#which also calls for calculus courses

[mayormimii]

Andrey & Peter Stamatin would have to be canonically extremely proficient in math (physics) to be able to design structures like the Polyhedron while drunk

[drunkinyourbenz]

IF YOU'RE GONNA LIE, DO IT IN MY BED

☆ SYNOPSIS: billie kept lying to your face, but when she looked at you like that, you didn't really have it in you to care. you did, however, have it in you to push her further by being a brat. ☆ PART TWO ☆ RELATIONSHIP: dom!billie eilish x fem!bratty!reader ☆ WARNINGS: SMUT, mean billie (oops), reader is a tiny bit pathetic, bratty reader, situationship/fwb, angry sex (kind of?), crying, established safe word (not used), strap-on, oral on a strap-on, deepthroating, gagging, oral, overstimulation, squirting, degradation, praise, petnames (pretty girl, baby, ma, etc.) name calling (slut, whore, brat, etc.), choking, hair pulling, humiliation, dumbification, billie is so condescending in this, toxic dynamic. ☆ NOTE: sorry babes i've been totally off the grid, writing this when i should be studying calculus lmao!! this is long as hell i'm so sorry i got carried away 😭 title from the song ‘guess we lied…’ by fletcher. this is oxytocin billie at her finest btw!! also situationship/fwb billie has me in a chokehold !! also i'm on my period rn lmaooo ☆ WORD COUNT: 4.8k words

you’d been in a friends with benefits situation with billie for roughly the past four months, but you’d known each other for far longer. billie was too busy for a proper relationship, so the past four months had been all hotel rendezvous and stolen kisses, but no real commitment.

billie would always fuck you better than anyone else could, and you'd be left alone in a cold and empty bed the next morning. she knew how to treat a girl, that was for sure, she was just emotionally unavailable. she needed someone who didn’t need her to actually be present in their life, just there for a good time when she felt like it. 

of course, that was where you came in—you and the countless other girls she had wrapped around her finger. there had been many girls throughout the years, but rumour had it, most of them were gone after less than a month. that knowledge gave you an addictive feeling of importance, something that kept you coming back for more. you might mean nothing to her, but you meant more than the others did. 

you’d planned to meet up today, but billie was late—of course she was. 

she’d been at a party—of course she had. 

chances were, she’d been out fucking one of the many other girls she had totally entrapped in her siren-like charm—she told you that you were her favourite, but you weren’t sure you believed her. she probably told every single girl she fucked that, she just happened to keep you around for longer than most. 

so she stumbled into the hotel room she’d told you to meet her in, forty five minutes late, a resting frown on her face as she kicked off her shoes upon entering the room. you look up from where you sat on the bed scrolling your phone, raising an eyebrow. 

“late again, where were you?” your voice didn’t sound accusatory, simply curious, but you were accusing her of something, and she knew it. 

she shrugged casually, her face still set in that slight scowl. “a party, it’s not important.” 

she was clearly in a bad mood, but you didn’t really have it in you to care. her bad mood was no excuse to leave you hanging for almost an hour. you laughed dryly. “next time, just cancel. i don’t care if you don’t want to see me, that’s fine. just don’t leave me waiting here for you to show up.” 

billie rolls her eyes slightly, through her eyes, it genuinely didn’t matter, and it was irrational for you to be this annoyed. the two of you weren’t dating, she did this with so many other girls, you weren’t special. “god, you’re so dramatic. it was just a party, it’s not a big deal.”

you let out a soft scoff, “i don’t care that it was a party. just let me know next time so that i don’t sit alone in an empty hotel room for almost an hour looking like an absolute loser.” 

“i meant to get here on time.” 

“don’t lie to me, i know that if you mean to do something, you do it.” which was true. if billie actually wanted to do something, she found a way to do it. 

billie raises an eyebrow, “you’re being a brat.”

you bite back another scoff, but can’t stop yourself from snapping back at her. “and you’re being a bitch.”

something seemed to change in billie’s eyes then, one of her eyebrows raising as she took a few steps towards you. you almost instinctively took a step back, a reminder of the control she had over you even when you were trying to be mad at her.

her eyes were a fraction darker than they had been before, her sharp blue eyes fixated on you as she kept waking forward, backing you towards the hotel bed without even touching you—that was the power she held over you. 

“i’m being a bitch? hm, interesting. you don’t look like you think i’m a bitch, you look like you want me to fuck you.” her voice was smooth and level, but there was a sort of harsh bite to it, a warning, foreshadowing for what was to come.

you couldn’t even deny it, not really. you wanted to deny it, but she was right. you did want her to fuck you, despite how little she clearly cared about your feelings right now. 

she took a step closer again, and you felt the back of your knees hit the mattress—you hadn’t even been aware of stepping that far back. she watched you closely, a calculating look in her eyes.

“so? you gonna say it, or what? i know you waited around for a reason.”

again, she was right. why else you have waited around for almost forty five minutes? no one fucked you like she did, and you could tell she knew it, from the smug smirk that always painted her lips when she was fucking into you with her strap. god, she could be so cocky sometimes, the knowledge that she was so incredibly hot was a little too powerful for her. 

when you thought about it, it was kind of pathetic that you’d actually waited around for forty five minutes. like, who does that? why had you sat alone in the hotel room, waiting for her in the silence? why hadn’t you walked out after twenty minutes and gone to the party where your friends were probably drunk off their faces—the party that you had skipped because you already had plans. plans with billie. 

you’d waited around for forty five minutes, and you knew full well that you weren’t going to get her to have a mature conversation. so, you concluded, you might as well make the wait worth it, and let her fuck you. and if you were going to get fucked, it might as well be good. 

so, when you spoke, you kept the slightly snarky tone. “obviously, why else would i have waited around for so long?”

she saw the bratty look in your eyes, and her eyes darkened further. she clearly wasn’t in a great mood, and needed a way to blow off steam—your brattiness was giving her exactly that, an outlet. she huffed, grabbing your jaw tighter as she stared at you. she pushed you so you fell onto your back on the bed, landing with a slight impact on the soft mattress. she crawled on top of you so she was straddling your hips, one of her hands coming to wrap around your neck, pressing down to give you just the right amount of pressure. it was a warning, but you weren’t at all worried. 

“watch your fuckin’ tone, ma. and don’t look at me like that. you’re a brat today, aren’t you?” 

you caught the slight sparkle in her eye in reaction to your attitude, which just pushed you further. she was enjoying this, seeing you act up. you kept the same tone to your voice, looking up into her eyes as her ring-clad hand pressed down on your neck.

“well, i think i deserve to be a brat, after being left hanging for almost an hour.”

she pressed down slightly harder on your neck, her nails digging into your skin slightly and her eyes narrowing as she held your eye contact. 

“is that really how you want to play this? don’t act like you didn’t wait around here like an obedient little slut for that whole hour.” 

you could’ve sworn you felt your brain falter as her words went straight to your core, because when she talked like that, you always melted a little bit inside. you couldn’t find any quick smartass comeback this time, but you didn’t want to look even more pathetic by fumbling for a response you weren’t going to find, so you simply rolled your eyes.

at your eye roll, she pressed her lips together slightly, “where’s the good girl i normally get to fuck? hmm?” she said those words as if your bratty attitude is somehow displeasing to her, but you knew for a fact that it was the opposite. she loved when you were like this, it gave her an excuse to be rougher, meaner. 

“guess i’ll just have to remind you how to behave, won’t i?” 

the hand on your neck snaked around to the back of your head, where she took a fistful of your hair in her hand and tugged roughly at it, sending a stinging sensation to your scalp. she used the hand she was pulling your hair with to angle your face upwards, so you were looking right up into her eyes. you held the eye contact, an almost challenging look in your eyes as you spoke again.

“maybe you should. might wanna hurry up with it, though. getting bored here.” that was a blatant lie, you were not bored, and you could listen to her degrade you like you were her slut for hours, but you wanted to push her. you wanted her to be unable to resist fucking you hard. no matter how good the other girls she’d fucked at the party were, you would be better, and you were sure of it. you had to stand out somehow.

your words did indeed have the intended effect on billie, and she let out a scoff, giving your hair another harsh tug as a reminder that she was in charge. 

“watch that fuckin’ mouth, sweetheart. it looks better when it’s being put to use.”

that, of course, was the perfect opening for another bratty remark, and you were too deep in to resist winding her up now. “well, i don’t see you putting it to use, do i?” 

and… that was it. you could practically see something in the wiring of her brain change as she snapped. “that’s it,” she breathed out, her grip on your hair tightening as she climbed off you, pulling you off the bed and pushing you to your knees on the floor in front of her in an instant. 

“you really can’t learn to shut your pretty little mouth, can you? you know, you’re a lot prettier when you shut up.”

she was unbuttoning her pants as she spoke, and you could see the bulge of her strap-on underneath the clothes. within moments, her pants were discarded on the floor, revealing her signature long red strap. for how long she’d spent on the back and forth teasing, she sure seemed to be in a rush now. her hand returned to your hair, gathering it in a makeshift ponytail, harshly tugging your head back to an angle that worked for her. 

“you’re also a lot prettier on your knees, so gorgeous f’me.”

those words were misleading, almost soft. when she spoke again, her voice was raspy as she looked down at you with that harsh look in her eyes. “my fuckin’ slut. gonna take what i give you, and you’re not gonna complain.” 

that you weren’t, even in your bratty state, you knew you weren’t in a place to complain, on your knees in front of her. plus, you were pretty sure that you wouldn’t need to complain, not for this. you were right, when she pushed the strap-on into your mouth. you hollowed out your cheeks to make it easier to take—not that billie was at all concerned with whether this was easy for you. she wanted to make you cry, she wanted you to be an absolute mess, right there in front of her and on your knees.

your tongue swirled along the sides of the strap, putting on a show for her. she smirked, loving that she had finally shut you up. the satisfaction of seeing you no longer talking back didn’t last for long, however, and soon she had tightened her grip on your hair, holding your head firmly in place. then, she started thrusting the strap as deep as she possibly could inside your mouth.

you faltered at first, your gag reflex acting up, as always. you’d always had a bad gag reflex, but billie didn’t seem to care. after a moment, you managed to sort out the gagging reflex, but it wasn’t long before it was acting up again. you could feel the tears prickling at your eyes, as you always did when billie did this. you were convinced the only reason billie ever got you to suck off the strap was so she could see you cry when you gagged. 

after a while, you felt the tears rolling down your cheeks, mixing with the spit that had gathered around your mouth from the sheer pace at which billie was thrusting the strap into you. you let out a muffled whimper around the faux dick, and if you could look up and move your head from the tight grasp billie had on your hair, you’d see the cocky smirk painted on her face. she loved shutting you up like this, and she loved seeing the tears rolling down your cheeks. it was a reminder that she could make you into a mess like no one else ever could. 

“god, look at you. so pathetic f’me.” 

eventually, once billie was satisfied with how much of a mess you were, she pulled the strap out of your mouth, using the still-harsh grip on your hair to pull you up off your knees. she manhandled you to your feet in front of her, looking you up and down for a moment with a smirk. she took a moment to just take the sight in, your hair messy from how she’d held it, your cheeks tear-stained, and a slightly dumb, empty look in your eyes—oh, how she just adored how much of a mess she could make you. 

it wasn’t long that she spent admiring you—she was still in a bad mood, and she desperately needed to blow off some steam. pretty soon, she had crossed her arms while she looked at you closely, “strip.”

you didn’t hesitate—she was unbelievably good at stripping you of your brattiness, as well as your clothes. you could feel any stubbornness you’d had leaving your body at an alarming speed. once you were stood there in front of her in just your bra and panties, billie’s lips twitched up into a small, satisfied smirk. she placed a hand on your shoulder, pushing you backwards to the bed with ease, and you fell backwards onto the sheets and pillows that had been perfectly smoothed out by the hotel staff earlier that day—they wouldn’t be looking that flawless for much longer. 

she took a few more moments just admiring you, in front of her on the bed, almost bare. her index finger slipped under your panties before letting them snap back onto your skin with a teasing grin. her other hand moved to your bra, where she tweaked at one of your nipples through the lace, the sharp pain rushing straight to your core.

it wasn’t long before she’d manhandled you into the position she wanted—from behind, it seemed to be a favourite of hers—and rid you of your bra and panties. she lined the strap up with your entrance, and within moments, she’d thrusted the strap fully into you, not giving you any time to adjust. one of her hands circled your clit teasingly, dipping inside your pussy briefly and gathering your wetness on her finger with a smug smirk.

“so wet…that all from me throwing you around? treating you like some dumb toy? fuckin’ whore.” 

you let out an utterly pathetic whimper, and she chuckled darkly as she thrusted into you roughly from behind, your pussy swallowing her so perfectly, so willingly—a huge contrast from the bratty display you’d been putting on earlier. her hand squeezed at your ass as she gathered your hair into a makeshift ponytail again, harshly forcing your head back. 

“mm, look at you taking me so well, so much prettier when you just shut up. moments like this remind me why you’re my favourite.” you were sure you weren’t her favourite, you were sure she said that to all her girls, but you didn’t care. you let out a moan at her words, and she gave your hair another tug in response. “so fuckin’ pretty when you let me do the thinking, baby.” 

she gave your hair another harsh pull to emphasise her next words, “dumb brats don’t need to think, yeah?”

you whined again, and she laughed, the hand that was grasping your hair moved to circle around your neck, squeezing slightly. it wasn’t enough to really hurt you, just a display of dominance—as if the way she was thrusting into you wasn’t enough to tell who was in charge. 

the metal of her rings dug into the skin of your neck as she squeezed, and another moan spilled from your lips at the feeling combined with the pace at which she was fucking you from behind. 

keeping her pace the same and her hand around your neck, she asked, “colour?” she always checked in, no matter how caught up in fucking you she might seem, she was always attentive to your signals. 

“green,” you muttered, surprised you even managed to get a word out with the amount of pleasure you were feeling.

she grinned, although you couldn’t see it, and kept pounding into you at the same harsh speed, the hand that wasn’t around your neck squeezing your ass again. then, she leaned over to speak in your ear, her body pressed against your back. her lips brushed against the shell of your ear, sending a shiver down your spine. god, she knew what she was doing. 

“still think i’m a bitch, hm?” 

you debated just not replying, but you knew that being bratty again was just what she wanted you to do—and who were you to deny her? “a bitch who’s fucking me good, yeah.” 

if you could see her, you would’ve seen her smirk widen as her warm breath fanned over your neck near your ear, and she gave your ear a teasing nip, “still a brat, i see. guess i’ll just have to fuck it out of you.”

she moved away from your ear, the hand around your neck moving back to its previous position in your hair, tugging your head back with her harsh grip. her other hand moved to your hip, holding you in place as she thrusted into you. another trail of moans fell from your lips, your hands moving to dig into the sheets of the bed. “i’m- fuck, billie—” 

she laughed condescendingly, giving your thigh a slap, and you whimpered as the pain sunk in. “mm, a bitch who’s fucking you so good you can’t even form a whole sentence, right?” 

you just cried out at her words, your hands gripping the sheets as your walls clenched around her strap, your head going fuzzy from the pleasure she was bringing you. you didn’t care how many other girls she had fucked right before she got here, not when she was fucking you this good. you were so, so close, and she could tell.

“cum on my cock, baby. wanna see you fall apart,” she gave your hip a squeeze and tugged your hair, and that was enough to push you over the edge. you came with a moan, clinging onto the sheets like your life depended on it, pleasure washing over you in the most intense waves. your eyes squeezed shut as you mumbled incoherent nonsense, “bils, fuck—oh my god…”

she grinned again, keeping up the bruising pace, which you assumed was just her helping you ride through your orgasm. but even once you’d come down from the intense pleasure, she was still thrusting deeply inside you, causing whimpers to fall from your lips. 

“bils, too much–fuck, it hurts—”

giving your hair another pull, she spoke with that same raspy voice, “i don’t care if it hurts, you’re gonna take what i fuckin’ give you, mamas. you know what to do if it’s really too much.” 

you let out a strangled cry as she kept pounding into you, the pleasure mixing with pain and creating an intense feeling of ecstasy—but she was right, if you needed her to stop, you knew what to say. but you didn’t, you just kept letting out those same broken moans as your hands tangled in the sheets. your release was gathering around the base of the silicone as she pounded into you. 

she let go of your hair, moving her hand so both of them were firmly holding your hips, keeping you in place as she fucked into you at that bruising pace. you were almost certain you would have bruises from how firm her grip on your hips was—not to mention how unlikely it was that you’d be able to walk the next day—but you didn’t care. it just felt too good, her fucking into you like this, the way she was manhandling you…

it wasn’t long before one of her hands snuck down to your clit, circling it torturously with her index finger and drawing even more desperate moans from your lips. you were embarrassingly close to your second orgasm, it couldn’t have been longer than five minutes since you came down from the last, but you could feel your walls clenching around her strap again. 

billie noticed this, of course, and you could visualise the smug smirk on her lips when she spoke. “gonna cum f’me again, pretty girl? god, you look so much better like this.” 

so, you came around her cock for the second time that night, moans falling from your lips like music. your arms were aching from holding yourself up, and you slumped down slightly, resting your head on the newly messed up sheets of the bed, a soft sigh escaping you. your thoughts were jumbled and you couldn’t pick out a single coherent thought amidst the mess of pleasure, your thoughts just a repeating mantra of billie’s name. 

after a moment, billie pulled the strap out of you, and you whined again at the feeling of emptiness that took over you. she laughed softly, a slight condescending undertone to it, before grabbing your shoulders to turn you over so you were laying on your back. her touch was decidedly more gentle than it had been earlier, but she clearly wasn’t finished with you yet. 

once you were on your back, she pushed your thighs apart and settled down between them, propping herself up with her elbows and looking up at you. her lips twitched upwards when she took in the expression on your face, you were completely wrecked—and she’d made you like that. she watched as you took deep, heavy breaths, your head resting back against the bed as you stared at the ceiling. 

“can you move up f’me? get your head on the pillow, ma.” 

her voice was almost soft, and you nodded quietly, using your weak arms to pull yourself up the bed slightly. once your head was resting on the pillow, you let out a soft sigh of relief—your neck was aching from how hard she’d been gripping it, so the pillow gave you some much needed extra support. 

she looked at you for a moment, before speaking again, that raspy hint to her voice still very much present. she seemed a bit more cautious than she had been, a lot of her frustration from the day clearly fading from how hard she’d fucked you. “i wanna taste you, baby. colour?” 

you nod softly, exhaling slowly. you were exhausted from how hard she’d been fucking you, but you needed her mouth on you. “mhm, green.” 

it didn’t take any more confirmation for her to lean down and bury her face in your pussy, her hands gripping your thighs and holding you firmly in place. her tongue licked a stripe up your slit, drawing a loud moan from you. your thighs instinctively closed around her head, the amount of pleasure she’d given you hard to bear. she tsked, giving your thigh a warning slap and firmly forcing them open again,

“stay still.” 

two fingers slipped inside you with ease, and she started thrusting them inside you at a torturously slow pace while her tongue circled your sensitive bud. the slow pace was a contrast from how fast she had previously been pounding into you, and you knew she was doing it on purpose to drive you insane. everything she did was always so calculated, exactly what you needed at that moment to make you fall apart, to make you an absolute mess for her. 

her free hand moved up to your tits, giving them both a soft, misleading squeeze, before harshly pinching your nipple between her index finger and thumb, laughing mockingly when you let out a soft cry of pain.

“oh, it hurts? hm, you’re fuckin’ pathetic, baby. such a mess.”

the sounds of her fingers inside you echoed around the hotel room, the only sound other than your moans. you were so impossibly wet, and you could feel another orgasm approaching rapidly as her fingers curled inside you, “mm, you’re taking me so well. such a good, dumb slut for me, hm?” 

your walls clenched around her fingers at her words, and she grinned, nipping at your inner thigh teasingly before returning her tongue to your clit. “yeah, my good little slut. like when i call you that, ma?” 

you moaned again, and you were coming on her fingers before you could stop yourself, your body going limp against the bed as you were hit by your third high of the night, moans falling weakly from your lips. 

billie didn’t stop her movements, her tongue moving from your clit to your pussy, gathering your taste on her warm tongue and moaning softly. her fingers replaced your tongue at your clit, and you flinched as they circled your sensitive bud. 

you let out a whine as her tongue kept up her movements, slurring out a soft protest through the pain of being so overstimulated, “bils, i can’t– ‘m too sensitive—”

she hummed against your pussy, the vibrations eliciting another moan from you. she pulled back ever so slightly to respond, but you could still feel her warm breaths hitting your clit in the most achingly pleasurable way.

 “fuckin’ take it like a good girl, know you can.” her fingers kept circling your clit. “you want to be a good girl for me, right? make up for being such a brat?” 

you nodded desperately, because yes, you wanted to be her good girl. you wanted to please her, “yes, fuck– wanna be your good girl, billie-” 

billie grinned, her tongue returning to where it had been, slipping inside you as her fingers teased your clit, “mhm, my good girl. my favourite girl.” 

you whined at the pleasure she brought you, trying not to close your thighs around her head again as they shook from the sheer pleasure of this moment. you didn’t even really comprehend her words, the way she kept throwing around the lie that you were her favourite.

you didn’t even care if you weren’t her favourite girl, being one of the girls was more than enough for you. you didn’t care how many other girls she’d fucked right before this, because you could feel her tongue coaxing yet another powerful orgasm out of you. a sob left your lips, the pleasure overwhelming you and taking over your body in every way possible. god, she was too good at this.

you opened your mouth to warn her, but all that came out was a moan as she flicked your clit with her finger, and the dam broke. your head fell back against the pillow as liquid gushed out of you, soaking her chin and the sheets below you. 

she eagerly lapped at it, and you let out another strangled whine, your hand reaching out to her head. your fingers tangled in her hair, trying to guide her off you. your things were shaking, your skin tingling, your body drenched in sweat, your mind foggy.

it was too much, the pleasure becoming too overwhelming. you’d have told her that if you could form words, but she took your signal and dragged her mouth away from your pussy, pressing a few soft kisses to your inner thigh. 

“mm, look how messy you are, mamas. such a messy slut, all for me?”

you whined softly as she pressed kisses to your trembling thighs, “all for you.”

she grinned up at you smugly from where she lay between your thighs, her eyes raking over your face and body. her smile widened as she took in just how wrecked she’d made you, your hair messy and your body limp and exhausted, paired with the marks that were already appearing on your hips and neck from her harsh grip. she found you unbelievably gorgeous when you were like this, and she gave one of your thighs a teasing squeeze. 

she had fucked the brattiness out of you, just like she’d said she would. 

“see, baby, what did i tell you? so much prettier when you’re not being a brat.”

[lexosaurus]

Ghost Boy? In my college class? It's More Likely Than You Think

[ao3 link]

Warnings: None Words: 6,031

****

College was crazy. 

Okay?

There was absolutely no reason why college had to be as insane as it was.

Alright, maybe there was a reason. A reason called, "We have four years to make these students professionals in their chosen field, and some even less time than that."

Danny understood. He really, truly did. He knew that to work in his dream job at NASA, he needed to learn not just how to locate the constellations in the night sky, but also about subjects like chemistry, biology, calculus, physics—a lot of physics.

But seriously, when the hell was a guy supposed to sleep?

Last night's problem set only had five questions, theoretically. But it was run by a completely sadistic site that Vlad himself must have designed—that bastard—because while submitting a correct answer seemed to mark one of the five outlined stars in gold, the site also seemed to be more than happy to remove the gold star if he got a problem incorrect. 

Which meant that the theoretical five-questioned assignment ended up taking Danny many, many more questions than that. 

Just when he had thought the hell was over, he realized he still hadn't begun his paper for his mandatory freshman writing class. So then, he got the absolute pleasure of writing an essay about a stupid, Victorian-era play he didn't read regarding the symbolism of a hat as it related to...foreshadowing, or something. 

He didn't read it. He only signed up for this dumb writing seminar because the timing worked better on his schedule. He'd much rather be taking the writing class about horror novels. But unfortunately, that one happened during his mandatory physics course.

When it was all over and he finally caught sight of his pillow, he was pretty sure he’d shed a single tear. Did he remember sinking into the mattress? Closing his eyes, and drifting off?

No. He didn't. 

He was fucking tired.

But apparently, the universe did actually hate him because instead of being roused by his alarm the next morning, he was shaken by his ghost sense.

Oh yeah, apparently Skulker found his dorm.

Joy!

No seriously, fuck that guy. 

What the hell kind of sick weirdo wants to make a rug out of someone else's skin, anyway? Not to mention that Skulker had no conception of what a good time to hunt was, considering he seriously was trying to start chaos at five in the fucking morning.

Again, fuck that guy.

He only just barely had enough time to fly home, shower, hastily read over and submit his essay (he'd long since learned from high school that he couldn't trust himself that late at night to be coherent), and make a mad dash to his favorite bagel spot on the way to class.

However, the bagel guy—he had a name, Danny was almost sure—must have been under the weather today because, for some reason, he could not stop staring at Danny.

The instinct to run his hand over his face to check for post-fight ectoplasm splatters was a learned reaction at this point. But this time, he couldn't feel anything off. His skin was dry. Cold, like usual, but dry.

"Uh..." The bagel guy continued staring at him slack-jawed.

"Do I have something on my face?" 

That seemed to shake the bagel guy out of his stupor. He blinked, his eyes darting around to catch the eye of a few other customers who, for some reason, were giving Danny a really wide berth.

Did he smell or something? Had he forgotten to put his deodorant on?

Oh god, did his parents do something to make national news again? Did the news use a family photo when reporting the story or something? Why was everyone looking at him? Seriously, what the hell was going on today?

The bagel guy locked eyes with Danny once more, briefly, before darting back down to the register and handing Danny his change. "One everything bagel with cream cheese for the, uh—for—coming right up."

"Thanks," Danny said, trying to be as friendly as possible. Jazz always said that he shouldn't judge people for acting strange. That they could be going through something personal.

So, Danny shook it off. Maybe he missed a chunk of ectoplasm on his hair when he was showering. Skulker had nailed his shoulder pretty well. The green, ecto-infused smoothie he'd sipped that morning was working its magic to mend his skin, but who knew? Maybe a little bit of blood was leaking through his shirt. It wouldn't be the first time that happened, anyway.

Or the last.

Amazingly, he did get his bagel. But when the man handed it to Danny, his eyes were almost popping out of his skull. His heavily accented, "Ah, here is one—ah, your—your bagel," sounded especially halted today. 

But no. The big, gruff bagel guy wouldn't have stuttered. He wouldn't have been nervous to pass a bagel to a tired-looking college student either.

Danny must have misheard. 

He darted down the sidewalk. He was going to be late for class. And it was because of his internal panic that he didn't notice the girl with her nose buried in her cell phone at first. Not until she almost crashed into him, looked up, and nearly jumped out of her skin.

"HOLY SHIT!" she yelled, her hands flailing beside her. Her phone flew out from her fingers and clattered on the pavement.

"Sorry!" Danny scooped up her phone from the ground and handed it to her.

She stared at him as if he were completely insane, making no move to take the phone until Danny leaned forward a little closer and pointedly said, "Here."

Whether or not this girl was hungover or still drunk from whatever party she'd been at the night before, Danny did not have time to work around her brain. He was going to be late for class!

"Fuck," she said, eyes still glued on Danny. She did, however, finally reach out and gently take the offered cell phone.

Which was all he needed.

Mission accomplished, he whirled back around intending on continuing his fast-walk-nearly-run pace to the science building, but caught the eye of a biker who seemed to go into a similar trance as the bagel guy and ended up crashing straight into a parked car.

"Oh my god!" Danny darted over to the strewn biker. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine! Stay back!" the man yelled, struggling up and holding his hand out to block Danny from seeing his face.

Was this guy...cowering at him? Like he was some sort of ghost?

No, no. This was silly. Now Danny was just being paranoid.

"Just stay back!"

An oddly phrased demand, and a little biting at that, but the biker did just crash into a parked car because of Danny and that other girl—who was currently holding her phone up at Danny—so he guessed he could forgive this random dude for being a little snappish.

Danny didn't have time to dwell on this stranger anyway, because holy shit his class was starting in ten minutes and if Danny didn't get his ass to the room right now he was going to be screwed.

So with one more apology to the biker, and one more glance to the strange phone-obsessed girl, Danny adjusted the strap of his bag back over his shoulder and took off down the road.

Not literally took off. Though, he really wanted to jet through the air today. He'd had these urges to duck out of sight and fly to class before, but it never felt so compelling as right now. 

Unfortunately, the street was crowded as shit, and in between classes as it was, the building would likely be crowded too. Finding a discreet place to transform would probably take just as long as running to the classroom like his half-life depended on it. And so, the latter option it was.

Somehow, he managed to make it to class with five minutes to spare. Okay, maybe not somehow. Maybe he did risk using his flight to propel him forward a little bit. Could anyone blame him? 

College was crazy. And anyone who thought they saw a guy not quite touching the ground when he walked could have just as easily been sleep-deprived and were almost certainly hallucinating. Humans couldn't fly! Only ghosts could fly, and Danny Fenton was clearly a human college student just running to class.

Gaslight, gatekeep, ghostboss—or whatever the saying was.

Energy was buzzing in Danny’s veins, and he found it a little difficult to stay in his seat. An aftereffect of only barely using his flight powers, he was sure. His body got a taste of being airborne, and now it didn't want to return to the laws of gravity.

Danny could forgive his ghost core for that. Gravity could be very exhausting sometimes. Especially when he was in the middle of a ghost fight and his enemy was hurling him to the ground.

But he was in a lecture, and it would look weird if this random college student was hovering over his seat, so Danny forced his butt onto the chair as he dropped his bag beside him.

Whispers fluttered around him, which wasn't too unusual. People often talked in pleading freak-out whispers to their friends after an especially grueling night of homework.

Danny was about to turn to his chemistry lecture buddy and do the same—because seriously, he was going to have nightmares over that damn assignment for weeks—when he realized that his chemistry buddy was not in his usual seat.

And then, a whisper caught the attention of his enhanced eardrum.

"...ghost..."

"...Phantom..."

Ah, that explained it. 

Oh yeah, it was all coming together now.

They must have been talking about the ghost fight from this morning, the one with Skulker. This city wasn't Amity Park, so the students here weren't exactly used to ghost attacks. Of course, the initial fight was probably very exciting for them.

And, well, his parents probably were on the news that morning, but likely only to be interviewed about the attack. Maybe they ended up rambling about ghostly habits and migration patterns or whatever other bullshit theories they’d been churning with recently.

So then, the bagel guy must have recognized Danny as a Fenton, a child of Jack and Maddie, the infamous, kooky ghost experts.

The effects of that realization were delayed, but when they finally hit, he felt like his brain was hit by a semi-truck. Because, shit. He didn't know if he could deal with his bagel guy knowing who he was. He was going to have to find a new bagel spot, wasn't he? 

Danny craned his neck over to the door. The lecture was supposed to be starting, but his chemistry buddy was nowhere to be found.

But then, to his immense relief that he wouldn't have to suffer through this lecture by himself, the door opened to reveal the tall, lanky form of Cameron, his chemistry buddy.

Danny eagerly moved his bag out of the way of Cam's seat, his woes of that fucking assignment hot on his lips, but before he could begin his trauma-dumping session, something strange happened.

Really, really strange.

As Cam began habitually walking over to his seat, he looked up, caught Danny's eye, and froze.

His mouth parted into a perfect 'o,' his eyes widened, and his eyebrows disappeared under his hairline. Then, he backed up, caught the bewildered expression of another student near him, and moved to another aisle.

Danny sat there too stunned to call out to Cam, though the intent was at the precipice of his being. Hurt stabbed his gut, and the social anxiety the A-List had trained his brain for in high school started creeping up his spine.

Did Danny do something wrong? 

Why had Cam moved away?

What did that look to the other kid mean?

He tried to think of a reason why Cam might have suddenly decided that Danny was a weirdo freak that should be avoided, but the only thing he remembered doing between yesterday and today was the two texts he'd sent at eleven last night complaining about the assignment. But surely, everyone had complained, right?

Or was the assignment genuinely effortless for everyone? And Danny was just an idiot who didn't understand some really simple concept, and now Cam had suddenly realized that he'd picked the wrong chemistry buddy to sit next to in class?

That must have been it.

Why else had he moved away?

Danny turned around, looking to the back of the lecture hall. But all he could see was a sea of faces all looking at him.

Okay, honestly, what the fuck was wrong with everyone today?

He whipped out his phone, paranoia striking through his gut like a spear. Maybe he'd accidentally revealed himself during the fight? But he checked Google, searching for Phantom's human identity, but all he got at the top of the search were old Reddit threads theorizing about which historical figure he could have been, and celebrity news sites spouting completely absurd clickbait-type theories about his past.

Is Danny Phantom Napoleon's son?

Could Danny Phantom be Related to George Washington?

New Theory Suggests Danny Phantom is Alexander the Great!

Yeah, like Danny was leading legions of ghosts around Europe anytime soon.

As Danny wracked his brain for what the hell he'd done to deserve the wrath of having his classmates stare at him like he was some sort of weird alien species and everyone was plotting on how to initiate first contact, the side door opened and the professor came darting in the hall with a stack of folders all but falling out of his hands and a muttering of breathy, "sorry, sorry," light on his lips.

The muttering broke out into jilted, uncomfortable laughter, and Danny still couldn't help the feeling that they were laughing at him. 

He tried to brush that off as just the remnants of his high school on him and keep his attention focused on his short, salt-and-pepper-haired professor who looked like he couldn't remember if he was going to a beach party or Burning Man today, and decided to dress for both. 

Yang put the manila folders down on the front table, miraculously without spilling any of the contents inside, set his bag down on the rolling chair beside him, and picked up a piece of chalk to face the board.

He held a hand up and began writing Chemistry 101 — Stoichiometry on the board.

Behind Danny, the snickers grew louder. 

Was there some inside joke that he just wasn't getting? Had his classmates prepared some sort of prank for the teacher today and Danny hadn't read the email? Was it April Fool's Day, even though logic and reasoning told Danny that it was only October?

"Sorry I was late, everyone," Yang began. "Now if you don't mind, I want to begin by going over a few problems from last night's assignment. I noticed a pattern in the problems everyone was getting wrong..."

Someone coughed rather obnoxiously behind him.

Danny felt ice begin to build in his stomach. 

"...so as you can see here, I noticed a lot of people forgot to calculate the used excess of iron to find the amount of excess reactants. Remember, guys, you can't just subtract the bigger and smaller masses in the problem..."

Another obnoxious cough. 

Yang didn't break stride. "...you have to actually convert it to moles and set up your mole ratio, and then convert back to grams. I mentioned this in class but it seemed like too many of you—"

"Professor Yang?" the impatient voice of Brittany, one of his classmates, said from behind.

The class broke out in a fit of whispers and giggles, this time not even trying to hide their restlessness.

"What is it?" Yang turned around, his chalk still hovering on the board.

And then he looked at Danny. His eyes bugged out like a cartoon, sticking out beyond the rims of his glasses. His jaw opened and closed like a fish, and he dropped the chalk on the floor.

Now, the class was roaring with noise.

Danny stared eye-to-eye with the professor for ten seconds or ten minutes. He didn't know which, and it didn't matter anyway, because then Yang's thin lips opened to exclaim a word that may as well have electrocuted him all over again:

"Phantom?" 

Confusion and panic hit Danny like a sledgehammer.

How did Yang know he was Phantom? Had he been revealed? Did everyone know he was Phantom?

And then he heard the whispers. 

"It's really him! It's Phantom!"

"Why is he here?"

"It's Phantom!"

No!

No!

How did everyone know his secret?

Danny had to stop this.

He had over four years of hiding his ghost half from his parents, the world, and most impressively, his parents. Over the years, he'd honed his ability at lying and using his silver tongue to smooth over situations with such practiced ease, he was expecting his Oscar in the mail any day now.

Which is why, like an utter pro, he jumped up from his seat and shouted, "It's a lie, I'm not a ghost!"

The room went silent, and then was launched into a frenzy.

"Phantom!"

"Is he delusional?"

"It's really him! It's Phantom!"

His panic was bordering on hysteria as it stampeded over him, beating his core so furiously that Danny thought it was going to jump through his ribcage.

He stood, his gloved hands held out in front of him as he began his best at pleading with the masses, but before he could grovel too much, Professor Yang's voice sliced through him like a knife, calling out, "Phantom! What are you doing in my class?"

Wait...

Gloved hand?

Danny looked at his hands again. They were gloved.

And glowing.

The relief was so heavy on his shoulders, his back, and every inch of his skin. It was also mortifying.

Because here he was, in his Chemistry 101 class not as Fenton, but as Phantom. 

"Holy shit," Danny muttered. 

What. The. Hell.

No, really.

What the hell?

How was this happening?

Had he really been so tired that he'd forgotten to change out of his Phantom form after Skulker's fight?

No, hang on—had he been walking around in his Phantom form all morning?

How had he not noticed?

Then all the memories came flying back to him at once. The bagel guy acting weird, staring at him like he wasn't sure if he should seriously give a ghost a bagel because "Do ghosts need to eat? Is human food poison?"

And then the girl. She hadn't screamed because she nearly crashed into a stranger, she screamed and threw her phone in the air because she'd nearly crashed into Phantom. And that's why she was recording him after, too. She was recording Phantom, a ghost that wasn't native to this college town.

Danny thought he'd die of cringe-fail right there because that meant she also recorded the biker crashing into a parked car and was probably uploading it to TikTok later. He was sure it would be trending in minutes.

That was, if she hadn't already uploaded it to Tiktok, and it wasn't already trending. His phone suddenly felt heavy in his pocket. 

He looked around at the faces of intrigue and excitement, feebly attempting to squash the anxiety that was currently tap dancing over his skin.  Okay, so his initial attempt at acting hadn't gone so well. That was okay; nobody could be perfect all the time. If he just channeled the inner cool and suave hero that he was, he could totally save the situation.

For sure.

He floated a few feet in the air. His legs felt awkward sprawled out, and he tried to form a ghost-tail, but somehow his sense of self was too strong for that today. No matter, to balance it out, he splayed his arms out wide and began doing jazz hands, saying, "It's me! Danny Phantom! Just here checking your classroom for ghosts!" 

There was a moment of collective pause before his brain caught up with what his mouth said, and then he scrambled, making a big show of ducking around the room to search for...ghosts, or something. He lowered to the floor to check under the auditorium chairs, flew to the front of the room to peek around the tables, and finally went up to the ceiling to glance around the four corners of the room.

Once he felt embarrassed enough, he stopped in the center of the room, puffed out his chest, and said, "Good news, citizens! There are no ghosts in this room!"

Whispers and mutters once again broke out from his classmates, along with a few giggles. In the front of the classroom, Yang's head was craned up to look at him, his expression showing pure bafflement. 

Okay, Danny was bombing this set. He was catching onto the vibe of the room, and had come to this very astute conclusion: there was no saving this. 

Time to abort the mission.

"Well, that will be all! Have a fun class learning about chemistry!" 

And then, without another word, he jetted through the wall and into the hallway of the building, turning invisible immediately. Fortunately, with classes having started several minutes ago, the corridors were mostly empty. Only a few stragglers remained, booking it down the halls and trying to duck inconspicuously into their classrooms. 

Danny cut around a corner of the hall where, thankfully, no one was standing. That didn't stop him from triple-checking over his shoulder (it was just the water fountain, Danny) before he let his ring wash over him.

Then, when he was sure he was human again this time, he ran down the hall and pushed open the auditorium door to his class which, by the looks of things, hadn't calmed down from their encounter yet.

The door hit the wall with a bang—oops, he thought he hadn't pushed so hard—and then every head was turned to him.

"Sorry!" Danny rubbed the back of his neck and gestured vaguely to the clock on the wall. "I lost track of time."

The room was...silent. Incredibly, confoundingly silent. 

That wasn't good.

On instinct, Danny glanced down again to make sure that he was wearing his red hoodie and blue jeans and not his Phantom black and white jumpsuit. He was, in fact, wearing the right clothes. And out of the corners of his eyes, he saw the glint of his black bangs.

So then, what the fuck?

Alright, there was no need to panic. He was human, his classmates were human, they'd just met Phantom, and now Danny was busting in the classroom late. It wouldn't be the first time he was late to class, anyway. Lots of students were late for chemistry! 

With his brain sufficiently pep-talked, he pointed as inconspicuously to his seat as he could and said, "I'll just...take my seat." 

No one responded, so he took that as his cue to begin his walk of shame up the steps of the auditorium aisles to his usual seat near the front, which was still amazingly void of students anywhere near it.

"Phantom?" a voice rang out from the spattering of students around the room.

Danny missed the next step and ate shit on the floor. His bag hit his back heavily, and he could have sworn his shoe nearly flew off his feet. He scrambled to stand, his hand missing the railing only once, before he managed to stand back proud and tall. Sort of. His backpack had slid off one shoulder, and his body was hunched forward and he tried to regain his breath because holy shit, it actually really hurt for his torso to land on the corner of the step.

He rubbed his sternum, sure it was going to bruise, and coughed out, "Uh—what?"

"Phantom!" the voice, now too familiar, repeated. "You're him. Phantom."

Danny glanced up, and dread not only slammed into him with the force of a semi, but also backed up and floored it into his soul again. And again.

Because that voice was none other than his Chem 101 buddy, Cam.

No, Danny was a magnificent actor. He surely could save this one.

What did people always say? Something about the third try being a charm?

He could really use a charm right now. Unfortunately, Murphy seemed keen on watching him suffer instead.

"No—no way! I'm not a ghost! I'm totally human, guys! See?" Danny said with quite a lot of conviction, waving his hands beside his body like some sort of circus display.

It was so conclusive of a performance, that Cam simply laughed. 

Shit. This was not how he wanted today to go at all.

"I can't believe I never put it together before! Did people really buy that in your hometown?" 

"What act? I'm not acting!" Danny insisted.

But his classmates, it seemed, were even less convinced. 

"Seriously, it's so obvious."

"How did no one notice?"

"They're literally the same person it's crazy."

"What? No! No we're not the same person!" Danny insisted, trying not to sound desperate and hopelessly failing. "He's my—uh—twin? Yeah, that. He's my twin."

"He's obviously not," a classmate said.

"He is. He died in the womb," Danny refuted.

"Okay, now you're just being ridiculous."

"Does it sound better or worse if I say that my mother drank ectoplasmic smoothies while she was pregnant and that's why he turned into a ghost?"

"Fenton!" Professor Yang called out.

Danny felt his blood turn so cold they started forming frost in his veins. 

And then, he refused to look down because he was pretty sure ice crystals were glueing his feet to the floor.

In his panic, he'd totally forgotten that this was, in fact, a classroom. With a professor. And not just any professor, his chemistry professor. As in, the guy that had the sole power of crushing all of Danny's dreams of working for NASA via the power of the curve.

Yang took a step back, colliding with the chalkboard behind him and smearing white dust all over his brightly-colored shirt. But he ignored this, instead finding it more pertinent to fold his arms and regard Danny with a look of pure incredulation. "Are you really Phantom?"

"What? No!" Danny said. However, as luck would have it, that gasping answer caused him to inhale the wrong way, and coughs shot up his throat to overtake his body.

And then like the valiant superhero he was, he began having a coughing fit. In front of his classmates.

He knew Sam and Tucker always called him a dork, but this was really unfair.

"You okay, Phantom?" one student asked.

Danny tried to argue, "I'm not Phantom," but unfortunately for him, he hadn't stopped coughing yet.

Taking his silence for a confirmation that he was in fact the elusive ghost known as Phantom, another classmate commented, "I didn't know Phantom breathed."

Not-so-quiet whispers and mutters broke out around the class at once discussing theories of his cardiovascular system.

All while Danny was doubled over, trying desperately to reclaim what little of his dignity was still left. As well as reclaim some of the oxygen that his body seemed more than willing to push away for some reason.

Seriously, was he out of karma yet? 

Okay, Universe, if this is your way getting back at me for reading the Cliffnotes of that book for the essay last night, I get it. Cheating is bad, blah blah blah. I'm very sorry in a deeply remorseful way, so can we please stop ruining my life now?

"...so he wouldn't need to breathe!" A classmate's voice had stepped above the rest.

"That's what I said!"

"Dude, he's literally fallen asleep on my floor once. I'm telling you he needs to breathe."

That voice must have been Cam's.

Danny took a deep breath, regaining control of his lungs. "Wait, guys!"

But it was too late. And, oh god, why were people now giggling over their phones? Had someone taken a video of him earlier? Was he trending online right now?

If this got back to Sam and Tucker, he was never going to live this down. 

"Okay, okay!" Yang's voice rose in volume. "Class, settle down!"

The class went silent.

"Alright, I know we are all curious to know about Fenton's secret double life—"

"I don't have a secret double life!"

"Sure you don't, Phantom," Cam said.

"—But please, we do actually have quite a bit of material to cover today, judging by the very impressive homework scores from last night. And, by the way, class, might I remind you all that my office hours are on Mondays and Wednesdays from two to four. I won't name names, but I'll just say that if you need to make it a point to come for some review, you know who you are."

Was Yang looking at him?

"Regardless, if Fenton is done screwing around with his ghost powers, we do need to get through the material sometime this year."

"But I'm not a ghost!" Danny protested.

"Dude, you're standing in a block of ice," a classmate argued. 

"Holy shit, he froze his legs to the floor!"

Danny felt frost on his cheeks. "The A/C system is broken! Everyone knows that!"

"The ice is glowing." 

"So? A lot of ice glows."

"Fenton, please." Yang had never sounded so disappointed in his life. "I'd expect anyone in this class to know that ice is made of which elements?"

Danny hated where this was going. "Hydrogen and oxygen."

"And please describe the bonds to me."

"The hydrogens have a double bond with the oxygen, and then there's two pairs of electrons leftover."

"What shape?" Yang pressed, pushing his wiry glasses up his nose.

"Bent."

"Good, thank you. So we have two hydrogen and one oxygen in an H20 molecule, yes? And so tell me, would that configuration with those two elements cause anything to glow?"

"Um, no." Danny had the sudden urge to die. "Water does not glow." 

"But, interestingly, ectoplasmic water does glow, correct? Because....?"

They'd touched over ecton science earlier in the semester. "Because ectons are larger and can sit closer to the nucleus which results in atoms fusing and due to the greater amounts of energy they emit, some this excess energy can be seen in our visible spectrum."

Yang smiled and then gestured to the seat devoid of any humans near it that Danny, previously Phantom, had been sitting in at the start of class. "Thank you, Mr. Phantom. Now, if we're all done dillydallying, we have some stoichiometry to go over."

It took Danny more than a second of the awkward silence that followed to realize that oh yeah, his feet were literally frozen in place.

"So..." He glanced around the room, meeting the expectant gazes of his classmates. "Just to be clear, none of you care that I might potentially be..."

A ghost?

Phantom?

Some sort of weird mutant hybrid thing?

"Danny, you're the only one making a big deal out of this," a classmate answered.

Danny guffawed.

"Yeah, it's whatever. You're dead, so what? We're all dead in college. You're not special."

"I have a biology lecture later right after this for my weed-out course and going to that is basically the same thing as dying, I'm pretty sure," Cam joined in.

Danny resisted the urge to smack his forehead with his open palm.

He turned back to Yang. "And if I were maybe the—uh—being that kind of has saved humanity from being invaded by ghosts give or take one or two times, would that maybe get me extra credit on the next test?"

"No."

Well, that was a brutally quick response.

Danny shrugged. "It was worth a shot." He reigned in on his core's fluttering, and the ice began to melt around his feet. 

He tried to ignore the obvious phone flipped his way as he did.

Shit, this was going to be all over social media later. How embarrassing. He could only hope that Tucker wouldn't find it. But who was he kidding? If he checked his phone, he bet he already had about sixteen messages from Tucker laughing at his misfortune.

Once he finished freeing himself from his ecto-ice like some ghost toddler, he began a very graceful and humiliating trek to his seat, complete with multiple instances of him bumping into chairs as he trudged down the row. When he finally reached his seat, it was just his luck that the rusty hinges let out an obnoxious creaking wail as he lowered himself down. He winced, hissing out apologies, but in the silent hall, the sounds of the withered metal were almost too much to bear.

It was for that reason that his entire body refused to unclench until the professor was well underway with his lecture about excess reactants and whatever else they were going to be quizzed on next week.

He tried his best to pay attention and not check his phone for the no doubt endless notifications. He'd already made his presence too obvious in this hall, anyway. Professor Yang would have been thoroughly annoyed if, after everything, Danny decided to spend the remainder of the class on his phone.

Miraculous as it was, he did manage to survive the lecture.  

After class when he finally was able to check his phone, he saw that the world was too focused on the viral posts about Phantom being spotted outside of Amity Park to give any attention to the little itty bitty post of Danny, in human form, frozen to his lecture hall floor.

As it turned out, that post only had two likes—one of them was Tucker—and one comment from a random user reading, "lol why phantom freeze that dweeby kid to the ground???"

Danny didn't resist the urge to facepalm this time, and in fact did it so hard he was surprised he didn't give himself a concussion.

Well.

At least his secret was safe.

****

"You really don't care that I'm Phantom, do you?" Danny asked, looking up from the barely clean dorm room floor that his back was currently stretched out against.

"No?" Cam glanced from his notebook. "Why?"

"Uh, I figured the whole part where I'm a part ghost would have been a little weird?"

Cam's thin brows shot up to his hairline. "You're only a part ghost?"

"Yeah? Why, what did you think?"

"Oh, I just figured you were legit dead or something."

Cam uttered those words with such nonchalance that Danny reacted immediately, shooting up from the floor so hard he accidentally switched into his Phantom form.

"You thought I was dead?" His voice echoed when he spoke, and his ghostly tail wiggled underneath him. 

Cam's pointed look and handwave were explanation enough.

"Okay, you know what? That's fair." Danny swiped his notebook off the floor and forced his adrenaline-spiked body back into human form. "That's actually super fair."

"Yeah I mean, being a ghost is sort of Phantom's whole shtick, anyway."

"Right but like...wait, you didn't even care that you thought I was a fully dead and deceased ghost taking college classes? And you still wanted to do homework with me tonight?"

Cam, once again, only gave a very lazy shrug. "Well, yeah. I just want to pass this class, dude, and we've already established that we should tag-team team this class instead of trying to rawdog it by ourselves."

"I mean...I guess?" Danny blinked at his friend, his mind reeling with astonishment. "You're weird, you know that?"

"Says the ghost-human person or whatever. Now, are we gonna finish this prelab assignment, or are you gonna keep having an existential crisis about your place in the Universe?" 

Danny slid back on the floor, propping his knees up to lay his notebook against. "No, you're right. We need to finish this prelab."

"Thank fucking god."

****

[read more of my stuff here]

[tranquilpetrichor]

lesson learned

synopsis: in which a tutoring session turns out to be much more in disguise.

cast: tutor!gunwook x fem!reader ft. gyuvin and ricky (briefly)

genre: high school!au, f2l

wc: 2.2k (2225)

warnings: suggestive, making out, yn’s outfit has a skirt, gunwook kisses yn on neck, they call each other "cute" and "hot, they r nerds, please don’t do this in a study room, barely proofread and edited help

a/n: i swear why is finishing stuff so hard, this could be so much better but i'm happy i managed to finish it. also it's kinda hard not writing from y/n's perspective but it shre is interesting. i wanna make longer fics lol but for now enjoy this bc i love writing about nerds and especially ones who are down bad.

be sure to reblog and like to support your creators!

bright sunlight filtered in through the windows of the empty study room as park gunwook typed away on his laptop, trying to get homework done quickly.

outside, some students were walking across campus, birds were flying freely, and there were a distinct lack of clouds in the sky.

he would probably be there too, but he was supposed to be tutoring you soon. as boredom was slowly starting to set in, he double-checked the time. it was one minute after your appointment was set to begin.

odd. you weren’t usually late to anything.

before he could ponder it further, you walked into the room, sighed and put your stuff beside him, apologizing for being late. “i was talking to another professor about something, and i didn’t expect it to take that long. my bad…”

something seemed a bit different about you, but he wasn’t sure why. he shrugged the thought off and chuckled quietly.

“it’s no problem, y/n. one minute is nothing. do you prefer the curtains open or closed?”

you waved a hand at the window. “let’s close them.”

he got up and pressed a button on the light switch panel near the doorway, and the curtains automatically came down. this private school sure spent money on interesting things, but at least they were occasionally useful.

cute outfit, he thought.

was that a new pair of boots? it paired nicely with the skirt you were wearing. you managed to look hot and adorable at the same time.

how unprofessional to be distracted by your appearance—he frowned.

snap out of it. it’s time to do math, not stare like an idiot.

luckily, you didn’t say anything, even though he swore he saw a tiny smirk on your face, which you quickly removed in favor of a more neutral expression.

that was weird, he thought as you got your tablet out—the one you liked to take notes on during the calculus class you two had together.

he wasn’t sure of your exact grade in the class, but he heard it was quite high. you were smart, but didn’t seem to have problems asking for help if you needed it. in his opinion, that was pretty admirable.

gunwook noticed that if you did need help, you’d go to the teacher or try and talk to him. the two of you exchanged numbers eventually, texting each other for study sessions.

he loved being able to talk to you more, slowly learning little things about you—like how you wore a certain necklace on big days for luck, that your go-to snack was nuts (he couldn’t help but think of you as a squirrel after that), and that you had a dog named citrus.

he got the feeling that you weren’t the biggest on socializing with many people, preferring to only keep compaany with a few friends. he’s mutual friends with a few of them, like jungwon.

it was refreshing compared to his large friend group (although he loved them) and the many people who were merely interested in him for his looks.

of course, he wouldn’t mind if you were interested in his looks, but hopefully you also liked something beyond that.

you probably did—who else would end up chatting about precious stones or logical fallacies with him? he loved seeing you excited and passionate.

god, his face was probably going to be red if he kept this up.

“i see you said you wanted to look at stuff from the last lecture when you were booking the session,” he said, trying to banish certain thoughts from his head. “series can be difficult, so i get it.”

you nodded, offering him a sweet smile. “yeah, i just wanna go over a few of the divergence and convergence problems on the first practice problem set. i have the problems listed here.”

you pushed your tablet in his direction, and he picked it up.

he glanced at your solution for the first one, nearly written. “i mean, it looks like you applied the test correctly. just to make sure, how did you know to use that one?”

you didn’t hesitate to answer.

“given series is a p-series where p is equal to three. p is greater than three, so the series will converge.”

as expected, you kept up with his questioning. of course you probably knew what a damn p-series is. he’d just wanted to hear your voice some more.

speaking of voices, maintaining a professional tone with you was a miracle. gunwook’s composure and eloquence were paramount to getting him through student council meetings, debates and tutoring sessions, but those skills seemed to want a temporary vacation.

“do you want to move onto the next one?” he said, defaulting to his standard tutor voice.

“mhm. i remember our teacher said there was more than one way to do it. i never tried to figure out the other ways, but now i’m curious.”

gunwook flipped to a certain page in his notebook. “do you want me to show you how i did it? it’s definitely a different method, but we got the same answer.”

you shrugged. “sure. take your time.”

you were twirling your stylus pen in your hands and swiftly tucked it atop your ear. fuck, did you not know how cute you looked? your hair was neatly parted near the middle right now, but he wondered what it’d be like to see you disheveled. at this point, he might be thinking with something other than his brain.

you spent another few minutes talking with him, bringing his memory back to previous tutoring sessions. he remembered you said once that having to justify your reasoning on a topic was one of the best ways to deepen understanding, and that he was skilled at identifying the holes in your arguments.

“that’s why i would hate to lose a debate against you,” you had admitted. “it’s always more fun when we can work together.”

the offhanded comment could’ve had another meeting. as an friend, gunwook couldn’t quite discern your intentions, though. whether you just wanted him at arms length or in your arms was just another guessing game he played.

he was aware that the balance of power was always shifting between you two, but at the end of the day, you two were pretty much equals intellectually, keeping things in equilibrium. however, his underlying feelings of attraction threatened to ruin the balance.

as the session continued, you had a satisfied smile. you asked him about unrelated math proofs and got him off track. why did you want to discuss all this when your sessions were usually more focused? something was definitely off.

“well, that was actually everything i wanted to ask about,” you said to him suddenly, packing up swiftly. “i was just going to go if you don’t have anything else.”

he frowned.

no, please don’t.

what was wrong with him?

“unless, you wanted me to stay..” you continued, a smirk on your face. your laptop was closed and all of your study materials were neatly filed away.

you were definitely teasing him, and it was working, your behavior making him somewhat flustered. there was no turning back if he let himself escalate things right now. he could just let you leave—that’s what rational gunwook would do.

fuck it. rational gunwook was not in the room right now.

he reached out and grasped your arm. “and if i did?”

you smirked and stepped towards him. “then i’ll make sure you don’t regret your choice.”

with that, you pressed your lips to his, surprising him. gunwook quickly recovered, his arm snaking around your waist, pulling you in more.

no wonder you booked the session for an hour and a half.

if anyone opens this door, i’m definitely getting kicked out as a tutor. at least these walls are pretty soundproof.

he pulled away for a bit to catch his breath. "wow, did you come here just to kiss me?”

you laughed, gazing at his eyes. "it wasn't only for that, although i'd be happy to do it again. let me clarify. i have feelings for you.”

you continued. “i’ve honestly thought about it. you’re hardworking, and not just in the classroom. when i see you practicing or studying, you dedicate yourself fully, and it inspires me to do the same. you're kind, even to people who don't deserve it. on top of that, you’ve always been a good person to talk to about anything and everything. i trust you.”

“oh, and i guess you’re cute. and hot.”

you added the last part with a small smile. after each reason, he found himself surprised by your sincere words.

gunwook groaned. “y/n, you have no idea how down bad i am. i don't even remember exactly when it started, but what i do know is that i met someone interesting, someone who challenges me and jokes with me. someone who's beautiful in every way. i'm so fucking into you."

he paused, before deciding to tease you a little. "i have a question about one thing, though. you ‘guess’ i’m cute?”

“well, did you want me to say for a fact that you’re cute?” you asked.

he pouted slightly. “would have been better.”

“fine,” you said, taking his hand. “it is an undisputed fact that you’re cute.”

“thank you.”

"and hot."

"i guess so..." you rolled your eyes, an amused grin on your face. “now can we get back to kissing?”

“i was acually trying to be professional, even though i had feelings for you too,” he whispered against your ear. “but since you insist, i’ll give you what you want.”

not wanting to rush despite his boyish excitement, he leaned down and slowly began to kiss you again, running one of his hands gently through your hair. you closed your eyes.

“want you to take control, gunwook,” you said, your breath hot against his skin and your arms wrapping around his neck.

how could he say no? he was so screwed whenever it came to you. wasting no time, he brought your hips closer to his, enjoying the proximity.

he’d never seen you like this, so blissful and carefree. all he wanted to do in this moment was to make sure you kept feeling that way.

he got a small idea.

“hold on, i’m going to lift you,” he said, and you tightened your hold on him, lifting your legs so that they wrapped around his waist. you looked like a koala, hanging on so protectively to him like he was a branch.

you let out a tiny laugh of glee—it was the cutest thing he’s ever heard.

he moved over to a chair, and carefully sat down with you in his arms. your skirt was spread across your lap, contributing to the newfound messiness of your appearance, and your legs dangled off both sides of the chair.

“let me know if you don’t like something,” he said in between kisses. “the last thing i want to do is pressure you.”

“of course,” you responded, squeezing his shoulders reassuringly.

as a surge of newfound confidence rushed through him, his kisses became more intense, trailing down to your collarbone. you tilted your neck slightly to allow him more access to the area.

shit, he was probably the luckiest guy alive right now.

“so beautiful,” he murmured, tracing your chin with one of his hands, “and you’re mine.”

damn, calm down now.

“wow, for someone who’s so sweet, you sure do have a possessive side.”

he winced. “is it too much?”

you laughed and smiled playfully. “not at all. i find it hot.”

that sentence alone sent a warmth through his body.

“that’s good to know,” he replied with a smirk. he was definitely going to do that more often.

soon, his lips found yours again, like a moth to a flame. damn, he could spend all day doing this (if they had no risk of getting caught).

in his pocket, his phone buzzed, and he sighed, looking at the notification.

gyuvin: r u coming to get ice cream with me and ricky? u said ur tutoring thing with ur gf ends at 4:00

the time was 3:44 pm. wow, were they really at it for that long?

gunwook smiled. gyuvin had texted “gf” as a joke, but little did the poor guy know.

“is it something important?” you asked, still on his lap.

he shut off the phone, looking back at you. “it’s gyuvin. during lunch, me, him and ricky made last minute plans to get ice cream—they’re asking me if i still want to come. i should get going soon.”

of course, his feet didn’t want to move.

you looked intrigued. “do they mind a plus one?”

yeah, they're going to tease me the entire time.

“i’ll ask,” he responded, face somewhat warm from embarrassment. "but one of these days, i’ll take you out on a proper date, just us two. you deserve it.”

your eyes lit up, and you smiled. “i’ll hold you to it, gunwook.”

his phone buzzed again.

gyuvin: yea sure bring her, we support

gyuvin: besides i have ricky he's gonna be my bf now

"they said yes," gunwook said, laughing silently at gyuvin's last message. "let's go in 5 minutes?"

you reciprocated, resting your head gently on his shoulder. "any longer and i don't think i could leave."

[msafterhours]

No Promises

Reader POV x Joo Kyulkyung (Zhou Jieqiong)

~2.7k words

“We were meant to be together sounded so much sweeter when it felt like we had forever.”

There's something beautiful about intentionally making the wrong decision. Like, sure, it sounds crazy to step into the line of fire and say yeah, come on universe; take your best shot, but it’s also kinda fun, no? Granted, soaring down the streets of Seoul with the wind whipping against your jacket and the rain pouring past your helmet is maybe a bit much, but you left any concerns you might have had in the dust long before the sun set. Besides, this is far from the first time you’ve acted with the type of reckless abandon reserved for those who have yet to live long enough to have something to lose.

That calculus changes when you re-enter Seoul: speed limits shift from suggestions to mandates. After a third red in a row rips an extended groan from your chest, you spend the moment inspecting the streets you’ve traversed a thousand times. You’re met by the familiar sight of Gangnam-gu’s glimmering lights, gleaming skyscrapers, and garish nightclubs each casting their own unique reflection onto the shimmering street below. On most nights, you’re able to let the mess of colors fade into the background, but tonight, it feels uncharacteristically gray. Even then, it’s all so loud, from the rainfall on the swarms of umbrellas to the downcast expressions of the faceless crowd—hell, even the red light you’ve been keeping an eye on seems washed out.

Right as you’re wondering if you’ve been transported back in time and cast in a 1940s sitcom, a sudden flash of color at the far edge of vision completely derails your train of thought. You turn and are met by a sight pulled straight from a modern drama: a student close to your own age wearing a soaked banana yellow top and skirt clinging to her legs as she hides under her highlighter pink backpack like it’s some shoddy umbrella. It’s … not a pretty sight.

Or at least it wouldn't be, if not for the rest of her. Her long, dark hair cascades down past her shoulders and clings to her face, obscuring your view of her finer features, yet every aspect of her from her posture to the placement of her steps projects a practiced poise that monopolizes your attention. Everyone else fades from your vision as the light turns green and she turns the crosswalk into her personal runway … though the effect is kinda ruined by the urgency with which she scurries through the rain.

A feeling from deep within urges you to act—that and the person behind you honking their horn since you’ve spent the four seconds since the light turned green frozen in place. You release the brake, accelerate forward, and veer your motorcycle to the side where you know she's heading. With a quick step onto the soaked pavement and a tug on the strap of your helmet, you greet the rain with the widest of smiles, then feel it shift into a smirk as you call out, “Ouch, aren’t you a sad sight to behold. Need some help with that?”

She turns and stares, mouth agape, as she processes the sight of you. Your first glimpse of her leaves you stuck mirroring her expression, mouth agape in disbelief because she's gorgeous, with a sharp jawline that contrasts perfectly against her soft skin. It’s a face sculpted to show on billboards … and one whose disbelief shifts into a smirk as she remains unaffected by your reaction. Your eyes travel upwards past those invitingly soft lips, along the bridge of her nose, all the way up and meeting her own, where you’re all too tempted to lose yourself in them. Eventually, she breaks the silence and asks, “What. The. Fuck. Are you doing? Are you trying to die?”

“Of course not, don’t you listen? I already told you, I’m trying to help,” you say back, smile widening as her skepticism refuses to fade whatsoever. “I just figured that while we’re both out in the rain, only one of us wants to be, yeah? I'd be doing something wrong if I didn't at least offer to get you there faster, so I ask again: do you want my help or not?”

As you offer her your helmet, you see the distrust finally start thawing, just enough for her to crack a smile of her own. “This is insane—you’re insane. But you also seem fun, so why not?”

You hand her the helmet and exchange names, and as the girl you'll come to know as Kyulkyung repeats yours back to you, you watch as her eyebrows relax and the distrust starts leaving her eyes. As you go through a brief crash course—how to wear a helmet, where to sit, etc.—her posture slips too, hints of comfort and fatigue settling in as her shoulders slump. Yet through it all, her eyes remain locked on yours, causing an unexpected pang in your chest as you turn to climb onto the bike. It fades slightly when you turn back to her, offer your hand, and ask, “Okay, you ready?”

Even as Kyulkyung shivers and shakes like a leaf in the wind, the fire in her eyes burns bright as she dismisses your hand and climbs atop the bike with ease. Her arms wrap around you, sending a shock of heat through your system and your heart rate into the stratosphere as she asks, “Do you happen to know where the PLEDIS building is?”

“Funnily enough, I do,” you tell her, smirking with sinister intent as inspiration strikes. “What’re you, a trainee or something?”

“No …” Kyulkyung murmurs, averting her eyes as she continues, “I just have a really good reason to want to be there before 11:00.”

“Sure. Yeah. Totally,” you say. Her eyebrows raise; yours respond in kind. Her bottom lip catches between her teeth. You continue. “You, the ‘School of Performing Arts’ student—in said uniform—strutting around Gangnam of all places. You’re gonna try and convince me you’re not a trainee, just that you happen to have a ‘really good reason’ to be at an agency before a very specific time of night.”

“Are you trying to say something?”

“Two things actually: you’re full of shit and you’re out past curfew.”

“You sound pretty sure of that.”

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Why would it even matter?”

“Because I like being right, and you apparently hate being wrong. Aside from that, if I need to get you back before curfew, we’re going to have to book it, run a few red lights, pray that we don’t get pulled over—”

“Alright, enough,” Kyulkyung interjects, eyes rolling with a gymnast’s grace. “You’re not wrong, but let’s just focus on getting me back in one piece, alright? I’m pretty sure they care more about me being alive than on time.”

“We’re not going anywhere until you say it,” you insist. “Go ahead, tell me I’m right.”

“You’re actually serious?” she mutters in disbelief. You opt to let the silence act as your confirmation.

“Fine. You’re right: I’m a trainee. Happy?” Kyulkyung grumbles, grimacing as a grin overtakes your expression. “What gave it away?”

“I dunno, you kinda just seem ‘that kind of pretty’,” you say with a shrug. “Something about the way you walk too … honestly, nothing about you comes off as normal.”

“Bit rich for you of all people to say that, don’t you think? I wouldn’t exactly call this a ‘normal’ way to spend a Friday night.”

“I wouldn't either,” you admit, smiling wide as you respond. “But are you—the trainee—really gonna be the one to lecture me about running headfirst towards an enticing risk?”

“No, I'm not,” Kyulkyung says, her grip on your ribs tightening. “Though I might not be so kind if you keep me out in this rain any longer.”

“Alright, alright, fine,” you wheeze out, struggling to catch your breath as you paint on your most dramatic pout. “You’re no fun … but you are kinda cute, so I guess I can cave just this once.”

“Good,” she replies, smiling in smug satisfaction. “Now, let’s get going! I’m cold.”

“As you wish, princess,” you say, revving the engine and speeding off before she gets the chance to respond.

You immediately lose any semblance of newfound confidence as the unfiltered brunt of the elements threatens to overwhelm you on your first time riding without a helmet. First, it’s the scent of rain. Then, it’s the rain pummeling your brow. Finally, it’s the noise. Your motorcycle roars and the cars passing you scream off into the night as they pass—it’s all just so fucking loud and every single sensation threatens to pull your focus away from the road. Yet even amongst the brutal weather of a stormy night, Kyulkyung’s thoughts resonate through your mind clear as day. You feel her heartbeat race as you accelerate out of a turn, feel her cling to you tighter at every hint of yellow in the stoplights above. Without fail, she wordlessly pleads for you to choose caution, and, without fail, you do whatever she asks.

At one such intersection, you ask a question of your own: you let go of the handlebar and place your hand atop hers. Kyulkyung's response is just as silent, but she needs no words to tell you yes as she intertwines her fingers with yours as you wait together. Even through the drenched material of your glove, the heat of her touch wards off the cold, sending a surge of warmth through your shivering body as you both stare ahead into the awaiting darkness. You revel in the sensation as long as possible, right up until the light turns to green and you’re forced to pull away.

As she embraces you once more and you accelerate forward, a realization cuts through the fog and arrives at the forefront of your mind: you just met this girl and you already know you’re never going to be able to say no to her. And that’s … okay?

Yes. There’s something about her that takes the tension out of the knots in your shoulders, makes you breathe just that bit easier—at least when she’s allowing you to do so. It’s all too easy to ease into her embrace, all too tempting to take your time weaving your way through the tangled web of your home suburb’s streets. The thought proves far too tempting and you choose to do so, desperate to preserve the sanctity of these seconds spent together.

Unfortunately, the night only lasts so long and the road only goes so far, so you’re soon met by the familiar sight of your destination. You force yourself to ease off the gas, allowing your momentum to carry you forward until you come to a stop across the street from the building in question. With a sigh and a swing of your leg, you step off the motorcycle and turn to face her as you offer her your hand. This time, Kyulkyung accepts, taking it and joining you on the sidewalk. After loosening the chin strap, you gently pull the helmet off her head, granting you a glimpse of her parted lips before revealing the excitement and expectation in her wide eyes.

“So, what’d you think? Kinda fun, right?” you ask, allowing your eyebrows to lift in expectation as you await her response.

“Maaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyybbbbbeeee,” she says, drawing out that single syllable just long enough for smirks to overtake both your expressions.

“You know what? I’ll take it. And you—” you say, turning away for a moment as you unlock one of the side compartments of your bike and pull something out. “—should take this.”

Kyulkyung lets out the slightest squeak of surprise as she catches the umbrella you toss her, though the surprise is quickly replaced by the disdain and disbelief overtaking her expression. “Wait, you’re kidding. You have to be. You had this the whole fucking time?”

“Yep!”

“And you still felt the need to convince me to risk my life on that screaming metal death trap?”

“I thought it’d be a valuable experience,” you say, shrugging once more. “You can keep the umbrella by the way; it’s all yours.”

Kyulkyung’s sigh of resignation is all that keeps the street from falling into silence as you stand there, waiting for her to voice her thoughts. Eventually, she does so. “Give me your phone.”

“So greedy, honestly. I just gave you a ride and my umbrella, yet you’re still asking for more?” you scoff. Still though, you do as she asks, pulling it out of your pocket and unlocking it before handing it to her.

“It’s one of my toxic traits,” she replies as she taps away at the screen. “Everyone else seems to have gotten used to it, so I’m sure you’ll be fine, eventually.”

“Oh?” you ask, eyebrow arching as she piques your curiosity. “You hoping I’ll stick around?”

“No, I was just texting myself from your phone for the hell of it,” she says, sarcasm soaking her words like the rain-soaked streets as she finishes typing. “It totally wasn’t because I was gonna ask if I could get you coffee or something, as thanks for getting me home safe.”

Kyulkyung finally looks away from the screen, meeting your gaze with an infectious smile as she offers you your phone. “That’s unfortunate. I really like the thought of someone else paying for my drink.”

“Yeah?” she asks. A pause. Then, “Maybe we’ll just have to make it happen.”

“Maybe we will,” you agree. With that, you turn and remount your motorcycle. Before you go, you offer her one last smile as you bid her farewell. “I need to get back, but I hope you have a good night and good luck with—” you gesture wildly at the beautiful mess standing in front of you “—explaining everything I guess.”

“Thaaanks,” Kyulkyung grumbles, pouting as she shudders at the thought and ripping a warm laugh out from deep within your chest. As it echoes against the buildings’ frigid walls, her hints of a smile bloom into her own peals of laughter that harmonize with your own as they resonate as one.

“I hope you have a good night too,” she says softly after a short while. “Try not to die on the way home, alright?”

“No promises.”

Kyulkyung’s eyes roll once more, but there’s genuine gratitude in the nod she gives before turning away. As she disappears into the building’s darkened halls and vanishes from your sight, a chill courses through your veins, leaving you shivering as you adjust your helmet and take off down the road.

Barely a minute passes before you reach your apartment complex and the pale brick and light blue tones that define its color palette. After locking up your bike, you hike upstairs, step up to your door, turn the latch, and reveal … the silent darkness within. Empty, just like always. Muscle memory guides your hand to the switch, momentarily blinding you as the cool whites wash away the darkness to reveal the relaxing hues of your home.

While the sight normally instills a sense of calmness, it all seems to blur as the chill refuses to leave your body, rendering you seasick as your head swims. It remains even as you peel away your gloves and free yourself from the soaked leather of your jacket, leaving you shivering even as you turn on the shower and pray for it to heat quickly. As you wait, you decide to check your phone and see what message Kyulkyung sent herself.

You can’t help but scoff at the assumption, but it quickly shifts into a smile as you compose your response.

You (10:59 PM): When you read this, let me know if you got home safe.

I don’t want to put the time into making coffee plans if you’re not gonna show up

You (11:08 PM): You’re insufferable

You (11:08 PM): How’d everything go? Were you able to sneak back in?

Kyulkyung (11:09 PM): Oh, easily

You (11:09 PM): Not your first time pushing curfew?

Kyulkyung (11:09 PM): Definitely not

Kyulkyung (11:10 PM): And definitely not the last either

You (11:10 PM): Can't say I'm surprised lol

You (11:11 PM): I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend, even if the most interesting part has already happened

Kyulkyung (11:11 PM): Lol thanks, try not to get into too much trouble while I'm not there to supervise

You (11:12 PM): No promises

(My sincerest gratitude to @capslocked as always for their contributions towards bettering this fic. This was a draft I started a while ago that I didn't foresee myself finishing, but as I was editing it, I had the idea of posting little vignettes from the plot that I had written instead of making it a singular narrative. The plot I had in mind originally spanned something like 4 years, so just writing the highlights seems like a better fit (if there's interest for this story at all, I know it's an idol that's been away from the industry for a bit). Regardless, thank you so much for spending your time reading my work and I hope you enjoyed it!)

[chaosduckies]

Friends In Small Places (Chapter 1)

The size shifter story is finally here! This is more of a slightly sad piece, even though this first chapter isn’t really all that gloomy and monochrome, I actually have this entire plot line planned out and everything, and whew is the ending going to be something.

But I hope you enjoy! (this chapter is mainly just for introductions so I’m sorry if there really isn’t anything interesting TwT)

Word Count: 4.2k

CW: Depression, major anxiety, slight gore warning? (Though nothing actually happens)

1-Liam

Today the main hall was bustling with people crowding the board that had all of the activities and clubs posted on. Most of the time people didn’t care all too much about it, only the people who were actually in those clubs, but today was different for some reason. Fitting in between the seemingly hundreds of people, I saw what the commotion was all about. The psychology classes were all being called to a meeting at four. Which was when most classes ended, but still. It’s rare that this school ever calls meetings. It just so happens that I was taking psychology though. 

I sighed, moving back on the free sidewalk get to the library. A friend was waiting for me to help her study for a test she had in just a few hours. I thought I might as well help seeing that I’ve already taken the course. I used to think that college was extremely strict from how my old high school teachers described it, but in reality it’s not that hard when you just take the time to study and take a few practice tests the day before one. It was just two-and-a-half years before I major in psychology and become a therapist. Well, that was my dream anyways. In this world, it was a lot harder given that most therapists get assigned to a size shifter. That was something I didn’t want to do. Well, maybe if it was one who could only shrink, but that’s maybe it. It freaks me out knowing that there are some shifters who could be as tall as a small skyscraper, and some even bigger. A shiver ran down my spine even thinking about it. But that won’t happen. 

Among the few people sitting at the quiet tables lines with pencils, a few pieces of notebook paper, and a lamp that barely even worked, there was a girl waving her arms around aimlessly trying to gain my attention. I laughed softly before walking and sitting down next to her. It seemed she had been here for hours with how she kept her space. Papers spewed all across with scribbled down notes that was barely even legible, colored pens in a mixed mess with her other writing supplies. It made you wonder how she had even made it to college. 

“I see you’ve been hard at work, Rhya.” I set my slightly heavy bag down and started attempting to clean up the vast sums of paper all over the desk and try to keep her notes in order. 

“Yeah well, not everyone can be all neat and tidy as you are.” She lightly elbowed me before grabbing the stack of papers in my hand and shoving them in a folder. I guess she was going to re-do them after all. Either that or she didn’t need them. Despite this being primarily a nursing and health school, Rhya was in the art department. Of course she had to take the core classes along with her own elective, but she plans on becoming a graphic designer. 

“It’s not my fault I know how to study and you don’t.” I joked around, watching her pull out her computer and grab a few empty pages on notebook paper and her calculus book. 

“And it’s not my fault you don’t know how to have any fun.” She stuck her tongue out playfully before pulling up a practice test. 

“Hey I know how to have fun, just not when I know I have better things to worry about.” She solved the first problem right, pumping her fist up in the air as she wrote down the question and highlighted everything she needed to do. I’m also guessing she planned to study whatever notes she was making. 

“I guess you have a point. How’s that psychology major coming along?” She had asked, writing down the problem and attempting to solve it. I sighed, pointing to the number she was missing, “You square root that,” Rhya groaned, “It’s going good. We have some kind of weird meeting later today though.” 

“Oh? Do you know what about?” Rhya asked, but I could tell she was hiding something from me. She knew something. 

“No. Do you?” I skeptically looked at her, earning a side eye right back as she had paused her writing for a moment. 

“Would you believe me if I said no?” She grumbled, I shook my head, a slight smile forming on my face. She knew I would win this argument. 

“Okay well, this might not be true, but I heard that a few psychology students were chosen to have a training. Like, the real deal kind of thing. Size shifter and all. That the ones chosen were supposed to act like one of those special therapists.” My heart nearly skipped a beat at the news. Where did she even hear this from in the first place? There’s no way that’s even real. 

“You’re kidding, right?” I laughed nervously. Even if it was true, I doubt they’d choose a sophomore. I’ve only really had a few practices and I still have a couple more years until I become the real deal. 

“Would I lie to you?” She turned to me, a worried look on her face. Did she think I would have to go through with that? I sincerely doubt it. There was no way they’d put me on whatever list they have going on. Maybe my upperclassman though. They could choose Chelsey, she was really good with everyone and a senior. They’d most likely choose her. Maybe even Ryan since he was really experienced. Actually, he was a size shifter himself, but he’s so good at controlling his emotions that he doesn’t even need to worry about accidentally shooting up a couple feet. 

“Ah, it doesn’t matter. I doubt they choose someone with barely any experience. Don't’ worry about it.” I smiled, pointing back to Rhya’s computer to tell her that she needed to get to studying and stop worrying about me. Seriously, she really needed to study otherwise she was going to fail. I can almost guarantee that she’ll be crying to me later when she fails her test. Not my fault she doesn’t study. 

——————

The gym was a large space, but our entire class only took up one tiny portion of the bleacher space as our instructor and several other people dressed up in fancy suits were talking on the ground. I sat next to Ryan, who was playing with the green-colored band on his wrist, showing that he was in one of the five classes of size shifters. Purple represented that they could shrink down to an inch or maybe even smaller if their emotions had the better of them. Blue represented that they could shrink too, but not as much as the one’s with a purple wrist. Green represented that they could both shrink and grow, but only to a certain height. Yellow meant that the shifter could grow to be the size of about a small building, or maybe even a little more depending on how they’re feeling. Red was by far the worst one. To me at least. The shifter’s with a red band can grow to heights you could only dream of. Which was why all shifters with a red band were all forced to be with a specialized therapist for only them. Because if they lose control of their emotions, it could end pretty badly.  

“I’m glad you all saw the announcement on the board. I’m a little surprised really.” Mr. Smith shoved his hands in his front pant pockets, taking a look at all of us before his eyes laid on me, smiling warmly. Why? Something was up. 

“These two gentlemen here are the head of the SSU. Also known as the company that helps size shifters in need. Recently, there has been a shortage of individuals that are willing to work with shifters in helping them control themselves. These two are on the look for candidates-in-training to help fill those missing spots.” 

The two men in suits walked to the front, holding out a clipboard. Those had whoever was going to be picked for this. But why this school? There was another college not too far from here. They could choose from them. Unless they were, and the “tiny” shortage was actually a big one. Or… no. They wouldn’t do that, right? It’s the SSU, they’ve literally helped the world become safer for decades. They wouldn’t be doing an experiment, would they? 

“It’s wonderful to see all sixty-two of you young scholars gathered here today. As your professor already said, we are both from the head office at SSU looking for the best of the best to fill in those empty spots, regardless if you do or don’t have any experience.” That last part made a shiver run down my spine. Ryan turned his head to me, patting me on the back. There was no way they’d choose a nobody like me. No way in hell. 

“This list contains twenty of you who will be taking part in this. You will be in charge of taking care of your designated partner until we can find a professional replacement suited well enough to take over. If I call your name, please stay behind after we dismiss everyone.” The tall man smiled, looking down at the clipboard and calling several names. The anxiety pricked my skin like icicle shards, it had almost seemed like the man reading off names was speaking in slow motion. A few deep breaths, and it was back to normal. 

“Ryan Wright.” He smiled while earning several compliments and congratulations from his fellow classmates. 

“Chelsey Torres.” She giggled a few seats away from us. 

“And Liam Rover.” 

My muscles tensed up at the mention of my name. I couldn’t tell if my heart had stopped or if it was just beating horrifyingly fast. I could tell people were trying to praise me, but I couldn’t hear, their appraisal only reaching my ears in a muffled and slow manner. I managed the most sincere smile I could while trying to hide how much I was trembling. Maybe this would be okay? Maybe I’ll be lucky and not be paired up with a shifter who could potentially crush me between two if their fingers if they really wished to. Was the room cold or was it just me? 

“Everyone else may head to their dorms. Thank you for coming.” 

After everyone had filed out of the empty gym, the other shorter man dressed in an identical suit as the taller one started calling out our names all over again, handing them a red folder with presumedly the shifter we’ll be assigned. Was this how it was when you’re actually a professional? You just get assigned to one? You don’t get to know them or anything? 

Once I was handed my folder, I dreaded every single second of opening it. Please let it be easy, please let it be easy, please let it be eas-

Oh. 

It was only a picture of who we were partnered up with and anything that might be worth mentioning about them. Wow was I overreacting. Then again, that didn’t exactly smoothen out the anxiety that was still pricking at my skin. Though, this shifter didn’t seem so bad. If anything, he actually looked pretty nice. The only thing I had noticed was that he was diagnosed with depression. He kind of looked like it too if I were being honest. It seemed hard for him to smile for the picture. Why did I also get the hint that he wasn’t feeling very good either? I guess I’ll find out when we officially meet. 

“Inside you’ll find who your partner will be for the foreseeable future. You’ll still be coming to your classes, which was why we mainly wanted to stick with the upperclassmen, and afterward go back to where we are currently housing your designated shifter. You have three days to pack everything you need and want, and you’ll soon be living off campus. Just think of it was having a roommate that needs constant supervision.” 

Okay, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. I’m almost entirely confident that this shifter won’t really be a big deal. I mean, he looks about a year or two younger than me. So he just graduated high school? Agh, I have no idea. I’m just jumping to conclusions. But, hopefully they won’t make me handle anything crazy. That I can’t do. 

——————

They were driving me across the city to go meet up with the shifter I’ll be taking care of for however long. For all I know it could be a few days or weeks. I would think someone would want to step up for the job instead of letting students do this, but I guess not. Chelsey and Ryan have texted me a few times that they were getting settled in already while I was still heading over. It was already around thirty minutes just to get across the place, so that means I’ll have to take a bus almost everyday just to make it to my classes. That’s just great, but I’m in no position to complain. I actually tried talking with Professor Smith about it, but he told me that he had no say in the matter at all, which was weird. I doubt he would want his younger students to even take part in this. 

Along the streets were the many, many buildings that both accommodated for humans and their much larger or smaller companions. Although I’ve only ever been around Ryan about twice when he’s giant, it really wasn’t that bad. He can only grow till someone was like the height if his entire hand so it really wasn’t even that bad. Of course it’s still nerve-racking, but I trust him. Plus, we were at a small party with our little friend group. I doubt he could even bring himself to hurt someone. So really I wasn’t too worried. The only other shifter I’ve been around is an old high school friend of mine, but she goes to a different college now. 

Hundred of houses passed by us as we drove into a little neighborhood. What really made me worried was that the driver wasn’t exactly stopping at the normal-sized houses. Where was he going? I watched grimly as some of the huge houses we passed by came to a halt to one on the very end of one of the many streets. This one wasn’t as big as the other one’s down the street, but it wasn’t exactly small either. At least to me. So… I was paired up with a shifter who could only grow. That’s great. Just… great. 

I grabbed my bag and the small suitcase I had brought with me that was just full of my clothes and some stuff for school. Well if I’m supposed to stay here almost all of the time now I have to find something to keep me busy. And apparently from the immense size difference that will be between my new roommate and I. Of course I was terrified! If he really is diagnosed with depression and was a shifter who grew that only made matters worse for me. I hope whoever plans to take over for me does it soon. 

It took me and the driver to reach the doorstep, but eventually the driver gave it a knock. I swear I could hear some mumbling coming from the other side, but I didn’t dwell too much on that. Most.y because the extremely large door started to open slowly, but I saw no one on the other side. Maybe he was shy? 

“Well I may take my leave, though I have been ordered to tell you that a bus comes in the morning at around 6 just down the street from here, and another will take you back here around 5 and 8. Also, if anything goes wrong, to call this number on your phone.” He handed me a folded slip of paper, then took his leave. I shoved the slip in my pocket, hesitantly taking a few steps into the huge house. 

It was neatly cleaned around the place, though I couldn’t really see from my view on the ground. Everything around me was huge. I mean I’ve been to one of the rooms on the bigger side of the campus, but those rooms were smaller. It’s not an entire house filled with furniture. 

As I took a few steps out more, I jumped when the door had lightly closed behind me. My eyes trailed up and up, finding the face of the person I had seen in the picture. His eyes grew wide when I met his gaze, then bit the bottom of his lip before sliding his back against the wall behind him. 

Everything in my body told me to run, but if I did then I would only get scolded for it later. This isn’t even what I wanted to be! I wanted to be a normal therapist that helps regular adults and kids feel better. Not a human who could easily trap me in a fist and just kill me. I would have been fine if they could only shrink, but this was much worse. 

I faced down, taking a few deep breaths that barely even help me in this situation. I had to take care of someone fifty times my own size? How was that even possible? There weren’t even any smaller sized things around this place. Nothing that could help me get around easier either! 

I guess I could attempt to get his name. I mean, nothing could go wrong then, right? Just maybe from a distance… even if he could, at any point in time, just grab me whenever he so wanted. I felt sick just thinking about being held. Wouldn’t I have to be though? I can’t exactly just climb everywhere I want to go. 

“H-hi. Um, I’m Liam.” I forced myself to walk closer, even under his gaze, but I stopped walking closer when he moved himself further in the corner, looking a bit saddened. He probably knew I was scared. Maybe. I hope I’m some-what hiding it well enough. Though, I’ve never really been that good at it. 

“Oh, um, C-Casper. You can call me Cas if you want.” He kept his voice to a very quiet whisper. So he knew that if he talked too loud it would hurt my ears. At least he’s self-aware. Though, I couldn’t help but feel bad. I may be utterly terrified of him, but I mean he hasn’t really given me a reason to be truly scared, yet. 

“Nice to m-meet you, Cas.” I put on my best fake genuine smile. What? Have to find some way to convince him I wasn’t scared. Even if my body was trembling like crazy and my heart threatened to just come right out of my mouth. 

“Y-you too, sir.” His hand slightly twitched, but he just shook his head, giving me a sad look. ‘Sir?’ Why did he call me that? I didn’t dwell on it. Instead, I turned to look at the place, not finding a place to put my stuff. I sighed, hurrying to place it up against the wall opposite of Cas. This would be fine. Yeah, yeah. 

Casper, overall, seemed pretty nice. He had a black, messy hair that complimented his light-brown eyes. He wore a baggy long-sleeve shirt with a pair of jeans I have no idea why he was just wearing jeans in his own house, but it’s whatever he wants to do. Not my place to comment. The only real thing that caught my attention were the light bags in his eyes. Has he been sleeping? 

“Did you want to come here? Like, willingly?” He had asked, slightly leaning a little closer to my spot in the middle of the floor. I admit, it made me a little uneasy, but I don’t think he realized it. It just made it really hard to answer his question when all I could think about was how easily he could kill me right now. He wouldn’t do that, right? He seems so nice. Even if I’m barely two inches to him and I could easily just be crushed or accidentally killed if he wasn’t being too mindful. I shuddered at the thought, but forced my voice to work with me. 

“I-I’m just a student at a college. They just told us we were going to help out shifters, for like, real-world training I guess.” I started speaking a little fast and I could hear my voice slowly get quieter the more Cas seemed to lower his body to me. I felt so small compared to him. It’s overwhelming really, but it’s not like I can just back out. I already asked and they said if I did then I wasn’t cut out to stay in the classes. Seriously, all I wanted was to either be a therapist or a social worker. Not take on these huge responsibilities of making sure an entire living being is doing okay and doesn’t have any malicious intent to just… Aghhhh. 

“Oh. Well, I’m not exactly the best person to be paired up with.” He laughed sadly, holding up his wrist and revealing a red band. A little squeak left my mouth as I stood in place, practically frozen in fear. Why did they pair me up with him? They gave me more than I can handle. There was no way I could do this. I bit the side of my cheek, struggling to keep my composure. 

Cas caught onto my fear, scooting as far away from me as he could while making sure I wouldn’t freak out. Why did he move away? I was going to be fine. I think- But I was okay. Just as long as I keep a certain distance from him for a while. It takes me a long time to adjust to new things, and this might take me a while, but I couldn’t just do nothing. It was obvious to me that Cas was afraid of something, I just couldn’t figure out what just yet. 

“I’m fine, Cas, I promise.” I nervously smiled, hiding how terrified I was. Shifters with a red band can grow to heights you could only dream of. Great. Seriously, what have they done? They think I can handle someone who already looks like he’s struggling to keep himself together just by meeting me? I didn’t really want to find out what would happen if he doesn’t contain his emotions. Was there a person partnered up with him before? I knew I wasn’t going to be getting any answers, but there was no harm in asking them. 

“O-Okay,” He whispered, getting in a more comfortable sitting position, “Are you sure though? I don’t mind giving you an hour or two to get used to… everything.” He looked away for a second, and I could tell something was on his mind. Along with the constant moving away every time I had tried to walk closer, or when he knew I was scared of him, I would think to say that he’s scared of himself. Or, at least hurting other people. It makes sense actually. I’ve heard stories that a lot of shifters realize that they can really hurt people and just try their hardest not to interact with people smaller than themselves. It’s like they collapse on themselves since they don’t want to hurt anyone. I guess Cas and I weren’t so different. 

“Okay, look, it’s obvious that you’re more afraid of yourself than I am of you,” Cas’s eyes widened, “How about we both try to help each other out? I’ll keep trying if you do.” I held out my hand without thinking. A compromise between the two of us. I know we both met like five minutes ago, but I’m pretty sharp for people my age with little experience. But, honestly, maybe this wasn’t so bad. I think all that Cas wanted was the relief that he won’t hurt people. Or something like that. 

“You’d go through with all that? I’m not exactly mentally stable.” I could tell that he was worried, but I just nodded my head, a genuine smile on my face that I hoped he could see. 

He eyed my hand for a while, and I still hadn’t realized what was wrong until he lightly pinched my hand between the tip of his pointer and thumb, barely even lifting it up and down for my own sake. Oh he has no idea how scared I was right now, but he didn’t have to know that. Just a little more pressure and he could just yank my arm right off-I shook that thought away. Don’t think about that right now. It would be okay. Just as long as I get an idea of what to do when he does eventually lose control or something. I had zero idea. I think the thought that stuck in the back of my mind was making me more worried than anything really. I’m just a stress toy for him. But I’ll just have to get over my fear. There was no way I would let this stop me from graduating. Not in a million years.

——————

Sorry for a slightly boring chapter! I did a LOT of world building for this one, and had to map out almost every single interaction through the course of the entire story plot. There also wasn’t much g/t but again, it’s just an introduction chapter. (I’m doing what I love and no one can stop me hehehe-)

But I hope you enjoyed reading! I promise the second chapter will have a much, much better g/t interaction. (Oh trust me it will >:3) I hope you all have a great day/night!

[positivelyapunovexponent-good]

My university has two introductory calculus sequences. The first is your standard freshman year calculus which, as far as I know, doesn't ever touch on delta epsilon proofs. The second is specifically for prospective math majors and is taught from Spivak's Calculus, effectively making it an "analysis for babies" sequence. I personally had a really lovely experience taking those courses- it was actually that which caused me to switch my major to Math from Computer Science. (I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it changed my life).

Nevertheless, I am solidly in the camp of "math folks who believe delta epsilon proofs should not be introduced in high school or standard college calculus". I was actually first exposed to delta epsilon proofs in high school, briefly, and I didn't glean much benefit from it then. They weren't used in any other part of the class, and so I never really got a deep understanding of how they worked or why they mattered. I think for delta epsilon proofs to be taught well they need to be introduced in a way that actually coheres with how the rest of the material is presented.

[rabbitsrams]

Omg you HAVE to further elaborate onto that inexperienced reader x inexperienced schlatt fic omfg that shit drove me UP the wall it was too good. You have made my year

oh anon i love u sm <3 yes im obsessed w this idea esp speaking as a barely experienced virgin gal :D

nsfw under the cut, minors dni!! 18+ only.

(also PLEASE lmk if u want more i love writing these!!)

so you and schlatt met in a calculus class. it was required for his major while it’s just a general education class for you. because you sit near each other in the lecture hall you're often paired together for quick discussions (those 'turn to the person next to you' talks that i dread lmao).

he always thought you were really hot but was too shy to ever say anything, mostly just thinking about you in every way imaginable while he jerks off.

and you too, your size kink rly went brr seeing his tall ass like...

you once made the mistake of looking at his hands for a little bit too long and then that was all you could think about for a week.

you eventually became friends slowly over the course of the semester which was how u started fooling around in the first place.

both of you opened up that u were both virgins and not that experienced. and this mf was really like 'oh wouldn't be funny if...'

"how am i attracted to you?"

it starts with some making out. you've both kissed people before so you were a bit familiar with it. and it's nice!

you starting to kiss down to his neck and omg his fucking reaction when you leave a hickey for the first time. he's flaunting it so everyone can see, his roommate and friends are gassing him up sooo much.

while in class he's reading on how to give a hickey and ends up giving you so. many. all over your body. did he just awaken a marking kink?

also like once you guys start you just can't get enough of each other.

he's just so. obsessed with your moans. he's watched porn loads before, he knows how exaggerated those moans are. but somehow your more subdued noises turn him on even more. AND THE WAY YOU SAY HIS NAME???? he loves it.

his face going all red when you touch him anywhere. he whimpers so much, it's like you have him under a spell.

like i said before, he's super vocal. he usually can't help himself, especially when you're on your knees sucking his cock. because duh <3

once you started sucking him off, you can't get enough. and he can't either.

blowing him under the desk in the library. oh lord help me.

wearing one of his sweaters (the harvard one came to mind particularly) for the first time and he's just. jaw dropped.

the prettiest girl ever is wearing his clothes???? if he doesn’t have you right then and there he’s jerking off to you as soon as u leave.

and also you wearing his sweaters when walking around campus and he is just so proud like wow. you're all his.

falling asleep together after your first time and waking up to his morning wood‼️ he’s so needy in the morning he’s practically humping ur leg as soon as he wakes up. thank god your roommate was out.

lazily riding him while he just gushes at how beautiful you are in the morning. fuck. me.

whenever he spends the night at your dorm or vice versa you always help him out in the mornings <3 whether it be a blowjob or a handjob or turning to your side so he can slip it in and fuck you :D so what if you've been late to class a couple times?

you call him ALL the pet names. angel. sweetheart. darling. baby.

and his for you? oh. all the ones you call him and more. toots (thats a major one). doll(face). princess. bark bark bark.

you sending him nudes for the first time one night when he's home visiting family. what starts off innocent enough, you in one of his t-shirts without any pants on turns to pics of your tits, your fingers in your pussy, then VIDEOS OF YOU MASTURBATING!!! he's ripping his jeans off as he slams his bedroom door shut and dials your number into facetime.

SKIPPING CLASS JUST TO HAVE SEX SJKLFBHEDDJKLSJK

HE DRIVES TO SOME REMOTE PLACE ON CAMPUS!!!! AND U HAVE CAR SEX FOR THE FIRST TIME OMG

it's SO awkward at first😭where do you go? the back? stay in the front? go into the trunk?

you're glad he wanted to stay in the front because OMG. RIDING HIM IN THE CAR SEAT. he tries sooooo hard not to cum too fast bc ur tits are literally in his face and your pussy is squeezing him so well fuck fuck fuck he's obsessed with you. wow.

[xanadontit]

It's only been one full week of classes/labs (classes started on the 21st) but my brother is adjusting well and feels really good about his choices as far as courses. He's a math/science kid (but also a pretty good writer which of course makes me proud) and took honors/AP math and science throughout high school. He did well enough on his AP exams to be able to skip ahead a bit but after careful consideration and a chat with a counselor (aka Not Mom or Dad or English Major Sister talking out of their asses) decided to take the intro levels of calculus and chemistry.

This decision is turning out to be a solid one! The syllabi for both classes start off with things he's learned already but moves at a pretty quick pace to entirely new material. So while right now he's cruising along and killing it he knows that in a few weeks he'll need to lock in (iykyk).

He's also got a film class for his GE and said he watched "Some movie from, like, the 50s called The Red Balloon. It's French" and was genuinely shocked I've seen it. Look, kid, I know I'm known for my knowledge of Chris Farley's oeuvre but I contain multitudes. Also I had to watch it in French class so I had no choice.

My parents - after being positively fraught over the notion of him not moving further away and having a "college experience" - have quickly come around to being able to see him easily. And yeah no shit! Called it.

Anyway, he remains the best and funniest (last night we exchanged a silent look of "absolutely not" and had a fit of giggles after being asked to join in on a SMASHMOUTH SING ALONG) and I'm so proud and excited for him.

[nerd-goes-blogging]

how did I get here?

('bout how I became a dedicated Tintin fan)

You know, there’s a reason I call Tintin and Snowy my favourite.

I met them when I was 12 years old, in a dusty corner of my school library. An instant connection developed between us and since then we had never been apart. 

On his birthday, 9th January, my thoughts turned nostalgic about the young reporter who brightened and inspired my teenage years. Well, back then I wrote a journal entry dedicated to him and his glorious adventures. While creating this blog, the first content that came to my mind was this journal entry.

So, why not?

Here's to all those amazing memories I’ve made so far with this reporter and many more to come.

Back in middle school days, I remember searching for a book series to follow diligently. There were many of them. Mostly fantasies and fictions and dark romance. Some were menacing and awkward. As a whole, not an ideal read for me, I thought. I didn’t (and still don’t) want my head to be occupied with weird thoughts which yield nothing. But I knew my search would end one day. And it did.. 

One day, rummaging through the junior library at school, I noticed some illustrated books, which resembled the comics’s style but quite refined. With the librarian's permission I opened the locked up cabinet which seemed to have jammed due to rust.

That was my pirate treasure, a bounty which I was lucky enough to stumble upon.

The first book which I read from the series was ‘The Castafiore’s Emerald’. The only adventure completely based in the Marlinspike Hall, gives a cozy kind of feeling. Not only did I appreciate Tintin's wits, but I was also amused by Captain Haddock’s funny curses and alliteration which were insulting enough to trash anyone. I really felt that I was where I belonged. I decided to stick to it and started to gather more information and facts about the young protagonist and his brilliant creator, Hergé . The internet, of course, helped me to a great extent as all 24 volumes of the adventures were available there. Also, that was my first year learning french. When Madame came to know about my new hobby, she encouraged me to carry it further and suggested that I'd get the gist of both, the language and the stories, if I read them in french. So, I did that, and how! By the end of middle school, I had read all 24 volumes, some in french as well.

Since then, I’ve read the whole series many times. I've lost count of the number of times I've ...

cheered when Tintin fought Bobby Smiles in Chicago in the book ‘Tintin in America’, 

gasped at the revelation of Rastapopoulos as an antagonist in ‘The Blue Lotus’ (who continued on to become the prime villain in the series), 

chuckled to see (or hear) Bianca Castafiore’s god forsaken singing and Tintin’s reaction in ‘King Ottokar’s Sceptre’, 

been amused at the introduction of Captain Haddock into the series in ‘The Crab with Golden Claws’, 

got my funny bone tickled as Captain Haddock grouched on Professor Cuthbert Calculus’ “hard of hearing” trouble, 

got thrilled with the hero’s treasure hunt in ‘The Secret of the Unicorn’

got terrified at the vengeance of Inca Rascar Capac and Tintin, Snowy and Captain Haddock’s quest to release the professor from the captivity of the Incas in ‘The Seven Crystal Balls’ & ‘The Prisoners of the Sun’ (this story is hands down my most fav :)

greeted the Emir and his son Abdullah (devil’s incarnation) in ‘Land of Black Gold’, 

followed the friends to the moon and back (literally!) 

visited Borduria and Syldavia, 

cried my heart out (when I first read it, I was so touched) in the joyous reunion of Tintin and Tchang, 

rolled with laughter on seeing the magazine cover of Paris Flash in ‘The Castafiore Emerald’, 

encountered all sorts of people (even aliens! in ‘flight 714’) 

and went to an extent of a military coup for General Alcazar. 

Oh, and not to forget the cliffhanger of the unfinished ‘Tintin and the Alph-art’ (left for fans to complete it with our imagination, I like to believe!)

 

Phew! The list is much longer than this & the memories are limitless!!

You might wonder why I'm so into Tintin's adventures and what makes him different from other comic book heroes? 

More importantly, what made me stay? 

You can find this out and more in my next blog.

Until then, stay nerdy ✨👩‍🎓

The Nerdy Olive :)

[ohnoproblems]

for the Treatise on the Peregrine Phoenix series i've been working on i've had two dedicated protagonists to share the bulk of POV duty. usually my process starts with the outline of the broad plot points that happen in any given chapter/scene, and often it happens that i haven't settled on which POV to use until i actually start writing each chapter. scenes often expand into multiple chapters before i hit all those plot points and move on to the next scene, which also is a bonus because it gives me the option to hop into the other character's head mid-scene if it's called for.

if the scene only has one of those two characters, then picking POV is easy, but they're usually doing things together. in that case, the number one consideration that drives whose POV i settle on is: who's got the juiciest feelings here? who's the biggest freak about what's happening? who's got the most interesting perspective/experiences informing how they're approaching this moment they're a part of, and would they actually voice any of that for the benefit of those sharing that moment with them? what's lost in that moment by not being in their head, and is it an interesting loss? can i write these characters so well that my readers have some idea of what they might be thinking even if we aren't seeing it directly in the narrative?

often it's obvious. if i've asked all these questions and i'm still torn (these can be hard questions! this is a brutal calculus! language, as the gal in the library in 1000xRESIST says, is an act of excruciating violence!) then i have a few rules of thumb. though, usually, i run over the thumb rules in the process of asking those other questions. if it's our first time seeing a particular locale in qud on-screen, then mokou is an obvious pick - she's new in town but she's got such depth of experience that often gives me an opportunity to dredge up some bit of touhou project esoterica. if agate has a question about magic, or spell cards, or any of the aforementioned esoterica that mokou might have been driven to actually talk about instead of just think about, then agate's perspective becomes juicier - it's a chance for this well-traveled skeptic to learn more about the strange world that mokou comes from, in the hopes of perhaps better understanding why she's like that.

of course, book 2 had several chapters from special guest Seeker E'Beth, the master of ceremonies at kitchen heptagon (original city do not steal). in those chapters, it wasn't just that the ceremony of the moment was so strong that i needed to be in her head. it's also that she's a powerful esper! while we're in her head, she can be in the heads of everyone around her. diegetic limited omniscience for those chapters' narrations. it's challenging but fun!

and in book 3... well, the party's expanding. there will be quite a few more special guests.

[just-jordie-things]

Could you do 7 and 73 from the kiss prompt list with Megumi? (It’s ok if you only want to do 1)!! Thanks ✌🏾❤️

(repost!) i'm doing both bc 73 might be my fav <3

7: "I've Missed You" Kiss 73: Height Difference Kisses Where One Person Has To Bend Down And The Other Has To Stand On Their Tippy Toes

**aged up characters!!** ___

you enjoyed traveling for more advanced missions. it made a great sense of pride swell inside of you to know you were qualified to take down a grade one curse currently terrorizing hong kong. you also enjoyed exploring new areas, learning about new cultures and more specifically their food.

since being promoted to a grade two sorcerer, however, the elders have been sending you off on one assignment after another. so much so you've been bringing your school assignments with you just to keep up with the rest of your classmates. it was tiring, spending every minute of your day either exorcizing a curse or studying calculus- the former of which coming easier to you, claws and fangs and all.

but you'd been away from jujutsu tech for three weeks now. nearly the whole month. and you were starting to lose your excitement about your promotion.

and meanwhile at jujutsu tech, megumi was starting to feel the same way.

he was proud of you for achieving the promotion you'd worked so hard to earn, he felt strongly that you'd deserved it, and had worked hard alongside you to help you earn it. and at first he enjoyed hearing about your trips, too. sometimes you'd bring him gifts from the places you went, a little souvenir, or a carefully packaged treat for him to try. while it made his heart stutter that you'd bring him something and not your other classmates, he found it sweet of you.

but three weeks was a long time. yeah, you texted back and forth here and there, but megumi was terrible at starting conversation, and he refused to send a simple 'hey'. he found it lame. even though yuuji bugged him about texting you more to show his interest, he didn't want to send you empty texts. he wanted to have real conversation. like you shared when you were here.

while yuuji and nobara hadn't noticed megumi's fondness of you while you were still at jujutsu tech, it was made abundantly clear to them once you were gone. their sea-urchin-haired friend seemed even grumpier than usual. his frown was his resting face. his patience was always worn thin. he refused their every offer to hang out.

it was obvious he was missing you, and it was obvious you were what brought him out of his shell- even just a little bit.

and of course when nobara and yuuji had pieced this together, they were relentlessly vicious. but they had to be. their resident gremlin had a crush on a ray of sunshine that rivaled yuuji's never-ending joy? naturally they involved themselves.

when you received a call from gojo saying that you were to be sent home from your mission early, you were defensive at first.

"you think i can't handle this? i've already found the source of the curse, i'm staking it out right now. have you not read my reports? i've been tracking this thing for weeks-!"

"megumi's been hurt"

your sensei said more than just that, but the rest of his explanation was an echoed haze in your ear as you made haste in returning to your hotel to retrieve your things. all you really gathered was that your reports have been wired to a student from the kyoto school also looking to make a debut as a grade two, and that you were to take the first flight to tokyo available.

it's not until you're on the plane that you realized in your rushed packing that you'd left your phone charger on the bedside table, and your favorite shampoo in the shower. but the time to chastise yourself for not paying better attention would have to wait, because your anxiety about returning home was poisoning your every thought.

surely gojo had explained megumi's situation to you, but now that you think about it to try and prepare yourself for what you're returning home to, you can't recall what he'd said. an exorcism gone wrong? an attack on the school? an accident in training? you raked your memory for what it could have been that caused megumi to be in such poor condition that you've been instructed to return to tokyo right away, but you can't remember it now.

you're the striking image of worried sick. your foot is tapping rapidly against the ground. your eyes glazed over and unblinking as you stare out the small window at the white-nothingness of clouds you're flying through. there's music playing in your headphones but you're deaf to anything but your uneven heartbeat.

when you land at the airport you'd even forgotten to pick up the bag you'd had checked. ijichi had to convince you to go back for it before he took you to the school.

in hindsight, ijichi probably should have found it strange the way you'd only asked how megumi was doing in that strained, concerned voice you had. when he'd told you that the young sorcerer was doing as well as he could be, he should have questioned why you seemed to wince. but he'd brushed it off as young love being the tricky thing he is and thought he was doing you a favor by not asking any questions. it wasn't his business after all.

you forgot- or left- your bags in the car when you arrived at jujutsu tech. in fact, you'd practically flung the door open and leapt out before ijichi had put the car in park. his hollers at you to be careful and slow down were distant as you raced through the front gates and up the stairs of the main hall at a speed that rivalled light itself.

you weren't even sure if you'd made it in time, or where you should head first, the infirmary or megumi's dorm, and your mind was a twisted haze of nasty thoughts. concern. guilt. love. regret. failure. they all had your heart beating so irregularly that another sprint like the one you'd just sent yourself on would probably knock the poor overworked muscle out and send you to an early grave.

but just to your luck, your heart leapt back to life as soon as you turned the corner to head to megumi's dorm first, since it would be the closest.

your sneakers skid to such a fast stop that their squeak on the linoleum echos through the corridor. a gasp escapes your throat before words can and your eyes are bulging out of their sockets because right there standing in the hallway is fushiguro megumi and he seems to be in the perfect condition of health.

and megumi, the poor sorcerer who had just been taking a walk to the library, is so surprised to find you standing before him- panting so hard your chest is heaving at a concerning rate- that he wears almost your same expression.

"(y/n)?"

"megumi?"

your confusion is displayed at the same time, both of you certain that the other is in the wrong place. but before either of you can ask what you're doing here, you're legs are pushing you again and you're leaping into his arms.

megumi has to scramble to catch you as you crash into his chest, your arms flinging around his neck in a flailing, uncoordinated motion before tightening around him so much he wheezes a bit into your hair. it's a bit of a painful reunion, not to mention confusing, but megumi welcomes your embrace nonetheless. his own arms wrap around your waist and he returns your snug hold with just as much enthusiasm.

the moment is peaceful for a mere few seconds, before you're releasing him, standing flat on the ground and staring up at him with wandering, worried eyes.

"are you alright? you must be, you're standing here, but gojo said- did you get hurt? was there an accident?" you're rambling fast and your words are slurring into one another but megumi's grown used to your (and yuuji's) fast paced speech enough to follow along.

"i'm fine?" he says, and it sounds like a question as his brows pinch together. "i'm just surprised to see you, i didn't think you'd be back until june"

"well i- well i would have been- but- but you were hurt," you explain, still stammering as your heart and mind are playing catch up with the fact that your so beloved megumi didn't seem to be hurt at all. it was like mental gymnastics, trying to calm down as the reality was standing before you, perfectly unharmed. perfectly perfect. "gojo said i needed to come back right away, i thought- i thought..."

you trail off, unable to find the words to explain the heavy dread that had rested on you for the last ten hours of traveling it took you to get here.

megumi shakes his head, a humorless scoff escaping him.

"well i don't know why he would do such a thing," he explains. "i haven't even been given a mission in, like, three days"

while you want to scold gojo for playing such a cruel trick on you, you're too overwhelmed by your relief to care too much about it. it shines through as you finally give him a smile, and a final sigh helps to even out your breathing.

he was fine. he was perfect. he was right there in front of you.

"i missed you," you say, before you can really think about the weight of the words, but even as your cheeks feel warm with a creeping blush, you don't care. it was true. "a lot, actually" you admit softly after a beat passes.

megumi opens his mouth to say something, to tell you he missed you too, or that he was glad to have you back so soon, but before he can commit to the words you're stepping into the space between you and you're on the tips of your toes. his wide eyes fall shut when your hands brace themselves gently against his shoulders and without an ounce of hesitation your lips collide with his.

his shock at seen you had barely worn off before he's shocked again by you kissing him, but just as your presence was, your kiss was welcomes warmly. any lingering nerves or shyness escapes megumi as his hands instinctively reach to your jaw, cupping your face as firmly but delicately as he could as he craned his neck down to deepen your kiss before you could pull away too soon.

your heart is soaring as you shuffle on the tips of your toes to press as close to him as you can, no amount of closeness, of warmth, being enough. his kisses are gentle, his lips soft as they prod and slide against yours, and even though your lungs are running out of air it seems he has no such issue, and continues to lock your lips against his.

you can tell that he's been waiting to do this for a long while, just as you.

when you do finally pull away, and only because you must gasp for air or else you'll pass out in his arms, your grin is unfiltered.

"i missed you too," megumi confesses as you rest down to your normal height. his own grin mirrors yours, and his hands remain on your face, thumbs stroking delicate shapes into your skin. "a lot" he repeats your words.

a breathless laugh escapes you, and he can't help but to lean down to steal one more chaste peck.

"but we have to go deal with gojo now, right?" you hum, and megumi nods at his thoughts put to your voice.

"i have a feeling we'll have to deal with yuuji and nobara, too" he says with irritation.

and while you're both upset about the cause of your reunion, you head off planning your revenge hand in hand. ___

a/n: gojo satoru definitely doesn't understand range when it comes to pranks. if anyone watches new girl he's literally winston bishop. xoxo ~ jordie

[lightlessentwine]

Rauh Civilization utilized kidney stones for magic.

This started when someone on the Smoughtown Discord had mentioned the possibility of Marika's village being a family of Dryads (Credit to Mangolovers for this observation). I went even further, claiming that they were likely inspired by the Hesperides; Greek Dryads of The Golden Evening. in Roman texts, they are noted to be the daughters of Hesperus. in other sources they are said to be the daughters of Atlas. (completely aside but possibly useful info: Atlas is claimed to have invented the "Celestial Sphere" which supported their understanding of being "fixed upon a starry sphere.")

Hesperus is the "Evening Star," or the planet Venus as seen in the evening, and the brother of Atlas. Hesperus was often confused with his brother Eosphorus, aka Phosphorus, the "Morning Star," because they were both represented by the same planet. Phosphorus translates to mean "bearer of light."

sticking with me here.

In the Ruins of Rauh, we find Spirit Calculi. well, a Calculus, in the biological sense, is a stone, like a kidney stone.

the Spirit Calculus is noted to smell bad and give off a white light. The stench is supposedly a sign of a strong spiritual presence.

Kidney stones are compound crystalline masses typically comprised of calcium-phosphate; phosphate being an ion of Phosphorus.

Phosphorus in alchemy, is the element that can harness light itself. i imagine a crystal stone of calcium-phosphate would be much more controlled and manageable as a substance than pure phosphorus, which would just burn upon contact with air.

following this line of logic, i'm also willing to throw it out that I believe the Ancient Meteoric Ore Greatsword (or the AMOGuS as i lovingly call it) is not Obsidian- or even a stone at all- but a massive chunk of Iron-Nickel meteorite that contained notable amounts of Schreibersite, which was fashioned into an arrowhead with veins of the schreibersite coursing through it. this rare material is currently understood to be the original source for life on earth, and is inherently connected to phosphorus as an element. the AMOGus was a weapon of very old gods, who probably recognized the power and usefulness of schreibersite, and eventually learned that the power came from phosphorus, which is also in bones and kidney stones.

this information and the stories revolving around Rauh civilization have been nearly completely lost to time, even if the original ideas were expanded upon and just lost their roots, or were even accidentally rediscovered through other means (there's already a warlock we meet in game, who's rediscovered death magic on his own in trying to commune with his dead family and is wielding their heads on a stick as a flail.. who's to say that harnessing magic doesn't come to the odd person serendipitously like this?)

with all of what seemed like borderline disconnected information, i was able to understand that the Shamans were likely inspired by the Hesperides, establish that the Rauh were using kidney stones for magic, and connect that back to the AMOGuS, giving it an actual reason for why it exists

but allow me to go even further, just to solidify some aspect of this idea from within the game

While doing a bit of the usual, initial perusing of wikipedia pages as one does.. i noted something deeply peculiar; a poignant phrase with its own little section: "Hesperus is Phosphorus"

this boils down the entirety of Goldmask's quest. Goldmask was trying to use "a priori" knowledge to understand a flaw in the logic of the Golden Order, but he's an outsider looking in. It is only when the Tarnished comes to him with new, empirical evidence that he begins to understand what is happening. you use the literal Law of Regression on a statue of Marika to understand that "Radagon is Marika," and this tidbit of information is something that aligns with what Goldmask was suspicious about. he points at the Erdtree, not knowing the solution to his problem, but knows what variable is throwing his solution through a loop. giving him information that confirms his views, reinforces his perspective.

[solcorvidae]

Modern Witcher AU: My Headcanons (part 1??)

This is exclusively for my own Trucker AU/my fic called Hypothermic on AO3! I have other headcanons for other Modern AU's, but I just love them so much and there are so many things that I cannot possibly include into my fic but still want to share (at least right away/in a way that is plot-relevant). -- also, these are in no particular order.

Jaskier lives in a big city and his parents have a ton of money. They are very big on being a "proper and well mannered" family which Jaskier has had a lot of trouble with. He loves his family and they love him, but they butt heads pretty frequently over small and avoidable things.

Geralt, Eskel, and Lambert are not related to one another by blood at all. The boys met in foster care, Geralt becoming attached to Eskel very quickly, and Eskel bonding with both Geralt and Lambert. He felt responsible for the others and they became inseparable. They bounced around together and were between a lot of different homes/placements before they wound up with Vesemir. Eventually the boys officially asked if Vesemir would be their dad, spurring the legal adoption process into motion.

It took a long time for Eskel to trust Vesemir fully, isolating himself almost consistently for months after he had settled in. He trusted him enough to feel safe and relatively at home, but not enough to come out of his shell. He ate an overwhelming amount of dinners alone in their bedroom, not with the rest of the household.

Geralt was teased for his white hair as a kid and decided that he wanted to dye it dark brown like Eskel's when he was in middle school. It turned out horribly and the dye did not take due to the colour/texture. Eskel helped him and felt bad for ruining the poor kids hair even though there was no way to really know (since they didn't do a test strip).

Lambert often forgets momentarily that his family is not by blood due to his young age when they arrived at Vesemir's house for the first time.

Eskel doesn't have any baby pictures that are still intact/in his possession

Eskel and Geralt both had grey eyes as little kids

Eskel's eyes slowly changed from grey to bright green as he got older. Geralt kept his grey eyes for a lot longer than most kids do before they changed.

Lambert had red hair as a little kid and slowly grew out of it. It eventually shifted to an extremely dark brown with red undertones.

Lambert kept his hair somewhat long as a kid/through highschool and cut it short after graduation. He got Eskel and Geralt to help and they did it in their shared bathroom together. It went shockingly well but the bathroom was a disaster. There are candid photos of the whole affair somewhere on Vesemir’s camera.

Geralt on the other hand, had short hair until the Hair Dye IncidentTM and then refused to touch the length after that, letting it grow long. He only went to get haircuts for maintenance and trimming off split ends, never to cut off any significant length. He still has long hair to this day.

Geralt cannot stand facial hair. He will scratch his face raw if he cannot get rid of it fast enough (or if he can’t use a razor that gives him a close enough shave). Vesemir gets Geralt a straight razor for his 17th birthday to help with this. Geralt is determined to keep this razor forever.

Geralt was the youngest out of all of them to go into the family business and start trucking. He knew since he was young that he wanted to work for his father and was determined to do so as soon as he possibly could. He took Data Management and Business 101 in highschool so he could be of help with bookkeeping despite being notably awful with advanced math. He completed driving school and got his full licence at 19 and started work only a few months later.

Unlike Geralt, Eskel was insanely good at advanced maths and took Advanced Calculus and upper year Physics courses for fun.

Lambert lived in the weight room and shop classes in highschool. Everyone tended to write him off as not being “book smart” but he did super well in the sciences—particularly biology. He took it all the way through until graduation, making honour roll several times.

Geralt is crazy sentimental. Jaskier gifts him trinkets, photos, pop can tabs, flowers... you name it and he keeps every single one. He has a charm pinned to his felt cowboy hat; a gift from Jaskier. It’s on the left side not only because it’s proper,but it is also because it’s closer to the wearer's heart. He has polaroids in his sun visor and in his wallet. He lets Jaskier start a pin collection on the ceiling of his work truck, only complaining minimally about the puncture holes they’ll leave behind.

Geralt and his brothers bar off several weeks each winter where they won't take any contracts so they can come home for the holidays. They spend every Christmas and New Years together in their childhood home.

Vesemir has banned the boys from betting cash. Anything under 5 dollars is negotiable, but he enforces the rule with anything of higher value. Too many fights had occurred over the years due to (intentional?) miscommunication and brotherly stubbornness.

[Modern AU Headcanon Masterpost]

[the-magic-enchilada]

Flufftober Day 2 - "Left. Other Left!" (F!Reader & Kaidou Shun)

Also cross-posted on AO3!

It was a well known secret among friends that Kaidou Shun had absolutely no sense of direction. Sometimes it was funny, watching him try to follow directions but somehow getting hopelessly lost, and other times it was just sad. How he managed to get to and from school, let alone how he managed to get anywhere for meetups in new places, was entirely beyond you. 

Maybe it was just a thing that happened in group settings? As far as you knew, Kaidou had never been late to any meetups your friend group had done outside of school where everyone showed up by themselves. 

Either way, the two of you were lost. 

It had started purely by chance.

You had been out, shopping for some new books since your parents had given you your monthly allowance, when you ran into Kaidou. He happened to be in the same bookstore as you, buying new books for his afternoon cram school classes. 

It was kind of cute, you thought, how he jumped and whipped around when you called his name. You were also pretty sure he squeaked, but it was noisy enough that you couldn’t be certain. 

Stuttering, he asked you what you were doing here, before going off on a spiel about Dark Reunion and how they were somehow connected with the books he was holding. (They definitely weren’t ordinary cram school books and manga, he said, surely Dark Reunion had to be using them to spread propaganda to the innocent masses. The how of that was something you didn’t want to think about, nor did you want to point out that most people weren’t going to read a calculus workbook for fun, so obviously Dark Reunion was doing a pretty bad job of spreading propaganda.)

Once he had calmed down, Kaidou explained he was supposed to meet Koboyasu for some reason or another (again, he started talking about Dark Reunion, so you weren’t too sure, but it sounded maybe like they were planning on going to a cafe) and invited you along. You, having no other plans for the afternoon, decided it would probably be fun and agreed.

Which led you to now, where the two of you were lost…somewhere. 

See, Kaidou said he and Koboyasu were supposed to be meeting somewhere in the downtown area, which didn’t say much since it was such a large place. So, after walking for about twenty minutes, you asked Kaidou if he was sure you two were going the right way. Which he, of course, flushed at and said something about how you guys would be there soon, it was just around the corner. 

It wasn’t just around the corner.

Eventually, you decided enough was enough, and pulled up a map on your phone. You were only about two streets over, so not too bad, but Kaidou was insistent that he knew how to get there from where the pair of you were standing.

He, in fact, did not know how to get to the cafe from where the pair of you were standing.

After getting lost for a second time (he made a right turn when he should have gone left, followed by missing the next turn you were supposed to take), you decided to navigate. 

It went about as well as you expected it to, given you had been with him, Saiki, and Nendou on the way to the class party after the school festival a couple months back. You said go past this intersection, then turn, and he turned at the intersection instead. You told him to go left, he went right. For someone as smart as he was, you forgot that things like common sense and (sometimes) listening to directions weren’t exactly his strong suit. 

Eventually (it took about five minutes) you’d had enough when he tried to turn right once again when you were supposed to be going left. Insisting he needed to go “the other left”, you grabbed the edge of the sleeve of his cardigan and started leading him around yourself. 

Even though Kaidou Shun lacked a sense of direction, you thought he was still pretty cute.

[poisonlove]

Miss Ortega | j.o

part 10

The Christmas holidays were approaching, and I was at Jenna's house. Jenna's family had arrived from California a few days earlier, eager to spend the holidays with their daughter since they didn't have many opportunities to see her during the year. Of course, Jenna's family had no idea that Jenna and I were in a relationship, which complicated things because Jenna was my Calculus teacher.

A few hours earlier, I received a call from my mother informing me that my grandmother wasn't feeling well and that the family would have to travel to Italy to visit her. Due to the high flight costs, I offered to stay in the United States, obviously concerned.

Jenna's family suggested that I spend the holidays with them; they were curious to meet me. I enthusiastically accepted the invitation, grateful for the opportunity to spend Christmas with Jenna's family. I was eager to get to know Jenna's parents better and spend time with them during the festivities.

I did have some concerns about my relationship with Jenna, especially considering the fact that she was my teacher. However, I hoped that we could set aside her role as a teacher and student during the holidays and simply enjoy our time together as friends (in front of her parents).

Despite my worries, I was excited about spending Christmas with Jenna's family. I looked forward to discovering what they had planned for the holidays and feeling welcomed in their home.

"Thank you so much for the invitation; it's really kind of you. I would be delighted to spend the Christmas holidays with all of you," I admitted with a smile.

"We're really glad you've accepted. It'll be nice to have some company during the holidays," Jenna said, giving me a tender look and a smile.

During dinner with Jenna's family, they chatted animatedly, immersed in a pleasant atmosphere. Jenna and I exchanged secret smiles, aware of the need to keep our relationship discreet.

I paused in the act of bringing the fork to my mouth when I felt Jenna's hand on my thigh. With a shiver, I tried to ignore her touch and continued listening to the conversations at the table. Jenna's hand moved closer to my inner thigh, and on instinct, I coughed, attracting the attention of those present.

"Excuse me, something went down the wrong way," I admitted, looking at Jenna with narrowed eyes. She hid her smile, looking at her family with enthusiasm.

During dinner, Jenna's parents asked me about school and my plans for the future. I responded enthusiastically, trying to be natural despite the awareness that I had to hide my relationship with Jenna.

The night continued with joy and happiness as the family enjoyed each other's company. Despite moments of caution, the dinner became a precious memory for all, a time when love and acceptance prevailed over the need to hide the truth.

"So, Mrs. Ortega, is there a favorite dish you like to cook during the holidays?" I asked, trying to strike up a conversation with Jenna's mom.

"Oh, dear, call me Natalie... anyway, during the holidays in California, I like to prepare the traditional Christmas turkey with all its sauces and side dishes. It's a family tradition. And you, t/n, what's your favorite Italian dessert during the holidays?" she asked, knowing that I'm Italian.

"I love pandoro! It's a Christmas sweet that I adore. It's fluffy and light, and I love serving it with a bit of mascarpone cream. But I'm also curious to find out what the typical Christmas sweets are in California. Do you have any local specialties?"

"Well, here in California, we have a wide variety of desserts. One of the most famous is strawberry cheesecake. It's a delicious and refreshing dessert, perfect for Californian days. Additionally, we have a strong tradition of artisanal ice creams and sweets made with fresh seasonal fruits," Edward chimed in, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

"Wow, that sounds delicious! I love discovering new desserts and flavors during my travels. I can't wait to try the strawberry cheesecake and other local sweets during my visit to California," I admitted, gently intertwining my pinkie with Jenna's.

"Speaking of California, have you already planned what to visit during your stay? Obviously, if you come in the summer. There are many interesting places to see. For example, the beautiful city of San Francisco with the famous Golden Gate Bridge, and the vibrant atmosphere of Los Angeles with its beaches and theme parks," Isaac added, shrugging casually with a hint of pride for his city.

"I'm fascinated by California, and I can't wait to explore San Francisco and Los Angeles. They're iconic places I've always dreamed of visiting. And I'd also like to discover lesser-known spots; if you have any advice to give, I'd love to hear it," I asked, glancing at Jenna.

"Absolutely! There are many off-the-beaten-path destinations that might interest you, like the beautiful Santa Barbara with its beaches and Mediterranean climate, or the picturesque town of Monterey with its famous aquarium. These are charming places that could enrich your trip," Aliyah, one of Jenna's sisters, chimed in.

"Thank you for the suggestions! I'm truly excited about visiting California and discovering all these wonders. I feel fortunate to have this opportunity," I confessed, taking a sip of my Coca-Cola.

"We're happy to have you here with us, t/n. It will be a special experience to spend the holidays in California together, if you decide to come, of course. If you have more questions or curiosities about our city or state, don't hesitate to ask. We're here for you," Natalie said sweetly, smiling warmly at me.

"Thank you, Natalie. I'm grateful for your warm welcome," I said, looking at the family with embarrassment, hearing laughter around the table.

"Have you finished buying all the Christmas presents?" Natalie changed the subject, starting to clear the table.

"Oh no, I'm sorry, I haven't had the chance to do that yet. It's been a really busy period for me," I admitted, remembering the pile of tasks we still had to do.

"I understand, it's a hectic time indeed. But we still need to find a time to do the shopping," Edward smiled at me, taking a sip of his wine.

"Yes, we need to go gift shopping. Can we do it tomorrow?" Jenna looked at me with a smile, clearly excited about shopping together.

"Will you join us, T/N?" Isaac suggested, looking at me with eager eyes. Embarrassed, I looked at Jenna, unsure how to respond. Jenna raised an eyebrow at her brother, trying to read his intentions.

"Yes..." Jenna responded on my behalf, subtly placing her hand on my thigh.

(...)

After dinner, Isaac and I found ourselves on the couch, chatting about various topics. Out of the corner of my eye, I looked for Jenna, who was helping her parents wash the dishes in the kitchen. I smiled sheepishly when I realized that Isaac had extended his arm over my shoulders, likely seeking to hug me.

"Does anyone want some coffee?" I heard a voice from beside me and turned to her with embarrassment. Jenna watched us with curiosity, offering a forced smile.

"Oh, yes, please! Coffee would be great," I tried to break the awkward atmosphere around us, looking at Jenna with a forced smile on my lips. Jenna's dark eyes looked at me, trying to understand my intentions.

"I'd like coffee too, thank you," I could feel Isaac's eyes on one side of my head. I lowered my head to my lap, absentmindedly playing with my fingers.

"Alright, I'll prepare coffee for everyone," Jenna nodded, clenching the inside of her cheek to avoid saying anything inappropriate about her brother. The dark-haired girl gave me a fleeting look before returning to the kitchen.

"Hey, t/n, would you like to go out for coffee sometime? I'd love to get to know you better," Isaac's question surprised me, unable to imagine that he'd be interested in going out with me. The metallic clatter of the coffee maker hitting the table startled me.

Jenna had intentionally knocked the coffee maker onto the table upon hearing her older brother's proposal.

"Oh, well, sure! That would be fun," I admitted, looking shyly at the boy.

Isaac Ortega is a young man with a charming and distinctive appearance. He has an average height and an athletic build, indicative of his commitment to sports and taking care of his body. His hair is a soft shade of dark brown, which suits his short and neat haircut perfectly. He has an intense and penetrating gaze, with deep brown eyes that seem to light up when he's excited or interested in something. His eyebrows are well-defined, accentuating the expressiveness of his face.

Isaac's face is characterized by a square jawline and a slightly pronounced chin, giving him a determined and masculine appearance. He has clear and smooth skin, suggesting good personal care. His smile is contagious, with white and perfectly aligned teeth.

"That's great! I'm sure you'll have a great time," Jenna's tone of voice was slightly different, probably trying to raise her voice to avoid showing her discontent.

"Thank you, Jenna. I think we'll get along well," Isaac said with satisfaction.

"Yeah, I'm sure we will. Enjoy your date, you guys," it was evident that Jenna was jealous and almost afraid of being too obvious. I gave her a sidelong glance, signaling that only the teacher could see it.

"Thanks, Jenna. Will you join us next time?" I looked at Jenna, trying to convey that she should change her tone if she didn't want to blow our cover.

"Of course, I'd love to. Just let me know when," Jenna smiled nervously, wiping her hands with a cloth.

Jenna returned with the coffees and noticed the tension between Isaac and me, but decided not to intervene directly to avoid making the situation worse. She tried to distract herself and involve other family members in the conversation, hoping that the atmosphere would gradually ease.

Despite Jenna's jealousy, the evening continued, but the presence of Isaac and Jenna in the same room became an evident point of tension. I tried to stay polite and not reveal my discomfort, while Jenna struggled to hold back her words.

***

18+

After an endless hour, it was time to go to sleep. Jenna had assigned the rooms to her family, wanting to sleep in the living room so as not to arouse suspicion. I take off my shirt, intending to put on my pajamas when I hear the sound of the doorknob. I look toward the door in a panic, but then smile as I realize it's Jenna. The brunette smiles sincerely when she sees me without a shirt and rolling her eyes in a childish gesture.

"Are you staying here?" I ask, lowering my voice. Jenna nods absently, almost surprised by the obvious answer. She takes off his shirt and undoes the buttons, quickly removing her pants. My throat dries up at such beauty and my eyes can't help but get lost in its curves. “My God…I really need you to touch me,” Jenna confesses, shifting uncomfortably in place. I open my mouth in surprise and lick my lips greedily, imagining finally getting a taste of Jenna.

"Get naked and lie on the bed," I say seriously, finally putting my shirt on. Jenna obeys my request with a smile on her lips. "You have to be extremely quiet, Jen, if you want to avoid being found out," I admit, leaning my knees on the mattress of the bed, my eyes looking at her completely naked body with mischief. "I will be, love" I smile like an idiot when I hear the nickname. "You are mine, right? Not Isaac's," she asks seriously, looking into my eyes.

I nod several times.

I lie across Jenna's body, looking up at her with sparkling eyes. "Completely yours... now show me that you are mine." I confess looking at her privacy. My breath crashed into her privacy and she shuddered instantly. I smell her delicious excitement again, a pungent scent but not unpleasant. It was fascinating to see how excited she was for me, you could see her small and big lips covered and shiny with her fluids. She snorts in exasperation and I smile.

I bit my lip satisfied with what I saw.

I gave her a kiss on the lower lips and began to lick them. Jenna groaned softly putting her hands on my shoulders. "Please, love," she murmurs again.

I looked up to see that Jenna was propped up on her elbows looking at me pleadingly, her eyes hooded with arousal. her hair on the sides of her shoulders moved due to her heavy breathing. Her lips were parted.

Without looking away, I put more pressure on her intimacy and wrapped my lips around her clit. moan more. I saw that she went back to bed. Her hands clenched the sheets.

It was fucking exciting.

"Yes..." he whispered slowly. I started sucking on her button and Jenna's sighs gradually increased. I closed my eyes and continued to move my tongue around her clit, swallowing and savoring her delicious taste. I put a finger inside it to collect more fluids wanted more. "Yes... continue" she said, biting her lips hard to hide her moans.

I clung more to her thighs and inserted my tongue into her privacy. "Shit," she groans, biting her lower lip, closing her eyes.

I smiled and gently kissed her inner lips, releasing a stream of saliva that connected her to my mouth. With one hand, I made rotary motions around her clit, causing Jenna's sighs to grow heavier. My hand was completely covered in her fluids, and I leaned in and placed another kiss on the nervous wreck. I licked the excitement off my lips with my tongue.

I put my lips around her clit again and slipped two fingers inside her. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jenna's knuckles go completely white, clenching needily on the sheets.

The walls of little Ortega tightened around my fingers and I realized that it was coming. She put her hands in my hair and made more pressure towards her intimacy. I kept licking and penetrating.

Her back arches more.

"YES..." she moans and arching my fingers I find his G-spot. He moans mostly. "Fuck," she exclaims. Her hips moved more and I increased the pace of the lick. As I stopped penetrating her, I put my fingers in my mouth, sucking on her nectar. "Look at me," I exclaim. Stopping licking her delicious intimacy. With difficulty she supported her weight on her arms and excitedly looked at me.

She was covered in sweat and her lower lip was caught between her teeth. I took her legs and invited her to rest them on my shoulders, giving me more access to her privacy. Without looking away, I licked again and watched as Jenna shifted her weight onto one arm, the other reached out and put her hand through my hair. Move your hips again.

groaning.

-Fuck!. Yes...- she whispers. Her eyes turned white with excitement. She turned her attention back to me. "Y/N," she exclaims with difficulty. "I'm... for..." she murmurs with difficulty and doesn't even finish pronouncing the sentence when I feel his arousal pouring into my mouth. I ate the excess. Breathing raggedly, Jenna leans back against the mattress. With a satisfied smile I rest my head against my beloved's abdomen, enjoying her pampering.

"From one day to the next you became an expert, amore" Jenna's words made me feel proud and murmuring against her skin I continued to enjoy her caresses.

ĶA long night awaits us.