for you. 

MINGYU DOES IT FOR the fourth time, but this time round he’s smart enough to not tell you. 

It’s the Friday before finals week officially begins, and you remain in your own place for once to crack down on the last bits of syllabus you want to go over, away from your extremely distracting boyfriend. 

There’s a text when you check your phone after a couple hours of hyperfocus, and you narrow your eyes at the notification. 

It’s Wonwoo’s (actual) girlfriend, and she’s sent you nothing but a picture of both of your men on Wonwoo’s living room floor, thoroughly occupied with the floored expanse of sheets, pillows and cushions. 

It’s a pillow fort.

Your boyfriend is building a pillow fort in his not-husband’s living room mere days before the final exam for the most dreaded course of the semester. All while he’s actively meant to be available for office hours.

You want to laugh. The man that stayed up multiple nights to answer stupid questions in emails, is now less than concerned about the pandemonium that is probably ensuing in the department building. It isn’t that you’re upset, because this was what you wanted from him. To learn to take a break when it was needed. But you would also prefer he’d time them a little better. 

Inevitably, you text him, but not before sending an encouraging text to your girlfriend-in-law for putting up with the both of them all by herself. 

[You]: where are you

[Mingyu]: where im meant to be?

[You]: office hours?

[Mingyu]: mhm

[You]: are u and ur husband conducting them under a pillow fort in his house

You imagine him sending Wonwoo’s girlfriend a betrayed look. Perhaps even throw a frilled throw pillow in her unassuming direction. 

[Mingyu]: DONT KILL ME

You let him suffer in your silence, clicking your phone off and leaving it somewhere you won’t be tempted to look. 

Besides, it wasn’t long before there was an incessant banging at your door that you ended up needing to get up to open. He looks so timid, the face of an innocent perpetrator that waltzes into your space. 

“I’m sorry,” he begins, following you to your desk like a lost duckling. 

“Whatever for?”

“For lying.” 

You snort as you sift through tutorial sheets, “Might wanna take that up to the poor hopeless student that thought you were their last hope.”

Mingyu’s head sinks to your shoulder where you sit at your desk. “God.”

“Him too.”

In another few moments, his arms have come around to cage you into your desk where you’re sat, hands placed on the table as he towers over the top of your head, mouth to crown. 

“Rumour has it,” he starts. 

You make a face. “Now you’ve joined in on gossip? Maybe I have steered you wrong.”

He ignores you valiantly as his mouth drops lower, down to the beginnings of the tips of your ears. You can smell him. He smells good. 

“That a textbook recitation is all it takes to get you all bothered down there.”

Lifting your head from its craned position over your papers, you stare straight ahead. Blank and unassuming. 

“Take a hike, Kim.”

“...Sorry.”

NO MATTER HOW FAKE annoyed you were at your boyfriend, you cannot possibly credit anyone else for how smooth your finals had gone. 

Not a single tear, hack or whine. Your meals were on time, your sleep schedule the healthiest it’s been for months. You even managed a movie night break in the midst of it all. A record for you. 

The very first thing you do after walking out of the exam hall, stretching and sighing, you find Mingyu waiting with nervous eyes. 

“Well?” he asks, eyes wide and lips pulled into his teeth. 

You merely grab for his hand and pull him out of the crowded hall and past a few familiar turns. 

“For the record I didn’t want some of the questions on there,” he yaps as he follows behind your stalks. “Hard ones weren’t mine. I promise I’m not a sadist.”

Then, in an un-CCTV’d corner, marked by the broken, empty vending machine, you round up on him. In seconds you’ve pulled him down to meet your lips in an eager, full kiss. 

In the moments your lips remain intact, you can feel all the horrid statistical knowledge you’d gathered over the months slip out the cracks and crevices, relieving you. 

Mingyu is careful to let you pull away first, eyes sticky to open when you do. There’s a smile on your face. “It went great.”

A strong tug against your waist and you’re suddenly pressed into Mingyu’s all too familiar hold, so everloving tight you can hardly breathe. His lips are smacking and pressing into your skin, all over your face, neck and hands. Anywhere he could possibly reach. 

There wasn’t much he could do standing in a huddled corner at nine in the morning on a Tuesday, where anyone could pass by and question what in the high school was going on. But there was more than enough Mingyu could do behind closed doors. 

In true Mingyu fashion, he’s begun to grope in every way you love the minute the lock clicks shut of his apartment, every fibre of both of your beings giddy and jumpy, giggles erupting from your tired mouths. You haven’t been touched in ages, always too tired to do anything even when you would find the time. 

It isn’t remotely strange that you're wet from only a few kisses and hot breaths against your neck. Although Mingyu’s hands haven’t been modest either, already reaching your clothed cunt as you fall into bed. 

He says it was your reward, for doing so good, his illustrious mouth suctioned onto your naked core, moving and grinding in ways you can more than just appreciate.

His tongue is nothing below made for you, like he knows exactly when to flick his tongue, graze his teeth and all but suck the daylights out of you. It’s marvellous, even more so as you realise he won’t stop. One, two, three mind blowing orgasms later, your legs still shake around his head as you cry out for him to stop. 

Not that he was going to listen, as he did not the last fifteen times you tried, simply pushing a finger into your abused hole to chuck you into yet another climax. You’re sobbing, trembling, sweating; but also half hearted in your attempts to stop him. 

By the time he’s relented, you’re sure you won’t feel a thing down there for at least a week. If Mingyu will even let you go untouched for that long. 

But as you’re finally able to catch your long lost breath in bed, and Mingyu has curled up right beside you, like he always does, you let the finality of it all sink in. You were done. And so was he. And you could now begin to experience a Mingyu that wasn’t exhausted, stressed or tired. Even now, the long indented layers of fatigue begin to melt away, revealing a less strained man. 

Mingyu was beautiful either way. 

“Are you okay?” he asks you, his fingers tracing your features. 

The pads of his fingers glide across your eyelids, down the slope of your nose, tracing the outline of your lips. You kiss his fingers as they reach you there, hand coming up to hold his wrists. You kiss the tips of his fingers, down to the palm of his hand. Eyes closed, you keep your lips there. 

“More than okay,” you mumble. 

“Good. Thought I lost you there.”

Stretching unceremoniously, you drape yourself over his naked form, head on his shoulder. “You’re not losing me. Not after being the sole reason I pass this devil’s module.”

“Is that all it takes? Make sure you don’t fail?”

“And give head like that.” It’s a half joke. “But also be Kim Mingyu comma TA.”

He mimics you between a breathy laugh, “Comma TA. Not anymore, I guess.”

“How happy are you?”

“Still have to grade the last set of papers. But I got what I wanted.”

“The recommendation? You deserve it.”

“That, and not having to be in Dr. Cho’s presence every other day. And you.”

You kiss his shoulder. “Look at you. All grown up with your big boy grad school on the horizon.”

“Not just yet.”

“You’ll get there too. If you can power through this hellsent semester, you can power through anything grad school applications throw.”

Mingyu shifts where he lays, taking a turn to lie on his side to face you. The afternoon sun peeks from behind his form, his outline made of pure gold. His breath is in your face as he talks, and there’s comfort in the air it penetrates.

“I only powered through this because of you. I hope you know that.” He’s smiling. 

“Girlfriend duties,” you quote solemnly. 

“I mean it. I knew I was walking into disaster with how this stupid job was going, all that work was just a distraction. I didn’t wanna believe this was a bad idea. And then you walked in.”

You cup his face and pout, “Oh, my damsel in distress.”

“Hm, my knight in shining armour,” he giggles. “Galloped in and saved me from myself.”

“You saved me too. From the world and its horrible creations.” 

“I’ll start talking in formulas if this keeps up.” 

You can only grumble in mild annoyance. 

“I’m glad I asked you to come in early that day,” he says.

“I’m glad I was a good samaritan and gathered all your stuff that day.” You grin.

Mingyu leans in and kisses you. It’s soft, slow, and drips of the romance he’s trying to bring into the conversation. His lips are bliss, the feeling of him is bliss. 

It’s almost scary how easily you’ve been able to give yourself to him. How quickly he’s placed himself in every nook and cranny of your heart. With his tired eyes and stronger than himself smile, the hand he extended in ways beyond you could ever explain to him. It’s terrifying when you realise what remains on the tip of your tongue, ready and bursting. 

But it’s true, and you can only pray it remains that way. Because in that moment, naked and tangled between Mingyu’s limbs, his heart in your ears, your hands on his being, you just know. 

“I think I might love you too.” 

[glitterycvm]

★ FUCK ME LIKE YOU MAD AT ME, BABY ★

[•~featuring: satoru, suguru, toji, sukuna~•]⊹₊ ⋆

[•~synopsis: you piss the jjk men off and they get their get back~•]

[•~a/n: prob not gonna post next week, a whole bunch of tests:(~•]

|| SATORU GOJO || silent treatment ⊹₊ ⋆

was it petty to give Satoru the silent treatment after a small argument the two of you had yesterday over something so simple? it was simple, you just wanted him to take you seriously for once. you felt like he only saw you as a joke, a doll he could mess with whenever he wanted to. and satoru, didn't respond so effectively in terms of solving the issue. instead the two of you argued the whole night, over something that could've been solved with some basic communication.

so here you two were, about 3 days without saying a single word. egos way too high to just apologize and move on. it seemed like the both of you were taking it well but in reality it was destroying you both severely. you guys never had so much tension between the two of you before. and after a couple days, satoru was not taking it anymore.

"mmph!!- satoru s-slow down!! please!!" you mewl, legs stuttering as satoru's hips buck into you harshly and quickly. the white haired man just stared back into your eyes, his eyes were so empty and dark, sending cold shivers down your spine. "nah. thought y'said I never took ya seriously right? shut up n take it." he scolds, fingers drilling into the fat of your hips, as his thrusts got more intense, leaving you moaning for more.

his words only made your cunt wetter, fueling that dirty desire of yours. you could feel how deep satoru was in you, his hands pushing your knees so much into your chest you were surprised they haven't broken off yet. the angle made it feel like satoru's tip was just repeatedly slapping your cervix. making you sob for more by each and every thrust.

and you'd be stupid to think satoru was going to let you do whatever you wanted. no- he was going to show you how much frustration you made him feel. because there was no way that you thought he thought you were just a simple joke to him, while it was the complete opposite. you were his everything. if he had ever lost you, he may loose himself. so hearing you mutter such words fueled his fury.

satoru shoves two fingers in your mouth, forcing your sore puffy lips to shut all around his fingers. he relished the feeling of your tongue swirling and sucking on his digits. your moans only getting louder, but less audible. muffed moans and cries left your lips as satoru leans down to your ears, making sure you heard everything he was about to tell you.

"thought you weren't gonna talk to me ever again. what happened to that? you thought I would just let you go so easily, hm? exactly so take this cock you've been begging for, and I want not one sound out of you. do you understand?"

|| SUGURU GETO || jealousy ⊹₊ ⋆

to suguru, it was obvious that he had a hot girlfriend. he knew it. and he should've been used to it by now. guys always checking you out, admiring your ass in those jeans. or watching your tits in that one v-neck top that already made suguru angsty, and cautious. and usually he would just brush it off, knowing it wasn't your fault you were so so beautiful.

but what pissed him off was the way you feed into every single guy's delusions. I mean it was obvious wasn't it? the guy taking your order at the coffee was so intensely staring down your shirt. and the way he would ask you so many questions, attempting to make small talk. it made suguru sick. and the worst part was that you were flirting back. giggling at his below average jokes, and flashing him your contagious and mesmerizing smile. oh you definitely were doing this on purpose, suguru knew it.

knees burning due to the friction between your legs and the carpet floor of the car beneath you. suguru had been forcing your head up and down his cock repeatedly for what felt like hours. he was forcing to "apologize" to him for "flirting" with the barista. you knew you didn't do anything wrong, all you did was talk to the man. so you weren't gonna apologize for something you didn't even do.

and suguru was not having it. he knew you did it all on purpose. so he was going to force an apology out for you. because he was in disbelief you would flirt with a random guy right in front of him. he bobs your head on his cock swiftly, the ball of hair in his fist tangling severely. he had been doing this for about 30 minutes, with no intent of stopping.

you drooled and gagged all over his dick, sticking to your point. and the more and more you refused, the more suguru would force you down on him. his deep hoarse mutters of "just fuckin apologize." as his hips would also buck into your mouth.

he didn't care about the tears streaming down your face or the drastic red your lips had taken. he was sure to abuse your mouth until he got you to admit your actions. and the sounds of your gagging only fueled him even more, feeling the tightness of your throat engulf his cock. this went on for another 10 minutes before suguru pulls your hair up, forcing your head to snap up.

"looks like ima have to try something else, since you wanna be so difficult, but it's okay I'll get that fucking apology out of you. get on the seat"

|| TOJI FUSHIGURO || teasing him ⊹₊ ⋆

toji loved to be a pain in the ass. he loved to see that annoyed look plastered all over your face. he took pride in it too. never forgetting to accidentally walk in on you showering. or his hands somehow slipping up your inner thighs, finger just merely touching your clit. he just loved to watch you squirm because of him.

and it annoyed you. a lot. you felt like he couldn't go 2 seconds without any attempts to crawl under your skin. so what did you do? you simply did it back, only this time taking it up a notch.

okay so maybe brushing your hand all over his clothed cock in the middle of eating out, wasn't the best idea. you argued that it wasn't your fault that your hand just so happened to slip by. accidentally squeezing his already halfway hard dick. toji wasn't a fool though. he knew this was your "payback". but instead of accepting the consequences of his actions, he merely just going to make you regret it.

"p-please toji, m'sorryy" you moan, fingers rushing in and out of your hole swiftly. toji had forced you to play with yourself until he felt satisfied. and it was hell.

all you wanted right now was to feel toji's shaft in you. to reach lengths your weak short fingers could never. to feel how big he was , and how much he would stretch you out. savoring the painful but pleasant burn it brought. and your fingers were getting tired. you had been fingering yourself for about 20 minutes, orgasming almost 4 times at this rate. and all of it was still not satisfying to toji

"shouldn't have been such a slut earlier then, if you wanted to get fucked just say that." he growls, arms crossed as he watched you, those dark menacing eyes tracking your every movement. "be grateful you using your fingers, you wouldn't be able to handle how I would treat you right now." he speaks, hands tucking strands of hair behind your ear. you were just going to have to wait, wait until toji was happy enough with your current state.

|| RYOMEN SUKUNA || disrespecting him ⊹₊ ⋆

is anybody surprised that Sukuna has an outrageously high ego? it should be so obvious. sukuna knew that he was important. and he knew he wasn't even worthy to be near the presence of most people. in summary he was very egotistical.

and when you two were arguing earlier, about how he didn't treat you well enough. you weren't lying though. he would constantly leave you on delivered, constantly bullied you, and even just straight up ignoring you some times. and you were sick of it. and it all happened so quickly, you swore it was just the heat of the moment. you didn't mean to call him "the worst boyfriend in the world."

so when sukuna heard those offense and outrageous words come right out of your mouth, he knew that you had gone too far. completely lost your mind. who were you even to call him such a thing? he knew in his mind that he was perfect, so maybe you just needed to get put in your place.

"would the worst boyfriend in the world be fuckin ya right now, whore?' he scoffed, grasp around your neck growing tighter. sukuna had you on all fours, on the cold wooden floor of your shared apartment, forcing you to take both cocks in your pussy. he was making sure that you would feel his wrath in the way he would thrust into your cunt, the pace so harsh and fast it made you dumber and dumber by the second.

his two large cocks in you at once wasn't helping either. it was one thing to feel him in you but twice?? it was so overwhelming, but it made you crave him even more. sukuna was so rough with you two. he had forced those two cocks down into you with no remorse for your feelings. and been though you should be scared or concerned, you just felt hornier and hornier by the second.

"s-sukuna!! gonna cum!!" you mewled, voice raspy and hoarse just from the amount of screaming you had just experienced. and you could feel that familiar knot in your stomach start to tighten, the stars building up in your vision, making you let out breathy groans and moans. only for it to all be ruined. sukuna pulls out of you, hand pulling your neck up. "who said you could cum yet? hold it in while I show you how bad of a boyfriend I can be."

[shotmrmiller]

WHAT YOU WROTE WAS AMAZING PLS IM SOBBING I LOVE IT SO MUCH GIVING U SMOOCHES

but okay so you sleep by yourself that night he comes home. you know he goes out with the boys — mostly on the weekends but sometimes the weekdays too — so when he comes home just a bit later than usual it doesn’t ring any alarm bells even if you pout a little. and you damn near run into his arms and snuggle into his neck only to smell — not him. something, someone else has touched what you thought was yours.

you pull back from the hug to look him over further. clothes mussed up, lips looking like they were bitten, a little flushed. a little like when you two —

you swallow thickly, throat lining with glass and tears as you suck in a breath. you find that you can’t actually form words for a moment, worried that only bile and venom would come out.

“did you fuck someone?”

he looks panicked — guilty — and you don’t even need him to say it for you to know what he’s done.

“who?” you ask, voice barely there, only able to be heard over the icy silence that followed your question. he replies one of the other pets. you nod, more to yourself than anything, trying not to scream your heart out at him.

but your heart cracks the moment he opens his mouth.

for the first time since you began living with him, you slept alone.

(you did scream at him. tripping over your words and panicked breaths and streams of tears. how could he do this. he didn’t call, didn’t ask. did he even think to? did he even care?)

you’re exhausted. too tired crying like you’ve never cried before, feeling like the weight of betrayal is crushing you as you sleep.

you almost fear that it’ll kill you.

the next day — friday — he knocks on your door before he goes to work. he tells you to have a good day. you don’t acknowledge him.

but you miss him. you absolutely fucking hate him but you miss him so much, it hurts. that particular ache is almost worse than the one of betrayal.

almost.

by mid day, you figure you should give him a chance to talk. he obviously feels guilty, and you love him. despite everything, you love him.

so you clean yourself up and try to look a little pretty for him, wearing a cute slip lingerie dress and bows on your ears.

you clean up around the flat a little. you fold his clothes — he’s been grumbling about it lately and always say he’d do it later. so you do it for him, folded with precision and left to sit on the edge of the bed.

you’re still upset and anxious and everything in between. the nerves make it hard to feel anything and you feel too sick to eat. but you nibble on some bread, knowing he wouldn’t want you to neglect yourself. you love him.

when it starts getting later, you decide to make him his favorite cookies. it’s been awhile since you’ve made him anything, and you’ve always enjoyed making these for him. the sweetest kisses tend to follow.

the night rolls around to the point where you know he’s off work. it’ll take him a little to get home, so you settle on the couch and wait.

but as the hours tick by, later and later, the worry grows and gnaws and threatens to split you from the inside out.

maybe he’s out with the boys again? you’d think, given the circumstances, he’d want to come home to you. but old habits die hard, you suppose.

but it gets later. and later.

later than he ever would be out even when things were perfect between you two.

it shatters you. where was he? what was he doing? was he —

the thought makes you sick.

he comes home after midnight. after you wretched in the toilet and cried yourself to sleep — again.

didn’t he love you too?

he sees the cookies put away in a container and a pit grows in his stomach, a void ready to eat his heart. whatever is left of it, anyways.

there’s a note sitting on the top.

“sleep well.”

the writing was shaky and it looks like a few tears spilled onto the words as you wrote them.

your usual xoxo at the bottom was crossed out.

you beat me to it:)

you bloody beat me to it. Fool me once.

your eyes are blank as if the life had all but faded from them, and in a way, they had.

Sitting him down, you calmly, (calmly, because there is nothing in you left other than acceptance, and youll be damned before you ever beg a man to want you) say, "I'll be leaving in the morning."

He tries to say something but nothing he could ever say will fix what he chose to break. "No, the fact that i'm even bothering to tell you is a courtesy you don't deserve. You've made your bed, now continue to lie in it with whoever you keep seeing after work." Smoothly, you get up and walk towards your room.

There is no rancor in your heart for whoever it is he's been with. After all, the one in the relationship with you was him.

You stuff a towel under the door, covering the gap, and clutch your collar to your chest, letting the last tears youll ever cry over him track down your cheeks. He doesn't deserve to see nor hear your pain.

You call an uber while he's at work and disappear.

When he comes back home, the place is dark and empty. He sits at the dinner table alone, with two fingers of whiskey in front of him, and in his hand is the last note you left him, stiff with dried tears and an xoxo at the very bottom.

What makes him crumble is when he sees the glint of your personalized collar on his nightstand, and it finally hits him that you're gone. For good.

listening to eurielle while writing epic sad is just chefs kiss.

[thebluester2020]

[SDV] Kinktober Day 12: "Aphrodisiacs"

Summary: After Jio comes home "sick" from a mission, you're the only one whose able to handle the side effects.

Warning(s): Porn with little plot, Desperate / Whiny Jio, Dub-con(Kinda-ish?), Begging, Rough Sex-ish, Jio being whipped for Y/N.

Side Note(s): Lol this is literally just porn. (Mostly cause I haven't played his route in a hot minute so I need time to remember what his route was like 💀)

In the back of your head, you wondered exactly what suddenly made your husband so ill.

However, it was a little hard to think too much of anything when he was currently pinning you down on your shared mattress, his chest pressed firmly against your back as he feverishly fucked into your pussy as if it were the last thing he would do in his entire life. "J-Jio!" You panted, your arms pressed firmly against your sides as the elf currently had his arms wrapped around your torso, effectively keeping you from attempting to squirm your way out from underneath him.

"W-What's gotten into you—fuck!" You clenched tightly around Jio's cock, his length pistoning in and out of your cunt as strings of your slick began to stick onto his abdomen.

"Sorry..." He moaned into your ear, the raspy sound of his voice making you moan in turn at how feral he sounded. And he was, after he ran into a slight accident during his mission, mistakenly encountering a rare type of flower that was said to cause men and women to ever to their baser instincts. He almost didn't come home in fear of harming you, but...as he tried to seclude himself in the forest, waiting for the effects of the strange flower to hit him.

Slowly but surely, all his mind could think about was you.

Suddenly, the sound of your moans inside his mind wouldn't leave his head. The touch of your smooth skin underneath his hands...the imagination felt so real that he feared he was losing his mind. His cock ached so badly in his pants, no matter how many times he fucked his hand to completion within the woods. The thoughts wouldn't die down.

And that eventually led him home to you, where the final piece to his mind completely falling prey to his instincts was you welcoming him home so eagerly in that low v-cut shirt he loved. "Y-You fell so good my love," He moaned. "So fucking warm..." Moan after moan was being forced from your lips as Jio's cockhead pressed right against your g-spot after every thrust. You felt tears begin to well up in your eyes, feeling yourself being fucked dumb as if he had been fucking you for hours when, in truth, it's only been a couple of minutes!

"I love you...I love you..." He continued to babble, his green eyes slamming shut as he began to kiss and suck hickeys into your neck. Your mouth opened into a silent scream when you felt his hand worm its way under your body to begin rubbing at your clit, the tight clench of your pussy on his cock making him let out a delicious groan.

Jio sucked another hickey onto your neck, a broken series of moans escaping his kiss-swollen lips as he sped up the pace of his thrusts. His balls slapped against your ass, creating a lewd and loud squelching sound that made your head spin. Your lover was tempted to pull out a little, to see the mess that he was sure you were making on his cock but he was greedy.

Every instinct inside of him was telling him to remain close to you and aim to be closer. The warm feeling of your walls on his cock, your sweet moans, and the way you cried out for more.

It was so addicting that he couldn't help the needy whine that left his lips. "O-Oh my love..." He moaned as his head fell to the crook of your neck before shakily rising to where his lips glossed over your ear. "Please...pleasepleasepleaseplease, may I cum inside? Please say that I can..." He begged.

You struggled to look behind you at your husband. "C-Cum inside..." You moaned softly, your voice broken and shaky.

"T-Thank you—O-Oh Yoba...!" He cried out, trying to bury his face deeper into your neck, your cries turning into pleasured yelps as you felt his cockhead batter against your cervix. Jio pulled your body closer to you, using whatever strength he had to trap you even closer against his as his pace became more erratic. Faster, sloppier, all as his loud groans spilled from his lips like a fountain before both of your jaws suddenly fell open together as Jio's cum flooded your inside, the feeling of his hot seed pushing you over the edge and further sinking you into a pit of pleasure as he rolled his hips against your ass, your cunt milking him for every drop that he was worth.

"S-So full..." You whispered, wiggling your hips a little as Jio continued to pant behind you.

Before you could ask him to roll off of you, you squeaked when you felt his cock hardening once more inside of you.

"J-Jio!?" You gasped in confusion, soon being met with a pair of hungry green eyes as your elven lover smirked at you.

"We're not done yet, w-we won't be done allll night long my love..."

[wrathofrats]

Hi, hello, it's me again! How are you? I have a rather odd request (at least from my perspective) that I don't actually see much of.

Trans ftm Dew x Swiss? Pretty please? I haven't seen much of it, at least with Swiss that is

-🌟

Hi hi! Sorry it’s been a while, but I’ve saved this for mushy may!

I’m doing well my icon. Not an odd request at all! (But I do love and encourage odd) and obv we love trans ghouls over here

Day 8- sex turning into making love - Swissdew

As always thank you to @forlorn-crows for the prompts and @ghuleh-recs for the banner (:

Warnings for a small amount of degro. This is smut. But obv Swiss is super sweet at the end ok I promise it turns into fluff

There were certain things about Swiss that dew tended to crave.

A sick need for a harsh and loving hand, to be made to feel small, lesser. To be put out of his own head and taken care of when he felt especially out of control of himself. Dew liked to fight for it, so he himself didn’t have to admit he needed help. And Swiss always knew exactly what he needed. He was always there to force him into submission when dew couldn’t disassemble that roadblock himself.

“Maybe if you didn’t whine like a bitch droplet I wouldn’t have to treat you like one” Swiss laughed, watching as dew squirmed when Swiss ran two fingers along his folds. The slightest touch to his clit made him clench and screw his eyes shut, sensitive and already abused.

It’s how Swiss always got him before allowing dew the privilege of being actually fucked. Writhing, begging to be full but shying away from any contact because it was always borderline too much. Dew loved it, needed to be forced out of his head and put at Swiss’ mercy in order to genuinely stop thinking for an hour or two.

“Think you��ve earned it yet?” Swiss coos, sucking on dews release that threatened to drip down his fingers. “Are you dumb enough to get my cock yet baby boy?”

“Please-“ dew moaned, strangled and barely coherent.

Swiss can’t deny him like this. Hes pretty, spread out and desperate. Small tears cling to his lashes and threaten to fall down his face as he digs his fists into the bed sheets when Swiss finally pushes in.

There’s always a strange sense of pride that wells in Swiss’ chest when he has dew in his bed. He’s more than glad dew trusts him enough to let go of his own ego and inhibitions to allow Swiss to be in control. He deserves to be taken care of, even if dew usually insisted he enjoyed being somewhat of a loner when it came to needing anything.

“God you’re beautiful like this dew” Swiss mumbles when he bottoms out before he can think twice about it. His tone is calm, loving, a gentleness that isn’t expected and leaves dew feeling dizzier than he already was.

“What?”

“You’re just -“ Swiss starts, staring down at dew with what can only be described as infatuation.

The harsh grip on dews hips soften, thumbs soothing over the more than likely bruised skin. His hands more than engulf his waist, just slightly kneading into where they hold him.

“I love you, you know that?” Swiss pulls out, watching as dew gasps and throws a palm over his mouth to stifle his whine. He leans over to kiss dew on the chest, trailing up along his neck. Dews thighs are pushed up against his abdomen, practically bending him in half as Swiss starts to fuck him in earnest.

“Kiss me- Swiss please need your lips” dew whimpers as his hands tangle in Swiss’ locs for some sense of grounding. Swiss happily obliges, capturing dews mouth with his own.

Their lips slot together perfectly, dew tasting of smoke and spice as he always does. Something about the neediness in how sloppy dew forces his mouth onto Swiss’ makes his stomach do flips, a sweet tinge of desperation in his panting breaths when they have to pull apart.

Swiss fucks him slow, hitting him deep but showing dew a gentle courtesy he knows he doesn’t get extremely often.

“Faster” dew cries, Swiss can feel a gush of slick around his cock when dew clenches down.

“Wanna take my time with you droplet, let me savor having you like this”

[bluestar22x]

The Future

The Outcast - Epilogue: The Future

Summary: Just like winter, the end is just the beginning

Pairing: Pero Tovar x F!Reader

Rating: 18+

Word Count: 2,700 (ish)

Warnings: Mention of a baby goat (kid) having died, angst, pregnancy plot, non-graphic labor and birth, fluff, pov changes, quintessential happy ending

Author’s Note: This is a very self indulgent bonus part - you can read the first four parts and have a satisfying ending if this kind of ending isn't your thing. For those who do like this kind of ending guess what my favorite line(s) to write was.

Also, any names I used in this fic were themed and/or meaningful. And if one of my running themes of relating winter with life instead of death wasn't apparent, it should be now.

xxx

Death is far from a stranger on a functioning farm. Even though you usually sold your old, infertile goats to the nearest village's butcher instead of culling them yourself, that still left a whole slew of other ways for you to witness it. Illness, lethal injuries, stillbirths, and difficult deliveries that ended badly for the doe or her offspring or both had all occurred on your farm more than once.

You'd accepted it, and your need to hunt, a long time ago, because you loved the simplicity of this kind of life. You loved being mostly self reliant, knowing you could be fully self reliant if need be, and you loved the companionship of the animals you were dependent on.

Sometimes though, the deaths still hurt. Like when River, your first horse and Meadow's mother had died a few years after you'd moved onto the mountain, due to colic. She'd been in so much pain for so long you'd been forced to end her misery with a knife. The senseless guilt you'd felt after had lasted for weeks.

That was the most you'd ever cried over losing an animal, until one spring morning a year after Pero had decided to stay.

You tried to hide how upset you were by the latest death on the farm when you returned to the cottage to cook a morning meal for you both, but as soon as he followed you inside after an hour of chomping wood, you uncharacteristically started sobbing on sight of him.

Eyes filled with concern, your husband silently approached and gathered you up in his arms, kissing your temple as he did so. You took a deep breath and focused on his soothing warmth, his reassuring broad hands that slid up and down your spine, trying to put yourself back together.

"What has you so upset, mi esposa?" he eventually asked, nuzzling the side of your face, his short beard scraping against it lightly.

You stepped away from him, leaned against the kitchen counter top on one hand, and looked back to him. "It's one of Sweets' kids, the one who was sick, I found her dead this morning."

"I'm sorry cariño," he said quietly, dark eyes serious. "I know how hard you tried to save her."

You shook your head fiercely. "It's not that, I could handle that, it has happened several times before, but it's the way Sweets reacted when I removed the body from the paddock. She started bleating and desperately searching for her, even though she had her other new kid alongside her, even though the body had been cold when I discovered it. Hearing those sounds from her broke my heart."

"It doesn't help I kept thinking -," you paused, eyes widening as you realized what you'd been about to say.

Pero frowned at the way you'd cut yourself off. "It doesn't help what?" he prompted gently.

You sucked in a deep, shaky breath. You figured you might as well not hide it from him. "It doesn't help I kept imagining what she was feeling. Putting myself in her place. I don't think I could handle it if I lost the baby that way."

"The baby," Pero repeated, lips parting in surprise. He reached out to you and tugged you back to him, his arm looped around your waist. "Mi amor, are you saying what I think you are?"

You nodded, fresh tears flooding your eyes, joy overcoming your trepidation. "I am. It's still early, I'm probably only two months or so along, but I'm certain."

You hadn't bled in that time, and had felt nauseous many times over the previous month, neither of which was normal for you. Your emotions had been all over the place lately too. You'd never been a super stoic character, but you were usually far from the emotional wreck you felt like that morning.

Pero beamed at you and the shock of it left you breathless. It was a rare sight, his smile, let alone one that obvious. He leaned forward and kissed your cheek softly, lovingly, showing more affection than you'd once thought him capable of. "Everything will be alright, cariño," he reassured you.

It was not something he could actually promise, no man could act as a god, but his words comforted you anyway.

"I'll need to find a midwife who would be willing to stay the winter with us," you told him nervously. "If I'm correct, the baby will be born in the final days of the year or the early ones of the next. The passage will be closed off by then. When my sister visits I'll ask her to help me search for one."

Pero caressed your cheek with a thumb. "I'm sure an older one without family to care for would agree to stay with us in exchange for coin and free room and board. If not, I will convince them."

You arched your eyebrows, understanding what he meant. "I appreciate the offer, but please don't threaten any of the village midwives, especially the elderly."

"I cannot make any promises, mi amor."

x

Winter had never come faster. Not because it actually arrived sooner, but because there was so much to do before then. In the late spring you and Pero planted your garden and a part of the field with enough crops to keep all the animals and yourselves through the winter.

In the early summer your sister and her husband visited with their four children, two girls and two boys, and for a week the tiny cottage was chaotic. The children were always running off doing something adventurous while your sister helped you milk the goats and Pero and your brother in law worked together to build an additional room to the cottage.

As summer neared its end and your belly rounded, you began to focus on smaller tasks. You still cooked and cleaned, you still took care of the horses and goats, and some of the weeding in the small garden behind the cottage, but Pero assisted you and he took on the tasks that were more dangerous by himself, like hunting. He did the extra work gladly, wanting to do everything he could for you, never feeling like he could do enough.

Harvest came around and your brother in law returned to help with the crops, the midwife your sister had found for you in tow. Her name was Franny, and she was strict about what you could and could not do, having you rest most of the day when she wasn't helping you knit baby clothes, but she was kind, reminding Pero of the one grandmother he knew for only a decade before she passed. It took him time to get used to another adult being in the cottage for so long, but he figured a newborn would be an even bigger adjustment, so he adjusted.

The first snowfall was almost a shock, the months having flown by in a blur, and Pero began to feel anxious. Even with Franny in the spare room, what would later become the baby's room, being closed off from the village for a whole season with you in your condition and eventually a newborn worried him. So many things could go wrong, you of all people knew that, but you would have never agreed to leave the farm. As far as you were concerned if Franny couldn't help you, nobody could, and he supposed you were probably right.

Your prediction about your due date turned out to be precise, your first pangs of labor beginning during an early afternoon at the start of the new year.

He'd found you in the barn, sitting on a square bale of hay with an arm curled around the huge swell at your abdomen, grimacing as you endured the first painful wave.

And then everything moved far too slow. He helped you into the cottage and watched as Franny got to work, prepping for the delivery, clueless about what he could do. Franny was no help there. Traditional as could be, she would've shooed him out of the cottage for the day, no matter the cold, if you hadn't insisted he stay.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to stay, as useless as he felt, as fearful as he felt, but he did it for you. He scraped his mind for ways to help all the while, assisting a dubious Franny in setting up the bed for you, gathering enough firewood to keep your home warm for a couple days, and caring for all the animals on his own as quickly as he could before returning to your side to let you squeeze his hand as your contractions continued to strengthen at an agonizingly slow pace.

It wasn't until morning the next day that Franny declared it was time for you to push. She had you sit up in bed and undress halfway with Pero's help before she prompted you to spread your legs and bend your knees. You pressed your back to Pero's chest after, using his body to support your own.

Through gritted teeth you bore down with several contractions, panting and breaking out in a sweat from your efforts. Pero kept his face close to yours, murmuring encouragement into your ear as you struggled. And when you reached back and grasped one of his a thighs tightly in an attempt to distract yourself, he let you, not caring whether or not it bruised under your fingertips if it helped you cope.

As the minutes passed, as you tired, your chest rising and falling rapidly, your legs trembling, he became concerned something might be wrong, but Franny remained calm, continuously urging you to keep going.

"A couple more," she promised you. "A couple more good solid pushes and it'll be over, sweetie. Don't give up now."

Pero saw it in your eyes, the moment you mentally and physically dug your heels in and began pushing with renewed determination, and he was awed, not sure how you'd come by the reserve.

Finally your laboring paid off and you slumped backwards into his arms, relief washing over your face as a sharp wail pierced the air.

He glanced from you to the small, wet infant flailing in Franny's arms, and his world shifted.

Outside, snow began to fall.

x

Ten years later...

"Why do I have to go?" the seven year old girl before you bemoaned. "Why can't I stay here?"

"You're not old enough to stay here by yourself, Stela," you explained. "Your brother wouldn't even be allowed to stay by himself and he's three years older than you."

"He's old," she stated and you couldn't help but chuckle.

"Maybe, but still not old enough."

Stela pouted at you then continued to put on her winter coat and boots, a long dramatic sigh slipping from her as she stood up from the kitchen chair she'd been sitting in. You thought she was far too young to be turning into a moody teenager, but guessed it was the part she'd inherited from her father breaking through.

You finished assisting her five year old sister, Lene, with her coat before leading them both outside into the frigid night. Lene immediately dove head first into the fresh snow layered on the ground gleefully, while her older sister folded her arms and stomped her way over to the front of the barn where Pero and her brother William were waiting for them.

Out of all of your children, William looked most like his father, his eye shape, chin, and nose all miniature copycats of Pero's. Stela had his eyes, but was more like you, physically, and Lene reminded you of your sister. However, they all shared Pero's dark hair and eyes.

"Ready to ride?" Pero quizzed Stela as she trudged right past him. He frowned when she showed no sign of hearing him and met your eyes. "What is she upset about this time?"

"She's angry about being outvoted," you replied. "Said she didn't want to see the stupid lights again and wanted to stay home. She's definitely your daughter."

Pero chuckled and pulled you against him at the hip with one hand as you both trailed your children into the barn to saddle up the horses.

Lene assisted her father with Orion, a four year old colt who was the youngest offspring of the since retired Clover and Thor, grandson to the deceased Meadow, and Pero's new mount. Like his sire, Orion was jet black in color, except for the small crystal shaped star marking that was usually hidden under his forelock. His surprisingly calm disposition was more like Clover though.

Your latest mount, a five year old solid bay mare named Aspen who was Orion's full sibling, was equally as quiet once she'd settled into adulthood, and you had her tacked in no time as Stela watched, still moping.

Last was Thunder, an eight year old bay gelding with a stripe shaped like a lightning bolt running down his face. The most well behaved and eldest offspring of Clover and Thor, Thunder had been assigned to William when he got old enough to start riding on his own.

He was still too tall for William to saddle him, so Pero flung it over the horse's back for him, but the young boy took care of the rest, a true horseman despite his youth.

Once you, Pero, and William led your horses outside the girls approached, Stela hesitantly letting Pero boost her up onto Orion, and Lene begging you to set her in Aspen's saddle. You and Pero climbed on your horses so you were behind them while William found a stump to help propel himself onto Thunder's back.

Someday the children would learn how to ride bareback, but it would not be that night, so you lived with it, though the wind was making you shiver and yearn for the shared body heat.

You led the way up the mountain as was tradition, your family making the trip at least once a winter, more if the children wanted to ride out that far in the dark.

Lene loved it. Loved everything, really. The girl had more positivity and enthusiasm than you and Pero could've ever had combined.

William enjoyed it as well, already into nature as much as you were, and just as quiet about it.

And Stela, well, she often spent most of the ride brooding and complaining about the cold. That night was no different.

Once you reached your destination, you, Pero, and William slowed your horses to a stop a few yards from the edge with your horses shoulder to shoulder so everyone had a great view of the lights.

While the children had grown older (far too quickly), and you and Pero had long since started to grey, the lights had remained the same, seemingly everlasting, tying the years of memories you'd shared together as they shimmered in the sky.

You looked to each of your children in turn and smiled at the delight on their faces, even Stela's, before you glanced to Pero, who was studying your face. You hoped he would never tire of it, cause you certainly wouldn't tire of looking at him, especially when he was holding your middle child by the hip to steady her, to make sure she wouldn't fall off Orion. He was always watching out for his children like that and whenever you witnessed it first hand your heart always threatened to combust.

Fate was not something you'd believed in when you were young, but the older you got, the more you weren't so convinced there wasn't something bigger out there at least nudging you towards the future you were supposed to live out. How else could you have been so lucky to find Pero in time? How else could he have been so lucky to have been chased up your mountain instead of any of the others in the chain that were uninhabited?

One change in events and you'd have never met, or he'd have never turned back come spring. And then you would've never married, and your children would've never been born. You would have spent the rest of your life in tranquility, happy, sure, but never quite fulfilled.

Whether or not fate was real, you were grateful.

You stretched your hand out towards Pero's and he automatically intertwined his fingers with yours, having long lost a hesitancy he'd had towards sharing that kind of intimacy with you.

"Let's head back home," you said simply, and he nodded, turning Orion away from you, for once choosing to take lead.

Guiding you into your future, like you had guided him home.

xxx

Tagged: @elegantduckturtle @harriedandharassed

xxx

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

xxx

[the-cult-of-riley]

Sleeping With Ghosts (Act Two: Chapter Two)

Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Female OC

[[Masterlist]]

A/N:

I’m super sick right now :(

I haven’t been able to write anything and instead got sucked down the rabbit hole of reading fanfic instead of writing lmao

I’ve got bits and pieces of Act Two written up already but not in a real order so there’s a lot I still need to write up. Send me good vibes so I can write up the next chapter.

Also, this chapter is like twice as long as my usual ones, enjoy :)

Placebo - Surrounded By Spies

I saw you jump from a burning building I saw you jump from a burning building I've seen you move like Elvis set on fire I've seen you move like Elvis set on fire This search for meaning is killing me This search for meaning is killing me This search for meaning is killing me This search for meaning

Ping pong ball at the back of my throat Ping pong ball at the back of my throat And I won't be spoken to like that And I won't be spoken to like that

Suspicious bag on the platform Suspicious bag on the platform Suspicious bag on the platform Suspicious bag on the platform

Ex-drummer's nose stuck in the past Ex-drummer's nose stuck in the past Found dead behind the wheel of a car Found dead behind the wheel of a car

World leader going under the knife World leader going under the knife Stage four Stage two Stage three Stage four Stage two Stage three

We go to Sweden in the back of a cab We go to Sweden in the back of a cab

And every picture house is empty And every picture house is empty

I gave my heart Now I want it back I gave my heart Now I want it back I gave my heart Now I want it back I gave my heart Now I want it back

I am surrounded by spies I am surrounded by spies I am surrounded by spies I am surrounded by spies

Dead fly on the national anthem Dead fly on the national anthem Dead fly on the national anthem Dead fly on the national anthem

I see faces on the bathroom floor I see faces on the bathroom floor I see faces on the bathroom floor Come on over and I'll show you more

Where are you now When I need you the most (Shut up) Where are you now When I need you the most (Shut up) Where are you now When I need you the most (Shut up) Where are you now When I need you the most (Shut up)

I am surrounded by spies I am surrounded by spies I am surrounded by spies I am surrounded by spies

Charlotte sat on the bed quietly as Beth got into her pyjamas, ready for bed. It was much later than she was used to going to bed but after all the drama of the night, the poor girl looked ready to drop. Charlotte wasn't sure how to feel about any of it. The last few hours of her life had been a tempestuous whirlwind and she could barely get her bearings. She felt so much at once, all conflicting feelings that she didn't know how to sort through. 

She was happy he was alive, of course she was. How could she not be? How many times had she cried herself to sleep, asking the universe why he had to leave? Asking if he could just come back? Well, now he had. She got her wish, yet she hadn't expected it to happen, never mind how deeply it wounded her. To know he left all on his own volition was something else. She didn't care what his excuses were of keeping her safe, she didn't think anything he said would be enough to soothe the deep wounds he’d left her at this betrayal. 

She never thought in a million years that her Simon would do this to her. She hadn't meant to explode on him like she had, nor had she meant to confess in hurt and anger that she’d tried to kill herself. She felt shame flush her cheeks at remembering the fact she’d had an audience as she’d said it. Remembered how hurt he’d looked at her admission, even if all she could see of his face were his eyes.

That was all she needed to see to read him. There was something so heartbreaking about seeing him cry like he had, at seeing him hiding his face away behind that mask, yet she hadn't allowed herself to feel sympathy for him. She couldn't, not after what he’d done. 

She’d thought he’d been murdered, right along with everyone else she considered family. In one fell swoop, she’d become so bitterly alone in the world that the only way out she saw fit was to end her own life. She remembered waking up in that hospital bed. She hadn't felt relief that she had survived, didn't see life with a new outlook, all she felt was pain and blind rage at the universe that it wouldn't even let her fucking die in peace. To be with her family. But now looking back, maybe the universe was doing her a favour because Simon wasn't dead, he was here in fucking Hereford at the SAS base they used to live at all along. 

It was confusing to be relieved yet angry at the same time. She didn't know how to process any of it. All she’d wanted was to have Simon back, to have a complete family, for Beth to have her dad. But now she got her wish and she couldn't see a way where her and Simon could pick up where they left off. Not only because he'd created a cavernous space between them with his lie, but because they were different people now. 

Living through the grief that she had, it changed her, much like she could see it changed him. Even though he hadn't been technically dead, she hadn't known that and she’d grieved for him so deeply that she hadn't been able to get out of it in the five years he’d been gone. Her grief knew no bounds. Not for Simon, not for Beth or Tommy, not for Anne, nor for sweet little Joseph. It changed something deep in her DNA that would never go back to how it was. 

The bitterness and jadedness, the anger at the world. She’d spent the first few weeks of knowing she was pregnant hating her own baby simply because it meant she couldn't end her own life and end her own torment. But even when she finally connected with the little baby in her belly, she didn't go back to who she used to be. It gave her a reason to live, sure. It made her dead heart start beating again but it felt like there was only a small chunk of it left. The rest of it was buried along with the Riley family. 

She felt sick then, realising the grave she’d been visiting all this time hadn't been her husband's at all. Who the fuck was buried there then? A new wave of grief washed over her and she closed her eyes to stave off the tears, breathing deeply through her nose. She wasn't the woman Simon knew her to be, not any more. She knew from what Price had said, Simon had been through more than just the loss of his family. He had changed too, she could see that with that mask he wore. She could hardly believe the man was wearing a fucking skeleton mask all the time, not when he used to be so afraid of them. 

Ghost . That’s what Price said he was called now. He didn't go by Simon anymore. For all intents and purposes, Simon was dead. Maybe her grieving hadn't been for nothing after all. But could she love Ghost as she had Simon? Was Simon hiding in there at all? She thought back to the journey over here and the way Price was being cryptic, not telling her much but telling her enough to warn her of what might await her. 

The silence in the car was making Charlotte’s skin crawl but she couldn't find it in herself to open her mouth and break it. Her brain felt like it had been on a merry go round since the moustached man had uttered those treacherous words to her back home and felt like she didn't know which way was up anymore. 

She glanced to her left, seeing Beth clutching her stuffed bunny. She was bobbing her head to the beat of the music, chunky headphones over her ears that were connected to Charlotte’s phone. Beth had always loved music, enjoyed how Charlotte played it around the house. She thought it was best the girl listened to some on the journey, not wanting her to be hyper aware of the tension her mother was holding. It was getting increasingly harder to hide things from her, she was getting far too perceptive for her own good. She didn't need her asking questions about why she wasn't happy her dad was okay. 

When she’d explained to Beth on the way out that her father wasn't in fact an angel in heaven, but very much alive, the girl only had one emotion. Excitement. Of course she couldn't get it, she was far too young, but Charlotte was struggling with a slew of emotions she couldn't quite understand and she was having a hard time putting on a brave face for her daughter. 

“I can’t even begin to imagine what you must be goin’ through right now. And I know I have no right to ask you anythin’ but… just hear him out, yeah? Whether that's tonight, in a week, a fuckin’ month… Once you’ve got your head on right, just try to listen to him,” John murmured carefully from the driver's seat, the leather steering wheel creaking under his grip. 

Charlotte tensed, glaring out of the window as she crossed her arms over her chest. Part of her wanted to hear Simon out. He was her husband. They hadn't just been lovers, but best friends and that's why she was so confused as to why he’d done this to her. At her silence, John continued.

“He’s a good man, Charlotte. And I know you know that ‘cause you married him,” he sighed, his tone weary.

“It’s been five years, John. I don’t know what kind of man he is now,” she bit out, still staring out of the window as the dark street passed her by. 

“He’s still a good man,” John argued vehemently. “I won’t lie and say he’s the same man you knew all those years ago because he’s changed. Who wouldn't after everythin’ he’s been through? I can’t tell you all of it ‘cause it’s not my story to tell, but… I know you know what happened to the family,” he murmured, glancing at her through the rear view mirror. She licked her lower lip, chest aching at the mere mention of them.

“They were murdered,” she replied tensely. They’d never caught the murderers and that had always been something that stuck with her. John nodded, a frown etched onto his face that she could see when she looked through the mirror at him.

“Like I said, I can't say much, but I will tell you it was connected to a job gone wrong in Mexico. Simon was taken with some of his squad mates, tortured for months on end. And the poor bastard… he somehow survives, somehow gets out, only to come home and find his family fuckin’ massacred,” John’s angry words made Charlotte feel nauseous. 

The idea of Simon going through all that broke her heart. She remembered his smiling face the day he left, the last time she ever saw him. He’d already been through so much in his life and she could only imagine the stuff he went through at the hands of whoever did this to him. 

It still stung though, that he left her so willingly. She was his wife, he should have come to her in his time of need so she could be there for him. They could have grieved together, helped each other through it. But instead, he’d led her to believe he’d been murdered too, led her to believe she was thoroughly on her own.

“He could have come to me,” her voice was a mere whisper in the quiet car and John’s shoulders slumped.

“I know he could have. He fuckin’ should have. I’ll never sit here and try to defend his actions, he was a fuckin’ idiot for doin’ what he did. I tried to tell him after I found out he’d faked his death, told him to reach out to you, but he wouldn't have any of it. He was convinced if he did, you’d wind up dead too,” John explained with a sigh. 

The more rational and logical side of Charlotte’s brain understood the motives. Understood that Simon had been out of his mind with grief after being tortured for months when he'd made the choice to leave her behind like he had. She understood how terrified he must have been when she tried to put herself in his shoes. But what she didn't understand was why he hadn't told her sooner. Why not after a few months or even just one year, he hadn't tried to reach out and explain things to her.

Five years was a long time and the only reason she was finding out now was because his identity had been exposed. If that wouldn't have happened, she had no doubt she’d still be thinking her husband was dead and that hurt her deeply. It hurt that he clearly hadn't even looked her up and checked to see how she was doing or he’d have known about Beth. John had told her as they left the house that he’d called ahead to let him know he had a daughter so he didn't have a heart attack when they got there. Did he care that little about her that it was so easy to let her go? That he’d been able to forget about her like she meant nothing?

She was broken out of her depressing thoughts when Beth moved to take the headphones off, looking from Charlotte to John.

“Are we nearly there yet, Mr John?” she asked excitedly, kicking her legs around as she wriggled in her seat. It was far easier for Beth to roll with the punches after finding out her dad was very much alive. She didn't care about the ‘how’ or the ‘why’, she just cared about finally getting to meet her daddy, her hero. 

“Not too long left now, sweetheart,” John replied with a smile. It hadn't escaped her notice how attached he’d gotten to Beth already. 

“I can’t wait! Mummy, are you excited to see daddy?” she asked with a big smile, her big brown eyes boring into her mother. No, no she really wasn't. It would have been better if this bomb had been dropped on her and then she was left to stew in it for a week so she could digest the news. But instead she was heading right there when her emotions were heightened and she couldn't make sense of any of them.

“Of course I am, sweetie,” she smiled at her. She tried her best to make it as genuine as possible and the girl bought it by the way her own smile widened. 

“Now, before we get there, there’s just a few things I wanna get outta the way,” John spoke up, making fleeting eye contact through the mirror with Charlotte.

“He doesn't really go by Simon much anymore. I’m really the only one who calls him by his name and it doesn't happen a lot, sometimes his best mate Johnny will too, if it's somethin’ serious. On base, you’ll hear him be referred to as Lieutenant or Ghost,” he continued. Lieutenant. He got his promotion then. 

“Ghost? That’s a funny name!” Beth giggled and John let out a chuckle.

“It’s his callsign, kind of like a nickname. Most soldiers have one,” he explained patiently. 

“Do you have one, Mr John?” she asked curiously.

“Not really. People often just call me Cap or by my last name,” he shrugged.

“Why is daddy called Ghost? Does he like spooky things? I like spooky things!” Beth exclaimed, pulling what she deemed to be a ‘spooky’ face in the mirror at John and he smiled to himself. She didn't give him a chance to answer her barrage of questions though as she continued to ramble.

“Halloween is my most favoritest day of the year. And on my birthday, mummy decorates the house like it's halloween!” she grinned, ending her spiel with a ghost noise as she wiggled her fingers dramatically. Despite the situation, Charlotte couldn't help the smile that curled on her lips. No matter what anyone said, her daughter was for sure a character. 

“Well, if you like spooky things, you’ll like your daddy’s mask then. He has a skeleton mask that he wears all the time,” John spoke up. His voice was light as he addressed his words to the young girl who started clapping excitedly, but his eyes caught Charlotte's with a meaningful look. It shocked her, knowing his fear since a child, knowing how Tommy used to wear a skeleton mask to scare him.

“All the time?” she asked, getting a nod in return. 

“Was only recently the rest of the 141 got to see his face. Part of it's due to some scarrin’ he’s got after… after Mexico. But mostly I think it's to conceal his identity,” he explained and she held in her scoff. Didn't do a fucking good job since someone found out anyway and now her and Beth were being driven to an SAS base for god knows how long. 

She tried to will herself to be in a better mood, to summon some semblance of excitement to see her husband, mostly for her daughter's sake. Little Beth couldn't sit still in her seat as she went on and on about how excited she was to see him. She couldn't find any excitement inside herself though. 

The sting of his betrayal stung deep and she had no idea how long it would take for it to subside. Would it ever? She never thought in her wildest dreams that she’d ever get to see him again and never did she ever think she’d be feeling this way if she did. Yet here she was, on her way to see the husband she thought was dead for the past five years and all she felt was hurt. 

Charlotte looked over once Beth was fully ready for bed, watching as she rummaged around in the duffel bag near the bed. The room was a decent size with a bathroom attached. It had a double bed for Charlotte and a smaller single bed for Beth. John had explained to her once she’d come inside about how the base worked, despite the fact she lived here once. Apparently things had changed a little especially since they were in a special task force. 

It was an SAS base but they weren't the only ones here. The Task Force had their own building which housed their barracks and a rec room/small kitchen. They shared the training area, armoury and mess hall with the rest of the soldiers here. 

Beth pulled a worn leather bound book from the bag and Charlotte smiled softly. It always looked comically large in her small hands. It was the same copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales that Simon got her all the way back in 2006. She hadn't been able to look at it for two years after he ‘died’, but eventually she found comfort in reading it. Beth loved it too now. The stories weren't traditionally for children but Beth didn't care. She loved these ones and not the Disney versions that were in her words, ‘icky’. She toddled over, book in hand and her comfy bunny pyjamas back on.

“Mummy…?” she asked softly, dark eyes glancing over at her with a tiny smile playing on her lips.

“What is it, sweetie?” Charlotte answered.

“Could daddy read me my bedtime story?” she asked hopefully. The idea of seeing Simon so soon after the confrontation outside made her blood turn to ice in her veins, but she concealed it with a fake smile for her daughter. 

“You’d have to ask him, his room is next door. He might not be there though,” she said softly. She hoped he wouldn't be there. It was bad enough knowing his room was so close to theirs and she knew Simon was probably to blame for that. 

“Can I go and knock?” she asked with a grin and Charlotte nodded as she stood up. She wouldn't go to his door but she’d wait at her own so she could keep an eye on her. She was only four after all. Beth put the book on her bed and Charlotte opened the bedroom door, leaning on the doorframe as she watched Beth go to the door next to theirs. 

She knocked softly, fidgeting where she stood and Charlotte felt conflicted. The selfish part of her hoped he wouldn't be there so she wouldn't have to see him, but seeing how excited and anxious Beth was, she couldn't help but hope he was there. The door opened and Charlotte couldn't see him as he stood in his doorway. Beth grinned up at him, a brilliant smile that she’d perfected over the years. The one that got her anything she wanted. 

“Daddy! Can you read me a bedtime story, please?” she asked, clutching her hands together like she was begging him. He was silent for a moment and Charlotte wondered what look he had on his face. Despite everything, it had touched her seeing how emotional he got when he saw Beth. It touched her how he instantly fell in love with her. 

“Where's your mummy, sweetheart?” he asked carefully and Beth pointed over at her. 

He stepped out of the door then, now dressed in black sweats and a tight fitting t-shirt. He’d always been big but he seemed even bigger now. He didn't have on the hard skull mask from earlier, and instead he had a black gaiter with half a skull painted on it covering his lower face. She could just make out a scar coming out from it and curling around his temple. 

His blonde hair had grown in his time away. It was longer at the top and messily pushed back, shorter on the sides. He also had a half sleeve and a part of her brain, the old Charlotte, itched to see what the ink was, what story it told. He stared at her for a long moment and Charlotte couldn't meet his eyes as they burned into her. He finally dragged his gaze away from her and back to the little girl in front of him.

“If it’s alright with your mum, then I’ll read to you, lovie,” he murmured, making Beth turn her pleading eyes on her. Charlotte couldn't find her voice and just nodded, making her way back to the bedroom as Beth and Simon followed. She sat on the bed, watching as Beth rushed in, grabbing the book. Simon shut the door behind him, looking severely out of place in the room.

“Come on, daddy!” Beth giggled as she climbed in bed, pulling her quilt over her and patting the spot next to her. Simon walked over, perching on the side of the bed. When Beth shoved the book in his hands, his whole body seemed to still. Charlotte couldn't help but watch his reaction, seeing how his hand rubbed over the beaten leather cover as he swallowed thickly. He took a shaky breath, cracking open the front cover to reveal the message inside. 

‘Grimm stories for my Grim girl. 

All my love,

Simon’

She watched as his hands shook, watched how he blinked rapidly before looking at her. She felt a deep ache in her chest and she bit down on her lower lip, tearing her gaze away from his. She knew it meant something to him, that she’d kept the book. 

“Which story, lovie?” he asked Beth after clearing his throat. 

“Any, you can pick!” she smiled, moving to lay down, wriggling around to get comfy inside the covers. He nodded, flicking through the pages before he found the one he’d been looking for.

“Once upon a time there was a sweet little girl. Everyone who saw her liked her, but most of all her grandmother, who did not know what to give the child next. Once she gave her a little cap made of red velvet. Because it suited her so well, and she wanted to wear it all the time, she came to be known as Little Red Ridin’ Hood, ” he started, his voice low and soothing. Charlotte settled to sit back, leaning on the headboard as she listened on.

“One day her mother said to her: ‘Come Little Red Ridin; Hood. Here is a piece of cake and a bottle of wine. Take them to your grandmother. She is sick and weak, and they will do her well. Mind your manners and give her my greetin’s. Behave yourself on the way, and do not leave the path, or you might fall down and break the glass, and then there will be nothin’ for your sick grandmother.’ " listening to him read like this took her back and she tried to ignore the tumultuous tide of emotions within her. A large part of her wanted to go over to him, curl around him and not let him go. She didn't think she'd ever get to hear his voice again and now he was reading to their daughter. Despite the deep yearning she felt, she didn't move. She couldn't . 

A nasty voice in the back of her head wondered if he was happier away from her. Wondering if maybe he hadn't looked her up because he realised he was better off without her. She knew it was stupid, knew it was a very self centred way of thinking, yet she couldn't help it. She never thought she and Simon had a perfect relationship by any means, she didn't think perfect existed. She did think they came pretty fucking close though so learning that he just fucked off and left when they both needed each other still didn’t make sense in her brain.

She stayed there listening to him read until Beth fell fast asleep, her soft snores filling the air as he stopped reading. The quiet left the roaring in her ears far too loud. Glancing over at him, she saw how he watched Beth, eyes flitting over her face as if he was trying to ingrain every small feature of her face into his brain. It made her chest feel hot and tight as he gently raised his hand up to her head, hesitating for a mere second before he stroked her head with his large hand. 

She wondered what he would have been like with her as a baby. It had devastated her after having to go through labour alone, to know Beth's daddy wouldn't ever get to hold her. He'd missed out on so much of her life, so many important firsts she'd been through. There wasn't anything he could do or say to change that. 

His hand moved back to the book then as he closed it quietly, his hand once more smoothing over the beaten leather cover. The silence that permeated the room was anything but comfortable and Charlotte wasn't brave enough to break it herself. He dragged his eyes to her and she tried to quell her rapidly beating heart. She needed time alone, needed her brain to digest the ridiculous amount of bullshit that it had forced on it within hours. 

“I'll uh… I'll let you rest then,” he murmured, his tone unsure and awkward as his eyes never left her. He'd always had a way of seeing right through her but now she hated it. She nodded, nibbling her lower lip as she stood. She didn't know what to say so she settled on not saying anything at all as she walked to the door. She opened it, unable to meet his gaze that was burning into her as he placed the book on the nightstand and moved over to the door. 

He hovered in the doorway before just stepping right out, allowing her to breathe a sigh of relief. Part of her had been worried he'd corner her into talking about everything and it was far too soon. But as she watched him walk down the hall a few steps away to his own door, a thought hit her like a tonne of bricks again and she couldn't stop her mouth from opening. To ask the question burning on the tip of her tongue, even if she was scared to know the answer.

“Simon…” she called out after him, her voice trailing off as she stepped out into the hallway. He stopped and turned to face her at an alarmingly fast rate. She almost felt bad at his hopeful eyes that burned into her.

“What is it, love?” he asked, his voice soft, as he gazed at her. 

She’d wondered if Simon was in there at all or if Ghost was all that was left, but the reverence in his dark eyes let her know that Simon was indeed still there, even if he was buried. Her mouth floundered for a moment, scared to even ask him but she knew she’d lose sleep if she didn't. Hell, she knew she'd be losing sleep regardless, but she wanted to know.

“Who… Who’s buried… where you should be?” she asked carefully, tripping over the wording. Shock coloured his face for a brief moment before his eyes darted away at lightning speed, now unable to look at her. It only made the pit in her stomach grow.

“Some things are best just left well alone, sweetheart,” he frowned, still not looking at her. It only served to make annoyance swell up inside of her.

“Really? After everything you’ve fucking done, now you won’t even answer my questions?” she asked, sounding more hurt than angry which only annoyed her further. His eyes finally met hers, brows furrowed deeply but he still didn't say anything.

“How am I ever gonna be able to understand all of this bullshit if you won't even answer me?” she asked incredulously as she took an angry step towards him.

“Ask me somethin’ else, anythin’ else and I’ll answer, please ,” he whispered and she could hear how strained his voice was. She knew then, he didn't want to answer her because he knew she wouldn't like the answer. Her eyes narrowed, hands shaking at her sides as she glared at him.

“It was one of them, wasn't it? One of the murderers?” she asked, dread coating her tongue. It got worse when he squeezed his eyes shut, lowering his head as he inhaled deeply through his nose. She started to think he wouldn't answer her again but then his shoulders slumped as he nodded.

“Yeah… it is,” he admitted and the shame in his voice was clear as day. She stumbled back a step, covering a hand over her mouth as if it would help stop the feelings of bile climbing up her throat.

“Lottie…” he pleaded, reaching his hand out as if to steady her but she moved right away from him, bitter tears stinging her eyes.

“You… I can’t-” she shook her head, wiping at her eyes furiously as the ringing in her ears got louder. His own tearful face watched her, half covered as his tears disappeared under his gaiter.

“I visited that grave every single fucking day! I stood there and poured my heart out to the bastard that took our family away! He's buried next to them!” she seethed, trying to keep her voice down but she felt so much disgust that she worried she might vomit her heart right up. His face fell, a look in his eyes that told her this was something that bothered him deeply, yet he’d done it anyway. 

“I’m sorry, love, I am, but I did what I need-” he started but she didn't want to hear it.

“Don't you dare! You didn’t need to fake your fucking death! You didn't need to have me visiting a murderer's grave for five years!” she hissed, feeling lightheaded. She couldn't even look at him, it made her feel sick. 

She turned on her heel, moving back to her door and pushing it open, but just as it opened a crack, his large hand covered hers on the handle as he yanked it back shut. His hand stayed on hers, his left hand on the doorframe by her head, caging her in as she faced the door. 

His chest wasn't touching her back but was close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off him. Part of her wanted to cave, wanted to turn in his arms, sob into his chest and beg him to never leave her again. She couldn't though, not after this. It dawned on her that this was why he was scared to answer the question. That maybe this was a push too far. 

She stood stock still, tearful eyes blinking at the wooden door in front of her. His head was hovering over her right shoulder and she could hear his stuttering breaths, knew he was trying to calm himself despite his tears. She waited for him to speak, to argue his point some more. She didn't have it in her anymore, she just needed to get away from him. 

He stayed there for a moment, so close yet so out of reach it burned her chest, and then he backed away from her. Her hand felt ice cold once he’d let her go, the only proof he was in fact alive and she hadn't made all of this nonsense up in her head. 

“I know it probably doesn't feel like it, Lottie… but I love you,” he murmured with a rough voice. She didn't turn to look at him as her silent tears fell harder, didn't dare open her mouth because she wasn't sure just what might come out. She stayed as still as a statue at her door until she heard him walk away and go back into his room, and only then did her tense muscles relax. 

The tears wouldn't stop though and the burning in her chest was getting worse. She knew she couldn't go into the bedroom like this. The last thing she wanted was to wake up Beth in this state and only cause her confusion. Not really knowing what else to do, she took off down the hallway, leaving through the double door that separated the bedrooms from the rest of the building. She hurried into the kitchen area, chest heaving with ugly sobs that she couldn't hide any more. She was just glad Simon wasn't around to witness her like this. She clutched the kitchen counter in a death grip, trying to will her breathing to slow so she could get a hold of herself. 

“Oh shit, I didn’t know anyone was in here.”

The voice made her whip around, coming face to face with a man with a mohawk. She’d seen how close he was to Simon when they were all outside and she was sure this was the best friend John had told her about. She wiped her eyes as her cheeks flushed red in embarrassment, but she still couldn't calm down. He looked so sad when he looked at her, like he knew her, like they were friends, and this whole thing made him sad. It was pretty jarring given he was a stranger. 

“Alright, come on,” he sighed with a frown, shaking his head as he held his arms out to her. She blinked her watery eyes at him dumbly.

“What?” she squeaked out through her tears. He didn't answer her with words and instead just took a few long strides to her before wrapping her in his arms.

It caught her off guard but there was something comforting about him and she couldn't help but melt into him, allowing herself to seek comfort. The only person that had hugged her for years had been Beth and despite how she was avoiding Simon’s touch like the plague, she needed comforting now more than ever. 

She sobbed into his chest, hands balled into his t-shirt at his back as he held her close. One of his hands stroked her hair as he murmured something to her. She couldn't really understand him with his accent, she wasn't even sure if he was speaking English at this point. It still soothed her though and after far too long for her liking, her tears finally dulled to sad sniffles. His shirt was soaked with her tears and she felt her face flush once more as she reluctantly pulled away from him. He gave her a sad smile, squeezing her shoulders before he took a step back, allowing her space once more.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, shame still nipping at her.

“Don't need t’ thank me, lass. Yer family,” he replied easily, a warm smile on his face. Family . That word felt so strange to her now. She’d been so used to it just being her and Beth and now she had a family again. She tried to give him a smile back, feeling more than overwhelmed and unsure of herself.

“You want me to make ye a brew?” he asked kindly but she shook her head, swallowing thickly as she wiped at her damp cheeks.

“No… No thanks, I should get back in case Beth wakes up,” she declined politely and he nodded with another warm smile.

“Alright then. Sleep well,” he shot her another smile and she headed to the door, arms wrapped around herself as if to self soothe.

“Charlotte,” he called out before she walked through the doorway. She turned back to look at him, finding him looking at her already. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before sighing.

“If ye need anythin’, and I mean anythin’ , ye can come to me. I know you don’t know me very well, not yet at least, but ye don’t have to be alone here. I want ye to know that. You got someone fightin’ in yer corner for ye. That big fuckin’ idiot might be my best friend but… you didn’t deserve all this shit. So if ye need someone rootin’ for ye, I’m right here,” he implored, bright blue eyes burning fiercely. 

Her throat clogged up, eyes stinging with unshed tears again at his words. He didn't know her at all yet she could tell he meant his words. It touched her and sent a wave of relief through her. Simon was the only one she knew here and she couldn't go to him after everything. She couldn't trust him any more, so knowing she had someone she could go to if she needed anything was a huge relief for her. 

“Thanks…” she trailed off, realising she didn't know his name. Her head was so muddled, she couldn’t remember if John had told her back on her journey here or not.

“Johnny or Soap. Take yer pick. Fuck, ye can call me the Scottish Bastard if ye want, I won’t mind,” he shot her a lopsided grin that made her smile genuinely for the first time in hours. 

“Thanks, Johnny. It means a lot,” she murmured. He beamed at her, seemingly happy with her response and she gave him a little nod before exiting the room.

Johnny watched her go, trying to ignore the dull ache in his chest at the mess his best friend had caused. He turned to flick the kettle on, needing some shite like a chamomile tea to help him unwind before bed. He felt far too wired right now. He felt the presence before he heard it and he heaved a sigh.

“Ye want somethin’, LT?” he asked tiredly, glancing over his shoulder. Ghost stood there, gaiter on and all imposing like he usually was but Johnny spotted his tense posture right away. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think his LT was about to fucking murder him.

“What’s your fuckin’ game, Johnny?” Ghost growled. His tone was harsh, harsher than Soap had ever received from him even when he was purposely trying to push his buttons. It made annoyance swell up inside the Scot as he turned to fully face the spectre haunting the kitchen.

“Excuse me?” he asked, making sure to sound as unimpressed as possible. Ghost took a step towards him and Johnny wouldn't be a liar and say it didn’t strike a little fear through him. Mostly because he could see those dark eyes peering over the mask at him and they looked absolutely fucking feral.

“That’s my fuckin’ wife you had your hands all over!” he hissed, sounding half fucking gone as he jabbed a finger in Soaps’ direction. It wasn't just jealousy he could detect in the man's tone, no, it was pure hurt.

“Is that a fuckin’ joke?! Ye think I’m makin’ moves on yer wife?!” Johnny spat, feeling like he might as well have been smacked in the face. 

Ghost’s breathing was ragged and Johnny didn't miss the glistening of his eyes. He felt almost positive his big bad LT was on the verge of breaking down and he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried to will himself some fucking patience to deal with the man.

“I was comfortin’ her, ye wee bawbag! Didn’t ye see her? She was a mess, a mess you caused! And I get it must be hard all this but it's hard on her too and I want her to know she’s got people that care. I want this to fuckin’ work for the both of ye, yer my best friend for Christ’s sake! I’m tryin’ to be the bridge here, the one to help guide you back together!” Johnny frowned. 

If he was honest, he felt hurt at Ghost’s implications but he also knew the normally emotionally constipated man was going through a lot right now. The beast of a man's shoulders sagged and Soap saw the switch from Ghost to Simon as he looked down, shaking his head as his fists clenched and unclenched.

“I didn't mean… I know you wouldn't, I just…” Simon couldn't seem to find his words, his voice cracking as he sucked in a painful sounding breath. 

“She won’t let me touch her. All I wanna do is hold her and I can't. And then I see you huggin’ her and I…” he trailed off with a shaky voice, nothing but pain in his words and it punched Soap in the gut. He felt for the man, he really did. Five years away from his wife and he wasn't allowed the reunion he so desperately craved. He can only imagine it would drive a man mad. 

“Well… if ye hug me then it’ll be like a second hand hug off Charlotte,” he murmured wryly, opening his arms out to him. Simon squinted at him, tilting his head as he looked at him like he’d grown another head.

“Are you fuckin’ daft?” he asked incredulously and Soap laughed lightly.

“Aye, pretty much. Now come here, ye fuckin’ shit stain,” Soap huffed, moving over to hug the man. 

Simon’s hands hung limply by his sides for what felt like a whole minute but Soap didn't relent. Finally, he heaved a long suffering sigh before wrapping his arms around Johnny and the Scot knew he needed this hug as much as Charlotte had with how tightly he was gripping him.

“I fuckin’ hate you,” Simon muttered in contempt and Soap smiled to himself.

“Nah, ye love me,” he retorted, not missing a beat. He let go after a few moments not wanting a punch to the dick for taking too long. He’d already pushed it as it was.

“It’ll all work out in the end. Just gotta be patient,” Johnny said carefully, a soft look on his face as he watched his Lieutenant roll his shoulders as if to shake the tension out of them. 

“How can you be so sure?” he asked miserably and at that moment, Soap wasn't sure if he was speaking to Ghost or Simon or maybe an odd mix of both.

“I can feel it. Ye both still love each other and I think after some time, you’ll be able to work through it all. Love like this… nothin’ can stop it,” he shrugged honestly and Simon swallowed thickly, the movement making his gaiter bob a little. 

“I hope you're right, Johnny,” he admitted quietly, a mere whisper in the kitchen as if he was scared to say it out loud. 

Johnny hoped he was right too, he hoped to all the gods to ever exist that Simon could win his wife back. If anyone deserved happiness in this world it was his LT and Johnny wanted him to get that happy ending he’d always tried to deny. The one he’d tried to run from. Like he said, nothing can stop a love like this and it had all come catching up to him now. You can't outrun fate.

[bp4545]

Real smiles (Fake smiles pt2. Angst to Fluff)

READ PART 1 HERE FIRST

Word count: 2500, I don't like how I ended this one it actually sucks I almost had a mental breakdown because I had no idea how to end it lmao.

Warnings: swearing maybe, angsty but not a lot. fluff and forgiveness. Also for the sake of the fic, your favourite flower will be sunflowers:) Sorry if that's not your favourite flower, it just matched the storyline.

Summary: Draco tries to win your love back, and he earns that real smile that he's been wanting so see in a long time.

---

He couldn't believe he had lost the one most beautiful thing in his life, and he lost it so damn easily. 

He loved you, there was no doubt, he would have picked all of the stars out of the sky for you, he would have plucked every flower, he would have counted every grain of sand, if only you asked him to. 

Although he loved you until his heart stopped beating, he still managed to lose you. He knew why you had ended it, he had been an arse. He had ignored the very girl he swore to never take his eyes off, and he had lost your trust, chance, after chance, after chance. 

In all honesty, he admired Astoria, she was a nice girl, and 'studying' with her was fun, even though many of the times they weren't studying and rather going to Hogsmeade and getting drinks and snacks. But was it worth it? Was it worth losing you, the light of his life? Astoria could never replace you, or be as perfect as you were in Draco's eyes. As he thought back, tears welled up in his eyes, he was still standing in front of the very door you had slammed in his face just a few minutes ago. Gosh he fucked up so badly.

Draco felt hurt, however, that you would think that he would have done such things with Astoria as he did with you, he could never be as intimate with anyone else, he could never love someone else the way he loved you. 

He looked into the his hand, wrapped tightly over the ring he had gotten you on your birthday.

To my one and only

His eyes teared up and he clasped it in his hand tightly once again. How could you ever forgive him. He had lost every fiber of your trust by now, he couldn't believe he had forgotten 6 of the dates he had promised you. He couldn't imagine how long you had been waiting for him, how sick of it you got. How much you cried.

He just wanted to hold you. Hold you into his chest and protect you. Hold you and cry with you. Whisper sweet nothings in your ear and tell you everything would be okay, because he would always be beside you. But he couldn't, he wasn't worthy enough to call you his anymore. 

He had to prove it to you, that he still loved you.

---

The next day of school and you had the best sleep of your life. It was like every burden and weight upon your shoulders was lifted. Sure, you had cried for ages, but you felt free of a relationship that just didn't make you feel loved. You didn't miss Draco. You kept telling yourself that, and it seemed to work, it seemed to boost your self confidence.

You were glowing. It was like you were the same girl you were a few months ago. When you and Draco were still hopelessly in love. 

You walked into the great hall for breakfast, and you sat down at the (your house) tables. You instinctively looked to the Slytherin tables looking for a particular blonde head of hair. Your eyes stopped when you met his blue eyes, they looked drained and puffy, like he had been crying all night. Good. He deserved a good cry, a good think about just how hurt he made you feel. A part of you felt sympathetic to see him this way, he was someone who would never show that he was hurt in public, he would only show such emotions with you.

You saw him tear up again and look away, and go to sit with his friends. You still watched him, he looked like he had gone through a harder time than you. Then you saw her. Astoria.

She sat right next to him. You didn't feel jealousy, you just felt angry that she would try her luck with Draco just mere hours after the two of you broke up. It disgusted you actually, that there were girls who would actually do that.

You watched with narrow eyes as she tried flirting with Draco and touching his hands. Draco wasn't having it. Draco was angry at Astoria too. He blamed himself for losing your love and trust, but he put half the blame on Astoria. She sugar coated him, made him feel so special and gave him special attention, and now that he thought of it, he didn't even like her, he just liked the words about him that would come out of her mouth. 

Your eyes drifted away from them as you just accepted the fact that Draco loved having her all over him. You could hear her giggling all the way from over where you were sitting. You could hear her whiny voice too.

"Awhh, Draco it's okay, I'm always here for you" She laid her head on Draco's shoulder and he tensed up, it felt so wrong, even though he wasn't with you anymore, having someone else's head upon his shoulder just seemed so foreign to him. He grimaced and didn't say anything and kept eating.

"Draco?" she nudged him as she looked at him with fucking puppy eyes. 

"What Astoria" He was sick of her existence now.

"I just don't want you looking so sad! It's okay, you didn't deserve her anyway, she treated you like shit." That triggered him, he stood up abruptly, scaring Astoria, and you a bit too as you watched them. 

"Fuck off Astoria, and don't touch me like that. She treated me like I was the most important person in her life, she made me feel so loved and safe, and you ruined that for me. I wasted my time hanging out with you instead of her, and now I'm crying to sleep when I just wish I was in her arms." He spat at her, toxicity laced through his words. A part of you felt proud, he still defended you even though you had ended it with him. Maybe he still did love you.

---

It had been a few days, and Draco had been doing better. He had been planning something to win your heart back. 

It was third period, and Draco knew you had a free period now. He skipped his classes and found you in your favourite spot near your favourite patch of sunflowers. You were sat on a bench, with a piece of paper in your hand that you were folding into a paper crane. You always did that when you were stressed or nervous, and Draco knew that.

Draco also knew that your favourite flowers were sunflowers, hence why he was holding a bundle of them in his hand, with blue and green wrapping around it that complimented the flowers' bright yellow. 

He walked up in front of you, and as you looked up at him, he felt his heart beat a little faster, and his stomach did little turns. It reminded him of the first time he asked you out. He was so nervous, because you were just so perfect in his eyes.

"What are you doing Draco?" you asked him, as you looked at him questionably.

"Taking you out on a date" he said, smiling sheepishly. You'd be lying if you said it didn't leave butterflies in your stomach, he looked so handsome, he was in his white button down that was your favourite. It felt like the two of you had never even separated in the first place, then reality hit you.

"Draco, that isn't your job anymore" You sighed. "You can't just take me on dates to make up for the ones you missed."

"I-I know" he looked down, the sunflowers still held in front of him. "I just- I miss you, and I know that it isn't my job anymore, to love you, but I still do. And I can't just stop loving you y/n, not after everything we built together. I can't just stop loving you, every night when I think about you, when I turn around in bed and you're not there for me to hold. I miss you running your hands through my hair when we kissed, I miss the way your touch left butterflies in my stomach, I miss the way you used to look at me. I miss the way you smiled at me." He missed you so much, he couldn't even describe it properly in words. You looked at him sympathetically.

"Then why did you ruin it Draco" you said, not forgetting all the times he stood you up, and all the times he made you feel irrelevant.

"I didn't mean to y/n, I didn't realise how much I needed you until you left me. Until you left me crying every night, aching for you to love me again" he wasn't lying, he had taken your relationship for granted, until you left him then he realised that no one would ever fill that gap in his life like you did. Nobody could make his heart ache the way you did, no girl could ever have his love, no person felt right. No one but you.

"I got you your favourite flowers" he said, after a long while of silence. He had one hand behind his back, and the other holding the flowers in front of you. You stood up and took them from him. He watched hopefully as you adjusted a few of the flowers and smiled down at them. He watched you and his eyes softened, seeing that smile on your face, that real smile, made him go weak. You looked so beautiful to him, you looked so perfect.

"Thank you" You said softly. You didn't want to admit that you still loved him too, but your heart was betraying you. 

"You're welcome my love" he said, subconsciously using the nickname. 

"Y/n, I- " he stopped and sighed. "I know I ruined everything that we had together, and I know you don't love me anymore, but I still love you, and I want to prove it to you if you would give me a second chance"

"Draco, if you mean you want us to get back together already, then no." you knew what you wanted, and it was not just an apology, you wanted someone who would move heaven and earth to show you that he loves you. "You can't come back after a few days and expect everything to be perfect again." 

His heart broke a little at your words, but he knew he didn't deserve forgiveness, not straight away.

"Thank you for the flowers though Draco, thank you for remembering they were my favourite" you looked up at him.

Gosh, the way you looked at him. He could still see the love in your eyes, and it took every piece of him not to leap out and hug you and kiss you like you were his everything, because you were.

He watched as you walked away with the flowers in your hand. 

---

It had been a month, and Draco had more than proven that he was ready to be with you again. 

You were running out of vases and space in your dorm to hold any more sunflowers. He had been finding you at the end of every day to give you another sunflower after another, with a little note attached to it each time. A note every time, describing just how much he loved you, and what he loved about you.

'You looked so beautiful today, you make me so happy y/n.'

'Another sunflower for my sunshine, keep smiling love, it leaves me weak in the knees'

'I love you to the moon and back'

Draco would do anything to show you that he loved you. He would carry your books, give you homework answers, even when you asked him not too, and you couldn't help but feel so bad, for making him go through all this effort just to show you his love. You started sitting next to him more often, feeling those sparks of love come back to you. You would hug him when you sat together at breakfast, and you would hold his hand when you walked to classes together.

You started feeling love again, and you felt ready. You felt ready to give into the feeling once again. 

You sent Draco an owl to meet you at the astronomy tower once the sun set, you wanted to tell him, tell him that you loved him.

---

You waited on the top of the astronomy tower, it had been 26 minutes. 

You had waited for almost half an hour, and you were starting to wonder if trusting Draco wasn't the right decision after all. You could feel tears well up in your eyes, why did he have to disappoint you just as you started loving him again.

"Darling why are you crying" you heard Draco's soft concerned voice and you looked up at him.

"Draco where were you? I was waiting for thirty minutes for you!" You were angry at yourself for trusting him again.

"Y/n, I promise I was not deliberately standing you up, I-I went to get you flowers from the store but they didn't have any because I've been buying their stock everyday for you. So I went to your favourite flower patch to pick a bundle for you and wrap them up" He rambled, frantically trying to explain himself.

He pulled out the very untidily wrapped bundle of flowers and handed them to you.

"And I understand if you don't trust me still" he said in defeat. 

"No Draco I love these, I love them everyday and I'm sorry for assuming that you were standing me up." You started crying "I don't deserve all that you have been doing for me these past weeks, I don't understand how you still love me so much to do all that for me" He set the flowers on the ground and took you by the waist to hug you.

"Y/n I'd move the heavens and the earth to see you smile, you deserve the world" he cooed in your ear reassuringly 

"I love you Draco" you said quietly into his chest, you loved that boy so much, it made your heart ache as you cried. Draco pulled away to look at you, his eyes teary and full of love as he smiled at you.

"You-you love me?" He asked softly. You nodded at him, loving the feeling of his body against yours. " I love you so much y/n. I promise I will never ever stop loving you and I will never lose you again" He cried into your shoulder. Draco felt like the happiest boy alive, your love was all he needed in this world. 

The two of you looked at each others crying eyes and kissed the way any two lovers would. Draco's heartbeat was against your chest and you knew, you knew that his heart would only beat for you, and yours would only beat for him.

You smiled into the kiss, it was a real smile.

---

a/n: I really didn't like the way I ended this fic at first, but now that I read it again I think it's a really cute ending. Soft Draco is definitely my weakness T-T.

[maccreadysbaby]

A Hundred Ways to Become a Wayne

batfamily + oc insert

tw: bullying, anxiety attacks, slight violence?

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

want to read the first fic in the hundred days series so you understand what’s going on here? here it is!

welcome to jesse todryk’s funeral, hosted by asten evans and an old history textbook. by the way, both of asten’s portuguese lines are telling of his character and foreshadowing, so if you want to pop those suckers into google translate to read them, i would love it, thanks

part ten

❝ BLUDGEONED BY A BOOK ❞

FRIDAY — AUGUST 7 — 8:00AM

BENTLEY WENT TO SCHOOL ON FRIDAY SIMPLY TO DISTRACT HIMSELF. From everything. From Dick (who was still not awake.), from Damian wanting him gone, from the Secret Keeper that kept popping in and out of his head. He figured school would help him at least stop thinking about all of that for a while.

He hadn’t gone to dinner the previous night or breakfast that morning, for the sake of staying away from Damian. It was fine — he never got very hungry when he was upset anyways. It was easy to fake that he was just tired when Bruce came to check on him after dinner since he hadn’t slept properly in a couple days. (He had gotten four hours of uninterrupted of sleep the night before, though, which was really good compared to the cat naps he’d been taking.) 

It was also easy to fake that everything Damian said didn’t hurt half as bad as it actually did, and that it didn’t make him want to cry his eyes out or give him extra anxiety about being taken away by social workers. 

The car ride to school was completely silent, and Bentley sat in the passenger’s seat next to Duke instead of in the back with Damian like he usually did. Thankfully, it went mostly unnoticed. Bentley assumed Damian wasn’t about to tell anyone about what he’d said, so Bentley wasn’t going to, either. 

But he was going to try and fix it.

He’d been wracking his tired brain for hours (given his four hours of sleep had been eight pm to midnight and he’d been awake since then.) on how in the world he could live up to the Wayne name without being a superhero. He came up with nothing. He wasn’t smart enough or strong enough to be Robin like all of Bruce’s sons had, and even suggesting he be Robin instead of Damian was ludicrous. Bentley still cried when it stormed. Robin couldn’t be a kid that cried when it stormed.

So, Robin was off the table. (It had never been on the table, actually.) Bentley couldn’t even beat a twelve-year-old at a spar, so superheroing was off the table, too, and now the table was empty. 

But that was fine. He’d figure it out eventually. Right now, he needed to focus on the task at hand — school.

More specifically, not getting lost after he told Duke he could walk himself around the building. They were a bit earlier than usual, it was about eight, so he had time to get lost if he really couldn’t remember the way. The sun was shining and making the building gold. He took the left at the top of the staircase. At least he knew the left was right.

Thankfully, when he turned left, students spreading everywhere and filling the halls with lively chatter, one blue-haired-Brazilian made not getting lost a pretty easy feat.

“Hey, Whittaker. Feeling better?” Asten drifted out of basically nowhere, in his uniform and smelling like cigarettes per usual. Bentley fell into step with him in the crowded hallway. He pretty much remembered where Dr. Keene’s room was, but he definitely wouldn’t have an issue finding it now.

“Yeah,” Bentley replied simply, tugging his backpack tighter on his shoulders. 

“Good. It sucks to be sick in the first week,” Asten stated. “Though I guess it’s never a bad time to have a vacation from the Academy. Well, as much of a vacation as you can get with Nico playing the role of temporary teacher.”

Bentley snickered lightly as they continued down the hallway. He could see doors on the left coming up, and he was pretty sure the second one was Dr. Keene’s. He was fairly confident he would’ve found it even without Asten to assure that he was going the right way.

Speaking of, Asten cursed under his breath, and Bentley glanced over at him just in time for him to throw his jacket, irremovable, suffocating cigarette-smell and all, over Bentley’s face. He made a surprised noise and slowed to a stop, grabbing the bottom of the fabric.

“Asten?” 

“Shh. Keep walking, ginger,”

He felt Asten’s hand land in the center of his back to keep him from veering off course, and after a second of (literally) blind trust, the blue-haired-boy pulled the jacket off of Bentley’s head and messed his hair all up.

“Todryk and his squad of gremlins went by. Ever since he heard the ‘new Wayne’ got sick on the third day of school, he’s been talking about having a conversation with you. And Todryk never just talks,” Asten explained. Bentley blinked and smoothed his hair down the best he could without seeing it.

“Oh… thanks,” He replied after a moment. Asten shrugged as they made for Dr. Keene’s room.

“The old throw-something-over-your-head move only works a few times, but it really does wonders. You won’t believe how many beatings I’ve warded off by hiding my face,” He continued. “Especially from Todryk. He’s dumber than a box of rocks.”

Bentley snickered again, and Asten cracked a smile as they took a left into the Enviornmental Science classroom. They’d been learning about different types of precipitation when Bentley stayed home, and he was pretty sure Dr. Keene’s post said they were going over the types of weather and water cycle one more time today before they moved onto a different subject in the unit.

He and Asten made their way to their trio of desks and sat down in it. Nico wasn’t there, but it was early, and Asten didn’t seem bothered about it, so Bentley wasn’t, either. Instead he pulled out his phone and replied to a text from Bruce that said all good? that he’d received not one minute ago. He hoped his simple yes was a good enough response.

“Did you hear? Another kid from Bristol vanished this morning — a girl,” Asten said, leaning forward over the desk. “And her friends said she told them about a nightmare with the Secret Keeper the night before. You know, a lot of these missing people claimed to have seen her.”

Bentley nodded, trying his best to push her terrible face out of his head and keep his expression neutral. “That’s so weird,” He forced out.

“The weirdest,” Asten responded, grabbing his red pen from his backpack and spinning it between his fingers.

Bentley tapped his fingers on the table. “Where do you hear about all this stuff?”

Asten shrugged. “I have nothing better to do in Crime Alley than bum off the nearest place’s wifi and look into current events. It’s either that or go get mugged for fun.”

Bentley didn’t say anything. Instead, Dr. Keene walked into the classroom and, after a second, started making his way to their desks. His light brown eyes were bouncing between Bentley and Asten as he made his way to them, and he slowed to a stop next to their group of tables.

“Nice job on your work while you were out. Most students choose to ignore it,” Dr. Keene said to Bentley with a warm little smile. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to let me know.”

Bentley nodded up at him, sheepishly. “Okay… thank you.”

“Of course,” He stated. He patted Bentley’s shoulder lightly and proceeded across the room to his desk. Asten snorted.

“What?” Bentley asked.

Asten shook his head, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms with a little smile playing on his lips. “Already becoming the teacher's pet and you didn’t even know it. Typical Wayne kid if I've ever seen one.”

“What do you mean?” Bentley questioned.

“Bruce Wayne’s kids have always been teacher’s favorites. One of the algebra teacher’s still has Dick Grayson’s graduation invitation on her wall. And the theater coach can’t go a single class without talking about Jason Todd.”

Bentley snickered a little. He’d have never pinged Jason as a theater kid, but he guessed it made sense given his love of literature and extensive knowledge regarding classic plays and books. 

“Are you in theater?” Bentley questioned.

“Dear God, no,” Asten replied with a snicker. “Sometimes I hang around in their rehearsals after school if I don’t feel like fighting my way back into the Alley yet.”

Bentley nodded lightly, but didn’t respond.

The bell rang, and Dr. Keene made his way to the front of the room. He kept all the textbooks on a shelf near his skeleton, and he began to grab them and hand them out.

“The water cycle review worksheet is on page sixteen. Lucky for you guys, since it’s Friday, I’m not going to make you do any more than that,” He stated, handing out the textbooks to a few students and going back to retrieve more. “On Monday we’ll get into the real meat of unit one, about the sky. It’s one of my favorite units.”

Bentley listened quietly as he brought two books to their table and put them on their desks. “I think you guys will find it interesting, even though we won’t be talking about UFOs or other worldly entities.”

Bentley saw Asten make an ew face, and he snickered.

Dr. Keene finished handing out textbooks. “You can talk with your tablemates, just not too loudly; and you may use your cellphones after you finish the page and bring it to me.”

Bentley watched him go over to his desk and click around on his computer. Not a moment later, soft music came on, and he sat down in his chair.

Quiet chatter began to filter across the classroom. Bentley turned to the right page in his textbook, like everyone else was, and glanced over at the empty desk across from Asten.

“Where’s Nico?” He questioned softly, and Asten shrugged, glancing up only after scribbling something on the worksheet.

“I’m not sure. He said he was here a little bit ago, and he’s so committed I think he’d rather die than be late for class. I’ll text him again,”

Bentley watched in silence as Asten pulled out his phone and typed under the table. He couldn’t help the slight buzz that surfaced under his skin. Nico said he was at school, but didn’t come to class. That wouldn’t be so freaky if half of Gotham wasn’t vanishing without a trace.

Asten put his phone away, and they worked on their worksheets.

For five minutes. For ten minutes. For fifteen minutes. Asten sent a few more texts during that time, but got no responses. Twenty minutes. They finished their worksheets and there was still an empty desk at their table.

“Still no response,” Asten stated, and while he was still cool as a cucumber, it was obvious he was getting suspicious. “I’m about to call his scrawny butt.”

Bentley said nothing, but after a few moments of silence, the classroom door opened and the scrawny butt in question came through it.

Dr. Keene simply asked: “Do you have a late note, Mister Rockefeller?” And when Nico shook his head no, he nodded and didn’t say anything else.

Bentley and Asten both watched as Nico made for his chair and sat down quickly. It was painfully obvious he’d been crying — Bentley could recognize the red-rimmed blue eyes and pink nose combination anywhere. He’d spent a lot of time locked in bathrooms waiting for it to fade off of his own features back at Whittaker Estate.

Dr. Keene brought Nico a book and told him what they were doing, and gave him a supportive pat on the back before he walked away.

Once Dr. Keene was gone, Asten leaned forward. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Nico said back a bit too quickly, flipping his book open with one hand while the other stayed rooted in his lap. His voice wavered way too much for it to pass as anything but emotion.

“You’re a bad liar,”

“Stop it, Asten,” Nico practically pleaded, his dull blue eyes flicking between both of them before he looked down at the book. Asten did, indeed, stop it. He sat back again and took to silently scrutinizing his best friend from across the table, and Bentley was left as the monkey in the middle, glancing between them every now and then.

Bentley’s phone vibrated.

He’s not using his right hand.

He glanced up from Asten’s text and looked back at Nico. He was writing with his left hand (his non-dominant hand, which made his usually neat handwriting way worse than normal.) and his right hand was still sitting, unmoved in his lap.

I see, was what Bentley texted back.

“Nico, what happened?” Asten tried again, quietly. Nico didn’t do anything but shake his head and stare at the book really intensely.

Dr. Keene stood up. “Class wide bathroom break. You can go if you need to, you can stay if you don’t.”

Bentley didn’t miss the way Dr. Keene eyed their little group of desks with something like sympathy. Asten didn’t miss a beat, either. He was up out of his seat and gesturing for Nico and Bentley to follow him before anyone could do anything else. Thankfully, more kids around the room stood, so it didn’t look suspicious.

Bentley rose from his desk and put his phone in his pocket, and Nico begrudgingly stood, too, making sure his hands were in his jacket pockets before he followed Asten out of the room.

The hallways were weird when they were empty. They looked a lot bigger than normal, and they were really quiet. A few more kids filed out of the room behind them, but Asten broke away and went to a farther bathroom. The three of them had hardly stepped inside the tiled room when he turned on his heel and asked:

“What’s wrong with your hand?”

Nico took to staring at the terra-cotta floor. Now that Bentley focused really hard, he could see blood on the cuff of his right blazer sleeve.

“It’s not that bad,” Was his half-whispered defense, and it might’ve held some merit if his eyes weren’t already brimming with just about as much liquid as they could hold without spilling over. 

(Geez. Bentley was brand new at this whole friends thing, and something like this had to happen on only his third day in person with them? He had no idea what he was doing. But he guessed he should at least try, right? He did sincerely care about Nico’s wellbeing, so maybe he should just try to treat him the way he treated Damian. Well, the way he treated him before he started avoiding him like the plague.)

“Nico,” Asten said, but the blonde only turned the slightest bit away.

“…You’re bleeding,” Bentley tried quietly, gesturing vaguely to Nico’s sleeve. “Did you get hurt?”

Nico did that thing where he looked long and hard at Bentley’s face. He still wasn’t sure why he did that. But after a solid five seconds of silence, Nico looked away and wiped at his eyes again. Then he extended his bloody hand toward Bentley.

Toward Bentley. The redhead did a double take and glanced around, eyes bouncing to Asten, before he glanced back at Nico and gently pulled his long sleeve out of the way.

“What the hell?” Asten suddenly snapped, moving forward toward them, and Bentley drew in a sharp breath.

The words BRISTOL BRAT were scraped into the back of Nico’s hand, probably with something small and dull (it didn’t look deep or precise enough to be a knife), and they were bloody and still bleeding. It looked like he’d tried to clean it off, because his skin was tinted pink on that hand and on the fingers of the other, and probably gave up when it wouldn’t stop bleeding. Asten jerked on his wrist and pulled his hand closer so he could examine it.

“Was this Todryk?” He practically hissed like some kind of snake. His tone had gone venomous, his eyes stormy and grim. Nothing like the usual carefree aura he carried around, and it threw Bentley for a loop and a half.

Nico was crying again, trying his best to wipe his eyes with his opposite hand. “He cornered me. In an alley, while I was walking here from the bus stop. I-I tried to make it stop bleeding-”

“We’re taking you to the nurse,”

“What? No!” Nico practically squeaked, jerking his hand away from Asten with a pitiful little sob. “If we get him in trouble it’ll just make it worse. Please don’t tell anyone.”

“He scraped words into your hand, Nico. That could be considered torture,”

Nico didn’t reply, but kept wiping furiously at his eyes as he cried quietly, the sound bouncing around the empty bathroom. Bentley wished he could help more than offering support, but he couldn’t really, so he let a hand drift up to rest on one of Nico’s shoulders.

What did Bruce and Dick and everyone do when Bentley was upset, or hurting? Crying?

Bentley stood there for a second, and considered lots of things before he finally settled on asking a risky question. Well, what was the worst that could happen? He’d be shut down?

“… Do you want a hug?”

It was certainly something he’d want if he was in this situation, but not everyone was the same as him. Some people probably hated hugs.

Fortunately, Nico didn’t seem to be one of those people. Because as fast as the half-whispered question could leave Bentley’s mouth, the blonde turned and walked straight into him, prompting Bentley to bring his arms up around his shuddering shoulders.

He noted that Nico was a crier and a hugger. (Both of which Bentley was, too.)

“Ele merece ser queimado vivo,” Asten muttered from off to the side. “We have to tell someone, dude. That’s basically assault.”

“No!” Nico sniffed, bringing his arms up and around Bentley’s back loosely. “Please don’t, Asten, please.”

“Your parents are going to see it anyways,”

“No they won’t,” He protested, and Bentley felt him reposition his head against his shoulder. (It was really strange to be on the giving end of a hug instead of receiving. But he couldn’t say he didn’t like it.)

“Bentley?” 

Of course Asten would turn to him for his opinion.

Bentley glanced over at him and blinked. Well, he’d cried himself to sleep last night and didn’t tell anyone, so he guessed if Nico didn’t want anyone to know about the cuts, then they should just… not tell anyone. Right?

Varying Wayne voices that said tell someone if it gets worse bounced around in his skull. Jason hadn’t told anyone about Bentley’s hurt hand all those months ago, but he’d made it clear he would if it got any worse.

Bentley shrugged as much as he could without disturbing Nico’s position too much. “Uh… I think we should… do what makes him comfortable. For now. Unless it gets worse.”

“Yeah,” Nico agreed quietly, with a string of little coughs. His crying was starting to sound a little more wheezy than Bentley would’ve liked.

Asten let out a puff of air. “Fine, fine. But if he goes stabbing you with knives or trying to brand your other hand, I’ll shove his own foot so far up his rear end it comes out of his mouth.”

Nico pulled away from Bentley and fished something out of his jacket pocket. It was the little gray thing he’d puffed on once after school — the thing Bentley thought might’ve been, like, drugs or something? He watched curiously as Nico shook it for a few seconds and then put it in his mouth, pushed in the top of it with a little hiss, and breathed in deep. He did it twice.

Bentley didn’t ask what it was.

“Let’s just go back to class,” Nico muttered after a few quiet seconds. “Please.”

The three of them shared glances, gave Nico time to calm down, and then did exactly that.

Most of the day went normally. After they went back to class, they reverted back to their most common source of conversation: missing people and conspiracies. Bentley went to the library for free period, answered some texts from Bruce, and went to Geography and talked about time zones. 

It was when he was walking between Geography and Spanish that things went wrong again.

The Geography classroom wasn’t that far from the Spanish room — only a few moments walk. Asten was probably already in there (his classroom was even closer to Spanish than Bentley’s.) and ready to talk about aliens or something. Bruce had texted Bentley several more times during the day to check in on him, and he was answering one of those many messages on his way through the halls, not paying much attention to the people around him in favor of responding timely.

So, naturally, that was the moment someone chose to grab the handle of his backpack and jerk him backwards, and his fall was only broken by his back slamming into the row of lockers. His phone fell out of his hand and clattered on the tile.

“Hey there, Wayne,” 

Bentley looked up at who was talking. It was a really tall boy (taller than Asten, who was already a lot taller than Bentley.) with fuzzy blonde hair and little black gemstone earrings. There were two other boys behind him, one was short and pudgy with a big jacket and beanie, and the other looked like a stocky athlete in a varsity Gotham Academy jacket.

Blonde hair. Dumb earrings.

Crap.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t find you sooner or later? You’ve been hanging around with my favorite little nerds to scare!” Jesse Todryk’s vomit-green eyes scanned Bentley judgmentally, and he sneered. 

Bentley said nothing. What was he supposed to say? Jesse was towering over him like his dad always used to and it was making his heart hammer behind his ribs. He wasn’t touching him, he wasn’t coming at him, he had to remind himself. But the not-so-distant memory of Nico crying in the bathroom because Todryk scraped words into his hand like some kind of sick torture-fest made him want to cry just a little.

Instead, he leaned down and picked up his phone. The hallways still had a few kids in it, so he assumed making a scene wouldn’t be good. Jesse made a face, a scowl, Bentley saw it in his peripheral. He slid his phone in his pocket and made a move to walk away — the Spanish classroom was so close — but Jesse grabbed his shoulder and jerked him back, shoving him into the lockers and keeping the hand on his shoulder so he couldn’t move.

“I wasn’t done talking to you, Wayne,” He spat, his face drawing closer to Bentley’s with an annoyed scowl.

“Get off,” Bentley tried quietly, squirming under his grip, but that only got his shoulder pressed harder into the metal behind him. 

“Nah, I don’t think I will,”

The two boys behind Todryk disappeared off to the right.

“I’m so tired of the Wayne’s running this school. There’s always been a Wayne here, everybody loves them. They’re the center of attention everywhere they go. The golden students,”

Bentley sucked in a shaky breath, glancing around the emptying hallways for someone, anyone, but the few kids still going past were ignoring them really well and no adults were around. 

He thought he was done getting hurt when he left his father.

He squirmed again, ducking down in an attempt to run under Jesse’s arm to the Spanish room, but the older boy caught him by the scruff of his blazer and yanked him back like he was some kind of cat. 

“You might be quick, but quick doesn’t beat me,”

Bentley could hear his blood pumping in his ears as Todryk shoved him back against the lockers with a sick looking smile, pushing a hand against both of his shoulders, this time. 

“I’m so sick and tired of the Waynes running this city. Being everyone’s favorites,” He spat, in Bentley’s face, only a few inches from it. Bentley’s eyes were burning spectacularly, but he didn’t dare let himself cry, not in front of him. “Let’s see how much your teacher likes you after you skip her class.”

He was suddenly being moved. Jesse grabbed him by his hair and pulled him across the hallway and Bentley made a small sound. It reminded him of the nightmare where his father threw him down the stairs.

He wanted so badly to wiggle out of his grip, but fighting always only got more pain. So what did he do?

He took it, just like he used to take it from his father. He stayed quiet while the bully dragged him along, and quiet when he shoved him forward with a thwack onto the tile in a little janitor's closet, and quiet when the door slammed with a twisted, bubbly laugh.

And he was alone. In the dark. There was a sliver of light coming from under the door.

“Have fun in there until pick-up, Wayne,”

He heard laughter and footsteps recede.

Bentley pulled himself out of the floor in the pitch black room and made for the door, twisting the handle.

It didn’t twist. Not an inch, not a centimeter. It didn’t move. 

He tried it again. He tried it again and again and pulled on it and jerked it and the door was slamming around on it's hinges and it sounded exactly like the door from… home.

Bentley’s heart felt like it was about to rip right out of him. It was pitch black. It was so dark, just like it always was when his father… just like it was back… 

“Let me out!” He tried, jerking on the knob. “Please!”

“Please, father, I’m sorry!”

The buzzing in his body turned into trembling and the tightness in his chest felt like it was choking him. He opened his mouth to call for help again, but all that came out was a strange little noise and a pitiful sob.

He was in the closet.

After who knows how many minutes he spent fighting with the knob that wouldn’t budge, he sat down on the floor, tears streaking down his face at an unmatchable rate. He kept tugging at his own shirt in an attempt to make his lungs work but they wouldn’t. Everything hurt. Everything hurt.

This hasn’t happened since the grocery store.

It hadn’t happened without Tim.

He tried to remember how Tim helped him at the store but he couldn’t. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t see because it was too dark. All he could think about was his father ripping open the closet door and having his way. He was going to die.

He flinched when his phone clattered out of his jacket pocket onto the floor.

His phone.

He picked the little device up in his trembly hands, sending nothing more than the word help to the very first name at the top of his list.

He didn’t even comprehend that there were actually two names there, and that it was a group chat, not a single message thread.

A flood of messages came in only seconds later, including an are you okay, a where are you, and a what’s wrong?

He couldn’t think. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see the screen through his own tears and he couldn’t make his fingers move no matter how hard he tried.

His phone started ringing. The caller ID was Asten. He tapped the green button.

“Bentley? What’s going on? Where are you?”

He couldn’t breathe.

“Are you crying?”

He tried to make words come out but he couldn’t, he couldn’t. Even with Asten’s questions lingering in the air, laced with concern and alertness, he couldn’t talk.

“Where are you, dude? I’m leaving class,”

Bentley sucked in as much air as he could. It wasn’t much, and it hurt, and he sobbed. He knew he needed to talk for them to find him but he couldn’t breathe. “Locked… the closet.” It hurt his chest to force the words out and he started coughing so hard he wanted to throw up. Everything hurt. 

“Jesus, dude — what closet? Where are you?”

He coughed harshly. The only thing his brain supplied was Whittaker Estate, Whittaker Estate, Whittaker Estate. Instead of saying that, he sobbed again. “… I don’t know.”

“Shove something under the door so I can find you,”

It took way too much willpower to force his body to move. It felt like he was underwater, like he weighed a million pounds. He felt around on the nearby shelves until he grabbed something thin and fabric-ey, and shoved it under the door into the hallway.

There was a moment of silence, before Asten’s voice came again, quieter: “He said he’s locked in a closet.”

It was clear he was talking to someone else, but Bentley couldn’t think straight enough to work out who else’s voice he heard. He was too focused on trying to breathe and not throwing up. 

Bentley coughed more and silence passed, and he couldn’t think of anything but his father, his father, his father.

“I see it,” Asten said, but Bentley hardly heard him through the static in his brain and his own unquenchable wheezes and sobs. Everything hurt so bad.

There was rattling on the other side of the door, a weird sound that told him there was someone else on the other side, and he curled in on himself, scooting back into the farthest corner of the closet so maybe his father wouldn’t be able to reach him right away.

The door swung open, light flooded in, and Bentley’s father had blue hair.

“Oh my God,” 

Someone else came into his view, someone blonde, and then they were in the closet next to him. He flinched away but they grabbed one of his arms, gently.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay,” They repeated quietly, like a broken record. “It’s okay, Bentley.”

He got guided into a one-sided embrace on the floor, and he could hear them breathing, and their heart pounding.

“It’s okay, Bentley. It’s okay,”

“It’s okay,” Is what they kept saying. Over and over, for a long time. Bentley was thankful for whatever strange hug-thing he was in, because he was able to hear their breaths and try to match it. It didn’t stop the crying or the cramping in his organs or the headache that was starting to gnaw at his skull, but it gave him some clarity, at least.

When he was finally able to think and look around and comprehend things again, he realized that Nico was the one holding onto him, and Asten was crouched in the doorway, watching them quietly. His green eyes looked stormy again, but also sympathetic, and Bentley couldn’t see Nico’s face, but he was pretty sure he was crying from the way he was breathing.

A long moment of silence ensued as Bentley re-gathered his bearings.

“We should call your dad,” Asten suggested softly, shifting his positioning in the doorway. “Or… take you to the office.”

Bentley just shook his head. If acting like that in front of his newfound friends wasn’t embarrassing enough, going to the office like that would humiliate him. His phone was laying next to him again, probably because he’d dropped it, and the call Bruce idea didn’t sound so bad. So he used one of his legs to nudge it toward Asten. 

“You’re okay with me using it?” He questioned.

Bentley nodded, and the blue-haired-boy picked up the device and began tapping on it.

“That was scary.” Nico said quietly, pulling away from Bentley so he was just sitting next to him in the floor. His eyes were red-rimmed just like they had been earlier that morning. Bentley repositioned himself against the shelf behind him and pulled his knees up, taking a shuddering breath. He wanted Tim. “Was it Jesse? Did he lock you in here?”

Bentley silently nodded.

Nico huffed. “What a jerk.”

“…Hey, Mister Wayne. My name is Asten Evans, I’m a friend of Bentley’s… yeah, no, that’s what I’m calling about,”

Bentley glanced up at Asten, who was now in the hallway, drawing imaginary shapes on the tile with the toe of his shoe. 

“One of the school bullies locked him in a janitor's closet, and I think he… had a panic attack or something. But it's over now, he’s okay, if not a little shaken,”

Bentley just stared at the floor. He couldn’t hear the other voice, but he could imagine Bruce’s immediate worry when he realized it was another kid’s voice on the opposite end.

“Yeah, we’re, uh, still at the closet, actually. He doesn’t really want to go to the office,”

A quiet moment passed. 

“No, I don’t think so. Our teacher knows I left class in a hurry but she doesn’t know why. I think-“

A pause. 

“But he’s doing good with us, Mister Wayne, I promise. I think that’ll just stress him out,” Asten reasoned. And then he muttered: “Yeah, of course.”

Bentley looked up when Asten came into the closet and held the phone toward him. “He wants to talk to you.”

Bentley sat up a little. “He’s here,” Asten said.

“Hey, there, bud. I heard what happened, I’m on my way to get you right now. Would you like to wait for me in the office, or the nurses?”

“No,” Bentley muttered in response, wiping at his still-crying eyes. “I wanna stay here.”

“Do you want me to message Duke or Damian for you?”

“No,” Bentley repeated.

“Okay… well, your friends probably need to head back to class, so-“

“That won’t be a problem, Mister Wayne,” Asten spoke up, leaning closer to the phone. “Even if he did go to the office, we wouldn’t make him go alone.”

Bentley heard Bruce exhale. “Okay… okay. If you’d like to stay on the phone with me, Bentley, that’s fine. If not, I'll be there in just a few minutes.”

Bentley nodded lightly. His tenseness was starting to ease. “You can hang up, I’m… okay.” He muttered.

“Alright, bud. I’ll be there in just a few minutes, okay?”

Bentley sniffled. “Okay.”

“Bye,”

After a quiet moment, Asten ended the call, and sat down against the wall across from Bentley, right next to the door. He put the phone on the ground and carefully nudged it back across with his foot.

“I’m sorry,” Bentley whispered, wiping at his eyes. “You… don’t have to stay with me.”

Apparently he wasn’t supposed to say that.

“Whoa, Whittaker, are you apologizing for having a panic attack?” Asten questioned, scrunching his face up. “It’s not like it’s something you willingly choose to do. You don’t have to apologize.”

“And you’re not bothering us at all,” Nico added, smiling lightly when Bentley glanced over at him. “Asten’s used to stuff like this. I have asthma attacks a lot. Pretty sure I’ve had one in this exact closet, actually.”

Bentley sucked in a breath. “What’s… asthma?”

Nico blinked. “Well, it’s… it’s like a sickness that makes it really hard for me to breathe sometimes. That’s what I use my inhaler for,” He took the little gray thing out of his pocket and shook it with a quiet rattle, then put it back. “Asten’s actually one of my emergency aids. Which means if I go to the nurse’s office with an asthma attack, she calls him down there to help me.”

Bentley said nothing, but the conversation was helping to distract him and help him feel a little better.

But then, a different voice came. Not Nico’s, not Asten’s. One that was way more intimidating, from in the hallway.

“Looks like someone found the Wayne. Doors open,”

Jesse’s voice was the one floating through the air. It didn’t sound like he was talking to them, he probably couldn’t see inside the closet.

Bentley tensed again when Nico grabbed his wrist. He wasn’t sure if it was because he was scared or because he knew Bentley was probably scared, but he didn’t have time to think about it.

“Probably Damian,” A second voice replied. Bentley glanced over at Asten, and he was scouring the shelves, dragging his eyes across every available tool before they finally rested on a couple stacks of old, worn textbooks.

Nico said nothing, and Bentley stayed equally quiet as Asten stood up slowly. The footsteps were getting closer, and the blue-haired-boy gently brought his hand up and grabbed a textbook off the top of the stack. His hand dipped when he was supporting its full weight — it was thick and heavy looking.

Jesse Todryk stopped in the doorway, spotted Bentley and Nico, and laughed sinisterly.

“Well! Isn’t it little mister-“

Bentley flinched almost violently when Asten — with the same unmatchable storm in his eyes and scowl on his face — swung the textbook like a baseball bat aimed at the sun.

“Vá queimar no inferno, seu filho da puta!”

Bentley flinched, and Nico gasped when the blunt corner of the book’s spine came in contact with Jesse’s head so hard it whammed him into the door, and he ragdolled flat on the tile.

“Jesse!” The short boy screeched, kneeling down next to the bully, who looked completely and totally zoned.

“Oh my God, you’re going to get so suspended!” Nico suddenly exclaimed, gaping up at Asten with wide eyes.

The Brazilian shrugged, letting the textbook thud on the floor. “It was self defense.”

“He wasn’t hurting us!”

“He was gonna!”

Bentley said nothing, but instead, stared at the book that laid between Asten’s feet and where he was sitting.

He didn’t condone violence or anything, but… it was kind of nice to have a friend that would cause a little bit of mayhem on his behalf. Just a little bit.

“We should probably get out of here, though. Time to walk Bentley to the office?”

Nico glanced over at Bentley, and when he nodded, they stood up and left the closet. And they didn’t spare a second to look back at Jesse and his friend, even while the beanie kid cursed them all the way down the hallway.

(Bentley didn’t know what suspended was, but from the way Nico yelled it, he was pretty sure Asten was going to get it.)

—

dedicated to @sassenashsworld 💚

—

tag list! (If you want me to remove or add you, ask in comments!)

@fleur-alise @sarcopterygiian @cademygod

[flaresanimedump]

Fukuzawa and Ranpo romantic themes essay **Updated May 2024**

ALRIGHT here we go

The story thus far:

Well HERE IT COMES.

First off y'all are focusing too much on Fukuzawa. Sorry but if you look to Fukuzawa only Fukuzawa/cats has merit. Even with FukuMori it's Mori we get 90% of the ship content from (silver fox?? Can you not hit on him for FIVE SECONDS MORI-)

You have to look at RANPO. And so we will, mostly, in this response.

Now I did say "themes" first so you're all gonna have to deal with me doing both. I’m just gonna lead with the thing that I see the behavior in the og tweet with the most:

Antis almost never fail to say "father and son" in their captions when they post screenshots of this anthology chapter.

As the translator of this anthology I will tell you it's not father and son. It's tsundere boyfriend.

How is this tsundere?!: “I’m not worried about you, baka, I just don’t ever want to see you sick—play sick nurse for you again!! So take better care of yourself!! Here’s a snack!! Feel better or else!!” + this phrase "I never thought I'd hear such caring words from you" is your basic tsundere trope template in JP.

Why does that mean it’s romantic?!: Tsundere behavior is mostly reserved for love interests – particularly this bit.

He’s just offering him a snack!!: Look at the shojo background in every panel. Look at the sparkles. Look at them setting the fluffy lovey-dovey mood. Look at Fukuzawa’s saying he’ll take them to his heart. You can hear the “Kyaaaa, Yukichi-kun was so close!!!” if you listen carefully.

But- but- FATHER AND SON!!: you may now see why it took a Fukuran shipper to translate this 4 years after it was released, despite the scanlation boom over covid ;)

But that’s an anthology! It’s not really canon!

Moving right along then, this is Bones only, but:

Seeing color because you meet someone is literally the basis of an entire subset of soulmate AUs.

I bookmarked two romance quotes in the last 6 hours that center on romantic love bringing color into someone’s life. This is an extremely common romantic trope and I still can’t believe Bones went there in Origins. a. “But Nova!” they cry, “lots of parents say their children bring color into their lives!!” True!! And you’ve just said why this isn’t the same! Fukuzawa brought color to RANPO’s life, not the other way around. This is why I say to look to Ranpo for this ship!

Well Bones sucks!

There are about 104 examples of “Unbroken Vigil” on TV tropes. Exactly two of them are children waiting by their parents, and they’re both from live action film. This trope, across all categories of media, is absolutely owned by romantic couples. Notably in the anime and fanon sections there are no examples of family members doing this. I won’t say there aren’t any anywhere, though. JJK exists. But that’s a good example of how different Ranpo’s reaction is from the usual “caretaker is in the hospital” mood – sure Yuuji’s sad when his grandpa dies, but he’s gonna be ok. Ranpo’s, as Yosano says, devastated. Ranpo’s devastation fits squarely in the romantic box for this one boys.

Point of reference: Fukuzawa

I’m gonna hit two points at once in this section:

Ranpo’s kneeling to Fukuchi here but he has no loyalty to Fukuchi. He’s kneeling out of loyalty to Fukuzawa, so in truth he’s kneeling to Fukuzawa’s will. He’s acting as Fukuzawa’s knight. Even if we pretend King and Lionheart wasn’t a fandom phenomena for years, this isn’t a parent-child thing. Ranpo is steadfastly faithful to his king.

But lo?? Ranpo’s a lying liar. He’ll face away from the president under exactly one condition: Fukuzawa’s life is hanging in the balance. Then he’ll go against the only thing he himself has said he’s willing to stand for. This is not how the parent-child trope works. The parent says “live for me, I’ll die for the greater good” and the child cries and the parent dies. It’s like. The most common movie plotline in the universe when adults' parents are in movies.

Instead Ranpo actually does something that another stated romantic couple in this series does.

Goes apeshit on the threat.

Then later he’s not even remorseful. He tells Fukuzawa they did it and eats a bunch of cake without a care in the world after. He’d do it again and we know it.* So his moral compass isn’t to follow the president, it’s actually to follow him up to his own good and then burn the entire city down if it’ll keep him alive. This is really the most damning of Ranpo behaviors that screams of something more than familial affection.

Fukuzawa’s lines when he's poisoned are “we must not fight the port mafia. My life isn't important, protect this city (from the inevitable damage the fighting will do).”

Ranpo’s argument to disobey him is that the port mafia will start taking their families hostage to get them to give Fukuzawa up. “And if that happens, even the detective agency will be forced to give in.” His argument isn’t even “our friends will be in danger,” it’s “if we don’t fight we'll have let them kill President Fukuzawa.” Which, you know, Fukuzawa already said was preferable to fighting.

So this whole argument is literally that ship meme: “I will sacrifice myself to save everyone.” / “I will sacrifice anyone to save you.”

*Ranpo’s near-complete lack of punishment for this is a subtle sign of Fukuzawa’s bias too but this is already too long.

Shirushi

Or the 4th season's opening song. This has not been easy I tell you WHAT most of the translations for this song’s lyrics leave something to be desired and song lyrics are hard to understand. Anyway, we have Shirushi, which Luck Life's vocalist said was about Ranpo and Fukuzawa. And it’s. Well I wouldn’t exactly call it a love song because it’s bigger with “you gave me a reason to live” as one of the recurring lyrics. But the song’s got more lyrics about wanting/wishing/pleading to stay together: “I want to stay here // please, let’s just stay here // I want you and I to continue” and them being together, the “here” in question, is called “the place where [my] heart belongs.” It’s so sweet aaaaaa and it most definitely sounds like a love song.

"I will be his shield"

Here we have the rare Fukuzawa point.

Ok can I skip explaining this it’s very very obvious and I already went over one of these things.

Normal thought process: I should keep an eye on this kid. Fukuzawa thought process: I will become his shield, his sword, his shelter, to allow his magnificent mind freedom to work its magic--

Two halves of one whole

This is a weak ass point but I always found it thematically contradictory to the father/son interpretation, particularly when it comes right on the heels of a certain line fancops like to reference.

At the beginning of Origins Fukuzawa literally parkours across a room, backflips and everything, shocking the guy with all the papers with his mad skills. And Fukuzawa thinks “What? Why? That wasn’t impressive.”

He’s hinted to be the physical counterpart of Ranpo’s hyper competence. I.E., Ranpo is the one-of-a-kind mind and Fukuzawa is the one-of-a-kind body. Together they become unstoppable.

This implies a bond that won’t end?? But parent & child plotlines always have a theme of the child growing up and moving on. Atsushi and the orphanage director, though they’re fucked up, personified it. But they’ve clearly established that Fukuzawa and Ranpo are two halves of one whole and neither of them are planning to separate at any point. What’s Ranpo gonna do, go become a regular cop?? This just doesn’t suit a father and son dynamic.

Jealousy

Alright this next part will take some effort but FIRST we must all agree there’s romantic tension between Fukuchi and Fukuzawa. When I initially drafted this the finale had not come out, but we STILL had this going on:

Ok, so we also have the finale and we know Fukuzawa has some Strong Feelings for Fukuchi too. And Ranpo friggin' hates it.

I don’t aim to eradicate the platonic reading of Fukuran or anything, Fukuzawa and Ranpo are cute together no matter what! So this does smack of a teenager mad about having a stepdad taking all their mom’s time. But I cycle back to what Fukuchi cites as the focal point of Ranpo’s jealousy for the other easy interpretation.

The only time in my life I’ve thought “Aw I wish we’d met sooner :/” and felt a little envy towards someone's high school friends was with someone I was dating. I’d never think anything to this effect about a family member, certainly not enough to get violently jealous of their old friends or, heaven forbid, significant others.

What Ranpo is wishing for here is to have known Fukuzawa longer than Fukuchi, which could not happen if he was Fukuzawa's son. Fukuzawa was too young to have children when he met Fukuchi. So Ranpo's jealousy doesn't seem strictly platonic.

Praise

I will never understand how anyone sees the praise scene and thinks it’s normal father-son behavior. Teenagers wouldn't wouldn’t be caught dead doing this. Adults are far beyond it. Ranpo’s 26. Yes he likes candy and can’t ride the train, but the trains in Japan are WORSE than driving and neither of these behaviors mean he's a literal child. He has a driver’s license and investigates corpses for a living. He’s an adult.

This is a textbook praise kink.

Update: We got NEW STUFF WHOO

First I need to explain all of Japanese to you! Kidding, but we are gonna talk about second person pronouns. If you're not already aware, Japanese has well over 15 words for "I." Similarly, there are also 10+ words for "you." That being said, "you" is often seen as too direct and therefore all of these words can be seen as rude (you're supposed to use the other person's name with an honorific or their title, i.e. Fukuzawa-san, Shachou). You can use "you" for advertisements where the "you" is very general, OR with friends/lovers/etc.

OK we're gonna look at 2 of these pronouns now:

あなた(Anata) is a common second-person pronoun. This is the one that comes up in advertisements. It's semi-formal, though rude in certain contexts. As already stated, Anata is mostly used with people you're already close or familiar with (some examples in BSD include Kyoka to Atsushi and Akutagawa, between Haruno and Naomi, and Ango to Dazai) but can be used with strangers you're not close with and/or people you're a little irritated by (examples: Atsushi to Kouyou and Fitzgerald, Poe to Yosano). You are NOT supposed to use Anata with superiors. Historically, however, Anata once had another use: as a term of endearment between married couples. Generally the wife might call her husband this. This doesn't happen much though!! Only in certain contexts, which I'll get into. Don't go telling people Anata is a romantic pronoun because of this essay, it's not. Mostly.

お前(Omae) is rude! Ok it's not that rude, but it's a tough guy "you." This is often used when people are annoyed with the "you" in question, i.e. Kunikida scolding Dazai for drowning/being broke, "Dazai! Omae-" like that. Like Anata, this can be used by guys who know each other well/are good friends. Also like Anata, historically, it once had another use: as a term of endearment between married couples. Generally the husband might call his wife this. This is older than the endearment use of Anata and far less common now. It was explained to me as being a bit like saying "my woman." But once again this is rare!! It doesn't mean that now! Don't go expecting it to be romantic all the time because it almost never is!! Except--

Except that Fukuzawa uses very old language, because he's named after a guy whose heyday was the 1860s. That's plenty long enough ago to use Omae as a term of endearment. In fact there are only two characters who he calls Omae, one of whom is Fukuchi:

HOWEVER, while this proves Fukuzawa only uses it with people he's extremely close to, Fukuchi uses Omae back. I could make a joke about the two dudes who would be gay if they could just work out which one should bottom but this is a Fukuran essay so you can use your imagination for that. I'll move on to the other person he uses Omae with:

Ranpo, of course! But you see... Ranpo rarely calls Fukuzawa anything other than Fukuzawa-san or Shachou. Except he did at the end of the anime:

WE GOT AN ANATA FOLKS. Ranpo doesn't call anybody else Anata. He goes for Kimi mainly. Yet here he whips out Anata for Fukuzawa who, if he was looking at Fukuzawa as his superior, he should never refer to as Anata. So not only do we get confirmation that their relationship isn't just boss and employee, we get THE OMAE+ANATA SET. This isn't definitive cannonizing content of course - as I've said multiple times, these both mean something different now - but it's strongly suggestive. And speaking of suggestive,

Word of god

If you were ever worried that Asagiri might frown on the ship, or that he doesn't know about it, or that he didn't intend for a shippy interpretation at all, you can put all those fears to rest. In January 2024 Asagiri held a panel at the Kochi Museum of Literature and the Fukuran fans were WELL FED. Asagiri was asked half a dozen questions about Ranpo and Fukuzawa, but the most fun answer was when he was about Ranpo and Fukuchi. Rough translation below:

Q. Can you expand on the relationship between Ranpo and Fukuchi?

A. To put it in a slightly misleading way, Ranpo views Fukuchi as his rival in love*. They are enemies in a love triangle. Fukuchi doesn't agree.

*YES this word means romantic love.

Yes it's a joke but it's basically carte blanch to ship it to your heart's content, Asagiri knows you're there and winks at you in his interviews. AND it's also Kafka Asagiri saying that Ranpo sees himself in a love triangle with Fukuchi and Fukuzawa. So. You know. Just a small (major) win for the Fukuran fans there!

--End of new info--

But what about-

Now, I did mention the line I know all the antis are getting ready to comment with, and I just don’t think this would be complete without the inflammatory “well actually” section. There have been many a tweet saying “Fukuzawa says he sees Ranpo as his son!”

Actually, he never does. They're explicitly called partners/buddies, however.

NOVA IT’S RIGHT HERE!!

Bad news kids: this isn’t an exact translation. It’s very sweet and all but that’s not what the Japanese actually says.

This line is closer to “I have a child in my care for my own reasons, too.” He didn’t say Ranpo was HIS child, there’s no possessive grammar here (heh no の). I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone argue that Fukuzawa didn’t see him as a child when he was, you know, a child, but the series doesn’t take place when Ranpo is a child. Also I don’t see how that has anything to do with Ranpo’s feelings at the time.

Well that’s semantics, Fukuchi says it too!! See??

This 1) is Fukuchi who has about 1000 reasons to be a fukuran anti that have nothing to do with ages and 2) isn’t a direct translation of the Japanese text either. It says “little favorite” in Japanese, and that’s it! “Little favorite” just sounds weird in English so the translators used a common phrase that people generally DON’T and SHOULDN’T use for their own kids (imagine if everyone knew you liked one of your actual kids better than the rest D:). I have it on good authority that the official Italian doesn’t say “favorite son” and I know the Japanese doesn’t, so this line is not cannon.

Well how about this!!!

I’m not really sure why this is referenced when it’s clearly the center of the chapter’s joke – the point is that Ranpo ISN’T 5, he just acts that way.

Plus I can throw this panel back from the same WaN chapter as an argument:

“Ranpo’s grown so handsome” or if you prefer, “Ranpo looks so virile now...” – rare simp Fukuzawa.

Well you can’t possibly deny this!!!

Congratulations, this is the only one with any merit! What it fails to do is prove Fukuzawa said it or remove any of the stuff already mentioned here. Ranpo could very much be in love with Fukuzawa. This line in origins is narration, not dialogue or thought, and it isn’t carried through in the narrative so it’s relatively easy to view it as a joke. The same book christens them “Tantei [Sou]jin,” same sou as in “[sou]koku,” with kanji meaning “Detective duo/detective twins/double detectives/detective partners” though I’ve also found it to mean something very near “equals.” The kanji are ‘subtitled’ as "Detective buddies” in English (katakana) in the Japanese book. All this throws multiple wrenches in the idea that they’re broadly viewed as parent and child or even as having a significant power imbalance between them.

Which brings me to my final point: none of this proves anything definitively! There’s plenty of material for both interpretations. The entire point of engaging with media is to develop your own interpretation and have fun with it. But freaking out and screaming your headcanon when a scene hits you as slightly different than that headcanon is very much screaming at the sky. Lord knows I’ve seen these four arguments enough times that if they were going to convince me of anything they already would have, and Asagiri sure can’t hear you.

I think everyone who doesn’t think this could be romantic at least from Ranpo’s side expects that romantic imagery/themes for this ship can only appear from Fukuzawa, and only if it’s predatory? Like as long as I don’t whip out a canon image like this

they’ll say “I would definitely do that with my parent” to every argument even if in reality they never, ever would.

I did recently see someone saying "why would Ranpo even like Fukuzawa, he's 30!" and listen, I can't help you there. I've had crushes on actors twice my age since I was 10, it's ingrained in my wiring. A sexy badboy bodyguard who declares himself to be at your service AND buys you food will never not be hot to me.

"What's attractive about Fukuzawa" requires another essay, however, so this is where I leave it. Obviously much of this is open to interpretation, but I don’t see people making skk posts that just say “BESTIES BESTIES BESTIES” or “BOYFRIENDS BOYFRIENDS BOYFRIENDS” ya feel. It’s always on panels like the ones I brought up, because people do recognize a romantic slant when they see one. You don’t learn to detect that from media, you learn it from living long before you start caring about morality politics in shipping. Thus I interpret the screaming very much as LALALALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU-

P.S. actually I do want to add one final note because I know what the fancops will say even if they take all this at face value: Grooming refers to “actions deliberately undertaken to befriend and establish an emotional connection with a child, to lower the child’s inhibitions in preparation for sexual activity.”

Dating someone you knew when you were underage does not equal grooming. Grooming is a purposeful crime. “Even if they’re dating now that’s grooming!” incorrect! Please do not only listen to your friends about the law, they may also tell you a cop has to tell you if they're a cop (they do not) or any number of other very wrong things. Google is free.

[taehyungisminee]

STRAYKIDS - MATES [Part - 10]

Hyunjin's body shivered under the sheets even after being surrounded by his seven warm mates. It was too cold for his hot steaming body which was covered in a thick layer of sweat. The eight mates had gone to sleep in Chan's room last night, all tangled up in each other as Felix felt safer in his head Alpha's room after he had cried for hours, almost passing out from exhaustion. However, unlike Felix, Hyunjin did not feel comfortable at all when he woke up sick the very next morning. He knew why he was like that and he felt relieved that he was going through it.

Hyunjin mentally sighed, feeling thankful for the dark curtains that the Alpha put up in his room to stop the sunlight from coming in. He knew that he was going to be oversensitive for the time being till Felix recovered. A smile formed upon his lips as he heard the little thump again. It was so feeble, considering that it was coming from Felix's body, and yet so fierce at the same time. There it was, his baby, his bliss, his heaven, his everything.

The Luna continued to drown into the ocean of happiness until he felt Minho's grip around his waist tightening. The arms that were heaven to him, for the first time in his life felt like shackles. He felt suffocated with bodies pressing onto him, not to forget the sick feeling lingering all over his body. Hyunjin wanted to cry as soon as he felt his stomach churning, nausea taking over his body. He almost let out a whimper of discomfort. He hated it even though he knew it was coming.

Hyunjin groaned weakly, picking up his tired and heavy body. His feet trembled and his all of his mates' scents at once became overwhelming for him. He was too tired of it and his emotions were all over the place from how whiny he felt. It was just all too much for the Omega. He was sensitive. With a lot of effort, he managed to make his way towards the bathroom in Chan's room, eyes barely open. A wave of dizziness washed over him and he would have fallen already if it were not for the strong arms that held him up.

"Love..." Hyunjin heard Chan's voice replacing the small thumping that absorbed his ears like no other voice could. The younger only let out another whimper, limping against Chan with his weak body. The Alpha was confused. He didn't know what was happening to the Luna. First, the bruises on his wrists and now he was sick. He still has to talk to him about the assembly yesterday. Nothing was making sense to him but for now he was going to focus on Hyunjin's health. He was worried for Hyunjin. The younger looked pale, his lips dry and it seemed like something had sucked all of his energy out of him.

"Let's go to bed." Chan whispered but before he could drag Hyunjin back, the Luna had already pulled away from him. The Alpha's confused eyes followed the Omega's actions as he made a run for the bathroom with his weak body, only to trip on the ground. "Jinnie..." Chan called, running to Hyunjin again. The younger Omega tried his best to stand up too but failed when he felt the familiar bile juice hitting the back of his throat, not to forget his burnt right foot was aching as well when he tried to put pressure on it. He only breathed once before he gagged loudly, body retching forward as the contents from his lunch yesterday came out of his mouth. He could not make it in time.

"Hyunjin..." Chan gasped, running into the bathroom before coming out with a ceramic bowl in his hands that he kept in front of Hyunjin without wasting even a second. "Love...it's okay ..." Chan whispered, his gentle arms holding Hyunjin's weak body up while the other vomited. He did not think once as his free hand moved to hold Hyunjin's long black hair for him, not even caring about the drops of vomit that had gotten upon it barely not even a second ago.

"Hyunjin? Why is he sick again?" Minho's voiced out, coming into the view. The Alpha had woken up not long ago after Hyunjin left his arms. It was natural for him. Not having his Omega's scent near him troubled his sleep, leading him to wake up from his deep slumber. "I don't know...can you bring a wet towel?" Chan replied, one hand rubbing Hyunjin' back to comfort the little Omega as his body retched forward again. Minho nodded his head and quickly made his way into the bathroom.

Chan winced internally when he saw Hyunjin emptily retching forward again and again. There was nothing in his stomach that could come out now. "It's okay, Hyunjin..." Chan whispered again. The younger heaved again, his eyes tearing up as he felt the burning in his lungs and chest.

"Come here...it's okay...I am here..." Chan said, pulling Hyunjin into his chest while the younger just stayed limp in his warm embrace. "Here, hyung." Minho's voice boomed as he came back with a wet towel in his hands. "Jinnie..." Chan whispered, left arm holding the younger up while the other was extended out to get the wet towel from Minho.

"We should take him to his room before everyone wakes up from the noise." Minho said as he bent down to pick up the bowl that had vomit in it, not wanting Hyunjin to be sick again from the bad smell. "Yeah..."Chan nodded before starting to dab the wet towel on Hyunjin's face to get rid of the thick layer of sweat. Hyunjin's body shuddered under the cold touch of the towel and he almost let out a wince as he started to shiver again. His hands gripped Chan's clothes that covered his chest.

It's okay...I am here." Chan whispered, wiping Hyunjin's mouth with the towel, being careful with his delicate lips and eyes.

————————————————————————————————————————————————"

"Speak, Hyunjin." Chan said, his voice a little harsher than he intended to. The Luna was sitting on the bed with his back against the headboard and Minho by his side. Both the Alphas have been trying to get answers from Hyunjin for two hours and it was pushing Chan on his edge. "Hyung...he is weak..." Minho said, looking at the Blood Alpha with a frown. He didn't care if Chan was frustrated or angry, none can talk to Hyunjin like that. "Is he?" Chan asked. It has been hours since the morning incident and The Blood Alpha was close to losing his cool. He knew the Luna was hiding something big from them. They were mates with the strongest bound. He could see right through Hyunjin.

"He is. Can't you see?" Minho replied and indeed Hyunjin looked weak. His cheeks looked sunken, eyes pale and surrounded by dark circles, not to forget his pale skin. "I can see and I wonder why he is weak when he didn't even eat anything that could cause sickness in the past week. Tell us, Hyunjin. What has caused your weakness?" Chan asked in a mocking tone.

Hyunjin looked down, fumbling with his hands. He wanted to tell Felix about the news first before anyone else, still doubting if Felix really had forgiven everyone or not. Also, he was not quite sure how tell his mates about everything. It was not his story to tell. "Hyung...calm down. Hyunjin is not feeling good. Why are you being so angry?" Minho spoke up, pulling the Omega close to himself.

"Do you really want to ask me that? It has been hours of just us sitting here and asking him about what exactly happened but he is still keeping quiet. I can't be here for long. Unlike our Luna, I have tons of work to do!" Chan snapped angrily, roaming back and forth in the room with angry steps. "Hyung!" Minho said, eyes sharp and glaring at the Blood Alpha. "What? Should we just wait till our Luna finally decides to speak? Because we have already been doing that for the past two hours." Chan replied, shaking his head. The Blood Alpha rarely got upset but when he did...Only God can save the humanity. His eyes would go red, veins pop up and he would literally scream and shout at almost everything and anything.

"Hyung, why are you being rude?" Minho sighed before turning to look at the Luna. "Hyunjin, you know that Chan is getting angry only because he cares too much. So, please tell us what is going on." Minho tried to sweet talk the younger into speaking but to his failure, the Luna remained quiet. "Hyunjin, you are really not helping right now. Just tell us!" Minho whined out, getting frustrated as well because of the other's silence after a lot of tries.

Hyunjin kept looking down, not wanting to look at his mates because he knew if he looked at them...he would cave in and tell them everything immediately. He didn't want that. He almost flinched as he heard Chan groaning in frustration. He knew that he was testing the Blood Alpha's limits. Chan only wanted to know what had happened because he cared for his pack mates. He always worries the most after Hyunjin when one of the pack mates are hurt or sad. He was a true leader indeed.

"Jinnie...is it something embarrassing?" Chan asked, lowering his voice tone back to gentle to try and convince Hyunjin with love again. The Luna softly shook his head, eyes still fixed on the ground. "Then why can't you tell us? Is it very personal to you?" The Alpha asked again, wanting answers. Hyunjin only shook his head again in denial. "Does it involve one of the members getting hurt?" Chan sighed when the younger only shook his head once again.

"Hyunjin...you gotta tell us. See, We made a promise about not hiding anything from each other, right?" Chan sweetly said, moving to sit beside Hyunjin on the bed. The younger hesitantly nodded his head in approval. "C'mon...tell us. No one is going to judge you. We are here for you...please tell us." Chan spoke, eyes looking at his Omega with hope.

"Why won't you tell us?" Chan asked, gritting his teeth after Hyunjin refused to reply. The Alpha closed his eyes, trying to keep calm but he has had enough of Hyunjin's silence. He was already on his edge after having both his Omegas unstable and Hyunjin was just pressuring him more. "This is your last chance, Hyunjin. We all know I can read your thoughts but I didn't want to do that until now because it is painful. So, tell me...will you speak or not?" Minho's eyes widened as he heard the Blood Alpha speaking like that to the Luna. He looked angry as if he was going to lose control any moment now.

"Hyung, it's too much...Hyunjin will tell us. Why are you going to that extreme?" Minho said, trying to calm the angry Blood Alpha present in the room. "Do you really want to ask me that? What is so important that he can't tell us?" Chan replied. The Alpha didn't intend to do any harm to his mate. He was just worried for his Omegas and his emotions were always on the edge when it comes to their wellness.

"Jinnie...It is just us. Please tell us what it is. We are just worried...Please, love?" Minho asked in the gentlest way ever, his hand intertwining with Hyunjin's. "Love-" Hyunjin just shook his head, interrupting Minho in between of his words. He completely refused to even utter a single sound in the moment. "Enough." Chan sighed, his eyes changing colour to bright red. "Hyung...no." Minho said, moving to sit in front of Hyunjin to hide the Omega behind his back.

"Minho. Leave." Chan stated, no expression showing on his face, showing that he has reached his highest level of anger. "Hyung, please don't do this. Hyunjin is our mate. How can you think about hurting him?" Minho argued back. The Alpha knew that Chan rarely got angry but when he did, his anger was the most terrifying thing that could be witnessed. "Minho-" "I will not move! Hyung, you have to stop." The Alpha said, face stern and determined. In no way was he going to let Hyunjin get harmed.

Chan sighed again, stepping back in defeat. He knew Minho was right but his Alpha instincts were too strong for him to control and he was not in the right state of mind either. "You leave me with no choice." Chan closed his eyes. "Hyung-No!" Minho yelled but the other refused to listen. "Hyung...please. You will be forcing Hyunjin! This is not right. You know he is scared of it." Minho spoke quickly, his fear growing more with every second.

Chan opened his eyes slowly, fire red irises burning the human side of him. Hyunjin let out a whimper, closing his eyes. He did not want to look at them...those blood red eyes. The eyes which once broke his soul into pieces, millions of them. He neither had the strength nor the courage to look at those scary red circles again. He knew that Chan would do this if he denied to listen but he still felt hesitant in talking what was supposed to be told to Felix first and then the rest. The younger had the right to choose...who was Hyunjin to interrupt?

The Luna trusts the little Omega with all of his being. He understands him in ways no one ever could. He knew that the younger would definitely keep the baby but, in the end, it was his choice. The Omega's body may refuse to keep the baby of his criminals...the one who had disappointed him. The ones who failed to protect him. Even if Felix had forgiven his mates but Hyunjin knew it would take him some time to actually make peace with all the events that have happened. Hyunjin can go feral and destroy the whole world but even that won't help them to remove the black hole that was now a part of Felix. The baby was his decision. His choice. Hyunjin had no part in it.

"Hyung...stop..." Minho said, his arms moving to pull Hyunjin in his chest, in a way to protect him. The younger just whimpered, grabbing onto Minho's clothes. His fists clenched, holding the cotton fibre tightly as if his soul was yearning for it. "Hyung-"

"Minho." The Blood Alpha spoke, his Alpha voice coming into play. It was like the whole environment was shaken up by his deep tone. It held power and authority...so much that even the non-living things around them would bow to show respect to the Blood Alpha. That's how powerful Chan is!

A shiver ran through the Alpha's body. He fought his instincts, not wanting to leave Hyunjin alone with an angry Chan and he knew he would have to if he listens to Chan right now. "Minho." Chan said again and this time Minho's body moved on his own, against his will. He closed his eyes too, not wanting to look into Chan's red orbs that could kill with one simple glare. However, it didn't last long. His eyes opened themselves when the Blood Alpha called him again. Nobody could defy the aura!

"Minho, leave." The Blood Alpha thundered. Minho was taken aback for a moment. He took a sharp breath in, wanting to calm his fast-beating heart. 'Don't!' He said to himself but the Alpha voice of his mate was stronger. His wolf howled in pain, submitting to the Blood Alpha.

"No!" Hyunjin let out a sob when Minho started to pull away from him. He shook his head frantically. No one could defy the Alpha voice of Chan...not even an Alpha as strong as Lee Minho. Minho gritted his teeth in anger. He didn't want to leave Hyunjin at all but his body was not listening to him. Within seconds, he found himself exiting the room.

"Now. Hyunjin. Tell me everything that you are hiding." Chan said, eyes not leaving Hyunjin. "Please..." Hyunjin shivered as his face slowly started to turn up on its own. He didn't want to look...he didn't want to look...he didn't want to look! It will kill him. "Please...I-I d-don-t" Hyunjin stuttered, trying to form a sentence but failing miserably-an answer that Chan didn't ask for. Who was he to speak something that the Blood Alpha does not seek?

"Answer." Chan said and Hyunjin's eyes flew open. Tears streamed down his face as he sobbed loudly. There they were...the red blood two eyes of the devil himself. The eyes that shook him to his core. Chan was one with his wolf now...like that night. Hell...it was pure hell! It was hell that Hyunjin visioned in his mate's eyes. They were not the eyes that held comfort for him...the soft brown orbs that showered him with care and love. They were the eyes of the dead. Lucifer himself would surrender to such wrath if he were to see Chan in such state. Hyunjin was just an Omega. A mere werewolf.

"Speak, Hyunjin." Chan repeated, not even moving an inch to comfort his crying mate. Hyunjin wanted to speak but he couldn't control his sobs that torn out from his throat. He was vulnerable under the red gaze. "Stop crying and speak." Chan said or more likely ordered the Omega in front of him. His tone was a little louder thought. He was in tone with his wolf who was the epitome of anger itself.

"I-i...F-felix...I-I...H-he..." Hyunjin tried to speak, keeping his cried blocked up in his throat. "Speak, Hyunjin!" Chan yelled in agony. "Felix is pregnant!" Hyunjin sobbed again, hands moving to cover his mouth. His eyes went wide while looking at Chan who looked so devasted out of nowhere. It felt like a brick had hit his head...emptying him of his anger. His red eyes were suddenly already back to normal in a snap as it looked like he was in a state of shock. His wrath was gone...the aura was silent...it was all just gone...everything became strangely quiet.

Hyunjin saw an opportunity and quickly shuffled out from the sheets, ignoring his feet which was screaming in pain because of the burn. He wanted to get away...he needed to get away! Those red eyes...he was scared-terrified beyond belief! He moved fast, walking towards the door as fast as he can, knowing for a fact that his leg will give up if he runs. His limbs worked to the best only for him to land on the floor with a thud.

A cry left him. He felt frustrated and scared. He needed to get away but his leg wasn't helping him. He almost screamed when Chan took a step near him. "Don't touch me!" He yelled, looking at Chan's bewildered face. He had not said anything after hearing the words that left Hyunjin's mouth. His face has gone pale and expressionless as if he had nothing else left to say.

Hyunjin cried more, trying his best to stand up again but failing again and again. "Stay away!" Hyunjin screamed as he saw Chan moving towards him again but this time the elder did not stop. The elder leaned down to pick Hyunjin up who resisted his touch, moving his arms here and there as if trying to fight the Alpha. "Let me go!" The younger cried, squirming to get away from Chan but the other was definitely stronger and all his efforts were nothing more than a waste of energy.

Chan picked up Hyunjin, bridal style despite his resistance before quickly turning to put the Omega on the bed. His touch felt rough but not any less gentle. "let me go-" "None of us are going anywhere until you tell me everything." Chan finally spoke something, his voice deep and heavy.

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Thankyou! Hope you enjoyed reading!. It will be uploaded as soon as possible.

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[widowsliver]

hi, me again, u sounded so enthusiastic in your answer and your reply to my comment so i just had to ask : what was finsbury like for u? and go into detail, i just love to talk and hear about it so HIT ME WITH ALL THE THOUGHTS

THE THOUGHTS ARE THOUGHT-ING LIKE THEY’VE NEVER THOUGHT BEFORE. thank you so much for taking interest in my over-explained enthusiastic ramblings — I again apologise well in advance.

I also just want to preface incase anyone stumbles over this post, this is about my experience personally, and I recognise not everyone would’ve had the same experience as me. nether the less, everything shall be under the cut if you care to give it a read :)

okay, so I’ll start off by giving my experience getting into finsbury. we took the tube (and ran into another ‘75 fan on the way) and commuting was pretty easy (we were staying just outside of london, took us just over an hour to get to the park) and we got there just before 11am. if I remember correctly, I believe we were the second group of people to get into the holding area because of the concern of the crowd going onto the street, and from there it was pretty chill and the security that we ran into were all amazing and up for a laugh! the waiting did suck as they prolonged opening the gates but not much you can do about that, safety over everything!

as soon as we got in we ran to merch, grabbed a t-shirt and some scran and situated ourselves a row behind middle right pitch barrier — very happy with our spot (will include a video at the bottom) and the people around us were lovely.

onto the music!

After Life I thought were really good at opening and definitely got the crowds attention, kept thanking everyone for turning up early to see their set and it was appreciated. a very good performance overall!

Pretty Sick I admittedly did not pay that much attention too, although I don’t want that to be taken negatively, as it dawned upon me how many hours we were going to be there for. had to preserve battery lol.

American Football I will also admit was pretty similar, I was very concerned with scranning a milkshake… no regrets.

The Japanese House were the only one other than the 1975 that I would consider myself a pretty big fan of, and I’m pretty sure I cried at least twice. hearing ‘sunshine baby’ live whilst knowing I’d pre-ordered a personally signed copy of ‘in the end it always does’ was magical and amber herself blew me away with their vocals and presence on the stage. can’t wait to see them on tour.

Bleachers were probably my second favourite (not including the 1975) of the night. really great to watch on stage despite not being a fan and the energy the crowd was giving was immense!

Cigarettes After Sex although good, and I did enjoy, did feel a little out of place on the setlist. although I can obviously see why they were the last act before the headline, taking that out of consideration, I would’ve preferred to have watched cas after the japanese house, and then bleachers.

ladies and gentlemen… the 1975!

I don’t even know where to begin when talking about the 1975. from tim healy to people, I genuinely couldn’t have wished for a better show (although the nothing revealed / everything denied stan in me is praying for the day)

the opening. wow. although it was arguably obvious they were going to open with the 1975 (bfiafl), it didn’t make it any less impactful. hearing those chords striking that piano I’m convinced I felt it within my gut. absolutely breathtaking — and it set a high standard that was carried out throughout the entire night, completely electrifying.

to talk about the first ‘surprise’ of the night — ‘love me’. although I do preach being an abiior stan, iliwys also has a special place in my heart, ‘love me’ being my second favourite (after ballad… yeah) this is when I knew this gig wasn’t going to be topped by anything I’d previously seen!

‘part of the band’ will also get a mention here that despite being a regular on the setlist, reaches deeply into my heart. a tear was shed (and I had no clue what was to come).

“who gives a fuck this is too much fun!” matty’s little speeches honestly kept me going.

tim healy. tim healy singing my favourite song off of bfiafl. I thought I died and went to heaven right there. another crying mark.

also trying to kill me with ‘be my mistake’, this was a block of non stop sobbing.

oh, you thought you died right there?

HERE HAVE BALLAD!!!

at this point I was the luckiest woman ever that the couple we made friends with in-front of us let me swap with him so I was on the middle barrier. kindness from strangers is the best thing ever.

I genuinely don’t even know what to comprehend about ‘medicine’.

and as you can clearly see, having CARLY appear was not easing me down gently at all. doing this post has made me realise how the hell did I get out of there alive??

(I also went feral during ‘the sound’… not one of my proudest moments)

guys snippet… into iawds… as per my last post you can imagine what I was going through. the only thing that was running through my head was “I need to book my box tattoo appointment”

and now to wrap it up, ‘love it if we made it’ and ‘give yourself a try’ (and ‘sex’) being my all-time favourites and were the best way to end the gig…

until the 1975 to literally make me die dead right then and there when I heard the beat to ‘people’.

all in all, despite some people disagreeing, including consumption at the end really solidified the era and drew the door (or tv screen) to a close for one final time. your new era. your old friends.

(p.s the only negative thing I have to say is getting out of the park was an absolute fucking nightmare and made our journey three times longer, but seeing the 1975 definitely made it worth it and I’d do it all again)

[ru-star]

Oh my god..

So- little personal life thing- I am currently employed and working, saving up for a car for college. Anyone who knows me knows that when I drop, I drop and that I'm done.

I have been so upset about work for the past two weeks now (I've been working at this job for 6 weeks now) and last Monday on 7/8/24 I was left with 10 tiny humans to manage by myself, (Ages 3, 4, 5) with zero help. For 8. Fucking. Hours.

I yelled, I screamed, I cried, I sobbed, I got hit in the head by toys that were being thrown over a wall the work has while I was trying to put their cots up (Cots= Sleeping mats for non-daycare worker/Teacher/Aid) It was so bad, that the cook, my co-worker, had tk come into the room and help get these kids to calm down. Bless her heart she tried, but in the process of doing that, she got snapped and told off for simply trying to help me.

(I need to address I will be leaving details out due to HIPPA violations against clients, this is just for me to rant and vent ‘bout my shitty work life)

The week goes by a few days and the other Teacher who works with me in that room (We are both teachers, she's older & I'm 20) Just being in the room for another two days I nearly got bit by a child in that room. Thankfully it was on the back of my shirt while I was busy getting staples outta the wall. Another child had seen it and addressed it to me.

I told my bosses that I wanted to quit, bc of what happened on Monday 7/8/24. Keep in mind, I have never been trained in anything this facility on what they do, use, etc. I bearly had a month worth of knowledge after doing 27 hours of online courses at my previous place of employment (It was the only job I could find)

So far, The Cook has quit, and my Co-worker (The teacher) has also quit. I am at my wit's end and am just ready to leave as well, yet, don't have another job lined up.

This job, has caused me so much stress and anxiety that I have had a major breakout of ace across the right side of my jawline 3 weeks ago, I have been throwing up, and have been trying to get things ready for school next month but work an insane work schedule it's no longer working for me (I work from 7:00 am- 4:00 pm with a 1-hour lunch break)

I have learned that this place of employment has been losing teachers in this specific room for a while now, because of what's been happening (Again, not gonna say bc of HIPPA)

I have been told that the staff members have been taking their lunch breaks and then never coming back, I have heard of my co-workers getting bit from this class, and, not only that, but I have experienced hardly zero empathy twords me from one of my bosses (The Director) about anything. I don't know if it's their tone of voice or if that's just the way they are, but I shouldn't have to send proof of my vomit in the toilet just to show them that I'm actually sick. And no, it's not, “Just my nerves”. My MOTHER shouldn't have to send you that picture while I'm downstairs trying to clean snot off my face from vomiting so hard my antibiotics come up!!

I can't go without work yet at the same time I can't go back there, I'm afraid I'm gonna vomit again, that I'm gonna be yelled at for commuting into work while having the knowledge of vomiting, even though the doctor said I could come back the next day.

This job, has stressed me out, so, fucking, bad, I'm vomiting from anxiety, and fear, as well as feeling like I'm back inside of a DV household after 4 hours of being out of one, and being IN one for over 10 years.

I shouldn't have to fear my boss. I shouldn't have to be “persuaded”into staying and trying out other rooms, EVEN THOUGH THEY KEEP PUTTING ME IN THE ROOM THAT IS STRESSING ME OUT SO MICH!!!!

I ALSO shouldn't have to fear about getting BIT by someone else fucking child!!! Do these parents even realize just how DEADLY the human bite can be if the skin of broken?!?!?! Apparently not if their fucking kid keeps doing it!!!

Any advice is appreciated, I'm suck and need advice badly..

[waitwiah]

What do you do when it all gets too heavy?

\Post02\:Y’all! I have been M.I.A. and I’m sorry. Kind of. So this is going to be a long one. Sit down, grab a snack and a beverage (maybe of the adult variety) and let’s catch up.

*TW talks of w*ightloss & d*ath*

To say I have been going through it would be a massive understatement. I’ve been so up and down, I’m not even sure what’s next anymore. My health is worse than it was before and it really has me feeling some type of way. I leaned on my boyfriend for support a few times, not nearly enough because I’d hate to be a burden – but me being sick was taking an emotional toll on him… Let’s just say he may not be my boyfriend anymore. Who knows. I don’t know much about anything anymore. This sucks of course because he says, “I love you and I hope you get better. I want you to be healthy”.  Then, he beats himself up for “NoT BEinG tHe MaN I deSErve". I HATE THAT. Don’t beat yourself up because I’m sick and it’s hard. If anything, he deserves a healthy, happy partner. Not whatever I am. I’m not the woman he deserves. Who deserves stress and uncertainty tainting a budding partnership? I know the answer to this one: nobody.

The things you fear deep in your mind actually becoming reality is such a strange feeling. Is everything secretly a premonition? Did I manifest this subconsciously? I really thought, “If I can’t be healthy, I can at least be happy”, but the universe threw that back in my face 10-fold. And I’m proven right, for once in my life, that no one can actually stomach (pun intended) being a sick person’s partner. Obviously, this doesn’t apply to everyone, but I sure as hell believe it applies to me. Outside of familial deaths, I’m not sure if I’ve ever been this sad in my entire life. This broken and beaten down. This… hollow. This sad and sick. This sick and tired. This done.

As I was on my way to work one morning, I managed to leave my feeding tube bag uncapped, so my formula spilled all over me, my car, my feeding pump, and my work bag. That was the last straw. After the special kind of hell I had been through the last few months, this is what happens? I had to turn around to go back home and change, clean up my car with a quickness, and make my way to work. I couldn’t do it. “There is no way I’m going to get through this day”, I thought to myself. I immediately called my therapist – she was unavailable. I called my mother – she was in a meeting of course; I asked if she could step away because it was important, but she didn’t understand. What could possibly be more important than her meeting? (Side note: she called me about an hour later, saying she stepped out of her meeting and couldn’t go back in because someone else was doing her presentation. I of course said everything was fine, it obviously wasn’t, so then she began giving me a speech about how I should be more rational and not so emotional. Just what I needed of course.) My friend who I would call was on vacation and my sister that I confide in was at work. The only person left to call was my father. THIS WAS A MISTAKE, AND I FEEL HORRIBLE.

My father asked me what was wrong and all I could say was, “EVERYTHING”.

My father actually called the police that day to do a wellness check on me because he was so scared by the sobs coming from deep within the pit of my pancaked, dysfunctional stomach. Oh, how I cried. I sobbed at what my life had become. On the floor, body shaking, eyes burning, feeding tube moving around my nose. The. Whole. Nine.

Over the last 6 to 8 months I’ve developed new symptoms, began having longer pain flares (sometimes for more than 10 hours straight), lost my prescription for my feeding tube, gained it back again, been turned away by doctors and picked up by them again. I was even told I should’ve gained at least 60lbs by now (I’ve only gained 2 or 3lbs in the last 2 years) and to do more exercise and add more calories. How am I expected to do all of that?

 And the worst thing of all: I MET WITH PALLIATIVE CARE. I know what you’re thinking – I’m basically a child (in my mind at least), how can I take that step so soon? Well, I’ll put it like this: I have been fighting for so long, fighting my own demons, fighting the medical demons at the hospital otherwise known as Administration, trying to figure out my diagnosis, and dealing with several unexplained, non-specific findings on tests. There is no cure in sight. Hell, there’s barely any symptom management. The amount of pain I’m in and the weakness and the fatigue is enough to make anyone throw in the towel. SO, that’s what I kind of did. I set up a game plan for if (maybe when – I’m trying to be optimistic but realistic here) things don’t end up getting better in a timely fashion. I haven’t told my family yet, but if there’s no cure, no game-plan to fix whatever this is or lessening of this pain in the next 6 months, I’m stopping all my treatment. I’m going to just let whatever happens happen; I don’t have to tell y’all what’s going to happen. You know. I’ll be hanging out with Casper and them.

After that appointment I went down a rabbit hole. And if I’m being 100% honest (and I will keep it 100 here, that’s what this is for), I have made dissociating from my reality a daily task. It is necessary sometimes, especially when the weight of an illness/disorder/situation/disease starts to become a bit too heavy. Sometimes it is imperative you take a moment to distract yourself from your own reality – to take a break from things crumbling beneath your feet and imagine you’re standing on solid ground again. Even if it’s for a single moment or a few moments a day, a week, a month, etc.

But here I am, repeatedly fighting with doctors, nurses, administrators, insurance companies to say, “Hey! I deserve healthcare – good quality healthcare!” and for them to essentially say, “No, you actually don’t”.  I let my (microscopic) social media following know that I actually wasn’t okay, and that I needed time to myself so I wouldn’t be answering any attempts to reach out for a while.

So if you’re my family or friends reading this – I’m still not answering communications right now. I just need time to process everything. I’m probably watching the entire John Wick or Mission Impossible movie franchise or escaping in a sappy book. And no. I’m not okay. Please try to ask me that less often.

To my readers: PLEASE DON’T GIVE UP YET. Keep trying to find answers. Keep arguing with whoever you need to in order to receive quality care, quality help, quality pain management, etc. You deserve to be here. You deserve the chance to be happy and healthy. I haven’t given up yet, though I may be close, neither should you. As always I’m here if y’all ever need to talk.

Anywaaayyyy. I’m going to do my best to be more consistent on here. And I may have given up on TikTok lol. We'll see.

Remember: you deserve the world and then some.

Take care xx

[darkysilverwing]

So imagine Groundhog Day, the movie with Bill Murray in it where he's stuck in a time loop. He can be shot, stabbed, burned to death, and he wakes up just fine. That's the scenario I'm kinda living in, only time keeps going for me.

I don't know what happened when I turned 20, but when I turned 25 I was walking down the stairs in socks, carrying a big plate of mashed potatoes. I ended up slipping down the stairs and breaking my neck, next thing I know I'm sitting at the bottom of the stairs, perfectly fine, as a matter of fact i'm feeling better than fine! All the way until I turn around and see my own dead body, head twisted at a sickening angle, a bit of blood dribbling out of the mouth, it was... intense...

I'm honest enough to admit that I threw up, I still can't look at creamed corn the same way, but shortly thereafter one of my friends popped by unanounced for a visit, only to find me standing over my own corpse.

Cue about an hour of us both freaking out, Followed by a little bit of a struggle as they assumed I was just a lookalike trying to steal their life or something cause they were a bit of a conspiracy theoriest, it took one sharp blow against the coffee table to disprove their point as I apparently appeared right next to them in a flash of light.

A few more questions later they decided to help me bury the bodies in the back yard cause there is no way in hell the police were going to be called for this, what would I even say? what would happen if I got the death sentence and then just appeared next to my dead body? No it was just seen as a lot simpler to just bury the bodies and never let anyone see.

That was almost 150 years ago.

I did manage to die of old age once, back in the 60's, my grandson had just returned from the war missing a few fingers and an eye, but otherwise alive and well, he held my hand and cried as I slipped into the abyss, only to instantly become furious when turning in the hospital to see some 20 year old kid standing behind him. He instantly assumed that I was some long lost grandkid from some sorted affair, which was easy enough to spin as true, just had to fake a letter, which was easy since I had the same handwriting.

Only downside being the fact that I also ended up the perfect age to get drafted.

I'll be honest, I don't remember too much of what happened in the war, spent too much of it dead, my platoon called me Catboy cause they assumed I had 9 lives. So many stories floated around of them me stepping on a landmine and getting lucky by jumping into a nearby, hidden ditch, or falling into a punji pit and missing every spike.

Soon enough they took it for granted that I was somehow just lucky, which was great cause they never questioned when i got shot, or poisoned or burned or whatever else was thrown at us, I'd always end up back at camp without a single scratch on me.

Granted there were a few days where I hated my abilites, watching my best friend get stabbed and slowly bleed out with no way of me to stop it wasn't great, and I've never actually figured out what caused my abilities to manifest. It wasn't genetic cause none of my family seemed to have it, and it wasn't chemical cause I've done my fair share of studying the physical sciences and I've found no deviation from the norm in my body. Only thing I can think of is either it's fucking magic or science hasn't caught up to what I am yet.

I think the worst part is thinking of the implications though, like back when everyone was afraid that russia was going to nuke us I was worried about how being the only human left alive would affect me, how much succumbing to radiation sickness over and over again would suck, how the entire earth could be covered in a thick layer of my corpses before I stay alive enough to foster a bit of a life.

I even asked one particularly confused butcher on the best types of dishes that could be make just using the body parts of an animal, with no herbs or spices, and I did learn how to make bone bread so I guess I could always just eat my own dead body over and over again if it really came down to it.

Thankfully things did seem to clear up around the turn of the century. Tech started innovating like crazy, people started becoming much more connected, and sure, things ended up being a lot more visible so the world seemed to start getting worse but in all honesty crime's been dropping for decades, you just see more of what's actually happening.

And that's where we reach today, where once again I was carrying a plate of mashed potatoes down the stairs in socks. You'd think I'd learn my lesson after all these years but I guess not.

Looks like I gotta find the shovel again.