#yeah i barely proofread this and this is also a shitty time to be posting but oh well

[petekaos]

for most of his life, pete has gotten used to finding happiness in fleeting moments. the loss of his mother and sister turned him into a rough high school senior, grades dropping faster than he could count and his hands clenching into fists easily, easier than anything else had come to him. if he closes his eyes, he can remember the first drops of rain on his shoulders as he sat on the swing, far longer than he needed to, and his mother called him inside. if he closes his eyes, he can remember another life, another time, one where he could still hear his sister’s calls through the house. if he closes his eyes, the love that draped itself neatly over his past still warms him. 

older and shoulders settling under the loss and all its grief, he turned to his fists. he turned to the metallic taste of blood in his mouth and two seconds of exhilaration, of adrenaline. he turned to the raw power of being in control, for once. under his father’s watchful and yet helpless eye, he turned to some version of himself he didn’t know, yet to find the right mirror. he remembers, once, coming home with blood on his fists and a split lip, his father waiting for him at the dining table with a light on. no questions asked, no answers given, just the sullen and defeated air settling around them, and a plate of food on the table. his father, with all the care in the world, like pete was something fragile--and sometimes, he still thinks he is--patted his head, pressed a kiss to his forehead, and sat with him. pete remembers it was his favourite.

what do you do with all that pain? all that grief? all that loss? where do you put it down? will someone hold it for you, just for a second? will someone let you lean on their shoulder, if only for a breathless moment? will someone let you choke sobs into their skin and still look at you like you the world itself is in your eyes? will someone love you, even despite it all? will someone love you, maybe even because of it all? will someone love you as you bare your dark, ugly, and twisted soul to them? will someone love you and smooth it over, press kisses to it, because you were never tainted in the first place, only growing without light and water? will someone love you?

university, now, is freedom. everything settles and slots into place. pete grows tired of the fight, of the adrenaline, of the need to be violent to himself in a way to rebel and make himself feel. when non appears, it stirs something up in him that he cannot explain, does not want to explain. if he opens his eyes, kao is still there, touched by light and brightened by sunshine and gentle with him, always gentle, loving. but when he closes them, he sees him slipping away, just like everyone else. he closes them and sees everything play out in his mind, every single road of terror leading him to the same place: he will love, and he will lose, because the story always goes that way. he has never been enough for anyone to stay. his fists clench, again, thirsting for the thrill of the fight and the fire coursing through his veins for a spark, a feeling, and--nothing. it never helped. a two second relief of knowing he’s human, fading away immediately after. when he closes his eyes, he sees kao slipping away and non’s arrogant smile pulling at his mouth. when he opens his eyes, he sees kao firmly there, the tiredness deepening itself into the way his eyebrows furrow and his shoulders sag, but still energetic enough to offer pete a small smile and an even softer kiss. when he opens his eyes, he sees himself, in the shape of non. rough and tough, angry and insecure, latching onto the first person to show them any kind of love or care. the only difference is that pete had his father staying up for him, no matter how late it got and no matter what fight pete dragged himself back from; he had his friends take notes for him and shove them in his direction under the pretense of annoyance but their eyes betraying the care they held for him; he had kao, always there, never wavering, rooted. 

in the end, love is everywhere to be found. over the years, pete learns to keep his eyes open and trained to find it. it’s in the way that he catches non before it’s too late, in the way that so many others caught him, and the kid breaks down at young gear in his arms about never finding anywhere to fit in, about his homophobic father, about never really being interested in kao, only the way someone cared for him, and in the way pete held him, let him cry it out. it’s in the way that june rolls his eyes every time he sees him and kao together, light drowning them in joy and laughter, and says, “you lovebirds.” it’s in the way that thada pulls him aside, once, after a presentation where pete’s hands shook and his voice snagged on thorns and he couldn’t get any words out, and says, “pete, that was your best one yet. i’m proud of you.” it’s in the way that sandee pushes him coffee on the mornings he forgets and says, “i remembered your order from last time.” it’s in the way that mork offers him the small lilt of a smile before tossing him a helmet and saying, “did you eat today? let me take you out. my treat.” it’s in the way that gift called him once, unprompted and out of the blue, to say, “p’pete. take care of p’kao. but let yourself be taken care of, too.” it’s in the way his father calls out to him from the kitchen every now and then, asking, “will kao be home for dinner tonight?” it’s in the way kao’s mother always makes his favourite dish whenever he comes over, and when he says she doesn’t have to, not every time, she simply smiles up at him, patting his cheek, and replies, “you are my son. i want to see that light happiness on your face whenever i can.” 

it’s in the way kao breathes, the way he stretches himself out in the sunshine like he belongs in it, like the way the light dances across his skin and makes him glow is something natural. it’s in the way kao sees through him and loves him with every fiber of his being. it’s in the way the exhaustion seeps through him and yet he still smiles at pete like it’s the day he fell in love, like he falls in love with him more and more with every day that passes. it’s in the way that he whispers things when he thinks pete’s asleep and can’t hear him, curled up into each other’s bodies like it’s home--and it is. it’s in the way that when kao steps into a room, pete knows without looking up, a sense of safety and comfort shuddering its way through him. it’s in the way kao laughs, without a care in the world and pete is struck smiling. it’s in the way that kao just needs to lazily hold his hand and swing it between them when they’re out walking and taking in the air, and how that says everything pete’s yearned to hear, but never admitted. it’s in the way everyone around him loves, and loves differently, but still rich with tenderness and gentle touches and care.

you’re not alone. someone will love you. someone will shoulder all that pain with you. one day, you will be able to open your eyes, breathe, and realise that you are right where you need to be -- enough.

[umblackness]

needy

pairing – harry styles x reader

warning – humiliation. exhibitionism. daddy kink. cockwarming. degradation. dumbification. hella lot cringe. crawling? 18 +

summary – you aren't needy, no. but that doesn't mean you will let go the opportunity of harry fucking you.

request – And one where Harry takes you to Italy to a Beautiful villa with an infinity Pool and get cought by paparazzi having sex there haha !

author's note – this is shitty and not proofread so I am so sorry !! also, sorry for the wait too . . .

neediness.

it was the only thing that you were completely and utterly foreign. being a middle child, your needs weren't never really taken as needs. you didn't know what it felt to need something.

the first time when you needed something, was when you were a teenager and hadn't studied for your exam. you had fucking squealed when the results had come out and you had passed.

the second time was when you were going to confess your feelings for harry ; you just needed him to like you back. which, for the record, he did.

the third time was your art competition in school. the fourth was when you had revealed your kinks to harry. the fifth was when you got into a fight with your best friend. the sixth was when your favorite sneakers were on sale. the sixth was your fight with your mom. the seventh was when your boyfriend asked a homeless you to move in with him.

quite frankly, after that, you lost the count because after that, you needed him with you. on every day, every minute, every second, you just needed him with you.

You walked towards the changing room, a towel in hand because 'baby, the towels are all dirty!' or so he had claimed.

He had taken you to a heavenly villa in Italy, for your second anniversary. and apart from the pizza store down the street, that sold cauliflowers in pizza, the whole vacation had been brilliant. till now.

you had been sitting in the living room, sipping your coffee in peace, while he was swimming in the backyard. suddenly and completely out of the blue, he had called for you to bring a clean towel.

so, being the good girl you were, you had abandoned your coffee and now here you were. you were snapped out of your thoughts, when you felt someone push you into the water.

and since you and harry were the only one in the mansion, you had take a wild guess.

you emerged from underwater, letting out a shriek dramatically. however, your not-so-intense-glaring session came to an end as he jumped into the water too, before swimming closer to you.

"I don't want the towel, baby, you know what I want?"

He wrapped his arms around you, making you drop the things in your hand.

kissing your lips softly and passionately, he let his tongue dominate your mouth. he moved a bit so one of his hands moved to caress your cheek as the other one slipped lower, until it was gripping your ass.

quite frankly, you did know what he wanted. it was hard to forget when he talked about it throughout the flight. however, you couldn't help but tease him so the next words that came out of your mouth were filled of playfullness.

"What, daddy?" A growl that could make everyone and anyone drip with arousal vibrated through his chest. He quickly walked you backwards to the edge, flipping you so that your back met his chest, once you guys were there.

"I wanna rearrange your guts and turn you into a stupid mess." He paused, the hand that was on your cheek, was now fisting your his shirt. "I wanna fuck you, make you cum again and again, until you are blabbering for me to stop. "

"You want that, don't you?"

You managed to nod shakily, feeling your heat become wet and this time, it wasn't because of the water . His finger ran up and down your pussy, finding it vulnerable and bare, just like he expected.

one of his stupid rules said that you weren't allowed to wear any panties when you two were alone and of course, as much as you acted like you hated it, the truth was that you loved it ; you loved allowing him to have easy access to your body.

"Fuck, kitten. been such a good girl, deserve a reward, don't you?"

your eyes met his darkened ones and almost as if on queue, a moan left your mouth, followed by another choked moan, as two of his fingers slid in your pussy, not giving you any time to adjust.

Harry leaned down, his hand leaving your ass to open your mouth for him. He collected his saliva, holding eye contact as he spat in your warm mouth.

the groan he had let out as some of it fell on your jaw, was intoxicated and you craved more.

The sight was addicting to him as much as it was to you. he couldn't help but add two more fingers, wanting you to really fall apart underneath him.

"Daddy!" You screamed, the pain from the stretch already fading to a barley there sting.

"Aw, I know, whore. It feels good, doesn't it?"

Your ears burned from his mocking tone, you could feel the blissful feeling, your pussy felt so good that it hurt and yet, you couldn't help but nod pathetically.

Harry sighed, mocking disappointment. "Use. Your. Words. Slut."

"Y-yes, d-daddy! feels so good, can I cum please?" you whined.

As if to punish you for breaking his rule, he begun rubbing your clit, knowing how much that drives you crazy. You moaned, your own hands moving to your hair. You felt your eyes close, only for them to snap back open a second later.

"Look at me when I am" Harry sped up his moments, collecting his spit again but this time he spat right on your face. "destroying your tiny fucking pussy, you cum rag. fucking cum now."

reaching your high quickly, you let out the loudest moan of his name. he slapped your pussy, making you realise your mistake. panting, you were still in your post orgasm phase when

your gaze moved to his cock, his boxers felt like they couldn't burst anytime and you felt proud. your smugness was short lived though because he quickly took his fingers out of you.

He gave you a quick wink before slipping the soaked fingers in his mouth back and forth, he groaned, making you suddenly aware of the wetness between thighs.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, cockslut?" Fucking shit, your pussy throbbed at that.

"C-can I ride you please?"

you peered up at him through your eyelashes, hoping to appear innocent—it was all for nothing though, when he just landed another slap on your pussy.

still not saying anything, harry let go of you and walked out of the pool. your green eyed lover looked at you once again before slipping in the sun lounger by the pool.

Harry relaxed back in the chair before beckoning you forward with a finger and you, ever the good girl, go with it. you ignored the confusion and frustration in your mind as you climbed out of the pool.

As soon as you took a step forward, a tsk came from harry. "crawl for me like the good little slut, you are and can be."

you stared at him—it wasn't like you weren't comfortable, you and harry had discussed the limits months ago but what surprised you, was how much you wanted it.

you were broken out of your thoughts when he sighed mockingly. "I said crawl for me or is that too much to understand for your stupid little baby mind?"

you whimpered, dropping to your hands and knees. keeping your head up to maintain eye contact with harry, you crawled over.

once you were there, he was quick to manhandle you on his lap. his hands moved to your neck, where they caressed your collarbones. Harry's mouth replaced his hands soon, sucking hickies in your neck.

"good girl, maybe your not just a set of holes for me to use, after all." he spoke against your skin, making you shiver at his words.

"d-daddy, wanna make you feel good." you moaned, just wanting to please him like he pleased you.

"oh yeah?" he spoke and you could feel him smirk in your neck. "there's my good little cockslut, always so fucking eager to please her daddy. go on, baby, use your hand, since there's no way in hell I am going to grace that little throat with my cock."

nodding pathetically, you quickly lifted yourself up and lowered his boxers, just enough to take out his cock. one of your hands grabbed his cock, while the other swiped over the angry red tip.

your eyes moved to find his, only now taking in the fact that he had lifted his head from your neck. he hissed quietly, making you smile proudly.

your hand that was around his cock, fastened his pace and so did the one that was playing with his cock head. "I am your good girl, your good slut, right, daddy?"

"my best slut, so good to me." he regretted his words when he saw your proud smile change into a cocky one. "but that doesn't change the fact you are a slut, yeah?"

you nodded, letting out another whimper. wanting to make him feel good, you gave attention to his balls and his cock head more. he twitched, indicating that he was close.

and then, suddenly, he took your hand away.

"Gotta save daddy's precious cum for your little tummy, hm baby?" Harry whispered, squeezing your hand before his demeanor changed back to dominance.

"y'wanna have Daddys cum in your tummy?" he began, noting the eager glint in your eyes as you nodded way too fast. "Then earn for it. use your dumb little baby mind to make me cum and I would consider letting you cum again. Ride me."

a broken moan vibrated from your chest, only making him more amused. your lifted yourself before lowering down on his cock slowly.

you placed your hands on his shoulders for support, once you had taken half of him. you begun bouncing on his cock, trying to create a rhythm.

a scream of his name left your mouth, your body finally getting what it wanted. you looked up at him, only to whine at the sight— harry was relaxed back, his hands beside his head and he looked completely disinterested.

"does that feel good, daddy?" you asked, knowing that he had make fun of you—after all, that was what you needed.

"does that feel good, daddy?" he mocked, his lips set into a subtle smirk, even though you knew he was going soft inside. "look at my good cumdump, so eager for her daddy's pleasure."

you whined, bouncing harder on him, going completely in the rhythm you had set. you leaned to kiss him, sighing. after not even two seconds in the kiss, he bit your lip roughly, demanding entrance.

your passionate kiss went on for ten more seconds—seconds that consisted his tongue dominating your mouth and playing with yours—before he pulled away, with your bottom lip in his mouth.

harry leaned back a bit before letting go of it and watching it snap back into your place.

you smirked at the action, fastening your pace. however, it wasn't fast enough for your lover because the next thing you knew, he had thursted up into you, breaking youd rhythm and smirking harder at the broken moan you let out.

he went still again, making you do all the work. sighing lazily, harry moved to rub your clit, making your release come faster and so you bounced harder on him, tightening your pussy every once in a while.

he groaned, making a proud smile appear on your lips.

"d-daddy, can I cum?"

"hold it, yeah?"

before you could reply, he smashed his lips against yours. he rubbed faster at your clit, making you let out a small gasp. he took the opportunity as his tongue entered your mouth.

his tongue played with yours instantly, making you moan against his mouth. his tongue pushed yours back down before exploring your mouth.

harry pulled back, uttering a single growl of "my good girl" before diving in for another long passionate kiss.

feeling his dick hit your g-spot, you moaned loudly. he pulled back again, this time to breathe. he watched with darkened eyes as you threw your head back and screamed his name.

"cum with daddy, baby. let go, yeah? wanna soak daddy with your juices?"

as soon as his permission reached your ears, the coil in your stomach tightened before breaking completely. you screamed his name again, letting out a few curses.

he followed soon after, filling your pussy fully with groans and growls of your name.

you relaxed against his chest, both of you relaxing for ten or so minutes before he carried you back inside, his now softening cock still buried in you.

he laid the both of you on the bed, smiling when you started playing with his hair. Harry nuzzled your neck, laying soft kisses on your neck, smirking whenever he came across an hickey.

the sheets around you were soft and like dreams. however, the man that was covering you with his arms now, was softer.

you stared at him, admiring his beauty and even though it sounded a little creepy, you didn't care. who wouldn't admire this God of a man.

you cuddled against his bare chest even more. you guys had slept while you were cockwarming him—actually, he had carried you around yesterday, since your legs had felt like jelly. you wouldn't have it any other way though.

you closed your eyes, almost falling back asleep when the sound of your phone buzzing snapped your eyes spoken. Harry groaned, tightening his arms around you.

you patted his hair softly, watching as the tension left his body and his eyes softly opened. you gave him your signature smirk, he shook his head, burrying it in your hair afterwards.

his hand gave a small squeeze to your ass, though his hand moved back to your waist, when you shot him a glare.

the cute moment was interrupted by your fucking phone buzzing. he groaned again, nuzzling his head in your hair even more.

you pulled back to blindly grab your phone from the bedside table, smiling at the one direction lockscreen before quickly typing in his name for password.

you looked over your notifications, your disinterest quickly changing into dread as you came across one particular twitter notification.

"no, nope, this can't be happening." you muttered, clicking onto the notification.

Harry furrowed his brows at that, sitting up with you in his arms quickly and accidentally thrusting up in you. "Is it a other hate comment, angel? I told those assholes to not bother my baby but no-"

"shut up, h." you smacked his chest as he raised one eyebrow. "Sarah just messaged me and our photos got leaked. it's breaking the internet."

"what?" he took your phone and sure enough, there were four blurred paparazzi photos of you two from yesterday.

the first one was of him kissing you in the water, the second was of him spitting in your mouth, the next was of him sucking his fingers and winking at you, the fourth was of you crawling for him.

"baby, these are all blurred. the ones with me spitting and you crawling for daddy are even more blurred. management is probably going to do something so don't worry, yeah?"

he wasn't wrong though — you thought, nodding at him. now that you were reassured, maybe you didn't need the earth to swallow you now.

you smiled a little before he leaned forward to whisper in your ear.

"besides, the world and your little friends now know about how you are a filthy slut for daddy, yea– OW, I AM SORRY!"

[trash-gobby]

Hiiiii, could I request some Nelson wright x female reader (or gn reader) in which they meet at like a house party and reader is on a totally different career path (like something creative) and nelson is justo head over heels immediately?

A Night To Remember

Pairings: Nelson Wright X AFAB!Reader

Characters: Nelson Wright, Reader, David Labraccio, Rachel Mannus, Randy Steckle, Joe Hurley, Readers Best Friend, Reader's BFF's Boyfriend, Original Characters

A/N: Sorry this took so long (I feel like I'm apologizing a lot for my long periods between posting). I got a serious case of writer's block, so I had to take breaks and keep coming back over time to look at this haha. Got it done though! Hopefully you enjoy, and thanks again for sending in this request Anon! Also as a side-note, I am the king of not proofreading because I get anxiety reading back my own writing for some reason. Don't ask me it's totally stupid, but if there are any errors please let me know.

Reader Pronouns = She/They

RATING: PG

⚠️Warning!: None.

Word Count: 4.9K

Multi-POV

You almost considered not going to the party. It wouldn’t have been the first time you skipped an event like this. You were much to interested in building your portfolio of work then socializing, especially when the new year was imminent and your graduation not long after. The long nights of mulling over your work, setting up dates for shoots, and writing papers revolving around your piece’s significance to the photographic world. 

However, your friend had begged that you attend this little get-together, stating you had barely been out of the house for most of the semester, not even for any holiday celebrations. They promised it would just be a small group of final year students from the university your attending and some of their boyfriend’s fellow doctoral students from the nearby medical science college. After declining multiple times until they begged you to come because it wouldn’t be fun without you, something you sincerely thought was untrue, you accepted.

Now you were getting of the dinky old bus, and preparing to walk the two blocks to your friends apartment. You shuddered as a shiver ran up your spine from the cold December chill. Wrapping your jacket tighter around your body, you picked up the pace, avoiding the slush which had coagulated in the potholes and dips in the sidewalk. Chicago winter was killer, sometimes you couldn’t believe you’d survived it in the shitty apartment you had. The air conditioner barely worked and the heater had crapped out, and your landlord was to lazy to come and actually fix it.

Your musing eventually lead you to the brightly lit red-brick brick house which your friend rented out, with its shabby window frames and partially broken eavestrough. They probably couldn’t afford to get their shit fixed either, you chuckled to yourself under your breath as you made your way up the stone steps to knock on the front door.

Before you could even wrap your knuckles on the wood, the door swung open and a man with short brown hair in a black coat stumbled onto the front step nearly knocking you over. He noticed you last minute and was able to pivot out of the way.

“Heh, sorry I didn’t see you there.”

“It’s alright, you just surprised me that’s all.”

“Your Y/N right?” The man said giving you a sheepish grin, which was both very charming and attractive. He clearly quite practiced at giving these looks, as his clean-cut and handsome nature gave to you.

“I’m Joe, Joe Hurley,” he extended his hand to you, “Y/F’s boyfriend mentioned you were a close friend of theirs, both in the photography course.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” You responded, taking his hand in yours and shaking.

“Who’s letting in the draft?” Y/F appeared at the door sporting a very festive looking sweater. Once they saw you standing in the doorway, they pushed past Joe, embracing you in a hug.

“I am so glad you came! I almost thought you weren’t going to make it,” They said, leading you into the house.

“Glad to know you have so much confidence in me,” You replied, earning a playful punch to the shoulder.

“I’m gonna go pick up the extra wine you asked for, since we both know Ruth and Stanley are gonna drink everyone under the table,” Joe closed the door behind him as he left, shutting out the frost and the lightly falling snow that had just begun.

“They haven’t arrived yet, but the med students are here. They showed up pretty early. Guess that’s what you expect from people who get in deeper shit then we do for being late. It’s a pretty prestigious place.” Y/F leads you into the kitchen where you can see a pretty large whole chicken baking in the oven, and an assortment of pots and pans cooking on the stove. The counters are littered with a variety of spices and veggies in various stages of being chopped up. It’s a complete mess, but you know your friends always been prone to these episodes of controlled chaos, that’s how they created their best art. That meant the food was most likely going to be divine.

“Smells good in here.”

“Thanks, I try. We’ll just have to see if it smells as good as it tastes.”

Y/F starts in on cutting some broccoli into smaller more manageable chunks with a comically large knife.

"You should head into the living room, get to know the rest of the gang here tonight," Before you could protest that you'd prefer to help out in the kitchen then mingle with a bunch of strangers, Y/F pushes a large bottle of red wine into your hands.

"Can you also bring this into the living room for the others, thank you!" once again you couldn't even get a word in edgewise. Not unusual for Y/F, who was always the more forceful of the two of you.

As you exit the kitchen, bottle in hand, you call out "By the way that sweater is ridiculous, it's not even December yet."

Taking slow steps down the narrow hallway was your way of prolonging the inevitable awkward introductions you’d have to make to a room full of strangers. You stopped in front of a framed picture sitting slightly tilted on its hinge. The photo itself made you smile, an old picture of you, Y/F, their boyfriend, and two of your high school friends. You’d all decided to go backpacking through Europe as one last adventure before heading to university, college or trades school. The memories of that trip washed over you, reminding you of the ease you used to feel around complete strangers, something you had lost with the years of relentless work keeping you away from company. Now the very idea of leaving your dorm room or the familiar confines of the photo lab made you severely anxious. You had to but that behind you, because you had decided to come and there was no going back now.

Straightening the picture frame on it’s nail, you headed to the open double doors to the living-room, pouring its orange light and jovial conversation from inside, and prepared to be an open social member of the party, for however long that lasted.

As you took your first steps into the doorway, you set your eyes upon the scene before you. Two couches sitting opposite each other in the small but cozy room, a squad wooden coffee table which was one of Y/F’s scores from when you and them would go dumpster diving, a lit fireplace, antique bookcase lining one side of the walls, an occupied worse-for-ware easy chair, and a vintage lamp which Y/F had brought back from Budapest with them. 

Even more intriguing than the familiar living-room setting was the unfamiliar group of people occupying it. Four strangers, all chatting over nearly empty glasses of wine about what you assumed from what you could hear, were the recent exams they had to taken. The first of the four to notice your appearance was the only other woman present. She had her hair tied back into a ponytail, keeping the brown curls away so you could see her face when she offered you a polite smile. As soon as the woman looked up the others also noticed you standing there quietly, you figured saying something might make it a little less awkward then standing around staring.

“Hey, I’m Y/N, Y/F’s friend, I brought some more wine,” you supplied, taking a few steps into the room and placing the bottle on the coffee table.

“Nice to meet you I’m Rachel, Randy would you move over and make room so she can sit down?” The man name Randy, moved from his seat in the center of the couch, over to one side to make room for you introducing himself as he did.

“Randy Steckle,” He held out his hand, and you shook it whilst placing yourself at a polite distance from him on the couch. Out of all the people here, he was the most smartly dressed in a tweed vest, matching trousers, and dress shirt. He made you feel very underdressed by comparison.

The man on the couch beside Rachel also took this time to introduce himself as David, who was thankfully dressed as casually as you were, making you feel like you were at least not the only one who decided a pair of work jeans and a t-shirt. If you’d known that this had been a more formal or well-dressed occasion you might have invested in something more fancy to wear, not that you owned anything fancy as a broke student. All your money had already gone to either rent, food, or back into university to cover tuition.

“Your Y/F’s friend from school right?” David added as he offered to pour the wine for everyone. An empty glass had already been supplied for you on the table, a mismatched one, but to be fair none of Y/F’s cutlery ever matched. It all came second-hand from thrift stores and antique junk stores.

“Yeah we’re in the same major, Photographic Arts & Media,” you supplied.

“Oh, that’s super cool. What’s work like in that field?”

“Lucrative depending on what kind of work you get into. You guys are all medical students right?”

“Yep, all working towards becoming surgeons,” David took a healthy sip from his glass.

“That must be pretty intense, can’t imagine rooting around in someone’s body, blood freaks me out,” you chuckled, earning a few chuckles from the others.

“I’d definitely say it’s an acquired practice,” Randy added before starting to go in more detail about the surgical specialization in more detail, with both David and Rachel adding to his little speech here and there with some little anecdotes here and there.

Sitting back and listening you could feel the passion they had for their practice despite its morbidity. A lot of the medical jargon did go over your head, and as Randy got into more detail about the exams and scheduled classes they had, the more the whole group fell into what seemed like their typical ingroup banter. It was nice to sit back and watch in pleasant silence as a group of clearly close friends chatting, laughing, and telling each other inside jokes. It reminded you of all the times you’d missed out on with Y/F and your other friends. All the nights where they'd invited you to clubs and on bar crawls that you'd traded out for long nights pouring over art history texts and working in the photo lab under its harsh red light.

However, one person in this group had been completely silent, to the point where you hadn't really registered his gaze. He was leaning far back in the easy chair, dress shirt with it's top two buttons undone, one of his feet in expensive shoes crossed over his knee.

You caught his eyes and held his gaze for a moment. Bright blue eyes, filled with a slight spark to them, whether it was curiousity or something else you weren't sure. His hair short and dirty blonde in colour, clearly he'd gotten it done professionally. He gave you a slight smile and you looked away blushing, you'd been staring for to long.

He picked up his wine glass and brought it to his lips, taking a sip before starting to say something. He was interrupted by Y/F shouting from the kitchen.

"I need an extra set of hands in here to help with this bird!"

You automatically stood preparing to get yourself out of this awkward situation, before Rachel reached out and stopped you.

"You just got here, I’ll go,” she said, coaxing you back into sitting.

“You sure? You just got your glass refilled.”

“I’ll take it with me, don’t worry about it, just relax,” Rachel, got to her feet, taking her wine with her and exited the room calling to Y/F that she was coming to help.

“I think that’s my cue for a bathroom break,” You scooched out of the way, half standing up in order to make space for Randy to get past you.

“Jeez, this is the fourth time you’ve gotten up, you have the bladder the size of a peanut,” David added as he poured himself another glass of red.

Then it was just you, David and the blonde man. There was a long pause where everyone sat in awkward silence, David drinking his wine, you making yourself familiar with thread patterns of the living-room rug. Navy green was such an ugly colour for a carpet.

“So, whats art school like?” David asked, breaking the silence.

You look up and once again you can feel the very intense gaze of the silent blonde man in the easy chair. Deciding against making anymore intense eye contact, you instead settle for looking at the peeling plaster slightly up and to the right of where David is sitting.

"It's stressful, not nearly as stressful as having to perform all your exams on cadavers kind of stressful, but it keeps me busy."

"You mentioned majoring in photo correct?"

"Photographic Arts & Media is the official title, but yes. We mostly have a mixture of hands on photo assignments, art history and a focus on working with new media," You could feel yourself starting to relax as the conversation remained focused on something you could understand and talk about, and David's polite attention was making you feel welcome on some level.

"Hands on, like what kind of projects?" It was the first words you'd heard from the man sitting in the easy chair, and you were taken aback by the smooth and pleasant sound of his voice.

"W-well, I, we," you take a moment to clear your throat and your head before continuing. "We usually have a couple assignments which revolve around various things, what they are is usually quite open when it comes to guidelines. Usually we'll pitch an idea for a project to our professor and if we're given the greenlight, we have to construct a narrative through our images and their subjects."

"Sounds a lot more open ended then anything we do," The man said leaning forward, hands on his knees giving you his full attention.

"I mean it's not surgery, but it can be pretty intense. Especially when it comes to the critiquing period, we all sit outside the photo lab and have to present our either currently in works projects or finalized projects and then we get torn a new asshole by both our profs and the class."

“Doesn’t sound that different from the reaming we get during the rounds we have to do in the surgical ward. Except you have an audience of your whole class and not just those in the same practice. I know that Y/F does things that involve a merging of collage and paint with photo. What do you do? What’s your artistic thing?”

“My artistic thing?” You laughed at his phrasing, and received in return a small smile.

“Eloquently put,” The man chuckled from behind his glass. He had nearly emptied it in the last minute you’d been having your little conversation. David just gave him a look, before shrugging and fishing around in one of the pockets in his sweater, fishing out a box of cigarettes, and a lighter.

“My 'thing' I guess, if you could call it that, is capturing real life stories of working class people. I like using old cameras, running on old film, sometimes even 16mm," You were about to continue when David flicked the lighter, sending up a small spark that died out quickly, reminding you of Todd (Y/F's boyfriend's) rigid rules about smoking in the house.

"I'm sorry you can't smoke in here, Todd's a real stickler about it. He says the smell really gets into the carpet," David examined the cigarette before thinking better of it and placing it back in the pack.

"You can smoke it outside on the front step," You added.

"I might have to do that. I've been dying to get a smoke in all day. Been to busy working. I don't want to interrupt you explanation though."

"It's no problem really, you can go smoke and I'll catch you up on everything when you come back."

"Okay, I'll be back in ten," David smiled sheepishly, looking slightly guilty about needing to take a smoke break from the conversation. He got up and waved to the man sitting in the chair before quickly walking out of the room.

It became very clear to you now that it was just you and this man who had yet to really introduce himself. For a moment there was just silence with a hint of some kind of tension in the room. You couldn't tell what this energy was, just that it made your palms sweat and you skin heat up.

The light of the fireplace gave off a warm glow that overpowered the lamp, bathing you both in a soft orange hue. It made the sharp edges of everything soft, including the man's intense stare, the quirk of his pink bow-shaped lips, the comforting sky blue of his eyes, what it would be like to brush your hands against the cleanly shaved skin on his cheeks.

God don't think about his lips! You don't even know this guy. He's attractive, sure, but you don't know who he is, what he is, or even his name. You can't possibly be thinking these thoughts right now about some strang-

"I'm Nelson by the way," the man, now with a name you could attach to his person.

"I feel rude not introducing myself properly earlier, there was just a lot of stuff going on. Although with that lot," he gestures to the doorway where everyone had exited at some point that night "it's hard to get a word in edgewise."

"It's alright, it's not like I really introduced myself to you either, I'm Y/N," you extend your hand to Nelson across the coffee table and he leans forward to take it. His hands are much softer than you expected them to be, your fingers brush over a scar on the back of one of his knuckles, the only blemish on his skin.

“Y/N, I like the sound of that name, feels like the name of someone who works in something cool like photography.”

“I mean, if you say so. I always thought it was kinda just a generic name, or at least not very artsy. Nelson sounds pretty sciencey though,” you added.

“More like the name of annoying snobby rich kid with to much time on his hands,” he chuckled before picking up his glass from the table, still leaning forward into the conversation the two of you were having.

“I wouldn’t be that cruel,” you said in response.

“I would. Have never really been a huge fan of the name Nelson, but it’s what I’m saddled with, so I make do. The work you mentioned doing, in photography. It sounds really interesting. I’ve never really heard anything like it before.”

You felt suddenly very self-conscious. The way he'd expressed such interest was not something you were used to. Constantly being surrounded in your academic life by other artists working on equally complex and sometimes even more nuanced ideas then you, made the fact that Nelson was so taken by your ideas quite charming.

"I mean it's nothing that special by comparison to what Y/F does visually with eye-capturing colours, but it feels real and visceral to get what's real on camera. I want people to really see the struggle and triumphs of everyday people. I don't want to sugar coat what happens or over-dramatize it. Everyone should see the reality of what the world is like for most working class people."

______________________________________________________________

The animated nature of them as they explained in a clearly passionate manner their inspiration for working in the photography program warmed something deep within Nelson. It reminded him of how he felt when he first entered the surgical field of study. He wished he'd still kept that passion alive like Y/N. It felt like over the years of study, he found the competition more important than the actual thrill of the learning.

The way her face lit up, and the glint in their eyes, made his heart flutter in a way that he hadn't felt since he met Rachel in the first year of their studies. He'd been taken by her passion too.

"Where is everybody?" Nelson and Y/N were startled from their conversation by Joe standing in the living-room doorway.

"I saw David smoking outside, but everyone else?"

"Rachel is helping Y/F in the kitchen, and Randy is taking an obnoxious amount of time in the washroom," Nelson didn't intend for his voice to come out as rankled as it sounded, but he really wanted to have this moment with Y/N to himself. Something about them made him feel oddly intrigued by and greedy for their attention.

"Has he been bragging about his GPA again?" Joe asked with a playful smirk on his face that made Nelson want to smack him upside the head. "He does that a lot. No seriously, I'm not kidding. A loooo-"

"She gets the point, and the answer is no," Nelson sniped back, now being purposefully rather short, but keep at least some edge of playfulness in his demeanor to cover his aggravation.

"And you'd probably also have a higher GPA if your spent more time studying and actually attending lectures than spending quality time with Susan from engineering, or was it Catherine from accounting? I can't seem to remember."

Joe mocked as if Nelson had shot him through the chest with that jab before saying; "Ouch, you really went in on that one."

Nelson was momentarily distracted along with Joe by the soft pleasant laughter from Y/N, who looked bemusedly at both of them.

"Aren't you two supposed to be friends or something?"

"Jury's out on that one," The voice of Randy called out from the hall before appearing next to Joe.

"Just so you know, we were having a really nice conversation about Y/N's future career in photography before you interrupted."

"Photography, cool. Like what kind of photography? Tasteful nude modelling?" It was said playfully, but had an edge of Joe's usual perverse humor and attitude behind it.

"Are naked women all you think about?" Randy asked, with a mixture of purturbedness and exasperation.

"Naked people, I don't discriminate."

"Jesus christ."

Before Joe could answer with a quip or witty retort the sound of Y/F yelling from the kitchen cut through the somewhat awkward and embarrassing conversation. It made Nelson feel slightly self-conscious in a way that he hadn't in a long time. His pride, ego, and ambition usually made sure he kept his cool, but not with Y/N. For some reason this person, who he'd just met, had snagged on something deep and insecure within in him.

"Dinner will be ready soon! Y/N! Please come to the kitchen, I just need a hand with table settings. Also Stanley and Ruth can't make it unfortunately,"

"So much for the wine, guess we'll have to drink it all ourselves," Joe shrugged as he said this, Y/N quickly getting up and excusing herself from the room. Nelson felt almost like getting up and following her, but remained seated. It would be creepy to just follow them around like some kind of lost puppy asking questions and needling them about her life.

"So, she's cute," Joe said leaning back into the hallway to watch her leave before fixing Nelson with a cheeky grin and wiggling his eyebrows.

"Joe," Nelson said levelly.

"Yeah."

"Please stop talking."

______________________________________________________________

The smell was mouthwatering. Y/F had really outdone themselves with the spread they'd made. Everyone had greedily gobbled down the chunky and perfectly seasoned potatoes, glistening juice chicken, the assortments of green beans, brussel sprouts and all manner of vegetables which there were clearly to much of, along with Y/F's legendary stuffing. No one was exactly sure what the full recipe was for it, just that it tasted like heaven in the form of nutty, ginger, fluffy goodness.

The conversation was just as good. Everyone laughing and carrying on. You'd fallen into the conversation quite comfortably and thought at this point that maybe going out tonight was not the worst decision you could have made after all. The good food and even better company definitely helped. Several times throughout the dinner you caught the eyes of Nelson on you, and he'd shoot you a smile that made you'd return, feeling a warmth grow in your chest.

After what seemed like endless hours of eating, talking and drinking, the plates were empty and everyone was quite full.

Y/F rose from her seat and began clearing the table methodically.

"I can help you with those," You said taking the plates from Y/F's hands and continuing around the table clearing the dishes.

"Thank you! I might also need a hand in the kitchen from you and someone else, I hate asking but.."

"I'll help," Nelson raised his hand, getting up from his seat smoothly as not to seem like he was rushing to help.

Y/F ushered him into the kitchen to start on washing the pots and pans while you worked on clearing the table, and they prepared desert.

Once you'd precariously balanced all the dishes on your arms, you slowly made your way to the kitchen entryway. A part of you was strangely excited to have this new person to yourself. Nelson had only really gotten to speak to you alone briefly, but those few minutes were still circling around in your mind, replaying all evening.

As you entered the kitchen Y/F rushed to help you unload the some of the dishes from your arms while thanking you and Nelson profusely for helping with the undertaking.

Set up in the kitchen, you set to helping with the drying and placing of plates back into their designated drawers. Both of you fell into a gentle rhythm of cleaning for a couple minutes, silently working side by side. This close to him, you could smell the slight scent of whatever shampoo he used and a very faint undertone of antiseptic. He must have been working rounds before coming here. It made you wonder why he would want to help with dishes while probably having already have to be on his feet for hours during work.

"You look a little tired, you sure you don't want me to just do the rest on my own?" You suggested lightly.

"No, no it's fine. I don't mind doing dishes, it gives me something mundane to focus on for a while." Nelson handed you a plate at an awkward angle as he said this, causing you to accidentally place your hand over his while taking hold of the dish.

"Sorry, Sorry, my bad," just the touch of his hand sent a spark of something exciting through you. It was such as unexpected jolt of raw attraction that you tried to not drop the dish in your hands, making you smooth recovery look as natural as possible.

"You alright there?" he chuckled in response to your fumbling, something smug about the look on his face.

"Just fine, fine."

"We never did get to finish our conversation from earlier."

"The one where I was nerding out about my personal photographic art style or whatever? I was honestly just rambling." Nelson turns to look at you fully for a moment, his eye contact intense, capturing you off-guard and lighting a small fire inside you.

"I thought what you were talking about sounded really interesting, and something I would love to see when you have your own showing in a gallery one day," you look down to break the intense eye contact, hoping that your blushing would be less obvious.

"Hah, it's definitely a dream of mine to have a showing in a gallery, but I'm a long way from that."

"Not too long I'm guessing."

"That's very kind to say. The only thing close to a gallery that I'll be doing is a section in a gallery-style presentation we're putting on at the university to showcase our thesis projects once they've been completed." Together you had nearly made it to the bottom of the pile of dishes together.

"If your really interested it will be hosted in April. I'd love to see you there," Nelson looked over to you again, having passed the last dish, removing the dish gloves and leaning against the counter.

"I'd love to see that, you should give me more of the details over coffee sometime, where we can talk in a less chaotic setting." Now you absolutely knew for sure he was flirting. Though it hadn't been exactly subtle before, with his intense interested and eye contact.

So why not?

"I'd like that. I'd like that a lot."

The smile on his face was priceless, something between a smirk and a bashful smile. There had been a lot of little looks exchanged by the two of you throughout the night, and you hoped there would be even more to share in the future. Over coffee or maybe lunch.

As Y/F called you both back into the dining room, all you could think was how you were so glad you'd decided to come to dinner that night. It had been one of the best choices you could have made, and you had a feeling you wouldn't regret it.

[writersmorgue]

Nightmare Material

15+ for graphic descriptions of violence, blood, and gore

can be read as slash or platonic

not proofread

-

“SHUT UP DEKU! OH MY GOD, CAN YOU BE QUIET FOR FIVE FUCKING MINUTES?!”

The common room goes silent.

“Woah, Bakubro, he just asked if you were busy,” Kirishima chuckles nervously.

Katsuki looks over to Deku who, as expected, already has tears welling in his eyes.

“Shitty crybaby, of course I’m busy can’t you fuckin’ see? Go bother someone who cares.”

Deku sniffles like the pathetic little child that he is, and nods, “Ok Kacchan.”

“Fuckin’ annoying ass-” Katsuki mutters, ignoring the glares as he stomps out of the room. Taking the stairs two at a time before slamming the door shut behind him, imagining the flinches of his classmates as he does so.

Fuck that fucking nerd, always looking down at him. Asking him for help on math of all things, when he fuckin’ knows that’s Katsuki’s worst subject. Fuck him.

The little shit shouldn’t even be here, he’s not on Katsuki’s level. Just gonna get himself killed.

After a few minutes of grumbling into his pillow, there’s a knock at Katsuki’s door, followed by a meek, “Blasty?”

He groans dramatically and flops over onto his back, propelling himself up with a few controlled explosions.

“Fuckin’ what-” He swings the door open and comes face to face with the entire idiot squad.

Sero, Kirishima, Mina, and Kaminari all stand in front of him, Sero nervously wringing his hands, Kaminari avoiding eye contact, and Kirishima giving him a look.

Mina steps to the front of them, patting Kirishima’s shoulder as she does so.

“Blasty, you really gotta stop.” She stares him straight in the eyes, not backing down no matter how hard he glares.

“Stop fuckin’ what.”

Kirishima places a hand on Mina’s chest, stalling her step forward into Katsuki’s space. “You know what, Bakugo.”

Katsuki rolls his eyes, “Oh please, like the little shit can’t handle some yelling. I’ve seen discount hot topic make his ears bleed-”

“This isn’t about Jirou. This is about you. You need to sort your shit out.” Sero’s frowning, a rare sight.

“Oh?” Katsuki quirks an eyebrow, “Or what?”

There’s a tense silence before Kaminari sniffs. “Or- or we won’t be your friends anymore!!” He stutters, bottom lip wobbling.

The rest of the group nods, one by one giving him a last glance.

Katsuki stands there for a few minutes, mainly thinking, but also fuming

How dare they treat him like that, like trash. He’s not trash, and he’s not the bad guy. He’s just trying to save Deku before it’s too late. Stupid idiot won’t last a day in the hero business, even with his new freak quirk. All it’s good for is hurting the nerd.

“Stupid Deku and his stupid protection squad, fuckin’ blind idiots.” He grumbles, slamming the door and returning to his lair.

He changes his clothes, resigning himself to finishing his weekend at the gym instead of on next week’s homework.

Bakugo stomps through the common room on the way to their practice room, a few of his classmates shoot him glares but he’s ignored for the most part. Something noticeably purposeful since he’s not exactly being quiet. Even Kirishima refuses to acknowledge his presence.

Yeah, that hurts.

He runs for two hours, lifts for one, and finishes with core for thirty minutes before his post-workout cooldown ritual. Thoroughly satiated and tired to the bone, he heads back to his dorm. Ignored this way too, he doesn’t bother saying goodnight to anyone. Not that he would usually. Not that he misses Ashido’s “Night blasty!!” on his way up the stairs.

He doesn’t give a shit.

He scrubs at his body with his last bits of energy and brushes his teeth half dead on his feet. Exhausted, he flops down on his bed and passes out almost immediately.

…

Someone’s screaming.

Katsuki lunges toward Shigaraki, whose hand barely grazes Izuku’s neck.

Izuku? When did he ever call the nerd something other than-

“DEKU!!!” Oh, he was the one screaming. He blasts himself forward and pushes Izuku out of the way, his dusted skin flaking off into the breeze as green hair skids to a stop on the ground below.

“Damn BRAT-” Shigaraki mutters, angrily scrunching his hand in mid-air before turning his attention to Katsuki. “YOU.” He points a cracked, pointed finger at Katsuki.

“Yeah, what are you gonna do about it old man?” He snorts, preparing his arms to blast again, he can feel the resistance from his last jump.

“You saved the little shit,” Shigaraki mutters to himself, nails dragging roughly down his neck, “must have a relationship, must be close to my enemy. Must die-”

Katsuki raises his hand, palms crackling in defiance, but he’s geared to go anyway.

Nothing happens.

“Fuck goddamnit!” His one fucking chance to get a drop on the guy and he’s out of juice? Fucking really?!

He’s so caught up in his fury he doesn’t notice the mad glint in the enemy’s eye. The way he smiles brokenly, bloody tongue barely peeking out.

“Poor little hero.” He mutters.

Katsuki jerks his head up just in time to see five fingers inches away from his face.

Well, this was fun.

“KATSUKI-” There’s pressure on his side and he falls, belatedly realizing he was pushed out of the way.

He looks hits the ground hard, hearing the reverberated snap of his ankle as it breaks.

“FALL HERO!! FALL BEFORE ME! YOUR NEW GO-”

Shigaraki falls to the ground as Todoroki whacks him over the head with a piece of rebar.

HIs normally stoic expression is frantic, he’s got fresh tears streaking down his face, and his forehead is covered in dried blood.

He tears his eyes away from the downed villain as Kirishima comes to cuff him, and screams in anguish at the sight of Izuku- Something Katsuki is still trying to wrap his head around.

A startled, almost pained sound escapes Katsuki as he half limps, half runs towards his best friend.

...best friend?

“IZUKU!”

Izuku has long since crumbled to his knees, clutching what remains of the left side of his face. Still slowly crumbling away. Blood pours down his arm and neck, making it difficult to see, but the sight of his eye frantically widening as Katsuki sits next to him is enough.

He removes his hand and sobs, throwing himself onto Katsuki.

“Eih- hgo-” He chokes, blood soaking Katsuki’s own suit as he rocks them both.

“Shh, it’s okay, Izuku.” He whispers, making eye contact with a sobbing Todoroki, who nods in approval.

“Izuku you’re gonna be fine.” The shock has yet to remove itself from Katsuki’s voice, and his words are filled with cracks and sobs, but he hopes it’s what Izuku needs.

“Aa- aah” Izuku’s broken kacchan followed by a fresh flow of blood down Katuski’s neck.

“I love you, Izuku. It’s gonna be alright.”

Izuku whimpers, clutching onto the blond’s neck for dear life.

And then he goes limp.

Katsuki’s eyes bug out, and he pulls Izuku arm’s length away. The gruesome sight that greets him is one he’ll never forget.

Izuku’s left eye hangs loosely down the side of his mangled cheekbone and jaw. Katsuki can see teeth starting to crumble as the decay works its way through his face. His nose is completely exposed, with no flesh left. No cute freckles. No scrunch when he smiles. And his other eye, possibly the worst part, stares lifelessly at Katsuki. The last remnants of tears make their way down his face.

He looks… terrified.

He died scared in the arms of his abuser. Someone who never even apologized to him. For fucking anything. Some vile part of Katsuki reminds him.

He saved me because I couldn’t do my fucking job.

He thrusts Izuku’s lifeless body into Shouto’s arms, who lets out a heartwrenching sob. Katsuki scrambles back, and can vaguely register the sound of pink cheeks vomiting behind him.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck-” becoming increasingly more desperate with each utterance of the word, “FUCK!” Kirishima comes up behind him, picking him off the dust-covered ground and holding him to his chest. “This is all my fault!!!” He wails, “He fucking saved me, I couldn’t- this isn’t right no no NO-”

“Shhhh Katsuki-” Eijirou soothes him through his own tears, always the constant in Katsuki’s life. Well, after Deku.

Deku Deku Deku.

Dead Deku.

Because of you.

Katsuki takes another good look at Deku’s face where Shouto had freaked and discarded him on the ground. The unnatural bend of his arms, the bloody drool escaping his parted- if you can even call that a mouth anymore, his eyes.

And he screams.

He screams and he screams and he screams until someone shakes him so hard he wakes up.

Wait-

“BAKUGO!!! WAKE UP PLEASE-” Shitty hair screams at him, shaking his shoulders desperately as he thrashes in his sheets.

He stills, staring up at Kirishima with a shocked expression.

“Wh-”

“You were having a nightmare,” Kirishima explains, gasping for breath like he just ran a marathon.

Katsuki looks to the doorway where half of the boys in their class stand, expressions varying from worried to shocked.

He looks back at Kirishima, a pitiful whimper escaping his throat, “It- it wasn’t real?”

Katsuki looks to the door, half expecting to see Izuku there.

Missing an ear, you can see his tongue through his cheek.

Katsuki gulps, “Where’s Izuku?” He murmurs into the quiet room.

“Izuku?” Someone in the hallway mutters.

“Uh,” Kirishima catches himself before he can say something dumb, “Izu?- Uh- Midoriya is probably in his room. Didn’t think you’d want him here, but he knows. You kinda woke up the whole dorm.”

Kirishima has barely finished the sentence before he’s jumping out of bed, pajamas be damned, and sprinting toward the stairs. When he gets to Izuku’s floor he makes a hard right, Icyhot shouting something about being nice behind him.

Katsuki can yell at him later.

Running gives him time to think, and the more Katsuki thinks the more he realizes that his nightmare might as well have been a prophecy. Izuku would pull some martyr shit like that, but it was only Katsuki’s fault in the first place that he was put in that situation. He’s the only one to blame. Izuku had done everything right, and Katsuki managed to fuck it up.

Hollow socket, tendons hanging, blood turning his green suit a muddied brown.

Katsuki knocks on the door frantically, scared about what he’ll see when Izuku answers.

There’s some rustling from inside before Izuku peeks out, green curls messy from sleep.

“Wh- I thought Aoyama said you were having a nightmare.” His eyebrows furrow.

“I was,” Katsuki breathes, taking in how whole his rival is. “But it wasn’t real.”

He reaches out hesitantly and brushes an unruly lock of green out of Izuku’s left eye.

“Everything’s where it should be-” He chuckles almost in bewilderment.

He drags his fingers gently down Izuku’s cheek, tracing where the decay had rotted away skin, now whole.

A few of the classmates who followed him gasp in surprise when Katsuki clutches Izuku’s shoulders and buries his face in soft green hair. Completely breaking down as he sobs.

Izuku freezes, terrified of ruining the moment, even though he really wants to ask someone what the fuck is happening.

He gives Kirishima a questioning look as he hesitantly rubs along Katsuki’s back.

The redhead just shrugs.

“I’m sorry Izuku.”

Aaaand the damn breaks.

Izuku sobs as Katsuki clutches him tighter, their friends begin to awkwardly back out of the hallway after witnessing whatever that was.

“Wh- Kacchan?” He pulls away reluctantly, but he needs to see Katsuki’s face.

The blond’s eyes are red and puffy, same as his cheeks, but he’s dead serious.

“I’m so fucking sorry. You don’t deserve any of the shit I put you through, you’re a really good guy.” He heaves in a breath, “And- I know you’ll be a great hero someday.”

“Kacchan… why?”

Katsuki looks away, “I just- thought about some things,” He doesn’t mention that the thinking involved seeing his classmate’s bloodied corpse, “realized how full of myself I am. You really did just want help on that math homework, huh?” He huffs, shaking his head at his past self.

“I did. What else would I have wanted?”

Katsuki sniffs, angrily rubbing at his eyes, “I don’t know, Izuku. I’m a fucking idiot.”

Izuku smiles sadly, “All I’ve ever wanted is to be your friend, Kacchan.

The blond nods, “Yeah, I think I see that now. Can- can we still do that? Be friends?”

Izuku beams, rubbing his own tears away and pulling Katsuki into another tight hug.

“There’s nothing I want more, Katsuki.”

[hispipsqueak]

Moon and Stars

Tsukishima x F!Reader Fluff

A/N: I didn’t proofread this. I just had a lot of thoughts and needed to get them out and also I am kind of sick so yeah....my one braincell is barely functioning yall! 

But I love Tsukishima with all of my heart and wanted something fluffy to make me feel better so I hope you enjoy it. <3 Pip

TW: mild cursing. some suggestive words from Kuroo but it’s pure fluff!

Tsukishima was a lot of things.

A good volleyball player, a smart museum employee, and a handsome guy.

One thing he was not good at, was romance.

He had no idea how he had got you. You were beautiful, sweet, smart. You were like a ray of sunshine in his life and he thanked his lucky stars every day he got to be your boyfriend. However, somewhere deep down, he always felt inadequate. 

He saw your eyes brighten every time you two watched those sappy Christmas movies on TV. Even though you both made jokes about how cheesy the storylines were, (“Yes I will just leave my job as CEO for you, farmer boy!”), he could see the blush on your face when the onscreen couple shared a kiss in the snow. He could feel your body tense when you were cuddled against him and he knew some part of you wanted the whole romantic movie moment.

But every time he tried to express it, it felt...awkward. You were so open to him, complimenting him, posting selfies with cheesy captions on social media, and leaving kisses on his cheek when you shopped for groceries. 

When he tried to kiss you spontaneously, he panicked and headbutted you in the middle of the convenience store. When he tried to post a cute photo of you, he stared at ten websites for “romantic photo captions” before deleting it. Every compliment he could think of made his heart race and he would either say it so monotone, or sounding snarky that you would just roll your eyes.

----

Tsukishima was on his third drink at Kuroo’s “Mandatory Guy’s Night” and the scotch began to unravel his thoughts.

“I just don’t know. Y/N is fucking great. And I just...I suck at this shit.” He mumbled into his glass, thinking out loud.

“Oi, Tsukishima! What are you mumbling about?” Bokuto shouted over his beer, clearly more than tipsy. 

“Are you talking about your hot girlfriend?” Kuroo teased, his eyes narrowing. He let out a chuckle as Tsukishima’s ears reddened. “Better treat her right, or I’m stealing her.” 

“I seriously doubt she would date an actual farm animal.” Tsukishima replied, dryly. He swirled his glass before downing it. The scotch burned his throat. “But, and I hate to say this, I might need some help.”

“TSUKKI!!! ASKING FOR HELP?! LET’S TAKE A PICTURE!!”, Bokuto shouted, fumbling with his phone, before snapping a very blurry selfie. 

“One, I’m pretty sure you just took a photo of yourself owlboy, and two, what do you need help with? Are you not pleasing her in the —” Kuroo started before Tsukishima glared at him.

“You finish that sentence, and I will beat your ass.” Tsukishima said, his voice tight. Normally, Kuroo saying stupid shit didn’t bother him as much, but now that he was a little drunk and emotional, he was not in the mood.

Kuroo’s eyes softened, “Tsukishima, you know I’m kidding. Now, what is it you need help with?” 

Tsukishima waved the bartender over for another glass. “I just...Y/N is so fucking perfect. And I can’t help but think that she’s gonna wake up one day and realize that she wants someone that can express that shit to her. I’m not a roses and wine type of guy. I’m not some guy that’s gonna be able to give her the world. I can’t even compliment her without adding some stupid ass comment at the end. And yes, maybe Christmas is, as she puts it. ‘Getting me in my feels’, but I just want her to know that before I–”

He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a small velvet box. He placed it on the table between the three of them. Both Kuroo and Bokuto stared, eyes widening.

“Are you…?”

“TSUKISHIMA!!! YOU’RE GROWING UP!”

Bokuto began tearing up while Kuroo smiled and pulled Tsukishima into a hug.

“I’m proud of you man.”

Tsukishima placed his head in his hands. The waitress brought his drink out and he threw it back, before letting out a long groan.

“I can’t just say ‘Hey idiot, wanna marry me?’ She watches these movies and they have fucking musical numbers, stadiums, fucking Santa Claus, in their proposals. How the fuck do I tell her that every time I see her face, I realize that there are good things in this world? That every time I see her across the room, I wanna wrap my arms around her and never let go. That I would watch a million cheesy ass romantic movies if it meant I could lie next to her and run my fingers through her hair. How the fuck do I tell her that if I’m the moon, then she’s the fucking stars?” Tsukishima spoke louder than he meant.

He heard a small gasp. He looked up to see both his friends staring behind him. He turned around.

You were standing in the bar, eyes glassy with tears and smiling so big, he could feel it in his heart.

“You pocket dialed me dumbass.” You giggled.

He stood up, shakily and pulled you close. He kissed you hard, dipping you down. You could taste the scotch on his breath and felt something wet hit your cheek. You realized he was crying. 

“I love you, Y/N. I’m sorry I can’t always express that but I love every fucking thing about you.”

“Tsukki, the box.” Kuroo stage whispered.

Tsukishima’s eyes sprang open and he grabbed the box from the table. 

“I know we are in a sticky bar with shitty music. I know I’m a little drunk and Bokuto is crying in the background. I know there’s not some old guy who is vaguely supposed to be Santa Claus here. But I know that I wanna spend the rest of my life with you.” Tsukishima whispered to you. He opened the box and your mouth dropped at the gorgeous ring inside. 

You looked up at him and nodded, tears streaming down. “I love you. I love everything about you, Kei. I’d spend every night in a shitty bar with our drunk friends if it meant I could be your wife.” 

Tsukishima may not have been perfect. But he was yours. 

[djemsostylist]

Of Queens and Trash

Here’s the thing. SCK has been on a downward trend since 13. The breakup was long, getting together again was tiring, the amnesia plot was poorly handled and the mess that came following his recovery was, well, a mess. The necessary break for covid gave us a chance for a fresh start for Edser. All the bad stuff in the past, and a focus in the last episodes of them being able to finally fulfill all the promises they had not been able to. After all, this was a story that, at its core, was about two people who met and fell in love and who, no matter what, chose to be together. Invisible handcuffs. And with the return of the OG writer, it seemed we might finally get that. After 39 episodes of angst and only 7(?) of real togetherness, surely it was time? Forget the pain of the past, and start with Edser navigating their world together.

And then the trailer dropped. And all of a sudden, all the people who had spent months eviscerating Serkan for behaving badly in the 30s were celebrating this new plot, the “great angst” and Eda “being a Queen.”

For me, I can’t get over the hiding of the child. It's a hardline deal breaker. I don’t think it matters who writes it, I think it's an awful plotline. No matter how "good" the trailer looks or moments seem, I will remember that I was watching a show about two people who loved each other and never wanted to be apart, about a man who learned how to open his heart, and this ruined it all.

Now, I think it's worth noting that my hard line, in this particular case, is in response to Edser, if that makes sense. I’m not hardline, “if this is in a story I’m not watching”. If it works for the characters and story because that is the type of story being told, then fine.

I don't subscribe to the woke feminism brand of "all women are Queens and all men are Trash" which seems to be a trend of late (and not just in fandom). I think people are people and people are generally imperfect but also trying. I don’t think women, simply by virtue of carrying a child, get full say in what happens to the child, regardless of the father’s wishes. I'm not fond of a “hiding a kid storyline”, and while I get the whole "my body my choice" style of arguing, it took two people to make the baby. Two people get a say in what happens. I get you are growing the kid, but you didn't spontaneously conceive.

For me, Edser being apart and/or hiding a kid is a hardline. It doesn't fit with the characters as I know them and it doesn't fit with the storyline. And look--I hated the amnesia plot. I thought there were a literal million ways this could have been done better, but it's what we got. So for everyone suddenly defending this new plot, despite it making about as much sense as Eda getting married to make Serkan remember her, then that means everything goes. No blaming writers or ignoring canon...everything has context and meaning now. And since “it's realistic” is also a common refrain, then fine. Let’s go realistic.

Imagine being in a plane crash. You wake up, you have clear physical/mental blocks. For someone who likes to be in control, that's terrifying. You have a ring on your finger with a woman's name you don't know, and an entire year missing. You call the one person you know will come (since your parents and friends are useless) and she comes and tells you a story that jives. You can't remember shit and you keep getting flashes and your hands won't work, so you take what she tells you, because why would you have any reason to doubt? It’s not like you can remember anyway, and trying to remember hurts.

You finally go back home, and you recognize nothing about your own life. Friends, family...everything is different. Your mom is out, your dad is gone, your best friends are married. You don't even live in the same house, you have people working in your company you don’t know--even your dog is gone. And then you have a hysterical woman throwing pictures in your face of a man you don't recognize and your brain is still foggy and all your friends and family seem to be shrugging their shoulders at you.

You're terrified and alone and all you get is some vagueness about an epic love story and too much emotion and all you want to do is hide. From everything. Plus your heart is doing this thing every time the girl is near and you think you might be dying maybe and remember how your brother died?

So, the girl kisses you, you literally feel like you might be dying, and it's like naw. Fuck this. I'm getting back an ounce of control. So you propose to Selin. I mean you don’t love her and you barely want her but at least she is the same. At least she hasn’t changed, and at least she doesn’t stare at you with the weight of a million expectations that everyone else does. At least she doesn’t look at you and hope to see a man you can’t ever remember being.

But then the girl everyone claims is your soulmate is suddenly engaged to another man, and spends every moment after that claiming she hates you, she is over you, she is better off/happier without you, doesn't need you.

So it's like, okay, what is the truth. Your brain isn't helping, your friends aren't helping, she isn't helping. So you lash out, you close off, because really, what else is left. Your life isn’t your life, your mind isn’t your mind, you can’t even figure out what’s real and what isn’t. And she’s getting married and you want to die but she’s getting married and surely if she loved you she wouldn’t be doing this?

And then you get your memories back. Finally. Everything comes flooding back ,and it's a lot. You cope in shitty ways, you don't respond well, etc. You’ve returned from the dead twice, and everything feels just slightly off, but maybe you can make this work. At least you have her. After a few days, you’re feeling like your old self. You've got your memories, your girl, the possibility of the future you had snatched twice, and then BOOM. She rejects you, out of nowhere.

Won't talk, won't communicate, you have no idea what the fuck is happening. She’s crying and sad but also not leaving but also not staying and your brain can’t quite work things out but all you can do is promise that you love her, only her, always her, forever. Surely she must know that by now, right?

And then she tells you about the baby. You can't remember the sex of course, but then you find out it probably happened while your brain was fucked, and you barely have time to process this before oh yeah the love of your life is leaving you bc she would rather you raise a baby with your rapist. And suddenly you might be dying, again.

But you stop her. You stop her and even though she says she didn’t come back for you, why else would she have stayed? So, you finally get her back, she tattoos you on her finger and maybe just maybe everything will be fine when BOOM. Cancer. You aren't even over the other shit, and you have a fucking tumor. You are 30 years old, you've survived a plane crash, amnesia, and now you have a tumor. How many times can a person die?

And so you don’t cope well. You withdraw, you back away. Your brother died when he was young, you know what that does to a person. You know what it did to your family. You have this fear that curls around your heart that says “but what if she becomes my mother.” And she goes. She leaves and she takes your heart and your child (that you don’t even know about) and it’s like...fuck. Again. Because everyone leaves you, eventually. And somehow, it’s always your fault.

So, what I'm saying is, Eda endured a lot, sure. She was hurt. Their breakup in 14 was hard and I’m not denying that (although there is another post I could write about how since Eda never actually uses her words to tell him how she feels he can, perhaps, be understood in assuming that breaking up after barely being together would hurt but also that she would move on and live her life happily without him. Which I guess season 2 proves…) Losing Serkan to an accident/amnesia was hard, looking at the body of the man she loves but not seeing the man she loves must have been agony. But Serkan was fucking wrecked. So instead of choosing to write a plot where they both get to heal, where they both get to explore their pain and work through it together, we get Serkan who reverted to being a robot to cope with massive trauma and PTSD, and essentially is abandoned by everyone, again.

I guess what I'm saying is, if staying with him and supporting him when he was dealing with trauma was too much for her, then fine.That is very true for some people, and it’s certainly realistic. But I don't really think that jives with Eda and her character, and while it isn't a trauma competition, I'd still think Serkan comes out a winner here. Eda lost her parents, which was awful. She lost him, but she got him back. Twice. His trauma is losing his brother, being abandoned by his parents, a plane crash, amnesia, emotional manipulation/abuse and cancer. And then he gets punished by having his daughter taken away from him because he was having a hard time coping. Keeping a kid a secret isn't "protecting the child" it's punishing the father.

Tl;dr The direction they have taken the characters is gross for both mains, but if people are trying to justify Eda keeping his child from him because “he deserves it” or “she did what was best for her” then I think we maybe haven’t been watching the same show. Even if he said “I don’t want kids,” saying that to a hypothetical child is very different then being told “a baby is very much our reality.” Because that's the crux right? It's not that he decided he just didn't want to be a father ever, he's scared of having a family and losing them or of them losing him. And then she made that very fear be realized. Which is tragic and quite the opposite of what his life partner needed to do in that situation.

Bitte.

Thanks to @lolo-deli for the proofread and the final lines, you are the best. And for putting up with my uncontrollable ranting about this for days.

[raysofcrosby]

LITTLE DO YOU KNOW PT. 9

"𝘐 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘩𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘺 𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘴, 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦." ━ 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐬𝐨𝐧, 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫

gif credit (x)

series masterlist

requested: yes | no

warnings: cussing and angst, but nothing else tbh.

word count: 5,294 [of un-proofread material lol sorry]

authors note: HI EVERYONE!!! First off, I just want to wish you all a Happy Holiday season! I honestly didn’t think i was going to get anything out, but work has been extremely stressful and i needed to write and voila, part 9 lmfao. there’s only three more parts of the series left and i can’t believe it’s almost over! thank you to anyone who’s reblogged, liked, sent in a message, written in their tags or even took the time to read any part of this series– i love you all. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all! I hope you all have an amazing day and enjoy part 9!

Avoiding Jamie and Tyler after the shitshow that took place in Tyler's house Friday night, was your number one priority. Thankfully, the Stars were out of town in Nashville and weren't due to come back to Dallas until early Sunday morning. You weren't sure if Tyler still wanted you to watch the dogs, so the next morning after everything happened, you took an uber to his place. When you walked inside to feed the dogs and take them on their walk, they were nowhere to be found. You walked around the house, whistling and even going as far as to squeaking Gerry's favorite toy– but no sound of paws against the floor or the jingling of their collars. When you went to leave, the front door opened and John walked in, holding onto the three dogs' leashes. He looked surprised to see you and the moment the two of you made eye contact, you realized that he knew.

And it was obvious that your dog sitting services were no longer needed, so you rushed back to campus and practically locked yourself in a library study room, throwing yourself into studying for your last final.

If you thought back on it hard enough, you weren't sure if that was the final straw that jutted the metaphorical knife deeper into your stomach or what happened Sunday night when Big Rig came over. You had once again, spent the entire day throwing yourself into studying for your finals and by the time you returned back to your dorm room, Kennedy was ordering dinner in for her and Big Rig.

You hadn't meant to completely shut her out, but you honestly felt a little embarrassed at how everything came crumbling down. Tyler had yet to reach out, he pretty much fired you from taking care of the dogs, you're pretty sure that your brother pretty much disowned you...and Kennedy, though not as straight-forward, had warned you of it all. The last thing you wanted to do was feel worse than you did now...though that logic isn't working, because well, you were feeling pretty shitty.

Kennedy was your best friend for a reason and she knew better than anyone that when you were ready to talk about it all, you would. So, unfortunately for her, but lucky for you, she was dealing with your sadness with grace– aka by not complaining when you had your playlist blasting through your headphones or not commenting on how you were watching the notebook one too many a time.

By the time Big Rig had arrived at your dorm, you had shut off your computer for the night, buried yourself beneath the covers, rolled yourself towards the wall and had been trying to fall asleep for almost an hour. You thought that you'd be able to eventually fall asleep, maybe while they were just going to watch Criminal Minds and eat some dinner, but the moment that their hushed whispers grew a little louder, there was no hope.

"How is she doing?" He asked, talking softly as he kicked his shoes off onto the floor and hopped onto her bed, his tall and heavy frame causing it to buckle beneath him.

"Honestly? Not so good. " Kennedy sighed and you could feel her gaze lingering on your back. "Neither Jamie or Tyler have talked to her. She's been either spending all her time studying, blasting sad breakup songs, skimming through The Notebook or sleeping."

"Oh shit...The Notebook?"

Kennedy was silent but climbed onto her bed as Big Rig shifted and unloaded the delivery bag. "I even called her mom earlier, just to give her a heads up before she came home for Christmas in case she notices that two of her kids aren't talking. And then right after, Jordie reached out to me because Y/N wasn't answering him and neither was Jamie. So, I filled him in too."

You couldn't even be angry at her for the fact that she told both your mom and Jordie about what had happened. Firstly, the two of them already had some sort of clue as to what was going on between you and Tyler. Secondly, once again, she was just being your best friend and looking out for your best interest– plus now you didn't have to have that awkward conversation once you went home.

"Yeah, Jamie's uh..." Big Rig cleared his throat and you could tell that he was either trying to avoid talking about something or just trying to figure out how to say it.

"Was it bad yesterday?"

"Horrible," he sighed and shifted on the bed again, probably lying back. "Everyone knows."

"Everyone knows?" She asked, the confusion in her voice evident. "As in...they know about Y/N and Tyler?"

"They know everything."

"Jesus Christ! Is Jamie that fucking petty and pissed that he went and blabbered about it to the whole team?" She caught her voice elevating and stopped, placing their food off to the side. "I'm going to kill him. What an asshole and to do that to his own–"

"It wasn't Jamie."

"Then who–"

"Well, I mean, Bish was with Jamie when he...walked in on the two of them, so Jamie told Bish– but he already kind of had a feeling because Jamie said something about it." Big Rig cleared his throat again. "But no, it was some fan account on Instagram for wags, I guess?"

"Explain, now."

You heard him sigh and you contemplated making it known that you were wide awake, but you had to admit to yourself that you were a little bit interested.

"So it some small fan account for wags of the team, I guess. Anyway, so they make a post and they have pictures of Y/N and Tyler from nights we all went to the bar, to pictures of him picking her up from A.B.C. and even his Halloween party. It was like... spam of almost 10 pictures and you can see how close they are and it's not hard to guess that they have something going on."

"Okay, and how does this tie into the whole team finding out?"

"Everyone got tagged in it. Players, girlfriends, wives, I think even Tyler's family and Y/N too. By the time the plane took off, it was kind of common knowledge."

Your heart was racing against your chest and it felt like it could explode at any minute. Everyone on the team and their significant others knew, which meant the coaches and training staff probably knew. How the hell were you supposed to show your face in the locker room tomorrow without wanting to just disappear into thin air?

"Shit, this is pretty much Worst-case scenario. How is she supposed to walk into a room and treat them all for their weak bones when they all know about her and Tyler?" Kennedy sighed her gaze on you.

"I mean...I don't think anyone judges her for it, because she's still Y/N to them, you know?"

"It doesn't matter, J. Even if she's still just Y/N, they'll still probably look at her and think– 'oh wow, she's been boning our teammate. there's another notch on the belt.' And I know they're your friends, but with Tyler's reputation and all males sharing the same brain– you can't tell me that it's not true."

Big Rig was silent for a few moments before deciding to speak again. "The game was even worse. He and Tyler are barely speaking, the tension between them on the ice was obvious as hell. Add in the confusion with Montgomery being fired and the Instagram was the cherry on top of a Sunday that nobody wants."

"Was it that bad? The two of them?"

"A few of the guys and I were talking on the plane ride back and we're all afraid that something is going to happen at practice or in the middle of a game or something and the tension between them with just make the two of them implode."

"And that would be another worst-case scenario come true," Kennedy sighed again. "God, this is such a mess."

That was all you were able to stand before you sat yourself up and turned towards the two of them. You took in their shocked appearances and you knew that they had thought you were asleep and that if you weren't they wouldn't have had this entire conversation with you in the room.

"I'm sorry," you said, your bottom lip starting to tremble no matter how hard you tried to fight it. "It's all my fault that everything is so messed up because I'm just some stupid little girl with a stupid crush and I ruined a friendship and your team chemistry."

Kennedy looked at Big Rig and got up off of her bed and walked over to your bed. "This is in no way, shape or form your fault, Y/N. I want you to get that through your head right now. " She grabbed one of your hands and tugged on it, causing you to look at her. "Tyler is a big boy, he knew what he was doing and he knew the consequences of his actions. So you are not going to put the full blame on yourself."

"She's right," Big Rig spoke up, sitting up in her bed. "Besides, I don't think that they hate each other. I just think that Jamie is probably a little bit embarrassed because he feels like everyone knew what was going on and he didn't. Especially since Jordie and Bish both had their suspicions about it."

"See?" Kennedy smiled, squeezing your hand again. "Your big brother is just letting his itty bitty man pride get in the way of his common sense."

"He probably also thinks that Tyler was taking advantage of you," he cleared his throat, and his cheeks turned a hint of pink at his insinuation of yours and Tyler's relationship. "Especially since he's older and that Jamie trusted him to be like a brother to you whenever he wasn't around."

As comforting as they tried to make their words, they did nothing but only make you feel worse and that you were responsible for everything that had happened. You sniffled and shook your head, looking at the two of them. "I don't think I can finish the internship, not when everybody knows."

Kennedy was about to say something, only to be cut off by the sound of Big Rig's feet thumping against the floor. He had hopped off of the bed and nudged Kennedy to the side, standing in front of you. He tilted your chin up and made you look at him, seriousness written all over his face. "Absolutely fucking not. You are not going to let some tatted doofus make you quit, okay? This is your dream and as your second best friend, I'll be damned if I let you quit, got it?"

"Got it." You smiled and nodded as Kennedy reached in and wiped a tear from your cheek.

Big Rig smiled and patted the side of your cheek. "Good, now come eat some of this food with us."

❒❒❒❒

It turns out that your little bonding night with Big Rig and Kennedy was exactly what you needed. It wasn't a magical cure to fix everything, but it made you fall asleep a little easier that night. And when you woke up the next morning, you were ready to take on your last final just before you'd head off to the arena for the game. When you sat down to take your final, you felt confident in yourself and slightly more relaxed and at ease than you had been the last two days. However, that all changed the moment your Physiology and Anatomy final was placed in front of you and the time to take your test began. It was smooth sailing up until halfway through when you came upon a question that brought out a memory from your many study sessions with Tyler.

For this particular question, you had to identify and label abdominopelvic quadrants, then their divisions, as well as the planes of the body. And the moment you stared at the outlined body and the lines waiting to be filled and identified, your eyes brimmed with tears at the memory of Tyler.

How when you walked into his house that afternoon and ready to study, he was already making the two of you lunch– 'brain food for my brainiac!' And when it came time to label the quadrants and planes, you realized you had forgotten the sheet your professor had given you, at your dorm. Tyler, being as brazen as he was, stood up off of the couch, took off his shirt, held out his arms to his sides, looked at you with a crooked, goofy grin and said, 'go ahead, paint on me like one of your french boys.' And when you corrected him on what the actual movie quote was supposed to be, he just stuck his tongue out at you and said, 'turn me into a masterpiece.' And it took every bit of self-restraint that you had in your body to refrain from telling him that he already was.

When you wrapped up your final and started to make your way to your dorm room to meet Big Rig so the two of you could head to the arena, your next big dilemma crossed your mind: all of the dorms were closing in two days and you had nowhere to stay. You were originally supposed to stay with Jamie and Katie at his place until the two of you were going to fly home together, but you doubt that's an option anymore. But that was another problem for another day and you weren't going to worry about it until later because your only important issue today, would be how you would carry on in the training room today.

When it came time to enter the training room, Big Rig offered to walk in with you, but you told him that if you were going to do this, you would do it yourself and then you ushered him off towards the locker room. You expected your feet to move towards the door and open it before walking inside, but the longer you stared at it, the more frozen you were. You could hear the muffled voices mingling together on the other side of the door, which only made your heart race and the knot in your stomach tangle and tightens. The locker room door opened behind you and you froze, hoping that it wasn't Jamie or Tyler.

"You're still standing here?"

You turned to look at Big Rig, who was now dressed down from his suit and wearing some shorts and a shirt. "You act like I've been standing here for ten minutes."

"Try five, Y/N." He sighed and walked ahead of you, pushing the door halfway open and turning to you, nodding his head towards the door. "Come on, if there's one person who's one-hundred percent on your side, it's me."

You wanted to run into him and hug him tight, but you settled with thanking the Universe for sending Jamie Oleksiak your way before you followed him into the training room. As expected, the immediate conversation stalls, but only for a short second before it picks back up again. And if you weren't so focused on noticing any kind of difference, you might not have noticed that it paused at all. One thing that was extremely obvious though, was the way that all of the boys were looking at you. Sure, they were friendly, that's their character– but you could still see it in every pair of eyes, the fact that they knew about you and Tyler.

And you couldn't help but feel like they were judging you for it.

Klinger was the first one to come up to you while you were preparing Big Rig for his stretches, and you just had an overwhelming urge to hug the swede, but you resisted. "How did your final go, Y/N?" He asked, stopping by and leaning against the table Big Rig was sitting on.

It felt like things might ease back into normality, just based on his normal question and the conversations going on around you– it was like a weight off of your shoulders. "I bet that you aced it," Big Rig said, poking at you with his foot. "You're the genius Benn after all. You and Jenny must have the brains because I don't know what Jordie and Jamie got."

Right, when you went to reply, the door opened and on instinct, you turned to see who walked in. When you saw it was Jamie, it was as if every eye in the room was focused on the two of you. Jamie didn't bother to look your way, making his way over to the cabinet to grab some ibuprofen. "How did your final go?" He asked, his back turned to you and his voice void of any emotion.

"I think I did pretty good," you replied, feeling awkward as he kept his back to you before turning away and walking over towards another table, not even bothering to reply. You turned your attention to Klinger and gave him a small smile. "Thank you for asking, Klinger." You spoke softly.

He gave you a nod and patted your shoulder before going off back into the locker room. Everything felt fine and the awkward tension eased slightly as you went on helping Big Rig with his stretches. Sure, because of Jamie's presence, there was still a slight stir on tension as if everyone was expecting the two of you to implode right then and there– but it wasn't anything that couldn't be easily ignored. However, when the door opened again, this time Tyler walked through and it was like the air was sucked out of the room.

You felt yourself freeze as you went to adjust the band around Big Rig's foot and he tapped his foot against your hand, causing you to look at him. He took a deep breath and then breathed out slowly before nodding his head. You nodded back, still feeling everyone's eyes switching between focusing on you and focusing on Tyler. After you adjusted the band, you went over to your desk, instinctively picking up athletic tape before sitting down in your chair, waiting for someone else to ask for help.

"Hey, John, how long do you think you'll be?" Tyler asked, barely brushing by Jamie to grab a heating pad before pacing it onto his shoulder.

"What do you want done?" John replied, looking up from a separate cabinet.

"My ankles?"

"Give me two and I can help."

Tyler nodded, adjusting the heating pad before walking right back out of the locker room, not even bothering to look in your direction. You were crushed and fighting like hell not to have it show on your face as you sat in your chair, gripping the athletic tape tightly. Soon, tapping your foot against the floor became another way to prevent yourself from giving in to your emotions and before you knew it, Bishop was calling for your attention at Big Rig's table as he hopped off. "Yeah?"

"Can you come over for a second? I need you to help me tape my thumb for me real quick." You walked over, your supplies already in hand and stood in front of the goalie. "How are you doing?"

"Good, especially now that classes are done," you smiled, exhaling lightly. "Now I get to relax...sort of."

"No, Y/N," he said, looking around the room before leaning in closer. "How are you really doing?" The way he raised an eyebrow slightly, gave you a hint as to what he was asking.

You were slightly embarrassed that he was asking you, but at least he wasn't being so blunt and loud about it. "Embarrassed, sad," your eyes lingered away from taping his thumb and over to your brother, who had a focused and zoned in look on his face. "Is disowned too dramatic?"

He laughs lightly, but his lack of answer lets you know that your feelings are completely valid. "I'm sorry by the way," you apologized, cutting the athletic tape. "For making things awkward around here."

"They're grown men, they'll figure it out," he shrugged, watching as you finished taping his thumb. "Don't worry about that, worry about you."

"Do you think I made a mistake?" You asked as he hopped off of the table.

He looks like he wants to say yes, or maybe you're just overthinking it. He shrugs his shoulders and gives you a half-smile. "Is it a mistake if it makes you happy?"

His reply lingered in your mind as you watched him leave the room before returning to your chair. You placed your supplies onto the desk and spun yourself around to face the wall, thinking about what he said and for once, not feeling all too guilty about your decision.

❒❒❒❒

You've never been happier at the fact that you had to stay in the training room during a game. You took solace in the quiet as the muffled music, announcements and cheers were on the other side of the door. Normally, you'd spend this time studying, but since you were done with all of your finals...you had nothing to do but play on your phone, make sure that the training room was clean and of course help any player who came in with something John sent them back to you for.

The game wasn't going so well the second period was almost over and Dallas was down 2-0. Kennedy was sitting with Katie and sending you updates on how Big Rig was doing, but other than that, you were too busy watching random videos on youtube. You're watching one of those astrological card reading videos when you hear the announcers muffled voices yelling about a hit, a fight and then bickering. By the time you were fully able to focus and take out the one headphone, they were done announcing it and the crowd was roaring– a mix of boos and cheers, you couldn't tell. Right when you went to go back to your video, a text message from Kennedy popped up.

"j took a high stick to the face, ty went to go fight the guy who kept trying to go back after j."

"j and ty arguing...it looks ugly."

You clicked on the message, ready to reply and ask for a more specific update when the locker room door swings open violently and Tyler walks in with a pissed look all over his face and blood on his jersey. You weren't sure if it was trainer mode, friend mode or that your feelings were coming into play, but you left your phone on your desk and ran over to him. "Holy shit, Tyler are you okay?"

He looked as if he was mumbling to himself, the anger still evident on his face as he ignored your question. "I'm just going to take your helmet off for you," you said, reaching up to grab his helmet. "Just to make sure the blood isn't coming from–"

As if he snapped back into focus, he stumbled back, looking at you. "Don't touch me!"

You were startled at how loud and angry he sounded. You've never seen him this angry outside of a hockey game, so seeing it first hand right now, was terrifying. But you needed to do your job, so you weren't backing down. "No, I need to check to make sure that your head isn’t bleeding, Tyler. So just let me–"

"Just– don't!" He said, this time glaring at you, the anger on his face still there, but the look in his eyes softening the moment they took in the slight fear on your face. "God, you're acting like...like," he waved his hand in the air as if the words he was looking for were there to catch. "Like some obsessed hook up!"

Your jaw dropped and as if he just understood the words that left his mouth, the anger started to fade off of his face and for a moment, he looked like he might apologize.

The door swung open again, this time Jamie walking in and stopping just a little into the room. His eyes took in just how close the two of you were standing together and he scoffed. "Of fucking course."

Tyler spun around and pointed at Jamie. "Oh shut the fuck up, Jamie. I stood up for your ass just now."

"You think fighting Draisaitl is sticking up for me when you're the reason why he made that fucking comment?" Jamie yelled, his voice getting deeper, something that always happened whenever he got angry. "You wouldn't have to 'stand up for me' if you were focused and knew where to pass the damn puck instead of daydreaming about getting laid!"

"Guys, stop!" You said, trying to move past Tyler to get in between the two grown men, a huge sense of deja vu washing over you. "Jamie, are you okay?"

"Oh, now you seem to care what I think? Where was this before you started sleeping with my best friend?" And there it was, the aggression pointing towards you– the real reason why he was probably upset anyway.

"I asked if you were okay, not for your fucking opinion column, Jamie." You sniped, reaching up and taking off his helmet before tossing it onto a table and going towards where the suture kit was kept so you could pull it out for whoever was coming in to stitch him up. "You have a cut on your forehead.”

"I am focused on this game, so fuck you, Jamie!"

"Really?" Jamie scoffed, shaking his head. "So you're not focused on the fact that you're gonna go home with Maisy and probably get laid tonight?"

You froze, just as you turned back with the suture kit and glue in hand– that one name sending you into a small panic. You looked to Tyler before looking at Jamie, who was just shaking his head. "Oh Y/N, you didn't know? Maisy's here. You know who Maisy is, you remember?"

Tyler shook his head. "What are you–"

"Don't even play coy, Seguin. Katie texted me before the game and said she bumped into Maisy, who coincidentally is sitting in the same seats that you got her last year."

At this point, you felt like you were going to be sick. You had asked Tyler about Maisy and he told you everything. How yeah, she was one of his main hook-ups last season, that he cut it off completely in the summer, it was never super serious and that they haven't talked since.

But Maisy was here in the same seats Tyler gave her last season and Tyler wasn't arguing back...so maybe he didn't tell you everything.

"Why is that, Tyler?" Jamie asked, raising his eyebrows. "Why is Maisy here? Did you get what you wanted from my little sister so you went back to–"

Tyler lunged at Jamie just as Craig walked into the room. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! What the hell is going on?" He asked, looking at you as the two fuming hockey players stood apart from one another.

Jamie and Tyler say nothing, only moving onto opposite tables as Craig points Jamie to sit down. "Y/N, can you help Tyler with gluing that cut? It shouldn't be too much."

It felt like your entire body was throbbing as you stood there, still trying to take in the information that Jamie just shared. You looked at Jamie who was fuming and glaring at Tyler. And when you looked at Tyler, his anger was written all over his face, but there was something else mixed in that you couldn't quite pinpoint. When you finally looked at Craig, you shook your head. "I think I'm going to be sick."

You pushed the kit into his chest before running out of the training room and down the hallway, finding the nearest restroom. When you locked yourself inside of a stall, you hunched over the toilet, the tears falling from your eyes and into the toilet bowl as the sobs wrecked you. Everything seemed like it would be okay, but what had just happened in the game tonight and in the training room– proved otherwise. There's no way you'd be able to complete this internship in one piece. You went to reach for your phone to text Kennedy, but only then did you realize that it was sitting on your desk.

There's no way you'd be able to go back into that room with Jamie and Tyler being there together– you wouldn't survive. And it turns out, bathrooms make pretty good hiding spots.

By the time you had deemed the coast to be clear, you made your way back into the training room once the third period started and you knew no one would be in it. When you walked into the empty room, you sent Kennedy a text, asking her to meet you in the hall after the game and then you spent the rest of your time wishing that the game would just end.

The Stars lost 2-1 and Tyler scored a goal in the third. Once upon a time, not too long ago, Tyler would've joked that he scored that goal for you– 'his number one fan beside his mom'– but now you couldn't help but let your mind wander over into if he ever told Maisy the same.

As promised, Kennedy met you in the hallway with Katie by her side. Katie was explaining all of last season of the Maisy and Tyler saga to you and Kennedy, but you wanted no part of it, so you zoned yourself out, staring at the end of the tunnel, wondering if you'd see her walk down this way. By the time both Jamie and Big Rig came out of the locker room, there was still no sign of Maisy and you couldn't help but wonder if she was waiting out there for Tyler or even if at all.

"Y/N, are you coming home with us?" Katie asked, giving you a friendly smile and ignoring the glare in her direction that was coming from your brother.

You weren't ignoring it though and though it was there, you knew how to read your brother and beneath that glare were hints of sadness. But you didn't care, you were still angry at him for the stunt he pulled in the training room and sad at the fact that up until today, he hadn't bothered to talk to you– and even then, it was aggressive. You looked at Big Rig and nodded your head in his direction. "No, they're just going to drop me off before they go to his place."

Your walk from the hallway and through security and parking to Big Rig's car felt like a blur as Kennedy and Big Rig were focused on their conversation. As you got into the back of the car, you leaned forward between the passenger and driver's seats. "I sent my mentor an email during the game tonight and I have a meeting with her on Thursday to talk about the required hours of my internship and see if I've met them yet."

Kennedy turned back to face you so fast, you were sure she was going to have whiplash. Big Rig, as clueless as ever, looked between you and Kennedy. "What does that mean?"

Kennedy kept looking at you, raising an eyebrow and you just nodded. She sighed and turned to Big Rig. "It means she's done being your trainer."

[flintsjohn]

if you're still taking prompts, how about one where michael realizes how fondly alex looks at him?

uhh so i didn’t proofread this and also almost forgot to post it so i’m sorry if it’s messy? also very canon-divergent with a hell of a lot of oblivious!michael and all of their friends being awesome :)

I.

“But do you think he likes likes me?”

Max heaves out a sigh and lifts his eyes from the worn copy of War and Peace he’s reading while chewing on an apple. Michael returns the look nervously, biting down on his thumbnail. His eyes fleet to Alex, sitting on a table not too far from them, laughing with Maria and Liz.

“Yes, Michael,” Max finally says after he swallows. “I don’t know why you keep asking me that, bud. You know how he looks at you.”

Michael takes one last moment to look at Alex, all smiles and shining black-lined eyes, and then turns back to Max with a pout. “He never looks at me.” Not once, in three years of high school together and one that Michael has been crushing on him, and not in that way anyway. “I had to steal his guitar for him to even look my way.” That had been a good day for Michael, crush-wise, even though he had been accused of being a thief which in that case, to be fair, he had been.

Max doesn’t seem convinced, by the state of his raised eyebrows, but Michael shrugs and goes back to his sad little salad, trying not to think of Alex Manes or his stupid eyes, rings, outfits, whatever.

II.

Michael has a physics essay to turn in for which the deadline is in three hours and if he doesn’t finish this now he’s going to be fucked, but Isobel doesn’t seem to care. He’s not even sure why she’s here, because visiting for the weekend doesn’t count when she’s at fashion school fifteen minutes away from his dorm on the UNM campus.

He’s only half listening to her latest rant on her relationship problems with Rosa as he writes his conclusion, but when he’s finally sent in the damned thing, cracked his back and focused back on her, she’s apparently moved on, because she’s now asking, “Why don’t you just ask him out?”

“Uh?” he says stupidly, eyes burning from being focused for so long on the computer screen. He rubs at them and yawns, reaching for a cup of coffee that is now lukewarm.

“Alex, dumbdumb. You know, your life-long crush.”

Michael snorts because yeah, right. Like he’s just going to gather up the courage like that after three years spent pining dramatically. Besides, Alex is always being swarmed by admirers nowadays, college having given him the freedom he’s never had in high school under his father’s thumb. He’s going on dates left and right with guys far more deserving of him than Michael is. He’s tried saying as much to Isobel, but she apparently hasn’t heard a word of it.

“You know, and I can’t believe I’m saying this because God knows I’m the only functional human being in our family, but Max is right.” She sighs, flicks him on the forehead, and finishes her sentence as she moves to the door like she’d come into his dorm just to tell him that. “You should take the blinders off and see how he looks at you.”

III.

It’s not like Michael and Alex aren’t friends. They are, ever since senior year of high schol, when they bonded over shitty childhoods and music. They still hang out in college – living in the same building, it would be weird if they didn’t – and their friend group has remained pretty much the same since high school in Roswell, so they can’t really avoid each other. So Michael knows, on a logical level, that Alex likes spending time with him. It’s just that he doesn’t think Alex will ever see him that way, and by now everyone but Alex knows about Michael’s crush and they’re not subtle about it.

“So, you two fucked yet?” Rosa asks as she drops on the free chair next to him in the middle of the busy café as Michael waits for Alex’s shift to finish so they can have their study-session. He rushes to shush her, even though Alex is so busy behind the counter that he couldn’t possibly have heard her. He blushes as Rosa rolls her eyes, and goes back to his text book, drumming the page with his pencil.

“Sooner or later you’re gonna have to talk to him,” she reminds him, not unkindly (she’s never as insolent as Isobel is, though her crass language would suggest otherwise). She takes a sip of her latte and stares at the busy crowd, probably waiting for her girlfriend’s blonde head to pop up.

“We talk.”

“Not about things that matter, Mikey-boy.” She grins at the glare he directs her way at the nickname and continues easily, “Like the fact that you love when he smiles and lovingly bats his eyelashes at you while you go on and on about science facts nobody else cares about.”

“Shut up,” he mutters, dropping his head on his book and slamming it down a couple of times. Sometimes he wonders why he’s friends with people like Rosa, who won’t know when to drop some topics, but then he always remembers that Isobel would have his balls if he didn’t make an effort with her girlfriend, so all he ever does in the end is shrug and try to change the subject or deny. “And he doesn’t do… That.”

“Dude. I’m in a band with him. He talks about you all the time.” He picks his head up just in time to catch yet another of Rosa’s patented eye-rolls, and then she’s squealing and jumping up to throw herself into Isobel’s arms. He makes a gagging sound as they kiss as he does every time he has to see that, without fail, but the thought of Alex talking about him when he’s not there keeps nagging him for the rest of the afternoon, even when the man himself joins him with complimentary coffee.

IV.

“Maria, please,” he begs, tugging at her arm for her to stay.

“Jeez, Michael, it’s just Alex. You’ll be fine.” She shakes her head and drops a kiss to his cheek before waving at him and going back to the bar to join the rest of the girls. Hell of a night for Max to be busy and leave him at the mercy of the meanest group of ladies he’s ever met. And, well, Alex.

It’s just Alex, Maria says. Michael snorts and shakes his head, thumb rubbing at the condensation on his beer bottle. Just Alex is always Michael’s problem. He gets tongue-tied and stuttery around Alex, the last four years of shared life experiences forgotten when Alex as much as looks his way.

Which is what happens next, more or less. Alex gets back with his drink and an added sway to his hips which Michael knows, because he’s had to witness it countless times before, means he’s already been hit on by the first guy of the night, and Michael settles in for a long, long night of sulking in his beer.

Thankfully, around the third guy that strikes up a conversation with Alex and offers him a drink, Liz comes to save him. Michael really, really loves Liz, and he hopes Max will pull his head out of his ass and ask her to marry him sooner rather than later so he can have her as his sister-in-law, because Liz is awesome. He tells her as much, because he’s tipsy and loose-tongued enough now that he’s not alone with Alex anymore. She laughs and wraps an arm around his waist and tugs him to the dance floor.

Five minutes later, however, Michael feels like taking back everything he’s just stated about Liz, because she’s swaying with him so she can yell in his ear. “Why did you let him leave?” She draws back to catch Michael’s reaction, which is just a frown, before she continues, “We left you two alone and with alcohol! It was the perfect opportunity, Mikey!”

Scratch awesome, all the girls he knows are downright evil.

V.

Pool night with the boys becomes a thing in college, and they bring it back to Roswell when they all end up moving back. No matter how busy Alex gets with teaching, or how swamped with deadlines for his current writing project Max is, or how tired Kyle is from shifts, or how forgetful Michael gets with new projects in his lab, they try to keep their one night a week going.

Michael is getting drinks at the bar, making small talk with Mimi, when Kyle joins him, clapping him on the back before he takes two of the glasses from him. He’s coming off a double shift and almost missed boys night, though he refused to force them to reschedule, so Michael guesses from his crazy hair and shining eyes that he’s still running high on caffeine. Unfortunately, a caffeinated Kyle is a chatty Kyle.

“So, tell me, what did I miss? It’s been a while since our last night out.” Michael throws a look his way and shrugs at the expectant look on Kyle’s face, which earns him a pout. “C’mon, man, as your best friend outside of your siblings-“

“Liz is my best friend.”

“As your best friend,” Kyle repeats more forcefully, glaring at him until Michael accepts the statement with another shrug, “You should talk to me about this stuff.”

“There’s nothing to tell, Kyle.”

Kyle’s expression drops at that, and he stops to put the drinks down on a random table so he can turn on Michael, even though they haven’t reached the pool table they’ve commandeered for the night yet. “What do you mean nothing?”

“I mean,” Michael sighs, running a hand through his curls. He throws a glance Alex’s way, but he’s deep in conversation with Max and doesn’t seem to notice Kyle is holding him hostage, “Nothing happened.”

“But you went on a date.” Michael nods, taking a sip of his beer since it looks like Kyle isn’t going to release him any time soon. “And you kissed. He told me you two kissed!” Another nod, and Kyle frowns again. “So?”

“So what? He doesn’t want a relationship, Kyle.”

“Did he tell you that?” Kyle crosses his arms over his chest, studying Michael as he shifts uncomfortably on his feet. Alex hasn’t actually said that, not in as many words, but Michael can read the signs, and he knows that date was a mistake. Kyle doesn’t seem to agree, because he mutters, “Por Dios, que idiota eres.”

“I speak Spanish.”

“I know! I want you to understand what a dumbass you are!” Kyle pushes a finger into his chest, and Michael barely has time to mutter an ow before Kyle’s hands are on his cheeks and he’s forced to look into the other man’s eyes, which is weird because he hasn’t been this close to Kyle’s face since they drunkenly made out at his graduation party.

“Now, you listen to me, Guerin,” Kyle says determinedly, “You go there, free Alex from Max, and ask him out again. I will not lose the bet because of your obliviousness.”

VI.

“Oh,” Michael breathes as the pictures pop up on the big screen set up appositely for the slideshow. He tried to avoid it, of course, worried about what photos Isobel would be able to unearth, but it was non-negotiable in Isobel’s wedding plan, and unfortunately Alex had been on her side. Alex, who now sighs happily and cuddles closer to him with an inquisitive noise. “That’s- That’s what they always meant.”

“With what, babe?” Alex presses a kiss to his cheek and entwines their fingers, both of them smiling sheepishly when their rings clink together. Three hours haven’t been enough to get used to that (Michael isn’t sure a lifetime will be enough to get used to the fact that he’s just married the love of his life).

“The way you look at me,” Michael whispers, just for them to hear. He nods at the screen, which is now showing a picture of them in college, a guitar in each of their laps, heads bowed together as they play. Michael’s eyes are focused on his fingers in the photo, but Alex is looking at him, an incredibly fond look in his eyes. He has the exact same look in most of their pictures together, and Michael gasps as he looks down to find it replicated on his husband, eyes crinkling with his smile.

“Yeah,” Michael breathes, pressing his forehead to Alex’s, “That look.”

Alex hums, pressing closer to Michael like he would want to fuse them together if he could. He smiles as he drops a kiss to the corner of Michael’s lips, causing him to shiver when his next words brush against his skin like a caress. “I never look away.”

[hyun-swoon]

Statistics Angel

@heonie-ween it’s me!!! your secret santa!!! my gift to you is a fic that may or may not have gotten away from me and possibly inspired me for many other monsta x fics!!!

it’s like 2300 words so it’s under the cut so the post won’t be so long

Summary: Kihyun regretted a lot of things. Not rooming with Minhyuk and just accepting the randomly assigned roommate. Taking MInhyuk's advice for elective. Not taking the professor's advice for when to start the project.

He's not sure if he regrets ending up in the library in the middle of the night, yet.

Link to AO3 here

Kihyun stumbled into the library. It was half past midnight and his roommate sexiled him. Normally, he’d just go to Minhyuk’s room and crash on his floor but Minhyuk was a light sleeper with an early test and Kihyun was in the middle of a huge project.

It was his fault for leaving the whole project until the last minute even though he explicitly remembers his professor telling not to do exactly that. Hyungwon was in the same class and had texted him a picture of his submission screen that morning. Kihyun had simply sent the middle finger emoji and stewed in bitterness over his own poor choices.

So here he was, cursing his roommate for making him leave the safety of their room for the judgment of the library.

“No one is judging you,” Kihyun hears in the back of his head in a voice that sounds suspiciously like Minhyuk’s. “You only get judged when you play sound and don’t have headphones or when you hold obnoxiously loud conversations.” Kihyun supposes that Minhyuk would know from working at the circulation desk and otherwise spending every waking hour outside of class in the library, but he was disinclined to believe his friend who gave an entire half-hour rant before noticing Kihyun’s earbuds.

The library is thankfully empty, most classes have tests instead of projects for midterms and by Thursday night (Friday morning), everyone has either taken their exams or decided that if they don’t already know it, they won’t learn it before morning.

Kihyun picks a table and begins spreading all his supplies out. Although, once he has the file open and the printed instructions in front of him, all progress grinds to a halt. God, who needs statistical analysis anyway? Not Kihyun with his vocal linguistics major, that’s for sure. He needed an elective and when Minhyuk, a business and mathematics double major, said statistics was an easy elective, Kihyun didn’t even think to consider Minhyuk’s majors.

Taking a deep breath, Kihyun puts his earbuds in, cranks up his music and sets to reading the instructions one more time. He starts with formatting and the heading for his paper. Little by little, he begins running the analysis and organizing the numbers into a table. With the easiest part finished, Kihyun checks the time and becomes disheartened once again. It was already nearing 2 am and he still had several more analyses to run and a whole paper to write explaining it.

Saving his work, he pushes his laptop away and lets his head fall onto the table with a thunk. He’s not sure how long he sits like that, but sometime between his wonderings of if it’s too late to drop out and become a trophy husband and if a concussion would get him out of the assignment, something drums on the table. Kihyun turns his head slightly to see a hand resting near his laptop.

He had downed an energy drink and a half before his sexile and after finishing the second one on the walk to the library, he was halfway through his third but he was fairly certain he hadn’t texted Hyungwon about his plans of self-inflicted concussion.

Looking farther up the arm the hand was connected to, Kihyun realizes that it is not Hyungwon or even anyone he knows. The man is buff, certainly way more than any of his own friends, if the state of his forearms were anything to go by. He is wearing a light gray hoodie with the university logo huge across the chest. The hoodie rests halfway on his head and the sleeves are pushed up to his elbows. His hair is fluffed like he just woke up from a nap and if not for his thick framed glasses, Kihyun would have put him squarely into the jock category. Still not sure if he’s hallucinating, Kihyun continues to stare before reaching out to touch the man’s hand.

When he actually makes contact, he jolts out of his stupor and nearly falls out of his chair, stopped only by the man’s grip on his forearm.

“Um,” Kihyun’s voice cracks slightly and he grimaces, “Can I help you?”

“Well, I’m working up on the second floor—” he starts.

“Oh my god, can you hear my music all the way up there?!” Kihyun interrupts before the man has a chance to finish, “I’m so sorry! My friends are always saying that I’m going to go deaf with how loud my music is. I can—” Kihyun cuts himself off when the man raises a hand.

“That’s not what I was going to say.” The man smiles and Kihyun nearly cries with how his face goes from stoic to adorable. “I was going to say that I was going for a walk to take my mind off my test in 5 hours when I saw your screen,” he gestures towards Kihyun’s laptop which has since gone dark. “Did you need help with your statistical analysis? Because I would love to help you.”

Kihyun is dumbstruck. He reaches out again, just to make sure this man was real. Then he pinches himself to make sure he isn’t dreaming. “God, this is due at 10 am and I would love some help.” Kihyun mutters. "My name is Kihyun."

The man smiles once again, his eyes crinkling shut, “My name is Hyunwoo. I have to grab my stuff I’ll be right back.”

Once Hyunwoo was gone, Kihyun scrambled for his phone to text Hyungwon. <em>A gorgeous man just offered to help me with statistical analysis. I think I’m in love and I can die happy.</em>

Kihyun stacked most of his shit to make room for Hyunwoo. Just as he is puzzling through a page that looks more like doodles than notes, Hyunwoo sets his stuff down next to Kihyun.

Kihyun wakes his screen up and from the questioning look from Hyunwoo, simply shrugs his shoulders. “I have no idea what I’m doing at all.”

“Well,” Hyunwoo switches from the spreadsheet to Kihyun’s paper, “Kihyun, you are in luck, I had this class two years ago with this same professor. The data is different but I can tell you that she won’t like the way your report is formatted at all.”

Hyunwoo makes quick work of the formatting while Kihyun stares dumbfounded. Hyunwoo has switched back to Kihyun’s spreadsheet and the data he has collected when his forehead wrinkles in confusion. “Where did you get this data? No offense, but it’s kind of shitty.” When Kihyun starts to explain what he did, Hyunwoo shakes his head, “Yeah that’s not how you’re supposed to do it.”

Before Kihyun can question him, Hyunwoo starts walking him through how he should have generated the data.

“Now you have these price points to run a regression and you just have to interpret the equation for how the two data sets relate to each other.” Hyunwoo looks at Kihyun. “Make sense?”

Kihyun looks at the regression Hyunwoo ran and blinks, “Not at all. Where do you get an equation from that and what do any of these numbers mean?”

“How have you made it this far in the semester?” Hyunwoo mutters under his breath before he starts explaining what the different parts of the regression mean and what to do with all the numbers.

Sometime around 4 am, everything clicked and started making sense, “Alright no offense, but I need you to shut up so I can write before I lose all coherence and understanding.”

Hyunwoo nods and returns to his own notes to study for his exam. The two work in silence until Kihyun hits a wall. “Wait, can you explain this part to me again?” Hyunwoo looks where Kihyun is pointing and nods before setting into an explanation.

Kihyun is furiously taking down notes so he doesn’t forget again while Hyunwoo watches on, “Why are you in a business statistics class as a linguistics major?”

“Dumbass friend recommended it as an easy elective and I didn’t even consider the fact that Minhyuk is a double major in mathematics and business.” Kihyun mutters. “At least Hyungwon is in my class, even if he’s also a business major.”

Instead of trying to continue the conversation, Hyunwoo hums in acknowledgement and returns to his studying.

Somehow, Kihyun makes it all the way to the end of his paper without needing any additional explanation.

Hyunwoo groans at 6:30, dropping his head onto the table and mirroring Kihyun’s position from several hours earlier, “7 am is really too early for a test.”

Wordlessly, Kihyun pulls his last energy drink out of his backpack and sets it in front of Hyunwoo, barely stopping his typing.

“No, I can’t take this.” Hyunwoo tries to protest, “You’ll need it for your classes today.”

Kihyun pauses his typing, saving his work. “I only have the one class today at 10 and there’s going to be places open then on campus, I can buy another one. There is nothing open now. Just take the energy drink as thanks for helping me.” He is so focused on finishing his report that Kihyun doesn’t notice the way Hyunwoo’s eyes crinkle up into a smile again.

Hyunwoo begins packing up his study materials and Kihyun has turned his music up again with more people coming into the library at the more normal hour. When Hyunwoo leaves, Kihyun absentmindedly wishes him luck, busy proofreading his report.

Just as Hyunwoo is getting out of his test, Kihyun hits submit on his report and data, holding his breath until the confirmation screen appears. Once it does appear, Kihyun saves all his material from the project and closes each one. He looks at his phone, seeing that Hyungwon had been awake during his love declaration but less than helpful. Minhyuk texted at 6:45 cursing 7 am tests and complaining that they should get coffee together. His roommate texted only 2 minutes ago that his hook up left and Kihyun can come back to the room. Kihyun scoffs and ignores him, responding an affirmative to Minhyuk about coffee and telling Hyungwon he didn’t die and his statistics angel explained everything so he was able to finish his project with 2 hours to spare.

As he is shuffling through papers so he can pack up and meet Minhyuk at the coffee shop just off campus, Kihyun notices a smaller note with a phone number.

 <em>Text me and maybe I can explain statistics at a more reasonable time :) -Hyunwoo</em>

Kihyun blinks and regrets giving his last energy drink to Hyunwoo because now he’s not sure if he’s hallucinating. Who knows how long he would have sat there if Minhyuk hadn’t texted him wondering where he is and why he isn’t at the coffee shop.

Immediately shoving all his notes and his computer into his backpack and Hyunwoo’s note into his back pocket, Kihyun briskly walks out of the library, letting Minhyuk know he’ll be there soon.

Adding Hyunwoo’s number to his phone, Kihyun opens a new message, <em>Hey, it’s Kihyun. Thanks for basically teaching me the first half of the semester last night. Just name a time and place and I’ll bring my notes.</em>

Upon reaching the coffee shop, Kihyun doesn’t see Minhyuk anywhere. Just as he’s about to text him, hands from behind cover his eyes. “Guess who?”

Kihyun turns around, “Minhyuk if you aren’t here don’t text me like you are.”

Minhyuk pouts at him, “I just wanted to make sure you would get here without making me wait too long. You’ve done it before.”

Kihyun groans, “It was one time!”

Minhyuk huffs, “It still happened.”

“If you’re trying to guilt me into buying you coffee it won’t work.” Kihyun steps up to order his own coffee before stepping aside for Minhyuk, “I do have some news to share though.”

Minhyuk nearly lights up and quickly orders his coffee and pulls Kihyun to an empty booth. “Tell me. Quickly too because I’ve got a classmate coming to discuss a project.”

“Okay so you know that hell statistics project that Hyungwon and I had due today that we weren’t supposed to start the night before?”

Minhyuk groans, “Kihyun I warned you about this!”

“I know!”

Before Kihyun can continue the story his and Minhyuk’s names are called. Kihyun rises to get the coffee because no matter how much of a hurry he claims to be in, Minhyuk always chats up the barista.

“Okay so as I was saying,” Kihyun continues, “I started it last night and then my roommate sexiled me so I had to go to the library. I got the first part done and then considered concussing myself but an angel descended from the second floor and helped me with everything and I got it done and statistics makes sense now! He gave up time to study for a 7 am test to help me.” Kihyun looks dreamily out the window, “He was a statistics angel. I think I’m in love Minhyuk.”

“Does your statistics angel have a name?”

“Hyunwoo,”

“Hmm,” Minhyuk hums. He looks over Kihyun’s shoulder, “Hi, Hyunwoo-hyung.”

The force that Kihyun turns his head should have given him whiplash. True to Minhyuk’s greeting, there stood Hyunwoo. He seems to have gone home after his and Minhyuk’s test. He’s wearing a different sweatshirt and a beanie over his hair. Most noticeable is his lack of glasses.

Kihyun feels his face heat up, “How much of that did you hear?”

“You think I’m a statistics angel?”

Kihyun puts his face in his folded arms while Minhyuk cackles. Hyunwoo taps the table like he did in the library so many hours ago. Kihyun looks up reluctantly, “Can I suffer my embarrassment in peace?”

Hyunwoo smiles and Kihyun tries very hard not to swoon. “No because I was ready to text asking if you wanted to go on a date that didn’t involve statistics.”

(“Wait, Hyunwoo-hyung when did you get so smooth? Stop asking my friend out and teach me your ways!”

“Minhyuk we have a project to work on.”)

[xfilescat]

the great idea, the safety hazard, and the brady bunch (steve harrington x reader)

word count: 1.7k

warnings: 70s sitcom reference, underage drinking, language maybe? maybe not language. also I'm late for class so i barely proofread

preview: “He was such a good guy that it made you giddy. You liked him so much. You’d have to tell him that someday. Not now, though. You would forget about it tomorrow if you did it now, and you would really want to remember something like that.”

A/N: wait wait wait WHAT???? I ACTUALLY POSTED SOMETHING? I know, crazy, right? anyways I don’t have time for a long author’s note but this is part one of a multi-part thingy that I'm really excited about! I might be a little slow with updates but rest assured it won’t take months like last time ;) I gotta go to class rn but enjoy, my lovely friends! i love u!

It was late January and it was the kind of cold that made it painful to breath, that split open the skin on your hands, and that was potentially unsafe to be exposed to.

You were so warm. You were dressed for bed in a cotton tank top and shorts, but your skin was on fire. You wondered why stores even bothered with selling jackets when they could just sell bottles of vodka. All it took was however many shots you’d had (you’d quickly lost count) and you could wear a miniskirt outside in Antarctica. Nobody would ever have to worry about covering up a cute outfit ever again. You definitely looked cute in your pajamas: the shorts were a little short and the top was a little thin, but you couldn’t help admiring the way the navy ensemble complimented your skin tone.

Wait! You stopped in your tracks for a moment when you were halfway up the Harrington’s driveway. You worked in a clothing store! You’d have to tell your boss about your idea on Monday. You guys could get rid of all those bulky winter coats that made it so hard to walk down aisle four. You were a genius.

The only drawback to the vodka thing was the dizziness. You had to pause every time you climbed a single step up onto Steve’s porch because your head spun with the minor change in altitude. Why were you there again? You couldn’t remember.

Once you reached the door, you began to knock over and over. You probably did it too many times, but it was fun to hit something. Not to mention it was taking Steve about a million hours to open up and let you in. You tried to knock to the beat of “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” and giggled because it sounded more like “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

The door opened slightly. Steve was frowning, but then he locked eyes with you and looked confused. “Y/N, hey,” he said. He pushed the door all the way open and leaned against the frame. “What are you doing here?”

You weren’t sure how you should have greeted him. A hug would’ve been over the line—even your drunk self knew that. A simple “hi” wouldn’t suffice, though, so you opted for something in the middle and held out your hand for a shake. “Steve, good to see you,” you said, smiling demurely. “How are you today?”

He raised his eyebrows and shook your hand gingerly. “You’re wasted,” he said.

You looked at him sideways. “No, I said how are you?”

“I’m good. Do you know what time it is?”

You looked at your wrist. “I’m not wearing a watch.”

“It’s like eleven,” he said. “I was asleep.”

You looked him up and down. He was wearing his pajamas, too: grey sweatpants and a dark green Hawkins High hoodie. His hair was unstyled—that threw you for a loop—and he had dark circles under his eyes. He should’ve looked upset, too, but he looked kind of happy, actually. Whatever: you still felt terrible for waking him up. “I’m sorry,” you cried. “Steve, I’m so sorry.”

“No, it’s okay,” he said. He laughed and shifted so that he was blocking less of the doorway. “Here, come in. You’re going to get hypothermia.”

“Okay, but I’m not cold,” you said. You started to step over the threshold, but you remembered that you had to brush the snow off of your sneakers first. You were about to sit down to take them off when Steve told you not to worry about it. He placed his hand on the small of your back and started to guide you inside.

You smiled. He obviously didn’t understand. “Your floor will get wet,” you explained, pointing to your shoes.

“It’s fine,” he said.

“Safety hazard,” you muttered, but inside felt a lot warmer than outside, so you went along with him.

What a big house. The furniture looked like it came straight out of a catalog. You sat down on the stairs—the carpet on them was so comfy—and nearly lost your balance in the process. “Woah,” you said, grabbing onto the banister and laughing. “Steve, I think you’re right.”

He closed the front door and turned to you. “About what?”

You pulled off one of your shoes and set it gently down in front of you. “I think I am wasted.” You yanked the other shoe off and promptly lost your grip on it. It sailed through the air and landed a few feet away, which only made you laugh harder.

“I’m definitely right,” Steve said, rolling his eyes. He picked up both sneakers and set them on the rug by the door. “Were you at a party?”

You shook your head. “No, just me.”

He crossed his arms. “Why were you drinking alone?”

You wracked your brain for the answer, but came up empty. “Can’t remember,” you said. “Hey, do you have any drinks?”

He smirked. “I have water.”

“No, I’m talking about alcohol,” you said. God, he was really slow on the uptake sometimes.

“Let’s start with water.”

You shrugged. He motioned for you to follow him through the living room. You passed even more beautiful furniture and comfortable carpets before entering a kitchen that looked like it had never been used. “Wow,” you said. “You live, like, on a movie set. Or TV. It’s like… oh my god, it’s like the Brady Bunch house.” Here's the story… of a lovely lady…

“I guess,” he said. “It’s really not all it’s cracked up to be.”

You pondered that as he filled up a glass of water and handed it to you. You eventually figured out what he meant. “Oh,” you said solemnly. “Your parents make you clean it all by yourself, don’t they? My parents make me clean the house all the time, but mine’s not this big.”

He fought back a grin. “No, I’m not the only one who cleans it. My mom does most of the work.”

“What about your dad?”

He paused. “No,” he said quietly. “He doesn’t help.”

His tone cut through the fog of your insobriety and you realized that this was a much more serious topic than you’d thought. You wanted to say something empathetic and well-thought-out, but thinking wasn’t exactly your strong suit when you were under the influence. “No, don’t be sad,” you practically shouted.

He chuckled. “I’m not sad,” he said, and sure enough, he didn’t look like it anymore. If you’d had your wits about you, you would’ve known he was faking for your benefit. “Drink your water.”

You pursed your lips. “Will that make you happy?”

“So happy.”

You drank the whole thing as fast as you could. “Done.”

“Good job.”

You handed him the empty glass and put your hands on your hips. “Happy now?”

“Yeah,” he said. He sounded genuine. “Thanks.”

You watched him as he went to get you more water. He was really tall. He had such long legs that it only took him a few steps to get to the sink. He was so nice. And very handsome, even when he had been woken up in the middle of the night. You wished you weren’t so nervous around him when you were sober. You wished you were better friends with him. You hoped you weren’t imposing. “Hey, Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you upset that I’m here?”

He turned to you and shook his head. “No, I’m not.”

You folded your arms across your chest. “Are you sure?”

He half-smiled. “I’m sure. Honestly, Y/N. I was having a shitty night before you showed up.”

“Oh, no, why?” You got the strongest urge to throw your arms around him. You had to restrain yourself from running across the room.

“It’s nothing.” He leaned back against the counter behind him and sighed. “Even if I tell you, you’re not going to remember in the morning. Just… just don’t worry. I’m glad you came here, I really am.”

You beamed. “Okay, Steve. I’m glad you came here, too.”

He came back from the sink and told you to drink the second glass of water. You did it without complaining and gave the cup back triumphantly this time. As you did, one of the straps on your tank top slipped down your shoulder. Steve’s eyes flashed to it and then he pointedly looked away. “You look, uh, cold,” he said.

You giggled and fixed the minor malfunction. “I’m not.”

“Let me get you something to wear,” he said. “You can go sit on the couch, if you want.”

“Not cold,” you called after him as he left the room. He was such a good guy that it made you giddy. You liked him so much. You’d have to tell him that someday. Not now, though. You would forget about it tomorrow if you did it now, and you would really want to remember something like that.

You wandered into the living room humming the Brady Bunch theme song and collapsed onto the sofa. It was even more comfy than the carpet on the stairs. You laid there and felt yourself sink into the cushions. All of your muscles relaxed and it felt like you were floating. Just as you were about to close your eyes and take a cat nap, the doorbell rang like an alarm clock.

You tried to lift your head up, but it felt like a Herculean task. “I’m not getting that,” you yelled.

You heard Steve walk down the stairs. “I’ll get it,” he said, stepping into the room to toss you the sweatshirt that he’d grabbed. You reached up your arms and caught it, much to your surprise.

“Nice,” Steve said.

“Thanks,” you said. “Hey, someone’s at the door.”

“I know.”

“Go get it.”

“I’m going.”

“And watch out for the safety hazard,” you murmured. Instead of putting the sweatshirt on, you draped it over yourself like a blanket and rolled over to get back to that nap you’d been robbed of. As you drifted off into an unsteady but deep sleep, you forgot all about the doorbell and the voices you could hear coming from the foyer. The couch was far too soft and the jacket/blanket smelled far too good for you to care about anything else.

[fireartandstylezine]

as someone who has been making and reading and collecting and discovering and hiding and distributing and scoring zines for 25+ years, i can say yes, but also, these are pretty big generalities.

we're aiming to do something different with Fire. so we're going to steal this post to talk about that, thanks for the opportunity.

first of all, it's anticapitalist. a lot of the very oldest fan zines circumvented mainstream consumerism. so to produce something in this form is a bit of a reminder that alternatives exist, have always existed, will always exist.

we also want to say that 'breaking even' isn't anticapitalist, it remains firmly rooted in the idea of profit, that even a small craftsperson should do things for returns and save up and 'succeed.' that growth is success. that money measures growth. none of this has to be true.

and so, just to show how Fire zine attempts to be different:

Oldschool:

fic-focused original work is accepted. fic has to be of a decidedly anti-market, anti-fascist character

exist as fanworks delivery medium because few others are available there exist other mediums now, but we don't turn away fanfic on any kind of principle

fairly fugly physical product*, possibly with spiral or comb binding, shitty photocopy paper, and only a tiny amount of black and white line art, if that the 'ugliness' of the old zines was an aesthetic of itself. it flies in the face of polished and professional art, which as even art students will tell you, is a capitalist game. we want to celebrate the hasty, the amateur, the passionate, the failure, the attempt, the last-hour success, the survival.

made at the local copy shop or the rare local printer that will do gay porn without destroying your master copy (less of an issue for gen zines, but "gasp, copyright!" can still land you in hot water with the printer) we are doing our best to score our own copier free on places like craigslist or freecycle or just our own social circles. the first issue was scammed, and that's the best way. if we have to pay a copy shop, it will be a season of failure on our part, which is probably what the Winter issue will represent. but we go on anyway.

writers submit to zines to get free copies of that or other zines so they can get access to other people's fic yeah we're going for the free stuff hook-up, because THAT feels anticapitalist to us. the gift economy, not the grift economy

zines barely break even, and the price is supposed to just cover the associated bills (usually the printer's bill, but possibly also the bills for hauling the things to a convention) the money for Fire Art and Style happens two ways. one, through mutual aid: we ask our friends and family to donate money to a good cause. sometimes they owe us for that time we helped them move, or the time we proofread their history paper, whatever. our friends are cool and they donate a bit. that often covers printing. the rest is at a loss. this zine is largely produced at a loss. this zine operates at a loss because we don't charge for it and we pay our writers.

some pre-orders, some in-person sales at cons after the fact we have yet to receive an order or go to a con. we ship our copies to infoshops and encourage people to donate to the infoshops because they are important community hubs. a couple pdfs have apparently gotten out to contributors but you won't see us posting it anywhere.

Anybody can do a zine and probably will once they get comfortable in fandom 100% yes and do it. fucking do it.

Current:

art-focused i mean yes and i don't mean to be pretentious but like what does op mean by art in this context. is that supposed to be opposed to fanfic? if this is like 'new zines bad cuz polished and pricey' then i think we can agree. but if like 'zines are not meant for art' well. there are a lot of people producing art and begging for money and going through platforms like patreon that skim off the top and like, that's cool you do you but once patreon has skimmed enough to become powerful what do you think they will do with that money? they will buy more and expand and buy smaller companies and try to be an amazon. look at a small corporation and then look at amazon. amazon is the logical result of capitalism and every business literally embodies the impulse to be amazon. so patreon is not your friend.

collector's edition type specialty product in an era when it's easy to access fanworks it's probably good that it's easy to access fanworks. i don't know if we'd call Fire a collector's edition, would we, folks? we the editors are uncertain about this. we the editors will talk about it over coffee and collages and get back to you.

gorgeous physical product, perfect bound, possibly with lots of color art hahahahaha

printed in China i'm starting to wonder if we're even still talking about zines at this point. or if its just this late capitalist grifting.

writers submit to zines to prove they're elite one of the reasons we started up Fire is because we have talented friends who work shitty jobs and they don't know how to get published. they don't know how to get paid for the art and literature they do for fun and self-gratification and because they are angry about capitalism and so they go it alone, just creating and maybe sharing a little on social media but never connecting with an 'audience.' so we made the zine and chose the distribution centers and we go from there. our writers aren't elite. we want to do our part to erode elitism.

zines make a shitton of money, which often goes to charity this zine makes basically no money, and what little we do make goes to our writers. it might be unfair to call that charity. we prefer to call it mutual aid. anti-capitalism is for everyone.

exclusively pre-orders, generally via kickstarters we haven't done a pre-order and we'll be damned if we do a kickstarter. (see the next point. see also the point about patreon but like double.)

everyone seems to have forgotten that they can do their own zine. it's ok, everyone will remember :D

And then, the one thing that hasn't changed:

editors are gigantic asshats about people who like Problematic Ships i mean ... probably

as a wise old punk once said,

I dropped outta the old school Got kicked out of the new school I got drunk with the girls from the local art school Got caught painting on the walls, 'Gustav Klimt Rules!'

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think I recall you mentioning how new Zines are different than old ones, in terms of the selection process and buying them, and I’m fairly interested to hear about that if it’s true.

--

There's some overlap, but broadly speaking, "new" zines (as in, the ones most commonly advertised on tumblr and twitter in 2021) are taking some cues from doujinshi and more from art books. They don't have much cultural overlap with oldschool "Media Fandom" zines from ye olden Kirk/Spock days. Here are some common trends I've observed in US-based, English-language zines:

Oldschool:

fic-focused

exist as fanworks delivery medium because few others are available

fairly fugly physical product*, possibly with spiral or comb binding, shitty photocopy paper, and only a tiny amount of black and white line art, if that

made at the local copy shop or the rare local printer that will do gay porn without destroying your master copy (less of an issue for gen zines, but "gasp, copyright!" can still land you in hot water with the printer)

writers submit to zines to get free copies of that or other zines so they can get access to other people's fic

zines barely break even, and the price is supposed to just cover the associated bills (usually the printer's bill, but possibly also the bills for hauling the things to a convention)

some pre-orders, some in-person sales at cons after the fact

Anybody can do a zine and probably will once they get comfortable in fandom

Current:

art-focused

collector's edition type specialty product in an era when it's easy to access fanworks

gorgeous physical product, perfect bound, possibly with lots of color art

printed in China

writers submit to zines to prove they're elite

zines make a shitton of money, which often goes to charity

exclusively pre-orders, generally via kickstarters

everyone seems to have forgotten that they can do their own zine

And then, the one thing that hasn't changed:

editors are gigantic asshats about people who like Problematic Ships

Back in the day, this meant gen fans throwing a fit about m/m. Nowadays... actually, it's still people throwing a fit about m/m, just while pretending to be pro-gay.

Wanky drama queens gatekeeping are an eternal fixture, I'm afraid, and oldschool zines were no strangers to fights over who's talented and who's not. The new ones make me roll my eyes more because we have options now, and we don't need to be so gatekeepery about it.

* I'm a little unfair to old zines here. There were some physically beautiful ones. It really depends on the era. As it became more possible to make shitty zines at the local copy shop, people were able to make zines about smaller fandoms and rarer ships. The much older zines were often physically nicer but had to be about the most popular topics in order to break even. Fandom was much tinier then, and it just couldn't field much of a print run for a rare fandom zine.

Overall, the oldschool ones had more of a DIY and nonprofit spirit, though there were also business people making money off of them.

Modern zines seem to have forgotten some of that DIY spirit in the desire to be glossy and perfect.

Personally, I'm more impressed by modern ficbinding than modern zines. Now there's a truly DIY, nonprofit fannish practice that also produces beautiful physical objects.