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saerins · 6 months

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𝐒𝐀𝐄 // 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒: 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓

+ sae x f!reader | wc 5k | content: angst to fluff, breakups, exbf!sae, exes to lovers

notes: this is the alternate ending to conversations ! (requested by one of my anons) i’m so sorry this took so long !!! and i’m 100% sure you did not expect me to write anything this long but i’m sorry my hand slipped >_< again … i’m super rusty but i hope you guys still like this ^_^

summary: sae’s willing to throw everything else away to prove that out of everything in his life, you’re the one sure thing he needs. problem is, will you accept him after what he’s done?

he’s sorry.

he repeats it in his head, over and over again, his fingers almost numb from repeatedly pressing the call button on your number—over and over and over again.

sorry, sorry, sorry.

it’s no use, he knows. it’s why he’s here—why he’s taking a flight, bare-handed, back to japan, back to home, back to you.

“please switch off your phone, sir,” the flight attendant says politely, dutily, as the plane starts to move.

begrudgingly, he resigns, but the moment he starts hearing your voicemail message play, he sighs, speaking into the receiver.

“look, i know i fucked up and it was stupid of me to keep it from you. i’m sorry, okay? and i know you don’t want to speak to me right now but i can’t just sit around and do nothing. i love you, so i’m coming back home, and we’ll talk, and then… i promise you, nothing like this will happen again.”

yes, because he’ll make sure of that. he’ll make sure he doesn’t make decisions like a stupid teenage boy and he’ll make sure to trust you at every turn instead of trying to hide anything from you because you’re right. never in the course of your relationship did you ever doubt sae.

which is a feat. because given his profession and status, any number of girls would’ve been distrusting had they been in your position. not that sae knows, what can he say he knows about girls? nothing, apparently. after today, that much is sure.

as he turns his phone on aeroplane mode, he throws his head back and looks out of the plane window. less than a day till he’ll be there to see you in person. he’s not sure if you’re going to even want to see him, but he’ll try. you deserve that much, at least.

in his head, the same words repeat over and over again.

i’m sorry.

i love you.

you’re all i ever want.

by the time sae’s plane touches down, it’s night time in japan, close to midnight. you should be resting, probably tired out from crying; he can imagine, because stupid as he may be, he can at least say he knows you this much.

your words can be hard, cold, cruel, but you never are. you’re all soft inside, and you’d rather face your emotions alone than let anyone know how you feel. at least, when those emotions concern sae. you’ll keep them to yourself and keep crying, day after day, until you can’t find it in yourself to care anymore.

passport in one hand, his phone in another, he whisks off toward the taxi stand, mind in a mess because his phone’s now ringing with messages from everyone that isn’t you, probably concerning his absence from the last match of the tournament.

fuck the final match.

you probably thought he’ll play anyway. that he’ll play the match, and only afterwards would he attempt things further with you.

funnily enough, that’s what sae used to think too. before any of this happened. never in his life did he think he’d sooner rather sabotage his own career than lose you. it’s laughable, really, how much he’s so afraid of losing you that it clouds his judgement.

he should’ve been honest with you from the start instead of letting you find out on your own. it was that easy.

“could you step on it, please?” sae sighs, irritated at everything keeping him from you; the distance, the traffic, the stupidity.

the taxi driver narrows his gaze at sae through the rear view mirror, clearly annoyed. “i’d rather not get a ticket,” he replies monotonously, and sae sees that he’s driving at the speed limit. “wouldn’t want to get into an accident, would you?”

well, if he did, that would put a real hamper in his plans, so sae just shuts up and switches off his phone. none of them are you anyway. there’s no point.

as he stares out the window at the now-quiet city, he finds that, for the first time, he’s afraid of losing everything.

mira [7.28pm]: make sure you get enough rest! bought some soup for you in case you haven’t eaten :)

you look at the time now—12.14am. fuck, did you really sleep the entire day away?

the sliver of moonlight that shines through your blinds is all you see next to the pitter patter of the heavy rain against your window. it’s pathetic, really, for you to take a day off just because of that argument (if you can really call it that) the night before. you couldn’t bring yourself to even watch his game like you’d promised him you always would, once upon a time.

something tells you that he should expect that, though. even without watching his game, you know they’d win. sae has always been magical like that, being the playmaker he is. you imagine he’s probably with his team now, celebrating the win. or are they asleep right now? you never could get used to the time difference. it’s too much of a headache.

aside from mira, you see a voicemail message in your inbox. from sae. it makes your heart skip a beat. are you even ready to hear him and whatever he has to say? it’s why you’d been avoiding him since yesterday—you’re afraid you’re just going to crumble and forgive and get taken advantage of. it threatens to spin the same old story you’ve always known.

you click on it anyway.

will it though? how much can you trust his words after he already failed once? it makes you think twice, no matter how badly you want to forgive him because you do believe him. it’s most likely nothing, and what he said is most likely true, but it makes you upset that he thought of hiding such a thing from you.

just as you toss your phone aside, you hear a series of urgent knocks on your door, the thunder ruthless outside. slowly, you get up, dragging your feet against the hardwood floors and flinching a little as you hear how loud the banging is. you’re half afraid and half agitated, halfway between hiding yourself under the covers and threatening to kill whoever it is outside.

but then you swing the door open and you’re met with that pair of teal eyes you’ve always loved, his bangs matted against his face as he pants, the rainwater drenching him from head to toe.

“y/n,” he calls out, as though it’s been ages since he last heard from you. it’s only been a day, but it’s enough to make sae feel as though it’s been forever.

you’re a little shocked, your brain trying to process every single question that comes to mind.

is that really him? why isn’t he in spain? if he played the game, the timeline doesn’t add up—how did he get here so fast? is this actually a dream? holy crap it feels so real, though? why isn’t he saying anything?

“s-sae?”

you’re not even sure if you said that out loud—you’re a little too shocked to make sense of anything right now. but the moment the corner of his lips tug upward, revealing that lopsided smile you love, you know it’s real.

he’s here.

“i… came to talk,” is all he can say. he’s tired from running up the stairs. apparently tonight, everything was against him. there was an accident right at the street before the corner of your apartment, so he’d had to end the trip early and start running for it. by the time he got here, the elevators for your block were all undergoing maintenance and unusable. but fuck if twenty flights of stairs are enough to make him turn away.

you’re blinking a lot, as if you find it unbelievable that he’s here in the first place, but you nod anyway and step aside to let him in, wet clothes and all.

“how was work today?”

it’s definitely not what he came here from spain to talk about but you entertain it anyway.

“didn’t go,” you tell him, a little coldly, but you think he deserves that much, at least. “how was the game?”

“don’t know, didn’t go.”

you two are similar that way.

“why not?”

“i had other important things to do.”

“you do? pray tell.”

it’s the first time sae’s hearing you like this and he’s sure now that he never wants to make you like this ever again—going against your nature.

it’s lame, and overused, and you deserve an essay for why he shouldn’t and wouldn’t ever do this again to you but it’s sae and he’s never sure what’s good in these situations so all he can manage to say is, “i’m so sorry.”

you cross your arms as the both of you stand in your dimly-lit living room, the storm raging on outside. it’s not like you don’t know that. that aside, you’re pretty sure he’s the most sorry he’s ever been. and if you were still the same naive girl you used to be ten years ago you probably would’ve forgiven him by now.

but you’re not.

“okay, is that all?”

it’s not what you really want to say. you kind of just want this to be a dream; that picture of him and that random girl with their lips locked, that fight that you had that made you cry to sleep. you wish it was some sort of stupid nightmare that didn’t make him ruin your trust but it did.

sae, on the other hand, seems restless. he’s taken aback, not quite sure how to get through to you because he’s never made a mistake like this before. “just- could you… forgive me?”

the ache you head in his voice breaks you, and you’re sure he can see the tears threatening to spill, but you stand with your choice. “can i? i don’t really know, to be honest,” you respond, voice soft and low, not quite daring to meet his eyes in case you falter.

the contrast between how you were and how you are kicks him in the gut and he has no one to blame but himself. he doesn’t want to, but he can sense where this is going. he’s not stupid, he just… doesn’t want to believe it.

“please… don’t do this?” sae swallows the lump in his throat, the foreign way his heartbeat quickens out of fear stumping him. there’s probably more he should say, but maybe that just wouldn’t be enough anymore. his words can’t find him and he can’t find it in himself to reach out to you. not when he realises you out of all people hate the most for having to do this.

if you just blindly follow your heart, you’d leap in his arms right now, fuck how soaked he is. because you still love him. you know that, and you think maybe he knows it too, but judging by the perplexed look on his face, he probably doesn’t realise it. that’s why your brain does the deciding for you. it had already made its choice the moment you saw that picture, the moment you saw the headlines on that gossip rag.

“i… think we should break up, sae.”

before today, if you’d told yourself that one day, you’d say these words, you wouldn’t believe it. but here you are, breaking up with the love of your life.

sae is just standing in front of you, staring at you, the happy picture of the two of you during your second year anniversary hanging on your wall haunting him this very second. the command he gave his assistant to help him get that ring for you sending him into the pits of despair. he’s so stunned he doesn’t know what to say or do.

“you’re… serious?”

there’s no expression in his eyes. they’re just dull, and dark, and nothing like how you’re used to.

this time, you’re the one trying to force the words out of your mouth, calmly, because you’re afraid that the tears will just spill out. “you’re… you’re the one who told me to be kinder to myself, right?”

sae chuckles softly, helplessly, as he realises you take every word he says to heart.

EIGHT YEARS AGO

it was beyond him why you let yourself be subjected to this. nobody was a saint, but surely you deserved better than to be treated like trash?

sae understood a little of where you were coming from. it was hard to let go of a three-year relationship, but having you visit him crying in the middle of the night wasn’t exactly what he would condone.

“you can do better than him, you know that right?”

the words slipped out of his mouth before he knew it. he’d once sworn that he wouldn’t meddle in your relationship, that he’d let you figure it out on your own, but your heartaches were getting too often those days that sae just couldn’t hold it in anymore.

it probably wasn’t the best thing to say to you, considering how you were bawling your eyes out and staining his entire jersey with your tears, but sae was never one to filter his words.

“everyone says that.”

which tells sae you didn’t believe that.

“which means there’s some truth there,” he sighed, leaning back against the couch as you continued to bury your head in his chest. sae saw rin from the corner of the room, peaking out of the hallway and gave him a quick wave to signal him to leave them alone.

“i… don’t know what to do.”

you rarely ever did. having been your friend for the past four years before this taught sae two things: one, you gave your all for your relationship, and two, you were one of the kindest people he’s ever known. (and by extension, it simply meant you knew what had to be done, but you refused to do it.)

sae took a deep breath, eyes gazing up at the ceiling before he resumes, “i don’t know why you let people treat you like that.”

you stayed quiet, sniffling, though it’s getting softer now, so sae continues.

“you know, you’re one of the nicest people i know,” sae told you, fingers absentmindedly stroking your hair—the way he always wanted to but never let himself admit. “which is why it kinda sucks that you’re so stupid to let yourself be hurt by that asshole over and over again.”

the both of you chuckled at that. sae was glad to know you understood he meant only well.

“stop… letting people hurt you and then letting them get away like that, okay?” he said it softly, but you definitely caught it. “be kinder to yourself, fucks sake.”

he felt your fingers curl, gripping at his shirt as you stopped yourself from crying. you looked up at him that night, smiling as your tears dried, and sae remembered telling himself that he’d never want to be the reason you had to feel upset.

“when you say it like that, how can i say no?” you joked, laughing, wiping the last of your tears away. “besides, even if i was still being stupid, i’d always have you with me, right?”

sae remembers.

he remembers not answering you, but he remembers thinking yes, always. and he has a feeling you knew back then too, that sae would always be there for you regardless.

only if it’s you.

maybe even back then, you already knew how he felt for you. and you would always listen to him. you’d always believe in him. now he feels even more stupid for everything that transpired. with his words thrown back at him, he finds himself speechless.

“you’re right,” he replies, voice hoarse, his gaze dropping to the floor. sae was being stupid, and he’s crazy if he thinks he’ll be let off that easy.

you’re sniffling a little, and he does you the courtesy of not looking at you even though you’re already turning away. “i’ll mail you your stuff.”

“it’s fine, i’ll get rin to help me take ‘em.”

it’s a diplomatic breakup. polite, nothing out of line, just two adults deciding that maybe now just isn’t the time.

after a long pause, sae gets the guts to speak. “you know you’re the only one for me, right?” because he feels like maybe you’d been doubting it recently and he doesn’t want you to feel worthless. maybe it has the adverse effect and maybe it’s selfish but he needs you to hear that.

you don’t acknowledge it, and you barely acknowledge him, even as he turns to walk out the door. this time, you’re the one not giving the answer, but sae feels like he knows how you feel anyway. you need time away from him. a proper break from him. so sae leaves wordlessly, clinging on to hope that maybe one day, he’ll be deserving of you again.

the moment sae closes the door, you fall to the floor, wailing into your cushion pillow, having one of the worst nights of your life.

THE NEXT WEEK

annoying jr [10.48am]: oi stupid, i’m here.

—followed by an incessant ringing of your doorbell.

when you groan and swing the front door open, you’re greeted by a smirking rin. at least he hasn’t changed one bit since you’d known him when he was a kid. well, at least not to you.

“did you have to ring it so obnoxiously?” you whine, plopping down on your couch, burying your head in the leather seats.

rin shuts the door behind him, scoffing. “you’re the one who always used to wake up late,” he quips, rolling his eyes (you don’t have to see it, you just know how he’s going to react).

“and someone was always the third party on dates,” you snap back, sticking your tongue out at him.

he deadpans, clicking his tongue in annoyance. “hey, wasn’t my fault my stupid brother kept using me as an excuse to go out.”

right, because back then his parents were a lot more strict than they are now, back before they didn’t know you.

realising that the mood had grown a little somber, rin clears his throat, changing the subject. “how’s work so far?”

you chuckle under your breath, finding it funny how both the brothers’ go-to question is to ask about your work. though, they’ve never been that good in conversations so you can’t blame them.

“it’s fine, promotion period’s coming up so i’m preparing for that,” you respond lacklustrely, getting up off the couch, dragging your feet to your bedroom before resurfacing just ten seconds later, carrying a box full of sae’s things.

it’s full of his clothes, care products and the like, but mostly clothes, because you’d realised you liked to steal his jerseys, wear them like they’re your own, but mostly because they smell like him, remind you of him when he’s not physically around and makes you feel better.

doesn’t make you feel good when you have to pack them up, though. you cried all the way again. pathetically. but rin doesn’t have to know, so you keep up your unbothered facade.

rin takes the box from you, thankfully not mentioning his brother. “hope you get that promotion then,” he says politely, though you sense he might have something else to say that he doesn’t know if he should.

you sigh, because sometimes rin looks like a neglected younger brother and you don’t have the heart to ignore him like sae does sometimes. “go ahead, say what’s on your mind.”

it takes just a moment of hesitation before rin heeds your words. “did you see sae’s interview last night?”

part of you doesn’t want to think about anything related to sae, but most of you still misses him, so it’s a canon event that you still look out for any and every news of him. it’s sad and pathetic and that’s why you make extra care not to mention any of that to anyone.

“nope, was it about their recent win?”

you try to go on as per normal, like sae isn’t just the love of your life that you still wanted.

“mhm.” rin, at least, doesn’t tease you about it. whether he means to or not, you’re grateful for that. “they asked him, though. about that game.” (but of course, you knew that already.)

ah, that game. the game that he abandoned to come find you. the game that led up to your breakup. the game that sae probably had to pay dearly for for knowingly ditching.

“oh, i see. what about it?”

a resigned sigh leaves rin’s lips as he looks at you with the full sincerity of a younger brother concerned with his older brother’s fuckup. “he… really loves you, you know? he’s just… stupid.”

you snort at his last remark, both of you breaking out into a small laughter. it’s bittersweet, thinking about how this might be the last time you see rin, but you’ll probably get over it. you’ll get over this, and sae, and move on someday—now if only you could get yourself to want that.

“i know,” you mutter quietly, deciding that it’s best not to speak too much about it. it’s dumb, considering everything that happened, but his words made you feel relieved, even if just for a second.

just before he leaves, you give him one last hug. “thanks, rin.”

THREE MONTHS LATER

“please don’t give me another heart attack like last time.”

sae huffs, annoyed, although he knows he probably deserves that. his poor assistant went through hell trying to appease everyone on the team due to sae’s last stunt. luckily, there are exceptions made for the best soccer player on the team, so no punishment was dire enough that he had to get kicked.

“i’m just going out for some air.” sae leaves before his assistant can get any words out, entirely too tired today to listen to anything anyone else has to say.

besides, today is a special day.

the moment he’s out of earshot, he calls one of the only contacts on his phone. for some reason, his heart is thumping wildly and his fingers are fiddling with the hem of his windbreaker. the weather is nearing negatives but somehow, he doesn’t feel it.

“hello?”

sae nearly gets a heart attack of his own when a deep, low voice is what he hears, until he realises that he recognises it.

“rin, what’re you doing there?”

he can make out the sadistic chuckle from halfway across the world. “what, disappointed?” (if sae could punch him right now he would.) “relax, we’re just at her birthday dinner and she’s busy,” he explains, though sae doesn’t nearly care about any of that other than the fact that he wants to talk to you.

“where’s y/n?”

“she’s the birthday girl, people are lining up just to take pictures with her,” rin raises his voice over the background, and sae’s never been more frustrated. “she’s taking pics with some handsome guy right now, and he’s got his hands around her waist,” rin whistles right after, and sae can just sense his smugness through the phone.

whether what his brother said was true or not, sae is in no position to be jealous anyway. (even though he is and he’s sporting an unamused frown that’s enough to scare the living daylights out of anyone watching him.)

“wish her happy birthday for me then.”

rin snorts. “sure. disappointed you didn’t get to hear her—” sae hangs up before he can be subjected to anymore of his brother’s nonsense. all he really wanted was to just hear your voice, but he won’t be greedy.

staying friends was already a miracle. that’s only possible because you have a heart of gold, and he knows that if he ever pushes it too much, he might just risk losing you forever and he knows he can’t have that. so for now, this’ll do.

he’ll wait, no matter how long he has to.

later that night, when the moon is high up in spain, sae receives a notification from you. there, attached in your thread is an audio message.

“itoshi sae… thank you.”

the little laugh you leave at the end is enough to make him smile at his phone. he counts his blessings for you, and starts counting down to the days he has left in spain. if he wants you, he needs to go all in.

ONE YEAR LATER

“you ready yet? i’m at your lobby.”

sae can just barely make out your panicked state from the other line. you’re late, and you know he’s fine with waiting, but because you’re a perfectionist, you really really don’t want him to have to.

“yeah, just gimme like, five minutes!” which sae knows translates to i actually need twenty but i’ll rush. there’s a certain satisfaction it gives him—knowing that he knows you in these ways that nobody else can.

“take your time, i have to pump some gas anyway, running low,” he tells you, an excuse which you accept right away because it’s convenient.

sae doesn’t even need any gas. it’s full, so he parks his car by the entrance and waits inside, turning up the air conditioning because he knows you’ll be sweating a little by the time you inevitably still choose to rush down.

it’s exactly one year since the last time he wished you happy birthday (through rin). and this year, he’s happy enough he gets to actually take you out. the past year’s been filled of sae restarting the relationship from ground zero—back to being friends and gradually coming back again to where you are now, dating. sure, it’s taxing having to do it all over again, but he’d do this however many times you want him to.

SIX MONTHS AGO

“hmmm, i dunno how to feel, i kinda like this.”

sae had been calling you up often, and he feels good inside knowing that you might miss him as much as he misses you.

“kinda like what?” he asked, wishing that he could see your expression right now.

“kinda like you chasing me all over again,” you giggled, shameless with your words. “what if i just never agree to be your girlfriend again? what if i just make you chase after me forever?”

he knew for a fact that you weren’t that sadistic, but even so, his answer would still be the same. “then i’ll stick in this phase with you. forever.” although that would render the ring that he bought for you useless.

“oh really?”

sae hummed in faux contemplation. “nah, maybe not. maybe i’ll just ditch you and run off with ryusei or something.”

he got a laugh out of you for that.

“ryusei? not even some other girl, but ryusei?”

sae chuckled—he still remembered his mistake. and he’d never put you in a position to feel that way again. even if you two were just joking around.

“y/n, there’s no one else except you.” he was rarely ever serious like this, especially considering how you bantered as friends, but sometimes, he knew he had to. nowadays, more than anything, he just wanted to know that you had no doubts about how he felt for you.

you didn’t give any response to that, but considering how you started to ease up around him even more after that, sae felt like maybe there was a solid hope there of reviving this after all.

the knock on his window brings him back into the present, your pretty face doing wonders in lighting up his mood.

as you get into the passenger seat, sae steals a glance at you from head to toe—you’re so beautiful and so worth the wait and you’ll always be.

“so, where are you taking me today, mr itoshi sae?”

he leans back against his seat, tilting his head as he looks at you, feigning contemplation. “depends, ms l/n y/n, do you trust me?”

you press your lips into a line, the corners threatening to tug upwards. you’re so adorable that sae’s actually going to go insane but he dons a straight face like he always has because letting you know the power you have over him is more than you need to know.

“i think it’d be a little weird if i couldn’t trust my boyfriend.”

suddenly it’s like time stands still and sae’s hands are stuck on the steering wheel and he’s left staring into space wondering if he heard you right. boyfriend? he turns around to look at you, teal eyes searching your own for answers but all he sees is a smirk on your face—you definitely know the power you have over him.

“wow, want me that bad, huh?” you joke, giggling as you tell him to hit the gas. “i… wasn’t kidding though.”

and as he pulls out of the parking lot, he thinks about the little velvet box that sits in his jacket pocket, thinks about the fact that he’s one of the luckiest people in the world thanks to you. heat rises to his cheeks, and he has to look away from you.

“you know one day you’re still gonna be mrs itoshi, right?”

this time, you laugh—but not like you think it’s a joke, more like the kind where you think was there even any other option? and even then, you offer him assurance.

“there’s nothing i want more.”

#CAN YOU GUYS TELL I MISS SAE SOOO MUCHHH #also … 0% proofread so if you see any mistakes ha ha …#itoshi sae x reader #bllk x reader #blue lock x reader #bllk x you #sae x reader #sae x you #sae x y/n #itoshi sae x you #itoshi sae x y/n #bllk x y/n #itoshi sae fluff #blue lock fluff #bllk fluff #sae fluff #૪ aeri’s fics !

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pinkexpertnerdghost · 9 months

Text

Watch and Be Amazed!

Lyney x Gn!Reader

Synopsis: As a simple person with a boring job, you set out to travel the nations. You attend a renowned magic show only to be suddenly placed in the shared spotlight with the magical duo.

GIF by @c6jpg

{ i'm still exploring Fontaine but quick heads up on mentioning new locations, dw its spoiler free about the archon quest}

General: SFW, fluffy, magic tricks, Lyney being extra and sneaky, feat Lynette

A/N: i love him. Cheeky little guy with his equally cheeky little grin mulkin cat- I didn’t think I’d like him this much but he easily sneaked himself into my heart already also because I recently got him- I just wanna squish him (endearingly)

“ Voila! And now in its place are our feathered friends taking flight!” The magician exclaimed as a small swarm of doves flew out of his hands. Just seconds ago, he held a gorgeous bouquet of arranged daisies and prisma like roses, complete with adorned white ribbons and lace. The small bush of green and flora had simply vanished and transformed into a mass of white feathers.

Your awes become a droplet in the sea of gasps and astonishment from the people around you . Pushing yourself to the end of your cushy seat, you stare ahead in amazement and curiosity.

Even though you sat some rows away from the front seats, you were mesmerized by the trick. You were certain the bouquet had practically melted and shifted into the cocoon of feathers. At least, that’s how it appeared to your eyes.

Trailing the doves as they flew above the audience, you unconsciously let out a small laugh of joy like that of an entertained child. The doves flew around freely, some reaching high atop the Opera House’s stretching ceiling and some flew closer to the audience barely grazing above their heads.

You had been traveling for weeks, as you were lacking some excitement in your mundane life as a simple shop clerk. It had a well off pay and the owner was kind. Yet every passing day became more boring than the last. Soon enough, the days would weld and mend together in your memory as a tapestry of a lackluster pattern. You were afraid it would overshadow a great portion of your lifetime.

As a shop clerk, you had seen many travelers coming and going, talking about the beautiful sceneries across the rest of Teyvat they have witnessed, varies dishes you’ve never tried before being described as mouthwatering, the wonderful cultures, festivities and traditions people from around this world took part in. It had always left you in a state of entrance and jealousy for them, as they would have the freedom and determination to see the worlds wonders with their own eyes.

Seeing your yearning gaze and saddened expression when the travelers or adventurers left through the front door, your employer had generously given you some vacation time. You were one of your boss’s most dedicated workers, often swooping in for a fellow coworker if they fell ill or couldn’t make it otherwise. You have done more than enough to earn yourself this time off.

And so, you took your life by the rings and were off into the road. Traveling from one nation to the other and to the now where you were. In the seat in one of the most impressive buildings you have ever seen.

From the moment you boarded off the Aquabus; the little guides being one of the cutest beings you’ve ever seen; you oogled and awed in the splendor around you. Fontaine had been one leap of a cultural shock for you. Sure, sometimes you moved boxes of bits and bobs of Fontaine imported trinkets onto shelves, but seeing this much advanced technology was a bit exhilarating as well as a bit imposing

However, something there was something that immediately caught your eye when walking about. On a bulletin board was an array of multicolored posters and newsletter, but the bright red one with a grinning cat in the hat caught your gaze immediately.

“ Come and behold A magical performance performed by renowned Magicians Lyney and Lynette! ”

The names struck a cord in your memory. Ah, that's right! You had heard a great deal about a very specific Magic show in Fontaine. You remembered it being brought up a good number of times back in the shop. The way people would sound excited and how they could barely contain themselves trying to describe a magic trick as best they could.

Since you were in the area you had managed to investigate it and wound up purchasing a ticket to go see.

“ Back to the stage my feathery entourage!! Being in the presence of such a wonderful audience is indeed riveting, but I’m going to need the spotlight back to preform the next trick, haha!” The magician Lyney said with a pleading laugh. The doves seem to have understood them as they all flew back onto the stage. From either side of the giant velvet curtain, the flew behind it disappearing into the shadow.

“ For this next trick, I’m going to need a hand!” He exclaimed while putting his hands on his hips. He then put a hand on his forehead and looked around the area while squinting his eyes. From the right side of the stage came another person. She had on a similar uniform to her twin brother, adorned with teals, blues and grays. It was a counterpart to the reds, pinks, and plum Lyney wore in his intricate performer’s outfit.

Yet they both had the motif of that same toothy grinning kitty you saw tagging the corner’s of the promotional posters.

Lynette had walked behind Lyney and tapped his shoulder twice with a stoic expression. Lyney had turned dramatically around on his heel, immediately stopping his dire search for help.

“Ah, It seems as though Lynette has come to the rescue!” He cheered and with a grateful hand gesture divided the audience's attention to Lynette. She stood there facing the crowd with a curt expression. Lynette seemed to be the polar opposite of her brother. While Lyney was loud, extravagant and energetic, his assistant and sister was quieter, docile and seemed unmoved with the theatrics. However, to you she was as equally impressive as the red Magician.

In an earlier trick where they’d pull objects directly out of flat cards, Lynette had elegantly swiped off a parasol, a tea cup with piping hot tea given the steam, and an adorable hat with that grinning black cat. All while keeping a calm disposition as if she knew everything and anything that was to come. It boggled you how she managed to slip the illustrations to real physical objects.

But then again, the Magicians never reveal their trade secrets.

Lyney tapped his cheek before he spoke again. “It seems as if we will need a little more help to perform this magic trick, wouldn’t you agree Lynette?”

Lynette simply nodded.

Lyney’s shoulders relaxed as he twirled around to face the audience. He held his hands behind his back as he paced back and forth. His eyes never leave the audience.

“ For this trick, It will require three people.”

There were very quiet, almost inaudible murmurs and whispers in the crowd. You paid them no mind and kept your eyes focused on the stage. In your mind, you were guessing how the next trick would go.

Lyney stopped center stage.

“ I can see your enthusiasm and excitement! In that case, I shall pick one person from the crowd who will help Lynette and I out!” He said with a jovial grin. His cat-like eyes scanned around the crowd. After this, many people kept their eyes on the Magician scoping out for an available assistant.

Seeing as you weren’t in the first row or a local, you have settled that your chance of being picked was slim. So instead of paying attention to the main stage and spotlight, you turned your head from side to side. Envisioning the lucky person who would be fished out of the ocean of filled seats. Perhaps it would be the beautiful woman with quite the attractive headpiece sitting a row down from you. Or maybe, it would be the little boy three five seats to your left practically bouncing in his seat chanting to let it be him.

The choice could be anyone but yourself.

“ You my dear! Could you help Lynette and I out with this trick?” Lyney’s voice resounded once more.

Your eyes squirted suddenly as a bright source of light was now trained above you. Sinking back onto your seat, you turn to face the stage.

Those cat-like lilac eyes stared directly into your own [E/C] ones. Alongside with the deep royal purple eyes belonging to his assistant Lynette. Looking around and behind, you noticed the two people beside you glance at you with slight surprise.

You pointed at yourself just to make sure. You didn’t know if you made a face with the sudden surprise of the spotlight, but Lyney chuckled in amusement.

His eyes crinkled slightly as he nodded, his hair bobbing along with his head and sturdy hat. His laughter made you feel a bit fuzzy in the chest. Maybe you were just starstruck.

“ Yes you. If it is alright, could you perhaps follow the staff by your row to escort you on stage?” He said, extending a hand to a person in a theater mask and green vest standing at the end of the row. His lilac eyes never left you.

It was hard to say, but you could assume he was silently communicating with you. His soft eyes were patient and still, unlike his theatrical energy he demonstrated earlier.

‘ Are you okay with this? ‘

He didn’t mind the sudden recess of silence, in fact it only added to the build up to the magic trick. It wasn’t long until you blinked, breaking yourself out of your star-stricken surprise.

You nodded at Lyney, to which he gripped the brim of his hat quietly tipping it to you with a satisfied grin.

“ Very well, please follow the staff down the aisle while we set up on stage!”

After squeezing down your row and next to the staff member with the mask, you followed them as they led you towards the stage. The staff member was kind enough to guide you through the dimly lit place, your eyes were examining the person. Their mask is what stuck with you, you’ve never seen anything like it. It was both beautifully crafted yet it gave you a small chill of danger and mystic. It was probably made for this purpose of the show.

No elemental magic of those who wielded visions, but instead a tightrope thinly strung between reality and fantasy.

The stage was elevated but after climbing up the stairs onto the polished stage. Lyney beckoned you to come up next to him. You shuffled closer, both your hands behind your back fidgeting in a nervous manner.

The spotlight was now back onto Lyney and Lynette and now you as well.

“ Might I know the name of the new assistant I’ll be working with temporarily?” He asked as he now faced you. Lynette came to his side, her violet eyes glazing over you with relaxed attentiveness.

You felt your mouth become a bit dry. “ I’m [Name].” You spoked normally.

Lyney bowed, taking off his tophat bringing it close to his chest.

“ It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, dear [Name]” He bounced back up, flipping his hat back onto his head.

You shifted on your foot and that seemed to have caught the attention of the magical duo.

“ Hmm, are you perhaps nervous?” He asked. “ It is quite alright. Whenever the light is trained on you, the feeling of stage fright comes at you like the onslaught of tidal waves.” He said, in a non projecting voice. He still sounded loud enough for the audience to hear, but his words weren’t exaggerated in a way to make you feel queasy. Instead, it sounded like he was cheering you on, a little push of confidence he would share with you.

Maybe you were overthinking it. He is a performer so its his job to turn up the charm towards the audience.

Lynette had subtly sent you a reassuring little smile. She walked up next to you and stood by you now.

“ Perhaps, you may just have some butterflies in your stomach. It happens to the best of us!” He spoke. His gloved hand came up to you.

“ May I have what’s in your side pocket?” His eyes shifted down to your right pocket. Confused, you reach down into your pocket and feel around. There was a smooth and flat object that you didn’t remember having there, so you slipped it out.

In your hand was a playing card. It wasn’t an ordinary playing card. It looked to be one of the card props that belonged to the two Magicians. Figuring he wanted it back; without you having the faintest Idea of how it got there in the first place; you handed it to him.

He grabbed the card and raised it up to his face to inspect it.

“Aha! Just as I thought. You had made a bundle of these pesky little butterflies.” He slipped the card back to his palm. He twirled back to face you with a triumphant smile as if he’d found a treasure chest. “ Fear not, for I will rid you of this troubling kaleidoscope!”

With that being said, he tossed the card over your head.

Or at least, a zipping card was what you were expecting.

Instead, a small little tornado of little butterflies escapes from Lyneys hand. They fluttered around you in a tunnel-like pattern.

Completely forgetting about the audience, you craned your hand up and stared in awe. Looking closely, some butterflies had little trails of violet shimmer. The butterflies themselves didn't seem to be real butterflies. On some you managed to see the wings to be made out of the back of playing cards.

The butterflies dispersed out onto the crowd, until each one vanished without a trace.

“Now then, are you feeling better?” Lyney asked, both hands on his hips.

You nodded with a smile on your face. The small pit of nervousness was now reduced to a grain.

“Wonderful! And, it seems as if you have magic in you yourself, what luck!” Lyney exclaimed. Lynette all the while silently side eyed her brother and his antics.

“Now then if you may follow Lynette, she will guide you to this next trick or a trio.” he smiled.

Lynette had raised a hand to you in order to take it. You complied and took her hand as she led you behind the curtain.

“ Are you okay? I know Lyney can be a bit over the top, but if at any point feeling bad, let us know.” Lynette spoke calmly to you.

“ I’m alright now. I just wasn't expecting to get picked.” You said honestly.

Lynette nodded. “ It's like that for most who get chosen.”

She guided you towards a little box which was decorated with a little four pointed gold star in the center. The box was relatively small, reaching from the ground to knee level

“ When they take the box you’ll have to stand on it. I’ll stand in my own box next to you. Just follow Lyney’s instructions.” She said,

“Also, brace your feet after the curtain falls.”

You listened closely and nodded.

“Alright. Got it.”

Lynette hummed.

Behind the big red curtain you heard the crowd laugh and clap.

“And now for the anticipated trick, shall I have my two assistants step back into the light?”

Lynette and you came back onto the stage. Again in the limelight, you noticed the two boxes parallel to each other.

“ For this next trick, both my assistants shall switch their places before your very eyes.” Lyney spoke calmly.

“But wait a moment. This is a simple trick one could accomplish by simply walking across the stage to the other boxes. This trick is sounding more like a runway show than magic.” Lyney sighed in defeat. In a quick one eighty mood switch, Lyney perked up and raised his chin high.

“ But no, dear spectators in the crowd. This trick shall be done with neither of my assistants leaving the confines of their one by one area!” Lyney exclaimed, flapping his little side cape in the process.

Lynette turned and gave you a look, a very specific look. You took it to get on the box and you walked over to the one closest to you.

“ Now then, a little tent shall fall on top of both of them. Switching places without jumping, walking or running is a lot more exhausting than it sounds.” As soon as he said that, above you began to descend a festive red tent.

It slowly descended until the dark velvet of the inside tent obscure your vision of the crowd and them of yourself. You could only hear the echoing voice of Lyney as the crowd was now fully silenced in anticipation.

The words of Lynette rang in your mind, as you looked down to your feet.

“ For you see, the most can happen within the blink of an eye.”

You felt the box underneath you dip slightly. Barely enough time to even gasp, you had fallen through the solid box beneath you. Quickly you bent your knees and positioned yourself to be able to absorb the momentum of your fall.

Once landing soundly, you looked up to see how you had fallen. In the ceiling was a rectangular indentation of a trapdoor.

You heard a ‘psst’ to your right. There you say Lynette making a quick hand gesture to switch places; motioning to you and the spot beneath her feet.

Speeding over to her, you took little but key notice in your new surroundings. The walls were barren, the air had slight dust, and light from the stage lights barely made it through the miniature nooks and crannies of the floorboards. You were underground.

Once getting to where lynette last stood, you waited. Looking around where you stood there was a small ladder behind you.

Suddenly a similar trap door like the one where you initially stood, swung open.

Taking this as a new signal, you climbed onto the ladder trying to make as little noise as you could. Once above ground, the trap door that was once open shut, making the ground below you stable enough to stand on.

“ As such, a walk across this stage could be reduced down to none!”

You heard a harsh step down onto the floor followed by a snap of a finger.

The tent around you was pulled back up at lighting speed leaving you stunned in place. The crowd ahead was looking back and forth between the place where you once were and to where you are now. A roar of whistles and claps was heard.

Looking to where you once were, stood Lynette waving at the crowd. The same stoic expression on her face.

Lyney came skipping up to your side.

“ How are you feeling dear [Name]? I hope you aren't too disoriented by the little trip you took.”

You looked at him, he had a proud grin on his face. The light shown down was overshadowed by the brim of his top hat. And yet, his eyes and distinguishable teardrop mark on his right cheek made you feel all sorts of flustered all over again.

Then again you noticed just how packed the Opera is. You had forgotten momentarily that there was an audience. The showers of cheers came down like a bolt of lightning striking the still water.

“I’m fine, just a bit perplexed.” You shook your head trying to process what had just happened in what felt like a fraction of a minute.

“ Oh my, it seems you may have been slightly shaken when vanishing from one spot to the other.” He hummed.

“ That's it! I shall make it up to you! But I’ll have to get you back to your original box.” He said tapping his curled up hand onto his open palm.

He stood up onto the tips of his toes, as from your height atop the box managed to put you at a larger distance from him. Figuring he might tell you something , you leaned down slightly.

“ When the tent drops on you once more, close your eyes. Don’t open them until you hear me say, Hat. Trust me, I’m sure this trick will put a blinding smile on your face.” He said quietly, a hand placed by his mouth blocking it from the audience ahead.

You weren’t sure what he meant or what would happen but somehow, you trusted him. Maybe it was his pretty face, charming personality, or simply because a famous and professional performer.

A little breathy chuckle escaped him before he leaned away and waltzed back to the front and center. Something about him smiling and laughing made your heart almost pop.

You internally battled these pestering thoughts; You were just starstruck! A celebrity crush, don’t let it get to you. Especially in front of a massive crowd watching your every move!

You took some short breaths in and faced ahead onto the wall behind the audience. You didn’t want to let this confusing feeling consume you.

“And now, one final trick before our amazing temporary assistant bids adieu.” He sighed. From his chest he pulled out a white handkerchief he blew into. The crowd laughed at his little mopping gag.

“ It was a pleasure to have you on stage with us, [Name].” He said before swiping the used hanky away. It disappeared into red and white sparks into the air.

The tent above you descended once again, and the moment you found yourself in the shaded confines you closed your eyes. You could only listen to what was happening around you.

“Now then, why don’t we send our new friend off with a grand finale?”

The surrounding noise of the crowd murmuring came through as buzzing. You felt the ground once more give out underneath you. Holding in your breath you prepared for what may have come next.

Something, or someone caught you. You felt the sudden mass underneath you, and suddenly there was a small breeze passing into your face. Your eyes squeezed shut the entire time.

Suddenly, you felt your feet touch a solid floor. You stood up, the person letting you go as you stabilized yourself.

“ And so, they shall appear where they once were at the drop of a hat!”

You heard it. Cracking open one eye you see once again a velvet curtain of a tent. Blinking, adjusting to the light, the tent was pulled up.

This time there was some cheer for a few seconds. The sudden Huhs? And murmurs slowly began to take a hold of the audience. Curious as to the mood shift you look around you.

Lyney, no longer wearing his signature tophat that had been left sitting on the floor.

Where Lynette was supposed to be, she was no more. Instead, there was a small top hat lying top down on the box.

Lyney, surprised, went over to the hat.

“Lynette? Oh Lyneeette? Where did you vanish off to?” He took the hat and looked inside of it, as if his sister were inside the hat.

You were slightly puzzled at first. Where on Teyvat could she have gone? Your doubts were suddenly clouded by an obvious truth.

This had to be part of the show.

So you kept your eyes on the male twin, anticipating what he will do next.

Giving up in calling out to his sister, still holding onto the small hat in his hands, he walked over to where you stood.

“ It seems that she won’t show herself unless we make her appear out of this hat. [Name], if you would.” He then extended the small hat in my direction.

You delicately grabbed the brim area closest to you. Lyney let go, and you looked inside the empty hat. The material felt slightly heavy but the intricate seamless pattern woven into the pitch black fabric made you closely look at it.

You heard a small tapping noise, you looked back to the magician as he tapped the back of his hand. Putting two and two together, you quickly flip the hat upright.

You mimicked Lyney’s motion on the hat’s top about three times.

The first tap, colorful feathers floated to the ground.

The second tap, petals of flowers twirled on their way down.

The final tap, a deck of prop cards spilt out and crashing against the stage floor with clicks and claps.

“Looks like she isn’t in there.” Lyney quipped. You were once again thrown into utter confusion. The comedic way the crowd gasped after one object came after another object from the empty hat. At some point the reactions of surprise slowly turned into snickers and giggles of amusement.

Lyney placed a hand on his hip and scratched his chin. “ Try doing it again with the hat upside down. Maybe, a different approach will convince her to come out.”

So, you turn the hat over. Sneakily taking a small peak inside, and as you suspected it was empty.

How does he pull these things off? Seriously! How?!?

Replicating your previous action, you tapped the brim.

A small puff of smoke and confetti made you step back. Out of the hat a cat sprung!

Or was it a cat?

It was a big cat face attached to a coiled spring.

It was cute! It had the signature toothy grin the show’s mascot had, yet it had it turned upside down in a frowny face. One eye has a teal star and the other has a teal teardrop. It even had a little bowtie making it a very fashionable cat creature.

It turned to face you as its ears twitched. You’re eyes locked with its own strange one and you found yourself in a staring contest….with the giant cat head on a spring of all things.

“ Oh dear, it looks like Bogglecat seemed to have answered instead of Lynette” Lyney laughed.

Tip Tap Tip Tap

You and Lyney turned to face Lyney’s hat that had just shook slightly on the floor.

Poof!

The hat had blasted up into the air and below the hat there was Lynette. Slightly obscured by the turquoise colored fog.

“ Here I am.” Lynette spoked up.

Grabbing the brim of Lyney’s hat she tipped it and bowed before the audience. The audience clapped and some people even stood up from their seats.

The Bogglecat in the hat leaped from your hands and jumped over towards the spotlight where Lynette was. Lyney came running over to you and carefully grabbed your now free hand.

“ C’mon, the audience is waiting for the final bows.” He hushed at you with that permanently charming smile of his. His pale blonde hair bounced along as he urged you to join him and his sister. With no reason to refuse, you ran along with him. You felt the corner of your mouth curl up in a giddy smile. Now unafraid of the public you stood in the bright lights with your chest held high.

Lynette tossed Lyney’s hat into the air, landing it perfectly on Lyney’s head. The cat in the hat jumped right into Lynette's hand. Once she caught it, she twirled it around in her hand like a skilled juggler. The cat suddenly vanished inside the hat, and the small hat now was held against her head.

“ This has been Lyney and Lynette’s Magic show! Thank You all for watching!” The three of you held hands; Lyney at the center, Lynette to his right, and you to his left. Lifting your hands up, you three did a dramatic bow. This audience applauded one final time for the performance. It was the loudest applause you had heard during your time in the Opera Epiclese.

Slowly people had started to leave the theater, with the front entrance reopened many people had started to trickle out into the lobby. This left fewer and fewer people in the main room, the Opera house becoming

You were preparing to step down the stage staircase until you heard someone call out to you.

“ Wait, [Name]! If you could spare a moment?” It was a voice you had quickly grown familiar with.

The top hat with the plum colored ribbon, the pale blonde tuffet that covered just above his right eye, and that teardrop marking beneath the same right eye. Lyney came speedily towards you, his sister Lynette following a bit behind. Unlike him, she calmly walked over and that stoic expression on her face felt a bit more done than what you had seen.

“Hm? What is it Mister Lyney?” You stopped and asked politely. Looking over the male twin you glanced at his sister “Miss Lynette?”

“That was a splendid performance you made on stage! You went along just swimmingly with our act.” Lyney gushed.

Once again you felt flustered. Out of all things, a professional magician complimenting you on a magic trick? You scratched your cheek.

“ I was just following you guys. Really, if anyone should be taking compliments it is you two!” You spoke with enthusiasm. “ The way Miss Lynette pulled out the items right off the cards, or when you made my ‘ stomach butterflies ‘ disappear. It really was a treat to see!” You felt your face getting a bit warmer as you continued to spill your excitement into words.

“ This will definitely be a nice memory I won't be forgetting any time soon!”

Lyney chuckled and even Lynette’s eyes grew slightly larger with interest.

“ You’re too kind!” Lyney chuckled, his pale face getting the slightest bit pink in the cheeks. “ I don’t believe I’ve seen your face in our crowd before. Are you maybe a tourist coming from a distance to see our show?”

You nodded. “ I am as a matter of fact. I don’t get out much to say the least.” You confessed.

“ I’ve heard about your magic show for some time now, traveling groups have brought it up time and time again. Fontaine was my next destination so I took the opportunity to come see it myself.”

You smiled gently. “ This was my first legitimate magical performance I had the fortune of attending. Not to mention getting randomly selected to participate! Thank you for the fun time, Mister Lyney and Miss Lynette.”

Lyney and Lynette listened with great interest.

“ I see. Thus, making this show a memorable experience for you was all the more rewarding then.” Lyney took off his hat and brought it to his chest.

“We are both happy to have put a beautiful smile on your lovely face!~” Lyney very gently lifted your hand. Bringing it close to his face, he placed a small almost ghostly peck.

Okay. Now you definitely felt your face may have caught on fire.

Lyney might have noticed your sudden flustered face. The sneaky magician sent a very brief wink with a smile. Not just any smile. This smile had a more feline nature to it; as if he enjoyed seeing such a reaction from you.

He lowered your hand back down, and flipped his hat back onto his head. That cat-like smirk was nowhere to be seen anymore. Innocently smiling at you, he laughed. It sounded slightly nervous.

“ Well, if you will be around Fonaine for a while longer, find us by the Aquabus station. We might just have spare time to show you around!”

Slipping your hand behind your back, you tried to reply to his friendly invitation.

“ Mhm! Aquabus station. Go it!” you spoke in broken segments.

Oh dear, maybe it's time you’d step outside for some fresh air.

“ I think I should get going now. Who knows how long the people traffic is in the lobby now. It was great meeting you. Your cat mascots are cute and now I shall leave” You had begun to word vomit as you were shuffling away.

“ Bye bye!”

Facing away from the magic duo, you speed walk down onto the carpeted floor. Not daring to look back, you heard the sound of an amused giggle and an exasperated sigh.

“ Are you proud of yourself? You almost made them faint with your antics.” Lynette tipped the back of Lyney’s hat. It fell forward and off but he had quickly caught it before it hit the ground.

“ Hey, I just wanted to make evening a little more magical is all. It was the most I can do from withholding them back from leaving"

"Right. And you had to tease them until they were red in the face."

Lyney stared at his sister for a moment, until he thought.

He felt a small hitch of embarrassment in his chest realizing something.

"I- Uh, didn't go to far with the card letter, right?" He nervously asked.

Lynette sighed and shook her head.

"Brother, most of the time you don't even need the spotlight to be over dramatic."

Once you were outside and looking up at the sky. The skies were different in every spot you had been. Here in Fontaine, you could barely see the twinkling stars.

As you sighed contently, you made your way over to the hotel you had planned to stay in for the time. As you shifted you felt something shift alongside you in your sleeve. It was cold and smooth.

Surprised, you dug into your sleeve.

It was a playing card. A prop playing card.

“ I hope you had a magical Evening, [Name]. Meet me by the bench near the potted flowers by the station at noon tomorrow. If you show up, best prepare for I still have tricks up my sleeve that will leave you dazzled! “

There was a little doodle of a toothy grinning cat.

A/N: Should I make a part two? Idk maybe. EDIT: PART TWO HERE

#i wrote fanfiction because I can nothing is stopping me from expressing my sheer love and happiness for this little magic man #genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin lyney #genshin lyney x reader #fontaine #lyney and lynette #lyney x reader #lyney genshin #genshin imagines #genshin oneshots #genshin fluff #fluff #genshin fanfic #fontaine siblings #lynette #lyney

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uluvjay · 4 months

Text

Fall in love with you- T. Zegras

Trevor Zegras x Best friend! Reader (feat. Quinn Hughes)

Summary: you knew Better than to fall in love with Trevor

Warnings?; angst, self-doubt, crying, asshole Trevor, cursing, Quinn comes to the rescue, this is extremely old and hardly proofread so I apologize for any errors!

Next part

—

You were Trevor’s best friend, your moms were best friends in collage leading to the life long friendship of you two.

You two had always been close even when he moved to Michigan for hockey you never drifted. He begged you to come to Boston with him for collage even though he only stayed a year and your had gotten into your dream school.

It was Trevor how could you say no?

That was a problem of yours never being able to tell him no. He wanted to go to a party even though you hated them? You went, wanted you to stay up late with him despite you having a big test the next day? You did it.

You always blamed it on the fact he was your best friend but everyone besides Trevor knew you were lying, they could all see how in love you were with him they just never brought it up.

The first person to call you out on those feelings was Quinn Hughes. Trevor had invited you to the Hughes lake house two summers ago where he constantly left you and was hardly even home most nights, usually with some random girl he met that day.

There had been an argument between you and Trevor, you blew up on him after he came home from another one night stand telling him if you knew you would be spending more time with the Hughes family and their other friends then him you wouldn’t have come in the first place.

He got offended saying he was allowed to have fun to even though that had nothing to do with what you were saying, after he stormed out of the room you were staying in you made the impulse decision to book a flight back to New York, and get the hell out of there but Quinn had caught you packing.

—-

“Hey you okay we heard you two yell- woah what’re you packing for?” He asked stopping himself mid sentence

“Im going home Quinn, thank you for opening your home to me I really appreciate it and you guys have all been so nice spending time with me while Trevor’s off with random girls every night”

“Wait, why are you leaving though? Did Trevor say something? I’ll go kick his ass right now if he hurt your feelings”

“No he didn’t I-I just can’t do this anymore, he begged me to come and of course I said yes like always just for him to pretty much say fuck me and leave me to be with some random girls who probably took pictures of him sleeping so they can post them an-“

“Your in love with him” he said cutting you off

“What? No Quinn, I’m not” you replied with a defensive laugh

“Don’t lie to me”

“Quinn I’m not”

“Cut the bullshit” he told you more stern shutting the door

“I’m not lying”

“Yes you are, I see the way you look at your phone when he lets you know he won’t be coming back, how you stare at the marks on his neck and back, how you stare daggers into all the girls that talk to him, the way your face lights up when he walks into a room, your in love”

“He can’t know Quinn, it’ll ruin everything” you told him looking down at your hands

“Hey, your secrets safe with me, but you can’t do this to yourself forever kid”

And that’s how You and Quinn also became best friends

—-

Fast forward two years and here you are back at the same Lake house in the same predicament. However over last summer you became good friends with most of the guys including Jamie and Mason who came with from Anaheim.

You Graduated from collage in May and got your degree in interior design, tonight Quinn and Jack were hosting you a small graduation dinner as they wasn’t able to attend your graduation along with some of the other guys.

You were standing in the Kitchen with Cole, Quinn, Jack, Trevor and Jamie who had all just come back from a workout.

“So Y/n you gonna come to Montreal and help me make my house look nice? I need some help decorating my shelves they don’t look good” Cole asked

“You can reach your shelves?” Jack asked causing everyone to laugh

“Shut up asshole” Cole replied

“Yeah Coley I’ll come help but I won’t be needing your stepladder I should be good” you said adding in to the joking

“You know what fuck all of you” he said walking off laughing

“Love you!” You called out laughing as well

“When he murders us all in our sleep I won’t be surprised” Quinn said causing everyone to let out light giggles

“Y/n what color you wearing tonight? I don’t wanna clash” Jack asked you

“You act like you won’t be wearing shorts and a random shirt ” you replied “but probably this white dress I bought a little while ago, I’m finally tan enough to wear it”

“You can’t wear white, the girl I invited is” Trevor blurted out looking at his phone

“Dude what the hell? I told you this was a lake house thing only, only the people staying here are allowed at the dinner, no extra invites” Quinn said getting a little pissed

“Aren’t your parents coming? Along with Luke, some of his friends, and y/n’s one friend? Why can’t my friend come”

“That’s our Family Z, they have a relationship with y/n and she knows Luke’s friends from them hanging around they’re like all madly in love with her” Jack said joining in

“Y/n’s fine with it right?” He said giving you the look he always did when he wanted something from you

“I’m not paying, it’s up to Quinn and Jack they organized the dinner” you said looking away

“Yeah so she’s not coming and if she for some reason does show up, she better not be in white, it’s Y/n’s night” Quinn said ending the conversation and walking out everyone else following besides you and Trevor.

“What the hell was that?” Trevor scoffed

“What?”

“You totally taking Quinn’s side!? Are you in a mood with me or something? Why can’t my friend come”

“Because I’m not paying Z, it’s not something i organized Quinn and Jack did, if I had it up to me we’d being having pizza and sitting around a fire not going to a fancy restaurant.” you told him growing a bit annoyed.

“Whatever” he mumbled stomping off.

—

Four hours later everyone was in a private room at some fancy restaurant in Michigan, in all it had ended up being You, The Hughes family, Cole, Mason, Jamie, Trevor, Dylan and Luca.

Trevor hadn’t spoken to you since earlier in the kitchen and hadn’t gotten off his phone since you guys had gotten to the restaurant.

Jamie and Mason had both said something to him multiple times but it just ended with Trevor giving both of them attitude.

You were talking with Ellen about the new things she had planted in their home garden when Trevor stood up and pocketed his phone walking out of the private room.

“Okay can I ask what the hell his problem is?” Ellen had asked loud enough for everyone to hear.

“I didn’t let him invite one of his little hookups and he got mad because Y/n took my side instead of giving in” Quinn explained.

“He hasn’t said a word to me since like noon either” Jack added.

“Okay this isn’t about him and let’s not make it about him, tonight is about Y/n and her achievements” Jim said shutting everyone up just in time as the food was being served.

Ten minutes later the door opened back up and in walked Trevor with a blonde girl.

You froze, was he serious right now? For one night he couldn’t listen and not go off and do what he wanted. You looked around and seen Jamie and Cole both rubbing their foreheads and looked next to you at Quinn who had his head titled back, then to your right to your best friend who looked like she was about to murder both Trevor and the blonde girl.

You returned to eating until you heard someone scoff and a chair scoot out, as you looked up you seen Jamie pulling Trevor out the room, leaving the girl in the room.

“And you are?” Ellen asked causing Luke and Jack to both let out slight laughs at how straightforward their mom was.

“Emma” she replied

“Mm” was all Ellen replied, she also knew about your feelings for Trevor

The door opened back up and in walked a pissed off Jamie which was a rare sight to see, and an annoyed Trevor.

“Everyone this is my girlfriend Emma” he announced and it got so quiet you could hear a pin drop as everyone looked from them to you.

Did everyone know about your feelings? Were you truly that noticeable when it came to how you acted around Trevor?

“Since when?” Mason asked

“Three months” Emma answered

Everyone just stayed quite, the tension could be cut with a knife and the amount of awkwardness was uncomfortable.

“I think it’s time to head home” you whispered in Quinn’s ear

“Yeah, I’ll go grab the check” he said getting up and walking out

“Where’s he going?” Trevor asked

“To get the Check” you replied

“Already? Is that what you whispered in his ear about? I’m not ready to leave you can’t just decide when we all leave Y/n”

“Well I’m ready to head home Trevor and it was my graduation dinner but you of course found a way to make the night about you” you snapped standing up and leaving.

—

Once everyone got home you went straight to your room and got changed into comfortable clothes, went down stairs, made a drink and went outback.

You were feeling a rollercoaster of emotions, you loved Trevor and he constantly hurt you but honestly it was your fault, you were the one that never told him how you feel how’s he supposed to know you wanna be the one in his bed every night?

You were also angry at him, how dare he pull the shit he did tonight at your graduation dinner of all things. You celebrated multiple achievements of his with him and never once made it about you, it just wasn’t fair.

You didn’t even realize someone had come outside or that you were crying until you heard someone ask you something.

“Huh?” You asked as you came back to your surroundings to see Jack sitting next to you.

“I asked why your crying”

“Oh it’s nothing” you rushed out wiping your tears

“Non of that Bullshit what’s up” he asked

“I love Trevor, no I’m in love with him, have been since I was 17”

“I know” he replied nonchalantly

“What?!”

“It’s not hard to notice y/n, your pretty bad at hiding it” he said with a laugh

“You don’t think he noticed do you..”

“No he’s to stupid” he told you laughing again

“Good, I just don’t know what I’d do if he found out I was in love with him, we’ve been best friends since we were born it would ruin everything.”

“You’re in love with me?” You heard the person that shouldn’t be asking that question ask it.

“Shit” you mumbled closing your eyes

“I’m gonna head back inside” Jack said getting up and patting your shoulder

“I asked you a question Y/n, please tell me you’re talking about someone else you’ve been friends with since kids.”Trevor said

“No it’s you, I love you” you said in a low voice

“What the Fuck” he said with a laugh

“I know, I know I’m sorr-“

“Sorry doesn’t cut it Y/n! Do you know what this is going to change? Everything! Our whole lives, every moment we’ve ever shared, it’s all different now”

“I know that’s why I never said anything, I knew you wouldn’t feel the same” you mumbled

“Damn right I don’t feel that way”

“Can you not be rude right now?, you listened in on a conversation you had no business hearing and now you know information that just ruined our friendship, I don’t need you being an ass”

“Why? Why me y/n?”

“I don’t know Trevor! I ask myself that every single day, why you, why my best friend? And I don’t have an answer ” you told him.

“You should have known better”

“It not like I wanted to fall for you Trevor, it’s not like I hoped and wished that I’d fall in love with you and ruin a 22 year long friendship.”

“We need space, I need space y/n I don’t know how to feel about this.” he told you

“I’ll find the next flight to New York tomorrow and be gone” you told him walking past him and into the house.

—

As you were laying in bed you heard someone knock on your door, “come in” you said with a hoarse voice from crying

“Hey I just wanted to check in, Jack told me what happened” Quinn said walking in

“It was so bad Quinny” you said breaking down again.

“No, don’t cry, it’ll be okay y/n” he said sitting next to you and rubbing your back

“I’m leaving tomorrow” you told him

“Why?”

“He said he wants space so I’m gonna go home, I think it’s for the better you know getting away from him”

“Don’t go home, let’s go somewhere”

“Where?” You asked with curiosity

“A beach?”

“That sounds nice”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah” you said looking up at him with a smile

—-

Next part

#nhl #trevor zegras #nhl fanfiction #hockey imagine #nhl imagine #trevor zegras blurb #trevor zegras x reader #trevor zegras imagine #trevor zegras x y/n #trevor zegras x you #quinn hughes x reader #quinn hughes

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arise-if · 4 months

Text

“Arise, take form this new era!”

These are the first words uttered of the fourth age of this world and its influence has been felt in the blondwood galleries of the moneyed to the silver bows of the flightships which now traverse the near sky and yet when the academy first laid eyes on the object of this change they had but one warning.

But that is not your story and that is not your time, play as a homunculi child of the fourth age of alchemy and discover a world bustling with the excitement and the tragedy of new frontiers; play as the child of the partyboy former Cavalry Captain of the 13th Company and Champion Equestrian who has spared no expense in raising you, explore both the gleaming towers and hidden underbelly of Candar, the familiar glades and slopes of your homeland and the striking landscapes of far away lands, dedicate yourself to your studies or aspire to a life beyond the grip of polite society.

The currency of this era is the much prized splinters of newsilver which have enabled so much of its progress and advancement, from the miracle of flight to the industrialisation of the Great Nations and even feats we call foul heresy but even this resource will not last forever. All the world now looks towards the next great find, towards whomever shall herald the fifth age.

That is your story.

Play as male, female or non-binary with options to be straight, gay, asexual or not pursue a romance at all.

Define your player character's demeanour, appearance, personality, history and skills — etiquette, riding, alchemy, artificing, bargaining and much more.

Choose the subject of your 5th year academic theory report and go out into the world to gather data in the field — by underhanded means or otherwise.

Explore the unique landscape and phenomena that proliferate across the land.

Court and pursue various romance options from the brave lancer-in-training, the untalkative classmate, your adroit childhood mate, the ambitious assistant or the unfamiliar guide.

Live in the vast world of Candar which is currently defined by the central discovery of the fourth age of alchemy — newsilver, the rare resource containing the energy which fuels all progress in Candar.

Enjoy this story which is an affectionate ode to my favourite childhood books and stories combining aspects of historical fantasy, steampunk and grimbright lore.

Cade/Cadena Fairfax, C

(m/f, 22) The Lancer-in-Training who also attends your school, the child of the now discredited and proscribed Commander of the Librarian Knights of Gallopavia. Despite this fact they remain boarded at Gallo, their aspirations still intact though know they hope to find the truth or bring their father to justice.

A halfling (human).

Petr/Petra Guy, P

(m/f, 21) The Apprentice to the Lord Artificer of Gallopavia, your childhood best friend has changed much in the years since you last saw them. Perhaps the gruelling work as an apprentice or the weight of their gratitude has pushed them forward but you can't help but notice the youthful spark in their eyes has been replaced by determination.

A halfling (human) of some indeterminate heritage.

Jacquelin/Jacqueline Attica, J

(m/f, 22)

An Archivist of the Grand Alchemical Library and fellow 5th year student at Gallo Academy widely regarded as a prodigy and future professor at least, known to perform their tasks in total silence efficiently if it weren't for their cold demeanour and standoffish personality they'd quickly rise through the ranks of society. However when pushed they make no secret of their feelings about their peers, useless.

A sylph of some halfling (human) heritage.

Euer Ffsonye, E

(m/f, 29) The Assistant Professor of Flight at Gallo Academy, the much lauded junior newsilver researcher has quickly adapted to the position of educator easily stepping into the dangerous politics of alchemy and invention without so much as a stumble. But amongst the disgruntled who they've surpassed and outrank, they ask: what is it they're really gunning for?

An halfling (human) of some aelfe heritage.

Nate/Nata Bors-Sutr, N

(m/f, 19) The Flightship Navigator from the Free States who your father hired to act as your guide, over the years they've acquired enough practical skills to get by and earn their keep and as someone accustomed to the dark corners and avenues of this land beyond the prying eyes of the authorities they know how to find the things that others can't see.

A slyvan of some halfling (human) heritage.

Candar

The fourth age of alchemy will end with man weeping at the denouement, the tragedy of its conclusion is already known yet we can do nothing to fight against it.

Candar is the known world, its are people spread across many nations, banners and beliefs for which they regularly live and fight.

It is currently in the fourth age of alchemy defined primarily by the substance newsilver — the absolute focus of all industrial, alchemical and scientific progress which has rapidly changed the lives of the humanoids which inhabit this world drawing everyone towards it's bustling cities, enabling faster travel via its flightships, dangerous work from it's factories and bloodier wars from the newmuskets they have produced.

Candar remains filled with undiscovered and unexplored corners in which magical meetings still happen but the world is less fantastical, its uncharted territories are darker, further and yet more accessible than they ever have been.

Demo: unreleased (WIP)

References: unreleased (WIP)

Ko-fi: unreleased

Other projects: GGGLU (check it out!)

#arise #arise-if #status: no demo #dashingdon #choicescript #interactive fiction #genre: fantasy #genre: steampunk

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currentfications · 6 months

Text

Reasons | Part 2

Pairing: Bada Lee x Reader, Felix x Reader?

Warning: Swearing, angst, toxic relationship

AN: I am going through some shit and will be taking it out on Howl and probably Felix (I do not have a personal vendetta against him except for the fact that he’s from Australia and I have an affinity with writing fellow aussies unlike with Howl oooo I’m telling you that shit is personal all I asked is for one chance Bada just one chance please). Thank you all for reading it still :)

Previous | Next

The streetlights blurred into one kaleidoscopic spell as y/n rested her head on Felix's shoulder in the steady car ride, still dizzy from all the excessive sobbing. The sharp pain from hours ago has since dulled, now throbbing against her temple.

It was around some four years ago when she first met Bada. She'd been invited to a dance class by her friend, who received a last minute work call. "Y/n I need a massive favor," she sounded out of breath as she hailed down a cab.

Strolling through the shops on a lazy Saturday afternoon, y/n glanced towards the address sent to her phone, blissfully unaware of the cruel joke fate was about to pull on her. JestJerk Studio- y/n couldn't help but fight back a chuckle fueled by childish humor. "I thought you said you were looking forward to this class? Something about a hot teacher- everything alright?"

"Yeah," a disappointed sigh was soon followed with a relieved one when she finally managed to hail down a ride, "I'm on call is all, didn't think they would actually assign me an overhaul flight. I mean it about the hot babe teaching the class by the way- when I land in 16 hours I better have a few pictures of her to help me acclimate to the jetlag."

Y/n breathlessly chuckled at her phone, checking the distance from the mall to the studio. "You're lucky I'm close by. You owe me a big one when you get back- I'm using my one day off a fortnight to attend your class-"

Y/n was cut off. "-and send pictures."

"I will send pictures," y/n reassured. "Now go have a safe flight, text me when you land!" Huffing a sigh, y/n wrapped up her shopping spree and headed towards the studio.

The flight attendant was right, the dance teacher was hot. Really hot. As a trainee, she was pretty much surrounded by pretty faces- but this, this is different. Maybe it's her height, or maybe her smile, or or maybe the way she moves. To say y/n was captivated was an understatement.

"Bada?" y/n tentatively approached after the lesson with a tightlipped smile, gripping her phone in her clammy hands as she remembered the promise she'd make.

The older girl's face lit up as she noticed her star student of the day approaching her. She too, had seen plenty of trainees come and go, but if there's one thing that taught her, it's the ability to recognise idol quality when she sees one. Plus, the fiery red hair is hard to miss. "Hi, y/n was it?"

Brimming with excitement when recognised by Bada, y/n nodded dumbly. "I- uh, c-can I please have a photo?" Fumbling over her words, y/n raised her phone to gesture instead.

"Yeah, of course!" Bada motioned the redhead to approach as she chirped sweetly, a warm smile fixed on her lips.

Y/n opened her mouth as if to say something before snapping her jaw shut, shuffling over to take a selfie with the older dancer. Bada reached a palm out to ask for the phone, before turning the phone over to snap a few selfies with the back camera. Heads tilted towards each other, the girls beamed at the series of shutter clicks, y/n's hand on Bada's shoulder to hoist herself slightly upwards for a better angle, Bada lifting the hand not used to hold the camera into a finger heart.

"Actually," y/n finally spoke up after the photo session, "my friend is wondering if they can have a picture of just you?" Recoiling at how awkward the request is, y/n slowly trailed off.

Letting out an incredulous chuckle, Bada handed the phone back to the shorter girl and took a step back to have her own pictures taken. "Remember to autograph them and send it to me," Bada teased, when y/n finally tucked the phone back into her pocket. "It'll be worth a lot of money once you're famous."

Y/n wonders if Bada still has the signed copy she eventually hand-delivered to the studio.

Squeezing her eyes shut at the fond memory, y/n pressed her head further into Felix's shoulder. Sensing the shuffle, he glanced over and ran a hand down her hair, an attempt at soothing the girl. She had long stopped crying since he found her curled up in the alleyway, but somehow the lack of tears in her eyes made her look more vacant. It pained him to see her like this.

"I thought you fell asleep," unsure of what to say to y/n, Felix continued to absentmindedly fiddle with a strand of her hair, the chemical treatments that all trainees' and idols' hair received had turned it brittle as y/n mental state right now. Fitting. "You should get some sleep," his voice barely above a whisper, lulling y/n into a daze. Her exhaustion is close to taking over but she still managed to shake her head a little.

Felix sighed. What happened? Y/n had always been a ray of sunshine for as long as he knew her- bubbly, charming, absolutely adorable; so what’s changed? His expression darken as a name came to mind- Bada Lee.

Bada Lee, the famous celebrity backup dancer turned choreographer, choreographer turned internet sensation following Street Women Fighter 2, internet sensation turned heartbreaker. All previous admiration he had held for the dancer crumbled with a glace towards y/n’s sulking feature. His hand dropped from y/n’s hair towards the corner of her eyes, wiping at the trail of evaporated salt water, glistening as the streetlights flicker past. Tracing a finger down her cheeks, stopping at her chin, Felix lifted y/n’s face to him with the knuckle of his finger.

“Hey,” Felix’s coffee brown eyes met hers, faces inches apart, “she missed out. She fumbled the biggest bag in town- heartthrob of St. Patrick’s, finest trainee, and soon to be this town’s biggest débutée.” Y/n let out a halfhearted chuckle and pushed the brunette away, only for him to return his grip on her with palms on either side of her face. “I mean it. You deserve the world- don’t roll your eyes at me- you deserve someone who’d be proud of you and cherish you.”

Y/n let out a muffled protest, attempting to defend Bada. She’d say something along the lines of ‘she just needed some time, not everyone is ready for the world to perceive them as who they really are, especially in this conservative society’ if she was able to.

As if reading her mind, Felix tutted and pulled her face even closer, “keep defending her and I’ll have to shut you up.”

Felix slowly closed the last bit of distance between y/n’s and his faces, still cradling her face between his palms; he waited for a sign from the girl to recoil or push away, but as she docilely fluttered her eyes closed with a silent permission, Felix practically slammed his lips against hers. Truth be told, between the strict management and busy schedules, it has been a while since he last got to first base with anyone.

The rustyness was not lost on y/n, who finally cracked a smile for the first time that evening (early morning) into the deepening kiss, no thanks to Felix's clumsiness. The rebound had proved himself useful. Biting down on his bottom lips, y/n buried a surfacing thought about Bada as she wrapped her arms around the neck of the boy to pull him closer. The dreaded feeling was shoved further down as Felix finally got a hold of himself and jammed his tongue into her gaping mouth, passionately licking off the taste of Bada from y/n’s mouth and replacing it with his.

A gut wrenching wave of nausea washed over y/n as she wonders if Bada is doing the same with Howl.

#bada lee x fem reader #bada lee #bada lee x reader #angst #felix x reader #swf2 x reader #bada lee x y/n #skz felix #skz x reader #toxic relationship #felix x y/n #stray kids felix

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whaddayadothatfor · 1 year

Text

Shit Outta Luck

Pairing: Gojo x fem!afab!reader x Nanami, mostly Gojo x Reader

Content warnings: Free use, dub-c*n, dirty talk, excessive amounts of c*m, degradation, teasing, naked female clothed male (kinda), cliffhanger

Word count: 2,595

Summary: One day your best friends Nanami and Gojo come over to hang out and help you pack to move. You end up stuck under your bed. Instead of helping you out, they help themselves.

AN: This is so ridiculous y’all. Unedited. Thanks to my bestie for hyping me up when I was writing this. Please like and reblog if you enjoyed it! ❤️

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT, intended for audiences over 18+

Chapter One:

You can’t believe this is happening to you.

To think, the day has started off so normal. Maybe that should’ve been a hint. You’ve had the worst luck since grade school. You were always the kid to scrape your knee on the playground or get random bruises bumping into desks or walls. Hell, you even managed to be the only person to get bird poop on your cap and gown during your high school graduation. A series of unfortunate events. You’ve got the coordination of a preschooler and shitty luck. It’s a rare occasion when things work out well for you.

That’s why you should have been wary when you woke up early this morning, even without your alarm. You really should have caught on when the your face was free of breakouts and your shower was warm and toasty. Maybe you should’ve clued in when you found your comfort hoodie tucked squarely in the middle of your doom pile your desk chair. It had been missing for over two weeks and you hadn’t even washed it since the last time you wore it and it still smelled like laundry detergent. The last straw should have been having a perfectly normal breakfast, with perfectly seasoned eggs and a sweet coffee at just the right temperature. That really should have sealed the deal.

But alas, you’re as oblivious as you are unlucky.

Earlier

You scrolled through TikTok as you finished your breakfast and began making a mental

note of all the tasks you should complete today. Nanami and Gojo, your two best friends since uni, promised to help you bring your heavy furniture and boxes down to the moving truck and then move them up three flights of stairs into your new apartment. If there was one source of luck in your life, it’d be those two.

It was your sophomore year of college and the both of them happened to take the same upper division course you had signed up for that semester. Initially, you were nervous at being in a group with both of them, as they both were the most popular and attractive boys in your major. A feat, since all three of you attended one of the largest universities in Japan. However, you were amazed at how well you got on with both of them. You were calm enough to deter Gojo’s hyperactivity but energetic enough to bring Nanami out of his shell. For some reason, your group dynamic just worked.

They stuck to you like glue for the rest of University. You had lost touch a little after graduation, but then you had moved to the same city they lived in a year later. It was nothing to slip back into your old routine. Now, being with them both was as normal as brushing your teeth in the morning.

And it would keep working, as long as you could pretend to not notice how goddamn fine they were. That’s really why you had been friends so long. They had told you as much in University. They were sick of women on campus treating them like meat. They liked the fact that you only ever treated them like people. So, you hide how you feel about them and keep them at an arm’s length, so they never figure out the truth.

You finished the last bit of your breakfast and put your dishes in the sink before heading back to your room to finish packing up your things. The rest of the apartment was ready to go, but you had saved your room for last. Mostly because it had the most clutter and you had the worst habit of not cleaning your room well, something Nanami always chided you for. He was a stickler for neatness, after all. Anyway, Gojo said that he’d be by in an hour and Nanami said he’d come by after work, so you wanted to make sure that the bulk of your room was decluttered and packed up by then. So you set off to work, pulling up a playlist and busying yourself tidying things up and placing trash and old boxes into trash bags. After about 45 minutes, you decided to start cleaning the mess up under your bed.

And that’s how you found yourself in your current predicament.

Present

You can’t believe this is happening to you.

You really, really can’t believe this is happening to you.

You had gotten stuck, under your bed. It was like a scene straight out of a bad porno. You were cleaning up under bed, pulling different bins and Knick-knacks out from under it when your watch had gotten caught on something deep up under your bed. It was an older bed, with a brassy-colored metal box spring. Somehow, and you don’t know how (because you have been wracking your brain on how this could have happened for the past ten minutes) in the process of trying to untangle your watch from whatever it was caught onto, you tangled your hair into the box spring.

So, let’s recap:

You’re stuck. Under your bed. With your two best guy friends on the way. One of which is a notorious little shit who loves to tease you in any given situation. Your whole bottom half of your body exposed. With only a hoodie and spandex exercise shorts on. Face down, ass up.

You can’t even call for help as your phone is on the dresser at the opposite side of the room and Siri has, you think, purposely misunderstood your calls for help as a request to play Help! by the Beatles.

You don’t even like the Beatles.

The slight anxiety you had at being trapped did not hold a candle to the humiliation you’d feel once Gojo came in. You wished belatedly that Nanami was coming over first. He would have been much nicer about the whole thing. Or better yet, that you saw the signs early. You never have such an easy going day, you should’ve known something like this would happen.

Just as you were wallowing in self-pity at your own life choices, you hear the door unlock and tense up. You really regret giving Gojo a key to your place.

“Oh honey, I’m home!” His irritatingly deep voice calls out mockingly in a high pitched tone. Even when he’s goofing off he sounds sexy. You hate that about him. And when he finds you in the stupidest, most embarrassingly compromising position of your life, you know that he’ll hold it over your head until you die. Even at your funeral, he’d bring it up. You hated that about him more. You heard him plop his keys on the counter in the kitchen before calling out to you.

“Hello? Anybody home?” You remained silent, hoping he’d think you stepped out and leave. But no such luck. You heard his footsteps inching closer and closer to your bedroom. “I brought your favorite. A matcha latte,” he called out.

That jerk, you thought. He knows you hate Matcha lattes. He brought it just so he could drink it. Suddenly, you heard the door open.

“Y/N?”

You scrunched your eyes closed, desperately wishing that you could be anywhere else than you were in that moment. You anticipated laughter at any moment, but strangely it didn’t come.

“What happened?” You jumped at the sound of his voice. He sounded much closer than he did a moment ago.

“W-well, I was cleaning from under my bed and I got caught on something and now I can’t get out. Can you help me?” The embarrassment welled up inside you, causing you to stutter. Gojo said nothing for a while.

“Yeah, okay.” His voice sounded deeper, huskier than normal. It was strange as usually he put on this silly facade to lighten the mood. He was never this serious. “I’ll have to feel around a bit to see where you’re stuck, I don’t want to hurt you.” You nodded, and you were touched. A pang of guilt struck you. Maybe you didn’t give Gojo enough credit as a friend. You promised yourself you’d treat him better in the future.

Suddenly, you felt a hand caress the back of your thighs, moving closer and closer to your ass. You jumped a little.

“G-Gojo? What are you doing?”

“I’m helping you. That’s what you asked for, right?” He said, playing dumb. He continued touching you more boldly, squeezing your cheeks firmly before caressing your thighs again. You were too stunned to say anything until one of his thumbs lightly stroked your clit over your shorts. You jerked away from him, but your options to escape were limited.

“What the hell are you doing?” You screamed at him in frustration, in more ways than one. You should have never given him the benefit of the doubt. This kind of humiliation was much worse than any other kind you could think of. When you get loose, his ass is grass.

Worse, he was turning you on with his manhandling and gentle touches. You couldn’t help it, you hadn’t been fucked in over a year since your last situation ship and the only thing that had kept you company was your rose toy.

“Don’t worry, baby,” he cooed, rubbing your clit in a slow circular motion before stopping and running his hands all over your ass again. “I promised to help you. I think it’s a tight fit down there, so I’m gonna help you loosen up, that’s all. Then you’ll be able to slide right out, no problem,” he said.

His tone was saccharine sweet, but his actions were anything but. You wanted to protest, but he stopped you.

“Just relax. I can tell by that wet spot on your shorts that you’re really enjoying this.” Your face burned with embarrassment, and all your protests died down in an instant.

You focused instead on choking back heated whimpers and moans because you’ll be damned if you let him know how good he is at making you feel. And he is good. His touches are so experienced, you start getting mad at the imaginary women who taught him how to fuck that well. Although you wouldn’t be surprised if he was just naturally that good. He seems like the type.

It was almost as if he could tell that your mind was headed somewhere else, because he slowly pulled your spandex shorts and thong down in one go and that jolted you back to reality.

“Gojo,” you warned, but he ignored you as usual.

“A thong?” He questioned. And you could almost hear his eyebrow being raised.

“I packed the rest of my underwear! Plus, no one likes panty lines,” you mumble, embarrassed. He just chuckled at you.

“It’s okay baby, though in the future I’d rather you not wear anything at all.” Before you had any time to think about what he meant in the future, he licked a stripe up from you clit damn near to your ass. While you managed to stifle your moan, you couldn’t hold back the shudder that wracked your body.

“C’mon, don’t hold back. It’s no fun for me if you do,” he rang out. He paused. “Actually, try to stay silent. It’ll make it more fun for me knowing that I made you scream when you tried not to.” He chuckled, and you could feel his warm breath cover the expanse of your pussy as he spread your lips wide.

He proceeded to eat your pussy like it was his last meal.

All you could hear was him smacking and slurping up your wetness. He left no area untouched, especially your clit. He alternated between swirling his tongue around your nub and sucking on it till it was puffy and swollen. Your cries of pleasure only spurred him on, making him moan as you grinded back on his face.

Gojo attached his lips to your clit once again, humming this time as he sucked and licked all around it. It was too much. You kicked one of legs out in hopes that you’d receive a reprieve— no such luck. Gojo caught it and put it back into its original position. He chuckled with his lips still suctioned to tour most sensitive part. The sensation had you crying out, trying to run away. Finally, Gojo let go.

“Oh, c’mon. Is that all you can take? I remember all those conversations you’d have with your girlfriends, about how men never satisfy you. Can never go long enough. Are you running from me because you don’t like it? I can do more if you like.” He said teasingly. When you didn’t respond, he slapped your pussy, hard.

“You’re hurting my feelings, sweetheart. Answer me,” his tone, although still lighthearted, turned mean.

“Yes, Gojo, please, I-I can’t,” you responded, breath airy and sparse.

“Please what? I can’t help you relax if you don’t tell me exactly what you want me to do.”

“C-cum. I need to—“ you broke off your sentence with a moan, but it was enough for Gojo.

“Your wish is my command, princess.”

He worked you up until you were at the precipice of an orgasm, except this time he didn’t stop, not even after you tumbled over edge. You had never come that hard from oral, ever. Hell, you had never come that hard in general. He ate you out until the aftershocks of your orgasm died down. He stopped for a moment.

“You know, I still think you’re a bit tense. I think after another orgasm or two I’ll really be able to help free you.”

You moaned in response, still a bit out of it from your last orgasm. Gojo spit a thick glob of spit on your pussy, landing right on your hole before sticking two of his long slender fingers inside of you. It was an uncomfortable stretch and your whine said as much. You hear him unbuckle his pants with the hand that’s not on you as he shushes you.

“Just relax. I’ll make you feel good soon.”

An hour later

“Yes,” Gojo moaned out, deep and guttural, as he sunk into you. The stretch was so much worse than his fingers. You now understand why he made you come so many times. The burn would have been unbearable otherwise. Still, the slow sink into you had you writhing as much you could, still being trapped under the bed and between Gojo’s strong hands.

“Fuck, I knew I should have done this years ago. You feel better than I ever imagined.” You mewled as he sank in all the way to the hilt. He gave you no time to adjust as he slowly started to thrust in and out.

Everywhere felt so hot. You could hardly stand it. Gojo was merciless and soon set an unrelenting pace that had you curling your toes. It was a heady experience, one that made it hard to think about anything else except how hard and hot Gojo felt inside of you.

“I never should have listened to Nanami,” he muttered angrily.

“W-what? Are you—“

“I have been fantasizing about this moment since the moment I first met you, but I. Never. Thought. It’d. Be. This. Good. Fuck!” He shouted as he came. He stilled, his hips jumping slightly as he dumped his come into you. It only made you hornier. He languidly fucked his come deep within you. His tired voice rang out, but not to you.

“I bet you wish you had gotten here earlier, huh Nanamin?”

You froze.

#jjk manga #jujustsu kaisen x reader #gojo satoru #nanami kento #gojo x y/n #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru x female reader #Gojo Satoru x afab! reader #nanami x reader #Nanami kento x reader #gojo x reader smut #nanami x reader smut #nanami x fem!reader #gojo x fem!reader #jjk smut #smut #jjk fluff

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pettypuppy-jonghyun · 1 year

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My World | Bang Chan

Summary: flying out to secretly meet Chan in his studio (feat. Felix)

Warnings: it was made in 2019 lol

There was a beautiful gold light beneath me that I stared at, smiling softly at it. My heart felt warm at the thought of sharing this pretty moment with someone else, the excitement of what was to come. The lights twinkled a few more times before I sighed and closed my eyes.

I snuggled deeper in the large hoodie that hadn't belonged to me. It was one of the few things that was left behind for me that meant more than words. The content was clearly written on my face as I waited for time to pass.

The flight was arranged to land at one am. Probably too early for most people, but knowing whom I was meeting meant it was not too early for him. He, too, was probably trying to enjoy the nights sky and bright city lights.

When I woke again, the plane was landing. People were getting ready, prepping to leave and doing so when the attendants allowed us to. My body was starting to shake lightly at the nerves building up as I walked off the plane. It grew more when I saw a poster with my name, a familiar person holding it while hiding their face with a hat and mask.

"You look suspicious," I commented with a laugh.

Felix pulls down the mask and grins at me. "The only way I can come get you is if I look like this." He follows me to go pick up my bag, tucking the sign under his arm.

"Right, being a celebrity and all." I started to search for my bag earnestly. "Well, thank you for getting me. I was afraid without your help, he would find out sooner."

Felix finds my bag first. "If you had asked anyone else, they would have told him. So you chose the perfect person!"

He guides me out of the airport, taking me to the vehicle where his manager was sitting and waiting for us. He places both my bag and his poster in the trunk before sitting in the back with me.

"How was your flight?" He starts, looking over me to find any hints of exhaustion. "Did you get to sleep?"

" A little," I admit. "But I'm too excited. I haven't seen any of you in awhile."

Felix laughs at my words. "How come when you saw me, I didn't sense that excitment for me? No need to bluff, love. I know you want to see him more than anything."

I smiled and turned towards the window, watching the stars pass above us as we drove to our final destination. Felix and I kept the small talk to a minimum, both having the exhaustion wash over us after some time. Before I knew it, I was asleep again, waiting.

•••

"He's in the studio. You go on in and I'll take your things to his room."

I whispered my thanks to Felix before slipping into the hallway where silence crept. Down a little ways was the dimly lit room that seemed to always be lively. Not a peep was heard through the sound proof doors, allowing the other people in the building some sleep. I knew that despite the quietness, the person inside was probably blaring many sounds at once, trying to decipher the best one.

I didn't bother to knock, he wouldn't hear anyway. I smoothly slipped inside the room, patiently waiting until he paused his music to do some writing. Just as I had predicted, it only took a minute before he attempted to stop everything.

"You know, the third track is my favorite. I like the drums in the background."

I startled him, that was for sure. He jumped in his seat and spun around, nearly screaming at the sight of me. He held his breath the moment his mouth opened to yell, quieting himself.

"Baby!" He whispered harshly, getting up faster than I could register. Immediately his arms were around me, gripping me tighter than expected.

I started to laugh, wrapping my arms around his neck to snuggle closer. "Hello my little kangaroo!"

Small but swift kisses were placed all over my neck and cheeks. "I cannot believe you're here!" The sweet words being mumbled between each peck.

"Isn't it great?" I ask, pulling back to stare at his face. "I spent weeks planning with Felix."

Chan grins at me, hands rubbing circles over my cheeks. The beautiful sight of happiness in his eyes twinkled even brighter. "Remind me to thank him later."

"Oh?" I tease, hands falling to his shoulders and resting there.

He smirks, leaning closer to me. "Because right now my time is for all you."

A sweet and meaningful kiss was pushed onto my lips as I closed my eyes, holding my world closer than ever.

#bang chan #bang chan fic #Chan imagine #skz chan #skz imagine #skz oneshot #skz fluff #bang chan fluff #bang Chan imagine #bang chan skz #romance #stray kids drabble #stray kids fluff

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bananaofswifts · 1 year

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HOW DO WE measure the impact of a musician in 2023? Streams can be bought. Awards can be finessed. Is it when demand for show tickets leads to a congressional hearing about Ticketmaster’s policies? Or when flight attendants shout out a fanbase making a pilgrimage to see a tour opener? Or when TikToks of merch inspirations and setlist predictions rack up millions of views? Nearly a decade ago, a headline ran declaring ‘Taylor Swift Is The Music Industry’ and those with even the slightest pulse on pop culture can tell she’s only grown more omnipresent since. It all led to a warm evening in Glendale, Arizona where months after delivering her most commercially-successful album to date, Midnights, Swift debuted a discography-spanning setlist that lasted over three hours and kicked off an aptly-named stadium run. The Eras Tour has arrived.

The sheer length of the set is a feat, but not completely surprising considering the breadth of catalog at Swift’s disposal. Watching the 12-time Grammy winner take the stage right at 8pm, and continue past 11pm triggers the often overused cliché: Who’s doing it like her?

After night had fallen and GAYLE and Paramore revved the crowd up with a mix of recent chart-toppers (GAYLE’s “abcdefu”) and cultural anthems (Paramore’s “Misery Business”), it was time for the main event. At 7:57pm, a timer appeared on a massive screen prompting screams from all corners of State Farm Stadium. Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me” played as fans braced themselves for the arrival of Swift. When the timer hit 0:00, the house we’d seen in the “Lover” music video assembled on the screen, indicating that this evening was first and foremost about reviving the feelings each era evoked.

“So tonight, we’re going to be going through an adventure, one era at a time,” Swift said. “We’re going to be exploring the last seventeen years of music that I’ve been lucky enough to make and you’ve been kind enough to care about.”

It’s easy to compare one of Swift’s stadium shows to something you’d see on Broadway — never has that been more true than for The Eras Tour. The setlist is cut up into acts, grouped together by eras for each of Swift’s ten studio albums. For each era/act, Swift went full-send into that album’s look, feel, costume, color blocking, and more.

Many eras got a few songs. At one moment, it seemed like Swift’s soft spot for Folklore would mean we’d hear the entire album. On the opposite end, Speak Now’s part of the show was short but impactful. Swift played only one song from her third studio album, “Enchanted,” while wearing a stunning floor-length ballroom gown designed by Nicole + Derr. Hopping from act to act, Swift made it extremely clear when she’s taking the audience out of one era and into another. This isn’t a hastily put together setlist with a vague thread of connective tissue — Swift is taking her audience on a nostalgic extravaganza.

For both Swift and her fans, it’s been a long road to get to The Eras Tour kickoff. Friday night’s opener was four projects, millions of record sales, and over 1,500 days removed from the last tour stop on the Reputation stadium tour in 2018. Plus, who can forget the Ticketmaster fiasco in handling the sale of The Eras Tour tickets, which not only prompted an apology to Swift from the ticketing monopoly but also for Congress to investigate.

In perhaps a sympathetic nod to the canceled Lover Fest, Swift began the festivities with the Lover era. Wearing a jaw-dropping Versace bodysuit, Swift launched into “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince” for the opening number. Swifties eager to see “Cruel Summer” live weren’t disappointed, as Swift strutted down the catwalk towards the stadium’s center, belting out the fast-paced bridge eager to deliver what stans had snatched away from them due to pandemic-related cancellations.

For “The Man,” Swift completed her Versace look with a blazer and made sure everyone could see the red bottoms when she kicked her feet up on a conference room table as she delivered the masterfully written and scathing assessment of gender inequality in pop culture. Swift closed out the Lover era act with “You Need to Calm Down” and “The Archer,” the latter getting a beautifully stripped down rendition so Swift’s vocals echoed across the stadium: “Because all of my enemies started out friends / Help me hold onto you.”

At one point, as Swift ran through hits from her Fearless era, she flashed a smile and announced to the crowd that she was taking us back to high school with her. The nostalgia seeped into the show, resulting in some of the loudest crowd participation yet, especially from those old enough to have grown up with Swift and were in high school at the same time she was. The singer ran through “Fearless,” “You Belong With Me,” and “Love Story,” reminding us of a time when we discovered the pop phenomenon unbeknownst to the level of celebrity she’d achieve.

Something about Swift — she’s online. If the fact that she decided to end last night with the TikTok-friendly “Karma” doesn’t make that obvious enough, her joke about disliking Evermore hammers home the point.

“We’re currently in the middle of the Evermore album, which is an album I absolutely love despite what some of you say on TikTok,” Swift said with a grin.

Later on in the act reserved for her ninth studio album, in line with how theatrical the event was, Swift set up a beautiful dinner setting only to deliver a heart-wrenching rendition of “Tolerate It.” She also performed “Tis the Damn Season,” “Willow,” “Marjorie,” and “Champagne Problems,” giving fans a sizable taste of the Evermore live experience they weren’t able to receive when the project came out in 2020.

For the acts dedicated to Reputation and Red, fans were treated to a masterclass in visuals and hitmaking, two key elements that has assured Swift prolonged success for as long as she’s had it. The powerful, striking, snake motifs were an awesome callback for fans who attended the Reputation tour.

For Red, Swift went through “22,” “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” and “I Knew You Were Trouble. She closed out the act with a beautiful performance of the 10-minute “Taylor’s Version” of “All Too Well.” In the evening’s most ethereal moment, small white confetti made to look like snow blanketed the State Farm Stadium as she neared the end of her magnum opus, singing “Because in this city’s barren cold/I still remember the first fall of snow/And how it glistened how it fell/I remember it all too well.” Not only is Swift a savant for world-building, but she’s perfected the ability to translate those worlds into the live experience.

Swift wasn’t shy about making sure people got the full Folklore live experience. A makeshift cabin, not unlike the one made during Swift’s 2021 Grammys performance, sat on the stage with Swift perched on it during “Invisible String.” The star also discussed how she finally got comfortable crafting narratives for purely fictional characters, rather than ripping them from the headlines about her life.

“Folklore was such a different album for me. I start writing it about two seconds into the pandemic. I was just so very aware of how much time I was going to have to spend away from you,” Swift explained before launching into “Betty,” “The Last Great American Dynasty,” “August,” “Illicit Affairs,” “My Tears Ricochet,” and “Cardigan.” “With this album, I thought it would be so fun to create characters, and storylines, and they can live in different times, and then can do all of these things, and they could fall in love and hurt each other and go to war…”

1989’s era act turned the party up and restored the energy, with Swift donning a Roberto Cavalli top and skirt and going through “Style,” “Blank Space,” “Shake It Off,” “Wildest Dreams,” and “Bad Blood.”

To cap off the evening, Swift returned to Midnights, performing album highlights “Lavender Haze,” “Mastermind,” and more. It was hard to ignore the immense gratitude the singer continued to exude throughout the evening, with the “thank yous” coming more and more often the closer she got to the end.

Eventually, the singer asked the crowd if they had time for one more and launched into her finale, “Karma,” a track with a passionate chorus that’s begging to be scream-sung in a room of about 60,000 who’ve been waiting for this exact moment for years. Maybe it’s fitting that an artist who’s had more than her fair share of ups and downs, and at times has been the most polarizing musician alive, ends her stadium tour opener with a song about how she can finally protect her peace. Karma’s a relaxing thought, indeed.

The Eras Tour is a feat. It’s live music at its highest spectacle and greatest excess. And for most, without the catalog and showmanship of Swift, it’d be too much. But 17 years into her career, maybe we ought to stop being surprised when she finds a way to top her own efforts year after year. Towards the end of Paramore’s set, Swift’s good friend Hayley Williams said we had gathered that evening to celebrate Swift’s incredible career. There’s something funny about a greatest hits concert for someone who’s never been more in her prime, isn’t there?

#taylor swift #the eras tour review #the eras tour

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theladyofbloodshed · 11 months

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Fake Dating AU - Part 2/3

This was nice. Nesta could manage this – a pool in the blistering heat with a book in her hand. It was the beach she did not like. The sand got everywhere. Sea salt made her hair dry and brittle. And she did not want to think about how many fish brushed past her legs.

Rather than rushing in at the last second, Nesta had opted for an earlier flight to the others since she was coming from further afield on a job. She’d finished her work up on the plane, so had a few hours of blissful silence. The others were coming much later. She knew because Feyre had asked if they wanted to travel to the airport together. That was code for Feyre needing backup managing Nyx on the lengthy flight. Whilst Nesta loved her nephew dearly, the idea of a squealing child soiling their diaper for hours beside her in a contained space did not spark any joy. Mom and dad could handle that one.

Nesta lay on a sun lounger beneath a tree that shaded everything except her legs. It was dangerous territory to get a tan two days before Elain’s wedding. She didn’t want tan lines or sun burn spoiling the photos as an everlasting memory of her pale skin being subjected to sunlight for once.

Deep into her book, a child splashed her foot. She ignored it until it happened again and again and again.

Forcing out a breath, Nesta forcibly pressed her book down beside her.

‘Do you mind?’

It wasn’t a child at all. Stood against the wall of the pool, with his forearms resting on the edge, a familiar face grinned at her. ‘I thought you were deliberately ignoring me.’

‘I was,’ Nesta sniped back.

Eris, Lucien’s eldest brother, gave her a crooked smile. ‘I thought you wanted a date for the wedding.’

‘No splashing and I’ll consider it.’

He hauled himself out of the pool and Nesta could admit that her eyes tracked the bare expanse of his chest and stomach. His body was lean, the shoulders beginning to freckle from the sun. There was something about hairy legs, slick with water, that also always drew Nesta’s attention too.

Eris pointed to the spare lounger beside her. ‘Do you mind if I move my things beside you?’

‘Sure.’

For a while, they caught up on the last few months. Eris remained a workaholic, just as she did, and his phone beeped constantly with pictures of his dogs who a generous friend was taking care of while he was at the wedding. She filled him in on her life which lasted all of two minutes. She hadn’t seen Feyre or Elain since the engagement party. Work remained hectic, taking her to every corner of the country, usually in quick succession. And that was about it.

‘Why didn’t you fly in with Lucien?’

‘He’s coming with Elain,’ explained Eris. A slight blush stole across his cheeks. ‘And my father wouldn’t be caught dead flying with the commoners so he chartered a private jet – and let’s just say I’m a little spoilt.’

'A private jet? Ugh. So spoilt. Where are your parents?’

Nesta craned her neck to sweep the various loungers for a number of red heads, but came up short.

‘He will probably burst into flame if he steps into sunlight,’ Eris said with a snort at his own joke. ‘My mother has taken him to a museum which he will also loathe. He’s already complained about the temperature. I almost think Lucien wanted it here in the hope that our father wouldn’t attend.’

For a while, Eris left Nesta to her book while he read his own. She opted for a grizzly horror whilst Eris read a philosophy book that was better suited for swatting mosquitoes. When the heat became too much, Eris leapt back into the pool and did a couple of lengths.

‘You are beginning to resemble a lobster,’ called Nesta.

His feet gave a splash as he dived under and swam back towards her. In another feat of muscle, he launched himself out of the water. Not surprising her, he shook his auburn hair like a dog.

‘Better not ruin the photos.’ A generous amount of sun cream was tipped into his hand then Eris went to work on slathering it over his body.

‘Lean forwards,’ murmured Nesta. She scooted to the edge of her lounger and rubbed the excess cream into his back where his arms couldn’t reach. ‘Turn.’

Eris did an exemplary job of keeping his amber eyes solely on her face – and no lower to her bikini top – while she gently smeared sun cream on his face. The skin on his nose was already pink.

‘Stay in the shade.’

‘Is that an order?’

‘Yes, unless you want to be glowing in the photos.’ She tapped the end of his nose.

Later on, when their stomachs began rumbling, they headed off together in pursuit of food. In the heat, Nesta wanted little more than a salad. When Eris wasn’t acting as her shield against man-child ex-boyfriends, he really was good company. Their conversation flowed easily around work and lack-of-hobbies.

‘I could do with another drink,’ she lamented, back by the pool.

She had drank what felt like gallons of water already that day since the first blast of heat when she stepped off the plane.

‘Ooh. That looks good.’ Nesta pointed to another table where a woman drank something colourful and icy from a tall, wiggly glass.

‘I’ll get it,’ said Eris.

‘No. Allow me. You paid for lunch.’

Eris swept his hand through the air as he made a short bow from his sun lounger.

After many terrible hand gestures, lots of pointing and awful attempts at a foreign language, Nesta trotted back towards him, a glass in each hand. The colours were layered like a rainbow – and she was delighted to sit beside a man who could drink something that wasn’t beer.

‘You’re sure they’re not alcoholic?’

Nesta sniffed her drink. ‘Yeah. Definitely.’

‘You speak Spanish?’

‘No, I took the mocktail menu with me to the bar and pointed and made the shape of the glass. Nobody needs to hear me try and pronounce another language.’

The expression Eris wore suggested he didn’t wholly believe her.

She rolled her eyes. ‘Do you want me to get the bartender?’

‘Then I can use my terrible Spanish to ask? I trust you.’

Eris leaned forwards from his sun lounger to knock their glasses together. Nesta did the same.

‘To the happy couple,’ she said.

Oh, it was delicious. She sucked on the straw until she gave herself brain freeze from the ice which received no sympathy from Eris.

‘Can I ask a personal question, Nesta?’

‘I can’t promise I’ll answer it.’

‘Why don’t you drink?’

Her brows raised and her vision skimmed over the shimmering waves of the pool. ‘I guess when I first moved and got involved with Cassian, drink became the every day activity. I stopped doing things I enjoyed. Spent all my time with them. Wine went down easier and easier and sleep became harder and harder.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m not against ever drinking again, but once I quit drinking with them, it quickly became apparent we had nothing in common. I don’t have any friends so the option is drinking alone or not.’

Eris nodded in understanding. ‘Same here. I’ll probably have a glass of champagne tomorrow, but I was a bit of a tearaway when I was younger. Drank too much and did a lot of silly things. There needs to be a good occasion for it and I’m better at knowing when I’ve had too much now.’

As the afternoon wore on, their conversation became freer and punctuated with giggles.

‘This definitely has alcohol in.’

'It's on the mocktail menu.'

Eris leaned over her to snatch up the menu. 'And on the cocktail menu. With tequila.'

Nesta sucked the last dregs from the bottom of her glass up the straw. ‘Oops. Sorry. Sincerely.’

‘I’m drinking with a friend. It’s a celebration,’ said Eris, giving an easy shrug of his shoulders.

She pressed a hand to her chest. ‘I’m your friend? What an honour!’

Despite the realisation that their fruity, rainbow drinks were not mocktails, they continued to drink. The heat made it worse. The conversation shifted from playful to the realms of discussion that Nesta would never engage in sober. They spoke of ex-lovers, positions they enjoyed in the bedroom, fantasies – inhibitions well and truly out the window as they slurped down more.

Eris closed one eye as he squinted down at the display of his watch. ‘Our dearly beloved siblings should land soon.’

Fantastic, she thought. She’d face a grilling from Cassian about why she chose to drink with Eris, but not him. Morrigan would have something to say – and Rhys too because he couldn’t help himself but pass a comment on Nesta’s life.

‘Then I am going to bed,’ she declared. Nesta pushed off from the sunbed with legs like jelly then staggered a few steps.

Eris let out a soft laugh. ‘Any more staggering and you’d have ended up in the pool. Let’s get you some food.’

He was equally unsteady, but they managed to negotiate for food and make it into the lift. They crashed into each other in the corridor. Their hips and arms bumped as they walked in unsteady lines towards Eris’ room. They collapsed onto the bed to dig into whatever had been deep fried for their meal. She licked the grease off her fingers in between shovelling in mouthfuls; Eris ate with an equal lack of grace like one starved.

When they had finished their food, the television blared out and they remained sprawled together on the bed. A cool wind swept through the open balcony doors as the sun descended for the night. Nesta’s phone flashed a couple of times with messages from Elain then Feyre quizzing on her whereabouts. She replied that an early night was needed and she’d meet them in the morning.

With food in her stomach, Nesta felt a little more sober, but whilst Eris went to shower, she raided the minibar for anything salty that she could find. Eris returned when she had a mouthful of peanuts.

‘Share.’

Nesta covered her mouth so she didn’t spray nuts across the room. ‘There’s chips too.’

‘Daddy dearest is paying the bill. Indulge.’

Nesta had never let herself loose like this, as though she had no manners. Eris didn’t seem to mind either. He was grinning from ear to ear as they sat on the bed, devouring any snack they could get their hands on. She fished in the cup of her bikini for a dropped peanut.

‘What a woman,’ purred Eris from the top of the bed where he languished with a towel around his waist.

She arched a brow. ‘Still want to be my date for this wedding?’

‘All other women are shadows compared to you, Nesta Archeron.’

Eris extended a hand to her which Nesta crawled towards. She collapsed beside him on the bed so their noses brushed. His hand cupped against her hip, drawing her another inch closer. Her fluttering heart made her giddy.

‘Kiss me, Nesta.’

Her chin raised until their lips met. There was nothing hesitant about it. The moment their lips slid over each other, Eris rolled Nesta on top of him. She felt his hardening length through the towel. Her tongue met his as their hands roved over each other’s bodies, hungry for every bare stretch of skin they could gain purchase on.

The string of her bikini was tugged loose so she peeled open the towel from his waist.

They moved down the bed, Nesta turning onto her back as Eris pulled away the last of her clothing.

‘That conversation earlier,’ he grinned. ‘I know every little thing you like.’

Her fingers wound through his auburn hair. ‘Then don’t you dare disappoint me.’

***

At the first slivers of amber light leaking through at dawn, Nesta unpeeled her limbs from Eris, gathered her clothing – a bikini, a sarong, and flip flops – then scurried out of his room.

Nobody was in the corridors, but she still had a strong sense of paranoia that somebody might catch her mid-scandal. It shouldn’t have been a scandal. Both were single and willing – and she certainly had a night like no other. Eris had definitely paid attention to what she had said over their cocktails. But this was not what Nesta Archeron did. She didn’t have one-night stands.

She threw herself into the shower, as if to wash away Eris’ scent from her body then stuck her phone into the charger and flopped onto the bed, hoping to catch a couple of hours sleep in the safety of her own room.

The knock from her sister came too sudden for Nesta, but wedding duties took priority. She tried her best to suppress the exhaustion from a long night being bent over by Elain’s future brother-in-law as she followed her sister down the corridor into her rooms. Not long later, Feyre arrived too in anticipation of a day spent together exploring before the wedding the next day.

Feyre let out a long yawn as she slumped in a chair.

‘Nyx?’ Elain asked over her shoulder at the vanity while she curled her hair.

‘I wish. For once, he slept. I don’t know how. Lucien said his oldest brother has the room next to us. I was ready to kill him last night. He was going at it all night with some floozy. The walls are so thin.’

At her spot by the window, Nesta froze. Heat crept into her cheeks. Oh no.

Elain giggled at Feyre’s admission. ‘The season of love.’

Feyre snorted. ‘It wasn’t love. It was like a pair of wild animals were banging against a wall. All night. At least do it in the bed so I don’t have to hear it.’

‘I forgot something in my room. Back in a moment.’

Nesta excused herself without waiting to hear their replies. Her face was scorching. Oh, this was awful. She really had to pick that man – and this wedding – to have her first ever one-night stand.

‘Hey, Ness.’

‘Oh, not you,’ she sighed in the hallway.

‘Miss you too.’

Cassian wore lurid pink shorts paired with a black vest. His unruly hair had been scraped back into a bun at the nape of his neck. She had forgotten how intimidating he could seem by the way he could loom over everybody.

‘Excuse me.’

Nesta tried to side-step him, but he blocked her pathway.

‘Listen, I thought we could talk. We don’t have to date but we can be friends.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

He wrung his hands together. ‘I miss you. I miss the old times.’

‘Old times? We were together six months. Look, Cassian, move. I don’t have time for this.’ She pinched her brow then barrelled past him.

This time, he let her go.

***

‘My goodness, how did you ever get your license?’

Nesta clung onto the door handle while Feyre braced herself in the back. Elain ignored her words because she was busy gritting her teeth as they rounded another sharp corner.

They had gone for a breakfast in a small town by the sea that had been recommended to them for its beauty. What the lady on the desk had neglected to tell them was that the idyllic little beachfront restaurant was at the end of one of the most difficult drives they had ever been on. The narrow, winding road was made up of sheer cliffs and dusty stones rolling into their path.

‘At least I have it,’ Elain finally said as the car rolled onto a fairly straight stretch of road.

Feyre made a disgruntled noise. ‘I’ll learn when Nyx is bigger.’

‘Nesta’s driving on the way back. You always say you are the best driver.’

She was, but not when her head was pounding from the amount of alcohol she’d downed yesterday. In response, Nesta grimaced. The car juddered along the rocky path uneasily.

‘I hope we all make it to the wedding,’ quipped Elain as another large stone slipped down from the cliff and into their path that only a harsh stamp on the brake could protect them from.

The restaurant was utterly beautiful, though perhaps not worth nearly dying for. Elain had chosen a table directly in the blazing sunlight so Nesta was powerless to agree. What the bride wanted, she got. Even if Nesta was dying inside the longer she spent in the sun.

‘You look so pale, Nesta.’

‘I’m emotional my little sister is getting married,’ she lied. ‘Oo, chilled water. Hallelujah.’

Food was a challenge. For every nibble she took, Nesta glugged down an entire glass of lemon water to stop her stomach from lurching. Neither sister seemed to notice her struggling, or at least attributed it to the heat when Elain took the floppy sunhat off her own head and plonked into Nesta’s. Feyre prattled on about her son as if he was the first child in existence while Elain babbled about how many children she wanted to have. I’d quite like a nap, she thought.

Excitement came in the form of dolphins breaching the crystalline blue waters near the restaurant. Even Nesta rose from her seat to get a better look and snap a few pictures.

‘That was amazing!’

‘Oh, I wish Nyx had seen,’ lamented Feyre as she scrolled through her photos.

Nesta did the same to see if she had managed any half-decent shots. She swiped through, zooming occasionally. The images of the sea shifted to a bare body. Her bare body. Eris' knees and something else was in the shot. When the video started playing automatically, she locked her phone quicker than she had ever managed before.

‘What was that?’

Nesta blinked. ‘I must have taken a video in my pocket on the plane.’

Her heart was hammering in her chest.

Not only did she decide to have a one-night stand with Eris – but they had filmed it too? The image of herself sprawled out on the bed, a big grin on her face, with Eris kneeling between her legs flashed back into her mind. A sex tape. This was bad. Very bad. Bad with a capital B.

‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost,’ murmured Elain, brown eyes catching her own.

No, just myself about to get ploughed, she thought.

Fanning herself for good measure, Nesta said, ‘I’m not used to this heat.’

Their day was busy with exploring local shops and visiting tourist hotspots. She had never sweated so much in her life which couldn’t solely be blamed on the heat. Each time they stopped so that Elain could try on clothes, Nesta bought another bottle of water to hydrate herself which hadn’t gone unnoticed by Feyre.

‘How long until you belong to the sea witch?’

She choked on a mouthful of water. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You’re acting like a mermaid out of water. I didn’t know a person could drink so much water,’ she added. A wicked smile curled Feyre’s lips. ‘If you’re looking for your true love, I’ll let Cass know.’

‘I’d rather drown than ever let him touch me again.’

Feyre pouted. ‘He’s not that bad. He really regrets what happened between you two. Cass was really sad that you’d already gone to bed yesterday.’

‘Feyre, let’s get this straight. I am sweating. My armpits are like a swamp. I am hungover as shit. I am here for Elain’s wedding – not to hook up with anybody. Furthermore, I literally do not give a crap about Cassian or his feelings.’

Her sister heard one part of that. ‘Who were you drinking with last night?’

She fought hard to give an air of carelessness as she shrugged. Elain chose that moment to emerge from the dressing room in a pretty, lavender sundress. They passed on their comments about how beautiful she looked then the curtains closed again.

In a whisper, Feyre said, ‘Were you drinking alone again?’

Again. Drinking alone was considered wrong, but drinking every single night with company was permissible.

‘Feyre, what I do is my business.’

‘That’s why you had an early night, isn’t it? Because you were drinking.’

Nesta sucked in a breath. Her temper never did do well when provoked – especially not in the sun. ‘Yes, I was drinking Feyre. I had a lovely time by the pool drinking cocktails. Don’t be too jealous.’

#neris #fake dating au

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uniquethingtastemaker · 1 year

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Hello! I think I've got a good one. First off, for the sake of this request, let's pretend that Rook was somehow able to attend Camp Vargas (We're reaching SO far, but it's fine) and he has a male s/o who was also attending the camp (whether he's Yuu or not, I'll leave up to you), but he has serious trauma from being kidnapped by a serial killer when he was younger. And so, when Vargas captures and ties him up, the reader starts losing it and having a panic attack, thinking he's going to die. How would Rook react to this?

Hey, Anon! Thanks for sharing your brain rot ideas regarding Rook, because we love our ridiculous and theatrical hunter. Truly a wild set of circumstances I've been presented, but I love it!

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if I saw Rook attending Camp Vargas purely because the man is so athletic. He wields a huge bow with great accuracy and is proficient in stealth. He would easily be able to sneak in and just lay in wait, taking pictures secretly in the trees. The reason he would be there in the first place would absolutely be to take photographs.

Honestly, even without the extremeness of "got kidnapped by a serial killer," I can see someone having a panic attack just in general by getting kidnapped. I mean certain traumas can trigger people's fight, flight, or freeze response and it's a big mood.

What will come next is just me free writing my ideas for this, so here's y'all's present I guess lol. Also, note that I have not actually read the Vargas Camp event, but have a vague idea of what kinda went down during the event lol.

Oh my god, wait, to elaborate on this idea or whatever. I could totally see Rook in the trees, watching the whole kidnapping thing go down. Then, when Vargas would leave to claim his next unsuspecting victim, Rook would drop down next to you. Cooing in your ear that you were safe and are going to be ok, he would cut the ropes off you. Probably holding you close and just rocking you back in forth lovingly while you calm down from your panic attack. You would probably be clinging onto him and his big muscles like a koala. He would be whispering sweet words of affirmations in your ear, as he moves you to somewhere safer. Aka away from the pile of other victims lol...

You know, he would probably cut the other victims free just to cause some more fun chaos and trouble for Ashton. He probably knows that the person behind the kidnappings was Ashton anyway, because Rook is so perceptive... I could totally imagine him deciding to exact a "friendly" revenge on him for messing and actually traumatizing his beloved by telling the other victims that the culprit was Ashton and maybe some other important information to help them successfully get back at their teacher lol. Rook wouldn't have time in the moment to personally get back at him, because he would be too busy taking care of you!! Ahhh, so sweet! We love our hunter boy. Taking care of us and making sure that we feel ok and safe (in his arms lol). I can imagine that there would be cuddles as you hear the sounds of absolute chaos and screaming in the distance perhaps watching the whole fight go down from afar. The kids rebelling and enacting a revolution to overthrow Vargas. Sounds about right. I wouldn't be surprised if that would happen in game low key lol.

Ohhhh, and you know what would be the cherry on the cake? Having the reader specifically thinking and praying (maybe whimpering lol) while they're getting kidnapped that Rook would save them even though he wasn't at camp or whatever. And then having Rook actually show up?!!! *throws myself on the floor and dies* It's such a good idea. Good job, anon, you've successfully murdered me.

You also surprisingly got me to vaguely write/elaborate on your request low key, and that my dude is a feat within itself. Like I'm truly impressed. *applauds you from the floor*

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst x reader #twst x male reader #twst rook hunt #twst rook #rook hunt x reader #rook hunt #twst imagines #clem's writings #twst event #twst camp vargas #camp vargas #ask #request #anon asked #answered

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uwmspeccoll · 9 months

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Steamy Saturday

Filling in for her pregnant friend Jenny, nurse Sarah Bennett takes a temporary stint as a flight attendant on a small Alaskan airline and a break from her boorish doctor fiancé, who for reasons even she doesn't understand, she thinks she's in love with. It's only her third day on the job, when -- "Oh, God!" -- the plane is hijacked by thuggish saboteurs and the passengers and crew are left stranded and ailing in the Alaskan wilds "with two dangerously ill passengers and one dangerously attractive pilot" (for a nurse, Sarah is a bit of a nervous Nelly and "Oh, God!" is her response to almost every situation that develops in the narrative). So begins Wings for Nurse Bennett by American romance-fiction writer Adeline McElfresh (1918-2015), published as a pulp paperback in New York by Dell Publishing Co. in 1960.

Despite her neurotic pessimism, Nurse Bennett manages to pull off some heroic medical feats, including delivering a baby (“Oh, God! Was the baby stillborn?" It's not.) and performing an emergency appendectomy ("Not appendicitis! Please, God, don’t let it be appendicitis.”) despite not being a doctor ("“What would they call it, practicing surgery without a license? Or—or criminal negligence?”). As one recent reviewer pleaded, "For crying out loud, someone get this woman a Xanax!"

All the while, she is assisted and swept off her feet by the attentive and "dangerously attractive" co-pilot Al Malcolm. In the end, everyone is saved, and I think we all know who Sarah Bennett ends up with, so much so that we don't mind showing you the last lines, which offers another version of what we in Special Collections call the vampire-like "eating of the nurse" (see the end of our previous post for context).

The cover illustration is by prolific American illustrator Tommy Shoemaker. At very first glance, we all thought that Nurse Bennett was gazing at a miniature model of a jet airplane (the "Wings for Nurse Bennett"?), but then we realized it was just a thermometer with the curve of her hair forming what looked like a cockpit. But then we wondered, why is she holding a hotdog in left hand, or is it a hotdog? You decide:

View other nurse romance novels.

View other pulp fiction posts.

#Steamy Saturday #romance fiction #romance novels #nurse romance fiction #nurse romance novels #nurses #pulp fiction #Wings for Nurse Bennett #Adeline McElfresh #Dell Publishing #cover art #Tommy Shoemaker #Thomas Shoemaker

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charcoalhawk · 1 year

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And they’ve all got the same heartbeat (but hers is falling behind)

With Casper high behind them, students from Amity park are finding out the the world around them is much different from the one they grew up in.

First Phic for Phic Phight 2023!

Prompt was from @mr-lancers-english-class: Amity Park residents often forget what feats of human ability are considered "normal" and what are considered "superhuman does not even begin to cover it oh dear god where in the world did you learn to do that?!?" This leads to some... interesting situations when Danny's graduating class steps out into the rest of the world for college.

had, a lot of fun with this. It was really fun breaking out a bunch of OC’ s and letting them just all run wild all over this.

Warning for reference to SA, Transphobia, injuries, and vomiting.

Title comes from Ecosmith, Cool Kids.

Paulina

Paulina hadn’t realized, at first, just how soft the world was outside of Amity Park. While her father had never let her attend the same self-defense classes Valerie went to, she had still learned how to protect herself from those who might wish her ill.

But, in retrospect, most people didn’t spend their high school years fighting the undead. So maybe her sense of fight of flight was just a tad bit skewed.

This wasn’t Paulina’s first time waking home slightly too drunk, during junior year at Casper she and Star spent every night during spring break bar hopping, and there had definitely been times during her senior year where entire week’s had felt like a dream.

But that had been at Casper, where all the teachers knew that students had bad weeks in which even showing up to school was a Herculean effort. On those weeks Mr. Lancer would offer you a quiet room after school to make up work in, and everyone knew to tread carefully.

But now she was in college, states away from Casper’s familiar haunted halls, and she, and Star, were starting to realize that the other girls around them maybe had slightly different experiences growing up.

Case in point, Paulina had mastered walking in heels when she was thirteen running away from an ancient dragon that had wanted her head on a spike, so even slightly drunk her steps didn’t waiver. Jessica was holding her heels in one hand while the other clutched her phone and lanyard like a lifeline, and Monica had shown up in flats and was now happily devouring a huge tub of pretzels she had borrowed from the frat house.

The party had taken place in the farthest house from freshman housing, off the campus itself. It had been free admission, a feature most freshmen all thought was amazing, but all the sophomores and juniors knew was a scam to get rid of all the old beer from the last several years that no one else wanted to drink.

It was close to three in the morning according to the last time Jessica had loudly announced from checking her phone, so there was little other foot traffic as the three of them slowly made their way back to the dorm. Paulina had noticed someone following them almost immediately after they had left the party, but had hoped it was just another freshman making the walk of shame back onto campus.

But as they near the first campus building, the figure that had been following from a distance rapidly gained on them, revealing itself to be at four gangly boys, who all swaggered towards them like they had a hive of bees up their asses. Paulina distinctly remembers turning the leading boy, Ben, down when he had insisted she give him a shot earlier that week.

They’re stopped at a traffic light where Jessica starts to rather urgently press the crosswalk button, but the light has just turned green and it’ll be at least two or so minutes before the light will cycle.

“Hey there, pretty thing,” Ben drawls, “what’s someone like you doing out past your bedtime?”

Oh, he’s one of those assholes. Paulina knows she had made it abundantly clear she had no interest in him, and if he was the kind of guy who stalked drunk girls after a party, she had definitely made the right choice.

Jessica and Monica are giving her some very concerned glances, and out of the corner of her eye Paulina sees Jessica fumbling for her phone while trying to not drop her heels.

There’s just too much traffic for them to safely cross, and even then the boys would just follow them, and there is no way Paulina is playing a demented version of hide and seek with these losers.

Paulina understands the other girl's concern, but she’s met beings who would truly wish her harm, these empty headed cardboard cutouts with overinflated egos just needed to be firmly taught a lesson.

With large steps Ben’s in her space in moments, hand reaching down to posessively stroke her cheek down her neck. His hand is larger than her’s, smooth from lack of work and well manicured. She can smell his cologne, it’s something cheap, he’s practically doused himself in it so entering his personal space means all you can smell is him.

His hand travels didn further and- nope! Paulina has dealt with a lot of disgusting men in her life, but most of them are too cowardly to get too close. Over the years she’s learned to ignore most demeaning language, as in most cases speaking up about it will get her a telling off from her parents for acting unladylike.

Her hands snap up to grab his wrist while she shifts slightly so none of him is touching her. Before he can make any comment, she yanks harshly down and hears the tell-tale pop of a dislocating shoulder. She remembers Valerie teaching her that the summer before freshman year, her then friend had been worried and had wanted to give Paulina a way to deter anyone from trying to touch her more then once when she didn’t want them too.

It had come in handy a few times over the years, but she hadn’t always been able to actually get the shoulder dislocated on the first try. It had still been surprising enough that it had gotten her out of one bad situation, but after that she had asked and both Kwan and Dash had volunteered to help get her technique down and now she knew the exact right angle and amount of abrupt force needed to get the desired result.

There’s a startled gasp from the girls, and one of the looming guys let’s out a strangled “what the fuck,” but Paulina isn’t done. Quickly she yanks, pulling Ben’s now limp arm down so she can wedge her elbow with his, before snapping it as hard as she can at a perpendicular.

This time it’s the satisfying crunch of bone and with that he crumbles to the floor, wailing.

The smallest guy darts in to help his friend up but the other two seem frozen in shock. Going from their horrified faces no one has ever been bold enough to stand up to them when they traveled in a pack like this.

“Move along boys,” Paulina gives them a smile that is all teeth, something she had learned from Manson, “next time you think about harassing someone just stay in your room with some tissues, it’ll be more productive.”

The last two guys lunge at her then, but their movements grow awkward as they both aim for the same target. One does land a half decent punch to her nose and one tries to get behind her and definitely pulls out some hair with his harsh grip, but neither of them have had to fight in close quarters with others before. it’s easy to catch her palm hard on one guy’s throat and send him down hacking.

The one behind her has the unfortunate fate of getting her nails in his eye, and really now she’s going to have to get them redone because already she can feel two of them catching in flesh and ripping off.

He screams, high and long as his hands yank harshly at hers. She allows herself the brief satisfaction of digging them in deeper for a few more moments before allowing him to push her away.

And with the last guy releasing her to clutch at his face, it’s all over. The other two have already disappeared, and all it takes is one loud step with her heel to send the other two running.

A quick glance shows that Monica and Jessica are still standing near the light, Monica’s pretzels scattered on the floor as she’s holding one of Jessica’s heels like a weapon.

Something in Paulina’s heart warms. It’s nice to know her new friends are willing to protect her, maybe during the summer she’ll invite them to Amity and Valerie can show them how to properly snap someone’s wrist.

“It’s all fine now girls. Oh Monica, you dropped your pretzels! Let's stop by the college store on the way and pick up some new ones. The girl who works the night shift always keeps the best ones in the back of the shelves so there should still be some left.”

“What the fuck?” Jessica whispered.

——————

Dash

This year’s group of freshmen is pretty promising.

Don had been coaching the football team at Ohio State university for almost eleven years now. Most of the boys that he coached had been playing since middle school, and had a decent grasp on the game, if sometimes a little arrogant about their status as ‘college football future all stars’.

Some were always more bone-headed than others, and every year Don could always predict a few of them leaving the program within the year due to an injury from being too reckless.

For all the love he has for his boys, the first proper practice was always one of Don’s least favorites. All the kids want to do is gossip instead of practice, and all the new freshmen try way too hard to make a good impression with the upperclassmen. By the end of the day, every year, he always has to make everyone run suicide’s because the boys were either being too rough or goofing off when they shouldn’t.

Over the years Don has found sprinting to be one of the best punishments for over talkative players, as it has a unique way of getting kids out of breath in a way where they would finally stop yammering on for a few minutes so he could talk to them without dealing with interruptions.

After the third time a freshman decides to describe his summer flings loudly and in graphic detail, Don has had it up to here with these kids. Bragging was for the locker room, not the field.

“Alright! I’ve had enough! Line up at the zero mark, we’re doing suicides for the last ten minutes of practice.”

There’s the usual amount of groaning and whining as everyone slowly makes their way over to the zero mark, and one of two even tries to sneak off to the bathroom, but one stern look has them stomping back with the rest of the pack.

“Alright! Everyone here should know what suicides are, but just in case any of you left your brains in the summer heat for too long here’s what your going to do- we sprint to the twenty five mark, then back, then the fifty and back, then the seventy five and back, and finally the opposite goal post and back. You will repeat until my whistle.”

Once everyone is in position Don gives a shrill signal with his little metal whistle, and they’re off.

The first five minutes go by and everything is going as it should, some kids are already slowing down, a clear sign they were not keeping in shape over the summer, and thus ones Don is going to have to push harder to get them back with the rest of the pack.

At the eight minute mark even his juniors and seniors are starting to slow a bit, but the last two minutes of sprints are almost always the hardest, even for the boys he’s been working with since their freshman year.

But, as he looks there’s one kid who isn’t slowing down. He had initially seen the kid’s slightly more sedate pace and internally marked him as a kid who would need a firmer hand, but now it’s obvious he was simply setting a pace for himself, as now almost ten minutes in his sprinting has not slowed beyond what it started as.

In Don’s experience freshman tended to put everything they had into the first three minutes of sprinting, and were almost always the first to sprint to the other side of the field and back, but also meant that they usually didn’t have the stamina to stay sprinting for ten minutes straight.

But this kid is still going. It takes him a minute to place the kid, but after a moment he realizes it’s Baxter, the kid from Amity park.

In most other cases the small town would mean nothing to him, but in this case Amity had enough of a reputation that he had been warned when one of its alumni decided to join his team.

The most haunted town in America. Sounded like a bunch of bullshit in Don’s professional opinion, but enough weird shit had happened the last five or so years that Casper high had gotten in the habit of sending, not warning letters, but an informational packet to schools so they would know what behaviors to watch out for.

Don still remembers three years ago the story of a freshman at Colorado Tech publishing a paper on the effects of being haunted by ghosts and how it affects the perception of mortality for an entire town. The young woman had been a graduate of Casper high, and when invested further it was revealed that this wasn’t some kid trying to be as ridiculous as they could, but an actual, legitimate thing that was still happening in the town.

Hell, he remembers trading emails with Baxter’s English teacher the last few months of the kid's senior year. In most cases it would have been a school counselor that he discussed a kid’s schooling and grades with, but apparently Amity had had a very bad experience in the last few years with ghostly interference and currently didn’t have a dedicated counseling team at all.

Which, Don definitely had opinions about, but the school was doing all it could to help the kids where they could. So Don would at least give them that.

Apparently Baxter had been a pretty big asshole and a bully his first two years of high school, something the school had let slide more than it should have, and had initially been excused or ignored because of his prowess in physical sports. Towards the end of his sophomore year and leading into his junior Baxter has seemed to finally learn and grow from his bullying ways.

Many teachers had observed him becoming, if not kind then neutral to those he had been harassing, and by his senior year was genuinely well liked by most acquaintances and not feared.

Don remembers the report from the recruiter that had gone down to Amity to observe the team, and nothing they had observed had even hinted that Baxter or any of his teammates acted in any way different or better then any other team they observed in that period.

At the twelve minute mark everyone else has collapsed near the post, but this kid is still going. After fifteen minutes the kid looks at him intently when he turns back towards him, his seventh time reaching the opposite end of the field, but his pace still hasn’t slowed, and he doesn’t look like he’s in any extreme pain, so Don motions for him to continue, and the kid does so without complaint.

It’s odd, in almost any other situation Don would say the kid had just switched to running, but the motions, the sharp turns and the slightly hunched posture, he's still sprinting.

Don finally calls it at the thirty minute mark, and by now the soccer team has shown up, but everyone seems just a bit too mesmerized by the sight to comment on Don holding the field almost twenty minutes late.

Baxter jogs right over to where everyone is standing slack jawed and casually reaches to drink some of his water. He definitely looks like he just exercised, his whole face is flushed red and his hair has become a solid mass lying flat on his head, but his legs are holding him up and his breathing isn’t the rapid mess he expects from someone having sprinted for half an hour straight.

After Baxter finishes his drink he looks expectedly at him, and after a moment Don shakes himself out of his stupor and motions for the soccer team to take the field.

After they’ve left the football team is still hovering around the bleachers, likely wanting to get the first chance to hound the kid for answers or beg him to spill his secrets. Don’s at least a little more subtle than that.

After checking that everyone else is ready he releases them and with some reluctance the rest of the kids leave for the locker room.

Baxter hasn’t moved, likely sensing that Don has questions.

“Kid, I say this as kindly and as without judgment as I can- but how the hell did you do that!”

“Oh, well,” Baxter doesn’t look nervous, but he does seem a bit self conscious, a small sign he has hopefully matured from the pompous bully he was said to be. “Coach Tellestaff back home was pretty insistent that we learn how to sprint for long periods of time in case something was chasing after us that wouldn’t grow easily tired, so we usually did sprints at least every other day.”

“That’s an… interesting motive. Did you often find yourself in situations running from things like that? Back home?”

“Uh well it wasn’t an every day kinda thing, but at least once every other week a ghost would attack the school, and in situations like that you wanted to be as far away from the fighting as possible.”

“Well, I just want you to know it was extremely impressive, you must have worked hard to be able to do what we just saw now.”

“Ha, that’s nothing! Two of my best friends, Paulina and Star, could sprint half way across town in heels. They offered to teach me and Kwan, but to be honest we were a little worried that we’d break our necks falling or somehow impaling ourselves with those five inch torture devises.”

——————

Tucker

There are many things Tucker enjoys about college. Not having to wake up before ten am most days? Amazing, let’s him get so much more work don’t and he can tinker into the night without worrying about his parents having to barge into his room the next morning because he overslept.

Not having to be ready to fight ghosts 24/7? A goddamn lifesaver. After four years the ghosts who frequented Amity had calmed down enough that they weren't all chomping at the bit to cause as much mayhem as possible. Danny had also gotten Wulf to show him how to make dimensional portals, so he could fight ghosts in the Zone without destroying the town. It helped that Danny had set it up so he visited Amity at least every third week for a few days, both to check in with the more peaceful ghosts who called Amity home, and to make sure his parents hadn’t caused any more trouble than they could handle themselves.

One thing Tucker really enjoyed about college was the extracurriculars. Casper high had band, football, and a few small after school clubs, but no big organized programs beyond that that could compete in competitions.

But now, at Tech, Tucker had found his people in the robotics team. Ever since that first freshman orientation where they were introduced to all the clubs Tech has to offer, where Tucker found a group showing off a robot they built that poured drinks without overflowing or knocking them over.

He had signed up then and there, and from that point forward every Monday and Thursday night were for Robotics, and Thursday and Saturdays were fuck around nights where they had almost unrestricted access to the lab and were able to test out personal projects or ideas that they might not want to hand over to the team.

Official work nights were also fun, and definitely a bit more informative with their teacher around to help them expand upon their ideas. they would share and explore code together, and discuss what they could build for the numerous robotics competitions held throughout the year.

Tucker loved participating in these events, but this upcoming one was promising to be his favorite. This competition has a very special individual event that offered a huge cash prize, and Tucker was determined to get it. A few of his friends were also competing, but most had wanted to focus solely on their big team project.

Now, Tucker loved his team, but they did tend to get a bit squeamish when he pulled parts from non-standard scraps. Having a friend like Sam meant that he had access to what was considered modern material that had already lived its course, like recently released phone models, for example. Like now, where he was cannibalizing a few very new devices for their cameras to make a drone with a multi-directional camera.

“Dude, is that an iPhone 14?” Roberto looked absolutely appalled from where he was hovering over Tucker’s workstation.

“Oh yeah, a lot of their components are shit, meant to be obsolete in like two years so you’ll have to buy another one, but I’ve found the cameras aren’t half bad once you put them on something that isn’t meant to shit itself in a year.”

“Well yeah, everyone knows most super modern phones are kinda garbage, but this hasn’t even been released onto the general market yet!”

“Oh, well my friend Sam gave some of her family’s old versions, apparently they don’t fare well after possession.”

“Possession?” Now Cassius has floated over from their project in trying to make better AI detection software, “Dude, are you still keeping up that joke about Amity and how haunted it is? I thought we had convinced you that you didn’t need to tell these crazy stories for us to want to hang out with you?”

Well, that’s rather rude of them, but as Tucker winds up and is about to begin his by now long rehearsed speech on how Amity is absolutely fucking haunted there’s a buzz from his pocket, and when he checks it’s Jazz, who in his long experience never calls without reason.

“Well.. hold on, I gotta take a call real fast.” Tucker pulled out his trusty pda, which over the years he had tinkered with enough that its internal workings barely resembled the device he had gotten his first week in high school. He had kept the outer shell mostly unchanged because after seven years, turns out he had gotten pretty fond of it.

“Hey ya! Everything ok?”

Turns out Maddie and Jack had accidentally created a small anti-matter gun when trying to find a way to make a portable portal, and Jazz was hoping he could stop by with Danny in the next ten minutes to find out how it worked in the first place and maybe accidentally destroy it or make it unusable so they would think the first success was a fluke.

“Yeah, absolutely,” Tucker glanced at his teammates who were looking at his pda like it had personality offended them, “tell Danny to hop right over.”

“Oh my god, don’t you still use a pda?” Roberto whispered in horrified awe after Tucker had ended the call, “There’s no way it can hold up, it can’t be compatible with other phone providers. It could barely be considered functional when it was first released!”

“Oh jokes on them,” Tucker checked that everything was off at his station and that there was no exposed wiring that someone could get hurt by, “like hell I’m paying for something that already exists and should be free to access.”

There’s a ripping pop behind them, and he turns around with a grin to see Danny holding the dimensions open for him.

“Well, we can argue the amazingness of my darling at a later date, I should be back in less than an hour, if not make sure you get at least one meat-lovers for me tonight, I’ll Venmo you the cost when I get back!”

“Well,” his teacher grumbles, “At least he turned his project off this time, the fire was hell to deal with last year”, is the last thing he hears before the portal closes around them.

——————

Kwan

Julius hadn’t really wanted to work at their college’s discount coffee shop during their junior year, but over the summer their parents had helped them track down the perfect car for them, and after some haggling their parents had bought it for them at a steal. But now Julius had to pay for their own gas, and having their own car meant more temptations, like 3am Nasty Burger on the other side of town, which they could finally drive to on their own without having to bully one of their friends to come over and drive them.

Luckily it wasn't too hard to get the position, they had applied early enough that most other kids were still enjoying their summers, so a month before school Julius officially had their first job.

All of Julius’ coworkers were very nice, and even after they had finished training no one hesitated to help if they were confused about how to make a drink or about a certain procedure.

Winston and Bella both came from New York, and enjoyed trying to gross the other out with increasingly outrageous drink combinations. Zack was from Washington state, and seemed to genuinely enjoy the intricacies of coffee itself. Darius, Kassidy, and Shaun were all locals who loved to recommend places nearby to eat and hang out. Victor came from the same area as Julius, and was in the process of illustrating his first book.

Kwan came from a small town in the Midwest, and was one of the most genuinely friendly people Julius had ever met.

When Julius’ car had refused to start one morning Kwan was the first person they called, and had shown up without complaint at seven in the morning to drive them to work, then afterwards helped them set up an appointment with a friend of a friend's mechanic who helped fix their car for an absurdly reasonable price.

On most days things were pretty slow until ten or so in the morning. The store itself was very small, with only a cafe area and no drive through, and the owners still refused to sign any deals with third party companies so no doordash or Uber eats. It means that a three man team could comfortably work the store at any one time, and maybe on holidays they would bring an extra person in to help the midday shift when all the college kids decided to study in packs and take up every available seat they had.

Today, however, looked like it was going to be a shitshow.

Victor had called out at the last minute, she had fallen in the shower and heavenly twisted their ankle, and given that it was spring break there was no way anyone who hadn’t already been scheduled was going to come in to cover.

Spring break also meant they were staying busy much later into the afternoon than usual. On a normal Thursday by 4pm the ravenous packs of college kids would have mostly cleared out to go to afternoon classes, and all that was left were local working adults looking for overpriced coffee and free WiFi, and kids who didn’t have classes that day.

But now at almost seven pm the store is still packed. There were two groups taking up most of the more lounge-y seating, an older man having a very heated debate on his phone, and a kid hanging by the bathrooms watching YouTube without headphones. Overall it was much louder then Julius was usually comfortable with for an extended period of time.

But the current source of conflict was a younger woman looming over the counter that separated the customer area from where drinks were made.

Her drink had taken a bit because she had ordered right after the two rowdy groups of kids, and Julius had been taught to make drinks in order of who placed their order first, not on whose order it would be easier to do.

Well, technically.

In practice people did orders out of order all the time, but the woman had pissed Julius off with her attitude and her visible sneer when she had noticed the pronoun pins everyone was wearing.

So, they would follow protocols exactly, just for her.

Her drink itself wasn’t too difficult, and in situations like these Julius always wished they could just tell customers they were better off buying the ingredients and making it for themselves at home, not spending almost ten dollars on lackluster taste.

Julius handed the coffee over to the glowering woman, and was just getting ready to signal to Shaun that they were going to go to the back to work on dishes when there was a very pointed cough and an aggravated sigh from across the counter.

“This doesn’t taste right.”

The woman’s bright purple lipstick has already stained the lid of the cup, so at least they know she actually tried it, but still. It was a regular old white chocolate coffee, with no special addendums or bells and whistles to it. And while they haven’t been working here for the years that others may have, Julius has over six months of working here to know that they made that drink correctly.

But, deep sigh, assume the best.

“Oh, I’m sorry, could you tell me what was wrong about it so we can remake it for you?”

“It just tastes wrong! I have ordered this drink every day for the last three months, I know what it should look and taste like, and this is wrong!”

The commotion had caught Kwan’s attention from where he was restocking their cups and espresso beans, and he moved over to draw the woman’s attention from Julius to himself.

Thank god, Kwan was the best with asshole customers. Julius thought if they had to deal with this woman for too much longer they might make their disdain too obvious, and then they would have a whole ‘nother problem in the woman saying they were being unkind to them.

Julius still remembers Kwan warning them about unsavory customers their first week.

Julius had been nervous because all their work in high school had been volunteer, and not in situations where people generally would complain to them about something being miss made, or just the general shit they knew true customer service often involved dealing with.

“How do you really deal with bad customers?” It’s slow right now, but just twenty minutes ago there had been a literal crowd of people in their cafe, and some had been very irate that their drinks were not magically appearing before them. Julius had been keeping their head down, attempting to make drinks as quick as they could without drawing attention, while Kwan and Bella helped dole out food and placate everyone.

“Well, that kind of depends,” Kwan makes a seesaw motion with his hand, “sometimes there’s a genuine mistake in the making of the drink or when it was ordered, and the customer is respectful in politely asking for a remake. In those cases you just simply make it again for them, and everything moves on.”

“But that’s not always the case.” Even if social media wasn’t what it was, Julius remembers the horror stories various friends had told them over the years. They’ve seen it first hand plenty of time already, but there’s always been someone nearby to help deal with it.

“Ah, no,” Kwan glances out towards the now calm cafe, “I know when the owners hired you they must have made a big stink about always being approachable and how the goal is for customers to feel welcome and comfortable here. But in practice it’s-“

“A load of horse shit?”

“-unrealistic. Sometimes people think something is wrong with the drink and demand it be made again, but they won’t tell you why. Or it’ll be wrong in some unhelpful way, like it tastes wrong or they can’t taste a flavor even though you know you added exactly as much as they asked for. In those situations you kinda just have to make it again, and hopefully this time they’ll be satisfied. If they want it remade more than twice, that’s generally the point where you politely tell them that it seems we can’t reach their standards, and that they might want to try another location.”

“What about people who just want a free drink?”

“We make it for them, if they’ve already touched it we can’t take it back anyway, so just make them another.”

“Jeez, you're definitely nicer than me about this.”

“Oh I know they’re not all in the right, but sometimes all you can do is smile and hope they leave quickly after you’ve fixed their drink for them.”

Even now, It’s almost supernatural how calm Kwan is in the face of others' anger.

“Yes ma’am, I completely understand,” and oh Kwan is giving her an absolutely dazzling smile, “we will absolutely get that drink remade for you right away.”

He’s speaking perfectly calmly, not an ounce of annoyance or anger in his tone, but all the same Julius sees the woman almost shrink back.

Julius knows part of the whole customer service shtick was to always appear pleasant and to never show anger towards a customer. But what Kwan is doing now goes way past that.

He’s kept direct eye contact with the woman since she started complaining, and his smile sits on his face like it was branded there, never wavering. He continues to hold eye contact as he remakes the drink, which a small part of Julius finds super impressive, and by the end of it the woman snatches her new drink out of Kwan’s hand and swiftly exits the store like she was being chased.

“Well, I hope she was satisfied this time, you go ahead and head back to do those dishes I saw you eying, I can hold the fort down for now.”

——————

Star

It’s almost four in the morning and Star is maybe just starting to get a little worried. She knows Paulina can take care of herself! She’s seen it! But, she still holds the right as best and oldest friend to worry about her when she goes off to three am frat parties.

Just as Star is about to call Paulina in the hopes that her phone isn’t sitting forgotten on a table somewhere, there’s the sound of locks clicking before Paulina and their two other roommates step into their little common room.

Paulina walks in with Jessica and Monica practically on her heels, and once all three were in the room Jessica turned and swiftly re-locked all the locks, and even grabbed the door jammer Monica’s mom had brought over and swiftly put it in place, making the door about as secure as it could be.

The space is a little bit cramped, four girls who all brought probably more stuff to college then they probably needed meant that most everything was an organized mess and there was not too much of the floor actually visible at any given moment.

Suitcases were still sitting unpacked by the door. Star and Paulina had visited Amity just last week to see their parents and pick up their winter clothing that they hadn’t brought with them initially because they had needed the room for all their fall clothes.

The first smell to meet her is obviously alcohol, but after that initial overwhelming moment the iron-y tinge of blood starts to permeate the room.There’s no growing puddle on the floor, and no one’s screaming for an ambulance, so it’s hopefully nothing life threatening.

As the three stand in the middle of the room Star instinctively scans them for visible injuries.

Monica and Jessica look very shaken up, but there’s no forming bruises and there’s no obviously ripped clothing.

Paulina on the other hand looks quite disheveled. A quick glance shows a growing bruise around her nose, and a finger missing a nail is already swelling.

“Oh no, what happened!” Paulina didn’t usually let things escalate to physical harm, not unless she felt seriously threatened.

“We’re fine, Star,” Paulina finally moved to take off her heels, a sign she at least wasn’t getting ready to head out again, “it was nothing, some boys with overinflated egos thought they could have their way with us on the way back from Brad’s party. Brad’s? Thad’s? The senior who told all the freshmen that his party would have free beer and all the freshmen didn’t think twice about the quality.”

“Was it at least good beer?”

“Hell no, I wouldn't even use it to disinfect my wounds, not even as an ice pack.”

They both laugh at that. Back home, everyone knows which beers are worth drinking to numb pain, and which are better used to try and soothe sore muscles.

“That is, not what I think we should be focusing on right now.” Monica sounds out of breath, clutching a large container of pretzels like it’d a shield. Star recognizes the brand from the school store, and Paulina must feel particularly close to these two if she let them in on how to get the good pretzels.

There’s another long moment of silence, before Jessica suddenly bolts towards the bathroom she shares with Monica.

“Oh, poor dear,” Paulina looks sadly to where her friend disappeared to, “I was worried that would happen, Monica at least had food to help her keep anything down, but the last thing Jessica ate was that nasty burger at lunch today, I think everything just finally caught up to the poor girl.”

“Well at least it’s just cheap beer, Jessica would have a conniption if she found out she threw up wine more expensive than her whole dorm room.”

With the metaphorical ice broken Star beckons Paulina over to the couch while she grabs the kitchen medical kit. Not as big as the one at home, but it at least has the necessities to treat small injuries.

Returning to the living room sees Paulina relaxing into the couch, with Monica hovering nearby. After a moment of hesitation the other girl collapses onto their smaller couch, still holding onto the pretzels.

With a closer look the bruise seems to be the only injury Paulina sustained, but her hair seems frazzled from possibly being pulled, and two of her fingers on the right hand are missing their nail extensions. There’s starting to be some serious discoloration at the joints of the fingers, a sign they’re probably out of their sockets.

“Well at least it isn’t too bad, I can grab an ice pack for your face and nose, but we’re going to have to pop your fingers back into their joints.”

“Wait wait wait,” Monica speaks up from the couch, “wouldn’t it be better to go to a hospital for something like this, you can seriously mess up your body if you pop a bone back in place wrong.”

“Oh that’s so sweet, but don’t worry, I have plenty of experience with sprained and broken bones.”

“Even better, didn’t you sew up Manson that one time with the helicopter?” Paulina looks up from where she was inspecting her intact nails, “that has to be at least thirty stitches, and you did it without even flinching!”

“What?”

Oh dear, what Paulina had clearly meant to be encouraging only seems to have made Monica more unnerved and horrified. Which, Star kind of understood, it was scary when your friend got hurt, but Star knew what she was doing, so Monica had no reason to fret.

“Shouldn’t we, um, go to the campus police with this?” Jessica’s voice is scratchy from where she’s leaning out from the bathroom, clutching the doorway.

Monica nods enthusiastically, but Star thinks it is a rather silly idea.

“Ha!” Paulina’s laugh is sharp, “the most that would happen would be that we get told off for being ‘young ladies out drinking late at night without thinking about the consequences’, worst case, I did much more damage to them than they did to me, so if anything I would get charged with assault.”

“But! He was harassing you! Everyone who’s anyone knows Ben has been trying to get into your pants for the last two weeks, it’s obvious he was trying to-“

“Oh like any officer would take my side in that situation. It would be all ‘oh but you didn’t give him a chance’, ‘oh she dresses like that and is surprised when young men take an interest in her’, 'oh but the young man is so nice usually’…”

While Paulina is giving her impassioned speech Star quickly pops the two fingers back into place, each making a satisfying snap pop sound as it’s put back into alignment.

It’s almost enough to cover the sudden sound of violent retching from Jessica and Monica’s bathroom.

———————

+ Danny

Jerome’s Dad is going to be so disappointed with him. Another quick glance at his phone screen reveals that it’s almost eleven pm, and that Jerome has less than an hour to file his taxes.

His Dad had been texting him every day for the past three weeks to remind him that he needed to do them ASAP, but every time he sat down in front of his computer something had come up.

A test to study for, a party he absolutely couldn’t miss, Hillary from calculus asked him to go to the movies with her and from there he might have spent the next three days at her apartment.

He just, he had never found the time. And all those hours sitting on his phone switching between Twitter and Instagram didn’t count, that was his daily time for doom-scrolling and making himself feel bad by seeing how perfect some people’s lives seemed to be.

And now it was tax day, and he hadn’t even bought the filing software until this morning. The poor cashier ringing him out that morning had wished him luck, which he definitely needed.

He needed the job. Getting scholarships had helped, but with his Dad’s single income it was still a very tight fit. Jerome had tried to get jobs as a teen in high school, but every place he had applied to wanted you to already have experience or demanded more hours than he could give with a high school schedule.

Next year Jerome was going to have to pay for at least his own room and board, and part of the tuition based on what was estimated his scholarships could cover. His Dad had emphasized that if he didn’t feel comfortable he could always come home, but so much of their savings was going towards his degree, Jerome couldn’t waste it. And Jerome liked the idea of having some spending money that he had earned himself, having his own pocket change meant he could buy books or replacement parts for his guitar without feeling guilty about using his rather limited personal savings.

At this point smacking his forehead into the desk might not be productive, but it does feel deserved.

“What’s up? Did you finally get a computer virus from all those sketching anime-watching sites?” His roommate Danny had been quietly enjoying his misery for the past half hour. The other boy had just recently gotten back from one of his late night classes, and was hunkered down under his lofted bed, playing Zelda from the sound of it.

“No, it’s- hey! You weren’t complaining when I got us the original Trigun and the Japanese sub for Ghost Stories.”

“Yeah yeah, but really, what’s got you so freaked?”

“It’s just- Oh my god, why did I ever want a job,” he questions the room and the universe at large.

“Uhh money?”

“No no no, don’t be logical with me, let me wallow in my misery for this last hour. God why didn’t I let my Dad help me when he was over for spring break?”

He scrolls through the file once again, but he still cannot make heads or tails about what he is supposed to do. All his frantic googling will tell him is that there’s some form he needs to fill out somewhere, but nothing gives him a straight answer on how filling out this form will help!

“It’s these Tax forms. I bought one of those ‘tax help’ programs but it keeps asking about all these accounts and different bits of personal information that I have no idea if they need to know.”

“Ouch, you waited this long to start?”

“Yes yes, laugh at me later, I think at this point I’m just going to have to call it quits and call my dad tomorrow and pay the late fee.”

“Maybe I could help?”

“At this point I’ll take anything,” Jerome stretched as Danny got up from his fort under his bed and walked the two feet to Jerome’s desk, “I mean you can’t make it any worse than it already is.”

“I mean,” Danny gives a grin that flashes in the low light of the room, “if I filed these horribly wrong you could get a very passive aggressive email from the IRS that you really fucked up and need to re-do your taxes again.”

Jerome has mostly come to appreciate Danny’s humor, bad puns and all, but sometimes the guy can get just a little too deadpan in his delivery. But two can play at that game.

“Maybe I’ll just suffer then-“ Jerome makes a show of trying to shove Danny away from his computer, and the laugh it brings out of Danny makes Jerome feel light.

“No no, kidding,” Danny huffs as he leans in and inspects the mess that is Jeromes’s laptop. “Ok, so what I think you need to do first is find this form here…”

Less than half an hour later Jerome is pressing the file button. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted off his shoulders, enough that he plops down to their slightly Cheeto dust infested carpet in relief.

(Maybe he had been neglecting other things along with doing his taxes.)

“Oh my god you’re a lifesaver!”

Danny grins down at him and offers a hand up, and once he gets to his feet Jerome’s stomach lets out an unhappy gurgle that reminds him he hasn’t eaten since breakfast.

“Wanna go down to the common room and see if Gus left any leftovers from his family’s visit last night? I think he said as long as it was in a blue container any of us could have as much as we wanted.”

“Oh yeah, I’m definitely down!”

They leave the room and arrive in the common area with little fanfare, and within minutes are enjoying some very late night home cooked chicken and rice.

“So, how’d you know how to do taxes?” Jerome asks one his stomach has stopped rumbling about mutiny. “As far as I know that’s not why you stay up until three am watching YouTube, and you said you weren’t going to get a job until next semester when you didn’t have to deal with night classs.”

“Oh yeah, my Mom showed me how to do them for the past few years, she said no one had ever helped her growing up and so she wanted to make sure me and my sister knew how to do them correctly so we wouldn’t stress.”

“Man, that's awesome. I know my dad tried to show me last year, but he already had most stuff auto-completed because of the service he used. So I kinda blew it off and just assumed I would know what to do when the time came.”

“Yeah, most of it is pretty easy, although I know my parents have to file quarterly because they’re self employed and mostly do work with an independent income and not through an established company. My dad showed me some of the forms they had to fill out once, absolutely nightmare inducing. I couldn’t imagine trying to work independently and having that much pressure from the IRS about all those different forms.”

“Why did your parents need to do that?”

“Oh because they’re independent paranormal investigators, they hunt ghosts.”

#danny phantom #phic phight 2023 #team human #no beta we die like Danny #danny fenton #tucker foley #dash baxter #Kwan (Danny phantom)#paulina sanchez #Star (Danny Phantom)#Sam Manson (mentioned)#a whole host of oc’s

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eleanorfenyxwrites · 3 months

Text

The Waves are Rising and Rising

|Beginning| |Previous|

Chapter 6

Things are still getting worse before they get better but don't worry!

Chapter 7 will be up on Monday 😇

--//--

Jin Guangyao arrives at Bujing Shi alone, and spares a thought to be grateful that his comings and goings in Qinghe are — not for the first time in his life, though certainly for the first time in this stage of his life — so unremarkable that no one is there to attend to him, and so there is no one to see the way he can’t help but stumble as he steps off of Hensheng onto the cobblestones of the courtyard. He hides a wince in looking down to pat trembling hands over his robes to make sure everything is sitting right after dragging himself through such a rough flight, and by the time he’s sliding Hensheng into the sheath hidden under his belt a servant has appeared to lead him to his guest quarters.

He follows the attendant with a smile and a quiet word of thanks and, after the first few steps, deems it necessary to spare a precious thread of extra qi to hide the deep aching in his left knee and keep himself from limping his way through the Nie fortress. He feels… safe here, which is a thought that he isn’t going to examine in any great detail anytime even remotely soon, but that doesn’t mean that he wants to show weakness here when he has the option not to.

It’s a distinct relief to step into his usual guest room and shut the door. He stands just inside the threshold for a long moment, eyes shut and his breathing regular as he enjoys the last few moments of standing with his weight balanced equally between both feet, a luxury he knows better than to take for granted. But he needs to conserve every possible bit of qi that he has left or else he’ll have very little to attempt to share with Nie Mingjue, and so with another wince (though at least he doesn’t have to try to hide this one) he cuts off the supporting thread of it to the swollen ache around his kneecap.

A hiss escapes between his teeth as the pain hooks behind his knee again, the deep ache of permanent damage exacerbated by overuse, and he shifts his weight instantly to the other leg, doing his best to ignore the slight twinge in that hip and the more distant ache of extra pressure on his already-tired foot. He carefully bends his worse knee just enough to lessen the ache and limps his way across the (thankfully short) space to the bed, weight balanced unequally on his toes until he can turn and sink gratefully onto the edge of the frame.

Finally, he thinks, high beds work in my favour. Levering himself up and off his low bed in Jinlintai has been an absolute nightmare for the last little while, a feat only made more difficult by the lack of any sturdy furniture near it that he trusts to hold his weight long enough to use for support; at least here in Qinghe the beds are hip-height, and even just sitting on the edge of his own brings some degree of relief as he stretches his leg in front of him, heel propped on the floor, and leans back on his hands to stretch his back.

Or, more accurate to say, he attempts to lean back — the moment he puts weight on his palms his right hand slips out from under him and he yelps, startled by the sudden jostling that makes his ribs twinge in a way that warns him not to try that again if he’d like to breathe normally for the rest of the day.

He sits up again and rubs at the offending rib with his palm in massaging circles, the sharp twinge fading to a duller ache quickly enough. When he can, he turns to glare at the bed to attempt to find whatever it was he’d slipped on; it isn’t difficult to spot. In the distraction of his need to sit down as soon as physically possible, he’d somehow managed to completely miss the folio left on top of the silk coverlet.

That’s strange; he can’t remember having left anything similar behind on any of his previous visits, and while the library at Qinghe is perfectly respectable he’s fairly certain there isn’t anything in it that he would want to read so badly for a second time in his life that he would request it be brought to him (even if he ignores the fact that he would certainly have remembered making such a request in the first place). That leaves only the possibility that someone as yet unknown had left it for him unprompted, and Jin Guangyao isn’t entirely certain he likes that. If it were Lan Xichen’s doing he would have simply given it to him, perhaps with an extra little brush of their hands around it as he so likes to do whenever given the chance. He can rule out Nie Mingjue as well, considering it’s clearly a novel of some sort and not a sheaf of financial or supply reports, nor a schedule or roster for the Sect’s guard rotations (and he doesn’t get to read those sorts of things anymore anyway).

Figuring that there’s no way to know for certain until he actually studies it, Jin Guangyao picks the book up after a brief hesitation. The inscription on the cover is generally unhelpful, nothing more than an uninspiring title that skirts the line between suggestive and simply ill-considered. Still, there’s something oddly familiar —

Jin Guangyao thumbs it open to somewhere near the middle; if he’s read it before he’ll know almost instantly so long as he gets to the heart of it. The book falls open to a full-page illustration, delicate strokes and a few simple colour blocks to help differentiate what’s furniture and what’s not.

The furniture is clearly a bed. What is not furniture is the two men tangled up together on their sides, trousers down around their ankles and only one cock visible considering the other one would seem to be buried entirely in the man lying closer to the front edge of the bed and apparently lost in bliss, if his over-exaggerated expression of open-mouthed, red-cheeked pleasure is to be believed.

Jin Guangyao snaps the book shut again and attempts not to vomit as his stomach lurches, the blood draining from his face and his ears ringing over the pounding of his heart.

Someone knows.

Someone knows, and whoever it is obviously feels secure enough in their ability to overpower him to lord his indiscretions over him in such a tasteless way. Leaving porn in his bed, invading what little privacy he’s allowed to have in this world to send a message — a threat, though what the threat may be exactly he isn’t sure just yet. Perhaps it’s simply a warning, a promise of future favours to be asked that he will be strong-armed into agreeing to fulfil out of fear that his private actions will be made public in a way that he can only assume will be sufficiently humiliating.

Jin Guangyao breathes through the panic choking him and tries to clear his head; he has plans in place for these sorts of situations, he can find whoever’s responsible and choose the most appropriate way to silence them. He isn’t helpless, nor powerless. For what it’s worth, he’s an acknowledged main bloodline Jin, he isn’t without resources. (His ribs choose this moment to twinge again when he breathes too deeply, and the reassurances ring even hollower than a moment ago in his own ears. What good has being acknowledged as Jin Guangshan’s son really done for him lately? Would it even be enough to convince the person threatening him to stop?)

(He already knows the answer to that question.)

Jin Guangyao takes another steadying breath, shallower than the last to be on the safe side, and forces himself to open the book again with numb hands, his breathing ragged in his own ears as he finds the illustration again.

They’re still there, the men so lost in each other that they don’t notice the eyes peeking in the window behind the bed. Jin Guangyao forces himself to actually look at it, to know exactly what it is he’s being blackmailed with. At least he can tell that, as far fetched as the idea was in the first place, it isn’t an illustration of him. It’s nothing so intensely personal as a message that he’s been watched, and he realises perhaps belatedly that Nie Mingjue’s uncommonly strong privacy talismans would have prevented such a thing anyway.

He takes another measured breath as he studies the composition of it as a whole, attempting to see it as an artist would. As far as pornography goes, he’s seen both better and worse. In his time in Qinghe as a retainer for the Nie, he may or may not have been one of the cogs in the machine of Nie Huaisang’s thriving erotica trade. It had seemed like such a simple thing to do at the time that had gone such a long way towards earning him Nie Huaisang’s favour, purely self-preservation. And if he’d happened to read a few of the materials that passed right under his nose before they’d reached Nie Huaisang’s clever hands, then that was his own business and purely for quality control purposes, nothing more.

Anyway, Jin Guangyao has slightly more than passing knowledge of what makes something good or bad pornography, and this one is… fine. He flips past the illustration to find the next few pages are full of neat, tidy writing detailing what it feels like for the narrator to take his lover’s ‘heavy rod’ into his ‘secret places’ and Jin Guangyao wrinkles his nose in vague distaste, the reaction instinctive and… familiar?

He’s read those exact words before.

Wait.

He flicks backwards through the book, thumbing past more illustrations and pages of prose that he doesn’t stop to study in any detail until he reaches the page bearing the artist’s and author’s seals, as well as a vague description of what this volume of their work contains. He deciphers the innuendo easily, and it only takes a few moments for him to realise yes, he really has read it before.

Oh for fuck’s sake –

This is Huaisang’s porn!

Jin Guangyao bought him this porn!

The fear still lingering like a winter chill in Jin Guangyao’s fingertips flees, chased off by exasperation the likes of which only his young former-charge-and-employer can elicit. Now that he knows what it is and is no longer buried in a haze of panic, Jin Guangyao remembers the day he’d gone into the market to make the purchase with perfect clarity; Nie Huaisang had been whining about the lack of cutsleeves in his collection and ignored Meng Yao’s gentle suggestion that he perhaps needed to lower his standards if he wanted to find the few authors daring enough to write something more taboo than the average spring book. He’d sent Meng Yao down into the markets with a pouch containing his entire allowance for the month and a desperate plea that he find something of value that featured two men, or, barring that, something that at least contained a man and a woman doing the sorts of things together that men do.

There had been a new peddler at the stall they usually frequented on Nie Huaisang’s personal excursions down to the markets, and though Meng Yao hadn’t been at all confident in his ability to find what very few people make, he’d finally spied this volume nearly buried beneath a few others with similarly vague titles.

Nie Huaisang had been delighted with the find. He’d given Meng Yao a new outer robe the next time they went shopping together, dressed him in silvers and greens and called him ‘Yao-ge’ for the first time.

Jin Guangyao sets the spring book aside, stomach still roiling with the aftereffects of his fear as well as something else that feels perilously close to bittersweet homesickness, and entertains the notion that this whole stunt may not actually be a threat at all.

It might just be Nie Huaisang’s version of being ‘helpful’.

“...dual cultivation requires lots and lots of practice, huh?” Nie Huaiasng had said over tea last time, his innuendo so blatantly obvious Jin Guangyao had half expected him to waggle his eyebrows like some parody of a lecher in a street show. “Perhaps practice with some… help?”

Jin Guangyao still feels some echo of revulsion at the idea of tangling Nie Huaisang up in his sex life, such as it is, with Lan Xichen and, more importantly, Nie Huaisang’s older brother, but apparently his stone cold refusal of the offer had just meant Nie Huaisang would find a way to help him obliquely instead. He has to imagine his argument would mainly consist of insisting that Jin Guangyao hadn’t actually said no, he just hadn’t said anything at all.

Nie Huaisang was always like that, Jin Guangyao thinks. He always tried to help, even if he had to do it in ways that no one else would think to look out for. Even if he only ever stirred himself to expend some small effort when he felt like it; if it was for Jin Guangyao’s sake, then he’d always felt like it.

The aching surge of gratitude to find some things truly don’t change absolutely doesn’t mean Jin Guangyao approves of his methods though.

Besides — it isn’t as if Lan Xichen’s spring book research had done them very many favours last time, though he will concede that it improved things a bit, at least while he was fingering Nie Mingjue to prepare him. What Nie Huaisang thinks he’s going to get out of utterly unrealistic fictional sex is beyond him, but… well it does at least give him an excuse to stay in his room until Lan Xichen arrives and they’re summoned to dinner, and though the reading material is mediocre at its best the illustrations are, from a purely technical perspective, decent.

It wouldn’t do him any harm to flick through the volume again and refamiliarise himself with the finer points. And if he does it while laying in bed to take some pressure off his various aches and pains then that’s fine, there’s no one observing him anyway.

Dinner, a shichen later, is a small and quiet affair. Lan Xichen hasn’t arrived yet and so Jin Guangyao finds himself dining only with the Nie brothers; at least Nie Huaisang’s presence makes it slightly less unbearable to sit with the weight of Nie Mingjue’s dislike heavy on his shoulders, though his nervous fluttering after Jin Guangyao’s poisonously polite greeting threatens to raise Nie Mingjue’s suspicions in a way that means either way the meal is far from comfortable.

(“What the hell has gotten into you?” Nie Mingjue demands the fourth time Nie Huaisang fumbles his cup, spilling tea too close to the main platter the three of them are sharing for comfort.

Nie Huaisang snorts at the innuendo Nie Mingjue [hopefully] doesn’t know he’s made and replies, “Oh nothing’s gotten into me, da-ge!”

Jin Guangyao contemplates the carving knife next to the platter of roasted boar and wonders if Nie Huaisang would like that to ‘get into him’ instead of whatever ‘heavy rod’ he’s thinking of, the pervert.)

They at least manage to finish the meal without anyone getting stabbed or Nie Mingjue figuring out his little brother is attempting to meddle in his medicinal sex, and by the time the remains of the meal are being tidied away Jin Guangyao has bigger things to worry about.

Sitting on the floor is something that he does frequently. Kneeling on the floor is correct and polite and the bare minimum expected of him when serving the members of his family secure enough in their positions of authority to demand that he be the one to tend to them.

He’s spent quite a lot of time this past week doing just that, of course, and he can tell immediately when he tenses in preparation to stand and join the Nie brothers that his body remembers all too well all the other stone floors he’s had to kneel on since he was last able to give his legs a proper rest.

Which begs the question — how is he supposed to stand up, unsupported, while not alerting both Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang to the fact that he’s in pain? They aren’t even doing him the courtesy of being rude and leaving the room without waiting for him to join them, they’re both just standing there chatting about something he can’t even pay attention to beyond the frantic thinking he’s doing.

“Guangyao?”

Jin Guangyao’s breath hitches and he smiles automatically up at Nie Mingjue without truly meeting his eyes.

“Yes, da-ge?”

“Xichen’s just passed the wards, are you coming to meet him at the gates?”

Jin Guangyao would love to meet Lan Xichen at the gates. He’d love to observe his expert form as he brings Shuoyue in to land, he’d love to be on the receiving end of his happy greeting, his smile. He’d love to bow to him for the sheer pleasure of being lifted up out of it no matter how much Nie Mingjue hates their silly little dance and the time it wastes. He’d love to follow him inside, all the way to Nie Mingjue’s quarters, and go to bed with him.

“I won’t join you, I have some things to get in order before we begin your treatment for the evening.”

Nie Mingjue studies him for a beat too long before he shrugs and strides away without another word. Jin Guangyao has to fight hard not to sag forward in relief, and only manages it because Nie Huaisang is still standing there and once again looks like a frightened deer, wide-eyed and smiling nervously as he pulls his fan out to start fluttering it below his chin.

“Ahhh-hah san-ge, if you want to chat perhaps we could just not say anything about– ”

“A-Sang,” Jin Guangyao just barely manages to sound normal, not even clenching his teeth or anything, “I would like it very much if you would retrieve your gift and return it discreetly to your collection, before a servant finds something so gossip-worthy as cutsleeve pornography in Lianfang-zun’s room. This humble one appreciates your assistance and regrets that he cannot keep such a… thoughtful gift.” The threat of burning it if he doesn’t take it back is there on the tip of his tongue but is, ultimately, unnecessary.

Nie Huaisang disappears in a swish of silk with a little squeak of, “Yes, san-ge, sorry!!” like he hadn’t even considered the implications of his actions if anyone save Jin Guangyao himself had found the folio. He likely hadn’t; Jin Guangyao shakes his head but finds he’s too worn out to dredge up any real anger about it. He focuses instead on more important things — things like using the table for support as he gets laboriously to his feet, pins and needles prickling all over his legs below the knee as blood returns and he stands there for a moment simply breathing through it.

The temptation to cheat a little and run another pulse of qi through his knee is so strong it’s all he can think about for a long moment, the promise of relief, even momentary, a siren call that’s nearly impossible to ignore. But he probes cautiously at his core to find it already depleted much further than he would like, between pushing himself through long hours on his feet for the last few days, the long flight to Qinghe, and the bit of healing he’d tried to do to keep from limping in front of the servant who had shown him to his room; he can’t afford another selfish use of it if he wants to be of any use at all to Nie Mingjue (if he wants to avoid being accused again of sabotaging all of this, if he wants to retain any amount of Nie Mingjue’s trust, nebulous as it must be by now no matter his strange potential change of heart last time, if Nie Huaisang’s account is to be believed).

Thankfully it’s only a few more moments before the sharp digging pains settle into a background humming that’s easier to ignore and he does so, immediately turning to follow the Nie brothers’ footsteps out of the private dining hall. He walks slowly and tells himself it’s to give Nie Huaisang time to go fetch his book and leave again. He trails a hand along the stone wall and tells himself it’s just to feel the texture of it under his fingertips, that it has nothing to do with the steadying pressure of it promising support if his knee should give out unexpectedly under his weight.

It doesn’t do that, at least, and when he reaches his room there’s no sign at all of either Nie Huaisang or his contraband. Jin Guangyao sits down on the edge of the bed again for a moment or two of rest as he disarms himself, removing Hensheng in her sheath from around his waist and replacing the belt over nothing but gold silk somewhat mechanically. He lays the sword aside along with the short gutting knife pulled from its hiding place in his boot and doesn’t allow himself even a moment to think about how new it is, the knife. (It’s roughly as new as the latest mad occupant of the dungeons, a necessary precaution when dealing with someone for whom violence is as easy as breathing, but he’s not thinking about it–)

He’s not in Jinlintai for tonight. He doesn’t need it, it can stay here while he’s with his sworn brothers and he won’t even miss it. He shouldn’t even have it, really, but he’d started breathing a little easier with it at his side and —

Well. He doesn’t need it right now, that’s all.

Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen are waiting for him when he finally makes his way to Nie Mingjue’s quarters, and all pain is momentarily forgotten in the blissful moment Lan Xichen sees him, smiles at him, calls his name with that same deeply-rooted affection that he always has. Jin Guangyao smiles without thinking, without a single moment of calculation, and he’s rewarded with Lan Xichen rising from the tea table to step around it and come close enough to stop Jin Guangyao from dipping more than an inch into his usual bow.

It’s barely anything, the slightest curve of his shoulders, the demure ducking of his head, but it pulls something just wrong and he abruptly needs Lan Xichen’s hands under his arms to help him upright again as his battered body refuses to cooperate.

He isn’t fast enough to hide the wince behind his smile.

“Fucking told you!” Nie Mingjue thumps the table with his fist, the tea set rattling. “He’s hiding something!”

“A-Yao?”

Lan Xichen’s gaze is concerned and earnest and searching. Jin Guangyao screws his smile on tighter and does the unforgivable: he lies to his er-ge.

“I don’t know what you mean. What would this one have to hide from his sworn brothers?”

The truth, his mind whispers, traitor that it is. Your father’s plans, your madam’s hatred, your brother’s indifference, your cousins’ disrespect — what isn’t there to hide?

Jin Guangyao smiles up at Lan Xichen and tucks it all away in the back of his mind where it belongs.

“We’re not stupid, Guangyao! You little snake, you can’t help but lie even now?” Ah. Nie Mingjue’s temper is poor this evening. It’s later in the day than their usual session, and he heard that Nie Mingjue went night hunting this week, some solitary mission near Qishan he would tell no one else about in any detail. They’ve waited too long to tend to him if he wielded Baxia while he was away, and it will, of course, be Jin Guangyao who pays that price.

“Mingjue,” Lan Xichen chastises, sharper around the edges than he tends to be. Jin Guangyao blinks up at him, lips parted in shock. His voice is gentler though, more familiar, when he continues, “Berating him will not make him more inclined to tell us the truth, and if we explain our concerns — calmly — I am certain A-Yao will be honest with us.”

Ahhh er-ge, Jin Guangyao thinks with something like bitterness. Always so trusting, so kind. Of course Lan Xichen would see things so simply. It isn’t that he doesn’t understand complexity, far from it; Lan Xichen is a master of the middle road, of compromise, of bending reality to his ideals with unwavering gentle pressure, like simply wanting the impossible is enough to get it. He sees things so simply perhaps because he understands their complexity, the knife of his reason cutting through the tangled ball of string that is the world with a soft smile, a kind word, and enough power behind them both that no one truly dares to challenge him. Who could look in the face of such powerful optimism and tell him he should live in the ugliness of the truth?

Jin Guangyao is far from immune.

“What can this humble brother tell you, er-ge? Da-ge?”

He looks at them both in turn, Lan Xichen’s furrowed brow and Nie Mingjue’s stony glare, and feels very much like a bug caught by the wing between pinched fingers — no harm has been done to him yet, but the threat of it is there if he kicks up too much of a fuss.

“Mingjue believes you are unwell,” Lan Xichen tells him. The fingers around some unfeeling delicate part of him pinch tighter. “He worries that something has happened to you.”

Jin Guangyao looks again at Nie Mingjue but his eldest sworn brother isn’t looking at him anymore, instead glaring at the wall near the door with his jaw clenched so hard it looks nearly as unforgiving as the rock cliffs that surround Bujing Shi.

It’s difficult to believe that Nie Mingjue would worry for him, but it feels a little too mean-spirited to say as much to Lan Xichen, who only seems to want their full reconciliation more and more with every passing day.

There’s no way to avoid this now, though, and if he does lie he’ll only be caught out in a few minutes’ time when they all strip down for Nie Mingjue’s dual cultivation session anyway. It would be better, then, to prepare them now for what they’ll see on him shortly.

“A few bumps and bruises, that’s all,” Jin Guangyao demurs. “I was busier than usual this week, and clumsier than I should have been. It’s not at all worth troubling yourselves over.”

“I see,” Lan Xichen says and turns to look at Nie Mingjue behind him, who holds his gaze for a long moment before he scoffs and snatches a third teacup off the tray in the centre of the table and sets it down upright with more force than necessary, a sharp crack! of ceramic on lacquered wood.

“Fine. Bumps and bruises. Come sit down and have some tea, then.”

Jin Guangyao does his best to hide his roiling thoughts behind his usual bland expression as Lan Xichen turns to take his seat again. He can’t think of some way to politely refuse the tea to continue standing, but his knee is still twinging and he really doesn’t want to use more of his precious qi to help himself stand up when they inevitably rise to move to the bed —

And why is Nie Mingjue being so belligerent about it anyway?? Of all people shouldn’t he be the happiest to see Jin Guangyao in pain?

(No, something fragile whispers in the back of his mind. No, da-ge has never been deliberately cruel, and what a tragedy it is that I could love him for that alone.)

“Guangyao!”

He startles at the bark of his name and hurries to sink to his knees beside the table, and his hands only shake a little when he accepts his cup of tea from Nie Mingjue’s much steadier ones.

“Thank you, da-ge,” he murmurs and takes a sip —

And another, to be sure and —

“Da-ge tells me this was once your favourite, A-Yao,” Lan Xichen says, gentle like he’s trying to calm a spooked horse, “though he says its harvesting season is brief and its blend complex, and therefore finding it in Lanling must be nigh on impossible.”

“Mhm.” Jin Guangyao doesn’t trust himself to say anything more articulate. He raises the cup to his lips again and takes a moment to inhale as deeply as he can without trouble, trying to drag the scent of it deep into some empty part of him where he can pretend it will linger long after he’s gone back to Jinlintai, a small piece of Qinghe to carry around in his chest, so close to his heart.

Jin Guangyao finishes his cup and hasn’t even opened his mouth to request another before Lan Xichen is pouring it for him, still looking more concerned than Jin Guangyao would prefer. Still, despite the obvious scrutiny it seems Jin Guangyao must resign himself to, the atmosphere this time isn’t nearly so… terrible? Awful? Horrifically and painfully awkward? Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen exchange a few words, nothing more than idle chatter of the sort they like — sword forms, rumours of a particularly interesting nighthunt in another territory, though not the one Nie Mingjue led lately; anything at all to keep the silence from becoming oppressive and all-encompassing as Jin Guangyao drinks his tea and attempts not to let the heat of it loosen the tight knot of emotions clogging his throat, threatening to choke him.

His favourite tea.

Such a small thing, hardly anything at all, but Nie Mingjue remembered, and not only remembered what it is but ordered it for him. Brewed it for him. That has to mean something, doesn’t it? You don’t serve someone their favourite somewhat-rare tea, brewed to perfection, if you despise them to the core and will never forgive them for struggling to dual cultivate. It’s a gesture he can’t begin to decipher, and he’s still ruminating on it by the time they’ve finished the pot and his companions rise to undress as casually as ever for their session.

Jin Guangyao decides it would be easier to undress where he is; he can’t help but continue to stare at the teapot as he unbuckles his belt and begins to untie the fastenings of his layers, reaching beneath each one in turn to undo the next so that he only needs to jostle his injuries once to slide them all off right where he’s kneeling, letting them pool into a tidy heap that he’ll be able to fold and redress in later all at once with relative ease.

“What the fuck-“ “A-Yao!”

“That’s what you call bumps and bruises?” Nie Mingjue demands in the space of Lan Xichen’s abrupt silence.

Jin Guangyao’s battered skin flushes under the weight of his sworn brothers’ attention and he glances down at himself with a sick little lurch in the pit of his stomach.

“What else would you call it?” Jin Guangyao asks his too-thin chest that’s currently more mottled red and purple than pale, unblemished skin. He can’t look at them and see the disgust in their eyes, he just can’t. Better to address the injuries directly, strange as it is. What are you? How bad is this really? What term can even begin to cover this? He isn’t sure he wants an answer.

Abruptly he wishes he’d just told them he couldn’t come. It would have raised Nie Mingjue’s suspicions even higher, perhaps it might have ruined his trust once and for all after the damage done by their disastrous dual cultivation last time, but at least he wouldn’t have to face this, their horror and their judgement for such visible reminders that for all his hard work and for all they’d done to elevate his status by swearing brotherhood with him he’s still beneath them.

No one would beat Chifeng-zun or Zewu-jun for serving tea too hot; no one would demand his venerated sworn brothers attend to them like a servant, to kneel at their feet and perform petty tasks simply for the pleasure of making them do something so far beneath their supposed station. If either of them are ever required to be on their feet from before one dawn until the next sunrise has already lightened the sky it would be in the noble service of their people, a nighthunt or a battle, anything but the neverending demands of the gentry who see them as little more than vermin to be shunted here and there on any whim.

Jin Guangyao’s knees protest the stone floor beneath them and his bruises ache with every movement and he can’t even breathe properly through the shame thanks to the grinding burn in his ribs that he knows — he knows — means they’re fractured at the very least.

He’s a war hero just like them, he helped save the world from Wen Ruohan, he did everything he could to climb his way to the top with hard, nasty work that no one else was willing or able to do; he earned himself a title fit for both war and peacetime to sit so easily alongside their honoured names, and yet here he sits in front of his ‘peers’ looking little better than an unwanted dog beaten and kicked by its masters until it learns to stop searching for affection.

Jin Guangyao startles hard enough to knock his wrist against the underside of the table when he feels hands on his body — gentle hands, a tender touch that coaxes him up from where he’s kneeling and supports him with soft pressure under his elbows as he’s guided to the bed and urged to sit down on the edge of it.

Different hands, broader and rougher to the touch but no less gentle in their own way, find his shoulders and Jin Guangyao can’t help it — he flinches away, afraid to be cared for, afraid to be coddled, as if accepting it this once will burst a dam of want that he’ll have no hope of stopping up again, and he just can’t afford it.

The hands retreat instantly, but the shock of Nie Mingjue touching him with the intent to comfort is still enough to jolt him out of his thoughts and he finds the right muscles to smile at Lan Xichen kneeling in front of him with so much naked concern in his eyes it feels wrong to look at him.

“We’re here to help da-ge,” Jin Guangyao reminds him. “It really looks much worse than it feels —”

“Don’t lie to me,” Lan Xichen whispers. Jin Guangyao’s heart promptly shatters in his battered chest.

“I-“ he can’t even finish it, to say that it’s really fine, that he’s not lying. He is. He’s lying through his teeth and Lan Xichen is begging him not to, looking like it’s agony to know Jin Guangyao is in pain he won’t share.

Jin Guangyao, childish as the gesture is, covers his eyes with one hand and takes a shaky breath in, holds it, releases it slowly. “Stop looking at me like that, both of you,” he tries to order, but it’s more plea than anything. “I don’t want to talk about it. I want to help da-ge. Nothing need be different-“

“Absolutely the fuck not!”

“Da-ge!” Jin Guangyao whips around to snap, at the end of his nearly (but not entirely) endless patience with much less warning than he’s used to. It must be the miserable Everything about the situation, he’s been too preoccupied and overwhelmed to realise he’s been pushed right up to the edge again until he’s suddenly teetering right on it. He bares his teeth at Nie Mingjue despite the way Nie Mingjue’s returning glare makes his stomach knot up with anxiety.

“ ‘Nothing need be different’ - absolutely not,” Nie Mingjue says again, low and deadly. “You think I’m going to let you fuck me when you can’t even kneel for tea? You think I can’t hear the way you’re breathing wrong? I’m a martial Sect Leader and a fucking general, you think I don’t know?! Sex is still exercise, and you’re so injured you shouldn’t be walking, let alone doing this!”

His voice has risen again by the end and Jin Guangyao flinches away from it, though he doesn’t go far.

Thankfully, Lan Xichen saves him from accidentally giving into the urge to yell back his reasons for not feeling comfortable cancelling and in doing so perhaps laying an unfair portion of the blame for his anxieties right at Nie Mingjue’s feet.

“We can try a new position, something that won’t strain his injuries. A-Yao can think of what will work best for him while you and I start, but da-ge you need to dual cultivate with us. Your temper-“

“What about my temper?!” Halfway through, the demand drops abruptly from a shout into growling through gritted teeth, and Nie Mingjue is at least self-aware enough that neither Jin Guangyao nor Lan Xichen have to say a word before he sighs, shoulders slumping, and rubs at his eyes with both hands, fingertips digging so hard into his eyelids that Lan Xichen tuts at him and loops gentle fingers around his wrists to pull his hands away. Jin Guangyao watches the pair of them have what looks like an entire conversation with just their eyes and feels strangely left out, despite the fact that he’s essentially caged in between them, still perched on the edge of the bed (though his back and hip are beginning to protest the angle he’s twisted at to be able to watch them both at once).

Whatever it is they’re ‘discussing’ ends with a general reshuffling of everyone, and Jin Guangyao finds himself carefully deposited on the far side of the bed stretched out on his back and slightly winded — not from moving, not from any twinge in his ribs, but simply from how unfairly attractive it is that Lan Xichen can simply scoop him up in his arms just to lay him down again moments later without any visible strain at all.

Lans, he figures, and decides to just appreciate the help.

He shuffles around a bit and only winces once, but thankfully the other two are too busy taking up their usual post to see it and he settles in quickly enough. Turning his head to watch is sort of… out of the question though, considering the way he has to lay halfway twisted towards laying on his side means he would feel the pull on his neck all the way down his back and into his thigh, and that’s just not going to happen (besides, at the moment, quite honestly the view isn’t really worth it). Instead he finds himself staring up at the ceiling, the broad swathes of flesh and dark hair that are Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue getting into position beside him little more than blurry patches in his peripheral vision as he contemplates the smooth stone overhead.

It’s probable that he should be… paying attention. After all, it’ll still be his turn next and unless he’s magically learned how to dual cultivate in his sleep without realising, he could only benefit from watching Lan Xichen’s continued efforts to find the best way to accomplish it — strictly in the interest of learning it through osmosis, naturally.

But he’s just so tired.

Besides, he doesn’t think that there’s anything he can really learn just from watching. Lan Xichen will fuck Nie Mingjue and after a time, at some signal only the two of them can really feel, Lan Xichen will attempt to share qi with him and Jin Guangyao will learn nothing at all from it because he’s still not being taught. (The injustice of it — of not being taught but still expected to know — burns in the back of his throat just as badly as ever, but how is he meant to do anything about his childhood now?)

He at least forces himself to keep his eyes open and dedicate half of his attention to the other two as they get started, just in case he should need to feign that he was involved the entire time. It’ll just be his little secret that he spends almost all of Lan Xichen’s turn just as he had during their previous session; the plans for the upcoming hunt are moving along apace and take up all of his meagre time that isn’t spent tending to his family’s whims, what is this if not a relatively unbroken stretch of free time in which to think and plan to his heart’s content?

Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue talk amongst themselves in between the familiar sounds of the bed creaking and the occasional distinctive slap of flesh-on-flesh that Jin Guangyao has to expend some small effort not to react to — hips-against-ass doesn’t sound that much different than hand-against-cheek, and unfortunately he has to actively reassure himself that he isn’t being struck and so there’s no need to flinch away from it.

Seating arrangements. That’s what he needs to plan next; he distracts himself from the urge to either hide or apologise (both utterly irrational and unwanted here) with thinking about the complexities of seating arrangements at a banquet that will include all of the remaining Great Sects and every minor sect close enough to make the journey to Lanling worth it, many of whom despise each other and would cause diplomatic incidents within the first shichen if seated carelessly.

The stone ceiling, unbroken save for rings of light from the few lamps burning around the room, makes for a decent canvas on which to paint his mental map of the Fragrance Hall and its adjoining receiving rooms and dining halls, where he begins the fiddly, complicated process of ensuring no one is likely to leave the banquet with a knife in their back.

He’s just successfully worked out the placement of Laoling Qin beside Moling Su in a place of honor amongst the important sects in the main hall when the background noise of his sworn brothers’ fucking changes enough to snag the greater part of his attention.

“Da-ge, I just want to try something new to help—”

“Yes fine A-Huan, just don’t stop I’m so fucking close—”

Jin Guangyao turns his head just enough to make sure things aren’t falling apart, as if his watching has ever done much for them in the first place, and finds that it’s actually quite the opposite; they’re doing extremely well for themselves this time around, it seems. Somehow seeing his sworn brothers together and clearly enjoying themselves is still capable of making him blush, he suddenly realises. Because they are clearly enjoying themselves and that is almost painfully apparent as it seems that what Lan Xichen wants to try is a new position.

Against his better judgement, Jin Guangyao lifts himself slowly, carefully up onto one elbow and twists his hips enough that the rest of his body follows suit so he can lay properly on his side, knees bent and the arm pinned beneath him curled under his head for a pillow. Nie Mingjue lies facing him in a mirror of his position, though his eyes are currently screwed tightly shut as he clearly fights to keep his breathing steady and so remains unaware that Jin Guangyao is watching every little shift of his expression as Lan Xichen, laying behind him, lines up and keeps fucking him at the same pace as always.

Idly he wonders if there’s some reason Lan Xichen always fucks at the same speed and the same perfectly regular rhythm. Is it simply that it’s comfortable? Convenient? Is it meditative??

“Fuck,” Nie Mingjue groans and hitches one leg a bit higher, shifts slightly further onto his front with a desperate roll of his hips. Lan Xichen doesn’t let him get too far, chasing after him and maintaining his thrusting even as Nie Mingjue curls his hand into a tight fist in the sheets and hides his face in the arm still pinned beneath his own head to muffle the next expletive that sounds like it was forced out of him, dragged from deep in his chest on a hook of intense pleasure.

Alright so questions about why Lan Xichen fucks like he does can be considered later; clearly it works, so who is Jin Guangyao to question his methods?

“That’s it!” Lan Xichen gasps; not like he’s finished, but like it’s a revelation. He bears Nie Mingjue further down and blankets him with long limbs, interlocking their fingers to grip the sheets together, their bodies moving in perfect sync for the next thrust, and the next, and a third —

Jin Guangyao isn’t thinking at all about the upcoming hunt or even his own injuries as he watches Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen finish at the same time, pleasured moans, bass and tenor, mingling in the sudden silence of the bed no longer creaking, the pair of them utterly still and suspended in a moment of tension spiralling tighter and tighter before they abruptly relax. Jin Guangyao can’t see Nie Mingjue’s face hidden behind the waterfall curtain of Lan Xichen’s hair but he can certainly hear them both panting to catch their breath, can see the way Lan Xichen’s shoulders and back heave with the effort of it and the tiny tremors of aftershocks that have both of them shivering intermittently through the come-down.

If he had to hazard a guess, Jin Guangyao would bet that they’ve just managed a decent attempt at dual cultivation — maybe even proper dual cultivation — for the first time.

“A-Huan?” Nie Mingjue rasps, sounding thoroughly fucked out. “Was that..?”

“I don’t know,” Lan Xichen replies, barely winded anymore. Gods he’s terrifying. “I think… perhaps? It seemed like it could have been more… well, more. But we certainly got closer.”

Nie Mingjue grunts some inarticulate acknowledgement and apparently deems that enough said on the topic as he shrugs a little and starts to readjust, shifting enough that Lan Xichen flicks his hair back over his shoulders and slips off Nie Mingjue’s back to lay properly on his side of the bed, giving Nie Mingjue space to finish recovering.

Jin Guangyao takes a deep breath in and starts trying to figure out how he’s meant to… do this. He hasn’t figured out how to share his qi since the last time, he hasn’t even had the time (or, if he’s honest, the inclination) to practice, and that’s assuming that there’s anyone in Jinlintai he would even trust to practice such a thing with should he have had the time.

“A-Yao?” Lan Xichen calls; Jin Guangyao dimples a smile at him and gives him his undivided attention.

“Er-ge.”

“Is that position comfortable?”

Lan Xichen, he knows, wants nothing but the unvarnished truth, so Jin Guangyao gives the question a moment of proper consideration. It isn’t a position he’d like to hold for an extended amount of time, he thinks, but for now it’s comfortable enough that he can forget about most of his aches, which seems good enough. He nods and is rewarded with a slightly-fucked-out smile that, embarrassingly, helps him start to get hard. (How does he fucking do that?!)

“Turn over, da-ge,” Lan Xichen says next, his tone brooking no argument, and Nie Mingjue must still be a little out of it because he obeys without hesitation, dragging his limbs in and under him just to flop down onto his opposite side, presenting Jin Guangyao with his broad, tanned and scarred back and the messy tumble of his hair onto the bed beneath him. He attempts not to look lower, fails immediately, and notes with some degree of purely detached curiosity that his cock twitches a little harder again at the evidence of Lan Xichen already having had him where it sits far from innocently on his skin, dripping sluggishly out of his entrance.

Ah, the indomitable will of the human spirit, Jin Guangyao thinks wryly. He’d like to think that’s why he’s still capable of getting turned on at this particular moment in time, rather than any sort of humiliating desperation for something good and real and close.

Jin Guangyao clears his throat a little and shuffles his way across the remaining space between himself and Nie Mingjue and he tells himself that he doesn’t care that Nie Mingjue stiffens uncomfortably when Jin Guangyao’s chest touches his back, that he’s just glad to have the skin-to-skin contact; that it doesn’t really matter if Nie Mingjue would rather Jin Guangyao didn’t touch him at all and just stuck his dick in him with no other hint of intimacy to be seen.

It doesn’t matter. He’s here to help even when he really doesn’t have anything to spare, and if Nie Mingjue doesn’t think that counts for anything then that’s just too damn bad, isn’t it?

Jin Guangyao keeps that thought at the forefront of his mind and wields the bitterness of it like a shield as he slicks himself up with the oil Lan Xichen holds out for him until he’s hard enough to slide smoothly into Nie Mingjue, who just twitches a little and then relaxes into it.

This is, perhaps, what Nie Mingjue had been hoping for from the beginning, Jin Guangyao thinks. Perhaps not this exact position, as he still doesn’t seem entirely comfortable with the fact that Jin Guangyao sort of doesn’t have a choice but to be spooned up right behind him to accomplish it, but the sort of… detached business-like attitude they’re both approaching their coupling with this time is likely the ideal. Jin Guangyao fucks Nie Mingjue more than a little mechanically, more concerned with the technical utility of it rather than any attempts to make it truly enjoyable for either of them this time. His previous attempts to do anything at all beyond the expected had been received with varying degrees of exasperation, so if Nie Mingjue wants him to be clinical about this then he will be. It’s not as if Jin Guangyao doesn’t have enough on his mind anyway without also worrying that his attempts to come across as human, someone with shortcomings and desires of his own, will be read as nothing more than conniving plots to make Nie Mingjue drop his guard, or whatever it is he’s so afraid of.

So Jin Guangyao fucks Nie Mingjue and very pointedly keeps his eyes on Nie Mingjue’s shoulder in front of him rather than glancing over it to gauge how Lan Xichen feels about all of this, his own afterglow probably thoroughly cooled off by the reminder that he’s the only one truly happy to be here.

Jin Guangyao notes his own orgasm approaching with a sort of detached indifference, perhaps laced with a little trepidation. His climax will mean another attempt to dual cultivate, and the humiliation of their last attempt still burns behind his eyes and in the pit of his chest every single time he thinks about it. At least this time Lan Xichen seems to have decided not to remind him that it’s simple and easy; it’s not, and Jin Guangyao supposes he made that clear enough last time that sweet, sensitive Lan Xichen isn’t going to attempt to reassure him like that again.

Without the desire clouding his thoughts as usual, though, Jin Guangyao is free to think about his advice. ‘Push out’ he’d said, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. ‘It’s no different from transferring qi any other way, just do it how you normally would. But through-’ had been Nie Mingjue’s advice, the implicit ‘through your dick’ made clear enough by the gesture he’d made in the vague direction of Jin Guangyao’s hips pressed up against his ass.

They’d both been talking purely about qi, then, but that isn’t the only thing shared during dual cultivation, as they’re all well aware by now. Jin Guangyao’s thrusts get a little sharper, a bit needier as he starts chasing his orgasm, eager to get this over with, and thinks about Lan Xichen’s spend and the way that he and Nie Mingjue had come together this time, the very same instant. Their doubled climax seemed to have improved the strength of their cultivation, just as Lan Xichen had suspected it might when he’d first proposed that the sharing of their spend could be what was referred to by the dual cultivation texts.

With that in mind, Jin Guangyao wonders if he should somehow be using his… release as a vehicle for his qi? Is that the problem? He still doesn’t understand how he’s supposed to just let go of this life force he’s been so carefully cultivating and nurturing, but he has to try, and if something else is already leaving his body at the same time maybe it’ll be easier —

Jin Guangyao chases his orgasm and grabs it with both hands, uncaring if Nie Mingjue is getting off at the same time or if it even feels good if it at least means he can share his qi and not be seen as a lying, evil saboteur here to ruin Nie Mingjue’s chances at survival by fucking him wrong.

His orgasm builds as usual, a tightening in his belly (near his lower dantian, he suddenly realises) and an urge to push himself just that little bit farther, to scratch that strange itch and feel relief; to it, this time, he adds a pooling of all the meagre qi in his body in the hopes that at least some of it will transfer, even without knowing exactly how to accomplish it. If he puts everything he has into this something will make it across, won’t it? His best will simply have to be good enough, he physically can’t do anything more but nor can he stand to do anything less —

Jin Guangyao comes and tastes something metallic and unpleasant on the back of his tongue before everything suddenly goes black. Utterly different from when Lan Xichen had flooded him with gut-wrenching pleasure that first time, this is a sudden emptying, and even in his split-second panic to survive Jin Guangyao is powerless to stop it. His qi, his precious hard-earned life force, snuffs out like a candle in a sudden gust of wind, every shining bit of it gone in the instant before he loses consciousness.

|NEXT|

#the untamed fanfic #3zun #The Waves are Rising and Rising #Jin Guangyao #Nie Mingjue #Lan Xichen

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