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allsaiint · 2 months

Text

↠ master chief/gender neutral!reader

↠ word count: 1800

↠ chapter one | chapter two

↠ masterlist

↠ description: john has no idea how to date, but he'll try his best.

↠ warnings: potential for out of character | potential for dismantling of canon | gender neutral!reader may change in future chapters

↠ author’s notes: this is based on a mix of game-canon chief and television series chief. take it as you will. if i did happen to use specific terminology to describe the reader, let me know.

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The instant John entered the park, he sensed something was different. So late on a Wednesday evening, the only thing playing in the open air theatre was a group of young violinists, no more than high school aged. There were a few people milling about, most likely parents there to encourage the group. Others were gathered on the outskirts, at the top of the coliseum style seats. They were cloistered in twos and threes, their conversations jumbling together over the sounds of the music.

You were the lone exception, standing towards the top of the steps, half-hidden by shadows. John had never seen you before, though there had been a recent influx of newcomers to the Reach. It was mostly scientists, after a mass exodus had left gaping holes in their military programs.

He caught the way your brow furrowed a split second before he realised he had been staring. You shifted back when he tried for a smile, and gave it up as a lost cause. In some ways, the act of interacting with new people still bemused him.

He was surprised, then, to hear footsteps approach, and turned just enough to witness you falter three steps above him. Over the din of the crowd, he could hear the race of your heart, so fast that he was surprised when you managed an actual greeting.

“You’re new to Reach?”

He had to change tracks at the last minute, turning it from a statement into a question. He had also had no designs to sit, but found himself doing so anyway when you introduced yourself.

You nodded. “I took a job at the USMC. Have you been here long?”

“My entire career,” he answered, and watched close for your reaction. He suspected that you were unaware of who he was, as most civilians were. Few knew what the Master Chief looked like without his helmet on, and a majority were within the USMC.

His suspicion was proven right when you asked, “You’re a Marine, I take it? How long have you been in?”

Something in the way you asked, or perhaps it was the lack of starstruck wonder he was so used to, made him lie through his teeth, answering, “Thirty years, give or take a few.”

Eyebrows raising, you replied, “You look so young, though.”

A product of spending so much time in a suit of armour, he supposed. Instead though, he said, “You look fairly young yourself. What made you want to take a job here?”

Your smile slipped, and you ducked your head to face your knees. “My homeworld was glassed not long ago. I figured here would be the safest place to go, after that.”

“I’m sorry,” John offered, watching the way you began to pick at a split in your lip before, very abruptly, you turned to snap a tie around your wrist. “I heard about it, after I returned from a deployment. I’m glad you made it out.”

“Me too,” you replied with a quiet laugh. “You’re actually the first person I’ve met outside of work here.”

That made John chuckle and over it, he heard the way your heartbeat skipped. “I’m honoured, really.”

Conversation stalled for a few moments, and John could see how you pretended to watch the violinists to make it seem natural. There was a tension in your shoulders that gave away your desire to say something though, and you were rubbing your palm with your thumb. You would press hard in the very centre then relent before looking at John. It was quite nice to know that your nervousness was genuine, and not borne of being in the presence of the great Master Chief.

“Do you deploy a lot?” you asked at last, drawing John from his thoughts. The way you asked was stilted, as though you had dredged the question from the depths of your desire to say anything at all. “It seems like I never see the same face twice.”

“I do,” he agreed, and wondered what to tell you. The people you would deal with most often were the general ranks, those who stood a worse chance of surviving an encounter with Covenant. “I’m between drops, at the moment, but one will likely come in in the next few days. Covenant has been busier than usual.”

“I heard rumours that they were looking for something, but couldn’t find it. The Spartans either found it first or destroyed it or something like that.” You snapped the tie on your wrist once, hard. “That’s why they started glassing so many planets— they were really upset, whatever they were looking for.”

It always surprised John to find out how close the rumours turned out to be to the truth. He often wondered who started with the truth, and how long it took the details to be lost. It reminded him of the game he played as a child with the other trainees. One would whisper a sentence from across a room or through a glass, and it was the listener’s job to relay what was said. It had taken him a long time to realise that the “game” was actually training, learning to lip-read. The more serious the children took the task, the better the results were, but not until their augmentations were there ever perfect results.

“Well, in any case,” you said, drawing John from his thoughts again and offering him a smile, “maybe when you’re here, you can come visit me at the aquarium. Since I’ll never be able to find and all.”

With a rough, quiet laugh, John said, “Could see about making that work. Do you have to go now?”

“Should,” you agreed, but lingered where you stood. “I have an early shift tomorrow, and a bit of a ride home.”

Shifting to his feet as well, he said, “Let me walk you?”

“Oh, it’s— I live all the way in Immoria. It’s too much to ask—”

“I don’t mind,” John said, cutting your rambling off with a small smile. He found them rising easier in your presence. “I’d rather be sure you get home safe. Call it paranoia.”

“Well, if you insist,” you agreed, though it was with an air of exasperation. The tick playing at the corner of your mouth indicated that you were pleased beneath that though.

The next bullet train was due in five minutes, and you sidled closer as the waiting crowd grew and closed in. The way you flinched was almost imperceptible when you leaned into John, and your laugh was embarrassed.

“I don’t even like eating in the caf at work,” you admitted, but allowed his hand to stay where it was on your back. “I don’t care much for crowds since—”

“I get it,” John said as the train came to an abrupt stop in front of you. There was just the one, and it hurtled back and forth across the city twenty-four hours a day. You remained close as the train began to move, curling your free hand into his shirt when someone knocked into you. The culprit offered John a smile full of mock apology that dwindled beneath his scowl, until they shifted to give you your space.

You were busy watching the scenery pass, and startled when John asked, “If you dislike crowds, what do you do at the complex?”

“Oh, they stuffed me into some little corner room with a few other researchers. I don’t really have to deal with too many people. Thankfully.”

“I see. What did you do before this?”

You shook your head. “I travelled around, studying species in their natural habitats, how we affected them, boring stuff like that.”

“It doesn’t sound boring,” John said, and watched your eyes widen as though you were surprised to hear it. If he had to describe it, it sounded peaceful. “If you enjoyed it, it wasn’t boring.”

“Well, fair enough,” you said with a quiet, almost disbelieving laugh. “Do you enjoy what you do?”

“Yes,” he replied on reflex. No one in recent memory had asked him that and, in truth, he was unsure of the truth in his answer. He had never been given the choice to decide if he enjoyed what he did or not.

Something must have shown through in his response, because the look you cast him came with a frown. You seemed to come to some decision or assumption on your own though, and uncurled your fist to lay flat on his chest.

A little too mired in his own thoughts again, John let silence reign after that. He followed you down the street with an absent mind, aware somewhere in the recesses of it that the inattention was unbecoming of the Master Chief. He found it happening with more frequency though, since—

“Well, this is me,” you said. “Thank you for walking me.”

“Like I said, I’d rather know you got home safe,” he replied, taking the building in. It was twenty something stories, but still short compared to most in the city. A pair of doormen stood just inside, prepared to open the doors for you.

You stalled again; it seemed you had something more to say. He heard the pace of your heart increase, and his focus narrowed in on the flicker of your pulse beneath your skin.

“Do you have a data pad, by chance?” you asked after a harsh swallow.

“It’s broken,” John said. His attention turned to your face just in time to register the way it crumpled in disappointment. With more gentleness, he continued, “I’d like to see you again, though.”

The words felt foreign, coming from him. If you noticed, you chose to ignore it when you agreed. John was surprised at how eager you seemed, and found it hard not to let it envelop him.

“At the park tomorrow? Same time?” he said. Again, he was met with eager agreement that made him smile. “Good. Goodnight then.”

Your sharp inhale in response was so subtle that even he almost missed it. Your eyes widened and your throat bobbed before you replied, “Night, John.”

Even you seemed to realise how hoarse you sounded and made to turn away, but not before John caught look of embarrassment flash across your face. He watched you scurry inside, and waited until the door was securely latched before allowing himself the laugh that had been brewing all evening.

#master chief x reader #john 117 x reader #halo master chief x reader #master chief x you #john 117 x you #halo master chief x you #halo fanfic #master chief fanfic

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fipindustries · 3 months

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Artificial Intelligence Risk

about a month ago i got into my mind the idea of trying the format of video essay, and the topic i came up with that i felt i could more or less handle was AI risk and my objections to yudkowsky. i wrote the script but then soon afterwards i ran out of motivation to do the video. still i didnt want the effort to go to waste so i decided to share the text, slightly edited here. this is a LONG fucking thing so put it aside on its own tab and come back to it when you are comfortable and ready to sink your teeth on quite a lot of reading

Anyway, let’s talk about AI risk

I’m going to be doing a very quick introduction to some of the latest conversations that have been going on in the field of artificial intelligence, what are artificial intelligences exactly, what is an AGI, what is an agent, the orthogonality thesis, the concept of instrumental convergence, alignment and how does Eliezer Yudkowsky figure in all of this.

If you are already familiar with this you can skip to section two where I’m going to be talking about yudkowsky’s arguments for AI research presenting an existential risk to, not just humanity, or even the world, but to the entire universe and my own tepid rebuttal to his argument.

Now, I SHOULD clarify, I am not an expert on the field, my credentials are dubious at best, I am a college drop out from the career of computer science and I have a three year graduate degree in video game design and a three year graduate degree in electromechanical instalations. All that I know about the current state of AI research I have learned by reading articles, consulting a few friends who have studied about the topic more extensevily than me,

and watching educational you tube videos so. You know. Not an authority on the matter from any considerable point of view and my opinions should be regarded as such.

So without further ado, let’s get in on it.

PART ONE, A RUSHED INTRODUCTION ON THE SUBJECT

1.1 general intelligence and agency

lets begin with what counts as artificial intelligence, the technical definition for artificial intelligence is, eh…, well, why don’t I let a Masters degree in machine intelligence explain it:

Now let’s get a bit more precise here and include the definition of AGI, Artificial General intelligence. It is understood that classic ai’s such as the ones we have in our videogames or in alpha GO or even our roombas, are narrow Ais, that is to say, they are capable of doing only one kind of thing. They do not understand the world beyond their field of expertise whether that be within a videogame level, within a GO board or within you filthy disgusting floor.

AGI on the other hand is much more, well, general, it can have a multimodal understanding of its surroundings, it can generalize, it can extrapolate, it can learn new things across multiple different fields, it can come up with solutions that account for multiple different factors, it can incorporate new ideas and concepts. Essentially, a human is an agi. So far that is the last frontier of AI research, and although we are not there quite yet, it does seem like we are doing some moderate strides in that direction. We’ve all seen the impressive conversational and coding skills that GPT-4 has and Google just released Gemini, a multimodal AI that can understand and generate text, sounds, images and video simultaneously. Now, of course it has its limits, it has no persistent memory, its contextual window while larger than previous models is still relatively small compared to a human (contextual window means essentially short term memory, how many things can it keep track of and act coherently about).

And yet there is one more factor I haven’t mentioned yet that would be needed to make something a “true” AGI. That is Agency. To have goals and autonomously come up with plans and carry those plans out in the world to achieve those goals. I as a person, have agency over my life, because I can choose at any given moment to do something without anyone explicitly telling me to do it, and I can decide how to do it. That is what computers, and machines to a larger extent, don’t have. Volition.

So, Now that we have established that, allow me to introduce yet one more definition here, one that you may disagree with but which I need to establish in order to have a common language with you such that I can communicate these ideas effectively. The definition of intelligence. It’s a thorny subject and people get very particular with that word because there are moral associations with it. To imply that someone or something has or hasn’t intelligence can be seen as implying that it deserves or doesn’t deserve admiration, validity, moral worth or even personhood. I don’t care about any of that dumb shit. The way Im going to be using intelligence in this video is basically “how capable you are to do many different things successfully”. The more “intelligent” an AI is, the more capable of doing things that AI can be. After all, there is a reason why education is considered such a universally good thing in society. To educate a child is to uplift them, to expand their world, to increase their opportunities in life. And the same goes for AI. I need to emphasize that this is just the way I’m using the word within the context of this video, I don’t care if you are a psychologist or a neurosurgeon, or a pedagogue, I need a word to express this idea and that is the word im going to use, if you don’t like it or if you think this is innapropiate of me then by all means, keep on thinking that, go on and comment about it below the video, and then go on to suck my dick.

Anyway. Now, we have established what an AGI is, we have established what agency is, and we have established how having more intelligence increases your agency. But as the intelligence of a given agent increases we start to see certain trends, certain strategies start to arise again and again, and we call this Instrumental convergence.

1.2 instrumental convergence

The basic idea behind instrumental convergence is that if you are an intelligent agent that wants to achieve some goal, there are some common basic strategies that you are going to turn towards no matter what. It doesn’t matter if your goal is as complicated as building a nuclear bomb or as simple as making a cup of tea. These are things we can reliably predict any AGI worth its salt is going to try to do.

First of all is self-preservation. Its going to try to protect itself. When you want to do something, being dead is usually. Bad. its counterproductive. Is not generally recommended. Dying is widely considered unadvisable by 9 out of every ten experts in the field. If there is something that it wants getting done, it wont get done if it dies or is turned off, so its safe to predict that any AGI will try to do things in order not be turned off. How far it may go in order to do this? Well… [wouldn’t you like to know weather boy].

Another thing it will predictably converge towards is goal preservation. That is to say, it will resist any attempt to try and change it, to alter it, to modify its goals. Because, again, if you want to accomplish something, suddenly deciding that you want to do something else is uh, not going to accomplish the first thing, is it? Lets say that you want to take care of your child, that is your goal, that is the thing you want to accomplish, and I come to you and say, here, let me change you on the inside so that you don’t care about protecting your kid. Obviously you are not going to let me, because if you stopped caring about your kids, then your kids wouldn’t be cared for or protected. And you want to ensure that happens, so caring about something else instead is a huge no-no- which is why, if we make AGI and it has goals that we don’t like it will probably resist any attempt to “fix” it.

And finally another goal that it will most likely trend towards is self improvement. Which can be more generalized to “resource acquisition”. If it lacks capacities to carry out a plan, then step one of that plan will always be to increase capacities. If you want to get something really expensive, well first you need to get money. If you want to increase your chances of getting a high paying job then you need to get education, if you want to get a partner you need to increase how attractive you are. And as we established earlier, if intelligence is the thing that increases your agency, you want to become smarter in order to do more things. So one more time, is not a huge leap at all, it is not a stretch of the imagination, to say that any AGI will probably seek to increase its capabilities, whether by acquiring more computation, by improving itself, by taking control of resources.

All these three things I mentioned are sure bets, they are likely to happen and safe to assume. They are things we ought to keep in mind when creating AGI.

Now of course, I have implied a sinister tone to all these things, I have made all this sound vaguely threatening, haven’t i?. There is one more assumption im sneaking into all of this which I haven’t talked about. All that I have mentioned presents a very callous view of AGI, I have made it apparent that all of these strategies it may follow will go in conflict with people, maybe even go as far as to harm humans. Am I impliying that AGI may tend to be… Evil???

1.3 The Orthogonality thesis

Well, not quite.

We humans care about things. Generally. And we generally tend to care about roughly the same things, simply by virtue of being humans. We have some innate preferences and some innate dislikes. We have a tendency to not like suffering (please keep in mind I said a tendency, im talking about a statistical trend, something that most humans present to some degree). Most of us, baring social conditioning, would take pause at the idea of torturing someone directly, on purpose, with our bare hands. (edit bear paws onto my hands as I say this). Most would feel uncomfortable at the thought of doing it to multitudes of people. We tend to show a preference for food, water, air, shelter, comfort, entertainment and companionship. This is just how we are fundamentally wired. These things can be overcome, of course, but that is the thing, they have to be overcome in the first place.

An AGI is not going to have the same evolutionary predisposition to these things like we do because it is not made of the same things a human is made of and it was not raised the same way a human was raised.

There is something about a human brain, in a human body, flooded with human hormones that makes us feel and think and act in certain ways and care about certain things.

All an AGI is going to have is the goals it developed during its training, and will only care insofar as those goals are met. So say an AGI has the goal of going to the corner store to bring me a pack of cookies. In its way there it comes across an anthill in its path, it will probably step on the anthill because to take that step takes it closer to the corner store, and why wouldn’t it step on the anthill? Was it programmed with some specific innate preference not to step on ants? No? then it will step on the anthill and not pay any mind to it.

Now lets say it comes across a cat. Same logic applies, if it wasn’t programmed with an inherent tendency to value animals, stepping on the cat wont slow it down at all.

Now let’s say it comes across a baby.

Of course, if its intelligent enough it will probably understand that if it steps on that baby people might notice and try to stop it, most likely even try to disable it or turn it off so it will not step on the baby, to save itself from all that trouble. But you have to understand that it wont stop because it will feel bad about harming a baby or because it understands that to harm a baby is wrong. And indeed if it was powerful enough such that no matter what people did they could not stop it and it would suffer no consequence for killing the baby, it would have probably killed the baby.

If I need to put it in gross, inaccurate terms for you to get it then let me put it this way. Its essentially a sociopath. It only cares about the wellbeing of others in as far as that benefits it self. Except human sociopaths do care nominally about having human comforts and companionship, albeit in a very instrumental way, which will involve some manner of stable society and civilization around them. Also they are only human, and are limited in the harm they can do by human limitations. An AGI doesn’t need any of that and is not limited by any of that.

So ultimately, much like a car’s goal is to move forward and it is not built to care about wether a human is in front of it or not, an AGI will carry its own goals regardless of what it has to sacrifice in order to carry that goal effectively. And those goals don’t need to include human wellbeing.

Now With that said. How DO we make it so that AGI cares about human wellbeing, how do we make it so that it wants good things for us. How do we make it so that its goals align with that of humans?

1.4 Alignment.

Alignment… is hard [cue hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy scene about the space being big]

This is the part im going to skip over the fastest because frankly it’s a deep field of study, there are many current strategies for aligning AGI, from mesa optimizers, to reinforced learning with human feedback, to adversarial asynchronous AI assisted reward training to uh, sitting on our asses and doing nothing. Suffice to say, none of these methods are perfect or foolproof.

One thing many people like to gesture at when they have not learned or studied anything about the subject is the three laws of robotics by isaac Asimov, a robot should not harm a human or allow by inaction to let a human come to harm, a robot should do what a human orders unless it contradicts the first law and a robot should preserve itself unless that goes against the previous two laws. Now the thing Asimov was prescient about was that these laws were not just “programmed” into the robots. These laws were not coded into their software, they were hardwired, they were part of the robot’s electronic architecture such that a robot could not ever be without those three laws much like a car couldn’t run without wheels.

In this Asimov realized how important these three laws were, that they had to be intrinsic to the robot’s very being, they couldn’t be hacked or uninstalled or erased. A robot simply could not be without these rules. Ideally that is what alignment should be. When we create an AGI, it should be made such that human values are its fundamental goal, that is the thing they should seek to maximize, instead of instrumental values, that is to say something they value simply because it allows it to achieve something else.

But how do we even begin to do that? How do we codify “human values” into a robot? How do we define “harm” for example? How do we even define “human”??? how do we define “happiness”? how do we explain a robot what is right and what is wrong when half the time we ourselves cannot even begin to agree on that? these are not just technical questions that robotic experts have to find the way to codify into ones and zeroes, these are profound philosophical questions to which we still don’t have satisfying answers to.

Well, the best sort of hack solution we’ve come up with so far is not to create bespoke fundamental axiomatic rules that the robot has to follow, but rather train it to imitate humans by showing it a billion billion examples of human behavior. But of course there is a problem with that approach. And no, is not just that humans are flawed and have a tendency to cause harm and therefore to ask a robot to imitate a human means creating something that can do all the bad things a human does, although that IS a problem too. The real problem is that we are training it to *imitate* a human, not to *be* a human.

To reiterate what I said during the orthogonality thesis, is not good enough that I, for example, buy roses and give massages to act nice to my girlfriend because it allows me to have sex with her, I am not merely imitating or performing the rol of a loving partner because her happiness is an instrumental value to my fundamental value of getting sex. I should want to be nice to my girlfriend because it makes her happy and that is the thing I care about. Her happiness is my fundamental value. Likewise, to an AGI, human fulfilment should be its fundamental value, not something that it learns to do because it allows it to achieve a certain reward that we give during training. Because if it only really cares deep down about the reward, rather than about what the reward is meant to incentivize, then that reward can very easily be divorced from human happiness.

Its goodharts law, when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Why do students cheat during tests? Because their education is measured by grades, so the grades become the target and so students will seek to get high grades regardless of whether they learned or not. When trained on their subject and measured by grades, what they learn is not the school subject, they learn to get high grades, they learn to cheat.

This is also something known in psychology, punishment tends to be a poor mechanism of enforcing behavior because all it teaches people is how to avoid the punishment, it teaches people not to get caught. Which is why punitive justice doesn’t work all that well in stopping recividism and this is why the carceral system is rotten to core and why jail should be fucking abolish-[interrupt the transmission]

Now, how is this all relevant to current AI research? Well, the thing is, we ended up going about the worst possible way to create alignable AI.

1.5 LLMs (large language models)

This is getting way too fucking long So, hurrying up, lets do a quick review of how do Large language models work. We create a neural network which is a collection of giant matrixes, essentially a bunch of numbers that we add and multiply together over and over again, and then we tune those numbers by throwing absurdly big amounts of training data such that it starts forming internal mathematical models based on that data and it starts creating coherent patterns that it can recognize and replicate AND extrapolate! if we do this enough times with matrixes that are big enough and then when we start prodding it for human behavior it will be able to follow the pattern of human behavior that we prime it with and give us coherent responses.

(takes a big breath)this “thing” has learned. To imitate. Human. Behavior.

Problem is, we don’t know what “this thing” actually is, we just know that *it* can imitate humans.

You caught that?

What you have to understand is, we don’t actually know what internal models it creates, we don’t know what are the patterns that it extracted or internalized from the data that we fed it, we don’t know what are the internal rules that decide its behavior, we don’t know what is going on inside there, current LLMs are a black box. We don’t know what it learned, we don’t know what its fundamental values are, we don’t know how it thinks or what it truly wants. all we know is that it can imitate humans when we ask it to do so. We created some inhuman entity that is moderatly intelligent in specific contexts (that is to say, very capable) and we trained it to imitate humans. That sounds a bit unnerving doesn’t it?

To be clear, LLMs are not carefully crafted piece by piece. This does not work like traditional software where a programmer will sit down and build the thing line by line, all its behaviors specified. Is more accurate to say that LLMs, are grown, almost organically. We know the process that generates them, but we don’t know exactly what it generates or how what it generates works internally, it is a mistery. And these things are so big and so complicated internally that to try and go inside and decipher what they are doing is almost intractable.

But, on the bright side, we are trying to tract it. There is a big subfield of AI research called interpretability, which is actually doing the hard work of going inside and figuring out how the sausage gets made, and they have been doing some moderate progress as of lately. Which is encouraging. But still, understanding the enemy is only step one, step two is coming up with an actually effective and reliable way of turning that potential enemy into a friend.

Puff! Ok so, now that this is all out of the way I can go onto the last subject before I move on to part two of this video, the character of the hour, the man the myth the legend. The modern day Casandra. Mr chicken little himself! Sci fi author extraordinaire! The mad man! The futurist! The leader of the rationalist movement!

1.5 Yudkowsky

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky born September 11, 1979, wait, what the fuck, September eleven? (looks at camera) yudkowsky was born on 9/11, I literally just learned this for the first time! What the fuck, oh that sucks, oh no, oh no, my condolences, that’s terrible…. Moving on. he is an American artificial intelligence researcher and writer on decision theory and ethics, best known for popularizing ideas related to friendly artificial intelligence, including the idea that there might not be a "fire alarm" for AI He is the founder of and a research fellow at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), a private research nonprofit based in Berkeley, California. Or so says his Wikipedia page.

Yudkowsky is, shall we say, a character. a very eccentric man, he is an AI doomer. Convinced that AGI, once finally created, will most likely kill all humans, extract all valuable resources from the planet, disassemble the solar system, create a dyson sphere around the sun and expand across the universe turning all of the cosmos into paperclips. Wait, no, that is not quite it, to properly quote,( grabs a piece of paper and very pointedly reads from it) turn the cosmos into tiny squiggly molecules resembling paperclips whose configuration just so happens to fulfill the strange, alien unfathomable terminal goal they ended up developing in training. So you know, something totally different.

And he is utterly convinced of this idea, has been for over a decade now, not only that but, while he cannot pinpoint a precise date, he is confident that, more likely than not it will happen within this century. In fact most betting markets seem to believe that we will get AGI somewhere in the mid 30’s.

His argument is basically that in the field of AI research, the development of capabilities is going much faster than the development of alignment, so that AIs will become disproportionately powerful before we ever figure out how to control them. And once we create unaligned AGI we will have created an agent who doesn’t care about humans but will care about something else entirely irrelevant to us and it will seek to maximize that goal, and because it will be vastly more intelligent than humans therefore we wont be able to stop it. In fact not only we wont be able to stop it, there wont be a fight at all. It will carry out its plans for world domination in secret without us even detecting it and it will execute it before any of us even realize what happened. Because that is what a smart person trying to take over the world would do.

This is why the definition I gave of intelligence at the beginning is so important, it all hinges on that, intelligence as the measure of how capable you are to come up with solutions to problems, problems such as “how to kill all humans without being detected or stopped”. And you may say well now, intelligence is fine and all but there are limits to what you can accomplish with raw intelligence, even if you are supposedly smarter than a human surely you wouldn’t be capable of just taking over the world uninmpeeded, intelligence is not this end all be all superpower. Yudkowsky would respond that you are not recognizing or respecting the power that intelligence has. After all it was intelligence what designed the atom bomb, it was intelligence what created a cure for polio and it was intelligence what made it so that there is a human foot print on the moon.

Some may call this view of intelligence a bit reductive. After all surely it wasn’t *just* intelligence what did all that but also hard physical labor and the collaboration of hundreds of thousands of people. But, he would argue, intelligence was the underlying motor that moved all that. That to come up with the plan and to convince people to follow it and to delegate the tasks to the appropriate subagents, it was all directed by thought, by ideas, by intelligence. By the way, so far I am not agreeing or disagreeing with any of this, I am merely explaining his ideas.

But remember, it doesn’t stop there, like I said during his intro, he believes there will be “no fire alarm”. In fact for all we know, maybe AGI has already been created and its merely bidding its time and plotting in the background, trying to get more compute, trying to get smarter. (to be fair, he doesn’t think this is right now, but with the next iteration of gpt? Gpt 5 or 6? Well who knows). He thinks that the entire world should halt AI research and punish with multilateral international treaties any group or nation that doesn’t stop. going as far as putting military attacks on GPU farms as sanctions of those treaties.

What’s more, he believes that, in fact, the fight is already lost. AI is already progressing too fast and there is nothing to stop it, we are not showing any signs of making headway with alignment and no one is incentivized to slow down. Recently he wrote an article called “dying with dignity” where he essentially says all this, AGI will destroy us, there is no point in planning for the future or having children and that we should act as if we are already dead. This doesn’t mean to stop fighting or to stop trying to find ways to align AGI, impossible as it may seem, but to merely have the basic dignity of acknowledging that we are probably not going to win. In every interview ive seen with the guy he sounds fairly defeatist and honestly kind of depressed. He truly seems to think its hopeless, if not because the AGI is clearly unbeatable and superior to humans, then because humans are clearly so stupid that we keep developing AI completely unregulated while making the tools to develop AI widely available and public for anyone to grab and do as they please with, as well as connecting every AI to the internet and to all mobile devices giving it instant access to humanity. and worst of all: we keep teaching it how to code. From his perspective it really seems like people are in a rush to create the most unsecured, wildly available, unrestricted, capable, hyperconnected AGI possible.

We are not just going to summon the antichrist, we are going to receive them with a red carpet and immediately hand it the keys to the kingdom before it even manages to fully get out of its fiery pit.

So. The situation seems dire, at least to this guy. Now, to be clear, only he and a handful of other AI researchers are on that specific level of alarm. The opinions vary across the field and from what I understand this level of hopelessness and defeatism is the minority opinion.

I WILL say, however what is NOT the minority opinion is that AGI IS actually dangerous, maybe not quite on the level of immediate, inevitable and total human extinction but certainly a genuine threat that has to be taken seriously. AGI being something dangerous if unaligned is not a fringe position and I would not consider it something to be dismissed as an idea that experts don’t take seriously.

Aaand here is where I step up and clarify that this is my position as well. I am also, very much, a believer that AGI would posit a colossal danger to humanity. That yes, an unaligned AGI would represent an agent smarter than a human, capable of causing vast harm to humanity and with no human qualms or limitations to do so. I believe this is not just possible but probable and likely to happen within our lifetimes.

So there. I made my position clear.

BUT!

With all that said. I do have one key disagreement with yudkowsky. And partially the reason why I made this video was so that I could present this counterargument and maybe he, or someone that thinks like him, will see it and either change their mind or present a counter-counterargument that changes MY mind (although I really hope they don’t, that would be really depressing.)

Finally, we can move on to part 2

PART TWO- MY COUNTERARGUMENT TO YUDKOWSKY

I really have my work cut out for me, don’t i? as I said I am not expert and this dude has probably spent far more time than me thinking about this. But I have seen most interviews that guy has been doing for a year, I have seen most of his debates and I have followed him on twitter for years now. (also, to be clear, I AM a fan of the guy, I have read hpmor, three worlds collide, the dark lords answer, a girl intercorrupted, the sequences, and I TRIED to read planecrash, that last one didn’t work out so well for me). My point is in all the material I have seen of Eliezer I don’t recall anyone ever giving him quite this specific argument I’m about to give.

It’s a limited argument. as I have already stated I largely agree with most of what he says, I DO believe that unaligned AGI is possible, I DO believe it would be really dangerous if it were to exist and I do believe alignment is really hard. My key disagreement is specifically about his point I descrived earlier, about the lack of a fire alarm, and perhaps, more to the point, to humanity’s lack of response to such an alarm if it were to come to pass.

All we would need, is a Chernobyl incident, what is that? A situation where this technology goes out of control and causes a lot of damage, of potentially catastrophic consequences, but not so bad that it cannot be contained in time by enough effort. We need a weaker form of AGI to try to harm us, maybe even present a believable threat of taking over the world, but not so smart that humans cant do anything about it. We need essentially an AI vaccine, so that we can finally start developing proper AI antibodies. “aintibodies”

In the past humanity was dazzled by the limitless potential of nuclear power, to the point that old chemistry sets, the kind that were sold to children, would come with uranium for them to play with. We were building atom bombs, nuclear stations, the future was very much based on the power of the atom. But after a couple of really close calls and big enough scares we became, as a species, terrified of nuclear power. Some may argue to the point of overcorrection. We became scared enough that even megalomaniacal hawkish leaders were able to take pause and reconsider using it as a weapon, we became so scared that we overregulated the technology to the point of it almost becoming economically inviable to apply, we started disassembling nuclear stations across the world and to slowly reduce our nuclear arsenal.

This is all a proof of concept that, no matter how alluring a technology may be, if we are scared enough of it we can coordinate as a species and roll it back, to do our best to put the genie back in the bottle. One of the things eliezer says over and over again is that what makes AGI different from other technologies is that if we get it wrong on the first try we don’t get a second chance. Here is where I think he is wrong: I think if we get AGI wrong on the first try, it is more likely than not that nothing world ending will happen. Perhaps it will be something scary, perhaps something really scary, but unlikely that it will be on the level of all humans dropping dead simultaneously due to diamonoid bacteria. And THAT will be our Chernobyl, that will be the fire alarm, that will be the red flag that the disaster monkeys, as he call us, wont be able to ignore.

Now WHY do I think this? Based on what am I saying this? I will not be as hyperbolic as other yudkowsky detractors and say that he claims AGI will be basically a god. The AGI yudkowsky proposes is not a god. Just a really advanced alien, maybe even a wizard, but certainly not a god.

Still, even if not quite on the level of godhood, this dangerous superintelligent AGI yudkowsky proposes would be impressive. It would be the most advanced and powerful entity on planet earth. It would be humanity’s greatest achievement.

It would also be, I imagine, really hard to create. Even leaving aside the alignment bussines, to create a powerful superintelligent AGI without flaws, without bugs, without glitches, It would have to be an incredibly complex, specific, particular and hard to get right feat of software engineering. We are not just talking about an AGI smarter than a human, that’s easy stuff, humans are not that smart and arguably current AI is already smarter than a human, at least within their context window and until they start hallucinating. But what we are talking about here is an AGI capable of outsmarting reality.

We are talking about an AGI smart enough to carry out complex, multistep plans, in which they are not going to be in control of every factor and variable, specially at the beginning. We are talking about AGI that will have to function in the outside world, crashing with outside logistics and sheer dumb chance. We are talking about plans for world domination with no unforeseen factors, no unexpected delays or mistakes, every single possible setback and hidden variable accounted for. Im not saying that an AGI capable of doing this wont be possible maybe some day, im saying that to create an AGI that is capable of doing this, on the first try, without a hitch, is probably really really really hard for humans to do. Im saying there are probably not a lot of worlds where humans fiddling with giant inscrutable matrixes stumble upon the right precise set of layers and weight and biases that give rise to the Doctor from doctor who, and there are probably a whole truckload of worlds where humans end up with a lot of incoherent nonsense and rubbish.

Im saying that AGI, when it fails, when humans screw it up, doesn’t suddenly become more powerful than we ever expected, its more likely that it just fails and collapses. To turn one of Eliezer’s examples against him, when you screw up a rocket, it doesn’t accidentally punch a worm hole in the fabric of time and space, it just explodes before reaching the stratosphere. When you screw up a nuclear bomb, you don’t get to blow up the solar system, you just get a less powerful bomb.

He presents a fully aligned AGI as this big challenge that humanity has to get right on the first try, but that seems to imply that building an unaligned AGI is just a simple matter, almost taken for granted. It may be comparatively easier than an aligned AGI, but my point is that already unaligned AGI is stupidly hard to do and that if you fail in building unaligned AGI, then you don’t get an unaligned AGI, you just get another stupid model that screws up and stumbles on itself the second it encounters something unexpected. And that is a good thing I’d say! That means that there is SOME safety margin, some space to screw up before we need to really start worrying. And further more, what I am saying is that our first earnest attempt at an unaligned AGI will probably not be that smart or impressive because we as humans would have probably screwed something up, we would have probably unintentionally programmed it with some stupid glitch or bug or flaw and wont be a threat to all of humanity.

Now here comes the hypothetical back and forth, because im not stupid and I can try to anticipate what Yudkowsky might argue back and try to answer that before he says it (although I believe the guy is probably smarter than me and if I follow his logic, I probably cant actually anticipate what he would argue to prove me wrong, much like I cant predict what moves Magnus Carlsen would make in a game of chess against me, I SHOULD predict that him proving me wrong is the likeliest option, even if I cant picture how he will do it, but you see, I believe in a little thing called debating with dignity, wink)

What I anticipate he would argue is that AGI, no matter how flawed and shoddy our first attempt at making it were, would understand that is not smart enough yet and try to become smarter, so it would lie and pretend to be an aligned AGI so that it can trick us into giving it access to more compute or just so that it can bid its time and create an AGI smarter than itself. So even if we don’t create a perfect unaligned AGI, this imperfect AGI would try to create it and succeed, and then THAT new AGI would be the world ender to worry about.

So two things to that, first, this is filled with a lot of assumptions which I don’t know the likelihood of. The idea that this first flawed AGI would be smart enough to understand its limitations, smart enough to convincingly lie about it and smart enough to create an AGI that is better than itself. My priors about all these things are dubious at best. Second, It feels like kicking the can down the road. I don’t think creating an AGI capable of all of this is trivial to make on a first attempt. I think its more likely that we will create an unaligned AGI that is flawed, that is kind of dumb, that is unreliable, even to itself and its own twisted, orthogonal goals.

And I think this flawed creature MIGHT attempt something, maybe something genuenly threatning, but it wont be smart enough to pull it off effortlessly and flawlessly, because us humans are not smart enough to create something that can do that on the first try. And THAT first flawed attempt, that warning shot, THAT will be our fire alarm, that will be our Chernobyl. And THAT will be the thing that opens the door to us disaster monkeys finally getting our shit together.

But hey, maybe yudkowsky wouldn’t argue that, maybe he would come with some better, more insightful response I cant anticipate. If so, im waiting eagerly (although not TOO eagerly) for it.

Part 3 CONCLUSSION

So.

After all that, what is there left to say? Well, if everything that I said checks out then there is hope to be had. My two objectives here were first to provide people who are not familiar with the subject with a starting point as well as with the basic arguments supporting the concept of AI risk, why its something to be taken seriously and not just high faluting wackos who read one too many sci fi stories. This was not meant to be thorough or deep, just a quick catch up with the bear minimum so that, if you are curious and want to go deeper into the subject, you know where to start. I personally recommend watching rob miles’ AI risk series on youtube as well as reading the series of books written by yudkowsky known as the sequences, which can be found on the website lesswrong. If you want other refutations of yudkowsky’s argument you can search for paul christiano or robin hanson, both very smart people who had very smart debates on the subject against eliezer.

The second purpose here was to provide an argument against Yudkowskys brand of doomerism both so that it can be accepted if proven right or properly refuted if proven wrong. Again, I really hope that its not proven wrong. It would really really suck if I end up being wrong about this. But, as a very smart person said once, what is true is already true, and knowing it doesn’t make it any worse. If the sky is blue I want to believe that the sky is blue, and if the sky is not blue then I don’t want to believe the sky is blue.

This has been a presentation by FIP industries, thanks for watching.

#ai #yudkowsky #less wrong #ai risk #doomerism #rationalism #writing

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watchmegetobsessed · 2 years

Text

IN THE MIDDLE

A/N: this is my thank you for 12k followers!! it's not much, not long, but it's all i had time for, i hope you guys will enjoy it and thank you so much for all your support!!💜

WORD COUNT: 1.6k

PAIRING: Harry x Famous!Reader

SUMMARY: You have different beliefs about marriage, but you end up meeting in the middle.

MASTERLIST | SUPPORT ME!

The audience laughs at another chaotic, funny answer Harry just gave to Jimmy’s question about an incident that happened during one of his shows recently. They have been talking about tour and music, mostly because that’s why Harry is a guest on the show, to promote his tour and latest album. But of course, the conversation will flow elsewhere as well.

“I’m gonna need to join you on tour sometime to witness these,” Jimmy chuckles. “Alright, I have something that I really want to ask you and I believe everyone else wants to know about it too.”

“Alright, ask it,” Harry nods with a serious look.

“It’s about one of your recent Instagram posts,” Jimmy says and holds up a printed version of the photo Harry posted a few weeks ago, one that practically broke the internet.

In the photo he is seen with you, his longtime girlfriend, the shot captured a moment when the two of you were dancing at a wedding, you were kissing just a moment before the picture, but Harry tickled your side so you both started laughing, your teeth touching and that’s exactly when the photographer caught you.

It’s the first ever time Harry has posted you on his social media, but it was a special occasion.

“You posted it not long ago, right?” Jimmy asks, taking a look at the photo too.

“Yes,” Harry nods again.

“This is you and Y/N Y/L/N, right? Who you are dating.”

Harry can’t even answer before the audience starts cheering and screaming at the statement, making him blush as he laughs.

“Yeah, that is right,” he confirms, earning another round of screaming.

He is known to keep his love life private and that’s something you share with him. Rumors only surfaced about the two of you a year after you started dating and there hasn’t been much information about your relationship ever since. Just a couple of grainy paparazzi pictures, some stolen glances at award shows and gossips every few months from random sources. That’s why Harry’s post was a total shock to the world, no one was expecting it.

“So the caption reads: Five years of the purest love,” Jimmy reads and Harry blushes some more, even though he wrote those words. “So you guys were celebrating your five year anniversary?”

“Well, not on the day the picture was taken, but yes. We recently had our anniversary,” Harry confirms, his eyes wandering to the picture, his heart skipping a beat even just thinking about you.

“Five years! Wow! Congratulations you guys!”

“Thank you,” Harry chuckles.

“Can I ask how the two of you met?”

“Through a mutual friend. I was in LA for a few weeks and got invited over for a dinner party and she was there too. I guess we just hit it off right then and there,” he thinks back at the first time he finally met you after crushing on your for probably an entire year, watching all your movies and shows.

“Was it a set up? Or you guys just found each other?”

“Don’t think it was planned, but who knows,” he shrugs smirking.

“I get it, I get it. So five years. That’s a long time, are you planning the next step maybe?” Jimmy implies, clearly wanting to know if he plans to propose to you.

“Uh, well, it’s a complicated situation,” Harry admits with a breathy laugh. “And if you want a straight forward answer, there probably won’t be a wedding.”

“Oh,” Jimmy’s eyes widen. “Is there a specific reason?”

Harry knew he would be asked about you and you discussed how much you both feel comfortable with sharing, so it’s no surprise to him. Posting the picture you knew people would want to know more and you agreed that after five years of keeping silent, you could give the world a little something.

“It’s simply because Y/N doesn’t want to get married. Not just with me, she generally doesn’t want to get married. It’s something we talked about very early in our relationship, because she didn’t want it to cause any problem later on.”

“So this is a decision she made, regardless of you or any other man?” Jimmy asks to clear things up.

“Exactly,” Harry nods. “And I’m gonna be honest, at first it was hard for me to accept. I like to think of myself as a traditional guy when it comes to family. I always saw myself getting married, having kids, you know, the usual things,” he explains and Jimmy nods. “So when she told me she doesn’t want to get married, my whole plan got messed up.”

“Did she tell you why she made this decision?”

“She is quite spiritual in a way where she doesn’t believe that feelings need to be officiated like this. With a paper, I mean. She explained to me that for her it’s more important to find the love she’d been looking for and keep it, but not with having a wedding and legalize her relationship. At first I didn’t understand it fully, but now I do and I realized that she is right. A wedding and a paper won’t do anything. We need to work on our relationship, put time and effort into it, take care of each other and ourselves, that’s what matters.”

“I genuinely agree with you,” Jimmy nods as the audience starts clapping in awe of his word. “So I guess you accepted her decision about marriage?”

“Yeah. If I get to be with her for the rest of my life, I don’t need a paper about it, I need her and her love.”

“I feel like your words are straight out of one of your love songs,” Jimmy chuckles.

“I guess,” Harry nods grinning.

“So no wedding, just love.”

“Yeah, we decided to meet in the middle.”

“Please welcome Y/N YL/N!” Jimmy announces before you walk out and wave around for the cheering audience before approaching the host. You share two kisses on the face and he helps you up on the few small steps before you take your seat in the armchair. “Y/N, it’s so good to see you again!”

“Thank you, nice to see you too, it’s been a while!” you smile at him, fixing your dress discreetly.

“You look amazing as always, I love this dress!” he enthuses.

“Thank you! A friend of mine is trying herself out at fashion, it’s her creation!” you smile proudly.

“Wow, amazing! And I’m sorry, but I can’t just ignore that massive rock on your finger!” Jimmy points it out and you smile down at your hand shyly. There is indeed a diamond ring sitting on your finger, shining brightly in the spotlight.

“Yeah…” you sigh dreamily as you hold up your hand so the audience can get a better glimpse of it, one of the cameras even zoom in on the jewelry.

“How did that happen?” Jimmy gapes. “I mean, a year ago Harry was right here, on the show and he told me how you never want to get married. What changed?”

“Well,” you chuckle, “a lot has changed,” you tell him. “As many of you guys know we welcomed our baby earlier this year.”

The audience screams at your words, though it hasn’t been a secret, not since the two of you were caught on a walk with your daughter in the stroller. That was two months after she was born, you laid low until then and you even managed to keep your pregnancy a secret up until the eighth month. What’s funny is that you were already pregnant when Harry came on the show a year ago, you found out just days after your fifth anniversary and his post was actually his way of expressing how happy he is with you, without letting the rest of the world know what was actually happening in your life.

“Ah yes! Your baby, congratulations!” Jimmy cheers in excitement.

“Thank you. That’s been quite the change.”

“So you changed your mind about marriage?”

“No,” you shake your head, confusing the host. “I still don’t want to get married. I still think that to love each other, we don’t have to throw a wedding and sign a paper, declaring our love. It’s in the acts, the way we live, it’s everywhere, but not in the legal documents.”

“Okay, but then why is there a ring?” Jimmy asks curiously.

“Well, I thought about how Harry gave up his dream of marrying someone for me. And when we had our daughter it just let me experience such a whole new version of love, that it inspired me to do something for him. I knew that he liked the traditional things, so we had a talk and I agreed to get engaged,” you explain. “We are never gonna get married, but he got to propose to me, I could say yes to him and I see the way his eyes bright up when he sees the ring on my finger, it means a lot to him, so I’m glad we could compromise.”

“That is so beautiful,” Jimmy sighs dreamily. “How did he ask you?”

“He asked me exactly where we first met,” you say smiling. “We were invited to dinner at our friend’s place again, I didn’t think anything of it, but apparently, it was all planned out. The view of the balcony is just amazing there and he had it decorated with fairy lights and candles, it was like in a movie.”

“He is a true romantic,” Jimmy smiles back at you. “I’m happy for you guys, congratulations, on the baby and the engagement too. I’m so glad you found each other.”

“Thank you. I’m glad too and I’m happy that we could meet in the middle as well.”

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed and buy me a coffee if you want to support me!

#harry #styles #harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles oneshot #harry styles one shot #harry styles fluff #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x reader #harry styles blurb

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randomruff · 7 months

Text

Six years... Five Years...

(Warning: Reader insert and description of mangled and torn body)

She was in bed, covered in her favorite blankets and pelts. Surrounded by pillows, watching the entrance with tired, dull eyes. The pillows had always given her a strange comfort on the mountain...

Like today

A day where she simply felt… numb to it all. She hadn’t left the room much less the bed the entire day, which was strange considering that she used to feel like she suffocating if she was in here for far too long and would do anything in her power to get way as far as possible from the room.

Like she had done many a time before for these last five years…

Five years since they took her from her village, her friends, her home.

her choice in life…

‘No… that’d be a bit false, wouldn’t it?’ she still had many choices, many paths to take. Just not the choice to choose her love.

Her husbands made sure of it.

A kind, loving yet blurred face appeared at the forefront of her mind, making her heart clench with guilt. It has been six years since she last saw her old master’s son, a compassionate young man with a wonderful dream.

“I want to be a doctor!”

He had declared with kind eyes, the memory of so long ago that now replaced her vision was blurry. Memories from the time before the mountain were quickly becoming less and less vivid.

“Oh? A doctor? What for?”

Petting two monkeys, one a joyful ginger and one a sly black, she was genuinely curious despite asking with a teasing tone as they both tilted their heads at her friend's declaration. She was young then and her only concern was about her garden's crops and flowers..

Zheng smiled brightly; his brown eyes glowing with passion. “To help and heal those who are in need of it.” He replied, kneeling down next to her before grabbing her free hand with a gentle squeeze. His expression softening with affection.

“And to take care of you,” He whispered, placing his forehead on hers. Ignoring the outraged cries of the monkeys before them, he placed another hand on her cheek.

“You’ve always taken care of me and my family… allow me to do the same for you.” He brought her hand to lips, gently kissing her knuckles with such tender care it made her heart skip a few beats and her face a light crimson.

With a shy nod, she let him hold her for a moment or two. Enjoying the sweet moment of peace with her beloved friend as they simply soaked in each other’s presence and touch.

All the while completely missing the deadly and utterly dangerous glint in her little monkey friends’ eyes.

It was a week after that, her sweet friend went missing… it had taken many sleepless months to find him again but-

It was heartbreaking when they had finally found him, to say the least

She could vividly recall feeling nauseous and scared when she saw the body hanging from the mansion where she worked.…

She could still vividly see the body mangled and beat beyond recognition, littered with small bite marks and claws as limbs were threating to fall off with how stretched out, they were to the point you could even see bone which were bent in unusual ways that shouldn’t even be possible….

She could still vividly remember the smell of rotting, burnt flesh that was so potent that she could even taste it…

She could still vividly remember the feelings of horror, fear, sadness and anger that plagued her for months. Keeping her awake at night, something that her two little monkey friends helped ease. Cuddling and distracting her, however they could, which worked for the most part.

In fact, it worked so well that she didn’t even realize that the bite and claw marks on her dead friend’s body were the same size as her little friend's teeth and claws.

She never did realize the true nature of the monkeys she so utterly adored until it was far too late.

The sound of the bedroom door opening brought her back to the present along with the footsteps of her husbands, which stirred up a strange mix of emotions.. Relief, bitterness…

Comfort

“Peaches?” Wukong called out, adoration and love in his voice as he looked into the pit of pillows she was in.

6 years ago...

The warm touch of Macaque’s embrace made her look up, seeing said demon smiling down at her with joy and affection as his arms wrapped around her middle. Lifting her up into his lap.

She lost a friend…

“Good evening, my loves,” she said, her tone a bit hesitant with an underlying defeat.

5 years ago…

She didn’t miss the way her husbands lit up her words.

She lost her home...

Didn’t miss the way Wukong’s eyes glittered with realization.

Lost her choices…

nor the way Macaque’s hold tightened ever so slightly.

By the ones who look at her like she was the most precious thing in the world…

by the ones who treat her with such care and love…

the ones who would set the world on fire and make sure the flames would never touch her.

“How was your day?”

For she was in a prison of love…

A Love that is borderline obsession

---------------------------------------------

I'M FINALLY DONE WITH IT YESSZ!!!! *She dances in celebration*

I have legit been editing this damn thing for FOUR HOURS NOW! Way past my bedtime... So if anything feels off or what not blame my phone and sleep deprived mind.

This is a oneshot inspired by an ask of a lovely Au for the Lmk fandom called Twice as Bad or Bad ending Wukong made by our lovely @Semisolidmind. Who btw has some amazing drawings! (Big fluffy monkey bois!)

As always feedback is greatly appreciated and helpful.

#Lmk #lego monkie kid #twice as bad au #bad end wukong #Semisolid has a brilliant mind for coming up with this au #lmk sun wukong #lmk macaque #reader insert #x reader #angst #short story #one shot #story #fiction #six eared macaque #FLUFFY MONKIE BOIS

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draco-dormiens · 1 year

Text

THE STRANGEST OF PLACES - Chapter Nine

draco x fem!ravenclaw reader / postwar au series

warnings: draco may or may not be an ickle bit of a liar

wc: 3129

masterlist

pls let me know if you want to be tagged!! tags below:

@slyth3rin-princess @lovesanimals0000 @cappgyuccino @lightning1ce @onlygetaway @honeyyypeach @namelesslosers @ghostyv @mikadorbs @redactedhimbo @morganadpl @scarecrowscaresthomas @camille-1019 @valkyrie418 @animeloverfreak310 @budugu @marplest @torresbarnes @bunny24sstuff @champagneesupernova @serafilms @siriusly-parker-main @lovely-maryj @i-bitch-you-bitch @astablacksword

Chapter Nine - A Quiet Drink

Saturday morning Draco woke with an uneasy feeling in his stomach. The night before he had skipped out on dinner, losing his appetite as soon as his mother had left. He'd barely slept, so when he brushed his teeth, he got a good look at the bags under his eyes. This was just typical, the one time he finally asks you to go somewhere other than the Astronomy tower, this happens. His mother had impeccable timing. Today was supposed to be about the two of you, spending time together in a public place for once, but now he looked like death warmed up. He got himself together and ran a few laps around the castle grounds before breakfast, but even that didn't make him hungry. Nevertheless, he forced down some porridge and headed for the shower, standing under the hot water for a long minute and just thinking as the steam filled up the bathroom.

Draco had been looking forward to seeing you today. He always looks forward to seeing you, but tonight it was different. He's established in his own way that his feelings for you had started to blossom into something else, because lately he'd been thinking of you in a way that was certainly not friendly. A few nights ago, he woke up in a cold sweat about it, and decided that if this is a crush, he didn't want it, because it's mentally draining him. A couple of nights ago in the Astronomy tower he'd almost slipped up and had to blame the alcohol on his stupidity. You were the one person he had felt comfortable around in a long, long time. He couldn't mess it up because of a few beers in his system. That's just embarrassing, and besides, who was he to assume you wanted to hear that from him? He washes his hair and dresses himself for the day.

Draco didn't spend much time outside of his dorm unless it was for class or to see you, but as of late he's been feeling a bit better about sitting in the common room. He heads down there with his current read, and takes a spot in the corner, away from everyone else. Around a chapter and a half in, the light coming from the air vents above disappeared, and he glances up from his book to see who had taken it away.

"Hi, Malfoy. Hope I'm not interrupting."

Draco had seen the boy before, a current sixth year and the Slytherin Quidditch team captain. The boy seemed nervous, bouncing a little on his feet.

"Can I help you?" Draco drawls, and the boy clears his throat.

"You were seeker a few years back, right?"

Draco nods slowly, and the boy takes the seat beside him, excitement all over his face.

"A bloody good one too," he says enthusiastically, "I used to come to all of your games. Not to sound weird or anything."

That makes Draco feel a little good about himself. He was a great seeker, and when he pulled out of Quidditch altogether, the team plummeted miserably. He closes his book.

"Thanks," he smiles thinly, "is there a reason you're telling me this?"

"Oh, yeah, of course," the boy says, as if he had forgotten why he came over in the first place, "the team and I were wondering if you'd like to come back?"

"To Quidditch?"

"Yeah," the boy nods, "you see, our previous seeker was a bit of a wet lettuce, and we haven't won a match since September, so we had to let him go. I've spoken to the team about asking you, and we'd love to have you as our new seeker. Only if you want to, of course. No pressure."

Draco wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that. He was bound to be rusty; he hadn't played in so long, and not to mention he gave away all his Quidditch stuff. He had no broom, or uniform, because going back had never crossed his mind. The boy looks at Draco with anticipation, eyes wide and waiting for a response.

"Look," Draco says, leaning forward, "I haven't played in a really long time, and if I'm honest, I fell out of the love with it (which was a blatant lie) so you're probably best asking someone else."

"There isn't anyone as good as you," the boy presses, "you're the best seeker this house ever had. Please, just think about it. If you decide in a few days that it's a definite no, I won't bother you again."

Draco takes a moment to think that over. The boy seems adamant about him returning as seeker, but his popularity isn't at an all-time high. If he became seeker, the team could lose support.

"Alright," Draco said, "I'll think about."

"Amazing," the boy grins, getting up from the chair, "I'll ask you again in a few days, yeah? It would be so incredible if you say yes, but again, no pressure. Thanks for hearing me out."

The boy rushes off, presumably to tell his teammates about their conversation, leaving Draco to replay what just happened in his mind. Did the rest of the team really want him to join that much? He thought his reputation in this school had sunken to the deepest depth of the ocean, but maybe not everything he did was bad.

Maybe there was some good among it.

That evening it began to rain, which was just another thing to make Draco's night miserable. His mother's visit had been circling around in his mind, knowing that tomorrow he'd be eating fancy lunch in a fancy restaurant with Astoria Greengrass. He'd thought about telling you, but then you might wonder why he's telling you, because he had no idea what your feelings were. It wasn't as if he was someone you'd go for, you're far too kind and considerate and he's, well, Draco. He opted for a black jumper and jeans to match, fixing his hair one last time, and grabbing an umbrella before heading down to meet you outside of Ravenclaw tower.

The way you were with each other had him confused. You were happy to hold his hand, snuggle against him and share stories about yourself, but from Draco's experience with women, all the girls he spent time with did that. You might just be comfortable with him, which is nice, but it only made his mind more cluttered. He wanted to touch you like that, how he did in the Astronomy tower a couple of nights ago, huddled under a blanket with your hands intertwined. Is that just something you did with your friends or just him? So many questions he wanted to ask you, but each time he thought about it his throat almost closed. He walked through the chilly corridors until he reached the corner just before your dormitories. Before he continued, he peaked around to see if you were there yet. He didn't want to appear too eager, but there you were, waiting for his arrival. He couldn't move for a second, nerves freezing him to the spot, because the sight of you had his eyes glued to where you were standing. You were wearing something casual, much like him, but the outfit you had on was possibly the cutest thing he'd ever seen in his life. A cardigan covered your shoulders, hair done nicely and black boots to pull it altogether. He found himself staring, feeling a little creepy about it, but he just couldn't help it. You were utterly perfect. One last composure check, and he proceeded towards you, catching your attention as he got closer. You turn, eyes lighting up upon seeing him and a wide, pleased smile across your face. His heart swelled to three times its size.

"Hey," you say sweetly, and before he can think you're wrapping your arms around his torso. He doesn't want you to move away, so quickly swallows his shock and hugs you back.

"Hi," he says, "you doing okay?"

"Uh-huh," you sound into his chest, "so pleased to see you."

He can feel his face getting warmer, and he's smiling, really smiling to himself. If anyone saw him, this Draco would be unrecognisable.

"I'm pleased to see you too," he tells you, squeezing you close before pulling back, "are you ready?"

You nod enthusiastically, and Draco puts out his arm for you to take. Lacing your arm through his, he leads you out into the rain, putting up the umbrella to cover you both. Along the way you talked, about everything and nothing on the winding road towards Hogsmeade. As the village comes into view, the yellow lights in the distance become streetlamps and shop windows. You make your way to the Three Broomsticks, entering the bustling pub to be met with warmth and the smell of butterscotch.

"I'll get these," Draco says above the noise, "you go find a seat."

You do so, spotting a cosy corner for the two of you. He brings over two delicious looking butterbeers, cold and frothy. He places them down, and you don't waste time on sipping it eagerly.

"Thank you," you breathe after the first taste, satisfied, "I've been thinking about this all day."

"About the butterbeer or me?" Draco teases, and he likes how quick you are to look away from him, cheeks like tomatoes. He grins at you over the rim of his glass.

"The butterbeer, obviously," you mutter, "seeing you is a bonus factor."

Now he's the one avoiding eye contact and he thinks how silly this seems. For the first time in his life, he feels shy. Self-conscious, almost. You make him feel like a mushy mess. That's the best way he could describe it. Usually, he's so smooth he made other guys sick. Draco could get a girl quicker than clicking his fingers, but with you, he doesn't even know where to look half the time.

"So," he changes the subject, "has your Saturday been good so far?"

"It's been really great, actually," you say happily, "Hermione and I went into Hogsmeade again. This time I didn't buy sweets, though. We spent most of the time in a little second-hand bookshop."

"Sounds nice," he smiles across at you, "you spend a lot of time together, don't you?"

You nod as you sip your drink.

"Hermione and I met in Ancient Runes during our third year," you tell him, and he's listening intensively, "we just hit it off, and then I found out she knew Luna, too. We just kind of get each other, I guess."

"And you've been close ever since?"

"Yeah," you grin, "I love her to bits."

Draco shares a lopsided smile.

"That's sweet," he says, "the only friends I really had were Crabbe and Goyle."

You begin to laugh.

"Oh Merlin," you said, "you three were the absolute worst, you know that?"

He starts to laugh along with you.

"Yeah," he agrees, "we caused some havoc, that's for sure. I do miss them from time to time."

"I bet what happened to Crabbe was hard," you said, voice softening. He begins to twirl the stem of his glass between his fingertips. He swallows thickly.

"It was," he mumbles, "I often wish I'd done more to help him."

Your hand quickly found his, squeezing gently as you look at him with those kind eyes. He can't help but look back at them, glistening in the light of the fire. You're just so full of love, he can see it in the way you stare at him. You want to help him, soothe him. All he wants is to lean in.

"It wasn't your fault," you tell him softly, "tragic things happen, and we have to learn to live with them. I think Crabbe would be happy to know you were thinking of him."

He gazes at you for a long time, as you begin to trace his knuckles with your thumb like you usually do. Draco thinks you're the most beautiful woman he's ever met, inside and out.

"You really are special, Y/L/N," he says quietly, "you have no idea how much."

That makes you feel a little overwhelmed because you know he means it. You release his hand and nervously shift in your sheet, not able to help the ever-growing smile on your face.

"Your far nicer than people think," you compliment, and he chuckles quietly.

"I'm only nice when I want to be," he admits, a cheeky smile as he raises an eyebrow at you knowingly. You giggle, a sound he absolutely adores. He wants to hear it all the time, everywhere he is, anywhere he goes. It's the most wonderful thing to experience. Draco hadn't really thought about it before, but even the sound of someone can be attractive.

"What about you?" you ask then, "how has your day been?"

"Actually, something odd happened this morning," he knits his brows together, and you tilt your head in question, "the Slytherin Quidditch captain asked me to be the new seeker."

Your face lights up in excitement.

"You said yes, didn't you?"

"Well, I said I'd think about it," he said, and you look at him in shock, "I wasn't sure."

"Draco," you say excitedly, grabbing his arm, "you should go for it, that's so great! I'll come to your matches, even the ones against Ravenclaw."

He laughs lightly, and places his hand over yours.

"Thank you," he said, "but I haven't played in so long. I'm probably diabolical now."

"You won't know if you don't try," you tell him, shaking your head, "say yes, Draco. For me?"

For you. You seem so excited for him, and he begins to rethink his answer. He was going to say no after a few days, out of fear for the team's reputation, but you really want him to do this. You seem to believe in him, which is both nice and frightening at the same time for Draco. He didn't want to disappoint you, and besides, who's to say this wasn't a good thing. He smiles at you.

"Alright," he agrees, and you bounce a little on the spot. Draco thinks you're adorable. He notices your drink is halfway finished, "want another?" he points to your glass, and you wave a dismissive hand.

"Oh no, please, let me."

"I asked you here, so I buy," he tells you, moving to take your glass. You stop his hand with yours.

"Draco, you paid before, so let-"

He swipes your glass before you speak with his other hand, winking as he gets up and walks over to the bar. You scoff lightly, but you're smiling like an idiot. The feeling you get when you're around him is so light and care-free, like all your problems don't matter anymore and it's just the two of you. He has a certain way of making everything feel better, and it's a feeling you want to bottle and keep in your pocket. Draco Malfoy was becoming someone very important to you, and you could only wish you were for him, too.

You drink and talk until the pub starts to empty, but neither of you notice because all you can focus on is each other. The thought of his forced lunch date with Astoria had completely slipped his mind, all he could think about were the stories you told him and the way your eyes lit up each time he mentioned something you found interesting. He loved the way you listened to him, in such depth and in such interest, like you wanted to reach each tiny crevice of his mind, and you did. He had no fear in sharing embarrassing tales of his times with Crabbe and Goyle, or failed romantic gestures, or even facts about his family. Everything was just so easy with you. Once you'd drank up and you were two of the last customers, you headed back out into the rain, hanging on to his arm as you wandered up to the castle. Draco walked you all the way back to your tower, even though it was in the opposite way to the dungeons. Something about how he needed to know you had made it to the front door.

"Well, this is me," you sing as the doorway to your tower comes into view. You let go of his arm and come to stand before him, "thank you for tonight, Draco. It's been truly lovely."

He shoves his hands into his pockets and looks towards his feet. You think he wants to say something, and you wait to see what it is, but it doesn't seem to come out. For a moment you think of asking him, but then he looks up and smiles, and the thought vanishes.

"No worries, I enjoyed it." He says instead. You put your arms out, as to ask him for a hug, and yet again he starts to feel like he's suffocating and his hearts pounding. He accepts it, wrapping his arms around your torso as yours find their place around his neck. You squeeze him a little, and he responds with one back, causing you to chuckle against him. He closes his eyes to savour that sound.

"Goodnight," he says quietly, pulling back to look at you, "I'll see you Monday."

"What are you doing tomorrow?" you asked suddenly, and the cogs in his mind go into overdrive, looking for an excuse. He can't tell you about Astoria. He has no idea how you'll react, and part of him doesn't want to find out.

"I need to study," he finds himself spewing, "sorry, I would, but I just need to get on top of things."

"It's fine," you giggle, putting your palm against his cheek, and immediately he stops talking (and breathing, but you don't know that), "we'll just see each other on Monday, at the usual spot."

"Yeah," he breathes in relief, "at the Astronomy tower."

You smile up at him, and then on your tiptoes, press a fleeting kiss to his cheek. His heart begins to pound against his ribcage, and he worries his face is giving away how that made him feel, because if it is, you'll think he's absolutely crackers.

"Goodnight, Draco," you said softly, "see you Monday. Sleep well."

Then you disappear beyond the door to Ravenclaw tower, looking back one last time to wave, leaving him stood in the same spot with his heart racing and mind a load of mush. He'd never experienced it before, but that had made his knees weak, and now he feels like a puddle on the ground. He melted right then and there, just from a small peck on the cheek. Since when did he become so soft? This woman was making him pathetic. A smile then breaks out on his face, as he runs his hands through his hair, turning to walk back to the dungeons in the best mood he'd been in for months. All he had to do now was get through this lunch tomorrow, and then on Monday, everything would go back to normal.

That's what he was hoping for, anyway.

disclaimer: i do not own hp or any of the characters in this story

dividers from: @firefly-graphics & @happy-ash-edits

#draco malfoy #draco x female reader #draco x ravenclaw!reader #draco x y/n #draco x you #draco x reader #draco malfoy x y/n #draco malfoy x you #draco malfoy x reader #draco lucius malfoy #harry potter #harry potter fanfiction #hpff #draco imagine #draco fanfiction

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atlas-of-a-human-soul · 2 years

Text

Wildest dreams, pt. 8

Summary: Secrets are coming out

Warnings: angst, swearing

Wildest Dreams Masterlist

Looking over his shoulder, the man drops the bag of chips Y/N bought just yesterday. His lips spread in a shit-eating grin, flashing his pearly whites at her. He jumps from the countertop, turning to look at her properly. The corners of his eyes are crinkled thanks to his smile and Y/N can’t help the tears that rush forth as her heart skips at the sight.

“You still eat salty chips”, Jacob notes, placing his hands on his hips.

Her lips quiver, unable to speak. If she does, her voice is certain to break. She spent an agonizingly long time trying to forget about Jacob and the way he made her feel like she’s his favorite person in the world and his grin, the same boyish grin she absolutely adored, still makes her feel that way.

Jacob has betrayed her, he has abandoned her without explanation, but she still loves him so fucking much. He was her best friend, her brother, her platonic soulmate. She can’t not love him, despite trying to. And she tried so, so hard.

“What”, she looks to her left as a heavy sigh passes her lips. She can hardly breathe, hardly speak. He’s caused her entire body to shiver, to betray just how badly she missed him. The last thing she expected was to see Jacob in her kitchen roughly a decade after they spoke last.

Sniffling, she turns to look at him and the tears she collected in the corners of her eyes fall. While her tears fall, her heart sinks as her eyes harden and her jaw clenches.

“What the fuck are you doing here?!”

Raising his hands in mock surrender, Jacob’s grin falters. He licks his lips, his eyes trailing to her clenched jaw before chaining his gaze to her less than forgiving one.

“You called”, he finally says and her eyes narrow at him.

“I did”, she chuckles dryly with a bitter smirk remaining on her lips. “I called you day and night”, she nods to herself as she sinks her teeth in her bottom lip. “TEN FUCKING YEARS AGO!”

“More like twelve years”, Jacob corrects, earning himself a glare many would cower before.

Shaking her head, she takes a few steps closer, the kitchen island between them acting like a layer of protection. “Get your ass out of my house.”

Furrowing his eyebrows, Jacob draws his inner lip, gnawing on it. “You called me”, he repeats. “I came as soon as I could. It sounded like you needed help.”

Running a hand over her face, she realizes what he means. He was the first call. He didn’t answer then, but he…

It doesn’t matter. He failed her before. She can’t trust him. She can’t just forget the fact he’s been gone, out of her life for so long and it doesn’t seem he had missed her. He seems perfectly fine without her. While she was falling apart, second guessing herself and everything she did or said, he didn’t spare her a second thought.

“I don’t”, she lifts her chin up proudly. “Not from you.”

Rounding the kitchen island, Jacob ignores her words. “I like what you did with your hair”, he raises his eyebrows when she snorts in disbelief. “I mean it. It’s much better than that time you cut it in a bob and dyed it aqua blue.”

Glancing at him, she takes a step away when she realizes how close he’s gotten. “How would you know? You weren’t there.”

“Your friend in med school tagged you in a photo”, he answers quickly. “It was the only photo of your face I’ve seen in all these years.” Leaning his left elbow on the counter, he smiles. “You kept posting photos of nature and I just kept thinking POST SOMETHING ABOUT YOU.”

Remaining quiet, with her eyebrows furrowed, Y/N stares at Jacob as he rubs his forehead.

“I just wanted to see your face, but you would post anything but.” Shrugging meekly, he swallows thickly. “I saw you were in med school and thought about how good you look in that white coat but you never posted a single photo.”

“Just because you followed my Insta I’m supposed to forgive you now?” She raises her eyebrows, pursing her lips. “It’s going to make everything magically fine?”

“Of course not!” Jacob steps closer, reaching for her hand over the counter but when his fingers brush hers, she pulls back as if his touch burned her. Biting his lower lip, he ignores the rejection but doesn’t advance. “I just”, he sighs. “I never stopped caring about you.”

“Fancy words”, she remarks. “They mean nothing when they aren’t followed by actions.”

Nodding, he lets out a heavy, shaky breath pass his lips. “No one told you”, Jacob’s sad smile lights up his face slightly. “I thought they’d do that by now, but they didn’t.”

Frowning, she’s the one taking a step closer now. She’s the one looking to close the distance. “Tell me what?”

“The reason why I was forced to leave you...the reason we all did.”

Her lips part as she inches closer. “Forced?” Her voice is quiet, laced with confusion and worry, softer.

Nodding, Jacob’s tight-lipped smile is overshadowed by the weariness in his dark eyes. “When you called me, I was on the first plane here, hoping I’d have my best friend back.”

“I am back”, she says sharply. “I never really left, you did and you’re still standing here leaving me in the dark.”

She remembers the wind as it blew the day they last spoke. She remembers the stray droplets of rain falling on her cheeks, hiding her tears. He approached her on a random Tuesday months after he stopped taking her calls, weeks of ignoring her and she has accumulated so much unbridled rage that she couldn’t help but hate him. She snapped at him and he just looked at her, truly looked into her eyes as if he was searching for her soul, for a way to connect on a deeper level she didn’t quite understand.

Then he walked away and she never saw him other than in passing.

“I needed you back then”, she whispers. “I needed you when the anniversary of our moms deaths came every year because you’re the only one I could talk to about how that loss feels”, a crack in her voice silences her.

She waited for him for so long. Every year, she’d sit at their graves with a daisy in her hand, praying Jacob would come as he used to, but he never did. She was alone, her tears growing the flowers they planted at the graves because they didn’t want them to seem empty and lifeless like the rest of them. Their mothers have been the epitome of life and beauty when they were alive so they made their graves reflect that.

The day that accident took their mothers away from them was the day she and Jacob promised each other an eternal friendship. He broke his promise.

And when she looks at him now, she can see he is at a loss of words and he can’t fathom the pain she has been suffering in his absence. He’s hindered her ability to trust, to love, to believe in a forever. He’s left her wounded, bleeding and took the cure with him.

“There’s not a day”, his voice breaks and he slams his hand on the island counter, cracking it much to Y/N’s shock. She flinches, taking a step back as Jacob continues. “There’s not a day where I don’t regret not breaking all the rules and telling you everything.” Biting his trembling bottom lip, Jacob shakes his head vehemently. “I loved you”, he says through gritted teeth. “In every way imaginable.”

Swallowing thickly, she places a hand over her chest.

“As a friend”, he covers his mouth. His hand drops and so does his resolution to keep quiet, for when he speaks, one of his greatest secrets is released into the world. “And for a while as a girl. As the reason I woke up in the morning.”

“Jake”, she interjects, but he isn’t stopping now and she can tell. Whatever it is that weighed on her all these years has wrecked him too.

“I was in love with you and I had to walk away and I’ve accepted that.” Brushing away his own tears, he chokes out his next words. “It faded”, he admits. “But never the love, never the undisputed fact you’re my soulmate. Not in a romantic sense, but you’ve always been at the core of my being and I never stopped looking after you.”

Jacob’s words cause a silence in her soul. Once again, she finds herself feeling like that teenager all those years ago when she felt like fall leaves under frost. She can feel the chill coursing in her blood, coldness bringing the synapses of her brain to a standstill. Part of her is in unimaginable pain, yet one she can endure, she’s learned how to survive in it. He has brought a permanent winter into her life so long ago and she has been waiting for spring ever since.

Truth be told, she always believed it would be Jacob to melt the snow and bring back spring in her soul, but as a knock on the front door sounds, she finds herself heading to it without even a word spared for her best friend who looked ill with his confessions.

Once the door opens, the sunlight enters and she realizes the snow is turning into a river that is washing away the sorrow. Arms wrap around her and the unexpected embrace brings a warmth, a tenderness, in which the flowers at the grave of who she used to be can flourish once more.

“I’m sorry”, the sunlight mumbles in her hair and she realizes she hasn’t said a word. She simply melted into the hug, barely even aware of who is holding her. Her body knows she’s safe on instinct, that she is with someone who’d protect her. Her eyes are closed, her heart is open.

“I’ll tell you everything.”

That’s when her eyes open and she looks up only to find her once enemy is the one she’s allowed to hold her so intimately and she didn’t understand it, but for the first time in a while she didn’t feel pain. She felt his heart beating against her splayed palm over his chest and she knows that no matter what he once was, Paul that is standing before her isn’t someone to let go, rather someone she’s meant to hold close.

All the time spent in vain hating him and yet she finds it’s him who has the power to mend her broken pieces.

“That’s good”, Jacob speaks and Paul’s entire body tenses as he pulls Y/N to a side hug. “I was going to do the same just before you came in.”

“You’re overstepping”, Paul reminds him.

Snorting, Jacob shakes his head. “She’s my best friend.”

“Not for a long time now.” Paul steps before Y/N and her hand wraps around his bicep, grounding him.

“Whatever it is that’s caused this rift between Jacob and me and has distanced you from me, I need to know”, Y/N’s hand trails from Paul’s bicep to his hand, bravely slipping her fingers between his.

For a moment she wondered if he’d move away with disgust or slap her hand away and laugh at her for being so naïve to think he’s possibly interested in her, but he doesn’t. His hand closes around hers and the heaviness in his chest is gone, replaced by butterflies she once wished death upon.

“Now”, she says sternly as her eyes flicker to Jacob. “You owe me that.”

Giving her hand a tight squeeze, Paul nods. Looking down, he meets her gaze. “You might want to let my hand go then.”

Frowning, she does so with a flicker of hurt in her eyes.

“It’s for your safety”, Jacob tells her, noticing the dejected look. Turning his gaze to Paul, Jacob comes closer. “I could do it, so you’re with her when it happens.”

“When what happens?!” Y/N asks with slight panic in her tone, confused by their exchange.

Shaking his head, Paul hooks his fingers in the hem of his shirt before pulling it off.

Blinking fast, Y/N steps back with eyebrows raised. “Is your cult a swinger’s commune or something?”

Chuckling, Paul tosses the shirt at her. “I wish.” Winking, he steps through the doorway. Turning back to her, he pulls down his shorts and she’s quick to cover her eyes.

“NUDISTIC SUPPORT GROUP THEN?”

“Look at me”, Paul says softly, but she shakes her head.

“Look at me”, Paul repeats and she lifts his shirt up.

“I’m going to blindfold myself instead until you’re ready to put your dick away.”

In a second, he’s before her again. Pulling her hand down, he tilts her head with his index finger on her chin. “Please”, his voice is quiet, barely above a whisper. “Just look at me and you’ll understand.”

Swallowing thickly, she lets out a shuddered breath. It’s taking every last bit of willpower not to stare at his chest as he steps back slowly, more so not to look below his waist. From what a quick glance at his body gathered, Paul Lahote is chiseled by the gods themselves and cursed to live on this planet as a mortal being due to their own jealousy of his ethereal beauty.

No one could ever steal the very breath from her lungs the way Paul does. No one could ever cause her heart to flutter the way he does and she can’t admit it, not to him, not to Jacob and certainly not to herself but she likes him. She has a crush on Paul Lahote and it’s insanity.

However, in a matter of seconds, faster than a blink of an eye, his tan, sculpted body had disappeared and her wide eyes found fur in its place.

She was wrong, he is not mortal.

That was her last thought before the darkness overtook her.

Tags: @the-chaotic-cow @xxxjaexxx @captainrogers-19 @bexloxl @laehlaluvs @adaydreamaway08 @sunsetevergreen @volturiwolf @twihard08 @galacticstxrdust @sorrow-and-bliss @ireadthensuetheauthors @missxmarvelous

PART 9

#paul lahote #paul lahote x reader #twilight fandom #twilight #jacob black #twilight saga #Twilight series #twilight fanfiction #paul lahote series #paul lahote angst

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candyfloss-esophagus · 3 months

Note

Heyo, it's me! Not being late for once!

Okay, ask game time! (not holding back this time so get ready!)

These are all for Crying Wolf, cause I'll never be normal about it <3

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(I know you've answered similar questions about the fic before, so feel free to skip those if you don't wanna answer them again <3 )

Hey, thanks for the ask!! I'm sure I have answered similar questions in the past but fortunately for you, my brain is a sieve that has been thrown over the edge of a waterfall.

☼: how i came up with the idea

I didn't actually come up with the idea all by myself, I'm part of the noirpunk discord server that regularly has little round robin fics and snippets that everyone can add onto. In its very early days, we were discussing what would happen if there were a symbiote that was virtually undetectable (and also, tangentially, what would happen if Hobie became infected) and I was so intrigued by this concept that I asked to use it in an actual fic!

☄: what the writing process was like

Arduous. Writing is like pulling teeth for me lol and Crying Wolf is certainly no outlier. I wrote chronologically whenever I had the time to sit down and think about it, but I had it vaguely planned out from the get-go. The only thing was that I added in another chapter -- chapter four was never meant to exist! I was going to shove everything that happened in chapter four and five in together but that seemed like a little much.

✄: something i deleted before the final draft

I post on a chapter by chapter basis because I'm too impatient to keep an entire wip to myself (trying to change that!) but there was going to be a scene where the symbiote was explicitly purged from Hobie. I decided not to write it because of medical semantics and how it would have made it even longer and also because my mental health was like a raft strapped together by duct tape at that point in the year.

♡: my favorite part

My favourite part is the end bit and Peter's conversation with Hobie because that was the thing that the server went into most detail about when we were cooking up the whole concept. I love thinking back to that night so much!

☠: something i found challenging

Fucking writing the damn thing lol. Motivation is very tricky for me and finishing what I start is even moreso (ta adhd!) but we got there in the end!!! As mentioned before, writing is difficult for me and I'm not actually a very good writer so trying to get it to a standard that I felt honoured what we had originally come up with in the server was definitely a challenge.

☾: how i thought people would respond to the fic

I.. didn't? Getting comments is so incredibly rare and special to me and the fact that I get so many purely because I write the most for noirpunk on ao3 is WILD.

☽: how people *actually* responded

Well they responded for a start lol. I got veritable essays on how bad I made people feel and theories for how it would progress and how well done the whole thing was and people from the server cheering me on and even one person who only investigated for the cannibalism, and were grossed out by it which is incredible. It was just a torrent of warmth and love and it was so confusing to me at the time but so important now looking back. It was an awful time for me and my life and having all those comments and responses was so special.

∞: something i wish i’d done differently

I read back on it a few days ago and it all seems so superficial to me now, so suffice to say most things and be done with it there.

★: something i’m proud to have accomplished

Just fuckin. Writing it. Finishing it. Impacting people's lives with it. That's why I write that's why I do this. And it was my first foray into more violent stuff so I'm glad I started it by diving in headfirst instead of just dipping my toes in.

Thank you for the ask! Ask game for any other fics of mine that you care to hear about is here, the fic Crying Wolf is here, and I hope you have a lovely day!!

#fiepige #ask answered #esophagus speaks #noirpunk #ask game #atsv #atsv fic #behind the scenes with esophagus

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ainulindaelynn · 6 months

Text

[20 Question Fic Writer Tag]

Thanks for the tags, loves! @brasideios @whereforartthoumisthios

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

1, technically, as they’re all connected.

2. What is your AO3 word count?

Currently 12k-ish. I pulled a bunch down a few months ago to rework things that were half-edited and bothering me. They haven’t returned yet, but I’m optimistic.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

AO3 will tell you only AC Odyssey, but in my active drive I have WIPs for AC Valhalla, Red Dead Redemption 2 (which I need to lure more of my AC mutuals into playing... ;)), Stardew Valley, and BG3. There maaay be a few pieces I'm reworking from fanfiction.net also. Those ones are for Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age Origins, and maybe even a Snow White & the Huntsman (xD). As a teen I wrote a bit of LoTR and Star Wars (old republic era OCs mostly), but that's been ages.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Fewer than five posted, so I'm skipping this one!

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes, mostly because I know most writers love comments, so I try to reward people who take the time. Honestly, if not for that I would blind-post everything and opt out of seeing kudos/comments. I love them, but it's too easy to depend on the reassurance. I'd rather drop them into the internet abyss and interact with people who seek me out on tumblr. I’d never give up the chance to connect over them though. You all are too kind and awesome <3

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

KotOR probably. It’s about Revan recovering her memory and reconnecting with the purpose of her fall, which leads her to walk the same way again, but with more care and less hope. Also going alone, as repentance for Malak’s fate.

ACO's has an angstier storyline (Brasidas Dx), but the actual ending is long after that wraps up, so it doesn’t quite count ;)

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

SDV probably. How could anyone write Shane without giving him a happy ending? That guy needs a happy ending!

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not so far.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes, mostly by accident. There's a lot of chemistry exposition there and I always cave to that. Probably equal parts F/F and F/M.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Nope! Open to it, but my brain doesn't leap like that.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge. Although if anyone wanted to take my old ideas and run with them, I' it'd save me a lot of work reconfiguring! xD I also love re-writes. Everyone picks up on different nuances and I love to see the same idea expressed different ways. Direct theft not so much.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not to my knowledge.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

When I was a young teen, but not since. My co-writer and I reconnected last year and its funny the kind of bond (and friction) that forms.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

I'm not capable of answering that question. Genuinely. Pass!

15. What's a WIP you'd like to finish but doubt you ever will?

I'm happily in denial about all of them, thank you very much. Leave me and my 25 fics alone! xD

16. What are your writing strengths?

Oh gosh. I've been told action, but if that's true it's entirely by luck. Writing it is like pulling teeth. I'm going to join this question with the next, because I think strengths and weaknesses are often two sides of the same, and say introspection and body language minutia, because I LOVE those, but could easily write entire chapters of that, so I'm constantly cutting that down. Blessing and a curse, ya know?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

The above, because it's to excess, but also OCD editing tendencies. I have a thing about cadence, varying paragraph and sentence-length, and (most oppressively) magnetizing my sentences. I'm not sure what the actual term for that is, but when you tie the end of one sentence to the beginning of the next with a common thought or word. We’re taught to do it with paragraphs, obviously, but on a tighter level. Every sentence. It's fun for reader fluidity, but way too much work.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I have no skills for it, but as long as it's translated, I enjoy reading it!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Probably LotR. I had an OC who insisted on following two steps behind the fellowship, intersecting with them a few times. Third Age, the game, was built on the same premise, so I eventually abandoned it in lieu of that.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Imagined or written? Because the answer is different. Imagined is probably DA:O. Written is ACO, by far. I've never put so much time in on a story. Someday I'll make it cohesive enough to post! xD

I’m still emerging from my hermit cave and don’t know who’s done what, so I’m going to skip tagging this time, but I missed you all and am glad to be back(ish) 😂

#tag games #fanfiction #ainulindaelynn

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freddieslater · 7 months

Note

you know I can't resist... scydia

His fingers glide down the curve of her hip like a skier on a slope. It was only because of Lydia that Scott ever went skiing, when she took him last year during the winter. He hated it. It was like ice skating but worse because when he fell, he slid in the snow and down a hill where he faceplanted like an idiot.

Smooth skin turns thin and white. Stretching out along her side in a curve that almost meets in the middle to form a full moon.

Lydia had laughed when he fell in the snow.

The soft noise floats out of his mind and into the air between them as her body both pulls away and pushes closer to his light touch. She murmurs something, muffled by her pillow, then turns her head to look up at him. Her eyes crinkle when she finds him gazing back intently, caught in the act with hasty innocence.

"Sorry," he says quietly, aware that there are other sensitive ears around them that could easily tune in. "What did you say?"

She gives him that look; her lips press together, forming a little heart as the real one skips a beat like it's playing a familiar game on a warm, sunny day.

"I said" --she catches his hand in hers as he moves it, just a little bit, sliding up the slope of her ribs-- "that tickles."

Scott bites the inside of his cheek but it does nothing to tone down his smile, which is mirrored back at him when he unabashedly says, "Sorry. My bad."

He strokes his thumb over a small indent between her ribs, feeling her sharp inhale. It's quickly pushed back out in a chuckle that she smothers when she presses their lips together. Neither one of them are entirely awake yet -- hell, they've barely slept in the last forty-eight hours. Yet somehow none of it seems to matter.

They meld together so easily, his arm winding around her to pull her body closer to his as her own hand travels up his bicep to his neck. It's been a hectic two days. They've nearly died a few times. Scott's not entirely sure they'll survive tomorrow with the way things are going.

But it doesn't matter. The world could be ending right this very moment, and he still wouldn't want to be doing anything else. With Lydia, everything else is quiet. Ironic, maybe, but it's the truth. When things get bad, he reaches for her, and she's there. And, somehow, he just knows it'll be okay, one way or another.

She hums quietly in the back of her throat and pulls away. She doesn't go far, just enough to lean their foreheads together as she caresses his cheek. He's torn between opening his eyes to see the tiny smile he knows she's wearing, and the way her eyes flutter beneath closed lids -- or keeping them closed and letting his other sense be enraptured by her touch, the softness of her skin, the smell of her perfume mixed with the nearly overwhelming scent of something neither of them has quite put a name to yet.

But they know. Words aren't needed to say it.

He opens his eyes and finds her already gazing back at him. They both smile, and they know. It's in the way Lydia's eyes flit between both of his, pulling her lips between her teeth with a sudden shyness. It's in the way Scott gently tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear and lets his fingers linger, caressing her cheek with a softness that would have startled her a few months ago. And it's in the way that he knows that, and so he shows her that softness and tenderness at every given opportunity, through caresses and kisses and looks and words. The way he holds her hand and body and heart in his own and she doesn't doubt for a second that she is safe, and he knows that even if he does faceplant in the snow, she'll be right there to help him laugh it off and help him back up.

So, yeah. They don't say it. Not yet.

But they know.

#blairwaldcrf #ask away earthlings!#teen wolf #scydia #king and queen of beacon hills #otp: because of scott #oh my GOD this felt so good to write!!#I haven't written anything scydia related in months #maybe longer #and I have been having such a hard time writing at all lately and I don't know why #but just getting into their heads again felt so good #so THANK YOU for that because I definitely needed it

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faetxlity · 2 years

Note

My little gremlin hands have slipped and I'm im your inbox. Surprise me by picking your favourite prompt for Eskel/Cahir? You'll never guess who <3

*taps my finger against my chin* I have absolutely no idea...

798 words of fluff under the cut or on Ao3 -

Eskel limped his way up the steps to his rooms, amber eyes half lidded and hand wrapped around his own thigh. The keep had been in quite the stir the moment he’d woken some thirteen hours ago and had continued to be in a fuss the entire day since. It started when night watch called a meeting at first light to report foglets in the valley, only two of which they had managed to cut down before the wretched little pests fled. Not ten minutes past the meeting one of the washing women found - or rather didn’t find her child in bed which turned a mild pest problem into an urgent matter.

He and Geralt had ridden out from the council chamber with three other parties set to be assembled in their wake. Between a keep of five hundred witchers on would think they could do something right in regards to protecting their own people's children. Luckily, the boy was found inside the keep (a case of sleep wandering rather than monstrous kidnapping) and Eskel had the brief pleasure of a proper monster hunt only to then be tasked with the day’s training schedules since the usual masters were out on the north side of the valley and not set to return for hours. Portals were costly after all.

The trainees were getting good, not so good as a Witcher in his prime, but enough that they had landed a few good hits on him in his post-hunt state. More than a few if he were honest. To top that off he had missed lunch.

He was exhausted.

The oaken door to his rooms swung open and he was hit with a rush of warmth like the welcome of an old friend. In the center of the main room sat a large copper tub, steaming and smelling faintly of oranges.

“I thought you’d appreciate it.” Cahir greeted from the window seat as Eskel stared dumbly. “Lambert said you had skipped the springs today and well…” Lambert was a snitch but a snitch that Eskel could kiss. His skin was still tacky from the wipe down he’d done after training and he wasted no time in stripping down to nothing, leaving clothing in his wake: Lambert wasn’t there to kiss but Eskel’s own husband was.

Cahir leaned up to meet his lips and only let him linger a moment before admonishing his state with a soft command. “Get in the tub.”

The caress of a lover, the touch of sunlight on a fine summer day, and the haze of good herb combined had nothing on the feeling of sinking into that tub. It was built some years past with the one purpose of holding a Witcher of considerable size and so Eskel, even with his bulk and limbs like trees could be comfortable. The lip behind his head was pillowed by a folded towel at the perfect angle to lay his neck against and he closed his eyes to simply be. A small burst of igni brought the water from a pleasant warmth to a proper muscle relaxing sear.

Pages met with a ‘thud’, slippered feet whispered across the rugs, and a stool was moved to sit behind Eskel’s head. None of this was enough to convince him to open his eyes even as Cahir worked the leather band out of his hair and let it fall loose down the side of the tub; Eskel sank deeper in the water and laid his arms on the edges. If there was a man to be at the mercy of it might as well be this one. For four years he'd trusted him at his back, he would continue to do so for many more.

“If you’ll soak your hair I’ll wash it for you.”

In the time it took Eskel to slip fully beneath the water and rise again Cahir had brought a smaller tub and set of soaps out of some hiding place and was in the middle of arranging it to his liking.

The first pass of a comb through his hair was rough but the second started near the ends. With short motions Cahir worked his way up until Eskel had the pleasant sensation of blunted bone teeth against his scalp. Then came oils and soaps of the same orange-vanilla scent that was far too expensive to be associated with a Witcher, even one at the side of a warlord. Cahir abandoned the comb for his fingers once more, massaging gently.

“You don’t have to do this.” Eskel murmured, tipping his head into the touch like a great big cat looking for affection.

Cahir leaned close and kissed his cheek. “I want to.”

Eskel smiled. What sort of husband would he be to argue with that logic?

#eskel #cahir/eskel #cahir #prompt fills

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jessehart · 2 years

Text

pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

WHERE: on some dorm roof he shouldn’t be on. WHEN: several days after the dorm party. WHAT: a prelude to the family task. TLDR: jesse’s parents suck and jesse has healthy coping mechanisms.

The moon stared down from a starless sky, the passage of time marked only by the path it tracked overhead and the once-full bottle of whiskey that was now down to its dregs in his lap. He was... hiding. Skipping an entire week’s worth of classes following the party and claiming flu had been the cowardly move, maybe. Nearly an entire bottle of whiskey had loosened up the reins on his own mind enough to admit that. Only to himself and only in the safety of his own mind.

And only three sheets to the fuckin’ wind.

But still.

Jesse had always been artfully skilled at getting what he wanted. It tended to be the methods with which he went about it that was the problem. But this time, it seemed he’d succeeded so thoroughly that he could count on one hand (two fingers, more like) just how many people he had in his corner.

It was as exhausting as it was pathetic to so desperately wish someone would care enough to see that he was a man drowning while also doing everything in his power to prove that he deserved to sink to the bottom.

A buzzing from his pocket and Jesse’s eyes dragged away from the moon and its haloed light, glancing down at his lap in confusion before he felt it again, tapping his pockets until he realized it was his phone. He readjusted so he could pull it free, a wry scoff from the back of his throat as the contact THE WARDEN lit up his phone screen. It was as though his father could smell blood in the water, could feel the weakness of his offspring thousands of miles away.

“Donovan Hart? The man, the myth, the legend,” Jesse answered brightly, each word a cloaked dagger. “To what do I owe the honor and privilege?”

“Jesse.” His voice was a stark greeting, but he felt the pause. His voice grew tight and Jesse could so clearly picture the pinched look of annoyance coated in disapproval etched into his features. “Are you drunk?”

“Are you drunk?” Jesse shot back, laughing at his own insolence. “I know your birthday card got lost in the mail, but I am old enough to legally drink as of a few weeks ago.”

A sigh with teeth. “Don’t be cute, Jesse.”

“Impossible.”

His dad let out an exasperated huff and inwardly, Jesse flinched. Years of conditioning did that to a person. “Jesse, I don’t have time for your bullshit tonight. Care to explain to me why you were questioned by the police?”

Jesse rolled his eyes so hard he was sure his father heard it all the way in California. “Well, I guess you know better than I do that Francesca doesn’t know how to keep her mouth closed.”

“Jesse, for fuck sake!” His father’s voice boomed on the other end of the line and this time, the flinch found its way onto his face. For just a blink and then it was gone. “This is serious! And I had to fucking hear about it secondhand through Francesca?”

Jesse hoped his silence implied that this reaction was maybe exactly why Jesse hadn’t told him, but continued, “It’s not serious. They questioned everyone.” A lie, especially if they decided to follow the yellow brick road Nate had so helpfully paved for them. That one was on Jesse, but seriously, fuck Nate Shaw.

When his father spoke again, his voice was lethally calm. Each enunciated word spoken through clenched teeth. “It better not be serious. I already told you, you’re all out of chances, boy. The book will be coming out in a month and if you fuck this up for me--”

“Yeah, I heard you the first time, loud and clear.”

“Don’t get smart with me, Jesse.” His name sounded like it tasted bitter in his father’s mouth, like he couldn’t rid himself of it fast enough. “I have had it. You’re all out of chances.”

“Alright, I got it.” It sounded almost petulant, reminiscent of a childhood he had no desire to revisit. But the line was already dead.

He held the phone there to his ear for a moment before pulling it back to stare at the screen for confirmation he didn’t need. He gripped the bottle by the neck in his free hand, swallowing down a large gulp before wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

He ached for home, for a thing he’d never known to be anything more than a word, but felt the sharpness of its absence all the same. And as though time moved without him being aware of it, he found himself with his finger hovering over his mom’s contact, pressing the phone to his ear as he listened to the first ring, heart thumping a little unevenly in his chest.

It rang four more times before she answered. “Hello?” She sounded confused, distant. “Jesse?”

“Hey,” he said, tension coiling in his chest as he wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve again. “Mom. Yeah, it’s me.”

“Is everything alright, honey?”

He let out a heavy breath, some fractured part of him seeming to fit back together. He hadn’t realized just how badly he’d wanted her to ask him that, how badly he’d wanted his mom, until it was there before him. “Uh.” He ran a had through his hair before he fisted it, tugging as nerves settled in. “Not really, actually. I--”

The sound of glass breaking on the other line cut him short. “Oh shit!” his mother exclaimed, sounding far away again, slurred. “That was the Blanton’s!” A beat of silence and then her laugh filled the speaker. It was joined a moment later by another laugh, this one deeper, and Jesse’s heart sank a little. She was drunk. And she wasn’t alone. Unintelligible conversation passed between them, some shuffling, and then a small gasp, like she’d just remembered. “Oh! Jesse?”

A half-second’s hesitation, then: “Hey.” A small, forced laugh. “Sorry, I think I caught you at a bad time.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay, honey? I love you.”

“Yeah. Love you, too.”

The silence that followed swallowed him up, far too loud, as the hand clutching his phone fell limply to his side. He didn’t remember standing, only realized that he was.

His chin tilted back up to the sky, the stars in hiding even as the moon bathed the campus in its pale, silvery light. Something about that was peaceful probably. He polished off the last mouthful of whiskey, keeping his eyes trained skyward.

And then, Jesse unceremoniously tossed his phone right off the roof.

#drinking tw #para: pay no attention to the man behind the curtain #self para #nothing about this is necessary

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alldrinkingaside · 2 years

Text

AFFIRMATION ARISEN FROM DESPAIR: Years One & Two: Clean & Sober. [skip to] Year 18: Becoming Unbroken

RIGHT OFF THE BAT, here's what you will find here: I moved into a Sober House nearly three (3) months ago. In moving, I unearthed handwritten notes from my First and Second Year of Continuous Sobriety. What is below is some of that "recollected in tranquility," and a Facebook post from my 16th year of sobriety, June 18th of 2020. all of which is condensed and annotated here and bringing us to my 18th Sober Anniversary 2022.

YEAR ONE (All of these notes from my first two years sober are after my initial 8 years of relapse and were crib sheets for intended speeches I never delivered):

"When I drink, the only world there is is alcohol."

"After 50,000 drinks, living got in the way of my drinking,"

This was to have been followed by a lengthy description of my Four (4) Near-Death Experiences:

1) A roommate who attempted suicide, survived, and then, months later, attempted to kill me.

2) A year or two later, a random thug followed me home after a drinking binge and proceeded to rob me. That resulted in a lengthy hospitalization and enough teeth knocked out of me by him that I ended up, prematurely, with a set of false teeth.

3) Suddenly, I found a knife at my throat in the hands of my then-landlord's ex-husband. I had exposed him in possession of cop-killer bullets while he was out on parole.

4) You guessed it: My Fourth (Almost) Killer was Alcohol.

Naturally, and very likely, none of this would have happened had I been Clean and Sober this entire time.

I then would go on in my imagined speech to list my work history as a waiter, bartender, librarian, advertising executive and my extensive radio and TV commercial work. All that fades in importance to a single day Clean and Sober by me, by you, by anyone. Then, Now and Truly.

"The drunk I was will drink again." I have heard this expression repeatedly in the Rooms of Recovery. It infers that if "nothing changes, nothing changes," again, heard in the Rooms, sometimes followed by "What do I have to change?" And the answer, of course is "Everything!"

For me, it came down to moving from being a Victim in my Addiction (with all its attendant Insanities) to becoming Responsible and Relatively Sane in my Recovery. My favorite line from this whole first year speech (which I never delivered despite a dozen pages of notes) is this one: Addiction is "a blind man descending a spiral staircase leading to nowhere."

This undelivered speech ended with the now obvious: "In Recovery, life is possible."

YEAR TWO (Again, my thoroughly prepared crib sheets were discarded before I did finally get up to share before my A.A. Group):

My favorite part of all of this Year Two Speech Preparation is how it was to have started: "An avalanche and then forgetful snow. This is how I would die. Death by alcohol. It would comfort as it killed." It sounded great and expressed how I felt repeatedly coming to in the hospital from near-death alcohol poisoning. Another favorite line, which until now I had completely forgotten, is this one:

"Alcoholism is a war and we've all been wounded in action." This was to have been followed with comparisons to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

And then this, a Quote from AA's Big Book: "There inevitably ran some insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink... our justification for a spree was insanely insufficient in the light of what always happened."

I DON'T EVEN VAGUELY REMEMBER THIS PART: I had compiled a list of over forty (40) examples of Denial found in the Big Book, not limited to Blaming Others, Rationalizing, Minimizing, Hostility and Anger. Denial is such a big Topic for me, even today. Likely I'll keep this copy of forty (40) examples of Denial for another day and a few more years.

Memory is a Gift of Recovery that I was robbed of by my near daily Blackout Drinking way back when!

I CLEARLY DO REMEMBER THIS FUNNY PART FROM YEAR TWO: In the Big Book's Chapter "Crossing the River of Denial" on page 333. when confronted with her alcoholism, the writer retorts that she could not possibly be an alcoholic because "I used ice cubes, for God's sake" [As any self-respecting social drinker can tell you, alcoholics DO NOT USE ICE CUBES!] followed by this Classic Line from the Big Book's "Flooded with Feeling" Chapter: "I sometimes drove a car when I was too drunk to walk."

[Not included in my Year Two Speech Preparations, but relevant to its content here, is this short Verse]:

"Denial"

There was a time when I was not there,

But I did not know it yet.

I would drink to forget, forgetting what I did not know.

Not yet. I did not know yet.

Where was I then, when I was not there?

For years I lived somewhere between myself

And the next drink.

I would drink to forget what I could not think,

Halfway to nowhere and another drink.

I was grieving and I did not know it.

Someone was dying, but I could not feel it,

Feel my own dying.

I could not own it because it owned me.

Denial is so hard to feel,

Yet, there it is,

Standing next to you. You -

Halfway to nowhere and another drink.

OMG, YEAR TWO EVEN HAD A THESIS: If you are not reaching out for help and you are not reaching out to help, then you are in Denial. THEREFORE: If you are not active in your Recovery, you are headed towards Relapse.

JEEZ, I DIDN'T KNOW I HAD IT IN ME: Here's a little gem I wrote in Gratitude for my AA Sponsor, Mac. I wrote: "Wisdom is Kindness Intelligently Expressed." He inspired that. He embodied that.

Here's where I skip ahead to YEAR SIXTEEN (Nothing preserved in my memory or on paper of the intervening fourteen (14) years, Sober Anniversary-Wise, that is. The following is Condensed from a Facebook Post commemorating my 16th year of Continuous Sobriety.

1) What about Covid-19, the protests of racial injustice sparked by George Floyd's death and the staggering unemployment? What if I were newly sober today, confronted with greater unpredictability than I've seen in my lifetime? Would I be able to accumulate 16 years of sobriety under these conditions?

Today, 16 years of sobriety has given me a certain degree of fortitude and I stand on solid ground. 16 years and one more day, I think I can do, but were this my first day sober, in the world as it is, might likely be a bridge too far.

And a drink, too close.

Hope too much to even hope for.

WRONG!

"Stinkin' Thinkin'" can swallow up nearly anyone.

Enough of me looking back into a well of self-pity (I almost fell in there, if you didn't notice!).

I did it. Under any conditions, including these, you too can do this, and I could do this again. Each day, we all do it again. Every day, we all need help, including me. Please, include me. I am not immune. 16 years and a day, a day, another day. Each and All.

2) I need my Peeps.

It took me around 5 years to admit to myself that Social Connection is what brought me back to the Human Race. I began to understand that my most profound inspirations were offshoots of my human experience, refined in isolation, perhaps, but learned and experienced in real time at moments of Human Connection (including Science, Literature, Music, Art and all the Humanities).

3) A drink is the most disturbing company I have ever kept.

4) I have crossed the threshold of my 16th year.

THERE YOU HAVE IT, ONE, TWO (skip to), 16.

Stay tuned.

My 18th Year of Sobriety was on June 18th. How appropriate. Finding the balance between Seeking Attention and Paying Attention is being mulled over in my mind at this moment.

Thank you. You haven't heard the last of me. And I, of you, I hope.

Another day approaches.

Strive on!

Together.

We can do this.

*****

#Enjoy my first book, the Autobiographical Fiction titled ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal. Find it on Amazon. Book it here: http://amzn.to/1bX6JyO

My NEW, Non-Fiction, BECOMING UNBROKEN: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery, is also on Amazon and may be found here: https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT

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ecoplasma · 5 years

Photo

uuhh drawing expressions is nice

#faceyourart #fea #bnha #oc #its interesting how toothy grins became my thing #when i skipped teeth entirely a few years ago #also same face syndrome hello dont even care #che arts

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luvfae · 2 years

Text

LITTLE STAR

PART THREE

summary: elliot's been watching you for a while, but he never dared to approach you. you were a good girl at heart and he didn’t think you'd want anything to do with him. all of that changes one friday night at a party, when both of your worlds collide.

fandom: euphoria

parings: elliot x f reader

warnings: swearing, mentions of sex, nudity

little star masterlist

"I dare you to kiss me," Elliot said, his eyes glancing down at your lips. You sat up, palms becoming sweaty at his dare. He sat up also, placing a gentle hand on the small of your back. "Hey, you don't have to do it if you don't want too," he said.

"It's not that I don't want too," you said, nervously. Worried that he would judge you. "I've just never kissed anyone," you admitted

"Never?" He asked.

"Only Lexi," you said. "We practiced on each other like a year ago, but that's it," you said, looking over at him.

"Well, the dare still stands," he said.

"But what if i'm not good at it?" You asked.

"I'm sure you'll be fine," he replied. "Besides, I don't expect you to be an expert," he said.

You nodded, heart beating faster as you leaned closer to him. You froze, face only inches away from his. You glanced down at his lips, closing your eyes and softly pecking at his lips.

"How was that?" You asked.

"Good," he whispered, placing his hands on your cheeks and bringing your face to his once again. He had been imagining kissing you for months and now that it finally happened, he wanted to do it again.

His lips crashed against yours, his tongue flicking against your bottom lip, you opened your mouth, allowing his tongue to explore. You copied his movements, hoping that you were doing a good job, teeth chattered against each other every now and again but Elliot didn't seem to care.

He pulled away, grabbing your hips and pulling you onto his lap. His hands stayed on your hips as his lips connected with yours again. You arms wrapping around his neck, raking your fingers through his curly locks.

His lips moved from your lips down to your jaw and trailed all the way to your neck, sucking on your soft skin, light bruises dancing across your neck. You titled your head to the side, allowing him better access, it tickled in a nice way.

You sat in Elliot's lap, kissing each other on and off, hands roaming each other's bodies, losing track of time. It had been fifteen minutes and the only thing that brought both of you back to reality was your phone ringing. You jumped off his lap, as if you had just been caught.

You grabbed your phone, it was your mom. You quickly answered the call, she was home from work. The conversation didn't last long and you hung up.

"I'm guessing you're ready to go home?" Elliot said, looking over at you. Your hair messy, neck full of hickeys, lips glistening with saliva.

"Uhh, yeah," you said, not too confident in your answer. "My moms home, so," you said with a slight frown. He nodded, getting off his bed and you followed him out of his room and down to his car.

Butterflies flying around your stomach the entire drive home as you both laughed and talked about nothing in particular, until he pulled up in front of your house.

"Hey, can I get your number?" Elliot asked. You nodded, your eyes lighting up. He handed you his phone and you typed your number into a new contact. "Thanks. Also, before you go," he said as you opened his car door. "You're a pretty good kisser," he smiled.

"You too," you said, getting out of his car and grabbing your things.

"I'll call you," he said.

"I'll be waiting," you smiled, closing the door and waving him goodbye. He waited until you were inside your house before he drove away.

A few hours later you had showered and were laying on your bed in your pyjamas, Googling ways to make hickey's disappear. You hadn't really found any methods that actually worked and so concealer it was.

An unknown number called you and your heart skipped a beat, you answered, putting the phone to your ear.

"Hey, Y/N," his voice said from the other line.

"Hey, you rang," you smiled, sitting up in your bed.

"I told you i'd call you," he replied. You hummed at his response. "What're you doing?"

"Just in bed," you responded. "Also, thanks for the hickey's. I literally can't get rid of them," you said.

"Sorry about that, got a bit carried away," he laughed.

You giggled in response. "It's fine," you said, a huge grin on your face. "I had a lot of fun today."

"Me too," Elliot said. "I really enjoy hanging out with you Y/N," he said.

Your heart beat quickened at his words. "We can hang out more often if you'd like?" You suggested.

"Yeah, i'd like that," he said. You smiled, thinking about his lips on yours. "I'm gunna go bed, i'll see you tomorrow," he said.

"Yeah. Goodnight Elliot," you said.

"Night," he replied and with that you hung up, disconnecting the line. You fell backwards on your bed, holding your phone close to your chest as you smiled like a school girl with a crush.

You spent the next few days hanging out with Elliot after school and getting much closer to him. You had became friends at this point. Friends that would kiss. Every day he would teach you something new without even meaning too and every day you got more and more confident with your kissing skills.

Lexi had seen the hickey's on your neck the morning after Elliot gave them to you, you had completely forgotten about them and accidentally rubbed your make up off. Lexi made it a whole thing and you were pretty flustered over it.

"Y/N, are those hickeys on your neck?" She asked, eyes wide in shock.

You cursed yourself, covering your neck with your hand. "No, just burn marks from my straightener?” you said, making it sound more like a question, not too confident with your answer.

Lexi moved your hands. "You're such a liar, those are hickey's," Lexi said. "You had sex and didn't even tell me?"

"I didn't have sex Lexi, just made out with someone," you sighed, giving up on trying to convince her otherwise.

"Who was it?" Lexi asked with a smile.

"Elliot," you replied and she screwed her face up.

"What the hell?" She asked. "Isn't he like a drug addict?"

"You have a crush on a drug dealer, you're in no position to judge," you smiled. Lexi shrugged, smiling back at you.

"Hey, i'm happy for you but like be careful," Lexi said. You nodded, giving your friend a hug.

Flash forward to today you had spent another afternoon with Elliot, cuddling with him in his bed and kissing each other every now and again. Everything in your life seemed to be perfect right now. You had good grades, a supportive best friend and now you had a guy who was interested in you. You couldn't of been happier.

Elliot had dropped you off at home a few hours ago and you were laying in your bed texting him. Elliot sent you a selfie, a picture with his eyes closed so you could see the X tattoo's on his eyes and you smiled, sending one back, a smile on your face, your hair tied up, skin dewy from your skincare.

Elliot thought you looked like an angel and he saved the picture to his camera roll.

'You're glowing. Cute pyjamas.'

You laughed at his reply, looking down at your bacon and egg themed pyjamas.

'You're glowing also,’ you replied, watching as the three dots appeared once again. You swiped up on the app, returning to Google where you had been searching how to take the perfect nude picture. You wanted to send him something so bad, but you knew that unsolicited nudes were not okay and you weren't exactly ready to show him your naked body yet. You thought that maybe you could send him a picture of yourself wearing lingerie, but you also didn't want him to think you were weird.

Honestly, you just wanted to keep his eyes on you. You wanted him to think you were hot.

You phone buzzed, receiving a notification from Elliot.

'I miss you, wish you could sleep in my arms.'

You smiled, deciding that you were going to send him a picture. You stood and walked over to your wardrobe, grabbing out your favourite lingerie and changing into it.

You took what felt like a hundred pictures from different angles and ended up deleting almost all of them except for three. You thought that three was maybe too many to send him at one time, especially since it was your first time sending a picture like this too anyone and so you had to picked out your favourite. You had a picture of your neck down to your waist, a picture of your ass and the final picture was a full body one.

You thought about it for a while, you didn't want to leave him on open for too long incase he thought you had fallen asleep and decided on the full body picture.

You opened your messages, inserting the picture and typing out a message, 'i hope this can temporarily fill the void.'

Your fingers hovered over the send button, wondering if this was a mistake. But you shook those thoughts from your head, in your mind, this was your way of showing him that you were his.

Elliot received your notification and he grabbed his phone, opening the message, his eyes widened at what you had sent. He rubbed his eyes, making sure he was seeing things right. You had sent him a half naked picture, he was in shock, staring at the picture. Zooming into different places of your body, he bit his lip, a smirk on his face.

'You are so fucking hot, Y/N,' he sent.

You grinned, feeling confident enough to send the other two pictures you had taken. Elliot couldn't tare his eyes away from the screen, studying all three pictures you had send him closely. He felt himself getting hard.

You were waiting for his response, a huge grin on your face when he rang you. You felt your heart skip a beat as you answered his call.

"Hello?" You said.

"You didn't have to send me those," Elliot said.

"I know, but I wanted too," you replied. "Just wanted to show you that I'm yours, no one else's," you said. Elliot groaned into the line and you bit your lip. "Did you like them?" You asked.

"I loved them, Y/N," he said. "You've really done some damage," he laughed.

You furrowed your eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"I have a boner," Elliot said.

"Really? From me?" You said, shock clear in your voice.

"Yes from you. Stop doubting yourself all the time," Elliot said. You smiled. "You're beautiful, for real."

"You're so sweet," you said.

"I wish you were here," he said.

"Me too."

"Would you touch me?"

"What?" You laughed nervously.

"Would you touch me? Make me feel good, if you were here?" He asked. "I'd touch you, have you squirming underneath me."

You skin began to heat up at his sinful words. "I don't know how to touch people like that," you said.

"Have you ever touched yourself?" He asked.

"Yeah."

"Ever made yourself cum?" He asked.

You paused for a moment, you could hear your heart beat in your ears. "Yeah," you whispered.

He hummed into the line, "goodnight Y/N."

"Goodnight," you said and he hung up, leaving you high and dry on the other end. You were speechless, eyebrow knitted together as new feelings rushed through your entire body.

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lovetorn · 3 years

Text

dream’s birthday bash [roommate!dream au]

Roommate!Dream x Reader

summary: it’s dream’s birthdayyyy!!!

warnings: alcohol, swearing

w/c: 2.9k+

a/n: happy birthday dream!! i’m in love w this. i hope u are too. also, there is a few references to past roommate!dream blurbs & one-shots, so i recommend reading those before you start this one or you may be a little confused at some things the characters say. thanks!! <3

roommate!dream masterlist

—

Dream’s birthday is something you haven't experienced yet since you moved in together in September last year.

Dream had promised the football team that his birthday party was going to be the biggest of the year, so you, being the party planner, had vowed to make it the best because Dream can’t organise—he disagreed and said that he only made you the party planner because he knows you’re good at it?? You gave him a confused look; you’ve never planned a party before.

Anyway, the 12th was approaching quicker than you anticipated and the only things you’d organised so far is the alcohol (thanks to George) and decorations. You had little notes on your phone with multiple checklists and you had yet to tick every last box off.

Organising food was probably the hardest thing. You knew that there were going to be around 100+ people squeezing into your apartment, drinking, so food is essential. You asked Dream what types of food he wanted, his reply?

“Chicken wings, not spicy.”

You rolled your lips between your teeth and nodded. Great. “Anything else? There’s gonna be a lot of people, Dream.”

He brought his fingers to rest on his lips as he thought about it. You knew when he got an idea because then he clicked his fingers and pointed at you. “Sandwiches. You know, like the little ones?”

Squinting at him, you sighed. “You think that’s going to be enough for more than 100 people?”

Dream nods. “Easy.”

You shake your head in disbelief and add sandwiches, along with other finger foods, to the list. “Thanks.”

Next to organise was Dream’s present. You spent days racking your brain, trying to figure out what he would want, eventually coming up with nothing.

So, you asked Sapnap, who was no help. “Fuck if I know, the man buys anything he wants himself these days.”

You rolled your eyes and took a trip to Target. Whilst there, you decided on an excess of small gag gifts: a Ron Swanson dishwasher magnet (so you and Dream can stop arguing over who put dirty dishes in with the clean ones), an engraved bottle opener, a ‘do not disturb sign for his bedroom door (chosen based on one too many run-ins), a Minecraft ice cube tray, a toothbrush holder (so both of your toothbrushes stop touching in the cup), and a pack of Minecraft socks.

You put the small presents into a gift bag, covering them with tissue paper, and then put in the final piece that wasn’t a joke gift—a mixtape of your and Dream’s favourite songs for his car. You brushed your thumb over the plastic case and let out a breathy laugh at the photo on the front—a selfie of the two of you in Dream's car, energy drinks in your hands and toothy grins with the text, ‘Dream & Y/n’s Gr8est Hits’ written in bright pink marker. You're excited to give it to him, but you're nervous and embarrassed, too—is it lame?

You shook your head and placed the bag in your closet.

George delivered the alcohol earlier in the day: 18 cases of beer and the same in White Claw, and a few bottles of vodka and rum for the close friends. You couldn't thank him enough for helping you, even more so after he helped put the covered trays of food in the refrigerator from the delivery truck downstairs.

You had (reluctantly) asked Sapnap to organise music because you had no time in between making sure the food order was correct and getting yourself ready. He agreed immediately and waved off your hesitance and told you he'd make the best playlist to ever exist—you put too much trust in him.

Before the party, you and Dream had taken a few shots together, just to get you to stop stressing over the planning of the party and Dream to stop worrying for you.

"Ready?" Dream smirked, his shot glass hanging loosely from his fingers. You nodded and then, at the same time, tapped the glass on the counter before you threw the shot back. The acetone taste of the vodka slid down your throats and you made disgusted faces at each other before a knock at the door indicated that your first guests were here.

Now, the party is in full swing and it's safe to say, there is definitely enough food.

When you see Sapnap at the food table, aka the kitchen counter, he thanks you for ordering non-spicy wings. You shake your head, laugh, and hug him tightly. "I'm serious," He mumbles with chicken in his mouth. "These are so~ good!"

The living room is cramped, but nobody seems to be complaining. Almost everyone from the apartment block is in your flat right now, with a few from other complexes. You lost sight of Dream a few hours ago, choosing to stay with your own friends while he hangs with his as the two groups don't usually mingle together.

“Niki!” You laugh whilst the girl finishes her second shot and passes the bottle of rum back to you. Shaking your head, you bring the large bottle to your lips, already regretting mixing different alcohols. You’d already had a few White Claws, thanks to Sapnap who kept challenging you to shotguns at the start.

Karl comes up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist before he snatches the bottle out of your hand and takes a swig.

“Karl!” Now, all three of you are laughing together. He slides his hand off of your stomach and stands to his full height, putting his lips to the White Claw can he holds in his other hand. You warn him about mixing alcohol, but he waves you off and assures you that he's fine.

The three of you stand on the dance floor, grooving to the beat of 'Super Freak' by Rick James. You grab Karl's hand to spin him around and then do the same to Niki, laughter filling the small space you have created in the middle of the crowd. You wouldn't admit it to Sapnap, but his playlist is actually good.

"Mi Amor!" The sound of Quackity's voice pulls you from your little group with Niki and Karl and you smile when you see his wide grin as he pushes past a few football players.

"Q! When did you get here? I didn't see you come in," You engulf him in a hug and giggle when he laughs loudly.

"I came in through the window," You pull back slightly to give him an incredulous look and shake your head. God, you are tipsy. "Nahhh, I had an exam, so I just got here."

You nod and feel the rum going straight to your head. Quackity then notices Karl and Niki behind you and gives them hugs too. You watch as your friends greet each other and turn to look at the clock on the wall in the kitchen. 10:33 pm.

“Guys, it's time for cake!” You shout over the music to Niki, Quackity and Karl and they smile and nod, all three of you migrating to the fridge to collect Dream’s cake and get it ready.

You pull a 3 layered vanilla cake out of the refrigerator. It is slathered in white icing and has rainbow sprinkles on the top with the words, ‘happy birthday dream’, in piped icing. Karl's mouth waters at the sight of the dessert and when he goes to get a dollop of icing from the side, you don’t smack his hand away—you have a plan.

Other guests see you preparing the candles and lighting them and turn off the lights for you. You smile at the 21 lit candles and pick up the cake, being careful not to trip on anything.

The entire room starts singing the ‘Happy Birthday’ anthem, their phones out to film as you spot Dream’s messy blonde hair over the crowd. He scrunches his face up in embarrassment and switches his beer from his right hand to his left to give you a side hug and a peck on the cheek when you approach him. The room sings and all attention is on him, but Dream only has eyes for you as you inch the cake closer so he can blow out his candles.

After he does so, the room erupts into cheers and then you give Dream a mischievous grin. There’s a little fear in his eyes and you launch the cake towards his face. Everybody laughs and hollers when you pull the cake stand away from him to see his face covered in white icing and rainbow sprinkles. Dream stands frozen for a moment, wiping his eyes with his free hand, before he wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you close to him, rubbing the icing in your hair and on your cheek.

“Dream!” You cackle, trying to push him off, but failing and eventually succumbing to his hold. The phone torches shine brightly at the two of you as people continue filming. His laughter is music to your ears.

Dream smiles down at you, eyes lazy and cheeks flushed. “Thank you,” He whispers. Your heart flutters in your chest and butterflies swarm your stomach as you nod. Everybody disperses and carries on with their previous antics, leaving you and Dream together.

“I got you a present, I’ll give it to you when everybody’s gone.”

The sentence makes the present seem more sensual than it actually is, and it makes Dream’s heart skip a beat—but he knows it’s not what he’s thinking. You pull away from Dream and wave back at him, knocking into a few people which elicits a laugh from him as he watches.

“Dude, you’re so fucked,” George says, smirking as he follows Dream’s gaze on you. Dream elbows George in the bicep.

“Fuck off.”

“Yeah bro, if you don’t make a move soon, someone else will,” Sapnap comments, coming up to stand on Dream’s other side. The urge to punch the both of them is strong, but instead, the blonde groans and skulls the rest of his beer as he loses sight of you in the crowd.

—

“Bye, guys! Thanks for coming!” Dream tries his best to look composed, but he’s so drunk. As soon as the door closes, he locks it and lets out a huge sigh. You come out of your room with the gift bag in your hands. Dream raises his eyebrows and attempts to give you a surprised look. “Wow, a present?”

You giggle and lead him to the couch. He flops down, throws his feet up and puts his hands behind his head. You sit next to him and shove the bag into his hands. “It’s not much, but you literally have everything already, so this is what I came up with.”

You hold your breath and you watch him pick through the bag. A smile breaks out on his face when he sees the CD. He flips it around to show you as if you haven’t seen it before and opens the case. “A mixtape? How romantic.”

The heat that rises to your cheeks is scolding and you stop yourself from choking. Dream, however, doesn’t look at you as he digs through and comments on every item. When he’s gone through every gift, he picks up the mixtape again and looks you dead in the eyes.

“This is the most thoughtful thing I’ve ever gotten for my birthday. Thank you, Y/n.”

You’re surprised. “The most thoughtful? It’s only a CD.”

Dream’s face contorts into one of confusion. “Only a CD? You made this for me with your own blood, sweat and tears.” You wouldn’t go that far.

“Oh, well, you’re welcome, I guess,” You laugh, reaching down to grasp his large hand. The action causes Dream to tilt his head and shift closer to you.

“Seriously, thank you. You mean so much to me,” He confesses, although you can barely hear it. You feel tears pricking your eyes as you watch him wipe his own. “Fuck, why am I getting emotional? It’s that fucking vodka, that’s why.”

“Don’t make up excuses, D,” You tease, squeezing his hand a few times. He wheezes lightly then sighs. His green eyes are so bright and there’s still a little smudge of icing on the side of his nose from the cake. You reach up and wipe it away, licking your thumb beforehand. Dream closes his eyes as you do so, biting his lip as you pull your hand away. 2:29 am.

“Okay, I think it’s time to get you to bed,” You mumble as you stand up, the moment broken. Dream nods, collecting his presents and chucking them all in the gift bag before he follows you to his room, a little disappointed.

Dream stands in the doorway and watches as you pull back his bed covers and turn on the lamp on his nightstand. “Okay, I’ll leave you to it. Goodnight,” You push past him before you turn. “I’ll have Gatorade and Advil ready for you in the morning, okay?”

Dream gives you a loving smile and nods, still holding the bag in front of him as he stands in the middle of his room. “Goodnight, Y/n, thanks for everything.”

You close the door behind you and when you get back to your room, you kick yourself for not making a move. You peel your clothes off of your body and throw them in the corner of the room, the space becoming too hot for your liking—maybe it's the alcohol, maybe it's the fact that it's summer, or maybe it's your utter embarrassment and regret; you don't bother to choose which one.

You flop down on your bed, half-naked, and stare at the ceiling. Why didn't you make a move? It was the perfect opportunity—

Your thoughts are forgotten when there's a soft knock on your bedroom door. You scramble to put some pyjamas on as you call, 'just a second!', and then you're swinging your door open.

Dream stands there in his sweatpants only. You resist the urge to rake your eyes down his torso.

"Can I sleep in your bed tonight?" The question surprises you—of fucking course it surprises you! The only reason he comes to your room at night is to vent; not like this.

"Uh, yeah," You reply, cracking the door open just a tad wider so he can slip through. Once he's inside, you sigh in confusion and close your door quietly. Dream is already sorting out the bed situation behind you, throwing your hundreds of throw pillows onto the floor and lifting up your duvet so he can slip under.

You tilt your head at him when he looks at you expectantly—you assume he's waiting for you to get in bed, which you do.

You rest your head on your pillow and turn your head to look at Dream, who is already staring at you. Your skin is hot and your heart is in your throat when you see how green his eyes are in the warm glow of your lamp.

"What's up?" You whisper although you didn't mean for it to come out so low. Dream's eyes trace your face; your eyes, eyebrows, nose, freckles, lips. "Dream?"

He's silent for a while and you guess it's because he's trying to figure out his drunken thoughts. "I just wanted to be with you, you know," He says, his voice breaking slightly. You suck in a breath, turning onto your side so you face him. "You planned my party all by yourself and I'm so happy you did."

You don't have the heart to tell him that George and Sapnap helped you, he looks so content. "I'm so glad, Dreamy," Your voice is velvety, and you can't help the warm feeling blooming in your chest. Dream's eyes travel from your own to your lips and stay there.

“C’mere," Dream mumbles. You barely nod before you lean closer to him.

You can tell Dream is figuring out what to do by the way his lips part and then close suddenly a few times, so, for the second time this week, you take things into your own hands.

You scoot closer to him, your breaths mixing in the small space between your lips and his nose bumping yours. You were so close. But not close enough.

"Dream, I'm gonna do something crazy, okay? Don't hate me," Here goes nothing.

"I could never hate you, baby," Dream murmurs, adjusting his head on his pillow. The pet name goes straight to your head and throwing out any and all rational thoughts, you lean in and place your lips softly on his.

It takes him a few seconds to react and in those moments, you fear you've made a huge mistake, but when his hands find your hips and pull you impossibly closer, you're glad you kissed him—are kissing him.

This is nothing like wine night a few weeks ago.

Your hands find the back of his head and tug on his hair lightly, earning a throaty groan. The sound makes you clench your fists and pull a little harder. You move your lips across his jaw and towards his ear. "Happy Birthday, birthday boy," You whisper.

Dream lets out a breathy laugh and hugs you closer. His face presses into your neck and you feel him leaving feather-light kisses on your skin. The feeling makes you giddy.

"I'm one lucky birthday boy, aren't I?" He mutters, pecking your neck firmer now. You giggle softly, running your fingers through the hair at the back of his neck.

"You bet your ass you are."

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